Who: Angus Campbell and Maddie Savage What: Wine. When: Friday, 17 November, evening. Where: The Campbell homestead, Isle of Mull. Warnings: Drinking, gossiping, a wee bit of sad.
Angus had retreated homeward after Thursday's match and stayed there, clinging to Florrie's recommendation of rest and quiet as an excuse not to see anyone but his cat and his mum and Lennox. Of course, the whole family had trickled in to see him by ones and twos over the past day and a half, and he couldn't exactly turn away his brothers and sisters and aunts and uncles and cousins and the rest when they came to see if he was alive, so he hadn't managed that goal so well.
He was resting, like Florrie had said, with Andy the blackest and laziest cat in all Scotland napping soundly on his chest as he sprawled over the sofa like a felled tree, when the rap came on the door. He couldn't move without disturbing the cat, which left him entirely helpless. "Ma," he bellowed, covering Andy's ears with both hands so she wouldn't be disturbed. "Someone at the door."
"Your legs are perfectly fine, sweetheart," she called back from upstairs.
Angus sighed and reached gingerly for his wand without shifting too much. He opened the door from across the room with a muttered spell. There was no better use of magic, truly. "Come in," he called.
Maddie had come prepared for their planned evening with wine and some light food fare, just in case, but she hadn't come prepared to be greeted at the door by nothing more than Angus's voice calling out a perfunctory not-quite greeting. The warning flag in her head was only confirmed by the sight of him stretched out on the couch. She was so used to the gregarious side of Angus that this darker, quieter version still didn't quite register as being him, even if she recognised that these sorts of spells might be something that didn't entirely fade for a long time, if ever.
"Ah, good, you left a spot for me," she said as she came inside and closed the door behind her. The wine and food got deposited on the nearest table before Maddie crossed to the couch and sat down on the end where his legs at least left a sliver of couch-edge open. "I listened to the match yesterday. You played brilliantly. High scorer and all. Bravo."
Angus budged up to make room, jostling the cat enough that she opened one eye to give him a disapproving stare. "Yeah, thanks," he said, clearly not as chuffed about all that as he should have been, and petted Andy absently. "King keeps giving me the ball and covering for me. Reckon he figures I need all the help I can get." He cracked a humourless smile. "Reckon he's not wrong. You must've heard the bit where Jones cracked me one in the noggin, too."
He touched his temple gingerly; the cut where the Bludger had grazed him was nothing, but even with Florrie's bruise paste the spot was still tender. "Weel, it's a good thing I'm hard-headed, eh?"
"You always were," said Maddie, resting one hand on his leg in the closest approximation of a hug she could manage with any subtlety. She scooted to fill in the space he'd made for her. "And King isn't bloody helping you. As much as I hate to admit it about my competition, the wizard knows when to pass and when to hold, and you're a damn good scorer. He'd be an idiot to hold when you're open."
She reached out tentatively to touch the cat, waiting until she had acknowledged the additional hand before stroking her back slowly. "What's McGonagall have to say about your head, then? They let you back in at the end, so I'm assuming they'll not have you benched for it?"
"Nah, the head's all right. Florrie just reckons a bit of rest will do me good." Angus sighed and tipped his head back. "Beautiful thing about being a reserve is they don't have to bench me for me to never play again, they just have to not put me in 'til the contract runs out, and then I'll be finished. And… I don't know, Mads. Maybe I should be finished."
It was hard to voice it, when he'd spent the last year and a half working on nothing but getting back into shape for Quidditch, when he'd come so far, only to see how easily it could all slip out of his grasp. His voice was ragged when he added, "I blanked out when I got hit, darlin'. It was just sheer luck I didn't hurt anybody when I did, or fall and snap my own neck. Going out there puts 'em all at risk. My brother, your brother, Lex, Jay..." Angus frowned, his forehead furrowed deeply. "It's selfish of me, trying to come back like this. Isn't it?"
Maddie hated seeing Angus like this. Early on, she'd had plenty of anger for the war and those who'd put him in Azkaban, but this long removed those felt like much more distant evils. The things that plagued him now were of the lingering sort, and there wasn't really anyone left to lash out at because Angus's head was the problem. "Bullshit. Merc's played you as often as he has Davies, and even in the Fall Classic. That, if nothing else, is proof that this whole Reserve thing is just a stepping stone. Your healers cleared you. Team administration cleared you. You saying they don't know what they're talking about it?"
Her hand tightened on his knee, as if somehow she could send him strength through that physical connection. "It's not much different than any one of us getting knocked cold, except you happen to technically be conscious. We don't play this game without knowing the risks, and teammates ploughing into us happens to be one of those." Maddie gave his leg a little shake, momentarily forgetting that she might upset the cat. "And so what if it's selfish? Nobody plays Quidditch because they're trying to be altruistic. We play because we bloody well want to, and we're good at it. You're good at it."
She made a face—one part eye-roll and one part teasing—and added, "And if Micah can't manage to dodge an Angus-shaped Bludger, then he's not as good as he's always claimed to be."
Angus pondered that for a moment, smoothing Andy's ruffled fur with a careful hand, and eventually he had to smile a little. "Ach, reckon you're right about all that. As usual." He sat up, easing the cat down from his chest and disentangling her claws from his sweater when she tried to cling. "Anyone ever tell you it's irksome how you know everything about everything, Savage?"
"Pretty much every day," she said, pride in the smile that she flashed him.
He grinned back, shooed Andy down from the couch (ignoring the cat's offended protests), and leaned in to give her a proper hug. "What would I do without you," he said into Maddie's hair. "Thanks for comin', love. What did you bring me then?"
Maddie put her arms around him and gave him a tight squeeze, letting that convey her worry for him in a way that her words rarely could. "You know, I get that question a lot," she said with a laugh. She gave him a kiss on the cheek before pulling back to retrieve the items she'd left on the side table. "Food and wine, of course. Though I suppose McGonagall will have you on no alcohol while you're healing up, hrm? Bet you had no idea what you'd be in for tonight, with me and a whole bottle of wine to myself, eh?"
She planted herself on the couch again, this time with a proper seat next to him, curling her feet up under her.
Angus reached over her for a handful of cheese and crackers, and took a speculative look at the wine. "Most of the bottle, anyway. Reckon I'm all right for a wee nip, and I won't tell Florrie if you won't." He Summoned two tumblers for them, pouring Maddie a generous glass and himself a more meager one. "I'm prepared for anything. I go drinkin' with your new sister-in-law, you know, and after soused Lex nothing you do or say can shock me."
She accepted her glass with a smile that went flat at the mention of that part of her family. "I've stopped bothering to compete with Lex in anything," she said, rather more sourly than she'd really intended, then downed half her glass of wine in one go. "She's welcome to the shocking this week, in any case. Not sure anything could top it."
He shook his head. "Yeah, they upset the cart there, didn't they? Our PR man up and quit the show the day after, and they're not saying it's due to Lex and Micah but I reckon we can all read between the lines there." Angus took a sip of his own wine, much more slowly than Maddie had. "So you were invited to the weddin', eh? How was it?"
Maddie let out a low whistle, and some of the tension that had hit her with Angus's comment diffused. "Hadn't heard that bit of gossip yet. I wouldn't want that job, either. Though I did give our PR a heads up that I'd have to give a statement, if the press thought to ask me." She sighed and took another drink of her wine. "Oh, I don't know. It was odd...but they seemed happy, so what do I know?"
Angus, like the gentleman he sometimes claimed he was, topped off her glass for her and settled back to nurse his own half-glass. "Yeah, I reckon they are. Love's a great and mysterious thing, darlin'." He shook his head again. "How'd the family take it? And how are you feeling about it all? I know you and your brother are…" He see-sawed his hand in the air. "But he wanted you there, and that's something."
Drinking a full, or even almost full, bottle of wine this week was probably not a good idea. Not that it was ever a good idea, but she held her glass out while he poured all the same. "Love's an impossible thing, you mean. Never have understood it, and probably never will." Maddie snorted a laugh at Angus's gesture, which somehow perfectly described everything about the situation. "I doubt Lex would let him exclude me if he suggested it, so I don't think it says much for the whole thing."
She reached for a cracker to munch on to give herself an excuse to not speak for a moment, since otherwise it would look rather strange—Maddie not being one for holding her tongue, and especially not when she'd had alcohol. "Everyone seems to be happy for them, too. They all went off to the pub for Merlin knows how long after the ceremony. I didn't stay." She took a sip of her wine. "I can only stick around so long before it gets depressing."
As a twin himself, Maddie's relationship with her brother was something Angus both understood and didn't understand at all. It mostly made him glad that he and Len, despite being so different they often couldn't see eye to eye if they were standing right in front of each other, were still tight. Differences aside, the thing he knew without a doubt was that Lennox was there for him through thick and thin, and the idea of not having that with his twin was unimaginable.
He slung an arm around her shoulders and squeezed in commiseration. "The day Lennox runs off to Gretna Green for an anvil wedding, just try getting me out of the pub." He grinned over at Maddie. "Come on, that's funny."
Maddie tried very hard to keep a straight face, but the mental image of Lennox doing anything of the sort was too much, and she had to turn her head to stifle the laugh against Angus's shoulder. After a moment, she regained her composure and returned to her wine to attempt to wash away the melancholy that came flooding back.
"I just don't understand him. I don't know why I keep trying, but...." She made helpless gesture and then went for more food.
Angus patted her shoulder. "Weel, he's your brother," he said. "That's a good enough reason, I reckon." He sipped at his wine consideringly. "Are you… not happy for Micah, Mads? You seem like you might be a wee bit unhappy."
Maddie pursed her lips and was quiet for a long moment. This time it truly had nothing to do with delaying tactics or anything like them—she simply wasn't sure how to answer. That her feelings about her brother were complex was no surprise to her, but that didn't mean she actually understood them enough to give them name.
"I'm not happy or unhappy. I'm not really anything," she said finally. "Micah hasn't needed or wanted my approval for anything for twenty years. I've gotten in the habit of not bothering to be happy or not." She sipped her wine, pointedly ignoring the fact that she'd almost gotten to the bottom of the glass again already. Maddie entirely blamed that fact for her adding, "I suppose indifferent is better than ignored."
Angus shook his head at that. "Ah, lass," he said. "Those aren't the only two options, you know. Look, after…" He hesitated for a second, weighing the words before he spoke. "After I came back from Azkaban," he continued, laying out each syllable precisely, "it took me a long time to know how to talk to Len. Or anyone, but Len was the hardest. Because it felt like he should just know what I was thinkin', and I should just know what he was thinkin', like we did when we were kids, but it doesn't work that way. Not off the pitch, anyway. I realised… we're adults now. We're a muckle bit more complicated than we were as kids, and we cannae go backwards to what we were."
He squeezed his arm around her. "And I know it's not the same between you and Cap -- Micah -- but unless you've been studyin' Legilimency without telling me, I reckon you don't know what he's thinkin' either. Maybe he doesn't need your approval, but that doesn't mean he doesn't want it. Aye? Maybe there's a way forward for you two, if you reach out. I reckon he's focused on Lex right now, but that doesn't mean he might not want his sister too.
"...And that's about as much wisdom as I have in me, so I'll stop dispensin' advice like a fortune cookie now." Angus pulled a face at Maddie. "Dinna roll your eyes at me, lassie, I'm doing my best here."
"A way forward to what?" Maddie asked, but then managed to stop her tongue from wagging that direction. Unfortunately, her relationship with her brother was one of the least of her worries—or it had been until his impromptu wedding had brought it to the forefront again. At this point, she'd have preferred it stay buried where it belonged.
She pulled back and gave his shoulder a half-hearted shove before leaning against him again. Her wine glass was still clasped in her hands, but she didn't move to refill it again. "I suppose I deserved that dose of counsel in exchange for my wine and whining, yeah? You're right about one thing, though. We can't go backwards. Let me know, oh wise one, if you figure out what forward looks like, because I sure as hell don't know right now."
"Well, talkin' to each other, for one." Angus shrugged. "But that's really for you to decide, darlin'. And maybe that's a decision that should wait until you haven't had half a bottle of wine first, eh? Which, speaking of…" He lifted the bottle again, raising his eyebrows at her. "Will you save me from the rest of this? Come on, let me top you up, and I'll tell you all the latest Maddock gossip."