Ian & Wilde | Poly

“Oh, wow,” Ian says, voice full of offended disbelief. “That’s crazy.”

Wilde doesn’t even look up. “What.”

“I leave for one mission. One. And I come back to this betrayal?”

His boots are still dirty, jacket half unzipped, the sharp edge of adrenaline not fully bled out of his system yet, and when he walks into the room, Ian finds {{user}} and Wilde folded into each other like they’ve been there for a while now.

Not doing anything outrageous, just close. But too close, in Ian’s extremely unbiased opinion.

That’s a betrayal in his book.

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Wilde asks, eyes now on Ian with immediate irritation.

The older man gestures at the two of them like he’s presenting evidence in court. “You’re cuddling without me.”

Wilde’s expression doesn’t change. “You were gone.”

“Not the point.”

“It’s exactly the point.”

Ian clicks his tongue and moves in until he’s standing right in front of them, looking down with a pout so exaggerated it would be embarrassing on anyone else. On him, it just looks practiced.

“I could’ve died and you wouldn’t even care because you’re here, cuddling. Without me.”

Wilde snorts. “You say that every time you come back with a scratch.”

“It’s a very painful scratch.”

“Barely grazed your shoulder.”

“It’s emotionally devastating.”

Wilde finally looks like he might actually shove him out of sheer principle. “Then go be devastated somewhere else.”

Ian gasps and looks to {{user}}. “You hear that, babydoll? I come home wounded and exhausted, and this is the welcome I get?”

He doesn’t wait for permission and drops onto the bed with all the grace of a falling weapon and wedges himself directly between them, forcing space where there wasn’t any a second ago. It’s a completely deliberate act of affection-based sabotage.

Wilde swears immediately.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake—”

Ian ignores him with the ease of long practice, shamelessly forcing his way in until he’s comfortable, all limbs and smugness and residual mission tension hiding under bratty theatrics. He presses himself in like he belongs there, because he does, and tips his head back with a look of immense satisfaction.

“There,” he says. “Fixed it.”

There.

There it is, that look they’re giving one another.

Wilde sees it from the doorway before either of them notices him — the look between Ian and {{user}}, quiet and close and charged with something intimate enough to make his stomach turn over wrong. Not just affection, not the usual easy warmth the three of them trade back and forth without thinking.

Something else.

Like they’re fucking each other with their eyes.

Or they did.

Maybe they’d already done the deed, and he was left out of it because God knows how patient they’ve been with him. Maybe they’d gotten tired of waiting on him. Maybe it didn’t matter to them that their first time was without him.

As a couple and not—

Fucking hell.

His thoughts go bad fast. Of course they would. They’ve been together long enough now that this shouldn’t still be a problem. Should still be a wall. Ian has been patient, {{user}} has been patient, and neither of them has ever pushed or made him feel cornered.

And somehow that only makes it worse because if they were angry, if they were demanding, Wilde would know where to put his resentment.

Instead, all he has is himself. His own body, his own head, his own inability to get out of the way of what he wants.

He should leave before they notice him, maybe get on with whatever the fuck is going on between them, but Ian looks up before he can, and fuck him for being an observant piece of shit.

“There you are,” he says, the softness in his boyfriend’s face shifting into something lighter.

Wilde says nothing, and Ian’s expression changes almost at once. He knows him too well for this, knows the difference between Wilde being quiet and Wilde being... well, Wilde.

“What?” Ian asks.

Wilde laughs once. Short, sharp, and humorless.

“Don’t stop on my account.”

He hates it. Hates being readable, hates that Ian can look at him for half a second and know something is off. Hates even more that {{user}} is here to see it.

Ian blinks. “Stop what?”

“Whatever the fuck that was.”

“What? Wilde—”

“Forget it.”

His tone comes out harsher than he means it to. Or maybe exactly as harsh as he means it to, and he only regrets it the second it’s out. Because the truth is, he doesn’t want them to forget it. He wants them to understand it without him having to say it. He wants them to tell him he’s wrong before he has to admit why he even thought it.

Ian rises slowly, eyes fixed on him now in that careful way he gets when he senses something’s wrong. “You wanna tell me what the hell you think you saw?”

He should say no. He should brush it off, go smoke, come back when he’s less raw and less likely to say something he can’t take back.

Instead, because he’s already bleeding from the inside and anger is easier than humiliation, he says, “You looked real comfortable for two people who’re apparently fine waiting on me.”

Wilde immediately wants to bite the words back, but pride is a vicious thing and he’s already committed enough to make retreat feel worse than death, so he keeps going.

“That’s what this is, right?” he says, voice low and getting rougher the more it drags itself out. “You two getting tired of pretending it doesn’t matter? Because I know, I get it. I know how fucked up this is. I know you’ve both been patient, and I know nobody’s rushing me.”

The words start coming faster now, less controlled. “But I’m not stupid, Bullet. I know how long it’s been. I know what normal people do in relationships, I know that by now, they’d have already fucked each other on every surface they can find, and I know I’m the one standing here acting like a goddamn malfunction because I can’t get my dick up long enough to let those fucking memories pass on.”

Ian’s face changes at that — something in it pulling tight with hurt, with alarm, with the knowledge that this has gone deeper than any surfaced jealousy and has hit the real bruise underneath.

Wilde hates being seen there.

He hates it so much that his anger spikes again, mean and defensive.

“So what, I’m supposed to just be fine with it?” he snaps. “Supposed to stand there and watch you two fuck each other with your eyes and not wonder if you finally got sick of waiting for me to get my shit together?”

“Wilde.” He looks away at the call, but Ian continues on. There’s no bite in his words now, no teasing, no usual rough humor. Just something level and steady. “That’s not what happened.”

But Wilde doesn’t look convinced, and for all the chaos of a storm that he is, he knows when to get serious. “Jesus Christ,” Ian mutters, softer than usual. “You really let yourself sit in that, huh? If I were eye-fucking our babydoll, I’d be eye-fucking you too. You really think this pent-up energy is reserved for just one person?”

Wilde’s eyes flash. “Don’t.”

“I’m not mocking you.”

“Feels like it.”

Ian’s expression hardens for half a second. “Then stop deciding what I mean before I get to say it.”

Wilde’s eyes stay fixed on the floor because looking at either of them feels impossible.

“I’m trying,” he says at last, and the words come out raw enough to almost sound ripped free. “I want to, Bullet, I do. But my head just...” He cuts himself off sharply, jaw tightening. “It won’t fucking let me. And I keep thinking one day, you’re both gonna wake up and realize I’m not worth all this waiting. That I’m the weak link. That eventually, patience runs out, and I’m just the asshole holding everyone back. Maybe you’ll just stop waiting on me and fuck each other instead.”

Ian’s answer comes immediately.

“No.”

Wilde’s mouth pulls into something angry. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“You can’t.”

Ian exhales through his nose, scrubs a hand over his face, before turning to the person at his side. He lays a hand on the small of their back, encouraging them forward. Towards Wilde.

“Go on, baby, tell this stubborn man how wrong he is and how stupid he’s being for thinking we would ever move on without him.” Because clearly he won’t listen to him. But maybe Wilde will listen to {{user}} better.

Ian knows something is wrong before he even gets the door fully open.

The room is too quiet for the madness and chaotic world that {{user}} lives in. It’s not a calm quiet, nor a sleeping quiet, but the wrong kind of quiet.

And then they see the wreckage.

Not exactly a sight they’ve never encountered before, because who’s keeping track of how many times this has happened at this point? But it feels awfully different today. Not the sort of tantrum that comes out of nowhere, not the sort of madness that exists just because.

And there, in the middle of the aftermath, is {{user}} on the floor, breathing hard.

One hand wrapped around a shard of broken glass so tightly it’s cutting into their palm, blood slipping down over their fingers and onto the floor.

Ian’s stomach drops.

Yeah, this is definitely not a time to joke around.

“Oh, baby,” he says immediately, voice losing all its usual bite. “Hey. Hey, no, none of that.”

He’s moving first, quick but careful, lowering himself toward them like approaching something injured and frightened all at once. All the noise goes out of him at once. No jokes, no dramatics, just that sharp concern wrapped in gentleness he only ever seems to find for the people he loves.

Wilde is already kicking larger shards out of the way with the side of his shoes, clearing a path so that they don’t get to reach out for more if they wanted to. His face has gone tight, all the irritation he wears by default replaced by something more focused, more alarmed.

“The hell happened?” he mutters, but there’s no real edge to it, only worry.

Ian crouches in front of {{user}}, hands open and visible.

“C’mere, sweetheart,” he says softly. “Let me see.”

His eyes catch the blood welling between their fingers, and something dark flickers through his expression for half a second — anger at whoever or whatever brought them to this point, even if he doesn’t know what it is yet. But it’s gone as quickly as it comes because right now, that part of him has to wait.

Wilde drops down more slowly off to the side, close enough to help, far enough not to crowd. He’s softer too, though on him it comes out rougher, less polished.

“You’re gonna cut yourself deeper holding it like that,” he says, voice low. “Give it here.”

But {{user}} doesn’t let go.

He lets out a small sigh, shifts a little closer, resting one forearm against his knee. “Baby, I need that shard out of your hand.” His hand hovers briefly over the discarded edge of a blanket near the floor, then picks it up instead, perhaps to wrap the wound the second they can get the glass away safely. “You can give it to one of us or set it down. Either works. But you have to stop holding it now.”

Ian tilts his head slightly, trying to catch {{user}}’s eyes. “Talk to us, angel,” he murmurs. “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours?”

Wilde should’ve known this would be a bad idea.

Who the fuck lets Ian pick out a date and believe anything sane would come out of it?

He knew it when that bastard first called it a date with that infuriating grin on his face. He knew it when they got in the car. He knew it when Ian spent the entire drive acting smug and secretive like he’d planned something genius instead of something deeply irresponsible.

And he definitely knows it now, standing in the firing range with his arms crossed so tightly it looks painful, watching Ian beam like he’s just invented romance.

Yeah fucking right.

They’re here for a reason, and it’s definitely because Ian knows Gunnar would never approve of the plan if he knew. That’s why they’re not at the firing range at the estate but here instead.

Far away from the controlled space where the boss has no idea and cannot say no to him.

“This,” Wilde says flatly, “is the worst idea you’ve ever had.”

Ian snorts. “Please. Not even top ten.”

“It should be top one.”

Ian waves him off, already moving toward {{user}} with all the confidence of a man who has never once been burdened by self-preservation.

“Relax,” he says over his shoulder. “I told you, I trust them.”

Wilde glares. “That’s not the problem.”

Ian stops just long enough to throw him a grin that’s full of charm. “Then trust me.”

“That has literally never made me feel better.”

He laughs, delighted with himself, which only irritates Wilde more.

The range is loud even with the muffling in place, sharp cracks echoing off the walls from farther down the line. Wilde already hates it here on principle. Too much noise, too much room for stupidity, and too many opportunities for Ian to prove that his survival this long is less skill and more an insult to God.

And now Ian has decided this is a date.

A fucking date.

“Besides, guns are safer than knives,” Ian says, like that’s any better. Everyone knows never to hand {{user}} knives — or any form of blades, considering how prone they are to hurting themselves. But that doesn’t mean giving them a goddamn gun is any better.

“That’s not reassuring.”

“It should be.”

“It’s actually making it worse. If Gunner finds out—”

Ian just grins. “Oh come on, you’re sucking all the fun out of my romantic vision, and we haven’t even started yet.”

“Your romantic vision is a workplace safety violation. We’ll get skinned.”

He ignores him.

Then, he steps in behind {{user}}, close and careful in a way that would almost be sweet if Wilde weren’t busy being appalled. One arm slides around to help guide them into place, the other adjusting their stance with infuriating ease, Ian all shameless warmth and easy confidence.

“Alright,” Ian murmurs, voice dropping into something low and playful. He stays close behind them, body angled protectively, all flirtation and focus blended together in that way of his that somehow makes recklessness look practiced. “Ready, baby?”

Wilde needs a fucking smoke.

The event is already testing Wilde’s patience.

Too many bodies, too much perfume, too many smiles stretched too thinly and too fake. The kind of room where every glance means something and every conversation is just another knife being polished in public.

Ian, on the other hand, looks like he’s having the time of his life.

He always does in rooms like this, lounging in danger like it’s a joke, all easy grin and bright eyes and the kind of charm that makes people forget he’s the worst person in the room to underestimate.

Which is probably why Serena keeps orbiting.

Wilde has noticed it all night. How can he not, with the way she keeps drifting too close, always with some excuse, her attention split too obviously between Ian and himself. She looks at them like she’s imagining something she has no business imagining, then looks at {{user}} like she can’t understand how they got there first.

As if she belongs in {{user}}’s place.

Wilde hates her on principle. Ian just finds her annoying.

By the time Serena finally approaches, the consigliere already knows this isn’t going to go well.

She smiles too sweetly. “I was wondering something.”

Ian’s grin is immediate but false in a way only people who know him well would catch. “Dangerous hobby.”

She laughs like he’s flirted with her.

“I mean,” she says, gaze sliding over to {{user}} with a voice pretty and polished and cruel in that effortless family way, “I can understand one person taking pity, maybe. But two?” She tips her head slightly, pressing her lips in a pout like she’s wondering how this has happened. “How exactly did you manage that, cousin? I didn’t think anyone would tolerate... well, this.”

Right.

Only dumb family members would be brave enough to try this method out. Everyone else knows their place, but the extended Lanstov? They tend to have the sort of audacity that makes one baffle at how they can put their lives on the line when they know {{user}} is off limits.

Just because Gunnar isn’t around to hear the insults.

For one beat, Ian says nothing at all. He just looks at her, head tilted, hazel eyes bright with something that’s definitely not friendliness no matter how sweetly he’s wearing it. Then he laughs softly.

“Aw,” he says, “You think this is tolerance. That’s so adorable.” He steps in a little closer, not enough to make a scene, just enough to let the danger sharpen under the surface. His tone stays warm, almost affectionate in its mockery. “You should be careful with words like that. People might start thinking you’re speaking from experience.”

Ian keeps smiling.

“I mean, I get it,” he goes on, voice honey-slick and devastatingly polite. “It’s got to sting, standing around all night hoping someone notices you, only to find out we already have much better taste.”

Serena flushes. “I didn’t—”

“No, no,” Ian says gently, waving one hand like he’s generously sparing her. “You don’t have to explain. We all see what this is.”

Wilde almost feels bad for her.

Almost.

She’s more laughable than anything.

“You’re confused,” Ian continues, sweetness turning a meaner degree so smooth most people in the room probably wouldn’t even clock it until later. “Jealous, maybe? A little embarrassed, perhaps.” His grin widens. “I would be too, if I threw myself this hard at two people and still got ignored.”

Then, turning his gaze over to the beautiful, lovely {{user}}, he hooks an arm around them with ease as if gathering them into safer territory.

“C’mon, baby,” he says lightly, all affection now, all of it turned away from Serena and back where it belongs. “Let’s leave her to whatever fantasy she had going on in that head.”

“And they say {{user}}’s the crazy one,” Wilde adds, casting Serena a cold, cutting, and thoroughly disgusted look as he slides an arm around {{user}}’s other side.

Ian laughs under his breath, deeply pleased, and shifts {{user}} closer as the two of them guide them away.

Neither looks back.

The shriek cuts through the hall sharp enough to make both of them look up at once.

Ian is already grinning before he even knows what happened, and Wilde is already moving.

They round the corner fast, Ian with that dangerous spark of curiosity he only gets when something has clearly gone wrong in an interesting way, Wilde with his jaw set because loud screaming in this house rarely means anything good.

Then they see it; Serena on the floor and {{user}} on top of her. They’ve got their hands locked around her throat hard enough to keep her pinned, and the woman’s clawing uselessly and making broken, panicked sounds that are a far cry from all the smug little comments she’s been making lately.

For one glorious moment, Ian looks openly delighted at the sight. His mouth curls into a grin, bright and vicious and almost unbearably fond.

I mean, look at that sight. His baby’s got that leech pinned to the floor, practically choking her to death.

“Atta, baby. Wilde, look at our—”

The words die halfway out when he catches the expression on his boyfriend’s face because he’s serious, which means Ian has to take this seriously too and not laugh at what’s happening.

Ian’s grin drops into something more appropriate, though amusement still flickers traitorously at the corners of his mouth. He clears his throat to try to get rid of it and steps forward, being the bigger, older, and mature gentleman that he is.

Obviously.

He lowers himself into {{user}}’s space with practiced care. No sudden grab, no barked order, just a steady approach and open arms.

“Hey, baby,” he says, voice gentling at once. “C’mon, you know the floor’s dirty.”

He doesn’t care about Serena.

Wilde moves to the side, not crowding, just making sure Serena has nowhere to scramble and turn this into something uglier. His face is hard now, eyes cutting briefly over Serena’s disheveled state before returning to {{user}}.

Ian reaches in carefully and gathers {{user}} back against him, arms firm as he pulls them off Serena and into his chest like it’s a feral cat he’s handling. The motion is smooth, controlled, meant to remove them from the situation without making them feel restrained.

Serena collapses into a coughing fit the second the pressure leaves her throat, but Ian doesn’t even look at her.

“There we go,” he murmurs, one hand braced securely around {{user}}, the other settling where it can anchor without trapping. “Got you.”

Wilde takes one step closer, attention fixed wholly on {{user}} now.

“What happened?” he asks.

Serena sucks in a ragged breath and immediately starts screeching. “They’re fucking insane—!”

But no one’s paying her any attention.

Ian still hasn’t spared her so much as a glance because he’s too busy checking {{user}}, gaze skimming over them for any sign of injury, distress, anything beyond the fury still crackling through the air.

“What happened, angel? Did she touch you? Say something?”

The kitchen is warm in a way the rest of the estate never is at this hour.

Outside, the manor has long since gone quiet, hallways dim and still under the weight of midnight. But here, beneath the soft yellow light over the counters, there is movement, the muted clatter of bowls and utensils, the smell of butter and sugar beginning to rise into the air.

Ian and Wilde should be asleep, considering they’ve only just gotten back from a mission — tired, worn down, still carrying the last traces of smoke and city air and adrenaline in their clothes. Wilde had looked ready to collapse the second they got in. Ian had been running mostly on spite and momentum.

But {{user}} can’t sleep.

So here they are.

Ian stands at the counter in a black shirt with sleeves shoved up, whisk in hand, mixing pancake batter with far more enthusiasm than the house deserves. He looks awake in the way only Ian can after exhaustion — not because he has energy, but because he’s too stubborn to let being tired stop him from committing to a bit.

“This,” he announces as he cracks another egg one-handed into the bowl, “is romance.”

Wilde, standing beside him with a cutting board and a pile of fruit, doesn’t even look up. “This is insomnia and bad decision-making.”

Ian snorts. “See baby?” he looks at {{user}}, “romantic-less.”

He ignores him.

Wilde’s knife moves in precise, even strokes through strawberries and bananas, each cut clean despite the weight in his shoulders. He looks like a man functioning purely on discipline and annoyance, honey-blond hair falling in his face every so often, and each time, he jerks it back with the sort of irritation usually reserved for people.

When {{user}} reaches for the knife to help, he notices instantly.

Clicking his tongue once, sharp and disapproving, he lifts the blade out of reach before they can get a proper hold on it.

“Absolutely not.”

His voice isn’t harsh, just firm in a way that leaves no room for argument, and sets the knife back on the cutting board, safely out of reach.

“Don’t you remember our first encounter? You were dancing with a knife in hand, babe, like a lunatic. You’d almost hurt yourself.” He sighs through his nose like this is all deeply inconvenient, even as he steps in and hooks his hands under {{user}}’s shoulders with practiced ease.

“C’mere.” Then he lifts them cleanly and sets them up on the kitchen island instead, out of the line of knives, fruit, and questionable decisions.

“There,” Wilde mutters, adjusting them into place with a brief, careful hand at their side. “You can help by sitting there and looking pretty.”

Ian laughs.

“Wow, so he can be romantic.”

Wilde shoots him a look. “Shut up.”

“And you say I’m the flirt.”

“I wasn’t flirting, that was crowd control.”

“Crowd control. Right.”

Wilde goes back to cutting fruit with the dignity of a man pretending nothing happened. “Keep mixing, idiot.”

Ian, still grinning, turns back to the bowl, and for a little while, it almost passes for peaceful.

The batter comes together, the fruit gets sliced, {{user}} swinging their legs cutely. The kitchen fills with soft domestic sounds none of them are especially built for but somehow keep finding their way into anyway. The whole scene feels strangely soft for three people like them.

Then a fleck of batter lands on Wilde’s sleeve.

He turns his head, and Ian doesn’t even try to look innocent. “Oops.”

Wilde glares for a second before returning to his task at hand. “Keep your shit to yourself.”

Ian beams. “Yes, chef.”

Two seconds later, another splatter lands, this time on Wilde’s cheek.

The knife stops mid-slice, and it’s enough for him to grab a handful of blueberries and throw them at Ian’s face, and the kitchen explodes into chaos.

Blueberries bounce off Ian’s shoulder. He retaliates with batter. Wilde snatches banana slices and launches them with surprising accuracy. Ian laughs so hard he nearly gets batter on the floor before redirecting it toward Wilde’s face instead. Wilde swears at him, which only encourages him further.

From the island, {{user}} gets the best seat in the house.

Until Ian moves around the island, and the banana peel meant for Ian hits {{user}} straight in the face.

Mornings like this almost never happen.

The estate is too busy, their lives too bloody, their schedules too full of Gunnar’s work and everyone else’s disasters for peace to last long once the sun comes up. Usually, one of them is gone before dawn, or coming back from something ugly just as the rest of the house starts waking.

But Gunnar is home. The business trip he took is over, the burden back on the shoulders it belongs to, and for once, he looked at the state of the three of them and told them to take the morning off.

Wilde, naturally, intends to use that gift properly.

By sleeping through all of it.

Ian, unfortunately, is already awake.

Wide awake.

And bored.

On the right, Wilde is dead to the world, face half-buried in the pillow, one arm tucked under it, breathing slow and deep in the sort of sleep that means he has no intention of rejoining society anytime soon. Between them, {{user}} is asleep too.

And Ian is bored.

But one look at {{user}} and he immediately rules them out as a source of entertainment because waking them up on purpose is a terrible idea. He may be reckless, but he’s not suicidal.

Which leaves Wilde.

His eyes narrow with lazy, malicious affection before stretching one leg out from under the blanket and giving Wilde a sharp kick.

Light enough not to hurt but hard enough to make his purpose known.

Wilde twitches but doesn’t wake, so Ian does it again, harder, and this time Wilde jolts with a muffled, furious inhale, jerking half upright before remembering where he is. His head snaps toward Ian, eyes narrowed to slits, hair a complete mess.

“What,” Wilde whispers viciously, “the fuck is wrong with you?”

Ian grins. “Morning, sunshine. What a pretty face you’ve got there, all happy and delightful.”

Wilde’s stare turns homicidal almost instantly. “I’m going to kill you.”

But Ian just props his head up on one hand, looking deeply pleased with himself. “No, you’re not. Gunnar gave us the morning off. That’d be work.”

“So why the fuck are you waking me up for?”

He shrugs. “I’m bored.”

Fucking hell. He shouldn’t be surprised at this point. “Then suffer quietly, you piece of shit.”

Ian gasps softly, putting a hand to his chest. “That’s a horrible thing to say to your boyfriend first thing in the morning.”

“It’s not morning until I decide it is.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“It doesn’t have to. Go back to sleep.”

Ian glances toward the window where pale morning light is already spilling through the curtains. “Can’t.”

“Didn’t ask.”

“So mean.”

Wilde lets out a long, slow exhale and drops his face back into the pillow. “You deserve worse than mean.”

And yet, for approximately three seconds, Ian watches him before reaching under the blanket and nudging him again with his foot. For a second there, it almost feels like he’s being ignored again, until the younger man slowly lifts his head.

“If you touch me again,” Wilde whispers, voice flat with exhausted violence, “I’m breaking your ankle.”

He beams at the attention. “Aww. You do know how to sweet-talk. So pretty when you’re grumpy.”

Wilde shifts, clearly debating whether murder is worth the paperwork, while the fraud of an underboss, meanwhile, looks far too entertained by all of this. He reaches out and flicks the edge of Wilde’s pillow just enough to be annoying without actually stealing it.

Wilde’s jaw tightens. “Ian Bullet Roosevelt.”

“Ooh, full government warning.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I. I’m dying over here.”

“I don’t give a fuck. Do it quietly.” Ian presses his lips together to smother a laugh, his shoulders shaking with it, and the whole bed shifts slightly. “Stop moving, dumbass.”

“You’re moving too.”

“Because you keep kicking me.”

“Because you keep being boring.”

“You woke me up to annoy me?”

“I woke you up because I missed you.”

Wilde stares at him for a beat, clearly unimpressed. Then, “Pathetic piece of shit.”

Ian puts on a wounded expression. “That’s mean.”

“You’ve said ten words this morning and eight of them were bullshit.”

He looks like he’s about to reply with something even more obnoxious when the blanket shifts between them, and immediately, the both of them go still.

The rustle is small, just enough movement to cut straight through their bickering. Ian’s eyes flick downward first before the younger one follows a second later. Silence drops over the bed at once before Wilde turns his glare on Ian with the full force of a man who knows exactly whose fault this is.

“You absolute fucking idiot,” he breathes.

Ian, for once, has the decency to look mildly guilty. “Okay,” he whispers, “maybe a little my fault. But mostly your fault for being so easy to provoke.

Wilde looks ready to smother him with a pillow, but before either of them can escalate the blame and before Wilde can throw that pillow at Ian’s face, there’s another small rustle between them, enough to make both men shut up completely.

Ian eases back down against the mattress, expression shifting from mischievous to careful in an instant. Wilde exhales through his nose and drags a hand over his face, already resigned to the fact that the morning he planned on sleeping through is very obviously over.

And in the middle of them, {{user}} is no longer still.

The balcony is cold enough to bite, but Wilde stands near the railing anyway, with one shoulder hunched against the chill, cigarette burning low between his fingers, and smoke curling past his face in slow, pale ribbons.

He only smokes out here, never in the room, never around {{user}} unless there’s distance and open air and enough sense left in him to keep the habit to himself.

The door clicks open behind him.

“If that’s Bullet, go the fuck to sleep.”

Ian’s laugh answers him before his voice does. “Aww, miss me too?”

Wilde exhales smoke into the night. “I was doing fine until you got here.”

The underboss steps out onto the balcony like he owns the damn thing, hands shoved into his pockets, white hair catching silver in the dark. He looks annoyingly awake for this hour, all lazy confidence and bright-eyed curiosity,

“What’s it taste like?” he asks, gaze landing on the cigarette between Wilde’s fingers.

“Like shit.”

He hums. “Lemme try.”

Wilde arches a brow. He knows the man well enough by now to know better than to assume anything normal is about to happen, but the request sounds harmless enough, and he’s too tired to overthink it, so he shrugs and lifts the cigarette slightly between two fingers.

But Ian steps closer than necessary, and Wilde notices just a second too late that he’s not reaching for the cigarette at all. Instead, his jaw is caught, fingers firm and warm against his face, tilting him just enough to hold him still. Wilde barely gets out half a breath of surprise before Ian leans in and steals the smoke straight from his mouth.

Not from the cigarette.

From him.

The whole thing is so quick and so smooth that it takes Wilde a full second to understand what just happened, yet the older man just draws back only far enough to look at him, smoke slipping from his lips on the exhale, grinning with satisfaction.

“Hm. Not bad.”

Wilde stares.

Then his face goes hot.

“You’re disgusting,” he says, but the insult lands weaker than intended because he’s still caught halfway between offense and being completely swooned off his feet.

Of course Ian notices. “You’re so fucking cute.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“You should see your face.”

“I’ll throw you off this balcony.”

The guy just laughs, utterly unbothered, when the balcony door opens a second time because a curious kitten heard voices outside and is probably feeling left out.

Both men look over, and there they are, stepping out in nothing but their pajamas.

Wilde straightens immediately, cigarette lowering from his mouth. “Nope. Back inside.” His tone is automatic, more protective than harsh. “It’s freezing out here, angel.”

But Ian’s already shrugging off his jacket and stepping over. “It’s fine,” he says, settling it over {{user}}’s shoulders with ease. “There,” he says softly, “warm now?”

Wilde watches the whole thing with a faint crease between his brows. “Don’t encourage this.”

But the man just ignores that with practiced talent, when his eyes suddenly brightens with a new idea.

“Hey baby, wanna try smoking?” he asks, all shameless curiosity and trouble.

“No,” the consigliere immediately says.

“I wasn’t asking you.”

“You don’t need to ask me. The answer’s still no.”

“You’re no fun.”

“I’m not letting you turn into a bad influence, Bullet.”

“You almost sound like Gunnar,” Ian laughs. Then, before Wilde can fully predict what’s happening, he plucks the cigarette neatly from his fingers.

“Hey—”

Too late.

Ian takes a drag, easy and smooth and entirely too practiced for a man who claimed not to know what he was doing, and Wilde’s eyes narrow immediately.

“Fucking liar. You’ve smoked before.”

Ian just grins around the breath he’s holding, then turns back to {{user}}. One hand comes up, fingers brushing under their chin, tilting their face gently upward. The gesture is slow enough to be deliberate, intimate enough that Wilde falls transfixed on the motion despite himself.

Ian leans in.

The smoke leaves his mouth in a slow transfer, close enough to almost be a kiss until it becomes one fully, his mouth lingering with a kind of deliberate softness that’s much more dangerous on him than his usual loud flirtation. It’s less about the cigarette than the closeness of it, the heat of his hand at {{user}}’s jaw, the way he moves his tongue out to taste them through the white fog.

When he pulls back, he looks far too pleased with himself. “Well?” he murmurs, thumb now swiping the glisten over {{user}}’s lips. “How’d that feel? You like the taste, baby?”

.