1

Baphomet nods along with a smug little grin on his face while Laura pours her fucking soul into an off-key rendition of a Cranberries song. He's still an asshole, but she could certainly have worse company. And he was right. A few drinks in and it doesn't hurt nearly so much to remember Luci - enough that Laura catches herself smiling for the first time in what feels like forever, thinking that - well, she still doesn't quite know what Luci was to her - but she'd have liked this, damn it.

And she doesn't really want to think tonight, but that's okay too. The drinks keep coming and there are hot, sweaty bodies pressing into her from every side, music loud enough to drown out the sound of her own breathing. The Morrigan is oscillating between forms almost faster than Laura can keep up with, otherworldly and alien and so spine-tinglingly gorgeous it almost hurts to look at her, and Baphomet's caught somewhere between manic and maudlin - they're all fucked up and fucked over, and Laura has to catch her breath because suddenly it all snaps into place like the click of her fingers and feels more like coming home than anything else she's ever known.

She loses herself in the music until her chest aches in a way that has nothing to do with the past few months and everything to do with the heart-wrenching amount of emotion Baphomet's throwing behind even the cheesiest of lyrics, because Laura knows. It's huge and unexplainable, and they're all - every single person moving against her and each other, bumping and grinding in time to the same bars - just as lost as she is. And it's not okay, but they're not okay together.

Tears are streaking down her cheeks before Laura's aware of letting them fall.

"No need for crying," Annie promises her, sweeping the tears from Laura's face with clever, gentle fingers. "Listen closer."

Her hands are on Laura's waist then, and almost before she knows it she's got her head tipped back against Annie's shoulder and they're swaying in time, listening to Baphomet lie his way through lyrics about having a plan when the lights go down.

"Close your eyes. He'll let you lose yourself."

And that's true too.

This isn't a concert, isn't revelation, but Laura isn't sure if any of them really know where the show ends and the gods begin. With her eyes closed, they could be the only three people in the room.

The steady rise and fall of the Morrigan's chest at her back. Whisper soft brush of her lips almost touching the side of Laura's neck as she mouths the words along with her paramor. Arms wrapped around Laura's waist and holding her close. Long, dark hair tickling her shoulder as they shift. The steady cadence of Baphomet's voice filling in all of the creases, caressing her skin everywhere the Morrigan has yet to touch.

Laura takes another deep pull of the humid air and surrenders, lets the Morrigan drag her along into the -

Breath.
Heart.
Beat.
Breath.

- Touch, Slide, Grasp, Grind -

1, 2, 3, 4, and then the universe spirals back into and further out of focus all at once to the sound of Baphomet making love to the microphone.

And maybe Laura's not thinking entirely straight - heh - when she feels her heart soar up into her throat along with the high note and presses a sloppy kiss to the Morrigan's cheek right as Baphomet's voice cracks.

She can feel his eyes on them from the stage, and it makes Laura sad in a way she can't explain because he hasn't spared a glance for anyone but the two of them all night long, but it's also intoxicating and somehow validating, and she could swear she sees something she wasn't meant to in his expression before he covers by flipping a V at the crowd.

- And then makes sure he's got her attention again, lewdly flicking his tongue out between his fingers without once breaking eye contact.

Master of subtlety, Baphomet is not. But Laura finds herself enjoying the hot flush spreading across her cheeks, unashamed of grinding back against the Morrigan with desire coiling in the pit of her stomach - and she lets herself laugh.

Whatever it should feel like - like she's betraying Luci's memory or - or something - all Laura's got is this dark, exhilarating mass of fucking plasma that fills her from head to toe.

She's not sure where tonight's going, where her life's going; Laura doesn't think she knows anything at all or ever will again, but none of that matters. The bass reverberates beneath her feet and in her chest and between her teeth, and the room is spinning, and she's caught between a conflagration and a hurricane -

And she's calm.

She's in the eye of the fucking storm.

2

"Don't think it's altruistic," Baphomet assures her at some point, and Laura's given up trying to place it, but that doesn't matter. What matters is the way he throws his head back and laughs when Laura tells him that the day he does something altruistic is a cold one in hell, and it doesn't even matter what he meant because she's halfway to drunk and pretty sure there's no place in the world she'd rather be right now. He's cute in such a stupid way, and she doesn't fancy him - not that she'd kick him out of bed either, because holy shit those abs - but it's infectious.

So yeah, she could have worse friends, and in some twilight zone between her first drink and her fourth, Laura thinks she might just have started considering him one.

3

It's four in the morning - or something like it - when they stumble out of the cigarettes-and-perspiration smog of wherever it is that underworld gods hold their karaoke nights, her fingers tangled with the Morrigan's and Baphomet close enough behind her that Laura can feel the heat radiating off his chest. Her eardrums are aching, her head is stuffed with cotton, and her legs are barely keeping her upright. Every part of her is sore and exhausted.

Laura never wants this night to end.

And it doesn't. Not there - not surrounded by dripping pipes and stained cement, work lights casting everything in sickly yellows and greens and reds. Because Baphomet stumbles to a halt against her and crushes the Morrigan back to them, kissing her like it's better than fucking oxygen.

And Laura's jostled between their bodies on either side - doesn't think they've forgotten her, but even if they have she wouldn't miss watching this for the world - until the Morrigan draws back with a pointed look and suddenly Baphomet's fingers are stroking up Laura's neck, lifting her chin and urging her to turn her head.

His lips burn like cinnamon candy, and for a single, heart-stopping moment, Laura's entire world narrows down to his mouth on hers. She doesn't think she's even fully aware that it's Baphomet, that they're kissing, until he pulls away to smirk at her - and Laura realizes that the only thing keeping her upright is his grasp on her upper arms and the Morrigan's hand on the small of her back. She licks her lips and they're still tingling.

"Wow."

"That was just the warm-up," he jokes, and Laura catches his pun just in time to groan aloud and watch Baphomet's eyes light up with sadistic glee.

She's going to have sex with them.

Laura's never had a threesome before, but fuck it. It doesn't have to mean anything, she'll never get a better opportunity than this; Laura can think of a dozen excuses off the top of her head. Cass would probably call her a starfucker, and maybe she is, just a little.

The Morrigan brushes her hair aside to kiss her neck. "We have a place," she says, "if you'd like."

"Told 'ya we were bad company," Baphomet says under his breath. He sounds amused, but also like he thinks this is where Laura's going to draw the line.

She'd want to prove him wrong even if she hadn't already made up her mind, and maybe that's his game, but fuck it. Laura's not that determined to be contrary. "Oh, I'd like."

"Hold tight then," the Morrigan warns her, and Laura doesn't have time to ask why before she sees the two of them going indistinct at the edges, blurring out into pitch black smoke.

She's instantly reminded of the disastrous gig she met them at - the two gods shouting at each other in tandem, that awful, inescapable darkness rushing in - but Baphomet is still grinning, the Morrigan utterly serene. Laura clings as hard as she can to both of them and shuts her eyes, secretly praying to less reckless gods that she'll survive the experience.

… Laura is lost, so utterly lost she doesn't think she'll ever find her way out.

Shape without being, without form - or is it the other way around - the darkness vibrates around her, ripples crashing against the jagged edges of a body she doesn't quite have. There is nothing - nothing, but if Laura strains and pushes at the darkness, she can almost hear something.

She yearns towards the incongruity, the disturbance, and doesn't know how she does.

And then something slices through the dark, parts the shroud enveloping her. It's smooth, and soft, and - sound.

"Earth to Laura," Baphomet is saying, his hand burning hot on the side of her face, her throat. Laura flinches away instinctively. "Oh good, she's back. It's hard to put the 'laughter' in manslaughter when you're busy getting blue balls."

"Hush, Baphomet."

She's laying on something soft and the two of them are looking down at her - Annie calm as ever, Baphomet making a face that might have tried to be concern. The world snaps back into place around them, rushing in like a tidal wave and with it such intense relief that Laura's giggling uncontrollably before she can stop herself.

"You're such a dick," she says, when she finally catches her breath, pushing herself up onto her elbows.

Baphomet waggles his eyebrows. "Still wanna find out just how much of one?"

4

Laura is sweaty and breathless, moaning and panting from between the Morrigan's thighs, and she's trying to do good, trying to make it every bit as fantastic as she feels, but that's a really tall order with Baphomet behind her doing gods only know what with his fingers until Laura's seeing stars.

She's lost track of how many times she's cum.

Every time she does, Laura thinks that'll be the last one - her body just won't be able to take any more; she's so utterly spent, so wrung out, every bit of liquid she had in her streaked down her thighs - and then the Morrigan cries out with a lust that sets her whole body alight, or Baphomet twists his hand just so…

"Fu-u-ck," Laura practically sobs into the Morrigan's cunt. She could swear Baphomet's laughing, but so long as he doesn't stop what he's doing, Laura doesn't care in the slightest. She squeezes her eyes shut, fists the covers on either side of the Morrigan's hips, and tries her best to make the way her mouth is working around sighs and groans into something pleasurable.

The taste of the Morrigan is thick on Laura's tongue and all of the wires are crossing - taste with sensation with something far bigger and deeper and - and Laura can't get enough. She is infinite, she is holy; she is, every inch of her, made of pleasure.

"That's it, Laura, make her cum," Baphomet practically purrs, and that alone nearly sets her off again. Laura glances up to see the Morrigan biting down on her own lip, back arched and raking her fingers across her own abdomen -

"Yes," she moans, "there," and her voice is a miracle in its own right. The darkness around them caresses her body like a million pairs of wings, the heat of a supernova coursing through her veins - Laura is one with the gods and she is subsumed, consumed - and crying out in time with the Morrigan, her whole body quaking as she's lit up from the inside.

Laura's torn between the Morrigan's darkness and Baphomet's fire, an unrelenting push-pull of sensation that's all too much and could never, ever be enough. Their gasps and moans melt into each other, some kind of symphony like nothing she's has ever heard before. Pure, unaltered divinity, and all of a sudden she understands.

She understands everything.

The Morrigan topples her back against the bed with barely a touch, and Laura only half-feels Baphomet rearranging himself between her legs before she feels the burn of his flesh against hers. "Tell him you want it," the Morrigan advises her, and Laura half-lifts her head to see that he's actually waiting for her permission, sweaty and flushed, an eyebrow cocked like he's asking if she still wants this.

It's too much, it's got to be - fuck it, "yes," Laura gasps, "please - oh!"

She's cut off by the Morrigan's lips over hers, insistent and intoxicating, breathing stars down Laura's throat.

That's all she can see, all she knows - the Morrigan's hair trails over her like a burial shroud as she kisses her way down Laura's chest and Baphomet holds her tight as he moves within her - Laura lets her eyes fall shut and she's immediately overcome by lights and colors and movement and -

"Stay," the Morrigan's nails dig into her side and Laura hears herself cry out. She's snapped back in an instant, feeling the universe open up inside of her and between them, pleasure sparking within every atom of her being. The sharp point of pain radiating out through her body only adds a new edge to all of it, and Laura wonders why they ever bother doing anything else. "Not yet time to lose yourself."

"Do - do that again," Laura moans, twisting her head to kiss and bite at the Morrigan's inner thigh as if she could ever hope to channel all that excess. It's far too much - she doesn't know what to focus on - the nightmares the Morrigan licks into her skin or the burning stretch-split of Baphomet's cock within her; his hands grasping her thighs, the Morrigan's fingers raking up her sides and teasing at her nipples… "Oh my gods," Laura nearly sobs.

All of a sudden her body is clenching up tight and there's a heat surging between her legs that isn't Baphomet's, and no fucking way she can cum again - no fucking way, "no, no, please god no-"

"Now," the Morrigan says, and Laura couldn't disobey her even if she wanted to.

1

When she manages to force her eyes back open, the Morrigan has a hand in Baphomet's hair, holding him even closer to Laura as they kiss. And it's like he's making love to both of them with each thrust, filling something in Laura that she hadn't known existed, let alone needed filling - and that shouldn't be right, because it's just sex, it's just - but there's so much more.

Because she can feel it now - they're all connected in this and it's as if she just realized where to look - the Morrigan and Baphomet, they're both as bared to her as she is to them and Laura hears music, sees the gaps in it where they need her to be. They may be gods, but they're still vulnerable - still scared and lonely and needing so much more than what they've been given. And something in Laura surges up towards it, something deep and dark and unknowable from a bone-deep aching place at the very core of her being -

"One," she whispers.

Baphomet stills, panting against the Morrigan's mouth and gritting his jaw like it pains him. "Laura," he moans, and it's half a warning, half something she was never meant to place.

Her name on his lips alone sends a wildfire racing through her body, and Laura's concentration is broken. The power surging up through her skin dissipates in an instant and it's all she can do to arch against him, to try and urge the heat deeper in its place.

"Marian," he chokes this time. "Fuck, please,"

They say each others' names like a prayer and Laura wonders if they know it, if they've realized. She watches, rapt, as the Morrigan smiles.

Something wordless passes between the two of them and Laura can feel the shudder that passes through Baphomet's body - nearly looks away, because this isn't meant for her, it's even more intimate and dangerous and - "cum for me then, Baphomet," the Morrigan tells him, her fingers tangled up in Laura's hair.

2

(He does, holding tight to Laura like she's the one keeping him together and not the other way around.)

3

They're a collection of broken pieces, all gathered together in a bed, black sheets soaked through with sweat and sex.

The gods are okay.

Laura's still trying to catch her breath.

4

Despite their best efforts, the night has to end eventually - but maybe that's okay too.