Clegan forced marriage au but in way that absolutely NO ONE asked for other than me. Gimme some old west, rule 63 with a, ahem, twist.
If someone other than me is into this, well, I am excited for us!!
Read it on AO3 or else here below:
There's some pretty girls in the little town, nice ones that go to church and wear bonnets, smile shyly and duck their heads. Bad ones with hiked up skirts and rogued up cheeks, painted and available if you had the coin for it. The school teacher, bookish and clear eyed, with kind hands.
There's some kind of pretty girls for sure, and then there's Abigail Cleven, though the town called her Gale. Gale, like a sea storm, though she’d never seen the open water in her young life. Gale like the ocean blue of her eyes. Gale with a yellow braid down her back, long and straight and a face like a picture post card or a fine painting brought to life. Ought to be a nice girl, clever as the schoolmarm, from the way she carried herself, but her daddy was a gambler, just bad at it, couldn't keep her fancy. Her mama was a good time girl, everyone knew it, but Gale, she wore her skirts proper and showed no bosom with the cut of her dress, never painted her lips.
But her daddy was a gambler all the same and word in town was she went out walking with John Egan who was a known gambler himself with his fancy vest and fancier six shooter. Tall, big fella. Friendly, good for a drink, but you wouldn’t challenge that one, word was that he’d fought with Little Phil Sheridan, whooped the rebs but good and made ‘em run howling.
So when Abigail Cleven turned up in the family way, no one thought of any other fella. She was a good enough girl, never followed anyone else.
Her daddy looked at her and shook his head, spat on the ground, “a damn Yankee, gal?” he said.
She faced him down, straightbacked. “John ain’t the one,” she said, firm as anything.
Paul Cleven only laughed. Everyone knew that she’d gone walking with John Egan, her arm steady in the crook of his elbow and smiled at him, laughed at his jokes. He helped her off her horse and walked her to church, though not inside.
Preacher’s wife whispered Egan’d let her in the back stairs of the hotel on Main Street and she’d come up with him, proud as Eve before the fall, wearing a blue bonnet over her yellow hair.
The same yellow hair her daddy seized her by and dragged her out of the house with until she came willing to spare her own dignity.
Paul Cleven wasn’t a popular man, but popular enough to grab a posse with shotguns to come in to find John Egan at the poker table. “Egan!” he yelled, when John didn’t look his way immediately.
John, tall and curly haired, with skin as smooth as a gal’s and twinkling blue eyes, who stood up and put his own sunbrowned hand on the gleaming hilt of his six shooter.
“Mr. Cleven,” John said, smooth, black eyebrows lifted. “Nice seeing you here. Looking to buy into our game?”
“Don’t you Mr. Cleven me, boy,” Cleven hissed. “I’m calling you to account for what you did to my girl.”
“Excuse me?” and John’s genial face twisted, laughing mouth tightening. “How is Miss Cleven?”
“Don’t you Miss Cleven her, you bastard.” Cleven put a hand on his shotgun. “You’re gonna come with me to the church and make her an honest wife or I’m gonna tie you to the back of my horse and whip you through the town.”
“Huh,” said John, laughter fading. “Well, I guess I’d better come then.” No one was sure whether to nod knowingly or feel surprised. A crowd followed Cleven and his posse, Egan in his fine suit and shiny shoes, hand on his gun but coming along all the same, down to the whitewashed wooden building that was the town church.
There in the front was Abigail Cleven, blue shawl over a black dress that hung loose enough not to quite show a swollen belly, blue eyes cold as a winter morning in the mountains. There was a trail of blood in her corner of her mouth and another fellow with a shotgun by her side.
John’s eyes narrowed. “Not sure the lady is interested in a wedding,” he said, cool as anything.
Paul Cleven shrugged, spat on the ground and patted his gun. “Not interested in her bellyaching. You put the brat in her belly, I won’t be raising no bastard in my house.”
“Wasn’t him,” hissed Gale, in her rough, sweet alto. “I said it wasn’t him, let him be. Let him be now, and I won’t stay in your goddamned house neither, don’t you worry yourself.”
John sighed and stepped up to her, never mind the guns. “Gale,” he said, and now his tone had lost its smug edge, gone careful and conciliatory.
“It’s not yours and you know it,” Gale told him, head on, as if it were just them two, no gang with guns or milling crowd of onlookers drifting in, no preacher fumbling over already, one of her Uncles behind him. “You know it, John.”
John shrugged in his suitcoat. “Is that your only objection to these proceedings?” he asked.
She stared at him, shook her head. “You know it,” she repeated. “I won’t have you forced like this.”
There was a cock of a gun. “Ain’t up to you, gal,” someone snapped. “Preacher, get to it. Get him up here.”
And so they pushed Egan up to the altar right up to Cleven girl’s side. They looked at each other. He made a face but didn’t push back. Instead he raised up a palm to her cheek, a thumb to her bleeding lip. “It’s alright with me, if you’ll have me, sweetheart,” he said, staunch and earnest in a way that made a man spit, a woman sigh and Abigail Cleven stare with her blue eyes and soft mouth, her lips parting just enough for the touch.
“This ain’t right,” she said, looking at him, and then back at the crowd and then over to the preacher, who just smiled, adjusted his glasses and opened up his book. “This–” she swallowed, visible in her pretty throat. Closed those remarkable eyes. Opened them again. Looked back at her father who only glared at her like she was nothing, and at John who held out a hand, the only open hand in the room. Swallowed again. “You can’t mean it.” A statement.
John only kept his hand out. Finally, finally, she looked him dead in the eye and took it. The crowd let out a long sigh.
The preacher cleared his throat. “Right then, folks, shall we get to it? Folks, we are gathered here in the sight of god, who made us man and woman–”
Gale coughed hard and John shrugged, clapping her on the back with his free hand while he held on tight with the one holding hers and looking back at the preacher.
“Ahem. God made us man and woman and gave us the covenant of Christian marriage. John Egan and Abigail Cleven, I ask you now in the presence of these people to declare your intention to enter union with each other.”
The crowd held its collective breath.
“Well, I will,” John said, grinning.
Gale shook her head. “This here is insanity,” she said but didn’t pull her hand away. Someone cocked a gun in the background. “Anyhow,” she hissed, without looking back at the gun. “I will anyhow.”
“Wonderful. I now pronounce you man and wife. May the congregation rejoice in your union.”
Someone clapped. John Egan smirked and, without pause, kissed his bride on her soft little mouth, gentle as he could. She seemed to kiss back, didn’t slap or hiss or protest, maybe even chased his lips with hers.
“Hello Mrs. Egan,” he said. And then, to the crowd. “If you folks will allow, I’ll be taking my wife and headed on home.”
Someone whistled, someone else cheered. From out of nowhere a little girl tossed a handful of daisy petals. A couple of old soldiers called out “Hurrah!” like the boys in blue had on the battlefield, low and deep.
And he did, guiding her through the crowd and right up the street to the fine hotel where he had his rooms, through the front door this time.
It was only there with the door solid and barred behind them that they looked at each other, Gale in blank eyed disbelief and John sturdy and smiling.
“Well,” he said, “Wasn’t that something? But you’d better tell me who smacked you, because no one puts a hand on my wife.”
She blinked and put an arm around her stomach. “I told them it wasn’t yours. That– why didn’t you tell them?”
This earned her a laugh. “Honey, why didn’t you?”
“They’d a strung you up if they knew,” she said, head a shaking helplessly. “I couldn’t do that to you, could I?”
“Well, yeah. But you could of if you wanted to but you chose to marry me instead. Means, now you’re my wife, says god and everyone.” And John shrugged out of the fancy coat and undid the fancy tie while Gale watched him do it. Buttons of a shirt and bindings underneath, showing what Gale knew and what no one else in town did.
Gale was the only one in town that knew John was born Joan, just kept breasts bound and let height and size do the talking. Who’d fought for the union in men’s garb and chosen not to give it up on mustering out. Gale knew because she'd been up in John's hotel room before with her dress shucked off and her knees spread and Joan's curly head in between them. She knew because she'd licked her open in return.
Men’s wool trousers, finely woven, linen underthings and wiry hair between her legs that smelled of sweat. Skin around her neck and cheeks too soft for any kind of fella’s, for all the stink of whiskey and pipe tobacco.
Gale who now just sighed, rubbed her eyes and stepped forward. “It’s Mark Spencer’s,” she said, finally. “I’d a named him, but he–” but he’d moved on to Lil in the next town over before John Egan rode into town in the winter. Timing made sense too.
“He’s a damn fool,” John said, quietly. “It’s mine now, and you too and don’t you let anyone say otherwise.” And then leaned down and kissed her again, tender and marital, the dutiful husband.
Consider this one the John side of the feral Gale is a war prize one. To the extent they are not consistent, remember that Gale's mental state isn't very good. To the extent they are more inconsistent than that, they are slightly different universes, but Gale's backstory is the same. This one leans way more into the whole arranged marriage thing.
CW: Wild fantasy au Clegan insanity version 21 or whatever. Arranged marriage, implied consent issues (as opposed to the front in center of the Gale POV consent issues). If you are still entertained I love you for it tbh.
John didn’t want to be here, not at all. Wasn't so long ago that the war leaders had taken bribes from the Kingdom when it suited them and he wasn’t above it, but he didn’t see how it would change anything. A princess, a marriage alliance, money, land, none of it would change the slow encroachment and ruin spilling out of the mad king’s court, none of it meant he wasn’t going to finish the job. They’d won enough battles that the war was a matter of time.
Didn't mean he wouldn't hear it out.
After all, he didn't hate the look of the young man who was covered in a half veil of metal and netting like a gift, partly wrapped, ripe for giving. The shape of him was unobscured, the impression of slim lines and broad shoulders, a full fair mouth. Wheat gold hair. Golden skin. Something beautiful.
He didn't look at John, his eyes were fixed forward into the middle distance, like he wished he weren't here either. That John could sympathize with, why would he be? Whomever he was, whatever power he had behind him, why would he want to go from the King's harem or wherever they’d got him from to some stranger?
The king himself was there, and his counselors, talking terms. Money, boundaries, land and promises. John wasn't the negotiator himself, but he was the one they were proposing to bind to the beauty under the netting, or something like that.
And maybe he’d like to know something about him other than that he was beautiful and not interested in whatever this was. He shifted closer, like it was just them. Showed his teeth and the sharp edge of his weapons to get everyone else out of earshot. They scrambled which made him grin.
The man didn’t look at him, not really.
“Hey,” John said, “What’s your name?”
Beauty pursed his lips and finally looked at him. His eyes were blue, almost grey. Sword eyes, John thought, incongruously, and wondered if he’d ever held a sword. There was something blank in them, reflective. He didn’t say anything, just shrugged.
“Since it sounds like we’re getting married,” John began. Beauty blinked at him, like he’d said something outrageous or funny. It was better than blank.
The man’s voice, when he heard it, was startlingly low, rock and honey, an unfamiliar accent. John liked the sound of it as much as he liked the look of beauty. “General, you're not actually supposed to marry me. You're supposed to be angry anyone suggested it. This whole–” he gestured broadly to encompass them, the hall and everything around them, “is an insult to you.”
John tilted his chin, “and why’s that?”
The man shrugged, netting shifting. “First off, I'm not a woman,” he offered. “Not gonna carry on your family line, will I?”
John laughed himself, startled. “That’s right, you ain't.” There was no way to explain all the ways that wasn’t important. “Why’s that matter? You seem alright.”
This got him a blank again, swords and mirrors. “Barbarian,” the man said finally, but with a curl to that soft mouth of his, like he thought it was a little funny too, that all of this was.
John leaned in closer, there was a scent, sweat and something a little too sweet, flowery, that didn’t quite fit. “Ain't it an insult to you too? I’m not carrying on your family line myself.”
The startled near smile turned into a real one, all sharp edges to see on that pretty face, distorted only a little by the veil. “Maybe I’m past the point of being insulted.”
“But you’re not gonna tell me your name?” That searching expression in that lovely face was appraisal, consideration. “How about I call you Buck?”
Another blink and the smile twitched. “What?”
“They call me Bucky. My friends do. If we’re getting married–”
“I don’t have a family line,” the beauty, well, Buck, told him. “To pass on.”
“You’re the king’s–” John started. Stopped.
“That don't make it less offensive.” That gleam again. “Opposite actually, and that’s your second reason.” And John thought that over, turned it around in his head and felt his bemusement shift. “Now you're getting angry,” Buck observed, as neutral as if he were talking about the changing seasons.
“Buck,” John said slower this time, because he was getting angry. “What’s this, exactly? On your end?”
The nickname earned that little twitch of a full mouth. “You can have the King's daughter if you want. Hell they'd give you the queen. You won a battle, you’re gonna win a war. Everyone knows it.”
“And I do what with them if I want? Marry them?” He could feel something twist uncomfortably in his gut. “And what about you?”
There was an incredulous something, disbelief, smothered– John couldn’t tell what emotion that was– resignation? Something else? Buck shrugged. “You can marry them. You can fuck them out in the open and share them with your men. Probably not both, that would be an insult to you. Either would humiliate the king, but fucking in the open would be worse”
“And you?” John can feel his back teeth grind.
He gets another look back, like he's the crazy one, like he's being stupid, “you do what you want.”
“What do you want?” He pressed. “C’mon, Buck, gimme something here.”
“It doesn’t humiliate you if you fuck me. Doesn’t humiliate the king either,” was what he got. Twisted in with a smile again. Strange and still smothered. “Why, you want to?”
“I asked you first,” John said, leaning forward. Buck didn’t back away, but there was a slight tremble to him.
Those pretty eyes of his closed for a second, lashes fluttering, and he hummed. Shrugged and squared his shoulders, showing how naked he really was. Dressed to tease. Up close, John noticed that there were goose pimples on his skin, bruises under them. Something beautiful and vulnerable. And then finally, he leaned in real close, the scent and heat of him, and he said, as if he were deadly serious, “you could kill me? I’m a bad offer, that would make them know you know it, put them in their places.”
Right, so that explained what this was. John wasn’t even particularly shocked. “Hey, Buck, how about I kill everyone else instead, and you and me do our own negotiating, how would that be?” John asked after a stretch of nothing, listening to negotiators negotiate, listening to Buck breathing and not looking at him. The prickles of anger were burning wild.
Buck sucked in a breath. Looked at him again, like he was trying to figure if that was a sick joke. It wasn’t, it was probably the plan it had been all along. And maybe Buck here was the enemy but he didn’t think so. He had nice hands, long fingers, bare, bitten nails. They looked like they belonged wrapped around someone’s neck. “That’s not my name,” Buck said finally, quietly.
John thought, sure it is, but he found himself grinning. “Sure it ain’t,” he said out loud. And then, “you look cold.” He had a cloak, half off already because it was plenty warm enough, but then he wasn’t wearing netting. Before Buck could say anything about it he shrugged out of it, spread it over mostly bare shoulders. There was an indrawn breath, almost inaudible. John talked through it. “Ok, let’s negotiate. What can you do? Besides bedroom things?”
The voice had gone shaky, breath stuttering, “what?”
“C’mon, Buck, work with me here, can you ride? Read and write? I don't know– weave? Play music?” What did concubines do? Look beautiful, well, he had that down.
This got him a shocked sound that sounded near to a laugh. “Well. Can't weave. Or cook. Never learned.”
John nodded. “Right. Want to learn to fight?”
The expression shifted, along with the hood of John’s cloak. Light on that beautiful face. A curl of the mouth, strength of a jaw softened by the curve of a cheek, lift of the eyebrow. “You gonna be the one to teach me?”
John felt something in his gut relax. That kind of pushback he knew what to do with. “Sure, sweet thing. I can do that. You have the build for it.”
“Do I?” Curious eyes, a flicker of lashes. “What would you even do with a concubine that can fight?”
“If you wanted to fight, I’d make you a soldier. That's why we’re negotiating, you understand?” John tried to be as earnest as he could about it.
A shrug, which wasn't an answer. “What if I could fight and I beat you?” A drum of fingers before Buck went still again.
John laughed out loud, real joy in it, and felt alright about the whole situation for the first time. “Well, I'll have to marry you for sure then. I'm like a princess from a ballad, beat me and you get my hand.”
Buck shook his pretty head. “Barbarian,” he said, again and it wasn’t an insult. And then, “give me your sword now.”
John grinned with all his teeth. “What, you want to fight me? Fine, I’ll show you how to hold it.”
“I don’t want to fight you,” Buck told him, amusement pushed back behind the strange, chilly calm of him. “Maybe some other time.” He took the offered hilt in those careful, clever fingers. John didn’t need to show him how to hold it.
He was beautiful and eerie, with John’s cloak and John’s sword, steady on the balls of his feet. John sucked in a breath and made a sharp gesture to his own boys. They backed up and off and gave Buck his space.
Buck’s form was perfect in a way that had to have been taught young, the smooth motion of his foot work, the shift of wrist and elbow. His opponents, disarmed and undertrained, didn’t stand a chance.
And John, who had started this encounter off talking to his pretty possibly intended, watched open mouthed and shifting where he stood, trying to decide whether or not he should intervene. Buck sure didn’t look like he needed any help. It wasn’t like watching a dancer, Buck didn’t care about making death beautiful, he just went, like a demon was chasing him. John waved his own boys off, mostly to make sure Buck’s intended victims didn’t get away from him. Whatever this all was, and he had plenty of guesses, it was earned.
After, John offered him an arm and a bath, dressed him in things that hung too loose and covered him completely, and took him home.
I absolutely love what you write for MOTA. I saw this post (see screenshot) from @writing-is-a-martial-art about the sacrificial maiden that was rescued and must now return to her village and it made me think of your variations on concubine Gale. Hope you are feeling better <3
Thinking about this a lot, oh man, that hurts. LIKE PAIN. Anyway, I do feel a little better, and I appreciate the ask 💕💕💕💕💕💕. Have some sacrificial maiden Gale.
There’s a straightbacked stillness to Gale Cleven when he strides off, bareheaded and unarmored, dressed in sacrificial white. It’s bright in the sun, making gold of his hair and skin. He doesn’t turn around, but then he wouldn’t. No one expects to see him again, the last sight of broad shoulders and a line of spine, golden hair and fists swaying at his sides.
They choose the sacrifice by lot, everyone puts in their pebble, but somehow the one that’s picked is never a beloved child of a well liked family, never someone’s cherished son or daughter.
Gale isn’t hated, not really, the other boys like him pretty well, he’s serious but steady and there when you need him, never shirks his share of the work. The village teacher says he’s clever with sums and has neat, well formed handwriting. The girls sigh after his handsome face and clear eyes, the color of smelted steel or the open sky. But his father was the town drunk and fought with everyone, his mother ran off with a caravan, and he’s not loved even if he’s not hated, so they pull his stone and off he goes.
Plenty of sacrifices have tried to run but the priests will hunt them down after they’re marked out and they’ll make what happens next public and open, the hardest death imaginable. No one expects Gale to run anyway.
He goes off into the temple dressed in white. The villagers are quiet, his friends are angry, the girls cry. His father spits over his footprints and shakes and shakes and won’t meet anyone’s eyes.
In the temple they click their tongues over him and touch him like he’s already nothing. He isn’t sure what happens now, he doesn’t ask. They take away his belt knife, as if it would be any use. Chain his wrists and ankles so he’s too hobbled to walk.
He wants to ask so he can face up to it, brace for it, whatever it is. It’s something terrible, they bring the bodies back for burial so that the villages giving up their own understand that it’s a sacrifice. He’d been too young to be allowed to see the last time his village was chosen to send someone but he could tell from the tight pallor of the adults’ faces.
He wants to know, to ask, but they gag him and blindfold him. In the dark, in his personal dark, they lead him away and he doesn’t know what happens next. He knows no one gets rescued, no one comes home, that he’s no one now.
They bring him somewhere. They leave.
And then he hears growling and the sound of grinding and claws, voices that feel like nails on his brain, not quite human, hot breath on his cheeks that feels almost wet. He can smell fire and ash, the too sweet rot, like meat left to fester.
He thinks he cries, but it might just be sweat. What it does to him, he pushes out, he pushes out, it isn’t real, it’s some other man. It’s just for this moment of time and he’ll be gone soon. It’s just–
He thinks whoever was here before must have been real glad to die, finally.
There’s no story where it stops, there’s no rumor where anyone is rescued, once you’re here, dressed in white and chained and trussed up, there’s nothing but this.
But things can change. They can change so quick and so totally, a voice in the dark, clash of steel, hissing breath. He can’t see, can’t yell, only hear, only feel it.
Hand on him, his neck. Pulse point, checking for life. Human fingers, large palm, firm, gloved. A voice, one he’ll never forget, careful and kind, “it’s dead,” the man tells him. “It’s dead and you’re alive. Alright?”
Hands on the gag and he chokes, splutters, bile and spit, pain and salt. “You’re with me, you’re alive,” the kind voice says. He blinks and can see, a blood splattered face, broken nose, dark blue eyes with crinkles around them and a black mustache. A generous mouth that smiles at him.
He should say something, but he chokes on it, should say thank you, should say– he just blinks. His body hurts and he can’t stand.
And that’s the man who carries him out. Puts him in a cart, easily as if he weighs nothing, covers him up with a cloak, and takes him home.
Gale didn’t want to look at the people who’d sent him off, his dad, red faced and shaking, the friends who muttered and the girls who cried and how no one had ever told him he didn’t need to go. The wide eyed horror of their stares like a mirror, the way they look down and away when he can’t stand up.
“He’ll need to be looked after,” Gale’s unwanted rescuer says. He’s oak solid, oak handsome. No one looks but someone nods. No one looks and Gale’s body feels shriveled and battered and he’s glad they’re not looking, it’s a relief, it’s a reminder, he was picked to die.
No one looks but there’s someone kneeling next to him, and he is looking, looking right through Gale like he can see him. Gale hasn’t got the energy to push back with anything but exhaustion. He hasn’t said a word, and he’s being looked at like – “thanks,” he manages to croak out. “You– no one– thanks.”
Whatever kind of face Gale is wearing, it makes his rescuer frown. Stop and look, really look, at the village and the faces and the eyes and everything and everyone Gale has ever known. “You know what?” he mutters, as much to himself, as to Gale, “you deserve better. Hell, I deserve better.” And then, “What’d you say, sweetheart, I rescued you, maybe I should get to keep you.”
Gale makes a noise that isn’t a laugh. “Alright,” he says. He closes his eyes and lets himself be taken away.
It's a little early for au week but here's sort of barbarian/concubine but with werewolf John because why not?
Usually b/c content warnings-- non-con, dub con, discussed violence. Wild au nonsense that I love.
Gale's a prisoner bound hand and foot, a chain on one pale ankle that's staked to a metal post in the remnants of an opulent tent. He's blindfolded but he can hear the yawning quality of the silence. There's only a wind outside, whipping through fabric.
There had been yelling, the clank of steel, the sound of voices. One in particular, known and loathed, pressing a kiss to his mouth. He'd managed to bite at it, one last taste of blood to take with him.
“Still haven't been tamed, have you, Cleven,” the voice tells him in those last minutes. It's trying for aristocratic nonchalance but Gale can hear the fear and anger. It makes him smile, lick the blood from his lips.
“Guess not,* he’d muttered back. He'd earned a kick for it, boot on unguarded skin, but that hadn't pulled the smile from his mouth.
“We're leaving you to the wolves, you know,” the voice said, pain and hatred thick enough to taste. “You’ll miss my cock when they're ripping you to shreds with their teeth. Maybe they'll fuck you first, give you the chance to try wolf dick with a knot on the end.”
Gale says nothing. It's death, probably a bad death, but it's coming soon. This ain't exactly a life. Maybe it'll be worse than what's already happened to him but it won't last.
He's spat on but he can barely feel it. Just the wetness dripping down his dry cheek. “This is how I'll remember you, helpless, with my spend leaking out of your pretty ass, waiting for worse.”
Still he doesn't say anything, there's no point.
He's left alone after that, bound and naked. It's cold and he's thirsty but he's used to both. It's just as well, maybe too dehydrated to piss himself before the wolves come. Not like they’ll care. He should feel humiliated, maybe he would have once but it doesn't matter anymore.
He doesn't know how long he's there. He could try to get free of the rope if he had the energy, but the manacle on his ankle is iron and he's not going anywhere. He just breathes instead, slow and deliberate, in and out, thinking about nothing at all. Maybe he'll die before anyone finds him, you can't last too long without water. At least he's too numb to hurt much.
Eventually, though, on the edge of his awareness, he hears howling that's not the wind. Far off at first, then closer. There's voices too, the wolves can and do take human form when they want to or need to. Human hands and minds to match wolf strength and scent.
Fast, let it be fast, he hopes in as much as he has any hope. Whatever his captors had said, he'd gone up against wolves before and never heard of them torturing, not really. Not like this.
He doesn't call out but eventually they find him. It's quiet, wolf paws on the soft ground of the tent. Then a thin, low sound, a growl that vibrates. He can feel his body tense uselessly, the dryness of his mouth when he swallows. He's sticky and disgusting and so done. Just make it fast.
The moment stretches out. He can hear the low growl of the wolf. Then he can almost feel the heat of it. Then it's right there, brushing against him. Fur, coarse and greasy. The rumble of breath, hot in his face. He squeezes his eyes shut behind the blindfold.
It's not fast.
The sounds it makes are more curious than angry but then he's no threat. Fur on his cheek, a tongue, rough on his skin. He shudders before he can stop himself. Forces his breath to even out even though he's not sure why he bothers. What's pride worth to him now?
He's never been this close to a wolf shifting shapes, but he knows it's happening even blindfolded. The strange static in the air. The way the breathing changes from panting like a wolf to something steadier. Human
The fur turning into skin, human hands on him again. It makes him flinch, more than the wolf's touch had.
Begging is useless, even just the mantra in his mind to make it fast. His own people have made him into nothing, why not be a chew toy for a wolf? He imagines being gnawed by his old puppy when he was a boy. Makes a face.
“What's funny?” he's asked. The voice is pleasant, young. Amused. He hadn't even realized he'd smiled.
Gale shrugs with the range of motion he has, not much. “S’all a little funny,” he whispers. His voice is parched and hoarse, strange to his own ears. The hands on him pause. Vaguely he wonders if he should find that hopeful. If it's worth asking for anything. “Can you just– finish this?”
The pause lingers. A finger taps on his bare spine. Finally, “sure, ok, I've got you.” Gale takes another breath. He can hear the snick of something. Claws, a knife? Sharp in the air. He doesn't flinch, he's ready. The voice changes tenor. “Shh, I'm not going to cut you, sweetheart, relax.”
Sweetheart, he mouths. Blinks. The blindfold, he realizes, the claws had been for the blindfold. He can see. His eye lashes are sticky, dried spit and sweat on his face. There's a person kneeling next to him, looking at him with curious dark blue eyes and a sharp face. Curly dark hair and an incongruous dark mustache. He's frowning, just faintly. He looks almost entirely human, wearing light armor even, but for the claws on his hands and the fact his feet are bare and vulnerable looking in a way a human soldier’s wouldn't be. He's looking right back at Gale, meeting his eyes and Gale forces himself to lift his chin and hold that gaze, like he's not naked and helpless, like there's not dried come all down his legs, like he's got anything left.
It's exhausting. Pride is exhausting. He's got nothing but the rapidly vanishing hope of a quick death.
The wolf doesn't break the stare but he does start working on Gale's bonds. He's careful too. It hurts anyway, blood abruptly flowing back into limbs, but he grits his teeth through it.
Mostly it's rope, all but the manacle on his ankle. This one seems to stymie the wolf. “Is there a key to this?” He asks.
Gale makes a sound that's something like a laugh. He chafes his wrists with sore fingers. “How would I know?” he mutters. Forces himself to wait, wait, not beg. Begging won't help him anymore than pride does. He's got no control here, none, doesn't know why he's even still alive. Probably not a reason he'll like.
The wolf blinks those blue eyes at him. His face twists and he looks angry, deeply and terribly. There's nothing Gale can offer to that. The wolves have suffered under the King's hands, under human hands. Hands just like Gale’s. His wrists and shoulders hurt in a deep battered way and he's very sure that even freed there's not much fight he can offer.
“We'll find a key or figure something else out,” the wolf says and pats his shoulder lightly, more a nudge. Something intending to reassure.
But instead of being assured Gale just thinks, fuck, fuck, he's not going to die at all. That's not what you say to someone you're going to give that mercy to. He swallows again. Coughs, dry tongue, dry throat. His jaw hurts and he can feel the line of muscle and skin that's bruised and stiff. The urge to beg is just under his skin, his tongue.
The wolf jumps up to his feet at his cough and starts rummaging around the tent. Gale's not the only abandoned thing he can hear the sound of pouring water, can even crane his neck to see a cup being filled. The last time they'd teased him with it, spilling it just out of reach of his parched tongue. He still hated himself for the sound he'd made, agonized whine worse than getting fucked and the way they'd laughed at him.
This time it's him who tries to pull away from the offered cup. Water will taste good but it will mean more life, drawing it out.
“Too much?” He's asked and the voice is so gentle in its register. He can't answer. It smells good, it smells good against his lips and he can't push it away again, too weak to try.
He's offered it in slow sips, cup held up for him, wet and cool against his cracked lips. It's just instinct to swallow, the animal in him not knowing better. It's still cool and sweet. Gale coughs again when he's had too much, sputters, and the wolf murmurs something he doesn't understand.
He doesn't look anything like a wolf right now, hard to think of him that way. Even his nails look pink and human, his palms are broad and calloused. He waits for the fit to pass, kneeling, not touching, before offering more.
Gale knows he's slow and confused. His ankle still throbs. His stomach tries to spasm. The wolf in man shape looks at him with eyes that are so gentle he can't even force himself to look back, not anymore. The sick, sticky humiliation that's stopped mattering because he was just going to die is coming back like a wave. Turns out compassion makes him feel it when the pain stops working.
He's hunched against it. It occurs to him that the wolf must think, must not understand that this is– must think Gale is something he's not. “I'm one of,” he starts to say.”I'm your enemy.”
The tilted chin is wolf like on a man's curious face, like what Gale is saying makes no sense at all. “I'm gonna give you a few minutes to keep the water down before we try more,” he finally says, like he's just gonna ignore it. Then he goes back to rummaging. Comes up with an iron box with a key in it. Other things too, things that probably stink of blood and Gale’s soft insides.
The key turns in the mechanism of the manacle.
He thinks about running. He won't get far, but maybe that'll be enough to end this– it won't take much. He forces his eyes up. “I'm your enemy,” he says again. “I– we fought.”
This earns him a shrug and a head shake. “I know. I remember your scent on the battlefield. You were brave.”
You were brave. A lot of men were brave. Mostly dead now. He’s here like an unstrung prey animal being looked at with obvious pity. “Do what you're going to do,” he says, hating the misery he can hear in his own voice, what it gives away. His scent probably already says everything.
The wolf breathes out, noisy and considering. Then he gives Gale some more of the water. Precious and slow. “We can't stay here,” he says, waiting while it hits Gale's stomach. “We're on the hunt.” Gale looks at him blankly, not even bothering to shrug. Will they leave him here? The wolf grins at him, considering. “You'll have to come along,” he says. “Maybe get some revenge of your own.”
Gale blinks. “Don't think I'd get very far.” He can't imagine riding, if they have horses, if a horse would tolerate a wolf up close, even a human shaped wolf. He certainly can't run or even walk much.
“Don't worry, sweetheart,” the wolf’s grin widens, something pleased and proud. “I can carry you.”
Gale doesn't argue the point. Instead he drinks more of the water while the wolf goes back to scrounging through the abandoned tent. Cloth for bandages, a half torn tunic that had probably belonged to a pleasure slave, a handful of dried fruit.
This time he watches the shift take place. A man in armor with dark curly hair and midnight blue eyes melts and unwinds. A wolf, just as big, maybe bigger, layers of muscle and fur, wicked, wicked teeth. The same eyes, the same lolling grin. Gale’s not a small man himself, even wasted to thinness, he shouldn't be able to ride a wolf. This one urges him on with a grin and a nudge. He shouldn't have the strength to hang on but he doesn't have to. There's no pain while he's there.
It's magic he can feel it, pulling him in, like a song or a story. There are other wolves outside the tent, in human and wolf bodies. They acknowledge Gale mostly, meet his eyes. They're familiar and not all at once, they've been to war and they've seen the ruins of him and neither seems to matter. They are hunting his enemies now and he wants that too.
He didn't expect this was anything like a rescue and maybe it's not, but that doesn't matter. It's an opportunity worth hanging on for, just a little longer.
---
They catch up to the retreating army overnight. Gale whispers into the wolf’s ear about guard formations, archers, fire and other defenses. He doesn't talk about what happened to him, a betrayal, a grief, torture and the miserable wish for death to end it.
He's a weakness other than what he knows, but the night is soaked in fire and blood, there's a wolf under his bruised knees.
He does fight but he doesn't much remember it. Just moments.
“Still haven't tamed me,” he tells the man who was his king and his torturer before cutting his throat with a blade he didn't remember picking up.
There's a blue eyed wolf licking blood from his face, salty and hot in a way that makes him shake apart. There's a man carrying him off the field, a big, broad palm cradling his head and holding him up. More water, some bread and fruit that tastes like honey.
“Why?” He thinks he asks and he gets a hum for an answer.
“Because they still haven't tamed you,” the man tells him, real gentle. And later softer, when Gale is half asleep. “I had a sister,” he says. “What they did to you, they did it to her too. Only difference is you were still breathing when I got to you. I found her like that, chained in the dirt with food and water right nearby where she couldn't have reached."
Gale swallows, eyes going wide. “I'm not,” he starts to say.
The wolf laughs at him, only a little mean. “You’re no sister to me, beautiful.” He strokes Gale’s hair with a gentleness that's almost painful. “But they hurt you bad.“
This Gale can't deny, the shame of it curls inside him. Getting blood for it helped some but it doesn't change it. Maybe it means he feels less like he wants to die about it. He's not jealous of the wolf’s sister. “I have a name you know, and it ain't sweetheart or beautiful,” he says instead of any of the other things he's thinking.
The wolf grins at him. “Me too, and mine ain't wolf either,” he says. And that's how Gale falls in with Johnny Egan and his pack.
Wolf Bucky and half feral Gale, an origin story. Broadly mentioned child abuse and neglect. Wolf!Bucky because you know! Enjoy what there is of it, there is likely to be more coming...
Gale remembered the first time he found the wolves. He’d been real little and the memory was hazy with cold and confusion. He’d been bad, he knew that much, bad enough to get more than a hiding that had left his bottom sore. Bad enough to be told to git, get out, pushed out. He didn’t remember what he’d done, just that dad was real angry and mama was shaking her head and clicking her tongue.
It had been cold, cold, cold, his breath misty in the air, thin clothes, no gloves, shoes with worn out soles. He’d probably been crying. Maybe he’d been scared when he saw the wolf mother padding down the trail, but he didn’t remember that part. She’d stopped when she saw him, trembling and crying, tears bitter cold on his small face.
He must have been scared but what he remembered was how warm and rough her fur was when she came up on him. His cheeks and fingers had felt greasy. Her tongue had licked at his tears. She’d nudged him along, strangely gentle. He didn’t remember much at all until she’d dropped him into a den of puppies, softer by far than she was, warm and yipping, smelling of milk. That part he remembered always– the blue eyed dog puppy that had blinked at him, strange eyed and sleepy, then blinked again, awake and excited. Yipped and licked his cheeks, shoving itself against him like it was a regular dog wanting to play and not a wolf dog at all.
It all got hazy, a sense of warmth, the feeling of satisfaction that was strange to him. He remembered laughing when the wolf puppy had licked his hand and curled in close.
He’d gone home eventually, but he didn’t much remember that part.
It had happened again and again, the pups getting bigger and him too. When he was old enough he realized that was strange, how long the litter took to grow up, slow as human children, not all in a season like puppies should. Course that was the least of what was strange.
Eventually the blue eyed dog pup was the one who’d come along to get him and not the mother wolf. He’d bound over as soon as Gale was out of sight of his house. He’d gotten big, real big, and warm as anything, soft fur thick under a coarse, greasy outer layer, teeth wicked looking, tongue rough and eager. He liked it when Gale scritched his ears, rubbed his belly. He liked playing too, nipping at Gale’s heels, wrestling in the snow or the grass. Always kept his teeth covered though, never broke skin, like he’d figured out fast that Gale’s was easier to pierce than his littermates.
When Gale was fourteen, the puppy, gawky and adolescent, turned into a boy for the first time. It should have been the strangest thing yet, should have been shocking, but it felt right instead. They’d been walking together down the road and Gale had been ready to shoo him off.
“They’ll see a wolf and shoot at you,” he said, pushing his companion away with an arm and shoulder. “You can’t come down with me.” The wolf’s tongue hung out and he grinned, dog like, and shook his shaggy head.”You can’t come, just look at you!” Gale said again.
The wolf seemed to shrug. Gale wasn’t watching when it happened, he never seemed to be. He was marching on ahead, shoulders slumped and chin steady, when he heard a voice, familiar and not at all. Not growls or howls or yips.
“Hey!” And he knew that voice, of course he did. “Hey, wait!” Gale spun around and instead of a half grown wolf, he was nose to nose with a boy teetering through adolescence, big and solid, with shaggy curls on his head, a curve of nose and a soft looking mouth. His eyes were exactly the same, blue eyed and pleased with themselves.
He was also naked as a jaybird, all bony knees and elbows, cock soft between his legs. “Well,” he said, grinning like he’d done a magic trick, which of course he had. “How do you like me now? Good enough to come to town with you?”
Gale closed his mouth, blinked his eyes and shook his head. After a long minute he said, “Well.” Stopped. Shook his head again. “I’ll be damned. We gotta find you some clothes, though.”
Werewolf Bucky with his wolfy head in Gale's lap, acting all puppy-like unless anyone else tries to approach. Then he snaps at them. He has wicked teeth.
Maybe something is wrong with Gale? Like he's sick or injured somehow (or both) and John just takes wolf form and refuses to shift back?
Maybe Gale was always an odd, half feral boy growing up but no one knew it was because he kept running off to hide in the woods and the mountains and he met the wolf pack who had their territory there. And then one day one of the wolves with dark blue eyes and a shaggy brown coat started following him home.
And when he tried to get the wolf to stop in case someone in town saw him and shot him the wolf turned into another boy instead, with those same eyes, curly hair, and a body a little too strong and teeth a little too sharp, but always smiling, and was like, "how do you like me now, huh?"
On my lesbian civil war Buckies bullshit again, escaped union prisoner Bucky gets rescued by Miss Cleven, because you know...
Porny pretty much.
Bucky Egan meets Gale Cleven stumbling through the woods, hearing the hounds on the trail like a nightmare to drag her back. She doesn’t mean to stumble over the path, means to keep to the bush and brambles where a horse would break its legs galloping and there’s cover. She doesn’t mean to be taken back, not alive anyhow.
Best case, they catch her and take her for the ragged federal soldier she is, they drag her by the heels back to the stockade. Worst, they catch her out for a woman after all. Hasn’t happened in these years in the army, but it could, it still could. Funny thing to think of Andersonville as the best case.
She runs, Rebs on her heels.
And then, on the road, she sees a goddamned wagon tearing down the road and she thinks, hell, could have stayed in Massachusetts and died being run down by one of them. Except she’s not. The driver must have eyes like an eagle and control the rival a god, but it stops short of her, horse snorting and the sound of springs.
“Well,” says a voice, low and rough, but unmistakably a woman’s, and an accent that wasn’t Georgia, “better get on, don’t you think?”
Mama raised a goddamed fool in Josie Egan, but not this much of one. She scrambles. They ride.
–
Later, she will understand that Abigail Cleven is known in the neighborhood and her wagon was recognized, but by then Bucky will be clean and wearing a demure bonnet to cover up her shorn curls, gloves to cover her battered hands, and sewing in the front room when the men come searching. They’ll raise their caps and not look very hard for the escaped soldier.
But that’s later.
–
Abigail Cleven, in her taken-in homespun dress that doesn’t do a thing to dull the shine of her, just standing at the door with a shotgun while Jo Egan has a bath. And what it is to have a bath right then, filthy as fuck battered to hell and gone, when she’d spent so long terrified of being found out and everything that would come of that, never, ever safe in any possible way.
And now, in this cask of hot water, boiled for her on the stove and then cooled just so, with milled soap and clean clothes to wear after, seen and known. With Gale watching her with those pale, knife colored eyes of hers, just taking it all in, the bruises and the wasted muscle and the brittle, shorn hair but she doesn't look like she's judging. Jo should feel vulnerable but it's the steadiest she's felt in years, since she ran away from his parents’ house in men’s clothes and volunteered to fight for the Union.
Jo's the one who says, "bar the door, why don't you, and come here?"
And Gale does it, bars the door, props the shotgun in easy reach and shucks off her dress with casual efficiency and a little smile that shows a sweet dimple. She drops her drawers last and then she's standing there in nothing but her hair, still up in a braid. And she climbs into the bath, never mind the filth and mess under the soap and says, "here I am, soldier," like she means it.
She hasn’t asked questions, not said much of anything beyond, “I know a woman when I see one,” when Jo tried to call her ma’am and keep her voice low. Now she slips, slim and easy, tall but with a waist as narrow as any fashion plate, into the tub, into Jo’s arms, like she knows exactly what she means to be doing.
She smells nice, like lavender and more of that fancy milled soap, the kind Jo will be smelling like after all this, and her mouth is soft and pliant. Jo runs a hand down the line of her spine. Skin soft but not entirely smooth, like she’d taken some licks with a belt or a switch, hard and often. But her ass was a nice handful, soft under rough, calloused palms and she sighed and pressed in closer, her own hands finding and exploring. Gentle, but not too much, knees spreading under hands, and those eyes, intent and knowing.
Jo’s not exactly untouched, there’d been a woman in a crib that the boys in her regiment had dragged her along to, and she’d seen right away like Gale had, had, had kissed, had– There’d never been a fellow, just boys come to call when she was Josie Egan in her mama’s parlor. And now there was this.
She was guided out of the tub, filthy water left behind, and onto a towel, soft under the bones of her. Still kissed as she went, but wet, the rub of tongue and sweet on her lips, pushing them apart, teasing, teaching, showing her the way of this kind of dance. And it was a kind of dance, urgent, skin to skin, bruise to bone, the trail of mouth and hands that were kind and invited her in. Mouth on hers, then slick on her collarbone, the curve of her unbound breasts, a battered nipple, red and puckered from a burn that Jo couldn’t remember the cause of. Gale had a brand on her shoulder, numbers and letters, and Jo’s fingers trembled touching it.
“You’re alright,” Gale told her, and she wept. Gale’s perfect neck, the nape of it, the burn of her fingers and the glide of her tongue, over concave belly and protruding bone, and, “I’ll feed you up, you’re alright.” And fire over the wet line of her thighs, and she was wet, she could feel the slick of mouth, the suction right where she’d only ever pressed her fingers, push of tongue, nose, pressure, there and her back arched with it, little sounds spilling out.
Gale came up grinning, flushed, mouth sticky and braid mussed like she’s been– like she’s been this. And there never was a whore in no crib that glowed like she is, and Jo’s warm, she’s warm, she’s free.
