Work Text:
Funny thing, really — there was technically no rule against sex in the office. Not as such, anyway. Not specifically.
Of course, that was because there didn’t need to be. It was simply understood… one would think.
One would hope.
(In the same vein, you’d never find ‘Do not murder your colleagues (even when they are inconceivable twats)’ anywhere in the Code of Conduct. But most would still agree that it was frowned upon.)
If push came to shove, it would likely be classified as something like ‘conduct unbecoming.’ Or, perhaps, misuse of Ministry property (the sex bit, not the murder bit — though, possibly that as well).
The point was, it was so widely understood to be wrong that there was no need to say so. And the thought would never have crossed Percy’s mind.
All right, that was a lie. It had crossed his mind — but in the same way as the murder: a fleeting thought, when provoked, entirely for his own amusement, not something he’d actually like to get away with.
Percy and Audrey didn’t so much as kiss at work where anyone could see, and even then no more than a modest peck. They never sent flirtatious notes that might be intercepted. Percy was circumspect about where and how he allowed himself to place his hand on her when they arrived, left for the day, or took lunch together. And a stray ‘darling’ might sneak out, but only in the relative privacy of his own offices.
The way Percy saw it, any random person just come in from the street should be unable to tell that they were married based on behaviour alone whilst at work. And this inured even more to Audrey’s benefit than to his, for as a woman her professional image was subject to greater scrutiny (which Audrey had never fussed about, but Percy was very mindful of these things).
In reality, their marriage was far from a closely guarded secret. Audrey was a regular appearance in his Department — whether to share a mid-afternoon break and cup of tea, or to bring in a cake for someone’s birthday or sweets for the whole office for no reason at all. She was known to the staff, and as a rule Percy was never too busy to be disturbed by her. (His assistant Kenny had learnt this the hard way in the beginning when he’d once asked Audrey to come back later, for Mr Weasley was in the middle of something and not to be disrupted. Audrey had been perfectly gracious and understanding; Percy much less so, demanding when he learnt of this, ‘Do you know who she is??’)
It was therefore only mildly surprising when Percy found her already inside his office late one morning, when he returned from putting out yet another fire (not literal this time, at least). For it wasn’t odd, necessarily, for her to have been granted access to his office even in his absence.
It was, however, somewhat out of the ordinary for her to be sat there apparently waiting for him — in his own chair, blithely leafing through a magazine, with her feet kicked up, high-heeled Mary Janes perched on the edge of Percy’s desk.
She greeted him with a warm smile, which Percy mirrored irresistibly.
“You know,” he said, shrugging off his outer robe, and reaching for the hanger behind the door, “when I said they should give you a better office, this wasn’t precisely what I had in mind — No, no, don’t get up — ”
Audrey ignored this, rising and closing the distance between them as Percy finishing hanging up his robe.
Percy leant over to welcome her with a swift kiss. Only when he pulled away again, she didn’t.
Her fingers, featherlight at his jawline, and her other hand gently grasping the front of his shirt, were all it took to still him as she kissed him again — a soft, lingering, unabashedly romantic thing that left him a bit dazed when she finally released him.
“Hello,” he managed in his bemusement. “Thank you. What was that for?”
Audrey shrugged, her eyes roving over his face.
“I missed you?” she whispered.
“You miss— ”
Then she came back in for more.
Percy wasn’t certain how it was possible for Audrey to miss any of him in the slightest these days, not when she spent every spare moment attached to him in every conceivable way.
Because Audrey was pregnant, four months now, and lately she’d been…
Well, quite frankly, Audrey was randy as fuck.
And Percy?
Percy was exhausted, beginning to feel a bit used actually, and thrilled about it.
She’d never done anything like this at work, however. And he wasn’t sure what she meant to accomplish by getting them both wound up with nothing to do for it for another six hours. But Percy was only human (nevermind popular belief) and he found himself following her lead.
It was soft, hushed, guarded, like a couple of teenagers unsure how far they were willing to take this. For every slip of tongue there was a brush of noses and nervous, noiseless laughter. Soft sighs that belonged to dark hiding places sounding far too exposed in the light. She leant into his embrace, and Percy didn’t release her, but he did steer them away from the door. Just in case.
His hand was at her hip, fingers just brushing the soft hem of her cardigan, and he was hardly conscious of the moment he skimmed them along the smooth drape of her dress, coming to linger against the curve of her belly just begun to show.
He’d always been fond of Audrey’s tummy — delightfully soft and adorably squishy — but it was frankly weird how often he found himself touching this new, firm bump these days. It was half fascination, half protectiveness, a bit prideful if he were honest… and entirely primaeval.
It was no secret that Percy did not abide anyone causing Audrey trouble, but these days his reptilian brain was in rare form. He was prone to using his body as a barrier — what he lacked in mass, he made up for in limb — to prevent her being squashed or indeed touched in any way in crowded lifts. Just the past week, someone had accidentally bumped into her on the street and, in Percy’s opinion, was not nearly apologetic enough, and for perhaps the first time in his life Percy understood the impulse to solve problems with physical violence.
(He hadn’t, of course, but he had been in Quite A Mood about it. Thankfully, as with everything else about Percy, Audrey not only tolerated but appeared to even appreciate whatever he was about these days.)
Case in point: the fond way she smiled into their kiss now at his devoted caress; the way she covered his hand with hers to keep it there.
“Oh,” she breathed — all air, no voice — when Percy tugged the collar of her sweater to one side and brought his lips to the curve of her neck. With one hand he loosened his tie and unbuttoned his own collar… just one button, and only because it was a little warm… and soon enough both his arms were around her again.
Then she rolled her hips against his, and he sucked harder on her neck to stifle his response. In return, she dug her nails into his back.
That was them getting carried away; obviously she didn’t really mean for them to —
She did it again.
Grasping the leather of his belt at the base of his spine, she moved her body against his without the slightest ambiguity.
“Calm down,” he murmured against her ear — as much an admonition to himself as to her. But she’d already elicited the response she was looking for inside his trousers.
They’d bumped up against the edge of his desk, and Percy perched there to steady them both. He shot a nervous glance at the door. Audrey didn’t miss it.
“Kenny’s taken an early lunch,” she assured him. And indeed, Kenny’s desk, situated directly outside the office, had already been vacant when Percy had arrived just moments earlier.
Percy managed an indignant scoff. “Has he, indeed?”
“Mm. I suggested it.”
Percy blinked. “Really? You don’t think that might make this all a bit… obvious?”
“No, because I came in acting a bit teary and told him I really needed to speak with you privately about something.”
“You cried?” Percy nearly laughed in his attempt to look reproachful.
“No, no, I only seemed as though I might.” Audrey waved this away, though she did look rather sheepish. “You know, I looked more fretful than anything. I think.”
Percy crossed his arms, marvelling for a moment before a new thought struck him. “Well, you’d better be sure to walk out of here looking happy enough so everyone don’t think I’ve done something wrong!”
A significant smile crept over Audrey’s face. She leant closer, resting her hands atop his thighs. “I’d say the state in which I leave depends entirely on you, my love…”
His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. “Have you — ”
One of her hands slid half an inch. It could have been inadvertent. It could have been pure sadism. He grasped Audrey’s wrists before the situation could turn critical.
“Have you lost your mind?” he implored, his mouth barely moving. He was struck breathless at the sincere, sweet intensity in her eyes.
The question seemed to have brought Audrey back to herself. She laughed a little in bewilderment as she admitted, “Do you know, I’m beginning to think I might have.”
Percy smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear.
“I’m sure I’ve been absolutely ridiculous lately,” she added sheepishly.
“You’re not at all ridiculous.” He cupped her face in his hand. “And you’re very tempting.”
She melted into his touch and sighed her contentment when he pulled her in for a hug. It quickly turned into a pitiful groan as she inhaled what lingered of his aftershave. Percy shook with silent laughter.
“Not funny,” she protested against his neck.
“You know — ” He drew back to meet her eyes — “you might have just asked me if I wanted to go home over lunch.”
“Yes, well… I got distracted.” Her eyes raked over him from head to toe.
Now, obviously, Percy didn’t have an ego or anything.
But if he had, Audrey would be its best friend. Even prior to this clear case of demonic possession.
Her eyes were lit up like she’d never seen six foot of lanky bureaucrat in a tailored shirt before.
(And this wasn’t even his best suit.)
“Do you?” She traced a finger along his jaw, down his neck, looking utterly enchanted with the whole thing.
“Hmm?” Percy tried unsuccessfully to suppress a shiver.
“Want to? Go home?” Her hand trailed down the front of his shirt, maddeningly soft.
“I… don’t think I’m fit to be out in public at this point,” he said, glancing down at his below-belt situation. He caught her wrist but didn’t try particularly hard to stop her hooking a finger behind the knot of his tie and tugging it down a little further.
Audrey wet her lips.
“Do you want me to leave?” she murmured. Like she was asking a particularly delicious slice of chocolate cake if it didn’t want her to eat it. Like she knew the question was entirely rhetorical.
Because what did cake exist for, if not to be devoured by that mouth?
Percy pushed Audrey’s cardigan back from one shoulder.
“No, I don’t fucking want you to leave,” he whispered darkly, right before he pulled her in.
This was wrong.
It was stupid.
It was terribly cliche.
None of which (a little voice in the back of his mind pointed out) would matter, as long as no one found out.
And as there was a distinct possibility that Percy was already going to hell anyway…
“So now what am I to do with you?” he asked between kisses.
His mouth drifted to her bared shoulder, and for a second or two Audrey seemed as though she was trying to formulate a response — but nothing came out.
“No ideas?”
He pulled her sweater off the rest of the way.
“Tell me,” he teased.
“I… I hadn’t thought that specifically…” she hedged.
“You lie.”
Audrey demurred, resolutely focused on sliding his tie the rest of the way off.
Percy smiled wickedly. “You attacked me in my office, darling, now you’re shy?”
“Oh, don’t be smug.”
With a cursory swipe of his fingers in midair, the door locked audibly. His hand ran up her thigh, bringing the hem of her dress with it, and Audrey surged forward, planting her knee on the desk, seeking friction against his leg; she was practically aglow with need. And he was hard against her hip, pulling her against him, running his hands over every inch of bare skin underneath her dress.
“Am I just going to have to list the options? Yes?”
So he did.
He slid his hand underneath her knickers, and Audrey’s breath hitched as he got right to the business of undoing her — but softly, steadily, as she shuddered and sighed into her own palm. All the while he held her fast against him and murmured into her hair, his voice tight and low and increasingly strained.
“…could’ve just stayed in the chair, had me on my knees, put these legs over my shoulders… or maybe I lay you out on top of the desk… if I was sat there I could eat you for hours, how much time have you got, darling, are you thinking twice now about coming in here and starting me up… do you know how many times I’ve thought about it, the idea of having you right there sucking me off… or bending you over… oh, I think you like that one, don’t you… I like it, too… my god, do you know what this is doing to me... fuck... 'Percy please' what?… anything for you, I know you know that… shh, quiet, darling, I’ve got you… yes, yes, yes… gorgeous girl, you are so perfect…”
Audrey’s climax left her that much more ravenous, and she kissed him feverishly and palmed the front of his trousers. Percy moaned against her mouth and spun them around to sit her on the desk where he’d just been. He’d unbuckled his belt but then paused this line of thought, instead tugging her hips to the very edge of the desk and grinding insistently against her.
It felt weirdly dirty, more so even than when he’d had her writhing against his fingers just moments before. Like long-forgotten days of sneaking around at school, desperately seeking relief in stolen moments, getting off fully clothed. So secretively intimate that it was almost as if it hadn’t happened, if you pretended as much. Except this was happening, and he was definitely not going to be coming in his fucking trousers. Her legs were wrapped around him, and his hands travelled up under her dress again, twisting at the waistband of her underwear.
“How,” he rasped accusingly against her neck, “am I supposed to get anything done in here from now on? When I’m going to be thinking about this. Every. Single. Day.”
“I… I don’t know…” Audrey fumbled with his shirt buttons, not the least bit sorry.
At this point, neither was Percy.
He was trying to open his trousers one-handed when an interdepartmental memo worked itself through the gap under the door and delivered itself on the desk next to them. Percy batted it aside, sending a few other stray papers with it, as Audrey slipped her hand into his pants.
The memo, however, decided it did not want to be ignored — and stuck itself against the side of Percy’s face.
The fucking audacity. Somebody was going to die.
“Fuck off,” he bit out, mangling the note in one hand and chucking it to the floor.
Immediately, a clean sheet of letterhead flew out of a drawer and spread itself neatly at the corner of the desk, where a quill began writing. Percy knew what it was writing even without looking.
Fuck off, the note began.
“Shit — no — ” Percy grabbed the quill before it could move on to signing his name. “Finite!”
The quill went dead, but he still snapped it in his hand anyway and dropped it on the floor at his feet.
“Are you laughing — don’t laugh!” he protested at Audrey’s response, though he was starting to do the same. He stifled Audrey’s giggles with his hand and glanced reflexively at the door, coughing a bit to disguise his own laughter.
Audrey pressed a kiss into the palm of his hand and held it against her cheek.
“Now stop teasing me,” she whispered. “I’ve been in a right state all morning.”
Percy laughed breathlessly. “You’ve been in a right state all month. ”
“Had enough of me, have you?”
“I’ll tell you when I’ve had enough.” He tugged at her knickers. “Take these off.”
As soon as she’d hopped off the desk, Percy spun her around and drew her back against him. He dragged a hazy, dreamlike kiss over her temple while she slid her knickers down over her hips. At the slightest pressure of his hand between her shoulder blades, Audrey planted her palms eagerly on the desk.
Her dress was hiked up, the neckline slipped a bit over one shoulder, exposing flushed skin and a pale blue bra strap. Her knickers had dropped to somewhere around her knees, she still had her heels on, and whose idea had this been again? It was an excellent one.
He nudged her feet just a bit further apart with the toe of one polished Oxford. His fingertips trailed over the curve of her arse, and his palm slid more firmly back up. He realised he wasn’t quite breathing.
What if…
(Straight to hell, Weasley. Straight to hell.)
But also what if… Maybe next time…
(Wait, what the fuck? ‘Next time’??)
Audrey let out a sob of relief when he finally pressed into her.
“Shh,” he soothed, before clenching his jaw and squeezing his eyes shut to keep a tight lid on his own response. She was impossibly warm, and wet, and soft; an absolute dream as he pushed and pulled her by the hips slowly along his length. Here and there on her skin appeared little ink stains, smudged off his palm from when he’d grabbed the rogue quill.
“More…”
Smiling, he managed, “Not going to let me enjoy this?”
“Enjoy it harder.”
“Christ.”
He did as she told him, and he saw her fingers digging against nothing atop the desk’s smooth surface.
“Touch yourself,” he choked out. “Do it.”
She came quickly, with a little swear and a rush of sensation that threatened to tip Percy over the edge. The air around them hummed with restrained magic begging to snap. His rhythm grew unsteady. He pulled her closer, tangling his fingers in her hair, bringing his mouth to her neck and staying there while he finished, stifling a groan against her pulse.
He collapsed over her, bracing himself with one hand on the desk, just next to hers. His glasses were askew and he pulled them off and tipped them onto the oak surface with a little clatter. His forehead came to rest against Audrey’s shoulder whilst he caught his breath.
With his thumb, Percy languidly caressed Audrey’s little finger and the very edge of her hand where it still rested on the desk. She reciprocated the gesture by hooking her little finger over his thumb. A tiny embrace; a conversation without words.
At last Percy pulled away with an affectionate pat on her hip. He managed to pull up his trousers before sinking back into his chair. Audrey righted her own clothing and perched on the edge of the desk facing him. Wordlessly, she welcomed him laying his head in her lap as a pillow, his arms encircling her hips. She ran her fingers up and down the back of his neck, up through his hair just above his neck and behind his ears. Percy probably drooled a bit.
“Thank you,” she murmured coyly.
“Right,” he mumbled. “Really went out of my way there.”
Eventually, he felt her shift a bit as she glanced around. “We’ve made a bit of a mess of this place, haven’t we?”
“Pay it no mind.” But, reluctantly, he sat up and began doing his shirt buttons.
Looking around, he muttered, “Where’s my — oh.” He followed where Audrey was pointing across the room, focusing better once he’d restored his glasses to their proper place.
He wasn’t entirely sure how his tie had landed that distance away, but he retrieved it from the floor, and Audrey’s cardigan as well. In the process of slipping it back over her shoulders, Percy noticed a rather unambiguous red mark low on her neck, right where he’d been paying close attention with his mouth.
“What?” Audrey asked when she caught him cringing.
Percy steered her toward a mirror on the wall, moving the neckline of her dress aside to show her more clearly. Then he tugged the dress back into place.
“Maybe just…” He pulled her sweater a little closer to her neck in an attempt to hide the mark. “...keep it like that.”
She blinked innocently. “Do you think people might start to suspect that we shag sometimes?”
“You’re very funny.”
Audrey stifled a laugh and began doing up the rest of his shirt. He caught her by the arm when she noticed some papers on the floor and bent to retrieve them.
“I’ll sort that mess,” he said. “You can sort this one.” He pointed to himself.
Audrey stood quite close to him as she draped his tie about his neck, and Percy closed his eyes, feeling the gentle slide against his collar, the delicate tugs as Audrey tied a tidy knot and slid it into place. He didn’t open his eyes again until he felt her smoothing back some bits of his hair.
“There,” she pronounced with satisfaction. “I may look like a tart, but you’re perfect.”
“Jesus.” He grinned. “Stop it.”
He kissed her forehead, her lips, the tip of her nose. “And try not to walk around looking like the cat that’s had the canary.”
Before going to open the door, he checked himself over in the mirror — just to make sure no one might deduce simply by looking at him that he’d just fucked his wife and fellow employee on government property and at government expense. Without nothing else to do for their rumpled appearance now, Percy rolled his shirtsleeves neatly to his elbows.
He cracked the door to see that Kenny’s desk was still vacant, then opened it more widely for Audrey. She gave him one more chaste kiss and lingering look before heading out toward the corridor. She walked calmly, tucking her hair demurely behind her ear as she went.
Percy raised his voice just enough when he called after her blithely, “Have we adequately addressed your concerns?”
“Percy!” she hissed, whirling around, wide-eyed and breaking into a brilliant flush.
Smiling like a self-satisfied shit, he motioned with his hand to shoo her away.
By the time a harried Kenny returned from lunch, Percy had long since set his office to rights.
“Good lunch, Kenny?”
“Yes, thank you. Yours?”
In fact, Percy hadn’t actually eaten since last night’s dinner.
“Fine,” he replied, fishing some coins out of a drawer. “Kenny, do me a favour. Can you nab me a coffee, please?”
Coffee was lunch.
“While you’re at it,” he added, “take a cappuccino to Ms. Weasley — decaf, yes? — and one of those chocolate things she likes.”
“Erm…” Kenny accepted the money uncertainly. “Now?”
Percy blinked. “Unless you’ve got something better to do?”
“Well, no, only…”
“Only…?”
“Only there’s the meeting with the undersecretary and International? About the Portkey thing?”
“Right, at two? In — ” Percy checked his watch — “well over an hour.”
“No, sir, they had to move the time. It’s in fifteen minutes.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I only just learnt of it myself, but Mulrooney said they’d sent out priority memos about it just before noon.
“Why?” Kenny asked, as Percy concentrated on breathing innocently. “Did you not get one?”