Percy Weasley (sentimentalist) wrote in disorderic, @ 2018-02-10 09:56:00 |
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Entry tags: | fred weasley, oliver wood, percy weasley |
WHO: Fred Weasley, Oliver Wood & Percy Weasley
WHEN: During the party/wedding/party thing
WHERE: The Pickled Pig
SUMMARY: There is some serious reconciliation going on.
WARNINGS: FEELS!
Fred had been mostly successful in ignoring the guilt he’d felt since Oliver had accused him of ripping his happiness out of his hands. It wasn’t like he’d been the only one against the idea of an elopement, just the most vocal. This was better for everyone. But then he saw Oliver’s face. Oliver had never been good at hiding his emotions, but it has always been easier to laugh off his bad moods when they were only about quidditch losses. This was something else. Fred forced a laugh at whatever Angelina or George had just said, not even sure if they’d been talking about something funny, then excused himself from the conversation. He approached Oliver with uncharacteristic caution, shifting the weight on his feet in discomfort when he stood in front of him. “Merlin, Oliver. You look like you’ve just realised it’s Percy that you’re marrying,” he attempted a joke. Oliver’s laugh was dry, barely more than a huff of air. He should play along with the joke, but he really didn’t have it in him. Instead, he settled on, “maybe it’s finally hitting me,” because that was ambiguous enough to mean a lot of things. He’d meant it when he had told Percy that he didn’t want to see Fred after their fight, but he’d talked himself into going along with the new plan for Percy’s sake. Percy was trying so hard to make everyone happy - or at least as happy as they could get. His gaze left Fred and drifted across the room, full of people who loved them. There were still holes, though. He was having trouble ignoring that. “Is there something you wanted?” Oliver asked when he shifted his gaze back. “Well, yeah,” Fred replied, shifting again, his hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. “I wanted you to look happy on your wedding day.” It wasn’t a surprise, necessarily, to hear that from Fred. He knew that Fred cared in some way, or he wouldn’t have gotten upset. He knew Fred wanted to be included. Oliver took a deep breath. He was still so angry, but that was laced with sadness, too. “That’s what I wanted too,” he admitted. “And before you say it, it has nothing to do with Percy. I haven’t gotten cold feet. I still want to, I just -” Emotion was bubbling up inside and he looked up at the ceiling to avoid letting it show any more. “It doesn’t matter.” “Kind of does,” Fred pointed out with a shrug. He wanted to be there, wanted Percy to want him there, but, as hard as it was to admit, the wedding was technically meant to be more about Oliver than him. “What do you want now?” Oliver sighed. He didn’t want to fight. He didn’t want to talk about it again. “You know what I want, Fred. We already talked about this.” Fred sighed, eyes darting around the room to find Percy, then returning to Oliver, meeting his eyes with an unwavering look. “Then do what you want, Oliver.” For a second, Oliver didn’t quite believe what he was hearing. “What?” After all the fuss from a few days ago, now he was being told to do what he wanted? His brow furrowed. “I don’t get it. Percy changed this to make you happy, to make your parents happy,” Oliver reminded Fred, thinking again about what Arthur had said and how much that had hurt to read his words, “even though everyone knew it wasn’t what we wanted, he did it for all of you, and now it’s ‘do what you want’? Why? What’s different now?” “How unhappy you look,” Fred answered honestly. It had been easier when he was just arguing with words. Now there was a face attached and it was too obvious how hurt Oliver was and how much of that was his fault. “And if you’re unhappy then Percy’s unhappy and that seems like a fucked up way to start a life together. So,” Fred shrugged again. “Do you even want to get married right now?” “That’s what I was trying to say the other day,” Oliver mumbled, shaking his head. “‘Course I want to. But not like this. Not -” His voice caught in his throat. “Backed into a corner, feeling like people don’t give a shit about what I want this moment to look like. Yeah, that’s a fucked up way to start this. I wanted a big fuck off party with all of you there, with my family, I wanted my da and I to wear bloody kilts and I wanted to know he was standing right there with me, but we can’t… so we tried to sort out how we could still have that, and it all fell apart.” He inhaled deeply. “This doesn’t feel right. He knows it,” Oliver nodded towards Percy, “but he’s putting on a brave face because he wants everyone to be happy and doesn’t know how to do that. He’s always been a better actor than I am.” “Angelina thinks you should’ve just eloped and told us after,” Fred said, not really sure what he thought because that still sucked as an option in his opinion. “At least then we wouldn’t all be mad at you until after you’ve had your happy wedding or whatever.” He gave another shrug. “I - we - just wanted to be part of your wedding. But if this was my wedding, I’d say fuck everyone else and just do what I wanted. They’ll get over it. What’s one more thing for us to be mad at Percy over?” “He hates having you mad at him.” Oliver glanced over at Percy again, thinking about how hard it was to be put in the middle like this. “We didn’t think anyone would be hurt or angry, since at least we invited everyone to this.” He waved a hand. “This was supposed to be a celebration. And we still planned on spending a lot of money on a ridiculous ceremony some other time. When you’d get to be a groomsman, and embarrass the hell out of Percy when you take him out drinking somewhere, and the sides would be completely uneven because Percy’s got more people to include than me, but I didn’t even care about that so long as everyone we loved got to be there. Neither of us thought you’d hate us over this. We didn’t think it’d be this hard to accept.” “We don’t hate you,” Fred said, earnest. “Maybe if I’d known about the getting to be groomsman and embarrass Percy. I wanted that but it seemed like you guys were taking that away from us. So, you know, I got mad.” Oliver had just said to him recently that all he wanted was to feel included in their family. Their family just wanted to feel included in Percy’s new family. He too glanced over at Percy. “You know,” he started, already unable to believe the words that were about to come out of his mouth but finding himself unable to stop them anyway. “I’m pretty amazing at distractions if you wanted to sneak away before your actual ceremony.” Oliver chuckled softly and shook his head. “I appreciate that, but the point of this was to include people, not run off behind their backs. Otherwise we would’ve just done it already.” Tempting as it was, he had a feeling the reactions would be worse if they changed their minds now and disappeared. “We weren’t trying to take anything from you, I swear. You still would’ve gotten to be a part of everything later. We just… really wanted to do this, before it was too late.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, unsure and uncomfortable. “So here we are.” “Neither of you are going to die, Oliver,” Fred scoffed, despite the fact that so many people were dying already, and that both Percy and Oliver had only recently had a near death experience. He glanced over at Percy again, catching his eye and gesturing him over. “And I’d be mad at you both if you died before we got to come to your actual wedding anyway.” Percy spent breakfast chattering away and smiling, a juxtaposition to his solemn fiancé. In trying to accommodate everyone’s desires, he knew that a sacrifice had been made, and was unsure of how to approach it bravely. There was too much hurt and he was afraid it all set squarely on him. So he didn’t. He smiled, a gracious host, avocado toast notwithstanding. He had, of course, noticed Fred and Oliver speaking at the edge of the room. And then he’d done his best to not look like he was side-eyeing them throughout the subsequent conversations he’d undergone. But it was probably patently obvious when he turned smartly on his heel the moment after Fred gestured. “Greetings.” Lame old Percy, awkward as ever, even if a mite more ginge at the roots. “Greetings,” Fred repeated, mocking. Then, getting straight to the point, “Do you two want to get married here, right now, or not?” Percy’s face went white and he looked at Oliver, then his brother. Then, with a furrowed brow. “What’s the catch? I stepped in the hornets’ nest unwittingly and I don’t want to do it again.” Oliver didn’t have an answer to Percy’s question. He didn’t want to do that again either. He shrugged and slid an arm around Percy’s waist. “We were talking. About how I don’t want to do it like this,” he explained. “With all this friction and us trying to make everyone else happy.” He nodded mutely. Oliver’s family was fractured - as fractured as his own had been just months before - and of no fault other than the world they were thrust into. He took a deep breath. “Okay. I’ll hext the Minister.” “Uh, why?” Oliver squinted a little, trying to figure out who Percy was talking about. He took another second to think and then his cheeks reddened. “Oh, you don’t mean your boss, do you?” “ … absolutely not.” Pius Thicknesse was at best, an imperiused lout. But at worse? Well, Percy was starting to think he was a Death Eater. He seemed a little too bright eyed of late. “I mean the one who was officiating the ceremony. She’s a magistrate, really. Wrong terminology.” He paused, swallowing. “I’ll tell her not to come since you don’t want to do it.” Merlin, this was embarrassing. Oliver wanted to crawl into a cave and not have to see anyone for years. “I want what we talked about,” he said quietly, just in case Percy was thinking he was backing out entirely. “You and me. The original plan. I just -” His eyes darted beyond the two brothers to take in the crowd. “Your parents are really going to hate me now. Shit. I just - it’s just, this got so fucked up.” “If I can get over it, mum and dad can,” Fred pointed out, suddenly digging into his pockets. “You can get food poisoning if you want a reason to call off this wedding without upsetting people,” he suggested, pulling out a handful of skiving snackboxes. “No one wants to sit through a wedding where the groom can’t stop puking up avocado toast.” Percy wasn’t typically dull. But the new idea that they were going to create a diversion and go to Rio to get married anyway - all with Fred’s help - wasn’t really sinking in. “ Fred … ?” he gave his brother a searching look, holding his hand out for said skiving snackboxes all the same. “So, Rio.” Oliver shook his head. “Look, no. I’m not going to lie. They don’t deserve that. I just want to be able to enjoy this and leave without everyone getting angry at us again. I want Rio like we were supposed to have. Without the drama and hurt feelings.” “So you want to just get up and announce to everyone that you’re not getting married today?” Fred looked skeptical at this idea. “Are you sure you don’t want to sneak off and send a postcard from Rio saying the same thing?” “Umm…” He hadn’t thought it through before he’d suggested it, but suddenly, Oliver felt panicked all over again. “I don’t…” He looked at Percy, struggling to figure out what the right answer was. Neither option would free them of all awkwardness or discomfort. “Should I just — do this?” He didn’t want to make the entire decision for them both. “There are two decisions,” he said softly, leaning into Oliver’s shoulder. “Either we don’t do anything and we spend the weekend in Britain or we do it in Rio, then later when the whole family can be present.” He took a deep breath. As one accustomed to delivering the hurtful - or the hurtfully awkward - news, Percy wanted to spare Oliver the discomfort. “You’re right, of course. I appreciate Fred’s keen eye for distraction but it isn’t a good way to start a life as one. And my family is here -- mostly. As much as they can be. But Craig and Imogen aren’t and your dad made me promise to look after you. I can do that with or without a signed paper from the magistrate, Oliver.” Percy had a feeling that whatever happened would be tinged by how other people felt about their decision, instead of considering it for what it was. A simple elopement with love yet shared between their friends and their family. “I don’t know how to walk the hurt back. But I’m willing to deliver the news. No ceremony today.” Oliver settled a little against Percy, feeling lighter by the second. As long as he was okay with it, Oliver felt better about what they had to do. “I know we don’t need any paper. I want it.” Free of disappointment and hurt and anger. Oliver didn’t really know how they’d get that, but they had to try. “We’ll tell them together.” He tried to shake the nagging feeling that someone was going to second-guess his desires because of it, and tried to remember that Percy’s family and everyone else they loved would either come around or they wouldn’t; it was up to them. After a moment, Oliver pulled away and stepped over to give Fred a hug. “Thank you. You’ve no idea -- it means a lot.” When Oliver turned to embrace Fred, Percy immediately teared up. He turned his head slightly, swiping quickly at his cheeks. “It’s not a big deal,” Fred lied, letting Oliver hug him for a moment before he shrugged his way out the embrace. “I’d just better be promoted to best man when you have your ceremony with family.” “It is a big deal,” Percy insisted, reaching out to place his palms on both of their shoulders. Fred, who he knew, was awkward with earnest emotion, and Oliver who was the king of it. Him? He hit somewhere about the middle. But it often came out in shrill warnings and anxieties. Percy tried a different tactic. He squeezed Fred’s shoulder gently. “It’s a big deal because we’re family and we’re here for one another. This war changes things - it’s hurt us all in ways we can’t fathom - but it brings us together, too. Fred, you’ll be my best man.” He inhaled deeply. “I took a lot from you and I can’t really give it back. I’m sorry for it every day, Fred, and I’m trying to make it better so that when we win this war, it’ll be …” searching for the word, he shrugged. “It’ll be brilliant. I want you and I want our family. And I want Oliver. I want him to feel whole. We’re going to finish out breakfast, then I’m going to tell everyone we’re getting married in Rio. And when we leave, it’ll be like we’re taking all that love with us.” Then -- “I’m thankful for you. But I can’t leave without knowing that you know that I’m not leaving you, I’m not giving up on you and I’m not going to stop trying to make up for the hurt I caused. I want you in my life.” Fred’s eyes were suddenly wetter than he would have liked. Or admitted to. “Sounds good, Perce,” he attempted to sound casual, despite the lump in his throat. “I want you in my life too,” he added, reaching out and giving Percy a quick pat on the arm. “But, uh, I bet Angelina is looking for me and you have a million guests here just for you, so we should get back to them.” Oliver laughed - really laughed - and nodded. The weight that had been sitting on his chest for days lifted, leaving him a little breathless. “Yeah, c’mon. We better break the news now rather than later.” Percy gave Fred’s shoulder a final squeeze before he settled his hands back at his sides and nodded. “ -- change of plans,” he said, and gave a minute wink. The celebration would go on, they would get married, then come home and fight as hard as they could to see the world renewed. “Another round of mimosas, then.” And he walked toward the middle of the room, clearing his throat in preparation. |