Shards To A Whole: Caution

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 374: Caution


Tim wakes to the smell of coffee the next morning, which he finds a little confusing because he's the one who makes the coffee in the morning.

Then it clicks. Jimmy and Breena crashed at their place last night.

Which is also when the rest of last night hit him.

Abby's still sleeping, so he gently kisses her neck, eases out of bed, finds a pair of pajama pants, puts them on, and heads downstairs.

Jimmy's sitting at his kitchen table, in his boxers and t-shirt, drinking his coffee, and reading something on his phone.

"You look comfy."

"I am, thanks." He pushes a second cup of coffee toward Tim. "Figured you'd be down less than ten minutes after you smelled it."

"Yeah." He takes a sip; it's the way he likes it. "Thanks."

"No problem."

"Sleep well?"

"Yeah, the bed in your guest room is good."

They sit there, drinking their coffee in silence, and that silence is significantly less comfortable than usual. Finally Tim says, "So, um… last night, was that weird?"

Jimmy looks up from his phone, and Tim sees the hickies on his collar bone and throat, while realizing he's got fingernail marks down his back, no shirt, and he didn't bother to wash his eye makeup off last night, so he's likely got raccoon eyes to go with the rest of it. They both look utterly fucked. "Getting off watching each other have sex at a club, all four of us basically spending the next three hours making out with each other, then getting off again, listening to each other have sex. Do you have to ask?"

Yeah, there's some sarcasm there, but not nearly as much as there could be, so Tim says, "I do. Cause I'm alternating between completely freaked out and totally okay with it. How about you?"

Jimmy takes a long drink of his coffee and then sighs. "Yeah, it's weird, but... not in a bad way."

Tim's not looking at Jimmy as he says, "Yeah. Maybe in a I-really-liked-it-but-I-don't-want-to-think-too-hard-about-it sort of way."

"In a we-never-ever-tell-Tony-about-it sort of way."

Tim's nodding almost violently in agreement with that, and Jimmy smiles at him, and uncomfortable fell apart. "So, we're good?"

"Yeah, we're good," Jimmy says. "Think the girls are?"

"If what Abby's telling me is right, they want to take this a lot further than just showing off for each other, so yeah, I think they're good."

"Err…" Jimmy looks somewhat uncomfortable at that. But Tim notices, only somewhat.

"Yeah." Tim drinks more of his coffee.

"Not sure I'd want to go there."

"Yeah. Like, it's a hot idea, but…"

"But…" Jimmy nods. "I mean, we've talked about it, and it's a fun fantasy, but…"

Tim nods, he knows exactly what Jimmy means by this. "Abby says they won't ambush us with it. They'll let us know ahead of time and give us plenty of room to back out."

"That's a good thing. 'Cause if it went wrong, it'd go really wrong."

"Yeah. And I don't want that."

"Me, either."

Tim takes another sip of his coffee. Part of him wants to leave it there, get up, make some eggs for them, and just let it lie. Keep this in the realm of fantasy and the occasional live show. He's thinking being the ones in the booth, watching the show would be a whole lot of fun, too.

But the part of him that knows how much he likes those fantasies is awfully sure Jimmy really likes those fantasies, too. So, he swallows again, trying to ease his nerve-generated dry mouth, looking for some moisture so he'll be able to speak, and says, "What if it didn't go wrong?"

Jimmy's staring at him, looking awfully startled by that. He carefully puts his coffee cup down full attention with laser focus on Tim. "You think it might not?"

Tim shrugs. "I don't know. I was talking with Breena about—"

"You talked to Breena about this?" Jimmy looks stunned and a bit angry at that.

"You haven't talked to Abby?"

"No!" Tim gave Jimmy a cut the bullshit look. "Not exactly. She's your wife. I'm not going to talk to her about having sex with me."

"Well, what does 'not exactly' mean?"

"I talked to Breena, and Breena talked to her, and next thing I knew we had Valentine's videos of the girls making out. That's like right out of the guy playbook."

For a moment, Tim's thinking that Jimmy has a way different playbook than he does, but it probably doesn't matter much. "I think it's safe to say that last night we not only tossed out the playbook, but that we set fire to it first and pissed on its ashes."

"Maybe." Jimmy sounds guarded at this, like he's reserving judgment and debating about if he needs to get really pissed. "What did you say to Breena?"

"Day after Tony and Ziva's wedding, Abby tells me that maybe you two might be willing to come play with us, which was the first time she told me that she and Breena had been talking about this, like really talking about it, and once I got my brain back online, the first thing I was wondering about was how your virgin-to-her-wedding-day wife got to the point of let's-have-sex-with-our-best-friends, too. And that's something I couldn't ask you. So, I flat out asked her about it."

Jimmy thinks about that, eyeing Tim… And it's an okay question, not too far out of line. He relaxes. "When was that?"

"Last Memorial Day, when I was showing her the anti-nausea points."

Jimmy thinks back, and remembers that. "You had that conversation with her when she was in a bikini while touching her?"

"Yeah, while wearing a wet bathing suit, with our whole family fifty feet away."

Jimmy laughs, rolling his eyes. "You really are a glutton for punishment, aren't you."

"Says the guy who wears skintight jeans to go out in public when he knows he's going to be walking around with a hard-on. Yeah, I'm the glutton for punishment." Tim drops the sarcasm. "But… You've talked with her about this, right?"

"Of course." She's my wife, of course I've talked to her about this. I'm the one who's supposed to be talking with her about this. Is pretty clear on Jimmy's face.

Tim nods, letting him, know he gets that. "Okay. I just… really liked the way she was thinking about it. And there's this part of me that's all Grrrr… My woman! Stay away! But if I could get it to shut up, this could be a really great."

Jimmy thinks about it. "I could see you watching what Breena and I were doing. Could tell you were getting off on it, and it didn't bother me." Jimmy lets that sit there, and then decides that if they're going to actually talk about this, then honesty is probably the best way to make sure it doesn't end up biting all four of them in the ass. "Okay, I really liked it. Taking getting caught one notch higher, you know." Tim nods; he gets that. "But, it's supposed to bother you, right? I mean, you watched Breena get off. That's supposed to piss me off, right? Not make me feel… turned on… and proud… kind of?"

Tim nods. "Best, hottest porn ever, because you're real, and actually having a good time, and… And you're watching us, so we're showing off, too, and you kick it up a bit because we're watching you, and…"

"And that feels kind of weird. Like it's wrong, but that's part of why it feels so good, but maybe it's not wrong, because it's you and Abby, so it's safe, but it's you and Abby, so maybe it's not safe and… Almost getting caught is one thing, putting on a show… And feeling like I'm… I mean, it felt really good, but…"

Okay, if Tim's filling in those blanks correctly, it looks like Jimmy is on the same page he is, and that makes Tim feel a lot better. "You could tell I was talking to Abby, right?"

"Yeah."

"We'll… tell each other stories. And last night was the first time she flat out said she wanted to have sex with you. Not… together, the two of us doing Breena-"

"Both of you with Breena?" Jimmy looks like he feels like he should be surprised about that, but isn't.

"Oh yeah! You don't have one of you and her with Abby?"

"Of course," Which is likely why he's not surprised. "We've had that one for years."

"Us, too. Anyway this was the first time your ass got tossed into the mix, and… It didn't piss me off. I felt like it should have. I mean, she's telling me she wants to have sex with you. But it didn't, and from there, I just ran the story, all four of us, and we passed it around, playing with it, and…" He feels like he's standing on the edge of the cliff, and takes a deep breath. "And… even with you in the mix, it was really hot, and… And then the three of us were dancing… and…" Just say it. He's not going to have a fit. He's your friend and he probably feels the same way, too. "And I really liked the idea of you and me with her."

"Hmm…"

Tim can't read the expression on Jimmy's face right now. He's got it intentionally blank. No! Don't just sit there saying hmmm! Do not leave me out here on my own with my balls flapping in the breeze. "Hmm… what?"

Blank crumbles, replaced with confusion, fear, and worry. "I don't know!" Jimmy snaps out. "Yeah, it's hot! You and me and Abby, or you and me and Breena, or…" and Tim's getting the sense Jimmy's having a similar debate about actually saying out loud what he's thinking that Tim just was. "Or maybe, you and Breena, you know, on your own, and me and Abby, on our own, but like, together, same room, same bed, watching each other…" Tim's not even sure how to respond to that, because it's nothing that he'd thought of, yet, though it's starting to bounce around in his head, now. And… yeah, he swallows hard as a whole slew of new erotic images go flashing through his head. That's not hitting him wrong, at all. He nods a little, and Jimmy knows he hasn't crossed the line, so he gets to his point. "It's really hot; it's don't think about it in public hot, but if it went wrong, it'd kill us, and I don't…" He shakes his head a little, eyes on Tim's, very earnest expression on his face. "This is everyone in the world who really matters to me, all in play because of this."

Tim nods, he understands that, feels it, too.

"And if it went right… Then what?"

Tim looks at him quizzically. Concerns about this going right are nothing that's occurred to him. "I'm not following you."

"It goes right, are we, just… what? Fuck buddies? Extra fun on long weekends? Abby's alone in the lab, and I've got a sample to run, do I get to play with her? If it's really good, do we move in together, form one family? Is Abby still yours and Breena mine? What the fuck does yours or mine even mean if we do this? Do we care if the kids have blonde hair and green eyes or brown hair and hazel eyes?"

"Er…" Absolutely none of that was something Tim had given any real thought. Beyond saying to Gibbs that if they could do it once, they'd probably want to do it a lot, he hadn't thought of anything beyond them still getting along and sex.

"Yeah." Jimmy nods at him, seeing the ideas really hit Tim.

Tim opens his mouth, not entirely sure what he is going to say next, but feeling like he needs to say something, when the sound of a truck pulling into their driveway lets both of them know Gibbs is less than a minute from the door. And less than a minute later they hear the door open along with, "Anyone awake? Got a little girl who wants to see Mom and Dad, here."

"Jimmy and I are in the kitchen," he calls out to Gibbs. A second later he's holding Kelly, kissing her forehead.

"Looks like you guys had a good night," he says to Tim and Jimmy dryly. And it occurs to Tim that not only do he and Jimmy both look really fucked, but they have to smell like it, too.

He flashes Gibbs a sheepish smile, but Jimmy either misses the insinuation or ignores it, and just says, with his trademark innocent smile, "Oh yeah. Ladies are still sleeping. You want a cup of coffee?"

Gibbs looks at both of them, staring long and hard before saying, "Nah. Was planning on heading up to the house, get a good day in on that." He looks at both of them, eyes lingering on the hickeys on Jimmy's throat. "Don't want to eat up your anniversary time off, but maybe you'll both come up and help?"

"This week's bootcamp is carpentry?"

"Sure." Gibbs says.

"Yeah, I can swing that." Jimmy answers, while Tim nods in agreement. "Want me to call Collin?"

Gibbs shakes his head. "Just you two."

"Okay." Jimmy's looking a little perplexed at this, but Tim's thinking he knows what's up.

Gibbs grabs his keys. "Got some errands to run, more mortar and tools to pick up. See you in a bit?"

Tim and Jimmy nod as he heads off.

Jimmy looks back to Tim, who's bouncing Kelly in his arms. "Okay, I know I missed at least half of that conversation. What the hell was that?"

"Dad's making sure we're not about to shoot ourselves in the ass."

"Okay, how could he possibly know? The man cannot actually be psychic, and I don't care how good he says his hearing is, he did not hear that conversation."

Tim's looking sheepish again. "I might have told him, a bit more than a year ago, that we were... kind of thinking about it."

"You talk to Breena and Gibbs about this, but not me?"

"You'd have hit me last year if I brought it up then. And… I couldn't have said it. But we're talking now."

"Why would you tell him..." Jimmy looks stupefied. "How do you even get into that conversation with him?"

"It's a longish story. Just... it was the week of Tony and Ziva's honeymoon, we were on stakeout, got talking, and he'd seen us dancing at the wedding, and was... I don't know, not curious, but... cautious, I guess.

"And it was like, two days after Abby said she and Breena had been talking about it, like actually doing it, talking about it, and that was a lot to process so... I asked for advice."

Jimmy knows Tim and Gibbs are closer than the rest of him, but the idea that Tim would ask Gibbs for advice on this floors him. For a second he sits there quietly, and then another thought hits. "What did he say?"

"Take it slow, trust my instincts, and don't do anything stupid."

"Take it slow?" Jimmy's utterly shocked by that. "I'd have been thinking he would have had something closer to 'Fuck around on Abby, and I will personally introduce your testicles to my hedge trimmers.'"

"Yeah, well, I didn't put it like, 'Hey, I'm kind of bored, and Breena's looking good. So, how about I go fuck up both of our marriages and wreck our kids' lives.' I'm sure that would have gotten hedge trimmer introductions in order. Abby put it as, if it ever happened, it'd be the four of us, all together. So, that's what I told him. And that if we could do it, it probably wouldn't just be a one off kind of thing."

"One off?"

"He asked if the girls were thinking like some sort of birthday treat for us, kind of like what they did for Valentine's, or if it'd be something we'd do a lot. And... like you said... I don't know... But, I mean, if we can do this, that would mean it was fun and good, so... We'd want to do it a lot, right?"

"I guess..." Jimmy's looking wary about this. "If we can do it."

"Yeah. If... I mean, we're not... committing to anything, right?"

"No!" Jimmy stops, thinks, staring at Tim. "But we're not ruling it out, either."

"No." He bites his lip. "We're... figuring it out."

"Yeah. Okay." At that Jimmy starts to laugh. Tim's just staring at him.

Finally Jimmy gets out, "We're two white-bread, suburban dads with minivans, responsible jobs, and likely PTA memberships and volunteering for the Girl Scouts in the not wildly distant future. Hell, I wear bow ties to work! How on earth do we end up here?"

Tim shakes his head slowly, smiling a little, also getting the irony of this. "I don't know. But we might as well enjoy it, right?"

"Oh yeah."

"So, we're good?"

"Yeah. We are. Whatever's coming, we'll figure it out."

"Okay. For future reference, wouldn't mind if you and Breena were the ones on the dance floor next time. We like to watch, too."

Jimmy nods. "Noted."

---

Gibbs and Ducky and Penny have been putting in full days at the house over the course of the last week. (Finals were last week. She's off until the summer session begins in June.) This has resulted in remarkably little work done on the actual house.

All the siding is off. They've got new plywood up in the places that needed it. Everything is wrapped in Tyvek, and in one tiny corner of the longest southern-facing wall of the house, there's the start of the masonry work.

The reason why it's only one tiny corner is laid out in the driveway. Penny had taken one look at the load of stone in their driveway, and promptly come to the conclusion that just randomly slapping rocks against the side of the house would not result in the kind of job they were looking for.

So she and Ducky marked off the size of the area they were going to work on, and began laying out the stones ahead of time. Supposedly this will result in maximum efficiency of stonework, and will prevent a situation where they end up having to stick twenty-five tiny stones all next to each other to fill in a gap. Gibbs isn't sure about that. He knows that what is has resulted in is Ducky and Penny puttering about in the driveway debating which stone goes where, while he grabs stones they've already laid out, one at a time, and gets them up, slowly.

Apparently this is how house building goes when you're working with scientists.

On the upside, the first wall's stones are laid out, so all he has to do today is keep schlepping them from the driveway to the side of the house and apply them and the mortar to the house.

And he does suppose it's nice that this is like putting together a puzzle when the pieces are already laid out right next to each other. It does let him immerse himself in the feel of wet mortar, hard stone, tapping and scraping each bit into place.

It's not wood. He'd be doing better with wood. But this is good, too.

As soon as Gibbs realized that Tony wasn't at Tim's place, he started to get a bit nervous. He remembered that conversation bit more than a year ago about maybe the four of them becoming more than friends. He saw, immediately recognizing the hot-date-gonna-get-so-laid look on both of the guys' faces when he went to pick up Kelly. Tony told him about the Valentine's Day treat the girls made, and how it completely fried Jimmy's brain. Didn't take him more than a second to put that all together with his original advice: take it slow, don't do anything stupid, and to make sure all babies were healthy and that everyone was settled.
Everyone's settled, all babies are healthy, it's been more than a year since he said that to Tim. If there's such a thing as a prime time to move on the four of them… foursome-ing… he guesses that'd be the term, it's probably now.

Gibbs's not sure if they did it or not last night. Both guys reeked of sex, so he knows on a basic level what happened, but he doesn't know if they crossed the line or just got close. He could feel something was up, but not well enough to know precisely what.

And he doesn't know if today's pick up the pieces and clean up time, or if… if something new's starting, or… or if they even have a clue what's going on.

He just hopes they didn't fuck things up.

---

Gibbs has gotten a few more feet of wall done when he hears Jimmy's car pull up. He sees both of them, dressed to work, amble out, look over the stones all over the driveway, and the head to him.

Tim's got a bag in his hand. "You have lunch?"

Gibbs shakes his head. He hasn't eaten yet. Though they got the electric working on Tuesday and now have a working fridge with food in it located in the kitchen.

Tim hands over the bag. "Club sandwich, chips, macaroni salad, and Elaine sends her love, hopes to see us all back for breakfast next week." With no Sunday morning church, they hadn't been doing pre-church breakfast.

Gibbs nods, opening up the bag. "Next Sunday?"

"We're fine with that, church or no. Not like we aren't up," Jimmy adds. He looks at the wall, looks at Gibbs kneeling in front of it, and looks at the rocks. "So, we talking or working?"

That's a bit more abrupt than Gibbs was hoping for. He still doesn't have a read for what happened last night, yet.

"Both."

"Then show us what to do." Tim says.

Gibbs does, picking up the next rock. They're of many different shapes and diameters, but they're all about an inch thick. The idea is to create the appearance of a stone wall. He applies the mortar to the board and the other stones, setting the newest one in place, tapping it down, making sure it's secure, and then scraping off the extra. It's not the fastest or tidiest job ever. Gibbs is very obviously not a mason, but he's got the basics down. (Thank you, YouTube.)

"Penny and Duck laid 'em all out. Grab some, measure where they go, twice, start from the bottom up, and get to work."

Tim and Jimmy nod, and get to it. Jimmy grabs his stone from a patch about ten feet away from Gibbs, and Tim snags the bottom of the other corner. (Righties, like say, Gibbs, tend to prefer to work left to right. Well, he likes to go right to left, so Tim homes in on the far edge of the wall.) They'd been at it for a moment when he hears Jimmy say to Tim. "Heads up."

Tim looks up and then quickly catches the SPF 50 sunblock that is flying toward his head. "Thanks. Already wearing some."

"Good. More goes on every hour fifteen."

"Yes, Doctor Palmer."

Jimmy nods, and goes back to applying stones to the wall. He's good at it. Might be some overlap between masonry and autopsy. At the very least, both require a certain level of manual dexterity, and the ability to manipulate malleable solids.

Gibbs keeps watch on them as he works. They seem fine, talking a little, joking some, mostly focused on doing something new and technically precise well. He's not catching any tension between them. There's a slight edge of 'are we in trouble' coming from both of them, but it's not so sharp as to affect how they're working, and it's aimed at him, not at each other.

After watching both of them for an hour, Gibbs decides to break for lunch. And him breaking for lunch means they both wrap up what they're doing to grab drinks and sit with him. Once he's got his bag unpacked, he asks, "Good time last night?" He's watching for the micro expressions, the little tells that neither of them know they do every time they talk.

"Yeah." Tim says, nodding. And yes, he had a good time. That's true. Gibbs gets the sense that there's some reticence to get too deep into it, but it's aimed at him, and it doesn't appear to be related to shame or regret.

Jimmy grins at him, wide happy expression. "Oh yeah!" And like with Tim, that's real, but there is also a reserve, and… yeah, it's aimed at him.

He catches the look the two of them give each other. Takes him a second to decide that look is, How much are we telling Dad?

Gibbs can see they're okay with each other, so… He should probably leave it alone. That's all that really matters on this. And any deeper than that is not, by any stretch of anyone's imagination, his business.

He's about ready to drop it, but Tim says, "We're fine; we're not being stupid; we're taking it slow, and we don't know exactly what's going to happen next, but nothing's happening without all four of us wholeheartedly agreeing to it."

Jimmy nods. "It's good you're looking out for us, but we're okay."

Gibbs looks at both of them, staring, trying to lay their souls bare with his eyes. "You sure?"

"Yeah," Jimmy says with a nod. Tim's nodding, too.

"You okay?" Tim asks.

Gibbs eyes narrow a bit. He hasn't bothered to think about this in terms of if he is okay. Gibbs thinks about it for a minute. If they're okay, really okay… and they look okay… Whatever it was they did last night, he's sure it didn't suddenly make both of them expert liars. So, yeah… he's okay.

Gibbs nods. Then he thinks some more. "But I won't be if you guys tear apart." He sighs. He hates trying to talk about deep, emotion-y things. "Be like having my heart ripped out if you four stopped getting along."

"Yeah." Jimmy says, looking from him to Tim, very serious. "I know."

Tim nods back at both of them, just as serious. "Me, too."

"Okay." Gibbs drinks some of his coffee and grabs his sandwich, chewing a bite, he says, "Back to work. Stone's aren't putting themselves up, and you're not eating."

Jimmy's getting up, but Tim hasn't moved. "If… and not saying it'll happen, but…" Tim rubs his face, looking a bit sheepish, so Jimmy sits down again, wanting to see where he's going to take this. Gibbs is watching this closely, too, getting a sense of where this might be going, but not sure. "If we… the four of us…get together, for real, like, serious, long-term, rest of our lives, for real… We were just… playing… last night. You still going to be okay, with us?"

Gibbs watches Tim, knows that it cost him to ask that, to lay out his need for approval that nakedly. He swallows, because, okay, if the four of them do become, whatever, it does strike him as sort of weird. Of course, a lot of things about Tim and Jimmy strike him as weird. But, at least right now, this feels more like kilts and man-of-honor weird than something he needs to actually get excited about weird.

He hates this because he has to take a moment and really feel whatever this is, because he doesn't want to just haul off with a quick answer and have it bite them later.

So, he takes the time, and Tim's looking a little nervous, so Gibbs puts his hand on Tim's signaling, be calm.

He's not feeling any immediate sense of disgust or problem. There's fear here, but that's fear of it falling apart, of their family ripped to shreds and people he loves in pain.

He exhales, trying to think of how to say this. "I'm always going to be okay with all of you. That's not changing. You are who you are, and you're good men, and I'm proud to have you as sons. But I want you to be happy. And, if you can keep the sort of good thing you've got with your own wives going while becoming… whatever this is… then yes, I'm going to be okay with you, all of you." He looks directly at Tim for this bit. "I don't care what combinations you're sleeping with each other in." He gives Jimmy a quick glance, too, but both of them know Tim's background well enough to know that matters a hell of a lot more to him than it does to Jimmy. "I also don't want to know." He hopes that'll prevent the occasional overshare Tim and Jimmy are known for, too.

Gibbs licks his lips, because there's more than that. "While back, I told Tony that rule twelve had changed. Don't date Ziva if you're not willing to marry her. It'd hurt so much if they screwed it up, you know?" Both of the younger guys are nodding. "So, that's what I'll tell you. If you do this, it better be a forever thing. I've already lost one family. I don't want to lose another one. Don't fuck around with this. Don't cross the line until you're willing to commit to it."

Tim nods, looking relieved. "Thanks."

Gibbs looks at Jimmy, who nods. He's happy to have this… conditional blessing of sorts… but it's clear that it matters a hell of a lot more to Tim.

Tim stands up, dusting off his jeans. "Okay, putting up stones."

Jimmy also stands, grabbing a trowel and then handing it to Tim. "This one's yours."

"Thanks."

"Didn't know they made these lefty," he says to Gibbs.

"Until this morning, I didn't either."

---

He's closing up the truck, whistling for Mona, letting her know it's time to go home, and can hear both of the guys talking, quietly, about something.

They walk over to him, and Tim starts, "Since we don't really know what we're doing yet, we're hoping to keep this quiet."

"Be a lot easier to figure this out if it's just the four of us doing the figuring out."

Tim adds, "If there's ever anything to be, out, about, we'll be out at home, but right now, this is just for us, okay?"

Gibbs nods. He can keep their secrets.

"Tim noticed that look you shot us last night, and Borin's not stupid, so we're guessing that she's probably wondering what that was."

Gibbs nods, she had wondered, but was willing to let it go when he said he couldn't talk about it.

"So, look, we don't want you feeling like you can't talk to her," Tim says. "Anything we hit you with, you can tell her, too."

"Don't want you feeling like you've got to shut her out."

Jimmy finishes with, "Just, don't want this going through everyone else, yet."

Gibbs can read that 'everyone else' means Tony specifically and to a lesser degree Ziva. He's not getting a feel if they're concerned about Ducky and Penny one way or another. And then something else hits him, 'everyone else' is the entire Slater clan. And 'everyone else' means not shooting them looks that Tony or Ziva or say Collin will pick up on at the next Bootcamp.

Gibbs nods. "No problem."

---

"Good talk?" Borin asks as he and Mona step into the house.

He nods, sitting down next to her on the sofa. She knew he wanted to talk to the guys, on his own, or she would have offered to go along on today's trip. She actually likes masonry. But, they needed 'guy time' so, instead she's catching up on the shows she likes to watch on her iPad.

Gibbs isn't sure where to start this, why he was concerned, what's going on.

"You get permission to tell me what's up?"

Say what you like about dating a cop, but they miss absolutely nothing.

He nods at that, too.

"So…"

He shakes his head, opening and closing his mouth.

"How bad is this?"

"It's not…" He does that I don't have words gesture, but finally gets some together. "They're tiptoeing around becoming a foursome. Not sure if they're staying where they are or going further."

Borin blinks a few times at that. She stares at Gibbs, and can see he's not on the warpath, no sense of anger, but… "Shouldn't you be getting out the sniper rifle and putting the fear of Dad into them?"

He shrugs. "If Tim and Abby and Breena and Jimmy all want to be… with each other… all of 'em, together, at once… Who am I supposed to shoot?"

Abbi opens and closes her mouth. She doesn't have an answer to that.

He looks at her, exactly on his face. "Is it cheating if you're all in it together?"

"I..." she's about to say, 'I'd say so," but thinks about it more, thinks about all together, at once, and comes up with a very uncertain, "No?"

Gibbs nods.

Abbi thinks about what she's seen of the four of them together, slotting it into that sort of a focus. And thinking about it, yeah, they are close. Really close. She's seen plenty of relationships like what Breena and Abby have, that almost effortless closeness between two women. She doesn't think she's seen too many examples of guys who similar levels of comfort with each other, but as she thinks about it, Tim and Jimmy do have that. And she can feel that's something Tony and Ziva are outside of.

"So, that's why you got tense when you realized Tony wasn't there?"

"Yeah. Know they won't do anything if he's along for the trip."

"You worried?"

He shrugs at that, too. "Feel like I should be. They seem okay. Right now, they are. But… I don't want them getting bit in the ass."

"Do you think they will get bit?"

He shakes his head. "Gut says no. They… feel… good with each other. If there's gonna be a problem, it'll be with the guys, and right now they feel solid. They're worried about getting bit, know what's at stake. Brains are in charge instead of balls, so that's good. And it looks like they're taking it slow, making sure they're all good. Maybe they'll never pull the trigger on it."

"But you think they will?"

Gibbs nods. He's feeling that in his gut to. "Tim asked if I'd be okay with it if all four of them became… I don't know if there's a word for it, a quadruple? Serious, long-term, married-style. You don't ask that if you're not gonna do it."

"Are you?"

"You know anyone who ever pulled it off? Two's hard enough for most people, four? That's juggling, what…" he thinks about it, the girls, the guys, all four of them, plus four couples, so… "seven relationships?"

Abbi shakes her head. "Not that I know personally. I mean, I know they're out there. I know it's not impossible, and supposedly four works better than three, but…"

"Yeah. If they can do it, yeah, I'm good with it. I mean… I'm from the seventies. I remember swinging. First sex book I ever read suggested fooling around with your friends as fun and a good way to get to know each other better and learn new tricks. Not like this is something I've never heard of. But I don't know anyone who made it work long-term." He sits quietly thinking about that, about all of it. "If anyone can do it, it's them, but I don't know if anyone can."

"And that scares you."

"Yeah."

Next

Shards To A Whole: Decadence

McGee-centric character study/romance. Want to start at the beginning? Click here.

Chapter 373: Decadence


Goth clubbing night. Tony rolls his eyes and sighs. It's Wednesday, and a package has arrived at their apartment with Ziva's name on it.

He knows what's in it. Even before she starts pulling pieces of black clothing out of it.

"Come on, it will be so much fun!" Ziva's looking really enthusiastic about this.

He's staring at the pile of black clothing she just handed him, stuff for him to try on, see if it fits.

Fashionable

Another sigh. He's a DiNozzo; he's elegant, refined, attractive, fashionable. Good suit, high end cocktail lounge, maybe a jazz club, not… black and grunge and whatever this stuff is.

"Go, try it on."

He starts pulling off his clothing with the enthusiasm of a man about to face a firing squad.

"You know, if I could see your outfit—"

"No." She shakes her head, smiling. "And no snooping, either. It is a surprise. But I promise, you will like it."

He smiles. "I know I will, but…"

"Pretend it's an undercover mission."

He looks at the clothing again. "This is a mission I'd send Draga and Bishop on."

How leather is supposed to be worn.

Ziva smiles at that, while Tony finishes stripping. He eases into the trousers, leather pants. Tight, black leather pants. They're actually not bad at all. The texture against his skin is pleasant, but he does like good leather. That is, he likes good leather the way good leather is supposed to be worn, as shoes, belts, and the occasional jacket.

He's less thrilled with exactly how much of him is on display with these pants. Sure, he doesn't mind when women check out his package, he actually likes it, but… like with a Christmas present, he likes to keep it well enough wrapped you can't tell exactly what's under there. Right now, he looks like a guitar under the Christmas tree, the only person who can't figure out what it is, is the person who's never seen one before.

He's also a bit less than thrilled at the inch of flub that's muffin-topping over the waistband of said pants. He stands up a bit straighter, and that helps.

"Size up?" he asks Ziva.

"This is how they're supposed to look."

He picks up the shirt, it's… wrong. Shirts are supposed to be made of solid fabrics and this is… he puts it on, yeah, it's mesh. Black mesh, say quarter inch holes all over the shirt. And sure, part of him is aware of the fact that Ziva's looking at him like he's the most perfect chocolate cake ever, and she's going to eat him alive, most of him is aware of the fact that his chest hair is sticking out of those holes in what he considers ridiculously-stupid little tufts.

He looks at himself in the mirror and mutters, "I'm killing McGee for liking this, and then I'm killing Palmer for going along with it."

"Oh, hush, you look great." She's standing behind him, hands on his shoulders, and kisses him.

"I look like a dork." He touches one of the little tufts. "And I'm going to have to shave if I do this."

Ziva's eyes light up, and she tackles him into their bed.

---

On Thursday, Tony heads down to Autopsy.

He sees Jimmy working away, but doesn't see the Autopsy Mogwai (He'll have to give that to McGee, that's a killer nickname.) anywhere, so he says to Jimmy, "Really, Goth club?"

Jimmy shrugs. "Why not? It'll be fun."

"You and I have very different definitions of fun, Palmer."

"What's the problem? Loud music, good drinks, dancing with our girls? Last I checked you were in favor of all of those things."

"Well, yeah, but… Leather pants? Eyeliner? Ziva bought a mesh shirt for me." Tony looks really uncomfortable at that. Mostly because, if you wear a mesh shirt, and you happen to have a lot of chest hair, it sticks out in really stupid-looking little clumps. Which means, if you are going to wear a mesh shirt, you have to shave off said hair, and if you shave off said hair, while say, your wife coos at you with great enthusiasm about it, it's suddenly abundantly clear that you have not done nearly enough in the way of crunches or push-ups in the last ten years, so to say he's not enthusiastic about that mesh shirt, in addition to all of the rest of this, is a vast understatement. (Yes, attending Bootcamp every week for the last three months has improved things, but, like they say, most guys gain fifteen pounds in the first year of marriage, and well, he was already at least ten up when he got married, and yeah… mesh shirt. Ugh. Tight leather pants, double ugh. If they push this off until, say, November, when, with any luck, he'll be down another ten pounds, he'll be a hell of a lot more enthusiastic about it.) "Last time I dressed up in a ridiculous costume for a girl, I looked like a dork, felt like a dork, and the sex wasn't nearly good enough to make up for it." (Okay, it's not like the post-shaving sex was bad, but he had a really hard time getting out of his head enough to really enjoy it.)

"Wear what you're comfortable in. Abby says it's a private club, and any guest of a member is welcome. Put on your James Bond tux if you like. I haven't seen what Breena's got for me, but she tells me it's not strictly Goth."

"They're members?"

"Of course."

"You're really going to do this? Get all dressed up? Wear makeup?"

Jimmy shrugs at that, too. "Wouldn't be the first time. Like Tim said to me, 'Not like your dick'll fall off if you put on mascara.'"

Tony acknowledges that with a tilt of his head. "Gonna feel like a moron."

"It's for a good cause."

"Getting' you laid isn't a good cause!"

Jimmy smiles brightly at him. "It is to me!"

Tony laughs, shakes his head, decides to ask McGee about the tux, because that would feel a lot more comfortable, and wanders out of Autopsy.

A few minutes later, he finds McGee, at his computer, fingers flying away. Like usual, he waits at the door for McGee to look up from his work, and wave him in.

"Hey," Tim finally says, noticing him there.

"Hi."

"What's up?"

Tony explains, glossing over exactly how dumb he feels in what Ziva picked out for him, and if he could do something else.

"Yeah, sure. Goth comes in lots of flavors. Just because I go for a punk version of it doesn't mean you have to."

"Jimmy suggested my tux."

"If you like. If you've got what you wore to my wedding, say with a black button down, you'd be perfect. Even the red sunglasses'll look right."

Tony lights up, feeling a lot better. "That, I can do."

---

On Friday, during Shabbos, all three girls vanished for about fifteen minutes to chat about it. (They dragged Abbi and Penny into that conversation, too.) They returned giggling, happy, looking at each other, and the guys, and very much looking forward to Saturday.

---

On Saturday, Tony chickens out. Or as he put it in his phone call to Jimmy, "Oh, so sorry, you know, crime..." and off they went on a case that takes him and Ziva, Bishop, and Draga to London. Jimmy's suspicious that Tony may have specifically called Dispatch and begged them for any case in the Western Hemisphere, but he's fairly sure Ziva wouldn't have gone along with it if it wasn't a real case.

So, on May 14th , 2016, two days after their fourth anniversary, the Palmers head over to the McGees' to get ready to Goth themselves out, just the four of them.

Since Jimmy and Breena have never done this before, they agreed to head over to Tim and Abby's before getting dressed, the idea being that Tim and Abby would be able to help them get into costume and look authentic, or at least as authentic as they could get.

(Jimmy's a little fuzzy on why they need help getting dressed. He's been successfully doing that since he was a child, but if Breena and Abby want to have a BFF makeover slumber party thing ahead of time, it doesn't bug him. Hanging out with Tim is good, and having another adult to spend time with always makes baby wrangling more fun.)

They get to Tim and Abby's, and Breena and Abby vanish. He and Tim hear occasional, loud, laughter from upstairs.

He and Tim are just hanging out. Nothing they're going to do to themselves is going to take nearly as long as whatever it is the girls are going to be doing to themselves, or each other.

Tim would be lying if he said he wasn't imaging what the girls did the last time they played dress up. But, he's trying not to think about it too hard. He's got Kelly on the floor, playing with her, while he and Jimmy watch a game. (Gibbs'll be over closer to date time to grab Kelly.) It's not a really good time to be imaging them fooling around with each other, say in their underwear, little, lacy underwear, kissing, soft and wet, while they get ready.

But, eventually, Gibbs and Borin, her presence makes Tim and Jimmy smile, come to pick Kelly up.

Borin looks them both up and down. They're both in their gelling at home on the weekend outfits of t-shirts and jeans. "Aren't you supposed to be all dressed up?"

Tim shrugs. "Doesn't take too long to get into a kilt and t-shirt."

"You really wear kilts?" Okay, sure Gibbs had mentioned that, but she's having a hard time wrapping her head around McGee in a kilt.

"I own and wear several kilts."

"I've got to see this."

Tim nods a bit. "We got invited to Senior's wedding, too. I can swing it."

"It's black tie," Jimmy says.

"It's a formal kilt," Tim shoots back.

Borin chuckles at that. "Okay."

Gibbs has Kelly, looks at both of them for a second, and Tim catches a hint of warning in his eyes, but he's not sure what it's about, "Jethro?"

He seems to snap out of whatever that look was, hoisting Kelly up a little further. "Have fun."

Jimmy grins at him, "Oh, we will. And I'm sure Abby and Breena'll get pictures if you want to see them after."

Tim kisses Kelly as Abby heads down the steps in her bathrobe with her hair in curlers. "Hi. Thank you so much for taking her!"

"No problem." Gibbs says, allowing himself to be hugged.

Kelly gets petted and kissed again, and then he and Borin are off.

Abby links arms with both of the guys and begins to pull them up the stairs. "Come on, time for you two to get ready."

---

In 2002 when Tim met Abby, he liked Goth. He appreciated the aesthetic, and the danger, and the whole forbidden aspect of it. He did not, however, grasp the concept that Goth came in many flavors and nuances.

However in the fourteen years that he's been 'Goth Adjacent' he has come to understand, respect, and enjoy the nuances.

There is literally not enough alcohol on Earth
to get Tim into this outfit. 

His own personal flavor of Goth tends to go for straight rock and roll or punk Goth. This is probably a result of not much liking velvet or lace (on him, Abby wants to coat herself in the stuff, and that's fine with Tim) helped along by the fact that he is awfully fond of leather.

Plus part of the point of tattoos is for other people to see them, and ninety percent of the time when anyone other than Abby is around, Tim's are hidden. If he goes for the more dressed up styles of Goth, his will be covered.

So he doesn't. Part of nights when Tim goes Goth is about letting the hidden parts of himself out. And tonight, everything comes out.

He steps out of the bathroom, toweling off his hair. "You're sure this is temporary?" he asks Abby, who's doing her makeup. He's going all out tonight, so he dyed his hair black.

"Yeah. I know lots of people who have worn this. Your hair'll be its natural color again by next week."

"Good." Sure, right this second, he thinks black hair looks cool. He's not sure he wants it forever, though.

This on the other hand...

His t-shirt is black, and sleeveless. Not a tank top. It's a regular t-shirt, he just carefully ripped the sleeves off of it, that way two of his tatts are visible. There's a name of a band on it, and some very intricate artwork, all in gray and white. He doesn't much like the band, but the art's cool, knotwork that has a similar feel to the knot on his arm.

And, of course, he's putting his black kilt on. (Means half of number four is visible. His boots are high enough they hide the bottom half of his dragon.) No way he'd skip that. DC isn't exactly prime kilt-wearing territory, so when he has the chance, he takes it.

The wrist cuff and the boots are a given. So, number three is, like usual, hidden.

Nail polish, also black, of course! Hell, he's hit the point where he wears it to work one week out of four, so he's got to be wearing it for clubbing.

He's waiting for his nails to dry when Jimmy and Breena head into their room. He sees Jimmy glance around, look at the mirrors, and then smirk at him. Tim inclines his head and smiles.

Tim likes Breena's outfit. Likes it a whole lot. She's got her hair in a high ponytail, red and black streaks cascading down, and had borrowed Abby's black and pink dress with the halter top and very low back. He knows Abby can sew, and wonders if Breena can too, because that dress fit Abby perfectly when he last saw it, and now it fits Breena just as well, but Breena's six inches shorter than Abby.

Breena or Abby, that dress is a winner.

He loves the makeup. She's got her lips painted patent-leather-shiny blood red, and lined in black. It looks awesome. He's not sure if she'll be able to eat, but it looks really cool. Not much on her eyes, just a little liner and mascara, she wants all the attention on her lips, and they're worth it.

Abby usually wears that dress with knee or thigh high boots. Breena's got small black pumps and two very long, very intricate tattoo transfers that'll go on her leg and back.

But for as much as he loves how Breena looks, it's Jimmy he's staring at in amazement. So, he knows that Jimmy will wear clothing vastly tighter and a hell of a lot smaller than he will. But… They're jeans, blood red, tight, nothing to the imagination, clinging to every single inch of his skin all the way down to the black boots he's got on, jeans. And sure, Tim has worn and still owns a few pairs of skinny jeans, but… okay, he never leaves the house in pants so tight you can see his dick. He just doesn't.

And pants so tight you can tell he's not wearing anything between those pants and his dick? NEVER!

But Jimmy in those jeans, you can practically tell if he's circumcised. They're really, REALLY tight.
Add in the white button down, completely unbuttoned, bow tie, undone, just sort of draped over his collar, and Jimmy's a whole lot more straight rock and roll than anything he'd think of as Goth.

"God, Jimmy, what the hell are you trying to do, smuggle a hamster into the club?" Tim says when he gets his words back and stops just staring at Jimmy.

"Guinea pig," Jimmy says with a smirk.

Abby and Breena laugh hysterically at that.

"Baby guinea pig." Tim says when they quiet down, and that sets off another round.

When Breena can talk again, she asks, "Tim, you have a black leather jacket that'll fit him, right?"

Tim nods. "Yeah. I was going to say it might be a little snug, but I guess that's the idea."

Jimmy smiles. "So, my wife tells me."

"So…" he's looking at Jimmy while Abby shows Breena his jackets and she messes around with them. "What's the Goth part?" Jimmy opens his hand and Tim sees he's holding a contact lens case.

"You're not wearing your glasses."

Jimmy nods. "They're silver. Got some sunglasses, too. And Breena and Abby said something about eyeliner."

Tim nods. That'd be pretty subtle, other than the incredible pants-of-show-off-everything-you've-got, and cool.

"You two almost ready?" Jimmy asks Tim, sitting down in front of Abby's dressing table, opening the contacts.

"Almost." Abby's still in her robe, but her hair's "almost done" and her makeup is. Theoretically, all she has left to do is get her dress on and take her hair out of the curlers.

Tim's almost entirely dressed. He's sitting on their bed, waiting for his nails to dry. Abby kneels behind him on the bed and slips the last piece of his outfit on.

It's true that there's nothing intrinsically Dom/sub about Goth and vice versa, but there does seem to be a fairly large overlap between the two groups. So, one thing Tim has noticed is that, while he did get felt up at Zephyr, that's never been an issue at any of the clubs they go to in DC. (Well, yeah, he gets felt up, when he goes clubbing with Abby, all the time, by Abby. Zephyr was the first time a stranger did it.) And he's fairly sure there's a reason why he's never been felt up at any of the clubs they go to in DC.

Abby's fastening it around his neck.

It's a nine strand braid of the softest, most supple black leather he's ever felt. It ends in a belt buckle, which works better than snaps because the size of this is more easily customizable. And yeah, he's not a bound submissive, won't ever be one, but he doesn't mind playing one when they go to what he considers Abby's territory.

Breena's watching Abby pull it snug, quest for the perfect jacket temporarily forgotten, as black leather slips through the buckle. She seems really curious, looking from Tim to Abby and back again, as Abby kisses the nape of his neck, right above the collar, before hopping off their bed.

Finally Breena says, "What kind of club are we going to?"

Abby catches the different layers of meaning to that question and smiles. "A Goth club. Nothing else."

"Really?"

Tim nods. "Really."

Breena steps closer to Tim, standing in front of him, fingers brushing lightly over the leather around his throat. "And... um... yeah... You know what you're saying, wearing that, right?"

Tim laughs. Yes, he does. He didn't realize Breena would know, though. "And what do you think I'm saying by wearing this?"

Breena picks her words carefully. "That Abby's in charge."

Tim smiles, feeling pretty flirty as he says, "And when we go to one of her clubs, she is."

Jimmy, who had just been quietly listening to this says, "So, it's not actually a sex club?" (He's possibly rethinking his choice of pants.)

Abby gives Tim a long, questioning look, and he shrugs, at no point did he actually tell Jimmy it was a sex club. Though, thinking back to what he actually did say, two years ago, he can understand why Jimmy might think it was.

She answers, "No. Though people do have sex there. And there are private rooms where anything goes. It's mostly a place where the music is loud, the lighting is dim, and no one stares if you like black and leather and pretending to be a vampire."

"So, why the collar on Tim?" Jimmy asks.

Tim looks at Abby; he's never asked that. The first time they went, she had suggested it. He thought it looked cool and knew exactly what it meant, and since it didn't bother him, that was fine.

"I just like the way they look. You got a neck as pretty as Tim's, you should show it off. Same reason I always wear one."

"So being told what to do doesn't make you all tingly?" Breena asks Abby.

"Not saying that." She smiles hot at Tim, then glances to Jimmy. "Just saying that isn't why I wear them."

Tim watches Breena think about that. He looks over at Jimmy, who is watching them in the mirror, finger with a silver contact frozen en route to his eye as he stares at the girls, and figures they are both wondering exactly how far tonight is going to go, and what they might all be comfortable with. He's also wondering how much of this the girls planned with each other ahead of time.

"So, you do like being told what to do?" Breena asks, smiling.

"I do if the right person is saying the words," Abby says, looking at Tim, then to Jimmy, then to Breena. Images of Abby subbing for Breena leap into Tim's mind, and he swallows hard. "You?" she asks Breena.

"Oh yeah." She sighs it, looking from Jimmy to Tim and back to Jimmy.

Tim takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, bites his lip, and tries to clear his mind of the suddenly very explicit image of telling Breena to get on her knees. When he opens them, he notices that Jimmy's squirming a little at this conversation, as well. And he also gets the sense that neither of them are entirely sure if this is I'm-so-turned-on-I-can't-think or this-is-getting-really-close-to-outside-of-my-comfort-zone squirming.

"Do you like telling him what to do, too?" Abby asks.

Breena shrugs. "It's okay. I'd rather be told what to do. Would you do the transfer on my back?" Breena picked a large dragon tattoo. The dragon's face would go on her bicep, and the rest of its body would twine around her arm, onto her shoulder, and down her spine. She had borrowed Abby's black and pink halter dress because it had the right cut for the entire dragon to be visible.

"Give me a hand, Tim. I'll hold it in place, you press the wet paper towels into it," Abby says, heading into the bathroom to wet the paper towels. A second later, she's handing them to him, and then he's watching his and Abby's hands on Breena's skin. Abby gently smoothing the transfer into place while he presses the wet towel over her skin.

Breena and Abby are talking about something. It's probably not even sexy, right now. But he can't focus on that. He and Abby are touching Breena. Pretty much his number one fantasy for the last four years. He's watching their hands working together over her skin, across her back and arm, and when they finish that one, she's got a long abstract spire of curly-cues that'll go from her right ankle all the way to her hip. He and Abby do that one, too. Smoothing the tattoo transfer up her leg. She's coy with her skirt, so he can't see anything besides her leg, but touching her skin, her very soft, very beautiful, very naked skin all the way up to the crest of her hip, drops of water from the wet paper towel he's using on the transfer meandering down her leg in slow, swollen rivulets, (And yes, he wants to lick them off, bad.) and he's very, very glad he's not wearing anything as tight as what Jimmy's got on.

He's wondering if the four of them are going to have sex tonight. And right now that's the hottest thing he can think of and more terrifying than being locked in a room with ten German Shepherds and foot deep maggots.

He makes a quick promise to himself. He's not drinking tonight. No matter what happens, he wants his head clear. It's hard enough to make good decisions when your balls are doing the thinking, it's even worse when they're drunk.

"I'll drive tonight."

"Okay. Cool." Jimmy says, two beats too late, sounding distracted. Tim looks away from Breena's leg and sees that contact is still there, balanced on his finger, and he knows Jimmy hasn't moved since they began this. He'd just sat there, watching it, probably just as confused between God, too damn hot and Freak out, now? as Tim is.

Abby peels off the transfer. "And I think you're done, Breena. Your nails dry, Tim?"

Probably should have made sure of that before they started rubbing all over Breena. He gently touches his thumbnail. "Yeah."

"Jimmy?" she asks.

"Not quite." He quickly faces the mirror and gets his contacts in, then turns to them, eyes flashing sliver.

Abby grins. "Oh, that looks so cool! Okay, give me a few minutes, still got to get my hair done."

"Thanks. Still got to do my makeup, too. Breena?"

"On it." She crosses to Jimmy, and begins to rifle through the bag of cosmetics she had brought. After a second, she has eyeliner and mascara. She straddles his thighs, still standing, tilting his face up to her. "Hold still. I'm not used to doing this on people who move."

Jimmy grins, hands settling on Breena's hips. "Staying still."

A few minutes' work has Jimmy's eyes rimmed with kohl and lashes darkened. Jimmy glances at himself in the mirror, shakes his head a little, and says, "'Line my eyes and call me pretty.'"

Tim's standing next to them, doing his own eyes, and he smiles wryly at that.

Breena, who's in Jimmy's lap, rocks against him, smiles hot and dirty, then pets his face, "Pretty, James, so pretty." Then she bends to kiss him, very quietly saying, "Laid's not just going to be the name of that song, tonight."

Jimmy grins at her, and she runs her fingers through his hair, tousling it, making it curl wild. Tim notes that her lipstick stayed perfect, so whatever magic she did involved making sure it wouldn't smudge.

A second later Abby steps out of the bathroom, her hair down.

Gothic Marilyn

Tim looks at her and sighs. "Oh, baby!" It's the Marilyn makeup, lips black instead of red, and hair, this time her real hair, in soft, blonde and pink-tinged curls. Instead of the white Seven Year Itch dress, she's got on something with a similar feel if not the same cut, same halter top, but this one is black, the edges spattered with red, and rough. It swirls around her the same way the white on did, kissing the back of her calves when it settles.  Black pearl earrings, black lace gloves, tiny, little sparkly black anklet, and cute, little black satin pumps finish it off.

"Good?" she smiles at him, twirling, doing her best dark Marilyn.

"Fuck, yes," he answers, stepping to her, kissing the nape of her neck.

"Are we ready to go, then?" Abby asks.

"Oh yeah," Breena answers, pulling Jimmy up. "Let's go!"

---

There are club, clubs, and clubs. When they went out to Ziva's club, it was just a place with music and drinks. The only reason anyone got turned away was for being underage.

Jimmy and Breena's place was a club. There was a dress code, and the guy at the door was keeping out anyone who didn't look like they fit. Tim in his kilt did get a bit of the hairy eyeball, but the girls were cute, and he did have a jacket and tie, so they got in.

Enoch's Cove, Tim and Abby's club is a club. You have to be a member or a guest of a member to get in. And you can only get a membership by being invited by another member.

It's not that it's a heaping cauldron of illegal activities, (Though this would be a vice cop's wet dream or nightmare depending on if he's the one getting credit for the busts or having to do the paperwork.) but the clientele here deals with enough shit for being counter culture in the rest of their lives, and this is a place to relax and have fun, not get ogled as freaks.

It's a Goth club. It's dark. The décor is sumptuous and baroque, lots of detail work and everything is covered in silk and velvet. The music is loud, live, and unless you're really into the scene, you won't know the bands. The men wear just as much (if not more) makeup than the women, and everything about the place has been designed to cater to utter decadence. For example, this is the first place Jimmy's been to where not only can he get Absinthe, real Absinthe (as opposed to the Thujone-light version that's legal in the US.), but he has options from six micro-distilleries from different regions of France, and if he wants his sugar cube with refined white sugar or raw sugar or stevia. If it wasn't for the fact that he doesn't want to mess with insulin tonight, he'd be really interested in trying them all out. The party animal he was at twenty would have loved this place. Of course, at twenty, he couldn't have scraped up the cash to afford the cover fee, let alone the drinks.

Abby's been going here since she moved to DC. It's pretty far off the beaten path, in a strip mall of all things, and everyone here knows her.

And for that matter, they know Tim now, too. He'd gone with her once the first time they dated, and enjoyed it once he got enough alcohol into him to shut down the part of his brain that felt like he stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb. (Though part of the reason for going to Enoch's is that it is a private club, and they do tend to be fairly kind to newbies who don't exactly fit in, because those newbies are the guests of someone who does.) The second time they started dating, they went back, and by that time he was more than comfortable enough in his own skin to enjoy it.

And enjoy it he did.

They made it back a few times a year until Kelly was born. But this is their first time back since. It's his favorite of her clubs, but not the only one they go to. But like with choosing this one to introduce Tim to the scene, it's the one they both thought Jimmy and Breena would be most comfortable with, too.

---

"Are we the only married people in here?" Jimmy asks Abby as they stake out a booth. As Abby said, there are private rooms here, and there are booths lining the dance floor. Unlike the private rooms, they provide a view of the dancing, and in some spots, whoever's playing, but each booth has high walls reaching to the ceiling on three sides, providing a certain level of privacy.

"I'd doubt it," she replies. "We're not the oldest people here, either. Goth's just like everything else, lots of people who do lots of things."

Tim and Breena head over with their drinks and snacks. Absinthe for Jimmy, Cosmopolitan for Breena, Abby's got mineral water, and Tim has a Diet Coke. Enoch's offers tasting menus of chocolates, caviars, and oysters, and Breena had opted for all three as well. Dinner was light, and they'll want snacks for dancing.

"I'm out about it a lot more than the rest of the world, for a lot of people, especially adults with real jobs, this only gets to come out at play time. But just because you can't do it every day doesn't mean it isn't real. Oh, you got all three didn't you?" Abby asks Breena as she sees the stacked trays.

Breena nods. "Going all out tonight." The top tray had three bites of six different kinds of chocolates, second tray held four mother of pearl spoons, and six shot glasses with tiny mounds of different caviars, bottom tray was larger, with a two inch high lip, filled with ice, and sixteen oysters (four different types) sitting among the crushed ice.

Tim sets the tray with the drinks down, puts each of the "easy" drinks in front of their owners, and then points to an assortment of things that he's set in front of Jimmy. "Okay, Jimmy, how does this work? I've seen complicated drinks before, but this is the first one I've dealt with that's required equipment."

Jimmy smiles about that and wonders how it is, with that bottle Jethro got him for Christmas, Tim's never seen him do this before, but… Oh, yeah. Said bottle is still in his closet with the rest of the Christmas presents he opened, looked at in a pleased sort of way, and promptly forgot all about because Anna was two weeks old and he was completely fried from no sleep. He needs to go open that thing and see how it tastes.

There's a small decanter, crystal (All of these are on what looks like a silver tray, Abby's not kidding about decadent, everything in this place is silver, Victorian, and expensive.) with what looks like about three shots worth of Absinthe in it. "How much did you get me?"

"Three. We're going to be here for a while," Tim answers. "That's what you normally do, right?"

Jimmy shakes his head. It's not that Tim's wrong. If they're out for a night and he's not driving, three is right, but three is usually wine with dinner, (which he's already had) and two mixed drinks, that are usually low on the alcohol and high on mixers. If this is as strong as he thinks it is, that's probably the equivalent of six or eight of his usual drinks sitting in front of him.

He really should have already done this with them. He takes the first decanter and pours a bit in the long stem glass that's also sitting on the tray (of course it's cut crystal) and takes a quick sip. It's way easier to tell what he's getting himself into if he tries it straight. "Wow." He exhales, fast. This is STRONG. "Absinthe 101: it's somewhere between fifty and seventy percent alcohol, and this stuff's at the high end. For reference, the bourbon Jethro likes comes in at a bit over forty percent." There's a silver slotted spoon, and he places that on top of the glass, removing one of the stevia cubes from the little silver bowl on the tray and setting it on the spoon. "You don't drink it straight. The alcohol content's so high you can't really taste it if you drink it straight." There's a larger decanter of water, also crystal, and this one is the somewhat traditional fountain shape (It holds about a pint of water, which is more than you'd typically use for this much absinthe, but Jimmy's appreciating it, because this is really strong.) with a small spout to dribble the water. Jimmy sets the glass under the spout, opens it gingerly, but it's well-calibrated, the water eases out a few drops at a time, meandering through the stevia cube into the absinthe.

After a minute, the cube's crumbled and the water and stevia dripping into the absinthe have turned what was a clear, slightly yellow-green liquid into a cloudy light-green liquid.

"Once the Green Fairy's appeared," Jimmy says, stopping the flow of water, "It's ready to drink." He offers the first sip to Breena, knowing she's not a huge fan of licorice-flavored things, but the sip he took told him this was more of a sweet, green, herbal flavor than overwhelming anise. She smiles, nods agreeing this is okay, and hands the glass over to Abby, who decides a taste is unlikely to have much effect on the on-going quest for the next baby McGee. Like Breena, for her it's okay, probably really good for absinthe, but she's not a huge fan of that flavor profile. She hands the glass to Tim, who also tries it, and is quite surprised at how good this is, he's also not a fan of anything with a heavy anise flavor, but this is really nice, and he needs to stop now or he'll give Jimmy all the help he needs to deal with the fact that this is more alcohol than he'd normally drink.

From there the music shifts, and Abby takes both Tim and Breena's hands. "Come on, dancing, now!"

And so they dance.

---

As a medical doctor, Jimmy is well aware of the fact that the hallucinogenic properties of absinthe are vastly overrated. Yes, thujone can produce a mild hallucinogenic effect, in quantities way higher than you'd get in a glass of absinthe. In fact, you'd probably need to drink a whole bottle of it for the thujone to be an issue, and by the point the boat-load of alcohol will have kicked in and taken over.

And, as a medical doctor, he's well, well aware of how the brain can react to suggestions, how the psychology of an event is in many cases just as powerful as the pharmacology, if not more so.

(Plus, back in the day he actually got his hands on some real hallucinogens, so he knows how that feels, and this is not that.)

But this is awfully nice. He's feeling very… he doesn't have a word for it. The mood is genteel, sensuous, pampered. The music is loud, sinuous, beat shifting from a heart's throb to a languid pulse, ebbing and flowing like the pace of really good sex. The lighting is dim, reds, purples, and golds, washing everything in a dull-warm hue.

Everyone in costume, the perfumes both of the girls are wearing, faint incense and musk of the club, the slightly narrowed frame of vision courtesy of his contacts, the buzz he's got from his drink, and the pleasure of Breena sitting next to him, feeding each other tiny bites of chocolate (for her) and caviar (him) between kisses, he feels like he's dreaming. Like this is the easiest, most intense, lucid dream he's ever had.

He gets why Tim and Abby like this. Sure, it's not anything he's ever going to chase for every day, but once a year or so, oh yeah.

---

"Do you and Breena have anything planned for tonight?" Tim asks as he and Abby dance slow and close. Jimmy and Breena had headed back to the booth about two songs ago. This one right now is finally soft enough that he can actually talk to Abby, on her own, for the first time this evening.

"What sort of planned?"

"The sort where you ambush Jimmy and I, and all four of us end up in bed?" His eyes slip away from her to Jimmy and Breena, who are in the booth, petting and necking, Breena in Jimmy's lap.

All four of them had been dancing together, as a foursome, and as two couples in every combination but the guys with each other, and precisely none of those dances were friendly and chaste. From the first second their feet hit the dance floor, everything was close and hot.

Tim knows why Jimmy's back in the booth, and it's not just a matter of a somewhat more discrete location to make out with Breena. Only so long you can dance like that without getting hard, and there's no way that's even remotely comfortable in those pants. If he wasn't unzipped two seconds after getting that table between them and the rest of the club, Tim'd be shocked.

Abby smiles at him, pressing in closer yet, her body stroking his as she moves in counter point to him, pulling his attention away from watching Jimmy and Breena necking in the booth. "Would you like it if we did?"

"I honestly don't know. Half of me loves the idea. Half is scared shitless."

She kisses his neck, just above the collar. "Don't worry, we wouldn't spring something like that on you. We're just playing, pushing the line a bit further than we've been before, see how you two do, but we're not going that far. At its most, tonight is just a dry run to see if you two look like you can handle something like this."

"And how's it looking?"

"Like you're both half-terrified/half-so-turned-on-you-don't-know-what-to-do-with-yourselves."

"Yes!" He kisses her long and deep. "Talking with Breena about subbing while having me rub a tattoo onto her was torture!"

She leans up, speaking into his ear. "I was thinking about having you and her sub, and letting Jimmy and I play with you. Tie you down on the bed, arms above your head, her on your cock, leaning into your chest. Her hands tied together behind your neck. You don't get to move. She doesn't either. Jimmy's behind her, fucking her ass, and that's all the direct friction you get, the way he moves in and out of her, and the way she moves on you as a result of that."

Tim can see that in his mind, feel it on his body, and right now, he's hard as a rock. He bites his lip, looks over to the table, where Jimmy and Breena are, and maybe they're just making out, maybe they're having sex, the table is in the way, so he can't tell for sure, but he knows what that rocking motion means when he and Abby are doing it, and it certainly isn't just making out. He swallows, hard, and asks, "What are you doing?"

"Gently petting your hair, letting you watch Breena and I kiss slow and deep from an inch away, then passing her lips to yours, saying something extremely dirty while you kiss, and holding the remote on the vibrator in your ass, pulsing it every time Jimmy thrusts."

"Oh..." That's a recipe for an orgasm so intense he'll pass out.

"Yeah. Still scared?"

"No." He shakes his head for a second and kisses her hard, holding her face in his hands, grinding against her, then pulls back so his lips brush against hers as he says, "The part of my brain capable of fear left the party as soon as you said 'having you and her sub.'"

She doesn't pull back any further, her lips still brushing his, kissing him with her response, "So what's the problem?"

Now, he does pull back, a few inches. They're still close but he wants to be able to really look her in the eye for this, and that's almost impossible if they're lip to lip. He needs to be able to read her face, and let her read his. "It'll come back when I'm not insanely turned on and things'll get weird and uncomfortable and shoot our relationship with our best friends to hell and gone."

"No way to know if we don't try." He can see she's hopeful.

"You really want to?" At first this is a question about the four of them and the fact that she thinks it'll go well and that it'll be happy and fun and the scared part of his brain isn't coming back and they can handle it.

"Yeah." She's smiling, reassuring him, and he can feel that she's certain they can do this, that it won't cause problems.

But he's not sure, afraid that that little, jealous, MINE voice in the back of his head will hop up and bite them, so he takes it a step further, making her say it, seeing how that feels. "You, with Jimmy?"

"Yes." She kisses him again, rubbing against him. "Want both of you, together. Me in the middle, rocking between you."

He expected to feel a flash of mad jealousy and wanting to kill Jimmy, but it didn't happen. And he's not sure why, he certainly felt it before when Jimmy was joking about sleeping with Abby, but he's not feeling it now.

No, if he's feeling anything right now, it's turned on, really turned on. But the rational part of his brain is still in control enough that… he's not afraid so much as afraid of being afraid.

She sees him thinking about it, and pets his face. "Could be all four of us together, and you know it'd be so good."

Tim sighs. He knows. He can imagine it. He can look over and see Jimmy and Breena, and yeah, his dick's all in favor of heading over and joining in. On a purely physical sensation level, it'd be amazing. But the fear is still there. "I don't know if I can. If there's a guy I can share you with, it's Jimmy. And, the idea is insanely hot." He ground against her, getting the point across. "But I don't know if I can."

"Then it'll stay a fantasy."

He's very happy to see no disappointment on her face, just acceptance. "Thanks." He kisses her long and hard, his hands gently running over her arms. "Got any other fantasies for me?"

He can tell the look in her eyes is asking if he wants to hear one with all four of them, or if Jimmy involved with her is still off limits. He nods a little, all four of us, sure.

"How about this one?" she says, turning so her back is to his chest, and he bends to kiss her throat, keeping his ear near her mouth. "Jimmy's on the sofa, I'm on my knees between his legs, sucking him down, while you fuck me from behind. Like that image? My tongue, wet and soft on his cock while you get to slip in behind me?"

Yes, he does. He shouldn't. It should make his blood boil, and not in a good way, at all. But he does like it, likes it way too damn much. He swallows, throat dry. He can imagine it, the look of Jimmy's dick slipping between her lips. He'd be behind her, setting a slow, steady pace, one hand holding her hair out of the way, letting him watch, matching his pace to hers, and Jimmy'd be sprawled out, eyes closed, hands in fists, legs quivering, breathing hard, so turned on.

He looks toward their table. Breena's skin is flushed, even in this light he can see it, and Jimmy's kissing her neck, hand on her breast, under the dress, both of them rocking slowly against each other, rhythm utterly unrelated to the music throbbing through the club.

He pulls his eyes away from them, back to Abby.

"What's Breena doing?"

She turns again, facing him, letting a few beats of music flow through them as they dance, and then grins, sexy, dirty, so good smile on her face, and licks his bottom lip before saying, "You, with a strap on. You slip into me, and she slides all the way into you, and when you pull out she does, too."

She knows the look on his face isn't pain, but a casual observer wouldn't. That's very intense sexual arousal. "Are you trying to just talk me off?"

"Do you think I can?"

"No, but you're going to get me awfully close."

"How close?"

"Wet spots on the inside of the kilt close."

"Ohhh..." She grins. "I like that. Wanna lick it off and then kiss Breena, let her suck it off my tongue."

He groans at that image and kisses her, long and hard, while her hand traces up his leg, feathering gently over his balls and pulls away much too fast.

"Anything else you like?" he asks.

"You in charge. Seeing you take Breena and I in hand and making us both all happy and tingly." She presses in even closer, grinding against him. "Wanna see you run the whole show. Want you to get us both off while Jimmy watches, tied up, unable to touch himself, so hot he doesn't know what to do with himself, and we don't let him get off until you're done with both of us."

"Fuck!" he breathes it quietly while grinding into her. Then he pulls back, kissing her, quick and hard. He unbuckles his collar, and slips the leather slowly off his neck, trailing it over his skin, knowing she likes to see it, likes leather and his flesh, and better yet leather and hers. He fastens it onto her, snug and smooth on her skin.

His hands trail down her back, settling on her thighs, and then snake up, under her skirt, cupping her ass and pulling her flush to him.

He hisses at the pressure of her pelvis right against his, and grinds against her.

"I want you to know who owns you. Me. My collar on your throat." His fingers skim the collar. "My marks on your skin." He lifts her arm and bows his head, kissing the tattoo on her arm, then licks the one on her throat. "My rings on your finger." He squeezes her left hand. He pulls the edge of the kilt up, hitches her leg over his hip and slides into her in one fast thrust. "My cock in your pussy. My cum on your lips. You are mine."

She nods, leg tightening on his hip, pulling him closer, deeper. "Yours."

"And if I want you to fuck my best friend, you will."

"Yes."

"If I want to get off on seeing you eat out his wife…"

"I will lick her pussy until she's quivering, begging, keep her on edge until you give me permission to get her off. I will make her scream and make you proud."

He's got to back his mind away from this, or her words will get him off. He's stroking her neck, kissing, biting, hard enough there'll be little pink marks for a while, not hard enough to bruise.

She takes his hand in hers, guiding his fingers to her mouth, and then gently sucks on two of them.

"Tell me to, and I'll do that for Jimmy."

His teeth grit, and he's replaying BioShock 3, trying to ease back from the edge. It's not working.

Time for the big guns. He looks over, and yes, Jimmy and Breena are watching them, and they are definitely fucking now. Nothing about the way they are moving suggests frotting. He catches Jimmy's eye, knowing that'll do it. If he and Abby are the entertainment for the night, he is damn well going to be worth watching.
Jimmy watching him cools him down again. Competition is good for a lot of thing, and no way Jimmy's lasting longer than he is. And no fucking way he's getting off before Abby does.

He looks back to Abby, and he can see by the smile on her face that she knows what he just did. He shrugs quickly, breaking character for a second, and she winks, as long as it keeps the game going, she's good with it.

He kisses her quickly on the nose and gets back into character.

"We're going to the table, and I'm going to lay you on it. Back against it. Your legs up over my shoulders, head leaning back over the edge, so you can take Jimmy to the root. You've been looking at it all night. I wanna see you take it out and taste it. And you're going to suck him so good he won't know his own name. Then Breena's joining in. She's going to straddle you, pussy over your face, and you're gonna lick her while Jimmy fucks, and she's going to lick you while I fuck."

"Look at them." And Abby does, turning her face to Jimmy and Breena, keeping her eyes on them, seeing them flush and grind against each other, watching her and Tim. "He's about a minute from coming, and you'll be the one doing it to him, with your hot, soft, wet mouth sucking him down. And Breena, see how tight she is right now, see how close, two more soft, wet licks from your succulent tongue, and she'll be coming on your mouth."

He grinds his hips against hers, thrusting deep and steady and scans the club. This is a fine position to start in, but it's not an easy one to get her off in, and if Abby getting off, really getting off, shaking, screaming orgasm ever mattered to him, it does now.

And then he has a plan.

"There's a support pillar over there." He nods behind them. It's deeper into the crowd, but not so far back they'll be invisible.

"I'm going to slip out of you, and we're going over there." And he did, smoothing down the kilt and her skirt, making sure she's covered before he steps back, and leads her over to it. Then he spins her, looks like a dance move, and it is, sort of, just maybe not the dance everyone else is doing, so she faces it, pressing her against it, facing the Palmers. His right hand strokes over her throat and shoulder, while his lips nibble her ear, and his left hand slips under her skirt to rub her clit.

"They'll be able to see your face, and mine, but the crowd will keep most of what we're doing hidden. They'll get little glimpses now and again. A tease here." And he bites the back of her neck just above the buckle of the collar as his fingers slip around her clit. She arches into him and moans. "A hint there." He fists his hand into her hair, pulling her into a hot, open-mouthed kiss.

"But mostly they'll just see your face," he says, lips brushing the words to her. "See the pleasure on it. See the way I'm making you feel, and imagine how good it is.

He slips into her again, a hard, sure thrust, and stills, savoring the sensation of her body clinging wet and tight to his. He kisses her shoulder and the curve where neck becomes back, feeling her hands reach behind her, rubbing over his sides and thighs. Tim sets a slow, easy pace, feeling the rush of this, the rich, golden pleasure of her body on his and the ego trip of knowing Breena and Jimmy are watching, seeing him fuck her, seeing her enjoy it, and getting off on it.

He'd never thought he had that much of an exhibition kink. Yes, having Abby watch him makes him even harder. And yes, the risk of getting caught has always appealed to him. And sure, in the club, in the dark and anonymous, two bodies writhing along to the music and maybe turning on someone else was fine too, but this…

Jimmy and Breena know them! After this they are going to go home together. Monday three of them will go to work together. Right now he's feeling Abby's body on his, hot and silky and perfect, and he can see Breena's face, the way her eyes have narrowed but not closed, she doesn't want to stop watching them, and her expression has gone tight, as her lips open into a small O.

Abby's close. He can feel it in the tension in her body, the way she's moving.

He's behind her, so he can't really see if her eyes are open. "Are you watching them?"

She nods.

"Like what you're seeing?" God, he does. Really does. This is better than any porn ever. They're real people, real people he adores having a very good time. Breena's coming, flushed, shuddering and twitching on Jimmy's lap, beyond beautiful. Jimmy can't be far behind, he's moving fast and erratic, pumping into her.

"Yes."

He rubs her clit faster, little harder, thrusting faster. Won't be able to talk too much longer. "I'm gonna lay on the floor. You're going to kneel on my face. What I do to you, you'll do to Breena, while Jimmy fucks her. I'm going to show you exactly how I want you to eat her out, and if you get off before she does, or if you get distracted, I'll be disappointed."

Her hands are fisted in his hair, her body's tight on his, and she's balanced on the edge of what he knows will be a full-body, shaking orgasm, and he's so close, too, just a few more seconds.

He pulls her back against him, hard deep thrust, fingers moving even faster over her and he feels the tingles start deep in his dick, that second before the rush begins.

"And if I don't disappoint you?"

"When you're done coming down, I'll slowly stretch you open, and Jimmy and I'll fuck you together. You get to pick who goes where."

And that did it. He felt her fingernails scraping against his scalp and the nape of his neck as her body shuddered. Her body clenching on his took him over the edge, too. Dropping him into an insane, rushing, pulsing high of pleasure, pride, ego, fuck, and ecstasy.

---

It should be awkward, right?

Once his brain got back online, he was expecting awkward. Awkward with a side of 'Oh holy fuck, what were we thinking?' and not being able to look Jimmy in the eyes for, by conservative estimate, nineteen years. There's a reason why the little head doesn't get to make the decisions, and that's because the little head is stupid.

His forehead is pressed to Abby's shoulder, and he's handing her one of the tissues he always has on hand when they go clubbing, feeling no need to look up and face what they just did. But time doesn't just stop because you let your balls make the decisions. She slips off of him, and he takes a second to make sure their clothing is hanging properly again. He feels Abby slip the tissue back into his pocket, (he makes a quick mental note to find a trash can), and then she turns to face him, smiling, face flushed, lazy, happy, approving grin on her lips, and, okay, yeah, that helps.

She kisses the tip of his nose, gets a little smile out of him, takes his hand in hers and squeezes it, and starts to dance again.

And he can do that.

---

It's a bit later, two songs, maybe three, when the real acid test for awkward shows up.

Breena and Jimmy bop over, and yeah, Jimmy's looking sheepish too, but the girls are smiling and laughing, and it's contagious, because that's just how happiness works, and then he had Abby on one side and Breena on the other and they're both dancing with him and Jimmy kind of looks at him and shrugs, and Tim sort of half-nods back, and Abby sees it, grins again, kisses him, gooses Jimmy, who looks really startled for a second, and then smiles, and both of them start to laugh too, and, well, everything is okay again.

Tim feels the freedom of that. They're okay.

Better yet, the girls already know where the lines are and have promised not to cross them until they're all on the same page.

Which means they can play. They can explore this… space… game… whatever it is. He heads back to the table to grab a drink. As he's there, taking a gulp of his diet coke, it hits him, this is like subbing, he can relax into it and enjoy it, let the girls run the game, knowing that he's made his lines that can't be crossed clear, and they'll respect it.

Something else hits, these people love him, absolutely. He can safeword out of this if it's ever too much. If it gets freaky or uncomfortable he can say the word and they'll stop, and that'll be it. Abby didn't flip out about leaving it a fantasy, at least for tonight, and Jimmy and Breena won't, either.

Maybe all we'll ever be is good friends who dance too close and flirt too hard, and we enjoy it because it makes us feel good and sexy. And if that's all this ever is, that's fine, that's more than fine! Breena had said that, or something close to it, and he's watching Abby and Breena and Jimmy dance, as he takes another sip of his drink, then takes a sip of Jimmy's.

There are rules here, and they won't get broken, because this matters too much to all four of them to fuck it up, which means he doesn't have to stay rock solid sober. (He's driving, so he can't have too much, but some…okay, Jimmy's absinthe is even better after a bit of time to breathe and he really likes it, but yeah, driving… not too much. Next time they do this… This is already expensive as hell, adding a limo or something so they can all drink won't break them.)

He takes his shirt off, because it's hot, and they're dancing hard, and this matches some of his fantasies, and he's not the only guy without a shirt in the room, and hell, Jimmy's is completely undone, so…

So, it doesn't matter why, he doesn't need to justify it. That's the freedom of this, the joy of love. It feels good, the girls'll like it, and he likes it, and that's all that matters here.

Time to play.

---

Abby's between them, one hand on Jimmy's chest, her other arm wrapped around Tim's neck, grinding between them, and Tim's so fucking turned on he doesn't know what to do with himself. (Well, he does, he knows exactly what he wants to be doing, but that's not happening for a while yet. He's enjoying this… space… between desire and getting what you desire, and though he wants to get to the next part, he's not feeling any need to hurry, this bit right here is amazing, too.) Jimmy's got one hand on Abby's hip, the other on his waist, keeping all three of them close, leading the beat. Abby's sandwiched between them, and with the kilt and no shirt Tim can feel her skin against his, and Jimmy's hand on his waist, fingers on naked skin, feels a bit odd, but it's not bad, and it is helping him keep the beat.

Her ass is grinding against his dick, which has definitely woken back up and is very interested in seeing this go further.

He's kissing along the back of her neck, fingers of his left hand toying with the edge of her skirt, right hand on Jimmy's shoulder, helping with balance and timing.

He can see it in his mind, slipping her skirt up, rubbing his hand up along the insides of her thighs, feeling her wet, turned on from the dancing, sex, and desire, lingering drops of his cum from last time, and they don't have lube, but it's a fantasy, so they don't need it, cum, hers, his would be enough. He could be stretching her out, getting her ready, while she grinds against Jimmy, fucking him through their clothing, riding the beat against him, this song's flashing strobe lights catching the silver on his contacts, and gleaming against the sweat on their bodies, as he slowly eases one more finger in…

Jimmy's saying something to her, head bowed to her ear, and even only a few inches away, Tim can't make it out, but he can imagine. Jimmy telling her to pull it out, kissing down her throat, groaning while she does it. He'd hold her steady, leaning against his chest, while Jimmy slips in.

She'd lean forward, into Jimmy, and he'd hold her while Tim eases in, and for a few beats they'd be still, just feeling it, so tight and full, her body stretched around them, letting Abby get used to it, then she'd smile, kiss Jimmy, turn her head, kiss him, and start to move…

Breena cuts in, twirling him off of Abby's back, and she's soft and warm and pressed into him, and the fantasy drops away, replaced with right now real, and right now real is very, very good.

Breena can feel how hard he is, has to be able to because she's dancing close, grinding into him, and she's got this grin on her face, so hot, so good, so making him want just… everything.

That's part of the fun of this, getting to enjoy the wanting.

He can smell sex on her. Light sweat, wet pussy, Jimmy's cum, it's all there, mixed with her perfume, and probably about ten gallons of pheromones pouring off of all four of them. Her hands are around his neck, and he can feel her skin on his shoulders, on his legs where his calf is rubbing against her knee.

That support pillar is behind her, and he's imagining pushing her back against it, dropping to his knees, lifting her skirt, and finding out if she's bare or not. In the fantasy she's got a small triangle of blond pubic hair, and he spreads her lips, watching a drop of Jimmy's cum ooze between her lips, down her thigh. He licks it off, before rubbing her clit with his tongue, feeling her arch into him, leg tight over his shoulder.

Abby's behind him, pressing into him, and Jimmy's behind her now, and… Fuck… Daisy chain, all of them fucking into each other…

And it's all good.

Wanting it is good.

Being able to want it, with no one freaking out or insulted or… It's really good.

---

Breena and Abby are dancing. With each other. They'd led Jimmy and Tim back to the booth, pushed them, gently, into it, and Breena said, "Stay put, watch, enjoy."

The girls aren't pulling any punches. They're dancing close and slow and kissing each other, deep, open mouths, tongues and lips and FUCK. Tim's whimpering as he watches. He's sure they've got some sort of bet going to see if it's possible to kill him or Jimmy by making them watch the hottest thing in the history of hot things.

Tim looks at Jimmy, seeing the same thing in his eyes that's going through his head. He doesn't know if he wants to drag them both out of here and fuck them in the car immediately, or let them keep doing it and watch.

Watching seems to be winning. Breena's leg slides between Abby's, and Abby's rocking back and forth against her thigh, kissing her throat and Tim's thanking God it's a black kilt, because if he had the khaki or plaid one, the precum would have soaked through it in a really obvious spot.

He's never, ever, ever seen anything this hot.

Then Abby steps back from Breena, twirls away from her as the music speeds up, and there's a shiny, wet spot on Breena's leg, and that's killing him. There's literally not a single drop of blood anywhere in his body that is not in his dick or racing toward his dick right that second, and then Jimmy (who, wait… okay, no he's not still sitting next to Tim) kneels down and licks it off Breena's thigh and the only reason Tim didn't cum in his kilt right then is that he literally cannot get off if no one is touching his dick.

---

It's actually fairly early when they head home. Because they have stuff they want to do at home. Stuff that needs more room, more props, more of everything, than you can get in a club.

Abby's rubbing his thigh as he drives, not willing to distract him too much.

And Tim can hear what's happening in the back seat, wet sucking kisses and the sound of skin rubbing on skin.

At a red light, he's feeling all of it, high on being here, doing this, and thinking about how happy he is not to be wearing Jimmy's pants, because those things looked uncomfortable as hell to have an erection in. Yeah, Tim walked out with his kilt tented, but there's no room for that in Jimmy's trousers, so he could see the long line of his cock, hard and full, heading up toward his waistband and maybe if he was less turned on he'd be bothered by checking out another guy's cock, let alone Jimmy's, but, right now, it's all good.

It's reinforcement of this being okay. It's… positive visual confirmation that this is good.

Fuck it.

It's hot is what it is. It's him looking in the rearview mirror, watching Breena stroke Jimmy through his pants, hand moving long and slow over hard flesh and tight red denim, and Abby's got her hand under his kilt, making slow, languid circles on his inner thigh, back of her hand rubbing against his balls on each of the upstrokes, and he jerks in his seat when the guy behind them in the lane honks his horn, hard, letting him know that red turned green, God alone knows how long ago, because he certainly doesn't.

---

Getting all the way upstairs is going to be a challenge. He sees Jimmy and Breena stumble, Breena backing up the stairs, pulling Jimmy by the waistband of his jeans, already unbuttoned, cock already sticking out of them, probably very grateful for the extra space, and he's not sure if Abby and him are going to make it up or just fuck on the sofa because it's three feet away and looking awfully tempting.

Up the stairs, okay, he can do that, make a bee-line for their bedroom, also not a problem, both of them tearing clothing off as fast as they can, kilt on the floor, no idea where her dress ended up, his boots are still on because taking the time to untie the damn things just isn't going to happen.

Tumbled onto the bed, Abby on top, him deep in her and swearing at how good she feels on him. Hours of foreplay, the most erotic show he's ever seen, and her body on his, and he doesn't think he's ever felt this high.

Then he slips up another notch. He can hear Jimmy and Breena. Breena's breathy moans, and low, soft grunts from Jimmy. And he and Abby aren't being quiet, at all. Every thrust pulls another panting moan out of Abby, another gasp out of him, and he's talking her through it, telling her in explicit detail exactly how good she feels to him right now and how hard he is and how hard they're both gonna come.

He sits up, hands on her ass, guiding her body, kissing her deep and hard.

Abby's going tight on him, moving faster, jerking, erratic, nails dragging down his back, and Breena's keening, higher-pitched ecstatic sounds with each breath, and everything about it feels so incredible, like sex in a dream, a perfect dream, the kind where you feel everything and can fuck forever, and it just keeps getting hotter and hotter and more and more turned on and each second lasts for hours of unending better.

Abby's hips jerk, hard, against his, and she shouts his name, nails tearing down his back, and that sets him off, vision going dim as he pumps into her, clutching her tight against him as he soars through his climax.