#robert kennedy

He tells you it's because his father wants it to happen. And if Joe Kennedy wants something, very few people stop him. It's for the politics.

(a republican's eldest. think of the reach for fifty-six. for sixty. think of jack.)

Bobby tells you it's out of his control, while he's got your photograph in his pocket. It's one of the things he always carries.

He tells you, my father wants us to marry, and tries not to sound personally thrilled.

It'd been gloomy recently, rain rushing towards the ground and hydrating mother nature's offspring. The compound was taking in every inch of dreary shade given.

Bobby, prior to entering his father's office, looks out at the simmering sea and thinks of you. You consistently enter his thoughts, briefly or entirely.

The color of your eyes. The memories he has of childhood summers spent by the water with you. Glittering waves in beaming sunlight and your hand gently brushing his.

Not holding. Holding was romantic, and you two were friends.

Friends.

The word felt right at first, until it didn't, and then Bobby could never want anything more than to hold your hand.

You were his companion. Even if Bobby should've been hanging out with other boys, doing things boys do, he was instead found sitting with you in the library.

Bobby grew up thinking you would always be by his side. And the idea of you not being at his side was uncomfortable.

They'd lost Joe and Kick (and Rosemary), and Bobby didn't want to lose you.

When he enters his father's office, he knocks first. He waits.

Bobby keeps his head level when he enters the room. His posture remains straight beneath his sweater.

Perfect. Prim. Nothing less.

He makes sure his father's door is locked when he twists the knob. This is a private conversation, an ask disguising a plea for who he wants more than anything.

Ten days later, Bobby telephones you, asks you to come down. You're already going with them for Florida in the summer, but you and Bobby spend time together outside of those family trips.

(and if there's no chaperone, he doesn't tell his mother, and he doesn't tell Jack and he only tells it to himself late at night—no chaperone, we had no chaperone.)

Bobby neatens himself up while awaiting your presence. He shaves the one-day stubble that's unearthed, he brushes his hair out properly, and he swallows back his fear.

Your figure emerges from a car just outside. Sliding out, you gather your bag and give another glance to the sprawling Kennedy palace.

There. Inside, a thousand memories and a couple ghosts lived.

He greets you with a boyish smile and his hands behind his back. His hair is already beginning to unfurl from its sweep.

"You didn't give much away on the phone, Bob." you say, words softened by the rain-slick ground and the smell of ozone in the air. The sky's grey tones emphasize the blue of Bobby's eyes.

"It's better in person."

You smile. Bobby's mirrored expression is hiding a bit tongue.

He doesn't touch you, but he does gesture inside. Their mother is spending her free time in another part of the world, which means he doesn't have to worry about any 'improper' implications by being alone.

Bobby leads you to the living room, rain beginning to dot across the windows once again. The sky rumbles ominously outside, and you anticipate a rainstorm later.

"What was so important, I had to come here without warning? I could've been busy, Bobby," yet your little smile gives away that you're teasing.

Bobby doesn't sit. He glances outside briefly, thinking about his next words first. They roll in his throat anxiously.

When you sit, Bobby inhales slowly, a breath he won't exhale until it's safe.

"My father wants to join us together."

"… what?"

You think he means bonding. The slight tilt of your head, you're not sure, but you're assuming it's anything but a faux marriage proposal.

"My father," Bobby's throat works down a swallow. "Wants us to marry."

I want us to marry.

You look at him, and your face drops. No marked disgust forms, but you're not going to play nice—not really, and Bobby knows this. He knows you.

In the hundreds of letters you two have exchanged, you are his favorite person to know.

"… your father sure believes in extremes," you comment, the effort of challenge beginning to edge your words.

You wouldn't outright tell Bobby's father to kick rocks. But the words I don't want to marry you and have never thought of it are a lie sitting on your tongue.

You could say it.

You ultimately play subtle.

"Is it because he thinks we're such a good match?" You lean back, not revealing a lick of intense emotion.

I think we're a good match, Bobby thinks. Bobby thinks you're admirable. Bobby thinks you're everything he wants, and he wants.

"It's because he thinks his politics and your father are a better match. For the cross-party reach. For—"

"For the presidency."

Bobby goes quiet.

The worst kept secret on earth. Joe Kennedy wants, and will get, one of his sons in the White House, no matter if it takes a war or another son to get there.

"No," he rejects, lower, "for the future."

"The future? Our future?"

Bobby wishes he could truly tell you. How well he'd take care of you (and he would), how well he'd love you (how deeply), and how he could give you as many babies as you want and a home you'd be proud of.

He'd follow the fate his father's hands crafted. He'd come home from work, tired and worn. And he'd find his sweetness back in your arms, just as you'd recognize his as reliable.

But the thought. The idea. Our future, leaving your lips, a joint path to take together.

His chest tightens, sickly sweet adoration clawing up his throat.

Bobby loves you the way he's devoted himself to his family. Loyally. Wholly. Completely. And he thinks, I'll show you the world and build our own together if you let me, but that's not what he says.

"… yes. You won't have to worry. About anything. About my family, or the wedding, or—"

"If I won't have to worry, Bob, what's the list for?"

You stand, your bag strapped back along your shoulder. When your eyes appraise Bobby, the need for your existence is clear in his eyes, the edge of a lover's seas reflecting your form.

Those eyes will be yours to dream about. The hair threatening to fall along his forehead will be yours to run your fingers through, a wedding ring cold against the strands.

Bobby will be yours more than he already is.

But of course, you aren't going to write poems before you're done causing Bobby, or the former ambassador, grief.

You give Bobby a smile. It's sharpened by your newfound revelation that you will be marrying him, but the remaining softness is permanently fixed.

A gesture he doesn't expect, you neaten his hair with your hand, gently nudging it back into place. Bobby shudders underneath your touch.

His eyes don't pull from yours. He can't. He simply can't look away from you, and he never has been able to, not willingly.

And then it's back to the subtlety.

"I will telephone you Monday with my answer."

You begin to exit the room, Bobby's frame static, feet glued to the floor. He remembers his manners when you're half to the door, but you brush it off.

Polite, but new. You'd previously accept his help, even when you didn't quite need it.

"I am capable. I'm sure that's part of why your father wants me as your bride."

Bobby falls ever so more in love with you because of your refusal to just nod and say yes.

He lets you leave without attempting to handle your bag for you, or open the door for you, and he knows he's waiting for Monday.

Bobby is nearly itching with impatience. But he waits. He waits, even as you occupy his thoughts while he's eating dinner, while he attends Sunday mass, while he's sailing with his siblings and thinks about how you love the salty air and the cool breeze.

He imagines sailing with you with children in toe, and your smile beaming at him across the boat, and it sticks in his brain like syrup for the rest of the day.

When Monday finally arrives, Bobby is hyperaware of every ring of the telephone.

He originally thinks the third call of the day is for him—it has to be, it's five by that point—but it's for Teddy instead.

Bobby waits until eight at night.

Instead, you call him on Wednesday. Not overly late, but purposefully.

"I want to choose our honeymoon."

It's an indirect agreement. Bobby almost wants to drop.

"My father already chose."

"Is he going on the honeymoon with us?"

Bobby restrains a smile. That was technically a joke about his father, and he couldn't smile at that.

"Thankfully, no."

That's all he gives you against his father.

"Would you come down this weekend?"

You laugh across the line, which plays at his heartstrings relentlessly. "I get to choose my schedule, but not who I wed."

"You didn't say no."

"Would it have mattered?"

Rhetorical. You both know it wouldn't have.

You let Bobby go after telling him you'd consider coming down to the compound, just to leave him hanging, though you're already decided. You'll go down there. It was never a question when it came to him, even now, when you're playing sharply passive.

He doesn't have to know how unopposed you are. He can know in ten years. He doesn't have to know before that.