So this was... a thing. That had happened.
It had been weeks ago, really - but it hadn't felt more than an odd daydream, some strange play-acting for a day - and then they'd come home and he'd gone to work as usual and no one else knew, so the fact that he was married had just been sitting on him, part spring in his step and part weight bearing down on his shoulders.
He was really rather bad at keeping secrets, usually. It had taken these few weeks to settle in, he supposed, and even seeing the shop-to-be before hadn't made it real. It was only today, when he'd quitted the hospital after work and, instead of heading back to Ireland as he usually did, hadn't even left the city.
This was home, now. It might have felt almost like a holiday, just temporary lodging, if he hadn't broken the news to his father this morning before work. Only his father, mind - he hadn't dared set foot on the Connolly estate to tell the rest of them. Not yet, and not all at once, and heavens, not in person. He didn't want to get lynched by a stampede of angry Aurors.
He'd tell them tomorrow, he'd decided, as he wandered around the house aimlessly, absently, restlessly, running his hand over the surfaces and swinging doors back and forth and peering out windows like he was a child. (Maybe he'd start with his brothers, and then the cousins, and they could filter the news back to his aunts and uncles for him, soften the blow.)
Well, he was out of their hair, at any rate, so they oughtn't complain about this.
He'd taken a chair at the table, drumming his fingers atop it as the minutes passed and shifting his feet about, not quite able to get comfortable. Like he was sitting in someone else's house, and the host wasn't even home. Would it even feel better when Maggie was here? She'd be a comfort, she had to be; he'd always brightened up to see in her in the Hogsmeade shop. (Then again - things might be different now. After all, they were married! Or... not. He had supposed they'd - play the part to some extent, but by the time he'd leant in to kiss her at the ceremony - for ceremony's sake, if nothing else! - she'd already stepped back, like she was glad to have it over and done with.)
And suddenly she was here - and the furthest thing from glad. Lorcan vaguely registered the cake box before him, but her red-rimmed eyes were a more pressing issue, and his throat tightened all of a sudden.
It hadn't gone well, then.
"Hey, hey, hey - " Lorcan protested, rising from his chair and reaching out to grasp her by the wrist before she fled down the hall and he had to spend the rest of the night going stir-crazy by himself. "Don't go," he entreated, with little else than earnestness; he reached out to take her other hand as well, so that he might turn her around back to face him. "What happened?"
It had been weeks ago, really - but it hadn't felt more than an odd daydream, some strange play-acting for a day - and then they'd come home and he'd gone to work as usual and no one else knew, so the fact that he was married had just been sitting on him, part spring in his step and part weight bearing down on his shoulders.
He was really rather bad at keeping secrets, usually. It had taken these few weeks to settle in, he supposed, and even seeing the shop-to-be before hadn't made it real. It was only today, when he'd quitted the hospital after work and, instead of heading back to Ireland as he usually did, hadn't even left the city.
This was home, now. It might have felt almost like a holiday, just temporary lodging, if he hadn't broken the news to his father this morning before work. Only his father, mind - he hadn't dared set foot on the Connolly estate to tell the rest of them. Not yet, and not all at once, and heavens, not in person. He didn't want to get lynched by a stampede of angry Aurors.
He'd tell them tomorrow, he'd decided, as he wandered around the house aimlessly, absently, restlessly, running his hand over the surfaces and swinging doors back and forth and peering out windows like he was a child. (Maybe he'd start with his brothers, and then the cousins, and they could filter the news back to his aunts and uncles for him, soften the blow.)
Well, he was out of their hair, at any rate, so they oughtn't complain about this.
He'd taken a chair at the table, drumming his fingers atop it as the minutes passed and shifting his feet about, not quite able to get comfortable. Like he was sitting in someone else's house, and the host wasn't even home. Would it even feel better when Maggie was here? She'd be a comfort, she had to be; he'd always brightened up to see in her in the Hogsmeade shop. (Then again - things might be different now. After all, they were married! Or... not. He had supposed they'd - play the part to some extent, but by the time he'd leant in to kiss her at the ceremony - for ceremony's sake, if nothing else! - she'd already stepped back, like she was glad to have it over and done with.)
And suddenly she was here - and the furthest thing from glad. Lorcan vaguely registered the cake box before him, but her red-rimmed eyes were a more pressing issue, and his throat tightened all of a sudden.
It hadn't gone well, then.
"Hey, hey, hey - " Lorcan protested, rising from his chair and reaching out to grasp her by the wrist before she fled down the hall and he had to spend the rest of the night going stir-crazy by himself. "Don't go," he entreated, with little else than earnestness; he reached out to take her other hand as well, so that he might turn her around back to face him. "What happened?"
