Archive of Our Own ^beta

Simon had been in the shower for at least an hour.

He was fine, it was fine. What had happened was fine, he had asked for it, he had planned for it, and it was fine.

The water was, somehow, still hot despite how long it had been running. Steam was rising from the shower, fogging up the glass of the shower door and undoubtedly the mirror outside the shower. Simon's normally pale skin was reddening because of the heat, the temperature of the water almost being too hot to the point of being unbearable for the sensitive skin on his face. Despite it all, Simon found that it wasn't hot enough to erase the evidence of what had happened between them. Simon could still feel his touch, Simon could still feel his fingers pressing against his body, the roughness of Simon's bunched up jacket pressing down against his own throat hard enough to restrict his breathing.

The heat of the water distracted him from the pain his body felt, from the ache that crossed his neck to the imprint of a crushing grip left upon his hips, to the pain he felt there.

Simon could still feel his mouth, hot and wet and tinted with blood from their kiss, pressed against his throat and chest, his breath against the back of his neck and his unforgiving hand roughly entangled in Simon's hair as he pressed him down against the floor. Simon could still feel how the floorboards had felt beneath his fingertips, he could still feel it felt as he writhed and clawed against the hard surface, Simon's features contorting as his face was pressed into the floor as he tightly gripped Simon's now bruised hips from behind him.

Simon could still feel his body pressing down over his, dominating him and touching every part of him.

It had hurt.

He hadn't used anything to ease the process, perhaps he almost saw it as punishment for Simon... he had almost been blinded with his rage.

Brendan.

He and Brendan had...

Simon could barely keep himself standing upright as he desperately scrubbed his hands over his naked form, the strong and overpowering scent of body wash filling the air as white bubbles flowed down his reddened skin, swirling down his legs and onto the shower floor, circling the drain as they carried none of the filth from his body away. This was the fourth or fifth round of frantically scrubbing at his skin. He had methodically poured body wash onto his hands, scrubbing them together and scrubbing the soap against his skin before rinsing it all off and starting over again, and over again, and over again.

And, with each repetition, Simon found that he felt no cleaner than before he had entered the shower.

It just wasn't enough to cleanse him of the memories of what they had done.

He had kissed Brendan, he had initiated it.

It was his fault, what happened.

And it wasn't... it wasn't what his panicked mind was telling him it was. It wasn't what the developing bruises, the cut and bloodied lip, all from their fist fight, and the soreness of his body suggested.

He hadn't been...

As he reached for the now almost empty bottle of body wash for the next round of fruitlessly scrubbing his skin, even though he knew it would do nothing, Simon found his hand was trembling like a leaf in a gale. And as he tried his best to ignore it, to pretend that everything was just fine and normal, his shaking fingers grazed the light bottle and easily knocked it from the thin shower shelf. In his attempt to catch it before it fell, Simon's uncoordinated hand managed to knock off the other bottles of shampoo and conditioner as well, sending them all crashing to the floor of the shower, rolling to bump against his feet as he leaned against the wall of the shower for a moment.

Breathing heavily, Simon closed his eyes, his forehead tilting forward to meet the slick wall of the shower.

"God..."

As he stood back and crouched down with sore and aching legs to pick the scattered bottles up, Simon instead found himself planting a hand on the wet floor and sliding to sit on the floor of the shower, his back against the wall and his head tilting up to expose his face to the torrent of hot water.

"Fuck," Simon gasped out, his voice shaky and his vision blurring from both the downpour of water and the tears beginning to stream down his cheeks, "fuck."

Why was it affecting him so much? He was no stranger to sleeping with people in order to gain information or trust, and what he did with Brendan was nothing knew.

But as he had laid there in the shitty motel room, pressed down into the floor with a rough hand, his lungs aching from the asphyxiation and the taste of the blood from his split lip tainting his tounge as he groaned, Simon had found himself feeling... numb.

He didn't like it.

For most of his other similar experiences, with other people and other situations, he was either neutral or an eager participant.

With Brendan...

Simon had just laid there and took it, numbly staring ahead as Brendan roughly had his way with him. And the few glances he caught of Brendan showed him expressions of anger and hate, of turmoil and lust.

Simon hadn't liked it.

And when it was done, when Brendan had stood back up over him and relaced his belt, the sound of the metallic buckle almost as loud as a gunshot in the silent room, Simon had just laid there.

Simon had just felt numb, empty. And now, sitting in the shower surrounded by fallen bottles, pink-tinged suds, and being drenched by slowly cooling water, Simon just felt dirty.

He now felt dirty, unclean, filthy.

And nothing was working to cleanse him of the filth. 

And as he sat there, Simon was unsure if the filth had been left by Brendan or if it had come from himself.

He hadn't expected it to feel like this.