Closed P.S. I Was Wrong

[Arvel Ayers]

St Mungo's Hospital never slept, but it did occasionally close its eyes. Arvel stood by the window in the empty break room, listening to the rumble of the plumbing and looking out at the dark harbour below. His shift had finished fifteen minutes ago, but he often found peace in moments like these, when most of the world had gone to bed, and the streetlamps shone on empty streets. He could imagine the cogs of the hospital still turning under his feet while the rest of the town slept, oblivious to the barely-managed chaos, to the messes which would be made and cleared up before sunrise. Moments like these were why he still dragged himself here day after day, even though he didn't really have to. He liked to be part of the machine. It was important, even if most didn't know it.

In the bottom of his bag was an envelope. He pulled it out, worked out the crease in the corner, and went to locker number sixteen. The gap beneath the hinges was just wide enough to admit a birthday card. Arvel slipped it in before he could change his mind.

He slung his bag over his shoulder and went home.

Spoiler: The Card

Dear Zennon,

Happy birthday.

Arvel.

P.S. I was wrong. I'm sorry. I wish I could take it back. It still hurts me.

It's OK if you can't forgive me.

I think you know what I mean?

---

Arvel didn't make a habit of taking sick days. He had a good immune system, and a conscience too sensitive to take time off when he didn't need it. The guilt would eat away at him all day, making him miserable and anxious, til he wished he'd just gritted his teeth and gone in.

Today was different. His shift was supposed to start at four o'clock in the afternoon, but by midday his stomach was churning and the thought of going anywhere near St Mungo's broke him out in a sweat. Maybe the card had been a bad idea. Maybe Zennon had forgotten all about the terrible things Arvel had said, and he was needlessly re-opening old wounds. Maybe there had never been a wound in the first place, and Arvel was embarrassing himself all over again for no reason. God - he should have pushed the guilt down and let it rest. But he couldn't. He'd pushed it down for the last ten years, naively hoping the dark would kill it off like a weed, only to find that it scattered its seeds in the undergrowth of his mind and sprouted anew. He couldn't escape it - and now it was taking up more space than he could bear, and springing up faster than he could cut it back. Even if Zennon resented him for it, Arvel had to apologise. It was the right thing. He'd done the right thing.

Alas, doing the right thing came with its own set of consequences, both emotional and physical. He was only postponing the inevitable - he'd have to face work again eventually - but for now he climbed back into bed, pulling the duvet all the way up to his chin. Oh, well. If the worst came to the worst, he could always quit. He'd already lost most of the things that brought him peace. What was one more?

The clock on his bedside table read two-thirty. He watched the second hand make two loops around the face, then fell asleep.

 

[Zennon Baros]

In all honesty, the card had gone almost completely unnoticed by Zennon for most of his shift, and it was only once he was packing up that he noticed it. He certainly hadn't expected it and as he slipped it out of the tiny space it occupied and opened it, he was even more surprised to see it was from Arvel, who, honestly, he wouldn't have thought would have paid enough attention to him to know when his birthday even was. It was kind of nice to know he'd bothered to even think about it, let alone to give him a card and honestly, it made Zennon feel a little bit better after the chaos of the day. He usually started to feel good around this time of day, despite enjoying his job there was always something else happening and sometimes the day didn't go well, today was no different, and even if he didn't specifically know what the card was about, Zennon pocketed it, intentions to talk to Arvel when he caught him as he left - only he found out that Arvel wasn't working today. He'd called out because he was sick? Well that didn't sound like Arvel, he couldn't recall the man having taken a day off in the ten or so years since they'd been working here together. Maybe over that two years where Zennon hadn't been working, but certainly not at the moment.

Zennon dropped his stuff at his apartment before heading further down to the door he knew Arvel was behind. Finding out they lived in the same building a couple of years ago had been a bit of a surprise, but it made sense since they always started or finished work at two completely different times. Arvel tended to work overnight, and Zennon was more of a daytime guy, not that he hadn't done nightshifts, but even then, his hours tended to be longer or more flexible than Arvel's were, though he couldn't say that for certain, he'd regrettably not taken a particularly close look at schedules. It was starting to get dark by the time he managed to knock on Arvel's door, both to say thanks for the card, and to bring him something to eat. He had a potion with him as well, incase whatever Arvel was dealing with was a bit more than a nice soup can help. He was a healer at his core after all, and if he could help ease illness, or suffering, then he was going to try. "Arvel, it's Zennon, heard you weren't feeling well and wanted to check on you, can you open the door?" Ace twisted himself around Zennon's neck, flicking his tongue at the air. "I'm just checking, it's alright, you're fine," he hissed lightly, making sure Ace was calm.​

 

[Arvel Ayers]

When Arvel opened his eyes again, his bedroom was dark. He squinted at the clock, which advised him the hour was six, but the instinct which told him whether it was six in the morning or six in the evening was missing. Typically, he fell asleep darkness and woke up in the middle of the day. Doing it the other way around gave him a sick, light-headed feeling which was not at all helped by the sound of Zennon's voice travelling through the wall. Oh, no. He remembered, now. He'd gone to bed to stop himself from thinking about the birthday card. It had worked, for a few blissful hours, but that was the problem with sleeping to forget about the future: it was even closer when you woke up.

And now it was on his doorstep, and he couldn't ignore it without making himself feel worse. Spurred by this thought, he threw off the covers and stood up. Thank god he'd gone to bed fully clothed. He shambled out into the hall, groped for the light switch, and was still squinting against the brightness when he opened the front door.

He looked at the floating containers, and at the snake, and then finally at his coworker. Amidst his disoriented panic, he'd failed to register what Zennon had actually said, and now it completely failed to dawn on him what the man was doing here. "Oh," he said. "Hi." Another few seconds passed before he recognised his cue. "Sorry. Come in." With a foot, he swept some errant shoes aside and let Zennon through. The place was a bit of a mess, but it wasn't the total dump it had been a few weeks ago. The living room might even be called tidy, if you ignored the glasses on the coffee table. Arvel vanished them now to make room for whatever Zennon had brought. "Sorry. Haven't really had time to... you know." Clean, he thought. He gestured to the polystyrene tub. "What's that?"

 

[Zennon Baros]

He did look like he was having a bit of a day, so Zennon was even more glad he'd decided to come and check up on him. He waved the potion and the tub to the table, and they set themselves down with a slight noise as he took a second to look around. "A soup, I wasn't sure if you'd have felt well enough to make anything on your own so I thought you might appreciate something to eat, it's sort of lightly veggie noodle," he'd gotten used to less meaty foods over the years since Finley had started telling him he needed to eat less animal products, probably as a result of how much time he'd spent with Rowan over the past years and so now most of what he made was vegetarian, though not entire bereft of animal products. "And I have a potion, it's just a general wellness potion, nothing specific in it, do you need something specific?" He asked, giving him a once over to see if he there was anything physically wrong with him. "Thanks for the card, I appreciated it." How did he start a conversation about the contents of the card? "And, I guess I wanted to talk to you about what was in it. I... think I know what you were referring to, but I don't want to assume, in case I'm wrong?"​

 

[Arvel Ayers]

And then it clicked. Zennon had come to see if he was all right. For a moment, Arvel just stood there, silently processing this improbable revelation. Someone had to be at the bottom of people’s priorities, and most of the time, that someone was Arvel. It didn’t surprise him any more. It had been a constant in his life since the age of eight. Even his mother had put him last; he would never forget the time he’d stumbled downstairs, exhausted and shivering with the flu, to discover an empty house and a note in the kitchen which read, ‘DINNER GOT COLD - TRY TOAST’. There must have been something wrong with him, he’d decided eventually. He must have done something to deserve it. And the older he’d got, the more failings he’d found in himself to support this theory, until he’d actively begun to treat others coldly, because it hurt less to be rejected for being awful than to be rejected for no reason at all.

Yet here Zennon was, in spite of all that, come to see if he was all right. It was these sorts of moments which made an apology so necessary. Zennon was a good person. He cared for others, even when they’d done nothing to deserve his kindness, even when he would have been forgiven for cutting them out of his life for good.

"Aye,” said Arvel. “I think you know.” He sank onto the sofa, tucking his feet up under his knees. There was another short silence as he blankly contemplated the gifts on the table. “Thank you.” Where to begin? He wasn’t about to make excuses for himself, but Zennon deserved some sort of explanation. “I meant what I said. After class that day. I meant what I said, at the time. I was naive, and angry.” The anger had consumed him sometimes. Being a teenager full of hormones probably hadn’t helped. “You were everything I wished I was - funny, kind, clever. And you were also a monster. That’s what I'd heard. That’s what I grew up with. I believed it.” He couldn’t look at Zennon, so he concentrated on the table. “I looked up to you for years, and then one day, you were gone - just another person who’d betrayed me. I couldn’t stand that people still cared for you. I tried so hard to be good, to be kind, and everyone hated me. There was a dark wizard in the school, and they made me the pariah.

"And then I grew up. I moved away. I realised that… I’d been lied to. My father - he was the dark wizard. He made people suffer, and then pinned the blame on an innocent person, a parselmouth, because he was too cowardly to own the truth.” He shook his head. He was saying too much now - things Zennon didn’t need to hear. “And I lived with that. I believed his lies. I trusted him.

“Anyway. What I’m trying to say is, I’m sorry.” Arvel looked up at last. Delivering this to Zennon’s face was worth the discomfort. “It’s not an excuse. I just thought you should know. I was wrong, and it haunts me every day, and I hate myself for it, and I’m sorry.”

 

[Zennon Baros]

Zennon frowned when he watched Arvel sink into his sofa and almost moved to check if there was some pain, before he realised it was just a way to sort of gather his thoughts, and so when Arvel started talking, he took a step back, leaning against the wall and just listening. He got the feeling that was what he was supposed to do, listen, to... whatever it was that Arvel had to get off of his chest. It felt strange to be standing here and getting an apology for something that happened years ago, more than a decade ago, before Finley, before he and Sam had been a thing even. That was sort of how he'd compartmented his life these days, there was before Finley and then there was during Finley, and when Finley went to school there would be after Finley - all significant milestones in his life. The weird conversation they'd had out in the corridors had not been something he'd thought about in a long time. He wasn't even sure he would have said he'd forgiven Arvel for it because it was so long ago, he hadn't even really thought about it, certainly not enough for it to cause him any difficulty at all. But then, maybe that was part of the problem, because it hadn't affected him at all, but apparently it had affected Arvel, enough that after all this time it still clearly weighed on him, and for that alone, Zennon was sorry too.

"I laughed at you, I shouldn't have, so let me apologise for that first," he said, his shoulder still leant against the wall as Arvel looked up at him to deliver his apology. "And look, if it means anything to you, I appreciate you've said all this, but, honestly, I haven't really thought about that day, or what you said, since the day you said it, to be honest," he admitted, shrugging. "I forgave you the moment you said it, we were all stressed, sh!t was happening, we both clearly had things going on," what Arvel was saying about his dad made Zennon sad, and he found himself thinking about his own dad, and their relationship and how even though it hadn't always been the best, at times they had fought, but he'd always known he could trust his dad, that the man had the best intentions with him, and that he loved him. None of these sounded like they were similar to what Arvel had experienced with his father, and honestly, it really did go a long way to explaining Arvel a little bit. "You can't wear the blame of the naivete of a child who wanted his father to love him, of course you believed him, he was your dad, and look, hey, for the longest time I believed him too - everything you said was only a reflection of everything I'd been feeling for the years before that. If you had said any of the things you'd said to me before you did, I wouldn't have taken it the same way - maybe then you would have had something to apologise for, but... now? Arvel, it's water under the bridge. I want you to let it go, with my permission. I've accepted your apology, you don't need to let it keep rotting inside you." Because sometimes that's exactly what guilt and regret were, a rotten diseased ball of black ichor that had no business being there. "Don't hate yourself on my account. Makes it a bit harder for me to like you. I only have so much like to go around so I can't afford to be using it on two people."​

 

[Arvel Ayers]

Arvel shrugged. In hindsight, laughing was probably the best way Zennon could have reacted. It was nothing Arvel didn't deserve, anyway, after the things he'd said and done. He looked back down at the table. It was his turn to listen, and he did so with a growing mixture of relief and embarrassment. Zennon had hardly even thought about it. On the one hand, that was great. On the other, it confirmed Arvel's suspicion that this had weighed far more heavily on his mind than anybody else's, and that he needn't have let it grow so large, nor made such a big deal out of apologising. He was too sensitive. Too anxious. Too melodramatic. It wasn't surprising Zennon hadn't given much thought to what he'd said. Nobody ever did, for better or for worse.

Arvel wanted to be angry, to resent his old friend once again; it wasn't fair that one person could be so carefree, forgiving, and kind, while another could be full of shame, anger, and regret. But he was older now, and knew better than to invite bitterness in when he could keep company with kindness instead. Zennon had forgiven him. Wasn't that what he'd wanted? Hadn't the gnawing feeling in the pit of his stomach already begun to lighten? This was good. And Arvel wasn't going to let his insecurities spoil it. Not again.

"Well," he said after a moment. "Maybe not hate." It was true; he'd started to see goodness in himself these days, although it was often fleeting. He'd done a good thing now, even if he'd been dramatic about it. His expression softened, as if he'd just lost some internal battle, and he reached for the potion and drank it. Whatever was in it, it worked immediately to soothe the last churning in his stomach. He leaned back into the cushions. There was still a tenseness about him, in his shoulders, in the way his eyes flicked toward Zennon and away again, but he felt calmer. "Thank you. And sorry. For bringing up old times. I'm trying to be better but... I don't know. It's hard. I get stuck in my head." It could be a prison, sometimes. "Happy birthday, by the way. Are you celebrating tonight?"

 

[Zennon Baros]

He already started to look better, and Zennon felt some of the worrying tension in his chest ease a little. He didn't like the idea of people beating themselves up over something they'd really both been far too young to understand the implications of. What Arvel had said back then, it was somewhat truthful. Maybe the fact that Zennon was a parselmouth didn't ultimately mean he was a dark wizard, but given that, from what he'd understood, all of the Parselmouths in history books had been tied to the dark in one way or another, and so far, with only one exception (two if he counted Kasim, but he hadn't seen him in years so what would he know really?) there had not been a lot to prove otherwise. Zennon hadn't really, fully, understood a lot of that at the time, but one of the things that had helped him was not only the conversation he'd had with Analei that year, but also another conversation he'd had with Professor Ward, who'd been his History Professor at the time. The man had given him a perspective he'd not received from anyone else, and it had helped him decide on how he wanted to live his life. Zennon's family had never specifically been tied to the dark from what he knew about it, but that didn't mean anything - a lot of people believed a lot of things about Pureblood's, and though Zennon had never given the prejudice much thought, there were definitely aspects of being a pureblood that he didn't' see, because he was from a privileged view point, even if his ability do throw him into a strict minority - it still wasn't the same.

In essence, Arvel hadn't been completely wrong, and sometimes that actually did scare and worry Zennon, but he preferred not to talk about it. "We all get a little stuck in our heads sometimes, that's generally what it's there for, isn't it?" He asked, grinning slightly. "I don't tend to celebrate my birthday these days, not since... well, Rowan doesn't celebrate hers anymore, so it's sort of become a habit, I suppose. Normally I just go home and read a book to Finley, or we have a nice dinner out, but... no, it's not a habit I have anymore." It was something that he thought he could see Rowan sort of coming around to after all these years, but for Zennon, it just felt strange now. The last happy birthday they'd had was with Elsie on his birthday, then Rowan had lost her twin on her birthday, it wasn't great. He'd never thrown Finley a birthday either - maybe that made him a bad parent. ​

 

[Arvel Ayers]

Arvel cracked half a smile - only half, in case it wasn't a joke. Sometimes, the only way he could tell was by looking to see if the other person was smiling, but even that wasn't always a reliable indicator; people had a strange habit, he'd noticed, of smiling while talking about something sad. And what came next was quite sad. Arvel could count on one hand the number of his own birthdays he'd found enjoyable, but that didn't depress him anywhere near as much as hearing Zennon didn't enjoy his. It made sense, of course. Arvel had never lost anybody close to him - not physically, anyway - but he was sensitive to others' emotions, and even now he felt the sadness coming off his old friend. Time was supposed to heal wounds and smooth grief over, but Arvel had seriously begun to doubt its efficacy; if anything, time compounded it all, made it sharper and more painful.

He didn't have the right words to help. Perhaps he couldn't help, anyway, and Zennon wouldn't have appreciated his platitudes. "Aye," he said at last. "I mean, if you want to stay for a while - if you don't have to go - I wouldn't mind. We could play a board game, or just talk, or eat. I have soup." He gestured. "You can say no. It's fine." Zennon probably had to get home; he had responsibilities, people depending on him. But Arvel felt compelled to offer all the same. He knew loneliness, knew it all too well, and even if Zennon said no, perhaps it would make him feel better to know someone wanted to spend time with him. Even if that person was just Arvel.

 

[Zennon Baros]

"If you'll allow me to go and grab Finley, we can come back, if that's okay with you?" Honestly? Zennon would love some adult company that wasn't Rowan. She'd been in such a rut the last few months that he didn't want to deal with her tonight. She would probably be even worse than usual, and Finley liked to be with him on his birthday, probably because of this exact reason. Zennon would miss him when he was at school, but it was the best place for him, and maybe, whilst he was there, Zennon wouldn't have to worry so much. Still, it would be nice to just spend some time with Arvel, something he had neglected doing for too long of time. He hadn't meant to make Arvel sad, but he could tell the man was feeling his grief just as keenly as Zennon was - and it was one of those things he couldn't help but want to try and fix too, because it felt like he needed to. Yet there was something there that told him that, in his own way, Arvel understood. He didn't need to know how or why Arvel understood, just that he did, and sometimes that was enough. "Grab some games, I'll go get Finley and we can gang up on him." That kid was far, far, too good at games.​

 

[Arvel Ayers]

Arvel didn't think for long before he nodded. In the time it took Zennon to go back to his apartment, collect Finley, and return, he was sure he could get the place cleaned up. It wasn't exactly what he'd imagined, but maybe it would be good for all of them; Arvel was a lot less inclined to mope when there were impressionable people around upon whom his melancholy might accidentally rub off. Even at the hospital, he tried hard to be cheerful around the younger patients, especially the long-term ones who had come to recognise him and said hello when they saw him. It was scary being in hospital at that age. Arvel was only the cleaner - he couldn't really do anything to help - but he hoped his kindness might make some small difference to their stay.

"Take your time," Arvel said, as he showed Zennon out. As soon as the door was closed, he jumped into action, pulling on some proper clothes, tidying up debris in the hall, and casting some cleaning charms across the living room. He even had time to hang up some colourful paper decorations from one of Analei's old parties. ("See," he'd tell her later, "this is why I never throw anything away.") With the place looking a bit more celebratory, he dug out his collection of games and sat down to wait.

Food. It wasn't a party without food. Well, it wasn't much of a party anyway, but it was seven o'clock, and Zennon and Finley might not have eaten. Arvel went to the kitchen and rummaged around until he found an unopened bag of crisps, half a box of cheese crackers, some grapes, and a pack of marshmallows he'd completely forgotten he had but were thankfully still in date. It wasn't much, but set out in bowls on the living room table, it looked all right. It was better than nothing. If they were still hungry, they could order pizza; Arvel had a phone and the number of a good place nearby who didn't question why he always collected his orders on the nearest muggle street corner.

There was a knock, then - just in time. Arvel answered the door with a small smile. "Hi. Hello. Hi. Go through."

 

[Finley Mackintosh Baros]

Finley was excited. He never got to see many of dad's friends. Aunt Leda, Uncle Mervyn and Aunt Sapphire didn't count because they were his family! He didn't really have many cousins, if he had any cousins, but the Layton-Strangewayes were his cousins - kind of. He didn't really bother asking about the specifics. Uncle Mervyn was great because he was a lot of fun to be around, and he talked funny, which was even better. So when Dad had said they'd be popping over to a friends place for dinner, he'd grabbed his best shoes (because one has to dress well for friends!) and quickly grabbed his favourite hoodie (May is cold!) and waited for is dad but the door. Once they were face to face, or face to roughly chest area in Finley's case because this man was taller, he straightened out his hoodie and held his hand out to Arvel. They'd never officially met after all. "Hi! I'm Finley, nice to meet you, thanks for being friends with my dad, he can be a bit lonely sometimes," the end of his sentence earned him a swift kick in the back of the knee, but he'd felt it needed to be said. He laughed to himself and then got out of the way incase his dad felt the need to kick him again, dodging around Arvel and heading go the couch. "Oh, food! Finally, I'm starving!"​

 

[Zennon Baros]

He didn't really know what to say to Finley, since this kid had a mind of his own. He sighed, shaking his head and kicking him in the back of the leg as they headed into the apartment. They were a similar design, his and Arvel's both, but were decorated a lot differently to each other. "Finley, be nice, we're guests," he hissed at his son, though it was not in any malice. Lemon was too young to come with them unfortunately, she wasn't supposed to go places where she wouldn't be able to take herself back out, but she would be okay in the apartment for a while. "Sorry about him, he gets excitable," he said, gesturing to Finley as he jumped straight over to the food. Zennon wasn't silly, he knew what his son was doing, but he also kind of appreciated it, he wasn't the kind of person who was going to do something like that, talk about how he was feeling, but Finley was like a bridge for him and he really appreciated it. "I appreciate this, honestly Arvel, thank you."​