Despite the rockiest of starts, the relationship between Rajhi and I evolves into something of a very close friendship.
It's probably due to the fact that we're the youngest two on the team, that we spend almost every hour of training together anyways, and that we're both trapped in fucking Wimbourne all the time - but we get on well enough.
Especially when alcohol's involved.
Because in addition to being pretty solid teammates, we're also pretty impressive wingpeople for each other - which has been the primary instigator behind what Molly has lovingly nicknamed my 'hoe phase.'
I'm staying far away from any serious relationships and having a little bit of fun while I'm at it - and it works for me, so I'm more than happy to own it.
But of course, because there's no such thing as a platonic male-female friendship according to my friends, I get more than my fair share of questions about whether or not Rajhi and I are going to get together.
Which is fucking ridiculous, honestly, because I'm not going to date someone who I still have to call out for being a sexist prick half the time.
He's getting better about it - he's learned by now that he'll get slapped upside the head if I hear him talking to anyone the way he spoke to me when we first met - but he still doesn't understand some of the intricacies of it. Last year, there was article in Quidditch Weekly that detailed a 'behind-the-scenes' look at the 'wild lives of professional Quidditch players.' And naturally, both Rajhi and I made the cut.
Whatever boy I hooked up with who decided to report about me to the damn magazine is still a mystery, and I'll definitely knock his lights out if I ever figure out who the fuck it was, but that's an issue for another time.
Regardless, Rajhi barely understood why I was so pissed off by people calling me a slut in the aftermath. 'Don't call yourself that all the time?' was his response.
And I had to spend the next half an hour explaining to him why it's so different for me to say it, when I'm owning it, as compared when it's thrown at me as an insult that implies my worth as a person is somehow inversely correlated with how many men I've fucked.
So we're making some progress, but it's slow going. It's pretty hard to reteach 25 years of being an absolute twat, even if he is somehow better at listening to me than he is to anyone else. The 'saving the bad boy' narrative never goes well in real life - I'm not going to date someone to fix them if they can't fix themselves.
And even if I could get past some of that - and the fact that he's willing to at least listen to me is a good sign, really - I just… don't want that level of commitment to one person again for a while. Alec and I's breakup was a long, drawn-out nightmare, and there's probably some part of me deep down that's still not really over it.
"Oi, Weasley, snap out of it!"
My musings are interrupted by the very subject of them, as he clearly catches onto the fact that I'm not entirely paying attention to him.
I look back at him. "What?"
"I said, 'missing something?' "
It takes me a second to figure out what he's referring to, but eventually my eyes fall on the two Beaters' bats he's holding in his right hand.
"Where the fuck did you get that?" I ask. Last I'd checked, my stupid bat was securely in my locker - far away from Rajhi.
I'm still not sure how it started, but we've now got this weird ongoing bet where if one of us manages to get our hands on the other person's bat, the other person has to buy us a drink. I'm usually way better at it than he is - and as a result have gotten way more free alcohol out of this little game of ours - but he occasionally gets the upper hand.
"I have my methods," he replies with a smirk.
I take a step towards him to get my damn bat back, but he reacts just as quickly, raising them both above his head. Since he's got a couple inches on me, I can't reach them without jumping. And for the sake of my own dignity, I refuse to actually do that.
"You're the fucking worst," I tell him.
His smirk turns into an all-out grin at that. "Oh, don't worry. I already knew that, Weasley."
Naturally, there's only one suitable thing left to do in order to reach my bat - I tackle him.
Or, attempt to tackle him, that is. Instead of knocking him to the floor like I'd vainly hoped I would, he's almost entirely too prepared for this. As a result, I basically end up on his back, and my bat is still entirely out of reach.
"I always give yours back immediately, you know," I argue, still attempting to grab my bat out of his outstretched arms.
"And where's the fun in that?" Rajhi replies, laughing.
"I don't intentionally aim a bludger at you in the middle of practice, that's the fun in that," I retort.
"Please," he scoffs, "we both know your conscience wouldn't tolerate a direct hit at a teammate."
He's right, but I'm not about to admit that.
"Rajhi, Weasley, what the hell are you two doing?" I'm torn from our argument by the sound of Richards' voice; I look up to see him standing right by the pitch entrance door.
"This fucking prick has my bat," I say as defence, but I get off of Rajhi's back anyways.
"Of course he does," Richards responds, with a funny look on his face. "I don't care how many bats each of you are holding, I need both of you on the pitch and in the air in 60 seconds or you're running laps."
He turns around and walks back out the door, leaving Rajhi and I alone again.
"You hear that?" Rajhi asks, smirking. "He doesn't care who has the bats."
I roll my eyes. "Shut up and give me my bat, you asshole."
"Since you asked so nicely, here you go." He throws the bat in my direction.
"Let's go before we get laps," I reply, grabbing my broom before turning on my heel and walking out to the pitch.
"Can't wait for you to buy me that drink tonight, Weasley," Rajhi answers. "I'm gonna make it a triple."
"You make every drink a triple," I shoot back, before straddling my broom and taking off. Richards is already glaring at the both of us, and I know from experience that he won't hesitate to follow through on his earlier threat - and I'm not in the mood to risk it.
Practice is just as intense as always, but I've been playing in the league for long enough that I know what to expect - and I don't have to spend every single evening soaking in an ice bath to recover anymore either.
I don't bother showering in the locker room today; Rajhi and I decided to go to one of the nicer bars in the next town over, so I've got to actually look presentable - I've learned that Wimbourne is pretty much the only place I'm allowed to show up to a bar with wet hair and sweatpants.
So I head straight back to my flat, hanging my bag and broom up on the hooks by the door, before getting in my own shower and starting the whole process of getting ready. I've really only got two moods - no effort whatsoever, or maximum effort - and tonight's about to be one of the latter.
I've learned a fair few amount of beauty spells from Vic and Abby over the years - although Abby stubbornly refuses to use magic for makeup-related things - so I'm pretty much a pro at making my hair and makeup look pretty fucking incredible, even though I don't do it often.
I grab the first thing that catches my eye in my closet - a short, boxy blue dress with flecks of gold in the fabric. It's less sparkly than what I'd usually go for on a night out, but I'm not expecting this to be a super dramatic night on the town anyways.
I slide on a pair of tan thigh-high boots that I borrowed from Molly a few months ago and still haven't returned, and the timing is pretty much perfect, because there's an impatient knock on my door almost as soon as I get the second shoe on.
"Coming!" I shout in the general direction of the front door, knowing that if I don't acknowledge the knock somehow that it'll only get more persistent.
When I open the door, Rajhi is standing there in his pretty-standard uniform of a brown leather jacket, a grey shirt, and jeans. His hair's finally long enough again that he's started putting it in a bun again - I've never mentioned it to him, but I like it best this way. It's a good look on him.
He scans me up and down briefly, before looking at me with a raised eyebrow. "So you're trying to get laid tonight," he observes, and his gaze falls to the exposed skin on my thighs.
I shrug. "It if happens, it happens."
I wouldn't mind having a little bit of fun tonight, the more I think about it.
"It always happens for you, Weasley," he replies, before changing the subject abruptly. "Got any good liquor here?"
"I owe you one drink, not my liquor cabinet," I retort, but I let him walk into my flat anyways.
"Need I remind you of the time you drank like half of my bottle of top-shelf vodka?" he asks, opening up the cabinet where he knows I keep my alcohol. "You owe me."
"You don't even drink vodka," I tell him. "It deserved to be appreciated properly."
At that, Rajhi snorts. "And by 'appreciated,' you mean mixed with a fuck ton of other things and chugged in one go when you lost a game."
"That's exactly what I mean," I reply, pulling two shot glasses out of my cabinet.
Rajhi brings my bottle of whisky over, pouring a more-than-healthy dose into each of them. "Cheers."
I pick up my shot, clink it with his, and down it all in one go. "Shit," I say, once I set my glass down. "We need to go get food before we do any more of that."
"Yes, mum," Rajhi replies jokingly.
My 'mum friend' tendencies are relatively rare - I grew up best friends with Molly, who's practically perfected the art of it, while I've always been more of the 'wild child' - but they do make an appearance every so often.
But despite Rajhi's sarcastic response, we do end up grabbing a quick dinner before going out. It serves as a nice buffer for the triple firewhisky and coke that Rajhi insists I buy for both him and myself.
We've got a bit of a routine to our escapades - and they always start at a table near the back of the bar, playing drinking games amidst normal conversation.
Tonight's is a favourite of ours: we take turns reciting Quidditch facts, and the other person has to decide whether it's a real or a fake one.
"You can get a foul for lighting someone's robes on fire," I say to Rajhi, watching as he thinks it through.
"True," he answers.
"False," I say, grinning. "It's only for lighting someone's broom on fire - theoretically, robes are fair game."
He grabs his drink and takes a large sip. "Damn. You'd think they would've closed that loophole by now."
"I think the whole 'no wands out during gameplay' penalty mostly has that one covered at this point."
"I guess," he replies, pausing to come up with his own fact. "There was a match in 1842 where Appleby won because the Snitch flew into the Keeper's robes and he caught the Snitch himself."
"False," I say, almost immediately. "He handed it off to the Seeker before it could be called an official catch."
"Right you are," he responds, taking another sip of his drink.
Future rounds don't go quite as well for me as that one though, because Rajhi eventually starts pulling out North African Quidditch League facts, which I know absolutely fuck-all about.
And once we're both too tipsy to remember Quidditch facts, the game shifts to our other standby: truth or drink. It's a terrible decision when we've already had as many drinks as we have, but honestly, who the hell cares at this point? We don't have practice or a game tomorrow, and with our training schedule, it's actually been a long ass time since I've been properly drunk.
"Which of your siblings is your favourite?"
I drink to that one, because I've got absolutely no idea what the answer is. Victoire has basically been my role model since I was born, but Louis never ceases to crack me up - so it's a pretty even tie, really, for totally different reasons.
"Take a bludger to the stomach or one to the back?" It's not my juiciest question, but I'm running low on ideas.
"Stomach, easy," he answers. "It knocks the wind out of you, yeah, but it's better than the back pain that stays even after it's technically been healed."
He thinks for a moment. "What's the first thing you'd say to your ex the next time you see him?"
"Hmm, probably just that I hope he's happy now."
Rajhi barks out a laugh at that. "Of course you would - I forget that you're one of those saints who doesn't hold grudges for years like the rest of us normal people."
I shrug, before spending a moment thinking about my next question. I don't like that his drink is so much more full than mine, so I pull out one that's guaranteed to make him drink instead of answer. "Would you fuck me?"
"Yes."
I stare at his drink for a few seconds, waiting for him to grab it and take a sip, before it registers that he's answered me.
I immediately look up at him - I really thought I'd gotten him with that one, dammit - and discover that he's looking at me differently than normal. I can't put my finger on what exactly is different about it though.
"Would you fuck me?" he asks.
There's just enough liquor in my system for the answer to that question to be 'yes' - I'd have to be blind to not realise that he's fit as hell, and it'd be a lie if I said I haven't been curious if our chemistry on the Quidditch pitch would translate in bed. But I'm not going to tell him that - what fun would that be?
Instead, I pick up my almost-empty glass, looking coyly at Rajhi for a moment before downing the contents of it.
And just like that, the intensity of his gaze is gone as he leans back against the back of the booth. "Fuck you, Weasley," he says, laughing.
"I thought we'd already established you would," I reply, smirking. "You shouldn't say things you don't intend on following through with."
"You're right. I shouldn't," he says, suddenly serious again.
There's a moment of silence between us - an impressive feat in a bar, really - before he speaks again. "So are we doing this or not?"
Honestly, fuck it.
"Maybe," I tell him, moving to get up from my seat. "But you'll have to buy me another drink first."
Not even five minutes later, Rajhi has me pinned up against the wall in the back stall of the bar bathroom, all thoughts of another drink completely forgotten. Oddly enough, once the idea was proposed, we were both all too eager to follow through with it.
And fucking hell, he's good at this. Neither of us have lost any clothes, yet somehow, he's already driving me absolutely mad, running teasing touches over my hip, on the underside of my breast, along my waist - he's fucking everywhere. It's got to be the liquor that's doing it, but I absolutely can't get enough of him as I pull him even closer, tasting the whisky on his tongue.
I thread my fingers into his hair, knocking the loosely-wrapped hair tie out entirely so that his hair comes tumbling back to his shoulders - and I can't help but laugh into the kiss when I hear the hair tie hit the wall opposite us.
I'm particularly grateful that I chose to wear a dress tonight as his hands slide up my thighs, making the fabric bunch up at my hips. There's fewer layers to worry about this way.
There's a voice in the back of my head screaming something about consequences, but I very quickly shut it up. This is a one-time thing only, and there's something surprisingly gratifying about doing something I probably shouldn't.
He starts making his way down my neck with his lips, and when he hits a spot that makes me gasp, he chuckles into my skin. I'd be annoyed with his cockiness if I wasn't so damn turned on by it right now.
After a moment there, he drops to his knees, and uses that movement to pull my knickers down too in one fluid motion. I step out of them almost immediately and he takes me by surprise by pulling my left leg over his shoulder.
It's almost funny, because I certainly wouldn't have put him as the type to do this in a one-night-stand situation. I would've pinned him as the type to receive and not reciprocate, if anything.
"You sure about this?" he asks, and I look down at him in my fantastically unsteady position to see him watching me with that same intensity from earlier.
But for fuck's sake, if there was ever a moment for me to be having second thoughts about this, it sure the fuck isn't now.
"Shut up and go down on me, you asshole."
He smirks at that, tightening his grip on my hips. "Nice to know you dirty-talk the same way you Quidditch-talk."
There's a retort on the tip of my tongue, but Rajhi very quickly follows through with my instructions, and my ability to form coherent sentences is absolutely smashed to fucking pieces.
I wake up the next morning with, miraculously, only the mildest of hangovers, my body humming with the mix of soreness and satisfaction that only comes from truly fantastic sex.
I bring my arms above my head and stretch, and the feel of the silk sheets against my body alerts me to the fact that I'm not in my own bed.
Huh. That's odd - I don't usually stay overnight when I sleep with a guy. It saves him from thinking there's any chance of it becoming a repeat thing, and it saves me from having to break that news to his face the next morning.
Then the events from the night before come back to me in a rush, and I remember that the bloke responsible for my current state is my fucking teammate.
Perhaps... this wasn't my best drunken decision of all time.
I'm wearing nothing but a Wimbourne Wasps T-shirt that, were it not for the distinct smell of whatever laundry detergent Rajhi uses, I'd mistake for one of my own. My dress, shoes, and underthings are all strewn across the floor, the only chaos in an otherwise neat room.
It's funny - I've been to Rajhi's flat before, but never in his bedroom. And it's decidedly different from what I'd expect of him. It's minimalistic and orderly, the muted splashes of blue and green around the room not at all in stylistic sync with the fact that the bloke's almost always in a leather jacket with his hair slicked back.
Most notably, I realise that Rajhi's not here. Which means he's probably out in the living room or kitchen. Merlin, I hope he's not making breakfast for me or some shit like that. He should know me better - he's the one responsible for my opinions on morning-afters, anyways.
I grab my dress off the floor and slide my knickers back on, fully prepared to act totally natural when I see him, before Flooing back to my flat.
But when I get out into the main area of Rajhi's flat, I discover that he's not here either. His flat's totally empty - he's gone.
I can't figure out why I feel slightly disappointed at that revelation - if anything, I should be happy that I'm avoiding the awkwardness of a morning-after interaction altogether. But that logic does little to fix the sinking feeling in my stomach, as I grab a handful of Floo powder from his fireplace and head back home.
I don't see Rajhi at all until two days later at practice.
And even then, he's weirdly distant. When he shows up to the team meeting, he doesn't take his usual seat next to me - instead, he sits on the opposite side of the room, and pays way more attention to Richards than he ever usually does.
I never thought I'd miss getting snapped at by my captain for laughing at an inappropriate joke in the middle of an otherwise serious meeting, but the whole affair is so much more boring without Rajhi by my side.
That tension, however, disappears entirely once we're on the pitch. As soon as we're airborne, everything's fine and no one would ever know something's changed between the two of us.
Although, honestly, I didn't even know something had changed between the two of us.
But our Quidditch is entirely unaffected by Rajhi's weird behaviour - and honestly, I'd expect nothing less. It's 'professional Quidditch' for a goddamn reason, and I'd be royally pissed at him if he let his weird moodiness affect our game.
I keep thinking he'll get over it eventually and everything will just jump back to normal, but suddenly two weeks have passed and he's still keeping his distance from me.
It's driving me absolutely fucking mental.
And I want nothing more than to sit down with him and clear the air, but he won't fucking let me do it. He's never alone, which makes it so much harder to just pull him aside. And every time I've tried, he's given me some bullshit excuse and weaseled his way out of it.
I tell Abby about this when we're dress shopping for the stupid annual Ministry gala that I'm somehow required to go to each year - despite the fact that no one in my immediate family even works for the Ministry, for fuck's sake - and her response is almost exactly what I expect. She tells me to find a way to talk with him and figure out where his head is at, which is so much easier said than done.
It's easy for her to say that - she lives with the only bloke she ever has to resolve issues with. It's so much simpler to solve problems with someone who can't fucking run away from you.
But even so, I manage to follow her advice a few days later; Rajhi and I are the last two to leave the pitch after practice, which conveniently translates to us being the last ones into the locker room.
I shower as quick as possible and don't even bother brushing my hair afterwards, determined to catch him before he leaves.
It's pretty brilliant timing, that, because when I walk out of the women's locker room, Rajhi's leaving the men's one. He's clearly a little surprised to see me - I think he expected he'd leave significantly faster than me.
"Hey, can we talk?" I ask immediately, moving to block him from exiting the common area.
"Er, not really," he replies, attempting to brush me off yet again. "I'm late for… something."
But this time, I'm not taking no for an answer.
"You're lying," I say, calling his bluff. "You're just trying to get out of talking to me."
"There's nothing for us to talk about," he responds stubbornly, and I almost roll my eyes at that. The fact that he's being such an arse about this indicates that there is most definitely something for us to talk about.
He tries to duck past me, but my reflexes are just as quick as his, and I grab him by the arm.
"Don't you fucking dare run away from me," I warn, my voice coming out more dangerous than intended.
His eyes go wide at that, and I watch as a series of facial expressions betray a whole host of thoughts, eventually ending in resignation.
"Okay, fine," he says. "Let's talk."
"We can go back to my place?" I offer. The alternatives involve having this conversation here, in the middle of the team common area, or going back to Rajhi's place, which feels a bit like returning to the scene of the crime - so my flat seems like the best option at this point.
"Er, sure, we can do that."
I grab his hand to Side-Along him back to my flat; at this rate, I still don't trust him not to run away again, so forcing him along with me is the safest option.
"Tea?" I offer, as soon as we find ourselves standing in the middle of my flat. He shakes out of my grip on his hand almost immediately, and goes to sit on my couch.
"Nah," he replies. My next bet would normally be to offer him a drink of the alcoholic variety, but given where that got us last time around, it's probably safer if both of us are completely sober for this conversation.
I sit on the other side of the couch, turning to face him, and I figure I might as well cut straight to the point. "You're avoiding me - you have been ever since that night two weeks ago. You practically run in the other direction any time I try to talk to you off the pitch, and even now, you won't even fucking look at me. And you've given me absolutely zero fucking explanation for it - so I'd really like one now, if you don't mind."
He looks rather taken aback by that, although I don't really know why. He should be used to the fact that I don't typically mince words by now. "I - er - I - "
When he trails off, I try again. "Do you regret it?"
This time, his response comes much quicker. "Yes."
He must see the way my face falls, because he's quick to tack on a, "Not like that."
And then he stands up and turns away from me, running his fingers through his hair frustratedly and pulling out the hair tie in the process. They freeze there after a moment, and I have to remind myself not to think about how it felt when it was my hands doing that.
"Fuck," he says after a moment, "things were so much easier when I just… didn't feel anything."
A weird feeling settles in the pit of my stomach, but I nudge him to continue anyways. "What do you mean?"
He laughs at that, but it's entirely hollow. "You're really going to make me fucking say it out loud, aren't you?"
I don't say anything to that, so he continues, finally turning back around - although he's still not looking directly at me. "I regret sleeping with you because I like you - way more than I fucking should, if we're being honest - and that night did absolutely fuck-all to help me get over it."
Oddly enough, my very first thought in response to that is that it turns out Abby was right after all. My second one is just a long, drawn-out 'fuuuuuuuck.'
The third thought, which doesn't hit me until a few moments later, is the one I end up vocalising. "If that's true, why the fuck did you just up and leave me alone in your flat the next morning?"
"Because I woke up and absolutely fucking panicked," he replies. "Every other time I've woken up with a girl in my bed, it's just kind of been like… yeah, okay, that was a fun night, but I'd be totally happy never seeing you again. And with you, it wasn't like that. At all. And I had no idea what the hell to do."
He does his best to pull his hair back up while he's talking, but it's much messier this time. "And I knew you didn't want it to mean anything more than a one-night-stand, but there was no way in hell I was going to be able to look at you when you woke up and not get all emotional and shit, so I left."
"Where the hell did that come from?" I ask. "When the fuck did you just randomly start fancying me?"
"Fuck if I know," he answers. "It's not like I woke up one day was was just like 'huh, you know what, I'm gonna catch feelings for my teammate today.' But it happened anyways - gradually at first, and then it just bitch-slapped me all at once."
He laughs hollowly again. "I'm so fucking gone on you, it's absurd."
I open my mouth to respond, but my brain still hasn't put together a coherent response yet, so the result is that nothing comes out.
"I know you're not into me like that, I get it," he replies.
"It's not you," I tell him, almost automatically.
He gives me a look that suggests that that line is definitely not going to work on him.
"I mean, it is, but not entirely," I try again, hoping to explain myself better this time. "I just - even if I was into you like that, there's - you know what the National Team selection committee is like. I can't put my dream at risk - not when I'm so close to it. And it... it'd put you at risk too, because Reynolds seems to think they'll probably only take us as a pair. I can't focus on anything but Quidditch right now."
"Well, the selection committee is a bunch of sexist assholes," he complains, and hearing that phrase come out of his mouth almost makes me laugh - if the present situation weren't quite so serious, I probably would. "Like half the National Team is married - it's fucked up that somehow the rules are different for you."
I shrug. "When I get to the point in my career where I can change things, I will. But for now, I'm playing by their rules to get myself into that position to begin with."
Rajhi suddenly looks down at his feet and sticks his hands into the pockets of his joggers. "And even that wouldn't change the fact that you don't feel the same way to begin with."
I feel a rush of guilt at that, but I have to remind myself that I don't owe romantic feelings to anyone. "No, I don't," I answer softly.
"I… yeah, I figured," he replies resignedly.
There's a long, awkward silence between the two of us - it seems neither of us can quite figure out what to say next.
Finally, I bite the bullet. "So, where does that put us?" I ask, realising that I'm actually incredibly nervous about the answer. "You're… you're one of my best friends, and I really don't want to lose you over a dumb, drunk decision."
"You won't lose me," he says, looking at me again. "I just… I need some time. And I need some space - I can get over you and things will be fine between us again, but it… I can't do it if we're spending every moment together. I just need time."
Strangely enough, the idea of Rajhi 'getting over me' leaves that same heavy feeling in my stomach as finding out he fancied me did. But I want to respect his wishes - and he's being pretty damn respectable about this whole thing instead of acting like I owe him reciprocated feelings, which is what I would've expected him to do when we first met - so I find myself nodding.
"I'll be here whenever you're ready," I tell him. "I miss my partner-in-crime - antagonising Richards is nowhere near as fun alone."
At that, he finally cracks a small smile. "I miss my partner-in-crime too. Don't worry, we'll be back to ruining Richards' captain meetings and wingmanning for each other soon enough."
"Good," I reply, and I instinctively get up to give him a hug, but stop myself. He's asked for space, and that's definitely not it.
So instead, I'm stuck standing next to the couch awkwardly. "I - I'll see you at practice tomorrow?"
"Yeah," he says, grabbing his stuff off my counter. "I'll see you, Weasley."
He sees himself out, and as soon as he leaves and shuts the door, I sit back down on the couch, dropping my head into my hands.
I should probably be happy that we've finally resolved things and that we're seemingly on a path to get back to normal, but instead, I just feel strangely empty.
