tangled up in weeds; youthful dreams; change scenes { michael }

NOVEMBER 2003

London was a little warmer than Brighton today, but the sky was clear in the latter, whereas London was – unsurprisingly – overcast. Overcast was good, though. Better than the last time Kai had come here to knock on Tony’s door, all that time ago, when it had been – offensively – sunny and warm. It had occurred to him more than once today that this was the first time he’d been at Anthony’s place sober for a very long time. Standing here, finishing his cigarette, that choice was starting to seem a little ill-advised.

Kai had put it off for as long as he could.

Several weeks ago, he’d left his place very quietly in the very early hours of the morning, hungover and exhausted and unsettled. It had been a strange night, he supposed; he’d gone out to hook up, sure, but the idea had been to hook up with a stranger, not the ex boyfriend he’d cheated on two years ago. It didn’t help that Tony seemed to still hate him and want him in equal measure, either. It was all a bit mixed up, really, but regardless, one thing remained true: they weren’t friends.

And even with all of that shit, in the end it hadn’t been that kind of tension that had troubled him when he’d woken up from a brief sleep, realising it was still pre-dawn and that it was Tony's sheets and limbs that he was tangled up in. Tony hadn’t asked him to leave, or made pointed remarks, or seemed uncomfortable, even – he’d just slept, sound as anything. No, it hadnt been animosity, but rather the opposite that had taken Kai off guard. It had been something about the little while after they’d had sex the night before, the soft touches and brief exchange of words. The way their bodies fit together as they fell asleep. The ease of it all.

It wasn’t good, the way they swung in and out of each others’ lives. That the sex itself had been great just made it worse. That he’d stayed and fallen asleep, but then left early had made it worse and that he was here now, again, was worse again. Kai put his cigarette out with his fingers and pocketed it, then waved a hand to waft away the smell. “Okay,” he said to himself quietly, before curling the fingers of his right hand into a fist and rapping his knuckles on the door. It would be brief, he thought. Hoped. Might as well get it over and done with.

Anthony was in court today -- this was the only thing that could account for the uncharacteristic delay in writing Michael back. (One of the only things. The other was that Michael hadn’t marked his memo ‘urgent’, because it hadn’t been urgent, and thus it was probably sitting on Anthony’s desk on Level Two and not flapping like a gnat in Anthony’s hair.)

But Michael had no intention to wait for Anthony to return to his desk -- he was off at noon, and he didn’t like to hang around gloomy London any longer than he had to, when he had gloomier Brandon to hang around. It was nothing that needed doing in person -- just returning a loaned book and delivering a roster for the Four Nations Tournaments bracket game, should Anthony or his roommate want to partake in it. And besides, Zacharias would probably be there to accept them. As far as Michael knew, Zacharias went nowhere and did nothing.

He apparated straight onto Anthony’s doorstep and found himself packed awkwardly twixt door and Kai. “Ah fuck,” said Michael, and sidestepped hastily off the stoop. He was a moment from apologising when his brain returned to him with what he imagined was a wet squelch. Kai was on Anthony’s doorstep.

Ah fuck.

Michael straightened his spine, fixed Kai with as polite a death glare as he could invent. “Anthony’s at work,” he said. “Something wrong?”

“Jesus Christ.”

Kai stumbled back; there had really only just been enough space for the man to appear between him and the door. A more alert witch or wizard might have gone for their wand at the shock. Kai just straightened up, wariness on his face. At first, he’d thought it was Tony. Dark-haired white guy on Tony’s doorstep? His second thought had come with a harder slant, but then he’d realised who it was. He knew this man.

They’d only met a couple of times, but the recognition was mutual, apparently. The look Michael was giving him made Kai adjust to match; he was immediately on edge, a little agitated and impatient where before he’d been more anxious. He glanced at the door before looking back at Michael, half expecting it to open then, just so. Or hoping, maybe. He pushed hair back from his face, sighed. A curious (controlling) part of him wondered what Michael knew. Clearly he knew some things – probably guessable things – but which parts?

Should he be explicit here? “He has something of mine,” he said. It was less of an explanation than we fucked a few weeks ago and I might have left some keys in his room, but he didn’t owe Michael shit, and he especially didn’t feel like offering anything here, now. “You know when he’ll be home, or…?” Well, fuck. Kai fished out a new cigarette from its packet in his pocket and lit up on the doorstep.

Kai returned Michael’s glare, which didn’t seem reasonable. It wasn’t like Michael had ever broken Anthony’s heart so badly he’d forced him onto an unexpected cross-Atlantic weeks-long sabbatical. He didn’t want to apologise for Apparating, but he now deeply regretted it: he’d shown up about a knut’s width away from Kai with his wand in his hand and now he was a little dishevelled. But he wasn’t the one who shouldn’t have been here on Anthony’s doorstep; he categorically refused to act nervous.

So, though he had a tuft of hair drifting down his forehead and it was starting to bother him, he ignored it and put his wand away, stuck his free hand into his pocket to prevent himself from doing anything that made him look like a neurotic.

“What, for three years?” he said skeptically; if Kai was here hoping to rekindle something ill-advised, Michael hoped he’d think of a better lie by the time Anthony turned up. He was tempted to keep being a prick -- what, you respect his line of work now? -- but prejudice against lawyers was possibly the thing Michael had admired most about Kai, so he just shrugged. “He’s in court. No clue.”

This was apparently the worst thing he could have said -- Kai seemed ready to settle down and wait. Michael wavered for a moment between pointing out that Anthony wouldn’t like Kai smoking on his front doorstep and suddenly craving a cigarette too -- not in an addicted way, just for something to do other than start fidgeting on Anthony’s stoop -- but after the mutual glaring earlier, he doubted Kai would loan him one.

He succumbed first to the fidgeting -- in getting out a pack of cigarettes Kai had clearly tipped his hand first, so Michael could finally fix the cowlick and adjust his robes -- then to the craving. He said, with a feeble gesture, “Can I bum a tab?”

Three years? He blinked. Kai wasn’t surprised that Michael didn’t know, but due to situational factors, he felt defensive. He found himself caught between feeling smug that he knew something the other man didn’t and reluctance to share it out of some lingering, misguided loyalty to Tony... Or something similarly irrational. Kai didn’t really care what Tony told his friends, but if the man in front of him didn’t already know then it probably wasn’t any of his business.

“Uh,” he started, his mouth making the sound around the shape of his cigarette as he flicked his lighter. He took a quick puff once it was lit, then held his cigarette to the side. He had his lighter and smokes in his other hand. “More like three months,” he said in a low, even voice, glancing at Michael to check he got it. More like two, but who was counting? He tilted his head to the side slightly to blow out a pale, smoky breath. Turned out his ego won after all. Surprise, surprise.

He was about to slide his cigarette packet and lighter back into his pocket when the other man asked for one. “Mmm? Uh, sure,” Kai said, a little surprised. Tony had never liked him smoking out here, but that had been years ago, and Michael wasn’t Kai. He held the packet out, wondering if he would want to use his lighter, or if he’d just use his wand. Kai always had a lighter; no chance of accidentally blowing his face off or something.

“Need this?” he asked, sliding the lighter forward with his thumb.

More like three months. It didn’t take long to piece that together. Oh, that bastard, Michael thought -- somehow without any malice. Twelve years of friendship should have taught him that Anthony was completely capable of keeping secrets from him, but it surprised him just as badly every time. Three months -- he tried to think what had been going on three months ago. As far as he knew, nothing that should have driven Anthony into his ex’s arms.

He squinted with frustration, brows slightly furrowed -- but maybe if he pretended not to be surprised by this, Kai wouldn’t realise that he just hadn’t known.

Kai offered the packet and his lighter and Michael took both wordlessly, shook out a cigarette. Maybe this was a good thing. Michael had always been conservative about what details of his personal life he shared with Anthony. Maybe this was just Anthony catching onto how little Michael could stand to hear about other people having sex. But, more likely, this was because Anthony knew that, for all the poor choices Michael had ever made romantically, Michael knew better to date his ex, and they both knew Anthony should know better, too.

He lit up too, the borrowed book tucked under one arm, leaned against Anthony’s doorframe, and exhaled. “Anthony will hate us doing this,” he remarked -- the smoking, obviously, but also the divulging of secrets. He held the cigarettes and the lighter back out for Kai to take. He defaulted to small talk when at a loss; he said after a moment, “So you’re still around London, then?”

Kai didn’t say anything when Michael commented on Tony hating them doing this — whatever this was. Smoking? Talking? He didn’t really want to be doing either of those things, and especially not with Tony’s friend who he barely knew. So in a way, he sort of hated it too; he and Tony had that in common. He took his cigarettes back and pocketed the packet, trying not to puff too impatiently on the lit one in between his lips.

Maybe, he thought, he should have just stayed here the next morning, instead of getting dressed in silence. Instead of creeping past whoever the fuck was asleep on the couch when it was barely light enough to see. Then maybe he’d have his keys, and he wouldn’t be here right now, suffering through this. Then again, would Tony have acted differently in the morning? Probably, he thought. And he probably couldn’t have handled that. At least, not with any sort of grace, anyway. Less risky just to leave, even if it was unlike him to avoid confrontation.

He raised his eyebrows slightly when Michael spoke, reminding Kai of his unfortunate presence. Personally, he was more than willing to spend the next however-long in silence. If Michael wasn’t so contemptuous, Kai would probably leave, but now it felt like a pride thing. Then again, if Michael wasn’t contemptuous then Kai probably wouldn’t be so inclined. “Brighton, now,” Kai said with a shrug, as if Michael gave a fuck where he lived or spent his time. Brighton was practically London, in the way that the other man meant, anyway. Close enough to be here. Still in the country, et cetera.

Just, more seagulls, and more gay.

He glanced away, wondering if he should just walk anyway. But If he left, would he have the balls to come back again? Kai was good at putting things off; the months-long gap between now and that night was proof of that. “You too?” he asked after a beat, clearly not very interested in the answer, and clearly unable to come up with a better small talk question.

Michael was starting to think he ought to just have knocked and had Anthony’s roommate take the brackets and the book. He’d long since stopped trying to make small talk with Smith. Kai didn’t seem to want to talk, which Michael was able to stand for maybe twenty seconds, whereupon it became a touch more obvious that Kai didn’t want to talk. You too — Michael definitely hadn’t still been living in London the last time he’d seen Kai, but he decided just to shake his head: “County Durham,” he said. Kai wasn’t British — did he know where that was? Maybe Michael should have given him a reference point, but the only thing he could think of was, “You know Newcastle United?”

This was senseless — Anthony’s friends, by and large, were not sports fans, except one or two of the lesbians. But Kai, he thought, was not exactly a friend. He wasn’t sure what he was, actually — he fixed the other man with a look and tried to remember everything he’d ever heard about him, or picked up on that radio show he was still running. They had to have something in common, other than dislike of the government, and — well — if Anthony turned up to his best friend and his ex sharing cigarettes on his porch, maybe better not to turn up to them bagging on his job as well.

Which left Kai’s politics, which Michael wanted in a perverse way to know more about. It was one of his more harmful addictions, this petty interest in opinions he disagreed with — and that was no small thing, given what he was doing right now. Ages ago, the first time he’d caught Michael smoking, his dad had said, oh, you definitely won’t survive lung cancer, Mikey.

He took in a lungful of smoke too quickly; his voice was a little strained when he said, “You’re still running that radio programme, then? Used to listen to that.” He still did, actually, though he didn’t tell Anthony so, and probably never would.

Kai gave a small shrug. No he didn’t know what Newcastle United was — a football thing, he wanted to guess? Could have just as easily been quidditch, though. He sort of knew where Newcastle was — North England, east coast. One of the later stops from London and Edinburgh by train. He cared just as much as about where Michael lived as he assumed that Michael did, though. Kai would have been happy to stand here smoking in silence, but the other man didn’t seem so inclined. Well, if they were going to be here for a while… He leaned against the wall, forcing himself to take it slow as he inhaled another lungful of air, then exhaled slowly.

He used to listen to the show? Kai glanced at him, eyebrows raised in genuine surprise. “Really?” he asked. The radio thing felt relevant here, and Kai had dual images of shoving Tony against the door to his right two months ago, as well as Tony doing the same to him outside his old place, further back, playing in his mind. “Yeah, still doing that,” he said, nodding, trying to clear them from his mind. It had been a while since he and Anthony were together; he didn’t really remember much about Michael. He would have put in more effort if it had seemed like a particularly important thing to his ex. “I think we’re up to like, twelve regular listeners now,” he said, the hint of amusement tugging at the corners of his lips, not quite a smile.

Kai really didn’t want to talk.

That was fine. Michael was practised in talking to people who didn’t want to talk. He had probably spent hours of his life talking to a cold shoulder. He bent one leg to take his weight off it, and kept smoking.

“Really,” he confirmed, though he mostly put it on to fill the silences his house was prone to, now that Michael lived there alone, and not because he liked it. He tried to remember one of the episodes he’d had opinions about, preferably one he hadn’t written an anonymous letter about, and came up empty, minus the one about lawyers, which had name-dropped Anthony, which Michael had sort of agreed with, and which seemed thusly a little inappropriate to bring up here.

He tried to think of what else Kai seemed to hate. Pretty much all authority figures, really – Michael had the unhappy sense that his dad might have liked that programme, if it talked less about being gay. He twitched his lips into a slim smile, just for a moment – “Well, that’s more people than I could get to listen to me talk about how much I hate the government,” he said. Or, like, anything – the fellows in the club only listened to him because they had to, and tended to faction off as soon as he got going about anything, much less the government.

“You know,” he inclined his head toward the door, feeling that – inappropriate or not – he had to get his two knuts in about this, at least, “Tony is a good person, other than being a lawyer.” Which – if Kai and Anthony were still seeing each other, Kai probably knew, but – “I thought that episode was ill-thought-out. I almost wrote to complain.”

Kai exhaled a short puff of air from his nostrils, almost an amused snort. Hating the government was a pretty amusing, reductive, and not at all untrue summary of the show. “We hate other things too,” he said, playing along. There had been a compliment in there, and Kai had an ego after all. He took another drag of his cigarette, then ashed it on the ground. Easy enough to clean up later; no point doing it as he went. Pale smoke lingered at his lips as he spoke. “Cops… Landlords…” He blew the rest of his breath down and to the left. His half-smile came a touch easier now.

Tony is a good person, other than being a lawyer.

Kai didn’t say anything to that. What could he say? Of course he knew Tony was a good person. Of course he did. The second half was sort of amusing, but he felt too wary, too immediately on edge because of the first part to be able to relax into the joke. Michael knew why they’d broken up (a thing that had happened years ago, a voice reminded him unnecessarily). It made sense he might be protective.

The lawyer episode had been how many months after they’d broken up? Maybe Tony had told him…? “You were still listening then,” Kai said. He wondered who was still listening now. He wondered if Tony had wanted to stop tuning in after the lawyer thing, and if he’d been able to. Quietly, Kai hoped not. “Yeah, Anthony didn’t like that one either,” he said, wondering as he said it if Michael knew they’d seen each other back then, after that. What, for three years? — he’d asked. Maybe he didn’t think they’d talked at all since they were together? He’d be almost right, Kai supposed. Almost, but not quite.

Despite himself, Michael bit back a snicker – of course Kai and his radio colleagues hated other things, too. He’d always thought of that as a ridiculous political stance, disparaging everything that already existed in favour of things that could never exist, but he supposed it wasn’t any worse than his own of disparaging everything that already existed without even bothering to come up with impossible solutions. Michael thought it was less forgivable with him, anyway, as he had some leverage in the Ministry, albeit leverage that his office seemed to agree was to be either flagrantly abused or wholly underutilised.

“Good things to hate,” he said, fairly. “My dad would have liked your show.”

Anthony hadn’t liked it either. Michael frowned, and went over it in his head again. That show had been in 2002 sometime in between dumping Portia and dating Ruth. The Harpies had won the League. That had been distinctly more than three months ago, so either Anthony had sat on his displeasure all this time, or Anthony had tracked Kai down to tell him so immediately.

Michael had known Anthony for twelve years, and the longest he’d ever waited to be disapproved of had been the week of tactfully not-discussing-it he’d been granted after he’d broken his nose. Anthony probably hadn’t had any reason to give Kai that kind of grace period; ergo, Anthony had probably absolutely certainly gone straight to tell Kai he was pissed, unless another one of Anthony’s close friends had been listening and told Anthony about it lately, since Michael sure hadn’t. Ergo, Anthony had definitely totally been seeing Kai, at least intermittently, for like a year.

Motherfucker, he thought, more strongly – how long could one man carry on seeing his ex? – but it had been altogether too long since Kai had said it and Michael had stood here digesting it, so Michael muttered, “Aye, bet not,” and then added conversationally, “I don’t like lawyers either, I just stopped telling him so.” Which wasn’t entirely true, but he’d at least kept it to shrake jokes for the last couple years.

Kai just nodded a couple times in response, dark eyebrows raised slightly. He wondered if Michael was just being polite, for whatever reason, or if his father really would have liked his show. Would have? Kai didn’t really care enough to tuck any inferred details away there. Instead, he thought about his mother (who would not understand, or agree with any of his politics), his aunt (who would sympathise, to an extent), and then — a new one, for him — his own father. It still felt absurd to apply such a foreign concept — his father — to himself, but here he was. No doubt Mortimer Lovecraft would love the show, he thought, with an appropriate level of sarcasm.

It occurred to Kai suddenly that he’d just told Michael he was living in Brighton. Not a big deal — just a throwaway fact about his life — but Tony hadn’t asked that question, that night, so he hadn’t said. Tony’s Yours? had been the closest they’d gotten to skirting the topic and there had been absolutely no time or space elaboration. No, yours, he’d said. And that had been it.

It also occurred to him (the frown, the pause) that Michael didn’t know about the last couple of times he’d seen their mutual… Whatever Tony was. Probably for the best, he thought. Even though he’d been convinced in the moment that leaving without saying anything was the best choice that morning, that feeling got less and less clear as time went on. He really had no idea what Tony thought of that night, or him, now. Easiest to default to a basic place — that Tony still hated him, probably didn’t want to see him again. That he regretted the night, even if the sex had been great. (The last part added by his ego, of course, to cushion the rest).

“Yeah?” Kai asked. Maybe he would have gotten along better with this other guy than he thought, had it not been for… Everything else. He went to take another drag, his cigarette-holding hand pausing just in front of his lips. He hadn't told Tony he hated lawyers since before Tony was one. At least, not right to him. He bent one knee, placing the sole of his boot against the wall behind him. “So what didn’t you like about the episode, then?” he asked, his words clearly coming from a place of cool, amused curiosity rather than anything else. He wondered if it was the namedrop specifically that Michael thought was ill-thought-out.

For a bit they just stood and smoked.

Kai seemed to have decided he did want to hear about whatever Michael had thought of his show, so Michael blew out a breath and tried to think of the complaints he felt strongly about but hadn’t told them directly. There wasn’t much on that list, other than the lawyer thing, and he’d refrained only on Anthony’s (unasked for) behalf. He gave up and said, finally, carefully, “Well, you called Anthony out by name.”

That was the easy part. The rest of it was informed mostly by having been Anthony’s best friend through his late adolescence and early lawyership, and by knowing Anthony had been his best friend too. It had been hard to forgive Anthony for becoming a lawyer after the way lawyers had dissected Michael during the Carrows’ trials, but he’d come around, because he knew Anthony was a good friend and he knew Anthony did things because he saw problems he wanted to fix, whether they were his problem or not. (He thought briefly of Anthony grassing on Crabbe in third year Herbology on Michael’s behalf.)

“I don’t know what reasons he told you for being a lawyer, I just think there’s more nuance than you gave him,” he said at last. “Same way it’s not that simple why a lot of wizards are glad our prison is all the way out in the North Sea. Or why, like, the Wizengamot is fine with how overstaffed the Aurors are.”

Tony walked home from work most of the year.

He too often left the Ministry with cases still rattling around in his head, eating up valuable mind space needed for the Destination, Determination, Deliberation nonsense. Anthony was perfectly capable of Apparating while Distracted, but he tried not to make a habit of it. His right arm was already a nightmare of faded scars and twisted painful tissue -- if he Splinched it all the way off, Anthony might not have the heart to reattach it.

Besides, there was comfort in the walk from the Floo out to his flat. Gave him a chance to stretch out his neck, feel some fresh air, even if it was the cold and wet kind of fresh. In the winter, if he left work early, there was sunset. In the summer, when he left work late, there was sunset. Watching the world shift from light to dark (or grey to dark, often) helped him shift too, from the tightly-strung workaholic Barrister Goldstein back to tightly-strung workoholic Just Anthony Goldstein. There was a difference between the two personas, an important difference despite its imperceptibility to most people.

For example, Barrister Goldstein would, upon turning the corner onto his street and seeing two figures smoking on the stoop outside the front door, would have sorted their presence into a bin marked "irrelevant" and disregarded them both. Solicitor Goldstein would have stepped around them smoothly with murmured apologies, the opposition's argument in today's trial still banging about his forebrain as he made his way inside and up the stairs to his flat.

Unfortunately, the Anthony Goldstein that was turning the corner was one that actually tried to process the scene. From the side he was approaching, he could only really make out the side of one person's head. Clearly Michael, that one, the ears and the hair gave it away without even looking for other details. He was smoking, presumably with his companion. Got to be Terry, then, some small part of his brain supplied like it was sixth year again and the three of them were still practically inseparable. Had they been waiting long? Tony dimly remembered a memo fluttering onto his desk as he rushed downstairs, kicked himself for not reading it. Oh well. G-d willing, Zach wouldn't be too put out by the company --

Anthony drew close enough to make out the shape of the not-Terry on his stoop and stopped walking midstride.

Oh, for fuck's sake.

Tony's right hand landed heavily on a length of iron fencing, the heel of his palm driving into the metal and making it ring. Of all the things -- what was Kai doing here? What was Michael doing here? What was Michael with Kai? What was Kai doing here with Michael? Why were they both waiting to ambush him? Why were both of them smoking at his front door? What were they talking about? Why were they talking? What the hell?

He overheard some words on the wind -- episode, Anthony, lawyer, prison -- all disconnected from their context. Or perhaps it was Tony who was disconnected, as he stared at both of them from the neighbor's front yard fencing, jaw threatening to drop open.

What the hell?

He wasn't even sure if they had noticed him. Tony mumbled "one moment" in a strangled voice anyway, turning on the spot with no Destination in mind and neither any Determination nor Deliberation. He Apparated just down the street, out of sight around another corner. He scrubbed a hand over his face, trying to regain his composure. Let out a strangled sort of half-scream, half-laugh instead, slightly dirge-like in quality and quite loud. It helped a little. Not quite enough.

Right. So. Michael and Kai were taking the opportunity to become bosom friends now. Helpful. Excellent all around, chaps. Impeccable timing. Wasn't like they couldn't have done that when Tony and Kai had actually been together, instead of right now, when seeing Kai felt like the dull throb of an old wound. Good work, Corner!

Another soft pop and Tony was at the bottom of the stoop, pushing past both of them on the way to his own G-d damned front door. "Hullo," he said, voice still a little tight. He tried not to look directly at Kai, instead choosing to give Michael a look meant to convey profound betrayal. "Don't suppose you lot are here to see Smith, are you?"