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floweringjudas

Percy looked over the tops of his spectacles at his roommate, who had apparently ingested far too much sugar that afternoon.

"Stop bouncing, please," he said, "You're shaking my bed." Oliver stopped and leaned against one of the bedposts, staring at Percy, apparently awaiting an answer.

"Tell me, Perce," he said again after a moment's silence, and Percy looked up from his book and sighed.

"Why are you sitting on my bed?"

"My broom's on my bed."

Percy made a face and looked past Oliver at the other bed in the room. Indeed, there lay Oliver's broom, reposing as if it were a person, the twigs resting as a head would on the pillow.

Well, at least Oliver hadn't tucked the thing in.

Percy turned back to his roommate.

"Why is your broom on your bed?"

Oliver started bouncing again, just a little.

"Because I put it there. After practise."

"But…Oliver…why?"

Percy knew as soon as he asked the question that he probably should just let the whole thing go—Oliver was in a silly mood, and when he was in such a mood, Oliver was inclined to do silly things for silly reasons and give silly answers to perfectly logical questions.

But Percy Weasley never was one for letting things go.

As Oliver launched into an explanation of how his broom deserved a rest just like anyone else, for it was practically a living thing after all the way it responded to him when he was flying and worked just as hard, Percy pretended to listen, all the while sneaking glances at his book and finally leaning back against his headboard and returning to it outright.

"…Which is why I don't believe you, Perce," Oliver finished.

Percy looked up at the sound of his name.

"What?"

"That's why I don't believe you."

"Believe me about what?"

"About why you don't play Quidditch!" Oliver gaped at Percy as if that was the most logical leap to make and Percy had missed the bus entirely.

"Oh." Percy pretended to consider the point he hadn't heard, then shrugged. "Well, what I told you earlier is true. I'm rubbish at sport. Always have been. I just can't think in that way—too much going on at once, all those balls flying in every direction, so much noise—I make a much better spectator."

He delivered this speech sincerely, looking straight into Oliver's thick-lashed eyes—

(all right, really, lashes like that were positively obscene on a boy—not that Percy had ever noticed, mind you, and especially not when Oliver was sleeping and Percy happened to pass by the head of his bed on his way to the bathroom in the night, or when Oliver was studying, looking down at his book and chewing on his lip, and come to think of it he did that a lot, and Percy wished he'd stop because Oliver's lips were rather full and it didn't help matters when they were all red and wet from being chewed, and)

—and prayed that Oliver would just let the matter drop.

But, funnily enough, Oliver Wood never was one for letting things go, either.

"No, there's something else," Oliver said, chewing on his lower lip.  (Argh.)  He pushed back from the post and lay forward on his stomach, snatching Percy's book from his hands and idly flipping through it.

"Hey—" Percy began, but Oliver cut him off.

"I still remember first year," he said, reaching the end of the pages and beginning to flip them back the other way, "Flying lessons."

"What about flying lessons?" It was clear Oliver had no plans to give Percy his book back until he'd finished whatever it was he was trying to accomplish.

Oliver snapped the book shut and looked up at Percy.

"You don't remember?"

All right, so maybe Percy had made a complete arse of himself at their first lesson, flailing and falling off his broom when it was only about a foot off the ground and begging off the rest of the lesson with a nosebleed while Oliver took to the sky like a bloody hawk. And maybe Percy had found convenient excuses to stay on the ground as often as possible during the rest of the lessons, volunteering to organise the broomshed and such. And yes, all right, maybe he was the worst flier in the class when Madame Hooch managed finally to get him into the air, but that wasn't for lack of trying. Flying was bloody scary, and (Gryffindor or not) Percy was afraid.

"You're afraid," Oliver said, and before Percy could get out a single word of hot-faced protest, Oliver sat up and moved closer.

"It's all right," he said, "Plenty of people are afraid of flying."

Percy knew there was no use in protesting—it was probable the whole school knew, he imagined—and so he did the next best thing.

He got angry.

"There's more to it than that," Percy snapped, and he stood and snatched his book from Oliver's hands.

Oliver stood, then, too, and though he was shorter than Percy, he was stronger, and just as determined, Percy could tell, from the spark in his eyes and the set of his jaw.

"What is it, then?"

Percy set his jaw, too, and glared. He knew perfectly well there was nothing more to it—well, he probably was rubbish at the game, but he'd probably never know—a few abortive attempts with Bill and Charlie behind the Burrow notwithstanding, Percy had never been far enough up on a broom to find out.

Oliver put up a hand, tentative yet strong, the way one might towards a frightened animal.

"Just…just wait right there, all right, Perce? You trust me?"

Percy said nothing, but didn't move except to fold his arms over his chest as Oliver crossed to his bed and picked up his broom, smoothing a hand down its length and inspecting the twigs as he walked back to stand in front of Percy.

"Come flying with me," he said.

"What? No!" Percy gave a short little laugh at the ridiculousness of Oliver's suggestion.

"Not out there—just here." Oliver gestured to the space between his bed and Percy's.

"You must be joking. We're not allowed to fly indoors."

"Not flying—just hovering, a bit. There's no rule against hovering."

Percy considered this. First he considered whether or not there was a rule against hovering, then he considered whether hovering was technically flying, then he considered how it might be very very very bad indeed for him to be sitting squashed up against Oliver on a broomstick, arms and legs and who knows what else touching and—Percy swallowed—growing hard, oh god, like it did when Oliver was walking around naked after a shower, and—

—then, er. Well. It was certainly interesting how Oliver had moved in close and put an arm around Percy's waist and a broomstick between his legs and—was Oliver asking him something?

"What—what?"

"I asked, are you ready?"

"To—right. No. No, I don't think I will." Percy knew he was blushing red and he was definitely hard now and he knew he was going to start stammering in just a moment if Oliver didn't move away and take his bloody arm from about Percy's waist, and the sodding metaphor that Oliver still held between his legs wasn't helping.

It only took a bit more blushing (which Percy prayed looked like anger-red and not oh-my-god-I-want-to-kiss-you-and-maybe-do-more-red) and a ridiculous amount more of stammering and protesting before Oliver shook his head and walked toward the door, laying his broomstick back on his bed as he went.

"Maybe another time, Perce," he said, sounding disappointed but not unfriendly.

"Maybe," Percy managed, and the door had barely clicked shut before Percy was on his bed with his trousers around his knees, jerking his cock and damning himself and—ooh, all right, thinking of Oliver, Oliver-bloody-Quidditch-captain-Wood with his broomstick between Percy's legs, and that was all it took before Percy spurted onto his quilt and fell forward, his robes billowing over him as his breathing slowed.

"Maybe another time," he whispered to himself, and he allowed himself to wait for a long moment before standing to put himself—and the oft-despoiled quilt—to rights again.