All The Wars And The Warriors
By: Jondy Macmillan
A/N: Nonononono this is not what I am supposed to be writing right now. I haven't written Harry Potter fic in forever and a day. Gah, okay, so yes this is a one shot. Yes, all the run on sentences are intentional. Yes, I will be very happy if you review.
Disclaimer: HP is JKR's. The title is from the song All The Wars by Aloha.
There was this thing about war that messed with a person's head. Like how he'd never noticed before that he took things like safety for granted. Or how standing in a back alley behind a pub was a surefire way to get killed real dead, real quick. Marcus was kind of attached to his life.
He was supposed to be one of the bad guys, one of the evil doers. And hey, weren't villains usually heartless? Maybe that was the problem, because if he had a heart, it wasn't in some epic battle to the death. Maybe he'd been interested in the proceedings earlier, when it was all theoretical, on paper, with visual aids. In person, this was nothing like a school presentation. Twenty six inches of parchment and a quill never involved so much blood.
Blood wasn't so bad, though. Blood he could take. In another life, one where he liked to study and times weren't so troubled, he could've been a healer. He could have made people well with nothing but his hands and the magic he felt sometimes, inside, warm, tingling, and intoxicating. Sometimes he wished it would refuse to obey him, cop out like he was a squib, only he hadn't gotten the memo until now. Except magic didn't care about the difference between healing and killing, and all that shit the professors had fed him back at Hogwarts about balance was bull. Magic was neutral. It was people who weren't, who had to choose one side or another, but he didn't even believe that anymore.
The good guys could jump him any second, and they had done to some of his mates, and really it was getting kind of hard to find the difference between good and evil these days.
Really, what had been the worst, what had made him think this whole war was a buggery mess that needed to end As Soon As Possible was when Quidditch stopped. No one had told him that was going to happen, and yeah, maybe it had been stupid folly on his part to think that people would have time for games when their kin were falling in the streets, breathing their last, but a man can always hope.
It was like, growing up, Quidditch had been the one constant in his life. If he was angry or frustrated or feeling like a hasty Avada Kedavra was a pleasant alternative to talking to some nut on the street, he could venture out on his broom and everything would go quiet. There'd be him, the sky, the wind, and sometimes there'd be other people, competition and sweat and maybe even blood, but at the end everyone would go home happy and live to play another day.
He'd heard half the Falmouth Falcons were offed in an explosion last week, and well- none of this was going like he'd expected. It was supposed to be an easy win, that's what his father had said. 'Course his father had died months ago, and not even nobly, like he always claimed he'd go out. His heart had stopped, just up and stopped, and by the time Marcus had come home from the pub sloshed and ready for his nightly berating, there'd been nothing left to do.
Nights like these, when the clouds skimmed so low they buried the roofs of his town like a sluggish avalanche, ready to smother them all but making sure they damn well knew it was coming, he thought of Wood. He tried not to. From what he'd heard- and it wasn't like he'd asked, but Terence tended to be forthcoming about these things, at least he had been the last time Marcus had talked to him, before he went into hiding- Puddlemere United was splintered. Most of the players had gone home to protect their families, like there was anything they could do if the Dark Lord wanted them dead, and there was talk that Wood had taken up the fight. It wasn't a surprise; he always had been so bloody honorable, like he was some kind of knight in shining armor and he didn't realize that the rest of the round table had died in the time of fucking Merlin.
Except Marcus thought Terence's intel was flawed, because once he'd been leaving his house after his dad's death and he thought he saw Wood there, outside the gates. Only, when he blinked the rain out of his eyes and called out, "Oliver!" there'd been no one there at all.
He could still recall the first time he'd met Wood, all gangly limbs and clear eyes. He'd looked right through him, and Marcus had hated it. No one had ever dismissed him like that, on sight. It made it all the more sweeter when, a few years later, he'd shoved Wood up against the lockers after a game, his mouth burning as he kissed the taller boy, his hands fumbling their way into Wood's trousers. At first, Wood had struggled, acted overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of touching and roughness and too much sensation. Then he'd given in, pushing back up against the Slytherin team's captain until Marcus had them both in his hand. Their cocks were heavy and foreign pressed together in his grip, moving against each other, every twitch and slide excruciatingly pleasurable until they both tumbled over the cusp of it, spilling around his fingers, their uniforms, each other. That had been the first time in a string of too many that ended with one of them looking battered and bruised, bite marks and black and blues dotting their body like a map of where the other had been.
But nights like these, Wood's name was on his lips, and he would stare up at the sky and wonder if he remembered that day, the day Marcus graduated Hogwarts, when the mist surrounded the castle like it was going to storm the place, seep in through all the cracks in the walls and find two boys locked up in the Gryffindor dormitory when every other person was down in the Great Hall, enjoying the feast. He wondered if Wood remembered the way his mouth had blazed against Marcus's, the way he'd murmured, "Don't go," like he was begging, and Marcus never could figure out if he didn't want him to leave because he liked what they were doing or if it was just that he couldn't stand losing such a great opponent.
Wood was a competitive asshole, and sometimes it was hard to figure out whether the sex was so good because their rivalry was so aggressive or if their rivalry was so heated because the sex was so fucking good.
That night had been different; Marcus could see the imprint of his memories on the back of his eyelids, if he squeezed them shut real tight. He could feel the burn of the alcohol in his throat and the searing fire in all the places Wood pressed their bodies together and see the intensity behind Wood's chocolate eyes.
A raindrop plopped on his nose, and he ducked under a ledge and wondered and wondered about Wood until his face turned blue, but mostly Marcus thought Wood was probably dead and that memory was meaningless, and that was the thought that scared him most of all.
Because he had Wood's face emblazoned on his brain, him whispering, "Come on, please, come on," in stuttering breaths against the shell of Marcus's ear and he couldn't forget the way their hips moved that night, frantic and rutting until they collapsed, boneless on the swathe of sheets that clothed Wood's bed. He could feel the way the Gryffindor Keeper shifted his weight to move closer to him to beg, "Don't go," and then, "I know you have to, but-" and then, "I'm going to be out next year, and I'll find you. I promise."
"And if you don't?" Marcus had laughed, growling laugher that wasn't even close to intimidating.
"If I don't, you'll find me. Promise me, when I graduate, you'll find me. Promise me."
"Okay. I promise."
Marcus thought about doing it, about tracking him down. Then he realized if he found Wood after all this time, there was a huge chance, a soul-crushing chance that he'd be nothing but a pile of bones and a memory.
Maybe he'd do it when this whole war thing was over. Maybe he would.
He probably wouldn't.
He was a villain, and they couldn't be expected to keep promises anyway.
A/N: Please review!