March 25th, 1891 — Emrys' House, Bristol

Emrys had really been hoping that Pettigrew's letter that afternoon would have been calling this whole stupid affair off. He'd been mentally preparing for his offer to be either accepted or replaced with a request for more, which would have been fine. Expected, really; bartering was part of any good business arrangement, though he would have preferred to have done it in person the previous night. Emrys was personally willing to pay ten galleons to avoid this mess, which seemed like a worthy investment when one tallied up all the possible expenses. He'd potentially need to replace a whole outfit if Macmillan bled on him too much. He would have to get up early, which wasn't an actual expense but took an emotional toll for certain, particularly for a man who lived the best hours of his life late at night. His reputation might suffer if he had to escort Macmillan to a hospital, and it got out that he'd been involved in this foolishness, which meant his business might suffer. Macmillan might die, so he'd be down one sexual partner. He might have to postpone his meeting with the Professor, who was supposed to visit over the holiday, if things got too out of hand. So, yes, it was well worth ten galleons. If Pettigrew wanted more, he could probably cajole the rest out of Macmillan — he didn't have a shipping empire to support him, but he wasn't broke, either.

But the letter didn't have a demand for money. It had a list of spells. How tedious.

Emrys had received Macmillan in a bedroom near his own, which had access to his wardrobe — this room that adjoined the master through the wardrobe and bath was intended for a wife, but since he was unmarried it was Emrys' favorite room to use for intimate conversations. He didn't let people into his actual bedroom, as a general rule, except the staff. While they talked, he pulled a few dark brown coats out of the walk-in closet and tossed them onto the bed, trying to decide which would be least likely to show blood marks if necessary.

"It's not too late to back out," he pointed out.

  

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A day before the duel. A day before he might die.

Elmer had always thought a duel a terribly romantic way to die. It was the stuff of the sort of novels he loved to read. He liked the idea of fighting a duel and dying in one - until it was time to face the possibility.

He'd been restless all day and he smoked more than usually. Before one could stop letting out smoke, he'd lit the other one.

He'd come to Selwyn's that day, who had agreed to be his second. The older man had seemed as the best choice for this position. They got into inappropriate things out of scandalous novels already, so they might as well have added duelling to the list. He also didn't want to worry Ned, who would have done everything to stop him.

He was scared, but he didn't want to back down. For one, he would be betraying his ideals if backed down from a duel. Secondly, he didn't begrudgingly admit to himself that Reuben Crouch was right to provoke him. Not because Elmer felt any sort of love or respect for that man, but because what he'd said about November Malfoy hadn't been a good thing to say.

He wasn't really in love with November Malfoy. He was in love with the idea of her, of what she represented. He'd never really spent actual time with her, gotten to know the real person. If he had, he'd quickly get bored of her, because anything real had this effect on him. He didn't love real people - he loved ideas, the images he'd created about them in is mind.

In any case, he didn't think so lowly of her and on hindsight saying he'd want to fuck her denoted just that. He'd said that only because Reuben Crouch had said that particular word and because Elmer had thought it funny, at the time, to provoke him. He still thought him a hot headed brute and a hypocrite - as if he didn't use that kind of language for women. It was him who ended up on Witch Weekly time and again for prying on debutantes and ruining them. It was him who had lead Miss Finch astray. It was some kettle calling the pot black business for him to judge him. All Elmer did was send bizarre letters, which he only continued because November Malfoy seemed to be into them. He didn't go after girls he couldn't provide for and promise them love. Other than November, his usual lovers were people like Emrys Selwyn, or artists or actresses. People who were in it for the sex or the aesthetic, but who didn't expect a happy marriage with two children and a pet owl, in any case.

So, at Selwyn's question, Elmer shook his head. "I can't," Elmer replied and lit another cigarette. "It would make me seem a coward. And I may be no Lancelot, but I'm not a coward."

  

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Emrys rolled his eyes at this remark. "And you're so invested in Reuben Crouch's good opinion of you?" he challenged, returning to his closet. No one ought to know about this duel except the two of them, Crouch, and Pettigrew — letting this stuff circulate around would mean it was stopped before it happened, because it was illegal. Hopefully Macmillan hadn't gone around telling anyone he'd been challenged over a flippant comment made about one of his lovers — but then, Macmillan had made the comment in the first place, so maybe he had less sense when it came to discretion than Emrys would have previously thought. Maybe he needed to re-evaluate his decision in occasionally sleeping with him.

"This thing with the woman is likely over either way," he pointed out. "If you die, obviously, but if you somehow win — which you certainly won't, but if you did — she isn't likely to have any fond feelings for you after you admit you murdered her brother."

  

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Elmer didn't want to back down from a duel because part of him had always wanted to partake in something so dramatic, even if his hand shaked a bit as he brought the cigarette to his mouth. He would only be a phony if he fancied a Byronic hero and then backed down from a duel.

"Byron died for Greece's independence and he wasn't even Greek," Elmer pointed out. "Besides, why are you so confident I'll lose? I got excellent NEWT scores in all of my wand based subjects. Just because I chose to follow my passion that doesn't mean I can't use a wand." He wasn't an auror, but he could at least defend himself in a duel with an adult wizard.

  

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Emrys emerged from the closet long enough to shoot him a withering look and did not deign to reply to either point with a verbal response. Macmillan was not Byron, no matter what he fancied of himself, and he was not a magical savant, either. Getting good NEWT scores was one thing, but Macmillan was not a creature of violence and Emrys would have been very surprised indeed if he had touched any of the spells on the list since graduating. Reuben Crouch, on the other hand, was the sort of person who challenged people to duels. He got into street brawls. Obviously he would be a good deal more confident about this than Macmillan had any right to be.

"Do you even recognize any of the spells on the list?" he asked, waving vaguely to the end table where Pettigrew's letter was sitting. "I don't spend my Saturday afternoons shooting magical arrows at passersby. Do you?"

  

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Elmer stretched his body out so he could grab the piece of paper without having to get up from his seat. He gruntled when he leaned back and took a look at the list.

"I use the severing charm with some frequency in my life," Elmer informed him, gesturing with the cigarette holding hand to emphasize his point. It was a terribly practical spell.

After having had a look at the list, Elmer set it down beside him. "That had to be the most brutish and inelegant list of spells I've seen in my life. At worst, I may lose a limb. We'll probably just both get some bruises and things. Maybe he'll give me a scar and I'll look like a hero from a gothic novel. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

He smiled suggestively.

  

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"I would not," Emrys snapped, his irritation flashing to the surface at Macmillan's stupid smile. He hadn't seemed to really comprehend the gravity of the situation, but Emrys wasn't sure it was within his power to impress it upon him. If he had gotten to nearly thirty years of age without having picked up basic self-preservation instincts, how was Emrys supposed to instill them within the next twelve hours?

"In fact," he continued testily, "If you survive tomorrow, I think it may be best if you lose my address. I can't have you making suggestive comments about me if you run into one of my brothers on the street." He was sort of joking, but not really. Obviously he didn't think Macmillan would make inappropriate jokes about fucking men whilst walking around in public, but his lack of discretion was deeply concerning to Emrys. Moreso, perhaps, than the fact that he apparently still thought bleeding out on some hill in Ireland would be terribly romantic.

  

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This actually made Elmer perk up. He wasn't in love with Selwyn, but he wouldn't want to lose him as a lover. He was one of the most experienced men he knew and while Elmer could survive sleeping with just women, he liked the different sort of experience he had with men. He also often paid for nicer things, like opioids.

"I wouldn't, and you know that!" Elmer complained. "He provoked me first! Your brothers aren't brutes that go around Bartonburg seeking to beat up people!" He took a drag from his cigarette but quickly exhaled so he could add: "What I said was stupid and crude and I would never have said it if Reuben Crouch wasn't the recipient! He acts holier than thou when he's the one constantly ruining girls from good families! He didn't seem to mind fucking Bella Scrimgeour or his wife or my cousin, did he?"

  

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"Well, what business if that of yours?" Emrys replied sharply. Of course he had heard the rumors about Reuben Crouch; he read Witch Weekly. The sex lives of people he didn't know wasn't the sort of thing he bothered himself about, though, and he didn't see why Macmillan ought to do so either.

"I hope your hatred for the man keeps you warm in the grave," he spat, before turning dramatically to disappear into his closet once again. "Since you're apparently willing to die over it instead of just promising not to say that sort of thing about his sister any more. Ugh," he said, leaning out of the closet again and eying the collection of coats on the bed. "I don't have any pants the right color for this."

The following 2 users Like Emrys Selwyn's post:2 users Like Emrys Selwyn's post
   Elmer Macmillan, Hermia Bonaccord

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Elmer didn't care if Reuben Crouch fucked his cousin, with whom he rarely interacted with, but he acted like he cared because it annoyed him what a hypocrite he was. He fancied himself the protagonist of an adventure novel, but he was only a rake and a drunkard who picked fights with people and disrupted their lives.

"No matter what I said he wouldn't back down," Elmer said, rolling his eyes at the pants comment. "He started shoving me around because I wasn't Greengrass, who he wanted to kill that day. If he hadn't made such a scene he might have done it - what about those dark purple ones, they're a half mourning colour and all."

  

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Emrys frowned at the dark purple pants on the nearby hanger. They had the right aesthetic, but they were silk, which meant two things: first, they were exceptionally hard to clean, even with magic; second, they weren't particularly warm. Emrys didn't know what a hilltop at dawn in Ireland would be like, weather-wise, but if it had even a little wind he'd freeze his bollocks off in silk pants.

The comment about Greengrass was interesting, and in any other context Emrys might have pursued it, because he liked gossip. They had much more serious matters at hand, however, then whatever state of mind Reuben Crouch had been in before the Bartonburg fight. If he had challenged half a dozen men to duels, that was his business; Emrys was only concerned with one, and would very much have liked to reduce that number to none.

"Of course he'll back down," he replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. "His terms couldn't be simpler. Stop talking to or about his sister. And we've already established that you'll have to stop talking to her anyway, if you go through with this duel."

Emrys pulled out a pair of burgundy pants with thicker fabric than the purple ones and contemplated them. "Oh, you know," he added, as a thought occurred to him. "If you do want to keep things up with this lady — she seems far more trouble than she's worth, but if you do — ending the duel might be the best way to go about it. Then you could tell her how much of a brute her brother is, and how reasonable and accommodating you are by comparison."

  

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"I did say I want to fuck her," Elmer said. That had been stupid, even if he was annoying Reuben Crouch was the one making a fuss about it. If it had been any other Crouch, he wouldn't have used that language to begin with.

"And it's over. She wrote to me saying she doesn't want us to keep talking, so he's told her everything. If I back down, she will forever think me a terrible person. With this duel I have a chance to repent."

  

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Emrys rolled his eyes at this remark. "So fatalist," he said critically, abandoning his search for well-suited pants for the moment and crossing to sit in the free armchair. Macmillan was probably hopeless, since he'd already determined he was going to die tomorrow and it would be very romantically pleasing, or whatever, but Emrys still thought this was just about the dumbest thing that had happened all year. Which was a high bar to set, because he'd watched some idiot propose to his niece while surrounded by over-the-top stone cupids and Valentine's decorations last month.

"Tell her you were ready to die for her and he backed down, then," Emrys said with a shrug. He really had no qualms at all about lying to anyone involved in this situation, if it meant they didn't have to go through with the duel tomorrow, and he couldn't understand why no one else seemed to be as interested in this quite obvious avenue of solution as he was. "Tell her I offered his second a few galleons to call the thing off, and her brother agreed. Then she'll be on your side again. Yeah, that's it — tell her that her brother sold her honor," he mused. "Tell her it was cheap, too. That ought to get her angry enough at him she'll come running back to you, if that's what you're after."

The following 2 users Like Emrys Selwyn's post:2 users Like Emrys Selwyn's post
   Arthur Pettigrew, Elmer Macmillan

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Selwyn did have a point there but the problem was that Elmer didn't exactly know what she thought about him. She had asked him to send her back all of her letters, which showed that she had lost her trust in him. Chances were that she wouldn't believe that tale.

"She won't believe me," Elmer said as he agressively put out his cigarette in a fancy cigarette tray next to him. "Reuben Crouch probably blew things out if proportion to her! Besides, I never explicitly said I want to fuck her, I said I wanted to fuck a Crouch-fuck-" his matches wouldn't ignite so he could light his next cigarette. With his next attempt he did it and after he'd inhaled and exhaled smoke, he said: "I could be meaning his aunt or his crippled brother for all he knew!"

  

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Emrys rolled his eyes again at this. "Well, I suppose it's a good thing he took it the way he did," he remarked dryly. "If he thought you meant his crippled brother, you might be in prison by now for indecency."

Really, how could he have been so terribly indiscreet? Emrys would be surprised if anyone, having heard about this incident in Bartonburg, would ever agree to fuck him again. Emrys certainly wasn't particularly inclined towards any renewed trysts with someone apt to make lewd comments just to provoke someone.

  

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