Backdated to July 4th because I haven't had the chance to finish it since then.
Word Count: 2438 (Could’ve made this five solos, but I don’t need the reqs and I’m tired of this sitting unfinished in my Docs, so…)
The restaurant wasn’t the same as last time — his mother would never be so gauche as to pick the same place twice in a row, when there was a city full of fine dining options to explore — but it might as well have been for all the similarities. White tablecloths ironed to perfection. Floral centerpieces set out every day with fresh, seasonal flowers. Crystal stemware, which caught the light from decorative chandeliers. Waste everywhere, not in the form of garbage, but in all the useless, pretty things image-obsessed people liked to surround themselves with.
The décor was at least tasteful rather than obscene in its extravagance, but it was those little details that prompted Lovely to hate these dinners, and the many reminders of an old life he hadn’t longed for in years.
It was all so meaningless to him now, this finery. He often wondered how it ever meant anything to him to begin with, why it used to matter.
Perhaps it was that he had nothing else.
He couldn’t get away with flouting an unspoken dress code this time. If he showed up in his ripped jeans and faded t-shirts, he wouldn’t have been permitted beyond the entryway. (He half wondered if his mother or Dorian chose the place for that reason alone.) With few options left available to him, Lovely grudgingly wore a teal suit with a floral tie and hoped the choice offended those who preferred more classic colors.
Once the maître d’ led him to a table by the windows overlooking a courtyard strung up with lights, his mother stood to hug him with a bright smile and a fond exclamation of, “Lovey Dove!”
She was not alone. As Lovely expected, across from her sat Dorian, eyes heavy-lidded with fatigue, like he’d been working too much, or had already resigned himself to an uncomfortable evening.
Unexpectedly, the seat next to Dorian was not empty. Claude sat opposite the spot meant for Lovely.
Lovely stiffened in his mother’s arms. Her fawning compliments went unanswered, each version of “You’ve grown so beautiful, Lovey,” and the same “At least one of you took after me” he’d heard all his life.
Claude looked no different than the last time Lovely saw him, five years ago in March, just before Lovely’s seventeenth birthday. Short, black hair, combed neatly into place. Sharp cerulean eyes, glaring at Lovely for some unforeseen misdeed. Designer suit, tailored to perfection.
As a child, Lovely used to imagine there was no one larger than his oldest brother, no one who could protect him as well as Claude did. As an adult, Lovely thought Claude seemed marginally less imposing; Ilian, once scrawny and undernourished, was nearly as tall now.
Stubbornly silent, Lovely refused to greet either of his brothers. When his mother finally released him, he took the seat beside her and immediately became engrossed in the menu.
“Isn’t this wonderful?” his mother asked, either oblivious to the tension (unlikely) or purposefully ignoring it.
Hoping for an escape, Lovely ordered himself a glass of wine and maintained his silence. He sat straight in his chair, unmoving, lest his feet accidentally cross into Claude’s space. His gaze remained low, fastened to the table as he fiddled with his utensils, once precisely lined up but soon in disarray, as he avoided meeting Claude’s stern eyes.
Their mother did most of the talking. She gushed about her new boyfriend; apparently, she’d gone for another politician. She asked Claude about work, earning a succinct answer that Lovely paid no attention to. When Claude dodged any attempt at conversation about his private life, their mother asked Dorian several questions about his writing, which Dorian offered a few vague answers to. (If she ever knew about the trashy novels he wrote, she’d probably never shut up about them. Lovely would have brought them up if he cared to deal with the fallout.)
Lovely was spared the affectionate interrogation until their food arrived.
“How’s Ilian?” his mother asked, smiling like she thought this was an entirely appropriate topic, despite the fact that previous experience proved otherwise.
Lovely picked at his food, suddenly without an appetite.
“Fine,” he said, never the gushing sort.
“Is he keeping busy?”
Lovely sipped his wine and gave a noncommittal, “Mmm.”
It wasn’t like he could say, Yes, Mom, he’s very busy corrupting Senshi and bonding with youma and assisting with missions and all sorts of things to improve our faltering standing in a magical war.
“What does he do now?” Dorian asked, staring so deeply into his wine it might have contained all the answers to the greatest mysteries of the universe.
“Whatever he wants,” Lovely said. When that didn’t seem to be a satisfactory answer for his nosy mother, who seemed eager to ask more, Lovely hastened to add, “He spends most of his time composing music.”
“Dorian says he plays very well,” their mother offered, an attempt to appease. “Isn’t that how you met?”
Lovely scoffed quietly, glared at his dinner, and said, “You’d know how we met if you were ever around.”
He wouldn’t normally throw those sorts of accusations at his mother, having grown accustomed to her flighty nature. Her love was unquestionable, but her attention was never a guarantee. Being the independent sort, and unattached to the idea of a normal family, Lovely didn’t often pine for it anymore.
Claude’s presence set him on edge. The tension around the table was discomforting, and discomfort made Lovely mean.
“Leigh,” Claude said, in a low, firm tone. Raising his voice would be inappropriate here, and Claude would never be so unwise as to attract attention.
Lovely gripped his fork instead of flinching.
It was always Leigh with Claude and Dorian. They never took him seriously as Lovely.
A spiteful part of him didn’t want to apologize, but his mother, when he looked at her instead of either of his brothers, wore a sad frown and pitying eyes.
“Sorry,” Lovely mumbled.
“You’re right, of course,” his mother allowed. “I should have gone to more of your recitals. I should have—”
“Leigh shouldn’t have abandoned his family,” Claude argued.
Anger throbbed through Lovely’s veins. He dared to lift his eyes, glared at Claude, and said, “You shouldn’t have shoved Ilian and slapped me across the face.”
To that, Claude had no response. He merely frowned severely, like he found everything about Lovely dissatisfying.
Lovely laughed bitterly. “You won’t even apologize.”
“Leigh…” Dorian said, cautioning.
Lovely turned on him next. “And you’ll defend him, because you’re both judgemental assholes. At least I know where I get it from.”
“Ilian Jones has no family,” Claude said. “He doesn’t know the meaning of one.”
“And that makes him, what? Incapable of caring about me?” Lovely paused expectantly, waiting for an answer, but neither Claude nor Dorian gave him one. “What the ******** do you think he’s been doing the last several years?”
He and Ilian rarely spoke about their feelings, seldom put them into words, but Lovely knew. One would think, after five years, Claude and Dorian might be willing to believe it.
Apparently not, if their incredulous expressions were anything to go by. Claude in particular looked at Lovely as if he were a child who had no idea what it meant to care about anyone.
Maybe he hadn’t, before Ilian.
Their mother, ever the aspiring peacemaker, attempted to change the subject, “I think maybe we should—”
Lovely cut her off, glaring at Claude accusingly, “You looked him up.”
Claude’s brow quirked as if to say, You expected me not to?
With another scoff, Lovely asked, “What did you find?”
“Nothing, because he is nothing. Parents, killed in an accident. Brother, ******** you. You don’t know anything about what happened to his brother!”
He said it too passionately, too loudly. Eyes turned toward them from other tables. A few stared in disapproval. Others muttered between themselves.
Claude waited, letting the silence linger unpleasantly. Only when the attention was off of them did he ask, “And you do?”
Lovely said nothing.
Fortunately, Claude took his refusal to answer as an indication that he had no additional knowledge, that his anger was little more than self-righteous bluster. Claude let the conversation drop and went back to his food, deeming it all trivial.
Lovely could not make himself do the same. His memories offered too much — red blood and dark curls and dull, empty eyes. Ilian looked more like his brother every day, except he was older now than Soren ever grew to be. Every now and then, when Lovely could not effectively suppress his despair over their fate, he feared that Ilian might end up the same way, dead by some Senshi’s hand, just another casualty of the war, bound to be forgotten by everyone, except the only one who truly—
“Why him?” Dorian asked, voice soft for once, lacking the indignant fury he and Claude were so adept at cultivating.
Sneering at this untimely attempt at understanding, Lovely said, “Because he doesn’t ask me stupid questions like that.”
Neither he nor Ilian needed words. They didn’t need longing gazes, or passionate declarations, or all the trivial garbage often exchanged between people who’d paired off. That was the beauty of their relationship — they could just be.
“And because he doesn’t judge me based on my association with you,” Lovely continued, glaring at a spot between his brothers instead of meeting either of their gazes. “How the ******** can you even fault him for s**t that happened to him? That makes no ******** sense.”
If they’d judge him by his actions, by the things he said and the manner in which he lived his life, rather than by whatever image they’d built of him in brains rotted by the idleness of luxury, they wouldn’t be so quick to question everything about their relationship.
Or perhaps they would. They never trusted Lovely; they expected him to act out and do foolish things. Perhaps it wasn’t anything about Ilian that was the issue. Perhaps they simply didn’t think Lovely capable of making good choices, and assumed there must be something horrid buried within Ilian as a result.
Leigh chose him, so he must be unworthy.
Unwilling to sit there and take their disapproving stares any longer, Lovely rose from the table. He would leave so his brothers would not be burdened by his presence, and if his mother had any sense, she wouldn’t invite either of them the next time she wanted to see Lovely.
But his mother grabbed his hand, looked up at him beseechingly, and said, “Stay, please.”
Lovely froze, jaw clenched, seconds from ripping his hand away.
“I thought we could watch the fireworks,” his mother said, trying her best to maintain the happy veneer she always wore.
“Make them apologize,” Lovely countered.
“Lovey Dove…”
She didn’t take him seriously either, then, calling him such sweet, childish things, like he was still the lonely little boy she left in the care of nannies, who she could mollify with affection and presents when she finally returned from whatever was more important to her than taking care of her own children.
It made him happy, once, to see her smile, to hear her voice after she’d been away.
That was long ago.
“Mother,” he said — firmly, so she could not pretend to misunderstand his intentions.
She deflated just enough that he noticed. Her smile became strained, and her hold on his hand weakened. Her eyes, a match to his own, grew wet with regret and sadness.
She cleared her throat, lowered her eyes and said, “Claude, Dorian. Apologize.”
For all their argumentativeness, neither of Lovely’s brothers would deny their mother a facsimile of a happy evening.
“My apologies,” Claude said, utterly transparent in his insincerity.
“Sorry,” Dorian muttered, forcing out a word he didn’t mean.
None of it resolved anything. Lovely’s anger still burned, and the distrust remained in his brothers’ eyes. Even so, Lovely took some satisfaction from it, forcing his mother to choose between his company or the bullshit spewed by his brothers.
At least he knew she cared enough to want him around.
Slowly, Lovely retook his seat. He pulled his hand out of his mother’s grasp and refused to look at Claude or Dorian. Lovely kept his eyes lowered and picked at his food. His mother picked up the conversation on her own and rambled about other things, her usual brightness soon returning to disguise the awkwardness. Just as before, she did most of the talking, gossiping about people Lovely once knew.
Their strained dinner ended with dessert, which Lovely barely ate. He drank his wine and kept his silence instead. Though he was tempted to order something to take home for Ilian, Lovely did not want to linger any longer than necessary. He left empty-handed.
They followed their mother outside, none of them speaking, none of them looking at one another. They found a spot to watch the fireworks, which began to pop overhead soon after.
Tipping his head back to watch, Lovely considered how he might avoid this happening again. He hadn’t wanted to cut his mother out of his life. When he left home, she was the only one who cared, the only one who tried to keep in touch with him, who made an effort to understand why he left, from what little he was willing to share with her.
He loved her, in his own way.
She loved him, in her own way.
But he couldn’t keep doing this, if she insisted on blindsiding him with Claude and Dorian every chance she got.
They were never going to be the warm, loving family she liked to pretend they were. It took leaving for Lovely to understand that, for him to realize how little they cared.
As the fireworks continued to burst above them, every boom, pop, and sizzle grated on Lovely’s frayed nerves. Something nagged at him, some sixth sense that told him something was wrong, and he should be somewhere else.
Maybe he was imagining it. Claude stood behind him, like an impenetrable wall closing in on him.
Lovely scowled, hands curled into fists.
Apparently, not much had changed in him at twenty-two. By nothing more than Claude’s presence, he could still be made to feel powerless and insignificant.
He hadn’t been either of those things for a long time.
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You can tell I got tired of having to work on this a little bit at a time by how rushed the ending is.
