#i have a Vision about them and their stupid dumbass relationship dynamic that I need to yell about later but for now: this | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

feroluce · 1 year

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When Al Haitham dreams, it's in shades of sandy blonde and red, metallic gold and feather-blue. His nightmares are colored much the same.

Kaveh leisurely strolls ahead of him, shoes leaving deep treads in the soft desert sand. He keeps a careful distance, arms length, and in return Al Haitham keeps an eye on him, the other man's back dead center in his sights.

He curses the sand in his boots and the long line of footprints he steps into, already the exact shape of the soles of his shoes.

They aren't lost. Al Haitham knows where they are. They've been here before. They are still here.

Kaveh doesn't watch their feet. His head is constantly tipped back with his eyes on the stars and their constellations (of which Al Haitham only knows two, Vultur Volans and Paradisaea). He'll walk right into a cactus like that. Al Haitham yells ahead for him to watch where he's going.

Kaveh reaches up to touch the side of his head in a strange motion, but otherwise there's no acknowledgement. They press on into the dark of night.

Something squelches beneath Al Haitham's boot.

It stops him short, pulls his attention like a magnet and as much as he wants to, he can't ignore it. He doesn't want to lose any more ground. But something won't let him move on. Al Haitham watches as red seeps into the golden sand, spills beyond the border of his bootprint until he slides his foot aside.

It's an ear.

It's a human ear, and there's a heavy earring attached, metallic gold, gems red and green, a familiar shape, a familiar shade-

Al Haitham opens his mouth to yell. Chokes. Swallows the lump in his throat as he quickly restarts his pace. Tries again.

"Hey!"

Another squelch under a hurried footstep. He doesn't stop to look. Al Haitham is pretty sure he knows what it is.

"Kaveh, hey!"

The path becomes littered, little slices and small pieces, fingertips and knuckles, Kaveh's arms once held casually behind his back now strewn along the sands. Every time Al Haitham extends his hand to him, reality warps and bends like the twisted image in a broken mirror, lines mismatched and edges jagged. Kaveh flits just beyond his grasp, fleeting fae, no longer able to hear him or to reach out to him. Al Haitham can only grit his teeth and follow.

His right foot marches forward. His left follows. His right again. His left suddenly doesn't follow, and Al Haitham is thrown off balance and pitches forward, swinging his arms outward to land on his palms and keep his face off the ground, because he's been in the desert enough times to know what a foot suddenly being stuck can mean.

Quicksand.

Al Haitham curses and swears in just about every language he knows as he tries to spread his weight as evenly as possible, stay afloat at the top of it because if he sinks, he knows he'll be done for, and shit, Kaveh.

His neck cranes uncomfortably in his search, Kaveh had only been a few feet in front of him, he can't be sunk much further, and he's in the desert much more often than Al Haitham anyway, he'll be familiar with what to do-

Kaveh stands in front of him, empty sleeves fluttering loose. Still just out of his grasp, still watching the stars. The quicksand is already up to his calves.

"Say, Al Haitham..." It's the first he's spoken this whole time. His voice resonates somewhere deeply nostalgic in Al Haitham's chest, produces a ripple that momentarily stuns his heart.

Kaveh is sinking.

Al Haitham stretches out on his belly as far as he's able, it's quickly up to his knees, Kaveh isn't even trying to redistribute his weight or pull himself out, it's at his thighs, Al Haitham sucks in a breath and yells for him, his hips, yells louder, his waist, Al Haitham's trembling fingertips can almost reach, his chest, Kaveh drops level with him, quicksand about his neck like a noose.

Kaveh's head tips back, back, impossibly far back, until it hangs, angle awkward, and he's looking right past Al Haitham with his tired smile and gouged, blinded sockets full of starlight.

"Do you believe in karma?"

The quicksand swallows him entirely and Al Haitham dives, shoves his arms deep and pushes off with the one foot he'd had left on safe ground, because he can't, he can't, it's not the same without Kaveh, not anymore, he needs him, no one else keeps him sharp, no one else challenges him like Kaveh, if he can just grab him, if he can just pull him back up-

Al Haitham thrashes, against the sands, against gravity, against the hardwood of his bedroom floor. Clumsily scrubs the back of his hand across his face to rub the grit of quicksand and sleep out of his eyes.

Sometimes he thinks he preferred it when the Akasha was still harvesting his dreams.

He pops his head out from under his weighted blanket and lays where he'd fallen out of bed for a moment, blinking blearily against the lamplight shining from his desk in the corner. Deep breaths. His consciousness shifts along the blurred line of nightmare and reality, crosses over the slow transition into wakeful awareness.

He's home, Kaveh is home. It's dark out. The house is dead silent.

He's just going to go check, he tells himself as he peels himself out of his sweat-soaked shirt and roots around for a replacement. He's already losing memories of his nightmare, the details spilling away from him like wet ink, but he knows he needs to see Kaveh. It'll feel better to do something, anything, than try to go straight back to sleep.

He's quiet when he slips out of his bedroom door, because they both keep late hours but their bedrooms are right next to each other, and Al Haitham will never hear the end of it if he wakes his roommate up.

Lights off, door shut. Nothing conclusive. He moves out to the main room.

Kaveh sits on one of those ridiculous sofas he'd ordered three of for some reason, back to him as he tucks a lock of hair behind his ear. A mostly-empty wine bottle stands tall on the table, next to the cobbled-together remains of an architectural model that's been picked and fussed over for four days straight now.

"Kaveh? What are you doing?"

This earns him an exaggerated startle, but Kaveh doesn't turn to look at him, preoccupied with whatever new sketch or blueprint he probably has in his hands. "Ohhh, nothing," he slurs cheerfully. "Just working. Just thinking."

Kaveh has always been the world's chattiest drinker. Al Haitham waits for the rest of it.

"Say, I think...I think I asked you this years ago, back then, but you never answered me." Al Haitham feels all the blood drain from his face in ominous familiarity, drip cold down the length of his spine. Kaveh sinks into the couch until he can tip his head over the back of it, looking up at him with a tired smile and exhausted eyes.

"Do you believe in karma?"

#genshin impact #haikaveh #al haitham #kaveh #kavehtham #these two have had me chewing concrete lately god #3.6 got me frothing at the mouth #something about al haitham trying to save kaveh from himself and his own guilt complex and self-sabotage wheeee my heart #and he's normally so self-assured but he fucked it up spectacularly the first go around- good job baby-#and now it's years later he's trying again but it's something he's barely chipping away at not to mention Kaveh not wanting his help lol #and so some of Al Haitham's nightmare is objective fact and some of it is his own subjective pov #Kaveh loses his arms and ears bc al haitham is frustrated that he won't hear him out or reach out for help #and he keeps his eyes up and eventually blinds himself bc al haitham thinks of him as too idealistic and blind to reality #and kaveh does all this to himself bc when you ask al haitham about his troubles he talks about people who cause trouble for themselves #kaveh pondering the concept of karma in relation to his bad luck and misery and guilt about his father's death in the quicksand *fans self*#al haitham starting to get just a little nervous that maybe he really he can't do anything about this #or that one day it'll be too little late ough. love when I can whump character by whumping the other.#two for one special buy one get one two birds stoned at once type of deal #i have a Vision about them and their stupid dumbass relationship dynamic that I need to yell about later but for now: this #written while listening to A Sadness Runs Through Him by The Hoosiers which hilariously was introduced to me as a pla Emmet song #'but here was a man mourning tomorrow; he tried to finally drown in his sorrow'#'oh he could not break surface tension; he looked in the wrong place for redemption'#'don't look at me with those eyes; I tried to unheave the ties; turn back the tide that drew him in'#'but he couldn't be saved'#'a sadness runs through him'#extremely kaveh and haikaveh song for me ough #my fics #gore #body horror #I mean it's pretty unrealistic but still just in case

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simplifyingforces · 7 years

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Prepare to Interface [AO3 link]

Rating: Explicit Fandom: Red vs. Blue Characters: Dexter Grif, Dick Simmons Relationships: Dexter Grif/Dick Simmons

The Temple of Procreation has an algorithm. Simmons doesn’t understand it.

Simmons' HUD vitals flashed ominously at the edge of his vision as he stumbled down the hallway toward the base's storage wing. It wasn't supposed to end this way. Years of waiting, hoping, wishing -- all undone by something as monumentally stupid as this.

He stopped for a second to catch his breath, slamming his hands against the wall. If he could just make it to those sweet, solitary, air conditioned storage units, everything would be fine. Perfectly, forgettably fine. Like he wasn't about to lose his virginity courtesy of an alien-made, planet-wide aphrodisiac fine.

God, he hated Blue Team sometimes. Stupid Tucker and his stupid alien sword, casually activating temples without even entertaining the possibility of something so minor as actual, real life consequences.

Statistically, the number of pregnancies alone would put the planet under a level of strain so severe that it could cripple the entire infrastructure before they even had a chance to rebuild. He'd said that at least twice, along with a lot of other good, solid reasons backed up by peer-reviewed empirical data. He just couldn't remember them all at the moment.

"Never thought I'd see someone so set against losing their virginity," Simmons whispered to himself mockingly. That had been Tucker's only response to his perfectly sensible objections. Like it was all personal for him.

Like anyone wanted their first time to be someone coerced into wanting them.

And there it was. The other main reason for his concern, otherwise known as consent and immediate impact on individual, familial, and communal dynamics! Just because it sounded like the subtitle to a scientific study didn't make it any less true.

It wasn’t like he wasn’t open to the potential merits of the temple. He’d conceded that Chorus might benefit from a jump start to the reconciliation process, and it made some kind of weird sense on a macro level to give everyone 24 hours of ”ravenous sexual frenzy” as a means to accomplish it. He supposed.

But his own micro level life didn't need that bullshit.

Forget what Santa had said about sensitivity to the intricacies of consent as plotted into the temple's algorithm, too; if someone had been interested, they would have spoken up by now, what with him being a war hero and all. Tucker had made that perfectly clear. Tucker had also been much more of an asshole than usual lately.

Simmons absently rubbed at his collarbone. Even with the slightest pressure from the armor bearing down on it, he imagined the stitches pulling against his skin and drew his hand away. They'd been so lucky, again. Again and again, and hopefully they would no longer need to be. Church wouldn’t need to, at least.

He violently pulled his thoughts away from the Staff of Charon and started back down the hall. The heart rate monitor in his HUD placed him at 142 BPM and rising. What would happen if he didn't fuck? Santa hadn't even talked about that. He could already see the headline: War Hero Dies, Determined to Remain a Virgin.

Grif would love it at least; assuming Grif wasn't also dead from a decided lack of temple-induced fucking. He hadn't even been there to know that there was temple-induced fucking to worry about. Grif had shown zero interest in showing up at the temple today -- or for any other mission lately, for that matter. Maybe if he had been there, they wouldn't be in the position they were currently in. Grif could have-- could have-- well, probably not done anything at all, if Simmons was being perfectly honest, but at least he'd have been aware. At least he wouldn't be on his own, wondering what was happening to him right now and why.

And how would Grif be taking all this, exactly? His physical fitness had always been notably well below par. The effects of the temple already felt like the slow grip of imminent death to Simmons and he was at least ten times healthier.

It was also impossible to forget just how much Grif had completely disregarded his own safety on the Staff of Charon. His chest had absorbed countless hits of enemy fire, just because he’d insisted on taking point with the Grif Shot halfway through. The exact sound of Grif’s small grunts of pain had played in surround sound via comm as Simmons bled out through his armor. It wasn’t until the end -- Tucker surrounded by dead and dying and the room suddenly horribly quiet -- that Grif had stepped down, armor burned black and smoking.

He didn't need to contact Grif. Grif was probably absolutely fine. He was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. Usually. At least forty percent of the time. When they weren't in a crisis situation.

It wouldn’t hurt to check on him. Just a casual hello, maybe a little update on the temple.

Simmons switched over to their private channel and signaled in. Grif almost always picked up there.

No answer.

He swallowed drily and started walking faster. What if Grif was with someone? What if he wasn't and was already dead? What would Sarge say if sex (or lack thereof) literally killed half of the Glorious Red Team?

Anxiety roiled in his gut, and he groaned in irritation. Ugh, he couldn't think about Grif right now! It wasn't like he could do anything for him anyway.

The storage wing doors came up on his left and he keyed in the entry code. A couple of lieutenants ran past him as he went through the doorway, completely oblivious to his presence as they giggled and tripped over one another on the way out. His eyes followed them as they passed, face warm and heartbeat racing as he took in their roaming hands. Jealousy was stupid. Who would he even want to fuck on this planet, anyway?

He closed his eyes as a deep shudder ran through his entire body. Fucking someone, anyone, right now sounded incredible. He was actually amazed at how good it sounded. He'd put a lot of effort into not thinking about sex for so long, circumstances being what they were.

Did it matter if he thought about one person over another? Say, Tucker versus Donut, or Carolina versus Kimball?

As if on cue, images started flowing in. Very graphically.

He slapped a hand against his helmet hard enough to sting.

Focus, Simmons. Keep moving.

Around the next corner, he finally spotted the individual unit doors and let out a sigh of relief. One of them had to be available.

He yanked on the handle of the first one and let out an angry noise when it didn't budge. It wasn't like he wanted to fuck all over the canned vegetables! He just needed space and time alone, where he didn't have to worry about running into anyone and embarrassing himself for the rest of his military career. The thought of actually seeing Carolina, Kimball, Tucker, or Donut right now made him want to throw himself off a cliff.

"Let me in, come on, one of you, any of you," he demanded as he went down the line, pulling at each handle. Locked, locked, motherfucking locked. Sweat was starting to form on his brow. Heart rate at 155. He was steadily ignoring anything below his waist.

Focus.

His eyes finally lit on a door wedged open with a broom handle in the far right corner. "Thank you, god," he whispered as he bolted in, kicked the broom away, and let the door swing shut, darkening the unit almost completely. He unclasped his helmet and let it fall to the floor as he leaned back against the wall. Cool air blasted from the ceiling vent onto his sweaty hair, pushing it downward.

If Simmons had been himself, he would have checked his surroundings on entry. As it turned out, intense manufactured arousal made it incredibly difficult to focus on anything other than...well, being aroused.

And in that time, someone else in the unit had noticed him.

"Simmons?" that someone else called out from behind a wall of opened, empty cans of food. "I think there's something wrong with me." The voice paused. "Like, really, really wrong, dude."

Simmons' eyes shot open in panic.

"What the -- Grif?!"

Most of the people Simmons had met over the course of his enlistment held the same ideas about the existence of a higher power. Sim troopers, freelancers, and the people of Chorus had no reason to believe some omnipotent being looked after them from behind the scenes. Not with everything they'd been through.

Simmons had never been in that camp. No, he was confident that God existed -- in fact, God had always had it out for him specifically. He'd known that since his fifth birthday, when his dad made him cry in front of his entire kindergarten class for getting last place in Pin the Tail on the Donkey.

Moments like this just continued to confirm it for him.

"Why are you in here?!" He pushed off the wall and gestured angrily at Grif's canned food wall. Grif was just on the other side of it. Close enough to touch, if he just took a few steps forward. Not that he wanted to or anything.

"I've been coming here for weeks, dumbass! Why are you in here?!" Grif responded in kind, and maybe if Simmons had been thinking straight, he would have thought about the likelihood of Grif holing up here with endless amounts of food and dark space and silence. He would have just assumed Grif's laziness for not answering a comm instead of being dead or in the middle of orgasm. But he didn't, because half of his blood was no longer in his brain.

"God damn it, Grif!" He kicked his helmet away and slid to the floor. If he held his arms against his cheeks, he could cool himself slightly off the armor metal. It helped him focus well enough to hear Grif's indignant, irritating response.

"What the hell, dude? I tell you I'm sick -- after you barge into my space, by the way -- and you get mad at me?" Grif began to haul himself up and make his way over to Simmons' side of the room.

"Stay back!" Simmons scooted away hurriedly, slamming his back against the door. Grif didn't know. He didn't know anything, and that was dangerous as hell.

"Okay, chill," Grif said, taking an exaggerated step backward. Simmons saw his head tilt down slightly, taking him in. "Wait. You look like how I feel, which, by the way, is really, really shitty. What's going on?" Grif picked Simmons' helmet up off the floor, sweaty skin shining off the dim light of the HUD as he peered into it. He clicked the headlamp on and set the helmet on a shelf so that they could see each other more clearly.

Simmons slightly hated him for that.

"Well, if you had bothered to come to the meeting today, you would know." Simmons rubbed his temples, looking away. Of course Grif would hang out in the storage closet in his undersuit -- why wear full scale armor anymore? The war was over, and Grif's bruises probably felt a lot better that way. Unrestricted beneath breathable fabric and open to the cool, cool air. Simmons swallowed thirstily.

Silence reigned for a moment, until --

"Seriously, that's all you're going to give me? I'm trying not to die of heat exhaustion and--and-- whatever this is," Grif said as he flailed his arms in confusion, "and you're going to hang missing a meeting over my head? Cut the shit, Simmons."

"I am trying," Simmons said measuredly through ragged breath, "to focus." He clenched his fists tightly before setting them to work on his own armor. Grounding himself in simple tasks could work. Plus, he was just so hot. Maybe if he could cool off a bit, he could warn Grif. Grif needed to know.

"Focus here then, Simmons, and tell me what's going on," Grif said shortly. Simmons could see his fingers tapping against his folded arms in stiff, agitated motions in the lamplight. It was very un-Grif-like. Simmons could grab them, just for a second, put them where they'd be of better use, and --

With shaking hands, he pulled his chest piece off and placed it on the floor. Santa's algorithm was clearly bullshit. He took a knee and started methodically working on a leg, staring intently at the ground. Cool down, Simmons. Cool. Down.

"Simmons," Grif ground out impatiently, and fuck his voice, honestly, for sounding so beautifully gravelly deep.

"Grif," he said hoarsely, fumbling with the clasp on his calf. "Stop." He'd never thought of Grif's voice as beautiful before. Once he got out of this mess, he was going to write these reactions down just to prove how right he'd been.

"Stop what? You stop! No, wait; you start! Tell me why I woke up feeling like I have the biggest case of blue balls known to man!"

"Fine!" Simmons yelled, and it felt good to do it, like the smallest, greatest release. He stood and pelted the wall with the rest of his armor, satisfaction growing with each loud rattle to the floor.

"If you had gone to any of our meetings since the battle, you'd have known that conducting alien tech research is a top priority for Chorus right now." He paced as he drew on his anger to maintain his train of thought. "And Tucker's sword makes us the perfect candidates to do it. Not like you care, since you've been MIA for every mission." He paused for a second to let that truth bomb sink in, a bomb so full of truth that he actually wanted to hear Grif's inevitable excuse-laden reaction.

Instead, he got nothing but silence. "Are you even listening to me?"

And then, he made the stupid, stupid mistake of looking at Grif's face. It was unnerving how intently Grif was staring at him. Grif's body had lost all of its usual studied calmness and looked ready to spring. At him. Imminently.

Simmons let out a long, shaking breath and felt himself sway slightly, the room closing in on him and Grif in the small beam of light. Was he getting lightheaded? What was his heart rate right now?

"Forget it." Grif's voice cut through the quiet, hurried and high-pitched. "You're totally right, Simmons. I don't care enough, so you should just go ahead and take your nerd explanation somewhere else. Yeah."

"Um," Simmons responded eloquently. His anger had dissipated, leaving nothing but wanting in its wake. He should turn around and walk out. He should stop staring at Grif. He should move his ass, immediately. Right now. Any moment --

"Look," Grif continued, completely unaware of his inner turmoil. "You can tell me later, okay? I can't do this right now, with you -- I mean things! Being, you know --" He trailed off and fluttered his hands in Simmons' general direction.

The thing was, Grif had never really been the type to tell Simmons what to do. That had always been more of a Simmons-to-Grif dynamic. So Simmons should definitely go. It would be reasonable to leave. If he could bring his body back online, he would honor Grif's request, because he was someone who did the right thing. Really, he was. He didn't want to do this to Grif. He didn't. He just needed a second. Just a second to --

Without warning, Grif lurched towards him. Simmons fell backwards as Grif gave him a graceless shove, almost as if he were undecided between pushing Simmons or falling down himself. And then, inexplicably, Grif's hand clamped down hard on contact, and he pulled Simmons back towards him, making their heads bump together in the whiplash.

Simmons hissed through his teeth. Grif's touch burned through the fabric of the undersuit, and Simmons felt every part of himself radiate toward it.

"What the hell," Grif whispered, wide-eyed and half-shadowed from the narrow beam of the headlight. This close, Simmons could see one iridescent eye, and it was the clearest he'd seen Grif maybe ever. As long as Simmons had known him, he'd been awed and slightly jealous of Grif's uncanny ability to maintain the most dull and uninterested stare, regardless of person or situation. To add insult to injury, Grif's eyes were so dark that his pupils were practically invisible, giving him an added layer of immunity from the betrayal of any instinctual reactions.

Simmons had actually thought for an embarrassingly long time that Grif's eyes were black. It hadn't been until after the surgery, when Sarge had shined a flashlight in Grif's face during an implant check-up, that he'd finally realized they were a deep, warm brown. Hidden depths, he'd thought ridiculously at the time, but it didn't make it not true.

Now, Grif's closeness had let Simmons see everything, and it was so much. Too much.

"Grif," he said, and it was whiny as fuck, so annoying, he hated everything about it. What was he supposed to do? He wasn't equipped to handle this. Grif didn't know. It wasn't his fault. It definitely will be Simmons' fault if he lets this happen.

Grif released a heavy breath through his nose before releasing his grip. The loss of contact felt like losing a piece of Simmons’ own self, and it was...sad? How could a body be sad? What was the temple doing to him?

"Simmons, just...leave." Grif paused. "Please." His hand was now running through his hair, fingers agitatedly pulling at the strands as if to keep it from flying forward onto Simmons again. But he looked more at ease now. That was good. Safe.

"Well," Simmons tried to say lightly, "if you're going to bust out the niceties." He fumbled blindly for the door handle behind him.

"It might help to turn around," Grif said absently. He dragged his hand down to rub at his cheek. "Just a...just a thought."

Simmons tore his eyes away from Grif's hair, which now looked really well-tousled instead of like its usual greasy tangle. "Right." He spun around clumsily, banging his shoulder against the door.

"Fuck," he breathed, jiggling the handle. His arm still burned where Grif had touched him. "It's locked." He paused. "Wait. Why is it locked from the inside?"

Realization hit him like a lightning bolt. I've been coming here for weeks, dumbass. Weeks in which Chorus leadership had noted in meetings -- meetings Grif had skipped! -- a concerning drop in food supplies and begun creating fail-safes against smuggling. Grif's exceptional fatassery had finally gone a step too far. Why hadn't he thought for one second about the purpose of that goddamned broom handle.

Simmons stared at the door as if he could will it to open. There was nothing else to do. If he turned around, though -- if he looked at Grif -- his body sang at the thought, and he pushed down on it, hard.

"Simmons," a voice suddenly whispered against his neck, because Grif was shorter than him and holy fuck when had he gotten so close? "Simmons." Grif's exhaled breath tickled his skin, and he shivered. All he could think about was Grif touching him again. Why hadn't Grif touched him again? Grif couldn't touch him again, or it would all be over.

Simmons braced his hands against the door to stop his knees from shaking. There had to be another way out of here; all he needed to do was find it. Then he wouldn’t even have to explain the temple. It would be the most sound, practical solution to this...problem. For the best, really.

"Something's wrong with me," Grif muttered against his neck. "Talk to me, Simmons, come on, you always talk, say something, give me anything--"

Okay, Simmons, think. No other exits, no windows, nothing but Grif and his helmet’s headlight shining on their backs.

Wait. His helmet?

"I'm sorry," he said to the wall, and then pushed back hard, sending Grif sprawling with a yelp of surprise.

Simmons turned and leapt forward, fumbling for the helmet, the light careening wildly against the walls. "Come in, hello? We're stuck!" he cried out as he jammed it on his head. His hands itched to touch Grif's skin. "In here. Alone. Anybody?"

Comms couldn't be down, not for all of Chorus. That was impossible. He scrolled frantically through his HUD until he got to the alerts screen and read:

COMMS SHUT OFF FOR DURATION OF TEMPLE EFFECTS BY ORDER OF PRES. KIMBALL

"Right," he sighed, shoulders drooping. "Of course. Privacy is important, and," he let out a short, defeated laugh, "who'd be able help us right now anyway?"

He pulled the helmet off and dropped it on the floor. The light faced somewhere left of them, leaving them in semi-darkness. Below him, Grif was concerningly silent.

“Grif?” He looked down, heart pounding. “Did I kill you?”

“No. Not yet at least,” Grif muttered. Unlike the unnerving panic attack from earlier, he’d seen Grif like this before. You know, relatively calm, but also bright-eyed, slightly flushed and...wriggly, for lack of a better term. It had never been personally directed at him. Some things you just couldn’t avoid after sharing a room for long enough. Especially when your roommate decided to look at porn with you in the room.

This still wasn’t personally directed at him, Simmons reminded himself firmly.

“Look,” Grif said from the floor, "can we be real for a second?" He bit his lip and let out a soft, frustrated noise as he shifted restlessly. "I need to get off. Like, now."

Simmons could actually feel the flush that spread across his cheeks as he took Grif’s words in. This is happening. This is happening. This is happening, his brain supplied helpfully. His body stepped in to painfully remind him that it was completely and totally on board.

Grif glared up at him. "Come on, dude. Throw me a bone here.”

Simmons swallowed. Grif was proposing it, so it was fine, right? Or the algorithm made it okay for Grif to propose it. And for him to accept it, if he was understanding it correctly. "Me...me too. I guess.”

Grif nodded in satisfaction, and squirmed on the floor for a bit longer before settling on an apparently slightly more comfortable position. "So, obviously neither of us are happy about it or anything. But I -- we -- gotta do it, man."

"Right, okay.” Simmons paused. “Do what exactly?"

Visions swam in his mind of what Grif could say. What he wanted Grif to say. Correction: what the temple wanted him to want Grif to say. Obviously.

"Uh, the bare fucking minimum. Also, losing your virginity like this would be pretty awful, so. Win-win."

"Win-win," Simmons echoed, voice cracking slightly.

He was going to touch Grif, and they were going to get off. Together. Grif was going to touch him and he wanted him to. He could admit that, right? It was the temple, after all.

"Okay," he said, heart in his throat.

"Okay," Grif repeated, and it was so anxiously giddy, Simmons felt himself grimace. It wasn't Grif's fault. It wasn't Grif at all actually, so Simmons might as well make it easier.

He knelt down next to Grif. "Uh." What came next, exactly? He made an aborted motion towards Grif's chest. “Should I...?”

Grif reached out and pulled Simmons on top of him by his undersuit.

The effect was immediate. "Oh god," Simmons breathed, eyes squeezed shut. He could smell Grif's sweat. Only two layers of undersuit separated his suddenly embarrassingly hard dick from Grif's leg.

Grif let out a pained sound before his hand landed on the back of Simmons' head, sifting through his hair in a way that would have been soothing under literally any other circumstance. He reflexively bucked against Grif instead, scalp tingling from Grif's fleeting touch.

When Grif pushed back, he felt hardness against his hip and moaned. Actually moaned, like a horny teenager. Jesus Christ. The sound of it rang out disgustingly in the almost silence.

Almost, because of Grif's loud breathing, which Simmons had attributed to Grif's general state of health until he actually listened to it. He'd never made anyone respond like Grif, not in almost thirty years of living. It's the temple, his mind whispered at him, as he hitched a thigh between Grif's legs, craving another breath, another sigh, another anything at all.

"Fuck," Grif choked out, chest vibrating against Simmons. He slid his hand down to rest on Simmons' neck. The heat of it felt like jumping into a hot tub on a cold day, scalding water that made his skin break out in goosebumps.

He clenched his jaw tightly to suppress a new wave of noises from escaping into the room.

And now he sounded like a duct taped hostage. How incredibly sexy. The temple was a miracle worker if Grif’s libido survived all of that intact.

Wait, why did he even need to sound sexy? Simmons shook his head, planted his hands on either side of Grif, and pushed up and away for better leverage. It was so much easier to remember how things stood from here. They had been forced into this, Grif was the least intimidating person he knew, and so if it had to happen, who better? Just two guys helping each other out in their time of need, totally casual and mutually rewarding. So what if Simmons could still feel everything: Grif's fingers digging into his wrist and Grif’s stomach expanding outward to brush against his arms and Grif’s dick grinding on his leg, gradually making his undersuit wet? That was fine. He was just the most convenient option.

Simmons closed his eyes and concentrated on the steady, agonizing slide of pleasure until it began to lead to a rhythm that made his mind go hazy. Below him, Grif kept taking in long, shuddering breaths. It was the perfect spot, perfect pressure, more euphoric than any jerk-off session.

And then Grif did the worst possible thing. An unforgivable thing. He started fucking talking.

"Holy shit, Simmons," Grif whispered frantically, bringing him completely out of the moment. "Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit." Simmons felt Grif's hands on his hips, patting him as if to convince himself that Simmons was actually there.

"Simmons, ah --" His breath hitched and he arched up, hands gripping tightly. "That's good, so good, it's perfect -- you're perfect --"

Simmons jerked forward roughly enough to move both of them a good foot across the floor. What the fuck what the fuck what the fuck.

"Simmons? Do you like it?" Grif babbled beneath him. "Does it feel okay, or good, or --"

"Shut up," Simmons said tightly as he pressed down against Grif's leg. He desperately fixated on Grif's Adam's apple, ears prickling. It wasn't Grif. It wasn't him. It felt so good, though, hearing his name that way.

From Grif. His mind stuttered and came to a halt.

The lazy back-and-forth that had been so mind-numbingly good before was now woefully inadequate. He felt impatient with need. It burned him from the inside out, and he leaned into it.

“Okay.” Grif’s voice broke and wavered. Simmons jumped slightly at the sensation of Grif’s fingers running against his stitches. It was a weirdly gentle gesture. “Good.”

Simmons sniffed loudly as the pressure mounted under his skin. Grif’s irritating, insistent touch made him want to scream. Why were his eyes watering?

And then, Grif’s soft, shaking fingers slid away and upward to stroke his cheek, less delicate than clumsy. He could look up; it would be easy enough. Grif swallowed hard, the Adam's apple slid downward, and Simmons felt his stare, but kept holding on and away, grinding down hard and fast and panting. He was close, so close, fuck.

If Grif would just stop talking, they could finish getting off and forget this ever happened. But Grif had never listened to Simmons, not once in all their years together.

"You -- your face -- Simmons," Grif stuttered, and it was wobbly and wanting and full of unspeakable things. Grif pushed up hard and let out a startled sound from deep in his throat before falling limp, chest heaving.

"Goddamnit, Grif," Simmons gasped. "I'm gonna -- gonna --" He went taut as he shuddered into climax. "Nnnngh."

He let himself lay on top of Grif for a moment and tried to catch his breath. He had never even hugged Grif before, and now he felt like he was falling into a chasm, dark and terrifying.

He needed to get up.

"Uh, Grif, about the temple," he started haltingly, before he lost his nerve. "It causes --"

A rumbling snore interrupted him.

Simmons sighed and shifted slightly over to Grif’s side. There was come drying in his undersuit and Grif shouldn't have this much pressure on his bruises. But he was warm, and there was nowhere else to go. Also, sex with another person had been a lot more tiring than Simmons had thought it would be.

For awhile, he lay in a state of sleepy semi-panic. Should he get up? Would Grif think it was weird that he hadn’t gotten up earlier? Who cared what Grif thought anyway? Did he care? The algorithm had clearly been all wrong -- it had made two people who couldn't even procreate fuck, hadn't it? So neither of them should care about any of it, least of all some post-coital napping.

But what if Grif did?

"Shut up," he murmured to himself as he concentrated on Grif's even breathing. Eventually, he drifted into a deep, dreamless sleep.

Simmons woke to bright light flooding behind his eyelids.

"Oh look, Freckles, we have found more best friends laying down together in the dark!" Caboose's helmet stared down at them, framed by fluorescent light. "Santa says you can come out now."

Simmons pulled away from Grif so fast, his head hit the floor. "Caboose! Uh..." He looked up from the ground and groaned when he saw pink armor.

"Heyyyyy, guys! I can't believe it! I mean, I can believe it -- well, we all can, really --"

"Fuck. Off. Everyone," Grif's flat, tired voice came from behind Simmons. Simmons sat up abruptly and discreetly checked himself for decency. Somehow, Grif had found the time to put his own helmet back on. "I'm trying to sleep."

"Fine, Mister Grumpy Pants," Donut pouted. "And here I'd thought you'd be a little more happy." He stared meaningfully at Simmons before following Caboose down the hall, leaving Simmons scrambling to catch the door before it closed.

He cleared his throat as Grif made his way back behind his canned food wall. "Do you, uh, want to talk about it?"

"Did you or did you not hear me the first time, Dick?" Grif said, voice devoid of anything beyond irritation.

"Oh, thank god." Simmons grabbed his armor and fled, propping the long-forgotten broom handle in the doorway on his way out.

Simmons never directly tells Grif about the temple. He knows Grif knows when he joins Simmons at the lunch table the next day and says, "Fucking Santa and fucking Tucker," and they leave it at that.

When Donut and Tucker come in and ask for a million details, Grif threatens to gut them with the Grif Shot, and Simmons is infinitely grateful. It’s honestly better than any other conversation they could have mustered up on their own.

Simmons is also infinitely grateful that Grif doesn’t bring up his terrible sex noises or his pathetic almost-tears.

No one mentions the algorithm at all.

Simmons sees Grif in the showers later and locks eyes with the wall until he leaves. No one says anything to anyone, really, since most of the room's got their own horror stories and the scars to prove it. Thank god he has his own quarters. He has no desire to see anyone else out of armor for the foreseeable future.

That night, he jacks off and thinks of Grif's voice, just to see. Simmons, you're so good, Grif-in-his-mind says, you're perfect. He thinks of how Grif's open face might have looked, his gasps, all the things the temple made him do.

It fucking sucks.

#dexter grif #dick simmons #rvb #grimmons #red vs blue #fanfic

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