Dean couldn't keep his eyes opened. It was midnight. He flicked off the telly and headed for the bedroom at the back of the apartment. He was changing into his pyjamas for the night when he heard the door unlock, open, and close again. He tugged on his pyjama bottoms and poked his head out the bedroom and looked down the hall to see Seamus standing just inside the darkened apartment, taking his shoes off carefully. Dean had left his wand on his night stand, so he instead took a step into the hall and flicked on the lightswitch manually. Seamus' head popped up in surprise and looked up to see Dean standing at the end of the hall with his arms folded across the chest.

"Did I wake you?" Seamus asked nervously.

"No." Dean said simply, shaking his head with a sigh and turning back around to their bedroom and going straight to bed. He didn't have the energy to get into it with Seamus right now. He flopped down into bed, pulling the sheets up to his chin. It was only another moment or two before Seamus entered the room as well. Dean pretended to be asleep. Seamus shuffled about the room, probably changing into his own night clothes, before crawling into bed. Much to Dean's surprise, he felt Seamus move close to him and felt an arm wrap around his waist. Not very long ago this would have given Dean a feeling of excitement or delight. Right now, it only made him mad. He pulled away, out of Seamus' reach, "Oh now you want to be friendly?" He said stiffly.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Seamus asked angrily, his voice raising.

"You know perfectly well what it means." Dean insisted, still not turning to face him.

"I honestly don't. What's the matter with you?"

That did it. Dean sat up quickly and turned to face Seamus, and he knew that such quick motions were liable to give him a crick in the neck later. "What's the matter with me? What's the matter with you? For the past few months you've barely been home, and when you are you don't so much as look at me let alone touch me. And now you come in and try to cuddle up to me, as if I'll be less mad at your for being home late again just because you deign to give me a sign of affection." His face was hot with anger and his muscles had reflexively tightened.

"Oh forgive me! I should have known better than to work late trying to save your arse from the kind of things I legally can't even tell you about. My bad. I'll just let the bad guys come and get you then. Apologies for doing my bloody job, and may I beg for your forgiveness that it's made it hard for me!" Seamus shouted angrily. "How dare you, Dean? I go out there every damn day trying to protect your sorry arse from the lunatics out there who still want to kill people like us!"

"How am I supposed to know that, Shay? I'm not a goddamn legilimens. You could bother to tell me this shit once in awhile." Dean said irritably. Deep in his mind, where his sane less furious self resides, he was concerned about this. But right now, all he could think of was how hurt he was.

"Oh and cry to you and have you try to fix everything? I don't think so. Ye can't fix my job, Dean. I don't expect ye to read me mind. I expect ye to let me deal with my own shit."

"So I'm not supposed to say anything when your problem is destroying our relationship?"

"Destroying our relationship? How is it destroying it?" Seamus was shocked that Dean genuinely thought their relationship was in peril.

"Apparently you're stress at work means that you never talk to me at all anymore. And now that we don't talk, we don't have sex either. So what would you call that? Two people who live together, don't have sex, and don't talk. I would call that roommates, not boyfriends." Dean said. It was painful, but it was his truth. His voice was no longer accusatory, without his noticing it had dipped into a tone of sorrow.

Seamus didn't have anything to say at first. He just stared back at Dean.

"Are you going to say anything?" Dean murmured.

"I don't know what to say. You seem pretty convinced that I've ruined our relationship. So I guess I'm just waiting for you to kick me out."

Dean's pain increased ten fold. "No. No. I'm not trying to blame you and I don't want to kick you out. You know, despite all the pain I've been in lately I still love you. Why do you think it hurts so bad when you don't talk to me? It's because I love you and I want to share with you and vice versa. I don't want you to leave. I don't want to break up. I just want things to change."

"I can't change my job."

"I'm not asking you to." Dean said. "I'm asking that if you can't talk to me, you should find someone to talk to at least. Maybe Harry and Ron? They do a lot of the same things you do, right?" Seamus nodded. "Then maybe start by venting about work with them before you come home, and making an effort to talk to me again even if it's not about work."

Seamus was silent again.

"And I'll try not to be a pain when you don't want to talk. I'll try better to understand. I would do anything for you, Shay. You know that."

Seamus nodded. Dean was tempted to ask again why he wouldn't talk, but he thought better of it given what he had just promised to do. He sat on the end of the bed and waited. Seamus sat beside him with a soft sigh. "I suppose you must have a point. About our not spending as much time together. When I thought about it I realized just how much I miss you. How much I miss us. How long has it been since we…?"

"I'm not sure. Maybe not since Valentine's day." Dean guessed. They usually made a point of intimacy on that particular day, but his memory was foggy and he couldn't even be sure if they had that year.

"Blimey — nearly a year?"

"Yeah." Dean wished he could laugh at how long it had been, but it hurt him more than it humored him. He had not felt close to Seamus in so long that the thought of intimacy made him nervous, like it had when they were first together.

"Do you want to try?" Seamus suggested, his cheeks turning a pale shade of pink.

Dean glanced over at him and tensed up. He couldn't imagine what it would be like anymore. It was going to be entirely different. He wasn't sure he was ready for that. "Maybe not tonight. W-would it be okay if we take it slow? It sounds silly. We've been together for four years but I feel like this is like starting all over again."

"I understand what you mean." Seamus assured him, "We can take it slow. I'd rather take it slow than let it end."

"Of course."

"Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Would it be alright if we kissed? I can't remember the last time…"

Dean didn't answer him. Instead, he pulled Seamus close and kissed him. It was messy and uncoordinated at first, but they soon remembered their own rhythms. Seamus shifted slightly and lost his balance, accidentally falling into Dean. They laughed as they landed on the bed. It had been so long since they had been this happy together. They had plenty to work through, but in time they would be able to work through the problems. For now, the thing that mattered the most was learning to love each other again.