Blaise landed in Bologna on Saturday morning.
He was numb exiting the plane. He hadn't slept, hadn't ate, simply knocked back a couple glasses of champagne hoping the bubbles would cushion the overwhelming inadequacy. Blaise went through the familiar motions of getting into the car, watching the driver place his bags in the boot, and staring out the window for the half hour ride to his home in Stradello Medici – Caula. He stepped out of the car and took a deep breath.
Home.
The air was different in Modena. The wisteria were blooming, as were the tulips spread throughout the garden. Blaise knew his house looked ridiculous. The neighbouring homes were yellow, white, brown, and a pretty pale blue. Blaise's house was a pink salmon colour, with garage doors and shutters the colour of green tea. His mother loved this house, and Blaise didn't have the heart to change it. If Blaise was honest, the only time he ever loved his mother were the years they spent together here. The first four years of his life weren't horrible. His mother was absent, but not cruelly so. There was always someone to look after him. His earliest memories were helping his mother water these tulips. Sitting on the countertop while she made pasta. Riding his tricycle behind her bike to the city centre.
She found her first husband when Blaise was five, then stopped coming home altogether. His nonnina lived in the white house just northwest of them. He used to watch her mill about the garden from their upstairs window. The memories in this house, the good and the bad, were worth keeping.
Blaise went inside, walked up to his bedroom, and faceplanted onto the bed.
He was asleep in seconds.
.oOo.
The blanket was soft beneath him, he gripped it between his fingers, slowly coming to. Blaise rolled over, opened his eyes, and squinted against the afternoon light. The blanket had twisted beneath him as he slept, half-exposing the left side of the bed. Blaise flopped over then looked down at his watch to see it was just past two. He looked up at the white ceiling, the one bit of the house devoid of personality, listening to the maids and butlers putting away groceries on the floor below. They must be fixing everything the advance team had missed. He sat up and, rather groggily, went over the previous day in his mind.
The cake he took to the Hale house was his fourth attempt of the day. He couldn't get it right. Baking is emotional. Even if the instructions are followed to the crossed t and dotted i, baked goods can still come out wrong if the baker isn't feeling right. Even though it was the same cake Blaise had baked a hundred and fifty times, he couldn't manage to bake a proper one for Dean's family. He was so anxious about meeting them that the cake had to be perfect. If it wasn't, nothing else could be.
Dean came into the kitchen midway through the third cake while Blaise poked at the second with the tines of a fork.
"Something wrong?"
Blaise had frowned and shook his head.
"I don't know how to do this properly."
"It's a cake, Blaise. You've brought me Michelin-starred food in Tupperware, you can bake a cake for my family. They're going to be happy to meet you."
Blaise shook his head and insisted, "I can feel something is off."
"With the cake?"
"Between me and them."
If only Blaise had listened to himself and the instincts which had never failed him before. But it was what Dean wanted, and Blaise would give Dean anything he wanted. What was the point of having so much money if Dean couldn't have everything the world had to offer?
"Why do you think that?"
"They have only ever seen you with one man, someone you'd been with since you were essentially a child. The only things they know of me are what they see on the internet, and I do not believe it is the most flattering assessment."
Dean walked into the kitchen, placed his hands on Blaise's hips, and rested his chin on Blaise's shoulder. The comfort he felt in Dean's arms was what he needed to properly bake a cake. How could he be nervous when Dean was right there, promising everything would be okay?
"The internet can believe what it wishes to believe. Nobody out there gets to stand in this kitchen and watch you cook. Nobody gets to see you be a father to the palest, kindest little five-year-old in the world."
Blaise hummed softly as the air around them seemed to get warmer. His insides melted as Dean's hands slowly made their way toward Blaise's front. Blaise said,
"Everywhere I go with you, I'm so happy, so proud to have you with me. I always want to take you out and show you off. This is my partner, Dean Thomas. This is my future husband, Dean Thomas. This is the love of my life, bestselling author, my soulmate, Dean Thomas."
"I'll only go places if you introduce me as 'Love of my life, future husband, my soulmate Dean Thomas,'" he teased.
Blaise laughed and hummed softly, still a bit lost in the softness of the moment. He shook his head, realizing he'd never felt this way before. Love, sex, dating … none of it had ever been as easy and immediate as it had been with Dean.
"Perhaps I should have it printed on a nameplate for your classroom. 'Blaise Zabini's Soulmate.'"
"Next year my students will refer to me as Mr. Zabini," Dean grinned, "a bit odd to think about."
"I am still trying to figure out how to propose."
"Mhmm," Dean teased, "I'm sure you will figure it out. Then the people on Instagram will say how your fiancé isn't beautiful enough."
"The people on Instagram are afraid my love for you means less content for them. Which is not true at all. They get better angles when you are holding the phone." Blaise offered, "Perhaps I should post one of you."
"What would it be?" asked Dean. He unbuttoned then unzipped the front of Blaise's trousers. "Can't be me coming out of the shower. Nothing risqué that could get me in trouble with the school."
"Perhaps—zuccherino!" Blaise drew out the endearment as Dean stuffed his hand down the front of Blaise's pants. His breath caught for a moment. Blaise closed his eyes and pressed his bum more firmly back into Dean. "You can't trick me into confidence by getting me off."
"Yes," Dean gave Blaise's bum a quick squeeze and said, "I can."
Then it all went wrong. It was exactly as Blaise had feared; Dean's family had a perception of him that was wrong in some ways and embarrassingly correct in others. Always the bronze, never the gold. Blaise tried to shake that thought from his head and made for the shower. He entered the bathroom to find the advance team had gotten something right. Shampoo, conditioner, and all the hair products were properly placed in the cabinet. He undressed and tossed the clothes onto the bathroom tile. Every bit of the previous day discarded.
Blaise turned the shower onto its coolest setting, grabbed the hair products and soap, then stepped in. The spray hit his back just between the shoulder blades, exactly what he needed. Numbness. It had been naïve to believe he could ever fit into a family, much less one so tightly-knit as Dean's.
You're a desperate, pathetic man—Blaise closed his eyes and turned so the spray hit him directly in the face—clinging to my brother to prove you're not unlovable. That wasn't going away for awhile. Her words settled in his mind, like sand at the bottom of an hourglass. More and more piled on, and even if they tipped the hourglass over, those words would be the last to leave.
He stepped out of the shower fifteen minutes later, feeling no better than when he stepped in. Blaise's feet squelched against the wood floor as he walked to the closet. Knit polo. Pants. Trousers. He toweled off his hair before getting dressed, then tossed the towel through the bathroom door and onto the tile, right atop the previous day's clothes.
The activity downstairs seemed to have ceased, so Blaise felt comfortable making his way to the kitchen. It was the same bright red, backsplash and countertop all glossy and gauche. The kitchen was small, with a table in lieu of counter space. His mother's pasta roller had long-since been replaced, but its space on the counter had never been filled. Blaise opened the fridge and allowed himself to get lost.
What was he cooking? He hardly knew. Blaise tried a bit of everything over the next eight hours. Pouring, mixing, baking, cooking, boiling … By ten o'clock that evening the ingredients were half-gone and the fridge stuffed with food that would impress anyone in town. Blaise remained void of answers. Those words rested at a fixed point in his mind. Throughout the day, Blaise had hoped cooking would remind him that he had value. He was more than a man with fancy packaging. This ache, however, was deeper than his vanity. This pain, this loss cut down to his soul. As Blaise shut the refrigerator for the final time that evening, he realized Ava's words couldn't be drowned out by him alone. He needed to hear his purpose, his value, from the only voice that mattered.
.oOo.
Blaise sat in the backmost pew, trying to blend in.
Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Modena. Arcidiocesi di Modena-Nonantola. Home. The wooden pews were old and uncomfortable, just as they had been when he was a child. Still the exact benches of the early nineties. The walls were the same three colours of brown. The Italian summer heat wafted inside, like a blanket against Blaise's back each time the doors opened. Off to the left was the elaborate series of stained glass windows in a downward triangle.
Blaise was baptized in this church. Not that he remembered his baptism, but this church felt more like home than any other because it was his first. He recognized familiar faces and received a few Buongiorno, angioletto!s from the older church members who remembered him as a boy. He nodded in thanks, but did not wish to interrupt their walk toward the frontmost pews. His neighbors did not stop to speak, as they were late, but managed to acknowledge him with a pat on the shoulder as they walked by.
He'd worn his best outfit for this. A plaid cashmere sportcoat from Cesare Attolini, flat-front tapered trousers, and a pair of loafers from a brand Blaise had forgotten. He'd long-since worn out the inner parts of the shoe, and had them resoled twice. No matter how much money Blaise had nor how many pairs of shoes were in the closet, he always managed to find a way to wear these loafers. They felt like home, in a way.
Returning to church wasn't as terrifying as it could have been. These people had known Blaise was gay since, most likely, 1991. To them, he'd been a little boy whose mother abandoned him. A little boy in need of community. Blaise needed people to keep him grounded, particularly as his mother's wealth and notoriety increased. The city of Modena, and this church, had always been there for him.
The service began and Blaise went through the familiar motions. Standing. Reciting. Singing. Just as cooking had the previous night, it felt as if he was playing a role onstage. Doing the same thing over and over because he'd done it over and over before. When the archbishop stepped up to speak, Blaise finally stepped out of his routine. He listened with his soul, easier in his native language.
Presentazione della Lettera Apostolica "Patris Corde"
The sermon flowed through Blaise like the words were in his blood. He felt them clearly, as the archbishop said,
Silence.
God is working in dreams, in sleep, and in scriptures. God does not need the spoken word.
Exactly what Blaise had always believed. Words were supplemental, actions were language all their own. It truly was like coming home after far too long. In the church, his silence was always understood.
We say often a man of dreams is a man with his head in the clouds. A dream can be as solid as stone, if it is God's will. It is the men young at heart who have the will to overcome the conscience and the law, to see the dreams. It takes God to go beyond what we, as men, can imagine. Whomever himself dreams, maintains an open space in his heart for the surprise of God. Grace comes from such openness.
For months, Blaise had tried to close the door on England. In March, he planned to sell his home in Holland Park and take full-time residence in Modena. He stayed in England for Scorpius. His godson was his world, particularly since Scorpius began school. Once Lucius Malfoy left prison, Blaise had far less time with his godson. When Lucius died, Blaise stepped into the role of godfather again, and forgot how much he missed it. Perhaps his departure was a signal he had begun to take his role for granted again.
Papa Francesco notes that, after Jesus was missing for three days and he was found, there is a conflict, an irritation di Maria e Giuseppi. To which Jesus says he was guided by his Father, who is part of each of them.
Blaise found himself nodding in agreement.
Through this we see that Jesus's ability for his teachings to resonate with people comes not only from his heavenly Father and knowledge of the divine, but from his earthly father and the very human ability to know someone's heart.
Fathers of different purpose. That was it, that was what he came all the way home to hear. Dean was not his priority. Scorpius mattered more than anything, just as he told Mrs. Hale two days prior. Blaise leaned forward with his elbows on his knees and rested his head in his hands. He had a responsibility to his godson, one he'd forsaken because of a single shot to his ego. Scorpius was the priority and Blaise had lost sight of that because he placed more importance on being part of Dean's family than on making Dean part of his family. Blaise pressed his thumbs into the corners of his eyes and tried to blink away tears. He sat up and looked at the ceiling, realizing his vanity would ruin his life if he wasn't careful.
The service ended, and Blaise left feeling worse but far more clear than he had walking through those doors. Someone surprised him with a hug from behind.
"Salve, Ale!"
Blaise clocked that voice immediately. Mattia was his oldest childhood friend, there before Draco, even before husband number one. He'd always had the same mop of brown curls which looked half-decent without effort. One of his nonnina's grandchildren, they'd been close for nearly thirty years. Blaise should've known he'd be there, he never missed Sunday mass. Blaise stepped out of the hug and turned to face him.
"Salve, Mattia."
"Saw the advance people walking around your place yesterday. Didn't want to come over in case you and your new—what's the word? The English one they use now so you gay ones aren't weird?"
Blaise laughed and offered, "Partner?"
"Si, that one. Didn't want to interrupt you and your 'partner' if you were giving him the full tour of the place."
"Dean and I are no longer together." Blaise admitted, "I felt I was separating him from his family, so I left. I needed to come home."
"Home is a lot of things, like the house you spent your childhood in. Home is the house con tuo figlioccio. Home could also be the house where you make a life with your …" Mattia made a face. "Partner."
Blaise spread his arms wide and gestured to the city around them, insisting, "Modena is my home."
"Modena is città natale, it's not home. Home is a place where you are, and you are not here enough, Ale. I know you love this partner because losing him hurt you deep enough to return to Modena. Your Christmas visits are nice, but a day is a day. Two days is two days. Weeks, months, you live in England."
Blaise snapped, "Do not try to make me English." He shuddered and pressed his hand to his chest. "My soul is Emilia-Romagna. London may be home now, but it may not always be."
"You text me all the time about this guy. Look at Dean's silly sweater. Look at Dean's lion tattoo. Look at Dean because Dean is my love Dean is beautiful Dean is my soulmate Dean is—"
"Ok!" Blaise only just kept himself from rolling his eyes. "Yes, I am in love."
"Then be in love, Ale!" Mattia nudged him with his shoulder. "The people here, we don't mind. We love you when you're here, we love you when you're in England, this is the place where you come to heal your heart. We are here to heal, but you are not here to live. Dean is your life, tuo figlioccio is your life. Live life where they are, then come home when you need us."
"I think I hurt Dean when I left. I worry that my carelessness, my selfishness may have damaged our love beyond repair."
Mattia waved his hand toward the pulpit and said, "Did you not listen? Grace comes from openness. If you are open with Dean, then perhaps he will show you grace. Listen to the sermon, Ale. Dio mio, perhaps you need to come to church more often, you've forgotten how to hear."
"Three years," Blaise cleared his throat and confirmed, "it's been nearly three years since I've been to church. I miss it desperately."
"It misses you, too. We miss you."
"I suppose I must go home, then. I will call Dean and try to make things right."
Mattia clapped Blaise on the shoulder and said, "I remember you as a little boy, picking tulips from the garden and bringing them to nonnina. Yellow, always, because it reminded her of sunshine. Dean brings you sunshine, Ale. You need him."
"Yellow tulips." Blaise admitted, "I'd forgotten."
"You're here, you remember who you are. You must keep that inside of you and take it back to London."
"Grazie, Mattia."
.oOo.
Blaise arrived home and noted an Audi convertible parked just outside the garage. He frowned, he always left the gate open but wasn't anticipating a visitor. The neighbors would have alerted him to anyone who wasn't welcome, but everyone he knew would have walked or biked.
He cautiously stepped into the snug through the side door and jumped backward so quickly he nearly fell off the steps. He yelped in surprise and barely caught himself in time on the handrail. Sitting there, sleeping in one of the chairs, was Dean Thomas. He startled awake, looking around, as though he'd forgotten where he was. Blaise, himself, was stunned into words.
"Dean?!"
He opened his eyes a bit wider and mumbled, "Hhurngh, hmm mhmmm?"
"Dean, how the bloody hell do you know where I live?" asked Blaise. "I was about to phone you, to apologize—"
"'pologize?" mumbled Dean. He wiped his eyes and tried to say, more clearly, "For what?"
"Everything on Friday, Dean, I am sorry. I should have told you I wasn't prepared, but this was what you wanted and I would give you anything you want. I failed to do that, and I am so sorry."
Dean's eyes were groggy and he looked confused, spitting out, "You left me."
Blaise nodded.
"I left you."
Something inside of him woke up. Dean repeated, louder,
"You left me!"
He nearly jumped up from the chair with a look that terrified Blaise into a backward shuffle down the steps. Dean followed him through the door and jumped down all the steps at once. Blaise continued to walk backward toward the drive, devastated he had caused Dean so much pain. Blaise was out in the drive, in full view of the neighbors were they to look out the second floor windows. Dean stopped suddenly and bent forward.
"Dean?" Blaise asked, "Dean, what are you—"
Dean pulled off one of his trainers and Blaise had just enough time to duck out of the way once Dean launched it at him. Blaise stood up then hopped to the right to avoid the second shoe flung his way. Dean pulled off one sock, balled it up, then threw it at Blaise, who watched it fall to the ground at his feet.
"Just like Seamus!" Dean shouted at him, "You're just like him! God, why the bloody hell did I come all this way? You don't want me here."
"I do want you here."
"You know, Shea and I fell in love together. I didn't know I was gay until one night at uni, too many pints deep, Seamus snogged me. And I liked it. I really liked it, the sort of thing where you know it's going to be good even when it's bad. Our first time was so bad. I'd had sex with Ginny but it was …" Dean shrugged. "Fine. It wasn't right, like I wasn't feeling the way I was supposed to, but I didn't know what I was supposed to feel, really. Me and Shea fumbled all over ourselves until we finished, and it was horrible but it was right."
Blaise said, "I didn't know you and Ginny—"
"I was a sixteen-year-old boy with the coolest girl in school, of course we shagged. Gin and I have always been close. The same sort of close friendship I thought I had with Seamus until he snogged me and put his hand on my dick. Then I realized that's why it didn't work out with Ginny. I phoned my mum to say, 'I'm gay and Seamus is my boyfriend, so nothing's going to change except that when he comes 'round the house I might kiss him.'"
"That sounds reasonable to me."
"It was." Dean nodded, mostly to himself, it seemed. "Seamus was as much a part of the Hale family as I was. I met Shea when I was eleven, so Ava would've been … three, perhaps? At most. He was my best friend from the moment we met. We had other friends, but the two of us were always together. Each of my sisters after Ava came into a world where Seamus and I were inseparable. We were together for eleven years as a couple, but nineteen years as a duo. When the divorce happened, I didn't tell my family how bad it got. I didn't tell them what Seamus was doing to me, what he had taken from me. In their eyes, all they saw was the two of us ripping ourselves apart and me forcing them away from Seamus. Someone they'd known all their lives."
"I understand." Blaise's voice was quiet even to his own ears. "Ending things with Draco meant changing the relationship I had with my best friend of sixteen years."
"You both agreed to end things, but I didn't want Shea to leave. I wanted to work it out. I thought our marriage was worth saving because …" Dean shrugged. "Because he was my best friend. It wasn't just a partnership, we weren't just fucking, it wasn't just anything. It was every part of my life. The only reason I write children's books is because I thought it would make him love me more. I thought it would make our marriage easier. Somehow, it made things worse. I never understood what it was, what I did to make him leave me. Why don't you tell me, now?"
Blaise felt his eyebrows knit together a bit. Confused, he asked,
"What am I meant to tell you?"
"What I keep doing to make you leave. Both of you." Dean shook his head and asked, "What is it about me that makes you believe this can work, then you leave without so much as a bloody goodbye?"
Blaise insisted, "I won't speak for Seamus Finnegan."
"God, of course not, sometimes it's difficult to get you to speak for yourself!"
Blaise raised his eyebrows in surprise. It wasn't like Dean to complain about his silence. It wasn't like him at all. Dean was hurting. Dean had come all the way to Modena from London, in what had to be the most romantic thing anyone had ever done for Blaise. There was something hovering, though, beneath Dean's anger. A self-doubt that Blaise had reaffirmed by leaving. He said,
"Yes."
"Yeah."
"Yes, it is." Blaise said, "Speaking for myself now, for you, I left because your sister said things that felt true. She said I am third to Draco, third to my godson, and a third love for you. I have a very long history of being an afterthought. My childhood was an afterthought. I felt so many things in that moment, I needed to leave. I needed to come home and …" Blaise frowned. He didn't have the word. It was there at the front of his mind, but not fully formed. "My mind and my heart were misaligned. I came home so I could go to mass and make myself right again."
"Right." Dean grimaced. "My family fucked you up so much you finally went back to church."
"Yes."
"Not good, Blaise. That is not a good thing."
"I believe it is." Blaise stuffed his hands in his pockets. "I was so focused on pleasing your family because I wanted to please you. I forgot that you aren't my priority. My godson is the most important thing in my life, and I lost sight of that because I was focused on you."
"Why?" asked Dean. "Meeting my family wasn't about me, it was about us."
Blaise looked down at the floor, conscious of the distance between him and Dean. Grateful for it.
"When you walked into my kitchen, you immediately knew who I was."
"Of course. You're famous in the part of our culture that allows you to be."
"Yes. Over the years I have become a goal to attain for men. The most beautiful, very skilled in the bedroom, culinary-inclined man Europe has to offer. If you can shag Blaise, you can shag anyone. I am the top of the rainbow mountain, meant to be an accomplishment someone can put in a scrapbook. The biggest notch in a belt. Nobody lives at the top of the mountain, Dean, they always climb back down. Fifteen years it's been like that. My relationships have been hollow and then …" Blaise paused and gathered himself to say, "Then you appeared."
"Blaise, I promise, I have never thought of you as a goal." Dean took a small step forward and started to reach out toward Blaise, but quickly snatched his hand back. "I care for you."
"I know."
"If you needed to come here, to come home? You should have taken me with you."
"No." Blaise shook his head. "I appreciate you coming here, but I don't believe it's right for me to pull you away from your family, Dean. If Scorpius hadn't liked you, our relationship would have ended instantly. This is the same in reverse."
"It's not." Dean raised his voice and insisted, "It is not the same and you don't get to make that determination for me. Taking you to meet my family was not a test for you, it was a test for them. They can accept this decision or not, but I have decided, Blaise. I'm living my life with you if you'll have me."
Blaise wanted to believe him, but he remembered the faces of Dean's family with stark clarity. Bemused skepticism at best. Blaise would never forgive himself for driving a wedge between Dean and the people who had always been there for him. He couldn't live knowing he cast a shadow over Dean.
"I think it best if you leave."
Dean shook his head and said, "I'm not leaving."
"Dean," demanded Blaise, "go home."
"I am home!" Dean shouted, "I am home with you! My home is not in Wanstead, not at my flat in east London, my home is wherever the bloody hell you are. The sooner you understand that, the sooner we can figure out how to fix this."
Blaise saw the truth of that in Dean's eyes. He wasn't leaving. This was love. Someone who would make a home wherever he was settled. His voice trembled when he said,
"I'm scared of this."
"Why?"
"I don't want to do wrong by you. All I've ever done is wrong. I try and fail to be what someone needs."
Dean said, "You are what Scorpius needs. How about we do this, then. You tell me when Draco asked you to take care of his son."
"He never asked me to care for his son. He couldn't, he was trying to convince himself not to jump off a bridge."
"Okay, so when did Scorpius ask you to take care of him?"
Blaise laughed and said, "Scorpius wouldn't even think to do that. I've always been there for him, and always will be. If he asked me to care for him, then it would mean I have already failed."
"Because he needs you. You didn't need to be asked to care for your godson. You've never done wrong by him. In fact, in his whole life, you're the only person who was there to see him as a newborn baby and think, 'Someone has to give him all the love he's just lost.' And now that I say it," Dean half-laughed, half-sighed, "you're just looking for someone to love you, too. Not as, how did you say it? The mountaintop—"
"Top of the rainbow mountain."
"Right, right, and maybe you are, Blaise. Perhaps even if you were the peak of rainbow mountain, I've climbed the bloody thing and I will plant my arse right on top—"
"Right where I like your arse," teased Blaise.
"—I will live with you at the top of the mountain. I'll even live with you at the bottom. I was fine in my life before you came into it. Not great, but I have two careers I enjoy very much. I was missing a home. Then the first time I kissed you, I remember running up the steps, snogging you, and thinking, 'I'm home.'"
Blaise felt his cheeks turn pink. Dean was looking at him so earnestly, Blaise could almost hear his mind screaming, Believe me! Let me love you!
"Every day since then, I've had this vision of our life together. A family for both of us, one that is whole. Me and you. You and me. One name: our name."
Dean pulled a wood box from his pocket and flipped it open with his thumb. Inside was a platinum signet-style ring with a diamond sparkling in the centre.
What.
What.
He had no words in any language. His eyes were stuck on the ring. That ring. The simplest, most perfect engagement ring he could have ever thought to ask for.
"I'd follow you to Antarctica. I'd follow you to the moon. Blaise Zabini, you are no mountain to me. You are the trees and the grass of the valley here in Modena. You are the incredible lake I drove by on my way here. You are the cobblestones in the city centre, the smell of balsamic vinegar, this whole bloody city is you. It is as though your soul is in the soil here, and I want nothing more than for you to know I see all of it. God, you're … Italian sunshine, as cliché as that is. You're the Italian sunshine in my dreary English life. You and your pink house and your green garage—"
Blaise closed the distance between them in three steps. He wrapped his arms around Dean's waist and hugged him as tight as he could. He gripped Dean's shirt in his fists and still didn't have words. Our name. Blaise didn't want to say anything that could make Dean take it back. You and me. Me and you. Dean placed a hand between Blaise's shoulders and said,
"You said that it takes a strong person to love me. Well, prove it." Dean's voice began to shake as he said, "Marry me."
Yes didn't seem a good enough answer.
"Marry me so your house is our house. My books are our books. So my life is our life, Blaise. The whole fucking thing, I want to share it with you. I didn't want Seamus's name because somewhere deep, deep down I knew he wasn't my soulmate. My best friend, my confidant of nearly twenty years, but never my soulmate. That's what you are to me."
Blaise felt Dean's hands on his shoulders and allowed himself to be pushed away. He looked up into Dean's eyes, knowing full well he would spend the rest of his life with this man. Dean insisted,
"I want your name. I want to spend the rest of my life eating your food, sleeping next to you, on my knees sucking your cock just to listen to you come with all those little Italian words you can never quite finish because it feels so good. I want you so much, Blaise, I'd even walk away if you asked me to. If you want, I'll put the ring away and we can pretend you never saw it, pretend I never asked."
"No," Blaise felt his heart drop into his stomach. He took Dean's hand and walked him over to the tulip garden. "We need to have this conversation out here, in the sun."
"In the—"
Within seconds, the neighbors were shouting at him in Italian. Is that him? We let him in! He's cute! He's tall! What are you doing out here?
Blaise waved them off as Dean asked,
"What are they shouting?"
"Nonsense." Blaise said, "Do not listen to them. Stand here, stand here and ask me the way you want to ask me."
Dean stood there with dark circles beneath his eyes, one sockless foot, and curls tangled from a fitful night's sleep on the train. He was in a t-shirt and what were most likely his nicest pair of jeans. The tattoos covering his left arm were almost fully exposed, and Blaise liked that. Dean always covered them up for school, for work, to be "taken seriously," as he said. Dean was comfortable like this. He was at home like this. Dean said,
"The way I want to ask you to marry me?"
"Yes."
"Well I'd probably be wearing more than one sock—"
"Dean." Blaise said, "I am standing here, in front of you, after you have come all the way to Emilia-Romagna for me."
"Blaise, you're in church clothes, you look posh and proper and I'm not sure I really want to ask you to marry me when I'm in jeans—"
"You like jeans, and I like you in jeans. I like that people can see the outline of your cock, so they know I have, in fact, been quite blessed. But if we go back to London, you must tell all our friends how you proposed. I want you to have a good moment which doesn't involve you throwing your trainers at my head."
"Okay." Dean took a deep breath and looked around. "I suppose this is as good a place as any. At your home."
"My childhood home. I think my home now is in London. This place, right here," Blaise gestured to the ground they stood upon, "is where my mother and I sat to plant these tulips. She promised me a childhood and abandoned me. If I am going to begin a new life with you, let's do it here. Give this house, give me a better memory to place here."
"Right." Dean cleared his throat and bent down on one knee. He took the ring from the box and held it up. "Blaise—"
"SAY YES!"
"YES! YES! YES!"
"MARRY THAT MAN!"
Blaise waved them off again and shouted, "Piantala!" He looked at Dean and said, "Please, ask the way you want to."
"The past three years of my life, I thought I had lost the best love I could hope to have. And I am so glad I married Seamus, because if I hadn't then I would not know just how much of a privilege it is to be loved by you."
Blaise half-laughed, half-cried, suddenly overcome with emotion. A privilege to be loved by you. All the things people could say of Blaise, but that was what Dean Thomas thought of him. That was the only thing that mattered. He quickly squeezed his eyes closed and tried to keep the tears from spilling over.
"I can't really tell you the moment I knew I'd be down here doing this. Maybe it was when I walked into your kitchen and you came back with my book. Maybe it was the morning after our first date when I woke up next to you. Maybe it was when Scorpius told me that he wants to be the flower boy when I marry his Uncle Blaise and promised me he would make it down the aisle without falling down."
Blaise's heart could've beat out of his chest.
"He said that?"
"Yes, and I think we would need a very short aisle to make that work. I've taken two trains and drove two hours to get here from Milan, all because I couldn't bear the thought that you believed I didn't love you enough. I met you and I was home. I want to be part of your family, and I want to love you every minute of every day for the rest of my life. Blaise Alessio Zabini, will you marry me?"
Blaise placed both hands on Dean's shoulders and kissed him so gently, as if to say, Thank you for giving us this moment. He offered Dean his left hand, and couldn't keep from smiling as Dean placed the engagement ring on his finger. Dean stood up and pulled Blaise into a hug, before turning to face the neighbors and shouting,
"HE SAID YES!"
It was pandemonium. People were leaning out the windows of three different houses, clapping, shouting their congratulations. This was better than every single moment in this house with his mother. Blaise snuggled into Dean's side, knowing he was about to go upstairs and ride Dean like the Eurostar. He was engaged to the most wonderful, kind, loquacious man. Blaise caught sight of Mattia just then. Mattia shouted from the window,
"Fiancé is better than partner!"