Lies By Omission

Chapter 4: A Romantic Blaise

The angst is building at an incredibly slow pace. Brick by brick. But– hey, look! Fluff mountain!

Neville

Sex with Blaise was alright. It was Neville's first time, and as he expected, he found it not exactly all it was cracked up to be. It was like masturbating, but with someone else.

Like all Blaise's other adventures, they didn't take long to work up to it. It wasn't as if Blaise dated for feelings, though it was a bit of an odd idea, Blaise wanting him that way. Neville didn't exactly think of himself as sexy. Was he? Maybe Blaise had strange tastes. Or was being nice. Merlin, he wasn't being nice, was he? Blaise was an incredibly dedicated friend, and he liked to pretend he wasn't because it seemed like a sappy thing to be, and pretending to have a huge hard-on for his insecure friend seemed like the type of good-friend-sexually-explicit thing he'd do to fix that situation up.

They were having dinner with Draco and Harry at Grimmauld Place now. Blaise didn't eat much, though Kreature served many, many very good courses. He never ate much.

"Oh," Draco was saying, "Kreacher always serves this much. It's not because there are four people, it's just because this is how he is."

Blaise raised an eyebrow at Neville. "Been to Potter's house a lot, have you? Funny, I've never heard of you coming here."

Neville bit back a smile: earlier that week, Blaise had cast himself on the sofa, asked for some tea, and proceeded to outline the amount of information Draco provided him with about his love-life. Apparently, the first time Harry let Draco into Grimmauld's place had happened earlier that day, and as soon as it was over, Draco had pretty much poured out his feelings all over Blaise's room. This, Neville was told, was commonplace.

"Oh, hush," Draco said smoothly, though he went very pink-cheeked.

Harry blinked. "I brought him here just a few days ago!"

"Hmmm," Blaise shrugged. "It isn't as if Draco tells me everything." And then he laughed his little breathy laugh, half irony and half self-amusement, and Neville wanted to lean into him and kiss him all over again. Just, this time, with more communication, maybe.

But sex with Blaise was nice, Neville thought, because it felt intimate, and because it was with Blaise. It was nice the same way he imagined grocery shopping for Blaise and himself would be: not that he craved or loved grocery shopping, but it would be nice because of who it was for, and what it meant. (Grocery shopping might be a little nicer because sex meant Neville was sexually attractive and grocery shopping was downright domestic, but Neville took what he could get.)

Draco scowled half-heartedly. "Shut up, Blaise. My telling you everything far better than your telling me nothing at all. How long have you been dating Longbottom and conveniently forgot to tell me?"

"We're not really," Neville said fruitlessly, at the same time Blaise said, "We're just friends who kiss, really."

Draco looked like he might say something, his eyebrows drawing together. He didn't know? It wasn't as if that was much different than actually dating to Blaise. Right?

Harry turned to Draco, lips twisting in an amused, "You tell him everything? What'll you if I fuck you?"

Draco choked on his food and flushed crimson. "I– I– I do hope you fuck me!" he blurted, and buried his face in his hands. "I mean... oh Salazar."

Neville looked away from both of them just as Blaise was also looking away from them. Their eyes met, and they shared an amused smile. It felt so simple and tangible and possible for half a second. It felt almost like it could happen, Neville and Blaise.