Chapter Text
Taron
“Eat your heart out, Taron Egerton.” The camera zoomed in on the impressive ring occupying a very specific finger. Taron stared at the screen in shock. That … that seemed like a very large diamond on Emilia’s hand.
The interviewer, sniffing massive gossip, jumped at the bait. “What does Taron have to do with it? Is he a former flame?”
She smirked and looked right at the camera. “Taron? Not one of mine, no.” She winked. “It’s a bit of an inside joke. He’ll understand the reference, though.”
Taron shook his head, his eyes wide. He didn’t understand. He had no idea what Emilia meant and this ‘joke’ didn’t feel especially funny.
Dickie came up behind her on the screen and wrapped an arm around her waist, smiling genially at the interviewer and the cameras.
“We hear congratulations are in order,” the interviewer said heartily.
Dickie ducked his head, a shy smile spreading across his face. “Ah feel very fortunate,” was all he said before the couple moved on and the next celebrities came into the frame.
Taron turned off the telly and sank into the couch cushions, pulling his knees up to his chest. His phone buzzed, and buzzed, and buzzed, bouncing along the table as his notifications exploded. He unlocked it, ignoring the constant stream of banners and buzzes, and set it to ‘do not disturb’ with only certain people allowed to get through. The change to silence was immediate and Taron breathed out in relief. He debated for awhile over removing Dickie’s name from the list, as he didn’t think he was up to talking to him just at the moment, but he decided to leave it. He knew it was unlikely Dickie would reach out to him, he hated calling and texting in general and he was about to be seated at a banquet where he’d think it the height of rudeness to text his boyfriend.
His boyfriend. Would that term still apply? Taron swallowed. He ran over the red-carpet moment again and again, trying to find any other way to interpret what had happened.
His phone rang and he recognised the notification as Jamie’s. “Mate!” He tried to inject his voice with joviality as he picked up.
Jamie exhaled. “Oh, thank god, you haven’t seen it.”
Taron’s heart sank. “I-I have, actually.”
“Fuck, Taron. What the fuck was that? Did you know? Please tell me this is something you know about, that this isn’t what it looks like.”
Taron chewed on his lip, debating what to say. “Ah, no, I-I don’t know. He didn’t tell me. I mean, I knew she was going to be his date, but he said they were going as friends because she didn’t want to go stag and her partner’s out of town or something. He was just supposed to be doing her a favour.” Jamie scoffed and Taron sighed. “I don’t know what this means, Jamie. I’m trying to think of anything that it could be besides what it looks like but I’m coming up blank.”
“Right,” Jamie declared, “I’m coming over. We’re going out. Put on something with flash. I’ll be there in twenty.”
Taron wanted to protest but Jamie had already disconnected, likely knowing that if he let Taron say anything it would be ‘no.’ Going out wasn’t remotely appealing right now but, then, neither was sitting at home and fretting about the way his relationship may have just imploded.
Taron tried to remind himself that Dickie wasn’t the sort of person to make an announcement like that on the red carpet. He cultivated his media persona very carefully and he had a whole code of conduct about how to handle conversations about relationships and the future. He wouldn’t simply kiss Taron goodbye and then turn up engaged on a red carpet two days later. He wouldn’t. Taron didn’t know what was going on but he trusted Dickie. He nodded to himself and went to get dressed.
When he stumbled in a few hours later, euphoric from his night with Jamie, he checked the winners and noted with pride that the Bodyguard had won. Everyone had laid odds on Game of Thrones, as they’d dominated all of the categories in the nominations, but clearly the awards committee had recognised the superior show, even if they’d been too shortsighted to give Dickie his own nod. He sent off a quick “Congrats, love! ❤️” and fell into bed.