teddy picker [sam]

saturday 25th october, 2003

Charlie returned from the bar and deposited two beers, held up a finger to signal that he wasn’t done and that Sam shouldn't waste his breath picking up their conversation from before, and disappeared back into the crowd. He returned with two more glasses, pressed his lips together and held up his finger again, repeating the process. On his third approach he was carrying two shot glasses (one in each hand) and two packets of bar snacks--cashew nuts (for Sam) and Frazzles (for Charlie)--held between his teeth. With a grin Charlie set the shots down and chucked the nuts at Sam's chest, retook his seat and wasted no time tearing into his crisps.

He glanced up, mid-mouthful, and caught the look Sam was giving him. "A pint, and then whatever I wanted, you said." Whatever he wanted had turned out to be an Irish Car Bomb. Of course, Charlie hadn't ordered it like that, instead painstakingly describing (in a rather condescending manner) what he wanted to the pretty redhead behind the bar. He wasn’t an idiot, wasn’t about to say those three words in the middle of Temple Bar.

"Come on then," he smirked, picking up one of the shots and holding it over Sam's pint of Guinness. He lowered it half an inch when the other wizard failed to take it from him quickly enough. "Don't make me drop it for you."

"Last to finish,' Charlie said, instigating their usual (almost ten year old, now) bet and forfeit, in which the loser had to divulge details to the winner. He picked up his own shot and held it over his stout. "I wanna know about that blonde from Oktoberfest," he grinned, "on three—"


@Sam Lynch

Sam was paying, so -- he supposed -- it shouldn’t have been a surprise to see Charlie hold up that not yet finger and go back for more. He waited patiently at their table, tapping one hand restlessly on the polished wood, until Charlie finally seemed done.

Sam (drunk) did not catch the cashew packet with much grace; rather, he fumbled it off his chest and into his hands. He tore the packet open, but gave Charlie a look of mock (not mock) hostility. “Prick,” he said. “You know, I had a very good relationship with the barmaid before tonight and now I can never show my face here again.” This was a touch dramatic, but he was fairly convinced that Charlie had chosen tonight to be a raging bell-end, specifically because Sam couldn’t raise too strong an objection at his birthday dinner.

He let Charlie call his bluff before he plucked the shot glass from his friend’s hand. “Whatever, whatever, whatever,” he said, and set his shoulders to drop his shot, waiting for Charlie’s countdown.

His theory -- a half-baked one -- was that his own athleticism was as much an advantage as Charlie’s possible alcoholism. They’d begun winning at a roughly equal rate by the time they’d been in their twenties. He dropped the shot and quickly picked up the pint to chug, but tonight luck was not on his side; he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and said, “I let you win. Happy birthday.” If he was going to lose, he was not going to lose with grace, and if Charlie was going to win, Charlie was not going to get any satisfaction out of it.

And Charlie wanted to hear about the blonde he’d met in Germany. “She was a German,” said Sam -- he’d almost said she was a blonde -- “Think her hair was dyed, though.” He raised his eyebrows at Charlie but let him fill in the blanks -- he added, after a moment, “Decent. I reckon those little Oktoberfest corsets make ‘em look about twice as curvy as they actually are, though.” Charlie probably wouldn’t ask for any more, so he pulled one of the other beers toward himself to drink. “Why, was yours a disgrace?”

”Prick,” Sam said; Charlie smiled back at him, smugly.

“How good?” he asked through a mischievous grin, curious if she was off-limits (as if he had a chance after his last order, but God loves a trier). Charlie shoved another couple of frazzles in his mouth and rolled his eyes. “Alright Laurence Olivier, calm down.” He was sure the Irishman would be back next weekend, if not before.

Their shots dropped with a small aplomb into their stouts (Charlie’s perhaps half a second early), and he scooped the pint up quickly, skulling the frothy, thick beer back at an impressive pace considering they were already a few deep. Finished, Charlie set his empty glass down and belched into his free hand. “Yeah, right,” he grinned, wiping at his mouth. “Cheers.”

Sam told him that his German bird was German and Charlie shot him a look. Then, another with a grin as the other man continued; he sipped at his other beer. “You reckon?” he asked, trying to remember enough of what had happened that night to recall exactly what Sam’s German had looked like -- blonde had been about all Charlie really remembered. Maybe a little more but he’d also had his own hands full.

“Hm?” He was mid-sip and lowered his glass back to the table between them. “No, she were alright,” he shook his head and wet his lips. “Not the best this go around,” he smirked, paused for a moment. “Yours?”

How good? “Feck off,” said Sam dismissively, laying the accent on a little thicker than usual. He’d torn his cashew packet too roughly; he had to cup it in his hand to keep them from falling out of the sides, set it gingerly down on the bar, trying to balance it on its side. The cashews spilled; he rolled his eyes and gave up.

Charlie gave him a funny look at she was a German but -- come on, they weren’t Germans. It wasn’t always a done deal that the Oktoberfest girls were Germans. Sam furrowed his brow, determined not to be fazed. He supposed it was inevitable that sometimes Charlie’s girls weren’t the best -- they were up against a lot more competition than Sam’s would ever be. This had been about the first really casual sex he’d ever had. At least in his earlier twenties he’d tried to go through the process of dating girls first.

He hadn’t really liked it, but he said, “Solid lay” anyway, just to be one up on Charlie. (It was rare that he could be.) He popped a few cashews into his mouth. “Reckon that’s the funnest tour I ever had,” he said, with a trace of irony. “Fancy me waiting ‘til twenty-seven to have a good time on a tour.”

The bar was only a little busy this Saturday, only a little hubbub from a group of witches in the corner. Sam shot them a glance. A night as wingman would be a better gift than what Sam had actually gotten for Charlie (novelty tank top reading, “I flexed and the sleeves fell off”). He said, raising his eyebrows in their direction, “Reckon we should tell them it’s your birthday?” It might have gotten them a free drink out of Orla, before Charlie’d offended her.

Charlie’s eyebrows rose appreciatively. “Good for you,” he said, and not in a dickish way. Of the three of them, Sam was definitely overdue a good time. Poor bastard had always had a girlfriend right in time for a tour -- and was a decent enough bloke not to do the dirty on her. “Yeah, well, s’not a race is it,” Charlie said sagely, reusing the same line Sam had used on him once, a long time ago now.

He had a sip of the beer he’d bought to wash the other one down. At Sam’s instigation, Charlie lowered his pint and turned--not at all subtly (the time for subtlety had long since passed)--to look in the direction Sam was hinting. He appraised the situation, decided he could probably settle for the brunette(s), and raised his glass an inch at them when they caught him staring.

Charlie turned back to Sam with a smirk. “Give it another ten minutes,” he said, “can’t be too keen.” If he and Sam played it right, they’d come to them and they wouldn’t lose their table. This one would provide much better opportunities for snuggling in than the large corner booth the gaggle of witches had.

Charlie drummed his fingertips on the table, trying to come up with a topic to tide them over for the next ten minutes -- his drunkenness slowing the process somewhat. They’d been talking about his birthday though, loosely; “Monday’s a shit day for a birthday.” He sighed dramatically. “Least it’s not a big one,” he commented, then grimaced upon realising his next big one would be his thirtieth. Judging by Sam’s expression he had come to the same conclusion.

That, or Sam was doing that thing again where he was thinking about how Charlie ought to be at home with his wife on his birthday, not trying to sleep with random women from a bar. “Don’t,” he warned, beer halfway to his lips again, index finger pointing at Sam. He drank and set the glass back down.

“Oh, go on,” muttered Sam, plucking cashews out of their packet. He was sticking them in his mouth when Charlie played the it’s-not-a-race card. Sam had only believed that when he’d been losing it -- as soon as he knew he’d beaten Charlie to the metaphorical Golden Snitch he’d decided that it was, in fact, a race. Of course, by now Charlie was winning it again, and Sam had only won about a hundred-metre sprint compared to the fucking marathon Charlie’d been on these last ten years, but now Sam’s sporting analogy was far too stupid to keep track of, so he said, “No, s‘not.”

Can’t be too keen? Those girls didn’t seem sober enough to care either way, but Sam shrugged and rapped his palms on the table. Charlie, across from him, was following suit.

“Total shite,” Sam agreed, because it was Charlie’s birthday more than because he actually agreed. He didn’t work a real job, he supposed; the last time he’d really hated Mondays had been in fourth year when he’d had double Potions first thing. He’d sat in front of a couple Slytherins and was, to this day, positive that they’d tried deliberately to squirt bug blood or bean juice or what have you on him whenever they could. He supposed it was a better fate than Charlie’s had been (living with them for seven years) and grimaced over his beer.

He caught Charlie’s eye -- the next big birthday either of them would celebrate would be the final hurrahs of their twenties, unless there was anything cool that happened at twenty-nine. Somehow he doubted it.

Charlie pointed at him. “Don’t?” echoed Sam, puzzled. Had that been a defensive look? Jesus Christ. “What have you been up to?” he said, not unsuspiciously.

Shit. Judging by that look, Sam hadn’t been pulling at that particular thread but--what had he been up to?--he was now.

Charlie sat there, blank-faced, as he tried to work out how to answer that. He shrugged and had a sip of his beer. They hadn’t seen one another since they’d gotten back from the tour in mid-September -- which was normal, after spending several weeks in close quarters, he thought. What had he been up to? He had arrived home, effectively dumped his bags and gone straight to see Honey -- two nights in a row, because seeing her the week before in Geneva hadn’t been enough, or something. They’d agreed to be friends. Then he’d bumped into Kate, of all people, which--the more he thought about it--felt like it had been an omen of sorts.

“Nothing,” Charlie said finally, lowering his gaze to the tabletop. Barely three seconds passed before he considered that perhaps now was as good a time as any to just be honest with Sam -- the poor bastard had put up with more for less. “Been seeing Honey again,” he admitted with the air of someone commenting on the weather. “No strings,” he added, having another sip of his drink. Charlie caught Sam’s look and assumed he knew what that meant. He rolled his eyes. “She broke up with her boyfriend or whatever,” he said, “everything’s above board.”

“Ferg knows, not that he’s happy about it but,” Charlie shrugged again. “Got it out of his system.” If he hadn’t wanted Fergie to feel like he’d achieved something, Charlie might’ve told him Fflur had a better right hook; still, he ran a finger along the slope of his nose absently. He glanced at his almost-empty glass then back at Sam. Now seemed an inappropriate moment to go get them refills, tempting as it was to be done with the subject. “And you? This must be a record for you, eh?” He might’ve been premature at trying to change the subject back to Sam’s lovelife, but it was worth a shot.

Charlie was giving Sam a very blank look; Sam returned it as suspiciously as he could. It was either very embarrassing, or about a woman -- or both, he supposed --- he raised his eyebrows at the patent lie “nothing” and then raised them higher, his eyes a little buglike. “Honey Honey?” he asked, as though Honey were a common name in magical Britain -- “Oh my God!” No strings, above board, it all sounded very well, but Sam wasn’t sure how much he trusted Charlie to make it sound like it was.

(Of course, Charlie’s gift with words didn’t generally extend to conversation -- he could make anything sound pretty if he set it to a beat -- but it didn’t need to be beautiful to be fake, in Sam’s experience.)

He sat back in his chair -- he always sort of forgot that Fergie was Honey’s brother, as he didn’t think they looked or behaved anything like each other. (At least he and Cait had sort of similar faces.) “Got it out of his system,” he said, and Charlie gave his unfortunate nose a solemn rub. That made Sam laugh out loud -- “What, again?” he said, sitting up straight to see if there was any lasting damage. “What’s that, twice this year?”

Knowing Fflur and Fergie, Sam was tempted to ask if Fflur had hit harder, but -- out of compassion for Fergie -- he decided it was probably better he didn’t know.

Charlie, not content with having his personal life prodded at, prodded at Sam’s; fortunately Sam had something even less than a no strings, above board relationship. Six months wasn’t a long time -- he’d been alone for the entire year he’d been twenty-one -- but, compared to how he’d spent the rest of his twenties, it was a very long time. He didn’t even have a very good excuse for not having gotten back out there -- but he shrugged. “Who’s counting?” he said, then, “So how long have you been no-strings seeing Honey?”

‘Honey Honey?’ Sam asked. Charlie rolled his eyes. “No, Honey Honey,” he said sarcastically. Sam’s secondary reaction--oh my God--wasn’t doing much to reassure Charlie that it wasn’t a big deal, but it was too late to take it back now.  And he was adamant that it wasn’t a big deal -- it was just convenient, for them both. He was only telling Sam because there was no reason to hide it, or something.

The Irishman laughed and Charlie rolled his eyes again; “Yeah, yeah,” he waved the other man off. “Easy target, innit?” he said, attempting to prod fun at himself and in the same breath make the feat seem less impressive (it really wasn’t). “Third time’ll be the charm,” he drawled -- though he would happily go the rest of the year without putting his nose in harm’s way again if he could help it.

Unfortunately, Sam didn’t have a relationship to distract themselves with--even with Charlie’s little truthbomb there was no way Sam would be able to help himself if he had a new girlfriend to prattle on about--so they were quickly back to Charlie’s not-girlfriend. Charlie glared softly at Sam and the insinuation that this was some sort of extended thing, then drew back in his seat as he tried to do the maths quickly enough to avoid any suspicion; they’d slept together after Fergie’s birthday, which was mid-June, and it was his birthday now--tail-end of October--so: “Few months.” As soon as he’d said it, it sounded longer than he’d realised. “Couple,” he added, correcting himself (lying).

“S’just casual.” He tapped his fingernail against his empty pint glass. “Not ready to do the whole, you know.” Charlie cleared his throat and pushed the glass towards Sam, as if to say and that’s the end of that conversation. “Your round.”

“The charm for what, staying broken?” scoffed Sam. “Alan’ll have your head, it’s your pretty face what draws in all the girls.” He was being a little more facetious than was really polite, but -- frankly -- Sam couldn’t blame Fergie. If it’d been his sister he’d probably have done worse. He’d threatened it on occasion, just to make sure Charlie knew that the threat still stood. Sometimes a bloke just had to hex his mate’s knees on backwards, that was all there was to it, everybody knew that.

A few months wasn’t quite the same as a couple months; Sam frowned and tried to remember what month it had been a few -- a couple? -- months ago. “So, what, August? Mate, that was an age ago.” Perhaps it was only an age ago for him, though; Sam had no such pleasantries to pass the time.

Christ, it was dull having no such pleasantries to pass the time. It’d been years since he’d had such a dry spell, Berlin bird notwithstanding, and now Charlie was having no-strings flings with Honey Bea Flume, and Sam was just stuck nosing. No wonder the past few months had dragged. Charlie was going to rather a lot of trouble to make this seem as innocuous as possible, which was a very bad sign.

“I know,” said Sam a little drily -- Charlie’d ended an eight-month marriage like six months ago, of course he wasn’t ready to do the whole, you know -- this seemed to have rubbed Charlie up wrong, as he pushed his empty glass over at Sam and dispatched him back to the bar.

Frankly every round ought to have been Sam’s, as it was Charlie’s birthday, but if he could get out of it he would. He brought them back two new beers each, sat down. “Here’s to twenty-fucking-eight, then,” he said, clinking his mug against Charlie’s in a toast; he let that sit for a moment before he added, “All downhill from here, do you reckon?”

Charlie laughed and avoided Sam’s gaze; third time was the charm for finally knocking some sense into him, more like, but it was easier to keep the focus on his pretty face instead. “Fuck off,” he said through another grin. “You’re the one with the trifecta: face, muscles, and you’re Irish.” Nobody hated the Irish, everybody hated the English.

Sam had zeroed in on the mathematics and Charlie shrugged. “We were out of the country August,” he said, not deigning to clarify any further (mostly because he didn’t want to start keeping track and spook himself out of an arrangement that was mutually beneficial). “Not like I see her every day,” he volunteered, because he was too busy having a parallel conversation with himself in his head and finding it difficult to keep the two separated. He realised then that he had potentially opened himself up to admitting they had a weekly recurring meeting, but he shrugged again; “It’s just shagging."

Charlie met Sam’s eye and breathed out through his nose, glanced away as the other man got to his feet. He drummed his fingertips across the table again and turned in his seat to get another look at the gaggle of girls in the corner -- one caught him looking and smiled. Charlie half-smiled back.

Sam returned with fresh beers and a depressing toast. Charlie laughed, then sighed. "Surely I can only go uphill, but you're fucked," he grinned and had a swallow of beer. He set the glass back down and looked out the window as it started raining outside. He knew Sam had been joking--which Charlie appreciated, considering the lecture he could have provided instead--but it did bare thinking about: surely his twenty-eighth year couldn't be worse than his twenty-seventh? Subconsciously, Charlie brought his beer to his lips again for another drink. "You think we'd already be, like, you know, settled by now if we hadn't gotten the deal?" Charlie asked, belatedly turning back to look at Sam.

“All that and I can sing too,” Sam shot back, “Frankly it’s no fair to you lot.”

Charlie seemed pretty interested in moving past this, but Sam stuck to his guns. “September, then,” he guessed. This sounded appropriately casual, though, he decided -- no more marriage bells in Banshee’s future. Honey Bea Flume didn’t seem the type anyway, to go feet-first the way Kate had. If Charlie had learned one thing, it was hopefully to take his bloody time.

Or not to fuck other women, he supposed, but he felt like that was a lesson Charlie had learned ages ago and was just ignoring. Sam sat back, his mouth still set like he was deep in thought, and finally caught Charlie’s eye.

Surely I can only go uphill -- surely that wasn’t true. For all that Charlie was unlucky in love, Sam thought he was relatively lucky in everything else. Hadn’t died in a gutter yet, at least. It helped to have money. He grinned anyway -- “Oh, aye, the Chinese call this the year o’ the --” he broke off, trying to think of what animal Charlie best -- or least flatteringly -- resembled. “Whatever.” The rabbit seemed most likely -- big ears, bigger sex drive -- but he was pretty sure there was already a year of the rabbit.

They drank, and Sam wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. He’d expected Charlie to turn the subject back to all those girls in the corner, so the question gave him pause -- after a moment he said, “Well, me, yeah. I can’t even imagine what you’d be like if we hadn’t got the deal.” Success had changed them all so young -- what on earth would Charlie have done if he weren’t a musician? He didn’t have a massive magical family to fall back on.

Sam shook his head as though to push the thought away -- “Why,” he said, “d’you reckon we’d be happier like that?”

His eyebrows remained raised expectantly as he waited for whatever Chinese year it was supposed to be, but Sam gave up on that thought and Charlie laughed. “Convincing,” he said.

“Obviously, you,” Charlie agreed, not unkindly -- if anything Sam’s personal life had been derailed by his career, whereas Charlie had something of the opposite problem. “Oi— Come off it,” he complained at that thinly-veiled insult. But Sam wasn’t wrong, he supposed -- his life would have been markedly different without the fame and the money. He’d scraped four N.E.W.T.s, but two of them had been the wizarding equivalent of attaining a Bachelor of the Arts (what did anyone do with a N.E.W.T. in Divination?). “I’d’ve figured something out,” he argued -- though what, he had no idea. His wandwork was abysmal, so potions was all he really had to fall back on. He tried to imagine himself as a potioneer and internally scoffed at the ludicrousness of it (the fact his day-dream self still wore a leather jacket potentially didn’t help).

“Probably not happier,” Charlie said, then had a sip of his new pint. He licked his lips and thought over that again. “Maybe,” he shrugged. “Less complicated?” he posed; he wouldn’t say their non-famous friends were living their best lives--and they certainly hadn’t had half the experiences Charlie and Sam (and Liam) had had--but perhaps they were more content with their lot because they hadn’t experienced the same highs. Downhill from here suddenly sounded like a more likely trajectory for them -- or him, at least. He figured Sam would shack up and settle down at some point -- in all honesty, Charlie was surprised Sam had lasted this long without wanting to pack it all in. He didn’t really like to think about after Banshee.

“Ah well, at least Liam’s not swanning about in his kimono like a lovesick teenager any more, rubbing it in our faces,” he grinned, tilting his glass in Sam’s direction before having another drink. 

Sam grinned -- “Yeah, what, tending bar?” he said, but it seemed a little too sad a mental image to poke fun at -- Charlie pouring drinks long into his middle age. Of the three of them, Lee was the only one who’d ever been academic: Sam’s grades had sort of pointed him toward an inglorious career lying to Muggles about what magical creatures were eating their begonias.

Less complicated, indeed -- Sam wondered if Charlie would have gotten married at this age if he hadn’t been a rockstar. Presumably there would’ve been fewer women interested. The same had to go for Liam, too. Sam… Sam might be doing exactly as well with women, but only because -- compared to his bandmates -- he was leading a chaste, moderate life. He chucked a cashew across the table at his friend, but didn’t have the heart to point out that, for all that fame and glory and rock and roll had poisoned his relationships, Charlie was by far the most complicated member of the band.

Maybe Liam was getting there, now, but Sam was trying not to accept that things were getting complicated again; it hadn’t been long enough since the last time, and if he could avoid discussion of it, he generally did.

Charlie, of course, saw things differently; Sam rolled his eyes (they were never going to forget that fucking kimono) and said “Oh, like it’s this much better to have him swanning about like a heartbroken teenager?” Not that Liam did much swanning about with either of them -- he’d set up camp in sunny California to mope.

Of course Sam felt bad for Liam -- he suspected that whatever had happened between him and Ollie Rigby (Sam hadn’t asked, nor was he ever going to) had blown right through the attitude that Liam had been curating himself for the past ten years, all that devil-may-care, suave self-assurance. Something to do with first love -- Sam could understand that. Charlie could probably understand it even better.

But they weren’t going to talk about it, obviously, ever, so he pulled his beer closer to him and stared at it for a moment. “Christ,” he said at length, “At least he had something for himself, though -- bet it beats living for the band. No offense.”

Charlie shot Sam a look -- tending bar, indeed. “Honourable work, that is,” he said haughtily, as only a former barman could. But Charlie had a point, nodding his head in the direction of the man bringing their drinks this evening. “I dunno, I would’ve worked something out eventually. Juggling maybe.”

Sam threw a nut at him and Charlie looked down as it bounced off of him and landed on the table. “Is that it?” he smirked.

He grinned, then -- only half-heartedly trying to hide it out of sympathy for their comrade. “Poor bloke,” Charlie said, a little more solemn, having another sip of his beer. He didn’t want to admit that he knew how it felt -- he didn’t really think he needed to. Not to Sam, anyway, who was likely to be far less sympathetic to a man who’d torpedoed every relationship he’d ever had -- and the last so spectacularly.

Charlie smiled thinly. “None taken.” He had a point; living alone, with nobody to share the rest of his time with, was a stark contrast to how he’d been living only last year. Charlie sighed. “Suppose we mightn’t be in a band forever though.” The last tour had gone well, and it didn’t seem like the appetite for their music nor gossip about their personal lives showed any sign of slowing, but Charlie couldn’t shake the feeling that one day it would all dry up. Liam was already holing himself away across the Atlantic at every opportunity. Sam had made no secret of wanting to settle down -- still hadn’t left Dublin, in ten years. Where did that leave him?

Charlie glanced over his shoulder at the girls in the corner. “Should probably make the most of it while it’s not pathetic,” he said, thinking of all the dad rockers who really ought to have hung up their guitars a decade ago.