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sucker punch
SUMMARY: Pansy Parkinson has thrown herself in a whirlpool of regret by the time the years after the war creep up on her. And when she reluctantly finds herself more interested than anything in a guy with an affinity toward strange plants, Shakespeare, and Muggle films, she discovers that maybe, just maybe, the journey of love starts with yourself. pansy/neville — my babies.
A/N: this is M because yes, there is sex. like, actual sex (not between pansy/neville at first, so if you're not into that, well). and also, coarse language. pansy has no control over her sailor-like mouth or thoughts; she's not terribly sorry about it, either. you've been warned.
[dormant]
She's primping. An absurd amount of it. Applying the right amount of Russian Red lipstick, till the thin lines of her lips bleed ruby, through and through. Then she blots it just the right amount with a pad of folded-over tissues, making sure to smear on the lipstick again. She's primping because she's glancing at herself in the mirror, and Pansy doesn't quite recognise the person staring back.
It's Draco Malfoy's birthday. Twenty-seventh, to be exact.
It's funny, she thinks. Neither of them thought they would live past eighteen in the days where darkness resided over them like some fucking Merlin-handed disease. And here he is, overly lanky and still forever sulking in his black tops and trousers, lavishly celebrating his twenty-seventh cycle around the sun.
She remembers the days they spent, as pre-pubescent and awkwardly-spoken thirteen-year-old children, exploring each other's mouths like they were sipping on ambrosia for the first time. And the days way, way before that, when they tucked around each other in the creaky twin-beds, whispering about monsters under the bed; they really should've been worried about the monsters in the head, Pansy thinks.
Pansy finishes raking over her lace black dress with cup sleeves and a sharp V-neck and her blood-red lips before mussing up her ebony hair. Sex-hair without the actual sex is her speciality, among other things, but this in particular depicted the right amount of her unperturbed demeanour.
She saunters out without another look back into the dingy mirror of the tavern that Malfoy's precious lover offered as a place to relax after his dinner party.
When she makes it back out to the dimly-lit pub, Pansy sees Draco sitting at the edge of the booth, a breadth's away from his 'oh-so-fucking-adorable' girlfriend, Granger. Not that they were ever affectionate the same way Pansy and Draco used to be at Hogwarts, so one can barely tell they shag on the side. They never even touched in public; kissing was off-limits, grazing hands was uncalled for, and Merlin have mercy if they even held eye-contact for longer than twenty seconds. Dating? More like attending a nunnery together. Pansy scoffs every time she thinks about it.
Pansy hadn't even known they were dating until she noticed he had a lot of less free time and a lot less energy in the mornings on the weekends. It took a whole five and a half months and about five glasses of firewhiskey to get him to admit — 'yes, Granger and I are a thing or something, now get off my fucking arse.'
Or something. She held onto that for a while. Like the pathetic fool she is. Until she saw him grin a shit-eating smile for the first time in years. Years. He's never taken to smiling; he told her that he never had much to smile about, anyway. But one look at Granger, and he was gone. Years of self-deprecation and hatred wiped off his face in an instant because of her off-hand comment about his weird obsession with tweed coats.
And sitting across from Draco is none other than Neville Longbottom, his newly acquired best friend in the years post-war. After realising how much he despised everything about England, Draco left in a rush to 'sort himself out' or something. He returned three years later, with longer hair, a placid personality, and a fervent appreciation for Muggle fizzy drinks. Unlike Pansy, who spent the better part of those same three years rotting with guilt washing over her body like sin and with her legs wrapped around every guy she could get her claws into.
Draco returned, and she soon found him practically fornicating with Neville Longbottom. Not literally because oh, Merlin, would that be a sight. But walking into his flat — in Muggle London, of all places — and seeing them stretched out languidly on the couch, sipping golden foaming beers like two old friends meeting after years was surprising as hell to say the least.
"So, you and Longbottom are buddy-buddy, now?" Pansy had asked him, leaning on his doorway as he changed shirts. He'd always been quite bony in the war, but ever since he came back from gallivanting around the world, he looked healthier than ever. She was glad.
"It's invigorating, you know?" he had commented, tossing on a pale blue top and mussing up the hair that curled over his ears. "Being friends with someone without the pressure of my father castrating me for my choice in crony."
"This is because you like the freedom that comes with daddy dearest not having the ability to hawk-eye you?"
"No, it's because when Longbottom stood up to the wizard that made me practically piss myself in his presence, I realised what a fucking joke my life was." He had paused combing through his hair with mousse, glanced over his shoulder, and laughed sardonically. "I was a coward. And he wasn't. I — I think I admire that."
"Who are you, and what've you done with Draco Malfoy?" Pansy had squinted before walking up to him and checking his forehead and expecting a practically sizzling fever.
"Gods, Pansy." He had grabbed her wrists and pretended to shackle her. "You should try making friends. Actual ones. It's enthralling, truly."
It hit her then. How much he didn't resemble the face of a scared, helpless boy anymore, but rather a resilient man. And it hit her in the same way that she wanted to be just like that.
"You make it sound like Longbottom has the appeal of expensive champagne and the hands of a sensual masseuse, the way you're talking about him."
"It's not. It's better. It's different," he had said softly.
So, it's not surprising that Longbottom's here of all places on Draco's birthday. So-called best friends tended to show up one time or another. The lot of them are toasting with another round of spiced rum when Pansy slides in across from Granger, who's busy chatting up Adrian Pucey with bright eyes and true intentions.
"Done grooming?" Draco asked blankly, pulling the sleeve of his coat to check his watch. "The dog show's not for another hour, you know. You wouldn't want to jump the gun on the category for overly-pretentious-looking-snob."
Sure, he'd changed in terms of his past associations with blood and inferiority complexes; but Draco Malfoy sure was cocky and cruel as ever. Pansy sneers and sticks her tongue out at him. The corners of his lips twitch. Only after he came back from the Muggle world — as a really, really changed man, apparently — did he start integrating phrases like 'jump the gun' into his vocabulary. It annoys the shit out of Pansy, and he knows it.
"Sometimes I wonder why I didn't strangle you in your sleep when I had the chance," she bites back, calling over the waiter to order apple schnapps — because, suddenly, she feels a lot more convinced to get sloshed on sweet drinks in order to get through the night in one heap.
"Easy." Draco lets out a ferocious smile. "You were too busy worried about your nails getting chipped in the process, darling."
"Aw, sweetheart," she coos, placing a hand over her chest — and secretly, secretly hoping he can see her newly filed to a sharp tip and blood-orange nails juxtaposed against her dress. "You care for me with the most pious intentions."
"Are you two always this—" Longbottom cuts in with raised eyebrows, gesturing with his meaty hands between the two of them, "—cutthroat?"
"Yes," they both reply at the same time, eyes half-lidded and heavy.
"Good to know." Longbottom sinks back into his seat, shoulders wide and stretched taut against his shirt.
Ah, Pansy has always had a good eye for art, and fuck all if Neville Longbottom didn't graduate from a rotund boy into one sopping, messy pile of eye-fuckery. His hazel-green eyes screaming lush verdant temples, and, fuck, his dirty blond hair, scruffy and tousled and everything she wants between her fingers. Not that she'd ever admit to such a thought, but it lingers at the back of her mind for a while.
She watches him with a pitiful amount of interest behind the tumbler of her drink.
Because yet—
Yet.
Yet he had that thing about him.
But then again, they all did.
They all have those signs. Ones that flashed and waved above their heads in a totally ostentatious way — like 'look at me, this is my past and this is me.' Some people had them buried underneath their skin — like Draco's ability to ignore the fact that he has no parents or the fact his ancestral home was burnt to the ground; and like Pansy's ability to pretend she didn't offer up Harry Potter on a silver-fucking-platter for the Dark Lord to feast on.
And some people wore them on their skin — like Neville Longbottom for instance, who had part of his left ear melted like candle wax, running rivers of scars down his veiny ears, from when he stood up in front of You-Know-Who with an amount of Gryffindor bravery that scared Pansy shitless. He could've gotten it healed, fully patched up like everything was brand new and shiny. But he didn't. Pansy thinks it's some sort of look-at-me complex. Like the words 'pity me' should be stamped on his forehead. She loathes it.
Pansy glances up once more from her apple schnapps to find Longbottom gazing at her back with pin-prickled pupils, like one would assume he stares at plants all day long.
It itches at her skin.
And.
And—
She feels the need to stare right back or wipe her face or lick her teeth for scrapes of Russian Red lipstick or something of the other.
Then she laughs. The day Longbottom makes her feel something other than pathetically superior would be the day she crams every single type of coconut cream flavoured sweet into her mouth. She hates coconut. A lot. Just like she hates his stupidly ornate show of bravery.
And when she gets the chance to look at him once again, he's not staring anymore.
·
"Still here, Parkinson?" Marcus Flint greets, only slightly slurring with that feral smile of his plastered on his face. "One would think someone like you would leave before the big men got around to playing."
Big men.
What a fucking tool—
She feels nauseated at his words; but she finds that if she focuses on the spot above his right shoulder, the next few pathetic lines of his flirting won't put her off too much.
And Pansy knew what his crooked, eggshell-coloured teeth meant — he's out leering for a fuck. And she knows she's a good one. Yet, he seems to have garnered the reputation of completely lusting after Katie Bell, who barely gives him the time of day. But Flint still mows through girls like a hobby, even if he was enamoured with his Quidditch teammate. She doesn't mind much, though; he has also gathered a nice reputation of having a ravishing body.
"I'm waiting for someone, you see," she replies in a purr, twirling the small red straw in her White Russian cocktail before lifting it and sucking on the end. Bait and tackle. His dark eyes glaze over. Reel him in.
He pretends to glance around before focusing in on her, the lecherous stare increasing ten-fold. "The bloke's a real wanker if he can't see he's wasting your sweet time."
Sweet, indeed.
They've hooked up a couple of times, here and there. Marcus Flint had always had an affinity toward cornering whatever girl was left in the pub, like predator scoping out cheap prey. And he's always taking a fancy toward dirty-talking and slut-shaming during the deed itself also, something that annoys the hell out of her. It's his MO. But he's good in bed. He knows it. She knows it. They both know it.
She leans further into the cupped stool, crossing her legs, which is unbearably hard in her skin-tight dress, before saying, "Care to teach him a thing or two about time management?"
Flint downs his drink in one gulp, and she watches a drop of amber liquid slip down the muscles in his throat. He leans in and whispers, "You betcha."
She grabs onto his wrist softly, dragging him back into the storage room marked for staff near the edge of the room, where the light barely shone on the walls. She doesn't need light; darkness is always following her, anyway.
Pansy makes the mistake of looking up briefly toward the birthday boy's table — which she had abandoned nearly an hour ago in the possibility of chatting up the staff for a free drink — feeling Neville's white-hot gaze on her face, his blank eyes betraying no emotion. He barely flickers over Marcus before staring at Pansy again — right through her, heart and soul combined. Like Longbottom knows something about her. Anything. And it burns at her skin like an off-brand bottle of lotion bought in Knockturn.
Marcus sloppily leans over her, gripping onto her shoulders a little too tight with his grimy nails, and Pansy continues on her trek to the back, her face bursting into flames of embarrassment. She imagines him to be thinking about how much of a strumpet she is. It's not something new that she's heard. It's typical. Common. Unoriginal.
And it fuels her flames even more; she knows for a fact how much the blood pumping through her veins courses with intent after that. She needs Marcus. Now.
Quickening her steps, Pansy pushes him into the dark room, her hands searching for a light switch before flicking it on. He gives her a single sultry look; she is fucking wrecked. His hands tangle in her already mussed up sex-hair before attacking her mouth, all teeth and nose and tongue in one. Single. Go.
He slams her into the wall, located in the seedy room in the back like they're some cheap teenagers clawing for some privacy away from their stick-up-the-arse parents, lights dim and humming with the wretched smell of alcohol acidly burning at her nose. His calloused hands run down her inner thighs, and his mouth latches onto her neck, sucking the sliver of skin taut.
Marcus tears her knickers down her legs, gives a single stroke of his fingers on her cunt, and enters her with one thrust. He groans, and she gasps. Their sounds are droned out by the rattling of beer bottles on the shelf near them and the harsh slapping of flesh.
"How many times," he breathes out, dank air hitting the spot by her jaw, "have you imagined this? My fucking cock"—a wheezy, drawn-out breath mingling with hers—"in you. You goddamn whore. Filthy, fucking slut—"
"God — I hate you," she groans wantonly, slamming her head back against the dingy wall. She grips onto his muscular shoulders, practically skinning him by digging her nails ferociously through his t-shirt. His hands palm gruffly at her skin; her thighs, her breasts, her calves.
It's animalistic. Fierce. Frantic. Ferocious. And it's fucking—
"Then it's okay if you're thinking. . . about someone else," he rasps into her ear suddenly, thrusting with every other word; she lets out a tiny moan and wraps her legs tighter around his slim waist, digging her heels. She shifts her hand between them to move herself along. "I am — too. God, I am—"
Sleazy. Cheap. Trash. Bastard. Marcus fucking Flint. All interchangeable.
But then there's always that cynical and self-deprecating voice purring in the back of Pansy's mind — spread your legs just a little wider and let them take what they want. Then at least, they give back and manage to hold you just for a little bit after. Boys will always do that, she learned. You give, they'll take. And then they'll kiss you a couple times. Fill you up to the brim with warm touches for a fleeting moment. Wrap you up in their arms until they take you again. And maybe that's enough. She's so empty, so hungry, for love that the brief bout of affection leaves her satisfied for days to come.
Marcus growls with every slam, every grunt, and Pansy thinks that if she stopped squeezing her eyes so hard and used her hand to touch the hills of her cheeks, she would feel hot tears slipping through the cracks of her fingers. He's close — she knows it. He's panting. And rough. And shaking. And her mind lingers on everything except Flint to get off and—
Then somewhere, somehow, in the back of her fuzzy mind, she sees him. His hot stare on her as she practically leers on Marcus like the trollop he probably thinks she is. His hazel-green eyes and blond hair looming above her instead of the dark hair and whiskey eyes in front of her. She's thinking about him. Imagining what it would be like to have his head of hair somewhere between her thighs till his lips are swollen and hurting; and imagining his white-hot gaze on her breasts, and her stomach, and her pink flesh. Pansy comes undone in a burst of bright stars behind her eyes near seconds later, gasps of air undulating out of her warm mouth before she can finally catch her breath.
Marcus shoves his tongue in her mouth one last time as his release seeps down her thighs; it's the affection she's been waiting for.
And she drinks it up like a thirsty kitten waiting for warm milk on a stormy day.