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Percy prepared coffee sleepily. Footsteps in the hall alerted him that Oliver was awake and he smiled, taking out an extra mug from the cupboard. It was ready in the exact moment Oliver entered the kitchen, bleary eyed and ruffled, scratching his stomach.
"Good morning, love." Percy pressed the mug into his hands and gave him a brief kiss. "I'll be home at six."
"Mh," Oliver grunted in reply and took a careful sip of the coffee. Percy put a No-Spill Charm on his own mug before heading towards the floo.
He noticed, with a pang, as he looked back at Oliver in the kitchen, that there was a hint of grey at his temples, that he was sure hadn't been there the previous day. Or maybe it had, but Percy hadn't noticed. Surely, grey didn't appear overnight?
His office was too brightly lit and Percy made a face, setting down his mug. Oliver was going grey and Percy couldn't comprehend it. He stole a look at himself in the reflection of a picture frame on his desk. No grey there. No balding either, thank heavens for that, as his father had started balding in his mid-forties. Percy was in his mid-forties. Oliver was in his mid-forties and going grey.
The picture in the frame was of himself and Oliver, taken about twenty years earlier. Oliver in the picture was wearing Quidditch breeches and a broad grin, arm slung around Percy. Picture-Percy was smiling shyly and clutching Oliver's waist.
Percy wondered how twenty years could've passed. He hadn't noticed. Had life passed him by?
He frowned, putting the frame back, glancing at the dozen other picture frames on his desk. There were a few more of him and Oliver and there were pictures of his parents and brothers and sister and their children. Percy stared at the photo of Ginny's children that he'd received for Christmas last. Ginny's oldest son was fifteen in the picture and would be turning sixteen soon. Percy vaguely recalled having been invited to the party.
The only thing that had stayed the same was the photo of Fred, but that didn't count because of course Fred stood still in time.
Absent-mindedly, Percy picked up his mug and sipped his coffee.
For the first time in his life, he wondered whether it was too late to have children. Then he wondered whether Oliver even wanted children – he'd never mentioned them, he was sure of that.
Percy put down the mug as he realised what Oliver's current line of work was, and had been for the past two years. Junior Quidditch team. He was training the local Junior Team. Oliver, who'd quit professional Quidditch playing when he'd reached forty – almost record holder of longest career in history of Quidditch, Percy'd looked it up – and gone on to coach, had then quit coaching for something less stressful. Percy still remembered the excited look on his face when he'd come home from his first junior training session.
Suddenly feeling very sick, Percy vanished the coffee and the mug with it. He took a few deep breaths and then pushed the matter away. He set to work.
It wasn't until Percy arrived home that evening, to the smell of Oliver cooking, that he remembered the morning. He slid his arms around Oliver and rested his chin on his shoulder, eyes closed and breathing deeply.
He didn't understand what was happening inside him or how to make it go away, so he opted for ignoring it.
"How was your day?" Oliver asked and Percy shrugged.
"It was all right. Passed a new law before lunch, reformed a couple of more after. You know, the usual."
Oliver chuckled and turned around to kiss him.
"How was yours?" Percy asked, slipping away and taking off his travelling cloak. Oliver turned back to the cooker.
"I went to St. Mungo's today," Oliver said when Percy came back into the kitchen. Percy froze. "Walked into the bedroom doorframe again," he explained at the look on his face. "I wasn't hurt. I just thought...well, they told me I need to start using glasses."
He waved offhandedly and stirred the sauce again, but Percy thought maybe his world had shattered. His eyes darted to the grey at Oliver's temples. Glasses?
"I'm going to Diagon Alley tomorrow after training to look for a nice pair. I thought maybe you could meet me there after work? We could make a bit of a day out of it, have an evening out."
"Yes," Percy heard himself say. "That sounds nice."
Oliver took the sauce off the cooker and poured it into a gravy boat.
*
Percy had a hard time getting used to Oliver's glasses. They were rather unobtrusive, but they were there and Oliver kept touching them and pushing them back onto his nose and in that way drawing attention to them. Percy had seen himself forced to put an Impervius Charm on Oliver's glasses to prevent him from covering them in finger prints and smudges.
He looked at his own glasses and thought maybe they were a bit outdated – he thought they were at least ten years old – and that they made him look older than he was. He went past the optician's again, without Oliver, and looked at new frames. It was slightly unsettling and he felt silly, trying on pairs of modern frames that all made him look weird and different.
Eventually, he got a pair not unlike Oliver's and went home, strangely nervous about the whole thing.
It took Oliver three days to notice that Percy had gotten new glasses, and when he did, he didn't say anything. He just pulled them off Percy's face and put them onto the bedside table, like he usually did with his old pair, and then kissed him. And Percy had to remind him that Oliver was still wearing his own pair.
He'd laughed at that, Oliver, and put them away, and resumed kissing and touching Percy in the same way he'd always done. And Percy kissed and touched him back, and arched into Oliver's touch and smiled when Oliver moaned and came into his hand.
Percy wondered, perhaps for the first time, why they only made love roughly twice per week. Had they really become that boring? He remembered days where they hadn't been able to get enough of each other, days of loud and eager sex anywhere they happened to be – even the kitchen. He flopped down next to Oliver, head turned to look at him. Their come was still splattered on their stomachs, but for once Percy didn't feel like getting his wand to vanish it.
"Oliver?" Percy reached up to brush his fingers against his jaw. It was stubbly, as it was most of the time. Oliver'd been keeping a gruff look for about five years and Percy thought it suited him. Actually, Percy thought it made him dead sexy.
"Mh?" Oliver opened his eyes and turned his head slightly to face Percy, and Percy saw he'd inadvertently brushed off a bit of come on his jaw.
"Oh. Sorry about that." He licked it off. Oliver grinned.
"I don't mind," he said and Percy put his hand on Oliver's stomach instead, forgetting about the cum drops there. He absent-mindedly took his hand back and started licking it clean.
"Do you think it's too late to have children?" Percy asked, licking the tip of his pinkie. Oliver stiffened and didn't reply. "Oliver?"
"Do you want children?" Oliver asked. Percy stopped licking his hand.
"I don't know," he answered truthfully. "I never thought about it, I think. Do you want them?" He looked at Oliver's eyes that were slightly blurry. They were only inches away, but Percy's glasses were all the way over at the bedside table.
"Yes," Oliver replied eventually.
Percy wasn't prepared for the lurch in his stomach. He swallowed hard and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He felt the bed dip as Oliver got up on his elbow behind him, but Percy didn't know what to say, so he got up and went into the bathroom.
He turned on the tap and wet a towel, cleaning himself up and trying not to think about the implications of Oliver's words.
"Percy?"
Oliver was standing in the doorway. He'd put his glasses on. Percy could see that despite his own glasses not being on his nose.
"Are you all right?" Oliver asked, still hovering.
"Why didn't you say anything?" Percy asked quietly. "I didn't know you wanted children." He continued wetting the towel and dabbing it at his skin, even though there was nothing there anymore.
"I didn't think you wanted them," Oliver said, entering the bathroom. Percy beckoned him closer and started cleaning him up too. He couldn't remember when the last time they'd cleaned themselves up this way was. It'd probably been years. "Besides," Oliver continued, "how would we have gotten children? You and me are blokes, Percy."
"There are ways," Percy stated. He wasn't looking at Oliver, he was looking at the towel and his stomach and how it was still nicely toned, because Oliver still started every day with a morning jog and sit-ups and push-ups and other exercises Percy didn't know the terms for.
"I don't regret not having children, Perce," Oliver said softly. "I knew that being with you meant that there wouldn't be any. That's a choice I made."
Percy didn't answer, he just felt sick. Kind Oliver, sweet, lovely Oliver, who wanted children and who loved training the Junior Team, had...deselected children to be with him. Percy reckoned it was as bad as outright denying him them.
He reckoned that all these years, all their twenty years together, Percy'd been taking Oliver for granted.
"Go back to bed," he said, turning and throwing the towel into the sink. "I'll be right there."
Oliver hesitated, but went back to bed. Percy watched him in the mirror until he was out of the door and then he looked at himself.
His hairline was maybe receding a bit, he decided, but it wasn't noticeable. He stood up straight, taking a good long look at himself. He'd always been tall and thin, but he noticed now that he wasn't all that thin anymore...true, his arms and legs were still skinny, but his stomach was becoming...podgy. Percy poked it, made a face and looked at himself in the mirror again.
He didn't think he'd ever seen a more unshapely person before and suddenly he thought he understood why he and Oliver were only making love twice per week when he looked like this.
Percy abruptly turned off the light. He could've cried. He'd been wasting their time all these years. He could've taken the time to talk to Oliver, ask him what he wanted, ask him about things like children at some point that wasn't now but fifteen years ago, and maybe he could've taken the time to think about his own appearance a bit more and made himself look nice for Oliver, who always looked nice, so he wouldn't be standing here on the wrong side of forty-five and looking like a depressing beanbag of a middle-aged man who hadn't thought of his partner's wishes at all in the twenty years they'd been together.
The house, Percy thought, ohgod the house. Oliver'd bought them the house for their fifth year anniversary. Three bedrooms and a large garden with a porch and a swingseat they never used because it was placed on the least sunny and most windy side of the house. It was a family house, but they'd set up a guest room and a study in what would obviously have been children's bedrooms for any other couple.
Percy was disgusted with himself.
"Perce?" Oliver called from the bedroom and Percy pulled himself together.
*
Over the next few days Percy tried not to be distracted at work as he tried to figure out what to do about himself. It was obvious to him that the least he could do was work out – Percy ignored the fact that he hadn't worked out once in his life – and get into some sort of shape, if not for Oliver's sake, then for the sake of his own well-being.
The problem was how.
The sheer embarrassment of asking Oliver to help him, to take him along on some of the runs and show him some exercises kept him in an uncomfortable limbo for days, not to mention the fact that it just wasn't fair to ask Oliver to get up even earlier in the mornings than he already did. Percy knew it was only Oliver's stubborn insistence that he get a morning-goodbye kiss that was the reason why he crawled out of bed at five to six and Percy wasn't about to ask him to get up at five to fit Percy into his running schedule.
No, Percy decided that if he were to exercise, he'd have to do it without Oliver knowing, and so his only option seemed to be the fitness centre on level seven.
He told Oliver he was doing extra hours and Oliver hadn't even questioned it. Percy did catch Oliver giving him searching and contemplative looks every now and then, but he hoped it was because the exercising was paying off.
Only, it wasn't. Three weeks into his programme, with exercises three times per week, and his belly looked as flabby as ever and his arms and legs didn't show the slightest hint of having been put to proper use. It couldn't be right, especially not when he'd been sore for ten days and hadn't dared complain about it, lest Oliver find out what he was up to.
Percy continued his exercises thrice weekly despite funny looks from Oliver and the disappointing lack of progress. He also kept wondering about children and whether it really was too late, and would anyone let them adopt if they tried and would he be able to handle a baby in the house – Percy figured maybe not – and whether it would be weird if they adopted someone older, like maybe five years old or ten years old.
He didn't understand how he could've let his life come to this. Twenty years, and then what? Nothing? Could he honestly look back and be proud? Could he say he was content?
Maybe he had been content before he started thinking about all those things, he thought, staring at the parchment in front of him and not seeing what was written on it. He thought about Oliver who was at home – it was three o'clock, so he'd be heading out to meet the Junior Team in half an hour, but it was Tuesday, so he'd have done the laundry the first – and he thought about the children Oliver wanted and that Percy didn't know if he wanted and he thought about his podgy belly and he didn't know what to think anymore.
"Percy? Percy? Percy!"
Percy looked up, trying not to let his confusion show. It was only his secretary. "What is it?"
"The reports you asked for," she said, placing a little stack of folders on his desk. "And a piece of information that I think you would be very interested in."
"Would I?" He frowned and put his quill away, leafing through the newly arrived pile instead.
"I would think so. You know the minister is retiring soon –" Percy looked at her sharply. "I just came from his office, Percy. They were discussing you."
"Me." It wasn't a question. Percy was suddenly afraid of what she was going to tell him.
"They seem to think you would be a good candidate for the position," she said, smiling. Percy didn't much feel like smiling.
"Do they," he said. "Was that all?"
"Yes." She looked at him inquiringly, but Percy looked pointedly at the door. If she thought his lack of enthusiastic response was weird, she didn't mention it and just left.
Percy stared at his desk. Minister. He'd been working towards that goal since before he started working for the Ministry, but now that it seemed to be a tangible possibility, he didn't feel...any of the things he thought he'd feel. The excitement he'd expected was conspicuous by its absence.
If Percy felt anything at all, he felt the ground had disappeared from under his feet.
*
Percy didn't feel well at all when he made it home that day, and the fact that he'd forgotten about his exercise hour and didn't remember until the moment he stepped out of the floo at home, didn't make him feel better.
"Percy? I thought you had extra wo –" Oliver stopped short at the ashen look on Percy's face.
"I skipped it today," Percy said, opening the cupboard above the fridge and took down the bottle of firewhiskey that was stored there.
"Is there anything wrong?"
"Everything's fine and dandy," Percy replied, now getting himself a glass. He filled it to the brim with the whiskey and spilled a few drops as he brought it to his lips. He downed half of it and earned himself a coughing fit that resulted in the remaining whiskey in the glass spilling onto the floor.
"Obviously," Oliver said, putting a firm hand on Percy's shoulder. "What happened?"
"I quit," Percy said dazedly, looking at the glass in his hand.
"You quit?"
"Present tense, not past, Oliver." Percy filled his glass again. "I want to quit. I want to quit everything. My job and my life and and –" Percy took a large sip of the whiskey, coughed once and was about to take another, when Oliver took the glass from him.
"What happened?" he asked firmly and Percy forced himself to look him into the eye.
"They want me for minister," he said in a low voice.
"They want you for minister and you quit?" Oliver asked in disbelief. "You're not making sense – you want to be minister, don't you? You've been working for it since you set foot in Hogwarts!"
Percy's lip wobbled. "I don't know what I want anymore."
He sank into a chair and let his face drop into his hands. His right hand was sticky from where he spilled the whiskey earlier, but he didn't care. Oliver hadn't said anything, but now he sat in the chair opposite Percy, waiting for him to talk.
"I..." Percy rubbed his face, looking around the kitchen. A chopping board and half chopped vegetables were on the kitchen counter; Oliver had obviously just gotten started on dinner when Percy'd flooed home. "I don't think I want to be minister anymore," he said despondently.
Oliver leaned across the table. "Why not?"
"I don't know." Percy reached for the bottle of firewhiskey, but Oliver took it away.
"None of that until you tell me what's going on, Perce. You've been behaving strangely the past couple of weeks, and now this minister business?" Oliver put his hand over Percy's on the table and squeezed it.
"Maybe I should just quit everything," Percy mumbled, looking at the tabletop.
The silence between them grew thick and uncomfortable, but Oliver didn't let go of Percy's hand just as stubbornly as Percy didn't look at Oliver.
"Percy," Oliver eventually said, his voice firm. Percy thought he detected a hint of insecurity in it, but then figured it was nothing. Oliver, insecure? Never. "I have to ask you something, and I need you to answer me truthfully."
Percy was so surprised that he looked up. The look on Oliver's face left him gobsmacked. He looked determined, but also afraid and worried and Percy didn't know why or what had caused it. "Okay," he said, blinking, and Oliver drew in a deep breath, now squeezing Percy's hand so hard it was starting to get painful.
"Are you seeing someone else?"
The question was so unexpected that Percy didn't know what to do. So he laughed. The incongruity of the question was probably the funniest thing he had heard in a long time. He, Percy, seeing someone else? As if! He laughed until he couldn't breathe, until he was practically wheezing.
"No," he managed to get out. "I'm not, I'm not seeing someone else." He laughed again. "As if anyone would want - want to see me," he wheezed between laughs.
Oliver was bewildered and not a little bit hurt. "Percy, what –I don't understand," he said helplessly, and Percy sobered up.
"I'm sorry," he offered. "It's just..." He shook his head. "Where on earth did that come from? Me? Seeing someone else?" He reached for the firewhiskey bottle again and this time Oliver didn't stop him. Percy summoned an extra glass from the cupboard for Oliver and poured both glasses full to the brim.
Strangely, he didn't feel very drunk even if he'd already had a glass and a half, or thereabouts.
"You haven't been doing extra hours at work," Oliver muttered, looking at his glass of whiskey. Percy halted mid-movement, looking at him in surprise. "I, well, I asked your secretary, and she said you've been leaving the office at six as usual, and since you weren't coming home..." Oliver shrugged and tipped the glass back. He cut a grimace at the burn.
"How'd you know I wasn't doing extra hours?" Percy asked. Oliver crossed his arms in front of his chest.
"Well, you'd come home freshly showered."
"Oh," Percy said. "I suppose I can see where you'd get that idea from, then."
"So?" Oliver asked, again looking determined and insecure, and Percy hated the look. "Were you seeing someone?"
"No...I was..." Percy's cheeks coloured. "I was, uh, in the fitness centre at the Ministry," he said, in a very low voice.
This time, it as Oliver that laughed. Percy clenched his fists. He hadn't touched his whiskey yet, but he was going to soon, if Oliver didn't stop laughing.
"But why, Perce..." Oliver's laughter finally subsided. "Why would you go to a fitness centre?"
Percy raised an eyebrow as if to say that the answer should be obvious, but Oliver just looked at him, waiting for an answer. "'Cuzimpdgy," he mumbled, picking up his glass and taking a large sip of whiskey.
"Come again?"
"Because I'm podgy," Percy repeated, not looking at Oliver.
"Podgy?" Oliver repeated after Percy. "Are you serious?"
"Why wouldn't I be serious?" Percy's eyes shot up. "I'm starting to look like my father! I'm not even minister yet, but I look old! Podgy! ...And you don't want me anymore," he muttered.
"Whoa, hang on there. What makes you think I don't want you anymore?" Oliver looked puzzled.
Percy looked up, then sighed. "Because we don't make love as often as we used to," he muttered.
Oliver stared at him. "I don't know what to even say to you, Perce," he said, astounded. "First children, then you don't want to be minister and now you're podgy and think I don't want you?"
Percy figured it did sound pretty ridiculous when Oliver put it that way. He shrugged noncommittally. "I am podgy, though."
"You're not. Have you looked at yourself?"
"Have I ever," Percy muttered. "My arms are too skinny and my belly's sagging. Really, I don't blame you for not wanting me. I'm just, you know, trying to do something about it, except it's not really working."
"Percy, sometimes you can be incredibly thick."
Percy shrugged.
"I should've thought that the fact that one, I tell you every day I love you and two, I've stuck with you for twenty years, should've been a bit of a clue."
"Okay." Percy looked at the tabletop. There where whiskey stains on it.
"Percy," Oliver sighed. "Something more than that is up."
Percy shrugged again. Oliver got up and dragged him to his feet, then backed him up against the counter. It was increasingly difficult to avoid Oliver and avoid answering questions when one was being pinned to a kitchen counter by his hips and his face was very close, Percy thought and cursed Oliver for being so smart.
"Come on, Percy. What's it about? You don't suddenly decide you don't want to be minister anymore."
"I...I don't know," Percy replied helplessly. "I've just been thinking so much, about you and me and the house and children and when I heard, I just thought... I can't do it anymore, any of it. I want to quit my life."
"You don't want to quit your life, Percy, that's nonsense," Oliver said firmly. "What about children then? Is that it? All this nonsense didn't start until you brought that up."
"You want children."
"Yes." Oliver sighed. "But I also want you. I'd rather have you than not, you great big fool. Why do you think I'm still here?"
"I don't know." Percy didn't dare look at Oliver. "I...what if we got children now? Would you want them? I suppose we could adopt. I don't know about babies, but if we got someone a bit bigger than that, I think it could be okay –"
"Percy, we don't need children, and if you don't want them, we're not getting them just for me, do you understand?"
Percy nodded. "But...you could've...you've missed out," he mumbled. "Because of me."
Oliver sighed. "I don't even know why I'm bothering trying to reason with you, because you're not listening."
"I am listening!"
"You're not. Now shut up, because I'm going to say this only once: I've got you, podginess, or what it was, included and I'm content. I'm happy, Percy. I'm not asking for more from you or life," Oliver said firmly. "Do you understand?"
"I...yes." Percy sagged against him. Oliver released him and Percy used the opportunity to put his arms around Oliver's neck and lean against him.
"So that's some issues dealt with." Oliver counted on his fingers. "Children, check. Your extra hours, check – you really could've just told me, Perce..."
Percy wanted to protest as Oliver ticked off the subjects they'd discussed, he didn't feel the children topic had been discussed enough, he still didn't know whether Oliver would want them now, because if he did –
"Percy? What're you thinking about?"
"I don't want to be minister," he murmured into Oliver's shoulder. "I...If I become minister I'll, I'll have more working hours. I already have twelve-hour shifts every day, Oliver. I want to be at home more, not less and if we're getting children, I definitely want to be at home more, it wouldn't be fair to not be at home at all and –"
"But Percy...you want to be Minister for Magic, don't you?"
"I...don't know." Percy was still murmuring into Oliver's shoulder. "I already have an influential position in the Ministry...It's my dream, you know, but not I'm sure I want it anymore. I don't know what I want. No, that's not true. I want to go home at a decent hour every day, have dinner with you, discuss our days and the Daily Prophet and how our families are doing and do the dishes together and, and all those things we do. I don't want to lose all that for a dream."
"You know I'd support you if you became minister," Oliver said. "I'd always support you."
"Maybe I don't want that anymore."
Percy knew when Oliver stiffened that he'd said something wrong.
"Oh, no not, I didn't mean it like that," he said hurriedly, cradling Oliver's face in his hands. "I meant, I don't want...I don't want to think of...I don't want to be minister. I just...don't."
"All right," Oliver said softly. "But you're not quitting your job or your life or me. I'd never forgive you for that."
Percy smiled. "I'm not going to do any of those things." He sighed. "I... I feel like an idiot."
"Is your existential crisis over?" Oliver raised an eyebrow and Percy chuckled.
"For the time being, I think." He pressed a soft kiss to Oliver's lips. "I love you, you know."
"I know." Oliver kissed him again, then grinned. "And since you're home early, you can help me prepare dinner today."
Percy glanced at the chop board and the clock on the wall. "I'm feeling rebellious. Takeaway?"
Oliver picked the menus off the fridge and leafed through them until he found one he liked. "By the way, Perce..." He looked up. "Were you serious when you said twice per week wasn't enough?"
"Uh..." Percy blushed. "Yeah. Could we, uhm, try to make it three times per week? I'm still going to go to the gym, so it shouldn't be so, uhm, well..."
"Keep going to the gym and we'll make it four times," Oliver grinned and pulled Percy close at the astonished look on his face. "There is nothing wrong with your body, you great big fool, but if you must improve it..." He ran a hand up Percy's shirt. "I'm not going to tell you no."
"Oh. Okay." A smile slowly grew on Percy's lips. "Chinese for dinner, then?"