Shame

AN: Yeah! My first attempt at writing slashy goodness. Feel free to leave constructive crit, I sort of wrote this as a warm up to the sex scene forthcoming in my other story 'Slaughter' so I'd love to know where I can improve in that department :)

He was ashamed of me, of us really.

I’m not shocked, I’m was ashamed too. Ashamed of the way that I shiver when his blunt teeth nip at the baby-smooth skin of my shoulders, how I moan and whimper like a girl as his hand roughly jerks over my cock. I’m especially ashamed of the way I shudder and swear when I come. But if he’s so ashamed of me, and I’m so ashamed of him, then why did we play out this fucking sham whenever we could?

It started in our fourth year, the night of the ball. I’d taken Ginny I think; It hardly seems important now. We’d never really been friends, she just wanted a chance to go to the Ball and I wanted, no, needed a girl who wouldn’t laugh at me when I asked her. She spent the whole night staring at Harry and I spent the whole night watching him. Blaise Zabini. That liquorice coloured skin, such a deep black that he almost seemed to glisten like a snake as the light hit his face.

That haughty, beaked nose and those cold eyes that watched everyone with disdain, watching him I was rapt. He was beautiful, he was graceful as he danced with girl after girl, and he was everything that I wasn’t. And I wanted him. Whether it was that I wanted him or simply wanted to be him, I wasn’t sure, but there was something about him that slayed me. I went through the motions with Ginny, when there was music we danced, when there was food we ate and when there was a hipflask we drank; but our attention was focused elsewhere. She watched Harry, and I watched Blaise. It was funny actually, well not so much funny as it was pathetic.

Finally Ginny made her excuses and we parted ways with a slightly awkward hug and a kiss on the cheek. I understood, Harry had disappeared long ago after some sort of fight with Hermione, she had no reason to stay. Fingering my bowtie until it hung limply on either side of my neck, I wandered outside. Couples wandered through the shadowy night with complete disregard for the rules that no couples were allowed anywhere but the Great Hall, so I kept walking. I wanted to be alone in my thoughts of Blaise.

I’d noticed him for weeks now, casually in our classes. Some people thought of him as nothing but that ass, Draco Malfoy’s sidekick, but he was so much more than that. They weren’t even really friends, Draco wasn’t friends with anyone he couldn’t push around, and Blaise wouldn’t let anyone push him around. He was mostly alone, like me. Sure I hung out with Harry and Ron sometimes, but I was their sidekick, the boy always running along after them pathetically pretending he was part of the group but knowing that he wasn’t. I wasn’t trying to kid myself into thinking we were the same in anyway, I was pathetic, pale, gawky Neville Longbottom, and he was mysterious, haughty, enigmatic Blaise Zabini.

Finally I found a bench carved into a wall that wrapped around on itself, creating a sort of alcove for people, lovers, to hide in. I sat there, my head resting softly against the roughly-hewn bricks as I stared up at the inky sky. I thought of the times that he’d caught me watching him, how my face had turned into an instant beetroot as I’d hurriedly turned back to Ginny, only to find my eyes almost helplessly drawn to his body within seconds. Soon, too soon, I heard the slow, measured clip of footsteps approaching. Preparing to tell whoever it was to go away (at least in my head, in reality I’d probably stutter and let them have the spot, running off to bed), I turned towards the sound.

And there he was.

6 ft of ebony skin, sinew and muscle all wrapped up in a fine cut suit that accentuated his shoulders and tapered hips that looked like it was made for him. It probably was actually, his mother was supposed to be obscenely rich. Without a word, he sat beside me, pulling out a long silver cigarette case that he flipped open to reveal a row of cigarettes and a tiny gold lighter. I watched him out of the corner of my eye as he lifted one to his lips, cupped the lighter in his hands and with a tiny ‘flick’ lit it, inhaling deeply as his eyes shut for a second. Flickering open, and again without a word he held out the case to me. I’d never smoked before, but I’d be damned if I was going to let this opportunity to be around him pass. Picking one and slipping it between my lips as I’d seen him do, I focused on not shaking like a leaf as he held the lighter towards me. Inhaling as I’d seen him do, I immediately started to choke on the thick smoke curling through my lungs, coughing and curling convex into myself as I let the cigarette drop to the pavement path below. Still wheezing, I sat up slightly, hoping to stem the watering of my eyes before it got out of hand.

“If you can’t smoke, don’t smoke.” He advised in what was already a solid baritone at fourteen, his voice dripping with disdain.

“I just never have before. I can do it.” As I spoke I was impressed with my ability to form articulate sentences. It had almost sounded like I had a backbone for a minute there. He must have thought so too because he wordlessly picked the fallen cigarette from the ground and held it out to me.

Gripping it between my fingers the same way he was, I watched the way he inhaled the smoke, breathed in slightly to let the smoke into his lungs and then exhaled. Tentatively trying again, I found that thankfully this time I didn’t break into a coughing fit. We smoked in silence until they’d burned down to the filters, and when he dropped his to the ground and crushed it with the toe of his shoe, I copied. I was dizzy, he’d later tell me that it was from my first time smoking and that everyone gets head spins, but either way, when I tried to stand, I found myself stumbling.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me back onto the bench, and I sat, trying to pretend that this entire time I’d been really smooth and charming, the way I imagined he would be when faced with the love of his life. In my head I’d charmed him with conversation, I’d smoked like a pro and he’d left thinking that perhaps I was someone he’d be prepared to socialise with again. When the dizziness subsided, I once again snuck a glance at him beside me. I couldn’t for the life of me understand why he was still sitting next to me, watching me with unabashed curiosity as my green gills slowly turned a normal colour once again, but inside I was thrilled. Well torn between thrilled and terrified.

“Better?”

“Y-yeah thanks, can you tell I smoke all the time?” There! Victory! I made a little joke.

He didn’t laugh.

“You were staring at me tonight. All night.” Oh crap, was my immediate thought. He’d noticed me. Well I’d known he’d seen me, but I’d been hoping he’d passed it off as a coincidence. Apparently no such luck. I shouldn’t be shocked, with me it was never such luck.

“No, no I wasn’t. I was actually just...”

“You were staring at me all night. It wasn’t a question Neville.” I remember that at this point, my first thought was joy that he knew my name. Despite everything else I still got a tiny tingly of a thrill from that. Of course it was soon washed over by panic that he thought I was some sort of a stalker, but still at one point there was joy.

“I was just, uhm, watching you dance. I can’t dance, and I thought maybe if I watched you then I could learn. It was nothing weird. I p-promise.”

He scoffed, actually audibly scoffed at this. And then he stood. I figured he was going to leave me, creepy stalker boy, to himself. But instead, brushing himself off he turned and held out a hand to me. Raising an eyebrow as I sat there staring at him flummoxed, he cleared his throat and spoke once more. I remember thinking that I could listen to his voice all night. It was so clear and sure of itself. He never stuttered.

“Well then? Get up, don’t just sit there like a useless lump. That is not how we learn to dance.”

“How do we learn to dance?” At this point, I still had no idea what he was on about.

“How do we learn to dance? Do you honestly not have sufficient mental capacity to puzzle this out? Well there are two options. Either we learn to dance by taking the hand of the boy who is so graciously standing in front of you and doing exactly what he tells you, or we learn to dance by sitting on our asses by ourselves. Which do you think it is?”

“Uhhm... by taking the hand of the boy who is so graciously standing in front of me?”

“Very good. Now,” he made a show of holding out his hand to me again, widening his eyes elaborately as if he thought I might possibly be retarded. Heart thumping through my chest I placed my hand in his, hoping that it wasn’t too sweaty and swallowed the saliva that had pooled in my mouth. He pulled me up and began a series of complicated instructions of posture and leading and there was something about a dip. All I know is that the entire time he was fussing about me I was repeating the same mantra in my head. ’Don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up, don’t fuck this up.’ I nodded along at what seemed like appropriate moments, subtly trying to inhale as much as his addictive scent as I could. He smelt like leather and cigarette smoke. On another person I probably wouldn’t have found this as attractive as I did, but on him, it was the most amazing thing that had ever passed through my nostrils. Up this close I could notice all the small details you miss from afar. Like how white his teeth were against his charcoal lips, or the tiny flecks of gold in his eyes. He really was perfection.

“Are we ready to try this now Neville?” try? Try what? Oh I’d zoned out, too busy staring at his beautiful face to listen to him. Still, I nervously nodded as he took my hands in his own and wrapped them around his shoulders. I suddenly found myself pressed against him as his hands linked themselves around my waist. I willed myself to commit this experience to memory, because there was a not a single chance in hell that this would ever happen again. We swayed closely together, in a barely discernable circle motion. The entire time he talked, instructing me that I could, at this point ‘put my hands on her ass’ if I felt the need, letting his hands drift towards m own ass to demonstrate.

My head almost involuntarily dropped to his shoulder as I closed my eyes and surrendered myself to the moment. Twenty minutes ago I’d been sitting alone fantasising about this God, and now here I was in his arms. I barely noticed as one of his hands left its position on my ass (which for the record had caused me to subtly press my cock against his. It was the grace of God only that was keeping me from getting harder than I’d ever been in my life) and snaked its way up to my head. So I was, understandably shocked, when his fingers entwined through my hair and pulled, jerking me back and exposing my throat to him. I let out a sharp yelp of pain which was quickly silenced by his glare.

“Now, Neville, let’s be reasonable about this. You weren’t staring at me to learn how to dance.”

“Yes I was, I swe-“

“Neville did your Grandmother never teach you not to tell lies?”

His voice was commanding, authoritative. He sounded so much older than his fourteen years. He was mature, already becoming a man, whereas I was still just a pathetic little boy, choking back whimpers as his fingers tugged on my hair.

“I like... I like looking at you.”

“Why? Why do you like looking at me?”

“Because,” I knew I couldn’t tell him the truth, that it was because I wanted him with a passion unrivalled by anything else in my life, so I chose the safer option. I lied. “Because I want to be like you, you’re everything I’m not.” If I’d thought that would mollify him, I was wrong. He pulled on my hair again sharply, using it to pull me backwards so that I was stumbling into the curve of the wall, so that we were hidden from view. My back pressed to the wall now he released his grip on my hair, apparently satisfied that if I tried to run he could stop me. His body was pushed against mine anyways, I couldn’t have gone anywhere if I’d wanted to.

“Let’s try this one more time,” he spoke quietly, but in a voice of steel. “Repeat after me: I, Neville,”

“...I, Neville.” I spoke quietly, my voice had a shake to it. I was scared, but I liked it. The kind of fear you have on roller-coasters where you know that nothing truly awful is going to happen to you. Fear mixed with excitement. I know what you’re thinking, but I was a fourteen year old boy with the boy of his dreams rubbing up against him, of course it was mixed with excitement.

“Was staring at you, Blaise,”

“Was staring at you, Blaise...”

“Because...”

“Because...”

“I desperately want to fuck you.”

“....I desperately want to fuck you.”

“That’s what I thought.” And suddenly he was all over me. His lips attacked mine, pushing them open with his tongue, coaxing response from my shock-addled brain. There was no time for thought as Blaise’s hands swarmed over his body, pulling my shirt from my pants and roaming under the flesh beneath it. I kissed him back inexpertly, my mind apparently in shock as I just went with it, pulling his head closer to mine. I wanted this to never end, I wanted to devour him and have this moment forever.

His hands ran over my pale body, grabbing, pulling me closer, tugging at my nipples and wrenching gasps from my throat that were swallowed by his mouth. I found myself pulling at his shirt too, wanting as much of my skin against his own as I could get. My hands skimmed nervously over the hard planes of his body, digging my nails into his back as his mouth left mine and he began to suckle and bite at my neck, soft chewing sounds as he sucked the flesh into his mouth. One hand grabbed my own and guided it roughly to the zip of his pants.

I knew what he wanted, he already had one hand rubbing over the bulge distending my pants , the rough motions making me gasp, bite down on my lip hard in between gasps of breath. I copied his actions, rubbing my palm against him. This was different to my sweaty fantasies in bed at night, this was something animal, raw, violent.

“Yes, fuck yes.” He whispered softly, pressing his forehead against my shoulder briefly as I continued my fumbling hands against his cock, growing braver now and getting a firm grasp on it, jerking him through his pants.

My lips found his again and I bit his lip, pulling at it as his hands snaked inside my pants, inside my briefs and made contact with the head of my cock. It was amazing, a thousand times better than any time I’d jerked myself off. I didn’t care why or how this was happening anymore, as long as it never stopped. I pushed my hips against his hand, hard, while he encircled my, the tips of his fingers running against my head and smearing precum over it. He jerked me hard and fast, attacking my lips and nipples, pulling, sucking and twisting at me until I was a writhing mass of sensation. I was whimpering, moaning into his mouth now, mewling like a cat as my balls began to tighten.

Thrusting himself against my hand, I quickly unzipped his pants, my hand squirreling inside them and mimicking his actions, the hot smoothness of his cock to the touch. Throbbing in my hand, I twisted my hand in a tight circle around him, up and down the long shaft until he was panting too. We both were gasping for air by now, our feverish kisses punctuated by gulps of air.

I came first, shuddering into his hand and spilling myself in my pants. As if it was what he’d been waiting for, he dropped his hands from my sweating body and spun me around so that my chest was pressed against the wall. I heard a rustle of something being ripped open and then felt him push my pants down to below my ass, and then a sudden blinding pain as he pushed himself into me. I wheezed at the pain, letting out an animal sound and instinctively attempting to pull away from the source of the agony. Blaise’s hands shot out to hold me still, to press my face against the wall so that my cheek would have a myriad of tiny cuts come the morning, and then he began to move. Slowly at first, he built up pace steadily, thrusting himself roughly inside me again and again as the pain began to subside.

“Jerk... fuck, jerk yourself off. Fuckin’ do it.”

Though I’d just come minutes ago, I couldn’t resist his voice and I found myself pulling at my limp cock. With all the vigour of a fourteen year old, I was soon hard again and when Blaise suddenly hit something inside me that made me see stars, I cried out, came again and slumped against the wall. A few more frantic thrusts of his hips and Blaise slumped against me, pressing me harder against the stone. We both stayed like that, sagging against the wall, panting, trying to catch our breath. And then he pulled out and I remembered the pain. It was back with vengeance, not that I was exactly complaining. My mind spun with what had just happened, a million questions of why swirled around and clamoured to be asked first. I heard him mutter a quick spell and found the strength to push myself off the wall and lazily do my pants up once more, tucking my shirt back in neatly. And with a nod of his head and a slight laugh, he walked off. He was so composed, no one could have ever guessed what he’d just done. As for me, I sat back on the bench that had started it all and caught my breath.

We did it for years, all throughout fifth and sixth year, but we never told anyone. In public we’d ignore each other, pretend we had no idea that the other existed. I never did, but he had girlfriends that we never spoke of whenever we’d meet up. Which we did, frequently. Everywhere. We’d fuck by the lake, in the library, the prefects bathroom, anywhere and everywhere. We’d never talk about it, he’d just send me an owl with a time and a place, and like a little puppy I’d diligently be there waiting for him when the time came.

Like I said, he was ashamed of me. Or maybe he just didn’t want people to know he was gay. Either way, no one ever found out about us, for all I know everyone still thinks I’m a pathetic virgin. Seventh year things... well to say they went to shit would be putting it mildly. Seventh year was the end of our little affair, not shockingly. With the war going on, sex was the last thing on anyone’s mind. So I acted like the good old Neville Longbottom everyone had come to expect and I talked about plants and floating cactuses and tried not to think about how much I missed Blaise’s hands running over my chest.

And then he was gone. Dead. Killed in that fucking war that had driven us apart in the first place. I couldn’t go to his funeral, I don’t even know if there was a funeral. I spent about three months numb, an icy wash seeming to cover everything I did, until there didn’t seem to be any point to anything. I stayed home, didn’t get dressed, didn’t eat, didn’t take care of any of my plants (in the end the staged a coup and took over the living room entirely, magical plants can be very demanding), I just sat in my room staring blankly at the walls, willing it not to be true. Because as much as I was ashamed of it, I still loved him. And then slowly, bit by bit, things began to get better. I started smiling again. I claimed back the living room from the plants. Things didn't feel so numb anymore.

And then one not particularly special day, I sat down at my typewriter. And I began to write it all down.