Fic: Checkmate for thinkingshallow
Title: Checkmate
Author: marseverlasting
Giftee: thinkingshallow
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3315
Characters/Pairing: Seamus/Dean, implied Dean/Ginny.
Warnings: cursing.
Summary: Seamus is tired of being ignored.
Dean fell back on his bed with a relieved sigh, eyes closed and a look of unshakeable bliss stretching across his lips. Seamus, looking up from his book, glanced to the boy for an instant then back to his literature, knowing Dean would explain sooner or later.
Sure enough, Dean spoke. “I’m going to marry that girl, I swear.”
Seamus cocked an eyebrow, but did not again look up from his novel. “Really, who?”
Dean leaned up on his elbows and smiled widely; Seamus, again, did not look up. “Ginny, who do you think?”
“Mm, really?” Seamus said, seemingly distracted, though Dean noticed his eyes were no longer scanning across the page.
“Yes, really,” Dean said, cresting off his high, his voice dropping into his usual honeyed baritone. “And we’re going to have a house in Hyde Park and she’s going to be Minister for Magic and I’m going to sell my paintings and we’ll be rich and have five kids.” He smiled again. “So it is foretold, so shall it be.”
“You were never much good at divination,” Seamus replied curtly. “You’ll end up in a shack in - in Yorkshire - eating your paintings for sustenance.”
Dean laughed, and caught Seamus’ eye. He was half-hidden in shadow, but Dean realized the boy was barely smiling, his face a pale and freckled mask of - what was it? Apathy? No, there was too much energy in his eyes, glowing just under his skin. Calmness? No, the mark was missing from his eyes, the mother-of-pearl kind of sheen that came with relaxation. This was something new; a foreign emotion Dean would have to discover, gently: “And what’s up with you?”
“Me? Nothing,” Seamus replied, turning the page though his eyes hadn’t moved from the top line of the previous. “Why would anything be wrong?” He looked up and gave a false grin. “Everything is just cricket, thanks.”
“You are so full of shit I don’t know how you can stay upright.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Coherence is low on my list of priorities.”
Seamus grinned in spite of himself. “Always has been.”
Dean smiled, and looked up at the ceiling of his four-poster. “You going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Oh my God, you never quit, do you?” Seamus closed the book with a sharp smack. “There’s nothing wrong.”
“You are the world’s worst actor, Shay.”
“And you are the world’s biggest poof, Dee.” The words were vinegar, but Dean swallowed them like wine.
“I’ve got something that can cheer you up.”
“If you ask me to put a hand in your pocket, I swear I’m going to -”
Dean laughed, and withdrew from his bedside table a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, the yellow-and-red package gleaming in the orange lamplight, contents rattling in a gentle staccato as Dean waved them about.
“Ooh-ers,” Seamus replied sarcastically. “Sweeties. Thank you, Uncle Dean, and I’ve been such a good boy all year.”
“If you don’t want them,” Dean said, ripping open the top, “then I’ll eat them. Sulk all you want.”
“I’m not sulking,” Seamus said, kicking his legs over the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his palms. It was distractingly hot in the room, nearing, as it was, the summer term, and the flickering fire presently lit in the small dormitory grate pushed perfumed waves of hot air around the room. A prickling of sweat along Seamus’ neck made him itch uncomfortably.
“Then smile, you idiot,” Dean said. Seamus gave him a weak attempt. “Okay, now that’s just creepy.”
Seamus gave a real smile this time; one that stretched beyond his lips, and leapt like sparks into his eyes. “You are the world’s most irritating -”
“Listen, am I going to eat these alone?” Dean gestured to the box, which he rattled tantalizingly. Seamus shook his head and padded over to Dean’s bed and sat next to him, the legs of his blue brushed cotton pyjama bottoms riding up to his calves as he wriggled into place.
“Like usual?” Seamus asked, taking Dean’s proffered jellybean.
“Course,” Dean said, taking one for himself. In unison, they took a half-bite out of their beans, chewing them thoughtfully.
“Raspberry,” Seamus said. “Want?”
Dean nodded. “Sure, thanks. I’ve got peanut butter.”
“Give ‘er here.” They switched halves and ate them greedily, licking their fingers for sugar and sweet.
Dean withdrew two more beans and handed one to Seamus. This is how it’s supposed to be, Dean thought. Just me and Seamus and sweets and heat and warm spring night, sticky sweat and cricket-noise. He had been spending so much time with Ginny - and he loved her, he really did - but moments like this were rare and cherished. Seamus seemed to have changed so much in these past few months, and Dean felt vaguely guilty for missing it, or watching from distance in any case. He commented on this aloud:
“You’ve grown.”
Seamus gave a short chuckle. “Oh yes, Uncle Dean! I’ve grown inches since your last visit. Daddy says I’ll be able to get a big kid bicycle soon.”
“Shut up,” Dean replied casually, “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
Dean nearly winced, but thought better of it. He turned his focus, instead, to the sweets: “What do you have?”
“I’ve got - mm, tequila. With lime and salt, no less.”
“Ooh, nice,” Dean replied, a touch too enthusiastically. “I’ve got, wow, tea. Tea with cream.”
Seamus handed over his half of the green tequila-flavoured bean. “Early Grey or English Breakfast?”
Dean smacked his tongue and closed his eyes in thought. “English Breakfast.”
“You can keep it,” Seamus said, chuckling. Dean ate the offered half and took two more beans from the box; one cream-coloured and the other pink.
“Bubble gum.”
“And I’ve got marzipan. Here, trade.”
Switching halves, they chewed in silence. Seamus interrupted: “This is like Christmas eve last year,” he said, smiling nostalgically. “Remember? We stayed up eating that jumbo box half-by-half.”
“How could I forget?”
“God, I was so sick the next day.”
Dean nodded. “I rubbed your back as you threw up.”
Seamus grinned. “Could have been the two bottles of wine I drank on my own that night, too.”
Dean touched Seamus’ forearm. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words emerged. They caught glances and Dean quickly closed his mouth again. But in that moment, something transpired. Not an understanding, but a mutual agreement about their relationship, about where they stood. Seamus took another bean, and grinned.
“It’s blackberry.”
Dean looked up at him. “My favourite.”
“I know - I remember.” Seamus held the half-bean tauntingly before his friend. “Of course I remember.”
Dean smiled. This was right, this was the Seamus he knew. Not that dim-dark boy from before, dirt-blonde hair falling over his forehead like a mourner’s veil. This was exuberance, this was the brightness Dean had missed these past few weeks. For all the slow burn and fire-red Ginny could provide, she could never spark or fly; she could never provide the cold blues, the blinking stars like Seamus.
“Yeah,” Seamus said, toying the bean between two fingers. “I don’t think so.”
“C’mon.” Dean gave him a wink.
Seamus put the bean between his smiling lips and gave the most infuriating smirk, full of the dazzling charisma of youth, the brilliant glory Dean thought long banished from his Irish boy’s eyes. It warmed his heart. “Take it,” Seamus mumbled. “Go for it.”
“Come on. Don’t be an arse.”
Seamus looked at him starkly. “I’m serious,” he murmured from behind the bean. “Take it.”
Dean leaned forward. “You’re the world’s biggest poof.”
“I know you’re not going to do it,” Seamus taunted.
“Oh, really?” Dean said, touching his ear lobe the way he did whenever he was steeling himself for something he didn’t want to do. “You think I won’t take it?”
“I know you won’t.” It came out in a strange, breathy mumbled mess, but Dean knew what Seamus said, and grinned in spite of himself. He had played this game before, and he always, always won.
So, when Dean leaned forward in that strangely sensitive way he had - such a basic action, but always with such terrible intimacy - it came as no surprise to Seamus. And Seamus leaned forward like usual, pushing the tip of the candy so it was just beyond his lips, so that when Dean came forward and caught it in his teeth, only the slightest movement or tremble would have pressed their lips firmly together. They were steady though, and their lips didn’t touch, and Dean took the candy and chewed it, grinning.
And then, just as Dean swallowed, Seamus bridged the gap and grabbed Dean in a firm, tight kiss. Dean had almost, almost expected it. It was the crazy, stupid kind of thing Seamus did. Constantly taunting, pushing; daring Dean’s limits, trying his walls, testing his will. But even though Dean expected it, he pushed away just as quickly.
Seamus glanced at him cheekily, but Dean was one up on him, and landed a firm tackle, shoulder and hip, slamming the sandy-blonde boy to the ground, sending the beans rattling and scurrying around the floor.
“Get the fuck off me!” Seamus yelled, though he was smiling and grinning as he did so.
“You’re the one who kissed me, I can do the bloody fuck I want,” Dean replied, sitting in a solid straddle over Seamus’ hips, trying to mimic the boy’s swaggering way of speech, like everything was just a game, made personally to amuse him. But he could never manage it, because life wasn’t a game to Dean. That kiss, it wasn’t just a kiss - two sets of lips, mished and mashed - it was something more. While Seamus only knew of touch, Dean knew of purple-black gravity, Dean knew of importance, fire and bubbles behind the touch. For Seamus it was an ends, but Dean couldn’t help seeing it as a means.
“You’re over thinking things again, aren’t you?” Seamus said, amused.
Dean flashed an unsteady smile, taking a deep breath: “Listen, I know I’ve not been around much -” Seamus rolled his eyes, but Dean ignored him “- but, you can still talk to me.”
Seamus nearly scoffed. Nearly. Instead, he closed his eyes and massaged one prickling finger into the base of his neck, sighing softly. “Will you just listen to me? Nothing - nothing is wrong.” Without opening his eyes, he continued: “And don’t make that face, Dean.”
“What face, I wasn’t making any face.”
Seamus opened his eyes. “That one. It’s ugly.” Dean smiled, but Seamus did not reciprocate. “Dean, I know you’re busy with Ginny. And I don’t mind. Really.”
Dean cleared his throat. “It sure sounds like you mind.”
Seamus wriggled under Dean’s grasp, but could not make inch or foot. He paused, took a breath, and suddenly his cheeks flushed red, dark brown freckles gleaming from over like flecks of ink. “Jesus,” he said softly, “of course I mind. You were my best friend -”
“Were?” Dean couldn’t help disguise the blood he suddenly felt burn in his lungs.
“Are, are. Sorry, Freudian slip.”
“Freudian or otherwise… you think I don’t care anymore?”
“No,” Seamus said slowly, “you just care - less. Which is okay.” Seamus gave him another fake grin; plastic, cling film, rusty-ugly. “You cared too much before, anyway.”
“Don’t be an arse. Something is bothering you, and I want to know what.”
“What does it matter?” Severe, battle-words, like a cold poison into Dean’s blood.
Dean replied the only way he knew how: dark and mumbled: “I’m still your Dean, aren’t I?”
Seamus’ expression grew white and blank, any pretense of anger, or aggression, embarrassment faded to - to what? “My Dean?”
“Always your Dean. Always.”
“Listen, isn’t there a better place to talk? I mean, the ground’s great and all but -”
Dean fairly leapt off him, like an electric surge jolting from tip to toe. “Sorry, yeah. Bed talk,” he said, pointing to Seamus’ four-poster, “now. Bed talk.”
Bed talk. Seamus mouthed the words. It was what they had called it in first year. Bed talk; when they had a problem, an argument, they’d crawl into a bed and talk. Hands under covers, they couldn’t land blows, and whatever was said on the pillow couldn’t leave the pillow, wouldn’t affect things beyond the pillow. It was silly, juvenile, Seamus thought, but he crawled under the covers all the same.
It was like sliding into childhood, wriggling into sweet-warm memories of being too-young; dancing in worlds of pretend, spilling false-wisdom and posing like great wizarding heroes of times past. It was odd, seeing in his mind eye his young-self, hands on hips, freckles glaring like connect-the-dots, saying things too old, too strange. It was out-of-bone, out-of-character. Seamus never needed to pose; now he was always who he was; Irish, hard-and-hot, blazing and bright and burning like something dark and illegal. Why, at eleven twelve thirteen, did he need to pose? Why, in that strange youth, did he need to pretend to be something more, something bigger and broader?
Dean crawled into bed next to him, turned onto his side, propping one arm up against the pillow, his head resting on his hand. “Now, let’s talk.”
This boy. This dark boy of round-set black eyes and girlish lashes and slender hands with short, short fingernails. This was why Seamus needed to pose. He always needed to prove; needed to show Dean that this poor, empty, angry Irish boy was worth his time. He was also the reason Seamus could wake up and be himself and go to bed and be himself. He was the grace for both, the nod of the head that approved both the poses and the truth. Seamus would have done anything, been anything for him. It took him six years to realize Dean just liked Seamus.
“Fine,” Seamus replied, “let’s talk.”
“So, what’s wrong?”
“You want the truth?” Bed talk, bed talk, Seamus thought. Only now, I can only say it now.
“Course I want the truth.”
“It’s you.”
“I’m wrong?”
“You’re right. What you’re doing is wrong.”
“Oh.” Dean didn’t even hide the way it stung this time.
“This - this friendship meant worlds to me. Means worlds to me. It’s the only thing that keeps me - keeps me going. You-Know-Who is coming, people are dying and being tortured and things are all going to hell and I thought you would be here to push me through it. But you weren’t - I don’t blame you, Ginny is way fit - but I had to deal on my own.” Seamus sighed. “And I did, too. I’m fine now, I’ve become - er - independent, I guess. I don’t really - I don’t really need you anymore. I still love you, don’t get me wrong. But the need isn’t there anymore.”
“Oh.”
Seamus was taken aback. “What?”
“I said: ‘Oh.’”
“What, you’re not going to fight me?”
“Well,” Dean said, “you’re right.”
Seamus looked at him strangely. It wasn’t often Dean fled from a fight. Dean was proud. Quiet but proud. And he wouldn’t take something so blatantly deceitful sitting down. He’d take it as an affront, that Seamus was lying to him. He’d think it was dirt-ugly and that Seamus didn’t respect him.
“No I’m not right,” Seamus said, suddenly unimaginably angry (hands under the covers, can’t fight; hands under the covers, can’t fight.) “Because I’m not fucking independent.” Seamus balled his hands into fists. “I can’t fucking get over you.” Bed talk, bed talk; doesn’t change nothing, doesn’t change anything.
“What?”
A new vein of gold, suddenly discovered, hastily tapped. Mined for anger, mined for hate. Suddenly it all came out, pouring out, and Seamus couldn’t stop talking. “When you left to go off with her, I thought it wouldn’t last. Then months went by, and we saw each other twice a day, once to say ‘morning and one to say ‘night. Suddenly you were gone and Harry was distant and Ron could barely speak civilly to me and only Neville seemed interested in being friends.” Dean gritted his teeth, but Seamus pushed on. “I missed you. I missed you so hard that it actually made me hurt sometimes. I don’t want that, never again”
Dean was shocked into silence, moving his lips around vaguely but never settled on any one word.
Seamus suddenly shifted gears. “But it was all a game for you, wasn’t it? The Bertie Bott’s - every time we kissed, it was just a game, wasn’t it? Something you had to do because you knew I wanted it. Just another move in this chess game of our friendship.” Seamus was crying softly and he didn’t even realize it till he tasted salt on his lips. Bed talk, bed talk; nothing matters, nothing changes. “You know what that meant to me? Every kiss - every stupid fucking touch… I imagined you were doing it because you - you l-loved me. I imagined the kisses actually meant something. They didn’t, did they?”
Bed talk, bed talk; everything matters, everything changes.
Dean took a deep breath, and: “They did mean something to me, though. Those kisses - I could never have kissed another guy. Never.” He gave an odd kind of half-smile, crooking his lips oddly, yet filled with affection all the same. “But with you? I don’t know, I can’t really explain it. You were different.”
“So… you do love me?”
Dean laughed. “Do you actually have to ask?”
“No,” Seamus replied in an almost inaudible whisper, “I mean, did you love me, you know, like that…” He trailed off, and fell into the long kind of syrupy silence that came with vicious, weathered, monolithic things; kisses, lies, pleasures and passions.
Dean tapped his finger against his lips but didn’t speak.
“So,” Seamus said, all signs of anger gone from his face, replaced with a taut kind of exhaustion, all his features pulled into a wry kind of grin, totally missing all the ripe warmth that came with the boy. “What do we do now?”
Dean glanced him over, up-and-down, and thought of that young Seamus, that carefree exuberance that somehow got forgotten in forth year. He was different now. Different, though inevitably the same. He was harder now. The softness in his skin, the vague roundness he had was gone, replaced by cheekbones and muscle. Not shrunken, or emaciated, simply hard. Tougher. The muscles in his arms, along his shoulders were more defined. The elegance he had in youth was gone, to be taken by this sharp-angled manboy, just cusping between lenient immaturity and acute adulthood.
“I don’t want this anymore,” Dean said quietly. “I don’t want this strange walled-up relationship with you, of good mornings and good nights and none of these bed talks or I-dare-you-to games or Bertie Bott’s or Crimbo mistletoe kisses. I just want things the way they were.”
Suddenly, like a flower blossoming open, Seamus’ lips parted in a wide, wonderful smile. “We can make this work. If you want to.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Dean replied, batting his head affectionately. “Of course I do.”
Then Seamus rattled and laughed and his eyes were filled with past glories and burning legend and he leaned forward just slightly so his legs were tangled a bit with Dean’s and their thighs were touching and everything changed. “Where do we go from here?”
Dean sighed and smiled and liked the way he could feel Seamus’ cold ankle and liked the way the boy’s breath hit him in a wave of sugar and mint. “Dunno.”
Seamus nodded, and smiled, and felt things he hadn’t felt for months. A whirling kind of sugary happiness, a Dean-is-back,-Dean-is-here. A haunting; a light like gloaming; something shadowed and always there but only now making itself bright and known.
Dean swallowed and exchanged the grin: “Let’s play it by ear.”
Author: marseverlasting
Giftee: thinkingshallow
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3315
Characters/Pairing: Seamus/Dean, implied Dean/Ginny.
Warnings: cursing.
Summary: Seamus is tired of being ignored.
Dean fell back on his bed with a relieved sigh, eyes closed and a look of unshakeable bliss stretching across his lips. Seamus, looking up from his book, glanced to the boy for an instant then back to his literature, knowing Dean would explain sooner or later.
Sure enough, Dean spoke. “I’m going to marry that girl, I swear.”
Seamus cocked an eyebrow, but did not again look up from his novel. “Really, who?”
Dean leaned up on his elbows and smiled widely; Seamus, again, did not look up. “Ginny, who do you think?”
“Mm, really?” Seamus said, seemingly distracted, though Dean noticed his eyes were no longer scanning across the page.
“Yes, really,” Dean said, cresting off his high, his voice dropping into his usual honeyed baritone. “And we’re going to have a house in Hyde Park and she’s going to be Minister for Magic and I’m going to sell my paintings and we’ll be rich and have five kids.” He smiled again. “So it is foretold, so shall it be.”
“You were never much good at divination,” Seamus replied curtly. “You’ll end up in a shack in - in Yorkshire - eating your paintings for sustenance.”
Dean laughed, and caught Seamus’ eye. He was half-hidden in shadow, but Dean realized the boy was barely smiling, his face a pale and freckled mask of - what was it? Apathy? No, there was too much energy in his eyes, glowing just under his skin. Calmness? No, the mark was missing from his eyes, the mother-of-pearl kind of sheen that came with relaxation. This was something new; a foreign emotion Dean would have to discover, gently: “And what’s up with you?”
“Me? Nothing,” Seamus replied, turning the page though his eyes hadn’t moved from the top line of the previous. “Why would anything be wrong?” He looked up and gave a false grin. “Everything is just cricket, thanks.”
“You are so full of shit I don’t know how you can stay upright.”
“That doesn’t even make any sense.”
“Coherence is low on my list of priorities.”
Seamus grinned in spite of himself. “Always has been.”
Dean smiled, and looked up at the ceiling of his four-poster. “You going to tell me what’s wrong?”
“Oh my God, you never quit, do you?” Seamus closed the book with a sharp smack. “There’s nothing wrong.”
“You are the world’s worst actor, Shay.”
“And you are the world’s biggest poof, Dee.” The words were vinegar, but Dean swallowed them like wine.
“I’ve got something that can cheer you up.”
“If you ask me to put a hand in your pocket, I swear I’m going to -”
Dean laughed, and withdrew from his bedside table a box of Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans, the yellow-and-red package gleaming in the orange lamplight, contents rattling in a gentle staccato as Dean waved them about.
“Ooh-ers,” Seamus replied sarcastically. “Sweeties. Thank you, Uncle Dean, and I’ve been such a good boy all year.”
“If you don’t want them,” Dean said, ripping open the top, “then I’ll eat them. Sulk all you want.”
“I’m not sulking,” Seamus said, kicking his legs over the edge of the bed, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin in his palms. It was distractingly hot in the room, nearing, as it was, the summer term, and the flickering fire presently lit in the small dormitory grate pushed perfumed waves of hot air around the room. A prickling of sweat along Seamus’ neck made him itch uncomfortably.
“Then smile, you idiot,” Dean said. Seamus gave him a weak attempt. “Okay, now that’s just creepy.”
Seamus gave a real smile this time; one that stretched beyond his lips, and leapt like sparks into his eyes. “You are the world’s most irritating -”
“Listen, am I going to eat these alone?” Dean gestured to the box, which he rattled tantalizingly. Seamus shook his head and padded over to Dean’s bed and sat next to him, the legs of his blue brushed cotton pyjama bottoms riding up to his calves as he wriggled into place.
“Like usual?” Seamus asked, taking Dean’s proffered jellybean.
“Course,” Dean said, taking one for himself. In unison, they took a half-bite out of their beans, chewing them thoughtfully.
“Raspberry,” Seamus said. “Want?”
Dean nodded. “Sure, thanks. I’ve got peanut butter.”
“Give ‘er here.” They switched halves and ate them greedily, licking their fingers for sugar and sweet.
Dean withdrew two more beans and handed one to Seamus. This is how it’s supposed to be, Dean thought. Just me and Seamus and sweets and heat and warm spring night, sticky sweat and cricket-noise. He had been spending so much time with Ginny - and he loved her, he really did - but moments like this were rare and cherished. Seamus seemed to have changed so much in these past few months, and Dean felt vaguely guilty for missing it, or watching from distance in any case. He commented on this aloud:
“You’ve grown.”
Seamus gave a short chuckle. “Oh yes, Uncle Dean! I’ve grown inches since your last visit. Daddy says I’ll be able to get a big kid bicycle soon.”
“Shut up,” Dean replied casually, “I’m being serious.”
“So am I.”
Dean nearly winced, but thought better of it. He turned his focus, instead, to the sweets: “What do you have?”
“I’ve got - mm, tequila. With lime and salt, no less.”
“Ooh, nice,” Dean replied, a touch too enthusiastically. “I’ve got, wow, tea. Tea with cream.”
Seamus handed over his half of the green tequila-flavoured bean. “Early Grey or English Breakfast?”
Dean smacked his tongue and closed his eyes in thought. “English Breakfast.”
“You can keep it,” Seamus said, chuckling. Dean ate the offered half and took two more beans from the box; one cream-coloured and the other pink.
“Bubble gum.”
“And I’ve got marzipan. Here, trade.”
Switching halves, they chewed in silence. Seamus interrupted: “This is like Christmas eve last year,” he said, smiling nostalgically. “Remember? We stayed up eating that jumbo box half-by-half.”
“How could I forget?”
“God, I was so sick the next day.”
Dean nodded. “I rubbed your back as you threw up.”
Seamus grinned. “Could have been the two bottles of wine I drank on my own that night, too.”
Dean touched Seamus’ forearm. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words emerged. They caught glances and Dean quickly closed his mouth again. But in that moment, something transpired. Not an understanding, but a mutual agreement about their relationship, about where they stood. Seamus took another bean, and grinned.
“It’s blackberry.”
Dean looked up at him. “My favourite.”
“I know - I remember.” Seamus held the half-bean tauntingly before his friend. “Of course I remember.”
Dean smiled. This was right, this was the Seamus he knew. Not that dim-dark boy from before, dirt-blonde hair falling over his forehead like a mourner’s veil. This was exuberance, this was the brightness Dean had missed these past few weeks. For all the slow burn and fire-red Ginny could provide, she could never spark or fly; she could never provide the cold blues, the blinking stars like Seamus.
“Yeah,” Seamus said, toying the bean between two fingers. “I don’t think so.”
“C’mon.” Dean gave him a wink.
Seamus put the bean between his smiling lips and gave the most infuriating smirk, full of the dazzling charisma of youth, the brilliant glory Dean thought long banished from his Irish boy’s eyes. It warmed his heart. “Take it,” Seamus mumbled. “Go for it.”
“Come on. Don’t be an arse.”
Seamus looked at him starkly. “I’m serious,” he murmured from behind the bean. “Take it.”
Dean leaned forward. “You’re the world’s biggest poof.”
“I know you’re not going to do it,” Seamus taunted.
“Oh, really?” Dean said, touching his ear lobe the way he did whenever he was steeling himself for something he didn’t want to do. “You think I won’t take it?”
“I know you won’t.” It came out in a strange, breathy mumbled mess, but Dean knew what Seamus said, and grinned in spite of himself. He had played this game before, and he always, always won.
So, when Dean leaned forward in that strangely sensitive way he had - such a basic action, but always with such terrible intimacy - it came as no surprise to Seamus. And Seamus leaned forward like usual, pushing the tip of the candy so it was just beyond his lips, so that when Dean came forward and caught it in his teeth, only the slightest movement or tremble would have pressed their lips firmly together. They were steady though, and their lips didn’t touch, and Dean took the candy and chewed it, grinning.
And then, just as Dean swallowed, Seamus bridged the gap and grabbed Dean in a firm, tight kiss. Dean had almost, almost expected it. It was the crazy, stupid kind of thing Seamus did. Constantly taunting, pushing; daring Dean’s limits, trying his walls, testing his will. But even though Dean expected it, he pushed away just as quickly.
Seamus glanced at him cheekily, but Dean was one up on him, and landed a firm tackle, shoulder and hip, slamming the sandy-blonde boy to the ground, sending the beans rattling and scurrying around the floor.
“Get the fuck off me!” Seamus yelled, though he was smiling and grinning as he did so.
“You’re the one who kissed me, I can do the bloody fuck I want,” Dean replied, sitting in a solid straddle over Seamus’ hips, trying to mimic the boy’s swaggering way of speech, like everything was just a game, made personally to amuse him. But he could never manage it, because life wasn’t a game to Dean. That kiss, it wasn’t just a kiss - two sets of lips, mished and mashed - it was something more. While Seamus only knew of touch, Dean knew of purple-black gravity, Dean knew of importance, fire and bubbles behind the touch. For Seamus it was an ends, but Dean couldn’t help seeing it as a means.
“You’re over thinking things again, aren’t you?” Seamus said, amused.
Dean flashed an unsteady smile, taking a deep breath: “Listen, I know I’ve not been around much -” Seamus rolled his eyes, but Dean ignored him “- but, you can still talk to me.”
Seamus nearly scoffed. Nearly. Instead, he closed his eyes and massaged one prickling finger into the base of his neck, sighing softly. “Will you just listen to me? Nothing - nothing is wrong.” Without opening his eyes, he continued: “And don’t make that face, Dean.”
“What face, I wasn’t making any face.”
Seamus opened his eyes. “That one. It’s ugly.” Dean smiled, but Seamus did not reciprocate. “Dean, I know you’re busy with Ginny. And I don’t mind. Really.”
Dean cleared his throat. “It sure sounds like you mind.”
Seamus wriggled under Dean’s grasp, but could not make inch or foot. He paused, took a breath, and suddenly his cheeks flushed red, dark brown freckles gleaming from over like flecks of ink. “Jesus,” he said softly, “of course I mind. You were my best friend -”
“Were?” Dean couldn’t help disguise the blood he suddenly felt burn in his lungs.
“Are, are. Sorry, Freudian slip.”
“Freudian or otherwise… you think I don’t care anymore?”
“No,” Seamus said slowly, “you just care - less. Which is okay.” Seamus gave him another fake grin; plastic, cling film, rusty-ugly. “You cared too much before, anyway.”
“Don’t be an arse. Something is bothering you, and I want to know what.”
“What does it matter?” Severe, battle-words, like a cold poison into Dean’s blood.
Dean replied the only way he knew how: dark and mumbled: “I’m still your Dean, aren’t I?”
Seamus’ expression grew white and blank, any pretense of anger, or aggression, embarrassment faded to - to what? “My Dean?”
“Always your Dean. Always.”
“Listen, isn’t there a better place to talk? I mean, the ground’s great and all but -”
Dean fairly leapt off him, like an electric surge jolting from tip to toe. “Sorry, yeah. Bed talk,” he said, pointing to Seamus’ four-poster, “now. Bed talk.”
Bed talk. Seamus mouthed the words. It was what they had called it in first year. Bed talk; when they had a problem, an argument, they’d crawl into a bed and talk. Hands under covers, they couldn’t land blows, and whatever was said on the pillow couldn’t leave the pillow, wouldn’t affect things beyond the pillow. It was silly, juvenile, Seamus thought, but he crawled under the covers all the same.
It was like sliding into childhood, wriggling into sweet-warm memories of being too-young; dancing in worlds of pretend, spilling false-wisdom and posing like great wizarding heroes of times past. It was odd, seeing in his mind eye his young-self, hands on hips, freckles glaring like connect-the-dots, saying things too old, too strange. It was out-of-bone, out-of-character. Seamus never needed to pose; now he was always who he was; Irish, hard-and-hot, blazing and bright and burning like something dark and illegal. Why, at eleven twelve thirteen, did he need to pose? Why, in that strange youth, did he need to pretend to be something more, something bigger and broader?
Dean crawled into bed next to him, turned onto his side, propping one arm up against the pillow, his head resting on his hand. “Now, let’s talk.”
This boy. This dark boy of round-set black eyes and girlish lashes and slender hands with short, short fingernails. This was why Seamus needed to pose. He always needed to prove; needed to show Dean that this poor, empty, angry Irish boy was worth his time. He was also the reason Seamus could wake up and be himself and go to bed and be himself. He was the grace for both, the nod of the head that approved both the poses and the truth. Seamus would have done anything, been anything for him. It took him six years to realize Dean just liked Seamus.
“Fine,” Seamus replied, “let’s talk.”
“So, what’s wrong?”
“You want the truth?” Bed talk, bed talk, Seamus thought. Only now, I can only say it now.
“Course I want the truth.”
“It’s you.”
“I’m wrong?”
“You’re right. What you’re doing is wrong.”
“Oh.” Dean didn’t even hide the way it stung this time.
“This - this friendship meant worlds to me. Means worlds to me. It’s the only thing that keeps me - keeps me going. You-Know-Who is coming, people are dying and being tortured and things are all going to hell and I thought you would be here to push me through it. But you weren’t - I don’t blame you, Ginny is way fit - but I had to deal on my own.” Seamus sighed. “And I did, too. I’m fine now, I’ve become - er - independent, I guess. I don’t really - I don’t really need you anymore. I still love you, don’t get me wrong. But the need isn’t there anymore.”
“Oh.”
Seamus was taken aback. “What?”
“I said: ‘Oh.’”
“What, you’re not going to fight me?”
“Well,” Dean said, “you’re right.”
Seamus looked at him strangely. It wasn’t often Dean fled from a fight. Dean was proud. Quiet but proud. And he wouldn’t take something so blatantly deceitful sitting down. He’d take it as an affront, that Seamus was lying to him. He’d think it was dirt-ugly and that Seamus didn’t respect him.
“No I’m not right,” Seamus said, suddenly unimaginably angry (hands under the covers, can’t fight; hands under the covers, can’t fight.) “Because I’m not fucking independent.” Seamus balled his hands into fists. “I can’t fucking get over you.” Bed talk, bed talk; doesn’t change nothing, doesn’t change anything.
“What?”
A new vein of gold, suddenly discovered, hastily tapped. Mined for anger, mined for hate. Suddenly it all came out, pouring out, and Seamus couldn’t stop talking. “When you left to go off with her, I thought it wouldn’t last. Then months went by, and we saw each other twice a day, once to say ‘morning and one to say ‘night. Suddenly you were gone and Harry was distant and Ron could barely speak civilly to me and only Neville seemed interested in being friends.” Dean gritted his teeth, but Seamus pushed on. “I missed you. I missed you so hard that it actually made me hurt sometimes. I don’t want that, never again”
Dean was shocked into silence, moving his lips around vaguely but never settled on any one word.
Seamus suddenly shifted gears. “But it was all a game for you, wasn’t it? The Bertie Bott’s - every time we kissed, it was just a game, wasn’t it? Something you had to do because you knew I wanted it. Just another move in this chess game of our friendship.” Seamus was crying softly and he didn’t even realize it till he tasted salt on his lips. Bed talk, bed talk; nothing matters, nothing changes. “You know what that meant to me? Every kiss - every stupid fucking touch… I imagined you were doing it because you - you l-loved me. I imagined the kisses actually meant something. They didn’t, did they?”
Bed talk, bed talk; everything matters, everything changes.
Dean took a deep breath, and: “They did mean something to me, though. Those kisses - I could never have kissed another guy. Never.” He gave an odd kind of half-smile, crooking his lips oddly, yet filled with affection all the same. “But with you? I don’t know, I can’t really explain it. You were different.”
“So… you do love me?”
Dean laughed. “Do you actually have to ask?”
“No,” Seamus replied in an almost inaudible whisper, “I mean, did you love me, you know, like that…” He trailed off, and fell into the long kind of syrupy silence that came with vicious, weathered, monolithic things; kisses, lies, pleasures and passions.
Dean tapped his finger against his lips but didn’t speak.
“So,” Seamus said, all signs of anger gone from his face, replaced with a taut kind of exhaustion, all his features pulled into a wry kind of grin, totally missing all the ripe warmth that came with the boy. “What do we do now?”
Dean glanced him over, up-and-down, and thought of that young Seamus, that carefree exuberance that somehow got forgotten in forth year. He was different now. Different, though inevitably the same. He was harder now. The softness in his skin, the vague roundness he had was gone, replaced by cheekbones and muscle. Not shrunken, or emaciated, simply hard. Tougher. The muscles in his arms, along his shoulders were more defined. The elegance he had in youth was gone, to be taken by this sharp-angled manboy, just cusping between lenient immaturity and acute adulthood.
“I don’t want this anymore,” Dean said quietly. “I don’t want this strange walled-up relationship with you, of good mornings and good nights and none of these bed talks or I-dare-you-to games or Bertie Bott’s or Crimbo mistletoe kisses. I just want things the way they were.”
Suddenly, like a flower blossoming open, Seamus’ lips parted in a wide, wonderful smile. “We can make this work. If you want to.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Dean replied, batting his head affectionately. “Of course I do.”
Then Seamus rattled and laughed and his eyes were filled with past glories and burning legend and he leaned forward just slightly so his legs were tangled a bit with Dean’s and their thighs were touching and everything changed. “Where do we go from here?”
Dean sighed and smiled and liked the way he could feel Seamus’ cold ankle and liked the way the boy’s breath hit him in a wave of sugar and mint. “Dunno.”
Seamus nodded, and smiled, and felt things he hadn’t felt for months. A whirling kind of sugary happiness, a Dean-is-back,-Dean-is-here. A haunting; a light like gloaming; something shadowed and always there but only now making itself bright and known.
Dean swallowed and exchanged the grin: “Let’s play it by ear.”