Tobias King (finewithoutyou) wrote in reduxpitch, @ 2016-08-25 07:41:00 |
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Entry tags: | !thread, character: tobias king, location: diagon alley, retired character: byron farro |
who ? toby king and byron farro
when ? Slightly backdated to August 19th
where ? rented practice space, diagon alley
what ? post-practice chats
status ? completed in docs
There was something very satisfying about the band practices. Byron was never sure whether it was just the music or also the familiarity, the habit of having done this since they were teens. He suspected it was a good mix of both. Either way, the practices very rarely felt like work, and even then it was mostly if they were tired to start with. It was a tiring process in its own right, but Byron always felt more energised afterwards than he did starting out. Today was no exception to that and he let that energy work its way through him as they wrapped the session.
Byron gave a small wave when one by one the band members left as he took care in slowly packing up his keyboard. Byron refused to use magic on it, since he disliked the idea that it might affect the instrument, whether it could or could not, he genuinely wasn’t too sure. Glancing up, Byron grinned realising that Toby, too, was still there. “So how did your big event go?” He asked curiously. Byron had, of course, been aware of the plan and he, quite frankly, assumed that Ric had said yes, because otherwise there might’ve been crying. From whom, Byron wasn’t too sure, but crying would have definitely occurred.
--
Toby was very fond of band practices. It was a time that he could just lose himself in the music either writing things out with Byron or practicing the latest amazingness that Byron had come up with or just tweaking what they had already laid out. It wasn't work for him any more than it was for the rest of the boys. It was like a retreat from everything else they had to do on a daily basis. It never seemed monotonous and Toby was sure he could have been a musician for the rest of his life and still not found a day when he felt tired of it.
After practice wrapped up, he wasn't completely keen on rushing off just yet, so he spent some time cleaning up after himself and the rest of the group. Byron wasn't finished clearing his instrument away yet and when he asked his question, Toby looked up from what he was doing with a big smile. "Well, it went well, I think," he told him. "He's wearing the ring, so I'd say that's a pretty positive outcome, don't you?"
--
The smile Toby gave him in response, pleased Byron endlessly. “Congratulations,” he offered happily. In a way, it was very exciting. Byron did recognise that it was a lot less exciting for him than it was for Toby (and presumably Ric), but it was nonetheless exciting. Byron didn’t have any friends who had gotten married yet, which was unsurprising because they were still quite young and also Byron did not exactly have many friends. But Ric and Toby had been together for long enough that an engagement seemed more expected than surprising.
“I’ve been thinking,” Byron said zipping up the keyboard bag. “That I’d like to write a song for your wedding?” He offered straightening back up. “If you’d like, of course,” he added since whilst he suspected Toby was unlikely to say ‘no, thanks’, it was still better to check first. “Whenever it may be,” he clarified. Byron was pretty sure there were no concrete plans yet, or if there was, he certainly wasn’t privy to them.
--
Toby smiled at the congratulations. "Thank you," he told his friend. It had been a long time coming, he supposed. He and Ric had been together so long that it was practically all that Toby really knew, but there was something more concrete about being his fiancee than there had been about being his boyfriend. Toby was no more likely to leave Ric no matter the title that they had between them, but this felt more secure and more permanent. More right, really, as silly as that likely sounded.
The offer to write a song for the wedding made Toby grin at his friend. "If I'd like?," he asked, laughing softly. "I'd love for you to write something, Byron," he assured him eagerly. Byron was very much a talented songwriter and if anyone wrote anything for the wedding, Toby trusted him the most to do it. "We're not sure when it'll be, of course. Legalities and all that. But we'd love for you to write something."
--
“Yeah,” Byron nodded with somewhat of a saddened shrug. It seemed very unfair that Toby and Ric couldn’t just get married. It seemed really stupid, especially when Byron could essentially pick someone off the street and marry her. Not that Byron was ever going to pick anyone up off the street. The point was still valid though. “I’d be very honoured to write something,” he said instead, since it was much better to concentrate on the positives. Whenever and whatever their ceremony would be, Byron had no doubt it’d be great.
Turning around to look at Toby better, Byron leaned against the table that his now packed up keyboard sat. “Does it have to involve meteors?” He asked teasingly. “Or stars in general?” Byron was sure he could work with either or. Part of the fun he found in writing songs was setting himself a challenge in working words into the lyrics. He was still very pleased at having been able to work ‘Pythagoras’ into the lyrics he had written for Cee. ‘Stars’ couldn’t possibly be as hard to do.
--
It was a sad fact, but a fact nonetheless. People were afraid of things and people they didn't understand. Luckily, it seemed that equality was slowly moving in a positive direction. Toby tried to be patient in his wait for that equality, but it was still a sad fact to deal with. It annoyed him that so many people took something like marriage for granted the way that they did when others were so desperately wishing they could have the opportunity. "It'll happen," he assured him with a smile. "Even if we have to do a ceremony without the legal parts first and do another one later on."
He chuckled at the question and shook his head. "No," he told him. "You don't have to involve meteors if you don't want to. I'm sure you'll come up with something plenty fitting for the both of us." He didn't doubt Byron's abilities to make a song that would be perfect for both himself and Ric. "You always do. Color me jealous."
--
“Any excuse for a party,” Byron teased. Part of him wanted to insist they shouldn’t have to wait, but Byron was also rather sure that Toby was already aware of that fact. So instead, he concentrated on teasing his friend, because that was both happier and more enjoyable. “You going to wear a beautiful dress?” He asked with a smirk, quite happy to imagine Toby in a dress, if only because it was a spectacular image. “Do I get to wear a dress? Do I get to be a bridesmaid?” It was a joke, well, the first part obviously but also the second part, since Byron hardly expected Toby to ask him to be a bridesmaid (or, you know, a groomsman).
Byron thought he might still give the meteor thing a go, but it was probably best not to make promises. He did give a small wave at Toby’s words that he was jealous. “Gotta have something people can be jealous of, I guess,” Byron said with a shake of his head. He didn’t actually think that anyone should be jealous of anything Byron did or could do, but he was quite proud of his ability to write songs, so he supposed he did rather that than... well, it was unlikely that people were going to be jealous of his ability to copy edit books.
--
"Exactly," Toby agreed with a nod. He could definitely agree that they shouldn't have to wait, but there was little that could be done about it. At least until the powers that be decided enough was enough and that people should be allowed to love how they saw fit, no matter what their genitals might have been. There was no point in chattering on about the unfairness of that, though. At least not when the mood was light and fun. The comment about a beautiful dress made Toby laugh and he shook his head. "I would look dreadful in a dress," he told him. "And so would you, though you do have better legs than me." He smiled at his friend and shook his head as he tried not to think about Byron in a dress. "Though I do think you'd look quite nice in a suit. If you agree to be my groomsman, of course."
Toby was sure that there were plenty of things for people to be jealous of Byron over. If not his attractiveness and his lovely smile, his songwriting and his ability to be a wonderful friend were definitely worthy of jealousy.
--
Byron couldn’t help but laugh at Toby’s words. “It’s true, my legs are beautiful,” he joked demonstratively looking down at the legs in question. Byron wasn’t all that sure what made legs good for being in a dress but he was sure that there was criteria (which most likely, in reality, neither him nor Toby met). His smile widened when Toby said Byron could just look nice in a suit if he agreed to be Toby’s groomsman. “Are you asking? Because I feel that I might’ve just accidentally pressured you into asking,” Byron commented. It was somewhat of a joke, really, if only because Byron was rather sure Toby would tell him if Byron was out of line. Not that Byron was convinced he had ever in his life been out of line with anything.
“You can definitely be my groomsman one day, if I get married,” Byron decided with a nod. Given, his circle of friends was a lot more limited than Toby’s but they had been friends for long enough that Toby almost definitely had to qualify to be Byron’s groomsman (if by some magical way Byron ever ended up needing one). He did pause then, though. “Wait, that’s even worse,” he announced realising that ‘am I pressuring you’ was hardly going to be helped by ‘well, I would ask you’. “Maybe you should spitefully not invite me at all,” he offered, but there was a smile on his lips that indicated that Byron felt this quite unlikely.
--
Toby laughed. "Of course I'm asking you," he told him. "And you didn't pressure me into it. I intended to ask you anyway." Which was true. Byron was one of his closest friends and he wasn't about to get married without him there. He'd been there for him through a whole hell of a lot of things and his wedding was just one more important milestone that Toby wanted Byron to be present for.
He smiled at the mention that he could be one of Byron's groomsmen when he got married. "Well, I'm definitely still inviting you," he told him. "And I'm going to hold you to letting me be one of yours too. If you ever decide to get married. I'm still waiting on you to go out with the penpal girl," he pointed out teasingly. "Who knows, maybe it'll be you two getting married," he went on with a wide smirk.
--
“I would be honoured to be your groomsman,” Byron told Toby honestly and far more seriously than the rest of the conversation had been, before giving a smile. Sometimes Byron really wasn’t sure how he had even managed to make friends as close as Toby. It was probably the nicest thing to come out of having to live away from home for seven years. As a kid, it had been terribly daunting but now, in retrospect, Byron could certainly appreciate what Hogwarts had done for him. He doubted he could’ve made friends if it had not been for the boarding school aspect of Hogwarts.
At the mention of Cee, Byron rolled his eyes. Sometimes he really regretted the fact that somehow, despite everything, he was really shit at keeping his mouth shut about things. The amount of teasing he got for having a pen pan was really rather unfortunate. “I’m not going to marry her,” he told Toby. He knew her, sure, about as well as anyone could through conversations that didn’t involve names or anything particularly identifiable apart from love of cats, but Byron did not think that was quite the basis for a marriage. Especially when he had never even met her. Which then, kind of circulated back to his inability to not tell Toby things. “She asked me out for a coffee,” Byron admitted, looking down at his hands rather than at Toby.
--
Toby grinned when Byron agreed, pleased that he was willing to be a groomsmen. He would probably ask his brother as well, maybe the rest of the band, but Byron had always been one of his closest friends and it pleased him to know that he wanted to be part of the wedding whenever it happened. "Good," he said. "Otherwise I would have had to figure out someone else and that would have just been terrible," he teased. "I'd much rather you be there."
"You never know," Toby told him, shrugging. "Stranger things have happened." He was sure that penpals got married all the time. Maybe it wouldn't work that way for Byron, but you couldn't just write it off because the possibility was certainly there. "You have been writing her for ages, it's not completely off the wall, you know." The mention that she'd asked Byron out for coffee coupled with the way he looked down instead of at him had Toby figuring that her asking hadn't received a positive response. "And you're going to meet her, right?," he said, prodding his friend a little with the silence that fell between them. "Don't tell me you said no."
--
Well, Byron had also been writing to his nan for ages, but he wasn’t about to marry her, so he felt that the point didn’t quite stand on its own. Toby was, however, probably right in saying that it wasn’t impossible. Byron still felt it highly improbable, however. “I didn’t say no,” Byron said looking up almost defensively. Well, he hadn’t said no. He just hadn’t said yes either. Hadn’t said much of anything. At first, Byron had honestly considered just ignoring it altogether, but then that would’ve just made it very obvious, how nervous the question had made him.
“I can’t meet her,” Byron told Toby with a shake of his head. Cee was lovely and Byron enjoyed writing to her, even if their letters were much more infrequent now than they had been when the exchange had started. That was hardly an indication of a lack in enjoyment Byron felt from both writing and receiving the letters, just a sign of how busy they both were. “I like having her as my friend,” he added with a shrug, as if meeting Cee would almost definitely mean that Byron could no longer be her friend. And to him, it did, a little. There was certainly a great likelihood that he’d--well, mess it up, for a lack of a better word. It didn’t seem worth it, really.
--
Toby watched Byron as he spoke, listening to the exact words he said but also watching for what he didn't say. He may not have said no, but it was quite obvious that he hadn't agreed to a meeting, especially when he talked of how he couldn't meet the girl. Toby, of course, knew less of this Cee than Byron did, but he thought that coffee certainly wouldn't hurt anything. He thought Byron didn't give himself nearly enough credit, but he knew that it wasn't exactly easy for the man to put himself out there, at least not in person. He had a tendency to clam up around strangers and it hadn't changed much since they were kids.
"Do you think that she'd stop being your friend if you met?," he asked. "Surely she cares for you if she wants to meet and if she's been sending letters this long," Toby pointed out. "If she didn't like talking with you, she surely wouldn't still be doing it, would she?" He doubted it. People tended to not do things they didn't like unless they absolutely had to. There was nothing forcing the girl to keep writing Byron if she didn't enjoy it.
--
Oddly, the least of Byron’s worries was the fact that Cee didn’t like talking to him. He did actually agree with Toby that if she didn’t, she would’ve stopped writing a long time ago. The problem was exactly that. As much as Byron wasn’t about to claim to be the greatest or most engaging writer in the world, when it came to putting words on paper he did well. The letters were far from his song writing but they were still words on a paper and Byron was confident in those. He was not, even remotely, confident in his ability to be as expressive in real life. Not to someone who hadn’t spent the last ten or more years patiently getting to know him.
“Your logic is flawless,” Byron told his friend, because teasing was easier than addressing the questions themselves. “I like it,” he said more seriously. “The letters, I like that,” and he did, too. “I wouldn’t want to lose that because I’m incapable of conversing like a normal human being,” Byron admitted with a small shrug. “It’d be insulting, wouldn’t it? For me to not be able to talk to someone I’ve been friends with for over a year,” it was, in general, just an odd situation. Byron didn’t regret having made a pen pal friend. Maybe he just should’ve made one who lived so far away there was no possibility of them ever having the opportunity to meet up. That would’ve been the smart thing to do.
--
Toby sighed. "Wouldn't it be more insulting to avoid meeting her?," he asked him. "You're only going to be able to avoid a meeting so long before she thinks that you just don't want to see her. Then she'll think she's done something to bother you." Because girls tended to be dramatic and worry a great deal over things like that. Toby couldn't honestly say that anyone would feel otherwise if they were on the girl's side of things and trying to draw some sort of information from why Byron didn't want to meet.
"I'm sure it wouldn't be that bad," he told him. "Surely you'd be able to talk about something. Even if it's yes or no responses. You warm up after a while," he murmured, flashing him a little reassuring smile. "You're talking to me. You're certainly capable of talking to people."
--
“It’s hardly as if she demanded we meet,” Byron said with a roll of his eyes. If anything, Cee had very specifically said that he could ignore her suggestion if it freaked him out. Which it did. Perhaps not quite for the reasons she might have assumed, but it had nonetheless. “I doubt she’d think she’s done something to bother me,” he added tapping his thumb against his tight, though he wasn’t as convinced of the words. Byron certainly didn’t want Cee to feel like she’d done something to bother him, but he also honestly didn’t think meeting up would work out better than him declining to do so.
At Toby’s proclamation that Byron was talking to him, Byron shook his head. “Yeah, well, we all make mistakes,” he told Toby borderline snarkily, but there was a small smile to his words so it wasn’t quite as if he was irritated at his friend. Maybe a bit self-defensive. “I don’t want to disappoint her,” Byron said finally. “And I think I would,” he added truthfully. “So I rather just not meet her at all?” He offered with another shrug. “Perhaps hold off on those wedding bells just yet,” he added with more humour.
--
Toby didn't think the girl would demand that they meet, but surely after a year it had crossed her mind enough to propose a coffee date. He doubted she was just going to leave it at letters and never ask again. He didn't know the girl, though, so he couldn't really decide one way or the other. Maybe he was completely off base.
He rolled his eyes at Byron's snarking, laughing at the teasing. He couldn't blame him for being worried, but Toby didn't really think he had anything to be worried about. "I don't think that you would disappoint her," he said, shaking his head. "Maybe you should just tell her how you're feeling about meeting?," he offered up. "Or you could avoid meeting her and keep writing letters," he shrugged. It was up to Byron in the end. "Though I think you should at least find out her name," he smirked. "For all you know, you could be writing a very large, round man."
--
It was nice of Toby to say that he didn’t think Byron would disappoint Cee, even if he wasn’t all that convinced of the truth in that claim. Still, Toby knew Byron well enough to base such presumption in at least a degree of fact, and Byron appreciated that. Byron wasn’t sure he knew how to explain to Cee why he rather not met her, but he did see Toby’s point. “So, what you’re saying,” he said slowly, a smirk playing on his lips. “Is ‘Byron, do what you want’,” he commented teasingly since Toby’s suggestions did vary between ‘meet her’ or ‘don’t’. Which was sort of where Byron had managed to get to on his own.
He did give a laugh at the suggestion that Cee could very well be a large, round man. “I’m not sure I’d be terribly bothered?” He offered somewhat honestly. Sure, Byron would question why for a year he’d been told that Cee is a short girl into maths, but in the grand scheme of things he wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have been as happy to write to a large, round man. It might’ve not lasted as long as his correspondence with Cee had, but he would have still given it a go.
--
Toby laughed. "What I'm saying is that I want you to be comfortable no matter what you do," he told his friend. "I think that you meeting her wouldn't really be as bad as you think it would be," he offered up. "Especially if you look at it as though you already know one another. You've spent a year chatting, you probably know a great deal about her, which means that you're already friends. If you're already friends, then you really don't have to be so tongue-tied?" Or maybe he did, he supposed. He knew it wasn't easy to just be able to converse with people, not for Byron. It might have seemed silly to someone like Toby who could talk to anyone if they gave him the chance, but it was a very difficult thing for Byron to do.
He smiled at Byron's words. "Well, I doubt she's actually a man," he commented. "She did suggest coffee and her lies would be found out if you two met," he shrugged. "Unless, of course, she knew you would decline."
--
Yes, well, logically Byron agreed plenty with Toby’s assessment. Practically, though, he was dubious of whether that great premise was going to really work. So obviously, the best choice was to opt for not finding out. The cowardly way out, Byron was sure, but then, he hadn’t been a Gryffindor so bravery wasn’t really something he particularly thrived for. But it also seemed like an argument he was not going to win, nor was Toby going to win it, so essentially they were just having a roundabout conversation that was, in the end, going to lead nowhere. So Byron shrugged and offered a ‘maybe’ to nothing in particular Toby had said, but felt it still covered most of the suggestions anyway.
“Unless he wants to murder me,” Byron told Toby jokingly. It was probably unlikely that someone would go through such an elaborate effort to murder Byron. Not because people didn’t do that sort of thing, but because Byron didn’t think himself particularly interesting to murder. With a shake of his head, Byron moved to gather up his stuff. “You want to go for a drink?” He asked Toby, glancing over his shoulder. “Or do you have to go home to your soon-to-be husband?” Byron added somewhat teasingly, but he was hardly object if that was, in fact, what Toby preferred to do.
--
Toby wanted Byron to make more friends, of course. He wanted him to be happy and have a circle of close confidants that included more than just himself and the rest of the band. At the same time, however, he didn't want to thrust Byron into a world that he didn't feel comfortable in either. He'd never been a fan of forcing someone to do something and if Byron wasn't ready to meet the penpal he'd been chatting with, well that was his choice. No matter what he decided to do, Toby fully intended to support him.
"Then he's got too much time on his hands," Toby commented. "He could have killed plenty of people by now while he's been grooming you," he teased. "Unless, of course, he's just interested in murdering penpals and commits these elaborate situations regularly." He shrugged. He supposed that was possible. Not likely, but possible.
He grinned at the mention of Ric, but shook his head. "He's probably up to his neck in scientific projects that make no sense to me," he told him. "I could go for a drink."
--
“Excellent,” Byron nodded happily when Toby said they could, in fact, go out for a drink. There were couple of band related things Byron wanted to discuss with Toby and a few ideas for songs, so pub seemed like a pretty good idea. Especially, since Toby was one of the few people Byron knew wouldn’t object to ordering for Byron so he could by-pass any attempts to talk to the bartender himself. Byron really wasn’t all that sure where he would be without close friends like Toby in his life. Thirsty and hungry and lonely, probably.