Queer & There

Chapter Eleven
The Dating Game

"Fuck off!" A laugh. "I mean it, Harry- get off my leg, that hurts-" More laughter, becoming increasingly amused. "You're going to make it dead! OW!"

There was the sound of more laughter, from two men who were clearly having the time of their life, and not in the middle of an argument, or a bad break up, or any sort of Japanese torture. Draco glared at his bedroom door and sipped on his glass of coke, not even paying attention to the fact that Fabos was hooting at him to be let inside from the window.

It was becoming clearer and clearer to Draco that he hated Dean Thomas with much the same degree of enthusiasm as he usually put to chasing good looking women. However, the good looking women were on hold for the time being, as Draco was slowly discovering something that he had only admitted once. The result of this stand alone incident was his mother passing out and then, when she had finally come around again, consuming a whole bottle of Firewhiskey.

Draco had a sneaking suspicion, however, that he was not exactly attracted to all men. He would never admit it to himself or anybody within a fifty mile hearing radius, but there was really only one man that he was interested in pursuing a sort of- something with. Currently, that one man was having a pillow fight on the sofa in the living room with his boyfriend.

"OW!" Draco continued to glare at the door, resenting Dean Thomas and his stupid pillow fight.

"That hurt! There was no need to- gah!" Draco's eyes narrowed. 'Gah' wasn't even a word. He hated Harry Potter. He wanted Harry Potter to just go away and fall down a mine shaft, if it meant it would return Draco swiftly back to a world where he was straight, a world that he was quite frankly far more comfortable in.

It had sneaked up on him with absolutely no warning, really. Draco had been fine until Dean Thomas had come along, until the newspaper had reported his and Harry's relationship (which they had now pushed aside in favour of the truth - Harry and Dean). Draco thought Dean was far less interesting than him, even less so than Dom had been, and had no idea why on earth the Prophet would want to focus their attention on him.

Fabos was growing impatient by the window, his beak pecking so hard at it that Draco thought it may shatter. He found himself forced to leave his bed, where he had been sitting for the past three hours since Dean had come over. Harry had merely remarked that he had been sulking all week, smiling slightly. Draco hated his smile now. Draco wanted to inflict pain on his smile.

"Alright, you stupid thing," Draco said now, opening the window and being met with very indignant squawking from the small owl. A letter was dropped on his floor none-too-delicately, and Fabos flew over to the bed to sit awkwardly on it. He was slightly lopsided because his grip was not secure. His eyes wide and bright and indicating that he was not a happy owl at all.

Draco stared him down. "I'm not feeding you." Fabos hooted angrily, but it was fairly unconvincing because he was so small. "I'm not. Harry and his bloody git boyfriend are out there. No food. Go away." Fabos remained where he was. "GO AWAY."

Still the little owl did not move, and so Draco found himself spending the next twenty minutes sharing his bed with a small fluffy ball of feathers that wouldn't stop pecking at his arm. He told said fluff ball that he hated it about fifteen times in just as many minutes, and still he stayed, and so Draco knew he was going to have to go out into the Torture Zone. This idea was wholly unappealing, and Draco was willing to go to great lengths to prevent having to do so. Unfortunately, Fabos was apparently not going to be convinced, and Draco found he had no choice.

He got up from his bed with a heavy sigh, throwing a look at the small owl, which seemed to understand he was getting his own way and hooted happily. He flew off the bed, flapped around Draco's head a bit, and perched on a large chest of drawers that held most of Draco's hair products and clothes that did not react badly to folding.

"I hate you," Draco hissed at Fabos for possibly the twenty third time (not that he was counting, as that would be incredibly stupid), before opening the bedroom door and walking out into the living room, bracing himself for a horrible scene.

It was worse than he suspected. Harry and Dean were on the sofa, as he had assumed, with Harry more or less on top of him in a manner that Draco thought was very undignified. Harry was in the process of trying to tickle the man underneath him, their legs tangled messily together and stupid grins on both their faces. Draco felt like he might throw up, made a grunt of recognition that seemed to bring Harry back down to reality as his attention moved away from his boyfriend.

Draco pretended not to notice as Harry started to say something to him; he didn't actually hear anyway, as he was concentrating so hard on pretending not to acknowledge him that he actually was fairly successful. Instead, he walked across to the open kitchen and worked his way through the cupboards in an attempt to find something to feed Fabos with.

He also pretended not to notice as Harry exchanged a telling look with Dean that seemed to indicate that Draco was in a Bad Mood, as he indeed was although he would never actually admit it. He further ignored what Harry was doing when he slid off his boyfriend's body and walked across to the kitchen.

As he came within hearing distance, Harry asked, "What's wrong with you now?" He was grinning though, and clearly did not care very much. This annoyed Draco thoroughly. "Are you still sulking about the newspaper? It's been a week-"

Draco made a choked noise that didn't really indicate whether he was sulking about the newspaper or not, before retorting, "I couldn't care less about the Daily Prophet, Potter. That's the least of my worries, thank you very much."

Harry raised an eyebrow and smirked. "So what's the most of them? Whether to use peanut butter or that - what is that?" He pointed to the second of the two jars Draco was now holding, and the blond man shrugged. "You probably shouldn't eat it."

This seemed to clinch Draco's decision, as he put away the peanut butter and went about applying liberal amounts of the undefined spread to his bread. "It's for Fabos anyway," he explained dully, trying to control his tone so that he indicated he wasn't in the mood to talk to Harry.

"Fine, if you're going to be a bloody baby, I'll go back to my boyfriend," Harry said, looking over at Dean, who grinned. Harry grinned in return. Draco, watching this exchange carefully, dropped the jar on the floor quite on purpose. It smashed loudly.

"Oops."

* * *

Later that afternoon, when Fabos had long gone (after throwing up whatever it was Draco had given him from the jar), Draco had finally given in and sat down in the living room with Harry and Dean. Dean was apparently one of those boyfriends who just didn't disappear, because he had been at the apartment all day and was showing no signs of retreating anytime soon.

The thing that Draco couldn't help but notice was that Dean and Harry kept holding hands. He was sure this couldn't be good for either of them, because surely it would produce unhealthy amounts of clammy sweat between them and attract bacteria. One of their hands might drop off, and Draco didn't like to think of one of them being handless. It would just be an inconvenience, surely.

"Do I have something on my face?" Harry was asking now, shooting Draco a confused look and bringing his hand up. Draco looked blank and then realised he had been staring. In his head he swore very loudly, but did not say anything otherwise. "You were looking at my cheek like there was something on it."

Draco shook his head now, and tried to ignore Dean's eyes burning on him. "No, I was just thinking about that new channel- the one with the girls.. well, you wouldn't appreciate it, I suppose." Draco cleared his throat, remembered he was sitting with two gay men, and felt very uncomfortable. "But it's great. Lots of porn." He coughed.

Dean laughed, and Draco wanted to kill him for a minute or two. Then he caught hold of himself, and stared at the floor before announcing, "I'm going out. Clubbing." He hadn't know that he was going clubbing until he had said it, and wasn't sure that he would once actually out the door. He just knew that he had to pull himself together somehow. Something must be done.

"You're not dressed for a club," Harry pointed out, only to receive a clearly offended glare from Draco. "Well, I mean- you look fine. You always look fine."

Draco paused, forgot himself for a moment again, and asked, "Do I?"

Harry smiled slightly. "Well yeah, you know you do. Don't pretend you don't look like a model for the best part of the day." He grinned at Dean, saying as though it were too obvious, "He's gorgeous, isn't he? And he knows it."

Dean just shrugged, while Draco beamed despite his best efforts. He thought he heard Dean mutter something about how Draco wasn't all that gorgeous, after all, and Draco couldn't help but be even happier. He stood up, pulled his shirt off quite on purpose as he walked to his bedroom so he could pull on a slightly more presentable one. The mirror told him he looked 'ravishing' as he passed it, and then Draco made his way back toward the apartment door.

"See you later, Harry," he said, quite innocently but pointedly ignoring Dean. He then left the apartment, closed the door behind him, and started down the stairs. It was when he got to the bottom that he bumped into a man with dark hair whose name he was not sure of, but he definitely recognised as being another resident of the apartment block.

Apologising quietly, Draco was about to walk straight on before he remembered that not only was this man another resident, he was another gay resident. He turned around, maintaining his best grin as he called out, "Wait- I don't think I ever really caught your name..."

The other man turned around and stopped. Draco decided that he was nice looking enough, actually, not unattractive. Certainly he was better looking than Dean Thomas, anyway, and that seemed good enough all of a sudden. The man announced that his name was, "Seth, actually" and smiled a bit in return.

Draco hesitated, looked up the stairs as though for some advice from no-one, and then went in for the kill. "Uh... I was just- thinking. I'm not seeing anyone and I thought you might want to go out some time." Yes, he still had it, Draco decided, he was an alluring Sex God. Nobody could say no to that.

Seth clearly didn't read the Prophet on a regular basis, as he asked, "Aren't you living with Harry Potter? I thought he was your boyfriend-"

"No," Draco said firmly, perhaps a little too loudly. "No, we've only kissed once really. Well, twice, but you know. It was all a big mistake so I'd rather not think about it. He's a bit of a git. Good roommate though." He added again, "You know." Seth clearly didn't know, as he still seemed rather confused, but he smiled anyway.

"Well, in that case," he was saying, "sure. I don't see why not. When did you want to-"

Altogether too quickly, Draco cut in with, "How about now?" He offered another winning grin that definitely did its intended job, as Seth grinned in return and nodded.

"Alright," he agreed. "Let me just get changed. Do you want to- wait upstairs?" Draco suddenly was very nervous, although he pushed it aside as merely being offended by the suggestion. "You don't have to. I can be quick as you like."

Draco thought Seth sounded rather desperate, but went with it anyway. "No, I'll wait upstairs, it's fine." Seth smiled and started towards the elevator. Draco followed him.

* * *

Sitting in Seth's apartment was an experience that Draco wouldn't have chosen to repeat for all the Galleons in the Wizarding World. As nice as it was, as welcoming and tidy and warm the whole place seemed to be, the atmosphere was nothing if not tense. Seth seemed to have decided that it wasn't enough to just pick out an outfit and put it on; he had to spend at least half an hour picking out about seven outfits and putting none of them on at all. Draco neglected to remember that this was his daily routine, and instead found it completely annoying and rude.

Once Seth had emerged, in a simple black v-neck sweater and jeans, Draco stood up, once again feeling slightly sick to his stomach. "Um," was all he could manage to say, and Seth was apparently flattered somehow and smiled softly. Draco hoped that the 'um' wasn't construed by Seth as Draco being stunned into silence by the other man's appearance, because he wasn't.

They made their way to a bar in The Alley, which had been recently refurbished and renamed Alohomora, because it was open twenty four hours a day. It was generally only busy in the evenings, but Draco thought they served a lovely BLT sandwich at lunch time.

"So, I said, what's the point in changing the colour of the walls when they're almost the same colour already, and Pete said that they weren't taupe, they were beige, and I said there wasn't any difference, and well that was that, really..." Seth seemed to have a lot to say for somebody Draco had originally thought was slightly shy, and apparently had even more to say about 'Pete', presumably his ex boyfriend. "He thought he was a designer, honestly."

Draco nodded, and tried to look interested as they took a seat at a fairly intimate two seat table in one corner of Alohomora. "Right- and he clearly wasn't," he said uncertainly, but Seth looked pleased all the same.

"Really he was just a twat."

"Because he knew the difference between taupe and beige," Draco said in a very hesitant tone, because he couldn't quite see why somebody wouldn't know the difference between taupe and beige but could tell that Seth found this a bad trait in a boyfriend. Currently though, he seemed to think Draco was a perhaps worthy contender, as he was thrilled at the other man's agreement.

Seth smiled proudly, as though he were shaping Draco into a very regular boyfriend, and remarked, "Exactly! It's just sad! Isn't it sad, Draco?"

Draco winced a little, particularly as Seth had pronounced his name wrong for what must have been the sixth time in about as many minutes. "Well. Um... probably. I mean, I suppose knowing the difference between colours is - very important. You know, us queers and all, I suppose we're - fussy." He cleared his throat, hoping he didn't sound as though he were struggling, and gave Seth another winning smile.

However, the other man did not seem particularly impressed, and he repeated, "Us queers? What?"

Draco gave a nervous laugh. "Just a joke. Hahahaha, all that sort of thing." He swallowed slightly, and asked, "Shall we get drinks then?"

* * *

It was barely nine o'clock in the evening when Draco returned home, and although he didn't think he could manage to be pleased about anything given the evening he had just had, it was a relief to at least see Dean had gone home. Harry was sat looking very innocent at the kitchen table, a pencil between his lips and an expression of utter concentration on his face. His tongue was sticking out slightly, and Draco didn't know whether he wanted to kill him or-

Well, something else.

Draco slammed the door loudly, and Harry looked up quickly, the pencil falling out of his mouth, presumably from the surprise.

"Draco, you scared me," he said, offering his roommate a slightly afraid smile. "Are you... uh- are you alright?"

Draco glared. "I hate you."

"What?'

"I hate you. You are the bane of my existence, I want you to die, please run into this sharp pointy thing repeatedly and - oh, for Merlin's sake, Potter, get your mind out of the gutter!!"

Harry was laughing, which was rather the opposite reaction Draco had been hoping for. His brief 'date' with Seth had been a failure that he didn't really want to think about ever again, and of course Harry Potter was to blame. Harry Potter, with his ugly hair and his stupid green eyes and his shapely thighs that were far too toned for their own good. It was all his fault.

Still in the middle of seething with anger - and concentrating hard on maintaining this anger, Draco removed his coat and tossed it dramatically on the couch. "So you can just go away," he was saying, although it was unclear if he intended Harry to actually listen or if he was just ranting to himself. "You can go away and stop cluttering my flat with your stupid boyfriend and your stupid you."

"Draco, that doesn't even make sense," Harry pointed out, a little laugh escaping him. A permanent grin was settled on his face, and didn't appear to be going anywhere. "My stupid me? Seriously?"

Draco gave him another well-practiced look of wrath. "Do you know what?"

The other boy raised his eyebrows slightly, and asked, "What?"

"I want you to leave." Draco swallowed slightly, his expression suddenly very serious and not quite so dramatic as it had been. This was worrying to both him and apparently Harry as well, who looked very awkward in his seat. "I want you to move out."

Harry paused, as though trying to find the most sensible route to lead this conversation toward, and he stood up from his seat as he closed the folder of paperwork he had been working on. "Where did you go tonight?" he asked finally, unable to help but quirk his eyebrow.

It seemed Draco had been caught out, and that this question was - at the very least - something of a deciding point on his demanding Harry leave.

"A date," he said stubbornly, refusing anymore information as he collapsed into the nearest sofa. Harry smiled. "What?"

"Nothing," Harry started slowly, setting his pencil down beside his folder and examining Draco's expression curiously for a good moment. "I just didn't think there were anymore women left in London that you hadn't taken out before."

Draco paused. "Ah. Well."

There was silence in the flat for a good few minutes, as Harry stared blankly at Draco, and Draco tried desperately to look at anything other than Harry's face. The longer nobody said anything, the longer Draco worried, and when he finally did look back at the other man, he felt slightly scared. Harry looked angry, subtly so and more around the eyes than anywhere else, but Draco knew him well enough by now to be able to read his moods.

Harry cleared his throat, pushed his chair out a bit, and then spoke. "You didn't go out with a - you... you wouldn't have."

Draco gave a little shrug and looked at his shoes. "I might," he insisted, and he suddenly felt very ashamed of himself, as though he had cheated on Harry, which was utterly ridiculous because they had never even been together. Draco wasn't even sure he liked men in that way, not after the evening he had just experienced.

"You went on a date with a guy?!" Harry stared at Draco, who shifted uncomfortably again. He didn't like Harry looking at him like that.

"Well, it was horrible, if that's any consolation," Draco started, before his eyes narrowed slightly and he added, "and I don't know why you even care, because you have a boyfriend and you're gay so why can't I go out with boys?"

"Because you keep saying you're not gay!"

"Well, I'm not!"

Harry gave an exasperated sigh, and got to his feet. He looked at Draco for a moment in which the blond boy again looked at everything else in the flat to keep his eyes off Harry. He wasn't so sure if he was ready for this - whatever 'this' was, but Draco could feel it was going to be at least a serious discussion, and so once again the room lapsed into silence.

Finally, Harry asked in a small voice, "Did anything happen?"

Draco gave him a Look. "Oh, plenty happened," he relayed in an annoyed tone. "He took me to a gay bar and all these old men kept trying to frisk me, and then he tried to get me drunk which is impossible anyway and then he tried to kiss me and I was - well, I fell over a bit."

He could see Harry smiling slightly now, and his stomach did a bit of a strange flip. It didn't faze him particularly; Draco was becoming used to the feeling, and didn't resent it quite so much as he had done a few weeks ago.

"You fell over because your date tried to kiss you?" Harry smiled again, before frowning thoughtfully. "Draco, you said you weren't gay. You said it like a million times, so- why did you... I mean- are you? You can tell me."

"I..." Draco paused. "I'm not exactly..."

Harry spoke as Draco trailed off, possibly pleased to be given a chance to jump in. "You realise you can like men and women at the same time, right?" he asked with a playful sort of smile. "It's called being bisexual."

"Well, I don't know if I like men."

"So, who do you...?" Harry paused this time, his expression slightly confused as though trying to figure something out and not quite believing he was right when he got the answer. And as though the world didn't want him to ever quite work it out, the phone rang.

Both men stared at it for a few seconds, before Draco finally went for it and answered with a somewhat distracted, "Hello?" A few more seconds of quiet passed as he listened, and then he thrust the phone into Harry's chest. "It's your boyfriend."

As Harry took the receiver gently, Draco stalked into his bedroom and closed the door securely behind him.