It is October 31st, 1999.
Nobody at the scheduling office thought it was funny when Chance pointed out that his reporting date was on Halloween. There were instances in which he thought that maybe they just weren't getting the joke - Robes? Like costumes? A mask? Trick or Treat? - until he, very begrudgingly, admitted to himself that it probably just wasn't funny. But then, Chance had always been the kind of person who expected everyone to be on the exact same page he was, regardless of how arbitrarily he shuffled the book. Oh well. It was more appropriate to look solemn and serious.
This house was very much not what he had expected. The Ministry was an ode to organization from its outer walls to the meticulously arranged filing cabinets inside, gleaming where LeBarone sagged. What loomed before him seemed crude, and proud to be such. It was certainly an estate of some kind, but no one could ever make the mistake of thinking anybody lived there. The foliage that lined the drive just so happened to have climbed out of the ground where it sat; leaves lay unraked by anything but the wind and the porch certainly didn't have any furniture outside of..a kennel? A box? There was a wire-and-mesh situation against a splintering wood banister that looked only large enough to house a big dog or a small man. The latter was more likely, Chance assumed, and it made him feel better to focus on those kinds of particulars than the matter at hand.
His original reporting date was two years in the past and it would have come with more frills had he not stalled. As it stood, Chance did an embarrassing amount of grovelling just to be able to take out the trash on this property - and that wasn't a euphemism. His actual words went something like, "I'll dust, I'll fold, I'll iron, I'll clean up dog shit, whatever. I get it. I fucked up. I'm not expecting anything. I'll start at the bottom." It was no small feat, convincing his grandfather that the last few years had only been one big cry for attention. That wasn't entirely true, but it could have been if you squinted.
He absolutely did not yell trick-or-anything over the threshold. Senna did, though. She whistled something that sounded suspiciously like it through the mesh of her mask, and one or two of the others chuckled.
Inside was a totally different story. LeBarone estate was almost welcoming as soon as the door frame was firmly behind. It was warm inside, and it glowed - someone had a three wick pumpkin candle sitting on an end table placed just-so, and the absurdity of it was almost as cloying as the smell. This had to be a mistake. Chance's neck immediately felt too hot, too itchy to handle the sudden rise in room temperature. There were a lot of people in here, a lot of tall bodies draped in black, and he didn't want to be too obvious looking for a slightly more petite one. Sometimes discomfort was the only reminder any of Chance's generation had that they weren't too far gone to pretend to be people anymore. The older, more grizzled among them boasted an array of impressive casualty numbers and vacant stares.
"Come on. They're settling. Seat's over here."
Senna's fingertips brushed along his wrist as a guide into the main dining room, steering the two of them towards a couple of high backed, quilted purple chairs. It was incredibly dramatic, the whole thing. If a room could sprawl and pirouette and throw a smoke bomb on stage all at once, it was going right ahead. Chance maneuvered towards their side of the table, sank gracefully into his seat, and pulled the fabric of his hood out of its high collar. It was only a little air, but it helped.
Oh. There he was. Chance put a hand against his own stomach, trying to smother out the childish lurch.
A few feet down and across the table, Nicholas crashed into his own chair with a classically rude snort. He already had his hood down and his head turned away, laughing at something dirty a stout, pale faced Death Eater had said. Small conversations that varied in volume filtered in and out across the table as soldiers greeted one another again after the break, commiserating about having lived through the last wave. Most of them seemed more amused by their longevity than anything.
For a moment, Chance felt put out. He'd last seen Nicholas scowling at him across the table at a bar in broad daylight, and it had ironically been one of the most sobering conversations of his life. What followed was a cold twang of irritation that Nicholas did, in fact, still laugh. He was doing it right there, of all things, laughing with this..this..well, the guy just wasn't all that impressive. How funny could he have been? Chance was very funny, he thought. Nicholas would think so too if he could see the humor in all of this.
Most of the table was getting to the point of unmasking and settling in. No matter how uncomfortable he was about not being in control of his own timing, Chance waited until just before it would have been awkward to drag off his own hood and mask. It was all done in the most forgettable way possible in order to avoid drawing attention to himself, but that effort was spectacularly in vain - he hadn't realized his sister's husband was in the seat directly across from him.
"Oh now, it's so good to finally see you, brother-in-law!"
Tristan's enthusiasm was as real as Chance's bashful "happy-to-be-here" purr in response. He raked a hand through his hair to settle it and smiled with no warmth. "I'm sure we're all thrilled you've finally made it, even if you're very, very, very, very far behind," Tristan followed up. Senna, who wasted no time verifying this, disagreed loudly enough to snap half the table out of conversation. "Doesn't look much like Sparrow is."
Now, at this table, there were two Sparrows, but while one didn't seem to care what was going on with anyone's brother in law, the other was staring over his shoulder in Chance's direction looking more livid than anyone had ever looked in the history of all time. Well, thought Chance. Well, that's more than I've seen in half a decade. And he was so self righteously smug about it that the look he shot back at that end of the table was perfect bullshit - sheepish faux-embarrassment, like a celebrity who had just been recognized in public. An older Death Eater who had no context for Nicholas' abject hostility throatily chastised him, "Oh no, no, there's no need for that, Sparrow. We have quite enough room for anyone at this table of like mind."
But Nicholas was not interested in participating this time. He was sick of this song and dance - and rightfully so. There was always a play on going on that nobody had asked for, and Chance was always signing up unwitting co-stars without their permission and humiliating them one by one on stage until he accomplished whatever it was he'd been after in the first place. His chair legs shrieked and banged, there was a murmur of, "Fuck this stupid shit," and Nicholas was off on his way up the stairs in a series of creaks and thumps. It was strange in that his abrupt departure didn't seem childish or melodramatic. Nicholas succeeded in keeping the image of someone who just wasn't playing tonight, please and thank you. The unfunny Death Eater next to him went to stand up with a look of concern on his face, but Chance had already come around the table and was gently pressing him back to his seat. "It's alright. No need for there to be a scene."
Senna shifted uncomfortably and Tristan rolled his eyes. The last thing even Chance wanted was to begin his tenure with the distinct taste of lovers' quarrel in everyone's mouth, and here was again more evidence that with a little more control over the timing, none of this would have happened - or so he consoled himself. Perhaps a few words to diffuse the tension, then, half smiling, "No, no. Carry on. It's nothing. I'll be back." And because Chance was very tall but capable of being very quiet, he took the stairs two by two like a cat light on its feet. Behind him, another elderly sounding voice started offering wine to everyone and asking for mission debrief groups to form. A younger guest pressed for something stronger.
The upstairs hallway lacked much of the pomp and circumstance the downstairs had. It even smelled more appropriate, Chance thought, like old pages, dust, iron, wood polish and damp. An unhappy but unbiased house. A caretaker had opened the windows to let in the breeze, and while autumn was roughly two months in, it wasn't an uncomfortable chill so much as a mirthless one. All of the doors on either side were cracked open, revealing rooms whose insides were dark - all except one, which had been very recently shut and whose room had just been lit.
And just like that, the feeling of, "I shouldn't" was crawling up the back of Chance's throat, as if he were about to bother a widow at her husband's funeral. His footsteps slowed in front of the closed door and he hesitated. Hadn't Nicholas been loud and clear, now? Wasn't he making it completely apparent that he wanted nothing to do with this? But then, it wasn't as though Chance was here entirely by choice, and didn't he have a responsibility to make sure they could work together without incident? If he wasn't under some kind of outside protection, he had to go to work. If he had to go to work, he happened to have the same career path as Nicholas did. If they had to share an occupation, they had to get along. Second guessing a course of action was out of out of character for him, and it left with it a feeling of uneasiness. Part of him wanted to be honest, and seamlessly so - a big emotional to-do that would somehow end up in trust and camaraderie. The larger part of him ruthlessly smashed that urge under its thumb, never to hear from it again. No, that was not how he did things. Chance knocked, and did so confidently.
His welcome was swift and distracted, "Fuck off, Sussier. Not now." Sussier must have been the unfunny Death Eater. He sounded French. It checked out. Chance slipped into what appeared to be a very unused, very spacious 18th century bedroom. It was dim and wooden and full of shadows, with yawning open windows and the backs of Nicholas' shoulders silhouetted by the four candles he'd haphazardly lit. One or two wicks on three towers each, like someone had been using this bedroom for evening reading. "Now, now," Chance's tone was low and soft, almost as if to match the lighting. "That's not a nice way to talk to someone who seemed very pleasant."
For whatever reason, Nicholas had not been expecting it. Not that voice. It was rare, too, to hear it without the conversations of others rising and falling in the background. It struck him then that the number of times they'd spoken to each other alone in a quiet room must have been fewer than what he could count on one hand. Why had that been, anyway? Would there have been fewer misunderstandings? No. Nicholas dismissed that notion entirely. They were bound by fate and God to misunderstand each other until the very end of time, like some sort of cosmic prank. The dress up Death Eater leaning against his exit across from the room, trying with all his might to look.. what.. embarrassed? Apologetic? Not with that bastard paying no respect to the seriousness of the situation. This wasn't a place to take lightly. This was a place where people died, screaming, confessing State secrets. You couldn't just get a divorce and throw on a hood and act like everything was just another year at school. This wasn't a common room, this was a place where actual adults did awful things.
"What do you even think you're playing at, showing up here?"
That was not what Nicholas actually wondered. He knew, he reasoned, exactly what Chance thought he was playing at, whether or not he'd admit that to heart or stomach. They ached awfully all of a sudden, like something was pulling at his organs from elsewhere. Nicholas had stacked papers, books, trunks, cars, trains and planes on top of the box that had contained those feelings. All the same, the very top of that tower trembled ever so slightly.
Chance watched him, curious, and went on to his next scripted answer, "I'm Chance Lafayette. My family are Death Eaters by trade. I am a Death Eater by trade. I'm here doing my job." It was an utterly rude and mocking response. Chance was treating Nicholas like a stupid, petulant child, and his tone made it clear that he wanted both of them to know it. Nicholas smoldered angrily for a moment, sucking his teeth, arms crossed, ten feet between them. Oh, alright, he thought. Sure. Let's do that. I can get snotty too. Like a restless cat, he paced a semicircle across the room and let a silence fall between them. Then, as if what he was about to ask had been boiling under the surface for exactly the right amount of time, Nicholas pointedly asked, "Yeah? Why did you leave Jack?"
Both of them stood across from each other in openly tense silence for a moment. Even Nicholas seemed startled at how heavy and sharp it had come out, all the guts between them spilling onto the floor all of a sudden. Chance went white as a ghost and dropped any hint of satisfaction, blindsided. "..Oh." He tried and failed to look anything but rattled. "That's what we're doing? That's what you want to know? You couldn't even work up to it?" And Nicholas had to swallow back a half chuckle, half snort. It was very unattractive the way Chance stood there, looking uncomfortable and dumb. "I think so, yeah." Nicholas could be so, so bratty under the right circumstances. "You followed me up here, so that's what we're doing. Anyway," Sniff. "Why'd you do it?"
"Isn't that kind of a personal question?" There hadn't ever been a need to account for Nicholas asking about Jack. Years ago, when it all started up, the topic was put behind glass. An unwritten rule existed between them that they could do their dance if they had to, but asking Chance about Jack outside of, "Are you Happy?" wasn't something either of them wanted or welcomed. So, they didn't, and as such, the particulars of Chance's relationship and subsequent marriage were only rooted out through hearsay and rumor.
"Personal?" But Nicholas could be thoroughly indignant for the both of them. Where Chance glared, he straightened up, openly angry. "No. Nope. No. You don't get to say it's a personal question. You dragged all of us - everyone you fucking knew - on a four year roller coaster bullshit circus so that you could publicly fuck Jack. Then you went ahead and threw your obnoxious Broadway show of a fucking wedding, which you had the fucking audacity to invite me to-" Chance opened his mouth, as if to protest, "No. I'm speaking. Shut the fuck up. Shut the fucking fuck up, showing up here." And shut it again. "You threw your stupid fucking wedding and even when you had a ring on your finger, you made sure nobody else had any fucking peace. You fucked Jack, you fucked Shayne, you fucked me, you threatened Aren, you bullied Rowan, you fucked him too, you kept stringing Jame along, you killed Judas.. you fucking..fucking maimed anyone who gave us the chance to have a normal fucking relationship because for whatever reason, you still weren't fucking satisfied with your own. And you weren't sorry - you were never, ever fucking sorry, with your "I didn't know" bullshit - yes you did. You planned every sick, possessive fucking move you made. Then you show up in a bar, tell me how much you'll always and forever love me, you get a fucking divorce, and now here you are, robes and all, dressed up like a fucking- a fucking play pretend Death Eater, and you have the fucking nerve to say your divorce was personal? Bullshit." His voice cracked. "So I'll ask you again - why the fuck did you divorce Jack?" The landing was rough and raw, but Nicholas bit it out with unnerving ferocity.
And all at once, the look on Chance's face was one Nicholas had never seen before. He was suddenly devoid of pretense; there was no smugness, no pride. He didn't seem quite as tall as he had a moment ago. It was a mixture of startled sadness and shame, indignance, anger, apology, and pain all rolled into one. Nicholas expected sarcasm and hostility, but the level on which they usually spoke - talking around the point to keep their images- was gone now, and he was left with a version of his old friend that he'd only seen in glimpses on those rare, tiny occasions they were kind to one another: In the backs of quiet libraries, late at night where the trees were thickest outside the castle, in tiny closets at holiday events. They treated their honest exchanges like a child captures a butterfly - held tight in sweaty palms that manage to kill it anyway. Chance's voice changed, and it came out in a hoarse, pleading whisper, "What do you want me to say, Nicholas?"
"I want you to tell the f-" But Chance cut him off. "You know why."
Nicholas stood there half impatient, half hopeful that deep down, he'd been right: that it was him Chance could never really leave alone. But Chance wouldn't meet his eyes, then. He was looking at the ground, pained, suddenly exhausted like even admitting that much had been in excess. Chance wasn't liberal with his motivations for his terrible behavior. He liked to think it made him less predictable when, really, for the last long while, it skewed more towards erratic than anything. Hearing Nicholas' version of events had been awfully informative in that there was a huge gap in perspective. That wasn't a half bad summary, though, was it? Shortly after it started getting around that he was engaged, Chance ran into Nicholas and Alita - that was a red flag - at midnight, stumbling drunk and jovial in the common room. They had a lot of clever jokes once they saw him. If he remembered right, Nicholas made some sideways comment about, "Why get bother to get married when you're going to do the same old stupid shit anyway?" and the atmosphere went from silly to electric as long as it took Chance to snap. His hand shot out towards Nicholas' throat without a thought, violent and sudden and full of rage. "You mean -" And it was like he couldn't stop himself, throwing someone that drunk into a wall by the neck. Nicholas was already stunned and off balance, though, and when he stumbled back, it was all that much easier for Chance to fall upon him with blind aggression. What happened next bordered on vulgar: he moved onto Nicholas at full height, locked him in place just below the hip with a knee, and assaulted him with a kiss that left an impressive welt and a split lip. Alita sobered up fast and tried to pry Chance off at the same time Nicholas reached an elbow up to defend himself. All three staggered away from each other, seething. "You mean..stupid shit like that?" It was as rough as he'd ever gotten with Nicholas, and there hadn't been any restraint; what Chance had done, he'd meant to cause as much physical pain as he could. He breathed heavily, glaring without recognition. "Fuck you. Fuck you. You have no fucking idea." The room itself was acclimated to their yelling by this time, but Alita seemed uncharacteristically jarred. There was an unhinged quality to the words and gestures being exchanged, and she made a mental note that maybe Chance was genuinely beginning to fall apart. What had been an enjoyable foray into playing with the Slytherin boys was now overstaying its welcome, and it was largely because her cousin played for keeps.
Chance had not used much of his free time to think about things like that, and moments like this tended to happen in the wake of denial. Here he was, sitting in the middle of the mess he'd made and woefully unprepared. The silence felt inappropriate, but he had nothing to fill it.
After what felt like an especially dense ten seconds of nothing, the room was moving again. "Knock knock! Alright in here, are we? Hello?" Senna poked her head in with absolutely no notion of privacy. She did not try to seem apologetic. Chance sucked in air and stretched upwards, walking away from the wall he'd been pressed against; Nicholas grabbed the hair at his temples and groan-yelled like a teenager being scolded. He did not try to seem apologetic either. "Yes. We're great. Come on in." And nobody tried to seem like they were either great or welcoming, but Senna went in all the same.
Whatever Nicholas had said to get Chance looking so uncomfortable piqued her interest, especially now that she had skin in the game. Senna made up her mind to begin asking questions, but as if he'd read her mind - which was entirely possible - Chance interrupted, "We're discussing my marriage. And we're," To Nicholas, pointedly, "All done."
And then he was alone again in the room upstairs just as he had been after leaving the table. Nicholas stood very still after the door shut, staring without seeing at one of the candles. Something cold and presumed dead in his chest gave way. It wasn't entirely unwelcome.
"I didn't expect that. You caught me off guard. It's not like it's a quick explanation, anyway."
Chance's cigarette smoke reached a white hand into the night sky. He watched it disappear, drew a breath to make another. They were standing together out on the porch as other Death Eaters filed out for their own journeys home, stopping every now and again to exchange pleasantries with the newest Lafayette.
"If you're going to be here," Nicholas measured his words and spoke between his teeth, nodding to a wizard who had waved at him. They were still sharp on the end, threatening no room for conditions or addendums. "..If you're going to actually..show up here regularly, which, frankly, I think is a fucking stupid idea, you'd better make the time." Calling it a stupid idea would have to suffice for now. There would be other estate rooms to wax poetic in about how the very real dangers of being a cloaked Death Eater were vastly different from laying on your back in Purdue House.
"Not here. I'm tired of talking around people. I get it, I was wrong to just waltz in unannounced." For the part that was almost a husk of a whisper of a dream of a near apology, Chance turned to Nicholas and locked eyes with him. Speaking plainly like this still tasted funny. It didn't sit right in his mouth and the words came not without effort, but Nicholas brushed his concerns off with a wayward hand. "Fine. Whatever. I have someplace. It's a portkey, though, so you'll need to deal with some notice - two hours sound good?" Without waiting for a response, Nicholas simultaneously started walking away and handed Chance a small, laminated card.
"What's this?"
"Read it, dumbass." Nicholas kept walking until his footsteps melted into the tree line. The others had mostly gone now. An odd Death Eater walked through the rooms here or there, tidying or finishing a drink, but the house was largely quiet inside. Now it was just Chance.
Squinting, the blurry photo and words swam together, forming by magic to reflect the hand they were in. It was a visitor's badge, complete with security enchantment and a picture ID. "Oh." Chance exhaled, only to himself. His eyes closed, his mouth smiled, and he tucked it away as gently as if it were a baby bird. Two hours, then. How Nicholas, he reflected, to allow just enough time, but not enough for a rehearsal.
Whatever Chance did with his time physically was not remarkable or worth mentioning. In his mind, however, a new thing began to take shape as he examined and re-examined what Nicholas had said to him - it allowed, then, an understanding: that as little as Chance knew about his perspective in all this, Nicholas knew as much about his own. He had been laboring under the idea that all of his absurd choices and actions were self explanatory, which made absolutely no sense as Chance went to great lengths to keep himself from making any. The place the Portkey took him was as familiar and intense in memory as his childhood home and just as infrequently visited. They were on the opposite side of the grounds lake sprawled out in front of Hogwarts, with a perfect view of the castle looming not too far away. Lights in the windows twinkled kindly, as if smiling down upon nobody in particular. Tonight wasn't cold enough yet for a heavy jacket, but he'd put one on anyway for the comfort of having something around his shoulders. "Great. No. Definitely." Punctuated with a scoff. "You're hilarious. Are you sure we're allowed to be here?"
Nicholas kicked absently at a pile of dirt at his foot and replied with no small measure of irritation. "Yes. I'm sure." Chance did not know a lot of things, and one of them was that Nicholas was a professor now. The taller of the two shuffled around, giving off the distinct impression of a restless animal. "And don't you think this counts as stepping on Shayne's toes? He's not going to come out here looking?" Another thing Chance didn't know. Nicholas smiled to himself, taking quiet joy in the fact that he still had a hand he hadn't showed. "No. He's fine." A half truth, but a truth that served its purpose anyhow.
"Look, I - okay. This..I..this is a lot to try and explain. I don't even know why-" Nicholas cut him off, sounding uncharacteristically gentle. "We have time."
Chance had always imagined that when the time came to say something grand, all of the qualities he thought were most important about himself would bloom into a spectacular showcase of wit and persuasion. Outside, listening to the odd splash and birdsong, none of that seemed very impressive at all. What made him all the more uncomfortable was that Nicholas didn't appear interested in frills or metaphor. He had always been more blunt. What they were doing was, instead, unnerving in how simple it seemed - but that wasn't right, was it? This might matter more than most things did, and what sense did that make when it was dressed up like any other ordinary evening? Life's little moments didn't always come with the fanfare they deserved.
"I think that yo- okay, alright, I don't know what you think." Chance threw his hands up in mock surrender. On this point, he was correct. "What you said about publicly fucking Jack - that wasn't how it was. You weren't there that first night. He showed up looking for me at school. He- ..it doesn't matter. But it wasn't.. I don't think I was supposed to wind up in his house. I don't know. I didn't get there on my own, if you catch my meaning." Which was a roundabout way of admitting to being beaten within an inch of his life and the very confusing drug haze of half-memories that came after. He knew that at some point, he'd gone upstairs with a companion and that the both of them were ambushed by Jack, who he was only really meeting for the second time. Once his date lost consciousness on the floor and it was the two of them, Chance genuinely no longer remembered very much.
Nicholas couldn't ignore his own misplaced sense of guilt. "I'm sorry, Chance, I never would have-"..introduced the two of you? They both knew how that sentence ended, and Chance was not about to let it. "Don't." He cut Nicholas off cold, deadly serious. Here was an iteration of Chance that was icy and familiar, one who was more snarling dog than apologetic gentleman. "Don't you dare go there. Don't you fucking bring that up." Chance had never, ever discussed the night he met Jack with Nicholas, not with a soul other than Alita. An echo of long buried shame and hate roiled somewhere deep, and it brought with it a dull pain that sat in his spine. It took him an uncomfortable amount of time to collect himself, pacing, digging a hole in his mind to put that memory back into. Finally, exhaled in a cloud of smoke, "Nobody asked anybody out on a date." And back to Nicholas, softly, "I never thought he was a better choice."
It was too dark to get a good enough look at Nicholas' face for clues. When Chance stopped, just for a moment, he thought that maybe he'd seen it relent. It was just as easily a trick of the lighting.
"I didn't do it because I thought I was going to come and get you. You don't owe me anything." Chance stared at the sky as if it was going to help him with this. It did not. "I'm not interested in fucking up your life or interrupting your relationship. I have to go to the Estate to work right now - that was my choice: be married or be a Lafayette." Although Chance's family cover of being the only Auror family in Slytherin was still mostly intact, any initiated Death Eater knew there were several Lafayettes at the table most evenings. They drew a great deal less attention than Chance tended to, but most of them were older. It also bears noting it was common knowledge that, logically, he would have been there with them if not for 'fucking around Hogsmeade with a drug lord'. It was unusual that a disowned family member took a seat.
Chance stopped talking then, stuck on what to do next. How did he say it? That, where Nicholas sat in his life was a thing that didn't move, indifferent to what Chance did, or said, or if he even wanted it to be there. Whether he yelled or acted out or wallowed, that feeling remained unchanged. It watched him misbehave and struggle impassively, waiting, smiling.
"Our relationship has taken a lot of different shapes over time. You've smiled at me, you've cried around me, you've kissed me, you've put a gun in my face with total and complete intent to use it, you've hated me, you've cursed me - whatever. But there was always something there, you know? There was a look of familiarity, like an understanding that we never needed to talk about. It's stupid, but I liked it. I relied on it. It was comforting, in a weird way, even when you were angry. When I went and saw you.. what, six months ago? Whenever you were day drinking - yeah, that. I sat down across from you and all of a sudden it wasn't there anymore." The shuffling stopped. Chance looked back at Nicholas, then, and let his last sentence settle a minute before going on. It felt easier to talk now, easier to hold his gaze steadily without feeling like something was being taken away from him. "That was it. With Jack, I lost a lot. I lost my family, I lost most of my friends, I definitely lost the respect of everyone around me, and I thought that was fine. But," Oh, it was a labor. Chance smoothed both hands over his face and tried to keep his voice matter of fact. "..but when it was you I was losing - not in a romantic sense, I mean something bigger than that.. I couldn't do it anymore. It was one thing too many."
And because there wasn't a merciful bone in Nicholas' body, he didn't interrupt. Nicholas stood stock still, calmly watching, listening. Inside was another story, but there would be time for that.
"There. That's why. I'd rather have your something than someone else's everything - and don't you dare go thinking that means I didn't love Jack in a sick way or that it was all about you the whole time. It wasn't, and I sure as fuck didn't send you an invitation. That's beyond the pale." Chance had a feeling he knew who did, though. There was one simple way to make absolutely sure Nicholas didn't do something, and it was by asking him to. "I'm not trying to cause anyone any grief and I have no right to ask to be in your life. But, you're familiar. I feel like you know me. I'm not trying to ask you to do anything, just..just don't ever look at me like that again," A pause, and then, "Please."
A small world of five feet away, Nicholas was rolling a memory around in his mind. How accurate it may have been was anyone's guess - it boasted a fine layer of dust on top, having sat in a little vault in Nicholas' head for so long. He was more than aware that Chance could be sparing with his honesty. It was usually only taken by force or lack of misdirection, and always when every other option had been exhausted. Nicholas was sixteen in this memory, and making his way down a quiet, damp spiral staircase off to find someone or something to bother. By virtue of luck, he happened to be looking down far enough ahead that he didn't trip over Chance - and how unusual, seeing someone so tall so neatly tucked into a corner, unarmed and without his forcefield of arrogance.
Present day Nicholas said more to himself than anyone after a lengthy silence, "You're a lot worse at lying than you think you are." Rhetorical or not, Chance was very offended. He waited for a follow up, or reassurance, or anything to soften the blow. There was none. He lit another cigarette and had a small think about all of the things he'd just said, while Nicholas rubbed absently at his chin and let his memory begin again.
This was - when was this? Late fall. It had been a month or so since their silly games started growing dark. Jame was upstairs trying to slow Pierce's bleeding and Nicholas had been yet a floor above having an existential crisis. He did what anyone would do when faced with a difficult person who suddenly appeared to be very vulnerable - he bent down, knees cracking, and fitted his front to Chance's back. This was awkward on stairs, but it served its purpose. It was comfortable to be the taller one for once. Chance's hands had been on his face, and he looked up, defiant, but too tired to follow through. Instead, he sagged against Nicholas like a familiar pillow. "I love you, you know." The sigh that followed was soft and relieved, that of a man who was resigning himself to the extraordinary stupidity of his situation. Nicholas was sixteen, though, and he hadn't known the value of what that meant, or even if it really meant anything to someone like Chance. Lots of people said they loved him in lots of different situations, and how was he supposed to know that this one was less generic? In sixteen year old boy war language, the only real response was to smile, run his thumbs gently underneath Chance's eyes, and breathe out, "I've waited a very long time for you to say that."
Present day Nicholas considered what would have happened if he had taken Chance at his word. If every promise ever made to him by a lover had come true, he'd be off in a palace someplace with harem-boys and girls, rich beyond imagination, and certainly not getting uncomfortable whenever his father handled a fire poker at work. He also knew very well that it wouldn't have worked - not then, anyway, because things never came together before they were supposed to. Considering this didn't help very much, not when Nicholas knew that Shayne was in the process of moving his last few personal items from the school.
Because it was his turn, Nicholas turned his attention to the ring on his pinky, absently turning it. "What would you do if you were me?" "What?" Not the hard of hearing kind, the request for clarification. "If you were me and I were you, and I showed up where I wasn't welcome and said all of this shit, what would you do?" Thoughtfully, Chance pretended to consider his answer. "Well." And interrupted himself with a drag, "I suppose if I were you, I'd turn right around, walk up those stairs into the castle, fix myself a cup of tea, kiss my tiger boyfriend, and turn in early. Only if I were you, though, and I didn't have a long track record of making terrible choices."
The two of them were becoming more visible in the soft light of blue-grey dawn, a damp mist curling up from the ground. November came on quietly, and even though the change only took as long as one moment to the next, that pleasant cold became perceptibly more biting. As children, they never loitered out here until daybreak. When the moon was high, their mischief ambled back into the common rooms so as not to disrupt the trees and their ambiance.
Nicholas laughed quietly, staring at his feet. "Uh huh." Then, "You want to go on a date with me?"
Across from him, Chance was making the face Nicholas liked so much again - the one that looked more stupid than confident. He made no effort to conceal his satisfaction. "I- okay." Chance regrouped clumsily, and only narrowly avoided stuttering again. He breathed in deep, trying to tread simultaneously carefully and quickly. "If this is a hypothetical question, it's really fucked up - even for you. Listen. You know I'm the last person who gives a fuck about Shayne's feelings, but this seems a little overt-" This time, it was Nicholas cutting him off, and he didn't seem amused at all anymore.
"Stop it. Shayne's gone."
If he could have had do-over for any revelation tonight, it would have been that. Nicholas hated the weak quality of his own voice. Couldn't it have sounded matter of fact, or nonchalant? Instead, it came across as painfully honest, like a child whose fourth set of foster parents had just dropped him off at an orphanage after promising to be his forever home. Nicholas tended to find fault with himself when things like this happened, and he was most often wrong.
Without warning, Chance hugged him. It was an embrace of long limbs and faded cologne, honest and pure, all at once out of place and indescribably welcome. He lingered and held tightly, as though he could squeeze away all of the awful things anyone had ever done to Nicholas. They had not hugged each other before.
After a small time, Nicholas watched Chance move back, hands trailing gently from his waist. "..What was that for?"
"You looked very sad." It hung in the air, soft and sincere. "I hate it when you look sad."
A chord struck in Nicholas' chest, then, a sudden rush of affection that surprised him. It was kinder for both of them then that Chance punctuated this outpouring of kindness by being unapologetically awful. He stubbed out his cigarette, put on a guilty face, and seemed to ask the grass, "Is it because I fucked him before you could?"
What was outwardly dressed up as a joke was inwardly smug, arrogant pride poorly hidden.
Nicholas half-choked and instinctively threw the closest thing he had, which happened to be a pine cone, then a rock, and then, because his stupid friend was laughing uproariously, a halfhearted shoulder punch. He couldn't help smiling at the absurdity; it was like watching someone fall in love with their own joke and forcing it to seem cute by proxy. We must now be terribly clear to clarify that Nicholas found Chance funny sometimes, not the times Chance had fucked his boyfriends. "Yeah - Yes, Nicholas, I'll go on a date with you." The last little bit of laughter worked itself out. "Where, though? How are we gonna top all of the hospital dinners we've had together?"
Nicholas glanced back at the castle over his shoulder. "They do holiday balls in the Great Hall in that castle up there, but,"Nicholas continued, "It's black tie. Do you still have any nice clothes?" Chance scoffed, trying to work out the metrics of a date in the Great Hall. "I'm broke, I wasn't robbed." "Could've fooled me." Nicholas pinched the end of Chance's cloak between fingers, examining the fabric skeptically. "Shut up. But no, they're not going to let us in there, Nicholas. We're not seventh years and I don't think they were very happy about letting us in when we were."
Nicholas had a great many little surprises left, but he took special delight in reaching out to remove the portkey-made-student-ID from Chance's lapel. "I know. But.. I'm the Magical Theory professor. I get a plus one. Don't be late."
Whatever resurrection of surprised, dumb, confused, awe-struck, what-have-you lit back onto Chance's face, Nicholas' imagination drew up a better version and tucked it away for every bad day he'd ever have. That would have to do for now, because he was already doing as was customary and walking away first. The smug satisfaction was almost palpable, uniquely Sparrow. Nicholas did not look over his shoulder, and Chance did not stop watching him until his silhouette disappeared.
