Fic: Loves the Company for a_real_phony
Title: Loves the Company
Author: analytically
Giftee: a_real_phony
Rating: PG-13
Word Count(for fic): 1,735
Characters/Pairing: Dean/Seamus
Warnings: Character death.
Author/Artist's Notes: I kind of took “awkward conversations” and ended up with this. I'm sorry it wasn't entirely at school, but I have a hard time believing that it would stay that way. Beta is K. Title and lyrics from Matthew Good Band's “Tripoli.” Thanks for having this exchange!
Summary: Seamus does anything to keep Dean alive, even take everything that he once was and selfishly keep it to himself.
Must have lost my mind
When I lost the car keys on my way out
Strange how you're not with me
“Tripoli” by Matthew Good Band
There has never been a moment in his life in which Seamus Finnigan prayed to God, fell to his knees and praised Lord, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, but he crosses himself as he observes the ebony-colored plate in the ground. It's a perfectly proper time to give protection to the person below his feet, resting peacefully with a deadly blank expression and black hair that will eventually grow beyond its usually shortened appearance. And beyond this, only eleven silver and bronze letters and a vaguely trite statement is all that remains of a time in his life that existed for six years and nine months until a moment came along and ended it, came too soon. He thinks to grin, forces the corners of his mouth to pull out and form and expression, but when he bares his teeth it doesn't look natural. Sod it all--he thinks quickly and shakes his head, because someone might see him and think he's running himself ragged and mad.
He decides no one's looking now, for who would be thinking of life within this wasteland of dead, but he stuffs his hands into his pockets. Out of the corner of his eye, there's three girls putting flowers at the grave of a quidditch star and three rows back, there's a gravestone with the name of a dreamy eyed girl with the most beautiful exotic flowers growing out of the ground--a sign of love from a suitor she took in the last three months of her life.
“I'll remember to laugh,” he says as he looks down at the name again and turns his body at an odd angle and thinks maybe, just maybe, if he walks backward, makes his way out of the cemetery, it will be like looking forward. If he moves backwards, he may be able to offer the needed, satisfying protection he wanted to offer several months back.
Then he will not have to remember displeasing moments like walking backwards through a cemetery. There would be no cemetery, but rather awkward laughter and tumbling through cotton sheets. Yes, Seamus thinks as he nearly wobbles backward over a peddle that skips up inside of his boot seconds later, that wouldn't be so bad.
--
“Why are we here again?” Seamus whispers into Dean's ear during the sorting ceremony. The number of first years is down to twenty and they all look more afraid than eager. He elbows his friend in the side when he doesn't respond immediately, grins a little and shakes his head. “Bet they all get sorted into Gryffindor. You'd have to be to be here.” At the end of his statement, the second Gryffindor runs over to the table as the remaining lions roar in a half-hearted fashion.
“You wanted to come back,” Dean says, but it sounds as if it's merely a distracted, belated response. His head doesn't turn toward Seamus' face either, the statement barely one of acknowledgement.
But he barely notices--shrugs it off with a grin, a half-chuckle--and nods in agreement. “Better to be here than out there. Don't need me mam owling me every day about how I'm about to die, how I could be doing so much better in the school.”
Dean doesn't acknowledge this either.
Seamus blames it on the need for a good meal in his stomach.
--
Rumor has it that they're sending Death Eaters at the school to finish it off. Rumor has it that Harry Potter's already dead, rumor has it that they have no choice but to deal with it head on, rumor has it that Hogwarts is going to finally close--rumor has it that Seamus doesn't believe in rumors and just shrugs them off.
Unlike the other students, he carelessly trudges head first into his final school year--takes advantage of Harry's absence on the quidditch team and makes Seeker, but doesn't get much praise from Ginny Weasley when he gets the spot. He gets even less praise when they lose against Slytherin, but it doesn't seem to matter because Ravenclaw's missing a few players, especially Corner and Boot, who've gone off to fight in the war.
Boot's dead and Corner's sick but no one knows about that, not even Seamus, who decides it's all a bunch of rumors and he trudges on, sandy hair messily laying on his head and his eyes still retaining a little bit of life that everyone else has lost. He wonders if he's sucking it out of everyone around them. Each morning, the others all grow a little weary, black rings permanently under their eyes as imprinted battle scars, as if they experience their own personal battles every time they go to sleep.
“You're happy we're not out fighting in that shite, aren't you??” he asks Dean constantly, but Dean just nods and shrugs it off. “Happy we're not dead?” he also asks occasionally, and his friend doesn't look at him, merely nudges him away and says maybe there's some truth to the rumors. What if Harry's dead and there's no one left to fight?
The conversations remain awkward and stilted up until Christmas and it is on Christmas Eve, when he shoves his green-and-red wrapped present into Dean's chest and he laughs as the other boy opens it, that he realizes that there's a reason why he's not fighting in the war.
It's because he couldn't stand to lose Dean in it. It is for this reason that he sucks his friend dry.
--
When the Death Eaters strike on Valentine's Day, no one in Hogwarts misses the irony. Seamus picks up the battle cry of “Fuckers” and races through the castle valiantly, needing nothing more than to find Dean Thomas and then everything will be all right. He finds the boy wounded in the Great Hall and doesn't think to help others, doesn't think to stop any more Death Eaters, and doesn't know that if he had turned at the right time and sent off a stupefy spell, Lisa Turpin might not have died in front of her girlfriend, Morag MacDougal, and Anthony Goldstein wouldn't end up carrying the guilt of the situation for the rest of his life.
Seamus doesn't know any of this because he carries Dean in his arms out of the castle, somehow missing any jinxes and hexes, dodging the killing curses, and when he ends up outside behind a bush with his friend in his arms, he only knows that he worries about Dean's left leg, because it was dragging against the ground the entire time.
“Why'd we come back here?” is the first thing Dean asks Seamus when he wakes up, head rested against Seamus' shoulder and body limp.
“I wanted to come back,” Seamus tells him and doesn't shift his arm as to give his friend the awareness that they are outside and he is holding him helplessly against his trembling body. His friend's skin looks lighter, paler, and there is a small cut on his forehead--rigid and incomplete, as if there should be more to his injuries, but the Irish boy realizes the greatest injury is that he is here, restricted by the selfish longings of a friend, rather than away, fighting a war he direly wishes to fight. “I wanted you to be alive.”
Dean breathes sharp and his head presses harder into Seamus' shoulder--it is the first time he realizes that he, too, is in pain, but he shoulders the weight of this and of his mistake, lips pursed forward and teeth biting down on his tongue just hard enough to keep relaxed. “It's because you wanted to keep laughing,” he says and it sounds like he's trying to correct Seamus.
“That, too.”
But he does not want to be corrected.
They lay there together until an Auror finds them, oddly tangled, breathing harshly and asleep.
--
They enter the war a month after the Battle of Hogwarts and it is within a week of seeing Dean almost die that Seamus grabs him and kisses him, dirty skin of his hand still contrasting against the skin of his friend's face as he holds it in place. He feels uneasy as he stumbles into the other boy, feet almost stepping against feet but it is enough for the moment, it is enough to know this is his reason for fighting this war. Dean is alive and he must have him.
But Dean pushes him away time and time again--night after night until a month later when he stumbles in and looks at Seamus in an uneasy fashion. “The end's coming soon.”
“What?” is the only thing Seamus manages before they latch on to one another, carelessly leaving the tent open, not bothering to think twice as they fall against the ground.
The next day, Dean goes off to fight in another battle and Seamus fights in a different place. They come together against that night and Seamus tells his friend that the end is never going to come, it's never going to, because this is the way the world works.
Dean begins laughing as if it's all a big joke and Seamus laughs with him.
“Remember to laugh,” Dean says when he buries his face into his friend's shoulder. “That's all you're going to have when this is over.”
An insect bites Seamus and sends him into peels of laughter. “I'll do that, Dean, I'll do that, mate,” he manages as he eases over the other boy's body.
--
Seamus turns when he's past the gate and bows his head. He feels as if he should go back, sit and lay some actual flowers before his best friend's grave, but he thinks that's best left for another time. It's not another time to hold Dean close when he doesn't have the ability to, to slide his hands over something he can no longer hold, to keep him alive when he no longer has that form.
It is a mistake he suspects he will make again in the future. It is one that, as he crosses over the trimmed green grass that just comes up against his booted feet, he will still try to avoid, but he tries to think he's beyond that now.
But he's lost all that matters, he knows, and he doesn't know if he'll have the opportunity to make that same mistake again.
Please be sure to leave your comments to the author's journal HERE.
Author: analytically
Giftee: a_real_phony
Rating: PG-13
Word Count(for fic): 1,735
Characters/Pairing: Dean/Seamus
Warnings: Character death.
Author/Artist's Notes: I kind of took “awkward conversations” and ended up with this. I'm sorry it wasn't entirely at school, but I have a hard time believing that it would stay that way. Beta is K. Title and lyrics from Matthew Good Band's “Tripoli.” Thanks for having this exchange!
Summary: Seamus does anything to keep Dean alive, even take everything that he once was and selfishly keep it to himself.
Must have lost my mind
When I lost the car keys on my way out
Strange how you're not with me
“Tripoli” by Matthew Good Band
There has never been a moment in his life in which Seamus Finnigan prayed to God, fell to his knees and praised Lord, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, but he crosses himself as he observes the ebony-colored plate in the ground. It's a perfectly proper time to give protection to the person below his feet, resting peacefully with a deadly blank expression and black hair that will eventually grow beyond its usually shortened appearance. And beyond this, only eleven silver and bronze letters and a vaguely trite statement is all that remains of a time in his life that existed for six years and nine months until a moment came along and ended it, came too soon. He thinks to grin, forces the corners of his mouth to pull out and form and expression, but when he bares his teeth it doesn't look natural. Sod it all--he thinks quickly and shakes his head, because someone might see him and think he's running himself ragged and mad.
He decides no one's looking now, for who would be thinking of life within this wasteland of dead, but he stuffs his hands into his pockets. Out of the corner of his eye, there's three girls putting flowers at the grave of a quidditch star and three rows back, there's a gravestone with the name of a dreamy eyed girl with the most beautiful exotic flowers growing out of the ground--a sign of love from a suitor she took in the last three months of her life.
“I'll remember to laugh,” he says as he looks down at the name again and turns his body at an odd angle and thinks maybe, just maybe, if he walks backward, makes his way out of the cemetery, it will be like looking forward. If he moves backwards, he may be able to offer the needed, satisfying protection he wanted to offer several months back.
Then he will not have to remember displeasing moments like walking backwards through a cemetery. There would be no cemetery, but rather awkward laughter and tumbling through cotton sheets. Yes, Seamus thinks as he nearly wobbles backward over a peddle that skips up inside of his boot seconds later, that wouldn't be so bad.
--
“Why are we here again?” Seamus whispers into Dean's ear during the sorting ceremony. The number of first years is down to twenty and they all look more afraid than eager. He elbows his friend in the side when he doesn't respond immediately, grins a little and shakes his head. “Bet they all get sorted into Gryffindor. You'd have to be to be here.” At the end of his statement, the second Gryffindor runs over to the table as the remaining lions roar in a half-hearted fashion.
“You wanted to come back,” Dean says, but it sounds as if it's merely a distracted, belated response. His head doesn't turn toward Seamus' face either, the statement barely one of acknowledgement.
But he barely notices--shrugs it off with a grin, a half-chuckle--and nods in agreement. “Better to be here than out there. Don't need me mam owling me every day about how I'm about to die, how I could be doing so much better in the school.”
Dean doesn't acknowledge this either.
Seamus blames it on the need for a good meal in his stomach.
--
Rumor has it that they're sending Death Eaters at the school to finish it off. Rumor has it that Harry Potter's already dead, rumor has it that they have no choice but to deal with it head on, rumor has it that Hogwarts is going to finally close--rumor has it that Seamus doesn't believe in rumors and just shrugs them off.
Unlike the other students, he carelessly trudges head first into his final school year--takes advantage of Harry's absence on the quidditch team and makes Seeker, but doesn't get much praise from Ginny Weasley when he gets the spot. He gets even less praise when they lose against Slytherin, but it doesn't seem to matter because Ravenclaw's missing a few players, especially Corner and Boot, who've gone off to fight in the war.
Boot's dead and Corner's sick but no one knows about that, not even Seamus, who decides it's all a bunch of rumors and he trudges on, sandy hair messily laying on his head and his eyes still retaining a little bit of life that everyone else has lost. He wonders if he's sucking it out of everyone around them. Each morning, the others all grow a little weary, black rings permanently under their eyes as imprinted battle scars, as if they experience their own personal battles every time they go to sleep.
“You're happy we're not out fighting in that shite, aren't you??” he asks Dean constantly, but Dean just nods and shrugs it off. “Happy we're not dead?” he also asks occasionally, and his friend doesn't look at him, merely nudges him away and says maybe there's some truth to the rumors. What if Harry's dead and there's no one left to fight?
The conversations remain awkward and stilted up until Christmas and it is on Christmas Eve, when he shoves his green-and-red wrapped present into Dean's chest and he laughs as the other boy opens it, that he realizes that there's a reason why he's not fighting in the war.
It's because he couldn't stand to lose Dean in it. It is for this reason that he sucks his friend dry.
--
When the Death Eaters strike on Valentine's Day, no one in Hogwarts misses the irony. Seamus picks up the battle cry of “Fuckers” and races through the castle valiantly, needing nothing more than to find Dean Thomas and then everything will be all right. He finds the boy wounded in the Great Hall and doesn't think to help others, doesn't think to stop any more Death Eaters, and doesn't know that if he had turned at the right time and sent off a stupefy spell, Lisa Turpin might not have died in front of her girlfriend, Morag MacDougal, and Anthony Goldstein wouldn't end up carrying the guilt of the situation for the rest of his life.
Seamus doesn't know any of this because he carries Dean in his arms out of the castle, somehow missing any jinxes and hexes, dodging the killing curses, and when he ends up outside behind a bush with his friend in his arms, he only knows that he worries about Dean's left leg, because it was dragging against the ground the entire time.
“Why'd we come back here?” is the first thing Dean asks Seamus when he wakes up, head rested against Seamus' shoulder and body limp.
“I wanted to come back,” Seamus tells him and doesn't shift his arm as to give his friend the awareness that they are outside and he is holding him helplessly against his trembling body. His friend's skin looks lighter, paler, and there is a small cut on his forehead--rigid and incomplete, as if there should be more to his injuries, but the Irish boy realizes the greatest injury is that he is here, restricted by the selfish longings of a friend, rather than away, fighting a war he direly wishes to fight. “I wanted you to be alive.”
Dean breathes sharp and his head presses harder into Seamus' shoulder--it is the first time he realizes that he, too, is in pain, but he shoulders the weight of this and of his mistake, lips pursed forward and teeth biting down on his tongue just hard enough to keep relaxed. “It's because you wanted to keep laughing,” he says and it sounds like he's trying to correct Seamus.
“That, too.”
But he does not want to be corrected.
They lay there together until an Auror finds them, oddly tangled, breathing harshly and asleep.
--
They enter the war a month after the Battle of Hogwarts and it is within a week of seeing Dean almost die that Seamus grabs him and kisses him, dirty skin of his hand still contrasting against the skin of his friend's face as he holds it in place. He feels uneasy as he stumbles into the other boy, feet almost stepping against feet but it is enough for the moment, it is enough to know this is his reason for fighting this war. Dean is alive and he must have him.
But Dean pushes him away time and time again--night after night until a month later when he stumbles in and looks at Seamus in an uneasy fashion. “The end's coming soon.”
“What?” is the only thing Seamus manages before they latch on to one another, carelessly leaving the tent open, not bothering to think twice as they fall against the ground.
The next day, Dean goes off to fight in another battle and Seamus fights in a different place. They come together against that night and Seamus tells his friend that the end is never going to come, it's never going to, because this is the way the world works.
Dean begins laughing as if it's all a big joke and Seamus laughs with him.
“Remember to laugh,” Dean says when he buries his face into his friend's shoulder. “That's all you're going to have when this is over.”
An insect bites Seamus and sends him into peels of laughter. “I'll do that, Dean, I'll do that, mate,” he manages as he eases over the other boy's body.
--
Seamus turns when he's past the gate and bows his head. He feels as if he should go back, sit and lay some actual flowers before his best friend's grave, but he thinks that's best left for another time. It's not another time to hold Dean close when he doesn't have the ability to, to slide his hands over something he can no longer hold, to keep him alive when he no longer has that form.
It is a mistake he suspects he will make again in the future. It is one that, as he crosses over the trimmed green grass that just comes up against his booted feet, he will still try to avoid, but he tries to think he's beyond that now.
But he's lost all that matters, he knows, and he doesn't know if he'll have the opportunity to make that same mistake again.
Please be sure to leave your comments to the author's journal HERE.