WHO: Charlie Spinnet and Axe Brookstanton
WHAT: Oh, emotions are running high for various reasons
WHERE: Kestrels locker room.



They were supposed to clean out their lockers today.

Charlie sat on the bench in front of his, a box of belongings between his feet. It was a miserable feeling, this constant state of failure. He hadn’t been able to shake it since the final match with the United had ended, and it felt like he was never going to be able to get the guilt off of his shoulders. He’d kept the goal scoring low, he’d done physically everything he was able to do, and still! Charlie, as simple in his day-to-day life as he was, played the numbers game with quidditch. He knew how many goals he gave up and to whom, and as the final tally of the top eight teams shown up on the scoreboard, those forty points that Arrows had defeated them by slapped him hard in the face. He’d given up five to them the last time they faced each other, and if he had just pushed himself harder, if he had worked a little more at his agility...

He was a terrible loser. He didn’t throw tantrums (anymore) or have a fit, he quite simply fell apart. His self-esteem was a fragile, fragile thing and while part of him knew and hated that fact, Charlie was unable to keep himself from taking all the talk about the downward spiral of the Kestrels to heart.

His elbows pressed into his thighs and there would be a bruise in the spot with how long he’d been in the position. Some of the other players had come by earlier, but they’d left with solemn words and short goodbyes. Charlie’s face was hidden in his hands, and he didn’t budge to acknowledge the other teammate that had entered. He wasn’t even sure he’d looked any of them in the eye since that bloody snitch was caught.

Axe felt nothing at all.

He didn't say so, of course, because the rest of his team took their defeat to heart. But Axe would be lying if he said the Kestrels hadn't ended up exactly where he wanted them to be. He felt responsible — he was responsible — for a large part of their defeat, but to have the Arrows scrape ahead of them by just forty points, well. Axe could understand the raw feelings of his fellow players. But he still welcomed the end of this abominable season, so he could retreat and gather his wits a little before the start of the European Cup. He only hoped the rest of them would come to see their unexpected little vacation in the same light.

When he came to clear out his things, he thought ideally that all his teammates would have come and gone by the time he'd gotten around to it. But as luck would have it, the player with whom he most strongly felt a rift with of late was on the bench with his head resting in his hands.

Axe found himself wondering if Spinnet or Jenkins or the like had figured out exactly what he was up to. There had been a sense of discord between the Kestrels that had not existed previously. They were a merry band of misfits to the rest of the Wizarding world until they secured the Cup last season (although now, who knew), but they had one thing that allowed them to beat the others. Their teamwork was unparalleled. They were always in tune, always able to anticipate the actions of another, always working towards one goal. Like fingers of the same hand. But that sense of unity had been absent since at least the second half of the season, and Axe wasn't sure why, not without being paranoid. The end result ultimately suited his purposes, but … if he hadn't needed it to … if it had been a season like any other, where would they be?

He glanced at Spinnet over his shoulder as he tapped his locker open. "This is terrible for your posture," said Axe, re-adjusting his seldom worn glasses. He faced forward again, taking the sack draped across his arm.

“You sound like my mother.”

Charlie let out a breath, dropping his hands down from his face. He really did not want to see Axe, or face Axe, or---the lingering annoyance from the situation with Octavius and Rose was still there, but it was nothing compared to the sheer embarrassment he felt being under his captain’s gaze. Quidditch was all Charlie was ever really good at, and it had taken him years to be good enough to fly with the professionals and now---the team had collapsed, he’d become a focus and...he really didn’t feel like he could talk to Axe as a friend now, but only as a captain.

His captain, however, had left him to deal with most of the reporters that had swarmed the pitch after the match, because he’d conveniently forgotten how to speak the English language. Charlie had grown used to talking to the media over these past few seasons, but when he himself was barely holding it together and really had no excuse as to what had happened----he’d been forced to play the unbiased tone and actually praise the United for being such steady competitors and Charlie was sure he’d never bullshit as well as he had his entire life.

He still didn’t turn to face Axe and remained with his shoulders slumped. Shutting his locker door and taking his box of belongings meant that the season was truly over and that he had no bloody idea what came next. Charlie let out a breath and dropped his gaze to the box, which had a bunch of random, pointless things he’d used as good luck charms. Lot of good that did them, “What are you doing ‘till EuroCup?”

Another place for him to fail spectacularly, but this time, in front of the entire continent!

What was he doing until then? Axe had not even thought about where his evening would take him. He exhaled rather forcefully, shrugging. As it stood, he had no desire to even be playing in the European Cup. Hopefully a month's time would change his mind, perhaps it would reinvigorate him for the sport, but… Axe felt done. Ready to throw in the towel. He had lost the spark, or rather, the season had beat it out of him, and he did not have the energy to go chasing after flints to bring it back.

"Not a thing, I suppose." The month before him appeared to stretch on endlessly. He was not sure what he would be doing after the European Cup either, but he knew it would feel different. Axe thought he was actually looking forward to beginning the proper off-season, but it was a hell of an entirely different making to be waiting on a completely separate game to begin.

He wondered if the Cup organisers were going to want to start promotions early, now that his schedule was magically opened, but he didn't expect so. Axe's reputation undoubtedly preceded him, but a loser was still a loser. He didn't imagine it was in anyone's best interests for France to do any flashy publicity with its defeated captain. If the urge truly struck him, he supposed, he could fabricate a reason or necessity to visit Guy, but he doubted it. His youngest brother was the only person whose company he would purposefully seek, but Axe didn't want to risk drawing their the attentions of his eldest brother to him. Not to mention Guillaume was entirely too perceptive for his own good, and it was better for everyone that the fiasco of Axe's life these past months be buried deeply.

Dropping a pair of extra, unused gloves into his sack, he asked, "And you? Are you ready to fly alongside your Irish brethren?"

Charlie snorted. Brethren was definitely not the word for it. The few practices and scrimmages the Irish team had managed between their regular practices and match had been, well, interesting.

“Let’s see,” he put out his hands to tick off his fingers, “I’ve got Fawcett shooting practice missiles at my head instead of the goals, he’s got Troy and Mullet under his spell, McLaggen thinks it’s hilarious and acts as if he doesn’t see me getting pounded, Joey’s not going to say anything, and I’m pretty sure Thorough only speaks in grunts, so.”

He dropped his head back, staring at the ceiling. He knew that being on the national team was a huge honor, but it was going to be a miserable time behind the scenes and the part of quidditch Charlie had grown to absolutely love was his time with his teammates. He’d always had a good group of friends, but the Kestrels were the people he spent nearly every day with, for hours upon hours. They could read each other’s minds, or at least, they used to be able to. It pained Charlie to think that they’d lost the fire they’d so brightly showed off last season, but he knew that he hadn’t helped keep it burning with his strong avoidance of Axe.

But he’d done the right thing though, yeah? He kept things professional, he followed instructions on the pitch, but he left it at that. Charlie knew he’d always pick Octavius over anyone else, Octavius and Delilah were the only ones he’d give up anything for, but it had still been hard not to talk to Axe, who’d become one of his best (even if forced upon by Charlie---he was a lot more like his sister than he was willing to admit) friends. That had weighed on him, but...Axe hadn’t put much effort forth into bridging the gap Charlie had created. Maybe that had bothered him more.

Charlie felt bitter. He pressed the sides of his feet against the box and pushed it forward, against the lockers. He really could not move from this spot.

“Playing with people who don’t want me around, not much of a stretch.”

Himself, he had no immediate problems with his teammates, though he didn't care overmuch. The other Beater, Lufkin, he knew from (the word alone gave him shudders) school, and both in the league, their paths had crossed since. He knew the Seeker and a Chaser from his days on Quiberon, too, so that left the other unknown three, which he was not overly concerned about. Axe hadn't sensed any discord with them upon the few convenings the team had managed, however, so he felt exceedingly ambivalent about the whole thing.

But Spinnet, no, his poor Keeper had certainly made his bed earlier last season, albeit inadvertently, and now had the unpleasant task of lying in it. And it was his first year on the national team, too. Axe could only imagine the bitter pill it was to prove yourself like that, only to realise your teammates rathered you hadn't.

He blew out another breath and shook his head. Perhaps this was karmic retribution for their admittedly wild behaviour last season. Everything had its price. But he didn't have to rub it in, even if he wanted to. Axe could not even bring himself to make a quip about his meek girlfriend, or the brother that was undoubtedly already beginning his slaughter, or voice the dreaded 'I told you.'

He didn't understand the last thing Spinnet had said, though, and turned his head to give him a strange look.

"This is a problem you have often?" he asked, brow creased almost disbelievingly. "Being a—" Piranha? Piñata. He fished for the word for a moment. "—P-pariah?" His supposedly-loose grasp-on-English tactic to avoid the swarm of reporters had not just been a ruse of late. Axe was far too distracted lately to concentrate on stringing together multiple, sensical English sentences, and if it was for a reporter, it would probably just be uncomplimentary mutterings about their parentage. Which, as everyone had been so considerate as to let him know, he could not exactly be casting stones about.

But he'd always imagined Spinnet was one of those irritating people that made friends wherever they went because of their insufferably good nature, or something to that effect. Axe drew crowds by pretending to be better than everyone else, which made people crave his approval, but he'd thought Charlie was actually well-liked.

What the hell was a pariah? He narrowed his eyes, wondering if that was some French word Axe didn’t feel like translating, but then he remembered Octavius calling himself that on a few occasions and within the context it began to make sense. An outcast? Well, in some ways. He’d been put between a chimaera and a hard place, and though Charlie believed he had made the right choice and would stand by it, it didn’t mean that he couldn’t be upset about it. He shrugged, scratching the back of his head.

“Dunno. I mean. You haven’t really wanted anything to do with me recently, so there’s that.”

He didn’t know why that was so easy to let slip, but maybe his annoyance had reached its peak and his patience had run thin. Charlie was quite aware that he had started to build the wall between himself and Axe, but he wasn’t the one that had completely overstepped some boundaries. Right? Charlie cared about his friends enough to know about their personal lives, he knew to keep his comments about McCormack to himself when around Kendall, he stayed quiet about Nora with Octavius even though she drove him up the wall, and----why didn’t Axe know about Rose? They’d been at the same parties, it wasn’t a secret that she had been dating Octavius, and Charlie most certainly made a big deal about Octavius being his best mate, so----

It wasn’t just that anymore, either. Axe may have let all that information slip his mind, which Charlie was admittedly accepting of, he believed Axe really could have just not known, but then to...he sounded like a whiney bird, but to make little to no effort to understand why he, Charlie, had started to push himself away? It was bullshit. All Charlie did after his complete downward spiral of a life last year, was care about his friends. He put an extra effort to make up for being a complete ass, and----he huffed and swiped up his box of belongings, quite suddenly ready to leave.

Axe just barely resisted groaning, but winced and rested his head against the the cool wood for a moment. This was the trouble with letting people get close. Friends were a vulnerability he had not been able to afford, and now they were something he was undeserving of.

You could not say things like "this is for the best," because then they pried. They did it out of the goodness of their hearts, out of concern for you, but still they rooted around where they did not belong and where Axe did not want them. If you were in trouble, they wanted to know. They wanted to help. They wanted to do what friends were supposed to do.

The repercussions of that were not something Axe really thought he could live with. Forget the abject humiliation of the short string his brother had him dancing from — what would his teammates think of him, do to him, if they were ever to find out he played such a large part in their failures this season? What would Spinnet do, if he realised he'd been beating himself up about some lousy goals when it was his captain who had truly cost them those precious few points all along?

And the funny thing, the peculiar thing, was, that even though Axe had markedly pulled away from those few people he could call friends, it had been Spinnet who had become significantly cooler in their association. By nature, Axe was an aloof person to whom sharing or self-disclosure came easily. Those were defences borne of his rocky past, and he was not functional enough to want to be without them. The friends he had were of the forceful sort, ones who did not take no for an answer, ones who pushed, and, surprisingly, were allowed to. Spinnet numbered topmost amongst them. So when he stopped pushing, if Axe hadn't been so relieved because it suited his purposes, he might have been hurt.

"Is this so? I had thought it was the other way around," Axe's raised brow was politely incredulous, as was his tone.

Charlie blanched; so he had noticed! He turned to face Axe, jaw clenched in a frown as he tried desperately to keep his temper even. His frustrations on the season, with his friends, with his captain, it was all beginning to grow tiresome and too overly frustrating for a bloke with his lack of patience to handle.

“Good of you to notice,” he said irritably, shifting the box in his arms. “What’s it taken, a month and a half? Do you even know why?”

He shook his head in annoyance. No, no, he now was sure that Axe had no idea what had been bothering him for the past month. After being a ridiculous prick last year, Charlie had promised himself that he wouldn’t make those same mistakes again. He saw how much he’d hurt his sister, Octavius, his teammates. Even though he hadn’t realized it while he was out-of-control, he’d managed to turn things around and fix them. He’d put forth an effort. Charlie managed to realize that maybe he was being judgemental, but he’d always put so much faith in Axe that it was actually startling how---how disappointed he felt.

“Do you know how hard it is to defend you when you do stupid things like----like Rose Knightley!” Charlie blurted, roughly putting the box down on the to bench. He threw his hands up, flabbergasted. “You shagged my best friend’s girl! My---you know Octavius, you’ve met him before and you knew that---”

He clenched his fists, trying to keep some sort of composure even though he’d been wanting to snap at his captain for weeks. It was so bloody stupid! “You’re supposed to be one of my best mates and then you pull stupid shit like this and make me have to choose and you don’t even care enough to say something about it!”

For a moment, Axe was honestly sure he could not understand English any longer. It was a miracle his face remained as impassively dismissive as it was, because all he felt was confusion. Honestly, Axe couldn't remember what Charlie was talking about, until the name sank in. Rose the Catapult, Rose from the lift, Rose from that Night.

That was what this was over? Because he had slept with someone three months ago?

Axe was at a complete loss as to how to react. This entire conversation, he'd been wondering if Spinnet would somehow drop into the conversation how he knew Axe had been up to something, or confront him with his suspicions, and he had been preparing for the acrobatics of convincing Charlie it had all been in his head, but this—he nearly laughed with incredulity, although the urge to throttle (himself or Spinnet he didn't know) was compellingly strong, as well.

"I do not chase after where I am not wanted. If you are mad, you should say something." How were people supposed to know if you did not tell them? He turned back to his locker with a shrug.

He did not wonder if it was so very self-evident to Spinnet because the two were best friends, whereas the time he and this… Octavius fellow had spent in each other's company could probably be counted on one hand. And he was a very boring person who went by a lot of names, and so, no, Axe couldn't summon a very strong impression of him. He chose not to remember Rose out of self-defence. He brushed aside the prickle of annoyance that it was his fault a woman in a relationship chose to sleep with him, but it wasn't the first time. People failed to realise that he didn't make them do anything. A person in a happy relationship did not go seeking the company of others in such a way. And if it hadn't been with him, it probably would have been with another person. "But I am sorry. It was not my intention to cause problems."

I do not chase----should say something---

Was he becoming irrationally angry about all of this mess? Charlie wasn’t the most rational of people, he could assure you, but when it came to his friends and those he cared about things were pretty black and white. Axe had hurt Octavius, so Charlie was pissed off at Axe, but Axe hadn’t felt the need to find out why and that hurt Charlie. When put like that, he seemed very simple and being annoyed with his captain made sense. When he thought about it some more, maybe it was just him valuing the friendship between him and his captain more than Axe did. Or---

It was all too confusing for Charlie to really understand. He’d never had someone he’d trusted so easily dismiss him in this manner. Charlie had a lot of friends, but he only kept less than a handful close. It was strange to feel like he’d misjudged Axe in this way.

So he did what any confused, irrational Gryffindor would do. Charlie swiped up one of his shin guards from his box and chucked it hard at Axe, hoping all his frustration was felt in the smack against his arm.

“You’re a bloody wanker!” Charlie snapped, reaching into the box for something else to throw. It was a good thing he kept such a mess in his locker.

The shin guard did indeed catch Axe off-guard, and he ducked its companion which shortly followed suit, ricocheting off his open locker door and bouncing inside it.

"Assez!" he snapped, lobbing a guard neatly if violently into Spinnet's box, his guilt and sympathy rapidly drying up. "Enough of this!"

The topic of conversation had made his head spin, but if he was following it correctly … it was Spinnet who was mad at him, yet felt unwanted by Axe because… Axe did not have the ability to read his mind? That Axe himself had personal issues which made it in their best interests to only be professional? That it was not only Spinnet to whom dramatics and personal trauma befell?

The vagaries of Spinnet's undoubtedly complicated personal relationships were of no concern of Axe's until the affected his presence on the pitch, and he had not been in a position to judge that this season. If Spinnet couldn't trouble himself to voice his problems like an actual adult, it wasn't his problem to go fawning over him like a mother. If this was how it was going to continue to be, Axe couldn't quite recall why he had been feeling so troubled about this all to begin with.

Axe was a ruthless captain, and a slavedriver. He knew this, but his team performed, and when they saw the results, they gave him the respect he deserved. This season had been different, and no, he would not say he deserved respect for the choices he had made during it. But he was still captain, this was still their locker room, and he would not be railed on for the personal problems of a player who played at relationships as if they were school games.

"Get out," he barked, jerking his head towards the door with a hardened expression. "If you are very fortunate, it will not be the last time in your life you do so."

“So very fortunate!”

Charlie let out a great sound of annoyance as he swept his box of belongings back up in his arms. He didn’t bother to go looking for the other shin guard as it would put a blip on his dramatic stalk away. The frustrations of the last few months, this entire season had boiled over and some tiny, pushed away voice told him he’d regret behaving like a child but----right now, he was pissed.

He was mad, he was angry, he was a bit startled...it was not a good combination. Maybe he did have to learn how to keep things professional, but Axe certainly hadn’t complained about their friendship when he threw the gigantic birthday party for him. He hadn’t complained (truly) for all the other times they’d hung out off the pitch. Charlie had actually believed that----so----nevermind! He was used to people actually giving a shit about someone other than themselves, that was the problem. Even Delilah and her scatterbrain managed to put the feelings of others first most of the time so----so----

His feet stopped him in the middle of the doorway. He’d never left this locker room feeling glad to do so. Even after the final match his thoughts had been on what he could do better next season, but in this moment Charlie dreaded coming back to the Kestrels’ pitch. He let out a long breath from his nose and briskly put the locker room far behind him.

Fucking hell, he needed a drink.