Chapter Text
Match days had always inspired a feeling unlike no other. Until a year ago they were what Oliver lived for, what he spent the entire week beforehand focused on.
He knew how Blaise would be feeling. That complex cocktail of emotions where the desire to succeed eclipsed everything else. The build up, sitting in the changing rooms having the final team talk, the heightened sense of energy during the walk out. That surge of adrenaline as brooms were mounted and the whistle sounded.
Oliver missed every single moment.
It was hard to be a spectator with that ache in his chest. It was a grief, some days. Something that he’d loved so dearly, gone, before he’d been ready. Working with the Falcons had helped dull the feeling, but it could never compare.
Knowing how regimented match days were, Oliver hadn’t expected to see Blaise before the game. Yet Blaise had been waiting for him as he left a meeting with Alessia’s agent, leaning against a pillar near the changing rooms in full kit. He didn’t have that air of aloofness around him for once—apparently the pre-match energy could even affect the most insouciant of wizards.
“Hey,” Oliver said. “Shouldn’t you be with the team?”
“I just needed air for a second.” His eyes flicked up to the top of Oliver’s head. “New hat?”
Oliver tilted his head so Blaise could see the black hat with the purple Swifts logo that he was wearing. “Thought I best show my support.”
The smile that crept across Blaise’s face was disarming, and it caused all sorts of knots in Oliver’s chest.
Blaise nodded to where Alessia’s agent had just disappeared down the corridor. “All sorted?”
“Aye. Contracts signed. Alessia will be a Falcons player come the new season.”
Blaise’s gaze still followed the agent’s path. “That’s good. You’re not going home empty handed.”
Was he trying to insinuate he wouldn’t be signing? Oliver was at a loss at what to say. Ten minutes before the match started wasn’t exactly prime negotiation time. He ultimately settled on, “I guess not.”
Standing straight, Blaise did an over exaggerated look around the empty corridor, eyes now glinting. “Know of any pre-game good luck charms?”
Oliver couldn’t resist a laugh, eyes rolling, and Blaise reached up to swivel Oliver’s cap backwards and pressed the quickest of kisses to his mouth.
“Wasn’t that you giving me the luck?” Oliver frowned.
Blaise was already backing away, towards the changing rooms where the shouts of the players could be heard, devilish grin back on his face. “Maybe you look like you need some. I’ll see you after, yeah?”
Oliver watched him go, thinking maybe he was right. He headed out to the stands with a looming feeling of confusion swirling overhead.
The Swifts’ ground wasn’t the largest Oliver had been to—Italian quidditch wasn’t quite as popular as it was in England—but they had a decent following and the crowd was in high spirits as the two teams swooped out into the brilliant clear sky and the game commenced. Oliver sat back in his seat, trying to lose himself in the match rather than think about what else might be pending.
Blaise. The contract. England. Tonight. Blaise—This week has been sold to him as a breezy time in Italy. It was turning out to be a twist of emotions.
Screams and shouts brought him back into focus as the people all around him shot to their feet. Blaise had the quaffle and was darting towards the Roma Ravens’ hoops in a blur of purple. He managed to dodge a well-hit bludger with a quick feint, and then he was easily tossing the ball straight past the keeper. Oliver clapped and cheered along with the crowd, smiling as Blaise shot around the pitch in celebration.
The game was over pretty quickly. After Blaise scored four more goals, Alessia caught the snitch and the Swifts resoundingly thrashed the Ravens. The ground was a fever pitch of noise and Oliver lingered, soaking it all in.
Just as he headed towards the players bar area, a hand snatched out and roughly pulled him into an empty changing room. Blaise pressed him against the back of the door. “There you are.”
“Are you alright?”
It was a pointless question. Blaise was basically vibrating, Oliver could almost feel the adrenaline high he was riding, and he answered by sliding his arms around Oliver’s waist and attaching his mouth to his throat.
“Don’t you need to do a cool down?” Oliver asked, although it was hard to focus with Blaise’s tongue running a sharp line up to his jaw. The intoxicating scent of sweat and grass rolled in waves from him, and Oliver fought against the urge to bury himself against Blaise and lick the exertion from his body.
“What a great suggestion,” Blaise said. “I know of a cool down we can do back at my place.”
“I thought we needed to talk.”
“We will. After.” Blaise nipped at his ear. “I know you remember this feeling. Let me share it with you.”
For once, Oliver didn’t want to hold himself back. It was his last night. What he wanted was to spend the final hours in Italy wrapped up in Blaise, forgetting all about contracts and even quidditch. He nodded his agreement and he felt Blaise smile against his throat.
“Ever fucked in a changing room?”
Oliver snorted. “Of course.”
Blaise pulled back to look at him in surprised delight. “I don’t know why that shocks me.”
“Because you seem to think I don’t know how to have a good time. Now, are we going back to yours or not?”
At that Oliver was gripped even tighter, and spun out of the stadium in a very quick whirl of apparition.
❂
If it was possible, Blaise would’ve started undressing Oliver mid-apparition. As it was, their feet had barely touched the ground in his bedroom, where the sheer curtains were billowing on a sweet breeze, before he started tearing the clothes off Oliver’s body.
Obviously not the hat.
“Your bed,” Oliver remarked, indicating the enormous king size bed, dressed in creamy linens.
“My bed,” Blaise confirmed.
Between molten kisses, he told Oliver what he’d imagined that afternoon when he’d seen the Swifts hat on his head.
“One day, I want to look into the stands and see you wearing my number.”
Oliver was a dog with a fucking bone. “And would that number be on a grey jersey, or otherwise?”
Blaise wasn’t going to answer, because he knew answering would mean that they would have to have the conversation that he deeply didn’t want to have. Maybe it was wrong, but there wasn’t much he wouldn’t do or say to feel Oliver wrapped around him in every single way it was possible to be. There was more than one deal that needed closing.
“I need a shower,” Blaise whispered, resting his forehead against Oliver’s, the strap of the cap digging into his brow.
Oliver’s hands slid along straps and leather, knowing exactly where to pull and tug to remove the protecting equipment hiding Blaise’s body from him.
“No, I like you like this.”
“Filthy?”
“Fucking filthy.”
Blaise’s gauntlets fell to the floor with a soft thump, and Oliver drew his jersey over his head.
“I know you know this, but you are really fucking fit,” Oliver told him.
“Doesn’t hurt to hear it from a handsome Scotsman every once in a while. You can keep going, if you like.”
“Your eyes—” Oliver underlined one of Blaise’s eyes with one finger. “Your lips…” The same finger drew down over Blaise’s mouth. “Your abs. For fuck’s sake.”
Blaise was grinning, but Oliver wasn’t done.
“Your skin is so soft.”
Blaise pressed the bulge in his trousers against Oliver’s bare hardness. Oliver hissed at the contact.
“Not that soft.”
“I really want to fuck you,” Oliver declared, kissing his jaw.
“The feeling’s mutual, bello. It’s been a while since a man has had the pleasure, but for you I think I can be flexible.”
At this point, if Oliver said he’d like to fuck on the back of a broom Blaise would simply ask ‘mine or yours?’
After a few more deep kisses that set Blaise totally alight, the last of Blaise’s quidditch kit was discarded, leaving him naked in the perfect light of his bedroom. Outside, it was newly night, pale and promising. A single tall, curved lamp was enough to cast a glow, and to illuminate the sheen of their contrasting skin.
Oliver’s tongue was on his ear, his voice as sweet and exhilarating as affogato.
“Lie down on the bed for me then,” he whispered, his accent ticking up a notch. “On your front.”
Oliver had been a captain once. Blaise wasn’t much for taking orders, but he knew how to pick his battles, and climbed into the soft sheets just like he was told, Oliver followed soon after.
Over his shoulder he could see the kisses branding his vertebrae. He could feel Oliver’s wandtip, tracing over his lower back, and over the curve of his backside. He couldn’t hear the whisper—but he knew the spells—cleansing, relaxing, and of course lubricating. The new wetness had Blaise breathing deep, sighing in anticipatory pleasure.
Oliver set his wand aside, but found the same path with his tongue.
“I forgot to mention I really like this part of you, too,” he said. “Breathe for me.”
When Blaise felt the sweet intrusion of Oliver’s wet tongue, he let out a deep, nearly feral moan. He wanted to say something about Oliver being full of surprises, but he was too busy shifting his hips up to make room for his cock, and to encourage the curious fingers that were working their way inside him.
“Merlin fuck, merda—”
“I’ll go slow,” Oliver promised, placing his knees on either side of Blaise’s.
“Like an old man—” Blaise tried to joke, but his voice was filled with his need, and everything became a greedy moan when Oliver spread even more wetness between his cheeks, and pushed slowly inside him.
“How does that feel?”
“Ah—fucking perfect.”
“Mm, my thoughts exactly.”
Oliver was buried deep, all the way in, and he stayed like that for a moment—when he glanced over his shoulder Blaise could see his eyelids fluttering, and a lusty flush across his cheekbones, joining with the kiss of the sun.
A slow rock of Oliver’s hips, back and then forward again, had Blaise forgetting every single word he knew in any language and biting the back of his hand.
Oliver’s fingers dug into his skin, and Blaise rolled back into him, asking for more with wordless groans.
Everything sped up, until it was like a dream. Oliver’s hands were everywhere, between them there was no more than sweat and harsh panting. Blaise felt nearly delirious as he spilled over his sheets and all through Oliver’s fingers. He watched over his shoulder, stunned as the wizard he’d first classed as one-dimensional and mild-mannered, licked come off his fingers and started thrusting with urgency as he reached his own end.
“Can I come inside you?” Oliver rasped.
“Ah—sì. Prego.”
Oliver understood him perfectly, and cried out as he came. Blaise squeezed the hand laid flat against his tailbone, and enjoyed the heat that spread through him, and over him as Oliver collapsed over his back.
They lay like that in stunned silence, until Blaise shifted them—he needed to see Oliver’s face.
He ended up spread across the pillows, with Oliver sideways across the bed, sheet idly pulled over him, and head resting on Blaise’s stomach.
With lazy fingers, Blaise made a mess of Oliver’s dark hair.
“How do you say ‘that was fantastic’?”
Blaise laughed. “È stato fantastico.”
“È stato fantastico,” Oliver repeated, in a thick, awkward accent.
“Awful,” Blaise told him, grinning wider still. “How do you say, ‘I wish this didn’t have to end’ in Gaelic?”
“Haven’t the foggiest.”
They laughed together, and it was almost as good as the fucking, and Blaise was by this point quite muddled up. After sex, he was prone to being more cuddly and tender than usual, but this was different. In this head was a very clear, very pure thought.
He liked Oliver.
Pure or not, he needed to distract himself from the meteor that seemed to be hurtling full speed towards the house.
“So, do you like being fucked as well as doing the fucking?” Blaise said, his hand tugging gently on the strands of Oliver’s hair now.
“For you… I think I can be flexible.”
And that was all it took for Blaise to less-than-gently haul Oliver’s mouth towards his, and to weave their tongues, and shortly after their bodies together again.
Try as he might to make it about nothing more than the sweat and come drying on their bodies, the thought persisted. Pure, clear and alarming as fuck.
❂
They woke once in the early hours, still entangled under white cotton in the shadowy bedroom. It was easy, in his liminal state, for Oliver to nestle back into Blaise’s warm body, to move his head sideways and mouth lazily at the underside of his jaw.
It was easy to meet Blaise’s full lips, as Blaise peered at him through half-lidded amber, slow smile tugging at his mouth.
It was even easier to allow Blaise to trail dawdling fingers down his ribs, to nudge his quivering cock into Blaise’s palm. To arch backwards to feel where Blaise was also hard, and to whisper please into the ethereal silence.
The rough exhale against Oliver’s neck made him think that maybe Blaise was just as affected by all of this as he was. That it didn’t just feel easy—it felt right.
“Fuck, Oliver.” Blaise’s voice was thick with sleep. “Let me have you.”
Oliver pushed into him, granting permission by sliding his own hand over Blaise’s, guiding it in a firm stroke up his cock.
Blaise hauled Oliver back, chest against spine, pressing his hips into him just once, before pulling Oliver over to lie flat on his back. Blaise hovered over him, a hazy outline in the shadows, and Oliver felt the slow spread of warmth from Blaise’s preparation charms.
Still, he started with his fingers first, testing and opening, and then Oliver’s knees were pushed to his chest as Blaise inched inside. It was slow, lazy in the small hours—perfectly Blaise—and all Oliver could see was that thin chain, suspended in the air between them. With a hooked finger on cool silver he drew Blaise’s mouth down to his own.
Blaise’s measured movements had Oliver gripping tightly at the sheets, hand moving to grasp at his own cock, needing more. Blaise batted Oliver’s hand away with a ragged curse, taking over as his hips moved quicker, pressing deeper.
Oliver shattered, his undoing causing Blaise to follow straight after. They lay for a while, Blaise’s head on Oliver’s shoulder. In the peaceful quiet Oliver found he had only one thought—This isn’t enough—before the early hour and soft warmth coaxed them both back to sleep.
❂
Morning arrived with a sense of apprehension, a small knot in Oliver’s chest that he couldn’t quite shake. He knew what was coming. Maybe he had for a few days now. It wasn't like Blaise had been subtle in his dislike for England, but there had been this tiny, delusional seed of an idea that maybe Oliver could change his mind. If not for quidditch, then maybe for him.
It was almost too much, seeing Blaise rumpled in bed sheets, his whole, beautiful body in stark contrast to the white. It was too much knowing that this was probably the first and final time. Blaise tried to get up but Oliver held him firm for a few more minutes, sinking into the feel of him, wanting the imprint on his bones. It was obvious Blaise knew why. He kissed Oliver softly, scooped Pluffa up from where she was scaling the mattress, and said, “I’ll go make breakfast.”
This time, Oliver did actually torture himself under the scalding stream of Blaise’s waterfall shower. Although it was half moping, half deciding that he needed to give himself a shake and see all of this for what it so obviously was: A good time. It wasn’t like he’d never had a one night stand, and he’d even been the one to cut something short before when it was blatant the other person would like to continue. An internal pep talk in front of the misty bathroom mirror and he was good to go, a leaf borrowed from the master of indifference himself.
Breakfast was taken on the terrace, golden beams of sunlight drenching the two of them sitting opposite sides of a square glass table. Sunglasses on, barriers up.
“What time is your portkey?” Blaise asked.
“Midday. I need to pop by the hotel and get my stuff, and then just stop in on Alessia before I go.”
“Right.”
“I have time to discuss the Falcons contract before I go, though.”
He wasn’t sure why he said it. He could’ve just left for England with the contract gone unmentioned. Maybe he just wanted—needed—Blaise to be brutally honest with him. To hear it out loud.
“I’ve had a good time with you this week.” Blaise rubbed at his face, perhaps in a rare show of disquiet. “No, actually, an incredible time.”
“Me too,” Oliver said honestly.
There was a long, torturous pause as Blaise looked out to sea, making Oliver wait for the agony or the ecstacy that would come next.
“I like you, Oliver. I like fucking you, a lot. But I also like seeing you sitting here at my table. Actually, I like you so fucking much I suspect you spiked that terrible pasta you forced upon me with amortentia."
Oliver couldn’t help himself. “But?”
“—But I’m not signing the contract.”
❂
Blaise watched Oliver’s fingers flex where they rested on the table, as if he would make a fist, but thought better of it half way through the bend.
“I thought—” Oliver began.
“Please tell me that fucking me had nothing to do with the contract. I know we joked but—Oliver, I meant it. I will never go back to England. When I’m there… I feel like I can’t breathe.” This was much more than Blaise had ever admitted to Theo—even to his mother. “I’m going to sign on for another season with the Swifts.”
Oliver rubbed at the dusting of facial hair decorating his jaw. “Right. ‘Course.”
Silence fell. Blaise could see the hurt behind sunglasses and an unvarnished faux-neutrality. He growled in frustration. “Don’t be so fucking English—”
Any other Italian would have thrown the breakfast table by now.
“Scottish.”
“Whatever. Yell at me—draw your wand. Something.”
“I’m not going to duel you, Blaise.” Oliver huffed a laugh, but there was no mirth in his eyes. “It’s fine.”
Blaise was not a blurter, but he was having premonitions of a time two-minutes in the future, when Oliver was walking away and he was left with nothing but storm clouds, even when the sky was perfectly clear.
So Blaise blurted, “Don't take the portkey. Stay.”
Oliver sighed. “I’m not losing my job so you can get sick of me in another week or so.”
“I just told you I liked you, and that's what you think of me?”
Oliver didn't answer, which was answer enough.
“You'd best go then.” Blaise was looking out to sea again, but deeply considering giving in to his urge to flip the breakfast table.
“Right, yeah.”
Oliver stood.
“Thank you… for your time.”
Blaise closed his eyes behind his dark sunglasses. He didn't watch Oliver go, but the crack of his apparition burrowed into him, all the way to his marrow.
When he finally opened his eyes, Blaise saw the Swifts cap that had been on Oliver's head the day before, laid carefully upright on his recently vacated chair.
❂
Maybe Oliver had been foolish to think that once he landed in England life would return to normal. It did, in some ways. The daily grind restarted, back to his regular role of coaching the reserve team, and he found relief in being able to focus his mind on his job. But his job was quidditch, and quidditch was now tainted with a citric hint of Blaise.
The daily reminder of what he’d left came in the form of a peppy Alessia who, although friendly enough, didn’t seem to get the hint that discussion of Italy was off limits. But Oliver was her link to back home, the first person from the Falcons she’d met. She was also completely oblivious to when someone was being reticent, continuing to bring up Blaise in conversation. She’d once made some sort of crude gesture with her hands and said in broken English, “You… Zabini… fuck?” in front of a group of the other players, meaning Oliver had to cut her short very quickly.
There was only one person who seemed to realise that Oliver had left something—someone—in Italy. Grandpa David, who peered rheumy eyes over rounded spectacles at Oliver as he sat in a faded old armchair in his Portree bungalow.
“Still got some colour on you there, lad.”
Oliver glanced down at his rapidly fading tan with a shrug. “It’s warm in Italy, would you believe?”
Grandpa raised his greyed eyebrows at the bite in Oliver’s words. Oliver groaned, instantly regretful.
“Sorry. I’m just tired, I guess. The job wasn’t as easy as I thought.”
“The job, eh? You sure it’s just the job that’s got you sulkin’?”
Oliver busied himself in looking through the biscuit tin. “Aye, ‘course. Post-holiday blues and that.”
“Dinnae fash, lad, they have these newfangled things called portkeys nowadays. You can pop back and visit whoever you’ve left behind.”
Oliver paused in crunching on a chocolate bourbon. “Who said anything about meeting someone?”
Grandpa placed his newspaper down on the coffee table, looking at Oliver with a wry smile. “You didnae have to. It’s written all over that bonnie face of yours.”
“It’s nothing. No one.” Oliver said, because he couldn’t bear to think about Italy and cherry gelato and thin silver chains any longer. It was a good job Falmouth was cold and drizzly because he couldn’t even clap eyes on a pair of sunglasses without picturing Blaise on his knees, smiling bright and beautiful, inappropriate splatter decorating his lenses.
“Right.” Grandpa didn’t look very convinced, but he knew when to leave well alone. “If you say so.”
So no, in the six months since he’d left Italy he hadn’t been doing a very good job of forgetting. Not when Falmouth now seemed to pale in comparison, the world a dull grey compared to the roaring technicolour of the Amalfi coast.
Out of sight definitely didn’t mean out of mind, so Oliver really shouldn’t have been surprised when the Falcons team gathered around the wireless one chilly afternoon to hear the European Cup draw. The announcement echoed loudly around the room and seemed to crack the ground under Oliver’s feet.
Falmouth Falcons versus Sorrento Swifts!
Blaise would be coming back to England after all.
❂
If asked, Blaise wouldn't have classified himself as the relationship type. Actually, if asked, Blaise wouldn’t have answered such an impertinent question with anything more than a blink and a sneer. Still, over the years he'd tried his hand at being a boyfriend (variously attentive and inattentive), and had enjoyed several extended flings.
But he’d never been obsessed with anyone before, and now that he was, he found that he hated every second of it.
Days and then weeks passed since his and Oliver’s parting, and Blaise's thoughts strayed all too often to steady blue eyes and freckles, and the feeling of peeling off layers and finding so much more than he’d ever expected underneath.
Blaise coped with missing Oliver by obtaining a fiendishly expensive open-ended portkey to London, and placing the little silver coin on his bedside table, staring at it as if it had personally wronged him, but he never quite found the balls to activate it.
Months passed. Blaise was a cantankerous cunt to nearly everyone. He went home with a witch—Oliver’s opposite—tiny, perky and blonde. Blaise kissed her for five minutes, but when she suggested they move from the couch to her room, he couldn't stop thinking about Oliver on his broom, intense in front of the hoops, stopping every shot that came his way.
He'd spent only a few days with Oliver for fuck’s sake. He was completely and utterly pathetic.
Blaise made his excuses, and left the strange apartment in a hurry.
A distraction finally came in the form of a visit from Theo and Hermione as part of their very extended Honeymoon.
“ —For the thousandth time Theo, it's a sabbatical. I’m collecting data on the demographic shifts taking place within wizarding communities across Europe, and the nature of integration between magical and non-magical folk in former Soviet Bloc countries. It’s not that hard to remember.” Hermione sighed from her lounger, apparently not dozing under the book that was resting on her face. She wore a very small black bikini and one of Theo’s fingers traced a plush, bare thigh.
“She hears like a bat,” Theo said in an undertone that Hermione most definitely heard.
With Hermione and Theo around, Blaise had started to wonder if he didn't enjoy his own company as much as he once imagined he did. The quiet sounds of his friends’ intimacy through the wall at night hollowed him out, however, and sent him on a walk down to the beach. He stripped off and dove under the waves. Underwater, the memories still found him.
In spite of this, it had been lovely to have company in the villa, even for a few days.
Lovely until Theo asked, “Do you still talk to Wood?”
Blaise nearly choked on his wine. “Wood? As in—Oliver Wood?”
“Unless you’ve been chatting to the floorboards, yeah, the dashing Scot himself.”
“What do you mean?” Blaise asked guardedly.
“Angelina said he came here to entice you back to the Motherland,” Theo explained.
“It was Katie,” Hermione interjected.
“Whatever. I said good fucking luck to him, Blaise puts on a parka when it’s 25 degrees out. Wood’s fit though, right love?”
Hermione didn't answer, perhaps she had finally fallen asleep, or suffocated under her book. Theo didn't seem concerned.
“Theo…” Blaise’s voice was dangerous. “Are you doing that thing where you know something and you're trying to make me tell you so it doesn’t look like you’ve been digging?”
Theo’s eyes gleamed. Pluffa sat proudly on his lap, and both cat and wizard shared an identical impish look. “It was only a little legilimency.”
“I will murder you.”
“Sorry.” Theo didn’t look even slightly sorry. “But you're basically screaming his name in your head. It’s adorable, usually it’s all low lit and Italian in there.”
Blaise pulled out his wand, levitated Pluffa out of harm's way, and swept Theo and his lounger into the pool.
Hermione and Theo left two days later, and Blaise tried not to resent their contentment. Two days after that, the loneliness and resentment proved quite tenacious, and he decided he needed to get Oliver out of his system.
At a crowded, hazy bar, Blaise found a football-loving muggle lad from Leeds, with a broad grin and blue eyes.
In a bathroom stall, Blaise pretended to not speak English, and pretended that he wasn't thinking of someone else. Once again, with the done deal of lips on his neck and hands on his buttons he backed out at the last second, and took himself home alone.
Two days later, the draw for the upcoming European Cup was announced.
Delight and dread merged into sludge in his veins. Outwardly, Blaise’s face showed icy indifference. Inside, there was only one thought, and it had nothing to do with quidditch.
Oliver.
❂
The week leading up to the match saw Falmouth swept over by tumultuous cloud cover. Grey mist rolled in large waves from the harbour, enveloping the town in an ominous shroud. The threat was clear—a storm was on its way.
The tempest arrived half an hour before the Swifts did. Oliver looked out at the squall and could almost hear Blaise’s despair.
He saw Blaise for the first time in seven months from under the protection of the Falcons east stand, while Blaise hovered on his broom on the opposite side of the pitch. He was involved in an animated chat with De Luca as the torrent battered them both, expression as incensed as the driving rain, before disappearing into the fray.
The game began, and Oliver’s heart lodged in his throat. Obviously the conditions were poor; low visibility never made for a comfortable game. The wild wind whipped up the crowd and the players alike. There were nasty collisions fifty feet up, the pulse-pounding moment when a blur of purple plummeted towards solid ground, only to be swept up in a hastily thrown safety charm.
Ultimately the fair-weather Swifts were no match for an English gale, and they very quickly folded to a disappointingly easy defeat. Oliver breathed a sigh of relief that it was over, and then realised actually, the true storm surge was yet to come.
He had considered ignoring the insistent pull in his chest and going straight home, but the quiet desperation to lay eyes on Blaise up close saw Oliver intentionally walking the long way back to where his office was situated.
Blaise was there, outside the changing rooms, and anyone who didn’t know him might have said he was just loitering. But Oliver knew his intent, and he couldn’t suppress the feeling of elation sparking across his skin as their eyes landed on each other.
“Tough conditions out there.” Oliver leant a shoulder against the wall, arms folded loosely across his chest. “Bad luck, really.”
Blaise was freshly clean, hair now damp from the Falcons’ subpar shower pressure rather than the freezing rain. The crisp scent of him was exhilarating—like diving for an impossible save, and clutching the quaffle at the last second. Oliver held his feet firm on concrete so as not to throw himself prematurely across the divide.
“Come to Falmouth, they say. It’s beautiful.” Blaise’s indolent eyes flickered down Oliver’s all-slate Falcons uniform. “This place is a morgue and you’re dressed as a tombstone.”
Oliver couldn’t help but smile. “It’s not normally this bad.”
“I don’t believe you for a second.”
Alessia appeared with a cheer, throwing her arms around a surprised Blaise. He gave her a small pat on the back and extracted himself, talking some quick Italian that of course Oliver couldn’t comprehend. As soon as he’d slipped back into the different language, Blaise was re-energised, smirking at Alessia’s words. She slipped away with a laugh and Oliver saw the subtle slump in Blaise’s demeanour.
“I take it you're leaving straight away,” Oliver said.
“Believe me, not one person on my team wants to spend a second longer here than they have to. There’s a portkey in ten minutes.”
“Back to sunshine and pasta.”
Blaise hummed lightly. “Paola’s been asking about you. She’s disappointed I didn’t bring the attraente Englishman back again.”
“I’m—”
Blaise cut him off with a smile. “I reminded her you were an attractive Scot, don’t worry.” There was a pause as he seemingly considered something, and then the smallest of glints flashed in his beautiful brown eyes. “Let me know if you’re ever in Italy. I’ll buy you a gelato.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
The changing room door flew open with a bang, the Swifts players barging past and hollering Blaise’s way—“È ora di andare!” Time to go.
The storm raged outside, lashing against the rafters. Oliver was swept by the overwhelming desire to reach out and slide needy fingers up the blade of Blaise’s jaw. Instead he stuck out his hand. It hovered between them uselessly, and Blaise looked utterly bemused by the action.
“Ciao, Oliver.” Blaise took his hand, using it to pull Oliver right up against him. A lingering kiss was pressed to the scruff of each of Oliver’s cheeks, and then Blaise was gone, striding down the corridor after his teammates. He didn’t look back.
❂
Seeing Oliver—even for a brief moment—even in all together too much grey—was fresh torture for Blaise.
He let a few weeks pass. One night, after too many wines, he wrote Oliver a letter.
I should’ve stayed, at least for the night.
I think about you all the time.
Luckily, or unluckily, Blaise couldn’t find his owl Luce. He woke up with the letter on his chest, and cringed at himself. He folded the parchment and placed it neatly on his bedside table next to the portkey he did not use, and the Swifts hat that he could picture exactly swivelled backwards on Oliver’s head.
Perfect. Now he was building a shrine. He was going to have to curse himself if he kept this up.
At least tomorrow was a game day—that was about as much distraction as Blaise could hope for these days.
❂
The Swifts flew out into a breezy afternoon one by one as the announcer screamed their names. The sky overhead was filled with spectacular cirrus formations, and the wind would favour the Swifts to start.
Napoli relied too heavily on their veteran seeker. The game was in the bag.
Blaise was out for blood. For the first forty minutes, he could do no wrong, scoring fifty points easily—as if the keeper wasn’t even there in front of the hoops.
Montini ducked under a whizzing bludger, and tossed Blaise a low, looping pass—Blaise held it for only fractions of a second before he launched another long range shot—right past the keeper’s ear.
“Zabini! Che gol! Il punteggio è sessanta a zero per gli Swifts!”
Sixty points to the Swifts.
In the next phase of play, the opposition’s seeker took a bludger to the ribs and a timeout was called to mend several fractures. Blaise joined in the team huddle in the air, but his confidence at walking over Napoli was such that he found his mind and his eyes wandering to the stands.
Even at a distance, Blaise thought he might know his form anywhere. He had committed every detail of Oliver so thoroughly to memory, that he could see his fervent, strategic countenance from eighty feet away.
Play resumed. Blaise missed his next two goals, but scored his third, all the while hoping that someone would catch the snitch so he could fly down and ask Oliver what the hell he was doing in Italy.
He wouldn’t fly down and kiss him on the mouth like he wanted to, but his mind supplied him with the image of it—clear and fucking pure.
The Swifts’ new seeker Bianchi caught the snitch after another painful hour. Final score 280-20.
Blaise was due at the post-match teamtalk, but he didn’t care. After he’d shaken every requisite hand, he pivoted in the air, and zoomed towards the stands where he’d seen Oliver. Much of the crowd had already left, but not him—he sat with his arm across the back of the empty seat beside him, looking like he was waiting.
Blaise landed with a thump, and dismounted his broom, standing right in front of Oliver. A witch shrieked and asked for his autograph, and he hurriedly took her quill to scribble an approximation of his signature on her notebook, his eyes never leaving Oliver’s as he did so.
“New hat?” Blaise asked, eyeing the number four on Oliver’s purple hat—his number. His heart beat wildly in his chest, and it was nothing to do with the victory over the Nighthawks.
“Yeah. Seem to have misplaced my other one.”
Blaise continued to drink in the sight of him, just in case it would be a small taste when he needed the whole meal. “I’m not complaining, but why are you here?”
“Apparently I’m here to watch my new team get flattened.”
“Your new team?”
“The Nighthawks.”
“As in… from Napoli?”
“Aye, the very same.”
Blaise’s synapses were failing to fire. “I don’t get it.”
“I took a job as a scout for the Nighthawks,” Oliver said slowly, as if Blaise was a dimwit.
“But you’re wearing my number on your hat.”
“Yeah.”
Blaise was finally catching on, he felt like a fourteen-year-old with a crush and summoned the strength of every single play-it-cool muscle in his tall body. “...I said you should wear my jersey.”
“Steady on, I don’t want to burn bridges before I even start—but—” Oliver stood and waved his wand quickly over himself. His white t-shirt flooded with colour until it was a deep indigo. He turned around and flashed Zabini and the number four on his back. Then, it was white again, as if it was never there.
But it was there—the number, the name, the confession.
By now, the stadium had nearly emptied. They were alone in the sky.
“When do you start?” Blaise asked, letting hope fill him.
“Six weeks.”
“And what are you doing until then?”
“I need to find a flat for me and Quaffle, but it turns out that’s hard when the only Italian you can remember is the filth someone whispered in your ear six months ago. I was hoping you might be willing to teach me.”
Before Blaise had any idea what he was doing, he had let his broom fall from his grip and clatter against the seats, and he had thrown his arms around Oliver.
“Sì, amo,” Blaise muttered into Oliver’s hair. He was staying—the colour Blaise hadn’t known was missing from his polychromatic canvas. “Farò qualsiasi cosa per te.”
“You lost me at ‘sì’.”
Blaise looked around, and chanced a light kiss on Oliver’s lips. He delighted in the smile he received in return, and whispered against his mouth. “For you, Oliver, anything.”
“Well then—” Oliver’s eyes were as blue as the Sorrento sky, his voice the sultry breeze. “Have you ever fucked in a changing room?”