Harry Potter, Other Outlets

Title: Other Outlets [Cedric/Oliver]
Rating/Warnings: PG-13 for some Quidditch lust.
Summary: Cedric seems to be spying on Oliver’s practice.
A/N: Some random stuff that wasn’t going anywhere in particular, but i like Cedric.

Other Outlets

Oliver noticed a slumped figure sitting alone in the Gryffindor stands during Quidditch practice. Shading his eyes against the setting sun, Oliver thought he recognized Cedric Diggory sprawled across the seats, but wasn’t positive before a sharp gust of early spring wind made his eyes water, and he had no idea why Diggory might be sitting in Gryffindor’s stands anyway. He tried to blink the tears away, but it was getting too dark to distinguish much of anything.

He looked down just in time to catch the Quaffle hard in the stomach, and he was driven backwards into the hoop he was supposed to be defending with a whuff of air and a meaty thunk as his back glanced off the pole.

“All right, Oliver?” Katie Bell called, pulling her broom up to a halt.

“Fine!” Oliver barked, angrier at himself for not keeping his eyes on the practice than at Katie. He squeezed his shoulder and yelled, “Oi! You lot get in here!”

It took a few minutes for message to relay down the pitch and for the rest of the team to gather around Oliver. He didn’t bother landing to give his final words on the practice.

“Good practice on the whole, team! Johnson, your turns are improving but keep your dives sharp! Potter, I know that school broom’s giving you trouble, but stick with it and have Hooch recheck the Breaking Charm! Weasleys, if I catch you chucking your Beater sticks at each other again like that, I’ll Everstick them to your hands!”

By the time he sent his team to the showers, the light was almost entirely gone, but a glance over his throbbing shoulder showed that Possibly-Diggory was still sitting in the stands. Oliver turned his broom and sailed over to investigate.

It was Diggory, Oliver saw several yards before he landed, but that still didn’t answer the question of what he was doing in the Gryffindor stands. Diggory gave a half-hearted wave as he landed.

“Diggory,” Oliver greeted him, “you wouldn’t be spying on my team’s practice would you?”

Diggory laughed, but it was slightly grimmer than the carefree laugh Diggory usually had.

“Fraid not,” he answered. “Came out here to think, these stands were the closest. How’s your shoulder? Saw you take that hit from the hoop, looked nasty.”

“It’ll be fine, just bruised,” Oliver went to shrug but stopped with a wince. He sat down next to Diggory and laid his broomstick on the seat next to him. “Anything wrong?”

“Nah.” Cedric waved a hand vaguely. “Had a row with Cho, is all.”

“Really?” Oliver wrinkled his brow. “You two seem to get on well enough. She’s a fantastic player.”

“We do usually,” Cedric said, “but she’s been on me to spend more time with lately, says we don’t see each other nearly enough. I’m trying, you know? It’s hard with the team and all, Cho says all we ever talk about is Quidditch and she wants to have a real conversation once in a while…of all people, you’d think Cho would understand about Quidditch. I’m the bloody captain, aren’t I? Course I spend a lot of time thinking about it.”

“Girls,” Oliver snorted. “They’re mad, s’why I don’t fool with them. Some of them make fine Quidditch players, but they all show their true colors if you give them long enough and then it’s all ‘let’s talk about our feelings’…”

“What can you do?” Cedric shrugged. “Worth it, I suppose, for the side benefits of having a girlfriend. With exams and all, sometimes I think I’d go off my trolley if I didn’t get off once in while.”

“There are other outlets for that sort of stress,” Oliver said.

There was a moment of silence where Oliver and Cedric stared at each other. Then Cedric leaned over and kissed Oliver on the mouth without warning. Oliver opened his mouth to protest, but when Cedric’s tongue brushed over his chapped lower lip in a stinging trail, Oliver reached up to grab a fistful of dark hair and urge him closer. Cedric slid towards Oliver on the bench until their thighs were pressed together and laid a hand on Oliver’s neck. Oliver shivered as freezing fingers stroked his skin.

The broke apart for air and Oliver saw Cedric trying to hide a smile.

“What’re you grinning about?” he demanded, flushing.

“Didn’t know you swung that way, mate,” Cedric explained.

“I meant WANKING!” Oliver exclaimed indignantly, and there was a second of silence in which Oliver’s shout echoed off the Slytherin stands several times before both captains erupted into laughter. They laughed until they had to lean against each other, and when Oliver turned his face away from the wind and bumped his nose into Cedric’s neck, he felt the other boy shiver against him.

“Come on, let’s go in,” Oliver finally said, standing up and tugging Cedric up with him. They made their way down the winding stairs of the stands haltingly in the dark, but neither one of them lit their wands. Instead they were content to feel their way down, bumping into the walls and each other. When Oliver’s feet got tangled up with his broomstick and he stumbled, Cedric caught at his hand to keep him from tumbling the rest of the way down. He righted Oliver and pulled his hand away after a moment too long, and Oliver’s palm tingled long after Cedric had tucked his hands back into his pockets.

The locker room was deserted when they finally made their way inside, and Cedric offered to wait while Oliver changed. Oliver had peeled off his Quidditch robes and his jersey and was rifling about in his locker when he heard a sharp intake of breath behind him.

“Holy hell, man!” Cedric exclaimed. “You should see this bruise!”

“How bad is it?” Oliver asked. He tried to twist his neck to see it, but sucked in a breath when the movement pulled the stiffening muscles in his back.

“It’s wicked!” Cedric said, and Oliver could feel him moving closer without turning around. Fingertips rough with broom calluses brushed his shoulder blade. “It starts here…” the fingertips skimmed over Oliver’s back and came to rest on Oliver’s spine in the middle of his back, “…and ends here.”

“Those hoops aren’t made of cushions, you know,” Oliver said, his voice softer and lower than it had been a moment before.

“Do you want me to heal it for you?” Cedric asked, close enough now that his warm breath slid over Oliver’s shoulder with each word. Oliver nodded, his body feeling the chill of the locker room everywhere but the places Cedric was touching him still, fingertips drawing small circles across his spine.

Oliver heard Cedric draw his wand and felt the warmth of the smooth wood against his back, winced a little as it pressed into the bruise, not just the tip, but Cedric had laid the whole length across his back, and Oliver flushed a little as he realized that he had never touched this much of anyone’s wand besides his own, certainly never had anyone lay their wand against his skin and roll it the tiniest bit back and forth like a caress.

“Efflue Invenis,” Cedric murmured, his breath stroking Oliver’s body, sliding over the injury and soaking through his skin, reaching blood and tissue and coaxing them into repairing themselves. Oliver felt Cedric’s magic slip into his bloodstream and course through his body, felt Cedric’s magic pulse through his heart and fizzle in his brain like champagne bubbles.

“How do you feel?” Cedric whispered.

Every cell in his body drunk with Cedric’s magic, Oliver could only manage a low whimper at first.

“You beat Pomfrey any day,” he squeezed out on the second try.