Take me as I am.
This may mean you'll have to be a stronger man.

-Meredith Brooks, "Bitch"

"If only the rest of you louts had half the determination Wood here has, we'd be the best team in the league." Perkins shakes his head and growls a little. "Finch, you're down this game. Wood's got goal." He raises his hands against the cries from the bench. "Don't give me a lot of crap about this, okay? We do things my way around here. And don't you forget that." He blows his whistle. "Now hit the field!"

Oliver wakes in a cold sweat. That's the fourth time during the week for this dream, and while he's not one to question too deeply, the eager reality of it sets in and he's restless. Somebody in the past told him that dreams really do come true and now Oliver is stuck here waiting. He rises and stretches, runs his hand through his short dark hair, and mutters about alcohol.

Looking at the red numbers on his clock, his eyes swim and his head throbs. How much did he have last night? Nine drinks? Ten? Things are faded and blank in places and he hates that, loathes not being in control of his memory. He can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times he's been drunk. Well, maybe two hands. But last night it was important. The liquor, that is. He just can't reach into that piece of time; it's like fishing in motor oil, and he can't fish.

He finally focuses his vision on the nightstand -- 8 a.m. Nova, his owl since graduation, taps her beak on the window and Oliver lets her in, unrolls the parchment from around her leg. Feeling thick, he reads aloud to himself. "Wood - the attack plan we talked about will never work, and Perkins would never let us anyway. Practice at three. - Muggins." Attack plan? He recalls a snatch of conversation:

"You'll just need to dive faster -- they won't expect it, trust me -- and then lift out of there. I'll pass up and you can shoot while the keeper's occupied."

"But what if their beaters are out in force?"

"They won't be, because our beaters will have them... taken care of."

"You've got such a head for strategy, Wood. I don't know how you do it. We ought to bring it to Perkins, right?"

"Maybe, Mug, but not 'till I know it works. Hey, pass my glass over, will you? I want another whiskey."

He's back in the present, massaging his aching head. The Miracle Hangover Cure is gone, and there won't be any more until his paycheck clears, and that could be weeks, what with the chaos at Gringotts.

He decides to just wing it, and grabs some Muggle aspirin and coffee, and some water, washes it all down and then gets on his stomach on the floor and does push-ups until he can't move his arms, then flips himself over, hooks his feet under the bed, and does situps until his abs threaten to pop off if subjected to any more stress. He pulls himself bodily back into bed, stretches his arms and abs and naps again. He'll run before lunch.

Oliver's in the air longest, which really pisses off Keeney, the captain, though Oliver can't figure out why. Oliver's always just been about harder/faster/higher than anybody else, it's just the way he is.

They run practice games, and Oliver's team always wins. Always. Which seems like a coincidence, because they split the starters and the reserves and it could be anybody's game. Oliver's team always wins. He's still a reserve, so whomever he plays with is pitted against the better keeper, but it doesn't matter.

"Fratley, Stewart, take the right wing and dive -- I mean hard. I want you almost on the ground. Clemson, keep the bludger off Mulwray any way you can. Any way, you hear? Everybody else just hold on and play it straight." Oliver looks up at his teammates in this scrimmage. "We've got 'em."

"Wood, look, we've played before." There is a hint of amusement in Stewart's voice. "It's not like we haven't come up with--"

Oliver cuts him off. "Stew, I get it. Just. Maybe try, once?" He does his best not to scream I just understand this stuff.

Fratley and Truman turn to each other and roll their eyes, a gesture Oliver notes but doesn't comment on. He'd rather just win. "Fine, Wood," says Mulwray, and they break huddle and mount up. Within moments, Oliver is tending the hoops all by his lonesome, but his voice can be heard cross-field in support: "Dammit, Fratley, that was right in front of you! Dive! Dive! Yard, behind you! Knock him off his broom!"

Oliver cheers as the other team's seeker falls, but sucks in his jubilation as he sees that Blaise has a single-hand grip on the handle of his broomstick.

They win, of course. Oliver's team always wins. Oliver's team always wins, he thinks, except when the players can't follow orders. He knows quidditch, knows it like he can't imagine not playing. It pulses through him, liquid snitch pumping away from and into his heart.

Fratley and Truman come up to him after, heads not hung, but a sliver of arrogance missing. They're completely full of "how?" and "where did you learn that?" and Oliver isn't telling. Wouldn't know how to tell even if he knew. Wouldn't expect them to understand even if he told. They're just other players, not Oliver.

Oliver hefts his broom and slips it up onto his shoulder. He walks toward the locker room and washes up. Three weeks to the first league game and Oliver is running mostly on coffee and adrenaline and quidditch. While the rest of the team will go home, Oliver will walk out the side door with them and slip around the side of the building and back into the stadium. He's still got about five hundred laps that he promised himself, and Oliver can't bring himself to break a promise.

He's on lap seventy-four and the sun is going down, with the lights in the stadium not about to turn on for a solo flier. "Lumos," he mutters, and clutches his lighted wand to the front of his broom. A little darkness never hurt anybody. He finishes at about eleven at night, and with his eyelids falling he disapparates.

When he puts himself to bed, he knows he did the right thing. Winning is most important, isn't it? After all, the game isn't as fun if you lose.

"If only the rest of you louts had half the determination Wood here has, we'd be the best team in the league." Perkins shakes his head and growls a little. "Finch, you're down this game. Wood's got goal." He raises his hands against the cries from the bench. "Don't give me a lot of crap about this, okay? We do things my way around here. And don't you forget that." He blows his whistle. "Now hit the field!"

Oliver knows he's dreaming, but then the game is going and he's whistling through the air, and heavily body-blocks the quaffle out of the way. He whips around just in time to avoid a bludger and he's off again, loyal protector of the goals. He barks out orders and the team moves through the game easily, sidestepping around the Montrose Magpies and virtually walking away with a victory. But he goes to bed that night and wakes up and it's actually the next day -- he's not dreaming.

Against Chudley later in the week, Oliver slams sidelong into McNabb, desperate to push the other man in the direction of the quaffle. "Faster!" he screams, "You're almost there -- dive, dive! Just three more inches!" And then McNabb's broom hits the ground too fast, and Oliver's staring in horror. "Throw, McNabb! Get it out!"

Yard flies by him and tells him to back off. "Give the bloke a rest! He flew into the bloody ground, and you're just all up about the ball?" He flies downward to keep the bludgers away from his injured teammate.

"Yard!" Oliver barks, "get back up here! Perkins is sending a sub -- we need you on Muggins at their goal, double-quick!" Game chatter is all shouts. Glaring, Yard flies to obey.

They win, of course. Oliver's team always wins, when his players do what he says.

He's bored one evening, after the sun's gone down and he's finished his circling of the stadium. Puddlemere is big, but not that big, and there's only one wizarding pub in town, always packed. He apparates in the cloak room -- flying's too risky through downtown Puddlemere -- and steps into the low-ceilinged room. Like the rest of the customers he keeps his head down as he looks for a seat.

The booths around the edge are mostly full, and as he's passing the third or fourth from the end he hears "didn't take any of this shit when we crushed Gryffindor in the finals. Fuck. Hogwarts. Three years since I left," and it's been three for Oliver, too, who knows immediately who's talking.

He turns to the table and says, "Flint."

The table's occupant looks him up and down and laughs a cold, mirthless laugh. "Oliver fucking Wood. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Puddlemere's my stomping ground, Flint, in case you didn't know. I fly for United."

"Really?" Marcus seems a bit surprised. "See you Saturday, then." He smiles, not exactly pleasantly.

Oliver looks at him. "What do you mean? Are you playing for Falmouth? It must be your first year because we beat them last year, and I didn't see you anywhere on the roster. What've you been up to since graduation? If you haven't been in the league..." Oliver trails off, aware that he may be in less-than-happy territory.

Marcus chuckles. "The little Gryffindor is just as pushy as ever. Whose business is it what I've been doing?" He takes a sip of the beer in front of him.

Oliver looks him in the face. "None of my business, but that's why I'm intrigued. Because you didn't do what you should've. You could have gone straight onto Falmouth. You were good."

"Were, nothing. I'm still playing, Wood. I just... left for a bit." Marcus is pointed in his mention of leaving. "I'm up with the Falcons now, since just after the Cup last year." He swirls his beer. "This stuff is crap. Eighteen was such a fucking overrated year." He shakes his head. "Anyway, what has little Mr. Overachiever done since graduation? Let me guess. You went straight to starting keeper on Puddlemere and that's where you've been ever since."

"No." Marcus snorts derisively. "I am now. But I wasn't then. I had to prove I wanted it. To win." Oliver looks Marcus straight in the eyes, a daunting task. "We always win when people do what I tell them."

"Yeah, well, join the club. I get so fucking frustrated with these guys who think winning isn't important. It's not like his arm isn't going to heal after the game." Marcus growls.

Oliver looks at him as though for the first time. "And you know things will go your way if people weren't so..."

Marcus finishes, "weak." Oliver stares.

The match on Saturday is brutal, players smashing into each other, but the United are coming out on top because they've been listening to Oliver longer than the Falcons have been listening to Marcus. Marcus tries to remedy that, flying swiftly, weaving between defenders in such a quicksilver movement that Oliver can barely keep his eyes on Marcus's broom's bristles.

Marcus is on a collision course with Oliver, hoping to push him bodily through the center hoop, taking the quaffle with him and scoring ten for Falmouth. Oliver braces, thinks twice and accelerates toward Marcus. "I'm not weak," he mouths as he crashes his shoulder into Marcus, snatching the quaffle and tossing it downfield to Keeney, who neatly places it in the left hoop.

Oliver doesn't offer any apology, but Marcus sees he's thought twice about it. "Never doubt," he mutters, and whisks himself off downfield to live up to his position in searching for the quaffle.

Puddlemere wins, 350-180, but the Falcons will be their opponents in the championship, as they're second in the League.

By unspoken agreement, Marcus and Oliver meet again at the pub in the evening, after the match is over. There are emotionless congratulations from Marcus, and then Oliver says the words. "You understand."

Marcus looks at Oliver, and the corner of Marcus's mouth turns up just a bit. "Understand what? How to win?" He says the last word wryly, as though savoring the irony on his tongue.

"No, I-- Just. You understand. You know what I mean." Oliver is a bit exasperated. He knows Marcus knows, and he's not used to being pulled around like this. "You get it. Why winning's so important, or-- that's not quite it, but you know."

"Yeah." Marcus is looking at him in a way that Oliver would never have suspected, not from the mighty Slytherin chaser."Wanna get out of here?"

Oliver's heard the words before, but not from a guy, mostly from girls he's politely turned down. It feels like a cheap pickup line, but he's so anxious to maybe not be so polite that it doesn't matter. "Where to?"

"You live here."

They pay and walk briskly out to the cloakroom, and Oliver picks up his broom. "There's room for two." Marcus comes close and follows him outside. At times Oliver feels Marcus's breath, hot and humid, on the back of his neck. "Up!" They mount.

Marcus is inexact but ferocious, throwing Oliver to the bed the instant they're in the door, and flipping off his robe. Suddenly there's a tongue in Oliver's mouth, and it doesn't feel the way he expected it to, soft and squishy and kind of gross, but rather it's firm and fits just right.

Oliver doesn't kiss well -- Marcus tells him so later -- but he chalks it up to lack of practice. After all, he thinks, it's not something you practice five hundred of every day. And then another tiny piece of himself says but maybe it could be.

Oliver's not sure what to do, so Marcus takes the lead and they make out, fairly sweaty and heavy, with Oliver picking up Marcus's shots and using them right back at him, honing this just like another skill he's gained on a broomstick.

There is no cuddling afterward -- when Marcus thinks they're done, he gets up and straightens his robe, a silly, mundane action that draws Oliver back to the present. "Aren't you staying, then?"

Marcus's answer is gruff and certain. "With the opposition?" He laughs a bit, more of the cold, humorless laugh he exhibited in the pub the first time. Oliver detects a bit of unsurety, and tries to pry, to pull him back toward the bed, but Marcus shakes off his uncertainty and disapparates.

Oliver wakes the next morning still tired, holdover from being unable to sleep. Adrenaline will do that to a body, he thinks. What a game. His routine doesn't allow for off-days, so within minutes he's doing pushups and crunches and then collapses back onto the bed.

He goes to practice a bit early, to do half his laps beforehand, saving himself some time. Yard is there early as well, mending a few bristles and polishing his broomstick. They exchange nods, and Yard looks up at Oliver with a grin and a cocked eyebrow. "Where'd you go off to last night? Damn good game, Wood. Thought you'd've come with us."

Oliver shrugs noncommitally. "Where'd you all go?" he asks, not much caring. He tunes Yard out as the older man goes on about Muggle pubs and Guinness. Oliver ties his quidditch robes and hefts his broom. During his laps he thinks of Marcus. He almost runs into the hoops at the visitor's side of the pitch. He shakes it off and finishes lap 314 just as the rest of the team is arriving. He makes a mental note to finish the rest later. Now he's got a scrimmage to win.

Marcus comes over that night as well, and this time he stays longer, past the make-out stage and towards a bit of intimacy. Marcus has never dealt with someone like Oliver before. "No, you've got to do it... sexy. You know." He slides his hand down Oliver's smooth bare chest, rubbing his abs as his hand approaches Oliver's cock. He doesn't actually touch, which is causing Oliver a lot of anguish, from the look of him.

He does leave, of course, because it wouldn't do for him to come from Oliver's flat in the morning.

The championship match is all everyone expects of it. The two best teams in the League going head-to-head, a clash of titans on broomsticks, as it were. Oliver trims the twigs at the end of his. He's not bouncing the way Keeney and Muggins are, or meditating with Clemson, but he's calmly stretching, rotating his torso and arching his back to prepare for a grueling game, which means lots of hunching over on his broom. The fire hasn't started to flow yet, but he'll feel it when the audience washes over him, when he touches the field with his feet, when he touches the sky with his hair.

Marcus kicks violently off the ground, sending up a clod of dirt and divoting the pitch. Oliver kicks off with a measured strength, a strength he won't conserve but won't waste either. The play is fairly standard for the first several hours, with no sight of the snitch. It's quite clear to the spectators that this game will go to the team whose seeker grabs the snitch, but the quaffle duels between Oliver Wood and Marcus Flint are simply the best quidditch seen in years.

The score mounts. 580-510, Falmouth. 730-720, Puddlemere. 970-950, Falmouth. Oliver glimpses the snitch out of the corner of his eye, the slight twitch giving Marcus the chance to lob the quaffle into the far right hoop, bringing the score to 980-950, Falmouth. Oliver doesn't much care, because he's thrust his arm in the direction of the little gold ball, and shouting. Within hundredths of a second, Mulwray is diving, looping to follow the flash of almost-invisible silver wings.

Oliver follows the snitch with his eyes, and then he's flying in that direction, sees Mulwray in front of him and hits -- Mulwray falls, tumbles, and Oliver shouts after him "grab the damn thing!" Mulwray flails, arms in seven directions at once, but his knuckles scrape the snitch and then his other arm is down in that direction and his fingers close on the golden ball as his shoulder hits the ground with a thud and a dull crack. Mulwray screams.

Oliver's team always wins, especially when they do what he tells them to. He's circling Mulwray, far enough away to observe without getting in the way. Oliver doesn't look up, and so doesn't see Marcus, looking down, mouth open, comprehending for the first time, and horrified.

After, when the fans have left the stadium, Marcus corners Oliver as the younger man is emerging from the Puddlemere locker room. He raises his voice. "Wood."

Oliver nods in Marcus's direction. "Flint. Good game. Want to go for a drink?"

Marcus looks at Oliver and says, flat out, "what happened up there?" And then, accusingly, "you knocked into him. You could have killed him." He doesn't raise his voice, but then he doesn't need to. He makes his point with a sledgehammer.

Oliver's eyebrows come together in an expression of puzzlement that would look damn sexy under any other light than that of the half-dim stadium, from the outside. "But, I had to. You have to win. Isn't that it? You know that, it's why we fit."

Marcus could swim in his disbelief. "You are so unbelieveably fucked up." He blinks a couple times, still looking at Oliver. Worry lines appear on his face, and he shakes his head in shock. "And you know what?" he chokes out, and Oliver waits, wants him to say it.

"Say it," Oliver tells him, because sometimes he has to tell them.

There's barely enough air to convey his message. "I can't get over you."