There Is No Other Way

Michael Holden Parkinson
Michael Holden Parkinson Avatar
Hufflepuff
53 posts
29 years old
Member of the Wizengamot
Playwriting Professor at Braithewaite School of the Performing Arts
Playwright
Concert Cellist
Braithewaite School of the Performing Arts Alum
Ministry
played by Morgan
"The sun, it rises slowly as you walk away from all the fears and all the faults you've left behind."
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Post by Michael Holden Parkinson on Jul 13, 2019 20:58:28 GMT -5

Date: July 2018? Unsure.
Location: Parkinson Estate

This was never something that he was supposed to worry about. This just… wasn’t supposed to be his life. He was not the heir. He was not the oldest child of Myles and Tara Parkinson—hell, he wasn’t even the oldest son. For God’s sake, he was the youngest, apart from Kali. The responsibility in this family, it was not supposed to fall to him. It was never his mantel to take up, it was not something that had been born to be his, which had been fine. He didn’t want it. He had never wanted the responsibility that came with being the heir to the Parkinson line. That kind of pressure, those expectations—he wasn’t suited for it. Not for any of it.

Michael had not grown up following in his father’s footsteps. He had not been raised by being taken under his wing, hadn’t learned everything that he needed to know to eventually become the Lord Parkinson.

For God’s sake, he was a Hufflepuff. He was a musician—he was a fucking playwright. He didn’t want to marry some vapid pureblood lady… it didn’t matter if she was the most beautiful woman in the world, she would not compare to the person that he actually wanted to be with.

Who was, decisively, not even a woman.

That was something that was not fully accepted by plenty of the more traditional families. It was not necessarily an ideal characteristic of the heir to the Parkinson line. It was a needless complication in his father’s eyes, but he knew that it was not something that Myles was going to bother too much with. That was why the well-timed betrothal with Caterina Shafiq had worked out so well for him. Caterina. Beautiful, blonde, and completely uninterested in marrying him. Michael knew that. He knew that she wasn’t interested in marrying him, that this was never going to be anything more than an arrangement for her. He didn’t think that she realized exactly what she had been getting into—getting married to an heir that was almost decidedly not interested in woman. Not gay, but he could count the number of women that he had been attracted to in his life on his hands.

But he had still been roped into this. He had been roped into this, because of Van. Because of his brother. Someone who was supposed to have his back, someone who was supposed to be that heir that their father was looking for. That was what he had been raised for. That was what he was supposed to be. But instead, he had never shown interest in anything but himself. That had always been what it was about for him—what Van wanted. What did he feel like doing today, who did he feel like screwing over?

How many times had that answer been him? How many times had his older brother drastically impacted the course of his life? The first time had been when he had been disowned, when everything had fallen to Michael. He wouldn’t have thought that it could get any worse than that. He wouldn’t think that it was possible for Van to take anything else from him, other than the life that he’d wanted to have.

Then he had taken Caterina Shafiq.

It wasn’t as if he was in love with her, or anything like that. It wasn’t as if he was oblivious to the fact that she did not really want to marry him. Jaxon had changed that for them, though. When he had been added to the mix, when it had been the three of them, then it had felt like they could really be something. He could marry Caterina, but they would both have Jaxon. Someone that Caterina was clearly more interested in, someone that Michael cared about more than he should. It could have been good. It had been the first time that he thought about his future, and he thought that it would be okay. That they could be happy.

Who did Van feel like screwing over today?

Him. Again.

He and Caterina had run off to get married, and that left Michael without a betrothal, and without a plan—and without any future that looked remotely happy because… he knew what came next. He knew what he had to do.

Michael loved Jaxon Cole.

He hadn’t said it out loud, he had barely admitted it to himself, but he did. But now that Caterina was out of the picture, they obviously couldn’t be together. He had obligations. He had the burden of responsibility on his shoulders, and he had to make the right decisions. If he was with Jaxon, he was never going to find a wife. He was never going to want to. He would be happy—and happiness was not a part of the equation for him. It couldn’t be. The three of them had worked when it had been the three of them, but now?

There was no other way. There was nothing else that he could do but end things with the seeker. He had to think of his family, of his responsibilities, of his siblings. Of Kali. He had to do the right thing so that she could do what she wanted, so that she didn’t follow in his footsteps of being stuck by older siblings’ mistakes.

He heard the shatter before he even realized that he’d thrown his glass of whiskey at the wall. His eyes moved to the spot of impact, watched the droplets of the liquor drip down the wall before turning his back to the mess to grab the bottle again. He had to figure out what he was going to say—how he was going to explain to Jaxon that they had to stop seeing each other when he didn’t even want to. With a new glass of whiskey in hand, he slumped down onto the couch. His free hand ran over his face as he sunk deeper into the cushions. It had to be done. It didn’t matter what he wanted. There wasn’t another way.

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