In A Time Of Uncertainty

Marauder

Story Summary:
They once longed for each other years ago, but neither was ready to face his feelings. Now Voldemort has returned, Oliver is recruiting wizards to fight against him, and Percy is estranged from his family. Hesitant and apprehensive, they decide to try to be a couple.

Chapter 45

Chapter Summary:
The final chapter. Percy returns home.
Posted:
10/31/2004
Hits:
1,264
Author's Note:
Well. Here it is

Part Four, Chapter Fourteen

Percy came home early. While, not early, exactly; he had always been scheduled to return on the thirty-first of August but in his last letter to Oliver he had accidentally given the date as the first of September. He was greeted by a silent house.

The marble floor of the front corridor was covered with a light layer of sand. On the wall was a new photograph: Ron and Ginny at the beach, with sunglasses, cautiously smiling at the camera. Both of them had more freckles than white skin.

It figured, Percy thought, that he would come home to an empty house. Oliver had to be training with the branch - it was only three o'clock in the afternoon - and Ginny and Ron were doubtless outside, relishing their last few moments of the summer holiday. What sort of food was in the house? Perhaps Percy would take a nap until someone came home. Or maybe a bath would be first, seeing as travel always made him feel grimy, regardless of the method of transportation.

"Who's there?"

Percy froze, one hand still resting on the handle of the door. Was there someone he knew in the house, or had it been taken over? He had no idea if he should speak or not.

"I'm giving you five seconds."

Scottish! The voice was Scottish, and deep, and - "Oliver, it's me."

Nothing happened. "Percy?"

"Yeah. I'm home, I got the date on the letter wrong, the letter that I sent you."

He saw Oliver's shadow before he saw the man himself. Oliver looked disheveled, even more of a mess than he had looked at school on the days where he returned to the dormitory before taking a shower after Quidditch practice. A greenish stain started at the top of his sleeve and continued almost to the cuff. He hadn't shaved. "Where's everyone else?"

Oliver contemplated Percy for a moment. "They've gone back to England," he said slowly. "Wiltshire. Evermore. We thought you were coming home tomorrow, and seeing as they leave for school tomorrow I went with them to get all their things four days ago and then sent them off with Remus."

"Was he pleased about it?"

"I think he was." Oliver licked his lips and then stopped still. "Damn it, Perce, get over here."

Once Percy reached Oliver's arms the smile on his face was crushed into a kiss. "I missed you desperately," Oliver murmured, trailing small kisses up and down Percy's neck. "And the bed - I can't believe I got so used to sleeping in a bed with another person that it seemed empty all the time."

"I can," said Percy, his hands feeling the thick line of Oliver's shoulder blades. "I know exactly what you mean."

"Every once in a while Ron would be in another room and he'd say something or another, and for a second I'd think it was you."

"Your mum gets the same sort of look on her face as you do when she's thinking hard about something."

Oliver pulled back slightly to look into Percy's eyes. "Things are a disaster in this house, I've been awful about cleaning since Ron and Ginny went back to England."

"That's all right." Had Oliver always had those faint lines across his forehead? "I've got an entire suitcase full of dirty clothes."

"Leave it here and come to bed," said Oliver softly.

"I ought to have a bath first," Percy replied, though he found himself aroused.

"The sheets need to be washed anyway."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure, I've been wanking like mad without you and Scourgify doesn't work as well if you haven't the energy to properly concentrate." Oliver stroked down the front of Percy's robe with one finger and stopped when he reached the waist. "This looks as though it needs some attention..."

Percy's mouth silently fell open; he let Oliver lead him upstairs.

There were discarded clothes strewn across the floor of their bedroom, and after a few brief minutes of kissing and teasing Percy's robes joined the collection, with Oliver's following soon after. "God, Percy, you got so skinny."

"I didn't mean to," he protested, gently rubbing one of Oliver's nipples. "We were always so busy and there wasn't always time to eat."

"How long are you staying here for?"

"A week and a half."

"Goddamn it, I can't feed you up enough in a week and a half."

The mood was not broken but it was strained. "I'll eat as much as I can."

"How long will you be gone, next time?"

"At least three months," said Percy; the words seemed like a death sentence.

"Three bloody months?"

"Ol, don't be angry."

Oliver opened his mouth to speak but then closed it. "No, I won't be," he said. "There's nothing I can do about it, and the longer you're gone means the more you're working which means the closer we are to the end of the war."

"If everything goes well in China it might only be two and a half months."

"How are you going to do anything in China? Neither you or my mum speak Chinese."

"They speak English." Percy reached one hand around Oliver's backside and squeezed. "Can we - "

"Yeah." Oliver swallowed, shut his eyes for a moment and opened them once more. "Yeah, we can."

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

They made love twice; it would have been three times but by that point the sheets were unbearable and so they started them washing themselves and began to run a bath. Unlike the black-and-chrome bathroom at Allerby Lane the bathroom of Topaz Sun was enormous, with blue, white, and yellow tiles and a great blue tub. The old towels, however, hung on their new hooks and had a familiar look that gave Percy an odd sense of comfort.

"There's so much to do in this house," Oliver said, dipping a few toes in the water. "Today and tomorrow are a holiday from training because enough people have kids to send back to school."

"Don't you think the Death Eaters might think of that and decide it's the perfect time to attack?" Percy asked.

"Of course I do. See the little box up near the ceiling? Alert device. I've got one on a chain that I have to take with me whenever I leave the house. Anyway, I thought I could leave all the cleaning and stuff until today, seeing as I'd have time today, but that didn't work out. I took one look at it and spent the day sleeping on the couch with the cat - you haven't met the cat!"

He ran out of the bathroom in his dressing gown and returned a few moments later with a tiny kitten pressed to his chest.

"Spawn of Sapphira Whosit?" Percy asked, smiling.

"That's right. She was the surprise I was talking about in my letters, I hope you like her."

The kitten looked over at Percy and mewed. "It's okay, that's Perce, he lives here too. Want to hold her?" Oliver asked Percy.

He hesitated. "I don't know anything about cats."

"You just take her when I give her to you and make sure she doesn't get her claws stuck on your dressing gown. They're like little hooked needles." Oliver walked over to him and held out the kitten. "Take her quick before she gets irritated."

Percy curled his hands around the kitten's stomach; Oliver let go. The kitten had fur that was soft like goose feathers and tiny ribs that seemed to barely contain her heartbeat. She sniffed at Percy for a few seconds.

"I like her," he said.

"I didn't name her so that you could do it."

"Are you sure you want to give that responsibility to someone who once named a pet rat 'Scabbers'?"

"That was when you were a kid. You named Hermes, that's a good name."

The kitten yawned, revealing perfectly tiny yet perfectly sharp teeth and breath that smelled of tuna.

"You don't have to do it now, of course," Oliver said. "You can think about it and all."

Percy looked up at him. "Emerald."

"What?"

"Emerald, that's what I want to name her."

Oliver gave him a puzzled look. "She's got blue eyes and brown fur, where are you getting 'Emerald' from?"

"We lost The Emerald Cloak. We have her now. Why, don't you like it?"

"I love it," said Oliver, and he took the kitten back from Percy, set her in the corridor, and shut the door behind her. "Let's have the bath."

The tub was larger than the one at Allerby Lane and held both of them comfortably. Reaching for the soap that sat on the ledge, Oliver slid behind Percy and began to wash his back. "Forget knotted tree roots, your back feels like a bag of rocks."

"That's probably because of Spain. It was hot and I couldn't sleep and I missed you, and then I'd think about how I really needed to go back to sleep, but I couldn't, and I'd get tense."

"This isn't just tense, it's petrified." Percy felt water splashing across his back, washing away the soap.

As they had once before they washed each other, but this time they were sitting and it turned into a tangle of limbs. "Ol, you're sitting on my foot."

"Sorry about that." Oliver leaned back against the edge of the tub and ran his fingers through Percy's hair; Percy reclined to rest his head on Oliver's chest. There was no sound except for their own soft breathing.

"I hate to go on about this," said Oliver, "but whenever I think of all the crap in this house that needs to get cleaned my head starts to spin."

"We'll fix it tomorrow," Percy replied.

"Tomorrow my friend Jean-Marc is coming over for dinner."

"In the morning and afternoon, then. We'll fix it tomorrow."

"You're right," Oliver agreed. "We'll fix it."

Percy shut his eyes. There would always be things that needed to be fixed tomorrow, but for now he would be content and listen to the steady beating of Oliver's heart.


Author notes: The complete author's commentary, including acknowledgements, can be found at:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/marauderthesn/42270.html#cutid1