forever isn't for everyone [fflur]

Fuck. Fflur sucked air through her teeth, her grip on the hug lessening a bit. Charlie didn’t have to finish his sentence; she hadn’t intended for his mind to jump to that, but now it had and there was no undoing it. She had somewhat recovered from that night of blackout drinking -- three years later she was still wondering how they drank that much -- and pieced together the majority of the night, so naturally she assumed he had, too. A three year hiatus and a very misguided kiss aside, they had handled it well: they had an unspoken agreement to never talk about it.

He wasn’t trying to ditch her now like he had when he was fresh in his denial, but that didn’t mean that Fflur wanted to have a fun little chat about things, either.

Charlie pulled back and Fflur withdrew her arm slowly, her expression somewhere between amusement and disbelief. She caught his eye and raised her eyebrows, burying her laugh in her drink as he averted his gaze and busied himself with the bottle. There was no thanks when he poured her a refill -- she wasn’t about to break the silence first -- and Fflur found herself intently studying Bert’s breathing patterns as he napped. She didn’t think it was a dire enough situation for her to be blushing, but she wasn’t about to risk it.

“The wedding,” she agreed with a nod, turning back to give him a proper look. “Rings,” she repeated as he paused. And the stag night too? “Gotcha.” It was hard to pay attention and follow along without laughing at Charlie forgetting how to drink, but somehow she managed; she was probably still trying not to overthink the turn in conversation thirty seconds ago. And then it was her turn to forget how to drink; Fflur coughed before blurting out, “California? Christ.” That sounded warm; then again, no way they would be getting married any time before winter, so maybe she was overreacting. 

Stag night was wherever she wanted. She wasn’t about to point out how little that made sense. There were more important things to worry about, anyway. “You have enough mates for a stag night or should I hire some people?”

Shit. Charlie hadn’t let go of the vodka bottle yet. He tipped another serve into his cup just to keep himself busy, pausing only as he lifted it to his lips to take another (another) drink. This was part of the problem, really, wasn’t it? Drinking. Fflur. Drinking with Fflur. He set the bottle (now rather lighter than it had been before they’d started ‘celebrating’) down on the table and lowered his teacup, holding it in two hands in his lap. His right leg was bouncing nervously as he licked his lips out of habit.

Charlie’s attention was drawn to Fflur’s face as she coughed – at first he thought she was taking the piss out of him, but then he realised she was genuinely caught off guard by the location of the wedding. Charlie exhaled, relieved that they could distract themselves with wedding talk. He had a feeling that this might come back to bite him in the arse, should Fflur ever want to bring it up, but he was happy to ignore it for now.

He nodded, “Yeah, it’s where all her family are and… there’s a shitload of them.” He and Kate hadn’t quite gotten as far as a guest list, but he was aware that probably seventy-five per cent of the invitations would be going to Kate’s extended family. Charlie would rather have kept it small, private, intimate – but then he’d already had his way, hadn’t he? Vegas had just been the two of them, but it also hadn't been the wedding Kate had dreamt of. He knew girls felt differently about their wedding day; San Diego would be how Kate wanted it – or, how she thought she wanted it. Not that he’d say anything like that to her, but he knew part of this was to appease her family and meet their expectations, conform to their traditions.

Well, he just hoped the Duenas’ were ready to have a non-traditional Best Man.

“Ha ha,” he deadpanned, rolling his eyes. Fflur wasn’t far off the mark though – they wouldn’t be getting any large group discounts. He turned to look at her, “You know as long as you’re there that’s all that matters, right?” Charlie managed to keep a straight face for a few seconds before he relaxed into a grin. He nudged her shoulder with his, “You’ve got a month or so to hire them, just get the cheap ones, alright?" He smirked, then finally took a drink from his teacup. "As long as they can remember my name.”

“Right, yeah.” Fflur nodded along like she knew that Kate was from California and had just forgotten momentarily. She was pretty sure she hadn’t known, though, or that Charlie had mentioned it in passing and it had been one of those things that didn’t seem like it needed to be committed to memory (and not because she hadn’t thought him very serious about Kate until their present conversation, she convinced herself). “You going to have two weddings, then?” She motioned toward the door, to the rest of the UK beyond it. “The muggle thing,” she clarified after a few seconds. “My sister had two.” The bigger one for his family, the smaller for the Blevinses. Two weddings and her marriage still ended in divorce; somehow Fflur found the restraint not to mention that part.

She grinned as she shrugged. He had said it himself: picking her as Best Man said a lot about his choices. They had been alone whenever they spent time together in the past few months so he couldn’t really fault her for thinking she was his only friend. The same was definitely true for her, anyway. “You’re not wrong,” she replied with another shrug, only grinning when he did. “It’ll be easier for them to remember ‘Chaz’ so I hope that’s alright.” She assumed it wouldn’t be.

Fflur paused mid-swallow, looking back to Charlie as she replayed the last couple sentences he had said. “What do you mean I’ve got a month?” She lowered her cup and raised an eyebrow. “You mean like a month, this thing is in July?” She and Bert were going to New York as soon as term was over and she supposed she needed to start planning her final exams before she needed to give them the week after next. And Robin was in New York and she wasn’t too keen about skipping out on time with him for what was effectively a last minute party -- unless Robin was one of the hired guests, of course. But that was beside the point.

“Wait.” Fflur placed her cup on the coffee table and shifted to look at Charlie properly. “When are you getting married?” Wasn’t there usually a good bit of lead time on this? Shouldn’t there be a good bit of lead time on this? Hadn’t he and Kate been together for one whole month more than she and Robin had been? It hadn’t seemed like such a huge discrepancy when she had thought the wedding was something far in the future. Never mind that it was just hard to believe that Charlie could get his life together before she could.

Charlie nearly choked on his vodka again – he thudded his fist against his chest as he cleared his throat, then relaxed the moment Fflur continued to explain. The muggle thing. Thank God, for a brief moment he’d thought she somehow knew that he and Kate were already husband and wife. Crisis averted. “No,” he shook his head, his voice a little raspy from the alcohol burning down the wrong way. “Just one wedding,” he paused, deciding how much to dwell on it, “I don’t really see or talk to the rest of my family, so just, Nan and my parents I think. Not really sure what the rules are on that.” He frowned, making a mental note to find out if he was going to be breaking any sort of laws by having his own parents at a magical wedding.

“You hiring rednecks for us or summat?” he rolled his eyes exaggeratedly and took a more cautious sip of his vodka. It was slowly starting to go to his head – he blamed the lack of mixer and the fact he hadn’t eaten in a few hours. “In all seriousness, I can give you a list – up to you if I put Robin on there or not,” he grinned mischievously. He had considered avoiding the stag night thing altogether, mainly because he knew that the usual kind of ‘activities’ on the menu were bound to just get him in trouble. Another reason to pick Fflur over Liam, he supposed; she might actually listen to what he didn’t want. He'd broach that topic soon enough.

Charlie grabbed the bottle again and topped himself up, then Fflur – there wasn’t much left, so unless Fflur had another secret stash they’d either have to stop drinking or head along to the pub. “I’ve only got one req—"

“Hm?” He turned to look at her, his expression growing more sheepish as his eyes met hers. “Oh, erm.” Charlie bit his lip, “Well, the wedding is gonna be in August. The end of August.” He clarified, scratching at the back of his neck. “Kate wanted it in summer,” he said quickly, scrambling for excuses, “and before like, all her younger cousins went back to school and,” he swallowed, avoiding Fflur’s gaze, “we’ve lived together for a year already—” minus their brief intermission, in which he’d tried to kiss the woman next to him,  “—so it’s not like anything’s really gonna change.” He inhaled deeply, trying to ignore the overwhelming feeling that he was making this sound like he’d been backed into a corner.

“Right, yeah, just the one.” She had known the basics of his family situation -- hers was more or less the same, what with all the creative storytelling for family members -- but she had asked anyway. “Yeah, I dunno either.” To her grandparents (and really anyone that wasn’t a parent or sister) she was a driving instructor at a school up north, just coming off a bout of volunteering abroad for years. She didn’t miss the irony.

Fflur shrugged as she considered his gracious concession to let her invite Robin to his stag night. “What, is there some reason you wouldn’t want him to go?” She raised both eyebrows, furiously hinting at what he had said a few moments ago. All of that was in the past, all occurring before Robin had been back on her mind; her conscience was clear enough. It was those dumber things, though, like making a move on her after she was well-and-truly coupled that he really needed to worry about. But they were past that now; Charlie was getting married.

And he was getting married in August. The end of August. Fflur nodded slowly, taking another swallow of her drink instead of offering any sort of vocal support for his choice. Or Kate’s choice, rather. A very small part of her -- and she was nearly ashamed of the small part because it didn’t seem like a very Best Man thing to do -- wondered if this was all some sort of ultimatum, some sort of condition that had been spawned when they had gotten back together. Of course, she couldn’t pretend to understand the mechanics of his relationship -- she was still trying to figure out how her own worked from time to time -- and the rest of her -- the undoubty, kind of optimistic part -- knew he wouldn’t be marrying Kate just to make her happy.

He was making excuses now, and Fflur lowered her cup enough to interrupt. “Yeah, no, August sounds great. Before I have to go back to school, too,” she reminded him with a shrug. “Plus I”ll be in New York for the summer--” she was unsure if she had mentioned that already “--So I’ll already be halfway there. I think.” She was honestly pretty clueless about any geography more than ‘Wales is not in England’.

She stayed quiet a moment, replaying some fond and not-so-fond memories of parties past and nearly everything -- including but not limited to: drinks, smokes, gratuitous burlesque shows, and one-sided fist fights -- all seemed like risky ideas. Hopefully he hadn’t been hoping for a sober Fflur to plan this party, because it was probably that version of her that might be able to come up with anything his almost wife wouldn’t find issue with. Then again, she was pretty sure Kate wasn’t invited, so maybe…

“You said you’re paying?” She assumed he remembered her financial situation well enough and was smart enough to figure out that it hadn’t improved all that much since Paris. “Otherwise we’ll be having take away and watching The Goonies.”

Charlie’s grin faded at her expression and he put up a hand defensively. “No, it’s not— I just, if you wanted a night out without him, that’s all.” For a change, Charlie genuinely hadn’t been trying to make a pass at her; he thought maybe that if he was going out without his partner she might like to do the same, especially now that she was drinking again. He nodded at her teacup, “Don’t know if he’s seen you ten vodka sodas deep before,” he smirked, a little weakly. It was a fair question, too. Charlie had known both Robin and Fflur before they’d quit drinking, but separately. He wasn’t even sure when they’d met one another, now that he thought about it – maybe he’d ask later, when it didn’t sound like he was trying to come between them.

Fflur wasn’t really giving him any hints as to what she was thinking – though, he supposed, her silence said enough. She wasn’t warning him off, at least, like Liam had done. Her response now was a bit more akin to what Sam’s had been; quiet acceptance. He knew it sounded quick, especially to anyone who didn’t know just how long Kate had been in the picture. Even Sam, who did know, had been erring on the side of caution (“What’s the rush?”). Objectively, Charlie could see why; it wasn’t just the speed at which they’d seemingly progressed through milestones and the fact that he’d cheated on her (more than once) – there was the age difference and the obvious power imbalance. It wasn’t like he hadn’t considered those things himself – just, he’d thought more about it since they’d gotten married in Vegas and now it was a case of not allowing any doubts in.

Thankfully, Fflur seemed content to keep moving the conversation along. “Yeah, exactly,” he nodded, as if he’d factored other people’s lives into their choice of date – he’d tell her it was on the thirty-first after she got over the shock of everything else he was laying on her. Maybe it’d be a good distraction if the conversation drifted back to that night.

“Oh, really? Doing what?” Charlie asked the question before he remembered that Robin existed and he was currently existing in New York. “Rob, right, sorry.” He cleared his throat and shifted slightly, eyes lingering on the vodka bottle once more before he looked back at Fflur. “You gonna do anything while you’re there? Like work or just, touristy stuff?”

Charlie let out a laugh. “Yeah, within reason.” He assumed Fflur knew what ‘reason’ was, and if she didn’t she wouldn’t be too shy to ask him. “Just tell me what sort of budget you need when you’ve figured it out and I’ll sort you out.” He was well aware that, if he had bothered to keep a tally, Fflur owed him somewhere in the realm of a hundred or so rounds. Luckily for Fflur, Charlie was happy to not cash in his tab on her, in payment for putting up with him. He grinned, “Sounds alright to me.”

“Right.” Fflur sipped at her drink rather than address what Charlie had joked (?) at; Robin had not seen her ten vodka sodas deep. He wouldn’t either. She wasn’t quite as bad as she used to be -- wasn’t bad at all, she reminded herself -- and wasn’t planning to let it get that way. She returned his smirk a little belatedly, bringing her mind back to his issues instead of her own.

But it was back to her, anyway. “Rob,” she confirmed, her smirk more genuine now. She followed Charlie’s gaze to the vodka bottle -- she should probably slow it down, shouldn’t she? -- and back, shrugging a little. “Yeah. You remember Luc?” Fflur assumed he did; Luc had that certain way about him that made him pretty hard to forget. That and she had ditched Charlie for him on a few occasions. “I’ve got a little trial run as a bartender with him.” She rolled her eyes before he could, anticipating whatever comment he would have about her (lack of) mixology skills. “Failing that, I guess I’ve always got burlesque--” the Blind Pig’s other specialty “--to fall back on.” She shrugged again and took another sip of her drink, not serious but not altogether ruling it out, either.

Fflur didn’t bother asking what ‘reason’ was. He’d stop her if she got excessive, right? She didn’t want to talk about money, anyway. She had still had some money when they had first met, but her lack of any actual income -- and lack of desire to acquire any -- fixed that right up. He seemed to always have some issues letting her buy a round, but she had eventually reasoned it was less of a way to show off or prove a point, more of a way to be nice without having to be obvious about it. There was also the ten pound notes she’d find in her jacket pockets sometimes after he’d have a visit, but she couldn’t necessarily credit him with that, she supposed.

But ‘within reason’ was good. “Party in a month with a very sketchy budget. Tidy.” Was there enough time to get matching t-shirts? Of course there was -- magic.

“What else do I have to do?” She set her cup on the table and shifted, pulling both legs up under herself and turning to face Charlie more. “Rings and what else?” If couldn’t be that complicated, considering it was a man’s job and all, but she figured she should ask, move past the mental image of them in matching suits. Unless -- “I don’t have to wear a dress, do I?”

Fflur didn’t seem overly invested in keeping that thread of the conversation alive, so Charlie gratefully allowed it to peter out. Given what he’d already let slip this afternoon he was hardly keen to give her any more reason to think he was trying to angle his way in between her and Robin. Or that he wasn’t fully on board with marrying Kate – as far as Fflur knew, he still had two months to change his mind before he signed on the dotted line.  He felt a little dishonest, not telling her, but it wasn’t hurting her, was it?

Charlie caught Fflur’s glance at the vodka bottle and wilfully ignored the small voice telling him he ought to suggest they put it away. “Er, yeah, the American bloke?” As if there was only one – but there was only one Luc, and Charlie wasn’t his biggest fan. His eyebrows shot up as he stared at Fflur in surprise, “A bartender? For—” His eyes fell to the teacup of vodka in his hand, rather than keep looking at her and betray what he was thinking. Was Fflur, who was recently remerging into the realm of not being teetotal, working in a place surrounded by alcohol, with a man Charlie knew she’d regularly slept with, a good idea? He knew he was hardly in a position to lecture anyone on drinking, or sex with people who were not one’s partner, but her news settled uncomfortably in his gut. He almost thought of outright offering her money to avoid her needing a job over there at all, but he knew she’d never take it – there was a reason he had insisted on buying their drinks, leaving her cash to cover her ‘utilities’ when he stayed in her flat, forgot about the notes shoved into jacket pockets.

He gave a quick shake of his head and flicked his gaze back up to meet hers, he’d bite his tongue for now. “You realise you have to make what they want, right?” They being the paying customer. “Does he know your version of a cocktail is just three types of booze in one glass?” He lifted his teacup and drank, downing what was left—

And spat some of it out as he choked into a laugh. He thumped at his chest again, screwing his face up against the burn in his throat – twice in the space of what, ten minutes? He was beginning to think that vodka would be the death of him. Or Fflur would be, anyway. “You doing burlesque?” he breathed out, his voice hoarse from coughing. “I’d pay to see that. Get you some feathers and shit,” he said with a grin, reaching up to ruffle her hair a little. He hadn't meant to, but the moment she'd said it Charlie had pictured Fflur in one of those big feather headdresses.

Charlie nodded, “That pretty much sums it up, yeah.” His eyes followed Fflur’s teacup as she set it down on the coffee table; he gave one final glance at the vodka bottle (there was still some left) before copying her and setting his down too as he tried to think if there was anything else she was going to be responsible for. Right now, he couldn’t remember it if there was—

“Erm…” Charlie turned his head to look in the opposite direction, scratching idly at the back of his neck. He had been hoping this particular detail could wait until closer to the date, but then again, maybe it was better to give her time to get used to the idea. He lifted his gaze to the ceiling, suddenly very interested in it, as he spoke, “I did ask if you could just… wear a suit with the rest of us but…” He brought his line of sight back to meet hers, “Kate… said no.”

Charlie looked from her to the vodka and she set her mouth in a hard line, ready with five million and one reasons her being a bartender wasn’t a poor choice. Besides the sheer absurdity of Charlie having any opinions on drinking, it -- the drinking -- wasn’t that bad, she reminded herself. She had been able to go nearly a year without it, being around it still and not partaking; she could go for a stretch of a few hours behind a bar. Never mind that she had jumped at the chance to toast to Charlie’s engagement, making the quickest one-eighty on her decision to not tell him about her lack of sobriety in the first place. But he still wasn’t looking at her, and she rolled her eyes again. She had more opinions about this than his marriage, that was for sure.

“You sure?” Fflur laughed, relieved he was commenting on the easiest thing to defend. “I could just put a mint leaf and a little umbrella and call it a mojito. Same difference.” But she smirked, aware that that was a requirement she wasn’t wholly keen on. She was counting on Luc giving her a bit of leeway when it came to customer satisfaction; didn’t every bar need a grumpy bartender, anyway?

Fflur laughed again, shrugging off the insinuation -- choking on his drink sure seemed like a good sign -- that her burlesque routine would be anything short of spectacular. Vesper had given her plenty of pointers, after all, though she was choosing to ignore the suggestion that she not climb into that giant martini glass, fully clothed, sipping at the drink with a bendy straw. Charlie was clearly thinking along other lines, anyway, and she smirked, closing her eyes for the second his hand was in her hair. “Doubt you could afford it, really.” More so that her skills were better suited to private shows, and that chance had passed Charlie by years ago.

Erm… Fflur looked at Charlie, eyes wide. “No.” The hesitation, the lack of eye contact; Fflur knew what he was going to say before his lips had moved. She hadn’t been expecting him and Kate to have already discussed it -- how long had they been engaged, anyway? -- and she shook her head as he finally looked at her. “Nah, can’t, mate.” She shook her head again. She was pretty sure the last dress she had worn had been for a family photo in the seventies, probably at Mamgu’s insistence. Even Nerys had conceded to the novel idea of a woman wearing trousers for her wedding. “Better ask Liam, he likes you more than I do.” Fflur shrugged, picking her glass up after tipping a bit more vodka out of the bottle. She raised the cup to him in a silent toast before knocking the whole thing back.

Charlie laughed, “Yeah, flash ‘em your winning smile and it’ll be reyt.” God, it wouldn’t. If drinking straight vodka was her idea of a drink, she'd definitely need to be taught the basics. Maybe they’d give her the background jobs, not actually let her loose on the bar – collecting and cleaning glassware, filling shelves with fresh bottles, changing keg taps over. He figured she couldn’t mess any of that up, at least. Or shots. If it was a busy enough place she could just pour shots all night, they were easy.

“Pff,” he rolled his eyes. “You think you’ll be top billing?” He grinned and adopted the sort of inflection a newsreader might use as he waved his hand in the air at an imaginary billboard on the other side of the living room; “Former Quidditch star Fflur Blevins in burlesque debut!”  He laughed again at the prospect. “Come on, you’d be lucky to give them away for free – I can take one off your hands, do you a favour,” he smirked. "Just, er... promise you'll keep your kit on?"

No. Charlie grimaced; he'd known this was going to be a sticking point, but he'd hoped his friendship was worth it – not that he'd ever done anything, to his knowledge, that made him worth doing this sort of thing for. He knew Fflur didn't wear dresses or skirts, but had never asked why. It wasn't really his business, and he couldn't really imagine her in anything but her trademark look now. He didn't yet know what exactly Kate had in store for her bridesmaids plus Fflur, but he couldn't imagine Kate would want anyone looking like shit.

“Fflur, come on, it’s not that big of a deal – all the girls’ll be wearing one. Nobody'll even be looking at you.” He tried not to glare at the Liam comment – was everyone in on this apart from him? He shook his head lightly and sighed. He was hoping that she was using Liam as her alternate and not Sam because she wasn’t really that keen to give up the position. He twisted towards her and placed one hand on her thigh, giving her his very best pleading look as she brought the now-empty teacup down. “For me, please?” He wet his lips, “I’ll— whatever you want,” he lowered his voice and his gaze, moving his hand to take hers in his, “I want you up there with me.”

“It’s not that big of a deal,” she repeated mockingly. “You gonna wear one?” Convincing her to wear a dress was much worse than pleading with her to keep her clothes on, she had decided. Fflur rolled her eyes. “Nobody will be looking at me -- y’know for years I’ve done whatever I can to not upstage you with my fame--” she was kidding now, of course, but that was beside the point “--but putting me in a dress is probably too big a spectacle for your fame to handle.” She rolled her eyes again as she shook her head. “Nah.”

Charlie rested a hand on her thigh and she glanced down at it before locking eyes with him again. She watched him with one eyebrow raised, shrugging after his first question. Of course, she wanted to be there for him. But it was a big ask; even she wasn’t sure of her reasoning for not wanting to wear a dress, but it was the principle of the thing, wasn’t it? That, and he had ditched her for years, only to see her again and make another move on her. And she was still pretty sure he only got in touch with her because she was dating Robin.

Basically, it was a lot to process, even with the promise of having final say on all stag party preparations.

“Fine.” Fflur shook her hand free of his and draining one final drop from her cup. “Just stop being so cheesy.” She rolled her eyes for good measure, thinking back on what he had said, whatever you want. “You can’t be upset if Kate sees me all done up and decides to leave you at the altar, though,” she said after a few seconds, shrugging like that was the most obvious thing that would happen. “And wear a dress to my wedding.” Never mind that she was not thinking that far ahead in the future.

“And buy me a drink. We’re out here.”

Charlie fought not to roll his eyes. He really didn’t understand the issue. It was normal for girls – women – to wear skirts and dresses. Not so normal for Fflur, granted, but it was for one day. She seemed rather adamant, though. He began thinking about the likelihood of convincing Kate to allow Fflur to wear a suit – that hadn’t exactly gone over well in his first attempt, had it? And he couldn’t see her giving in. Of the two main women in his life, he had to live with Kate and he knew he’d never hear the end of it if he ‘took Fflur’s side’ one more time. It was Fflur in a dress, or no Fflur at all. As a Best Man, at least.

And it wasn’t that he didn’t want Sam as his Best Man instead – he’d agonised over the options – but he really didn’t want the resulting shitstorm that would come from picking Sam over Liam. And he absolutely couldn’t pick Liam over Sam. It was bad enough telling Sam he wasn’t first choice, he couldn’t tell him he wasn’t second either, no matter how big of a tantrum Liam would pull.

Past all of that, he really did want it to be Fflur. Despite how much they didn’t get into feelings, he felt that she knew him better than Sam or Liam ever could. Sam was his oldest friend, but Charlie knew that the Irishman judged a lot of his decisions poorly. Liam, on the other end of the spectrum, seemed to think Charlie needed to make more questionable choices. Fflur had the sort of balance he needed – as long as no one ever found out about Paris, it would all be fine.

Fine.

Charlie’s face lit up as he looked at her, like she’d granted all of his wishes or something. He pulled his hand back and wiped it subtly on his jeans. “Worked, didn’t it?” He smirked at her, the grin beneath bubbling away. He laughed, glad she was already sort of joking about this. “Promise,” he replied with a short nod, his mind wandering down that avenue for a moment; Fflur and Kate—

He better not. He was doing so well, he didn’t want to jinx anything.

“What?” He laughed again at her proposal, his face falling just a little as he realised she wasn’t having him on. “You’re serious?” He clarified, her expression answer enough. He shrugged; she’d forget all about this by the time she got married. If she got married. “Alright, deal.” One more request? Charlie nodded and got to his feet, holding one hand out to help her up. “I’ll buy you two, how’s that?” he grinned, heading for her front door.

END