Brothels, Blonds, and Brunettes

Chapter Three

Ron slowly blinked open his eyes. He frowned as he looked at the black material of the chair that his face was pressed against. Where was he? He shifted his head slightly, and through a cloud of smoke he spotted Draco sitting in a chair across from him. He quickly closed his eyes. He hadn’t yet remembered what had happened the night before, but if Draco was there it couldn’t have been good.

“I see you’re awake Weasley. You and I need to have a little talk.”

Ron groaned in pain, clutching his head in the hopes that Draco would leave him alone. Truthfully his head really did ache horribly. He should have known better. Sometimes Draco was like a dog with a bone, once he got hold of something he didn’t let it go. And he would hardly care if Ron was is pain.

“Have a headache, do we? And no wonder. You were quite smashed last night, Weasley. Quite smashed.”

The way he said it made Ron groan again. He’d obviously done something stupid last night. Malfoy sounded pissed off. He tried to remember what had happened and had a sudden image of grabbing Draco’s ass. Oh, god. He hadn’t had he?

“Malfoy? What’s going on? How did I get here?”

“You don’t remember?”

“No I don’t remember anything.” He decided not to mention the ass grabbing. He was praying to anything that listened that it hadn’t really happened.

“Well that’s certainly convenient.” He stood up and started pacing back and forth across the small living room, as Ron sat up slowly, eyeing him warily. “Let me see if I can jog your memory. Where should I start? There are so many things to choose from. I could start with how you grabbed my bum.”

Ron flinched. So that had happened.

“Or when you puked all over my new *white* carpet. Or maybe when you stood up in the bar and announced to all and sundry that you were gay.”

Ron felt like the bottom had dropped out of his stomach. He couldn’t have been drunk enough to do that could he? He frequented that bar pretty often, and obviously everyone there knew he was gay, but he tried to keep a low profile and not draw attention to himself. He’d been very careful to make sure that no one he knew found out. But that was all shot to hell, because now Draco knew.


“Which I naturally found quite surprising, considering I was under the impression, as was everyone else, that you were straight. But apparently not. Because I found you, Ronald Weasley, in a gay bar, to drunk to walk, and about to go home with a strange man who you’d never met before,”at the last his voice took on a particularly hard edge. He couldn’t believe that Ron had almost left with a total stranger. Never mind that he had intended on doing the same thing. This was different. It was Ron. Innocent heterosexual little Ron. He obviously hadn’t known what he was doing.


“What business is it of yours anyway, Malfoy?”

“What business?” He stumbled for a minute. What business was it of his if Ron was gay? He really didn’t have any reason to be this upset. But he was. “I’m your partner for Merlin’s sake! And when my partner, straitlaced flamingly heterosexual Ronald Weasley undergoes a complete personality change, I think it’s my business! And besides, I’m the one who had my night ruined because I had to take care of your drunken bloody ass. If it wasn’t for me, that guy would have taken you back to his place.”

He decided to tell the truth as the cat was pretty much out of the bag now.“That’s the reason I went to the bar in the first place. Since you were there you have to know what kind of bar it was. I’ve been there before. I just drank a little more than I meant to, because I was.. thinking about things.”

“That’s the reason you were there...,” Draco trailed off, words failing him. He just couldn’t process it. Ronald Weasley was gay. And he’d been having sex. With men. “You’ve been there before?”

“Yes,” Ron answered hesitantly.

“And you’re gay?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you known?”

“Well...I don’t know. Maybe always. But I never really admitted to myself until fifth year.”

“What happened in fifth year?”

Ron looked at him. He couldn’t believe that he was finally talking to someone about this. And that the person was Draco Malfoy. It was nice to tell someone though, and he wasn’t ready for anyone else to know. That’s the reason he’d gotten so drunk last night. He’d been thinking about telling everyone. He was sick of hiding it. Sick of lying to everyone. But that bone chilling fear had come. What if they all hated him? Was it worth losing his family? Disgusted with himself for chickening out again, he’d ordered Firewhiskey and kept drinking until he didn’t care anymore.

That must have been when Draco found him. And now here he was. In his flat, about to tell him something he’d never told anyone. But then he’d already told him he was gay, something he’d never told anyone. Why not tell him this too? It’s not like he could tell anyone else.

“Well, it was after a quidditch game against Slytherin, we’d won, so naturally we were celebrating.”

“Naturally.”

“Seamus had somehow gotten his hands on a bottle of firewhiskey. Everyone was pretty drunk, except for me. For some reason I just didn’t feel like it that night. But Harry decided that he wanted to take a walk down to the quidditch pitch, and of course he wanted me to go with him.”

Draco sat down in the chair and took out another cigarette. He had a good idea where this was going. He couldn’t help but think, damn Potter for always getting what he wanted. He choked on the smoke and started to cough. Since when had Ron become something that he wanted?

“Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m..fine. Continue.”

“Okay. Um..we were on the pitch and he was talking about quidditch or something, and he was smiling and he just looked so..beautiful.” He smiled a little remembering the way those green eyes had shone with happiness. He had too few memories of Harry happy.

He looked up to see Draco frowning at him. Realizing that he’d stopped speaking for a minute, he flushed. “Anyways he tripped and fell against me, and I kissed him. And it was just.. perfect. The few half hearted snogs I’d had with girls were nothing compared to it. And that’s when I realized. I quickly broke the kiss and apologized saying I was a lot more drunk than I actually was, and we never talked about it again. Actually, I don’t think he even remembers it.”

Draco thought that was unlikely, but didn’t say it out loud.

“So that’s it. My big secret. I’m sure that you’ll delight in telling everyone all about it. After all I don’t usually give you this kind of ammunition.”

“Telling them what? That you’re gay. I don’t know why you’d think I, of all people, would say something. I am after all gay, and I don’t go shouting it out on the street corners. It’s your business who you tell.”

Ron looked at him for a moment, hope mingling with disappointment. On the one hand, he was relieved that no one else would find out. But deep down he wanted people to know, he just didn’t have the courage to tell them, if Draco did it would let him off the hook. But nothing was ever easy, especially when it concerned Draco.

“You really won’t tell anyone?”

“I really won’t. I promise.”

“Well that’s...good. I should probably be going then,” he said rising slowly to his feet.

“Not so fast, there’s still things we need to discuss.”

“Like what?”

“Like some of the things you said last night.”

Ron sat back down carefully, a little nervous about what he could have said that Draco felt the need to talk about. “Okay. What things?”

“Well after you grabbed my bum, you said that you’s been wanting to do it since you’d seen it in the brothel. Was that true?”

Ron looked away from Draco’s piercing gaze. “Well I...Malfoy I was drunk last night,” he said hoping that it was enough to satisfy him.

“Yes. The fact didn’t escape my notice. That doesn’t answer my question however.”

“I think it does,” he said firmly, not liking where this was leading. He might fantasize about Draco sometimes, but he didn’t want to make it a reality. Draco wasn’t someone he could shag and then never see again. And he wasn’t ready to have anything more complicated than that.

“I see. Well then, I guess you should be going. I’ll see you at work on Monday.” He went to the door and opened it, standing there with his face completely blank.

Ron stood up and walked to the door, pausing in front of Draco. “Malfoy I..”

“You what?” he asked coldly. He had never taken rejection well. Never taken it at all in fact.

“Nothing, I just..nothing. I’ll see you on Monday.”

“Yes. Monday.”

Draco closed the door softly, resisting the urge to slam it. He wouldn’t let Ron see that he was angry. And he was, furious in fact. He knew that Ron was attracted to him, but apparently not enough to do anything about it. Apparently not enough to risk being found out, and he knew that’s what Ron was afraid of.

Well screw the prat. Ron obviously didn’t deserve someone as good as him. If Ron could choke down his attraction then so could he. He’d go to work and act like nothing had changed. And it hadn’t really. So he was mildly attracted to him. There were plenty of other fish in the sea, he’d just have to go catch one. In fact, there was a party that night celebrating the people who had just graduated from Auror training, fresh meat, so to speak. And Draco found that he was suddenly very hungry.

AN:Thanks to katieK, crudedly, desi, mrpointyhorns, and achick for reviewing. Keep letting me know what you think, good or bad.