Mr. Cavan to See Mr. Sivart {Preston, Travis}

[pwn]

Preston ignored Kennedy when he rudely interrupted. Instead his eyes narrowed as the boy moved on to talk about how exactly he'd gotten together with Preston's boss's daughter.

"An incident?" The secretary practically screeched. "What kind of incident are we talking about here? A Romeo and Juliet tragedy? A Troy and Gabriella break up? Leo died and left you Kate? Travis thought those two were perfect for each other - and that man doesn't think anything is perfect!! You better be flipping Hercules or Superman or something to dig your way out of this one!"

And he was serious. Unless Kennedy had something spectacular to offer Travis, he was not leaving this office alive. And even if he did... well, things still weren't looking too bright for the devastatingly attractive young man.

"Look, handsome," Preston sighed, brushing back some hair that had strayed from its original gelled style, "take my advice. With Travis, you never, ever want to-... to... you're..." Had Kennedy just said 'engaged'. Engaged?!?!

"REWIND!!!" He shouted, tone eerily high-pitched even for him. "You two are what?! Oh my giddy aunt you aren't serious. This is a joke. Can't you see this isn't funny? The poor man has more ulcer than stomach, you aren't honestly thinking about dumping this on him now, are you!? Oh thank goodness you're in here with me rather that out there with him," he giggled, a hysterical noise in the back of his throat.

"Soooo not funny. Let's see here. Firstly, if this were all by some evil twist of fate, true, Travis would remove your head from your body. Next, he would methodically and without remorse, dismember every limb and dispose of the evidence so thoroughly that not even dental records could help identify you. Next he would probably disown that pretty little daughter of his, and she will be left without a father and a fiance supporting her... we wouldn't want that, now would we?"

Preston smoothed out his shirt, taking deep breaths.

"So... what's going to happen next is you keep your mouth shut, ask the man how you can help fix this place up, and then get the hell out of here the moment he dismisses you. Think you can remember all that?"

Preston might be a snotty flamboyant gay man, but he really was looking out for Kennedy's best interest. The boy was far too pretty to remove from this ugly world. However, the world's collective intelligence wouldn't suffer much from his loss. But Preston was far too vain a man to let anything happen to the beautiful people.

[ken]

If Kennedy actually cared about impressing Preston or winning him over, perhaps he would have actually told him everything. As it was, Kennedy was fighting the urge to just tell him to shove it. Kennedy had come to explain things to Travis, and he wasn't about to sugar-coat and dodge around the truth to save some snotty receptionist the trouble.

"Do you really think he's going to like knowing that I came here to see him and didn't tell him that I was engaged to his daughter?" Kennedy pointed out. "Think about it. If he's going to flip now, how much worse is it going to be when the truth gets out? I seriously doubt that Angela isn't going to want Travis at the wedding, and I'd rather he was there happily then ready to gut me before I kiss the bridge."

He paused, staring down Preston. Somewhere deep inside Kennedy suspected that Preston thought he was doing the right thing. The other man didn't seem to be purposefully offensive; rather it was a side effect of the situation.

"If you really think it would be best to cover up this whole thing, so he finds it later and kills everyone involved, except Angela who's probably nunnery bound, then I'll do it. But I really think I should tell him now."

Before she starts showing...

[pwn]

Preston made a series of flustered noises, but found that he couldn't come up with much of anything to discredit Kennedy's argument. What he said was true; if they waited to tell Travis, things would just be worse (if that was even possible). The only solution he could think of would be for Kennedy to just end things with Angela and get her back together with this Dell boy, thus fixing things in Travis' happy little universe, and saving a good deal of lives in the process. He didn't think Kennedy would go along with this, though.

He floundered for something, anything, he could grasp to, to save his and Travis' sanity, and the lives of the bride and groom. Couldn't they postpone the wedding? They'd only been together a short while anyway, what was the rush? Why didn't they wait until Travis at least knew they were dating before getting engaged? Or at least until he knew she wasn't with Dell anymore? Why the big hurry?

Why the big hurry...

Preston's look shifted quickly back to a glare.

"You got her pregnant, didn't you?" he hissed, clearly doing his very best to sound angry and yet not let Travis hear him. "I should have guessed right away! You've been together such a short time, you're so young, it's so rushed, this is classic 'avoid the bastard child'. Gah, you idiot! Next time you decide to date Travis Sivart's daughter, wear a flipping condom."

He sat down on an old desk and rubbed his poor aching head. He seemed to be done with Kennedy for now. He was, at least, not blocking the boy's way anymore. He appeared to have given up on the utterly hopeless situation, and had resolved himself to simply clean up the mess afterward.

If I call 911 now, they might be able to put his pieces back together...

[ken]

Well, we'd jumped a few steps and skipped all the finer points of any possible argument. and the man had gone on another of his little rants. Did Preston even bother to try and figure anything out? Or did he just go with whatever idea first comes to his little head?

"Look, I bought the ring before I got her pregnant, I think," Kennedy frowned. Honestly, he wasn't sure how far along Angela was, or how you could tell these things. Was there some kind of measuring device to determine the age of the baby? Shouldn't Kennedy know this kind of thing by now?

"I'd been planning to marry her before I found out about the kid, in fact, I asked her to marry me before I found out," Kennedy wasn't 100% sure that was how it played out, but he certainly wasn't telling the spastic secretary that yet. "And I was trying to let it all out in steps? You know, to avoid screaming and stuff?"

This was Kennedy playing calm. Part of him just wanted to punch Preston, then go inside and inform Travis of just what was going on. but he was actually trying to win over his future father-in-law, and didn't think this was the best way to do it.

[pwn]

Somehow, Preston wasn't surprised to find out he had been right. He supposed it had something to do with the fact that it seemed like if something could go wrong today, it would. He could probably just keep guessing the worst possible things to happen and they'd keep coming true. Suffice to say he wasn't happy about developing worst-case-ESP.

"Fine! Whatever! Go tell him!" Preston said dismissively, not even really listening to what Kennedy said. "I'm staying right here though. I hope you have health insurance."

There was almost a hint of pity in his glare. Pity for Kennedy, sure, because he didn't even want to imagine what was going to happen, but mostly pity for Travis. The poor man had things bad enough, trying to raise a daughter like his by himself. Besides his old job, which he'd lost, and his wife, which he'd also lost, his daughter was the only thing he loved. And now she'd gone and done this to him.

He wished they'd just eloped. At least they would have been safe.