Written for Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry (challenges & assignments)

Muggle Art - Task #3: Still Life with Candlestick (Fernand Leger) - write about someone enjoying something considered simple.

Prompt: Auction Day 3 Auction 4 - (trait) Blunt

Summary: Percy doesn't know how to relax on his week off. His husband, Oliver, is going to make him relax with a visit to a beach house.

W/C: 955 words

I'm your idiot

"Percy! Are you even listening to me?" Oliver said in exasperation.

"Listening, but not hearing," Percy muttered. He continued typing a text on his mobile phone, thumbs moving frantically.

"Are you sure you don't want to be a Muggle? You're glued to that thing lately." Oliver reached across the kitchen table for it. Percy turned in his seat, moving his arms away without taking his eyes off the device. "Percy!"

"Oliver! This is the only way I have communication with the prime minister. This is work. Stop being a child about this situation." Percy continued to stare at the phone, a deep frown forming on his features.

"Percy Ignatius Weasley!" Oliver stood up, no longer smiling at his husband. "This is our week off together, put that phone down or I'm divorcing you."

With a deep sigh, Percy locked the phone and placed it face down on the table. "One day you might actually have to follow through on that threat," he said with a smirk to Oliver.

Oliver raised an eyebrow. He folded his arms and said, "Get upstairs and pack a bag. We're going to the beach."

"We are not," Percy replied indignantly, hand already reaching for the phone.

"Don't you dare, Weasley! I'm not playing. We're celebrating our anniversary whether you like it or not. Now pack a bag."

They stared at each other challengingly. Oliver didn't flinch. Percy didn't blink. But Percy knew that he owed his husband this after missing their last anniversary due to a work trip.

"Okay, fine. But I'm going to be miserable," he said firmly when Oliver couldn't help himself and smiled brightly. "I hate the beach." He stood up, scowling at Oliver's happy face. "I don't like you very much right now."

"That nothing new. Now go pack, love!"

The Beach House

Percy dropped his bag with a heavy thud on the wooden floor. "It's a couch and a bed."

The small square room had a large double bed in the corner, with a large set of glass sliding doors taking over one wall, and a large couch in the centre of the room facing a small fireplace set into a brick chimney. Bookshelves ran along the top of the walls, stuffed full of books, and a square table for two sat against the wall by the front door they were stood at. The net curtains had been tied back to reveal the house sat on the beach, with wooden stairs leading down to the straw-coloured sand, and the sea looking delightfully blue in the sunshine.

"It's rustic," Oliver said cheerfully, walking over to the bed.

"No, rustic is for the countryside. This is… less than basic." Percy ran a finger over the little table, sand coming away on his fingertip. "It's dirty."

"It's romantic," Oliver insisted as he tested the bounce of the bed.

When Percy hadn't moved from the door, his eyes still slowly finding the flaws in the beach house, Oliver got up with a sigh. He went to him, pulling at Percy's arms so they were now over his shoulders and wrapped his hands around Percy's waist.

"Come on, Perce. It's for two nights. Where's your passion gone?" Oliver placed a kiss on Percy's cheek. He smiled against his skin when he felt Percy's hands twitch at the contact. "Look at all these books you can read" –another twitch– "no distractions" –the hands wrapped around Oliver's neck– "you've always wanted more time to read."

"You make an excellent argument," Percy said with a sigh, leaning into Oliver's kisses as they trailed down to his neck.

The Campfire

They sat on a large log, a small campfire was burning in front of them, anything past the light it threw off was dark, except for the light in their beach house and the stars in the sky. The waves could be heard crashing and the couple they'd met early laughing in their own beach house a few metres away.

Percy snuggled under Oliver's arm, watching him toast a marshmallow on a stick with his other hand. It had been a long time since he'd felt this relaxed. And also just as long since they'd relaxed together like this, with their jobs constantly pulling them in different directions. A cool breeze blew across his face, giving him a little relief from the heat of the fire. He wouldn't tell Oliver, but he was in heaven.

"I told you that if you put the effort in to relaxing, then it would be easy once you'd started," Oliver whispered in his ear, his lips so close that he could feel his smile.

Percy snorted. "You got lucky." He gave Oliver a little nudge. "I still hate the beach. I've got sand where it shouldn't belong."

Oliver laughed. It was Percy's favourite thing about Oliver, the way his laugh was warm and vibrant and like he held a world full of secrets in it that was only for Percy to know.

"You're burning the marshmallow," Percy pointed out when Oliver started to kiss his neck for the hundredth time that day.

Oliver swore as he pulled it away from the flame to stare at its charred remains. "It's not burnt… it's just enthusiastically crisp!"

"Is that what you think?" Percy said with smirk.

"Of course," Oliver said, dumping the confectionary into the sand.

"I think you're an idiot," Percy teased.

"I think I'm an idiot too, this is not news." Oliver picked up the blanket from their laps and swung it round to cover them both over their shoulders, hugging him tightly with both arms. "But I'm your idiot and you have to live with that."

"Wouldn't change it for the world," Percy said, kissing Oliver deeply.