Hey everyone! This story was brought to you by Floristry: The Meaning of...assignment on Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Also for Procrastination Thread Truth or Dare on The Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition.
Floristry: The Meaning of...assignment: Task 7 - Write about a show of gratitude going wrong.
Procrastination Thread Truth or Dare: Dare - Write a fic featuring Oliver Wood, a feather, and a cup of coffee.
Warning for fluff in the extreme measures. Word count is 1,636 words. I hope you all enjoy Oliver's Worst Night Ever more than he did.
Oliver didn't understand where this situation had gone wrong. He'd only been trying to plan a nice appreciation dinner for his boyfriend Percy. Nothing more, nothing less. But as he looked over the burned meal and melted candies he wondered where it had all gone wrong.
His day had started off like usual. Curled up in bed with his number one fan, happy and content. But that was as far as the usual went because he felt something light and fluffy tickle his nose. Opening his eyes he found a feather lying on the end of his nose. What was a feather doing on his nose?
"Here, let me get that for you," Percy said, gently plucking the feather from his lover's face. "I guess I should have listened to last night. The feathers did get everywhere." Percy chuckled as he rolled towards the side of the bed and put his feet to the floor.
"Feathers?" Oliver asked confused.
"Don't tell me you don't remember."
Oliver could somewhat remember Percy entering their room dressed as French maid for some reason. He just didn't remember why.
"I...I…"
"You don't remember. I guess that's what the best boyfriend in the world gets for trying to spice up our sex life."
Oliver blushed. He hadn't thought that they were having any problems in that department. He didn't have any problems or complaints about it. If Percy did he certainly didn't remember the redhead bringing them to him.
"Why don't I go get you a fresh cup of coffee and see if that helps you think better?" Percy said, walking out of their room.
Oliver knew he was in trouble now. For sure. He knew it was bad when your lover had to remind you that he was trying to spice up your sex life. He knew he'd better come up with a plan and fast. Before Percy blew a gasket.
That's when it hit him. The most perfect idea ever. He would cook Percy a home cooked meal. One of those romantic types you see in Muggle movies. With the box of chocolate, candle light, music, and wine. He was so busy planning out the meal he and what he was going to wear that he didn't hear Percy come into the room until he cleared his throat right next to Oliver.
"I'm sorry," Oliver said, taking the cup from Percy's hand. "I was just planning something special for you."
"For me?"
"Yup."
"What are you planning?"
"I can't tell you that. It's going to be a surprise. You just head off to work and leave the surprises to me."
Percy gave Oliver a wary look before shrugging and going to get dressed for the day. The Minister did have big plans for him. Looking at the clock he realized that he was going to be late. So he threw on the first sensible thing and raced out the door.
"Okay, Oliver, let's start on operation make Percy happy," he said, taking a sip out of the cup of coffee in front of him.
After dressing for the day and finding the recipe that Percy had always talked about wanting to try, Oliver headed to the grocery store. He stared in awe at all the food stuff the Muggles had. He'd never even heard of half of the stuff that was on the shelves.
"Focus," Oliver said to himself. "We have to make this dinner perfect for Percy. We don't want him to think he's being taken for granted."
A few Muggle passersby gave him strange looks as he talked to himself. Maybe Muggles just didn't talk to themselves that much. Oliver had heard talking to oneself brought creativity out in the person. He was sure hoping so. He would need a boat load of creativity if he was going to make the dinner perfect.
"Ground Beef," Oliver said, reading off his list, "assorted vegetables, potatoes." He read to himself silently as he approached the meat department.
The department looked like it had been picked clean of all the good stuff. He was planning on doing ground turkey instead of ground beef but there wasn't any. There didn't even seem to be enough ground beef for the recipe in his hand.
"Can I help you, sir?" a butcher asked, walking over Oliver.
"Is this all the ground beef you've got?" Oliver asked, watching the man curiously. He'd never in his life seen all the ground beef, or meat for that matter, be wiped out like that before. "You don't happen to have more in the back, do you?"
"This is it," the butcher replied.
"Drats! I don't think that will be enough for the recipe I'm trying to do."
"Here let me see." The butcher held out a hand for the recipe clutched in Oliver's hand. Once Oliver had handed it over he scanned the ingredient list. "That should be enough of the meat but think you might have a bit of a problem with the rest of the list."
"Why?"
"Our last shipment is late and won't get here until tomorrow."
Oliver nodded and thank the man for at least helping him with the meat. He guessed that he'd have to make due with what was on hand. Walking to the produce department, he saw that it hadn't fared any better than the meat department had. Worse of all, the only thing on his list they had the right amount of was the potatoes.
"I guess we can throw in a bit of these," Oliver said picking up some mushrooms. "And a bit of these," He picked up a green squash and yellow one. "Maybe some tomatoes?"
It was on his way to the check out that he saw the big beautiful heart shaped box of chocolates. Percy liked chocolates, right? He would love this box. Picking it up he put it on top of his basket, he looked at the basket and thought there was something missing. What dinner was complete without dessert?
Racing to the bakery department of the store he grabbed one of his own favorites. A fruit tart. Then he started to head back to the checkout line.
"I don't think Perce is going to be too happy about this," Oliver said to himself, as sipped out of a cup coffee he'd made himself upon returning home. He looked around at all the ingredients he'd bought for his recipe. Now to start cooking.
He had no problem whatsoever getting the vegetables cooked to where they were supposed to be. They turned out more perfect than he could imagine. After all, wasn't the saying brown food was good?
The potatoes got a bit over and were much more harder to mash than they should have been. But he finally got them smashed perfectly. Spooning everything into a bowl he tossed it all into the oven which he'd preheated to 375 degrees. A bit higher than the recipe called for but he wanted to get the dinner done in for Percy to get home.
Rubbing his hands together, he started to decorate the room. Lights strung across the room from Christmas, flower petals strewn across the floor, and the table. The table was the most romantic thing Oliver could possibly think of. He used their fancy tablecloth that Percy's Mum had given them. The candles that Percy had insisted on buying during that one power outage last Christmas time were set on the table next, Right next to the candles would be the wine and box of chocolates.
"Where is the box of chocolates?" he asked himself. He sniffed the air as the smell of acrid smoke caught his attention. "Is something burning?"
He looked towards the oven and sighed in relief. It wasn't coming from there. He looked towards the stove and cursed a blue streak. The beautiful box of chocolates was on the stove and the box was starting to melt.
Racing over he grabbed the box off the stove. Cursing even more when the melted plastic like cardboard burned his hands. He tossed the box onto the tile counter top and put his burned fingers under cold water.
"Better see the damage to the candies," he said, flipping the box open with his fingertips. His eyes welled up with tears at the sight of the bubbling chocolate goo that met his eyes. So far nothing seemed to be going right.
Again, like a sign from above that nothing good goes unpunished, the acrid smell of smoke rose in the apartment. Oliver knew that nothing was on the stove. He'd made sure of that after the chocolate fiasco.
"No," he sighed, looking over at the oven where a thick cloud of smoke was coming out of said instrument of cookery.
Oliver was just dealing with the fire when the door opened. He just couldn't take it anymore. He'd only been trying to show how much he loved and appreciated Percy. That was it. But God, or Merlin, or some combination of the two were hell bent on stopping him. He slumped into a chair at the table, looking at his burnt shepherds pie, his puddle of gooey chocolates, and the melted ice in the bucket of wine. How had it all gone wrong?
"Busy day, dear?" Percy asked, as he sat across from Oliver.
"I don't want to talk about it," Oliver said, on the verge of tears. "Dinner is ruined and I just want to go lie down and sleep."
"Why don't we go out for dinner and tomorrow evening I can teach you how to make a proper shepherd's pie?"
Oliver nodded. That night he made a promise to himself that he would always show his appreciation for this man. But it would never again go as wrong as tonight did.
I hope you all enjoyed Oliver's Worst Night Ever mor than he did and as much as I enjoyed writing it.