Yours Truly (Petekey)

XXV.

Written by HellaBrendon
Some unplanned smut in here...it's my first smut so forgive me for how bad it is.
The warning for where it begins is * (for my good children who want to skip it) and it goes right to the end.
- Bren.

Michael James Way

"I have excellent news, Michael!" he says. The smile on his face makes him foreign. Strange and different, he is not the man that I grew up with. Gerard and I, having been summoned into his office, stare at the man who raised us.

I can see Gerard deflate slightly beside me, as if he's thinking about how much of his genetic composition he shares with the man standing in front of us. I, for one, am afraid of what it means that his smile is something that I find foreign and strange. "Yes, sir?" I ask.

What excellent news could make my father into the kind of man that smiles that sick, twisted smile. If you drew a Venn diagram, where the circles of excitement and fear overlapped would be exactly where I'm standing at the moment. "Your marriage proposal has been accepted!" he cries. I feel like crying too.

I know to hold my tongue, to press my hands together behind my back, to give him a thankful smile, a bow, and to disappear from this room before I start pitching a fit. But there are too many thoughts running across my mind and to many feelings forcing tight ropes around my heart.

My lungs, like they have a habit of doing, begin failing me, and I have to try my very best to keep from panting – I'm so afraid that it may seem disrespectful and I will receive a lashing for being ungrateful. "My marriage proposal?" I ask him, breathlessly. The words tumble out of my mouth.

"Congratulations, Michael." Gerard says, obviously trying to diffuse the tension, the threatening look he sends me immediately afterwards, is one that tells me to keep quiet and stay in my lane. I want to – I try to.

"Yes, Michael, your proposal to Lady Kirsten Colby. I received the answer in the mail this morning, she is to be your bride." I watch the smile slip from my father's face – frightening enough – to be replaced by a familiar frown. I'm still afraid, but rather the devil you know than the one you don't.

I can only imagine the sort of lashing I'm going to get if I say the words sitting in the back of my throat but I don't how to stop them from rolling off of my tongue, "I never sent her a marriage proposal,"

Gerard flinches on my behalf, momentarily looks as though he's willing to give me a lashing himself, as the man whose genetics are laced through our blood like ribbon, stands up from his seat: slow, steady, solidly. I prepare myself for the beating of a lifetime.

"I did." He says, anger seething through his body, "You are to be married in a fortnight." He supplies, but I can see his knuckles white where his fists are clenched at his sides. "Any other questions, Michael?"

"No, sir," I say, but I know in my heart that I have several other questions to ask – many that I cannot ask aloud. What am I going to tell Pete? Am I going to tell him at all? I decide against it – I am a selfish person and I cannot bear the thought of losing him.

When we are excused, Gerard and I return to our studying, sitting in front of the fireplace. We have been sitting there for a long time, books on our laps, my eyes steadily glued to the fire as if it will help me figure out how to handle the situation.

Surely, I can be very happy? Did I not express my affection for Kirsten, agree that I would try my best to be the man she needed and deserved? So, why then was I so hesitant to express any feeling regarding the situation at all.