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“Maybe”, says Auguste abruptly, digging into his enormous slice of cheesecake, “we should leave without a deal.”
Very sweetly, very precisely, Laurent puts down his phone and leans forward. “Auguste. What the fuck did you just say?”
And to think, Nicaise had said lunch was going to be boring.
—
It’s mid March when things get really weird.
Laurent’s moving out. That’s fine, right, because he’s literally going to be 20 minutes away, but Auguste is freaking out, and if Auguste is freaking out then rest assured Laurent is also freaking out, but being bitchier about it. And they were both twitchy already - Laurent, because he works in policy or something; Auguste because he’s a Lib Dem and spends too much time on his mad depressing twitter account, Nicaise thinks uncharitably. Or like, he’s concerned about touring in Europe or something. There’s definitely a lot of visa chat. Nicaise can’t quite say, because he studiously avoids the news - he’s read that frowning a lot when you’re in your teens can really catch up with you when you’re thirty plus.
Anyway, the more relentlessly wound up the de Vere household gets, the more intense the efforts to make things calm and stable for Nicaise. Not that Nicaise gives a fuck, but his pseudo-brothers -
Can we please drop the prefix, Nicaise, honestly - also, please stop swearing? At least on days when your social worker is here? (that’s Auguste) and: that’s not how you pronounce it, you know. Did you learn that in English this week? Embarrassing for your teacher . (And that was Laurent).
- are all about family and rewarding good behaviour, so to celebrate Nicaise going a fortnight without swearing at a teacher or propositioning a sixth-former, they go out for lunch.
The second condition was unbeknownst to Auguste, but Laurent had made it clear that it was a. not up for debate and b. something he (Laurent) would be monitoring closely. Like, how , Nicaise had said, because Laurent did not work in his school, but Laurent had just flicked him in the forehead and told him he had precisely one strike. Nicaise had left that day determined to test his limits, but instead he’d spent his whole lunch break just batting his eyelashes at Danny G, who was both three years his senior and the school’s heartthrob Scrum-Half. But he’d been in his rugby shorts and Nicaise is fifteen and it had actually been so distracting that he’d genuinely forgotten to call his Maths teacher a twat accidentally-on-purpose. A day wasted.
Nonetheless, Laurent’s first words to him when he came in that night had been -
That’s strike one! Also, he’s straight.
And then, later -
Also, we both know you aren’t supposed to be on insta, so delete those comments right now and I won’t even tell Auguste
Which was so unfair. Nicaise had just been responding to the energy Danny G was putting out into the universe via the most expressive medium there was - vegetable emojis - and also like, beyond hypocritical, because Laurent was no stranger to social media himself. Laurent looked like an Instagram model and acted like one too, except Laurent was above #sponcon and posted his thirst traps on the internet for free, like an idiot. Nicaise couldn’t wait to shill protein yoghurt or whatever to fuckwits for cash. Also, Laurent’s online art-ho-ness was false advertising, because IRL he was mostly just a massive bitch - Nicaise! chides the inner voice that’s beginning to sound a lot like Auguste (non-judgemental, disgustingly kind and ugh, noble, for want of a better word) - okay, mostly just a frigid prude incapable of understanding the strategic value of an unbuttoned shirt, or like, putting your fingers in your mouth for the #content.
So not swearing sucks. Not putting the moves on the rugby team also sucks, but it’s also kind of relaxing, Nicaise guesses. He’s been at this school since he was twelve, the horror - thank god he never had an awkward phase - but he hasn’t made his Spanish teacher flinch all week, which is honestly a first and is giving him a kind of benevolent inner glow. Danny G’s girlfriend has even stopped glaring at him whenever he enters the canteen. He has been so good. His mandated therapist - whose weekly email debriefs to Auguste Nicaise obviously hacks into his account to read, duh - has even been glowing about his breakthroughs. (Nicaise doesn’t know what’s so breakthrough about telling her that while he used to think the only things he and Laurent had in common were kind of gross coincidences, like stalled dance careers and being touched up by the same old creep, he now suspects they think the same way. And okay, yes, he had said that maybe it almost felt like if they had this fundamental thing in common they could actually be - like if - well, like the idea of them being actually related wouldn’t be so stupid after all. He didn’t use the word family. She’s the one reading into it.)
So anyway, two weeks in and Nicaise has won, because everything is a competition, even if Auguste wants to style it as a ‘self-improvement challenge’, and that’s why they’re out for Sunday lunch after having been to a museum in the morning, like a good little family. Gag.
They go to the jewel room in the V&A, because Auguste is transparent about trying to get him into culture that doesn’t directly involve old men looking at him, and Nicaise’s tolerance for oil paintings is a solid zero percent. It’s pretty cool, actually. Nicaise had elbowed a group of gormless tourists out of the way and stared at this gaudy cluster of sapphires for a solid minute, just looking at the shine. Then he thought seriously about getting his ears pierced, which was pleasant but ultimately a fantasy; Auguste had seen him looking and said quite seriously in your dreams, mon frere. That’s a solid year of no terrorising the rugby team Laurent had laughingly added, when Auguste had stopped listening.
Laurent was in a good mood - that morning, he’d actually said, oh, I have something for you , and gave him this sick denim jacket which Nicaise knows is his, because Nicaise has been lusting after it for at least six months. Well , Laurent had said, I’ve outgrown it . Nicaise had got so choked up that he defaulted to meanness - Yeah, you look really fat in it now - and Laurent hadn’t even minded.
Nicaise is kind of tired by the time they get around to lunch, though, and talk just kind of naturally slows down. Auguste and Laurent take advantage of the lull to have a conversation he doesn’t really understand about politics, and a heavily coded one he totally does, because it’s is mostly about Laurent moving out and how it’s gonna look to - as ever - Nicaise’s social worker. Laurent says it doesn’t matter, via an elaborate metaphor about changing the carpets in the parlour, but Auguste has a swift rejoinder about regrouting the bathroom tiles, which Nicaise understands to mean that he thinks it does. If anyone asked him, Nicaise would respond with two points, namely that:
- They’re rich, the care sector is overstretched, and his social worker is desperate for a success story, so everyone can chill, but Laurent would tell him he was being gauche and Auguste would get all noble and say it’s really important that he doesn’t just pay his way into being a good guardian; and -
- he doesn’t know why they discuss shit without ever actually saying what it’s about, but he’s intimately aware of the environment they grew up in, so.
But he doesn’t say either of those things, and they’re both still sulking a bit when the waitress (good hair, but please - that foundation is just way too chalky, never mind the overdrawn eyebrows) brings them dessert. Anyway, that’s when stuff gets fully weird. More weird than normal. (Nicaise fully realises that being the sort-of adopted ward of an affable semi-aristocratic frenchman barely into his thirties has shifted his baseline somewhat.) Weirdness that’s not even because Auguste, health nut, let Nicaise order a milkshake. Laurent didn’t order anything, because he’d retreated to his phone in a fit of pique. The other waitress had tried to take his order and he’d barely even acknowledged her, which had been weird, because Laurent was a dickhead, but not like that. Normally. See? Weird. Anyway, Nicaise had been forced to take drastic measures and pinch his thigh under the table. This was a move known to make grown men tear-up - Nicaise had cultivated his pinching ability for exactly that reason (the crying) - but Laurent had just swatted him away and said, icily, Nicaise, I am busy, which was such a shift from his carefree jacket-giving mood this morning that Nicaise was almost worried.
He always texts with his elbows up on the table, phone approximately an inch from his face, but Nicaise never says anything because he can’t wait for the meltdown when Laurent has to get glasses. He’s probably texting his boyfriend. Lame.
Nicaise is also on his phone - he’s roasting one of the freaks he’s forced to go to school with on snap - but under the table, because he has some fucking subtlety. Also because Auguste said he could pick dinner tonight too if he behaved, and Nicaise is going to have milkshake for lunch and tartiflette for dinner because he loves dairy and he deserves it.
Auguste says something cheery and inane, which is his soothing Sunday special, equivalent in its own way to Laurent doing coin tricks for babies on the tube. Nicaise doesn’t respond beyond an agreeing noise. Instagram is such a hole. What is this one even doing? He used to dance with this kid and his pliés have always been for shit, and someone has to tell him. For what other purpose were Nicaise and his finsta put on this Earth at the same time? He guesses Laurent doesn’t respond either, because Auguste settles back in his seat, a kind of pinched look pulling his eyebrows together.
There’s a TV playing in the corner, on the permanent news BBC news loop that every cafe in London seems tuned in to. Yes, the dubious subtitling, brexit breakdown and looming close-ups of faces exiting Cabinet meetings don’t add a huge amount to the experience, and yes, Auguste would have taken him to a velveteen dream in the heart of Chelsea if he’d asked, but deep down Nicaise priorities large stratticelli milkshakes and the good custard tarts over an instagrammable location. Auguste gets absorbed by that, giving nicaise the time necessary to string together a truly devastating emoji sequence for posting under a boomerang of a pas de deux that can only be described as flaccid.
“Maybe”, says Auguste abruptly, digging into his enormous slice of cheesecake, “we should leave without a deal.”
And that is how it begins.
Nicaise started living with them in 2016, and the day of the referendum he’d come home from ballet and followed the sobs to find Auguste face down on the sofa - feet dangling off the end - with BBC News just droning on in the background. There had been a packet of unopened Waitrose croissants tossed on the floor next to the sofa. He didn’t ask. He might now, but he couldn’t then, and also - it was pretty clear what was wrong. Even if Laurent hadn’t announced at dinner: Auguste is sad right now Nicaise, and it’s not your fault. It’s - “neo-fascists,” Auguste had wailed from the living room, which he refused to leave - because of Brexit, but we’re both citizens so don’t worry about us leaving, okay - Auguste had spent the next two days arranging ode to joy in a minor key on the baby grand and crying whilst he did so.
Nicaise has the fucking da-da-da-da-DA thump wail of this particular crisis branded on his mind for all time. Laurent too, if the furious sound he lets out is anything to go by.
So Nicaise does what anyone would do in this situation: puts his phone in his pocket as quickly as is humanly possible, in order to better appreciate the absolute shitfit that’s about to go down.
Laurent snaps his head up to look at Auguste and places his phone face down in the table, very deliberately. He laces his fingers together to rest his chin on them. He leans forward, very sweetly, and pronounces, calmly: “Auguste. What the fuck did you just say?”
Mulishly, Auguste enunciates “NO DEAL” around the cheesecake.
Laurent purses his lips and raises his eyebrows. “Oh yes?”
“Yesh” Auguste mutters defiantly, cheeks bulging.
Laurent gives him a look which would have felled a lesser man, and clears his throat. Nicaise is enthralled.
He continues talking, but like how someone might talk to a particularly slow Labrador, or one of Nicaise’s classmates.
“Auguste,” he says, “we are literally French.”
Auguste holds up two fingers, which might be fuck off but also might mean no, Laurent, we have dual nationality. There had been a lot of reassuring talk about that in 2016.
Laurent says something that is French, disparaging, and probably obscene, because no-one is willing to teach nicaise swearwords. Yet. He’s working on Vannes.
“And,” Laurent says, “the only reason we don’t have an EU flag hanging from an upstairs window is because you - and I quote - couldn’t bear it if a pigeon shat on it.”
Auguste grunts. Nicaise cant tell if that’s Auguste finally succumbing to the battering ram that is Laurent’s personality, or if all that saturated fat has made short work of his organs.
Laurent is distinctly unimpressed. “So you’ve just changed your mind.”
“Other people have! Well, Rees-M-.”
“If you mention a single member of the ERG right now I will stab you with a fork, okay?” Which is totally nicaise’s move but whatever. Auguste responds by cramming another huge chunk of cheesecake into his mouth.
Laurent rolls his eyes. Nicaise wants to do an instagram live so badly.
Auguste sort of sneers at Laurent. Also normally Nicaise’s move. With his mouth open. His mouth which is full of cheesecake. It’s so gross.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” says Laurent. I didn’t realise that overdressed vampire was your political idol.”
Auguste sputters something that sounds like ad hominem through his pudding.
Laurent responds with a volley of blistering commentary on the personal habits and choices of some names that Nicaise doesn’t recognise. It’s like watching tennis, if Serena had decided to come to London for the sole purpose of decimating the under sixteens squad at his school.
“Anything to add? No?” Laurent raises an eyebrow. Auguste glowers back. “Well, so glad to understand your new political stance,” he drawls, reaching for his phone again. Auguste frowns.
“Maybe,” snaps Auguste. “Maybe I think that this country could expend more energy on its nearest neighbours and their needs, rather than prioritising - prioritising -“ even Nicaise heads his voice crack there. Stuffing his mouth with cheesecake is not going to disguise that one.
Laurent widens his eyes, and puts his phone back down. “Oh, that’s what this is about? Okay -“ nicaise has definitely missed something, and Laurent’s voice is just oozing with faux-concern “-Well, I suppose exiting without a withdrawal agreement could really mess with residency agreements, couldn’t it? Not that you’d want that.”
Auguste finally swallows, and makes a face as if to say - who, me?
“No, of course not,” Laurent says drily.
Oh, Nicaise gets it now. This is about Laurent’s boyfriend. Who yes, did hit Auguste with his car, but that was like, once, over a year ago, and Auguste had only been in hospital for a week and Damen was just, incredibly fucking hot. Nicaise didn’t want Damen and his biceps to go back to Greece or Italy or wherever! He looked at Auguste reproachfully.
“- well I think I’d just reassure you - because you’d just miss him so much - that we could just get married, you know.”
Auguste’s eyes bulge.
Laurent carries on relentlessly. “It seems like a really good solution, now that I think about it. Just to make sure everything’s ok, you know?” His voice drips with insincerity. “You could play at the ceremony. Nicaise could be our ringbearer.” Nicaise bristles - he’s fifteen, not five - “maybe I’ll ask him today, just to make sure we don’t get caught out.”
“You!” Auguste erupts, “and that would-be murderer-“
Oh, come on, Nicaise thinks. Auguste had been dead for thirty seconds tops.
“are NOT getting m-m-“ Wow, Nicaise thinks, Auguste does look bad in purple.
“Married?” Laurent hisses, through this manic smile, leaning halfway across the table. “Married, is that what you’re trying to say?”
Thing is, where Nicaise grew up, this exchange would have only taken place at top volume, at night (so as to properly upset the neighbours), at a decibel level previously unknown to the human ear. And where he lived - before - there was no talking back at all. Laurent used to favour icy silence when upset, but then it was like he saw it made Nicaise feel like - like he was where he was before - and now he and Auguste have it out properly. Laurent is good at taunting at room-temperature. Auguste is hot-blooded, and it’s a bit more of a challenge for him. Composers, Laurent says dismissively, when he gets like that, as if he isn’t also descended from Europe’s premier line of musical savants.
Auguste is denying the possibility of any such union by decrying the unsuitability if anyone with such clumsy hands being within two hundred miles of Laurent, and Laurent is saying that that’s going to be a real problem when they get married, isn’t it. Etcetera. Nicaise thinks they’re probably going to get into the recurring bit soon where Laurent insists that Auguste’s feelings about Damen are all down to Laurent’s “failure” as an artist and Auguste denies this vehemently before he returns to being hit with the car in ever greater detail at ever greater volume. They’re both leaning so far forwards they probably have their foreheads pressed together - and that’s why they don’t see when Nicaise does.
Nice. Cat, pigeons, etc.
“Hi!” Damen announces, pulling over a chair. “Sorry I couldn’t make lunch. Overground suspended, you know.” Nicaise thinks huh and glances down at the phone in his lap, and thinks huh again .
“Who’s getting married?” Damen says with a smile, leaning down to press a smacking kiss on Laurent’s carefully face. “Auguste,” he says, nodding tentatively at the rictus of horror Auguste tend to adopt around him. He notices Nicaise and brightens up, reaching over Laurent to clap him on the shoulder. “Hey Nicky! How’s school?”
“Only one more year, you know,” he sighs, because Damen is so beautiful that he’s allowed to both call Nicaise Nicky and be considered a potential ally in his ongoing when will I be allowed back to ballet school campaign. Auguste hates the ‘let Nicaise go to the LSRB’ movement, because if Auguste had his way Nicaise would grow up to be a furniture restorer or something in Ealing. (Auguste just about managed to keep from murdering the last creep that looked at Nicaise wrong, but is unfortunately pretty bad at hiding his desire to disembowel anyone else that tries, and has difficulty understanding that ‘just not wearing tights in public or on social media’ is a reductive approach to tackling CSE. Laurent says they’re working on it.)
Anyway, it makes Damen laugh. “Hang in there, Nicky. You’ll get through it.” That would be annoying from anyone else, because obviously, Nicaise is going to bend the world to his will or die trying, but again; disastrously attractive. Nicaise used to think Damen sucked, but he’d been thirteen then and an idiot.
Nicaise assures him that he will, and Damen affably agrees, sitting down pressed up next to Laurent, bolder than he normally is in the face of Auguste’s wroth. It is a small table and this is London, and space is at a premium; that’s what Nicaise imagines Auguste desperate rationalisation sounds like, because if he has issues with the whole “people looking at Nicaise” thing, he would genuinely outlaw anyone getting within a foot of Laurent if he could. Damen puts his arm around Laurent with a look of such transparent adoration that Auguste’s left eyelid actually starts twitching. Damen steals a slice of apricot off Laurent’s plate and says blithely, still chewing, “so, who’s getting married?”
Laurent grasps the hand on his shoulder, which would look like an affectionate gesture to anyone who didn’t know Laurent and see it for what it was, which was the first coil of the boa’s tail constricting. Damen looks mildly alarmed. ( That’s the moment Nicaide knows that Laurent knows that the overground isn’t suspended today at all, and is pissed as fuck about it. Looking at Damen’s face, he thinks he gets that too.)
“Who?” Laurent asks, with poisonous sweetness. “Why, we are, aren’t we? Sweetheart.”
Nicaise, watching very closely, sees Damen’s hand spasm in Laurent’s grip. He leans a bit to see his expression but also to unpeel Auguste’s fingers from the glass he’s squeezing furiously. Damen, is - uh - not furiously repenting for his disrespect, or even laughing, like a man with zero self preservation might do?
He’s. He’s just beaming.
“Oh babe,” he says giddily. “Oh Laurent. You’re so clever, you’re so perfect -“ Nicaise sees Laurent uncurdle whatever was on his tongue as he tries to recalibrate, because Damen is still going - “of course you knew, I was a fool to try and hide it,” and then Damen is sliding off his chair, still talking, still beaming, still - no way - getting down one knee and reaching into his trouser pocket - the girls at the table behind them totally squeal - “you know everything.”
He pauses for a second to draw breath and says, eyes fixed on Laurent’s face, “I was keeping it at Jord’s,” - betrayed inhale from Auguste - “and you know what it’s like getting to Peckham, I had to get the bus to go and get it,” instead of anything like I love you.
Which is fucking inane but like - Laurent is looking at Damen, like Damen’s hit him with a car; Auguste is looking at Laurent; Nicaise is staring fixedly at the fucking closed ring box in Damen’s hands. Nicaise is acutely aware that everyone else in the cafe is staring, and also that Damen and Laurent are just looking at each other, mouths open. And yes, ten minutes ago Laurent was berating Auguste with what are clearly deeply held feelings because god forbid he see a therapist - but Nicaise had a shit childhood being alternately poor and exploited, and now he has a rich family and he gets to like things like weddings and rings and crying in public for happy reasons and his brothers getting married and shiny things because proposals means gems -
“Damen,” he hisses “the ring!”
“Wh-Wh uh “ says Damen, like he’s forgotten they’re there, turning so fast on his knees to look at him at that he sways into Laurent, who grabs at him to hold him steady.
“Show him the ring,” Nicaise says, quietly. “Go on.”
Auguste whimpers something that sounds a lot like No, don’t, so Nicaise slaps a hand over his mouth. Damen smiles at him gratefully. The waitress with the bad eyebrows totally takes a picture from behind the counter.
And the ring - well. It’s very beautiful. A brushed gold band, pave with sapphires, dark, dark blue. “Like your eyes,” Damen half whispers.
Sapphires darken when exposed to heat and pressure, Laurent had explained that morning, in the museum. Nicaise had looked at the reflection of their blue eyes in the glass, the deep and glossy stone. I like them , he’d said. They’re still beautiful . Auguste had hooked his chin over Laurent’s shoulder and squeezed them both in his arms. More beautiful.
Damen reaches up his other hand to cup Laurent’s face. “And I wanted to do it today, with your family here because I know how much you love them-“ Nicaise cringes, even though he feels bad about it, because oh my god that’s so embarrassing to say it out loud like that - “and I love you. I want to marry you. Will you marry me, sweetheart?”
Laurent leans forward, gentle, and murmurs something Nicaise can’t hear. Damen is still looking at him like he’s hung the moon. “Yes,” Laurent says, and starts to cry. (Also, gross, because he still looks nice, which is just so unfair because Nicaise has practiced and practiced and still looks blotchy as fuck whenever he tears up.)
And then, despite the fact that Nicaise is pretty sure there’s snot on Laurent’s face, he hauls Damen in by the ears and plants what Nicaise, an independent critical observer, can only describe as an absolutely filthy kiss on him.
The cafe cheers. Nicaise’s view is swiftly obscured as Auguste slaps a hand over his eyes and then, after a beat, his own.
So that’s Sunday.
——
Sunday evening’s even better. And by better, read ridiculous:
“I think we should get married soon. I don’t want to wait, you know?” Thus says Damen, mostly to Laurent, mostly avoiding eye contact with Auguste, who’s perched on the armchair behind Laurent, clutching a mug of restorative sweet milky tea that Nicaise magnanimously made for him. He looks like a malevolent blonde crow.
“Plus this way,” Damen adds, resolutely ignoring Auguste, “we can like, affirm your right to stay.”
What? Auguste coughs. Laurent says mildly - totally not listening, looking at his ring - “ your right to stay. I can do next Sunday?”
Damen looks so dopey when he smiles like that. “You wanna get married next week? Gonna get us a special license, babe?” Daringly, he squeezes Laurent’s knee. August makes a warning noise, which everyone ignores.
Laurent smiles and murmurs - ew - “I would if we could.” Gross! “But no, we’ll have to get you a spousal visa.”
Damen’s forehead crinkles. “Babe, why do you keep saying we have to get me a visa? We need one for you. You know I have a British passport, right?”
“Yes,” says Laurent, making it immediately obvious that he did not.
Damen looks at him, wry and amused. “It’s okay,” he says, “unless-!” A look of alarm crosses his features.
“I didn’t say I’d marry you just so you could stay,” says Laurent, fiercely. “I’m in love with you.”
“Oh,” says Damen, fondly. “How about that license?”
“Hey Auguste,” Nicaise says, a little while later. “Can I get my ears pierced?”