Brother-in-law

Oliver has only seen Tobias from afar, until now, as Constance is formally introducing her fiancée to her family. He is surprised. Tobias is somehow both exactly how he expected him to be and entirely different. Constance has told him about all of them before. She wanted him to be ready, not to get hazed. She’s been preparing him to play the role of her perfect husband. She told him her father was a power-hungry, authoritative, cold businessman. And here he is, welcoming Oliver like a royal generously inviting a plebeian to his table. As previously instructed, Oliver accepts this snub calmly and lets Constance diffuse the tension with a slightly tart joke. Julianna, Constance’s stepmother, is just as bland and irrelevant as Constance described her. She smiles the exactly same kind of smile no matter what’s going on around her, nodding to everything her husband says. A stereotypical trophy wife. Looking at her too much makes Oliver sick. He hates the thought he cannot shake, that he’s going to be just like her, as he’s about to become a trophy husband. And then there’s Tobias. Constance described him as a bratty teenager, but Oliver already knew she was biased. Still, he expected him to look younger. Based on how his sister described him, Oliver expected to see a vile, cruel boy. But the Tobias he’s being introduced to is a man. In a way he’s similar to his father – he has the same confident stature, the same strong, dominating handshake and the same cold poise in his eyes. Oliver knows Tobias is only nineteen years old, but he looks nothing like Oliver did his age. Nothing like anyone his age. He’s got this sharpness to him, and this firmness… It makes sense now why Constance is afraid of him. And why she hates him. But he’s just… beautiful. These frigid eyes, these lips smirking fleeringly, this chin raised loftily… His slender fingers, his graceful but steady walk, the vibrant sardonic laugh moving his alluringly protruding Adam’s apple, his carefully calculated gestures. Everything about him is perfect. He is the image of absolute, cold and cruel beauty. And whenever he catches Oliver’s gaze and replies with a brassy smirk, Oliver hardly manages to conceal the shudder.