Title: To Quidditch!
Author: Kate of Kintail
Description: A ficlette inspired by St.Patty's Day
Warning: Oliver/Percy smarm

To Quidditch!

“I’ve got one!” Oliver called, repressing a bit of a burp at the end of his proclamation. With a swirling motion of his arm, which translated directly to the movements of his body, he raised his pint. The others raised their mugs in accordance, waiting for the toast. “To Quidditch!”

Percy, already drinking to the toast, nearly spit out his mouthful with laughter. He had to drop his pint quickly and cover his mouth with his hand. “We already drank to Quidditch, Olly,” he laughed.

“We did?” Oliver said, looking disappointed, though he wasted no time in putting his leg over Percy’s, linking them as he leaned. “Thanks for keeping track, Love.” he said with a light slur, and nuzzled his face into Percy’s neck with licks and kisses.

Percy, his cheeks a bit red as the rest of Oliver’s team and their dates laughed as well. Preoccupied with the stimulating kisses just behind his ear, he nearly didn’t hear them prodding him for a toast. “Oh, uh…” He raised his pint of cider and black, but all he could think of were Oliver’s kisses. His lush lips. His hot breaths. His soft tongue. Percy coughed and grinned. “To terribly distracting kisses!”

The team banged the table, roared with laughter, and half received equally distracting kisses from their dates as they tried to drink to the toast. Quite a bit of magically enchanted green Guinness was spilled in the process.

The team’s first string seeker was next, raising her pint. She was small and thin and it looked as though she was going to considerable effort to keep her heavy drink in the air while inebriated. “To… green Guinness!” she called out, her eyes on the pint shaking in her hand, and she barely managed a gulp without spilling as everyone roared with laughter and followed her example.

“To happiness!” shouted one of the team’s beaters who sat sideways in another of the beater’s laps.

“To good friends!” came the next toast, from one of the team’s first string chasers, a burly young man with a girl on each arm. Percy was inclined to take two large gulps to that toast and cheered along with the rest in between.

“To no practice in the morning!” roared the team’s captain with much laughter ensuing as he had been the one to cancel the practice sometime through their second round of drinks.

“Okay, okay!” Oliver announced after another sip of his own drink. He was loose, leaning against Percy, holding his mug up with a wobbly hand. “I’ve got a good one.” The laughter died considerably as they waited for it. He grinned at the table and gave Percy a look of absolute pleasure. Then, from his lips, slipped the loud and confident, “To Quidditch!”

“Olly!” Percy laughed, wrapping an arm around him to keep him upright and still. “We’ve done that one already.”

“I know,” Oliver slurred, still grinning, just for Percy this time. “I just love it when you correct me, Perce.”

And though the table was laughing at them, Percy knew it was the supportive laughter of good friends and green beer and one of the best nights out he’d had in a long time. And though the table was all staring at them, he took a large gulp of his drink and leaned to kiss Percy flush and hard on the mouth to quiet him. Then he pulled out, reeling at the passion and intensity more than the alcohol. He raised his pint high in the air and shouted, “To Quidditch!”

He felt an arm hug him roughly around the shoulders from his other side and the team pounded the table, chanting out their team motto, which was silly at best for a team called ‘Puddlemere United’ but which they all treated with so much reverence and spirit. And at the climax of the cheers, they all shouted “To Quidditch!”