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“Hello!” Bill called as he made his way back into his flat where Charlie was staying for the month. “How’s your day been?”
“Fine,” Charlie mumbled from the couch as he set down the book about neonatal dragon care that he’d been reading. Bill slumped onto the couch next to him. “You have glitter on your face.”
“Hmm?” Bill asked as he reached a hand up to one cheek and it came back shining. “So I do. Never going to get it out of the apartment now. It’ll be like Pride Month in here every day.” Bill grinned broadly as he closed his eyes and let his head flop back on the cushions. “So you decide if you're coming to the parade with me yet?”
Charlie squirmed uncomfortably next to him. “I don’t know.”
“Come on! It’s going to be a ton of fun. Fleur is going to meet us there and I heard Harry is coming too and Sirius and Remus and I’m bunch of others I’m sure. Too many of our friends are queer. It would easier to list the straights but I think most of them are coming as allies anyways.”
Charlie nodded and starting picking at the skin around his fingernails. “I think I might just stay here. Not used to crowds with being out at the sanctuary all the time.”
Bill sat up and scrutinized his brother.
Charlie squirmed under his gaze. “What?”
“Something is going on with you.”
“Nothing is going on with me,” Charlie said in a way that showed that something very much was going on with him. He turned his attention back to his nails again.
Bill’s eyes followed and he immediately reached over to stop Charlie from scratching himself. “Something has been going on with you ever since you got here but your mood has just been getting sourer and sourer all month. I’ve been trying to give you space but I think that’s just been making it worse.”
Bill had been giving space Charlie by going out to almost every Pride Month event he could find. Him and Fleur being the perfect bisexual duo in an open relationship, celebrating themselves, exploring their sexuality, and making friends with others.
“Well,” Bill said, when Charlie didn’t answer, “if you don’t want to talk about it do you want to watch something? There’s this new Muggle tv show out. It’s animated and has dragons, plus it’s got a handsome bisexual lead who falls in love with a knight.”
Charlie squirmed again. No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t get comfortable. He was starting to think that the only way he could get comfortable would be crawling out of his skin, leaving this body behind and becoming someone else entirely. “I don’t really want to watch anything with love right now,” he told Bill and he hated how small his voice sounded. “I think I’m going to lie down.”
Bill stopped him with a hand on his wrist. “You hate naps and you have insomnia so it takes you like three hours to go to sleep. Charlie, what’s happening with you?”
“I’m fine,” Charlie said, wrapping his arms around himself as if that could stop how badly he was falling apart.
“No, you’re not. I’m sorry I didn’t say anything earlier. Talk to me Wyrm.”
And it’s the childhood nickname that finally does it, that has tears slipping out of Charlie’s eyes before he can stop them. If he really was a baby dragon, he’d be able to steam them away. He wished he could, maybe then he wouldn’t feel so weak. “I don’t want to go to the parade.”
“Okay,” Bill said rubbing gentle circles into his back. “Then we won’t go. We can celebrate Pride here in our own way. I’m sorry if I made you feel like you had to.”
Charlie shook his head slowly. “I just want Pride Month to be over.”
Bill’s hand stopped on his back. “Charlie did something happen?”
Charlie looked away. Bill loved Pride Month. It brought him so much joy to be open about a part of himself he felt he rarely got to talk about, especially being in a cishet presenting relationship. Charlie could give him this. Charlie should give him this. Charlie tried to turn away from his brother but Bill caught him with a hand under his chin, turning his head back to face his.
“Talk to me Wyrmling. What happened? What’s going on in that egg of yours?” Bill asked, tapping Charlie’s forehead gently.
Charlie deflated. This was supposed to be a good visit. He hadn’t seen his brother in so long and here he was about to ruin it all. “There’s no place for me there.”
“Where?” Bill asked. “At Pride?”
Charlie nodded. “I know things are changing and queer representation is getting better and I'm so happy for my community that it is. I love watching the way your eyes light up every time a character says he’s bi or you watch a boy kiss another boy for the first time. I’m happy for you and Fleur and Harry and everyone, but they’re all love stories. Every last one of them. Even the ace rep is mostly for alloromantic asexual, which is fine, we need that representation, but we need more than that too. Did you know I’ve never heard a single character say the word aromantic on screen? I can think of one book that has an aromantic asexual character in it and it still has a romantic B plot between two other characters.” He knew he should stop, but now that he started it was all spilling out. “There is no story for me. There is no place where I belong.
“I can’t afford an apartment Bill. Clarissa is never home anymore since she started dating Patrice and it hurts that now that she has a romantic relationship our friendship comes second and when I try to talk to anyone about it they don’t understand. They say that it’s different and I’ll understand when I feel it, but it’s bullshit. Clarissa is moving out in two months and there is nowhere near the sanctuary that I can afford to pay rent because at my age I’m supposed to have a partner. I’m supposed to be splitting it with someone. But I’m alone and everyone makes it seem like it’s my fault that I don’t want something more. Everyone else is growing up and falling in love and leaving me behind. I’m going to go to concerts alone and on vacation alone and I’m going to grow old alone and die alone all because people don’t think of platonic love the same way they think about romantic love.
“Do you know how hard it is to watch Pride Month every year? To watch everyone else get to celebrate being themselves and being in love? And I get it, I get that the world isn’t perfect, I know you and Fleur often get excluded from places and hate crimes are on the rise. I understand all of that, but I’m still so angry, Bill, cause for all of June I get to here the phrase Love is Love over and over and over again and no one ever thinks of the aros. No one ever thinks to apply to platonic love. Every display, every reading list or watch list, leaves me behind and it feels like I’m being left out of the one place I was supposed to belong.” Charlie was shaking now from head and toe and this was why he’d told himself he’d keep it all inside. He was like a volcano and his words were lava. Dripping from his mouth and moving slowly over his skin, burning him alive slowly, all while turning him to stone.
Bill sat beside him in a state of shock. Just looking at his brother with eyes wide and his mouth hung ajar.
“I’m sorry,” Charlie said, wiping his eyes. “I know how much this month and the parade and everything means for you. I’ll just pack my things and head home.”
“How long has this been going on with Clarissa?”
“What?” Charlie asked, surprised by his brother’s question.
“How long has everything been going on with Clarissa?”
“Eight months. They were friends first, but they got together very quickly. She’s pretty much over there from dawn to dusk now. That’s if she even comes home.” Charlie couldn’t read the emotions on his brother’s face right now. There was something there that looked like guilt, and something else that seemed like sorrow, but whatever he was feeling in his eyes Charlie couldn’t identify. He was certain he’d never seen that look on his brother’s face before.
“When you called to ask to visit, I knew you were lonely, but I didn’t think to ask. I didn’t understand. Charlie, I’m so sorry.”
Charlie felt his walls coming up again, certain that if he let anymore fall he’d crumble completely and as much as it felt like the world hated him for being who he was, he didn’t have any choice but to keep living in it. “It’s fine, Bill. She isn’t the first to leave and she won’t be the last.”
“Remus,” Bill said quietly, more to himself than anything else. “You are Remus were so close. You loved talking about misunderstood creatures together and then Sirius came back.”
Charlie bristled. That wounded had long since scabbed over but that didn’t mean it didn’t still ache.
“And Tonks, you two talked about finding a place together after school and then she met that other red-head, the one from Wales, and she decided she was going to move there.”
That was one wound that still raw. Charlie could still hear the echo of their conversation. You understand, don’t you? She’d told him and he hadn’t not at all. How could she pretend to care about him and then leave him behind the second someone else came along?
“I’ve been so stupid,” Bill murmured.
“It’s fine Bill. It really is,” Charlie said, pulling his knees up onto the couch and leaning his head against them.
“No, it isn’t. I’ve been so wrapped up in what Pride means to me that I didn’t even stop to think about how it might feel different to you.”
“Mom still asks if there’s anyone I’m interested. I think she’s convinced that I’m gay but that I just don’t want to tell her. Every conversation starts with you know when you have a girlfriend, or boyfriend either or is fine.”
“She’ll come around Char.”
“No,” Charlie said matter of factly, “I don’t think she will. It’s been two years since I came out to them Bill. They still don’t see me as queer unless they’re thinking of me as some closeted version of something they can actually understand. They just think I’m scared or that this is a phase I’ll grow out of.”
“I didn’t know.”
Charlie shrugged. “It’s my cross to bear.”
“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you have to bear it alone.”
“Unless you know some magic spell to undo all of amatonormativity in one go, it’s something I’m going to be dealing with until I die.”
Bill’s eyes were starting to water and he looked away from Charlie. He didn’t want to make this about him. He knew the second Charlie saw he was upset he’d push his own feelings aside to try and comfort Bill. “I’m sorry. I’m the older brother and it’s my job to protect you and keep you safe. I wish - I wish I could protect you from this.”
“I’m an older brother too, Bill. You can’t keep them safe from everything. The world’s gonna beat them down somehow.”
Bill studied Charlie carefully, wondering when his jubilant, excitable brother had shifted into someone else. How long had the world been slowly grating at him? Trying to shape him into something smooth, something that fit better. How long had Charlie been struggling with being scraped raw? How much of him had it taken?
Charlie went to pick at his hands again before thinking better of it and tucking them in between his legs. “You and Fleur should go to the parade. Take lots of pictures for me.”
“No,” Bill said, already reaching for paper so he could owl Fleur. “We’re not going.”
“Bill, I’m just going to be here being miserable all day. No point you being miserable here too.”
Bill shook his head. “I’m not going to the parade. I’ve got to go to a month’s worth of Pride events, Charlie, I can miss one. I’m going to stay here and we’re going to have an aro Pride party.”
“You don’t need to do that.”
“Yes, I do. It’s Pride Month and I’ve had more than enough time to celebrate me. It’s time to celebrate you.”
* * *
When the weekend rolled around, Charlie was eventually kicked out of the house to spend the afternoon with Remus. It was nice, but also only served to remind him more of how much he missed him.
“So,” Remus told, as they sat outside eating ice cream, “I got a pretty interesting Howler from your brother.”
Charlie flinched. “I’m sorry. I didn’t ask him to do that.”
“I know, but I’m glad he did,” Remus paused, sighing deeply. “I didn’t think. There’s a whole idea of love being more and that isn’t quite right, but it is something different. Sirius was my something different for a long time, but I still made time for James and Lily. It’s not right that when he came back I left you behind. Our friendship means so much to me and I treated it like it was nothing, like our relationship was just some placeholder until I could fall in love again. It wasn’t right. Bill had every right to chew me out for it. I’m going to do better, okay?”
Charlie nodded, watching the ice cream slowly drip down his hand. He knew Remus was saying everything right, but how many other people had promised not to leave him and then did? Remus had already left once, who was to say he wouldn’t do it again?
“You're upset with me,” Remus said. “I get it. You have every right to be and you don’t have to forgive me or trust me right away, but I do want to be your friend. I’m going to try to be better, okay?”
Charlie watched a couple embrace on the other side of the sidewalk before heading off down the street hand in hand. That familiar hollow feeling in his chest opening up at the sight of it. That longing for some twisted idea of normalcy he knew he’d never obtain. “Okay.”
“Good, finish up your ice cream before it melts. We should be getting back soon.”
When Remus and Charlie did arrive back at Bill’s flat it was to find it filled with green, white, grey, and black balloons. There were cupcakes arranged in the aromantic flag and a bunch of smaller ones scattered around the apartment. On the one wall in big glittering letters was the phrase Love is Love. No one type of love is greater than another. Charlie noticed there was lots of little dragon drawings and statues scattered in with the décor as well.
Sirius was there too, and Fleur was busy finishing something up in the kitchen. Tonks was sitting on the couch and from the way she was looking at him sheepishly Charlie guessed she’d received a Howler too. There were a few other people there too, Charlie guessed they were friends of Bill’s, no one from the sanctuary would have been able to come on such short notice.
Bill came out of his room smiling widely and strode right up to his brother, pulling him into a hug. “Happy Pride, Charlie.” When he pulled out of the hug, he pressed something into Charlie’s hands and he looked down to see it was a green sweatshirt with the phrase I’d rather be with my dragons written on it. Below that was a cartoon dragon holding the aromantic flag in one hand and the asexual flag in the other. Charlie touched it gingerly, certain it was the best present his brother had ever given him.
He knew this party wasn’t going to make it all magically better. He’d still have to go back to Romania at the end of the month and he’d still have to deal with Clarissa wanting to move out and needing to find a new roommate or a cheaper apartment. It wouldn’t magically create more aromantic representation and it wouldn’t magically mean he’d have to stop giving a half an hour lecture when telling people about his identity. People would still think he was a late bloomer and his mom still wouldn’t understand, but Bill did and that was one more person who understood than a week ago. The truth was despite all the bullshit Charlie wanted to be proud of who he was; he just didn’t feel like he was allowed to be and it was hard to deal with that in the face of a month centred on celebrating queer identities. All he really wanted was to see someone else celebrate this part of himself so that he knew it was okay for him to celebrate it too. Bill thought this part of him was worth a party. Maybe one day, Charlie could believe that too.