Work Text:
August, 1997
Fred was across the room, turned away, talking to Mr Weasley animatedly. Their libations were spilling over the sides of their glasses as they laughed, throwing their bodies too far this way and that, jolly from the heat of the liquor. George was just glad that they were able to enjoy themselves, especially their dad, who had been beset by gloominess before the wedding planning. It was a lovely day, after all, even in the darkness around them.
Fred and George had done their part in encouraging the festivities, hanging far too many golden balloons, pulling together a collection of the shop's fireworks to set off at the end of the evening, helping to hang decorations, drawing lewd pictures onto the wedding cake (quickly to be spelled off by a very unhappy Mrs. Weasley), but now, somehow, when the party was at its fullest and everyone looked their happiest and most relaxed, George felt a strange premonition of sadness. It tugged faintly at his chest even as he considered how brilliant it would be to set off twenty-five Miraculous Mystic Mayhem Makers into the sky, and he wondered if the war was finally getting to him.
Or perhaps it was just because he was watching Lee Jordan dance with Angelina for about the third time that evening.
George sighed, knocking back his own firewhiskey until all that remained in the glass was his ice cube, spelled to melt so slowly that it practically looked as if he'd just plonked it inside. He needed to find a way to avoid looking, he thought. He needed to go and fetch Fred and get up to something mischievous with the extendable ears. He needed to make someone laugh, or shout at him, or something.
Maybe later on, after a few more drinks, he'd find the courage to ask for a dance. Just not now. Maybe later, just before the night was over, when everyone was distracted by the fireworks.
-*-
April, 2001
Hi Freddie
We're 23 today. Well, I'm 23. You won't ever be. That's fucked up, isn't it?
Anyway, I don't normally do this. Which you know, of course, because all you do all day is lie there and wait for me to come and talk to you. Bit desperate, to be honest.
Anyway, I'll keep it quick. I don't like it when things happen anymore. Everything that happens is another thing you don't know about, and it still feels like shit that there are things I know that you don't. Like the shop and how well it's doing. And our brothers and the nice girls they're marrying. And mum and dad and how they've started taking holidays.
Or like how I snogged Lee Jordan during the Triwizard Tournament and never told you about it. Or how we kept snogging, and then moved on to shagging, and then never spoke again one day because I couldn't cope after you'd gone.
I always thought I'd have time to tell you, but I didn't have as much as I thought I did. So I'm really sorry, but I'm gay. I'm not sorry about the gay thing, I'm sorry I didn't tell you. In case that wasn't clear.
I think I'm doing better now but it's still really hard without you. Any time you want to let us know you were just testing out some Death Dribble Drops and pop your head up out of that grave soil, that'd be grand. Let me know first so mum doesn't have a heart attack.
Okay, love you.
Georgie
-*-
November, 1994
Anyone could have seen them. It was late, but not so late that Longbottom or someone else couldn't have come down the stairs and into the common room. The fire was still smouldering in the hearth, embers glowing and fading in turn. Fred had just got up to run to the common room, and he wouldn't be long. George imagined him rummaging through the trunk for their prototype sticky trainers and wheeling around to hurl himself back down the stairs. How long could it take? A minute? Two?
While George wondered, Lee extended a hand slowly across the sofa cushions, his fingertips just barely brushing George's. The ginger-haired boy turned to look at his friend, then, attention yanked away from the stairs. "What if he sees?" George asked.
"What if he does?" Lee replied, leaning forwards.
George met him in the kiss cautiously, too sensitised to the sound of Fred returning to throw himself into it. It was only their third kiss, if his count was correct, but they were all so perfect. Lee was warm, his lips full and soft, and he touched George in a way that made him feel safe. Made him feel wanted.
Lee leaned closer still, inching forwards. Their knees knocked together. George put a hand on the other boy's thigh. Lee brought his fingers up to George's jaw.
It felt like someone had found the candle burning quietly in his chest and knocked it over to start a forest fire. An inarticulable feeling. Fred might know, he thought, but then, guiltily, he did not want Fred in this. Not yet. Perhaps later on.
The sound of footfall made the pair jerk back from one another, eyes glassy. Lee had a little smile on his face, which George shyly returned.
"Alright, here they are!" said Fred, excitedly, as he whirled back over to the sofa, sticky trainers in hand. He plopped down on Lee's other side, apparently utterly oblivious that anything had been going on.
"So, here's how they work …"
-*-
June, 1999
"Hey," said Lee, stepping into place next to him. They both stared at some distant spot under a sky still red as the just-set sun carried on tossing its light into the clouds. George could barely see his old friend in his peripheral vision, but he thought he caught the sway of his dreadlocks, the rough shape of his arms folded at his chest.
A bubble of rage popped into existence, subitaneous, as so often happened in those days.
"Do you remember when we would sneak into the Gryffindor changing rooms and fuck when no one else was around?" George asked, venom tinging the edge of his voice. Lee was silent next to him, unflinching. Somehow, the lack of reaction made him angrier. George wanted a reaction. He wanted to scream, to cry. It was getting old, now, he could tell: people looked at him differently. The sympathy had bled out of their expressions. He took a swig of his drink, the ice clacking painfully against his teeth.
"You sound upset," said Lee.
"Observant, aren't we? Not observant enough to notice you're standing on the wrong side."
Lee sighed, lips moving in a quiet apology that George couldn't hear, then walked across his front to stand next to his good ear. Something throbbed in him at the brief sight of his friend's ear, the line of his nose. "I miss him, too, you know," Lee said.
"This isn't about Fred." George clipped out.
"No, yeah, no, of course not. You're standing over here alone and drunk at your little sister's wedding because you're …" Lee held up an imaginary sheaf of papers, putting on an imaginary pair of glasses to inspect them. "Totally mentally healthy and healed! That's the one." He dropped his hands to his sides as he sighed.
"You keep pushing me away."
George didn't respond, just worked at his glass frustratedly, his fingers playing with the deep grooves in the crystal.
"I think maybe you're taking it out on me because back then, you shared everything with Fred, and you wanted something for yourself."
"Shut the fuck up."
"And now you have everything to yourself, and you hate yourself for wanting that little shred back then."
"Fuck off, Lee. I'm not going to say it again."
A beat of silence between them. A bell of raucous laughter somewhere behind, as someone told what was apparently a very funny joke. George couldn't work out what in the world could be worth laughing at anymore.
"I'll owl you," Lee said, and he walked away. George was left behind, feeling suddenly deflated and somehow even lonelier, though he hadn't imagined it possible.
-*-
June, 1997
"Are you going to dance with me at Bill's wedding, then?" Lee whispered into George's ear, fingers trailing his bare chest. "Brave Georgie."
George laughed, face scrunching as he planted a kiss on the flat plane of Lee's cheek. "Do not call me that," he said, going for a tickle, but Lee was too quick, and he twisted away. "I'm not brave," he said as Lee returned, curling into him.
"You are. You're my favourite Gryffindor." Lee's lips were on his neck, then, vivid and lovely, his tongue lapping out to taste George's heartbeat through his veins. "You just need to tell Fred. I don't know what you're afraid of," said Lee between kisses. He rested his palm on George's chest, his chin on the back of his hand, and stared up at his ginger lover.
"I can't explain it," George said, thinking even as the words came out that he was lying. He could explain it. He didn't want to break what they had together, the three of them, for Fred. Didn't want to say that he'd already broken it, years ago. "But I'll tell him."
Lee smirked. "I don't think you will."
"I will!" said George, and then Lee was straddling him.
"Why are we on the floor, again?" Lee grumbled, shifting uncomfortably on his knees.
George laughed. "That," he gestured over to an empty bottle, "absolutely terrible wine," he leaned up, weight on his elbows, and kissed Lee, "is why we're on the floor." He finished with a satisfied smile.
"Dreadful. Unbelievable that people drink it."
"We drank it."
"Unbelievable that people drink it a second time."
George pulled him back in, opening his mouth against Lee's. Their tongues came together, damp and searching, fingers roaming tenderly down one another's bodies. He felt his companion's weight pressing down into his pelvis, and he groaned. "Don't start with that," he said, and Lee ground himself forwards.
"Unfortunately, we're both very cheeky, and so we stand no chance."
"None at all," said George, closing his eyes, his hands dropping to the belt loops on Lee's jeans.
"I'm looking forward to our dance," George mumbled, opening his eyes briefly to toss a wink at the wizard perched atop him. He was quite proud of a well-placed double entendre.
"I'm going to hold you to it," Lee replied, leaning forwards, weight on George's chest, lips landing on the spot between his lover's jaw and ear. "If I have to watch you dance with Angelina, I'll be very upset."