Chapter Three
Charlie left the campfire for the rock, not in the mood for drinking or singing or even having hooking up with one of the visiting dragonologists from the Swedish reserve who had come to check on Rosu as they made their way to the compound in north Africa. He had been in a funk for over a fortnight now, and company just seemed to aggravate it.
Or rather, certain company made it worse, and the irony was that Higgs wasn't even seated around the fire anymore. He'd left an hour ago, probably off shagging Maggie in her cabin yet again. Not that Charlie could blame him: she was a good shag, and she always seemed to have a soft spot for a bit of extra sympathy when someone was injured on the reserve. He shouldn't be bothered by it, but he was. Terrence had been even more unfocused since Branwen had clawed him across the back, and Charlie didn’t want a partner who let an injury get to him.
At least, that's what he told himself. He tried not to think about the other possibility, that Terrence had felt not the same physical connection Charlie had felt on the long walk to the Healer's cabin. If he had, Higgs was doing a good job of forgetting about it in Maggie's bed.
As he stepped out onto the rock, Charlie saw a shadow sitting on the edge, feet dangling over the water, and groaned to himself. It was Higgs, and he probably had a lapful going on with Maggie. Charlie turned to leave, feeling unjustly annoyed, but Higgs had already heard him.
"I won't claw you, Weasley," he said, his voice dripping sarcasm.
Charlie held back the really biting comment he wanted to throw out and said instead, "It's fine. You were here first."
"If you want your rock, you can come sit on your rock." Terrence stood, surprisingly alone, and motioned to the edge. "I'm done with it."
He waited for Charlie to sit down before he turned to leave. Then he seemed to change his mind, because he turned back and sat down again just a few feet away.
"On second thought, I'm not done. Mind if I join you?"
"Yes," Charlie muttered, although he didn't, not really. Something was forcing him to say it, as if he couldn't let himself simply sit with Terrence and enjoy a moment's peace. It just wasn't what they did. Instead, they had spent the last two months bickering, sometimes in jest, sometimes not, rare moments of getting along always eclipsed by uncomfortable exchanges filled with resentment. He was getting tired of it, to the point of wanting to go to Davenport and request someone else take Higgs as a partner, although it would mean giving up the Fireball.
And yet, they had made significant progress with Rosu, even if Higgs had been off his game since the injury. Charlie knew they worked well together when they were focused on the dragons…it was getting along away from the animals that was difficult, and Charlie didn't want to think of the reasons.
But maybe Terrence did.
"Why are you such an arsehole sometimes?" he asked, point blank. He did not look at Charlie, but gazed out at the black water, tiny pinpricks of light from the sky floating on its unbroken surface. Charlie bristled immediately.
"I'm not the one who showed up his first day actually claiming to be an arsehole," he pointed out. "You said it was an act, but you haven't dropped it if it was."
And again Terrence did that odd turn-about, where he seemed to go from hot to cold in seconds, just as he had when they had first met, just as he had almost every day since. He even laughed. "Good point. Okay," he said, turning toward Charlie this time, and there was a look on his face Charlie couldn't decipher. "Why are we both such arseholes then? Why are we always sniping at each other like brats wrapped up in their mum's skirt?"
Now it was Charlie's turn to laugh as he shook his head. "I don’t know, Higgs," he finally replied. "Fire and water, I guess."
He was quiet for a long time. "Well, if those two can get along, I'd think we could, given our higher level of evolution." He gestured at the sky, where Rosu and Branwen circled the lake. They flew right overheard and roared, almost as if greeting their two closest keepers, but instead of landing on the far shore, they continued up into the mountains instead.
Charlie watched them leave. Terrence had actually moved closer; Charlie glanced sideways at the other man, but curbed the instinct to move away, not wanting to appear rude when he had been the intruder. The warmth from Higgs sitting mere inches from him was actually comforting on the crisp, cool night.
"Look, Higgs," he started, clearing his throat when his voice came out a bit scratchy. "I don't know what to tell you. Sometimes partners just get under each other's skin. You're arrogant and--"
"--and you're stubborn," Terrence interjected. Charlie just nodded, since it was true.
"--and so we're going to have a go at each other every so often, but I've got your back." He paused and offered a sideways grin. "Literally."
Terrence blew out a breath as he shook his head. "I really owe you for that."
"I know," said Charlie. "I'm sure I'll eventually do something equally stupid and you'll have to blast a dragon off my back one day too."
"I hope not," murmured Higgs. "I was distracted." His voice conveyed both the desire to drop it and the need to talk about it. Considering they hadn't talked much at all in the weeks since his injury, Charlie decided to go for it: if they were going to work together, they needed to be open with each other. Or at least honest enough to be able to do their jobs without getting killed.
"You obviously weren't thinking about dragons," he pointed out, hoping Terrence might talk more. Higgs laughed bitterly.
"I wasn't, no. I was thinking about my family." He didn't offer anything else, though, so Charlie made a comment, thinking that perhaps the other man missed his family. He'd transferred from Wales, after all, which was a good deal closer to home for him.
"It's hard being away from friends and family," Charlie said with what he hoped was a sympathetic tone. "But you get used to it, in some ways."
"Oh, I don't mind a bit," Terrence said emphatically. He shifted on the rock, leaning back on his hands and gazing up at the sky, but with his eyes closed. "Why do you think I went to China for six months?"
For one of the first times they'd been alone together and not working, Charlie felt comfortable, and he leaned back as well. "To get away from them?" he guessed from the tone of voice, and Terrence nodded. "They can't be that bad, can they?"
Terrence didn't open his eyes, he just talked to the sky. "How many siblings do you have, Weasley?" he asked, sounding curious. "Quite a few, if I remember correctly."
"Five brothers and a sister," Charlie said. "Why? How about you? And what do they have to do with anything?"
"I have a sister, that's all. I'd imagine with so many siblings, you've haven't been under all that much pressure to do this, do that--do whatever your parents told you." He finally opened his eyes, piercing Charlie with a pointed look. "Am I right? It's different growing up in a big family, isn't it? More freedom."
"They had expectations for me," Charlie replied, feeling slightly defensive. "And it's not like I slacked off, I've worked hard to get where I am…" He trailed off as Terrence waved his hand at him.
"No, no, that's not what I mean. Maybe it's because of who my parents are then: high-ranking pure-blood Slytherins to the core with a penchant for pompous snobbery. The sort that like to plan out their children's lives with their best interests at heart, only they don't have a bloody clue what our interests really are." He sounded angry by the end, and Charlie suddenly understood.
"They wanted you to do something you didn't want to do," he suggested.
Terrence nodded. "First it was Quidditch, then it was banking. I tried both. They were disappointed when I didn't go out for a major team, furious when I left Gringotts for dragon work." The sentence was unfinished, though, and Charlie knew there was more.
"And now?" he asked. He couldn't help it: he was interested, because he already felt like he knew Higgs better, even if he couldn't relate. His parents had been disappointed when he had moved to Romania, but only because it was so far. They had supported him ever since, even though he knew they wanted him closer simply because they missed him. Did Terrence's parents miss him, or were they equally as estranged from their son as he seemed to be from them?
"Now they want me to get married." Higgs paused. "Or they did, until I left Wales."
Charlie could help but snort. "So you're not really here for the Fireball, you're here to get out of a wedding?"
Terrence shrugged in answer, though he did look slightly embarrassed. "You think you'll ever get married?"
"I've never thought about it," Charlie answered almost instantly and honestly. "I have no idea."
"Really?" Terrence asked, sitting up and leaning forward, closer. "You don't have anyone back home, anyone around here?"
The conversation was veering into even more personal territory, but Charlie still felt remarkably comfortable at that moment. They hadn't snapped at each other once since he had come out to the rock; in fact, Terrence had just been very honest, and Charlie felt the need to respond in kind. He wanted to.
"I'm not one to leave someone behind, waiting around for me," he replied. "And there's no one here--you'd know if there were, since there are no secrets around here." Which was true: everyone knew just about everything that happened on the reserve.
"What about Maggie?" Terrence asked casually, but Charlie sensed he was either looking for information or permission, both of which actually made him want to laugh, though for completely different reasons. He didn't.
"She's a great Healer, among other things," he said, earning a raised eyebrow from Higgs. "But she's different than the rest of us: she'll settle down with someone, someday."
Higgs nodded slowly. "And the rest of us?" he asked.
"We're dragon keepers," Charlie said. "Most of us live far away from our families. We live in the wild. We risk our lives every day. We travel a lot. We don't settle down much." He stopped as it hit him: his future. Alone. Yet that was what he had been living with for four years, so why did it suddenly bother him now? It was what he wanted, wasn't it?
"Exactly," murmured Terrence, still gazing across the water.
"Really, the only person for someone like us would be another dragon keeper, but I can tell you from experience that's just as hard." Charlie remembered falling for another keeper his second year, only to see it end when Lauren transferred to Canada to work with her father on establishing a new reserve in Alberta. And then there had been Jake, which had been brief but intense, but then he'd been injured and had gone back to England, never to return.
No, Charlie wasn't interested in relationships or marriage…and yet here he was, sitting side-by-side and talking about it with a man who had fled the country to avoid getting married, and wondering why it had never concerned him until now.
Higgs was silent for a long time, so long so that Charlie wondered if he had said something wrong. He finally brought it up again. "So did you just not want to get married in general, or did they actually have someone in mind for you?"
Terrence gave him an enigmatic look. "Both. Because like you said, the only person for someone like us is someone like us." Charlie got the distinct impression Higgs meant something else, but he wasn't sure if Terrence was hinting at what he thought. He did notice Terrence lick his lips, and Charlie forced himself to look away, because he did not want to notice his partner licking his lips like that.
"Maggie's good, then," Charlie offered, repressing a sigh. It seemed his Gryffindor heritage was failing him, and he couldn't say what he was really thinking or feeling. "She gets us, at least. Good luck with her."
A confused look floated across Terrence's face. "What do you mean?"
Charlie stood and stretched as he tried to hide disappointment he knew he shouldn't be feeling. "You asked about her, and you've been down to her cabin quite a lot lately, even though I know your back is much better…" He trailed off, letting his unspoken words fill in the rest.
"Oh." Terrence stood with him, and they began to walk back toward the cabins. Again, Charlie was surprised at how easy it had been to talk to him without fighting. Maybe they could keep working together after all…at least, if he could get certain other things out of his mind now, especially the disappointing ones.
"Look, Charlie…it's not like that," Higgs said softly under his breath.
Charlie wanted to ask what he meant, but it was none of his business, not really. The compound was an open, accepting place, and people did what they did with whomever they wanted to do it with. Yet Terrence seemed uncomfortable, for some reason--as if he didn't want Charlie to have the wrong idea.
"I was only asking, because she…she's mentioned you a few times. I thought maybe there was something going on I missed."
"Oh." Now it was Charlie's turn to be slightly surprised. "No, there's nothing between us." He shrugged as he stopped in front of his cabin. "She's all yours."
"Bollocks, Weasley," Higgs snapped, running a hand through his short hair in distress. "I just said it wasn't like that."
Charlie held up his hands. "Fine. Sorry." And there it was: the bickering that the vast majority of their conversations turned into. He was too tired and confused to snap back, though, so he just turned and walked toward his cabin in silence. Behind him he heard Higgs huff and storm off the other way. With a sigh he headed into his cabin, thinking of Lauren and Jake and Maggie and all the other relationships he'd had that hadn't gone anywhere and never would.
And he thought about Terrence Higgs…who was, in the end, just like him.
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