Who: Georgi Draganov, Miro Nikolov, Ernie Macmillan What: Having an adventure, Muggle-style. Then having too many adventures for Georgi to deal with. Then… a resolution. (I'm extremely sorry, this is long and hard to summarize.) When: Monday, 12 March, afternoon. Then late at night. Where: The London Eye! Then Leannan Boathouse, Dundee. Warnings: Miro being an unstoppable force. Kissing. Insinuations of an adult nature.
As the three of them shuffled into the glass-and-metal compartment, before it even started to move, Georgi was already clinging to the handrail for support and had his other hand on his wand, hidden carefully inside the Muggle jacket he'd bought just for this occasion. He'd been okay, if nervous and awestruck, watching the airplanes take off and land at the airport while waiting for Miro's plane, even knowing that his precious brother was stuck inside a metal box high in the air with no magic to protect him. He'd closed his eyes in the taxi-cab, every bump and blaring horn and car rushing past them making him cling to Ernie's or Miro's arm, but he'd survived it. But the idea of being trapped in this little pod full of Muggles hundreds of feet in the air, supported only by a completely incomprehensible system of metal supports and cables and electricity, was the scariest thing they'd done yet.
Miro, who was enviably relaxed and comfortable leaning next to him on the rail, laughed at his brother. "You're scared of heights?" He clicked his tongue at that idea, grinning. "I don't understand that, bro. It can't be scarier than flying, and you do that all the time." Miro glanced over at Ernie, still half-laughing. "What about you, are you scared to go up?"
“Oh no - I've been waiting for months to get on this thing. It's an incredible construction. I just think I trust… ah, engineering more than Georgi does. It's all math, isn't it?” Ernie replied gleefully. He nudged Georgi’s shoulder and leaned in to tell him specifically. “It's all just math. Everyone will live.”
"I'm not scared," Georgi told them, though his deathgrip on the handrail said otherwise. "But this container is very heavy and that thing holding it onto the metal is very small. I don't know how it can keep us up without-- but I'm sure it will be okay," he added, and managed a bit of a nervous smile. "I'm excited to see what the city looks like from so high. You've been up in one of these before, Miro?"
"Not as big as this," Miro answered cheerily. "They have smaller ones at carnivals and stuff. But I was in Paris last year with a girlfriend and we went up in the Eiffel Tower. Way higher than this. Super romantic." He elbowed Georgi, grinning. "You should bring your girl to this once you stop looking like you're about to lose your lunch all over your shoes. That's not romantic."
Georgi flushed, carefully not looking at Ernie, even though he was a solidly warm presence at his side. "No, I don't think so."
“I don't know,” Ernie said gallantly at the way Georgi flushed, smiling like they had a private joke. “She might like playing the saviour to your damsel in distress.” Elbowing Georgi gently since he couldn't hold his hand, he looked over at Miro. “Have you met Peggy yet?”
"Yeah, at the match. She's gorgeous and really high-class. Reminds me of Natalie Portman. But I guess you guys didn't see the new Star Wars movie." Miro shook his head, leaning in and dropping his voice so the other people in the compartment couldn't listen in. "Man, even if I had magic, I'd give it up in a minute for TV and movies and the internet, and like… freedom. You guys don't know what you're missing."
Ernie shared a look with Georgi, hesitant to follow up his commentary with his current invention. “Georgi tells me you work in telecommunications. That's… em, the broadcast system, yes. For those things?” he said diplomatically.
"No -- well, yeah, but not in broadcasting. I'm just a technician, and I'm just starting out, but it's a pretty good job. I go around and install TV service for people and fix things when they have problems." He shrugged. "It's okay. How about you, what do you do?"
“I'm an inventor. Engineer, I suppose, in your, em, Muggle verbiage. I actually met your brother while he was flying into one of my experiments,” he replied, looking over at Georgi and not really able to hide how fond he was of that moment.
Georgi smiled back at him, forgetting for a moment to be worried about the contraption they were in falling to pieces around them. "Yeah, I remember. I'm glad that I did." He nudged his shoulder against Ernie's companionably. "Miro, Ernie is inventing a system that's a little like TV, so people can watch Quidditch matches at home. I've seen it a little bit, and it's genius."
"Really?" Miro's eyebrows were raised, looking just like Georgi in his impressed expression. "Wow, that would be cool. I remember those moving photos, from when I was a kid. Is it like that? Do you think we could get it in homes with no magic eventually? I'd definitely watch it."
Ernie looked slightly flushed at the mention, but he folded his hands in his lap. "That'd be far too expensive - the developing fluid for a six hour game would be obscene. No, it's like…” Ernie paused as he took a moment to think of the word. “Halo… hallow… a figure made of light, I can't remember what it's called. It's a projection, rather than on a screen or print. If that makes sense.”
"Hologram," Miro answered instantly, breaking into a wide, amazed grin. "That's crazy, Ernie. How-- no, I know I wouldn't understand. But it's amazing. It's like Star Wars! I'm telling you!" He was gesturing broadly, drawing attention from other passengers, and Georgi raised a hand to caution him to be quieter. Miro laughed at him and leaned in. "Sorry," he said, lowering his voice again. "It's just a really cool idea."
Georgi smiled back at his brother. "Yeah," he agreed, his grip relaxing on the handrail. "It's very cool."
He glanced down through the glass. They'd been rising slowly and smoothly, with no signs that the operation was about to break down and send them all hurtling into the river, and the view was amazing. Thanks to the Statute of Secrecy he'd never been able to fly over a city without darkness or cloud cover getting in the way of the view, but it was a clear bright day and he could see it all: hundreds of years of Muggle ingenuity had made all these buildings, towers, bridges, gardens, roads, all the cars and the funny tall buses, and all the thousands or hundred thousands or millions of people moving through it. It stopped Georgi's breath, and without entirely meaning to he reached down for Ernie's and Miro's hands, gripping them both tight. "Wow," he said softly.
“It's like patchwork, a bit. Or like… a great, strange sort of volcano, you know? Spewing steel buildings instead of lava,” was Ernie’s comment as he leaned to look over Georgi’s head.
"It's just a city, guys," Miro told them both, dryly, and extricated his hand from Georgi's to lean on the railing and look down. "But yeah, it's cool, right? I wonder how far you can see from the top of this thing?"
"Forty kilometres," Georgi answered from rote -- he'd been reading the pamphlet and all the signs while they waited in line. "It said you can see all the way to a place called Windsor Castle, which is one of the homes of the queen." He couldn't tear his eyes away from the city spreading out endlessly beneath them. "Is that still London, that far away? I didn't know it's so big."
“Wizarding London and Muggle London are defined differently, I understand. Something about sprawl and the old wards on walls. My history is more than a bit rusty,” Ernie explained, then looked over to Miro. “Is Sofia a very big city?”
He was only half listening to the answer. With Georgi a little more awed and a little less unsettled, Ernie could see why this was something Justin wanted to do with Monte rather than him. Feeling on top of the world, in this little cart, he felt a certain urge to lean against the elder Bulgarian’s shoulder and really thread their fingers together --
They were still holding hands.
Ernie gently, trying to be nondescript, pulled his hand from Georgi’s grasp so as not to arouse suspicion.
Georgi looked down, startled for a moment by Ernie's hand leaving his, and then he flushed and pressed his hands together in his lap instead to remove any further inclination to touch him. Just because they were in a Muggle place, surrounded by Muggles, so high in the air that this didn't seem entirely real, it didn't mean he could forget that people might see. His brother might see.
Miro, who wasn't even looking at the two of them, shrugged. "Not big like this, but there's about a million people. Way bigger than Plovdiv, where Georgi's family lives." He said that last with a little bite. "When I went there as a kid, it was huge. But I've been lots of other cities by now. You know the whole of Bulgaria is only like eight million people? It's not big. There's a lot more to the world than that."
Ernie wasn’t watching the world outside, or even Miro - he was watching the way Georgi’s face colored, the way he knitted his own hands together. He felt a pang in his chest, one that wanted to lead him into Georgi’s chest and make this a little more real. He coughed into his hand and straightened his shoulders a little.
“Cities outside of Europe? Where have you gone?” Ernie asked politely before he pressed his hand to Georgi’s back, pretending like it was giving him stability.
"Oh, I've been Istanbul, Rome," Miro started, counting on his fingers. Georgi, a little startled by Ernie's touch, leaned into it after a moment and tipped his head to smile at him, just for a second, before turning his attention to his brother. "Paris, Vienna. Cairo in Egypt, that was crazy awesome. And I'm saving up to go to Las Vegas in the United States." He grinned over at the two of them. "When I was a kid nobody could leave Bulgaria, because of communism, you know? Now everybody's going places."
“You should. I love travelling. But I’ve never gone to Egypt - that is definitely on my list. I may not have enjoyed history class, but who doesn’t want to see the inside of a pyramid!? Did you go in one?” Ernie asked brightly, positioning himself a little closer to Georgi, just enough to block sight of his hands but not directly on top of the man.
“You’d like Brazil. You’d like Brazil at Carnaval,” he said, the words tripping smoothly off his tongue. “Next year, obviously, but if you enjoyed walking through the Montrose locker room, you’d really enjoy Rio.” Ernie laughed as he slid his hand a little lower, just at the waistband of Georgi’s very muggle jeans.
Georgi blushed immediately, not sure what Ernie was doing or what he should do or whether Miro would notice if he moved away. He took a deep breath, very carefully not looking at Ernie, and clasped his hands tighter in his lap, trying not to move at all.
"Yeah, I hear it's wild there," Miro answered. He was looking down, watching the far-away little buses and cars moving over the bridges below. "Sometime I'll get to South America and Asia and Australia and everywhere. But traveling that far is pretty expensive. Not like I can just snap my fingers and be there in a second or do whatever you guys do." He glanced up at Georgi, looking quizzically at the strange expression on his face. "You okay, bro?"
"Yes," Georgi answered, intensely aware of Ernie's hand on his back, warm through his shirt, and trying not to blush further. "I'm okay. I… don't think it will break down now."
Ernie smiled quietly to himself at Georgi’s fault in composure - it was meant to be soothing, but he couldn’t deny that it did feel a little dangerous.
“My father is a researcher so I spent a lot of my childhood traveling to just those areas. Tropics - he studies tropical bugs and flowers, mainly for medicinal purposes. But I do understand -- I remember my friend, Justin, the one you met at the game that helped with the flights, told me once that it was something like 13 hours to fly to Hong Kong from London. Granted, it’s 8 hours by train from London to Hogwarts, but at least the trolley comes around with tea and treats for you.”
They were coming down from the peak now and Ernie sighed a little.
That sigh made Georgi want to put his arm around Ernie, but of course he couldn't do that, so he gingerly slipped one hand around to catch Ernie's fingers behind his back. It was a bit of an awkward position, but he curled his fingers around Ernie's hand and held on.
"Isn't the Hogwarts school in Scotland?" Miro asked. "We're going there to drink with Georgi's girlfriend. I mean, not the school, whatever the town is called. Did you really have to come all the way to London just to get on a train to go back to Scotland? Do you guys know that's crazy?"
Ernie laughed. “Hogsmeade - that’s the town right outside of Hogwarts. And while I didn’t have to come all the way to London… I generally did,” he said, coloring a little at how silly that really was. “Once I was prefect I had to be on the train because you have to do a bit of prefecting, but even outside of that, I just liked the time with my mates on the train. I’d some muggleborn friends and while sometimes I could spend a bit of time with them during the summer, mostly it wasn’t.”
He paused a beat, then slipped his hand out of Georgi’s. “Are you going to the Three Broomsticks? My friend Hannah works there.”
"Yeah, the Three Broomsticks," Georgi answered, letting his empty hand slide awkwardly down to rest on his lap again. "Peggy and I have been there before. We'll say hello to her."
"Is your friend cute?" Miro wanted to know, leaning over to grin at Ernie.
“She’s gorgeous. And dating a legitimate war hero,” Ernie replied with the same small smile he’d employed during most of Miro’s commentary on the women in Montrose. “I’d say you’ve got an eye for taken women, but you haven’t put eyes on her yet.”
Miro clicked his tongue in disapproval. "How do you guys not know any single women? You should've thought of that before you let me come all the way over here."
Georgi smiled over at his brother and patted his shoulder. "Maybe Ernie doesn't want you to break his friends' hearts when you go home to Sofia."
“Besides, the single women I know would break you in half. I don't know any demure ones. Although, if you want a bit of fun, there is no one more fun than my cousin Jupiter. She can outdrink an armada,” Ernie chuckled a little. “Besides, didn't you say you had a girlfriend?”
Miro's brow furrowed, then cleared. "Oh, Nastiya? The girl who took me to Paris? No, she dumped me, met a richer guy." He shrugged. "That wasn't anything anyway. I don't have girlfriends for very long." He leaned against the handrail, looking down as the car descended toward earth again. "Your cousin's hot. I don't know. You have a girlfriend?"
Ernie made it a point not to look at Georgi.
“I don’t. I’m not really prime dating material - far more suited to the role of best friend. Granted, if this whole motion capture project goes through and I end up introducing television to wizard-kind, the money may make up for whatever physical charms I lack, but… that’s hardly romantic.” He tilted his head a little and smiled at Miro. “But you and I are young and can bounce in and out of love. Georgi’s an old man and needs to get engaged already.”
"Nah, man, I'm a nobody and I'm always broke and I still get women all the time. You just need confidence," Miro told him authoritatively. "Girls love a guy who just goes for it. And you're kind of a cute nerd. There's definitely people who go for that. Hey, what are you doing after this? Let's go out to a club or something. I'm going to help you get laid."
"Miro," Georgi objected, startled and not pleased by this plan. "I don't think that's what Ernie wants to do." He carefully didn't look at Ernie, but he was frowning, very bothered by the idea.
Miro flapped his hand at Georgi dismissively. "Yeah, we know, you're boring and proper. You can go home and drink tea and get to bed early, me and Ernie can go." He gave Ernie an expectant look. "Come on, let's do it. I bet you're not as bad at picking up as you think, you just need some practice. Come and learn from the master."
Ernie made an apologetic face at Miro. “Kind as that is, I'm useless at a club. - I’ve lost 95% of my hearing. I’ve got - I don’t know if you can see just there,” Ernie turned his head slightly and pointed just behind his ear in the small hollow there where there was a small red circle stuck to his skin, “but that picks up you talking and puts it in text along the bottom of my glasses here.” He wasn’t going to mention the wristband that could help keep time to the beat - it would still be a disaster.
"Oh, really?" Miro craned his neck to see, surprised. "I didn't know that. But you can, like… understand people and stuff even when it's loud, right? You did at the match. We don't have to go to a club or anything, what about a bar?"
"Miro," Georgi said again, his fingers going tight around the railing.
"Gosho," Miro answered back, using his childish nickname for his brother. "Shush, I'm talking to your friend."
“Actually, that’s why I had Lex take you down to the stands. You have to be pretty much shouting in my ear to get the translation to work over the crowd noise. But…”
He wasn’t going to escape this unscathed, it seem, no matter what tone of voice Georgi took. “Well… maybe… instead of a club, where there is a lot of overbearing music… we can go to a bar. Near the university in Edinburgh. Should be plenty of girls, easier conditions for me. I’ve even got Muggle identification,” he suggested bravely.
Georgi frowned, a pit opening up in his stomach at the thought of Ernie meeting girls, who would of course love him, because who wouldn't? He couldn't say anything, though, so he just pressed his lips together and looked away, gripping the handrail so tight his knuckles turned white.
"Awesome," Miro said brightly, and held up his hand to Ernie for a high five. "It'll be fun. I'll make sure you hook up, I promise." He gave Georgi a curious look. "What's wrong with you, bro? Jealous?"
"No," Georgi said too fast. "You should go if you want. And have fun."
He hit Miro’s hand right on target, then looked at Georgi. There was something sharp and firey that sparked in Ernie at the uncomfortable look on Georgi’s face, then further as his eyes panned down. In all of his days, he would never consider Georgi a jealous man, but then, he’d never given him any reason to be jealous.
“Hook up?” he asked innocently, a look flickering towards Georgi. “With hooks?”
Miro laughed at him, standing up as the compartment neared the ground and everyone around them started getting ready to disembark. "With a chick," he answered. "Unless you want me to get you a dude. Which I can probably do, but we just might have to go to a different kind of bar." An older woman, walking by him right at that moment, turned to give him an offended look. "What? It's the year 2000! It's not like gay people are new." He gave Ernie an eyerolling look. "Old people," he scoffed.
Georgi was still as a stone beside him, staring at Miro like he'd sprouted another head, and he almost missed it when it was his turn to step out of the pod until his brother nudged him. "You're in the way, Georgi."
“I’ll tell you what,” Ernie said casually, sticking his hands in his pocket as he looked at the back of Georgi’s head. “We’ll try one of both, see which one calls me offsides.” He smiled at Miro. “See - a football reference? I can totally fit in with a Muggle crowd.”
Miro patted him on the back as they all shuffled in line off the platform. "Good job, buddy. Though I'm not sure you get what offside is, but we can work on that." He gave Georgi a little nudge again. "What's wrong with you?"
"Just…" Georgi cleared his throat uncomfortably. "I didn't know that you are… okay with things like this." He glanced back at Ernie, catching his eye for just a second before looking away, feeling warm and prickly and rattled all over.
"Don't be weird," Miro warned him. "I know lots of people that are…" He see-sawed his hand. "You know. Bulgaria's pretty old-fashioned," he told Ernie. "But I live in the big city. And I've been traveling and seen lots of places that are more forward about it. I don't care. I'll take you anywhere you want to go. Gay guys always want to buy me drinks, anyway," he added, a little proud of that. "Saves me a lot of money that way."
“I would just like to say in my defense that I have asked loads of times what offsides is and no one can properly explain it,” Ernie laughed, suddenly feeling a whole hell of a lot better about Miro than at any time this trip. He grinned at him. “Show me your ladykilling ways, Miro. I promise I will be a great study.”
Georgi had his mouth open again, watching his brother sling an arm over Ernie's shoulders and walk in front of him, and he had to take a few quick steps to catch up. He managed to keep his jaw attached as he trailed along behind them, watching Ernie's back as Miro chattered away to him, and it was all he could do to just keep up. He didn't know what was going on with Ernie and his sudden boldness, he was startled that Miro was comfortable enough with men 'hooking up' with each other to say so in public, and he was absolutely not happy with the idea of Ernie going off to… meet people.
He was very quiet as he followed Ernie and Miro toward the street, trying to sort out the thoughts crowding his head. It wasn't going to be a very comfortable night, he was already sure.
***
Ernie wasn’t drunk - it was hard for him to get so comfortable in a Muggle environment that he was willing to give over all of his faculties to Miro’s goading. He was, however, still buzzed off the night itself - Ernie didn’t do much extroverted socializing and Miro was like travelling with his cousin Jupiter: lightning in a bottle. His confidence was not so much contagious as it was energizing and it paid off as Ernie had no idea where the man had gotten to. Apparating to the boat house in Dundee, Ernie knocked on the door and looked down at himself. Miro had done some edits when he’d met the man after their excursion in London: pulling out the bowtie he’d worn and slicking his hair back with pomade, giving him one of his concert t-shirts to wear instead and transfiguring his one Muggle coat into leather.
Georgi was supposed to be sleeping because he had training in the morning, but instead he was sitting in his kitchen, half-listening to a silly late-night drama on the wireless and staring at the mobile phone Miro had left with him, waiting to see if it would ring. He didn't even know if it would work here at his little house, but making Miro promise to call him if he ran into trouble or needed to be picked up had made him feel marginally better about letting Ernie apparate him away to Edinburgh. He was trying not to wonder where the two of them were or what they were getting up to among the Muggles, but his mind was unhelpfully supplying images for him anyway.
He jumped up immediately at the knock on his door and went to fling it open. "...Ernie," he said, startled by his appearance. He looked good in that Muggle fashion, but he didn't look like Ernie. "What are you -- where's Miro? Is he okay?"
“I imagine so. He’s… somewhere with a girl, I think her name was Stacy or Stasia or Sissy - it was hard to hear. I expect he’ll find his way back to his hotel room at some point tonight.” He looked Georgi up and down, then added with a small, Ernie-esque smile, “I thought you’d still be awake.”
"Yeah, I was," Georgi answered, and stepped back so Ernie could come in. "I was just sitting and… thinking." He flushed at what he'd been thinking; Ernie didn't need to know about what he'd imagined, sitting here alone in his little house. "Did you, uh… have fun?"
Ernie took a few steps in and peeled off the coat. “You know, I did. It's really a sight to see, Miro in full hunt. He reminds me of my cousin Jupiter in that he is instantly the most confident, brightest thing in a place. And he just… well. I don't know how to explain it. But it was a lot of fun, and definitely educational.”
But for all of his casual talk, there was a knowing look in his eye. “And it was nice to be somewhere where no one knew who I was. Liberating, in a way. I'm glad I said yes.”
Georgi took Ernie's coat automatically, holding the warm leather tight in his hands. "Oh," he said, and turned to hang it up for Ernie, He took a moment longer than he needed to, unable to look back at him right away, because that pit in his stomach was back, and growing.
He took a deep breath after that moment and turned back to face Ernie, keeping his expression as neutral as he could. "Did you… meet someone… nice?"
“I met some very nice people, yes. And they were all amused by my hippie-like naivete, what with not knowing any popular films or musicians of the day. I got a crash course in this,” he gestured at the Pink Floyd shirt he was wearing with a rainbow prism on it, “from a girl named Lizzy who thought I was terrible for only liking the picture. Miro said that was a good tactic, that helpless was charming.” Ernie shook his head gently, eyes never leaving Georgi and his desperate attempt to not be jealous. He was enjoying it a little, he had to admit, even if it made him a terrible human being to do so. “What do you think? Is helpless charming?” he asked.
Georgi felt helpless, and he didn't like it much. He swallowed and stepped forward, reaching out to rest his fingertips gently on Ernie's sides, looking down at the design on the T-shirt he didn't understand, either. "No," he said seriously. "You're charming because you know so much, and you're so excited about learning new things, and you share everything so generously, and because you're beautiful, and brave. Ernie…" He frowned, dropping the attempt at hiding his discontent. "I don't want to be -- I don't control what you do, of course, you should do what you want, but…" He closed his eyes. "I hope you don't want to 'hook up' like Miro. I hope you didn't."
“Why’s that?” Ernie asked simply, head tilting slightly.
"You know why," Georgi told him. He blinked open his eyes again, looking straight into Ernie's face, very serious, still frowning a little. "Because I love you. And you love me. That's… that's it."
All of the coy intuition and casual confidence that he was mirroring off of Miro drained away at the declaration. His breath caught and for a second, he was standing on the portico outside of his grandmother’s castle, unable to quite believe what he was reading and yet still feeling the words threaten to crush his lungs into unconsciousness.
“Did… you…?” he said weakly, eyes narrowing slightly to try and focus Georgi better, as if that might help.
Georgi gave him a helpless little shrug. "I don't know, I just… know. Ernie. I love you. I know I shouldn't. But." He barely blinked, his eyes fixed on Ernie's. "I do. Please tell me that's… okay."
He was surprisingly calm now that he'd said it out loud. His stomach was settled, his mind was clear, and he stood on solid ground once more. He smiled, just a little. "Please tell me I'm right," he added, firm and clear.
Ernie’s jaw worked at the air for a moment before he put voice to his thoughts.
“That’s what I came to tell you tonight. I was…. I was going to make you work for it,” Ernie said, looking down and shrugging one shoulder. “Because… well. You’re courting someone and a taste of your own medicine seemed… but. That’s what I came to say. That I kept waiting for Miro to find someone to leave with so I knew he wouldn’t come here. So I could come here. And tell you… that I’ve tried to be reasonable about this and I’m tired of trying. If this isn’t love… you are the person I want to spend all my time with. I love you.”
Ernie put a hand to his forehead, feeling the world tilt as he said it aloud for the first time, unpracticed, and feeling it prick at the corners of his eyes. “I do.”
He wasn't surprised, exactly, but it still made Georgi's head rush and his heart ache to hear Ernie say it aloud. He gathered him close in a tight hug, right there in the middle of his entryway. "Yeah," he said, muffled, into his hair. "I know. I'm sorry about making it hard for you." He sighed, stroking Ernie's back carefully. "I don't know how it will be okay. But I don't think I could stop loving you. So somehow… it has to be okay."
He didn't entirely know what that meant -- working up the courage to tell Peggy and coming to some kind of arrangement with her didn't seem honorable, and not something that he could live with, even if Ernie could. Breaking it off with Peggy seemed impossible, but if what he was worried about came true and his family disowned him for acknowledging Miro, it wasn't likely that she would want to marry him anyway. Waiting for that to happen didn't seem brave, but it did seem like the easiest option.
And then even if he wasn't going to marry Peggy anymore, even if he wasn't a Draganov anymore and didn't have to make a good marriage and didn't have a family who would care what he did, he couldn't imagine being brave enough to stand up in front of everyone like Ernie's friend Justin. There was Ernie's family, too, and all of Montrose, all his friends here, the fans and the newspapers…
"It has to be okay," he repeated, holding Ernie tight.
Ernie pressed a hand to Georgi’s cheek, holding him at his temple as he looked past Georgi and into the house that he wanted to stay in, wanted to belong in. Georgi smelled so good and he could feel his voice this close, imagining it rich and and stirring, vibrating against the thin skin there. There was so much to imagine and being this close, it flooded his mind like it always did.
“I love you,” he said again, closing his eyes. “I love you. Don’t promise me anything… just… I love you,” Ernie repeated because it suddenly hit him how desperately he wished he could hear him say it too.
"I know," Georgi said into his hair, carefully rubbing Ernie's back because he seemed like he needed it. "I love you. And I won't… promise anything."
He stayed put for another few moments, just breathing him in, both the familiar scent of his skin and his cologne and the smells of the bar and Miro's shirt and whatever he'd put in his hair. Then he eased back to look down at Ernie, smiling a little. "You said Miro's not coming back here tonight?" Georgi slid his thumb down Ernie's side, catching the hem of the cotton T-shirt. "Then stay. We can… 'hook up'. Miro would be proud of you."
Ernie chuckled a little, then closed his eyes. “I did tell him I’d give you back the shirt.” He pursed his lips and kissed the side of Georgi’s neck. “Can I ask you for a favor? Before we… ahem… hook up?”
"Of course. Anything." Georgi tugged him a little closer, not really able to help it.
Ernie breathed against his skin, hoping that it was slightly distracting from what he was about to ask. “I want to tell someone.”
Georgi went very still, even stopping his breath for a moment. The idea was scary -- even just one person knowing meant the safety of his little house and Ernie's shed wasn't so safe anymore. This bubble they'd built was so fragile, and he wasn't sure about letting anyone else in.
But he trusted Ernie, almost more than anyone else in the world, almost more than Nadezhda, so he took a careful breath and nodded. "Who? Justin?"
“I… I don’t know. I don’t know if it would be fair to ask him to keep this from Monte.” Ernie paused a beat, then kissed the lilt of Georgi’s jaw. “I just want to tell someone that I am in love. And that someone loves me. You know. Breathlessly, like I’m some giddy 5th year. You know?”
Georgi smoothed back a stray strand of Ernie's dark hair tenderly. "No, I don't know," he said honestly. "But I trust you. And if you want to tell… someone, someone you trust, then you should tell. If you think it's okay, it's okay."
“You don't know?” Ernie asked a little skeptically, pulling back so he could look Georgi in the face. “Tell me, in the moment that Miro said he wouldn't mind taking me to a gay bar, that you didn't want to tell him. That I was already taken and it was by you.”
He considered that for a moment, and then shook his head. "It made me unhappy, and I wanted him to stop, but I didn't think about telling," he told Ernie softly. "I'm not as brave as you, you know." He tipped his head down to kiss Ernie's cheek. "But these few months with you, I'm learning to be braver. Maybe…" Georgi blushed before he even said the words. "Maybe I will tell someone, too. Nadezhda, who keeps all my secrets."
Ernie reflexively sucked in a soft breath through his nose. “All of them?” he asked, wondering if she already knew about his predilections. It was a hell of a gamble to tell family - for all that anyone Ernie would tell would have the danger of proximity to their mutual lives, Nadezhda could completely detonate Georgi’s life if she didn’t hold the same liberality as Miro did.
Georgi nodded seriously. "She's the only one that knew I was visiting Miro in Sofia. She helped me keep it secret. And even… you know she loves Alexei, my cousin, who I lived with in Vratsa? She's the only one that knew I… liked him. Like this." He was fully pink now. "Since we were at school. Of course I never--" He gestured between the two of them illustratively. "But she knows. She told me when I came to Scotland I should find a handsome Scot in a kilt."
He'd been mortified at the time, and he was blushing just as fiercely now, but Nadezhda had been right. Minus the kilt. "So… yeah, she knows all of the secrets. And if it's okay, maybe I can tell her this one, too."
This was how it started, Ernie thought excitedly to himself, trying to tamp down on the smile threatening to split his face. He told one person, Georgi told one person. He swallowed hard and tilted his head. “I could put on a kilt. I do own one. More than one, actually,” he offered.
Georgi laughed, shaking his head. "Oh, I'm sure you're very handsome in your little skirt, Ernie." He cupped Ernie's cheek in his hand, smiling back at him. "One day I'd really like to see that. But not tonight." He paused for a moment, sliding his thumb carefully over Ernie's smiling lips, and then leaned in to kiss him once, soft and careful. "I love you."
He was about to say something cheeky about easy access, but it melted away under the kiss in the entryway. His eyes closed, he missed the concluding words but felt them nonetheless as he took Georgi’s face in his hands and kissed him harder.