"We're not on a date, are we?"
"What?" Percy asks, jerking his head up from his plate of lasagna. "Why would we be on a date?"
"It's just- you know, two single gay guys, restaurant, Saturday evening... I'm just making sure," Oliver says. He looks supremely uncomfortable.
"No. No, we are definitely not on a date. Why would… it's not as if we, you know, went to this restaurant for a reason and got all dressed up and everything. We just went to a Quidditch game, and then we-" A realization dawns. "That does sound very date-like when you say it like that, doesn't it?"
Oliver nods.
Percy bites the inside of his cheek, then realizes what he's doing and forces himself to stop. It's a bad habit, one picked up during the war, when it seemed that all he did was pick up nervous tick after nervous tick.
He turns back to the lasagna, which at some point during the last three minutes has stopped looking at all appetizing, and hopes that this conversation will go away if he ignores it for long enough.
"I mean," Oliver says, "it could be. A date. If you wanted."
Percy forces a laugh. "Are you asking me out?"
"I think so. I'm not… I mean, you're smart and interesting and attractive and I haven't gotten laid in nearly a year, what do I have to lose?"
"Our friendship," Percy says, raising an eyebrow. "And we live in the same flat, it could be incredibly awkward."
"I'm not saying we… have to, it's just. Yes, I'm asking you out. Percy, wanna go to the Ballycastle Bats game next weekend with me?"
"Are you saying you won't go with me if I say no?" Percy's beginning to enjoy himself, just the slightest bit, which is pretty cruel of him, he knows. But he did live with Fred and George for the first eighteen years of his life, and their bad influence can never be overestimated.
"Is that a yes?"
"Yeah, alright."
"Oh, good." Oliver lets out a long breath. "And you can stop looking so amused, one of us had to say it and it's not my fault I'm twice the man you are."
Percy grins at him. "It was pretty funny, though."
"It was not funny."
"Right, right, my mistake. It was not in the least funny."
Oliver laughs. "You're kind of a prat, you know."
"Yeah, I know."