Fight Or Flight
by Silvia

If he made it through this alive, Oliver would only play Quidditch on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. He would eat very morsel crammed into every care package his mum sent by owl, even the ones with the cakes that tasted like paste and lead, and took two eagles to transport. He would never ever consider dropping a couple pinches of Fred and George's itching powder into Marcus Flint's socks. He would be a changed man, just you watch.

The air was thick with concrete dust, stealing through his nostrils and balling up in the back of his throat. He choked on it, hand clasped over his mouth, because asphyxiating silently was evidently much better than asphyxiating out loud. At least that's what his instincts were telling them. His instincts had also compelled him to climb into a cupboard in Snape's deserted -- no, make that evacuated -- classroom, however, so perhaps they weren't doing so well by him at the moment.

Percy's sharp hiss went off like a trumpet, and Oliver gasped, because how could he help it, and that went off like a stampede of dragons.

The wood, it was coming through the wood, from outside on the classroom floor, and Percy was not dead, not a ghost, just whispering, said his instincts, but bugger it all, they had lead him to a bleeding cupboard of all things. Two shaky breaths later, and Oliver became aware of the fact that he had been too busy waiting for his heart to implode and splatter his ribs and kidneys and the rest of the inside of his chest to actually make out what was said.

"What?" Oliver whispered, mouth pressed up against the crack running along the side of his little door, fist still gripped tightly around the handle.

"It's a troll," Percy repeatedly quite matter-of-factly, if a bit hurried.

"A troll?" Oliver had been quite sure it was You-Know-Who doing You-Know-What and the world was toppling over the line between 'yep, we're all still here' and 'the end'.

There was no way he'd be giving up a single hour of Quidditch for this.

"In the dungeon," Percy confirmed.

"Again?"

"Yes," Percy stated, his stance calm, collected, and just ever so slightly prissy, when Oliver had climbed out of his clearly not so secret hiding place. "You'd think the school governors would invest in a ward of troll repellent or something of the sort, after all the trouble we've had with things getting in, worming their way out..."

"And the troll is gone," said Oliver, brushing off his slacks before twisting his robes around to hang straight over his chest, instead of mishmashed under his arms and around his waist.

"No," Percy replied testily. "Otherwise, why in the world would I require assistance? I'm Head Boy, and perfectly capable of--"

A flash of memory sparked on the edge of Oliver's vision, and yes, there was that time with the dead weight stones and Warbling Brook, and the seventh year that Percy was absolutely certain had cheated and thus must be brought to justice (though, in retrospect, Oliver would admit the experience to be rather educational, as having most of the bones in a person's body shattered tends to be an illuminating lesson in anatomy), and when Percy thought it would be a simply lovely idea to pry open the encyclopedia of banshees.

"Of getting us killed, apparently."

"That was not my objective," Percy said, neck stiffening.

"It never is," sighed Oliver, conversation closed with the squeak of his 's' like the squeak of Snape's door, and then the next door, and then the next door, and it appeared that they would be traversing the entire bloody castle, room by room -- even the compartments small enough to make Oliver blurt out, "Now really, half a troll couldn't even fit into that one."

"We have to be thorough," Percy reminded him for the sixth time (he'd counted).

"We have to get you a lobotomy," Oliver grumbled, and then remembered that he and Percy had taken Muggle Studies together, three years running, and if looks from other than an Egyptian hydra could kill, he wouldn't have to worry about the troll they were so actively searching out.

"Er, well," he said loudly, brightening his tone, "this staircase will take us to the south corridor, if we ask it very nicely, with a compliment or two. Say something about its new finish."

"You're looking lovely this evening," Percy coaxed, "Positively gleaming," and the velvet lined steps rumbled contentedly beneath their feet.

Not a single hulking slab of neck and bunched muscle was lurking in the professor's drawing room, where they take tea and hide from students (but plainly not from Percy, since he darted towards it as if a pointer mid-chase), nor Nearly Headless Nick's private chamber, nor on the south tower balcony.

It was while peering around a musty corner, two doorknobs past Snape's chambers, that Oliver finally inquired, conversationally, "So, you said getting us killed was not your objective. What is your objective -- our objective?"

"It is my responsibility," poking his head over Oliver's shoulder, Percy jostled him with a bony elbow, "to be aware of the creature's whereabouts," and the most horrible realization crept up under the top layer of Oliver's skin, starting at approximately calf level and whizzing swiftly upward.

"You have absolutely no idea what we're going to do, do you?"

Percy was suddenly looking to be something close to flustered, and there was a deep sinking in Oliver's stomach. Sinking like those dead weight stones. "I know with complete certainty that-"

"Do you?" Oliver insisted.

"Now listen here!" Percy squawked, and then shrieked beneath Oliver's cupped hand as the walls shook, turning a very interesting shade of mottled pink over gray.

It made Oliver think of Snidget eggs and wimble berry pie, which made him hungry, which made him rather cranky, actually, and Oliver pressed down harder with his hand, earning him a petulant, "Ow," murmured through his fingers.

"In there," he whispered, and motioned with a short jerk of his head towards a sizable closet. Wide-eyed, Percy seemed to come to his senses and nodded several unnecessary times in agreement.

The closet smelled of dank, musty things, damp around the edges and cool through the soles of his shoes, but it felt sturdy, and Percy could not seek out mindless, bloody thirsty beasts inside of it -- which made the small space just about perfect.

"But I can't help but feel that I am shirking no small part of my duty," said Percy against the back of his neck, curled in tight to avoid the thick clumps of spider web, and Oliver told him in no uncertain terms that he would, "pluck every hair out of your head, arms, and legs, plus the three on your chest," if Percy dared to speak another word about the matter.

This earned Oliver a huff paired with, "You're just like my brothers," and Percy's forehead a smack with the back of Oliver's head (which pained the smacker and the smackee, thank you very much) and, finally, silence on both of their parts.

That is, until Percy squirmed and muttered, "Cannot form why you insist upon--". And Oliver kissed him, because he'd have killed him otherwise, and he heard that Azkaban was truly dreadful that time of year, and there was this way that Percy's mouth parted ever so slightly while he bent over a thick manuscript, and the way that Percy's fingers griped at quills as if they were lifelines, and the freckle that fell just where the slope of his neck drifted into being a shoulder.

It was, by Oliver's estimation, a long time coming.

Smooth push of his mouth, urging Percy's open, and his tongue was touching Percy's lightly, thighs shifting and hands pushing, pulling, trying to bring their bodies face to face. "Right, just," and Percy's fingers dug into his waist, bunching up fabric and scraping the flesh underneath, and it was good, if raw. It was like sitting still, but going places.

This hollowed out space in Oliver's head was galloping forward, stretching and snapping back like rubber taffy, with pictures of Percy's curving spine, and the wet insides of his mouth, and his cock, oh god, and Oliver said it out loud, had to, against the soft scratch of Percy's cheek.

"Oh god."

His legs were outside of Percy's legs still, cupping them, but he was rocking before his brain could figure out what the rest of him was doing, sliding up onto now wrinkled slacks, Percy's robes askew and nearly knotted. "Don't," Oliver whispered, and wondered 'what am I asking?', and then Percy moved and he knew. Oliver's mouth was opening like if only his jaws could make it an inch wider he'd stop being so empty, and his stomach twisted on that thought.

"Stay."

The back of Percy's neck was slick and hot against the light grip of his right hand and Percy stilled, breathing rough and quick like the creatures in Hagrid's pin, when the groundskeeper would shut the gates with a heavy click and let them crowd closer. That breathing hitched when Oliver said, "please, oh," and pressed the inside of his thighs to the sharp curves of Percy's hips. Percy pressed back, a slight instinctive jerk, and they were both very hard and shivering, Oliver suddenly noticed -- as if during an out of body experience, a detached observation. His body didn't know he was hard; his body didn't seem to know much of anything except that it wanted.

The skin at Percy's neck goosebumped, and it spread to his shoulders -- Oliver could feel them with a brush on his thumb -- and somehow made everything hotter, like Percy was feverish. Oliver tasted salt as he put his lips to Percy's forehead and when a hand slid up, shaking, to cup his face, the back of his throat hurt, too dry, and he just had to open his mouth to it.

Fingers, second and first, slid in, like it just happened -- oops, look at that. More salt, and warm, solid human feel on his tongue, and he was sucking on them. Lazily almost, like his hips were circling.

Percy said his name or something very close to it, with more vowels, and Oliver couldn't remember the last time, or any time, that Percy didn't pronounce a word precisely, as if sounding out its purpose. But there it was, and it was slurred and glazed like Percy's eyes, glossy like his mouth, and everything seemed to be like something, almost something, bigger than real, vaguer than magic.

The fingers skidded a little, mouth drying out, and Oliver didn't do things in half measures, all the way or nothing, and so his chest hitched, not just his breath, and his jaw clicked, and his hips hitched too, every inch of him following along like a clap of thunder after lighting. There was a fizzle at the tip of his spine, and it wasn't his hand this time, it was someone else, it was Percy, oh god, and so clothes or no clothes, this was better.

Percy had more fingers, a whole other set -- Oliver had just forgotten them -- and they were at the center of his back, holding him in as he lay limp, pants wet and sticking to his skin as Percy bucked twice, no three times, and then settled with a mumble, both hands slipping down to lay on their backs against the floor. They looked as creased and worn as inside of Oliver's head.

"Percy," Oliver said, and he thought suddenly that maybe he had never said that, Percy's name this whole time, since the cupboard and end of world and the troll and the --

"Percy," he said, and kissed Percy's mouth, very soft.

He would have kissed it again, and perhaps found his hands by touch, if feet did not begin clamoring down the hall.

"Out! Out!"

"What, there?" Percy called back, snapping to attention, and pounded at the closet door.

"You'd best be speaking to Professor McGonagall," came the voice back, and Oliver recited along with Percy, syllable by syllable, "I'm Head Boy," and the feet skittered away and returned with another pair.

"Was McGillory, he's in a right mess now. Maybe suspended."

"Yes?"

The boys tittered. "He went about with pots an' pans, making a bit of a ruckus, and he says--" Full fledged laughter rang out, and was forced down only by Percy's loud silence. "He says there was a troll in the dungeon. It was Marcus," and then Oliver was laughing along with them, full out hysterics, shaking and beating his fists into the concrete, "M-Marcus," the laughter was gales, "Marcus Flint".

"Troll in the dungeon," gasped Oliver, wrists folding up to lock around the back of Percy's neck.

Percy's nose wrinkled, as if there was some new bad smell, besides the dirt, grime, and stained clothing. "Disgraceful."

"Utterly," Oliver agreed, and watched Percy's eyes until Percy could match his grin.

return

[author's note: as for when this story is set... since we see the HP novels through Harry's eyes, and he can't possibly recount every event in those years, I see no reason why this story couldn't have occurred near the end of book 3. Nothing of interest happened in it to Harry so there's no reason for him to tell us of it.]