yesterday [banshee boys]

Charlie leaned to one side to extricate a fluffy white blanket from beneath him, then settled back into Liam’s sofa. Then shifted forward again, realising his discomfort was down to his reason for being here, rather than his bandmate’s (questionable) décor. He had to tell them at some point, but it hadn’t made the prospect fill him with any less dread. He knew Liam would be pleased, at least. It was Sam he was worried about – and who they were waiting on for Charlie to deliver his news.
 
He should have showed up a little late to account for Sam’s tendency to do the same but his mind had been elsewhere, and thus he’d turned up promptly at Liam’s door. Liam had asked, upon Charlie’s arrival, why they weren’t conducting this meeting in his swanky new rehearsal space. The Yorkshireman had laughed (heartlessly) and asked where ‘the boyfriend’ was in order to change the subject. It had worked, sort of. Liam had shut up about Charlie’s basement at least.
 
Liam handed him a drink as he returned from the kitchen and Charlie found himself gripping it tightly, unsure whether or not he should— He drank, before he could think about it. He needed to have something in his system to get through this. “How is—” he began, intending to ask more sincerely about how it was all going – ‘it’ being Liam’s pet-project-cum-budding-romance – but there was a knock at the door.
 
The older man went to let Sam in and Charlie tipped his beer back, guzzling it quickly in an attempt to make up for the lower percentage – he could understand why Liam had gone for beer over spirits, if he thought they were here to talk new music. By the time the other two were back in the living space, Charlie had visited the fridge and returned with two fresh beers, one for Sam and one for himself. “Alright?” he asked, handing one over.
 
Charlie ran his right hand through his hair, pushing it back as he rested his backside against the arm of the sofa. He looked tired – gaunt, almost. Better if he just ripped it off like a plaster, right? He opened his bottle. “Kate’s leaving me.” He paused, about to drink, not looking either of them in the eye. “Us, I suppose.” He lifted the beer to his lips and drank.


@Sam Lynch  @Liam Thompson

Sam hadn’t made any effort to put his jacket on when he’d been Apparating out, and Liam let him in soon enough that it didn’t matter. He followed his bandmate through to the living room and dropped his jacket over the arm of the sofa. “Alright,” he said gratefully, accepting the drink and having a seat. “You good?” He frowned a little critically at Charlie.

It’d been a bit of a while since he’d seen the boys-- they were all busy lately, for whatever reasons-- and Sam was a little surprised by them. Not Liam, so much, Liam seemed more or less normal, but Charlie looked like a right mess. As he opened his mouth to speak, Sam crossed his ankle over his knee and pointed his wand at his bottle to pop its cap off; as he actually spoke, he looked up in surprise.

“What,” he said, not quite able to mask his instinctive disbelief. “Kate?”

At Charlie’s next words he remembered that Kate had been their manager as well as Charlie’s wife; he wondered if that was why they were being told now, because of the music, before he shook his head a little-- maybe they would need to talk to the label and figure out what to do now but didn’t that take a backseat to whatever had happened? Didn’t Charlie realise that?

He was still blinking blankly at his bandmate-- he decided, without putting much thought to it, that he couldn’t yet look at Liam, who had been right all along and must be realising it now-- said, “Well-- what happened?”

The right question was, what did you do? but Sam didn’t want to be accusatory off the bat-- there was the chance, however small, that this wasn’t Charlie’s fault-- but, even before it was confirmed, Sam felt a thrill of annoyance running up his spine. They’d all known it, and been dancing around it for months, that Charlie didn’t deserve Kate, but Sam had never thought of Kate as a quitter. Either he didn’t know her at all, or he’d been completely out of the loop, or Charlie’d gone over some line-- Sam, finally, chanced a glance at Liam, just to see if he’d had any idea about any of this.

If it had been Charlie instead of him, Liam obviously would have ribbed him about the boyfriend without mercy, but as it was him and not Charlie, he was getting well sick of it. He’d clammed up grumpily and retreated to the kitchen. Charlie wandered off behind him toward the studio, and as Liam perused his selection of beers, he heard him fall heavily onto the old leather sofa. He chilled a bottle with a swish of his wand and brought it back.

Liam sat backwards on the piano bench, leaning forward on his knees to get a good look at stringy-haired, eye-bagged Charlie. “When was the last time you looked in a mirror, mate?” he asked, mockingly wrinkling his nose. He’d been thrown off before, but now he was back and ready to keep up with the affectionate teasing. “I’ve seen house-elves cleaner than you.” Eyeing the stain peeking out from under Charlie’s old jacket, Liam handed off the beer. “Look like you need this, at least.”

He was saved from Charlie’s attempt at genuine conversation by the arrival of Sam. Liam sprung up to let him in.

Charlie and Sam were sat awkwardly together on the couch when Liam returned with more bottles. This was no writing session—they were having a proper family meeting. In Liam’s experience, that never boded well. The unending clown-handkerchief of possibilities unfurled in his mind as he sat gingerly back on the piano bench, each worse than the last. This was an intervention, Charlie was going solo, Kate was pregnant, Charlie was dying of dragon pox, Charlie and Sam were going to make him sit here and tell him all the reasons they hated him—

Kate’s leaving me.

Wide-eyed, Liam looked at Sam, who would not look back at him, and then back to Charlie. In their silence, he elaborated on the least of their worries. It was Sam who first managed to ask the real question. “Yeah!” added Liam, with less sensitivity. “What the hell finally did it?” He’d spent ages hoping Charlie would leave Kate, but the reverse had been, in his mind, entirely impossible. It couldn’t have been the shite in the Prophet, could it? If she hadn’t left after every other stupid thing Charlie’d done, surely it would have to be worse?

He at least felt a little bad for telling Charlie he looked like rubbish. Clearly he wasn’t taking this well at all. “Hey, look, it’s alright,” said Liam firmly, catching Charlie’s eye. He’d have reached over to the couch, but could only touch his knee at this distance and didn’t imagine that’d be well-received. “Kate can go fuck herself,” he said. “You’ve got us, mate. You’ll always have us.”

He could feel their eyes on him, and he avoided meeting either of them at first – then realised he would have to do so at some point and chose the (far) lesser of two evils; he glanced at Sam first, then Liam, then focused back on the beer bottle in his hand, started peeling the label to have something to concentrate on. He nodded, to affirm Kate (a snarky voice in his head asked who else?), but he didn’t say anything – he wasn’t really sure what there was to say; he hadn’t allowed himself to rehearse this because he simply didn’t know what he could say to make any of it less awful than it was.

Sam was giving him the benefit of the doubt – as always. Liam sounded more triumphant than dismayed. Charlie ripped a corner of the label off his bottle, then met Liam’s gaze. “It’s not her fault,” he said firmly, almost irritably, though he softened somewhat at the rest of Liam’s statement – even if he didn’t think Liam was right to declare unwavering support on Sam’s behalf too. It felt presumptive to say ‘thanks’ before they knew the full story, so he didn’t.

Charlie had known Sam would be less than impressed – any sympathy for his best mate aside – and he probably felt almost as bad about telling Sam as he had with Kate herself. “She—” No, that wasn’t right. He tried again. “I cheated on her,” he mumbled, the gravity of it all starting to pile up on his shoulders with every further admission – not that him being unfaithful was groundbreaking news, even if they didn’t exactly talk about it. “She walked in,” he added quietly, before Liam could point out that that hadn’t put her off the last time, or the time before that – nevermind that they were married now, or were. He supposed he still was until everything became official.

He stood silently, uncomfortable remaining so close to Sam – as if the drummer would betray his nature and lash out (chalk it up to Charlie taking preventative measures). He took a swig of his beer and swallowed, turned and rested his back against the wall. He chewed on his lip, hesitantly looking at the floor near Sam’s feet.

It was so obvious -- cheating -- but it felt like a sort of betrayal anyway. (He didn’t want to imagine how Kate must have felt.)

Charlie’d looked away nearly as soon as he’d glanced at Sam; Sam, who’d been trying not to look like he was pissed off, scowled a little bit, deciding that, actually, it didn’t matter if he looked upset. Frankly they could all stand to be a little upset -- Liam’s response to this, a little less tactful and a little less dismayed than Sam’s had been, was bothering him a lot, but this wasn’t about Liam. (He didn’t know what he’d have expected of Liam, in the case of a Baker divorce. He supposed he hadn’t been expecting a Baker divorce.)

“I thought you were seeing someone ‘bout that,” he said, not entirely coldly, as Charlie stood up. He’d promised Charlie not to tell Liam what the therapy had been for -- and he still hadn’t, technically. Hopefully Liam would make the same assumption Sam had and guess that it was couples’ counselling-- and, if not, he supposed it didn’t matter. The therapy had been a requirement for Charlie’s marriage, which no longer seemed to need it.

It made them all look bad when Charlie did stupid things -- Liam too, but Liam wasn’t their frontman. And Sam had said this, back when Charlie’d started seeing a teenager, and then when he’d been cheating on her, and then when he got her sick. He supposed there wasn’t any point in repeating himself, now -- Charlie had to know how bad it looked to have divorced after, what, six months?

“You won’t even try one more time, then?” he said. “To do right by her? She’s your wife.” He was still staring at Charlie, who was adamantly avoiding it; he chanced a glare at Liam instead, to see if Liam would back him up. (He doubted he would, of course. Liam had never liked Kate and Charlie together -- momentarily Sam was overcome with frustration at them both -- that Charlie was giving up on years of self-improvement, and that he couldn’t imagine Liam saw that as a tragedy.)

Liam took another sip of his beer, feeling uncomfortably like his “go fuck herself” might have been premature as Charlie explained. But really, he thought—had it? Kate had known what she was getting herself into. Why was this affair more objectionable than any of the others? Had it been tolerable if she didn’t have to physically witness it? Had she expected marriage to make him a different man? If Kate was just done trying to fix Charlie now, Liam thought they were both better for it.

Sam, it seemed, disagreed.

“Isn’t this doing right by her, though?” cut in Liam. He knew both Charlie and Sam were expecting some smugness from him, as they’d all known what he thought of this from the beginning. Thus, out of spite, he was doing his best not to be so—but Merlin’s bollocks, it was hard. He tried to shrug casually. “If you don’t want to be with each other, I think it’s better to end it than try and pretend you do.”

Charlie scowled down at the bottle in his hands -- couldn’t very well scowl at Sam, could he? Charlie didn’t dare look up yet in case he caught Liam making eyes at Sam; he was sure it would have come up at some point, but he really wasn’t in the mood to tell Liam he had been (had being the key word) seeing a therapist. He was mad at Sam for doing that, but Sam had plenty reason to be mad at Charlie first -- he wasn’t sure that excused breaking his promise, but then he hadn’t been doing a great job at keeping his own lately. Karma, maybe. “Didn’t work, did it?” he asked darkly.

He looked up at Sam, finally, and opened his mouth to reply -- then Liam beat him to it. In any -- literally any -- other situation Charlie would have looked at Sam as if to say get a load of this prick, but it was clear that Sam was not in any mood to gang up on anyone other than him. He supposed that was fair. Didn’t mean he appreciated it, of course. But Liam was still going.

Charlie glared at him, ready to tell him how wrong he was; Charlie desperately wanted to be with Kate -- he loved her, he knew he did despite how he treated her -- but more than he loved her he wanted to stop hurting her. She had requested the divorce, he figured as some sort of ultimatum, and he had granted her request because he thought one big injection of pain now would be better than years and years of ongoing suffering. More torment every time he slipped up and reopened that wound. If therapy hadn’t fixed him, and getting married hadn’t fixed him, he was never going to stop. It would be better this way.

But he couldn’t tell them all of that. Sam, because he’d push Charlie to try and make it work, be a better man, deserve her, then. Liam, well, because he was Liam.

"I've tried," he said, running his hand back through his hair and grimacing at how slick with grease it was. He rubbed his fingers on his jeans. Out of nowhere he felt a bubble of rage burst in his chest. "I've been trying for the past three fucking years," he snapped, to nobody in particular (himself, maybe). He was frustrated. Couldn’t they see how much of an effort he’d made? How much he had attempted to change? He’d made compromise after compromise for Kate (and she for him) and none of it had made any fucking difference.

Charlie looked up at the ceiling, breathing slowly and refusing to let tears well in his eyes in front of the boys. He swallowed, rubbing the heel of his palm into his eye socket. “Sorry," he murmured; took a long sip of his beer, went back to peeling the label. "She doesn't deserve--" he inhaled sharply, remembering how she had looked at him, "-- any of this. Me. It's better this way.”

Electing to ignore Charlie’s grousing, and Liam’s opinions, Sam stooped over to set his beer on the floor. He supposed that this, actually, had been what he’d expected of Liam -- what he would have agreed with, once, anyway. Before Charlie had actually married her, back when it made sense to think that, if they weren’t meant for each other, they didn’t have to be. Hadn’t Charlie undone that, when he’d given her the ring? What had that been, if not a promise to do better?

“Jesus Christ,” he said -- not that Charlie hadn’t been trying, Sam knew well enough that he had, that there’d been plenty of discussion and compromise and second, third, fourth chances. What he didn’t understand was that, somehow, Charlie’d decided that the trying wasn’t worth it -- that, if Charlie had given it up now, Charlie had decided that he wasn’t ever going to change.

And that, thought Sam, was bullshit. “Three fucking years,” he repeated, staring at Charlie, “So, what, you decide it’s not worth it anymore? That’s a good enough try, now you’re back to being a bloody bachelor? Give me a break.”

Of course they were capable of change, weren’t they? Sam had outgrown the stupid, debaucherous life of their early twenties; he’d figured it was only a matter of time before his bandmates did too, but then he’d watched for four, five years as they stubbornly stayed put. The parties and the alcohol, the girls, the drugs, the glamour. Give me a break, he felt like repeating. “Thought when you went and married her,” he said, “Thought it was because you were seriously thinking about growing up, and fuck what everyone else was saying -- fuck everyone who was warning her off you -- and what, you’re gonna prove those people right? That’s what you wanna be?”

(He decided, after he’d said it, not to look at Liam, who’d been the chief naysayer -- even Sam had believed those things, before he’d realised that Charlie had, supposedly, been serious about it -- but he swore he could feel his eyes on him anyway. He resisted the temptation to look over at the piano bench; instead he blew out a short breath and shook his head.)

Liam had looked up at Charlie when he was done, trying to encourage him, but had found his friend’s expression angrier than he expected. Or hoped, maybe. When he’d cast doubts on Charlie’s relationship before he’d been shut down immediately, but Liam had thought now that Kate had cast him aside he might be more open to hearing it. It didn’t seem so. Charlie’s voice was thick and scratchy, and he tipped his head back—Lord, was he on the verge of tears? “We know you’ve tried,” said Liam. He seriously contemplated moving over to put a hand on Charlie’s shoulder but still the gulf felt too big to cross. Maybe if he did cry.

Sam, again, had no interest in providing comfort.

“Oi!” snapped Liam, getting to his feet in incredulity as Sam equated backsliding with bachelorhood. They’d said mean things to each other loads before, all friends did—but so rarely did they go straight for each other’s soft spots that the cruelty in Sam’s words shocked him. "Kate’s just got done making him feel like shit,” replied Liam heatedly, rounding on Sam. “There’s no need for you to step in!”

Now that he was angry, the words came without thought. “Feel like you might have to manage your expectations for marriage a bit, mate,” he said. “What, you think he never promised not to shag other women before? You think this time was gonna be different? It’s just words, for fuck’s sake! Signing a bit of paper!”

Sam and Charlie were speechless, which almost certainly boded ill, but Liam was going to keep talking until someone told him to leave. It spilled out of him helplessly. “You can’t just punish someone and expect ‘em to change!” he insisted. “If that shite worked I’d be a healer right now.”

He stopped. Had it always been that obvious, who Kate had reminded him of? By the time she’d become a fixture in their lives he’d stopped thinking of his parents so much. Liam hadn’t ever thought he needed to dig deeper into his hatred of Kate; it had always felt perfectly justified on its own. But he supposed he had come into this with a bitter taste for conditional love.

That, and a history of walking the fuck away from it.

Charlie heard Liam’s (mildly surprising) effort at comforting him -- we know you’ve tried -- and he couldn’t decide if that made him feel better or worse; couldn’t decide if it was Liam being genuine, or trying to ingratiate Charlie to him (‘best mates’ or just the fact Charlie knew about Oliver and that somehow made him a liability if he went off the rails completely).

Three fucking years. Of course she was worth it, or he never would have made it this far in the first place, but for some reason Charlie couldn’t work out -- with or without help -- he still couldn’t control himself. She wasn’t perfect for him (or, he for her, rather), but perfect to him. He couldn’t explain it to Kate, to Sam (not that he’d really tried), or to Liam (who didn’t even know the depth of the issue in the first place). It wasn’t that Kate wasn’t enough, as she heartbreakingly assumed every time he stepped out. It was just some… switch he couldn’t keep off. If it was there, on a plate, he couldn’t ignore the urge to gorge himself.

He’d looked away from Sam’s impenetrable gaze, and was finding it difficult to not bite back by this point -- even if he knew the Irishman was right. Liam jumped up and Charlie purposely didn’t look in his direction, unwilling -- despite Liam’s unwavering loyalty -- to side against Sam like that. Sam, who was only telling him the truth. Kate’s just got done making him feel like shit. Charlie gripped the bottle in his hand tighter; Liam was still blaming Kate, but he couldn’t very well defend her in front of Sam -- why did he feel like he was between the metaphorical rock (Sam) and hard place (Liam), the wind being crushed out of him slowly?

“Yeah, three fucking years,” he snapped finally, the weight of pressure from both sides tipping him over the edge. “D’you see me out celebrating?” Not that it had been long enough for him to bounce back in any shape or form, but he’d not felt the desire to sleep with anyone since Kate had served him his notice -- the irony wasn’t lost on him.

He had known Sam would take this badly -- not only did he prescribe to marriage being sacred under his own merit, he was a Catholic. “I don’t give a fuck what people think,” he said, not bothering to lower his tone or consider how that made him sound. He thought it went without saying that he only really cared what Sam and Liam thought about him -- Fflur, too, though she’d already made her feelings abundantly clear, and his Mum, obviously, who he still had yet to tell -- and if it didn’t he wasn’t inclined to clarify. “And if you fucking remember, you warned her off me once, you prick. You should’ve done a better job of it then none of this would have happened.”

Liam had piped up again and Charlie visibly winced, as though the whole thing was some niggling migraine. He hadn’t ever promised not to shag other women before (did that make him more or less of an arsehole?), but the boys didn’t need to know that. As much as he appreciated Liam sticking up for him, the way he was going about it wasn’t helping -- nor making Charlie feel as grateful as Liam was probably expecting. “It’s not just a fucking piece of paper,” Charlie snarled. He’d meant it, when he’d married her, all the promises he’d made. “But what, I’m meant to stay with her ‘til death if I keep hurting her? You’ve seen what it does to her!” He rounded on Sam. “You know it’s not fucking fair.”

He replayed Liam’s last over in his head. Firstly, his agreeance that Charlie wasn’t likely to ever change (reassuring, thanks mate), secondly, was he seriously making this about him? Charlie was a sliver away from calling him out on it, but for better or worse (ha) he wanted at least one of them on his side and Liam was looking like the most likely candidate by a long mile.

Liam knew, Charlie was sure he wasn’t the only one -- he’d never change. Sam had to know it too. He was making the right choice to let Kate leave him (and even if he wasn’t, it was too late now). He turned his attention back to Sam. “I’m sorry my marriage meant so much to you, mate, but some of us just aren’t cut out for commitment.”

Of course Charlie wasn’t out celebrating -- Sam flushed as he went on, as he reminded him of what Sam had almost thought to bring up himself. “Yeah, mate, I wish I had too,” he retorted, for lack of something better to say. Even at the very start, when Kate had been seventeen, he’d told Charlie to be careful -- he’d relented because Charlie had persisted, wasn’t that Charlie’s fault? Every choice Charlie’d made up until now, really -- wasn’t it all on Charlie?

It sure wasn’t Sam’s fault. Talking to Kate had been one final attempt and when it’d tanked, it’d also been because of Charlie.

Now that the others were both standing Sam felt like a moron, but he sort of felt like joining them would just escalate things -- he leaned back in the couch as Liam turned on him, twisted one hand into the weird white blanket behind him. He got out an indignant “Oi --” but it wasn’t really his place to snap at him to shut it. As good as Liam’s intentions probably were, he wasn’t helping Charlie at all. A bit of paper -- that had to hurt -- and the next thing he said was just as tone-deaf.

Charlie didn’t seem so interested in shutting Liam down, though; he turned quickly back on Sam. “Well it’s never fair!” Sam snapped back. “You can’t seriously think it’s any fairer to give up on her, can you? You really don’t think you can’t make the effort?”

The insult in the way Charlie and Liam were talking to him was getting on his nerves -- thinly disguised accusations of naivete, of having some moronic, old-fashioned view of marriage. Manage your expectations -- wasn’t it them that needed to think about what marriage meant? For Chrissakes Liam had treated it like nothing. Charlie’s final words felt even more condescending. “To me?” Sam said incredulously, his voice pitching up -- “Are you fucking serious?”

He was steamed enough that it took a moment to formulate an argument, now perched defensively on the edge of the sofa with muscles tensed -- finally, he came up with “Fuck's sake, I’m worried about you. You look like you’re losing it, mate, you’re not --” He made a few vague gestures before he thought to point accusingly at Charlie. “You can’t possibly just decide that you’re never gonna shape up, like. You don’t know that. It’s been six months.”

There was so much Liam could have said. But he didn’t. He was still sober enough to hold his tongue now that he’d stopped it, and clenched his teeth in tense silence as he considered how to proceed. Everything he’d said had just struck more nerves and he didn’t know how to articulate any of the things he hadn’t. It wasn’t worth trying to convince anyone Kate hadn’t been good for Charlie with words he didn’t have.

It felt like he’d swallowed some rabid animal desperate to break out of him, but Liam kept silent.

He stared vaguely at no one as Charlie and Sam argued. Obviously he was still furious at Sam—and as he thought on it deeper, the implication that Sam thought Kate’s ideal Charlie had been a better man than theirs started to set Liam’s blood boiling. But frankly, he feared pulling on that thread. The last thing he wanted to hear was that Sam had no respect for him or Charlie. The last thing Charlie needed was to lose his wife and his band all in one go.

When a moment of silence fell, he finally spoke.

“I know you all know what I’ve always thought about her,” said Liam carefully, raising his hands. “And I know you don’t give a fuck. I’m just here to be on Charlie’s side, and I think he’s done the right thing. She’s better off not putting up with this. Frankly I don’t know how she made it this long.” He pulled his mouth into a tight-lipped grimace. “Even if he wanted to shape up, I don’t think she was helping him. It just—” Liam considered how to say this for a second—he’d run up against another half-formed thought. He said it, unable to look him in the face, to Charlie’s knees. “Watching you and her all these years, it felt like something in you wanted out, mate.”

Charlie stared forlornly at Sam, knowing he’d just told him he should have done a better job of scaring Kate off and yet it still hurt to hear him agree.

“She asked for it!” he snapped. “If she wanted me she would have asked me to try again,” he reasoned, his tone still defensive. Sam – and Liam – didn’t need to know that Charlie was twisting the situation to suit – Kate had asked for the divorce, hadn’t asked him to try again, but there was more to it than that; it was just easier to leave the rest out. “I made an effort,” he challenged, “I went to that fucking therapist and it didn’t do shit.”

Charlie’s free hand balled into a fist, his short fingernails digging into the flesh of his palm. He could see that Sam was this close to launching at him – and Charlie found that he wanted him to. If he said the right (wrong) thing now, he thought he could goad him into it. But Sam was – once again – proving himself the better man and making it difficult to want to sling any mud in his direction.  Sam’s refusal to stand was robbing them of the opportunity to lay into each other and get everything out without trading barbs – the way they had always done in the past. Defiantly sat, all Charlie could do was stand there and take Sam’s disappointment – and that was so much worse.

He was trying to work out how to say anything in response without pushing Sam further away when Liam chimed in again and Charlie’s fist, which had been relaxing somewhat, tightened again. I’m just here to be on Charlie’s side. Fucking hell, why did there have to be sides at all? Beyond that, Liam didn’t exactly sound like he was fighting Charlie’s corner (“putting up with this”, “shape up”). Charlie glowered at Liam, only the knowledge that the older man was trying to help stopping him from interrupting and releasing a tirade in his direction— up until his last.

“You fucking what?” Charlie rumbled, eyes dark as he looked at him incredulously. He flicked his attention to Sam out of habit, seeking backup from his usual source of clarity before remembering he didn’t particularly want Sam’s sage advice right now. He rewound to the Irishman’s sermon from moments before and felt his lips twist into an unsettling grin. “I can’t decide, I don’t know, I wanted out— what do either of you fucking know about what I want?” He wanted Kate, but he wanted his life before Kate back too. He wanted the freedom that he’d had with the security of coming home to someone waiting – and he was a selfish piece of shit but he’d decided he wasn’t that selfish. Anymore, at least.

“You’ve got no fucking idea,” he said in a lower tone, tipping his head back to finish his beer before walking towards the door, setting the empty bottle down with a clatter on his way past. He half-turned back to Sam, hand on the doorhandle. “And it was eight fucking months, not that that makes any difference now.” He wrenched the door open and slammed it behind him.

Sam really, truly, really didn’t give a fuck about whatever vendetta Liam’d built up over the years against Kate, and couldn’t believe those feelings were strong enough that he’d side against someone who’d walked in on her husband with another woman -- but there was little he hated more than being the wet rag. Again he was incensed at their immaturity; he sensed, though, that this was the wrong time to attack Liam.

This wasn’t about Liam, anyway. Liam wasn’t getting a damn divorce. Liam was just here, stating his opinions.

Charlie shot a glance at Sam, and Sam glared back -- Charlie looked away quickly. Sam shoved himself backwards in the sofa again -- truly he couldn’t claim to understand anything Charlie wanted, now, but he didn’t imagine even Charlie could. Men who knew what they wanted didn’t get divorces within a year.

And what did Kate want? Even if she wanted a divorce, Sam couldn’t believe she didn’t want Charlie, not unless things had changed lately. (He was overcome for a second with guilt, that he’d been so busy with Quinn to notice anything wrong.) Charlie snapped at him one last time and shut the door behind; Sam sat stunned in the living room, gaping across at Liam just to make sure he was shocked too. He couldn’t stand it for more than a second -- finally he bolted up to his feet, wrested the door open and barreled after, beer and his jacket forgotten.

“Charlie,” he said, voice raised; he hurried onto the lawn after his friend.

He didn’t know what else to say -- he settled for, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…”

He’d meant most of what he’d said, so he followed lamely with, “I’m shite at maths.”

It felt crass and insensitive to lead with that -- he said, after another moment, “Mate…” You’ll still have me, he wanted to say -- as angry as Sam was that Charlie hadn’t taken the opportunity to be a better man for his wife, he was still his friend -- but that felt like a little much. “Sorry about the -- divorce, too,” he said, instead.

“I’m just trying to let you do what you want, mate!” replied Liam, stung. For Merlin’s sake—he wasn’t the one telling Charlie his decisions were shit. This wasn’t the first time Charlie had attacked him over some Kate-related opinion, of course. But it felt different. Liam had thought his friend had finally come round, that they were finally on the same page. It seemed now that they weren’t. He wasn’t sure Charlie was on a page at all.

Charlie threw himself off the couch and toward the door. Despite Liam and Sam’s differences of opinion, their eyes met for a second,  panicked. “Look!” said Liam hurriedly. He put up his hands in surrender, beer bottle dangling by the neck from one. “Don’t listen to me, it doesn’t matter. If it’s what you both want, do it!”

Sam one-upped him though, and ran off after Charlie.

It was several seconds before it occurred to Liam to move, or even that the argument that had begun so quickly had ended even quicker. He left the music room. There was no trace of Sam or Charlie—only their bottles, which Liam took out his wand to send back to the kitchen.

Dazedly, he wandered over to his records to find something to put on: loud and fast to drown out whatever it was he was still feeling.
 
What the fuck was that?