#you cast the dust into nothing
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rielzero · 4 months ago
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You have got your hooks in me.
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gilnoruil · 2 months ago
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"After travelling with our new companions for a while, I noticed some changes in Halla. Before I had a chance to ask her, she opened up to me, and expressed that she was developing amorous feelings towards the vampire, Astarion."
"She saw some reflections of me in him, and that was what started it. The strangest thing of all was... I did not feel jealous or threatened. I knew she would never turn her back on me."
"So I let her express herself however she wanted, and draw her own lines with his... Flirtatious behaviour."
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howaerds-a · 1 year ago
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she  clings to  cordell   for   dear   life   ,   hyperventilating   as   she's   pulled   from   the   depths   of   a   vivid   and   awful   dream .   cassie   still   sees   the   abuse   she's   suffered   in   her   life   ;   it's   all  still  there   when   she   closes   her   eyes.   only   as   her   boyfriend's   arms   envelop   the   blonde   in   a   strong   ,   reassuring   embrace   does   she   snap   out   of   her   trauma   response.   cerulean   orbs   flicker   to   the   clock   she's   placed   atop the table next to   her   side   -   she   loves   that   she has a  side   -   of   the   bed   ,   tense shoulders relaxing somewhat   as   @cordelliism   continues   to   sooth   and   comfort   her.   ❝   5  am   ,   i'm   so   sorry   ,   ❞   cass   whispers   ,   tucking   her   head   in   against   his   chest   as   labored   breathing   gradually   begins   to   slow .   
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wcrldcfvtlvs · 3 months ago
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verse exclusive tags with @tapalslegacy for Rosalie, Sloane & Victoria
𝓥: take me away in your rocket ship; v. exclusive./ ship; rosalie & cal ( tapalslegacy )
𝓥: & just like the rain; you cast the dust into nothing; v. exclusive./ ship; sloane & cal ( tapalslegacy )
𝓥: what i'd do to have another night alone with you; v. exclusive./ ship; sloane & cal ( tapalslegacy )
𝓥: all at once everything looks different now that I see you; v. exclusive./ ship; victoria & cal ( tapalslegacy )
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kaddyssammlung · 1 year ago
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"And just like the rain You cast the dust into nothing And wash out the salt from my hands"
I love this methaphor 💕
It makes me think of alchmey since I am still very passionate about alchemy in general. I just found something on a website that sells something totally differnt but they explain something about alchemy which i think is representend in here. (I have trouble translating the text that I actually want to quote so forgive me)
VITRIOL Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem
Vitriol as a word can refer to chemistry and mean sulfuric acid and related compounds, which eat away or attack other substances, but as an acronym, V.I.T.R.I.O.L. stands for a sentence in Latin:
Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem. Translated
"Visit the interior of the earth and purifying you will find the hidden stone" The acronym works on 2 levels, both the search for changing base metals into gold, and also for the search within ourselves for constant improvement, finding our hidden gem.
Vitriolic, a term we use for Sulphurous or acidic finds meaning in the picture of the green lion eating the sun. That is a common alchemical metaphor for reducing all non gold metals, the idea that sulphuric acid would dissolve all metals other than gold and could be used to purify gold alloys.
Occultum or hidden, implies work is needed to find this within ourselves, and we look for our hidden stone in what we do every day, striving to find gold amongst the background.
Sulfates are the salts of sulfuric acid and they play a big role in alchemy. In short words: Vessel hinting at alchemy.
Well...that's how I feel like interpreting this today.
Could be different tomorrow.
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howaerds-a · 1 year ago
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❝   baby  , i'm fine   ;   the   doctor   says   i   can   still   ride   for   a   few   more   weeks   ,   ❞   cassie   giggles   ,   tugging   the   reins   just   enough   to   slow   libby   down   to   a   halt .   ❝   are   you   seriously   pulling me  over   right   now   ?   ❞   it's   then   that   she   notices   stella   ,   perched   on   the   fence   behind   the   ranger   with   an   apologetic   smirk   plastered   across   her   visage .   ❝   well   at   least   you   got   someone   to   tow  the  vehicle   ,   ❞   she   snorts   ,   shaking   her   head   as   @cordelliism   stands   expectantly   with   his   back   turned.   with   a   sigh   both   defeated   and   amused   ,   she   waits   for   stella   to   secure   the   reins   under   liberty   belle's   bridle   and   steps   out   of   one   stirrup.
❝   better   hurry   up   ,   stell   -   i   think   i'm   about  to get  cuffed   ,   ❞   the   blonde   chides   ,   earning   herself   a   disgusted   groan   from   the   teenager   as   she   maneuvers  her  body   -   and   her   just   barely   noticeable   bump   -   onto   cordell's   back.   ❝   you're   gonna   be   so   much   fun   the   next   few   months   ,   aren't   you   ?   ❞   cassie   teases   ,   leaning   around   to   plant   an   affectionate   peck   on   the   stubbled   line   of   his   jaw.
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baeshijima · 14 days ago
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— stardust
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the world is a vast place. in the grand scheme of things, humans are but a speck of dust; much like how you are sure you are nothing but a meagre speck of dust in the world he lives in, forever to be remained unseen. (if only you knew how you are the brightest star he'd ever laid his eyes upon.)
CONTAINS : gn!reader, 1.5k wc, royalty!au, contract marriage/marriage of convenience, fluff, smitten reca bc what would he be other than smitten, a little hint of bittersweet at the end if read between the lines aha...
A/N : ....i have a paper due monday. i havent started it. why do i do this to myself. (reca i love u can u not hear my cries and wails as fic after fic appears in my brain for u...)
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Duke Reca of the northern territory; to many he is a well-accomplished noble, a young genius set for greater things, and the owner-slash-founder of the top theatre company. He is an idol — a role model to those who aspire to be more involved in the artistic side of the world.
To you, however, he is an absolute lunatic, the bane of your existence, and your contractual husband.
It's not like you had much choice. It was either: a) remain as a hollow puppet whose strings danced at your family's fingertips, or b) find some way to escape with outside power.
You, of course, chose the second option. Unfortunately, that somehow led to you meeting the young duke when out in the shopping district, trying to escape the suffocating presence of your family's knights accompanying you by running into a secluded alleyway, even if it was for but a momentary breather.
It was a whirlwind of a meeting... quite literally. Bodies flew; clothing tousled; breaths stolen. Well, at least for you it was like this. He, on the other hand, looked right as rain. (Lucky bastard.) You hadn't realised it was him at first, too absorbed in hasty apologies and the numbing bloom spreading across your backside like a wildfire (really, they ought to incorporate more padding in these flimsy clothes!), but when he uttered an apology of his own for not paying attention to his surroundings with an arm outstretched to help you stand, your mind all but blanked. What was someone of his status doing in a dingy alley? Didn't the newspapers report word of his self-confinement, having not stepped foot outside his manor in fervent preparation of his upcoming performance?
No, never mind all that; wasn't this a blatant opportunity being presented to you? An outside power that could help you escape the clutches of your family...
With gritted teeth, all sense of self-dignity was cast aside as you grasped his outstretched hand with both of your own, gazing into his widened eyes with your own narrowed ones.
"Your Grace, I know this is hardly the appropriate time nor place, but please... marry me!" Your words echoed within the enclosed space. Duke Reca blinked slowly down at you, and it was then you realised you never elaborated. "In... in a contractual marriage of convenience, of course."
"Oh?" he grinned, amusement and intrigue twinkling in his eyes. "And what is it you can offer me?"
"I..." Truthfully, there was nothing you could offer which would be beneficial to someone like him who had everything at the tips of his fingers. You were but a speck of dust in his world, merely floating and remaining unseen within his view. But even so, here you kneeled before him, his gaze wholly fixated on a speck of dust such as yourself. If nothing else, you at least had your desperation — a desperation to be your own person. "My lineage may be from that of a baron's, but I am confident I can be of use to you if you would permit it. So long as you accept my offer, I will do anything to aid you, whether that be through practical means or a performance you wish to see."
A beat of silence.
"Ha... haha... ahahaha!!"
And, as if things couldn't get any worse than a sore rear and disgruntled self, you were pulled out of your daze by a pair of gleaming carmine eyes, a maniacal grin, and his body, now kneeled just like you were, so very close to your own.
"That determination... how brilliantly you burn with such an expression!" The sheer glee which bled through his tone sent shivers down your spine, having never realised someone so esteemed had such a side to him. The duke breathed a breathy laugh and slightly backed up, his hands still holding your arms. "Alright, I look forward to seeing how brightly you will shine in your performance, my dear leading actor."
...Was it too late to back out and find an alternative solution?
Admittedly so, for the next thing you knew vows were declared and you were moved into the duke's residence. You could still remember your family's aghast expressions the moment you declared you were marrying Duke Reca and thus cutting ties with them. It was oddly freeing to see their contorted faces reveal their true nature.
Life as the duke's spouse was... something, to say the least. His servants and attendants almost seemed to have shed tears of joy at the revelation of their ever so lonely duke (their words, not yours) finally settling down and getting married, asking you questions such as how you both met, what drew you to their duke, who popped the question first, why you chose him of all people, so on so forth. It was... cosy. Something you admittedly weren't very accustomed to, but found yourself welcoming nonetheless.
One thing you never expected was for the duke to have a little pet of his own; a little toad dressed in a miniature beret and matching suit, at that. Assistant Director is what Reca had called her, and you think for someone so obsessed with the arts he ought to up his naming sense. She was also quite susceptible to compliments, something you discovered when commenting on the little toad's cute attire, with the duke's baffling translation of her bashfulness and her own compliment on your own looks. Apparently. You're not really sure, but you're inclined to believe it ever since she claimed a spot on your shoulder.
As the days-turned-weeks-turned-months bled into each other, you found yourself oddly lost at how well-adapted you have become of your new life and the duke's personality. From impromptu displays of affection both in and outside the manor to sporadic radio silence on his end when wholly consumed by his fervent passion for a project, you sometimes wonder just how you're still alive with the amount of heart attacks the man has given you.
But despite his... eccentricities, to put it lightly, there are times where you can't quite put a finger on certain expressions he would make when he thinks you're not looking. They're unlike his (once again, to put it very lightly) passionate eyes when rambling to you during mealtimes about an upcoming performance the troupe has; unlike the sheer mania he can exude when something truly sparks his inspiration; unlike the playfully smug grin he would give you when swooping down in dramatic flair to press a long kiss to the back of your palm; unlike the rare darkening of his expression that you cannot help but stiffen at when something or someone in the troupe doesn't quite match his expectations.
No. These ones are... soft. A kind of tenderness and unprecedented longing able to be identified if scrutinised close enough. It was evident in the ghost-like touches he would trail along your skin, as though afraid just a little more force would do irreparable damage. It was evident in the attention to even the most minute details, having everything from clothing to food to the decor suited to preferences you yourself never realised you had. It was evident in the way unadulterated fondness leaked through his tone when his unique terms of affection for you slipped through his lips when all was silent and you were supposed to be asleep.
"My dearest star..."
...Much like now, it would seem.
The bed dips by where your knees slightly bend, hidden under the beige covers. A familiar musky scent surrounds you not long after, and you find yourself involuntarily relaxing at the comfort it brings as your head further burrows into the pillow.
You want to stay awake, even if it's just for a second longer, to hear what he has to say to your less than conscious state. But, oh, his fingers threading through your hair and softly massaging your scalp and the gentle touch of his forehead against yours and the subtle comforting warmth that rolls off his body in waves does little to help you fight the sleep which easily takes over.
Oh, whatever! You'll just try and catch what he has to say next time.
Eventually your breathing evens out, only soft snores now heard within the large shared bedroom. Upon noticing this, Reca cannot stop the fond smile which lifts the corners of his lips, nor can he prevent the softening of his eyes as he continues to gaze at your sleeping form.
"My dearest [Name]," he whispers into the dead of night. Even now, several months later, he still cannot believe his luck to have run into you in that alleyway. It must have been fate which made him heed its call, urging him he would discover something sure to escape that terrible slump plaguing him for weeks on end.
Sure enough, it brought him to something irreplaceable; something he has been searching desperately for.
You.
And, with the tenderest of kisses pressed to your forehead that would put even the most sickening romantics to shame, he murmurs words of promise against your skin, an oath he swears to uphold no matter the obstacles which stand before him.
"In this life, I will ensure you have only the best of endings."
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if you enjoyed this, reblogs and/or comments are greatly appreciated <33
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academiaipromise · 1 year ago
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honestly like i need people with 0 context to stop calling people scabs in the sag/wga strikes like the stuff people have been posting about that RANDOM PERSON cosplaying as blue beetle…why do y’all wanna police the strike so badly
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howaerds-a · 1 year ago
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@cordelliism
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ohbother2 · 10 months ago
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do you know what?
I miss long seasons.
I miss seasons that had 20 episodes and half of them could be cut and nothing would be lost to the story.
I miss the episodes where nothing fucking happens but you get to see the main cast goofing around with one another. You get to see their interactions, their relationships develop, their day-to-day lives and how they all fit together in them.
You get the Christmas/halloween/valentine's special -is it needed? certainly not. but is it good? is it entertaining? does it give the show and characters life? do we, the viewers, enjoy it? YES!
give me long stories!! give me little quarrelling spats between characters that can be resolved in one episode with no need to have an impact on the greater story! make these stories real!
let me enjoy them before they end!!!
I absolutely love Hazbin Hotel and the little world that's been created, but I can't help but feel disappointed we're only getting two seasons of 8 episodes.
back in the early 2000's 16 episodes would have been ONE season, never mind the entire thing.
show my angel dust and husk and nifty and sir penthouse living their daily lives in the hotel! show me Charlie brainstorming ways to redeem sinners! give me Charlie forcing the hotel staff to do cringe-y exercises! give me an entire episode of Vox trying to follow alastor through security cameras! Give me husks typical day! Give me a special through the eyes of nifty on a mission to irradiate the hotel of bugs! Give me sir penthouse and the egg boys up to no good!
give me something other than the bare necessities to make the story flow
6 months have nearly gone by in the hotel, and it feels like 1 month.
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kandlewick · 2 months ago
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everyone awoke to malleus defeated. except for you meant to be read as platonic malleyuu but can be read as romantic.
Malleus could hardly breathe. every inhale felt like it was too small, like the air surrounding him was too thin. His lungs were empty, barren, and dry. And then he would exhale. a shaky breath. It rattled his bones and burned in his chest. As if nothing but flames raged in his insides. Before him laid a friend, a betrayed comrade, someone who put too much trust in the wrong people. You. You were asleep there, in a bed of thorns and roses, nestled deep and safe. Each petal cradled your cheek like a picture frame and you were a work of art. It all felt so clinical, so far away that Malleus could hardly tear his eyes away from your sleeping form. while constricted by vines to your familiar bed in ramshackle, no thorns pierced your skin. you knew no pain lying there. only dreams. It hardly felt real.
Malleus had made a mistake. He knew he had as soon as the blot began pouring from behind his tongue. but he couldn't stop it. the delirium. it poured out of him like a cracked glass of sand. In those fleeting moments, nothing had mattered more to him. The blot retched every single negative emotion out of his soul, bearing it for the world to bear witness to. And he was ashamed.
but you and the others had succeeded against him, saving all of your classmates and himself from the curse of eternal slumber. One by one, they all began awakening. Eyelids fluttering in the new morning sun. He awoke to the sound of laughter and cheers while he laid there on the broken floor, alone and empty and so so cold. Quietly, Malleus raised his head to thank? Curse? The Ramshackle prefect that laid beside him.
only, you remained there. asleep. too far gone and too far deep for anyone to reach out to. it was like your soul and body were separated, torn asunder. the only sign of life was your chest moving up and down from the breath that filled your lungs. At the moment, Malleus thought perhaps you were simply exhausted, with the heavy bags under your eyes and the pale complexion dusting your cheeks. Like the others, he thought that you only needed more rest. But days passed and there were still no signs of life behind those closed eyes. The teachers talked amongst themselves, unwilling or perhaps unable to offer any sort of explanation. There were talks about asking for assistance from other bodies but they were quick to be shot down. It seemed like nobody knew what to do with you. Or… your body. 
Nobody took it well.
Malleus in particular had ceased his studies, locking himself away in your room in Ramshackle. Ace and Deuce would appear on occasion, Grim in tow, but the three were quick to make themselves scarce once Malleus made it clear he was not leaving your bedside. He sat there for hours, uncaring of the passing of time as night became morning and dawn became dusk. What were mere days to a nigh immortal fae. If this was his curse, to watch the one human who befriended him and suffered for it waste away from his own folly, then so be it. Every morning, like clockwork, he sat there. Unflinching. Unmoving. Like a gargoyle. His eyes were empty and red, long dried from tears but he couldn’t drag himself away from you - he refused to even think of calling you a corpse. 
This day was like any other. He sat there beside you, his hands in his lap, the book he had foolishly planned to humor to read had been cast aside long forgotten, but for some reason the sight of you there pricked at his heart more than before. His voice came out quiet, weak from disuse, but he made an effort all the same. 
“My child of man.” he croaked, his tone heavy with shame and sadness, “I will not ask you for forgiveness.”
He took a shaky breath. Hesitantly, he reached out with a weak hand and clasped your own. The thorns around you pricked him and drew blood, but he paid no mind to it. He felt nothing. Numb. Malleus choked back tears as he pulled your hands close to his chest and against his still beating heart. He lowered his head in agony as he confessed like a convict at death’s door. “What I have done to you is unforgivable.”
He held you to him. Like if he held onto you tight enough, you wouldn’t fall even more to pieces. “You were my first true friend, my closest companion. The only one who treated me as if I was an equal…” He bit back a sob as he tried to cradle his face between his hands, desperate for your touch to once again warm his bones. But there was nothing. Only the cold. “And now I’ve lost you.”
“And not a day shall pass in the centuries that I am cursed to live will I ever forget your smile.” Then with an almost reverent touch, the prince brought your hand to his lips and pressed a delicate kiss to the back of your hand. His lips stayed there, the taste of salt and skin filling his tongue, but he made no effort to move while he cried.
So far gone was he that he never noticed the batting of eyelashes, the furrowed brows, or the intake of breath. So far gone that it wasn’t until he felt your hand, tiny and weak, press against his dark hair, did he lift his head.
“Good morning, Hornton.”
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howaerds-a · 1 year ago
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𝐥𝐚𝐝𝐲𝐛𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐰𝐚𝐥𝐤𝐞𝐫 . the bloodhound adopted by cassie and cordell ( @cordelliism ) , named in honor of the ranger's love for king of the hill .
-- 𝘮𝘶𝘵𝘶𝘢𝘭𝘴 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵 / 𝘳𝘦𝘣𝘭𝘰𝘨 --
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howaerds-a · 1 year ago
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@cordelliism
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osarina · 10 months ago
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ᡣ𐭩 TELLING THEM THEY'RE PRETTY!
FEATURING: dazai osamu, fyodor dostoevsky, nikolai gogol
SUMMARY: telling the bsd boys that they're pretty! (wordcount: 3.5k; sfw; fem!reader)
AUTHOR'S NOTES: i had cute dividers but this won't show up in the tags if use them D: ! i had sooo much fun with this! i hope you guys enjoy! :D
DAZAI OSAMU
You can’t seem to drag your gaze away from him. 
As a long day of work comes to an end, you rest your head on your arms and lean on your desk. Kunikida is still tapping furiously away at his computer, Tanizaki and Naomi are whispering about something together, Ranpo is sorting through his candy, and Atsushi and Kyouka are looking through files. But your eyes are tracing over Dazai Osamu as he leans back in his chair, lazily spinning and bobbing his head to the music he’s listening to. 
The setting sun casts an ethereal glow over him, his lips idly turned up and his lashes brushing his cheeks as rests his eyes waiting for the day to end. Dazai Osamu is pretty—you’ve always acknowledged that—but there’s something about the peace of this moment, the domesticity of the office and the ambience of the lighting that has you utterly enraptured.
He looks so at ease, and Dazai Osamu is never at ease. Even when he throws up that clownlike mask of his and spends his day entertaining under the guise of joy and humor, you can always see the strain in the corner of his eyes and lips. It’s subtle, almost imperceptible really—if you were anyone else, you’d miss it, but you’re not anyone else, much to his displeasure, because you know he hates how easily you can see right through him.
After a few minutes, Dazai peeks his eyes open—and you’re almost breathless, because his eyes are like melted honey beneath the sunset, warm and gentle, glittering with amusement. You think you can stare at him forever and never tire of it.
He rolls his chair closer to you, resting his forearms on your desk so that your arms are brushing and laying his head down on them so that his face is mere inches from yours, matching your position. There's a smile on his lips, soft and teasing as he whispers, "You've been staring at me for five minutes."
"Mhm," you agree, voice just as quiet as if to not disturb the tranquility of the office. You can feel his breath light against your face from the proximity he's laying at and you can smell peppermint on his breath from the candy you’d seen him swipe from Ranpo’s desk earlier when the other man had gone to speak to Fukuzawa.
“Is there something on my face?” he asks playfully, dark eyes glimmering as he waits for your response.
You can tease him back and say yes, as you usually do and is probably what he expects—and you fully intend to do just that but the words that leave your lips are not that. 
“You just look really pretty today,” you say softly, watching as his eyes widen just a bit at your words, pink dusting his cheeks. 
His lips part to say something but no words leave them. He opens and closes them a few times and you marvel because Dazai must know that he’s pretty from all of the attention he gets from women, so you don’t understand why he’s so thrown off hearing you voice it out loud. You don’t think you’ve ever seen him genuinely speechless before now.
“So you don’t think i’m pretty every other day?” Dazai pushes his bottom lip out into an over-exaggerated pout, recovering swiftly from your words, though you expected nothing less from him. But you can’t help but note that his cheeks are still a bit pink and there’s something indecipherable in his eyes.
“Prettier than usual,” you amend and watch as the flush on his cheeks darkens and he instead resorts to completely burying his face in his arms with a frustrated groan.
“I am supposed to be the flirt, bella,” he complains, voice muffled by his arms as he hides his face from your view. He cannot hide the way his ears have gone bright red, and you have half a mind to reach out and tug at them
You lift your hand to your lips to hide the giggle that rises to your lips, scooching your chair a bit closer so you can knock your shoulder against his. 
“I’m not flirting,” you say. “Just stating a fact.”
He turns his head to the side, just enough so that he can give you a heavy side eye—you can only barely see the red hue coating his cheekbone. 
“Not mutually exclusive,” he says grumpily, and you lean down to press your lips against his now exposed forehead, smiling softly as his eyes instinctively flutter shut and his body relaxes as the touch.
Then, you receive a pencil to the side of your head. You yelp as your hand flies to where it had made contact with you, scowling at your assailant who is none other than Ranpo, smiling widely as he waves at you and then motions to Kunikida, who is red faced and staring at the two of you. You can’t tell if it’s in embarrassment or anger.
“Not during work hours,” he snaps, and you realize that he’s definitely embarrassed, so you share a short look with Dazai, who has regained that mischievous look in his eyes as he glances over at Kunikida and back at you.
Without saying a word, or giving any other sort of warning, he leans in to press his lips against yours. It’s a short and chaste kiss, but his lips are soft and taste of candy, and you think you might be able to kiss them forever if you get the chance.
Now you’re the one flustered, you can feel heat rising to your cheeks as you stare at Dazai, who is evidently thoroughly pleased to not be the one uncomposed if the unscrupulous grin on his lips has anything to say about it.
He tosses you a wink before rolling his chair back over to his desk, animatedly complaining about Ranpo and Kunikida being lonely and bitter and getting in the way of Dazai’s chance at true love because of it—you only roll your eyes at his dramatics, as you usually do when Dazai goes off on tangents, but it’s with much more fondness this time. 
•••
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
You are not listening to a single word that he’s saying. 
It’s a dangerous situation to be in with Fyodor Dostoevsky, you’re sure he’s noticed by now and he will be petty enough to finish his brief about his plans and your involvement and then ask you to repeat what he said, but you just can’t focus. 
He tied his hair back, you note, still quite a bit awed by the sight. There are two locks framing his face and his bangs are falling between his eyes, but the rest of his hair, which has grown a bit long in the weeks that he’s been ardently preparing for the final stages of his plan, is pulled back into a lax bun. 
He looks so casual, and Fyodor Dostoevsky never looks casual. He’s dressed in a turtleneck and loose pants as he leans back in his chair. There’s a folder resting on his lap that he’s idly flipping through and he keeps glancing up at you occasionally, pale lips flat and violet eyes disapproving, but you just nod along to his words even though you know that he knows that you’re not paying attention. 
And you think, distantly, that you probably should be paying attention because he’s talking about your upcoming mission and what you should expect from it but you figure you’ll be fine—it’s a simple infiltration mission, nothing to worry about. And you’d much rather prefer to appreciate Fyodor’s rare repose than to listen him droll on about boring topics. 
Sometimes, you think if he just kept his mouth shut all the time, he’d be perfect. But you think you’d miss his sharp-witted comments and the lengthy debates the two of you have after a few glasses of wine.
He looks extra pretty tonight, even beyond the casual hairstyle and clothes and his uncharacteristically relaxed demeanor, and you think it’s because of the way the flames of the fireplace are casting an enchanting orange and red glow over his face. It makes the violets of his eyes burn alive in a way that they usually don’t, you’re far too used to the glacial visage they take whenever he puts his attention on someone. Every time he glances up at you, you swear that you can get lost in them.
“… And you are not listening to a word that I am saying, are you?” 
Fyodor is giving you the heaviest side eye as he finally calls you out, expression unamused. His brows are furrowed and his pale skin is taut with thinly veiled irritation.
“Of course, I am,” you dismiss, waving your hand. “Infiltration mission, detective agency, get close to the tiger boy.”
Fyodor looks distinctly unimpressed by your words, brows deepening—you figure you must have spoken wrongly, you probably shouldn’t have been so indifferent, and you bite back a sigh before reaching forward to press two fingers between Fyodor’s eyebrows, as if to forcibly smooth away his annoyance.
He blinks and draws back, out of reach of your arm, and then casts you an even more irritable look.
“You’re not taking this seriously,” he accuses. “This mission will be dangerous, you’ll be at risk of being exposed every moment you are in the agency and if you are exposed-“
“Your plans will be ruined,” you finish, forcing yourself not to roll your eyes. “I kno-“
“You could be killed,” Fyodor corrected, voice cold and sharp, and you look back over to him. He looks unusually intense, and you’re not sure if it’s because of the appearance that the flames of the fireplace are giving him as they flicker dangerously across his face or if it’s because he’s that displeased with you being distracted. Either way, you find your mind drifting again because wow. “Dazai Osamu is not a man to be taken lightly. When he manages to figure out who you are and what you’re doing, we will need an immediate extraction plan.”
“Careful, Fyodor,” you drawl, watching as his violet eyes narrow briefly, “almost sounds like you care.”
Fyodor’s lips twist but he doesn’t respond. You raise your eyebrows, he looks away. Your eyes shoot open.
“You have a bigger role to play,” Fyodor finally says, but he’s no longer looking at you. “You cannot be killed yet.”
“Yet,” you repeat, amused. Fyodor’s jaw tightens, he doesn’t look at you, his eyes are trained on the fireplace to the side of the two of you and you can vaguely see the flames reflecting in his eyes, burning ardently against the familiar violet.
You lean forward again, shifting off of the couch to sit on the coffee table between the two of you so you can reach him. You reach forward to brush your knuckles against his cheek—he doesn’t move away this time, but his eyes cut to the side to watch you carefully.
You don’t say anything for a moment, absently tucking one of the locks of hair framing his face behind his ear. His hair is soft, freshly washed—for once—it smells faintly of lavender and vanilla and you wonder if he stole your conditioner.
“You look very pretty tonight, Fyodor,” you say quietly, and then smile. “It’s hard to focus when you look like this.”
The expression Fyodor directs toward you is extraordinarily blank, except for the faintest specks of pink that glare compared to the pallor of his face. 
He shakes his head, looking away from you yet again. 
“… You cause me much suffering,” he murmurs, and somehow, you know that might be the closest you might get to an admission of love from Fyodor Dostoevsky.
You smile to yourself. “And you to I,” you say, voice a bit teasing, and then you add, “Now, can you tell me again what to look out for?”
The moment is ruined. Fyodor’s eye twitches and he’s giving you that unamused look again, and you think having him repeat himself might be a mistake because now you’re even more distracted, but Fyodor sighs and starts on his lecture again so you force yourself to listen.
It takes about three minutes for him to release a sigh of utter suffering when he realizes that your eyes have glazed over yet again. 
•••
NIKOLAI GOGOL
Nikolai has a wild sort of beauty about him. He’s unpredictable and dangerous, and it’s widely apparent in his frenzied laughter and chaotic behavior. His eye glitters and his teeth gleam sharply beneath the glow of the moonlight as he waves his hands around, animatedly describing to you all of the details of the things he’s been doing while you were away. 
Fyodor’s masterplan has involved Nikolai apparently taken upon an infiltration role at the ministry of defense—you think it’s a bold move for Fyodor to use Nikolai for such a tenuous mission, but he’s apparently been having the time of his life with it. Though he thinks his boss is deplorable and one of his coworkers has evidently pissed him off beyond repair, because now he’s telling you about how he’s been ‘pranking’ the man in righteous vengeance. 
You think Nikolai’s idea of pranking varies from yours, because you’re pretty sure him using his ability to break into the man’s house constitutes a crime not a prank. But you don’t have it in you to make that distinction when he’s so excitedly telling you about how every day he’s been going into his house to move around all of his stuff and hide some of his belongings to make the man squirm. He’s succeeding outstandingly in his ambition, if the videos he’s waving in front of you have anything to say about it. 
You watch as he frantically scrolls to the next video—“this one is the best,” he claims, as he has for every video thus far. You watch with an amused smile as his dark-haired coworker steps into his apartment and nearly starts crying when he realizes that all of his stuff has been moved again, scrambling for his phone to call the police, who have—according to Nikolai—apparently already told him multiple times that there’s nothing they can do about it. The video is shaking wildly, as if the person filming can barely hold the camera straight, and you’re convinced that’s exactly what it is because you can hear Nikolai’s muffled laughter coming from recording.
Nikolai naturally finds it much funnier than you do, half-way keeling over as he wheezes, his laughter shattering the peaceful night. The two of you are sitting at a park near the apartment that Fyodor had leased for you for the duration of the Yokohama operation. The moon is high in the sky, casting a bewitching glow over the lake in front of you and there’s a chill in the air—it’s a nice night all around, you think there will probably some frost dusting the grass in the morning but the cold hardly bothers you now with Nikolai pressed to your side as he laughs himself into a near-coughing fit over his harassment of his coworker. 
“Why aren’t you laughing?” Nikolai suddenly complains loudly, scowling at you, but even then he keeps having to bite back residual laughter whenever he glances back down at his phone. “It’s funny.”
“It is funny,” you agree. Nikolai gives you a look as if he doesn’t believe you. “It is.”
“Then why aren’t you laughing?” Nikolai accuses doubtfully, and then adds, even more accusatory, “You hate me.”
You’re not sure why you aren’t laughing, honestly. Usually you’d be burying your face into his shoulder trying to smother your snickers, because even though you might not entirely agree with Nikolai’s idea of a prank, you can still find some humor in it. Because it is kind of funny. Kind of. 
But then you realize that you’re probably not laughing because you’ve been spending most of the night admiring Nikolai rather than listening to him prattle on about his escapades and watching his poorly recorded videos, so you can’t fully appreciate the humor in the videos. With his cheeks flushed from copious amounts of laughter and his eyes glowing with excitement, you think he’s very pretty tonight—Nikolai is always pretty, but the angle at which he’s sitting leaves the moon haloing behind his head, and maybe it’s just because you’ve missed him the past few weeks when you’ve been abroad dealing with a territory dispute with Tolstoy, but you think there’s something special about tonight. 
“I don’t hate you. I guess I’ve been too busy admiring you,” you finally say, a playful smile on your lips as you tilt your head to the side to look at him. “You look pretty tonight.”
Nikolai blinks, eyes wide and owlish as he processes your words. The longer he goes unresponsive, you acknowledge that a quiet Nikolai is far more unnerving than a loud and erratic Nikolai, you’d expected a more… theatrical response to your comment. A swish of his cape, him leaping to his feet with a twirl and an agreement, even just a wild laugh; instead, he looks away abruptly. He doesn’t even just look away, he physically turns his whole body away from you. 
You blink.
“Nikolai?” you ask, a bit astonished when he literally ignores you. You lean forward, trying to get a look at his face, but then he swivels around even more and your lips part in shock. “Nikolai.”
You’re only met with a face full of his soft white hair, impeccably braided, as per usual—you have half a mind to tug at it hard to try to get a response from him, but you aren’t in the mood for the lewd comment that would likely spill from his lips after. 
“Koly-“
“Poor me, poor me,” Nikolai suddenly cries loudly, “The little koshenya mocks me when all I do is try to make her laugh. Poor me, poor me.”
His hand flies to his face, melodramatic as he bemoans your alleged cruelty. You stare at him, mind trying to piece together what exactly is happening—Nikolai is always hard to predict, but you feel like this is a bit strange even for him, and that’s saying something. 
“… What?” you start to ask but Nikolai has thrown himself into a loud and theatrical tirade about how he doesn’t deserve such injustice and how he was only trying to make you laugh, and how it’s so, so cold-hearted of you to taunt him when this is the first time the two of you have seen each other in weeks. 
Nikolai is impossible to bargain with when he gets like this, so you only sigh and tilt your head up to the sky, his words flying in one ear and out the other as you wait for him to settle down on his own. 
Instead, you swear the world is against you because rather than settling down, he becomes increasingly more noisy and distressed, and his accusations become even more asinine. Now, he’s saying that you’ve always had it out for him and how you weren’t laughing at his jokes because you hate him and want to report him to the police and how he should tell Dostoy about your betrayal, or better yet, he should stuff you in his cloak and leave you there?
You side-eye Nikolai heavily as he continues on, slightly alarmed, but brush off the casual threat as just Nikolai being Nikolai. You don’t know how to shut him up, you think you might be out here all night listening to him, and now you’re the one bemoaning your fate because how did a simple compliment turn into this. 
Finally, an idea strikes. 
You brace yourself, questioning your sanity and your entire existence before you interrupt him with a loud, “Quiz time!”
Nikolai goes silent instantly, head snapping toward you, eye even wider than before. 
You think you’ve hit an all time low as you say, “Was I trying to mock you before?” Nikolai opens his mouth to respond but you cut him off before he can. “What’s that you say? I wasn’t? Ding ding! We’ve gotta winner!” 
You think Nikolai might be having an internal crisis. He’s staring at you as if he’s seeing you for the first time in his life—his lips are parted, his eye void of the usual mischief dancing in it. He looks as if he wants to say something but he doesn’t know what. 
You let out a long breath as you go to speak up again, but before you can, his eye is glittering again, sharp and dangerous, and his lips are curving up into a slow smile. 
Nikolai inhales and then he takes a complete one-eighty as he bursts into loud cackles and says, “Ahahaha! I knew you loved me!” as if he wasn’t just lamenting your irrational hatred for him moments before.
Your eye twitches. He begins a second tirade, this one far more embarrassing for you than the last. 
You regret everything.
3K notes · View notes
rememberwren · 4 months ago
Text
Complicated Pleasures
OR: Home Videos. You (fem!reader) and Ghost have been married for years when your prodigal friend Johnny finds out that you make and post porn together. Feelings happen. 13k
About this: m/m, f/m, oral f and m receiving, anal sex, PIV, kink, pornography, sir kink, slight objectification, objectionable writing, soft!simon, very soft fic altogether, cum sharing.
-
((A video begins.
 A bed in a tidy room. Identifying features have been hidden: pictures placed face down on the nightstands, blinds drawn tight until the room is cast in a cool glow. A woman sits amongst the nondescript bedspread and sheets, her legs tucked up against her chest and arms wrapped around her thighs, naked except for the mask that does little to truly obscure her face. 
Once she knows the video has begun, it is like she blooms, arms and legs falling away to reveal the soft petals of her nakedness: the  plains of her body, the angles and curves. She’s near perfect, Soap thinks, already fisting his hard cock. 
She looks almost exactly like you. 
Then a man walks around from the other side of the camera, and Soap’s heart leaves his body.))
-
“Johnny!” you say brightly, throwing open the front door. In streams the cold air and bright sunshine reflecting off the snow, and in steps Johnny with snowflakes in his hair and on the shoulders of his coat, gifts wrapped in bright shades of gold and silver tucked beneath one of his arms. 
He stomps his feet, boots shedding packed snow on the doormat, and leans in to deposit the gifts a safe distance away so that he can open his arms and gather you up in them. Your fingers tangle in his jacket, holding him close. He is warm even after coming in from the snow, his scent like Christmas itself: woodsy pine and crackling fires. You feel Simon’s presence appear in the living room doorway and begin to pull away, trying not to hog his friend, even if you desperately want to. 
“Lookit you, bonnie as ever,” Johnny says against your ear. He lets you go, bending down to unlace his boots and call a greeting to Simon: “I see you brooding over there, LT. Happy Christmas to yeh.” 
“No titles at Christmas, Johnny.” 
“Yessir.” 
“You didn’t need to bring gifts,” you scold him.
“Of course I did—it’s fucking Christmas,” says Johnny with a grin as he straightens. He passes you the gifts, a small package and a larger one, each wrapped by a practiced hand that you sense must not have been Johnny’s own. You wonder if there isn’t a girl in his life now—except you and Simon had extended the invitation to one, if so. Why he wouldn’t have brought her, you couldn’t understand. 
Maybe his mum wrapped the gifts. 
Simon and Johnny clasp hands which turns into a hug. Watching them together makes the dust settle in some riotous part of your heart. The two of them—their friendship—just makes perfect sense in its improbability. 
Simon mutters something under his breath and Johnny nods, burying his face deeper into Simon’s broad shoulder. You have the perfect vantage point of Johnny’s face: his eyes squeezed shut, long lashes resting on his cheeks.
A timer in the kitchen goes off—the roast you’ve been cooking since the early morning hours. Excusing yourself, you disappear into the kitchen, pausing just beyond the doorway to press your chilly hands to your flushed cheeks. 
Wine. You needed wine. 
-
“So,” you begin once the three of you have sat down for dinner. “Fill us in, Johnny. What have you been up to?”
The unsaid words linger between you all, What have you been up to during the three years you left? Johnny gives a wane smile, and you think that maybe the time spent apart didn’t serve him nearly as well as he’d hoped it would—however he’d hoped it would. Simon sits at the head of the table, his ankle tangled against your own beneath the oak. It’s a comforting reminder of his presence, considering he lets you and Johnny do most of the talking for now. 
“Whole lot o’ nothing,” Johnny says, sipping at the wine in his glass between sentences. “Traveled abroad fer a while. Spent some time in America, some time in South Korea.” 
“Sounds like a nice place to meet people,” you say, aiming for subtlety the way a sledgehammer might. “I notice you didn’t take us up on our invitation and bring a lass with you.” 
“No lass to bring, hen,” he says smoothly. 
Simon’s ankle stirs against your own, some silent attempt at communication. When you glance over toward him, his eyes are on his plate, face stoic, revealing nothing. 
“Any lads?” you guess. 
Simon’s fork squeaks against his plate. Johnny stops eating. For a moment they both stare at you in shocked silence. Then a grin spreads over Johnny’s handsome face, blooming straight into laughter. He shakes his head, like you have said something very silly. 
“No, no lads,” he says.
Simon’s ankle shifts again. 
You reach for your glass of wine, face hot—
-
—and you don’t stop drinking. 
Afternoon turns into evening, and by the time night falls, the three of you have drunk your way through three bottles of wine and successfully caught each other up on your lives to date. Simon and Johnny have slipped out onto the porch twice to smoke, bringing back in the scent of tobacco and snow, one you don’t mind at all. The fire in the fireplace burns low, crackling and spitting as the log splits. The room is strewn with torn gift wrapping. Simon has already unboxed the knife Johnny had made for him, testing its weight in his palm, testing the sharpness of the blade against the pad of his thumb. (Add that to the list of things which shouldn’t arouse you about Simon but do.)
It reminds you of the idyllic Christmases that you had reached for all your life and only ever skimmed with your fingers. You should have known that the missing piece was Johnny all along. 
Wine drunk, you have kicked your feet up on Johnny’s lap at one end of the couch and curled your upper half on Simon’s lap at the other end. It is easy to fall asleep to the warm lull of their voices, swapping stories from their time in the military together. 
But all at once, the subject matter changes, and it drags you from the threshold of sleep into some misty gray area in between a dream and wakefulness. Eyes still closed, you listen. 
“I found you both, you know.” Johnny’s voice is barely more than a whisper, difficult to hear over the crackling fire. 
“Don’t know what you mean, Johnny. We’re right here.” 
“I found your videos.” 
Your hands tighten into fists where you are clutching Simon’s shirt, eyes cracking open as you put the pieces together in your mind. But he’s smoother than you are, always able to keep a cool head. He sounds a little bored, a little confused as he asks: “What videos?” 
“Never known you to play dumb LT. You know the ones I mean. The porn.” 
A lengthy silence as Simon weighs his options and likely decides that there’s no use in lying. “You did, did you?” 
“Aye.” 
A pause.
“So that’s why you finally came back. Three fucking years she begs you to at least come for Christmas—who knew all it would take was a little pornography to put a fire under your arse.”
“That’s not—didn’t even find it until a few days ago, after I’d already said yes—“ Johnny says, voice rising in his defense. 
“Careful. We don’t want to wake her up, do we?” Simon’s hand pets against your hair, softer than a kiss from the wind. Though he must know you’re awake, you’re grateful that he lets you pretend, lets you hide away while he handles this. “If she knew that you’d seen those videos, she’d be embarrassed. That would make me upset. You understand?” 
“Aye,” he says, lowering his voice a little. He rests his hand against your ankle in his lap and then decides it’s not appropriate, shifts his hand back to his own thigh. You miss his touch. You’ve always missed Johnny’s touch more than you should miss the touch of your husband’s best friend. “But if you didn’t want people to see them, I don’t understand what you were thinkin’ posting them online.” 
“Three guesses. No, go on. Never known you to be shy. Guess.”
Johnny wets his lips. “You didn’t think you’d be recognized.” 
“There’s one.” 
“You…you like it.” 
“There’s two. Give us a third.” 
“She likes it.” 
You groan a little in embarrassment, turning your face away from where Johnny can see its profile, burying it in Simon’s lap. He’s hard, a fact you only realize when his jean-clad cock rubs against your cheek. You go still, eyes widening as this knowledge goes straight to the warmth that’s been stoked between your legs more often than the fireplace has tonight.
Simon’s hand finds the nape of your neck and rests there, keeping you still and quiet. It reminds you of your last video, when he had taken you from behind and put his hand on the nape of your neck to urge your face into the bed, his hips snapping against your ass. Where had the camera been, then? You couldn’t remember. That was Simon’s one rule, besides the masks and never saying each other’s names: don’t look into the camera. 
“So what do you plan to do with this knowledge, Johnny?” Simon asks. You hold your breath, still feigning sleep. “Who do you plan to tell? You know I don’t have anyone left who would give a fuck, but I’m sure you could find someone for her—someone who could shame her and make her feel bad for trying to feel good. Is that what you want?”
“Fuck no. I’d not tell a soul,” says Johnny fiercely. His hand comes to rest on your ankle again. This time he leaves it, thumb brushing the bone. “I swear it.”
“Then why bring it up at all?” 
“I…I don’t know,” Johnny admits, head ducking. “I just had to. Spending time with yeh both, knowing what I knew—it felt dishonest.” 
Simon hums. “You know what I’d like to know?” 
“What’s that?” 
“What our single friend was doing looking at couples porn.” 
-
The night ends quickly after that. Simon carries you to bed—the bed where you film so much of the porn that Johnny has apparently seen—and helps you begin undressing while Johnny gets his boots on in the other room. 
“I’m so embarrassed,” you breathe, quiet so that Johnny could not overhear if he happened to be standing right outside the door. Your head is spinning, and only partly from all the wine. Your face burns. Your heart is beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings. Johnny has seen the videos, the ones you and Simon cheekily dub ‘home movies’! God, how you will ever face him again is beyond you. 
“Give me the word and I’ll throw him out,” says Simon. “We’ll never see him again.” 
That makes a sick feeling rise up in the back of your throat. You look up at Simon and take in the somber, angry-adjacent expression on his face, and you know that he is serious. Simon never says a word that he doesn’t mean. But you can hear what he didn’t say, the words unspoken: it would kill him to do it. All their years spent watching each other’s backs, it would be hard to stab Johnny’s and leave him in the cold. Especially after the bliss of just getting him back.
You don’t want that. Not for Simon, not for Johnny. Not even for you. 
“I like Johnny,” you affirm. “I just don’t know how I’ll face him.” 
“You’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. He’s the pervert looking in through our window.” 
“We’re the perverts fucking with the blinds wide open,” you remind him. 
“I’ll see him out. Finish getting undressed,” he says, disappearing through the doorway. You hear the warm timber of his voice matched by Johnny’s and the sound of the front door opening. Two sets of boots crunch through snow, and now the voices are so far away that you can’t even make out their tone, much less their words.
Stripping the last of your clothes off, you roll onto your belly and bury your face in your pillow. Tonight had been going so well. It was hard to believe how far off course things had become. What was Johnny doing looking for couples porn anyhow? 
You roll back over, staring into the darkness of the ceiling. The answer was simple: because it would get him off. It didn’t matter if it was tentacles to titjobs. He’d more than likely been looking up porn while he jerked off. 
Had he realized right away that it was you and Simon and turned the video off in disgust? Or had it taken a moment for it to sink in? Had he cared at all? 
Or had he jerked off instead? You realize you are rubbing your thighs together belatedly and force yourself into stillness. 
The front door opens, Simon stomping inside and taking off his boots. When he joins you in bed, his cheeks are still cold, mouth minty from hastily brushing his teeth of tobacco and wine. You lean in and kiss him, looking for comfort. He kisses back, sweeping his tongue through your mouth, sucking on your lower lip. 
“I’m not in the mood tonight,” you whisper when you both part, not necessarily out of truthfulness, but because you feel like you shouldn’t be in the mood. 
“Wasn’t expecting anything.” 
You lay your head on his chest, listening to the steady sound of his heart. Your embarrassment is a little lessened now, abated by the calm that Simon exudes from his pores. It’s hard to believe that anything in the world could go wrong that Simon couldn’t handle with a twist of his hand or a few choice words. After a while, you glance up to find him still awake, staring into the darkness of the room. He meets your eyes and gives you one of his rare, wane smiles. 
“What are you thinking about?” you ask him. 
After a moment of silence, he says: “Our next video.” 
((AMATEUR COUPLE: WAKING UP MY WIFE WITH MORNING SEX. Soap knows that he shouldn’t click on the link. The first time was an honest mistake, but anything afterwards is intentional—and unforgivable. If Ghost were to find out…Soap doesn’t even want to think about it. 
Except why would it be wrong for Soap to do it but right for a bunch of strangers? 
He doesn’t need to look down to know his cock is hard. Against his better judgement—or any judgement at all, really—he clicks the link. The video starts with Ghost in the frame, completely naked. He’s seen LT naked often enough (it’s unavoidable in such close quarters as they have shared) but he’s never looked, not like this. 
Time has barely changed him. He is still fitter than any man has the right to be, thick with muscles that are for functionality and not just for show—though the show is still impressive. 
While he’d always known that Ghost would be a sight to behold, seeing it in this context cements a fact in his brain, one that had sent him running years prior: he’s attracted to his closest friend. All the bad flirting disguised as taking the piss back when they were in the 141—it wasn’t just taking the piss. Not for Soap, at least.
In the video, Ghost exits the frame and crosses to the other side of the bed. He’s not wearing a mask this time but the upper half of his face remains solidly out of frame until it is offscreen again. You are positioned closest to the camera, laying on your side facing the audience. Your face isn’t visible, but your breasts are once Ghost draws the blankets down, down, and then down far enough to reveal your closed thighs. 
Fuck, Soap wants to see your cunt. He grips his cock tightly and squeezes, watching raptly as Ghost loops an arm over you and begins to softly tease your nipples. Soap slips a hand up his shirt and thumbs at a nipple of his own, wishing it was the other man’s touch. His cock leaks where it lies thickly against his belly as he watches his former lieutenant tease you, trace figures over your naked body, and at last slip a hand between your thighs, working one of your legs over back of his own. Now Soap can see just a trace of your slit, so soft. It makes his jaws ache, makes him want Ghost to hold your thighs apart so that he can lick and suck you into a frenzy.
He can tell the exact moment you wake. Your body stiffens, mouth falling open as Ghost sinks two of his fingers inside you. One of your hands reaches down to grip at your husband’s forearm as you scramble into wakefulness.
“Good morning,” Ghost says.))
-
The doorbell sounds, telling Simon that Johnny has arrived, but he lets his Sergeant wait out in the cold while the kettle finishes filling. A not-small part of him is still holding a grudge against Johnny for making you so embarrassed. It had taken time for you to come into your own. Courage. The videos had been your idea, whispered in the heat of the moment beneath the cover of darkness—but with time you’d been bold enough to talk about them over dinner. To read the comments with him and laugh. To watch the videos and end up in bed all over again. 
Now he could see the hesitation in your eyes whenever he pulled out his phone. 
Johnny’s expression is its typical one, open, friendly, when Simon opens the door. When he sees Simon, those blue eyes grow wide before he can curb the reaction. Johnny swallows, throat bobbing. 
“Hey LT. Lookit you. Laswell really has yeh behind a desk now doesn’t she?” Johnny’s hand reached out like he’s going to touch the tie that still dangles from around Simon’s neck, but he thinks better of it. 
Just another hunch of Simon’s proven right.
“What part of no field work confused you?” Simon asks, stepping aside to let Johnny in. 
“No confusion. Just didn’t expect yeh to look so…” He trails off, eyes flittering over Simon from his combed hair to his dress shirt stretched tight across his chest to the dress slacks that cling to his thighs. “…fancy.”
“I don’t wear the tie for Laswell’s benefit. But you already knew that.”
Johnny flushes, as good an admission as any. Wisely, he says nothing, following Simon into the kitchen and taking an offered seat at the kitchen island. His eyes flicker around the room, similar to how they had on Christmas. Then, Simon had mistaken it for Johnny taking in the way things had changed—the wallpaper is new, as is the backsplash behind the oven and stove, there are new pictures on the refrigerator—but now Simon suspects that Johnny is remembering. Piecing together backdrops he has seen in their videos. 
“The missus home?” Johnny asks, drumming his fingers on the granite. 
“No. Work.”
Simon pours tea for two, even though Johnny hates tea, and slides it across the countertop to him. To his benefit, Johnny accepts it without complaint, warming his hands around the mug.
“I told her.” 
Johnny doesn’t need to ask what or who—they’ve both been thinking about it since the moment he walked in. Simon watches as his face twists with naked regret. It tells Simon that Johnny really didn’t know that you were only feigning sleep on Christmas. 
“Is she angry with me?” 
“Embarrassed.” 
Johnny looks outraged on your behalf. “She has no reason t’ be!” 
Simon shrugs as if to say, This is what your curiosity bought her, Johnny. This is the price she’s paying. Johnny’s shoulders sag under the weight of his own guilt, elbows bracing themselves on the countertop so that he can put his face in his hands.
“Maybe,” says Simon, “it would make more of a difference if she heard it from you.” 
Johnny looks up, brow furrowed. “Heard what from me? That I’ve seen her—like that?” 
Simon’s eyes roll to the ceiling. “No. That she doesn’t have anything to be ashamed of.” 
Johnny turns the idea over in his head. He’s clever, but too blinded by his own desire to see the manipulation for what it is. What does it matter if it’s Simon’s idea or his own? Johnny is dying to talk to you. 
“You’d give me her number?”
Simon shrugs.
“Alright,” says Johnny at length, drawing the word out. “I can do that. If you think it will help.” 
Simon says nothing, sipping at his tea to hide any smugness behind his cup.
-
((The video begins in a kitchen, one Johnny has been in many times. You are there, back mostly to the camera, pressed against the granite island countertop. Simon is on the other side of you, consuming all your attention. Steaming Jesus, he’s huge compared to you, huge compared to everyone. He’s dressed in his work attire: dress clothes, dark tie in place. The effect is jarring in contrast with the mask. 
Simon reaches up and works his tie loose and off over his head. You tilt your head down a little and on it goes, easy as anything. When Simon turns you to face the camera, the tie dangles between your bare breasts. One hand on the nape of your neck, Simon bends you forward towards the granite and Soap can tell the exact moment his cock slips inside you based on the way your mouth falls open, your eyes squeezing shut behind your own mask. 
Soap isn’t sure who he’s jealous of more—you or Simon.))
-
Simon told me that he told you what I found. I just wanted to message you myself and say how sorry I am if I embarrassed you. 
You sigh reading over the text message. Flexing your fingers, you give a quick glance toward where Simon lays dozing with his head against the back of the couch, feet up on the coffee table (the knife he got for Christmas rests on his chest; he’d been toying with it absently for the last half hour) and answer: There’s no reason to apologize. It’s not your fault I’m embarrassed. 
It is though, isn’t it? You don’t care that other people see. You just care that I did. 
You pause and bite at your nails, thinking over his words and how to respond. He’s mostly right. There had been an aspect of embarrassment at first when you and Simon began posting the videos (and that embarrassment had gotten you off to a certain extent, though it didn’t usually). But eventually that heated shame had melted away into eagerness for the camera. You’d read the comments on the videos, countless human beings talking about the various ways they masturbate to your sex with Simon, talking about the things they wish they could do to you, with you, with Simon. 
So why was it so much more embarrassing knowing that Johnny had seen? Because he knew you. Because he’d seen the parts of you that you had purposefully covered up for the camera. No one was meant to see both sides—no one was meant to have all of you. Except for Simon. 
But if somebody was going to do it, a small part of you is glad it was Johnny. 
You’re Simon’s friend, you message back, curious. Didn’t it feel strange to see us like that? 
Honestly? He doesn’t wait for you to respond. Not as strange as I might have thought. 
-
((AMATEUR COUPLE: WIFE PRACTICES HER BLOWJOB SKILLS, the video is aptly titled. You are on your knees, hands tied neatly at the base of your spine. Simon sits at the edge of the bed, camera positioned perpendicular to you both, with a downward angle.
You lean forward and let his hard, flushed cock disappear past your lips deeper, deeper, until you reach the limits of what you can take without preparation or practice. His hand comes down to rest softly against the back of your head as you make yourself gag and choke around the thickest part of his cock. There’s no need to hold you down; Simon doesn’t even bother.
Soap’s jaw aches, desperate for a chance to be on his knees for Ghost like that. He could take more than you—he knows he could. Not that it had to be a competition, not when you both could share a cock that size and barely notice the other was there. He strips his own cock thinking about it, eyes falling shut as he lets the background noise of the video—Simon’s gentle praises, your whines and chokes, the wet gurgles of a throat being fucked—carry him over the edge.))
-
New Year’s Eve. 
The house is full of bodies and laughter. You feel near-delirious with your own joy, never made happier than by the happiness of the people around you. Alejandro and Rodolfo had flown in and were staying in the guest house through the New Year, arriving only yesterday with enough luggage for four between the two of them; Kyle and his girlfriend; John and his wife; Kate and her partner; even Farah and her brother had made a pit stop to spend the evening with you on their way back to Urzikstan from the Americas. 
The party had been BYOB, and everyone had taken to the sentiment and more. Farrah is mixing drinks in the kitchen, strong concoctions that even John struggles to keep down. Gaz and Alejandro keep insisting on shots (which you politely decline just as often as you agree. Simon drinks nothing, his tumultuous past putting him off of hard alcohol for good).
People are well and truly drunk by the time Johnny arrives. The whoops and hollers that fill the house have you thinking that midnight has come early. A swarm of bodies surround him, and he is forced to make the rounds hugging each person and being taken to task by them for being gone for so goddamn long. 
He arrives at you before Simon, and his face softens, smile going a little unsure around the edges as he opens his arms for you, the first time he’s seen you in person since Christmas. You could rebuff him, but you also can’t. It’s Johnny. Nearly tripping to toss yourself into his arms, he lifts you a few inches off the floor, nose buried in your hair. 
“Bonnie as always,” he whispers into your ear after putting you back down. His hand tugs teasingly on the short hem of your dress, like he is trying to lengthen it, knuckles brushing your thighs. You swat his hand away, face flushing with warmth. It wasn’t that short. 
“Johnny,” Simon calls. The two men embrace, hug lasting longer than any other. In the distance, you see Gaz elbow Price, jerking his head toward the two men. 
You put a hand on Simon’s shoulder, anxious suddenly. Simon draws back, clapping Johnny on the shoulder. He orders: “Get yourself a drink.” 
“Yessir.” 
“None of that.”
“Games? I was told there would be games,” Gaz says, situating himself between you and Simon. He’s dressed smartly in a dress-shirt with the collar undone. Someone has put a party hat on him, cone-shaped, to celebrate the New Year. You had managed to wrestle Simon into one for thirty seconds before the first of the company arrived; the memory makes you smile. 
“I have Cards Against Humanity,” you offer. 
“Oh, I love that game,” Kyle’s girlfriend says to your delight. 
“No—no—we aren’t in middle school here,” Johnny says. “And if we are, then I want to play truth or dare so my chances of getting kissed tonight rises exponentially.” 
“Come over here and they will,” Gaz offers. 
“Don’t make promises you’re not ready to keep, Garrick,” Johnny warns, grinning. 
“Sounds like something a coward would say, all due respect—” 
Then Johnny has a fistful of Kyle’s shirt, hauling him in for a bold though chaste kiss on the mouth. You are suddenly hyper aware of Simon beside you, standing tall and very still while everyone laughs and cheers at the men’s antics. You can’t deny it’s a pleasing sight, but a part of you feels irritated with the whole display. 
“Jesus Christ,” John sighs, tipping his hat back on his head. “Soap’s right—if you’ve got a normal deck of cards, love, I know  plenty of games for adults to play.” 
“Not sure I want to play those kinds of games with you, John,” Kate says somberly to the laughs of everyone around her. 
“We’ve got cards,” Simon mutters. 
Farah calls to you from the kitchen, asking you to try her latest conglomeration of alcohol. Eager to be anywhere but there, you escape to the kitchen. You lift yourself up onto one of the stools at the island, taking the red plastic cup from her hand and sniffing it. Just the smell burns the hairs of your nose. 
“Jesus, Farah, this could kill me,” you laugh. 
“Pathetic,” she says with a grin to lighten her words. “I think I saw some apple juice in the refrigerator, would you like that instead?” 
“Alright.” 
“A warm glass of milk, perhaps?”
“You’ve made your point,” you say, eyes narrowing in good humor. Taking a deep breath to steel your nerves (and stomach), you take a generous swig of the cup. Fuck, it burns going down and it burns in your belly, like swallowing a lit flame. You cough a little, trying not to gag, and hold up your thumb to her. “It’s great—so good—“
Simon comes to sit beside you at the island. He takes the cup, smells it, and raises both brows. 
“Can I tempt you, Lieutenant?” Farah asks.
“No.” 
“Then I won’t try. Where’s John, he’s never afraid of a challenge.”
Unseen to her beneath the island, fingertips brush your stocking-covered thighs. Your knees clamp together on instinct as you fight not to look over at Simon. What is he doing? 
He strikes up a conversation with Farah about her time spent in the Americas. When his hand doesn’t move, your thighs relax a little. He was just being intimate; often he liked to have a hand on your back or his foot resting against your own beneath the table. It wasn’t his fault you were on edge. Your head spins a little, thanks to the shots and Farah’s drink. Planting one elbow on the countertop, you try to focus on her stories when Simon’s hand moves again, slipping further between your legs. The hem of your dress has ridden up so high in your seated position that it doesn’t take much for his fingertips to graze against the heated seam between your legs. 
You clamp your knees shut again. He pinches your thigh softly, just enough to get the message through to you. Staring at Farah, hearing nothing, you spread your shaking knees again and let him cup you between your legs. Fuck. You tilt your hips, making as if to adjust your position on the chair. It only serves to bring you in closer contact with Simon’s hand. A groan is born and dies in the back of your throat. 
He keeps you there, holding your cunt, having a fluent conversation with Farah while your brain melts out your ears. At length, he stands. Leaning down, he says in your ear: “Outside, two minutes. Go out the back.” 
Then he disappears amongst the sea of people 
-
Three minutes later you are shivering out in the snow. Your coat only helps so much with your legs bare save for your stockings. You hadn’t even had time to lace up your boots. Shifting from one foot to the other in the spotlight of the floodlights to keep warm, you cast glances left and right wondering from which direction Simon will come, wondering what he wants that couldn’t have taken place in doors. 
At last he appears, looking far warmer than you in his olive green jacket and jeans, hands stuffed deep into his pockets. You smile at the sight of him. He doesn’t smile back. 
“Put your hands against the wall.” 
“Simon?” 
He sighs, running a hand over the curve of your waist, testing its fit in his palm. “Now I’ll have to edit that part out. Let’s try again. Put your hands on the wall.” 
You see then the phone placed just-so in the breast pocket of his coat. The glossy camera lens stares back at you, no flashing red light, nothing nearly so 1999. But you knew it was filming. What was it seeing now? The house in the background, the cool blue siding and brick. You, face surprised, lips chapped from the cold weather lately, your sexy little golden dress nearly obscured beneath your coat. 
“The time to back out is now,” Simon prods you. 
But there’s no way you’re backing out, not after the kitchen. Not after the hazy arousal you’ve been walking around in all night just at the thought of seeing Johnny again. Turning around, you reach out with shaking hands and place them against the freezing cold siding. You can see your breath like a smoky plume with each of your frantic exhales as Simon’s hands grip your ass, slipping beneath the hem of your dress and finding your stockings to tug them down around your knees. 
“Got to keep quiet for me,” he says. “Can you do that?” 
“Yessir,” you whisper, wishing you were close enough to the house to rest your heated cheek against it. 
Simon gives a heavy exhale at your words and you grin, unseen. 
Your panties join your stockings stuck around your knees. It doesn’t give you much space to spread your legs, but Simon is so lengthy that he doesn’t need the extra room. He doesn’t press against your back, ever-conscious of the camera and its angles, but you hear the sound of his belt being undone and like a Pavlovian response, it has you drooling between the legs. His cock is burning warm when it brushes against your ass, and you find yourself arching your back, seeking to put that heat inside you. 
He hums, hands spreading you wide as he can for the benefit of the camera, even if the lighting isn’t the best to see your entrance. 
“Pretty fucking girl,” he mutters. The position can’t be comfortable for him, but he’s never seemed to care about that. He reaches down to grip the base of his cock and guides the head inside you. It is a tight fit without any preparation, but he keeps the penetration shallow, rocking you back and forth on just the head, sometimes letting his cock slip free to brush against your aching clit. Your teeth clamp together, desperate to keep your sounds in—usually during home videos, Simon encouraged you to be noisy (“for the audience”). Now you found yourself struggling not to give in to the old habit. 
All of the sudden, his hand is in your hair, turning your head, guiding it to change directions until you are looking at your footsteps in the snow leading back the way you came—
Until you are looking squarely at Johnny, standing nearly frozen in the snow at the edge of the house. He’s wearing his coat and boots, hands jammed deep into his coat pockets. The darkness makes it hard to make out the subtlety of his features, but you can tell that his mouth is dropped open in an expression of near comical disbelief. 
You barely manage to keep from choking out Simon’s name, your entire body going stiff—your cunt rippling around his cock. He laughs, a low rumbling chuckle that has you squeezing your eyes shut. A whine slips free from your throat and the wind must carry it straight to Johnny, because you hear his quiet, Steamin’ Jesus. 
“He’s been waiting for this all night, I bet,” Simon mutters, his hips snapping against yours. Your hands scramble to find purchase against the siding, slip down a little to grip the bricks which offer you more resistance. “Watching you flit back and forth in this dress, knowing what you look like underneath it. He wishes it was him fucking you right now.” 
“No,” you gasp, scandalized. 
Simon just laughs again. The sound doesn’t embarrass you, just ratchets your own dizzying arousal higher. You can’t take your eyes off of Johnny, who has stumbled two or three steps closer in the snow and now has his hand against the house very similarly to you. His other hand is in a fist at his side. Closer like this, there’s no mistaking the heated expression in his eyes. Nor the bulge in his pants. 
“Oh God,” you groan, squeezing your eyes shut again and turning away. 
“Look at him—look at him. He wants to touch himself,” Simon says, borderline conversational as his dick makes the most heinous squelching noises inside your body. “But I don’t think he’s got the balls.”
One of your hands comes off the bricks and reaches down between your thighs—but Simon grabs it at the last moment and pins it back in its place, sending you nearly to tears. 
“Cum on my cock or don’t cum at all,” he says, feeling cruel.
The both of you know that that likely means you won’t cum at all, not like this, and the knowledge threatens to undo you. He’s going to get you three-fourths of the way there and then leave you like this, edge you in front of all of your closest friends and not satisfy you until the very last one has left. Tears well in your eyes, beading up at the corners. 
Behind you, his thrusts grow sloppy. You dare another glance towards Johnny and see his turned back, both his hands in his mohawk gripping at his hair like he is fighting with himself. Your eyes fall shut; you’re fighting a battle of your own, you can’t be concerned about his. Simon groans lowly, filling you with his seed. He pulls out in a wet rush of fluids, reaching down to stave off his dripping seed and save your leggings from destruction. 
Gently, he fucks his cum back into you with his fingers. He wipes it across your swollen folds and in the soaked crotch of your panties before pulling them back up to rest safely on your hips. Bending down, he wipes his hands clean in the snow and then on his jacket before helping you pull your stockings up into place. The tears in your eyes have overflowed by now, dripping down your cheeks and off your chin. When you glance over, Johnny is gone. 
“Okay?” Simon murmurs, fiddling with his phone. He stops the video. 
“Yeah,” you sigh shakily. “Yeah, I’m okay.” 
-
Moments to midnight and you are searching for Simon. His figure should be easy to spot, but his head isn’t visible above the sea of people, nor is his baritone voice audible amongst the cacophony of others. 
Someone else is notably missing as well. An itch in the back of your brain swells, one you have to follow to scratch. 
Countdowns begin. You peek out the window nearest to you but see no sign of either man outside in the snow smoking. Watching couples pair off, you pad on bare feet (having kicked off your heels ages ago) toward the master bedroom, slipping into the dim hallway that forks off to the bedroom, the guest bath, and the office. That hallway is where you find them, standing in the dark toe to toe. Simon has Johnny up against the wall, clutching fistfuls of Johnny’s shirt, nearly tearing it. In the dim lighting, you can barely make out their features. 
For a moment, you think they are about to come to blows. You are ready to step between them, to take either of them by the ear like an old school matriarch and remind them that they are friends and they love each other and this is no way to act amongst family—but then the others cry out for midnight and they kiss. 
Oh God, do they kiss. Johnny’s shirt strains in Simon’s hands as he lifts the other man the last few inches needed to slot their mouths together comfortably. There is no chaste peck, no soft exploration of tongues, it is a frenzied open-mouthed devouring of each other, jaws flexing as if to open up and swallow the other whole. 
Claps and cheers ring out in the living room, jolting Simon and Johnny apart. Before you can even string together a sentence, Johnny has brushed by you, one hand pressing at his mouth. He grabs his coat and leaves out the front door without so much as a goodbye to anyone. 
-
The party is over. The sun is rising. Alejandro and Rodolfo have retired out to the guest house leaving you and Simon behind to clean up the mess in more ways than one. Eyes tired but brain buzzing, you come into the living room with a half-filled trash bag in your arms to find Simon sitting on the sofa by the fireplace, his head in his hands. 
You drop the trash bag and go to him, climbing into his lap. He sighs and lets his head rest against your breasts, breaths slow and deep, not betraying any of the turmoil that might be going on in his mind.
“He’ll be back,” you promise, stroking your fingers through his cropped hair. “He’ll come back, baby.” 
You don’t know what you’ll do if he doesn’t.
“Have you two done that before?” you ask.
Simon shifts. He turns until his ear presses against your sternum, like he is listening to your heart for the answer. He says: “No. Once—almost, I think. But you know what he’s like. So fucking persistent. And bright. Like he’s got the bloody sun inside him.”
“You never told me.” 
“Wasn’t anything to tell.” He looks up at you with dark eyes, decidedly grim despite his words: “We doing this?”
“Seems so,” you say, scratching his scalp lightly with your nails just to watch how his eyes get heavy. Simon so often denies himself simple pleasures, but he deserves them. The simple ones and the complicated ones. 
“He belongs to me,” Simon says at length, slow, like he is working it out for himself. “Just like you do.”
“No baby,” you remind him, leaning down to press a kiss to his mouth. “He belongs to us.”
-
((It becomes a degenerate ritual. 
Soap gets home from work and showers. As soon as the steam hits the bathroom mirror, he’s hard, but he doesn’t touch himself; refuses to. He showers and cleans himself perfunctorily, cock aching. It is just as familiar with this ritual as he is, just as hungry for it. It knows what is coming. 
After he is clean and dry, he’ll go naked into his room and bring out his laptop. He always sits at his desk—hates having the laptop on his lap, wants it somewhere stable and safe so he can have both hands free to touch himself—and then he brings up your porn page with Simon. There are more than fifty videos he can choose from. Some he has only seen once, especially those early videos when you both were still getting a feel for the process and working out your nerves. There are others that are old favorites, ones that he knows every word to, one where he could mimic your every sigh and whine if he wanted to. 
And sometimes, like on nights such as this, there’s a new video. His heart jumps to his throat. 
AMATEUR COUPLE: ARGUMENT TURNS INTO SEX (NO AUDIO). Fuck, just the title has mind whirling. It was just for show, surely—he couldn’t imagine you both filming one of your actual arguments for the sake of good pornography—but he was intrigued nonetheless. Some of his favorite videos featured Ghost getting a little rougher with you, and you giving back as good as you got. 
He clicks the link. The video begins in the bedroom, recognizable to him now as your own. The camera is in the corner facing the bed at an angle giving a wide vantage point, like a voyeur standing at attention. Like Soap himself has snuck in and is watching. Just the thought has him gripping the base of his cock, a soft groan passing his lips. 
You’re sitting on the bed, mask in place. Your arms are crossed, mouth downturned into a frown as Simon enters the screen. The first minute or so truly looks like an argument, the occasional jerky hand gesture from you coupled with Simon’s clipped responses. Soap tries to read your lips, but he’s never been very good at it; he can’t make out a single word of what the two of you might be saying. Then the aura changes, the tense energy from the argument turning into something slicker, something sexual as Simon comes around the bed and puts his hand on the center of your naked chest, pressing you back, back until you are laying down. 
You fight against him, batting his hand out of the way. He pins you down easily, so much larger and stronger than you. Soap grips his cock at the thought of being in your place, being pinned to the bed with Ghost’s massive figure over him. Ghost wouldn’t need to be gentle with him either, not the way he was with you. Soap wouldn’t mind. Soap would like it, the same way he liked it in the hallway at your house when Simon gripped him by the shirt and nearly jerked him right out of his boots. 
Your head comes off the bed, mouth chasing Ghost’s—but he draws away. Soap can almost hear the laugh he clearly gives, the rumbling chuckle that would be tangible in his chest. You grit your teeth together, jaw tight. Now when Simon bends down to kiss you, you turn your head away, a childish game of cat and mouse. He grips your chin and turns it back toward him, heavy on the eye contact. When you two finally kiss, it is rough, two hungry people searching for dirty secrets behind each other's teeth. 
Ghost kisses his way down your body, sucking bruises wherever he can. By the time he’s in between your legs, you are writhing, hands gripping his hair and trying to guide his mouth to the place that needs it most. He tugs your thighs over his shoulders, pins you to the bed with one massive forearm, and eats you out like a starving man. The angle for the camera isn’t the best here, but Soap can’t take his eyes off of you anyway: your body tight as a bowstring, breasts pressed together from the position of your arms, tendons of your neck straining as your head tilts backwards. 
Soap begins to work his cock over faster, watching your pleasure. When Ghost stops, he leaves you on the edge if your tortured expression is anything to go by, but you let him maneuver you into the position he wants—hands and knees, an old favorite for LT it seems—but this time is special, because this time you are forced to face the camera dead on. 
It’s like you’re looking Soap in the eye. The brief flash of guilt this gives him only serves to ratchet his desire higher, his cock dripping precum over his knuckles as he fists it. Ghost slips his cock inside you and sets a brutal pace that you are eager to meet, your hands twisting in the bedspread as you press yourself further back against his cock. 
Ghost leans down and mutters something in your ear. More than ever, Soap misses the audio. Whatever he says has your eyes flashing to meet the camera lens, and you do so with near girlish shyness, like you are seeing it for the first time, like you have only just noticed it’s been there all these months. Your eyes can’t catch on it at first, flittering away every chance you get. Ghost’s thrusts slow to deep grinds. He wraps a hand around your throat and says more, lips moving against the nape of your neck. Fuck, what Johnny wouldn’t give to be able to read lips. 
This time you look back at the camera and keep your eyes there. Ghost resumes his thrusts, each one making your breasts bounce softly, but your eyes never leave the lens, always quick to return even when they briefly fall shut. 
Your pleasure waxes when you slip a hand between your thighs, and you begin murmuring something repeatedly, just a discrete little movement of your lips. But at Ghost’s prodding, you begin to cry it out louder and louder until Soap is damn near sure that you are screaming, your lips forming the same syllables over and over again if only Soap were able to make them out. Your eyes roll back as you cum, arms growing weak until you dip and rest your upper body against the bed giving the camera an excellent view of Simon fucking into you from behind, the arch of your body, the curve of your waist to the width of your hips. 
Soap cums when Ghost does, Ghost’s head lolling to the side as his thrusts grow sloppy and forceful, making a mess of you no doubt. 
It isn’t until later when he’s in bed that he recognizes the word you were chanting for what it is. 
How it took him so long to recognize his own name he’ll never know.))
-
He comes back. 
Simon has just returned from taking Alejandro and Rodolfo to the airport. Ever since New Year’s Eve, there has been a quietness about him which breaks prior records. Neither of you say it, but if Johnny leaves this time, it will take more out of him than it had before. It will take something out of you, too. You spend the days trying to keep busy, checking your phone too often for texts that don’t come. 
You’ve just taken the kettle off the stove when the doorbell rings, and both of you know. Your eyes meet across the kitchen. Simon nods his head toward the door, and you rush to answer it, feeling your heart in your throat. Johnny stands there on the step looking sheepish and cold, his boots and the bottom quarter of his jeans wet, like he has walked here from a great distance. 
“May I come in?” he asks. 
Simon appears behind you. Johnny gives him a wavering smile. Without a word, you hold the door open, stepping aside to let him in. 
“Didn’t think you’d be back,” Simon says coolly.
“Didn’t think I’d be back either,” Johnny admits. He wets his lips. “I…I need to come clean. It’s eatin’ me up inside. Can’t sleep, can’t eat, can’t fucking think without it being about the two of you. I don’t know what to do with myself except put myself at your feet and ask fer your forgiveness.” 
“Johnny, that’s not—”
“No,” says Simon, stilling the words on your tongue. “I think that’s a good place to start. Get on your knees, Johnny.” 
Johnny blinks once, face the picture of innocent ignorance—but then he is dropping to his knees hard enough for you to hear them crack against the hardwood underneath. He obeys without thinking, because that is something that has always been easy for him to do: obey Simon. Think later. 
Simon’s hand reaches out, slow enough to give Johnny a chance to flinch away, but he doesn’t. Instead Simon threads his fingers through Johnny’s mohawk, the sides which are growing out just a little too long. Johnny’s eyes fall shut at the touch, and the whole thing goes straight to your belly, arousal making your head light. 
“You liked watching so much,” Simon says, voice low and quiet. “I think it’s time we put you to good use.”
-
“We have rules. Don’t look at the camera, don’t say each other’s names, and do as I say. Can you handle that?” Simon asks. 
“Rules of engagement. Yessir.” 
Simon snorts softly at Johnny’s eagerness. “Glad to see you still know to follow directions. But let’s see how well. Strip. Everything off. You won’t need it.” 
Johnny’s hands find the neckline of his shirt and tug it off over his head, revealing a body that is all smooth muscle and tan skin. The dark hair on his chest thickens just below his navel, trailing down into his jeans which he unbuttons without ceremony, feet working to step out of his shoes at the same time. He keeps his balance well, already slipping into a focused, strangely familiar headspace. You make yourself as small as possible on the bed, arms looped around your legs, eyes watching him hungrily. It’s been so long that you’ve wanted to see Johnny like this; now that it’s on the verge of becoming true, you feel shy and unsure. 
Johnny keeps his eyes on yours while he pushes his pants down his thighs and steps out of them. He smiles at you, soft and understanding, and only then do you let your eyes flicker down to take in his cock: he is hard, uncut, thick as Simon even if he can’t have him beaten in length. His dexterous fingers wrap around the shaft, stroking himself, the flushed head disappearing and reappearing in his fist. 
“What do you think?” Simon asks you, voice a low rumble at your side. His eyes are watching you, concerned with you first and foremost. “Is he pretty enough?”
Johnny makes an offended sound. 
“I’d say so,” you answer, aiming for unaffected and landing somewhere amongst breathless. Already you can feel the tension between your legs, a deep seated ache as your pussy drools onto the sheets below you. 
“You want to suck his cock,” says Simon. It’s not a question, but your head bobs anyway. “Go on, then. Crawl to him.” 
Shifting onto your hands and knees, you crawl to him, focusing on the mechanics of it instead of trying to feign sexiness. At the edge of the bed, you slip off and down to the floor amongst the pile of his clothes, laying your hands on his thighs and looking up at him from beneath his cock. 
He lets out a shaky breath. “You’re gonna suck my dick?”
You nod. 
Johnny looks to Simon with a helpless expression as if to ask, What do I do? When you glance back over your shoulder, you see that Simon is giving him nothing to work with, face a blank slate except for his raised brows. Phone in hand, aimed at the two of you. The sight of it seems to steel Johnny’s nerves. He’s never been one to be shy.
“Go at yer own pace, lass,” he says.
Leaning in, you trace your lips against the side of his shaft, feeling the velvety softness against your mouth. He smells like he showered before he came over, though you wouldn’t have minded if he hadn’t. Johnny always smells good—even on those days before he went away when he and Simon would go running together, pushing each other to their limits, returning sweaty and exhausted. Now after all this time you get to see if he tastes as good as he smells. You part your lips and leave open mouthed kisses along his length, looking up at him through your lashes when you feel his fingers sink into your hair. His mouth is parted as he watches you raptly, pupils blown wide. 
Confidence mounting, you take the head past your lips and suckle, treating him just as soft and sweetly as you know Simon won’t. Above you, he groans, hips jerking until you take another inch or two past your lips. You let him, rising up on your knees to adjust the angle, sinking your way down until his head brushes the softness at the back of your throat. Taking a calming inhale, you swallow and press forward, letting him sink into your throat until your gag reflex can take no more and forces him out. 
Johnny moans like he’s dying, his hands shaking as he fights not to thrust into your throat. Words stream from his mouth, filthy Scottish-tinted praises that have you wriggling in your place, desperate for a hand between your thighs. 
“Beautiful, isn’t she?” Simon asks. 
“Never seen no one like her,” Johnny gasps, one hand letting go of your hair so that he can wipe the drool from the side of your mouth. He gives a weak laugh. “And I—fuuck, fuck—I’ve looked.”
“She’ll suck you off until you tell her to stop. Doesn’t matter how long you leave her at it,” Simon says. Fabric rustles behind you, and you ache to be able to turn and see what he is doing. But you are more determined to prove your goodness to Johnny. “Sometimes when I work from home she keeps my cock warm at my desk.”
“Dunno how you get a goddamn thing done with her mouth around yeh.”
“Discipline.” 
“I left mine in my other pants—fuck, I’m gonna cum. Are you one of those dirty girls that swallows?” he asks. 
You nod. Simon is there suddenly, a warm presence at your shoulder as he passes Johnny the camera. Nearly wrecked, Johnny’s hands shake as he aims it down at you, looking at you through the lens. His balls draw up, cock lengthening that last little bit as he spills into your mouth. 
“Don’t swallow,” Simon says at the last moment. You whine but obey. Simon pulls you up and nearly makes you dizzy with the way he kisses you, licks into your open mouth lapping Johnny’s seed from your tongue. 
“Jesus, Mary, ‘n Joseph,” Johnny breathes, belatedly remembering to turn the camera onto you both. This will likely be the messiest video you’ve ever made transition wise, but you have a feeling that it will be your favorite. 
When the kiss ends, you swallow and pull off to open your mouth, showing Johnny—and the audience—what they want: that you’ve swallowed your portion like a good girl. 
“Fuck, I shouldn’t have cum,” Johnny laughs weakly. “We’ve barely started. I don’t want this to be over.”
“You’ll cum again,” Simon says. “But it’s time to give someone else a turn. Sitrep?”
Johnny is all grins. “All good here, sir.” 
It makes you shiver to hear Johnny call him that. You’ve heard it countless times before, but never like this. The context turns the word into something foreign, something sexy. Not to mention, you know exactly what it does to Simon. Not for the first time, you wonder if his wires didn’t get a little crossed during his time enlisted, if he didn’t learn that particular kink from hearing Johnny chirp it at him every day. 
“Good boy,” says Simon softly, reaching out to ruffle Johnny’s mohawk. Johnny bats his hand away, but it’s impossible to miss the way he flushes from the cheeks down his chest at those words. Simon sets the phone on the tripod in the corner, making minor adjustments, and then turns his eyes to you. “C’mere.”
He sets you up against the headboard, your back against his chest. He parts your thighs, reaching down to use his thumbs to spread your sex open for Johnny’s hungry gaze, for the camera’s lens. You hide your masked-face behind your hands, hips rising toward his touch, desperate for the stimulation. 
“Pent up?” Simon asks, voice rough.
A sound slips past your lips, low and needy.. 
“This what you want?” His calloused fingers ghost over your swollen clit. 
“Yes,” you mumble, voice muffled by your hands. 
“Be a good girl and you’ll get it. You know how to be a good girl?” 
“How?”
“Stay relaxed. Keep your thighs open. And don’t lie to me. Can you do that?”
You nod. Yes. Easy things. You fight to relax your body, loosening your muscles. Your hands fall to rest against Simon’s thighs, eyes cracking open to watch Johnny who has seated himself at the end of the bed out of the way of the camera’s view. When he sees you looking, he smiles, reassuring and warm. His cock, which had been soft moments ago, already looks noticeably more interested in the events taking place. 
Simon drags his fingers over your clit. You tense all over, sucking in a breath before you remember his first rule and relax, going loose and soft again. He waits, patient. The next time he strokes you, you stay malleable, and he hums deep in his chest, pleased with the progress. His hand cups your whole sex, palm huge compared to you. 
“When was the first time you ever wanted to fuck our boy over here?” Simon asks. 
You know that he can’t use Johnny’s name, not on film, but neither you nor Johnny had expected the flashbang of this term of endearment. Johnny seems to melt, his eyes going heavy-lidded at the thought of being ‘your boy’. You can’t help but feel the incredible rightness of his words. They resonate deep in your chest like the ringing of a bell, tangible down to your fingertips and toes. Johnny is yours, and he is Simon’s. 
“How long?” Simon asks again, more firmly. 
“Since—since you brought him home.”
Simon slips two fingers past your entrance as a reward for your honesty. Their thickness has you gasping, fingers scrambling for purchase against his thighs. He hums something in your ear—probably a reminder about trying to relax—and you do try, but it is hard when you ache as badly as you do. You find yourself digging your heels into the bedspread, lifting your hips to try and work his fingers deeper inside of you. He feeds them to your cunt all the way to the last knuckle. 
“How’s she feel, sir?” Johnny asks. 
“Like the only heaven the likes of us will ever know.” 
“I believe it,” Johnny sighs. “Give us a taste.” 
Simon extends his fingers and Johnny takes them onto his tongue, licking and sucking the digits clean. You’re close enough to Simon to feel his inhale, to feel the way his cock jumps where it’s pressed against your lower back. He plays at being unaffected, but Simon isn’t immune to the powers of finger-sucking. He isn’t immune to Johnny. 
Then he says: “Put that mouth to work, Johnny.” 
Johnny drops to his belly between your thighs, breath fanning across your folds. Simon has to pin your legs apart, humming when your nails dig into the skin of his forearms. They are teaming up on you, against you, and you feel so small pinned between them. 
“Dreamed of this,” Johnny sighs into your pussy. He nuzzles against you, nose brushing your slit before licking a thick stripe up your folds. He laps at the honey leaking from your entrance, broad strokes of his tongue as Simon’s fingers keep you spread open for his hungry mouth. 
Sometimes Johnny’s tongue laps over Simon’s fingers, and when it does, you feel his cock twitch against your back. It only serves to remind you how empty you feel. Your hands grip Johnny’s hair, guiding his soft mouth to your clit where he sucks and laps contentedly, and you beg for his fingers. 
He moans against you, voice vibrating through your pussy. His hips have started a slow grind against the bedspread, desperate for friction as his blue eyes find Simon’s dark ones, silently asking for permission. 
Simon nods. Johnny slips his middle-most two fingers into you, hooking them softly, searching for that spongy, textured place just inside you. It’s everything you needed, the pleasure in your belly rising to a near painful crest. Your hand scrambles to find one of Simon’s, lacing your fingers together as you burst against Johnny’s tongue, squeezing his fingers, barely remembering to keep from calling his name. 
Johnny lays his head against your inner thigh, panting. His eyes are foggy, pussy-drunk as he struggles to focus on you both, his fingers still tucked softly inside you. 
“Break,” Simon whispers, kissing your neck. He shifts out from behind you, the only one of you still fully dressed. Going to the tripod in the corner, he pauses the camera and then leaves the room.
“Great abrupt bastard, isn’t he?” Johnny asks, slipping his fingers out from inside you. He goes to lick them clean, but you stop him, bringing his hand to your own mouth and cleaning your slick from his fingers, tongue searching for your taste all the way to the webbing between his knuckles. His laugh is breathy. “You like that? Like the taste of pussy?” 
You nod, slipping your mask off briefly. 
“Need a pretty girl to play with then, not the likes of me.” 
Your hand latches around his wrist as he goes to pull away, lips turning down into a frown. “That’s not what we want. We don’t play with people. People aren’t toys to us. And we’ve never had sex with anyone else like this. You should know that from the videos.” 
“Aye,” he says softly. “I didn’t mean to offend yeh, lass. I was only teasing.”
“Johnny…” 
“Yes?”
“Why’d you go away?” you ask. You know it might ruin the moment, but the curiosity is too much, an old wound with the scab picked clean off until it aches all over again. “Things seemed so good when Simon and I first got together. You were coming around all the time. Then you just…left.” 
Johnny can’t meet your eyes as he thinks back, as he remembers those days in the year after Simon first met you. When he speaks, his voice is steady. “I told yeh earlier. Couldn’t stop thinking about the two of you. Didn’t feel right to feel that way ‘bout my best mate and his best girl. And when he told me that he was gonna propose to yeh—I had two choices. Stay and watch, or run away. Maybe Simon’s right. Maybe I am a coward.”
“He told me that the two of you almost kissed once. Back during your SAS days.” 
A ghost of a smile appears on Johnny’s mouth. “Outside the Barranquilla, Columbia safehouse. I remember. I thought he would break my teeth if I tried, but Jesus, how I wanted to.”
“I think your odds were 50/50,” you say, scooting back until you are seated in Simon’s old spot, reclining against the headboard. “It started back then for you, didn’t it?” 
“Aye. I was a goner.” 
“You love him.” 
Johnny gives you a secretive smile. He presses his finger to his lips. Shh.
Simon enters the room with three water bottles and pauses, eyes flickering between you both. “The fuck were you two talking about?” 
“Nothing,” you say. “Is that water? I’m so thirsty, thank you baby.” 
“Her subtlety could use some work, LT,” Johnny says, watching as Simon goes and turns the camera back on. You hastily put your mask back in place. 
“Not her forte,” Simon admits dryly. He cracks open one of the bottles of water after tossing the last one to Johnny and drinks half of it in just a few gulps, despite having done very little so far in the scheme of things. You figured that was about to change, watching him shrug out of his shirt. 
Simon didn’t undress the way Johnny did. There wasn’t any fanfare or confidence; it was simple and efficient. You knew that Simon’s relationship with his body was a complex one. It had served him well, and he did his best to keep it healthy, but contemplating the aesthetics of it was too offensive to his palate. The scars were intense: thick punctures along his sides, the depressed, pale pucker of bullet wounds, the hard clean lines of a knife here and there. You had never minded, and judging by the way Johnny’s throat clicks when he swallows, Johnny didn’t mind either. 
“I want to fuck you,” he says. 
“Yes,” you agree. Fingers had been excellent, but nothing could compare to Simon’s cock. 
He shakes his head. “Not you. Him.” 
You turn your gaze on Johnny whose eyes are avidly watching Simon unfasten his jeans. He pushes them down over his thick thighs and reveals he’s not wearing any underwear beneath, his cock half-hard and rosy. He wraps his fist around it, jerking himself to full stiffness with a perfunctory touch, not at all interested in the show he is putting on for you both. 
“Can you take him, Johnny?” you tease. 
“I’ll die trying, thanks very much.” 
“I hope not,” is all Simon says, going to the bench at the end of the bed and retrieving the lube. He asks: “Condom?”
“Not necessary,” Johnny says, breaths coming faster now. You put your hand on his ankle, remembering the way he had touched you there on Christmas, stroking the bone softly. He glances to you and grins, and you see that what you mistook for nerves is actually excitement. He puts his hand over your own, squeezing. “Are you going to feel left out, lass?” 
“Terribly.” 
“If you last the whole time,” says Simon, holding the lube up to the light to see how empty it is. “I’ll let you fuck her when I’m finished with you.” 
“Jesus,” Johnny laughs weakly. “Can’t argue with that. Throw me that and I’ll get myself ready.” 
“I can do it,” says Simon, seating himself on the edge of the bed. Johnny shifts into a better position, feet flat on the bed, knees toward the ceiling. For a long time, Simon just looks at him: his silly hair, the odd scar here and there, his half hard cock. Deftly, he opens the cap on the lube and slicks two fingers while you come to kneel on the other side of Johnny, eager for a show. 
“Camera, love,” Simon reminds you, fingers searching between Johnny’s legs. Judging by the way Johnny’s jaw goes tight, he’s found what he’s looking for. You shift, glancing over your shoulder to make sure you are out of the camera’s point of view. Reaching down, you trail your fingertips gently over Johnny’s cock. Simon says: “Been a while?” 
“You could say that,” Johnny says, mouth falling open in a silent moan as Simon works him open. You’ve been on the receiving end of Simon’s ministrations; you know his patience can be near painful. Johnny learns it the hard way when Simon pauses twice to lube his fingers, until even the soft thrusts he gives into Johnny’s ass fill the room with the sound of sex. 
You play with his cock absently, enjoying being the tormentor instead of the tormented for once. Johnny’s silent breaths turn to heavy pants and then needy groans, foreskin pulling back to reveal the sensitive head as he grows in your palm thanks to Simon’s fingers playing inside him. His heels slip against the bedspread as he searches for the angles that suit him best, and he chokes when he finds them.
“Please, I’m ready,” Johnny says, fingers wrapping around Simon’s wrist. Simon lets him pull his fingers free and reaches for the lube again, this time to slick his cock. 
“Any preference for how I take you?” he asks mildly, like one might ask, How do you take your tea? One sugar please and thank you. 
“None, so long as your cock’s inside me,” Johnny grits out. 
“This’ll do,” says Simon, bullying his way between Johnny’s spread thighs. It takes a few pillows beneath his hips before he’s at the right height for Simon’s cock to notch against his entrance, and then you watch with rapt attention as Johnny’s body seems to blossom to welcome in Simon’s cock, a surplus of lubricant easing the way. 
Johnny flinches. 
“Easy,” says Simon, stilling. “Relax.” 
You curl up at Johnny’s side, slipping beneath one of his arms and cuddling against him. Your nervous fingers find one of his nipples and toy with it softly, kissing at his shoulder while you murmur words of encouragement to him. 
Johnny laughs weakly. “Don’t need all that, lass, but thank yeh.” 
“Wish I had someone cheering me on the first time I took Simon’s cock,” you admit. 
Simon frowns. “I was cheering you on.” 
“Less talking please, more fucking,” Johnny says, lips upturned. His body relaxes and Simon sinks the rest of the way inside him, all the way to the fucking hilt, deeper than you can ever take him in your cunt. It thrills you and makes you envious all at once. You pinch Johnny’s nipple, forcing a quiet gasp out of his throat. 
Simon looks good—strong. Unaffected. But you know him better. His brow is lower than ever, eyes closed as he centers himself. His breaths come so evenly that you know he must be counting them—four seconds in, four seconds out. His fingertips have sunk into the meat of Johnny’s thighs, gripping him tightly, as if to keep him from squirming away, or to keep him from squirming at all. 
“You solid?” Simon asks him. 
“Affirm,” Johnny breathes. “Go slow.” 
Famous last words—Simon withdraws with painstaking care, until just his head lingers inside Johnny’s body. He sinks back in at the most leisurely pace you’ve ever seen, thrusts smooth and deep as his thighs brush against Johnny’s ass. It takes no time at all for Johnny to regret those words, one of his hands laced with yours and the other twisting in the bedsheets as he begs Simon to move faster. 
And Simon can only take so much teasing himself, really. He’s human too. 
His hips snap into the open cradle of Johnny’s thighs. Johnny cries out, cock jerking where it lays hard and leaking against his belly. You lean up onto one elbow so that you can watch his pretty face contort: brow furrowing, mouth falling open. 
“Not going to cum, right?” you ask him slyly. 
He shakes his head. 
You glance down at his cock doubtfully. Simon, overhearing your words, takes that as a personal challenge, drilling into Johnny with a single-mindedness that is admirable to see and terrible to be on the receiving end of all in one. 
Suddenly tears overflow from Johnny’s eyes, dripping down toward his temples. You sit up in alarm as he lifts his hands but he just palms at his eyes, laughing. Simon slows, stops. He reaches down to pry Johnny’s hands away and then kisses him, something soft and sweet. Johnny’s hands shake as he reaches up to thread his fingers through Simon’s hair, tugging him closer.
Your heart feels liable to burst. You remember Johnny’s finger pressed to his lips, that universal sign. Shh. 
“He’s alright,” Simon says, not unkindly. “Aren’t you?”
Johnny croaks an affirmative.
After that, it is less fucking and more making love; there’s nothing else to call in. Simon pins Johnny’s wrists to the bed just to feel like he’s still in control, but his thrusts are syrupy slow, not fully withdrawing, seeking to remain as close to Johnny as he can for as long as possible. You stroke one of Johnny’s palms and Simon lets it free so that you can hold it, your fingers lacing together in a way that is foreign yes, but comfortable. 
“You’ve been a good boy for me, Johnny,” Simon says. 
“Don’t say that,” Johnny groans, turning his head away, flushed pink. 
“It’s true. Know how to be an even better boy?” 
Johnny is intrigued. Being a good boy is suddenly beneath him; now he wants to be the best boy. Looking at Simon through his lashes, he asks: “How’s that?” 
“Cum on my cock.” 
“Don’t do it Johnny,” you whine. “It’s a trap.” 
Simon laughs. He kneels back onto his haunches, dragging Johnny’s body along with him, and reaches for the other man’s cock, working it over in his fist. Johnny nearly howls, kept on the edge so long that to see the bottom of the cliffside is to know the promise of pain. He doesn’t know whether to grind his hips deeper against Simon’s cock or to chase the heat of his hand. 
“Close,” he groans. 
“Go on. Pretty abs like this—make a mess on ‘em.” 
Johnny does, pearlescent seed dripping from between Simon’s fingers as he milks Johnny for every last drop. Only then does he begin thrusting again, fast and hard, searching for his own end. Not a handful of thrusts later and he goes sloppy, breath punched from his lungs as he spills inside Johnny. 
“You promised me a cock to ride,” you say. 
“Couldn’t be helped, lass,” Johnny says with a dopey, lovesick smile. You hum. 
“We’ll just have to get you hard again, won’t we?” you ask, wrapping your fingers around his softening cock. 
-
That night, the bed is full. Johnny and you are entwined, legs and arms wrapped around each other creating an endless feedback of heat that Simon was careful not to be swept away in, too focused on his mission to allow for any mistakes. He makes no sound as he slips out of bed. He stops by the tripod in the corner and takes his phone out into the living room, turning the sound down so low that he has to hold the speaker close to his ear to hear it, lest he wake Johnny. 
He listens to you and Johnny talk while he was gone, when you believed the camera to be off. He plays it again, watching just the video. By the time he’s returned in the video, Simon’s chest feels full of pressure, like something is inside him trying to crawl its way out. Love. What does Simon Riley know about love? 
Well, he knows one thing. 
Except maybe now he knows two.
He deletes the video and goes back to bed. 
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howaerds-a · 1 year ago
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DAISY JONES & THE SIX Episode 4: I Saw the Light
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