The Blind Date

"What?" Oliver blurted out. "You're my...what?!?" Percy's face reddened some more as Oliver drew back in shock. Then he shook his head. "Sorry, I must not have heard you or something-"

"No, I'm afraid you did hear me." Percy sighed. "I'm, well...yourdatefortheevening" Percy endeavored to get last bit over with as quickly as possible. "You see Fred and George obviously thought it would be a laugh if...And now...well..."

"But you couldn't be- I mean you aren't even gay...are you?" Oliver looked enormously confused.

"Well...yesIam." Again, Percy said the last part so fast that Oliver almost didn't catch it. Percy darted a quick glance at Oliver and went back to staring at the table. "I had no idea you were...too."

"Yeah, I am." Oliver shrugged.

"Oh." Percy looked up as he reached for his paper napkin and unconsciously began folding and unfolding it.

"Yeah." In the silence that followed, Oliver watched Percy and his napkin; he shook his head in bewilderment.

"What is it?"

"Oh, I just can't believe Fred and George set me up with you."

Percy's eyebrows shot up; his face took on a huffy expression. "Well, I know I'm probably not what you were expecting, but you- look, this was a really bad idea, so why don't I just go," Percy slid over to leave.

"No! Wait, that came out wrong. It's just that when the twins told me about this, they said that he- well, you- were going to be tall, dark and handsome or something like that, so I didn't think it was going to be anyone like you." Percy opened his mouth and Oliver winced. "No! That's not what I meant either- you're not ugly or anything-Merlin- it's just I was-" Oliver stopped and sighed, dropping his head to his hands. "I didn't mean it like that," he finally said. "God, this is embarrassing."

"I know just how you feel," Percy said, exchanging a rather dry smile with Oliver. During the silence that followed Percy folded and unfolded the napkin in his lap three times.

"I..." Oliver started, but he couldn't think of a thing to say.

"Hmm? Did you say something?" Percy paused in his folding.

"Um...No."

"Oh." By the time another minute rolled around, the silence had grown to unbearable proportions; Percy had moved on from folding to full-on nervous twisting of his napkin.

Suddenly Oliver smiled sheepishly. "You know, I think I'm going to murder your brothers the next time I see them." He glanced over at Percy, who was, for some reason, looking at the other side of the room out of the corner of his eye.

"Well you won't have to wait too long. If I'm not mistaken, that's them hiding behind the menu in the corner booth." Percy inclined his head, and sure enough, he was right. Oliver looked over just in time to see a pair of orange heads duck back out of sight.

"Maybe I'll just get out waiter to spit in their food then." He smiled. "I should have known something was up- I mean the two of them were grinning like a pair of Cheshirecats the whole time."

"For me too," Percy replied. After a moment, his brow crinkled. Percy looked down at his water glass. "I wonder why they ever thought that-"

"I don't know." Oliver also looked down at his water glass. Fred and George looked at them looking down at their water glasses.

Percy was back to twisting when the waiter came to take their order.

*~*~*~*

Meanwhile, in the corner booth, Fred and George were still trying to look inconspicuous behind the menu.

"This is awful!" George said, leaning his head over to the side to get a better look.

"I know. Merlin, what more do we have to do?"

George craned his head further around the menu. Suddenly his eyes widened and he thumped back into his seat, blinking. Fred moved the menu over in alarm.

"What are you doing??" he whispered. "They'll see us!"

"Fred."

"George, get over here. You're going to ruin the whole thing! They'll never get anywhere if they know someone is watching them!"

"Fred."

"George-"

'Fred!" George grabbed the menu and slammed it down on the table. "Oh, give up. It was a stupid idea. Besides, I think they already saw us."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because Percy just looked over at me and mouthed 'I'm going to kill you'."

"Oh." Fred leaned back in his seat. "Well then."

"Let's just try and act normal, shall we?"

"Very well."

"So!" Fred and George started. "You gentlemen have come out of hiding, have you? You ought to know what you want by now, being so involved in the menu and all." Their waitress, a slightly overweight girl with frizzy brown hair and a nametag that read "Hi! My name is 'Piss Off'" raised an eyebrow. George supposed that the slight twitch of the frown engrained in her faced passed for a friendly smile.

"Um..."

"Actually, we don't know what we want yet."

"Really?" Piss Off's eyes widened in mock surprise. Or would have, if she'd felt like making the effort.

"Yes, so could you, um, come back in a bit?" George chuckled weakly by way of explanation.

"I'd be delighted." Piss Off's words were so heavy with sarcasm they practically dropped like bowling balls onto the table. She turned and plodded back over toward the kitchen. Fred's eyes followed her until she passed the desert cart, where they stopped. His face suddenly lit up in a grin; he whirled back to his brother.

"George."

"What?"

"I have a brilliant idea."

"What is it?" George's grin now matched his twin's.

Fred turned back toward the kitchen, where Piss Off was still standing. "Oi! Piss Off!" She came over to their table, with exactly the same expression as before on her face.

"Could you do us a favor? You see that table over there? The one with the guy with that fake smile and the other who looks like he has a poker wedged up his bum?..."

*~*~*~*

Back at Oliver and Percy's table a valiant attempt at conversation was going on.

Oliver was in the midst of an amusing anecdote: "...So then Liz told him the truth about the whole thing and he said, "What? You mean I spent 500 sickles on this magic-toupee and it was all a prank?'" His laughter sputtered out like a dying lawn mower. "Well. I guess it was one of those 'you had to be there' kind of things," he muttered.

"Right." Percy smiled weakly.

Oliver was trying to relax- the whole situation was actually kind of funny, he thought- but Percy wasn't making it easy. He was still quite tense, his back rigidly straight against the booth. After destroying his own dinner napkin, Percy had absently found Oliver's and was slowly mangling it to death. It was almost adorable, Oliver thought. Still, what an evening. Oliver had tried to get a conversation going several times, but he kept running into brick walls. Well, here goes another, he thought.

"...so, Fred and George, eh?"

"Uh-huh."

"They still over there?"

"Yes."

"That's what I thought." And brick wall. Oliver twiddled his thumbs.

Percy watched him and stifled a sigh. Why was this going so badly? His mouth seemed to be frozen. This napkin was no longer fit for use. And to top it off, the table definitely did not look as though it had been cleaned before they sat down. He should know, considering he had been staring at it for most of the past ten minutes.

Oliver took a sip of water, thinking. Surely this couldn't sustain itself for much longer- Percy was liable to give himself muscle strain in he didn't loosen up. Oliver put down the water glass and broke the silence.

"What a crazy idea," he said.

"Pardon?"

"I mean, you know, the idea of us dating." He gestured vaguely back and forth between them.

"Oh...yes, of course." Percy shook his head a little too vigorously in agreement.

"It's just...silly."

"I know."

"Ridiculous."

"Yes."

"You could even call it crackers."

"You could, at that." Percy paused. "I mean, we were...friends, right? And we haven't even seen each other in over a year."

"Silly idea." That sounded like a good thing to say again.

"Yes. We have definitely established that as a silly, silly idea," Percy trailed off quietly.

"So, you know, maybe we should try just being friends or something," Oliver suggested.

"Certainly," Percy said with relief, his shoulders finally inching away from his head. Percy's hands slowly released the ruined napkin.

"Yeah- no pressure. I mean it would be too weird and-"

Oliver would have finished his sentenced but the entire wait-staff of Waverly's restaurant interrupted him. A sea of perky faces (save one) stared expectantly down at them.

"Yes?" Percy asked.

"Ladies and gentleman, it's a very special night for these two," announced a frizzy haired waitress with heavy eyelids and a loud, if monotone voice. "Oliver and Percy here are celebrating their two-year anniversary tonight! Congratulations!"

The waiters and waitresses pulled out their wands and began shooting colored sparks from them. One spelled out 'Happy Anniversary!' in large gold letters over their table.

"What?" Percy yelped.

"Happy anniversary, happy anniversary- happy anniversary, to you, to you!" the wait-staff sang, one girl with light brown hair doing her best to sing as loudly and as off-key as possible.

Percy seemed as though we was trying to tense up and shrink down into his seat at the same time. Oliver's napkin returned to his hands and his face was doing a credible impression of a tomato. All in all, Percy had never been more embarrassed in his entire life.

Oliver shot a worried look at him and grabbed the frizzy haired woman, pulling her towards him.

"You've made a mistake. It's not our anniversary!" he shouted over the song. "We aren't . Even. Dating!"

Piss Off just shook her head, an evil glint in her eye. "Those two gentlemen in the corner told me you'd be shy about it." She jerked her thumb behind her towards the corner booth and smiled sadistically to herself. Oliver looked murderously over, but the only thing left at Fred and George's table was a single menu.

Wait. The song seemed to be dying down.

The wait-staff took a collective breath. "Happy anniversary, happy anniversary..." Or not.

It went on forever; Percy felt as though everyone in the restaurant was staring at them- and they were. The napkin was a mangled paper carcass by the time the song ended and the audience burst into enthusiastic applause. He shot a glance in almost hysterical askance at Oliver.

"Just play along. It'll be over in a minute."

Just then a large chocolate cake came wheeling out of the kitchen.

"Merlin," Oliver whispered. It was too much. The cake had "Happy Two Years- Love Fred and George" scrawled across it.

Percy gulped. He reached instinctively across the table in search of yet another napkin, but his hand found Oliver's instead. He looked down at it, surprised, then met Oliver's eyes. Oliver was actually on the verge of laughing, his eyes twinkling. And although he snatched his hand away as quickly as possible, Percy couldn't help the answering tug of his own mouth in return.