#needthat

Percy Weasley was your average 19 year old university student. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, he got up, went to class as he'd made the mistake of taking two classes back to back with the first being at 8 AM, and then rode the bus to work. On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, he got off a bit earlier and then would go to his 3 other classes, the first one starting at 6 PM. It was a miserable existence, but he had nobody to blame but himself.

On the bright side, his job wasn't too taxing. He was a library assistant at a public library that was fairly close to his campus. He quite liked his job; it was fairly quiet and therefore easy to get some studying done when he wasn't checking out books. His friend(s) said the job fit his style, and he'd have to agree.

Since it was never too busy in the library and he never worked for more than 6 hours at a time, Percy didn't really have a designated break. He considered all day to be break time. The librarian, a stone-faced woman with dark hair, ran a clean and strict operation. This involved watching everyone like a hawk from her perches at random spots of the library and being overzealous about people talking. Percy understood, he really did, but sometimes people just needed to talk. They were never obnoxiously boisterous.

It was for this reason that he wasn't often on his phone at work (not that he should be, just that he really always had the opportunity to be). Occasionally, however, he'd find time to do a little scrolling through the internet when there wasn't homework to be done or an Irma to nag him about the impracticality of the way he read his schoolbooks. 

On this particular day, Irma was in one of the little rec rooms they had, teaching some older people about how to use the internet, so Percy had some time as nobody seemed in the mood to check out books today.

Rather than taking a look at his boring Instagram feed or going on Twitter where he didn't have the energy to put up with all the bigotry and ignorance, he decided he'd go on TikTok for some short entertainment to fuel his increasingly short attention span. 

He didn't go on too often. He had one of those generic alien profile pictures and 8 followers: his siblings, his friend Penelope, and his dad. His mum didn't go on there, but she'd occasionally make an appearance on his dad's account and they'd get a handful of likes and comments from other old people. Percy found it adorable and hilarious. Anyway, Charlie and Bill had private accounts but still had thousands of followers. They just knew everybody. Fred and George had a joint account with millions of followers where they pulled silly pranks and people ate it up and thirsted over them. Disgusting. They didn't follow him on that account, as they preferred to act like Beyoncé and not follow anybody. Instead, they followed him on their separate accounts that still had hundreds of thousands of followers. Hoorah. Ron and Ginny both had public accounts with a couple hundred followers, typical of your average teenager who made videos with the intention of very little people outside of their friends seeing them. Penny just used her account to stalk people for the most part, but like Fred and George had another account that she didn't follow him on. She used it to post art and whatnot. Needless to say, they were all more popular than him.

His for you page was very generic, as he hardly went on the app so TikTok had yet to pinpoint any specific hashtags that he liked. There were thirst traps, videos with millions of likes that were supposed to be funny, clips of TV shows, that kind of thing. 

He felt a little adventurous, so he decided to make a video of his own that was basically subtly criticizing some recommendations that Irma had given to customers and then encouraging people to pick up a book and read because he could feel the world becoming increasingly stupid. He had made many videos of the same nature that were turned to 'friends only,' and he only ever got around 3 comments from either Ginny, Charlie, or Penelope that ranged from 'wow' to 'why are you actually kind of funny lol.'

After posting that for his 8 followers, he continued to scroll. He stumbled across a really morally deficient Reddit confession and was on his way to clear the notifications from TikTok shop before he looked at the comments. While he did that, he accidentally clicked the 'for you' button and his page refreshed. He got really annoyed and was about to go back to his watch history, read the comments of the Reddit video, and then get off of TikTok entirely when he stopped and paid attention to the video that showed up.

It was of a really cute guy that was ice skating circles around a little kid, probably his brother, in 2x speed. His brother took the camera and pointed it at the cute guy, calling him a show off in normal speed as the guy skated towards him with a laugh. It was nothing special, but it had around 11,000 likes and Percy could tell the number would rapidly grow, because as he clicked onto the guy's profile he could see the video already had grown to 20,000 likes since it appeared on his for you page. Looking at the page, Percy could discern that the guy was called Oliver and was 20.

As he scrolled through the comments of the video, some of them were about how mad the little kid was, but majority of them were about how attractive Oliver was. Percy decided to leave his own comment, because why not? Everybody had a little bit of conformist in them... and the guy really was cute.

With his eyes watering in shame and amusement, Percy typed out, 'hey lol (louder than everyone else)' and then pressed send without a second thought. No time to think about it now. It had been a popular thing to say to people you found attractive last time he'd been on TikTok. He was surprised nobody had said it yet, but he could be the first.

Immediately after, he set his phone down with a sigh, looking around at his surroundings to ground himself. It was just the internet. He repeated that like a mantra.

As Irma walked out of the rec room, it seemed like he'd stopped his TikTok watching just in time for the computer class to end. 

"Percy," Irma called to him in her usual clipped tone. "Would you issue these people some library cards? I have to go deal with the shipment of our newest additions to the library."

"Yes, of course," Percy smiled politely, turning to the group of seniors who were starting to form a line in front of his desk. "Who's first?"

Percy had spent the last 4 hours helping people pick out their first books and explaining library cards to those who'd never had one. The seniors seemed very interested in striking unrelated conversation, and Percy was all too happy to reply to them while keeping at the topic at hand. After all, he had a job to do.

They loved him, though. He'd gotten the numbers of not one, not two, but three of their grandkids. Crazy, but flattering.

It was a Tuesday and he'd gotten to work at around 1:00, so he'd typically be off by 7:00. Not today. He got back to campus at around 9:30 after helping with inventory and closing, tasks he wouldn't normally do because Irma refused his help. Again, not today. She practically demanded he got up off of his arse and helped her.

When Percy got back to his dorm, he didn't really have any pressing homework to complete, so he decided he'd shower and lay in bed for a while. His original roommate had long ditched the dorms and stayed who-knows-elsewhere, so he was alone and got to combine the beds, a luxury that he would thoroughly miss when the housing people inevitably found out and replaced his roommate. 

After showering, Percy finally got a chance to look at his phone for more than a second to check the time. He never thoroughly looked after work, because he knew that majority of his notifications were spam mail and notifications about a random celebrity he forgot he followed posting on their Instagram story. 

As he looked now though, he had six (6!) messages. He opened them immediately because there was no use in pretending like he hadn't noticed.

The first one he checked was a screenshot from Penelope of the comment he left on the cute guy's post. Under it, she just said 'lol look what I found.' Percy felt his face heat up, but he wasn't surprised. He knew the risks of posting the comment, and Penelope always seemed to find every comment he ever posted anyway. Though he was embarrassed, that was nothing compared to the absolute mortification he faced when he looked at Penelope's third message. It was a screenshot of the video he had posted hours ago, only that it had 13,000 likes and a few more comments than usual.

Logging onto his account soon after, a sense of defeated dread entered his heart as he realized he hadn't put the stupid video on 'friends only' after all, and now it had miraculously reached people's feeds. 

He had gained a few followers and every time he refreshed his notifications there were 50 more. Looking at the comments, they mostly ranged from saying, "the kind of vibe I bring to the function," to "yes can we make it a trend to go to the library," but there were a handful calling him acoustic. Fun. The top comment was not of any of those natures, but rather simply read "#needthat." 

Percy was confused about the popularity of the comment, the meaning, and why some people were going crazy in the replies. His heart stuttered in his chest when it finally clicked. It was the guy whose post he'd commented on earlier. Clicking on his account again, Percy saw that the red button now read "follow back," and he did just that, if only out of habit. 

He almost sat up in his bed from the shock, and he had a deep sense of knowing when he finally opened up his messages again to look at his other two texts from Ron and Ginny. Ron's was a screenshot much like Penelope's and nothing else, while Ginny's was a screenshot of the comment that Oliver had made. With it was a message that said, "umm oliver wood? ur actually unreal Perce."

Again, Percy didn't really understand the meaning of the comment, so all he could find unreal about it was that a cute guy was commenting on his post. The replies to comments suggested that a lot of people, mostly girls, shared the same sentiment.

Closing out the video, he decided not to delete it because the damage was done. He noticed that a lot of his notifications were also likes from his comment on Oliver's post, and it was with satisfaction that he viewed it and saw that his comment was the only one that Oliver liked. 

Percy didn't know what this all meant in the grand scope of things, but he felt strangely accomplished and proud which outweighed how flustered he was by far. 

His final course of action was to stalk Oliver's Instagram page before going to sleep. He vaguely realized that he didn't reply to those messages, but his elation had worn off and he was just really tired and wanted to sleep, if only to get the lingering giddiness out of his chest. 

So he went to sleep with a self-satisfied smile on his face.

When he woke the next day, he unplugged his phone and sat up in his bed to check the notifications. Like always, there was spam mail and notifications from random games he hadn't played in a while. He decided to reply to last night's messages, typing, "oops" and sending it to all of them no matter what they said.

Then, with bated breath, he opened TikTok and saw that his notifications were still booming and people were still commenting on that damned video and liking that stupid comment. Good lord.

One thing that stood out to him was a message sent 3 hours ago from Oliver. It was predictably one of those waving hand stickers that TikTok prompts you to send, except Percy was a little surprised that Oliver would actually opt to send it. Still, he sent one back and then quickly exited his notifications so he didn't have to see what would happen next.

As soon as he exited the center, his notifications filled up pretty quickly again. It had only been 30 seconds, but he couldn't stop himself from checking the notifications to see if Oliver had replied. Indeed, he had.

@olliewould: hey are you Charlie's brother

Percy was a bit taken aback, because how would this random guy know Charlie? Why was Charlie hiding his cute friends? Seeing as it had been seconds since Oliver sent it, he probably still had the chat open and could tell that Percy had seen it. Percy bit the bullet and typed out a response.

@wercypeasley76: uh yeah

@wercypeasley76: how do yk Charlie

The reply was immediate. Percy bit his lip as he watched the dots that signaled that Oliver was typing.

@olliewould: we played hockey tg

That made sense.

@wercypeasley: oh

What else could he say, really?

@olliewould: yeah

@olliewould: saw your comment on my post

Percy knew that. He'd like to once again bring up the fact that it was the only comment Oliver liked.

@wercypeasley76: I know

@wercypeasley76: saw yours on mine

That felt like an apt response.

@olliewould: did you like it?

Percy couldn't tell if he meant if he'd clicked the heart button on the comment or if he real life mentally found the comment pleasant. After a moment's hesitation, he decided that Oliver would've been able to see whether he liked the comment through the app, so he must've meant the latter.

@wercypeasley76: I don't know what it means...

Percy really liked ellipses. They conveyed his emotions really well. He really did trail off when he said the same sentence in his brain.

@olliewould: oh

@olliewould: that's funny

Now Percy was perplexed. He fully expected for Oliver to tell him what it meant.

@wercypeasley76: sure it is

@wercypeasley76: so what does it mean

It seemed like Oliver was trying to be cheeky and knew fully well what Percy expected of him. Percy would say he was annoyed, but the entire conversation thoroughly excited him. He hadn't talked to anybody new for a while, let alone anybody he found attractive.

@olliewould: you seem smart 😊 I bet you'll figure it out

Percy didn't know what to say. That felt a little patronizing but at the same time could have been very genuine. Percy didn't see him figuring it out himself, but he had Penny who spent every waking hour on TikTok who surely could explain it to him. He didn't realize he'd been sitting there with his thumbs hovering over the keys for a good minute until Oliver typed something else, presumably tired of waiting for a response.

@olliewould: I see you work at a library

@olliewould: have you read that book Icebreaker

He had to clench his jaw at that one. Out of all the books Oliver could've asked about... Percy wholeheartedly resented that book and everyone who walked into the library to read those 3 specific pages before putting it down and walking out without even checking anything out. It was so stupid, and that extended to every book on that so-called BookTok thing.

@wercypeasley76: no I actually resent that book

Percy had the sense he was being mean or something, but he really wasn't, right? He was definitely blocking Oliver's attempts at conversation though, and for that he was sorry. He couldn't help it.

@olliewould: oh well

@olliewould: yk how that guy is a hockey player?

Percy licked his lips. He thought he had an idea about where this was headed.

@wercypeasley76: yeah

@wercypeasley76: his name is Nathan btw

He cringed as that last line went through. He didn't know why he said that, but there was no use in deleting it as Oliver had obviously already seen it.

@olliewould: right so Nathan is a hockey player

@olliewould: and so am I

@olliewould: and if you were a figure skater you'd be like the girl Anastasia

@olliewould: and we'd be like Icebreaker

At the back of his mind, Percy was peeved about how Oliver had typed that out in 4 messages when it could've been 1 or even 2, but his main focus was on the implications of the messages.

@wercypeasley76: but they shag and stuff

Now, it had only been 5 minutes since this conversation had started, but it felt like an eternity. Percy was feeling kind of lightheaded, and he was almost sweating from unnecessary anxiety. He had to take a deep breath and fully sit up in his bed so that he could ground himself. He kicked the covers off so that they were only covering his shins as he desperately needed to cool down. It was suddenly very hot in his dorm.

@olliewould: exactly

Percy's heart stuttered. He almost turned around and screamed into his pillow, but he refrained and opted to squeeze his eyes shut and ball his hands into fists. Finally, once he realized that the message was indeed real and that Oliver was probably waiting for a reply, he regrouped.

@wercypeasley76: oh well

@wercypeasley76: I guess that would be somewhat true

At this point, Percy knew that the ball was in his side of the court and that he was majorly fumbling it, so while he thought of a clever response to tack on, he sent a screenshot to Penny and wrote "help???" underneath. 

@wercypeasley76: I'm sorry I just work at a library... I will start my figure skating classes rn

Penelope, for her part, was quick to respond. Percy knew very well that she was supposed to be in a lab for biology at the moment and so wasn't expecting a response for a while, but somehow she found the chance to reply and make fun of him.

She said, "lmfao literally wtf are you doing," which was then followed up with "tbf that was some terrible flirtation on his part..." And that was actually nicer than Percy expected. He asked her what to do and she replied "risk it for the biscuit gtg."

Closing out his messages with Penelope, he saw that Oliver had messaged him again. 

@olliewould: that's okay we can make our own story

@olliewould: I'm interested in you btw

Percy couldn't resist squealing into his pillow that time. He'd never experienced anything like this before, and it was really thrilling and overwhelming. And Oliver was being really endearing, at least to Percy, who'd never been flirted with before. Obviously, for people like Penny that had people constantly approaching them, Oliver's methods left much to be desired.

@wercypeasley76: oh is that what #needthat means

He found himself smiling as he waited for Oliver's reply. So embarrassing.

@olliewould: yes I need you in my life

@olliewould: I didn't know Charlie had a cute brother or else would've went through his following ages ago

He was seconds away from beating himself in the head. On the bright side, for all of Percy's fumbling, Oliver seemed to take it in stride and then some.

@wercypeasley76: this feels like a dream

@wercypeasley76: should I text Charlie

Percy suddenly remembered that the only reason he was able to convince himself he didn't have work to do last night was because he said he'd do his reading the next morning (which is now). He couldn't bring himself to care, however. He could get it done at work, the worst case scenario being he just didn't go to the lecture/sat in the very back without a thought in his head.

@olliewould: you're like a dream

@olliewould: but no this is real

@olliewould: please don't tell Charlie he's kind of scary

@olliewould: also what uni do you go to

He had to purse his lips at that, as he knew very well that they attended university nowhere near each other.

@wercypeasley76: Columbia... in the states

@wercypeasley76: I see you go to Nottingham for hockey... that's fun

Oliver took a little longer to reply than before.

@olliewould: yes I do and yeah it's pretty cool

@olliewould: the states... wow that's crazy uh

@olliewould: so how often would you say you come back to the UK

Percy hesitated to reply. He felt the conversation was going just a tad bit south.

@wercypeasley76: honestly? A week or two for holidays

@wercypeasley76: I love my family but I much prefer it away from home

Oliver was radio silent for two minutes. Percy felt like he'd said something wrong. He understood that there would be a little issue with them being separated by the whole Atlantic but... still. They could at least pretend.

@olliewould: I get that

@olliewould: I've actually met Mrs. Weasley

Percy huffed out a laugh at that, but it was also a sigh of relief that Oliver didn't go ghost.

@wercypeasley76: so how often would you say you visit the states

It was a joke. Percy could tell that someone like Oliver would never visit the states on their own accord. He didn't know why he thought that, but he could just tell. Oliver's response confirmed it.

@olliewould: never.

@olliewould: but for you?

Once again Percy found himself smiling dopily at his phone screen. Oliver was quite the sweet talker. 

@wercypeasley76: you're very flirty

@wercypeasley76: that from experience?

For whatever reason, Percy found himself wanting to know more about Oliver. Did he talk to every guy he found attractive on TikTok? What if he was just a major manwhore and Percy was smiling like an idiot whilst Oliver messaged two other people at the same time?

@olliewould: only for you 😉

@olliewould: and only bc we're messaging... I'm much more awkward in person

That warmed Percy's heart. He could work with that.

@wercypeasley76: really? don't really take you for the awkward type

@wercypeasley76: not that ik you or anything but it's just in your TikToks you seem more extroverted

Oliver was typing and then he stopped. And then he started again.

@olliewould: watched those did you? 

@olliewould: I guess I am pretty extroverted but I get quite flustered around people I find attractive

@olliewould: and I find you very attractive

Percy felt like crying. No way this was real. Penny would freak when she found out. He wondered what Ginny would do, as she seemed to recognize Oliver. And Charlie... Percy shuddered to think.

@wercypeasley76: that's very flattering

He almost typed two sentences about how fit he thought Oliver was, but then Oliver had already replied and he had a moment to think better of doing something so embarrassing.

@olliewould: please let me have your number I would literally pay

@olliewould: well maybe not but still

@olliewould: don't make me go through Charlie

Percy had to raise his eyebrows at that. He would've given Oliver his number anyway, but he appreciated the sentiment. 

@wercypeasley76: well okay then

@wercypeasley76: it's 7xxx-xxxxxxx