Daniel's walking-giddy-on-air lasts for a week and a half after his ignominious dismissal from Stargate Command, and the only reason Cammie knows not to get too used to it is because Nielson warns her, quiet voiceless communication with face and hands and eyes, that the other shoe's gonna drop and when it does they're going to need to be there to catch him. Sure enough, nine days later, in the middle of explaining to Daniel precisely how much Nielson-Mitchell is worth, what their ten-year plan is, and what role they want him to play in it, the fact that Daniel's left the only life he's known for the last twenty years and counting all catches up with him. And it's subtle and it's understated, nothing more than a tightening of his face and a haunted expression creeping into his eyes, but she sees it and she knows Nielson sees it too, and Nielson's warned her that letting Daniel brood is the worst possible fucking thing they could do.
So she puts her mouth on autopilot -- could explain this half-asleep and all stupid -- and thinks things over quick like a flash, and apparently her subconscious has been working on the problem already, because she realizes in less than a minute what he's worried about. Daniel, her baby, her beloved, isn't worried at all about having something useful to do (she knows damn well he could disappear happily inside his head for the next century and not run out of things to think about) and he's not worried about supporting himself (she knows how much money he's sitting on; Nielson told her he offered it up once, sweet and generous and unstinting, convinced that there had to be some miracle cure for her that money could provide, and it had warmed her heart even as she'd been amused like fuck that Daniel had apparently failed to notice just how wealthy she and Nielson really are). No, he's regressed to a more primal fear, one that's never really left him over the years, one that speaks to the scared eight-year-old he still carries with him: what if they leave me?
When everything familiar's been taken away but one thing, the thought of losing that thing becomes terrifying. She understands that. She has for a while.
So she looks at Nielson and sees that he sees it too, and she gets up from the table they're all sitting around -- down in the office, where Daniel is finally welcome, and every little bit and feature they've shown him has amused the fuck out of him so far -- and cues Nielson with her eyes that it's his turn to talk now. Walks herself (walks, walks, not a shuffle or a lurch, and things are aching but they're not screaming and she will never again take this fact for granted) over to the kitchenette. The way they're all sitting, Daniel's back is to her, and Nielson's facing her. Gives her a perfect line-of-sight to talk to Nielson without Daniel seeing.
She signs, quick and abbreviated, what she's taken a notion to do, and Nielson's face flashes thoughtful for half a second. Then he nods. Just a fraction, tiny enough that she knows Daniel won't see it, won't take notice.
"Baby," she says, her voice carrying the steel of command for all it's quiet and calm.
Daniel knows his call-names by now; he's 'baby' and a thousand variants, each more outrageous than the last. He turns around in his chair to face her, draping his arm up over the chair's back and frowning, lightly. "What?" he asks.
She casts the cane aside. It clatters as it hits the floor; she watches his eyes track the fall. She captures his attention again by holding out both of her hands, wordless order plain as day. "Come here," she says.
The frown deepens. "I --"
"You heard her," Nielson says, just as quiet, and Daniel whips his head back around to stare at Nielson; she can imagine the little frown creeping up to settle between his eyebrows. It's Nielson's command voice, too, but different than she's ever heard it, and she knows without having to be told that Nielson's trying like blazes to keep from resurrecting old ghosts. He smiles a bit. His real smile, the one that looks like sunrise over the mountains or the glory of heaven shining through the clouds. She loves that smile. "Trust the lady."
"I do," Daniel says, swift and automatic -- and oh, that trust has been hard-won, and she won't ever take that for granted either -- and then, sensing something, cocks his head. "You two are up to something, aren't you. How the hell do you do that? Nanotechnology?"
She lets the teasing go by unanswered. Now isn't the time. "I said, come here, baby," she repeats, and this time she puts a little more snap into it. He's on his feet before he seems to register he's moving, and he's still frowning a little when he comes to a stop in front of her, but it's starting to be replaced by curiosity.
She gathers his face in both of her palms, warm and reassuring. "I love you," she says. Plain, simple. He could stand to hear it a thousand times an hour until their end of days. He's just opening his mouth to say something when she rocks forward (and she can now, and she knows who to thank for it) and claims his mouth with hers.
Takes him a second to catch up with her, and she uses the advantage to set the rules, the parameters, of the kiss. Hot and wet and hungry, commanding, demanding. Reassuring. A kiss can convey a thousand messages, and what this one says is mine.
Or ours.
Nielson comes up behind him just as Daniel's starting to catch up, starting to kiss back confused and baffled but no less enthusiastic. Just enough footfall to keep from startling Daniel -- neither one of them will ever move silently around Daniel, still or now or ever. She can feel Daniel registering his presence, feel Daniel make the first fractional move necessary to pull back from her enough to split his attention, bring Nielson into the loop of his awareness, and she tightens her hands on his face and holds him still. Puts everything she's got into mouth and lips and tongue, pouring her love for him into touch and deed. By the time Nielson's hands slide over Daniel's hips from behind him, Daniel's breathless and reeling.
And she knows Daniel's life has been tragedy both high and low for years, but she knows that one of the greatest tragedies is this: he's always wanted to be able to submerge himself in surrender, grant over the threads of control into the keeping of someone else for minutes or hours, seize a chance to just revel in letting someone else bear the burden for a while. Her baby isn't built with a lick of submission, but you don't need submission to crave having someone taking care of you, and she's known for a while that having someone else take control over him, in play and in love, would leave him boneless, wanting. The tragedy is that they've never tried, because these days, it would have an even chance of triggering one of the untold nightmares that lurk beneath his surface, waiting to trip an unwary mind.
She'll be careful. She knows Nielson always is.
Daniel's always been gentle with her, always let her set her own limits and then shied away from even coming close to them, but there's a world full of new life surging through her body these days and somewhere inside her is the woman who used to know how to take boys and men in hand and run them to exhaustion and happy satiation. So she takes that half-step closer, presses her body up against his, and his hands come up to brace her hips, simple involuntary action that tells her they're still blue skies and fair flying.
She breaks the kiss, letting her hands slide down his neck, over his chest, down to skim where Nielson's hands are holding him. She rests hers over Nielson's, stroking her fingers over the backs of Nielson's palms, taking comfort from his skin the way she always has. "I am takin' you to bed right now, baby," she says: still calm, still commanding. "An' we are gonna make love to you for as long as you can stand it."
Her tone is simple, matter-of-fact, and it sends ripples through Daniel's skin. She can tell his intellect hasn't quite caught up to the idea yet, that his primate hindbrain is speaking directly to his dick without much rational thought getting in the way between. She can also see that he's getting ready to start trying to think about it, so she flexes the tips of her fingers against the back of Nielson's hands, simple subtle cue, and Nielson takes his own half-step forward to nestle Daniel between them, close and tight enough that she's careful to watch the corners of Daniel's eyes for any sign that it's sparking a panic.
It isn't, though. And Nielson dips his head to brush his lips against the bare skin that rises over Daniel's collar, and he says, in a voice that matches hers perfectly for both command and simplicity, "And all you have to do is do exactly what we tell you to."
The two of them have done this before. A dozen times, a hundred, with a stranger for the night or a single partner for a handful of months, and each time the rules of the game have been slightly varied, based on a thousand variables, but one thing stays constant. She and Nielson are fucking wicked when they want to be. Their play has always had shifting motivations: sometimes to burn an excess of energy, sometimes to immerse themselves in pleasure, sometimes as a trick of Nielson's to remind her that her body could be source of joy as well as burden. They've always been considerate of their playmates, always started with communication and parted with care, but in the end, it's always been about the two of them, the bond they share, beneath it all.
They've never done this with someone they're both in love with, never really turned their combined forces of will upon someone either one of them views with anything more binding than casual affection. It's been a while since they've done it at all. So many reasons. Two years ago she'd woken up one morning and realized that she was tired of an endless stream of casual lovers in her-and-their bed, and shortly after that she'd met Daniel, and for so long it had been a cautious near-precipice among the three of them, triangular balancing so shifting and uncertain. By the time triangle settled into triad, their patterns had been set and none of them had wanted to risk altering them, and her body had been so uncertain that nights when she could give herself over to abandon had been few and far between.
There's a part of her, even now, that wants to give Daniel over to Nielson, give Nielson over to Daniel, let them care for each other the way (she knows) they never could, in the before-times that none of them ever speak of. She knows how long Nielson waited. She knows how much Nielson loves him. She knows how much Daniel loves her, too, and she's not worried that Nielson might supplant her in Daniel's affections, any more than Daniel might supplant Nielson in hers. Each pair in their triad is just as strong, just as stable, as the others. Took them long enough to get there, but she has faith it'll hold. She's been content to watch her boys love each other with their bodies, and she hasn't felt stinted by any of the ways in which Daniel loves her too.
But ten days ago, a man with a jewel on his hand and a snake in his head reached inside her skin and set things closer to true, woke up all manner of bits she'd thought would sleep for the rest of her days, and right now, she suddenly wants nothing more than to push Daniel back against the wall and fuck him senseless while Nielson holds him for her.
So she nips at the soft skin of Daniel's throat, fierce and strong and tender all at once, and she listens to what his body is telling her to make sure she isn't treading too closely to places she shouldn't go. But Daniel only shudders again, and the sound he makes underneath her lips is pure poetry.
There's a trick to control without dominance, a trick to plying the person between them into putty in their hands without picking up the threads of bedroom games she knows Daniel won't ever respond to, and it's a trick she's out of practice with. She's never been the shy and retiring flower once his hands are on her skin, but she's always been so careful to coax him into following her lead, always laid out the information he needs (how she wanted to be touched, how she could be touched) and let him be the gentle aggressor. Easier that way, for his peace of mind and for hers, while he feared hurting her and she feared startling him.
She's always known that he worries, somewhere so deep that even he might not be aware of it, whether she truly wants him as well as loving him, whether she simply bears his touch for the sake of a love true and uncarnal and for the sake of Nielson's wanting. Daniel doesn't doubt her love, she knows that much, and he'd have to be half-blind and all stupid to doubt she enjoys the way he makes love to her. But she knows there's a part of him that fears it's enjoyment without desire, and she hasn't been able to do much about that fear save for showing her appreciation, vocal and verbal and with every inch of her skin when it's against his. She hasn't been in any place to take the upper hand and prove how much her body aches for his.
She can do it now. Or she can try.
For a second, she's worried that this won't work, that the awkwardness will be too insurmountable, that the way she still hasn't learned the new shapes and spaces of her ability and disability will prove to be her undoing. Then the old familiar click comes between her and Nielson, the slippery electric understanding that they'd been so fucking shocked to find (on a dance floor, in a club, those years ago when she'd still had nights few and far between when she could go dancing as long as she moved with care and caution, and she thinks that maybe she might be able to do it again now, someday, soon). There's a second where she half-wants to close her eyes and revel in it, the two of them together in perfect unison and perfect agreement, and she knows Nielson can feel it too, because his hands beneath hers (on Daniel's hips) still for a moment and he breathes out one tiny sigh.
But they're not doing this for them. They're doing this for Daniel, beloved, and her mouth aches for the taste of him and her hands ache for the feel of him and she knows what she wants to do.
Half a tiny twitch again, her fingers against the backs of Nielson's hands, enough to signal him but not enough to give her away to Daniel, and Nielson turns his palms over so they're facing the sky, enough for her to grab his wrists and him to grab hers. A lifeline. Familiar; they've done this before, no matter how long it's been, and they don't need to talk about it. Nielson fits his body up against Daniel's back, close and tight, and she slithers down Daniel's front (careful, careful), bearing her weight against Nielson's strength, until she's on her knees on the floor before them both, secure in the knowledge that Nielson won't let her fall.
The noise Daniel makes when he realizes what they're doing around him is half groan, half protest, and the sound of it settles right between her legs. She's not sure if it means she's hit on something he always wanted and never thought he'd get or something he'd never thought of and worries she shouldn't deliver, but she rubs her face against the top of his thigh and she can feel him, so close, his dick already hard and straining.
She can smell his arousal, iron and musk, and it makes her mouth water and her cunt tingle, and oh God she already wants to come so badly she feels like she might burst with it. There's no gentle and tender lovemaking here, nothing at all like they've learned so far. She's had to let Nielson have the fun of getting fucked through the mattress, had to content herself with making love with Daniel gentle and slow, and it's been sweet and it's been satisfying but it's never been this slippery grind of need in the pit of her stomach, the knowledge that she's about to take all he can give and give all he can take, and it feels fucking incredible.
Her body is hers again. And she's about to make Daniel's body hers, too, as much as he'll let her, as much as she can, and Nielson's murmuring soft encouragements against Daniel's neck as he slides his hands down to undo Daniel's pants, slide them down over Daniel's hips. Daniel's cock springs free before her eyes, full and beautiful, and she curls her hand around the base of his shaft and closes her mouth over it before Daniel can realize what she's about to do.
"Cammie --" Daniel's voice is strangled, high above the crown of her head, and she knows his brain is like a needle scratching across the grooves of a record, yanked sideways into a new track, struggling to catch up. He's used to the art of the long slow patient seduction, used to the thought of her being so fragile that to achieve any kind of lovemaking takes time and cooperation and effort. It's been less than five minutes since she beckoned him out of his chair. She doesn't blame him for being a little confused.
"Aaht," Nielson says, his familiar gentle chiding noise, and she knows (from the sounds above her) that Nielson's caught Daniel's hands, is wrapping his arms around Daniel's to keep Daniel from pushing her away. She doesn't miss the way Daniel's skin leaps at being pinned, doesn't miss the way Daniel exhales, the sound halfway to being a moan. She closes her eyes and concentrates on eliciting that sound again, that deep uprising of want and need. His skin is hot underneath her tongue. He tastes like salt and metal, and she breathes him in.
"Cammie," Daniel repeats, more urgently this time, and she can hear Nielson laughing, calm and confident.
"Relax," Nielson says: soft, low. "The only reason you get to say no is if you don't want this. Not because you think she shouldn't."
She knows what Nielson means -- he's trying to get Daniel to see that protesting on grounds that Daniel knows better than she does what she should and shouldn't do is an insult, is Daniel trying to exercise a level of control over her that she knows full well Daniel would be horrified to find he'd been implying -- but she's not sure if Daniel knows. But Daniel makes a muffled noise -- of protest, of desire; she can't tell -- and hell, her knees and thighs are starting to ache, dammit, and she has plans, and if she isn't careful she'll undo all the past ten days of patient baby steps. She's fucking determined that she won't squander the miracle gift of healing Daniel's provided her, won't push herself so far that she starts the cycle of further damage again, and so she allows herself one last lick (and is rewarded with another groan) before drawing back.
When she looks up, Daniel's got his eyes closed, leaning back against Nielson's chest; Nielson's got his chin hooked over Daniel's shoulder, watching the proceedings with interest, holding Daniel's arms pinned behind his back with an easy grip that she knows Daniel could break in half a second if he wanted to. Nielson catches her look and grins at her, and she knows he's thinking good to have you back, bitch.
She rolls her eyes at him -- yeah, yeah, good to be back, now shut up -- and gestures with her chin. Nielson nods. "C'mon, Daniel," he says against Daniel's neck. "We're going for a little walk."
She sits back on her heels and watches as Nielson propels Daniel where they both want Daniel to go by the simple method of wrapping one of his hands around both of Daniel's wrists, held at the small of Daniel's back, and steering him. Daniel goes along almost docilely, stumbling only once when his pants threaten to trip him, or maybe it's because he still can't manage to reboot his brain enough to actually stop and think about this. She hopes he can't reboot his brain enough to think about this. If he starts to think, he'll just cause trouble.
What they call their office is actually larger than a mid-sized apartment would be: his office, her office, the central work area they both tend to congregate in anyway, kitchenette, bathroom, server room, micro-scale casting lab. Nielson steers Daniel back towards the room they use for crash space when one or both of them is too wiped to do more than stumble in to bed after a day and a half straight of hack mode. She waits until they're both out of sight before reaching over to reclaim her cane and struggle her way up to her feet; she doesn't want to ruin the image she's projecting.
Nielson's three-quarters of the way to having Daniel undressed when she joins them, his hands roving over Daniel's skin the way he might gentle a spooked horse, quiet words of encouragement and love falling from his lips. She'd expected Daniel would be protesting, or objecting, or demanding to know what's going on, or at the very least giving Nielson his usual lip. He's not. He's standing there, his chin down, swaying slightly on his feet, leaning into Nielson's hands when Nielson pulls Daniel's shirt over his head and tosses it aside, and she realizes, watching him, that her baby's world has come crashing down around his ears and he's only starting to realize it.
This isn't about control, or about submission, or even really about sex in the end. It's about showing Daniel that they can catch him when he falls, about showing him that he's wanted, about showing him that he's loved and cherished and desired. So she flicks her eyes at the double bed waiting behind them, and Nielson catches the look the way Nielson always catches her cues. He strips himself out of the shorts he's wearing and tugs Daniel with him as he goes, shifts and tucks and arranges them until he's on his knees on the bed, his back up against the headboard and the pillows discarded, and Daniel is kneeling between his open knees, his back pillowed up against Nielson's chest.
Nielson's hands stroke down Daniel's sides, and Daniel arches back against the touch. It's an involuntary motion, she thinks. She doesn't think Daniel even realizes all of what's going on. She hopes it's because he's gone somewhere sweet inside his head, somewhere where things feel good and he wants to revel in them, and not because he's reliving old disasters and old pains. She can't tell. But Nielson probably can -- Nielson can read Daniel a hell of a lot better than she can -- and he doesn't seem worried, so she doesn't let herself worry either. Nielson will let her know if they're about to hit something dangerous.
She's the only one left in the room more well-dressed than mother-naked, so she pulls off her tank top and sits herself down on the edge of the bed before trying to shimmy out of her house-pants, not wanting to risk unbalancing herself. When she's just as naked as the two of them, she turns her head, to find Nielson nuzzling the curve of Daniel's shoulder and Daniel watching her, his eyes lidded and heavy. She meets his look, matching heat for heat, and then smiles at him, long and slow. Something in his face eases at the sight.
She gets herself up on her knees too, right in front of him, the mattress steady beneath her, and takes half a fractional second to bless the fact that she can, because it's never going to get old. "Hey, baby," she says, voice threaded with affection, and he blinks -- once, twice -- and then licks his lips.
"Hey," he says, and then shivers as Nielson rasps teeth over one of the hot-spots they've all learned how to find on each others' skin. "I --"
She is not going to let him drag them into a fucking conversation about this. She sets two fingers over his lips, and he sighs -- the Daniel frustration of not being allowed to deliver whatever critically important point he's cooked up inside his head -- and makes a face at her. She laughs. "Shh," she says. "Talk later. Naked now."
His lips quirk underneath her fingers. She can see that he's starting to surface from the confusion, from the cloud of sensation, and the last thing she wants is for him to start thinking. So she steels her shoulders against the potential of pain -- invisibly to Daniel, she knows, and just as plain to Nielson as though she shouted it from the rooftops -- and straddles Daniel's lap with one smooth motion. Nielson shifts them both so that they're both leaning back a little more, positions himself so Cammie can prop both her knees against his legs, and just as Daniel's brows are drawing together in a what-do-you-have-planned frown, she wraps her arms around his neck for leverage and grinds her cunt against his dick.
Once, twice, and Daniel's eyes are closing and his head is falling back against Nielson's shoulder, and Nielson slides his hands around to grab her ass as she hitches up another quarter-inch and welcomes Daniel inside her.
The noise Daniel makes is like a more gentle version of the noise he'd make for a punch to the gut. She can feel the flutter of muscles in her thighs, the strain of holding herself over him even with Nielson's hands there to support her, but the burn doesn't begin to compare to the beautiful burn of the way Daniel feels inside her. She rocks against it, delighting in the feel, the stretch, the solidity, and oh, she can already tell that this is going to be fucking incredible.
Daniel's hips are stuttering against her, like he can't help himself, and he doesn't seem to know what to do with his hands, but she can tell that he thinks this is what she had in mind. That he thinks Nielson's only here to be an extra pair of hands, to provide assistance and cushion the way it took Daniel so long to be able to accept as normal. She's evil enough to let him continue to think that for at least a little while longer. She tightens her arms around his neck and goes back to kissing him, deep and slow, and it's enough of a distraction that she knows he doesn't even realize it when Nielson contorts his spine and leans for the bedside table.
They've never brought anyone else down here, but they keep lube stashed anyway, for solo sessions -- both of them firm believers in occasionally needing some assistance to take the edge off before sleep no matter how exhausted -- and the bottle might be three-quarters empty, but there's enough left for Nielson to get his hand slicked up but good. She can't see what he's doing back there, but she knows the minute he gets a finger right where it'll do the most good. Daniel's muscles all tense for half a second (nearly dislodging her in the process, and she knows they've got him when he doesn't apologize for it), and then he goes limp and boneless between them.
She hides the grin -- no use in rubbing it in -- and whispers against Daniel's mouth, "Told you we were gonna make love to you, baby." And when Daniel shudders again, it's partially her words and partially the fact that Nielson's added another finger, and the electric tingle that runs through Daniel's skin when Nielson's fingers find Daniel's prostate transmits itself straight through their joined flesh.
She and Nielson have shared lovers before, but only rarely like this -- hard to find a random pick-up who'd play this kind of game in the Springs, and as the years went by, they'd had less and less free time for catting around while they were in DC. Doesn't mean they've lost the knack, though. Nielson signals her with a jerk of the chin; she nods her head, fractionally, and tightens her arms around Daniel's neck even further, braced against the shift Nielson's about to make. Daniel makes another noise as she grips his hips with her thighs, and she can't tell if it's surprise that she has this much strength to spare or pleasure that she's bringing it to bear on him.
Or maybe it's just pleasure at what Nielson's doing, because she knows damn well her baby's learned (slow and careful) to love getting fucked, and Nielson's rising up and then sliding down and she can feel his fingers, sticky and slick, curling around Daniel's hip to brace himself as he eases his way inside of Daniel, inch by inch.
For a second they're poised there, half-balanced, trembling. She can feel the first bare stirring of a cramp in her quads, and she has just a second to think fucking hell not now before Daniel groans and pushes himself back against Nielson's dick. She can feel his own dick softening inside her, just a little, involuntary reflex, and she bears down against him to keep him from slipping free. He groans again, and then Nielson's pulling back just enough to have room to move, and Nielson must hit the right spot because between one second and the next Daniel's straight back to being hard as nails and quivering again.
They're all breathing hard. She can hear it in her ears, and it's the sound of sex and love and care.
Daniel's got his eyes shut (against the pleasure, against the sensation), but she's not looking at Daniel. She's looking at Nielson, and Nielson's looking at her, and the expression on his face is peace and contentment and just a hint of smug self-satisfaction. She grins back at him, no small amount of happy exhiliration in her own expression. Nielson shifts his hand from Daniel's hip to her own, the lube already starting to get tacky against the air, and drums the rhythm there. She concentrates just long enough to make sure she's caught it and then nods, and just as Daniel's coming down from the initial rush of feeling, starting to open his eyes so he can look around him, Nielson slides his other hand to splay across Daniel's chest and moves.
It's the fucking sweetest thing she's ever felt. Nielson's not holding back, not even a little, rolling his hips and his spine like they're on ball bearings and fucking Daniel deep and pointed. It drives Daniel into her, and she meets each of his/their strokes with abandon, rocking her own hips forward so Daniel's caught between them, held, pinned. The sound Daniel makes could only be called a whimper. She can feel her pleasure building, tight and steady, and she tenses against it.
Daniel whimpers again as she clenches her muscles around him. His head drops forward and comes to rest against her shoulder; his hands flail, and she tries not to lose the rhythm they're setting as she unwinds one arm to slide the hand down his arm, squeeze his hand, and draw it between their bodies. She puts his fingers on her clit (and shudders; the sensation sets off the first faint shocks of impending orgasm, little tiny seismic warnings rippling through her body) and holds them there with her fingers over his. He isn't thinking enough to have the coordination to do anything there, but that doesn't matter. He's touching her, and he's fucking her, and she's fucking him and Nielson's fucking him and after a few more minutes, it doesn't matter who's fucking whom, because she's stopped caring about anything but their slide of skin against skin.
She's the first one to come, and when she does, it's with Daniel's name on her lips and Daniel's body held tightly against her, but it's Nielson who's laughing in her ear.
Fuck you, Nielson, she's thinking, and any other night she'd say it, make Daniel laugh with their bickering, but tonight's not the night for it, not like this, not when they've managed to be serious, if never solemn, for this long. She settles for a scowl, the minute her eyes have uncrossed long enough for her to glare at him, and she knows he hears the fuck-you she's not saying anyway when his shoulders shake with suppressed laughter. She doesn't have the energy to care that Nielson's being an ass again; she's saving all her energy to catch the rhythm Nielson's setting again, rising up on her knees and rolling her hips and watching Daniel's face.
She will never get tired of watching Daniel lost to pleasure, seeing him once he's let his defenses down and his inner doomsday prophet has been silenced, and tonight is no different. She sets her lips against the side of his neck and tastes the salt of sweat there, flicking out her tongue to caress his skin, and she tells him over and over again, with every set of love-words she knows, that he will always be secure in their arms.
Nielson digs his fingertips into her hip (not too carelessly, not too tightly, no matter how far gone to pleasure he is, but he's always known she likes things rougher, more forceful, than her body would allow her to indulge, and he's still learning the new reaches of her limits the same way she is but he's not going to let that stop him) and heaves the three of them further up off the mattress, bearing the weight of their conjoined bodies back against him, thrusting slickly into Daniel (and through the conduit of Daniel's body into her and it conjures memories of things she'd thought long-lost). "Come on, sweetheart," he says, over top of her words to Daniel, and she doesn't know which one of them he's talking to.
Doesn't matter. She's coming again, and again, flying apart under Nielson's hands, Daniel's hands, Daniel's cock, the fierce and unrelenting joy of sex without pain and love without hurting and the glory of hoping, having, now. Together. Always. And Daniel's voice is in her ear, roaring something without words, the sound of release and relief and reintegration, and then she's holding him fast against Nielson tensing, stiffening, pressing them together as he comes with a bitten-off curse.
For one brief minute, they stay like that, all three of them up on their knees and held so tightly together it's like they're all trying to climb into each others' skin. She can feel the bird-high flutter of Nielson's heartbeat, the slower race of Daniel's, thumping against her chest. Then Nielson groans, low and deep, and she knows that means he's about to slide them sideways to collapse across the bed, so she's careful to make sure she doesn't land on anything she shouldn't when they do.
The room's hot, and it smells like sex, and the skin of Nielson's hand against her hip is fever-bright. Between them, Daniel sighs, boneless and well-fucked-out. They'll have lost him to useful thought for at least a few hours; he's absolutely hopeless post-orgasm. That was her goal, at least, and judging from the heavy weight of his arm over her side, they've succeeded. She kisses his shoulder, his chin, his nose. He makes a sleepy happy noise, and she can feel Nielson laughing again.
She's used to feeling wrung out and exhausted after sex herself, wondering how badly she's going to have to pay for it in the morning or trying to figure out how badly she's hurt herself now, but this time she doesn't. She can't decide if she feels pleasantly weary or beautifully re-energized, but she doesn't waste time with trying to figure out which. She just points her toes and stretches, as much as she can while she's still tangled up with both her men, and stifles a yawn against Daniel's shoulder.
Good enough time as any to plant the seeds. Because this has been about reassuring Daniel that he's wanted, that his place here is secure, that they are bound to him and he is bound to them and they won't leave him. Or let him leave them. And the back of Daniel's brain is a strange and primal place, bound up in symbols and signals she might never know, but Nielson knows him and Nielson's told her and she's pretty sure she knows what'll speak to Daniel's deepest fears.
So she yawns again and nestles herself into Daniel's arms, shoves one leg between his thighs so she can hook the ankle back around the curve of Nielson's knee. "So, I been thinkin'," she says, and strokes her toes over the dimple of Nielson's knee as a warning. "Maybe we should go to Vegas and get hitched."
She says it lightly, but she's braced for whatever reaction it might prompt. She knows his history; she knows there's a chance this might lead to disaster, but she also knows his old ghosts have been finding rest and there's a greater chance he might see it as how she intends it. A sign; a symbol. Ritual. All Daniel does, though, is open one eye. "What, all of us?" he says, blurry and confused, and she just wants to kiss him senseless. More senseless. Because this is what love is, this right here, warm and happy and comfortable and feeling like she never wants to leave.
"Flip you for him," Nielson says, sounding three-quarters asleep himself, and she bangs the back of her heel against the swell of his calf in protest, and it feels better than she has words for when she laughs.
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