Chapter Text
You’re pretty sure the couple next door is keeping a person locked in their basement, but that’s really none of your business. Johnny and Simon are otherwise excellent neighbors, and you’re not the police, so you just keep this knowledge to yourself.
The problem comes when they realize you’re on to them. There’s the initial fear that you’ll end up beneath their house too, but instead, they seem to enjoy watching you squirm as you pretend like nothing’s wrong. You get invited over to your neighbors’ place a lot now, and things start to mysteriously go wrong in your own home whenever you decline, so you’ve learned to accept their offers.
Another little house date has been arranged. You show up exactly on time, down to the minute. If you’re early, Johnny sends you a coy look with those dazzling blue eyes and calls you eager. If you’re late, Simon remarks on your tardiness with a low, stern voice as he invades your space and towers over you. Either way, they comment on it in a manner that makes the nerves in your fingertips and the back of your brain tingle, so you’re trying to avoid that by showing up right on schedule.
It’s starting to become routine by now. One of them greets you at the door, always opening it before you’ve even knocked. The other is missing for the first few minutes but will show up eventually.
Johnny lets you in today, greeting you enthusiastically. “Come in, come in! It’s been too long, neighbor!” It hasn’t been, but you don’t argue.
“Hi, Johnny, how have you been?” you reply with a precisely measured amount of cheeriness. Eventually, you’ll ease into a more natural state of mind, but the start of these visits is the most challenging part. Crossing the threshold of their home and entering their space is something you have to mentally prepare yourself for on the way over.
After you’ve stepped inside with your own two feet, Johnny puts a hand on your back and leads you further inside. “Listen, hen, you won’t believe what happened to me and Simon the other day...”
As he paints an entertaining and potentially exaggerated tale, you can feel yourself starting to relax, the intense tension in the pit of your stomach loosening into something more manageable. It’s always been easy to get along with Johnny, and he taught you how to get along with Simon. You actually do enjoy their company, as long as you forcibly repress your strong suspicions that there is a kidnapping victim in their basement.
Taking a seat in your normal spot, you listen to Johnny chatter while he sits down across from you. You’ve tried to sit elsewhere, but you always find yourself herded back to this same exact position–the middle of the large, worn leather couch. There’s empty space on either side of you, but Johnny and Simon sit in the pair of armchairs across from you. The couch faces the entryway to the kitchen, and almost just out of view is an unassuming door. Your house has the same floor plan as theirs, though, so you know exactly where that door leads to.
It’s awkward and uncomfortable to sit on this expansive sofa all by yourself with an eyeline to the basement door. You assume that’s the point. Instead of worrying about that, you drink the tea that has been waiting for you, courtesy of Simon despite his temporary absence. Steam still rises from the cup, but you know that it’s cool enough to drink already. It was prepared with the timing of your visit in mind.
Near the end of Johnny’s story, Simon emerges from the door, carrying a large dog crate. “Neighbor,” he greets plainly with a nod. He unceremoniously drops the wire cage in the corner of the living room, and you flinch at the loud, rattling sound of it impacting the ground. Neither of them make any effort to hide their amusement at your reaction.
“Jumpy today, huh?” Simon remarks with a smirk before taking his designated seat. You are almost certain that he brought the crate out on purpose to bait you into asking them about a pet that doesn’t seem to roam the house.
“I didn’t sleep too well last night, so I’m just a little on edge,” you explain, pointedly not commenting on the dog crate. It’s not a lie either. A recurring and deeply concerning dream that you’d rather not think about has been keeping you restless and sleepless. You don’t want them to probe any further, so you try to prompt Johnny to resume his story. “What happened after that?”
Johnny turns to Simon first. “I was tellin’ the neighbor here about the incident at the market, how it was your fault that–”
“You’re full of shit, Johnny, it was your fault and you know it,” Simon counters before starting to give his own recollection of the event, which Johnny disputes right back. They banter like a couple in love because they are one. That much is clear to you, regardless of whatever atrocities they may or may not be committing right under your feet.
Johnny and Simon are both undeniably handsome on their own, but there’s something even more striking when you see them together. It’s almost enough for your mind to wander to that dream of yours that you’ve been desperately trying to forget. You stay focused, though, listening to them converse and chiming in here and there.
But then the tapping starts. A distant, metallic clinking, coming from beneath the floorboards.
Tink. Tink. Tink.
It’s slow and rhythmic. Hesitant even.
The conversation stops immediately. You see a flash of an expression neither of them have ever shown you before. Gone as quick as lightning, but the thunder continues to rumble in its wake, and you feel the vibrations down to your bones. You’ve become used to this song and dance that the three of you engage in. A fourth participant has messed with the routine.
Your neighbors both shift their attention back to you. Their uncomfortable amount of eye contact typically no longer bothers you, but you’ve been thrown off balance by this constant tapping sound.
Johnny shifts in his seat to lean forward so that his elbows are resting on his thighs. “Pipes in these old houses sure are noisy.” An amused smile on his face, so easily displayed and disarming in its charm that it has the opposite effect on you.
“Y-yeah, the plumbing can be such a pain,” you agree. “Last year, I had a pipe burst, and it completely flooded my...basement.” Shit. Fuck. Now you’ve really done it, speaking aloud the taboo word. Curse your homeowner instincts to share plumbing horror stories. Instead of elaborating, you drink more tea. There’s blood in the water now, though.
Simon crosses his arms and leans back in his chair, flexing muscles that you’ve admired before but right now dread to notice. “We had some flooding in ours a while back from a big storm.” He pauses, then lets a small, rare chuckle. “Basement’s sealed up real tight now, though.” The tapping gets louder and loses its rhythm, devolving into a more erratic pattern.
If you had actually gotten some decent sleep last night, you probably could have handled this unexpected disruption better. That dream that’s been haunting you again and again, fraying your nerves further with each occurrence, it woke you up and kept you up.
The recurring premise of the dream is that you are on your neighbors’ couch again. Underneath it is the door to the basement. Instead of sitting on the familiar couch alone, though, you are laid down on top of it and pressed between Johnny and Simon.
Two hands on you, then four. In the haze of the dream, you almost feel a phantom fifth and sixth, begging for attention. Everything is warm and flowing like the tea they always have ready for you in the place where you’re supposed to be.
Even in a dream, you know this isn’t right. You shouldn’t have these unbidden desires for your very dangerous and very in love neighbors. They are feelings to be extinguished, snuffed out, strangled, killed. You halfheartedly try to escape, but the two men grip you tighter with hands and lips and teeth.
They always utter the same thing to you next. Sometimes Johnny says it, sometimes Simon says it, sometimes they both say it at the same time. It’s been a whisper and a coo and a growl and a purr when they lean in right next to your ear and say:
“You’re so good at keeping secrets, love, what’s one more?”
Immediately afterwards, the door beneath the couch violently flings open like it’s been busted off of its hinges. The three of you plummet below, free falling into the abyss. All the while, Johnny and Simon still refuse to let go, continuing to descend with you as a single entity until you are startled awake.
BANG.
A loud, final, desperate slamming sound from reality jolts you back to the present. Your body leaps up off the couch like a startled animal, your brain mistaking the noise for the basement door opening from under you, attempting to swallow you whole.
You’ve spilled tea all over you, as you had still been gripping the cup. If it’s burnt you, you can’t tell. You’re in flight or fight mode but neither side has fully won control so you’re just standing there, paralyzed.
Johnny and Simon, however, are already moving with precision and efficiency, their military instincts to act kicking into gear. Johnny pries the cup from your hands and sits you back down while Simon is already in the kitchen grabbing towels and an ice pack.
“You alright there, hen?” Johnny sets the cup down and inspects your tea-drenched body.
“I’m sorry,” you whimper. In your head, you’re apologizing for a lot of things, but you realize that you need to admit at least one of them. “For the mess.”
“Didn’t answer the question, love,” Simon states, having returned from the kitchen.
“Huh?” you say absentmindedly. Has he ever called you that before while you were awake? “Oh, I’m fine, it wasn’t very hot. I’m just...”
The thought is interrupted because Johnny slides into the space to the right of you on the couch. Simon takes the left seat. Instead of handing you the towels and ice pack, Simon shares them with Johnny, and they start to clean you up themselves, their large hands wiping the spilled tea off of your skin and clothes.
Conflicting emotions firing off in your mind, the fragmented memories of your dream, sensations you’ve only ever imagined before, it’s all too much. You make them pause their tending before standing up again.
“I should go home and change.” Your voice is wavering despite your best efforts to keep it steady. “Thanks for having me. Sorry again for all the trouble.” They glance at each other like they’re communicating in their own private way, and for a moment, you fear they won’t let you end the visit here.
“Wasn’t any trouble,” Simon finally replies, his face giving no insight to what he’s contemplating.
“You take care, neighbor. Let’s meet up again soon,” Johnny remarks with a hint of disappointment.
They see you out and watch as you scamper on your way, retreating to the relative safety of your own home. Their eyes are on you until you’ve shut the door behind you.
Turning the deadbolt, you exhale a trembling breath and crumble to your knees in the entryway. There are unspoken parameters and rules that you’ve constructed in your head when it comes to interacting with Johnny and Simon. You feel like you’ve violated them all today.
Awake and lucid, you are not about to consciously indulge in this fantasy of inserting yourself into their relationship, especially when there is likely an additional unseen and unwilling person in said relationship. You’ve just got to keep these secrets secured under lock and key deep inside of you until you die, preferably not by the firm, rugged hands of your neighbors.
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“Now why’d you have to go and do something fuckin’ stupid like that?”
“Spooked the neighbor real good.”
“We were having a real pleasant conversation and all.”
“Someone wasn’t on their best behavior, and you know what that means...”