#lucas: unfortunately the primadonna currently humping the piano is the love of my life

[lewis-winters]

Day 9: Role Reversal

part of my OC-tober 2022 (that's prolly going to bleed into 2023)! This takes place in the late 1920s, early 1930s, when they were much younger than in the original timeline of People Like Us and in their "we're still frenemies (more friends, tho) but I'm also secretly in love with you" era. Truthfully, I just wanted to write about Teddy in his Female Impersonator/Drag Queen get up. Teddy Davies and Lucas Samsa belong to @hellofanidea! I hope I did them justice.

tw: period typical homo/queer/transphobia, use of the f-slur maliciously, and sexual harassment (a nameless, third party being a little too pushy)

“Oh my,” Teddy swoons as he enters the tiny dressing room, going so far as to sweep a hand up to his cheek in delighted surprise, his painted lips, perfectly coifed wig, carefully made-up face, and silk green gown completing his homage to every Hollywood starlet of the silver screen. “My hero!”

Much to Lucas’ annoyance, Amy and Mags laugh.

“Wounded in battle, and all for you, pretty girl!” Mags crows, taking Lucas’ injured hand and waving it in the air, as if to prove a point. “Look at this delicate face—poor thing’s going to be black and blue tomorrow.”

“Aww,” Amy sighs, faux-concerned and loving every second of this, the bastard. “What’s yer momma gonna say, Lulu? She’ll throw a fit.”

“And yer daddy’s gonna shake yer hand, protectin’ yer girl like that!” Mags pitches in, taking Lucas’ chin to wiggle it in that condescending way she does, when she likes to lord her height, her broadness, her manliness, over his slighter, shorter, and paler frame. Boyish mannerisms made even more boyish by her male impersonator get up, her clothes padded and square in all the right places, the feminine curves she loudly denies she doesn’t have, hidden expertly beneath the layers of what should have been an ill-fitting suit. Handsome, in all aspects except personality, at the present moment, reminding Lucas too keenly of those crass and snarky boys in school he’s always tried to avoid, when he was a kid.

The unwanted reminder sours what’s left of his mood, good or not, and he sharply shrugs out of Mags’ hold with a damning tsk. “Fuck off,” he spits.

It surprises them all.

All except Teddy. “Alright,” he says, clapping his hands together like a chiding mother after a stretch of awkward silence. “You’re both on in five minutes.”

Amy and Mags file out quickly at his cue, too eager to follow Teddy’s directions if it means that it’ll get them away from a grumpy Lucas as fast as possible. A small part of him still largely unaffected by his anger cringes inwardly at his behavior, aware that this was no way his parents raised him to treat his friends, much less ones as loyal as Amy and Mags. But the bigger part of him is still fuming over his current predicament, so he stays silent as Teddy carefully closes the door after them.

And continues to stay silent as Teddy picks his way through the messy dressing room to reach Lucas at the far end, sitting up on one of the rickety desks with a cold towel pressed to his rapidly swelling lower lip. For once, the golden-haired, green-eyed bastard is respecting his quiet, the carefully blank expression he keeps on his face seemingly serving as a muzzle over all those buzzing thoughts whizzing around behind his eyes. Lucas can see them, even in the split second it took for Teddy to accidentally meet his eyes, then rapidly look away, before diligently checking Lucas over like he has a lick of a clue what he’s doing, humming both affirmatively and negatively at what he finds. It’s unnerving to see him this artificially still, not when moments ago he’d been sparking and flaring like a candle flame, dancing and singing amongst the Aurora’s patrons’ tables, skirt swishing, heels tapping, bare shoulder shimmying to the music, exuding so much life Lucas had felt like his very breath was being squeezed out of his body.

“What? What do you want to say?” Lucas snaps, feeling all kinds of sharp all of a sudden. “I can see you holding your tongue.”

“And here I thought you liked me quiet?” Teddy gently teases, smiling slightly even when Lucas sends him a withering glare. It gets quiet again for a moment, but the careful mask has since slipped, enough for the smile to stay, and despite himself, Lucas softens. Just a bit.

“Thank you,” Teddy says, finally looking up to meet Lucas’ gaze with eyes so clear, so green. “I could handle myself but… thank you.”

Swallowing hard, Lucas nods, jerkily. “I know,” is all he can bring himself to say. Because he does know; even dressed the way he was, the anti-thesis to a man’s man, an open target for anyone and everyone, Lucas knows Teddy could handle himself. He’s Teddy, and Teddy is big. Larger than life, really. Slight in some places, with his tapered waist and long, pianist fingers, but tall and broad shouldered, with a wit sharper than any knife and a confidence so overwhelming, people couldn’t help but be drawn to him, in all the worst and best ways. Teddy Davies has known all his life that he was handsome, that he was beautiful, intelligent, and adored, and it informed the way he moves through the world more than anything else, no matter how much he denies that it has.

Men like Teddy were made to be looked at—the ideal All-American Jock, the Golden Boy, meant to inspire all those other men around him to rise and conquer; whilst secretly wishing his downfall with all the pitch-black jealousy hidden in the darkest corners of their hearts. At first his perpetual presence in the spotlight came off as self-absorbed and vain to Lucas, but the longer he knew him, the more Lucas came to understand that, for a queer who likes to wear women’s clothes and dance all weekend through, the spotlight was the most terrifying, loneliest place to be.

Yet in it he remained. Made it home, conducted the eyes that ogled him with a commanding hand and a toss of his pretty head, and made himself even more seen. Shameless. Larger than life. Daring them all: Look all you want. You won’t like what you see, but I don’t care. I’m not going to change.

Teddy was the bravest person Lucas knew.

Still, that doesn’t mean he has to be the loneliest, too. “He clipped you,” Lucas says, lifting his hand to touch the part of Teddy’s sleeve that had ripped upon contact with the rowdy man’s signet ring, when Lucas had pulled him out of the path of the punch. Teddy meets him half-way, shaking his head.

“Hey, let me be doctor, now,” he says, soothingly, guiding Lucas’ hand down to his lap. “I have to say, it’s odd to be on the other side this time.”

Yes, because on top of being brave, Teddy was righteous, too. Knowing he’s beautiful and handsome, also comes with the price of knowing that, to others, he always appeared to be in the position of right. The world, collectively, was lucky Mrs Davies had known what values to drill into her boy to make him as kind as he was, using whatever authority that’s been carelessly thrust unto him in the best ways he could. Truly, this isn’t his first bar fight with a man who has no understanding of the word no, and this isn’t the first time Lucas has silently worried over bruises that marred his skin, either.

But this was perhaps the first time Lucas has ever seen Teddy shrink. Just for a split second, so minuscule that nobody else saw it—but Lucas had. Seen the slight flinch, the twitch of his lip into an upset frown, when that man, that dreadful man, had shoved at him and called him all sorts of terrible things, all for getting in the way of his unwelcome advances on one of their patrons.

“Faggot,” he’d sneered and the word rung so loud in everyone’s ears, and Teddy’s face had fallen, and all Lucas could see was red.

He had swung first.

“I wasn’t joking,” Teddy tells him now, voice still quiet, but teeming with a gratefulness and a bit of awe. His eyes twinkled. “You really were a hero down there.”

He wasn’t, not quite as practiced in the art of brawling as Teddy was, but between the two of them they’d managed to get the unruly gentleman flat on his back in two minutes.

Mrs Davies had been quite annoyed at her fairy of a son and his quiet friend (as she called them, affectionately) stirring up quite a storm, but the vindicated curl of her lip that appeared when some of their burlier patrons came to toss the man on the street, was enough for Teddy, who’d apologized for the commotion with a small, cheeky smile. All they’d gotten was a swat to both their backsides and an order to put Lucas’ face on ice.

And now here they were.

Lucas didn’t feel like a hero. But he wasn’t going to tell Teddy that. He just grunts, instead. “Sure.”

Teddy smiles, and that’s the end of that conversation. The next few minutes are spent back in blissful silence, with Teddy puttering around with a couple of rags to catch the melting ice that drips from Lucas’ fist and face, even going so far as to wipe at his split lip with one of them, clearing away the blood and debris with a gentleness Lucas knew he was capable of, but has never experienced himself. This close, Lucas can count his lashes, darkened significantly with mascara, curled and fluttering delicately against his rouged-up cheek. Count the freckles he didn’t quite cover with his make-up, the ghost of vast constellations peaking just so behind the fine dusting of perfumed powder. See the part in his bangs where his wig cap peaks out, a flesh-colored net that should break the illusion, but completes the picture, instead. Carves out a new Teddy that Lucas has never had the privilege to see up close.

Blonde bombshell Teddy Davies, more beautiful than any Hollywood starlet. Everything about him is delicate. Delicate and girlish and pretty, and it takes all of Lucas’ self-control not to reach out and touch. Just to check that it’s all real, and that this Teddy had truly been on stage just an hour ago, singing and charming all the men who hollered for more at his feet.

That this Teddy is before him now, fluttering his lashes at Lucas like a practiced coquette. “There you go,” he says with a giggle. “My hero.”

Lucas colors. “Shut up.”

“No, really!” Teddy laughs with a purr, patting Lucas’ uninjured cheek. “So butch! The second you came in; I picked you out of the crowd immediately.”

For some reason, he feels strangely pleased by that. “Yeah?”

“Yes, you with your little suspenders and that curly bed o’ hair? Oh, you had all my girls swooning. I was so jealous,” Teddy says, flouncing about a bit more now, fidgeting nervously with his hair and reapplying his lipstick in front of the nearest boudoir, as if his words have finally fed him the energy he’d lost, scuffling on the bar room floor in his nicest dress. “I mean, I may be old news, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to be upstaged by the new fairy in town.”

“So sorry to have distracted your adoring audience.”

“Truly, I require financial compensation.”

“Does it have to be financial?”

“I could be persuaded to a drink.”

“Alright. But,” Lucas says, grinning. “You have to be on my arm the whole night.”

“Oh, my,” Teddy gasps. If he was blushing, it would have been impossible to see under all that make-up. Lucas takes it as a win, though, when he reaches up to push a bit of lose hair back into place behind his ear, eyes briefly turning away to assess the state of the floor. “Well, if the gentleman insists.”

“I do.”

They smile at each other. “I wish you’d told me you were coming,” Teddy says, so quiet it could have been a whisper. As if admitting it too loudly would take away the weight behind his words.

Lucas hears it. All of it. “I didn’t think you’d appreciated it.”

Teddy scoffs. “I would’ve loved it,” he says, sincerely. “In fact, if I knew you were there, I would’ve performed better.”

A part of him wonders if Teddy could possibly do anything to top that performance, with all its bells and whistles and… piano humping. Just thinking back on it has Lucas’ head spinning, and he knows, if Teddy put his mind to it, he could make even a grand show like that look like a carny attraction at a subpar county fair. “I don’t think so.”

“No, truly,” Teddy laughs, so painfully earnest, his face completely softens into that self-deprecating look he gets with that pretty flush that travels all the way from his forehead down to his powdered neck. Lucas couldn’t help but stare. “It’s always easier when I know I have someone I have to impress.”

“You always impress me,” Lucas says, surprising himself with his honesty. “I am always impressed by you.”

Teddy stops. Fully stops, freezing in place once again and taking with him the collective breath of the world—or maybe just Lucas’, who can’t do anything to deny how beautiful he finds Teddy in this moment, staring at him with those green eyes and those full lips parted in a gasp, a tentative openness to him akin to wondrous hope.

The bravest, loneliest and most beautiful girl in the world.

Then, Teddy laughs, half-delighted, half-mocking. “Aww.”

Lucas really doesn’t know what he expected. “Shut up, Davies.”

“Now don’t start.” Teddy coos, reaching out to ruffle his hair and dance just right out of the way of Lucas’ playful swipe. “You adore me, you really do! Did you hear that world? Lucas Samsa adores me!”

Lucas doesn't deny it. But he does throw a soaking wet rag at Teddy's face to hide the fact, and lets the moment quietly slip away in the wake of Teddy's subsequent rant about his ruined make-up.

#stella's oc-tober 2022 #teddy davies #lucas samsa #people like us #what is it with me and injured characters being given first aid #lucas: teddy's not my girl #also lucas: *punches someone for insulting teddy aka his girl* #lucas my angery boy #he isn't questioning his sexuality he's questioning why he loves this idiot so much #lucas: unfortunately the primadonna currently humping the piano is the love of my life #not that he's ever going to admit it at this point in time #teddy as theodosia was so much fun to write she's a bitch she's a lover she's a child she's a mother she's a sinner she's a saint #she does not feel ashamed #i need more OCs who are also drag queens they're so much fucking fun #'stella?' you may ask. 'is teddy wearing the green dress from the movie atonement?' #why yes. yes he is. #and i hope ya'll APPRECIATE IT #i love gender fuckery #estrella_marie