Author's Note: Hello everyone! It's been awhile, hasn't it? Most of you reading this probably have no idea who I am, but I was once all over the DPS fandom on FF. But like I said, it's been awhile. Hope you enjoy this new installment, though. Special thanks to Cloudy, whose conversations got me brainstorming.
Disclaimer: I, Corky Conlon-Cook, do not own Dead Poets Society, although if they made life-size Charlie Dalton dolls, I would most definitely possess one of those.
This is not a love story. Or at least not in the sense that our hero and heroine are in love one another. Love does exist in this story, whether requited or not, but the facts remain that this story is much more about the friendships that can develop through understanding and the heartaches created by a love that can never be, a love that by all social standards is wrong.
The sixties were fast approaching but to a small town in Vermont not much changed. It was a town of old money, old ways, and old views. And it was a town where rebellion was reserved for young schoolboys and quickly beat out by the swing of a paddle. You honored your mother and father to their faces, spoke crudely of them behind their backs, and in the end you conformed to their norms, because how else would you survive in life without their money or connections?
And one of the biggest norms that you were expected to conform to was the marrying of a perfect gentleman or lady, the acquiring of a real job despite the dreams in your head, and the producing of offspring to carry on your legacy. In simple terms, you were expected to be completely normal and boring and keep yourself and your kin in line.
The only problem for Charlie Dalton and Tina Bennett was that there was no earthly way they would be allowed to marry the partner of their choice. Because no matter how much Charlie loved Steven Meeks and no matter how much Tina loved Gloria Fitz-Patrick, their parts just didn't fit. Not with society, at least.
So although Charlie couldn't even remember Tina's name when introductions were in order one winter long ago, it was the name that he would eventually murmur at the altar and the name beside his on the slab of stone propped above his grave.
Because the only way Charlie and Tina were going to get through their life-long lie was together, with someone who understood exactly what the other was going through.