InsaneJournal

LONG: None So Blind, Moody/Shacklebolt, NC-17
Title: None So Blind
Author: Delphi
Pairing: Alastor Moody/Kingsley Shacklebolt
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Moody sees more than he bargained for, but less than he thinks.
Notes: Written for the pornish_pixies Magical Devices challenge, because Moody's magical eye is just made for voyeurism.


He watches him sometimes. Kingsley Shacklebolt, Auror first grade. The lad's all grown up these days, not so scrawny anymore, not so green. Tall and dark and handsome, with an arse you could bounce a sickle off.

It's only proper caution, of course: keep a close watch on your enemies and an even closer one on your friends. Or at least that's excuse enough for ogling a lad half his age when times are slow, and times are always slow these days. Wartime does that. For every day you're up to your eyeballs in action--blink and you're dead--there's ten more that are nothing but waiting.

The house at Grimmauld Place is the worst for it. The place has bad bones, going rotten in the summer drizzle, the floorboards and a certain portrait bitching and moaning whenever anyone makes a move. It's the sort of house makes you want to keep your voice down even in the middle of the afternoon, and he spends his time here barking and clomping around out of spite because of it. And he watches Shacklebolt, who doesn't seem to like the waiting any more than he does.

You've got to look to see it. Shacklebolt's got a stillness to him. Doesn't pace, doesn't get the twitches. Doesn't even get to talking too much about nothing the way young Nymphadora does. He fades into the background better than you'd credit when he wants to, like one of those big jungle cats that isn't half as sleepy as it looks. It's what makes him a good Auror, and it's what keeps Alastor coming back again and again even when he knows it's a foolish thing, as though he might just figure out something important if he examines every inch of him.

Here, now. It's not long into morning but he's been up for hours. It's safer travelling at night, especially into the city. He's been at the maps and sent off the letters, and he's just dealt with a cursed cupboard when the smell of a good fry-up draws him down to the kitchen. Molly is puttering around with cups and plates, and the nippers are making a nuisance of themselves, and no sooner does he sit down at the table than Kingsley Shacklebolt turns up out of nowhere and takes the chair opposite.

It's going to be another grey one. A little light makes it through the lead glass windows, just feebly enough to bring out the dust. Shacklebolt's wearing those rust-red robes again, tight across the shoulders. Just in from the field, it looks like, his eyes a little bloodshot and his mouth drawn, though he's not missed his morning shave.

Alastor's gaze lingers. Smooth is a good look on him.

"Pass the pepper?" Shacklebolt asks.

He doesn't look away; only guilty men look away. He takes a sip of his tea instead. "What do we say?"

It's a stupid fancy, but maybe the grey lifts a bit when Shacklebolt smiles, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Lad's got a brain on him, knows when he's only teasing and doesn't get his knickers in a bunch over every little thing. Mind, an Auror's got no business smiling half so fetching. It's unprofessional.

"Please?" So is talking like that, with a voice so low it purrs.

Merlin's balls. He shifts in his seat and shoves the peppershaker across the table with a grunt.

"Thank you." There's that smile again.

He looks away with a snort and butters a piece of toast so hard he ends up spearing it. Then, less than a minute later, his good eye meanders back. He steals a peek. Nothing wrong with a peek, not like Shacklebolt's got anything he hasn't seen before. His gaze creeps slowly up his arms and then slides down his chest. It's a damned fine chest, broad and smooth. The state of some young Aurors today, soft lazy things. Aren't many of them with a stomach like that, flat and taut, with an eye-catching trail of hair leading down to...

"Everything all right?" Shacklebolt leans across the table, his voice for Alastor's ears only.

This time he does look away. "What are you on about?"

It comes out a little sharper than he meant it, but like he said it's hard to put a dent in Shacklebolt, and the lad only sits back with a worried little frown that makes Alastor behave himself for the rest of the morning.

The rain sets in that afternoon. Shacklebolt's off at the Ministry, reporting in. Lupin comes and goes, and Black drinks himself stupid in the drawing room. Alastor takes up post on the ground floor, keeping watch for incoming owls and patronuses. He catches him this time: it's just past half-three when the wards give a shudder and the front door swings open and the wet weather blows the lad in out of the weather.

Alastor's newspaper rustles in the draught, and he turns to the Quidditch page.

"Really coming down out there." Shacklebolt shakes himself off like a wet dog, hanging his cloak and hat up by the fire before bending over to unlace his boots.

He watches through the cover of his paper. Wet clothes and skin and muscle and bone. Once, he believed that everyone was all the same underneath. He saw his share of insides long before he lost his eye, flayed skin and bodies turned wrong side out and bones popped clean out of their parts. It isn't all the same, though, not by a long shot. Shacklebolt's put together just as nice inside as out. Good bones--that right leg's been broken bad once, but it's healed up clean--and hardly a scrap of fat on him. Ramrod-straight backbone. Narrow hips, and tight muscles, and the blood pumping strong in him. If he pulls pack and peers just right, he can see the body heat pouring off him in subtle little waves.

He's always hot, that one, and as Alastor watches his throat bob in a swallow, he can't help but wonder what he'd look like with a cock in his mouth.

He pauses to savour the thought. It's a wicked fancy and nothing else. Shacklebolt's a red-blooded lad, no doubt, and even if he weren't, it'd be some flash young thing, not a bent old bugger with too many missing parts. But there's no harm in imagining him down on his knees, is there? His robes hanging open and his eyes hot and his lips glinting wet. Getting a good mouthful, taking it all in. Lad'd be good at it, the way he's good at everything. Slow and sure, his mouth hot and slick and tight.

"What's the good news?" The boots come off in front of the fire and Shacklebolt pads across to perch on the arm of his chair, so close he can smell him.

He keeps both eyes on the paper, hoping the fire accounts for the ruddiness in his cheeks. He gives him a good shove. "What're you dallying about for? Dumbledore's waiting to hear from you."

He reads the same page three times over as Shacklebolt takes his leave, and doesn't remember a word of it.

The picture's nearly made its way out of his head by the time he turns in for the night. The stairs are a pain in the arse but no one else wants the leaky rooms on the top floor, even though they have the best view of the street. He's lying in bed, nearly asleep, when he hears a creak on the landing.

His wand jumps to his hand as he bolts upright, ears pricked. But it's only Shacklebolt, calling down softly to Molly that they'll be leaving early tomorrow. He puts his wand aside and lies back down. The door next to his opens, and he follows the nearly silent tread. Silence, and then a soft rustle. He pauses, and when he reaches for the nightstand again, it's for his eye.

The light's still on next door. Shacklebolt's at the bedside, taking his clothes off. His back is to him, but that still leaves him with a prime view as all the layers come off, a pair of drawers the last thing to join the tidy stack. Then Shacklebolt turns around, and his view is even better. One, two, three steps to the bed. Bit of a sway. Then the lad's stretching out bare as the day he was born.

He barely keeps a snort back. Idiotic practice, sleeping in the altogether. It would serve the young hedonist right if he sounded an evacuation drill and made him run outside in nary a stit--

And that's where his thoughts grind to a halt, because Shacklebolt is reaching down.

He sits up. Stares. Watching that first brush of fingertips, the slow stroke and squeeze. His breath snags and a sudden hungry pang shoots low through his stomach, making his cock give a rise in sympathy. It's been a while since he's been moved towards an evening bout of self-abuse, but young blood's not so discreet. His hand clenches on his thigh.

Shacklebolt's got all the time in the world, crooking one arm behind his head, his hand working slow and lazy. Nice looking cock, hardening up with every measured stroke, long and thick and nearly plum at the tip. A wet flash of a tongue as he licks his lips.

Alastor strains, eager to catch any sound that might slip through the thin walls, but his own breathing's coming too hard for that now. He takes in the whole of him, head to foot and back again, and then his hand is slipping urgently under the covers and matching him stroke for stroke.

Rough, careless, no mind for anything but watching every moment of it. The bedspring gives a sudden squeak and he freezes. He holds his breath a second, but the lad never misses a beat. Shameful, really, but that lecture can wait, because he doesn't dare stop, doesn't dare look away. The lad's rhythm quickens, his hand pulling in short, brusque tugs, his head tipping back. The rock of his hips, the clench of his fingers, the faint sheen of sweat on his upper lip.

Then, oh sweet Christ, his grip goes tight: the arch, the shiver, the shot.

Alastor sits breathless, his hand spattered, watching the quick rise and fall of the lad's chest. His mouth. The shots of spunk on his belly. He's still staring several minutes later when the lights go out. Then, slowly, he cleans himself up and returns his good eye to the nightstand. He lies sleepless for a long while, replaying the choicest bits again and again in his head. He's never approved of Pensieves--holes in security the size of your head--but at this one moment he can very nearly see the appeal.

The next morning he's up before dawn but Shacklebolt still has him beat. The rest of the house is abed, the street outside dark and quiet. He makes his way downstairs and pauses on the threshold of the kitchen. Not guilty. It's not like he's done anything wrong. Anything you go about doing in a full house with someone next door who can see you should be something you wouldn't mind doing on the front lawn.

He tries not to linger on that particular image.

Shacklebolt looks up from the morning edition of the Prophet, a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich waiting across from him. "Morning."

"Morning," Alastor mutters as he takes the seat, and for an instant his mouth gives a flap like it's aching to add something else. Not to confess, or to apologise, or anything else half so foolish. He just wants to say something to fill the silence because it's only the two of them, and he's seen everything there is to see and he's still not done looking.

In the end, however, he holds his tongue. This is wartime, and there's even less room for softness than there is for distraction. It's not as though he can't help himself. He could, if he wanted to. He takes a sip of his tea and a bite of his sandwich, giving a faint grunt of approval to both, and if Shacklebolt smiles like he can see right through him, he supposes it's only a trick of the light.