don't wanna weep for you, i don't wanna know || ariana

Kate was sure her friend was going to be startled by something like this. After all, as far as both she and Ariana had known, she'd been perfectly happy in her relationship. Secure enough not to suspect he'd been doing downright heinous things while she'd been gone or asleep or whenever else. And they hadn't been friends for very long. Kate knew it would be weird for her to just show up on her doorstep like this, but sad and lonely as it was, she really hadn't had anywhere else to go. Wasn't as though she could go begging Charlie's bandmates for a place to stay, and she couldn't take a Portkey all the way back to California at this time of night. Not when she didn't even have any of this figured out, at all, whatsoever.

It was no offense to her sister and her mother: she loved them and often decided to absorb the advice they always felt compelled to thrust upon her. But they knew Charlie, they knew he was a big part of the reason she'd moved to London (read: the only reason), and if she was going to take him back, which, she wasn't sure she was going to and she wasn't sure he even wanted her to, she didn't necessarily want them knowing. About his escapades. With this woman named Layla. Who had been sending him mail to their home address for weeks. Who had violated both their bodies and their home. Who had... just about infiltrated every aspect of her life and her brain. Kate knew, of course, that it wasn't only Layla's fault that this entire situation had transpired: but she felt conflicted. She wasn't sure if it had been the right thing, to pack her Louis Vuitton suitcase that had been a gift from her father along with its other corresponding bags for her travels to a new continent, and show up on her friend's doorstep in the rain in November. Instead of staying at home in her lofty apartment near the other side of town to comfort her boyfriend. He'd been beside himself when she'd left.

Of course she loved him and wanted him. She just wasn't sure they were on the same page anymore.

She'd had suspicion that maybe he'd been with other women while she'd still been in school based on some of the comments his bandmates had made about his habits, but she'd taken that with a grain of salt, and stupidly, as was becoming more evident. God, she was stupid. So stupid and naive. Why would he have wanted someone like her, after all, when there was a catalogue of women lining up at his feet right here in London? Kate wondered if she ever should have moved here in the first place. Maybe Francesca was right. Maybe he was just... using and abusing for her skills. But it was hard to believe, though, wasn't it? The way he acted in daily life said he loved her. The stepping out on her with someone else when she was living and breathing and RIGHT THERE spoke to the contrary.

Kate, glad for a singular time since moving away from San Diego that it was raining because it was disguising the runny mascara streaks down her cheekbones that were, indeed, crocodile tears, knocked feebly once on the door. Realizing it might've gone unheard, she increased the volume and pressure for a couple more raps, waiting for Ariana to open the door. She sniffed pathetically and rubbed her eyes with her hand, no longer caring whether she was the picture of beauty (even if she had been, that hadn't seemed to matter) and tried to quell the sobs knocking her chest into a concave shape. Relatively unsuccessful, but having done so enough to speak, Kate smiled sheepishly and rolled her suitcase up close to the lip of the threshold.

"Ari, I'm... really sorry, but can I stay here tonight? I don't need a bed or anything, I just... something happened at home, I'm not sure if you saw the paper today." The witch inhaled slowly, her breath and her lungs quivering a significant amount, "Charlie.... cheated on me," Her face screwed up into a shadow of its usual self, her typical sunny demeanor having melted away to house a grief-stricken expression. When she managed to collect herself, she continued, her voice distorted with tremors as she spoke through her tears, "And I just don't really have anywhere else to go. I'm sorry to bother you."

Things had gotten a lot more settled in adult life for Ariana in the last few months. She'd started training for real, and the comforting nature of the quasi-academic environment with Alex around, unbroken by incidents, had put her back in a familiar rhythm. She and Camm were working on making their tiny flat slightly more inviting and less run-down. She'd seen Prosper a few times, which was still pleasant and puzzling. And she'd gotten to be pretty good friends with Kate, and while she didn't have the same years with the American girl as some of her other friends, it was very easy to spend time with her. Ari was working on learning to cook, which she was in the middle of doing at the moment. A full breakfast was too much food for the nineteen-year-old, but toast, tomatoes, and eggs she could do. They'd had a few little problems with the stove in this place, but it wasn't smoking too badly right now and she could always open a window and use heating charms to keep warm if she needed and Impervius to keep out the rain.

Hearing a faint noise coming from somewhere, she frowned and cracked open the stove, which sometimes rattled when the weather was bad as it was now. Hearing it again, she realized it was a knock on the door. Ari's brows knit together in confusion--who was here this early? But not many people knew where the two of them lived, so Ari balanced the spatula on the side of the pan and shuffled to the front door.

Opening it as a gust of wind blew some rain into her face, she raised her arm to shield herself and made out Kate's outline in the gray, accompanied by a suitcase and what sounded like sobs. "Kate?!" she exclaimed, throwing the door open and ushering her friend inside. Her wand, ever at the ready, flew out into her hand to shut and lock the door in a short series of movements and siphon the rain from the floor and from both of their faces. Ari did a decent amount of things Muggle-style, but there was nothing comparable to charms for speed, and Charms had always been her best subject.

Camm was asleep, but he'd become a terribly deep sleeper as she'd discovered so she wasn't too worried about waking him up. Still, she sent another charm to muffle their sound around his bedroom door and put her wand away. Looking Kate up and down, before she started speaking, Ari went in for a hug before letting her talk. It seemed like the right thing to do.

When she did speak, Ari started nodding and then shaking her head--yes of course you can stay here, no don't be sorry, I can make you a bed, the paper? The Prophet, brought without fail courtesy of Camm's job, hadn't yet arrived, or she'd missed the owl. Ari froze completely, then. "What?" slipped from her lips before she could stop it, as pointless as such an utterance was. Her mouth hung open a little bit, surprised. Kate talked about Charlie all the time, but it was more in the sense of where they were going to go on a trip, or about what kind of gig Banshee was playing. As removed as she was from the popular music scene, Ari hadn't really heard any rumors about what kind of person Charlie Baker might be. She'd received the filtered version from Kate. Anything else was almost as much as shock to her as it was to Kate.

Collecting herself, Ari pulled out her wand again and flicked it, sending the suitcase into their little common space. "I'm so sorry, Kate," she said quietly, stepping in for another hug. She didn't know if she wanted to talk about it or not, but she figured she'd let her ease into it and busied herself. "Come on, I'll make up a space." She wanted to make it perfectly clear that Kate was welcome, ignoring her apologies. She wasn't sure if a full bed would hold that long, but pillows ought to, for a while. Conjuring a set of fluffy down ones, she arranged them into a semblance of a daybed-couch-space. "Do you want breakfast? I was just making some," she said over her shoulder, leading her to their counter stools and walking into a cloud of burnt acrid scent. "Oops. Tomatoes." Levitating the blackened fruit into the garbage can, she grabbed the pan and set it in the sink. "Water, at least?" she asked, already filling up a glass.

Kate's arms looped around her friend with little to no regard for what happened to her suitcase. That hug was something she hadn't really known she needed, but necessary it had been all the same. Kate and Ariana hadn't known each other for very long, but the friendship Kate could feel blossoming the more they hung out was built on mutual understanding, similar interests, and a pretty unshakable sense of loyalty and trust. She felt loyal to this person, like she was supposed to care for her and give her advice and drink with her and eat popcorn on the floor in a cheesy pajama set and talk about boys with her. All the normal things girlfriends did with each other, right?

She knew she'd been... blessed in her childhood with a default female friend (read: slave driver) in her sister Francesca, but that was a separate thing. This was different because it was something she'd chosen and something that had helped keep her grounded after her move to London. That had given her a sense of personal purpose outside of her admittedly consuming relationship with the person she loved most in the world.

She had been excited about the prospect of there being a future for her friendship with Ariana, but truth be told, Kate couldn't see herself remaining in London without Charlie. Without him, the depressing, drizzly climate would only add to it and she'd miss her family even more than she already did. If things didn't end up working out, and that was looking cloudy at best, she would have to leave all of her new beginnings behind and go back to her roots. Kate didn't love the idea, really. She wished she were a strong enough person to be fine on her own in a rather alien place which didn't always like Americans -- but she needed support and frequent interaction with loved ones. Even if those loved ones preferred to smother her and lock her into older customs instead of encouraging her to venture out and follow her dreams. Charlie was good for her like that.

Ari showed her inside and apologized to her, as if she had anything to be sorry about, and Kate said nothing. She nodded her head once and stepped over the threshold, not protesting at all when her friend went about making a space for her. She was so kind.

Kate was inclined to politely decline the breakfast offer as she wasn't particularly hungry, but she stopped her breath short, mouth open, when Ari retrieved a clump of blackened tomatoes from the kitchen. The brunette had to grin. "Water is great." She sauntered up toward the counter to grab the glass from her friend and then went to sit down on her makeshift daybed, leaning slightly forward on her elbows and clutching at the water glass between her hands like an anchor. "Keep making your breakfast," Kate insisted, starting a little and perking up from her hunched position to ensure her friend wasn't deviating from going through the motions for her sake. "I'll be in here when you're finished."

Ari was rather glad she'd messed up the tomatoes after all: a smile from Kate in this situation seemed like a really valuable thing. Neither of Ari's parents used that much magic in cooking, apart from maybe dicing vegetables, so she wasn't too used to the complex charms that set everything to cook unattended. She scoured the pan and quickly scrambled a few eggs, glad she'd made the toast already, before bringing the plate over to her friend and setting it in between them. There was an extra egg and an extra piece of toast, in case she decided she wanted to nibble on something afterwards.

The brunette girl crossed her legs in front of her and hugged her knees with her left hand, spearing a few eggs with her right. After a moment, she swallowed and looked her American friend in the eye. "Do you want to talk about it?" she asked gently. Ari had been in this position often during her youth--well, not this position, exactly; nothing of this horrible magnitude had ever happened to her friends, at least in regards to their relationships. They'd had their fair share of teenage drama, but this was different: Kate and Charlie were adults, Charlie especially, and they were so serious that Kate had moved far away from home to live with him. But Ari had adopted her listening pose many times for close friends, and Kate was getting to be that, she felt.

Briefly, she tried to flip back through her brief interactions with the older man, looking for signs. Slytherins, really, she thought, in a justified and angry tone. Unfortunately, Ari really hadn't exchanged any words with him other than a hello once or twice when coming or leaving. The former Hufflepuff didn't read the tabloids, nor even the celebrity sections of the Prophet. There would be no tracing of the mystery, no eureka moment. She supposed this was what they meant when they said that bad things sometimes just happened to the best of people.