wondrous place [sam + liam]

2 june

Charlie grabbed Liam a fresh beer from the fridge and opened it using the lip of the empty bottle, setting both that and the cap off the new one on the bench with the others as he sauntered back into the living room. He handed the drink to Liam and wiped the condensation from his palm off on his jeans, picked his beer back up off the coffee table, and perched on the arm of the sofa that Liam was presently reclining on.

He glanced at the time on the DVD player, silently praying that Sam wasn’t far away, and had another sip. “Much going on in La La Land?” Charlie asked, at a loss of what else to discuss, given Liam’s predilection for primarily residing across the pond nowadays. Charlie might have been more inclined to visit if it weren’t for the proximity to his ex-wife and her family — though she seemed to be in London just as often, despite his hopes she would just bloody well stay on her side of the Atlantic.

There was a rap on the door and Charlie got to his feet quickly, padding back through the kitchen (almost slipping in his socks on the tiles) to open the front door and let Sam in. “Alright?” He withdrew back to the fridge and took two more beers out in his right hand, drained the one in his left, and repeated the process of opening the fresh bottles; one for Sam and one for himself.

He’d owled them both after Liam’s birthday under the vague pretence of missing hanging out with them (which was true, too, but he didn’t want to derail his personal life because Liam couldn’t wait to come over and start working on new material).

Charlie retook his perch on the arm of the sofa and let Sam get settled. “You lads got much on the next couple of months?”


@Liam Thompson @Sam Lynch

The last time they’d had a surprise family meeting like this had been sort of grim, so Liam hadn’t showed up at Charlie’s with the highest of expectations.

It had been a while since he’d seen the lads. Last time he was back in Britain it was for an hour between portkeys on the way back from Ollie’s birthday—just enough to switch out some of his clothes and get a new case of English firewhiskey. Probably he should have written then. At least asked if Sam or Charlie a drink someplace…but he hadn’t. His own birthday had been smaller than usual and they’d had something besides themselves to talk about. Liam thought abstaining from companionship was just making him fear it more.

Charlie’s cast had come off in the meantime. On Liam’s birthday he’d knocked him in the shin to test, today he just feinted a kick and snickered as Charlie flinched. For all the bother it was, at least the muggles seemed to do solid work. He clapped Charlie’s shoulder affectionately in apology and sprawled on the couch to await Sam.

With his beer delivery, he was asked how things were in La La Land. Despite his chuckle Liam rolled his eyes. “Taking it easy,” he said. What else could he say? He’d written some, but nothing useful for Banshee. He spent the rest of his solitude doing things he didn’t want to talk to his mates about, like solitude was meant for. Merlin. Maybe this was a good time to come back.

Sam arrived and sat on the other side of the couch. Liam nudged him with his foot in greeting as Charlie came back to tell them what they were here for. Did they have much on the next couple of months?

“Got much on?” Liam repeated. “Never.”

He plunked his bottle down on Charlie’s end table. “So—what is it this time? Band stuff? Or just your love life again?” He’d thought that one up while getting dressed this afternoon, but had wanted to save it for Sam’s arrival. Bit rich, of course, as last time he saw Charlie they’d ended up on his own love life. He’d been ending up on his own love life rather too often these days. But nobody liked those conversations either, so the disinterest stood.

It had occurred to him when he got the letter that perhaps Kate’s book had finally wound up in Charlie’s hands, and then it had occurred to him that maybe Charlie knew he knew. Threatening letter, couldn’t it have been? He’d arrived with a measure of trepidation beneath his smile. But there’d been no mention of it, and things had been normal so far, so unless Charlie was being especially manipulative about it, the latter fear wasn’t true. Liam hoped the former wasn’t either—but either way no good could come if he guessed it, so he waited.

Sam had two theories. First, that this was about Honey Bea Flume. Did Liam know about her yet? Hopefully he did, because it was probably one of those things Liam would never forgive Sam knowing first. Second, and much more appealingly, that this was about writing new music, about which Sam was feeling pretty “Amen” “Thank God” “Finally!” and so on.

Not enough to be early, though, so he’d turned up at his usual time (like a minute late.) Liam gave him a little kick as he was sitting down, and Sam returned it with a questioning look (‘do you know what this is about then?’) and a grimace (‘because I don’t’) and accepted the beer Charlie handed over, fished his wand out to pop the lid off (it shot across the room, so Sam had to locomotor it over to the bin.)

“Nah, me either,” said Sam. Back in the day when he and Liam had been mutually bored they’d used to spend a little more time together, wasting their nights and money and golf balls and what have you on fantastic, whirlwind outings of the sort they could only plan because they never had work the next day.

These days Liam spent all his time in California and Sam spent all his time in Dublin; he wondered a lot if Charlie still saw a lot of Liam (he knew well enough that Charlie’d always seen more of Liam than he had) but not enough to ask outright.

As Sam considered asking outright about Honey instead, Liam took the initiative – just your love life again? – and Sam also looked sideways at Charlie, eyebrows raised (Liam was covering all their hoops already.)

Liam gave Charlie the answer he’d been half-expecting — only half, because these days who knew what Liam got up to in his spare time (Charlie didn’t ask, and would joke that he didn’t really want to know). Sam didn’t have much on either. Charlie smirked knowingly. “Good—”

Charlie’s eyes darted to Sam, who just raised his eyebrows at him, so Charlie had no idea whether that meant Sam had or hadn’t told Liam about Honey. He glanced back at Liam and kept the scowl off his features (just). “No,” he said, biting back from adding that it’d be a nice break from yours because who knew how Liam was taking snide jokes about his love life — probably as well as he was taking anything else about it, which was with an over-defensiveness that Charlie could only attribute to being openly gay after years of being in the closet.

He had a sip of his beer and wet his lips, ready to elaborate (on band stuff, on his love life), when he caught another look at Sam and gaped softly at him. “Are you wearing glasses?” he asked, grinning as an afterthought. “Christ,” he continued, getting up and striding over to pluck them off the other man’s face and put them on himself, as if to check if they were prescription or for the look — they weren’t cool glasses, but Sam had never been the most fashionable of the three of them so it could have been an error in judgement.

He turned to look around the room a little, then back to the boys — they weren’t distorted but his vision felt just off enough to deduce they were prescription. He took them off and handed them to Liam. “Mate, how’s this gonna look on the next cover?”