bone mother

Divorce leaves you with an embarrassing amount of free time. Like many women on the other side of a relationship, you find yourself in desperate need of a hobby.

Call it perhaps naïve optimism, but decades of movie-induced psychosis had you somewhat convinced that after ending a marriage your life would fall into that frazzled chase towards the proverbial moving on. Your Bridget Jones-esque era, so to speak.

You're certain you've done all the steps. Bought a tape dispenser to pack your shared life into tidy cardboard boxes, called the notary, fixed the doorbell tag, endured the pity comments, drank the gifted celebration wine bottles (expensive), had the obligatory celebratory one-night stand (bad), and decided the backsplash had to go as it's only there because Simon liked it (he didn't. He positively did not care.)

You hate the backsplash tiles.

They'd been clearance stock from a hardware store, and when you'd seen the price, you had squealed so hard your husband had pretended to plug his good ear. His lips had thinned into that long-suffering line as your fingers curled around his elbow, tugging him towards the pallet. 'S ceramic crap, Simon had objected, tapping a nail against the PEI sticker. You'd rolled your eyes and had wanted to ask him exactly what he would know about tiling, but his hands had been already pulling the wallet out of his back pocket.

It took him two attempts and several YouTube tutorials he kept rewinding every ten seconds, but he got them up in the end. You sucked him off as repayment with your knees to the kitchen floor, tracing lazy circles across the white of his knuckles where they gripped the countertop.

They get stripped off in a manic yet satisfying fit of hysteria, and now instead of ignoring them, you ignore a sticky note over bare plaster reminding you to call the remodel company.

Hot pilates seems as good as any distraction, and your therapist's office sits between the studio and your house. It's convenient: you can waste an hour on some very pricey lies and then go shed the guilt along calories and sweat. You squirm on the love seat and nod along her words when it seems appropriate.

"I think it would help if it were a more... A cleaner cut," you stammer. Your tongue is dry but you've achieved what you think is the perfect interested-but-nonchalant posture and you don't want to risk it for the glass of water. "I still get all his stuff, you know. His medical records and his phone bills, it's... Confusing."

Your friends occupy every Thursday and Saturday night since last October. They sit criss-cross applesauce on the wood of your living room for movie night, swing by the day after potluck for their washed casserole bowl. You get passed from one hand to the other in the most absurd game of "who has it", a watchful eye forever on you and your spine of jello.

Around them, it's easy to forget you've lost the flock. You fall into step without thinking, borrowing their direction for a few hours. Let yourself be carried on the same current, trusting they know where they're going.

But when night comes, they rise up and rub their knees and the small of their backs and swipe open their phones. One texts her fiancé— leaving now, home in 15. The other traps the device between shoulder and cheek as she buttons her coat. Did you wash your teeth? Jaime, I'm going to check before your goodnight kiss.

Instagram fills your head with christenings and birthdays while you stack the dishes in the sink. The washer-dryer gets stuck on heavy duty. You take a shot in the dark.

[Mar 23, 11.06 P.M] [Attached image] ?

It makes you feel a little less pathetic that he answers immediately.

[Mar 23, 11.06 P.M] control lock on have to turn it off

[Mar 23, 11.15 P.M] nite pet

It should feel nice, that two can play the same game. You don't respond anyway.

The next morning, you check the mail before heading out for work. Wedged between letters and advertising flyers, you find another health record. This time there's a full STI panel in the summary.

[Mar 24, 7.03 AM] youre not funny

The call comes at 3 A.M.

Your car is on and out of the driveway before you've even fully realised what Price's voice is saying, streaming out of the speaker. They got the short end of the stick on the outskirts of northern Paris, and then had to get EVAC'd out of there because Simon almost bled out in a helo.

The team at Queen Elizabeth's Centre for Defence Medicine extracts two bullets from your ex-husband's side, nestled between his spleen and his pancreatic artery. A couple millimetres in a different direction, and you'd be getting a death notification instead of a call from the ICU.

You sit on the plastic benches just outside the OR block and stare at the linoleum until a woman timidly scooches over. She's waiting for her daughter, a ruptured appendix she tells you, and she cuts the biggest orange you've ever seen in slices to coax into your hands.

"Who are you waiting for?" She asks, and your eyes decide they no longer have the strength to contain the neurotic tears you've been holding in.

She pats your back awkwardly, a little maternal, and makes soft cooing sounds as you sob into your palms, pressing your nose and your mouth into your fingers.

You picture him lying there, on a steel anatomical table, the surgeon suctioning his blood into numbered plastic bags. You wonder if they've given him something for his head. His neck hurts, if he uses a pillow that's too thick. You hope they've found him a flat one.

For a moment, you imagine that he does die, and that you're relieved. You rub against the front of your throat when that makes your stomach turn until you feel sick.

The tears slip into your mouth, iodine and sweet juice.

"There, dear," the woman tuts, smoothing over your hair. "I'm sure everything will find its place."

You're not sure how to feel about it, that you couldn't answer her question.

The zipper of your bag leaves a red imprint like a scar across your cheek. You attempt to rub it away as the nurse leads you through the frigid corridor of the unit, shoes squeaking and cleaning agents stinging the lining of your nostrils. She makes you wear funny green covers for your shoes and hook a mask over your ears, showing you how to work the gel disinfectant into your hands.

Your bag slips off your shoulder as you peek through the gap, pushing the heavy door of the room open.

A wet laugh surges from you, completely involuntary, because Simon truly looks ridiculous. Sprawled out on a mattress somehow too small for him, cast leg propped on a metal sling, oxygen cannulas skewed over his top lip, away from where they're supposed to rest against his nose. They must've had trouble dressing him, because his gown is sagging down his arm, loosely tied behind his neck.

Half of it must be his own making given that he's leaning over the edge of the bed to smash his clunky fingers onto the screen of a beeping machine. He turns his head to look at you and you take a step back to rest against the doorpost. Your hands itch with the need to touch him, to check...

His chest heaves into a great sigh when he flops back against the pillows. "Sweetheart," he burrs, nodding his chin towards the equipment. "Giv'us a hand, yeah?"

You think about hitting him, but you're sure they'd throw you out.

He watches as you drag your feet towards the bed, letting your bag drop to the floor so you can inspect the monitor. His chin dips again with encouragement when your hand hovers on the side buttons, and the half-moons under his eyes have your heart give a pained squeeze.

"Simon," you start, hating how your voice turns wet. "Oh my God. Are you okay?"

Your ex-husband cocks his head to the side, like he's taking your measurements, and the line of his mouth softens. "None o'that," he tells you, patting the seat of the chair next to his head, "c'mon, you're breakin' my heart."

He lets you sniffle a little, stretching to the nightstand to offer you a tissue box as you start rubbing your eyes. You take one out of politeness, but there's really no need: they are so puffy and dry you'd be surprised if they'd manage to produce something. Still, you jam one end into your inner corner and hope at least to clear some crust from sleep.

"How long you been 'ere."

"Since four, maybe. What happened?"

Simon scans the room and you're sure he's fishing for a clock, but he winces when his eyelids flutter in the harsh lights and he covers one with a knuckle. "Ah, nothin'."

Some part of you must still have enough hope because you wait for him to offer up more. It never comes, predictably, and you wind your arms around yourself and drop your gaze as old resentment floods your mouth.

It makes him sigh again, a heavy noise that bleeds into a groan somewhere in the middle. "Not keepin' secrets, you wouldn't understand half o'it. Who called ya?"

"Price," you admit reluctantly, twisting the point of your shoe against the ground. You find the action immediately childish, so you stop by shifting in your chair and knocking your knees together. "I told you to take me off it."

The hand he had to his eye falls down over his barrel chest as it wavers up and down with his shallow breaths. There are scrapes there you didn't notice before, at the start of his wrists and up his forearms where the tactical jacket must've rolled up. He's more gauze than skin there, between the plasters and the IV dressings.

"Been busy."

"I've called the office. Says you didn't authorise it."

"S'important paperwork. Deserves proper attention."

"Right," you scoff, primming your lips. Perhaps you don't make the best decisions in a panic. His team would've taken care of him, so there's no need for you to be here. What a clean cut you'll get if your hands keep trembling around the handle.

Your bag is halfway from the floor when his hand dangles off the bed, right in front of your face. His index hooks into the strings of the mask, nail scraping lightly against your temple, and then he's pulling it down until it rests on your chin. Your eyebrows knit together as you look up at him and his thumb smoothes over one of them, hair catching on the callouses.

He's staring at you with that complete impassivity that can only mean he's thinking very hard.

"You look nice."

Sometimes, it's easy to forget that out of the two of you he's the better butcher.

Taking him home isn't a planned thing, nor a welcomed one. He spends eleven days in the hospital and you manage to limit yourself to one other visit only, just to really assure your brain that he's out of death's grip so you can leave this whole thing behind and go back to dismantle what's left of your marriage.

It's sprung up on you. You ask him what's the prognosis and he clucks his tongue and rubs his nape until he feels like he's made you work enough for it.

They won't let him go back to his flat. The stitches on his side are still precarious and his broken leg hobbles him even with crutches, so for once in his life, it seems Simon isn't trusted to take care of himself. The medical team is still too concerned about the risk of infection and hemorrhage to leave him be without observation.

"I thought you said your spleen was fine." Your eyes squint while you help him arrange his lunch tray precariously on his knees. The dedicated support attached to the bed doesn't fit over the width of his thighs.

He sucks his teeth before using them to tear open the oil packet. "It is. Just nicked it."

The rest of his unit has been sent on action already, gone a day or two after his injury. It's protocol, but you stare at the way he tightens when he shifts wrong and think that he looks a bit like a toy someone has gotten tired of playing with.

He eats around his words, hunched over the food like a big animal of prey. He's not one to complain, but you catch the way his crooked nose twists when he gives the spare bed in the room a sideways glance. He tells you that some kid blew his fingers off like it's to spite him personally.

"Thought I'd get some R&R, at least," he grumbles, licking meat glaze off the knife. "Have to share wit' a wanker who can't keep the spoon still."

You know you shouldn't say it, but it comes out anyway.

"Do you, uhm..." Your brain tells you to backtrack, twisting your voice until it's all strangled. "Do you want to come stay at the house? I work, so it's not like we'd see eachother much and I can... Yeah, I can help you out."

It wins you a taste of the laser focus he's capable of. "Oh, pet," he croons, making your toes curl inside your shoes. "S'not a good idea, innit?"

You shrug your shoulders, prickly with vulnerability you've grown unused to. It feels a bit like rejection, and can't figure out why it hurts. The plastic covers of the meal gather into your palms, and you cringe when condensation dampens your skin.

Simon reaches for you when you try to move to the bin. His thumb and forefinger close around your wrist, feeling for your heartbeat.

"Don't want to take advantage," he adds, and you know him too well to ignore what swims in his eyes. You pretend not to see it.

"You'd do it for me."

He licks his lips, and the hesitant press around your wrist turns full, hand circling it completely. "Yeah," he agrees, "of course I would."

The fact that the divorce was your idea goes without saying.

It's unclear exactly which cog had stopped turning, but one day you'd woken up to the uncanny feeling that no time had passed since the day before. Simon had been somewhere in the other hemisphere, and you'd stumbled through the twenty-four-hour cycle of your life with an inexplicable anxiety.

You'd felt like one of those birds that smash again and again on a window they can't see, desperate for something beyond the glass.

Then Simon had come home, and time had resumed moving. It had scared you terribly.

You try to keep it from heading there, now. In the morning you leave for work and attempt to think of anything else other than where Simon will be once you return. At times you find him wandering the back garden, checking the tree roots' stability with the end of one crutch. Others he's at the kitchen table, typing clumsily on a laptop with Tesco-bought plastic glasses precariously perched on the tip of his nose. Most of the time he doesn't even bother putting them on correctly, with one arm going over the ear and not behind.

Taking care of something gives a direction to your life that's been missing. You like that he has to listen to you, now.

He doesn't object when you nag him about taking his meds and makes such deep, growling noises of appreciation for your cooking they go right down to your stomach.

His thank-yous come in service, always, so he fixes the wardrobe door that's been giving you trouble and checks all the lightbulbs of the house. You're reminded of how many things he sees that you don't: your car oil too low, loose window latch in the bathroom. The fact that your neighbour's garage has been broken into twice since Christmas.

He spends a Saturday afternoon replacing locks and tinkering with the security system. You're only informed when a new set of keys is delivered into your hand.

"You can't change stuff in my house without telling me," you try to admonish him, pretending to not be distracted by the rolled-up sleeves of his sweated t-shirt. "You know normal people just call someone for this, yeah?"

"Aye," he says around the cigarette dangling from his lower lip, "get ya a three-weeks wait and a half-arsed job. You need this done now."

This is what you've been missing: to not have to explain yourself. The few (try two) dates that you've been on since you and Simon split have failed for the same reason. You can't expect someone to know you when there's no history, but it's a hard adjustment coming from a long-term relationship.

There's no need to faff around with Simon. You don't have to explain why it's a grand thing, when you're late at the end of the work day and enter the house and tell him that your sister is pregnant. Due in September, after a third cycle of IUI.

He turns the toy you've picked up from the store on the way home in his hands. "You think 'bout it?" He asks, waits for the moment it takes for it to click in your head.

"What, about kids?"

Sometimes, you want to say, but it seems unfair to say it to him. Parenthood was always off the table, to your agreement as well. How does one raise a child when their father is across the globe half a year. The idea was shelved and replaced with something else, and for a while it had worked.

"Don't know," you're hesitant to respond, torturing the inside of your cheek. "Depends on who comes along, I guess."

He hums, stare never leaving your face. "Sounds about right."

Simon knows just when he has to push with you, and where. You're aware he lets you ramble so you're distracted when he tugs your feet into his lap, press his thumb into your socked arches. Because he knows you, you let him.

Your former uni roommate glowers at you over clementine martinis when you go out drinking. Your ex-husband has been stashed in your house for two whole weeks and you've yet to tell a single soul. It would've gone on longer, but after you'd called a rain check on your Thursday-Saturday meetups twice in a row, your friends were nearly committed to an intervention. You managed to de-escalate it down to drinks, hoping the alcohol would help, but perhaps a tête-à-tête hadn't been your brightest idea.

"It's just until the end of the month," you reiterate, sounding too much like you're justifying yourself.

There's no particular amount of affection that your inner circle holds for Simon, and you're quite sure it has decreased significantly since your separation. No need to fake appearances once a friend's insufferable partner is out of their life.

"I don't know, babe," she grimaces, stirring her drink with a straw. "It's kind of fresh, you don't even have the papers signed. I don't think it's the healthiest thing."

"It's practical. And, c'mon, what was I supposed to do? Leave him there? It's temporary and it's... It's fine, it's nothing."

"All I'm saying is, you don't make the smartest decisions around him," she points out. Not like you can get mad at her if she's right.

You swirl the words on your tongue while you drive back.

The lights are all off and you wander into the kitchen, pulling open the medicine cabinet to rummage around for a paracetamol. The weather is not quite hot enough for summer yet, but you feel stifled under your dress, fanning your face with your free hand to dampen the alcohol-fed licks of heat travelling up your spine.

A shadow shifts in the corner of your sight and you scramble, whirling around and pressing against the counter so fast you almost land on top of it.

Simon turns his head away to curl his lips in that nasty manner that means he's amused, standing a few feet away as if not entirely sure you won't bolt. Your palm slides away from your heart, and you award him a blank look.

"Fuckhead," you chastise him, low because the anger has already bled out of you. Quiet is not something he decides on anymore.

He gives you a canine smile and saunters closer, holding his arm out for you to see. "Patch's comin' off," he explains, picking the corner of the dressing with his nails to show you how loose it is, nodding his head towards the cabinet.

The help isn't offered nor does it need to be, because he angles towards you and waits until you reach behind your back for the disinfectant and the box of plasters. You murmur that you're sorry when the glue pulls at the straw hairs on his forearm, and he hums softly like he's conversing with an animal he thinks a bit dumb.

"I like the dress," he tells you after a while, and when you look up briefly, he's sizing the length of your body approvingly. Your hips shift in response, correcting your slouch as you clean the skin around the wound. "When 'ave you worn this?"

"I haven't," you swallow, hissing when your fingers fumble opening up the new dressing. "Got it after you."

The massive curve of his shoulders hunch, closing in, and you don't think he liked that so much, that there's an after you. You stick the plaster in place and prepare to bite the bullet.

"You smell good," he interrupts eagerly, and it almost makes you give in.

"Simon, can you sign the papers?"

His eyes are so weird. They shift like earth, at times, one moment the light, rich brown of soil, warmed by the sunlight. Now they deepen, the ground opening in layers, pulling you further by a magnetic core, bubbling in their tar pits.

"What papers, love?" He asks it along a deep breath, lips pulling at one corner, like you're revising some old shared joke and he's helping you set up the punchline.

"The divorce papers. I have them in the office, we can..."

Your mouth opens, and you curl your lips to wet them, squeeze some moisture out of your dry mouth. Your hand lets go of his arm, but he moves his behind you to rest on the counter so he can bend you in a more comfortable position for himself, shifting you until you face him directly. You have to tuck your shoulders inwards or you brush against the cupboard.

"You know wha' I think," he mumbles, swiping his nose over the crown of your head. "I think tha' yer a little drunk, pet, and you're not talkin' straight."

In a broader sense, you already knew this was going to happen, so it's not exactly shock that twists in your gut when his fingers hike the skirt of your dress up your thighs. They pinch the softness there as they go, mean enough that you squeak, and he chuckles with his mouth fitted to your ear.

You fear for his stitches when he hoists you up on the countertop, trying to swat his hands away, but he's clever and he hooks the gusset of your underwear in the crease of your pelvis. You've been wet since you noticed he was in the kitchen, and the groan that rumbles up his throat when he discovers it punches you in the solar plexus.

"Fuckin' knew it, I knew she missed me."

It seems like memory doesn't fail him, because his thumb traces the folds at the top before he caresses the length of your labia, finding the pool of slick at your opening and smearing it back up.

You can't help but clutch at his shoulders, digging into the muscle. The heel on your left foot bangs against the wood behind it and threatens to slip away, but when you try to spread your toes to keep it on, Simon gives your clit a good jiggle that has you doing the opposite.

"Speakin' a load of nonsense with a cunt leakin' for me," he huffs annoyedly, muffled against the spot on your neck he's lavishing. He doesn't warn you, just presses hard against your clit and plunges two thick fingers into you, bullying the rim apart until it stretches over the thick of his knuckles.

"Simon-!"

The gasp is out of you before you can reel it back, and he uses the opportunity of your open lips and cram his tongue into your mouth, with such an insistence you'd think there isn't enough space. You try to duck your head away a little, keep this from turning tender, but he palpates the hinges of your jaw and strokes quick little jabs against your front wall that make your lips slack.

You cum dizzyingly fast, moaning when you suck instinctively on his tongue the way you know he wants you to.

Simon grins like the cat who got the cream when he decides to let you breathe again, rubbing your cheek in a rough back-and-forth with his thumb. No more sounds seem willing to leave your body, so you're silent as he tugs your panties back in place, smoothing the dress over your legs.

Unsure of what else to say, you palm his side with a delicate touch. "Are you hurt?"

"No, darlin'," he's quick to respond, lowering his head so he can plant an insistent kiss over your mouth. "Feel fuckin' fantastic."

The following week, you celebrate your birthday. It falls on a Saturday, so you'll go out to that nice rooftop bar you've been meaning to try with your friends and you'll pretend it's all a surprise. But on Friday, Simon orders your favourite Indian and almost gets offended when you try to pay him back. It makes you so awkward that you let him stamp a peck to the side of your head before settling on the couch to watch a film.

When 9 PM comes, he taps your biceps with his fingers. "Pill," he clicks his tongue, and you're somehow shocked that he remembered.

The truth gets wedged in your throat on its way out. Admitting to it seems like dangling intimacy in front of his eyes that you're not ready to depart from.

"Yeah, sure," you hum, feigning severe interest in the movie. "In a minute."

"No, not in a minute. Now."

You think about getting up and swallowing an ibuprofen, just to get him off your trail. But why should he have that control over you?

"I'm, uh, not on it anymore." Hand reaching for a curry chip, you sniff and stuff it between your lips, deciding to focus on the spice burning the roof of your mouth instead of the intense look he gives your cheekbone. "Didn't really seem useful. Thought I'd take a break."

The rest of the evening is spent convincing yourself that you don't care about his opinion rather than worrying whether he thinks it's a bad thing.

You make your wish over chicken korma and pray he hasn't yet figured out how to read your mind.

By the time the last week of the month rolls in, you've half-forgotten Simon is supposed to leave eventually. If it's slipping from your mind, then he's buried the thought so deep it may as well not exist. Every time he leaves for a health check-up, you wring your hands and wait for him to come back and tell you that the time is up, that he doesn't need you anymore. What is supposed to bring you solace now fills you with dread.

Spring is drawing to an end and you feel a part of your life goes with it.

Over dinner he tells you that his medical downgrade will be lifted when May comes, and you're grateful that he pretends to ignore your fork clattering against the plate. You twirl it around your fingers, tapping the tabletop with the flat end of it.

Steam curls from the pasta between you. Simon decided to cook for once, and you'd come home just in time to bear the results. "Clean across 1500 meters", you'd said, enjoying having to evade his grabby hands, "and defeated by a timer."

Now he eats like he's still in a mess hall, elbow planted wide across the table, barely looking at his plate. He's always had that about him. This is mine, his posture says sometimes, come and take it.

"That's good," is what comes when you manage to metabolize it as the prongs skewer a limp maccheroni, and he watches your mouth open for it.

You're not sure if it's irritation or embarrassment that twinges at your nape when he snorts, tilting his head away so you're only allowed one side of his face, watching the way the line of his mouth bleeds into the scarred divot on his cheek. It turns his whole face into one long, pitying grin.

You've seen the place he's supposed to return to. A stuffy cubicle crammed into the side of a duplex, so narrow you weren't sure it was fit for rent. He hadn't seemed interested in decorating, because it had been lacking any furniture aside from the basics, all dull popcorn ceilings and vinyl plank floors. You'd found a pack of condoms in the hardboard sidetable digging for the things he'd sent you to retrieve; shame somersaults in your guts at the memory of throwing them away.

Another noodle makes it into your mouth, and you swallow it along with the image of him noticing just as he's about to fuck another woman. "Will you go back?"

"Back where?" Simon says, stealing the last piece of bread for himself.

You go to answer honestly, but you lose your bravado. "Field. Your team left," you reply stupidly, as if he possibly couldn't know, "a few days after your surgery."

"Aye, probably. Kind o' need-to-know stuff."

The chair creaks under your shifting weight as you adjust, curling a foot towards your chest so it rests flat on the seat.

"Have you packed anything yet?"

"Plenty o'time."

He says it like time is something he can afford to waste, like leaving is an inconvenience to be dealt with only when necessary. He clears the plates without asking, carrying the stack to the sink while you rinse the cutlery. Silence grows thick, cut only by scraping metal and rushing water.

When you wander to check the back door, he looks up from where he's polishing a knife. "What're you doin'."

"Making sure it's shut," you reply with your hand still on the handle. The door gives a good rattle as you try the latch, putting some of your weight into it. The door gives a good rattle as you try the latch, putting some of your weight into it. The lock clicks, firm in its place even when tested under a second, harder shake. His mouth twitches and it earns him a mean glance in response.

"Checked it half an hour ago."

"So?"

"So you're starting to sound like me."

You laugh, but the sound catches somewhere in your chest when you try to make it real. He shifts away from the sink, setting the knife on the rack, sighing when you don't offer anything else.

"Someone had a go at Ms. Cooke's place. Police came sniffin' round."

"What?" You gape, abandoning the door to move back towards the kitchen island. Your stomach goes tight and unpleasantly hollow, and you can't stop your hand from pressing over it, as if that alone could help it settle. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Was tellin' ya now." His shoulder sways in disinterest, like he's swatting away a fly, watching you with that unnerving patience he gets when he's already decided on something. "S'fine. We've got the alarm."

When the tidying up is done, you go upstairs and stew in your anxiety. The night seems to have an in on your thoughts, because every little noise acquires intent. Your shoulders jump as you undress when the boiler settles with a knock in the walls, and later your eyes wander from your paperback towards the dark glass of the window, wind worrying at the fence panels.

A car door slamming is what sends you out of bed, resigned that you can't bear it anymore. You stick your fingers in your mouth, gnawing at the nails, and take laps around the first floor to inspect the dark corners of your home, the phone flashlight gripped in your palm as a weapon.

By the time you descend the stairs, you're embarrassed by yourself. You find Simon exactly where you've left him, sunk in the edge of the sofa with a Stella hanging lazily off his hand. Blue-white flashes from an old football match ripple across his face. He doesn't turn, but greets you before your feet have even landed from the flight.

"Oi."

There's no rush for an answer on his part, yet he still sighs heavily when it doesn't come. His eyes studies you, moving over your face with a quiet attentiveness you've never learnt to evade. "Still thinkin' bout Cooke?"

Your expression must answer for you, because he rubs a thumb over the condensation on the bottle before he's speaking again.

"If they're worth half o' their salt, they'll have scoped the place already." His chin dips towards the window without looking away from you. "Not stupid 'nuff to try while I'm in the house."

You know, of course you do. You've spent months alone in this very same building, and haven't spent a night turning in your bed about it. For some reason, it doesn't stop your stomach from churning tonight.

"Need me to come up?"

You're not strong enough to pretend that his weight on the mattress is not a relief. The sheets have been kicked to the end of the bed, room too stuffy for them to be useful, and you anchor a hand to the edge of the bed to keep yourself from rolling in his direction, gravity wanting to move you towards the alcove of his body.

Somehow, Simon feels bigger than you remembered. His breath rumbles when he stretches lavishly with one arm over his head, knee popping as he hangs his foot over the bed's end. The sound reverberates through the fabric, pulsing where your skin meets the topper. It turns physical when a hand touches between your scapulae.

Makes you jolt, eyes darting over your shoulder, finding the humped line of his nose bridge. His arm is still over his head, and he stares up at the ceiling while using the opposite to drag his knuckles up and down your spine. You don't have time to ask what he's doing before he answers.

"Stiff as a board," he chuffs. The fat joint of his middle finger digs into a sore spot dead centre on your back, and you tilt backwards in protest. " 'am makin' you nervous."

"Always," you reply, and he chuckles like he thinks it's a joke.

"And here I was hopin' it was the break-ins."

You give a sharp jiggle of your shoulders to knock his hand away, still too touched by the fact that he's sharing your bed to reassure you to bed truly mad. You keep tight to your pillow so there's no chance that he sees you smiling when he snorts, and fall asleep with his fingers tracing patterns over your back.

His tug wakes you. Your eyes flutter open mid-motion, rolling with the pull until your face plants against his chest. His breath wafts in your mouth before Simon tucks you under his chin, seemingly more content to take long huffs of your hair than facing you directly.

You're probably the only one conscious out of the two, which is why you don't move away. You take the precious opportunity, wallowing in the instinctive comfort it offers.

It's his smell you realise you've missed. Saliva drips liquid-hot on the back of your tongue as you press your nose to his throat. Dried sweat sticks to the crook of the arm beneath your head and in the hollow between his shoulder and neck, catching the back of your nostrils with acridness. It makes you press your thighs together, too embarrassed to consider rubbing them like you want to.

The pleasant floatiness of half-sleep is ripped away from you when his hand fists the fat of your calf to drag your leg over his hip.

"Wot 's it, baby," Simon slurs against the top of your head, and you gulp down your doe instinct with his voice under your ear.

You have to work the words through the tightness of your vocal cords and pull back a little from him so you can speak. "Sorry," you start, "just woke up. Think I rolled over."

The hand on your calf travels up, palming the length of your leg. When it reaches your ass, he sinks his fingers there like the pyjama trousers between you are a problem.

"Yeah." He ignores you when that makes you whimper, slapping his palm over your cheek a couple of times. It's not a smack, more of a pat, like he's testing the solidness of you. He grabs it again, this time a little bruising. "Need some touchin', do ya."

The familiarity of it confuses you. Your brain is not sure, as his palm moves to your front and up your shirt, if he should be allowed to do this. He's your husband and he's in your bed, but he's not. He's your ex and he's plucking your nipple between two fingers until he can catch your panting in his mouth, but you can't help it when it makes you rub your pussy on the muscle of his thigh.

"Please." You convince yourself you're begging him to stop, head spinning, but Simon must hear something else in your voice because the pad of his thumb flattens against the peak of your breast, and he flexes his leg to give you something harder to grind against.

"Bloody hell. Alrigh'," he groans, a punched moan, and the forearm behind your head curls so he can weave his fingers into your hair. Prickles bloom at your nape when he pulls, forcing your chin back so he can kiss you. His spit slips into your mouth, syrupy. Waxy sugar over candied apples, stuck behind your teeth out of your tongue's reach.

Whenever you get shy and try to inch backwards, he forces you again on his leg, pressing you so hard to himself that the rubbing verges between pleasure and burning. You know you're obscenely wet because he drags two fingers over the crotch of your pants repeatedly, trying to feel the moisture that seeps into the fabric.

"Goin' to be nice to me, uhm?" He croons, pressing his forehead to yours. He's gotten you desperate enough that your hips continue working even when his palm leaves them in favour of guiding you to the tent of his joggers. The hot, thick shape of his forces whines out of you, tip of your noses bumping. "So sweet for your old man, yeah."

The fabric moves and he's in your hand, weighty enough that it makes your cunt clench at the memory.

He has a cock that makes you want to touch it. He makes you want to touch him. You've known this since the first time you've slept together: there's a deliciousness in circling your fingers around the shaft, feeling the soft give of the veins gorging, swelling with his arousal. It has you hot in the stomach, eager when you find the tip angry and leaking already, slipping between your fingers until they're slick. You stroke him from the upside of his length, trapping yourself between him and his belly so you can feel the coarse hair on his pelvis tickle the back of your hand.

You imagine he made less noise when they shot him. He tries to muffle it by smashing your mouths together, cupping your cheeks to keep you still when you struggle to breathe.

"Fuck, tha's it," he hisses, bouncing his thigh when it makes you sigh pathetic little oh's. "Good girl, stroking my cock so good. Makes you wet as rain, uh? Ahhhh, fuck-"

Your head spins again, and this time it's because he's easing you on your back. It takes the pressure away from your achy pussy, and you claw at the dark where he's supposed to be only to come up empty-handed.

"Simon-" you call, until the bedside lamp switches on. He's already taking his shirt over his head. His back casts broad shadows across the wall, shifting with his wingspan, muscles flexing at the bottom of his sternum where they disappear into the soft fold of fat over his lower stomach. The ink on his bicep jumps when he fists his length, so tight you're sure it must hurt.

You realise the light is less for you when his free hand yanks your shirt until it rests at your collarbone, baring your breasts. He sucks on his teeth and settles on his hunches between your spread thighs.

"Lemme see," he beckons with a nod, barrel chest heaving. You feel pinned by his gaze, like there's no place else for you to be, and the head of his cock bobs up and down when he resumes stroking it. "Play with yer tits."

You oblige, strumming your nipples until they perk and rosy, coaxing gentle ripples of pleasure that move your hips in jerky circles. Every attempt to close your legs is stopped by his free hand.

"Baby," you sob when you're at your wit's end. You must hit whatever nail he was laying right on the head, because the stoic line of his brow softens and he shuffles forward towards you.

"You poor thing." Simon lets go of himself, tip slapping against his belly right under the surgery scar, in favour of pulling down your bottoms and panties all in one. His thumbs hook under your knees, and you gape up open-mouthed as he guides them towards your chest. "Been a'bad husband, haven't I?"

Your sight blurs, and he notices and cooes. Precum beads and drips to land on your inner thigh. His fingers seem a bit apologetic as they nudge you apart, pushing inside your cunt to make you sigh.

You want to cum, and you tell him with your walls spasming around his knuckles, shivering from the warmth of the tears leaking from your eyes and the warmth of the wetness leaking from your pussy. He wipes the former away and gives you a third finger to stretch on.

"Gonna be good to you from now on," he promises as he rolls you on your front, detangling the clothes from your feet. Your arms attempt to push you back around but a rough palm on your spine holds you down against the mattress.

"I'm-"

The head of his cock slips over your entrance, too slick to gain enough friction, your skin pulsing when he uses his fingers to wipe some of your wetness away. Looking back, you choke on your spit as you watch him lick them clean.

Simon cages you in, a fence of muscles over you, settling his elbows around your head when he punches his length into you. It's a bit stilted at first because he's not at the right angle, and it burns, paper-cut sharp. He soothes you with a kiss on your nape and gives you the rest of it.

You feel yourself open up for him, a caving space that wants for his shape. Your cunt gulps around his shaft, suctioning, pulling him further while you struggle to catch up, pressing your mouth to your forearm. "Ah, Simon, please-"

"S'okay," he says through gritted teeth, like he's telling you more than he's reassuring you. A hand fists your hair to have more of the back of your neck so he can bite you there when his hips start pumping. "I've got ya."

The train of your thoughts gets woozy after that, brain too winded in keeping conscious. The buzz at the base of your skull grows with each sound smack of his thighs against yours, skin prickling. You'll be red there tomorrow, and at the end of your spine where his abdomen chafes. His cock pistons deep behind your mons, sending direct waves to your redden clit as it rubs on the bed.

"My wife," Simon growls when his maw leaves your neck, pushing your head down when it tries to lift up. Your field of vision is entirely occupied by his bicep, jaw slack. He presses his nose into your cheek when you thump your forehead against his arm. "My fuckin' wife... Comin' on my fuckin' cock. Mine, my-"

"Fuck, please. Right there, ah, make me come," you keen, fucking yourself back, lifting your ass to meet his thrusts. You think you could cry when he balances on one arm to sneak the other under you, stroking his fingers on your clit. "Yes, Simon, yeah-!"

It's a full body spasm, a rolling tide, growing and growing until your throat is tightening around your pants and you're near silent, mouth open in teary sobs. The ring of your pussy draws so strict that he inhales like it stings before he's rocking hard against you, making your teeth clack together.

Once you're sated, his pace changes from rolling plunges to short stabs that makes you search for his fisted hand, so hard they make it for your lungs to expand. It loosens just a second, only to snake around yours, constricting like a noose.

You feel his cock throb, pulse against your rim, and you swipe your thumb over his knuckles. "Pull out," you try, voice smothered by his weight, "pull out. Baby-"

The sound is harsh when he shushes you, lips pressed right over your temple. His arms lock like a manacle, elbows digging in the mattress, mouth parted over your ear when he huffs like a bull.

"Givin' it to you," he warns, and something scampers in your guts. Your shoulders try to shift, but you're rendered near immobile under him. "Ya need it, yeah? Somethin' to fuss over. Yours and mine, pet. Uhm?"

Objecting is a useless attempt, because the only things that come out when you open your mouth are feeble moans and wheezing breaths. He must take your silence as a yes, and his cock pulls back all the way, right down to the head, before it's slamming inside in a few desperate thrusts.

They're a repetitive drumming, laden, heavy shoves that have the entire power of the muscles of his back and thighs. Your second orgasm comes like a tumble, catching you underfoot as he spills against your cervix, making you shiver with the viscous warmth of it.

He stays there for a while, nudging the back of your head with his nose while you both catch your breath. You pant against the mattress and wince when your pussy doesn't want to let him go, seizing up when his spent sloshes out of you as he slips out.

Simon gathers you up in his arms, pulling you astride his hips, letting you rest your cheek against his tacky pectoral. He tilts your chin up with two knuckles and kisses you until you gasp for air, just to make himself laugh.

"I love you, sweetheart," he smiles when you frown at him, sealing the words with another press of his lips.

You feel like the price is already paid. Whether by you or him, it seems unimportant.

Pregnancy doesn't agree with you, but you're so content you can hardly pay it any mind.

The feeling is self-inflicted, though, because people smile at you in the grocery store, eyeing the gentle curve of your belly, and your friends twist their fingers in your hair every night out, checking the quality of the locks. God, so the pregnancy glow is real! Why didn't I look like this? You know Simon agrees because he seems physically incapable of sharing your twenty inches radius without cupping some part of your body.

The first two months you could barely roll out of bed, and when you would, you'd have to sway towards the bathroom before nausea had you bent in half. Now on the cusp of your second trimester, the stubborn thing growing under your ribs seems happier to grant you the occasional uninterrupted walk.

You take your breakfast by skirting the trowels, tile cutters and floats strewn across your kitchen floor, pinching your nose when the sharp smell of grout catches in the back of your throat.

"Out," your husband commands, swatting your ass with a loud smack. You'd think that having done this once already would be helping him somehow, but he seems to be struggling more than the first time. There's no rush: you know he'll get it how he wants it in the end. "Shouldn't be breathin' this in. Go somewhere else."

You retreat with your tea and the morning post, humming along to the weather forecast intro while you sort through envelopes. Bills. A wedding invitation. A card from your godparents congratulating you on the pregnancy. Can the baby hear you yet? Does it recognise the sound of your voice and Simon's?

When you're in bed at night, it seems that it can— it lands such kicks when its father presses his mouth to your abdomen to make silly noises for the pleasure of making you laugh.

A yolk-yellow paper clip slips from the stack and lands on the table. It takes a second to recognise it: the medical records from the night Simon was shot.

You push it aside to continue parsing through the remaining letters, but curiosity has you going back. The excerpt from the surgical record is nothing new. Two entry wounds to the abdomen (LUQ), no major arterial damage, minor damage to the splenic capsule. Patient underwent emergency exploratory laparotomy. Then there are the files from his hospital stay, the billing from the RXs and the reports of his blood work. The last page is his discharge notes.

Discharge destination: patient's residential address. Advice and caretaking: no heavy lifting 3mos, no contact exercise 3mos, see therapy section for pharmacy. No home care required.

The date stares back at you until Simon curses from the kitchen. You smooth the corner flat and slide it back beneath the paper clip.

"Simon?"

A road closure has forced him onto a different route. Funny, really, how often it comes down to something so dull. He’d wager seven out of ten times that the circumstances of your meetings are mundane. Hardly ever any fanfare. Today, it is a burst water main. Whole area’s cordoned off. Fate, when it bothers adding color to the details, lacks imagination.

He’s a couple beers deep, smells like it too, entwined with stale fryer oil from the basket of cheap fish and chips he wolfed down outside the site. His shirt and work vest cling to his chest and back, soaked through with sweat. The back of his neck splotchy and burnt pink from another day spent baking in the sun. He lumbers along, flat-eyed and bone-tired, every few steps rolling a shoulder, flexing a wrist, tipping his head to one side in futile attempts to work the knots from his body.

The street Simon’s been shunted onto is livelier than he reckons it usually is. Tree-lined and somehow mostly untouched by the new developments he helps put up. A mix of cozy Craftsmans and bungalows, single-story brick storefronts with hand-lettered signs. Patios are starting to fill for happy hours. A cluster of people funnel down the basement steps of a church for a meeting. Teenagers with nothing better to do try to look older as they loiter in front of a convenience store. Frantic streams of displaced commuters pound the pavement, staring down at their phones as they try to figure out bus reroutes or how to reach the next station.

One by one, though, instinct tickles the back of their necks, and their heads lift. They veer around him when they spot him, granting him the wide berth they might afford to say, a grizzly bear that wanders too close to civilization.

You do not.

Half a street away, you waltz straight across his line of travel with the complete, astonishing obliviousness that seems to follow you from life to life. If there’s one constant beyond the fear that follows you, it’s this: you never notice his arrival until it’s far too late.

You emerge from a shop carrying a sandwich board, swing it open, and step back to check it. A chalk arrow points toward the door that you disappear back into.

And how could it not be a sign? It literally is. The universe’s sense of humor is up there with its timing.

In an instant, the sum of his desire swells and breaks loose. A pendulum dislodged from the crater it’s beaten into a wall, now hurled hard in the other direction. Pulled by a change in his gravity.

All he ever needs is a second, a glimpse, for it all to come rushing back. 

His hand on your nape. A tight fist around a braid or a ponytail, when you have hair. White knuckles glued on a lead. Your eyes—whatever pretty color they are at the time—big and glassy, looking to him with every emotion laid bare.

He can practically hear it:

No, the tremble of a lip and a dimpling chin.

Yes, the curl of a cut lip, ‘s me, bird. One an’ only.

He stops dead on the pavement, staring at the black hole of the doorway. His whole body thrums with sudden energy. The week’s fatigue sloughs right off. Minutes ago, he’d been thinking about a shower, a wank, and falling asleep in front of the television in his recliner. Now he feels as though he could hike the mountains north of here. You’d come too, of course. 

He’d find the next truck parked on the street, toss you in it. Drive out into the woods, use bolt cutters to open up a logging road, and travel as far as he could down it. Give you a good scare in the cab or truck bed first, work you up to the brink on a couple of fingers before slapping your flank and sending you out running, wet between the legs. The customary headstart and then he’d give chase, just like old times.

The roar of blood in his ears recedes after a few deep breaths, the clenching and unclenching of his fists. When he feels like he can keep himself together, he starts walking again. It’s so abrupt that a woman who’s been carefully edging around him toward her parked car startles and yelps, dropping her keys.

Simon doesn’t so much as glance at her. His vision’s tunneled. As far as he’s concerned, for the next hour and maybe longer, there’s no one else in the universe. Only you.

The shop isn’t much to look at, ‘least that’s what he thinks this is. He didn’t actually read the sign. 

He feels gigantic in it. If he could stretch both arms out to his full wingspan, he’d come a few inches shy of touching both walls. Beneath his feet, old timber floors disappear under a thick woolen rug, probably concealing water stains that match the ones on the ceiling. A freestanding counter sits in front of a doorway partitioned by a beaded curtain that forms a sunset. It smells vaguely herbal and musky, old incense and laundry detergent. Somewhere past the curtain, soft and wordless music plays. 

He’s trying to decide whether or not you’re some kind of masseuse or counselor when the beaded curtain rattles, and you reappear.

You’re wrapped in muted colors, flowy linen draping off all your limbs. All very easy to peel or rip off.

“Hi, sorry, I was just setting up for the evening.” Your voice is pretty. Always is. “I don’t think I’ve seen you around here before.” You smile easily, politely—but he sees you swallow when you tilt your chin up to look at him.

“No, you ‘aven’t.” You would’ve fled the country if you had, he thinks. “‘M takin’ the scenic route ‘ome.”

“Oh,” you peek past him, almost hopefully, as though expecting any other customer to materialize behind him before your attention returns. “Are you…interested, then?”

Yes. “In?”

“A reading? A palm reading? …Unless,” Then, and your eyes light up at this, “you’re here for a spiritual reading.”

Simon bites his cheek to stop from laughing when he realizes you’re serious. Serious enough at least to sell it. 

So, this is what you are this time around. A charlatan. A cheat. A little swindler gaming hardworking—probably lonely and desperate—people out of their money by telling them what they want to hear. Looking at their hands and faces, spinning stories out of thin air. This is new. He can’t recall a single time when you pulled a stunt like this.

His amusement bleeds away a bit. He searches your face, eyes narrowing as he tries to make sense of it. What happened to you in the years before this? What sort of life steered you here, into this dingy shop, leading you to smile at strangers and pretend to see the future? Because if anyone should know how impossible that is—it’s you.

Simon huffs and rakes his nails over the buzzed hair on his head. He’s got his work cut out for him. You need help remembering how good you can be.

An equally laughable, unbelievable, and eye-watering two hundred dollars later, he’s wedged into a velvet armchair in a room smaller than the lobby. A two-person table separates you, but only barely. Your knees touch underneath it.

(Reminds him of the time you met at a circus. Him, a lion. You, an equestrienne whose horse he gutted to reach you.)

“You need to relax, Simon,” you gently encourage, rubbing your hands together. They’re slick with hand sanitizer, and the lavender fragrance it is mixed with does nothing to blunt that medicinal note. Cuts into the ambiance of the place, in his opinion. “I know that’s probably easier said than done given your, um, work.” You smile through a wince. 

His scent must be worse in this glorified closet. The heat’s trapped inside, insulated with the convenient soundproofing. He knows he’s ripe. It’s no coincidence when you fiddle with the vase on the table, stuffed with what he thinks is eucalyptus and some pale purple flowers.

“‘m relaxed, bird.” The pet name slips out from years of habit. He catches your flinch and grins, knowing full well that the sight of his smile does nothing to reassure you. He does you the courtesy of wiping his damp hands on his jeans first before offering them. He plants his elbows on the table, making both it and his chair creak when he leans forward.

You inch backward on your own chair in return, but even so, your eyes fall to his hands.

“Rough,” you murmur, hesitating a moment before leaning closer as well for a better look.

They’re crosshatched with old scars. Thick white lines earned from his honest day-to-day, the others from what pays better on the side. Split skin stitched over knuckles that have been broken several times. At a whirl of your finger, he turns them over, palms up, and wonders if the callouses on the meat of them make your ‘job’ any harder.

His cock twitches against his thigh when you finally touch him.

One at a time, your thumbs gingerly wander over the creases of his palms. You squint, hum to yourself, ask meandering questions, hedging your comments when he peppers in a couple what could tha’ mean. 

To Simon, your fishing could not be more transparent.

Sneaking peeks up at his face, tossing out broad enough statements and ideas that anyone with a pulse could see themselves in. It is cute, how you clearly think you’re getting away with something.

You tap the tail end of a line beneath his pinky. “So, there’s someone, or there was someone.”

“Yeah.”

Your brows lift a hair. “It ended badly?”

More times than he can count. Knock-down, drag-out fights, messy divorces, suicide pacts. Bleeding out on the steps of a temple or face-down in blood-soaked fields, each of you finding the other too late. Putting you down in a veterinary clinic and, in turn, you making him your dinner after fishing him out of a river.

The good times are fewer. Those memories smear in his head. Don’t stand out as much.

“Y’could say that. Last time I saw ‘er, she told me to—she was leavin’.”

“You really love her?”

“With all my ‘eart. She’s my other ‘alf.”

You nod, then pull his hand closer with a sympathetic and close-lipped smile. If you feel an ounce of guilt, the dollar signs in your eyes dampen it.

“Let’s see if there’s hope for a happy reunion.”

Your chin dips as you inch your fingers across the line, eyes moving rapidly like you’re actually reading something profound.

He flexes his thighs under the table. He’s hard, cock trapped and leaking into his boxers. Aching to give you something real to wrap your hands and head around.

“It’s…Huh,” you finally speak, the confidence in your tone audibly wavering. Your smile’s weak when you glance up at him, then quickly back down. You wet your lips, head slightly tilting as though the angle might change what you’re seeing. “This here says that you will, uh, see her again. That…”

“That?” he prompts.

Simon sees the gears in your head turn. A ghost slips across your eyes. The tiny muscles around your mouth tighten, forehead creasing. A shiver runs through you, to the hand holding his, traveling like an electric current. He feels it in his chest.

“That you’ve…y-you hurt–?” Your gaze snaps up to his. “I don’t…How do I know–”

At last, realization hits. You jolt away from him, hands pulling to your chest. Char legs scraping across the narrow floorspace as you thrust yourself backward, chest rising and falling in shallow, panicked breaths.

There you are—Here I am.

Simon watches your pupils grow, taking in the threat, and not just a threat, but the threat. Not the only predator you’ve ever met, but the apex. Singular in its appetite.

Recognition follows, and your hands jerk in quick succession. A twitch toward your hip, then up to your shoulder. Down to your thigh and ankle.

He delights in their familiarity. He’s seen them before. Grabbing for a revolver strapped to your hip. Nocking an arrow from horseback. Drawing a knife underneath a tablecloth at dinner. Every little thing you do, every nervous look or restless fidget, they’ll tell him what you’re about to do. He’ll read you like you’ve pretended to read palms.

So when you shove the table at him and lunge for the door—he’s already there, full weight thrown against it. Suddenly, there’s nowhere left to run but into him.

You shriek when you collide with his chest. He grabs your arms, holding them up as you twist and kick violently. It amounts to nothing. It is nothing. He gathers you against him, glad to collect your bruises, and buries his face in your neck. He breathes in deep and smells home. He doesn’t even mind when you bite his fingers, pressing the same horrible palm to your mouth to shut you up.

It’s short work to bend you over the table and kick open your legs. Your struggling jostles the vase, tipping it over, cool water sloshing over the wood. Eucalyptus wreathes your head when he pins your wrists to the small of your back and thrusts a mitt down the front of your cotton pants. He folds over you when your thighs start to shake, rutting against your arse while you whimper. He groans filth in your ear, relishing the pulse of your terrified cunt around his fingers. He doesn’t care that he spills in his jeans. He’ll have you lick it out later before he pops them in the wash.

You’re always more cooperative after an orgasm. Less whiny. But you’re still a flight risk, so he tethers you to the armchair with his belt while he generously locks up. You glare at him through the crack in the door. Must not be feeling very grateful yet.

He finds your car keys and wallet in your bag, and reclaims his two hundred dollars. He scans your driver’s license. The address makes him chuckle, though it feels close to injury. All this time, you’ve been living a handful of blocks away. Just outside his orbit. Walking the same streets, breathing the same fucking air. You’ve passed like ships in the night. All those near misses.

Thank fuck for burst pipes and other accidents.

He crouches in front of you, hand skimming up your thigh then jumping up to your cheek. 

Most days leave him feeling as if his brain is still separate from his body, grey matter trapped in a metal cage he can't break free from. It doesn't matter how thin the membrane is, the separation is still there. A gentle bifurcation of his life. The slicing of his soul from his body leaving a vacancy he's learned to love to display. The food vendors on the streets feel no more tangible or alive to him than the trash overflowing from dumpsters or the hoodie on his back. There's no use in getting attached to anyone or anything. Brains still stain the streets just as easily as rubbish.

Despite this fracture in his psyche, John Price holds up his end of the bargain. He gifts Simon an apartment within the same megabuilding as the nightclub—Terminus—and Kyle's clinic. It's fancier than he expected; almost uncomfortably so. A blinding sanitary white blankets the floors and walls until they reflect back enough light to make Simon's stomach turn. There's a proper kitchen fixed with a stove and coffee maker, and walls lined with several cabinets and a full sized fridge. It's leagues better than his old stomping grounds that had nothing more than a microwave that would quit working if he so much as looked at it wrong.

What unsettles him even more than the white walls is the floor to ceiling windows that resides in the living room. He can see everything. The AVs that speed past the building, the people jaywalking across the streets who look like nothing more than bugs. Advertisements ignite the sky just for more buildings smother it like the vertical bars of a jail cell—he feels naked. Skin peeled back until the wires and tubing that make up his body are fully exposed, flaunting all his weak spots until his jaw is left aching.

He engages the steel shutters until every bit of glass is blanketed, plunging his apartment into a pale numbra that feels familiar. If he keeps the lights off and lets nothing but the ambience of the TV play, he can almost pretend it's his old apartment. Though, it's not quite home. Home would be a bathtub with a bent faucet, metal bearing scars that match his own, a motionless body on the floor of the kitchen with enough blood to repaint the house. For now, what he's been given will suffice.

Though John Price seems to trust him more now than he did when he was still a mindless robot, Simon is still instructed to go to the clinic on a regular basis. He goes to see Kyle every other day where he's subjugated to a series of non-invasive tests and a visit with the cyberpsycho therapist on that chip Thomas scrounged up to fix him.

Simon decides that he hates his therapist—gilded bitch and her metal smile, he would crush her skull in his hands if he was able to. He barks at her like he's a dog, doing everything that he can to grind her nerves down until she's trembling in that fancy desk she always sits behind, feigning interest as she jots down notes about his answers to her questions as if she actually needs the physical reminder. The golden woman doesn't flinch. She's fake—no flesh and blood to quiver with, or feelings to hurt, or a heart to race at his threats.

There's not a trace of meat on her.

On the days where he isn't being tested by the doctor, Simon is allowed to roam free. He's sure there's a collar of some sort on him. A tracking device implanted into him while he was still unconscious so John Price can ensure his new toy doesn't wander too far, but Simon has no plans of running. He'd miss the violence of the city, of every debauched advertisement and dark alley that he's learned to call home, of the ability to make the citizens that cross his path tremble with one wrong look.

It takes him a few days to make it back to where it all began—the place where he lost his mind. He can't recall what the turning point was that fully tipped him over the edge. Insanity is not a sudden breaking, it is a symptom. A gentle resurgence that slowly envelopes the mind before you've even realized how far gone you are.

As he approaches the megabuilding that once housed his dingy apartment, Simon attempts to recall that feeling. It was as if sleep overwhelmed him; pulled the cotton over his eyes so sneakily that he continued to walk around blindly not realizing his life was no longer his own. He sees the evidence of that in the pale building in front of him. Holes carve into the walls of the tower as if it were struck by several meteors and the rubble still lingers at ground level to prove it.

Empty rooms are now part of the decor. Once flourishing living spaces are dead with the electricity cut off and holographic police tape to warn others about the edge they'd plunge off of if they took a wrong step. People continue to live despite the mess. Simon supposes that's all humans have ever done—endure the haze of ozone and greed that pollutes this city nearly as bad violence. The elevator still runs, vendors continue to sell food, and children frolic along the sidewalk as if the russet spots on the cement that they trample over aren't blood stains.

To avoid being noticed, he keeps his hood up as he leans against the stone wall and watches people flood by. No one pays much attention to him—no one pays attention to anybody in Night City. Humans are predators. Apex creatures now fit with enough cybernetics to survive even the worst of bites. Everyone knows better than to look. Everyone knows better than to make eye contact with a hungry dog.

One new message.

The image flashes across his vision in pale blue; a text message sent directly to the chip in his brain. Simon regrets not checking the sender before he opens the message and his view is flooded with a picture of a young boy. If he had to guess, he'd say the child is around four years old, but he's never been good with kids. What he does notice is the hue of his eyes—the same color that he remembers seeing in his mother; the one his brother now carries as a painful reminder of what he couldn't accomplish. Of who he couldn't save.

We're always here for you. Joey could do with an active uncle, you know.

Without a second thought, Simon closes the message and is greeted by the shredded toes of his boots. He wishes Thomas would stop with the incessant family bullshit. He doesn't give a shit about what he does with his life now that he's a free man. He doesn't care about his wife or that snotty nose child. When his fingers curl in frustration, it's like he can almost feel that old flesh squelching in his fist. Brain matter, bones fragmenting beneath his grip, vocal cords trembling in a final cry before he silences them for good. The evidence of his inhumanity litters his feet, and all he can think about is the hunger pains in his stomach.

A few blocks over, Simon manages to find a halfway decent food vendor. The scent of the kebabs cooking fresh on the grill is enough for him to approach with a grunting order and a simple exchange of eddies before he wanders off with a stick in his hand. The first bite he takes nearly makes him throw up. Synthetic meat. He chews it with a grimaces and it slithers down his throat before settling heavy in his stomach like a bomb waiting to explode.

He fears he may have to resort to drastic measures soon.

Before he can contemplate the idea, another disturbance buzzes through the chip in his head, plaguing the corner of his vision with a pending phone call waiting for him to answer. His first instinct is to decline it. All he wants is some peace and quiet in this city that never sleeps. Before he can do it, his brain makes sense of the name blinking in his optics, forcing him to reconsider lest he ruin his relationship with the one person stupid—or maybe greedy—enough to go through his brother's idiotic plan.

"Yeah?" It's the only greeting Simon bothers to give John Price as he lowers his kebab away from his face before the scent makes him hurl.

"You're not at Garrick's. Running off on me?" John asks facetiously. His voice is crisp in his ear, drowning out the sounds of cars racing through the street.

Appetite suddenly vanishing, Simon tosses his food into the gutter with the rest of the garbage that's accumulated within the city. "Nowhere you can't fetch me."

"Good man," he replies with a chuckle. "When you're ready, come find me in Terminus."

The overwhelming urge to roll his eyes overtakes Simon, but he quickly bites it back before he can make a fool of himself. "In trouble with the boss, am I?"

"Not unless you prove yourself to be a liar," John quips. "You're still serious about working for me, aren't you?"

"Yes sir."

"Good. Then come find me. Sooner rather than later."

The call drops and Simon is fully in his body once again, surrounded by filth and heavy gazes that skirt around him as they give him a wide berth on the sidewalk. A sharp inhale fills his lungs, expanding his metal chest until he's as broad as an ox. He's known this was coming. There's only one line of work for men like him, and it's never been pretty.

Taking John's advice, he doesn't meander around the city for much longer before returning to Terminus. It's another megabuilding in a city full of skyscrapers, an area that always seems to build up into the clouds rather than out across the land, which he supposes isn't the most terrible thing to have happened. The containment of the malignant tumor that is Night City is perhaps the smartest thing the president's ever done.

Terminus itself stands proud at the top of the building with half of the club secluded in darkness while the other half shines bright with glass ceilings and walls that he can see the entire city from at night. There are only a few patrons to speak of in the daytime. As he cuts through the empty dance floor, Simon notes a the hung over citizens sleeping on couches while others enjoy a braindance or two stuffed into a corner they mistake for being hidden. He pays them no mind as he steps over sticky trash while marching to John's office.

While the rest of the building sports heavy music, buzzing lights, and the scent of sex, John Price's tastes are a bit more refined. Velvety walls blanket him in deep wine as the door shuts behind him. A private bar with sparkling, crystal glasses sits lined up on his left while John has his back turned to him, donning a thick jacket with his hands shoved into the pockets. He's staring at a large holoscreen displaying a football game of some sorts. Judging by the quality of the videography, the tape is old. Fifty years, at least. He thinks about asking John if he's reliving the glory days but decides against it.

As Simon cautiously approaches behind him, he gets a glimpse of athletes kicking a ball across the field, men running side by side, elbows locking, feet flying, bodies diving—then, the crowd cheers. Their hands pump in the air, teeth flashing, gnarly expressions as they hold onto one another and shake their friends.

It's like he's back in that ring again. Fighting for the scavs. That memory is just about as blurry as the rest of them, but the feeling is still there. The pain and aches, the discontent he feels as he stares at the crowd, as they cheer for him, as they look at him like they wish they could wear the thin flesh that covers the monstrosity that lies within his body.

"You should put punctual on your resume," John hums. With a simple wave of his hand, the holo dies and the two men are left in silence as he turns around. "I would've figured that you'd take another hour at least."

"It's not like I'm running errands for my old lady," Simon replies bluntly.

John's chuckle is rich. Smooth like whiskey, and deep like amber. If Simon didn't know any better, he would assume he has some sort of corporate background, but the man has too many scars hidden beneath his clothes and not enough bags under his eyes for that.

"Fancy a drink?" he prompts, gesturing to the private bar.

Simon raises his brows. "Gig that bad?"

"I think most men would find it enjoyable, actually."

Unable to find the harm in it, Simon follows John's lead to the bar where they both take seats on the stools. Wordlessly, John pours them both a drink from a bottle that seems to be at least half the price of his old yearly salary, and it tastes just like it, too. Fancy, disgustingly so, made with soft hands, created by someone who's never known a hard day's work in their entire lives.

"I'm sure you're familiar with the Indrik-Beasts?" John asks.

It's an odd conversation starter—or perhaps just a stupid question. Simon has had his run-ins with the gang, just like he has with nearly every other group that pretends to own this city. Everyone runs into anyone worth avoiding, anyway. A Russian based organization, a pseudo-branch of scavs known for their strict rules and hard drawn lines on their turf.

"You mean those bastards with the bull head on their jackets?" Simon questions, though he already knows the answer.

"The very same," he confirms.

"What'd you do to piss them off?"

John chuckles into his glass where the air in his throat reverberates against his lips. "Vladimir Makarov and I have been at odds with each other since the dawn of time. This isn't a ploy at revenge. It's strategy. I'm trying to get an edge on the fucker."

Simon isn't interested in the grumblings about a war that started without him; he never has been. All he's done in life is keep his head down and work long enough until he had the eddies saved up to spend on chrome. His silence and bored sipping is enough to tip John off to this information. He wastes no more time retrieving a datashard from his pocket before sliding it along the counter.

"Plug in."

Not bothering to waste anymore time than he already has, Simon slots the shard in without question and allows his optics to stutter before the files open up. The first thing he notices is a lot of words. They're written in translucent green lettering on a pale background that flood his view faster than he can read it, coupled with photos taken in poor lighting, like they were jacked straight from someone's vision. Simon grunts as he manually overrides the loading, taking matters into his own hands so he can properly read the information being force fed to him.

Marco Kanas. His date of birth shows Simon to be a few years older than him, but the work that he's had done leaves him looking both ancient and young at the same time. Even in the picture he can note the glint of fresh optics and the mantis blade markings peeking out along his forearms. The files list each of his interactions with Makarov and the importance he holds in the Indrik-Beasts, but Simon can't bring himself to read through it. He couldn't care less what color the prick bleeds.

"Marco," Simon says blunt. "Want me to get rid of 'im?"

John can only chuckle. "If you can manage it, sure. But I had something else in mind. Keep scrolling."

So he does. Something new pops up—something truly intriguing. More files, a new name, and a new picture.

It's the first time Simon sees you, compressed into an image on a chip he shoved into his brain, and he's astounded at how fleshy you are. Besides a few slots in the side of your head for the usual data transfers, there's not an inch on you that he thinks isn't real meat. No cybernetics, hidden monowire, or strengthening implants. You're leaning against that other bastard—Marco—sitting in a dress not long enough to fully cover your rump as you rest your head against his shoulder. Enervation weighs you down into the padded seat as men around you laugh and toast with expensive liquor. You have your own drink in hand, but you haven't taken a sip of it.

"They call her Fox," John says after a period of silence. "She works as a proxy for the Indrik-Beasts. Soap's been keeping tabs on her, and she's been more active than usual. I want to know who she's been talking to and what Makarov's been doing with that information."

Simon blinks and his vision returns to normal while the shard pops out of the port in his head. Pressing it against the pads of his fingers, he places it back on the counter. "Thought that was the point of proxies. All that shit gets erased from their head the moment their handler's get what they need."

"You underestimate Garrick's prowess as a ripper," John deadpans.

Pushing his glass away from him, Simon huffs, thoroughly weary with the conversation. "What're you wantin' me to do with 'em?"

"I wouldn't mind a bullet in Marco's head, her handler, but don't waste your time with it. Who I really want is the girl. Here. Alive and as unharmed as you can manage."

"Alright." Content, Simon nods. "Got a plan for me, or am I doin' this on my own?"

"I wouldn't call it a plan, but guidance perhaps," John muses as he pulls a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. He offers one to Simon, and though his mouth waters at the thought, he declines. "You'll find her at Tsar's Palace, a dollhouse in Westbrook. It should be easy enough getting in. It's getting out that'll be tricky."

Simon soaks in the information as it comes. He's never been to a dollhouse before—never had the desire to pay for sex like that with some half asleep toy that wouldn't remember it anyway.

"I've got soap to be your getaway driver. Your job is to get Fox out of that dollhouse and into that car before anyone realizes she's gone," John finishes.

Tilting his head to the side, Simon hums in thought. "And if we get caught?"

John breathes deep as he places a cigarette between his lips, smoke filling the space between them as soon as he has it lit enough to puff on. He shrugs. "Then I hope all that chrome you fitted yourself with isn't useless."

There's little else the men have to say to one another once it's out in the open. Violence is Simon's mother tongue; something he's fluent in, like the ability to breathe. Before he leaves to set the plan into motion, John gives him cash—the physical, real deal—to pay for the services.

"Paper trails burn easier than electronic ones," he quips.

This man—Soap—waits for him on the streets just outside the megabuilding, leaning against a sleek black car with wheels he notes as being new with thick treads and sleek fresh rubber. The man himself is hardly remarkable. A short cropped mohawk that seems to be catching on in style in Night City and minimal amounts of chrome give Simon the impression that he could squash him beneath the sole of his boot if the desire struck him.

As he gets closer, he realizes Soap is talking to someone. A red haze obscures his eyes as the holocall consumes his vision. Simon stands with his arms crossed as the man does his best to hide a cheeky smirk before pushing himself away from the car.

"Alright, love, I gotta go. I'll see you tonight." With his call now ended, Soap greets Simon with a toothy grin. "Simon, yeah? Ready to catch that fox?"

Huffing, Simon marches around the other side of the car before opening the passenger's door. "Call me that again, and I'm rippin' your arms off."

His threat sets the mood of the ride. Soap is quiet, and instead allows the radio to fill the silence that spans between them. Refusing to take the moment for granted, Simon closes his eyes and leans the chair back enough until he no longer has to curve his neck to prevent the top of his head from scraping the roof. The only thing he decides to acknowledge about Soap is that his taste in music isn't half bad. At least, it isn't leaving his eardrums bleeding.

Time doesn't pass properly as they cover more ground. Stuck in that limbo between sleeping and being awake, everything seems to span forever. Each turn Soap makes, the long stretches of uninterrupted driving. He's just floating along, allowing Night City to drag him where it wants to.

Eventually the car slows to a stop, prompting Simon's eyes to snap open as he hears the gear shift into park. Soap looks at him with bored eyes as he gestures to the building on their right.

"Go get her, tiger."

For once, Simon decides to bite his tongue rather than let it fly before he exits the car. He stares at the building with his hands in his pockets, fingers carefully rubbing against the eddies to make sure they don't vanish in the depths of his hoodie. The words Tsar's Palace slices through the face of the building with unforgiving neon yellow, glittering and morphing like liquid gold. It's not very tall—at least, not like a megabuilding. Only a few stories high, there are little windows. There's enough space to house more than enough rooms for cheap sex, but he doubts that's what all the space is for.

Syndicates like these love their dirty secrets. Their hidden rooms. Walls of televisions playing illicit videos, black market BDs laid out on coke-stained coffee tables, desperate for the viewing.

Simon clears his head. In and out. Who cares about what skeletons these dirty bastards keep shoved in their closets?

The automatic door slides open with a creak that reminds him of the wooden door that kept his bedroom separate from the rest of the trailer when he was a kid. Marijuana hangs heavy in the air, muddying his thoughts as he approaches the counter. It's very sterile. Less about sex appeal and more about just getting straight to business.

Two men chat with one another, sitting faced away from the door with their feet propped up on some filing cabinets as a small TV flickers on the wall. They're young. The kind of youth that breeds annoyance in the back of his skull and in the tender part of his jaw prone to creaking.

"Seriously?" Simon catches the tail end of their conversation.

"Yeah, it was brutal. Out of all the guys Marco could've made test it out, I'm glad it was fucking Marcel."

"Poor guy. Those implants are bad news. man."

"He said his crotch felt like it was on fire for two weeks."

Simon doesn't intend to startle the two, but the sheer weight of his hand hitting the counter behind them makes them both jump. One of them is on their feet in an instant, though his muscles seem to relax when he realizes it's just another paying customer seemingly here to get his dick wet.

"What can I do for you?" the man asks flippantly. Simon notes the gorilla arms marking his knuckles. It's out of place on him. His bones look thin enough to snap without so much as breaking a sweat.

"Wanna see Fox," Simon hums, nodding towards the entrance to the back.

The man sucks on his teeth and lets out a soft hiss as he shakes his head. "Dunno about that. Marco likes to save her for special customers."

"Yeah? Might not be a special customer but…" Simon pulls his other hand out of his pocket, the roll of eddies coming with it. He begins to fan out each bill, flaunting them like a stripper flashes her cunt. "I can pay like one."

As if requesting permission, the man looks behind his shoulder at his friend before accepting the full wad from Simon. He counts through it himself, eyes dilated as if he's never seen a sight so beautiful before he taps them against the counter. Then, it's all formality. A description on the service, what to expect—all the things that puts Simon to sleep. When he's asked what service he'd like ("If you're into dominant women, we could set her up with that, but most people come to use her for something more domestic… She's got a good face for tears. At least, that's what I've heard.") Simon just tells them to surprise him. The man only smirks in response.

"Oh, and if at any point you want it to stop or you're getting uncomfortable or whatever, the safe word is azure. That'll shut the program down. Or, you can use it to have more fun. Fox will do whatever you tell her to, in and out of program."

With a half-assed wave, Simon mutters his thanks before he wanders to the back. There are countless rooms, completely sealed from the outside world in one long hallway. It feels like death's row. Not a single window or other unit in sight. There's not so much as a scream or moan that seeps through the doors despite the various IN USE signs illuminating the frames. Soundproof rooms are bad advertisement, he thinks.

There are no fewer than three cameras in the hallway, covering every inch of the place, making sure nothing goes unnoticed. He contemplates the difficulty of grabbing you and leaving the building unnoticed, then decides he doesn't care if they notice. The whole world can know he stole some Fox from this gang of wannabe somebodies. In the end, he's still winning.

Simon looks down at the ticket the worker gave to direct him to the room you'll be in, only to realize that you're somewhere on the second floor. You don't even have a room number, but a room color. Red. He suppose it's fitting, for a fox.

He finds the stairs at the end of the hallway, and crossing the threshold into the stairwell is already a night and day difference compared to the rest of the building. Instead of cement with grime coating the floors, and plain metal walls, there's pristine granite and decorative paper. Crystal lights illuminate his way as he climbs up where two guards stand outside of a door. They allow him to pass with a simple glance at the ticket pinched between his fingers where Simon is at a loss for words.

The wealth behind these doors is akin to what coats John Price's office. Rich colored walls, plush seating where men and women alike sip on flutes of champaign while a bartender behind them mixes drinks. They sit back as a girl dances on the table in front of them, stark naked except for the ropes knotted along her body. Collar, manacles for her wrists and ankles, and a harness with intricate lattice designs. When she spins around, flashing her face to Simon, he has to question how old she is.

Though the room is daunting, Simon struts through it without a care as he finds a hallway marked enjoy with flashing LED lights. It's already nicer than what he found downstairs. Artwork hangs on the walls, along with flat sculptures he doesn't really care fore. An emergency exit bisects the space on his right, and he notes the location for later. He doesn't fancy trying to drag a doll out through the main entrance. A long floor runner cushions his feet as he walks past several doors. They're spaced further apart than they were downstairs. These rooms must be bigger. More spacious for toys.

Your room is marked with a red door the color of a hooker's lipstick, nestled at the very end of the hall. When he gets closer, he realizes that there's gold embellishments on it in the shape of leaping foxes. What a prized possession you must be. He can't wait to tear you apart.

The door opens without him touching it, leaving Simon to remember that his every move is being watched and monitored in real time. He takes little time to gather himself before he crosses into the room where dim purple lights glimmer from the ceiling like celestial dreams. As the pneumatic hiss of the door sounds behind him, Simon's eyes flicker to each corner of the room to gather his bearings.

On the wall furthest from him is a rack of… toys. Tools. Knives, rope, spreading bars, plugs, gags, blindfolds—there's something to cater to every wish. Every desire. An assortment of furniture lies around the room from counters, sleek leather couches, and even a kennel. The bed seems to be the star of the show with a firm mattress and blush bedding to go with it. At the foot of the bed, kneeling on the floor with hands folded, is you.

A hazy purple glow covers your irises, a side effect of the doll chip implanted in your brain. You don't move or speak, but he can tell that you're following him as he wanders closer. You've got more clothes on than he expected, though he supposes anything could be under that silky periwinkle robe you're wearing.

Simon doesn't stop until he's right in front of you. Neck craned back, you stare up at him with lips curved into a pleasant smile. He's never seen a doll—not one working, anyway. Everything about you seems fake. Everything about you is fake. Your eyes, your smile, your fluttering lashes. Huffing, he crumples his ticket up and shoves it in his pocket.

"Stand up," he orders.

You listen. Of course you listen. With fluid movements, you're on your feet. Your robe slips, revealing more cleavage than you were showing before, but you don't correct it. You stay staring at him. Waiting. It's irritating like a fly trapped in a room. One too fast for him to kill. But he has to figure out the extent of this program and how deeply it renders your brain as nothing more than a tool for pleasure.

"We're gettin' out of 'ere," he tells you.

You giggle, and it's bubbly like vomit. "Yes sir." Your hand rises and lands on his chest as your hips sway. Too eager. Too excited.

Without thinking, he slaps your hand away. "We're leavin' Tsar's Palace, yeah?"

There's a twitch in your neck as your eyes flutter. Simon can nearly see the manual rewrite of your program as your smile falters. There must be a block. Something set in place to keep you caged.

He realizes it's better to go natural. Simon's never minded doing things the hard way. It's the kicking and screaming that gets his blood pumping anyway, and though you've got a lot of hardware in that pretty skull, he can tell just by looking at you there's nothing throughout your body. It would be such a waste of precious meat not to shatter the doll program rendering you hostage.

"Azure."

Violet lights flicker and die in your eyes, revealing your natural eye color just in time for your smile to melt. Your hands fly to your face as you let out a sharp whimper that sends the hairs on the back of Simon's neck standing on edge. Then, your jaw is opening in a yell. Before he can think it through, his palm is slamming against your mouth, which sends you stumbling backwards until you're both toppling over onto the bed.

The collision knocks the air out of your lungs, but when you try to gasp there's nothing but the faux flesh of Simon's hand against your lips. So you breathe through your nose instead, chest heaving up and down, dancing beneath silk as Simon's weight keeps you pinned to the mattress. The two of you stare at one another wordlessly for what feels like forever.

Fireworks light up along the neural sensors in his legs as his thighs squeeze around your hips. There's a give to your body that he hasn't felt in someone in a long time. Something that makes his loins tighten deliciously. Perhaps in another world he would have enjoyed you like this, but the work John Price sentenced him to hangs over his head too precariously for him to fully let his guard down.

"Not a fuckin' word, yeah?" he barks.

Though you don't nod, he knows you understand him when your body goes limp beneath him. He pulls his hand away, palm wet with your spit. He doesn't care to wipe it off.

"It's okay." A small laugh escapes your lips, but it's not like the giggle you gave him earlier. It's you. It's… forced. Tight in your throat, constricted with a terror you can't tame. "I know better than to scream."

"It's soaked,” you protest without looking back at him.

"It lives outside, it’s used to it."

"It's a kitten, Si," you complain.

"Kittens live outside too."

You extend a careful hand under the car and the screaming stops, which you choose to interpret as encouragement. "Hi," you say sweetly to the curled-up-black-mass. "Hello. You are very loud, did you know?"

You stretch out your index finger to gently pet it’s cheek and the kitten bites you — not hard — just a test bite, checking if your finger is food, probably. Then just as quickly, it stalks out from under the car and you learn he’s orange, drenched and too skinny for your liking.

It walks directly past your outstretched hand to sit beneath Simon, right in the space between his bulky boots, its probably ten weeks or so. 

"No," Simon says to the cat.

The cat looks up at him and screams again.

“We can’t leave him in the rain. He’s so skinny, Si. Look at him, let’s at least feed him. We just bought plenty tuna.”

“Yeah, and it’s for me,” he grumbles. 

——

You do everything on your own that first night while Simon remains at a distance with his arms crossed, providing pessimistic commentary.

"Cats are unpredictable," he says while you dry between the kitten's ears.

"Uh-huh."

"Carry fleas. Tha’ one's got fleas, guarantee it."

"He's been rained on for days, the fleas have drowned," you turn the kitten over and start to dry his belly, finding confirmation there that he is, in fact, a boy.

"They scratch furniture," he continues later from the sofa while you crank open a can of tuna in the kitchen. "Piss in shoes, bring in dead things," he lists. "We’re not keepin’ this cat."

"Nobody said we were," you sing-song through the doorway, scratching at the kitten's chin, cooing at him where he’s sat on the countertop. 

"Puttin’ it on the record, s’all.”

The kitten eats some tuna from your hand and drinks some water out of the saucer you place on the floor. After, he ignores the box you lined with blankets completely, and opts to fall asleep in the middle of the living room floor, just in front of Simon’s socked feet. 

——

In the morning you make a list — litter, cat food, flea treatment to ease Simon’s mind — and leave the two of them alone together. 

——

The kitten follows him around immediately and everywhere, at a peppy rolling trot. The kitchen, down the hallway, he shuts the bathroom door just to find a paw under it seconds later, sweeping side to side.

When he comes out the kitten falls in at his heel again.

"You've got the whole flat," Simon tells him.

The kitten looks up at him, wide-eyed, and says nothing, which is somehow worse than the screaming, Simon thinks. 

He starts the kettle on the stove and the kitten jumps — scrabbles, mostly, all back legs — onto the counter and sits down next to him.

"No," Simon says. "Off."

The kitten stares at him.

"Y’not meant to be up here, mate. Counters are for food."

Simon picks him up one-handed and sets him on the floor.

The kitten is back on the counter before the kettle boils. Simon sets him down again.

By the third try, the kitten nearly sticks the landing, wobbles, and headbutts Simon's forearm, and Simon stands there and has a quiet think.

"Well,” he slides the kitten away with his hand. “Not near the hob, then," he decides. "Gotta draw the line somewhere, yeah?"

By the time your home, they're both in the front room — Simon on the sofa, the kitten on the armrest, both facing the telly. 

"Checked. Shelter’s open Monday," he says before you've even got your shoes off. 

You look at the bag of litter in your arms, then at the cat right at Simon's side.

"Right," you say, rolling your eyes. "Monday."

——

To your surprise, Monday comes and goes without a complaint. When you return from work and find the two of them on the couch again, you choose very deliberately not to ask. 

Tuesday there's a proper bowl on the floor in the kitchen, stainless steel and weighted, because ‘the saucer kept sliding’.

Wednesday you come home to a litter box with a hood on it, tucked behind the bathroom door.

Thursday it's a scratching post — sisal, with a platform bed on top — and a small mouse toy, already disemboweled in the hallway.

You… did not buy any of it. 

The kitten has started to become a resident. He has routines now: he sits in the counter's approved quadrant while Simon cooks, supervising. He does laps of the flat at three AM like a lunatic and sleeps until ten like the king of this place. 

Two weeks later, he is, visibly, day by day, less kitten and more cat.

You're both on the sofa, your feet in Simon's lap, nose in a book, some film on in the background that you’re not sure Simon is even half-watching because there is an awful lot of shifting going on behind your novel. Then a small rhythmic thump against your ankle. Then another. 

Thump. Thump-thump. ThumpThumpThump. 

You lower the book.

Simon has pulled the string of his hoodie out to dangle over the armrest, swinging it side-to-side, round-and-round, and the cat is up on his back legs boxing at it, every lunge sending an orange ball airborne, ricocheting off your shins.

“Really?” you ask fondly.

“‘e started it,” Simon says, eyes still on the cat.

He flicks the string and the cat leaps, misses, and slides halfway down the armrest with a scrabble; Simon catches him around the middle with one hand and sets him back up top.

The kitten catches the string at last — teeth and claws sunk in, back feet kicking, growling at it like prey. Simon lets him keep it, the corner of his mouth tugging sideways, satisfied; charmed, even.

You watch them over the top of your book — your enormous, cat-hating man, losing a tug-of-war to one.

“Should probably name him,” you try, hiding your grin, pushing your feet under his thighs.

“Been callin’ ‘im Nigel,” he says, not looking over. “Decided that’s what ‘e wants t’be called.”

You sit up so fast you lose your page. You furrow your brows. “Nigel?!” you complain. “We’re not calling him Nigel!”

“S’too late, love,” he grins down at Nigel. “Look at ‘im and tell me tha’ s’not a Nigel.” He nudges his foot under the cat and he climbs up his leg right away, as if the trick has been practiced.

The pair turn and look at you at the same time, heads tilted exactly the same.

You tilt yours back, the corner of your mouth twitching up.