I Love You, Melancholy

Author's Notes: Aw, I'm glad to see some of my faithful readers are back ^^ I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I loved writing it! Remember, don't own them...

Key:

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ = Scene/Time Change (Same Day)

--------------------------------------------- = Day(s) Later

Don't forget a review :D

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Neither boy made a move toward one another right away. Marcus had taken off his robes and threw them to the side, while Oliver, who had changed into dry clothes before sulking, was rubbing one hand over the other hand’s knuckles. It was mindless self-promotion; something that he thought would deter Flint from wanting to fight. Truth be told, the Gryffindor didn’t completely want to fight, because the last thing he needed was to get beaten up, but he wasn’t going to take being pushed. Not after having lost the way they had.

“Come on, Wood!” Marcus said. “You wanted to fight, so let’s fight!”

The provoking worked well enough. Oliver, who wasn’t too far from Marcus, reached out and moved to push the larger boy, but Flint lifted his arms and grabbed the other’s, pushing them against Oliver’s body and using them to force him toward the lockers. Wood hit the metal with a loud crash; the shock seemed to daze Marcus more than it did him. Grunting loudly, he kicked at Marcus’ leg, who growled a bit angrily, letting go.

His escape was almost instantaneous. Or so he thought.

When Oliver moved to the right, Marcus, who was apparently already prepared for such a move, threw a punch his way. His knuckles came into direct contact with the Keeper’s left eye, and Wood stumbled, reaching up to cup his eye.

“You fucking jerk!” Oliver shouted.

His first reaction was to check for blood. There was none, but the area was definitely sensitive to touch. He looked over at the other captain, who was gently rubbing his fist. Well, at least he had done some damage to Marcus. Not that much, really, but it was enough.

“Ought to teach you to try and fight with me,” Marcus said firmly.

Stupid wanker, Oliver thought. His face was throbbing and his eye hurt, but he wasn’t going to show that. He hissed quietly through the pain, trying to regulate his breathing; his heart beating so quickly made that a little difficult.

For a few moments, the only sound that could be heard was the pounding of the rain against the rooftop, along with a rather loud clap of thunder. Both boys looked at one another, standing not but a few feet apart.

Oliver’s tone was flat. “Get out.”

“Fine by me.”

Marcus made his way toward the door, pulling it open harder than it needed to. It shut with a quiet clicking sound, which was followed by another loud clap of thunder. The weather really was bad, but Oliver was glad that they had played before it had become this bad. It was about the only thing he could be glad about, given the situation.

“Bloody…”

Oliver was just about to walk into the bathroom when he heard the door clicking again. Part of him thought that it might have just been the wind (there was an awful lot of it), but why would it cause the door to click? He turned around, only to see the older captain wandering back in again. What in the world was he doing coming back in here?

“The weather’s fucking nuts,” Marcus stated, gesturing over his shoulder at the door. “I’m not going back out there.”

“I don’t care,” Oliver said irritably. “I told you to get out. If you don’t, I’ll tell Percy you were harassing me and he’ll give you detention.”

Flint chuckled quietly. The Keeper didn’t understand why in the slightest. “No you won’t.”

“And how do you know what I’ll do and what I won’t do?”

“Because you have a guilt complex the size of the bloody continent of Europe, Wood. You won’t do it, because you’ll feel guilty.”

“Whatever,” Wood said quietly. He was getting upset again, and being stuck in here with Marcus was hardly the last thing he wanted to do. “I’m going to check it for myself.”

And that he did. As Oliver stalked past Marcus, the Slytherin threw his arms up in the air and let out a sigh. Wood paid him no attention and tugged the door open, stepping outside. The wind was howling madly, swirling around him and causing his eye to hurt even worse than before. He covered it up, only to cover his ears shortly afterward from the loud crash of the thunder. From what he could see, the rain wasn’t letting up any time soon, either. Maybe Flint had been right.

He returned to the inside of the locker room about a minute later, teeth chattering due to the cold from being outside. It wasn’t much warmer inside, especially with the concrete floor, but at least he had his clothes in here, and, if need be, the showers. Those would keep him warmer.

Marcus didn’t say anything upon Wood’s arrival, only giving him a very “I told you so” look, followed by a self-righteous little smirk.

Oliver kind of wanted to punch him. “We’re stuck in here for the night, then.”

“No shit, genius,” Marcus replied with a snort. “Aren’t you clever?”

“Haha.” His was a dry laugh. Then came something that he didn’t want in the slightest: a yawn. Try as he did to fight it, he couldn’t, and it was a rather long one, at that. Why now?

“Aw, you sweepy?” Flint asked. “Does wittle Wood need a nappy poo?”

“He needs you to shut up,” Oliver said harshly. “If we’re going to get to sleep, and do so without trying to kill one another, you stay on your side—” he gestured toward the right side of the locker room, which led to the bathroom and shower room, “—while I stay on mine,” here he gestured to the left side, which had the lockers and the bench.

“I’m not sleeping on the fucking floor, Wood!” Marcus argued. He pointed to Oliver’s side of the room. “You’ve got a bench. You can bloody well share. It’s big enough for the both of us.”

You deserve to sleep on the floor after what you pulled, git, Wood thought. He sighed; he was too tired, and his eye hurt too much, to keep arguing. He gave in.

“Whatever.”

Marcus smirked again. “Got any blankets?”

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

The sleeping situation was, to say the least, uncomfortable. There was one wide bench in the middle of the lockers that the both of them had to sleep on. After a lot of fidgeting and arguing, they finally realized they had to sleep with their faces near one another, because otherwise their heads would be dangling off of the bench, which would have been much more painful. Whatever extra space Oliver had due to his shorter height was taken by Marcus, who was a few inches taller, and needed it. Both of them had their feet just barely hanging off of the sides, which for Marcus was a little like his bed back home.

Somewhere in the middle of the night, Marcus awoke. The sound of the rain was still very present, but it didn’t seem like there was any more thunder. Another sound invaded his ears, though, which was very similar to the rain. Rubbing his eyes, he tried to register the sound, finally figuring out that it was a running shower. Who was—

Oh.

Now the question Marcus had was why. There was no way for him to figure out what time it was exactly. He figured it was nighttime, though, because he couldn’t have been sleeping for very long; he didn’t feel any marks on his face. As he was sleeping on a sorry excuse for a towel (the ones in Slytherin felt better, that was for sure), there was definitely reason to expect marks.

Yawning, Marcus moved to stretch. He really hadn’t been sleeping long, because his muscles weren’t scrunched up in the slightest. It was times like this he wished he had a watch, but when Terence had one, there was no real reason to worry, because the two of them hung out all of the time. Here, though, he just…had to let it go, despite wanting to know.

But what he wanted to now as well was why in the world Wood was taking a shower so late at night. Hadn’t he taken one once he came into the locker room? That was the first thing Marcus did, usually…then again, the other captain defied any sense of logic more often than not.

Finally too curious to just sit there anymore, Marcus got up quietly and began making his way toward the shower room. There was no reason for Oliver to be taking one so late, especially if he was going to back to bed, so this was the perfect time to poke some more fun at him. If they were going to be stuck in the locker room for a while, why not? It wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

The closer he got to the shower room, the more he began to notice the light. Since the Slytherin team was all males, they had just one shower room, but when Marcus approached the one in front of him, he noticed that it was split. There was a T-shaped entrance in front of him: the door to the left was shut and the door to the right was askew. He noticed a pile of clothes in front of him laid haphazardly—no doubt Oliver’s. The smell of hot shower water wafted up his nose, making Marcus’ eyes water just a little. The light was somewhat bright, too, but his eyes were adjusting, at least.

Through the jarred door the Chaser noticed a strikingly tan figure resting against the contrastingly off-white tiles of the shower room. Theirs looked similar to Slytherin’s in this aspect, with four shower heads on each wall and a little room just offset the main door that led to where the towels and washcloths were. Theirs, however, appeared to be red, whereas the Slytherins’ towels were green. That was to be expected, of course.

That strikingly contrast tan figure also happened to be naked. Marcus didn’t think much of it, since he was around his naked teammates on a weekly basis. The only difference here was that Oliver happened to be darker than the rest of his teammates—save for Warrington, who was naturally tanned, as Wood appeared to be. For a brief moment Marcus was jealous; his skin never tanned and always burned, leaving him milky white with freckles and moles. From the looks of it, the Gryffindor didn’t have any of those…

Wait, why was he even looking in the first place?

Marcus shook the thought from his head and put his hand on the door handle. He was just about to open the door further when he heard a rather noticeable little sniffle, followed by a cry. Was Wood crying? Over a loss? He really was obsessive. Not even Marcus did that. Okay, maybe once when he became captain and lost to Hufflepuff…because who didn’t hate losing to Hufflepuff? He remembered Davies bitching about it for days last year.

Part of Marcus wanted to go in there and make fun of him, especially after what had happened today and earlier on, when Oliver had made fun of him. But then he remembered the fact that the Keeper apologized. He felt, whether he could believe it or not, that Wood had been through enough. He chalked up that thought due to the fact that he was somewhat sleepy, and his judgment wasn’t totally up to par.

Whatever the case, he let go of the door handle and turned to go back to bed, or…bench.

. . .

Marcus turned over on the bench, letting out a grunt. When he sat up he immediately felt his face, checking for marks. Nope, none. It felt like he had just fallen asleep, because it took him almost nothing to get up. He didn’t even have to stretch.

The sound of the rain was still there, except it was somewhat quieter. In fact, the sound of the shower water running was louder. Wood was still in there? Why? Then again, Marcus felt like he hadn’t been asleep at all, so maybe he had just imagined that he did. Who knew.

He decided that he was going to go and check on the other boy, just to make sure that he hadn’t passed out or something. From what he remembered, the water had been really hot, and it was entirely possible that the dolt ran out of oxygen and had been conked out.

When Marcus arrived at the shower room door again, he peeked inside, noticing that the Gryffindor captain was still in the same spot that he was before. Instead of seeing the other’s backside this time, however, he was catching a full frontal. This didn’t bother him in the slightest, really. Yet, he found himself staring for slightly longer than he had believed himself to. Maybe because of the fact that the hot water had loosened Oliver’s muscles and blood vessels, causing him to appear longer than he probably usually did.

Why Marcus was thinking about that, he didn’t know. He shook the thought from his head and finally stepped into the shower room, catching Oliver in mid-sniffle. The Keeper, clearly surprised, reached up and rubbed at his eyes, cursing from the pain of rubbing his bruised one.

“What’re you doing in here?” Oliver asked curiously, quietly.

“Heard you crying,” Marcus replied. Normally he would have been a little crueler when he said that, but for some reason, he wasn’t. “Just thought I’d check on you.”

Wood said nothing in response, nor did he seem at all fazed by the fact that he was naked and Marcus was seeing him as such. He just ran his hand through his wet hair, turning off the shower.

Marcus found himself feeling surprisingly interested in the newly formed bruised eye of the other boy. It was a nice, mixed shade of red and purple, and entailed the entire bottom half of Oliver’s eye. The shower had probably only made it worse, but there was no way for him to prove that. He reached out to touch it; the younger one didn’t shy away.

“Got you good, didn’t I?” he said, sounding slightly amused.

“Funny,” Oliver replied quietly.

The Slytherin continued to lightly brush his fingers over the bruised eye for a moment, and then Oliver reached up, taking hold of the paler fingers. Normally Marcus would pull away, so he was surprised when he didn’t. In fact, he moved closer, removing the distance between them bit by bit. They shared an unexpectedly intense gaze before finally, Oliver leaned in and pressed his warm lips against the taller boy’s.

Marcus was, to say the least, caught off guard. But instead of pulling away and cursing, like he thought he would do, he found himself returning the kiss as best that he could. Granted, Marcus wasn’t the best kisser, so it was a little awkward, but Oliver didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he moved closer to the dark haired boy, his slender, rough fingers gripping the larger, stubbier ones a little tighter.

Their kiss lasted for what seemed like forever, until Oliver pulled back, only to bring their lips together again. They shared a few short kisses, each feeling better than the last. Marcus couldn’t believe what he was doing…but he wasn’t about to deny himself something that felt ridiculously good, and that gave him a weird, warm feeling in the pit of his stomach.

When they finally broke apart Marcus looked deeply into Oliver’s tender hazel eyes, realizing for the first time just how pretty they were, even despite the rather large bruise that he was adorning. He couldn’t help but smile softly. Oliver did, too, though his appeared somewhat embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” Marcus murmured softly.

“It’s okay,” Wood replied, voice just as quiet. “You’re here now.”

The Slytherin’s smile widened.

. . .

Marcus awoke with that same weird, warm feeling in the bottom of his stomach still there. For just a moment, everything was quiet. Then the sound of the rain pattering slowly became louder, as did the faint sound of snoring. When he opened his eyes it took him a minute to figure out where he was. Ah, yes, he was in the Gryffindor locker room with Oliver. For some odd reason, thinking about the other’s name made him smile a little.

What had that dream been all about?

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“You going to eat that?”

A slightly disgusted face. “No, go ahead. I don’t eat marmalade. S’gross.”

A smirk. “Oh, you liar. You’ve eaten it before, I’m not stupid.”

A quick wink. “Who says?”

Marcus listened as Terence and Adrian bickered mindlessly back and forth about the marmalade that morning at breakfast, looking over the latest edition of the Daily Prophet. It had been little over a week since his and Oliver’s being stuck in the Gryffindor locker room, and his mind still raced every time he thought about it. Not being one to often read newspapers, he figured that they would be a welcomed distraction—he had just started reading them this week. That dream had certainly been something, and while Marcus usually disregarded dreams for being stupid and pointless, that one had made him feel weird in ways that he didn’t quite understand. He had been fighting back and forth with himself for a while about telling someone, and since the only person he trusted enough was Terence, he figured he might as well get over his little hurdle and just let the old Seeker know that he wanted to talk to him about something.

Trouble was, he couldn’t find the time to get the other alone. Sure, they shared a dormitory, but the other seventh year Slytherin guys made it awfully hard, because they were almost always in there. Marcus didn’t mind Dorny so much, but he didn’t trust him enough—and he certainly didn’t trust Capper or Bundy enough—to say anything in front of them. Even now, at breakfast, Adrian was busy chatting his closest friend’s ear off.

“I’d best get going,” Pucey said, much to Marcus’ surprise. “I’ve got to get to work on this stupid Charms theory paper, otherwise I’m going to get a horrible mark from the beginning of the term. Not good to start off on a bad foot.”

“You’d better get on it,” Flint said warningly. “I don’t want to have to switch you out for one of the other Chasers because you get suspended from the team.”

Adrian grinned cockily. “Don’t worry, my captain. Things’ll be just fine. See you two in the common room later, then.”

“See you,” Terence said, offering a small wave as a good-bye.

“Yeah, later,” Marcus said.

Finally, he thought. For a moment he thought Terence might leave, too, since he sometimes did when Adrian got up and left. But thankfully he stayed put, which gave Marcus just the time he needed to get something out there. It was hard enough as it was without being interrupted every five damn minutes.

“Terence,” he began, turning to look at the taller Slytherin, “what d’you know about dreams?”

The blond looked confused. “Dreams? What about ‘em?”

“What do you know about them?” Marcus repeated. “You know, meaning and all that junk.”

“Not much,” Terence replied. He took a bite of his apple. “Just that they’re windows into the subconscious. Usually you dream about things you want. I know I do.”

That wasn’t quite the answer that Marcus had been looking for. That dream about Oliver meant that he fancied the other captain? No, it couldn’t be. He didn’t like him that way in the slightest…did he? He briefly thought of that dream, only to find yet another smile wanting to work its way onto his face. It lasted for a moment before he started feeling that weird discomfort again for thinking about it.

“What about…” Flint leaned in, looking a little uncomfortable, “those kinds of dreams?”

A smirk appeared on his friend’s face, and he raised an eyebrow, curious. “Those kinds of dreams?” he asked. “What, you having dreams about some girl, mate? Who is it? Chang? Spinnet? She’s pretty cute.”

“No.” This was where Marcus was going to have a little difficulty. So, he went with the easiest answer possible: delay. “Look,” he said, “can we just talk about it later? Maybe tonight? Meet me in the locker room, all right? After dinner.”

Terence looked somewhat suspicious, but he didn’t pursue the topic further. “All right, Marcus. After dinner.” He took another bite of his apple, dropping the core onto his plate.

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

Marcus paced back and forth in the locker room. Today had been hard for him, because he had had Charms again with Oliver. Fortunately for him, it had been a theory lesson, so that meant no practical work for the day. But his eyes kept wandering over to the Keeper, and he found himself feeling angry just about every time he caught him whispering something to that pathetic Weasley. Was it jealousy? No, of course not. Marcus Flint didn’t get jealous, people got jealous of him.

Why, then, was that warm feeling that he got from looking at the blond haired boy snatched away every time he saw that annoying redhead talking to him? He didn’t know.

Feeling as if he was going to form a groove in the floor Marcus moved to sit down, and he let out an exasperated sigh.

“What’s up your arse?”

Terence’s voice had been unexpected. Marcus looked up, then immediately back down, and moved to stand.

“Nothing,” he replied flatly. “I’m just thinking.”

“Seem to be doing a lot of that lately. Again, I ask, what’s up your arse? You’ve been acting strange all week, and when you finally get to talk to me, you don’t tell me?” Terence folded his arms over his chest and cocked his head to the side curiously.

Marcus mirrored Terence’s arms, taking in a deep breath. They were alone. He could do this. “Listen. You’re the only person I can trust to talk about this with, and if you say anything, I’ll knock your teeth out.” He looked at his best friend, who didn’t appear fazed in the slightest.

“Go on.”

“Well…remember that dream shit I was talking about today?”

“Yeah. What of it?”

“It’s been bugging me for about a week and I didn’t know quite how to get it out.” Okay, that was a lie, but what Terence didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him.

Higgs rolled his hand in continuing motion. “And…?”

There was a pause. Then, Marcus blurted out, “I had a dream and I kissed Wood in it.”

Another pause. Marcus’ cheeks, though he tried so hard to fight it, turned a bright shade of pink. He was extremely embarrassed, but the color was more from the fact that he had said this and he almost hated himself for it. Terence was going to make fun of him, of this he was sure.

“You…kissed Wood?” Terence repeated questioningly. Marcus nodded. “Did you do anything else in the dream?”

“He was naked,” the dark haired boy added. That was a pointless response.

The ex-Seeker looked confused. “Okay. Were you?”

“No.”

“Where did this happen?”

“In the shower in the Gryffindor locker room.”

Terence snorted. “Well, makes sense as to why he was naked.”

Marcus was getting antsy. Terence hadn’t given an opinion yet and he was expecting one. “…So?”

“So what?”

“You don’t think I’m fucking bonkers?”

Then Terence did something that completely surprised Marcus: he smirked, and laughed. “Marc, if I thought you were fucking bonkers for having dreams about some bloke, I’d have to think I was bonkers, too.”

“…Wait, what?” Marcus had certainly not been expecting that.

“Yeah.” The taller Slytherin shook his head, laughing again. “Um…I guess I should have told you this sooner, but I’ve been snogging Pucey for…little over a few months now. I’ve had dreams about him, and I kind of just went for what I wanted and got it. Didn’t take no for an answer.” A ridiculously cocky, pompous grin took over his face. “Not that he would have, but…yeah.”

The captain looked dumbfounded. “You’re fucking kidding. I thought you liked girls!”

“Well, I do. But I like Pucey better, honestly. Remember last week when he was walking kind of funny?” Terence began.

“…You don’t mean—”

“Right over there.” He pointed at the bench by the lockers.

“Ew! Higgs, you fucking—you pervert! In the locker room?”

“Where else? He’s two years younger than we are…”

“Yeah, and he’s sixteen. He’s jailbait.”

“Sure doesn’t act like it.”

“Okay,” Marcus said, waving his arms dismissively. “Enough of that.”

“Yes,” Terence said with a smirk. “Let’s get back to the topic of you and your little lover boy, Wood.”

“He is not, arsewipe.” Marcus’ cheeks were pink still, but this time more from embarrassment.

“Well, you’re off having sex dreams about him.”

“It wasn’t sex,” Flint corrected. He got quieter without having intended to. “We just…kissed.”

Terence looked curious again. “So…did you like it?”

At first, Marcus thought about flat out lying and telling Terence that it had been a joke and that he was kidding, but he knew that the younger one would believe him at all. Terence had a bullshit detector or something, and sometimes it was kind of annoying. Okay, always annoying. But what would Terence think? It was different, his situation; he liked Pucey, who was acceptable and all that. Wood was a Gryffindor, of all people, and his opposing captain, at that.

“Yes,” Marcus finally admitted with an irritated sigh.

Surprisingly enough, Higgs didn’t pressure it too badly, or make fun of him for it. “So…what d’you think caused this dream?”

“I dunno,” he began, then quickly changed his answer, “well, yeah, I do. Remember the game a bit ago with Hufflepuff and Gryffindor? With the fucked up rain and wind and all that?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I went to go poke some fun at Wood while he was down and we ended up getting stuck in the locker room.”

“How’d you get stuck in the locker room?” Terence suddenly snapped his fingers. “Is that when Wood got that black eye? I noticed that he had that.”

“Yeah, that’s when. And we got stuck because there was massive thunder going on outside, and the rain would have probably drowned us. We didn’t want to go outside, and we couldn’t.” Terence opened his mouth to retort but Marcus cut him off. “Trust me, I checked. It was impossible.”

“Well, that’d explain why you guys weren’t around for breakfast…”

“Yeah. We ended up having to sleep on the bench in there and it was an absolute nightmare. I fell asleep and, like, woke up about five minutes later or something. I woke up to the sound of the shower running and so I investigated and there was Wood, naked, sniffling in the shower. I was going to poke some more fun at him, but something stopped me.”

Terence pointed and snickered some. “Haha, you have compassion.”

“Shut up, wanker.” But Marcus laughed, despite himself. Only Terence could get away with saying something like that with him.

A moment of somewhat pensive silence slipped in, broken only by Terence a few seconds into it. “So…d’you think you like him, then?”

“Honestly?” Flint made a face and sighed. “No fucking clue.”

“They always say there’s a fine line between love and hate,” Terence said musingly. “And I don’t think anybody could hate—well, maybe in this case dislike—anyone else as much as you and Wood do…”

“So if that’s the case,” Marcus began curiously, “what the hell do I do?”

The blond Slytherin’s answer was simple. “You get what you want.”

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