love and economics [seamus]

Seamus’s choice of venue shouldn’t have surprised Dean, but it had. The ease of access would have been reason enough, given that Seamus worked there now. But there was a lot of history there for the lot of them—the lot of them, that was, save for Dean. He’d been there only twice before the war: the once in his fifth year, and once in his sixth because Seamus had wanted to see him get served and Rosmerta seemed less likely. Met Aberforth personally only once and was frankly a little afraid of him. Being there brought up the familiar feeling of non-belonging he felt whenever the DA got together. Getting all his friends together for any reason was more or less a DA get-together anyway.

Having his birthday party there felt strange—sort of like how the place should have been, had Aberforth never been enlisted to feed the rebellious youth of Hogwarts, but also it never would have been. They’d all have ignored the Hogs Head in better times. Except, perhaps, that time in sixth year. The Firewhiskey would have been mediocre and they’d never have gone back.

He wasn’t going to begrudge Seamus the cheapest option of anything, though.

The night had begun more comfortably than he thought it might, but after several drinks, a Quidditch discussion that ended in Michael Corner hexing Ron, and a few too many glints of Ginny Weasley’s engagement ring, Dean was feeling like he’d rather go to sleep. He’d only been home long enough to drop his keys on the counter and chug a full glass of water, though, before he heard someone apparate outside and unlock the door. Seamus had followed him back.

“You’d better not have sent everyone else home!” said Dean at once, who hadn’t been expecting to see him. He’d told Seamus he was leaving just because it was polite, but hadn’t thought he’d be accompanied. “I mean, Ernie looked like he was having a good time. At least.” Ernie Macmillan with a couple drinks in him was as good entertainment as anyone could ask for. And it was only—he glanced at the kitchen clock—two?

It took Dean another second to remember this was Seamus’s flat too. He chuckled to cover it up. “Just because it’s my birthday doesn’t mean you have to follow me around, mate,” he said lightly. “Thought you might want to go home with Susie.” He’d been hoping for more opportunities to tease Seamus and Susan tonight, but they didn’t seem to be a very publicly affectionate couple. It just wasn’t any fun. Dean’s drunken grin lasted another couple seconds before twisting into something more rueful. He coughed, tried to assume nonchalance. “Could you believe they’re getting married?”

It was something he could have said to no one but Seamus, because he knew there was bitterness at the root of it. Not jealousy, of course. Not in the way that Dean would rather be marrying her himself. But the thought that that could have, theoretically, been him was unsettling. Could it have? Frankly he’d never imagined Ginny as the married-at-twenty-two sort, and that had been something he’d liked about her. But of course, he’d also imagined a lot of things incorrectly about Ginny.

Dean stuffed his wand in his back pocket and bitterly scratched his beard. He’d been twenty-three since Thursday and felt no more enlightened than he’d been at twenty-two. Or for that matter, at seventeen, when he and Seamus had once ended a conversation about Ginny and Harry with something like we’re teenagers, we don’t have to know anything yet. Doubtlessly he knew more about death now, and battle, and loss. But not about getting married or taking care of others or being an adult. It blew his mind that any of them might.

“You ever start understanding anything about life?” he asked, falling over one arm of the couch to flop facedown. He kicked his shoes off with some difficulty and they thudded onto the carpet. “If I haven’t figured out what love is by the time I’m twenty-five I think I’ll just pack it in, mate.”

Seamus had decided, at around one, to be optimistic. More people had turned up than he’d expected— that had been good. The regulars whose mopey Saturday nights were being ruined had all been much less upset about it once Seamus had bought them a round— that had been good. The alcohol had been (for the Hog’s Head) passable— that had been good. Ab had come ‘round to tell Seamus he’d knock off half of the tab (Seamus was not secure enough in his employment to put the entire party on the house, so he’d put it on his employee discount instead) and that had been great.

But they were the DA, so of course it’d been pretty dysfunctional, and pretty drunk. Even Seamus had gotten a bit tipsy— for a while after the war he’d steered well clear, but he wasn’t getting any less traumatised and it was Dean’s birthday— where was the harm?

Dean left a little early; Seamus cleared a few of the empty glasses up to deal with tomorrow and bid farewell to Susan and followed. He was barely even in the door before Dean rebuked him drunkenly; with half a grin he said, “No, God, I don’t think they’d go home if I asked.” He shut the door behind him and laughed— “Yeah, especially Ernie.”

He wanted to know if Dean was like, okay— leaving his own birthday party early seemed to suggest otherwise— but also, he didn’t want to ask. Instead he shrugged, a little bemused at Dean’s suggestion— he wasn’t about to ditch him for his girlfriend on his birthday— and said, “Nah.” He could have justified that, but he had been drinking, and didn’t want to.

Could he believe they— there was only one they this could be— were getting married? Not really— but Seamus couldn’t say he’d been thinking much about it. “No,” he said honestly, “But, I mean… even when you were dating her I don’t think I really got the like, love thing.” Dean knew this, already; Seamus just couldn’t think of anything else to add.

It dawned on him belatedly that dredging up Dean’s past relationship with the betrothed was bad form, probably. Dean flopped over the end of the sofa and Seamus snorted, left his shoes at the door and crossed the carpet to sit on the coffee table— “God, fuck no,” he said, “I had to call my mam to do my taxes.” He shifted a little and tried to decide whether it’d be prickish to tell Dean to sit on the couch like a normal person. It was his birthday.

Seamus had a girlfriend, which put him one up on current Dean, but he couldn’t say he knew what love was either; halfway into a yawn he said, “Yeaaah.” When they’d been teenagers they’d had some sort of lame conversation about it, and Seamus had maintained that it was something they’d work out when they were adults; he grinned wryly— they’d screwed that up, for sure.

He liked Susan, that was for sure— he just couldn’t decide if he loved her, which felt like a shitty way to feel after three and a half months. It wasn’t like he had much to go on. He propped one foot up on the couch, wedged it between the arm and the cushion under Dean’s calves— Dean was too tall for the couch, and would probably never pass the days as pathetically as Seamus once had lying around on it— and said, a little lamely, “I hope God was just like, wow, he looks like he’s having a rough time, I’ll just give him a year to sort his shit before I bestow sacred love knowledge on him. Could do with some sacred knowledge ‘round now.”

“Good,” said Dean, with a firm nod.  “Glad to be an excuse for us to party, I s’pose. Don’t want to make ‘em stop.” Watching other people have fun was an odd, detached combination of heartwarming and heartbreaking, but if he removed himself, the heartbreaking bit felt far less meaningful. He wondered if Seamus was back for a similar reason. “Welcome home then, I guess,” he said, and tried to smile earnestly. “I really did like it, I’m just—tired.”

He cringed at the look on Seamus’s face and quickly swallowed any more Susan jokes. For as long as it had been going on, he really had no idea what their relationship was like at all. Sometimes they went out to eat. Presumably, anyway. But aside from information on time commitments, he didn’t get much from Seamus. Had he said this little himself about people he’d dated? Maybe if going after Ron’s little sister for his first try hadn’t made it impossible to talk about girls with the lads, they’d all have been better at this.

Thankfully, Ron was not present. “Well, yeah,” mumbled Dean, shrugging. “Not with us, we were a disaster. But you don’t think Harry’s any better?”  Didn’t get the like, love thing? Maybe he was too drunk to be clever, but Dean had no idea what the hell that meant. He sure wasn’t going to touch it. “I was just trying to say,” he said. “It seemed a bit—y’know—fast. For her, at least.” He rolled over and squinted up at Seamus, who was now sitting haloed directly in front of the ceiling light. “Maybe it’s just that she sure as hell wouldn’tve said yes to me.”

He paused a little while to consider. “I might’ve asked,” he said. “She does that to you, I reckon.”

Seamus agreed with him emphatically and Dean grinned. He’d had Muggle friends a couple years ago with similar stories. “You go all the way to magic school and even they won’t teach you taxes,” he said, chuckling faintly. “Or... Well, they might’ve.” His amusement faded into a wistful little grimace. “Guess I wouldn’t know.”

He shifted as Seamus stuck his foot in the couch, and heaved a sigh. “Harry’s had a loads rougher time than either of us, then,” he said. “How come he gets to know what he’s doing?” Sacred Love Knowledge on top of being the Chosen One. Christ.

Even though he’d used us, Seamus wondered if Dean didn’t feel weird about being ‘round the DA— he always sort of forgot that there was a gap in experiences between the ones who’d been at Hogwarts and the ones who hadn’t. Not a bad gap— as far as he knew, nobody blamed each other for their inabilities to change the world as seventeen year— but a wide one. Seamus had been away too long.

The reason for ditching the party was only a little bit lame, so Seamus said, “It’s late, don’t worry ‘bout it” in case that made it sit more easily between them.

Dean didn’t seem like he wanted to talk about Susan and, after a few hours of uncomfortably comparing their party behaviour to some of the other couples, neither did Seamus— he was self-conscious about it already. Seamus hadn’t had relationships before— certainly not ones that had made it several months— and Dean had. Seamus couldn’t risk getting girl advice from Dean; it would make him feel even more of a fool than he did asking his mother.

“Any better at dating, or any better at dating Ginny?” said Seamus thoughtfully. “Like, I don’t reckon he’d be doin’ so well if he was hooked up with Lavender or someone.” He tried vainly to think about the couples he knew, how they’d seemed to work. They had to be screwups in a complementary way, like he and Susan were— but he was a little loath to bring her up again. Felt a little like gloating.

“Does seem fast,” he agreed. “But I dunno, they’re an Auror and a Chaser, those are fast ways to live.”

Dean’s final proposal gave him pause— it was the sort of thing he’d probably only said because they were both drunk and it was two in the morning. Seamus figured that tomorrow they were going to pretend this hadn’t happened. “Maybe,” he said. “Don’t reckon it does you any good to hypothesy—” he was having a hard time remembering the words swotty Ravenclaws used for this stuff— “hypotheticalise. You didn’t make it to asking for a reason.”

And it gave him even more pause that Dean thought he could have asked her to marry him. Seamus didn’t remember sixth year so well— it’d taken a firm backseat to his seventh in terms of how often he thought about it— but even then he hadn’t thought of them as the marrying sort. Not with the fighting; maybe Seamus just truly didn’t get it, whatever it was that people did to fall in love. She does that to you— Seamus couldn’t even follow what it was she did. “Yeah,” he said lamely. He’d have killed for a way to bring Susan into it now, to prove his understanding, but they didn’t argue much and he didn’t think he was anywhere near the point of marrying her. (Was that bad? He didn’t think she was near the point of marrying him, either, at least.)

He was grateful to see Dean smile. “They don’t,” he said— even though this was edging into The-War territory he was happier talking about that— “Not unless that’s supposed to happen in May. Imagine old Sprout talking everyone through the W-214.”

He was less grateful that Dean seemed a little hell-bent on being sad. He supposed they were drunk. “Dunno,” he said. “I mean, I lived with him for seven— six— years and I don’t guess I know him that well at all. Maybe he’s bluffing it, same as we are.”

Dean laughed as Seamus tried to reassure him. He’d missed the point, but Dean had already sort of forgotten the point so it didn’t matter. “Don’t think anyone could be good at dating Lavender,” he replied. “For that matter, don’t know who’d want to be.” He probably shouldn’t have said that. Seamus had always gotten on well enough with Lavender Brown, for whatever reason, but she gave Dean a bit of a headache.

Seamus’s thoughts on Aurors and Quidditch players surprised him too, but more pleasantly. “Eugh,” moaned Dean. “Fuck you, that was clever.” He shuddered in laughter. Possibly it seemed clever only because he was drunk, but the fact remained it was something Dean never would have thought. He felt like Seamus’s mind worked in less straightforward ways than his, most of the time. Often felt like it was him who should’ve been the artist. “Why d’you always say stuff that clever when nobody’s around to hear?” he asked. “I try to tell people you’re smarter that you let on, and they just don’t buy it.” He knew shouldn’t have said that either, but for reasons that were less clear than before. Dean could imagine the awkward shift of Seamus’s shoulders even without craning his neck off the couch to see.

As with the crack about Susan, Dean wished he hadn’t started the marriage line of conversation, but he had drunk enough to feel entirely comfortable refusing to acknowledge that he had. Making fun of Hogwarts felt easier right now. “It well might be,” said Dean with a rueful grin. “Sounds like school, don’ it? Once you’ve taken your exams you can start learning how to be an adult, but only then.”

He squirmed up the couch to rest his head on the far arm, and closed his eyes. “Yeah, I guess that’s for no one to say,” he mumbled. “Wonder if there’s someone out there whinging to his mate about how together our lives look.” Macmillan, probably. His aggressive confidence had always given Dean a desperate impression. “Christ, how messed up is it that we do this?” he said, as if Seamus might have a good answer. “Nobody can know how clueless we are, because everyone else seems like they’ve got a clue, but they’re all just pretending not to be clueless too. Except maybe Hermione.”

Dean sighed. “I just wish talking to everyone was like this,” he said, and paused a second before clarifying. “Y’know—drunk.”

Seamus’s instinct was to defend Lavender, but he couldn’t say he’d want to date-date her either, so he just laughed instead. The Gryffindor class of 1998 as a whole had learned a lot, spring of ‘97, he reckoned. At the time it’d all seemed so terribly important— even to Seamus, whose participation in it had primarily been through staunch belief that it wasn’t important.

“Oh, er,” he added. Dean was drunk, that was why he was talking this way— but it didn’t make it any less weird, especially when Seamus was, perhaps, less drunk. “Jesus, who the hell’re you talking to?” Seamus managed after a moment. “Chances are there’s a reason they think I’m dumb, mate.” (He was a little flattered and also a little sad; Dean might have known him better than probably anyone in the world but Dean had also missed out on a lot of Seamus’s more moronic moves.)

“Leaves out idiots like us, that does,” he said— he supposed they’d had the option, back in ‘98, to finish their education, but they’d decided to just skip the learning how to be adults bit. He’d never really asked why Dean had wanted to— he knew why he had, and he reckoned Dean had at least guessed— but as nearly as he could imagine, Dean hadn’t gone back because none of the rest of them had— most of them, he remembered a little bitterly, had gone into the Ministry straight after the war. No wonder Dean hadn’t wanted to go back. Seamus wouldn’t have wanted to be alone in that dorm either.

He didn’t want them to be drunk and melancholy— he’d die before he brought up the war now. Fortunately he didn’t have to— even if Dean wasn’t really bringing up the war, he spoke in a way that gave Seamus a suspicion that he was thinking about it. “Probably,” he said with confidence, even though he hadn’t ever thought about it. He thought briefly about everyone he’d left back in the Hog’s Head— he didn’t imagine a single one of them had really moved on.

Except maybe Hermione— he laughed. “Yeah, trust Hermione to be the one,” he said. She may not have been moving on, either, but at least she seemed to be productive about it.

It felt too late— or too early— to be laughing about it, at three in the morning and five years out. He had never passed up a chance at a joke at the time, but it was weirder after the fact, and weirder still to laugh about it with Dean. Their wars had been so different; Seamus, though he knew he was being unreasonable, was a little dead scared that Dean wouldn’t understand, or that Dean would think badly of him. He didn’t think he understood, then, why Dean thought it was easier to talk when they were drunk— maybe he just wasn’t drunk enough.

“I mean, I’m not that drunk,” he said, after a moment, when he couldn’t think of another way to respond. Then, as a concession, “Maybe it’s just late. I feel like it’s easier at night.”

“Chances are, they can get fucked,” replied Dean, putting on a serious tone, before laughing. Yeah, Seamus did dumb stuff. But when he didn’t, nobody seemed to notice. That had bothered Dean for too long to brush aside.

He opened his eyes and squinted up at Seamus. Big and foolishly, he grinned. In his drunkenness and stupidity Dean couldn’t tell if Seamus thought he was full of shit or not, but as it was Seamus, he knew it didn’t matter. That thought refreshed him. He’d been feeling heavy and fuzzy, but the relief washed over him like cool water. No matter what he did, it wouldn’t change the fact that Seamus was his best mate. And he was confident in that. There wasn’t anyone else Dean knew that didn’t make him worry about every dumb thing that came out of his mouth.

“Or maybe, y’know,” he said, “just… To you. Is like being drunk. Kind of.”

It made sense to him, at any rate. 

“I’ve already had a successful birthday, I guess,” he said. “I had cake. So I can go to bed now.” Often, as a kid, Dean had been early to wake on his birthday and reluctant to sleep when it was over. It’d felt like a waste of the one day of the year that was his. The impulse was still in him, even though he had abandoned his party and was half-asleep already. Or that his actual day of birth had ended hours ago. Reason wasn’t enough to stop him. “Or we could turn on the telly, maybe,” he said. “Oh—“ Dean shifted his long legs over onto the coffee table next to Seamus, opening up the other side of the couch. “Sorry. Now there’s room.”

There probably wasn’t anything on, but Dean wasn’t in the frame of mind to care. This felt like a good place to be, if he had to be awake until he physically couldn’t.

Dean laughed, so Seamus did too, a little uncomfortably -- “Right,” he said, as lightly as he could. It seemed like a bad time to try and convince Dean that he was a moron, so he let it go. He didn’t want to dwell on it any more than Dean did, he decided -- not at this hour, at least.

“That a compliment?” he said, grinning away; he knew Dean had meant it as one, but he couldn’t fathom what it was supposed to say about him. It didn’t matter, he supposed -- even if it didn’t make any sense. It was the alcohol talking, probably -- but he couldn’t really convince himself that that meant that Dean didn’t mean it. Maybe that was what Dean was saying, even -- fuck if he knew.

“You’re drunk,” he said -- this time he looked back up at his friend when he smiled, shifted uncomfortably on the coffee table and shrugged. “You could.”

He didn’t want to go to bed, really, so he was glad Dean didn’t either -- he’d feel a bit like a moron staying out here alone in the wee morning. “There you go,” he said, flopping himself next to him on the couch. “Greedy arse.”

He didn’t mean that seriously, and he was drunk enough to want to clarify that, but instead he leaned forward to grab the remote off the table, scooted into the arm of the couch  to prop his chin up on his hand. “D’you care what?” he said, not really expecting an answer; he found the first thing with a laugh track and turned the volume up -- he was sort of done with talking, and he sort of thought Dean was too.

[out]