pride [ollie]

The last song Oliver played was soulful and slow, warm and half in honeyed French, and Liam was many shots deep and felt like he might melt into the age-old scum on the floor of Ray’s Tavern. He moved to sit fully on the table he had been leaning against and rested his head against the wall. Merlin, the stage in here was dreadful. Now that the Christmas lights were gone Ollie was lit by a single lamp, half washed-out and half in shadow as he sang. He deserved better. But Liam felt mournful, almost, that Oliver Rigby would never play here again. There would never be another miraculous moment like his, looking up in awe from the dingy bar to this boy and his old guitar.

Would Ollie like a new one now, Liam wondered? He’d known musicians to go both ways on their old worn-out pre-fame guitars. He was of two minds himself—had never been able to resist anything shiny once he had the money, but Belinda had remained a friend. It was different for him, of course. He didn’t play acoustic guitar on stage with any regularity. In this case it really just depended on what sort of image Ollie planned to build.

Liam would buy him a guitar if he wanted—or anything he wanted. Today deserved a present. Maybe he just thought so because no one had gotten him anything the day he’d signed, or maybe he just hadn’t had a good reason to spoil Ollie for what felt like a long time, but he thought the notion held up aside of that. He thought he might burst with pride as he watched Ollie delightedly thank the crowd they’d convinced to follow them from the club earlier. Liam needed to show it somehow.

There was an awkward thirty seconds of silence before someone turned on the radio again, and another moment before he saw Oliver’s head bobbing through the crowd toward him. Liam greeted him with a broad grin. Laughing casually, he draped an arm around Ollie’s neck to ruffle his hair—the closest he was willing to get to an embrace.

Things were different, now that Charlie knew. But they were also different now that Oliver was on his way to being somebody. Someone fresh and unknown like Ollie couldn’t be involved with someone like Liam, not if they wanted their talent taken seriously. Liam refused to allow any accusations that Ollie didn’t deserve the opportunity he’d got. And aside from that, Charlie’s divorce was still on his mind. He’d nervously compared their relationship to Charlie and Kate’s enough on his own—the last thing he wanted was Witch Weekly to do it.

They could just be friends, couldn’t they, on nights like these? Then they could go home and snog in private afterward.

With the hand on Ollie’s shoulder, Liam indicated a pretty girl in the crowd. “You should have seen her face, watching you play,” he said in Ollie’s ear, a smirk twitching at his lips. “Like she was looking at God himself.”

@Oliver Rigby

He could have sworn he saw Annette smile.

Well, a smile for her, anyway. Maybe it was just that she wasn't actively frowning.

It was probably just the harsh light that bore down on him from the corner of the stage obstructing his view, but... there it was again! Oliver was so delighted that he almost forgot the words to his song. For a fraction of second, missed by most in the turn of a beat, he paused to compose himself. It felt a strange thing to think of, singing his own song and watching the reaction from a room filled almost entirely with strangers. Apart from Liam and Annette, and the strange man who worked at Ray's Tavern for as long as Ollie could remember, he didn't know any of these people. And, yet, he felt so close to them. Like they were sharing in something secret, only for them.

Oliver found his confidence in the first song and held onto it so tight that he thought he might burst. The moment he saw a face in the crowd singing along by the end of the second swing of the chorus, he knew there was no turning back for him now. There was nothing that was ever going to touch this feeling. He grinned at the young witch, shaking his head in disbelief.

A last-minute performance at Ray's wasn't on the agenda for the evening, but then again, there wasn't an agenda at all. From the moment Oliver signed his name on a contract with Rocking Horse, shakily and quickly, as if the ink was going to evaporate, everything became a blur. As he was taking a swig of champagne from an all-too-fancy looking bottle that Liam had procured from his equally as swanky in-house bar, Oliver was struck by the thought that his mother would kill him when she found out he'd only skimmed the detail.

For that, he ended the night with a French song, the French song — one he remembered watching her dance to in the kitchen through the crack on his bedroom door, long after he'd been tucked in for bed — La Vie En Rose. He thought of those nights in such sleepy detail that he wondered if he made them up in his own head. Oliver switched between English and French words, strumming along on his old acoustic guitar. Perhaps not everyone's way of closing the place down, but it felt right.

Oliver bowed into the applause from the modest-sized group of people, his breath caught in his chest, sentimentality swirling through him. He took one final glimpse at the new faces with a grin, rubbing his eyebrow with the back of his thumb in disbelief before floating off the stage on clouds. He made his way to the back of the room where he had seen Liam watching from.

He leaned out of habit to embrace but stopped short at the diversion of his attention. Ollie followed Liam's direction to the person he was talking about. He watched as she scanned the crowd too, looking for something. Eventually, she stopped on him, and she smiled. He grinned in return. There was no denying she was beautiful. She looked like she’d stepped off a boat in Italy, wavy, dark hair untamed just enough, tanned skin glossy and radiant even under Ray’s Tavern lighting.

"Wasn't she?" Oliver turned back to Liam in jest, cheeks dimpling at either side. He grabbed the feather boa that they'd acquired somewhere along the journey of their night and wrapped it around Liam's shoulder shoulders casually before throwing himself onto one of the low stools around the table. "S' what'd you think, then?" Looking up at Liam, he shielded his eyes from the harsh light of the bar. He held the contraband bottle they hadn't even bothered to hide as to his lips to take a swig.

Liam puffed a feather away from his mouth, but broke his deadpan grimace after barely a second as Oliver’s reply shocked him into laughter. “Oh, wow,” he chuckled. “Someone’s feeling confident, aren’t they?” He hadn’t properly realized he’d been expecting Ollie to brush a compliment so exaggerated off, but truth be told Liam admired him for taking it. He took the bottle from Ollie’s hand and lifted it to his own lips. “Not that I blame you.”

This victorious Oliver was a far cry from the one he’d seen after defeat in Los Angeles. Liam didn’t think he would ever forget that—he hoped that Ollie wouldn’t either. But he didn’t miss it, not right now, as he was asked his own opinion. “Not sure I’d go so far as God,” said Liam, with a smirk of amusement and a jaunty tip of his head. He landed back on an old inside joke. “Joni, maybe.”

He didn’t miss the insecurity, but he might’ve liked to stroke a loving hand down Ollie’s rosy cheek all the same.

The girl, who was to Liam’s knowledge stupidly fit, someone he’d have tried to claim dibs on versus Charlie back in the day, had found their eyes across the bar. Had found Ollie’s, at least. Liam clapped his back and winked at her in case she could see. He was a good shag but he was a good wingman, too. Ollie deserved this. Liam didn’t want to be his girlfriend, no matter how much he’d been looking forward to bringing him home. Far be it from him to tie a man down—no less on the eve of his star debut. Utterly disgraceful.

Liam took off the boa and twirled it around Oliver’s neck, making sure to get as many feathers in his face as he could. “Go on, then, mate,” he urged with a wolfish grin. “You gonna go grace her with your presence? Drinks are on me if you do.”

Oliver settled into the seat. He braced defiance in the face of being seen. The attempt to keep a straight face was all but lost as a grin took over, dimpling either side of his mouth. He couldn't keep up the ruse. He was proud, sure, visibly so — but a God — no chance. The thought of it was laughable. Liam had seen him at one of the more vulnerable moments he could recall in recent history, when he'd failed his impromptu audition. He knew more than most how much this meant to him. And how seriously he took it despite it all.

"A goddess, then" He nodded solemnly at the mention of Joni Mitchell. He felt more comfortable with that comparison than the one of a God. It struck him then, the significance that this place — this shitty hole in the wall that was Ray's Tavern — and all that it meant for them. His face felt hot as he let the bottle from his hand easily.

Shimmying under the boa over his shoulders, he shoved one of the feathered ends away from his face, perking up on the stool. He hadn't shaken the high of being on the stage. All eyes in the room may as well have still been on him. Everything from now felt like a performance. A chase to find the same feeling at that moment. He was so distracted that he nearly missed Liam's next comment, catching it at the tail end of its rhetoric.

Ollie's smile faltered, green eyes flicking back to the girl who was currently laughing with her friends, clearly relishing in the attention. Though he smiled again, it didn't meet his eyes. "I-" He paused, wishing he had the bottle to keep himself busy with as thoughts flooded in.

They weren't dating. They hadn't bridged the gap to anything, yet it still felt strange, Liam pushing him toward someone else, no matter how appealing she was. Oliver was content with their lack of status, preferred it even, but this was different. It felt forced. "Eh," Oliver shrugged his shoulders nonchalantly. "You should give it a crack," He couldn't help himself from testing the water. "If you're that keen on her," His voice was even despite himself. Just then, he caught Annette's eye, who was scrutinizing the bottle they not-so-snuck in. He mouthed an apology, signaling her over. Anything to avoid the current conversation, even if she would ignore him as he assumed she may.

Liam pulled a face. “Sure,” he replied with a good-natured scoff. Something about Oliver likening himself so flippantly to the feminine didn’t sit well with him, even if he’d started it. That had been a compliment Ollie didn’t have to take so easily. What bothered him about it wasn’t necessarily clear—maybe it would be tomorrow when he was sober, but Liam sort of hoped he’d forget this exchange by then. He took another sip of champagne.

His hand was still on Ollie’s shoulder, wrapped in the stupid feather boa, when he felt the younger man pause. At once Liam knew he’d made the wrong move. It’d probably have been better to explain, he could see that now—but there hadn’t been time. The whole evening had blurred gleefully from his living room to here, and he hadn’t had to think about this before it had started. Ollie hadn’t ever had an image to consider before tonight. Nor had he had the… Well, on second thought, Ollie had always had the opportunity. Liam couldn’t be the only one who found him irresistible.

Ollie challenged him then. Why don’t you? It was a reasonable question, but it surprised him anyway.

Liam watched the girl in the crowd, trying to decide what to say. He wasn’t who she had her eye on, for one—that had always been the attraction for him, the being-desired. But even if she had wanted him… With Oliver here in front of him, he couldn’t find it in him to pretend. “I’m alright,” he said eventually. “Reckon the goddess I’ve got is enough for me, Ol.”

He could feel Oliver’s gaze on him and cracked an affectionate grin, but couldn’t look back and meet his eyes. Instead he gestured over the crowd with the champagne bottle. “If it’s not enough for you, though,” he said, “you’ve got the pick of the field now.” His eyes flicked nervously back to Ollie as his grin turned crooked, awkward and faux-casual. “Don’t let me hold you you back, mate.”

He didn’t know if Ollie was as sentimental as he’d gotten to be, and Liam wanted to love him any way he was.

Ollie had noticed the grumpy barmaid eyeing them and, for unfathomable reasons, called her over. “There’s my cue,” muttered Liam. He hopped off the table with only a minimal stumble and gave Ollie’s back one last pat. “I’ll hide backstage, I think,” he said. It was a grandiose term for Ray’s multipurpose back hallway, but Liam liked to think of it that way anyway. “Come find me when you’re done. If you like.”

There was a conversation for them to have, that much was clear. Liam wasn’t willing to have it out here. He wasn’t sure whether or not he hoped Ollie would want to have it at all.

Oliver willed himself to look up at Liam who was now sat on the table in front of him. The pause in response, just a moment too long, left a palpable feeling in the air. It was enough to keep his gaze intent on the ring that he rolled around his finger — an attempt at nonchalance — he couldn't face whatever it was Liam was going to say head-on. There was an answer he'd hoped for, of course. One that he wasn't aware of until the moment that he heard it.

His shoulders released the tension they were holding so tightly onto when Liam eventually spoke up. Finally, Oliver allowed himself the indulgence of finding the man's face, a grin pulling at his mouth. While their gaze didn't quite meet, there was an unspoken understanding in the form of a hand on his neck. Despite that, though, Liam fell back to the idea that he was in some way keeping Ollie from something. 'Don’t let me hold you back, mate.'

The smile pulled into a slight frown at the thought. "You aren't," He sputtered, matter-of-factly, as though it were just that simple. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he knew that Liam was preparing him for everything that he already had — everything that Oliver was going to, in theory, experience in the industry. He couldn't bring himself to agree with it.

There wasn't much time to dwell, though. Annette was there and Liam was gone, off to the back hallway of Ray's that they'd affectionately dubbed the backstage.

Her visit was brief. Roughly, she handed over a gin fizz, their own tradition, before waddling back to the bar. There was a moment, though, that she turned back and smiled at Ollie. If he wasn't mistaken, it was marked with pride. His heart swelled.

Oliver sipped at his drink, head bobbing along to the soft, generic, music from the speakers, still riding the high of his performance. It wasn't until there was an open palm, tanned and soft, holding a guitar pic in front of him that he was aware that someone had approached him. It was her. The woman from the crowd. Oliver lazily met her eyes. Apparently he'd lost it mid-set, and she needed to return it. His heart did a dive again, heavy with simultaneous excitement and disappointment.

"Keep it," He declared, closing her hand around it as he stood up. He knew then that there was just the one person he'd been hoping for. "Might be worth something one day," He couldn't help himself. "Probably not," He shrugged, reeling his own thoughts back in as he swept by her, his free hand lightly dancing over her shoulder.   

As his eyes adjusted to the light of the back hallway, Oliver found Liam with his back to him, champagne still in hand and hazy smoke disappearing around him with each puff. A clever charm. "No smoking in here," He clicked his tongue, leaning into the faded wallpaper with a cheeky grin. "Annette's rules," The sinking feeling that this was the moment Liam was going to finally pull the plug on whatever it was that they were hit him at once and his smile fell.

In the back hallway Liam drank all but a half-inch of the champagne at once, and then made it barely five more seconds before digging out his blue enamel cigarette case. He braced his wand against his palm with his last two fingers after lighting one. It was like this, vanishing the smoke plumes as he went, that Ollie found him.

“We’ve just given Annette a year’s business tonight,” replied Liam. He took another drag and blew out an elegant smoke ring. “I think we can do what we like.” Moving over to the other side of the hallway to stand beside Oliver, he held out the champagne bottle. “Saved you the last.” He waited for Ollie to drink before saying anything, watching his smoke ring drift toward the ceiling. “So,” he said, eventually. “Are we in a relationship, then?”

Liam didn’t think he’d ever actually had this talk.

“I’m sorry,” he said, hoping it was obvious what for because he wouldn’t know how to describe it. “I just figured—so long as we’re not telling people, you might… I dunno.” He shrugged weakly. “People are gonna ask you now, about girls, and stuff.” It was something he would’ve been interested in, if he were any old fan.

“I’d have come out with it,” said Liam, after taking a breath. “Y’know, us. Really—I’m not afraid of that anymore.” Not enough to stop him, at any rate. The eyes of everyone in the world weren’t enough to stop him when Oliver Rigby was shining like this. Liam wanted to kick himself. He shouldn’t have let his hand linger on Ollie’s neck so long, so lovingly; he should have waited until they were somewhere more private than this… But Liam had never had much discipline, had he? He took Ollie’s chin in his hand and kissed him.

“I just want you to know it’s not that,” he said. “It’s everything else, now that you’re—I don’t want anyone to think anything bad of you.”  He put his cigarette back between his teeth. “I am afraid of that. That people’ll think you’re just here because you were shagging the right person.” That people would find out how close to true that was.

Liam turned back to Ollie and nudged him with his shoulder. “You were brilliant, of course,” he said with a grin. “Hope other people tell you so, though. It’s possible I’m biased.”

The lightness of the bottle struck Ollie as its weight pulled at his closed palm. He smiled, giving it a wiggle before taking a sip. As it turned out, all that was left was one mouthful. Leave it to Liam to save him the last in the more literal sense of the word.

Are we in a relationship then? He froze. The empty bottle was now held precariously with the tips of the fingers and resting against his side. Oliver hadn't expected that. The entire walk from the bar to the back hallway felt drawn out, each step longer than the other as he prepared himself for what he only assumed was coming— that Liam was going to cut it off, cut him off.
 
Oliver opened his mouth to speak but closed it again. He was far more interested in hearing the continuation of thought as it came to Liam, hanging on each word as it dangled in front of him in the haze of smoke. He was only vaguely aware that his breath was caught in his chest before lips were pressed against him and he was lost all over again.

The high was almost enough to miss the grand finale. Almost. The inevitability that people were going to come to their own conclusions about just how Oliver Rigby, virtually unknown, had bombed his audition and still got a second chance, was something he pushed to the very farthest part of his mind. That luxury wasn't afforded to any other struggling artist. Immediately, he wished that Liam hadn't said it out loud. It made it real. 

"Thank you," Oliver finally grinned sheepishly, leaning his head against the wall. He studied the silver of his rings before meeting Liam's gaze again. He could see that he meant it, the things he was saying, and suddenly talking about their relationship seemed much easier than unpacking what the world was going to make of him.

"Well, I'm not dating anyone else..." He finally came back to the original question, his words deliberate through a grin. The truth was that the label didn't matter all that much to him— those things never did— not so long as he had Liam. "I just thought—" He chewed the side of his lip. He took his time. He wanted to get this right. "—I didn't know if that's what you wanted," He explained. "Truthfully, I thought you were going to end this all tonight," He confessed with a wave of his hand. This all being them.

“You’re very welcome,” said Liam smoothly, replacing his cigarette in the corner of his grin. At Ollie’s admission, though, he choked on a mouthful of smoke. “Oh—” he rasped. “Shite, no. Sorry, Ol.” It took him a second to wrap his head around how badly he’d played this one.

“Don’t worry about that,” he said firmly when he’d regained his breath. He continued less surely. “I’m—mad about you. I’m not seeing anybody else, I just, didn’t know if that was what you wanted, yeah?”

He’d stopped vanishing his smoke a couple minutes ago. Liam watched the haze hang in the air for a second—he’d always liked smoking as an excuse to look at nothing. “Dunno that I’ve ever been a boyfriend before,” he said. “Dunno how well it suits me. Even with Ioan, I still fooled around with birds, you know?” Ollie had heard the whole story—every story Liam had—that week in California, but he didn’t know that he’d mentioned how unromantic an arrangement it had been. “I mean—he knew,” he added quickly. “I wasn’t being sneaky about it, but—like—" Liam shook his head and gave a small, rueful shrug. “I figured I should let you have the opportunity, if you wanted it.” To be a rockstar.

“I want to say I know what I’m about, a bit more now,” he said and laughed softly. “Or need to have my ego stroked a bit less, I dunno. But you’re perfectly entitled to have fun, mate.” Liam wrapped an arm around Oliver’s shoulders, gesturing back into the still-bustling bar. “Look at who you’re going to be, Ol!”

He held the cigarette near Ollie’s lips, offering, as he spoke into his ear. “I’d just like it if you kept me around, of course.”

He watched as Liam spoke. Not too closely, but close enough to gather the feeling from his words beyond just how they sounded. He watched as his face contorted in thought, working through how to express itself. It wasn't as easy as Ollie'd imagined, coming back from the narrative he'd apparently concocted entirely in his own head, but one glance at the other man's smile, and he was getting there. He couldn't help but grin in return. Mad about him. It still felt like there had to be a catch, some kind of terms that came with it.

"I know," Oliver repeated. He didn't really, though, know. He had been in his fair share of what he assumed were relationships in school, but nothing compared to what Liam had transcribed to him. He wanted desperately, foolishly, to have something like that. To have something that shaped him.

Oliver ducked into the arm wrapped around him and cast a furtive glance to the crowd as directed. Look at who he was going to be. He had imagined what this moment would be for so long that it still felt like he was watching from the outside. Who was he going to be? He wanted to see it through Liam's eyes, to see what he was seeing, to decide.

Taking a puff of the cigarette held to his mouth, he blew smoke out of the corner opposite Liam. He leaned toward the words spoken into his ear. "I think I can do that," He grinned. His forest eyes shifted from Liam's mouth to his own eyes before a moment of realization hit him. He'd been withholding the means to keep him around more than ever, given what he thought was going to happen.

"Y'know, I need someone to play bass on the record..." He pulled the cigarette, this time with his own hand, before handing it back to Liam with a knowing smile, eyebrow raised. He'd been searching for the perfect person to record with, to no avail. It dawned on him then that maybe he only had the one person in mind all along. "Any chance your free for the next month?" He tested the water, knowing full well that he was, with Banshee not touring.

Liam started to lean into another kiss but Ollie spoke before he got there. “I’m sorry?” He raised his eyebrows, bemused. “Am I busy? You’re joking.” Some tender part of him was touched—but the much larger rest of him couldn’t resist making fun. Ollie looked like he was in on it, anyway. There was a slick little smirk on his face that had been entirely absent in the moment of vulnerability just before.

“I figured you’d just signed me up without asking,” Liam said. “You could’ve just put my name down, you know. Just told me when to show up. Merlin’s sake. You been sitting on that all night, mate?”

At once he regretted getting into it—what if he hadn’t, in fact, been a first choice?—but he did his best to pretend he hadn’t had the thought. He turned to face Ollie directly. “So I’m in, obviously.” Liam casually tossed his head and returned the smirk. “I should’ve made you put in some better bass lines.” The thought of any of this music against more than just Ollie’s acoustic guitar was strange to Liam in itself, now that it occurred to him. Frankly he wasn’t sure he’d like it as much.

Like hell he was going to say so, though, at least until he’d played it.

Liam wrapped an arm around Oliver’s neck for a long, open-mouthed kiss, but at once he pulled away to vanish the cigarette. If he’d tried to hold it and snog at the same time, the stupid feather boa would have caught fire and that was no way to end the day. There were a number of better ways to do that. Well—one, with a number of variations.

Hands free, he took full advantage, lifting Ollie half up to hold him against the wall. If he hadn’t been too intoxicated to remember there were other people who might have a reason to walk down this hallway, he’d have taken them home before then. But it felt like the world was theirs then. Until, at least, the huge quiet bloke from behind the bar walked behind them with an empty bottle of firewhiskey in each hand, giving them a long, inscrutable stare as he passed.

Liam pressed his forehead to the wallpaper beside Ollie’s neck, too mortified to move a muscle. There was nothing to be done. There was far worse that it could have been, of course, and far soberer—far more self-aware—that he could have been himself. But he still had to take a moment to come to terms with this.

“You…” he began quietly. “Er, you wanna get out of here, then?”

He was in. He was actually going to do it. Oliver hadn't been able to place the nerves that hit once the idea came about, but some variation of that feeling still lingered, even then. The album was always going to come with pressure. It was his only chance at a real first impression— his chance to make something that resonated, cut through the bullshit— but with Liam on board, it seemed to shift in some way, as if amalgamating.

Again, the feeling was hard to read, but Ollie likened it to a hummingbird in his chest, trying to get out. Aflutter.

He did what he could to suppress the sheepishness of his grin (which wasn't a whole lot) and eventually he was just openly beaming. "Maaybe," He confessed slowly, perhaps he had held on the idea for too long. "I didn't want you to feel like you had to," Oliver explained with a little shrug. He still didn't, want Liam to feel obliged because he'd basically set the whole thing up from the start. It felt like it was a possibility. At least before. His reaction, Ollie thought, proved not.

Their limbs intertwined so naturally now that it had started to feel like second nature to Oliver— a little dance—but his hands still moved as though he was exploring the skin for the first time, one on the side of his jaw and the other the back of his neck. The creak of a door followed by the sound of the outside crowd barrelling down the hallway before tapering off should have been enough to tip him off that they had a visitor, but he actively ignored it for as long as he could.

Jerome. Oliver caught the eye of the mute from behind the bar only briefly as he shuffled by, and he immediately slapped a hand over his eyes. If he couldn't see him...

Did he always have that limp? And was he always so damned slow? The sound of his rubbery shoe dragging behind him on the linoleum cut through the muffled silence of their little backstage area. Peeking from between his fingers, Oliver finally let out a fit of laughter. He probably would have been doubled over it wasn't for Liam pressed against him, his back on the wall.

"Have a lovely night, Jerome," He called out cheerfully, resting both hands on the other man's shoulders to get a good look at him. Well, he'd survived. Tomorrow, when he was sober, Ollie imagined he would fret over how much worse that could have been, wonder if that had been the first time someone saw Liam with another man, even. For now, though, the details seemed unimportant.

"I think that was our cue," Oliver agreed with a laugh as he fished into his pocket to find his wand to apparate them anywhere but Ray's Bloody Tavern.

[fin]