Fred Weasley (hisangelictwin) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-06-06 14:12:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !thread, character: alicia spinnet, character: fred weasley, location: diagon alley |
Who: Alicia Spinnet and Fred Weasley
What: Unleashing of bottled up feelings
When: 6 June - Afternoon
Where: Diagon Alley
Warnings: Angry Fred
Fred wasn't sure how much longer he could stand it. He'd been doing his damnedest to push down all the feelings of being somewhere in between dead and alive. While he knew that the reality was he was living and breathing - and presently walking around - he couldn't shake the feeling that he was living on borrowed time. In some other world he wasn't alive. Dead. Gone. Crushed or blown up, however you wanted to count the specifics. George was a lone Weasley twin and Fred was only a distant memory. Living with those memories of another life was damn difficult, but watching the people he cared about and how much they were suffering over his death in some other reality made him sick to his stomach.
His sleep was never restful and though he'd managed to get a few winks in here or there, it wasn't nearly the amount of slumber that he needed to function properly. He was teetering somewhere between sleeping and awake when he made his way down Diagon Alley just trying to clear his head a little before he went back to the shop and put on a happy face to at least pretend he wasn't a complete and utter wreck.
Unfortunately for him, the trip down Diagon Alley wasn't going to be as stress relieving as he had hoped it would be. If he'd seen her before he nearly bumped into her, Fred would have gone the other way to avoid Alicia. Unable to do so now, though, he just gave an attempt at a friendly wave in her direction. "Afternoon," he said.
--
Alicia had not seen George--or Fred, for that matter--since their birthday party at the pub two months prior. Some of that was on accident, but mostly it was on purpose. She couldn’t imagine that Fred was a fan of her and George working things out and trying to be friends, and she still felt guilty enough that she didn’t know how to approach anyone else in their friend group after she’d burned her bridges; all she’d wanted was for them to choose George, to give him their support and not think of her at all. She didn’t think that they’d be trying to patch things up this soon after, if it happened at all. She certainly didn’t know why George wanted to continue being friends with her. Perhaps it was as simple as not wanting to waste 12 years of friendship and closeness, but whatever the reason on his end, she had her own reasons as well, and didn’t want to give up on their relationship, whatever the status.
Which put both of their significant others, and everyone else in their friend group, at odds. Well, not odds per ce, but it certainly did make things awkward. Terence’s discomfort was the reason they hadn’t met in person again, only talked through owls and journals, and only, on Alicia’s part, sparingly. As much as she wanted to fix things with George, her relationship with her husband had to take precedence, otherwise, she might as well call it quits now and live out the rest of her life alone. And the rest of them, she didn’t know where they stood. Alicia still didn’t really regret the way she’d reacted to things, but she did regret that it had happened, that she’d thought it necessary. And now, she didn’t even know where to start apologizing or making things right.
Thus, bumping into Fred--the real Fred, not simply George pretending to be him--was just as awkward bumping into George had been. If she were being honest with herself, she was surprised to receive anything near as warm as his greeting was, even if it was given out of politeness.
“Fred, hi,” she responded, a bit hesitant and unsure. It had honestly been long enough that she might have misjudged how he felt about her in all of this, but she wasn’t sure if she wanted that or not. On the one hand, no one liked having their friends hate them, but on the other, she definitely did deserve it.
--
The hesitance and uncertainty in her eyes and in her voice were somewhat expected. He was glad she didn't expect him to be thrilled to see her, but he realized as he looked at her exactly how angry he was over everything. Maybe angry was the wrong word, really. Upset. Hurt. Gutted. Those were better, he supposed. Maybe not even close to really conveying how terribly the situation affected him, but better than angry. He wanted to hate Alicia because he knew she deserved to be hated for everything if only out of loyalty to his brother, but he couldn't. He didn't hate her. He still remembered her as a friend. A good, close friend. Like family, as far as he'd been concerned. Perhaps that was what had hurt the most.
He wasn't sure what to say to her, so he just stared at her another moment or two, trying to find something inside of him that wasn't completely awful to ask. But, in the fashion of wanting to hurt her, at least a little, he asked the only question that could come to mind.
"How's the husband?"
--
Of course he was upset. She was upset. George was upset. Everyone was upset. They’d been so close, like a family, and then she messed it all up. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t meant to, she still knew better. She knew how George felt about her. She’d been selfish with his heart. And real friends, real family, didn’t do that. So yes. Everyone was upset, and they all had a reason to be, Fred and George especially. It had been four months since everything had gone down, two since they decided to try and get past it, but was all that really enough time? Alicia didn’t feel like she’d spent enough time feeling guilty and punishing herself, especially when she thought about the answer to his question.
“He’s fine,” she said, and didn’t elaborate. What was she supposed to say? None of them had ever really liked her marriage to Terence in the first place. Was she supposed to talk about how she was happy to be back to with him? That every time he touched her, her heart raced like it used to? Or did he want to hear about how she sometimes doubted her place in his life? None of that was really anyone’s business, but neither could she actually say that; it would only make things worse.
Alicia wanted to ask about George, or Angelina, or Katie, but she didn’t feel that she had the right to. She could just ask them herself how they were doing, if she really wanted to know. But since she couldn’t make herself do any of that, she just stood there, looking about as awkward as she felt.
--
The fact that neither of them knew what to say to one another only seemed to upset Fred further. It didn't use to be like this. They used to be able to talk to one another and not have a single problem coming up with the next topic. They used to be friends. Family. They used to be something more than just two people who could barely have a conversation without spending more time staring at each other with a painful uncertainty. It had his jaw setting, teeth clenched slightly.
"This is bullshit," he finally said, shaking his head. "We didn't use to be like this, Alicia. Now we're staring at each other like bloody idiots. Wide-eyed and speechless like a couple of loons." It made him angry that not only was everything so damn complicated now, but it wasn't just complicated for himself and Alicia. Everyone involved, even on the outskirts, was affected by the whole mess. And it all could have been avoided if she hadn't just strung George along knowing how he felt about her. "What's the point? Why even bother?"
--
If she could have figured out how to make things go back to normal, the way they had been, she would have. But short of turning back time, there was nothing to be done. Alicia couldn’t unbreak George’s heart. She couldn’t undo the cheating, or any of her other mistakes. All she could do was try and move forward, even though she had no idea how to do that. She wanted to, but she didn’t know where to start. It had both been too long and not long enough.
Fred wasn’t really helping that, either, not in the least because Alicia didn’t know what exactly he meant and she was slightly afraid to ask for clarification. Was he talking about trying to keep her distance, or trying to make up? Something else entirely? It was no use. She’d have to ask.
“Bother with what?” Bother with George? That answer was not quite simple--but then none of the answers to his possible meanings were. She didn’t want to give up on 12 years of friendship, and he had never stopped being important to her, no matter how she treated him; although she would understand it, she couldn’t imagine never being friends with him again. On the other hand, if he meant why had she bothered staying away, that had purely been out of respect for George, his feelings, and not forcing their friends to choose a side. She was the bad guy, she should be the one to sacrifice her friendships.
--
"Bother with trying to be cordial to one another," he told her. "Bother with George. Bother with anything," he went on, not even sure what he'd meant himself because he was too frustrated with the whole situation to be able to make sense of his thoughts. Somewhere inside he knew that he didn't want to let go of the friendship either, but he hadn't experienced the things that George had. The fact that his brother was so easy to agree to being friends with Alicia when he'd suffered the most made him angry. He should be upset. He should be furious with Alicia. He shouldn't have to go back to everything being to normal after she'd hurt him. There should be damn repercussions, but no. Alicia got Higgs and she got George too. Maybe he had Lydia now, but that didn't mean there wasn't a gigantic crack in his heart with Alicia's name scrawled beside it.
"Friends," he said, scoffing a little at the thought as it rolled through his head. "You two are trying to be friends thinking that's going to work somehow. That everyone's just going to forget everything that's gone on. George might be able to lie to you and make you think that it's enough for you to be there in some capacity, but you're always going to be inside here," he all but hissed at her, thumping his chest just above his heart. "Everytime he looks at you, there's going to be that pang in his chest that won't ever vanish. The one that burns right down to his bones. Right down to his soul. But you won't feel it," he said, shaking his head. "No, you won't feel it because you get to keep it all, right? Higgs. George. Whichever is right at the time. Maybe you should have thought about that in the middle of all the mess, or better yet, before it started at all. It's not just George you broke, Alicia," he told her, upset enough that the moisture in his eyes was difficult to hide. He blinked, though, and managed to keep any outward sign of his feelings to himself other than that little glint where the light caught the unshed tears.
"George might be able to pretend that everything is sunshine and roses, but I can't. I won't."
--
Fred was not the only one struggling to remain composed. It wasn’t so much that he was confronting her, because Alicia had expected this long before now. It was what he was saying that was the hard part. George not getting over her, now or ever, was her greatest hangup, and one of her biggest worries, whether they were friends or not. She wanted him to move on and get over her; sometimes she thought the same thing could be more beneficial to Terence than staying with her, but that wasn’t anything she’d ever admitted aloud.
Alicia tried to keep eye contact as he spoke, but it was too hard, and she had to keep looking away and blinking to keep her eyes clear. She’d been foolish, hadn’t she? Thinking that they could just fix things? All she wanted was to go back to how things had been before, but that was clearly a pipe dream. Fred was right, she hadn’t just broken George, she’d broken everything, all of her relationships, their entire group of friends. Even in pushing them away, it was still all broken, all her fault. Because she was selfish. She thought only of herself and what she wanted.
“You’re right, I shouldn’t bother with any of it,” she finally responded, throat tight. Her eyes burned and she had to work to keep her breathing even. Everything she’d worked hard to bury and put behind her came rushing back and over her. Fred was right, all of this was a mistake, every part of it. George and friends, maybe even Terence. She’d honestly expected everyone to forget and forgive her, but that was clearly never going to happen.
“I have to go,” was all the goodbye she gave before she ducked her head and all but ran away, back to her flat.
--
He wasn't really certain what he thought her reaction would be, but the look on her face once he'd finished speaking said plenty. His insides twisted into an uncomfortable knot and he immediately felt like a complete jerk for saying anything at all. It didn't matter if any of it had any morsel of truth. He'd hurt her for no reason at all. He didn't have to say any of that, but he'd let it slip out like a complete idiot and gone and hurt her just because he could.
He watched her as she left, feet moving her quickly away from him and he thought about calling out to her, apologizing and taking it all back. He doubted she'd even turn around, though. He couldn't say that he'd blame her if she didn't. He'd let his judgement get clouded and he knew it was probably best that he leave it all alone for now. So, he let out a long breath and shook his head, turning back towards the shop. He'd have to apologize, he knew. He needed to apologize. For now, though, maybe a little distance was the best option.