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Bertie Wells was 4 and couldn't stop staring at his nurserymaid. The way her red curls bounced up and down like a spring everytime she turned fascinated him and he adored the frilly white lace cap those same locks were crammed under. But most of all Bertie Wells loved the green ribbons Miss Ellen would put in her hair for church on Sundays. Every week, he'd beg her to let him tie them into bows in her hair, just so he could feel the soft satin running through his fingers. If Bertie closed his eyes, he could almost pretend that he was tying the green ribbon into his own blond curls. One glorious Sunday, Daisy had gotten too fidgety in the growing spring heat and started to bawl, and been taken out amongst hushed frowns. Miss Ellen, flustered as she swept his sister out the door, had lost one of her ribbons and Bertie had snatched it up in his small, clumsy hands. Later, he had run to the Treefort after the sermon and reached into his waistcoat pocket to admire the ribbon's greenness in the dusty afternoon sunlight. Bertie tugged on a particular long haircurl and tied the ribbon in a perfect bow, like Miss Ellen had taught him when learning to tie his shoelaces.
She had found him, in the evening, trying to slowly shuffle baby Daisy asleep in a suitcase off a 'plank' in the Treefort, the green ribbon still in his hair flapping in the wind. Miss Ellen had told him "you're a cheeky pirate thief, Master Albert!", her Birmingham accent coming through in her mock anger and reminded him that his mother wouldn't like it. She'd also said he looked beautiful.
It wasn't exactly a secret to the people who knew him that Bertie Wells was into the finer things of life - however much his mother tried to ignore the way he stared at her jewelled brooches. He liked beautiful things, and unfortunately for him, these had always been things that girls were supposed to be into and that boys were definitely not supposed to be into. Several times, before he'd had to attend Eton and suppress bits of himself he hadn't even been aware that were wrong, he'd sneak away to his mother's bedroom on the weekends she was 'away in town' - code for her numerous affairs. Bertie would pull out the cool, creamy Wells' heirloom pearls from the fragile glass box, running them over his hands like he used to do with Miss Ellen's ribbons. When he was feeling brave enough, he would drape them around his neck - usually after a visit from his Uncle Felix, who somehow made Bertie feel like maybe he wasn't completely doomed and unloveable.
Now age 26 (nearly - it was his birthday that next Thursday), he'd seen war and its ugliness. Harsh, red firelight would fill his head and light up behind his eyelids until Harold coaxed him back, holding a hand to his head and kissing his jawline until Bertie came back to a room filled with gentle, yellow sunlight. He would do the same for Harold when fear about houses collapsing in the Blitz robbed him of sleep. Bertie would sit with him in bed, wiping away his tears as they sat foreheads together, and be enveloped with anger at the ugliness of destruction. He made it his life mission to surround himself with beautiful things. Harold, with his beautiful brown eyes, and laugh, and hair (especially in the morning) was absolutely a most brilliant, beautiful first.
It was that Thursday and Bertie Wells was officially 26 now, and everyone had come round to squash into their living room to celebrate. Hazel and Aleks resurfaced some crackers left over from Christmas and had salvaged the shiny paper crowns from them. Everyone had a different colour draped haphazardly over their head, Bertie's a wonderful, indicative green. They'd even managed to make a ¾ way decent chocolate cake (even with the war over, rationing was still in place).
"I've got a present for you!" Daisy trilled delightedly, grabbing his hand and pulling him into the kitchen.
"Why have you dragged me away, Squashy? You aren't planning to kill me, are you?" Bertie squinted at the tiny little gift bag in her hand.
"Ugh, no! If I was going to murder you, I wouldn't do it in the room next door to where everyone was, where they all know I'm alone with you! Far too obvious"
"Oh, cheers, I'm completely reassured now, yeah, thanks Squashy"
"Hush! Close your eyes and sit down"
Daisy pushed him into a kitchen chair, and despite her reassurances, Bertie was not feeling too not-about-to-be-cruelly-tricked. The silvery bag was pressed into his hand, and he opened his eyes slowly. He pulled out a shiny gold tube, and he knew what it was even before clicking the lid open to reveal the punch coloured wax. The lipstick was a wonderful, beautiful, deep pink, the kind Bertie dreamed about. His lip trembled as for one terrible moment he thought Daisy was mocking him.
"Bertie? I- well. I didn't want to possibly embarrass you in front of others. It is alright, isn't it?"
Bertie didn't say anything.
"Bertie? Do you like it or not?" Daisy was never very good at sympathy. Or patience. Bertie found his voice, and spoke.
"How... how did you know?"
"I'm not called the world's best detective for nothing, am I, Squinty! You used to smear Mother's lipstick on your wrists, and you once did that to mine, too! I know it wasn't Hazel - she despises lipstick, says it makes her feel all itchy, and you were the only other one in the flat with us that weekend!"
Bertie blinked as he remembered how it had been a hot day, and how English houses were built for insulation, not the searing heat. Daisy and Hazel had gone out for ices, and been gone far too long to not be detecting or making mischief or causing trouble - which were more often than not simply synonyms. Their shared bedroom door had been open, Hazel's bed neatly made and Daisy's covers thrown off like she couldn't bear to stay in it. The dressing table, Bertie thought to himself sarcastically, was filled with all the usual things a girl would have, magnifying glasses and gory murder mysteries and the like. Also sat on the dresser, almost forgotten, was a tube of lipstick. Trembling, he held it up to his mouth, and hesitated. Bertie was terrified that if he put it on it might stain his lips, like a horrid signal to everyone else that read FREAK, or worse, stain some spiritual part of him if he dared to run the stick across his mouth. Just this once, he swore, just this once, and I'll never do it again, I promise. He wasn't sure who he was promising to. The crimson had looked beautiful on him and he felt fearless in it but the door slammed, and Bertie, in his haste, had rammed the lid back in without rolling the wax back down. He had hoped the squished lipstick could be blamed on Daisy being too careless.
Bertie blinked as he came back to the present, Daisy smiling at him. She adored denouements, even ones as small as this. Bertie thought Daisy was another beautiful thing in his life.
"Now, Squinty, for the third time, do you like it or do I need to find the receipt?"
"I'm not supposed to like it"
Daisy took his hands in hers, and leant right in so she could glare intimidatingly in his face.
"I'm not supposed to like girls. And for that matter, you're not supposed to like boys, either" she said, airquoting 'supposed to'. Daisy took the gold tube from his hand and popped it open.
"But I do like girls, and you do like boys, and lipstick. And I-" she took his palm and drew a pink heart on it with the lipstick. "-simply don't care about all that at all"
Later, he and Harold were in their bedroom, Harold reading something or other about history and Bertie was picking an outfit for tomorrow. They'd done this routine every night for the past 2 years, and they would do it for several more. Routine was another beautiful thing to Bertie.
"What did Daisy get you?" Harold asked, glancing up from where Bertie could see he had scrawled all over the book. He didn't know how to answer.
"Oh... just something she'd knew I'd like"
It wasn't a lie.
"Which was...?" Harold was looking up at him properly now. He was horridiously good at knowing when Bertie was keeping secrets, though this was probably helped a lot by the pink flush that always rose to Bertie's cheeks when embarrassed.
"What on earth did she get you to make you turn that shade of pink, darling?" He was smiling bemusedly at Bertie, who had sank down on the mattress next to him. He must have clearly had a fearful look on his face, because Harold cupped his cheek gently and whispered to him "Bertie, darling, what's wrong?".
Bertie stayed silent, and Harold grew more worried. If he was bothered enough, Bertie wouldn't be able to talk, and this distressed him greatly, and so Harold sought to distract him.
"Oh! I haven't given you your birthday present yet..." Harold's voice trailed off as he rummaged around in his bedside drawer, hoping to cheer Bertie up.
"Really? I quite enjoyed the birthday present you gave me this morning..." Bertie said back, grinning mischievously, and Harold gave him a tame kick with his foot. At least he wasn't near tears anymore.
"Ah! Here it is!" Harold flourished the fancy, embellished box in front of Bertie's face, as he looked on interested. His fingers slid open the green satin bow ('just like Miss Ellen's', Bertie thought) and opened it to find pearls, beautiful ones, cool and creamy and just like at Fallingford, nestled in silvery tissue paper. Bertie thought the way the pearls all trailed after each other when you ran them through your fingers was like the tailend of a shooting star. He certainly intended on making many wishes upon the necklace, the first one being 'I wish these were mine. Please let them be mine'. Bertie stared at them delightedly, but he wanted to check they were his. Just in case. Just in case there'd been a mixup and he wasn't supposed to look so gleeful.
"Are... these for me?" Bertie said quietly, as he lifted the necklace out of the box.
"I gave them directly to you, with nobody else in the room, while saying I had a birthday present, for you. What do you think?" Harold teased gently.
He took the necklace dangling between Bertie's fingers - they clung onto it a fraction too long, like he was afraid Harold was going to snatch it away - and slipped it over Bertie's head. Adjusting it, Harold recounted the story of buying it to Bertie.
"This for your girl, sir?" The young shop attendant had asked, packaging up the pearls in bespoke tissue paper.
"Something like that..." Harold replied, adjusting the carnation in his pocket and smiling to himself.
"Ah... I see. Your soon-to-be girl, then?"
Harold pondered briefly whether to invent a lustful affair he was having with a married woman, simply for his own amusement, but gave up.
"That's right" he agreed, thinking about Bertie. He'd gone into the shop on a whim, the week before Bertie's birthday. He'd been eyeing up the necklace display every time they walked past it, though Harold knew he'd deny it vehemently if asked.
Bertie raised his eyebrows. "A lustful affair with a married woman? How sordid"
"Quite" Harold leaned in to kiss him.
"Daisy got me lipstick" Bertie blurted out suddenly. He stared at Harold, waiting for a reaction, and ready to bolt if it went south, and Harold stared back, refusing to let it. He gently lifted Bertie's freckled face up, cool fingers just under Bertie's chin, and ran a careful thumb over his slightly parted mouth. After seeing there was nothing on it, Harold posed a question.
"Why aren't you wearing it then?"
Bertie looked - and felt - like a deer in headlights, frozen in the light of another. He moved to get the lipstick, and slipped the gold tube into Harold's already open hand. His nimble fingers uncapped it, and again tilted his face up so he could apply the crimson lipstick. Bertie stared into his brown eyes as he did so and smiled at the furrow Harold's eyebrows were in as he concentrated.
"Don't do that! You've made it all...wonky, ruined it" Harold exclaimed.
"Weren't you going to ruin it anyway?" Bertie smiled. It had never exactly been unknown to Harold about Bertie's love for the finer things in life, and that was perfectly alright with him. More than perfectly alright. In fact, the sight of Bertie Wells shirtless, pearls round his neck and lipstick on, in their shared bed, was too much to bear and Harold leapt on him.
Bertie wasn't ashamed anymore. People loved him. Harold loved him, not despite, but because - because of the lipstick, because of the pearls, because Bertie was Bertie. He wanted to apply it a million times so Harold could smudge it a million more.