human condition [charlie]

tuesday evening, 6 april 2004

Edith tugged the ends of her denim jacket down, fidgeting as she stepped just inside the door to the pub, looking for the familiar (and getting more so) face of Fergie. She was meeting him and his mate, on their pub night, and from what she could discern (from what Fergie had told her), their friendship sounded a little complicated. Charlie--the mate--used to date Fergie’s sister, but was married, but not to Fergie’s sister, but the dating had fallen on either side of that? Honestly it would have been easier knowing nothing ahead of time because Edith was having trouble keeping the timeline straight (which seemed to be something Fergie struggled with, too).

Never mind the whole and he’s in a band aspect; Edith hoped he didn’t expect her to want to talk about the band, because she hated wrock, on principle, and she didn’t want to make it into a whole thing, either. It would be a fine line to tread once she started drinking, felt far less inhibition about making her opinions known, minded less about stepping on toes.

Fergie was an adult with a day job so Edith was meeting him at the pub --probably going home with him, she reminded herself as her cheeks grew warm--and she wasn’t late but she wasn’t exactly on time, either. Still, there was no Fergie to find, and she didn’t know what Charlie looked like, so-- She set up camp at the one empty spot at the bar, pulling her backpack into her lap as she ordered a pint of the blonde ale. She rummaged in her bag for a second and pulled out a paperback; she didn’t want to be social before she absolutely had to. (And she might have been a little bit nervous because complicated friendship or not, she still wanted Fergie’s friends to like her.)

She set her book--Cat’s Cradle by Vonnegut, re-reading it for the third time--down on the bar to pay for her pint, then had a swallow (or two) before picking the book back up. She opened it to the dog-eared page and folded the corner back into place and almost as soon as she had started reading again, she could tell the bloke  to her right was also looking at the book; Edith switched it to her left hand and pulled her pint toward her with her right hand, hopefully blocking his line of sight.

The barstool on the man’s opposite side opened up and Edith tilted her chin up and over, looking at him. “D’you mind moving down?” She let go of her glass and used her hand to push her plait over her shoulder behind her. “I’m meeting someone,” she added. They would probably move to a table but she wanted a little more space without having to ask for it.

@Charlie Baker

Charlie was a little ahead of schedule but he wasn’t about to sit around the house and wait when he could just head to the pub early, get a beer and wait. Upon entering their usual, he glanced around the room just in case Fergie was early, too, but apparently not. Rather than sit at a table by himself he took a seat at the bar, ordering a pint of Landlord. He hadn’t thought to bring anything to entertain himself with, so settled for watching the television in the corner of the bar that was showing a darts tournament — it didn’t have captions, though, and the volume was muted so as not to compete with the music playing through the speakers (not that he thought the commentary would be exactly thrilling).

After a few minutes the seat beside him was taken by a petite brunette. Charlie watched her settle into her stool out of the corner of his eye, half-expecting someone to join her but— She ordered a blonde ale, pulled her backpack around and pulled out a book, cover down so that he couldn’t see what it was. He adjusted to rest his chin in the palm of his hand, leaning forward on the bar, eyes still on her curiously. He was regretting not doing his hair properly now (had left it product-free so as not to be seen as competing with Fergie —  as if there was any real competition).

She turned her book over and Charlie’s eyes scanned the title quickly; his eyebrows rose, mildly impressed. The brunette seemed to realise he was staring at this point and shifted her book to her other hand, closing herself off with her other hand on her pint. Charlie brought his up for a sip—

D’you mind moving down?

He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye—mid-sip—before lowering his glass. He thought she was not-so-subtly asking him to fuck off, at first, before she provided her reasoning. Charlie looked at the now-empty seat beside him and then back to the girl, then to the seat on her other side that wasn’t yet vacant, or he’d ask why she couldn’t move down (equal rights and all that).

But she was meeting someone. Something clicked. “Are you Edna?” he asked, giving her a quick once-over, see what Fergie was working with because the bastard certainly hadn’t given him any details— No, are you? she retorted. Charlie smirked, amused. He gave her another once-over, more obvious this time. She wasn’t unattractive—the glasses were misleading—and she wasn’t sat there reading a copy of People magazine so...

“No,” he answered her belatedly. "Just, I'm meant to be meeting my mate and his new girlfriend. That’s her name." he said, in a manner that suggested he could be otherwise occupied. He twisted in his stool slightly to half-face not-Edna, resting his forearm on the bar and immediately regretting it as he felt how sticky it was on his skin (he’d forgone his jacket, too, as another favour to his friend; he was in a battered Bowie t-shirt that was wearing through at the shoulder from his guitar-strap).

He wasn’t moving, so that was cool. Edith exhaled through her nose as he looked at the vacant stool, then back at her; it hadn’t been an invitation to talk but his question was at least a simple one with a simple answer. “No—“ she wasn’t Edna— “Are you?” She regretted it almost immediately, why did she engage him instead of ignoring him? She had amused him, for fuck’s sake.

Still, that should have been enough, she didn’t know how to make it more clear she wasn’t there for a chat— she’d brought a book to a pub, and she looked at it again, as if she could actually focus on the words when she was conscious of him, still looking at her. (She wasn’t aware, at least, of how he was looking, or she might have been more offended.)

He wasn’t Edna, apparently—a grand surprise—but was meeting a mate and his new girlfriend. “Right.” She was close to congratulating him for that, having a mate, and try again to ask him to move down. Maybe it took her a second to catch on because of how he’d said it: new girlfriend. Was that how Fergie was introducing her because oh, this was officially official now and with everything going on (with the book and inside her head) lately it was a nice thing to moor herself to. But beside that: they had arrived at relatively the same time and they were both waiting for people; and, he was wearing a Bowie shirt, she noticed now, which didn’t necessarily mean he was in a band but it was still a good guess.

“Oh, are you Charlie?” She angled herself toward him, just barely, her hand still wrapped around her pint. He looked confused; she had just said she wasn’t who he was looking for, or maybe that was just his face. Either way, she clarified, reasoning with herself that she’d give it one more try and if it wasn’t him, go find a table and stop talking; “Fergie’s mate?” She waited a beat before adding, “Edith,” with a small gesture toward herself.

She was pretending to ignore him, pretending to still be reading her book; Charlie’s lips stayed pulled up at one corner in a soft smirk.

His eyebrows rose, even as his eyes drifted down over the brunette again when she turned towards him. “Yeah,” he said, not so confused by her knowing his name as by the fact she’d just said she wasn’t Edna, and if she wasn’t Edna—

Edith. “Oh,” he blinked. Well this was fucking awkward. “Sorry,” he apologised with a small smile, straightening up on his stool and giving her a bit more personal space, as if she’d earned it purely by being his friend’s girlfriend. “I’m shit with names,” he explained, his expression halfway between a grimace and another smirk as he lifted his pint to his lips and drank.

It felt weird to extend his hand to her for a shake, now, and he wasn’t sure he would’ve done that anyway had Fergie been here to introduce them—he wasn’t a hugger by nature but he also wasn’t against a little more bodily contact when it was a bird, rather than a bloke—and: “Where’s Ferg?” he asked suddenly, turning in his stool to look for the other man. “Not like him to be late,” Charlie commented before turning his attention back to Edith.

His eyes fell from her face—still pretty, in a plain sort of way—to the paperback in her hand. He had another sip of his beer.  “What you think?” he asked, nodding his head at the book.

Charlie said he was sorry, and Edith shrugged, picking her pint up for another drink. “It’s fine,” she said pre-sip, and it was fine. She’d been called worse things than ‘Edna’, anyway. “Me too,” she said post-sip, keeping her hand wrapped around her glass after setting it on the bartop. She was great with names, actually, but she was actively trying to make a good impression. (And she could save it until she had something better to brag about--something more than remembering basic facts about people--and had one or two more pints, too.)

“Er--” Where was Ferg, indeed. Edith turned, too, looking over her shoulder at the door, as if that would be his cue to enter. It didn’t work (of course), and she turned back to Charlie with another shrug. “Nope.” Not like him at all. Edith was usually the late one, Fergie the early one, so together they usually showed up on time); she kept those sorts of rambling thoughts to herself--still trying to make a good impression--and had a drink, instead.

She followed his gaze as it dropped to her book, drinking when he did. “It’s sound,” she said honestly, waiting a beat before looking at him again. “People are shit.” That summed up the book pretty well, she thought-- scientific advances ensuring the destruction of the world, which obviously had parallels with actual science, never mind any parallels with the magical world Vonngeut hadn’t known he was making. But it was too soon--still trying for that good impression--to really drone on about why people sucked. The book--Vonnegut--made her feel like a shitty writer, as well, but it was too soon for self deprecating jokes, too.

“You’ve read it?” Edith asked after another swallow of beer, her surprise evident on her face.

Edith was very verbose—Er and nope—and Charlie thought that seemed fitting, for Ferg, somehow. The Scotsman was hardly the most talkative person — especially not that Charlie knew (that title soundly fell with Liam). The brunette drank, and Charlie matched her — still watching curiously.

The book was sound and Charlie smirked at her accent — closer to his own than many of the other patrons of the pub. It—along with her apparent penchant for paperbacks—was comforting in some small way. At her next words he barked out a laugh, before readjusting on his stool and scratching at the side of his nose. “People are shit,” he agreed.

Charlie turned his head back to Edith, glanced down at the book once more, then back to her face. “Yeah,” he answered her, before elaborating; “Mum’s an English teacher — she’d disown me if I didn’t read all the classics.” Vonnegut wasn’t his favourite, but he wasn’t about to voice that opinion right now — he wanted to make a good impression.

The fact she was reading a book by a muggle author, though— and wearing decidedly muggle attire (he gave her another once-over just to check, his eyes lingering on the backpack for a moment), had paid for her beer with muggle money without batting an eyelid— And, most importantly, hadn’t immediately recognised him... He twisted a little in his seat to scrutinise her further, using the motion of flagging down the barman for another pint to replace the one he hadn’t quite finished as cover.

“So what do you do?” he asked, hoping her job title might give him a clearer idea of whether she was a muggle or a witch — he assumed Fergie would have warned him if she was, but maybe it had somehow slipped the other man’s mind.

Edith raised one eyebrow as he mentioned his English teacher mum, and that he read books-- real books, not wizard rubbish. But that was good, right? It was something in common with Fergie’s friend that wasn’t wrock. Should she tell him about how she was in the advanced reading class before Hogwarts? No that was too much-- besides, she couldn’t play all her cards now; she should save that for later. “She sounds like my mum,” she said instead; her mum wasn’t an English teacher but she would certainly disown Edith for not reading Shakespeare.

She had another swallow of her beer, and another. Charlie was ordering another pint and Edith figured she should catch up. She ordered another, too, determined to finish what was left of her first one before the next arrived.

But what did she do? Christ. Edith hated when people didn’t already know, hated having to explain it. But it was also kind of nice to know that he had no idea because she didn’t think he was just being polite, fishing for small talk; he probably hadn’t read any of her columns and that was almost a relief. She didn’t have to immediately dive in to talk of the war after only one pint.

She decided to settle on something simple, continue not getting into things. “I’m a writer.” She wasn’t about to mention the book, either. “For a magazine.” She definitely wasn’t mentioning The Quibbler, either. It was easier that way. And she didn’t ask what he did, in return, because she already knew, had been briefed by Fergie rather well on that. She didn’t stop to consider if that would come off as rude, having another drink instead.

And she didn’t want to elaborate on writing, either. “So you and Fergie were in school together?”

Charlie grinned softly. “Yeah?” Edith hadn’t said her mum was a teacher too, and that seemed an easy enough anecdote to fit in, so presumably the focus was on their love of literature. Or their insistence that their children be well-read, or something. But he didn’t really want to talk about their respective mums, so he didn’t press her any further on it.

Charlie kept his eyes on the brunette, rather than on the barman pouring their pints (Edith had tacked onto his order — he’d wait to see if she was expecting him to pay for it). She said she was a writer and his eyebrows rose in surprise before he could catch himself. “Really?” he asked, before he could catch that either — he gave her a half-hearted apologetic expression, because he didn’t want to come across as a prick this early.

He was about to ask what she wrote when she provided the answer for him: for a magazine. He withdrew an inch or so into his own space — what was Ferg playing at, not warning him about that? But she would have said if it was Witch Weekly, and… Well, he’d seen what the women that worked there looked like, and Edith did not look like one of them (not that that was a bad thing, either). And what if it wasn’t a wizarding publication at all? He’d already suspected her of being a muggle—

Charlie blinked. “Er, yeah,” he said, trying to figure out on the fly how he was going to wing this one — not at Hogwarts together, so she must be a muggle. Classic — Fergie had always had a hard-on for muggle stuff, seemed like dating one was the next step. Charlie had briefly considered the benefits of doing so himself because on a surface-level it sounded easier, but he hated lying to his own family about being a ‘music tutor’, so how was he possibly supposed to impress someone with that? On night’s out it was always “in a band, but you won’t’ve heard of us” and girls in clubs weren’t interested in details—

Christ, if Fergie hadn’t told Edith yet— How was he keeping this a secret? The man was pretty good when it came to muggle appliances now but he was fucking useless at muggle culture. How did anyone do the muggle-dating thing as a wizard? How would a girl ever trust you again after finding out you’d been lying to her about something so fundamental? (Ironic.)

Edith appeared to be waiting for some sort of elaboration. Charlie wet his lips; “In Scotland, yeah,” was all he could comfortably manage without Fergie here to guide him in whatever lie he’d concocted. The barman set their beers down and Charlie leapt at the distraction, reaching into his back pocket for his wallet.

Edith nodded. Really, she was a writer. It still sounded a bit weird to hear, but it was definitely true. Charlie didn’t press for more details about the magazine, and Edith didn’t offer any— maybe Fergie had already mentioned she worked for The Quibbler and Charlie was being nice by not mentioning it? It was hard to tell and she wasn’t about to ask.

Hogwarts seemed like a safe subject, or it would if he gave her literally anything else to go on but er, yeah, not even some hilarious yet harmless anecdote about living with Ferg for seven years. She did the math again to remember what years they would have overlapped: her first through fourth years, and nothing she wanted to talk about. Cool.

The school was in Scotland, he said, and Edith raised her eyebrows. It sure was in Scotland, and while it wasn’t exactly the elaboration she was looking for, she smiled. “Aye, bonnie Scotland,” she said, in her best impression of her boyfriend. She picked up her pint and finished it, just in time for the next round to be delivered (and thank god it was, because the topic of Hogwarts was clearly done).

Edith grabbed her backpack and fished out the little zippered coin purse from the big pocket. “My shout,” she said unnecessarily, getting in on an early round when it was just the two of them. She tipped out some sterling and a folded note, counting out the coins and sliding a stray sickle back into her bag before dropping it to the floor. But now that that was taken care of.. now what? The fallback topic was obviously Fergie but she didn’t want to just talk about him either. She took a swallow of her pint before she turned to look at Charlie a little bit better. “So how long have you and Honey been dating?”