WHO: Sean and Lindsay (with appearances by Meghan Connolly) WHAT: Hang out on NYE WHEN: WAY backdated to NYE WHERE:Sean's Flat RATING: Low STATUS: In Progress
The holidays were one of Lindsay's favourite times of the year mostly because it was also one of the few times when things were a little slower for her at work so she had a bit more time to actually spend with her friends and family. She'd spent Christmas with the large MacDougal clan and Boxing Day with the even larger Macmillans. She had fielded dozens of questions about when she was getting married and a particularly insistant MacDougal great aunt who was trying to set her up with one of her great-grandsons (damn intermarrying MacDougals and Macmillans anyway). By the time New Year's Eve rolled around she was exceedingly grateful that she was spending it with someone who wasn't going to try to marry her off to someone who shared more DNA with her than was strictly comfortable).
She arrived at Sean's at 7 o'clock on the button armed with two bottles of sparkling cider and the happy knowledge that with Sean at least she didn't have to make excuses about drinking on New Year's Eve. She'd always hated New Year's parties for that very reason. It seemed ridiculously difficult to make her peers understand why getting stupid drunk held zero appeal to her. One particularly intoxicated aquaintance went so far as to tell her that she was too uptight and didn't want anyone to see what she was really like when she lost her inhibitions. Needless to say that particular person ended up wearing grape soda by the end of the night. It wasn't her fault that she spilled it in that crowd, right?
Part of Lindsay wondered why Sean wasn't spending the evening with other friends but she knew him well enough to know that sometimes he just needed the quiet and she was always happy to provide it. That and his food was always amazing. Not that she was friends with Sean simply because he fed her, never that, it was simply a nice bonus to their friendship.
Lindsay double checked her watch to make sure she wasn't too early before ringing Sean's door bell.
She would be able to hear a pounding of feet as Sean all but tumbled down the stairs to the front door. When he yanked it open, there was a huge grin on his face. He couldn't be happier to have Lindsay's company. With her he knew there was no secret agenda, no hidden games, no trying to figure out what she was thinking. If ever there was a female that Sean could just relax with (apart from his mother, of course), it was Lindsay.
"Just in time," he stepped aside so that she could come in. The air in his flat was perfumed with ginger and cinnamon, and Sean had a red and green plaid apron tied around his waste. "I just pulled the last batch of cookies out of the oven, so if you're up for warm and gooey chocolate chip, you're at the right place." He wiped confectioner's sugar from his hands onto the apron, then reached out to take the bottles from her. "Perfect!" he exclaimed, not even needing to check the bottle. He knew it was non-alcoholic, and it tickled him that Lindsay felt the same way about drinking as he did. Well, almost the same. He kind of doubted that there was some burried religious reasons behind her motivations.
Always the gentleman, he extended a hand to her to help her across the doorstep. "Mum picked out a movie," he laughed a little. "Shakespeare in Love, I hope you can stomach it." Sean wasn't against a good love story, but they always made his mum a bit weepy, and with Sean's home nestled in the heart of a muggle village, he was able to get away with electricity and muggle gadgets without much magical interference.
Lindsay smiled at his somewhat typical response to his mum's choice of movies, "I'm girl enough to like stuff like that and sometimes we just need to get a little teary when we're happy."
As she followed Sean through the flat she wondered idly if she was breaking some kind of best friend code by spending the evening with Sean when Beth so clearly had lingering feelings for him. But she had no Earthly idea how she was supposed to act in this situation. Beth was her best friend but she and Sean had been close since school and she didn't want to hurt her relationship with Sean any more than she wanted to mess things up with Beth and she knew that Sean would know something weird was up if she suddenly stopped making time for him. Really, she couldn't wait for Beth to talk so Sean about her feelings because that was the kind of secret that Lindsay hated carrying. Personal secrets were one thing, there would always be things that she never told anyone but knowing that one friend had serious feelings for another was a difficult thing for her to carry. Luckily she'd had experience in dealing with the history between Sean and Beth.
"What made you decide on a quiet night?" she asked him as she followed him through his flat.
Sean laughed, playfully rolling his eyes. If he was being honest, he had a soft spot for romantic movies, and he imagined that a Shakespeare movie was one he would really enjoy. Shakespeare had been one of the only books he'd been allowed to read as a young child, and even though at eight years old it meant very little to him, he still remembered his older brothers reciting the words during their lessons, and how magical it all sounded. It was as magical as things could get in the compound.
"Tradition," he answered when she asked about the planned quiet night. "We usually have Seamus and his mum over, but they had other plans this year," he carefully untied the apron that was around his waste, dusting off the powdered sugar and folding it neatly over the back of a chair. As a non-drinker, Sean had never had any desire to go out or party on New Year's Eve, and he couldn't think of anyone who might enjoy a quiet evening quite as much as Lindsay.
"Offer the poor girl a drink!" Sean's mother appeared in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen. She casually clasped a mug of warm cider in one hand. "Lindsay, it's so good to see you!" Sean's mother was a regular at Quidditch events, almost always acting as Sean's plus one. The older woman snaked her free arm around Lindsay's waist and gave her cheerful hug, careful not to spill her drink.
Sean was already opening cabinets to find the proper glasses. "Do you want to break into this now, or wait until midnight?" Sean gestured at the sparkling cider Lindsay had brought. "Your other options are water, soda, or wassel." On the stove a warm pot of wassel filled the air with the scent of cinnamon and cranberry. "No rum in it, of course, but I figured you wouldn't mind." He held up a coffee mug and a tall glass for her to choose from. "Hot or cold?"
Lindsay returned Sean's mother's one armed hug. Over the years she'd gotten to know Sean's mother and liked her a great deal. She was more like what she'd always imagined a "real" mum would be as opposed to her own flakey but loveable mother. She knew that most people had their version of Meghan Connolly, that parent of a friend that you wish on bad days was actually your parent. Not that she didn't love her own mother, she did, Meg just drove her to distraction sometimes.
She pointed at Sean's mother's cup, "I'll have what she's having and we can save the cider for midnight and we can ring in the new year with our kind of bubbly."
Meghan Connolly, especially since their seperation from the Church and return to Ireland, often viewed Sean and Sarah's friends as her extended network of children. After all, she'd left a large handful of children behind, even if they hadn't been biological. It was easy for her to want to fill the hole in her heart with new faces. "Oh honey," she smiled at Lindsay, "You're in for a treat."
Sean put the tall glass back in the cabinet and grabbed a second mug. "Wassail it is," he ladeled out healthy portions for each of them, and handed one to Lindsay. "So, how did you spend Christmas?" he asked, leading the way into the living room. Meghan filled a plate with cookies and came closely behind them, each finding a comfortable chair in the sparsely decorated living room. The Connolly's weren't a lavish family, and the simplicity of their living room somehow reflected the ghosts of their past.
Following Sean into the living room Lindsay waited until she was curled comfortably in a third chair before answering Sean, "I spent Christmas with the MacDougals and Boxing Day with the Macmillans and, yes, there were a lot of people who attended both gatherings. One of my MacDougal great aunts tried to set me up with her great-grandson because for goodness sake I'm 25 now and I should be married. Preferably to either a Macmillan or a MacDougal. Damned magical clans and their inbreeding," Lindsay laughed as she said the last. She figured that at least her clans both owned up to it unlike a lot of the other purebloods who intermarried but pretended like they didn't.
She took a sip of the cup that Sean handed her and made an approving noise in the back of her throat, "This is heaven, Sean. I would come here for this even if I didn't have amazing company otherwise. Which I do."
Sean laughed a little bit, but truth be told, inter-family marriages hadn't been too uncommon where he'd grown up, either. When he'd been a little boy, he'd even imagined himself getting married to Sarah. He dismissed that, of course, once he'd started at Hogwarts. "Gotta keep the lines pure, of course," he nodded, though he certainly didn't mean it. "You can tell your grandmother that if you're not married by the time you're twenty-eight, you've got a brilliant fall back plan," he offered her a wink, then took a long swig of his drink. He was referring to himself of course.
"There's plenty of it, you'll have to take some home," he said of the wassail. "I can give you a container to put it in. I can't imagine mum and I will actually drink the entire pot."
"Speak for yourself!" Meghan said, lifting her glass into the air and then diving into another gulp.
Lindsay laughed at Sean's comments but her answer was mostly serious, "My clans don't care much about purity so much as clan loyalty. I don't know how many times I've heard that the only people you can trust are either MacDougals or Macmillans depending on who you're talking to," she gave him a sidelong glance, "As for the other, if you're still single at 28 I'll eat my wand."
Lindsay knew that even if things didn't work out with Beth there was no way that Sean would remain single for another three years. He was too good of a potential match to remain a bachelor forever. She felt like the only thing really holding her friend back was the same issues that Beth was dealing with. It was another reason why she encouraged Beth to talk to Sean. They both needed it. Badly.
"If you have some to spare I'd love to take some home. This stuff is made for lounging around in one's pyjamas reading a trashy novel with the fire up high."
"History might prove you wrong," he winked at her. Bethany had been Sean's only lasting relationship, as he seemed to have a great tendency to ruin relationships by becoming to attached to his women. "I haven't had a substantial relationship in ten years, you know," he pointed out. "And it doesn't look like that will change any time soon."
From the couch, Meghan laughed bitterly. Sean couldn't tell if it was commentary about his own relationships, or bitterness as to the fact that they both knew that his twin sister was married and had given birth to at least one child by now. Or even the fact that Meghan herself had married an already married man.
It was on the tip on Lindsay's tongue to tell Sean that the reason he hadn't had a substantial relationship since Bethany was because, like Bethany, he'd never really left the first one. If Lindsay were a more careful person she might have let the comment slide but if there was one thing that she couldn't seem to let go of it was a nagging need to make sure her friends were happy. And neither Sean nor Beth were happy while they let whatever was lingering between them remain unspoken.
"Did you ever think that maybe there's a reason that you haven't been serious about anyone but Beth?" Lindsay's tone was careful, more cautious than she would normally be because she was frankly more worried about Sean's feelings than she usually was. Sean was in some ways the most fragile of her friends and she was always conscious of that when meddling with his life.
"I'm going to whip up a snack!" Meg announced suddenly, oblivious to the fact that there was clearly plenty of snacks available. She gave both kids a smile, stood, and made her way out of the living room.
But Lindsay's pointed comment was lost on Sean. "Oh, I know why," he sighed. "The same reason things didn't work out with Beth. I'm too clingy. Just most of the other girls I've tried with bailed a hell of a lot sooner than she did," he pointed out. "I don't know what's wrong with me. I just ... When I get close to someone, I want to give them all of myself. Apparently I give too much," he sighed, looking down at his beverage.
Lindsay took a deep breath and swallowed a frustrated sigh, "That isn't true, Sean. I know that I can say with one hundred percent certainty that most women want that kind of committment. As long as you're not watching us sleep through our windows or telling us who we can talk to it feels good to know that someone loves you that completely. If I knew that someone loved with with that kind of devotion I wouldn't be running and neither would any woman worth your time."
She cursed herself for using herself as an example but Sean needed to know that there wasn't anything wrong with him. She took another deep breath because what she was about to say was big and could possibly screw things up and it wouldn't be the first time that her meddling had done just that, "Have you ever thought that maybe the thing that made the other girls run wasn't that you cared too much but that they saw something that you didn't. Maybe they saw that you were still in love with someone else."
But once again, it was lost on Sean. He had so deeply engrained in his own impressionable mind that things were over with Bethany that he couldn't hear someone pointing it out when they were shouting in his ear. "That's not what I mean," he insisted. "It's not that they don't want to be loved. It's that I get carried away with it. It's always that I crowd her, or get too clingy," he frowned, biting his lower lip. There was a distance in his eyes that indicated that he wasn't entirely present, but swirling somewhere in his memories.
Sure, there had been other girls... for a month or two. And he would throw himself completely into the relationship. He'd write them love letters or poems, buy them little gifts just to say that he was thinking of her, show up unexpectedly to brighten her day... but somewhere along the line, it always seemed to become creepy rather than sweet... and at that point, Sean could never seem to stop himself.
"You aren't hearing me Sean," Lindsay crossed the room to kneel in front of her friend, the person she cared about more than anyone save Beth and her family, "You're overcompensating because you aren't thinking about them. You're thinking about her, about Beth, about how if you had just done things right with her the first time you wouldn't have to go through these motions, show these girls that you love them when really they'll always be in second place in your heart," she reached out and touched Sean's hand to get his full attention, "You need to stop pretending because it will end up hurting you in the end. Hurting you both. Talk to her. Please. Wait until after your trip with her but talk to her. You both need it."
Lindsay rocked back on her heels and waited for the other shoe to drop. She'd said too much. She'd gone too far and she'd honestly be surprised if he didn't make her leave then and there. But it hurt her to see him, to see Beth, like this. The two of them seemed to live in this halfway shadow world where they both beat themselves up over how unloveable they were when the obvious issue wasn't that they were unloveable but that they had already given themselves to each other. It hurt her to see them both like this. She'd been the one in love with someone who didn't see her more times than she wanted to acknowledge and that kind of gnawing emotional pain wasn't something she would wish even on her worst enemy.
It was when Lindsay's hand touched his that he seemed to come back to Earth a little bit. Instinctively his hand turned, his fingers coiling around hers, and he looked down into her eyes. It occurred to him, somewhere far away in his mind, that he'd never mentioned the trip to her, and so she must have been talking to Bethany about him. But instead of snapping and pulling away, he just smiled gently at her. Sean was in a mode.... one that meant that nothing she could say would ever make it through. "No, that's not it," he smiled warmly. It was almost frightening how dedicated he was to not allowing her to pinpoint his feelings.
"Bethany is a wonderful woman," he agreed. "But we've been down that path before. We both know it wouldn't work." And that, there, was something he'd forcibly convinced himself of, even if it wasn't true. It was going to take a hell of a lot more than a conversation to shake him of the concrete belief.
There was a part of Lindsay that strongly wished that Sean hadn't wrapped his hand around hers. It was easier if he didn't. It was easier for her to keep Sean in the place he'd always been. The place he needed to be in when he didn't touch her like that. She could touch him because she was in control then but that small part of her that she kept locked away hated it when he touched her back. She closed her eyes for a moment to refocus her argument. Sean needed to hear her. He needed to talk to Beth. They needed to be together like they were supposed to be and then maybe that part of her mind would finally be silent.
"That's bullshite, Sean. I'm sorry. You don't know that it wouldn't work and just pretending that it isn't there seeping into every conversation, every exchange is just making you both miserable. You need to talk to her. Please.," Lindsay's tone was pleading.
This was so not how she'd planned on spending her New Year's Eve.