Chapter Text
Before Oliver could believe it, Christmas was two weeks away. He'd made Ron swear neither of them would do a gift exchange of any kind, which Ron had seemed equally relieved about.
"But if you wanted to bring some whisky as a housewarming gift for sharing, that'd be alright," Ron said, bumping shoulders on purpose.
They walked side by side through a Sainsbury's aisle, Ron ostensibly assisting in helping Oliver do some shopping.
"Housewarming?" Oliver slowed his trolley down and gave Ron an incredulous look, hoping the hurt wasn't as obvious as it felt. "Lexi and Loxi's water bowls are nicer at the Burrow than my own flat! I'm hardly a guest anymore."
Ron began to blush, a deep salmon colour starting at his neck that eventually blotched on his cheeks and the tips of his ears.
"No, of course you're right," Ron said. "You're not a guest. No, not at all."
Oliver knew the middle of a holiday-crazed Muggle shop wasn't the time or place to get to the meat of that conversation. However, grateful they were on the topic, Oliver said, "We don't need labels about us, what we are, how and where we live. But since I saw you again, just these few months ago, there's been nobody else for me. You're for me."
Ron shook his head and rubbed the middle of Oliver's back. Oliver had come to realise that motion was Ron's nonverbal way of both reassuring himself of Oliver's proximity and also providing ease to Oliver. It was Ron's public shorthand for "we're a couple."
"Thanks for saying that," Ron said. He rubbed the back of his fingers down the nearly 10 days' worth of beard growing on Oliver's face. It was an experiment as they both grew out their facial hair, something discouraged by most of both Ron's and Oliver's prior girl- and boyfriends, as it had turned out. "I know it's a bigger conversation to have," Ron continued as the stressful buzz and packed aisles started to take a toll on Oliver. "We'll have days and days at Christmas together. It's important for me to get my words right, so thanks for your patience."
"I sometimes wish I could jes speak my truth and not want an identical response," Oliver said, picking up two bottles of white wine purely because they had Shelties on the label. "I also wish I'd just gone to Diagon because I want to get home and be away from this insanity, just watching Quidditch and moaning at the announcers."
Their trolley only held about a dozen items, so they were able to get through the check out without a major event, then they were off to their usual Apparition point and then home within twenty or so minutes.
Later that evening, cocooned in a Molly-knit jumper of unknown year, Oliver sat in front of the couch at Ron's side, gazing at the fire.
"You're my everything, honest," Ron said.
His voice was still honeyed from their brief, purposeful, incendiary encounter. The 'who needs foreplay when the hottest man you've ever seen naked reveals he's been wearing a leather cock ring' three minutes of whirlwind buildup to shuddering helplessly, the orgasm possessing you with a gasp until everyone collapses with shaky laughs and jelly legs shag encounter.
"A part of me keeps hearing 'it's too good to be true," Ron continued, one hand rubbing Loki's chin, the other splayed on Oliver's knee. "And I know better than to listen. I know that voice is lying, and that you mean what you say."
The sigh that Ron let out bruised Oliver's heart.
"I do," Oliver vowed. "You've met my friends, the kids I teach, my dogs. You've seen my dark, nerdy secret: I enjoy book binding. I drink a lot of whisky. I'm not perfect, but I really want to keep being happy with you. You're right in a way no one else ever has been."
In the fraught silence that followed, Oliver turned to see the expressions on Ron's face. Oliver roughly translated them as 'not worthy' and 'I'll fuck it up' and back again, but then a spark of something else lit his eyes. A more confident, warm smile settled tentatively on his lips.
"This is going to be a Christmas to remember," Ron promised, giving Oliver's hand a squeeze.
"As long as I'm a part of it," Oliver said, selfishly – humanly – wishing Ron had made a similarly themed declaration. A more patient part of him coexisted in the complex reality of knowing that not all unsaid, wished-for portends stay silent forever.
"Eloquence isn't my strong point," Ron said, rearranging them so Oliver was encircled in Ron's arms, his back against Ron's torso. Loki and Lexi similarly found their own new resting spots. "But you've changed my life and got me considering things I'd shelved as impossible. And, to be honest, it's been hard to think Christmas is even happening at all. Just a bunch of Weasley bachelors. None of mum's cooking, no decorations, no unforgivably bad dad jokes. No jumpers…"
Oliver turned around then, comforting the brave, vulnerable man he wanted to support all his days. Ron's brief outpouring of loss and change passed after a few minutes, aided by canine and human affections.
"We'll make new traditions and new memories," Oliver said. "A bunch of blokes up to no good, but there for each other. Your parents would want us to celebrate, and remember them, and Fred."
Ron smiled, his gratitude palpable.
"You're my new tradition."
///
Ron's soft, regular half-snore half-wibble at Oliver's side was endearing, but Oliver couldn't sleep. It was around 2:30 Christmas morning, he was still fairly buzzed, and he felt a compulsion to see if Ron's Uncle Bilius was still hanging around in his portrait in the living room. Ron had formally introduced them, though Oliver had seen him around from time to time. Uncle Billy had picked up on Oliver's interest in Ron from day one, so Oliver decided to ask for inspiration of a way to show Ron how serious he was.
"I think I can help you out," Ron's portrait uncle said before finishing his glass of wine. "I have a beat up chess set in my trunk up in the attic. All Weasleys leave behind a few talismans. We can't help ourselves. You can gift it to Ron, from me, through you. You're meant to be part of the family."
"Cheers, truly," Oliver said, his mind spinning at the symbolism. "It was awful, what brought us together, like, but we canna undo it, and I know I'll make him happy. I can't explain it to him, but it's jes natural, you know?"
"Go on and get your present wrapped and under the tree," Billy suggested. "And Happy Christmas, Oliver. You two will write such a rich chapter in the family history. Now go on before I get maudlin."
Oliver didn't need to be invited twice. He thanked Bilius and navigated his way to the attic past the closed doors of other sleeping family members. Sober enough to cast a diffuse Lumos , he found the trunk without too much difficulty. Billy was right: Weasleys loved their stuff. He wanted to explore all of it, but now wasn't that time. With minimal swearing and thumping, the portable chess set was in his hands. A last push of adrenaline got him back downstairs. Rather than wrapping it, since it was more totem than gift, he found a gift tag and wrote, "Now you can teach me. Happy Christmas. -Oliver (thanks to your Uncle Billy)."
Once back in bed, spooned behind Ron, Oliver fell immediately to sleep.
///
Oliver could resist a great many things. Bacon, however, was not one of them.
"Mmmmmm. Bacon," he mumbled through a jaw-cracking yawn.
Those two portentous words had, over the aeons, whether wizarding or Muggle, doubtless started wars, forged alliances, maybe even inspired works of art or feats of science. For Oliver, once more fully roused from a wine and scotch-commandeered sleep, the tantalising aroma meant he should go in search of Ron and checking up on Lexi and Loki. The shelties loved being at the Burrow as much as Oliver did. They could run all over the yard and outbuildings behind the sturdy defensive wards Molly and Arthur had been perfecting since the 1970s.
As Oliver yawned again and rubbed at his slightly crusty eyelids, Ron's absence in his old bedroom became clear, as did Oliver's memories of rummaging through the large attic, and putting the unremarkable chess set under the tree. There weren't many gifts, as the family members with children of their own (Bill and Ginny) had opted to continue their own new family activities at their respective homes– though they firecalled in regularly. Oliver hadn't heard Ron, George or visiting brothers Percy and Charlie say much aloud about it, but words weren't really necessary. The absence of grandparent energy was not so smoothly replaced by the collection of Weasleys that was the four adult men hosting this first exclusively next generation holiday.
"Well hello, sleepyhead," Ron said, turning around from the hob to give Oliver a good morning kiss.
It felt as natural and easy as if they were by themselves. Ron finally appeared as at home in his own skin as he'd been in days. Since the not-resolved-talk about Oliver wanting them to live together, contentedly, miraculously, all their days.
"You cheated," Ron was saying. It brought Oliver fully to the present: an olfactory breakfast symphony of sizzling, inviting scents.
"I what? I need coffee, you bastard. And happy bloody Christmas." Oliver's rebuttal went on longer than he'd intended, but it earned him another, longer kiss and a loud throat-clearing from a nearby doorframe.
"Morning, Oliver!"
It was Charlie, keeping an hours' old baby dragon hatchling tethered to him at all times. He'd been especially keen to come for the holidays from the reserve when he'd found out that Oliver and Ron were far beyond just friends.
"Brilliant timing!" Ron handed the tongs to Charlie. "Make sure it doesn't burn. We'll be back."
"We will?" Oliver asked, steered away from the delicious bacon and something cheesy baking in the oven.
"Yes. Let's get you some coffee and then we'll chat before Luna and Bulstrode arrive and we all eat way more than we should."
Soon Oliver had his coffee, complete with a dram of whisky, he'd been reassured that his dogs were playing with Percy's weimaraner, and then Ron was looking earnestly at him. Ron wasn't fidgeting, and that alone made Oliver's heart race. Whatever Ron was about to say or do, he'd rehearsed it.
"You gave me a gift, so that's cheating. But more than that, I have a question to ask you," Ron said, looking fully into Oliver, rather than at him. "Will you join my household? Magically? Totally non-sketchy blood magic that serves as a kind of unique key to the Burrow?"
Whatever Oliver had expected after 'a question,' it hadn't involved blood magic. It was a phrase so fantastically unlikely he'd fixated on it. Not on the fact that Ron was asking him to become bloodbound to the Burrow itself.
"Blood magic?" Oliver asked, his voice higher than usual. He sipped his coffee. "That sounds… extreme. But if you're asking me to join you, here, yes. How much blood do you want? It's yours."
Ron's relief radiated from him, to which Oliver's mouth asked, "You knew I'd say yes, right? You knew this is what I'd hoped for," as his brain lagged behind.
"I was pretty sure," Ron said, leaning over to kiss Oliver deeply, powerfully. Oliver responded in kind, the balance between them a gift he loved discovering in new and nuanced ways.
"I need to know all about this!" Oliver gushed once they'd both let their heart rates slow down a bit.
They were completely on the same page. This magically unfettered access to the Burrow meant no ward could keep him out. For Weasleys proper, this made sense. Adding others– so far, only spouses had been invited into such a bond of trust.
"After Bill and Fleur's wedding," Ron explained, now nursing his own cup of coffee, "mum and dad decided the wards needed to be tighter than tight. Even if it included something like the cost of bloodbinding magic. It took her a while, but mum talked dad around to it."
Oliver parsed that, and said, "I would've thought the other way 'round. Your parents and convincing, I mean."
"Oh no," Ron said, and shook his head. "Mum was the threat. She'd rip the throat out of anyone coming near any of us. Dad wasn't thrilled, but the results speak for themselves." He paused, and gave Oliver a look of such trust, Oliver was dizzy with the intensity of it. "You'll be part of us and this house. You'll never be denied entry, no matter what happens between us."
Oliver was mute a moment. Somehow a handfasting or other proposal felt flat and greyscale compared to being invited to be trusted with a permanent home at the Burrow. Ron wanted him around. Now and literally until death.
"I canna think of a greater gift," Oliver said. "This new life we're makin', the weft and the weave of it, it's just more than I'd ever dared imagine for myself. Ever."
A more heated expression came and went on Ron's features.
"We're only just starting to draw our map," he said. "Let your imagination run wild."
///
end [posted 7.12.23]