bleak or bright (Marcus kind of cares)

Things were definitely weird between them; Percy felt like he blew everything up.

They still did the same things: studying, flying, talking for hours, that sort of thing. But it was just different.

Marcus acted normal, but that was just it. It was acting, and it was terrible acting, and he wasn't being normal. Percy just didn't know what to do.

How do you address someone when they recoil every time you touch each other and maintain at least a meter of distance at all time, like you have some kind of disease? Percy knew he got the sniffles often, but that never stopped them before!

It must've been the gay thing, Percy was sure. Marcus was weirded out and worried that Percy was attracted to him (which... wasn't entirely baseless) and now he's keeping his distance so that he doesn't get "turned gay." Percy'd heard it all before.

Now, if only Marcus stopped asking those weird questions...

"Have you ever dated another boy?"

"Did you kiss him? Sleep with him?"

"Do you... give or take?"

"Are you sure you're telling me the truth about being a virgin?"

"But isn't oral sex, sex?"

"Are you interested in anyone right now?"

All in all, it was strange, and Percy felt like he was going crazy. He had nobody to talk to about it — so he found someone to talk to about it.

"Thanks for coming with me," he told Penelope as she sat down beside him in the booth. They huddled in the one closest to the back, typically reserved for snogging couples due to the discretion it offered.

"Thanks for inviting me," she replied cordially, removing her Ravenclaw scarf and tossing it into his lap carelessly. As she wrestled with her hair, curly blonde locks having been caught in the zipper of her winter coat, Percy began talking.

"Well, I've got a hypothetical."

She smirked, correcting, "You mean, you're about to describe some dilemma you're in and seek my advice because you can't just directly ask for help." However, at Percy's unimpressed stare, she sighed. "Okay, what?"

"I've got this..." he paused, looking for the right word before finishing, "mate. And, well, recently..."

As he went on and on about Marcus, never using his name or any details he deemed too overt, Penelope nodded along and provided reactionary commentary to assure that she was paying attention. At some point, she'd even acquired a butter beer, yet managed a "you did that?!" over the sound of her own slurping.

"So... what do you think, Penny?" Percy finished, waiting with bated breath.

Penelope bit her lip, tapping at her empty glass repeatedly with her long nails; it was getting annoying. "I don't — I don't think you'll quite like what I have to say."

"But, you do have something to say," Percy concluded. "I trust that much."

"Yes, I do," Penelope agreed. "Percy," she began, pausing dramatically to turn to him and take his hands in hers. "You like your mate."

Out of reflex, Percy opened his mouth to protest, but he didn't even need the meaningful glare Penny gave him to halt the denial. So he did like Marcus. So what? That didn't help him much at all.

"Furthermore," she said, glancing around furtively, "Flint likes you."

"No, he — wait, what? How'd you know I was talking about Marcus?" Percy frowned, squinting at her suspiciously.

She shrugged smugly. "Well, for one, Gemma told me you were tutoring him. We actually had a bet about how long it would take him to quit on you, but we had no idea it was like this."

"You and your girlfriend bet on Marcus and I?" Percy repeated with a scowl.

"Not my girlfriend, but yes," Penelope replied easily. "On another note, don't look now, but Flint has been staring at us murderously for a few minutes now."

Percy frowned, moving to look over Penny's big hair to see whether or not she was joking, but she quickly grabbed his jaw, forcefully turning his head back. "I said don't look!"

Guess she wasn't joking.

"So, you're telling me," Percy spoke slowly to emphasize his skepticism, "that Marcus is avoiding me like the plague because he actually wants to snog me silly?"

Penelope snorted. "Well, I didn't say that — but, yes. Think about it."

And Percy tried to, he really did, but he shook his head; he couldn't.

"Boys," Penelope pinched the bridge of her nose before launching into her explanation. "You guys get close. He gets flustered when you touch him, asks your thoughts about homosexuality, finds out you're a boy lover, and starts asking you questions about your sex and dating life while acting all coy about touching you."

Percy followed along with her thought process, but he still didn't want to reach that conclusion. Like, yes that would be nice, but he didn't want to get his hopes up and make things even worse by thinking Marcus liked him.

"At this point, you're just being modest," Penelope shook her head before turning away from him, digging out the straw from her cup so that she could chew it like a teething toddler.

As soon as she'd moved, his eyes strayed and met Marcus' head on, who did indeed look like he'd been staring murderously for a while. 

Percy waved; Marcus looked away. Penelope smirked and shook her head.

Welp.

Marcus couldn't stop looking. He couldn't stop watching and then bashfully looking away when he got caught, because in his mind there was something new to see every time. Or maybe something needed more scrutiny. His brain just couldn't get enough.

Percy was onto him, glancing at him with concern and looking like he was itching to say something, but refraining. 

Marcus constantly felt sick, the tight coiling in his stomach coiling tighter and tighter because the weight of his revelation kept pressing on him. Who knew liking somebody could be so hard?

He tried not to be dramatic about it — normal, like he'd promised Percy to begin with — but it was hard when seeing Percy made his heart sing. It felt so wrong, yet so right, and the fact of the matter was that he wasn't normal about Percy Weasley. Percy Weasley made him not normal, and he couldn't even be mad about it because he was just that smitten.

What do you do when attempting to protect your future ends up digging you a potentially bigger hole? Because as they discussed, what did his blood purist parents care about his grades when he fantasized about licking a (male) blood traitor's freckles?

Marcus kind of felt like he was destined to be a fuck up, and it was kind of hard to enjoy the feeling of having somebody who makes you terribly happy when you know that in the pursuit of happiness, you'd have to give up what you already knew.

He couldn't help but wonder what life would be like if he'd never tried to fix his grades. Maybe he could've liked Farley, and then everything would be okay.

But when he thought about it, he knew that he could never like Farley like he liked Percy. Anybody, really, which made him feel even worse. 

He had nobody to talk to about it — so he found someone to talk to about it. Unfortunately for him, he only really talked to one person, something he came to regret deeply when it was time to sit in the library and wait for Percy under the guise of essay help, when it was actually more like sexuality crisis help.

His leg wouldn't stop shaking, a nervous tick he didn't even know he had. That, along with his tendency to squeeze his own hand like it was a stress ball, only served to make him more nervous because it made him nervous that he was nervous.

"Marcus?" A quiet voice cut through his anxiety-ridden haze, and for a moment he could breathe a little better before it started to pick back up. What was he thinking? He couldn't ever tell Percy the truth.

Or, so he thought.

A soft hand was placed on his arm, and he nearly flinched before he caught himself.

"It's just me," Percy assured him, unknowingly stating the root of Marcus' panic. It was just Percy. "Are you okay?"

Marcus finally met Percy's eyes, so blue and expressive. He liked to see mirth in them, specifically caused by him, but all he saw was worry. He didn't mean to worry.

"Have you ever wanted something really bad?" Marcus decided to ask .

"I mean, 12 OWLS," Percy joked, but it fell flat for the both of them. He sat down next to Marcus. Maybe it would help him probe more. "Is that what this is about? What do you want? Can I help?"

Oh, he had no idea.

"But, I can't have it," Marcus clarified, frustrated. "I shouldn't want it."

"...Why not?" Percy asked, genuinely perplexed. Apparently, he wasn't picking up what Marcus was putting down.

Rubbing his face with his hand, Marcus exhaled deeply, discouraged and feeling dumb. "Forget about it." However, based on the look on his face, Percy wasn't forgetting about it.

"Wait," Percy frowned, realization twinkling in his eyes. Marcus dreaded it, especially on this occasion specifically; Percy was always right when it came to reasoning and deduction. "Is this about... a person? Someone?"

Instinctively, Marcus went to shake his head no, but he also started to nod his head yes, because something about Percy's eyes on him made him want to tell the truth — to tell him everything. In the end, it ended up being a shaky in between, and he said nothing as he left Percy to decide what the weird head jerking motion meant.

"Oh," Percy mumbled quietly, shifting slightly in his chair. He appeared to think carefully about what to say next. "Well, do you want..."

At the same time, Marcus ignored all the alarm bells and the hellish nerves in his stomach, throwing caution to the wind. He wanted to skip to the end of this conversation, which he couldn't do but he could definitely speed it up.

Percy's hand laid prone on the table, turning over as he began to ask whatever cautious and considerate question he wanted to ask. Marcus reached out, and his actions didn't dawn on him until their hands were palm in palm, his rough and calloused ones unceremoniously swallowing Percy's, which were much more delicate.

It was by no means a conventional thing, and Marcus would later reason that he never thought the touch would land. But it did, and it served its purpose: get Percy's attention.

In fact, it worked almost a little well, because now Percy was staring at him attentively, the concern in his eyes growing tenfold as he waited for Marcus to say something.

Marcus felt put on the spot. He couldn't think too much, so he just started saying something, anything to distract from what he'd just done and why he did it.

"Percy, I — I don't feel normal anymore." It felt foreign coming out of his mouth, but once he'd said it, he realized that it was the most honest he'd been with himself in the past few weeks. He didn’t feel normal, it was all Percy's fault, and that felt good to say out loud.

An effusion of words and emotion followed. "I don't feel normal anymore, because I'm feeling things — pleasant, but terrifying things — I've never felt before." Swallowing the lump in his throat, he didn't even realize how tightly he began to squeeze Percy's hand until the other squeezed back. He immediately pulled it away, as if burned. "Because, I don't know if I'm... gay — if I just like boys. But, I like a boy. I like — "

Silence settled upon their little table in the corner as the words caught themselves in Marcus' throat, dying with a little croak that had his mouth clicking shut. He couldn't bring himself to say it. He couldn't look Percy into his beautiful, earnest blue eyes, and tell him that he'd haunted his dreams for weeks upon end with no sign of a cure. He couldn't tell him that he was absolutely mad for him.

And seeing Percy's face grow paler, eyes widening and eyebrows raising with the more words that came out of Marcus' mouth — Marcus couldn't take it. Rationally, he knew Percy wasn't going to do anything bad or react terribly to the information he'd just let up, but he was vulnerable and paranoid. It felt like horror, rejection, and betrayal. 

Marcus felt sick to his stomach as everything he'd said sunk through. What had he done? Why did he just do that? How could he ever recover from this?

He stood up abruptly, ignoring the dull throb of banging his knee on the table. Staring down at the table in front of him, Marcus rushed out, "This was a mistake. I don't..." He didn't even know what he was going to say. He just turned away, not daring to meet Percy's startled eyes, and began to briskly walk away, heart heavy with regret and shame. With love and loss. He'd written his own nightmare and now had to live in it as punishment for even conceiving the thoughts.

"I — what?" He heard Percy exclaim, presumably gobsmacked. He kept walking.

There was the shuffle of robes, the sound of chairs scraping the ground and then toppling over, and then 1, 2, 3...

Before Marcus could even think to speed up his pace, Percy had closed the distance between them in all but 3 seconds, his hand latching tightly onto Marcus'. He froze. 

Percy tugged on his arm unsurely. This time, it was his turn to question whether or not he'd actually just done that.

Obviously, he had. Slow and apprehensive, Marcus managed to take the two steps to turn himself around. His legs felt like blocks of cement as he did so, but they didn't feel nearly as heavy as the hand covering his.

He fixed his eyes on their hands, refusing to meet Percy's eyes. What did this mean? Was he going to get told off for ruining everything? Or worse, let down easy? His mind raced a mile a minute, so much so that his eyes didn't even register Percy interlacing their fingers until he felt it when it was all said and done.

What? Breath hitching, Marcus slowly lifted his head. Was this some kind of mistake?

But as his questioning gaze met Percy's, them carefully gauging the other's reactions, he knew that it couldn't have been. It wasn't a mistake; Percy somehow always knew just what to do to play on his emotions. It worked then, and it was working now.

Percy seemed to want to say something, but thought better of it, biting his lip as he shuffled his stance slightly. In reality, it only brought them millimeters closer, but to Marcus, it felt like a meter. He could almost feel Percy's breath ghosting on his face. 

He licked his lips, unconsciously taking a slow step forward. Percy noticed the change in the distance between them that time.

He pointedly looked at the space separating them, and then read Marcus' face. Whatever he saw had him mirroring Marcus' actions, inching forward until they were basically chest to chest.

Marcus felt like he couldn't breathe. If he only inclined his forehead slightly, they'd touch. He couldn't even see Percy's full face anymore, vision clouded with blue eyes and dark freckles. And, geez, were his eyelashes always this long and pretty-looking? He knew that they looked particularly dashing in the sun because...

A dam sprang up in his mind, halting his river of thoughts as he felt the delicate and tentative touch of soft lips on his. Of Percy’s lips on his. His eyes fluttered closed.

It was merely a peck, and Marcus felt slow on the uptake as Percy began to retreat and bring his warmth with him. However, that was not the case, for there was really only a second before he was, for a lack of a better word, melting. His entire demeanor relaxed as he surged forward, connecting their lips in a kiss much less innocent than the one before it.

Percy hummed in surprise, taking small steps back as Marcus slowly but surely walked them away from the aisle and in between two rows of books. 

Marcus felt like he was floating. There was a swooping in his navel the he could only liken to diving straight into the ground on a broom, and giddiness swallowed him whole as realization finally settled on him. He'd wanted this for ages, and now that it was happening, it only made him realize how much longer he'd longed for this than he thought.

Emotions that went too long unsaid were suddenly being channeled into this kiss, but it wasn't enough. It would never be enough.

With his hand that wasn't squeezing Percy's tightly, he could grip at the hem of his jumper as firmly as he wanted to. He could try to push them by their hips as humanly close as possible, and it wouldn't be enough. When did it get this bad? When did it get this good?

"Marcus," Percy gasped from his place between the bookcase and Marcus' body. His hand pressed against Marcus' chest.

"Hm," Marcus grunted, firmly recapturing Percy's lips. It seemed to be effective in distracting Percy for a few seconds, but he quickly snapped out of it when Marcus accidentally pulled his jumper so taught that the shoulder slipped off. Marcus cursed himself.

"Can't," Percy murmured softly, in between panting. He turned his head away when Marcus tried the chase once more, resulting in a wet kiss landing on his jaw. "People... library. Someone could — we shouldn't..."

Despite his inability to string together a coherent sentence, Marcus understood Percy well enough, and he reluctantly agreed.

Licking his lips, he stopped his pursuit, and then it was nothing but heavy breathing and shy smiles between them. Neither made a move to separate, though. (Percy because he couldn't really, Marcus because he didn't want to.)

In between dopey stares and slowly leveling breathing, Percy was the first to speak between them. 

"You're smiling," he pointed out smugly, bringing his hand up to brush his fingers against Marcus' mouth. "With your teeth," he added, cooing.

The touching part wasn't bad at all — it made his lips tingle, and he had to resist the urge to bite. He had a feeling that an action like that would be a little too much, too soon. However, as for the comment about him smiling, he made it a point to quickly try to wipe it off his face, but it took great effort, which Percy took notice of.

"So, you can snog me until both of us are breathless but you can't facially express that you enjoy my company?" Percy teased with good humor. "I know you think I'm funny sometimes."

Marcus made a face, which earned him a pinch on the arm. But in all seriousness...

"Well, I can express it with words, and I can express it like this," he explained, pausing to steal a peck. Percy rolled his eyes. "And, maybe then and only then will you get me to express it facially. Maybe. I'm a serious person, after all."

"Noted. I'll make sure that I do it more often then," Percy whispered jokingly, but neither really laughed, because it also meant something more profound to the both of them. They could read between each other’s lines.

It was a promise. A promise for them, and for the future, and for the fact that no, this wasn't a one off thing that would effectively and irreparably ruin their relationship forever. They both wanted this badly, and that was about as far as they needed to establish. (Then, at least.)

And a promise, not even a real thing yet, was enough to make Marcus think that it was all worth it. He was 17, almost 18, discovering things about himself that could do incredible damage to his reputation and family ties, yet his potential future with a schoolboy crush, not just his own future, was what concerned him the most. He was utterly fucked, but that just served to ease his fears even more. 

Maybe he never cared that much after all. Or maybe it was that he cared a lot about the fact that he'd never felt this way before, and couldn't see himself feeling this way again. Infatuation? Love? He didn't know, but it was enough. 

And, on the bright side, should he get shunned by his family when shit inevitably hit the fan, at least he'd done well for himself (and Percy. He'd done well for Percy). Hell, he could build his own ministry connections, or just fuck off the face of the earth. He didn't know.

But as Percy's fingers crawled all over his face, manually lifting Marcus' eyebrows and the corners of his lips in an attempt to mold his face into a happier expression, Marcus decided that it was okay. He didn't have to know what was going to happen, or whether his future was as bleak as Snape said, but for different reasons. (He wasn't ever that good at divination.) Now, the present, is what he actually knew. 

And the present looked exceptionally bright.