RP Log: Seamus and Adrian, BACKDATED to Monday Characters: Seamus Finnigan and Adrian Pucey
Setting: Seamus's flat, Monday afternoon
Summary: Seamus is drunk, Adrian drops by, and they have a chat about the woes of romance.
Rating: R
Warnings: Language, as per usual. And drinking. Lots of drinking.
Most of the time, Adrian wouldn't have bothered if Tracey had gotten drunk this early in the afternoon, but what seemed to concern him was the fact that she was absolutely plastered and allowing men to seduce her. Hell, if he wasn't there, one of them would've taken her home -- he was certain of that. Yet, from what he remembered from his conversation with Seamus last week was that the two of them were seeing each other. If Tracey was already planning to cheat on him, he needed to make certain that Seamus knew before it got to be too late.
The truth was, Seamus didn't care anymore. Or at least, that was what he told himself. He had already discovered that Tracey wasn't the person he thought she was. He wished she had cheated on him. If she had simply cheated on him, then he could have broken it off with her on the grounds that she was a slag instead of a genuinely horrible human being. Over the past few days, he'd heard the last words she'd spoken to him ringing in his ears: "They were just Muggles."
As if it mattered. As if it made a damn bit of difference to anything who they were. They were children and they were dead and mutilated now, and she thought that was okay. It was worse than any cheating. Seamus had just found out that he'd been falling in love with a person who didn't exist, who was just a cover for a monster.
He didn't work on Mondays, so Seamus spent the day in his flat, drinking whiskey and smoking cigarettes. By the time Adrian arrived there, the Irishman was well past drunk and the whole flat was filled with a slight stale haze of smoke. Seamus sat at his kitchen table with the bottle and the ashtray in front of him, where he'd not moved from for at least an hour. It was over a week since he broke up with Tracey, but he'd spent the whole time either thinking about what he'd seen at the orphanage or thinking about her, and that left him with a very great desire to get very wrecked on this, his one day off.
When Adrian arrived at Seamus' flat, he noticed that something was the matter. His friend looked to be inebriated and also the haze from all that smoke were strong indicators that something happened to him. Maybe Tracey had already gotten to him and hurt his feelings. He knew the feeling all too well. He didn't want to see his friend go through the same thing that he had to go through.
He grabbed a nearby chair in the kitchen and straddled it, making eye contact with his friend. "What happened?" he stated bluntly.
The look Seamus returned to him was a miserable, bitter smile. "Fell fer the wrong girl," he said, not even bothering to prevaricate upon the truth. He hadn't told anyone else, because damned if he wanted to hear Lilith's "I Told You So" or see the pitying look on Susan's face. Adrian, though, he had a feeling would understand. Or at least he would if he could listen through the whiskey and the thickened Irish accent to have any idea what Seamus was talking about, anyway. "Fell hard, fell fast, an' then felt the short, sharp, shock tha' comes a' th'end," he continued as he lit yet another cigarette.
He knew the feeling all too well, especially the one that Seamus was describing. He never wished for him to have to go through the same course of emotions that he went through, but now he knew that he was. "Okay, what did she do?" he asked him, quietly.
"She came over last Monday, day after Katie an' I'd gone through that orphanage," Seamus answered quietly. "An' a' first everythin' was fine, up 'til I brought tha' up. We started fightin' 'bout it. She defended it, sayin' it was just what happens in war, same as if an Auror kills somebody in th' line o' duty...so o' course it escalated from there. I kept hopin' she was just bein' stubborn, lookin' fer somethin' to fight about...an' then she says "they were just Muggles." An' that's when I told 'er to get the fuck out an' not to come back."
He winced slightly, not thinking that Tracey would be that harsh. Yet, then again whatever she wanted she made sure that she got it. So, if she wanted to fuck up Seamus' life -- whether it was intentional or not -- was all her fault. "Is there anything I can do?" Adrian inquired of him.
Seamus shrugged. "Not really," he said. "Not unless ye've acquired the talent o' turnin' back time an' makin' a bunch o' children not be dead." He paused and lit another cigarette, and his voice was very quiet as he finished. "Or at least make me not see it."
"Unfortunately, I can't," Adrian said quietly, "wish that I could though, but I can't."
Adrian was certain that he knew part of the reason why he had stated that. Sure, there was the obvious of not wanting to see the attack, but then the argument wouldn't have come up and the two of them would still be together. There were times where Adrian wished that Tracey had already left for Monaco so that he wouldn't have to deal with the harsh reality of her breaking up with him.
"Okay, let's try this one," Seamus suggested with a falsely bright cheer. "Maybe ye can make me not mad about a woman who's beyond selfish an' right on into sociopathic?" Of course he knew perfectly well that Adrian couldn't do anything to help any of his situations. The man just had the misfortune to be the first to hear the details of Seamus and Tracey's breakup. That meant he was hearing all the raw emotion as if it had happened an hour ago instead of a week past.
"I think time will only help with that," Adrian told Seamus, "and that's just the way Tracey is. She only thinks of herself. But she has hurt my emotions before, if that helps any." He knew that really it didn't, but felt that Seamus should know that he's gone through something similar to when Tracey left him five years ago.
"Her complete disregard for human life helped a bit." Seamus snorted, disgusted with her for being that way and himself for ever wanting her. "Now've just gotta wait 'til Lil finds out so I can hear the promised I Told Ye So, an' then maybe I can get on through wi' hatin' m'self for the whole damn thing."
"Well, it seems that she has a total disregard for her life too," Adrian responded. "Because she allowed herself to get plastered and was absolutely willing to let a stranger take her home."
Seamus's insides froze at the suggestion. Even now, the idea of her with anybody else made him feel a bit like killing someone. And he worried for her, too, even though he knew she'd never spare a thought for him again. Damned if he was going to show it, though. Or so he thought - the truth was the every thought Seamus ever had was written clear across his face. He looked furious, even as he muttered "Stupid of 'er," through gritted teeth. "She's out of 'er fuckin' mind."
"Of course she is," he stated, obviously noting the look on Seamus' face. "Probably would've succeeded in letting one of them take her home if I didn't step in."
"Good ye were there to look out for 'er, then," he shortly replied. He inhaled deeply on his cigarette and leaned back in his chair, slinging his foot up onto the chair across from it. He was glad Adrian was there to look out for Tracey. He just also hated her at the same time. It was...complicated.
"Yeah, it was. But sometimes..." he started, trailing off, "it's just that there are always going to be memories of her -- both positive and negative -- no matter how hard you try to forget."
"Oh, fuck that shite." Seamus glared at the wall. "I'm not spendin' the rest o' m' life pinin' after her. No way in hell. It's obvious she's forgotten me already, as she so cheerfully announced she was already gettin' bored wi' me anyway an' now she's trawlin' the pubs for new targets, an' let's not forget the part where she hears about a house full o' dead children an' says they're just Muggles. I'm done wi' that woman, well shut of 'er, an' as soon as I finish another couple bottles o' this, I'll not think of 'er again."
Of course, he'd thought he could have drunk her memory away already. It was a week ago that they'd split, and he hadn't been able to get her off his mind any more than he could shake the mental image of the scene he'd found at the orphanage.
"You probably said that last week when the two of you ended things," Adrian stated, "but you still haven't been able to forget her. And even though she's acting the way she is -- I don't think she's forgotten about you."
"Yah, well, there's no' any damn point in any of't, is there?" Seamus snapped. He was too drunk to be mindful of the fact that this was a friend who was trying to help. "We're from different fuckin' universes. She supports the fuckin' Death Eaters, fer fuck's sake. People whose whole goal in life is t' have people like me dead. So fuck 'er. If there was somethin' about 'er that pulled me in - well, fuck that too. 's nothin' but self-destructive an' stupid, an' I've got enough self-destructive habits as 'tis, an' enough ways to make meself look like a damned fool, too. 'm done."
"But what if it wasn't her own choice? What if she was forced to?" he retorted, "Keep in mind that I went through a similar situation and they wanted me to take the Mark. Which resulted in me getting disowned because I didn't take it. Maybe she can't go through that. Maybe it's too traumatic for her if she gets disowned. Have you ever thought about that?"
"If that's what it was she could've bloody well told me!" Seamus irritably responded. "Or if she didn' wanna do that, she could've just made a nice clean break of it. She didn' have to throw out every single absolute most horrible an' hurtful thing she could ever think of. Even if she doesn' actually think any o' what she said, she's still a fuckin' sadist."
"Have you ever considered that she might be afraid to tell you because she doesn't know what your reaction would be?" Adrian stated, "Because if you're going to react the way that you are then I could see the reason why. As for why she said what she did, it was probably a defence mechanism. Maybe she was afraid of telling you the truth."
"I'm not apologizin' for not bein' able to sit there an' listen to her call that bunch o' children 'just Muggles', Adrian!" Seamus snarled back. "I saw those kids, an' I was messed up enough by that in an' of itself. I didn' need her shite on top'f it." He started to stand up, and knocked over his chair in the process. An attempt to pick said chair up resulted in his head spinning very unpleasantly. Even for a seasoned drinker like Seamus Finnigan, the day had been spent on a great deal of alcohol. Clearly at some point it had become way too much, because then he was leaning against the wall wishing his stomach would quit doing that thing it was doing.
Adrian got out of his chair and slid down against the wall, so that he was next to Seamus. Obviously, he was going to have to try to take a different approach to the scenario. "I'm not saying that you should," he said quietly, keeping his tone calm, "but what I'm saying is that the two of us probably have very different reactions. And even though she may still be her vain, arrogant, selfish, and holier-than-thou self, I can probably tell you that she's hurting. I don't know why or what happened. But the Tracey I saw a couple of days ago wasn't the Tracey I knew."
"'m done talkin' 'bout this," Seamus muttered, leaning back on the wall. He didn't want to hear about Tracey being hurt, because he didn't want to care about how she felt anymore. He'd gotten in enough trouble from that already. He was trying to get over her, not feel even worse about her.
"Okay, then we won't talk about that anymore," Adrian stated, rather matter-of-factly. But then he had no idea what to do if Seamus didn't want to talk about what had happened in the past. Plus, he had to keep in mind the inebriated state he was in and the fact that he probably wasn't thinking clearly. "So, what do you want to discuss, then?"
Seamus was not being especially cooperative, unfortunately. "I don' particularly want to discuss much o' anythin'," he flatly replied. He at least wasn't angry anymore, but he was definitely still drunk and still in a foul mood. While he'd feel bad about being an arse later, at the moment he wasn't fit company for a troll.
"So, dead silence it is," Adrian stated, trying to alleviate the mood. "Want me to get you a drink or anything?"
He started to answer in the affirmative, but thought better of it. "Nah," Seamus replied, quieter than before. "Think it's prob'ly the last thing I need now. 'Less it was a drink o' water."
"A glass of water it is then," he announced as he headed off to the kitchen to do just that.
"Thanks," Seamus replied. He hunted through the fog of alcohol to find a change of subjects, and finally settled on one. "How's things wi' Susan?" Merlin, he hoped Adrian didn't say anything about him and Tracey to Susan. Susan was the protective sort - she'd go spare if she heard about anyone doing anything that she considered mistreatment of her friends.
"Actually, we ended things a few days ago," he stated, rather glumly, "I think I may have rushed things a bit too fast and I think I scared her off since she could be afraid of commitment. I guess it was best we ended things when we did though."
Seamus snorted. "Women." Because even though Susan was his friend, at the moment she was firmly in the category of women. So much for the change of subject. They'd find another one, though - Quidditch, most likely. And Seamus would sober up, and the two of them would eventually talk through enough stuff that women were pushed well to the backs of their minds.
Given their collective history with the female half of the population, that was probably for the best.