Title: All The Nice Boys (And Girls) Love A Sailor
Fandom: Twelfth Night
Rating: G
Length: ~400 words
Content notes: Orsino/Olivia/Viola|Cesario, Antonio/Sebastian
Author notes: There's not really a way to fix this play, but that doesn't mean I'll stop trying. Beta by thesmallhobbit (thanks!)
Summary: Four vignettes of the Twelfth Night cast of characters as they come to terms with various realisations about their marriages/identities.



Cesario tentatively strokes the stripy shirt he’s wearing. The cut is boxy, made to fit a boy’s angular shape. He keeps looking at himself in the mirror, wondering if his binder is going to hide what lies underneath.

Orsino finishes getting ready and comes through to the bedroom. He looks at Cesario with such adoration that Cesario goes weak at the knees. Orsino grabs his boyfriend’s hand and pulls him into a kiss, bunching the shirt into his fist behind Cesario’s back.

“You’ll ruin my look,” Cesario laughs.

“Oh, it would take more than that,” Orsino replies and lets go.

***

“You’re unhappy,” Viola says to Sebastian on the way home one night. They’ve left Orsino and Olivia in their respective houses and gone out for a movie, just like they did when they were kids.

“You’re one to talk,” Sebastian says and there’s a hard note in his voice that Viola hasn’t heard since their father died. It cuts her to the bone. She knows looking at his face will be her undoing but she does it anyway, and just like that they’re crying under a street lamp with no one to cling to but each other.

***

In a way, Cesario thinks, he has an easier job than his brother. Orsino loves him no matter what, so he’s not exactly fazed, and Olivia – well. She never made a secret of her own feelings for Cesario, but to let go of Sebastian is harder.

Cesario doesn’t know for sure, of course, but he likes to think he made it easier when he kissed her and told her that yes, loving more than one person is possible, that he doesn’t have to choose between them if they don’t want him to.

***

The three of them watch Antonio and Sebastian go on board ship. Cesario’s glad that he doesn’t have to maintain any pretense; everyone is weeping for one reason or another and it’s all very cathartic. He embraces his brother, then turns to Antonio.

“Look after him,” he says. “I don’t want to lose him to the sea again.”

“You have my word,” Antonio replies with a look of deep gratitude in his eyes. He reaches for Sebastian’s hand and laces their fingers together.