Fic: LOZ LOZ HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOZ

[mooging]

I, er, hello! I have access to the wonders of the internet again due to a handed-down laptop that is now my proud possession, so, hello again.

This is not, however, the point of this post. The point is, LOZ LOZ HAPPY BIRTHDAY LOZ HI HAPPY BIRTHDAY! I am sorry I am, like, a lot of weeks late in revealing this, your gift, but here it is and I hope you like it. I must apologise here, though, for butchering both characters here and failing at writing colloquial discourse, but NVM HAPPY BIRTHDAY <33333333

Title: To Drink
Fandom: Harry Potter / The History Boys
Pairings: Remus Lupin/Irwin, Irwin/Dakin, Remus/Sirius
Word Count: 5303
Summary: It is the winter of 1983, and it is raining.
A/N: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, LOZ! This is for youuuu, and I’m really sorry it’s so late. It has been a labour of love, and I hope you like it. :D (Also, this is set, like, the first Christmas after The History Boys is set, so I guessed that would be '83).

 

It’s winter, and raining, and Irwin has no umbrella and unsuitable shoes and has chosen a most inopportune time to try a country walk. It is, therefore, with no small amount of relief that he sees the comforting glow of warm light from behind the windows of a country pub, and gratefully ducks inside.

He shucks off his coat on the threshold, swearing quietly as rain splatters over his dry trousers, folds it over his arm and heads to the bar, trying to rub his hair dry whilst simultaneously wiping the water from his face. The man behind the bar, a genial-looking, ruddy-faced man wearing the straining checked shirt of the perpetually good-humoured, smiles jovially across the panelled wood that Irwin is dripping on and says, "What can I get you, mate? It’s a right bad ‘un out there."

Irwin foolishly turns to look out of the window at the dismal dusk and heavy English rain noisily caressing the condensed panes of glass, even though he’s perfectly aware of the state of the weather as he has just come inside from being abused by it and is clearly walking evidence of a man who thought he could out-walk a rainstorm. He says, "A coffee, please," even though he’d prefer tea, adds, "with milk, no sugar."

The bar-keeper smiles and nods, puts down the pint glass he has been wiping and slings a tea-towel over his bare forearms as he heads to the kitchen. It is all very stereotypical. Irwin supposes the pub has some dreadful name like ‘The Dog and Arms’ or ‘The Rose and Lion’, despite the fact that no dog has ever expressed an interest to do anything other than sniff the arses of its comrades let alone bear arms, and a lion is likely to be far too busy maiming other animals to stop and smell a rose, and there are no roses on the African plains anyway.

Irwin realises he may be slightly over-reacting.

Just as he is steeling himself to ignore the quaintly patterned wallpaper and the way it clashes terribly with the ghastly floral motif that covers all the seats, the door crashes off the wall and a stream of muddy, pink-cheeked men file in. They are all wearing the garish stripes and idiotic knee-socks of a local rugby team, beaming from ear to flushed ear and whooping in a way that suggests no amount of bad weather will quash their victorious glory despite the fact that between them they have brought in all the mud in the world to fall in clots onto the fuschia carpet. The wind rattles through the door with them and Irwin shivers. He subtly shifts away from them, re-adjusts his coat on his arm and looks steadfastly at the smooth mahogany bar.

The barkeeper bursts back from the kitchen through the wooden swing-door, clutching what Irwin assumes is his coffee in a large white mug. "Lads!" he shouts, grinning congenially at them. Irwin wonders what rule of English team sports insists that they must always be spoken about in abnormally loud tones.

The barkeeper, to his credit, comes over to Irwin and says, "Here you go, mate," and puts his coffee down and takes the money Irwin has slid across the bar before he marches joyfully over to join the raucous rugby team. The coffee slops messily over the sides of the mug and pools around its base. Irwin rankles slightly, grits his teeth and picks it up. The handle is sticky where the coffee has spilt.

He sips at it, gingerly. It bears the dubious honours of being both scaldingly hot and insidiously disgusting. He wrinkles his nose and turns to scan the room. The pub is surprisingly empty, given the conditions still howling outside; indeed, there is only Irwin, the local rugby team and one other man in the place.

The rugby team are obviously regulars. The barkeeper is laughing along with them at some no doubt hilarious joke told at the expense of one of the team. Irwin finds it crass and unbecoming that fully-grown men can find nothing better to do with their time than push each other around in the worst of weather and then converge to the same pub to drink the same beer and tell the same jokes for years on end.

He becomes aware that he is frowning into his coffee mug. He must get away from the gallumphingly cheerful rugby lads before suppressing the urge to grab one of them by their filthy collars and demand that they recite Shakespearean verse or tell him the date of the Battle of Waterloo becomes too difficult. Something is throbbing in his temple. Sanity, he supposes, is attempting to break free and leave him adrift in the unfamiliar territory of physical gung-ho and uneducated opinions.

He walks away from the bar and seats himself at the opposite side of the pub. The light is dimmer here, and someone has recently been smoking. The air smells of tobacco, and pine-scented air-freshener, and grease wafting from the kitchen. Irwin puts his coat on the seat beside him, places his mug squarely in the middle of a coaster that is emblazoned with the name of one of the poorer brands of lager, and stares grimly out of a window at the never-ending rain.

Stop, he thinks. Stop before I start lecturing innocent people about proper grammar and correct sentence structuring.

Someone to Irwin’s right laughs quietly. Irwin jumps.

"Sorry," says the man on Irwin’s right, leaning forwards out of the shadow of the corner. "I didn’t mean to startle you." His voice is clear, polite. He speaks with Southern vowels and the precision that comes with a love of book-learning, a far cry from the brash Northern vocals that Irwin has become accustomed to hearing.

"No," says Irwin, "I should apologise. I didn’t realise I’d said anything aloud."

"Don’t worry," says the man. "It’s just – well, I don’t think they’d be the most willing students. They’re too stripy."

It is Irwin’s turn to laugh. He shifts in his chair, offers the man his hand. "Irwin," he says.

The man shakes Irwin’s hand. "Remus Lupin."

They lapse into an awkward silence, broken only by another roar from the ever-celebratory rugby team. They now seem to have entered into some sort of rudimentary lager-chugging contest. They are all clapping.

Slightly desperately, Irwin turns to Lupin again. "Do you come here often?" he says, and then grimaces. "I mean, is this your first time? Here, I mean." He can feel himself blushing.

Lupin quirks a smile. "No, I don’t usually come to Mug-" he stops, coughs. "No, I’ve not been here before," he amends. "I’m not what you might call ‘local’."

"Oh?"

"I’m up here on business."

"Here?" Irwin asks, before he can stop himself. "Really?"

"Well," says Lupin, "not here as such. In Sheffield."

"Ah," says Irwin, who is suddenly aware that his own part in the conversation is becoming increasingly monosyllabic. "What do you do?" he asks.

Lupin hesitates. "I suppose you could say I work for the government." He looks slightly uncomfortable.

Irwin looks down at his fingers. "For the good of the country?" he mumbles, feeling idiotic and more than a little nosy.

To his surprise, Lupin laughs. "Something like that," he says, and takes another swallow of whatever he has in the mug in his hand. His throat is very pale, stark against his tired brown shirt. He makes a face as he sets the mug down. Irwin notices that he also puts it on the centre of a coaster. This one proclaims ‘The Duck and Foxglove’ in loud red letters. Irwin inwardly sighs. What does a duck have to do with a foxglove? Have waterfowl taken up horticulture while his back was turned?

"What does a duck have to do with a foxglove?" says Lupin, sounding nearly as incredulous as Irwin feels. Irwin stares at him. Lupin ducks his head, takes another sip of his drink, pulls another face.

"Coffee?" asks Irwin sympathetically.

"Tea," says Lupin. Judging by his expression, Irwin was wise to stick to coffee.

They fall back into silence; this time, it is companionable.

Lupin is the one to break it. "So, do you?"

"Hmm?" says Irwin, who has become distracted once more by the never-ending energy of the rugby team. One of them now appears to have a plate on his head.

"Do you come here often?" Lupin clarifies.

"Oh," says Irwin. "No, I’ve never been here before."

"What brought you here today?" asks Lupin, then apologises. "Sorry, I sound like one of those insufferable questionnaires in hotel rooms."

Irwin smiles. "I was -" he falters and gestures lamely at the window. The weather has, if anything, got worse. "I was taking a walk," he finishes.

Lupin looks out of the window, then at Irwin, and then at Irwin’s smart shoes, which are now encrusted with the sludge of country lanes in bad weather. He sips again at his tea.

Irwin says, "I wasn’t expecting it to rain."

Lupin looks back at him. There is a pause. Then, inexplicably, they both start to laugh.

After a minute or so, Irwin leans back in his chair for the first time, wiping his eyes. He’s not laughed like that since – well, he’s not laughed like that for a while now, maybe longer. "What about you," he says, a mite out of breath. "We’re a bit off the Sheffield beaten track here. What dragged you away from your country-saving business?"

"I was looking for somewhere quiet," says Lupin, and there’s suddenly something rough in his voice, low like real honesty.

Irwin feels uncomfortable again, intrusive. He should have looked around before he sat down. He starts to gather up his coat. "Oh, I’m sorry," he says, never good in moments like these, "I should -"

"No," says Lupin, quickly. "You don’t have to. I mean, not if you don’t want."

Irwin has half-risen from his seat. He glances at Lupin. Lupin gives a half-smile and picks up his mug. Irwin sits back down. He is blushing, he can tell. He doesn’t know what to say now.

Lupin says, "Do you live in Sheffield?"

Irwin is stupidly grateful for the inane question. "Yes," he says. "I moved here recently, for work."

"Oh?"

"Nothing as glamorous as saving the country, I’m afraid." Irwin fiddles with his coffee mug.

"What do you do?" asks Lupin. Irwin wonders whether he’s just being polite but he sounds sincere enough.

"I teach," says Irwin. "Well, I don’t teach as such. I came here to give special coaching to a group of Oxford candidates at a local comprehensive. They were studying History. It was my job to make them more Oxford-friendly."

"Did you go to Oxford?" Lupin’s hands are clasped around his mug. His fingers are white.

Irwin pauses, takes a breath. He expects to lie. "No," he says, and blinks, taken aback. "No," he says again. "I didn’t." It is disorientating to tell the truth; the words taste unfamiliar and surprisingly complicated.

Lupin barely reacts. He doesn’t even raise an eyebrow. There is no look of disappointment, no crinkled brow, no snide remark. Irwin feels a touch light-headed: he takes a hasty gulp of slightly cool coffee to hide an impromptu grin.

A sudden noise makes them both jump: the rugby player with the plate on his head has let it drop. It lies shattered on the faded carpet, porcelain in pieces fanning over the floor. There is a brief moment of silence. Then the rugby team erupts in laughter. Lupin rolls his eyes.

"Where did you study?" asks Irwin.

Lupin takes a fraction of a second before saying, "Edinburgh."

Irwin thinks it is the first time Lupin has lied to him. He changes the topic. Normally he would ask what the other person studied; instead, he says, "Have you been up here for long?"

Lupin sounds relieved when he answers. "Not particularly. I arrived this morning." A beat passes. Then he says, somewhat tentatively, as though he feels he has stepped too far, "I – I had some news." He stares fixedly into his mug. From the angle it is tilting at in Lupin’s hands, Irwin can see that it is empty.

"I’m sorry," says Irwin, and means it. Next to him, Lupin swallows heavily. Irwin pretends not to notice. He feels he ought to say something difficult in return. "I was in an accident this summer."

It sounds insensitive, brash and boastful in a macabre sort of way rather than the intimation of comfort he had intended. He winces. Nevertheless, it seems to help: Lupin says, in quite a different tone, "It wasn’t serious, I hope."

"A colleague of mine died," says Irwin. He feels unpleasantly unmoved by the statement.

"Were -" starts Lupin, then seems to think better of it. Irwin sees him flush.

"I don’t know," says Irwin. "We were friends, in so much as one is friends with one’s colleagues." He stops, a smile breaking across his face. "He was something quite different."

"I knew someone like that," says Lupin. "Although maybe they were different in another way than the person you know." He peters to a halt, looks embarrassed. "Knew."

"I’d be more surprised if they were the same," says Irwin.

"Yes," says Lupin. "Yes." He seems to be looking at something Irwin can not see, vague and hazy in his mind, precise and warm to Lupin.

Irwin feels an uncharacteristic and indeed unpatriotic sense of boldness. "Where are they now?" he asks.

Lupin’s fingers tighten around the empty mug. "Prison," he says shortly. "He’s in prison." He looks away, back out of the window.

Irwin feels very, very small. He picks up the coaster that shouts of ducks and foxgloves and turns it over and over in his hand. His face is hot. On the other side of the coaster, yellow letters tell him that he can buy a Sunday lunch for as little as fifteen pounds a head. Smaller black print beneath it tells him that the offer expires on the 18^th of October. Two months ago.

Lupin seems to have gathered himself together. "I’m sorry," he says, "I didn’t mean to be rude."

"Oh, God, don’t be," says Irwin, stumbling over his words. "I shouldn’t have asked." They are quiet for a moment. In what he hopes is a light tone, Irwin adds, "Do feel free to ask me something equally as blunt."

A strange look comes over Lupin’s face. It is something like nostalgia, thinks Irwin, ferocious, bitter nostalgia. "Really?" Lupin checks.

Irwin bites his lip, flexes his fingers together. He fumbles the coaster; the coffee mug drops in his grasp. He sets both items back on the watermarked table, circle upon circle of clumsily handled drinks. "Really," he says.

"All right," says Lupin. "How did your last relationship end?"

It is not what Irwin expected from the wan, bookish-looking man on his right. He looks too studious to be bothered with trivialities such as romance and relationships. "I haven’t been in a relationship for years," he says, but he thinks of dark hair, impertinent mouth around illicit cigarette, a pressed white school shirt and oddly tidy grey trousers. He’s going to hell.

"That’s not what I asked." Lupin sounds amused.

"I know," says Irwin. He collects himself. "It ended with the accident. A motorbike accident – are you all right?"

For Lupin has just flinched, quite violently. "Yes," he says, although he doesn’t sound it. "Yes, fine."

"Should I ask, or have I used up my share of impertinence?"

Lupin smiles raggedly at him. "My last – my last partner had a motorbike." He turns to Irwin, half-apologetic, half-self-effacing. "It didn’t end well."

"The relationship or the motorbike?" asks Irwin, and then wishes he hadn’t.

Lupin lets out a peculiarly canine laugh. "Both," he says. "Although I don’t think anything could put an end to the motorbike."

"No," says Irwin. "Out of the two of us on it, the motorbike came out of the crash the best." It is an awkward sentence. He feels awkward.

Lupin says, "If I may be impertinent for a second time, were you in a relationship with the other party in the crash?"

Irwin has a brief yet vivid memory of Hector, jowly, cumbersome, marvellous Hector, and snorts with mirth. "No," he says. "Someone else."

"What was their name?" asks Lupin.

Irwin hesitates. They are in Sheffield, and there does happen to be a large group of manly men being boisterous at the other side of the pub. "You first," he says, feeling childish. "I believe it’s your turn. What was she called?"

"He," says Lupin firmly, "is called Sirius."

Irwin notes the change of tense the instant before he notes the change of gender. He wonders idly what that means. "Oh," he says, and Lupin darkens. Irwin hastens on; "It was Dakin for me. He’s called Dakin."

Lupin’s gaze flickers to Irwin’s, disbelieving. Irwin nods, gently. Lupin says, "Right, well," and falls silent. A smile is flickering around his mouth. He has a scar on his upper lip, Irwin notices. He has an unusual amount of scars. One, white and old and deep looking, snakes out of his collar and up behind his ear. Irwin has a sudden, insane urge to run a finger along it. His fingers itch. He presses their tips together and tries to concentrate on not doing anything impetuous.

"I live quite nearby, actually," he blurts. Lupin looks somewhere between disconcerted and curious, and Irwin berates himself for using such a vile non sequitur.

"I imagine that would be handy for mysterious rain-fuelled wanderings," says Lupin. Irwin is just beginning to let the first twinges of rejection seep into his bloodstream and circulate into all his functioning organs in the kind of bleakly melodramatic way he imagines Dakin would have encouraged when Lupin adds, "I wonder, might I see the home of the mighty rain-wanderer?"

"Yes," says Irwin, too quickly. And then, attempting to pull back some vestige of his long-gone sense of intelligence, "I wander to where I may be wondered upon." He is relieved to find that he fails dismally. At least that doesn’t give him an undue sense of confidence this late in the game.

"What game?" asks Lupin.

Irwin decides it would be better for both of them if he pretends not to hear, and so busies himself with elaborately picking up his damp coat, his face flaming. When he straightens up, Lupin is on his feet; Irwin is heartily gratified that Lupin doesn’t press the matter.

Lupin is wearing a pair of old, tattered jeans that seems wildly unlike him. There is a lion embroidered near the left-hand pocket in red stitches. It is tacky and somehow proud at once.

"They belonged to Sirius," says Lupin quietly, and Irwin startles.

"I didn’t mean to stare," he says apologetically.

"Don’t worry," says Lupin. "I know I don’t wear them as well."

They walk stiffly to the door. Irwin can find nothing to say now that motion has been added to the exchange.

The rugby team hushes as they draw near. Irwin smiles tightly at them. The barkeeper nods and waves goodbye from the middle of the knot of men. "G’night!" he calls.

"Goodnight," Lupin returns, and Irwin shrinks past under cover of his reply.

Outside, it is still raining. They stand together, pressed side-by-side just under the lip of shelter above the thick wooden door, and Lupin huddles into his thin shirt while Irwin tugs his coat on. It hangs badly on him for being damp.

There is a startling, yet not entirely unexpected, blast of lightning and a troublesome clap of thunder somewhere perilously close by, and Irwin realises with a dim sinking feeling that he has no car with him.

"I walked here," he admits, turning to Lupin in the meagre space between them.

"I remember," Lupin says dryly. It is the only dry thing about them now.

Irwin says, "I don’t suppose you have a car with you?"

"I’m afraid not," Lupin tells him, and Irwin wrinkles his nose just a smidgen in the way he thought he’d conquered when he was little and since consigned to the ranks of childhood idiosyncrasy as he takes a moment to wonder how Lupin could have arrived at the pub without getting wet whilst lacking a vehicle. Lupin adds, "It wasn’t raining when I arrived."

"Well," says Irwin, "I’m terribly sorry to have invited you to drowning and a certain hypothermia before you reach my humble abode."

Lupin huffs out a laugh. He doesn’t have a coat: the rain that beats down on them both leaves bullet marks of wet that run and drip and bleed through the brown fabric of his shirt. He seems to hesitate, looking around the parking lot (void of cars save a battered once-white mini-van that Irwin guess transported the omnipresent rugby team and all their glory too). He looks at the clump of trees artificially positioned to their right a little way behind them; he looks at the clouds, the dark, the fucking rain. Something hardens in his face and he turns to look directly at Irwin, and Irwin shivers, clutching at the fastenings of his coat.

"Fuck it," says Lupin harshly.

He grasps Irwin by the shoulders, and Irwin says, "What?"

Lupin says, "Just – just don’t let go, all right?" and Irwin holds onto Lupin’s arms with an air of amused indulgence. Lupin steps forward and turns, and Irwin is pulled with him, everything blurred and rushed and nauseous around him as his eyes water and something is swimming through his mind and he sees his house, his ordinary terraced house hovering before his eyes, and he blinks, and he falls, and he is home.

He stumbles backwards and trips, landing heavily on the low brick wall that separates his thin and neglected front lawn from his neighbours’ vast acres of manicured turf. He jars a wrist as he catches himself: he cradles it to his chest, feeling it bruising and swelling almost instantly. He stares around. Lupin is standing on his doorstep.

"Are you all right?" asks Lupin, sounding concerned.

Irwin nods. He can’t quite catch his breath.

"Can you stand?" says Lupin, and Irwin nods again, and Lupin comes over and helps him to his feet. He pauses, and Irwin watches him glance him quickly up and down. "You’ve not splinch – you’re okay?" Lupin asks again.

Irwin is beginning to feel like a puppet, nodding at the whims of someone with a grand omnipotence beyond the realms he could even hope to touch.

"We should probably go inside," Lupin tells him, and Irwin shakes himself out and wobbles over to the front door. It needs painting. It has needed painting since he moved in. He isn’t going to paint it. His wrist throbs when he turns the key. He hisses in a breath through his teeth and Lupin carefully bats his hand away and pushes the door open himself.

The hallway is dark; at the other end from them, the kitchen door is ajar and Irwin can see the hazy light of the storm catching in the stainless steel sink.

Irwin gently shuts the door. He looks at the floor near his dirty shoes and listens to the rain spattering on the frosted glass panes in the front door, very close to his ear. His wrist hurts. Lupin coughs, and Irwin looks abruptly up. The rain reflects off the glass onto Lupin’s face, striking against his pale profile.

Irwin reaches out a finger and touches one of the fake raindrops shining white just under Lupin’s left eye. His heart hammers childishly: he feels it beating in his hurt wrist, thud-thud, thud-thud, beat-beat-beat. Lupin brings up one long-fingered hand and closes it around Irwin’s wrist.

Lupin is smiling, taut and eerie in the distorting half-light, and then all at once, Irwin moves and Lupin moves and they are kissing, painful and surprisingly inevitable in a dull sort of way, kissing against the off-white stucco-covered wall of Irwin’s hallway, just beyond his front door.

Irwin has a hand at the nape of Lupin’s neck, the other at his hip. Lupin has both hands on the wall behind Irwin’s back, leaning into him, and they kiss, and they kiss, and they breathe. Irwin’s shirt rides up his back and the wall digs in; he shifts awkwardly and bumps Lupin’s thigh. Lupin croaks something inaudible, and Irwin winds his fingers into Lupin’s still-wet collar, tightens his grasp on the sodden denim at Lupin’s waist.

Then there are cold fingers startling on the skin just under Irwin’s shirt, halting and certain and hesitatingly sure. Irwin’s stomach leaps. Lupin smiles into the crook of Irwin’s neck, says, "Is this too late to ask if you’re -"

"No," Irwin interrupts. "And it’s fine – oh -" and Lupin’s fingers drift lower, waiting beneath the waistband of Irwin’s trousers, tracing tender circles in whirls in the hollow of his hip, and Irwin is hot and clammy under the rain-deep chill, and nervous and decided, and Lupin is pausing, smiling, and –

And the phone rings.

Irwin ignores it, pinioned against his own wall, and Lupin asks, "Will that be important?"

Irwin says, "Not right now," in as steady a voice as he can muster, and Lupin nods, apparently serious.

"Right."

Neither of them moves. The phone keeps ringing. Irwin doesn’t think it has ever taken so long for the answer-machine to pick up a call.

Click, it goes. Whirr.

Irwin’s voice bleats out the standard answer-machine message, stiff and automated somewhere to his left on the hall table. Lupin grins silently into Irwin’s collarbone and Irwin says, "I hardly think it’s that entertaining," and tries not to sound put out.

"Of course not," says Lupin placatingly, and Irwin chuffs with pretend exasperation. It is all auspiciously homey for two people who have only just met, and have nothing but a shared disgust in the caffinated drinks of country pubs, something vaguely unpleasant sweltering in their past and now a few bodily fluids in common.

Click, goes the answer-machine. Whirr, and a devastatingly familiar voice slurs into the room, precise somehow, taunting even when drunk.

"It’s the holidays," says Dakin, voice mechanically warped by distance. There is a merry roar just under his words; Irwin wonders in some part of him that hasn’t gone numb and shocked and achingly glad whether he too hails from the forsaken ‘Duck and Foxglove’, whether he is supping victory with the rowdy rugby team, whether he too was caught in the rain. If he had stayed, would Dakin have sauntered through the heavy oak door, the wrong side of cheeky and the right side of smart in his Oxford-new shoes and confidence and paralysing self-assurance? Would they have met, spoken, laughed? Or is Dakin in a different hostelry with a different crowd of merry-makers, wrapped up in a new Yuletide spirit and the same new shoes?

"I just thought I’d call," Dakin continues, cutting through Irwin’s worthless reverie, "and say hello, and Merry-almost-Christmas, and if the thought of socialising with an increasingly erudite Dakin doesn’t repulse you, maybe we could have that drink? You know," he adds, full of the subtlety of the inebriated, "that euphemistic drink of lore?"

Lupin has gone very still.

"Anyway," Dakin finishes, an awe-inspiring dollop of confidence eking out through his voice, "goodnight." He pauses: there is the sound of someone muttering near the receiver, and Dakin tags on, "Goodnight, sir," laughingly, and Lupin stumbles back, white-faced.

The call finishes.

"Sir?" says Lupin, near-inaudibly, and Irwin can only nod.

"We didn’t – it wasn’t – we didn’t actually -" Lupin doesn’t appear to be listening to Irwin fumbling for words; he is running both hands over his face, flattening down his hair he paces twice the length of the hall and stops where he began.

"What am I doing?" Irwin hears him say. He turns to look at Irwin. "I’m sorry," he says, "but I should go."

"Because of the call?" Irwin asks.

"No," Lupin tells him quickly, seemingly in earnest. He moves closer. "No."

"Then -" Irwin starts, and decides not to bother. He’s not the kind of person that asks that question: he should nod again, and let them part on the amiable British terms of jilted gentry.

"Have drinks with Dakin," says Lupin, "because I -" he falters. "I should wait for – he doesn’t deserve it, but I have to know, do you understand?"

Irwin says, "Yes," although he’s not quite sure he does. Lupin moves away again. He hesitates.

"I’m sorry," says Lupin, digging in the pocket of the uncharacteristic jeans. He pulls out a wooden stick, a polished, slender wooden stick that tapers narrowly at one end; it should be ridiculous yet there is an inexplicable sense of menace, sharp and confusing in the air.

Lupin says, "I have to do this, I’m sorry," and he sounds choked for some reason Irwin doesn’t fully understand, and he points the stick at Irwin, swallows, and says, "Obliviate."

Irwin’s head hurts.

He blinks.

He rubs his eyes.

He suddenly can’t remember where he is: it takes a minute of looking dazedly around before he recognises the framed print hanging on the wall opposite the kitchen door and realises he is at home, standing in his hallway, just inside the front door.

He doesn’t know how he got there.

A drop of water slides down his forehead; he reaches up to dash it away, adjusts his glasses and winces. His wrist twinges with a pain he can’t account for.

The flashing red light on the answer-machine catches his eye. He plays the message.

"It’s the holidays," says Dakin, but Irwin isn’t really paying attention. He remembers walking through a rainstorm and seeing a pub. He remembers drinking a cup of coffee that burnt his mouth and tasted like the week-old dredges of the communal staff-room coffee pot. He remembers seeing a rugby team in an unflattering sports strip – and he remembers talking to a man whose face he can’t quite see, whose name he can’t quite recall.

"Goodnight, sir," says Dakin’s voice, and Irwin supposes it doesn’t matter what the man was called.

He looks at his watch, rubs his eyes, and looks again. He peers through the kitchen door to glimpse the clock on the wall: it tells him the same twilight lies.

The phone rings and makes him jump. Gingerly, he picks it up with his bad wrist and bites his lip. "Hello?"

"Good evening, sir," says Dakin, in an affected southern accent, and Irwin smiles.

"Hello," he says, and that is that.

*

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MAYBE THAT'S BECAUSE IT WAS HALF 5 IN THE MORNING, OH MY GOD, HOW WERE YOU AWAKE?

Also: thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed this! Half frantically scribbled down before I had to leave for the airport, half written in a plane somewhere between Spain and the UK; all hoping it would not suck. :DDDD

(yesss, excuse to use my Lupin icon)