Author's Note: Contains spoilers for HBP!
Fancy
Dean Thomas fancies himself an artist. The type of man who can capture an emotion with the flick of a pen, or the shade of a jaw, the arch of a line. He fancies himself able to change the world with his art, able to change minds and hearts.
Seamus Finnigan, on the other hand, fancies Dean should wake up and face reality. He wishes Dean wouldn't substitute his art for feelings and pretend that just because his painting his sad, he's sad, and that'll make up for lost time and he'll still be able to keep everything inside. He wishes he could make Dean realise that You-Know-Who isn't going to stop killing because Dean presented him with a drawing of daisies. But then, Seamus wishes for a lot of things.
Seamus Finnigan has never fancied himself as gay--just in love with Dean Thomas. Sure, he's looked at other blokes in the showers, but who hasn't? And those don't count, only Dean does. The way he bites his lip when he's nervous, the way he laughs with a quiet, sincere chuckle, the way he unbuttons the top three buttons of his shirt when the Common Room gets too warm. Seamus think it's the little things like that that make you love someone.
Dean Thomas, however, fancies himself in love with Ginny Weasley. She's everything he isn't--where he's secretive and quiet, she's open and loud. Drawing her is like drawing life itself, he thinks. He's drawn to her like a moth to flame, as cheesy as it sounds, drawn to the way she laughs with her whole body or the way she unbuttons the top three buttons of her shirt when the Common Room gets too warm. It's the little things like that, Dean thinks, that make you love someone.
Dean Thomas fancies himself unable to be surprised. But when Ginny Weasley plops down across from him in the library, stating very matter-of-factly that she likes him and that they should go out, he can't help but be surprised. Honestly, is it every day that one's muse, one's infatuation, one's reason for art, asks them out? He draws her immediately, capturing the way her hair sparkles in the firelight and the way her personality seems to leap out of her skin, even when she's sitting still. Smiling, he wonders if Seamus put in a good word for him.
Seamus Finnigan also fancies himself unable to be surprised, which is why he's so good at pretending he isn't crushed when Dean tells him about his new girlfriend. He wants to be there for his friend, wants to be his usual, flirtatious, fun self, wants to tell Dean very loudly that he'll be sure to flirt with Ginny as much as possible--but this time, it's different. It was all fine when he was dating Lavendar, because it was Seamus doing the dating. Dean was still the way Seamus preferred him--single. But now? Oh, are things different, and Seamus can't bring himself to be happy for Dean, no matter how hard he tries.
Dean Thomas fancies himself untouched by the war. Yes, people have died. But he's not known any of them, and even though he's a Half-blood, that doesn't matter because there's still the fact that no one he's known has died. But when a large black owl drops off a letter for Seamus that morning, he knows that is about to change.
Seamus Finnigan fancies that he knew this was coming, but all the same, it doesn't stop the tears as he sits on his bed with the curtains pulled tight around him, reading and rereading the letter until the parchment's been pulled flat and the ink has stained his fingers. But when Dean comes in, sketch pad in hand (he's always carrying the bloody thing, and this is one time where Seamus would have preferred to see Dean without it, without his excuse for barricading his emotions, thought Seamus thinks it might be easier if he, too, could draw his feelings rather than actually feel them) and tries to comfort him, everything comes to the surface. Seamus wants to yell, or hit, or do something to make Dean realise that he doesn't want to be drawn like Ginny Weasley, his fucking "muse, reason for art," but that he just wants Dean as more than a friend--but he doesn't do any of this as Dean wraps his arms around Seamus, and as Seamus cries for those that are lost.
Seamus Finnigan fancies himself good at forgetting. For instance, when Dean complains about his Mum's letter, he forgets that his own is gone and gives Dean the best advice he can give, because that's what best mates are for. In the same way, when he's with Terry Boot in the rarely-used broom closet on the fifth floor, he forgets that he is in love with Dean, if only because they're so different. Terry is practical, logical and straightlaced--their snog sessions are always perfectly calculated for maximum pleasure (in the back of his head, Seamus knows that were he doing this would Dean, it would be interesting--it would involve paint, and tongues, and fingers, and eyes, not carefully placed hands and precise angles that heads are tilted at). But what Seamus always manages to remember is that Terry isn't Dean, and that he never will be.
Dean Thomas, too, fancies himself good at forgetting, but only when he's with Ginny. She has the ability to make him forget about anyone but her (even Seamus, with his charming smile and sandy blond hair that could make even the straightest of boys feel a little something, though Dean would never admit it), the way she laughs, the way she fights. He even forgets to be angry with when Ron and Harry catch them snogging, but only because he finally notices the way Harry looks at Ginny and it makes him laugh with triumph on the inside, makes him sing over and over again, "I got her!" But Dean remembers to forget the most important thing of all, and that is the fact that nothing lasts forever.
Terry Boot may not be a social climber, but he reads enough for his entire year and that should mean that he knows some things. And he's not going to spout off any of that, "I've seen the way you look at him," business either, because even a blind man could see that Seamus Finnigan doesn't care about Terry and his endless calculations, only for Dean and his artistic soul. Terry supposes he should care more about this, but he doesn't--he's analysed his relationship with Seamus from every possible angle, thinking of every possible scenario, analysed it so many times that even the realisation that the boy he might actually like (not love, for Terry's analysed that concept as well, and has decided it useless and nonexistent) is in love with someone else causes him no great trauma.
Dean Thomas fancies himself thinking quite clearly when he grabs Seamus by the wrist and drags him upstairs, pushes him against the wall, and presses his lips to his. Later he will say he wasn't thinking straight (in more ways than one) and that it was all a big mistake, but right now he's thinking the clearest he's ever thought in his life, and his brain is resounding with only one thought--Ginny.
Seamus Finnigan fancies that snogging (and more) with Dean is messy--physically and emotionally. He also fancies that he knew Dean would kiss with his eyes open, knew Dean would want to experience everything as visually as possible, which explains the almost laughable sight of his eyes fluttering to keep themselves open as he watches Seamus work his hands in ways so artistic they could rival Dean's. It's not the Seamus doesn't want this, because Merlin, he does, but it's all wrong. He shouldn't be crying, he should be thrilled, escatic, moaning in ecstasy--and Dean shouldn't be silent, he should be vocal, and Seamus is angry that the one thing that's supposed to make a person come undone doesn't phase Dean at all, and it's as if he's reigned his emotions in even tighter than before. When they're finished, Dean rolls over and lays there, his breath loud against the pillow.
Twelve seconds later, he tells Seamus that he wasn't thinking straight, and that it was all a big mistake, leaving Seamus to put the pieces of his heart back together alone. As sappy as that sounds.
Seamus Finnigan fancies himself surprised at how easily (and pathetically) he crawls back to Terry and becomes his "usual" self again. People think he's happy, the girls blush and giggle when he flirts with them, the boys roll their eyes and say things like, "Good ol' Seamus," but he knows that he isn't happy. The fact is that Terry doesn't kiss with the passion that Dean does when he thought Seamus was too busy crying to notice (ha! He's found it, the one thing Dean puts his emotion into that isn't a sketchpad), and Terry's hands aren't calloused and paint-splattered from works of art. But Seamus has a feeling that Terry knows all of this, which hurts even more.
Dean Thomas fancies himself embarassed at what happened with Seamus, not because hates Seamus, but because he thinks he might actually feel something in a more-than-friendly way for him, and because Seamus, so full of life and love, didn't deserve to be with someone so emotionally locked as he, which is why he spends his time trying to forget. Seamus hasn't spoken to him in days, which everyone thinks is because of Quidditch and Ginny, which is funny because it is, but in an entirely different way. He knows Seamus is with the Ravenclaw boy, which makes him inexplicably jealous, and angry, which in turn makes him angrier because he swears he's still in love with Ginny. So he tortures himself by drawing them together--Harry and Ginny, Seamus and Terry--the two people he wants to most wanting other people.
Dean Thomas has always fancied himself a strong man. In fact, he's not cried since age twelve, when his mum tilted his world and told him that the man he thought was his father wasn't really his father at all, but some replacement for a wizard who'd up and left them twelve years prior. He cried that night, cried for the confusion of not knowing, cried with the hatred for the people who'd taken his father away from him, cried with the anger at his mother for lying. He'd never felt so distant, so weak, and from that day he vowed never to cry again. Dean thinks his ability to hide his emotions funny--he always told himself he could've been a Slytherin if he wanted to. But that was the point, wasn't it? That he didn't want to, and he'd never want to.
Seamus Finnigan fancies it natural for him to be scared at Dumbledore's funeral. His hand is clutching Dean's knee, and even though he knows Dean won't love him, and that, no matter how hard he tries, Terry can't love him, Seamus needs something to hang on to that's real and solid. He's scared for the war, scared for the inevitable deaths, scared for going back home and facing his dad (who's cursed Wizardkind and will probably never want to see him again). But most of all, he's scared that he'll die without ever having truly loved someone and had them love him in return.
Seamus Finnigan fancies himself unable to help it when he kisses Dean in the Common Room before the start of the summer holidays, which shouldn't even be considered a holiday since McGonagall's decided to keep the school open year-round as a sort of refuge for all of the orphaned students. Though they aren't orphans, neither of them are going home--Seamus because his dad won't allow it, and Dean because his parents can't understand what's going on. Seamus doesn't care that Dean loves Ginny, because he knows that Dean will eventually come to realise that if you can't be with the one you love, you should love the one you're with, right?
Dean Thomas fancies that he never was in love with Ginny. Just infatuated, obsessed, overtaken by her presence and her being, as any artist is wont to do with his muse. And oh, was Ginny a muse, with her fiery red locks and her vibrant aura. But Dean was just replacing Seamus with Ginny, because long ago his brain had decided that Seamus was too good for him, so it was best to just move on to someone who loved another and was using him to replace someone, too. It was always Seamus, though, always the short, loud Irish boy and the way he loved with all his heart yet still found time to flirt, or the way he buttoned up the top three buttons of his shirt when the Common Room got too cold. Dean wants something real--not an obsession, not a muse--and even if he loses Seamus to the war he'll know that it was real--but Dean doesn't fancy thinking about that right now.
Fin.
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