Work Text:
Elliott shucked himself out of his tux and tails, draping the suit coat over the back of his chair, locking the bedroom door behind him. His shoes were kicked off somewhere under the desk, the gloves came next, then the cuff links. Each layer of clothing peeled away felt like stripping back pieces of armour. It always did after he came back from a function.
It had been a trying day, week, month. Year.
Elliott was tired to the very marrow of his bones.
Tired of the way his parents kept pushing him into speech writing for his brother’s political career. Tired of the way he was expected to clean up Alistair’s scandals and messes. Tired of the calls at all hours of the night with last-minute deadlines thrust upon him under the guise of “family duty.”
He was also tired of the expectations placed on him to perform at these functions. Dinners and balls all required a very specific type of mask be worn. He knew the rules, and had grown tired of the contrived pageantry of it all. Tired of the way his family and fiancé, Yvette treated him more like a prop than a person. Clinging to his arm for photo ops and dances, only to discard him the moment they walked through the door of their home.
Affection was always in short supply for Elliott. The people in his life who were supposed to care the most seemed to be all take and no give; and Elliott was beginning to fray under the emotional strain of it all. He felt like a wool sweater: warped out of shape as he was pulled in multiple directions. None, of which, were his own.
His love life felt particularly strained at the moment.
At the start of their relationship, Elliott had been Joyous. Romantic. Hopeful in his every action. He thought he had found someone’s arms he could retreat to. Someone to lay bare his heart to and cared enough to listen.
Instead, he seems to have gotten a carbon copy of his family. Complete with the same familiar lines parroted back at him every time he sought the comfort he so sorely needed.
“Are you always this dramatic, Elliott?”
“Honestly, you’re a grown man. Could you maybe try feeling things a little less for once in your fucking life?”
“You’re still talking about writing that stupid novel? I thought you had grown out of that childish daydream by now.”
Elliott had assumed this meant that he simply needed to try harder. To do better. To be the type of man Yvette was looking for, and that she would eventually come to love and care of him the same way he wanted to do for her.
But, of course, that never happened. All of her smiles were saved for public appearances, while he got exasperated sighs and insurmountable distance behind closed doors.
Was he truly that hard to love?
His evenings always came with a generous helping of “can we just not do this tonight, Elliott?” and “Love like that doesn’t exist. It isn’t real,” thrown in for good measure, when all he wanted was simply to talk.
He doesn’t want to think of how close he’s coming to actually believing her, too. That maybe a good partnership is all that most people get. After all, he can only keep getting bitten for so long before learning to stop reaching out altogether.
It had all come to a head one notably horrendous evening when she snapped at him. Made him feel so foolish for needing comfort that he just completely shut down. Yet another part of himself he now kept hidden behind a mask at all times.
When Elliott has stripped down to just undershirt and boxers, he sinks into his desk chair and just stares blankly before him.
This was to be his hour.
Time painstakingly carved out of his busy day in which to daydream, or plot his novel, or just write free form. But now, when he looks at the uncapped fountain pen in his hand, he notes how it’s trembling. The blank page that once held so much promise, feels insurmountable tonight.
What guts him the most is that this isn’t a one-time occurrence. For the past two seasons whenever he manages to carve out time for his meagre wants, he’s left with no energy or drive to pour into it. His cup is not only empty, it’s dry.
With a long, weary sigh, he caps the pen and slumps forward, head resting against his folded arms as he tries to calm himself, breathing in and out.
“Yoba help me, I can’t go on like this,” he whispers to the empty space. He tears up when his words echo back to him, ringing lonely in his head.
Elliott knows, deep down that Yvette doesn’t love him. Knows even deeper down that while he clings to the idea of it, he does not love her in return. And despite the fact that she wants to seemingly marry him for his name alone, he can’t handle a future that appears so bleak and loveless.
Elliott is also aware that if his life is ever to improve, he will have to be the catalyst for change. That his salvation will come at his own hands… and not from a family who does not care about him in any of the ways that should matter. They would only worry about what they would be losing by his not bending to their will any longer and how it would affect the March name.
Idly, he opens the small locked drawer of his desk, long fingers blindly feeling around until he locates the hidden button inside. It releases the catch on a secret panel, the second drawer sliding forward with a soft shuck.
Elliott pulls out an envelope of creamy white card stock from his late grandmother, turning it over in his hands.
Open this when the world feels dire. For you are so much more than your last name. Never forget that.
Elliott had set it aside months ago, taking her words to heart like the sentimental fool his family always said he was. And there it had remained, tucked away in his desk almost entirely forgotten until now. Until, with startling clarity, he remembered those words written on the envelope and realized that he did, in fact, feel like his life was in need of change.
With shaky hands, he breaks the wax seal and smiles down at the delicate looping script. Memories of his grandmother’s notes left in the margins of his favourite books flood back to him as he absorbs what’s left of her love through the pages in his hands. His tears already falling at the very first line.
My dearest little poet,
You were always the dreamer of the family, even at a young age. I’ve watched you grow like a dandelion up through hard concrete, despite all of their best efforts to weed your empathy. To plant something inside of you that would fit into the manicured fields of their gardens, but you resisted. Blossomed into something glorious and rare, in spite of their best efforts.
If you’re reading this, I can only assume that it has all finally become too much. That the weight of the March legacy is bearing down upon you like a freight train, threatening to carry away the last of your whimsy.
We can’t be having that, now, can we?
Elliott, you were meant for so much more than what they have in store for you. Never forget that you have a gift, and that gift isn’t meant to be squandered on their needs, but to be shared with the world.
I know it’s not much, but there is a trust set aside for you…
The letter goes on to describe how to get in touch with her lawyer. How to get access to the trust fund she set aside in his name… and even goes so far as to suggest small, idyllic locations he might want to consider for a respite, as she called it.
Elliott needs to read it a second time before it truly sinks in. His grandmother – the one kindred spirit in a sea of stoicism – knew, long before he did, that he’d need this safety net some day.
It’s not even a question of should he. Elliott’s mind has been made up the moment he slipped that letter out of its envelope. He deserved better. He knew he did. And – perhaps foolishly – he hoped that someone to share his life with was waiting for him. Waiting to help rekindle that fire that had smouldered down to embers, threatening to go out.
Even if Elliott didn’t meet anyone, the thought of being cloistered away in a little town by the sea, working through his burnout, pouring his heart into his novel sent a fragile joy through him that he didn’t know how to ever properly express his thanks for.
He just knew that he was going to try.
Try for himself, and for the first – and so far only –person who believed in him.