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Annie first mentioned it with the sort of look you’d give a caged, wounded animal. She’d said, with a tilted smile meant to be reassuring, ‘if it’s something you’d like, I’d be willing to try’.
The following ‘I love you’ gets lost. The ‘I want you happy’ goes to waste. They might’ve broken any other spell over him, but Hughie was frozen and this wasn’t so much of a spell as it was single-handedly the worst thing he had ever heard in his entire life. Ever. Zero chance of recovery, flatlined and cremated and tossed to the fucking wind.
Seriously.
The only answer he gave was a weird, crooked sort-of smile back- one reserved for the most we’re-not-in-Kansas-anymore shit imaginable- before standing, stiff and ram-rod straight but panicked, and promptly getting the fuck out of there. Hughie doesn’t think Annie is crazy per se, he loves her too, to the point it’s kind of pathetic, but what the fuck. Just thinking about it makes him need several moments, a hand to a wall or awkwardly late texts back that raise questions of ‘did something happen?’
No. Nothing happened. Nothing will happen. That was nothing, will never be anything, because it’s just some porn-driven fantasy everybody has had at least once in their lives. He thinks. He’s not embarrassed to admit exorcisms popped up as an option in his head at least three times since. Instead, he settles for crossing over his chest, sending a kiss to the sky and praying it stays just a fantasy. He’s not had any God-sent signs that he’s wrong so far.
He does keep nicking himself with things anytime he overthinks though. Once, he gripped a coke can too hard and it left a pretty gash in the flesh of his palm- it wept so much blood he almost imagined needing stitches. He settled for poorly self-wrapped bandages, with a skewed strip of gauze that barely covered half the wound, and a constant clenched fist to remind himself of why it was there in the first place; a sign, though, it is not.
In what he admits now was a terrible, stupid, not-very-smart idea, he avoided Annie’s calls and texts. Hughie now feels mortified by it, but he was spurred on by the cuts, but he’d been clocked (apparently) on something he hadn’t even clocked himself until after he had been forced to think about it.
Very stupid. It’s one of those palm-to-forehead moments. He hopes that God is merciful enough to ignore it.
And given the choice of either sucking it up, going to his and Annie’s, or, awfully, dropping by Butcher’s place? Yeah, fuck that, he’d take total and utter humiliation any day of the week. He walks in, a sad puppy type of shuffle through the door, throws some dumbass comment to her in a failed attempt at bravery and immediately proceeds to hide. God, he can’t do this. He knows it’s actually the dumbest stunt he’s ever pulled, miles ahead of any (accidental, or perhaps dissociative, he promises) murder, but he is crisising to hell and back- there’s no reason or thought behind it just a constant, perpetual, ringing of get me the fuck out of here.
‘If this is something you’d want,’ Hughie groans into his hand, locks the bathroom door with his other, ‘if Butcher is something you’d want.’
No. Fucking. Way.
They’ve been pretty open with their sex lives, open than most, during the considerably short amount of time they’ve been together. They’ve tried out a lot, some things Hughie hadn’t even thought could be considered sexy (Annie likes to joke that, because she’s allergic to vanilla, she can’t even fuck boring). Hughie’s found out a lot about himself, and about her. He actually had no clue she was allergic to vanilla until she explained…something…to him and made that joke for the first time.
She’s always the first to start the conversations anyway. She’s too observant, so he doesn’t really even need to say anything for her to just know, like they’re so in-sync that she just instinctively knows from wordless motion, and Hughie has begun to think maybe he’s just a magnet for dominant, assertive types of women- but holy shit. Maybe Robin was just the jealous, strictly monogamous type. Maybe the idea of pretty much cucking was in a completely separate box than the run-of-the-mill pegging night. Maybe her form of domination was a bow-wrap cover for a no-one-but-me rule.
Annie, apparently, is all for it. She doesn’t ever seem ecstatic when she brings it up either, like it isn’t for her and just for him, something that makes him run even hotter beneath the skin- she’d do that for him, she’d let him do that for him- but she seems intrigued enough that Hughie doesn’t worry she’s insecure at all in that ‘we have to save our marriage’ type of way.
Extremely intrigued.
She fidgets with her fingers a little more than usual, wrings them down to their bases until the skin of her knuckles crease, and her eyes tend to drift more, too.
Some small, never-obedient sliver of him wants to kiss her to oblivion every time she mentions it, even off-handedly, until every inch of her has been attended to. The rest of him, restrained and thinking and on 10 mg of valium, sounds every alarm bell; painting ‘go, go, go’ in bright, bloody red until he’s leaking with the certainty that he cannot, under absolutely any circumstances, do that.
The mirror, just above and aligned with the sink that he frames with his hands, laughs at him.
He is not going to fuck Butcher. Because that’s what this is about, and he’s not going to do it, never going to ask, he’s not even going to imagine it. It’s a stupid, stupid thought, even as it eats away at him with heat, one that should just stay a stupid, stupid, fleeting thought.
It is a good thought though.
Fuck.
He wonders, through that sliver, how Butcher would be in bed- if he’d be just as dominant and all-knowing as Annie, an omnipotent being, or more so- if he’d grab at Hughie, roughen him up just enough that he’d be able to press down on the marks for another day at the least and feel something. He wonders how different his fingers would feel from Annie’s in his hair, against his skin, or, fuck, inside him. He wonders what he’d say, what he’d call Hughie when he’s on his knees, if it’d be a sake of him being a pretty little thing, perfect and porcelain doll shaped, or something more along the lines of desperate and pathetic and whore. Hughie wonders how quick he’d fall into it with him, if he’d obey as soon as his eyes slid shut, or if it’s something he’d need to be pushed and tugged and yanked into with watery eyes and dazed nods.
Fuck, he thinks again, what would Annie be like?
Would she stand by the door and watch? Sit beside him, some vigilant bedside angel, stroking manicured nails through his sweat-slicked curls, whispering strings of encouragement and pride? Would she, in the height of Hughie’s undying neediness, fuck him too?
Who would listen to who? Would Annie give in and follow Butcher’s lead? The other way around? Or, Hughie’s favourite option, would they fight for it? Pulling him in two separate directions, stretching him out and ripping him apart by the seams; fists at his hips and at his jaw. A competition, he hopes, it’d be a competition- taking more and more and more until there was nothing left, and he’s ruined between the two of them.
Okay. Maybe he’s open to it.
But it’s still not happening.
The door handle jiggles suddenly, a dreadful rattling sound that makes Hughie startle so hard out of his thoughts that he physically jolts, eyes snapping over to the noise- it’s all rather reminiscent of those thriller movies. It clatters around a few more times, the sleek silver of it reflecting the whites of the overhead lights, before stopping. Hughie blinks at it.
“Hughie.” Annie’s muffled voice sounds through the door, and he, despite knowing it could’ve been nobody else, still sees his knuckles pale from his steeled grip. “If you just tell me why you’re upset, maybe I can apologise? Maybe I can make it right? Please?”
He can’t help it when he leans into that childish spite of this, the one that, even when the extremely small part of him that is rational rears its head, still makes him act like the world’s burning down at what should be nothing. Should be nothing, turned everything, turned big explosion, turned radioactive wasteland.
“...You know.” Is all he offers her, and it’s embarrassing. There isn’t any reply back for a moment, not even the shuffle of feet, and Hughie wishes in times like these that he had some super-hearing ability to know if she’s even breathing.
“Ohhhh.” She settles on, drawn and long as if she needed a second to clue in on it, and Hughie is practically sucker punched with the realisation that he’s the only one of them that’s been so occupied by it. He’s the only one that’s been going crazy over it. Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. That just makes him look like he wants it. Which he doesn’t. Obviously.
There’s a small silence again. Hughie, funnily, can almost see her racking her brain for something to say, gaping mouth and all, in that way she does.
“Hughie, I love you. I want to be with you, hold your weirdly big hands, do those cheesy walks in the park, watch those shitty Star War movies, do all the lame, sappy things.” She wrestles with the handle one more time, lets go and, he guesses, leans against it with a heavy sigh. “And Butcher is…he’s Butcher. I don’t know what to tell you. He might not even want it, but he’s weird about you and you’re weird about him too and it makes too much sense.”
Hughie isn’t blind. He knows some things. He knows how they are with each other, that odd sense of ownership they have over one another; evidenced time and time again through the big and little things, that obsessive push and pull that makes them fall back together again just as violently as they fall apart. It’s, annoyingly, like those on-and-off relationships you hear rumours about in highschool- the ones where the girl promises her bestest friends that she’s truly, finally over the boy that won’t stop running around behind her back but always ends up back with by the end of the week. It’s humiliating to think of it like that, but it’s true. And Butcher is jealous of Annie, even if he denies it with such offence it makes Hughie laugh; but he is. The way he talks to Annie, the way he talks about her, the way he acts like he’s won some game when Hughie agrees with him on something instead; all smug and mean.
“He’s kinda…obsessed. With you. And jealous, like super jealous of me. He probably would’ve killed me for getting your attention more than for being what I am- and don’t even think about denying it.” Hughie doesn’t need to not be blind to have seen that, too. Butcher is not subtle.
Jealousy still feels too intense of a word.
But, she’s right. She’s aggravatingly right, making Hughie roll his neck back and think God fucking damnit.
It’s also really sweet. And he might be stupid, so stupid, a fucking idiot of the highest degree, but he’s not intentionally an asshole. So he unlocks the door, steps out with his eyes steady on the hardwood floor, and closes it back behind him with a click.
“It’s Star Wars.”
Annie doesn’t say anything. Hughie worries he has been stupid again, until he lifts his eyes to meet hers and she’s smiling- broad and sunny and beautiful. He swears, even if she didn’t have her powers, she’d manage to blind him with it. What could he lose, really?
“Okay.” It comes out as a whisper, a little cracked and too small, as he nods once, twice. Annie beams harder, cheeks pulled high, eyes crinkled and dark, and she presses a soft kiss to his shoulder as her hand snakes around his waist. He lets her pull him into her some more, soft and without much force because she knows he’ll follow with even the lightest of tugs. He rolls his eyes. “Oh, please, like you don’t want to fuck him too.”
“Oh, I never said I didn’t, and I definitely didn’t avoid you for a week straight because of it.” She laughs, jabbing playfully at his ribs. “I want him to fuck you more, though.”
Hughie wouldn’t need easy access to a mirror now to know how red he is from that little comment, the flush clambering up from the pits of his stomach to the tips of his ears almost comically- and Annie laughs again, sweetly but mockingly, as he turns away with an embarrassed groan.
“I’ll speak to him.”
He, in fact, did not speak to him. This is something he only admits to Annie when she silently takes the sealed jar out of his hands in the morning, forcing eye contact with him as she snaps it open with a click. She doesn’t even need to say anything, that look alone the most impactful interrogation technique discovered thus far, and Hughie crumbles under it near-instantly. Annie tells him they’ll talk to him together. She knows Hughie, knows that if he doesn’t do something the first time, he won’t do it ever. It’s a habit they both can’t wait for him to break.
Butcher only looks majorly annoyed when they both walk into the ‘office’ (because what the fuck else can they call the shitty, rotten wood thing they’ve appointed as theirs) as opposed to boiling with rage. This is probably the best they can hope for, suitable for a particularly private conversation in comparison to literally any other variation of pissed he lives in a perpetual state of. Annie notices immediately, and Hughie notices that she notices- her hands settle lower, slipping more over her thighs than her hips; and as he’s found, the higher her hands rise, the more trouble there’ll be.
Hughie waves shortly to the others, who he hopes to the Lord won’t hear this- though, distantly, he feels they will; because this is Butcher, and this is Annie. There’s nothing else to expect but for something to blow up.
Butcher laughs when his eyes land on them, clipped and mean, and Hughie swallows down any reaction he could give to that.
“Now, what do I owe the fuckin’ pleasure?”
Annie doesn’t so much as twitch.
“We need to speak with you. In private, please.” She says with a measured tone. Butcher crosses his arms. Annie clears her throat, side-glances Hughie in a cry for help.
“Uh…” He starts lamely, bounces on his feet awkwardly to let some anxiety escape, and avoids Butcher’s eye in favour of staring at where he’s pulling on the ends of his sleeves. “Please? Nobody’s dead, I don’t think, we just- please?”
Hook, line and fucking sinker. It sounds like a terrible preposition in theory, and in execution, but Butcher is nothing if not weak for him. He allows a three second silence before sighing heavily, pushing forward and past them to the door- he holds it open with a glare.
“Move.” And then he’s gone.
Hughie chances a look around the room, and everyone is watching them. Annie pulls him out before he can panic about that as well. He’s waiting for them just out in the hallway, face hard and set, until he picks up on just how nervous Hughie is- and he definitely is, just not quite a hundred percent on how much it reads on him, but he must not be hiding it well for Butcher’s features to soften because of him.
He’s trying to make him feel better. Well.
“What.” He still doesn’t sound soft though. That’s fine, that’s something he’s much more used to, it actually somehow makes him feel better- that Butcher isn’t being weird, or overdramatic, or cruel, because it means they can speak to him like he’s a normal human being and not a complete dick.
Annie bites first.
“We were talking, Hughie and I, about some things and-” She takes a deep breath, it’s sort-of shaky, despite the confidence that ebbs off her, so Hughie leans against her slightly. Annie’s love language is touch, the small things like hands-to-hands and shoulders-to-shoulders. “Would you want to…join us. At all.”
Nevermind.
Butcher’s face twists and Hughie doesn’t blame him, that was not the clearest thing in the world, but the message is there. Somewhere. You’ve just got to dig a little, get your hands dirty. Annie sighs.
“Do you want to fuck my boyfriend or not.”
Holy shit. Way to recover. The air is practically beaten out of his lungs at those words, and both Annie and Butcher seem to in a similar state- Annie looks about two seconds from spinning on her heel and storming out, shifting from brave to sheepish with a red glaze on her cheeks, and Butcher’s expression is the picture of a taken aback yet withering soul. His eyebrows are practically in his hairline, and there’s a disbelieving spiral to his lips.
Hughie is not going to stand here and pretend that doesn’t do something for him. His hand lifts, elbow leaning on the arm that crosses his ribs defensively to clutch at his side, as his shoulders come in on themselves. A finger spirals into the nearest curl, one just by his ear, and he does not look at either of them.
“You- fucking, what?” Hughie shares the sentiment. “I’m fucking sorry, but what the fuck did you just say to me?”
“Do you-” Annie clicks her tongue aggressively, pointing between the two of them as if she could draw a line in the air- a clear connection, a clear, obvious sign “want to fuck him?”
Butcher makes a noise, but doesn’t answer.
“Oh, come on, we all know you do-”
Hughie can’t wait for the Earth to swallow him whole, because Butcher is looking straight at her like she’s lost her mind and he’s, for the first time ever, not keeping his eyes on Hughie. He, awfully, recognises that he needs to say something or else this is going to become something it doesn’t need to be.
“Don’t overthink it.” It’s hypocritical, after everything, and every one of them knows it, but he means it. Butcher’s eyes screw shut, and he turns his face, so Hughie reaches forward to tug on his shirt. “Just- be honest with us, with me, please-”
“Okay.”
Wait, what. What.
He doesn’t even register the words, not really, not until Annie registers them for him with a confused noise and the snap of her neck as she whips over to look at him. If Hughie wasn’t so in shock he would be worried about whiplash, but he’s…lost. He doesn’t have a brick wall in his mind to lean back on now, nor a floor of anxiety to dig his heels into, just an endless, black-hole pit of dubiety.
It wasn’t supposed to be that easy. Butcher is fucking Butcher, it’s something he’s had to come to terms with over the years, and that word- that voice- is decidedly not Butcher-esque. There’s no hidden messages, no code to decipher, no round-about metaphors or over-complicated explanations or badly-timed jokes- just straight to the point, an ‘okay’ of all things.
“Okay?” Annie wonders first for clarification, and she sounds a lot like she’s stumbling through the dark, “Is that a-”
“Yeah, yeah, fuckin’ yes, okay. Don’t make me repeat myself.”
“Everything good out here?” A strong voice interrupts the moment (which is a good thing because Hughie was about two seconds from screaming), and they all look up to see MM eyeing them oddly, his eyes gathered on Hughie a little longer than the rest- he really must look fucked up. Kimiko peeks out from beside him, making eye contact with him, and there’s some glint in her gaze that makes him fluster.
“Fuck off.” Butcher dismisses easily with a scowl. MM ignores him.
“Hughie?”
“Fine!” He squeaks, and Annie hides her face in her hands to hide a pleased and knowing grin. “Just fine, thank you.”
MM narrows his eyes but accepts it, leaving them alone with brief, off-handed glances at the other two, ushering Kimiko along with him. Hughie doesn’t miss the smile on Kimiko’s face.
“...Come on then.” Annie says after a couple of silent moments.
“Now?”
“Now, Hughie.”
Ah. He’s not going to make it out of this night alive.
“I have shit to do.” Butcher tells her lowly, but he doesn’t look certain about it.
“Cancel.” She smiles, sickeningly sweet and honey-slicked, “Move.”
God, does he love when she’s like this- pushy, giving everyone around her a taste of their own medicine, vengeful; using Butcher’s own words against him, it makes the two of them pause for a second, hesitance because she’s talking about their one, final line being crossed.
“Fine,” He grounds out, “let me go get my shit and I’ll meet you at…yours.” He seems to have some difficulty with the words, like he’s still caught up on the fact that the two of them share an apartment despite dating, and he turns to go back into the shit-office. Since when did this become a business deal? This is about him, but Hughie feels like he hasn’t had much of a say, it feels like an exchange; the shaking of hands, the saving of face, but he finds himself comforted by that in a weird way.
He’s an indecisive mess. Having two very assertive, strong, proud people make those decisions for him is, well, it’s a thing- a thing he likes too much to be normal, but nothing in his life is normal. Whatever.
When he and Annie make it back to the apartment, she shrugs like she had meant for it to go that way. What ever.
She decides to leave to the bedroom to ‘take care of things’ as she so eloquently puts it, a small smirk on her face- she’s fucking enjoying this, but all he feels is the uncomfortable bubbling beneath his skin, which he imagines bursting and peeling away any second now- telling him to stay there. ‘It’s a surprise’ she stops him when he goes to follow, and his head tilts to the side like a dog, ‘you’ll have to wait and see.’
Whatever.
Butcher shows up with a pounding knock and a harrowing grimace. It’s like a switch has been flipped in the ten minutes they’ve been apart, because now he won’t let Hughie escape eye contact with him- it’s strict, firm, like the beating of a drum. He invites himself in, slides himself against the breakfast bar without a word, and it suddenly feels as awkward as the waiting room at a doctor’s office; just without the white, sterile walls. Hughie almost wants to bring up the weather or something else just as meaningless just to fill the silence, but, well, quiz time:
You’re in a situation. You’re about to be fucked by your girlfriend and your… guy, presumably at the same time, but it is disconcerting as fuck. Do you:
- Talk shit, get your throat ripped out by said guy before your girlfriend can come back and settle the scene.
- Offer some welcoming gesture, either get your throat ripped out by said guy or make him think he’s wasting his time and getting played.
- Wait patiently like good little pets.
The answer is C, always C, or it would be if Annie didn’t come barreling into the room yelling questions about if Hughie knows if Butcher is allergic to any brand of lube at all- why would she think he knows that?
Butcher coughs. Hughie can’t tell if he’s amused or annoyed. Maybe both, but it’s okay because Annie drags Hughie away by the boney wrist before he can say anything- the subsequent long-suffering sigh and banging of heavy boots (he always refuses to take them off) meaning it couldn’t have been annoyance, because-
He’s overthinking.
Hughie sits on the bed politely, one ankle fished under the other, hands locked in his lap. Butcher stares at him some more as he clicks the door shut behind him. Annie pushes herself up on the bed next to him, so close he can practically taste the scent of her perfume.
“Well…” Annie’s fingers hook in the neckline of this shirt, nails scratching the surface of the sin of his collarbone, as she tugs it away from his neck, eyeing his pulsepoint. There’s a suggestive lilt to her voice, and Hughie wobbles a little already, even as she presses against his arm. “Go on. It’s what you’re here for, right?”
Just like that?
The problem, because Hughie knows, is that Butcher thinks Hughie can’t possibly want it, want him. He doesn’t think it’s possible, because, again, like Annie says, Butcher is Butcher- and Butcher is someone who thinks the world revolves around cursing him, he’s someone who thinks Hughie could possibly hate him, which is something that could’ve been true in one life, but not this one. That’s something Hughie is definitely sure of, because his blood boils with something unmistakably not hate.
Here goes nothing, one part of him thinks, here goes everything.
“Butcher.” He tests with furrowed brow, as his eyes flicker upwards; he’s watching the connection between Annie and him with a look he can’t quite make out. The word jealousy clangs in his mind like metal on metal, eerily similar to when you toss a coin down an empty flight of stairs and it beats against each and every railing on its way down. “I’m not stupid, I’ve seen it all, I’ve seen you. Don’t act shy now.”
Annie hums, encouraging, just like he had imagined, the darkest eyes he’s ever seen flash upwards across the room to Butcher.
“It’s all he could think about for a week straight.” She laughs a little, softly poking fun in the way she knows he likes. “Don’t you want to make it right, hm? Make it all better?”
Hughie looks up through his lashes to see him, and is hit with the one look he hasn’t ever encountered on Butcher’s face; the moon’s own shadow, irreligious, dismantled prayer. His thighs tighten at the sight, already hardening, and the two of them notice- pounce on the opportunity with spear-sharp intent. Annie’s fingers glide up into his hair, wrap around the strands like rope, jerking him back by it only when Butcher steps close enough, and, great, they’re working together.
The moan he lets out at the sensation is cut-off by his own dwindling reluctance, becomes a broken throaty sound that Annie tuts at.
“None of that.” She scolds, before her eyes slide back up to Butcher. “Go on.”
He doesn’t seem overly pleased at being bossed around, but he takes Hughie’s chin into his hand roughly, letting his thumb drag over the flesh of his bottom lip. When he leans down to kiss him, it surprises no one- it’s not slow, or fast, just devastating in that typical Butcher fashion, similar to how buildings fall to their knees after a blast. It’s what he wanted all along, and Hughie feels his head pull back further as he fights to kiss him back with everything he has- but Butcher backs off as soon as he does, letting his own mouth ghost Hughie’s just a small distance out of reach.
They don’t open their eyes, they don’t need to, and they’re kissing again before Hughie can begin to doubt that- the warm flash of tongue has him opening up for him quick, pathetically quick, a desperate plea for more that has Butcher grinning into it.
Annie’s fingers are nimble where she works at Butcher’s belt, at his fly with practised deftness, where she tugs him in closer to their space by the gunpowder ash dusted jeans. And Hughie doesn’t even think they’ll make it to the actual sex before he’s done.
Butcher swipes the next whine coming up his throat away, keeps it for himself, groaning as he leans his face back from Hughie’s again. He seems mesmerised by something, but Hughie isn’t sure what; the centrefocus of his attention being breathing and oh-
Annie lifts Hughie’s hand for him, a puppeteer, places it by Butcher’s exposed hip and whispers to him: ‘have fun, puppy.’
She lets go of him, steps away to get herself ready, and now Hughie’s staring at the thickness of Butcher’s cock- it’s big. That’s the simplest way to put it. He doesn’t know if he should be grateful or concerned for himself, but decides that’s something for later. He uses his other hand, spat on, to grab at the base- at least his fingers meet (barely)- as he leans in, takes it tenderly into his mouth. It settles on his tongue for a short moment as he stares up at Butcher, watches the way a million wars begin and end on his face, then moves.
He’s done this a thousand times before, just not often with a real dick, usually a plastic or rubber thing connected to a woman, so he’s keenly aware of what to do. To run the tongue across the length, drag himself away at varying speeds (slow, slow, fast, slow, feign, slow), teasing and methodic and scheming, to swallow around him.
“Hughie,” he wrestles out, hand reaching up to grab at his hair just like Annie had, but it’s self-controlled, like he doesn’t want to break him. Hughie moans around him. “Jesus Christ.”
Not quite.
“You’re too fuckin’ good at this, is this what she’s been teachin’ you?” Hughie’s eyes flutter shut. “If I’d’ve known you were- shit-”
“Baby.” Annie interrupts, and Hughie answers to her first, so he draws himself back up from the base to the tip of Butcher’s cock, pulls off to press a small flurry of a peck to it, turning to her. “Up.”
She doesn’t have to order much for him to get it, bouncing up off the bed with a newborn anticipation. Hughie almost has to mediate a fight when she tells Butcher to get on the bed rather than asking, but Butcher takes one, final glance at Hughie to do it- even if it is with a twisted growl. She has Hughie over him in seconds, herself just behind him, undressed and waiting, and they knew what today would be- so he’s already prepped, ready and slick, so Hughie’s confront with the biting heat of Butcher’s pulsing heat nudging at him in a matter of a minute or so.
Butcher breathes out, presses a small, pecking kiss to the top of his knuckles with it and Hughie chokes; chokes on everything, a strangled, weak moan clawing its way out of his throat as he feels it. Annie’s hand is careful, a steadying force against the rigid curve of his back, as he’s finally lowered down- distantly, he recognises she’s kissing his shoulder, but he’s too tunnel-vision focused on the burning sensation of Butcher’s cock finally, finally inside of him.
They both keep him there for a moment, and Hughie sort-of feels like some loaded gun then as hands roam him- fists at the flesh of his thighs, groping hands at his hips, a thin hand at his throat, another by the low of his back. Annie leans him back slightly so that his head rests on her shoulder now that she’s kneeling behind him, moves her lips to his temple, and he can feel where her lip gloss paints the skin there. He takes a shaky breath in, a shakier breath out, before nodding.
“Are you sure?” She asks in his ear, and he nods again, not having the strength for words- he doesn’t want to waste whatever strength he does have left in him for anything but getting fucked into total hysterics. “Okay, baby, let me-”
A small whine escapes him at the pet name, all fond, and Annie lets out a sympathetic coo as she shifts against him. Butcher’s grip tightens, so Hughie offers a squeeze back on his wrist to show him he’s very much in the room and listening.
“Come on, love.” Don’t call me that, don’t call me that, don’t call me that- “Careful.”
He’s not quite sure if that’s a command or not, but he treats it as one still; lets all his tension go with one long sigh that heightens into a moan when he feels the head of Annie’s strap against his hole. Butcher hisses with it too, but he makes himself focus on the greedy, rolling snap of Hughie’s hips- fingers bruising his freckled skin with no apology, grounding him. Hughie lolls his head just enough to meet his eye, and he can barely see through the flooding in his vision but even just the faint outline of Butcher is enough for him to settle- recognising him no matter what, knowing he’s safe.
His eyes slide shut when Annie wraps her arms around his waist, slowly easing into him up against Butcher, he’s going to die-
“You’re not. You’re not.” She whispers into his skin, and he must’ve said that aloud, but he’s waiting and he’s ready and he doesn’t care- “Calm down, baby.”
He does. The effect is startlingly instant.
The first, experimental rotation of her hips has him death-gripping Butcher’s wrist. The bones, wonderously, don’t break but both of them feel how they creak- Hughie is not strong, he is not powerful in any way that matters, but he is making his mark on Butcher, who reaches forward with that same hand to brush away the hair in Hughie’s face. It’s a tender movement, a full dichotomy from the jolts of Hughie’s smaller frame- Annie pulls herself out back to the tip, pushes back in, the only one moving of her own accord for now to get him used to it- holds it back so he can see his eyes and the crimson of his cheeks.
It makes him blush harder.
The first batch of tears escape the netting of his lashes just as Annie decides he’s ready; hand urging him to lean forward until he’s chest-to-chest with Butcher beneath him, who nods up at her. He feels uncharacteristically silent now, despite everything he had to say before. He misses his voice.
“He wants you to tell him how good he is.” Annie speaks up suddenly, reading him like an open book once again, as she situates him- back up slightly, so he’s leaning over Butcher instead of against him, although weakly. He hears a groan from him.
“That right?” It’s spoken lowly, unkindly, just as Annie pats him on the back, “Perhaps he should show me how good he is first, yeah?”
Hughie sobs, openly, stutters out an ‘okay’ with disjointed breaths and sucks it up. The first drag of his hips, up and away from Butcher’s cock and Annie’s strap, burns; a scorching, painful number, but he counts his way through it- tells himself it’s worth it for the words Butcher has for him, the knowledge he’s done enough, done good.
Annie fucking purrs at him, just as Butcher’s fist tightens in his hair encouragingly, spurring him on until the fire soothes into aches- and by just the fourth of his bounces, Annie’s fingers reach forward to keep his jaw open, hooked over the ceramic of his teeth. The pads of the digits press down against the pink of his tongue once she’s satisfied he knows to stay open, beads of drool coating them. He must look like a mess-
“Perfect,” Butcher decides loudly, an uneven, rocky edge to his voice, and Hughie’s responding mewl has his iris’ shot black, “fuckin’ perfect, darlin’.”
Fuck.
Annie hums behind him in approval, removing her fingers to wrap both hands around Hughie’s wrists- snatching his hands away from their perches, shuffling her knees on the mattress with a few dips, and she pulls him back down to their bases herself. Hughie chokes on it, feels a violent surge of pleasure course through him then, because Annie is doing the work for his already exhausted body- small mercies- thrusting him up and down against and on them in a steady and strong rhythm.
Annie is strong, of course she is, but she’s super-human strong, and she can do all the work for them without even blinking, and that just drives him further down the well of hysteria- just as Butcher drags himself up enough to kiss at Hughie’s chest, his collarbone, his neck, suckling and biting at the skin like he owns it.
“Fuuuck,” He cries out incoherently, the two of them hitting that sweet spot up inside of him, and Butcher’s beginning to shake against him. Annie notices, obviously, so her movements, her jostling of him, turns erratic and fast. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-”
“You’re so fucking good, baby, you’re doing so good-” She’s breathless, panting, and her grip on his wrists is turning painful; not that he’s complaining, always welcome to the small black-blue ribbons she leaves behind for him. “You hear what Butcher said, hm? He called you perfect-”
Hughie cries harder.
“Don’t you, ah, fucking dare stop-”
“She’s not, darlin’,” Butcher forces his voice to stay still, but Hughie can feel his heavy breaths and bobbing throat against him. “Fuckin’ you well and good, isn’t she?”
Hughie moans out in agreement, but it’s near-delirious, and any words he made now would be impossible for them to understand. Butcher’s teeth graze the underside of his jaw, following the sweat-streaked line of his throat, hissing against the flesh of his collarbone- already littered in marks of his own- and biting down on his shoulder.
Hughie cums with a shout, falling limp like a puppet with cut strings, and Annie is saying something about him being good and perfect and beautiful, but Butcher’s kissing at the top of his head, muttering curses into him like little prayers, and Hughie is mad at himself for not having the strength to reach up and swallow them whole. Butcher finishes inside of him, paints him from the inside out, takes him as his own- a lot quieter, but Hughie feels it, and Annie for sure sees it, pulling back and out of him but leaving them alone.
He’s settled over Butcher, hides his face in the crook of his neck as he recovers, but he’s not finished yet- blinking a teary eye open to see Annie smiling down at him, strap forgotten somewhere in the room. She’s patient, she waits, strokes at his hair as soon as she gets the chance, petting him because she knows that’s what he likes in the after.
He rolls over, off of Butcher, who makes a noise- one he doesn’t want to dwell on for his own sanity- and she nods, straddles over him until her own throbbing arousal is against his chest.
“Remember.” Tap once for slow down, twice for stop, thrice for get off. He nods back, licks his lips, and she lifts up again to press her cunt down against his awaiting mouth. His hands instantly bunch up in her still-on blouse, and she instantly grabs at the headboard (there’s cracks in the wood, from her past dealings there), her body rolling down unforgivingly. “Yes-”
It doesn’t last long, she’s worked up after all, but they’re definitely going to have to buy a new headboard. He doesn’t have to tap, just lets her take it out against him, but he gives back- tongues at her, sucks at her- and he hears the telltale hitching of breath and feels the broken snaps of her rocking against him until she’s cumming too. It’s with the smallest of her own moans, half-low groan and half-high whine, and she stays there for a second to gather herself- pulling away to lay down on the free side of him.
He swallows.
“What do you call a threesome in an oasis?” Annie sighs out a quiet, choked ‘please, no’. “A Mirage à trois.”
It’s silent besides their harmonising pants of breath.
“Oh, fuck off.”