Luke
Teddy and James’s night out with Nick hadn’t been particularly wild – not by Teddy’s standards anyway – but Teddy had gotten sufficiently drunk that he had woken up on Saturday morning with a pounding head, feeling like something had died in his mouth. He needed to stop going out drinking on an empty stomach like this, the hangovers were getting increasingly brutal the older he got.
James, conversely, had bounced back by midday, the bastard, and spent most of the afternoon lording it over Teddy. Although he did consent to cuddling up on the sofa and watching a film together, while Teddy did his best to rehydrate, and ate a ton of junk food to try and get his energy levels up.
All in all it had been an extremely lazy day in their flat, and Teddy was still wandering around in his boxers and one of James’s old t-shirts that he’d slept in by the time evening rolled around. His head finally felt normal again and he and James were debating whether after eating crap all day they could reasonably order takeaway for dinner or not, when they got a surprise visitor in the form of their friend Jim, whose head appeared in their fireplace.
“Jim” Teddy said in surprise, from where he and James were sat on the sofa. He leaned forward to get a better view of the fireplace over the other side of the coffee table. It wasn’t unusual for their friends to drop by unannounced via floo, or even to apparate straight into the flat. But floo calls like this were somewhat rare. It must be something important, that couldn’t wait for an owl post letter to arrive.
“Hey guys” Jim said, his voice and expression both serious. “Have you heard from Luke at all?”
“Luke?” Teddy asked, casting his mind back for the last time he had seen him. “Um, no, not for a couple of weeks.”
“Yeah me neither” Jim replied gravely, his tone now starting to worry Teddy. Before Teddy had a chance to ask what was wrong, Jim just came out with it. “His mum died.”
“What?” Teddy asked, shocked. This had come completely out of the blue, as far as he was concerned. The last time he saw Luke he hadn’t mentioned a thing about his mum being ill or anything like that.
“A week ago. I only just found out myself” Jim told him. “He didn’t even say anything. I found out from that guy he’s been shagging. Said Luke ghosted him pretty hard after getting the news.”
“Fuck…” James said, sounding dazed. Teddy turned to look at him and he looked as dumbfounded at this news as Teddy felt.
“Have you been to his flat?” Teddy asked Jim, who shook his head.
“Can’t get through, the floo’s disconnected” he replied. “Couldn’t apparate in either, he’s still got the wards up from last time.” Last time had been when Teddy had apparated into Luke’s living room when he was in the middle of a heavy make-out session with his current (former?) flame on the couch. Luke had been mad.
“I’m going to go round in person, but I’m working tonight so it’ll be tomorrow morning before I can get there” Jim told them. “Can you guys go tonight?”
“Yes, of course” James replied instantly, already standing up to get his jacket from where it was hanging over the back of the sofa.
“Why didn’t he say anything?” Teddy asked, not particularly expecting Jim to be able to provide an answer.
“Must have hit him hard” Jim supplied. Luke had never known his father and didn’t have any siblings, so his mum was really all he had in the way of family. And Teddy knew that they had been close. A lot of muggle born kids gradually lost touch with their family as they became more and more sucked into the wizarding world, but not Luke. His mum had meant a great deal to him. Teddy felt some emotion stir up in him as he realised that she had meant a lot to him too. Having been Luke’s best friend at school, he had been to her house countless times during the holidays, and countless times since leaving school. She was a nice lady. And it was clear to any observer that she was a good mum.
“Look I’ve got to go” Jim said, looking stressed. “But we’ll talk in the morning, yeah?”
“Yeah, sure” Teddy replied vaguely, his mind reeling. He heard the roar of the fire as Jim’s head disappeared again but his vision had gone a bit blurry as he stared into space, trying desperately to get his head around this.
“Hey” James’s voice was gentle and Teddy came back to his senses as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked up at James, who had put his jacket on ready to go, and was looking at Teddy with a concerned expression. “You alright?” he asked quietly. Teddy nodded, his throat suddenly feeling very dry.
“Yeah, I just…I guess I can’t believe she’s gone” Teddy said, taking another moment to centre himself before getting up off the couch. He felt a bit better when he stood up, like his brain was working at normal speed again.
“Shit, I need to get dressed” Teddy said, making his way quickly to the bedroom to pull on a pair of jeans and some socks. He didn’t bother changing his t-shirt.
“You knew her pretty well?” James asked softly, standing in the doorway of the bedroom, watching him.
“I guess so” Teddy replied, not sure how much he really wanted to talk about it, but it was a fairly unobtrusive question so he saw no reason to deflect it. “I mean, as much as you ever do really know your friend’s parents” he went on. “She didn’t exactly tell me much about herself. But I was around a lot. Shit, I went to Luke’s house at least once every summer the entire time we were at school.”
“That’s a long time” James said, and Teddy shrugged.
“Me and Luke go back a long way” he said simply. He zipped up his jeans while walking back past James into the main area of the flat, heading over to the door and grabbing his leather jacket, patting the pockets to make sure his keys were in there.
“Come on, we’d better get going” Teddy muttered, jerking his head towards the door for James to come. He hastily slipped on a pair of trainers whose laces he had left tied, but loose enough so that he could slip the shoes on and off unaided. James held the door open for him and Teddy pulled on his jacket as they exited the flat and closed the door behind them.
They walked side by side in silence down the stairs but Teddy could feel James’s eyes on him. He turned his head to face him, expecting James to be looking at him with concern for how he might be dealing with this news, but was mildly surprised to see James looking thoughtful. Appraising, almost.
“What?” he asked, confused.
“This probably isn’t the best time to ask this” James said slowly. “Honestly, I don’t know why it hasn’t come up before now.”
“What hasn’t?” Teddy asked, a little distractedly. His only priority at the moment was getting to Luke as soon as possible. He wasn’t going to ignore James by any means, but if James thought now wasn’t the best time to talk about whatever it was then he was probably right. Teddy didn’t feel like he had the headspace to get into a serious discussion about anything else right now.
“You and Luke” James said carefully, as they reached the bottom of the stairs and exited the building out onto the street. “
“Me and Luke?” Teddy asked, stopping in his tracks, momentarily derailed by this. “You’re asking me if we ever…?” Teddy went on incredulously. James said nothing, looking a bit like he was regretting starting this conversation.
“No, never” Teddy him abruptly, before continuing to the edge of the kerb and starting making attempts to flag down a taxi. “And if the answer was anything other than that, then yes I’d agree, this is the worst fucking time possible to talk about it. But it’s a non-issue” Teddy added firmly to James.
“Sorry” James muttered. “I didn’t mean to get all jealous spouse on you.”
“It’s alright” Teddy told him, softening at James’s regretful expression and feeling slightly bad himself for taking such a hard stance on it. “You’re not out of line for asking. People have, over the years. But he’s my best friend. It’s just not like that, with us.”
“I appreciate the whole, not wanting to shit where you eat thing” James chimed in. “But never? In all that time you never even got close?”
A taxi stopped beside them and Teddy leant into the open passenger side window to confirm that the driver was happy with their destination. The man gestured for them to get in so Teddy did so, taking a seat in the back where James joined him. Luke’s place was about twenty minutes away by car, so they had a bit of a journey. It was a black cab, with a plastic divider screen between the front and back seats, so Teddy figured that as long as he kept his voice down they could talk freely without airing all of their business to the driver.
“Luke was always pretty comfortable with who he was” Teddy said to James, as if there had been no interruption to the conversation. “I mean, it shines out of him, right? No-one has ever mistaken him for a straight man.” James smirked at this and Teddy went on. “So when I was starting to figure out my own sexuality, I dunno, I guess we were around fourteen at the time. I might have projected some feelings onto him that weren’t really about him so much as they were about opening myself up to the possibility of liking dick.”
“OK…” James said warily, clearly wondering where this was going.
“So one night, we were alone in the common room, and... we kissed” Teddy admitted. James looked taken aback and Teddy laughed. “And for the love of god, please don’t take that as more than it is, because we were fourteen and it was barely more than a peck on the lips.”
“Hey, what you did before me is your business” James replied, holding his hands up, but looking amused. “I was no saint either, before we got together.”
“Yeah, I bloody know” Teddy said pointedly. “Mr quidditch celebrity, your tally count is probably higher than mine so I don’t know why you’re riding the high horse right now.” Teddy was worried for a second that James might take that personally, but he laughed and Teddy knew he had taken it as the joke it was intended to be.
“Look, me AND Luke both felt weird as fuck about it afterwards, so we agreed never to go there ever again” Teddy told him. “And it hasn’t come up since.”
“Alright, I believe you” James said, placatingly. “I didn’t mean to press you on it. It’s just that… I don’t know, it’s not such a crazy idea, is it? You and me were best friends once. And then suddenly we weren’t.”
“You were always something different” Teddy told James. “Best friend was part of it, but… there was something more there, for a long time before anything happened.”
“You felt that too, did you?” James asked quietly, looking pleased.
“You know I fucking did” Teddy told him, pseudo irritably. “You played on it for years.”
“Had to get you to admit it somehow” James shrugged.
“Playing the long game, were you?” Teddy asked.
“Weren’t you?” James countered, and Teddy let that sink in for a moment. On some level, he supposed that he had been.
“You know, Luke championed it from day one” Teddy told James, who looked surprised at this information.
“Oh yeah” Teddy went on. “He gave me no end of shit over the years about fancying you. Kept telling me to get off my arse and do something about it. That night that I finally did, he was trying to goad me into it.”
“Is that why you did it?” James asked, raising an eyebrow and Teddy laughed.
“No, you idiot. I did it because you were throwing yourself at me” Teddy told him. “And I really, really, really wanted to fuck you.” James smirked again at that. “But before any of that I basically admitted to Luke in the beer garden that I was in love with you, and I didn’t want it to just be a fuck” Teddy added, and James looked slightly ashamed of himself, presumably for the events that had followed. Teddy wasn’t really bothered about any of that now, it was such a long time ago, and things had worked out in the end.
“Christ” James said, sounding overwhelmed, which Teddy couldn’t really blame him for because that’s how he’d felt himself at the time.
“Luke’s been there for me through a lot of shit, you know?” Teddy said earnestly, and James nodded seriously. “We’ve been friends since we were eleven. That’s, what? Eighteen years?” Fuck, that took him by surprise. Teddy suddenly felt ancient. “Eighteen years…” he said, dazed.
“That’s how long Al’s been alive” James supplied, and Teddy scowled at him.
“Fucking hell, don’t tell me things like that” he said, and James smiled.
-
They arrived at Luke’s flat before Teddy even really had chance to consider what kind of state they were likely to find him in. Actually, as they took the lift up to Luke’s apartment it occurred to Teddy that he might not even be here at all. He might be at his mum’s place. Well, Teddy knew where it was, so they could go there next if need be.
He knocked loudly on Luke’s door and he and James stood side by side in silence waiting to see if he would answer. James put a comforting hand on Teddy’s shoulder, which he was grateful for, as his trepidation was mounting. Just enough time had passed that Teddy was considering knocking again when the door opened with a creak.
Luke was stood in front of them, peering through the gap in the door he had only opened by a small amount. He stared blankly at James and Teddy, blinking in a hazy sort of way, as if not actually sure they were really there. His demeanour was passive and calm, which all things considered was probably the best that they could have hoped for, but Teddy also recognised from his drooping eyelids and slack jaw that he was very, very drunk.
“Hey, buddy” Teddy said gently. “Can we come in?”
Luke didn’t respond immediately, looking suspiciously back and forth between Teddy and James for a moment, studying their faces.
“How did you know?” Luke asked simply, his voice quite steady, and Teddy was impressed by the fact that he wasn’t slurring. Although upon reflection that was quite worrying. Teddy knew every possible variation of Luke’s drunk personality and behaving like he was sober when he was clearly shitfaced suggested his current inebriation was a slow and steady one, possibly having been going on for several days.
“Your bloke” Teddy told him. “Or ex-bloke, if that’s what it is now. He reached out to Jim.” Luke scowled at this.
“Luke, why didn’t you say anything?” James asked, his voice lined with concern. Luke huffed out a sigh at that, but he finally pulled the door fully open, gesturing for them both to come in.
“I didn’t know how” Luke said flatly as they both filed into his apartment. James made a beeline for the kitchen, but Teddy waited for Luke to close the door, engulfing him a hug the second he turned around again. Teddy felt Luke breathe another deep sigh against him and squeezed him tighter. Over Luke’s shoulder he saw James taking stock of the number of empty alcohol bottles littering the kitchen, before getting a clean glass out of the cupboard and filling it with water from the tap. James came back over to join the other two, standing around awkwardly, waiting for them to break the hug.
“When did you talk to Jim?” Luke asked finally, as he pulled back from Teddy. James tried to hand him the glass of water, but Luke swatted his outstretched arm away.
“About twenty minutes ago” Teddy told him. Luke huffed a small laugh under his breath.
“You didn’t need to come rushing over here” he told them, making his own way past James and into the kitchen, returning with an open beer bottle that he took a swig from. Teddy saw James frown disapprovingly at this, but Teddy wasn’t concerned about it just now. Hell, once they’d got past the basics he was going to go into that kitchen and get a drink for himself.
“I disagree” Teddy said firmly. “A week, Luke. A week, you’ve been sitting on this.”
“Yeah, well” Luke sighed again. “I’ve been away for a few days. There were things to sort out.”
“The funeral?” Teddy asked, and Luke nodded.
“Next week” he said. “I was going to tell you before then. I know you’d want to be there.”
“Well yeah, obviously” Teddy replied gently. “I’d also like to have been there for you, while you were sorting shit out.”
“It’s been pretty hectic” Luke shrugged. “It wasn’t just the funeral, there’s also the house. She never owned it, so I’ve got to move all her stuff out. The landlord said there’s no rush but… he’s going to want the house back at some point” Luke ran his hand backwards through his hair as he talked, making it all stand up on end, and it stayed stuck up like that when he dropped his hand back down to his side again. Teddy wondered when the last time he’d had a shower was.
“And there’s a dog” Luke added helplessly. “Fuck, I don’t know what to do with it. Landlord said he’d look after it until I figured it out.”
“Well I’ll help with that” Teddy said. “I’ll help with all of it. All of us will.”
“I know” Luke replied quietly. He moved from the entryway towards the living room, jerking his head for Teddy and James to follow, which they did. There was a cardboard box on the coffee table, which Teddy peered into before taking a seat. It contained a number of smaller boxes, some ornaments and a large stack of framed photographs. Luke sank into a seat on the sofa, picking up the pack of cigarettes that were lying on the table next to the box and lighting one in his mouth before reaching into the box.
“I wanted to do the first sweep of the house myself” Luke told them, as he pulled out one of the photographs and handed it to Teddy. It was picture of Luke and Teddy as kids. They looked so young that Teddy suspected it was taken the very first time he had been to Luke’s house, the summer after first year. Luke was tall, scrawny and wearing a Lady Gaga t-shirt, grinning widely at the camera and baring all of his teeth. Teddy had bleach blonde hair and was sticking two fingers up like antennae behind Luke’s head, grinning like he thought he was some sort of prank mastermind. Teddy smiled fondly, and handed the photo to James to take a look, looking back to Luke, who had taken another photograph out of the box and was looking at it with great pain in his eyes. Teddy understood why he hadn’t wanted anyone else there for the first time he’d had to comb through all these memories. It was personal.
“It still doesn’t feel real” Luke said in a small voice, handing the photo to Teddy. It was of Luke and his mum on a beach somewhere. Luke was even younger in this picture, probably around six or seven.
“It might if you let yourself sober up for a bit” Teddy said, keeping his tone light, passing the photo down the line to James. “How long have you been on it?” he asked.
“What are you, my-?“ Luke shot back, cutting himself off mid sentence, his eyes widening in horror about what he’d been about to say. “Oh, bollocks” he muttered. “Can we not even fucking joke about it anymore?”
“That’s up to you, mate” Teddy replied, gently. “You can joke as much as you want. But you have every right to clock anyone else if they do it out of turn.”
“Such power” Luke replied. Teddy smiled.
“Well fuck it, if you’re sloshed we might as well be as well” Teddy said, getting up from the sofa and wandering to the kitchen. Given how much he had drunk last night he wasn’t really interested in getting ‘sloshed’, but a beer or two to take the raw edge off of this devastating news sounded pretty appealing. He opened the fridge, which was barren apart from some mouldy looking leftovers and some milk that was starting to turn solid.
“When was the last time you ate anything?” Teddy called back to the living room, where Luke was showing James some more photos.
“Don’t know” Luke replied, sounding unconcerned. Teddy spotted the half empty crate of beers on the side, that Luke hadn’t even bothered putting in the fridge. He pulled out two, stopping to use the bottle opener next to the crate to uncap them. He went back to the living room and handed one of the beers to James, taking a swig of his own.
“Where’s your phone?” Teddy asked Luke, who was still going through photos with James and made a swatting gesture as though Teddy was annoying him.
“I don’t know” he said irritably. “Now this is a good one” he said to James, and Teddy spotted himself in another photo with Luke, this time aged around eighteen or so. The two of them were dressed like the blues brothers, presumably for a costume party. Teddy took a moment to look at the picture over the back of James’s head. He didn’t remember the party, there had been a lot of them around that time.
Since Luke was being no help in the matter, Teddy was reduced to searching for his phone manually. He patted down a few of the coats by the door, thinking it might be in one of the pockets. When he had no luck there, he started looking more generally around the apartment, checking under and behind things. He scoured the entryway and kitchen with no luck, before deciding to try the bedroom. He spotted it the second he went into the room, on the bedside table. The bed was neatly made, which given Luke’s current state made Teddy think he probably hadn’t slept in here in at least a few days.
“Chinese, Indian, or pizza?” Teddy asked Luke and James as he went back out into the living space, lingering in between the kitchen and living room and wiggling the phone in his hand to show that he had found it. Luke ignored him.
“Chinese” James supplied, which Teddy was grateful for. “We were going to have that tonight anyway.”
“You alright with that?” Teddy asked Luke loudly, so that he couldn’t ignore him. “Because you’re having some, if I have to force feed you myself.”
“Get some bloody spring rolls, then” Luke muttered by way of response, which Teddy took as a victory. He went back into the kitchen, finding the saved number in Luke’s phone for the nearby takeaway place and leaning forward over the sink to the only place in the apartment that could get any signal.
-
“You sure you don’t want to keep the dog?” Teddy asked.
He’d taken the Monday off work to help Luke sort through some more of his mum’s things at the house. James had been set to join them as well, but he’d gotten a date now for his hearing, and had been summoned to meet with his uncle Bill to talk over what he needed to do to come out the other end of it still employed. Maybe it was better this way. James was Luke’s friend too, but they didn’t have the history that Luke and Teddy did, and Luke seemed more than a little overwhelmed by this whole thing. It was probably more manageable with just Teddy here. They had been jumping around from room to room, on Luke’s whims, deciding what to chuck away and what Luke wanted to keep (with no real solution as yet for exactly where Luke was going to put all of this stuff). Teddy felt a bit like they weren’t actually making much in the way of progress, and they should take a more systematic room-by-room approach, but he wasn’t here to dictate how this was done. He was here to do whatever Luke wanted him to.
“No, I don’t want to keep the fucking dog” Luke said flatly, as he emptied the clothes from a chest of drawers into a large bag that they were going to take to a charity shop. “I hate that fucking thing” he added irritably.
“Why?” Teddy asked, bewildered, stopping the action of emptying the shoes from the closet into the same bag.
“Because she got it to replace me” Luke replied petulantly, and Teddy had to work very hard to hold back a laugh. “After I moved out, she got all ‘empty-nest’ about it, and then she got this stupid yappy little thing instead.”
“You know she wasn’t actually replacing you, right?” Teddy told him incredulously. “She just wanted some company.”
“Yes, I KNOW that” Luke replied, sounding unimpressed. “I just don’t need the constant reminder around that I’M the fucking reason she was lonely.”
“Luke” Teddy said softly. “No-one could accuse you of abandoning her. Shit, you visited her more than I do my grandma.”
“Should have been more” Luke muttered, barely audible. “If I’d known how little time we had.”
Teddy dropped the shoes he was holding to go over and give Luke a hug for what felt like the hundredth time in the last couple of days, but Luke spotted him approaching and held both hands up to stop him, his eyes watering but a stern expression on his face.
“If you don’t pack that in, we’ll never get out of here” Luke told him. “Don’t fucking indulge me, alright?”
“Luke, you’re allowed to be upset” Teddy told him.
“Not when there’s still so much to do, I’m not” Luke replied, turning back to the drawers behind him. Teddy watched him carefully and saw tears running down his cheeks.
“Luke” Teddy said softly again.
“Teddy, stop it” Luke said, his voice no longer firm, but now pleading. “I don’t have the luxury of fucking falling apart right now. There’s still so much that needs to be done.”
“That’s why I’m here, you idiot” Teddy said, now pulling Luke into a hug whether he wanted one or not. Luke made a feeble attempt to push him off, but he was properly crying now and let out a painful sob as Teddy engulfed him in his arms, going limp as Teddy squeezed him but muttering a string of muffled expletives.
“It’s alright, mate. I’m here” Teddy said softly, while Luke cried in his arms. This wasn’t the first time in the past 24 hours. Teddy hadn’t really left his side since he and James had gone over to Luke’s on Saturday night. They had spent all night combing through the mementos in the box that Luke had salvaged, and reminiscing about times that Teddy and Luke had spent with his mother over the holidays at school. Teddy had gotten unexpectedly drunk (probably since he was just topping up from the night before) and he and James had ended up crashing on Luke’s floor and sofa, respectively. Luke had been somewhat stoic throughout the whole evening, but when they had all woken up on Sunday afternoon Luke was a broken man. Maybe it was because he was sober for the first time in what Teddy suspected was days, or maybe it was because he had finally told someone else what had happened which had made him face up to it himself.
Teddy and James had been looking after him, a bit like a child. Teddy had forced him into the shower, and James had practically force-fed him a decent meal. They had then spent the rest of the day planning, making lists. Determining what was still to be done. Luke must have said ‘there’s so much to do’ about a thousand times since Sunday, and Teddy knew that he was fixating on the admin of it all as a sort of coping mechanism. The only time he was really functional at the moment was when he was manically working his way through the to-do list, so Teddy had been letting him do exactly that. He wasn’t wrong, these things did need to get done, but Teddy was now starting to wonder if letting Luke stress himself out about getting them done in a timely manner was necessarily the best approach. But he wasn’t really sure what to do about that. It wasn’t like there was a guidebook for this sort of thing. You had to just let grieving people do whatever they were going to do.
Teddy had been so busy taking care of Luke that he had barely had chance to process his own feelings about it all, which he was vaguely concerned were going to burst out of him in some unexpected way at some point. But again, he didn’t suppose there was much that could be done about that. His own grief was entirely inconsequential compared with what Luke was going through. His mother had been his entire family - that he was close to, at least, and Teddy couldn’t even begin to imagine how alone he must feel now that she was gone.
Luke eventually stopped crying and Teddy released him, watching him carefully as Luke rubbed at his eyes impatiently and sunk into a seat on the bed, looking annoyed with himself.
“We’re getting fucking nowhere, with this” Luke sighed.
“That’s not true” Teddy countered gently. “We’ve done two trips to the tip.”
“And look how much is left” Luke replied irritably, gesturing around the room. “I never knew mum was such a fucking hoarder.” He let out a small humourless laugh. In reality, the house didn’t really have that much stuff in it at all. Luke’s mum had lived a pretty modest lifestyle, Teddy knew that they hadn’t had much money when Luke was growing up. As a single mum with no close family to rely on for childcare, her job prospects had been pretty limited. Teddy had often thought that the reason Luke had gone into social work was because he knew first hand what it was like to grow up in an unstable living situation. Although no-one who met them could have denied that Luke’s mum loved him very much, it was also obvious to any casual observer that they were barely getting by sometimes.
“You just accumulate shit the longer you live somewhere, I think” Teddy offered. “I had to have a serious clear out when James moved in, to make space for him. And he’s still got half of his shit at his parent’s place.”
“Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of shit here too” Luke replied, frowning. “My room’s pretty much just how I left it.”
“Oh yeah?” Teddy asked, with a reminiscent smile. That was about the only room in the house they hadn’t actually gone into yet, since Luke was probably going to keep most of the stuff in there.
“Come on” Luke said, returning Teddy’s smile as he stood up. He led the way down the short landing past the bathroom to his old bedroom, going in first and leaving the door wide open for Teddy to follow him in.
He hadn’t been exaggerating – it was like time had stood still inside this room. It was exactly the way Teddy remembered, right down to the glow in the dark stars stuck to the ceiling, and the pop star posters lining the wall next to the single bed. Poking out from underneath Luke’s old bed was the rollaway bed that Teddy had slept in on the floor whenever he had been here.
“Fuck…” Teddy whispered as he paused to inspect a rather dusty rainbow flag hung on the back of the door. Luke had been wearing it like a cape at the first pride they had been to together.
“This entire room should be in a museum” Teddy grinned. “The habitat of the gay teenager.” Luke laughed at that, as he opened the wardrobe and pulled out a long, pink feather boa.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about” he said, fake-seriously as he draped it across his shoulders. Teddy cracked up.
“Where the fuck is THAT from?” he asked.
“Do you not remember?” Luke grinned. “That costume party where I went as Elton John? The glasses should still be in here somewhere.” Luke went back to digging around in the wardrobe while Teddy looked around the room some more. There were some lighter spots on the wall where it looked like Luke had taken down some photographs, presumably on his first sweep of the house, leaving behind a brighter shade of paint where the colour of the wall around it had faded in the sunlight. Teddy looked back to the window on the opposite wall, smiling fondly as he remembered him and Luke leaning out of it smoking cigarettes, hoping his mum wouldn’t catch them.
“Aha!” Luke cried triumphantly, resurfacing from the wardrobe now wearing a pair of star-shaped sunglasses as well as the feather boa. Teddy laughed some more.
“My life would have been so much less colourful without you in it, you know” Teddy told Luke, who grinned at him, taking the costume pieces back off and tossing them back into the wardrobe.
“I knew you kept me around for a reason” Luke replied with a smirk.
“Does it feel weird, being back here? In this room, I mean” Teddy asked. It sure did for him.
“Kind of” Luke said with a shrug. “Doesn’t really feel like my room anymore, if you know what I mean.”
“Well no” Teddy agreed. “We’ve come a long way since hiding our vodka bottles in your sock drawer.”
“Which, on reflection, was a fucking terrible hiding place, because I sure as hell didn’t wash my own socks when I was fifteen” Luke said, and Teddy laughed. “She never said anything though, bless her” Luke added, his smile turning into a pained one.
“Yeah, she cut us a lot of slack” Teddy said warmly. That was the main reason they had generally hung around here, rather than Teddy’s house. Luke’s mum had allowed them a much longer leash than Teddy’s grandma.
“Maybe that’s why we’re such reprobates now” Luke mused and Teddy laughed again.
“I don’t think we can blame anyone but ourselves for that” Teddy countered.
“Suppose you’re right” Luke replied calmly. He took a seat on the edge of the bed and sighed wearily.
“You alright?” Teddy asked, worriedly. Luke’s emotions had been changing directions at breakneck speed for the past couple of days, which was probably pretty normal considering the circumstances, but Teddy still wasn’t used to it yet. Luke was normally the happy-go-lucky one, out of all of them. Luke didn’t answer the question, merely shrugging helplessly.
“Sorry, stupid question” Teddy muttered, as he sank down into a seat next to Luke.
“It’s not stupid” Luke replied quietly. “Well, alright, it is. But I don’t know what else you’re supposed to say. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to answer it.”
“I’ll stop asking it then” Teddy said calmly. “But you let me know if you start drowning, alright?”
“Deal” Luke replied, with a grim smile. They sat side by side in silence for a few minutes, with Teddy waiting for Luke to take the lead on what to do next.
“We should get back to it, I guess” Luke said eventually, heaving himself up back into a standing position. Teddy followed suit.
“Charity shop run next, is it?” he asked. That is what they’d been preparing for before this detour.
“Yeah” Luke replied, heading back towards his mum’s bedroom. “Reckon we can take a bunch of the kitchen stuff as well.”
“Sure” Teddy agreed, resuming his post in emptying the shoes from the cupboard. They were mostly utilitarian: comfortable trainers, flat shoes one might wear to an office job, as well as warm winter boots. Teddy came across a pair of low heels near the back that he instantly recognised as being the pair that Luke’s mum had worn to their Hogwarts graduation ceremony, with a matching red dress. Teddy distinctly remembered it, as he had rarely seen Luke’s mum dressed up like that before, and he remembered being surprised at how different she looked to her usual get-up of a baggy hoodie and paint-stained jeans. As he looked at the shoes and random flashes of that day ran through his head, he felt a gut-wrenching pang of loss. She had smiled so much that day. She had been so proud of her son, cheering loudly as Luke had collected his diploma.
“You alright over there?” Luke’s voice cut through Teddy’s train of thought, and he realised that he had been frozen, staring at these shoes for too long for it to go unnoticed by the other person in the room. He swallowed the lump in his throat and hastily masked his expression as he turned to Luke, who was looking at him concernedly.
“Sorry, just zoned out for a second” he said. It was only half a lie really. He could tell Luke didn’t believe him, but Teddy didn’t want to derail him again, and pulled himself together, getting back to work.
“You’re allowed to be sad too, you know” Luke said, to Teddy’s surprise. He thought he’d done a better job of hiding it than that. But then again, it was very difficult to hide anything from Luke.
“She was part of your life too” Luke added, and Teddy didn’t trust himself to look at him just then. He rummaged around in the cupboard with his back to Luke, blinking rapidly to clear his misting eyes.
“We’ve got a lot to do, like you said” Teddy replied, trying to keep his voice even.
“Yeah. We do” Luke replied understandingly. Teddy heard him return to putting things into the bag, and he cleared his throat, giving himself another moment to get himself together before actually getting back to work himself.