"All right, back up." Sighing, Alastor leaned forward, elbows on his knees, trying to figure out how Charlie was getting any of this out of what Callum had told Alastor had been said. Even though he didn't want to interfere in his brother's love life, it looked like he was going to have to for the mere reason neither of these two seemed capable of logic.
"Let's take this apart and look at the pieces because what you're saying isn't making any sense with what he said." And of course neither of them seemed to be using logic. "He asked you to marry him and you said...what? Start there. Whatever happened with you two is the catalyst for all of this. So, you said... 'I don't want to marry you, let's think of something else'? 'There must be another option that doesn't require us to get married'? Why did you want to try another option?"
Shaking his head, Alastor bit back a growl of frustration because that much he could understand. "You really are an idiot. It hurts too much to be near you because he wants to be near you and thinks you don't want him, you doorknob. He's leaving because, in his mind, he asked you to marry him and you said 'no'. You don't love him enough to marry him. He can't be with you at the reserve because all social progress appears to have halted on the damned reserves. And in the choice between his job and the man he loves, he thinks the man he loves made the choice for both of them by saying 'no'. Whether that's what you thought you said or not, that's what he heard and that's why Baron and I aren't enough. He already knows we love him. It's not us he wants.
"And believe me, I've got enough people reminding me I'm too bloody old." There wasn't a person who'd come back from his time who'd come back older than Alastor.