God of Mischief I worship

"No. If I go to sleep, you'll be gone." He pouts.

"Well 'see each other again." You promise. "But it won't do to lose anymore sleep. Me either. And your father."

He harrumphs and crosses his arms emphatically. You gently pat his shoulder. "How about a bedtime story, then? If Papa permits?"

Shelby shifts, and shrugs. "Course. He's not very fond of mine." He moves closer, brushing against you as he picks up his some. "Come, Charlie Boy, listen to the kind woman and sleep."

Shelby turns to you and gestures you ahead of him. He carries Charlie as he directs you from behind, into the corridor, through to the foyer, and up the grand staircase. Another corridor and several doors, and you reach the boy's room. You stand by the door as he enters and takes Charlie to the bed. It's bigger than your own.

He lays down the boy as he yawns again. You near from the other side. "What would you like to hear? The story of Lancelot or the princess and her kitten?"

"I like kittens." Charlie says.

"Alright, then. But when I'm done, you must sleep." You sit and pull the blanket over him.

"I will." He nods eagerly.

Shelby hovers across from you then slowly sits. You begin. "There was a princess who lived in the forest. Not many knew she was a princess for she'd been hidden there for many years..." You pluck deep into your mind to recall the story of the kitten that leads the princess to the truth. But before you can get to the end, you pause and smile at the sleeping child.

"You have a soothing voice," Shelby intones quietly. "You've almost put me to sleep."

You laugh softly. "Dull, I suppose."

"Musical," he assures. "Like poetry. I'm rather fond of a verse or two."

"Well, I should hate to wake him," you stand cautiously. "And I should be back home. In case Stuart has returned."

Shelby dips his head and exhales. He rises rigidly. "Yes, I suppose, a wife errant so late into the night might worry a man." He bends his arm and tugs his sleeve back to check his very modern wrist watch. "I'll have the car readied."

🖤

You wait at the door with your jacket and hat on, purse in the crook of your elbow. You shield a yawn in your palm and lean forward to peek through the dark slate of window next to the door. It's late. Later than you think you've ever been out. Though, you're not exactly living the high life of the flapper. You're only doing what needs done to keep house and home.

"Right then, I hate to keep you waiting longer." Mr. Shelby appears from behind the grand staircase. "I think you've had quite the day as it were."

"Sir. I... Was expecting Benjamin." You push the tired slump from your shoulders.

"I'm a disappointment?" He teases.

"Not what I meant. Or said." You assure him. "I do appreciate the trouble to take me home."

"No trouble. Not so much as you've gone to." He adjusts his coat.

"Hm. Well, I cannot say that I am not in need of the compensation." You muse.

"But I never offered any for tending my son." He returns.

"He's a good boy. I don't mind." You sway slightly, impatiently.

"Mm, I suppose then we should go. Or it'll be morning and you'll be due back at the kitchen."

"Yes, another busy day." You agree.

You go out to his car. He opens the door for you. You get in and patiently watch him stride in front of the long hood. This isntisthe same car as Benjamin. It's nicer. Luxurious with its leather and wood finish.

He gets in the driver's side and turns the engine through a series of twists and flicks. The headlights cast two yellow beams across the midnight gloom. Fog mists in their aura.

He sets off quietly. You sense the haze of fatigue over you both. Your content in the silence.

You watch the road ahead, sensing as he slows with the thickening condensation of the English eve. You fight to keep from slouching, to keep from drifting. For once, you don't fear a struggle in bed. You could sleep then and there.

The night stirs in the arcs of the headlights. You pass dormant windows and shadowy archways through the city. When he stops on your street, you take a moment to realise.

"Thank you," you make certain you have your purse. "I very much appreciate, Mr. Shelby."

"Not at all." His voice his raspy.

"I do hope you have a safe return." You say.

"And I hope you get a restful sleep." He drawls and leans across the seat to peer past you. "Shall I escort you to the door?"

"Sir, you've done enough. Please. Go be with Charlie."

"As you wish," he relents and sits back.

You sidle across the seat. He reaches over and taps your knee.

"Ah."

You pause and he points up. He lets himself out and swiftly struts around to open your door. He offers his hand to help you onto the cobblestones.

You thank him again. You face him.

"Good night, Mr. Shelby."

"Good night, ma'am." His hand slips off yours. "Until the morning."

🖤

You sleep so heavily, you feel and think nothing. So lost in your unconscious that the buzz of the door chime jars you like a ship on storming tides. You grunt and open your eyes, disoriented with drowsiness.

You blink several times to clear the glaze from your eyes. The buzz comes once more. You sit up. It's still early. You can't slept long at all. The windows are still grim.

You get up and stumble into the hallway. You wipe your eyes with the back of your hands. It could be Mary Lynn, drunk again. You've never judged her for her indulgence but she's never spared you the same.

You get to the door and hide behind it as you unlock it. You pull it open just a little. Your eyes round and you're awake at just the sight of Tommy Shelby.

"Sir?"

"I've a phone call, ma'am. Important business. You'll need to come. Now." He says urgently.

You see the lack of sleep lined around his eyes, shadowed in the deep sockets.

"What is it?" You let go of the door and it falls a bit wider.

"I think..." His eyes skim you. "You should dress."

You blanch and look down. You're in your shift and nothing else. The linen is worn enough that some parts are starting to turn sheer.

"Apologies. Let me... Sir, come in." You beckon him inside and quickly flit away.

His soles click onto the scratched hardwood. The door shuts with a snap. You retreat to find a proper dress and set yourself right.

You hide in the bedroom and put on the brown dress with the flattened pleats. You sit to roll up your stockings. You take only seconds to battle your reflection.

You come out, apologising again. Then you stop short. It can only be one thing.

"Stuart?" You gulp.

"Ma'am. I've got a call from the station."

"The station?" You eke out.

"Perhaps it is best we go down and hear it straight from them," he suggests.

"Perhaps," you agree uneasily.

You search for a semblance of certainty in yourself. It takes a moment before you can figure what to do next. Cost. Shoes.

He lingers close as you dress for the weather. You pull on a wool cap. You face him and clap your hands down to your side.

"Ready... I think."

"Yes, ma'am. This way."

He opens the door and let you out first. The world around you is foggy for more than the rainy aftermath. Your ears pound and your heartbeat radiates to your fingertips.

It could be alright. Maybe they found Stuart doing something foolish. Gambling as he does. It might be he just needs a night in a cell to sober up.

You're sat in the car before you can even register getting in. You wring your hands as Shelby drives. It'll be fine. It has to be.

He cranks the gears and the car halts. You jerk and look up. You glance over at the precinct. You've never been in one though you always feared it. With the husband you have...

Mr. Shelby walks you in the front door. He's like your shadow. He greets an officer in a helmet with a club on his waist.

“This is her.” Shelby says and you wince. You look at him.

“Ma’am, I’m Corporal Hensen. So sorry ta bring ya here like this. We believe we’ve found your husband.” He says.

“My… Husband?”

“Not sure yet but we’d appreciate if ya might have a look and let us know.”

“A look?” All you can do is repeat his words as your head refuses to accept them.

You nod. Corporal Hensen tells you to go with him but your feet don’t move. There’s a weight on your back urging you forward. Mr. Shelby’s hand.

You follow the officer through the corridors. There are others in uniforms, men in shackles scowling in chairs or held by their arms.  On and on you go until you’re taken into a desolate room.

There you’re faced with a shrouded slab. A figure hidden behind a sheet. An unmoving lump once full of life. A man in a white coat awaits you and nods to Shelby and Hensen.

“Ma’am, we… have found a body and hoped you might be able to identify him.” He prompts.

You frown. “How could I…” you begin. You know what they mean, but you want so badly not to understand.

Again, Mr. Shelby urges you forward with that small touch on your back. As you near the table, the doctor pulls the sheet back. You stare down at the grey face unveiled from beneath the cotton.

You can’t move. You can’t think. You have to be asleep still. You move your hand to your wrist and pinch. Wake up.

How many times did you curse your husband? How many times did you wish him gone? You should feel bad for his fate and yet, you don’t feel anything at all. You only feel bad for that.

“That is Stuart Wilbur Cress.” You state. “My husband.”

🖤

“Ma’am,” Mr. Shelby says as he escorts you once more to his car. “I’ll take you home now.”

“Home? No. I believe we’re overdue at The Garrison–”

“Ma’am. Don’t you worry about service. We can–”

“I am worried, sir.” You insist plainly. “I’ve a job to do.”

He watches you. He’s hard to read. “I could walk. Or find a tram–”

“No, ma’am, it is only that… Stuart–”

“You found him. What else is there to worry for?” You say.

“He’s dead–”

“So he is.” You utter. “It means I must work my way on my own now. So, let us go and do so.”

He hesitates but acquiesces. He opens the door and gently holds your elbow as you get in. You sit and stare at the road; the people crossing back and forth, the tires spinning by, the horses clomping over the stones. So much life all around; it never stops, not even for death.

The ride is quick. You think. Time doesn’t mean much to you.

You enter The Garrison ahead of Mr. Shelby. Ruth has already begun on the sausage rolls and Dierdre is showing the early birds to their tables. You put on the kettle and ready a pot for brew. Shelby lingers at the edge of the kitchen.

You go through it without a thought. Toasted buns; sizzling back bacon; eggs flipped one after the other. You wipe your face with your sleeve as the timer erupts. You open the stove and take out the hot pan of rolls.

It isn’t until you put them down that you feel the burn. That you realise you’ve not used a cloth to do so. You stop and stare at your smoldering palms. You shake but don’t make a noise.

“Dammit,” Shelby startles you as he grabs your wrist and tugs you away from the counter. He turns you around to the sink as he turns the faucet. Water sprays out and he guides your hand beneath the cooling stream. “Are you alright?”

You watch the water as it spreads over your burnt skin. So what? You’re hurt but still alive. Just a burn. Could be worse. Could be dead like Stuart.

“Ma’am, ma’am,” Shelby grits. “I think you should go home.”

You look at him. “I don’t. I think I should wrap my hands and get back to my job.”

“Ma’am.” He snips. “I won’t allow that.”

“Why not? It’s not serious–”

“I am your boss, yes? Go. Home.”

“Mr. Shelby–”

You pressed your left hand over it. Looked up at the trees. Kept breathing. Technically later was now, and your brain supplied this information and then noted that you still didn't have sufficient bandwidth to do anything about it, and moved on.

Around you the company collapsed into the forest with the collective exhale of people who had been inside something terrible for too long. Bofur landed against a tree trunk and stayed there, head tipped back, looking at the light. Óin sat on a fallen log with the abrupt, non-negotiable quality of someone whose legs had made a decision. Ori had both arms wrapped around himself, sketchbook clutched to his chest, and the expression on his face was the expression of someone who had a great deal to process and had not yet begun.

Thorin moved through the company the way he always did in the aftermath of something—quickly, quietly, the inventory of a dwarf checking people with the focused attention of someone who understood that the leadership duty and the personal one were the same thing, just expressed differently depending on who he was looking at. Dwalin got a nod and a single question, answered with a shake of the head. Fíli had a cut above his brow that Thorin touched briefly, assessing depth, before Fíli waved him off. Kíli was talking loudly about something—already reconstructing the escape into a story, the fear converting rapidly into energy—Thorin let his gaze pass over him and determine, in the way Thorin's gaze determined things, that Kíli was fine.

He came to you.

You heard him coming, and turned slightly his eyes did the same fast inventory on you that they'd done on the others—top to bottom, direct and clinical—his eyes caught on your hand.

"Let me see,"

"It's fine," you said. "It's not—"

But he was already reaching and in the immediate aftermath of everything—in the adrenaline and the sunlight and the shaking that was beginning now that your body had decided the running was over and was starting to issue invoices for what that had cost—his hand came up and found the back of your neck before either of you had quite processed the movement.

The touch was light. Specific. His fingers finding a place on the back of your neck, just below the hairline, where some of the goblins had caught you in their scramble—you hadn't noticed it at the time, you hadn't noticed anything at the time, you'd been too busy running—now his thumb pressed gently against the edge of a scratch you hadn't known was there, assessing it with the same careful, unhurried attention he'd brought to everything, on your neck and hands and—

You stepped, not dramatically not even sharply. But a reflex, a attempt to make some distance and in the movement you almost walked directly into him because Thorin moved closer in his inspection of you and you hadn't calculated for that, you caught yourself with a slight sideways turn and put two steps between you and looked at him.

He looked up and his hand had dropped the moment you'd moved, his expression was—careful. Not hurt, exactly, not offended—but something that was reading the atmosphere with more attention than his face generally showed.

The Great Goblin's voice arrived in your head, clear and sudden as something dropped from a height.

Thorin Oakenshield. King under the Mountain.

You had heard it loud and unavoidable—the Great Goblin's particular relishing announcement, the weight it had carried, the way the surrounding goblins had reacted to it—in the immediate running chaos of what followed you had filed it somewhere behind everything else and not returned to it, and it had been sitting there the whole time you'd been running and you hadn't thought about it and now you were thinking about it, now you couldn't stop thinking about it in fact.

King under the Mountain.

Not just the leader of a company. Not just Thorin, who corrected your Khuzdul pronunciation and had talked about Erebor in the dark with a voice that went somewhere else when he described his home. Not just the person who had handed you a dagger without waiting to be thanked and taught you the word for joke.

A king.

Who had just touched the back of your neck to check if you were hurt, whose coat was now being pulled from his own shoulders with the specific, purposeful movement of someone who was going to put it around yours—oh. OH shit.

"I'm fine," you said, and the words came out slightly louder than you'd intended, and slightly faster, and slightly higher pitched, you were aware that all three of these things were happening and couldn't do much about any of them.

"Really. The hand is—it's barely—I'm completely fine, you don't need to—your coat is—I'm not cold, thank you, I'm genuinely—"

Thorin had gone still.

He stood with his coat half-extended, his expression doing the thing where it was unreadable on the surface and considerably less unreadable one layer below, and looked at you, and you looked back at him, and the gap between you felt, suddenly, very specifically measured.

"You're bleeding," he said.

"I know," you said. "I'll deal—with it."

He held your gaze for a moment longer. Then, with the particular controlled quality of a dwarf filing something away for later rather than setting it down permanently, he pulled the coat back on his own shoulders and turned to the rest of the company, and you turned back to find Bilbo, and not think about the fact Thorin, Thorin Oakenshield was in fact, a king.

You almost failed.

Bilbo—you'd seen Bilbo last during the fall when the floor had cracked and given way, and the thought of that had been sitting in your chest through all of it, a cold specific thing underneath all the other cold specific things, and you looked around now with a focused, tight attention that was working back through the company again person by person—

Balin. Fíli. Kíli. Dwalin, who had appeared at the treeline with Nori and Glóin. Bombur breathing hard at the base of a birch. Bifur and Bofur and Dori and Óin. Thorin, standing ahead of the group, counting his own company with the same focused rapid attention you were using.

No Bilbo.

Your chest went tight again, a different kind. You began recounting immediately.

"Where is the Halfling?" Thorin asked as he stood in the middle of the company with the flat, efficient focus of a man doing arithmetic he didn't want to do.

Silence, of the specific variety that follows a question when no one has a comfortable answer. The company looked at each other, looked at the trees, looked anywhere that was not Thorin's face asking the question.

"He was behind me on the—" Fíli started.

"He was there when we came out of the—" Kíli offered.

"He was," Bofur said, less certainly.

Thorin let the silence run for exactly as long as it needed to run before he had concluded what he was going to conclude, and then he said, very quietly.

"He's gone."

"We can't just leave him—" Kíli began.

"Master Baggins," Thorin said, and his voice had the flat, controlled quality of someone saying something they had thought through and were not going to be argued out of, "has made his choice. He's no burglar. He never was." He looked at the company and then at Gandalf, who was standing slightly apart with an expression of compressed patience. "He's taken his chances and gone back to his home."

"He signed a contract," Balin said, quietly.

"A contract he never wanted and only signed because—"

"Because Gandalf brought him," you said.

You hadn't meant to say it. The words arrived before the decision to say them did, and then they were out, and Thorin's attention swung to you with the particular direct weight of it, and you met it, and kept going because you'd started.

"He left his home and his couch— his pantry or whatever—" you gestured vaguely, aware this was not your most articulate moment, "—because Gandalf brought him, and he came anyway, and he's kept up anyway, and he was there in those tunnels, I saw him, and—" You stopped. "I don't think he left. I think we should look, we owe him that much."

Thorin looked at you for a long moment.

"We should look," Gandalf said, from behind you, which was not quite a 'she's right' but carried the exact same weight.

The silence that followed had a direction to it, the kind of silence that was moving toward a decision without requiring one to be announced, and Thorin looked at the trees and the company and the place where the shadows of the goblin mountain fell across the forest floor, and whatever he was about to say in response to that silence was preempted by movement at the edge of the tree cover.

Bilbo stepped out of the shadows.

The relief that went through you was immediate and total, the specific physical relief of something your body had been bracing against releasing all at once, you crossed the space between you and the hobbit in approximately five steps and crouched—because he was Bilbo, and crouching was the right scale for Bilbo, for his earnest and slightly windswept face and the weskit he'd apparently lost the buttons from at some point in the tunnels—you put your arms around him.

Bilbo made the small, slightly strangled sound of a hobbit receiving an unexpected hug and patted your shoulder with the uncertain warmth of someone who wasn't accustomed to being embraced outdoors in front of large audiences but wasn't going to object.

"You're alright," you said, into his shoulder.

"I'm—yes," he said, slightly muffled. "I'm quite alright. Yes."

You pulled back and looked at him, checking the same way you'd learned to check from months of watching Óin—face, hands, the set of the shoulders. He was windswept and slightly pale and had an expression on his face that was more complicated than you had time to read, but he was there, all his components were present, and the tight thing in your chest released another increment.

"You scared the shi—shall I just say I was worried so we can move on" you said.

"I had myself worried," Bilbo said, with the feeling of someone for whom this was the understatement of a significant period of time. He reached into his weskit pocket and produced, with a careful gesture, your small vial of oil. "I found this. When I—when things were rather chaotic, on the walkway. It came down with me and I—I didn't want to leave it."

You looked at the vial in his palm. The relief of seeing it was disproportionate and entirely genuine, the specific, warm relief of a small object that had become significant. "Thank you," you said, and you meant it considerably more than those two words usually carried. "Thank you, Bilbo. I—thank you."

You took it and pressed it back into the pocket at the side seam of the dress and felt the small weight of it settle there with the satisfaction of a thing returned to its right place.

Bilbo looked at the company. At Thorin, who stood slightly apart with an expression that was managing several things at once. Then Bilbo straightened, in that way he straightened when he had decided something and was going to say it regardless.

"I know you doubt me," he said, to Thorin. "I know you always have." His voice was quiet and steady with the specific steadiness of someone keeping it that way through effort. "And you're right, I often think of Bag End. I miss my books and my armchair and my garden." He paused. "But I know that you don't have that. I know that a home is the one thing that was taken from you." He looked at the mountain's shadow on the forest floor, and back at Thorin. "I will help you get it back, if I can."

Thorin looked at Bilbo for a long moment. Something moved through his expression, something that came up from underneath his usual management of his expression and made it briefly, unmistakably human—not warm, exactly, because warmth was not Thorin's register, but something that had warmth as one of its components, complicated by the pride of a man who has been surprised, and the particular difficulty of someone who had spoken harshly and was now faced with the evidence of what they had been wrong about.

The walk through the forest had the quality of time after crisis—slightly slowed, slightly unreal at the edges, the adrenaline that had been operational currency for the last several hours now moving from active to residual, leaving behind it the particular ache of muscles that had been running and climbing on pure fear-fuel and were now submitting their accounts.

You walked beside Bilbo, which had become one of your default positions over the course of the journey—a natural pairing, the two of you at the back or the middle of the company, comparing notes in the quiet, straightforward way of people who understood each other's particular category of fish-out-of-water.

"How are you really?" you asked him, quietly.

"I—" He considered this, which told you something. "I'm alright. It was—rather more alarming than I had expected, and I had expected considerable alarm." He glanced at your hand. "You're bleeding."

"It's slowing," you said. "Bilbo, did you—while you were separated—were you—"

"I found my way through," he said, and the particular careful quality of the words told you there was more, and the particular set of his jaw told you he wasn't going to say what it was, and you'd known Bilbo long enough to recognise this.

"Alright," you said, and let it sit.

He handed you, without ceremony, a folded square of cloth from his weskit pocket. You took it and pressed it over the bite on your hand and held it there, and Bilbo made a small sound of approval that was so very Balin-like in its quality you found yourself fighting the urge to roll your eyes.

"He's watching you," Bilbo said, after a moment.

You kept your eyes forward. "Who is."

"You know who is," Bilbo said, in the mild, specific tone he used when he was not going to pretend to be less perceptive than he was.

You kept your eyes forward.

"He's a king, Bilbo," you said, keeping your voice very level.

"Yes," Bilbo said. "He is."

You pressed the cloth harder against your hand. "It doesn't—I didn't—what I'm trying to say— the point is I didn't know. I didn't know, and I should have known, and now I know, and it means he's different."

"Is he?" Bilbo said, with a gentle, infuriating, rethorical questioning.

"Yes," you said.

"Mm," said Bilbo, which communicated his opinion without requiring him to actually state it, and you walked on through the forest and felt, distinctly, the quality of Thorin's attention from somewhere behind and to your left, and kept your eyes very firmly forward.

The camp was set near the forest edge where the treeline gave way to a rocky slope, and it was a minimal camp—the kind the company made when function was the only available priority, when the choice was between a fire and a proper shelter and you chose the fire because it was getting cold, no one had the energy for much else. Bedrolls went down in a loose cluster. Bombur produced something from the pack he'd somehow managed to keep through the tunnels, which no one asked about because the result was food and the source was secondary.

Óin settled you onto a log at the edge of the firelight and began his work with the contained thoroughness of someone who was going to address every injury in the correct order and was not going to be hurried.

He started with some scratches on your forearm, He made a sound that managed to communicate several overlapping opinions about goblin hygiene and the wisdom of letting wounds sit untreated for extended periods, he applied himself to the cleaning of it with a salve from a small clay pot that smelled powerfully of something herbal and sharp. It stung, which was appropriate, and you held still and let it sting.

Balin appeared a few minutes later—of course he did—he lowered himself onto the log at your other side and set a bowl in your lap with the firm, wordless authority of a person who had decided you were going to eat and was not presenting this as optional.

"Thank you," you said.

"Mm-hm." said Balin absently, watching Óin work with the proprietary attention of a man who had appointed himself your patriarchal representative and took this role seriously.

You ate around the medical attention—carefully, wrong-handed, the bowl balanced on your knee—Óin moved from the scratch on your forearm to the scratch on your knuckles, and then indicated the back of your neck, which you'd forgotten about for the second time, you tilted your head forward and let him work, and the salve stung there too, the food was warm you were very tired. The combination of these things produced a particular fragile quality of not-quite-alright-but-managing that you were trying to stay on the right side of.

The bowl was half-eaten and going cold in your lap when Thorin crouched in front of you.

He didn't announce it. He arrived in your field of vision—or rather, his hands did, because you were looking at the bowl, and then his hands were visible at the edge of your downward gaze and you looked up and he was there, slightly below your eye level from his crouch, and his expression had the particular set of someone who had made a decision about something and had arrived to implement it.

He looked at Óin. Something passed between them—brief, direct, the specific nonverbal economy of people who didn't require words for most operational communication—Óin sat back and handed Thorin the clay pot of salve and the cloth, and stood up with the small sound of older joints in cold air and went to see to someone else.

Thorin looked at the cloth in his hand. At the pot. At your biten hand, still wrapped in the cloth Bilbo had given you, which was now well past its useful life as an absorbent material. He held out his own hand, palm up. An offer. A request for your hand without words.

You looked at his palm.

You put your hand in it.

His hands were larger than yours—not dramatically, not in the overwhelming way of Dwalin's hands, but noticeably, the fingers wrapping carefully around the edge of your hand with a delicacy that was at odds with the size of them. He unwrapped Bilbo's cloth from your hand and set it aside and looked at the bite mark, his jaw moved slightly at what he saw, a small specific tightening and then he applied the salve with his thumb in the same kind of slow, careful circles Óin had been using, it stung the same way it had before, you watched your hand in his.

His hands were different from Óin's. Óin's were the hands of a professional, quick and systematic. Thorin's were careful in a different way—slower, more deliberate, which was slightly wrong in a way you couldn't account for if you were thinking about Thorin purely as the leader, the king in exile, the man whose default register was authority.

"I owe you an explanation," he said, after a moment.

His voice was low—the register he used late at night or when he wasn't performing anything for anyone, and the campfire was close enough to give you warmth but not so close that there was anyone in immediate earshot.

The fire popped and resettled. Around you the company made its various noises—Bofur and Kíli talking, something low and overlapping, the sound of Bombur's spoon against the pot, Dwalin breathing in a way that suggested he'd already found his way to sleep.

"The Great Goblin called you a King," you said. It came out before you'd fully decided to say it.

Thorin's hands paused, briefly. Then continued. "I am not unknown in the tunnels under the mountains," he said. "My grandfather's name carries further than I would sometimes choose."

"Thorin—he called you," you said. "King under the Mountain."

"I am Thorin Oakenshield, son of Thráin, son of Thrór," he said, and the names came out with the weight of their own particular gravity. "The King under the Mountain, by right of lineage, whether I have the mountain or not. That title cannot be taken from me, it goes with the blood of Durin's line."

"I know," you said and then, more quietly "I — I mean, I understand the sequence of a succession. I just didn't—" You looked at the side of his face. "I didn't know you were a king. I thought—I knew you were in charge and stuff, but that's different from—"

"It is different," he said. "Yes." He looked up then, and found your eyes from below—the angle of the crouch putting him level with you from the log, the firelight on the side of his face, the expression in his eyes having shed most of its usual management and arrived somewhere more direct

You looked at the bowl in your lap. At the fire, at anywhere except at Thorin.

He moved closer to your side, and you felt him rather then saw him—he was at the edge of your peripheral vision, when you didn't turn toward him he waited, and then very gently.

"Look at me."

You let out a breath before you looked at him.

The firelight found the lines of his face, the quality of his eyes in the dark, which were not the flat, managing expression he directed at most situations but something that had the management taken off it, or had set it down, and what was underneath was—direct. Quiet. Very specifically directed at you.

"My father was Thráin," he said again. "My grandfather was Thrór. I am the heir to everything they built and everything they lost, and that is a fact of my blood that will not change. It is what I am." He held your gaze. "But I have sat with you and talked about the deep halls of my people. I have shared the lanuage of my people." Something moved at the corner of his mouth. "You did not call me King during any of it."

"You didn't mention it during any of it."

"No," he said. "I did not" He looked at you steadily. "There are people in this company to whom I owe the title. For whom I carry it. It is a responsibility I will not set down." He paused. "But you are not in this company by my invitation. You fell out of the sky, you signed a contract and you have learned to light fires from your fingertips, you have kept pace with thirteen dwarves in circumstances that would have stopped most people considerably sooner." Another pause, shorter. "I would ask that to you, I might not be a King."

The fire settled. Someone across the camp laughed at something, brief and warm.

You looked at him. At the particular quality of his face in the firelight when it was not being managed. "You don't stop being a king just because you want someone call you something else," you said, carefully.

"No," he agreed. "But can a king want a person to see past the title. To simply—" He stopped himself. Something worked briefly behind his eyes. "To simply see the dwarf."

The honesty of it landed in your chest in the particular way that honest things land when they are also unexpected—you looked down at the bowl in your lap. At his hands resting on his knees in front of him, the cloth he'd been using still held loosely, the salve pot on the ground beside his boot.

"Eat your food," he said, quietly, and it was not an excuse not to answer and it was also entirely an excuse not to answer, and the way he said it—the small, barely visible exhale, the fraction of tension in his shoulders—suggested he understood the need for time in this situation.

He stood. Didn't move away immediately. Stood beside you for a moment with the fire casting light over you both and the company around you, then he moved back toward his own position at the outer edge of the camp, and you watched the fire, and ate the cooling remains of your stew, and pressed your right hand flat against the pocket where the vial sat safe in its cloth lining.

Just Thorin, you thought.

You’d expected a lot of things when you agreed your husband’s oldest friend should come spend the holidays with you, but not this: you naked and splayed open, your back against Bucky’s chest, and Steve knelt between your legs, focus absolute as they took you apart.

Bucky’s lips moved against your neck, not quite kissing, hand sliding to cup one aching breast. “You want to feel for the ridge, the soft roof inside. Feel it?”

Steve nodded, learning by the tremors that rippled through you.

And you? You could only moan as his fingers sought a place only Bucky had touched before tonight.

Steve’s breath ghosted along your thigh, cool in comparison to the heat pooling where his fingertips pressed. “Like this?” he asked, looking up, seeking confirmation from Bucky.

Bucky squeezed you, barely-there pressure, his thumb circling your nipple. “Yeah, there—you’ll feel it through the front wall. Little bump.”

Steve slid his fingers deeper, slow and careful, and you arched back against Bucky’s chest. The pressure inside shifted, molten but sudden, and you gasped at the feel of it when he found it—that ridge, the soft roof, as Bucky had described it. Steve’s big hand trembled just a little as he kept it inside you, gentle but greedy, desperate to get it right. The man was as worshipping as he was determined, brow furrowed, lashes dark against his cheek as he mapped each element of your reactions.

And Bucky watched, grinning against your ear, voice thick. “That’s it, Steve. Watch her face, see how her mouth falls open? Touch her there, a tiny bit harder, that’s it, yeah.”

He kept the pressure steady, calloused thumb skating circles over your clit while his fingers pressed up, learning you, working with the careful tenacity he applied to every complex operation.

Bucky’s own hand drifted lower, his touch rough at your hip, a grounding force. You couldn’t move if you’d wanted to, pinned between them, the air thick with sweat and something like ozone.

You bucked, pulse thumping in your throat, teeth gritty against a whimper. Steve’s eyes flicked up again, shining, hungry, and your swore you might come just on the taste of his focus. With every press against that spot, your vision stuttered out, blinking in firework-bright bursts.

Bucky’s voice pressed into the shell of your ear, low and lazy, but with that hint of command that still managed to thrill you, even after all these years. “She’s real sensitive right there, Steve. Just steady. Keep the rhythm—yeah, just like that.”

“Fuck, Buck—she’s gonna—” Steve’s fingers jittered, the tip of his thumb ghosting over your wet clit.

“Let her,” Bucky hummed, open-mouthed over her shoulder. His other hand covered her thigh, holding her so wide the ache felt like a dare. “Make her feel it.”

Steve’s hand was huge, careful, coaxing, until it wasn’t, until the motion grew greedy, needy. You’d never been shy with Bucky, but with the attention of two lovers you felt nearly too open and exposed, nerves sparking along every limb. Bucky’s thumb toyed with your nipple, drawing it taut, while Steve’s fingers pursued your impending orgasm relentlessly.

And the orgasm came with no warning, just an unbearable pressure and then a bright, skittering release, your vision white-out as you shrieked and clamped around Steve’s hand. He nearly lost his balance but Bucky steadied him—steadied you—bracing your shaking limbs as you rode the aftershocks. Even after the pleasure crested, Steve’s fingers didn’t stop. He worked you through every shudder, sucking a breath through his teeth, awed. His voice was a fervent whisper, “Jesus. You—fuck, you look good like this.”

“She always does,” Bucky replied, mouth slick on your jaw, catching the sweat there. “You wanna see her come again?”

Steve’s hand stilled, then slowly slid free, leaving you embarrassingly empty and sticky. He watched you with dazed awe, pink flush climbing from his collar to cheekbones, as if he couldn’t believe the thing he’d just made happen, for you.

“Yeah, I do. Will you let me?” he asked, eyes meeting yours again.

You nodded, voice gone to wool and cotton, incapable of anything but a whispered, “Please.” The word left your lips desperate, high-pitched, a note of wildness that made Bucky’s hand tighten against your thigh, a subtle anchor to keep you from dissolving completely.

Steve’s smile broke open on his face, that cocky little tilt that always got him his way. He ducked down and pressed his mouth to your thigh, some kind of benediction, before giving Bucky a look, a question you weren’t included in: permission, or maybe the next step in instructions. Bucky’s hand still gripped your thigh, and the pressure from his fingertips went from comfort to proprietary.

“Take your time,” Bucky told him, slow as syrup. “She’s got plenty more in her if you work it up right.”

You whimpered, and Steve’s hand found your knee, thumb brushing circles that didn’t seem to know whether they were meant to calm or tease. He spread you even wider, fingers delving again, but now the touch was softer, coaxing in a new way. He watched your face the whole time, never letting you look away, and the sheer heat of his attention made it impossible to catch your breath, impossible to be anywhere but here, between them, for them.

You let your head loll back on Bucky’s chest, and he inhaled you like a secret. Steve’s mouth ghosted over the inside of your knee, the lightest of touches, as his hand slid slick with you, coaxing you open again. There was awe in his expression, like he couldn’t believe the things your body was capable of. That he couldn’t believe you let him see it.

Bucky’s voice was right in your ear, velvet and wicked. “You love this, don’t you? How he touches you, how he looks at you?” His teeth grazed just below your pulse, almost biting, his metal hand now flat and heavy on your soft stomach.

Steve’s mouth found your clit then, hot and wet, and you bit your lip, trying not to break apart too quickly, but Bucky’s other hand snapped up to your chin, forcing your jaw open. He slid two thick fingers into your mouth, muffling your gasps as Steve reached for that place inside you again, a blunt presence that made your hips twitch uncontrollably, mouth kissing and lapping at your clit.

“Be our good girl,” Bucky murmured, voice a velvet drag along your nerves. “Let me hear you, sweetheart.” He pressed your lips open wider, thumb tight on your cheek. Everything about him said claim, but you felt less like territory and more like treasure—something precious they’d both agreed to share.

You moaned and sucked on Bucky’s fingers, desperate for something to hold onto. Steve’s tongue drew slow, wide circles, alternating with little flicks that made you see stars, and every time his fingers curled inside you, you wanted to shake apart. Bucky’s hand pressed at the base of your throat, a leash without pressure, just a reminder of where you belonged.

Steve’s tongue moved with a rough, hungry precision that made your lashes flutter, the strangeness of his mouth—different than Bucky’s, somehow broader and needier—forcing you up against the edge of your own appetite. He groaned into you, animal, and the vibration made your toes curl as your hips bucked, seeking more, seeking everything.

The sound of you—wet and needy—filled the room, obscene, and Steve was impossibly focused. You could feel the shift as Steve’s mouth grew unabashed, each lap and suckle more confident. He lapped greedily, not just at your clit but at the desperate, shuddering noises you made, feeding on them, letting them escalate him past any feigned self-control.

Bucky murmured filth in your ear. “Such a pretty thing, all open for Steve. He’s a fast learner, isn’t he?” His fingers slipped from your mouth, gliding down to squeeze your breast with proprietary delight. “Sensitive here, too, Steve. She likes it just a little mean when you bite.”

Steve’s lips left your cunt, replaced by the blunt, perfect drag of his teeth—just a graze, but amplified by the velvet heat radiating between your thighs. The wild sound you made told him everything he needed. He grinned, eyes bright, and gave you another drag with his tongue and the barest scrape of teeth. Your legs shook, clamped for a second around his broad shoulders as he tormented you, licking through the slick he’d made.

“She’s right there,” Bucky insists, “but don’t let up.”

You squeezed your eyes shut, chest heaving, as Bucky’s words poured through you, making it impossible not to want to give him everything, even the parts you thought you’d never let anyone else but him see. He tugged his hand from your mouth, and you gasped, “I’m close, I can’t—”

“Yes, you can,” Bucky coaxed, hand splayed again over your breast, pinching and then soothing. “Let him taste it. Let him taste everything.” He nuzzled the space behind your ear, catching the lobe between his teeth, a punctuation to his demand.

Steve’s hand, meanwhile, never stopped mapping you. His thick fingers curling again against that spot inside, a squirming, irresistible pressure, while his mouth closed around your clit and sucked, hard, and the world melted into a soundless scream in your throat. You bucked up, hands grasping at Bucky’s biceps, and came again, hard enough you thought you might black out.

This time Steve didn’t bother with awe, only a growl of triumph and gratitude as he licked you through every convulsion, not stopping until your thighs trembled against his head and Bucky had to murmur, “Enough, big guy, you’ll melt her.”

You didn’t remember the transition—somewhere in the haze of pleasure, Steve had shifted you onto his lap, his cock thick and leaking, pressed impossibly hard against your hip. Bucky sat facing you both on the foot of the bed, blue eyes greedy and soft at the same time, mouth slack with want. Steve held you to his chest, the thrum of his pulse wild and loud beneath your palm.

“Fuck, honey, you alright?” Bucky asked, thumb brushing along your jaw. You only nodded, eyes glassy, limbs a little insubstantial.

“She gets real soft after she comes,” Bucky explained. His metal hand stroked your cheek, thumb scraping your parted lip. “Steve, you ever eat a girl out til she can’t think straight, and then fuck her so good she gets slick again just from the memory?”

Steve’s gaze flicked down to your face, as if he needed to check in, as if the rules of this odd, shared gravity could change at your whim. But you only leaned harder into his chest, the memory of Bucky’s words blooming low in your gut. “Not like this,” Steve said quietly, the confession tumbling out like an apology. “Never had someone so slick and eager and pliant. She’s so fucking sweet.”

“She likes making a mess, especially when she knows someone’s gonna clean it up nice for her.”

It was obscene and beautiful in the same breath, the way your body pulsed and ached for these two men. You knew Bucky intimately, but Steve was still a new entity, it should be unbelievable what you were letting him do to you, and yet you were willing because Bucky said you could be.

“You wear her out, and she lets you do anything you want.” Steve pressed his lips to your temple, the gesture as tender as a prayer, but you could feel the tension in his body—like he was holding himself back as much as he was holding you up.

“Do you want him to fuck you?” It was as blunt as a knife’s edge; Bucky never did like to leave things to implication.

You meant to say yes, steeled and confident, but the only sound you could make was a whimper. Bucky grinned. “Use your words, honey. Steve’s been waiting a long time.”

Steve’s hands tightened on your hips. “Since your wedding,” he confessed, and you gasped.

Bucky nodded, proud, calm, even though this revelation was ricocheting through your mind. Steve had been overseas for years until just recently, and of course he hadn’t missed his best friend’s wedding—had been the best man—but it had also been the first time you’d met him.

You remembered the speech, the toast. Steve smiling at you across a room of strangers, nothing but friendship and pride in his voice, but now you wondered how long he’d been drinking you in, how long he’d been simmering in this kind of want.

You also remembered—vivid as if it bloomed on the backs of your eyelids—the way Steve’s eyes had lingered at the reception, how his hand seemed to swallow yours when he shook it, holding on a beat too long. You’d caught him watching you and Bucky slow dancing, his smile softer than it ought to have been, heavy with yearning. At the time you’d wondered if maybe he was just that kind of romantic, or maybe a little lonely after so much time away.

But now that memory rewrote itself, charged and electric, searing through you as Steve took your chin in his hand and kissed you—soft at first, learning the taste of you. His mouth tasted like you, and you shivered, deep in your bones, at being desired by these two men.

Bucky reached for you, steady hands bracketing your thighs, and you sank back against Steve’s chest. Your husband ducked lower, pressing a line of kisses from your hip bone to the soft, over-sensitive spot at the seam of your thigh.

You shivered as Bucky trailed his tongue through the wetness Steve had left behind, mouth hungry and reverent. He licked slowly, then nosed at your clit, already swollen and sore from Steve’s attention, and the jolt of sensation made you gasp into Steve’s mouth. He devoured your sounds greedily, tongue parting your lips as if he needed to taste how undone you were.

Bucky’s tongue was firmer than Steve’s, more insistent, and when he flattened it against you and sucked, you felt every vibration in your teeth. You whimpered into Steve’s kiss, and he swallowed the noise, hands squeezing your hips as you rolled against the heat of Bucky’s mouth, your body burning, melting, until there was nothing left but sensation.

You weren’t sure Bucky’s mouth could ever be called gentle, but right now it was a new kind of slow, each lap deliberate, stroking the sharp edge of oversensitivity and coaxing pleasure out of it until your eyes watered. Steve’s hand wound into your hair, guiding your head back against his shoulder, and you let him, lost in the heat radiating from both their bodies.

“She’s shaking,” Steve whispered, awe thick in his voice.

“She knows what she likes,” Bucky replied, voice muffled between your legs. His metal hand dug into your thigh, cool and greedy, while the other traced lazy patterns over your ribs, drawing your skin tight with anticipation for what would come next.

Bucky pulled his mouth away with a slick, obscene sound, smirking up at you. “You ready for cock?” he asked, and this wasn’t an idle question. Bucky wanted you to say it, wanted you to beg for it. Steve’s cock pressed up under you, thick and hot, and you could feel how desperate he was for it. You were too.

“Yes,” you said, or maybe just moaned it, letting your knees fall as wide as Steve and Bucky wanted them. “Yes, please.”

“Fuck, she’s polite,” Steve mumbled, hands already guiding you up, shifting you onto your knees, palms bracing the mattress as Bucky moved to the side of you, one hand fisting his own stiff cock, the other smoothing down your back and skimming over your ass. You could feel Steve’s cock, hot and insistent, nudging between your thighs.

“She likes a full feeling,” Bucky told Steve, the statement an offer and a warning both, and you blinked up at him, swallowing. “When you fuck her, you gotta go deep.”

Steve’s hands caught your hips, palms broad enough to span almost from waist to thigh. There was a reverence in his movements, but also the first hints of impatience—the way his fingers flexed, the way his cock jumped when it brushed against you, smearing precum along the seam of your body. He lined himself up and held, not yet pushing in, and the wait felt like another kind of pleasure, anticipation sharp as a blade.

Your chest seized—with anticipation or hesitation, you weren’t sure—as you realized Bucky was going to let Steve fuck you bare.

“He’s a big one, sweetheart,” Bucky warned, and you could hear the grin on his face. He planted a hand at the small of your back, keeping your spine bowed. “Nice and slow. She likes to feel every inch.”

You pressed your face into the pillow, bracing for a stretch that came slow and monumental—Steve’s cock parting you, nudging inside until you couldn’t breathe for the fullness, the hot-dull burn that quickly blurred into something sweeter.

“There you go, sweetheart,” Bucky murmured. “Let him all the way in.”

You were so wet he didn’t even need to force it; the broad head split you open easily. You heard Bucky’s purr, almost proud, as if he had made you this way, greedy for the kind of ache only they could give. Bucky loved to torment you with this kind of fuck when he slid inside you, so his direction for Steve to as well was to be expected.

Steve held, fully sheathing himself, body trembling with restraint. “You okay?” The sound of your name was different in his voice, kinder, stripped of any artifice.

You nodded, eagerly pressing your hips back, and the slide hit something deep, a place that made your toes flex and your mouth fall open. Steve’s hands stroked your hips, grounding you, his breath rough as he held as still as he could manage. Bucky’s voice was syrup-sweet at your ear, “Go on, Steve. She wants it.”

The first thrust was a slow, rolling motion that stole your breath. Steve drew out nearly all the way, then slid back in, the burn giving way to a greedy, clutching pleasure. You held perfectly still, squeezing your eyes shut, learning the new shape of yourself with Steve inside you. You keened, knuckles whitening in the bedsheets. Bucky stayed close, palm at the nape of your neck, his own cock hard and leaking, pressed to your shoulder as he watched Steve fuck you.

“She takes cock so well, doesn’t she?” Bucky crooned, his tone barely above a purr. “Bet you never seen anyone so hungry before.” His metal hand traced your spine, ratcheting the tension higher as he pet you and praised you, the words a molten thread tangled through every harder, deeper thrust. Steve’s hips pistoned slow, but with such force you swore you could feel it in your throat, each time catching a spot Bucky had mapped just for him.

Steve’s rhythm was a miracle of endurance, slow and deep, every thrust measured, watched, almost academic in its hunger. His hands never stopped moving, stroking your waist, your belly, your ribs, learning every inch of you as if he needed to memorize the route. His hips stuttered occasionally, evidence of his own struggle not to lose himself too quickly to the wet heat you offered him.

And he whispered your name between every other breath, like a vow, like he was kneeling in church.

Bucky’s hands grew rougher on you, easing your thighs farther apart, planting dirty encouragements in your head that made you slicker, filthier than before. “You should see her face, Steve. She’s so beautiful right now.”

Bucky coaxed your head up and to the side so Steve could see the exact, filthy pleasure contorting your features. And you felt it, the slide of your own tears, half-joy and half-overwhelm, as Steve picked up the pace, his thrusts deeper, harder.

Bucky wiped a tear from your jaw with his thumb, then sucked it into his mouth. “So beautiful when you’re ruined like this.”

Steve’s fingers dug into your flesh, and you could feel how close he was to letting go of decorum, of caution, of the last rags of self-control. You wanted it. You moaned for it. Your head swam with the ache of being so fucking full, of being seen and used and loved all at once.

“Not gonna last,” Steve groaned, the confession breaking at the seam. “Feels—fuck, Bucky, how do you keep your head—”

“I don’t, punk. That’s why I always make her come first.” Bucky’s laugh was sharp and breathless, the sound of a man profoundly in love with his own wife. He trailed a hand down your front, fingers gliding over the slick mess Steve had made of you. “And always make it up to her after, too. She loves that part too.”

Bucky’s hand found your clit, thumb and forefinger pinching, rolling it just this side of cruel, and you yelped, the sudden spike of pain-pleasure a match to the fullness Steve was feeding you, and your whole body shuddered. Bucky laughed—warm and wicked—and reached down, fingers sliding through the mess of slick and sweat and precum at the seam where Steve’s body split yours, then smeared it over his own cock.

He pumped himself once, twice, eyes locked on where Steve’s body met yours, and you watched, unabashedly.

Bucky leaned forward, mouth hot at your jaw. “You want me to fuck your mouth while Steve fucks you?”

The question, blunt and bright, sliced through your haze. You nodded, desperate, and Bucky grinned, wolfish. He pressed his thumb to your lips, smearing the taste of yourself across them, and then shifted around in front of you, kneeling up so his cock bobbed level with your mouth. It was already slick, the head flushed dark, and you opened for him automatically, tongue out, dutiful and greedy all at once.

“That’s my girl,” Bucky breathed, sliding in slow, letting you feel the heft of him as Steve’s cock ground into your cunt from behind. You could barely spare the coordination to suck and moan at the same time, the boundary between pleasure and humiliation dissolved.

Your throat worked, helpless, as Bucky fucked your mouth in shallow, reverent thrusts, and your jaw burned with the effort of taking him as deep as he wanted. He pulled back every time you gagged, not to spare you, but to watch the string of spit connect your lips to the tip of his cock. You blinked up at your husband, tears streaming freely now, and saw how it undid him—made him thrust a little deeper, fuck your mouth a little harder, hands cradling your jaw, both anchoring and guiding you.

“Pretty thing,” he muttered, almost gentle, “look at you. That’s it. Just like that. God, Steve, you’re going to love fucking her throat.”

“Buck, you can’t just—” Steve had to groan before he could finish his thought. “You can’t just say shit like that and expect me to last.”

You moaned, mouth full of Bucky and body full of Steve, your whole self strung taut between their appetites. The rhythm between Steve’s hips behind you and Bucky’s in front of you a terrifying, perfect sync.

Bucky smirked, thumb wiping spit from your chin, then dragged it down to your throat, pressing lightly so you felt the stretch of yourself inside. “Bet you want him in your mouth right after he fills you up, don’t you?” Bucky’s voice was honey-thick, tugging need like a thread from your cunt all the way up to your brain.

You nodded, desperate, and that was all it took—Steve’s grip on your hips locked down, his pulse a wild thrum against your skin, and he buried himself in you with one last, shuddering thrust. You could feel it, the way he pulsed and spilled hot inside, and the sound he made—it was raw, almost animal. He held inside, grinding so deep you felt it all the way up your spine, filling you so perfectly a whimper broke loose from your lips even with Bucky’s cock still in your mouth.

Bucky eased out of your mouth, palm still warm against your jaw, thumb stroking where his cock had just been. He grinned at you, all sweet-and-mean, then leaned in to press a kiss over your spit-slick lips. “That’s it,” he whispered, reverent, like he was kissing holy ground. “That’s my good girl.” The words landed low in your belly, twisting up with the mess Steve had left in you.

But his cock was still inside you, too, and he collapsed forward, chest to your back, his arms caging you in. You expected him to pull out, to give you a moment to recover, but instead he rocked his hips, slow and greedy, as if he couldn’t bear to lose the feeling of you squeezing around him.

And then, without warning, his hand slid under your belly, fingers finding your clit, already swollen and overstimulated. He drew tight, precise circles with the pads of first two fingers, not letting up, even when you whined and squirmed beneath him. Bucky’s hands held you steady, anchoring you so Steve could play your body like an instrument.

The friction was so good, so dirty, that your cunt clamped around him involuntarily, milked every last drop as Steve’s fingers worked you up again, your body already betraying just how ready it was to be used a second, third, hundredth time.

“Fuck, she’s insatiable, isn’t she?” Steve said, voice almost fond, the sound of it a pressure at the base of your skull.

“She’s always been that way,” Bucky answered, a frayed thread of pride winding through his voice. “After the serum, I never met a partner who could keep up with me until her. Like you were made for a super soldier, sweetheart.”

You laughed, or tried to, but it came out a shaky, desperate gasp as Steve’s fingers wrung another whimper from you. Your knuckles dug into the sheets, the only tether as your overstimulated clit set off sparks behind your eyes. “Bucky,” you croaked, barely audible, “I can’t—”

“You can, honey. You’ll show Steve just how much you can take.” His gaze was intent, and for a moment you remembered every night the two of you had built trust on, every whispered dare and secret need he’d coaxed from you, every time he’d made you shatter and put you back together.

You barely had time to brace—Steve’s closed closed hard and firm around your clit, pinching, sending a lightning bolt through you, and as your body seized, his mouth found the meat of your shoulder and bit down. Not a warning, not a tease—a real goddamn bite. It ricocheted up your spine and detonated any coherence you had left. Your vision went blinding white, then red, and you screamed, nails gouging at the mattress, his hardening cock still buried so deep inside you it felt like you were cleaved in half.

The orgasm hit different—shocking, jagged, beyond pleasure and into a place that was just sensation, raw and total. You were crying, you realized, drool and tears tracking down your chin, but you couldn’t stop, couldn’t get enough, not even when the world blurred and your whole midsection pulsed around Steve’s cock, milking him for everything he had.

Bucky held your gaze the whole time, watching you unravel, watching every second of you coming apart for his best friend.

“Never gets old,” Bucky said, voice ragged with want, “seeing you come apart.” He stroked your hair, gentling you even as Steve’s cock kept you pinned and shuddering.

Steve pulled out, finally, leaving a slick trail down your thigh, and you expected collapse—rest, maybe, or at least a breath of air.

You got part of what you wanted as you were manhandled with a gentle efficiency—Steve lowering you to the mattress and Bucky rolling you over onto your back. The two men bracketed themselves around you. Bucky’s thumb smoothed tears from your cheeks, his lips hovering at your brow. Steve’s palm swept your hair from your face, tucking the wild strands behind your ears, and he smiled at you, dazed and open and deeply, deeply gone himself.

“You okay?” he asked, voice so hoarse you wanted to laugh, if only you didn’t feel so utterly wrung dry.

Bucky’s hands mapped your body, stroking down your arms, your waist, as if to collect every piece of you that had scattered. “She’s perfect. She’s got a thing for being ruined,” Bucky said, rubbing his thumb hard across your jaw, “but it’s more than just the mess. It’s being wanted, isn’t it, sweetheart?”

You trembled, the answer right there but too big for your mouth. All you could manage was a soft, but firm, “It’s both.”

It was. The ache between your legs, the aftershocks twitching in your thighs, crescendoed in the knowledge that you belonged—here, between them—because you were wanted. Not just by Bucky, whose love for you was a still wildfire after the first few years of the life you were building together, but by Steve, the last person you ever expected to want anything at all.

They held you in the perfect kind of silence for a while. Bucky stroked your sternum with two fingers, tracing the rapid pounding of your heart, while Steve drew lazy patterns on your ribs, the gentle touch making your bones melt.

Steve was the one who broke the silence, voice still thick and slow. “I’m sure Bucky’s told you how everything feels amplified for us, after the serum?”

You nodded, not trusting your voice, but Steve caught your chin and made certain you were listening, blue eyes intent on the fall and rise of your chest. He thumbed the corner of your mouth, gentle in a way that didn’t match the bite mark blooming on your shoulder. “It’s true. Everything’s hotter, sharper. Smells, tastes, touch.” His hand wandered down your neck, tracing the chain of your pulse. “It’s like all the dials turned up past what they’re supposed to do.”

Bucky grinned, mouth curving against your temple, proud and a little feral. “It’s why we’re so good at this,” he said, and the “we” wasn’t just the two of them, but you too, looped into their satisfaction by being the one they found satiation with.

You remembered, dimly, what Bucky had once told you—something about how pain and pleasure were just colors in a spectrum for men like them, how sometimes the best you could do was grab hold of the brightest one and hang on until it faded.

You barely noticed when Bucky’s hand slid lower, two fingers sliding along the seam of you, dipping just inside. You’d thought you were emptied out, rung dry, but the dull ache at your entrance proved otherwise—the evidence of Steve inside you, the slow ooze of it, making your lashes flutter in a way that felt almost innocent.

“You want to keep going, honey?” He asked because this—the consent, the agency—was one of the roots of his pleasure. You nodded again, too spent for speech. “Yeah, you do,” he murmured, pressing his own cock flush against your thigh, hot iron against soft flesh. “And you want Steve to watch, don’t you?”

The way Bucky framed it, you didn’t just want to perform, to be seen—you wanted to be worshipped, to be watched while your body proved itself again and again. There was no performance anxiety; there was only the heat of two impossible men zeroed in on every twitch of your muscles. You felt your own slick between your thighs, the slow, filthy trickle of Steve’s cum pooling out of you, the ache where you’d been so thoroughly stretched.

“Sweetheart,” Bucky chuckled. “Words.”

You tried to say, “Yes, please,” but it came out as a sigh, and Bucky’s grin only widened.

Steve cradled your head like a priceless artifact, thumb pressing a sleepy circle against your jaw while his gaze moved between your eyes and the place where Bucky’s fingers cupped your cunt. You felt your hips roll up, wanton, trying to keep contact with Bucky’s hand even as he toyed with your entrance but never quite let you have the friction you needed.

“You want to show Steve how we fuck when it’s just you and me in the dark, how well you take me.” A statement, not a question.

“Mmmhmm,” you groaned, and Bucky pressed a kiss to your shoulder, then knelt up, hands guiding your unresisting legs apart. He knelt back on his haunches and pulled your hips close. You heard Steve’s breath stutter at the sight, and it filled you with a greedy, wild pride. Bucky teased the seam of you with the head of his cock, up and down, up and down, making you whine.

At the last moment, Bucky relented and pushed inside, filling you with a swift, brutal thrust that bottomed out in one motion. There was no slow stretch, no easing in—just the violent, relentless press of his cock, and you arched off the mattress with a helpless, desperate moan. Your body was made to take him, every inch of you was slick and trembling, so the pain blurred seamlessly into pleasure and back again until you weren’t sure which you preferred.

He moved slow at first, kneeling above you like a god, letting you feel the thickness of him as he rocked in and out, but it wasn’t long before he found the rhythm he liked—a rough, demanding piston that left you scrambling for breath, for touch, for anything to keep you from coming apart entirely. You felt every ridge and vein, every rutting pound as he chased his own need, each thrust fusing the two of you back together.

All you could do—wanted to do—was take it. The raw, pounding pleasure, the relentless stretch, the feeling of Bucky’s cock rutting into you deeply. You heard yourself sob—and it was not a neat or pretty thing, but a wrecked, raw sound that only made Bucky groan above you. He caught your thighs in his hands, spreading you wider, and you felt the obscene heat of the stretch, the way your cunt seized around him with each battering drive. The slick noise of it—your body, his cock, the fucking mess Steve had left in you—filled the room, a rhythm and a punctuation to Bucky’s breathing as he drove deeper, harder, faster.

Steve’s hand found yours in the sheets. He laced his thick fingers between yours and squeezed, grounding you, letting you feel the reverent awe rolling off him in slow, steady waves. But there was an unmet hunger still lingering there under the surface. You could feel it in the tense of his body next to yours, and when you turned your face, eyes seeking his, he met your gaze without hesitation.

Steve bent to kiss you, and there was no veiling tenderness or shy request for permission. His tongue pushed into your mouth, greedy and wild, tasting the ghost of Bucky on your lips, tasting the salt of your tears. You kissed back with everything you had, drawing another moan from your throat as Bucky pistoned into you, the force rocking your whole body up into Steve’s chest.

Bucky’s thrusts didn’t slacken—they were still relentless, still merciless—but as you and Steve kissed, the tempo oscillated into something deeper, a series of slower,seismic detonations. Each time Bucky bottomed out inside you, he held there, grinding, spine arched, as if the sight of you kissing Steve was as much a pleasure to him as the feel of your cunt squeezing him.

Steve groaned into your mouth, his hand coming up to cradle your jaw, and Bucky’s grip on your thighs tightened, like he needed to stake a claim even as he offered you up. With every new roll of Bucky’s hips, a different noise tore its way out of your throat—some for the pain, some for the pleasure, some for the blissful humiliation of being made a spectacle for their eyes.

“Fuck her mouth, Steve,” Bucky said, a low, hungry rumble.

Steve didn’t hesitate, and it was only for a fraction of a second before he was shifting up, the broad line of his thigh braced alongside your head. His cock was still half-hard, glazed with your slick and his own release. The sight of it, flushed angry-red and wet, made your cunt clench around Bucky. Steve cupped your chin, thumb curling along the hinge of your jaw, and you sucked him into your mouth, the taste salty and obscene.

You groaned around him, lips stretching, tongue flattening under the thick, salty weight. He barely thrust, just eased forward, but the size of him still made your throat protest. Bucky continued his slow, tortruous pace below, watching intently as Steve’s cock parted your lips, and the sight of it—his best friend fucking your mouth while he still pounded into your cunt—nearly undid him, you could feel it in the grip of his hands on your hips.

“Deeper,” Bucky ordered, and Steve obeyed. He slid in, careful but insistent, filling your mouth until you gagged, until your eyes watered anew. Steve slid in, your throat stretched, and the assault of it made you gasp around him, desperate for air, for mercy, for more. Steve petted your jaw, his other hand cupping the back of your head, and for all the brutality of the act there was infinite patience in how he held you there, letting you adjust, letting you learn the unique shape of his need. Somewhere above, Bucky laughed—a single breath of filthy awe, a marvel at the spectacle of you taking both their cocks at once like this.

The taste of Steve’s cum was thick in your mouth, the smell of sex and sweat and ozone burning in your nostrils. You wanted them both to know how much you liked this, how much you needed every inch of what they gave. So you hollowed your cheeks and sucked, rolling your tongue with just enough pressure to see the effect in Steve’s eyes—head thrown back, spine bowed glorious, hand clenching your jaw with a desperation that made you burn with pride.

Bucky’s cock pounded up into you from below, and Steve’s pushed into your mouth from above, and you—pinned, stretched, used—were nothing but bliss. The sensation was a hinge, your body swinging wild between the two of them. You felt the echo of your own heartbeat in your cunt, in your mouth, in every thrum of the mattress and grind of their hips.

Steve’s thrusts grew bolder, and at each push he eased a little deeper, patience thinning as your mouth softened to his shape. His voice, when it came, was raw and rough, “Fuck, fuck, you feel so good—” your name murmured as its own curse when it fell from his lips in this moment.

He spilled his seed down your throat, but not all of it. He pulled out and shot the rest over your breasts, warm rope after rope of it across your heaving chest as Bucky pistoned in even harder, the thudding slap of his hips the only sound in the world.

Bucky slammed harder, harder, until you felt the actual bruise of him inside you, some deep purple echo of the violence. He reached for your clit, pinched, and your body shuddered into another orgasm, spasms wracking you so hard you thought you’d bite your tongue. You moaned so sweet and so ruined as he flew over the edge.

Bucky’s cock throbbed inside you, a shuddering full-body tremor, and then he was coming, hips jammed flush as he spilled molten and messy into the deepest part of you. His moan was raw, unguarded, and he didn’t let up, kept grinding through every spurt, making sure you took every last drop. The pressure of it set off a chain reaction—your body seized, aftershocks tearing up your thighs and into your belly, squeezing around him in greedy, involuntary pulses.

Bucky’s head dropped back, his jaw flexing as he held your hips pinned. You watched him, glassy-eyed and adoring, as every muscle in his chest locked. “Christ,” he panted, eyes flickering to Steve, “This is unreal.” He pulled halfway out—slow, slow—then pushed in again, a wet, obscene sound marking every inch. “She’s still squeezing me, even after you ruined her.” Bucky’s grin was all teeth, all pride and filth. “Can feel your mess inside her, Steve. So fucking wet she’s dripping down my balls.”

You moaned in the hinge between them, wrung out and wild, as Bucky fucked you through the last quakes and Steve’s hand fanned gently against your throat, thumb pressing the pulse there like he wanted to count your heartbeats—maybe hold them for ransom.

Bucky let out a ragged exhalation and pulled out, the head of his cock dragging on hypersensitive nerves, leaving you gaping and gasping and dripping. Bucky didn’t bother to hide his satisfaction. Instead, he watched the spill with a sick, loving sort of pride, then reached down, scooped his own cum with his fingers and smeared it over your breasts, painting you in it, mixing it with his best friend’s seed until your whole chest was slick with it. He held you there for a moment, painted and panting and caught in the liminal pleasure, before tilting your face up and licking a stripe from your collarbone to your jaw, tongue lazy and flat. Bucky’s mouth found yours, and you tasted the salt of Steve and yourself on his lips. You kissed him like you were dying, and Bucky kissed you back harder, swallowing you whole.

Steve’s voice burrowed into your ear with shocking gravity, arms closing around your limp torso as if to protect you from the world outside this narrow, unrepeatable moment. “You are so fucking beautiful ruined like this,” he said, voice half-reverent.

Bucky’s thumb pressed under your chin, tilting your face: “You want more, don’t you?” You did. That was the devastating truth of it. Even as your body ached and stung from orgasm, you wanted all the ways they touched you, every version of this night.

“Are you sure, Buck?” Steve asked, incredulous.

Bucky’s laugh was a bright, sharp crack in the haze, so full of delight it rang in your bones. “Oh, sweetheart. Steve has no idea what you’re capable of after a few more rounds.”

He bent over you, hands braced by your head, and pressed a kiss to the center of your brow—a benediction at odds with the lazy trail of his hand down your body, cupping your breast, then skimming the mess he and Steve had left there. He rubbed their slick together with an idle curiosity, like a child finger-painting, until Steve’s hand joined his, pinching a nipple between two careful fingers and rolling it until you arched up, spent muscles clenching with electric aftershock.

“We could let her rest,” Bucky said, tongue laving your earlobe as he spoke, “but why waste a perfectly good afterglow when you haven’t even fucked my wife in the shower yet?”

WE ALL KNOW I'M RARELY CAPABLE OF CUTTING SOMETHING DOWN

SO

I HOPE YOU'RE ALL HAPPY/RUINED RIGHT ALONGSIDE ME.

↠ Main Masterlist | Aspen's Ask Box | Field Guide to the Forest

Fíli was ahead of you on the path, close enough that his pack was within arm's reach when the path narrowed and you needed something to orient by. Balin was behind you, his breathing steady and deliberate, a presence you'd learned to calibrate your pace by in the dark. Between the two of them you'd made it this far without stepping sideways off the edge of the path, which felt like the relevant metric tonight.

"Nearly at the next bend," Fíli said, over his shoulder, not loud—sound behaved strangely on the cliff face, carrying sideways in ways that had surprised you early on, and they'd all learned to keep their voices down on the path.

"How long has this pass been here?" you said, to Balin, because talking helped with the cold.

"Longer than anyone remembers," Balin said, behind you. "These passes are old. Older than the mountains feel, and the mountains feel very old."

"That's not—actually that's a completely reasonable answer," you said, because you'd stopped expecting things in this world to have the kind of origin stories you were accustomed to, and it had made various conversations considerably easier.

Lightning split the sky ahead—a full, brilliant crack of it, not the kind you'd seen from windows at home but the kind that occupied the whole visible sky, illuminating the cliff face and the drop below and the extraordinary, terrifying expanse of the mountain range in one white frame of visibility. The thunder followed, and it was—it was not ordinary thunder.

You'd heard thunder before. Everyone had heard thunder. Thunder was a sound, atmospheric, background, the sort of thing you listened to from under a duvet with a cup of tea and found atmospheric.

This was a sound that came up through the rock beneath your feet before it arrived through the air, a sound with physical weight, and the cliff face moved under it, a shudder you felt through your boots and up your legs and into the base of your spine, and Balin's hand was at your arm before you'd quite processed what you were reacting to.

"Hold on," he said. "Hold to the rock. Do not look down." You pressed your back against the cliff face and most definitely—did not—look down.

Another lightning crack, closer, and in the second of white light it gave you, you saw something you didn't understand immediately—two cliff faces across the gorge, impossibly large, moving. Not sliding, not falling—moving. Deliberately. With the gathered, colossal intention of something that had been standing still for a very long time and had decided to stop.

One of them lifted an arm.

You stared.

"What are they?" Bilbo's voice came from further back, high and tight with controlled alarm.

"Giants," Dwalin said, from somewhere behind Balin. "Stone giants," his voice had a quality you hadn't heard from Dwalin before—not fear, exactly, something more like the specific alertness of a warrior encountering something that could not be fought in any way he knew how and was recalculating accordingly.

The cliff face shuddered again as the nearest one swung something—its arm, the arm of a stone giant, thousands of feet of moving rock—through the air. The crack of impact on the far cliff carried sound that took your teeth with it. Rain and loose stone cascaded down the path in rivulets that splashed across your boots, and the company pressed itself against the rock face with the collective instinct of people who understood, very clearly, the physical mathematics of the situation.

"We need to move!" Thorin's voice, from the front of the line, cutting through the wind. "Keep to the rock face—do not stop—"

The ground lurched.

Not the path. Not the rock behind you — the section of cliff immediately beneath your feet shifted, tilted, and in the lightning flash that followed you understood, with a cold clarity that was worse than the rain, that you were not standing on the path anymore. You were standing on a knee. The stone under you was not cliff face but the outstretched leg of one of the giants, and it was moving, slowly, with the grinding indifference of something that did not know you existed and would not have cared if it did.

"Move!" Thorin again—louder now, the command stripped to its essentials.

You moved with Fíli ahead and Balin at your back and the wind screaming sideways and the giant's leg tilting beneath you and the path—the actual path, carved stone, real and fixed and not moving—was three feet to your left and then you were on it, and Fíli's hand was on your arm, and Balin was right behind you, and the section of stone you'd been standing on ground away into the dark below as the giant completed its step.

You stood on the path, breathed and looked at the space where you'd just been standing.

"Everyone forward!" Thorin's voice. "There—there, a cave! Get inside!"

The cave was small, cut back into the cliff face, barely large enough for fifteen people to be inside and call it inside rather than simply not quite outside. The ceiling was low—you stood with your head tilted forward slightly—the floor was uneven, and it smelled of old rock and something underneath old rock that was indefinable but not unpleasant, like the smell of rain but from below rather than above.

Everyone was soaked. Everyone was cold. Everyone was doing the particular immediate accounting that followed close calls—checking themselves, checking the person next to them, the wordless inventory of limbs and status that the company was extremely efficient at.

Thorin stood at the cave mouth and looked out at the giants for a moment—they were moving away now, trading blows with the careless force of something that didn't have a small range—and then turned and looked across the company.

"We rest here," he said. "First light, we move on." He looked at the cave—the low ceiling, the limited floor space, the fifteen people crammed into it with their wet packs and their weapons and their general accumulated dampness. "Sleep if you can."

"What about Gandalf?" you said, from where you'd pressed yourself against the far wall, "we're supposed to be meeting Gandalf. You said—you said before we left Rivendell that he'd meet us in the mountains."

Thorin looked at you. The look had the quality of a man who had the same thought several hours ago and had been keeping it managed. "Plans change," he said.

"Plans change?" you said. "Right. That's—okay. He's fine though? Presumably?"

"He's Gandalf," Balin said, settling himself beside you against the wall with the resignation of a dwarf who had been wet and cold in worse circumstances and was going to be a practical about this one. "If anything were capable of making an end of him, I think it would have done so by now."

"That's not particularly comforting."

"No but it is accurate," Balin said, which was his version of the same thing.

You leaned back against the cave wall and looked at the ceiling and listened to the company arrange itself in the small space with the practiced efficiency of people who had been sleeping on the ground for ages and had made their peace with it. The thunder battle outside continued, muffled by the rock, distant now, the sound of it rolling through the mountain like something being settled rather than something beginning.

Bifur was sitting across from you, back against the wall, with a small object in his hands.

You'd been watching him with it without meaning to—he turned it between his thick fingers with a delicacy that was inconsistent with his general impression, which was of a person built primarily for durability. The object was small and wooden, about the size of his fist, and as he turned it you began to make out the shape—a bird, carved with a precision that suggested serious skill, its wings folded, its head tilted at an angle that was somehow entirely convincing.

He caught you looking.

You looked away. He made a short sound—not annoyed, something more like permission—and held the bird out to you.

You took it carefully. The carving was extraordinary —not just the overall shape, but the small details, the individual suggestion of feathers along the wing, the particular curvature of the beak, the way the feet were positioned, gripping an invisible branch. There was a small wheel at the base of the body, set into the wood, and when you turned it with your thumb the wings opened and closed in a slow, smooth arc, the mechanism hidden inside the body driving them through a motion that was—it was flight, that's what it was, the particular slow opening of a bird preparing to leave the ground.

You looked up at Bifur, who was watching you with the careful attention of someone who has shown someone something they made and is waiting to see if they understand it.

You didn't have the Khuzdul for anything adequate. What you had was a handful of words and the expression on your face, the expression on your face apparently communicated the relevant thing, because Bifur's own expression shifted into something warmer.

"Atrâbul," you tried—beautiful, one of the words Ori had written in your small running list—Bifur's eyebrows went up in the faint surprise of someone who hadn't expected the compliment, and then he laughed, quietly, a real laugh, and took the bird back from you.

"Bifur was aToymaker," Balin murmured, from your other side, very low. "Before Erebor. One of the finest."

You looked at Bifur turning the bird in his hands, making the wings open and close in the dim light of the cave. At the small, careful mechanism inside the body that no one had asked him to make and that served no purpose here, on a mountain pass in the rain, other than the fact that he had made it because he was someone who made things and always had been, and losing a mountain didn't change talent.

You looked at the axe embedded in his temple—the axe that had lodged there in some battle, that no healer had been able to remove, it had cost him his knowledge of English, or Common speech as they called it here, as well as a quantity of other things and had not, evidently, cost him this—then looked away, because he hadn't offered you that information and you had nothing adequate to do with it anyway.

The thunder outside shifted to something quieter. The rain continued. Somewhere in the company, Bombur was already asleep, the sound of it regular and architectural.

You closed your eyes.

Thorin sat by the cave entrance, watch required someone awake and positioned at the opening, which was wide enough to observe the path while still having the rock at your back, Thorin had claimed the first watch without discussion and hadn't been replaced, which was not unusual. He slept less than the rest of the company on difficult nights, and was rarely pressed on it.

He was not looking at the path, it had happened gradually—the way attention drifts gradually, the way eyes find something and stay with it without announcing a decision. He'd been watching the entrance, watching the storm's retreat, watching the gradual change in the darkness outside from the deep black of active storm to the quieter dark of late night, and then at some point he had turned his head and his eyes had found you against the far wall and had stayed.

You were asleep in the particular way you slept when the day had taken a lot—entirely, without the restless edge that showed up on easier nights, your head tipped back slightly against the stone, one hand loose in your lap with a blanket half-fallen from your shoulder. Your hair had dried in the way wet hair dried without attention, which was to say every direction simultaneously, and you'd tried to contain some of it behind one ear at some point and it had declined to stay.

Thorin watched you sleep with the completely unguarded expression of someone who believed himself unobserved. He was thinking—which was not unusual. He was nearly always thinking. But the quality of the thinking was unusual, the specific direction of it, the particular territory it kept finding itself in when his attention was this unmanaged and this focussed in one direction.

He was thinking about the great hall in Erebor. About the light that came through the upper arches in the morning and fell in long diagonals across the floor, and how a person standing in that light looked different from a person standing anywhere else, and how it would—how it might fall on—

He was thinking about the market level, about the jewellers' quarter, where he'd spent considerable time in his youth for reasons his grandfather had attributed to interest in craft and which had had rather more to do with the particular pleasure of watching stone become something else—a raw gem lifted from the ground, rough, unapologetic, and worked by careful hands into something that could be set, could be worn, could be given.

He was thinking, specifically, about the setters' craft, the discipline of it, the business of finding a stone and knowing what form it wanted and having the skill to give it that form. He was thinking about what he would—what someone might—what you might.

He caught himself.

The thought had gone somewhere very specific and he'd followed it several steps before he'd noticed where he was with a quality he was unprepared for—not shame, exactly, not discomfort, but the particular startled awareness of someone who has looked up from where they are and found the landscape entirely unfamiliar, which meant they'd been walking without paying attention, which meant they'd gotten somewhere they hadn't decided to go.

"You're going to bore a hole in her if you stare any harder."

Balin's voice, from somewhere at his right shoulder, quiet and entirely unsurprised, the tone of a man who had been watching someone stare for long enough to have an opinion about it.

Thorin turned his head. Balin was sitting up from where he'd been lying, rolled blanket across his lap, looking at Thorin with the expression that Balin reserved for situations he found both amusing and tactically important.

"I'm keeping watch," Thorin said, making considerable effort to clear his throat.

"Aye," Balin said. "You're keeping very thorough watch alright."

"The path is quiet,"

"It is," Balin agreed. He looked at you for a moment, then back at Thorin, with the considering attention of a dwarf who had spent many decades watching people and had developed opinions.

"You know," he said, conversationally, at a volume that was very carefully calibrated to carry to Thorin and no further, "When a dwarf lord finds himself staring at a lass with that expression for that length of time, there are certain—implications."

Thorin said nothing, but fixed him with a look that could melt stone faster then any forge.

"Braids, for instance," Balin said.

"Balin," Thorin said.

"I'm simply observing that if you were to stare at her any harder, someone in this company might conclude you were considering—"

"Balin."

"Thorin" Balin said, with the serene, untouchable composure of a dwarf who had known Thorin Oakenshield for the entirety of his life and understood precisely the limits of his ability to be intimidated by him, "You might want to manage your watch rotations more carefully."

Thorin turned back to the cave entrance. His jaw set in the particular way it set when he had decided a conversation was over and was implementing that decision unilaterally. "Go back to sleep," he said.

Balin settled himself back down with the unhurried ease of a man who had said everything he'd intended to say and was perfectly comfortable with how it had landed and closed his eyes.

Thorin stared at the cave entrance for the remainder of the watch with the focused, deliberate attention of a man who had made an absolute decision about where his eyes were going to be and was maintaining it through the specific effort of will that only becomes necessary when something is pulling your attention in another direction.

He did not look back at your sleeping form.

More than twice.

You came out of sleep with the same force of someone tipped and plunged into ice, instantly but with none of the alert of usual waking.

"Up."

Thorin's voice, close, urgent, with none of its usual management.

You opened your eyes. The cave was dark, the same dark it had been, no first light visible. Thorin was standing in the centre of the space, and the expression on his face was one you had not seen before—completely, instantly alert, stripped of everything except attention.

"Everyone up. Now. Move—"

The floor gave way.

Not collapsing. That was the wrong word—collapse implied falling apart, randomness, the ordinary failure of material under pressure. This was something else. This was mechanical. The floor of the cave swung open in one clean, hinged motion, like a trapdoor on a scale that should not have been possible, and the darkness below it was total and absolute and moving at speed toward you.

You grabbed for the wall. Your palms hit stone and found nothing—the stone was smooth, decades of contact having worn it polished, and your fingers dragged across it without purchase and left nothing, and the drop took you.

The drop was long. Long enough to understand that it was long, long enough to hear the company around you—voices, sounds of impact against stone, the scraping of hands and boots against the shaft walls, someone's pack hitting the curve of the passage and bouncing—and you tried to find the walls with your feet, tried to slow yourself, and the stone scraped your palms and there was nothing to hold and the dark rushed past and the air rushed up, and then—

The landing was not clean, you came down in a pile that was partly other people and partly a structure that had been designed, you understood dimly, to receive bodies—a crude cage of metal bars, rusted and bent but intact, the shape of it like a giant hand half-closed, the bars curved upward at irregular intervals with gaps wide enough to see through and not wide enough to do anything useful with. You were on your back on top of someone, there were hands helping you upright before you'd finished processing the impact, and above the open top of the cage the shaft you'd fallen through disappeared into dark, and below—

Below was light. Yellow, sourceless, everywhere, coming from the walls and the ceiling and the spilling, chaotic architecture of a city built in the deep places of the mountain, a city that was not built so much as accumulated—bridges and walkways and platforms and structures of lashed wood and twisted metal, layer upon layer disappearing down into more dark, the whole thing vast and impossible and swarming.

The sound was what reached you first—an uneven, surging sound, not music and not voices and not any single thing, but the combined noise of something enormous being alive in a space underground. It rose and fell like breath. It had a quality of anticipation.

They came from every surface simultaneously—dropping from above, swarming up from below, pouring along the walkways from both directions—the horror of them hit you before the specific details did, the general impression arriving as a single, complete, animal wrongness before your eyes had organised it into parts.

Pale. That was the first part, a sickly pale the way things that lived without light were pale—not white, not the clean pale of snow or paper, but the pale of something from which the colour had been drained by absence, by centuries of underground dark, by generations of it. The sores were second—clusters of them, raw against the pale skin, some old and crusted, some new. The eyes were third—wide, mobile, accustomed to this darkness in a way that said very clearly that this was their place and you were at the mercy of it.

They clawed at the bars of the cage. They pried it open with the practiced ease of something done many times before. They poured through the gaps like water finding its level, and the company came together by instinct—weapons going for weapons, backs going to backs—then more of them came, more and more, the numbers were simply not a number you could do anything with and they had you.

They drove you along the walkways. Not slowly—at a pace that required moving at their speed or going down, and the walkways were narrow and the drops on either side were real, the company moved, because the only other option was to stop, and the diseased fingers curled into your hair next to your scalp told you unquestionably that stopping was not available.

You where close to Balin. He didn't look at you—he was looking ahead, and his expression was the particular focused calm of a person marshalling their resources—but his arm found yours as you moved, the solid, reliable contact of it, and it was enough.

More noise, more bodies, more of the layered, accumulated structure of a civilisation built entirely without sunlight or any aesthetic consideration that wasn't primarily functional. The throne itself was vast and crude and occupied by something that made the rest of the goblins look, by comparison, small and almost orderly.

The Great Goblin was large in the way a thing that has never been told to stop growing is large—not the size of a troll, not the size of a stone giant, but large for the space he occupied and large for the body underneath the body, all of it draped in the remnants of something that might once have been garments and had since become part of the architecture of him, the Great Goblin was everything the rest of Goblin Town was, but more.

The wattle beneath his chin swung as he turned his head, surveying the company being driven into the cavernous opening before his throne with the entitled interest of something accustomed to receiving tribute and pleased with the quality of this delivery.

"Who would be so bold," the Great Goblin said, and his voice was—wrong in the way all of it was wrong, the pitch of it too high for the body it came out of, carrying across the noise of the crowd with the particular projection of a performer who had made a lifetime's study of a captive audience "as to come armed into my kingdom?"

He leaned forward on his throne and looked at the company with small, sharp eyes. "Spies? Thieves?" He let each word land. "Assassins?"

"Dwarves, Your Malevolence," said the smaller goblin at his side—a narrow, unctuous thing with eyes that moved faster than any other part of it. "We found them on the Front Porch."

The Great Goblin rocked back. "Well, don't just stand there—search them! Every crack, every crevice!"

You stood very still while the goblins worked through the company, because moving seemed like the kind of thing that would make them more interested in you, and being more interesting to them was genuinely the last thing you wanted.

They took the weapons first efficiently, with the practiced brutality of people who knew exactly where a dwarf kept a blade and had no patience for the finding of it—Thorin's sword pulled from the scabbard and thrown aside, Dwalin's axes stripped from his back, Kíli's bow taken with the string still strung, and they worked through the company methodically.

Your fingers moved to the hilt of your dagger for half a heartbeat—you felt the dagger pulled from your hip before you'd finished reaching for it, then pain exploded across the back of your hand as yellowed teeth sank in. You yelped despite yourself, the goblin snarling around a mouthful of your blood like it had won some great prize. It scuttled back a pace, dagger in its grip, and hissed at you with wet, triumphant malice.

Balin was to your left and slightly forward, and Dwalin had positioned himself to your right, and neither of them had done anything so obvious as to stand in front of you, but both of them were standing in a way that made a shape you fit inside and you were grateful for it and did not mention it.

The goblin searching through Óin's pack held up the dwarven ear trumpet with an expression of profound suspicion.

"It is my belief, Your Great Protuberance," the narrow goblin said, examining something he'd pulled from the discarded pile of belongings, "that they are in league with Elves."

The Great Goblin's face shifted through several registers of distaste. He picked up a small object from the pile—turned it over, read the inscription. "'Made in Rivendell.'" He dropped it with the contempt of a man who had never agreed to be impressed by anything from Rivendell and saw no reason to change that agreement. "Bah. Second Age. Couldn't give it away."

He rose slightly from his throne, the wattle swinging. "I want the truth, why are you here ? Tell me, warts and all."

Óin, who had been watching the proceedings with the expression of a man whose patience was being tested, attempted to step forward. "You're going to have to speak up," he said, at a volume calibrated for the hard of hearing, which in this context meant for everyone. "Your boys have flattened my trumpet."

The Great Goblin fixed him with a look. "I'll flatten more than your trumpet."

Bofur, never a man to miss a role that needed filling, stepped forward with the bright expression of someone who had assessed the situation and determined that talking was significantly better than the available alternatives.

"If it's more information you want, I'm the one you should speak to!" he said, with an enthusiasm that was either genuine or a work of tremendous art. "We were on the road. Well—it's not so much of a road as a path. Actually, it's not even that come to think of it, it's more like a track. Honestly, if you want to call it anything—"

The Great Goblin's gaze had moved.

It moved the way the gaze of something large moves when it has found a new point of interest—slowly, with the gathered intention of a thing accustomed to having its attention mean something. It had moved off Bofur. It had moved past the rest of the company. It had found you, at the back of the group, and stopped.

"Well," said the Great Goblin, and something in his voice shifted into a register that was worse than the interrogation register, something with a performance quality to it, playing to the audience of the crowd around him. His chin wattle moved as he leaned forward to address the company, but his eyes didn't leave you. "Who have we here?"

You said nothing, you where focused, you were looking at a point slightly below his throne and trying to make yourself the least interesting thing in the room.

"Is this one yours?" He addressed Thorin with the pointed mockery of something that knew exactly who it was speaking to. "Traveling in style, Thorin Oakenshield—King Under the Mountain." The title landed with the weight of a weapon deliberately chosen for where it would hit.

King ?—that's—that can't be right—one of them would have told me

Your eyes went to the back of Thorin's head—to the set of his shoulders, to the line of his neck—the word reorganised something that had been sitting slightly out of place since the beginning, a piece of the picture that you'd had without understanding its position, and it landed now with the particular weight of things that should have been obvious and weren't until they were.

King under the Mountain.

Not just a leader.

Not just a dwarf with authority, experience someone the company deferred to because they'd known him longest or trusted him most. A king. The rightful kind, by blood and by the accounting of his people, and the mountain was—shit—Erebor was his ? he was standing in a goblin court with his hands stripped of weapons and his head up and not one line of him offering the Great Goblin an inch of the deference the Great Goblin was clearly accustomed to receiving.

He didn't see you look. He was facing forward as the great goblin sneered with delight. "Did the great king bring a lady to the deep places?"

The words where still landing on you like stones hitting water. King. Thorin. Thorin was a—you filed this with tremendous force into the back of your mind and kept your face entirely still.

"She is none of your concern—" Thorin's voice, controlled and very dangerous, from somewhere to your left.

You stood still. Dwalin's elbow was against your arm. Kíli, ahead and to your right, glanced back at you once—brief, quick, his expression stripped of its usual brightness to something that was purely checking that you were still upright.

Glóin said something to you, very low, that was half Common and half Khuzdul. Balin, close on your left, said nothing. Did not turn. Just existed there, solid and certain, and it was enough.

The Great Goblin had resettled on his throne with the expression of a man arriving at the climax of a performance he'd been planning. He spread his hands wide, addressing the whole hall.

"If they will not talk," he announced, with the satisfied relish of someone quoting from a personal motto, "we'll make them squawk !"

The crowd loved it.

"Bring out the Mangler!"

Something moved at the back of the hall.

"Bring out the Bone Breaker!"

More movement—goblins, many goblins, assembled around something large that was being hauled up from a lower level by chains, the sound of it grinding up through the platform, the shape of it not yet visible but the sound of it alone producing a very cold, specific quality of fear.

"Start with—" The Great Goblin's gaze swept the company. Lingered. The wattle moved. "—the female."

Your heart became a very loud thing, the company shifted. Not dramatically—not in a way the goblins could have identified as a response—but something moved through all of them, a collective tightening, not unexpected and the positions adjusted by fractional degrees that added up, in sum, to a ring around you that was as close as they could make it without the goblins having a reason to pull them away.

Dwalin's elbow pressed harder against your arm.

"It'll be alright, lass," Balin said, very quietly. The calmness in his voice was not the easy kind. "You'll be alright."

"They won't get near you," Kíli said, not looking at you, his voice low and certain with the conviction of someone making a promise they intend to keep regardless of the logistics.

"Look at me," said another voice—Bofur, on your other side now, having moved without you noticing, his hand a brief, firm pressure on your own before it dropped away. His face was the face he wore when he was serious, the one without any of the usual warmth replaced by something quieter and more durable than warmth.

"Look at me. None of them are gonna touch you, alright?" You gave him the smallest nod. He turned back forward.

The devices were coming up the stairs on the backs of many, many goblins.

Thorin, Balin, and Bofur moved at the same moment—a fast, coordinated rush toward the throne—the goblins were faster, a surge of filthy bodies and clawing hands they fell on the three of them, hauling them down with sheer weight of numbers dragging them backward onto the platform, as the Great Goblin rose from his throne with the satisfaction of something that had expected this and was pleased to have it confirmed.

You watched in horror at sight of it—of strong dwarves being yanked down like sacks of meat, claws tearing at beards and clothes—sent a wave of cold dread through you.

"Oh, feisty! I like it!" He spread his arms. He had begun to sing—some verse of his own composition, judging by his expression—the words rattling through the hall.

"Bones will be shattered, necks will be wrung!"

A goblins fingers snaked into your hair again claws finding purchase with a unforgiving scrape across your scalp.

"You'll be beaten and battered, from racks you'll be hung!"

The mounting fear for them, and for yourself, rose like bile in your throat.

"You will die down here and never be found—"

The crackling breath of a goblin wheezed past your ear as it's fingers yanked you towards the edge of the platform.

"Down in the deep of Goblin Town!"

The company erupted. The hall shook with it.

The devices were on the platform now, being unchained and positioned with a horrible, practiced precision—you didn't look directly at them, couldn't, your eyes sliding away from the shapes of them with the particular reflexive self-protection of someone whose brain had identified that looking wasn't going to help anything.

The goblins were clearing a space around you, specifically, marching you forward with the efficient choreography of people who had done this before, and the company was being held back, and you could feel—could actually physically feel—the particular, terrible quality of the next ten seconds, before—

The light was blinding. Not the dim yellow-orange of the goblin fires, not the filtered dark of the cave—blinding, white and absolute, filling the hall from everywhere at once, and the sound that came with it was a crack that cut through the noise of the crowd like a blade through water, and in the moment of stunned silence that followed, in the space between one breath and the next—

"Take up your arms."

Standing on the platform, his staff blazing, his grey robes throwing a shadow that went in seventeen wrong directions simultaneously, Gandalf's voice. From everywhere and nowhere and his voice carrying with the quality it had sometimes, the quality that made you understand he was not a wizard who happened to have a staff but was something else wearing the shape of a wizard for convenience.

"Fight."

And the company did, the goblins' screaming took on an entirely different quality, their fingers unweaving themselves from your hair with an abhorrent series of tugs, claws from hands and feet alike pressing you down in the wake of the goblins departure.

It was not a fight in the sense of something with a shape. It was a scramble, a continuous urgent forward motion through opposition, and the opposition was everywhere and largely between you and wherever was not here.

Weapons came back into hands from somewhere—the goblins having dropped or lost the advantage in the chaos of the light and the general stampede. You saw Thorin's sword find his hand and immediately understood, from the way it moved, that the two of them had been apart long enough that reuniting them had its own quality.

Your hand moved instinctively to your pocket, fingers searching for the shape of the vial of oil. It was gone. You patted uselessly in the pocket again, dread pooling cold and heavy in your stomach, when you glanced down, your dagger was nowhere in sight either—lost somewhere in the chaos of grasping claws and scrambling bodies, or perhaps taken by the same greedy hands that had stripped the company of everything useful.

You had nothing.

In the middle of the fighting, amid the roar of dwarves and the shrieking of goblins, Thorin’s broad frame cut through the press of creatures like a breaking wave.

A goblin lunged at you from the side, but Thorin’s arm swept it away with brutal efficiency, his other hand closing briefly on your arm to steady you.

“Follow Kíli!” he ordered, voice every piece the sharp commanding presence you'd come to know, even over the din, leaving no room for argument or hesitation. “Now—go!”

You nodded numbly at Thorin and followed Kíli.

Dwalin cleared a section of walkway to the left, both axes and an efficiency of movement that left no aftermath. You went where the section was clear.

Kíli fired from a crouching position, two arrows in fast succession, both landing, and moved with the full fluid speed of someone who thought in terms of the next position rather than the current one.

The walkways were the problem. They were suspended—rope and plank over the central drop— and every impact, every body going down, every goblin pile drove vibration through the structure and the structure wasn't designed for the kind of use it was currently getting. Sections swayed. Sections tilted. You moved across them with your arms slighty out for balance, which your raw palms objected to, and you told your palms to be quiet.

The second section of fighting was deeper in—a chokepoint where the walkway narrowed between two rock faces and the goblins had reinforced it, many of them, the kind of numbers that meant the company had to come through sideways and sequentially rather than together. Thorin first, because that was simply what happened—Thorin Oakenshield went first through anything that required going through— the goblins in the chokepoint encountered whatever it was that Thorin was when he stopped managing it and let it work, the results were comprehensive enough that the company made it through with less difficulty than the numbers had suggested.

You came through last, Balin's hand at the back of your arm, on the other side the walkway opened onto a larger platform and you could see, ahead and below, actual light—not dim damp firelight but a quality of light you recognised from outside, the particular cool and lateral quality of daylight finding its way in through rock, and the sight of it produced a surge of something through your chest that was not quite physical.

"There!" Gandalf's voice, ahead, indicating the direction with his staff—not pointing but commanding, the gesture of someone who has orchestrated exits before and has opinions about the pace of them.

•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•●•

The walkway ahead was long and dropped in stages, and the Great Goblin was coming up through them. He came through the lower section of walkway like something that had decided the walkway was an obstacle rather than a surface, and the planks parted for him in the way things parted for something that massive moving that fast, he arrived on the platform above you with the full, terrible dignity of someone who had decided the theatrical portion of the evening was over.

He had been substantial from you particular view duringn the interrogation, he was substantially more enormous at this proximity, and the proximity was not optional.

Gandalf met him, with two strikes, both of them precise, both of them with staff and sword moving in the same figure with no wasted motion between them, and the Great Goblin, who was a very large creature with a very large opinion of his own indestructibility, sat down with the surprised expression of something that has not been made to sit down before.

The walkway beneath him registered this development. The structural opinion of the walkway on the matter of having a creature the size of the Great Goblin deposited onto it suddenly and with force was delivered immediately and comprehensively—the planking gave, the whole section went, and the section adjacent to it went because it was attached, and the one adjacent to that went because physics required it, the company was suddenly on a section of walkway that was moving in the particular way of things that have become disconnected from their purpose and are now in the process of becoming gravity's problem instead.

The section tilted, the far end going down, and the angle went past manageable and into the territory where your feet were no longer in agreement with the surface they were supposed to be on, and you went forward loosing your footing— toward the lower edge, toward the open drop beneath where there was nothing but the pin prick of outside—your hands went out, finding nothing but air as you pitched forward from the platform.

Thorin, from behind, solid, immediate and completely without hesitation, threw his arm around your middle, he was shorter than you, which meant the angle of it was different than you expected, his forearm across your stomach rather than high on your ribs, and the contact was—substantial, the hold of someone who had no intention of letting go, and you grabbed the nearest thing available which was Balin's shoulder with both hands and zero apology, Balin had gone down to one knee on the tilting surface and was very close to the edge himself, and you held onto Balin's shoulder and Thorin held onto you as the section of walkway continued its long, angled, scraping descent into the dark below at a speed that suggested it was in a hurry to arrive wherever it was going.

The descent took long enough to be something. Long enough that the company had sorted themselves out on the tilting surface into whatever equilibrium was available, and the dark rushed past on all sides, and the distant light at the end of the shaft grew gradually, agonisingly larger.

Behind you, you couldn't see Thorin's face, only feel the arm around you and the quality of the hold, which did not loosen.

Balin was looking up at you, your hands on his shoulder, his expression did something—a brief, specific something—then his eyes went past you, to Thorin, and whatever he saw there completed the something into something else, a thought arriving in full, Balin's expression closed back into its usual composure so seamlessly that you'd have missed it entirely if you hadn't been looking directly at his face.

There was no fighting it – not completely. Neither of you had the willpower to stay underwater when the air you needed to breathe was at your fingertips, your scent all over your house enticing him, his seeping into it in perfect harmony, like puzzle pieces falling into place.

Before you knew it you were standing inches apart, his nose trailing along your wrist with a groan, your mind hazy, body vibrating in anticipation, voice breathless even as you breathed quick and shallow in order to remain composed and at least a tad rational. Exchanging names was the least you could do and the most you managed before you could not hold back any longer.

You knew who he was; he knew you knew. You knew his situation, or enough of it, the star he had been carrying on his chest faded and torn away, his golden boy persona and looks long gone.

It didn’t make a goddamn difference.

If anything, the ragged bearded man who stood but two inches from you was the embodiment of an alpha and everything about him had your inmost carnal instincts and soul-deep longing scream mine.

My Steve. My alpha.

The kiss he pressed to your wrist was tender, the chirp escaping you nearing a whimper, knees wobbling under the overwhelming sensation rushing through your body. He caught you with arm firmly wrapped around you and a kiss that was all teeth and desperate need and laying a claim and you reciprocated with fervour, inhaling his intoxicating scent and the rest were days to remember spent in a haze and pleasure you had never known to exist before.

And pain. Sharp and dull at once, its echo resonating in your ribcage even now as you shed the gardening gloves and went to wash your hands, starting the kettle and laying out ingredients for a warm homecooked meal Steve – former Captain America turned fugitive from the law of several countries – deserved and got to eat scarcely.

Sometimes, you didn’t make it past a hello, his hands on you wishing to recreate the imprints they had left weeks if not months ago, exploring you anew, nose against your neck, teeth scraping over the most sensitive part of your throat to induce pleasure so intense you forgot how to make a sound or think.

Other times, you held each other first and inhaled softly, allowing yourselves to reacquaint with someone who was fated to belong with you, who was yours with every fibre of their being, the cracks in your ribcages mended at last, body, soul and home rebuilt.

Today, it seemed, was the case of the former.

You were ruminating through the cabinets, trying to figure out what to cook, when Steve’s arms circled you from behind and pulled you to his front, nose instantly at your collar, breathing in deeply with a satisfied rumble in his chest that had your omega shivering with delight. Heat rushed all over your skin as you inhaled deeply, hands covering his, body melting in his hold already as you felt familiar burn at the apex of your thighs respond to his presence like clockwork.

“Alpha…” you whispered, shuddering when he hummed behind you, arms squeezing tighter, mouth pressing to the side of your neck, lingering, a quick lap of tongue over your skin making him groan; and you clutch at his forearms, legs turning weaker as your blood rushed elsewhere.

It was torture; torture of the bittersweetest kind, a tease of a promise never delivered on and never as much as made. It twisted your stomach in knots, the ache of his absence, the agonizing absence of a bonding mark already flaring through you and chasing tears into your eyes, deep-bone agony you knew would come again, because you had been here before. Every single time.

-.-💕-.-

“It’s all they want.” She chuckles. “Think you’ve found gold.”

“Eh,” the door swings open behind her. Arthur Shelby skids to a stop and smirks at Ruth. “Oi, lass, anymore of ‘em rolls?”

“In the oven, Art,” she playful swings a hand towel at him. “Don’t be gettin’ in the way.”

“And who says you’re the boss.” He retorts.

“Out!” Ruth barks.

You glance over at them. Arthur catches your eyes. “Not meanin’ to be in the way,” he shows his palm and backs out of the door. “Don’t tell Tommy, eh.”

Ruth follows him out. You go back to your pastry. You didn’t prep enough. Diedre comes in with empty trays, Benjamin lets her dump the dishes in the deep sink, and sprays them with the hose. His sleeves are rolled up as he scours away the grease and crumbs.

You switch between the rolls and the pan of eggs. You scoop out the poached whites delicately clouded around yolk onto the toasted biscuits and ring the bell. Deirdre and Ruth come to load up their trays and go out.

You lose yourself in the hectic flurry of orders, tearing up tickets as you make your way through them. You turn and elbow a wall you don’t expect. It isn’t a spontaneously appearing bit of plaster but rather Mr. Shelby.

“What can I help with, love?” He asks.

“Mr. Shelby? Oh, I think I’ve got it in hand.” You assure him as you turn put more biscuits in to toast. He takes the rack from you.

“Tell me. I have two hands.” He insists.

“Mr. Shelby, this is my job–”

“It seems it might be more than I pay you for.” He nods to the oven. “Think I’ll need to invest in more help.”

“Thank you, Mr. Shelby.” You open the left stove and let him slide in the rack of biscuits.

“I’ve heard lovely things about the sausage roll,” he backs up and takes off his jacket. He folds it over the stool at the end of the counter and places his cap on top.

“Still baking,” you say as you grab some brown eggs and crack them into the boiling water.

You double-check the ticket. Porridge. Right, you’ve got a pot warmed and ready to go.

You scoop up oats into the bowl and add cinnamon and milk. Two bowls up. Ruth sweeps them away.

As Mr. Shelby approaches, he rolls up his sleeve.

“Boss lady, tell me what to do.”

You scoff. “Sir.”

“Eh, you almost smiled,” he says.

“You can help with the rolls. Seems everyone wants one.”

You beckon him along the counter. “I’ve rolled out the pastry. It’ll need to be cut up.” You take a knife. “As such.” You point to the dish of sausage. “Then line it as thus.” You use a spoon to scoop onto the pastry. “Roll. Baste with egg.” You work as you explain. “Then a few slices in the top.”

“Ah, Stuart is a lucky man,” Shelby japes. You flinch and look at him. His brows draw together. “Apologies, ma’am, I only–”

“Nothing?” You ask. He shakes his head. You nod and set the roll onto the waiting pan. “No, I never had the fixings at home for this. Mincemeat, stew, beans. That’s most of it.”

“And even that must’ve been delicious.”

“Mm,” you hum dully. 

“I didn’t mean–”

“No, no, it’s… I’m only… two weeks.” You sigh and take out the biscuits.

“I’ve got all my people watchin’ for him,” Shelby assures.

“I know. You’ve done more than you should.” You scoop the eggs out of the water.

He’s silent, you are too. He watches you then turns away. “I’ll wash up first and get started on this.”

“Thank you, Mr. Shelby…” you murmur. “For everything.”

🖤

You untie your apron and fold it up over your arm. You wipe your forehead with your sleeve. You need to stop at the bank and be sure to deposit your cheque.

“On your way out?” Mr. Shelby surprises you as he enters from the back door. He picks up his cap and jacket. You can smell the tobacco wafting in with him.

“I think I’ve everything cleaned up. I set aside some leftovers for Charlie.” You bend to take your handbag from under the counter. Mr. Shelby nears as you head for the door. You stop as you meet him there. “Unless… I’m forgetting something.”

“No, I’ve a question.” He pulls on his jacket. “More a favour to ask. Though you will be compensated.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve some guests coming over. Very important ones. I thought you might be able to offer your skills this evening. For supper.” He says.

You’re taken aback by the suggestion. It’s not as though you have anyone waiting for you. Or any sort of responsibility outside of this.

“I suppose I could.” You say.

“Very well. I would need a list, you see. Ingredients, to be sure you’re equipped.”

“Right, er…”

“If you don’t mind. I’ll fetch you a pen and paper before you’re off.” He says.

“Certainly. I can do that.” You say. It’ll be a good distraction. You notice Stuart’s absence most at night.

He nods and sets off. You linger in the kitchen. You put your bag on the counter and slide out the cookbook you bought with your first pay. Shelby returns and hands you a ledger and pen.

You flutter through the pages. “Was there a set number of courses? It must be a fancy dinner?” 

He taps his fingers as he stands close. His gaze weighs on you.

“What’s this, then?” He taps the corner of the page.

“Study.” You say. “Recipe book. I’m afraid I’ve only experience cooking for one man.”

“Ah, clever woman.” He praises.

You shrug. “I always wanted a proper one. I’d cut the ones out of the paper and keep them in the drawer. Never had all I needed to try them.”

You pause and read the dish description. “A salad to start, I think?”

“Mm. I leave it within your judgement.” He drags his hand away from the book. “I’ll send a car.”

“Oh, no, I could take the tram.”

“I live quite a ways off the route.” He sniffs. “And I’ll not have you wanderin’ in the dark. Benny will pick you up.”

You don’t argue. You take the pen and jot in the ledger. His eyes follow your hand.

“Anything you don’t prefer, sir?” You ask.

You don’t get an answer. You peek up and find him staring. Your brow lowers and you touch your chin then cheek. “I’ve got some flour on me?”

He blinks and clears his throat. “No, no.” He lifts his chin and looks away. “No, I was only thinking.” He leans on the counter. “I’m easy to please. I’ll eat it all just the same.” He looks at the ledger. “You know, you have one taste of field rations and even rancid rat meat’ll have you slavering.”

You don’t say anything to that. Most men these days are veterans. Stuart was called up but never went beyond the channel. He was kept at home in a mine.

“Dessert… chocolate? Citrus? Preferences?” You prompt.

“Chocolate. Ah, that was a wonder over in France.” He purrs. “Well, I’ll leave you to it. I’ll get that, just put it on the bar.” He backs up. “I’ll have Benny wait out front for you.”

“Sir–”

“No arguments.” He turns and points over his shoulder. “You worked a hard day. You earned it.”

🖤

Benjamin gets you to Mr. Shelby’s around four. You thank him and step out, hiding your awe at the immense mansion before you. Of course, you assumed it would be a nice home, but you could not have imagined anything so ornate and daunting.

It’s clearer to you now how out of your element you truly are. Something else tugs in your mind. There’s more to Mr. Shelby than you’ve seen. Not just money, something more. It’s not a secret who he is; he has men at his disposal in their notable caps, he was concerned with back alley gambling, he never truly asks but tells. Details are better left unsaid.

You go to the front door and lift the heavy brass knocker, a falcon’s head above it. It thunders through the dark oak. You wait but not long. A maid in black and white answers. Of course he has ‘help’. Well, isn’t that what you are?

Her name is Margeret. She leads you inside. Mr. Shelby told her you were coming instead of someone called Louise. She takes you to a large kitchen and tells you to ring a bell in case you need anything.

You walk around the large kitchen. The counters are dark wood, the furnishings in a coppery brass, and the stove and fridge look right out of the shop. You stop as you see the folded note with your name on it.

‘All is in order. If you need anything, ring the bell and ask for me. Thomas.’

It’s kind. You think you might figure it out. Margaret reappears.

“These are Ellie and Mildred. They’ll be helping you.” She explains. The girls are young and skinny; one has string black hair trailing out in a braid from under her cap, the other shows straw-coloured roots but much of it is tucked under the white linen.

“Ellie, Mildred, I’m…” you introduce yourself. “Nice to meet you.”

“You too, ma’am.” They say in unison.

“I think it’ll be rather easy. Shall we start?”

They nod. “What do we do?” Ellie, the black-haired girl asks.

You hesitate then reach into your bag. You take out the notes you made at home from the cook book. You go to the girls and show them.

“Alright, we’ll start with the main. It’ll take the longest to cook and the salad will be simple enough.” You explain. “If you have any questions, I’ll be happy to help. If I’m honest, I’m still learning myself, yeah?”

The girls look at each other and back to you. “Yes, ma’am,” they say in unison.

“And you promise, if I need help, you’ll do the same?”

The tension drains from their posture. They nod again, less stiffly. “Good, good. I think we’ll make a rather good team, ladies.”

Once you start, the task isn’t so intimidating. You work between Ellie and Mildred, then set them to chop potatoes together. You go down your list and organise everything so you can move from step to step. 

You stand at the stove, melting the dark chocolate for the cake. The girls titter as they peel and pare. Then all at once, they’re silent.

“Mr. Shelby,” Mildred utters.

You glance over. Your employer barely looks at the girls before he nears you. You stir the chocolate away from the sides to keep it from burning.

“Evenin’, ma’am.” He greets. He’s wearing a nicer suit; with a bow tie and silk vest. “Things are well?”

“Yes, sir. I think we’ve figured it all out.” You say. “The ladies are a great help.”

“Mm. Anything you need?” He asks.

“No, sir. You?”

His brow arches. “Mm, no. Margaret is putting Charlie down. Guests will be here shortly.”

“Ah, well then, don’t let us keep you.”

He stares for a moment. “Rather, don’t let me keep you.”

He turns halfway, raises his finger as his lip twitches, then thinks better of it. He leaves you as the girls sigh in unison. You take the chocolate off the burner and look at them.

“You girls need a break?”

“No, ma’am.” Ellie says. “Potatoes are almost done.”

The night goes by with the mixing of batter, the boil of pots, and the dusting of seasoning over poultry, fish, and beef. Ellie and Mildred are diligent and polite. They leave you now and again to help clear away the previous course.

You send out dessert and tell Ellie and Mildred you’ll clean up. They argue but you convince them to call it a night. They’ve worked hard.

As you move a stack of plates to the sink, you hear a footstep behind you. “I told you, you’re done for the night.”

Your name comes in a higher pitch than you expect. You look over at Charlie as he stares at you bright-eyed, a stuffed rabbit in his hands as he wears a pair of linen pajamas. You pull your hands from the sink and dry them on your apron.

“Charles,” you say. “What on earth? Aren’t you supposed to be sleeping?”

“I can’t.” He pouts. “I told papa I wanted to come down but he said no. He won’t even let me help you!”

“You should be getting your sleep,” you chide.

“But I don’t wanna.” He whines.

You harrumph and grip your hips. “Alright, Charles, you want to help?”

“Yes, ma’am!” He says.

You hush him. “Not so loud. You’ll bother the guests.”

He sticks out his tongue. You laugh at him. You wave him over and lift him up onto the counter. You pull a bowl over and scoop in some flour and put a cup of water next to it. You hate to waste it but it’ll keep him busy.

“Take this.” You gently move his stuffed rabbit against the wall then hand him the cup. “Only add a little at a time, alright?” You show him a whisk. “Stir with this.” You motion over the flour. “Remember, little bit at a time.” You put your hand around his and show him how to pour. “Stir.” You stir in the moisture. “More.”

You let go and he pours. You hand him the whisk and he puts the cup down. He uses both hands to stir.

You wash the dishes as he goes about his task. As you dry off a saucer, he says your name. “Is that good?”

You look in the bowl. “No, no, you want it smooth.” You gird.

“Oh…” he frowns and adds more water.

“Good job, Charles.” You praise.

“Yes, Charles,” a deeper voice gives you a start. “Good job.”

“Papa,” Charles drops the whisk and claps.

“What are you doing out of bed?” Shelby asks.

“He’s only helping,” you defend the boy.

“Helping?”

“Certainly. Keeping me company.”

“The maids are supposed to help.” He insists.

“I let them off. I can do it.” You assure.

“I didn’t pay you to clean.”

“Mr. Shelby, I messed the plates, I’ll tidy them,” you counter calmly. “Charles, more water.”

Charlie bounces and picks up the cup. He pours water in then stirs. Shelby approaches and watches him then peers over at you. You put another saucer in the cupboard.

“You know, I can never make him sit still.” He drawls.

“Children, so full of energy.” You say.

He leans a hand on the counter. “You never had any?”

“No. It… never happened.” You answer. “Sometimes, it doesn’t.”

He’s quiet. “Ah, I suppose it’s up to chance.”

“I’ve never had much good fortune,” you say. “But I do what I can with what I’ve got.”

“You do much and more than many. Hard work’s far more valuable than fortune.” He girds.

“Suppose.” You agree. 

Unfortunately, Stuart never had either. Perhaps that’s what got him into trouble. When he comes back, you’re going to tell him to get a real job. Back to the mines or factory. No more of those back streets and shady men.

With the female holding his attention, you didn’t expect Steve to suddenly snap into a pissy mood himself. Yet something clearly provoked him. He wasn’t even patient enough to continue in your pace, but picked you up and carried you home in long strides the last few meters. Inside the house, he put you down on your feet and glared at you. 

“I’m your mate,” he growled.

“I know, Steve.” Enough time passed for you to accept that fate and experience a certain, warm security that accompanied it. 

“Then why didn’t you stake a claim on me?” His blue eyes glinted with anger. A dangerous flicker moments before beastly ruin awaited you. 

You might be still lost in the lands your werewolf lived and brought you to, but your mind wasn’t broken or unable to put together the pieces. It started at the fruit stand, so it had to be connected to it. Apparently, while you fumed that he was flirting with the werewolf female, Steve was angry with you not displaying jealousy. 

“I’m human,” you gulped nervously. “She’s a werewolf. She could hurt me if I lashed out at her.”

“Nobody would ever hurt you, bunny.” Steve huffed, tracing your cheek with a sharp claw. “You’re mine. I’d rip out their throat for attempting to touch you.”

“Besides-” he stepped closer. Steve’s hand trailed lower, fingers brushing down the column of your throat. 

“I meant: claim me, not fight over me.” His lips curved in a sharp, hungry grin.

You blinked up at him, processing his words. Which was proving harder to do as Steve pressed even closer to you. Heat of his body radiated in waves that your body was already too familiar with, conditioned to react with readiness. 

“How?” Your voice wavered softly as scorching embarrassment spread inside your chest, rushing to the top of your head. 

With how many times Steve growled possessive words when he fucked you into a broken mess, you knew the word claim in the werewolves’ understanding was always connected with physicality. And you knew he didn’t mean to simply hold his hand as a sign of said right.

“How do you think I would claim you, if anyone looked at you with interest?” Steve’s fingers curled around the front of your neck. His other hand tugged loose the ribbons tying your dress in place. 

He asked about looking at you, because if anyone tried to touch you, he’d slaughter them. 

“I’d kiss that sweet mouth of yours-” Steve pushed your dress off your body- “or grab that lovely ass-” he trailed his fingers down your spine and under the curve of your bare butt- “or drive my fingers beneath your dress-” 

“I- I could kiss you,” your voice turned breathless as Steve’s touch drew wetness between your thighs. 

Steve tutted, nuzzling his nose under your earlobe. He gripped one of your legs and lifted it slightly, opening you up so your clit grazed directly against his jeans. 

“Now that I think of it, kissing is too tame.” He declared; you could feel his wolfish grin against your cheek. 

“But you’re not ready for more, huh, bunny? Not ready to rub yourself against your mate’s cock in public and have me leak in my pants? My shy little bunny isn’t ready yet to grab a fistful of my hair and demand I fuck you full in public, so hungry werewolf bitches see that I already have a tight pussy to breed?” 

A whimper. That was the only sound you were able to make as dirty words spilled out of Steve’s mouth and his pelvis kept grinding against your bare pussy. 

“Until then, I’ll have to fuck you like my bitch before every outing, so that you smell of me and I smell of you, and there is no doubt whose pussy came all over me.” 

In a sudden move, Steve kicked your legs from beneath you. Instead of dropping you onto the floor and pinning you to it, he pulled you with him as he went down. You landed on top of him, straddling his hips. 

“Claim me now, bunny,” he growled, taking off his own sweater and tossing it aside. 

His big hands landed on your hips. He purposely didn’t retract his claws, digging sharp tips into your skin. Sharply, he bucked up into you and a lewd moan spilled out of your mouth. 

“Come on,” he urged you, using one of his hands to force your smaller hands to work his pants open. 

His cock was already hard, slapping against your thigh as you released it. Thick and hot, and every bit as scary as the first time you saw it. 

“It’ll be too big this way,” you bit your bottom lip, palming him with one hand. 

When Steve had you on your hands and knees, it felt too big, but physically possible to take him. When he spread you on your back and tilted your ass up, it was somehow doable too. Or when he pinned you down and plowed you in prone bone, the stretch of him in your tightness brought you to near unconsciousness, but still proved you could take it.

With you on top, however, it seemed impossible to impale yourself on that cock. 

“Your pussy is going to take it all anyway.” Steve’s tone was unyielding. 

With a pouty sniffle, you lifted your hips up to line his dick with your entrance. The head barely pushed in and a shudder rocked your body. It opened you so much right on the first inches! 

Steve squeezed your hips. You lowered another inch. 

“All of it, bunny,” he growled, impatient. 

Bracing your hands on Steve’s hairy chest, you rolled your hips, swallowing more of his fat cock. The stretch was reminiscent of the first time he split you on his dick. 

A broken gasp puffed on your lips. Your eyes misted with tears - not from pain exactly, but the overwhelming intensity of it all. You caught Steve’s gaze; his blue eyes shining with predatory glee that heralded ruin. 

He didn’t give you a chance to plead for mercy as he gripped your hips tighter and slammed you down, at the same time driving up into you. 

“Ahhh!” You screamed, head thrown back, fingernails needling Steve’s chest. 

Your pussy spasmed. A heartbeat later a gush of wetness welcomed brutal intrusion. 

“Either ride me, like you own me, bunny.” Steve growled.

“Or I’ll fuck you like my little bitch. A cocksleeve for a werewolf’s fat cock and knot, and a cumdump to spill into.” 

A quiver rippled through your body, both in response to his filthy words and to the feeling of unbearable stretch. You had difficulty lolling your head back forward, your gaze glassy. 

Your thighs were burning. If you even found it in yourself to start moving and ride him the way he wanted, you wouldn’t hold the position for long. And the longer his cock was lodged deep inside you, the less you could think of anything - any comeback, any protest, any plead. 

“What’s it gonna be?” He asked, bouncing you on him in a rough move.

You fell forward, dropping your weight onto Steve and burying your face in the crook of his neck.

“Your little bitch,” you whispered, ashamed of yourself for wanting it that way.

“Yes, you are.” Steve laughed cruelly. “My little bitch that takes it in all her holes and cums from it so sweetly."