Sex, Howlers, and Socks with Holes
The problem with being in love with your best mate is that it’s a lot of pressure.
On one hand, Theo Nott has never allowed anything in his life to hold him back. McGonagall nearly failing him in Transfiguration? Easy. He’d just charmed the pants off the witch until she allowed him a makeup assignment.
Accidentally unleashing a torrent of doxies from the tattered curtains in Malfoy Manor the summer between fourth and fifth year? A bit of a nuisance—especially when they invaded Lucius’ study and one got stuck in his hair—but he’d managed to capture them all. Lucius hadn’t even lost any of that pretty blond hair of his.
Being marked by Voldemort? Okay, so that hadn’t been a walk in the park. In fact, it was decidedly awful, but he’d managed to somehow to stay mostly out from under Voldemort’s thumb and had made it out of the warm mostly unscathed.
However, falling in love with your best mate… well, that’s inevitably going to make things complicated.
Especially when your best mate is Neville bleeding Longbottom.
Especially when you accidentally sleep with your best mate when they saved you from a llama-induced near-death accident while nude from the waist down in the Swiss Alps.
Especially when, instead of buying him some kind of sensible present for the Christmas hols like, he doesn’t know, potting soil for his ruddy plant obsession, you buy them socks because they remind you of him.
Yes, Theodore Nott is in way over his head.
It had started out with a sock.
Or, well, lots of socks. And other dirty laundry. But mostly the socks.
Neville Longbottom, Gryffindor sweetheart that he was, generally an amiable guy and well-liked by everyone, was a bit of a slob.
Not to say that most men weren’t. As a queer, equal-opportunity shagger, Theo had seen it all. People who cleared a singular path to the bedroom through general disarray, the odd one out whose flat ought to have been condemned—and who Theo had never actually managed to shag, thanks to some emergency or other that he thought up at the last moment—and those who kept a meticulous place.
The one thing he knew was that, no matter where someone fell on a gender spectrum, their partner had to match or at least be able to tolerate their degree of messiness.
And, unfortunately for Neville Longbottom, Hannah Abbot had not been able to tolerate his messiness, and so she’d packed her bags, left a sweet and to-the-point note, and left one day when Neville was at work.
All over a pair of socks.
When Theo had found Neville curled over a glass of whisky at the Leaky and asked him what was wrong, Neville had spilled it out all over the floor like a veritable tidal wave.
It would be the first and the last time he’d ask a casual acquaintance why they were drowning their sorrows in the bottom of a whisky glass, but it would not be the last time he asked Neville that.
Inexplicably enough, the Gryffindor bloke had grown on him. And then, quite literally, he’d grown into Theo’s flat, given the ridiculous amount of plants he’d brought with him when he moved in. Being the gentleman he was, he’d let Hannah keep their flat.
And Theo, being the sympathetic twit that he was—and he’d deny it if anyone ever accused him of it—had allowed his new friend to move in.
The thing about Neville, though, was that he had a bad habit of leaving his socks about the place. Just the socks. As far as Theo had been able to get out of him, that was why Hannah was done. She’d tired of picking up his old, holey socks time and time again after they’d already talked about it, for Merlin’s sake.
It would, of course, come out later, well after Neville had been living with Theo for a year, that she’d been considering breaking it off with Neville to move to the States because her relationship with Neville had been more for comfort than out of love, but it started with the socks.
How it ended—or began, because can something really end before it begins?—with a llama in the Swiss Alps…
Well, Theo wasn’t entirely sure about that.
It had been three months.
Three months of entirely normal, completely platonic relationship between them. Theo went to work at Draco’s firm, handled his cases, and then came home. Neville went to tend the greenhouse and deliver whatever rare plant he’d managed to propagate.
And neither of them mentioned that illicit moment they’d shared in the tent.
By the end of the second month, Theo wondered if he’d imagined the whole thing.
And when the invitations to Hermione and Draco’s Christmas party arrived and Neville suggested they go together—as friends, he’d stressed, at the obvious look of panic Theo had probably worn—Theo was sure that, even if something had happened, Neville was writing it off.
He didn’t even know if Neville was queer. If something had happened, maybe it had been just experimentation. Theo didn’t begrudge him that at all. After all, how many wizards could say they’d shagged Neville Longbottom in the Swiss Alps?
Well, he wasn’t even sure if he could say that, but he trusted his hazy memory.
And it was pretty hard to forget something like that.
Anyway, Neville was decidedly distant, which made Theo’s growing infatuation—denial is a bitch—all the more difficult to swallow.
So, of course, Theo had agreed to go with Neville and then taken a very long, very frustrating shower. There was only so much a hand could do.
But they were here, and Theo was on a mission.
In his short life, and especially since the war, he’d not taken many risks. Beyond signing his soul over to Voldemort and subsequently getting it back—thanks, Potter—he’d lived a decidedly mundane life. He wasn’t getting any younger, and it was hard to date when you still had the remnants of a megalomaniac’s tattoo inked into your forearm.
So, like any self-respecting wizard, he would take a chance.
Tonight. At Hermione and Draco’s Christmas party.
If he didn’t throw up.
The trees in Hermione and Draco’s foyer glittered with winking lights. Presents were piled beneath the boughs, all of them wrapped in garish paper that he would bet his entire Gringotts vault that Draco had picked out. Low music played from somewhere towards the back of the house, and he and Neville shrugged out of their jackets.
Theo reached for Neville’s. “Go on, then. I’ll put these in the closet and be back in a minute.”
Neville frowned. “You don’t have to—”
“Too late,” Theo called over his shoulder in a sing-song voice, already striding away. “Grab me a drink and save me a seat—far away from Parkinson so I don’t end up a victim of her over-enthusiastic hand gestures this year.” He’d learned that particular lesson the year before, when he’d wound up covered in her Shirley Temple while Potter steered her towards the Floo and offered him profuse apologies. No need to put himself in that kind of line of fire again.
By the time Theo had dropped off the coats and removed the small wrapped present from the pocket of his, Neville was gone. Theo could hear his deep laughter in response to something Granger said, and he ducked into the loo to straighten his jacket.
And give himself a brief pep talk, though he’d deny it if anyone told him otherwise.
“It’s just Christmas—and he’s your best mate,” he muttered at his reflection in the mirror. A lock of hair was trying valiantly to escape the very careful coiffe he’d styled it into, and no amount of water would keep it in place. With a huff, he pulled out his wand, muttered a sticking charm at it, and then nodded in satisfaction when it finally stayed in place. “Nothing to be done about it other than to get it over with. He might not have even been writing back to you.”
Still, the hippogryphs that had taken flight in his stomach the moment he saw the To line on Neville’s letter continued to riot.
With one last, determined look in the mirror, he left the loo, following the smell of baked goods towards the kitchen.
That was one good thing about Draco and Hermione’s house. It was massive, but it was generally pretty easy to find his way around. Well, easy enough because the only places he tended to visit were the drawing room—where the Floo was—the dining room, and the kitchen. So when all one had to do was follow their nose down familiar corridors, it made it pretty easy.
Hermione had outdone herself this year. Little floating candles dotted the hallway, each of them adorned with a small wreath and ribbon. The flames danced merrily, and it was almost enough to wash away the nerves he felt when he turned the corner and saw Neville there, leaning against the countertop.
It was funny, really, how the man could send him into a tizzy simply by existing. Some time between leaving Theo at the door and Theo’s arrival in the kitchen, Neville had pushed the sleeves of his corded sweater up to his elbows, and it bunched just below the bend, providing ample view of the veins that stood out in his forearms. His hip rested against the countertop, one leg crossed at the ankle as he listened to whatever Hermione gestured about excitedly.
When he glanced up at Theo, their gazes snagging, something warm flickered in his expression that certainly hadn’t been there a moment before.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking.
Whatever it was, it directed Hermione’s attention to him, and she launched herself at him, throwing her arms around his neck. “Theo! We’re so glad you could make it! Both of you, really.” She turned then, inviting him into the small space between her and Neville.
“We’re glad to be here, Hermione,” Neville responded, his voice low and easy, like it was every day he answered for the pair of them. Like it was natural for them to show up together. Like Theo wasn’t freaking out over the mere suggestion of pectorals underneath too godsdamned much fabric and just the tiniest suggestion of a smattering of hair—
“Theo?”
He blinked, wrenching his gaze away from the vee of Neville’s sweater. “I’m sorry?”
Neville coughed, covering what sounded suspiciously like a laugh, then filled in what Theo had missed. “Hermione asked how your travels were last month.”
“Oh,” Theo replied, trying to orient himself back into the conversation and away from Neville’s chest hair. “Um, well it was alright. It went about as well as a solo backpacking adventure through the Alps to find yourself can go.”
Hermione grimaced, and Neville tried to stifle his laugh. The bastard even wrinkled his nose as he tried to keep from laughing.
Theo hated him.
…except he didn’t. And that was part of the problem.
“You backpacked through the Alps… to find yourself?”
“Yes,” Theo said, at the same moment that Neville scoffed loudly and said, “He absolutely did not.”
Theo spluttered. “Excuse me, but I absolutely did.” At Neville’s cocked brow, Theo said, “Okay, well I meant to, but there was an incident with a goat, and I got scared.”
“Goat incident?” Hermione’s befuddlement rang through her response, and Theo threw back the remainder of his drink.
“Do we have to get into this now?” Theo groaned, reaching across Neville for the bottle of whisky on the countertop. He tried to ignore the warmth that Neville’s proximity kindled in his stomach, but it was no use, especially when Neville reached out a hand to steady him at the waist.
Hermione just laughed. “Well if you don’t tell me now, then I’ll wait until you’ve had enough to drink to get you to tell the whole party.”
Hermione hadn’t been lying.
By the time Theo had finished pouring himself a healthy serving of whisky, with an extra dash to try to ward off the gooseflesh that Neville’s too-keen gaze kept inspiring, the other guests were arriving.
Theo was sure that he’d managed to get away with it until, by virtue of too much alcohol and poor self [word], he encouraged them to play Howler or Howl, a game that was the demented brain child of one Ronald Weasley and involved either writing your secret on a Howler to be screamed to the party at random—the Howler, naturally—or a dare that would likely humiliate all parties involved.
It was, all things considered, a pretty innocuous, if not embarrassing, secret, but it was tenfold more embarrassing to have it shouted from the paper flaps with no ability to stop it.
AND THEN, ON TOP OF A BLOODY ALPINE MOUNTAIN, I STOPPED TO USE THE LOO, AND A GOAT CHASED ME INTO A RAVINE AND ATE MY PANTS. HAVE YOU EVER HAD TO APPARATE TO THE EMERGENCY POINT WHILST CUPPING YOUR PENIS IN YOUR FREE HAND AND PRAYING TO MERLIN YOU DON’T SPLINCH IT OFF? I SHALL THINK NOT.
The Howler disintegrated in a puff of smoke.
Around him, everyone was collapsed in laughter amongst the carnage of wrapping paper and destroyed ribbons. Somehow, Pansy had managed to convince Potter to let her wind two ribbons into his mop of hair, and Hermione leaned against Draco, wiping away the tears that trailed down her cheeks.
“Never underestimate”—she wheezed, trying to breathe around her mirth—“the determination of a hungry alpine goat?”
“And always keep your Floo line open to emergency calls so your best mate can save you,” Theo intoned, taking another deep sip of his whisky, despite the fact that the room was already wobbling at the edges.
Neville, for his part, had laughed with everyone else, but hadn’t said much. Since they’d started exchanging gifts, when Theo had given him his present, he’d been quiet. Even now, during the story that Theo was sure would get a chuckle out of him, Neville was quiet.
Theo leaned against Neville, deflating in relief.
It was just enough of the truth. No one suspected a thing.
Except for Neville.
Who, conveniently enough—or inconveniently for Theo and the myriad of feelings he hadn’t addressed—had been there.
Beneath the din of the laughter, Neville whispered, just low enough that only Theo could hear him, “And that’s where the story ends?”
Theo shivered. The implication in Neville’s voice was like an electrical current along exposed nerves, setting him ablaze. When Neville’s finger ran along the sensitive skin on the inside of his wrist, Theo could feel his pupils dilate. “For now.”
Every part of him seemed to beat to the staccato rhythm of his heartbeat: liarliarliar. And Theo knew, just like he’d known that day that Neville had sat with him in the emergency tent to warm him, when they’d drunk the vodka that they shouldn’t have to try to warm up and woken up the next morning wrapped in each other’s arms, that this was a beginning.
He only hoped he didn’t mess this one up.
Around them, the party continued, but Theo slid his hand into his pocket and withdrew the small package he’d kept there, too afraid to give it to them. “I, uh, forgot to give you the rest of your present.”
“Oh?” Neville continued to stroke the underside of his arm. Theo could tell, from the corner of his eye, that Hermione kept sneaking furtive glances at them, but he didn’t care.
Theo nodded, a sharp, short jerk of his head that sent the world spinning again. “It’s nothing, really. Just thought of you when I saw them is all.”
Neville’s eyes darkened, and his lips parted, almost like he was going to say something. Even his fingertips stopped their tracing, and Theo’s whole world narrowed to that sliver of space between Neville’s lips.
Until Harry Potter, Merlin damn him, broke the moment. “Neville!” he crowed, tossing parchment and a pen in his lap. “Your turn, mate. Howler or Howl?”
Without breaking eye contact, Neville said, “Howler,” and picked up the pen, scrawling quickly across it and sealing the parchment. “Ron, your turn.”
Howler or Howl was one of those games where anything could be expected. Generally, it ended up with them all drunk off their arse. Most of the time, the Howlers hovered in the middle of their circle, zipping between them like they were in on the game and enjoyed teasing those whose secrets they held. Like chicken, but with the secret. Sometimes, the Howlers shouted halfway through someone else’s turn. Sometimes, they never opened at all and were thrown in the fire before everyone went home, much to the author’s relief.
But tonight…
Perhaps the Howler could feel the tension that wrapped its fist so desperately around Theo’s vocal chords. Maybe it could tell just how much he needed a sign from the universe. Was it foolish to anthropomorphise a scrap of parchment that had been enchanted? Absolutely, but Theo was a wizard, after all, and stranger things had happened.
Regardless, nearly as soon as Neville cast it back into the circle, it unfurled. The neatly-folded edges formed into fanged teeth, and the little ribbon that had tied around the middle to secure it seemed to lick its edges, like it savoured the secret it was about to share.
And Neville, for all his bravado, looked a little green as the Howler shouted his secret to the world.
I SHAGGED THEODORE NOTT IN A TENT IN THE SWISS ALPS, AND I’D LIKE TO SHAG HIM AGAIN.
Utter silence met the Howler’s declaration, and it was only when it ripped itself into shreds and they floated to the floor in front of them that Theo was able to speak.
“Well,” he cleared his throat, “that’s one way to declare your intentions.”
Beside him, Hermione made a choked noise of delight, and Pansy muttered something that sounded suspiciously like “finally.” Theo, though, paid them no mind as he turned to Neville and offered him a wicked grin. “I think we’ve got somewhere else to be. Pity, really.”
Neville’s own grin was frighteningly Slytherin-like as he answered, “Pity,” then dragged Theo up and to the Floo.
You know that moment of uncertainty that you have when you cross a line that you’re not sure to cross? Rationally, you know that you can never un-cross it, and it’s something that you ought to give serious consideration to, because who knows what kind of implications it could have for your life going forward.
Theo didn’t have that moment.
Of all the times he’d hooked up with a witch or a wizard, he’d had to stop and consider whether it was something he really wanted.
But with Neville?
He’d done enough thinking.
He’d done enough pining and second-guessing and dropping subtle hints.
He got swoony at the sight of holey socks, for Merlin’s sake.
No, there was no second guessing as they crashed into each other the minute the Floo deposited them at their grate. There was no second guessing as Theo melted into Neville and allowed himself to appreciate the hard line of bodies meeting. And while it was harried and needy, Theo let himself savour it.
The time in the tent had been almost like a fever dream—any moment, one of them would realise and stop what they were doing, until they hadn’t, and then neither of them had known how to address it. Now, it was a confirmation of what they’d been dancing around.
Neville melded his mouth over Theo’s, walking him backwards until his back pressed against the door. “Tell me you want this,” Neville rasped, his voice low and desperate as he trailed kissed down the side of Theo’s neck. His hands swamped Theo’s as he pressed them back to the door.
Theo nearly mewled at the rough brush of Neville’s stubble against his neck. “I want this. I want you.”
A low groan of satisfaction left Neville’s throat. “Thank fuck.”
Their lips met again, and Theo lost himself in the push and pull of it, the way Neville bit down on him, then licked the sting away. That’s what it was like with Neville; a balm to soothe the hard things.
Not that Theo was opposed to all hard things.
With as much determination as one who is nearly a whole foot shorter than the person they’re kissing can muster, Theo managed to turn them, pressing Neville’s back against the wall, and began his own journey of kisses down the man’s neck.
Somewhere between the Floo and the wall of Theo’s bedroom, Neville had lost the corded sweater and the thin cotton shirt he’d worn beneath. Just bare skin and that very tempting smattering of hair greeted Theo as he kissed down Neville’s pecks, then paused to nip at Neville’s nipples.
He revelled in the sounds that Neville made. Small gasps, groans of delight and frustration, but still Neville didn’t push away from the wall. Like he was offering Theo every last bit of restraint he had, despite the fact that Theo was intimately familiar with Neville’s penchant to lead the way.
Theo appreciated the restraint, even if he did want Neville to tear his clothes off and go to town. Call it eternal optimism—one thing he’d never been accused of before, but he’d digress—but he was willing to bet there’d be time for that later.
Theo paused in his perusal of Neville’s body. The man was built, and though he knew this on a cognitive level—they had, after all, been roommates for years and played shirts vs skins Quidditch more times than he could count—it was different to be in such close proximity to it.
To be able to trail his fingers over the soft, tempting path of dark hair that carved a path between his muscles and behind the button Theo desperately wished to thumb open and then slide off Neville’s hips.
He dropped to his knees in front of Neville, his gaze zeroing in on the bulge in Neville’s trousers.
To trace every line of that hard body with his lips, and then his tongue, from his neck to his navel and, Merlin forbid it, even down to his toes if Neville—
Theo’s heated gaze froze, brows lifting up to his hairline as a wicked grin curled his lips.
Neville whined, the sound nearly pitiful. “Why did you stop?”
Without answering, Theo reached up and undid the button, then slid the trousers down Neville’s hips. Neville grabbed his shoulders to balance himself as he stepped out of them, and Theo could smell the liquor that he’d spilled on his hands in their haste to leave Hermione and Draco’s. “Guess.”
“What?” Predictably, Neville’s eyes nearly bugged out of his head. For some reason, that made Theo laugh. They were nearly all pupil except for the small ring of green around them, which then transitioned nearly immediately to the whites of the eyes.
Theo allowed his hands to shoot out, bracing himself against Neville’s thighs. Heat flared in Neville’s gaze.
Slowly, he traced his left hand down Neville’s calves. “You have a hole.”
He tipped his head back to look up at Neville, and the world spun around him too slowly. Neville's hand dove into his hair, whether to steady him or stake a claim Theo wasn’t sure.
Neville grinned wryly. “Yes, we all have.”
Theo rolled his eyes. “That was low hanging fruit, even for a Gryffindor.” He tipped his gaze back down, trying—and failing—not to stare at the sizeable bulge right in front of his face. “Your sock. There’s a hole in it.”
“Yes, and?” Neville pushed, bringing his fingers up to cup Theo’s jaw.
Theo swallowed, not sure he could handle the honesty while looking Neville in the eyes, so he reached up, tracing the band of his shorts with his fingertips. “The socks I got you—they’re charmed so they won’t get holes. Because you’re always getting holes in your socks. And even though it doesn’t bother me, I know you’re still self conscious about it because of—”
“Please don’t say my ex-girlfriend’s name when you’re about to suck me off,” Neville said, clamping a hand over his mouth, though his touch was gentle. “That’s a very sweet sentiment and we’ll talk all about the feelings later—because trust me, there are a lot of feelings, but right now, I’d really like to continue the path that this is on.”
Theo nodded, more than happy to put this off. It was, after all, probably a conversation better left for them to have when they were sober.
At Neville’s confirming nod, Theo slid Neville’s shorts down his legs, and Neville’s cock sprang free.
So he hadn’t imagined it, then. How large it was.
Neville didn’t give him long to admire it, though, tapping his fingers on Theo’s chin. “Open.” Neville brushed himself against Theo’s closed lips.
A bead of precum smeared over Theo’s lips, and he darted his tongue out to lick it away. He saw the flash of hunger in Neville’s eyes, that leash he kept firmly on his control, and Theo tutted. That wouldn’t do.
Without allowing Neville a second to reconsider, he swiped his tongue up the underside of Neville’s cock, then sucked it in his mouth.
The musky tang of him seemed to ingulf Theo’s senses, and he moaned around Neville’s cock. The sound broke Neville’s restraint, and his fingers delved into Theo’s hair, pumping in and out of his mouth.
Theo had always loved sucking wizards off. There was a raw sense of power to it, the way he hollowed his cheeks out on a deep suck, then followed it with gentle, nearly loving caresses of his tongue, but with Neville… Neville gave as good as he got, plunging so deep into Theo’s throat that he almost choked on it, desperate to get a breath in.
He fucking loved it, and of course it was over too soon.
Neville wrenched him upright, nearly tearing the clothes off him. “I want to finish inside you,” he growled, dragging Theo to the bed.
They crashed to the bed together, and Theo reached blindly for Neville, pausing only to rush out, “I’m clean; I was tested last month. We can—”
“I am too,” Neville said, kissing him with bruising force. “Do you want—”
“A condom?” Theo huffed. “Merlin, no. I just want you inside me.”
“Fuck, Theo,” Neville swore, rolling on top of him, “I’m not going to last.”
Theo preened, just a bit, until he felt Neville’s cock nudge against his entrance, heard Neville’s muttered spell of lubrication. “I don’t care. I just want you.”
They both cursed when Neville pushed into him. It was tight, almost impossibly so without so much as a finger to warm him up, but Theo relaxed into it, pressing kisses to the bottom of Neville’s jaw as he continued to push in. When he was fully seated, Neville paused, his breath gusting out of him. “You’re going to fucking kill me, Theodore Nott.”
Theo offered a half-hysterical laugh, trying not to write beneath Neville to get him to move. “Death by orgasm doesn’t seem so bad.”
Neville pulled out, then pushed back in, and the clenching low in Theo’s gut intensified. Slowly, so slowly that Theo thought he might scream, Neville increased his pace, crushing Theo’s cock between them. The sensation was overwhelming, just Neville everywhere all at once, and Theo moaned unintelligible nonsense as the pleasure washed over him.
“Fuck, Neville, please,” he moaned, arching into him and wrapping his legs around Neville’s waist.
Neville pulled back, something akin to a self-satisfied smirk on his face as he rested on his haunches and slowed his pace to a leisurely roll. “You beg so prettily,” he whispered, his grip tightening on Theo’s hips. He cocked a brow as he ran his fingers over the vee that nestled between Theo’s legs, then cupped his cock. “Ask nicely.”
“Please, Neville. Gods, please.” Theo abandoned all pretence of nonchalance as he bucked his hips against Neville’s hand, both overwhelmed by the feeling of fullness and the desperate need to move. “I need you.”
Neville obliged him, tightening his fist around Theo’s cock as he pumped into him, hard and fast. “You’re mine now, okay? And I’m yours. No more of this pretending we don’t want each other.”
Theo nodded, his eyes rolling backwards as Neville increased his pace on his cock. “Yes.”
The word had barely left his lips and Theo was coming, riding the wave of the high as Neville pumped into him once more, shouting his name. Theo knew he was shouting too, but what words he was saying were utterly beyond him.
In the aftermath, they lay tangled together, and it was only after the second round—or the third, but who's counting?—Neville laughed. “I never thought I’d say I was grateful for a llama, but here we are.”
“Well, I never thought I’d be grateful for socks with holes, but here we are,” Theo quipped, nipping Neville gently on the neck. “You know we’re going to have to—”
“Talk about this?” Neville asked, a small smile curving his lips. “I know. But for now, I’d like to go to sleep and cuddle with my new boyfriend.”
Theo laughed, his lids already heavy, as he drifted off to sleep, and he was pretty sure he heard Neville say something about this being the best Christmas ever.
Well, he’d just have to see about that.