hi ! so it's kind of a mix between the "shirtless neighbor" trope and a "shower sex" prompt except there is feelings. Enjoy and thanks you.

settings: non magical au, neighbors au

ps: english is not my native language so if someone would like to beta-ing/grammar checking on me, it would be with pleasure!

pps: it's my first smut, i'm terrified.

wc: 3787 words

Pansy Parkinson doesn't know a single thing about her neighbor, except that he loves, he really loves, walking around shirtless.

Charlie Weasley doesn't know a single thing about his neighbor except that she loves bringing a different man at her apartment every night and letting them leave in the early morning.

Oh, it's enough for what they need to know.

Pansy has no time for reckless redhead who don't know who they are, but she can't help herself but bump into them every time that she walks in the corridor, with grocery bags in both hands and a gaze like thunder. Weasley.

(The fact is that he is not the worst. He is muscular and covered by scars on every inch of bare skin which he is delighted to expose to her sight. His relatives, his army of brothers and his only little sister are fierce but they are at home, at ease. They walk towards her neighbor's flat like one man. Him, he is an only man in a sea of family ties)

She isn't the one to blame him: her mother is lost behind a veil of smoke and her father is like a cold statue.

But, unlike him, she is not alone. Her bed is warm every night and she knows when she wakes up as the sun hits her window, her lips swollen and soft bed sheet caressing her naked skin, that she wins it, she struggles to belong somewhere but in the end, she wins.

They are begging between the darkest hours but her mind is peaceful and her lips sealed. In the dark, she only sees their lusting eyes and the collar of their shirts, it's better like that because otherwise she could see beyond their pretty generic faces and beyond her alcohol-induced state, she could remember the color of their eyes or the shades of their lips after she has bitten it.

But she does not. She does not remember because it's –

She doesn't want to think about it. She doesn't think about them: they are her nightdreams, not valuable enough to be the subjects of her daydreams.

She is taking the trash out – it's smelly and she holds it with only two fingers – when she finds him out, again, on her path.

Shirtless, of course.

"Hi Parkinson!" he is all smile, a bright one, and suddenly she fucking wants to run into the nearer shop, buy a pair of opaque sunglasses to protect her from his hell of sunshine-smile. "As I can see, you are not only taking trash in but you're also taking it out".

She freezes. She freezes because usually she slaps people like him, people who criticize her entertainment and her survival ethics to push on no-strings-attached and good sex. (Unless it is an old lady. She can't fight against the middle-class background she comes from. It's a conservative one and somehow, it's why it grows so old.)

But he is her neighbor and she cannot decently slap her neighbor. He would avenge himself, and put dead birds on the porch of her door like a mean feral cat.

But she can still deal with him like with everyone else, with contempt.

"It's better inside, I swear." She grins. "I didn't think that you were such a prude for someone who walks around half-naked but I guess it must be the mommy side."

It hits its target. He becomes red like her lipstick. She wants to laugh but she lowers her eyes to let him enjoy his humiliation and his resentment.

Huge mistake. She can almost hear the hysterical sound of Daphne whistling and of Draco sneezing of despise. Under the scars, white on his golden skin, there are freckles. So many freckles.

She almost drops the trash.

She breathes slowly so he does not notice. She is in control, she will not flinch for an amateur athlete, a prude mommy boy, an annoying disturbance of her taking-trash-out ritual, a show off boy, a –

He blushes so hard when she meets his eyes.

"Sound like I have pinch a raw nerve?"

"Don't talk about my mom, would you? You don't know her. You're only the girl who takes trash out."

"And in" she reminds him with a mean smile.

Oh god. This guy was clearly made for daydreams.

"Yeah. It's a specialty of yours?"

"Yes." She manages a break for dramatic effects (and for having time to think about the next sentence and not to her wet overpriced underwear). "What's your specialty?"

He doesn't blink.

She expects anything from him, a dark kink, a rebellious secret, why girls never come to his flat, a passion for rough sex resulting of all these nasty scars, a –

"Animals."

No, Pansy Parkinson wasn't prepared to that, to the storm that was Charlie Weasley.

She was teasing him, tempting him.

But he is smiling because he mentioned animals?

It is the first thing that she learns by him. But for now, it wasn't the most exciting one.

xx.

After this curious meeting, all she does is taking a cold shower. Shampoo stings her eyes, it's irritating, it's burning, it's not enough to forget the vision of his body, or the sound of his deep voice or –

She turns off the water abruptly.

And, she takes two martinis and she drinks it down in one. Alcohol warms her body better than anyone else, better than any guys who cross the door to just put a hand in her panties, better than him who stays an insoluble enigma.

And an annoying hottie, for sure.

It has always been like that. Alcohol was the only thing keeping her hands from shaking when she was lonely, regretting the old times (bad times) when she shared a tiny bedroom with Daphne and her incessant babbling, chatting, living happily ever after.

She had left, hands in her pockets, a ferocious gaze on Blaise's curve's neck. She was successful now, living a tough fairytale in New York city, lunch 3 times a week with some big fashion designer.

Daphne is shining in the city that never sleeps, but Pansy is the one who never sleeps, looking at the cellar without seeing any stars.

Pansy is not surprised when he opens his door. It's late afternoon. Her fist stills suspended in the air, an inch away from his torso, contracted by the smell of gin and by the acid taste of lemon on the tip of her tongue.

She knows he knows she is drunk as hell. He raises an eyebrow, not so surprised, but keeps his heroic smile.

"What can I do for you?"

"I'm drunk, Weasley." She says quietly like if she was whispering a secret but with a proud smile because he would be the only one to know.

"Yeah. I can see that. Actually, I can smell that."

He is leaning on the door, the natural light of the room highlights the red of his lips, of his hair, of his freckles, of his scars –

She wants to move closer but her feet are glued to the floor and her tongue is too heavy to asks him for permission.

He doesn't move.

"I…I would like to know who you think you are for strutting with your dreamy abs and some tragic backstories written on your torso."

He laughs for the first time: it's a deep, cavernous sound. It's like the sun echoing on the wall of a hollow tunnel.

"I would like to know why you seems so unaffected by your own life but so infect to others."

"It's how it works." She answers, brushing his arm in an unconscious movement.

Conscious, her mind would be screaming, alert messages, she would be burning.

He does notices but he doesn't move his arm, he keeps going with watching her straight in the eyes.

A crooked smile ablaze the hair of her neck.

"It's how I am." He says, pulling her nearer.

His lips are cracked and dry and hot and she doesn't want to think to the kind of hell she's in because his hands are everywhere on her body and always lower.

He pushes her against a wall. His strong palms cup her face but she doesn't want to see him so she digs in, dives in. She kisses and kisses and kisses until she forgets her own names, or until she forgets that she doesn't know his.

It bothers her while he passes a hand under her silk shirt and she has a burning desire to moan his name.

"Weasley" she groans, putting her weight on the wooden furniture scratching her back. "What is your fucking name"

"Charles. Charlie. As you want."

She omits to explain that she does not want but need, but crave, for taking, and taking.

"Pansy."

It's the only thing that she concedes to give him now.

She gasps because he has two big calloused hands and a skin so textured that she feels the bumps on his scars when she licks it with her pink tongue.

"Right now, I want to see more of you than just your top half."

He unzips his jeans with an expert hand but can't help himself but break apart their feverish kiss to mumble:

"my room is kind of messy right now…travels, animals stuff…"

Again. Animals.

"I don't care" she cuts him short, pressing her against his almost-entirely naked body.

"but I have a great shower" he continues.

"I love that. I love shower."

She thinks about the one she has taken earlier, her soaked hair flattened on her skull and her red eyes. A cold shower.

He takes off his clothes off, leading her to the bathroom with one hand on her ass and the other clenched in her hair.

They are in underwear. She's glad that it's her red lingerie, with too much lace and not enough skin visible. Something pricey like La Perla or some shit and she doesn't even remember if she has taken off the price tag.

He slows down and she closes her eyes because she feels what he's doing. He's watching, maybe admiring, maybe loving what he sees and she cannot bear it.

She has a heartache, a headache, and the tiles behind her back and under her feet are cold enough to remind her that she is not drunk enough to –

He pushes the water button and he pushes his mouth against hers and she moans as the water tickles against her face like tears, like holy water.

She raises her leg to his shoulder so they are aligned and she can feel every bone of his waist and his cock hardened. She buries her face in his chest, biting, grasping.

She feels her abdomen pulsing and pulsing, crashing into waves stronger than the lash of water wetting Charlie's – Weasley's – hair.

Her head is arching against the tiles, far away from him and from the thought of him almost inside her. She feels him pushing against her wetness with dilated pupils and a hard grasping on her cheeks. His hands are wet and she hopes that they won't slide on the floor until it's over.

His weight is crushing her in a good way and she welcomes the water dropping on the top of her lips as she raises her heads up like in a prayer.

"Are you going to fuck me for the love of god! Charlie!"

He lifts her and she wraps her legs around his tights.

When he comes with a savage moaning she lingers over his swollen lips, just breathing.

He's good. Good like really good, like better than Regulus (this dark boy who drowns himself in familial duties and only fucks her because she has the name and the rank and the expensive bras.) ever was, or even Draco when she was sad and he was lonely (it was every night at his place before he meets Astoria.)

But, unlike to the others, he can't shut his fucking mouth or close his blue eyes that are clung to her face.

"I…Am I enough to sober you up?" he moaned.

"You are good." she whispers "but you are disappointing."

She winks at him and he must have an ego lion-sized because he speeds up the pace, making her come, she buries her nails into her back and he groans with satisfaction.

"you haven't answered to my questions" she manages to articulate, her mouth filled of excitation and water. "and I hate to be waiting."

"Have been a bit busy lately."

He steps back. Slowly. Slowly enough to see her lashes flushing quickly on her face and her bright eyes and her hard tits and her wet-glowing skin.

The first thoughts that hit Pansy post-orgasm is that it's the second thing that she has learned about him.

He has an incredible shower. And this one is enough to keep her awake at night.

"So…?"

"I work in an animal reserve, in a zoo too. Mostly exotic animals, dangerous one."

"And, you like exhibit."

"I like air and outdoor."

"and shower sex…" she concludes with a provocative smile.

"And shower sex." He agrees with a wide grin.

xx.

Later, he notices the cross hanging between her two breasts. It's in silver, and almost too tiny for him to see it, but it's there.

"I don't believe in god"

"you're like some hippy crap, aren't you?"

She hurts but it's like a game, she bites the tender skin below his jaw and sucks it just hard enough to let a proud purple mark.

"The best kind!" he declares. "Do you want to talk about it?"

They are weirdly cuddling, even if it's not exactly cuddle because his bed is really messy, his couch is really shitty and not big enough for the two of them, and her apartment is private for god's sake.

So, they are on the floor, barely clothed, all legs and arms and grins and oh god it's her neighbor with a too huge family, and it's her, messed up and working in an office by day, stretching up her workhours so she hasn't to come home.

"Talk about what? We are talking obviously but do you have anything else in mind? Something like naughty talking maybe?"

She is a little bit in hurry, a little bit panicked and she answers too quickly. She knows why she behaves like she does. And he does too.

So, she tries to distract him, she grabs his lips in a poisoned kiss, in a lethal one that could lose him into oblivion but he doesn't let go.

It's at this moment that she connects the dots between him and his family, loving and loud and vivid like a wildfire a little bit out of control and –

He doesn't let go

And she thinks about how much she was like him before. Before. Before. She thinks about how she was nasty and mean and a true smart devil, and not just mean to fill an empty soul with something hard and suffocating so there is no place for who she was before. Before. She thinks as she kisses, and bites his lower lips, swirling his tongue around hers and kisses and kisses and kisses and –

He doesn't let go.

He breaks the kiss. She would be almost begging for more, her mouth tending towards the warmness and the simplicity of physical contact. Their foreheads are touching. She hates the fact that he wants to maintain intimacy.

Like they were some sort of couple. Like if he wanted to comfort her, instead of ripping her heart and her shell like a band-aid (with colorful animals on it because she would bet on Charlie's Weasley goofiness.)

He doesn't let go and it burns like hell.

"Why are you sleeping with so many guys, Pansy? I see them, when they leave. They are miserable."

She wonders if he's angry that she will leave him in the same state. Afterwards. The truth is, she doesn't know.

Her hands are shaking. She slides them under his shirt. He doesn't weaken.

Neither does she.

"Be more respectful, Weasley. I must remind you that since you fucked me in your shower, you're one of these guys. As you can predict, everyone spend a good time with."

"They must spend a good time since they must not be having a lot of other good times, but have you? Have you a good time when you fuck them, to not even get out of your bed when they leave?"

"You want to know, Weasley? You want to know everything, Weasley?" she whispers with a low tone, a dangerous tone, an old one like an ember not quite dead yet. "I have fun like never with them! I have sex and I have sex and they would do anything to pleasure me and I love that because it's easy and simple! It's just great sex and it's especially great because they are not asking questions! They are not listening!"

She notices the skin peeling on his nose before she realizes that she is shouting. Her cheeks are wet and suddenly she just wants to leave his flat with big wide windows and football posters and books about animals.

She just wants to leave. She just wants to let go.

But, and it's the third thing that Pansy learns about Charlie, he's not really an obliging man. He's more of a fire-fueled soldier and he has an unpleasant tendency to come back for wounded animals.

With a strike of cruelty glowing in her pupils, she wonders if he doesn't love to watch them struggling in the trap before he frees them.

He is silent but the world around her buzzing and suddenly she wants annihilation.

"People are never listening." She finishes, with a low broken voice because she has yell at him longer that she would have ever dream to yell at Daphne, or Blaise, or Draco, or Astoria.

Or at all the people she should be yelling at, instead of him.

He shrugs his shoulders like it's no big deal but he stares at her like it is.

"It's not due to me, it's the animals. I'm also a good watcher, by the way."

She giggles and it's a strange feeling, like eating honey while having a sour throat. It's soften.

He doesn't rub her tears with his thumb, he just looks at her crumbling on his wooden floor. She prefers that. He is steady.

"You are good with people too" she adds faking lightly.

"Go tell that to my mom."

She smirks. He was such a mama boy with his monstrous ego, his monstrous mass of muscle and his monstrous fear of disappointing.

"You run away from her. I see you when they come…"

"You spy on me?" he interrupts.

"I have a routine, you paranoid and self-centered brat. I fuck guys in my bed, I take a bowl of cereal mixed with soy milk, I take a shower, I go to work and then, when I come back at the usually time when your clones arrive, I check my mail."

He frowns an eyebrow and it stretches a light scar on the side of his temple. He opens his mouth ready to talk, ready to fight because it's what he does with his burns and his scars and his pretty sharp lips. But because he will contradict her, she pursues:

"You are kissing her but you are distant like if you didn't want her to leave a print on you, you are watching her but from the sides not right in the eyes like you do with me. And, I know you love watching. So, what's the deal?"

He takes her hand without a second thought and maybe he's scared, and maybe he's ashamed, but he has never looked so juvenile, so terrified. He looks like a kid and it reminds her of herself.

She brushes his knuckles, inflamed by the sun, by the outdoor and physical works, by his own pushing anger and maybe that it hurts him.

But god, were they burning quietly when they were not there for each other?

"Do you have any siblings?" he asks.

"No. I'm enough of a disaster on my own, thanks you. But I used to have a bunch of friends as messed up as I am so it might be just as bad."

"I'm the second son. I was a great athlete at high school, I had good grades and my parents were proud of me like they always are, with the eternal confidence that you will be at your best forever."

"Do not generalize, please."

Her tone is a bit more acid than it should be. She bites down on the inside of her cheeks. She's not good enough. She was not good enough. Not for her parents and their heavy family name, not for her friends for life, gone doing their own on their side of things.

"Yes. Sorry."

She doesn't look at him but she feels as he readjusts his back against the wall for a position more comfortable, that he doesn't know if he must keep going or stop right there.

He keeps going because he's not the kind of guy to let go. She doesn't know if she has enough stamina or indifference or selfishness inside her to tell him to stop.

She wants to be as good as he is. Pansy Parkinson has always had standards. Now it was to be better than he was, stronger, kinder.

So, she doesn't let go.

"I want to hear your tearful story before you messed up with my sleep schedule, so hurry."

It's a I'm here even if it is not one.

"And when it happens that you can't be at your best, that there is a worst side of you but also a not-best-but-better side for you, you leave."

It's a thank you even if it is useless.

He pauses. She feels his big hand pulsing over hers, so big and big that it covers her pale one almost entirely like if it was nothing but something that he could keep for himself.

"Every time I see her, I know how it hurts to be the one who stays, because I see it in her clumsy hugs. She doesn't know me anymore, but somehow I still know her because she is stayed the same."

"No. She's not. I'm not. You learn to change without moving and then one day, you are not the same and it's easier to move."

It's one of the first things that he learns about her: how she's come from far to end up on his floor a Saturday afternoon, moving on, letting go.

you can send prompts and/or find me at esthergoldsteins on tumblr. love.