#ol writes things

[oliverwvvd]

the potential for chaos

For the anon who asked about Yule Ball Flintwood, this is a beginning of sorts for you. This didn’t turn out the way I anticipated originally when you presented the concept, so I offer this as version 1.0 with something softer to follow.

pairing: Marcus Flint x Oliver Wood

premise: Marcus shows up to the Yule Ball solo. So does Oliver. Neither one is especially pleased about it, and the reasons why are personal.

wordcount: 2,194 words.

The Yule Ball. Welcome to the distinct scent of too much teenage desperation in one room.

The snide thought belonged to Marcus Flint, whose dress robes fit just fine, thanks very much, not that the same could be said of some of the people attending. Weasley the younger, for example, looked like a cat crawled onto the front of his robes, rolled around, and then obligingly threw up a lacy hairball before departing. Marcus’ were, shockingly, not green, because Slytherins were in fact capable of wearing colours that weren’t the house colours. Instead, he’d gone for navy blue, and they were tailored to fit. For now, he was leaning with his right shoulder firmly parked against a nearby wall, drink in hand (liberally spiked, courtesy of Pucey’s far too innocent face which had successfully hidden very good Firewhiskey somewhere on his person), and settling into the buzz around him.

He was razor-edged, dark hair and sharp jawline identifying him in the shadows, gaze steady still despite the warm burn of the Firewhiskey, and the growing warmth of the room. The music was alright, he supposed. He could work with this. He could especially work without being forced to find a date he didn’t like just to fit in, because no one dared give him crap about it. That left him with a sour thought of a very different kind he’d already decided not to dwell on. A lot of other people were on the dancefloor, but he was good right where he was, absorbing the potential for chaos and waiting for the lights to go just a little lower and darker. That was more his speed.

Unfortunately, someone else didn’t seem to care what his speed was, when they came up behind him and spoke into his ear. “You look bored, Flint. Looking for someone?”

Marcus didn’t even turn his head, simply took a sip of his drink. “Hardly. You evidently were, if you spotted me back here. Shouldn’t you be with your date, Wood? I’m sure you had a list of invites to choose from.” The words were cool and more than a little antagonistic, holding the pointed hint that he’d been fine by himself, and that Wood was welcome to leave him be now.

The other boy didn’t so much as take the hint, instead spoke more quietly, that hint of Glasgow burr there and gravelly in his ear. “Didn’t accept an invite, so no date. You?”

A little more to drink, but then he caught a hint of Firewhiskey that distinctly wasn’t from him. “So, you’ve also been in a corner drinking from whatever enchanted hipflask you and your mates in Gryffindor came up with, then,” he observed dryly. “Please to Merlin tell me at least that it’s not one with someone’s initials on it for when they inevitably drop and lose it later, at least.”

There was a very nearly painful silence then, and Marcus snorted, soft but still audible. “It figures.” It really, really did. “You know, it’s good form to at least cast a charm to hide the initials, Wood. I’m assuming it at least doesn’t belong to you.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Marcus usually had to shut his eyes and count to ten before he bit the offending person’s head off and told them to mind their business at this stage. The Firewhiskey mellowed him out enough that it took away the edge to some degree, but it was still there.

“Good observation skills there, Wood,” he remarked, aware of other people potentially in earshot. “It’s almost as though it’s not really any of your business. Which it isn’t. But since you apparently can’t let it drop, I chose to attend solo. This is like a knock-off of all the same stuff that half of us deal with on holidays anyway.” The curse of the Sacred 28, old pureblood family gatherings and traditions and parties littered every holiday throughout the year. Inevitably, they all found ways of coping with the boredom after the age of fifteen, and usually that involved finding substances or decent company (preferably both) and vanishing from the scene entirely once it was deemed polite.

Wood moved in front of him then, there in the corner, solidly built shoulders blocking the rest of the room, mirroring the way Marcus leaned against the wall. He didn’t have any choice but to look at him then, and could only be grateful that the warm breath into his ear had stopped. If it hadn’t, he might have had to think too hard about how it made him feel, and he really didn’t want to right now.

“So you didn’t come with anyone.” It seemed like Wood was trying to make a point, but Marcus couldn’t tell what. It was frustrating, so rather than focus on that, he looked at the boy in front of him instead. He’d been lanky when they were younger, a bit skinny and coltish, but Quidditch had bulked him out and he was solidly built now at seventeen. And then there was the choice of dress robes; apparently he wasn’t the only one who made use of a tailor for once. That was a fine outline right there.

Realising he was admiring the view and that that wouldn’t do given the reason why he was in a mood in the first place, Marcus exhaled a sigh. “Obviously. What do you want, Wood?”

Wood seemed to realise he only had a finite amount of patience. That was a years overdue realisation as far as Marcus was concerned. “To dance with you.”

That made Marcus stare for a few seconds. Seeming to register that he wasn’t going to get a response unless he pushed, Oliver tilted his head at him. “One dance, Marcus. Something slow. We can stay right here in the corner for all I care, since you seem to prefer lurking in the shadows.” Then brown eyes examined him far too closely, his lips curled up into a smile that held just a hint of smirk at the edges. “Presuming you’re not too caught up in posing and sulking, of course.”

Oliver was crowding him now, just a little, and Marcus wasn’t entirely certain how he felt about it yet. His immediate response was no longer to punch the other boy in the face, that had been gone for a long while, so that was progress. “You can’t hold your Firewhiskey and you’re seriously misreading things, if that’s the best offer you can give me,” he pointed out bluntly. “So if you don’t mind, I’ll continue minding my own business right where I am. Lurking in the shadows.” That was when he leaned back and away, and took another sip of his drink. No one could see them back here. That thought made his pulse race.

Oliver (Wood, his mind stubbornly reminded him, trying to hang onto it) wasn’t necessarily going to just leave him alone, though, or so it appeared. “Then come out of here with me for a minute,” he said, voice quiet but still carrying through the space between them. “I want to talk to you about something.”

Marcus sighed exasperatedly, and drained what was left in the cup. Obligingly, it vanished the moment he set it down on a nearby table, and at this point, he’d given up arguing with Oliver. “Fine. You get two minutes.”

Once they did get outside, though, Marcus hadn’t quite registered just how much Oliver intended to make the most of those two minutes. He found himself rapidly dragged around a corner and pressed into an alcove hidden behind a statue that he hadn’t even known was there. When he went to ask what the fuck, Oliver put a hand over his mouth. “Shh, someone will hear.”

Beyond annoyed and now suspecting where this was going, neither of which he enjoyed, Marcus dragged Oliver’s hand off his mouth and hissed his next words. “What are you doing?”

Earnest brown eyes were fixed on him then, and this time, Marcus couldn’t get away or give him the cold shoulder. “Are you seriously still mad that someone tried to ask me to this thing?”

Marcus gave him a truly evil glare then. “You mean, am I pleased that someone else asked the person I’m not allowed to walk down the corridor with? I’m absolutely thrilled. Someone else walks up to you and asks right where I can hear; I kiss you in dark corners and Quidditch changing rooms for three months and get ignored when convenient.” The tone was flat, but the sarcasm wasn’t.

He saw Oliver wince, and then, completely annoyed and altogether done with the conversation, Marcus went to shoulder past him. Instead, he found himself pushed back into the stone, found himself being kissed, and he wasn’t letting Oliver think that was the last word on it. He wasn’t about to be lulled into compliance. Rather than lean into it, instead, he nipped the other’s bottom lip sharply, just enough to make him feel it, a kiss like a warning, before he reached up and sunk his fingers into his hair.

If he couldn’t have the evening, he was going to make sure Oliver went back with bruised, swollen lips, hair a mess, and every possible hallmark to show that he’d vanished with someone. Let everyone wonder who.

That it changed when Oliver seemed to yield, to surrender to being kissed rather than one doing the kissing didn’t escape Marcus either. It wasn’t until he could feel him trembling that Marcus released him, leaving him looking faintly dizzy where he stood. He smoothed out his robes then, slow and insouciant, enough to make Oliver watch the trail of his hands. “I’m not going to take whatever scraps you decide to throw me and be happy that’s all I get,” he said, words short, making sure they landed home. This was probably one of the worst sides of him. “You don’t act like it, so you don’t get to call me yours. Because I’m not.” Wasn’t that just the biggest lie he’d ever told, but it was supposed to be, because he was doing it purely to be mean and he knew it.

He lifted his thumb to the corner of his mouth then ran it along to the middle of his own lower lip, as though he could taste Oliver there. He could, Firewhiskey and everything that had become so familiar since they first crashed into trying to understand what this was. The reason he really did it, though, was to be a little bit cruel, to watch Oliver’s pupils dilate some more, to see him want to close the distance again, and then to deny him. Or at least, that’s the intention, right up until Oliver shakes his head. “Merlin help me you’re impossible sometimes,” was the set of words bitten out. “I was trying to apologise. To tell you that I only wanted to go with you, but I also wanted to protect this because it’s ours and people are incredibly nosy. I’m not ashamed of what we’re doing. You might not be mine, but I want you to be.”

Those were a set of words that Marcus badly wanted to be true, and it was enough to stop him cold, to make him rein in the sulking (if he was honest about what he’d been doing, that was it) and register them. The attempts to deflect hard that his feelings had actually been hurt had all ultimately proven to be unsuccessful, and he knew better than to use kissing as a weapon, it too often backfired and this was very much a case in point.

As though Oliver sensed the weakness somehow, damn him for it, the next time he was being touched was much gentler. “We could dance right here, if you wanted.” The words were breathed between them. That was when Marcus realised that they could still hear the music from the hall.

He made a decision. “Nah,” he said, not hesitating to turn down the suggestion. “Come on. Let’s go back inside.” He gave Oliver a pointed look then, and threw down the gauntlet. “Together.” It was a ceasefire, or the closest that they’d get, because they still needed to talk about the actual feelings involved at some point.

There was no phasing a Gryffindor with that kind of challenge, though, so Oliver didn’t even bat an eyelid. Show them anything like a bet you can’t and they immediately decided that not only could they, but screw you who says I can’t. The only reply Marcus got was a hand in his. It turned out he did want to kiss Oliver softly then, so it still took a few minutes longer for them to get back to the hall. When they did, the night sky that illuminated the ceiling had darkened to hold a spill of stars, and the lights had gone down to something far lower and barely there.

Oliver got his one dance. What he also got was a truth in his ear. “I’m only yours if you’re mine. Non-negotiable. What about it?”

The night wasn’t over yet.

[oliverwvvd]

no safe kingdom, part i

For the anon who asked about battlefield Flintwood without Marcus being a Death Eater. This is a beginning of sorts for you, as promised.

pairing: Marcus Flint x Oliver Wood

premise: A meditation on trajectory and impact, on the battlefield and off it.

Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies. —Edna St. Vincent Millay

For Oliver, life is all about shapes, formations, angles. It’s how his mind naturally works. How to calculate the space between where a Quaffle will land and his outstretched fingertips, or the end of his broom, or even his fists when he punches it out of the air. His thoughts capture trajectory and impact as they happen. He knows these things instinctively, a rhythm that at first was trained and then became something so natural that it lives in the way he moves.

He analyses other things in this way too, like how the formation of Chasers should fall exactly like a flock of birds, one leading in front while two stay behind, able to weave and dart and dive towards an end-point. There’s something lovely about watching anyone in that position fly, even when it’s coming towards him.

Maybe he just thinks that because that has so often come to signify a challenging, defiant, sometimes outright mean smirk and a gleaming pair of dark eyes on his. Whatever (intense, sometimes ending in fist-fights) understanding he and Flint had had at school, it hinged on the fact that it was difficult to choose who was more obsessed with Quidditch between the pair of them.

The Gryffindor team would have said Oliver, biased and possibly too used to suffering through his practice regime, but Oliver noticed a long time ago how the Slytherin team moves to respond at the merest lift of an eyebrow from Flint. It’s subtler than Oliver’s raised voice and high-energy motivation, but the ability to call the shots is there in the risky moves that skirt the edge of being fouls. It’s there in how Marcus almost always gets away with it because he knows the rulebook back to front.

On a day where it’s not him on the receiving end, Oliver privately admires it.

On a day when he is, though, it ignites him like nothing else into fire, into competition. This thing between them is smoke and embers and underlying threat and, buried deep, a promise unacknowledged.

This was their childhood, right up until they left school, and nothing happened.

Neither of them knew it then.

There is no time for fond memories of easier times in the present moment because the next time that they lock eyes is across the same Quidditch pitch that they’d spent hours at.

It’s not a pitch any longer. Instead, it’s a battlefield, smoking from being set alight, a ruin.

Oliver had thought he and Flint would be on opposite sides. But there’s no black robe, nothing to indicate whose side he’s on apart from his own.

Oliver sees the way Flint swallows hard, the way his jaw tightens as he registers Oliver’s surprise, but then the word he mouths is clear, a command to duck.

For the first time, Oliver doesn’t run angles or trajectories or the power of command, he hits the ground.

The spell that comes searing hot, streaking violet and violent over his head, hits the ground several feet away instead of going through him and adds another curl of smoke. Flint’s running and Oliver never knew he was that fast on foot, his broad-shouldered frame carrying enough muscle that speed seemed impossible. Seconds later, they’re both on their feet, side by side, and they both target the source of the spells being fired. A handful of Death Eaters have found shelter behind the crumbling remains of one of the stands, and they both dive for the nearest protection, a huge piece of fallen rubble, firing spells back for cover.

They don’t have long.

Oliver’s voice is rough from the smoke, eyes watering when he speaks. “Are you sure about this, Flint?”

He feels Flint glance at him, as though he knows what Oliver is really asking.

“No, but I’m going to do it anyway. Never did intend to get a Mark on my arm, so might as well go out with a bang.” He could hear the dry note, almost feel the grin that isn’t really a smile, more like a warning signal to anyone who comes near the pair of them. “Taking a leaf out of the Gryffindor playbook, Wood. You?”

“Figuring out the best way to bend the rules of physics.” Oliver’s gaze flickers to where another of the stands is precariously attached, and that’s when all of the shapes and formations he’s ever arranged coalesce down to a single point. He nearly winces at what he’s about to suggest, but sentiment won’t keep them alive. “Think we can hit that?”

Flint’s grin turns wolfish. Oliver can feel it, even when he hasn’t turned his head. It’s knowledge long-acquired that he didn’t realise he even possessed. “Let’s find out.”

When they raise their wands, side by side, Oliver takes a second to breathe, and on the exhale, their spells release. The stand comes down and shatters over the Death Eaters’ heads, and they run back to the castle when they hear screams. Screams that they soon learn mean death, and loss, and terror.

It’s the first fight they’re shoulder to shoulder for that night. It won’t be the last.

Their childhood fades rapidly into the sky, curls upwards with the embers, and vanishes.

[oliverwvvd]

the devil in me, part ii

Back to writing these two, inevitably, at long last. This is for the lovely anon who dropped by and mentioned this one, despite it having been years since the last post. This is slightly trigger heavy, so sorry if the triggers contain spoilers, but people's mental health comes first so they can choose whether or not to engage with the content.

This is part of a series. You can find part one here.

pairing: Marcus Flint x Oliver Wood

premise: When Marcus wakes again in the endless white of St Mungo's, Oliver is still there, and his wand is still gone. Marcus thinks it's about debts owed, or at least, that's what he's trying to tell himself. Whatever other reasons might keep Oliver Wood at his bedside aren't remotely within a framework he's equipped to handle. [possible triggers: severe PTSD, hospitals, battle situations, Legilimency, implied invasion of the mind, implied intention not to survive]

When he wakes, one needle is back in his arm and Marcus’ first inclination is to be pissed off about it. Of course it is. Being angry is the best alternative, sublimation for all of the other emotions he should be feeling and isn’t. He doesn’t need any St Mungo’s trained therapist to tell him about that, mainly because it’s deliberate on his part.

“For fuck’s sake,” he mutters. “I don’t want painkiller withdrawal on top of everything else. The dosage has to be sky-high for me not to be feeling anything.”

“So you’d rather have the searing amount of pain that makes you pass out within minutes instead? You’re right; being a masochist is a much better idea.”

He closes his eyes. “Why are you still here, again?”

“Waiting for you to take your head out of your arse, though it seems I’ll be in for a long wait.” The tart rejoinder in a lovely, rolling Scottish brogue that he instinctively wants to wrap himself in doesn’t help his temper. Neither does the fact that Oliver is still too earnest despite the familiar barb in the words, as though he thinks he owes Marcus something. The stubborn set to his jaw is familiar too, viewed more than once when facing him on a Quidditch pitch.

It makes Marcus want to push him away for his own safety, because don’t you know what I am? Instead, his gaze is sulky, as though he’s a teenager again in a way he hasn’t been in years, and it’s solely fixed on Oliver. “I don’t like you, and I don’t want you here,” he says, and if that’s not the biggest lie he’s told in the past couple of years, he’s not entirely sure what is.

Oliver shrugs. “That’s too bad, Flint, because I’m not going anywhere.” He’s wearing a poloneck jumper, just like he used to at school when it got to winter weekends out of uniform, and Marcus has the fleeting, horrifying thought that maybe it covers bruises or worse. A second thought just as horrifying resurfaces: he still doesn’t have his wand.

That thought makes him abruptly change the subject. “Alright, Wood, since you’re here, be a good boy and tell me why I don’t have my wand.” It’s not a question. He doesn’t phrase it as one. To punctuate it and make it clear he’s not asking, Marcus opts to verbally twist the knife for good measure. “You owe me. That’s why you’re here, right? To settle the debt. So start talking.” That’s not a question either, because why else Oliver might be there is more than he can possibly handle getting into.

Oliver’s (Wood’s, damn it) expression darkens momentarily, as though he’s about to pick a fight. Marcus wants him to, because at least that would be normal, but he sees it the moment that Oliver registers he’s in a hospital bed all over again, sees the way his gaze turns pained and then the shutters draw closed again so he’s at a loss for what the other is thinking. He doesn’t like it. Oliver was always an open book, no filter, no love lost on his side of the equation. He doesn’t know what this new thing is.

He clears his throat brusquely. “Well?”

Oliver sighs. “They’re concerned about your mental state as well. That’s why you don’t have your wand. They thought you might try something you’d regret.”

Fury is, of course, the quickest and most reliable reaction. “So they thought they’d improve things by taking away the only piece of autonomy I had available to me for months? That’s genius thinking, that is. Who do I need to see to recommend them for promotion?”

Oliver’s lips twitch briefly then, clearly catching the sarcasm, but at the same time seemingly unable to smile at it. That’s fine, because it’s not funny at all.

Marcus exhales a sharp sigh, one that’s less exasperated by this point than unimpressed. “I suppose they thought I’d curse the whole place down, eh?” This time, it is a question, and the smile that goes with it isn’t genuine, it’s mean and sharp-edged. It’s an echo of all the ugly things that have stained his hands and his mind, and it occurs to him that throughout that, Oliver has been the only good thing, a pure thing he’d constructed for himself, a secret he kept that was sometimes the only reason he didn’t give in altogether. Now that’s done and it’s back to reality.

To his consternation, Oliver shakes his head, as though he can sense what Marcus is thinking. “No one believes that after the battle. You threw yourself in the way of someone that would have been dead if you hadn’t, without knowing whether you’d survive.” The words seemed hard for Oliver to speak, as though it was like a demon lived in his throat for as long as they sat there. “They didn’t know if you were going to pull through, the first couple of days.”

An eye-roll is Marcus’ first response to that, and he averts his gaze from Oliver then. “That was sort of the bloody point, Wood.” The words fall heavily in the room between them, but this time it’s not out of malice, it’s from defeat, an admission that he should have kept to himself. The anger hasn’t emptied its well yet, but for the time being, it’s quiet, a savage thing made somnolent again by the fact that he can feel the needle in his arm start to pour more potion into him. Presumably, it’s going to knock him out eventually.

Oliver’s own exhale is shaken, as though Marcus has punched him square in the solar plexus and it hurts, badly. After all these months of silence, it’s as though the casually cruel words aiming to drive him away are doing more damage than even the war has managed to. “Flint, you can’t just…”

Marcus wants to sit up again but the potion, damn it, feels like it’s got him pinned in place. That makes him edgy, makes him feel the cold sweat of panic beginning to prick, and he absolutely will not have a panic attack of any kind in front of an audience. He swallows hard, and Oliver seems unable to finish the sentence. It hangs there between them, unfinished.

That’s the moment that the door creaks open and the healer walks in, oblivious to the conversation that had been happening beforehand. Oliver leans back in the chair beside Marcus’ bed.

Marcus’ lip curls just slightly. “Come to check I’m still breathing?” he asks snidely. “Sorry to disappoint. You can go now, your duty is done.”

The healer does no such thing. “I’d hoped you’d be asleep by now,” he says with a tsk tsk sound that reminds Marcus of the teachers from school whenever he didn’t do his homework correctly. It does nothing to endear the man to him at all. “Evidently we need to increase your dosage. You shouldn’t have ripped those needles out of your arm as soon as you did, but Mr Wood tells me you have a remarkably high tolerance for pain.”

That causes Marcus’ gaze to narrow in Oliver’s direction, and it’s as accusing as it gets.

Oliver, to his credit (the little of it that Marcus is currently willing to give) doesn’t look away. “I’ve been in the Hospital Wing with you multiple times,” is the reminder that unexpectedly arrives, softer than he’s ever deserved. “You never took your painkillers. You always cast Evanesco.”

On the one hand, Marcus’ glare only intensifies, because Oliver’s just ratted him out to the healer. On the other, what does it even mean that Oliver remembers; how there seems to be something dark and sad behind his gaze ever since a few minutes ago. It doesn’t correlate with his real life knowledge of Wood, only the fantasy version he constructed in his head to have a reason to go on, and Marcus is fully aware of how incredibly unhealthy that was and is.

It’s only the healer’s voice that interrupts their charged stare, clearly ready to go for another lecture. “Well, there will be no hiding painkillers here. What were you thinking, taking those out? Did you just not realise the degree of damage you took?” It isn’t an indignant pair of questions, instead asked with the tone of someone who wants to understand the subject they are studying. It presses all of the wrong buttons for Marcus, and he endures it in silence until he can’t.

This is the moment he snaps. But it isn’t like every other time he’s lost his temper. No, this is different; his voice is surprisingly quiet and unsteady when he speaks. “Why does everyone want to know what I’m thinking suddenly? I’ve just spent the last two years having my mind pulled apart at a moment’s notice. All that I want is for everyone to stop trying to get into my head because I don’t want anyone in there ever again. Got it? It’s none of your business what I’m thinking.”

Dimly, he registers that Oliver has gone pale as he starts to understand what Marcus means. The healer looks appalled, because evidently, this was something undetectable while he was unconscious, and he’s beyond lashing out, because this has hit places he doesn’t want to go.

“Get out.” The words are quieter still, and there’s a flat, dulled down, deadly note to them.

Even half-conscious on a bed, drugged by the potion, it leaves to question what Marcus is capable of, the one thing no one has dared to think about so far. It’s a weak threat, but his voice carries all of it, like it’s every atom of a star at the moment of destruction.

The healer leaves. Oliver doesn’t, because Oliver hasn’t learned to be afraid of him, even though he should have.

When Marcus looks at him again, he thinks that he sees Oliver flinch, just a little around the eyes, and he knows he’s going to say something unforgivable if he isn’t left alone. “I meant you as well.” The words are empty. You need to go before I do any more things that I regret, and I can’t live with any more.

Oliver doesn’t listen. Instead, he does something that Marcus can handle even less. He climbs onto the bed and rests there next to him, close enough for Marcus to feel him breathe. “You’re really not a good listener, Flint. I already told you. I’m not leaving.”

Marcus’ hands suddenly feel too heavy, utterly ineffectual when he tries to raise them to push Wood right off the bed. Land on his arse. That’ll show him. Instead, his head starts to nod forward, and Oliver, the scheming bastard, must have known that the potion would take effect soon, had kept him talking until he had no choice but to go back to sleep again.

He’s so angry. He’s exhausted. He’s repeating the same cycle, inescapable, stuck on a loop of his own making. There’s wool against his face, something warm against his back. Oliver’s voice is there, he can feel it rumble in his chest, but the words don’t even register. It’s a warm sound, like copper and firelight, and it’s the last thing in his dwindling awareness before the world is lost altogether.

The frightening part is that he’s starting to want to wake up again. 

That wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

[oliverwvvd]

the devil in me, part i

This is what you might call an instalment of ‘Ol’s not actually dead, just buried by life.’ I do have other works in progress and continuations of my current multi-chapters, but this one wouldn’t leave me alone so I caved because I’m weak.

pairing: Marcus Flint x Oliver Wood

premise: Legilimency becomes the thing that he fears the most, because even inside his own head there’s nowhere to hide any more, no place of safety. Marcus was forced into becoming a Death Eater. He played both sides to keep one person alive who doesn’t even know how Marcus feels about him, and he wouldn’t choose differently given the chance a second time. The war is supposed to be over. Try telling the inside of his head that. Oliver stays with him, and he doesn’t know how to reach out without pushing him away. [possible triggers: severe PTSD, hospitals, battle situations, Legilimency]

Marcus was once and is still a lot of things; Quidditch player, pureblood, danger addicted, too quick with sharp words and too permanently angry with the world for gentleness to move him. Liar, liar, liar (it merits repeating), very rarely a lover, mostly a fighter because he doesn’t know any other way to be. It takes years for anyone to teach him that it can be different.

But the one thing he is that no one knows about, that no one else can know about, holds one of the most bitter ironies of all.

Secret-keeper.

In the midst of war, every tender thing is on the verge of being peeled back from his bones and turned into a weapon against him; that’s why he does it to himself before anyone else can; strips himself bare of feeling. His mind is splayed open and picked through at will, people trying to stare into him like he’s the carrion they’re going to feast upon. Legilimency becomes the thing that he fears the most, because even inside his own head there’s nowhere to hide any more, no place of safety. He’s left dizzy and disoriented and deprived, touch-starved until he’s sick. He didn’t know that he could crave physical contact that isn’t violence this much. It wasn’t something he ever wanted to learn, it was so much easier to be violent when he didn’t know. His lungs don’t quite work the way that they used to when he tries to draw breath, like copper wires have pierced through them, strings to hold that part of him up when he’s got no will left. His heart never worked right in the first place, so he can’t trust the mess that’s become either. He’s strung out thin between the alliances he should be making and those that he already has. No one’s caught him out yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

All he has to do is tell the truth, and it will be over, because one side or the other will finish him off. Not quickly, perhaps, that’s unlikely at this point because he’s played as many angles as possible (once a Slytherin, always a Slytherin). But the fact is that he has the key to two secrets, and both are locked within him, securely intertwined. He can’t give up one without revealing the other, and that’s not an option.

The second secret is a location, a small house on the coast that is completely commonplace, except for the fact that to most, it’s not there at all. Shell Cottage, the home of Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour, only visible to him because of the person he held in his arms and carried over its threshold based on a delirious murmur. The place where he’d struck a bargain to save a life.

The first secret is a man who was once a boy with laughing brown eyes, who gave him some bruises to remember when they were still at school. This is the most dangerous secret he’ll ever bear, because there’s a name attached to every last drop of the blood in his veins, singing through every lie he tells, and if he has to spill it all to keep him safe, he’ll do it without hesitation.

The other has no idea, doesn’t even know it, wouldn’t return the feelings if he did. They were allies, barely tolerant, because they’re Flint and Wood and they’re splinter and burn and all they’d ever do is break each other, because that’s what they’re designed for. The fact that Oliver is still alive is the first and most important secret he’ll ever conceal from anyone, buried deep within him, sealed by words of enchantment far below the surface. He waited until Oliver was asleep and safe before he left Shell Cottage after a short conversation with Bill Weasley about why he’d done what he did; a request made, a charm cast. He hadn’t known how to answer except with the truth. I couldn’t leave him. Don’t ever tell him.

Sometimes, he dreams of how he’ll die. Alone, with Oliver’s name on his lips, his face etched on the back of his eyelids. He dreams of betrayal, of giving up, and he wakes drowning in his sheets and terrified from the sensation of Oliver’s cooling, blood-stained skin beneath his fingers before he realises it’s not real, not real, not real.

The connections between nightmare and reality are stuttering, tenuous threads, and his mind frequently stumbles for a few moments when he wakes with a start and tries to grasp them. The longing he feels is the only counterpoint he has to misery, and it’s not reciprocated.

One night, the Battle of Hogwarts, he isn’t careful enough about hiding the fact that there’s no side he’s really chosen apart from his own. That means keeping people safe, people who don’t deserve to die, because at the heart of it, he doesn’t know if he can live with himself anyway any more. There’s a blinding second where he shields someone else, the complete opposite of self-preservation, and suddenly, it’s not a dream or a nightmare at all. His lungs are flooding; he’s choking on his own blood, washed downriver on the tide of his own body, held there like a prison, and this is reality.

“Flint?”

Figures that he’d hallucinate at death’s door. He tries to speak, but he can’t. Instead he closes his eyes. The frantic note to the repetition of his name isn’t something he hears. He doesn’t hear the way that Oliver says his name, or feel callused hands passing over him.

When Marcus opens his eyes, it’s to piercingly bright, painful light and his chest feels as though it’s full of knives. “I thought dying would hurt less,” he grumbles out loud. He knew he’d probably have to pay for his sins, but come on, really?

“I hate to be the one to break it to you, Flint, but you’re not dying.”

Every muscle locks with the surge of absolute panic. His next response is probably utterly inappropriate.

“Shit.”

Because if he’s alive? That means he has to deal with the consequences; because there’s no way Bill Weasley actually kept his mouth shut. It’s confirmed about ten seconds after that. He focuses on that because he wasn’t supposed to be here, to survive, because he shouldn’t be.

“You saved my life months ago, I saved yours. No debts owed.”

Fucking Gryffindors.

Some things don’t change. Marcus still lashes out when he’s uncertain, when he’s scared, and Oliver Wood inspires both of those things in spades, amongst other emotions he can’t deal with right now or at all. “If we’re even, then go away and leave me to lick my wounds in peace, Wood. Just go away and leave me alone.” When the blinding sharpness of the light eventually recedes enough for him to actually see, he gets a good long look at Oliver, straight up into those damned eyes staring down at him, apparently from his bedside.

Marcus doesn’t give him a chance to speak, forces himself upright into a sitting position even though it causes him a lot more pain and pushes him back with one of his hands. “You weren’t supposed to know that I did anything,” he bites out. “Figures Weasley told you anyway even though I explicitly asked him not to.” What he’s doing is probably dangerous, judging by the noise that some spell monitoring him is currently making, but he couldn’t care less. Instead, he casts his gaze about. “Where are my sodding clothes?” Angry, yes, it’s so much easier, wipes everything else out the way that it has been for months.

“They were covered in blood; I reckon they must have put them aside for cleaning. I don’t know if someone’s contacted your family…” Oliver’s voice trails off, because Marcus gives him the shittiest look he can muster and even under the circumstances, that’s not inconsiderable. A petty part of him is pleased by the fact that it hasn’t lost effect. “Are you honestly stupid, Wood? No one’s going to come.” The words are rawer than he wants them to be. “No one’s coming. I’m leaving even if I have to transfigure myself clothing from the bedsheets.”

Oliver immediately blocks him. “You’re not going anywhere in the state you’re in. You took a serious curse at close range, you should be dead. The minute you pull out the stuff they’ve got you hooked up to, you’re going to collapse, Marcus.” The responding anger in his voice does what it always does; makes Marcus’ blood hum, but it’s worsened by the fact that Wood used his first name. It’s pathetic and everything in him positively crawls toward it. He wouldn’t want you if you told him.

Instead, he takes a minute to take inventory of himself. The spell he set off earlier was a heart-rate monitor of some kind, an indication of how bad it’s been. He can feel something padding his chest, so the feeling of knives is probably from that. It prompts a sharp response that’s intended to be sarcastic but comes out as truthful. “You don’t have the first clue about how right you are.” Looking down at his left arm, he’s got not one but three needles running on different lines, going into bags of potion nearby. Only one is currently active, something he assumes is there to take the edge off the pain. “How long was I out?” he asks brusquely, not meeting Wood’s eyes.

“About four days.” He can feel the pause. “I stayed with you.”

I’d rather risk collapsing than have his pity or anyone else’s. Abruptly, he reaches towards his arm and removes the medical tape holding the needles in place. One by one, he extracts them, is about to go for the last one when a hand clamps over his wrist to stop him. “You don’t even have your wand, so stop. Please.”

The panic that those words induces is on a far larger scale, because he can’t get away if he doesn’t have his wand, and he doesn’t think Oliver realises that he’s said exactly the wrong thing. The fear wells up in his throat until it nearly chokes him. Marcus is rigid where he sits. His wand has been his lifeline and his only protection for months now, and not having it is terrifying. He wants to ask why Oliver stayed. Instead, he lets his wrist go slack until Oliver lets go, and rips the last needle out anyway. It’s a futile act of rebellion, one that he knows he’ll regret, one that will hurt no one but himself, but it’s all he’s got as a means of reasserting some control over the situation. At least if he’s unconscious again, he can’t have a full-scale panic attack with an audience. Without another word, he turns his back on the man with the brown eyes that have haunted him for months; gets back into bed and shuts his eyes. “I’m tired,” he says, and as with most of his lies, it holds such a large grain of truth at the centre that it’s difficult to tell where the deception actually rests. I’m so tired.

[oliverwvvd]

this half-awake world

This is dedicated to the wonderful @flintwoodandco (with thanks to @scourgify for helping me tweak a sentence or two).

Premise: The war is at an end. The emotions that stirs in Marcus, now that he can feel at all, are a tangle [trigger: PTSD].

It’s eleven in the morning. The war is over. Marcus has just slept for more than four hours for the first time he can remember in months.

It’s eleven in the morning, and there’s legs tangled through his for the first time in months too. This is the shape of the world now, half-awake and waiting for the possibilities of what might happen next. Instead of feeling what he should feel (relief, crippling relief), all he feels like doing is sobbing into his hands like a lost child who can’t find the road home. Surely that’s not normal? Surely that isn’t what’s going to happen?

Instead of feeling like they were both lucky, so incredibly lucky to make it through, Marcus feels like crumbling in a way that he’s held off on doing for such a long time. He sits up in bed, winces slightly at the bruising still littering his abdomen, and takes a few unsteady breaths, rests his forehead to his knees.

They’re safe. It’s over.

When he feels lips touch to his shoulder, arms go around him, he realises his face is wet, that his eyes are sore.

“It’s okay. I’ve got you.”

Two sentences, spoken by a voice that the entirety of him orbits around in those few seconds like some hopeless comet circling the sun that will eventually consume him. There are worse ways to go. He turns his face blindly into the warm skin of Oliver’s neck, and he kisses there, tilts his face up and finds lips in desperation not to drown in anything but this, to suffocate whatever this is and make it go away.

Months of suppression, of not letting himself think of Oliver like this or the impossibility of their situation, caught in the crossfire and just trying to get through one more day without dying. Emotions were dangerous, a distraction they couldn’t afford, everything that they’d tentatively been moving towards put on hold for war. Now the reality of Oliver being this close is too much for him to handle, and he can’t help think he doesn’t deserve to make the decision to choose this man all over again. He doesn’t deserve to choose the precise autumn-leaf shade of his eyes, the broomstick calluses on his hands, the scrape of his stubble and the infectious brightness of his smile. I could have lost you. I could have. There’s a scar on his arm, where a Dark Mark could have been instead. The way Oliver touches him reminds him of the reasons there isn’t, why he chose. Why he ran before it could happen, and came back to fight a battle on the opposite side.

“Marcus...” His name sounds so much softer when Oliver says it, so much more worthy. But it makes him realise that makes him realise he’s probably been talking this entire time, probably saying everything out loud between kissing him. The sudden lack of control terrifies him, because self-control was all he had to help him survive. Self-control and memories to feed the starvation in him, the hungry hollows that craved only Oliver, Oliver, endlessly Oliver and nothing else in between battles and double-bluffs and so very many lies to try and protect him.

Then there’s lips on his again, murmuring that Marcus is his and he doesn’t want to think any more, moans into Oliver’s mouth because it’s been so long and he’d forgotten how this made him feel. How could I forget? If not forgotten then deeply buried, beneath the weight of war and sorrow. The guilt pierces him more sharply than ever and for a second he can’t breathe around it, but then it doesn’t matter because Oliver’s kissing him like the world has ended, and that’s exactly what it takes to make him realise that it hasn’t, not really, not the way he thought it might.

It’s eleven in the morning. Oliver’s hands trace his skin in a way that feels like forgiveness for the waiting they both did, gentle where there’s bruising still between them.

The world is new, all over again.

[oliverwvvd]

keeping count (losing count)

This started as a headcanon, but got a little long for bullet-points, so here we go. A little meandering from my tired brain on Flintwood. I don’t do Valentine’s Day, so this is belatedly in lieu. Dedicated to the lovely Flintwood squad at large.

Premise: Marcus uses numbers to manage anxiety. He keeps count of their kisses. One day, he slips, and he says the number out loud.

Kissing Oliver is always different each time for Marcus. He keeps count, and he isn’t sure if it’s because he doesn’t know how else to cope, or if it’s because each one bears remembering. It might well be both. Numbers help him to keep the chaos in his head ordered in the same way that Quidditch strategy does. He’s never told anyone. He never plans to.

There’s the first time, when their blood is boiling mid-argument; there’s a cut on Oliver’s lip and Marcus’ eye is swollen from where the other punched him. Oliver’s mouth tastes like blood when he closes in, firstly just wanting him to shut up, to stop talking, to stop being so tempting and beyond reach, to just stop, but then Oliver yanks his head back and bites his lower lip, turns what should have conquered him into silence into yet another challenge. Marcus is really, really bad at resisting challenges. As it turns out, he’s even worse at resisting them when they come in the form of a Gryffindor Quidditch captain, whose hair is always a mess and who, as it turns out, makes not kissing him seem like a sin.

There’s the fifth time, when it’s suddenly not angry at all. When Marcus lifts a hand and strokes the nape of Oliver’s neck, sneaks fingers just beneath the edge of shirt collar for more contact with warm skin. When Oliver parts lips to his and shivers like he means it.

There’s the thirty-second time, when Marcus still can’t stop counting because he doesn’t know how many kisses he’s going to get, doesn’t know if there’s going to be a price for these stolen hours and minutes. It’s the one that Oliver presses against his jawline when he leaves the Quidditch pitch, dark in the night hours that they spend out there. It’s feather-light and fleeting and it makes Marcus’ pulse speed with something that feels like fear, but it isn’t.

It takes until approximately kiss number sixty-seven for Marcus to figure out that it isn’t about sex, even if the way that they can take each other apart and yet still leave hungry (wanting, needing more) hasn’t lost any of its impact over time. If it had been, they wouldn’t have kept each other’s interest for all that long. Neither of them says it out loud, but they both know it, and it changes everything.

Marcus is scared that it’s the ninety-third kiss that will end them, can feel his hands, his entire body shaking like it’s going to come apart when Oliver crowds him against a wall and whispers please, please Marcus like nothing else will ever be enough for him, and he realises that he could give him everything. He’s scared that he will run; that he isn’t as brave as the boy whose body and stubborn fucking heart have become his silent place of worship. He’s terrified that he will break everything that they’ve become with a few casual sentences because he can’t handle the weight of what this has to come to mean to him. Better to cut Oliver off before the other can smash his heart into fragments, but it’s far too many kisses too late to protect himself.

Somewhere between the ninety-fourth kiss and the one-hundredth, he accidentally murmurs the words I missed you because it’s been a few weeks. Everything goes to hell in the span of a moment, because Oliver was never supposed to know and now it’s too late to continue pretending he’s not attached.

Seconds after he says it, tries to bury the words in another kiss, Oliver says it back and the anxiety only gets worse, because now he has something to lose. Someday, the other will wake and decide to go on living on his own and leave him behind, a secret never to be told. It’s inevitable. The sons of Death Eaters don’t get to keep boys who make them feel like Icarus, burning and falling too far to slow the descent.

One day, he slips, and he says the number out loud. “Four hundred and twenty one.” When Oliver pulls back and looks at him, perplexed, he drops his eyes, scared all over again, like he never stopped. Maybe he never did.

It doesn’t take Oliver long to figure it out. That Marcus keeps count, and why.

Because each one could be the last, and if it is, I want to remember you.

Marcus has never seen him cry before that moment, jaw tight, face turned aside; they’re too proud, both of them, except when it comes to each other, as it turns out. It knocks the wind out him, stuns the breath from his chest until he reaches out and gathers Oliver back to him. “How can you not know?” That’s the choked whisper on Oliver’s lips. “How can you not know, after all this time? I didn’t say it because I thought you just…”

It. The thing that’s remained unsaid, and Marcus wants to say don’t, wants to beg Oliver not to cross that line because he’ll destroy him, because Oliver is magic and everything in this forsaken mess of a world that’s good. He’s only ever going to tarnish that.

He breaks when Oliver curves himself around him like he wants nothing more in the world than to keep him safe, and says I love you into his ear. His hands, made for things so much more brutal, learn how to be gentle when they’re tracing the length of Oliver’s spine, when they’re stroking wild, windblown brown hair. He learns that there’s part of him that’s brave enough for this, brave enough for Oliver, if not the rest of the world. “I love you too.”

They’re seventeen and eighteen respectively, and Marcus already knows that love is rarely allowed to last forever, and he starts counting that too, because he can’t help it, because there’s war and for a while, everything feels like loss when he isn’t with Oliver. They’re both trying to stay alive, but in Marcus’ head, there’s only one number that matters when he evades capture by the corrupted Ministry, when he refuses to follow his father’s lead. Two months since I last kissed you.

Marcus isn’t sure when he loses the total count of their kisses. Somewhere after both of them survive the Battle of Hogwarts and the years that follow, perhaps. Somewhere between realising that Oliver chooses to stay, every single day, and that he isn’t going to leave. He still has spells of anxiety where he needs the definition of numbers, of other means of counting. Three days until the next Quidditch match. Four hours until Oliver is released from the hospital after an injury. One night until they get a whole weekend together to laze in bed, ghosting between bouts of sex where neither of them attempts to be quiet and half-burnt bacon sandwiches because they got distracted in the kitchen.

Every kiss is different, because each one holds a different measure of what Oliver means to him, a different set of numbers that balance him out. When he loses the total count, finally, and he panics upon realising it days later, Oliver tells him that it’s okay.

Marcus believes him.

[oliverwvvd]

something brewing: part ii

I’ve decided to write shorter chapters for this one going forward, in the hope of more frequent updates. With this in mind, this chapter is from Marcus’ point of view. There’s also part i and the original fic concept as a prelude, for anyone coming in new.

Premise: Oliver is a sports science student who has to maintain his grades in order to retain his scholarship and has a good chance of playing football professionally. Despite that, he’s serious about wanting to do well. His flatmates spend more time drunk than they do sober, so he’s given up trying to work at home and finds a little coffee shop to study in. What he doesn’t expect is to develop a painful, near-instantaneous, utterly inconvenient crush on one of the baristas.

In this chapter: Marcus discovers that weak at the knees isn’t just a figure of speech when it comes to Oliver Wood wearing his football kit.

i: marcus.

It was the last Thursday in November, and that meant the one night of the month that Marcus didn’t particularly enjoy taking the late shift: open mic night. It wasn’t that he had any objection to people expressing themselves creatively, no, but it meant that his usual background noise of choice wasn’t available and his concentration levels for studying in between serving were below zero. It was the one night of the month that made his class the next afternoon more difficult than he wanted it to be. Though in every other respect, change and taking risks were things that he actively enjoyed, sought out even, when it came to working at the coffee shop, he liked routine. He hid his scowl behind the coffee machine and didn’t speak to anyone much, and that usually got him through it when he was obliged to work it. Susan, understanding why, left him be for the most part, and he doesn’t know what he did to deserve a co-worker and friend as understanding as her, but he was grateful nonetheless. The gratitude communicated itself in frequently tucking away her favourite pastries of choice when they were running low and making sure she had first choice when new stock came in of which blend to try.

“I guess tall, dark and handsome isn’t coming in tonight either,” Susan commented from her place at the counter, leaning on her elbows and not bothering to hide her wince at the theatre major currently making their foray into bad experimental poetry. “Did you warn him in advance or something?”

Marcus shot her a look at that, and it was enough to make her raise her hands. “I’m just asking. I know you see him now and then even when he’s not holed up here.” Her brow creased as she surveyed him, and Marcus couldn’t help the uncomfortable feeling that she was seeing right through him. “Is that why you’re sulking?”

“I’m not sulking,” he said defensively, suddenly sharply aware that that had been exactly what he was doing. “And it’s got nothing to do with Oliver not being around. You know I don’t like working this one. I can’t focus.” As the theatre major’s incoherent warbling about love and disaster seemed to reach fever pitch, he gritted his teeth. “Especially when that squalling is going on. Really, I’m not a poet and even I can tell that this is complete and utter shit.” Judging by the very, very faint smattering of applause when it finally came to an end, he wasn’t the only one relieved when it stopped. “Thank Christ.”

Susan lifted an eyebrow at him, and once again, he was reminded that while he could generally fool a lot of people, she wasn’t usually one of them. Though she was basically the equivalent of sunshine in human form and easily the best person to take the counter for customer service amongst the staff, she was also shrewd and to the point. “Stop pouting. It doesn’t suit you. He’ll be back tomorrow and you know it, for his caffeine fix and to flirt with you.”

That caught Marcus off-guard and as a result, he let slip a bit more than he should have. “What? What are you talking about? I mean, he’s all right looking, if you like that sort of thing, but he doesn’t flirt with me.”

“Aha!” Lifting one of the dishcloths nearby, Susan used it to point at him. “So you’re not completely indifferent, even if you are apparently one of the most oblivious people I’ve ever met. Trust me, he does. A lot.” There was noise at the door as the changeover commenced, trading out the would-be poet for someone with an acoustic guitar who wasn’t half-bad. It was far closer to Marcus’ preferences and he felt himself relax just a little at the sound. But even so, he was distracted by Susan’s words. “No, he doesn’t. He’s just being friendly. He doesn’t talk to me any differently than he talks to you.”

Susan sighed theatrically, shoving a few stray strands of red hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ears. “God, boys are stupid. If I had someone who looked at me the way he looks at you, I’d be working fewer shifts.” She opened her mouth to continue, but something stopped her in her tracks and she closed it abruptly. At the sound of people at the coffee shop door, Marcus turned away from her, and in approximately ten seconds flat ascertained the reason for staring and had to restrain himself from rolling his eyes. “Seriously, Susan?”

There were three people in football kits, and though Marcus couldn’t see their faces, it wasn’t difficult to observe Susan’s clear appreciation of other parts of their anatomy. Reaching out, he tapped her on the nose, making her blink before giving him a sheepish grin. Despite himself, he couldn’t help but grin at her. “Distracted there, Bones?” he teased, suddenly feeling better between the soft guitar that had continued and the opportunity to wind her up.

“Laugh now. Wait until you turn around again.”

He should have known better than to take the bait. He did anyway.

God fucking damn.

Because after the three that had already entered the premises stood another, far more familiar figure, hair damp and tousled from the shower, but still very much clad in a green football jersey that showed off the span of his shoulders and shorts that revealed all the muscles in lithe legs. Regardless of the fact that it was from a distance, Marcus knew the flash of that smile anywhere. Even as he watched, he clasped hands with one of his team-mates, grinned again and headed towards the counter, waving as they all exited bar Oliver and one other. He felt his stomach sink as he saw the other boy sling an arm around Oliver’s neck and mess up his hair, keep it there as they moved across the room. I hate it when I’m right. Retreating behind the coffee machine deliberately so that it blocked his line of sight, he let his focus fall back to the textbook he’d been trying without success to read for most of the night. “Yeah, it’s Wood. So?” he said, ignoring the fact that Susan had likely just seen his reaction, to the way her expression had softened slightly, just enough for him to catch it out of his peripheral vision.

“Marcus…” Susan didn’t get the chance to say anything more before the two approached the counter; Oliver’s exuberant greeting carrying to Marcus’ ears before he could turn and escape to the storeroom unnoticed. “Susan!” Marcus tuned out the rest of the exchange, trying to focus without success on the words on the paper that were suddenly swimming in waves (damn visual stress). Caught up somewhere between sulking furiously (he could at least admit it now) and completely stressing out over the fact that he’d been right, he wasn’t prepared when Susan put a receipt in front of him that had a note scribbled on it.

That’s just a friend, you idiot, so stop hiding and say hi. He’s waiting for you.

Despite the clear instruction, he opted to ignore it at least until he was done making the drinks, concentrating on measures and flavour balance, deliberately keeping his head empty of everything but the best way to make a flat white and a latte. After a moment, he took a breath, headed down to the end. “Flat white and a latte?”

Oliver’s smile was like the fucking sun and Marcus’ mouth went dry the minute that he saw him up close. “I didn’t think you were working tonight at first, until Susan said!” That the other was so clearly pleased to see him didn’t help, and it took him a moment to curve his lips, just a little. “I try to avoid it. Open mic’s not my favourite.”

“Yeah, I know.” And the casual way that Oliver said the words, as though it was something that everyone should know about him, was a further shock in itself, evidence that the other paid more attention than Marcus thought.

His friend interrupted the conversation at that moment, saving him from coming up with a reply. “Ah, hang on, you must be Marcus then.”

That floored him outright, as if he wasn’t already struggling with the way that Oliver looked in a keeper’s jersey (good enough to eat, God, I want to-), he now had to deal with that as well, the fact that Oliver had flushed deeply. “That’d be me. Nice to meet you…?” The words were much, much calmer than he felt.

“James, I’m one of Wood’s team-mates.” The disarming grin that went with the words made Marcus relax quite suddenly, the sight he’d had at the door suddenly translating itself into tactile, exuberant friendliness.  “Nice to put a face to the name. Wood hasn’t shut up about this place or the barista for weeks. I think I know why, now, this coffee’s really good.” The glare that Oliver suddenly directed at James a moment later shouldn’t have been attractive, but somehow was, but it also cut off Marcus’ chance to say anything more than, “Really?”

“You’re bloody hilarious, mate, you know I like it here. Piss off and take your drink with you. I’ll see you at practice tomorrow.” Oliver’s words held a clear signal to go away, and the mocking salute that James returned it with left Marcus stifling a laugh. “Yes sir, future captain sir!” And surprisingly enough, he headed for the door, waving to them on the way out and winking at Susan, who at that point disappeared to the storeroom, leaving Oliver and Marcus alone at the counter.

“Sorry about him, he thinks he’s funny. Bloody good player, though.” And just like that, they’re back on much safer territory, at least for the moment.

“So do I take it that you won?” Marcus asked, leaning forward against the counter and regarding Oliver with steady amusement, the only thing that it felt safe to let show under the circumstances.

The smug, more than slightly pleased smile of victory that he received in answer to the question left Marcus in no doubt of the outcome, and God, it nearly killed him to remain neutral when Oliver looked like that. “Four nil and I got man of the match.”

Of course you did. “Nice,” Marcus said, tilting his head in Oliver’s direction. “And you came here for your caffeine fix, even knowing it was open mic night?” He wasn’t prepared for the wink he got in return, or for suddenly finding out that weak at the knees was in fact a physical reaction that could actually happen and not just a turn of phrase. “Couldn’t leave my favourite barista hanging on his least favourite shift.”

Trust me, Wood, you’re going to be leaving me hanging in ways you haven’t figured out if you keep looking at me like that. While the thought didn’t translate to Marcus’ expression, it took effort to keep it that way. He’s not flirting. That’s just how he is. Or maybe he is. I don’t know! There was only one person to blame for his confusion, and it wasn’t Oliver. Fucking Susan putting ideas in my head. Chancing it, his reply was deliberately ambiguous. “Well, thanks for not leaving me hanging, in that case,” he said, letting his smile widen. “Maybe I can return the favour sometime.”

Naturally, right at that moment was when he spotted someone else approaching the counter out of the corner of his eye. “Unfortunately, I’d better get back to work,” he said, tipping his head in the direction of the other customer. “So I’ll probably see you later, if you’re still around.” Is it his imagination, or does Oliver actually look disappointed?

“Yeah, sounds good. See you later, Marcus.” The smile to go with the words had dimmed slightly, and he was left reeling as a result. Disappointed. What did I do? The fact that as Oliver walked away, he only got an even better view of narrow hips and the way that his entire body shifted, somehow incredibly graceful despite the fact that Marcus knew he was probably covered in mud and grass not an hour prior to him being there, made the entire situation incredibly unfair. He let an exhale of breath out in a soft whoosh of sound, and muttered, “Jesus Christ, that should be illegal,” under his breath, not quite able to tear his eyes away.

“Told you so.” He didn’t need to turn around to know that Susan had returned from her suspiciously timed absence, and was quite probably smirking behind his back. “So did he ask you out yet?”

“Oh, shut up, you know that’s not a thing,” he grumbled. “Just for that, you can deal with this one. I’ll be out the back.” Disappearing from sight before she had the opportunity to sass him back, he shut the storeroom door behind him and had to take a moment to just breathe and resettle his thoughts. Somehow, picking up on signals he couldn’t read properly and being unsure of whether it was his own mind seeing what he would have liked to see was worse than nothing at all. Knowing as well that he’d probably be replaying the image of Oliver in his football kit for nights to come didn’t help, either, because it meant that he was no longer able to pretend he wasn’t interested.

Damn you, Wood. What are you doing to me?

[oliverwvvd]

no return, a headcanon

I was having a conversation with @hexmionegranger​, and my brain went off on one in respect of Marcus and Oliver and how their relationship dynamic translates in general. But this little piece of almost heartbreak came out of it, and I’ve been encouraged to share, so here we go.

There’s a night where Oliver leaves for an Order mission and doesn’t come back.

Marcus is left waiting at headquarters, restless and vicious and pacing relentlessly during hours of silence. No one dares to try and comfort him, because there is no comfort he will accept, no comfort he can accept, because that means admitting that Oliver might not come back at all, and that’s not an option.

He’s awake for the entire night. He never knew that the hours before dawn could be so empty, never knew that he’d be able to learn the exact measure of the space between his hands when Oliver isn’t there to close the gaps between fingers.

It’s mid-morning before he hears anything, rigid in a battered kitchen chair, eyes hollow and mind stuck in constant repetition of please no not him not him.

They carry Oliver over the threshold. He can’t stand unassisted and Marcus’ heart shoots into his throat. He’s alive, he’s alive.

They found him under a collapsed wall, and they heal him of his injuries, but nothing can take the vacancy from his eyes, the way he’s not seeing anything except ghosts, the world around him transient. This time, Oliver is the one still seeing things that he can’t unsee.

It isn’t until Marcus stands beside him and touches him that he makes any sound at all. He wraps arms around his waist and buries his face against Marcus’ stomach, against the sweater he’s wearing, and the choked sound says far more than words could.

They’re both exhausted but a certain stubborn Gryffindor, bereft of all his usual fight except what’s required for this, still refuses to close his eyes until much later.

Marcus soon finds out why.

Oliver screams in his sleep that night. He doesn’t usually cling to anything at all, but when he wakes from the nightmares, he collapses into Marcus’ arms as though nothing else will help.

For the first time, he begs Marcus to make it go away, to tie him back to earth where no spectres can haunt him, voice raw as the red-rimmed quality to his gaze.

Marcus kisses where his eyelashes meet his face, holds him until he stops shaking, gently runs hands over all the places he’s learned make him unravel bit by bit. “Mine,” he whispers softly. “No one’s taking you from me, they can’t have you. Mine.” Over and over, whispered into Oliver’s skin.

Oliver wants to be bruised this time, to be handled so that he can’t drift away from what’s real and right there into what he saw.

Marcus has never been able to deny him anything.

When Oliver wakes, he’s sore and his body’s a map of where Marcus has been, will always be, wrapped around him like protections woven through castle walls, but far harder to break. There’s apprehensive eyes watching him, and Oliver’s only response is to kiss him, lingering and tender, as though they have all the time in the world for such kisses.

Marcus can’t let himself think about the fact that they almost didn’t.

Yours. I’m yours.

Neither of them have said it’s love, until then. Marcus breaks that silence, breaks that unspoken rule.

I love you, three words, worship and need personified, said out loud at last, long after they’d given themselves up to it.

Love is a place that they can’t return from; the topography of bodies, the balance of inner demons weighed against crossing the roughest terrain of their hearts.

Neither of them wants to.