Since when are wolves afraid of wolves?

Red Dead Redemption

Salt chapter 26-33, a Colm/Micah sugar daddy AU story. Excerpt from part 28:

"Mother," Colm said curtly. "I brought a guest."

"Shall I ready Owen's room?"

"No. He'll be sleeping in my bed."

Micah startled. Colm was looking directly at his mother, challenging her. She had grown pale and was clutching the necklace at her chest. Then she looked up, muttering something, maybe a prayer. And then it was as if the judgement left her, and she nodded, without joy, "There's dinner on the stove. I must lay down for a wee bit."

"How's your health?"

"Dreadful."

"So nothing's new, then."

She looked sadly upon him and left. It was one of the coldest exchanges between a mother and a son that Micah had ever seen. It was kind of cool, actually. Especially as an insight into the man that he had discovered, after three murders and a fuck, he kind of... loved.

Strangelove part 5, a Dutch/Micah/Colm modern AU story. Excerpt:

His expression looked hollow. When he saw Dutch approach, he flinched, and his mouth moved in what appeared to be an apology, though unable to make noise. As Dutch's concern grew and he let it show on his face, Micah simply held up the jacket; a brown bomber jacket, old and oversized, full of tears and cracks and... dried blood.

Dutch took a step backwards, the memories slamming into him, the crack of a nose underneath his fingers that had hurt them in turn. He'd gotten a doctor to look at it and there had been strains to the small bones, strains he still felt if he didn't wear gloves in winter. From the looks of it as they were business partners, Colm had never gone to a doctor for his broken nose, and where Dutch had thought it'd been to punish him, he wasn't quite so sure anymore.

Black Eyed Dog, an Arthur/Micah/Colm oneshot set in a version of the fantasy AU, with help from @reddeadfantasyau . Excerpt:

The weight on top of him began to move. Pushing. Grinding. Micah sucked in a breath high in his throat, exhaling a noise of fear. Morgan paused before he pulled his teeth from Micah's neck, the ooze of blood warming his cold skin. All the while, Morgan was rutting against him like a dog with a man's patience. Micah could feel just how large he was. Larger than most of Colm's toys.

"You keep... triggering it," Morgan said heavily. "Why?"

"It," Micah echoed dully, his eyeballs feeling strangely glasslike. 

"The beast, or... whatever. Who knows." Morgan raised his head and then made some high yipping noises that shouldn't have come from a man's throat, while the inhuman edges of his face warped strangely.

"Did you just speak dog?!"  

Morgan made a sound that comparable to a coyote's laugh, but raspier, "I told them to eat up your friends. I'm gonna have a meal of my own."

A Dark Wind Blows (WIP title), a Karen/Micah(/Jenny?) oneshot that might become 2-3 chapters. Excerpt:

"Fuck," she breathed. 

"Soon. Like I said, gotta check if I'm right about you." He dragged his hand up slowly, over her drawers to her belly, fingertips playing with their elastic band. Palm over her belly, callused and very warm. Pleasant despite its owner, despite its metaphorical blood. He was an experienced robber and killer, but he had a boyish curiosity when touching her. "It's hard," he commented, trying in vain to gather the seemingly soft flesh of her stomach in his palm. 

She flushed, "Not as hard as yours." And because she was brave or stupid, she touched his belly in turn, as hard as rock. He just laughed. 

"You'll get there if you keep drinking your little life away, Karen. Not that I'd know how it's like to drink it away, I drink from it, that's who I am. I'm a man, we ain't that emotionally delicate."

"I'm not delicate!"

He slid her hand into her drawers, finishing the swollen flesh, making her jolt in his lap. "Delicate, maybe not. Still delicious. You're so wet. Like I knew you would be."

The Man With the Gold, a Micah & Dutch & Jack Marston pre-canon oneshot. First meeting, inspired by There Will be Blood. Excerpt:

"No, I would sell these gold bars to the banks, ladies and gentlemen," Dutch continued. "You see, I run a family enterprise. I work side by side with my son J…Jim here after his mother's untimely demise. I think family is very, very important."

Micah can drink to that, too, though he has his doubt whether or not the toddler is Dutch's son or just some kid he rented for this show.

"Family means children; children mean education. So after I've sold you this gold, I'll help setting up a brand-new school. Education is a necessity. So let me help you build a wonderful school in Crenshaw Hills. These children," he gestures to the boy, "are the future that we strive for and so they should have the best of things…"

As Dutch monologues on about the education in this bum-fuck town in the middle of mountains, the serving girl comes by the little booth in the corner and asks Micah, "Another one, sir?" 

"Sure, keep them coming, sweetheart. But don't call me sir, I'm not that old." Micah slaps her ass as she walked to get him another beer, and she doesn't even flinch enough for the empty glasses on her tray to quiver. Ah. Barely twenty and already frigid. Before he can warn her about it, the men in front of Dutch begins to yell.

"We don't need you!"

"The rumors say you're a liar!"

"We ought to build a church for that money, not a school!"

Snails on a Razor, a Javier/Dutch/Micah/Bill oneshot. Excerpt:

"(...)Thought it'd cheer you up, you know, being surrounded by your most loyal boys. You could tell us to do anything, and we'd do it, happily so." 

"Anything," Dutch repeats, like the word holds an unfathomable depth. 

"Anything of the flesh," Micah says, smiling a tiny, wicked smile. 

It startles Javier sometimes how deep Micah seems to have gotten under Dutch's skin. There's a longing there, similar enough to his own that it evokes a kind of loss. But not envy, not really, not when he's heard Micah grunting and groaning through the walls of Dutch's tent; being Dutch's woman has always been hard work. Someday a new Molly will come along but until then, Javier would rather it be Micah, because that role has killed so many before him.

Tomb of the Gods (WIP title), a Micah/Molly/Dutch oneshot. Excerpt:

"She's quoting Hamlet," Dutch says, and for a stupid moment, he looks at her with warmth. Then the moment is gone, and his smile gains a lovely cold edge, "Do you think yourself an Ophelia, Molly? Do you crave attention that badly? You already got it, embarrassing me in front of everybody earlier today, screaming at all of us."

Molly sobs and Micah shushes her, not wasting any words on an object. "If even I got a headache from her womanly hysterics, your head must be killing you, Dutchie."

"Don't call me that. But yes. I had to use morphine. It dulls my mind. My emotions, too. I feel… empty. Is there nothing out there?" Dutch says the question abruptly, staring up through the fog at the slits of dark sky behind crooked branches.

"No gods here, except the two of us. But there's something right here, though. Something that's responsible for some of our headaches." He runs his fingers through Molly's hair to pull at the tangles and make her moan in pain. "I know how she can make it up to us, too. Like I've done, when I've been a bad boy." He licks his lips, "Ain't nothing unnatural about it. Just hierarchy. And this here? This seems like traitor, Dutch. Maybe we could make sure she keeps her trap shut before she runs off."

In This House, a Dutch/Arthur pre-canon oneshot. Excerpt:

"No distractions, I need your mind sharp and pure." Dutch leans closer, breath hot on Arthur's flank, "You ought to be grateful I let you keep your clothes on with all that you try hiding from me."

His jacket comes off. Left in his shirt and jeans, Dutch's warmth is all the more present at his back. His hands, too, roaming wherever under the guise of inspection. Like he's a shitty criminal, or a bad horse, like Dutch wants him to feel. With all that messing around in his pockets, his jeans start to get pulled down, exposing more of him. 

"This part is always a bit uncomfortable, also for me. Pull them down for me, will you? Think of me as a doctor making sure you ain't smuggled something into jail." The comparison is stupid, but it helps, just like the militant and the familial language helped. Anything not to consider what this truly is: Dutch slapping his ass as soon as he's revealed it, whistling lowly to himself. "No underwear, huh? Nothing that fits? Good to see you've put on some weight. I mean that. It's healthy, son." Another slap. "Just look at that bounce, huh."

Arthur's face burns. He can't open his eyes because then he'll have to stare down on his rigid cock. He hears Dutch licking his own fingers, and it's perverse, how he knows that sound so well. Soon enough Dutch's fingers start leaving wet trails between his cheeks, beginning to slide them inside. Arthur tries to relax for it or it'll feel a lot worse.

"Quite a bit of room to stuff a bottle or a bag of cocaine down here, huh? Especially with how you've been whoring yourself out."

"I ain't - Uuuh, fuck!"

Vultures, an epilogue Dutch/Micah story, set from 1899-1911.

"Boss ain't in the mood to see no one," Cleet said. "He's, uh, sick."

"Keep your trap shut, dimwit," Joe told him, and Cleet flinched. 

Dutch remembered Arthur, both his sickness and his claims of Micah being the sick one. Was it TB? 

There was a bang from the second floor. All three men looked up to see some of the wooden boards in front of the second-floor window be kicked apart. The silvery top of two shoes shone in the sunlight, and then an equally silvery hair and beard, a bleached copy of his former self, faded like the mess of Dutch's complicated feelings. He had saved Dutch's life and then he destroyed everything around it.

Micah stuck his head out of the second floor, hair oilier than usual and hanging off his head like on a ghost. He'd gone almost fully gray. Dutch had read about it in novels but never seen it in real life. Stress, maybe? Micah's head was covered in bandages, including his left eye.

"Micah. We need to talk. Alone."

Silent Hill 2

The Beautiful Days, a James & Maria oneshot, about an alternative explanation to the weirdness at room 106 in Jack's Inn. Excerpt:

The first shot misses. The second too. But the third rings true. The mannequin falls backwards with the usual giggling death rattle. Like a mix of relief and pleasure. Maybe he isn't killing these creatures as much as he is setting them free.

Maria falls to her knees, then to all fours in the parking lot, and throws up what looks like reddish stomach acid. The sight of it is so startling that he steps backwards into the shadow of the room. She looks up at him and something strange moves over her gaze. Don't worry, James. I'll ask one of the Nurses to clean it up. They don't mind. Not like you do.

"Are you alright?" James asks, like a delayed tape recording, always too late.

"No. No ... I'm not alright. James," a wretched inhale; like he's heard so many times before, from ... Maria groans, "I'm bleeding all over the fucking place. I need to ... I think we ..."

"I'll find somewhere," he says, breaching the shadow of the room and the parking lot, crouching so he can pull one of her arms – warm, not cold – over his shoulder. "I ..." 

"... Need to lay down," Maria says, forcing his lonely I into lonelier We. Lonelier because he cannot feel her pain, only watch it as it ripples her expression and morphs her into a likeness that he doesn't want to consider but is forced to do, again and again, here in Silent Hill.

The Liar, a James centric pre-canon oneshot, trying to find the dark origins of the Lying Figure. NB: details graphic suicide. Excerpt:

He drew the covers with their blue flower design tighter around her body, feeling her warmth, wanting to preserve it a bit longer. Just a tiny teeny bit. For her (him). The next act was yet to be done. 

He walked to the small television room and felt as though he saw it for the first time although it would be the last. There was a large transparent plastic bag in the middle of the room, a rolled-up floor rug along the wall, a small square television, an old couch with the same flower pattern as the drawn curtains, and a bunch of empty shelves. He had donated all their books, DVDs and board games to a local library. The furniture was more anonymous and could be sold or destroyed for all he cared. He'd cleaned here too, but hadn't put any flowers here, because he didn't deserve them like she did. The television was on, tuned into an unused channel, volume low. He would turn it up very soon. The black television remote laid ready beside the plastic bag.  Everything was ready. 

He took his shoes off by the door. Then his jacket, his jeans, his shirt, his socks, and his boxers, folding them all neatly. And then he took off his ring, laying it on top of it all. 

Mouthwashing

Most Accidents Happen at Home, a Jim/Curly pre-canon oneshot, trying to explain the origin of Jimmy's lip scar. Excerpt:

"Damn," Curly said while balancing a jiggling piece of egg on his fork. "I've missed your breakfasts."

Jimmy grunted something noncommittal to hide the warmth in the pit of his stomach. 

"How's things?" 

The warmth turned frosty. He didn't want to answer, but he ceased to eat for a moment, before he realized he needed to keep up his protein intake, and he could never afford healthy things that tasted as good as this when still a student. 

"Is it money?" Curly asked quietly, like he could read Jimmy's mind. "I can loan you some."

"Yeah?" Jimmy said after a short pause, because he was low on cash after buying the miniature surveillance equipment. And since the latter was for Curly's own good, maybe it wasn't so humiliating, him paying for something that Jimmy did for him. 

It would help him in the end. Because it had to. It had to. 

Severance

Precision, a 4+1 oneshot + character analysis of Seth Milchick, told through the Four Tempers and a fifth one of Seth's design. Excerpt:

Seth is eleven years old when he falls in love for the first time.

He finds his object of affection in the library of The Ambrose Kier School for Boys, and it is dressed in an oxblood red coat, like Myrtle Eagan's preferred wear. Beneath the coat is leather of the same color, with golden Gothic letters like in their school textbooks, but it is also the first book that Seth ever touches that has not been published or edited by Lumon.

It is a thesaurus. He tries to quell his smile as he thinks of dinosaurs, a childish interest that he ought to have removed by now, but he's relieved to see no alluring pictures, only words. Interesting words, too. Synonyms. Rows and rows of strange and beautiful words.

Mouthwashing & the Alien Franchise

Wraiths and Strays, a threeshot (long chapters tho) featuring all the characters from MW and a select few androids from TAF, along with the cat Jones and the Xenomorph terrorizing them all. Excerpt:

For the most part, they waited in silence, until Anya spoke for the first time since they'd heard the news. She was scratching Jones' fur through the bars of the crate as he dozed off and purred loudly. "Bishop," she said quietly. "Sorry if this is silly but… is it true that animals can sense if a person is good or bad inside?"

"I'm forbidden from answering philosophical questions, but since we do have a cat onboard, that makes it more practical, I suppose. No, Jones cannot sense ethics, that's a superstition. He is an animal. The kindest thing to do to an animal is to acknowledge it as such. No more and no less."

"Do you have a soul, Bishop?" Jimmy asked, and Curly winced, because he didn't have to make it so obvious that they'd been listening in. "Is the kindest thing to do to a robot to treat it like a tin can?"

"They don't have a soul, that's for certain," Ash said curtly. "Can we please focus on the mission?"

David and Bishop both turned to him. Something passed between the three of them. Curly made a mental note to check up on that later. Anti-android sentiments were strong. They seemed strong in Ash. All the human workers at Polle Express were at risk like David had pointed out earlier, all except Curly.

RDR & the Alien Franchise

Purity, a Micah Bell & Xenomorph horror one shot. Excerpt:

In the space beneath him, there were... Flowers. Or more like fleshy looking bulbs, but somehow different to the ship, more like fauna than Leviathans. Greener and wetter, covered by a thin layer of steam, making it hard to discern them. Were this the food source of whatever navigated the ship? Of all the flowers, only one was opened and empty except for what looked like liquid. Maybe it ate the flies onboard. 

Micah leant over the edge, careful not to fall, and pushed the lantern into the mist to get a better look. Another flower began to move. Making a gurgling sound. Unpeeling the petals. Something moved in its center, too alive to be some fruit, too aware to be food. They weren't flowers, he realized. They were eggs. And whatever they hatched had a scorpion's tail.

Abort mission! 

It wasn't cowardly of him to run. It was common sense. No real person would want to inspect that. Nobody except maybe Marston, because he'd once expressed an interest in hunting Sasquatches, to which Morgan, Bill and Javier rolled their eyes so hard they looked dead.

RDR & GTA IV-V

The Legacy, a Trevor Phillips & Micah Bell crack oneshot. Excerpt:

A man was lying on his stomach in the center of the alter. He wasn't… whole. He looked almost transparent. He raised his head, and a rough, gray-haired, bearded face sneered up at Trevor. One eye was missing with a nasty scar across it, and there was a bullet wound in his forehead, like a closed third eye. 

"Who and what the fuck are you?" Trevor asked, raising his gun. A hallucination? A ghost? Had Maccer and Paul given him acid? Had they dared? But no, there were no fractals.

Everything looked the same except for him. 

The man got up, hovering slightly above the ground. He wore a dark leather winter coat and some rather cunty looking leg warmers, the sort Amanda would wear. Huh. 

"Foolish boy," the creature said, voice reverberating strangely, like it was inside and outside Trevor's skull at the same time. "I know who you are. I can sense it. You're my blood."

Trevor squinted. "Your kind got a law against speaking clearly?"

"I'm your great grandfather, welp. On your mother's side."

"My mother… My mother says we came from a lineage of kings!"

"And you did. I owned more men than most. Though my seed must've been cursed with the mother's weakness, but so far it's only women until you. That's how low the Bell blood fared for generations."

A seedy little bar, the jukebox barely working, and the music they had available mostly recordings made by dead people. 

Leaning out to shoot, he sees an absurd sight:

Dutch's kid, a hired actor or not, crawling out from underneath the pillar and towards the table in the middle of the saloon. He seems deeply determined even as bullets fly around him. The reason is simple: the sourdough bread, having fallen to the floor, bitten into by feeble milk teeth like it's more valuable than gold.

Then there is another absurd sight: Dutch storming into the battle scene, turning over the large table to use as a shield, and grabbing the kid like he's worth more than both gold and sourdough bread. The kid just keeps eating bread in Dutch's arms.

Dutch meets Micah's eyes.

A wind blows through the tattered remains of Micah's soul.

Micah nods at him. Dutch nods back. Then Dutch throws the goddamn kid at Micah.

"Catch!"

The kid flows through the air. Grinning with his mouth full of bread as he does it.

"Weee-!"

"If I got a headache from her womanly hysterics, your head must be killing you, Dutchie."

"Don't call me that. But yes. I had to use morphine. It dulls my mind. My emotions, too. I feel… empty. Is there nothing out there?" Dutch says the question abruptly, staring up through the fog at the slits of dark sky behind crooked branches.

"No gods here, except the two of us. But there's something right here, though. Something that's responsible for our headaches." Micah runs his fingers through Molly's hair to pull at the tangles and make her moan in pain. "I know how she can make it up to us, too. Like I've done when I've been a bad boy." He licks his lips, "Ain't nothing unnatural about it, just hierarchy. And this here? This seems like traitor, Dutch. Maybe we could make sure she keeps her trap shut before she runs off."