Title: Damsel in Distress
Author: florahart
Characters: Neville Longbottom/Cho Chang
Rating: NC-17
Themes/kinks chosen: alternate pairing, although there is some playing with nipples.
Word Count: ~1100
Summary: Cho has a thing for heroes
A/N: My computer drama, let me show you it (monitor keeps dying in a manner that requires ungraceful reboot. This is surprisingly detrimental to getting anything written. We are pretending it's still the 6th.

---

Damsel in Distress

"It's not as though it isn't true," Cho says. The candle is about to go out, sputtering its last few minutes of red-toned flame, and the dawn is still early and gray outside the window, and Cho, just barely back to breathing normally now, is talking.

Neville can't imagine what possible thing she could be telling him (confessing? She sounds like it's a confession, although he can't say exactly why) about which this would seem important right now. He hums the kind of response that says he heard her, that he's sated and content, that the warm weight of her draped over his belly is all he needs to feel.

She lifts her head to look at him.

He watches individual strands of her hair, stuck to her sweat-damp skin, dry enough to drop away, and smiles.

"Is that bad?" she asks. Her eyes are serious.

He shakes his head, although he still doesn't know (doesn't care) what the question is; he's still inside her, half-soft, sensitive now, and sticky-wet, and he doesn't actually want to ask.

"You have no idea what I'm talking about."

"Not a clue," he agrees. She pushes up off him, shifting her weight back as she comes fully upright so he can see all of her, broad waist and narrow hips, small breasts and dark nipples and rumpled, tangled hair. She rocks her hips.

"Sorry. I was continuing a conversation from last night."

Last night, which was somewhat more than half a bottle of wine and more importantly a great deal of enthusiastic fucking ago, they had been talking about... about what, then? Medicinal properties of the nightshades when imbued with various creature magics, and, for one thing, whether it would be possible to duplicate or adapt these effects for Muggle usage. Cho takes her research seriously, but more than that, she evidently likes to debate and discuss, to bounce ideas about until it's gone half two and they're a little drunk and a little silly.

But that's nothing to confess, and it's not the first time she's been by to work with some of his samples.

It is the first time it's led to fucking, although once or twice before he's thought they might be heading in that direction.

Neville shrugs; he suspects he's not the most excellent idea-bouncer she's ever encountered. "So, it's true, then. You hope to bring your research to a broader audience."

"Not that." She draws a finger down his bare chest, the plain short (practical,if Neville is the one describing it) nail catching on a nipple and making him gasp. His cock pulses weakly inside her, and she drops forward again. "I said, last night, that a lot of people have accused me of having a thing for hero types. And that's true. Cedric, Harry, George, ...you."

Neville catches her hand. "Is that all this is, then? Notch on the bedpost?" He shakes his head, both unoffended and a bit bemused. "I'm afraid it's a shallow one, you know. Right place, right time, is all I ever was."

"Not true," she says, "but no, that's not all. I just wanted to be honest about it."

He makes the sound again, a little hm that neither agrees nor disagrees with any of this (it's not important, and they can talk about it later if she thinks it is), and runs his hands up the smooth skin of her hips. She shivers; his hands are rough from handling shovels and vines, and he's prepared to take advantage. His thumbs come forward toward her navel and he pushes gently, rocking her back a little.

"So?" She goes with the movement, and his cock throbs again, although it's pretty fucking unlikely he's getting it up again for a little while. Still, it feels nice.

"So, what, then? You like heroes, and I like smart women. I'm not ready to agree I'm the former," Neville says (and probably it's just as well it's still a little dark, because the whole idea makes him blush after all this time), but you're, well." He drags his hands suddenly in opposite directions on her skin, up to capture one nipple and down to bring his thumb to her crotch, slowly to test because he doesn't want to assume she still wants more.

She arches, pressing her breast into his hand, and he pinches. "Smart women?" she asks. "Like who?"

"Now? You want to discuss--first off, I don't know if hero types--that's ridiculous, you know--go about telling all and sundry who they fuck, but more to the point, I like to focus on the girl in my bed," Neville says. He pinches again, concluding she does want more, and pushes his thumb into her clit, sliding along swollen flesh and circling around.

She clenches, pushing his soft cock out of her, and scowls as she looks down between them. "Sorry."

"I'm not." Neville lifts her off him and lays her out on the bed, kneeling between her thighs He grins down at her as he runs a finger down her belly and says, "So I guess this makes you the damsel in distress. Do you feel distressed?"

Her skin is damp--again or still, doesn't matter--and she comes upon her elbows. "I'm not sure. What will you do if I am?"

He bends down to suck one nipple, then the other. "I'll have to rescue you, obviously. Unless you have a better idea." He brings his fingers up her thigh, up the soft curve to the tough tendon pulled taut because she's spread wide for him.

She squirms. "Is rescuing me going to involve making me come again?"

"Would that resolve your distress?" Two fingers slide into her, slick from her arousal and his come, and he curls them back toward him and then presses back in.

"Might do," she gasps.

"Then I think it's what's expected, don't you?" He adds a third finger and watches the muscles of her belly flex as she curls toward him in return. "You want more?"

She nods, a jerk of her chin, and he lowers his mouth to her clit, pumping his fingers into her and pressing his tongue flat then stroking up slowly until she comes.

"Heroic enough?" he asks, crawling up next to her as her breathing slows once more. "Wouldn't want to disappoint."

She sighs. "You don't have to be the hero all the time," she says.

"Good. Because in the morning--well, all right. In the afternoon, there will be repotting to do. It's not high on the hero list."

She turns in toward him. "Mind if I stay and help?"

"Not at all."