Muggle London was the most amazing sort of chaos. There were bright lights, impossibly tall buildings, and taxis zipped by leaving a freezing wind in their path. Blaise Zabini liked to walk through it, a silent observer trying to clear his head. It was early November and there was a lot happening in his life. He had three restaurants, each needing a retooled Christmas menu, coupled with being Draco Malfoy's best friend, there was a lot requiring his attention. As everyone seemed to remind him, Blaise had the unfortunate habit of substituting the work he enjoyed for any attempt to find true love.
"It's the Christmas season!" Theo had insisted on more than one occasion. "There is no better time to find someone."
"It is November," Blaise had countered, "and I do not need anyone. I have my friends and that is enough."
No one bought it, but Blaise didn't understand the problem. He was twenty-six, surely there was time to find someone later on when life wasn't so busy. Blaise liked to be absorbed in his work, creating food everyone wanted to taste again and making his restaurants places people wanted to have their life's biggest moments.
Blaise walked past a park where several families were enjoying the recent snowfall. Some children were making snow angels while others were building a snowman. He smiled and envied them a bit with their carefree minds and wide-eyed enjoyment.
Then a packed ball of snow hit him in the side of the face. Blaise was stunned. He rubbed his cheek before brushing the remainder of the snowball from his shoulder.
"Shit, I am so sorry!"
He slowly turned to face the voice and his eyebrows nearly disappeared into his hairline. Standing less than a metre away was a man at least three inches taller than him. Blaise surveyed him from tip to toe, noting his unkempt curls and the scruff around his jawline. His coat was at least three years old and his trainers may have been from even more years past, but Blaise got lost in his smile. It was awkward, self-deprecating, and vaguely familiar.
"Sorry," the man said. He put his hand below Blaise's chin to tilt his face up toward him, almost like a kiss. Blaise, fortunately, caught himself before he leaned in for one. The man looked at Blaise's left cheek and winced. "Looks like it may sting for a bit. Luckily, there will be no permanent damage to your face."
"Do I know you?" Blaise asked. The man had begun absentmindedly stroking his thumb along Blaise's jawline and he didn't mind. "Did we … Did we go to school together?"
"Dean Thomas," the man said. He dropped his hold on Blaise's face and proffered his hand. Blaise tried to quiet the disappointment in his stomach when the man, Dean apparently, removed his touch.
"Ah, yes," Blaise nodded in recognition. "You were one of Potter's friends." Blaise took his hand and, damn, they fit perfectly. "Blaise Zabini."
"Malfoy's friend," Dean Thomas added. He did not appear happy with that revelation and let his hand fall away.
"I am my own man," Blaise replied.
"I can see that," Dean said, one corner of his mouth twitching up into an almost-smile. "I remember you. It is difficult to forget the most gorgeous face you've ever laid eyes on, isn't it?"
"Difficult for me since I see it in the mirror," Blaise joked. Dean laughed.
"Funny, too? Your girlfriend is one fortunate woman."
It was Blaise's turn to laugh. What a ridiculous notion, but Dean was obviously fishing and Blaise was all too happy to be caught.
"My broom flies in the opposite direction, you understand," he replied.
Dean swallowed hard and asked, "Your boyfriend, then?"
"DEAN!" one of the girls shouted from their makeshift snow fort. "WE NEED YOU TO TAKE POINT!"
"No boyfriend," Blaise answered. He looked Dean in the eyes and asked, "And what of you?"
Dean looked at the people passing by then glanced back toward his fellow snow soldiers to gauge whether they were out of earshot. He said,
"Our brooms fly on parallel paths. As for a boyfriend, that is a hole in my life at the moment."
Blaise stood on his toes and leaned closer to whisper in Dean's ear, "I would very much like to fill it."
When Blaise stepped back he was delighted to see Dean's cheeks had gone pink, and not from the cold. Oh, yes, parallel paths indeed. He patted Dean on the shoulder and said,
"Meet me tomorrow evening at Diagon Alley."
"For what?" Dean asked.
"A date," Blaise said, annoyed. Dean just appeared shell-shocked, so Blaise tried again. "You and me, a date, 7:30 tomorrow."
"You want to take me out?" Dean asked.
"Is that so difficult to believe?"
"Well, yes, I mean …" Dean struggled to get words out. "You look like … you … And I'm me …"
"And I am going to like you very much," Blaise replied, unable to rein in his smile. He nodded toward the park and said, "You should get back to your snow friends, they are rather insistent."
"Meet you at the Leaky Cauldron?" Dean asked. Blaise took one of Dean's hands in his own. He looked up at Dean and said,
"You should wear gloves." Dean fluttered his eyelashes and it nearly did Blaise in. He'd shag Dean right there in the snow if he wasn't careful. Dean wrapped his fingers around Blaise's for the briefest moment and Blaise knew he had him. He turned on his heel and shouted over his shoulder. "7:30! Do not be late!"
.oOo.
Blaise arrived in the Leaky Cauldron at exactly 7:30 on Sunday evening. He saw Dean leaning against the bar and took a moment to admire him. Dean had shaved but left his hair an unruly mess of curls. And he was three inches taller than Blaise, who stood six feet, making Dean all but impossible to miss even when not standing at his full height. Blaise tried to calm the shaking in his hands and failed, so he stuffed them into his pockets.
Dean spotted Blaise from three metres away and met him in the middle. Before Blaise could even say hello, Dean's hands were on his cheeks and Dean kissed him. It was just a light touch of lips, but one that lingered. Dean's eyes fluttered open and he said,
"I've thought of doing that every moment since you left yesterday. Now that I've done it, I feel torn between embarrassment and a need to do it again."
"If those are our only options I must insist you do it again," Blaise replied cheekily. Dean smiled and kissed him again just as quick, and Blaise sighed at loss of contact. "I suppose I should actually take you out before snogging you senseless."
"Where are we going?" Dean asked.
"You will see," Blaise answered. He grabbed Dean's hand and pulled him over to the entryway. He tapped the bricks, led Dean into the rather empty Alley, and decided not to drop his hold. Dean smiled when Blaise opened the door to Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlor.
"Ice cream in November?"
The parlor was empty.
"No better time for ice cream," Blaise said. "There are no lines."
Dean laughed and Tracey Davis came out from the back of the parlor.
"Blaise!" she shouted. "Do you realize you are literally the only person in the world who wants ice cream after seven on a Sunday in November?"
"And yet you are still open," Blaise teased.
Tracey shrugged and asked, "Dean Thomas? He dragged you along?"
Dean held up their clasped hands and said, "Literally." Tracey's mouth fell open a little bit and Blaise let go of Dean's hand. Blaise ordered while Dean scanned through the available flavours. He finally settled on,
"Butterbeer. I'll have a medium cone of butterbeer." Blaise looked at him in dismay. "What? It's butterbeer and ice cream? Two of the best things in one delectable form. You should be ashamed. Who willingly orders vanilla?"
"Someone who plans on snogging a man who ordered butterbeer ice cream," Blaise replied. Dean's cheeks went pink. Tracey rolled her eyes.
"Do yourself a favour, Dean Thomas, and bail while you can because this is Blaise at the top of his flirting game. It's only downhill from here."
"I dunno," Dean admitted. "He's not so bad."
"You're blinded by beauty," Tracey teased. She handed them their cones and Blaise tossed a few Galleons on the counter. "Shop closes at eight, so I'll be in the back until then. Snogging is permitted on the premises, but there is to be absolutely no shagging on my tables."
Dean laughed and Blaise grinned as Tracey left them alone in the shop. Blaise led Dean over to a corner table, mostly hidden from view of the windows. Dean took his time licking up the side of one scoop, and Blaise's eyes trailed his tongue the whole way.
"If you keep staring at me like that I'll have to send an apology letter to Tracey for breaking the one rule she gave us," Dean said. Didn't stop him from taking another lick.
"Yes …" Blaise said, his voice cracking. He coughed and Dean laughed. "I am not certain whether this was the best date idea I've ever had, or the worst."
"Probably the cheapest," Dean quipped. "Do you think so lowly of me? You aren't hurting for Galleons yet instead of going for dinner we go out for ice cream at the beginning of winter."
"No!" Blaise said, cursing himself for not recognizing he was giving the wrong impression. "No, I just … It is not the money."
"Just how wealthy are you?" Dean asked. Blaise busied himself with his vanilla.
"I could buy the entirety of Diagon Alley without making a dent in my Gringotts vault," Blaise snapped. "My mother married and killed eight times before she died. Eight men from all over the Wizarding world with their own fortunes, and she bequeathed it all to me. I want for nothing money can buy."
Dean gave Blaise the once-over, with what he could see of him at any rate. Dean outright stared at Blaise's shoes which were, admittedly, much fancier than the sort most people wore into Diagon Alley.
"It can buy a hell of a lot, by the looks of things."
"Yet love remains without a price," Blaise quipped. Dean leaned forward, one elbow on the table as Blaise bit into his waffle cone.
"You sound bitter about that," Dean observed. "Is there a story there?"
"Does there need to be?" Blaise asked. Dean didn't respond except to suck some of the melted ice cream off his thumb.
Blaise sighed and admitted, "That was rather rude of me. I apologize for taking that tone with you, but I have not been on a date in a long time and I sort of forgot how to do this properly." Dean slid his coat from his arms and tossed it over his chair.
"How long?"
"Two years, probably," Blaise guessed as he did the same.
"A loss for the rest of the world then," Dean said. Blaise smiled at that.
"How kind off you to say. Contrary to what Tracey said, I am normally very good at flirting," he insisted.
"I know," Dean laughed. "Yesterday you were, well, quite good."
"Right?!" Blaise said. "There is something about you that just … I think I may be nervous." Dean grinned and aimed a shy laugh down at the table.
"God, look at you! There's no reason for you to be nervous."
"But there is!" Blaise insisted, a little confused. He finished the top scoop of his ice cream before saying, "There is something about you that makes me feel safe and … warm. As though you are the world's sexiest blanket." Dean laughed at the joke, thank Merlin.
"A comforter," Dean countered.
"Yes!" Blaise agreed. "A sexy comforter." And after he said it Blaise wanted to lock himself in Tracey's freezer until Dean forgot about him entirely. What the hell had happened? He was so good at come-ons, at casual advances and one-night-only shagging. What was it about Dean Thomas that was making Blaise act like he had been Confunded?
"Blankets are supposed to go on top of you, and I must admit being on top is not my area of expertise," Dean quipped.
Blaise raised a teasing eyebrow and replied, "You are in luck, then, as I happen to be a great teacher."
Dean flushed and changed the subject.
"I want to know why haven't you dated in so long. Even David Beckham would be envious of you, so it's not your looks—"
"Who?" Blaise asked. Dean dismissed the question with a lazy flick of his hand.
"You don't have bad breath, your friend seems nice, you're good at conversation—"
"My mother," Blaise answered. "If you must know, I never really learned how to do romance. Generally, for me it is food, a shag, then never seeing each other again. My mother never gave me a good example to learn from. I mean, I could kill you eight different ways and never get caught—"
"That's reassuring," Dean said facetiously.
"—but I have no idea how to, you know, get you to fall in love with me."
"Oh," Dean said. Blaise blanched.
"Apologies, that was much too forward, I understand … It just slipped out."
"Merlin's fucking toenail, Blaise, are you actually nervous right now?" Dean asked, surprised. Blaise nodded.
"Yes, I am," he said. "It is as though only half of my brain is functioning. Every time you smile my heart does a little jump. Is that normal?" Dean smiled again, so wide his face could crack in two, and Blaise thought his heart may stop beating altogether.
"I dunno," Dean said, "but I like that you like me enough to be anxious. It means you really want this to go well."
"Desperately," Blaise admitted.
"You are surprisingly honest," Dean replied.
"Should I not be?" Blaise asked. He returned his attention to his ice cream. "I do not remember dating being quite this difficult."
"You are! It's just that most people aren't. They put up a front, play hard to get, or just want to skip straight to shagging. In my experience at least, I've never met someone quite like you."
"Good," Blaise replied, "perhaps you'll want to keep me then."
"Are you joking?" Dean asked. "I hit you with a snowball and somehow landed a date. I am the luckiest man on the planet."
"Well, it is not as though you meant to hit me," Blaise said. Dean didn't respond, just bit off a sizeable chunk of his cone. Blaise raised his eyebrows and asked, "Unless … you hit me on purpose?"
Dean chewed for several more seconds and Blaise thought he might burst from anticipation. Finally, Dean admitted,
"I didn't know you were you, at the time. I saw a good-looking bloke walk by and wanted to talk to you. Wasn't actually aiming for your face, I would never want to damage something so beautiful, but …" Dean shrugged. "I just felt like I had to talk to you."
"Only you could make assault with a projectile seem romantic," Blaise teased. "Who were those girls I saw you with?"
"My sisters."
"But there were at least six of you!" Blaise shouted.
"You're an only child, aren't you?" Dean presumed. When Blaise nodded, he laughed. "I have seven sisters. Half-sisters, technically, not that it matters to me. I love them so much and my family is the most important thing in the world to me. What about your family?"
"Well … What about it?" Blaise said, devouring the melted ice cream and the tip of his cone.
"I mean, your mother is dead, but what about …?" Dean didn't actually say the words 'your father,' but Blaise had been asked enough times to understand what Dean was trying to pry out of him.
"Most people would speak about someone's mother with a bit more leniency in their tone," Blaise chastised.
"You said she never taught you how to love, which means she never loved you the way she should have," Dean insisted. "Your mother will get no respect from me because you deserved much more than that."
Blaise wanted to believe him. Maybe if Dean said it again he would.
"I don't know who my father is," Blaise admitted. "I have no desire to know. I am one of the few people in this world who gets to choose their own family, and I chose my friends. Bastien, Draco, Theo, and their families. Those are the people who have always cared for me."
"I like that," Dean admitted. "Can't imagine life without my sisters, though."
"They looked sweet," Blaise admitted.
"Some of them are," Dean said with a mischievous smile. "But tell me more about you. Where do you work? Do you work at all, or do you just sit on a pile of Galleons and stare at your reflection all day?" Blaise laughed.
"Here and there …"
"Come on, tell me," Dean insisted as he finished his own cone.
"I am a chef," Blaise said. "I own three restaurants. And what do you do, exactly?"
"I'm a teacher," Dean said. Blaise must have appeared shocked because Dean further explained, "A friend and I started up a primary school for magical children."
"A friend?" Blaise asked.
"More than a friend at the time," Dean admitted. "But that was four years ago, we've moved on. We have six teachers now, thirty students, they learn basic concepts from both the magical and Muggle worlds. It's really quite amazing, watching them learn and grow, and I get to be around kids all day."
"You really like children, don't you?" Blaise asked.
"I like most people," Dean said with a shrug. He leaned back in his chair and said, "The way I see it, everyone deserves the chance to prove themselves worthy of kindness. It's easier with kids because they aren't cognizant of social norms and they are the most brutally honest people you will ever come across. And they do everything with such sincerity! One of my students presented me with a drawing like it was a fucking Rembrandt and I treasure it equally."
Blaise stood up from his seat and walked around the table. He bent down to kiss Dean, putting one knee on the chair between his legs. It was soft, but not chaste. Dean's lips parted and Blaise tasted the remnants of butterbeer. He twined the fingers of one hand in Dean's curls, and Dean just sat there happily allowing himself to be snogged for as long as Blaise would have him. Dean seemed unable to control his smile, the corners of his mouth twitching upward each time Blaise pulled back to breathe.
He started pulling Dean's shirt from where it was tucked into his jeans, then ran his hands along the outside of Dean's thighs. Dean pulled back and shook his head.
"Nuh-uh," was all he managed to get out before Blaise kissed him again, more insistent this time. Dean groaned in the back of his throat and wrapped his fingers around Blaise's waist, pushing him upward enough to break the kiss.
"We cannot shag in the shop," Dean insisted. Blaise immediately started trailing kisses down Dean's neck.
"Trace said no shagging on the table …" Blaise paused as his fingers ghosted over the outline of Dean's dick as it pressed upward through his trousers. "She said nothing about the chairs."
Dean pushed Blaise off of him so forcibly that Blaise stumbled backward a few steps. Dean tossed his head back and groaned.
"God, I cannot believe I am about to do this."
"Do you not … Do you not want to do this with me?" Blaise asked. "I can take you back to my house, and we can … Unless you are not interested …"
Dean looked at him like he'd said all that in Italian. He glanced down at his nether region, then back up at Blaise.
"Do you honestly believe I don't want to shag you? Because if so, you are both unobservant and fucking mad."
"Well then … I do not understand what just happened," Blaise admitted, breathless. Dean stood up and pulled on his coat, so Blaise did the same, staring at his shoes the whole time. He eventually looked up at Dean and asked, "Where did I go wrong?"
"You aren't the only nervous one, alright?!" Dean shouted. "Merlin's fucking arse, Blaise, I really like you. More than that, I want to be your boyfriend because I already know you are the most interesting man I have ever met and I've barely scratched the surface with you. The thought of you going out and getting off with anyone else makes me uncomfortable because … Because I really like you."
"But not enough for sex?" Blaise asked, confused. Dean groaned and stuffed his hands in his pockets.
"God, you really haven't dated much, have you?" he asked. Blaise didn't answer. "You said yourself, most men you go out with, the routine is food then sex then gone. Not every date needs to end in sex, Blaise. I liked this, I like you, and I don't want you to think of me like every other man you come across."
"There is no chance of that happening," Blaise insisted.
Dean said, "Then let's not make this like your other dates. Let me leave you wanting more."
"I want more," Blaise insisted. "And I don't want to wait, but if you do then … Then it's okay." It didn't feel okay, but Blaise would give Dean just about anything he asked for.
"Can I see you again?" Dean asked hesitantly.
Blaise nodded and confirmed, "Yes, of course, as soon as you want! Tomorrow?"
Dean smiled and scrunched up his nose a bit. It was the most adorable thing Blaise had ever seen.
"Let me take you out. I'll owl you the time and place, just show up and look pretty," Dean teased.
"I, um … Soon?" Blaise asked hopefully. He sounded so desperate to his own ears it was pathetic, but he also really wanted Dean to answer.
"Sometime this week, I promise." Dean kissed Blaise lightly on the cheek then made for the exit. "I just want to make it worth the wait," he shouted over his shoulder. Blaise watched as the door shut behind him.
"Trace?" Blaise shouted. She came out far too quickly and he asked, "How much of that did you hear?"
"Enough," Tracey replied. She smiled and said, "I am telling Theo you have a boyfriend!"
"I think I may end up in love with him," Blaise admitted. "Is that normal, to know on the first date?"
"Oh, Blaise, honey …" Tracey trailed off. She came over to pat him on the shoulder. "There's nothing normal about you. Just keep being honest with him and things will end up where they're meant to be."
Blaise took a deep breath and hugged Tracey good-bye. He walked out of Fortescue's and thought that maybe, just maybe Dean Thomas was kind-hearted enough to teach him how to love someone the right way.