Word Count: 2,187
Archive: DarkMagick.net, Apollymi’s Grimoire, and Archive of Our Own. Anyone else wanting it, please ask first. I’ll probably say yes, but ask first…[endsection]
Billy blinked his eyes open lazily, wondering for just a moment where he was. The bed he was lying in was incredibly comfortable, and despite the lack of blankets and his own nudity, the room and the bed itself felt warm.
Rolling his head to the side helped him remember. Rose Creek, what Sam had referred to as an opening skirmish, finding a room after a quick argument with Gabi over just who was going to buy something to use as lubricant… and just the memory of watching his newest mates sharing Goody was enough to turn him on all over again.
Too bad everyone was asleep.
Gabi was still curled up around Goody, one arm thrown lazily over the smaller man and face pressed to his neck, breathing slow and even in rest. Goody had at some point rolled onto his stomach without dislodging the Mexican, head resting on one arm and the other wrapped around Josh. Josh himself was on his left side, his right hand resting on the small of Goody’s back and his left tucked under his own head.
Damn, but Billy’s triad was a hell of a lot of pretty.
He was just pondering the merits of jacking off to all that pretty when he heard a hitch in Gabi’s breathing; then the man was sitting abruptly and reaching for a gun that wasn’t there, a gun that was across the room on the desk.
“Okay, Gabi?” Billy asked softly, keeping his voice level and using the same soothing tone he would use whenever Goody awoke from a nightmare.
Gabi blinked at him absently for just a second; then his expression shifted from wary to comfortable, and the Asian knew his mate was back in the present.
“Sí, hermoso,” Gabi replied, sounding more awake. “How long were we asleep?”
“Few hours, I guess. Sun’s going down, so we definitely slept through lunch.”
Gabi huffed out a breath. “I wonder when supper is,” he said. “I’m hungry.”
Billy snorted. “You’ll have to put some clothes on before you start scavenging,” he teased.
“Does he gotta?”
That was a whine from the vicinity of Josh, who still had his eyes closed but had shifted closer to Goody and moved just enough so that his forehead was resting on their mate’s shoulder.
“Shut up, ’m sleepin’,” Goody muttered, a faint lilt in his voice, one that tended to be present for a little while if he’d been speaking French for any measure of time.
Billy snorted. “After that much… activity, Goody, you talking means you’re awake.”
Josh opened an eye. “He talks in his sleep? Really?”
The response to this was a shove from Goody, who rolled onto his side to do so and nearly fell over Gabi. “Fuck you, Joshua,” he said, amusement in his tone as he relaxed against their Mexican mate; Gabi snickered and wrapped both arms around Goody’s waist.
“Buenas tardes, mijo,” he murmured, obviously happy where he was at the moment. “Did you sleep well, querido?”
“I did, mon beau,” Goody replied, turning to kiss Gabi softly. “But I could eat.”
Billy huffed in amusement. “Bottomless pits, the both of you,” he teased even as he set about gathering up their scattered clothing. He wasn’t surprised that Gabi had managed to get his own clothing on the desk, but he had to untangle his own, Goody’s, and Josh’s from a pile on the floor. As he worked at that, Josh rolled off the other side of the bed with a grunt to gather up the weapons that the pair of them had just randomly tossed off earlier. Which was a good idea; normally, Billy was the type to make sure his knives were in a safe spot, but he had been a little bit distracted.
Josh was a fantastic kisser, after all.
In short order, the four of them were dressed once again, even if Josh hadn’t made much of an effort at all to make it look like they hadn’t spent the better part of the early afternoon fucking like wild things. Goody rolled his eyes and moved over to make an attempt at getting their redhead presentable… a failed effort as Josh kept snickering and distracting him with kisses and whispering in his ear.
“Hey, knock it off,” Billy scolded, smacking the Irishman on the arm after the fourth attempt. “Food now, playtime later.”
“How many people you think know what we were doing up here?” Gabi asked idly.
“How many people were in the store when you went for supplies?” Billy responded.
“Two.”
“Then the whole town, probably,” Josh said with a shrug, his left arm already wrapped firmly around Goody’s waist; apparently that was going to be A Thing, and it was so sweet Billy couldn’t fault him for it. “Ain’t like we were trying to keep it a secret or nothing.”
Goody suddenly snickered. “Oh my Lord, just think if anyone asked young Teddy or Miss Emma about it. I don’t think Billy and I were very quiet when we were talking about our ultimate plans once we arrived in town.”
Gabi laughed sharply. “I know guerito wasn’t very quiet. Miss Emma was a shade of red I didn’t even know existed before this week.”
“I should be embarrassed,” the Cajun noted, not sounding the least bit ashamed of himself.
“Nah,” Josh replied, dropping a quick kiss to the shorter man’s cheek and turning him towards the door. “C’mon, Billy. Let’s go get these two fed.”
The four of them made their way downstairs and out onto the street, and Billy wasn’t terribly surprised by how many people looked their way and immediately seemed to have something more important to do. Josh actually managed to keep from laughing, even though his shoulders were shaking and Goody definitely had to bite back a grin. Oh, Maman Arthémie was going to adore the hell out of their Irishman; his sense of humor matched hers almost to a T.
Gabi simply rolled his eyes and muttered something uncomplimentary under his breath in Spanish, causing Billy to bite his own lip to keep from grinning brightly. Both of these men were a perfect addition to their nontraditional triad, and he already loved them more than he’d thought would be possible. He moved a bit closer to Gabi, bumped his shoulder and rolled his eyes at the towns folks’ reactions to their presence. The Mexican chuckled and bumped him back lightly before turning his gaze back to where their other mates were already stepping up on the walkway to enter the restaurant.
“Oh, good, there’s food,” Josh announced loudly, drawing the attention of their other three companions. Sam, Horne, and Red Harvest were already seated in a row at the table, and some of the women from town were working on bringing out supper. Billy spotted Teddy standing by the bar, and by the way his face went bright red upon seeing him, it was clear that word had indeed gotten around town and was augmented by the Cullens. The Korean just smirked and winked at the young man and nearly laughed when Teddy averted his eyes towards the floor.
Having finished picking on the young widower, Billy moved to join his mates at the table. Josh dropped himself into the seat next to Sam after pulling out the chair to his left for Goody. Billy slipped in automatically on his Cajun’s left, and Gabi fell into the empty seat between him and Red. When he stretched his legs out a bit, he bumped into two other pairs, and instead of pulling back, he just shifted enough to rest his feet on top of both Josh’s and Gabi’s; next to him, Goody dropped his own feet on top of Billy’s and relaxed back into his seat.
Sam, for his part, just rolled his eyes at their antics. The man was far too used to his and Goody’s nontraditional romantic behavior, having met up with them a few dozen times over the years and even spending a month in Lafayette with the Robicheaux family. Granted, it was only one month, and Sam had said something about Goody’s parents being far too wild for him to deal with more than once, but Billy figured that was just his way of saying that it hurt too much to be around them. Given the way his family had been killed, mother and sisters and mate all in one fell swoop, Sam had every right to want to avoid that much togetherness.
But he had Red Harvest now, if Billy was reading the situation right. It may have been more of a platonic or familial triad bond, nothing like the one that existed between himself and his three mates or the one Sam had shared with Marla, but it was a bond all the same. Maybe Red could curb some of Sam’s suicidal risk taking…
And then there was food in front of him, and Billy focused most of his attention on that. He understood what it was like to be hungry from his years on the run, and while he hadn’t had to worry since Goody’s family bought out his bounty, he still remembered what it was like. Billy kept a firm eye on his mates, making sure that not only were Gabi and Goody eating—and Gabi was definitely packing away everything placed in front of him while Goody was picking in that way he generally did—but that Josh was getting more food than alcohol into him.
Josh looked around the room as he ate, his expression darkening slightly any time he spotted someone staring. “It’s like being in one of them damned zoos,” he grumbled, taking a bite of chicken.
“Fame is a sarcophagus,” Goody remarked, taking a drink between picking at his greens; honestly, if Maman Sabine was here right now, she’d be standing over her child and glaring at him until he took more than a few bites. The Robicheauxs acted like the man was ten rather than thirty-eight sometimes, and it was hilarious to see. One of Billy’s favorite things was to watch his mate stubbornly glare at all three of his parents who would stare him down in return until the man huffed an annoyed sigh and gave into their whims.
The redhead turned to look at the Cajun. “Do you read these in a book, babe, or just make ‘em up as you go?” he asked, and it seemed like he really wanted to know the answer.
Goody, being a Robicheaux and therefore a bit of an asshole, smiled mildly back. “I’ll try and use one syllable words from here on,” he said sweetly.
Billy rolled his eyes affectionately at Goody, giving him a grin even as Gabi snickered softly on his left. Josh blinked, and he could see the moment when his mate realized he was being teased and decided to retaliate.
“What’s a syllable?”
Goody nearly choked on his whiskey, he was laughing too much; it was wonderful.
Red tossed his plate back on the table at that moment, drawing everyone’s attention as he said something in Comanche. Given his expression, Billy was positive that it was something disparaging about their meal.
“What did he say?” Horne asked, turning to Sam.
Sam, who was honestly as big a jackass as Goody could be at times, replied, “He asks that you kindly stop looking at his hairline.”
Red turned to shoot him an annoyed look, confirming Billy’s suspicions. On either side of him, he could hear his mates snickering; and from the corner of his eye, he saw Josh move to dump some of his beans on Gabi’s plate.
“As long as he stops licking his lips over mine,” Horne replied, drawing an annoyed chuckle from Billy. There were times that he really, really hated how prejudiced white men could be. He had been terribly lucky that Goody was the first apparently white man he ever met who treated him with respect; even discovering that his mate was mixed race himself didn’t sway that opinion. It just helped him hold up a standard for how all people should behave.
When Josh had come along, when he had become part of their triad, Billy found another white man who treated all people equally. Granted, Josh seemed to think most people were morons until proved otherwise, but he treated everyone the exact same way. And he hadn’t batted an eye when Gabi turned out to be theirs as well.
So, yes, Horne was annoying the Korean right now.
A hand gripped his left knee under the table, and he felt a nudge from beneath his feet even as Goody leaned closer to press a quick kiss to his neck. Trust his mates to know when he needed a bit of comfort, even if his face never showed a thing.
“Let’s finish up and go back to our room, cher,” Goody murmured. “I could use some more sleep.”
And trust them to know when to make it seem like they were the ones in need of peace.
[section=Footer Notes]20 February 2017Translation Notes:
(All translations are taken from Google Translate or Adora’s shaky remnants of French)
French:
Mon beau – My handsome one
Cher – dear
Spanish:
Hermoso – handsome
Mijo – used here as “sweetheart”
Querido – darling
Guerito – affectionate variant of “whitey”
~Adora [endsection]