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The Nightray family was no stranger to scandal. It came part and parcel with being one of the richest families in the nation—everyone was up in their business, and due to some deeply unfortunate rumors, very few people actually liked them from reputation alone. Elliot and all of his siblings were very experienced in keeping their affairs private and acting as upright as possible whenever around anyone who might leak any drama to the press and twist it to make it look bad. Elliot had gone to such lengths to have a private life that he’d even hidden his relationship with his boyfriend Leo from absolutely everyone except for the siblings closest to him in age and in general—Gilbert and Vincent—and his best (and only) friend, Oz Vessalius, who had similar experience with the media, though typically people were far more fond of the Vessalius family—fond enough that Oz’s father, Xai, had been able to easily shake off child abuse convictions and continue making his living through society with very little difficulty, despite the extremely public court case.
This was why it came as such a surprise when Vincent eloped.
Technically, the elopement itself was not surprising, because nobody in the family knew what he’d done, and Vincent disappearing with no word for weeks on end wasn’t all that odd. The surprise came when he returned and informed them all that he’d gotten married.
At first, their father had demanded that he vet the girl Vincent had proposed to; Vincent rebutted this with the information that she had proposed to him, as he stood on the edge of the highest bridge in town and prepared to jump. Claude had said something snide about how Vincent should have responded by jumping; Vincent shot back that it wasn’t a good look for Claude, to be jealous of another man’s romantic achievements. Their mother had requested that they meet his fiancée in order to properly prepare for the wedding; Vincent informed her that the wedding had been a month and a half prior, and he’d just returned from the honeymoon. Fred had said something about loose women marrying him for his money; Vincent regaled them all with seriously sexually explicit stories of their apparently very busy honeymoon and his future as a trophy husband, since apparently his wife was at the top of her field and was going to be supporting them both.
Throughout this entire conversation, Gilbert had remained entirely silent. Honestly, out of all of their siblings, Elliot had always suspected Gilbert of being the one most likely to end up a trophy husband; as much as he loved him, Gilbert had pretty much no marketable skills unless he wanted to become a full-time maid, but he was also hot, objectively, and had women and men falling over themselves to flirt with him. Even Oz had said that he was considering marrying Gilbert for his looks and housekeeping skills alone, though he had promised Elliot never to say or think any such things ever again when Elliot threatened to kill him moments later.
Thankfully, Oz and Gilbert had never met; Elliot did not want to think about his friend ogling his older brother.
Ever since Vincent’s announcement of his marriage, however, the Nightray family had been in chaos. Leo thought it was absolutely hilarious and made Elliot keep completely on top of all the new gossip, and made sure to tell absolutely everyone they knew and trusted about it, which was how they’d ended up in their current situation.
“Oh, yeah,” Oz was saying, “Ada’s run off and eloped too. I think it might be going around.”
“What was it like?” Leo asked.
“Her wedding?” Oz asked. “No clue. I mean, I’ve heard it was pretty nice. Pretty small, too. I’m pretty sure that only our Uncle Oscar and a childhood friend of ours were invited.”
“Wait, you weren’t?” said Elliot.
“Oh,” Oz said with a slight laugh, “no, of course not.”
“I think it’s a dick move not to invite your siblings to your wedding,” Elliot grumbled.
Oz shrugged. “I mean, I can’t speak for Vincent, but Ada and I are still kind of rebuilding our relationship, you know? We hadn’t spoken for like ten years, and besides, I seriously doubt the friend would have attended if I had gone. They’ve been friends for the past decade, and I literally haven’t heard from him at all. He wouldn’t have been comfortable with me there.”
“Why not?” Elliot demanded. “Your sister got married. ”
“Elliot, stop projecting,” said Leo. “Oz and Ada’s relationship is different from yours and Vincent’s.”
“I’m just saying, it’s fucked up,” Elliot grumbled. “He didn’t say anything. Oz—did you know that Ada was getting married before she did it?”
“She texted me that night and told me a little bit about it,” Oz replied. “Like, who was there and stuff. I still don’t know who her husband is, though. But Leo’s right. It’s okay that you’re upset with Vincent. That sounds like it was a massive shock.”
Elliot scowled and looked away. “Yeah. I mean, I know he’s had his…differences with the rest of us. And he always says that he only cares about Gilbert. But—I thought—I don’t know. It’s stupid.”
“It’s not,” Oz and Leo chorused.
“I thought—he cared about me too,” Elliot gritted out, ashamed for even thinking it. “I thought I was different from them.”
During Xai Vessalius’s trial the previous year, Elliot, who had followed the entire thing, had only cried once: when he listened to testimony and learned that his friend’s treatment at the hands of his abusive father mirrored his adopted brothers’ treatment at the hands of the older Nightrays and their parents. Ever since then, he’d tried to improve his relationship with his brothers, but—but he supposed it was too late. There was no point. Why, after all, would they waste their time and energy on someone who had stood by and let them be abused for years on end?
“Elliot,” Oz said, “relationships take time, you know? I’m sure Vincent does care about you. And Gilbert. Maybe he didn’t tell you about his wedding because he didn’t want to make trouble for you with your other siblings?”
“Vincent lives off of trouble with our older siblings,” Elliot said, rolling his eyes. “You should have seen him yesterday. He looked like a kid at an amusement park. It would have been funny if it weren’t so fucking irritating.”
“Oh, no, the horror of erotica,” said Leo.
“It is horrible when I’m hearing about my brother’s sex life!” Elliot screeched. “He went on for three hours! And at the end of it, he said, we’re into kinkier things, too, but I decided not to grace your ears with them today. Can you believe it?!”
“Yes,” said Leo.
“Definitely,” added Oz. “With everything you and Break have told me about Vincent? I’m kind of surprised he didn’t go on for longer.”
“I’m relieved he didn’t,” Elliot grumbled. “It’s serious bullshit, that’s what it is. I don’t want to hear about my brother’s sex life!”
“If I ever fuck your brother Gilbert, I won’t tell you,” Oz assured him.
“I hate you so much.”
“I love you too,” Oz said cheerfully.
“I am so glad that you and Gilbert have never met,” Elliot said baldly. “If you’re this down bad from only seeing him in magazines, I would hate to see what meeting him in person would do to you.”
“What, are you afraid that we would no longer be the only friends Oz has made through poor one-night-stand choices?” Leo asked.
“Excuse you, if I ever meet Gilbert Nightray I’m proposing on the spot,” Oz said cheerfully.
“Oh my God, kill yourself,” Elliot told him.
The conversation then devolved, as all of their conversations did eventually, into petty squabbling, first over Oz’s rights to lust after Elliot’s siblings, and then into their respective tastes in books, and then into whose turn it was to pay. Eventually, Oz won the right by claiming that Elliot had been traumatized by Vincent’s elopement, and Elliot and Leo made it halfway home before they remembered the chart that the three of them had drawn painstakingly to stop this exact situation from occurring.
Two more days of Nightray infighting passed before Elliot got a phone call from Vincent.
“Please don’t tell me more about your sex life,” Elliot said as soon as he picked up.
“But Elliot darling, I’m married to the most beautiful, sexy, and terrifying woman in the world. Why wouldn’t you want to hear about it?”
“Because you’re my brother and also I’m gay,” Elliot said. “And, more importantly, you’re my fucking brother. I don’t want to hear about my brother’s sex life, that’s nasty.”
Vincent laughed.
“Vincent, seriously, I will do anything. Also, I sent you a wedding bribe of lube and condoms to keep your damn mouth shut about your sex life, and I’ll send an actual present soon enough, assuming I don’t have to bleach my brain out again.”
“I wasn’t actually calling about that, but thank you very much,” Vincent said cheerfully. “Our mother has worn me down, and there’s going to be a wedding reception in two weeks—publicly celebrated, of course, to show unity and avoid scandal. You all will meet my lovely bride there.”
“Are you going to be attending nude?” Elliot asked.
“There’s an idea,” said Vincent. “I was planning another way to ruin the day for everyone, though. It involves you. Are you interested?”
When Elliot was one year old, his brother Vincent was adopted. When he was three, he would toddle after him as fast as possible, wanting to be just like him. When he was six, Vincent’s blood brother had been adopted and he’d stopped paying any attention to Elliot unless Gilbert paid him attention first. When he was fourteen, he wrote all of his siblings songs, because he’d had a great idea for a song he thought Vincent would like, and decided to do that for everyone so that it would be less embarrassing, but Vincent had never once listened to the song Elliot had written.
“Fuck yeah,” said Elliot. “What do I need to do?”
Vincent’s smirk was audible over the phone. “You’re the only person who gets a plus one,” he said. “Preferably, Leo would be your date, since the two of you have been dating since you were, like, toddlers—”
“We didn’t even know each other when we were toddlers,” Elliot said.
“Well, since whenever it was you met,” said Vincent, Leo’s cousin, who had introduced them. “I’d be happy if you brought any man, though. My second choice would be Oz Vessalius—that would be prime-time entertainment and scandal.”
“Sorry, never met him,” Elliot lied. “I’ll make sure to bring a man with me, though.”
“Thank you,” said Vincent. “How are Leo and Oz doing, by the way?”
“Leo is doing well, he’s been taking over more of his family business lately, and he’s in talks for a new book,” Elliot said, and then proceeded to gush about Leo’s writing for the next thirty minutes.
“Sounds fascinating. I won’t pre-order it,” said Vincent, who, unbeknownst to Elliot, was in fact subscribed to Leo’s newsletter about his books and did in fact plan on pre-ordering it, though the odds of him ever reading it were incredibly slim. “And your other boyfriend?”
“Just because we have threesomes sometimes doesn’t mean we’re in a polycule,” Elliot said, rolling his eyes. “It’s a FWB thing. Also, I don’t know anyone named Oz Vessalius. And also, apparently his sister pulled the same sort of elopement bullshit you did, and he’s just glad that she told him she was married at all, because there’s so much wrong with him. Which, coincidentally, is why I wouldn’t date him ever.”
“If you want to pretend to be a polycule, I could give you two plus ones,” Vincent suggested.
“No way in hell.”
“Alright, alright,” said Vincent. “I’ll see you at the reception. Do cause trouble for me, baby brother!”
“Definitely,” said Elliot, and the line went dead. He grinned like an idiot for a moment before tossing his phone down and bolting through his and Leo’s apartment to the office. “Leo! Hey, Leo!” he shouted.
“What?”
Elliot practically fell through the doorway, grabbing onto it to stop his momentum. “Hey. Wanna help me fuck with my family?”
Leo grinned viciously at him. “Abso-fucking-lutely.”
The two weeks before the reception absolutely flew by. Elliot and Leo made sure that they both looked their best, drilled each other on their cover story (they were going to gaslight the other Nightrays into thinking that Elliot had come out to them around the same time that he’d come out to Gilbert and Vincent), and practiced etiquette—which was to say, Leo brought home multiple books on the damn thing and made sure that Elliot could perhaps be mistaken for someone with a PhD in being polite, or maybe a society debutante from a hundred years prior.
This was not because Leo wanted to make a good impression on the Nightray family. It was because he wanted the tabloids to be on their side during the fallout.
Oz Vessalius had been no help in teaching Elliot how to be polite, despite the fact that Elliot was certain that he was one of the people with a PhD in politeness. He had apparently had dinner with his sister and her new husband recently, and still seemed to be riding that high: he laughed his ass off whenever the reception was mentioned.
In the end, they didn’t need his help. The two of them arrived just on time, wearing suits with matching corsages and holding hands. Elliot smirked a little as cameras snapped pictures of them, and Leo waved almost bashfully as they walked past and into the venue.
Elliot had to hand it to his sister and mother: the place looked amazing. It was decorated and catered perfectly—there was a lovely wedding cake—it was filled with family members and appropriate guests. It truly looked like a loving family’s celebration of their son’s small, private wedding.
Too bad it would all be in ruins, soon.
Elliot gladly introduced Leo as his boyfriend of five years to everyone they met, and it only took five minutes for Vanessa to come over, face twitching with barely concealed rage, and grab his arm and pull him away from Leo and off to the side.
“What the fuck is that,” she snarled.
“What?” Elliot asked.
“Why did you bring a man as your date?! People are going to think you’re a faggot!”
Elliot was terrible at faking emotions; luckily, he did not have to fake the hurt morphing into anger. “Leo and I have literally been dating for five years, Vanessa,” he shot back. “I’ve already introduced him to all of you! What are you so upset about?”
“You—you’ve what,” she said. She shook him. “You are not! And you didn’t!”
“I did!” Elliot shot back. “And I came out as gay ages ago! Why are you acting surprised?!”
“You’re what ?!” Vanessa screeched.
“Gay!” Elliot shouted back. “I’ve been out for years! God, don’t you ever listen to me?!”
The venue went silent for just a moment, and then exploded. Elliot’s other siblings rushed over. A massive argument began—Elliot had known they were all homophobic to some extent, but they’d said supportive things to the media, and God, this stung—he shoved away and stormed back over to Leo, wiping his eyes, letting people see the hurt on his face even though that went against years of practice at letting strangers see him as invulnerable and unbreakable, and then curling up to lick his wounds alone.
“This is bullshit,” he said to Leo, completely ignoring the shouting at his heels.
“Oh, absolutely,” Leo agreed cheerfully, reaching up and wiping away a few tears on his face. “Want a tea sandwich?”
“Yeah, sure,” Elliot said. “We’re here for Vincent anyway.”
Vanessa grabbed his arm. “Don’t just run away when I’m talking to you!” she shouted.
“What, like you had anything important to say to me?!” Elliot yelled back. “Screw you! This isn’t your day anyway, it’s Vincent’s!”
She slapped him. It stung; it was not surprising or new. “Like he has ever mattered?! You are of Nightray blood! You should know better than to disgrace us like this!”
“You’re the disgraceful one if you truly believe that, and if that’s how you treat your family,” Leo said coldly. “Let’s go, Elliot.”
They walked away—people were already gossiping about the family drama that had gone down, and provided enough of a buffer, both social and physical, that neither was followed.
“I hope Vincent liked his appetizer,” Elliot sighed, leaning his head against Leo’s. “That sucked ass.”
“On the bright side, you kept your temper in check enough that we’ll probably come out smelling of roses,” Leo replied, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Hopefully this will help my book sales, too.”
“Something good’s got to come out of this, at any rate,” Elliot agreed.
“It’ll be great for tabloids,” Leo pointed out.
Elliot snickered, and then the two of them were laughing together, in a world that contained only the two of them. By the time they tuned back in, the initial buzz of gossip that had risen after Elliot’s fight with Vanessa had died down slightly; then, the doors to the terrace opened and Vincent came in, in a beautiful white wedding dress, Ada Vessalius in an exquisite tuxedo on his arm.
“Holy shit, ” Elliot whispered in sick glee as the room exploded. Vincent and Ada seemed to float above the crowd, radiant, in love—they described their wedding as a small family affair and thanked Elliot for his very sweet and useful wedding gift (ew)—they publicly announced that Vincent had taken Ada’s last name to spite tradition.
An even larger fight broke out after this, and the happy couple absconded, Vincent carrying his radiant bride, the two of them laughing as they left the party in ruins.
“Holy shit,” said Elliot. “He has outdone himself.”
Leo nodded seriously. “I do not want to get involved in his anniversary gift to her,” he said. “Shall we steal the cake and go home?”
“Hell yeah,” said Elliot, and they went to pile plates with heaping mounds of cake and prepare to buckle down and brave the media storm.