Archive of Our Own

The height of irony was that for all his getting-worked-on problems with loud sudden noises and obscured exits, Fives loved going out to the club. 

Rex had floated the idea earlier on when Fives was first home from the service, a way to blow off the steam that was threatening to implode his living situation at the time. Fives had spent five minutes gasping like a dying fish that Rex of all people was a regular at a queer club, and once Rex was done rolling his eyes at Fives’s antics, he’d been all in. 

They had it down to a regular process. First, Rex and Fives would drive over to Trace and Rafa Martez’s, which was in the same district as their favorite club. Ahsoka would already be waiting. They’d do some shots (Rex abstaining), pregame a little, shoot the shit, and just when they were wobbly enough to still make it past the bouncers, they’d call a rideshare and be off. 

Once inside the club, though, Fives liked to head off on his own. Rafa Martez, never a fan of Fives, would always roll her eyes—if he didn’t know that their distaste was mutual he would think she was jealous—but at least her little sister was cute about it, giggling and wishing him luck as he slipped away. She had a lot of luck to give, after all, Ahsoka never far from her side as they found a spot to circle up and get to dancing. 

Fives grooved through the crowd, breathing in the smell of alcohol and sweat with something like hunger. About half of the crowd were all circled up, groups of friends bopping and dancing together, while a few solo couples moved between them. Then there were those like Fives, solo, cruising, sometimes tucking up into a circle if they were accommodating, more often than not finding each other and linking up to bump and grind for a track or two before moving on. 

Well. Moving on or moving off, that is—moving off the dance floor for the bathrooms, or the booths, or the club exit, and greener pastures. Fives let the music melt time, music and a free shot a group of probably straight party girls pushed into his hands after her bent over and let the birthday girl drunkenly grind on his ass to cheers and whoops. They got tired of him, though, and he of them—too young for his blood. He checked in with Rex, made a kissy face at Rafa as she rubbed against a girl on the edge of the crowd, then plunged back into the fray, hoping that his lucky stars were aligned…

Someone slipped in at Fives’s back, warm body heat matching his height. A hand brushed at Fives’s back, at the safe spot just below his shoulder blade, then withdrew. Asking permission. Fives liked that, he liked that a lot, and he slid a half-step backward, slotting up against his new partner’s chest, feeling the promising heft of a package against the curve of his ass, a broad chest, strong arms and hands that gripped at his hips. His partner ground against him to the beat of the music, rubbing up to something hard and hot, and Fives met him move for move, letting his eyes fall closed as the music moved through him. Fuck, but he felt good. Just-tipsy enough, just fucked-on enough, feeling hot in all the right places. 

It wouldn’t be a tragedy if he went home and jacked off in the shower…

But fuck, Fives wanted to get laid.

He arched his back, fitting the line of his partner’s hard-on more securely under his ass, then reached back to tangle one hand in what felt like shoulder-length hair. Now that was nice—the only men Fives fooled around with in the service all had to have the same regulation flat-top. Civvie boys with hair long enough to grab—there was a treat Fives hadn’t gotten tired of yet since coming home. 

His dance partner liked how he tugged at the strands, if his shuddering breath and the jerky thrust of his hips was anything to go by. One hand unclasped from Fives’s hip and slid around, pressed flat to his belly, they started to go lower.

As much as Fives liked this, he didn’t want to get thrown out of the club for getting a handy on the dance floor. Rex would kill him, then Rafa. So he grabbed the guy’s wrist with his free hand and dragged it back up. Hell, he even made sure to tuck it under his shirt, just because. Sweet callouses. Working hands. Even though his hand stayed where Fives put it, his dance partner’s hips pulled back until they were no longer grinding.

“Sorry,” a voice said, close enough to Fives’s ear that he didn’t need to shout over the music. The touch of damp breath on the shell of his ear made Fives shiver, then the trailing of blunt nails down the centerline of his abs made him shiver again. “Don’t wanna make you uncomfortable.”

Damn, Fives liked this guy. He released his hold on his hair and turned around, twisting, the man’s hands falling naturally back to Fives’s hips as they faced each other in the middle of a sea of moving bodies. 

The guy was older than Fives expected, visible white-gray streaking out of his temples, skin weathered just-so, some crow’s feet at the corners of his smiling, storm-gray eyes. 

Also, he was wearing a WWE shirt, CM Punk. To a club. Fives was officially smitten.

“Hey!” his dance partner said, shouting over the bass. They still moved, grooving together to the beat, little nothing steps as the sea of bodies churned around them. “I’m Shahane!”

“Shane?!”

“Sha-hane!” He leaned in closer, neon bright on his teeth.

“Sha-hane!” Fives shouted back, matching him grin for grin. He stepped up closer, so they were touching again, dick-to-dick. He grinded his hips in a little circle as the music shifted to a new track, and he savored the slack, hungry look that drifted over Shahane’s face as he fell into the rhythm against Fives. “I’m Fives!” 

“Fives,” Shahane repeated, his grin deepening. His hands curved around Fives’s hips, slipping into his back pockets and squeezing his ass, pulling him even closer, frotting. “Nice to meet you!” 

Fives threw his head back, laughing, and slung one arm around Shahane’s neck, holding him close as they danced, rubbing up against each other. For a song, it was oh so sweet and good, mindless, letting the current and Shahane’s body take him from good to great. Shahane liked it when he knotted his hand in his hair again, bit his lip and shivered when he tugged. 

The music shifted down to a slower tempo. Still a club track, still bumping, but Shahane leaned in closer to Fives’s ear, slowing down their dance. 

“Come here often?” he asked, voice loud against the music. 

Oh, Fives liked him. “Seriously?!” he laughed. “Nice line, man.” 

Shahane’s body rumbled, laughing alongside. He squeezed Fives’s ass in a conciliatory way, rubbed their hips a little more deliberately together. He didn't follow up, so Fives answered him, because why the hell not. 

He slid his palms, flat, down the front of Shahane’s chest, then back up. “Yeah, I’m here a lot. What about you?” he shouted over the music. 

“Nah.” Shahane shook his head. “Special occasion!” 

Oh, Fives could work with this. “Birthday?” he teased out. He looked good in a bow, this could be very nice. 

Shahane’s answer surprised him. “Anniversary!” 

Fives chilled down the temperature a deliberate notch. He leaned back, pushing a little at Shahane’s shoulders to get a good look at his face in the dim club interior, colorful lights flashing across what looked like an open, earnest expression. 

Fives wasn’t stupid. He knew what Shahane dancing up on him was a precursor for. But the admission threw him for a loop. “Your boyfriend good with it?” he asked. 

Shahane juked his head in a funny little motion. “Girlfriend,” he corrected. Not a real answer to Fives’s question. Fives cranked up a brow, and Shahane continued. “She’s here, too. Celebrating. With me… if that’s cool with you.” 

Oh. Oh. 

Shahane’s hands let up, arms going loose. Giving Fives the out if he wasn’t into it. 

Fives let Shahan smolder for a second before grinning, all hunger, frotting his approval. “She around?”

Shahane’s eyes looked over Fives’s shoulder, and that was his only warning before there was a soft, warm presence at his back, hands sliding over his hips, teasing at the bare inch of skin above the waistband of his jeans, then slipping up his shirt towards his navel. 

“Hi,” a throaty contralto breathed into Fives’s ear, and he didn’t bother to suppress his shiver. Long, sharpened fingernails traced the lines of his happy trail, the music electric and sparking jolts up Fives’s spine as two soft breasts pressed up against his back. “I’m Duuma.” 

“Duuma,” Fives breathed, laughing breathlessly as the couple sandwiched him between them, such sweet body heat. “Hi.” 

Shahane’s smile was wolfish as he leaned in. For a second, Fives thought he was going for a kiss—but then he passed by Fives’s face, and over his shoulder, the wet noise of kissing was too close to be lost over the din of the music. He tightened his hands on Shahane’s hips, grinding between the couple, and they broke apart. 

Shahane’s hands came out of Fives’s back pockets and covered Duuma’s, over his hips. 

“Let’s go talk, huh?” he asked, and Fives didn’t need telling twice. 

Breaking away from the dance floor towards the private booths, Fives got a good look at the other half of the couple. Duuma was probably around his own age, big soft curves, dressed in a barely-there number of net and strings, glitter on her shoulders and cheekbones. He never would have pegged her as semi-grungy Shahane’s other half. Big perfect tits. She grinned at him, checking him out, too as Shahane led the way towards an empty booth. 

Shahane slid in first, then Duuma, then Fives. 

“Happy anniversary,” was the first thing he said to them. 

Duuma barked a laugh. “If you’re cool, then it’s gonna be,” she purred. 

“I’d hate to be a bad star,” he said, and invited her to put her hand on his thigh by nudging her leg with his knee. Shahane leaned back, slinging his arm over the back of the booth, by Duuma’s shoulders. Fives got the message quick that while Shahane had fished him, Duuma was the closer. Her hand teased at his leg, fingers trailing over the rough material of his jeans. “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

“Fucking,” Duuma said, and he appreciated her honesty. 

“I like fucking,” Fives replied, grinning.

She pinched his thigh for that. “You look like you do,” she said, and—her hand cupped the still kinda hard line of him through his jeans. Without any thought, he rolled his hips up into her touch. “You’re cool with a one-night party?”

“The kind of party I was expecting to have,” he replied, then considered his next question. “Why me?”

“Hard to peg the bi guys in here,” Shahane answered for her. “Saw you dancing up on girls and guys, so I figured you might not be a hard sell.” 

Fives’s lips twitched into a little grin, then he forced it smooth. “Calling me a slut?” he asked.

“Uh,” Shahane said, face slack with regret, “No, not like—” 

“Cause it’s not really fair,” Fives cut him off with a flirtatious turn of his lips, “you calling me that before we’ve even had a chance to fuck.”

Shahane’s worry melted away instantly into something hot and eager. “So you’re down?”

Not that Fives wasn’t intrigued, but he knew better to say yes too soon. “What’s the plan?” he asked. “Spectator sport or team?” Sure, fucking someone while their significant watched was all good fun, but if Duuma’s wandering hand was any indication, the possibility was on the table…

Duuma read what he wasn’t saying, grinning at him. “Shahane likes boys, too,” she said. Like Fives hadn’t realized that from how he’d been flossing his ass with his half-chub for the entirety of Rake it Up. “So he’d probably want a piece of you… if you’re down to share us both.” 

“Sharing is caring,” Fives replied, his dick perking up in approval. Duuma must have felt it, because she withdrew her hand, then wriggled her way between Fives and the booth’s table to straddle his lap, settling her weight on his thighs. 

Fuck. Her cleavage was right there. 

One hand came up and tilted his chin up so he was looking her in the eye. 

“Any hesitation?” she asked.

He shook his head, settling his hands on her hips. Shahane slid in close on his other side, and yeah, his lucky star was out shining tonight. “I was looking to fuck around tonight,” he said, honestly, “hell if the two of you aren’t a wet dream come true.”

Duuma grinning at that, all teeth, then ducked down to kiss him, sucking greedily on his lower lip as he moaned, opening up to her demands. How long they made out like that, Fives had no idea, lips and tongues sliding unhurriedly together. Shahane, for the most part, sat there and watched —getting watched wasn’t a particular hunger of Fives’s, but hell if it wasn’t scratching a newly awakening itch as the minutes stretched, Duuma’s tongue licking along the line of his teeth. 

Dopey and getting harder by the minute, Fives broke the kiss to catch his breath, pressing a conciliatory kiss to Duuma’s jaw, not wandering too low without her express permission. She leaned her head back, shaking her hair out of the way, and Shahane reached out, smoothing her hair back for her. Fives shuddered, cursing against her skin before nibbling at her pulse point. 

“Fives! Oy, Fives!” 

Pulling his lips off of Duuma’s neck, Fives shot Rex a lazy, unimpressed look. Rex matched him right back, leaning into the booth with one hand braced on the cushions. 

“You want in on the rideshare?” Rex asked. “Me and the girls are gonna head out.”

“Hi,” Duuma said to him, arching one unimpressed brow at his blunt intrusion. 

“How’s it,” Rex replied back, barely taking his eyes off of Fives. “You got thirty seconds to decide.”

“Where you heading back to?” Fives asked, running hands up Duuma’s sides. He already knew the answer, but riling Rex up was a gift he planned on savoring as much as he could now that Rex no longer had the authority to make him do push-ups in retaliation. 

Rex rolled his eyes. “We’re going back to Trace and Rafa’s.” So Rafa wasn’t going home with anyone. Fives made a mental note to gloat. “But I was gonna grab my car and bounce as soon as I got there.” The implication was not lost on Fives—while he tried not to do it too often, if Fives wanted some company over to their apartment (with it’s paper-thin walls), Rex preferred to crash on Ahsoka’s couch. 

“Sometimes there’s an afterparty,” Fives said to Duuma in explanation, ignoring Rex and savoring the way he scowled in his periphery. Duuma looked intrigued, but she needn’t bother. It was an ‘afterparty’ by Rex’s circle’s standards, absolutely not sexy, just more booze, some midnight food orders, maybe a pass-around joint if Rafa was feeling generous.

“Fun,” Duuma said, trailing her hands teasingly down his chest.

“Oh, for the love of—are you sexiling me or can I go home in peace?”

Fives continued to pretend to ignore him. “He’s my roommate,” he informed Duuma, who nodded seriously at the new information, playing along. 

“Fives.” 

“You can come back to ours,” Shahane butted in on their other side. He raked his eyes up and down where his girlfriend was sitting pretty on Fives’s lap. “If that works for you.” 

“It definitely works,” Fives purred back, rolling his hips and lifting Duuma up on his thighs. A pleased little grin of hunger lit up her face—as Fives stretched up to meet her ducking kiss, and Rex sighed, loudly, put-upon. 

“You’re an animal,” he said, like Fives didn’t already know that.

Shahane’s hand landed on Fives’s knee, just past the curve of Duuma’s thigh, and squeezed. “Promise?” he hummed in Fives’s ear. Three cheers for Rex, who gave a final shouted order over the throb of the club’s music, Don’t feed him after midnight! which made Duuma laugh. 

“I like your roommate,” she said. Shahane to the opportunity to move in to suck and lick at Fives’s throat. 

“I’m—ah—partial to him, myself,” Fives panted in reply. He tilted his head back to give Shahane more access to his throat and—oh, fuck, the scrape of teeth over his adam’s apple had him gasping. “So, uh—you guys gonna call a rideshare, or do you want me to…?”

Shahane’s laughter tickled Fives’s skin, and goosebumps broke out. “I’ll call one,” he said. “You two… can keep doing what you’re doing.”

“Oh, fuck me,” Fives breathed, belly jumping with anticipation.

Duuma licked her lips. “That’s the idea, sweetheart,” she breathed, and leaned back in to meet his mouth.

They tumbled out of the club when the rideshare was at the curb, Fives turning towards a dark doorway to gropingly adjust himself in his pants. The couple took the back seat, but Fives wasn’t bothered, chatting up the rideshare driver politely as he drove, like he wasn’t getting escorted to get his shit rocked by the couple sweetly holding hands in the backseat.

Their place was a nice condo, halfway between Old Ord Mantell and the city center. 

“Shoes off?” Fives asked as Shahane let him in.

“Please.” 

Fives toed out of his shoes near a shoe rack. Work boots, running shoes—an array of platform stripper heels. If he was lucky, only some of them were Duuma’s. 

He was pleased that Duuma and Shahane didn’t immediately get hands on him, walking him through the dim house, asking if he wanted something to drink. Glass of water in hand, they showed him the living room, then ambled into the bedroom. Big nice bed, all made up. Some stuff strewn over a dresser, colorful beads and jewelry.

A stripper pole was installed in a corner. Interesting.

“Sit down?” Shahane offered, and Fives perched on the edge of the bed, Duuma at his side. Shahane gently took the empty water glass from his hand and set it aside, pulling up a square ottoman to sit facing Fives. “I know there’s two of us and one of you,” Shahane said, blunt with sincerity, “but we want you to have a good time, too.”

Fives’s heart swelled a little bit. Duuma, in his periphery, nodded her earnest agreement. 

“Thanks,” Fives said, and yeah, it felt a little awkward to say, but he meant it, too. “That means a lot.” When Shahane and Duuma only waited, he kept talking. Why not start with the basics? “You’re both clean?” he asked. 

Shahann nodded. “We only open up for special occasions, but we still got cleared a few weeks ago. Got the papers and everything.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Could even see them, if you want.”

Fives waved a hand. “I believe you.”

“And you?” Duuma asked, sliding her hand teasingly up his shirt. 

Fives lightly cupped her elbow in his hand, unable to hide his wince. “It’s been a while since I got tested,” he reported. Really, honestly, a few more weeks than he typically liked to go without a test when he was out and about and active, but there it was. “But I came up clean.”

“Done a lot of fucking since then, handsome?” Duuma breathed on the back of his neck, and Fives had to bite back on a sharp noise as she chased her words with a scrape of teeth. 

“Done enough,” Fives said, gently pulling her arm out from under his shirt, turning so he could look at both of them, face serious under his high flush. He made a shrugging gesture, hands out. “I like to fuck around,” he said frankly. “I always use protection, but I get it if you wanna take a rain check on anything.”

A moment of consideration passed between the pair of them, but Fives wasn’t surprised when they came up with game nods. “We already got you here,” Shahann said, standing and coming over so he was sitting on Fives’s other side. He dropped his mouth to Fives’s shoulder, not quite a kiss, not quite a bite. “We’re good with it if you are.”

“I’m— very good with it,” he said, dragging his voice down to the depths of his register. 

Shahane grinned, and that was definitely a bite. Five shuddered.

“So,” Duuma spoke up, “protection, then.” 

“I’ve got condoms,” Fives said. One tip he always tried to tell the fresh-out-of high school recruits on base as they got ready to bar-hop, you couldn’t trust a condom a hookup gave you. Always bring your own. Not that he thought Duuma or Shahane were gonna try and trick him, but it was just good practice. “You good with latex?”

“No problems with it.”

“So,” Shahane drawled, sliding his hand up Fives’s thigh. Fives knotted his hands in the bedspread, braced behind him so the two of them could have free access to his neck, his chest, an opening they both took with gusto, wandering hands and mouths. Fives was having trouble controlling his breathing embarrassingly fast. “Who you planning on fucking with that condom, Fives?”

He shuddered. “I’m—” Duuma ducked her head down, pushing up his shirt to mouth at his belly. “Oh fuck, I’m good with—I’m good with whatever. You, uh,” his voice jumped up in pitch as Shahane nibbled on his ear. “You have a preference?”

“I’m partial to topping,” Shahane said. His hand came up and cupped Fives’s cheek, turning him how he wanted him, sucking his bottom lip between his teeth and then slipping his tongue so sweetly against Fives’s. Then he pulled back. “You good for oral?” he asked, and fuck if that new flash of specificity didn’t start a whole x-rated movie of images going in Fives’s head. He drooled a little, suddenly hungry for something, anything, to fill his mouth up.

Downstairs, Duuma popped the top button of his jeans. 

“I like oral,” Fives managed to get out. Understatement of the century.

Shahane’s smile was smug, and it felt like Duuma’s lips against his hip were curling in a pleased grin, too. “You like getting your cock sucked?” Shahane asked, then, voice pitched down. He had a nice voice—rough but warm at the same time, gravelly. It shivered across Fives’s skin like trailing fingers, feather-light.

“Yeah,” Fives breathed. Duuma slipped from the bed to kneel between his feet. He lifted his hips to help her get his jeans down over his ass, though she left his boxers on. She also took his socks off, which his overclocked brain stupidly noted was kind of nice, because he always hated hopping around to get his socks off when he was hooking up with someone. 

Shahane pushed Fives’s shirt up so it was bunched up under his arms. His face was so close, breathing damply over Fives’s lips, and when Fives tried to lean forward to get a kiss, Shahane pinched one nipple, making him gasp. 

“You like sucking dick, Fives?” Shahane asked, rolling the hard bump of his nipple between two fingers. 

“Yeah,” Fives breathed back. 

“Wanna suck mine?” Shahane asked, then, and Fives finally got the bright idea to move his hand, palming the hard line of Shahane’s cock through his pants. Fuck, but he felt heavy and hot under Fives’s hand. Duuma was mouthing at the peak of Fives’s leaking cock through the material of his briefs. “Let Duuma use her mouth on you, and show me what you’ve got?” 

“Hell yes,” Fives said, licking his lips. 

Shahane leaned back, checking in with some space between them, his hand still on Fives’s chest. “Want me to get wrapped?” he asked. 

Fives shook his head, and got both hands to work undoing Shahane’s fly. Shahane leaned back to let him do it. “I’m not against going uncovered for oral,” Fives panted, hungry, the red head of Shahane’s cock peeking out as he tugged down the waistband of his boxers. He thumbed at a clear drop welling up at the slit, savored Shahane’s hiss. “If you are.” 

“With a mouth like yours?” Shahann breathed, sliding his thumb across Fives’s lower lip, “what a fucking question.”

Fives grinned at that, then opened his mouth to let Shahann slip his thumb over his tongue, closing his lips around the finger and suckling, gently, a brief promise of slick wet heat. Shahane’s pupils were blown wide and black and dark, looking at him.

Then it was all a blur of undressing, all three of them shedding clothes as quickly as they could. Fives hindered more than he helped, sucking at one of Shahane’s nipples, stroking between Duuma’s legs as she stepped out of her thong. 

He went to help her with her bra clasp, but she stopped him, gripping his chin in one hand, and fuck if he wasn’t really into the confidence she radiated when she did that. “Bra stays on, honey,” she told him, smiling indulgently. “When you’ve got a rack like mine, sex is a lot like jogging. You need the support.”

Fuck, he respected the hell out of that. And the way she winked at him was hot, too. 

Fives ended up sitting on the edge of the bed, Duuma kneeling on a pillow between his legs, Shahane standing to one side with one knee up on the mattress. Dick red and curving up towards his belly. Wet slit. He was cut, which was fine with Fives. Duuma didn’t have any trouble with Fives, pulling back his foreskin and mouthly wetly over his cockhead. 

As the only one with a free mouth, it was Shahane’s gasps and groans that accompanied obscene wet sucking noises, panting “Yeah, yeah, fuck, like that,” as Fives bobbed his head, sucking and curling his tongue around smooth, hot skin. Shahane curled his hand around the back of Fives’s neck, not pushing, just heavy, just guiding, and Fives moaned around him. His mind was split between two pleasures—the sucking pull of Duuma’s mouth around him, hot and wet, perfect teasing touch of teeth, and the throbbing weight of Shahane’s cock on his tongue, trying to get it deeper and deeper at each pass. 

Duuma pulled off, and Fives followed suit, hissing at the cool touch of breath on wet skin. He glanced down, and Duuma was looking up at them with undisguised hunger, lips so wet and ruddy and perfect, idly riding Fives’s foreskin up and down his shaft with a just-loose-enough grip. Fives grinned, following suit with his own hand on Shahane’s length.

“Wanna share?” he asked. 

She grinned back. “Yeah?” 

“He’s your boyfriend,” Fives told her. “Show me how he likes it.”

Shahane groaned like he’d been shot. They rearranged, Shahane standing with Duuma and Fives kneeling in front of him. Fives watched, stroking himself, as Duuma bobbed her head, twisting her hand as she took Shahane deep. She pulled back, cheeks hollow, suckling at the head, and the opportunity was there, so Fives leaned down and licked, tongue pressed flat, against an exposed few inches of shaft. Shahane’s groan punched up out of his chest, and without needing to talk, Fives and Duuma fell into a rhythm, tag-team taking Shahane apart. 

Together they licked and sucked over Shahane’s cock, taking turns bobbing down over his length and mouthing at his balls, licking and bumping their lips together. Before long, it was wet, and sloppy, Fives and Duuma making out with open mouths as Shahane rolled his hips, thrusting slowly between their lips and tongues. Duuma’s hand was on Fives’s dick, slow, steady pulls that had him light-headed.

“Fu-uck,” Shahane groaned, thrusts getting more insistent. Fives sucked at the head of his cock, swirling his tongue, Duuma ducking to suck at his ballsack. Shahane’s hand landed on the back of Fives’s head, fingers twitching. “Gonna come,” he warned, and Fives pulled off. “Gonna—”

Duuma quickly took Fives’s place, taking Shahane all the way down—Fives groaned, jacking his cock as he watched Shahane’s shaft pulse into the shiny ring of Duuma’s lips. The sound Shahane made when he came—Fives dug it, added his own groan to the litany. Duuma sucked him through the aftershocks, stroking her nails lightly up his thighs, then pulled off, a tantalizing thread of spit trailing between his softening cock and her lips. For a second, she rolled her tongue, but clearly didn’t swallow— holding his load on her tongue, and Fives’s hips jolted.

Shahane sat down on the bed, heavily, panting like he’d just run a marathon.

Turning to Fives, Duuma arched a brow, tip of her tongue appearing between her lips. Fives shook his head, understanding her unspoken offer to share. He liked sucking dick fine, didn’t mind the taste, but he hated the mouthfeel of come. Spitter, when he let his partners come in his mouth. He preferred letting them come on his chest. 

Nodding, Duuma swallowed, licked her lips. 

Shahane pushed himself up onto his elbows, grinning like a man that just got the blow of his life. “Hey,” he rumbled, and reached for Fives’s face. He tilted his cheek into Shahane’s palm, let him thumb at his sensitive lips. “What’s that face for?”

“I wanted you to fuck me,” Fives told him, with just a little bit of pout, because he’d been excited, damn it.

Shahane’s laughter was gentle, his hand on Fives’s jaw even more so. “I can still do that,” he said, a twinkle in his eye. “I bounce back quick.”

“Fuck,” Fives said. Shahane looked smug, Duuma even more so. “You two are unreal.” 

Shahane blushed, pleased, blotchy and very human. “Here,” he said to Fives, “you two have fun, I’ll go get some water and get back up. And get some tools, hm?” Fives shivered at the implication, insides clenching at the promise of getting fucked. Shahane left, and Duuma and Fives ended up sprawled on the bed together, exploring miles of bare skin with their mouths. 

Duuma, on her back, got her hand on Fives’s jaw. He went slack, let her turn his face this way and that, rutting his cock against the smooth skin of her thigh. 

“You like getting manhandled,” she noted, tone soft. 

“I like you manhandling me,” he replied, and nipped at her wandering finger as it outlined his lips. 

She grinned, thumbed at his goatee. “Not an every-girl kind of taste?” 

He considered it, because why not. “I like when people know what they want,” he told her honestly. “Seems like you want me to let you manhandle me.” 

She hummed, dragged nails through his hair, sparking pleasure down the skin of his neck, his shoulders. With hands like hers, and her clear fixation for using her nails, no wonder Shahane was crazy for getting his hair pulled. Fives wished momentarily that his hair was longer. 

“I like being in charge,” she said. 

“I can see that.” That made her laugh. Fives shifted so he was laying between her legs. “Tell me what to do.” 

“Lean back.”

He did so, going up on his knees. 

She nudged his thigh with one knee. “Glove on.” 

He located where he’d tossed his condoms up onto the corner of the bed and fetched one, rolling it down over himself. 

“Touch yourself.” 

He squeezed his dick at the base and slid his hand forward, and back, sighing as he rolled his hips into it, like he would if he was jacking it alone in the shower. He cupped his balls with his free hand, squeezing, warmth pooling in his pelvis. He made sure to clench his abs and arms, giving Duuma a good show. 

She watched him with undisguised hunger, leaning up on her elbows at the head of the bed. Fives rubbed his hand in small circles over the head of his cock, letting his jaw fall open in pleasure. Duuma reached between her legs with one hand, plunging fingers into her cunt. 

The wet, faintly squelching noise of her fingering herself had Fives’s mouth watering. He jacked himself a little harder, watching with hunger as she sped her wrist up to match. When he slowed, she slowed, when he twisted his hand over the head of his cock, she curled her fingers, moaning shamelessly. 

Shahane would be back any second. Fives knew that getting fucked was on the docket, but he didn’t know how long Shahane would take to get back in good standing. For a second, Fives considered not saying anything, since Duuma said she liked being in charge…

“You’re gorgeous,” he told her, gasping. 

A flush was riding high on her cheeks, and her smile was bright and sweet at the compliment. “You’re… ah… not so bad yourself,” she told him.

He swallowed, eyes on her wet folds, the short black curls. Sweet flushed skin. 

“Can I fuck you?” he panted. “Please?” 

Her grin deepened to something wolfish, and she took away her hand, fingers shiny with slick up to the fucking knuckle, and he was so fucked. 

Duuma spread her knees apart. “Show me what you’ve got,” she challenged, and he didn’t need telling twice. 

Sinking into Duuma’s cunt, hot and slick and so good, had Fives groaning against her lips, her hands insistently tightened in what little grip she could get on his hair. When he first came out, started telling people that he was bisexual, a lot of stupid shit had been thrown his way about just being confused, not knowing what he wanted—no confusion about it, now. Fucking into the tight ring of someone’s ass was one thing, fucking into the sweet sucking hold of a cunt was another, and getting fucked himself, but a cock or a strap-on, was still yet something else entirely. No one thing better or worse than the other. All of it, just so fucking good. 

They moved together like a dream, Duuma meeting him thrust for thrust, urging him on and gasping harder, harder, until he was fairly shaking the bed, slamming down to gasps and the slap of skin on skin. 

“Fuuuck me,” Shahane drawled faintly, having reentered the room. How long he stood there, watching Fives pound his girlfriend, Fives had no idea. He slowed the tempo, sinking down and grinding, and Duuma didn’t complain. 

She crossed her ankles over the small of Fives’s back, legs falling even further open, letting him sink in even deeper. “He’s—ah—fucking me right now, actually,” she said over Fives’s shoulder. One hand—Shahane’s hand—stroked down the line of his spine, goosebumps rippling out in its wake, and Fives’s strokes stuttered for a second as he shivered.

“I can see that,” Shahane rumbled, standing over them by the bedside. He petted Fives’s back again, Duuma grinning and jerking her hips up to meet Fives’s rolling hips. “Is he good, baby?” 

“Very good,” Duuma purred, combing both hands through Fives’s sweaty hair. He ducked his head, groaning. They were going to kill him, they really were.

A third trailing of Shahane’s blunt fingers, only this time his hand paused at Fives’s tailbone, just above the top of his crack. A sensitive spot, he thumbed it while Fives sped up, then slowed down, grinding his lips in little circles, pushing back into the touch. Wishing he’d go further but not having the words to ask. 

“Do you wanna wait to get you ready, or are you good if I started now?” Shahane asked.

“Fuck!” Fives grunted. Again, though he normally didn’t shoot off just by being watched, Shahane’s close, hot-blooded attention was doing fucking delicious things to his insides, heightening every other feeling of pleasure as it came, stroke by killing stroke. “Fuck—yeah—”

Duuma gasped out a moan, and he focused on hitting that spot on autopilot, her noises climbing octaves. 

Shahane’s hand cupped Fives’s jaw, tilting his head up and licking into his mouth. He broke the kiss, but stayed close, breaths mingling. 

“Slow down,” he breathed, all gravel, and if her clenching was anything to go by, Duuma was just as affected by his voice as Fives was. He did as instructed, sinking into Duuma’s cunt in slow, rocking thrusts. “Gonna put a towel down,” Shahane continued in the same tone, dropping kisses on the corners of Fives’s open, panting mouth, then down on Duuma’s brow, her temple. “And then I’m gonna get up behind you, and I’ll get you ready for me. How’s that sound?”

If Shahane didn’t stop talking and start fingering him, Fives was gonna riot. 

Mercifully, Shahane didn’t make him give an answer, taking his noises of assent for the permission that they were, and climbed up onto the bed. Fives glanced over his shoulder, and when Shahane said ‘tools,’ he wasn’t kidding—a towel was joined by a small bottle of lube, one of Fives’s condoms, and what looked like a latex glove.

“You—ah—fuck a lot of guys?” Fives asked, focusing on the incongruous glee at seeing Shahane so ready to do things properly.

“He likes to take my strap, sometimes,” Duuma answered for Shahane, forcing Fives back to look at her flushed face, her hair fanned out behind her in a shining pool. “Lets me give it to him—fucking beautiful when he’s sucking on it.” 

The mental image, of Shahane, panting and red-faced, sucking down Duuma’s strap-on, almost made Fives shoot off. He bit down on his lip, hard, stuttering his hips, toeing the line. 

“Don’t distract me,” Shahane murmured behind them. His two hands cupped Fives’s ass, squeezing, parting them so he could blow a thin stream of air over Fives’s hole. “Ready?”

“Fuck’s sake— yes!” Fives’s desperation made Shahane chuckle, and thank fuck, Fives felt like laughing, too. Duuma giggled, leaned up to kiss the tip of his nose. 

“Here,” she soothed, relaxing a little under him, “slow down, baby, slow down and watch.”

Fives obediently slowed down to easy motions, pushing back gently against Duuma’s tiny humping thrusts, his head turned once more to watch Shahane get everything sorted. He lifted his knees, first one, then the other, so Shahane could put the towel down.

More gentle laughter rolled through the room as Shahane made a big show of snapping on the latex glove. He picked up the small bottle of lube, and rubbed it between his two hands, then against the towel, warming up the whole bottle at once. Fives made a note to remember that trick for the future. 

“Go easy,” Fives had the mind to say over his shoulder as Shahane got into position. “Been a while since I’ve bottomed.”

Lips pressed to the center of his back. “I’ve got you,” Shahane promised. 

“I’ll kick him if you tell me to,” Duuma said, drawing Fives’s attention back down to her. He flashed her a grateful grin, then ducked down to kiss her, keeping his hips canted up, knees spread wide. Shahane’s ungloved hand was on his hip, then the small of his back, pushing him forward until he sank fully into Duuma, slowly, as she canted her hips up to meet him in slow, torturous pleasure. 

She was so hot around him, Fives was going to combust. 

“Hold on,” Shahane breathed, the hand on Fives’s lower back insistent and firm. Holding him there, hips pressed against Duuma’s.

Grunting beautiful little noises, Duuma rocked her hips back and forth, fucking herself as best she could on Fives’s cock as he held himself still—the head of his cock felt like a fucking brand, throbbing with his heartbeat. The lube bottle clicked open, and Fives shuddered at the slow drizzle of warm liquid over his hole. Click of the cap—Shahane shifting. Fives was trembling, body aching to meet Duuma’s thrusts, arms shaking as he held himself up above her. 

Shahane circled a wet, gloved fingertip over Fives’s rim. Sure of himself. Confident, unhesitating. Fives dropped his head between his shoulderblades, forehead on Duuma’s collarbone, focusing on relaxing the right muscles—it had been a while since he bottomed, but it was supposed to be like riding a bike, right? He rocked backwards so he could thrust forwards, and moaned shamelessly as the tip of Shahane’s finger slipped in. 

The scrape of Shahane’s stubble against his shoulder made him gasp. 

“Wanna fuck you so bad,” the man growled, mouthing over Fives’s sweaty shoulderblade. Fives rocked back with more surety, taking what felt like half a finger, then slipped off of it, deeper into Duuma’s cunt—she tossed her head back, groaning at the depth, and Fives shot Shahane a look over his shoulder. 

“So fuck me,” he said, and hell if Shahane didn’t get started on doing just that. 

They fell into a rhythm, Fives fucking himself back on Shahane’s fingers, then thrusting forward into the sweet wet heat of Duuma’s cunt; she lifted her hips to meet him thrust for thrust, shoulders braced on the bed, sighing sweet whimpering noises as he hit that spot inside her just right. Shahane’s fingers found the same spot inside Fives, and he was panting, gasping, seeing flashes of stars as Shahane teased him. 

It was blinding, disintegrating—Fives had never felt anything like it. He was lost between twin pleasures, a bead on a string getting moved back and forth, back and forth, one pleasure and then another. He managed to mumble something, biting his lip, shuddering and trying not to groan too loudly, and Shahane understood, scissoring his fingers briefly before withdrawing. 

Keening, Duuma lifted her legs up to wrap around Fives’s hips, pulling them closer together, sweaty bodies sliding. “I’m close,” she panted, “I’m—right there, fuck, right there—”

Fives bit his cheek, focused on hitting that spot, again and again, wanted to feel her come around him, wanted to see her face—Shahane crowded at his back, his dick sheathed in a condom and fully hard between his thighs. Fives shuddered, cursing, and Shahane reached an arm around to thumb at Duuma’s clit. 

That touch, confident with years of making Duuma come, was all it took to make her shake apart, throwing her head back and shuddering out a long, endless groan—her hips jerking erratically, cunt fucking rippling around him—for a second Fives trembled on the edge, about to fall over with her, but suddenly a firm grip was circled around the base of his dick, squeezing, and Shahane pulled his hips back, Fives’s cock slipping out and leaving Duuma collapsed back against the mattress, panting and twitching with aftershocks. 

For a moment, they all breathed heavily, Shahane’s chest pressed to Fives’s back. 

Fives tilted his head back to lay it on Shahane’s shoulder, and the man mouthed at the side of his neck, loosening his hold on Fives’s dick and dragging blunt fingers apologetically through his pubic hair. 

“Sorry,” he murmured between lazy, open-mouthed kisses. “Shoulda asked first.”

“It’s good,” Fives replied, panting, “you’re good.” 

Duuma eyed them, indolent and sated, ruddy down to her chest. Watching the show with half-lidded eyes. Fives tilted his head further, capturing Shahane’s mouth, making it good and sloppy for her viewing pleasure. Shahane’s other hand reached up and squeezed his pec, then pinched a nipple, making Fives gasp, his mouth falling open. 

“Didn’t want to miss out on my chance,” Shahane said, smugly nibbling on Fives’s lip, then his neck again. “I want a turn.” He rubbed his hot, hard cock between Fives’s thighs, slick with lube. “You good to go?” he asked.

“Fuck, yes, I’m—” Fives rocked back against him, but still took a second to check in with himself before his dick ran away with his mouth. Yeah, he was good, Shahane had done him good with fingers and lube. He was safely down from the peak, too, edged and tight and so damn hungry. “I’m good.” 

“How d’you want it?” Shahane asked. “Want me to bend you over like this, give Duuma a good show?” 

The thought had Fives whining a little, Duuma getting up on an elbow to add her mouth to a free section of Fives’s skin, sucking a mark onto his chest. Fuck, wasn’t that a solid gold idea, getting fucked on his hands and knees while a gorgeous woman was under him, sucking on his nipples, or fuck, getting her mouth on his dick—Shahane moved behind him, kneeing his legs a little wider apart, and, yeah, Fives’s back gave a warning little twinge. 

“Nah,” Fives said, and Duuma moved away. “No, that’s—you’re good, just wanna.” He swallowed, trying to get his fucked-out brain cells back in proper order. Shahane withdrew, giving him breathing room, and he exhaled, forcibly.

Fives glanced over his shoulder at Shahane. “Fuck me on my back?” he proposed. 

Between Fives’s thighs, Shahane’s dick jumped its approval. 

A few minutes of finagling later got them all in position. Fives took over Duuma’s position at the head of the bed, a pillow and the towel under his hips, Shahane kneeling between his spread legs. The older man watched Fives with a hunger, fisting his cock, watching Duuma pet and kiss him through all the little shifts of his weight as he got settled. 

“Hm, how do you want me, sweet boy?” Duuma questioned between sweet, sucking kisses. Her fingernails dragged through Fives’s patch of chest hair, sending sparks down to his fucking belly. “Want me to hold you? Get behind you, let you lean against me?”

That sounded good, but Fives got an idea. “Nah,” he said. He licked his lips, carefully moved his hands over Duuma’s shoulder, thumbing at her full lower lip. “Wanna come again?” he asked. 

That got her attention, a spark lighting up in her eye. “What do you have in mind?” she asked. Her free hand reached down and stroked his dick with slow, hot surety—not trying to get him off, really, just keeping the pressure slow and even and deep. “Want me to ride you while my Shah fucks you?”

Shahane, jerking himself harder, moaned. 

Fives met her hungry grin for hungry grin. Sure, that would be fucking amazing , but he was all keyed up and he doubted he’d last long like that, and he wanted to lost long enough to feel Shahane come inside him. “With me lying back like this,” he said, and pointedly licked his lips, “you can sit on my face.” 

“Oh,” Duuma breathed, “Oh, Fives, you are something special.” 

“Leave me a good yelp review,” he joked, but his grin stuttered, brows drawn together, as Shahane fingered him, stroking his insides with fresh lube. “Fuck, yeah, I’m good, I’m good—” 

Shahane quirked his fingers just so, and that was just mean.

“Come on,” Fives urged him, face blushing from how brazenly he’d moaned. “In me.” 

“Enjoying the show,” Shahane breathed, and dropped a kiss on the inside of Fives’s knee. He got into position over Fives, braced up on his full arms—so Duuma could watch where they were about to be joined, a part of Fives’s brain not yet dissolved by dopamine supplied. He reached down and cupped his balls, squeezing a little, so she could see the slick pucker of his hole.

Shahane’s hair hung tantalizingly over his face as he looked down and tucked his cockhead into position. He glanced up, checking in with Fives, who was the perfect side of desperate with the hot promise of a cock in him. He was good for anything when he hooked up with guys, but he could be a bit hesitant on bottoming if he didn’t totally trust his date. Shahane and Duuma had both been so good, Fives didn’t have a single shred of hesitation left, just raw need.

“Lemme know,” Shahane murmured, and Fives squeezed his wrist where his hand was braced on the bed by his side. With an understanding nod, Shahane pressed in, the flare of his cockhead slipping past his rim so fucking perfectly—Fives moaned shamelessly, humping just a little (he wasn’t stupid enough to try and take more than an extra half-inch), Shahane panting as he rocked in further. 

One more inch, then two, and Fives squeezed Shahane’s wrist, breath shaky at the stretch. Shahane hummed, stopping the forward motion of his hips. He ducked down between his shoulders and dropped a quick kiss on Fives’s sweaty chest.

“Feels so good inside you, sweetheart,” he murmured, and rocked back an inch. Fives breathed deeply, relaxing, and slackened his fingers.

Shahane pushed into him like that, gentle and slow, on Fives’s orders, and as much as Fives liked getting fucked hard, the mix of tenderness, Duuma stroking his hair, and the sweetness of the whole night generally was getting to him, whimpering and writhing as Shahane finally seated himself fully inside.

His groan shook through him, and Fives could feel it at all the points where they were touching, could feel his heartbeat at his rim, inside him. Duuma got up on her knees and leaned forward, kissing Shahane, and Fives gasped as Shahane rocked his hips. Sparks of pleasure, the feeling of fullness—Fives arched his back to take him impossibly deeper. 

Shahane broke the kiss with a wet lisp, and leaned down to share spit with Fives. When he pulled out and snapped his hips forward, Fives’s mouth fell open, panting, against Shahane’s lips. 

“Good?” Shahane asked, in a tone that said he knew exactly how good it was. 

Fives was about to answer when Shahane thrusted hard, words dissolving into a gasp. 

“Not—” he managed to get out as Shahane picked up the pace, “--fair— fuck —”

Shahane nipped at his lip with a grin, then got up on his knees, hands tight on Fives’s hips as he pulled him up to meet his thrusts. The slap of skin on skin, Fives’s own gasps, flooded Fives’s senses as he screwed his eyes shut and let the pleasure climb up his ribcage, spark by spark, tingling down to his fucking knees. 

Duuma had been sitting up beside them on the bed, and for a second, Fives wondered if she’d changed her mind about riding his tongue—and then she thumbed at his mouth.

“Ready for me?” Duuma asked.

Fucked beyond words, Fives opened his mouth up, flashing tongue. 

Shahane paused down to little rocking thrusts as Duuma got into position, swinging one leg so she was straddling Fives’s face, hands braced on the headboard. The smell of her was heaven, hot and heady, and Fives craned his neck to lick through her folds, one long stripe to start—and her thighs trembled against his cheeks. 

“Goddamn,” she breathed, and Fives bit down on a whine as Shahane picked up the pace, short, hard thrusts that threatened to drive him up the bed. He arched his back, urging Duuma to sink down closer with a hand on her thigh, and swirled his tongue around her opening—so slick, tasting like sex and the tang of lube. 

Fives wasn’t lying—he liked oral. Liked getting it, liked giving it—and his body moved without much higher thought needed, his whole brain dissolving away to the taste of Duuma on his tongue, the smell of her, the softness of her thighs on his cheeks, enveloped in her even as his body lit up in waves from where Shahane was fucking him with the steady measure you could fucking march to. Duuma shivered as Fives moaned against her folds, as he withdrew his tongue from her entrance and swirled it around her clit, tilting his chin up to press his tongue flat, flicking it with the tip of his tongue until he felt Duuma clenching, empty, above him, and returned to slipping his tongue in and out of her cunt. Time dissolved down into nothing but pleasure, floating and endless and everything. 

Eventually, Duuma made a noise and lifted up, onto her knees. Fives distantly heard someone making a petulant noise, and realized too late that it was him, Duuma’s slick cooling on his lips and chin. Duuma said something conciliatory, and then she was back, facing the other way, which put her swollen clit close enough to suck on—

“Fuck, oh fuck!” her voice was high and pitchy, then turned into high pitched little noises of pleasure and she rocked down into the sucking clutch of his mouth. Fives savored every cry, groaning deep in his chest as Shahane fucked him, deep, his toes curling in the bedspread--and Duuma's noises slackened into wet kissing noises, Shahane and Duuma linked over Fives's ass and his mouth. He was so full, so full and his skin was so tight, and as Duuma started to shake, coming on his mouth, and he was, and he was—

A hand closed around his cock and started to stroke—he couldn’t tell whether it was Duuma or Shahane, and that uncertainty, another hand pinching a nipple, a third cupping his balls—sent him tumbling over the edge, hips picking up off of the bed as he came, ripping pleasure from his nipples to his fucking knees. 

Panting, aftershocks buzzing up to his teeth, Fives felt Shahane thrust once, twice, then held there, hilt-deep, groaning as he came, cock twitching inside him. Though sensitivity was starting to zing through his veins, Fives clenched, making it good for him, milking it all out of him. It was his anniversary, after all, Fives muzzily thought, grinning ridiculously—he deserved it. 

Shahane pulled out, and Fives whined softly, slick and empty. Duuma got off of his face. Dazed, Fives stared up at their ceiling, covered in sweat, and slick. Someone kissed his temple—scratch of beard told him it was Shahane, and someone got the full condom off of him. Cool air made him shiver, and he started to push up onto his elbows, trying to find something cute or bratty to say, some bit of cleanup to help with. He found nothing, then less than nothing as Duuma wrapped one arm around his chest and pulled him back down so she was cuddled up against his bare ass, warm skin, the musk of sex.

Cleverly, Fives muttered “Wha…?” 

“Just holding you,” Duuma answered. “That okay?”

Fives relaxed back into her hold. “That’s okay,” he said, reveling in the afterglow tingles of skin-on-skin. After a little bit, he rolled over to tuck his face against her neck, giving her good access to pet at his hair, which she did without needing to be asked. 

His brain cells started to return home to roost. Cognizance and awareness. He hadn’t come that hard in months.

“So,” Fives said, grinning into Duuma’s shoulder, “you guys taking applications for a regular, or…?”

She barked out a laugh, but not meanly. “If we were, sweetheart, you’d be top of the list.” Her fingers delicately stroked down his ribs. “This is just a special occasion, though.”

“Hey, nothing wrong with being special,” he said, easily breezing past any awkwardness the gentle rejection might have brought up. “I do birthday parties, too.”

Duuma’s laughter was a warm, full-chested comfort. Shahane returned with a warm, wet rag, and wiped down Fives’s belly and between his legs. Fives let himself get taken care of, lifting his hips for ease, and before long Shahane was back in bed on Duuma’s other side, draping himself over her. 

For what felt like a long stretch of minutes, they lay together, quiet and warm and sweet.

After a while, Shahane shifted his weight. “Wanna smoke a joint?” he offered. 

Fives thought about it. “Better not,” he said, and sat up. He felt good and sore, nice and worked-over. Sue him, but fucking was its own kind of workout. Rex would kill him if he ever said so, but he preferred it to running and weightlifting. “I should probably get going,” he said. 

“You can stay the night,” Duuma proposed, and Shahane nodded his agreement over her shoulder. “Stay over for breakfast. Shah makes these killer blueberry pancakes… and we could have round two.”

As tempting as both of those things were, Fives shook his head. “Nah, sorry. Got an early wake up call tomorrow, and it’s already late.” Specifically, Omega’s soccer team had a day-long tournament the next day a city over, and in order to make it to the first game’s kick-off at ten, they had to be on the road at eight-thirty. “I should call a rideshare.” Still totally in the buff, he scooted down to the bottom of the bed and tried to remember where he kicked his jeans. 

“I can drive you,” Shahane spoke up. 

“You sure?”

“It’s no problem, I’ve sobered up since the club, and not a lot of rideshares come out over here this side of midnight.” 

They both got dressed. Shahane dipped down to kiss Duuma, Fives waved farewell to her, and Shahane led him out to a jeep parked on the curb.

“Nice car,” Fives said.

Shahane snorted. “Thanks. Technically it’s my brother’s. Company car or whatever it’s called.” 

The familiar tone made Fives grin. “Ah, brothers. Guess how many I have.”

Shahane eyed him. “Two?”

“Five. One twin brother, and four younger.” 

Another snort. “Makes me grateful I’ve only got the one.” 

“They’re not that bad,” Fives said, relaxing back. “Most of the time.”

They chatted idly as Shahane made his way through mostly-deserted streets. Shahane was a full-blooded mando, it turned out, and they batted old culture stories back and forth. They rolled past a steak-sandwich drive-thru, lights all on, and Shahane grunted a noise of interest. Fives cranked up an eyebrow. 

“I’ll swing by after I drop you off. Duuma’s favorite place.” 

Right, and it was their anniversary. “You two are cute,” Fives told him honestly.

“She’s the love of my life,” Shahane said, with the kind of bald-faced sincerity that Five frankly envied a little bit. “Been together for ten years, now.” 

If Fives was right about Duuma’s age being close to his own, that meant they were together when she was straight out of high school, if that. His surprise must have shown on his face, because Shahane blushed darkly.

“She was a little young for me, at the time,” he admitted sheepishly. “But she was persistent. I was a bouncer at the club she was stripping at. God, she used to fucking make eye contact with me over at the front door when she was on the pole, like—” He mimed stabbing himself in the heart, then returned his hand to the wheel, shaking his head, grinning foolishly. 

“We were friends, first,” he continued. “We call it ten years, cause we weren’t with anyone those first few years, but she’d take me places where she wanted to have a man around, I helped her and a couple of the other girls get their own club started. After three years, it was like, what are we even doing? Might as well admit we were in love and go official with it.”

“You two seem really good together,” Fives said, figuring he ought to say something, at the very least to cover the weird squirminess picking up in his chest. What he wouldn’t give to have someone talk about him like Shahane was talking about Duuma. 

Talk about a pipe dream.

“I’m a lucky man,” Shahane agreed, and grinned aside at Fives. “Tonight, especially.”

The flirtation eased Fives’s awkwardness a little bit, and he returned the smile.

“You ever consider sticking with someone long term?” Shahane breezed on.

Fives laughed. “Me? Nah. Not in my code.” 

“I thought so, too, at one point. Duuma rewrote me.” 

Fives just shook his head, watching the streetlamps flicker past. “Wouldn’t wish me long-term on anybody,” he said. “I’m most tolerable in short bursts.” That’d been the drag of it, anyways, since coming home—but he was getting better about it.

“Hey, don’t say that.”

“You’ve only had me in a short burst,” Fives pointed out. 

“Is that what the kids are calling it, these days,” Shahane murmured, letting the subject drop. The flirtatious air was gone, and Fives was sorry for it—shouldn’t have said anything.

They pulled up against the curb outside of the gym. One of the upstairs windows was illuminated, and Fives shook his head ruefully. No matter how many times he told Rex to just put out the lights and hit the sack while Fives was out, Rex insisted on leaving a light on for him.

“This you?” Shahane asked.

“This is me.” Fives unclipped his seatbelt. “Thanks for the ride.” 

Shahane’s lips quirked. “Thank you for the ride,” he replied, waggling his brows, and Fives smacked his arm, laughing, glad that he could at least leave on a high note.

“Have a good rest of your night,” Fives said, stepping out onto the sidewalk.

“You, too. See you around, Fives.”

“See you.” 

Fives went to the side entrance in the alley and let himself up the narrow concrete stairs. There was an elevator in the back room, but the gym freaked him out at night with all the machines and stacks of weights all menacing in shadow. 

Once up at the apartment, he unlocked the door and let himself in.

He snorted at what he saw. Rex, in his sweatpants and nothing else, was stretched out on his shitty futon, mouth slack with sleep. 

“Hey,” Fives called out, making as much noise as possible in the entryway so not to chance scaring Rex awake within striking distance. “Hey, Rex. I’m back.” He walked over and when Rex still didn’t stir, he grabbed his ankle and shook. “Hey. Rex’ika.”

Rex snuffled and blinked his eyes open. “Hey,” he rumbled, clearing his throat. He smelled a little like pot. Rex didn’t imbibe much of anything, ever, so it was probably secondhand from hanging around at Rafa’s after the club. “You didn’t get murdered.”

“Didn’t get murdered,” Fives confirmed. He shook Rex’s ankle one last time and released him. “You don’t gotta stay up and wait for me, man.” 

“Didn’t ask,” Rex grunted, knuckling at his eyes. He got himself standing, swaying a little. “Have fun?” 

“Oodles,” Fives said blandly, making Rex snort. 

“Remember,” Rex yawned, ambling towards his room, “we gotta be at the batch’s place by eight.” 

“Got it.” Fives clicked off the light, plunging the living room into dimness. “I’ll wake you up nice and early, Captain.” 

Rex flipped him off behind his head. “Take a shower,” was Rex’s final order before stepping into his bedroom. “You reek like sex.” 

“And you smell like Cut!” Fives returned, but laughingly. Rex’s door closed and Fives did as instructed, not because Rex told him to, but because he figured he didn’t want to stink up his bedsheets secondhand. 

Cleaned up, in his pajamas, feeling well and thoroughly fucked, Fives let sleep take him.