wl_mods (wl_mods) wrote in wizard_love, @ 2008-03-01 22:22:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | *fic, neville, susan |
Special delivery for coffee_n_cocoa
Title: Postponement
Author: subtle_horizon
Recipient's LJ name: coffee_n_cocoa
Rating: NC-17
Pairing(s): Neville/Susan
Word Count: 5019
Warnings (if any): None
Authors notes: Thank you to my beta and inspiration, B. To my recipient: coffee_n_cocoa, I've read your work, and loved it. I just hope this makes you happy. :)
He loved her plait. He didn’t know why, or what it was about it exactly that drew him in and transfixed him when it swung behind her.
Perhaps it was the way that it was perfectly spun together, like ivies growing into one, twisting and coiling until they were irrevocably together. He did love ivy, but he loved her hair more. Perhaps it was the way the light shone onto it, scattering every which way as it encountered the bumps and curves of her perfect braid. Perhaps it was the way that it made her look so put-together, even when the wisps wound their way out and curled around her face in disarray. Perhaps it was how the plait looked effortless and heavy all at once, like it would feel substantial and silky in his hands, like he could wrap it around his hand and feel steel and satin simultaneously.
As long as he’d known her, from the first day he’d seen her, he’d wanted to reach out and touch it. It was inexplicable and strange and silly, but he couldn’t help himself from daydreaming in class when she was sitting across the room, with her plait just resting there along her spine and the back of the chair. She would reach back absentmindedly and run her hand down its length, pulling it over her shoulder to her front in order to stroke her fingers through the wavy tuft at the end.
At first, it had merely been fascination. Neville didn’t mind. His own hair was short and easily mussed, so he was simply amazed by the control and weight of her long braid. Mere curiosity, since he didn’t have a plait of his own to play with. Same reason that he liked all of those other soft and curvy girl parts that girls have.
But just about the same time that he had started to wonder more explicitly about those soft, curvy girl parts, his fascination with her plait had begun to wander into more dangerous territory-- territory that quickly made him learn to be careful not to watch her too closely in class. His body wanted permission to act on impulse. She followed him into dreams in which he could touch that beautiful, heavy braid as much as he wanted. He could wrap its thick coil around his hand and pull her head back and kiss her. He could turn her around and take out her ribbon and slowly unwind each section until her hair fell about her naked shoulders. He could run his fingers through the waves that he just knew would feel like spun silk.
He wished sometimes that he could have a more normal fascination. Why couldn’t he be like the other men (in at least this one regard), who kept magazines and lists of the birds with the best tits and arses? It certainly wasn’t like he didn’t think about those parts too—he certainly noticed where that braid reached when she drew it around front, and what it seemed to point to as it hung down her back. She was a beautiful girl.
He wasn’t a boy anymore, hadn’t been for quite some time, and his boyhood crush had long been history. He was a man of twenty years. He’d had his share of normal, healthy relationships. He’d almost forgotten about how she had made him feel those days long ago; dizzy and happy and light. She was all but gone from his heart.
But from the moment he’d met her, and again from the moment she walked into his greenhouse, he’d been preoccupied.
That plait.
It drove him crazy.
She loved his hands. They were strong, and big, and everything a man’s hands should be.
He’d always been good with his hands. Herbology was always his forte, and he could dig and stroke any plant into submission. His hands had wrestled the most difficult weeds and coaxed the most delicate blossoms to open to him. She’d watched him in Herbology whenever their two Houses had been paired, and as much as she had chided herself for it, for staring, she couldn’t stop.
She knew he saw her. He would glance up at her from his work and blush. She blushed too, curling her fingers into the end of her braid, as she always did when she was nervous. She felt guilty, almost predatory, watching him like this, watching his fingers sift through the soil, but she couldn’t help it. The boy had beautiful hands.
After the war, she hadn’t seen much of him for a while. Everyone had scattered, needing to find their places in a seemingly new world. The war hadn’t been long, but it had taken adolescence away from Susan’s generation. They’d entered as children, left as adults, and had no in-between. With the war over, it was time to gather what they had left. Those who had been close to the fight, like Susan and Neville both had, often chose to leave behind their former lives, needing space and separation and something to bring themselves back to life.
She was a potion-maker now. She’d never had much of an interest in potions in school, but she later felt it was only because of her professor. She had done exceptionally well on her potions examinations, though, and had been approached by one of the proctors afterward and asked if she would like to take on an apprenticeship. For three years now she had worked under the potions master, and was beginning to feel a bond to her art.
She hadn’t thought much of Neville’s hands for a while.
Until the day that she saw him again.
She was out of rosewood bark extract again.
It was the sixth time this week. Really, it would be practical for extracts to be bottled in economy-sized containers, but for some reason they only seemed to come in tiny flasks. For the sixth time, she made her way down the hall to the storage closet, where she knew waited four more bottles. She had filled out a reorder form two days ago, and hopefully her stock would be refilled within the next few days, since there was obviously a lot of demand for potions with a rosewood base.
But what met her instead was a scrap of parchment covered in Isley’s obnoxiously quick-scrawled handwriting. “Rosewood out—shelf fell, bottles broke. Next shipment Monday. Sorry, Bones!”
“Bugger,” she said to no one in particular. She was behind in filling the potion orders, since she and Isley were alone this week, and there wasn’t any of the main ingredient she needed. There wasn’t anywhere else to get rosewood—they purchased it in bulk from the only company that had the resources to grow the plant properly. Rosewood by itself was easy to grow, but it took a great deal of skill and secrets in order to turn it from the Muggle plant it was into a powerful potion base. So she was out of luck, until Herb’s Magical Herbs managed to get to her order.
Unless she could find someone who had the skill to grow the delicate plant. Perhaps another greenhouse somewhere would stock at least a small quantity, just enough to get her through the day. She took down the book of potion material suppliers from its shelf, and flipped through the pages, searching for someone—anyone—who might have her rosewood.
Nothing looked promising. Resigned and frustrated, she closed the book and picked it up by the spine, preparing to replace it on the bookcase.
A slip of paper drifted out from between two of the pages and fluttered to the floor.
“Plants—Muggle and Magical. Private business, no bulk orders. 427 Vertic Alley.”
He froze when she walked through the door of his little greenhouse. It wasn’t that he didn’t recognize her. It didn’t even feel like he was surprised to see her. It was as if some part of him knew she would somehow find him; some part was waiting for her to walk into his life. Silly, perhaps, given the fact that they’d never been couple, or really even close friends. They’d never even gone on a date, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d sought him out because she finally realized his boyhood crush on her. A boyhood crush that had been rekindled in a split second—
“Neville?” she had said, the question obvious in her voice.
“Susan,” he stated. It wasn’t a question. He knew who she was, the beautiful young woman with the brunette braid. Her face had filled out since the war, and she was absolutely stunning to him, just standing in the doorway with the light coming in behind her.
“I didn’t know—”
“Very few people do. I guess I wanted to get out of the spotlight.”
She paused, just looked at him for a few long moments. He’d give anything to know what was going on in her head. Actually, he’d give anything to know what was going on in his own—too many swirling thoughts and ideas and questions and things he wanted to say were making him less of the confident man he’d become and more of the shy schoolboy that he was long ago. She stepped inside the door completely, turning to close it quietly behind her.
God, her hair. The same perfect braid, but it seemed more mature now. More distinguished and soft. He never thought that she’d still wear a braid years later. When she visited him in his dreams, her hair would be cut short. Except when she appeared in his hormonally-driven dreams. Her hair was still braided then. Not something he could think about at present, though. Thinking about Susan and her hair and her face and her body and his terribly inappropriate dreams was not a good idea, seeing as how she was standing right in front of him for the first time in three years.
Susan was standing right in front of him, and was facing him once again.
“I just… oh, Neville, it’s been so long.”
He slowly pulled off his gloves and took a step toward her. “It has,” he said. “How have you been? Is everything alright? You look… beautiful.” He wasn’t actually sure that he’d meant to say the last sentence, but he hadn’t been able to help himself.
She blushed, that same blush that had made him hard in class whenever he caught her watching him. “Thank you,” she started softly. “I’m well, life has been going as smoothly as can be expected—how are you? How long have you been working here? I hadn’t seen you around. I wish… I wish I had. I’ve missed you.”
His mouth went dry. He wanted, wanted so badly to tell her that he’d missed her too, missed her laugh and her blush and her smile, but he couldn’t find the words. “I… thank you. I’ve been here two years—this is my shop.”
“You own this place? It’s beautiful!” she gasped, looking around at the hanging plants and rows of newly germinating seeds. Her voice tried to hide the slight disappointment she felt at his dodging of her last statement.
“Thank you. I grow plants,” he said, mentally kicking himself for stating the obvious and not thinking of anything good to say, when he had the world to say to her.
“I see that.” There was another long pause. “I actually… I came here because I thought you might have magical rosewood. I’m a potions-maker now, and I’m out… your address card fell out of my source book. I had no idea it was you.”
“Ah, well, sorry to disappoint you, but it is me,” he tried to joke. “I do have some rosewood, but it’s going to take a while to cure. I… you’re a potions-maker?”
“It would seem so. I guess all I needed was a new teacher. I’m not surprised that you’re in the magical plants business—you were always wonderful at Herbology.”
“Thank you,” he said for the third time in five minutes. Damn, he thought to himself. I’ve envisioned seeing her again a thousand different ways, and now that she’s here, I’m acting like a sod.
“I actually would love if you’d let me buy that rosewood. I can just wait… walk around the block and come back to get it when it’s ready.”
“It won’t be done developing for five or six hours, possibly longer, and then it has to rest.” He glanced at the clock, which told him it was half past five. “Earliest I could get it to you, honestly, is tomorrow morning.”
“Oh… well then, I can just come by when you open--”
“Susan,” he started. Here’s your chance, don’t screw it up, his mind told him. “Would you… may I… it’s been such a long time, there is so much to talk about… may I take you to dinner?”
Her face lit in a smile. “I would love to go to dinner with you, Neville.”
He didn’t remember what he ate for dinner. It wasn’t that the food was bad, or that it was unrecognizable, or even that it was unremarkable. It was just that it was unremarkable compared to the thrill of eating dinner with her. It was as if the food was there only for sustenance, to give them the energy to keep talking. They talked about everything. Her potions, his plants. The friends they’d kept tabs on, and those they didn’t know anymore. Their carefree first few years at school, their hobbies, their music preferences, their goals and lives and realities.
It felt like no time had gone by at all before the waiters started to give them dirty looks and Neville and Susan came to the realization that they were alone in a restaurant waiting to close. He insisted on paying the tab despite her protest and tipped the waiter, offering his arm to Susan.
He couldn’t remember a time when he’d ever felt so happy. A sick feeling rose inside him, though, with the realization that their date (was it a date?) was over. That’s all he’d asked her for. Dinner. She was going to walk away from him now, saying “I’ve had such a pleasant time, Neville. Wonderful to catch up with you after all this time, and thank you for a lovely dinner.” She would come back to pick up her wormwood, and then she’d walk out of his greenhouse just as suddenly as she’d walked in.
“I’ve had such a pleasant time, Neville,” she began, turning to face him with her hand still on his forearm.
His stomach plummeted.
“Thank you for the lovely dinner.”
“You’re welcome,” he said distantly. He felt ill.
“I…”
“Your wormwood should be ready in the morning. Would you like me to ship it--”
“Neville.”
“Yes?”
“How do you feel about chocolate pie?”
Neville was blindsided by the question. “What? Chocolate pie?”
She reached back to pull her braid to the front and stroke the end again. She’s trying to kill me, he thought. She looked nervous, but more absolutely drop-dead-bloody-gorgeous in a nervous sort of way.
“I made chocolate pie. Would you like to come back to my flat and have a slice?”
Hell yes, his mind screamed. “I like pie,” he said, wondering how the conversation moved from her leaving to him leaving with her.
She smiled, that beautiful, almost shy smile again. Before he knew it, she was slipping her small hands into his and he felt himself being Side-Along Apparated.
They landed on their feet in a small, but well-furnished kitchen. “Nice place,” he said when his breath came back to him.
“Thank you,” she said. “It’s small, but I don’t know what I’d do with more space, seeing as how I’m the only one living here. I rather like the intimacy. Besides,” she began, reaching up to a shelf to retrieve two white plates and giving him a delightful view of her hair and her backside, “I’m a witch. I can make this place anything I want it to be, really. Twin ovens and a Roman bath. That’s what makes me happy.”
He was in the process of consciously trying not to imagine her in a Roman bath when she handed him a plate with a generous slice of chocolate pie on it.
They moved to her couch together. She sat down with her knees folded under her, her shoulder just ever so slightly touching his chest. There was much less discussion now than there had been over dinner, not because they’d run out of things to say, but because the silence somehow seemed more intimate.
“This pie was spectacular,” he said, putting his plate down on the coffee table along with hers. “When did you learn to bake?”
“My mother used to make pies and cookies and cakes when I was little. She made them the Muggle way, too, and that’s the way I make them now. Somehow they just turn out better that way.” Her eyes looked distant.
There was a moment of silence, of shared suffering and shared healing.
“I don’t know why I’m nervous,” she said slowly. “I’m having such a wonderful evening with you, Neville. I’m just not sure why I’m so jittery. I feel like a third-year on her first Hogsmeade weekend,” she laughed.
He let out a lungful of air. “I feel the same,” he said. “I feel like I’ve been waiting for this since I was a third year on his first Hogsmeade weekend. You’re… I always wanted…”
She leaned into him midsentence, and pressed her lips against his, unmoving.
It took him completely by surprise. It was as if he’d been Stunned. She pulled back after only a brief second, forehead only centimeters from his, asking a question with her eyes. Those beautiful eyes. He searched her face, his lips still slightly parted and frozen in the way they had been when she’d kissed him.
She’d kissed him.
Swiftly sliding a hand to the side of her neck, he pulled her back into him and crashed his lips to hers, kissing her with everything he had in him. His body filled with a potent cocktail he didn’t know—testosterone, happiness, adrenaline, and butterflies all at once. He touched his tongue to the center of her lower lip, and her body surged toward his. She seemed to be holding onto him for dear life; one of her arms had wound itself around his shoulders, and the other tangled in the hair at the sensitive nape of his neck.
He could feel his blood relocating at a dizzying speed. She had crawled closer, the full length of her torso pressed against his chest, her legs curled up, knees resting on his thighs. He slid a hand down to the crook of her knee, stroking her thigh, unconsciously pulling her closer.
Her hand was tracing lines and shapes on the back of his neck as they kissed. He moved his further around her neck. That’s when he felt it.
Her braid, heavy and softer than he’d imagined, brought his mind slamming back to reality. This was real. This was him with Susan. This was him with Susan the beautiful, amazing woman that had grown up from Susan the girl with the braid that he’d fancied so long ago. He pulled back abruptly, just a little.
He opened her eyes slowly as if wondering if she were a dream. He met her eyes.
“Susan…” he began.
“Neville,” she said, finality in her voice. Whatever it was that he was feeling in this moment, that happy-dizzy-full feeling, she was feeling the same way. He didn’t need words to know that. She leaned back into him, her forehead touching his. They both took a few slow breaths. When she stood up, he missed the feeling of her warm body close to his. He felt as though he had lost something as she moved to her feet.
She reached out her hands to him. He kissed each of them, and then took her hands in his much larger ones. He stood up before her. She began to walk backwards, taking him with her into the unknown. He followed her up the stairs and into a simple bedroom with deep blue walls and fluffy white sheets.
“Susan,” he said. “I didn’t mean… not that I don’t want to, I do want… but I don’t want you to think… God, Susan, I don’t want a one-night stand… I want…”
“I know. This isn’t a one-night stand. I don’t truthfully know what it is, but I promise you that I will be here in the morning and that I have every single intention of not letting you slip away now that I’ve found you again.”
He was dumbfounded.
“I want this, Neville. If you don’t feel comfortable, that’s really fine—I’ve never done this before… I mean, I’ve done this, but not in this way. I’ve never just come home with a man before. I’m not sure why I am this time. I just know that it feels right. But if it doesn’t feel right to you--”
This time it was he who cut her off with a kiss. It was a searing kiss, with one hand in the very base of her braid and the other on her waist. She stepped closer to him, sealing the length of her body against his.
There would be no doubt now that he wanted her. She made a small noise as she discovered the evidence of exactly how badly he wanted her pressing into her belly, and pressed even closer to him, lips and tongue driving him wild.
She stepped backward toward the bed, unbuttoning his shirt as she did. Pushing it off of his shoulders, she allowed her hands to roam freely over his heated skin, his arms, his shoulders, his chest, his belly, his back. Although he certainly wasn’t going to be on the cover of Playwitch, he had developed a bit of muscle and lost most of the baby fat he’d clung to for so long. Her hands felt so good, skimming over his skin, just barely touching him. It wasn’t fair, she had all of his torso to play with and he had none.
He allowed his hands to become a bolder and roam over her back before following the line of her braid sliding down to squeeze her bum. He moved his hands back up to her waist and around, touching the softness of her belly before moving up in a moment of true bliss to cup her breasts. His cock seemed to pulse when he felt her nipples began to harden through her bra and shirt.
He had a moment of disappointment when he realized that in order to undo the buttons on her shirt and actually touch those nipples, he would have to stop touching them first. He did so, and undid all of her buttons just as quickly as his fingers would allow. She was sitting back onto the bed, tossing her shirt to the side. There she was before him, in a deep purple, silky bra and black slacks. Her nipples were projecting from the silk just as he felt his own cock protesting at its confinement, her skin was flushed, and she was absolutely bloody amazing.
He wondered if she’d let him.
“Can I… can I take down your plait?”
She smiled a huge, knowing smile. “You always did have a thing for my hair, didn’t you.” He gaped at her, unaware that she’d known. “Of course you may.”
She turned, sitting on the bed with her back to him, her braid standing out in stark contrast to her pale skin. With shaking hands, he reached out and untied the ribbon at the bottom.
He worked his fingers through her hair slowly, gently separating the sections of the braid until it fell apart in shining waves over his hands. It was more than he’d imagined, her hair flowing through his fingers, the scent of her shampoo—freesia, he’d bet—wafting through the air. His hands made their journey up, unraveling each twist until he’d finally reached her scalp. She whimpered as he gently ran his fingers through the hair at the nape of her neck, as she had done to him earlier.
She looked at him over her shoulder. She was stunning, her face shining and her hair loose about her. She was beautiful and elegant and primal all at once. He leaned down to kiss her deeply.
She turned on the bed fully to face him once again, and he gasped. He hadn’t noticed her take off her bra—perhaps she had Vanished it. Her hair was long enough to cover her, just barely, but the waves teased him. He could see the outlines of her areolas through the curtain of hair. The ends curling around her nipples was almost too much for him.
She kissed him again, and he swept her beautiful hair behind her shoulders, pulling her flush against him until she was laying on her back with his chest against her side. His fingers traced the curve of her breast, from her side to underneath and finally, finally back up to graze her nipple ever so lightly. They both took in a sharp breath at the sensation.
He ran his finger around the edge of her swollen nipple and flicked it once before placing the flat of his palm against it, just barely touching, moving in slow circles. She was breathing erratically, making such beautiful sounds. He couldn’t help it as he moved down to drop a kiss to each nipple before sucking one into his mouth, dragging his tongue over it. “Neville… that feels wonderful,” she breathed. She kept making little “oh” sounds and all he wanted in the world was for those sounds to continue.
She pulled him back up by the hair to kiss him on the lips, teasing him with her tongue. Pushing him onto his side, she slid down to kiss his chest. He let out a shaky breath. She was teasing him. She kissed his own nipples, mimicking on the tiny pebbles what he’d done for her. He closed his eyes and rolled onto his back, with her pressed into his side.
He nearly jumped when she felt her hand cup him over his constricting slacks. She stroked slowly over the fabric, and he couldn’t catch his breath. She slid down the zipper and coaxed the pants down past his hips, tossing them off to a corner somewhere. She wrapped her hand around him through his cotton boxers and he jerked. Looking into his eyes, she slipped the boxers down and threw them somewhere that Neville couldn’t care less about. He nearly came when he felt her hand , soft and small, wrap around the midsection of his cock. Slowly, eyes still on his, she slid her fingers to the tip, smoothing the drop over the head with her thumb. He heard himself moan somewhere far away. She stroked the full length once, twice, three times so slowly that he swore that it almost hurt. She slid down his body and placed a chaste kiss right on the head, and he growled “Susan,” in a tone he didn’t know he had.
Kissing her full-on once again, he worked her slacks over her hips and ran his long fingers over the length of her legs. She breathed in suddenly as he stroked the insides of her thighs, and he was filled with need like he’d never felt before. Closing his eyes, he whispered a contraceptive spell while dropping a kiss right above her bellybutton. He let his fingers wander up to her knickers, finding them soaked and her extraordinarily sensitive. When he moved down to kiss her through her knickers, she whimpered “Neville, please.”
He stripped her of her knickers and laid down with her, their bodies flush and nude and warm and smooth and pressed together in all the best places. Sliding a hand between them, he slipped a finger over her slick clit, moving in tight, erratic circles as he held her tight to him, until she shuddered and arched and clutched at him. He was watching her fall apart in his arms, and it was both the hottest and the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen in his life.
When she opened her eyes again, they seemed to shine. She reached up and traced his hairline behind his ear, as if his hair were long enough to tuck there. She wrapped her legs around him and pulled him closer.
“Susan, are you sure?” he asked, although he knew the answer. He saw it in her eyes.
“Are you?” she answered.
He kissed her then, and it felt like nothing he’d ever felt.
Pulling away slightly to look at her, her hair spilled out on the pillow, he saw her hand lying up near her head, palm up. He slipped his hand into hers, interlacing their fingers.
He felt every millimeter as he slid inside her. She was adjusting, taking him in to her heat. There was something deeper about this connection, as she lay beneath him. He was sheathed inside her, and her eyes were boring deep into his, and he was holding her hand and her body and her heart.
As they moved together, he knew he’d never felt anything this intimate, this close before. He felt himself beginning to lose control, felt her starting to come, but he didn’t want it to be over so soon, didn’t want to lose this amazing wonderful beautiful feeling here with her—
“Neville,” he heard her moan immediately before he shattered, calling her name into her shoulder as his body rocked into hers.
He looked into her eyes for several long minutes, just lying there together. He could feel her heart beating against his chest.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“I… thank you too.”
He squeezed her hands.
He finally felt alive.