Chapter Text
getting out of bed that day was hard.
Today was an important day for him, dinner with Edward and his parents.
He breathed heavily and looked at the empty and cold spot in the bed which indicated that Edward was already getting ready for the photo shoot.
He got up from the bed, feet touched the ice-cold floor, when his body decided to cooperate with the mind, the dimness passed, he went out into the living room doing it as quietly as possible and saw him preparing his clothes. He decided to surprise him and crept from behind.
Edward was peeling the ferns off his emerald coat, unaware of anything.
He waited for the right moment and then slapped his buttock with a crash.
"OUCH-" Edward squeaked in confusion, immediately turned and followed Oswald who at that time ran to the kitchen.
The kitchen was separated from the spacious living room decorated in a minimalist style by a wall in the middle, so that there were two exits from the kitchen.
"GOT'YA" Oswald shouted back, sticking his head out from behind the wall.
"You know I'll have to do the same to you now, Ozzie?"
It wasn't an innocent joke now, it was a war.
"You can only try baby." The 'attacker' lips curled into a devilish smile.
Edward suddenly lunged at him, and Oswald's face looked horrified in the mocking sense of the word.
They made two laps around the wall until suddenly Edward changed direction and decided to confuse Oswald, when he reached the bend, he saw that Edward was gone, immediately and without thinking he turned and he was standing right on him. He gave him a chance to escape which the shorter man accepted.
He ran into the living room to face the glass coffee table, behind it was only a glass door leading to the terrace.
"It's over Oswald, I've got a better position from you." Edward said thinking it was over. Oswald was silent, took a half step to which Edward reacted immediately, moving in the direction Oswald was supposed to run.
But Oswald reversed his position, starting to run the other way.
"Oh you little-" Edward didn't finish the sentence, the chase was still going on.
Oswald barely made a corner and barely broke the lily vase, with Edward right behind him.
They both landed in their bedroom.
"So I guess it's over, Oz, I'll do it soon."
Edward approached the Lover.
"You're so childish, Edward." Oswald waved his hands in front of him and stepped back. It was a poor attempt to end this situation.
"Said the owner of the most popular club in this city, running away from his lover by a stupid spank." The taller man laughed.
“See, this game is stupid, can you just let it go, see?” Oswald continued to convince him.
"Hmm. I think we can work on it ..."
Edward walked over to Oswald and Oswald surrendered to him. Whenever his Edward talked about working on something that was about them, it would come down to another meeting in their bed.
Oswald did not even have time to agree to this offer because Edward's hand went down to the level of his buttocks and dealt a blow.
"It's not fair!" he said loudly, but still mockingly.
Edward tried to break out of his grip when Oswald stopped him and sank into his arms.
"Still want to work on it baby?" saying that, he waved his eyelashes coquettishly and Edward, without a word, pressed their lips together in a short kiss.
"I think we can work on it tonight when I get back from the session. What do you say?"
Oswald already had the answer, of course he did!
However, he did not have time to say it because it was interrupted by the ringing of the phone
Edward jumped out first.
And moments behind him himself.
When he leaned over the threshold of the room, he saw Edward with the phone in his hand.
The taller man took no notice of Oswald almost hidden behind the wall. Due to the fact that he was standing behind the wall, he could barely hear what his partner was saying, and who he was talking to.
"Oswald Cobblepot Apartment, How Can I Help You?"
" Oh I understand."
"I'm giving it right." covered the speaker with the back of his hand. "Ozzie-"
Oswald jumped out from behind the corner without a preamble, which made the bulging man jump up and at the last moment he swallowed a squeak.
"I'm here, who is it?" he asked to be sure.
"Your father, it's supposed to be urgent." Edward looked worried, he might have thought that if this urgent something unpleasant could have happened, luckily he didn't know what awaited him.
Oswald just sighed disparagingly and tearfully grabbed the phone.
"Hello Dad."
"Hello Oswald, I just wanted to remind you of our dinner tonight." As Oswald's father spoke, Edward had his long hands tangled around the man's waist.
Edward started kissing his neck. "Yes, Dad, I remember, you literally remind me of this every day for a week." He said at the end almost groaning.
"I can't wait to see this miss, she must be a wonderful wife-" When Edward heard this, his hands automatically left the waist of the shorter man.
Oswald cut him off with a humming noise "I can't hear you- HSHSHs-"
He quickly threw the phone back as if it had burned him.
" it was exhausting". He hissed under his breath.
Edward had obviously heard it and therefore backed off.
"What was that about honey? Why was your father talking about some lady and marriage?" He asked calmly.
Oswald wondered for a moment whether he should tell Edward that his father had dementia and was talking stupid things.
It would be the most immoral thing he would ever do.
Edward walked into their bedroom where his cosmetics were housed as he mended his hair and applied Oswald concealer as he pondered the answer.
A moment passed and Oswald decided to tell the truth. The truth that his hysterical boyfriend took calmly, without destroying their apartment in the process.
"Remember when I told you about that dinner?"
Edward hummed affirmatively, adjusting his lips as he waited for what would come next.
"So this dinner is tonight." the shorter man squeezed his eyes shut as if waiting for his boyfriend's fury. Now that he thought about it, he could have told him before.
The mere fact of their first dinner together with his parents was probably stressful.
Edward just looked at him through the mirror, eyes staring right at him.
His fury boiling inside him was huge already at this point, but he kept trying to keep it in check, after a while he slapped his tongue against the roof of his mouth and said, "When I come back from the session with Barbara, I think we'll be able to prepare something. Keep talking."
"And I said I have a life partner."
"You didn't give the exact gender so your father assumed it was a woman?" He said it as if it were obvious.
"Yhm," Oswald said, taking a step back just in case the following events would force him to flee the room.
"And I said we're married."
After a while he moved from his seat and went to the bedside table, he held a gold wedding ring in his hand, at the same moment he walked over to Edward and without a word put the object at his elbow. Still without a word, he returned to his place where he stood and watched the reactions.
Edward turned his head and when he saw the wedding ring he stood up and acted quite differently, all the jitters at dinner had vanished.
"Yes, of course you do! After all this time- I thought you would never ask!" Edward looked like a child on Christmas day enjoying the gift.
Oswald could not keep up with his partner's enthusiasm, he looked so beautiful when he was happy, he really did not want to ruin this - not real - moment.
"Edward, I didn't want to ask you to marry me" - The dark-haired man's face changed, from the happiest person in the world to a beaten puppy. - "- I mean, uh- I mean, I'd like you to pretend to be my husband, just wear a wedding ring and- Uhh, for them anyway that you turn out to be a man is going to be a shock and- and-"
Oswald knew he fucked up.
He spoiled it so much.
Edward was working on his eye now, putting on eyeliner, and when he heard Oswald tell him, it only took one inappropriate hand movement to ruin it all. He sighed as calmly as his mindlessness would allow him and began, "No Oswald! In our four years of relationship you haven't even asked about it! I have a feeling that it hasn't even crossed your mind! And now when we're talking about marriage, we're supposed to pretend it!? Are you on your head !? "Edward was screaming at him so badly that he felt his lover's throat tear.
“Don't think I'm stupid Oswald!” The short man froze, had a plan to escape the fury by just running out of the room without waiting for even the bedside lamp to hit him in the extreme case, but Edward marched in front of him and kept screaming.
"Oh stop it! You just need to put the wedding ring on your finger, only that will change and nothing else." Oswald said this being 100% sure he was right.
On the one hand, yes, but not on the other. For Edward, the words were like daggers in the heart.
"You make me feel like a regular sneak peak! A number for four years! Like ordinary-!" Frustrated, he searched for a better word for a moment, not wanting to break the vases. "- Whore!" He walked over to the place on the couch where his suit lay, not paying attention to how creased it would be, took it and headed for the bathroom.
He opened the door for him to enter but Oswald blocked the way with his hand, trying to control the totally ruined situation.
"It's not like that. I didn't mean it, I mean, but that's not the point. I mean my father is quite a 'conservative' man. He doesn't recognize living with his other half before marriage." He let him pass, trying to appease him.
"Yhm." Edward slammed the restroom door shut behind him.
Oswald sighed and began. "Not only are we not married, I also have to deal with the three parasites on my father's neck who can't see what Grace is doing with him!"
Another minute passed and Oswald just listened to the soft tapping in the bathroom.
"Eddie, honey, I'm sorry if I said something wrong. I really didn't mean to."
"You talk only about yourself all the time and first of all, we can be married at any moment, only you don't want it, you're just using me for your aborted plan to fall out better than your foster family! I'm a man in this town but I don't care! I'll come back for my stuff and you'll never see me again! " Edward tore out of the tear and only grabbed his bag, his black lacquered boots bouncing on the floor of the oddly quiet house.
Not even a moment later Oswald asked, "But how is that? Are you leaving me? At that point !?"
"Yes! I'm sick of this!" There was so much frustration in Edward that he jumped slightly as he spoke.
"Who's gonna make the dinner?" he said it to himself a little too loud and Edward heard him.
He turned to the shorter man and looked at him with a maddened smile and something that resembled satisfaction. "Surely not me! Ha! If you only need me to be your husband for the show, you better call brothel or housewive!"
Edward came out and slammed the door so hard that he could feel the liquid in the cup tremble and the lily vase on the table next to the door fell and shattered to pieces.
"I'm fucked."