olden times for Tommy

[oohforeshadowing]

The great country pile isn't their speed, really.

Double had their lovely house in London, bought and paid for by their adoptive father - a High Fae of some high regard, who'd been fretting about their lands and accounts falling into strangers' hands when he passed on. It was a heartrending story, of course, and Double was...well, positively delighted to be anything the old man wanted them to be. For the right price.

Shapeshifters have long since had a bad reputation for sliding into the upper echelons this way. They hadn't been in penury to begin with, by any means, but 'lovely house in London' money and 'vast estates with mining wealth and hundreds of rate-paying tenants' money is not the same by some order of magnitude.

The old man died peacefully in his bed, well over a century old, and left the manor house and everything that went with it to their sole heir. Who is going to sell it all, eventually, but it feels tasteless not to even let their 'father's' body grow cold.

They move in after the last of their furniture has been transported, and lets the housekeeper give them the tour. They cut quite the figure: long blond hair pinned up in curls, a jacket and blouse tailored tightly to a corseted waist, the snug high-waisted breeches favoured by most males. Their tail is the most exposed part of them and the woman they're following keeps eyeing it like she's not sure if it's obscene or not.

"...show you the stables, your grace," she says, as she walks ahead to the outbuildings.

"Ah. I suppose we ought."

Comments

[bleak_midwinter]

He nods, expression grim. That's exactly it - all the expectations weigh heavy, but the life he just lived weighs more heavily still.

"You killed them both, didn't you?"

[oohforeshadowing]

"Yes."

They take a small sip of tea.

"...I tried to negotiate. I wanted to just - pay them off and get them away from you. But when I realised what they had done..."

They shake their head.

"I'm not proud of it. But I'm not ashamed, either."

[bleak_midwinter]

"Will you not be found out somehow? Shamed, shunned?"

He was asleep for the entire argument the three of them had in the hotel, after all. He can only see the scary parts now.

[oohforeshadowing]

"I don't think so. When the scene is found, it'll look like Hyperion killed his sister and then himself. There hasn't been any love lost between them in years. It'll be shocking, but nobody in their circle will be that surprised things...escalated."

[bleak_midwinter]

"Even when people find out that you were in Birmingham at the same time?"

He just - would like to be sure.

[oohforeshadowing]

They shrug.

"Nobody can prove anything, and I can contribute to the rumour mill however I please as whoever I please. At worst, I'm suspected of a double Fae murder, and I'll lean on that as hard as necessary to have Demetrius leave us alone," they murmur.

[bleak_midwinter]

"Demetrius," he repeats, slowly, recalling - "Of course. The neighbor, who got in your way about the coal. One more problem to solve."

He puts his tea down and puts thoughts of the man aside, in favor of reaching out to briefly take their hand.

"I don't know what to say. Their deaths must weigh on you. And I know you did it..."

For him.

[oohforeshadowing]

"For you," Double says, speaking the unspoken. Their fingers curl lightly around Tommy's.

"...I never imagined that I would or could kill anyone. Perhaps it hasn't truly landed yet, but right now, it doesn't feel like it's weighing on me at all. It felt like...like it wasn't exactly me doing it. It was as if they had written a script and I was merely playing the role they cast me into."

[bleak_midwinter]

He squeezes their hand but can't bring himself to look at them, not yet.

"We've both got a new reality to fit into. All I know is that as far as I'm concerned, they deserved it, for doing to me what they did to me. And I'm grateful to you."

[oohforeshadowing]

Double swallows.

"...You're welcome. I - very much hope that you shall never have to return the favour."

[bleak_midwinter]

He shakes his head.

"No. Me neither. I've had to - in - my other life. It was not a good feeling."

[oohforeshadowing]

"I...well, I don't need to imagine it any more."

They squeeze his hand gently.

"...For what it's worth, it turns out to be true that snorting cocaine really will disrupt a compulsion, but I wouldn't recommend it for a human, because you'll need a truly prodigious amount and then you'll be having a confrontation with a Fae whilst on cocaine."

The other reason they didn't sleep is because they were wired as fuck.

[bleak_midwinter]

He looks up at them, honestly only barely aware of what cocaine even is. He raises his eyebrows almost comically high, if the situation weren't so painful.

"Where did you even hear that that might work?"

[oohforeshadowing]

"Gossip among the Realmsfolk who were getting sick and tired of having 'practical jokes' played on them," Double drawls. "But, there's always so much paranoia over the effect of human substances that I've never known anyone to try it."

[bleak_midwinter]

"Are you still... affected?"

High, he means, but doesn't really have the vocabulary for.

[oohforeshadowing]

"I don't...think so?" they venture. "I was so focused on dealing with them that I wasn't really paying attention to other effects. Right now, I - my thoughts are racing, but that could be for several reasons."

[bleak_midwinter]

"Would you let us both stay here for a while longer, then? Until your thoughts... settle."

And his own. Going back to the estate now sounds horrible.

[oohforeshadowing]

"Darling, of course. In the longer term, I planned for us to be here for two months, and it's been a week. I can go back to the apartment if I'm getting underfoot, but...of course we can stay."

[bleak_midwinter]

"Stay here, if you can. If you like."

If you can bear to, he means - and he means he wants them to stay.

"The longer you're here, the more I feel like I'm not in a dream."

[oohforeshadowing]

"Then I will."

They were not, they now realise, joking about being happy to sleep on a bare floor if that was what they needed.

"Do you think your family realise...? I wouldn't doubt your aunt knows, she seems very sharp."

[bleak_midwinter]

"I'm sure she does," he agrees, picking up his cup with his free hand, since he's still holding theirs.

"If she didn't have an inkling I doubt you would have been able to come in." Which reminds him:

"How did you find me?"

[oohforeshadowing]

"Ah, well. That would be this."

They remove the thin, tarnished silver ring they're wearing.

"You might not remember our host at the apartment, but she's got enough of the Old Realms in her blood to use a little magic. She cast a weave of finding for me. That got me as far as the neighbourhood, and from there it was good old-fashioned bribery."

[bleak_midwinter]

He looks at it, then back up at them. Of course they already more than proved their loyalty to him by killing his tormentors, but somehow this search and rescue mission makes it feel even more special.

"And they just accepted a Realmer as their savior in their hour of need?"

[oohforeshadowing]

"After some negotiation, we agreed to gather our arms and intelligence and meet back here in order to go at the task together," Double says. "I promptly ignored that and went alone, which I'm sure has irked them somewhat, but I'm not at all sorry."

Who knows, in retrospect, how many years might have been added to Tommy's sentence by the mere act of waiting overnight.

[bleak_midwinter]

"You got me back, which is all that matters. And you're likely the very first Realmer to stay in a Shelby household, which is a dubious honor."