TIMING: July 7, 2026, morning.
LOCATION: Wicked's Rest Fire Department (East Station)
PARTIES: @bazzledazzle & @kellydays
SUMMARY: Baz visits the station to return Kelly's beloved sock; as a reward, Kelly gives Baz the (fire)house tour!
WARNINGS: Spice (mild)
The firefighter was very handsome, wasn’t he? Baz had thought so even in the first video the department (which they followed on social media for obvious reasons) had posted, with the ridiculous outfit. Then came the one where said firefighter had evidently injured himself doing something brave and heroic (and, wait a moment, hadn’t Baz seen him when they’d dropped the tardigrade off with Colt’s friend? They’d been rather focused on the concept of tacos at the time, but they thought they recalled something of the sort), when he’d managed to look both miserable and handsome in a way that was a bit impressive. And then, of course, had come the real kicker: the birthday party.
Invitations for Baz’s birthday party had not been hard to come by. They’d plastered word of the event all over town, gleefully extending the invitation to anyone they’d ever had the pleasure of speaking to. Exclusive parties were all well and good, but Baz preferred a crowd. What good was fun if you limited the amount of people allowed to be involved in it? Some might disagree, of course — some might say a party having a more limited guest list made it more impressive to be invited — but Baz thought those people were idiots. Parties ought to include everyone. How else were you meant to be properly celebrated?
They hadn’t anticipated the arrival of the fire department. In fact, when the truck had first pulled up Baz had assumed — reasonably, they might add — that the people stepping off of it were hired strippers. It was only when they’d recognized the pair of firefighters that they’d realized the truth of things, though they’d been excited enough at that arrival as well. Giselle had been lovely when they’d run into her at the Mush Room, and the handsomely injured firefighter was exactly the sort of person Baz liked to have around. Even better when Giselle — angel that she was — had announced that her partner could take the night off to join the festivities, prompting him to remove his shirt.
Things, of course, got a bit fuzzy after that. There had been drinks and dancing and more drinks, and Baz had woken up the next morning tangled in their own sheets with the previous night’s excitement still coursing through them. They’d sorted through the items left behind, returning the ones they felt compelled to return and making use of the ones they didn’t. But, until recently, they’d seen neither hide nor hair of the handsome firefighter’s beloved sock. It wasn’t until they’d finally decided to take a go at doing the laundry (a chore they were usually excused from, thanks to the time they’d filled the washer with the wrong sort of soap and been far too pleased with the resulting explosion of bubbles to be trusted not to make the same mistake a second time) that they’d come across a sock just unfamiliar enough to fit the bill. It certainly looked official enough, as far as socks went.
Naturally, Baz knew they had to return it. And, as they didn’t know the firefighter’s home address, they’d have to venture into the firehouse to do so. They dressed accordingly — a bright red button down with only the bottom three buttons done up, their bare chest exposed beneath it, and high-waisted white jeans so tight they’d have made it difficult to walk if Baz didn’t have experience with such things — and headed to the same station where they’d sent the firefighters’ party favors after the party. They sauntered in through the open garage door, taking in the concrete floors and the high ceilings. A decent space, they thought. Could use a bit more decorating, but the firefighters were probably busy with their boots and their jackets. “Hellooooo!” the doppelganger called out, cupping a hand to their mouth and delighting in the way their voice bounced off the walls. “I’m looking for a handsome firefighter! A specific one, though I’ll be happy to talk to multiple to find him.”
—
Kelly owed Giselle a massive favor—and she wasn’t fae, so Kelly hadn’t been shy about telling her so. Somehow, someway, the only evidence that Kelly had attended—much less taken his shirt off at—Baz’s birthday party was some… admittedly damning eyewitness testimony. Turns out, it was hard to deny your actions when your face had been shared across the town. Not that Kelly was all that interested in denying, at least not outright. Now, hiding it from the crew for as long as possible? That, he’d do. It was easy enough, since none of them were all that active on the town’s forums. So long as Baz and Sawyer (…and Jade) kept their chatter there, Kelly was in the clear.
It wasn’t like Kelly was embarrassed, even. For one, he had nothing to be ashamed of, either in his actions or in his assets. For another, he’d taken his shirt off professionally. Baz didn’t know it, but they’d gotten a sneak preview of next year’s Mister March (‘cause the crew was a collective dog with a collective bone, and nothing had stuck quite like Saint Patrick’s Day in their minds—not even his recent injuries). Wasn’t like Kelly was worried about losing his job, neither. Giselle had taken care of that. Lingering questions about how she’d accomplished that aside, Kelly’d gotten away with murder. The one wrinkle in his total getaway had been the painting—but, luckily, there’d been two. Easy enough to pass it off as a gift from a victim, with only token snickering from folks on the other shift. (And if the members of his shift didn’t remember Baz from a call, well, being firefighters, faces didn’t always stick.) All in all, Kelly’d marked it down as a success. He hadn’t had a ton of those, lately, so he’d take ‘em where he could get ‘em.
…Which is why Kelly should’ve expected Baz to show up at the station on an otherwise q-word shift, and weeks later at that. Kelly saw ‘em come in from where he’d been leaning against the railing of the loft, surveying the station. Kelly saw, too, one of the probies perk up once he heard “handsome firefighter” and leap to his feet, faster than Kelly’d seen him move in any real emergency. (The hell was that one’s name, again? Whatever.) The probie slid down the pole (nearly fell off the damn thing), tripped and stumbled (far too eager), and leaned against an engine to speak with Baz. By the time Kelly made it down the stairs and over to the pair, he only caught the end of what the “young buck” was saying. “Ah, I could give you the station tour” was a bad enough line that Kelly felt obligated to grab the moron by his collar. (Functionally scruffing him—though, since Flip was better behaved and, importantly, a child, Kelly’d never had to grab the kid by his scruff, even at his most wolf.)
“Probationary Firefighter…” Kelly started. “Believe my friend here was lookin’ for the real deal. How ‘bout I help ‘em out, and you… Well, if you got time to run your mouth, you got time to grab a rag and polish somethin’, right? Get to it.” He let go of the younger man, who turned, rearing up to run his mouth some more. But whatever he saw on Kelly’s face had him scrambling away, tail between his legs. Kelly’d apologize later. (Maybe. Assuming the dumbass could follow directions better than he could flirt.) Kelly waited until the probie was out of earshot before turning to Baz, flashing ‘em a warm smile. “Sorry ‘bout that. Would’ve moseyed over a little faster, but you looked like you had it pretty well in hand.” Kelly leaned up against the engine, a big laugh breaking past his lips. “Handsome firefighter, really? You know how to make an entrance, huh?” Rumor mill would get a kick out of this, he was certain. “What brings you by, Baz? Get all impatient? Just couldn’t wait for me to drop on by for lunch?”
—
The firefighter who slid down the pole — wasn’t that so wonderfully cliche? A pole! That firefighters slid down! Baz was delighted at the sight. — wasn’t the same one that had graced the doppelganger’s birthday party, but he was handsome enough to catch Baz’s eye, anyway. (In all fairness, most people were attractive enough to catch Baz’s eye. They’d never bought into the idea that conventionally attractive people were the only ones capable of looking good; to Baz, there was something in every face that was worth looking at, some feature that drew their eye and their interest.) He seemed eager to impress, too, which Baz always enjoyed. They grinned as he sauntered up to them, his charm clearly turned on and up to eleven.
He wore a cute metal badge with his name on it; immediately, Baz wanted one of their own. They didn’t have name badges at the museum, which was something of a shame, really. Baz’s name would have looked lovely carved into metal like this. Maybe they’d become a firefighter! They’d seen jackets with their names on them, too, which made it twice as appealing. And did the helmets also have something like that? They mulled over a career change while flirting unashamedly with the handsome firefighter (Tony Montana, he’d introduced himself as, which Baz thought was a lovely name), pausing only when someone else joined the fray. A familiar someone.
Baz grinned as their handsome firefighter shooed the other one away, delighted by the notion that he must have been jealous someone else was talking to them. They’d have to let him down easy, when all of this was over. Romantically, they had nothing to offer him, but they could console him with a quick shag. He’d certainly enjoy that — they’d make certain of it!
“Oh, no need to apologize,” they assured the firefighter as he turned back to them, offering a wave to Tony, who glanced back at them longingly during his retreat. Who could blame him? “He’s a lovely lad, that Firefighter Montana.” They returned their full attention to the firefighter in front of them, still grinning. “Right! Sorry about that, I didn’t quite catch your name the other night. You might have said it but, well… I was a bit distracted, wasn’t I?” They let their gaze drop down to his chest with a dreamy sigh. “I am known for my impatience, but I’ve a reason for being here today!” They initiated a drumroll against their thigh with their right hand, using their left to dig in their pocket and retrieve… “Your sock! I know you were missing it, so I thought I should hurry it on by. And, well, I don’t actually know where you live, so…” They trailed off, gesturing broadly with the sock.
—
That was the name. “Probationary Firefighter Montana,” Kelly corrected, again, ‘cause it was worth repeating—especially around someone like Baz, who Kelly figured wouldn’t know the ins and outs of the profession. “Which means he ain’t quite stuck a year out.” Just to screw with Montana, Kelly raised his voice, speaking from his gut. “His odds of graduatin’ shrink for every extra second he hides out just watchin’, might I add.” Montana was lucky he wasn’t a hunter with how obvious he was being. He’d tried—“tried”—hiding behind a supply rack to listen in on the conversation. Not that it was much to listen to, not yet. The station’s old gossip hounds were insatiable, even the pups.
“Not sure I gave it. Or if I did, I was… three sheets to the wind and might’ve been lyin’.” Kelly smiled again, more practiced. “Name’s Firefighter Brooks, proud member of the Wicked’s Rest Fire Department, East Station… but you can call me Kelly.” The glance at his chest was conspicuous, a little too conspicuous for Kelly’s taste, least here in mixed company, but he’d let it slide. Just… ‘cause the sigh that broke past Baz’s lips did wonders for Kelly’s ego, and that’d been bruised up pretty bad, here lately. Kelly hadn’t yet fished out what persuasion of compliment Baz liked, whether handsome or gorgeous was the better name for ‘em, but he’d find that out sooner or later. Not on a shift, mind, but there was nothing stopping Kelly from pursuing that avenue after or before work, now was there?
“You didn’t know my name until ten seconds ago. Why would you know where I live?” Kelly asked, not unkindly. “Though… Your friend Sawyer does. Little shocked she hasn’t tried to sneak you into my pool, actually.” Speaking of the pool, though, Kelly had left a sock at Baz’s party. It wasn’t his sock, technically, just a uniform sock. If he remembered right, he’d told Baz not to worry after it. But worried they had, apparently. Kelly squinted at the article of clothing, taking the sock gently from Baz’s hands and inspecting it. It… was a sock. Might’ve been his missing one. Might’ve been Baz’s housemate’s sock. Socks lost in the dryer went somewhere. This one, apparently, made its way into the hands of an eager Baz, then over, now, into Kelly’s. Its true owner? Forgotten. Irrelevant. ‘Cause there was no way in hell Kelly was going to check. (Hell of a gesture for a stranger.)
Kelly pushed off the truck, clapped Baz on their shoulder with a firm hand, and gave said shoulder a soft squeeze. ‘Cause he’d been raised right and ‘cause he’d been raised by wardens, (even if there was no telling if Baz was anything supernatural at all), Kelly offered, “How ‘bout I give you a tour of the station, hm?” Kelly would do a much better job than Montana, ‘course.
—
“Oh, I’m sure I could help him get off probation,” Baz hummed, looking off to where Probationary Firefighter Montana lurked to listen in on the conversation. “Or, at the very least, I could help him get off something.” They’d come here with a specific firefighter in mind, but Baz was hardly picky. They were happy with any handsome firefighter paying attention to them. Preferably multiple at once, of course. They sighed as, upon hearing the thinly veiled threat to his career, Montana scampered off fully towards the lockers. What he hoped to do over there, Baz wasn’t certain, but his cheekbones would be sorely missed.
They turned their attention fully back to the firefighter in front of them — Firefighter Brooks. Or Kelly. Both names suited him well enough, though Baz thought they might be more partial to the title. (They’d love a title of their own, but the museum didn’t offer that, either. Maybe it was time to look into finding a new job, one that came with shiny name badges and official titles.) “You do look very proud,” they said, tilting their head with a faint smirk.
They weren’t sure what knowing a person’s name had to do with knowing where they lived. Baz went home with plenty of people whose names they didn’t know, though they did tend to make it a point to learn those names before leaving them behind (even if they tended to forget them shortly after). Names were important, the sort of things that had meaning. Baz liked knowing them. “Sawyer did mention that she’d been by. She’d invite me along if I asked her to.” Something in their throat burned in quiet warning, because they didn’t know if that statement was true or not. Sawyer was fond of them, but Baz never quite knew how far a person’s fondness went. Did someone liking you meant they’d invite you along with them when they went to handsome firefighters’ pools, or was there a secondary level that needed to be reached before such a thing could be expected? Baz preferred not to think of it. Much more fun to think instead of Kelly’s hand brushing against theirs as he plucked the sock from their grip, the warmth of skin on skin sending an exciting spark through them.
That warmth spread as Kelly’s hand landed on their shoulder, clasping them with a grip both strong and gentle. This was what Baz had really been after, of course; not returning a sock, which they cared nothing about, but the bits that came after. The human contact, the gratefulness, the house tour. A grin split the doppelganger’s borrowed face, eyes lighting up at the offer. “Oh, I’d love a tour. You know, the firehouses on the telly have rooms full of beds. That’d be a nice place to start, wouldn’t it?” No one had ever said Baz wasn’t forward.
—
Baz gave Montana one last look, and Kelly did his level best to hide his distaste. Not for Montana himself, necessarily. Hell, given Kelly had forgotten the probie’s name, he couldn’t damn well pretend to have an opinion. (Not even that was a real mark against Montana. Probies were a dime a dozen, especially in this town. Kelly figured it was best to wait until they’d gone official to get attached.) No, it was more… Kelly thought Baz could do better than to hang around firefighters. Baz was an artist. They could find more interesting folks for friends (or lovers, if their outfit was anything to go by) than some soot-covered, smoke-smelling weirdos. Kelly wasn’t self-conscious about it; it just seemed obvious to him. Art was about creation, not destruction. When it came down to it, Kelly’s job was about the latter—trying to hold it back, cleaning up after it’d carved a path.
Though, it wasn’t like Kelly wasn’t proud. And if there was an implication in Baz’s voice, Kelly didn’t catch it, too focused on the task at-hand.
“We’ll see,” Kelly said. Though, if Baz knew about Sawyer’s furrier form, there wasn’t much he could do to stop Baz from getting in with her. Even if Kelly drained the pool, that woman had seemed stubborn enough to fill it back up from Kelly’s own hose. (And there was a water crisis, so that’d be a real waste.) Before Flip, Kelly hadn’t been shy about inviting folks back to his place. Now, admittedly, his “place” was the Chevy, maybe a motel room once in a blue moon. So, even back in those days, it had been much more convenient to see if someone was willing to let him come around theirs. Dangerous, in a way. Even if Kelly couldn’t sense someone was a threat, didn’t mean they couldn’t be one. Thrilling, in another. After he’d left his folks’ place, Kelly hadn’t had a home to speak of. Sneaking peaks at others’ lives, even brief ones while Kelly was tangled up with ‘em in the dark, was a voyeuristic glimpse into something he’d never really expected he’d get.
“There are nicer places to take a nap, if that’s what you’re anglin’ for. But sure, we can start back there.” Kelly knew exactly what Baz was angling for. Unlike Kieran’s initial attempt, Baz’d made their interest immediately obvious, and, being honest? That was a point in Baz’s favor. Kelly could do with more of that, less innuendo or talking around it. The former could be fun, the latter could be a dance, but there was something to be said for just a forthright offer, an easy acceptance. (Were still plenty of ways to be a tease. Hell, he hadn’t been intending it as such, but Kelly figured the wait for him to just take his dang shirt off had been a little enticing. Else, why the hell had Baz kept asking?) Though if Kelly’d wanted an opportunity to get away with fooling around in the station, while he was injured would’ve been the better pick. (Firing an injured firefighter was a bad look.) Even then, Kelly wouldn’t’ve. Not even a chance, no sir.
Now, he would splay a hand on Baz’s back, given they hadn’t shrugged off the same to their shoulder. Kelly could nudge ‘em along, guide ‘em back to the bunk room. It could be interpreted as plain friendliness, get the crew off his back. But Kelly brushed his thumb, featherlight, across the fabric of Baz’s shirt, as he did. When he’d corralled Baz back to the room itself, Kelly took his hand away. The bunk room wasn’t much—bunk beds, like it was summer camp. Stacks of sheets in a cupboard. Thin mattresses. Even if Kelly was inclined to break several of his own rules (and more than a few of the department’s), it wasn’t the best place for a roll in the hay. (And Kelly’d rolled around in actual hay, so his standards for accommodations were literal dirt.)
Kelly’s bunk was in the corner—bottom ‘cause there wasn’t much headroom up at the top. He took a seat at the end—hugging the wall, eyes on the exit—and nodded towards the other end of the bed, hoping Baz got the hint. “Here it is.” Christ, Kelly… was going to give Baz an actual lecture, huh? “East Station’s the older of the two stations in town. Bunk room was made for smaller crews, so it used to be you could fit single beds. Nowadays, staffing that small a crew on a shift would have us all leanin’ on West Station for support. It’d be more like a skeleton crew. And just like the dead, we don’t take kindly to the sun, so no windows. We work for twenty-four hours straight, and emergencies might not take a nap, but we try to. Hell, I’ve managed to squeak out a full eight hours before, when the town cooperates.”
“So, as interestin’ as your shows or just plain borin’?” Kelly asked with a lazy grin.
—
We’ll see wasn’t the same as no, which Baz took to mean some interest existed there. There was a thin line to walk atop we’ll see, a dance to be had. No was a nonstarter. Trying to turn a no into a yes had never sat well with the doppelganger, who found choice to be an important thing after an upbringing of having very little of it. They weren’t in the business of trying to convince someone who’d already turned them down point blank, weren’t willing to risk losing someone’s interest and attention entirely by attempting to whittle it into the shape they most wanted it to take. If someone said no to sex, Baz tended to shift into something more interested in casual conversation instead, in friendship or quality time spent doing other things. Anything to avoid the lonely feeling that came when they were the only person in a room, really; they’d rather have parts of someone than have no one at all.
But we’ll see was different. We’ll see was convince me. We’ll see was show me how much you want it. We’ll see was an opener, not a closer. Baz was happy to work with we’ll see. Kelly would see. And if experience was anything to go by, he’d like what he saw. Maybe even enough to prompt him to ask to see it again.
“Oh, I’m sure the pair of us could find a way to make it more comfortable,” they hummed, grinning devilishly at Kelly’s statement. They both knew, Baz suspected, that the doppelganger wasn’t angling for a place to nap here. If Kelly’s preferred method of flirting involved beating around bushes, Baz would happily beat him off. Or… something along those lines. The metaphor had gotten away from them, just a bit.
It was hard for that not to happen, really, with the warmth of Kelly’s hand against their back. Instinctively, they leaned back into the touch, even as they let Kelly steer them forward. They caught no sign of Montana, who must have been so humbled by Kelly’s intervention that he’d slipped off somewhere to lick his wounds. (Hopefully not to the bunk room. Though if he was there, Baz could be talked into a group activity.)
The bunk room wasn’t particularly impressive but, then, Baz cared very little for the actual content of it. They had no real interest in bunks or firefighting; their interest was only in firefighters. Specifically the one in front of them now, though they’d just as happily go off to find another if he determined he wasn’t interested. Kelly took a seat on one of the bunks and indicated to the mattress beside him. Rather than take a seat on the mattress, Baz sprawled themself across the firefighter’s lap, making half an attempt to pretend to have wound up there accidentally. “Is sleeping the only thing you do in here?” they questioned, shifting their weight a little. “Lots of long nights, I’m sure. You must have other ways of passing the time.”
They hummed at the question. “Well, not very interesting on its own, but the ones on the shows aren’t, either. It’s what happens in the bunks that makes them interesting, isn’t it?”
—
Baz had not gotten the hint. In the short time it took Kelly to list off a few key facts about the bunk room, his younger… acquaintance had fallen into Kelly’s lap. For a second, before Kelly realized the ploy, his grin had flickered into a frown. Had Baz knocked their head, somehow? That concern was misplaced, turned out. If their eyes were dilated, it wasn’t a sign of a concussion, but of being a bit too pleased with their efforts. Jeez, Baz was lucky that Kelly was fully recovered, that his ribs had finally healed properly. Even if you were used to pain, like Kelly was, it was only natural to try and get away from the source of it. It was why so many idiots pulled knives out of their stab wounds. If they’d jostled him, Baz might’ve ended up on the floor or worse. But the only indication that they’d landed on Kelly was a soft grunt as Kelly took on the weight of another body. Otherwise, he held firm, unmoving—hell, given their position, Kelly made a pretty good chair.
‘Course, that wouldn’t be the end of it. Baz couldn’t be content that Kelly was letting ‘em stay, no. Kelly felt Baz shift, unmistakable as anything but a tease, and— Nope. Baz wasn’t going to do that, not right here in the bunk room. If they wanted to sit on Kelly’s lap, they were going to sit still. Just… needed a little maneuvering. (Helpful, since Kelly wasn’t sure where to put his hands.) The ranger grabbed the other by their waist and hoisted ‘em up, before shifting himself around on the bed, to a position a little less incriminating (and a position a little less likely to induce any kind of reaction in Kelly). When he was satisfied, he sat Baz back down on the meat of his thigh. Baz perched there—they weren’t that much smaller than Kelly, but Kelly had a height advantage and a bulk advantage. Still a bit familiar, if someone managed to walk in without Kelly noticing, but not outright scandalous.
Kelly put a hand square in the middle of Baz’s back, trying to contain ‘em. If they were happy to throw themselves over for “prime seating,” Kelly wouldn’t put it past ‘em to fall back and pout. On the edge of the bed, if Kelly’s reflexes failed ‘em, Baz’s only action today would be a spinal check. And an actual medical emergency was the second-to-last thing Kelly wanted to deal with in the bunk room. (Untimely arousal was beating it off—out. It was beating it out.) “Sleepin’ is the only thing we do in here,” he said, voice low, though he had enough self-awareness to know that might only encourage Baz. Well, when in Rome… “If you don’t like that answer, tough. Be good, alright? Tour ain’t over quite yet. Don’t be a brat.”
(There was, Kelly was surprised to find, a part of him that wanted to throw caution to the wind. Not like anyone could sneak up on ‘em. Kelly’d hear ‘em coming, be able to do up Baz’s tight pants before the lights came on, before someone could see what was happening in the far corner. And, while Kelly liked to stretch things out, he knew how to be efficient. Wouldn’t take much time at all to work Baz up, just a taste. Maybe it’d be enough to calm ‘em down, calm ‘em both down, and take the edge off. If Baz had paid their visit a little sooner, if Kelly was still as pent-up as he’d been the night of Baz’s party… Well, who knows what might’ve happened.)
Kelly placed his other hand on Baz’s knee. What had he been talking about? Oh, right. Bunks and how boring they were. “Hate to burst your bubble, bud.” It was a line in the sand and a line cast into the water. Or, to put it in terms Kelly suspected Baz might find a touch clearer: it was yellow, not red. “If all you know about this job is from television, you’re gonna keep bein’ disappointed. No makin’ out in the showers,” Kelly’s hands moved just a hair—up from Baz’s knee, down the plane of Baz’s back, “no foolin’ around in the bunks, no stealin’ the engine to fuck on a roof. Hell, I even freed a guy in handcuffs, and I didn’t get no reward.” His hands paused. “You can’t just believe everythin’ you hear.”
—
Either firefighting gear included a gun in the pocket, or Kelly was pleased to see them. Baz was inclined to believe the latter, but this was the United States. They couldn’t be certain that shooting the fire wasn’t a method of suppressing it. They’d need to do a bit more digging, wouldn’t they? A little more investigation, just to be completely certain. They started to shift again, preparing to grind themself against the firefighter’s lap just to make sure he wasn’t armed and dangerous, but a hand round the waist stopped them and — oooh, Kelly did have large hands, didn’t he? Baz could feel the calloused skin through the thin fabric of their shirt, could imagine how it would feel if he laid it on them bare. Then Kelly lifted them — just a little — and it was a bit hard to think of anything beyond the subtle strength it took to effortlessly maneuver a person like that. The doppelganger’s head was spinning a bit, mapping out possibilities for this little outing that they hadn’t quite considered before. Kelly had been in a sling the last time they’d seen him, after all! They’d been intent on respecting his healing journey! But if that healing journey was finished, well…
“Seems like a bit of a waste,” they hummed, leaning against Kelly in a way that was lazily disguised as a stretch. “So many beds just for sleeping. I think you could have a lot more fun than that, if you set your mind to it.” When Kelly spoke next, though, his voice was low and close, sending a quiet rumble through Baz’s eardrums that went straight to their… well. No need to be crass, was there? “What do I get if I’m good?” they asked, looking at Kelly through their lashes. “What sort of prize do firefighters hand out for good behavior? Could I sit behind the wheel of the truck? Or…” They trailed off, eyes moving downward in a way that was slow and deliberate. “Would you let me handle the hose?”
His hand was on their knee now, and Baz wondered how they could convince Kelly to move it a bit higher. He was certainly interested. If he weren’t, he’d have already shown them the door. Perhaps he was too professional to have a go at things here in the bunk room, but maybe there was someplace else Baz could convince him to let loose. They did like the idea of doing this inside the firehouse — it was all about the experience, wasn’t it? — but that wasn’t necessarily a dealbreaker. They’d be happy to… get a tour from Kelly elsewhere, too. Mostly, they were just looking to be allowed to… come inside, as it was.
“Where do you do your making out, then? Not the showers, not the bunk rooms… I hope you have some sort of outlet, Firefighter Brooks. I’d hate to think of you all pent up like that. Public servants deserve better treatment. I’m happy enough to do my part.” The hand moved up from their knee, though still not quite as high as they might have liked it to be. “Well, if you freed me from handcuffs, I’d certainly reward you,” they hummed, leaning into Kelly’s touch a bit more. “I could give you a belated reward now, come to think of it.” They shifted their position, acting as though they needed to place their hand somewhere for support in doing so and choosing to place it beside their own legs on Kelly’s thigh. They didn’t move it once they were finished repositioning. “What should I believe, then?”
—
What do I get if I’m good? Hm. Well, Kelly supposed Baz’s question was a fair one. Least, he couldn’t blame ‘em for asking. They didn’t know Kelly, hadn’t had experience with Kelly, in bed or otherwise. Come to think of it, Kelly didn’t know much about Baz. See, some folks liked not knowing, the flicker of adrenaline that came from anticipation. Some folks, instead, were so easily motivated by a firm hand ordering their obedience that the reward (or the punishment, for that matter) wasn’t all that important. And some folks liked to push and test, to walk right on up to the edge of the line, stare authority in the face. One, some, all, or none of those possibilities might’ve been true for Baz, but Kelly wasn’t going to guess from one measly (if… compelling) data point.
Still, they’d asked, and, given there’d been no prior discussion, it was only right that Kelly answer. “If you’re good…” The firefighter waited for Baz to finish their inspection, met their eyes before allowing a considering look of his own. It was hard, this close, to disguise intent. A lingering look across the bar, that could be played off—oh, no, sorry, I was looking at someone else. If you got shy, or scared, not that Kelly ever really did, you could walk away. Here, Kelly couldn’t walk away, and not only ‘cause Baz was weighing him down. “If you’re good, really good, you let me finish the tour and at least act like a responsible citizen, I’ll do more than let you handle the hose. I’ll let you slide down the pole.” It was a mighty generous offer. Kelly hoped Baz understood, exactly, how much of a treat it was to slide down the pole. “That sound like a deal?”
Baz could think it over, get their last questions and taunts and teases out. Kelly wasn’t keen to let a perfectly good deal slip by over a technicality, especially before it’d even been agreed to. He thought, again, of Kieran, of the possibility that these deals might be a bit more binding than Kelly had meant ‘em to be. He wasn’t a fool—or, he didn’t try to be one. Never bet or bargain or make deals with what you couldn’t bear to lose. Simple as. Couple of his ironclad brothers had gone and studied words and contracts and “metaphysical linguistics” (whatever the hell that meant), but it didn’t take a fancy degree to speak plain and clear. Way he saw it, deals only got complicated when you started stacking ‘em on top of each other. More cracks there were, the more places for loopholes. His bet with Kieran had the three tiers, ‘course, but it was still simple. Kelly’d set the terms, just like he had with Baz. Kelly’d weighed ‘em out, added a caveat if he thought a reward was too broad, refined ‘em. There was leeway—Baz only had to act like a responsible citizen, Kieran could make Kelly laugh or blush or even smile from surprise more than skill—but not so much that it’d be a weight around Kelly’s neck. Hopefully.
Kelly had gotten distracted, a little in his head. He heard what Baz was saying, definitely felt ‘em trying to move a bit more, place a hand dangerously far up Kelly’s thigh. So close that, if Kelly let himself think about it, he could feel the heat of said hand. But he’d let ‘em talk and babble, focus on centering himself. There was no pressure. If Baz didn’t like the terms of the deal, if they’d only come looking for a repeat striptease in person, Kelly’d let ‘em down gently but firmly. They’d gotten right up to the edge of Kelly’s line (not without some help from Kelly, he was only a man). “Believe me, Baz,” he said, with a chuckle. It wasn’t quite what Baz’d been fishing for, but that, too, was an answer.
“And I believe we best be makin’ our way out of the bunk room. C’mon. Up and at ‘em.” And, since Kelly hadn’t said he’d be good, he punctuated the order with a tap on Baz’s thigh, high enough that Kelly wasn’t confident he hadn’t brushed against more. A taste of their own medicine.
—
I’ll let you slide down the pole. As soon as the words passed through Kelly’s lips, Baz was assigning innuendo to them. It didn’t take too much creativity to understand what sliding down the pole might mean, and their expression was one of immediate… interest at the idea. Yes, they’d very much like to slide down Kelly’s pole. Better yet, Kelly said the magic word in setting up the agreement: deal.
To a fae, the word was its own sort of euphoric temptation. Sometimes, Baz swore they could see the syllables of it hanging in the air, a piece of ribbon to twist and tie as they saw fit. There was no hesitation in their decision to pick it up now, no pause between the word leaving Kelly’s mouth and Baz nodding their head with an eager grin. They were not one to deny themself any sort of temptation; if Baz wanted something and it was within arm’s length, there was little that would prevent them from reaching out to take it. Long-term consequences were not something that factored into their decisions, and they certainly weren’t self aware enough to change that now.
“You’ve got yourself a deal, Firefighter Brooks,” Baz purred, making the bind with silent glee. There was no guilt in making it; there never was, for Baz. Even if the deal had been one with potential harm, they’d have felt no shame in snatching it up. The way they saw things, if someone made a promise and wasn’t willing to keep it, whatever became of them was their own fault. Baz was not the perpetrator; they weren’t even the weapon. They were little more than a bystander watching things unfold with a shake of their head and a quiet sigh. But in this case, they doubted anything bad would come of things. This deal was beneficial to them and Kelly, in the end. He’d enjoy himself just as thoroughly as Baz would. They’d see to that.
Kelly’s hand tapped their thigh, brushing against other parts in the process, and the doppelganger danced to their feet with a grin. “Yes sir, Firefighter Brooks,” they said dutifully, clearly taking the deal to be good seriously as they moved towards the door. “Please show me the rest of your lovely firehouse. I’d love to hear more about your… tools. I’ll bet you’re very skilled at using them, hm? Had to get used to doing it one-handed, and all…”
One thing was for certain: Baz would be making the most of this tour.
—
True to their word, Baz was being a good, responsible citizen. A great one, if Kelly was being honest. A part of Kelly wanted to be suspicious, look for an ulterior motive or follow his earlier train of thought to see where it led. The competitive side of Kelly decided, instead, that he wasn’t about to make this deal easy on ‘em. See, while injured, Kelly’d given the tour more times than he could count. He’d perfected the delivery. The majority of the tours they gave were for kids. Kids, who would get distracted or bored, even in a fire station. So, Kelly had needed to build in ways to keep ‘em occupied. (Better than he would’ve done before Flip, anyway.) ‘Course, he’d had to improvise a little in the bunk room. Last thing that a gaggle of high energy kids wanted to see was a bunch of beds. But he’d done pretty well, if he said so himself. He gave an entertaining, efficient, and evergreen tour.
But Baz wasn’t getting that tour. No, Baz was getting the full tour, the full spiel, the extended cut. Longer and— Damn it. Point was, Kelly could, and would, drag out Baz’s tour (well, so long as the alarm didn’t go off). He knew the station down pat, and had done research to supplement the blurbs in the script. He hadn’t been able to rewrite the PSAs, but he’d been able to mess with the tours as much as he wanted. (Kept him off the crew’s asses, Figueroa’d said. Kelly’d… been going a little stir crazy.) If they wanted to slide down the pole, Kelly wanted ‘em to earn it. Always made him feel good to earn it. Baz might learn something new about themself.
Still, the station wasn’t endless. Kelly could only list off facts, answer the occasional question from Baz, for so long before it had to come to a close. Baz hadn’t broken, even once. No yawns, no wandering eyes, nothing. “Good job,” Kelly said, accepting his loss with more grace than he usually would. “Gold star for you. Actually…” The station kept around some plastic hats for the kids. Wouldn’t quite fit an adult, but Baz might be able to pull it off anyway. (Matched their shirt, at least.) Kelly fished around for one in a nearby closet, found it, and placed it on top of Baz’s head with a grin. “Wasn’t part of the deal, but you did so well that I figure I can give you a parting gift. I’ll, uh, send you my number, too. Sometimes, texts’ll come in faster than tryin’ to get at me online, if you have any other questions. You know, when I’m not on the clock.” (Subtle as a brick wall.)
With that taken care of, all that was left was for Baz to claim their prize. Kelly led the other up the stairs to the loft, ignoring the curious looks (and a knowing snicker or two) from the crew. They could laugh all they liked. Kelly felt good today. Shift hadn’t been going long, but he was allowed out. When he reached their destination, he gestured with a flourish. There were a couple of poles, but this was the nicest. “Not original to the station, ‘course, but it’s what we got. Go and slide on down, Baz. You earned it.”
@kellydays replied to your post “Oh, motherfucker. Hello, treasured member of our...”:
Even if it was a ruse, which it ain't, I wouldn't call it complicated or nothin'. Don't mean this as an insult, but this is the first time I'd heard about the store. [...] Everyone, huh? [d: Yeah, I bet.]
Oh, the working class cowboy isn't familiar with the high-quality fashion store? Shocking news. They're all welcome, sure, but whether or not they have any business here is a different thing. Preferably, everyone would make a bit more effort when it came to getting dressed in the morning but that's just too farfetched.
I ain't a cowboy. Horses and I don't get on. Think I move a little too fast for 'em.
[User realizes this is an official message and, unlike certain other interactions, shows a modicum of restraint. Besides, if he wants more of Kieran, he knows where to find him.] I put on my uniform one boot at a time, just like the rest of my crew.
[pm] Effortlessly working at it, sure, haven't really started to turn up the heat yet. Wouldn't want you to make it that easy for me. Of course you wouldn't, I'm sure you absolutely love your job and all the people you meet, even the boring and nasty ones. And pull you away from active duty? How terribly selfish of me that would have been.
Ouch, lucky you have a nice face. Ooh, incident reports. I'm all hot and bothered now. Slow and steady or do you just really enjoy edging yourself?
Might as well. I'm expecting a flawless performance for when I complete my side of this bet.
[pm] I ain't plannin' on losin' at all, mind you. But if you want to make it easy on me, go right on ahead. [...] Nah. I love my job, but who the hell loves everyone they meet? This ain't a story, and if it was, it'd be a pretty borin' one. Some folks I meet on calls are hardheaded or, yeah, nasty. And some folks flirt with me, when I'm just tryin' to free their [...] friend. We help all kinds. [...] Well, you said it, not me.
[User rolls his eyes.] Why's it gotta be or, huh?
I'll practice my tapdancin', then. Or maybe you're more into yodelin'?
[pm] I was wondering who lost that particular coin toss. I know Daiyu. Not acquainted with Mickey, but, assuming you know him as he was part of your team, I'm not too worried about him and his now known involvement with the supernatural--- what is he? Shifter? Undead? Or just particularly smart and maybe magic?
I mean... maybe it's weird, but arguably, a normal human doesn't have half the abilities we do. I'm curious if hunters on the whole are just some magically evolved subsect of human. Not that I'm a scientist... not that sort anyway. [...] I'm glad to hear that...
That sounds like an interrogation you can have with Colt at a later date. But it's possible that something just, proverbially, fell into her lap. You know? Like she experienced something so weird that her brain went: welp, the rest of it might as well exist! But as for if that's common around here: yes. Unfortunately.
[pm] If you can call "the doors were locked behind me while I was makin' sure the thing was secure" losin' a coin toss, then sure.
Oh, you don't know Owen is Daiyu and I are [...] aware of each other. Mickey's a doctor at the local hospital. He and I know each other from work. Figured him for a human, but I guess it's more of a hunch. Fuck. Let me rephrase. I knew the hunters there. [User would like to point out that this is not, technically, a lie.] I don't think Colt and Mickey are shifters, at least. Though, there was that guy, the one with the crane?
[User doesn't want to talk about magic.] You're doin' that thing my folks do. Endin' sentences that should be statements with an ellipsis. That a warden thing? Y'all need to be all ominous?
Super. Glad supernatural secrecy is alive and well in Wicked's Rest.
[pm] Like I said, tight-lipped. She didn't tell me much about what happened. [...] Eh, I mean maybe? I just don't see how a fae would use something like that against her. But what do I know, you're probably more knowledgeable about that shit anyway.
Man, it's fishing. It ain't fucking rocket science.
[...] Yeah, guess I have. Girlfriend seems to like it here, so it's grown a lot on me. I see that you two are You're actually talking to her, and I think you should stop Ah, see, I was told ahead of time that this place was a supernatural hot bed, but guess it makes sense why you wouldn't wanna stick around for long. [...] Fair enough. How'd she respond to that news, anyway?
[pm, after this] Well, she knows I spilt those particular beans, now. Took that one on the chin. [...] [User considers reminding Daniel that there are fae that can look like anyone. It's unlikely, but not impossible, that there's a fae with a grudge and the power to use one of her friends' faces against Eve. But down that path lies madness.] I do. Ain't bein' cocky. Ain't tryin' to be shitty, neither. Just mean if I didn't know more about fae than you, it'd be... weird? [...] Wait. You know my adoptive folks are wardens too, right? Shit. You know I'm adopted, right?
I was tryin' to ask you about Christ, we fuckin' suck at [...] Alright. Just let me know.
Yeah, speakin' of your girlfriend. Is she always this friendly, or is it just me? She had questions and concerns. I answered what I could and tried to reassure her.
[PM] That's impressive! [User remembers Lia, immediately feels sad and a little awkward. Deletes that bit and just moves on.] Yeah, I mean, you'll probably get used to him popping up, too. He'll barely be a surprise anymore soon. I think Flip'll be okay, actually. He usually gets it, about not putting something in his mouth once you tell him, and once it's not a new thing that he wants to figure out.
[... ...] Both great options but definitely sound like they'd get someone written up by HR. It'd either be one of those heinous pride collection t-shirts from Target, or a unicorn onesie. For some reason, I'm envisioning a unicorn leotard with rainbow tutu, actually. Don't worry - I'll keep that one to myself. Don't wanna go giving them any ideas.
[pm] [User hadn't forgotten. But, for just a moment, he'd lived in before. Eventually, what he said hits him. Hard. He goes idle for a while. When he returns, he chooses to focus on something less complicated—like Zack moving out.] [...] Yeah, I guess so! [Nailed it.] [...] Gonna need an itemized list of all the things that kid has tried to put in his mouth while you've been watchin' him, stat. [...] That's a joke. I know Flip leads with his mouth. Tryin' to break the habit, but some kids'll keep it up until they're in preschool. I should be so lucky.
[User squints. Is Zack uncomfortable? Shit.] Guess that would be a problem. [...] Please keep those ideas under wraps. You don't wanna know what they've been stickin' me in for some of these fuckin' PSAs. Startin' to think I got off easy with ol' Saint Patrick. [...] Least I knew to expect that, this time. Department was limited to how crazy they could get, too, given the sling.
@kellydays replied to your post “[User isn't sure if the State Park is even in the...”:
[To calm down after that Smokey comment, User reviewed the local ordinances.] Partially correct! It's the only thing y'all call on us for unless shit a forest fire starts going sideways, you mean. But what I think your firefighters would tell you is that, if the problem's big enough, they'd take any help they can get. [...] And if we want to get all technical about it, you're over in West Station territory. If there's a structure fire, the call goes out to them, then to East Station only if it's fully involved.
[...] Also, just sayin', that quip don't even make sense. You work for the State Park. Y'all license Smokey. If anyone's Smokey the fuckin' Bear, it's you. Don't put that evil on me.
[User thinks about the fact this is technically an official communication from the WRFD. User clicks "send" anyway.]
Don't tell me what I mean, you wh Right! Well, yeah. All hands on deck in that case, of course. Obviously. [...] So I'm guessing you're at East Station, then? That's the other side of the river mostly, huh. Do you live over that way? In those fancy ass neighborhoods Why're you doing our inspections then? Are you an intern they need to keep busy?
Why don't you go fuck yourself Whoa, who said I meant that as an insult? We love Smokey the Bear in this house. He's a national treasure. You'd think a firefighter would appreciate the effort toward educating the public about forest fires. [User has half a mind to go through Daniel's phone to change Kelly's contact information to "Smokey" but she does actually like the mascot and doesn't want to sully his good name.]
[...] Not all hands on deck. All firefighters on deck. East, West, and y'all's crew, we'd be workin' together. For your safety, Ranger Shaw, you'd be asked to evacuate. I'm sure you're good at your job, but you wouldn't want me gettin' in your way, I don't think. [...] Why the hell do you want to know that? Wouldn't make much sense if I didn't live out this way, right? Easier to drive in, if there's an all-call. [...] Ain't an intern; we don't take interns. I've been doin' this job for Inspections are an essential part of my contract the job. Assigned on a rotation.
Whoa, you want to point me to where I said you did? Called it a quip. Could be an off-the-cuff insult, could be an off-the-cuff observation. Either way, heard it before, so it ain't all that funny. That's all I was sayin'. I didn't like how you said it, but that's just 'cause I appreciate the work of the brave folks out there fightin' the fires. Ain't no reason a human real person can't be a national treasure. More effective at educatin' than that goddamn bear a cartoon.
[User glances at this person's profile, finally. Something clicks.] [...] Wait, are you
@kellydays replied to your post “Kid, I need you to stop gnawin' on the furniture.”:
…Now, why in the hell would I call you “kid”? [d: Fuck.]
[…] I haven’t been avoidin’ you. [User has been avoiding Colt.]
I mean, you do like to pick on me for being older than you. I figured you were just being tongue-in-cheek. So you weren't, then? Who were you calling kid? And why are they chewing on furniture??? I have questions, Kelcifer. I need answers. And it sounds like you need a mouth guard for this mystery person.
Way I see it, you like to pick on me for bein' younger than you. [...] Guess my personal life ain't the hot inter-station gossip, then? [User isn't technically avoiding the question. Just talking around it. Super chill and normal behavior, Kellison.] Kids chew on furniture, Colt. It's not that weird. [User had to look this up. He assumed it might just be a werewolf thing. He breathes a sigh of relief.]
[...] If you thought I missed your message, you could've reached back out. Sometimes I swipe open notifications when I'm leavin' work. You'd really hold me responsible for the actions of post-shift Kelly? [Liar.]
Ah. Okay. [user isn't sure what's happening, but she's going along with it] Was a lot like talking to those [...] robot things that act like people. You done that? [...] Yeah? That new pace better or worse? [...] I cut trees. My instructor sends me to controlled burns sometimes.
That was me, yeah. Ain't supposed to have much of a personality on those kinds of pages. [...] Though, there are lots of actual bots in the comment section. The social team tries to weed 'em out, but they show up [...] weirdly often. [Thanks, Eve!]
Not better, not worse. Just different. Miss the travel, but I like havin' a bed of my own. [...] Your instructor? Well, we appreciate the assist! Not all fires are bad, right? Christ. Don't tell the WRFD I said that. Some make way for new growth.
Don't threaten me with a good time, Kelly! I love being called for all sorts of things. A sidequest hates to see me coming. It will only strengthen our friendship if you think about it! I'm totally ready for the next step. [...] If you say so! The way you said it made me think you were talking about psychos or something. But I hear you now, that's true. If we're being real, I used to go into it expecting the best of people anyway. Maybe I built them up a bit in my head? I was never deterred by a red flag [user has issues]. Maybe that's why my bone partner and I worked out so well, we knew who we were pretty soon into our... collab. That and also, #ReganIsTheSexiestAndSecondMostRightestPerson. [user has given up trying to find the right time to plug her hashtag]
Speaking of tea (the real kind, which I love) (we should totally have a tea party), if you ever go to the arcade, you gotta cover your eyes. They have instant tea. That wasn't even a segue, come on! We were talking about parties.
It was very nice to see part of you. I think a shoulder is what I caught. Naked, for some reason?
Are we friends? [User almost leaves this there, as he's legitimately unsure, but he figures Jade is exaggerating for effect.] Better you than the station. I'd never hear the end of it. [...] Well, I'm glad it's workin' out for y'all. Reminds me, though. I looked through a couple'a books, even got on Google, and I couldn't find out what a bone partner is, exactly? I don't mean no harm, just [...] happy to be educated, is all. [...] Who's the first "most rightest person," if Regan's the second? [User has no interest in debating whether or not Regan is sexy. It's only natural someone would think their bone partner is the sexiest person, right? ...Right?]
Guess you make a good point. I was stuck on the tea, more than the party. What's that about the arcade? A tea party? Who? You, me, and Flip? Ain't sure he's old enough to appreciate that. You saw what he did with the sippy cup.
[Sometime after the party... User regrets very much that this conversation is public.] That must've been someone else! Lots of naked folks. You sure it was me? I wasn't even at that party. I was at work that night, actually, so I couldn't make it. Who's Baz? [User sighs.] You take your shirt off once, and suddenly you're the talk of the town.
[pm] I'm English. When I say pants, I mean pants. Not your American version of them.
Far more than two! I need to show my guests my appreciation, don't I? Give it a bit of a personal touch. That's what keeps people coming back when you have more parties in the future!
Oh, I quite enjoyed it. I hope you didn't hurt yourself. If you need help taking clothes off in the future, I'd be happy to volunteer as thanks.
[pm] Thought so. Guess a little ol' sock don't mean much, if folks were leavin' their drawers all over the place.
Could just keep comin' back for the company! I'd come again, if you invited me, party favor or no. It was [...] a good time. Glad Giselle cut me loose. Think I needed it.
Thanks for the concern, but I'm fine. Just kept my arm steady and flat against my chest. [...] And I'm glad you enjoyed it, but it was a special birthday gift. If you want me to take my trousers or my pants off again, you'll have to try harder than that. Shirt's a lost cause. [...] Doubt I need to say it, but don't go sharin' that 'round, y'hear?
[pm] Don't know. Guess they think we'd avolv evolve that way or something. Doesn't make any sense to me. [...] My mother always said the first hunters and the first supernatural creatures were born together. Like twins, sprouting up at the same time. The monster and the protector. But that was just a story. [...] I think this is right, too. They are still shapeshifters, even if they are aliens. This means it's your job. Like the rats.
This sounds like Jade, yes. She is [...] friendly. And likes to know people. Not surprising she wanted to meet you. She's good. A good person. Can trust her, if you need someone. Probably wouldn't mind watching the kid, even.
Guess that makes sense. Gotta be careful, watch your back. Probably means you were used to it before you started, hm? [...] Shit, you're lucky your kid's sleeping at all. Some of them at that age are up all hours, whether you need sleep at not. Or maybe that's just slayer kids. [...] Oh. No, I don't do that. If somebody's paying me, I'm finding what they ask for. Sometimes they don't like what I find, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to give it to them. [...] Guess I will.
[pm] Bullshit. [...] Huh. Could be, I guess? Always was taught it was more like... an invasive species. Supernatural creatures were introduced into an environment that wasn't used to 'em, spread like wildfire, then humans forked off somehow and, bam, hunters. We've been tryin' to root out the "invasion" ever since. [...] Now, I don't think that metaphor quite works, but that's what some rangers in the mountains would say. [...] Hm. You sure you wouldn't want to tag along? If they're robots, they ain't really alive. Could use your expertise.
She offered as much. Well, offered to walk my dog. [...] She thought Flip was a dog. [...] It's a long story. We didn't recognize each other and [User remembers that Emilio doesn't know that Flip's a werewolf.] Kid's a handful, though. Wouldn't want to put her out. 'Specially if she's not a [...] More likely to ask you, in a pinch. Don't know what that says about me, but [...] the kid's a good judge of character.
Hey! You sayin' I ain't careful? I'll have you know I'm plenty careful! [Technically, if you think about it, this is foreshadowing.] [...] Don't get me wrong... Some nights, I can't get him to sleep a wink. [User is referring to the full moon.] [...] Do they take it out on you, when they don't like it? [...] Guess you will.
[pm] Hey! How are you recovering? You still owe me time on the ice, so I'm only accepting positive answers at this time.
[pm] Mickey? [...] How come you didn't mention I get all my imagin' done at the hospital, just over on the outpatient side. If you're that curious, you can go snoop. You got my blessin'. [...] 'Fraid if you're lookin' for insight on the hunter healin' process, though, this ain't the best example.
Well, so long as you don't need me in pads, I could get on the ice now. Little injury ain't gonna stop me. Been too long. Take that, Daniel. I can relax.
[pm] Eve killed a lamia? [User is very confused. He has been assuming that Eve killed whatever attacked her that day, but now he's questioning that. Maybe she just escaped...] Didn't realize it was a lamia. Why didn't she call me or you or [User wonders if she called Daiyu or another ranger who maybe killed the lamia, but he's not sure how to ask that without letting Eve know that Kelly told him. Plus, Eve would've asked the other ranger about lamia venom instead of Kelly, so that doesn't make any sense. Long story short: he is not connecting any dots.] I was over at her place on Saturday, so she's probably feeling more open to visitors. You should try her again. [...] I don't know. Just seemed like a weird thing to talk about so openly. I've always taken her as more tight-lipped about that sort of thing. And we both know it wasn't a bear that killed [User isn't sure if they both know about that, actually.]
[...] A lot. They were both much better at it than I was.
Yeah, I guess I like this place enough to stick around for a while. It's got all its quirks, but I've gotten used to most of them. I think y'all will too, once you're here long enough. [...] That's tough. Do they know about Flip?
[pm] [...] She didn't tell you? Shit. Was that supposed to be a secret? [...] Yeah. I'll do that. I'll send her a message, now, actually. Like, if I'm supposed to be keepin' shit quiet, I'd like to know. [...] Could be that she thought it would cover her tracks? Get out ahead of it? She ain't let on that anyone's been sniffin' around about her past, but it ain't like hunters don't make enemies. Fae, 'specially, would love to use that against her, right? Maybe she knows somethin' we don't. [User is assuming they both do know about that, actually, despite the proof that Daniel doesn't always know more than User does.]
You must've [...] gotten better, if you're sayin' you can teach me, right?
Seem to recall you sayin' it was a shithole. Changed your tune, then? [...] Maybe. Guess we could leave, too, though. Don't know if Eve mentioned, or if you guessed, but I wasn't exactly aware of the town's reputation, when I was sendin' out applications. I [...] don't know if I would've come here, had I known. [User isn't sure why, but this feels like an admission.] [...] C'mon, now. Do you think my folks know about [User sighs.] No. Eve knows, and I didn't tell her not to tell Jake, so possible it's just a matter of time. But I [...] told her about him bein' a werewolf, and the rest of that whole story [...] that he's not really my kid, so... [User doesn't want to get into it, over text, so he's sticking to what Daniel knows... and not what he hasn't told Daniel.] Ain't much to tell, right?
[PM] That makes sense, that they'd want your lungs to be as healthy as possible. I used to, actually. But that was awhile back. Well, I did take it up again in Chicago but So no worries either way. [User smiles and saves the picture.] Hey, he looks good there Yeah, I know you did but still. It's your guys' home. You both should feel comfortable and not like a little salamander guy is gonna sneak up on you. That's a good idea, though, introducing Flip to him. Explain that he's not a toy.
I probably get out too much [...] Seemed like you guys were pretty like that but whatever you say Thanks! I'll keep that in mind. I'll probably just keep going to their [... ...] Yeah, definitely strange. I get the intention, I think but, well. I think next time they oughta just stick to dressing you up in silly little costumes :)
[pm] [User has some health concerns of his own, naturally. User is not thinking about those!] I can hold my breath for a really long time. Got lots of practice. No one ever said I wasn't dedicated. [User is... referring to training.] [...] I ain't worried about him sneakin' up on me him us. [Zippo slid under User's radar for months. He should maybe be a little worried.] If you'd like to try explainin' that to Flip, be my guest. Best I think we can expect is him understandin' a firm no. Spray bottle could work.
Speakin' of explainin' things, you know the kid's name is technically I saw you talkin' with Jade, and So, funny story, the kid's named after [User can't bring himself to burst Zack's bubble. Flip is Flip.]
You haven't overstayed your welcome, neither.
[...] What the hell do you think they'd stick me in for Pride Month? 'Cause I don't think assless chaps or a harness are in the manual, exactly. [...] Not that I've worn those before. [Eh. What's the point of lying?]
TIMING: Late March, 2016
LOCATION: Somewhere in the Appalachian Mountains, Virginia
PARTIES: @danielabrams & @kellydays
SUMMARY: Do Daniel and Kelly have chemistry outside of a parking lot or a truck bed? Find out as they hunt a werewolf under a full moon.
WARNINGS: Gun Use, Spice, Unsanitary
Daniel tracked the shoe prints left in the dirt and crunching down the forest floor until they led to a backpack at the bottom of a tree. He didn’t have to look into the backpack to know that the pair of Adidas tennis shoes were tucked in there along with a set of clothing. He glanced around the area, ready to now pick up where the werewolf had taken off into the woods. He glanced back towards Kelly and nodded at the backpack. “Found its shit.”
He shined his flashlight across the ground, now looking for where the path picked up after the werewolf had shifted for the full moon. He nodded his head towards an area of mountain ferns pressed into the ground. The trail had been treaded enough times to flatten completely into the earth. Daniel stepped silently over to the trail, scanned the area, and spotted what looked like a partial paw print in the dirt. A werewolf print. Not some other animal. He was certain of that. “This way.”
Daniel trailed forward, letting Kelly fall into step behind him. It was a little different, hunting with a somewhat familiar face. It had been a while since the two had hunted together. Most of their hunts had happened in their teens, when both of them just happened to be at the Farrans’ place for some training. But today, he by chance ended up nearby Kelly’s area for the week on a hunt with his ranger friend Sabrina, who’d told him about a werewolf that she was certain had bitten and turned a couple people and killed more than a couple over the last few months. He and Sabrina had hunted (and hooked up) enough times that he figured he might as well drive up north a little ways and join her.
The reason Daniel had texted Kelly was, well, also for a hookup. But not hunting. Just a few months prior, they’d reconnected after running into each other outside of a hunter bar. Daniel had cracked an insult about the other ranger’s Chevrolet, which had only riled up Kelly as he’d puffed out his chest to defend his truck. Daniel had never thought much about Kelly when they were teens, but in that dark parking lot, he couldn’t help but notice how much Kelly had grown into himself. Or how his biceps bulged underneath the jacket sleeves. Or that frustrated look on the man’s face as Daniel shit talked his truck. Especially as that face changed once he’d grabbed Kelly’s hips and pushed him against the truck and referred to it as a shove-away. And who could blame Daniel when he’d gotten down on his knees on that cracked pavement, covered with gravel and dirt, and unzipped Kelly’s pants.
Afterwards, he’d stood back up and wiped off his mouth and chin with the back of his hand. He was met with a nervous Kelly asking him if he had ever done something like that before. With a raised brow and smirk on his face, all Daniel had to say was, “No shit I’ve done that before, dumbass. And I’m a-thinking of something else we oughta try out too.” His ego had grown with the knowledge that he was the first man for Kelly. Not necessarily a first for Daniel in that regard though—he’d had his fair share in a rural county with “straight” guys wondering what it’d be like to be with another man. Always looking to experiment with one of the few openly queer men around, and then coming back time and time again wanting more. Not like Daniel minded, so long as he was getting off.
But he and Kelly, they had hooked up just a few times since then. Whenever they ran into each other or were in the other’s area. Just from a couple encounters, Daniel already guessed that all he had to do was shoot Kelly a text and the younger man would come running. That theory was proven correct when Kelly met up with him on the forest service road where Daniel was camping out in his truck. A nice, wooded spot. Out of sight. Far enough away to avoid curious eyes, except for the few folks who drove by for hiking or some illegal offseason hunting. He wasn’t about to question what they were doing out here.
When Kelly had arrived, Daniel instructed him to climb on up inside the truck. His mind was focused on one thing and one thing only. Maybe two things. Okay, so he had plenty of ideas of what all he wanted to do to the younger man. A bit of sloppy making out to start, then shoving Kelly onto his back, licking and kissing his neck, unzipping his pants, and Daniel getting his hand down Kelly’s pants just to get his hand around him before he’d eventually switch to using his mouth.
But before he could get to that, a knock on the driver’s door interrupted them. Sabrina stood there, having shown up earlier than planned. He groaned and somehow managed to pull himself off Kelly. A little woeful, mind you, about having to remove his hand from inside Kelly’s pants. The hand crank creaked as Daniel rolled down the old truck’s manual window. Sabrina glanced at the two men, rolled her eyes, and messed around with the ends of her blonde hair as she explained to Daniel that she couldn’t join him on the hunt that night. Some sort of incident in her family. She needed to head back home, not too far, but she couldn’t delay. He nodded his head and didn’t prod for more information, knowing she wouldn’t back out of a hunt unless it was something serious.
Which is how Daniel now hunted with Kelly rather than Sabrina. Instead of getting his mouth on Kelly, he asked if the ranger wanted to hunt a werewolf with him and then gave him the rundown. The two men went to the address Sabrina gave him, where the werewolf lived on the outskirts of the small town, right next to a large forested area. From the house, they tracked the werewolf into the woods and to their current location.
“Enjoying the view back there, asshole?” Daniel asked as he looked over his shoulder towards Kelly. “Get over here.” He patted his leg, indicating he wanted the other man walking by his side.
—
Kelly was a tangle of beliefs, and one was routine.
Raised up a hunter, then trained up to become a firefighter? Yeah. Damn straight. The less chaos, the better. Routines were a bulwark against that chaos, the ultimate weapon of order. Routines brought consistency, and consistency brought results. Kelly’d been called superstitious, for the ways he tried to stick to what he knew would work, but that just didn’t pass the sniff test. Superstitions, right, they were flimsy excuses put up to avoid doing whatever you were scared of. Routines were the expectation to push through, to do, no matter if you were scared or not. If he felt like he was stagnating, Kelly could iterate, like… like a workout for his diligence, adding weight when routine threatened to become complacency. (Complacency, as all hunters knew well, would get you killed.)
So, Kelly had his routines, and he kept tweaking ‘em, little by little, tapping at the marble and carving out the best version of himself—and like those Old Masters, Kelly could get a little weird, when his routines got interrupted. He’d worked hard to be adaptive, honest he had, but spontaneity wasn’t the easiest thing for him. When he scrounged together a spare moment to himself, instead of to his duty, it wasn’t like he was watching clouds, trying to think of what they might look like. No, Kelly was usually thinking through different ways the next task could go, so that he could anticipate how he should react, so that he didn’t have to be spontaneous. Kelly’d taken the time to prepare; he had plans for his plans.
Enter Daniel.
Daniel was the interruption in Kelly’s routines, nowadays. It hadn’t been long, just since New Year’s, but the man had been just consistent enough in his appearances for Kelly to form a habit, but not consistent enough for Kelly to predict when he’d come calling. Daniel, at least, made for an enjoyable (shit, understatement) interruption. But it was destabilizing, during the time of year when Kelly always struggled to maintain any semblance of stability. Outside of peak season, in the dead winters when Kelly’s contract with the Forest Service had been renewed, but he’d been cut loose to busy himself until April, Kelly drifted. He stuck close enough to his folks’ house to have a fallback option, sure, but there was always plenty of work to do. More, for someone like Kelly, who travelled plenty and didn’t mind rolling in and out of mountain-and-valley communities for shit pay and barebones accommodations. If he wasn’t working for a local station, he was in salt of the earth bars, searching for information and, on occasion, a warm bed, just for a night, maybe two. Honest work, if there ever was any.
It’d been in one of those bars (or, well, the parking lot), on one of those nights, that Daniel had gotten… under his skin, or hot under the collar, or whatever you damn well wanted to call it. Look, Kelly hadn’t known. ‘Course, he liked to think he knew himself well, down to the clockwork that made him tick. He kept his motivations clear; he didn’t waver from ‘em. But, as it turned out, Kelly didn’t have much of a head for machinery. Whatever book he was using to learn, it had pages torn out. Or, could be, there was no manual for this? No. Couldn’t be. Had to be that Kelly had missed a step. Else, how could he not have realized that he was hardwired to light up, get it up, for more than just ladies. Everybody was a broad category, ‘course, but… Dudes, huh? He wasn’t— Kelly wasn’t looking to put a label on it. Not yet, maybe not ever. If you’d asked him, a few months back, he would’ve reached for the wrong one. So, measure twice, cut once. Right now, he was in the middle of measuring twice. Couldn’t stop measuring, actually, stripped himself damn near raw with all the measuring, actually, in those spare moments. That was, when he wasn’t out and about, measuring among whoever was willing to help him take… accurate stock of how wide (and deep, and long) those interests were.
Despite the extended interruption, some routines were sacred. Kelly kept as much consistent on a hunt as was in his control. There were rules, rules that he’d put into place, years ago. Keeping to ‘em kept him sharp. Daniel’s text hadn’t come when he was on a hunt, though. ‘Course, it was the full moon. Kelly was on alert, couldn’t imagine a full moon when he wouldn’t be. But Kelly’d been expecting… more of a practice moon than a game day moon. Biggest difference was that Kelly’d let himself indulge, before practice, in a way he wouldn’t before the real thing. So, Daniel’s text had come in, and Kelly’d nearly bolted out the door to track the other ranger down, grinning. If Daniel had plans for after moonrise, it wasn’t like he needed to keep to Kelly’s rules. Daniel might be the type to bang one out before stalking his prey. (Or get banged, Kelly wasn’t picky. Not anymore.) Point was, Kelly was more than happy to oblige—had been on his way to obliging, pawing at Daniel’s belt, when a knock had come to the window. At first, Kelly had thought the appearance of the short blonde was Daniel’s way of proposing a threesome, but it soon became apparent Daniel needed a stalking buddy more than a stroking buddy. Frustrated and wanting, Kelly’d done his pants up. Rules were rules.
(…But not before asking Daniel if he had a spare pair of underwear. Kelly had been prepared, but not for a hunt.)
Daniel’s flashlight may as well have been flash-bang, for all the good it did Kelly. And so, he kept behind Daniel, letting the older ranger take the lead on tracking the werewolf through the woods, offering only the occasional comment to remind Daniel of his presence. (Sue him, he was keyed up. Pent-up, if you wanted to be all technical.) A borrowed rifle was slung across his back, borrowed bullets in the magazine. Daniel’s friend had done the legwork; their task was execution. “Could be a big fella,” Kelly mused, squinting at a shoe print, then at what might’ve been a paw print. By the looks of it, just statistically-speaking, the man was taller than Kelly. Werewolf wouldn’t gain too much size, but it’d be imposing. Bad idea to go after it alone.
“View could be nicer, but ain’t the time for that. Just scopin’ it out. Thinkin’ about later.” Kelly wasn’t thinking beyond the hunt, hadn’t been staring any lower than Daniel’s back. Still, topping off Daniel’s ego wouldn’t kill either of ‘em. Later would come. “Assumin’ I don’t have to avenge your ass. That’d kill the mood.” Kelly took a few oversized steps to catch up, falling into lockstep with Daniel.
This far out from proper “civilization,” the stars burned bright in the sky overhead. Kelly lifted his eyes, found Polaris blinking down at him. Daniel had reviewed the terrain with him earlier. From where they’d started following the trail, at the westernmost point, north snaked up towards a natural waterfall. Ample space for a werewolf to run, and a decent place for a snack from the wildlife that would stop to drink, but it was just too risky to rely on it, in Kelly’s opinion. South emptied out, eventually, into a campground. Nice place to sate your bloodlust, but too risky for the werewolf, especially if it was a lone wolf (and all their information supported that). A massacre would only draw attention. It’d been killing, but not indiscriminately. So, that left… east. Sloping down off the mountain proper and into the nestle of the valley. Folks weren’t supposed to camp down there, but, based on Kelly’s reports from contacts in the Forest Service (and common sense), there’d always be someone poking around. The rangers could try to track it all night, but the risk was the werewolf’s sense, if it had any. Might wisen up. Wise enough to outplay ‘em, if they only followed. But if the werewolf lived here…
“Territory,” Kelly said. Then, realizing Daniel hadn’t heard any of that, he started again, “Campground or the town, it’d know those weren’t part of its turf. Then, up nothing, that’s obviously part of it. But if folks are stakin’ out on their own, buildin’ fires and smokin’ up the edge of the valley, we might be able to draw it in. I say we build a fire to lure it; that’d give you some light, too.”
—
Daniel smirked at Kelly’s comment, even as he kept his focus on following the trail of werewolf paw prints. He tried to maintain some level of seriousness during a hunt, but he didn’t mind a bit of flirting. Sometimes the nights were long and hard—no, not that (well)—and some level of bantering kept him awake and attentive. He was still a little put out by the whole not getting to put out situation earlier, but at least he knew later would come soon enough. “Shame on you, man. Oughta focus on scoping out that werewolf, ‘stead of my ass. Already know what that looks like,” he teased. “Don’t go avenging my ass though. Ain’t all that special.”
The paw prints disappeared for a moment, and Daniel crouched down, close to the ground as he inspected the leaf litter and weight on the grass. Tracking came almost naturally to the ranger, with years learning how to track shifters and beasts from his mother and game from his father. He heard all the stories from his mother about following shifters across state lines, through state parks and forests, across bodies of water. The two of them tracked shifters throughout southwestern Virginia, sometimes jumping over into the neighboring states. If there was one thing Daniel knew, it was how to follow and understand the movements of a shifter, even when the trail ran cold. His flashlight caught the slight press of a recently pressed paw into the grass, and as he shined the light around on the trees, his eyes noticed a tuft of fur caught in a branch.
He rested his arm on his leg as he looked up towards Kelly. His gaze settled briefly at Kelly’s crotch, just thinking again about what he didn’t get to taste earlier that day. He was pulled out of his thoughts as Kelly explained the area. Daniel had scoped out the place earlier, with Sabrina keying him on a few possible spots. He guessed the werewolf was smart enough to avoid the campground and town, but anywhere else was fair game. It didn’t seem like the werewolf’s MO was massacring groups of people. Just plucking one or two off at a time, until the bloodlust consumed it again the next month.
He raised a brow at the comment about a fire for his benefit. As far as Daniel was concerned, he saw perfectly fine. His flashlight provided plenty of light, and, without clouds floating through the sky, the full moon cast enough light through the trees for him. He may not have the night vision that some rangers had, but that never stopped him from a successful hunt. Daniel believed himself just as capable as anyone else.
But Kelly still made a good point about drawing in the werewolf. They seemed close enough to the werewolf, and its trail was running a bit cold.
Daniel huffed as he stood up, not about to start an argument about his vision in the woods on a full moon. He glanced around as he thought about walking through the area in daylight and studying the topographic map. He looked up at the sky, estimated the time of night, found Polaris, and motioned northeast. “Oughta be a small clearing that way.” He stepped forward. “Better to have an open space, outta these here trees. Build us a fire and draw it in.”
He followed towards the direction where he believed they would find the clearing. After a short distance, they stepped out of the thick trees and into the open space. “This good for you?” he asked. He wouldn’t admit it, but the light from the full moon was stronger here, allowing him to see more clearly. “I’ll gather up some wood, Firefighter Brooks.” Daniel smacked Kelly’s ass before walking around to gather enough sticks and twigs to get a fire going.
—
“What I’m hearin’ is you don’t want me watchin’ your back out here?” Kelly whistled, low and drawn out. “Your funeral, man. I’d show a bit more appreciation. I wouldn’t avenge just any old ass. It’s those freckles. They’re worth killin’ for.” A lie, and they both knew it. (Well, not about the freckles. Those were adorable—a word Kelly wouldn’t dare use to describe the other man, not unless he wanted his ass handed to him. Kelly’d made fake constellations with ‘em, ran his fingers between ‘em and over the mottled scar that Daniel wouldn’t tell him about. He would kill for those freckles.) A lie, ‘cause if the situation called for it, if a hunter’d been struck down, Kelly wouldn’t pick and choose who he avenged. Wouldn’t have a choice. It was a hunter’s duty to eliminate threats. If a shifter, or anything else, had taken on a ranger and won, that made ‘em a threat. Knowing Daniel, that’d just be fuel to the fire. Kelly hadn’t lost many hunters during his watch, especially not ones he was close to, but he could be sure of one thing. Mourning would wait until the mission was complete.
Daniel crouched down, and Kelly had to beat off the part of him that wanted to push Daniel all the way to his knees, make him finish what he’d started. That, too, would wait until the mission was complete.
Instead, Kelly focused on studying Daniel, trying to glean lessons from the other man, eager to soak up as much as he could. If you weren’t watching, you weren’t learning. Kelly had a lot to learn from his fellow ranger, from Daniel’s technique—not just in bed, dammit. For example, much as it pained Kelly to admit it, Daniel was better at the actual tracking than Kelly was. Came with being more of a generalist, maybe, but Kelly’d always been inclined to scheming. Growing up with wardens had drilled the value of that into his head, maybe a little too well. Animals were predictable. More predictable than fae—most of ‘em, anyway. Shifters had a spark of humanity, meant they could get crafty. Ruthless. Only made sense to fight fire with fire, resort to tactics and trapping. It didn’t always sit right with Kelly, but it was better than breaking and entering, then having a human-looking corpse to clean up. And that was if you succeeded. Corning a beast in its den was dangerous. Out here, even if the forest was within the werewolf’s territory, the rangers were on more even ground.
He wasn’t sure if that logic was what had Daniel agreeing to this particular plan, or if the older man just didn’t want to waste time arguing. Kelly let a smile past his lips. Daniel was a smart guy. ‘Course he’d take the cleanest path, especially when Kelly’d led him up to it. Though, Daniel’s agreement came out a little like the plan had been his idea. He could have the credit, so long as the plan worked. That was what teamwork was about, right? Not a pissing contest. Daniel suggested a nearby clearing, and Kelly hummed his assent. Less risk of the fire spreading, that way. The clearing in question was circled by trees, which’d guard the fire from the wind, if the breeze picked up. The light, the smoke, they’d do the rest, settling in over the clearing and snaking out in a hazy perimeter. “Good for me.” And, even if Daniel wasn’t about to admit it, Kelly knew it’d be good for the other ranger, too. Every bit of light helped. The moon above ‘em was big and low and golden, dangerous in her beauty.
‘Course, Kelly’s reverie was broken by Daniel slapping his ass. He let out a stupid little yelp, flushed hot in the cool night. Dammit, man. (It… hadn’t hurt none. Stung pleasantly, if he thought about it. Later, that might be something to explore. Kelly couldn’t afford to get distracted by thoughts of calloused hands on his bare skin. Was he really that weak for the guy?) The younger man puffed up his chest, putting on a show of exasperation to hide any embarrassment he might feel. “Oh, so I ain’t allowed to stare, but you can treat me like a piece of meat? I see how it is. You go and gather that wood, man. Maybe take care of your own while you’re at it.”
While Daniel handled the wood, Kelly cleared a spot in the middle of the clearing, fingers digging into the soil as he went. He didn’t make a habit of carrying matches or a lighter, but quartz was plentiful in the Virginia soil. One of Kelly’s spare knives, the only weapon he’d brought with him and dinged from overuse, would make a fine enough striker. He picked at the twigs and dry grass nearest him, arranging the core of the fire. It’d be small, at first, but they’d feed it as much fuel as it needed. He didn’t want it to go on for too long, get too big, but there was always the creek. If they couldn’t stamp it out, one of ‘em could go fetch water after they burned the body. (Assuming this all went to plan.) When he was satisfied with his work, Kelly pulled the rifle from his back, keeping towards the center of the clearing. “Just a waitin’ game.”
—
Daniel rolled his eyes at the comment about the freckles on his ass. “Aw, thanks, darlin’. Guess your ass is all right,” more than all right—much more than all right, but he wasn’t falling into some complimenting trap right then, “Maybe I’d kill for it. Maybe.” Of course Daniel knew that he’d go after any shifter or beast that killed a fellow ranger—that much he was certain of.
Daniel may have mostly been focused on the hunt, but he couldn’t stop that part of him that always enjoyed being out in the woods with another ranger—another man, both of them strapped down with their weapons and hunting gear. Maybe he’d spent too much time rewatching Predator and daydreaming about himself out in nature hunting with muscular men with large guns. And he sure did have a muscular man with a large gun hunting with him right then, and he knew exactly how good that man was on his knees. So who could blame Daniel for finding opportune moments to tease a little? Sure, he needed to get down low to inspect the forest floor for tracks, but him practically on his knees was a surefire way to keep Kelly all worked up for some post-hunt fucking.
So after a quick smack on Kelly's ass and the responding yelp and blush, Daniel couldn't wipe off the smirk covering his face. “Yup, pretty sure I can. Got a problem with it?” he teased, turning around to face the younger ranger. He liked this type of back and forth—a little bickering and tussling that led to him overpowering someone—even a good shove against a truck had Kelly melting in Daniel’s…hands, one could say. “And why take care of my own wood when I’ve got you around for that, huh?” That sly look was still plastered across his face as he held up his hands, palms out towards Kelly, and he turned around on his heel to scour the ground for some literal wood.
As he picked up a few sticks, he recognized exactly how stupid it was to behave a little too flirtatiously in the woods. He ought to stay more serious—not get distracted thinking about Kelly down on his knees—because obviously what they did wasn’t light, silly work. It was serious. Daniel was a born killer and protector of humanity, and that meant recognizing the gravity of the situation—
“You gonna be able to handle all this wood?” he asked with a smirk, as he approached Kelly starting the fire. He dropped some of the sticks at Kelly’s feet, but carefully placed some of the others into the growing flames. Daniel glanced around the clearing, noting how the fire better lit up the area. Though he didn’t have to stay too close to the fire—he had enough practice in the pitch black night—he planned to stay as close as possible for the time being.
Daniel glanced around the perimeter. The bare treetops swayed as a gentle breeze swept through them. He relaxed his shoulders for just a brief moment, almost calmed by the soothing movements. His brain jumped back into action though, as he took note of which areas might be potential blindspots if he strayed too far from the fire.
He nodded at Kelly’s comment about waiting, deciding that maybe not much more needed to be said at that point. All they could do was wait and listen. Maybe on a different hunt, Daniel would have mindlessly chatted with Kelly, but a werewolf hunt on a full moon? When they weren’t sure when the werewolf would make an appearance? The less chatting the better. It wasn’t but a few years ago when a werewolf tackled him to the ground and bit right into his shoulder, and the last thing Daniel wanted was another one of those fuckers taking them by surprise.
The smoke rose up into the night sky as the sticks crackled and popped in the flames. Daniel gripped his rifle in his hands, closed his eyes, and listened for any noise that sounded out of place in the forest. As much as he relied on his eyesight and senses, his hearing was sometimes the first to alert him to shifters and beasts. The snap of a twig caught his attention, off somewhere in the distance, not too far away but still close enough. And then he heard the thumping of clawed paws beating against the soft earth. “Northeast,” Daniel said, keeping his voice low, as he motioned towards the direction of the sound. “On the move. Fast.”
The game was still to wait, to see how the werewolf would approach them—as a bloodthirsty monster or as a cold, calculated killer? Some sort of mixture of the two? He didn’t want to stray too far from the flames reaching up higher towards the moon and stars, casting more light and shadows across the clearing. He listened as the running grew closer until it tapered off, right on the edge of the treeline. Daniel sensed it now, that familiar feeling running through his spine and blending in with the dull ache in his shoulder. The werewolf seemed to have stopped though, not jumping out right into the clearing to attack them. So, calculated. Maybe. All three of them could play at that game. He waited, his breathing calm and patient, as he aimed his rifle in the general direction that he last heard the werewolf. Off to the right, he heard something rustling in the bushes, but it sounded more like what he’d expect from squirrels and raccoons.
Daniel released another soft breath right as he heard a low growl from his left. He turned on his heels, as he spun his rifle towards the werewolf as it leapt out of the dark trees. Daniel pulled the trigger. A silver bullet flew through the air towards the werewolf. It grazed the shifter’s shoulder. It howled in response, but it didn’t slow down as it dove towards Daniel, its front claws aimed right at the ranger. He ducked down right before those claws could dig into him. Quick as a flash, he pulled out one of his silver knives and sliced a cut into the back leg of the werewolf, as it turned its attention towards Kelly.
—
“Promises, promises,” Kelly said. “Tell you what. You get the kill, and I’ll take care of whatever you like.” God, that was enough. He had to get a handle on himself (not a hand on Daniel). He had to turn it off (though, clearly, Daniel wasn’t turned off). As Daniel offered him his stick—sticks, dammit—Kelly couldn’t stop himself from one last wisecrack. “Whatever you like. You know I like a challenge. I can handle all your wood and then some.” If Kelly wanted to avoid that, all he had to do was secure the kill. A little competition would keep ‘em fresh, keep their rhythm well in hand. The sticks that Daniel’d gathered would work, nice and dry. If they arranged ‘em carefully, the mix would light up bright, securing a little extra light for Daniel, and smoke up just enough to draw the wolf in, without obscuring their vision.
As the chatter died down, Kelly was left to his own thoughts. What was this wolf like? What was it thinking? If their plan worked, did that mean it was just moving towards sounds and light and scent, frenzied under the full moon? Or was there more to it—a secluded area, a lack of signal, a place to hide the bodies? It’d taken the other rangers days to find its first victims, their bones picked clean of meat and left out to bleach. From what Daniel’s said, it’d been hard to separate ‘em out. The search team had tried their best, ‘course, but there’d been nothing but ash to bring back to the victims’ families. Fire season, even a below average one, leant hunters and supernatural creatures alike an easy cover. Kelly wasn’t sure how Daniel felt about all that. In some ways, it didn’t matter: what Daniel felt, or if Kelly knew those feelings. Daniel and Kelly got on fine, but when they weren’t fucking, hunting, or fucking-after-hunting, conversation wasn’t exactly a wellspring. There wasn’t any need. What they had wasn’t friendship, and it damn sure wasn’t a relationship. Kelly was a long ways off from either.
‘Sides, even if they’d wanted to talk, Kelly could understand why Daniel might let the conversation die. Even if Kelly didn’t know the details of Daniel’s scar (he hadn’t asked; Daniel hadn’t answered), it didn’t take a genius to clock a werewolf bite. Unless Daniel was fucking one on the side (didn’t seem the type), there was only one logical explanation. Daniel’d survived, though, and the survival was all that mattered to Kelly. (‘Sides, tragic tales didn’t play well in bars. Kelly’d heard tell from his fellow firefighting apprentices that “chicks” would dig his scars. Funny. Any hunter “chick” whose tail Kelly chased would be just as scarred up as Kelly was, if not more. ‘Course, that didn’t mean she wouldn’t be into it, but he wasn’t bringing that novelty into her bed.) Still, it left Kelly wondering. Had someone had Daniel’s back, that night? Tonight, Kelly had his back. Would continue to have it, whenever Daniel needed, until Daniel told him to fuck off. Tonight, there’d be no surprises. Kelly couldn’t know that, ‘course, but he could make it so.
With a nudge to the fire with his foot, just to make sure it wouldn’t burn out too fast, Kelly positioned himself shoulder-to-shoulder with Daniel. This way, whichever of ‘em the werewolf went after, the other could pivot, prepare for the next move. Awareness in the field wasn’t just about their prey. Kelly’d gotten ample practice in tracking Daniel. Even as kids, he’d kept one eye on the man. At the time, he’d suspected he was sizing Daniel up, the obvious competition. Even if Kelly was blood, he was still the interloper. Daniel was trusted. They were an odd pair, two rangers among wardens, and Kelly knew he’d never outshine the other boy—now, older, Kelly wasn’t quite so far behind. Their gap had narrowed. With the benefit of hindsight and a sexual awakening, Kelly reckoned his interest might have been something more. (Not that he’d ever have acted on it, the interest or the jealousy. Allies, uncomplicated and straightforward, were more useful than friends or enemies.)
Kelly flicked the safety on the rifle. All set. When Daniel, tracker extraordinaire, closed his eyes, Kelly kept his open, aware of the chance (‘cause there was always a chance) that the werewolf wasn’t all that waited for ‘em in the woods. Smoke curled up into his nose from the crackling fire, the burn reminding him of the moments before he ran headfirst into an inferno. His sense of smell wasn’t essential, here. Sight and hearing, those were key. Daniel, sacrificing one of ‘em, heard the wolf’s approach first, and Kelly picked it up a moment later. “We’ll be faster.”
The itch pulsed through Kelly’s body as the wolf came into range, beginning its prowl. Control, then. Too much control for most bitten wolves. But if it was born, then what had driven it to be this sloppy? The question was useless. No matter its reasons, it had killed, again and again. Not a slip in control, but a pattern. There was no mistaking it for anything but a monster. Its capacity for thought was only useful to guess at how much separation there was between the beast and the man it disguised itself as. Did it know, by the glint of their rifles in the fire’s light and their posture, what they were? If it didn’t, Daniel’s shot sure as shit clued it in. Kelly darted, taking aim, observing as Daniel avoided its claws with ease. (And if Kelly had any less faith in the ranger’s abilities, he’d have fired again, to put a quick end to it.) The bullet hadn’t lodged itself in, but the brush with hot silver cooked the wolf’s flesh. Smoke masked the smell, though Kelly was almost used to it. Almost.
Daniel got a leg, years of training making themselves evident in brutal efficiency. The wolf wised up, turning away from Daniel and the pain of his blade, and went for Kelly. ‘Course, Kelly had trained just as hard as Daniel had, with more to prove. Without hesitation, Kelly pulled the trigger. Another shot rang out. Wolf wasn’t a total idiot, ‘course, hadn’t come right at Kelly, but it couldn’t outrun a silver bullet, neither. It clipped the werewolf’s side, lodging into a tree at the edge of the clearing. (Kelly’d fish it out later, melt it back down, and pay a spell caster, an alchemist, to separate the silver out. Waste not, want not.)
So, the wolf could plan. Big deal. So could Kelly, and the ranger wasn’t a total idiot either. Even if Daniel outclassed him in some regards, Kelly was faster. It was the years on the ice in pads, then the years trudging through burning woods and buildings in full gear. Kelly hadn’t aimed for the heart. No, he wanted the wolf angry, to give chase. And while the wolf tried to catch Kelly, Daniel would have a clearer shot, could focus less on survival and take aim. See, anger was dangerous, nothing bit harder than a caged animal, but anger was predictable. Precision, a human’s mind within a beast’s body, that was less so.
“Big fucker, ain’t you?” Dodge. Duck. Feint at aiming the rifle, block with the butt of it. (One swipe of claws grazed the wood, and Kelly winced. He’d be hearing about that later.) To anyone who didn’t know Kelly all that well (which, shit, maybe included Daniel), it might look like Kelly was just messing around. Shoot it. Kill it. But every time the wolf missed, the growl deepened, the frustration built. If this was a game, that kind of behavior would get Kelly checked and hard. But the other player? They’d been taken out. If the werewolf couldn’t understand Kelly’s words, it could understand actions: Kelly was messing with it. Goading it into a mistake. The light from the fire reflected into the monster’s eyes, and Kelly backed through the flames, sparks licking at his boots. Wouldn’t hurt the wolf none, but, if it followed Kelly through, it’d get a taste of how it’d end up. “Any day now, Abrams!”
—
Daniel twisted back around to face the werewolf. Another gunshot went off, but not enough to kill the beast. He narrowed his eyes at Kelly and the werewolf. He lifted up his rifle and peered through the sight, trying to find a good aim at the beast. But there was too much movement. Too high of a likelihood of Daniel accidentally shooting Kelly. He cursed under his breath as he watched the two in their combative dance. He spotted a couple instances where he would have sliced his knife against its chest or went for its throat or just fired a shot at it. Instead, Kelly dodged its attacks.
If this had been Robbie, Daniel would know exactly what to expect from him. He knew his best friend like the back of his hand—knew how he planted his feet on the ground and how his muscles contracted in the seconds before he swung his fist and slammed it into Daniel’s chest. All from their years of hand-to-hand combat training together. Even right then, watching Kelly duck out of the way of the werewolf, Daniel could envision Robbie’s hands gripping a pistol with his pointer finger curved around the trigger, waiting for the perfect moment to fire a shot into the werewolf’s chest before it got too close.
Daniel liked hunting with other hunters, but he loved having his best friend by his side on a hunt. Maybe it was because they knew exactly how the other fought. Maybe it was because they spent hours talking and laughing around a campfire. But all Daniel knew was that he would always rather hunt with his closest friend, the person he felt he knew as well as himself.
Instead of focusing on his hunting partner preference, Daniel forced himself to stop comparing Kelly to Robbie—that wouldn’t get them anywhere. He focused his aim on the werewolf, waiting for the perfect moment to fire another shot without any potential of hitting Kelly instead. He listened, also, to the sounds of the woods surrounding them. They didn’t need a second werewolf or shifter emerging from the woods to defend their comrade.
As Kelly stepped into the flames, Daniel raised his brow. But he finally had a shot on the werewolf, as it cautiously stepped closer to the fire. He fired a shot right as the werewolf hunched down onto all fours. (Stupid fucking beast.) The bullet flew above its head, and it whipped its head around to face Daniel. It looked over at Kelly and then back at Daniel. Another shot, and it sprang towards Daniel. He fired again, just grazing it. He cursed under his breath as it closed in on him.
The werewolf’s wide, gaping mouth, lined with razor sharp teeth, struck his memory—a quick flash of a familiar sight when just moments later similar teeth dug into his shoulder, right before his mother and her hunting partner fired silver into it. In the glow of the full moon and the light cast from the fire, Daniel swore drool dripped out of this werewolf’s mouth right as it lunged at him—again.
He pulled back on his trigger. The bullet swam through the shadows towards the werewolf. It seeped its way into the werewolf’s shoulder—the best shot of the night so far. Not a quick graze or pass across the skin, but right into its body. The werewolf collapsed forward and howled in pain. The smell of burning flesh finally reached Daniel, and he wrinkled his nose in disgust. The werewolf clawed at the silver bullet lodged in its shoulder. Fury raged through its eyes as it caught Daniel’s gaze. It released a low, threatening growl as it stood up on all fours.
He knew he could go for a killshot. Easy. But he aimed at its other shoulder, sticking another silver bullet into it. Maybe he wanted it to feel pain as the silver tore through its flesh and burned and ate it from the inside. For all Daniel cared, this monster deserved it after tearing into the bodies of innocent humans, devouring their flesh and organs as they screamed in horror—their final moments filled with helplessness as no amount of fighting back could stop this predator’s hunt as it ripped them open.
—
Kelly’s attempt to bait the werewolf into marching right on through that fire hadn’t quite worked out like he’d expected it to. Shit. As the ranger recalibrated, looked for an opening to strike, possibilities swam through his mind. Why hadn’t it given chase? Surely, with whatever scrap of sapience was left in its thick skull, the thing knew the flames would have to be a whole lot bigger, burn so much hotter, to hurt it? Was it too angry to dig that knowledge up or just not angry enough at Kelly to follow him? (Or was it just animal instinct to hesitate when faced with an unknown, like warding off an actual wolf with a signal flare? Fuck. Maybe Kelly’d miscalculated—treated it too much like a person. Stupid fucking beast.)
Whatever the explanation for the werewolf’s behavior, though, it opted to go over the fire, not through it. Which would’ve been fine, given Kelly ample time to fire a bullet as it made an arc through the air. Except, as it bowed to make its jump, Daniel whiffed what otherwise would’ve been a clean shot. The bullet joined Kelly’s in the bark of the trees. (Kelly’s fault. His mistake. He’d grab that one, too, after.) Spooked, the wolf turned its attention back on Daniel, and that… hadn’t exactly been the plan, now had it? Rather than apologize for any of it, Kelly moved on to his next plan, trying to flank the werewolf. This way, Daniel’s have plenty of room to aim without the risk of a bullet clipping Kelly. (Wait. Had that been why Daniel hadn’t taken a shot before? Had Kelly’s dodging, effective enough if he’d been fighting alone, proven a liability in a two-on-one? Damn. Their coordination wasn’t quite there, yet. Daniel must be too used to training with—)
Bang! Nice shot, Abrams. One shoulder out of commission, one paw’s worth of claws slashing with reduced force. Kelly grimaced as the werewolf howled, but nothing had come out of the woods yet, and he hoped nothing would. Their intel could’ve been wrong. Worse, they could be at the edge of a larger pack’s territory, and this wolf had gone rogue. Even if a pack didn’t approve of slaughtering humans—the number of deaths still pointed to a lone wolf—Kelly couldn’t imagine they’d leave one of their own to die. Wouldn’t be much of a pack, if so. He kept the rifle trained on the wolf as Daniel assessed their quarry. The older man had plenty of time to end it, arguably the smart choice to do so, but Daniel didn’t strike the killing blow. He let the wolf pull itself back up, let it feel the silver poison and burn its blood. Kelly kept his face impassive. Killing the werewolf quickly, especially now that the rangers had the advantage, was mercy, but it wasn’t justice. Mercy hadn’t been shown to the victims. So, justice came in a shot that Daniel didn’t strictly need to take, the bullet lodging into the beast’s uninjured shoulder.
It was a risk, though, one that broke bad as the wolf pulled up to its full height, rising up above Daniel and Kelly, gnashing its teeth. Not so fast. Kelly aimed his borrowed weapon at one of the werewolf’s hind legs, pulled the trigger back, and— Oh, c’mon. This wasn’t the time for a jam. Motherfucker. Kelly threw the rifle down—no time to clear that out and help Daniel—and drew a silver dagger, leaping up and aiming for the top of its spine. As the blade made contact, the wolf tried to buck, but the ranger fisted his free hand tight into blood-soaked fur. Only once an angry, jagged line had been carved into the meat of the thing did Kelly let go, falling and rolling with the momentum as the monster writhed in pain. Just missed its spine, he guessed, given it was still moving and all. But, like Daniel, Kelly hadn’t meant to put an end to it. No, he wasn’t to get his licks in, too, buy Daniel time to decide how he wanted to finish things.
However, before either one of ‘em could, the strangest fucking shit happened. Kelly watched, dumbfounded, as the wolf fell forward onto its front paws (damn, the pressure on its injured shoulders had to hurt), let out a furious roar, barreled right at Daniel, and… missed Daniel entirely, disappearing into the trees. Oh, for the love of— “Get back out here, you fuckin’ pussy!” Kelly called out, a flicker of irritation breaking past his calm. The beast’s blood sizzled on the dagger’s blade and, by the time Kelly had wiped it off and onto his jeans, he’d stamped the anger out. Still, this didn’t make no damn sense. Even under the sway of the full moon, even addled with anger and bloodlust, it had to know, as injured as it was, that there was no escape. What was its angle? What was its game?
He heard movement just before he felt the slam of force and crashed to the ground, the wolf on top of him. Oh. Great. Killing Kelly was the game. Should’ve known the wolf wouldn’t forget Kelly’s games. Should’ve taken his dagger to both its goddamn hind legs, like he’d been planning on with the bullet. It was ‘cause of dumb luck and nothing else that Kelly’d landed near the discarded rifle, that he had just enough time to grab it, lodge the stock and barrel into the werewolf’s maw, deep enough to stop it from chomping down on Kelly, but only just. ‘Course, he likely had Daniel to thank that it was weakened, couldn’t just snap the gun in half, silver be damned, and force Kelly to find out whether or not he was immune to the bite (assuming he even survived). It clamped down, tried to wrest the rifle away, instead, but Kelly held fast. A tug-of-war, a stalemate. Kelly couldn’t let go of the gun to just stab the damn werewolf; the werewolf couldn’t release the gun, yank it out, without letting go of Kelly.
Down here, struggling, Kelly could begrudgingly admit that, perhaps, all of his efforts to piss it off—including the latest insult—hadn’t been his brightest plan. This werewolf was from the sticks. If it could understand Kelly (had understood him the entire time, even), well— Kelly wasn’t about to apologize to the damn thing. Barely an insult, unless you were insecure. And, ‘sides, the plan had worked, hadn’t it? Daniel had a clear shot.
—
Daniel heard the all too familiar click of a jammed gun. He groaned, realizing that Kelly’s gun was fucked against this stupid beast. He knew they didn’t need guns to fight werewolves—rangers who lived before the invention of guns somehow made do without them—but fuck, they made hunting so much easier. Kelly attacked the werewolf with his dagger, and Daniel almost let out a sigh of relief—finally, a response that made sense to Daniel, unlike whatever bullshit the younger ranger had been doing earlier.
Before Daniel could make his next move, the werewolf suddenly ran at him. He moved off to the side, but it kept its pace as it ran to the trees. “What the fuck?” he mumbled. He lifted up his rifle and peered through the sight as he tried to find the werewolf hiding in the dark. The plan to kill it out in the open with some light was a good one, but Daniel realized that he maybe fucked around a little too much. He should have put a silver bullet through its head when he had the chance. Instead he wanted it to feel that burning pain coursing through its body…but that gave it too much of an out to escape. Now he realized the two would have to track it down into the thick forest and find it. (Though, Daniel thought if that didn’t work, he’d hide out the werewolf’s house and wait for the wolf hidden in a man’s body to return home. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d killed a shifter in their human form.)
“Guess we gotta—” he was interrupted as the werewolf ran out of the woods and tackled Kelly to the ground. “Fuck!” Daniel recognized that it was pure luck that Kelly managed to use his gun to keep the werewolf from biting him.
No more time for fucking around, Daniel decided. The beast may not have suffered enough, from his viewpoint, but they needed to stop playing around on the hunt. He rushed over to the two. He aimed his gun, with the muzzle just mere inches from the side of the werewolf’s head, and pulled the trigger. The shot rang out through the night. The bullet ripped through its head, entering one side and exiting the other. Blood and brain matter back splattered onto the sleeves of Daniel’s jacket and sizzled against the hot barrel of his gun.
Within an instant, the beast went from trying to find a way to tear open Kelly’s throat to collapsing onto him like a sack of bricks. Daniel switched on the safety and swung his rifle over his shoulder. His hands dug into the warm, sticky fur of the werewolf’s shoulders. He grunted as he pulled the dead weight off Kelly, and he let it drop down to the side with a loud thump. Its lifeless eyes were wide open, staring right up at Daniel, as crimson oozed out of its wound and pooled in the grass.
Daniel huffed and wiped the back of his hand against his forehead. Something warm and wet touched his skin. As he inspected his hand, he realized some of the beast’s blood ended up on his face. He unzipped his jacket and lifted up the hem of his t-shirt to wipe off the blood. “Good work,” he said, while wiping off blood and brain from his forehead. He eyed Kelly as he cleaned off the rest of his face and his neck. A cool breeze drifted through the night, and he suddenly realized the temperature. He shivered as goosebumps rose up along his torso. He dropped his shirt down and zipped his jacket back up. “Get up. Gotta deal with this thing.”
—
Kelly, beneath the heavy weight of the creature, was close enough to feel the heat of the fired shot, hear the moment its heart ceased beating in its chest, see the mess of blood and worse splash onto Daniel. In an instant, their fight was over. The dark might hold other dangers, ‘course, but they’d eliminated the main threat. As the fight left the werewolf, the body slumping to push Kelly down into the dirt, Kelly kept his arms and the ruined rifle up and above his head in an attempt to avoid any of the mess getting into his eyes or nose. If angling himself to the side as much as he could, his mouth was a lost cause, flecks and streaks of blood spattered across his lips and teeth (gritted in a snarl from the effort of holding the beast back). It was hardly the first time he’d tasted the blood of a kill, so Kelly barely took notice of the mix in his mouth, spitting into the grass.
As Daniel lugged it off of him, Kelly rolled back onto his back, grateful the blood was draining out the other side of the body. For a moment, he laid there beside the corpse. Waiting. It was… an irrational pause. Shifters were always stuck in the form they’d been killed in, so there wasn’t a reason for him to hesitate. Even so, he couldn’t relax. Just ‘cause something wasn’t recorded in any field notes, didn’t mean there couldn’t be some fork or fluke in evolution. At least the shot had been through-and-through, had taken more than a few vital chunks of the werewolf’s brain and splattered them against the ground and onto Daniel. If by some miracle it wasn’t dead, changing back would just put it in a coma. But it was dead. It was. Daniel knew how to kill, just as well as Kelly himself did. (Kelly’d killed shifters in their human forms before. Though, maybe it’d be more accurate to say he’d helped kill ‘em. Just like tonight, he’d never been the one to deal the killing blow. Not like it mattered none. Human eyes were just a lie that those shifters told themselves.)
Kelly took a deep breath in, let out a steady exhale, focusing on sensation instead of his own strange thoughts. He felt damp, but not soaked. Clothes were ruined, ‘course, but they’d dry out near the fire. Daniel had his own spare clothes in his Ford, and Kelly could swipe the shifter’s clothes from that backpack, if he needed a change that badly. As he sat up, he turned to Daniel, ready to discuss their next steps, and felt his brain static over as he came face-to-stomach with the older man’s abs. Pale in the moonlight, defined by the flickering fire, littered with scars that Kelly’s tongue had already mapped out. Their fight might be over, but they still weren’t done, so why was Daniel—? Daniel scrubbed at his face with the edge of his shirt, cleaning the blood off his face. Through the fabric, Kelly heard faint praise, but nothing more. Oh, uh. Right. “Thanks,” he mumbled, rolling his eyes as Daniel’s order came out. No need for the man to know he’d been distracted. “I’m gettin’ there, man. We got plenty of time before the sun comes up.” It’d take most of that time to take care of the body.
The dregs of adrenaline still prickled through Kelly’s body. If he turned his head, squinted at it, the rush could almost be mistaken for joy. As he stood, as always, Kelly first assessed his fellow ranger, looking down (barely) at Daniel’s form. Wolf hadn’t gotten its claws or teeth into the man, so no injuries to speak of. Daniel’d gotten most of the blood off. Kelly flicked stray brain matter off of Daniel’s shoulder and towards the fire, desensitized and far past any squeamishness. Satisfied with his once-over, he spoke, “You want to field dress the corpse or get the fire built back up?” A shrug. “Either way is fine with me. Your kill, your choice.”
…Which reminded him. There was the matter of the kill itself. In the din of combat and survival, Kelly’d run out of chances to take the final blow. He’d been following Daniel’s lead, running on instinct. Any other time, if he’d found a good moment, he would’ve ended it himself. But this wasn’t any other time, and Kelly couldn’t say he was upset about this outcome. “Huh. Guess I lost our little,” extremely one-sided, given Kelly hadn’t even thought about what he might make Daniel do, “wager, huh? You should think on what you’d like me to take care of first, while we work.” Another instinct, another impulse. Kelly reached out to Daniel and brushed his thumb through a sticky streak of blood on Daniel’s face that the older man had missed. It smeared between his skin and Daniel’s, their first brush of contact since earlier. Well, it was later, wasn’t it? Kelly looked into Daniel’s eyes, before grinning wide, popping his bloody digit into his mouth, and sucking it clean. Much like any animal’s blood, the taste was more bland than repulsive. Faintly metallic. It had, only moments ago, pumped life through the werewolf. Now, though? Now…
“You call the shots, man. I’ll execute.”
—
ADDITIONAL WARNING
The remainder of this thread includes explicit content and a detailed unsanitary situation. The events that follow may be triggering or not to your taste. If you need further explanation before continuing to read, please feel free to message either of us.
—
At first, it hadn’t registered in Daniel’s mind that Kelly might get a tad bit distracted by the sight of his abs. But as he caught sight of that hunger in Kelly’s eyes, he took just a little extra time wiping the gunk off his face. All for good measure, of course. Their day together had started off hot and heavy inside his truck, with Kelly underneath him, his hand down Kelly’s pants, and the taste of salt and sweat on his tongue as he buried his face in Kelly’s neck. So Daniel wiped off some of the splatter off his chin, thinking about how badly he wanted Kelly to just say fuck it, and get over on his knees right then. To unzip Daniel’s pants and finally take care of all this pent up energy that had been bouncing back and forth between the two men all night.
He couldn’t let himself get too distracted by those thoughts right then. No. Not with the fresh corpse right next to them. “Sure, but we ain’t got a clue what else might be lurking out there.” He watched (with maybe regret or perhaps annoyance) as Kelly stood up. Daniel’s eyes traveled over him. His clothes had some blood on them, but most of the gore seemed to have ended up around them. Overall, Kelly looked fine. Uninjured. Good, because Daniel didn’t want to deal with an injured and horny man.
He almost laughed as Kelly flicked something off his shoulder. He had to remind himself of the gravity of the situation. They had just—no, Daniel had just slaughtered another living being.
Sometimes he tried to view shifters as only monsters, but that never felt right in his head. Not with his and his mother’s code of only killing what was dangerous to humans. Some of them just lived normal lives, like any human. Daniel knew his mother had somewhat befriended a shifter once, a woman she determined wasn’t a threat (she never told him what the woman was, just that she was a shifter). He was aware of how the Farrans were friendly with a few fae, going so far as to have them involved with training young wardens. Like all that confusing promise binding nonsense.
But Daniel? He hadn’t ever crossed that line, as he preferred to remain distant from shifters. Getting too close seemed like a liability. A dangerous one. Like something that could blow up his whole world if he viewed shifters, along with supernatural beings, as anything but potential threats. They weren’t all killers, but they could easily lose control and become one. And Daniel knew that this werewolf in particular wasn’t safe; he—it was a killer. To Daniel, it shouldn’t matter any if this werewolf lived a relatively normal life in the community. It murdered innocent humans.
He cleared his throat. “I’ll take care of it.” He killed it, he should tend to its body. His mother enforced that idea in him, as a way of understanding exactly what they did as hunters. She insisted that it was an important part of the hunt. She didn’t want him to fall into a headspace that they had seen in other hunters, who killed any and everything that fell into their area of expertise—like rangers who killed any shifter they encountered. That was never Daniel. Maybe it was why he sometimes struggled with killing. Should he view them all as monsters? Or only some of them? Where exactly was the line in the sand for him?
Before he could get to work dressing the corpse—draining its blood, slicing it open and removing its organs, cutting its limbs into smaller pieces to make it easier to burn—Kelly pulled his thoughts away from the dead werewolf, all with the suggestion of what Daniel wanted Kelly to do. That bet that he’d already forgotten about.
It didn’t help that he ended up even more distracted as his gaze tracked Kelly’s thumb, now smeared in blood. And his heart pounded in his throat and his pants tightened as he watched Kelly lick the blood off his thumb. As Daniel thought about Kelly’s tongue swirling around him. Kelly’s warm and wet mouth. He licked his lips—he tried so hard to remember the dead werewolf right next to them, but his head was elsewhere now, thinking only about the very alive man in front of him.
And Kelly was right. Daniel called the shots. This was his hunt, that was his kill, and for all Daniel cared, Kelly was his in that moment.
“Get on your knees. Now.” What was his plan? Getting Kelly to blow him with a dead werewolf just a few feet away from them? Seemed insane, but there wasn’t all that much blood around or on them. (Fuck, Daniel realized he wouldn’t really mind if they were drenched in it. But he wasn’t going to mention that. Wasn’t going to suggest dipping their hands in the blood spilling out of the werewolf’s head and then smearing it across their skin. Didn’t want to imagine what his red handprint might look like splayed out across Kelly’s hairy chest. How he could draw bloody patterns all across Kelly’s abs and dip his head down to lap it up. Taste the salty metallic mixture of sweat and blood. Like some sort of fucked up body shot off the younger ranger… That’d be insane, right? Just a little taste was one thing, but soaked in it…fucking in it…no that was…no.) Maybe it’d be a bad idea too, with the smell of the dead body near them—then again, burning flesh sounded like a worse smell if they waited to fuck until after they cleaned up.
“My rifle got a little dirty. You’re gonna clean it off for me. I ain’t wanting no filthy rifle.” Okay, so, that was also insane, but it didn’t stop Daniel from sliding the rifle sling off his shoulder. Allegedly, Kelly could handle all of his wood and then some. His hunting rifle certainly fell into the and then some category. “Safety’s on. If that’s a concern of yours.”
—
It sounded like a joke. “Your rifle? Is that what we’re callin’ it, now?” Kelly asked, huffing out a laugh and rolling his eyes. Daniel’d given him the real order, ‘course, and Kelly’d go execute that, stoke the fire, building it out a bit while Daniel strung up the werewolf and broke it down. Daniel was focused. Kelly’d “get on his knees,” ‘cause, duh, he needed to tend to the fire. Innuendo was never Kelly’s strong suit, but he could understand what Daniel meant… or so he thought. Since, as he moved to tend to the flames, Daniel took his hunting rifle from where it sat on his back. Daniel confirmed that the safety was on, and Kelly’d never known the man to worry about a condom, so he had to mean…
What the fuck. What the fuck. Instant wipeout, record scratch, any fucking metaphor you like. Then, a crackle of static, as Kelly fiddled with the metaphorical antenna, tried to connect his mind and his body, figure out what station was playing, how he felt about all of this. Kelly tried to focus on reason, not on the heat in his cheeks, not on the pounding of blood through his body, so loud he could hear his own pulse. “I ain’t doin’ that.” But his voice wavered, half-skipped over the words, full of wonder and horror, dressed up pretty over curiosity. Four syllables, and he knew he’d given something away, even if he hadn’t intended to.
What Daniel was suggesting was crazy, objectively. Even among hunters, who rarely shied away from a bit of danger in the bedroom, this was… Kelly should throw a fist. He should object louder, more firmly. He should remind Daniel that they needed to focus on the hunt. That was easy for Kelly, any other time, but… Kelly took a breath (hoped it didn’t sound like a gasp), flitted his gaze to the ground, just to hide what might be on his face, and realized he was already most of the way to hard. From just the idea. God. Christ. It was… awful. Probably. Definitely.
…But was it so much different than pressing on each other’s bruises? Was it that much worse than dragging a knife, featherlight, down a partner’s chest? (Yes, Kelly. Yes.) Hunters were killers—noble killers, to some, but killers. It wasn’t even the most dangerous thing that Kelly would do tonight, if he… if he did that. The safety was on. Daniel’d been handling guns all his life. He knew his way around a rifle. And, if Kelly was going to do this, it made sense for a ranger to be the one holding the gun. Daniel, though, wasn’t just another ranger. He’d already expanded Kelly’s horizons. (God, was this something Daniel did often, too? Was this just another step on a path Kelly’d willingly walked down?)
It was humiliating. Could be, anyway, in the wrong person’s hands. Though, was that part of the allure? Getting on his knees, letting Daniel take what he wanted from Kelly, that was easy—was now, anyway. (Women had been leading Kelly around by his dick for years. Daniel, other men, were different, but not that different.) But letting Daniel take this, see him like this? Kelly realized, still a step behind his body, that he was all the way there, mortifyingly obvious in his jeans. Okay, so he wasn’t opposed to this, clearly. But if he made his decisions solely based on what he wasn’t opposed to, he’d… make a lot of the same decisions, admittedly, just without near as much thought. Daniel… should have to work for it, convince Kelly that he deserved this. And, shit, if Kelly was doing this, he wanted Daniel to know it wasn’t just ‘cause Daniel had told him to. (God, he was probably lying to himself.)
Kelly still hadn’t managed to get Daniel to beg for it, and it was easy to see why. Kelly just kept offering himself up to Daniel, readily. Now, he’d never expected— Okay. Someone here needed to keep a level head. (Or think with the one upstairs, at least.) Kelly’d damn near promised Daniel whatever he wanted. But if Daniel wanted his rifle cleaned, he was going to have to tell Kelly exactly what he meant by that, one more time. Confirm it wasn’t a long joke at Kelly’s expense. How Daniel chose to tell Kelly, well… That was part of the experience, right? Kelly could be blindly obedient, or at least fake it, but that had never been as interesting to him as fighting back. If Kelly could signal that he wanted it, without using his words, how far would Daniel be willing to go to tighten his hold on Kelly? There was a glint of possessiveness in Daniel’s eyes, Kelly knew he saw it. And if he wanted to stake a claim, well, that was just fine with Kelly. But he better damn well show that he had a claim to begin with. Otherwise, Kelly’d buck him off, instead of— “Get your head on right, man. We got work to do.”
But it was a token protest. Time stretched languid. As Kelly turned around, walking closer to the fire (away from the werewolf that, at this point, he’d damn near forgotten about), the younger man didn’t try and hide how he needed to adjust himself in his jeans. When Kelly took a stick, tossed it lazily into the brush pile, he brought his offending thumb back to his lips, ran it over ‘em like he was thinking. His tongue darted out—to wet his whistle, ‘course. Mouth was dry. Must be the flames, huh? The rangers had worked up a sweat, and Kelly needed to dry his jacket a bit anyway, so…? Why not? The ranger peeled the damp garment off. Just like Daniel, his shirt rode up, exposing his underbelly. Kelly’s form glistened in the light as it came free, the dark hair on his arms, his stomach, stark against the warm expanse of his skin. Kelly bent at his knees—not kneeling—and spread it over a stump, so that the fire would dry it more evenly. If Daniel got an eyeful, well, that was just payback for earlier, and the bastard deserved it.
What else did Daniel deserve?
Down here, eye level with the source of light and warmth, if Kelly closed his eyes for a moment (and he did), he could pretend that he still felt the heat of the rifle. He’d never given much thought to a barrel before. Long. Slick. Hot. Foreign, in a way Kelly’s own thumb hadn’t been. Daniel’s, just as connected to the other ranger as any part of the man’s body. Curiosity burned alongside the fire; it damned Kelly tooth’s. So, he waited, loose at his knees, unflinching when a spark landed on his bare skin. Whether Daniel’d bring him to heel or Daniel’s better judgment would take hold of him again, Kelly’d already made up his mind. Daniel deserved this, maybe even more. Now, would he take it?
—
Daniel was just as shocked as the look he saw spread across Kelly's face. At the suggestion of Kelly getting on his knees and cleaning his rifle. Daniel hadn't explicitly said how he wanted the younger ranger to clean his gun, but that was pretty obvious to anyone. And if this was the response Kelly had to the suggestion, Daniel thought that maybe he could still play it off as some fucked up joke. Say he was just messing around with the man and that he would get right to work on draining and cutting up the body. Getting his hands dirty. Getting his hands covered in blood. The same blood that painted the barrel of his rifle. The same blood that Kelly had just sucked off his thumb. Daniel bit down on his lip as he thought about the possibility of Kelly licking blood off his fingers after he cleaned up the werewolf.
Daniel glanced down at the same time as Kelly. It was hard to not notice the bulge in his pants. A flirty smirk grew across his face at the realization that Kelly was possibly more into this idea than he wanted to admit. Daniel could feel more blood rushing through him, and now he couldn't get rid of the idea of Kelly getting his mouth on the rifle. Daniel knew his way around guns—knew exactly the power and danger of the machines. (He also knew the stupidity of playing around with guns, how a life could be taken by a mere accidental firing. But Daniel knew guns better than most people. He'd make sure that nothing happened to Kelly.)
He removed the magazine from the rifle. An obvious show that he still expected Kelly to do exactly what he wanted. Kelly suggested that Daniel needed to get his head on right, but as Daniel slipped the magazine into his pocket, he decided his head was in the right direction. It hadn't led him astray yet.
Daniel's gaze followed after Kelly, watching as the man put on his own show of adjusting himself. How he took off his jacket and exposed just enough midriff for Daniel to keep his eyes glued to the younger man. As he let himself get distracted by the exposed muscles and dark hair guiding his eyes right back down to Kelly’s pants. It was all just enough to convince Daniel that Kelly just needed a little bit more guidance before he’d take care of the rifle.
He walked over to the fire where Kelly squatted down low. His head was still at the exact level that Daniel wanted—close enough. Daniel reached out to Kelly, trailing his fingers across Kelly's broad shoulders. He splayed his hand out across one shoulder, giving it a deep rub with only the shirt between their skin. Without warning, he pushed Kelly all the way down onto his knees. Daniel moved his hand from Kelly's shoulder up his neck to his chin. He tilted Kelly's chin up, making the younger ranger look up towards him. He said nothing as he rubbed his thumb across Kelly's lips, parting them just enough for Daniel to slip his thumb into Kelly's mouth.
All he could think about was Kelly's soft wet tongue gliding up and down all twenty-two inches of the hot hard barrel of his rifle. Daniel had never once thought about using his guns in this way—knives, sure, he’d done that plenty of times, but guns?—and now he couldn't get it off his mind. His gun was like an extension of his body. It fit in his hands like it was meant to be held by them. He knew every inch and part of his rifle—how to take it apart and put it back together, how his fingers curled around it, how it slung across him. Holding the rifle in one hand right then, it was like a natural part of him. And he wanted Kelly's mouth on it.
He slipped his thumb out of Kelly's mouth, ran his fingers up along Kelly's face and into his hair. Daniel petted Kelly as he ran his fingers through sweaty dark hair, before tightening his grip and yanking Kelly's head back even further.
With his hand still tight in Kelly's hair, Daniel lifted the rifle up closer towards Kelly's face. Just mere inches from his lips. He imagined those lips parted and wrapped around the muzzle. He held the rifle there just for a moment before lifting it all the way up to his own lips. Daniel kept his eyes trained on Kelly's as he flattened his tongue against the hot metal, as it burned against him. He moved the gun and his head as he slowly licked the barrel from one end to the other. Taking his time to lap up every splash of crimson that met his tongue. Tasting how the metal heat of the gun mixed with the metallic flavor of the blood. He never took his eyes off Kelly as he showed the younger ranger exactly what he wanted.
With one trail along the barrel cleaned off, Daniel lowered his rifle away from his face. He leaned down close to Kelly. “You’re gonna clean my rifle.” His eyes flickered down to Kelly’s lips, and he sucked in a breath as he leaned in for a sloppy kiss, hoping the younger ranger could taste the metal and blood that lingered in his mouth. He pulled away and jerked Kelly’s hair again, yanking him back a bit before letting go of him. Daniel unzipped his pants, unable to handle the blood pounding in him and the tightness of his pants for even a moment longer. He straightened back up and held his rifle just an inch or two away from Kelly’s mouth. “I ain’t asking.”
—
It was safest this way, with the magazine removed. Kelly knew that Daniel was making the correct decision. Still, a flicker of disappointment ran through him. Did Daniel not trust himself with this? Or was it Kelly’s trust in Daniel that was in question? A third possibility: Daniel had done this before, knew Kelly hadn’t, and thought this would ease Kelly into it. Like so much else that Daniel had taught him, not all of which Kelly’d nailed on the first try, the whisper of doubt just made Kelly want to prove the doubt wrong.
He kept his breathing even as Daniel approached, relying only on his hearing, waiting to see what the older ranger would do. Daniel’s first touch was lighter than Kelly’d expected—a gentle reprimand, then? A strange flash of tenderness? Kelly didn’t have time to dwell on it, forced to his knees. Now, that, Kelly had been expecting. His knees gave out easily, body angled from the fire, always pointed back to Daniel, following the pull of the other man like a compass to magnetic north. The dirt was soft beneath his knees as he dug in, firm in his new position. His eyes fluttered open as Daniel tipped his chin up, and Kelly went red, as he always did when he was on his knees in front of a partner—this partner, more significant above him than any of the rest. (Another time, Kelly’d go down further, pushed to his stomach, Daniel behind him, a cool touch, and—)
Kelly tried to keep off his face how much the thumb plying open his mouth affected him, but his eyes went half-lidded at the first breach. He could nip, he could lick, but he just watched. The heat of Daniel sat on his tongue. It was over soon—far too soon, in Kelly’s opinion—but Daniel wasn’t asking Kelly to get his fingers wet, some hasty preparation for opening Kelly up, a mix of pleasure-pain. (One they hadn’t needed to resort to, better solutions readily available. Out here, though…?) No. Kelly guessed Daniel merely wanted to show him how easy he was. A thumb wasn’t much, but Kelly felt it like a brand, would feel it long after tonight. And, if he could accept that, if Kelly could let so much else of Daniel pass his lips, what was a rifle, anyway? Just another part of Daniel for Kelly to familiarize himself with, learn the contours and the divots, understand the weight of it.
Gentle power morphed to a firmer display as Daniel carded a hand through Kelly’s hair, just to tighten his hold. He’d put Kelly exactly where he wanted. As the rifle came towards Kelly’s face, his lips parted, waiting for Daniel to slide the tip in. He was patient, so patient. Thoughts of the sanity (or lack thereof) of what they were doing left Kelly’s mind entirely. If Daniel could sling magic around, it’d still be less of a force on Kelly, in this moment, than the grip of Daniel’s big hand, tight against his scalp. The warning was innate. If Kelly moved a step out of line, Daniel could yank him right back. But there’d be no need for that. Not tonight. No, Kelly could—would—be good. But, instead of Daniel pressing the rifle into Kelly’s waiting mouth, as he had his thumb, as he’d guided a different kind of heat more times now than Kelly could count, Daniel raised it to his own lips.
Kelly’s eyes went wide. He’d thought of consent, of desire, as this structured thing. But as Daniel stuck his tongue to the barrel, Kelly realized consent could look like this, too. Demonstrative. It nearly buckled Kelly at his knees from the sight of it, and it was Daniel’s hand that kept him upright, watching with rapt attention. If he’d had any damn sense, he’d have unbuttoned his pants. (His hands were free. He still could. But that wasn’t what Daniel had told him to do, now was it? No, Daniel had beckoned him to watch and learn.) Daniel lapped at the blood, and Kelly understood the term bloodlust more fully. Carnal pleasures came in all shapes and sizes, and this, whatever was dancing between ‘em, could take on any shape or size it wanted.
The messiness of the kiss was the only real tell that Daniel was as affected by all of this as Kelly was. It, too, wasn’t damn near long enough, not when Kelly could see himself burning the whole night away like this, wanted to stretch every moment out and see how long the tension could build without snapping and taking ‘em both down with it. At the last, roughest tug on his hair, Kelly finally made a sound, knowing that the time was fast approaching where he’d have to choose. (As if he hadn’t chosen moments ago, without saying a word.) The moan choked out of him. Kelly was so used to keeping quiet, but he got the sense Daniel liked him loud. Just, in those other places—parking lots, trucks, bathrooms—Kelly had needed to keep quiet. Usually, it led to Daniel’s shirt (or Kelly’s own) clenched between Kelly’s teeth. Here, there was no need, but he couldn’t quite make himself let it out.
Kelly’s eyes flickered, briefly, to the slide of Daniel’s zipper, but didn’t linger. The glistening barrel of the gun was before him, now. He stared it down and, voice horse, dry from the fire and his own desire, Kelly said, “Alright.” What the fuck else was there to say? Daniel would’ve understood just as well if Kelly’d leaned forward to get to work. But Kelly wanted to treat this moment with the reverence it deserved, needed to center himself in this moment, speaking desire into the air with the frogs and the crickets and the rest. Because fair was fair, Kelly undid his own jeans, unblocking his belt and flinging it behind him, towards his jacket. The clatter of the metal to the forest floor, the sound of fabric shifting as the button came loose, the click of Kelly’s zipper. If Kelly focused, listened past himself, he could hear Daniel’s heartbeat. Stuttering like he’d run a marathon which, fighting a werewolf (Christ, right, the werewolf), Kelly supposed he basically had.
The rifle, a few inches away. The back of Daniel, another few beyond that. Fuck that. If Kelly was doing this, if they were getting this close and personal, they should be firmly in each other’s orbits. After this, he wasn’t sure how they wouldn’t be. This wasn’t just Daniel awakening a part of Kelly that had lain dormant. No, that would’ve come out, eventually. If not with Daniel then with someone else forward enough. This, though? This was between Kelly, Daniel, and the woods. Kelly moved his hands away from where they hesitated at his waist, unsure where to grab first to bring Daniel to him. Shifting forward, he settled on grabbing Daniel’s hips, bringing the other man and the rifle closer. So close that the tip brushed Kelly’s lips, that he could feel the heat of it pushing in.
Do or die.
Kelly’d been practicing something, since he’d last seen Daniel. His first few attempts with strangers had gone fine, but Kelly wanted to go for better than fine before bringing it to the older ranger. Earlier, he’d been planning to show off, proud of his new talent in the same way he’d been proud of his first real kill. Now, instead of Kelly’s mouth stretching around the warmth of Daniel, then going down to the root, the approach was different—had to be different. But it was almost easier this way. The barrel was all depth. Kelly just had to relax, and he could let the rifle push and push, sit at the back of his throat, and nudge deeper still. No way in hell could Kelly swallow all twenty-two inches, but he could take it until his bottom lip brushed the wood that signaled the beginning of the stock. He fit his lips around the barrel and began to pull back, savoring the taste as he went. The rifle was still hot, the blood itself hadn’t yet cooled. As he returned to the tip, Kelly flicked his tongue over the holes at the end of the muzzle. Dazed as his brain was, Kelly couldn’t even remember why the damn thing had holes. But the blood would crust in there, if he didn’t clean it thoroughly.
It was a neat trick, one that Kelly was keen to repeat, but it wasn’t made for cleaning. With his mouth full, there wasn’t finesse. The gun was left sloppy. The spatters had once been even, almost painted on, but now they were mixed with Kelly’s own spit. Shit. It was more of a mess now than it had been before he’d started. Kelly saw a drip start to gather at the end, nearly fall to the ground, and Kelly took one hand from where it had migrated slowly from Daniel’s hip to his thigh. Kelly caught the mess, licked it back into his mouth. Just wouldn’t do for him to clean the gun and leave the woods all dirty. They’d done enough of that with their hunting. Kelly took ‘leave no trace’ very seriously. ‘Sides. This? What was left on the gun and in their mouths and slipping down their burning throats and into each of their guts? That was all theirs. So, Kelly changed it up. Slow, deliberate licks. Starting as close to Daniel as he could get, then pulling back to the end.
The blood gathered on the end of Kelly’s tongue, and he stuck it out to show Daniel he wasn’t just spreading the mess around. He swallowed it down. Then, he kept going—on and on and on. Kelly let himself get lost in it. The blood settled in his belly, and Kelly groaned.
—
Everything within Daniel felt on fire, with his tongue burning from the heat of the metal, the hot blood pumping through his body, and the hunger growing in him as he saw Kelly’s eyes grow wide. Some shock still remained deep in his gut, mostly buried by the bloodlust growing within him. That little pesky horror questioned his own sanity at doing something like this with a machine designed to kill—a machine used to kill shifter after shifter, beast after beast, animal after animal. He buried the shock deeper and deeper inside him—out of sight, out of mind—as he stayed cool and collected on the outside, as if he had licked blood off plenty of guns in his life. As if this wasn’t a first for him too. (He only assumed the too, based on Kelly’s initial reluctance.)
Daniel wanted Kelly fully convinced by the idea to actually do something insane like this. His eagerness in their kiss confirmed to Daniel that Kelly would do just about anything for him. He already knew that the younger man would come running whenever Daniel sent a text for a hookup, and he wanted to keep him wrapped around his finger for as long as possible. If he got the man to lick blood off his gun, what couldn’t he get him to do? Kelly’s “all right” was practically redundant when everything else already screamed that Kelly wanted the hot barrel in his mouth now.
He waited as he let Kelly figure out where he wanted to place his hands on Daniel’s body. He recognized how new a lot of this was for Kelly, and he figured that he might as well sometimes let him learn what he wanted to do. Kelly’s hands finally grabbed Daniel’s hips, and he let Kelly pull him forward, closer to him. So close that Daniel’s breath hitched as the muzzle of his rifle pressed against Kelly’s mouth, as he watched Kelly’s lips part for the gun. This time his eyes widened as Kelly’s mouth wrapped around the barrel. As Daniel eased the gun deeper into Kelly’s throat. “Fuck,” he mumbled, as he grabbed onto Kelly’s hair again. A firm grip, as if the younger ranger was deepthroating him, not his rifle.
His head grew dizzy as he tracked Kelly’s every movement. How deep he took the gun. How his tongue glided up the barrel, past where the barrel and stock met, closer to Daniel, closer to Daniel’s unzipped pants. His hand still in the man’s hair, he guided Kelly back down the length of the barrel, down to the tip, and slid the rifle back into his mouth. In, out. In, out. Any horror that remained in Daniel washed away at the sight of Kelly’s lust for his old hunting rifle—a deadly, rough, and seasoned rifle that traveled with Daniel for years. His rifle, which exploded with fire and smoke as a bullet flew through the air into its target. Nothing about it was gentle or soft—it’s only purpose was a killing machine. Just moments ago, it had glistened with blood, but now only the stains on Daniel’s shirt and jacket proved that it had served its purpose. Yet Kelly’s tongue dragged along the gun, giving it attention undeserving of the machine.
As Kelly stuck out his soaked tongue, Daniel pulled back on his hair, to get a better look at the mixture of saliva and blood. “Good boy,” he praised, right as Kelly swallowed for him. And then continued his performance for Daniel as his mouth returned to the barrel. Daniel thought about how Kelly showed off all the new techniques he’d been practicing since the first time that Kelly returned the favor for Daniel. It was almost as if Kelly rehearsed on the rifle what he planned to do to Daniel later. And Daniel couldn’t help but want that now—he wanted to feel Kelly’s mouth and tongue not just on his rifle, but also on his skin.
He moaned—loudly—at the thought of what might come next. He leaned his head back, his eyes practically glazing over as he looked up at the clear night sky, with the bright full moon peeking back down at him. No clouds in sight, just the moon glowing right above him and the stars twinkling around it. The cool night wind rustled through the trees, crickets chirped in the dark forest, and the deep haunting duet of barred owls echoed through the night. As Daniel took in the sounds and sights of the woods, he could almost feel the warmth of Kelly’s mouth and the softness of his tongue along his skin. Impossible, he knew, as he turned his sight back down to Kelly, running his hand through the man’s hair.
For a moment, he forgot why they were both here, deep in the woods, away from the world and everyone else in it. He knew in the back of his mind what this wasn’t. It wasn’t a simple camping trip between him and Kelly. It wasn’t them fucking in the course grass next to the heat of a campfire. They weren’t going to curl up afterwards, poke marshmallows through sticks, and let the flames of the campfire turn the marshmallows into a gooey treat. They wouldn’t end their night by making out under the stars, pointing out the constellations above them, and falling asleep like this was some sort of date night for them. Kelly probably didn’t even know that Daniel could whip them up a delicious meal over a campfire. (It wasn’t something they talked about; it wasn’t something they did together. They only fucked.)
No, nothing like that was an option for Daniel. As much as he might dream of a possible world like that—how it might feel to just be like any other human. Such ideas were only that though, only mere dreams. The werewolf corpse, spotted from the corner of his eye, confirmed exactly that. His—its lifeless eyes were still wide open from its gruesome final moments, almost as if it stared at the two men who seemingly cared so little about its life. And of course Daniel knew that there wouldn’t be any roasting marshmallows or stargazing, only draining a body of its blood, dismembering it, and placing it in the fire as flames licked off its flesh and turned it to ash.
Daniel pulled Kelly’s head back, away from the rifle. He squatted down to the same level as Kelly, keeping his hand in the man’s hair. He raised the gun right in their lines of sight so they could both see the trails of saliva and fingerprints mapped across the steel. He let go of Kelly’s hair and wrapped his hand around Kelly’s jaw, forcing him to look at the barrel. “Look at the fucking mess you left behind,” Daniel commented, clicking his tongue in faux-disapproval. “You’re gonna have to actually fucking clean this now. I need it shining. None of this—” he let go of Kelly and ran his pointer finger along the metal, wiping off some of Kelly’s spit. His eyes caught Kelly’s as he slid his finger into his mouth, licking the spit off his finger. “None of this mess.”
Daniel placed his gun on the ground and took Kelly’s face in his hand again. “Ain’t tired now are you?” He didn’t wait for the answer he already knew. “Good,” he let go of Kelly and roughly patted his cheek, “because I ain’t done with you yet.” Daniel shrugged off his jacket and tossed it to the side, with his shirt landing on top of it next. “Get on your stomach. And get that fucking shirt off.”
—
The night air had gone cold. Steam rose from their skin and from the metal of the barrel. Mist danced in the air as the men exhaled, panted, moaned. Smoke snaked around ‘em, still, choking the clearing as the smallest bits of wood smoldered to embers, neglected. Did they really need a fire, though, when an inferno was raging inside Kelly? The answer came through the haze: No. Whatever Daniel wanted, whatever Daniel needed, Kelly could provide.
After all, Daniel had told him so. Daniel had called him good boy, and Kelly felt that settle in right next to the blood. Both roiled his gut, commingled into a heady, potent mixture. Kelly’s hips gave a jerk forward, his hands gripping into Daniel’s jeans clenched tighter. If Daniel had called Kelly good for just what he’d done with the rifle, how much praise could Kelly wring out of the man? An image flickered to life in Kelly’s mind. Daniel, wounded. Kelly, licking the blood from Daniel’s wounds. ‘Course, Kelly couldn’t outpace the speed at which a hunter’s wounds would heal, but his spit, his dedication, could hurry it on. Kelly blinked once, and the image was gone.
As Daniel turned his gaze upward, Kelly tried his best to follow the line of sight, pulling off of the rifle and taking a few steady breaths. The moon met their joined gaze. The fire crackled, but the light of the moon bathed the clearing in light. Turns out, Kelly’d been wrong; Daniel hadn’t needed a fire to see by. Hell, tonight, Daniel could see just as well as Kelly could. Could see even better than Kelly could, actually, to have seen into the core of Kelly. It wasn’t even the first time; if Daniel hadn’t seen Kelly’s challenging gaze for what it really was—just heat, always heat—they wouldn’t be here. Kelly might be on his knees for someone, but not like this. Here, he was exposed. Free, in a way. There was no hiding from Daniel’s gaze, and so Kelly didn’t try to mask any of what was buried within him. By the time Daniel put the full weight of his attention back on Kelly, the younger man was just mouthing at the barrel, almost lazy.
When Daniel pulled him away, Kelly tried to give chase, only to be stopped by Daniel’s grip. When Kelly tried to duck his gaze, felt the faintest rumble of shame off in the distance somewhere, Daniel grabbed his jaw to hold it in place, wouldn’t let Kelly avoid him. It made sense. Daniel knew what he was doing, always did. If Kelly didn’t know how he hadn’t met the mark, how would he improve? How would he do better for Daniel? So, Kelly looked at the barrel, really studied it. There wasn’t a trace of blood left on it. But that hadn’t been what Daniel had asked of him, had ordered him to do. No, Daniel was right. It was supposed to be clean, and it wasn’t. (‘Course, how could it be? Even through the fog, Kelly knew Daniel was performing for Kelly’s benefit, playing a role. Just another way that Daniel had seen him, knew what Kelly needed to hear. Praise only mattered if it was doled out selectively, when Kelly had actually done a good job. Empty praise was meaningless.) A small nod, much as dared to move his head. Kelly whispered a, “Yes, sir,” that was redundant. Daniel knew.
Their eyes met. Daniel stroked the barrel, gathered the mess Kelly had left behind, near-mocking as he popped that finger into his mouth. Or, maybe, it was closer to Daniel’s tongue on the barrel, a way to show Kelly that Daniel was the same. If this was insanity, it was shared. Though, really, having done it, now, Kelly couldn’t reduce it to sane or insane. It had felt right, to him, to the both of ‘em, and that was what mattered.
Kelly mourned the absence of Daniel’s touch until it returned. But when its grounding presence came back, Daniel asked a stupid question. It was rhetorical, ‘course, but Kelly still had to hold back a laugh. Tired? Weren’t no way Kelly could be tired. He felt more awake now than he had on the hunt. Daniel began to strip down, and Kelly wanted to leap on him. To taste the sweat on his skin, to press his face into the bulge in Daniel’s underwear, where the scent of the man was most concentrated. But that wasn’t the order. Kelly did what Daniel asked: Shirt, removed. Without his belt, Kelly’s jeans had slid down his hips, and Kelly took the liberty of shucking them off, too, kicking his boots and socks to the side. It left Kelly exposed, but not fully. No, the boxers he’d borrowed from Daniel remained. The front bowed out, and a wet spot had only grown alongside Kelly’s interest.
They weren’t friends. They weren’t lovers. But Daniel’s boxers, stretched across Kelly’s skin, just proved what both men already knew. Kelly belonged, in some strange way, to Daniel. So, Kelly got onto his stomach like he’d been told, grass the only thing between him and the earth. Ass up, presenting himself. Bent, entirely, to Daniel’s will.
And when he sensed Daniel’s presence behind him, felt a hand at his waistband, heard Daniel spit onto his fingers in hurried preparation, the last embers of Kelly’s tension burned out, full moon be damned.
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