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Okay imagine that the military creates this program to boost moral for soldiers who don’t have families, by essentially hiring people to become their spouse! Does it have flaws and leaves a huge window for exploitation and abuse, it’s the military are we surprised? But we’re not gonna talk about that…
So there’s this program and Laswell and/or Price are like Simon we are worried about how fucking alone you are when you’re not deployed you’re enrolling in this so help us god. Either you’re picking someone or we’re picking for you. And I can’t decide if Simon just picks someone at random without looking at the files or he picks you because you seem like least needy and intrusive. The list of hobbies you have takes up nearly half a page, you have to be too busy to bother him.
Either way, you’re the one that’s picked to be the new Mrs. Riley, much to your surprise. (You were only doing this as moral support for your friend who didn’t want to sign up alone. You didn’t think you’d be picked.) Cut to the day you’re moving into the programs cookie cutter house and you’re glaring at Simon because how dare he imply your guinea pigs are anything less than perfect and angelic, and Simon is just wondering why he has to live with these fucking weird looking rats now.
After some time you and Simon have gotten to the “we’re like roommates and kind of friends” stage of things and one day Simon overhears a group of guys from the same program talking to each other. Technically the program can’t make the spouses sleep together because that would be a teeeeeenty tiiiiiny bit illegal, since it’s technically paying for sexual acts. But some of the guys joke about how they essentially buy kisses and other…things from their spouses, a little extra pocket change for a little bit of sugar.
And maybe, just maybe, the idea intrigues Simon a little. Not the sliding slope of possible financial abuse. No that idea makes his skin crawl a bit. He knows you work and like having your own money. But he wouldn’t mind funneling a little something into your fun money account if he knew you’d let him. As for the sugar…if he spends parts of afternoon burning a hole into space thinking about what kissing you might be like well…that’s between him and god and not even the threat of million years of guinea pig wheeking could make him confess. (He’s grown to appreciate the furry little fuckers but Jesus do they get loud when they hear him open the fridge).
So cue Simon starting Operation Sugar. Too bad for you that step one isn’t you know, talking to you. No instead Simon decides that clearly the way to do this is through the pigs. Cue late night research into what goes into guinea pig care, random Chewy boxes that you didn’t order coming to the door all from an anonymous sender of course (you assume they’re from your mother, who does send gifts to her grandpiggies sometimes), and a week later a fridge surprisingly full to the brim of all the veggies the pigs like to demand for.
The last one is what gets your attention, looking for Simon, who’s in the living room, totally not looking online on his phone at some new cage set up that you want to get that would take up half the damn living room. When you ask about it he shrugs, pocketing his phone and mumbling something about how all of it was on sale when he went shopping. The smile and arm squeeze you gave him wasn’t the sugar he originally wanted, but the thank you that accompanied them made it all so much sweeter than he thought he deserved.