itchy bones [charlie]

london | june 28, 2003

He’d gotten his hair cut -- not that it was terrible, or anything, but it was about a quarter inch shorter than he liked it, and he’d almost dug out that cellular phone Charlie’d given him ages ago to cancel for three days to let his hair grow out. The phone was dead, though, and Sam didn’t remember at all how to revive it -- it was in his pocket now, so he’d remember to ask Charlie about it.

They’d fallen back on an old London standby, closer to Charlie’s townhouse than his new place; Sam had realised, twenty minutes after suggesting it, that it might have been a weird choice, but it’d been too long to change his mind -- and, besides, he liked this pub. The beer was cheap and they had a framed Wigtown jersey on the wall.

He was halfway into a beer when the bell over the door dingled to signal a customer; he glanced up and saw with relief that Charlie was coming in. “Chazza,” he said, voice raised over the evening bustle of the bar. He waved the barkeep over as his friend wove over to the booth, said more quietly, “Sorry, I started without you.”

Drinks ordered, he spun his empty stein on the table with two fingers and cut to the chase: “Alright?”

Sam wasn’t looking to discuss business, and certainly not without Liam -- and the EP was doing well, their new manager was an industry veteran and a competent schmoozer, and they’d already picked sets for their upcoming shows. There wasn’t a lot of business to discuss. What there was to discuss was gossip -- mostly Charlie’s, generally. “So how’s -- everything going?” he opened; this was vague enough that he felt obligated to elaborate, “With Kate” even though he imagined Charlie’d come to expect this as his first question. They’d hired a new manager; Kate had moved back to the States; things had gotten an air of finality, lately, which filled Sam with simultaneous grief and relief.

@Charlie Baker

”Chazza.” Charlie closed eyes and inhaled deeply. The only thing worse than the nickname their new, Australian manager had given him was the fact that he hadn’t given Sam one at all -- or not one that the other boys hadn’t used for years. He supposed he ought to be grateful that he hadn’t been bestowed the ironic title Liam now had (“Big Lee”), but Chazza grated on him something manic. Fucking Crocodile Dundee.

Choosing to at least verbally ignore the greeting, Charlie sat opposite Sam. “S’alright, I’ll catch up,” he said -- his tone hovering somewhere between promise and threat. He ordered a bitter -- no, may as well make it two -- and settled more comfortably in his seat.

“Yeah, you?” Charlie had a proper look at him and his eyes bulged slightly. "Lose a fight with your barber?" he teased, his lips twisting into a grin.

Sam didn’t waste time beating around the bush and Charlie supposed he couldn’t begrudge him that. Charlie knew what he had meant by everything and would have done his utmost to tactfully skirt around it and hopefully avoid the topic altogether had Sam not gone on to so helpfully specify. When he said her name, though, Charlie tensed; did Sam know? How could he know? Or did he just mean in the wider, divorce fallout sense?

Their beers arrived amid Charlie’s hesitation to respond. He grabbed at his first stein eagerly and brought it to his lips. “Yeah, fine,”  he said as he lowered it back to the table, licking his lips. They weren’t, obviously, but he told himself that there was no way Sam could possibly know what had happened -- twice, now. Sam had obviously seen Kate at Ollie’s launch party -- they all had -- but Charlie was holding onto hope that he hadn’t seen Charlie leave after her.

Knowing Sam, he reasoned with himself, he was just checking in on Charlie’s delicate emotions after having been confronted with his ex-wife in what he had thought was his safety bubble. “Didn’t know she were still in London,” Charlie admitted quietly. “Hopefully just for that-- Ollie’s thing. Networking or something probably.” He was saying too much now, rather than his usual not enough. He had another sip of his beer.

“How’s Quinn? You two moving in yet?” He didn’t really care about Quinn, but he’d rather suffer through Sam’s romanticism than focus on his own trainwreck of a life right now.

Sam grinned at Charlie’s bug-eyed second take -- “Aw, fuck off,” he said, “Bit more off the top than usual, is all. Keeping out of the way of the cameras ‘til it goes away.” Or, he corrected himself internally, ‘til it did the opposite of going away. Jesus Christ.

He was distracted momentarily by the arrival of more beer; he frowned sympathetically at Charlie’s admission. “I didn’t neither,” he said, “Guess there’s not much use trying to steer too clear, though, isn’t like we can all just stop goin’ to the big events.” This was the hazard of dating within the music industry, and why Sam tried not to. His brother Donny had tried to date another magizoologist on his crup research team and now specialised in doxies.

It was a tantalising prospect, though, of just quitting the public eye. Sam supposed he was too addicted to it -- the music and the boys, obviously, just as much as the admiration. (Besides -- he’d hate to see some more attractive, less talented git as their drummer.)

It was his own fault, that Charlie’d brought up Quinn -- this was what came of Sam nosing around Charlie’s romantic life (or, formerly romantic life) -- and he glanced down at his beer. A different pub, different drinks -- fuck, everything was different from how it’d been in October the last time he’d done this -- but he said, at length, “We actually -- we broke it off.”

In the aftermath of Sam’s previous breakup -- career choices -- and Charlie’s recent divorce -- infidelity -- it felt like mutual incompatibility was a poor excuse for a breakup, especially given that Sam had always sort of considered himself the best at making things work in a relationship, of the three of them. He’d already missed out on being the first one to get married, after years of taking it for granted that he would be. He couldn’t say any of that, though, because he’d come off like a prick: instead he shrugged and said, so that Charlie would know not to immediately slag off his ex, “It just didn’t work out, I guess, we don’t get along so well after awhile.”

“I thought when she quit they’d just stop inviting her,” he mused, sullenly. He understood the possibility of her being at some events but this one had been a little too close to home -- literally. Kate had left the label, and in all likelihood she was working for her Dad now (Charlie hadn’t thought to ask), so why did she need to be lingering if not to fuck with him? Again, literally, but he couldn’t -- wouldn’t -- voice any of that to Sam, so he just nodded. “Yeah,” he agreed distractedly.

Charlie lifted his beer to his lips, preparing himself mentally for Sam’s romanticism, and nearly choked mid-swallow. “What?” he breathed out, once he’d finished drinking. “When?” He assumed it had to have been recent, for Sam not to mention it before now. That, or Sam was doing that noble thing of his, playing down his own breakup because Charlie’s had been a divorce. 

Just as important as when: “Why?” Charlie hadn’t been Quinn’s biggest fan (no one could top herself, obviously -- eyeroll), but he’d thought she might’ve been a better match for Sam than the magizoologist. The photographer had been alright too until she’d gotten a stick up her arse. Sam offered a vague explanation and it was easy for Charlie to assume someone had to have done something but he had to remind himself that not everyone was as much a piece of shit as he was. He pressed his lips together, trying to look sympathetic. “Sorry, mate.”

Charlie’s hand was still wrapped around his beer. He brought it to his lips and drank, then let out a noise of amusement. “Who would’ve thought— three of us, Liam’s the one shacked up.”

Charlie almost choked; Sam sat forward in his seat with mild concern -- God help him, he did not know the spell to clear airways and he definitely didn’t know that hemlock thing the muggles did -- but Charlie got out a vague what, when? “Er, a few days ago, like,” said Sam. Charlie did not seem spluttery any longer, so Sam decided to assume that he’d recovered his breath reasonably.

Even if he hadn’t, the fans would probably find it sexy, he reassured himself.

“It’s fine,” he said, “I’ll be all right soon, I reckon.” He would be busy, at least, which was almost as good. He drained his beer quickly, mostly for comedic effect, and waved the barkeep over to get it refilled. He supposed that, even if he was prudent enough not to date within his own industry, he’d been asking for trouble dating a Quidditch player -- he’d have to skip all the good parties now.

He wondered if that was feasible for Charlie -- surely their career was doing better than Kate’s, now that she’d lost her first client, so if anybody should have sat out the label parties it was Banshee -- but probably the label would like them to repair their image. Charlie’s reputation as a playboy had been preferable to his new reputation as an adulterer.

Charlie brought up Liam and the boyfriend, then; Sam mock scowled -- “You two sure kept that quiet,” he groused, but he slouched in the booth and shook his head incredulously. “Unreal, that,” he said. “Wait, seriously -- like -- so has Lee just been that sort this whole time and we didn’t know, or is this a new thing?”

“Mate,” he said again, with as much empathy as he could muster. “You could have—” Charlie pressed his lips together again in a soft grimace. “You should’ve said, could’ve popped round, if you’d wanted.” He was willing to wager that Sam hadn’t wanted to. Like, if his only two options had been Charlie and Liam, maybe, but they had other (mutual and not) friends. Friends who weren’t still working out how to be divorced at twenty-seven.

He said he’d be fine and Charlie was about to let him wallow a bit more, but Sam finished his beer and made Charlie grin, despite himself. “Yeah,” he agreed, deciding to mirror him and downed most of his own glass (there had been a bit more in it to begin with). “You wanna talk about it?” He silently added to Sam’s order for a refill, pointing between their empty and almost-empty glasses.

Charlie grinned again -- bordered on a giggly sort of exhale -- at Sam’s reaction. “I tried dropping hints mate,” he said defensively, sitting back on his own side of the booth. “Wasn’t really my news to tell, was it?” An amused smirk stretched across his lips, then he shrugged. “I dunno,” he replied honestly. “Can’t imagine he’s like, completely that way,” he pulled down at the corners of his mouth. “He’s shagged enough birds, hasn’t he? If he didn’t like them at all wouldn’t be able to get it up, would he?”

Fresh beers arrived and Charlie drained the last of his old one, slid it across the table and picked up his new glass. He’d been wanting to ask someone (preferably Sam) this since the minute he’d found out Liam was a homosexual: “Who do you reckon’s the bloke?”

Charlie looked almost distressed that he hadn’t gone straight to him and Liam with the bad news -- “It weren’t anything urgent,” said Sam. Six months was on the shorter end of the relationships he tended to have -- more than that, he’d spent a fair bit of those six months dicking around with the lads in the studio, and Quinn had spent a fair bit of those six months losing League Quidditch. (He had decided that, though he wasn’t happy the Falcons hadn’t won the season, he wasn’t upset either. It was lovely not to have skin in the game.) “Loads better than the one in October -- I think for both of us.”

Sometimes he forgot that Quinn had also been out of a relationship when he’d met her -- when he considered that they were two celebrities on the rebound, it wasn’t such a surprise that they’d broken up. It was the sort of thing that should have been a good deal more comforting than it was.

“Oh, were there hints?” said Sam, a little dryly -- dropping hints was only useful when Sam knew to look for them. In ten years of knowing Liam Thompson, it had never once occurred to him that he might be gay. Charlie echoed his thoughts a moment later -- “Wonder if we should’ve guessed this from the way he dresses,” Sam pondered. “I just thought he was, like, made to be a rockstar.” Either that, or this Oliver bloke was something else. Sam had spoken to him for like thirty seconds and been unimpressed -- but, of course, Sam had never had Liam’s (or, for that matter, Charlie’s) taste in women. Clearly, he wouldn’t have his taste in men.

Sam spluttered on his beer and said, grinning, “Ain't the point that both of ‘em are?” but frowned thoughtfully. Liam may have had weird fashion sensibilities, but so did Oliver. More importantly, Sam didn’t want to think about Liam taking it up the arse. “Don’t know,” he said. “Reckon Liam has more experience doing the, er, poking. All the girls.” Unless this Oliver fellow had had the most debaucherous early adulthood in the world, at least.

“Doesn’t matter if it were urgent or not,” Charlie said. “I owe you more than just urgent.” If he thought about it, though, it wasn’t like Sam could’ve been that serious about Quinn – Charlie had barely had the opportunity to say two words to her in the entire time they’d been dating, and he wanted to blame that on Quinn rather than on his preoccupation with his own relationship. Or lack thereof. “Well, least you didn’t waste any more time on her,” Charlie said offhandedly, then remembered who he was talking to and shot a wary glance at Sam. “You know what I mean,” he mumbled apologetically – he mainly didn’t want Sam to think he meant he’d wasted three years on Kate (had he?).

“Good timing, probably,” Charlie smirked, having a sip of beer. “We can enjoy Europe properly while Liam mopes around the hotel pining.” As if that was probable. Liam was the one up for a good time – it was yet to be seen how he’d behave in a real relationship, and a homosexual one at that. Still, it wasn’t like Sam had never had a sense of occasion – they were allowed to enjoy themselves, completely guilt-free, now that they were both single, maybe he’d let go a bit this tour. Bloke bloody well needed it.

Charlie sniggered. “Mate, the only way I could have made it more obvious was if I’d started—” he lifted his hand and gestured crassly, his tongue poking into the side of his cheek, “— every time Ollie popped up next to Lee.” Of course, Charlie was acting like it had all been as clear as day for him, too, but he’d only found out by means of a miscommunication – one that he didn’t want to tell Sam about, because it implicated him in Charlie’s fantastical – and frankly, to Sam, offensive – theory that his two oldest friends would ditch him in the pursuit of fame and fortune.

Sam brought up Liam’s fashion sense and Charlie frowned, looking skywards ponderously. “Never thought about it,” he admitted, “thought it was just, you know, the way you lot dress.” He glanced at Sam in his very normal t-shirt. “Well, not all of you.” And it wasn’t like muggle musicians couldn’t be just as flamboyantly dressed; his mind drifted to Bowie, Mercury, Prince, to start. Having said that…

“Dunno,” Charlie smirked, then grinned at poking. “Maybe that’s why he’s gay, would rather be poked.”

Sam shrugged. “Not as urgent as an immediate thing,” he clarified. Charlie’d been busier these days, with his own Quidditch girlfriend (who was not a girlfriend girlfriend) and Charlie didn’t like him randomly Apparating in. “Besides, couldn’t see you until I had the  new ‘do.” He scratched his head self-consciously.

That had been an interesting look, but Sam just had a sip of his beer. He didn’t know what Charlie meant but he thought he didn’t want to -- for so long, Charlie’d been a little less interested in his conquests than Sam was in his own. It was both comforting and a little disappointing that Charlie seemed to be back in that territory, but -- just so long as he wasn’t fucking other women in his wife’s bed, Sam was happy.

Charlie’s next train of thought seemed to confirm this: he was hell bent on enjoying Europe and, for once, Sam was too. This was the first tour since the nineties that he wasn’t bringing a girlfriend on -- hell, yes, he was going to have fun. “Do you really think he’ll mope?” he said, grinning. Liam was a moper, true, but Sam had never seen him lose sleep over a girl. (A girl, he supposed, was the operative word there. He still couldn’t get his head around it.)

Sam snickered at the crassness -- it was almost nostalgic to watch. “Christ, mate,” he said, “Next time just go ‘head and do that, it’d save me a lot of grief.” And it’d be funny as hell. Of course, Sam was going to hold out hope that none of their other stalwart mutual friends was going to suddenly become gay -- though, if he had to pick anybody they knew, his money was on Flume.

He looked down at his front at the same time Charlie did, raising his eyebrows. Liam had always been a touch more of a wizard than Sam, though -- Slytherin, he reminded himself -- and a touch less butch. “Christ, remember his kimono?”

It was time to stop speculating about Liam’s homosexual sex life and silken robes-- Sam was thinking about it now, which was the last thing he wanted to do. “So... how've you and Alannah been?” he asked instead.

Sam blamed not yet having been scalped for not popping by. “Right,” Charlie offered him a slow smile, not really accepting that as a valid excuse but also not really wanting to keep harping on about it all -- the most important thing was that they were both at liberty to do whatever they wanted on this tour. No ball and chain.

Charlie laughed. “Christ, I dunno. Never been in love before has he?” He grinned and leant back in his chair. If he thought about it (not that he wanted to) he knew what that was like. Obviously there were some differences (some more obvious than others), but if Liam had never felt like he could be himself before, who was to say he might not suddenly change how he acted now that he was in a relationship? A real one. With a bloke. Charlie shrugged -- he didn’t particularly want to get into it. “He might. Or maybe he’s allowed to bone girls still, who knows what their deal is. I’m not asking.” He drank.

He grinned, let out another light laugh; as if he’d need to go through all of this again. “Haven’t we got our token bender now?” he said, his expression fading the longer he thought about it. Now wasn’t really the time and place to worry about how he felt about things, even if it was a relief that Sam -- who was, admittedly, the most level-headed of the three of them, but also the most Catholic -- was fine with it all. Really, Liam had always been the one who’d come across the least accepting. Was that irony or something else? Too much thinking for right now, whatever it was.

His grin came back in full force, his eyes taking on a wistful quality as he propped his head up on his fist -- oh, back when things had been more simple. “His dressing gown, don’t you mean?” he said, affecting the same tone Liam had used at the time (and every time it had been brought up since).

Charlie heard the metaphorical record scratch. “Er…” He had a large sip of his drink, attempting to give himself more time to figure out what to say and not coming up with anything better than the truth: “I, um, haven’t seen her.” He had the decency to look mildly apologetic about it, but he’d argue it wasn’t his fault -- not entirely, anyway. He’d ghosted her, but she hadn’t made any effort to follow up with him after her win so he’d figured they were even. He had slept with Honey before that, of course, and Kate before her, and then both again since (not at the same time, though, Christ), but the point was that it wasn’t his fault.

And Sam didn’t need to know all of that, or that he was going to Honey’s birthday party tonight. Or that he’d seen her this morning after spending the night. If he really needed to know anything, he could know that Charlie had gone to Alannah’s match, to be supportive, then ducked out before it had come to the afterparty -- how was he supposed to call things off if he went to that? And then he’d reconsidered the whole breaking it off thing altogether, which might have worked if he had been quick enough with apologising for ditching (“Didn’t want to steal the show” or something)—

He wasn’t looking at Sam but he could feel the way the Irishman was glaring at him. “Probably bad timing anyway, she’s winning the league and we’ve got the tour…” His face was growing redder by the minute.

“His turn to be fuckin’ unbearable, I reckon,” said Sam thoughtfully. “Nirvana.” He thought that was the intellectual way to say you reap what you sow. He hadn’t been jealous of Liam’s love life since he was about sixteen -- then again, he couldn’t say he was jealous now. Happy though Liam seemed to be, he was also gay, Sam didn’t know how Liam himself felt about it, but he also didn’t know how he felt about it -- not that there was anything wrong with it.

Charlie grinned and Sam grinned back -- “Oh, his dressing gown,” he said, also mimicking Liam. This was starting to feel like the amount of talking-about-Liam-behind-Liam’s-back that exceeded what was decent, but -- fortunately -- he and Liam had talked enough about Charlie behind Charlie’s back historically that he felt like he was at least being equal in two-faced backstabbing. “Christ on a bike.”

“Er,” said Charlie, and immediately chugged his drink. That boded ill -- Sam withheld his instinctive sigh (“Oh, for fuck’s sake”) and leaned back in his chair, resisting the urge to fold his arms.

He waited a moment for Charlie to explain himself beyond I haven’t seen her; when it was clear that it was a futile hope, he asked, “Why not?”

Sometimes Sam felt like his father -- he’d definitely inherited the same world-weary approach to idiocy. Every time his dad had taken him to task for something he’d started with a sigh (Goddamn it, Sam).

He almost said it -- goddamn it, Charlie -- but Charlie was turning red already and Sam was sort of sick of talking down to him. He’d done it enough this year, given that Charlie’d gotten divorced inside a year of his engagement, and this was supposed to be his post-breakup mope. Still -- “You didn’t even owl her?” he said -- maybe Charlie needed a little more guilt in his life. His mission accomplished, he commandeered the conversation away -- “Christ, this tour is gonna blow.”

Charlie sniggered as Sam took his turn to imitate their missing member. “Fuck me,” Charlie mumbled into his drink.

Why not? Charlie shrugged and set his glass down, his fingers still wrapped around it; “Just stopped.” He scratched at his ear awkwardly, pulled at the lobe before dropping his hand back to the table. “Busy, the both of us. You know how it is,” he said, referencing Sam’s relationship with Quinn -- good thing he’d gotten that excuse barely ten minutes ago.

“Well I— She didn’t owl me either,” he said in his defence, but not defensively -- if anything he sounded rather blasé about it all (or he was trying to, at least). He had thought about it, but then there had been one thing after another and he’d reconsidered other things (it was bad enough to make one woman’s life hell, surely?). Charlie picked up his rapidly-depleting pint and had another sip. “Just didn’t work out.” Part of him wondered if it might’ve, had he put the effort in -- but his recent choices seemed to point at something he knew, not very deep down: he wasn’t ready.

Charlie rolled his eyes. “Oh, come off it, it’ll be boss,” he said reassuringly. “It’s more like a holiday than a tour anyway, you’ve seen the schedule.” They all needed the break -- even Liam, probably. Charlie rubbed at his jaw ponderously. “You think Alan did that to try and slow us down? Get cultured?” he smirked.

You know how it is was kind of fair -- Sam supposed he’d dropped things off with a woman for about the same reason, so he did know how it was. Still, there’d at least been a conversation first. He shook his head -- “So you think she just... ghosted you back?” That would be funny in, oh, a month or so, but for now he gave Charlie a semi-sympathetic look. “It happens,” he supposed.

He had a long sip of beer; just a few minutes ago he’d been excited at the prospect of being the sole member of the band without a girl on the tour, but now that it was there were two of them, it didn’t seem as fun -- neither he nor Charlie was any stranger to some wallowing after a breakup. He shook his head at first, at Charlie’s reassurance, before his brain caught up to him -- “Oh,” he said, “Fuck, yeah, it better be.” They hadn’t been bachelors together in a long time, it felt like.

Sam grinned, warming up to the idea -- “Jesus Christ, are we getting old?” he said. He would miss the grueling schedules they’d started with, he decided. In the early days of their career, he hadn’t thought he’d look back so fondly on overwork. Maybe they’d felt more authentic, or organic, or something.

“Well, I’m not getting cultured,” he said, “I’m getting bollocksed. You’re only twenty-seven once, aren’t you?” He slapped the table decisively, then finished his drink, gave the empty glass a spin on its beermat. He wanted another, but he supposed, looking back up at his best friend, that he was in no rush -- they were both single now, they had the whole afternoon.

[out]

He hadn’t really thought about it like that until Sam pointed it out. Charlie had known he was the one to back off, but she hadn’t come crawling and while his initial reaction had been relief -- he didn’t have to worry about making excuses or going through some convoluted version of (another) breakup -- he was realising now that maybe he ought to be a little more bitter about it. He frowned and had another gulp of beer before he let himself say anything. “Yeah.” Fuck, that settled a lot less comfortably than it all being his choice. He’d convince himself later that she’d done it because they were on the same page -- she knew just as well as he did how it would end otherwise.

“It will be,” Charlie replied adamantly, sitting up straighter in his seat. He let out a light laugh. “Maybe,” he shrugged; he had never felt so old as he did now -- but he was, so, it was only going to get worse, probably. He didn’t want to get into that, though, knowing what opening that can of worms would do.

Charlie laughed again, more heartily. “Yeah, I can’t wait not to be,” he said, “way this year’s gone, Christ.” He smiled wryly and finished his glass. He slid it across the table to Sam, figuring one more couldn’t hurt. “Go on.”


[end]