Work Text:
Cosmo hit the floor yet again, sent tumbling over the upturned couch by a kiss. Just like earlier with the soft mannequin, when he'd been trying to cheer Don up, but this time the only soft body on the back of the couch was his. When Don and Kathy bent over the couch to check on him, he stared back up at them with his bright blue eyes.
"Isn't the genius going to thank me too?"
Don scoffed, glancing at Kathy with a knowing smirk. Typical incorrigible Cosmo.
"What, that handshake wasn't enough?"
Cosmo crossed his arms, managing to narrow his eyes and raise his eyebrows at the same time. "You tellin' me the great Don Lockwood can't afford to match the trophy little Miss Kathy Selden just awarded me?"
Kathy let out a giggle then covered her mouth with a polite hand, as if that were enough to distract Don from his annoyance. Sometimes Cosmo was too clever for him. What trophy? Kathy giggled again, her cheeks pinker than before, and then he realized the answer was behind her hand.
"You…want me to kiss you?" It wasn't a foreign concept to him but the hesitation couldn't be helped; their secret was one that the scandal sheets would love to share and sink both their careers. He trusted Kathy, sure, but—
"Not sounding like much of a genius now, Don. Keep this up and Kathy will have to unkiss you."
Leave it to Cosmo to save the situation with a joke. "Well now, we can't have that, can we?" Don grinned, his teeth shining. He leaned down, raising his legs until the only things keeping him relatively upright were his balance and his hands on either side of Cosmo's head. Lowering himself with his dancer's strength, he pressed a quick kiss to his best friend's lips. He was about to push himself back up when a delicate hand dangerously low on his hip stopped him.
"Kathy?"
"You call that a kiss? I know you can do better than that." Kathy tried to look stern but couldn't quite suppress her smile. Don gazed at her, the question clear in his eyes, and was answered with a nod. He'd asked her to trust him so many times now, in so many ways, it was only fair of him to grant her the same respect. Still—
She slid her hand lower, over the curve of his well-formed rear, and gave him a little pinch before letting go as if scalded, surprised by her own daring. Both Don and Cosmo gawked at her but Cosmo recovered first, as usual.
"I know you can do better than that too! C'mere, ya big lug." He wrapped his arms around Don's neck and pulled him further off balance, off the couch's edge and into a pile of warm limbs. "That goes for both of you," he added, craning his neck to lock eyes with Kathy.
"Now hold on—" Don started trying to disentangle himself but was defeated by the weight of the woman landing on him. It was risky enough to show Kathy their relationship. But to make her an accomplice in more ways than one?
"Hold on, nothing." Kathy's face was pressed into his broad shoulders, then the crook of Cosmo's neck, but they knew each other well enough by now that she wasn't hard for them to understand. "If I'm going to be your secret equal behind the success of the 'Dancing Cavalier', then I deserve to be equal in this secret too." She spoke with the determination of someone who'd faced temptation and embraced it.
Don relaxed, his tension eased by the weight and warmth pressing against him above and below. "You're right. You're both always right." Kathy's only answer was a knowing "mm-hmm" and Cosmo—Cosmo was too busy kissing her to say anything smart. "Hey!"
"No thanks, I'm not hungry."
"What happened to knowing I can do better?"
Cosmo winked at Kathy, lightning-fast, then rolled his eyes and tilted his face in Don's direction. "You're such a romantic. All right, show me."
It wasn't jealousy, not quite, but sharp enough to spur Don into grabbing Cosmo's head and laying on a kiss deep enough to silence him. Kathy sucked in a breath, her breasts pressing harder against Don's back like a rider's knees guiding a stallion, and Don almost wanted to turn around. Then Cosmo was kissing him back just like old times, and it was so easy to just close his eyes like they were sharing a dingy hotel bed again with the sheets pulled tight over them. Except the sheets back then hadn't had a mind of their own. Kathy let her hands wander, her hips gently rolling against Don's and rocking the two men together, and it felt as natural as if she'd been on the vaudeville circuit right alongside them.
She lavished kisses on them both, on Don's neck and cheek and lips whenever he broke free of Cosmo for air, then on Cosmo while reaching for one of Don's hands. He gave it to her gladly, as gladly as he would if they made it to the altar, and she guided his touch behind him, between her legs— Her dress was just long enough to preserve her decency ("What decency? Look at us!" Cosmo surely would have said if he could read Don's mind) but it was thin and the tumble over the couch had hiked it up over one warm thigh. Her nylon was even thinner, easily ruined by one too-sharp fingernail, and if this had been one of his movies Don would've just ripped it apart. But this was real. He let her show him where to touch, how to touch. Cosmo followed suit without prompting; he'd always been the quicker learner.
There was something invigorating about how so in sync they all were, first with the impromptu dance greeting the first morning of their new futures then with this, whatever one might call this pile of bodies. It was so easy to lose themselves to this other dance, this symphony of pleasure.
But they had a future to orient themselves toward now, their new north, and they were each of them excited for the promises the noisy future held. Excited barely began to do it justice but there was no point in quibbling over words, not when they could barely speak. They were wrapped up tight in the thrill of the night—no, the morning, the dark morning that stretched beyond the house like an ocean of unknown depths. Whatever came of this scheme they'd committed to each other and that was all they needed.