I can’t help but be wrong in the dark • | d e a n

Dean watched Dennis shift uncomfortably under his gaze and bit the inside of his cheek. He was doing it again, or he thought he was. Interacting with Dennis was just such a tightrope walk at times. So many ways to go wrong at every step and Dean had never been taught how to balance. It exhausted him in his worst moments. Why did he invest himself so deeply in the happiness of mysteries, people he seemingly could do nothing but disappoint? Why did he love them so much? Should he? It took so much out of him and he wasn’t sure where the line was between self-respect and selfishness, love and obligation.

He would ache for someone easy then, someone who clicked with him so perfectly that they always understood each other. But he didn’t think such a thing really existed, anymore. Relationships took work with no exception. And maybe after knowing someone for a long time they would get easier to fathom. He thought of Seamus, easily the closest sustained relationship—romantic, platonic, or even familial—he’d ever had. Not that the state of things these days was anything like what it’d been in school. But he had learned over the years how to navigate Seamus’s touchiness much more successfully than he was navigating Dennis’s now.

“Yeah, sounds good,” said Dean, and stood up to follow. It felt best to let Dennis guide him for now.

He almost suggested they go back to his if Dennis was really looking for someplace quieter. The bar they were leaving had allowed them a more secluded table but had a dull roar in the background, less private but also more difficult for people to overhear them talking about odd things. But thankfully, he caught himself. The talk of someone else in his life, or at least it felt like it had been that, had gotten Dennis all weird. His place had all the trappings of cohabitation now, in a way that Dennis had tried to avoid when he’d stayed. But Riley, who was now also effectively living there for lack of any other place to go, had moved in more fully. Dean didn’t want to bother Dennis with that, make him feel replaced or whatever he felt. He just nodded along as they walked together out into the cool night.

“I know a lot of muggleborns, I guess,” said Dean. “But you’re the closest.” He would never have said those things to Hermione, for instance. He liked her and admired her but she was difficult too, less in the fragile way Dennis was but more in the way that she made him feel like an idiot all the time. He’d never been an analytical thinker and logical reactions often escaped him. It was nice to have someone who he could speak emotionally to. “I figure it’s good to talk about it with someone, at least,” he said. He didn’t like the idea of Dennis bottling things up, even knowing he did so with the efficiency of a liquor plant. "I'm always here."

Dennis gave Dean a sidelong glance in the dark, eyes shrouded in shadows. Was he the closest? Dennis would like to think so, but a part of him was worried that Dean said things like that to a lot of his friends. That they were his best friend, or that he cared about them the most. The two had been out of contact for a while. Dennis wasn’t sure if he even counted as a friend at the moment. He looked back ahead quickly. “They tried to get me to join this club when I came back to school,” he said gruffly. Muggleborn club. “But I didn’t.” He shrugged.

Dean seemed so unburdened by the things that kept Dennis’ mouth shut. Dean was so open, so gentle. It clashed with Dennis’ assumptions about how he was supposed to behave; about how men were supposed to behave. Somehow, Dean managed to subvert all of these things without losing anything. He was still Dean. Dennis didn’t know if he could do it, wear his heart on his sleeve like that. The teenager pushed his hands into the very bottom of his pockets, searching for warmth for his icy digits. The pair had moved into a darker patch of the street and Dennis couldn’t see Dean’s face clearly. He took advantage of the moment.

“Dean I… don’t want to lose you,” he said frankly. His voice was soft, but not very emotional. He couldn’t have delivered such a pathetic line without some defensive barriers firmly in place. It was factual, frank. Dennis fell silent, listening only to the wet thuds of his sneakers hitting the damp pavement. I don’t want to lose you. He was talking about this new boyfriend and about the long months of limited contact and also about the way he’d walked out last time they’d seen each other in person. He didn’t know how to keep people but he really wanted to keep Dean. He didn’t know what he’d do if he couldn’t.

“What, for muggleborns?” asked Dean. The idea was so obviously well-intentioned that he couldn’t believe he’d never been invited to something similar in school, but he knew there could also be a certain amount of awkwardness between a bunch of people with only one thing in common. “What do they…do?” He wasn’t sure whether it was more likely to be an activist group or a television discussion forum. “If there’d been someone to get us all together and explain how things worked—like, in-depth—that might have been useful,” he mused. He was still surprised rather regularly by small wizarding idiosyncrasies that had never come up before.

He stuffed his hands in his jean pockets as they kept going, Dennis falling silent beside him. Maybe they were waiting for some new place. Or maybe this was what was supposed to be a companionable silence. With Dennis, stretches of quiet made Dean a little nervous, which was unfortunate given their frequency. He just didn’t feel as comfortable leaving Dennis to his own head as much as he might have some other friends. Dean considered what he could say, something meaningless maybe, to pass the time.

And then Dennis spoke up again. “What?” said Dean, genuinely bemused. “Well, I mean—" He’d thought all this time that Dennis had wanted to distance himself. That he’d been too smothering, tried too hard, that Dennis didn’t want the sort of closeness they’d flirted with. But to hear that… Dean didn’t really know how to respond for a few seconds. “I don’t think you could lose me unless you were trying,” he finished, laughing softly. He was sure it was no laughing matter to Dennis. That maybe he looked too flippant, or too condescending. But the idea of giving up on Dennis was just so absurd to him, and to hear that it wasn’t wanted was so comforting, that he couldn’t keep a small smile from his face.

“I’ll keep that in mind, though,” he mumbled more softly, looking back away from Dennis and ahead down the street. That Dennis had admitted his intention aloud had put Dean a good deal more at ease.

“Ha, yeah. Something like that… Maybe they study electrical circuits and lift things with their hands.” Dennis snorted and shook his head. He imagined that it was probably more like a support group. When he’d come back it had only been a year after the war, after all. Most of the muggleborns that had left school had come back after the battle of Hogwarts. The school had probably wanted everyone to talk about their feelings and stuff. Dennis couldn’t imagine coming into a group of people a year after the group was established and trying to talk about himself. At that time, especially, he’d been pretty messed up.

Dennis didn’t react to Dean’s "what?". Dean wouldn’t be able to see much in the dark, but Dennis kept his eyes front-facing instead of looking at his friend anyway. His heart was beating quickly in his chest; maybe he was afraid Dean would say something dismissive or ask questions aimed to painfully draw out reluctant answers. Dennis waited impatiently for the seconds in between Dean’s words. He could feel two brown eyes studying him and was grateful to the night for hiding the red that had crept into his cheeks. Dean’s laugh made him squirm. Dean didn’t understand, he thought. Well Dennis wasn’t going to elaborate, wasn’t going to stop walking and turn and say something that made him understand; it wasn’t in his nature. He’d just let it go and fake-smile and talk about quidditch or football or something.

“No Dean, wait,” he found himself saying instead, the words sounding out of place, like a stranger was speaking them. Dennis’ feet slowed to a stop and, reluctantly, he turned. A detached part of him was panicking. He didn’t know how to do it. Didn’t know how to be open and honest and talk about what he was feeling. He didn’t really want to, either. But here he was. Dennis swallowed, removing his hands from his pockets to fold across his chest. “I just…” he swallowed again, hard. Why was it so difficult to speak? At what point between fourteen and sixteen had he lost the ability to share his thoughts? “I don’t have anyone else.” Dennis spoke with an even tone, seriousness injected into his voice but something weightier in his eyes. "I haven't had anyone else... for a while." He wet his lower lip with his tongue and let his arms fall to his sides. Get it? He asked silently, you're all I've got.

He had begun to breathe easier but Dennis stopped then. Dean turned back as well as nervousness crept back into his veins. Eyes flashing in the dark, Dennis commanded him to wait, and unspoken, to understand.

Dean waited for him to summon the words to continue and he didn’t know what to do. He wanted to understand, and to be able to express that he understood well enough for Dennis to believe it. But language was too unwieldy and difficult for for emotion so intricate as this. At least, it was for Dean, and for Dennis too. They were no poets. They were young disasters of boys who’d learned Charms instead of English.

Dennis spoke finally with such loaded words, the vulnerability of them breaking Dean’s heart. But was there something he wasn’t understanding? What was Dennis trying to hard to impress upon him that he didn’t get the first time? What response was Dennis looking for? Dean stood there on the dark sidewalk and looked at Dennis, hoping fervently that he could do the right thing.

“I can’t make any promises,” said Dean. “Nobody can, life is just too…” His own life had been upended completely enough times for him to understand the impermanence of things, and to fear it. But he thought Dennis feared it rather more. As much as Dean wanted to soothe him, he knew it would only hurt to say things he couldn’t possibly know. It’ll get better. You’ll be loved. You’ll be happy. Guesses at best. He did know, though, that he’d be here until he couldn’t. “All I can do is tell you I’ll do my best, yeah?” he said. “And that I care about you. So I’m gonna do that.” For a second he contemplated the best gesture, then he grabbed Dennis’s shoulder and gently squeezed.

Dean was speaking but Dennis felt himself zone out a little bit. He wasn’t sure that Dean was getting his message. Dennis wasn’t actually entirely convinced he knew what he was trying to say either, so he supposed that that didn’t help. Standing here, in the dark, Dennis’ more morbid thoughts had a sort of life that they couldn’t quite take on in the light of day. He started imagining what would happen if he died; he wondered who would come to the funeral besides his parents. He wondered if all of the things Dean was saying would haunt him or if an event like that would prove - to someone, Dennis didn’t know who - that those sentences were just repetitions. Things said because Dennis had pressed, rather than because they were felt.

“Thanks mate,” Dennis said quietly, trying not to let his darker thoughts creep into his tone. The two started walking again, in silence, and Dennis silently berated himself for bringing anything up at all. Was he trying to thank Dean for looking out for him all these times? Sort of. Dennis didn’t know where he’d be without his older friend. Probably in a gutter somewhere, he thought with a grimace. He really did care about Dean. Maybe even loved him, in some sort of weird friend-brother-maybe-something-else way, not that he’d ever admit it out loud. When he’d first showed up on his door step - the very first time, Dennis had barely spoken two words outside of niceties.

“I think I know someone who saw my brother,” he said. This topic wasn’t a light one, and he was grasping at straws for something like that, but there you go. “At the battle, I mean, I think they saw Colin.” There was so much new information here tonight - I met a girl and don’t leave me and I think I know someone who saw my brother die. But Dennis was searching for something to say. Anything to shake this mood and the weird, uncomfortable dissatisfaction he felt with Dean’s answer, or his own abysmal communication skills. “I think I might go find her and ask about it,” he said.

This was not working. It was not at all working, and Dean had exhausted his stock of comforting words. That was the problem, surely. Most people had those stocks, those fallback phrases when they needed to be helpful or kind, and Dennis knew it. He wanted something more honest, but there was no more honest that Dean knew how to be. He watched Dennis in the dark and wondered if he disappointed other people this way too. Whether Riley was expecting something out of him he couldn’t give, or his sisters hadn’t believed him when he said they’d be alright. Was there anyone who could give a good enough answer to a question like that?

Dennis changed the subject then, with a hesitant sentence that still felt somehow abrupt. “Oh,” said Dean, gently, a little shaken. “If you want to, then you should.” He wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea of Dennis going into a conversation like that, a sickened gut reaction mixed with a more thoughtful notion that it might put him more at peace. But he didn’t really know what something like that would do to you. He hadn’t lost a Colin. The dead people he’d been closest to had been killed in front of him.

Lynne Cresswell just held his hand and thanked him for nothing, but Andromeda Tonks had asked him about her husband’s death. Dean hadn’t known what to say to her. He stammered a little, and was choked and silent for a long time, and then he told her how quick and senseless it had been. That her brave and capable husband hadn’t had a chance. He’d tried to stress that, that Ted Tonks was brave, and she’d looked sort of blankly through him. Dean wondered now if his answer hadn’t been good enough for her the way his words weren’t good enough for Dennis, if she’d regretted that Ted had to spend his last weeks on Earth with this teenager who tried to eulogize him with platitudes.

He hoped this girl Dennis wanted to see could express herself more competently than he could.

“Yeah.”

It was an extremely basic response, but Dennis couldn’t think of anything else to say. They pair had started walking again and Dennis felt like he’d run out of words. At the start of the night he’d felt extremely melancholic, but Dean dissolved and dissipated it with his mere appearance. Somehow. Now it was back again in full force. Dennis didn’t want to be here - swimming in this feeling in the dark. He didn’t want to, but somehow there was just no easy way out. Simple conversation had turned into this silent mess and he shifted between replaying their conversation over and over in his head and berating himself for being so terrible at… people. He felt like he was losing Dean, just like he’d lost everyone else. His own cyclical thoughts and the darkness that seemed to act as an echo chamber for them obscured the truth. He didn’t know if it was all in his head or if he was as useless as he currently thought he was.

They arrived at the old wool building Dennis had mentioned earlier, but the teenager didn’t really want to go inside. He winced a little as the streetlight fell on his face. He was embarrassed. “Here it is,” he said unenthusiastically. “Did you want to have another drink?” The hesitation could be read on his youthful face a mile away. Dennis didn’t want to seem like he’d led Dean here for nothing, and he didn’t want to seem unenthusiastic but right now that part of him was extremely readable.

Things had spiraled downward so quickly. It seemed to be a hazard with Dennis, and Dean wondered whether he somehow made it worse. He was struck by the realization that he really didn’t know how Dennis interacted with other people. They were always alone, always so deep under their blanket of trauma. For all he knew, this was the best Dennis got. But he doubted it. His mind drifted to Riley, wishing he was back home where it was easier. He felt sickeningly guilty for the thought.

They looked up at Dennis’s venue of choice. “I’d like that,” said Dean. He wanted to get back to whatever nice night they’d been planning to have and maybe here they could start over. But Dennis’s voice was flat and he looked profoundly uncomfortable. The last thing Dean wanted was to force him through politeness to continue this interaction. “Only if you want to,” he said. And it burst out of him before he could stop it, he was so desperate to know. “It’s not a problem, yeah, If I’m making things weird…?”

Dennis felt a part of him sink when Dean said that he wanted to keep going. He needed to get his social face back up and running, because right now he felt far too exposed. It was like whatever confusing emotions he'd been feeling in the past half hour had chipped away at his resolve. His resilience. His ability to behave like a normal human being. Dennis almost said "okay," but Dean must have read something in his face or his voice because the former Gryffindor couldn't seem to stop giving Dennis ways out of the situation. He played with the seams on the inside of his pickets nervously.

"No, it's me," he said, really meaning it this time. "I just..." can't interact with people. Dennis dropped his gaze, unable to meet his friend's warm brown eyes. "I dunno, I'm in a weird mood, sorry." Dennis didn't like talking about his feelings. Somehow, when Dean did it he was sensitive and mature and when Dennis tried it was like he was stunted and defective - or worse, he was like a stupid little kid. A whiny kid. Either way, it wasn't very masculine or very adult and Dennis struggled with those things a lot.

The pair hovered, half in and half out of the warm light filtering through the bar's windows and down from the streetlights above. Dennis instinctively took a step back. "Listen, I'm gonna go," he said blankly, intentionally grinding away at the emotional edge in his voice so that he could just speak without being utterly pathetic. "Sorry Dean. Weird mood. Maybe, can we... I'll write you?" Ugh. What a messed up sentence. Dennis gave a shrug, taking another step back. He'd liked to have suggested that they meet up before the holidays were over but after this disaster of a night, the boy doubted that Dean would be happy to see him again so soon. He wondered how he'd messed everything up so badly. "See ya," he said, turning out into the night.

“It happens,” said Dean. “It’s fine, believe me.” Dennis was babbling, trying to justify himself and maybe to apologize, but Dean knew it was a valid excuse. Or if he were just trying to make something up to get away, he clearly still wanted to get away. “Yeah, for sure,” he said. He wanted to give Dennis at least a hug goodbye, but the boy kept stepping back, as if he were getting ready to bolt. Dean wouldn’t cross the gap he was creating between them. “I’ll be around, if the mood strikes,” he said instead. Just something to make sure Dennis knew he was wanted if he wanted to be. It felt more hollow than an embrace, as his words always did.

And then Dennis had turned his back, and Dean was standing there in front of the place he’d brought him, watching him walk away. He glanced up at the sign again and wondered if he ought to keep drinking even though his companion had gone. It felt like a good time for it, morose and weighed down with too many feelings he couldn’t express. But maybe he’d go home and try to talk to Riley about it instead. It was nice to have a sounding board again. He could drink there too, if things didn’t go the way he’d like.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets again, Dean turned back down the dark street to find a good place to apparate.