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Laurent would never have done this if Mother had still been with them. But then, Laurent doubted he would have had to, in that case. She would have – quite literally – smacked some sense into Father and told Laurent to follow his heart. Instead, they all had to go through this farce.
"This is a bad idea," Auguste had advised. "Father's not going to just sit down for a 'meet the boyfriend' dinner and suddenly decide that he supports you dating a guy, just like that."
"I know," said Laurent. "Don't worry. I planned for that."
Auguste was the one who opened the door after the doorbell rang (and rang, and rang, thanks to the person on the other side of the door holding the buzzer down for an insufferablly long period of time). When Auguste saw Lazar standing on the other side, he said, "Really? I hope you two idiots know what you're doing here."
It was probably the fact that Lazar was the one standing there at all that had prompted that reaction. Laurent hadn't exactly let Auguste know who they were expecting tonight, preferring to let him assume. But the way Lazar presented himself also wouldn't have helped to counter Auguste's scepticism at all. He was dressed in a three-sizes-too-large maroon tracksuit with a worn patch at one of the knees and what looked to be an old sauce stain to the left of the jacket zipper. Meanwhile, in the dining room, Father was wearing a meticulous navy three-piece suit paired with a finely pressed shirt and silk tie, each individual item of which probably cost significantly more than even the bomber car in which Lazar had driven to the house, let alone Lazar's own version of dinner attire. Lazar was also wearing a cap slung at a bizarre angle, and sunglasses with lenses dark enough to hide any hint of his eyes even though the sun had set over an hour ago. Lazar still didn't remove the hat or sunglasses as he sauntered past Auguste and inside the front hall, despite the very obvious hat rack he passed by just to his left.
Father hated people who wore hats inside, and he hated sunglasses in general.
Those would be the least of Father's problems by the end of the night, though.
"Oh hey, Mr D, how's it hanging?" Lazar said over-loudly as he wandered into the dining room and spotted Laurent and Auguste's father waiting for them.
As Laurent rounded the corner after him, he saw Father frowning. He corrected, "It's Mr de Vere."
Auguste cleared his throat pointedly.
Father took the cue and added with evident distaste, "Or you can call me Aleron. I suppose. If you must."
"Aw, sweet," Lazar said. "I can tell we're gonna be buds already. We have heaps in common, after all."
"Like what?" The words were clipped.
"Well we both want to spoil our precious little boy, obviously."
Laurent watched his father silently mouth 'our little boy' like it was a foreign language he had to process.
There were four settings at the top end of the dining table. Rather than taking his place in front of one of them, Laurent gestured for Lazar to sit down first, then lowered himself sinuously into Lazar's lap. Lazar grinned. Father didn't.
"Sit like a normal person, Laurent."
Laurent gave Father an innocent look, like he honestly didn't know what might have prompted Father to suggest such a thing. "But this is how we always sit together for meals. What's wrong with that? It feels so good to be all safe and bundled up in someone's lap."
"Also makes feeding him so much easier," Lazar helpfully piped up.
Father's face was starting to redden. "Laurent's perfectly capable of feeding himself, and sitting on his own chair."
"I'm not allowed to do things myself unless Daddy says so," Laurent countered.
Father was practically grinding his teeth. "I just did say so."
There was a long moment of silence, in which Laurent didn't move a muscle despite how clearly Father expected him to, before Lazar said, "It's alright, baby boy, you can be a big boy and sit in your own chair tonight, can't you? If you take care of yourself for now, then," Lazar lowered his voice, though definitely not to a level quiet enough for Father to miss his words, "I'll take good care of you later on."
With more quiet obedience than Laurent had probably displayed at any point in his entire life to date, Laurent slid across into own seat to Lazar's right. Then he said, very pointedly to Lazar, "Thank you, Daddy."
Father made a choking sound. Auguste was shaking his head, not quite completely suppressing a grin.
What little conversation existed at all throughout the meal was stilted, especially as Auguste didn't seem inclined to help smooth things over. Father didn't touch a single mouthful of any of the three courses that were placed in front of him. It was clear that, assuming he'd had any appetite prior to Lazar's arrival, he'd since lost it. Understandable, really. Especially with Lazar praising Laurent effusively for the 'difficult' task of eating his food like a grown-up. And reaching across, his arm brushing Laurent's chest as if he absolutely belonged in Laurent's personal space, to cut up Laurent's meat for him like he was a toddler. And saying, "You've got food on your face, baby," even though Laurent could feel that there had been nothing there, before he leaned over to lick at the corner of Laurent's mouth to clean it for Laurent.
"Looks like it's getting late," Lazar finally said after dessert had been cleared away.
Father looked hopeful, obviously thinking that Lazar was about to excuse himself from the house so that Father could rant at Laurent in relative privacy.
Instead, Lazar said, "Guess I'd better give you your bath and put you to bed, right baby?"
"Yes, Daddy."
Father didn't get the chance to protest before they disappeared upstairs towards Laurent's room.
"I'm pretty sure he's about to have an aneurysm," said Lazar.
"Not quite yet. But he might get to that point in a few minutes."
Laurent left Lazar to muck about on his phone for a few minutes. By the sounds of it, Lazar immediately started playing one of those pointless and time-wasting game apps that Laurent could never be bothered with when there were millions of books out there in the world to be read any time Laurent had so much as a spare moment.
Then Laurent announced, "I think it would have been long enough by now for you to have torn my clothing off and started ravishing me."
Lazar's expression was borderline evil as he obligingly slipped his phone back into his pocket. "How do you want to do this?"
"As obnoxiously as possible. Grab the bedpost on that side, will you?"
Together, the two of them started shaking the bed, just a little at first, then increasing the intensity until the headboard was hitting the wall repetitiously.
"Oh, oh, oh yes, like that, yeah, fuck me Daddy, fuck me harder!" Laurent called out while, between laughter, Lazar made lurid grunting sounds.
"That's it, take it like a good little boy!" Lazar responded.
Lazar eventually let out a half-strangled cry to indicate that he'd supposedly climaxed. It sounded more like something one would expect to hear from dying poultry than anything sexual, but Laurent imagined Father would still get the point. Though Laurent did really hope that wasn't an accurate representation of Lazar's usual bedroom noises. He pitied Pallas if it was.
They left enough time for it to be believable that they might have cuddled while they caught their breath and then gotten redressed. Laurent made sure to mess up his hair and scrunch up his clothing in places so that it looked like it had been grabbed at by an impatient lover before being dumped uncaringly on the ground for a time. Lazar didn't have to bother with that, considering his clothing was already in an intentionally sad state, but he did at least remove the sunglasses. He also flicked his hat off and rested it on Laurent's head instead, like some weird marking behaviour. Father would hate that. Good.
They went down the stairs side-by-side even though the stairs were barely wide enough for two grown men to manage that. Lazar's arm was draped proprietarily around Laurent's shoulders when Father looked up and spotted them approaching.
"I've gotta be off," Lazar announced. "Thanks for the dinner, Aleron. And for loaning me your boy. He made me feel really welcome in your home. You oughta be so fucking proud of his… hospitality."
Then he pulled Laurent around to face him and leaned in to press their lips together.
Laurent wasn't expecting the kiss. The lick earlier had been one thing; not explicitly discussed in advance, but definitely in keeping with the level of ridiculousness they'd planned to exhibit. But this was a little closer to something that could actually be taken seriously than Laurent appreciated. Especially since Lazar didn't even try to make it offputting by creating a disgustingly sloppy PDA out of it. It was like a real goodbye kiss at the end of a date. Softer than Laurent would have anticipated from someone like Lazar.
It was better than Laurent would have anticipated too.
Not the best he'd ever had, though, Laurent was quick to remind himself.
What might otherwise have come perilously close to enjoyment was thankfully undercut by annoyance. Lazar obviously knew that Laurent couldn't say anything about it right now and had decided to take advantage of that to sneak in a little smooch, surely knowing that it would be the only one he would ever be getting from Laurent.
"See you tomorrow, Daddy," Laurent said when Lazar pulled back. He thought it might have come out a little too obviously threatening-sounding to be optimal for their current audience, betraying his very real intention to make Lazar pay for doing that the next time he saw him. Laurent doubted that really mattered by this point, though. Father probably wasn't even paying attention to the minutia of their interaction at this point. Laurent had no doubt that Father had already long since been persuaded that Lazar was the worst possible boyfriend in the world for anyone, let alone his youngest son, and so Father would be refusing to spare another moment of his time paying any attention to him.
Lazar said, "You bet, baby. Wear the red lacy panties for me tomorrow, won't you?"
"Of course. Anything you want, Daddy."
Laurent didn't wait around for Father to yell at him once Lazar was out the door. That could wait until later. Auguste quickly followed Laurent up the stairs, clearly not wanting to hear Father's inevitable ranting either. Though Auguste had already probably had to listen to Father being horrified while they played unwilling voyeurs to the sounds of Laurent and Lazar together upstairs.
Laurent retrieved his phone from his bedside table to text Lazar a scathing notice that if he ever tried to kiss Laurent again he'd end up with a bleeding lip for his troubles. There was a message already waiting for him. But it wasn't from Lazar.
It was from Damen.
Laurent, what the hell is going on? I thought Lazar was just supposed to go round there and act like a douche, not… that.
Laurent frowned. Surely Lazar hadn't messaged Damen about the kiss, or about any of the rest of it? He was an incorrigible gossip, but only about other people usually. He didn't tend to go into detail about his own 'conquests'.
"Oh yeah, by the way," Auguste said from the doorway after a few seconds of watching Laurent puzzling over the message, "I filmed you and Lazar and sent a copy of the vid along to Damen. I thought he'd be interested."
Laurent could practically feel the blood rushing from his face. "You what? Which part?"
Auguste laughed – how could he do that at a time like this – and said, "Relax. Nothing to do with you and Lazar pretending to fuck. Or the kiss. I don't want to actually get Lazar killed, do I? Just the part where you sat on Lazar's lap and called him 'Daddy'."
Like that was much better.
Laurent loved his brother, he did, but sometimes he hated him too.
"If Damen won't let you explain without hulking out like a jealous prick, then he's not worthy of you anyway," Auguste pointed out.
As much as he seemed to like Damen well enough himself when it came to them playing sports together or having a drink after work, Auguste hadn't made any secret of the fact that he didn't like that Damen was five years older than Laurent and far more experienced than him in certain ways.
"And if he does let me explain?"
"Then I guess I'll stop ragging on him for being a cradle-robber."
"Damen and I aren't doing anything wrong unless you ask a homophobic bigot like Father. I'm not a child, you know."
"Then why did Lazar keep calling you baby boy?"
Laurent rolled his eyes. "Because of the way I knew it would make Father's eye twitch, obviously."
"Yeah, mission accomplished there, from what I could tell. It could have gone horribly wrong, and you should have consulted me about your plan in advance so I could have helped you figure out the best way to do this, but I think you managed to get away with it even so. Father's still probably going to be difficult about it, make no mistake. But when Damen comes around dressed to the nines with an expensive bottle of wine as a hosting gift for Father and politely asks 'can I please court your son' like the slightly more gay version of a period drama, I bet Father will be relieved despite himself."
"That's the hope."
"Though, it hardly matters what Father thinks of it if you're just scratching an itch with Damen."
Auguste didn't want to believe that it was serious, of course, even though people who didn't know Laurent even half as well as his brother knew how amazingly gone on Damen Laurent really was.
"There's far more than that between us," said Laurent. "It's true that seeing Father's face while I was draping myself all over Lazar and acting like that would almost have been worth it on its own just for the amusement factor. But just so you know, I wouldn't have done this if my relationship with Damen didn't properly matter."
Auguste sighed.
That was fine. He'd come around, Laurent knew, in a very different way than Father would even after all this. For Auguste, seeing Laurent being openly happy once he could publicly acknowledge his relationship with Damen would ultimately be persuasion enough.