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."