They decided that the children would stay at the Burrow, which was good, since Seamus didn't know where he should sleep that night. Dean would have been his first choice, but he was living in his one-room workshop with a newborn baby and Seamus knew there was only one couch there. Though Dean would give him the couch without a fail, it didn't seem like he should be there right now. He didn't want to ask Neville, because he just got married, and Luna was on an expedition with her boyfriend somewhere in Borneo. He couldn't stay with Harry, because that guy was going nuts and his wife was feckin' terrifying when Ron wasn't around. He was all focused and gloomy and lashed out on anyone who even thinks of making a joke and his wife was pregnant and missing her favourite brother, had obviously strong morning sickness and hexed people if they breath to loud ...including her sons. Ginny Weasley had always been very stunning and even more terrifying than Harry Potter staring at you like he's mental, because there was no Ron around to smooth the edges.
Running out of options that didn't feel like he was intruding or end up in life-threatening situations, he apparated to the home of his parents. His mother was happy enough to have him back and dished out some dinner and reproaches, like every Ma would. His Da and him never got along well...he was never manly enough for him. Da wants his son be like this tall bloke down the street, that would work as a mechanic and go drink at the bar and had another bird every second night. But what he got was a tiny,freckled wizard that fakes gas explosion to hide magical incidents...well and somewhere around 3 in the morning, when Da asked him why he was living with a bloke and two little kids instead of a bird, he had enough.
Enough catastrophes, enough of feeling guilty and enough cheap whiskey to be tipsy enough to do something dumb. Plus it seemed fair...like something to lighten his guilt that he involuntarily outed Ron.

Long story short, he told his Da that he didn't want to be with a bird 'cause he was into blokes, they had a row loud enough to wake his Mum up, who had a crying fit, after her husband told her that he she shouldn't expect any grandchildren, which lead Seamus, bruised and holding a piece of clothing against his bleeding nose in front of the door of Deans workshop.
Deans eyes are soft and he smiled like finding his battered best mate at his door was best thing he could wish for at three in the morning. He pulled his friend inside and before they even exchanged greetings, Seamus was sitting on a paint-spotted couch with a mug of tea in his hands and Dean with a first-aid kit in his lap beside him.
While Dean put Weasley's Bruise Remover on the colourful haematoma around his eye and nose, a yellow ointment that looked a lot like earwax, Seamus let his gaze wander around the studio. There are canvases and half finished pictures littered over the whole room. Paint brushes in all shapes and sizes were stored in empty gherkin glasses, sponges and ripped pieces of cloth are thrown everywhere in the room and Seamus is again reminded of the fact that Dean is able turn surroundings in a status of homely chaos within the shortest amount of time.
In one corner, close to the window, there was a portable crib with a self-made paper mobile with tiny unicorns and dragons, that hum Muggle lullaby. It's like Dean to make his child something like that. The way he gave so much of himself instead of buying things was one reason Seamus loves him so much. Seamus couldn't help but smile, even though he still felt kind of awful. He loved his parents and he hated to disappoint them.

"What happened? Did Ron do that?" asked Dean fitting the volume of his voice to the proximity and Seamus tries not to lean in when he feels his breath prickle on his skin.
They sit so close together and the way Dean's long finger gently rub in the ointment feels like coming home after such a long day of explosions and fighting and crying children and hippogriff rides of emotions.
"He didn't. 'T was me Mum." and in the impulse to rip off the band-aid in one go, he added "I told me parents that I'm gay. Yeh know we're pretty Catholic an' I am the only son, with me not becoming a father the line of me Mum's family will die ...She wasn't very happy about it."
Dean's lips pucker in a sigh. He takes unusually long to spread a bit of salve in Seamus's face."Well...As a good friend of me once said...If they can't love you any more, just 'cause you've got a few more talents than blowing things up for the greater good, they're not worth it!"
He really wanted to kiss Dean right then. "Yeh're no' surprised." he muttered instead, trying to ignore that Dean had still his hands on his face and he was pretty sure there's no ointment left there to be rubbed in." 'f course not. I saw you snogging Ron in my wedding night." Dean grumbled and shuddered slightly, like he's trying to shake off a bad memory.

Seamus' cheeks burned in shame. He mumbled an automatic "Sorry." and tried to bring some distance between them, but Dean grip it face and and kept him from breaking the eye contact.
"You're still my best friend, Shay. I felt betrayed back then, because you didn't tell me, but it's not like I had a right to know that. I was jealous, 'cause you told Ron and not me and..." Dean's eyes are a bit too watery, he turned his head away from Seamus and finally let go of his face."I was angry at myself, that I obviously didn't make it clear enough that I don't care that...I don't mind if you like blokes, okay?"
Seamus took the first-aid kit from Dean's lap, put it on the paint-splattered coffee table and affectionately nudges against his shoulder. That Dean was still his friend even though he knew about it, felt like the first bite of chocolate after meeting a whole train full of dementors. He wasn't alone. Dean was still with him.
"It's not, that I didn't trust yeh, Dean. I was just scared, that you wouldn't want to be me friend any more, when yeh find out, what a freak I am."

"Me too." muttered Dean, so quiet that Seamus for a moment thought he'd imagined it.
"uh..." he croaked.
"What?"

"Well...you know... I've always been...different. I mean I'm the only black person in my all-white family, which made a lot of people make fun of me and my Mum...generally me being black..." Dean rolled his exasperated.
"Yeah...I know that skin colour is not important in Hogwarts, but in my Muggle school it was a bloody big deal. In the whole school there were only two other kids that were black...and I got asked if we were related all the time. "

Dean looked down on his hands. There are yellow and green blotches of oil paint on the dark skin and some blue colour, perhaps ink, under his fingernails. It looks oddly artful for paint-stained hands and Seamus didn't get how anyone could get the idea that Dean's looks were something to make fun of.
Dean ws tall and blessed with a body that was naturally graceful. Like a dancer, slim but muscular, with legs like a model, hands like magic and skin just perfect to be kissed. There was nothing gangly about him, all gentle lines and brave angles. Any person who'd find something less than perfect in the way Dean looks, was either drunk, blind or both.
"They must have been mental, if they found anything wrong in the way yeh look." Seamus grumbled fiercely and tried to hide his flushed cheeks behind his tea mug.
Dean smiled softly and Seamus thought they should have started having heart-to-heart talks before, when it makes Dean smile like that.
"Stop the sweet talk, mate. You don't need to charm me." His friend rumbled gruffly, but it was worth the slightly red tinge on Dean's ears and the way his eyelashes hide his dark eyes shyly. It was a bit embarrassing, and Seamus was sure that he blushing as well. Perhaps he can blame it on the whiskey he had early on the evening. Looking back it was a wonder he didn't splinch himself.

"You know me. I'm quiet and I like drawing and painting." continues Dean ans Seamus wills his concentration back on the conversation.
"Drawing, being a bit shy... that were things that were considered "girly" and that was bad according to the kids in my school. "Even in my football team, with all the kids that shared my hobby, I still just was the odd, black kid. And then there were my magical incidents, that neither I nor my mother nor anyone else understood...We were terrified. I can understand why Jolene lost it when the baby summoned a fuckin' unicorn in his nursery. I mean he's not even able to lift his own head, but he can summon a living unicorn!Even for a wizard child this is not what I signed up for!"
Dean was laughing, but it didn't sound not happy. More tired and a little bit scared.
Caring for a baby is scary enough when you never had to before. Caring for a wizard baby is that, plus unicorns and random outbursts of wild magic. Ron's children were actually pretty harmless for magical children. Like a lot of children the did the "blinking", where they basically apparate for a short distance. beside that they were relatively easy for wizard children. A lot of children show already tendency for a certain magical talents...Seamus knows of himself accidentally burning his nursery down, when he was a toddler and Wee little Colin perhaps would have a special talent for summoning charms one day in the far future.
Seamus never seriously had thought how it was for a Muggle parent that didn't know what to expect, when their child showed as a witch or wizard. It would explain though, why so many muggleborn children were so apologetic when it came to using magic in Hogwarts. They were probably used to hiding it and being scared. Perhaps their families even shunned them for making things happen, that they didn't understand.

Colin started to cry and Dean came to his feet. Seamus watched him prepare a bottle with one hand while balancing the week-old baby with the other. He waited until Dean settled down on the couch again and ready to feed his child and regather the threads of his unfinished story.
"Hogwarts was like a dream. I was in a room with children that were as weird as I am. If everyone is weird, then no one is. My skin colour didn't even matter and my talents were something I got praised for and since I had you with me, people often didn't even notice that I was quiet. I was so happy to learn that everything that people thought was weird about me, was perfectly normal for a wizard child."
He made a pause to hum a little melody for the baby, to calm little Colin down enough to drink. "Trick of my Stepdad. He says babies like calm male voices, since they mean protection and safety. My sisters always wanted to be fed by him." he explained with a smile.
Seamus leaned a bit closer with the excuse to look at the baby. Babies smelled so good and mixed with Dean's own smell, soap and faint oil colours, itwas like a drug. He was probably grinning like an idiot.

"You and the boys in the dorm were my first friends, I was scared that things would get awkward or you wouldn't want to sleep and change in the same room with me any more, when I'd tell you that I also like blokes...especially since I definitively were checking the other boys out and thought about if I liked the way they looked or not. I mean... I was a horny teenager and I always liked watching people and drawing them..." Dean got quieter at the end of his rambling.
"Yeh like blokes."
"Well..." Dean still made an effort to look not at Seamus while talking and it was starting to bother him. This was a pretty big deal after all.
"I like both. Blokes and girls. I..." Dean graced him with a careful side glance. " I really love Jolene. She's sweet and funny and has a good heart...but I guess I already lost her when I couldn't tell her that I'm a wizard." Seamus felt himself nod numbly. Well...it wasn't that them both liking blokes would change anything about who they are... Dean still loved his wife and Seamus was still hopelessly, secretly, madly in love with Dean.
"Perhaps she just needs time. You could wait a few days and then try to talk to her calmly." he heard himself say quietly and then added forcefully chipper "So you rated the blokes in the dorm? Who's your number one when it comes to looks?"
Dean laughed. Little Colin had finished drinking. His father put him over his shoulder to make him burp and the baby leaft stains of milk on Dean's black t-shirt.
"Neville probably. He's got a nice, very classical face, now that he's all grown up. Great smile. Harry is pretty small, but he's great for drawing studies. He's so thin you can see all muscles and he's got interesting eyes. Ron has nice hands, they're bigger than mine even though I'm taller than him. His fingers are also really long and slim. Like pianist hands. It's so sad that he's missing fingernails since the war... Plus he has freckles. I like freckles." Dean finally looked at him and grinned sheepishly. "I don't think I have favourite."
For a moment Seamus wanted to ask, why Dean didn't mention him, but he couldn't bring himself. Best mates are special...Ron once said, that thinking of Harry in that way had been difficult to accept because they were so close that it almost felt like incest...perhaps Dean thought similar and that's why he put him out of the consideration from the very beginning.
They grow quiet and after a while Dean puts the baby bed in the portable crib and tiptoes back to the couch. The clock above the fridge says it's close to five in the morning. They fall asleep, sitting on the couch, both too exhausted to complain about their stiff neck muscles.
The last thought in Seamus thought before drifting off, was Dean likes freckles!
"I've got a lo' of freckles." he mumbles to himself, his head dangling over the armrest of the couch.