[majorca] hotline bling [charlie]

Charlie turned to look at his bedroom door, as if he’d just acquired the ability to see through solid objects. There was a very high probability that his mum was still on the other side, but--despite best efforts--he couldn’t listen for her and listen to Honey at the same time.

“As opposed to just a little bit French?” he asked, trying to make light of the situation somehow. His tone shifted into something a little more serious: “Sh—”

Charlie blinked. “Er yeah, Christmas,” he answered Honey, dumbly -- they’d already established it was Christmas. What a twat. “Came up for it,” he explained, unintentionally vague. He lifted his chin from where he’d been staring down at the carpet and grinned, able to hear the smirk in her voice. “Do you want me to tell her?” He was calling her bluff -- he was absolutely not telling his mum who he was talking to, and even if he were to, how was he supposed to explain who she was to him? She’s my mate that I shag because I’m not grown up enough to have a proper girlfriend.

Right on cue there was another knock on his door and he didn’t quite get the phone to his chest this time. “What?” he snapped through the door. I brought you a drink. Charlie sighed and opened the door. He glanced from the glass of Bucks Fizz to his mum’s face. “Thanks,” he grumbled, taking the flute from her awkwardly in the hand that was holding his phone. Who— “Not now, Christ—” He shooed her away with his free hand and closed the door again.

After a second’s thought he dragged his overnight bag in front of the door (not that it would achieve much except stop her from flinging the door open wide), then took his phone in his left hand and put it up to his ear again. “Honey?”

Honey ignored his question about how French she was or wasn’t, latching on to Charlie having Christmas plans, instead. He came up for Christmas; never mind the joke she was letting pass her by, that meant he wasn’t in London. She’d need to circle back around to that because she didn’t want to believe he had given her the phone number to his parents’ house.

She didn’t want Charlie to tell his mum, exactly, but didn’t it sound worse that he couldn’t even make someone up? (Honey had been clever enough.) Literally anyone would have been better than being cagey about it, if his mum was anything like hers. It’d only bring on more questions. Honey rolled her eyes, figuring it wasn’t her problem. “Tell her what?” She wasn’t fishing for anything specific; they were friends having a chat, assuming they were still friends because the ‘benefits’ part of their arrangement hadn’t happened in over a month.

There was another knock, louder this time, and Honey managed to discern it was definitely not happening in Majorca. Honey smirked, offering a silent told you so as Charlie dealt with his mum again. She could hear much better this time, her smirk softening at the exchange. She made an attempt at figuring out what else was going on--there were sounds of movement, at least--but she gave up after a few seconds, instead deciding that another drink wasn’t such a bad idea.

She stood up, phone in hand, eyes closed as her head did a little swim because she’d gotten up too fast. Honey? “What?” It came out more annoyed than she intended, and she tried again as she opened her eyes and stepped out of the tub.“Your mum brought you a drink,” she said with a small smile, ignoring how nosy she--Charlie’s mum--was being. “Hot chocolate? I won’t tell,” she teased, recalling the latest (of two) occasions of them having coffee together. She had no ground to stand on, anyway; Flume Christmas was a cute Christmas.

She eased the door open and stuck her head out; the lights under both bedroom doors were off, so she took her chance sneaking back into the kitchen.

Tell her what? Honey said. Charlie smirked; exactly. There wasn’t anything he could tell his mum about Honey--especially with her on the other end of the phone, listening in--that would sound like he had his shit together -- and that was his mother’s main concern, apparently. Charlie’s parents had been surprised by the sudden appearance of a girlfriend, after however many years of never meeting anyone, and then that girlfriend had quickly become a wife, and then--just as quickly--an ex-wife. Mrs Baker was not exactly hiding the fact she thought he needed to reconcile with Kate (the many glasses of bubbles making her more honest as the day wore on). She was probably hoping it was Kate on the phone right now.

Charlie moved back over to his bed and set his glass on the bedside table with a precarious wobble. He paused to listen to Honey, then smiled, not really sure why; “She did, yeah.” His lips twisted into a grin. “Bucks Fizz, actually,” he corrected her with a put-on air of pretentiousness -- aware that this was just as manly as a hot chocolate, but he at least had the excuse of it being Christmas.

He adjusted his pillows before sitting down, then laid back with a groan. “Why, what’ve you got?” he asked, picking up his flute and having a sip.

“Mm.” She was acknowledging she had heard him (and it sounded delicious). She didn’t take the time to question why Charlie was drinking something she didn’t hate. There was a brief second she thought she might make her own, but she’d have to juice an orange and was that really the sort of thing she wanted to spend effort on right now? She’d have to put down the phone; that, and her mum would notice an entire missing bottle of champagne, more than she would notice a couple (more) missing glasses of brandy.

Honey rounded the counter, stepping into the kitchen and pulling the phone cord with her, nearly knocking over a few wine glasses that wouldn’t fit on the drying rack. “Brandy,” she answered quietly, matter-of-factly, because like they had already established, it was Christmas. “Have to get a top up,” she added, in case it wasn’t already clear she’d been drinking all day. She looked around for her glass and took an embarrassing amount of time to figure out she had left it on the edge of the tub; she grabbed the bottle headed back to the bathroom.

She pulled the cord in as far as it would go before she closed the door, readjusted the phone—her hand was starting to cramp—before pouring herself a refill. “Y’know—“ it was hard to concentrate on pouring and talking but somehow she managed— “I almost felt bad you were having a quiet Christmas.” She smirked at her almost, had a sip of her brandy before she stepped back into the tub. “But you’ve got to spend it with your parents, just like anyone else.”

Sat in the tub, she immediately slouched down again, though not far enough to impede her drinking.

Charlie heard a telltale tinkle of glassware and the corners of his lips pulled outwards— No smash came, so he assumed Honey must have caught whatever she’d almost toppled. “Brandy?” he grinned, not lowering his voice in the same way she was (now who was being cagey?). “‘Course you do,” he agreed; he was seriously thinking about doing the same, this glass wasn’t going to last him long -- he suspected his mum had known that too, putting it in a flute instead of in the larger red wine glasses she usually switched to after they’d had dinner.

As if to prove the point--quite unintentionally--Charlie went to have another sip and found he had almost finished it already. Well, there was no point prolonging the inevitable: he gulped the last of the champagne-and-orange-juice (mostly champagne) back and reached over to set the empty glass on his bedside—

His hand hovered in place and his eyebrows rose -- did she (almost) feel bad because he was single--divorced, whatever--or— Oh. He smirked to himself, happy to infer what he wanted from that: “Did you think I wasn’t like everyone else?” Truthfully, he liked to think he wasn’t.

Charlie curled up--another soft groan of exertion, this was a lot of movement post-Christmas dinner--and swung his legs to place his feet on the floor again. He got up and strode back over to open the door, kicking his bag out of the way and peering out into the corridor to check it was clear. “Nothing wrong with spending Christmas with your family, you know,” he told Honey, crossing the landing to the stairs. “Even when you’re thirty.”

He was trying to be quiet descending the stairs, but the combination of talking on the phone and all of the Christmas booze was fooling him into thinking he was succeeding (he was not). He passed the living room--caught his mum’s eye and raised a warning finger at her--on his way to the kitchen. Charlie went to the fridge first, surveying the contents and finding a fresh, chilled bottle of bubbles -- that’d do. He tucked it under his armpit, let out a high little ahh as the cold seeped through his t-shirt, and shut the fridge door. He cleared his throat. “It’s only embarrassing if you spend New Years with them,” he teased.

Honey didn’t immediately know if she thought he wasn’t like everyone else. She thought about the whole floo connection thing and how that had been ridiculous from the start, but even with all the brandy she remembered not to make a joke about it, considering what he’d told her about Amsterdam. After another second she decided she probably shouldn’t think about it too much; if anything, him being unlike everyone else was the thing he needed to set him apart, keep things between them not serious. But she could overthink things tomorrow. “Well, not anymore.” Her non-answer was as bad as an answer.

It sounded like Charlie was venturing out and Honey smirked softly before she had another drink, honestly surprised his mum wasn’t still on the other side of the door. “I--” never said that, she was going to say. She liked her family, usually; but Fergie was in a mood and her mum-- Honey was thirty and hadn’t given her grandkids. It was like Charlie read her mind and she laughed it off (because of the brandy; it wouldn’t be so funny in the morning). “Even twenty-eight and divorced,” she said with a smirk. She was joking--they could do that now, right?--but really, that would have been so much worse for Mrs Flume.

She had another drink (or two) as she tried to listen to what he was doing; he made a noise—she didn’t know what that was about—and she raised her eyebrows, clearing her throat when he did. “Really?” If that was what made it embarrassing, she wasn’t about to admit she would still be in Spain for New Year’s, then. That’d be too easy.

“You have any parties in Paris I can sneak off to?” That had been the last time she had successfully spent New Year’s anywhere else, minus that one year she had tricked Fergie into going to Ibiza, but that was still Spain and he was still family.

Charlie grinned. “Get fucked,” he told her. He’d had to deal with his parents and grandmother tiptoeing around the subject (his dad and his nan with more success than his mum) all day, and it was an odd kind of a relief that Honey had gone straight for the jugular.

He set the bottle down on the counter for a minute while he perused the leftover snacks from the day. He picked up a mince pie and fiddled with getting it out of the tinfoil cup it came in. He smirked. “Really,” he said, and bit into the pie. Instantly, it crumbled, bits of pastry falling down his front. He tried to use the hand still holding the rest of the pie to brush the crumbs off.

He lifted his head, as if that would help him process, and grinned. “Unfortunately not,” he answered around a mouthful of mince pie -- though the more he thought about it, the more of a mess that night had been. It had all started out fine, then Honey had gotten jealous of Fflur or some shite and— one thing had led to another. Then another a month later. He finished chewing and swallowed, found his throat dry now and tucked the phone between his cheek and his shoulder to start unwrapping the bottle of champagne.

“You worried I’m gonna go find Isabelle?” he asked with a smirk as he tore the foil off. He unwound the little metal cage that held the cork in place, then eased it out with a pop! He paused and glanced over his shoulder--or as much as he could with the phone still cradled awkwardly--to check for his mum. He took his phone in his hand again and looked around for his glass -- realised he had left it upstairs and began rummaging in the cupboards for a fresh one.

Get fucked. Honey smirked; if only he could help her with that. But really? Really. Spending New Year’s with her parents was embarrassing. Honey rolled her eyes and listened to him chew--it was such a charming sound--still not mentioning that she would actually be spending the rest of the holiday with her family.

He didn’t have any parties in Paris for her and she sighed dramatically. “Too bad.” She resigned herself to staying in Spain as she had another swallow of brandy. She hadn’t actually thought she could sneak away, Paris party or no Paris party; she had tried to last year--New York, Harlan--and that had ended so well, he had been so understanding when she couldn’t leave Majorca. Fuck, could she go five minutes without thinking about Harlan? Charlie wasn’t as good a distraction without the physical advantage, apparently.

Isabelle wasn’t exactly a better topic of conversation, but it was enough to get her mind on something else for two seconds. “Get tae fuck,” she said, rolling her eyes again. She had meant to repeat what he’d said a couple minutes before--get fucked--but the drinks and the time spent around her family and the speed of her denial didn’t help her keep her accent in check. She laughed as she exhaled, hoping it was clear that she really, truly, didn’t care. Not too much, anyway.

“Think she’s perfectly capable of finding you there.” She took another big drink and slouched down a little more, propping her feet up on the faucet again. “Apparently French women aren’t confined to France.” She didn’t know what she meant by ‘apparently’ but-- no, she knew exactly what she meant. She closed her eyes, trying to convince herself not to ask, but she couldn’t help it. “Do you think--” Merlin, she couldn’t jump straight to it without a little bit of background.

“You know that Portree match you went to?” She didn’t wait for him to answer before she went on, didn’t explain that she was asking any of this because Charlie must have been some sort of expert on the subject or that the woman she was about to ask about was French. “She was there. Bérénice--” she said the name in the haughtiest accent she could manage-- “Because Harlan invited her.” She paused to breathe, to have another (large) sip of her drink. “He was definitely cheating then, wasn’t he?” It had occurred to her not-so-recently, but she’d never said it out loud. It made sense, though.

Honey let out a melodramatic sigh and Charlie grinned at the sound. He knew she wasn’t that disappointed, but he couldn’t help but think she must be at least a little bit dismayed -- and why wouldn’t she be? (Excluding that one time they had spent New Years together).

There were no glasses in the cupboards. He opened the dishwasher to check if it was clean and got a face full of moist air. He grimaced and shut it again -- offended, and he didn’t want to warm the champagne up in a hot glass anyway. He went back to the cupboards and pulled out a mug instead: classy.

Get tae fuck. Charlie grinned, again, enjoying himself far too much at the prospect of getting under her skin (especially as he wasn’t presently able to get on top of it). He began pouring into the mug, then almost as soon as he’d started, the champagne’s glug-glugging stopped as he paused to listen: did he think—?

Charlie barely had a chance to answer (yes, he remembered), let alone be a prick about it (“The one where you felt me up in the stairwell?”) before he realised this was a different sort of conversation to the one they’d been having up until now. Charlie set the bottle on the counter quietly and stayed silent for a moment, letting Honey continue (because he wasn’t entirely sure where this was going) until she presented him with a question to respond to.

He wet his lips. Was she asking him as a friend or because he was supposed to be some kind of expert? Charlie didn’t exactly think himself any better than Harlan Bellamy (except sometimes, like now, he did), but he was at least smart enough not to invite his girlfriend (wife) and his mistress to the same fucking event. The only thing that stopped him from throwing Harlan under the bus straight away (“Obviously, yeah.”) was Honey -- Charlie didn’t want to hurt her feelings by being insensitive about it. He could tell--if it wasn’t obvious before--that her relationship with Harlan--that Harlan, himself--had meant a lot to her. She’d been trying, and he--Charlie--had given her enough opportunities to not try, that he thought maybe she’d actually been successful. And after all that, Harlan hadn’t.

But he couldn’t deny the evidence, nor himself the opportunity to knock Bellamy down a peg or two: “Probably,” he said, quietly. Charlie lifted his mug and had a long sip of wine, wrinkled his nose when he realised he hadn’t bothered to add juice. “Can’t think why he’d invite her otherwise,” he said after another moment -- morbid curiosity, or an attempt to let her get it all out.

She shouldn’t have said that, any of it, but Charlie didn’t immediately turn on her when she mentioned Harlan and she felt herself relax a bit. After a few more seconds, she remembered what she had asked about and tensed up again; Charlie wasn’t mad because she wasn’t saying anything good about Harlan.

Probably. He was right, and she knew he was, but that didn’t make it any easier to hear. She had so far managed to not discuss this with anyone else; she’d been so adamant when she had talked to Grace that Harlan had only kissed Bérénice, not because she necessarily believed Harlan but because it wouldn’t make Honey look as bad to still be so hung up on him months later. But it made sense because why else would he invite her? “She doesn’t even know quidditch.” From what she could remember, anyway; she certainly hadn’t dressed like she went to a lot of quidditch matches.

Honey remembered how the other woman was dressed because she vividly remembered thinking she was gorgeous; that sort of helped now, because it would have hurt so much worse to have been left for an ugly woman.

“They’re old family friends or something.” Honey rolled her eyes. She had met the Bellamys, had been to Audrey’s wedding; she didn’t have to imagine the sort of people they associated with. Honey wouldn’t need to worry about running into Bérénice at the Thistle, anyway. But the history was important, she supposed; out of everyone, she had known Grace the longest and she liked her the best. And she could remember Fergie’s friend Charlie, who had told her about that little crush he had on her in school; she smirked, remembering it, not as scared off now as she was when he had first told her.

“We should have just--” she cradled the phone and used her hands to make her favorite crude gesture, never mind that Charlie couldn’t see. They had (obviously), but she clarified: “Earlier, I mean.” She had put in a lot of effort to her relationship with Harlan, only to have it end like it did. She had been trying, had made great strides in improvement towards the end, there. She didn’t want him to think she was suggesting he should have cheated on his wife with her because that had gone over so well the last time that had been suggested. “After your divorce, of course,” she said with a smirk.

Honey was quiet for a moment and Charlie wondered if he should have tried to defend the other man just a little bit, be a good sport, but— He bit his lip (an automatic attempt at trying not to grin too widely, even though she couldn’t see him). She sounded jealous, and he’d be more bothered about it later when he realised it was still about Harlan, but for now he’d play the role of a friend -- they were friends now, weren’t they? “Sounds pretty shifty,” Charlie said, back to topping his mug all the way up. “Going to a quidditch match and not knowing quidditch,” he smirked -- he’d done just that, and she knew it.

Old family friends. Charlie frowned softly again -- sympathetic to her situation, if not able to be empathetic. It was no secret that he didn’t like Harlan Bellamy, but part of that had always been because he thought the other man was a better man. Turns out, not so much. “He sounds like a prick,” Charlie said before he could stop himself.

He stood very still, ears straining to listen to her. Charlie thought he knew what Honey meant, but he wasn’t about to ask her to clarify. She did--sort of--of her own accord a moment later. He was still in limbo until she said after your divorce. Right, that. He nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see. “Yeah,” he said, then forced himself to smirk when he realised he sounded fucking depressed. “Or before all of it,” he offered with a sigh (still smirking in an effort to keep things light).

“Would’ve saved everyone a lot of grief,” he added wistfully, his voice echoing into his mug as he held it just off his lips in anticipation of another drink. He swallowed and lowered it to his hip. “If—” He wet his lips and laughed mirthlessly to himself; “Should’ve just never stopped.“

It sounded shifty, he said, and Honey nodded in agreement. She could hear the smirk in his voice and she rolled her eyes. “Yeah, who would do that?” Charlie would, of course. He had (to get into Alannah’s pants), had again (to get back into Honey’s), would have again (Honey’s, again) if she hadn’t messed that up so spectacularly.

But the joking mood was short lived; she was quickly back to brooding about Harlan (and how she’d been right about him all along). Charlie said he sounded like a prick and Honey laughed; “So do you, most of the time.” It helped, at least— not Harlan being a prick but Charlie calling him one. It didn’t register as coming from a place of jealousy, anyway; she was probably too drunk to notice.

“Or before,” she agreed, remembering that one particular note he sent, something along the lines of my wife thinks we’re fucking so we might as well and Merlin, wouldn’t it have been a whole lot easier then? Charlie probably could have kept a secret, too. On second thought, he probably couldn’t have; he told Fergie about their owls after asking him not to mention anything to him. She was still going off on her mental tangent as Charlie went on; she agreed with a small, “Mm,” without really thinking about it. She doubted it would have saved everyone grief; he would have still cheated on his wife.

Unless he meant before that, too, in which case he should have agreed to keep sleeping with her when she asked him to last year. Almost two years ago now, she realized; at least they were more or less making up for lost time. Honey took a big gulp of her drink, scrunching up her face as she swallowed.

“You think?” If they hadn’t stopped they would have been at it for five years by now. Merlin. But they had stopped. Charlie had, really. He was supposed to let her know when he got back from America; he never did. She had since convinced herself it was mutual, though there was a small part of her that was well aware it hadn’t been; she thought they had been having fun but now she was telling herself that he had been getting too serious about her. 

She sat up, drawing her knees to her chest. “Why did we?” She was sort of admitting to it not being her choice by asking about it but.. after everything else she’d said so far it couldn’t hurt.

He’d made Honey laugh so that was a start. Charlie grinned lopsidedly when she as good as said he was a prick too. “Only most of the time,” he smirked -- he’d take that.

“Well,” he said with a shrug, suddenly aware that what he’d said almost sounded like he was suggesting this be a real thing. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to suggest -- only commenting on the fact that his most uncomplicated sexual relationship seemed to be with her, largely because it was a relationship that required anything else.

But Honey asked him why they had stopped, and Charlie paused with his hand in mid-air above the Honeydukes branded box of chocolates he’d just spotted at the far end of the kitchen bench -- the ones he’d ordered for his mum. He glanced over his shoulder warily, then turned and rested back against the counter as he tried to work out the answer to her question. “Erm,” he said, if only to make it obvious he was thinking about it, and rubbed at the side of his neck.

“Met Kate,” he told her honestly after a long pause, then frowned -- hadn’t he just been saying how much of a prick Harlan was for ditching Honey for another woman? The difference, at least, was that he--Charlie--and Honey hadn’t been official, let alone exclusive. He sighed quietly and turned to look longingly at his mug of champagne. “You didn’t owl me, either,” he said, reaching for his drink.

Honey could tell he was stalling, but she couldn’t tell if it was because he couldn’t remember--it’d been years--or because he was trying to think of something to tell her other than the truth; he had good reason to not want her mad at him, though she didn’t know how to jinx someone over the phone. He seemed to figure that out after a minute, telling her why: he met Kate.

She wanted to be mad about it, but it didn’t sound like he was just saying that to get back at her for talking about Harlan so much. That, and he’d been divorced for most of the year-- but then he’d slept with her (and told Honey about it) after the fact so maybe she was allowed to be a little mad, as if there was a risk of it happening again, them stopping without Honey deciding they should stop.

But there wasn’t anything she could say that didn’t make her sound… every way she didn’t want to sound about it. Jealous, mostly (because she wasn’t). They hadn’t been exclusive, or even really dating. And if all he had to do was meet Kate--assuming he wasn’t just saying that to cover for himself being as much a sleazy git as Honey knew him to be--then… obviously Honey knew he’d been serious about her--he’d married her--but this made it more jarringly obvious.

She should, as a friend, care more about whatever feelings he must have wrapped up in all of that but they were veering too close to something else. Thankfully, Charlie said something else before Honey had to think of anything. Did he actually remember he was supposed to owl her? Or was he just saying that because up until an hour ago, that had been their only means of communicating from a distance?

Honey decided to believe he remembered things the way she did. She took a drink and set her glass on the edge of the tub, running her hand through her hair before she laid back again. “I did eventually.” Right after their impromptu breakfast at the Three Broomsticks; she had waited barely ten minutes before writing her note, though she had waited--for what she thought were obvious reasons--a few days before actually sending it.

“Glad I did,” she said, smiling softly.

Honey didn’t respond to his honest answer and Charlie wondered if he’d fucked this up by mentioning his ex -- nevermind that he’d had the good grace to let her vent about hers. He had thought she’d wanted him to tell the truth, so he had.

She did, however, react to his slightly less mature it was as much your fault as mine, and he let out a breath he’d been holding in. “Eventually,” he repeated with a soft smirk.

Charlie smiled to himself. “Me too.” And he was; who else would have given him the time of day in the aftermath of everything the way she had? Admittedly, the timing had not been the best -- though he remained adamant that things were on the downhill with his marriage long before Honey had reentered the frame. He wet his lips, his chest heavy again from the confession he knew he had to make. “Honey, I—” He was playing with the little wire cage the champagne cork had been secured with, bending the metal between his fingers.

“She thought it was you,” he said, then fell silent as he let that sink in— then spoke up again as he realised that there was no logical way for Honey to have followed his mental tangents: “Kate, when she walked in,” he clarified. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was telling Honey this, but given that things like this tended to come back and bite him in the arse, he was trying to get out in front of any potential fallout.

“I didn’t… I haven’t told her it wasn’t,” he admitted, abandoning the muselet in favour of gripping his mug of champagne again.