Lies By Omission

Chapter 7: A Romantic Blaise and an Asexual Neville

This is the last chapter!! It's been so fun, you guys. So fun. My DMs, by the way, are always open to requests. The only thing is... I take a long time. (And there are lots of things I can't/won't write.) But still! HMU if you've got something, now that this is finished!

Blaise

"I don't only care about sex," Blaise heard himself saying, his ears still buzzing with Neville's words. I'm bloody in love with you.

He wanted to say it back, especially with Neville looking at him like that, his body still and his eyes wide, watching Blaise as if somehow hoping Blaise hadn't heard him say it, even though he had been yelling when he said it. Neville never yelled, but today was the first time for a lot of things.

He wanted to say it back, he did, he did, only the words were hard to get out– they felt like too much and not enough at the same time, and he felt like such a coward as Neville ran a hand through his hair and looked away, and Blaise still hadn't said The Words.

Neville had said it first, after Blaise had been working up to say it for months, years, and now Blaise felt like they weren't enough, not nearly enough. If you can say it, it's not enough for me. If you love me, I love you more, if you feel like this, I feel a dozen times more than this, and it's drowning me.

"Forget I said that," Neville mumbled. It felt like reverse deja vu, bringing to mind his own words just a week ago, right after he'd shouted his love for Neville in front of fucking Harry Potter, one of Neville's closest friends. You can forget I said that.

Everything was going in circles, everything and yet the world had turned on its head, everything and nothing was the same– Neville was in love with him.

Somehow, Blaise couldn't find any words in himself to explain that he felt it too, Merlin did he feel it too. Instead, he said, "Did I tell you I've gotten into photography? I really like it."

Neville's body curled even more in on itself, and Blaise cursed himself again. Why was it so hard to tell this wide-eyed, beautiful man how incredibly he pulled at Blaise's heart with everything he did?

"I remember," Neville said quietly, his words slow, like he was weighing whether to expect a response to his confession or if it was going into the void. It most certainly was not going into the void. It shot straight into Blaise's heart, and he wanted to store it away for safekeeping, lock it in there so he would never forget it. "I remember you were going to try it, anyway, but... then..."

Blaise hadn't given him any updates, because he had been holed up in Draco's place being eaten alive by guilt of what might be true. Another wave of relief washed over him now as he thought about it, and how wonderfully wrong he had been.

"Well I think I've really started to like it," he said lamely. "I'll show you the pictures I've taken so far."

"Okay," Neville said, still quietly.

Blaise hated himself, but he thought the photographs... well, they said something, and he'd only been taking photos for a week and a half, so surely Neville would see it, would feel it, would understand, even just a little bit, how Blaise felt.

He managed to stand up, which was a wonder because it felt as if the world was still in the middle of being remade and the ground didn't have any business being steady. His knees certainly weren't steady.

"I'll fetch my camera." He looked at Neville, who nodded miserably. Neville was watching with his arms hugging himself tightly, and Blaise reached for something to say, anything to say to reassure him that whatever Blaise couldn't figure out how to say, Neville was everything, and Blaise didn't mean what this silence meant either. "Neville? I– I want you to see."