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Charlie Dowd leant against the wall with a half-drunk flute of champagne in his hand. It wouldn’t have been his go to choice but hey booze was booze, and he’d enjoy it when he could- especially since he wasn’t the one having to pay for it.
He watched as guests danced to music coming from a jazz band situated on a plinth towards the far end of the room close to a well-stocked bar swarming with rich bastards invited by him and Rolands current employer to enjoy an evening of revelry and vice. The prick was hosting a party after inviting Arkham’s upper crust to a private viewing of some art exhibition before it opened.
Charlie didn’t mind art, in fact, there was quite a few pieces he was rather fond of, but this exhibition he minded since it was chock full of works looted during the war.
It made his stomach churn knowing that while him and his fellow soldiers were and losing their lives to some godforsaken dream built from lies and misguided patriotism, wealthy bastards like this one had been taking their pick of items from the abandoned towns and cities that had dotted the French countryside.
None of the people in this room had been affected by the war.
None of them had to watch as their friends’ feet rotted inside waterlogged shoes.
None of them had to go over the top day after day not knowing if this time would be the last time they breathed clean air, or even air at all.
None of them had been rocked to sleep by the shuddering of the earth while their trench was being bludgeoned by artillery fire.
None of them had to cradle the head of their best friend as he lay bleeding from a gunshot wound. Giving false reassurances how it would all be fine and that they would meet again, even when all thoughts of heaven had been purged from their minds by living in hell.
No. All these people had to do was drink, make merry and kiss the ass of whoever had the most money. You don’t have to fight when your pockets are deep enough to hide from the storm.
As Charlies thoughts tumbled further into vitriol, his gaze wandered unseeing across the crowd of dancers, until it fell upon a familiar sight. His mind slipped from its turmoil as he watched his partners spinning in the centre of the crowd. He watched as Delphine tipped her head back, hair bouncing as she laughed at something Roland must’ve whispered into her ear.
They stood out from the crowd like rays of light bouncing off polished gold. The most valuable people in a room filled with false gems and fine metals.
Although a few guests attempted to make polite conversation with him, Charlie was far too transfixed by the passage of his lovers across the ballroom to be of any real company.
How he wished he could join them.
While in private him and Roland were partners in both senses of the word, here Roland was a married man and Delphine his wife. Plus, Charlie supposedly had a job to do.
Their employer believed that one of the paintings being exhibited had the potential of being targeted by members of an unnamed cult that had recently appeared in the state, due to its supposedly accurate depiction of somewhere called Hyperborea, and since he and Roland had begun to make a name for themselves by specialising in the otherworldly their employer had turned to them to ensure its protection.
The detectives had decided that they should make the most of this opportunity to mingle with high society by requesting that an invitation would be extended to Delphine so that they could attend as a trio, Charlie despite how out of place he felt didn’t regret the decision in the slightest.
Once the song was over and the musicians took a break at the bar, his partners weaved their way out from the dance floor. A massive grin was plastered across Delphine’s face as she dragged a laughing Roland behind her while they made their way to Charlie’s vantage point. Upon reaching him Delphine threw her arms around his neck and giggled into his ear,
“Hiya Dowd, how full is your dance card this evening?”
“I’m afraid it’s completely empty” he replied while regaining his balance.
Roland placed a hand in the middle of Charlies back to support him as he righted himself, Delphine still dangling from his neck, before moving his grip to Charlie’s side and saying,
“Well, we can’t be having that, Delphine, love, would you be willing to dance with our dear Mr Dowd for me?”
“With pleasure” she said as she stood on her tiptoes in order to peck the cheek of her husband before setting about untangling herself from the shorter man she was clinging onto and taking his free hand in hers. Leaning down to plant a kiss against it as if she were a gentleman, she asked,
“Mr Dowd would you do me the honour of giving me this dance?”
After taking another sip from his glass before handing it to Roland, Charlie was led into the crowd by his partner. He watched as Roland made himself comfortable where Charlie had been standing as he was swept into the sea of dancers.
Charlie often thought of himself as having two left feet, both of his loves’ ability to dance far surpassed his own, nevertheless he led Delphine as the two of them sailed along the throng of bodies.
It was strange to be the one in the lead of a dance, usually he let one of his partners take the role due to his aforementioned lack of dance skills, but he managed to stay in time without standing on his lover’s feet, which he took as a win.
It was nice in the same strange way that most of this evening had been. All of it felt performative, the clothes, the people, the way he had to act around his partners.
It felt as if he had to use all his energy to chip away at the barrier blocking both his mind and actions just to be able to see the glimmers of light that his lovers brought through the cracks.
As he ruminated on the evening his mind began to spiral. He didn’t feel like he fitted in here, all the ways he would act around the people he loved had changed. Delphine and Roland had been married long before him and he couldn’t act as he wanted to towards either of them outside of their home, making him an afterthought in situations like this.
He couldn’t fault them. There were many days that he would question why they even kept him around.
When he asked them, the answer was always the same: because they love him.
He didn’t understand what he had done to deserve them in his life, what he had done to deserve their love.
His treacherous mind continued to warp his feelings, twisting them towards the pain he had been reliving earlier.
They would always have each other, and they would continue to do so even if he disappeared. He had just barged into their life, forced them to deal with him and his issues and for some godforsaken reason they loved him.
Anyways, even if he did matter as much as either of them, he could never show it. He couldn’t let Delphine lead him across the dance floor or find Roland to drag him over to dance with the two of them.
“…Charlie?”
Delphine was speaking to him, she had her hands on his cheeks, cupping his face as she tried to get his attention.
“Charlie, come back to me love.”
He unfurled from whatever space he had retreated to within his mind to find himself stood stock still in the middle of the dancefloor. No one else paid him any attention bar a few dirty looks.
“There you are, I thought I’d lost you. Was it the war? I knew I shouldn’t have let you convince Roland to take the job” Delphine spoke quickly, her words tainted by worry and Charlie’s heart shattered at himself being the cause.
He grimaced and Delphine looked up at him in a way only she could.
Charlie kept a tight lid on his emotions, and they rarely showed on his face, it was very useful when playing cards with Amanda, but Delphine somehow was able to read him like a book- he had long since given up attempting to win when playing cards against her.
Her brow tightened and she moved her hands further up his face as she said sharply
“Listen to me Dowd and listen to me well: so help me God if you say one word about not being good enough for either Roland or I, I will drag you out of here with your tail between your legs before you can get any sort of excuse out of that pretty mouth of yours. Are we clear?”
Her face softened as she continued,
“We love you Charlie, our life isn’t complete without you in it. I will never forget the day Roland brought you to my doorstep, starved and shaking with grief. After you had gone to sleep, he begged me to let you stay for more than the one night. I had my reservations, and I never would’ve thought that in a years’ time you would be sharing our bed as well as our hearts. But when I met you, and I mean truly met you, after you and Roland had begun working together, I understood what our Roland had seen in you. Despite how much you tell yourself that you are terrible you can’t deny the fact that you have a good heart and look around, how many people in this room would you say had one of those?”
“Fuck all,” he mumbled, unable to meet her eyes.
“You’re worth more to me than all the paintings and people in this room put together. And besides,” she chuckled, “Who else is going to teach Amanda those terrible card tricks of yours?”
Sufficiently chastised, Charlie gave up on trying to keep his head up and rested his forehead on Delphine’s shoulder as she took his right hand in hers. Moving his left to her waist she began to subtlety lead him across the dance floor.
When he looked up from the dip between neck and collarbone, he caught sight of Roland, radiant in the golden glow emanating from the chandelier, watching him and Delphine as they danced.
A glimmer of hope in the filth of humanity, filth that meant nothing while he was safe in the arms of one of his loves and held the gaze of the other.
Roland and him only made eye contact for a few seconds, but that was all it took for Charlie’s mind to melt as Roland raised Charlie’s now empty glass to him before Charlie was once again whirled into the crowd.
Later that night, Amanda long since having been put to bed by a friend who had been willing to babysit, jazz music hummed softly across the living room from a record player.
Roland and Charlie danced together the lights bathing them in a crushed orange haze. Delphine sat watching them from a chair, occasionally stealing sips from Charlie’s glass of whiskey that had been placed on the sideboard next to her. Watching contently as her boys freely danced together within the privacy of their own home.
She hoped it would stay like this forever, her, Amanda and her partners safe and happy together.
Hearing a laugh from Roland she looked up to catch sight of his face being peppered with kisses by a half-drunk Charlie standing on his tiptoes. A light blush dusting his cheeks as he consistently tried and failed to kiss the tip of the other mans nose.
Locking eyes with his wife over Charlie’s head Roland flashed her the lopsided grin she had fallen in love with and whispered something she couldn’t quite catch in Charlie’s ear (as he bent down Charlie was finally able to complete his mission and looked very pleased with himself, before grinning at whatever it was that Roland had said to him).
Charlie danced his way towards her chair and flopped over the arm.
“Psst Delphine how full is your dance card this evening?” he asked as both him and Roland took one of her hands in theirs and began to pull her out of her seat.
“Because I’m pretty sure there are two gentlemen here who would do anything to dance with you”
“Anything?” she smirked
“Anything.” Roland confirmed against her ear as Charlie planted a kiss on her cheek.
The three of them didn’t need a fancy gallery to be able to dance the night away.