Note: Is this… is this… an update? With more of my favorite OC? Yes! Yes it is! And we can blame Anne, who requested "a post-Goliath chapter with your OC Jamie and a squick of jealousy". Happy to oblige! :)
PS - the chapter title is from a very excellent Jem and the Holograms song: Someone else is in your place/ And you won't forgive/ And it's hittin' you right where you live.
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Jamie Duncan arrives late to the party. It's not his fault; he wasn't aware there was a bloody party, let alone the reason for it. If it hadn't been for his ma saying, "And still in trousers, too, what a scandal she is!" just as he'd come in the door tonight, he would never have known that Deryn Sharp was back in Glasgow.
Irksome. That's the word for it. He's one of Jaspert's oldest friends and no one's thought to tell him.
Jamie takes the steps to Mrs. Sharp's house lightly, cheerfully, and pauses a moment to straighten his cuffs and smooth his hair. Then he raps on the door, brisk and confident.
What will she look like, he wonders idly. He's never seen her in trousers, only skirts and dresses. Girls in trousers… Sounds unnatural and tempting all at once. He's sure she carries it off perfectly well.
According to his ma, Deryn's cut her hair, too. Shame; it had been lovely.
The noise of people and music swells suddenly as the door opens. It's Mrs. Gibb, the housekeeper, her wrinkled face flushed beneath its white cap. Jamie grins and sketches a bow. "Good evening, young miss."
"Mr. Duncan," the housekeeper says, smiling at him, charmed in spite of herself. "Lovely to see you again. Here for Miss Deryn's party, then, are you?"
"Aye," he says. He glances around and lowers his voice conspiratorially: "Though I haven't an invitation. You don't mind letting me sneak past...?"
Mrs. Gibb steps back from the door, holding it open for him. "I'm certain you're welcome, Mr. Duncan."
"Thanks, love," he says, winking and dropping a kiss on her cheek as he enters the house. She clucks and shoos him off.
Harmless, daft flattery. The sort that opens doors everywhere.
Inside the house is stacked to the rafters with people: the Sharps' neighbors, Mrs. Sharp's particular friends, cousins of all sorts and all ages, and several of Jaspert's other friends.
"Oi, Jamie," Ned says, catching sight of him in the front hall. He elbows through a small knot of folks without spilling a drop of whatever drink he's got in hand. "Didn't think you were coming!"
Jamie shrugs and plucks Ned's glass from his fingers, swallowing it down before the other lad can protest. It's only punch, he's disappointed to note; no one's had the decency to add a splash of anything stronger. "Wasn't sure of it myself. Where's the fair maiden?"
Ned stops giving him a dark glare long enough to say, "Holding court in the parlor, I expect."
"Aye, thanks," Jamie says. He presses the empty glass into Ned's hands and claps his friend on the back. "Best pay my respects, hmm?"
He makes his way to the parlor, stopping to say hello and chat along the way, and detouring to find another drink. No need to go rushing in, as if he's that desperate to see his friend's younger sister. When he finally does get there, he finds the room crowded, and is forced to take a position just inside the door.
Jamie leans against the wall and exchanges pleasantries with the lady sitting on the divan to his immediate left. One of Jaspert's aunts, he thinks. Maybe an older cousin. Mary, he thinks her name is. Or Margaret.
Deryn is across the room, perched on the back of a sofa, boy's boots planted on the cushions (her ma will cheerfully murder her for that, Jamie knows from experience), blue eyes gleaming, hands gesturing, telling wild stories to her rapt audience.
Holding court indeed.
Jamie smirks. Then he notices the stranger beside her – a lad with dark hair and a stiff, uncomfortable set to his spine. "Who's that?" he asks the auntie, leaning down to whisper and to point at the stranger without being noticed by anyone else.
"Oh, him?" she says. "The prince?"
Jamie's eyebrow lifts. "Prince."
"Aye, Prince Aleksandar. Oh, but he's not a prince anymore, it seems. Haven't you heard? It's been in all the papers."
Jamie abhors newspapers, or, indeed, anything that requires him to think seriously about the world. He shakes his head. "Been that busy, I'm afraid."
The auntie makes a noncommittal, skeptical noise. "Well," she says, lowering her voice even further, "it was quite a fuss. Gave up all his titles and a chance at the Austrian throne to be a zookeeper in London, they said."
"I see." Jamie looks at the so-called prince again. Aleksandar. A Clanker. Who is, at this moment, watching Deryn very closely. She pauses in her story, turns to Aleksandar, and gives him a wide and brilliant smile. He smiles back, and when Deryn reaches for his hand, he doesn't let go.
A stab of something unpleasant in his gut makes Jamie grimace, swirl his punch, and take a good sip. Why is there no bloody whisky? "Sounds a bit mad."
Deryn looks lovely in trousers, and the short hair suits her better than plaits did. She seems happier than Jamie's ever seen her.
The auntie chuckles. "Sounds like there's to be a wedding, sooner or later."
Now it's Jamie's turn to make a noncommittal noise. He pushes off the wall, excuses himself with a wink and smile for the auntie, and walks away from the parlor before the taste in his mouth becomes too sour to hide.
No one notices him collect his coat and leave. He shuts the door behind him and stands on the top step for a moment, blinking into the relative darkness of the street.
That hadn't been at all what he'd expected. But – aye, honestly, what had he been expecting? The little sister who'd stubbornly insisted on joining all their games? The pretty young lass who'd dared him to kiss her, then gave him a good kick to the shins when he said he liked another girl more?
Or maybe the pale, drawn ghost he'd wanted to jolly out of her sadness.
Jamie doesn't have a care for many things, or many people.
It seems like Deryn's not to be on the list.
Jealousy burns at the back of this throat and closes hot claws around his chest. For a moment he wants nothing more than to march back inside and confront the wee Clanker bastard who's taken what ought to have been his… but even as his shoulders tense and fists tighten at the thought, he realizes how daft he's being.
She's not his. Never has been.
"Ah, well," he says to the empty air. "Never mind, then."
He laughs, short and sharp and bleak, the closest he'll come to admitting defeat. Then he pushes his hands into his pockets and makes his way down the street towards home, whistling as he goes.
