"Tav?" Georgiana lifted her head blearily, confused at the weight pressing against her mattress. He assumed her surprise fair – despite all the changes he doubted illicit midnight bedroom assignations had become acceptable.

"I saw it again," he admitted.

"The thing? Where?" She sounded justifiably panicked, lifting herself up against the headboard and rubbing sleep out of her eyes.

"Earlier, out of the dining room window. It saw me- it saw Darcy and I. Kissing."

She allowed herself a moment of eager congratulations before getting serious again.

"Glowing eyes again?"

"You're taking it rather calmly," he said, though wasn't sure if he meant the kissing or the monster, really. Either way, she shrugged expressively, before a charming little smirk passed her features.

"In your mind I am not even real, yes? Perhaps this is simply just how your brain might hope your helper may react."

"Stop, or I may feel we're both destined for the mad house."

It did raise, again, the uncomfortable notion of a successful adventure meaning Georgiana and Darcy wouldn't be around anymore, not as real people. That Georgiana was helping him to possibly write herself out of existence. Joking or not, if he kept thinking about it he probably would find himself in whatever passed for a psychiatric ward here. He had to just keep moving the story along.

"Do you believe it means us harm?"

He'd forgotten Georgiana didn't know he'd seen Jane Austen again, so he told her the most relevant parts of what she'd said.

"A chaos demon?" she asked when he'd finished. "Though it sounds like it can be killed. If she claimed it as weak?"

"Yes, and also as though it will try to kill me. Like I need to be removed from the story so things will go back to how they were."

"Perhaps we need to kill-," she was interrupted by a whisper from the doorway that made them both gasp.

"Tav, what are you doing in here so late?" It was Darcy, looking worried and glancing over his shoulder as if worried the servants would catch them in a compromising position.

"I'm telling Georgiana about us," Tav hurriedly came up with. Well, it wasn't completely a lie. He still felt it was too dangerous to tell Darcy everything, in case it impacted the story too much in the wrong way, though he felt uncomfortable continuing to hide something this big.

"I'm sorry, Georgie, I hope you don't feel as though I took him from you," Darcy said, approaching the bed to take her hands.

"Don't be silly, Fitzwilliam. I can assure you, there was not a moment where Tav was mine, despite what we suggested to Aunt Catherine. Neither of us wanted that. He's always been for you."

Tav didn't know how he felt being discussed as though he were a chattel, but then he supposed perhaps that was normal, even with the changes. Women certainly had always been considered property. He wondered if that had changed in this timeline of events, though he wouldn't confuse matters more by asking.

Georgiana and Tav could no longer talk about their next step, but neither were going to sleep comfortably with the demon out there, so they encouraged Darcy to stay up with them, perhaps a little cruelly given his tired eyes, and regale Tav with tales of growing up at Pemberley. Georgiana was some years younger than Darcy, so even she hadn't heard all of the stories and listened rapt. Darcy even told them, in completely innocent terms, about his love for Wickham when they'd been younger men.

"Father always travelled for business and left us at the house, overseeing everything. I think that's where some of the rot began to set in, if I am honest."

"Why would that be the reason?" Georgiana asked, tears in her eyes at the obvious pain her brother was in.

"Wickham felt as though we would be equal partners. But each time my father returned he made it clear he considered him a servant. Oh, he loved the boy like he was another son in person, but with regards to the property and the Darcy family name, he never hid that Wickham was not an equal. And he would often comment how I would be married some day and bringing my wife to Pemberley, though I have no doubt he was aware there was something between us. 'Tis why I could barely look at him when I saw him in the street today."

Tav took a risk. "If he hadn't become embittered over that, do you feel as though you might have married him?"

Darcy's eyebrows drew together for a moment, before a brief darkness, barely visible in the dim light of the room, passed over his face.

"At the time, I could have believed I would. I loved him enough, then. Though perhaps his bitterness turned out fortunate. I can see it was all a youthful infatuation, made bigger in each of our minds, and a marriage would have been a mistake."

Tav glanced at Georgiana. He'd been wholly focused on Darcy, so didn't know whether she'd had the same shadow when the new reality clicked into place – the reality where marriage between two men was normal enough to simply be discussed in conversation – but she was looking at her brother with a fond sadness in her eyes.

He wondered if that was it, if he'd done enough to make the changes to the story to appease Jane Austen, and to get the demon to give up.

* * * * *

Tav woke early, bright light coming through the window as a maid bustled through the room murmuring about getting more tea. He groaned as he rolled over onto a long pair of legs which wriggled out from under him – the three of them had fallen asleep on Georgiana's bed, which was luckily large, though the strange position he'd slept him had definitely left him with a crick in his neck.

"My brother is fond of you," Georgiana said as she buttered toasted bread, Darcy having excused himself to his correspondence.

Tav was tired, so very tired, and getting both confused and annoyed by all the little switches in attitude. It felt like he was losing Georgiana – the Georgiana he'd got to know, anyway – as he wondered whether she even remembered now how many conversations they'd already had on the same topic. He needed to end the whole thing.

"Would you mind if I spent today with Darcy?"

"Not in the least," she responded with a knowing smile. "I have been expecting it."

That was how, later that afternoon, he found himself in Darcy's club, with a whiskey and soda before him and Darcy's intense amber eyes watching every move he made.

"Why do you stare?" he asked, glancing around to see if it was noticed, or bothered about, though everyone seemed fully enraptured in their own conversations and, interestingly, there were two young men on the far side, by the fireplace, who were seated side-by-side reading separate leather-bound books and not speaking, but their fingers lightly entwined.

"If you could see yourself, you would stare too."

"Going all out for this, then," Tav muttered to himself, but he couldn't pretend Darcy's intense attention didn't make him feel things, pleasurable things, deep inside himself. But realising that only made his heart hurt when he recalled that his only purpose here was to make changes and then be gone, back to his real life.

He crushed down that miserable thought, and instead, he used the opportunity to do the things he might try in his own life if he was attracted to someone real. He listened carefully, was agreeably conscious of the attitudes and opinions they shared and intrigued by those they didn't. If he expected to need to fake this for the sake of the story, he was pleasantly surprised. There were certain things they were unlikely to connect on – Darcy had no knowledge of music, movies, or books that Tav enjoyed, for obvious reasons, but he showed himself interested in the world around him, and able to speak intelligently about a great many things.

When the afternoon turned into the evening, Tav agreed readily to dinner, and then to the theatre. He took the chance, under the dimness of lowered house lights, to find Darcy's hand. Warmth travelled up his arm at the tender way Darcy held his hand, and Tav was quite coming to the understanding of how people in these times decided on their loves so very quickly.

When they left the theatre, it was late, but Tav felt as though he could stay up all night just to watch the sunrise with Darcy, which was something he would never have thought possible of himself before. But something about Darcy inspired it in him – that new level of romanticism beyond anything he would have ever expected, from either himself or someone he was interested in. Almost as if Darcy were worth it.

When they left the lights of the theatre the darkness was heavy, cloying and smoky, but he felt safe with Darcy's hand still in his. It felt so natural that they'd walked for some time before it even registered that they were walking through the still busy late-night streets of London hand in hand, and no one had commented or even looked askance. The streetlights were intermittent – pools of orange light barely able to pressure the dark into falling back.

When Darcy guided him away from the main street, to the mouth of a snicket that ran between two buildings, Tav went freely until his back was pressed against the bricks and he could feel the promise of the line of Darcy's body, standing so close as he was. It was natural to tilt his head up and watch the dark shadows cast over Darcy's face by the limited light, looking back down at him.

"Da- Fitzwilliam?" he whispered after a moment of silence.

"I cannot- you are too perfect, my love. I- I'm sorry, it's too soon to say such things to you, but I have watched you in the theatre, the way you smiled, the way you leaned forward in focus... it was all I could do not to pull you toward me and kiss you with every ounce of the passion I feel for you."

"Oh."

"I'm sorry, I push you too far, too fast."

"No, no, please, Fitzwilliam, you don't. I promise. It's simply that no one has ever said such things to me, not with so much sincerity."

"You like it?"

"I adore it. I can only hope you continue."

They lost several moments with Darcy pressing soft, close-mouthed kisses against Tav's lips and jaw in a way that was chaste only very, very theoretically, with the way they sent fire through Tav's core, before he pulled back. Even though Tav could not see his eyes well in the dim light, he knew they would be brimming with earnestness, and it made him warm and happy.

"Tav," Darcy cradled his jaw, dropping one more kiss against it. "You have made me happier than I ever thought possible in this short time of knowing you. I feel the rightness of you and I together as something that consumes me, as something I will now always need to survival. You are my perfect person, made to be mine as I am made to be yours. Tav, it is soon, but I have never been surer. Will you-," he broke off, his face blanching.

"What? Darcy, what?"

Tav followed his eyes back toward the street, feeling his heart climb sickeningly into his throat at the sight that met them. A black shadow, a floating form vaguely humanoid, but what couldn't be mistaken was the vicious red eyes, leaching anger and cruelty as the beast roared.