bad production [charlie]

griffins at portree // may 2003

“Oops--” Honey tightened her grip on the handrail and straightened up, finding her footing again before she went back to not paying attention to where she was walking. She could still see the match if she squinted through the slats in the wall and she wasn’t about to risk missing anything just because her brother hadn’t bothered to come back to their box seats -- that she was kind enough to gift him with (after being gifted with them herself but this didn’t really count as regifting) -- with their traditional (in both the Scottish and we-have-to-eat-this-or-we’ll-lose) snacks.

So she was heading to their stadium chippy of choice, slowly, torn between getting there quickly so she could get back and walking slowly so she wouldn’t take a tumble. There were a lot of stairs down; the Flume’s normal seats for a Portree game were considerably lower and not as far from their snacks, which was good because they knew the importance of their little tradition -- they held tight to the refusal to call it a superstition but it wasn’t coincidence that Portree lost every match when they didn’t follow through.

There was also a part of her that was grateful for the excuse to leave her seat and that conversation but she had already decided she wouldn’t be telling Fergie about any of it -- something about not wanting to cast any doubt on her relationship (again).

There was noise from the crowd and Honey stopped, smushing her face against a borehole in the wood separating her from the match. She could see enough to tell it wasn’t good; everyone wearing the wrong color looked far too pleased. “Fuck.” Honey stepped back, effectively blocking the stairs, and glanced down at herself, touching the small Griffins badge she had pinned to her Portree jumper. She fiddled with it for a minute -- slightly complicated considering the bottle of cider in her hand -- and stuck it in her pocket; maybe that would help.

She continued back down the stairs, quicker now but not with enough momentum that she couldn’t come to a full stop when she saw the man on the next landing. “Charlie--” He hadn’t been looking at her but the profile was obviously Charlie and she didn’t know why she had said anything at all. She had stood him up for a determinedly platonic lunch date, had decided (for them) that they were better off not being friends, had stopped their few-month-long letter exchange, had put a final pin in whatever they had a few years ago.

“I need to--” she motioned behind him with her bottle as she took the last few stairs between them. “Why--” It was harder the closer she was to remember what she had already decided but Honey took half a step back and found some better mental footing. “What’re you doin’ here?” It felt like a question she was constantly asking, even though she hadn’t seen him in over a month, his last -- and last -- drop in.

Charlie sipped at his beer and contemplated the pros and cons of having a sneaky fag before heading back to his seat (the stands were smokefree, apparently). The main con being the risk of Alannah catching the snitch while he wasn't able to see her do so, then having to act like he had seen it; the main pro being that he could avoid the women sat either side of him for a little longer (and that had been part of the reason he’d gone for a beer in the first place). Just as he was fumbling in his pocket for his packet of cigarettes, Charlie heard his name -- but this time the voice was familiar, rather than that of someone who just recognised him from the Prophet.

He turned and stared at Honey, almost smiled at the offensively pink jumper (not her boyfriend’s team, he noted) clashing with her ginger locks before remembering she had stood him up for lunch and he ought to be upset about it. Charlie abandoned the search for his cigarettes and brought his hand back out from his jacket to lean on the handrail, effectively blocking her path.

For a brief moment he thought about calling her out on not showing, but then he would have to admit to sitting there waiting for almost an hour before giving up -- at the time he’d told himself she might have slept in, or maybe Fergie or someone had turned up unexpectedly on her day off, but judging by her expression now he thought maybe it had been quite intentional after all. Good thing he hadn't caved and sent her any more drunk owls (yet).

What was he doing here? Had she forgotten that she’d given him shit about Alannah Dupont only last week? "Came for the overpriced beer," he answered in his slow drawl, choosing this moment to have a sip and wishing it was something a little stronger. His eyes roamed over her properly, and a small part of him was hoping that she was wearing a Portree jumper because she now had a vendetta against Harlan Bellamy (and Alannah, maybe) rather than because it was her usual team. It was an odd choice to wear if she was being a supportive girlfriend though, wasn't it? “Harold know you’re supporting the other team?” he asked, unable to help himself from bringing the other man up.

“Did they run out of overpriced beer in London?” Honey rolled her eyes, looking anywhere else but at Charlie. It was a Griffins match and he was trying to make a Griffins match of his own -- she just barely stopped herself from laughing at her mental play on words -- but this wasn’t the last match of the season. Charlie could have picked a different one to impress the seeker with his attendance, any match except the one he had to know Honey’d be at, too. He hadn’t written after she had missed their lunch; she figured he was being a big boy and taking the hint and leaving her alone. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been wrong about him, she supposed.

There had been a (very) brief second where she thought she might apologize for standing him up, but the feeling passed as soon as Charlie opened his mouth again.

She crossed her arms across her chest; jumper or no jumper, she knew that he knew what was there to be seen, what was there to be admired with light touches. “He’s the one who bought me this jumper,” she lied; she’d had it for a few years at this point; Charlie might have even helped her out of it a lifetime ago. “Everyone knows I go for Portree.” It might have been an exaggeration, but it couldn’t have been far from the truth. There was a Portree poster behind the till at the shop (though the pink on the poster might have blended in a little too well with the overall pinkness of the shop) and this quidditch stadium was the only one that sold Honeydukes products.

“I wouldn’t want your girlfriend to get the wrong idea,” she said, uncrossing her arms and motioning behind Charlie, again. Mostly, she didn’t want her boyfriend getting the wrong idea, but she didn’t think she needed to spell that out for him. “And I’m in a bit of a hurry, so--” She stayed in her own personal space, as tempting as it was to push her way past him.

Charlie gave her a look, but she wasn’t looking at him to see it.

His gaze fell to her chest momentarily before he remembered he was annoyed at her. “Really?” he asked bitterly, his tone making it clear he didn’t believe that for one minute. “Not everyone, obviously,” he mumbled under his breath, thinking about how he hadn’t banked on bumping into her here because he hadn’t even considered that she would be here. He supposed if he thought about it hard enough, he had seen some merchandise in her bedroom that was in the same godawful shade of pink, but it had been a long time since he’d been in there and it wasn’t like he’d spent his time admiring the decor.

Charlie laughed, rolling his eyes skywards -- or, rather, at the landing above them -- at the ridiculousness of it all. “Really think she’s gonna see us here?” he asked. “And doing what, talking?” He smirked at her then, the expression sliding onto his features all too easily. He sipped at his beer, bringing himself closer to needing to go back down to the concession stand for another.

“Then again, s’pose we’re not friends, are we?” he asked as he lowered the bottle to around hip height, holding it loosely by his fingertips. She had made that abundantly clear -- that they couldn’t be friends, or that she didn’t want them to be. He wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much, but maybe it was something to do with the thought that Honey might understand him in a way none of the rest of his friends could; she was just as hopeless at being monogamous, just as easily tempted -- up until now, that was.

Charlie didn't move out of her way -- if anything, leant over a little to be more of an obstacle. "Need a hand with the stairs?" he offered, not entirely sincerely.

“Really.” She almost thought he was serious, that he didn’t know; she shouldn’t have been displeased that he hadn’t bothered to go to any quidditch match for her despite how long they had seen each other; she wouldn’t have wanted it then so it shouldn’t bother her now that he was showing up for some other woman. Or maybe — and perhaps more preferably— Honey was offended Charlie didn’t know this basic fact about her, that she supported Portree. Whatever the reason, she was overthinking it.

She stopped motioning past him, took a step back when he made it clear he wasn’t going to move out of her way. “No,” she said quickly, defensively. She hadn’t meant that any Griffin would see them talking; word could still get back to them, regardless. Honey wasn’t about to explain herself, though. She saw his expression and did her best to ignore it, mainly by averting her gaze to a spot over his shoulder.

“You’re not exactly blending in,” she said instead, waving vaguely at Charlie’s getup — she wanted to ask about his kinks considering that’s what his shirt was advertising but she managed to resist — and glancing back at him with a smirk of her own. “No one’s going to think you can just talk to anyone.” That’s why she had cancelled their lunch, wasn’t it? And they had planned to meet in a much less conspicuous place than a quidditch stadium, too.

Honey set her mouth in a hard line. “S’pose we’re not,” she said after a couple seconds. She wanted to be friends with him, honestly thought they could be; it wasn’t like he was some ever-elusive temptation that she couldn’t resist. For the sake of her own relationship — and Charlie’s too, he really ought to be thanking her — she’d put a stop to it before it had really even gone anywhere. They’d had one meal together, and that had been a sleep-deprived fluke of a mistake. It wasn’t like she was cancelling some years-long friendship; he didn’t even know which quidditch team she liked.

She crossed her arms again, rolled her eyes again. “No,” she said again, holding her hand up to stop him before he tried to ‘help’ her in whatever fashion he meant. “Think it’s best we—“ she didn’t catch herself in time to stop from using ‘we’ instead of the ‘you’ she definitely meant —“Keep hands to ourselves, yeah?” She glanced at him again, teetering on the edge of apologizing again before thinking better of her choices. “I just need to find Ferg and get back,” she said, realizing that the idea of her brother being around probably wasn’t the threat it used to be.

A smug expression spread across Charlie’s sharp features. Touchy. “Don’t tell me you’re still pretending you can be in a committed relationship?” She was doing a better job of it than he had though, wasn’t she? How long had he gone, at his best? Six months? How long had she even been with Harlan? “Had your three month anniversary yet?” he teased, fishing for the answer he wasn’t sure he wanted.

Charlie followed Honey’s hand to look down at his outfit -- standard, for him really -- and shrugged, then raised his eyebrows as he nodded at her own. “Not gonna wear a bloody Griffins jumper am I?” Because he was still trying not to make this more than it ought to be, because he wasn’t into quidditch, and -- most importantly -- because he couldn’t bring himself to openly support the same team Honey’s boyfriend was captaining.

He gazed at her, then. The last time they’d been face-to-face it had been night, so they’d been bathed in unnatural light. Honey had been flushed then -- from the gin, from working (and, he liked to think, from him showing up unannounced) -- and her cheeks had a faint rosy tint today, too, and he was attributing it to two of those same causes.

Charlie had bothered to get a haircut since he’d last seen her, though his hair was still a couple of inches long all around and he hadn’t opted for any gel; it was soft and product-free (it wasn’t like he was trying to impress her, was it?). His eyes were less gaunt, he was clean-shaven, and overall he appeared less haggard -- he had finally started sleeping better, minus a few late night/early morning owls keeping or waking him up. “Maybe I’d’ve worn my hoodie if you’d brought it over.” The door had been open for her, hadn’t it? If he were being honest with himself, it still was.

He didn’t want to acknowledge that Honey sounded an awful lot like she was beginning to side with the masses against him -- he had been counting on her to be the one person to see things from his side, not through any blind loyalty like Liam, but because she was enough like him to get it. He gulped down a large swallow of his beer instead.

And that wasn’t the reaction he’d been hoping for -- hadn’t known he’d been hoping for anything else, but now that she’d confirmed it he really wished she would have said something other than that, told him they still had a chance. Were they really that incapable of being amicable outside of fucking each other? The proud part of him didn’t want to admit to waiting for her in Edinburgh, let alone looking forward to it but-- Fuck it. “Yeah, friends show up,” he said sourly.

“No?” he repeated back at her, smirking slowly at her stubbornness. “We can do that,” he said, stepping aside just enough to leave a gap -- though admittedly not one she would fit through without having to brush up against him. He paused, his eyes on hers; “You’re here with Fergie?”

“Pretending?” She wasn’t pretending; she was being rather successful at it, all things -- and Charlie -- considered. She had made it three months; had realized just a few minutes ago that it’d been six, which must have been a record for her. They had talked about it a few months ago and she had said then that it had been a few months-- surely even Charlie knew basic arithmetic. “Remind me how long you were married,” she said instead, deciding not to dignify his question with any attempt at a mature response.

She almost felt bad saying that; she might have exaggerated how sad Charlie had been when she had explained away his last visit but there was some truth to it, she knew; a second later, she felt worse that she wanted to apologize -- again -- when she was actively trying not to be his friend.

“Yeah, why would you do that? Wear a Griffins jumper to a Griffins match.” Honey rolled her eyes. “That’d be outrageous.” She had stashed her Griffins badge in her pocket and letting Charlie know that she couldn’t hack wearing it the whole match didn’t seem like a smart move; she might have offered it to him, in another life.

Honey had another swallow of her cider, rolled her eyes again. The hoodie-- she had thought about bringing it to him, hadn’t sent it back to get rid of the temptation for who knew what reason; she knew, if she really thought about it. He had moved, had offered her directions, and she would have gone, had she been awake. She’d had a drink (or three); he’d called her Beatrix (which she was minding less and less from him); he could keep a secret. Daylight hours hadn’t found her quite as desperate, but still-- she wrote back, he didn’t reply, she changed her mind, she ducked out of that shit show before it even started. Then lunch plans, and coming to even better senses. She opened her mouth to tell him he could come get it himself; she lowered the bottle of cider to her side so she could think a bit more clearly. “I’ll send it to you this afternoon.” And then that would be that.

He hadn’t said anything when she hadn’t gone to Edinburgh. It had crossed her mind that maybe he hadn’t shown up either, had hoped it could have been that easy. Writing to tell him she wasn’t going to show up, or writing to apologize for not showing up, would probably have been the nice thing to do, but wasn’t that exactly why she hadn’t? She was proving a point to herself, to Harlan, Merlin even to Charlie if he thought she was still pretending to be committed. She swallowed and caught his eye. “Yeah.” Fuck.

She didn’t move to pass him, lingered for a second too long instead, brought up her brother after another second. “Yeah,” she said again, though this time there weren’t two different apologies hiding behind it. “Normally we sit over there,” she motioned toward the pitch, toward the other side, offering an explanation no one really needed but buying herself another few seconds on the landing. She caught herself, what she was doing, and straightened up to take another swallow of her drink. “Bet if you asked nicely enough he could explain quidditch to you. So you know when to pretend to look pleased.”

“Yeah, pretend—” He glowered suddenly, the wind knocked out of his sails as quickly as they’d caught it. So much for feeling a little bad for him. “Fuck off,” he swore at her, not just defensive about how long he’d been married -- not long, even less as far as anyone other than he and Kate (and now Sam) knew -- but irritated too that she was sticking that particular knife in to twist in his side.

“Dunno, why aren’t you wearing one?” he threw back at her. She might support Portree but wasn’t it poor form to wear the most obnoxiously pink jumper (it really was a lurid shade, even if he kind of liked the way it clashed with her red hair) for the opposition team when your boyfriend was playing them? It wasn’t the same as showing up to one of his shows in a Weird Sisters t-shirt, because that sort of thing was commonplace at gigs. Part of him absolutely respected her resoluteness in supporting her home team -- he’d do the exact same -- but he couldn’t let her be the only one to make digs about their respective significant others. Not that Alannah was that (yet, maybe), but he felt kind of better if Honey thought she was.

The redhead rolled her eyes and Charlie regretted bringing the hoodie up now as she offered to post it to him -- he hadn’t left it there intentionally, but he hadn’t been sorry about having a reason to see her again. It had worked for them once.

She didn’t apologise, in fact didn’t say much of anything in response to his sulky complaint. The logical, reasonable side of his mind was telling him that that was because she meant it -- they weren’t friends. The slightly more optimistic side of him (however small it was) was letting him believe it might be because she regretted not showing. He wasn’t stupid enough to ask, though. Better to just live under the assumption.

They usually avoided talking about Fergie, so he wasn’t sure what that said about their newfound not-friendship. He followed where she gestured, imagining -- through the stands -- the seats on the other side of the pitch. This was talking, wasn’t it? He nodded, “Got the flash seats now that you’re a WAG?” he smirked softly, attempting to be both nice and a twat in the same sentence and not really achieving either confidently.

They had spent less than ten minutes (five?) in each other’s presence and Honey was already looking for an out. Charlie wasn’t quite ready for them to go their separate ways -- not now that his hoodie was going to be posted to him. Maybe a little bit because he was concerned about her taking on the staircase solo in her state, too. He turned to walk with her. “Don’t you know the rules?” he asked.

Honey rolled her eyes again, crossed and uncrossed her arms. “Harlan’s a bit more forgiving than this lot.” She waved her hand clutching her bottle at the rest of the stadium, all the Portree fans. Really, Harlan hadn’t seen her yet so she didn’t know the full extent of his thoughts about her jumper but he knew, from day one, which squad she supported -- she couldn’t say the same for Charlie -- and that nothing as stupid as the wrong color jumper would ruin their relationship. (On second thought, it could be ruined by something as stupid: Charlie). If anything, it was all the more reason for Harlan to get her out of her jumper, later.

He didn’t say anything else -- not that she wanted him to but it wasn’t what she was expecting -- and she nodded, that taken care of. They weren’t friends. This was going great.

There was noise in the crowd and Honey looked over Charlie’s shoulder anxiously, though really there was only Charlie to see. “What?” Her gaze flicked back to him; she had missed what he said but -- she couldn’t tell which side of the stadium the cheers were coming from -- but she hadn’t missed his tone. “Fuck off.” She didn’t have time for this. She still needed to find Fergie, find their snacks, not miss any more of the match.

Honey thought she had waved him off with her Fergie comment, more or less inviting him to go bother someone else. She hadn’t thought through it properly, that she had told him to go find the very same man she was looking for. She moved past him -- only brushing up against him because he hadn’t afforded her any room -- and expected that to be it, that she could leave him on the landing, only to worry about bumping into him again on her way back up. She’d have Fergie with her then; reinforcements.

But Charlie started down the steps with her and asked his question; Honey knew what he was getting at. Instinct told her to say yes and she was halfway to saying as much when she stopped and turned to face him; Charlie was still standing on the step above her and she had to look higher than usual; she figured she’d topple over if she tried to put any more space between them. The unsaid yes was meant to be followed by an offer to help, that he wouldn’t need to pretend to look pleased once she was done with him-- Honey’s chest rose with her breath caught in her throat.

She let out her breath, shook her head slowly. “You just said we weren’t friends.” She had lowered her voice but again, they were close enough; he could hear her. “I didn’t show up, remember?”

“Is he.” Charlie didn’t know Harlan Bellamy, or anything about him (outside of his name, age, the team he played for, etc. etc. -- the basics, he told himself), so couldn’t comment with any confidence but he didn’t look (from what Charlie had seen) like the kind of bloke who was forgiving in any aspect of his life. He aimed iron balls at people for a living, for a start.

Charlie watched for Honey’s reaction -- sort of got what he was looking for, sort of didn’t. He smirked regardless -- that was the default, wasn’t it?

The confectioner pushed past him and it was mildly embarrassing how easily it affected him; his desire to piss her off gave way to something else, a little closer to wanting forgiveness himself. He caught up and followed a step behind, wanting to maintain their closeness now that he'd attained it -- and if she said anything, he was just staying within catching distance if she stumbled on the long staircase.

A smug little grin was still playing across his lips when Honey turned to face him, looking up at him from the step below; his mind wandered. It seemed, from her hesitation, like she was at least thinking about it, and wasn’t that all he wanted? Well, maybe he’d like a little more than just thinking about it, but it was enough for now, here.

But she surprised him when she said it again: they weren’t friends. He frowned, unable to hide his disappointment. "Yeah, I remember," he murmured back at her, held back from adding obviously because he was trying not to sound so sour -- wasn't sure he was achieving it. She hadn't turned to continue down the stairs yet, and just as she moved to do so he blurted out, quietly; "Was it because of him?"

He remembered, and he didn’t look pleased about it. She should have been happy with the outcome; she’d been successful in whatever she was trying to do, ridding herself of the hints of temptation so she couldn’t fuck things up. They hadn’t really been friends — how could they be? They had barely spoken in the past three years minus the last several weeks — so it wasn’t as if anything monumental was happening here. Felt like it, though.

She didn’t have time to analyze why she felt what she felt — if she did she would have just decided that it was more the cider’s fault than Charlie’s, anyway — what with the match to get back to, and Fergie to find, and Harlan to— she had just turned to continue back down the stairs when Charlie asked about him, Harlan.

Honey stopped, one hand on the handrail and the other holding her cider; she didn’t turn back around right away, and when she did, she moved up a step as well, bringing them back to their normal height difference. “No, I—“ Her controlled volume from a minute before was a thing of the past. It wasn’t a no but it wasn’t a yes, either; Honey hesitated from throwing all the blame on Harlan. “Not entirely,” she added after another second, a bit quieter, not elaborating.

“Look,” and she did; look, that is. They were properly close now and it wasn’t going to help her prove her point. “I’m not pretending with this.” Hadn’t been, at any point. She was in— she was trying. Still, she didn’t know how to explain herself without digging herself into a hole she couldn’t climb out of. “Writing to you was risky enough, right?” Words were easily misinterpreted. He had shown up for a late night rendezvous he hadn’t been invited to, and that was after he had more or less blamed some of his wife’s mistrust in him because of the letters.

“Lunch was—“ she paused, swallowed. She stood silent for another couple seconds before she continued back down the stairs with the rest of her thought: “Bad idea.”

He stared at the back of Honey’s head, waiting for her answer – he thought he probably already knew what it was going to be. After a moment she turned and rose up to the same step; closer. Charlie forced himself to remain still, to not close the distance between them any further. No, I— He bit his lip and lowered his gaze, about to concede defeat— Not entirely. He glanced back up – well, up enough to meet her light brown eyes with his darker ones, she was still shorter than him.

Charlie held their eye contact – looking. And listening, for a change. If he could have picked anywhere to have this conversation with her, a walled-in stairwell in a quidditch stadium on a remote Scottish island would not have been his first choice. Then again, he probably wouldn’t have chosen to have this conversation at all, what with the way it was now going.

He let her finish, then tried to work out how that made him feel. She wasn’t pretending. He was risky. Honey turned away from him – again – and began walking down the steps. Charlie reached out automatically and grabbed at her arm – the one holding her cider, which sloshed in the bottle – to stop her from leaving. Honey looked at him sharply and he retracted his hand like he'd been shocked. “Sorry—“ He mumbled hurriedly, taking two steps quickly to drop below her, ignoring another loud ooh and then a cheer from the crowd above and around them.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, not meaning the way he’d grabbed at her. “I’m not—” but he was: trying to wedge himself in between Honey and Harlan for selfish reasons. He was alone – Alannah wasn’t guaranteed, he didn’t really know if he should want her to be – and Honey was just one of the many people he knew – that he was surrounded by, it felt like – who were all coupled up. Liam was fucking coupled up. Honey was his last hope.

“It was,” he admitted, “a bad idea,” he murmured. His line of sight dropped below her eyes, below her mouth, but not so far down as where he’d usually end up (where she usually wanted him to). ”I shouldn’t have…” he trailed off. He swallowed, gave his head half a shake (mostly to himself).

Charlie glanced back up; at the cider, at Honey’s drunk face above him. As he gazed at her it all became more obvious. He inhaled, looking over his shoulder at the rest of the staircase she had yet to descend rather than at her.  “I do wanna watch you down these fucking stairs though,” he offered, trying to sound nonchalant – not like he cared too much – as he moved one foot another step down, giving her plenty of space.

It was a bad idea; this was a bad idea; Charlie was a bad idea. He grabbed her arm and she assumed he was going to correct her — it were just lunch, you gotta eat.— so she headed him off, turning to glare at him. That’d be risky too, letting him convince her it wasn’t a bad idea; that they could be friends even though she had already (very recently) decided they couldn’t. He let go of her and she wiped her hand on her jeans, even though her bottle wasn’t full enough to spill anything.

Charlie hurried ahead of her — in time with a cheer that sounded decidedly Portree-positive — and Honey looked at him after a second or two. He apologized and she swallowed, stopping herself from accepting it right out without knowing what, exactly, he was getting at. She crossed her arms (again) and raised her eyebrows, not letting her mind wander about all the many things Charlie wasn’t.

The crowd made a noise as he spoke again, and she just barely heard him over it; Honey moved down a step, matching his height now, but Charlie wasn’t really looking at her anymore. She nodded almost imperceptibly, agreeing with it all -- the bad idea, that he shouldn’t have… whatever. She knew she shouldn’t have whatever either, but at one point she really had believed that the letters weren’t anything, could still believe that if she tried hard enough. If they had attempted being friends before Harlan, then maybe; really, she should have just let Fergie talk her off of him however long ago -- she refused to believe it had been five years -- but she had been stupid and he had been fun. But this wasn’t fun anymore, protecting her relationship from herself.

She didn’t say anything, too engrossed in trying to figure out if she should. Charlie looked at her and she held his gaze for what seemed like forever but was more like two seconds. He moved -- in the opposite way from what she was expecting -- and Honey nodded to herself, moving past him quickly. “Fine.” He could do what he pleased and if that was watching her down ‘these fucking stairs’ then so be it. She took the first few at a quicker pace to put a little more space between them but after a slight wobble -- that she caught herself by way of the handrail -- she slowed down.

It was easier, not looking at him, to think it was a good idea to apologize; she could almost convince herself this was the last time she’d have the chance. “I’m sorry, too,” she said, before stopping and turning to look up at him. “I should have--” she paused, smiled sadly. “Told you, at least.” Cold turkey hadn’t worked that well.

Honey moved closer and Charlie tried not to get his hopes up -- that hadn’t been his intention when he’d apologised, though he couldn’t deny he wouldn’t be upset about it -- but she was just bringing them to eye-level. He gazed at her, at her unfocused, gooey brown eyes and her pink, cider-drenched lips. Without thinking about it, he wet his own.

Fine. It didn’t sound as harsh as he’d expected it to, which might’ve explained why he let her slip past him -- shock, whatever, nothing to do with what else he was thinking about at this closer proximity -- and he followed her quickly, back on board with making sure she didn't fall down the stairs the moment he spotted her wobble precariously, his hand reaching out behind her but stopping short of making any contact (there was always a first time for everything).

But shit, there were a lot of fucking stairs to descend in awkward silence (a truce, right? That was what this was?). He thought about what -- if anything -- they could talk about to make things less weird, but then he considered that Honey might only have enough capacity to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and he didn’t want to distract her from doing such a good job at walking down the stairs. At least if she found Fergie, he could help her back up.

But Honey found something to say, and Charlie almost missed it in the sounds of more gasps around them. He stared at her, trying to remember if she had ever sincerely apologised to him for anything, ever. He cleared his throat and shrugged. "Would’ve been nice, yeah," he agreed, accepting her apology in the most casual way he could muster -- couldn't spook her out of doing it again -- before realising it sounded like he wasn't accepting it at all. He smiled lopsidedly back at her, just as sadly; "Looked like a right twat," he said, closing their distance by dropping onto the no man's land step between them.

He descended another step and Honey held her breath; in any sort of cliché situation this is where they would kiss, make up, run away together; she couldn’t think of any romantic stories that ended with the woman staying with her boyfriend, but that’s what made this real life, wasn’t it? Honey nodded slowly, agreeing that it would have been nice to let him know before ditching him. Really, she ought to apologize again, but two apologies in as many minutes was really overdoing it.

“You still do,” she said instead, smirking like nothing unusual had been said between them. “Look like a twat, I mean.” She gave him an obvious once over — his obviously not-quidditch tee — as she fished her previously discarded Griffins badge from her pocket. “Hold this.” She handed him her cider as she moved up a step, into the space next to Charlie, both hands fidgeting with the badge as she moved in closer. “She’ll like this—“ she spoke quietly, glancing up to his face for a second before refocusing on her hands as she attempted to pin the badge to his shirt. It took a few seconds — and she wasn’t even trying to linger, she was just having some issues with her fine motor skills — but she managed, tapping the badge with her fingers before she took a step back, resting against the railing.

She held out her hand for her cider, didn’t take it right away as he gave it back; her fingers brushed over his and she blamed the alcohol for her hesitation; it was clearly her subconscious telling her to slow down her cider intake and nothing else that stopped her from taking the bottle from him. But she did — it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds — and turned to head back downstairs, stepping in time with Charlie rather than try to outpace him again.

They only had another flight, though, and she still had a match to get back to, a brother to find, so she didn’t dawdle; there was just enough time to say against her better judgement: “Maybe next one—“ next support-the-beau match they both ended up at— “Our seats’ll be a little closer.” Coincidentally, of course. “Can tell you which team you’re for, at least.” They reached the ground floor as the crowd made another noise; Honey looked away and then back to Charlie, quickly pushing him back behind the closest column.

It took her a second to realize what this must have looked like, especially considering she had followed through the shove to hide behind the column, too. “Fergie,” she said, peeling her hand from Charlie’s chest and taking a small step back, not far enough she thought she’d be seen by her brother, who she had glanced coming their way. “He doesn’t—“ she frowned, didn’t know how to articulate that she’d prefer this — all of this — to stay between them, not eager to deal with Fergie’s judgemental face. “Please don’t tell him,” she finished quickly, a pleading look on her face as she took another step back before she moved to head off Fergie, steer him back in the other direction.

[[ out ]]