February 3rd, 1891 — Pettigrew House, Bartonburg

It had been over a week since he'd last seen Art. Despite having promised just before his friend left to write or visit soon, Ben hadn't. He had been distracted, true, by Aldous' interruption at home, the unanticipated interment at the Crouch home in Bartonburg, and then trying to reconcile things as best he could with Melody when he eventually returned, but that wasn't the whole of it. At least a part of him had been hoping that Art would write him, or even burst into the Irvingly home the way Aldous had done, demanding updates. It was a very in-character thing for Art to do, being pushy when he knew Ben would benefit from a little push. If he'd taken the floo out of their house that day, he would have written by now, Ben was sure of it.

And that was the real heart of the matter, the reason why Ben hadn't written during the entire week since he'd last seen Art. He knew where Art must have gone when he left their parlor, and by extension knew what he had probably gotten up to. He didn't know how bad it was, but it could not have been good. He wanted to ask about it, wanted to berate him for it, wanted to shake some sense into him — but wanted, unrealistically, a way to do so without admitting that he could've stopped it from happening at all. It would have been so easy to have gone after him and told him he was being an idiot and he ought to go home to Dez. It would have taken, at most, an hour of Ben's time. It might have made all the difference to Art. But he hadn't done that; he'd stayed in the parlor with Melody and tried to paddle his way back into her good graces.

He'd owled ahead, which he seldom did, then flooed in after he finished working for the day. Art was already in the front room as he shook the soot from his clothes.

"Hey," Ben said. He was already looking at Art for any telltale sign that he could seize on to segue into this conversation he wanted to have but didn't know how to start, though he wasn't sure what that would even look like.

Arthur Pettigrew Cassius Lestrange

  

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Arthur was down twenty sickles, now, which was really a galleon and three sickles, which felt both like a lot of money and very little money at the same time. It was not the sort of sum that could break a family - or, at least, it was no longer the sort of sum that could break his family - but it was a lot of money to lose in a week and half. He knew, on some level, this is not normal. But twenty sickles wasn't going to break him, if he made a little bit of the money back it wasn't unlikely that Desdemona would never notice. He could make a little bit of money back - he could win - and then he could stop going to the casino and it would be as if he never slipped up at all.

Besides -- Quidditch was back to normal. He had other things to do, now, a game to prepare for on February 20th - with Quidditch as a real distraction, it would be easy to pull back out, to go to the casino left often. He'd be fine. He was sure of it.

He was surprised, to get an owl from Ben - usually they sort of dropped in on one another. He felt on some level that he was in trouble; or maybe Ben was in trouble, and this was about Melody. (Guilt, there - if Art hadn't been so busy thinking about cards and the casino and money, all of a sudden, he would have dropped in on Ben by now, sent a letter, something.)

So he was already waiting in the front room when Ben arrived via floo network, tossing one of Gwenog's blocks from hand to hand so that he had something to fidget with. "Hey," Art said, "Desdemona's out." Whether Dez and Gwenog had left because Desdemona had pre-existing plans, or whether they had left because Art mentioned Ben was coming - he wasn't sure, hadn't asked.

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Art just looked normal, and Ben wasn't sure whether to be relieved or not. Was it possible that he hadn't gone to the casino? Or was he just hiding it better than Ben had expected? On the other hand, it had only been a week. What had Ben been expecting? It was a little early for goblins to be knocking on the door (not that the goblins would still spot Art's bets, probably — they were smarter than that).

"Cool," he said, though he didn't sound as comfortable as he'd hoped. He glanced around to see if there were drinks available. His hand itched, and if he didn't get a glass into it he was going to start fidgeting.

  

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Arthur set Gwenog's block down on the coffee table. "I'll grab, um -" he paused: were they in trouble? Should it be beer or liquor? Usually it was liquor "- firewhiskey?" He usually had firewhiskey around; usually had all sorts of liquors around. Arthur stood up from the couch and strode over to the sitting room cabinet, unlatching it (the latch was less for adult-security and more for toddler-security) and grabbing a bottle of whiskey. It was one of the lower-shelf Jewell lines; not as fancy as some of what Ben had access to or what Fitz would have drank, but fine.

Should he get glasses, too? Was this a glasses sort of conversation, or was it a bottle conversation? Art considered for a few seconds, but the whiskey glasses were right there - so he might as well. With his other hand, he grabbed two of them, and held them with careful fingers on his way back over, leaving the cabinet door ajar.

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   Reuben Crouch

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Art had read his mind, or else knew him well enough to read his body language, and now there was firewhiskey. Good. That was good, right? It wasn't as though Ben had come in with a problem that required a drink, but it had been so long since he and Art had a conversation that didn't involve alcohol that he felt awkward until he had the glass in his hand. He felt conspicuous, was what it was — like Art was going to see through him and know that he wasn't here for himself at all, but had come to check up on Art. Ben had been on the receiving end of 'we were just concerned about you' calls often enough to know that they were never particularly well-received, so he wanted to avoid that. Besides, if Art figured out why he was here he would also figure out that Ben could have done something about it last week, before it had become A Whole Thing, and he hadn't.

Or was he being too paranoid? Maybe it wasn't A Whole Thing. Maybe he'd misinterpreted the situation, and Art's silence following. Maybe there was a reasonable explanation that didn't involve the Casino. Or maybe Art had gone to the Casino, but it wasn't A Whole Thing yet. Maybe he was better, now. It had been years — presumably people did get better, after a long enough time, right? People could change. People could mature. Ben was trying to mature, right now, so he had to believe it was possible.

"Thanks," he said, in a delayed response to the firewhiskey. He took a seat on a couch and tried to think what else to say.

"So — I think things are okay," he said, although this was mostly a lie. He had to say something, though, and at least attempt to maintain the pretext that he was here for himself and not for Art.

  

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Arthur poured them both a healthy (well, large) amount of firewhiskey and offered a glass to Ben. He sat on the other side of the couch and took a sip, wishing that the letter had more context - or that there hadn't been a letter at all. It was the planned nature of the drop-in that had him feeling off kilter, and now he didn't know what to say.

Talking about Melody, though - that was familiar, and Arthur leaned back against the couch comfortably, maybe a little relieved.

"I meant to check in," Art said, with a sheepish grin, because he had, "And that's good, right? That sounds good." It at least meant that things weren't as terrible, and probably that Melody Crouch wasn't going to get a secret abortion.

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Ben frowned, just slightly, but hid it behind his glass as he took a drink. Meant to check in, Art said, but he hadn't. This could have been an opening, if Ben was really desperate for one, because he could have pushed back on it — but Art would know something was up if he did, because that wasn't really the sort of relationship they had. It would be too aggressive, particularly given the fact that the last time they'd seen each other Art had given up his entire afternoon to try and find Ben's runaway wife. (The fact that she hadn't actually been a runaway was besides the point; it was the thought that counted).

"Yeah," Ben said vaguely. He'd only brought this up because there was nothing else to talk about, but now that he had opened the door on it he realized he would have to actually talk about it, which was about the farthest thing from what he wanted to do.

Well; nothing else for it. He took a short breath, held it for half a second. "Divorce is off the table."

  

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"Oh," Art said. He still didn't know what to say about divorce, whenever it came up - even though he'd suggested it last time, that had been more because he thought Melody was unhinged than because he thought divorce was a thing people should do. People didn't get divorced, even if Art still thought a universe where Melody and Ben weren't married was probably better than the one they were currently in. "Good for - uh, good for you two," he said, feeling awkward again, "I mean - well, that's easier, right?"

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No, staying married wasn't easier than being divorced. Divorced was complicated, sure, but it happened and then it was over — that was worlds easier than the mountain Ben had decided to try and climb instead. Not that he regretted it, necessarily. He thought this was going to work, and he thought someday the two of them would be alright, but it would have been stupid to have claimed the route he'd chosen was the easy one.

Not that this was even close to what Ben actually wanted to be talking about, but now they were on the subject and he had no idea how to steer them to anything else. He watched the reflection of the light from the window waver on the top of the firewhiskey in his glass.

"It's — something," he said noncommittally. "It's what needs to happen."

  

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"Alright," Art said, because he still didn't know what else to say. He wanted to be pushy, but Ben had come here, so - what rights did he have to be pushy, about Melody Crouch, if Ben had had to come here to update him? He only had a right to be pushy if he was on top of his shit, Art thought darkly, and took another sip of firewhiskey for the familiar burn.

"I saw Irish," Art said suddenly; Bella Scrimgeour was, suddenly, safer territory than Melody Crouch, "The other day."

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It took him a second to catch up and realize that seeing Irish wasn't a euphemism for something. Ben and Art both had a longstanding habit of referring to Notable Flirtations by nicknames rather than actual names, but they seldom had the same ones. Princess for Ben was Trouble for Art, while Ben's Little Rebel had been Art's Irish. Art's were, generally, less endearing than Ben's, which made sense given that Art wasn't the person making out with them. Normally Ben didn't have trouble following, but it had been a long time since they'd talked about this particular Notable Flirtation.

"Bella Scrimgeour?" Ben asked, surprised (though he shouldn't have been; she did still exist even after he'd stopped interacting with her and her life would, understandably, involving seeing people other than him from time to time). Talking about his past flings wasn't, probably, what he ought to have been doing if he was really trying to make a good faith effort to patch things up with Melody, but it was a good distraction from having to talk more about his marriage, so he seized on it. "Where'd you run into her? You're not really in the same scene."

  

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He couldn't just tell Ben where he'd met her outright, although he also wasn't particularly good at lying - the difference between Ben and, say, Lachlan MacFusty, was that Ben had had a front row seat to Arthur ruining his life, and MacFusty just heard about it. Since things were not bad - they were fine and normal and so was Arthur - he didn't want to worry Ben by talking about the casino as if it was a place he regularly went to.

"Yeah, Scrimgeour," Art echoed; a beat passed before he added, "I saw her in Irvingly, I guess she lives there now."

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   Reuben Crouch

Ben's first thought, on hearing it, was that this was going to unnecessarily complicate things. He had no desire to interact with Bella Scrimgeour again, particularly, but Melody didn't know that, and Melody had gotten her dander up about Bella Scrimgeour once before. It was exactly the interruption to life in Irvingly that Ben didn't need, if he was going to get things back on track.

There was something else, though, too. Maybe it was the pause before Art answered, just tiny but a pause nonetheless, or maybe it was something about his tone or his body language. Maybe it was just that Ben had already been looking for this, when he'd shown up that day, and he was ready to jump on any indication that Art might be talking about the Casino. Saying he was in Irvingly was not particularly incriminating, of course. Art worked there; he was at the Howler's pitch five days a week, at least. But he had not met Bella Scrimgeour on the Howler's pitch, so he had been somewhere else in Irvingly. True, it could have been anywhere, but where else would he have been?

"She does?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. "When was this?"

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   Arthur Pettigrew

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"It was, uhhh -" Arthur squinted, doing the math in his head. "Oh, almost a week ago, now. Last Thursday." It felt more recent because he hadn't been to the casino all weekend; with no Quidditch games he had no reason to be in Irvingly over the weekend, and had instead made a large production of being around in Hogsmeade Saturday and Sunday, in case Desdemona noticed he was out later than usual.

If he was measuring time in terms of stints at the casino that was - well, it wasn't fucking good, even Art knew that much. He took a sip of whiskey about it; he was probably just being a little too sensitive, given his history.

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Last Thursday. Art had walked out of Ben's parlor in the wrong direction on Monday, so it had happened at least twice in the past week, which wasn't great.

Or maybe it hadn't happened at all. Maybe he ought to give Art more credit. Maybe people changed.

"Were you there with Dez?" he asked, because there was still enough blank space in this narrative that he could push back on it without feeling invasive. He hadn't run into Bella Scrimgeour at Quidditch practice, that was certain. Unless she'd shacked up with one of the other players.

He might have been in Irvingly trying to visit Ben, though, it occurred to him. He hadn't been in on Thursday, and neither had Melody, because of the whole interlude with Aldous, so it was possible Art might have shown up without Ben realizing it — might have even worried if he found the house empty. Ben felt a little pang of regret at his question, and at everything, at coming here today looking for proof that Art had gone and fucked something up, at believing he was so lacking in self control that he would have fucked everything up just because he'd gone the wrong way out of the house, at asking a question about Desdemona when he knew things still weren't great between them — at everything. Ben was sort of a shitty friend, he was realizing, and Art deserved better friends.

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   Cassius Lestrange

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"No," Art said, "It was - well, it was after practice, and Dez doesn't really." He cut himself off; not because he needed to lie, but because he was going to tell the truth, and this was one he didn't particularly like. It was lucky, Art thought, that Desdemona wasn't home; she wouldn't have liked him talking about this, and if she knew he was hanging around Irvingly later than usual, and that he didn't seem to have been at bars when he did come back later - well. Art wasn't sure if she'd notice, though; Desdemona had never known him when things were crumbling around him. She'd met him later, when Art had already started the work of putting his life back together. So even if she noticed things that Art knew he couldn't have Ben noticing, because then this would become a thing, she might not have put the pieces together.

"Desdemona doesn't really do Quidditch anymore. Since this summer." She'd quit the Harpies, but that didn't necessarily imply the rest of it - namely, that she could not bring herself to enter a Quidditch stadium.

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