Cumulonimbus
Title: Cumulonimbus.
Pairing: Minseok/Sehun.
Rating: PG-13.
Word Count: 2087w.
Disclaimer: The EXO kids own themselves, I just wrote this.
Warnings: Slight cursing, failed angst.
Summary: There will be no pity parties on Minseok's watch.(HP!AU).
A/N: Originally written for minseokful, here. Mostly unbetaed.
It is pouring. Droplets of water is falling from the sky, leaving everything in its path wet. It has been raining for hours, and by the look of the dark clouds. It's not ending anytime soon.
Sehun is drenched to the bone. It has been hours since he last felt dry, and it's like he can smell the cold creeping up on him. His emerald green Quidditch robe is hanging heavily onto his thin frame, weighing him down, tiring him out faster. The membrane charm Soojung had used on all their brooms was helping some, but it was still a task of its own to remain seated on the broom.
Yifan has gathered two of the reserve players, just in case. According to Professor Donghae, this was one of the worst storms in Hogwarts' history. Apparently, there had been a monsoon a hundred years or so earlier, but they hadn't played Quidditch on that day. However, to quote his great captain Wu Yifan: “There's no way anything can stop Quidditch!”
He was right.
And so, Sehun and the rest of the Slytherin House team are out in the storm, playing this Quidditch match like their lives depends on it. It does, to them. They have to beat Ravenclaw so they can advance in the house cup and play the next match against Gryffindor. Having lost to Hufflepuff in the first game of the season, Yifan had worked them to the grave to make sure it wouldn't happen again.
They're in the lead, for now. Slytherin's score is 80, while Ravenclaw is following with 70 points. Nothing is settled, nothing is final, nothing is safe until Sehun has the tiny, walnut-shaped golden ball clutched safely in his hands. Only then will he rest, only then will his team rest.
Sehun is circling slowly around the Quidditch pitch, a good twenty meters above the rest of the players. He needs to concentrate, to have the entire stadium under him so he can focus on looking for the snitch. The rain drips down from his hood as Sehun hunches over his broom, eyes searching the sky for Ravenclaw's seeker, Sanghyuk. Even though Sehun can’t see the snitch, there’s a chance Sanghyuk can, but he's nowhere to be seen.
“Sehun watch out!” roars Myungsoo from somewhere underneath him. The words are ripped out of his mouth and Sehun barely hears it in time to dodge the angry bludger, hair ruffling from the impact of the bludger missing his face by mere inches. He quickly does a couple of loops just to be sure he managed to get rid of the bludger, and sees Sunyoung, the tiny Ravenclaw beater, grin mischievously up at him.
In all the grayness of the downpour, something catches his eye. Sehun's pulse speeds up as his eyes see something resembling gold shining down there, flying towards the Slytherin goal in a high speed.
Deciding not to take any chances, Sehun dives down after it. He lies flat against the wet shaft of his broom - a Nimbus 3000, minimizing the air resistance, coaxing the broom to go the fastest it can. Sehun approaches it fast, and after mere seconds, he sees that it's not gold, but copper, and that it's not any of the balls at all, but a person. A person's hair, Kim Minseok's hair.
Sehun yelps as he pulls the broom back up, closing his eyes because this doesn't bode well. He's going to crash brutally into Minseok, and neither of them is coming from it with all limbs intact. Sehun brakes all he manages, muscles aching, until he stops. Seconds tick away before Sehun dares to open his eyes, but when he does, he immediately regrets it.
There are two purple cloaks, followed closely by three green ones approaching him fast. There's no way he'll be able to dodge them. His Nimbus is one of the newest models, sure, but no broom react at the same speed as a nerve. He has to get away before it ends in a mass collision.
So Sehun does the only thing he can do; he moves with them. His Nimbus reacts fast enough, but Sehun can still hear them approach him. He inhales sharply through his nose, teeth sinking down in his bottom lips as he begs his broom to go faster, faster.
Only when Yifan yells his name, does Sehun stop. Due to his high speed, Sehun didn't register Yifan's call before he was a good 50 meters away from the pitch, and when he turns his broom, heading back, his ears recognize the familiar sound of the horn, the tell-tale sign, informing them that the snitch has been caught.
Heaviness settles in Sehun's limbs, coiling low in his stomach. There is white noise in his ears and his vision is blurred. If it's from tears or the rain, nobody will be able to tell. Sehun's lower lip is trembling, so are his arms. His mind blanks out, and he can feel his broom losing height.
In the blurriness of his vision, he can see Sanghyuk's tall, lanky form being surrounded by people in purple cloaks. Kim Minseok with hair made out of pure, liquid copper is ruffling Sanghyuk's black hair. People are chanting Sanghyuk's name.
It should have been me, Sehun thinks, as he rolls off his broom, falling the last meter until his body collides with soft, wet grass. It should have been me.
How long Sehun stays there, lying in the grass, he doesn't know. To him it could have been hours, minutes, mere seconds. Darkness settles in the skies as the rain eases up. It doesn't stop raining, but the droplets aren't that many, or fall as fast anymore.
It's only when he starts trembling, not from exhaustion but from the cold, that Sehun forces himself back onto the broom, not bothering to walk the short distance back to the Quidditch pitch.
The Quidditch pitch is silent, empty as Sehun gets off his broom, throwing it over his shoulder. The arena that mere hours ago had played host to their entire student body was now eerily quiet. Sehun drags his feet over the grass, to the changing room the Slytherin team had changed in. All the way over, he begs, prays that there won't be a soul from his team there. Sehun doesn't know if he can stand seeing their faces.
There aren't any Slytherins in the changing room. Sehun sighs in relief as he makes his way over to the bench where he left his school robes and other belongings. He strips quickly, throwing his wet Quidditch kit into a hamper, leaving it for the house elves to pick up and clean.
He spends a long time in the shower, standing under the hot spray for eternities, wallowing in dark thoughts and guilt. The disappointment hurts. All he can think of is how he let his team down in a situation where they depended fully on him. It is only the seeker who can catch the snitch, and the game always end when the snitch is caught. The team that catches the snitch, more often than not, wins. Sehun knows this by heart, and yet. He doesn't know if he ever can meet the gazes of his teammates again.
The skin on his toes and fingertips have gone all wrinkly, looking like prunes, by the time Sehun steps out of the shower. He wraps an emerald green towel around his waist as he exits the room with the shower stalls, heading back into the changing room.
There's someone there now, but to Sehun's surprise, it's not a Slytherin.
“Sehun-ah.”
It's Minseok, Kim Minseok. The Ravenclaw house team's Captain and star chaser. He was the one who had scored 40 out of the 60 points Ravenclaw had gotten in the match earlier. Minseok looks at him expectantly.
Minseok, with his hair moist from the downpour, or a shower, wearing slacks that are too big on him, as well as a white shirt with sleeves pushed up to his elbows with his feets bare, looks like a kid. He looks younger than Sehun. On the Quidditch pitch he is fierce, a prime example of a good Quidditch player, but off the pitch he's nothing but soft.
That softness had been what Sehun had hated about him. Softness was for girls, babies, not for Quidditch players, he used to think. It had been that softness that had made Sehun fall in love with him.
The same second Sehun sits down next to Minseok, a purple towel falls over his head, and two small yet strong hands start to towel his hair dry. Sehun imagines how Minseok's face looks; lips pressed into a tight line, eyes intense.
“Don't be so hard on yourself,” Minseok says softly, hands now working tenderly on Sehun's head. His eyes are probably as soft as his voice, pink settling in his cheeks.
“I ruined it. I ruined everything,” Sehun mutters. The towel falls down onto his shoulders, and all Sehun sees is a small frown before Minseok uses the towel to drag him forward and press their lips together. Sehun lets out a little noise of surprise, but by the time he pulls himself together, Minseok already has pulled away.
“You ruined nothing! It was a team effort, and nobody is holding you responsible for the loss,” Minseok says firmly. Sehun's heart swells in his chest. He looks so fierce, eyebrows and the rest of his beautiful face shaped into a small frown, eyes filled with disbelief. To Sehun, he looks somewhat sad, perhaps upset.
“Stop frowning,” Sehun says silently, leaning forward to press a kiss against each of Minseok's eyebrows.
“I'll stop frowning when you stop blaming yourself when nobody else is,” Minseok snaps, but there's no real bite in his words. His frown ebbs away some, and Minseok speaks again. “Nobody is blaming you, Sehun. Please don't be so hard on yourself.”
“They should. I didn't do what I was supposed to. I let them down,” Sehun says tightly. The lump that rests in his lower abdomen is hurting. “I fucked up, hyung.”
Minseok is warm against his side. His small hand grabs Sehun's larger, lacing their fingers. Minseok hums.
“They were worried about you. I didn't see any anger on their faces. Disappointment? Yes, but what do you expect?” Minseok pauses when Sehun looks away, bangs falling into his eyes. Minseok sighs. “The important part here is that they're not disappointed because you didn't catch the snitch. They're disappointed in themselves, just like you are.”
Sehun's gaze falls to their entwined fingers.
“You see, they all blame themselves because you lost. Everyone is so focused on thinking that it's their fault because they screwed up, when what you really should do is congratulate each other on a well-played game. You're a team, and there's no I in team.”
Sehun looks at Minseok, and feels the warmth finally settle back into his bones. Minseok, who really should be in the Ravenclaw tower, celebrating their victory, instead of sitting here with a sore loser. Sehun appreciates it, he really, really does.
“I am proud of you, Sehun,” Minseok says fiercely, wrapping his arms around Sehun as he hugs him tightly. “Your team is too, and I really think you should go spend some time with them instead of moping around by yourself.”
“Yeah,” Sehun says slowly, nodding at Minseok. “Yeah I probably should.”
Minseok smiles back at him, warm, soft and lovingly.
“I can't believe we used to hate each other,” Sehun says later, when they both are dressed in their school uniforms. He grabs his bag and tosses it over one shoulder, offering his other hand to Minseok who accepts it gladly.
“Yeah, me neither,” Minseok agrees, tiptoeing so he can get tall enough to kiss Sehun quickly. They walk out of the dressing room hand in hand; gravel crunching under their feet, stars glowing above their heads.
“We better stop by the kitchen to get you something to eat,” Minseok says after a while, after they have walked up the lawn, the great Hogwarts castle appearing in front of them in all its glory.
Sehun looks at him.
“Nothing builds an appetite like getting your ass handed to you, right Sehun?”
“That's not funny, Minseok hyung!” Sehun protests, lashing out after Minseok. He is too quick for Sehun, dodging his long arms. Sehun curses loudly, chasing after Minseok.
Minseok just grins at him, eyes twinkling in the starlight.
if you find a spelling error please tell me and kick my ass
Pairing: Minseok/Sehun.
Rating: PG-13.
Word Count: 2087w.
Disclaimer: The EXO kids own themselves, I just wrote this.
Warnings: Slight cursing, failed angst.
Summary: There will be no pity parties on Minseok's watch.(HP!AU).
A/N: Originally written for minseokful, here. Mostly unbetaed.
It is pouring. Droplets of water is falling from the sky, leaving everything in its path wet. It has been raining for hours, and by the look of the dark clouds. It's not ending anytime soon.
Sehun is drenched to the bone. It has been hours since he last felt dry, and it's like he can smell the cold creeping up on him. His emerald green Quidditch robe is hanging heavily onto his thin frame, weighing him down, tiring him out faster. The membrane charm Soojung had used on all their brooms was helping some, but it was still a task of its own to remain seated on the broom.
Yifan has gathered two of the reserve players, just in case. According to Professor Donghae, this was one of the worst storms in Hogwarts' history. Apparently, there had been a monsoon a hundred years or so earlier, but they hadn't played Quidditch on that day. However, to quote his great captain Wu Yifan: “There's no way anything can stop Quidditch!”
He was right.
And so, Sehun and the rest of the Slytherin House team are out in the storm, playing this Quidditch match like their lives depends on it. It does, to them. They have to beat Ravenclaw so they can advance in the house cup and play the next match against Gryffindor. Having lost to Hufflepuff in the first game of the season, Yifan had worked them to the grave to make sure it wouldn't happen again.
They're in the lead, for now. Slytherin's score is 80, while Ravenclaw is following with 70 points. Nothing is settled, nothing is final, nothing is safe until Sehun has the tiny, walnut-shaped golden ball clutched safely in his hands. Only then will he rest, only then will his team rest.
Sehun is circling slowly around the Quidditch pitch, a good twenty meters above the rest of the players. He needs to concentrate, to have the entire stadium under him so he can focus on looking for the snitch. The rain drips down from his hood as Sehun hunches over his broom, eyes searching the sky for Ravenclaw's seeker, Sanghyuk. Even though Sehun can’t see the snitch, there’s a chance Sanghyuk can, but he's nowhere to be seen.
“Sehun watch out!” roars Myungsoo from somewhere underneath him. The words are ripped out of his mouth and Sehun barely hears it in time to dodge the angry bludger, hair ruffling from the impact of the bludger missing his face by mere inches. He quickly does a couple of loops just to be sure he managed to get rid of the bludger, and sees Sunyoung, the tiny Ravenclaw beater, grin mischievously up at him.
In all the grayness of the downpour, something catches his eye. Sehun's pulse speeds up as his eyes see something resembling gold shining down there, flying towards the Slytherin goal in a high speed.
Deciding not to take any chances, Sehun dives down after it. He lies flat against the wet shaft of his broom - a Nimbus 3000, minimizing the air resistance, coaxing the broom to go the fastest it can. Sehun approaches it fast, and after mere seconds, he sees that it's not gold, but copper, and that it's not any of the balls at all, but a person. A person's hair, Kim Minseok's hair.
Sehun yelps as he pulls the broom back up, closing his eyes because this doesn't bode well. He's going to crash brutally into Minseok, and neither of them is coming from it with all limbs intact. Sehun brakes all he manages, muscles aching, until he stops. Seconds tick away before Sehun dares to open his eyes, but when he does, he immediately regrets it.
There are two purple cloaks, followed closely by three green ones approaching him fast. There's no way he'll be able to dodge them. His Nimbus is one of the newest models, sure, but no broom react at the same speed as a nerve. He has to get away before it ends in a mass collision.
So Sehun does the only thing he can do; he moves with them. His Nimbus reacts fast enough, but Sehun can still hear them approach him. He inhales sharply through his nose, teeth sinking down in his bottom lips as he begs his broom to go faster, faster.
Only when Yifan yells his name, does Sehun stop. Due to his high speed, Sehun didn't register Yifan's call before he was a good 50 meters away from the pitch, and when he turns his broom, heading back, his ears recognize the familiar sound of the horn, the tell-tale sign, informing them that the snitch has been caught.
Heaviness settles in Sehun's limbs, coiling low in his stomach. There is white noise in his ears and his vision is blurred. If it's from tears or the rain, nobody will be able to tell. Sehun's lower lip is trembling, so are his arms. His mind blanks out, and he can feel his broom losing height.
In the blurriness of his vision, he can see Sanghyuk's tall, lanky form being surrounded by people in purple cloaks. Kim Minseok with hair made out of pure, liquid copper is ruffling Sanghyuk's black hair. People are chanting Sanghyuk's name.
It should have been me, Sehun thinks, as he rolls off his broom, falling the last meter until his body collides with soft, wet grass. It should have been me.
How long Sehun stays there, lying in the grass, he doesn't know. To him it could have been hours, minutes, mere seconds. Darkness settles in the skies as the rain eases up. It doesn't stop raining, but the droplets aren't that many, or fall as fast anymore.
It's only when he starts trembling, not from exhaustion but from the cold, that Sehun forces himself back onto the broom, not bothering to walk the short distance back to the Quidditch pitch.
The Quidditch pitch is silent, empty as Sehun gets off his broom, throwing it over his shoulder. The arena that mere hours ago had played host to their entire student body was now eerily quiet. Sehun drags his feet over the grass, to the changing room the Slytherin team had changed in. All the way over, he begs, prays that there won't be a soul from his team there. Sehun doesn't know if he can stand seeing their faces.
There aren't any Slytherins in the changing room. Sehun sighs in relief as he makes his way over to the bench where he left his school robes and other belongings. He strips quickly, throwing his wet Quidditch kit into a hamper, leaving it for the house elves to pick up and clean.
He spends a long time in the shower, standing under the hot spray for eternities, wallowing in dark thoughts and guilt. The disappointment hurts. All he can think of is how he let his team down in a situation where they depended fully on him. It is only the seeker who can catch the snitch, and the game always end when the snitch is caught. The team that catches the snitch, more often than not, wins. Sehun knows this by heart, and yet. He doesn't know if he ever can meet the gazes of his teammates again.
The skin on his toes and fingertips have gone all wrinkly, looking like prunes, by the time Sehun steps out of the shower. He wraps an emerald green towel around his waist as he exits the room with the shower stalls, heading back into the changing room.
There's someone there now, but to Sehun's surprise, it's not a Slytherin.
“Sehun-ah.”
It's Minseok, Kim Minseok. The Ravenclaw house team's Captain and star chaser. He was the one who had scored 40 out of the 60 points Ravenclaw had gotten in the match earlier. Minseok looks at him expectantly.
Minseok, with his hair moist from the downpour, or a shower, wearing slacks that are too big on him, as well as a white shirt with sleeves pushed up to his elbows with his feets bare, looks like a kid. He looks younger than Sehun. On the Quidditch pitch he is fierce, a prime example of a good Quidditch player, but off the pitch he's nothing but soft.
That softness had been what Sehun had hated about him. Softness was for girls, babies, not for Quidditch players, he used to think. It had been that softness that had made Sehun fall in love with him.
The same second Sehun sits down next to Minseok, a purple towel falls over his head, and two small yet strong hands start to towel his hair dry. Sehun imagines how Minseok's face looks; lips pressed into a tight line, eyes intense.
“Don't be so hard on yourself,” Minseok says softly, hands now working tenderly on Sehun's head. His eyes are probably as soft as his voice, pink settling in his cheeks.
“I ruined it. I ruined everything,” Sehun mutters. The towel falls down onto his shoulders, and all Sehun sees is a small frown before Minseok uses the towel to drag him forward and press their lips together. Sehun lets out a little noise of surprise, but by the time he pulls himself together, Minseok already has pulled away.
“You ruined nothing! It was a team effort, and nobody is holding you responsible for the loss,” Minseok says firmly. Sehun's heart swells in his chest. He looks so fierce, eyebrows and the rest of his beautiful face shaped into a small frown, eyes filled with disbelief. To Sehun, he looks somewhat sad, perhaps upset.
“Stop frowning,” Sehun says silently, leaning forward to press a kiss against each of Minseok's eyebrows.
“I'll stop frowning when you stop blaming yourself when nobody else is,” Minseok snaps, but there's no real bite in his words. His frown ebbs away some, and Minseok speaks again. “Nobody is blaming you, Sehun. Please don't be so hard on yourself.”
“They should. I didn't do what I was supposed to. I let them down,” Sehun says tightly. The lump that rests in his lower abdomen is hurting. “I fucked up, hyung.”
Minseok is warm against his side. His small hand grabs Sehun's larger, lacing their fingers. Minseok hums.
“They were worried about you. I didn't see any anger on their faces. Disappointment? Yes, but what do you expect?” Minseok pauses when Sehun looks away, bangs falling into his eyes. Minseok sighs. “The important part here is that they're not disappointed because you didn't catch the snitch. They're disappointed in themselves, just like you are.”
Sehun's gaze falls to their entwined fingers.
“You see, they all blame themselves because you lost. Everyone is so focused on thinking that it's their fault because they screwed up, when what you really should do is congratulate each other on a well-played game. You're a team, and there's no I in team.”
Sehun looks at Minseok, and feels the warmth finally settle back into his bones. Minseok, who really should be in the Ravenclaw tower, celebrating their victory, instead of sitting here with a sore loser. Sehun appreciates it, he really, really does.
“I am proud of you, Sehun,” Minseok says fiercely, wrapping his arms around Sehun as he hugs him tightly. “Your team is too, and I really think you should go spend some time with them instead of moping around by yourself.”
“Yeah,” Sehun says slowly, nodding at Minseok. “Yeah I probably should.”
Minseok smiles back at him, warm, soft and lovingly.
“I can't believe we used to hate each other,” Sehun says later, when they both are dressed in their school uniforms. He grabs his bag and tosses it over one shoulder, offering his other hand to Minseok who accepts it gladly.
“Yeah, me neither,” Minseok agrees, tiptoeing so he can get tall enough to kiss Sehun quickly. They walk out of the dressing room hand in hand; gravel crunching under their feet, stars glowing above their heads.
“We better stop by the kitchen to get you something to eat,” Minseok says after a while, after they have walked up the lawn, the great Hogwarts castle appearing in front of them in all its glory.
Sehun looks at him.
“Nothing builds an appetite like getting your ass handed to you, right Sehun?”
“That's not funny, Minseok hyung!” Sehun protests, lashing out after Minseok. He is too quick for Sehun, dodging his long arms. Sehun curses loudly, chasing after Minseok.
Minseok just grins at him, eyes twinkling in the starlight.
if you find a spelling error please tell me and kick my ass