Seamus had been laying awake on his couch, staring up at the ceiling in complete silence as he iced his hand. Part of him had been hoping that he'd be able to take a nap, the hours of sleep dwindling down to nearly nothing since his birthday, realizing that he was having trouble with it when Orla wasn't with him. He was wide awake now, annoyingly so, with nothing to do but replay the scene back at the beer tent
( ... )
She didn't mean to say it quite like that, the incredulous tone behind her voice perhaps a bit more biting than she had hoped it would come out. But she was racked with a confusion she'd never felt before, a complete misunderstanding of how a simple hello could have bubbled up into something so fucking insane. She crossed her arms against her chest, more an action of nerves than of anything else.
She felt uncomfortable and weird and that, in and of itself, made the whole thing worse.
"Seamus- what happened?" she asked, her voice softening slightly. "Why would you do that?"
She knew why. She knew Zacharias had been egging him on, trying to get him riled up. She had been furious with with, and she made that entirely too clear when she'd dragged him back to his flat to clean him up.
But a part of her also understood his frustrations. Even if she didn't want to admit that out loud.
For the first time in their entire friendship Seamus debated about letting Marlow inside, realizing then just how easy it would be to brush this entire thing off and slip back into his flat before she could stop it. And as tempting as that was he knew that she deserved more than that, even if he was going to give her the bare minimum now.
He stepped aside, leaving just enough room in the doorway for her to squeeze through if she wanted to.
It wasn't like he had any neighbors, his flat on top of his shop, but the entry was already starting to feel a little claustrophobic and he wanted to go sit down again.
"Can we just, I don't know - not do this right now?" he asked her, sounding more exhausted than anything else.
She hovered in his entry for a moment, the hesitation in stepping inside his flat entirely unfamiliar to her. She had spent so many nights here, curled up on the couch with him, some horror movie glaring on the screen while they tossed popcorn back and forth at each other whenever someone jumped. And now, she felt like whatever lay beyond that door wasn't going to answer the millions of questions bubbling inside of her. But she had to do something, didn't she? This was Seamus she was talking about.
Her footsteps were ginger as she stepped past him, the weight hanging on her shoulders growing uncomfortable now. Whatever lightness she had felt in the last few weeks was diminishing now, her body feeling sore in ways she hadn't felt in a while.
She turned back to face him, a pained expression settled on her face.
"Seamus you don't get to just punch him in the face and then get to avoid it-" she said. "I have never seen you act like that before-"
Seamus watched her enter his flat, biting back a groan for the fight he could already see coming.
He followed her, letting his door swing shut behind him, the sound echoing out and ringing in his ears. It amazed him how much louder the silence was when there was something to slice right through it.
"I'm not really sure what you want me to say," he told her, not quite looking at her as he crossed the space back into the living room.
Every time he blinked his eyes felt heavy, craving sleep that just wouldn't come, and he knew that he looked like shit, dark circles ringing under his blue eyes and a hollowness to his skin.
"He was being a prat so I hit him. End of story, alright?"
She balked, mostly shocked that this was how he was responding to what happened. She didn't miss the look on his face, how tired and beaten he seemed to be- his eye shining slightly from where Zacharias' fist had connected, though she was at least glad to see his nose wasn't bleeding anymore. The whole thing had made her feel vaguely sick.
"I'm sorry for what he said-" she said, quietly. "And believe me- I already told him exactly how out of line he was but you weren't making it easy for him, Seamus- you were rude from the moment we walked over-"
She rubbed at her temple, her headache coming back in full force.
"Just tell me what's going on," she pleaded, trying to ignore how desperate that sounded, her hands shaking at her sides as she looked at him. "Please-"
This was exactly the reason that he shouldn't have let her inside, not the part where he was going to have to apologize, but the part where she wanted an explanation. Even though he usually gave in to her, those big brown eyes of hers wearing him down, he just didn't have it in him right now.
In fact, it was because of those big brown eyes and the effect they had on him that he couldn't talk to her about this.
Not now, not after he'd just punched her new, pretentious boyfriend in the face.
He had to take a giant step back, no matter how much it killed him. It would hurt worse otherwise.
"Fine, I was being a prat," he admitted, not quite an apology but an admission was close enough.
"Dean and I might have been in the middle of something-" Probably not the best thing to say, considering that most things that involved Dean and Seamus was going to also include Marlow, the three of them a package deal since they were eleven.
Since when did Seamus Finnigan go vague? They had told each other practically everything since they were children, Marlow never once thinking of a time when they'd ever kept a secret from each other.
And now he was shutting down on her.
The abandon she'd felt when Riley first left her was creeping back into her skin. She had shut herself off, not allowing herself to even venture past the walls of the castle, too mortified and too embarrassed to have to continually explain what had happened. But somehow, in that time, Dean, Seamus and Lavender had gone on with their lives and left her behind.
"So, is this what's happening now?" she asked, brow furrowing in confusion. "Am I the odd one out? If there's something going, I want to know-"
It was almost laughable for Marlow to think that she was the odd one out when it was actually Seamus, this disease already starting to wedge its way between him and the world, isolating him from the people he cared about.
It was going it right now, something inside of him keeping him from opening up to her the way he was so used to doing.
"God, Marlow. That is not what is happening here, okay?" he said, sounding more frustrated than anything else as he ran his fingers through his hair, pulling at it there in the back.
He wasn't going to do this and he had to keep telling himself that. The less he got into it with her the better.
"I wasn't exactly going to open up to your new boy toy when you found out. What did you expect us to do? Buy him a few rounds and then go off to help him pick out his best head shots?"
She winced, his tone more than a little rough- far more tense than she was ever used to hearing from him, especially pointed in her direction. How this had gotten so bloody awful so fast had her head spinning. She crossed her arms against her chest, taking a slight step back from him as she frowned, her lips pressing together in a crooked line as she watched him, knowing that there was something he wasn't telling her and trying to ignore how that made her feel.
"I just expected you to be nice-" she said, shrugging her shoulders, feeling suddenly defeated.
"That's all- I mean- Zacharias and I are dating now- and I care about him- and I know you don't like him but I just, well, I just thought that you'd be able to manage that-"
"Well, I can't," he told her, probably too harshly and he regretted it even if he wasn't about to back down and apologize for it.
But it had been a long day- no, it had been a long week - and Seamus knew that now he had a very long life ahead of him, a prisoner to this new disease. This wasn't something that he could fight off or try to out run, there was no escaping this.
He already hated who it was making him but it was like watching a terrible movie. He couldn't stop.
"I just need to take a step back for a while, alright? I can't do this-"
It wasn't about the fact that she was dating Zacharias, at least not completely anyway. It was a whole mess of stuff and he couldn't figure himself out if he kept letting himself be defined by the people he was with. So much of his life depended and replied on Marlow, a small part of him wondering if maybe one day they'd ever be more than what they were, but he couldn't do that anymore.
Seamus ran both hands through his hair now, completely ignoring the sting in his hand as he pulled at his blond curls, biting back a groan. This entire thing was starting to spin out of control when all he wanted to do was get to bed, put the day behind him
( ... )
Marlow's face screwed up in a grimace, his words crueler than she would have thought possible. She shook her head, her hands wringing against her chest as she looked up at him, her eyes not wavering from his gaze.
She felt as if she was looking at a completely different person. Whoever this was, this wasn't her best friend. He'd never-
"You're bowing out?"
She repeated the words in exasperation, as if everything he'd been saying tonight was completely out of the realm of possibility. She blinked her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry again, already feeling so beaten by this whole thing she didn't want him to see anymore tears-
The look on her face was actually killing him, his stomach sinking as her eyes went red. If it had been any other day, if he actually wasn't the one doing this to her, Seamus would have wrapped her up in his arms about now, put on a classic horror and let her fall asleep against him.
But all of that was changing now and he couldn't do that for her. More importantly, he couldn't keep doing that to himself.
"What did you think would happen?" he asked her then, unable to help himself.
"You think that I'm joking when I tell you how much I care about you? I'm not- I can't do this right now. You're with Smith and I'm-"
-with Orla. He always let himself say it, as weird or true or untrue as that might have been. Their relationship was shifting again now and he had no idea where it was going to take them.
For the first time in years though, he was open to it.
There was one night when things were really bad, when the twins were announcing too many names of those missing on the radio, Dean Thomas ringing out over and over again in Marlow's head. She couldn't sleep, she couldn't think straight. She couldn't even sit still. But she'd made her way to the Common Room, the flames from the fireplace making her eyes hurt but at least it was something to focus on, something to distract her
( ... )
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She didn't mean to say it quite like that, the incredulous tone behind her voice perhaps a bit more biting than she had hoped it would come out. But she was racked with a confusion she'd never felt before, a complete misunderstanding of how a simple hello could have bubbled up into something so fucking insane. She crossed her arms against her chest, more an action of nerves than of anything else.
She felt uncomfortable and weird and that, in and of itself, made the whole thing worse.
"Seamus- what happened?" she asked, her voice softening slightly. "Why would you do that?"
She knew why. She knew Zacharias had been egging him on, trying to get him riled up. She had been furious with with, and she made that entirely too clear when she'd dragged him back to his flat to clean him up.
But a part of her also understood his frustrations. Even if she didn't want to admit that out loud.
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He stepped aside, leaving just enough room in the doorway for her to squeeze through if she wanted to.
It wasn't like he had any neighbors, his flat on top of his shop, but the entry was already starting to feel a little claustrophobic and he wanted to go sit down again.
"Can we just, I don't know - not do this right now?" he asked her, sounding more exhausted than anything else.
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Her footsteps were ginger as she stepped past him, the weight hanging on her shoulders growing uncomfortable now. Whatever lightness she had felt in the last few weeks was diminishing now, her body feeling sore in ways she hadn't felt in a while.
She turned back to face him, a pained expression settled on her face.
"Seamus you don't get to just punch him in the face and then get to avoid it-" she said. "I have never seen you act like that before-"
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He followed her, letting his door swing shut behind him, the sound echoing out and ringing in his ears. It amazed him how much louder the silence was when there was something to slice right through it.
"I'm not really sure what you want me to say," he told her, not quite looking at her as he crossed the space back into the living room.
Every time he blinked his eyes felt heavy, craving sleep that just wouldn't come, and he knew that he looked like shit, dark circles ringing under his blue eyes and a hollowness to his skin.
"He was being a prat so I hit him. End of story, alright?"
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She balked, mostly shocked that this was how he was responding to what happened. She didn't miss the look on his face, how tired and beaten he seemed to be- his eye shining slightly from where Zacharias' fist had connected, though she was at least glad to see his nose wasn't bleeding anymore. The whole thing had made her feel vaguely sick.
"I'm sorry for what he said-" she said, quietly. "And believe me- I already told him exactly how out of line he was but you weren't making it easy for him, Seamus- you were rude from the moment we walked over-"
She rubbed at her temple, her headache coming back in full force.
"Just tell me what's going on," she pleaded, trying to ignore how desperate that sounded, her hands shaking at her sides as she looked at him. "Please-"
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In fact, it was because of those big brown eyes and the effect they had on him that he couldn't talk to her about this.
Not now, not after he'd just punched her new, pretentious boyfriend in the face.
He had to take a giant step back, no matter how much it killed him. It would hurt worse otherwise.
"Fine, I was being a prat," he admitted, not quite an apology but an admission was close enough.
"Dean and I might have been in the middle of something-" Probably not the best thing to say, considering that most things that involved Dean and Seamus was going to also include Marlow, the three of them a package deal since they were eleven.
"And I really don't want to get into it now."
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Since when did Seamus Finnigan go vague? They had told each other practically everything since they were children, Marlow never once thinking of a time when they'd ever kept a secret from each other.
And now he was shutting down on her.
The abandon she'd felt when Riley first left her was creeping back into her skin. She had shut herself off, not allowing herself to even venture past the walls of the castle, too mortified and too embarrassed to have to continually explain what had happened. But somehow, in that time, Dean, Seamus and Lavender had gone on with their lives and left her behind.
"So, is this what's happening now?" she asked, brow furrowing in confusion. "Am I the odd one out? If there's something going, I want to know-"
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It was going it right now, something inside of him keeping him from opening up to her the way he was so used to doing.
"God, Marlow. That is not what is happening here, okay?" he said, sounding more frustrated than anything else as he ran his fingers through his hair, pulling at it there in the back.
He wasn't going to do this and he had to keep telling himself that. The less he got into it with her the better.
"I wasn't exactly going to open up to your new boy toy when you found out. What did you expect us to do? Buy him a few rounds and then go off to help him pick out his best head shots?"
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"I just expected you to be nice-" she said, shrugging her shoulders, feeling suddenly defeated.
"That's all- I mean- Zacharias and I are dating now- and I care about him- and I know you don't like him but I just, well, I just thought that you'd be able to manage that-"
But apparently nothing was falling into line.
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But it had been a long day- no, it had been a long week - and Seamus knew that now he had a very long life ahead of him, a prisoner to this new disease. This wasn't something that he could fight off or try to out run, there was no escaping this.
He already hated who it was making him but it was like watching a terrible movie. He couldn't stop.
"I just need to take a step back for a while, alright? I can't do this-"
It wasn't about the fact that she was dating Zacharias, at least not completely anyway. It was a whole mess of stuff and he couldn't figure himself out if he kept letting himself be defined by the people he was with. So much of his life depended and replied on Marlow, a small part of him wondering if maybe one day they'd ever be more than what they were, but he couldn't do that anymore.
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Marlow's face screwed up in a grimace, his words crueler than she would have thought possible. She shook her head, her hands wringing against her chest as she looked up at him, her eyes not wavering from his gaze.
She felt as if she was looking at a completely different person. Whoever this was, this wasn't her best friend. He'd never-
"You're bowing out?"
She repeated the words in exasperation, as if everything he'd been saying tonight was completely out of the realm of possibility. She blinked her eyes shut, willing herself not to cry again, already feeling so beaten by this whole thing she didn't want him to see anymore tears-
"I don't even know what to say right now-"
( ... )
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But all of that was changing now and he couldn't do that for her. More importantly, he couldn't keep doing that to himself.
"What did you think would happen?" he asked her then, unable to help himself.
"You think that I'm joking when I tell you how much I care about you? I'm not- I can't do this right now. You're with Smith and I'm-"
-with Orla. He always let himself say it, as weird or true or untrue as that might have been. Their relationship was shifting again now and he had no idea where it was going to take them.
For the first time in years though, he was open to it.
"You know, it doesn't matter."
( ... )
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