Claude Cogsworth || 33 || Executive Manager
Name: Claude Cogsworth Species: Cursed Human Sexuality: Homosexual Pronouns: He/Him Favorite Song: tolerate it by Taylor Swift Big Three: Capricorn sun, Capricorn moon, Virgo rising Location: Echo Creek
Headcanons:
Though he knows that they did a good job covering up Adam’s father’s death, Claude is terrified that one day someone will catch them in the lie. He dreads when the phone rings because he assumes the worst, especially when it’s from an unknown number. While he knows that the possibility of things surfacing now is so slim, Claude still has nightmares of someone taking him and his friends to court about it.
Claude knew he was gay from the time he was in his early teens, but he didn’t open up to Blaise and Adam about it for a few years after. He tried dating one girl in high school to shut up his parents and his friends, and he just couldn’t do it. Claude felt horrible about wasting the girl’s time, but it was the final straw that led him to coming out to Blaise and Adam.
Claude’s father threatened to get him fired when he came out. He had been interrogating Claude about a guy he had been spending a suspicious amount of time with and Claude just snapped. His mother was definitely more supportive than his father, and it was she who said that while she didn’t approve of his “choice”, he shouldn’t lose his job over it.
Most of Claude’s childhood was spent trying to be like his father. He knew that he could make a living doing what his father did, and that he could have the job if his father considered him worthy enough when the time came. With the curse and flunking out of college, it doesn’t really feel like he’s earned the position as much as he once wanted to. Claude knows he’s doing a good job, but he can’t help but feel like he’s failing with how prosperous the Beauforts were when his father was in charge.
The thing that Claude loves most about Blaise and Adam is that they both make him a better person, just in different ways. While Adam’s high standards of business make him a better manager, Blaise’s carefree way about life has helped Claude live more of his life outside his work. He only recently started taking days off and trying to date a bit more seriously, and he attributes that to Blaise. On the other hand, he’s single-handedly keeping the company afloat for Adam after Blaise lost his sense of taste.
What his best friends don’t know, though, is that often these days off are used to spend researching and in meetings with people who he thinks can help break the curse. Claude considers this the closest thing he does to self care because he would otherwise be doing this after hours. He’s contacted dozens of magical people around Animania who might have a clue about breaking the curse, but he’s found only dead ends so far. He knows that it’s essential to check off every box and look in every corner to try and solve this mystery.
Not knowing what time it is ever has made Claude more anxious than ever. He’s found ways to deal with it, like Blaise calling him when he has appointments and to wake him up, but he often finds himself asking strangers what time it is when he’s out, which makes him feel stupid. He used to wear his grandfather’s watch all the time, but now he can’t, since he has to ask people for the time and having a watch on would just make him look even worse. When he has meetings, Claude has to ask people to come to his house or call him, which is a little humiliating.
With his inability to read the time, Claude has gotten really good at being able to read the sun for a gauge on what time it is. He’s built a makeshift sundial in his backyard to try and feel some control over his curse and coping with it.
Not that he’s told his parents much about his life since coming out, but Claude really hasn’t mentioned anything about the curse. He just knows that his parents will call him crazy and tell him he needs to see a doctor, which he doesn’t, thank you very much. Instead, he told them that he dropped out of college because Adam asked him to run the company, not because he failed out. His time spent in bed, depressed, was disguised as working from home.