Chapters: 29/30
Fandom: Bridgerton (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Penelope Featherington/Original Male Character (kind of), Eloise Bridgerton & Penelope Featherington
Characters: Anthony Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington, Bridgerton Family (Bridgerton), Featherington Family (Bridgerton), Eloise Bridgerton, Portia Featherington, Colin Bridgerton, Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, WIP, Rarepair, Anthony Bridgerton Needs A Hug, Anthony Bridgerton in Love, Soft Anthony Bridgerton, Eloise Bridgerton & Penelope Featherington Friendship, Penelope Featherington-centric, Penelope Featherington Gets a Happy Ending, Anthony/Penelope HEA, Bridgerton, Angst with a Happy Ending, Idiots in Love
Summary:
The wedding to Miss Edwina Sharma has just been called off and, most importantly, Kate has left. Viscount Anthony Bridgerton has nothing to do to drive away his heartache but think and drink.
Miss Penelope Featherington hopes the man of her dreams is finally willing to get to know her better, but at the same time she may be losing her best friend to some foolish games. Meanwhile, she also has a business to run.
Their paths seem to keep crossing, sometimes completely accidentally, sometimes wholly and entirely planned. They slowly discover that they have much more in common than they both initially believed and that perhaps, there might not be anyone in the ton who could understand the other better.
A deep friendship ensues that comes to mean the world to Penelope, especially when she loses everything else.
love for the rich and emotionally stunted: a comprehensive guide
ch. 3/7 -- prev. -- next.
pairing: jumin han x f!reader
warnings: n/a
series summary: in the months following the incident with his father's most recent paramour, glam choi, the corporate heir of C&R finds himself discovering exactly what it is that makes a person in love so blind.
ao3 link
note: it's been a hot minute. that's my b. work sux
He takes you to a restaurant.
Not he— actually, his driver does. You sit in the backseat next to Jumin and make contented, jittery small talk about the weather and how each of your days have been. It’s the first conversation you’ve ever had with him past noon.
He’s dressed as he usually is, three piece pinstripe suit and groomed to magazine cover perfection, but there’s something else. You haven’t actually spent that much time looking at him— really looking, not past the brush of your fingers on the sleeve of a coffee cup and morning greetings past the elevator. He holds the door open for you when you leave the car, when you enter the restaurant.
You take a moment to stare— to indulge. He takes the seat opposite you after pulling out your chair, and as he settles himself into that ramrod straight posture he looks like he’s some bygone marvel, set in amber and unknowing for all to see. The lights are yellow and dimmed, they bear down on him and for some reason you can’t help feeling a little overwhelmed by it all.
Jumin acts the perfect gentleman through the drinks and the appetizers and it isn’t until your meal is laid in front of you that you notice him finally start to loosen. He’s attractive, sure, but he’s a lot softer than what the papers say. The magazine opinions and the TV interviews.
“Something on your mind?” He asks finally, and it makes you freeze.
You’ve started loosening too, eased by the good food and expensive wine and the way he sometimes smiles at you like sunlight, if only by the faintest curve of his lips. “Nothing much,” you reply, and his eyes are like the calm before a storm, the darkening of rain clouds and maybe you are a little tipsy. Can’t let him know you’re waxing poetic about him. “You know, I wonder why we haven’t gone out before.”
“I have a very busy schedule,” Jumin interjects, and he leans a little further towards the table. Towards you.
You let out something of a laugh, half exhale and half chuckle. “I wasn’t aware that petting your cat in the darkness of your penthouse warranted a time slot.”
“Well. Do you plan on earning one of your own?”
“I’m very competitive.” You tell him, “And I’d hate to have to compete with a cat.”
“I’d say she’s worth it.” Jumin says, and it’s with such fondness that you almost forget he’s talking about his cat. It’s one of those oddly endearing things about him. Like the small talk he sometimes struggles to make and the way he still glances at his phone wearily as if expecting periodic advice from it.
Maybe that’s where he gets his ideas.
-
The next idea is yours, of course, and it’s three hours of conversation at a coffee shop. The atmosphere is softer here, softer in the way he holds himself and the way he talks. He still shows up in a dress shirt and slacks, but it’s less than usual and that’s enough for you.
Here he tells you about his family. About his cat and his friends, about the RFA, the advice that he does actually get from his phone. The way that admittedly he doesn’t drive much, nor does he cook very often. He likes embroidery, which is something that comes up sometime during the iced Americano and after a second blueberry scone. It isn’t something that he’d inherited or taken up out of desperation, something all his own. He seems very proud of it.
In turn, you tell him about your family and your friends, where you went to school and where you grew up. The way your hobbies have grown over the years and the way you’d never really expected to be having this— thing between you, much less this conversation.
“I don’t hate it,” he says, in reference to ‘this thing.’ It’s a plain statement but there’s something deeper in his tone that says maybe he was expecting to hate it. You don’t question it any further.
“I don’t hate it either,” you say. “I’m still expecting you to slam that door in my face one of these days.”
“It will look like the perfect accident,” he quips, and then you laugh and there’s a returning smile on his face that makes you think you really, really don’t hate this.
“Really though, how long did you hold that door open before you realized I work with C&R? It’s your company, damnit.”
Jumin shakes his head a little, as if warding off the memory. “That’s all my fault, I suppose. I make it a point not to pay too close attention to that… end.”
“I’m offended. Ouch. Look, you’ve wounded me.”
“I’m sure you can handle it.” He smiles a little, hesitates before resuming. “It doesn’t have anything to do with you, if that’s your implication.”
You wave it off with a shrug. It still kinda stings, but curiosity bites at you more fervently than any kind of insecurity about your day job. “What’s it got to do with, then? Or who, I guess.”
Jumin scoffs. “Women.”
“Yeouch.”
“That isn’t— you aren’t—”
“Jumin. I know.” You’re ready to laugh it off, but there’s a deeper kind of trouble in his eyes. It makes the grin at your lips ebb, and you reach a hand out across the table, an olive branch.
He stares at it, as if worried. “I didn’t mean that you—”
“Would you tell me about it?”
He reaches out then. You think— you hope— it’s the first of many where he’ll do this, in all confidence and uncertainty. It makes you wonder how many times he’s been given the opportunity to reach out, to reach back to a hand willing to listen.
His hand is kind of cold, not quite so calloused and probably moisturized regularly with some luxury brand lotion. There’s a joke dying at the back of your throat about that, but you figure that isn’t really important right. Jumin looks down at your hands, one on the other, and then he talks.
His relationship with his father from what you’ve seen and what you’ve heard is mostly good, but it makes him so worried. There’s this crease between his brows that you want to press flat with your fingers, borne out of a concoction of worry and love for his father and it permeates him like an ominous cloud as he talks over the incident that had happened earlier that year.
Every gay rumor you’ve ever heard about him is starting to come together like some sad, convoluted tabloid puzzle.
Jumin finishes his story, falling action, and he almost sounds insecure about it all, about being manipulated and forced into his father’s impulses— overt in some hindered tone that he takes like he’s trying to defend himself with it.
“I’ve— I am not a relationship person.” Jumin says. “I don’t believe I am.” He squeezes your fingers just slightly, trying to cement the feeling as he looks back at you. “I hadn’t wanted to be.”
This is also the longest you’ve ever had any kind of physical contact with him. It’s soft and mundane, easy like another routine you wouldn’t mind committing to memory. “Well, what now?” It’s much quieter than it had been before, silence like a blanket.
“I worry that I’m going to end up like him,” Jumin confesses. “What makes it any different?”
“I think everyone worries about becoming their parents at some point,” you say, and he doesn’t look very reassured by it. “That’s the first part of– of healing, though, isn’t it? Coming to terms with your dad’s habits and then wanting out of that cycle.”
“He wants romance just like any other person, I think.” Jumin says. “I couldn’t tell you why those women were all….”
“Like that?”
He lets out a noncommittal hum. “Like that.”
“I’m different though,” you say confidently, and it’s meant to come out as a joke but he nods in agreement so quickly it gives you whiplash.
“You are.”
“You too,” you say, sort of brokenly, but it slips out and you’re not quite sure what you meant by it.
Neither is he, apparently. He asks, “How so?” and it makes you shrink a little in your seat. He’s tracing patterns on the back of your hand and you zero in on it so intensely that you notice the neat trim of his nail beds.
“I dunno,” you confess. “I was kind of thinking you’d just be a distant work crush forever. This is different from that, it isn’t… it’s not Hallmark, you know? It’s good-different.”
“Good-different?”
“Good. Different.”
“That’s good.”
“Good.” Jumin smiles kind of crookedly at you, so small and human and real that it makes your head spin. He kisses your knuckles then, looking up at you, just barely brushing them with his lips. And you figure that’s the end of that.
-
From there it’s weeks of sideways smiles, of good and different and patterns on the back of your hand, the small of your back. Like a special secret to be let in on.
You ask him about an art exhibit next, pinky-finger in his between murals and portraits and sculptures, tugging him closer by the arm. It’s more comfortable than anything, the heady rush of being near him and around him. The humdrum of it all, the way it warms you to your fingertips, to the apples of your cheeks and the temple where he kisses.
You find his affinity for physical affection at a wine tasting the following week when he nudges at your hand the fifth time since arriving, standing so close that your knuckles brush and you can feel the warmth of him beside you.
It’s a crackling edge at rose colored glasses every time he does, the way he leans into you and you into him. And the only singular, striking thing about all this is its ambiguity– the label you’ve never bothered to give it.
However good and different it is, every time you talk about him to other people it comes like ad-lib: Jumin, the guy I’m seeing, the one who gets me coffee in the mornings, or sometimes just him. Whatever label the two of you are supposed to have, he’s never mentioned it directly to you or vice versa and it makes you wonder if there should have been something to follow his “not a relationship person” remark, dialogue that feels like a lifetime ago.
Maybe he’s scared.
Maybe he thinks it’s implied.
Maybe it’s because you still work together?
And in all truthfulness you realize “all of the above” might also be a viable answer. But you’re a couple to all eyes but each other’s, the dates and the casual intimacy and the ground swallowing you whole whenever he smiles at you in that way he does, the way your name rolls off his tongue like Catholic prayer, more devout than he ever was growing up.
He gives you gifts, too. Lots of them.
It might be a Pavlovian sort of response, or so you’ve garnered. He gets lots of gifts himself, whether they’re from his father or from companies looking for his sponsorship, co-workers and the like. He buys you things like eventually he’s gearing up to give you the world; the moon and stars on a string of pearls. It’s a good feeling, knowing that you are cherished and thought of, the glint in your eye while you’re window shopping with your hand in his or a personal interest that you’ve mentioned offhandedly, excitedly, while Jumin makes note of it.
But you’re starting to get a little fed up.
You spend the afternoon at an arcade, shuffling between new VR sets and old time-y joystick games (he seems to be very good at Q*bert and little else). It’s a quiet drive home past the occasional comment about how many times you’d beaten him in multiplayers, the coincidentally cube-like shapes he’s tracing into your palm in the backseat. Jumin opens the car door for you, walks you to your home and suddenly– very suddenly it’s like he’s crowding you against the door and you haven’t even stuck the key in.
“This was nice,” you say into the crook of his neck, hoping and praying this goodbye hug lasts longer and longer. He smells like expensive cologne and cheap arcade nachos and the juxtaposition is enough to have you grinning even now.
“It was nice until you started going power hungry about your win count,” he whispers back, hand soothing along your back. You laugh softly, tipping your forehead to knock against his chest. He sits his head atop yours like routine. Like it’s easier than rainfall, easy like breathing.
“I think that’s just because you suck.”
“You could stand to have a little decorum, you know.” He leans down for a second, kisses the top of your head, and resumes. “I don’t know how much more public humiliation I can stand.”
Your breath hitches as if to say something, but then Jumin pulls back just far enough to get a good look at you. The way he looks at you isn’t new, like an earth shattering mundanity– it’s tangible and bright in the palm of your hand.
warnings: i realized i characterize obi like a gentle himbo the other day so there's that ig
note: heeyy. i’m back lol how have u all been <3
There is something indisputably attractive in the way he holds himself.
He is the model citizen, you think. Words drip from his tongue like the most lascivious wines - he is firm and unwavering in his work, loyal to a fault. He is exquisite. Perhaps the Galactic Republic’s most valued general and yet, when it comes to love, you find Obi-Wan Kenobi is horribly sophomoric.
Not that you mind, of course. He remains charming in every sense of the word, and is all gentle smiles despite his fumbles. Imperfection, perhaps, is one of the greatest points of your patchwork relationship. You realize this in the long corridor of the Jedi temple, fingers barely brushing your robe as you walk. Your hurried pace seems to attract no attention except for the dust motes that clutter the windows and pirouette with your movements.
You haven’t seen him for months and months, neither of your schedules having allowed for a moment of peace since the war’s beginning. There’s a thrumming, youthful anticipation humming just under your skin, the kind that warms you to your toes and reverbs in every step farther, because you’ll see him today - really, truly see him.
Days’ worth of scenarios flitter through your head, daydreams of weeks past finally coming to light as the familiar, buoyant feeling buckles itself into the base of your throat. It’s a welcome sight after so long. You’re not even sure how much time will be granted for the two of you in private company but you’ll be seeing him, at the very least, and you suppose that’s enough for you. It’s enough for now.
The hallways have never seemed longer or maybe your legs have never seemed shorter but you’re gearing up to complain about it when you speed walk into a solid, sturdy presence. The apology barely leaves your lips before a deep, familiar laugh finds itself at your ears.
You should have known the whole ordeal wouldn’t have gone like any daydream.
“Going somewhere, General?” Obi-Wan asks, and the smile that slants his lips is more vivid than any other dream.
“Don’t call me that,” you say, but your mouth is already tilted into a smile of your own. The remark is quiet and kind and you hope he can hear it over the roaring in your ears.
“You seemed very dutiful rushing off like that,” he insists, “one might think you have more important places to be.”
A beat of silence. A tender, pulsing thing that bursts all in an instant. His smile softens and curves into something like affection, something that slumps his entire demeanor and turns it into dogged relief at the sight of you. “Hello, darling.”
It seems more intimate, somehow, and your nerves pick up all over again. A spark of challenge finds itself to your eyes and to the tone in your voice instead, and you tug at his sleeve in playful complaint. “Four systems in three weeks and you, on none of them? Stars, Kenobi, where have you been?”
“I’ve been around,” he muses, and then chases the opportunity to take your hand in his, calluses much more gentle than they ought to be. “Perhaps the issue is that you are just unable to catch up with me.”
It’s a comfort that you’ve missed sorely, nerves flickering in your chest and drying up like rain at the ease of it. “Not a chance, only I think that you’ve just made yourself scarce on purpose.”
“Do you really think that I would ever hide myself from you?”
“No,” you reply, perhaps much faster than the question warrants. The moment is far too tender for a Jedi’s corridor and something in you calls to let go of his hand but you can’t quite, not just yet.
Seeing him standing here after so long is still… surreal. His hand is in yours and it’s grounding, centering, sane. Only the fact that Obi-Wan lives and breathes is a miracle - here, amongst a war so unrelenting you can count on both your hands the number of times you’ve tasted death on your lips this past month; tangible. You wonder what he’d say if you told him this, told him that the gentle heave of his chest makes you more grateful than you’ve ever known, that the shine of his eyes looks like a sky your soldiers have not lived to see.
You wonder if he thinks the same.
Your thoughts seem to reach him - they always do, there’s always something about him that knows - and Obi-Wan’s grip seems to tighten for a moment. His smile shies into a soft sort of grimace.
He brings your joined hands to his lips, presses a kiss. Everything in you calls to find privacy because the sun has seen so little of your love that it seems out of place to indulge in such a place. Not out here, not where someone could turn a corner and meet with blatant disrespect of all the Jedi Order has worked to represent. You look at him.
“—How long are you—”
“—Are you staying until—”
“I’m sorry, I just—”
“—no, only that I—”
The resulting laughter is private, soft and mingled and good. It makes you feel lighter, somehow.
War hangs so much heavier on your shoulders since the last time you’ve met that the very idea of missing him has wrapped itself into an afterthought, set in feather downs and laid to rest against the jagged edges of battle. Here, though, as you share clumsy laughter, it seems worlds removed from the hostility and bloodshed you have come to know.
“Walk with me?” he asks. Obi-Wan’s head ducks down for a moment, his gaze meeting yours with the same unpolished sort of affection that you’ve become so fond of. Some unsaid restlessness sits beneath your interactions, some fear of leaving and an inability to ever spend a moment’s peace together.
The undoubted terror of departing and never seeing him again aches at your throat, bunches into a lump, and you want nothing more than to ignore it, even if for a moment.
You swallow it whole, and steel yourself. “Of course.”
Merlin finally felt his power resurface and decides to track it down. Arriving at a highschool and running into an old friend.
-----------------------------------
Hi yes I should be working on my other fics, butttttttttttttt I wanted to write this.
--------------------
“Merlin.” The shadowy figure said from the corner of the room.
“Mordred. It’s been a long time.” The wizard’s hair was grey with a matching beard to boot.
“Yes. seems like it took a toll on you. How long has it been a few centuries?” the shadowy figure sat forward revealing a man with cropped brown hair in a three-piece suit. The classroom was just opening back up from break so no students had come in yet.
“At least I don’t look like a prat.” the old wizard never lost the laughter in his eyes.
Mordred was growing impatient with his former savior. “What are you doing in my classroom Merlin.”
“Well, it should be obvious. I’m here to teach!”
Mordred let out a laugh, “Looking like that! Anyway, remember when you tried to teach Gwaine maths. teaching a room of high school kids is even worse.”
“Trying to scare me off eh. Well too bad it won’t work. And To your first point who says I’ll be looking like this.” He smirked and pulled a magical girl pose, in a flash of light his grey hair darkened and his beard rescinded. His skin smoothed and cheeks became more flush. There stood the young twenty-some Merlin Mordred first met all those years ago. “Meet your new student teacher Percy Pendragon.”
“Percival too on the nose for you?”
“Slightly.” the bell rang. “Looks like the students are going to come in, shall we begin.”
“Right this way Mr. Pendragon.”
-------------------------------
Allie’s first day was going interestingly. First running (ha) into Will again, then finding out he had a girlfriend. Now she was walking into a class where she has to studies her parent’s textbook. Oh yeah, life’s going great.
“Now students other than just having a new student this semester we’re also going to have a new student teacher. This is Mr. Pendragon.” He gestured to a black-haired man wearing a sports jacket, white shirt, and jeans. He surveyed the room, pausing when he saw a familiar mop of blonde hair, only to dismiss it seeing the mop was attached to a young girl.
“Good to met you all.” He said, leaning into his British accent, “I know very ironic my last name being Pendragon and we’re studying the Pra-- King Arthur first coincidences. But I think you’ll find I’m very knowledgeable in the field.” Allie was too busy focusing on her day to notice his little slip-up, her day just got weirder when out of a knights helmet she chose “The Order of The Bear” something her parents had never mentioned.
Merlin on the other hand was focused on trying to find Arthur, there were too many people in the room, but Merlin was positive that Arthur's reincarnation was in here. He could cross off a few names on his list, mainly girls because although it could happen Arthur reincarnating into a girl was highly unlikely. Then he could also cross off the boy Lance, clearly Lancelot. Finally, he crossed off the boy Miles, Merlin could feel his own power coming from the boy. Since the old mage never died he instead passed down a portion of his power so that whoever would inherit it would be able to protect the king. Plus he now he could always find the boy who was supposed to be his reincarnation. There was one candidate, Will. after all he appeared to be best friends with Lance and was dating Jen who had to be the reincarnation of Guenivere. He let out a small smile thinking about her who was also a friend to him and a good queen to her people.
He was so lost in thought he nearly missed catching Miles after the bell rung. Running after him quickly Merlin put a hand on his shoulder to stop the young boy.
“Miles right? Could I uh... Have a word.” Merlin was out of breath he wasn’t exactly a runner in his older age.
“Sorry, Mr. Pendragon but I have to get to class.” Miles looked nervous not wanting to be late to his next class.
“Don’t worry about that I can write you a note. Plus there’s a little something magical We should talk about.” Miles poked his head up eyes alert.
“How do you know about that I haven’t told anyone.” his voice was faster the topic freaking the poor boy out. Merlin noticed this and with the empty hallway, he figured a small demonstration couldn’t hurt. Slowly as to not scare the boy he put his hand out and muttered a few words. Soon after small gold dust flew up from his hand landing in the shape of a flower before settling back down into his hand.
“I know about your powers Miles because I gave them to you.” Merlin thought that was a pretty cool way to respond. Miles on the other hand was freaking out.
“I.. what… how…. Not possible… no way.” he devolved into just sputtering out random syllables whilst Merlin was contemplating whether he should have waited to show the boy his power. “I think I need to go to the nurse because I’ve got to be seeing things.”
There was his opening, “Like how you saw Ms. Pennington’s shoelace untied, at track tryouts.”
“How did you?” Miles began.
“I saw it too. I didn’t think much of it but I figured you would’ve gotten the same one. Now I can either excuse you entirely from class now and we can chat or I can have office hours with you later today and write you a note to class. Your choice.”
“There is no way I’m gonna be able to focus in phys-ed after this.”
“Excused it is. Whose your pe teacher, I’ll give them a ring to let them know you won’t be in class and I have you instead.”
“Yeah though I have about 200 questions.” Miles was baffled, who wouldn’t be after finding out your teacher is a wizard.
“Okay. you can start asking on the way back to my office.” Merlin forgot how nice it was to have someone interested in magic rather than trying to kill it.
“Well to start which Wizard are you? Because there are tons throughout history and the only name you gave was Percy Pendr---- Oh you have got to be joking.” it finally dawned on Miles. Pendragon, Arthur.
“Figured it out all on your own. You are clever, good.” Merlin’s smile widened.
“Wait that means you knew Arthur. I think my question count just went up to about 500.”
“I figured it would.”
“OK next question what was Arthur like. Because none of his mythos that I’ve read and learned about has ever had a consistent character for him.” the duo had gotten to Merlins office, which was a converted broom closet. No other teachers wanted it so the student teachers were able to snag it.
Merlin thought back to his long distant past and laughed at old in jokes he had with the young king. “He was a Prat, but a good one.” with that he opened the door to his office, and to his past.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/13
Fandom: Bridgerton (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton & Penelope Featherington, Penelope Featherington & Portia Featherington
Characters: Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton, Portia Featherington, Violet Bridgerton
Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, POV Penelope Featherington, Anthony Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eloise Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington are Roommates, Eloise Bridgerton & Penelope Featherington Friendship, Good Parent Portia Featherington
Summary:
'I don't need your charity, Eloise,' Penelope said eventually, voice a little kinder, as she poured the boiling water into their mugs.
Eloise's shoulders sagged, her demeanour uncharacteristically sullen. 'It's not charity. Believe it or not, my family would kill me if they knew I let you spend Christmas by yourself. Most of them really, really like you.'
Penelope raised an eyebrow at the choice of words, but she didn't reply. She couldn't deny it. She knew the Bridgertons adored her; they had, in fact, treated her like family since childhood. That there was one sibling who kept his distance stung in ways she could never explain to his sister, so she never mentioned it. But Eloise had, of course, noticed.
or
Eloise invites Penelope over for Christmas, since her mother and sisters have moved to Cornwall. Penelope has various reasons to decline, most of which Eloise can guess, and one that she could never fathom.
hello! i know it has been a ridiculously long time since i last posted - once again. i will not bother you with excuses, but i do come bearing good news!
the first draft of chapter 29 is finished - i'm hoping to publish by wednesday or thursday, depending on how well the rewrite goes. but at some point in the coming week, the new chapter will be up. currently, it's at 5,5k - i'm guessing the final word count will be somewhere around 6k.
this will be the penultimate chapter of our love is these days' piano - so we are very close to the end!
thank you all so much for your patience and your interest in the story, even though updates have been so irregular. the support you guys have given me has been awe-inspiring.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 5/13
Fandom: Bridgerton (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton & Penelope Featherington, Penelope Featherington & Portia Featherington
Characters: Penelope Featherington, Eloise Bridgerton, Anthony Bridgerton, Portia Featherington, Violet Bridgerton
Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, POV Penelope Featherington, Anthony Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington Happy Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Eloise Bridgerton and Penelope Featherington are Roommates, Eloise Bridgerton & Penelope Featherington Friendship, Good Parent Portia Featherington, Exes to Lovers, Flashbacks
Summary:
'I don't need your charity, Eloise,' Penelope said eventually, voice a little kinder, as she poured the boiling water into their mugs.
Eloise's shoulders sagged, her demeanour uncharacteristically sullen. 'It's not charity. Believe it or not, my family would kill me if they knew I let you spend Christmas by yourself. Most of them really, really like you.'
Penelope raised an eyebrow at the choice of words, but she didn't reply. She couldn't deny it. She knew the Bridgertons adored her; they had, in fact, treated her like family since childhood. That there was one sibling who kept his distance stung in ways she could never explain to his sister, so she never mentioned it. But Eloise had, of course, noticed.
or
Eloise invites Penelope over for Christmas, since her mother and sisters have moved to Cornwall. Penelope has various reasons to decline, most of which Eloise can guess, and one that she could never fathom.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 28/?
Fandom: Bridgerton (TV)
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Relationships: Anthony Bridgerton/Penelope Featherington, Penelope Featherington/Original Male Character (kind of), Eloise Bridgerton & Penelope Featherington
Characters: Anthony Bridgerton, Penelope Featherington, Bridgerton Family (Bridgerton), Featherington Family (Bridgerton), Eloise Bridgerton, Portia Featherington, Colin Bridgerton, Original Male Character(s)
Additional Tags: Slow Burn, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, WIP, Rarepair, Anthony Bridgerton Needs A Hug, Anthony Bridgerton in Love, Soft Anthony Bridgerton, Eloise Bridgerton & Penelope Featherington Friendship, Penelope Featherington-centric, Penelope Featherington Gets a Happy Ending, Anthony/Penelope HEA, Bridgerton, Angst with a Happy Ending, Idiots in Love
Summary:
The wedding to Miss Edwina Sharma has just been called off and, most importantly, Kate has left. Viscount Anthony Bridgerton has nothing to do to drive away his heartache but think and drink.
Miss Penelope Featherington hopes the man of her dreams is finally willing to get to know her better, but at the same time she may be losing her best friend to some foolish games. Meanwhile, she also has a business to run.
Their paths seem to keep crossing, sometimes completely accidentally, sometimes wholly and entirely planned. They slowly discover that they have much more in common than they both initially believed and that perhaps, there might not be anyone in the ton who could understand the other better.
A deep friendship ensues that comes to mean the world to Penelope, especially when she loses everything else.
