residing under your spine

Hector grins wide and clenches his jaw against the gasp trying to rip out of his throat, fingers dug just as deep in Simon’s hips as his fangs sit in Hector’s bare shoulder. They’ve sunk further than Hector usually prefers, but he can take it.

A groan creeps past Simon’s teeth, and Hector laughs into his short, black curls. “Easy. Fuck.”

Simon flexes his jaw, tearing Hector’s skin and shoving that stifled gasp out of him. He smooths his thumb along the base of Simon’s spine, nice and slow, a callus on the first joint dragging over each vertebra. If he’d known it would be a rough start to the day, he’d have offered to let Simon take what he wanted all the same, just maybe with a few ground rules laid out so he could still use his arms later. He wouldn’t trade those sharp little teeth for the world, but between his lip and his neck and now his shoulder, fuck if they can’t do some serious damage. Even after years of trying, Hector’s not sure how to anticipate it, whether he can, or what factors add up to good versus bad versus stellar. All he knows is he’d like to avoid nicking a bone for at least another month.

This time, Simon’s not clamped right on his clavicle, so things are looking up.

“Babe,” Hector chokes out when Simon shoves the tip of his tongue into the edges of the wounds, coaxing thick bubbles of blood up past the pearly white weapons still lodged in his artery and painting the sandy-peach canvas of his skin a deep, lurid crimson. Hector’s hands flex in place. “I said easy.”

A wet shkt and another embarrassing gasp hit Hector’s ears before he actually feels Simon’s teeth slide out of him. Simon’s mouth is on him again in an instant, cleaning the treacly mess with his tongue and muffling an irritatingly collected laugh against Hector’s shoulder while Hector leans back into his pillows with a huff.

“You’re a hypocrite.”

Hector misses when Simon’s hair was longer. The pronounced little ringlets still look good twisted around his fingers when he yanks Simon back by them, obsidian encircling pale feldspar, but it’s harder to get a solid grip when he can’t wrap it around his fist thrice over like a spool of rope. Simon yelps and his mouth falls open wide, and Hector holds him there for just a moment, marveling at the way the light from the sun lamp on the bedside table bounces off his face. Hector’s terrible for wanting to play with his food so much when it is, ostensibly, a mutual buffet where he is far more firmly on the plate, but he can’t help staring for a few more seconds at how the warm, buttery yellow draws out the soft olive hues in Simon’s dark skin, giving him a glow like…

Like when he was human.

Hector has his tongue in Simon’s mouth before he can chase that thought down the rabbit hole or Simon can snap his jaw shut, though if someone gets nicked, so be it. Not like the blood will go to waste.

The first two fingers on Simon’s right hand find new homes in the oozing pits in Hector’s shoulder, and all five on his left hand claw at Hector’s muscled back until the sting shoots electricity up his spine and he whines into Simon’s laughing mouth. It’s the laugh that winds him up, and Simon’s always saying he ought to work on his patience, but he never fucking means it and Hector’s happy to prove as much, shoving a broad hand past Simon’s waistband and dragging him closer by the ass, reveling in the stuttering breath he earns himself. They should be closer, skin-to-skin from hip to chest, and while Simon’s matching black-and-red briefs and sports bra are very cute, Hector needs them out of the way immediately. Releasing his grip on Simon’s hair, he runs his fingers down Simon’s spine, snaps the elastic around his ribs hard, and groans when Simon won’t give him another damn sound for it.

Warmth trickles from both their mouths as Hector pulls Simon back just enough to speak, tongue nearly tripping over the viscous swirl sticking them together. “Can you get this off already?”

Blood stains Simon’s full lips and square chin crimson, vivid against his skin where the light catches it and more so against his white teeth when he laughs, again, and Hector wishes he could bite the sound clean out of Simon’s mouth. “Could you learn a little patience?”

“Well,” Hector drawls, rolling the single syllable along his hard palate, “no. You’re bleeding me dry, and I’m gonna fuck you before I pass out one way or another. So.” He ignores another laugh and tugs the red elastic as far as it’ll stretch, basking in the sharp crack and the hiss when it hits Simon’s skin again. “You want me to?”

“And have it go the same way as my shirt?”

Well, Simon’s fault for coming back to bed half-dressed.

“I’ll find it later.”

“Your bedroom eats everything.” Simon huffs through his nose and props himself back with a palm on Hector’s chest, no longer finger-fucking the bite wounds in his shoulder, though their tips linger dangerously close. “And you’re being dramatic about the blood.”

Hector gawks, conquest on pause even as his grip on Simon’s ass tightens. “I am not, you bit me three fucking times! Deep!”

“No deeper than usual, I promise.” Simon searches his face for a moment, then slips the hand cradling Hector’s shoulder blade up to hold the back of his skull, fingers threading through his hair, loosening the tie still tangled in his light brown waves from sleep. Hector’s lashes flutter at the change in pressure, the cool rush of nerve endings remembering they’re alive flooding his scalp, and he nearly misses Simon saying, “I can prove it, if you’d like.”

The hand on Hector’s shoulder tenses and Hector along with it, head to toe, and he only needs one look at Simon’s self-satisfied smile and twinkling eyes to know that if he doesn’t regain the upper hand he’s going to die on the spot.

“No need,” Hector wheezes, pushing his whole hand under the band of Simon’s bra and shoving it up as far as he can until Simon takes pity on him, tugging it off the rest of the way and dropping it over his side of Hector’s bed.

Fair enough; it’d get lost in the dark red duvet and black sheets just as much as the rest of the room. Hector’s paying more attention to how his small tits bounce against his rib cage anyway.

Settling back into place, Simon bats his long, thick lashes exactly twice; Hector wants to slam him into the wall and watch them flutter uncontrollably. “If you’re certain.” Then Simon frowns, head tipping slightly to one side. “You do have to let go or these are never coming off.”

It’s sort of a crime for Simon—dear Simon, who almost bit Hector’s carotid clean open three minutes ago—to pull himself back together just long enough to taunt Hector until he’s spluttering and red in the face, but Hector can’t rightly complain when Simon fixes him with those blue-grey doe eyes and hooks his thumb into his own waistband. Hector wets his lips and lets his mouth hang ajar while he considers the plane of Simon’s stomach, the line of coarse hair he wants to run his fingers through, and the denser patch he wants to tug between his teeth, just out of sight.

On second thought.

Both of Hector’s hands move reverently, gliding around and down Simon’s body, catching on his tits and molding to every muscle and curve after. “Sure,” Hector says, ghosting his fingertips along Simon’s hips and dipping beneath the wide red elastic there. “Only…one thing first.”

Simon opens his mouth to say something—a protest or a laugh, no one will ever know—and Hector digs his fingers back into their places on his hips, fit to bruise. All at once he drags Simon’s body down hard and he thunks against the mattress, another lovely gasp tearing out of his throat. The way Simon’s arms splay near his head, wrists up and elbows out, nearly tempts Hector into throwing out his plan and holding Simon in place with his body, hiking his legs up and devouring him whole. He’s not willowy like René, whose matchstick limbs feel liable to snap in a stiff breeze, but sinewy with broad shoulders for his size and a deceptively soft waist, and every day Hector’s disgustingly glad he can haul Simon around like it’s nothing anyway. Helps when Hector’s twice his size and nearly a head taller.

Staring at the display beneath him, Hector chooses to indulge just a little, smoothing his palms over Simon’s arms and shoving his wrists hard into the mattress. “Keep those there.”

There’s a twinkle in Simon’s eyes that says he’s sparing Hector something just as mortifying as his earlier impudence, which is simple enough to ignore when Hector can crush their bodies together and put his mouth to Simon’s freshly shorn jaw, then his neck, teeth barely grazing his skin. Hector knows better than to bother the scars there, but he’ll never stop thinking about how neatly his fangs would fit in those puncture marks, a tidy one-two hovering vertically above his left clavicle, like they’d been his the whole time.

Every time those hollows peek out of Simon’s shirt collar, they tempt him.

Simon’s trachea rumbles under a fourth kiss. “So did you want me naked or not?”

“I’m getting there,” Hector sing-songs, willpower under fire, “if you would give me a fucking minute.”

“This year, if you please.”

If he insists.

Hector rakes his stubby nails through the valleys of Simon’s ribs and revels in the white-hot trails of inflammation blooming in his wake. Another yelp leaves Simon, louder than when Hector yanked his hair, and when his spine arches in shock, Hector splays a hand across Simon’s stomach to press him so gently back to the bed. Hector brushes his lips just past the hinge of Simon’s jaw, beneath his ear, and exhales slowly to force a shudder down Simon’s spine.

He could always switch gears; be gentle. After all, there is but one joyous bump in the road between them and having the whole damn day to themselves, and what sort of boyfriend would Hector be if he didn’t take advantage of all those free hours to fuck Simon over, and over, and over again?

The trapped-animal jerk Simon makes against Hector’s hand erases that line of thought entirely. He tugs Simon’s thigh up around his waist to slot their hips together, and instantly laments the fabric he hasn’t ripped off either of them yet, nice thick briefs and shitty thin boxers in a direct war against Hector’s dick. He sighs and nips at Simon’s neck, incisors only. “You are so impatient.”

Simon looks at him with an unfairly level stare and parted, still-bloody lips tugging the tiniest bit upward at one corner. “You like when I pretend to be.”

If Simon hadn’t been so desperate already, Hector really would bite him open, drink him half-dry and make him woozy and pliant. But Simon’s saucer-wide pupils and laser focus on the red pooling on Hector’s chin and seeping into his beard belie the truth behind his composure. It’s not like Hector’s ever been turned—no doubt something out there could mold a vampire into something else, though he’d rather not dwell on the possibility—but he’s got the gist over the years, how it eats and eats and eats at someone if they don’t get what they need. Born vampires have it bad enough already; what exquisite agony something even worse must be, the basest parts of oneself parched and undeniable.

Those same two cold fingers from before press right back into the nearly dry punctures in Hector’s neck, pulling new life from the wounds, and Hector screws his whole face up so he doesn’t shout. Instead he drags his nails down Simon’s flanks again while he’s stuck in place and revels in the high, shocked sound that catches in Simon’s throat and the way his lashes flutter when his eyes roll back.

When Simon’s brows and mouth relax, Hector noses into his neck with a beleaguered sigh that almost sounds convincing. “Couldn’t you have kept peeling open the last bite?”

“The first one bled better.”

“Yeah.” Hector scrapes his incisors over Simon’s collarbone, ignoring the eight-and-a-half-year-old marks he wants to claim for his own as he leaves bruises all the way to Simon’s shoulder, and bravely does not break even a single layer of skin despite Simon’s torturous, deliberate silence begging Hector to make him scream. “Because you aimed better.” Then Hector looks up again, eyes narrowed. “Were the rest just to make me hurt?”

“No,” Simon says, airily, while Hector curls two fingers over the front of Simon’s briefs and rubs slow circles against the jut of his cock. His unnecessary breath stutters a few times, and every twitching muscle in his thighs sends warmth through Hector’s skin where they’re pressed together, free hand planted where it belongs on Simon’s hip, his thick waist and chest keeping Simon’s legs splayed and his body pinned down. It’s like Simon’s synapses have forgotten how to fire, which is probably true if the sudden grip he gets on Hector’s bicep is anything to go by.

Those fingers hardly fit halfway around his arm. Hector laughs, almost grabs Simon’s wrist, kindly doesn’t, and keeps his pace. “Didn’t I tell you to keep those down?”

If there’s one thing that makes their long dry spells worth it, it’s the way Simon’s thick, shapely brows pinch together and his eyes slip shut at just the right friction, all strung out and sensitive. Being freshly fed never hurts, either—Simon never seems like he’s getting enough, which is worrisome, though Hector can’t deny the heady feeling when the thing Simon can’t get enough of is him.

He could never sustain Simon on his own—not even, he thinks, if he’d been the one to create the little monster—but it’s nice to feel needed.

“You asked for it.”

The short nails in Hector’s arm hurt in the way that makes him achingly hard, and it’s truly a shame he wants to fuck Simon so badly or he’d draw this moment out forever. He props himself on his elbows, mattress depressing beneath him, and drinks in Simon’s struggle to keep his expression level while he hooks the fingers of his unaccosted arm into Simon’s waistband again, folding it over itself and tracing his newly exposed prize. Planes of muscle tense and twitch beneath Hector’s touch as the rough pads of his fingers glide from supple skin to short wiry curls and back again; Simon’s mouth follows his body’s response, pulling flat in a familiar look that is equal parts piqued and pining.

He digs his palm in low on Simon’s stomach like he’s kneading dough, a tease as much as it is a warning, and slips further down his body. “For you to be a bitch?”

“For me to—” Simon crams his own palm over his mouth, releasing Hector’s arm and robbing him of a full-volume whine, and jerks against the hand pressing him down while Hector laves his tongue over Simon’s cock, dragging soft fabric across his skin with every stroke. What he can hear is still music to his ears with the keys just beneath his fingers, palms sliding under Simon’s legs to haul them over Hector’s shoulders. Simon tenses but doesn’t squeeze around his skull, and Hector drives his thumbs into Simon’s inner thighs, feeling his way between each adductor muscle before settling on two spots that make Simon flinch and working circles into each one.

He still won’t fucking give into temptation, which is disappointing until a hand shoots down to grip Hector’s hair right at the roots instead.

A hum becomes the tease he’d form with words if his mouth weren’t busy. Those thighs twitch on either side of Hector’s head again and it takes all that worn-thin willpower not to grab Simon’s knees and shove them closed to make him shout at the sudden change in pressure. Every tiny spasm means Simon’s denying him a reaction, a squirm or a cry or a plea or any number of things Hector can’t think about too hard or he’ll want them all at once, and surely the least Hector could do is get Simon to let go.

Consider it a gift.

He presses his tongue flat to Simon’s cunt through the fabric, the tip against his hole, and Simon bucks down so fiercely with a groan caught behind his teeth that Hector considers whether it would be worth it to rip Simon’s clothes clean off and replace them later. He’s done it on accident before, bitten through fabric and felt a wash of pride and embarrassment flow over him while Simon laughed and made a home for himself alongside the shame in Hector’s chest. When Hector promised he wouldn’t do it again Simon said he wouldn’t hold his breath, and what better opportunity to prove himself a liar than the one laid out before him?

He pushes his tongue back up to Simon’s cock in time with his hands up Simon’s body, squeezing his chest and tugging at his nipples because the death grip on Hector’s hair means he can’t move his head enough to just yank Simon’s briefs down with his mouth and he needs some other outlet before he goes insane. Pulling against the hold makes Simon wind his fingers somehow tighter and Hector groans in frustration; every form of retribution he could enact would have the same effect.

“Could you please,” he starts, voice muffled by wet fabric, “let me go.”

“I could,” Simon murmurs. His lust-laden words fall heavy from his mouth, colliding with the marbles in Hector’s head and scattering them to the far edges of his skull. When the constant percussion of the ricochet stops and they fall back into place, they form a perfect arrow pointing to Simon’s femoral artery, the sluggish flow of blood beneath tepid skin. Hector grits his teeth and huffs out his nose and waits for Simon to finish the fucking thought he is clearly drawing out just because he can. All of Hector’s instincts tell him to find the right spot on Simon’s arm to grab to make his grip falter and tie him up so he stops interfering, but the chase is half the fun and he didn’t get that because Simon woke him up with slow kisses and wandering hands, for once, so the struggle in its place makes Hector’s synapses sing.

Biting Simon’s thigh open would do that too, though.

“But?”

“I like you there.” The weight of Simon’s tongue does nothing to dampen his self-satisfaction and Hector yearns only to rip him to shreds.

He shoves Simon’s thighs up as hard as he can, forcing them apart and folding him in half in one quick motion, and for a second Hector thinks that might grant him the freedom he craves before Simon adjusts his hold and scrapes his nails over Hector’s scalp, yanking the strands tangled in his hair tie and fuck, if Simon would just tug that free then Hector might forgive him for the rest. He knows what he’s doing, driving Hector up a wall because he’s got Simon bent up over himself and spread open and wet and yet can’t do anything about it.

“I could be a lot more useful here,” Hector tries again, cringing at the desperation flooding his voice, “if you would fucking let go.”

“Will you keep trying to make me?”

If Hector could see Simon’s face, he’s sure he’d find knit brows, a loose jaw, and lips pulled into a mean little smile while Hector roasts over the coals of his own desire. He pictures Simon’s eyes alternately open and closed, sharp and glassy, on the verge of giving in and ready to keep this up for as long as it takes to grind Hector into a fine paste. Could he just rip out of the hold with enough effort? Simon would take at least a few chunks of hair with him—the bald spot wouldn’t be worth it and is truly the only thing keeping Hector from throwing caution to the wind—but he needs to move so badly he’d do anything to get free. “Simon,” he whines, which sounds terrible coming out of his mouth but it makes Simon’s cock twitch in Hector’s face so maybe he’s onto something. “I’ve already said please, come on—”

The pressure releases and Hector springs into action before he has a chance to think it through. Simon’s legs thud against the mattress and his briefs end up somewhere in the next post code over, and Hector slings Simon’s ankles over his shoulders and drives two fingers into him that he doesn’t remember shoving in anyone’s mouth beforehand but he must have for how blissfully easy it is. Eight sharp crescents in his back snap Hector’s mind into place again, and Simon’s moan only sweetens the pot—open mouth, closed eyes, giving in. Those scratches are going to bleed, all of Simon’s grip strength concentrated on keeping Hector close as if he could go anywhere else. Hector drops himself closer still, letting the wide lines of his body weigh Simon down, drawing his thighs taut as bowstrings under Hector’s layers of fat and muscle. Simon whimpers, but doesn’t complain, and Hector runs his tongue along Simon’s full lower lip just to get him to lunge.

Simon takes the bait and pulls Hector’s tongue into his mouth, and the image of his cock down Simon’s throat plants itself in his mind instead, the curve of Simon’s nose against leather and his lips against metal, and while Hector doesn’t have a free hand or second to make that happen he could in a minute, once he’s had his fun here. Whichever’s easiest to grab will do, a decision for later when he’s not teasing a third thick finger into Simon and watching his pretty face screw up as he tries not to groan. The heat rising off Simon’s body is intoxicating; even when he was still human, he nearly ran colder than Hector, yet no matter how much time passes Hector’s not sure he’ll ever get used to having an icicle next to him in bed.

This, though. Feeling his warmth from the inside out and knowing it’s all Hector’s doing? Acclimating to this took but one instance, exactly twenty years and one month ago.

Simon’s leg flexes beneath him and Hector laughs, and instantly earns a sharp blow to the ribs that makes him choke on a cough. “Ow—”

In a rush, Simon wheezes, “Do something useful with your fingers or I’m going to kill you,” and when he puts it that way how can Hector possibly say no? He spreads them, curls them hard, bends his wrist to shove his palm against Simon’s cock and Simon takes the invitation without protest, finding a callus to grind into and lurching up—

Fangs slot into the marks they left over Hector’s carotid and he shouts, left hand gripping the sheets for dear life and trying not to do the same with the right hand still in Simon’s cunt. Hard to see any sort of plan through when Simon keeps trapping him in place, and it’s equally hard to keep hold of any complaints through the haze of pleasure and how the drag of Simon’s tongue over his skin shoots a trail of heat straight to his dick. He’s right where Simon wants him and the appeal is equal parts titillating and nauseating.

Giving up control is all fun and games until he can’t wrangle it back.

There’s a flash of opportunity, a sudden clench around his fingers, and Hector takes it, working Simon like clay instead of letting himself be the wheel taken for a spin, and nearly makes himself laugh at the image until Simon bites down harder at a particularly focused press against spongy tissue and they both moan, instead. If Hector could move he’d get his head back between Simon’s legs and make him come in Hector’s mouth, but the next best thing is making him come on Hector’s fingers and hoping his evil little fucking teeth unlatch eventually. Accusing Simon of wanting to bleed him dry was a joke, earlier. Funny how things work out.

Simon rakes his nails up the length of Hector’s back and grips Hector’s shoulder blades as his whole body tenses. Hector keeps his hand still save for the slow massage of his palm against Simon’s cock, pulsing with each wave of his orgasm that matches the slow magma-flow of blood from Hector’s wounds, and he just keeps drinking through it like he can’t hear or doesn’t care about Hector hissing through his teeth. Between the scratches and the bites, Hector hasn’t the faintest idea what he’s wearing later.

Whatever. It’s his party. He can go wounded if he wants. Hell, he could go naked.

Another few seconds and Simon’s jaw slackens, his fangs dislodging from Hector’s neck with a gross pop as the vacuum seal between enamel and flesh breaks. Simon’s head hits the pillow and Hector hovers over him, hair pooling around the sides of his own face where it’s fallen most of the way out of its elastic. He half expects Simon to do the honors and rip it free, gleefully putting it out of its stretched-out misery and delighting in the stroppy little ow ow ow ow that would undoubtedly flee Hector’s mouth when more than a few strands went with it, but he stares somewhere through Hector’s head with his jaw hanging open and his chest heaving on every breath. Honestly, he looks like a dream, fucked stupid and waiting for whatever comes next, but his eyes are a touch glassier than normal, unfocused, and he hardly blinks when a drop of blood hits him square in the cheek and slides toward his temple.

He usually springs back quicker. Instantly, even, a constant push and pull between them. Now the pattern’s been interrupted like a suddenly moonless tide.

“Hey.” Hector runs his thumb over Simon’s drenched lower lip and part of his chin, smearing away a slowly congealing mess of blood that’s begging to end up back on someone’s tongue. It’s easy enough for Hector to pop his thumb in his mouth and clean the whole thing off, though the taste of his own blood has always struck him as both unpleasantly earthen and too astringent, like a bad matcha latte mixed with…whatever the fuck else would make it taste sharp. If it had aspartame in, rather than sugar. Something like that.

Hector’s tongue rounds the heel of his thumb, and despite every motion he makes being right between their faces, Simon still looks through him, not at him. Surely Hector didn’t make him come that hard, although—yes, it’s been five weeks, two days, and some-odd hours, and yes Simon’s overworked and no doubt underfed, but still. Doesn’t call for a total space-out.

Hasn’t in the past, anyway. Mostly, except for—

Oh, fuck.

Hector swipes at the trail of blood on Simon’s cheek, muttering a fuck that’s more like a stage whisper when all he does is smear it around, and if he’s making a mess he may as well go all in. He presses his mouth roughly to Simon’s forehead, short beard scraping his skin, and breathes in the harsh sigh that leaves Simon’s tired lungs.

“There we go,” Hector murmurs, each word underscored by a quiet click of his tacky lips, daubing Simon’s face with blood like anointing fluid. Appropriate; he could never tell René in as many words, but he worships Simon far more than he ever could anyone else, perfectly suited to filling each other’s gaps as they are. Choosing and being chosen in return is headier even than slotting right where someone wants him.

At an entirely glacial pace, Hector lifts his head to meet Simon’s now-clear gaze, and smiles at the second sigh that leaves him, more regulated than the first. This is reasonable, normal, acceptable, proof Hector didn’t fuck it up entirely, keeping Simon caged beneath his body. It’s a fine line, he knows, and he tells himself he’ll remember better later as he starts to pull his hand from between Simon’s legs. “Hi again. You—”

Simon fists one hand in Hector’s hair and curls the other around his wrist, dragging him down to crush their mouths together hard enough that Hector groans and forcing him to keep his fingers exactly where they are, still knuckle-deep inside Simon. Ruthless incisors roll Hector’s already bruised lip back and forth, back and forth, and if that’s what they’re playing—if the cruelty’s still on the table, if Simon simply needed a minute because Hector’s very good at what he does and not because Hector reminded him of—ah, it’s fine—then he’s game. He drops to his elbow and shoves Simon right back into the mattress with his whole body, blanketing him and then some, and when Simon whines at the renewed strain in his thighs all Hector does is laugh into his red, red mouth and sink his teeth into Simon’s lip, returning the bruise tenfold.

If he fits a fourth finger into Simon it’ll make fucking him a breeze, but he has to make sure Simon doesn’t go anywhere before he gets there. Indulgent-but-flighty isn’t really something Hector’s ever ascribed to himself as a type, let alone something he’d enjoy, but he’s got two of them carved into his bedpost in different flavors—and, after all, this one’s his favorite.

Hector pulls back sharply and takes Simon’s lip with him until he hears a gasp, then graciously lets it snap back into place. He meets Simon’s stare, eagle-eyed intensity renewed, like trying to suck Hector’s soul out of his damn mouth screwed his head the rest of the way onto his shoulders again. This close, the faint puffs of Simon’s breath hit Hector’s lips in a strict staccato, betraying his still-fragile composure.

The hand in Hector’s hair finally frees the tortured strands from their confines, black elastic clutched in Simon’s palm when it hits the duvet. Hector shakes his head, wincing at the lingering strain of his unwashed roots pulling every which way against his scalp, and again when the limp waves fall around their faces and cordon them off from the rest of the world. Just as well, considering how badly they both need a shower already, and with any luck he can leverage his admirable self-restraint in not asking for one more round to get Simon to wash his hair for him.

He just…has to get there, first, and not let the sinking feeling that Simon’s returned clarity means he’s done already win.

Surely the fingers still wrapped firmly around his wrist mean otherwise.

Hector pushes himself up a fraction and forces himself to maintain eye contact while every organ in his abdominal cavity squirms. “If I get off of you, are you gonna put your clothes back on?”

Even to his own ears, he sounds pathetic. Simon stays in place—not that he has much of a choice, with Hector weighing him down, and not that he has a reason to, given how he’s the one who smashed their mouths together this time, which only worsens the mortification—though his eyes narrow and his brows shift before his face smooths back out.

“No,” he says, simply, squeezing Hector’s wrist hard enough that his bones ache, and Hector swears he feels his heart skip a beat which is incredibly stupid when it physically fucking cannot. Simon’s tongue is deliciously heavy again, that single syllable concealing a tremendous amount of consideration. What must be going through his head, shaken around as it’s been, thoughts tossed to and fro alongside his body? Hector can’t feel terribly bad about that, not when it’s earned him such a brilliant feast this early in the—whatever time it is. Day, night, colloquial, literatim; who gives a shit.

Simon rolls his ankle and Hector scowls at the loud snap right by his ear. “My legs would like a break, though.”

“You’re lucky I don’t sleep in this fucking thing,” Hector grumbles, pulling his wrist free and peeling himself off of Simon before guiding his legs to rest against the duvet, and on second thought he smears his wrinkled fingers over the fabric, too, for good measure. Simon snorts as he pushes up on his elbows, watching, and Hector duly ignores him in favor of sliding off the mattress, onto the floor, and yanking open the nearest drawer beneath his bed. Out comes his harness and whatever dick is apparently already on top of it—firm enough to be unyielding with a sort of marbled copper finish and sure, that’ll do for now, it’s not like he has to look at it long anyway—and off go his boxers, quickly replaced by leather straps and metal buckles biting far enough into his flesh that he knows they’ll actually stay in place.

At this point, if he weren’t an expert at the specifics, he ought to be killed.

He shifts his entirely-too-flashy-but-perfectly-serviceable cock in its metal ring until he gets the right friction pumping his hand over it, fastens the final buckle to keep it in place, and looks back up to Simon still staring at him with rapt curiosity.

Hector goes hot all over.

“Sit up,” he snaps, aiming for in control and landing somewhere near please don’t fucking watch me like that instead. Simon does as he’s told, the millionth small mercy he’s granted Hector amidst a trillion-star constellation of cruelties, though he still spares a glance for the full-length mirror behind Hector and seals his fate for the audacity. The second he’s propped himself halfway up, Hector leans over and shoves him the rest of the way forward by the shoulders, relishing Simon’s rough gasp, the thud of the mattress when his palms hit the duvet, the stiff line of his spine and the tension in his muscles. Hector slots in behind him, draping himself with his cock pressed to the small of Simon’s back and his hands gliding all the way down Simon’s firm arms to squeeze his wrists, pinning them solidly in place.

With his lips to Simon’s neck, Hector murmurs, “Got you,” and Simon barely bothers to huff.

He traces lines along Simon’s veins, wrist to elbow to shoulder, then down his sides, snaking both hands between Simon’s legs to grip beneath his thighs and pull his back flush with Hector’s chest. It’s awkward, sure, but Hector can support the weight easily, even as Simon grabs Hector’s forearms and shifts in his hold like the hard silicone jammed against his spine is uncomfortable or something.

One more pivot yanks them both against the headboard, and the pillows must’ve gone askew because Hector’s back thunks into the wood slats and his skull nearly follows, but he gets his bearings and hitches his knees up between Simon’s legs to force them wide open over his lap. Short nails dig those precise little crescents into his arms, and Simon’s jaw sits tense under the gentle kisses Hector trails from the space behind his ear down to his chin. Bent like that, it would’ve been easy to push Simon far enough over to fuck his thighs, nudge his cock with every thrust and make him beg for more, and really, like this, Hector could still do that; Simon’s braced himself tight, barely hovering over the shaft beneath him, and rutting against him until they both come is unreasonably tempting.

But then Hector would be oversensitive and wouldn’t get to fuck his evil little boyfriend on his own birthday so he can’t do that.

The point isn’t immediate gratification, anyway, which anyone Hector knows would think was a lie if he said it. For once it’s the opposite: not slowing down, but drawing out every action, making Simon stay and putting him on display for Hector alone, a show with an audience of one. Two, sort of, if they turn a little to the right to catch themselves in the mirror, or no one if they’re both performers, but nobody outside Hector’s head is counting, so he won’t either, except for the one-two-three-four fingers he presses to Simon’s cunt all at once or the five-six-seven-eight times his breath stutters as they slide all the way in. The back of Simon’s skull hits the topmost part Hector’s shoulder, the curve where his occipital bone flows into his cervical vertebrae fitting neatly along the rest, and Hector stares at the mouthwatering line of his neck, in perpetual disbelief that someone else got to mar the skin and the life of the most beautiful man he’s ever met in his whole thirty-nine years on this stupid fucking planet and then left him there. Could have been anywhere else—shoulder, thigh, the wrist if someone felt like risking a whole hell of a lot of nerve damage—yet there they are, perfectly symmetrical pockmarks on bold display, and the artist who placed them so carefully didn’t even want him.

Hector swallows the saliva pooling beneath his tongue and curls his left hand around Simon’s neck, digging right over the apathetic flow of his arteries where he knows the pressure feels best, and Simon swivels his head and cracks his eyes open to glare at the underside of Hector’s jaw.

“I don’t need to breathe,” he mutters, shifting his grip to Hector’s thighs, and honestly Hector has no idea what he has to do to turn Simon’s brain off already.

He lands on spearing the base of his index finger hard into the hollow of Simon’s throat. “You still need air to speak.”

Simon’s diaphragm spasms in what Hector figures is a laugh but doesn’t care to let up the pressure to confirm. He holds firm, flexing the fingers he has buried in Simon just to feel him choke on the gasp that can’t make it past his windpipe, and it only takes a few more seconds for Simon’s long lashes to flutter and his jaw to drop from the pressure in his skull. He might not need to breathe, and he lacks a human pulse, but the blood still flows and the currents in their bodies still react to stimulation, all of which Hector is exceedingly glad for when he rocks his hips and presses the tip of his cock against the base of his own fingers, and Simon’s spine arches away from Hector’s chest which only chokes him harder on Hector’s hand. There’ll be bruises on Hector’s thighs later identical to Simon’s fingers, to match his arms and his back and maybe his shoulders, and probably everywhere else by the time they’re through; the only way it could be more blissful is if Simon made him bleed there, too.

The hand on Simon’s neck shifts up, palm cradling his trachea, thumb and two fingers locked around his jaw and the rest dug into Simon’s flesh to keep him in place. His larynx bobs uselessly against the base of that same index finger, held tightly in place to keep Simon from swallowing, because he won’t choke if he just stops trying to breathe.

If the drool runs down his chin and pools in the webbing of Hector’s thumb, then that’s all right.

Hector drags the fingers on his right hand out of Simon’s cunt by just one knuckle, and grins when Simon grabs his wrist again, forcing them back in.

“You want it?”

Simon’s whole right leg tenses and kicks, and Hector fucking laughs. If he had the leverage, he’d surely be aiming for Hector’s knee, but Hector has Simon pinned at two very delicate spots with his legs angled out just so for a reason. It’s the only way he can run his mouth without consequence, though Simon’s jaw flexing under his grip like he’d rend Hector further asunder if he could has its own appeal.

As always.

Slowly, more to force Simon to feel the friction and less out of any real patience Hector possesses, he pulls his fingers out, swipes them over his cock, then the sheet, makes a note to do laundry or, frankly, just change the whole bed and deal with the rest later, and lets go of Simon’s face to lift him up, both hands curled under his ass, thumbs driven between tight cords of muscle at the highest curves of Simon’s thighs. The gasp that follows truly is the sweetest sound in the world, relief and pain swirled together like lemon curd in ice cream, as Hector angles his hips and holds Simon just over the tip of his cock.

That gasp multiplies threefold and only then reins itself in, a series of short inhales and longer exhales following in its wake. They stutter through Simon’s nostrils and Hector presses his face to the nape of Simon’s neck, breathing in the salt, basking like a lizard in the soothing warmth radiating off Simon’s skin. Anticipation is a sweet drug Hector’s been high on this whole time. Finally having Simon along for the ride coats a balm over Hector’s lonely little soul, one that begs him to take, take, take a little more until the plea falls from Simon’s lips, too. He follows a single descending sweat droplet with his mouth and laps it up, tongue tracing the salted muscle all the way to Simon’s hairline and back down again, forging a path along his shoulder, an invisible heat map guiding Hector to the curve of Simon’s neck where he can claim what he should have had all along, baring his teeth and—

Hector rolls his hips and pulls Simon down slowly in a surprisingly smooth pair of motions, and tucks his forehead to Simon’s still-intact, entirely unharmed neck. It’s easy to blame the solid pressure through the leather for making him groan in time with the airy whines hitching in Simon’s chest, but fuck, he needs to get his shit together. No biting, not when they both need to be fine later and Simon’s constantly teetering on the edge of not.

The vise grip precisely overlapping the existing dents in his forearms flips the switch in Hector’s brain back to on and completely normal, or rather on and disastrously horny, throwing the world into full color again—red on his mouth, beneath his face where he’s smeared it into Simon’s skin for the thousandth time today alone, surrounding them entirely; the pretty slate-blue of eyes he knows are either wide open or shut tight—so he can appreciate the finer details around him, like how Simon’s putting on a show with the way he goes tense under Hector’s hands like he’s trying not to squirm and how Hector ought to say thank you for it later.

He’ll certainly say it for the shout he earns yanking Simon the rest of the way onto his cock.

Eyes open; definitely open.

Drawing it out also means doing whatever he wants, and Hector has to ignore the little voice in the back of his mind saying what he really wants is to just fuck Simon properly and get off already, even if it is most certainly not wrong. Right now, the process is the point, the destination only a fraction of the solution, no matter how hard Hector is and how little friction it would take to make him come. He peers down the length of Simon’s body over his shoulder, at how they fit perfectly together when he slides his hands up to the slight dip of Simon’s waist, just like his tits when Hector cups them and squeezes. Simon moans low and soft, hooking his left arm back around Hector’s neck, and Hector catches the other by the wrist before it can go anywhere else.

Simon’s head whips to the side, enormous eyes glaring daggers through Hector’s decidedly no-longer-lonely soul. “Are you joking.”

Hector grins, just barely catching the subtle flush beneath Simon’s skin, and it instantly morphs into a grimace when the hand behind Hector’s neck winds itself in his hair and tugs hard.

“Be patient. I’ll touch you.”

“This year.”

Tears prick the corners of Hector’s eyes as Simon tightens his grip with every passing second. “I already made you come once, you fucking monster.”

“Am I not allowed,” Simon asks, while Hector’s scalp positively sings in pain, “to want more?”

Hector scrapes his way up Simon’s ribs to twist his nipple only half as hard as he’s done to Hector’s hair, smiling when Simon’s whole face pinches and his lips part on a grimace, and nearly bites through his own lip at the veritable winch against his roots.

“Fucking bitch. Should’ve tied you up for real.”

“Not too late.”

“Sort of is,” Hector hisses, one hot tear rolling down the side of his face.

Simon fishes the salt out of Hector’s beard with his tongue, and Hector drops his wrist and shoves his fingers so far back in Simon’s mouth he chokes.

If Hector has to choose between Simon shutting up and Simon keeping his evil fucking hands to himself, he’ll take the former, even if it means Simon’s teeth threaten to split his skin and add more wounds to today’s collection. To some extent he deserves it for how hard he forces Simon’s tongue down, cutting off his airway and warring with Simon’s bite strength to see whether or not his jaw stays closed. He wants to touch more than he wants to keep Simon from touching himself, and pulls Simon’s wrist to his own mouth, scraping his teeth across his long-dead pulse point before letting it drop.

Two hands would have been nice, but Hector can make do with one.

He starts by roving his fingertips up the delicate skin of Simon’s inner arm, the lines of his veins pushing out into Hector’s touch, meeting him halfway. The hand wound in his hair neither tightens nor loosens, so Hector leaves Simon’s jaw exactly as it is, held open under the weight of four fingers jammed into his mouth and stroking the furthest bumpy taste buds they can find. He follows the curve of Simon’s bicep to his shoulder, then down his chest, molding his whole hand to Simon’s tit. The light weight settles in his palm so exquisitely, Hector almost moans.

When Hector thumbs over his nipple, slower than a flick, shorter than a proper circle, Simon’s tongue bobs in place while his hips rock down of their own accord. Hector does it one more time and adds a firm squeeze before gliding his hand down further, palm flat to Simon’s stomach, fingers grazing the juncture of his hip and thigh, coming to a sudden stop with his thumb nestled in Simon’s pubic hair, just above his cock.

Simon’s right hand has done nothing at all with its granted freedom, merely resumed its perch on Hector’s thigh, nails resting lightly over the half-moon indents but not digging in.

He has not tried to touch himself again. He has not done anything, in fact, like he knows the pit a speck of well-earned obedience will drop in Hector’s gut, because he does, even if it’s all trite and ridiculous and he’s laughed a thousand times at how weak Hector is to the most bog-standard power plays. But what’s the point of sex if not to indulge?

What’s the point of anything, really?

Hector works his tongue and incisors over the meat of Simon’s shoulder, sucking hard to burst the capillaries beneath his mouth into a dark enough splotch that he’ll be able to see it later, and slots his index and middle fingers around Simon’s cock, trapping the base of it right against the webbing between them and pinching tight. Like this, he can feel the way he splits Simon open, the faintest brush of silicone where the last thumb-width or so won’t quite fit at this angle slicking Hector’s fingertips. He presses on the metal O-ring and sucks air through his teeth at the hot jolt it shoots through his gut. Not yet, not yet, not yet, because it’ll be better if he just waits a minute, makes Simon come again and turns him into putty and then takes what he wants, flips Simon over to sink into him one last time.

Patience is not one of Hector’s strong suits.

The tender, wet flesh of Simon’s throat spasms around the fingers still in his mouth. Hector tugs them free and locks his spit-soaked grip around Simon’s jaw again, holding it open to catch the tail end of a winded moan.

“Again,” Hector begs, lips hovering uselessly over the sharp jut of Simon’s clavicle atop his shoulder. The sound that follows is small, high-pitched, just too breathless to really be called a keen; while worthy of museum curation, Hector figures they can both do better than that. He squeezes Simon’s cock between his fingers, tugging on a downstroke, one, two, three times before finally ripping a cry from where Simon’s lodged it behind his gritted teeth on the fourth, broad palm held fast against each attempted roll of Simon’s hips. He’ll take what Hector gives him and nothing more until he breaks.

Things would go faster if Simon would stop holding out on him through sheer force of will. He’s strung taut enough to snap and his cock throbs under Hector’s touch yet he still won’t give in, the crumbling edges of his composure dusting their bodies with stone and grit as the fissures deepen but refuse to crack, and Hector’s resolve fractures under the seismic stress,instead, exposing the fault line of his fetid, honeyed insides.

The hand on Simon’s jaw drops and snakes along the arm behind Hector’s head, squeezing around the base of Simon’s palm and grinding his radius and ulna and all of his carpals together until his hold on Hector’s hair releases and another pained noise falls from his lips. Hector sighs into Simon’s neck, self-satisfied, and wrenches that tortured wrist forward to meet its twin, locking them both tight in his grip. He ignores some vague protest as he tucks them to Simon’s sternum, fits his other hand around Simon’s hip to keep him in place, and rocks himself forward, crashing them both into the mattress.

If he’s rotten to his molten core, that’s all right, so long as it earns him that same guttural groan and Simon clenching so hard around his cock he feels it shift in the harness every day for the rest of his eternal life.

His own moan, pitchy and shameless as it is, he could do without.

Hector’s hips move of their own accord, barely pulling out before thrusting back in, punching moans from Simon’s chest that trail off into soundless puffs of air the harder he drives forward. There’s a background percussion of their bodies that Hector hardly hears, not past the rush in his ears and the way his open mouth waters where it hovers over Simon’s craned neck, his cheek and chest at painful angles against the bed. His skull would hit the footboard if not for Hector’s fingers wound around his hip, thumb anchored in the divot just above his ass, and while Simon whimpers so pitifully when he’s hurt, there are easier ways to get there than a head injury. Release the wrists straining against Hector’s grip, twist his head to the side, and Hector would have easy access to bleed Simon a little stupid, too, drain him and fill him in tandem, unravel Simon with his body the way he’s done to Hector, ribbons strewn across the sheets to stitch back together later.

But life isn’t fair, Simon is not his, and Hector can never have what he wants.

Saliva drips from Hector’s lips onto Simon’s skin, sending a shiver up Simon’s spine as it traces a path to the underside of his chin, right where it meets his throat, and falls the rest of the way to spread dark tendrils through the fibers of the duvet.

Hector snaps his jaw shut, biting off a groan. No, no, can’t fucking do that, already told himself as much a dozen times—maybe later, after, that can be his birthday gift if he asks well in advance of the party and Simon takes care of himself until then, but still undoubtedly in the terrible idea corner—and Hector swears he hears a huff of laughter beneath him. When he pulls back, though, sliding out of Simon with a quiet squish and hooking an arm around his shoulders to flip him over, Simon fixes him with a hot stare and erases that thought entirely.

“Sorry,” Hector mumbles, apparently the only one embarrassed by his repeated near-disastrous indiscretions, and wonders if Simon even knows why he’s saying it. Maybe it doesn’t matter when Simon’s already remapping the planes of Hector’s back, nails carving new topography into his flesh, and hiking his thighs around Hector’s waist to squeeze him around the middle right as he grabs Hector’s ass and urges him forward.

It certainly doesn’t matter when Simon leans up and licks his mouth and whispers a simple don’t against his lips.

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Simon’s other hand is already between them to help Hector shove into him again, angling him just right so he glides in easy, and Hector lets out a whine he doesn’t want to think about, and Simon won’t ask him to, and everything is so good.

A couple seconds of darkness pass, along with what he’s sure are more than a few warbling moans—it is not his fault Simon knows how to shift his hips to send electric shocks up Hector’s spine, nor that Simon uses that knowledge for evil—before Hector cracks his eyes back open. Simon’s staring at him, storm-cloud irises barely visible past a sea of abyssal black, while Hector pants like an idiot virgin. Shiny fingers hover over Hector’s jaw, thumb dangerously close to Hector’s lower lip, creeping closer to the tip of his tongue with each passing moment.

No biting, no apologies, and no more fucking power struggles or erotic coups d’état, either. Hector grasps the wrist settled just past his chin, finds the other, fixes them both to the sheets, and stares right back. Just let him fucking win.

Time stops, the two of them locked in a silent war of attrition, Hector alone waiting for the white flag. Tendons creak beneath his grip. The longer Simon draws this out, the more Hector wants to snap his little bird bones and keep him home while they mend, but he is good, and does not do that. He is patient, and cautious, and kind, even though Simon’s been able to take worse for years now.

At what point can he stop treating it like it’s new? Today? A year ago? What about all eight?

The arms held fast beneath Hector’s palms slacken.

The metronome ticks.

Time moves again, and so does Hector. Wrists go in one hand, Simon’s thigh gets pinned back against his chest with the other, and Hector rams his cock into Simon hard enough they’ll both have bruised hips in an hour.

Simon’s tongue flicks at the wounds on Hector’s neck again, curling the edges up and out to pull perhaps one last drop of deep red ichor from Hector’s too-pliant flesh. Frankly it’s a miracle he can find the faculties to tease at all between the onslaught of Hector’s heavy thrusts and the low, stilted noises that Hector knows mean Simon’s better sense is rapidly unspooling itself from his body. Warm, wet muscle flexes to a point and tries to worm its way between outer skin and dermis like a scalpel and still Hector can’t find it in him to mind, though maybe that’s the overwhelming heat flooding his body and the insistent pulse of his cock getting to his head, or the mere fact that the wounds are too small for Simon to get any real leverage to peel him like an orange. Every frenzied motion drives him closer to the brink of insanity; one of these days he’s going to careen right off the edge of the cliff and find out what awaits him at the bottom of the sea, but right now all that’s waiting for him is an orgasm, a nap, and one too many drinks at René’s. That first order of business creeps closer with every shudder down his spine, and he wishes he weren’t being so fucking pathetic about it but it’s been a while, with Simon, and it’s not like anyone else ever gets to see him quite like this, broken down to basest parts waiting to be reassembled in the aftermath, the wreckage. A singular outlet, something secret and sugared, the true depths of their natures made plain between them.

No one else would put him back into place with such care and consideration, smoothing Hector into better shapes than the ones that came before.

Sharp teeth catch on those barely seeping holes and Hector releases Simon’s thigh to thread his fingers through Simon’s hair instead, palm cradling the back curve of his skull, drawing him in and stroking the nape of Simon’s neck with his thumb. If Simon bites down now, right now, Hector might just come on the spot and what a joy that’d fucking be—not the draining and filling he’d hoped for, all focused on Simon, but its own sort of exquisite. The greater the agony, the sweeter the release, and they’ve already drawn this out and out and out long enough that sweet will not cover the half of it, if only Simon would do his part.

Simon, of course, fuck him, merely pants open-mouthed against the torn skin, spine going rigid as red-hot waves of sensation lance through Hector’s neck, each bruised and bloodied bite mark an entry point. Hector shoves his wrists down harder, hips stuttering in anticipation of a bite, and halting when it still does not come. Now that he wants it, now that he’s all but squirming for it, Simon refuses him, wriggling beneath Hector and pulling at the grip on his wrists like he didn’t offer his surrender willingly.

If Hector has to wrench it out of him again, so be it.

Tightening his grip on Simon’s roots first is easy enough. Hector balls his fist, knuckles digging into Simon’s scalp, and drinks in the whimper of protest and the renewed yank on his wrists like there’s any universe in which Simon would win a battle of strength between them when Hector could fit two of Simon in him, packed up like gorgeous corpses, with room to spare.

“Come on,” Hector murmurs, gravel in his throat tumbling against Simon’s lips where they sit pressed together in the most tantalizing kiss. “You can do it.”

Slowly, he starts to roll his hips again, picking up the pace on every other thrust until his own pants fill the air once more. Half Hector’s weight is centered on Simon’s wrists, the rest taken by his knees planted on the mattress, keeping him stable, and—

Simon’s heel collides with the side of his leg, driven hard into a bruise from work three days ago that was already blooming livid purple. Hector yelps and nearly loses his balance, dropping and crushing Simon into the bed. His knee pins Simon’s calf in place without his mind’s involvement, patella to shin, searingly painful for the both of them but worth it for the way it works Simon’s mouth open in a strained, crackling shout.

Still not a fucking bite.

The hold on Simon’s hair loosens enough that Hector can stroke his thumb along the nape of Simon’s neck, following the tense line of muscle cascading from his skull. A shudder wracks Simon’s body and sets all of Hector’s hair on end, mirrored frisson rolling over him in waves. “Come on, take, I want you t—”

Simon’s jaw springs shut like a trap, slicing through skin just shy of Hector’s carotid and biting to rend, lighting Hector’s whole nervous system on fire—and only then does an alarm bell go off in his brain.

He drops Simon’s skull, winces at the thud against the mattress, and releases Simon’s wrists half a second later. Simon’s eyes dart across Hector’s face, pupils a tiny, frantic size, side to side, up and down, placing himself in the world again. To say Hector let him go too late or that he seems unsettled would put them at war for the title of understatement of the year. Impressive; usually Hector deals in hyperbole.

Hector swallows hard, chokes on it a little, displaces half the stuffing in the duvet beneath his palms before deciding he is looming and running a hand through Simon’s sweaty curls a few times that he doesn’t count so he doesn’t take on Simon’s habit of not being able to stop. “Sorry,” he mumbles, again, and he can barely hear himself this time, but he doesn’t really need to when everything important lives in the slight downward curve of Simon’s mouth and the suddenly razor-sharp stare carving Hector up like a slab of meat. Both the lame apology and the fire raging in Hector’s body are too distant to matter.

“Don’t do that.” Simon’s words cut deeper than his gaze or his fangs, clear glass shards slicing through Hector’s arteries length-wise. “One or the other.”

Hector’s hand in Simon’s hair twitches. Don’t grab again, don’t pull, don’t force, and he wasn’t going to, but the insistence that he shouldn’t goads and cows him in the same breath, discordant notes slammed into place by clumsy fingers.

Instead he digs his other hand into red cotton and watches his knuckles go white.

“No, yeah, I—” I know. Fuck. Of course he knows the only thing Simon’s drawn a very hard line about: no making him bite when he can’t get away. Only happened after he was turned, and Hector fucked it up sometimes in the beginning but he has not in what feels like a million years and on top of making Simon miserable, it is fucking embarrassing.

So is averting his gaze and watching all the blood leave his fist, though.

Looking at Simon again might be a greater mistake. If Hector could hide his face, he would, but he can’t because he isn’t a fucking coward, and Simon—between the knit brows, the frowning, parted lips, and piercing stare, he’s flaying Hector alive without a single touch.

Clearing his throat, Hector tries again, though his second attempt still comes out thin and weak. “I won’t. I’m sorry.” Except he did, so how much is another sorry really worth? All Simon’s doing is studying Hector while he struggles for words, but what does it matter when they already know his heart outweighs the feather in spades?

Simon’s right shoulder shifts—his hand must be moving somewhere but Hector’s eyes are stuck in place, blue-grey snaring light brown—and the rest of Hector’s thoughts fall out of his mouth all at once, unbidden. “You can touch wherever you want. So we’re even. If that’s—” He grits his teeth against the words like that’ll put them back in his throat, or better yet somewhere past his brainstem before they ever came to be, because it’s a stupid fucking idea. How does that make them even, exactly? Simon must agree, raising a brow and while the corners of his full lips twitch even further south.

Hector’s face fucking burns. “Sorry, that’s not—”

“Wherever?”

The brevity tolls a death knell. There’s a shift in the air by Hector’s neck, where—fuck, he has no idea how badly Simon’s last bite tore through him, but it’s raw enough that the slightest breeze makes him hiss. If Simon wants to rip a few new scars into Hector’s flesh, though, pry him open with fingers tucked neatly inside his skin, to make him stew in it…that’s the least Hector can afford him.

He whispers an impossibly soft, “Yeah,” and Simon’s night-black pupils swallow his irises whole.

Hector knows Simon’s mouth moves in the shape of an O, which means he’s said something. He knows there’s a hand hovering beneath his jaw that stops hovering and lets its fingertips glide through the fresh, sticky mess slicking his neck. He knows there are two fingers between his legs prying the neat leather straps of his harness just far enough away from his body to graze the head of his real flesh-and-blood cock on their brutal way into him, and that they hook around his pubic bone and yank harder than any force he dealt Simon tonight, and that trying to buck away only sends that inferno under his skin into overdrive as they drag along his insides and the cock still inside Simon shoves back against the base of Hector’s own and he comes harder than he has in ages, shudders ripping through him as he clenches around Simon’s fingers more times than he can count, one-two-three-four-six-eight-fuck-you, and whatever noises his mouth sees fit to spill forth slip out of him without a care in the world.

When Hector moves again, his forehead comes away from Simon’s shoulder with a revolting wet peel and a sound to match. Sweat maybe. Blood probably. His mouth is full of salt but not metal, and he rolls his tongue along the backs of his teeth and the insides of his lips to try to push it away, neutralize the taste with nothingness.

It doesn’t work. He blinks hard a few times, and that sticks, too, leaving his eyelashes mildly grainy.

Simon laughs like a bell, and oh, that’s nice.

“Ah ah.” Slick fingers under his chin tilt his head toward the little tuts, and Hector props up himself on one shaky arm so he doesn’t have to crane his neck. Somehow, Simon looks no worse for wear, though that could be a biased perspective considering Hector feels like he was smelted and violently-but-meticulously smithed into the exact same shape as before. Simon’s smiling, too, soft instead of toothy, blood on his mouth like lip gloss, not war paint or the spoils of a hunt, which would all be darling if only he would let Hector go to sleep. “No rest for the wicked.”

Oh, come on.

It takes a minute for Hector’s mouth to offer anything but a groan. “You’re evil.”

“You started it.”

Hector…can’t really argue that one. He massages his tongue around his mouth again and starts to taste the salt dissipate; a mild improvement. He’ll take it.

Simon eyes Hector’s neck—the newest wound, the stinging one—and doesn’t wince, so maybe it’s not that bad or maybe he just doesn’t feel bad, and Hector doesn’t mind either way so long as Simon keeps staring at him like that forever. Hector takes the best inventory of the situation that he can through sensation alone: just skin, maybe muscle, feels too far over to have nicked a vein or an artery, so it’ll all heal the same. A laugh bubbles up from his chest and he lets it, though it’s quieter than he thinks it ought to be. Blood loss could do that. Or exertion. Or exhaustion.

He’d like to lie down.

Simon’s heel is still dug into his thigh, and still means it must’ve been to keep him from escaping while Simon finger-fucked him against his will.

Hector frowns. “Hey.”

“Hello,” Simon says, cool as anything, and shifts his other foot to mirror its twin, pinning Hector in place. “You still owe me something.”

“You—” Hector’s mouth falls open just far enough to catch flies. “Come on.” He fidgets in place and doesn’t miss the way Simon’s lashes flutter the tiniest bit with it; couldn’t miss it if he tried. “You’re killing me. You have killed me.”

“Only one of us knows what that feels like.”

Hector sucks his swollen lower lip between his teeth and clicks his heavy tongue. Right. The part where he fucked up. What a kind, sobering reminder.

He glances down at Simon’s lips, then meets his eyes again, forming the shape of penance in his mind like clay, inexactly handled by the blunt instrument that is his entire being.

“What do you want?”

Rather than point out the inanity of the question—Hector hears it before he’s even finished speaking—Simon takes the hand not supporting all of Hector’s weight and guides it between them, down to Simon’s cock, still warm and hard and twitching the moment Hector’s fingers press the hood up over its head.

Simon moans, low in his chest, and if that’s the sound of forgiveness then Hector will apologize a thousand times over.

If Hector had any energy left in him he’d just rock his hips to get the sort of friction Simon wants plus a little extra. Tragically, he doesn’t, wrung dry and stupid, desperate to sleep off the worst of the carnage. He can work circles with his fingers, though, tug and tease and fall into the familiar rhythm of touching Simon the way he likes without having to think much at all. Slow and steady, deep pressure, the occasional slip of his finger to make Simon gasp. Quicker when his toes curl in the sheets and his eyes squeeze shut, and slow again once he starts to come to draw the whole thing out and pull those quiet cries from him with a nice, heavy hand.

Every so often, Simon will get loud during an orgasm, but he’s always been one for stuttering gasps and little whimpers over full-blown groans and shouts. A lack of privacy during his formative years, Hector figures, and—worse, obviously. Can’t forget any of the worse lest he force his poor fucking tortured boyfriend to have Hector’s head in the public execution sort of way instead of any of the fun ones.

Well. It’s fun if you’re not the one with the sword to your neck.

When Simon’s thighs finally stop shaking, Hector smiles, and doesn’t so much pillow his cheek on Simon’s shoulder as drop his whole big head on it, sweaty skin to sweaty skin, Hector’s hair sticking to them however it pleases. He laughs at the sneer creeping up the corner of Simon’s mouth, pressing one finger into the apple of Simon’s cheek. “You love it.”

“You are…” Simon’s throat bobs in Hector’s face, as tantalizing a treat as ever. He drags a finger from larynx to hollow just to watch it happen again. “You’re unbelievably heavy.”

“Yeah.” Hector licks up the side of Simon’s neck and frowns when it doesn’t garner so much as a shiver. “Part of the appeal, right. I can just…squish you.”

“Squish me.”

“Like a bug. Peel off your exoskeleton and…” He presses his thumb into Simon’s other shoulder, grinding it in little half rotations.

Simon settles his fingers in Hector’s hair, arranging it away from his face, and scratches his scalp at the base of his skull, right where the waves tangle worst; the hair tie, Simon and René both insist, but never in Hector’s life will he stop sleeping in it or remember to comb his hair before putting it back up, so tangles it is. One or two or several catch on Simon’s fingers, and the near-silent rasp of individual strands coming undone tickles Hector’s ear drums and draws a stupid little smile to his face. Simon’s touch is always unfairly nice, but right now it’s truly divine.

“Okay,” he says, patiently. “What sort of bug would I be?”

Hector blinks and the spot beneath his cheek is dark, flat, and only vaguely damp. There’s a squeak and a clunk through the wall ahead of him, the cessation of white noise all-encompassing now that it’s gone. He frowns at the sheets and shoves his whole face into them, breathing in the salt and musk left behind since he’s not going to get it anywhere else if Simon’s already showered.

How did he get up? When did he get up? Hector must have been dead to the world, and he guesses that’s fair considering he doesn’t remember the last thing out of his mouth beforehand, but still.

He wanted to bask in the glow awhile, and now there’s no sun.

This little corner of the world is terribly cold.

If Simon’s out of bed, then Hector ought to at least check the time and see how soon he needs to start getting himself cleaned up and presentable. Moving sounds completely horrendous, as does the looming threat of any alarms doesn’t remember setting and probably did, but he does it, bracing himself on his palms and shoving himself up and oh, ow, his hips are sore. All of him is sore, which feels—weird. Unusual. The leather still cinched around his hips and thighs and ass really can’t be helping.

Picturing Simon having to wriggle off his cock and out from under him brings Hector a tiny bit of comfort while the edges of metal buckles pop out of his skin and leave him raw. He hisses running his fingers over the impressions, the angry red lines carved deepest where he’d thrown his weight while he was asleep, all along his right side. He tosses the whole thing onto the floor to trip over later and tugs a blanket that slid off the side of the bed at some point back into place, then crawls up to rest his head on a pillow, cover his legs, and check—find and check, and there it is, on the bedside table by the little sun lamp that is far too fucking bright when it’s right in his face—his phone.

8:04.

8:04 PM.

On a Saturday? On his birthday?

Surely Simon’s only doing his due diligence and cleaning off all the blood that Hector is, admittedly, perhaps even more crusted in, and scrubbing it out of his chest hair is a task he is no longer looking forward to because now he can’t ask for help that might turn into round whatever-the-fuck if he’s cute about it—but surely Simon is doing this and not, for example, getting ready for work.

If it’s eight now, how early was Simon awake in the first place? How long has Hector been up? And, well—up and back down, at least, which is presumably more than Simon can say.

Shower’s off, which means there’s nothing interesting to barge in on, so all Hector can do is wait.

He swipes through his notifications and only sort of reads them. Half are basically spam from different apps that want him to spend money—already covered on the whole birthday dinner thing, thanks—though the coupon for 40% off alcohol good through the next week is awfully tempting—but a couple are worth the effort.

Artemy [10 minutes ago]

Happy birthday. Better wishes later. I’ll make up for the delay don’t give me shit

Aramis [3 hours ago]

Simon said he would dress you, so my services are sadly unnecessary, but you should still send me a sneak peek when he’s done. 😘

He can never remember when exactly he changed Artemy’s silly little René-inflicted nickname in his phone, mostly because he never really thinks about it until he sees the two of them side by side. Chances are Artemy saw, rolled his eyes, and Hector changed it out of some misplaced sense of shame that came and went in the same instant. That sounds like the two of them. Aramis for René, Athos for Artemy, Porthos for Aloysius—an insinuation literally only René could ever get away with, though perhaps Simon could insult his boss and live to tell the tale, too—and Hector came along at just the right time to slot in as their D’Artagnan.

So says René.

If Hector were to check his contact info in René’s phone, he’s fairly certain they’d still match.

Glancing at the time stamps, Hector can imagine what the delay was. If René’s been up forever—much like someone else Hector knows, apparently—then he’s almost definitely been Artemy’s problem, doubly so if it’s for anything important; work, party planning. Both. He can picture the streamers thrown over Artemy’s head like he’s a bad maypole, livening up his limp brown hair and exhaustedly handsome face, just as vividly as he hears René’s laugh ringing in his ears and how the sound is crafted like a lock without a key.

He shoots Artemy back a quick:

Suuuuuuuuuuuure you will

And sends René a wink and nothing more. Leaving room for intrigue is vital when the recipient is the one who always leverages that room for evil.

Hector tucks his phone under his pillow and flops his head over it in case he falls back asleep and anything important happens, though he thinks he’s up for good, now, which is a shame because his bed feels nice and the blanket over him is soft and he’d love nothing more than to pass out for another few hours and rise only when he pleases.

Though if Simon’s leaving, he’d rather be awake for it.

The creak of the bathroom door after some number of minutes gets Hector to crack an eye open again, staring at the far end of the room, and half his irritation melts away in a euphoric deluge at the sight of Simon stepping into Hector’s bedroom with all of his shower-dewy skin on display and his hair only towel-dried. The way his curls clump like thick, glistening brushstrokes when they’re freshly washed always makes Hector smile just as much as it makes him want to pull his fingers through them and ruin the whole image. His eyes follow the lines of Simon’s body, catching the few bruises on his shoulders and hips that are developed enough to see beneath his dark skin, the peaks of his nipples where the warm light glances off them, the hard line of his stomach leading to the soft curve of his cock that’s just visible past his pubic hair before Simon turns to set his pile of clothes on one of Hector’s too-cushy chairs.

Staring at his ass is no consolation prize, that’s for sure. If he would just stop being careful and come a little closer…

Simon tugs on a new pair of briefs first, then another sports bra—both the same style as before, but with teal trim—then a fresh blue short-sleeved button-up, and Hector frowns. He knows everything Simon keeps in the lowest two drawers of the chest he’s standing next to, and none of those were on the list. Why bother coming back to use Hector’s shower when he has a perfectly good one right across the hallway? If he’d wanted to let Hector sleep and not wake him with the noise, Simon could’ve just stayed in his room and left without a word, maybe a text or a note on the kitchen counter about where he’d gone, set over the bread bin so Hector wouldn’t miss it. He keeps leering while Simon pulls on a pair of jeans—dark wash, worn-in, close-cut in the hips; his favorites—and Hector wonders if he’s planning on coming back from wherever it is he’s going before the party.

But René said Simon was going to help him, so he must be.

He’d better not be wearing those jeans just to sit in an office for eight hours with a man who doesn’t appreciate him even a quarter as much as he ought to.

“Something on your mind?”

Hector jumps and pretends he wasn’t lamenting the disappearance of Simon’s shoulders under soft cotton and his thighs under thick denim, or the fact that his boss is a cunt. Salt still lingers between Hector’s teeth when he wets his mouth, searching for something to say that isn’t why did you get up or I wanted more time with you or so were you going to say goodbye. Simon hasn’t even turned around, fiddling with something—a button, maybe—while he stares at Hector over his shoulder.

His mouth is gorgeous, swollen like that.

“You were thinking loudly,” Simon offers, when the silence keeps stretching, “and fidgeting.”

Instantly Hector goes still, legs no longer shuffling beneath his blanket. He pushes up on his elbow and does his very best not to look too ashamed while his leg hair tingles at the loss of sensation. “How long did you let me sleep?” His dick twitches when the thought morphs into how long was I inside you without even knowing it, and he has to stare at the ceiling for a second before meeting Simon’s eyes again.

“Half an hour before I got up.” The fiddling stops and Simon turns the rest of the way, leans his hip against the chest of drawers, and folds his arms, assessing Hector like he knows exactly what nasty question just flitted across the landscape of his mind. Hector catches the glint of rings on Simon’s fingers before they disappear behind his biceps, though he is immediately distracted by the tiny peek of chest hair past Simon’s undone collar, stopping just short of any real cleavage. The shirt’s a pretty sort of slate-teal thing, actually, with shiny black buttons all the way down, tucked neatly into his jeans. He cuts a handsome figure; Hector wants to peel every strip of fabric right back off him.

Simon raises a brow the same as when he asked wherever? and that ache only multiplies.

“Have I lost you?”

“No,” Hector snips, drawing the blanket more tightly around his waist. If Simon was in the shower for twenty, maybe thirty minutes, then Hector’s been asleep an hour, which puts them at… “Just thinking about how early you woke me up to begin with.”

Simon shrugs one shoulder and fluffs his hair in the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that he accurately but uncharitably calls Hector’s pervert wall, which is mostly unfair because it is one of two pervert walls—the one by the bed that he already ogled Hector’s ass in, the bastard, and the second opposite the door at the other end of the room, which Simon’s posed in front of, probably because it’s well out of Hector’s reach—and he should at least refer to them in the plural. “I haven’t been able to sleep in much lately.” Hector’s sure his mouth doesn’t click when he opens it but Simon waves him off anyway without even looking, and he tries very hard not to get distracted by the flash of rings again—gold, gold, gold. “Nothing out of the ordinary. I’m fine. Really.”

Hector flops forward and perches his chin in his palms, fingers cupping his face, legs folded up behind him in the air like a teenager awaiting delicious gossip. “Is that why you’re dressed for work? Because you’re fine and well-adjusted, and—”

“I’m not dressed for work,” Simon says, fixing a curl around the shell of his ear, finger catching on a tiny gold hoop in his lobe, before turning to face Hector with his hands on his hips. Despite the other shoe clearly dangling overhead by its laces, Hector’s stomach does a flip. “This is for you. To look at, not touch,” Simon adds, and damn if his arms and waist don’t look nice in that shirt.

“Well.” Hector lets the syllable roll along the full length of his tongue, just as he did earlier, still staring at the folds of fabric tight across Simon’s bicep. There’s always the chance he’ll get rejected outright, but he’s already pressing his luck, and he does love a gamble. “If you come closer so I can get a better look I promise I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

“No you won’t.”

“Probably not,” Hector chirps, but the hands in question are busy propping his head up and Simon’s already striding closer, steps muffled by the plush red rug underfoot until he hits the hardwood at the end of the bed, carrying the faintest trace of vanilla and spice with him. He stops just out of reach, and Hector pouts. “Shouldn’t have let you figure out where I can’t grab you.”

“We’ve known each other for twenty years.” And three months and four days, minus about—eleven, ten, nine, eight—three hours. Simon stares at him flatly and Hector wants to bite the flat line of his mouth. “I know how long your arms are.”

“Will you wear eyeliner later?”

“Yes.” Simon’s eyes flick to the side like he’s trying not to roll them. “Here, give me your hands.”

Hector wastes no time obliging, scooting forward and bunching the blanket up under the curve of his stomach so he can plop his forearms down and wiggle his fingers without falling flat on his face. Kneeling at the edge of the bed—dangerous—Simon curls his fingers beneath Hector’s palms and squeezes his hands so very gingerly, as if his rings were venomous or made of fire.

“Don’t speak yet.” Hector’s mouth twitches down, but he stays silent, and Simon’s twitches up. “I do have to go in. I have work to tend to so it doesn’t take up the rest of our weekend,” he continues, rushing through everything after work so Hector can’t get a word in until he’s finished. “But then I am all yours.”

“Why can’t you just do it tomorrow?” Whining is still a terrible look on him, but Hector can’t help it. “It’ll still be there, and I am very much right here.”

Simon runs his thumbs along Hector’s knuckles, small calluses catching on every ridge in his skin. “Would you really rather I have to work after your party?” Carefully, preciously, he lifts Hector’s right hand and kisses over the lines he traced, soft lips brushing coarse hair and rough skin, and watches with wide, curious eyes as Hector’s face heats all the way to the tips of his ears. “No fun afterward. I’d have to be up just as early as today.”

It’s the tiny bite against the lowest knuckle of his middle finger that does it, Simon’s teeth pinching the skin and grazing bone. “Okay! Okay, fuck.” Hector snatches his hands back, folds his arms, and shoves his face in them. It doesn’t really matter whether or not Simon can hear him when he says, “No, I don’t want that,” when every word sounds bitchy enough to get the point across.

Two tiny puffs of air ruffle the hair on his arms, one little laugh, and when Hector lifts his head to glare he’s caught in the trap of Simon’s gentle smile already bearing down on him. He sinks back into his arms like a crocodile trying to hide all but its eyes beneath the water, waiting for the opportunity to strike.

Sometimes the quarry makes it easy. “Do you want a kiss before I go?”

Hector pushes himself up so Simon stands, and starts to close the gap between them, placing his palms delicately over the slight curve of Simon’s hips. “Pretty please?”

The kiss is nice. Softer than Hector would like, but even with a hand on his shoulder Simon’s minding all the bite marks, so maybe that’s why. Close-mouthed but not quite chaste, sweet with a dash of hard liquor, lingering on the tongue like bitters clinging to the dregs of a dissolving sugar cube.

When Simon starts to pull away, pressing back on Hector’s wide, sloping shoulders, Hector springs. One arm seizes Simon’s waist, the other bracing the length of his spine, palm planted high between Simon’s shoulder blades, an all-encompassing too-tight grip with Hector’s cheek rammed into Simon’s stomach, pinning him where he stands.

“Hector—”

His hand hovers just beneath the base of Simon’s neck. He could curl his fingers around it and nearly close them in the front, drag Simon onto the bed or shove him to the floor, bruise his knees and make him plead his case, or at least drain whatever urge he has to leave out of him and let it seep into the rug by the mirror. The red would hide the stain, for a time.

None of that would solve anything, though, and Hector is trying so hard to be good; for himself, for Simon, for the rest of his waking hours being as pleasurable as possible.

Being good is exhausting.

Hector exhales hard through his nose and tilts his head back to search Simon’s face. When he finds only raised brows and a wavering frown, a spark of guilt lights in his gut for what he hasn’t even said, and he opens his mouth against whatever better judgment he still lays claim to. “Was all that just to placate me?”

Simon freezes. The tiny breaths Hector hadn’t realized he was taking stop, and every muscle Hector is pressed so tightly to goes taut save for the ones in his face. Those twitch into shape—brows together, mouth pinched—before evening out again, but the unreadable look in his eyes remains the same. He pushes Hector’s shoulders again until he leans back enough that they can see each other clearly. The angle digs Hector’s arms further into Simon’s body, but he refuses to let go. Surely the look on his own face is all sorts of ugly, beastly and burning, desperate for answers, but Simon hasn’t said anything and—

“No.” Simon’s left hand smooths up the unmarred side of Hector’s neck, cool fingers brushing his hairline, and the spark begins to die. “I wanted to.” Gentle touches soothe the burgeoning flames back into embers as those fingers creep further into Hector’s hair and wind in his roots.

Pain blooms across Hector’s scalp and his eyes snap open as Simon tightens his grip. He tugs to one side, wincing at the sting.

The hand twists. He swallows hard.

Simon holds Hector’s gaze and Hector can’t help thinking, not for the first time and certainly not the last, that for someone so averse to cruelty, he’s rather fucking adept at it. “I started it.”

Four more seconds pass, silence broken only by the creaking of Hector’s jaw as he clenches it tighter and tighter. He doesn’t get out of this one with his pride intact, and that’s—that will have to be fine.

Hector relents, loosening his hold into something far more appropriate between lovers, cradling Simon by the hips, stroking apologies down his spine, and he’d press soft kisses to Simon’s stomach if only he could move his fucking head. Simon watches him for another moment, eyes steely in both color and resolve, and Hector does his very best to look ashamed so Simon might let go before he starts to tear up.

By some miracle, he does. Kind fingertips travel the aching spots on Hector’s scalp, soothing where they stung, then trail further down the nape of Hector’s neck. The tame dog dips his head willingly for his collar, appropriately punished for his transgressions, reveling in absolution.

Sorry has already lived enough lives in his mouth today, so Hector just says, “Okay.”

Simon tips his chin up for a second kiss and Hector goes with it easy, taking only as much as Simon gives because it’s all he’s going to get right now and he doesn’t need to squander the promise of more later. An eternity passes before Simon pulls away, and for a second Hector thinks later might be now, but Simon does not grab his face again and Hector lets his arms fall from their homes.

“I’ll see you later,” Simon says—there’s that word again—carving a path with his fingers through the length of Hector’s hair, helping the ends find their places around his shoulder blades. “Before the party. To help with this.” He tugs where he’s caught on a tangle and Hector hisses, jaw tensing. “Unless you were planning to go to someone else first?”

Hector swallows and sets one hand on Simon’s wrist, stroking whatever vessel lives in the dip where Hector’s thumb fits so naturally. René’s text flashes in his head and he holds back a frown, rolling his lower lip between his teeth. Anyone else he’d want the out from, permission to do as he pleases, cancel plans on a whim and make new ones to see where the moment takes him. But he wants Simon to fix him up and chide him for his mostly full bottle of conditioner that they both know he likes but never has the patience to use. He wants Simon’s deft fingers fixing whatever scant excuse for a shirt he picks and to see the little twinkle in his eyes and the way he wets his lips when he stares because nobody else makes him feel the way Hector does. He thinks about how he might tempt Simon out of his good-boy clothes and into matching him, what he can bargain with, and the feeling of Simon’s bare hip under his hand if he rucks up his shirt in the middle of René’s kitchen to put it there, just like the first time they ever kissed.

The day’s hardly started and Hector’s already done so much wrong, yet Simon’s still here, volleying it back, giving Hector grace.

Hector turns his head and presses his lips to Simon’s skin, resting his mouth in that dip instead, shuts his eyes and breathes Simon in past the vanilla and spices and soap. Then he cracks them back open and flicks his tongue against Simon’s wrist with a wide smile just to watch Simon swallow right back. “I’m not going anywhere. Who else could fix me but you?”

Simon’s eyes go wide for just a second before he reins himself in and Hector has to laugh over another yank on his poor fucking tangled hair so he doesn’t yelp. “Be normal and don’t sext me at work, I’m turning my phone off.”

“Oh come on, it’s not like you’re doing anything interesting and you could be.” Simon does roll his eyes, then, and Hector rolls onto his back and sprawls his arms out over his head while Simon abandons him for the door. “It’s my—”

“Birthday, yes, I know.” Simon huffs. “Everyone knows. René’s invitations were gaudy.” He glances over his shoulder and somehow looks even more enticing in profile, the curves of his nose and lips and long fucking lashes entirely wasted on the office. “Remember you’ll have me all to yourself later. Be patient.”

“I’m not good at—”

Click-click. The door opens and shuts in rapid succession, and Hector’s bedroom is quiet. He clutches a pillow to his chest and bites it hard, incisors only, careful with the fabric.

Drinks later. Food later. A whole damn night just for him, like every year, and maybe this’ll be the first one in eight he’s felt good about afterward.

The thought rings in his head like a bell.

All to himself.