Heads up!

This chapter leans about as far in a smutty direction as I'm comfortable going for this fic (there's talk of boners and sex stuff). I still think it's T-rated and nothing worse than you probably saw in Out of the Lab-yrinth or A Kiss-mas Story, but regardless - if that kind of thing is not your bag, please feel free to skip this chapter. I'll be happy to include a note at the beginning of Sunday's chapter to let you know what you missed.

When she came out of the dressing room, Fitz felt as if his lungs were curling up like a spent matchstick. Oh, holy Mother. Jemma was in a sparkly sequined red leotard, cut like a Baywatch bathing suit, and a red-and-black top hat to match his own. Good Lord. He'd known about her legs, but… Good Lord. Added to the elbow-length white satin gloves and impossibly tall black heels, and Fitz wasn't sure there would be enough oxygen in the room for everyone. What the fuck did I do to deserve this?

She walked up to him, a catlike saunter that might be illegal, and Fitz couldn't help but feel his arteries start working overtime as nearly all the blood in his body rushed to one specific destination. For Christ's sake, control yourself. There are children here! Oh, bloody Hell. There were children here. What if one of them saw him become… compromised? I'm gonna get put on a list. There went his day job. And he was hungry, too. Keep it together, man! Wait a second. He was in Scout's Honor. It was a bar. There's no kids at a bar. But there were sandwiches.

Fitz's breath whooshed out in relief, and he staggered slightly. Jemma caught his arm, steadying him, and he couldn't help but observe how tightly her costume fit around her chest, pushing the tops of her breasts out in a decidedly unladylike manner.

"Ready, boss?" she asked with a brazen wink.

Professional. You're a goddamn professional. Fitz bit down on the side of his tongue, hard enough to draw blood, and positioned himself behind the sawing table so that if he was lucky, the entire crowd wouldn't be privy to what was going on in his head. Either one.

Jemma bowed to the audience - Jesus Christ, does she have to bend at the waist? Is a curtsy too much to ask? - then swept the hat off her head and let her shiny brown curls fall out with a flourish.

"Nice peaches!" came a vulgar shout from the audience. Fitz squinted and peered. Elliot bloody Randolph. Jeez, what planet is this guy from? The cretin just kept going. "Girlie, I wish you were a differential equation, so I could do you-"

"In your head?" Fitz interrupted, giving Hunter a wordless signal and a head tilt towards the door. What kind of chat-up line is that? Next he'll offer to show her his 'natural log'. "Oh, I'm sorry, do you not do complex maths in your head?" he sniffed dismissively. "Someone get this man a slide rule on his way out."

Amid the applause, Hunter gripped Randolph by the collar and strong-armed him out the door. Meanwhile, Jemma made her way over to where he was standing, leaned up and kissed his cheek just next to his ear. "My hero," she purred.

Fitz startled, head ricocheting as he turned towards her, but she was already climbing onto the smooth wooden table to lie down. As she gazed up at him with her hair spilling out around her face, Fitz felt his stomach tighten.

"Thanks again for doin' this." It was the first time Fitz had pretended to saw someone in half, considering his usual assistant was far too large for this particular trick. Put Mack on this table and it'll be like Goldilocks in here. But staring down into her wide, amber-glass eyes, her tongue darting out to add sheen to that unconscionably sexy red lipstick, Fitz felt like everything was just right.

As he leaned down to buckle her into the ankle restraints, reciting Euler sequences to himself so as to avoid noticing quite how smooth her legs were, she beamed at him across her body and teased, "Now, remember, I'm rather attached to my feet."

He shot back a smile. "Not for long!" The assembled guests tittered politely.

He came around to secure the cuffs around her wrists, and quietly checked, "Tight enough?" The raspy quality of his voice surprised him, and Fitz had to stop and clear his throat. At her quick nod, he raised the volume. "You know, I was shopping at the magic store earlier. You'll never believe what I," he lifted the relevant blade, "saw there. Everything was half off!"

"You were shopping?" she tossed back easily, amid the audience's groans. "Don't you mean chopping?"

"I'll thank you to keep your cutting remarks to yourself," he joked, as he began snapping the walls of the box in place around her body. As he slotted the stocks around her neck and arms, she blinked up at him, eyes round.

"Just like we practiced, yeah?" she whispered.

God, she's beautiful. Dangerously so, like a boa constrictor wrapped around his heart and squeezing so tight he could barely speak. "Don't worry, Simmons. I'll take care of you."

-o-

She came up to him after the show, as he was disassembling his props and methodically putting each part away. "Need any help carrying this out to the van?"

He flashed her a smirk and handed her a large duffel. "I don't know, think you can handle it?"

She stumbled a bit under the weight, but scoffed, "I'm out of those stilts and back in my trainers. I can handle anything."

"Hey, don't put that on me, I didn't pick your outfit." If anything, she was sexier now in jeans and a V-neck. "But, ah, tell Bobbi I said thanks."

Jemma rolled her eyes. "She and I have different ideas for what constitutes stage-appropriate apparel. I think she just wanted to get me into the tallest heels she could because I made a joke once about the air up there."

They reached the van and arranged everything in the back, though Fitz had to climb in to situate a few things so they wouldn't get too badly jostled. He'd just turned around to scoot back out the rear doors when he was surprised to see Jemma blocking his path. She held onto the frame of the vehicle, one hand on the side and one on the roof, and when she spoke, her voice was pitched low. "But I'll make sure to pass on your appreciation."

His mouth suddenly felt like an old toothbrush, and he swallowed. Hard.

"I meant what I said before, Fitz. I like you in that tux."

Fitz glanced down at the suit in question, then back up to her face, a flintbox beginning to spark in his abdomen. "Yeah?" It was nearly a growl.

She nodded slowly, tipping her chin lower to drag her eyes over him appraisingly before reaching out to grip his waistcoat. She kept her face tilted south and looked up at him through full lashes. "Mm-hmm."

"Prove it."

They came together like molten iron meeting the forge, fingers grasping, unbuttoning, pulling hair and tugging at cloth. She threw him roughly back onto the floor of the van and climbed on top of him, pinning his legs, tangling them in her own as she pressed their bodies together. He craned his neck, meeting her measure for measure, sucking her bottom lip into his mouth and digging his fingers into her thighs. Their chests were heaving a reckless rhythm, breaths coiling together harshly in a wild rumpus of hazy lust.

"Fitz!" she cried out, writhing against him. "Yo, Fitz!"

"Turbo, buddy, wake up!"

Fitz sat up as if electrocuted, eyes flying open in the darkness and blinking furiously. "Wha-?"

There was a disgusting whuffling sound about two centimeters from his face, and then a flat, small, horrible-smelling tongue was on his chin, licking away - not for the first time, judging by the drool-soaked state of his cheeks.

"Gluurrrghnnnghh!" Fitz recoiled in disgust as he jerked his head out of Quinoa's reach, removing the little dog from her perch on his chest and setting her onto the floor, where she stayed, her tail beating a happy thump-thump-thump into the carpet.

Mack was standing in the doorway of his room, nearly filling the rectangle with his backlit outline. His normally practical voice was laced with concern. "You fell out of bed. You were, uhh, thrashing around pretty bad. Everything all right?"

"Yeah." He started to catch his breath, even as he extricated his legs from where they'd become cocooned by the comforter, drawing his knees up to his chest in an effort to hide the evidence of exactly what sort of dream he'd been having. "Yeah, sorry to wake you."

Mack thumped his hand against the doorway as he moved to leave. "It is what it is. Get some sleep, man."

"Right, thanks. Good night."

Fitz gathered up his bedding and put it back, flopping down onto the mattress face first. Almost unconsciously, his hips pushed into the cushions, and he groaned, wondering whether he could take care of the situation quietly enough to avoid alerting his recently-awoken roommate, or if he'd need to wait until the morning shower. Curse that Jemma Simmons, anyway. Curse her and her stupid perfect face and lovely proportions. And curse his turncoat brain for making him dream about her when Fitz understood perfectly well that the only reason she'd played such a starring role was that he'd been browsing (memorizing was such a strong word) her profile before bed, looking for something to mock. Nothing mysterious to it; it doesn't mean anything. He was pretty sure some very learned men had proven repeatedly that dreams were never "about" what they were about, anyway. Exactly. This was simply his anatomy responding to an inconveniently attractive woman.

Tomorrow night, he was going to look at pictures of Hollywood starlets before bed. Hedy Lamarr. Yeah. Even in his notoriously unreliable subconscious, which stubbornly refused to cooperate when it came to Jemma, Fitz was sure that staring at footage of the world's most beautiful inventor would set him to rights. Good. It was good to have a plan.

Now if only the rest of his body would get on the same page.

Author's Notes:

This chapter is dedicated to MechBull, who gave me the idea for it.

Special thanks to memorizingthedigitsofpi, for her help with the math-related pickup lines and sass. You should also check out her tumblr page! She's posted a few photo manips inspired by this story.

Other stories that include sexy psych-out dreams (and I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch of great fics here but you guys should definitely read these ones):
Loyalties and From Right to Left by MechBull on AO3
Well-Formed and Symmetrical by AgentVerbivore on AO3
Copenhagen by badscienceshenanigans on AO3 (and maximum props to her for providing an extra pair of eyes on this chapter)

The "gotcha" dream still isn't my favorite trope, but I thought it would work okay here (I did try to throw in a couple clues that it wasn't real). I hope no one feels disappointed, betrayed, or bamboozled!