WHO: Charlie Spinnet and Octavius Pepper
WHAT: Brain Meltdown
WHERE: Octavius' house!
WHEN: Oh! Some time recently :D
STATUS: Maybe to be continued!
It had taken a while to get back into the motion of ‘real life’ after literally being stuck in St. Mungo’s for a month and a half. Charlie’s muscles were sore, he’d lost weight, and to say that his mind had been rattled was the understatement of the century. He couldn’t focus on anything for more than a moment, any sort of quidditch talk left him frazzled and confused, and it felt like he had reverted back to the awkward period of his life where he was out of Hogwarts and living on his parents’ couch. His mother was out of her mind these days, seeing as both Charlie and Delilah had suffered through the virus, and she was over his flat constantly, constantly checking up and not giving him a chance to breathe.
The only thing he could pay clear attention to was Penny, and even that was proving to be difficult. The nightmares he’d faced because of the virus’ hallucinations had left Charlie with questions and concerns that seemed to double every day. He worried, he fretted, but his strong feelings for Penelope had remained constant and that was all that seemed to matter to him.
But when his feelings made him make brash and expensive purchases, Charlie knew it was time to consult with Octavius, who always managed to knock him back to reality (after giving him a good whack of common sense--or sometimes just a real whack). Charlie furiously banged on his friend’s door, unable to sit still and feeling as if there was a gigantic meteoric rock in his pocket, burning its way through his cloak and beginning to melt his side.
Octavius was not ashamed to admit that he had dropped right down to his knees and kissed the wet, disgusting soil upon which he stood, after being freed from the hellish prison that was Morocco. Not shockingly, he'd regretted it moments later, but the point remained: he was home. In his own bed, with his own goat who was none too pleased with Octavius showing up out of the blue and removing him from his brother's house, where Gebhard had clearly gotten too comfortable.
Legitimately shockingly, he still had a job to come back to, which was due both in part to Mira putting in for all his unused vacation time (which was a shocking amount, he really had needed to get out more), and the Wizarding Wireless Network being in greater disrepair than usual (was such a thing actually possible? His first image of the offices on his day back still gave him nightmares) from his absence.
But since he wasn't ever leaving Britain ever again, Octavius didn't have to worry about a thing!
Of course, there was quite a somber air when they returned — he'd been horrified to learn about the resurgence of the terrible virus, and more horrified still to hear that his family hadn't escaped unscathed, nor his friends, nor the staff at the WWN. The worst was over, but that didn't mean there wasn't an awful lot to clean up after.
He was checking off the recently completed items on his massive to-do-list (eighty-three items checked off, one … hundred and twenty-seven to go) when the rapid fire startled him out of his work-induced stupor.
"Coming!" he hollered, tripping on his way over to the door, "I … oh." Octavius opened the door and blinked, taking in Charlie's rather startling appearance. Blinking, he stepped to the side. "Come in. Are you all right?"
Charlie winced; was it that obvious that he was having a complete and total nervous breakdown? He stalked into Octavius’ house, head ducked and looking as if he’d committed a felony, but that was exactly how outrageous he felt about his most recent actions, this latest development. Maybe he was crazy, maybe he was crazy.
He had to be! That was the only reason he would do such a thing, right? No, no, there were more reasons than that, there was one beautiful and caring and loving reason why he’d done it, but as of right now that beautiful, caring, and loving reason was not enough to compress the surge of illness that was ready to erupt out of Charlie. He felt and looked ready to puke, so if he were to open his mouth to truly explain to Octavius what had him in such a fury then he’d get sick all over his mate and his mate’s house.
That would just be perfect, wouldn’t it?
Deciding that actions often spoke louder and more clearer than Charlie’s words, he jammed his hand into his pocket and thrust the wooden ring box toward Octavius. He turned his head away, as if the diamond ring inside the box was blinding him through the wood, and it suddenly felt quite, quite heavy in his hand. He shook it at Octavius, silently urging him to take it away from him before he collapsed under its weight.
Rather alarmed and almost unwilling to close the door behind them, he bravely did so before turning to face Charlie, staring at his outstretched hand with no small amount of misgivings.
Though he, very gingerly, reached out to take the box, Octavius was half fearing for his life by the time the small box was sitting in his palm. The majority of him was screaming not to open the box, lest it be some curse that robbed him of his youth, life, or general soul, as it had apparently done with Charlie, but the smaller part of him (very much smaller, absurdly smaller) felt obligated to at least investigate on his friend's behalf.
With no small amount of trepidation, he pried open the box. And stared.
And stared.
And then gaped, as he stared more.
After blinking furiously at it for about a minute, Octavius nearly found his voice again.
"Well," he said slowly, unable to take his eyes from the innocently sparkling stone that was tucked as snugly as a pearl in an oyster. The only reason it hadn't ended up on the floor was that he was too shocked to actually move. "I suppose I always had a feeling…"
Charlie felt considerably less nauseated now that the ring box was out of his possession, but he glowered at Octavius’ comment regardless of his relief even though he could not deny the rather peculiar situations he and his best mate had over the years found themselves in, sometimes with a spare amount of clothing between them. That was not important! What was important in this very instant was that Octavius was holding a ring box, which contained a ring, a ring bought by Charlie, whose purpose behind the purchase was to one day give it to Penelope Fawcett as a proposal of maybe, possibly spending the rest of her life with him.
It was a preposterous idea.
But was it really? As Charlie began to pace again, he tried to think back to the past few hours and rewalk to route that had taken him into the jeweler and caused him to buy a ring with with the intention of marriage. His thoughts were constantly on Penelope, with her health, with her feelings for him, with her general well being physically and mentally. The jarring images of her lying unconscious to the world because of the fever caused such a panic in Charlie’s chest that he found himself missing a step, shorting himself of breath. He didn’t want to live without her, but how on bloody earth was a person supposed to be calm and accepting of the idea that ‘not living without her’ entailed the strikingly overwhelming notion that it was for ‘the rest of his life’?
That was hopefully going to be a long time! ...that was a long time.
“I’m going to return it,” he said quickly, turning towards Octavius, but then Charlie found himself recoiling. He shook his head, but didn’t reach for the ring. “No, I’m not. But--I should, shouldn’t I? I think I will. But---”
Octavius's head was starting to swim the longer Charlie was pacing and the longer he was in possession of the ring box. This was not, as he had imagined, some very peculiar joke his friend was attempting to pull. This was an actual thing. His best friend in the whole world, whom he had known, loved, and wanted to bean over the head since the tender age of eleven, was holding a ring, as in a ring with a diamond, which he had bought with the intention of proposing marriage to his girlfriend so they could spend the rest of their lives together.
Galloping fucking gorgons.
"Wait," he interrupted, throwing his other hand, the hand not holding precious gemstones, out and waving it impatiently. "Wait, wait—where—"
He stopped and scratched his head, fully unable to remove his eyes from the object responsible for the abject cognitive failure of the two grown men standing in the foyer. His mouth opened and closed like that of a fish might, but Octavius was wholly unbothered by such an image.
Instead, he thrust the box under Charlie's nose. "When did you—where did all of this even come from?"
"It--just---came," Charlie let out, eyes crossing as he stared down the bridge of his nose at the ring box. How could something so beautiful, so small, so delicate cause him to completely lose his mind? Charlie blinked, wondering if that last thought of his could be considered a metaphor for how Penny had flipped his world upside down. He'd always been so selfish, in an immature way that people dismissed because he was a foolish Gryffindor. With Penny, it never crossed his mind to put himself first. Without her asking, Charlie wished to be a better person, strived for it. Wasn't that how you were supposed to feel for the person you spent the rest of your life with?
The more he said it the less scary it seemed to be. That was scary in and of itself, but Charlie took a deep breath.
"I was helping her move and..." Charlie began to pace again, but this time in a less frantic and more thoughtful manner. "And it hit me that I'm not the person who takes care of her. I---want to be that person. That whole time in the hospital I had to sneak visits when I wasn't sick, I terrified myself thinking that she---" Charlie couldn't even say it, the painful memories if his hallucinations creeping up in his mind. He shook away the thoughts. "I don't want to live without her, I know that."
He felt infinitely better compared to how he had walked into Octavius' house. Charlie dropped onto the couch, picking at a Gebhard made hole, "Does that make any sense?"
Because the ring felt like it was burning a hole through his hand, and he no longer trusted its well-being in his possession, Octavius bent and placed the box very painstakingly on the coffee table before the sofa. He remained standing, scratching his head thoughtfully with one hand. It was second nature to outrightly dismiss any excited or agitated plan of the Spinnet twins, so he had to bite back the immediate dissuasion and denials that were on the tip of his tongue.
"I suppose," he instead said, dubiously. Perhaps what Charlie said made sense, but Octavius had never personally experienced those feelings… which, he supposed, was the direct source of all his relationship troubles. Though the rawness of the ugly break up between Rose and he had faded some, he still felt a pang in his chest at the thought. One day, he'd like to feel as strongly as Charlie apparently did, though that day was still out of his reach.
He studied his friend with a critical eye, trying to recall a picture of Charlie and Penelope together. They were an… unusual match, to be sure, rather a case of attracting opposites. Octavius personally endeavoured to spend as little time as possible with her, at least alone, because he found her extraordinarily eerie, or unsettling. It wasn't merely the uncanny resemblance to her sister, better known to him as the first witch he'd ever loved and had his heart trod on, but she had a way of looking at a person as if she could see right through them. Not to mention the urge he had to ensure his fingernails were clean and murmur "yes, miss" to her every sentence.
And she might be Charlie's wife.
That was the word that did it. Charlie's previous panic swept over Octavius. They were so young! They didn't need to get married. Tied down to someone for the rest of their life. Octavius wasn't ready to be a best man! Charlie getting married would change everything.
Still stunned, Octavius said, "But… you know, marriage? That doesn't—it doesn't change the other things."
Charlie nodded. He wasn’t too smart, but he wasn’t dumb; he knew that it would take a tremendous amount of work and time to get Penelope’s family to accept him. Her sister-in-law was at least behind-the-scenes understanding (she had fed him a few times during his hospital stay), and he could probably win over her niece and nephews if given the chance (kids loved him), but Charlie needed to build up the courage to face the big beast that was Drystan Fawcett.
He’d done it before, and he’d only managed to because it had been out of concern for Penny. Charlie’s eyes went out of focus in a slight wave of delirium at the notion of having to ask Drystan for Penelope’s hand in marriage, and the nausea that came along with the thought subsided after a few moments.
“It might not,” he conceded, scratching the back of his head. Charlie smiled up at Octavius, his crooked grin reminiscent of the one that would cross his features when a troublesome hijinx was in progress. “But I think I’m willing to try.”
He put his hands behind the back of his head and kicked his feet up onto the coffee table, “Besides, just think: you’d get to plan the stag night of the century!”
