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It’s easy to lose track of the days in quarantine. Simon supposes he could try to keep track by counting meals, but he doesn’t have anything to keep track with, and counting has been a bit of a struggle ever since his first collision with the SM-13’s floor. It’s especially difficult now that he’s not fighting for his life; even when the neon coordinates burned into his retinas and the black numbers swam on the page, he forced himself to get through it on a combination of bull-headed determination and adrenaline high. Now, in this monotonous, nonthreatening routine with Jack, numbers slip through his grasp like water, and his only reminder of what day it is comes when Ava shoves their breakfast through the door and announces that they’ve got new water rations.
Almost immediately as soon as Jack is finished eating, he lifts his head towards Simon. “If I lend you my soap again, are you actually going to use it this time?” he asks, pointedly.
Simon pauses with his spoon halfway to his mouth; some days more than others, his stomach struggles to keep down the COI’s mystery slop, and today is one of those days. He also has no idea what Jack is talking about. “The fuck do you mean?” he demands, immediately defensive.
“I mean, I lent you soap last week, but you came back still smelling like blood and shit, like you didn’t even use it,” Jack replies, gesturing vaguely in Simon’s direction with his spoon. “My eyes are fucked, but my nose is fine—or, at least, better than my eyes. So what gives?”
“None of your business,” Simon snaps, shoulders rising.
“Uh, it is my business, actually, considering I’m the guy who has to live next to your stink for the foreseeable future,” Jack points out, dryly. Simon can practically hear the eye roll. “Did they not have soap on Eden or something? Never taught you how to do personal hygiene?”
“Shut the fuck up.” Simon’s teeth are clenched together, and he hisses the words out between them. This is a low blow, even for Jack; something about this must have hit a nerve.
“Tell me what it is, then.” Jack’s bandages mask most of his expression; what Simon can see is tight and firm. His emotions are otherwise unreadable, and it doesn’t help that Simon’s never been good at processing body language in the first place.
Simon looks down to where his meal tray is awkwardly propped against his leg, because if he doesn’t use something to keep the bowl steady, it slides away from his spoon whenever he puts any pressure on it. He swallows, thickly, and urges himself to calm down. Provoking his unwilling roommate isn’t a good idea, as much as he wants to slam his fist right into that fucked-up face of his. Eventually, Simon admits, “I can’t reach, okay?”
It’s clearly not the answer Jack’s expecting. His head twitches, and he responds, “What?”
“My body’s still fucked and I’ve only got one arm, you asshole,” Simon retorts. “You ever tried to wash your armpits or your feet when you’re down an arm and the one you have got is picky as fuck about how far it wants to move before you’re in immense pain? No? So shut the fuck up about the smell unless you’re volunteering to get in there and help me out.” He spits the last part out sarcastically, expecting a harsh rejection on Jack’s part; a quick blowjob is one thing, but showering together is something else entirely.
But Jack just presses his lips together and considers for a moment. Then, he says, “If that’s what I gotta do.”
Simon blinks. “You’re not serious.”
“I am. Dead serious. I’m sick of smelling blood, and if I have to scrub it off of you myself, so be it.” Jack sets his jaw, and Simon figures he’d be a fool to look a gift horse in the mouth. If Jack’s offering, the best thing to do is accept before he can change his mind. “Probably a more efficient use of our water rations anyway.”
“Probably,” Simon agrees, almost without thinking. He probably shouldn’t be as okay with this as he’s finding out that he is, but he really does need the help, and it’s not like there’s anybody else around. He’ll scrub Jack’s back too, just so it’s even. “Double the hot water.”
“Mm, yeah.” A small smile plays at Jack’s lips, tugging it up further where a scar already pulls back one side. “Just have to make sure Ava doesn’t find out or she’ll start giving us half rations instead.”
“She wouldn’t,” says Simon, indulging the new playfulness in Jack’s voice.
“She would,” Jack assures him. “She’s meanest to people she likes. And by that I mean me, obviously, not you. She’s nicer to you because she doesn’t give enough of a shit about you to be a dick, and also you’re legally considered a prisoner of war, or something. The higher-ups get pissy about certain stuff.”
Simon is pretty sure his eye is twitching. “You’re telling me,” he says, slowly, “that all of this has been Ava being nice?”
Jack quickly backtracks as he raises his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I said nicer, not nice, the distinction’s important. She doesn’t fuckin’ hate you specifically or anything; she’s just doing her job.”
Simon stares at him for a moment. “You’re surprisingly loyal to someone that makes you weld innocent people into metal deathtraps.”
The muscles in Jack’s jaw tense. “Some of them might have been innocent, but you’re not. I had friends on Filament Station, you know. Used to go visit on Christmas and New Year’s—”
“Filament Station wasn’t my fault!” Simon protests, almost on reflex at this point. “Nobody fucking believes me, but it’s true, I was trying to stop them, I didn’t want anyone to die—”
“Oh, right, says the Butcher,” Jack snaps. “Just for the record, I don’t know how much blood is on your hands, and I don’t care, because it’s not like I have a choice about being stuck in here with you and so dwelling on it is fuckin’ pointless. The least you can do is grant me the same fuckin’ grace.”
Simon hesitates, then says, “Alright. Alright, fine. Truce? Can we call a truce and just take a goddamn shower?”
Jack immediately deflates, shoulders dropping. “Yeah. Shower. Greasy hair makes people act like dicks, anyway.” He pauses. “Are you done eating?”
Simon looks down at his bowl. It’s still just as full as it was before. He pushes it away. “Yeah. I’m done.”
Even though they’ve been sharing a room for several weeks now, and Simon has had Jack’s dick in his mouth, it feels monumental for both of them to enter the bathroom together and shut the door behind them. Even fully clothed in front of a blind man, Simon suddenly feels exposed.
Jack seems to have no such qualms, because he immediately starts undressing. He’s got his pants off and folded on the toilet seat before Simon can even get himself together, and at that point, as Jack reaches to take off his shirt, his brain kicks into overdrive.
“Wait, wait,” Simon says, quickly, and Jack stops.
“What?”
“I just wasn’t expecting—” Simon cuts himself off as he realizes how stupid he sounds, but it’s too late.
“I’m not gonna shower with my fuckin’ clothes on, you moron.”
“We called a truce,” Simon reminds him.
“Yeah, we did.” Jack cocks his head, thoughtfully. “I’m not gonna shower with my fuckin’ clothes on, you perfectly average boy. Is that better?”
It’s not funny, but Simon’s so starved for comedy that it makes him laugh anyway. “Fuck yeah. I’ll gladly take being a perfectly average boy. Talk dirty to me, or whatever.”
Jack snorts and tugs his shirt over his head, leaving him in his boxers and Simon standing there feeling overdressed. Simon averts his eyes and hastens to join him, though in his hurry he only narrowly avoids getting tangled in his shirt, and swears under his breath.
Next thing he knows, Jack has kicked off his boxers and turned on the water. “Hurry up, slowpoke; we haven’t got all day.”
“Yeah, yeah.” It shouldn’t be weird. They’ve had sex before, so it’s perfectly fine for Simon to see Jack’s limp dick. Hell, Simon saw a lot of dicks in prison, and none of those made him feel weird.
Why the fuck does he feel weird?
“You’ve got to use your words and tell me where you are, Simon, ‘cause I’m getting in and I don’t want either of us falling or some shit,” Jack reminds him, shaking Simon from his stupor.
“Go ahead, I’m nowhere near you.”
Jack places one foot in the shower, but then turns back to Simon. “The fuck are you doing all the way over there?”
“Waiting for you!” Simon snaps, defensively. “Stop wasting water and get in already, asshole!”
Jack flips him the bird and steps into the water.
The shower isn’t really closed off from the rest of the room, but it’s not quite wide open, either. The bathroom floor slopes downward into the corner, underneath a small dividing wall that doesn’t quite go to the floor nor the ceiling, allowing any water that might spill out to stream back towards the drain. The shower head is mounted on the wall, just peeking out above the divider, and controlled by a simple knob beneath.
Simon sheds the last of his modesty and steps out from behind the divider. Jack’s standing there beneath the shower head with his head tipped back and the water running through his patchy brown hair. The bandages covering his face are dripping wet.
“Aren’t you supposed to take those off?” Simon asks, without thinking.
“What?”
“I don’t think, uh… your face… is supposed to get wet?”
Jack laughs. “And who’s going to help me put on new ones? You? Please. It’s just delaying the inevitable; nobody gives a fuck.” He extends his hand and makes a grabbing motion towards Simon. “Get in here. It’s freaking me out that I don’t know where you are, I keep thinking you’re right behind me and you’re gonna jumpscare me or something.”
“Okay.” Simon takes a deep breath and once again tries really hard not to look at Jack’s crotch. “I’m going to take your hand.” He reaches out, gingerly, and interlocks his fingers with Jack’s, and tepid water begins to splash onto his skin.
There’s a beat, and Simon’s breath hitches as he swears his eyes somehow lock with Jack’s. Then, the moment passes, and Jack abruptly yanks Simon forward, practically knocking his heart out of his chest and causing him to let out a deeply undignified squeak.
With his only hand locked in Jack’s grasp, Simon has no way to catch himself when he starts to slide. He tries to pull away, but Jack’s grip is like an iron vice snaring his fingers. His heel slips out from beneath him, and for a single, terrifying second, he thinks he’s about to crash to the ground and take Jack with him, and possibly split his head open.
But then, rough, calloused fingers land on Simon’s bare hip, skating over his skin to grasp a fistful of his ass and tug him closer, preventing him from falling by pressing him up against Jack’s chest. It would be horribly sexy if not for the fact that it also places Simon’s face directly beneath the shower head, so in the place of a dramatic moment of foreplay that might have led to a killer blowjob, Simon gets halfheartedly waterboarded by the lowest pressure water stream in the COI.
Simon splutters as his vision goes blurry, and Jack mercifully releases his hand, letting him brace against the wall. Getting water in his eyes doesn’t really hurt, considering his eyes are already wet, but they don’t exactly know how to deal with being too wet, and now he can’t see anything. “Fuck, shit, uh, towel, please?” he gasps, and he spits a mouthful of water onto the floor. “I can’t fucking see, Jesus—”
“Now you understand how I feel,” says Jack, dryly, but he still gets Simon the towel and guides him to stand with his face away from the water while he dries his eyes. “Blind leading the blind. While you do that, I’m going to actually start getting you clean, before we run out of fuckin’ water.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Simon mumbles. His eyes have started to burn, and it’s officially killed any interest that was stirring in his groin.
Jack’s soap-slick hands glide over Simon’s back, and it’s the closest thing to a massage that Simon has ever had. He doesn’t make any more snide comments, not even when he sticks his hands in Simon’s armpits and makes him jump. “There we go,” he says instead, in a soft voice, not unlike the kind one might use on a dog that’s finally decided to be cooperative. “You already smell better, thank fuck.”
Simon groans and tries to blink his eyes open, but everything is still just shapes and colours. He shoves his head back into the towel and lets Jack run his fingers over his scalp with something that might be shampoo, even though he doesn’t have much hair to use it on.
After several minutes of this, Jack suddenly breaks the silence by asking, “Can I touch your pecs?”
Dazed, Simon lifts his head and wonders if he has water in his ears, too. “What?”
“It’s only fair,” Jack goes on. “You wanted to suck my dick, I want to touch your pecs. I have to know if you were lying about being jacked.”
“Uh…” Simon genuinely can’t think of a reason to say no, and he’s had Jack’s hands all over his body at this point, so a little more can’t hurt—especially when it feels so nice. Jack knows what he’s doing with his hands, and the scars of manual labour gives his touch a deeply pleasant texture. “Sure, fuck it, whatever.”
And Jack, that bastard—as soon as he has permission—reaches around, grasps both of Simon’s pecs, and squeezes.
Every ounce of blood in Simon’s body rushes to his cheeks, and his face burns so hot he thinks he might breathe fire. “Jack,” he tries to say, but it comes out as a whimper. “Jack, you bitch.”
Jack laughs harder than Simon has ever heard him laugh before. It’s a full-bellied, uproarious guffaw that has him doubled over in hysterics, though not before giving one of Simon’s nipples a pinch for good measure. “Christ, you sound like you just got fucked three ways from Sunday—”
“I sound like that because you waterboarded me!” Simon yelps, his voice pitching higher as the embarrassment sets in. “You dick!” He spins around, somehow managing not to slip again, and smacks Jack in the face with his now-wet towel.
Jack doesn’t stop howling with laughter; the momentum of the slap sends him stumbling into the wall, but he just slumps down against it and continues yukking it up at Simon’s misery.
“Fuck you, dude.”
“Dying is boring. I’ve got to amuse myself somehow, c’mon.” Jack sets his head back against the wall, and his chuckling slowly settles down. “You owe me that.”
And before Simon can decide whether or not it was a fair trade, the water abruptly shuts off, leaving him cold, drenched, and holding a sopping wet towel. Suddenly, everything else pales in importance compared to getting out of the shower as fast as humanly possible.
“So, is that towel still usable, or—”
Wordlessly, Simon throws the towel at Jack, and it hits him in the face with a satisfying smack. Then, he scrambles away, grabs his clothes, and flees the bathroom without looking back.