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The thing was, John wasn’t good at boundaries. Dirk wasn’t thinking about this right now, but it was the sort of thing he should probably always be thinking about, especially when his boyfriend was sort-of-dating the dude in question, and also the dude lived next door with his brother (who Dirk also wasn’t thinking about right now) and thought houses were communal spaces and locks were suggestions that were less important than fun pranks.
In other words, John’s sporadic and unexpected presence in Dirk’s house had become an increasingly frequent event, and if Dirk didn’t spend so many hours of his life trying to actively not think about things to do with John, or with John and Gamzee, or very especially with John and Gamzee and Dirk, then he probably could have predicted the inevitable fallout.
But he wasn’t thinking about that, he was busy getting kissed into his mattress with a collar and leash around his neck, and Gamzee kept breaking off to murmur sweet, poetic, filthy things in his ear, and John was the last thing on his mind until the idiot himself burst through the bedroom door, brandishing silly string and something that appeared to be, inexplicably, a t-shirt cannon.
“Ah,” John said, frozen. His curly-edged shadow-brother was equally frozen beside him on the wall.
Dirk didn’t say anything, but every muscle in his body made an immediate and coordinated effort to fling Dirk out the window. It might have been more successful if he hadn’t been half-naked, pinned under his boyfriend, if Gamzee didn’t have him tucked between his knees, with one hand on his wrist and the other curled around the leash. If Dirk’s startled, automatic struggle didn’t hit the places he was caught, remind him how thoroughly he was held—a sharp, guilty rush of heat that fizzed along his already keyed-up nervous system. Dirk short-circuited, dropped back to stillness, panting.
Gamzee’s eyebrows arched high as he stared over at their sudden intruder. Through the resonance he was all mingled irritation, amusement, concern and interest, a softer underlay to the territorial way Kurloz curved more tightly around the bed, swept his darkness along the wall and over the door behind John, prickling danger filling the air.
“Kind of in the midst of things here, brother,” Gamzee pointed out.
“Yep! You sure are that,” John said, sounding dazed. His stance was back on his heels, there was color high in his cheeks, his eyes darted around the room like they didn’t know where to land, but they kept coming back to the bed. Dirk very much noticed. It was like getting struck by a static jolt every time they looked his way. John also didn’t appear to be leaving, another thing Dirk very much noticed, and it was probably because John was extremely terrible and annoying.
“...Whoops,” John added, thoroughly pointlessly. “My bad.”
Gamzee eyed John, then snorted and shook his head. Bending over Dirk, lips by his ear, Gamzee murmured, “You want I should send him on his nosy motherfucking way, bro? Looks like he’d bide a time if we let him, but I can kick him out easy enough.”
Dirk blinked, still… stuck. Obviously John needed to leave and obviously they would make him because obviously they couldn’t… whatever impossible implication was hovering in the wings of those words, casual and curious like this wasn’t obvious to Gamzee at all.
Hal shifted, and for a moment Dirk almost flinched, half-expecting some cuttingly honest barb, but his shadow-brother only moved up more squarely between them and John on the sheets, a hum of complicated thoughts sharing Dirk’s brainspace, but unusually kept to himself.
“Would it be weird if I still did the t-shirt thing?” John asked, possibly for something to say, but possibly sincerely.
“Everything about you is weird," Dirk said, and he meant it to sound flat, but he was having trouble catching his breath.
John grinned like he thought that was a compliment. His shadow-brother bounced, edges resuming their cheerful ripple.
“Trying to get some clarity on me,” Gamzee mused, “on whether I should up and kick your ass out the door for the motherfucking uncouth interruption when I’m all getting myself some sugar… or no.” He narrowed his eyes at John, cocked his head to one side thoughtfully. “And t-shirts have no motherfucking place in the scenario, bro, ‘specially not flying ones.”
John’s grin turned positively brilliant, and Dirk saw where this was going to go about two seconds before John chirped, "Oh, well in that case," and stripped his shirt off.
Dirk lifted a hand and applied a palm to his own face. John stood there looking insufferably pleased with himself. And, uh, sort of tan and built and—nevermind, Dirk wasn't looking.
Gamzee snorted, eyeing John appreciatively, then looked down at Dirk to meet his eyes. One eyebrow arched questioningly.
It was an utterly crazy question, and Gamzee ought to know it was an utterly crazy question, but Dirk could feel him, curious and matter-of-fact in that way that made the crazy seem possible, lingering heat and amusement that plucked low through Dirk to find their matching chords, sent a shiver chasing along his spine. The adrenaline hadn’t quite cleared out of Dirk’s system, but it had settled into something sweet and nervously fizzing, and Gamzee was arched over him and Kurloz was a possessive thorn-tangle around him, and Hal was a steadfast mirror at his side, and somehow all of this made it feel possible to contemplate the sparking fireworks fuse of potential that was burning in him.
It was still an utterly crazy question, so Dirk gave Gamzee his blandest, most put-upon look, even as his soul chimed arousal and interest through the resonance, and Gamzee’s lips curled up in a grin. Dirk couldn’t stop his own mouth turning up at the corners to match.
“So have you noticed your other boyfriend isn’t leaving? I’m not sure he understands what’s happening here,” Dirk said, managing to not quite look at John, though he still caught him huffing and going indignant. “Maybe he needs an illustration?”
Kurloz drew back the branch of shadow he’d arched over the doorway by John, the faint hum and prickle of danger in the air subsiding to its usual baseline.
“Well, shit, bro,” Gamzee said approvingly, “that’s a fine motherfucking kindness to do for a brother. We can up and get him fixed better than an instructional poster, too, just set up a sweet live demonstration so’s he can get on his education.” His smile changed, eyes going hooded on Dirk’s face, and Gamzee pulled Dirk’s leash taut, leaning down lower over him to murmur, “Then he’ll know just how to keep a pretty pony like you in your place, get you all settled and saddled and ready to ride.”
Dirk’s breath hitched, hips twitching up to press against Gamzee without any real thought. He saw a startled little jerk of motion from the corner of his eye, accidentally looked over to find John frozen on the edge of bolting, blue eyes wide and fixed.
He wants us, was the first thing Hal said since John had burst into the room. Triumph zipped unexpected along Dirk’s veins, sharp and a little mean, but mostly just tugging heat through him. He rolled his hips up again, this time with intent, and watched blue eyes go vivid as John’s pupils blew wide.
“Can’t rightly educate a brother who might take flight any second now,” Gamzee observed, giving John an amused look. “Where’s your nerve at, bro? You got no appreciation of horsey rides?”
John snapped back to something more familiarly playful, grinning bright and aggravating. “I thought Dirk was the skittish pony.”
“Well, sure,” Gamzee said, “but I’ve got him all soothed down just now. Sometimes you gotta get that bridle on and then they just settle sweet as pie.” He tugged gently at Dirk’s leash, illustrating. “Can’t bridle a stray cat, though,” he said, raising an eyebrow at John.
“I mean, you could try. It’d probably be funny.”
“Do you actually pay attention to the things that come out of your mouth or are they a fun surprise to you, too.” Dirk was pleased that he sounded only a little breathless, half distracted by the absent, petting stroke of Gamzee’s thumb, sliding over the pulse point of his wrist. “Like, has it occurred to you that my bedroom might not be the appropriate place to solicit a bondage hook-up?”
Gamzee eyed John, both eyebrows raised now and a smirk playing around his lips. John beamed back.
“I don’t know, you seem like you’re having fun.”
“Then stop interrupting,” Dirk said.
“I dunno,” Gamzee said, “could be as the brother wants more fun on his own account. You want I should put you on your knees for me, too?” he asked John in cheerful threat, and Kurloz rippled a single tendril across the wall in John’s direction.
There was something fascinating about the way John didn’t do more than quirk an eyebrow in that tendril’s direction, his shadow-brother tipping his head curiously without bothering to move between. John never did seem fussed by Kurloz, and Dirk wondered if that wasn’t at least half the appeal he had to Gamzee.
“No, thank you,” John chirped, like he was turning down a coffee. “I’m not really interested in that. You’re doing a really good job with Dirk, though.”
Gamzee blinked, his easy grin taking on a startled edge.
“Don’t you think he’s doing a good job, Dirk?” John asked.
His bright smile turned on Dirk, caught him off guard, and heat crept up the back of his neck, burned on his cheeks. “...Yes?” he said, uncertain and feeling foolish with it, but Gamzee was looking at him now with something soft and vulnerable showing in his dark eyes, chiming through the resonance. Dirk shivered, struck through, and his face heated more as he softened back against the mattress, turned his head against the slight resistance of the collar to nuzzle the hand pinning his wrist. “I like it. Gamzee.”
Gamzee made a soft noise and ducked to kiss Dirk tender and grateful. When he pulled back, he looked over at John. “I think I got my knowing on of how to handle him most times, these days,” he offered. “Seems to go okay.”
"You two are really cute!" John said, and it was fond and indulgent in a way that made Dirk flush even as he half bristled.
"Thanks, definitely on tenterhooks waiting for your relationship feedback. Also I'm noticing this thing where you're, you know, still in my bedroom watching this cute-ass show, so I gotta ask, are you looking for lessons? I thought you had at least a general idea how this worked."
What have you been doing with that boy, Gamzee? Hal murmured, in sly aside.
"Why would I know how your relationship works, Dirk? I'm not a spy." John looked incredibly pleased with himself when Dirk glared, so that had probably been the intended reaction. It also seemed to give him the confidence to move further into the room, trailed by his shadow, and his smile turned brighter and brighter the more judgmental Dirk's expression got. "Are you teaching spy school?"
For a brief, alarming, electric moment Dirk thought John was going to climb right into bed with them and do… something; Dirk couldn't think when John's eyes were creased and teasing and presumptuous on him, when no one in the room had a shirt on, when Gamzee was braced close and warm over him, radiating desire threaded with confusion that was turning his touch cautious. But John remained politely outside Kurloz's ring of shadow around the bed, only ducking briefly close to peck a kiss to Gamzee's temple. Gamzee’s little thrill of startled pleasure through the resonance made Dirk suck in a breath.
"It's called voyeurism, John," Dirk said, but he had to clear his throat to do so.
"Oh, wow, I'm learning so much already!"
Gamzee snickered. “We gotta get on our proper education, instruct a brother full well,” he said, glancing from John to Dirk. He shifted on his knees over Dirk like he wasn’t sure he was in the right place anymore. Dirk didn’t know which of them had put that tinge of uncertainty there, if it was due to John’s presence or Dirk’s bickering, but he wanted to erase it.
"Shouldn't be hard—" Freudian slip, Hal murmured, amused "—close as he's watching he's bound to get something into that empty head of his."
"Hey!" John said, but Dirk was looking up at Gamzee, Gamzee who was his, Gamzee who had him, Gamzee who should definitely never, ever feel less than confident in how much of Dirk he had hold of. Fuck their unexpected audience.
*Very* Freudian slip, Hal murmured, but his attention was also mostly on Gamzee.
Dirk twisted against the sheets, a slow, rolling movement that let him feel every place he was held, every point of contact he could make pressing up against the body over him. It sizzled along his skin, left him tilting his head back, offering his throat, or the collar and lead, or just whatever he could pass to Gamzee through the resonance. "You've got me." He licked his lips, took a breath. "You can… show him. If you want."
“Oh,” Gamzee breathed, and flicked another glance at John, uncertain, or maybe checking in. Then he bent lower over Dirk, grinding lightly and mouthing at his neck above the collar. “Yeah?” he murmured in Dirk’s ear. “Maybe I should get my tell on of just how much you like this? Being all pushed down and held and kept.” He nipped at Dirk’s skin, then sucked a mark over the spot.
“Shit.” Dirk’s fingers twitched, his free hand jumped up, seeking urgently, threaded into Gamzee’s hair and clung.
A+ on the mark, angel, Hal said. He’s gonna be so easy for you.
“Always is,” Gamzee said against Dirk’s neck, and nibbled at his jaw before straightening up to look at John again. “He’s got a world of clamor and noise in his head, see, but you get him collared and pinned down and it all goes hushed and soft-like.” He pressed Dirk’s wrist firmly into the bed, pulled the leash taut and smiled down at him, heart-rendingly gentle and affectionate.
It drew a quiet, wanting noise from the back of Dirk’s throat, face hot and flushed at the words, the way Gamzee could just lay him out bare like that, open and exposed. But Gamzee was right, there wasn’t any struggle in him, and when Gamzee tightened the grip around his wrist Dirk made the noise again and arched up into him.
“Wow,” John breathed, drifting closer, and Dirk managed to experience the conflicting emotions of embarrassment and sharp, sweet victory, somehow both at the same time.
Gamzee shot John a pleased, smug look and bent to suck a mark on the other side of Dirk’s neck above the collar, hips grinding down gently against Dirk’s. “There’s my pretty pony,” he murmured when he lifted his head. “All settled down and broke to saddle, ready for riding.”
“He’s still wearing pants,” John said, because apparently that was a thing he was just saying now, with his mouth, where Dirk could hear him. Dirk shot him a flat, sideways glance, as blank-faced as he could manage when he was sex-flushed from his ears all the way down his chest.
John contrived to look wide-eyed and innocent. “It looks uncomfortable.”
Gamzee shot John an open-mouthed look of surprise, just a little too earnest to be plausible. “Well, shit, bro, it surely does! And he’ll bear it if I say as he should,” he added, smiling at Dirk, “but I don’t see as he oughta have any discomfort on him just now.”
He sat upright, weight shifting like he was about to swing his leg over off of Dirk, and then stopped, eyeing John thoughtfully. “You wanna be at holding him down while I’m busy stripping him, bro?” he asked, offering John the job of pinning Dirk’s wrists down like a soda from the fridge.
“Sure,” John chirped, just as casual. He paused politely at the edge of Hal’s dark shape and Kurloz’s twisting border. “If that’s okay with you, Dirk.”
Dirk resorted to sharing out his blank, unimpressed face equally between his boyfriend and John and managed not to squirm under Gamzee. Nice of them to ask the complimentary beverage’s opinion.
You can pretend you don’t like it if you want, bro, Hal hummed, for Gamzee’s ears as much as Dirk’s, but the teasing barb of it was softened by the way he stayed close and dark on the sheets at Dirk’s side, silhouette sprawled casually like he’d made a wall by accident.
The hungry thrum of Gamzee faltered suddenly in the resonance, intrigue and amusement fading under a chime of uncertainty. Weight on one knee, still straddling Dirk, his dark eyes searched Dirk's face. “Wanting it ain’t the same as a ‘yes,’” he murmured. “Gotta have both, all right and sure and secure, or it’s trouble. So, sunshine, yea or nay?”
Dirk’s heart flipped over about three times, somersaulting stupidly and landing in dizzy affection. He was still—nervous was a dumb thing to be, so he’d continue pretending he wasn’t that—he was unclear exactly how and why this objectively stupid situation was happening and exactly where this was going. But whatever. It was just sex; that hardly ever had any negative consequences.
He pushed that wave of affection in Gamzee’s direction, watched him shiver and smile breathlessly. Found his own slice of smile came easily to his lips. “Sure, why the fuck not.” That edge of smile turned sharper when he looked at John. “Think you can handle all that responsibility? I know it’s a complicated maneuver.”
Gamzee got off of Dirk, snickering, and John beamed at Dirk and helped himself to a spot on the bed beside Dirk, heedless of Kurloz’s reluctant curl out of his way, Hal’s stretch to sit further down by Gamzee. His own shadow stayed casual-close beside him, a mostly matching form, edges spinning out and back in cheerful little eddies. “I’ll do my best,” he said, earnestly insincere. “You’ll have to tell me if I hold your hands wrong.”
“Not much fear of that,” Gamzee said absently, tugging the waist of Dirk’s jeans down. He started peeling Dirk’s briefs down at the same time, and Dirk closed his eyes, heart beating suddenly too fast, and lifted his hips enough to help.
John’s hands were warm and light on Dirk’s skin, sliding up his arms to his wrists… and then further on to cover his hands, palm to palm. He pulled Dirk’s hands one on top of the other over his head, then laced the fingers of one of his through both Dirk’s before pressing them down against the bed. Dirk was waiting for a chirpy, “Is this right?” but instead John just watched him, blue eyes intent on Dirk’s face.
Which left Dirk entirely too aware of the strange intimacy of the contact, John braced half over him, one hand curled sweetly in both of his while Gamzee finished stripping him bare and slid his own touch back up Dirk’s legs.
What if they held hands, Hal quoted dryly.
Shut up. Nobody asked for your opinion, Dirk returned, silent.
I don’t need to have an opinion on your newly manifested hand-holding kink, you developed that all by yourself.
Gamzee made a stifled noise that might have passed for a subtle cleared throat if Dirk hadn’t known he was laughing, couldn’t feel his amusement through the resonance. He took a hand off Dirk to get his own jeans open, and then he was kneeling between Dirk’s legs, one hand on each knee to spread them wider. His half-lidded, contemplative gaze might have been studying which end of a dessert plate to start from, instead of Dirk’s naked self.
“I dunno, my brother, might you be looking for a hand or a mouth, you think?” he said, tilting his head. “And how much begging are you ready to give at me so as to persuade?”
Dirk curled his toes, sucked in half a shaky breath. Couldn’t help but rock his hips a little against that grip holding him pinned and exposed, like maybe that would get him contact where he was aching for it. John’s hand was also holding him, they were both keeping him right where Gamzee wanted him— “Fuck. I’ll give you whatever you want.”
Gamzee made a rough, hungry sound, dark eyes fixed on Dirk’s face.
“Please, Gamzee, sweetheart,” Dirk said, like he’d been told to, and Gamzee leaned down and rubbed his cheek against Dirk’s thigh, gratified possessiveness and affection close to adoration humming through the resonance. Dirk huffed for air and went on babbling—“You can have whatever you want, please, I need it.”
“Listen to you,” Gamzee murmured, smiling up at him. He let go of one knee to wrap a hand around Dirk’s dick, teasing a thumb under the head. “Singing sweet as any songbird for me, asking all nice and easy. Sounds good like this, doesn’t he?” he added to John.
Heat fired in Dirk’s chest; his eyes flicked up to John entirely without his permission. He found those blue eyes fixed on his dick, on the slow squeeze of Gamzee’s hand that made Dirk pant and squirm.
Pfft. Yeah, okay. He should look, Dirk and Gamzee made a fantastic show. “Yeah, John,” he managed, voice breathy and a little mocking. “Am I pretty?”
John’s eyes dragged up from Dirk’s dick by inches, slowly enough that Dirk had time to really notice each place they lingered on his skin as they tracked up over his belly and chest and collared throat. To feel it like a burn on his skin. John met Dirk’s gaze with blown dark pupils and a radiant smile. “You’re so pretty, Dirk. The prettiest. Gamzee, he sounds so nice like this. Oh, do that again.”
“Mm?” Gamzee said, and dug the nails of his free hand into Dirk’s inner thigh again in a different spot, higher up. The whine caught in Dirk’s throat, emerged on a voiceless little hitch of breath, his fingers twitched where they were still laced with John’s.
“Aww, that’s really cute,” John said, with all evidence of sincerity. Dirk shivered again.
“It fucking is,” Gamzee agreed enthusiastically. “Yeah, he’s got a liking on him for a little rough touch here and there, see? Not too much, just enough.” He stroked Dirk’s dick once, then dug his nails in a third time, then did both at the same time.
“Please,” Dirk said, when he’d finished gasping. “Gamzee, please.”
“Mm,” Gamzee said, gazing at him with hooded eyes and a pleased, lazy smile. “You sound so sweet, my brother, I can’t help but get the thought on me to keep you like this a while.” His nails scratched dull, burning lines across Dirk’s thigh, then Gamzee’s fingers soothed over them while his other hand teased and stroked.
“You got thoughts on the matter, bro?” Gamzee said, glancing at John.
“Since—since when does the peanut gallery get an opinion.” It didn’t come out as snappy as Dirk meant it to. He was a little distracted.
Gamzee’s eyebrows lifted and Kurloz expanded in a ripple over the wall and bed, vining tendrils barely avoiding Hal’s edges and curving around Dirk and John as the air prickled briefly darker. “Since I motherfucking said so,” Gamzee said, staring Dirk down with a gleam in his eye, and the hand around Dirk’s dick squeezed warningly.
The shiver rode up Dirk’s spine, arched his back, and left him pliant on the sheets, Hal’s silent laughter giddy. Yeah, okay, it was a little embarrassing how accurately his boyfriend had his number. Also kind of phenomenal.
“I think you have good instincts!” John said, grinning at Gamzee. “He likes being like this. You may as well let him enjoy it for a while.” He paused, contemplating Dirk, white teeth nibbling on one side of his smile. “Actually, maybe I should help a little more.” He picked up the end of the neglected leash, drawing a whipcrack of startled breath from Dirk. John wound the leash around his hand a few times until it stretched gently taut, and set his hand back on his leg. “Yeah?” he said, glancing from Dirk to Gamzee.
Gamzee grinned at John, but didn’t answer right away, meeting Dirk’s eyes in inquiry.
Dirk blinked back, electric-tense, furiously turned on, and frozen like a stuck computer screen, pure indecision.
Was this… okay?
(Hands pinned and hips pinned and perfect pressure of the collar on his throat and it was John’s hand but Gamzee wanted it there—but Dirk wasn’t—but he liked it, so maybe—but he wasn’t—)
Gamzee’s grin drew in a little, concern in the slant of his brows as he watched Dirk’s face, and Dirk couldn’t help wondering what he was getting through the resonance. “Maybe let’s get at trying something else just yet,” Gamzee told John, reaching for the leash, and John handed it over with an easy smile and no hint of hesitation. Gamzee tugged the leash taut again, eyes on Dirk’s face, and smiled hungry satisfaction when a rough breath hissed out of him at the pull of the collar. “You hold still like a good pony,” Gamzee said, “and I’mma see how far into your desperation I can get you.”
He curled over between Dirk’s legs and licked a line up his dick, holding gentle tension on the leash all the while.
“Gamzee, Gamzee, Gamzee,” Dirk gasped.
Gamzee huffed a breathless laugh and wrapped his mouth around Dirk, sucking gently on the tip as one hand stroked below, the other playing with the leash.
“God, you’re both so hot like that,” sighed Mr. Peanut Gallery himself, and this time Dirk didn’t even try to pretend there wasn’t something in him responding to the observation. Stretched out and trying not to move, trying to be good, even as the pleasure built far faster than was normal for how delicately Gamzee was toying with him. “Is it good, Dirk?” John said, and Dirk trembled and felt a thumb stroking the side of his palm.
“I—yes—” Dirk choked, because he couldn’t not answer with Gamzee’s dark eyes turned up to him.
Gamzee hummed a pleased noise and sucked harder in reward. Then he lightened up again, and then pulled off entirely. “That’s my bright-shining brother,” he said, warm and approving. “What do you think, bro,” he added to John, “should he set to begging for us some more, make us well and thorough clear as to his need and hunger at it?”
“For us, huh?” John’s voice was low and thoughtful, his shadow brother behind him with head tilted and edges rippling gently now like a breeze playing across the surface of deep water. “That’s a nice thought.” John reached down with his free hand—Dirk stilled, froze again like, like—he didn’t know; he didn’t even know what he wanted to happen, but John just stroked over Gamzee’s messy curls, tucked a few of them back out of the way, and Gamzee ducked his head a little and smiled.
“You're really great.” John grinned. “I think you should give me a kiss and then give him a kiss. And then make him beg.”
“Hell yes,” Gamzee said, grinning back, and leaned forward over Dirk to kiss John, light and playful. Dirk got a front seat view as John caught him and pulled him close for a longer kiss, if front seat meant pinned down under the actors while they cheerfully made out. It was hard to be jealous—there were still fingers laced through his, even if they were John’s, Gamzee hot and close over him, and he hardly ever got to just observe Gamzee like this, all sexily happy and relaxed, and when he made that little hungry noise Dirk could see the flutter of it in his throat, feel the twitch in the fingertips he had braced against Dirk’s pecs.
So yeah, okay, fine, Dirk was into this. Which Gamzee could definitely tell, considering the resonance, and which John could probably tell but Dirk was going to go on pretending he couldn’t.
Gamzee pulled away or was freed from John finally, breathing hard, and turned on Dirk with dark, eager eyes. His kiss was fervent, pushy, ravishing Dirk’s mouth before finally pulling back, and then he sat back between Dirk’s legs and tugged gently at the leash.
“Beg,” Gamzee said, smiling with heavy-lidded eyes. “Say at us your longing and desperation, my brother, make known to us your need.”
“Please,” Dirk started, breathless. Heat swept his skin: face, throat, shoulders, down his chest.
“Mm-hm,” Gamzee said, raising amused eyebrows at him and twitching the leash. His other hand had landed on Dirk’s leg, the thumb rubbing a line up and down his inner thigh.
“I want—more, would you, please—” His legs shifted under Gamzee’s touch, his fingers curled and clung to John’s—obvious, too obvious probably, but Dirk was fine consigning his plausible deniability meter to the outer reaches of the stratosphere on account of horny reasons. More fine with it when John didn’t even laugh, just squeezed back and went on stroking a thumb back and forth and watched with blue, blue eyes.
“You keep those pretty words spilling out, and maybe I’ll get to touching you like to satisfy before next year,” Gamzee said, a pleased, lazy threat, and curled over again to nuzzle Dirk’s dick. One nuzzle, and then he was nosing at Dirk’s hip bone, breathing on the crease of his thigh, idly planting a line of kisses up his abdomen.
Dirk could hear Hal’s silent laughter—Oh, he is *all* yours, angel—but he was mostly fixated on the teasing path of that mouth and finding the words he needed to get it to come back to that throbbing ache between his legs. Turned out “Please, I really want your mouth on my cock” was a good start, and “Fuck, please, shit, fuck” was less coherent, but still effective.
Gamzee grinned up at John, all triumphant and pleased, and then licked Dirk again, slow and teasing, before wrapping his lips around the head of his dick and sucking gently. He tugged the leash, eyes catching Dirk’s with raised, expectant eyebrows. Dirk found another string of needy babble for him; Gamzee’s mouth made it easy to turn off the filter in his brain. Easy to beg but hard to hold still, and Dirk twisted on the sheets, squirmed more at the way the leash pulled tight in Gamzee’s hand, at how John absently shifted more weight onto Dirk’s hands to keep him pinned in place.
“Spread his legs a little more,” John suggested, and Dirk whined as Gamzee’s hands pressed him further open. “Yeah. Wow, he really wants you.”
Gamzee hummed agreement against Dirk’s skin, delicious vibration around his dick, and his gaze up at Dirk through long lashes was predatory.
“Hey, Gamzee,” John said. “You should touch yourself, too.”
That got a startled noise, Gamzee’s eyes widening. He paused for a moment, pulling off to stare at John with a dark flush across his copper cheeks, and then ducked his head and smiled, shoving a hand between his legs. “Might as well, yeah,” he said, and then put his mouth back where Dirk very much wanted it.
God, he was so good to Dirk; he was so pretty—and he was still fucking teasing. Distracted teasing now, as he made more of his own little noises, but he kept working Dirk up until he was gasping and hitching his hips into it and then his mouth would move and he’d switch to some new way of driving Dirk crazy. Eyes flicking up to John like he was—like he was putting on some kind of demonstration.
Which was arguably what Dirk had signed them up for, he just hadn’t been prepared for John to watch like he was taking notes. John didn’t actually need blowing-Dirk notes.
Sure about that? Hal asked.
Dirk was not having this conversation right now.
Finally, finally, Gamzee got him close and didn’t stop, pull back, keep teasing. He kept working Dirk with one hand and all the skill of his incredible mouth, his other hand busy under him as he hummed and moaned around Dirk.
“Be careful,” John said, putting his free hand in Gamzee’s curls. “Go ahead and get Dirk off, he deserves it, but don’t come yet, yourself. I’ve got other plans for you.”
Gamzee looked up at him wide-eyed, mouth still stretched around Dirk, and moaned hoarsely, shivering. Then he redoubled his efforts and Dirk’s eyes almost rolled back in his head. Through the resonance, Gamzee was all struck notes of startled excitement, hunger and interest and only the faintest little chime of uncertainty, a chord Dirk recognized from any number of new things Gamzee had tried with him, most of which he’d ended up liking.
All of this felt like it needed a lot more processing than Dirk was capable of in the middle of an unplanned kinky not-threesome, 99.9% of the way to an orgasm. Gamzee swallowed convulsively around him, hot and wet and good and Dirk abandoned processing all together, just arched up and came, mind wiped blank and white.
“Good job,” John said. It wasn’t clear who he was talking to, but it landed in Dirk’s brain like a caress anyway, an aftershock of pleasure that matched the thrum he felt from Gamzee, the shiver of him between his legs, against Dirk’s softening cock.
Gamzee let Dirk slide out of his mouth, dropped a last little kiss on the tip, and smiled breathlessly from him to John, sitting up. He took a moment to kneel up and shove his pants and boxers down his thighs, resonance cutting out briefly before Gamzee settled back down with a hand on Dirk’s leg and one back on his own dick, squeezing and fondling.
“Fine motherfucking view, huh?” he asked John, eyes hot and pleased on Dirk.
“Really nice,” John hummed agreeably. He actually patted Dirk’s hair with his free hand a few times until Dirk roused enough to narrow his eyes at him. John just raised his eyebrows back, but released Dirk entirely, leaving him to stretch out the stiff joints in his arms and, reluctantly, try to get his brain working again.
You’re going to have to think about it sooner or later, Hal commented helpfully. And then, possibly just to be contrary: Why not later? He swept a shadow-black hand briefly up over Gamzee’s thigh and Dirk sucked in a breath at the sudden onslaught of sensory information, Gamzee hard and touching himself while Dirk was soft and wrung out and overstimulated.
Gamzee smiled down at Hal, then gave Dirk an inquiring look. “All good by you, bro?”
“Mh.” Post-orgasm Dirk kind of wanted to have a conversation with pre-orgasm Dirk about his decision-making, but other than that, yeah, fine. This was all probably… fine. Dirk’s eyes wandered back to John, who responded with an insufferably brilliant smile. It was attractive in a way that made Dirk want to either hit him or go hide behind Gamzee. He settled for pulling himself up to sitting and trying to finger-comb some order back into his hair. “How’re you? You want some help?”
“Wouldn’t mind it,” Gamzee said, perking right up, and then glanced at John, hopeful and uncertain. “What all manner of plans did you have up at you for this, bro?”
John looked from Gamzee to Dirk, smiling thoughtfully. “I think we should team up!” he told Dirk. “See how desperate we can get him now. Yeah?”
Gamzee’s eyes widened and he gave Dirk a thrilled, hopeful look.
It was really, honestly, so cute.
Dirk couldn’t help but match that energy with his own tiny slice of smile, catching Gamzee’s chin and tilting it to brush the edge of a kiss over his mouth. “You like that, huh? Think you can handle all that attention?”
Kurloz rippled and swept up the wall and halfway across the ceiling, but the faint prickle of presence in the air didn’t feel angry. Gamzee kissed back enthusiastically, breaking off to laugh.
“Hell yes, I can deal with that, brother!” He shot John a sly glance. “Gather the faithful around for some motherfucking hands on worship, I’ll be well satisfied at it.”
“You’re weird,” John said, already scooching across the mattress and up beside Dirk to steal Gamzee for his own kiss. His shadow stretched across the sheets behind him, still curious and watching, still maintaining polite distance, as Hal lay up the wall beside the bed. Dirk dipped to press his mouth to the curve of Gamzee’s shoulder; the resonance chimed and shivered with shy delight.
“Mmh—you got your liking on well for me despite,” Gamzee pointed out, breathing hard.
“Hmm,” John said, batting Gamzee’s hand away from his dick to tease fingertips up it. “Maybe, yeah.”
“Hhh—maybe!” Gamzee said indignantly, and groaned, losing the thread as John wrapped a hand around him and squeezed gently. John teased him a moment and let go again, and Gamzee’s hips twitched in protest. “Motherfucker—”
Dirk distracted him by slipping his own hand between Gamzee’s legs and back to lightly fondle his balls. “I like you.”
“Nnh, fuck!” Gamzee whined, hips nudging forward into his hand to try for firmer contact as Dirk kept his touch light. “Fuckin’ show it, don’t just get at being a cocktease!”
Dirk huffed a laugh against the collarbone he was mouthing over and John outright snickered. “I could stop,” Dirk offered, playing at pulling his hand away, and Gamzee pouted from him to John, who was kneeling beside Gamzee now, smiling brightly with a hand on Gamzee’s chest.
“I could be at satisfying my own self, too,” Gamzee grumbled, grabbing his dick again.
“Or you could behave yourself!” John put in, grabbing Gamzee’s wrist and pulling his hand away. He grabbed the other wrist and pulled it behind Gamzee’s back, holding both of them firmly, and the resonance went muddled, little sour notes of tension and anxiety jangling against the interest.
“I motherfucking guess,” Gamzee said, aiming a half-grin at John that almost looked normal. He was flushed and breathless and not protesting, but--
Kurloz flowed across the bed, hemming the three of them in, air gone chill and sharp as a graveyard breeze.
“Hey,” Dirk said, unsettled, and squeezed Gamzee’s thigh in reassurance. “Hey, cut it out, he doesn’t like that.”
Gamzee gave him a tense, startled look.
John’s expression flickered through surprise and exasperation and settled on simply bemused. “He’s sitting right here and can tell me himself. You’re having fun, right, Gamzee?” he asked, dipping to nuzzle behind his ear.
“Mmh, I,” Gamzee said, breath catching, and tugged just a little at John’s grip on his wrists. It didn’t yield. “Yeah, ‘sall good, bro,” he said, shooting a look at Dirk from under his lashes. He didn’t feel any less stressed through the resonance, but now there was frustration and worry on top of the growing initial anxiety.
He didn’t want to be called out, and it made Dirk hesitate, but also--
Pointedly, Dirk pushed his own emotions towards Gamzee, a surge of love-concern-uncertainty-protectiveness and a reminder that yes, hello, he could see him. Gamzee’s eyes widened.
“Truth, please,” Dirk said, a little sharper than he meant. He gentled his tone, squeezing Gamzee’s thigh again. “You’re allowed to have preferences. No one here wants you to do anything you don’t want.”
Dirk’s eyes cut over Gamzee’s shoulder to John, who looked confused, but more like he was paying attention now. His hold had loosened. He nodded. “Obviously?”
Gamzee hesitated, still tense all over, wide eyes on Dirk’s face then flickering to one side, not glancing back quite far enough to see John. “Ah,” he said, swallowing, and paused again, gathering himself. “Could a brother maybe get to not…?” he asked John, tugging hopefully at his wrists.
“Sure.” John released him easily enough, patting his shoulder, and the surge of relief through the resonance was echoed by the way Gamzee sucked in a breath, tension washing out of his frame. John leaned around to look at Gamzee, who ducked his head. “You okay?”
“I’m all good,” Gamzee assured him, and if his smile was startled and uncertain, it was more real, too. He paused, nibbling his lip. “I don’t,” he started. “Don’t got… much liking to me for the, the ropes and cuffs edge of things.”
“Oh.” John sat back abruptly. “What, really?”
Gamzee shrugged sheepishly. “Yeah,” he admitted.
“Huh,” John said, frowning at Gamzee like he was trying to figure something out. This had the side effect of making Gamzee huddle into himself, big-eyed and apologetic in a way that made Dirk seriously debate smacking John. “Like in general or just right now?”
Gamzee blinked and unhuddled, startled. “Uh, all general-like, really.”
John tilted his head. “You never said.”
Gamzee flinched a little, but less than Dirk had expected, and eyed John, his expression not quite dubious but something in the vicinity.
“Maybe you should consider asking,” Dirk inserted, scathingly sharp.
John just glanced from him to Gamzee and back, puzzled frown still marked between his brows. “Huh,” he said again. “Yeah, maybe.”
Gamzee shrugged again like he could wiggle out from under the entire topic. “Anyway, I got this motherfucking dick here that could be at getting some action just, any time, yeah?”
The frown vanished like it had never been there, John apparently way more willing to let things go than Dirk had ever been. “Oh, sure,” he said, voice bright and predatory again. “Dirk, you can help him out, right? Gamzee says you’re really good with your mouth.”
Literally this asshole would just fucking say things. Both these assholes. Dirk let go of Gamzee, the resonance vanishing, and met two cheerful smiles completely poker-faced. He resolutely did not think about his shades, abandoned on the nightstand, or how hotly his face was flushing. “I’m fuckin’ great with my mouth, thanks. Glad to hear the legend has spread.”
John gave him a double thumbs up, which overlapped so vividly with a memory of Jake finger-gunning in bed that Dirk was suddenly stricken and poker-facing for a different reason.
“Gamzee, can I put you in my lap and like, mess with your chest and neck and stuff?” John opened his arms in demonstrative question. “Like a hug from behind!”
“Hell yes you motherfucking can!” Gamzee said, and wiggled his eyebrows. “Could up and stick me on your dick, even, if we all had on our desire at that.” He flicked Dirk a quick inquiring glance.
Dirk decided the poker-face had worked for him so far and it was going to go on working for him. Internally, he waved sad farewell to the illusion that John was only watching and not participating in whatever ill-advised impromptu orgy this was turning out to be.
Think about it later? Hal reminded, a little uncertain and unusually helpful.
“You can have my fingers if you’re good,” John said, completely free of dilemma and already scooping Gamzee back against his chest. His chin tucked smiling over Gamzee’s shoulder. “Dirk, c’mere.”
“Fuck yeah,” Gamzee said huskily, shifting a little where he sat between John’s legs, and gave Dirk an eager look. Kurloz had abandoned the bed the moment John let go of Gamzee’s wrists, and twined across the ceiling, lazy or bored.
There wasn’t any part of Dirk that could refuse Gamzee’s dark, hopeful eyes when they looked at him like that. He shuffled closer, in between Gamzee’s knees, which spread for him, and then John picked up the trailing end of Dirk’s leash and put it back in Gamzee’s hand.
“I think Dirk’s going to be good, too. And we’re both going to mess you up. Sound fun to everyone?”
“It surely does, my brother,” Gamzee said, pupils wide and dark in his pretty brown eyes, and pulled the slack out of Dirk’s leash, watching his face intently.
Dirk swallowed against the collar. “Sure,” he said, voice curt to hide the husk of desire. Not like Gamzee couldn’t feel Hal thrumming with nervous fascination. Feel it more when Dirk laid a hand on the soft skin of Gamzee’s thigh and the resonance chimed back between them.
“Awesome!” John said, and flicked a thumb over Gamzee’s nipple, winning a sigh, Gamzee’s head tilting back a little.
Those dark eyes settled on Dirk, half-lidded and gleaming. “Attend to my need, my pretty pony, now you’re all polished up bright-shining. Bring me my motherfucking pleasure.”
Fuck, Hal murmured, or maybe that was Dirk’s thought, he didn’t really care as he followed the steady pressure of the leash down to brace on his elbows. Gamzee’s dick was right there, which was excellent—whatever else was going on in this batshit crazy dumb-idea-in-progress, this part, Dirk’s part, was simple. Mouthing up the shaft, he caught the head between his lips and licked over the tip, like a good boy.
Gamzee moaned, one hand sliding into Dirk’s hair. “Fuck yes,” he sighed, pushing gently, coaxing Dirk to take more. “Like that, yeah, bro.”
It was easy to fall into it, to follow the urging of the hand in his hair, the leash at his throat, chase the little ripples of pleasure that hummed through Gamzee and made Dirk’s soul chime back answer. Gamzee groaned, and then twitched in response to something Dirk hadn’t done, and he looked up and accidentally met blue eyes. John squinted cheerfully back at him, mouth shifting to lay another sucking kiss further down the curve of Gamzee’s neck.
Groaning, Gamzee tilted his head to give better access, fingers working on Dirk’s head. “Yeah,” he murmured, hips twitching. “Fuck but if this ain’t a beautiful motherfucking way to pass some time… Getting loved on by two handsome brothers at once.”
John chuckled, sounding more than a little breathless and turned on himself. “We’re all handsome. Should’ve got a mirror in here, really had a view.”
A camera, Hal said, and maybe John couldn’t hear him, but Dirk sure could, and he’d have to remember to be a scandalized stick-in-the-mud later, because right now he was shuddering with heat and swallowing Gamzee desperately deeper.
When Gamzee made a husky noise, Dirk couldn’t tell if it was due to what he was doing or what Hal had said, or maybe something John did while Dirk wasn’t looking. Either way, Gamzee’s hands tugged on the leash and in Dirk’s hair, needy and pushy with it, and the hoarse edge to his moans did something to Dirk.
“Fuck yeah,” Gamzee said, “set ‘em up at all angles, just watch our pretty selves get all filthy and sticky and pleased, forward and back and sideways.”
“Mm. Don’t get sticky yet,” John said, and did something with his hands that Dirk couldn’t see, just how Gamzee squirmed and moaned and got hauled back closer to John’s chest. “I’m still having fun playing with you.”
Gamzee whimpered at that, and his hand slid out of Dirk’s hair to fist in the sheets, hips jerking. “Motherfuck,” he gasped, and panted for a moment. “If—if a brother wants me to get my patience and waiting on for real, gonna have to call whoa on my pony, here, we’re up and set for a fucking stampede any minute.”
“We-ell, if you still want my fingers—” John said, obnoxiously bright.
Gamzee groaned at him and hesitated, clearly torn. Then he sighed and tugged gently up on Dirk’s leash to call him off. Dirk came away from the dick in his mouth dutifully but reluctantly, licking his lips and catching his breath, head resting on Gamzee’s thigh. He squinted vaguely in John’s direction as he went off on some kind of quest for lube, and then his eyes turned back toward Gamzee.
“Color?” Dirk asked, voice soft and scratchy.
“Green as summer leaves, bro,” Gamzee said, smiling down at him, and ran his fingers through Dirk’s hair. Dirk sighed into the touch. “You up and getting your enjoyment on too?”
“Despite my better judgment. All green here,” he added, more sincerely.
“Green sounds good,” John chimed in, crowding back up against Gamzee’s back. “Is green good? Everyone still having fun?”
“Green’s all motherfucking beauty and ready to go,” Gamzee said cheerfully. “We are all manner of delight over here. How you want me, bro?”
“Kneel up.” John patted Gamzee’s thigh, and then casually nudged his knees wider, using his own jeans-clad knee to adjust the stance to his liking.
“You know,” Dirk drawled, sitting up himself as the resonance fell silent again, “you’re allowed to take your pants off.”
John flashed a brilliant smile that Dirk bore up doggedly under. “Thanks! I’m good right now.”
Dirk’s eyes tracked, entirely without permission, to the bulge at the front of John’s pants. It didn’t look comfortable. He raised a skeptical eyebrow.
John’s smile traded out for an eyeroll and exasperated huff, like maybe taking off your pants was an incredibly tedious topic to bring up during sex, but he did unzip and adjust himself, heel of his hand rubbing down along his length with absent interest. Then he shrugged and reached for the lube again. “I wanna play with you guys right now.”
“We are righteously ready for playing with,” Gamzee said breathlessly, pulling Dirk’s leash gently taut again. “Right, bro?”
Right, Hal said, entirely too revealing. Dirk was absolutely claiming the fifth. Can’t talk when you’re leaning up to kiss your boyfriend, lips catching his pleased, happy sound, hands coming up to brace lightly on his shoulders.
“Nice,” John said, warm approval, and Dirk tried very hard not to react. Gamzee shivered and laughed, desire echoing back and forth between them in a giddy little rising spiral—but—but that was fine. Gamzee was allowed to know. Gamzee was allowed to see the parts of Dirk he wasn’t sure about and didn’t want to speak.
Gamzee sighed, eyes half-lidding, as John’s hand moved behind him and shifted, and Dirk watched his dick twitch. “Aw, motherfuck yes,” Gamzee moaned, hips quivering in a half-stifled jerk forward and back. “Hell yes, gimme those sweet touches, my brother.”
“Good boys say thank you,” John said primly.
“Why do you sound like your dad,” was Dirk’s input. This succeeded in sending John into red-faced sputtering. Entirely fair. If Dirk had to live with thinking it, John should have to live with being it.
Gamzee groaned at them both, hips rocking back. “Fuck, please? And thank you, all pretty with a bow on top and ribbons in its hair. And a motherfucking three piece suit—please, bro!” His cheeks were flushed rose-brown, now, his eyes dark and needy, and he twitched and rocked on John’s hand with dogged determination. God. Part of Dirk really wanted to just sit back and watch him take himself apart like that. Watch John take him apart.
John’s free hand slid up, threading into Gamzee’s hair, tipping his head back. Pulling the whole line of him back in an exposed curve. This made it harder for Gamzee to move, but easier for John to beam down at him, his own face still a little hectic red, but his expression pleased. “Keep talking…”
Gamzee let out a choked groan, hands reaching under him to lean on his ankles, give him some support. “Like I got any notion at eloquence on me just now!” he said. “Please, can I get at having some focus on my dick, too? I’ll spin you righteous motherfucking poetry, just—nnh, please.”
“Well, I can’t do anything about that; my hands are full,” John said, all cheerful faux innocence. His fingers did something illustrative out of sight between Gamzee’s legs and Gamzee made a desperate, low noise that Dirk recognized intimately. “Good thing Dirk’s here! Maybe you should ask him. Or maybe you should tell him. I don’t know, which would you like better, Dirk?”
There was no answer to that which saved his dignity, so Dirk opted for raising the stakes. “Maybe you should tell me what to do to him.”
If his goal was to see John knocked briefly wordless Dirk definitely won this round, but let’s be real, Dirk no longer had any idea what his goal was. The widely dilating pupils in blue eyes felt like victory but Dirk still had to duck away, nuzzling a kiss into Gamzee’s throat to escape.
“I will, then!” John said. “Dirk, you should tease his dick some more, see what kind of poems he comes out with.”
Gamzee let out another moan, eagerness and trepidation singing through the resonance. He wasn’t thrilled about the ongoing teasing, but it sure didn’t bother him enough yet to make any move to stop Dirk, or to hurry him along. So that was… probably fine? And Dirk—god, Dirk did love taking his time with Gamzee, sliding down to press his lips feather light against the root of his dick, feel the delicate skin twitch and jump as he mouthed up along it, licked his way back down. Gamzee’s hips tried to press forward for more contact, and a hand on his hip, not Dirk’s, held him in place.
“Fuck,” Gamzee gasped, quivering under Dirk’s touch, and the resonance chimed pleasure and amazement. There was something else there, too, a sweet edge of overwhelm, familiar hazy softness that kept creeping closer, then shrinking back again. He was enjoying himself, but still keeping one little piece of control, a wary reluctance to yield entirely Dirk had almost forgotten. Dirk broke off to nuzzle and kiss Gamzee’s inner thigh reassuringly—well, ok, maybe the gesture was more frustrating in effect based on the aggravated, complaining noise Gamzee made.
“Good?” Dirk asked, even though he was pretty sure he knew the answer.
“Very good,” John put in, and Dirk flushed and jumped.
“So motherfucking good,” Gamzee said, tugging gently at Dirk’s leash like he was in danger of forgetting the collar just like he briefly had John. Not likely. “We’re all—sweet songs of praise up in here, sung through every nerve, hymns humming through every inch of flesh to make the bones shiver.” He gasped softly, hips twitching again against John’s restraining hand. “Fuck, just about—good and ready for that climactic chorus, bro,” he finished hopefully.
“Hmmm,” John said in an obnoxiously playful tone of voice that made Dirk give serious contemplation to biting him. He could just make out the flex of John’s more out-of-sight hand, and the much more obvious way Gamzee moaned and rocked into it just a little, thighs tense and working under him as he held himself up for Dirk and John to play with. “Well, I’m not stopping you. You’ve got my fingers and Dirk’s pretty mouth—” John dimpled as Dirk shot a flat look up at him— “I bet you can figure out how to get there.”
“Please,” Gamzee breathed, looking down at Dirk, and pulled the leash more firmly, coaxing Dirk closer to where he was wanted. “Get me there, my brother, all shining in your delight, fine and gleeful in your games, but playing’s done with, now, it’s time to fucking do this. Work me high, fly me free.”
“Go on, Dirk,” John said, and even though Dirk was already following Gamzee’s pull, already licking up the tender head of him to close lips around the shaft, the direction still stroked down his spine in a finger of heat. Probably because Dirk was an idiot.
“Good,” John said, and Gamzee murmured a breathless torrent of praise and pleas and held Dirk in place by the collar, and fine, yes, okay, Dirk was absolutely a slut for this; he’d suck as much dick as they wanted and say thank you for it, after.
Gamzee was rocking into his mouth now, just a little, lyrical obscenity spilling from his lips. “Oh, fuck, brother, please,” he moaned finally, and Dirk swallowed him down as he shuddered and gasped, one hand in Dirk’s hair.
Patting Dirk’s head clumsily, Gamzee let out a shivery little sigh and sank back against John, panting, as soon as he pulled his fingers free. “Hell yes,” Gamzee said contentedly.
“God, you’re both so cute,” John said, which was not Dirk’s most common compliment after a blowjob, but okay. He nestled further into Gamzee’s petting hand, head settling against his raised thigh, and turned his eyes up to watch Gamzee’s other boyfriend snuggle him close. John’s hands wandered idly over all the places that made Gamzee sigh and chime sweet satisfaction at Dirk through the resonance. John’s color was high. His blue eyes, when they met Dirk’s, were darkly dilated and unnervingly intimate.
“Ahh, fuck,” Gamzee sighed eventually, and wriggled testingly before laughing a little. “Well, bro, that issue you got all pressing at you sure hasn’t got any less urgency to it now,” he said to John over his shoulder. “You maybe got some kind of want we should do something about it?”
John hummed noncommittally and seemed to be seriously considering the question. Dirk considered quite a few possible objections to Gamzee’s use of the plural ‘we’ in that offer. Somehow, none of these extremely good objections made their way out of his mouth. He just lay there, curled between both their legs with his head on Gamzee’s knee and Gamzee’s fingers stroking through his hair and Gamzee’s soul plucking gentle notes through his and… waited.
Behind Gamzee, John moved, almost experimentally. Dirk could see the roll of his hips forward, the flutter of his eyelashes, the way his lips parted on an inhale.
“Hm,” John said, and then, “No, stay just like that,” to Gamzee, when he shifted like he would turn, or press back against him, or offer a hand back. Gamzee settled agreeably enough. John pressed a kiss to the edge of his jaw, just below his ear. “Hm. Yeah, okay,” John decided, talking now mostly to Gamzee’s throat. One of his hands withdrew behind Gamzee; he was moving now, again; Dirk could recognize the subtle rhythm of someone getting themself off, even if he couldn’t quite work out if John was using his hand or rocking up against Gamzee’s back, or both. John was—oddly quiet and contained about it, face pressed into Gamzee’s neck where it met his shoulder, breathing going softly unsteady as his color rose, a sharp tick between his drawn brows.
Dirk was—he was having some kind of emotion. He shouldn’t be watching this. Nope. He probably… really shouldn’t… he…
…Somehow kept watching as John got himself to the brink and over it, silent but for his husky, open-mouthed breathing. Gamzee hummed softly, pleased, and ruffled Dirk’s hair, smiling down at him.
“There you go, my brother,” he said over his shoulder to John, sounding satisfied. “A fine motherfucking party all round. We up and demonstrated every damn thing.”
John chuckled breathlessly, face still half-hidden against Gamzee’s neck. His arms squeezed him close in a hug.
Then he blew a raspberry that made Gamzee jump and curse and start trying to thwack John.
“Very informative,” John agreed, retreating backwards across the mattress in a crabwalk, his shadow-bro doubled over in obvious laughter behind him. “Sexy instructors, great presentation.”
“No one asked you for a review,” Dirk said flatly, mostly to the bedsheets. His heart was still beating a little too fast, an uncomfortable flutter.
“Well and motherfucking accurate, though,” Gamzee pointed out, half twisting around to swat at John as he fled the bed. “And where the fuck are you getting to be, now? Stray cat was right, we gotta get some kitty treats up at us here, or what?”
“Meow,” said John, interrupting refastening his pants to actually flap his hands by his head like little anime cat ears. His shadow-bro just straight up sprouted some. Dirk pressed his face flat into the mattress. Nope. No. Nope.
“This kitty cat got all sticky and needs to go clean up.”
“Aww,” Gamzee said, and Dirk could hear the pout, and then hear when it broke into a snicker. “You go be to giving yourself a nice tongue bath, kitty.” Gamzee bent down to kiss Dirk’s hair, then folded over him, one hand stroking along his bare side.
“I bet you think that’s sexy, but it’s gross!” John declared, amused voice moving away. The bedroom door clicked shut.
Dirk’s head popped up. “He left?” he asked blankly. Distantly he heard the front door. “Wait, he left?”
Wow, said Hal, making his presence known for the first time in a while. He took over the space John’s shadow had fit in, stretching into a dark silhouette on the bed, much more still than the suppressed seethe of complicated emotion at the back of Dirk’s brain. He ran away *just* like Jake.
“Oh, hey, no, starfield,” Gamzee said, taking a hand off Dirk to reach towards Hal. “It ain’t got no kind of similarity there, he’s just a weirdass fucker, is all. Won’t get at being touched sometimes, won’t always stick around for cuddles after. You’re all manner of good, it’s not about you. Either of you.”
Hal’s posture unfolded by increments. He shifted to meet the offered touch with shy pleasure, the shaken soda can pressure of him in Dirk’s head settling back to a low fizz, background agitation that Dirk could wish he didn’t match.
Well. He had known this wasn’t the best idea. And it had overall been…
Dirk’s brain supplied him with a helpful collage of sensory flashbacks that sent heat licking over his skin.
Okay! Never-fucking-mind that. He snuggled his own way closer to Gamzee, arms wrapping around his waist. “You’re saying he bails on you?” Dirk asked, and he tried to sound neutral, but couldn’t quite keep the disapproving edge from creeping in.
Gamzee shrugged and hugged Dirk back one-armed, leaving the other hand on the bed for Hal to lace dark bands of shadow over. “I mean, not like. Always? And he’s cheerful enough the next time we up and get eyes on each other, so he’s not all up in his mad or anything, I didn’t fuck up. He’s just fuckin’ weird.”
“Hm,” said Dirk, reluctant. There was curiosity nipping somewhere behind it, because John was weird, in that way that made Dirk want to get his fingers up inside, disassemble and make sense of.
Bro, do I even need to keep pointing out the Freudian at this point? Hal sounded mostly amused, but still with a buried tension somewhere down behind the words. Not dramatically, but Dirk wasn’t used to Hal being cagey with his dissatisfaction. He poked his brother questioningly and felt the odd sensation of thoughts inside his own head sliding away out of reach.
Dirk blew out a breath and finally gave into the state of being completely at sea. “So. That sure was a thing that happened.”
“It surely was,” Gamzee agreed, and hesitated. “So, uh. You been to getting some nearness to okay, or should, like. Should I have gone and told him fuck off for sure, before we all got started?”
Considering this question was arriving well after the fact, Dirk possibly shouldn’t have found it so charming. He turned a blandly narrow-eyed gaze onto Gamzee on principle, but there was a smile hiding somewhere behind it, and the bubble of fondness he pushed through the resonance couldn’t be missed.
“I’m not gonna perish from an embarrassing sexual escapade,” Dirk allowed.
Is *that* the adjective we’re using, Hal put in in a murmur, sounding even more like his usual self.
Dirk rolled to sit up, but reached to comb careful fingers through the mess of Gamzee’s hair. “You did ask, I said yes. Maybe in future let’s chat things out in advance instead of in the middle of sex when I’m horny and collared.” Dirk tilted his head just a little against the leather at his throat.
“Could get at being a better way, yeah,” Gamzee agreed with a sheepish smile. “Only, uh, he’s not much the type to slow down and discuss shit, so I guess we gotta get our chat on before he walks in next time, huh?”
Wow, Dirk’s unperturbed surrender to the situation absolutely did not stand up to that ‘next time.’ He ducked his head like that could obscure the heat rising up his neck and onto his face. “Right,” he said, vague and distracted. And then a little more sharp, “He’ll damn well learn how to slow down and discuss shit or I’ll kick his ass right back down the street. Has he—you’re not—” Dirk tapered off, struggling to find words when part of his brain was going ‘shut up, don’t be controlling, don’t be possessive, don’t try to fix people—’
“Mm?” Gamzee said, and wrapped both arms around Dirk, hooking one finger through the back of his collar to tug gently. “Don’t you get that fine mind all tangled up around itself, bro. What’s biting at you?”
Kurloz stretched out a long branch of shadow to curl around them on the bed, just the faintest breath of a low, lazy threat in the air. Dirk really was developing a Pavlovian reaction to that: skin shivering up in goosebumps even as the noise in his head settled and fell quiet. Hal stretched and slipped away from Gamzee to go tease up closer to the edge of Kurloz’s darkness, and Dirk relaxed into Gamzee’s hold, the fingers turning into a gentle grip at the back of his neck.
“You can… obviously you can make your own relationship decisions,” Dirk said, starting again slowly. Picking his way through his words and the minefield of his thoughts a little easier. “But it seemed like… you were…when he grabbed you you didn’t seem comfortable, but—you told him later, I know, but…” He huffed out a breath. “That’s hard for you. He should have asked. He should be asking.”
“...Mm,” Gamzee said, sounding less than enthusiastic, and shrugged. “I don’t figure as a body can get all those thoughts to him as just what certain ones he oughta be asking about, unless someone up and says it straight.”
It was Dirk’s turn to make a noncommittal grumble even though he knew from experience how cagey Gamzee could get about his own preferences, including when asked. That was exactly why he was concerned.
“‘Sides, he got his listen on well and good when we said it at him,” Gamzee added, perking up. “So, s’all good in the end, yeah?” His fingers ruffled up the back of Dirk’s neck into his hair and stroked there.
“A happy ending doesn’t mean the foreplay should suck,” Dirk said, still grumbly.
Dirk wants to supervise, Hal said.
“Hal,” Dirk snapped, jerking up.
“Shush, now,” Gamzee said firmly, grabbing the back of Dirk’s neck again and glancing down at Hal. “C’mon, bro, we got you all nice and chill and settled, and now you gotta go rile yourself up again. Kiss me?”
Gamzee’s lips were soft. His hands tipped Dirk’s head up, held him steady. Tension seeped back out of him.
We could, though, Hal murmured. We could do anything if you asked, angel.
“Hal,” Dirk said, again, and then… softened it. “Gamzee doesn’t need a backseat driver for his sex life.”
Gamzee snickered. “Sure haven’t got all that much room for more hands to grab that stick shift,” he said with an unrepentant smirk, and leaned in to nuzzle Dirk’s jaw. “Was kinda nice to up and have you near to speak up when it got tricky, though,” he admitted against Dirk’s skin.
“Good,” Dirk said, and felt Hal echo the thought. “I’m glad.”
Any time, Hal added, from where he was idly tracing fingers into the edges of Kurloz’s darkness, testing what was permitted.
“Stop volunteering me for weird threesomes,” Dirk told him, without heat.
You liked it.
“Ugh.” Dirk flopped against Gamzee.
The noise of the front door opening made Dirk tense.
“Huh,” Gamzee said, cocking his head as footsteps came bouncing down the hall, and then the bedroom door burst open on John.
“Oh, wow, you’re still naked,” was the first thing John said. He was fully dressed, of course, in a different outfit, hair shower-damp, arms loaded down with an assortment of tupperware containers and other items. Cast beside him on the wall, his shadow-brother looked them over with his head tilted one way. Then the other.
Dirk pointedly refused to unflop. Or be embarrassed about being bare-skinned and sex-sticky. “Do you even understand what doors are?”
“Hey, bro, you been to come back!” Gamzee said, grinning at John.
“Sure,” John said cheerfully. “Aren’t you done yet?”
“It’s called afterglow,” Dirk said. “You should try it.”
John turned his smile on Dirk and Dirk just barely managed not to retreat in the face of it. “Sometime, maybe,” was all he said, which—there was that implication again. That ‘next time’ hanging in the wings. “Showers are nice too, though.” John juggled his armload, shuffling through it as he came closer. “Anyway, I brought you juice to rehydrate and some orange slices and mixed nuts for electrolytes.”
“Aw, shit, snacks!” Gamzee said, stretching out a long arm while Dirk was still trying to process how exactly much John took after his dad sometimes. “Lay some of that righteous citrus goodness on me, brother.”
“You can’t eat in the bed,” John said, sounding genuinely scandalized. He tried to pull his tupperwares back out of reach and it was automatic to steal the top one.
“Can if we want,” Dirk said, popping the top on his prize and fishing out slices for him and Gamzee.
“No. Bad.”
Dirk gave John a look to see if he even heard himself right now. John looked back sternly. Answer unclear.
Dirk passed Gamzee another slice of orange. Gamzee ducked his head to eat it from his fingers.
“Mm, nah, bro,” he mumbled through the mouthful of citrus, “we been to being so good, we deserve some treats!” He widened his eyes at John, big and brown and appealing.
“Good boys don’t eat in the bed,” John said, ruthlessly firm in a way Dirk was still close enough to his last orgasm to admit he found a little hot. John, meanwhile, appeared to have thoroughly moved on from that page, and maybe to a whole different book. “I brought a movie,” he said brightly, snagging back the orange box. “Put some clothes on and we can watch on the couch while you have your snacks.”
Dirk licked orange juice from his fingers, blinking at John’s back as he disappeared back out the bedroom door.
He ran away again, was Hal’s comment.
“Hey, what even the fuck is the deal with your boyfriend,” Dirk asked Gamzee mildly.
Gamzee blinked away the little crease between his brows and looked away from the empty doorway to shrug broadly at Dirk, smiling crookedly. “He’s fucking weird, like I said! But there’s snacks and shit, and he wants to get on his watch of a movie with us, so there’s no mad to him, it’s all good.”
He got off the bed, paused mid-stride and turned back to Dirk. “You good to have this off, now?” he asked, hooking a gentle finger through Dirk’s collar.
“Mm. I guess.” Dirk shifted to sit on the edge of the bed more reluctantly, catching Gamzee’s hand and pulling him down for a kiss.
Gamzee’s face lit and he leaned into it gratefully, his other hand rising to Dirk’s jaw. The resonance chimed pleasure and relief and soft adoration.
Dirk wasn’t exactly in a hurry to go try to figure out what the real world fallout might be from his more impetuous bedroom decisions, but also… the idea didn’t feel quite as fraught as it had. He squeezed Gamzee’s hand, affection pulsing back and forth between them, impossible to tell where it started from. He tipped his head up, yielding easily to that care.
Gamzee worked the collar buckle with nimble fingers, pulling it free, then set it and the trailing leash aside on the bed and bent to kiss Dirk again, fingertips caressing his bared neck. “Look at you, all shined up like sunlight,” Gamzee murmured.
That made Dirk smile, a little wry, mostly fond. The collar was off, but he still felt secure. “You don’t even care about the bad-ideas sex bomb we just dropped on our social circle, do you?”
“Bad ideas?” Gamzee said with a puzzled grin. “Nah, bro, no motherfucking issues here, it’ll be cool.”
Dirk kissed him, because, really, what else was he supposed to do?
-
They didn’t make their way out immediately, and Dirk half expected John to be gone by the time they did emerge into the living room, fled back to wherever Egberts and Englishes and other people that didn’t want to deal with Dirk’s weirdness went. But he looked up cheerfully from fiddling with the TV remote when they entered, smiling at both of them.
“Hey, lazy bunnies. Snacks are on the coffee table.”
“Hell yes, motherfucking snacks,” Gamzee said, bouncing over to the sofa to plop down in the middle and grabbing up a handful of orange sections. Kurloz swept up the wall behind the sofa and lurked there in a relatively restrained viney tangle.
Dirk settled next to Gamzee more gingerly, taking in the arrangement in front of the couch with a muted sense of bafflement. There were glasses of ice set out by the bottles of juice. The fruit and nuts had been moved to actual bowls. There was a stack of paper napkins with little ducks printed on them.
…Huh.
“I actually brought a couple movies,” John was saying, still fiddling around over in front of the TV, “Because I didn’t know if you’d be more in a Weekend at Bernie’s mood or a Rob Schneider’s The Animal kind of mood. What do you—oh.” John cut short.
“Hi?” he added after a minute. Cast sharp and dark over the carpet beside him, too close to really be polite, Hal just cocked his head. He didn’t unfold his arms, or shift out of his deliberately casual posture, or step back when John’s own shadow peered at him, edges rippling curiously.
Not that proximity really mattered when Hal was also a jangle of pressure and tension and presence that made no effort to minimize his disturbance of the energy of the room.
Ah. Okay. Dirk should… maybe have seen this reaction coming.
John squinted in that way people did when Hal’s presence was getting particularly… obvious. He glanced towards Dirk and Gamzee, then back to Hal. “You want to pick the movie?” he asked after another minute, holding up the DVD cases.
Hal’s irritated bewilderment slid into something like shock. Are you fucking serious, he said, fully aware that John couldn’t hear him.
The tension and irritation didn’t go away, but they faded back behind confusion and growing interest. Hal hesitated a long moment, then pointed at the pasty face of Rob Schneider.
“Cool!” John said, aiming a cheerful smile from him to Dirk and Gamzee. “That good with you guys?”
“All manner of fine by me!” Gamzee said, taking a handful of nuts. He had so far completely ignored the napkins and was probably getting sticky orange residue in the nuts every time he reached for more.
“Am I required to watch or can I just lie face down in the couch cushions and imagine myself into a better media experience?”
Suffer for your terrible sexual choices, Hal told Dirk.
“You have to watch!” John said, shaking a finger at Dirk and grinning before shoving the disc into the player. “That’s the whole point, is to enjoy an awesome movie with some great friends.”
“Friends,” Dirk echoed, in the same doubtful tone that Hal was currently examining the word with.
“Sure,” John said cheerfully, and ignored the double staredown he was treated to. “We’re bros, right?”
Dirk wasn’t sure how he’d gone from accidental threesome hook-up with—his brain fumbled through several possible categorizations for John that he didn’t really want to dwell on right now—with his boyfriend’s boyfriend. He wasn’t sure how he’d gone from that to somehow wind up in a platonic-bros movie hangout right after, but he guessed if John wanted to go full denial and paper over the issue this was one way to do it.
This conclusion was hampered by John returning to the couch and tipping his head to one side as he looked Gamzee and Dirk over. “Awww,” he said, and Dirk became very aware of being casually snuggled in against Gamzee’s shoulder, tucked in under his arm, which wasn’t anything unusual, but—
Dirk was also very aware of John leaning in close to brush a kiss onto Gamzee’s lips, and he was very, very aware when John glanced at him and then—petted a hand over Dirk’s hair.
What.
What.
Dirk was still frozen and staring blankly into space as John settled down at Gamzee’s other side, snagging a blanket to fuss into place across the three of them.
Literally what.
Are you asking me? Hal said dryly, slipping back onto the couch and plastering himself up along Dirk’s side in a line of dark, shadow head brushing close to Gamzee’s arm on Dirk’s shoulder. None of this was *my* idea.
Every stupid decision today had definitely been at least half Hal’s idea.
“Aw, fuck yes, getting a powerful coziness all up on us,” Gamzee said, smiling from John to Dirk and Hal and briefly tightening his arm around Dirk. He was absolutely radiating delight. It was impossible not to melt into the warmth of it. “Snacks and snuggles, hand them over now.”
“So demanding!” John said, and Dirk twitched when a hand landed on his head and ruffled his hair again gently. Fine, okay, Gamzee had an arm around Dirk and John had one around Gamzee, it was… reasonable that John’s hand would end up there with the way everyone was positioned. Practically accidental. Was it?
Was this remotely normal?
What, Dirk was too startled to react one time and now they were petting friends? Dirk had sex in the same room with him and now Dirk was included in John’s cuddle-with-Gamzee time? Just generally or only currently?
You’re freaking out, Hal said. He seemed much calmer now that Dirk was handling that end of things. Also infinitely more amused.
John’s shadow was perched on the other arm of the sofa and partway up the wall, curly at the edges as usual. Kurloz had been lurking overhead, the faintest prickle in the air, but movement at the corner of Dirk’s eye made him glance over to see an arc of tangled shadow stretch down the wall next to the sofa, curl over the floor, and then the resonance increased as a slim vine of it curled over Dirk’s bare foot.
Hush you, lovetoy, Kurloz said. No true danger nor threat near, naught to trouble over. That tiresome scrap of nothing may take whatever you deign to give him, but make no mistake you’re still *mine* in the end. *We* hold you close to rend or cherish as we please, my little brother and I.
Gamzee let out a contented little sigh, nuzzling into Dirk’s hair at the same time as he leaned away into John, dragging Dirk a little farther over with him.
Because his boyfriend was crazy, in a poetic death-threats as endearments kind of way, and Dirk was really kind of into it. Dirk let himself be cuddled close to Gamzee and John, heart fluttering, still in a daze of bewilderment. Hal stayed pressed up along Dirk’s side. Gamzee’s satisfaction sifted through Dirk like smoke, like a drug, warm as the blanket tucked over them. Kurloz’s tendril stayed curled over the arch of Dirk’s foot. He muttered to himself, dark and lyrical, low at the back of Dirk’s mind while John’s fingers skated idly through Dirk’s hair again. He really should—say something. About the hair-patting. Do something.
Except the intro credits were rolling on the TV screen and when Gamzee laughed at a murmured comment from John, Dirk could feel the happy rumble of it all down his side, and somehow this wound up being a thing that kept happening.
“Are we going to talk about this at all?” Dirk asked, embarrassingly close to plaintive.
Kurloz was laughing at him, he could feel it through the resonance.
“Talk about what?” John said.
Hal huffed silently. The scary part is how genuinely clueless he sounds.
“Nah, bro,” Gamzee said, squeezing Dirk briefly tighter against his side. “We’re all manner of good here, getting some wicked cuddles up to us. No need for chatter all at it.”
“Dirk, did you have your juice yet? It’s important to rehydrate after physical activity. Oh, shh, shh! Watch this, I love this part.”
Slowly and grudgingly, Dirk relaxed against Gamzee, eyeing the juice. If he was the only one who wanted to discuss things, a discussion obviously wasn’t going to happen right now, and… maybe that was okay, actually?
Because as weird as this was, it wasn’t bad. It was actually nice, if he ignored the nagging questions and bewilderment.
Hey, Hal said. Do you think this is what relaxing feels like?
Dirk huffed a little laugh into Gamzee’s shoulder, and then froze when two different smiling glances turned his way. Gamzee pressed a quick kiss onto his head; John cooed and laughed at them before turning right back to his movie.
Fingers brushed over his hair again. It was still baffling. It was still nice.
Okay, Dirk thought, leaning into Gamzee’s side, surrendering to the inexplicable cuddle pile, and the platonic-question-mark post orgy bro-date, and the honestly extremely terrible movie he was being subjected to.
Okay. Maybe. Maybe he could just… let the rest be, for now.
They were pretty high-quality cuddles, after all.