"That's it," Alfie murmured against her mouth, letting her bite his lip until it bled. "Take it out on me. I can take it. I'm solid. Thank you, Z. Thank you for letting me hold this, for letting me help you."
She needed the friction. She needed the chaos he brought, the frantic energy that matched her internal storm. But every time she started to drift into panic, Euan was there.
Euan was specialized warfare. He moved around the bed with silent precision, adjusting pillows to take the strain off her joints, applying cool compresses to the back of her neck when her temperature spiked. He tracked the cycle of the waves like he was watching a waveform on a monitor.
"Transition," Euan announced softly, his hand landing on Alfie’s shoulder. "She is over-stimulated. Reduce friction. Switch to pressure."
"Negative," Zia gasped, arching off the bed. "Don't stop."
"We’re not stopping," I promised, tightening my grip on her. "We’re mixing. Euan, get in there. She needs the structure."
Zia’s head lulled back against my shoulder. "Euan," she slurred. "Hands. Pressure. There."
She slapped her own hip.
Euan moved in. He replaced Alfie between her legs, not seeking pleasure for himself, but seeking alignment. He pressed his palms to her hips, his thumbs digging into the pressure points with surgical accuracy.
"Stabilizing," Euan whispered, his grey eyes locked on hers. "I have the coordinates. Ready on your count."
"Now," she begged.
Hours bled into each other. The room became a capsule outside of time, lit only by the amber LEDs and the bioluminescent quality of our collective exhaustion.
We found a rhythm. It wasn't the polite rotation of the schedule we’d built on the whiteboard. It was a feral, fluid dance of necessity.
"Kit," Zia prioritized, her voice raw from screaming. She was on her hands and knees, Euan supporting her chest, Alfie worshipping her feet. "Talk me through it. Don't stop talking."
"I've got the mic," I rasped, my throat aching. I gripped her hips, lining myself up. "I'm entering now. Slow. Heavy. You feel that? You feel how much space I take?"
"Yes," she sobbed.
"Good girl. Make room. Expand for me. I'm going to hit the back wall and I'm going to stay there. I'm going to ground you out."
I drove into her, the sensation of her heat clamping around me nearly ending me right there. I had to grit my teeth, stare at the back of her neck, and recite drum rudiments in my head to keep from spilling over.Paradiddle. Flams. Swiss triplets.
"Alfie," she cried out, needing more, always more. "Mouth. Fuck, yes?—"
Alfie was there instantly, sliding under her, capturing her mouth while I worked her from behind. He kissed her like he was breathing for her, swallowing the sounds she made, giving her his air when hers ran out.
We were a single organism. A feedback loop of need and service.
"Euan," she commanded, breaking the kiss, her head thrashing. "Weight. Put weight on me."
Euan climbed onto the bed, draped his heavy frame over her back while I pulled out, sandwiching her between the mattress and his solid heat. He didn't penetrate; he just pressed, gravity doing the work that her nervous system craved.
"Atmospheric pressure increasing," Euan mumbled into her hair, his own control fraying at the edges. "Holding position."
Sometimes she slept. It wasn't real sleep; it was a brown-out, a system reset where she would drift for ten minutes in a tangle of limbs while we watched her chest rise and fall, terrified to move in case we woke the storm.
During one of these lulls, I found myself sitting on the floor, leaning against the bedframe, sharing a bottle of lukewarm water with Alfie.
He looked wrecked. His lips were swollen, his chest scratched, his eyes rimmed with red. He touched the place on his neck where she’d sucked a bruise to the surface.
"She wants to bite," Alfie whispered, staring at the water bottle. "I felt her teeth. Right over the gland. She hovered there for a solid minute."
"I know," I said, rubbing a hand over my face. "She tried to latch on me twice."
"We have to let her," Alfie said, his voice trembling. "Kit, the bond is... it's screaming. If she bites, we bite back. That's how it works. That's the completion."
