Chapter Text
“God I won’t miss this job,” Colin huffed as he dropped onto Penelope’s bed. Her yellow pleated dust ruffle, the one that matched the comforter her mother had selected for her when she was six, puffed out excitedly with the force of his landing. Penelope cringed, she hated the bedding set, but her mother pulled a long-suffering victim card every time Penelope asked to replace it. “I can barely look at strawberries anymore.”
Colin had just arrived after getting off his evening shift at the smoothie shop where he was working during the summer term break.
It had been something of a routine for them all summer, hanging out each night for a few hours after he got off work. Mostly they spent their time watching movies, talking about books they were reading, and trading gossip. Although he was later than normal tonight because he had stopped at home to shower due to an unfortunate incident with a blender lid.
“I’m comfortable enough with my masculinity that I don’t mind smelling like berries, but the smell of banana in my hair was beginning to make me feel sick,” he had told her when he explained why he was showing up at 9 pm rather than 8:30.
“Well maybe I will miss you smelling like strawberries,” Penelope protested, entirely too earnestly. She looked down to hide the flush on her face. Why did Colin always make her into a blathering idiot?
“Maybe I can get some strawberry lip gloss or something,” Colin suggested with a cheeky wink, seemingly completely unaware of what that sort of thing did to her.
Get a handle on yourself, Penelope silently reminded herself.
It wasn’t like her crush on him could ever turn into anything. Friends or not, he definitely wasn’t interested in her romantically, that much was crystal clear.
“I heard from Eloise today,” Penelope said, changing the subject to something safe.
Eloise had been gone all summer on a Peace Corps excursion and had been sending emails to Penelope. They weren’t overly long, but they were frequent and if her enthusiastic writing was any indication, she was having a great time. Penelope had known she would love it. The Peace Corps fit with Eloise’s sense of social justice as well as her sense of adventure.
Colin hummed, then said, “Daph says she’s trying to convince mum to let her take a term off school to stay on longer. She has ‘important work to finish.’”
“She’s mad if she thinks your mum would agree to that.”
“Won’t stop her trying,” Colin mused.
Penelope envied Eloise’s conviction and sureness of self, she suspected Colin did too. Some of their more recent conversations had been about how he had yet to define himself or his life’s purpose, which he felt were inextricably linked. Penelope disagreed. She could know who she was (generally) without knowing what course her life was going to take. Especially given her luck (or lack thereof) and resources (see also lack thereof). Then again, Penelope wasn’t exactly raised to think she could be anything other than what her mother expected so perhaps it was simply all lack of imagination on her part.
For Colin and Eloise it was different though. In addition to truly wild amounts of privilege (monetary and otherwise), they had siblings, lots of siblings who had both fulfilled expectations and paved the path for not fulfilling expectations. Whether it was for their interests, schooling, chosen career, or what Portia Featherington would call their “life choices” (read: sexuality), the Bridgertons were all unique and uniquely loved.
As a Featherington, Penelope didn’t have that luxury of unconditional love for her “life choices.” But she didn’t need it either. Much as she had always hated the boxes she was shoved into, what she hated more was that she fit into them so neatly and tidily.
She was a good student. She loved reading and writing and was fair at maths. She was just girly enough— she preferred dresses over jeans, loved makeup and shopping. She prized finding a good bargain (although growing up with financial insecurity would do that to anyone). While she wasn’t quite as obsessed with celebrity and posh culture as her mother was, Penelope loved a good bit of gossip and rarely met a reality television show she didn’t like. And, if her enduring crush on Colin was any indication, she was straight as an arrow.
And that crush on Colin was really the problem, wasn’t it?
It would have been so much easier if she’d been a garden variety lesbian. Eloise, who was her best friend and soulmate in all the ways that mattered, would have fallen over herself to make Penelope very happy. But unfortunately Penelope wasn’t a lesbian or even homoromantic. No, she was Colin sexual which was a problem because Colin was not Penelopesexual or even heterosexual. No, he had let her and all of womankind down a few years ago when he came out as gay.
Penelope was startled from her introspection by the sound of her mother clearing her throat loudly in the way she did when she was trying to conspicuously gain Penelope’s attention. Penelope looked up to see Portia leaning against the door jamb at the threshold to Penelope’s bedroom eyeing Colin suspiciously. That bit was not new.
Penelope’s house was a little more old fashioned than the Bridgerton home and although Portia allowed Penelope to ‘entertain’ Colin in her bedroom, she also insisted that Penelope kept the door fully open at all times when Colin was visiting lest she forget that privacy was not a right Penelope could expect until she was ready to move out on her own.
“Good evening, Colin,” Portia said, her tone pleasant but still firm. ‘I am watching you,’ it said. ‘Do not test me.’
“Hey Mrs. F,” Colin responded politely, turning the full force of his dimples and smile on Penelope’s mother. “How are you today? That shade of lipstick looks very fetching on you.”
Portia blushed slightly and patted her hair. “Very well thank you.”
Despite her “good breeding,” Portia had never liked Eloise. Penelope knew she wanted to dislike Colin as well, but she found herself reluctantly charmed by him.
She sobered quickly and turned to Penelope. “I’m going to bed, Penelope. Don’t be too loud.”
It’d taken almost all summer, but Portia was finally beginning to understand what Penelope had been telling her all along—that Colin wasn’t the sexual predator she might have imagined. Though Penelope had had the good sense not to tell her mother precisely why. Her mother wasn’t overtly homophobic, but had she known Colin was gay, she definitely would have taken the opportunity to lament the fact in a way that was at least mildly offensive.
“Ok, Mum.”
“And don’t forget to lock up when Colin leaves.”
“I won’t.”
“Good night then.”
“Good night, Mum.”
“Night Mrs. F,” Colin called with a wave.
Portia’s mouth quirked up on one side, her only indication that she’d heard what Colin said. She gave them one last discerning glance and spun on her heel in the direction of her own bedroom across the hall.
With Portia gone, Colin flopped back onto her bed with a sigh that was melodramatic even for him.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Colin responded, but Penelope could spot a thinly veiled lie if ever there was one told. Especially when it was Colin telling it. Observing Colin was like her superpower, both her greatest gift and her biggest secret. Although it came as naturally to her as breathing, she couldn’t let on to it or he might think she was crazy.
“Has Anthony been on you to take school more seriously again?”
“You mean any more than normal?”
“He just wants to see the best for you.”
“You say that, but being on the other end of one of his lectures makes it feel more like he wants to guilt me into a career in finance that will make me die of boredom.”
“He doesn’t want that,” Penelope countered, before capitulating, “well maybe he does. He’d certainly like to see Ben die of boredom versus what he’s actually doing, but Colin, school is important.”
Penelope wasn’t just moralizing. For her school was her ticket out of her house and hopefully away from her family. She had her eyes set on a scholarship which would take her to Cambridge, but she had to work hard for it in the meantime.
“It’s not that, really,” Colin told her. “My marks are fine. They are better than Anthony’s were even.”
“Really?”
“Yes really, you thought he was the smart one?” Colin sat up, an indignant expression on his face.
“Certainly seems to think he is,” Penelope sniffed, avoiding eye contact.
“Yes that’s his MO,” Colin grumbled as he lay back on the pillow. “No, my marks are fine, he just that he feels I could do better. That I am not living up to my potential. Despite the fact that I am apparently living up to his potential. Not everyone can be Daphne.”
Penelope snorted in spite of herself. “I doubt he wants you to be Daphne. Do you want to be Daphne?”
Colin shrugged, but she could see a smile tugging at the corners of his lips and Penelope got it, the dirty little joke they both wanted to make about him wanting to be Daphne because her boyfriend was dead fit and probably well hung.
But then before either of them could say it, Colin’s face fell and the hang dog look returned.
This time, instead of asking, Penelope tried a different tact; uncomfortable silence.
“What if…” Colin started off, his voice cracking and halting.
Penelope waited, literally biting her tongue as he collected his words.
“What if I’m not actually gay,” he whispered, directing his words at her ceiling instead of at her.
Penelope felt like all the air had been sucked out of the room. Had he really just said what she thought he’d said? Had he just completely undone a fundamental truth that she had held about Colin for nearly as long as she’d known him? The very fundamental truth that had been the brakes on her otherwise out of control crush on him?
She had to be cool about this. But how?
Everything she knew about how she was supposed to act when a friend came out to her was to be accepting and thank them for trusting her with this information. But Colin was doing the opposite of coming out and thanking Colin didn’t seem to be the right tact either. He seemed to be questioning more than anything. Right, so she’d just stick with ‘be accepting.’
“Then you’re not.” Penelope shrugged, doing her best to look like she was not internally freaking the fuck out. It wasn’t that it really mattered if Colin was or wasn’t gay. It was more that it was a bombshell that he was even questioning it and more shocking that he was sharing that with Penelope of all people.
“But I have identified as gay for so long…” he explained, as if he was reading at least a little bit of her mind.
“People are allowed to be fluid, Colin,” she reasoned. “Or change their mind.”
Colin sat up and gave her a challenging look.
“I’m pretty sure your sexuality isn’t something you change your mind about. Pretty sure you either are or aren’t gay whether you want to be or not.”
Penelope deflated. “Ok, poor choice of words. Maybe it’s not changing your mind, but continuing to figure out who you are as you learn what you do and don’t like.”
Colin seemed to consider that for a moment.
“Like how for the longest time I swore I didn’t like pizza until I actually tried it and loved it?”
Penelope huffed out a quiet laugh. Leave it to Colin to equate something as serious as his sexuality and personal identity related to his sexuality to food. “Sure. But instead of pizza it’s sucking a dick.”
The words were out of Penelope’s mouth before she could stop them. To her relief, Colin barked out a laugh.
Penelope’s eyes went wide, “Shhh! Don’t wake Mum.”
“Shit, sorry,” Colin said and sobered quickly, but he still had a goofy smile on his face.
“Why did you identify as being gay?” Penelope asked, partly because she was curious and partly because she was trying to restart the conversation. She sensed Colin was bringing up the topic because he wanted to talk through it and she wanted to help him with that.
“I always just thought that to be straight meant to be like Anthony or even Ben.”
“Ben’s not straight,” Penelope pointed out quickly.
“Right but it’s so easy for both of them. They find girls, or guys and girls in Ben’s case, and they just hook up. I could never do that.”
“Ok, but not being a slut doesn’t make you gay,” Penelope pressed.
“I know that. I meant that’s when I knew I was different,” Colin clarified. “It wasn’t until I had that thing with Liam in secondary school and I thought surely this means I’m queer.”
Penelope nodded as if she knew what “that thing with Liam in secondary school” meant. She knew Liam distantly through Colin, but what he’d had to do with Colin’s supposed queer awakening, she didn’t know.
“Except now you don’t think you’re gay?”
“Yeah, now I’m not so sure.”
“You know your feelings don’t have to fit in boxes. Sexuality is a spectrum. You might not be gay, but you might not be straight,” Penelope offered, trying to sound sensible and open.
“But I thought I was gay!” Colin exclaimed, then looked at the door, horrified at how loud he’d been. Penelope nudged the door with her foot, hoping that if it was mostly closed her mother wouldn’t overhear any of the rest of their conversation.
“Colin where is this coming from? What happened?”
Colin was quiet for a moment, ostensibly considering if he was going to tell Penelope and if so, what he was going to say.
“Last week I went home with a guy,” he admitted finally. “We were flirting and I thought I was into him and when we got there and he was doing… you know… on me.”
Colin made a motion with his hands to indicate that he was receiving a blow job. Penelope tried not to blush at the mental image of some guy sucking Colin off. At the image of Colin’s erection. At the image of herself sucking him off. God, wouldn’t she love to know what it looked like or have it in her own mouth or… Right, she could be mature about this.
“He wasn’t good?”
“No, he was, he was very good, or at least he would have been. But I had to close my eyes and imagine he was someone else. Then halfway through I got so panicked when I thought of having to reciprocate that I couldn’t finish.”
“Oh, Colin,” Penelope murmured.
“What’s messing me up is that’s the same reason I thought I was gay.”
“What was?”
“When I was dating Marina the idea of having sex with her turned me off,” Colin explained. “I didn’t even like kissing her.”
Well that was news to Penelope. Although Marina had very loudly announced that Colin wouldn’t fuck her, Penelope hadn’t known why. She had always assumed Colin had known he was gay from a young age and dated Marina in some sort of last attempt to be straight.
“Is it possible you are asexual?” she tried weakly.
“I’m pretty sure Liam proved I’m not,” Colin said cryptically. Penelope made a mental note to ask about Liam later, if only because now she was desperately curious.
“Right.”
Colin took a breath as if he was fortifying himself for … something.
“So I’ve been obsessing about it, and I think I have the solution. But I need a favor.”
“What sort of favor?”
And that was when Colin sat up, looked Penelope dead in the eye and said, “Will you let me go down on you?”