Work Text:
“Darling, do you want me to read what you have?”
Violet Bridgerton was not a helicopter parent. She had learned to cope with letting go. Her children appreciated her more as a stable presence in the background of their lives, prepared to help. So she bit her tongue when courtship challenged them. She celebrated their successes. And she paid for the weddings without questioning any style choices. But she couldn’t help noticing Colin’s marriage vows were taking years off his life. He was pale and stressed. He was going to look like he didn’t even want to marry Penelope!
“I’m okay I think. It’s just . . . the tone is very specific.”
He seemed frustrated, and the bar was high. He was a writer, but Penelope was as well. She had a very swift and clever way with words. Colin managed wonderful things, but he had to chisel it out of a large rough draft. His method was labour intensive. All of his ease with people stopped when he had to write more than his name on a birthday card. Penelope was his perfect opposite, with all of her confidence coming from writing down what she thought.
“Can I look? I’m just curious.”
He handed the page to her, and she held it gently. It was the message of his heart to his bride.
“‘You do not need me, and that is your greatest beauty.’”
She tried not to show her confusion. He shook his head. “I know it’s not right. It’s correct but I’m saying it wrong. Pen said she doesn’t want a lot of flowery language and bulk. Simple and true. Love isn’t always nice. I’ve not always been nice.”
“It’s not bad, but I feel it’s going to sound bad to a group of family and friends.”
“She did it so well, but mine comes off very stark. It’s not that I don’t think she’s beautiful in many ways, or that I don’t want to be there for her. But she chose me. I’m a luxury. She can do without me and does not want to,” Colin said. “I shouldn’t have read her vows but I thought it would help me. Now I’m just intimidated.”
Violet stroked his hair and felt him resist a flinch. He did have his pride, and he was more Penelope’s than his mother’s. It was as it should be. He would be very loved in his marriage. She could not imagine how her feelings would be given in brief.
“What did she write, Darling? Maybe I can help if I see it?”
He looked rueful but proud. He had wasted years trying to date other women when his was across the street since he was nine. Colin brought out a folded sheet and she watched him open it with a sigh. It was sentimental just to think of his wedding. His life truly changed with Penelope, but the official step to combine them forever was enormous for the family.
“‘Some Buddhists ask for sky burial, which is shocking for many people. Their bodies are cut up and left for the vultures at the top of a mountain that eat their flesh in a final act of charity. The bones are gathered once they are cleaned, and the person is nourishment for the living world. The greatest love you can show me is to scatter my corpse for the vultures and be glad you knew me.’”
Every word was read with the tenderness her son showed taking his fiancee’s hand, or in one of the light kisses he would give her in front of his mother. He was visibly moved, to the point there was a level of fear in how much it resonated.
“I am not sure anyone has used dismemberment in a wedding,” she said. “But it is part of a life together to think about the fleeting time together. And it’s lovely in a way, to think of entrusting someone with your lasting connection to everything.”
Colin folded the paper as if he needed to keep it safe. “It should make me panic to think of her dying, but instead it feels like knowing death won’t stop us.”
He was always quick to cry, almost as easily set off as she was. They were both blinking furiously, and she giggled. “My goodness, that is a very intense vow. I can see how you are having trouble going so incisive without losing the joy of it,” Violet said. “You are a very good writer, but she is a very, very good writer. You will be a trophy husband.”
Colin smiled, and glanced instinctively at the direction of the Featherington house. He would drift there if he walked without purpose, seeking her at her mother’s home.
“I suppose I will be something like that. I have had many people supporting me, but Pen is the one who inspired me to be better in the ways that feel real,” he said.
Violet couldn’t resist patting his cheek, though she was swept up in a hurricane of Colins at various ages and sizes, small enough to hold up to his current rather large presence. He was still so loving and gentle. A large part of that surviving the world was knowing Penelope and getting so much reassurance she liked him in his effusive and kind ways.
“That sounds like a good start to answering her vows,” she said. “I imagine you could work in something gory if you like. Perhaps amnesia or a disfiguring trampling at Pamplona.”
He cringed, both of them well aware she was never going to forgive him for joining the running of the bulls while travelling alone in his late teens. Colin had been able to keep pace just fine, but he was her son. He was good when the world was not, and she was glad he had a woman who understood that was not weakness. He needed a home of his own to structure his desire to see everything and try out a good deal of it.
“I’m lucky my vows are first,” Colin said. “Or I’d have to work cannibalism into it with graphic detail. Probably better I go lighter so hers can have the punch it deserves.”
Violet shook her head. Her children would never be boring people. “It is still in a church. There will be elderly people there,” she said. “Go write some of this down. I can see you are drafting it in your head.”
She would spend more and more time giving him to Penelope over the following months. She would plan it and pay the bills that came with his brother, Anthony’s, rolled eyes and grumbles. And when the vows came, she was the only one crying before the first word and who did not jump at the very modern version of love they pledged.
“I’m not a good listener, I’m kind of whiny, I get restless and feel like there’s something out there somewhere I’m missing,” Colin said, his eyes fixed on Penelope even with notes in his hand. “I’m going to be your trophy husband except I’m not good at that either. It doesn’t fit the level of emotional attachment I feel with you. But you’re used to it, and you know how to take all my glitches and make them enhancements. You’re wonderful, and it’s not a competition - except I dare you to love me more than I love you. You can’t do it. I’m going to win.”
The startled congregation jumped when Penelope laughed loudly, shaking her head as her wit was tickled.
“You cannot win!”
“I’m winning right now,” Colin said. “You’re fucking doomed to lose.”
“Colin Bridgerton,” Violet said, gesturing at where they were and the solemn occasion.
“Sorry,” he said, bowing oddly to the room and then looking apologetically at the minister. “Sorry.”
There was a shuffle of gown and a moment to tidy Penelope’s rather traditional veil off her face before she spoke her own vows. The couple actually had the nerve to look shy as Colin touched her hair. Then Penelope was meeting his eyes and her vows flowed like a river he’d wished to drown in.
“Some Buddhists ask for sky burial, and their bodies are cut up and left for the vultures at the top of a mountain. Those birds eat their flesh in a final act of charity. It is a way to rejoin the living world and nurture it. I always felt left out until you noticed me noticing you much earlier - and loving you more. You have become my doorway to a bigger world that used to scare me. The greatest love you can show me is to scatter my corpse for the vultures and be glad for our lives together.”
And Colin, who was so dearly in love, managed to make it even more indecent but somehow sweet at the same time. As part of his video diary of his trip across the United States, his followers had seen him falling deeply in love with Penelope. They had flocked to fund a wedding, even when Colin insisted he made good money to afford a wife and so did Pen. And a lot of them had asked to see the wedding, even if it was just a video released months later. The bride and groom had tiny microphones hidden in their beautiful clothing, and Colin only remembered to cover his when he leaned in to whisper.
“My love is pretty big, Pen. Still winning, but not as much as later,” he said. “But I’ll make sure you win twice.”
The comments section from their public wedding video was spirited, though they did have to make a followup video quickly to reassure some fans Penelope was not terminally ill but very, very morbid in her affections. They were never beating the horny image that was far more than rumour, but did not need that much confirmation. It was a strange thing for a mother to be proud of, but it boded well for grandchildren.