For Ashleigh's Fanfiction Tournaments on HPFC. February: Valentine's, week one.

Also for Mor for the 2013 GGE (er… oops. Sorry about the lateness). Pretty sure this is one of Mew and Mor's Weird Pairings, too.

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Gideon is, admittedly, a bit of a romantic. Fabian likes to tease him endlessly about this, but he's the only one who knows, because Gideon doesn't get a lot of chances to express it. Not when he's (kind of sort of maybe) dating Regulus Black.

Regulus is not a romantic. Regulus kind of hates romance. Regulus refuses to let anyone know he's dating anyone, because Regulus is his parents' perfect pureblood son. Purebloods don't date. Purebloods definitely don't date boys (Maybe Regulus isn't so perfect after all. Gideon likes that he gets to see that).

However much Gideon adores Regulus, however much he doesn't care that Regulus won't tell anyone about him, however much Gideon loves him for all of his lack of romanticism, right now Gideon is finding it kind of irksome.

It's February 13th.

And Gideon is stuck pacing around the living room of his tiny apartment, wondering what he's supposed to do about tomorrow.

He can't take Regulus out. And Gideon can't cook to save his life.

Gideon knows that Regulus wouldn't care if he just ignored the holiday entirely (in fact, Regulus had once called it a "completely commercialised excuse to sell love-potion dosed chocolates and scent-enchanted roses." That's a direct quote).

But Gideon can't… can't. He can't do that. For him, Valentine's Day is a chance to express… everything. Everything that he can't contain. He loves Regulus, more fiercely than he ever though he could (and Fabian, who has always understood him, does not understand this, cannot understand this. But Fabian accepts it, because Fabian is just happy that Gideon is happy, and even Fabian has seen, once or twice, the moments when Regulus lets his guard down around Gideon. Fabian has seen the moments when anyone looking at Regulus could not fail to see that Regulus loves him. And Fabian, who has the misfortunate of being in love with a man who will never love him back, is just pleased that Gideon is happy).

Gideon needs to express his love. He needs to (Fabian once said he was like a balloon that was always filling up. If he never let anything out, he'd eventually explode). Maybe Valentine's Day is just an excuse, but it's one that Gideon is not going to let slip by.

If he can just figure out what to do.

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"Fabiaaaaaaaaaaaaan," Gideon whines, popping out of his brother's floo. He nods to Dorcas, who is sitting casually on his brother's couch. Dorcas waves back without lifting her gaze from the Prophet.

"Whaaaaaaaaaat?" Fabian yells back in the same tone. Gideon bounds over to the kitchen.

"It's almost Valentine's, Fab!" Fabian blinks. He glances at the calendar.

"Er, so it is. Your point?"

"I don't know what to dooooooo!"

Fabian rolls his eyes. "Honestly, you're like a puppy."

"That's not helpful, Fab. Help meeeeeeeee. I can't cook and I don't know what to do."

Fabian glances at Dorcas then back, but Gideon just shrugs.

Fabian nods. "Look, please, for the love of your apartment, do not try to cook. We do not need another incident like the summer of '75. "

Gideon leans back against the dark countertop, staring at his brother. Fabian's red hair makes his wooden cabinets look like they're on fire. This is probably not a helpful thought when trying to avoid another incident like the summer of '75.

"If I can't cook for him, and I can't take him out, what am I supposed to do? I can order takeaway, but we always order takeaway."

Fabian runs a hand through his close-cropped hair. "Jesus, Gid, I don't know why you're asking me. You know I'm awful at this sort of thing."

"Have you ever been to the cinema?" Dorcas' voice suddenly floats through from the living room. Fabian and Gideon both turn to look at her. She hasn't moved from her position on the horrendous purple couch (and how many times has Gideon told Fabian to get rid of that thing? But noooo, of course not). She has, however, folded down the top of the paper. Her blonde hair is piled on top of her head. She leans against one arm of the couch, slung out across all three cushions, long legs crossed.

"The what?" Fabian asks.

"The cinema."

"What's that?" Gideon asks.

Dorcas rolls her eyes at them. "You're such purebloods," she says, and it's so foreign to hear that word said as though it's a failing. "It's the muggle moving pictures. They tell stories. I could loan you my telly and a movie, if you want. For your date. Maybe he'd like that, something new."

Gideon blinks. He's not really sure what she's just offered, but it's more than Fabian has come up with. "All right," he says slowly.

And Valentine's Day ends with Regulus curled up in his arms on their sofa, sound asleep with his head on Gideon's chest. Gideon is calling that a success.