Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter. What I do own is an impressive CD collection, seven shelves of books, and a very large and very profficent firearm. Big difference, I know.

A/N: Am I a horrible person for not updating in over a month? Maybe, but I can live with that.

Chapter 02 - Angst Of A Teenage Irishman

"Seamus...Seamus...oh fuck mmm right there!"

I could feel him writhing, his dark skin glistening with sweat and his fingers digging into my back as I stared at the perfect face underneath me.

"Ohgodohgodohfuck you're so good-"

I felt dizzy with pleasure, the sight of his ecstasy, the smell of sex, and the feel of being inside of him was almost too much for me to take.

"Mmm faster!"

I obligingly picked up the pace, my breath coming out in short gasps, listening to his pleasured moans.

"Seamus I'm so close, pleasepleaseplease-"

I felt his hand dip between us as he wrapped a hand around his erection. I leaned down, my teeth making contact with his skin as I bit back a moan of my own.

He came suddenly with a feminine scream, the sound echoing my ears loudly, I could feel him clenching around me, feel myself slip over the edge, feel-

I woke up with a start, my eyes popping open and my torso lifting off the bed. A scream cut off abruptly from upstairs, and I groaned unhappily, letting my body fall back onto the mattress.

Someone had had another nightmare, it sounded like. Someone else, that seemed to be having as horrible a night as I was.

My cheeks heated up in embarrassment as I realized I'd had another one of those damn dreams. I shot a quick glance at Dean to make sure he wasn't awake. His face was turned to me, and I'd seen my best mate asleep enough times to know that he wasn't faking it. Thank merlin.

I raised my hand long enough to let it smack down on my face in defeat. "Shit," I swore quietly, grimacing.

Out of all of the guys to have embarrassing homosexual wet dreams about, Dean was no one's first choice, least of all mine. However my sub-conscience seemed to disagree. Sure, Dean was quite good-looking, but he was also the biggest homophobe I'd ever met in my entire life.

If he found out I was dream-wanking over him, I'd be dead. He would literally kill me. Even if we were best mates.

And the worst part was that this wasn't even the first one. Oh no, they'd been going on for months. Which was not only incredibly sexually frustrating, but embarrassing as well. I hadn't even had queer thoughts until these damn things started. I was supposed to be straight!

Wait a second. Was it normal for straight guys to have wet dreams about their mates? Someone had to know who wouldn't either laugh at me, curse me, or tell everyone. Right?

That's it, first thing in the morning I was owling Harry. He would know. Then again, from what I could tell all of his dreams were messed up, so maybe he wasn't the best person to go to. Neville was out too, since he was so obviously gay. Of course he would have wet dreams about other boys. I could always ask Justin, I supposed. He was straight as far as I knew, and he was a Hufflepuff to boot, so he'd probably even be nice and not ask for details.

Except Justin was such a little bitch. He'd probably never had a wet dream in his life.

And I couldn't ask one of the Zambini or Nott, because they were too unpredictable, and Zambini was a queer too.

I thought hard about my options.

Obviously Dean was out. Ernie was out too, because he was much too pompous to have a conversation with.

Michael might not be a bad idea. He'd dated Ginny, so he was obviously straight. And he was a Ravenclaw, so he'd probably look at it from an academic stand-point. He might ask questions, but I could deal with that. He wouldn't laugh at me (probably), and he probably wouldn't curse me either. And I could trust him with a secret. Or at least I hoped I could.

Yes, Michael would have to be my best bet. There was nothing else for it. I couldn't keep waking up in the middle of the night after having those bloody nightmares.

Feeling a little better after making a decision, I managed to fall back into a dreamless sleep.

"Get up, you git." Cue pillow to the head.

I groaned, opening my eyes to see a blurry Dean standing above me with my pillow in his.

"Wha'?" I asked sleepily, blinking blearily up at him.

"It's time for breakfast," he reminded me, sounding almost amused. Looking amused too.

"Five minu's," I mumbled, turning over and closing my eyes once more. I was already half-passed out when I felt the pillow hit me again, this time in the back of the head.

"Hurry up, Seamus, or we'll be late," he quite possibly whined, making me turn slightly to give him a couple of skeptic raised eyebrows. "And take a shower, you smell like cat piss," Dean added. For good measure, I assumed.

"Yer mam smells like cat piss," I muttered defiantly, even as I sat up. Sitting up meant a lot of groaning and cracks as my back popped. "Can't we just skip it?" I asked him, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes with one hand and pulling back the covers with the other.

"The shower or the food?" He asked, moving back to his side of the room.

"Both," I answered before giving a loud yawn. "'S too early," I added, my voice muffled by the blankets and the wall as I curled away from him.

And then my wonderfully warm covers were ripped away from my body and I was being dragged out of bed by my hair. "Get...up..." Dean grunted as I squealed (girlishly, I'll admit it) and struggled to get out of his quite painful grasp.

"Bugger off, ye fuckin' wanker!" I yelled, attempting to pry his hands off of my precious though admittedly short-cropped hair. When it became obvious that I was lost, I gave up. "I'm awake!" I snapped just as my bum met the cold stone floor. "Ye bastard," I added when Dean let me go.

Dean, of course, didn't answer, as he was looking at his watch again. The watch I'd given him for his birthday, I'd like to point out. After a moment he sighed forlornly. "There's no time for a shower for you, Cat-Piss, so just get dressed and lets go."

I gave him a glare but stood up. The mornings were the worst for me. It was after I'd actually woken up that I would think about whatever damned dream I'd had about my best friend, and of course Dean would be there, half-bloody-naked, and I would hear him moaning my name and everything would just go to hell.

I shivered a bit as the cycle began anew. He was staring at me expectantly, his lips slightly parted, his cheeks still a bit flushed from exertion, and I all I could think about was Dream-Dean looking quite similar last night.

"Are you waiting for permission?" Dean asked snidely and the moment shattered. I shook my head a bit, clearing my thoughts, before turning around.

"Just wonderin' if yer plannin' on watchin' me dress," I snapped back, knowing the effect it would have on him and feeling relieved at his disgusted scoff.

"You wish, you bloody fag," He snorted, and a moment later the door was closing behind him and I was alone.

I groaned piteously, putting my head in my hands and slumped. I was fucking buggered if that shit kept happening. Dean was many things, but blind wasn't one of them and he'd figure it out eventually and I would lose my best friend and the world would go to shit.

It took me a bit to collect myself - 'specially since all I really wanted to do was curl up into a ball and cry like a little girl - but I eventually managed to get on my school uniform and get out the door to the common room.

Dean was waiting for me as usual, bum planted on the couch as he gave me an exasperated look. "What were you doing up there?" He asked, standing up to join me. "Fixing your hair?"

"Bugger off," I muttered half-heartedly, keeping the portrait hole open for him before leading us down to the great hall. We made the trek in mostly-silence, keeping the good-natured annoyance that we always had in the mornings.

Sitting down at the table reserved for all the eighth years, the first thing I noticed (other than the fact that Dean was sitting next to me, but I always noticed that) was Neville's hair. It was a startling shade of pink, and it took me a moment to really register the fact.

"Er...Neville," I began, cocking my head to the side to give the color a better look. Neville's face had immediately turned a brighter shade then his hair as soon as he caught me staring. "Did ye know yer hair is pink?"

"It was me," Emily spoke up from her spot between our new pink-haired friend and Blaise Zambini. "And that's what the twat gets for waking me up with water."

"But, Emily-" Neville begins, almost whining, only to be cut off by a curious look from Dean.

"Water?" He asked Neville with interest. "Cold water or hot water? Does it really work?"

"It really works," Emily promised him, glaring at Neville in thinly-veiled annoyance. "But it's a bad idea. Isn't it, Neville."

Emily, I was beginning to think, was spending too much time with Slytherins, if the smirk on Blaise's face was anything to go by.

"Oh yes," Neville agreed quickly when he caught her expression. "Worst idea I've ever thought of."

Realizing a bit too late why Dean was asking in the first place, I jabbed my best friend in the side. "Don' even think abou' it, ye blasted twat," I told him with a glower.

Blaise's smirk had turned to us at my words, and with a sinking feeling I wondered if maybe he'd caught on to my wayward dreams. If maybe, just maybe, he knew the horrible images my mind created when I was asleep.

Dean seemed to notice this as well, because he began glaring at the other boy. "What are you looking at, queer?"

Blaise raised an eyebrow, seemingly unoffended by Dean's slight, though Neville blushed furiously. Maybe Neville wouldn't be so bad to talk to after all. Better than Michael Corner, even.

I spent half of my classes trying not to - however unsuccessfully it went - think about my nightmares. And since it was going so unsuccessfully, I was doing crap in both Transfiguration and Potions. It was almost a good thing Dean was beside me through the two of them, since every time I would begin to drift he would notice and elbow me in the stomach to get me back in there.

"What's going on in your head?" Dean hissed halfway through potions when I accidentally added the lacewing flies ten minutes early.

"Nothing important," I muttered in response, keeping an eye on the unaware Professor Slughorn as he helped Parvarti and Padma with their sleeping drought.

Except it was important. Very important. As if it weren't bad enough that I was picturing the dream I'd had a few days ago - Dean had pushed me up against the wall in an abandoned classroom and snogged me senseless before I'd been most unceremoniously woken by said offender - I also couldn't help the torrent of questions that infiltrated by brain.

Why did it start happening in the first place?

I couldn't really want Dean like that, could I?

Was it a prank? Had someone actually pranked me? And, if so - Did I need to ask George Weasley how to get rid of it?

When thinking about the last questions, I would try to remember when it all began, though that was easy enough. About a week after the final battle. When I'd spent a bloody year worried to death about Dean, my muggle-born best friend, who was on the run from the Death Eaters. I still remembered seeing him for the first time after that. In the Room of Requirement as he stepped through the portrait hole from Aberforths. All of the feelings that had rushed through me as soon as our eyes met - relief, worry, hope - and the only stupid thing I could think of following that was to squeal like a bloody girl and hug him.

Embarrassing, when I look back on it.

But at the time, I'd spent the better part of a year constantly worrying about his safety, wondering where he was, if he was alright, if he'd run into Harry, Ron, and Hermione since they were on the run too. And in that moment, just seeing him alive...I could've kissed him.

Thank goodness I didn't, however, as he might've hexed me.

And, of course, that was before I had to relearn all of the things about my best friend. He'd changed so much, as had I, and it was like starting over again.

He hadn't had a problem with homosexuality until the war. He hadn't been angry too often either, before the war. Now just about anything could set him off, and since there was still a lot of things he wasn't telling me about that year we were separated, I rarely know what'll do it.

It's hard sometimes, and we fight more than we used to, but it's worth it. For Dean, it's always been worth it.

By the time classes were over for the day, however, I wasn't too sure about that. I'd been kicked, elbowed, smacked, punched, kneed, and set on fire all by my supposed best friend. Which, in hindsight, wasn't completely his fault seeing as he was only trying to keep me from drifting off into my own head, but still. I was about ready to kick/elbow/smack/punch/knee/inflame the hell out of him.

"Stop glaring at me," Dean sighed - not for the first time - as we sat in the common room that evening. "You shouldn't be glaring at all, even. You should be on your knees begging for forgiveness. Listening to you mutter under you bloody breath for six hours straight makes it hard to concentrate."

"Bugger off," was all I could think to say at that point. My dick was still sore from when the heel of Dean's foot and my poor member met. I winced at the memory. "I still can' believe ye kicked me bleedin' bollocks in."

"You're being over-dramatic," Dean replied, waving off my complaints with a flick of his hand. "I barely even kicked you."

"You practically made the poor bugger pass out," Megan Jones told Dean with a snigger as she passed by our grouped chairs.

"An' ye din't even apologize," I added quickly, glaring at him. Dean very pointedly rolled his eyes.

"I'm sorry," He said (sarcastically, I noted), "now stop being such a fucking girl."

Well Dream-Dean sure as hell wasn't getting any tonight, that was for sure.

A/N: Review, or I'll sick Jay and Silent Bob on you.