alastair. (logicale) wrote in obliviaterpg, @ 2019-10-19 18:05:00 |
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Charlie’s body might have been broken, but his mind wasn’t. He was more than aware that there were things going on that he didn’t know about. Despite their conversation the other day, Alastair was still keeping things from him, he just didn’t know what it was. What he did know was that something was going on between Alastair and Edgar Bones’ son. It probably wasn’t cheating, he knew Alastair too well for that, but there was definitely something happening behind his back. He only needed to catch two shared glances and overhear a conversation he probably wasn’t supposed to hear to know that. The knowledge would probably have made others angry, and it did rub him the wrong way, but it also weighed on him because he knew that Alastair’s other needs weren’t being met, even before the attack. Since the attack, it seemed they were barely affectionate at all, let alone sharing any degree of intimacy. Feeling like the other man had pulled away first, Charlie stopped reaching for him. He insisted he was more independent than he was, insisted he could do more for himself than he should. Being cooped up in the house and the grounds was stifling, and he really wanted to go back to work--not that he’d been cleared to Apparate alone. The playbook Aidan sent him helped a little, but of course he had opinions about that too and wanted to be able to offer input on the pitch. Unfortunately, these feelings were very hard not to take out on Alastair a bit, and Charlie would be lying if he said he succeeded in keeping them to himself. He didn’t. He tried to keep the snapping to a minimum, but as a result ended up being short with him, bordering on passive aggressive. And when he otherwise would have let Alastair help him, he just didn’t ask for it. He pulled himself painfully out of bed after a post-pain potion nap, feeling cranky and a little groggy, to go splash water on his face and get something to eat. The water woke him up a bit, but nothing like seeing Alastair talking to Rook near the bottom of the stairs. They were just talking, nothing anyone else would be upset about, but Charlie didn’t even want to deal with it and turned right around to go back to their room. Apparently he’d just eat later. -- If Alastair expect Charlie not to notice anything between him and Rook he would be lying to himself. There was a reason Alastair had started avoiding the larger man whenever he could. The attraction was almost impossible to miss and Alastair, while certainly not about to give in to temptation, could recognize how he acted around Rook. Others likely would too, but Alastair only cared about Charlie’s opinion of him. Unfortunately, when Rook finally caught him near the bottom of the stairs, Alastair didn’t really have an escape. He had tried to make an excuse, but found himself sucked in. He did not, however, miss Charlie emerge from his room only to turn and go right back. Not even bothering to excuse himself from the conversation, he turned around and moved quickly up the stairs to follow Charlie into the room. He knew what it looked like and he knew how Charlie might take not only his body language, but Rook’s as well. It looked bad. While it wasn’t cheating, it certainly was too close for comfort. “Hey,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Were you looking for me? I thought you were going to come downstairs.” --- Honestly, part of him had hoped that Alastair hadn’t noticed and followed him because he just didn’t want to confront this. He didn’t like that he felt jealous, or that he wasn’t able to give the other man what he needed. He hated it. And talking about it wouldn’t make it any better because it was Charlie’s problem to deal with--mostly. But he heard footsteps on the stairs behind him and sighed as he sat back down on the bed. “Changed my mind,” was all he said, determined not to do this. He was achy and bored and frustrated, and he knew that the chances of escaping a conversation without taking all of his negative emotions out on his boyfriend were uncomfortably slim. It was best for the both of them to try and avoid talking altogether. --- They had been avoiding talking for a long time and Alastair was really just waiting for it to end. Their relationship had felt wrong since Alastair confessed why he was in the Order in the first place, and he didn’t know how to fix it. Complete, unrestrained honesty didn’t feel possible because Alastair knew Charlie wouldn’t like what he saw, and the idea that Charlie could dislike him hurt worse than Charlie ever being angry with him for keeping secrets. That didn’t mean that it didn’t hurt, though, because the pain in his chest whenever Charlie snapped at him made him want to leave and never come back. “What made you change your mind?” he asked, knowing full well what it was. Charlie wasn’t blind nor stupid. He could see that Alastair’s attention had wandered. Even if he weren’t attracted to Rook, he was still spending most of his time away from the room he shared with his boyfriend. -- Charlie didn’t know if the question was genuine or asked out of obligation; either way, he couldn’t look at him when he answered. He didn’t have the energy or the will, and a lot of him wanted to pick a fight. He wanted to explode and get everything out in the open. But that would mean saying things he knew he would immediately regret, and he was still convinced that if they could just weather this storm, they’d be okay on the other side. They just had to get past this. “I’m tired, Alastair.” To reiterate, he fought through the discomfort to lay down on his side again, despite having gotten up mere minutes ago and having no intentions of actually sleeping. If Alastair would leave him alone, maybe he could figure out something else to do besides more sleep he didn’t need. “I’m just going to go back to sleep.” --- The question was genuine enough, but Alastair knew what the answer was. Charlie was never good at hiding his emotions or lying. It was what had attracted Alastair to him in the first place. There was something about that honesty that Alastair couldn’t accomplish that made him so attractive. Now, however, when he was trying to lie or at least conceal his emotions to avoid either a fight or confrontation was less endearing than it had been in the past. Perhaps those feelings came with time, but Alastair wasn’t about to let this go. “You’re upset with something I’ve done, aren’t you?” he asked, crossing the room. He sat down on the bed next to Charlie with a frown. Alastair hated confrontation, but the tension wasn’t something he could bear either. This needed to be solved, for better or worse, but Alastair had a feeling he knew which direction that would end up going. -- Lacking the conviction to outright tell him to leave him alone, it looked like Charlie was going to be forced to deal with this, but that didn’t mean he wanted to, or that he was going to make it easy. For whatever reason, Alastair was pushing something he should just leave alone, so he was just going to have to try and not pick a fight as best he could. The answer to the question was yes, of course, but since Charlie didn’t believe it was really Alastair’s fault, he couldn’t just say that. It wouldn’t be fair. His problem was with Rook, who know that Alastair wasn’t available, and with himself, for not being able to give Alastair what he needed. Any frustration with keeping secrets was separate to him, because one wrong against him did not excuse wrongs in return. So what he said instead was, “Have you done anything to upset me?” Which was a rhetorical question, obviously, because Alastair hadn’t done anything unreasonable at all with Rook. Probably. --- Alastair turned slightly so he could watch Charlie. His body language easily said that he wanted to be left alone, but silence wasn’t going to fix anything. In fact, silence would likely only hurt more in the long run, and Alastair couldn’t handle it. It already hurt seeing Charlie so upset and he hadn’t really done anything with Rook. Not really. He had flirted with him, which was what led to the taller man cornering him at the bottom of the stairs. “It seems like I have,” he answered. “But I need you to tell me what it is because this time I’m not entirely sure.” Another lie, of course. He had promised Charlie honesty, so it only became more obvious every time he lied. Each piece of dishonesty or half truth felt like a knife both in his own chest and at the core of their relationship. Yet, he couldn’t force himself to be completely honest with the man he loved because Alastair was afraid that Charlie would hate him. So would he rather Charlie hate him for something else? He wasn’t sure, but it looked like they were going down that road. -- The part that hurt Charlie the most was that he couldn't tell if Alastair was genuinely confused or pretending. It was all the more upsetting that he still couldn’t tell if he was being lied to. Alastair had promised there wouldn’t be any more lies, but he had also promised there wouldn’t be any more secrets too, and they both knew that promise had already been broken; what was to say he hadn’t been lied to again as well? It wasn’t like Charlie would ever know unless he actually caught him in the middle of a lie. “Do you? Do you honestly have no idea?” he tried not to make it accusatory, because he really wanted to believe that Alastair was being open and honest with him, but something told him he wasn’t, and he could tell he didn’t succeed. --- Alastair frowned deeply at that comment and almost recoiled. Instead, he turned his body so he could look down at Charlie incredulously. It was one thing to know, but being half-accused of something didn’t sit right with him and Alastair had to fight not to be offended by it. He hesitated then, only because he wasn’t sure what to say. He sat there with his mouth just slightly open as he searched for the words, finally settling on a fact they both knew was true. “You still don’t trust me, do you?” he asked. “No matter what I do or what I say you aren’t going to trust me the way that you used to either. You’re always going to question me, aren’t you?” It hurt. As much as Alastair was beginning to feel they weren’t meant for each other, the confirmation that he had lost every bit of trust Charlie had in him made his chest tighten. He hadn’t done anything with Rook and maybe Charlie didn’t think he had, but it was the hesitation that really gave him the reaction he was having now. -- Now it was Charlie’s turn to start to get defensive. The accusation in return made it seem like he wasn’t even trying to trust him, when the exact opposite was true. Charlie was trying to trust Alastair with everything he had despite them both knowing that the other man was still keeping something from him. Did he honestly expect him to be able to feel like he could trust him when he had no way of knowing what the secret even was? “I am trying, Alastair, but you’re not making it easy. We talked about secrets and you’re still keeping them. So I don’t know how I’m supposed to when I don’t even know what they’re about.” This was not a conversation for lying down, so regardless of how much his body protested, he pushed himself until he was sitting up in bed and leaned against the headboard. It made his ribs burn and he dropped his head back with his eyes closed as he breathed through the pain, but only for a moment. He needed to be looking at Alastair while they worked this out. --- Of course Alastair knew Charlie was trying, but the fact that he couldn’t made it worse. Even through his best efforts, Charlie still couldn’t trust him. Alastair knew he was keeping secrets and logically knew it was unreasonable to expect everything to be the same, but that didn’t change how he felt about the lack of trust in him. Relationships were built on trust, and it seemed theirs was gone. Alastair frowned and almost said something about Charlie pushing himself too hard, but now was not the time or place for that particular argument. They were in a different argument and Alastair wanted to focus on this one. It was the root of all of their problems and if they could maybe just fix it, they could actually work things out. “I am also trying, Charlie,” he snapped. “Do you think it’s easy sharing every little ugly part of myself with you when I know damn well you’d hate what you see?” -- Charlie fought an eye roll, something he almost never had to do. “We’ve already talked about this, I told you I don't care about anything you've done in the past." Granted, Charlie was under the impression that all of Alastair's choices he would be upset about were in the past and new ones wouldn’t be made, but he also didn’t actually think he was capable of doing anything that would truly make him hate him. It was just frustrating because he didn’t want to keep having this conversation. “I told you that I love you and that nothing you show me is going to make me hate you. Why don’t you believe me?” --- Alastair could see the frustration and it just made him feel more indignant. He tried not to make a face, but as a result probably ended up looking pretty irritated. Honestly, sometimes it felt like Charlie didn’t know him. Perhaps that was his own doing and that was why Charlie was upset, but Alastair didn’t know how to change that now. They would have to completely get to know each other all over again, and Alastair wasn’t sure either of them wanted to go through the hassle. “Nothing?” he asked. “I told you before that I’m probably going to keep doing things you don’t like. Things that you think are wrong. Will you still love me then? When I kill my father will you still be able to look at me and say that you feel the same about me?” -- If Alastair thought Charlie wasn’t willing to put in the work to really know him, then he was greatly mistaken, because the Charlie sitting on the bed with him would have walked through fire to be with him. Whatever it took. Because it didn’t matter how dark and twisty Alastair was inside, he had more than enough good in him to counteract it. Charlie could see it. Whatever the bad parts, this was a man who would do anything to protect his family, a man who overcame his upbringing to fight for good--a man that Charlie loved very much and didn’t want to let go of, no matter how hard it was. Only, he didn’t know just how hard it was going to be. “What are you talking about? You and your sister are safe here, completely out of his reach, why would you need to kill him?” --- Of course Charlie wanted to know him, but that was the point. If he did get to know all those things that Alastair was hiding he wouldn’t like what he saw. Maybe he would love Alastair still, but it would be in spite of what Charlie viewed as flaws while Alastair didn’t think of those things as detrimental. Maybe he was a little ashamed of them, but it was part of who he was, and he had people in his life who loved him with those faults included. “I will never feel safe until he is dead,” Alastair said seriously. “That’s… another part of why I joined. The Order is fighting the Death Eaters and I have one in particular I would like to see dead and gone. Being here will help me accomplish that.” -- The last thing Charlie wanted to do was validate Alastair’s fears about whatever darkness he had in him, but...he hadn’t thought that darkness would include wanting to murder someone. Now, he held no love at all for a man who terrorized his own children enough that they had to go into hiding, and he’d seen firsthand what lengths Robert Selwyn was willing to go through in order to get what he wanted. He knew the man deserved to die for everything he had done, and everything he probably would do in the future if given half a chance. However. That didn’t mean that he should die if there were other options. He should rot in Azkaban, his mind and body deteriorating while he had the chance to regret all the bad he had done over the course of his life. As long as they had other options besides death, in Charlie’s opinion, they should use them. But this sounded like Alastair was using the Order for access, not because fighting with them to take down this evil regime was the right thing to do. Like once his father was not a threat anymore, he and Delilah would just leave and go back to their lives like nothing happened. Like perhaps Charlie himself was the sole reason he was really there. “That sounds a lot like revenge, but we don’t kill Death Eaters, Alastair.” At least, that was the Order Charlie thought he was a part of. If they happened to die in battle, actively being a Death Eater and trying to kill them, that was one thing but they never set out to kill them. The only one that had to die was the Dark Lord himself, the rest could--and should--go to azkaban after that. --- There may have been other reasons, but Alastair had never been in this for other people. It hadn’t started that way, and maybe he could examine the Death Eaters with a critical lens and see that they were in the wrong, but it wasn’t about that. Charlie would hate that it wasn’t about that and Alastair wasn’t the good person that he’d thought. In fact, Alastair was certain he could see the exact moment where Charlie changed his opinion of his boyfriend. “Tell that to everyone in your group who has killed a Death Eater, both in the distant past and recently,” he said crossing his arms over his chest. “You don’t think there are other people in this group who want every single one of them dead? I just want to get to one.” If Charlie was so sure that most of the Order wanted to only imprison the Death Eaters, Alastair had underestimated his naivety or he was intentionally not paying attention. -- “But it’s not about revenge!” Charlie protested. “If a death happens when we fight them, then it happens, but it’s not the goal, what you’re talking about is murder.” The goal here was not to prematurely brand the man he loved as a murderer or condemn him or judge him. Charlie only wanted to make him see that there were other options, and see that what he wanted to do was wrong. He wanted to convince him not to do it. He didn’t think that Alastair would be able to live with that on his conscience in the long run. Maybe he would feel relieved at first, but he firmly believed that deep down, Alastair would regret taking a life like that. He reached for Alastair’s hand. “And I know that you’re not a murderer, whatever darkness you think you have inside you.” --- Weirdly enough, this didn’t comfort Alastair at all. Instead, he fought off the glare that threatened to seep its way onto his expression. Instead, he managed a frown down at Charlie’s hand, feeling more than a little judged by his words. Whatever darkness he thought he had inside? Part of him wondered if Charlie even knew him at all and when he finally looked up at him, he was sure it showed. “I am,” he said, tugging his hand away. “And I will be, because you’re right. What I’m talking about is murder, but as long as my father is alive I will not feel safe and my sister will not feel safe.” He sighed and closed his eyes for a second before regarding Charlie again, realizing he was feeling differently about him now. “I knew you wouldn’t like this part of me, but I can’t change who I am. I told you what I’m here to do and you are still refusing to believe the darkness I know I have inside me.” He stood up from the bed and looked down at him, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t need any self-righteous coddling or attempts to save me, Charlie. I know what I am.” -- Is this really happening? It was so hard for Charlie to process what Alastair was telling him. He’d thought for years that they were so similar, that they understood each other. Though they’d never had the same priorities--Charlie had his dream to work with dragons, while Alastair had to stay for his sister--they’d understood why the other held those priorities. It made sense. Well. It used to make sense. Now it was just confusing, and Alastair pulling away and getting defensive was hurtful. He didn’t understand where any of this was coming from, why it was coming up now--and if it had been there all along, why all the lying? If he knew that Charlie wouldn’t like or love him for who he was, what was the point in starting anything in the first place? “Then why tell me? Why lie to me, for years, make me believe you’re someone you’re apparently not, make me love you, when you knew this was going to happen? What was the point, Alastair? Why would you waste either of our time?” Unfortunately for the both of them, Charlie’s questions weren’t just for clarification--they were meant to hurt. He might regret this later, but for the moment, he was simply lashing out. --- Charlie’s words hurt worse than Alastair could have imagined. So much so that he physically recoiled at them. He had been trying to keep his frustration in so that maybe something could be salvaged, but the hurt and anger he was reading in Charlie’s words shattered the illusion that things would ever be okay between them again. He had done too much damage from the beginning of this to ever recover. “Because I wanted to be worth your fucking time,” he snapped. “Because I love you and I’ve tried to be someone that you could love, but you also deserve the truth. I know you can’t love me and I can’t keep trying to be somebody that you can.” Then he paused, realizing exactly what this meant. He had known for a while that they needed to break up, but actually saying the words out loud were harder than he thought. His expression softened, but he didn’t want to cry in front of him. Charlie might try to make it work. Tell him to come back over so they could work things out, and Alastair would. If Charlie asked him to he would step back into the skin of the person he couldn’t be and try for a little while longer, even though logically he couldn’t. So he had to be the one to end it. “I’ll stop wasting your time.” With it finally said he gave Charlie one last look, but that was a mistake. Feeling the sting behind his eyes, he turned abruptly so he could walk out of the room. -- Charlie regretted the words almost as soon as they left his mouth; they were said out of pain and anger, yes, but they also had a very real effect on the man in front of him, and hurting Alastair didn’t make him feel better, and it didn’t make him feel validated. The reaction, this whole conversation, made his chest hurt, and the more they said, the worse it got. The worst part of it all was that Charlie did still love him, regardless of whatever lying Alastair had done. A part of him couldn’t accept that what he said was the truth, or maybe it just thought the whole argument was stupid because they could definitely just talk it out and make it work because they cared about each other so much. That part almost called him back and begged him to stay. But it wasn’t stupid. Murder wasn’t stupid. It was a line he wouldn’t cross, and he couldn’t watch Alastair cross it either, as painful and gut wrenching as this was. He clenched his jaw as his eyes burned, using every ounce of willpower he had to let Alastair walk out the door like they both needed him to. If he was so adamant that he couldn’t be talked down from that ledge, then there was nothing Charlie could do for him, and he couldn’t--wouldn’t--watch him jump. |