Teddy and Luke Pt2
“I can’t stop thinking about the way he said ‘you can try’” Teddy said into the phone, doing his best impression of Harry putting their perp in his place. Even now, several days after the event it still sent something of a shiver down his spine just replaying it in his head. He had been trying to replicate it himself in front of the bathroom mirror (when Luke was out of the flat, of course), but hadn’t even got close to capturing the icy cold confidence that Harry had exuded in the moment.
“Are you aware of how hard you’re fangirling hard over my dad right now” James asked on the other end of the phone, his tone mild, but clear amusement shining through.
“I’ll never be as cool as Harry” Teddy lamented, running a hand through his hair. He was lying stretched out across Luke’s sofa, looking up at the ceiling while he talked to his boyfriend on the phone. Now that the case was finally closed, Teddy was able to fill in all the blanks for James and explain to him what had happened. He had just finished regaling the tale of the arrest, and was honestly rather indignant that James wasn’t as impressed by Harry’s performance as he was. Maybe it was one of those things where you just had to witness it for yourself, to understand how awesome it was.
“I’m not sure that ‘cool’ is a word I’ve ever used to describe him” James replied, and Teddy could hear the smirk on his face.
“You’ve never seen him in action” Teddy countered. “It was something else, I’m telling you. We’ve been on arrests together before, but not like this.”
“Well, you must have been doing some pretty badass shit yourself while all this was going on” James pointed out. “I mean, I assume you weren’t just stood around with your dick in your hand while the two of them were duelling.”
“Harry did say he was impressed with the way I just threw myself down the hole” Teddy admitted, grinning as he pictured it from a third party perspective. It had been a pretty dramatic thing to do.
“Wait – you did what?” James demanded, and Teddy smiled wryly. He’d phrased it somewhat more mildly when he’d told that part of the story a minute ago.
“I told you, I had to get to him from underneath” Teddy explained. “There was no time for me to climb down carefully. I had to just dive in.”
“That must have hurt” James said, sounding like he was wincing at just the thought of it. Teddy laughed as he lifted up his t-shirt at the side and looked down at the widespread bruise blooming out from his hip across his body. It looked somehow both better and worse than it had a couple of days ago, the deep blue now fading into a horrible greenish yellow in some places.
“It sure did” Teddy told him grimly. “But I’ll live. And we caught the guy, so I’d say it was worth it.”
“Don’t suppose there’s any point in me asking you to be more careful in the future?” James said mildly and Teddy chuckled again.
“No more point than me asking you the same thing” Teddy replied. James hummed in agreement to concede that point.
“Well, between that and the borehole thing, sounds like you’ve earned that promotion” James said, sounding distinctly proud, and Teddy grinned.
“Paperwork is in motion as we speak” Teddy told him. “Teddy Lupin, Senior Auror. I should get business cards.”
“And hand them out to who?” James asked, sounding amused. “Criminals?”
“Always have to rain on my parade, don’t you?” Teddy shot back, but he couldn’t help but smirk.
“I’m proud of you, Ted” James said softly, and Teddy’s smile widened.
“I can’t tell you how good it feels to finally be able to tell you all of this” Teddy said truthfully. This case had gone on for so long, and occupied such a large part of his brain, it felt great to finally share it with James. Not least because it actually gave them something to talk about, and as a result, this was the easiest and most fun phone call they’d had in a long time.
“I still can’t believe Adalbert Waffling is a murderer” James raised, sounding amazed by this. Teddy had to admit, he was pretty blown away by that himself. Once they had taken the man into custody and interviewed him more thoroughly, it became apparent that he was indeed exactly who he said he was.
“I can’t believe you know who Adalbert Waffling is” Teddy replied slyly and James made a noise of protest, at which Teddy laughed.
“You’re not the only one who ever opened a book, you know” James said indignantly.
“At school, I was” Teddy insisted.
“You don’t know what I did at school after you left” James countered dismissively.
“I know you never went more than a fortnight without getting a detention” Teddy smirked. James made the same noise of outrage again.
“You’re one to fucking talk” he huffed back, and Teddy laughed brightly.
“I think the only reason McGonagall didn’t take the head boy title off me was because she didn’t want to admit she was wrong to ever give me it in the first place” Teddy mused.
“Well, I much preferred you to the twat that came after you” James replied. “Slytherin guy, proper jobsworth he was. Used to relish in giving out detentions.”
“Oh, I’m sure at least some of them were deserved” Teddy countered, grinning.
“Well, I’ll admit, it was much harder to avoid once you weren’t around to take the fall for me anymore” James conceded.
“I’ll thank you to remember that noble sacrifice” Teddy replied loftily.
“Oh please” James snorted. “The professors all loved you. Even McGonagall didn’t come down on you anywhere near as hard as she would anyone else.”
“One thing you never quite managed to grasp is that if you’re top of your class, it’s amazing how much the professors will let slide” Teddy explained. “I mean, if they’d kicked me out it would have literally screwed up the curve. You might have gotten a few less detentions if you’d knuckled down on your studies back then.”
“Pssh, what was the point?” James countered unconcernedly. “Fair enough, you’re doing alright for yourself now, but so am I, Ted. I’m doing my dream job, with just a handful of NEWTS. So in the end, did it really matter?”
“I suppose not, but I’ll always have the bragging rights, and no-one can take that away from me” he said calmly, and James chuckled.
“Your CV must be looking pretty good now” James ventured. “Top of your class, a ton of NEWTS, Senior Auror.”
“I’m nothing if not an overachiever” Teddy agreed, smiling.
“I reckon you could easily walk into any job you wanted, if you were to move” James replied. His tone was casual, but Teddy felt a pit form in his stomach nonetheless at the unexpected mention of the uncomfortable topic he thought they’d been successfully avoiding. He knew exactly what James was doing, broaching it now while he’d caught Teddy in a good mood.
“Maybe” Teddy replied evasively, pausing for a very awkward moment or two before opting to just brush past it. He wasn’t going to play this game. Not now. “The promotion hasn’t technically been approved yet” he went on conversationally. “It’s probably sat at the bottom of a stack of paperwork on the minister’s desk. I’d be surprised if she gets to it before Christmas. But Harry’s unofficially already given it to me. He’s made himself my new line manager too, so I guess I really AM his protégé now.”
“Teddy” James said, in a ‘don’t try and bullshit me’ kind of tone, and any semblance of good will on Teddy’s end evaporated completely.
“James” he replied matching his tone, knowing full well how petulant this would sound and not caring at all. He heard James sigh heavily.
“So we’re not going to talk about it at all?” James asked him, sounding rather unimpressed.
“Talk about what, James?” Teddy asked him irritably. “You have something you want to say? Or would you rather keep making not-so-subtle references to it?”
He expected James to reply with some snarky comment to that, but there a long pause on the other end of the line, which made Teddy pull his phone away from his ear to look at the screen and check the call was still connected.
“James, you still there?” he asked, putting the phone back to his ear.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m here” James replied, something in his voice much more defeated than it had been a moment ago, causing Teddy to actually feel slightly bad about his attitude. He frowned as he switched the phone to his other ear, freeing up his right hand to pick at a loose thread near the knee of his jeans
“Teddy, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this for a while” James offered in the same downbeat tone. “I was actually supposed to talk to you about it when you were out here, but… I sort of bottled it.”
“You got something to tell me?” Teddy asked darkly. He had a flashback to the restaurant where they had gone for dinner with Ella, and Teddy remembered James’s face when she had brought up that Mo was having an awful lot of meetings with the funding board. Maybe James had known more about that than he was letting on.
“Mo said I should see what you think about the possibility of me taking a long term job out here” James replied carefully, and Teddy refrained from audibly sighing with a great deal of difficulty. He put a frustrated hand over his eyes, squeezing his temples while he breathed out slowly, trying his best to stay calm.
“Teddy?” James prompted him worriedly, after a few beats of silence.
“Is this you asking me what I think?” Teddy asked, keeping his voice steady for the most part, even if it did come out rather cold.
“You don’t have to give me a definitive answer right now” James replied slowly. “But it would be good to know what’s going through your head, at least.”
Teddy did sigh audibly this time, removing his hand from over his face and staring blankly up at the ceiling while he tried to decide exactly how much of what he thought about this it would be wise to share with James. It was fair enough of him to ask, but in an ideal world Teddy would have liked a little more time to martial his thoughts before answering.
“I don’t know, James” Teddy said wearily. “I just got my promotion. Me and Harry are doing really well…” There was probably never a time when James asking Teddy to leave his job would have been met with anything other than a resounding no, but now was probably the absolute worst time for James to broach the subject. He had to know that.
“I know” James replied, sounding uneasy. “But you wouldn’t be losing the promotion. You’d come in at that level over here.”
“James, I…” Teddy scrunched up his eyes in frustration. He couldn’t give the answer that James wanted. He just couldn’t. “What do you want me to say?”
“I want you to tell me what you think” James replied, sounding like he was started to get irritated. This did nothing to calm Teddy down, who felt James had no right to be annoyed about this conversation if he was the one instigating it.
“You already know what I think” Teddy replied flatly, internally screaming in frustration. “What do you think has changed between now and then? Besides me having even more reason to want to stay?”
“So that’s it, is it? You won’t even talk about it?” James shot back angrily.
“Talk about what, James? What more is there to say?” Teddy replied irritably. He briefly considered cutting his losses and just hanging up here and now, now that they had started arguing. Nothing constructive was going to be said by either of them from here on out.
“You won’t even TRY and see things from my point of view, will you?” James said accusatorially, and Teddy scowled.
“Funny, because it feels to me like YOU’RE the one who’s just ignoring what I want in all of this” Teddy growled. “From day one you’ve ignored what I wanted. I thought you should give your job at the ministry another go, but no, what the fuck do I know? It’s not like I’ve been working there for three years more than you have.”
“It’s not the same, and you KNOW it” James shot back angrily. “You don’t know anything about my job.”
“Clearly” Teddy scoffed. “I don’t know what the hell you and Mo are talking about over there, because I thought the agreement you and I made was that you’d come home after six months and decide what to do from there.”
“We always knew this was a possibility, Teddy” James replied insistently. “That it could lead to a permanent job. This isn’t news!”
“Like fuck, it isn’t” Teddy replied angrily. “So what, you just don’t want to come home now? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“I’m not telling you anything!” James countered defensively. “I’m TRYING to have a conversation with you about it.”
“You’re dropping a fucking bombshell on me, and then acting like I’m overreacting to it, that’s what you’re doing” Teddy told him heatedly.
“You ARE overreacting” James retorted indignantly. “I’m sorry if this feels like an ambush, but I don’t know how the hell else I’m supposed to bring it up with you, when you won’t fucking TALK to me.”
“A great lot of fucking good talking has done us” Teddy growled.
“Well it’s better than NOT talking” James countered sternly.
“Right” Teddy scoffed. “Is that why this is the only the second phone call we’ve had in three weeks?” James apparently had nothing to say to that, so Teddy pressed on, venting some more of his anger.
“Not that I had anything to say to you anyway, since I found out you don’t give a fucking shit about us being apart like this, but it might have been nice if you at least kept up the appearance. You know, you ARE supposed to be my boyfriend James. That might not mean anything to you, but it DOES to me.”
“Teddy… That’s not fair” James said seriously.
“None of this is fair, James” Teddy cried, letting out a humourless laugh. “Do you really think any of this is even the slightest bit fair on ME?”
“You TOLD me to go” James replied defensively. “Remember? You said you were OK with it. How was I supposed to know you weren’t? I’m not a mind reader, Teddy!”
“YOU told me we’d be fine, and I believed you” Teddy replied coldly. “Guess that makes us both liars.”
The longest silence yet followed, but this time Teddy didn’t need to check if the call had dropped. He knew James was still there, letting all of that sink in. Teddy waited for his response, fury still coursing through his veins. He wasn’t the slightest bit sorry about what any of he’d just said. if anything, he felt he’d held back a little. He could have said much worse.
When James’s voice finally broke the pointed silence, to Teddy’s slight surprise, he sounded extremely worried.
“Ted… we’re not OK, are we?” James asked fearfully, and Teddy had to work hard to refrain from letting out another humourless laugh at that. Was he really only just realising that?
“No James, we’re not” Teddy replied flatly. “And if you didn’t know that before now, then it’s worse than I thought.”
There was another long pause, in which James made a couple of noises which sounded like he was about to say something, but then thought better of it. The third time around, Teddy realised that whatever James was working up the courage to say, Teddy didn’t want to hear it. He was done. Done arguing about it, done talking about it, done thinking about it. He was just done. He hung up the phone, without even bothering to say goodbye.
He stared at the mobile in his hand for a few seconds after doing so, James’s name and number on the screen. He wanted to throw the damn thing across the room, but he refrained from doing so, slamming it down on the coffee table next to him instead, with probably an unnecessary amount of force.
“FUCK” he yelled into the empty flat, still lying back on the sofa and staring up at the ceiling, his mind swirling.
-
Teddy stumbled back into the flat a few hours later, holding a box of wine under one arm, haphazardly closing the door behind him with his free hand. After stewing on his argument with James for quite some time, he needed to get out and do something, so he had gone out for some drinks with some of his work colleagues. It was an adequate enough distraction, they had all wanted to hear him talk about his case and the arrest with Harry. Some of the more academically minded ones had wanted to hear about the paper he was now working on with Draco about using the borehole charm through the portal.
Unfortunately, his friends had all dispersed as the night went on, despite Teddy’s best attempts to persuade someone – anyone – to keep it going. He wasn’t ready to go back to reality yet, so his last ditch attempt was now to cajole Luke into getting smashed with him. He didn’t think it would take an awful lot of persuasion, Luke was pretty keen to avoid reality too these days. And it was Friday night, after all.
“Honey, I’m home” he called out as he made his way towards the living room. He knew Luke was home as the lights were on - Luke had grown up in a very money-conscious home, and never left lights on in a room he wasn’t using.
“You sound drunk” Luke replied amusedly, looking up at Teddy with a smirk as he entered the room. Luke was lounging back on the sofa, smoking a cigarette, with the TV on. No, this wouldn’t do at all.
“I’m not that drunk” Teddy lied. Well, it wasn’t entirely a lie. He was by no means sober, but he also knew he could go on for at least another couple of hours before getting to the point where he could barely stand anymore. And that was exactly what he intended to do.
“Mmm hmm” Luke replied sceptically, puffing regally on his cigarette as he eyed Teddy up and down. “So what’s that you have there?” he asked, nodding towards the box under Teddy’s arm.
“The finest white wine you can get from our corner shop for less than a fiver” Teddy told him, placing it down on the coffee table in front of him. Luke looked pained as he leaned forward to take a look.
“Oh, Teddy” he said, sounding extremely disappointed, and Teddy laughed.
“I ran out of muggle cash” Teddy told him, shrugging. “Going out tonight was a bit of a spur of the moment decision.”
“And you thought this was a good solution, did you?” Luke asked incredulously, and Teddy laughed again.
“YOU have become far too much of a wine snob, and I think it’s high time you were reminded of where you came from” Teddy shot back at him, and Luke raised an eyebrow.
“I’m not drinking this” he said flatly.
“You ARE” Teddy insisted. “And then we’re going back out. I want to go dancing.”
“Are you serious?” Luke asked him dubiously.
“Yeah” Teddy grinned excitedly. “Why not?” Luke laughed.
“Because it’s eleven o’clock, and I’m not seventeen anymore?” he offered, taking another dignified drag of his cigarette while looking at Teddy like he’d gone mad.
“You’re not seventy, either” Teddy told him firmly, taking the cigarette from him and taking a long puff for himself. “We used to go out later than this all the time. Clubs are dead until midnight, anyway” he added matter-of-factly, and Luke smiled at him, looking greatly amused.
“Are you having some sort of mid-life crisis?” Luke asked mildly.
“I don’t know. Maybe” Teddy shrugged. Reason didn’t really concern him all that much right now. “All I know is that I’m going to lose my fucking mind if I don’t blow off some steam. We’ve been sat in this flat night after night for months on end now, Luke.”
“You don’t HAVE to stay in with me, you know” Luke replied rather defensively, apparently taking that as a dig at him. Teddy hadn’t meant for it to be one. “You can go out without me if you want, I don’t need babysitting” he frowned
“No no no, that’s not what I meant” Teddy told him hastily, sitting down on the sofa next to Luke and handing him the cigarette back in an attempt to placate him. It sort of worked, he did stop glaring at Teddy, but he still looked mildly affronted as he took a drag from it. Teddy got the feeling he was going to have to call on a stronger persuasive argument here to get Luke on side.
“Luke, we used to go out practically every night” Teddy put to him. “We fucking terrorized this town. We’ve been thrown out of so many clubs I’m surprised they don’t have wanted posters of us up in Shoreditch.” Luke snickered at that, and Teddy grinned widely. It was a gross exaggeration, but there was certainly some truth in it.
“You’re my partner in crime” Teddy implored him, and Luke’s annoyance was visibly disappearing now. He was starting to look amused again, and Teddy knew his speech was working. “I don’t want to go out without you. I want to fucking paint this town red with you, like we used to. Tell me you don’t miss it.” Teddy paused there for a response, but Luke didn’t give him one, merely eyeing Teddy rather haughtily while he continued to smoke his cigarette. There was smile playing on his lips, though, and Teddy knew they were almost there.
“It’s been a shit year” Teddy offered calmly. “I’ve not really wanted to go out either. But you know what? Why the fuck shouldn’t we? Maybe this is exactly what we need. To let loose, to fucking vent some of this fucking pressure that’s been building up. To feel like ourselves again.” Something in Luke’s expression noticeably changed at that, and Teddy knew he had hit on the right spot with it, so he kept pressing. “I miss it, Luke. I miss the way we used to be, like London was OUR fucking town and no-one could stop us. Before James even came along, it was you and me out on the town, every Friday without fail. Well…” Luke was grinning now, and Teddy knew he had already won, but now he had momentum, he figured he might as well deal the final blow. “It’s just you and me here now. So let’s do it. Let’s make London our fucking bitch.”
Luke burst out laughing at that, slapping Teddy in the arm as he tossed his head backwards, laughing harder than Teddy had seen him laugh in a long time. Teddy merely grinned expectantly, waiting for him to regain his composure.
“Have you heard yourself?” Luke choked out, still laughing, but having regained enough coherence to shoot that at Teddy, who took it in stride.
“What?” he replied, faux-innocently.
“Make London our bitch” Luke repeated as though this were the stupidest thing he had ever heard, and Teddy would admit, perhaps that had been a tad too far. But he couldn’t say he regretted it when Luke was finding it so funny, the widest smile on his face that Teddy had seen since perhaps even before his mother had died.
“Oh my god, I forgot what a fucking knob you are without James to reign you in” Luke said, still laughing.
“Pssshh” Teddy replied flippantly. “You think he reigns me in?”
“I know you’ll say that he doesn’t, because you want to think he’s just as bad as you, but he really fucking isn’t” Luke told him, still grinning gleefully. “You’re the worst” Luke started laughing again, and although Teddy knew he probably ought to be offended by that, he couldn’t quite bring himself to be at the moment.
“Oh, you fucking love it” Teddy shot back at him, smirking.
“Make London our bitch, jesus fucking christ, I’m putting that on your tombstone” Luke told him happily.
“Tell me you haven’t missed this” Teddy grinned back.
“Yeah, I really have” Luke admitted, shaking his head in disbelief. “Go and get some fucking glasses then” he added, jerking his head towards the kitchen. Teddy didn’t need telling twice. Grinning victoriously, he jumped up from the sofa to go and get a couple of Luke’s least fancy wine glasses, feeling like it would probably be some sort of insult to be drinking cheap boxed wine out of the nice ones. Hell, maybe they should be drinking the stuff out of mugs.
“This is going to be vile” Luke said to him, gesturing to the wine as Teddy returned to the living room.
“You’ve just got to choke down the first glass, it’ll get better after that” Teddy shrugged, and Luke grimaced distastefully.
“How do I let you talk me into these things?” Luke said somewhat rhetorically, as he filled one of the glasses from the little spout in the box.
“Oh, like it was THAT hard” Teddy countered good naturedly. “You like to pretend I’m a bad influence, but I don’t make you do anything you don’t already want to.”
“That should be your middle name. Teddy ‘bad influence’ Lupin” Luke shot back at him, apparently opting to disregard the rest of that statement.
“What would that make you?” Teddy retorted with a smirk. “Luke ‘needs-very-little-encouragement-to-be-a-little-shit’ Kowalski?”
“My middle name is Stanislaw, as you well know” Luke replied in a faux-dignified voice, and Teddy cracked up. It wasn’t at all, Luke just told people that to make himself sound more exotic.
“Your middle name is Oliver” Teddy reminded him firmly as Luke handed him a rather over-filled glass of the disconcertingly yellow-ish wine. Luke made a dismissive gesture, as though that were besides the point, while Teddy shook his head in disbelief.
-
Luke had been right, the wine had been vile, but it had done the job. So had the tequila shots they’d both done on first arriving at the bar. And so had the several drinks that had followed.
Teddy was rapidly losing control of his faculties, but that didn’t concern him very much. That was what he’d been aiming for, after all. He’d succeeded in his goal of getting too drunk to focus on his problems anymore, but in the process had effectively deadened his senses to the point where he couldn’t really focus on anything much at all. He and Luke were on the dancefloor of a packed club, but he didn’t entirely remember how they had gotten there. Time seemed to be passing in short, intense bursts, rather than a continuous stream, his memories of this evening so far nothing more than a series of random flashes. Passing a group of girls in the street who wolf whistled at them both, Luke trying to charm the bouncer into letting them in the club for free, Teddy spilling vodka all over the bar and hastily walking away before they threw him out for being too drunk. He and Luke arm in arm singing along to a song he couldn’t quite remember. Due to this curious lack of consistency in his short term memory, Teddy was struggling to piece together a solid understanding of what was happening around him. But again, that didn’t really concern him right now. All he had to do was just keep dancing.
Luke was in a right state. He probably thought he was playing it cool, throwing shapes to the pop music blasting out over the crowd, but in reality he was staggering all over the place, limbs flailing intermittently. Teddy was laughing his head off at him. He hadn’t seen Luke this pissed since their early twenties, and it was quite a sight to behold. Especially since he had started scouting out the people around them, likely looking for the prospect of a shag. His ‘don’t you think I’m cool and intriguing' face he made every time he locked eyes with someone was coming off a little too ‘blue steel' a-la-Zoolander for Teddy, who lost it completely every time it happened.
Teddy was vaguely aware that he probably looked no better, but he only found that even funnier. He wasn’t trying to impress anyone in here, and he sure as hell wasn’t looking to pull. In fact, he was quite into the idea of making an absolute fool of himself. It would be something to have a laugh about tomorrow, when he and Luke would both be in the depths of a hangover of legendary proportions. One of them was almost certainly going to vomiting in the gutter before the night was out, and Teddy was rather tickled by the unspoken competition between them to see which one it would be. It was childish in the extreme to try and drink your mate under the table, and Teddy was fully aware that he and Luke should both be above that sort of thing by now. But what was tonight if not reliving their younger, freer, less problematic days?
In fact, Teddy was toying with the idea of heading over to the bar and getting them another drink, to try and tip those scales in his favour, but it suddenly occurred to him that he needed to empty his bladder first. The urge had come on quite rapidly, and as Teddy pushed his way through the thick crowd towards the bathroom, he wondered if the sudden, bursting urge to take a piss had indeed come out of nowhere, or if it had been gradually building for a while, but in his rather numb state he had only just noticed it. Option B seemed more likely, and Teddy frowned as he pondered this. He was happy to report that he had never once in his adult life peed his pants, or wet the bed. But that sort of thing wasn’t uncommon when one was blackout drunk, he certainly had some friends who that had happened to. Hmm, maybe another drink wasn’t a good idea.
“Pfft, when did I become so sensible?” Teddy asked an absolute stranger who was lingering around outside the toilets, looking at their phone. They looked up at him, looking surprised and confused, and Teddy merely laughed brightly, patting them on the shoulder as he passed and making a beeline for the gents.
There were quite a few people at the urinals, and Teddy didn’t quite fancy standing shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of blokes while he relieved himself, so he ducked into one of the cubicles. It was surprisingly quiet inside, the thin partition further muffling the low thrum of music that was permeating through the wall into the bathroom. Or perhaps it was just the absence of hundreds of strangers surrounding him and very much in his personal space that made the relative solitude inside the cubicle feel jarringly tranquil in comparison. Either way, without the context of stumbling around a club dancefloor, Teddy was forced to confront exactly how drunk he was, and it took even him by surprise. His eyes didn’t seem to want to stay still, even as he tried to focus on the toilet bowl in front of him it felt like it was constantly moving.
“Fuck...” Teddy muttered. This wasn’t good. There was nothing for it, if he couldn’t see the thing he couldn’t very well aim at it, so he was going to have to sit.
He turned around and pulled down his rather tight fitting jeans with some difficulty, before sinking down into a seat. Well, it was more like falling down onto the seat, if he was honest about it. As he went down, he heard a clattering sound, but he was in no state to start investigating what had made the noise. He was too busy holding onto the walls of the cubicle with both hands to keep himself upright, closing his eyes and taking deep breaths.
To throw up, or not to throw up. A tactical chunder may well be just what the doctor ordered. But Teddy did not especially want to stick his fingers down his throat in a dingy club toilet, with who knows how many people on the other side of the door listening. Then again, he may not even have to induce it himself at this rate. If the room didn’t stop spinning soon, his body was probably going to do it for him.
Teddy’s eyes snapped open, as he was struck by a sudden realisation. His brain must be moving incredibly slowly if it had taken him this long to register what the clattering sound from earlier must have been. Teddy scrambled up from the seat, haphazardly pulling his pants back up and leaning over the toilet bowl, peering into it. Yep, that was his phone. Right there, at the bottom of the u-bend. Completely submerged in piss.
Teddy lost his balance, and swore probably more loudly this time, as he slammed sideways into the cubicle wall, right into the massive bruise on his hip, which throbbed painfully. Unfortunately, in the process of falling sideways, one of his knees had buckled (maybe that’s what had caused him to fall in the first place?) and he had only avoided collapsing onto the floor by taking a knee. He could now feel liquid slowly seeping through the fabric of his jeans where said knee was in contact with the floor. He very much hoped it was water, but if he was honest with himself, he knew it almost certainly wasn’t.
“Bollocks" Teddy growled irritably, scrambling up from the floor again, trying his best to engage his brain. He needed to think, he had to make a decision here about what to do about the phone, but his brain was being rather uncooperative, and remained quite stubbornly blank. He was trying hard to think of a solution, but he couldn’t see any way around it- he was either going to abandon the phone entirely, or he was going to stick his hand into a bowl full of piss. And the longer he stood around contemplating it, the worse it was going to be. And the less likely it was that there would be anything that still worked left to recover.
Making up his mind a moment later, Teddy plunged his hand into the toilet, scrunching up his face in disgust as he fished it out. He tried not to gag as he shook the excess drips off it back into the bowl. He then hastily exited the cubicle and headed straight for the sink, holding the phone at arms length away from himself.
He gave both the phone and his hand a thorough rinsing. He didn’t particularly want to put the thing back in his pocket, but he didn’t have much of a choice, squirming as the wetness of it seeped through the material of his inside pocket through to his thigh. With both hands freed up again, Teddy proceeded to lather his whole forearm up with hand soap several times. He caught sight of himself in the mirror above the sink while doing so, and although Teddy would be the first to admit he was still visibly shitfaced, at least his vision wasn’t spinning anymore. Small mercies.
He made his way back out into the club to find Luke again on the dancefloor. The music was so loud it was like being slapped in the face as he opened the bathroom door, and Teddy actually took a staggering step backwards as it hit him. He recovered quickly, however, and started worming his way back through the crowd.
“Luke" Teddy called out to him as he approached. Luke didn’t hear him over the music, which Teddy shouldn’t really have been surprised about, but it annoyed him anyway. For his part, Luke didn’t look as though he’d even noticed that Teddy had gone. He was still swaying absent-mindedly to the music, looking all around as he did some bizarre upper body dance moves with both arms.
“Luke" Teddy said again as he reached him, draping an arm over his shoulders and shouting into his ear, so he couldn’t possibly ignore him.
“Teddy!” Luke replied excitedly, clapping him on the back, as though they were being reunited after a long time apart. Teddy fought back a laugh.
“I dropped my phone in-" Teddy hesitated for a second before going on. “In water. What do I do?”
Luke pulled back to laugh brightly at that, before holding out both hands and shouting a single word.
“Rice!” He looked very pleased with himself, and Teddy frowned in confusion.
“Rice?” Teddy asked incredulously. He couldn’t possibly have heard that right.
“You need rice" Luke said, nodding sagely, and Teddy wanted to smack him, a sudden flare of irritation flashing through him.
“What the fuck are you talking about, rice?” Teddy demanded, and Luke laughed again. Unless rice was slang for some muggle thing that Teddy didn’t know about, Luke must be winding him up.
“Put it in rice" Luke said, in that same infuriatingly smug tone. “Magic" he added, doing a ‘ta-da' sort of gesture with both hands. Teddy responded to this by pulling him into a headlock.
“This isn’t funny, you dick" Teddy told him, as Luke continued to laugh whilst trying to pull himself free. “This is my only way of talking to James.”
“Calm the fuck down, you drama queen" Luke replied slightly irritably as Teddy released him and he straightened up, frowning at him. “You can use mine until you get it sorted.”
The panic that Teddy had barely registered he was feeling lessened at that, and he unclenched ever so slightly. The moment was short lived, however, as a stranger apparently decided this was the perfect moment to wander into their dance space, stopping in the small amount of space in between Luke and Teddy and looking back and forth between the two of them. In their drunken states, it took both Luke and Teddy a moment to realise that this newcomer appeared to have stopped there intentionally, and they both stared at him blankly.
“Hello boys" the rather handsome stranger said in a low and seductive voice. While Teddy was still taking this in, Luke pulled his vogue face again, and Teddy dissolved into laughter.
“Something I said?” the man addressed Luke with a slightly raised eyebrow, and Luke tilted his head coyly while he looked the stranger up and down.
“Ignore him, he’s drunk" Luke said, waving a dismissive hand towards Teddy, who sobered up considerably as he realised what was happening. It wasn’t in his usual MO to cock block his friends, but he was currently residing on Luke’s sofa. This whole prospect had awkward written all over it.
“Are you two...?” The stranger enquired, pointing at Luke and Teddy.
“Together?” Teddy asked, and he nodded.
“No, no, fuck...” Luke replied hastily, and Teddy made a noise of protest. He could sound a little less horrified by the idea. “Just friends" Luke added with a wide smile, and the stranger returned it politely, before turning to Teddy with a different sort of smile entirely.
“Can I buy you a drink?” the stranger asked Teddy, and Luke frowned, looking annoyed. Unable to help himself from smirking about this, Teddy gave an apologetic shrug to the stranger.
“I have a boyfriend" Teddy told him.
“Oh yeah?” The stranger replied vaguely. This apparently did not deter him, as he took a step closer towards Teddy to mutter the next part to him, as though he didn’t want Luke to overhear it.
“How come he’s not out with you tonight, then?” the stranger asked in a playful tone. Teddy scowled at this. What exactly was this prick implying?
“He’s in New Zealand” Teddy told him coldly. “For work.”
“That’s a long way away" the stranger replied, his tone suggesting this was nothing more than a casual observation, but his eyes suggesting something very different.
“Don’t I fucking know it" Teddy replied bitterly, the words taking himself by surprise as they came out.
“You must need someone to keep you company while he’s away" the stranger pressed on, looking pleased. Teddy felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He felt wrong just for having this conversation in the first place. For discussing the matter at all with a total stranger in a club. For the modicum of truth behind the stranger’s words.
“Get the fuck away from me" Teddy spat at him, literally pushing him aside with one arm and heading straight for the exit.
Another bizarre memory lapse occurred and the next thing Teddy knew he was standing outside on the street, feeling like he wanted to punch something. He had no recollection of actually leaving the club, his brain fixating instead on the stranger muttering into his ear in a sultry voice, his eyes undressing Teddy. Teddy felt it as vividly as if it was still happening. He felt vaguely sick.
Being hit on in a club wasn’t so unusual, it’s not like it was the first time it had happened since he and James had gotten together. But it was the first time that it had ever happened when his and James’s relationship was in very real trouble. The first time that Teddy felt some stranger trying to persuade him that his boyfriend was absent and therefore inconsequential, actually sort of had a point. Teddy had no interest whatsoever in going home with anyone else tonight, or ever, really. The rather visceral reaction he was currently having to even thinking about it was proof enough of that. But the horrible fact of the matter was that what that stranger had said to him in there (even though he was probably only saying it to try and orchestrate a situation in which Teddy would go home with him and fuck him) was right. New Zealand was a really fucking long way away, and Teddy had no-one taking care of him while James was there. James should be here. He should be with Teddy.
Teddy tried his best to stop his mind from going there, but he didn’t have very much control over it at the moment, and he couldn’t stop himself from wondering if James had ever had a similar encounter, over in New Zealand. A tall, dark and handsome stranger approaching him in a bar, while his half-forgotten boyfriend was half the world away. It wasn’t so hard to imagine, James had people throwing themselves at him everywhere he went. Teddy had witnessed it a thousand times before they got together - some random guy whispering in his ear, the wicked grin that broke out across James’s face, that glint in his eye while he muttered something raunchy back to them. Teddy had watched it happen from the other side of the dancefloor over and over again, for a long time before he’d had the courage to admit to himself that he wanted to be the one James was whispering filthy things to. It made Teddy feel even more sick to contemplate the idea of it happening now, with anyone but him.
Would James react the same way? If some fuck boy approached him on the dancefloor and starting suggesting that they were on different continents, so it didn’t count... would James push him away? Or would he smile back, with that look in his eye? For all Teddy knew he could be doing exactly that right this very second.
“Teddy, are you alright?” Luke’s concerned voice came from behind Teddy, making him jump out of his skin.
“I trust him" Teddy said abruptly, an almost automatic response, as he turned around to face Luke. “He’d never do that to me” Teddy went on firmly, not really sure if he was trying to convince Luke or himself at this point.
Luke merely looked confused, raising an eyebrow at Teddy as he wordlessly handed Teddy his leather jacket. Teddy had forgotten about the thing entirely, he and Luke had dumped their jackets over the back of a chair near the bar right when they’d first arrived at the club. On reflection, Teddy should be fucking freezing out here, it was December after all, but he hadn’t even noticed. He pulled the jacket on anyway, stuffing his rather uncooperative limbs into the sleeves with some difficulty, while Luke lit a cigarette calmly, exhaling a long puff of smoke and surveying Teddy pensively before speaking again.
“Would you like to elaborate?” Luke asked him calmly, offering the open cigarette packet to Teddy, who took one without even thinking about it, taking the muggle lighter out of the packet where Luke had stashed it as well.
“James” Teddy told him, his voice somewhat muffled due to the fact that he had the cigarette in his mouth while lighting it. “He gets it all the time, doesn’t he?” Teddy went on, but had to pause there to take a deep drag of the cigarette to light it properly, passing the lighter back to Luke as he exhaled. Luke still looked like he didn’t really know what Teddy was talking about, and Teddy realised with another flare of irritation that he was going to have to spell it out for him.
“He wouldn’t cheat on me, would he?” Teddy asked Luke baldly. He had meant for it to come out in a casual tone, as though he wasn’t really asking, because he already knew. As if it went without saying. Unfortunately it hadn’t really come out that way, his obvious worry very clear in his voice.
“Teddy” Luke said gently, his expression softening. “Of course he wouldn’t. What’s made you think that?”
“That fucking dickhead in there" Teddy replied angrily, gesturing towards the club behind Luke. “Who definitely has a New Zealand counterpart who’s all over my boyfriend right this very second.”
Luke apparently needed a moment to unpack that, staring at Teddy with a frown on for a good ten seconds at least before replying.
“Alright, well” Luke said finally, taking another inhale of smoke before going on. “First of all, there’s no one all over your boyfriend right now, because it’s-" he glanced at his watch “- one o'clock in the afternoon there.”
“Oh, that’s a great comfort" Teddy scoffed. Luke merely raised an eyebrow at this, in a sort of ‘are you done being a brat?’ expression, and Teddy, felt ever so slightly bad about being so snarky to his best friend. He made an apologetic face, which Luke merely returned with a disdainful expression.
“As far as there being guys like that potentially all over your man in New Zealand" Luke went on, as though there had been no interruption. “I think we both know that’s a very real possibility” he conceded, gesturing with the hand he was holding his cigarette in. “But we also both know he’d do exactly what you just did, which is tell the guy he has a boyfriend, and then tell him to back the fuck up.”
“He would, wouldn’t he?” Teddy replied, a little uncertainly, and Luke nodded sagely. Teddy frowned as he did his best to believe that, taking a few more drags of his cigarette.
“Now, are you going to tell me where this is coming from?” Luke asked pointedly, and Teddy sighed.
“I... can’t” he shook his head, feeling completely exhausted all of a sudden. “I can’t get into it right now.”
“When do you think you can?” Luke pressed him. “Because you can’t keep doing th-" The rest of his sentence was drowned out by a group of four young men making their way past Teddy and Luke on the pavement. They were stood right in the middle of it, to be fair, but Teddy still felt very much like one of the passers by calling out quite rudely for them to move out of the way, and another one of them shoulder barging Luke as they passed was uncalled for.
“Hey, what the fuck!?” Teddy called out instinctively, while Luke merely looked unsure as to what had just happened, blinking confusedly.
“You got something to say, mate?” one of the men from the group turned around to say to Teddy, both his tone and stance clearly confrontational.
“You could have just said excuse me" Teddy retorted angrily.
“Who the fuck do you think you’re talking to?” the man demanded, looking enraged by this and taking a menacing step towards Teddy.
“Teddy, just leave it" Luke implored him, a sentiment that was echoed by a couple of the other group to their own friend. One of them was physically trying to push their mouthy friend back, but he was paying them no attention.
“Wouldn’t have been that hard, would it?” Teddy went on, ignoring Luke’s plea to let it go. He’d had just about enough of just rolling over and taking this shit from everyone. It was about time he stood up for himself. “Just a simple, ‘can we get past, please’? There’s no need to be such a dick about it.”
This was apparently more than the other man was willing to let slide, and before his friends managed to get hold of him and stop him, he had advanced towards Teddy, a rather meaty fist swinging through the air. If Teddy was being honest about it, that was exactly what he’d been hoping for. He dropped his cigarette and took a step forward to meet his aggressor in the middle, more than ready for it.
His job generally involved more magical duelling than hand to hand combat, but Teddy was by no means an amateur in fist fighting, and he deflected his attacker’s first swing with ease, knocking him off balance in the process and catching him with an uppercut while he staggered sideways. Teddy’s knuckles made contact with the man’s jaw with a sickening thud, and as the man went down, for the first time in a very long time, Teddy felt powerful.
There was a moment of stunned silence in which Teddy breathed heavily, adrenaline coursing through him from the altercation. He was stood over the man he had just decked, who was flat on his back on the floor, looking like he didn’t understand how this could possibly have happened. Teddy glanced up at the others from his group just in time to see their faces turn from shock into anger and outrage. At the same time, one of them let out what was probably a cry of anguish for their fallen friend, but Teddy heard it as a battle cry, which is ultimately what it turned out to be, since all hell broke loose a second later.
Teddy wasn’t sure on the logistics of how it had actually happened, but now he and Luke both were enlisted into a full on brawl. In between fending off a swinging fist from one man, while landing a pre-emptive punch on another who was advancing towards him, Teddy managed to look over to Luke, who was being socked in the eye by someone else. Teddy saw Luke recoil from the impact as though in slow motion, and this angered him so much he redoubled him efforts, lashing out at just about anyone within range. He wasn’t even defending himself anymore, he no longer cared if anyone landed a hit on him, as long as he got twice as many on them. Luke hadn’t even wanted to get into this in the first place. He didn’t deserve this.
When Teddy managed to glance back over he was pleased to see that Luke’s own inner brawler had come out, and he was holding his own well enough. Nowadays he hid it quite well, but Luke had grown up in a rough neighbourhood, a scrappy young lad, not afraid of a scuffle. Although he knew it probably shouldn’t, it did warm Teddy’s heart a little to see him like this again, fists flying while he shouted things like “come on then” and “is that the best you can do?”
Teddy wasn’t sure how long it went on for, it can’t have been that long in the grand scheme of things. All he knew is that he wasn’t stopping until all of them were down. He’d taken far too many hits lately, he wasn’t going to let this be just another thing in the long line of events from this past year beating him down. He was Teddy fucking Lupin, and he sure as shit wasn’t going to let some street thug get the better of him.
Despite them being outnumbered two to one, Teddy and Luke did seem to have the upper hand. Or so Teddy thought, until a new voice was added in amongst all the shouting, and a pair of hands seized Teddy’s shoulders from behind. Feeling very much ambushed, Teddy sent a sharp elbow backwards into whoever had hold of him, which made them release him immediately, a low grunt of pain sounding out. Not wanting to waste his advantage, Teddy wheeled around and sent a punch straight out at the newcomer, his fist smacking into their face approximately two seconds before Teddy had chance to register that they were wearing a muggle police uniform.
“Oh, fuck...” Teddy breathed, while someone else grabbed hold of him from behind again, this time restraining both of his arms behind his back. Teddy didn’t resist this time, looking quickly around for Luke while the person behind him (who could only be another police officer) marched him forward.
They slammed him onto the side of the police car, and although the pain didn’t really register, it still knocked the wind out of him, and Teddy heard himself let out a grunt. He still couldn’t see Luke, and was hoping that meant he had gotten away. The next thing he knew, his hands were in cuffs behind his back, and he was being shoved unceremoniously into the back of the car.
“Shit, shit, shit” Teddy muttered to himself, still looking wildly around out of the window for Luke. He wasn’t looking for very long though, as a minute later a handcuffed Luke was pushed into the car as well by the muggle police officers. Quite at odds to Teddy, he didn’t seem particularly perturbed by this turn of events. He was actually looking rather pleased with himself.
“Luke, this is bad” Teddy told him in a low voice. He needn’t really have bothered trying to keep it down, there was no-one in the front seat, the officers were rounding up some of the boys from the other side of the fight, stuffing them into another car parked in front of this one.
“Do you have your wand on you?” Teddy asked seriously. Luke wasn’t paying Teddy or the police officers an awful lot of attention, merely squirming to try and find a comfortable seating position with both of his arms restrained behind his back as they were.
“No, we didn’t bring them out, did we?” Luke replied quite unconcernedly. Teddy already knew that, they often didn’t take their wands out when going out to muggle bars, in case they lost them. But he had to ask, on the off chance that Luke had for any reason.
“Luke, we need to get out of this” Teddy told him urgently, Luke’s evident lack of worry about the situation making him panic even more. “When they run my name through the database it’s going to send a notification to my line manager at work” Teddy explained. This was standard procedure in the auror office, as they often found themselves in scenarios that were difficult to explain to the muggle authorities, and it wasn’t uncommon at all for them to be arrested. In fact, Teddy had been arrested by muggle police twice before whilst carrying out his auror work, and his manager had come down and collected him, modifying the memories of the arresting officers on the way out.
“So just give them a fake name” Luke suggested, shrugging.
“And when they go through my wallet and all my cards have Edward Lupin on them, then what?” Teddy scowled.
“Well I don’t know” Luke replied defensively, apparently not pleased with Teddy’s tone.
“Luke, it’s going to notify my line manager” Teddy stressed to him, aggravated that Luke wasn’t understanding the significance of this point. “As of this week when the paperwork was put through for my promotion, that’s Harry.”
“Oh… fuck…” Luke said slowly as this sank in.
“Oh fuck is right” Teddy muttered back to him, as one of the front doors of the car opened and a muggle police officer got into the drivers seat. He said nothing to Luke and Teddy, starting up the car before telling someone in his radio that he was ‘bringing them in now.’
“What are we going to do?” Teddy hissed to Luke, as the car pulled out into the road.
“I don’t think there’s anything we can do, mate” Luke replied quietly. Teddy knew he was right, but wasn’t quite ready to resign himself to it yet. He rode all the way to the station it a state of great agitation, his mind whirring for a way to somehow get himself out of this.
-
“Teddy, are you asleep?” Luke asked lazily, and Teddy’s eyes snapped open. He and Luke were both sat on a bench in the communal holding cell at the police station, slumped back against the wall. They had been here for what felt like at least an hour, but they had no way of knowing since both their watches had been confiscated on the way in, along with pretty much everything else they had on their possession. They were the only two in there, presumably the officers had taken the boys from the other side of the fight somewhere else. Probably for the best, all things considered, although Teddy wasn’t really holding onto any anger against them personally. In fact, it had all happened so quickly that Teddy didn’t even think he could have picked anyone from the other side of the fight out of a line-up.
“No, I’m not asleep” Teddy told Luke quietly. “Just thinking.”
“You wanna tell me what about?” Luke replied, matching his volume. “Not like we’ve got anything else to do while we’re waiting here” he added casually, and Teddy huffed a small laugh at his nonchalant tone. This whole thing hadn’t flustered him one bit, and Teddy half wondered if this hadn’t been his plan all along. To let Teddy hit rock bottom, so then he’d have no choice but to finally talk.
“I could be fired for this” Teddy told him seriously, glancing sideways to see his reaction. Luke frowned slightly, but there was something about the expression on his face that Teddy could tell meant the concern he was showing was for Teddy in general, rather than what Teddy had just said.
“Harry won’t fire you” Luke said, sounding quite certain about it.
“Probably not” Teddy conceded, leaning his head back against the wall and looking up towards the ceiling. “But anyone else, he might. And I’m sure as hell not going to get off scot free. I don’t know what he’s going to do with me.”
“What made you do it?” Luke asked, and Teddy turned back to him, a little taken aback by the directness of the question. But Luke never really had been one to beat around the bush.
“I dunno, man” Teddy sighed. He felt very tired. It had been a very long night, and it was nowhere near over yet.
“Well” Luke ventured calmly. “When I left you at the flat earlier today, you said you were going to phone James. How about we start there?”
“Luke, I…” Teddy replied wearily, feeling pained. He wanted to tell Luke to drop it, that he couldn’t talk about it right now. But they were probably past that point. And Luke was right, it’s not like they had anything else to do while they were waiting for Harry to come and bail them out.
“Everything is fucked” Teddy told him baldly, turning his head sideways to face him again.
“Well, yeah” Luke replied pointedly, and Teddy huffed another small and incredulous laugh. Luke shot him a fond smile before going on. “I can see that. I thought you going over there to see him would have made things better, but you’ve been so much worse since getting back. What happened out there?”
This took Teddy somewhat by surprise. Even though he hadn’t been particularly forthcoming with Luke himself on the matter, he would have thought James would have filled in the blanks for him.
“Didn’t he tell you?” Teddy asked, frowning.
“Not really” Luke replied evenly. “I don’t think I’ve spoken to him all that much more than you have.” Teddy was again surprised by this, and wasn’t sure whether to feel pleased that James wasn’t dragging Luke into it and was keeping it between the two of them, or whether to be put out that James really had just basically abandoned him, not even bothering to ask Luke for updates in between talking to Teddy himself. Teddy had just assumed that he would.
“So it’s just been you, then?” Teddy asked Luke, raising an eyebrow. Luke looked confused at this, and Teddy realised that as a standalone statement that didn’t really make sense, so he elaborated. “I thought you kept trying to make me talk about it so you could relay it back to James.”
“I wouldn’t go behind your back like that” Luke frowned, looking hurt by the mere suggestion, and Teddy felt a rush of affection towards him.
“I’m sorry, Luke” Teddy said sincerely, suddenly feeling genuinely awful for giving him the run-around for the past three weeks. And for dragging him into whatever the hell tonight had been. “I’ve been a really shitty friend lately” he added, more to himself than to Luke.
“I’m sorry too” Luke replied, frowning pensively. “I should have stopped you when I saw you start spiralling. Maybe I should have gone to James, I don’t know. That felt like crossing a line.”
“It’s not your job to stop me from spiralling” Teddy frowned back. “Fuck, I’M the one who’s supposed to be there for YOU at the minute. Wasn’t that the whole point of me moving in?”
“I thought it was a reciprocal thing” Luke shrugged. “We could both hold each other up.”
“Didn’t really work, did it?” Teddy muttered, looking away from Luke again and staring into space in front of him. It was somewhat of a rhetorical question. They both knew it to be true.
“No, it didn’t” Luke agreed anyway. There was a pause in the conversation before Luke spoke again.
“You asked me to tell you if I started drowning” Luke ventured, and Teddy turned back to him immediately. “But I didn’t” Luke shrugged calmly. His expression didn’t entirely match the weight of what he was saying, he looked slightly sad, but largely quite matter-of-fact about the subject, which only served to unsettle Teddy even more. Teddy felt his frown deepen as Luke went on.
“I knew you had your own shit you were dealing with, and I didn’t think there was anything you could do about mine anyway so…” Luke made a sort of ‘what can you do?’ kind of gesture with one hand, letting it flop back down on the bench next to him afterwards.
“You were drowning?” Teddy asked him worriedly, feeling like he really must be the worst friend in the world not to have noticed.
“Not all the time” Luke replied calmly. “But there’s been days when…” he trailed off, looking for a moment as though he didn’t think he should finish that sentence, but he apparently decided now was the time for some honesty, as he went on. “When I thought I’d never be OK, ever again” he admitted seriously.
“Luke” Teddy said softly, pulling him sideways into an almost headlock-like hug, which Luke resisted, pushing Teddy’s arms off of himself as he straightened up again.
“No, look, I’m not telling you this to…” Luke muttered dismissively, as he did so. “I’m just saying, I get it, alright? Why you don’t want to talk to me about it. And you don’t HAVE to, but…” he gestured around the cell they were sat in, giving Teddy a very pointed look, that matched his tone as he added “what the fuck are we doing here?”
“I’m sorry for dragging you into this” Teddy implored him again, but Luke shook his head at this, looking like Teddy was missing the point.
“Did you not hear what I just said?” he replied, but he sounded more exasperated than outright annoyed. “We’re just as bad as each other, Teddy. I could have pulled you away from that fight tonight, but I didn’t. Truth is, when I knocked that guy on his arse, it felt good. I felt better than I had in ages.”
Teddy took a moment to quietly reflect on that, remembering how pleased with himself Luke had looked back in the police car, and how good Teddy had felt himself every time he landed a punch on someone. The whole thing was pretty messed up.
“What are you saying, then?” Teddy asked. Luke was clearly trying to make a point of some sort here, but Teddy felt like his drunken brain was wading through some sort of thick, viscous liquid trying to keep up.
“I’m telling you, you need to sort your shit out, Teddy” Luke said firmly, and Teddy frowned again.
“What, you think I don’t KNOW that?” he replied indignantly.
“I know you know it” Luke replied, his tone softening. “But I’m saying it anyway. We can’t carry on like this. Any of us.” Teddy knew he was including James in that too, as well as the two of them.
“I know that too” Teddy replied, feeling exhausted again. “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen, Luke.”
“I know” Luke replied simply. He was wearing a sympathetic expression that was making Teddy feel pathetic so he looked away again, staring at the ceiling, but not really seeing it. A long silence followed, in which Teddy felt utterly hopeless. He could feel Luke’s eyes on him but he couldn’t bring himself to look back, or to do anything to mask the emotion on his face. It was very late, and there had been so much alcohol.
A few minutes later he was rather taken by surprise by Luke lifting a hand to wipe away some wetness from Teddy’s cheek. Teddy wasn’t even aware that he was crying, mainly because he wasn’t sobbing or anything, but he seemed to have no control over the fact that his eyes were leaking. Rather confusedly, he used his own hand to wipe the remaining tears off his other cheek, huffing a humourless laugh as he did so.
“Well this is just fucking ridiculous” he raised flippantly.
“It’s alright, Teddy” Luke said quietly, in a soothing voice.
“I don’t know why…” Teddy replied, nonplussed. It was true enough, there were any number of reasons Teddy could be crying right now, and he truly had no idea which it was. Some combination of all of them, probably.
“I could hazard a guess” Luke replied shrewdly, and Teddy huffed another small laugh, which thereafter turned into a sob, taking Teddy just as much by surprise as the tears had.
“Come here, you idiot” Luke said softly, pulling Teddy sideways on the bench into the exact same kind of hug Teddy had tried to engulf him in earlier. Teddy did nothing to resist, however, letting Luke drape an arm over his shoulders, pulling Teddy’s face into his neck, his other hand gently resting on Teddy’s bicep. Teddy rested the side of his face against Luke’s collarbone and let himself weep. He didn’t seem to have any power to stop it, now that it had started.
“He doesn’t love me, Luke” Teddy choked out desperately. “Not like I love him. Not anymore.” Maybe he never really had. Teddy cried even harder at the thought, feeling unrelenting panic now that he had finally admitted it out loud. He had thought that saying it might make him feel better, but it had only made things feel a thousand times worse. He had thought that if he DID say it out loud it would sound preposterous. But it didn’t.
“Yes he DOES, Teddy” Luke replied firmly. “I don’t know exactly what’s happened to make you think that, but if there’s one thing I know about James it’s that he’s in love with YOU. He has been since the day I met him.”
“What, when he was eleven?” Teddy replied sceptically, this rebuttal catching him off guard so much that he actually stopped sobbing, sniffling rather pathetically instead. That was indeed when Luke and James had first met, albeit only in passing. When James had first started school, and Luke and Teddy had been in their final year.
“I was talking about the first time he came out with us, actually” Luke countered. “What was he then, seventeen?”
“And he was in love with me then?” Teddy asked disbelievingly, as he pulled back and sat up straight to look at Luke, quite sure he must be having him on. Luke, however, looked quite sincere.
“Very much so” Luke replied calmly, and Teddy frowned.
“And how do YOU know?” he demanded.
“I just do” Luke replied simply.
“What, read his mind, did you?” Teddy asked him incredulously.
“I didn’t need to” Luke replied smoothly. “It was obvious.”
“That’s what you always say” Teddy muttered dismissively. That was indeed Luke’s go-to defence whenever Teddy asked him where he got information that as far as Teddy could see could only possibly have come from reading someone’s mind. If indeed he wasn’t just making it up - which he probably wasn’t, because it more often than not turned out to be right. But it sure as hell wasn’t obvious to anyone else.
Luke merely shrugged at this, as though Teddy could believe him or not and it made no difference either way. Teddy couldn’t think of anything further to say on the matter, and slumped back against the wall again, his slight irritability at Luke for withholding on him fading rather quickly. The man had just been consoling Teddy in his arms a moment ago, after all. Teddy wiped roughly at his eyes, clearing away the residual wetness there while he continued to sniffle for a few minutes. Luke apparently had nothing more to say either, sitting beside him in rather peaceful silence while Teddy gradually regained his composure. If it were anyone besides Luke, Teddy might feel embarrassed about his outburst, but Luke had seen him in considerably worse states than this one.
“Luke, I…” Teddy offered eventually. He had been about to apologise again, but he knew Luke wouldn’t take it. “I’m glad you’re here” he offered instead.
“Here getting arrested with you, or here in general?” Luke asked with a bit of a smirk on his face.
“Both” Teddy conceded, giving into a small amount of amusement himself. “But I meant in general.”
“I’m glad too” Luke replied sincerely, and Teddy was taken aback. he had been expecting Luke to parry with some snarky comment about how much shit from Teddy he’d had to put up with over the years. Which in all fairness was probably a lot.
“I know it didn’t work out as well as either of us planned, you staying with me while James is away” Luke went on. “But it would have been much worse without you there.”
“For me too” Teddy agreed. “In case that wasn’t clear” which it probably wasn’t. “Even when all we were doing was having a beer and watching TV. It was nice to do it with you.”
“Lean on me” Luke sing-songed, in a low, mournful tone. “When you’re not strong… I’ll be your friend… I’ll help you carry on.” He was picking up both fervour and volume as he went on, and Teddy started laughing.
“You just call on me brother” Luke went on, clapping in time now, and Teddy lost it, throwing his head back as he laughed brightly. “When you need a hand. We all NEED SOMEBODY TO LEAN ON!” Luke went on, increasing the volume further still. His singing voice actually wasn’t half bad, which only made it even funnier.
“Keep it down in there!” an irritable voice called in to them from the adjacent room, and both Luke and Teddy dissolved into hysterics, Teddy slapping Luke on the arm as he slumped sideways, laughing uncontrollably.
“Stop it!” Teddy admonished him, as soon as he was able to get the words out, but laughing again some more afterwards. “You’re so fucking embarrassing” Teddy added insistently, but his tone was undercut somewhat by the fact that he was still giggling.
“Oh, you love it” Luke countered dismissively, looking very pleased with himself. Teddy didn’t really have a comeback for that, he couldn’t deny that he did. It seemed incredible to him that even in the midst of all this that Luke could still make him laugh this much. Teddy shook his head in disbelief and Luke shot back a grin in return.
The slouched position they had both landed in after their laughing fit had left them facing each other, quite close together. Teddy noticed that his hand was still resting on Luke’s forearm, but he didn’t bother retracting it, taking some small amount of comfort from the affectionate contact. As Teddy’s eyes flicked back up from his own hand on Luke’s arm to Luke’s face, his gaze lingered on his left eye – the one he’d been punched in earlier. It was rather pink and a little swollen.
“You’re gonna have one hell of a shiner, there” Teddy told him, nodding towards it. His voice was quiet due to their close proximity, but it had also come out curiously soft, more so than he had really meant for it to.
“You should see the other guy” Luke replied with a wry smile. Teddy didn’t know if this was an offhand comment, or if Luke really had beaten his opponent to a pulp, and was about to ask before he was rather distracted. At this close range, Teddy could see every single one of Luke’s incredibly long eyelashes as he blinked lazily, mischief and laughter still in his eyes.
“Are you wearing mascara?” Teddy asked him, raising an eyebrow incredulously, wondering how he had only just noticed.
“A bit, why?” Luke asked nonchalantly, and Teddy huffed an almost inaudible laugh. He really shouldn’t have been surprised by that.
“Looks good” Teddy offered, shrugging. Luke looked rather pleased with the compliment, and Teddy laughed breathily again.
What happened next seemed to occur in slow motion, but also somehow seemed to happen in the blink of an eye. All Teddy knew was that suddenly there was no air in the room, and his mind had gone strangely blank at the same time that some sort of invisible force was compelling him to lean in towards Luke. Even if his brain had been working, he would have only had a couple of seconds to register what was happening before it did, because Luke was leaning in too, and before Teddy came to his senses, his and Luke’s lips met softly.
Teddy’s brain still hadn’t quite engaged yet, but he was vaguely aware he ought to be feeling something, but he wasn’t. He deepened the kiss, increasing the pressure and parting his lips slightly, which was met with a small, surprised moan from Luke. That rather sensual noise did make Teddy feel something, although he was very confused as to what it actually was he felt in response to this. He didn’t have the wherewithal to try and work that out right now though. The same compulsion that had pulled him forward in the first place was pushing him further forward now, kissing Luke harder, trying to elicit that noise again. But then he felt some opposing force pushing him backwards, and it took a second for Teddy to realise that it was Luke’s hand on his chest, applying gentle pressure but physically pushing him back.
Their lips parted, and Teddy glanced down in mild confusion at Luke’s hand pushing him away, before looking back up to Luke’s face. When he saw Luke’s expression, Teddy finally came to his senses. Luke looked horrified, and Teddy felt the same feeling wash over himself in a horrible wave.
“No” Teddy said slowly as leaned further back, putting a bit more distance between their faces. “No, no, no, no…”
“Teddy, I…” Luke began remorsefully, but he didn’t seem to know how to end that sentence. Teddy wasn’t sure he did either.
“Fuck, Luke, no… what are we doing?” Teddy babbled desperately.
“This isn’t right” Luke said, still looking mortified.
“No, it isn’t” Teddy wholeheartedly agreed with that. Fuck, this was bad. As if he hadn’t dug himself into a big enough hole tonight.
“I’m sorry, Teddy, I shouldn’t have…” Luke started, but again seemed unable to finish his sentence. Teddy shook his head. This certainly wasn’t Luke’s fault. None of it was.
“Fuck, no, I’m sorry” Teddy replied. “Shit, Luke, I don’t even know why I did that… fuck…”
Luke had nothing to say to that, and neither did Teddy. They both shuffled away from each other on the bench, putting a good few feet of space between them, and neither one of them said another single word until Harry arrived.