FIC: Good With His Hands (Neville/Susan)
To: Lady Caetlyn
From: Your Secret Santa


Title: Good with His Hands
Author: silvernatasha
Pairing(s): Neville/Susan
Summary: They were thirty-two years old, for Merlin’s sake, and there was no need to rush.
Rating: R
Warnings: None.



Susan pushed open the door, sighing when she saw the forlorn wizard sat at the kitchen table. Head bent, he stared at the lace tablecloth, a cleft between his brows. “Tough day, Neville?”

He raised his head, pushing his fringe back. As she expected, Neville seemed to shrink in on himself when he saw her, much as eleven-year-old Neville had done in the presence of Severus Snape. “Not too bad.”

“Really?” Susan set down her handbag on the table beside him, grasping his left arm to pull it forward. “Because it looks to me as though you have a thorn through your hand.” The spike seemed to be about half an inch thick and was an alarming shade of green. Thankfully, the wound looked clean and it didn’t seem as though Neville had attempted to remove it himself.

“Oh, yeah. That.”

Susan raised her eyebrows. “Is there another reason why you’ve got a face like a slapped arse, then? Thorns in other places?”

Pink spots appeared on Neville’s pale cheeks. “No, just my hand.”

Laughing, Susan lifted his hand a little higher, peering at the thorn. “Stop acting like you’re afraid of me, Nev. I’m hardly going to get angry with you for injuring yourself - if anything, I’m used to it by now.”

“I suppose,” he said quietly.

“Exactly.” Susan frowned, a little baffled by the thorn. “So what is this, then? It doesn’t look like anything I remember from Herbology lessons.”

Neville cleared his throat, a note of authority in his tone as he spoke about a subject he knew. “I think it’s a crossbreed. Ministry sent me to look at it when it tried to attack a couple of people.”

“And your hand got in the way?” Susan prodded the pad of his thumb with the tip of her wand. “Is it poisonous?”

“I was trying to find out.” He winced. “Are you going to remove it?”

“It looks like it’s just punched a hole through,” Susan said. “Nothing too bad.”

“I have a hole in my hand!”

“It could be worse,” Susan informed him, thinking back to a patient at the hospital a couple of weeks beforehand who had managed to get a cast iron spike through his thigh but resolutely refused to tell her how he had managed such a feat. In comparison, Neville’s injuries were usually of a mundane nature, though of an almost alarming frequency.

Neville grimaced. “Just get it out.”

Susan chuckled and told Neville to hold his hand up, going to fetch a bowl from the cupboard, and her first aid kit. “Not that I mind doing this, Neville, but anyone would think you only married me because I’m a Healer,” she teased, laying the bandages out on the kitchen table. She held her wand in one hand and the bowl in the other.

He scowled darkly. “I didn’t,” he said, startling Susan with his tone. She paused, unable to recollect the last time she had heard such a passionate, albeit negative, response from Neville. Hearing him say it like that was a touch hurtful - he could have at least played along with the joke like he normally did.

Susan offered him a smile. “Maybe I should just start going to work with you - how does your own personal Healer sound?”

“Hopefully it won’t come to… OW!” As the thorn shot from his hand into the bowl, Neville yelled in surprise. “You could have at least warned me.”

“I could have,” Susan relented, looking more at the wound than Neville. “No need to be like a bear with a sore head. Just… oh, my.”

“What is it?” he groused.

Susan gave his shoulder a light thwack and held his hand up higher. “Your wound just healed itself. I don’t know what that thorn is, but it seems to have some interesting properties.” She plucked the thorn from the bowl, squinting at it, though there seemed to be nothing extraordinary about its appearance. “I’m going to send this to the boffins in the potions laboratory at the hospital. Any chance you could get us a proper sample?”

Neville flexed his fingers. “But my bosses…”

She pouted. “But you like me better than those stuffed robes at the Ministry.” Susan pushed out her lower lip just a touch further, trying to judge how much pressure to put on Neville. Whatever this plant was, it could prove to be a truly remarkable find.

“You’re lucky you’ve got a herbologist for a husband,” he retorted.

Susan beamed. “Excellent.” She lowered her head, kissing him gently. “I don’t just use you for your green fingers, you know,” she teased.

“I should hope not.”

Taking a hold of his hand, Susan kissed the palm; the skin looked as though it had never been touched, let alone had a green thorn stuck through it just moments ago.

“You’re in a good mood today,” he remarked, shifting in his chair.

“It’s Friday. I have the weekend off. My husband also has the weekend off. I think I’m allowed to be in a good mood.”

“Never said you weren’t,” Neville remarked, pulling her down to sit in his lap. He smiled, feeling a little warm as Susan kissed his cheek. “You look beautiful today.”

“Sweaty and nasty after a long shift at the hospital, more like.” Her fingers toyed with the hair at the nape of his neck, watching his cheeks turn pink as she touched him. Even after three years of marriage and just as long together before that, there was still something rather innocent about Neville that she couldn’t help but love. “Think I might go take a shower before I fix dinner.”

Neville paused, lips hovering next to her ear. “Why don’t we get a takeaway? Indian?”

“Chinese.”

He smiled. “Chinese.” Neville’s hand rested on her thigh. “But you know how we’ve got the whole weekend free?”

“Yes?”

“Well, maybe that shower could wait, then.” Kissing her neck, his hand pushed aside her lime green robes, cupping a breast. “This colour’s never suited you,” he said quietly.

Susan raised her eyebrows. “What do you suggest?”

“Taking it off. Of course.” Neville grinned sheepishly at her, even as he squeezed her breast.

She laughed. “How very practical of you.”

“I always was a hands-on sort of man.” He removed his hand, scooping his arms under her and lifting her up. Susan squealed in surprise, clutching to him. Her face was red as he set her on the edge of the table, pushing her legs apart to stand between them.

“That you were.” Susan smiled, lips barely brushing his. “I hope this isn’t a side effect of that thorn.”

“No,” he told her, “this prick’s all my own.”

Susan’s eyes widened for a moment before she dissolved into giggles, head buried in the crook of his neck as she shook with laughter. “Neville,” she gasped, “please don’t try to talk dirty.” She stroked the side of his face. “It really doesn’t work for you.”

“Don’t laugh at me, woman,” he protested in a growl, hands slipping under her robes and up her thighs. “I’ll talk to you however I want.”

“No you bloody won’t.” Her hands cupped his cheeks as she enjoyed the fresh, earthy scent that always seemed to linger around Neville. “Though I kind of like it when you get all assertive.”

“I know,” he murmured, knuckles brushing across her knickers. Susan bit her lip.

“I didn’t make the bed this morning.”

“Me neither.”

“Then…”

Neville raised his eyebrows. “Then who says we need a bed?” His finger wormed under the leg of her knickers, stroking over hot flesh.

“On the table?” Susan asked, breathless.

“Well, yeah. That was my idea.” Neville’s cheeks flushed. “Unless you don’t want to. I mean, we can…”

“No!” Susan shook her head quickly, squirming. “Here is perfect. Kind of exciting.”

He grinned. “Exactly.” Susan braced her hands on the table, managing to lift her hips just enough so that Neville could remove her underwear. Still grinning, he sank down onto his knees, drawing the knickers down slowly and kissing the inside of her knees. He gave her what Susan was fairly certain was a sultry look and proceeded to fling her knickers over his shoulder.

Only for them to land in a sink full of cold, dirty washing-up water.

“Oh, bollocks,” Neville swore as he heard the dull splash, turning away to rescue them. Susan bit her lip, grabbing him by the shoulder.

“Leave them.” She tugged him closer, kissing him until their bodies were flush together and she could feel his erection against her thigh. “I don’t need them right now,” she added in a murmur against his lips.

“Right,” he agreed. A little stiffly at first, his hands moved up her side, cupping her breasts. “Good.”

Susan rolled her eyes. It was all very well Neville suggesting that he was going to shag her on the kitchen table, but actually getting it done was going to prove to be another matter. It was a good job, she decided, that she had always found his utter sweetness and sincerity a turn-on.

Brushing his hands away, Susan began to unbutton her robes, shrugging them off her shoulders. Neville leant in to kiss her neck, hands slipping behind her to unhook her bra - Susan smiled to herself as she felt the tension give and he successfully undid it. He had always been good with his hands.

When those hands started to grope her bare breasts rather forcefully, however, Susan frowned and covered his hands with her own. “They’re attached, remember?” she teased, thinking that it certainly hadn’t been that long since they had last had sex that Neville would forget everything; sometimes his puppyish enthusiasm would just run away with him.

“Yeah. Right.”

Laughing, Susan pulled him into another kiss, her fingers running through his hair until it stood on end. His hold on her was firm and Susan gasped as his hand snaked between her spread thighs again; her back arched when his finger found her clit, making Neville grind himself against her leg. The table shifted slightly as he rocked his hips, Neville pulling back a little and looking startled as the table scraped across the kitchen tiles.

“Maybe this isn’t…”

“This is a good idea,” Susan assured him, cupping his erection through his trousers with a firm hand. “I’m sure you can tell just how turned-on I am.”

He nodded, finger slipping over slick flesh to push inside her.

“And you want this.”

“Yes.”

“Then the table moving really isn’t a problem.” Taking charge, Susan quickly and deftly unfastened his trousers, much like she would with a patient who was being rather uncooperative. Her hand slipped inside as she began to kiss along his jaw, smiling as he began to relax more.

Neville pulled gently on her hair to tip her face up, smiling softly as her before drawing her into a kiss that made Susan’s toes curl. His fingers moved slowly in and out of her, her hardened nipples rubbing against the rough material of his jumper with every movement. He touched her clit with his thumb and Susan jerked, her hand tightening around his cock. As he kissed her, he winced, pulling back enough to joke, “It’s attached, remember?”

Susan gave him a mocking scowl, sharply pushing down his trousers and underwear. “Oh,” she told him in a low voice. “I remember.”

Sometimes, when Neville kissed her, Susan thought that he saw kissing her as the best thing he had ever done, his proudest achievement in life. Even when he was being daring and suggesting that they make love on the kitchen table half-dressed, he had the ability to make her feel important and cherished. She all but swooned under his kiss, hips starting to rock against his hand by instinct.

He gave a low growl in the back of his throat, hands more masterful now. Neville removed his fingers, nipping on her neck before he grasped her hips.

“Have I told you lately that I love you?” he whispered, erection resting against her thigh.

“Every morning.”

Susan’s eyes closed as she shifted back on the table, Neville pushing into her and making the table scrape back another inch with the insistent force. The lace tablecloth was going to leave a pattern on her thighs, Susan realised vaguely, holding her husband tightly as he arched his back.

Despite their unorthodox location (for them, anyway) and half-dressed state, there was nothing frenzied about their coupling. They were thirty-two years old, for Merlin’s sake, and there was no need to rush. Between work and commitments, nights like this were few and far between, unusual green thorns not withstanding. Susan, for one, certainly did not want it to end too quickly, bracing her hands on the table behind her as Neville held her waist.

Neville made a familiar noise and Susan reached forward, grabbing at his jumper. “Not yet,” she complained in a breathless whine, rocking towards him and sending the table moving a little further back as Neville’s thrust met hers in force.

“S’close,” he murmured with a grimace, Susan shifting forward until she was barely sitting on the table, one leg wrapped around his waist. “So good,” he added.

“Mmm.” Susan’s lips found the spot on Neville’s neck that always made him putty in her hands, giving a sigh of relief as his hand finally moved between their joined bodies. His fingers seeking out her clit made her tremble, Neville whispered again and again that he loved her and she was beautiful; Susan could barely hear him over the sound of her own gasps and heavy breathing, the pleasure tightening inside of her.

“Nearly there?” Neville asked with a groan beside her ear.

Susan nodded, struggling to concentrate properly. “Yeah,” she breathed. The pressure of his fingers increased just a little, enough for another couple of thrusts for Neville to send her tumbling over the edge. Susan’s whole world was Neville for just a few moments, the feel of him so close, filling her, her everything.

Neville shuddered in her arms, a familiar noise and feeling. Susan smiled softly, kissing his neck again and feeling him shiver. Her hands slipped beneath his jumper, caressing hot skin.

He chuckled softly. “I should forget to make the bed more often,” he decided.

Susan gave a tired, derisive snort. “Not if I have anything to do with it. You don’t get out of it that easily.”