Written for The Stratified Agate Competition.
"I can't take this anymore!" Ron yelled as Draco grabbed a beer, slamming the refrigerator door. "I can't take the sneaking around and not telling anyone about us. I understand why we did in the beginning, we didn't want to make a big production about coming out and being together if we weren't sure that this would work. But it was working!"
"What do you mean was?" Draco asked, his voice equal parts desperate and angry. "What changed?"
"What changed was the fact that I can't tell people that I'm gay, because then they'll want to set me up with a bunch of blokes when the only one I want to be with is you. I can't tell them I'm in a relationship, because then they'll want to meet the person I'm dating and they can't. I can't do anything because I am in love with you," Ron said. He looked straight into Draco's eyes, placing his hands on the sides of Draco's face. "I love you, Draco," he pleaded, "but I can't keep doing this. You keep saying maybe. I keep wondering and hoping that we can have a relationship, in which we meet and have other people see us in public, and then being constantly disappointed. I'm done with it."
"You were just as eager to keep this a secret as I was," Draco said, ice in his voice as he pushed Ron's hands away and sat down on Ron's old battered couch, keeping his back turned to the redhead.
"And I grew up! I became comfortable with who I am to the point where I'm now uncomfortable with denying it."
"Well, I'm not! I don't want to shout out that I'm gay from the rooftops."
"I don't want to either! But that's not why I want to break up! I want to break up because I want to at least tell the people in my life something major and important about me! I understand that you don't want to, and I respect that, but I can't, Draco. I can't do this anymore. I just can't. I love you, I will always love you, but I can't spend all my energy trying to make you comfortable while I feel like suffocating."
Draco turned around and looked at Ron. The redhead was gorgeous as he always was, but in a different way that he had always been to Draco before. His cheeks were tracked with tears, his blue eyes shining with more. He had never seen Ron this emotional before, but there was a strength in his eyes that Draco hadn't noticed before. He wondered if that was new, or if it had always been there.
Draco wondered how he'd missed it.
He slammed the beer down on the coffee table and walked over to Ron, pulling him into a scorching kiss. For a minute, Ron responded. For a minute, it was like they weren't having this discussion. For a minute, Draco found himself hoping that they could return to how things were.
The moment passed.
Ron pushed him away. "Please go," he said brokenly, and Draco didn't know what to do. Ron had asked him to leave before, always in the middle of a fight, but before he had always said it with anger and the knowledge that Draco would be back in a few days, everything forgotten and left behind.
Everything had finally caught up with them.
For the last time, Draco looked at Ron as his lover, as his friend, as the one person in the world he knew he could count on. He was leaning against a wall, looking like he was trying so hard not to break down while Draco was still here.
Draco closed his eyes, and left.