A/N: Okay. Okay. I wrote this about two years ago, as a missing moment for Everything In Transit that I never intended to share publicly. But then some other Ron/Hermione enthusiasts (you know who you are) very sweetly encouraged me to post it, and here we are. Times are tough lately, people, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you that. Why not have some gratuitous, carefree smut?

If you haven't read EIT, all you need to know is that it's Ron's nineteenth birthday, Hermione's away at Hogwarts, but she wrote him a super-dirty letter as a gift… and he was part way through reading it, and just ran away to the loo at Grimmauld Place to get away from Harry.

Ron slammed the bathroom door shut and dropped down onto the closed toilet seat, the sheets of parchment scattering over his lap, as he sank his fingers into his hair. He was being a bit of an idiot. Logically, he knew that. He knew that he shouldn't have been experiencing this strong a reaction to what boiled down to words on a page and nothing more. He'd had sex with Hermione before, more times than he could count - he'd shagged her in the bloody storage room of the joke shop, for Merlin's sake - so just reading about it shouldn't have been doing him in like this. But then, he also knew that logic had never reigned supreme when it came to his feelings for Hermione, or really the way he lived his life at all, so he couldn't be surprised that his brain was running amok once again. Snaking a hand behind the shower curtain, he yanked on the faucet to start the flow and turned the water as hot as it would go.

Although, said an obnoxious voice in the back of his head, a cold shower would probably do some good.

But it wasn't just reading about it that was driving him spare, it was all of it. It was the thought of Hermione, who everyone thought was so prim and proper, penning out these words just for him. It was the knowledge that right now, she was probably eating breakfast in the Great Hall, knowing full well what she was doing to him. It was all the dirty places her mind had gone simply for him, just to give him a birthday that he would never forget. Since the end of the war, she was widely known as the brightest witch of her age, and she had certainly put her brain power to good use. He loved her, more than his own life, but she was pure evil sometimes. A delicious, wonderful sort of evil, but evil nonetheless.

Steam was starting to fill the room, so Ron stood and yanked off his shirt, then shoved his pajama trousers down his legs. As he stepped into the tub, the scalding hot spray hit him directly in the chest, providing a momentary distraction from the pounding ache below the belt. It was good, actually: maybe if he burned all of his skin off, it would get his mind off of the details of her letter. Off all of the words that he had only ever heard her say in the deepest throes of passion, that she always vehemently denied saying after the fact, and that he never thought she would ever write down…

Ron glanced down at the flush developing on his chest and gave a nod of resignation. Honestly? He could probably be thrown into a cauldron of bubotuber pus and he'd still be thinking about the letter.

Dutifully, Ron doused his head under the water and picked up a bar of soap. Holding it in his palm, he regarded it momentarily, and then shook his head and tossed it back onto its holder. Who was he kidding, anyway? Did he really think he could just shower like a normal person when he had just read four whole pages (and Hermione had tiny handwriting) of the filthy things she wanted to do to him?

No. Of course he couldn't. Closing his eyes against the steam, Ron reached down and gripped himself in his right hand. And not that he had expected it to, but relief did not come. Immediately his mind wandered back to nine days ago (had it only been nine days? It felt like nine weeks) and their little escapade in the storage room. To Hermione, with her rain-damp curls and her shirt unbuttoned, bra unhooked - somehow it was sexier when she still left some things on - so that he could kiss as much of her as possible, run his tongue over her nipples, make her shudder the way only he could. And her hands, undoing his belt buckle, reaching inside his pants… he stroked himself a bit more firmly, his eyes screwing up against the onslaught of images.

In his mind, she was right there in the shower with him, her bare skin soaking wet as she kissed the drops of water off of him, first his neck, then his shoulders, and his chest… and then she was kissing lower, her tongue sliding into the ridges of his muscles, lips ghosting over his navel and then down, down, down…

"Fuck," he groaned, leaning back against the tile - which happened to be icy-cold against his burning skin, and he let out a startled yelp as he stood up straight.

But his knees were going weak just thinking about her mouth on him, imagining her nipples grazing against him as she moved… and he bit his lower lip, placing his free palm against the tile wall to brace himself as the hot water pounded his shoulders.

Ron could picture it all perfectly, the shy smile that crossed her lips as she knelt before him and took him into her mouth, the way her tongue circled his tip - Merlin, her tongue. She'd been talking about it in the letter before he had been so rudely interrupted, all the things she would do to him with it. Now all he could think of, as his hand worked faster, were her lips sliding up and down his cock, her tongue sucking on him, her fingers curved over whatever her mouth couldn't accommodate. He could practically feel it, right down to her nails digging into his flesh of his hips to hold him in place.

Fuck, he missed that. She was always clinging to him like that whenever they had sex, clutching at his shoulders, his chest, his arms, the small of his back, and his thoughts drifted again (what fantasy was he even in? Did it even matter?) to a vision of Hermione laid out before him, entirely starkers. Somehow her hair was wet in this image, probably because it had been the last time they'd shagged, and because he was in the shower now, and because his brain was a place where things did not often make sense, but that was hardly important now. In his mind he was kissing the inside of her thighs, and she was laughing and telling him it tickled, tousling his hair - and for a second, the simple state of missing her washed over him with such strength that every cell in his body ached for her.

"Goddammit," Ron muttered, bending his elbow so that his forearm was pressed against the wall now, his forehead dropping down to rest upon it.

Because this burning, desperate need for her, it ran so much deeper than wanting to get a leg over. That he could cope with, at least to a point. What was unendurable was when he hadn't heard her laugh in weeks, or when he rolled over in the night to find her side of the bed empty and cold. When he woke up thinking about her, and knew she was waking up thinking about him too, and had only that to content himself. And most of the time - okay, all of the time - it wasn't enough.

And so his mind traveled back to where it had been, and now he imagined his face was between her legs - he was so close now, he could almost taste her - and he was bringing her to orgasm over and over and over again (he could be a sex god in his own fantasy, he reasoned, and it wasn't like Hermione'd ever complained). He was rock hard in his own hand now, his fist pumping frantically, and he closed his eyes to block everything else out. All he could think of was her, the way it felt when he slid into her tight, silky heat and the little sighs she made when he filled her up. Now, as he felt the tension building, he envisioned her body writhing about in pleasure, squeezing around him, her voice moaning his name, begging for more, always more-

He grunted out some semblance of her name (likely more akin to whatever he had mumbled in the hospital wing two years ago than anything else) as he spilled forcefully all over his own hand.

Releasing himself, Ron remained propped against the wall, breathing heavy and trying to bring himself back to the present. He felt a bit better, it was true, but thinking about Hermione, and what it was like to be close and intimate with her, and how much he loved her and how good they were together, only made him miss her more. He still had to wait thirty more days until he could see her, and hold her, and fall asleep with her in his arms. But he'd done it before, and he could do it again.

So he washed his hair, and perfunctorily ran the bar of soap over his body, and by that time the water had gone cold, so he shut off the flow and stepped out. As he wrapped a towel around his waist, he looked again at the letter now resting on the sink. Did he dare pick up where he left off? Did he even have time before work? Harry would definitely notice if he took a second shower...

Probably best if he didn't, he decided. If he still had thirty more days, he was going to make the letter last as long as he could.