The funeral
It had been three days since their argument in the kitchen, and Teddy and James were still avoiding each other – not altogether an easy feat, given that they lived together. Teddy knew this was immature behaviour on both of their parts, and he was painfully aware that he was being the most immature of the two of them. James had tried to make up with him after returning home from Luke’s that night, but Teddy had been so sure about the fact the he was one hundred percent right on this that he hadn’t wanted to hear anything James had to say on the matter besides ‘I’m sorry and you were right’, which sure as hell wasn’t what James was offering. Teddy had offered to sleep on the couch, but James had told him not to be ridiculous. However, trying to sleep together in the same bed when they were both clearly angry turned out to be even more ridiculous, as there might as well have been a brick wall separating them for all the contact they had. Teddy got so sick of hearing James huff as he tossed and turned all night that he had eventually gotten up to go to the couch anyway.
Teddy had been largely hiding out at work ever since, trying to figure out a way to end this stupid cold war that they were in, but coming up short. The argument itself was stupid, but the problem was it based on stuff that was VERY real, and very important. Teddy shouldn’t have accused James of acting like a teenager, that had been a bit of a dick move, but as far as he was concerned James needed to grow up a bit and stop making such rash decisions about his career.
James had always let his heart rule his head. He got that from Harry, who was much the same, albeit with the wisdom of a much older man who knew how to pick his battles. James was considerably more mature on that front these past few years than he had been before. His spectacular fall from grace in the quidditch world had certainly humbled him. But he still let emotion cloud his judgement all too often. Something which Teddy was aware he wasn’t exactly innocent of himself. But he had never threatened to quit his job after just one bad day.
Teddy felt a little bit guilty for simplifying it as much as that. He and James both knew that it was the mother of all bad days that James had had, and that the resulting fallout had much wider implications. And if James had any alternative options that weren’t quite so drastic Teddy might understand a bit more his eagerness to walk away from it all. But Teddy just couldn’t see any way around the fact that James would effectively be torpedoing everything he’d worked so hard for this far by doing what he was saying he wanted to do. No matter how good terms he left his immediate team on, the fact was that if he ever wanted to be hired by the ministry again, they would see the black mark of his suspension on his record, and the fact that he immediately resigned after it, and they wouldn’t even let him through the door. And the unfortunate truth of the matter was that James had been right in what he’d said that very first night after it had all happened. There were no jobs here for what he did, besides Gringotts.
And, if Teddy was being REALLY honest about it, he supposed he was pretty hurt by the fact that James didn’t seem to have considered how all this would affect him. Unless James had some amazing plan that he hadn’t shared with Teddy yet for how this was going to work, Teddy was afraid that they were at something of an impasse. James had accused him of not seriously considering whether they could both move or not, and perhaps that was true, Teddy hadn’t given it a lot of thought. But that was because he didn’t need to. He was happy here. This was his home. He didn’t want to move, and didn’t see any good reason why they should. And he didn’t really know what else there was to be said on the matter. Even if James did come back to him with something specific, something ‘concrete’ as he had put it, Teddy’s answer wouldn’t be any different.
They had both gone to bed last night still angry about the whole thing, and still very much at odds. They hadn’t spoken a word all night, even though they had both been awake until the early hours, and the wall of space in between them in the bed was ever present and uncrossed. However, today was a very different day. When his alarm went off and Teddy sat up to turn it off, blinking dazedly in the morning sunlight, the atmosphere in the room felt distinctly different to how it had when he’d gone to sleep. He turned to see if James was awake, to see his boyfriend looking back at him, the smallest of consoling smiles on his face.
“What time do we need to be heading out?” James asked softly.
“The service starts at one” Teddy replied. “But there’s going to be a lot to do before that. I reckon we just head over to Luke’s and see what he wants to do.”
“Alright” James agreed quietly.
They both got out of bed and went about their usual morning routines in silence, but not the pointed, angry silence it had been yesterday. There seemed to be an implicit understanding between them that they had to put aside all the shit they were currently arguing about, because today was not about them.
Teddy hadn’t been to a lot of funerals in his life – most of the older generation of his family had died during the war, and his grandmother was stubborn enough to live forever. He had a general idea of how these things went though. He really wasn’t looking forward to it, the idea of having a ceremony for a dead person seemed to Teddy like a wholly unnecessary dredging up of emotions. But it was probably important, for closure reasons. And if nothing else it would be good for Luke to see how many people were still around to support him. That was Teddy’s only job today, as far as he was concerned. To not let his own emotions get the better of him, and to be there for whatever Luke needed.
“Looking sharp” James said with a kind smile, observing Teddy in the mirror while he stood in front of it trying to sort out his tie. He wasn’t in the habit of wearing them, and apparently had completely forgotten how to not make a complete mess of it. His crisp black suit felt much too formal for the occasion. The day was going to be difficult enough without feeling acutely uncomfortable in his clothes. Luke’s mum wouldn’t have cared about any of that anyway, she was never one to stand on formality. But it wasn’t really her they were doing all of this for, it was for Luke.
“Help me out with this, would you?” Teddy asked James, giving up altogether on the tie and tugging it out of the messy, loose knot he had made. James looked pretty sharp himself. He wasn’t really in the habit of wearing formal attire either, but he had a few suits from back in his quidditch playing days, when he’d had to go to high brow events with funders and things like that. All of them tailored, and more much expensive than the one Teddy currently had on. Teddy smiled as he took a moment to appreciate that his boyfriend was a veritable fox, looking both suave and sexy in his designer suit, as James approached him with a wry smile.
“Here” James said softly, as he tied Teddy’s tie for him, making much shorter work of it than Teddy had. While he was carefully tightening it, he and Teddy made eye contact which they held for a long time, all the unsaid things passing between them. James let go of the tie and gave Teddy a quick kiss on the tip of his nose, in a gesture much more loving and intimate than it had any right to be. Teddy huffed a small laugh and grabbed James’s wrist as he made to pull back, running his thumb lightly over James’s skin. He didn’t really know what to say. He knew their fight wasn’t over and would have to resume at some point, but he felt extremely grateful for this pause on it. James seemed to be thinking along the same lines, and gave him an understanding smile.
“Shall we get going then?” Teddy said, releasing him. “Luke’s either going to be in manic planning mode, or completely hopeless, and probably nowhere in between. Either way, he’s going to need us.”
“Let’s go” James agreed simply.
Teddy took his hand so that they could disapparate together. They landed in Luke’s entryway, and Teddy kept hold of James’s hand as they walked through to the living room, not quite wanting to let him go yet. As they passed by the door to the bathroom, Teddy could hear the shower running, so he gave the door a knock.
“Luke? It’s me and James” he said through the door.
“Be out in a sec” Luke’s voice responded. He sounded husky, as though he’d been up smoking and drinking all night, which Teddy would wager he probably had. Teddy had called him off their new landline phone last night and offered to come over, but Luke had told him not to, insisting he was alright. Teddy started to vaguely wonder whether he should have overruled him on that, but it was too late to do anything about it now.
“Cup of tea, do you reckon?” James asked, slipping his hand out of Teddy’s and making his way towards the kitchen.
“Suppose so” Teddy shrugged, shuffling after him. He had already had a coffee and wasn’t really that interested in a tea, but it was something to do, other than awkwardly wait around for Luke to surface. It would probably be a good idea to get some caffeine into Luke as well.
The kitchen was tidier than it had been recently, with only a couple of dishes in the sink and no empty alcohol bottles lying around, which at the very least meant that Luke was keeping up appearances of taking care of himself. Teddy opened the fridge, mainly to nose around but also to get the milk out for James. There were some bits and pieces in there, mostly sandwich making supplies. That was also a relatively positive sign.
“Have you eaten?” Teddy called back to Luke as he heard the shower turn off.
“Yes” Luke replied, sounding irritated by the question. Teddy thought he was probably lying and wondered whether he ought to make him something, since there was likely to be a lot of alcohol consumption at the wake. Before he had made up his mind, Luke emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and appeared at the entryway to the kitchen. He looked a little tired, but otherwise generally OK.
“I had some bloody toast, alright, look the plate is right there if you don’t believe me” Luke shot at Teddy, who in any other circumstances might have been aggravated by his tone, but he was willing to let pretty much anything fly today.
“Well alright then” Teddy replied calmly.
“Here” James said, holding out a mug of tea to Luke, who’s expression softened as he took it.
“Look at this flash bastard” Luke said to Teddy, with a bit of a smirk, jerking his head towards James. “Armani all over.”
“Suits him, right?” Teddy grinned back.
“You have no business looking this fucking good on today of all days” Luke said to James, who laughed.
“I’m sorry, do you want me to change?” James asked incredulously.
“Wouldn’t do any good” Teddy said, shaking his head sagely. “He looks just as fit in all of his other designer suits.”
“Why do I even hang around with you two?” Luke muttered, as he started making his way to his bedroom. “It’s like being friends with Brad Pitt and George Clooney” he called back to them before entering the room, carelessly swinging the door closed after him, leaving it slightly ajar. A few moments later Teddy heard the sounds of a hairdryer.
“Which one’s which, do you reckon?” Teddy asked James with a raised eyebrow.
“You’re Clooney, obviously” James replied without missing a beat, and Teddy laughed.
“He seems alright, doesn’t he?” James added, his voice low so that Luke wouldn’t hear them. Not that he’d be able to over the hairdryer anyway.
“Yeah, better than I expected” Teddy agreed.
“Is that good?” James asked, looking a little worried. “I mean, obviously it’s good, but is it all just going to come bursting out later, is what I mean?”
“Dunno” Teddy replied grimly. “Probably. Not much we can do about it, is there?”
“Guess not” James replied. They both sipped their tea in silence for a few moments before James spoke again.
“Do I look too hot for a funeral?” he asked quite seriously, causing Teddy to nearly choke on his tea.
“Just hot enough, I’d say” Teddy smirked, when he’d managed to swallow the liquid in his mouth without inhaling it.
“I’m serious” James replied, and he really did sound it, which Teddy only found funnier. “I’m not trying to look sexy. Is it inappropriate?” James was now trying to look at himself from all angles, twisting around where he stood. Teddy put a hand on his arm to stop him.
“He’s just razzing you” Teddy told him calmly. “You’re fine. You ARE hot, but that’s just the way of the world unfortunately.” James huffed a small laugh at that and went back to leaning against the counter, sipping his tea again. A small amount of time passed in peaceful silence before Teddy spoke again.
“How drunk do you think it’s appropriate to get at a wake?” he asked James thoughtfully, who looked taken aback by the question.
“Why, are you planning on hitting it hard?” James asked incredulously.
“Not me” Teddy frowned, gesturing towards Luke’s bedroom door. “I’m wondering at what point should I cut him off.”
“Maybe just don’t?” James suggested. “He’ll fight you like hell on it if you try.”
“I don’t think I’d be a very good friend if I let him get shitfaced” Teddy countered. “Besides anything else, all his family are going to be there. I don’t want him making a scene.”
James frowned at that and Teddy could tell he shared his concern. It wouldn’t be entirely out of character for Luke to make a scene if he encountered a transgression that he deemed to warrant it. And the threshold for what exactly warranted it lowered considerably once he was drunk. They’d been thrown out of a number of clubs, back in the day.
“Play it by ear, I guess” James suggested. “Try and keep him one drink short of the hot dog incident and we’ll probably be alright.”
Teddy couldn’t help himself but cackle at that. Sometime in their mid-twenties they’d all been wasted at a festival after day drinking for about seven hours. Teddy had put half a hot dog that he decided he didn’t want anymore into Luke’s cup, which had seemed at the time like the funniest thing ever. Luke had found this distinctly NOT funny, and had gotten rather angry about Teddy ruining his drink, that he then proceeded to empty (soggy hot dog and all) over the top of Teddy’s head. Things had escalated from there and ended up in a scrap, from which Teddy and Luke both had to be physically restrained by their other friends.
“You don’t think we should set the bar a bit higher than that?” Teddy asked, with a smirk.
“The man just lost his mother” James replied reasonably. “I think the least we can do is let him get pissed if he wants.”
“Fair enough” Teddy conceded.
The sound of the hairdryer stopped, and a short while after this Luke emerged from his bedroom having half gotten dressed, with suit trousers and an unbuttoned shirt on, his state of half-dress seeming very odd contrasted against how carefully styled his hair was. He ignored both James and Teddy, heading instead to the living room to pick up his packet of cigarettes off the table, where he stopped to take one out and light it, tossing the packet carelessly back onto the table afterwards. Teddy could tell without looking at him that James would be frowning in disapproval, he hated cigarette smoke. But he couldn’t exactly tell Luke not to smoke in his own house.
“What time are we on?” Luke asked, his voice slightly muffled as he was holding the cigarette in his mouth while using both hands to button up his shirt.
“Coming up to ten” James told him, looking at his watch. “We’ve got plenty of time.”
“I’ve got about a thousand calls to make” Luke replied, finishing with his shirt and taking the cigarette out of his mouth, holding it between two fingers and gesturing with it as he listed them off. "The florist, the funeral home, the caterer, the venue…”
“What can we do?” Teddy asked gently. Luke shrugged, sighing wearily.
“Divide and conquer?” James suggested. “We’ll handle the wake stuff, you concentrate on getting everything together for the service?”
“You don’t have a phone” Luke countered, frowning.
“We’ve got the landline back at ours” James offered.
“I can’t believe you bought a landline” Luke muttered, shaking his head in disapproval. “It’s like travelling back to the nineties, going to your place.”
“We’re ahead of the curve by wizarding standards, I’ll have you know” Teddy argued.
“You’ve got a fucking CRT TV” Luke shot back, now starting to laugh. “Even my nan used to have a plasma.”
“OK, first of all, I don’t even know what that means” Teddy replied, and Luke laughed harder. “And second of all, you think your system of having to climb halfway over the sink just to get signal is any fucking better?”
“It’s not ideal, I’ll give you that” Luke said with a submissive gesture. “But at least I can take my phone out with me, for christ’s sake.”
“Who the fuck am I even calling anyway, apart from you and the Chinese takeaway?” Teddy demanded.
“Jesus, Teddy, when did you get so old?” Luke smirked.
“I don’t know what you mean” Teddy said, as he turned his hair grey, and added some wrinkles around his eyes. Luke lost it entirely, having to turn away from him to try and stop laughing. Teddy returned his face to normal and turned to give James a wink, who was also laughing.
“You better cut that shit out today” Luke admonished him once he’d regained his composure. “We’re going to be surrounded by muggles, so pick a hair colour and stick with it.”
“Reckon the blue would be too much?” Teddy asked, changing his hair back to the vibrant aquamarine that was his usual choice of colour. He noticed James give him a sidelong glance with an appreciative smile, and had to work hard not to appear too smug about it. A task he failed dismally, if Luke’s incredulous expression was anything to go by.
“The blue is fine” Luke told him. “No-one’s going to be looking at you next to Chris Hemsworth here anyway” he gestured carelessly to James, and Teddy laughed.
“I’m not sure if I should be offended by that or not” he told Luke wryly.
“Well I didn’t mean it as an insult, but feel free to take it as one” Luke said vaguely, now making his way into the kitchen, manoeuvring around the two of them already in there to pick up his phone from the windowsill behind the sink.
“Doesn’t make sense for either of you to go back to yours, all the numbers are in here” he said to James, wiggling the phone in front of him. “But you can make some calls while I finish getting dressed, how about that?”
“Sure” James replied calmly, taking the phone from him.
Luke issued some instructions to James about the calls he was to make, which by and large was just checking in with the various suppliers they’d be dealing with today and confirming the arrangements. Afterwards he disappeared back into the bedroom, and James leant over the sink to make the calls, with his back to the room. Teddy wandered into the living room and took a seat on one of the two small sofas, feeling a bit useless. His part would come later, when Luke needed someone to prop him up, but for now he seemed to have things handled pretty well.
The next hour or so passed fairly uneventfully, with Luke making some calls himself once James was done with the phone, James making another round of tea presumably just for something to do, and the three of them exchanging superficial quips all the while. However the closer they got to the main event, the quieter and more withdrawn Luke became. By the time he announced that it was time for them to head to the funeral parlour, his demeanour was positively grave. James and Teddy followed his lead and stopped cracking jokes, exchanging a few worried glances with each other. But Luke didn’t really seem to be emotional as such; if anything he was the opposite. Stoic and pensive.
They walked in relative silence to the nearest tube station. The funeral home they were heading to was a muggle one - all of the proceedings today were taking place in the muggle world, so apparition and floo weren’t options for travelling. Teddy had his wand stowed in the inside pocket of his jacket, because he never travelled without it, but today they were incognito.
The weather was bright and sunny, which Teddy felt was somehow inappropriate for the day. He was aware of how ridiculous that notion was, it was early August after all, but it felt weird that the weather wasn’t as gloomy as the mood. He felt like they should all be walking through the pouring rain, holding sombre black umbrellas. As it was, he was uncomfortably hot in his suit jacket and wanted to take it off, but didn’t want to risk dropping his wand somewhere by carrying the jacket over his arm. This situation worsened considerably as they descended into the underground, which was unbearably stuffy.
Teddy was reasonably well versed with the London underground, it was generally how they travelled around when they went out drinking. He didn’t know exactly where their end destination was though, only that it was in North London somewhere, so he blindly followed Luke through the bustling station, not even paying attention to what line they were taking until they were on the platform.
“District?” Teddy asked Luke, frowning. “We going West?”
“Changing at Whitechapel” Luke told him. “Taking the overground.”
“Jesus, how long it is going to take us to get there?” Teddy asked, with a raised eyebrow. He welcomed the news that they would be getting out of this sub-terranean sweatbox for at least part of the journey, but both the District line and the particular overground line that Teddy suspected they were taking (based on the general vicinity of where Luke’s mum had lived) were notoriously slow journeys, with all the stations on the line being situated quite close together preventing the trains from picking up any real speed.
“About an hour” Luke shrugged.
“An hour?” James asked, leaning in and looking like he was sure he must have misheard that. But no, that tracked. Teddy studied the map on the wall next to them and noted that their journey involved more than twenty stops in total.
“Luke, you should have said if we were running behind” Teddy admonished him. “Why don’t we take the Hammersmith and then Northern? That’ll be quicker.”
“Fuck that, I’m not going into central” Luke replied dismissively. He had a point. London didn’t really have an off season for tourism, but it was especially bad during the summer. Taking the tube would be uncomfortable enough in this heat, Teddy didn’t especially want to have to pack himself into a train with a thousand other people, many of whom seemed to believe that deodorant was optional.
“We’re barely going to have any time when we get there, though” Teddy raised.
“Did it not occur to you that’s by design?” Luke replied flatly, as they heard the train approaching. It quickly become too loud for either he or James to respond, so they waited for the train to come to a halt and the doors to open, a few passengers disembarking, but considerably more getting on. Even as they boarded the train, there was still quite a lot of background noise, with the tannoy announcement reminding them to ‘mind the gap’, the crowd of people scrambling to get seats and then the doors all sliding closed before the train set off again. All in all this probably took less than thirty seconds to go down, but it felt like far too long an amount of time before Teddy got to press Luke on what the hell he meant by that.
“You don’t want to spend a lot of time there?” Teddy asked him, keeping his voice low enough so that they wouldn’t easily be overheard by strangers, but loud enough so that Luke could hear him over the rattling of the train along the tracks. It was a difficult balance to strike, but aided by the fact that they hadn’t bothered to try and find seats, and were stood around one of the poles in between the doors, all holding onto it for balance and hence stood quite close to each other.
“I don’t want to spend ANY time there if I’m honest” Luke replied, grimacing slightly. “Hanging around with a dead body... But you’re supposed to, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know, mate” Teddy replied honestly. He hadn’t really thought about that aspect of it. Due to his line of work, Teddy saw dead bodies on a semi-regular basis. But Teddy didn’t really tend to think of them as people, it was easier not to. This was very different.
“It’s not ‘hanging around with a dead body’” James chimed in, looking unimpressed by Luke’s assessment. “It’s a chance to say goodbye. Just you and her.”
“That’s what the funeral is” Luke countered. “I don’t want to be alone with the body. Just the thought of it is creeping me out.”
“Well you’re not going to be alone, so get that thought out of your head” Teddy replied automatically. Luke gave him a weak smile in response.
They fell into silence again, and Teddy took a moment to consider James, who seemed remarkably unflappable about this whole thing. True, he had only met Luke’s mother once or twice in passing and certainly hadn’t known her as long as Teddy so it made sense for him to be more detached. But aside from his brief panic this morning about being dressed inappropriately sexily for the occasion, he had been a pretty calming presence all morning, to both Luke AND Teddy.
“You been to a lot of funerals?” Teddy asked him curiously. James looked taken aback by the question.
“What me? Um, no, not really” he replied a little confusedly. “Why?”
“You just seem…” Teddy petered off. Blasé sounded too harsh of a word, so he cast around for a milder version of it.
“Unnervingly at ease with this whole situation” Luke supplied, and Teddy pointed at him.
“That” Teddy agreed. James huffed a small and surprised laugh.
“I dunno” he shrugged. “Death was never really a taboo in our house, I guess. I mean, you both know who my dad is, right?”
“That’s a really good point” Luke conceded. Teddy had never actually asked Harry about it, but if the history books were to be believed the man himself had actually briefly died. And he had certainly lost a lot of people in the war (Teddy’s parents included), when he was barely an adult himself. Teddy took a moment to wonder if he should be a bit more comfortable with death himself, given that he had grown up an orphan. But whenever he thought about the loss of his parents, it was within the context of them not being around in Teddy’s life. He had never thought much about the actual death itself. It felt like that had happened long before Teddy had any ability to understand it.
“So you can tell me what I’m supposed to be doing today then?” Luke asked calmly. “Because I haven’t a fucking clue, to be honest with you.”
“You do whatever you want” James replied kindly. “But just bear in mind that some of these opportunities that come around today… you’ll never have them again.”
Luke took a minute to digest that, looking pensive.
“Christ, what alternative dimension have we entered into where YOU’RE the sensible one?” Teddy shot at James, knowing that would wind him up, which it immediately did.
“I’m ALWAYS the sensible one when you two get together” James replied defensively, pointing two fingers and Luke and Teddy, who both snickered. That was probably true actually, but it was a pretty low bar to be fair. And it said more about Teddy and Luke’s immaturity than it did about James’s ability to take things seriously. However as Teddy stopped laughing, he felt that sentiment resonate a little deeper, and he realised that James actually did take things that were important pretty damn seriously. And Teddy was so used to James being his partner in crime for stupid, childish shit that he often didn’t give him nearly enough credit for that.
He brooded over this, and what it potentially meant for the argument that they were currently in, for quite some time, as the train passed through stop after stop. He’d almost forgotten that they were changing lines until Luke drew his attention back to it, reminding both him and James that their stop was coming up.
-
They had spent around fifteen minutes in the funeral home with the coffin in the end. Luke had flat out refused to let anyone open the casket, asserting that he couldn’t handle seeing the body. James had looked like he wanted to press him on that, probably in the spirit of missed opportunities and all that, but Teddy was secretly quite pleased that he hadn’t. Teddy wasn’t entirely sure he could handle it either, and was himself carefully avoiding getting too close to the coffin. It was ridiculous behaviour all around, he was fully aware of that, but that was him and Luke all over really. And as James had alluded to, there was no right or wrong in all of this. They were all dealing with it in their own way.
A fancy black car had taken them to the church, following the hearse slowly down the road. Luke had whispered to James and Teddy about halfway there that he felt like some low budget rapper in a music video, in the back of a limo, and all three of them had been in stitches for pretty much the rest of the journey. Luke looked a bit guilty about it when they got out of the car in front of the church, but Teddy couldn’t imagine that Luke’s mother would have disapproved. She was always up for a laugh, and Teddy reminded Luke as much.
The next inappropriately funny thing came halfway through the service, when Luke’s aunt Maria had insisted on playing a song that she asserted that Luke’s mum had loved. Teddy was aware that Maria hadn’t been present for most of Luke’s life and that she and her sister had been pretty estranged, but Luke couldn’t be bothered to deal with the drama that would have resulted from not letting the woman have whatever input to the funeral that she wanted. Which turned out to be basically none, aside from delivering a tragic (and wholly untruthful) speech about how close they had been and playing this song, which was a rather sensual number from the 80s with overtly sexual lyrics. Teddy hadn’t even been able to look at James, whose eyes had been wide and lips pressed firmly together throughout the whole thing as he stared straight ahead. He and Luke had caught each other’s eyes a couple of times, and quickly had to look away again, trying to stifle their laughter. Maria had noticed, of course, and given both of them the evil eye for it, which had only resulted in the pair of them laughing even harder.
Luke had given his own speech right at the end, which had sobered them all up considerably. It was a very heartfelt piece and there was not a dry eye in the house by the time he’d finished. Teddy had been able to do nothing more than mutely pat him on the back as Luke had sat back down next to him while the minister gave their closing remarks. However Luke himself was remarkably steady as they left the church. He admitted to Teddy that he had rehearsed his own statement so many times that the words had almost become meaningless to him.
They caught a ride with Teddy’s grandmother to the wake. She turned out be an even more calming presence then James in this situation, speaking fondly but not too emotionally about the various times she had met Luke’s mum in the past. In no time at all she and Luke were laughing and reminiscing about the time the four of them had taken a trip to Cornwall together, when the boys had been around fifteen and not remotely interested in hanging around with their mother and grandmother respectively.
All in all, the whole day had contained much more laughter than Teddy had ever expected it to, which could only be a good thing. Indeed, Luke still seemed to be in reasonably good spirits as he made the rounds at the wake, speaking to everyone who had showed up. It wasn’t a huge amount of people, Luke didn’t have much in the way of extended family. Luke himself was actually a third generation Polish immigrant (on his mother’s side, at least) and didn’t have very many relatives in the UK. He probably had some distant relatives in what he sometimes jokingly referred to as ‘the motherland’ (which was particularly funny, given that he’d never even been there), but his mother hadn’t been close with them, and Luke had never even met them.
The room was by no means empty, however, filled with friends. Teddy was sat a table with James and Andromeda – the two of them were chatting away about something or other, but Teddy wasn’t paying much attention to the conversation, he was keeping an eye on Luke, who had just been ushered to the side by his aunt Maria. That couldn’t possibly mean anything good. From every anecdote that Teddy had ever heard about her, the woman came off as a stone cold bitch, who had never taken so much as a passing interest in her nephew’s life, and had only ever dropped into her sister’s life to pass judgement about how she was living. Teddy also knew that Luke’s opinion of her was no better than his own, but she was his (biologically) closest relative and as such he felt some sort of familial obligation towards her.
Maybe that was the reason Luke was staying to listen to whatever she was saying to him, because his expression was thunderous, and Teddy watched him make several gestures to indicate that she should stop. She looked equally annoyed by whatever it was they were discussing, and Teddy was just thinking that maybe he ought to go and intervene when he saw her dig a crumpled piece of paper out of her bag and try to give it to him. Luke batted it away, saying something forcefully to her, if his body language was anything to go by. She appeared to retort angrily, and pushed the piece of paper into his chest, but Luke refused to take hold of it, holding both of his hands up and away. They were both starting to raise their voices now, and Teddy wasn’t the only person watching them anymore as Maria burst out “stop being so ridiculous!” brandishing the paper at him.
“It’s none of your damn business, butt out!” Luke snapped at her, before turning on his heel and moodily stalking out of the room. Teddy stood up automatically to follow him, but James caught hold of him by the sleeve before he walked off.
“Want me to come?” James asked seriously. Teddy shook his head.
“No, you stay here with Gran. I’ll call you if I need reinforcements” Teddy told him.
“Do you know what that was about?” James asked, frowning.
“No idea” Teddy replied honestly.
He made his way towards the door, going after Luke, but was waylaid en route by none other than Maria herself, who was still holding the piece of paper in the hand that she held out to halt Teddy in his tracks. He did nothing to try and hide the disdain in his own expression as he turned to her, but she seemed unconcerned by this, wearing a haughty expression of her own.
“So, you’re the boyfriend then, are you?” she asked him, sounding unimpressed.
“I’m not Luke’s boyfriend, if that’s what you mean” Teddy replied, frowning.
“You are one of them though, right?” she asked, her voice low.
“A gay man?” Teddy asked incredulously, not bothering to keep his voice down. A couple of people nearby looked around in surprise. Maria shot Teddy a filthy look before pushing him to the side of the room by his arm, the same way she just had to Luke.
“I’m talking about magic, you stupid boy” she said very quietly. Teddy was taken by surprise.
“I thought you were a muggle” Teddy replied, matching her volume. “How do you know about that?”
“Well I don’t know if that’s an insult or not, but I don’t have time for that right now” Maria replied flatly. “I know about it because my late sister needed someone to confide in” Maria looked rather smug about this point, and Teddy frowned, even more annoyed.
“Is that what you just told him?” Teddy asked her. She shook her head.
“No, the reason I’m asking is because I assume you have ways of locating people” she said calmly. “It’s a very common name you see, I’ve not had much luck finding him online.”
“Finding who?” Teddy asked, confused. Maria handed him the piece of paper, that had a single name written on it - George Smith.
“Who is this?” Teddy asked, a little irritably. Was Luke’s mum’s funeral really the best time for this?
“His father, obviously” Maria replied, as though Teddy were being slow, and Teddy didn’t reply, reeling in shock for a moment. Never in a million years did he think THAT’S what this would be about.
“You know who his father is?” Teddy asked, dumbfounded.
“Well of course I do” Maria replied haughtily. “I tried to get my sister to reach out to him a thousand times, but she was so stubborn. So determined to do this on her own.”
“I always got the impression he never gave her much of a choice in the matter” Teddy replied, frowning again.
“She gave up on him so easily” Maria said disapprovingly. “She could have made him stay if she really wanted to.”
“Did it not occur to you that if the deadbeat wanted to run, the best thing to do was probably to let him?” Teddy asked, with a raised eyebrow. It was a rhetorical question, but she answered it anyway, scowling at him.
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand” Maria said dismissively. “Being a single woman, raising a child. It’s not exactly your world, is it?”
Teddy had no idea how he was supposed to take that, but he did know that he was just about done talking to her. He threw her one last scowl before heading towards the door again.
“Talk some sense into him, would you?” Maria called after him, but Teddy did nothing to respond. If this was a scenario in which he was being asked to pick a side, he sure as shit wouldn’t be on hers.
He left the hall and looked around outside the front door. He didn’t imagine Luke would have gone too far and he was correct, he found him sat on the floor leaning back against the wall smoking a cigarette. Teddy calmly walked towards him, studying his face. He wasn’t crying or anything, but he looked like he’d been thoroughly raked over the coals, and didn’t even look up at Teddy as he approached, staring straight ahead with a hardened expression. Teddy sat down next to him with some difficulty, having to hike up his suit trousers a bit to be able to bend his legs enough to get down to the ground.
“That better not fucking be what I think it is” was the first thing out of Luke’s mouth, his eyes darting to the paper in Teddy’s hand.
“I didn’t come out here to force you to take it” Teddy assured him.
“Good, because I’m not fucking interested” Luke replied firmly.
“She shouldn’t have sprung this on you here” Teddy said sympathetically.
“She shouldn’t have sprung it on me EVER” Luke countered. “As if mum being gone changes in any way how I feel about that arsehole.”
Teddy didn’t know what to say to that. Luke’s father had walked out on them before Luke was even born, and his mother had always been upfront with him about that. She had always done her very best to make sure that Luke wanted for nothing in the parent department, and in Teddy’s opinion had done a stellar job of it. But still, it would be difficult not to be resentful about being abandoned like that. Teddy understood that. But as someone who had never had the opportunity to meet his own parents, he couldn’t honestly say he wouldn’t want to try and track them down, if one of them was still out there somewhere.
“We’re not the same, Teddy” Luke spoke up, and Teddy was taken a little by surprise. “I know what you’re thinking. You’re an orphan and you’d kill for this chance. But it’s not the same. Your parents were good people. And they both actually fucking wanted you.”
“I wasn’t thinking that” Teddy lied, knowing full well that there was no point in doing so. Luke could read him like a book.
“You fucking were” Luke called him out. “And it’s alright, it makes sense that you would. But…” Luke shook his head before taking a long drag of his cigarette, letting his head fall back against the wall as he breathed out the smoke.
“Here’s the thing, Teddy” Luke said earnestly. “The piece of shit that walked out on my pregnant mum. He sure as shit isn’t my dad. He never wanted the job, and I’m not forcing it on him now. Neither of us need that.”
“Alright” Teddy said quietly. A few beats of silence passed before Luke spoke up again.
“What, that’s it?” Luke asked, sounding surprised. “You’re not going to try and talk me into it?”
“Did you want me to?” Teddy asked, just as surprised.
“No, but I thought you would anyway” Luke shrugged. “You’re not just saving it up for another time, are you?”
“No” Teddy replied, honestly. “It’s your life, Luke. When have I ever told you how to live it?”
“Thanks, mate” Luke replied sincerely, and Teddy gave him a pat on the knee.
“You DO understand where I’m coming from, right?” Luke asked Teddy seriously, and Teddy nodded.
“I do” Teddy replied calmly. “He’s had, what, thirty years to look you up and he hasn’t? The guy’s a deadbeat. I told Maria that as well, by the way. I don’t think she likes me very much.”
Luke laughed at that, which made Teddy smile.
“She doesn’t like me either” Luke replied unconcernedly.
“She did ask me if I was a wizard though” Teddy replied, and Luke made an unimpressed face.
“She’s not supposed to shoot her mouth off about that. What if you weren’t?” he scowled.
“I reckon she would have been able to style it out if I wasn’t” Teddy shrugged. She hadn’t actually used the word wizard, she’d just referred to magic. “I thought she was being homophobic at first” he added casually.
“I’m not entirely convinced that isn’t part of it” Luke replied with a frown.
“Well she’s a fucking horrible person in every other way, so it’d be on brand, wouldn’t it?” Teddy put out, and Luke laughed.
“What do you want me to do with this?” Teddy asked, holding up the piece of paper. Luke took it from him, and pressed his lit cigarette to one of the corners, singeing the paper.
“George Smith” Luke said slowly, watching the burnt edge extend through the paper. “Could be an alias for all we fucking know anyway.”
“Small mercy – at least she wasn’t able to find him” Teddy raised.
“Yeah, thank christ for that” Luke muttered, pressing his cigarette to the paper again, burning more of it. The two of them watched the paper slowly disintegrate until a shadow was cast over them, and Teddy looked up in surprise to see James standing there.
“I know you told me to stay inside, but I hate not knowing what’s going on” James said with a grim smile. Luke huffed a small laugh and patted the ground next to him. James sank into a seat on his other side.
“Dear old auntie wants me to try and track down my sperm donor” Luke filled him in. James looked confusedly to Teddy for him to explain and he laughed.
“His dad” Teddy supplied.
“For lack of a better description” Luke added.
“Oh…” was all James managed to reply, looking a strange mixture of shocked and awkward, which only served to make Teddy laugh even more. James reached around Luke to give him a dig in the side, with a disapproving scowl.
“We’re alright” Luke assured him. “I’m not on a ledge or anything. It just took me by surprise, is all.”
“Well yeah” James replied dazedly. “Me too.”
“And I have no intention whatsoever of going out looking for him, in case that wasn’t clear” Luke told him firmly.
“Oh no, that’s pretty clear” James replied calmly. “I assume that’s his name you’re burning there.”
“Allegedly” Luke replied, returning to the task of burning the paper.
“George Smith” James read aloud from it, leaning over to get a good look. “What, you think Generic Mc-Every-Man was taken?”
Luke laughed at that, and Teddy gave James a fond smile.
“I’m glad you two are here” Luke said, quite seriously once he’d stopped laughing.
“Where else would we be?” Teddy replied, patting him on the knee again.
The three of them sat side by side in silence, until there was nothing left of the paper, and Luke took a final puff of his cigarette before flicking the butt out across the car park.
“Well, I’d better get back in there” Luke said gruffly as he hauled himself back up to a standing position, brushing the creases out of his trousers. “I think it’s about time for a drink, don’t you?”
“Eat something first” Teddy implored him.
“Yes sir” Luke replied sarcastically, with a salute. Teddy flashed him a grin as the three of them filed back inside.
-
The rest of the day passed more or less without incident. Luke did drink rather a lot as the day went on, but he largely remained calm and aware of his surroundings. He flitted back and forth between the table where James and Teddy were and going around the room talking to other people. As the day stretched on into evening people started to leave. Maria had made a big show of coming over to Luke and declaring to the whole room that she was here for whatever he needed before exiting herself. Luke had wryly said to Teddy afterwards that he probably wouldn’t see her again until the next funeral. Andromeda had stayed later than most, but Teddy told her to get herself home once there were only a handful of people left, promising to go round for a visit soon.
In the end, there was only Luke, James and Teddy left. Luke made sure everything was in order with the clean up crew while Teddy and James loitered around by the door, and then the three of them exited together. They found an alleyway to disapparate from and were back at Luke’s flat in seconds, which Teddy was extremely grateful for, not wanting to have to do that long train ride again after what had already been a long day. He and James stayed for a drink at Luke’s place, during which Luke had finally broken down and had a good cry, which was a bit of a relief to be honest, since Teddy was starting to get worried about how long he’d held it in for. Luke had been adamant afterwards that he was fine, but Teddy insisted on staying the night, so James apparated back to their flat to pick up a change of clothes for them both, and the three of them sat around in pyjamas, talking and drinking well into the night.
Eventually, Luke went to bed, leaving James and Teddy in the living room divvying up the blankets and trying to decide where to sleep. Luke had two sofas arranged in an L shape around the coffee table, but only one of them was really long enough to comfortably sleep on, meaning that one of them either had to scrunch themselves up onto the two-seater or sleep on the floor. On nights like this where they all ended up crashing here, Teddy was often drunk enough that he had no problem passing out on the floor. Not tonight though. He had actually drank quite a lot, but it was over a long period of time, resulting in a long-lasting low-level buzz, rather than him actually feeling drunk at all.
“Can I play the old man card?” Teddy asked James with a wry smile. “It’ll do my back in, sleeping on the floor.”
“That argument might hold more weight if you didn’t do it nearly every time we’re here” James countered dismissively. He glanced behind him at the fireplace. “We could just go back to ours, you know. He wouldn’t mind.”
“I would” Teddy replied. “I want to be here if he gets up in the middle of the night. And when he gets up in the morning.”
“Fair enough” James conceded. “You’re still not having the big sofa though” he added sternly. Teddy chuckled at that. He knew he wasn’t going to win this one, but he had something of a compromise to propose.
“How about I be your pillow?” he offered, sitting at one end of the larger sofa and holding both of his arms out to James.
“You’re not going to be able to sleep like that” James replied sceptically, but he took place on the sofa anyway, lying across it and resting against Teddy in a reclined position with his head resting on Teddy’s chest. Teddy wrapped both his arms around him and took in a deep breath, sighing contentedly as he let it out.
“I’m not too concerned about that right now” Teddy muttered calmly to James, their closeness now meaning he could lower his voice.
“Just don’t be moaning to me tomorrow about how much your back hurts” James replied softly, matching his volume.
“Well you know I can’t promise that” Teddy countered. “But at the moment it feels worth it.”
James didn’t immediately reply, shimmying a little in his position to nuzzle closer to Teddy. Prior to his relationship with James, Teddy hadn’t been much of a snuggler, but James had somehow turned him into one. He felt cosy and warm just cuddled up like this, especially after having been NOT doing this for the past few days. He planted a lazy kiss on the top of James’s head, who made a small pleased noise.
“I’m sorry, Teddy” James said quietly, entirely unprompted. Teddy pulled his head back in mild confusion.
“What for?” he asked. James looked up at him with a regretful expression.
“I’m sorry for not involving you more in my decision making process. For not talking to you about how I was feeling about it all” James offered, and Teddy was pulled back down to earth with a violent jerk. He didn’t especially want to dredge all this up now, not when he was feeling so peaceful and content. But their fight hadn’t really been resolved after all. They had to talk about it sooner or later, and apparently James wanted it to be sooner.
“Yeah… that hurt, a bit” Teddy admitted, not sure what else to say about it.
“You hurt me too” James replied calmly, and although his voice was free of any note of accusation, Teddy still felt distinctly as though he was being called out. And he knew that he deserved it.
“I guess it wasn’t clear to you since I didn’t really tell you what was going on in my head, but I really am taking this seriously” James went on. “My career is important to me, and I’m really not trying to just blow it all up because I’m angry or upset.”
Teddy paused for a moment, unsure how to articulate the apology that he knew was due. James watched him carefully, still lying across Teddy and looking up at his face.
“I know you take things seriously” Teddy sighed. “You show me all the time how responsible you are. You’ve done it about a hundred times today. I’m sorry that I don’t always give you enough credit for that.”
“I appreciate you saying that” James said quietly. “Sometimes I wonder if you still think of me as a kid.”
“Sometimes I wonder if part of me does” Teddy admitted, frowning. “I don’t want to. I trust you, I really do. I guess…” Teddy felt his frown deepen, as he confronted the possibility that maybe this whole argument was more about Teddy himself than it was about James. “I guess I always just think that I’m right.”
“Well yeah, I know that” James replied pointedly, and Teddy gave him a small smile.
“I need to work on that” Teddy told him earnestly. “I don’t know why I’m like that.”
“Head boy, top of your class, academic prizes, fast tracking through the auror training, Dad’s favourite detective…” James listed off, counting Teddy’s various accolades on his fingers as he did so. “Couldn’t possibly imagine what could have given you such a big head…”
“So I’m a knob because I’m an overachiever, is that what you’re saying?” Teddy asked in amusement.
“It’s Luke’s theory, not mine” James told him unconcernedly.
“Of course it fucking is” Teddy muttered, rolling his eyes.
“Anyway, it doesn’t matter why” James said dismissively. “The point is – can you maybe consider that since I’m the one all this is happening to, maybe I should be the one who works out what the best thing to do is?”
“I can” Teddy said calmly. “But I need you to let me in a little” he added. “Because a decision this big affects both of us.”
“Fair enough” James replied. “But if I let you in, I need you to keep an open mind, and to listen to me.”
“I can do that” Teddy said seriously. James studied his expression and Teddy know that James didn’t entirely believe him. Teddy wasn’t entirely sure that he would be able to keep his mind quite as open as perhaps James would want him to, but he would try his best. James eventually seemed to decide not to press him on this any further and stopped looking up at him, nuzzling back into the cuddle. Teddy planted another kiss on his head.
“So you want to apply for other jobs, then?” Teddy nudged him gently. James nodded.
“It doesn’t mean I’m necessarily going to take it, if I do get one somewhere else” James said carefully. “Right now all I’m doing is seeing what my options are.”
“Do ALL of those options involve moving to another country?” Teddy asked, doing his very best to keep his tone even.
“I don’t know” James shrugged. “If I want to carry on doing what I do now, then yes. But there’s other things I could do still working for the ministry.”
“Are you looking at those options as well then?” Teddy asked, genuinely quite curious.
“Not yet” James told him. “Seeing what the abroad options are first.”
“And you’ll talk to me, when you know?” Teddy said, giving James a gentle squeeze.
“Of course” James replied simply. “That was always the plan.”
“Alright then” Teddy said quietly. There were a lot more questions he wanted to ask, but it was unlikely that James had any of the answers to them yet. Maybe he was right, maybe they should wait and see what the options were before getting ahead of themselves worrying about logistics. Still, that was easier said than done, in Teddy’s book.
It wasn’t long before James’s breathing slowed and Teddy felt him go limp as he started to fall asleep, but Teddy himself stayed up for a long time after, his mind racing through a thousand possibilities.