Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

You’re headed home on horseback, saddlebags overflowing with ore and weighing down your steed, when you overhear commotion outside the Saloon. An unusual occurrence considering what a quiet town Stardew is. As you plod closer, you distinguish the woman's voice as Emily's and the gruff, angry tone to be Shane's. Curious, you dismount your horse and lead it closer by the reigns. 

“I’m worried about you, Shane! We’re all worried about you!” Emily cries, throwing her arms out in exasperation. 

“Maybe you should all leave me the fuck alone!” The disheveled man spits. 

Emily reaches a hand out to touch Shane’s shoulder, but ultimately drops it when he recoils.

“Shane, please. It’s only for tonight. Just go home," she pleads.

Pacing back and forth, the noirette sways precariously on his feet. 

“Fuck you! I’m not even drunk! You’re just gonna cut me off? I practically keep this bullshit Saloon running, Em.” His arms are crossed, fingers kneading the worn wool of his sweater.

At that moment Emily notices you, looking up from her rowdy patron to your approaching figure.

“Oh,” she greets, relieved. "Hi."

“All good here?” You drawl, eyes darting between the young woman and the flush-faced drunkard at her side. 

“Jesus Christ,” Shane mutters, pinching the bridge of his nose as though warding off an oncoming headache.

Emily huffs and waves her jewel-laden hand dismissively. “Yeah, everything’s fine, don’t worry. Just this one - he’s had enough for the night.”

“I only had four beer!” Shane whines. You hold back a snort, picturing him stomping his feet like a child throwing a tantrum.

“I don’t care, Shane, I said you’re cut off!”

When Emily shouts, she goes red in the face. She isn’t a person who yells, as a general rule, since she considers it unhealthy and says that it binds up her spiritual energy. For this reason, Emily's raised voice is enough to shock the recipient into silence. Even you are somewhat galled. 

Concerned by the ruckus, Clint pokes his head out of the bar. He looks like some kind of nervous gopher, peering out from its burrow. “Uh… is everything alright?”

The woman in question takes a deep breath, brushing non-existent crumbs from her dress, and turns to Clint with a too-tight smile.

“Of course!" She chimes through gritted teeth. "Our friendly neighborhood farmer was just about to escort Shane home. Weren’t you, hun?”

Her eyes meet yours shadowed by an icy threat that has you wasting no time to cooperate. She is, after all, your sister-in-law. 

“I sure was.” You tip your hat. “Have a good night now, y’all.”

Clint nods absently, slipping back inside once he sees Emily approach the doors.

“Take care of him, please,” the blue-haired woman exhales, glancing at Shane before bidding you a grateful farewell. “And thank you, really. You're a lifesaver.”

You nod, before turning back to your newfound burden. The man in question has unearthed a flask of whiskey from somewhere in his jacket, and is now taking a hearty swig. He glowers at you. You roll your eyes.

“Hop on, then,” you grunt, turning to smooth a hand down your horse’s chestnut coat.

"Absolutely fucking not. I can walk."

You look over at Shane, deeply unimpressed by his squabbling. 

"It's not even that far!" he defends, arms tightening around his midsection. "I do it all the time. It's fine." He takes another swig of whiskey, tongue darting out to chase amber droplets along his bottom lip.

"Shane, I've had a very long, hard day," you breathe, reflecting on the hours you'd spent fighting for your life in the mines. "I do not have the energy to humor your particular brand of bullshit, tonight. Get on the damn horse."

The young man scuffs the toe of his sneaker in the dirt, before shuffling forward hesitantly. You mount Matilda, the mare, and hold out a rough palm to help him aboard.

He chews his lip. Glances from you to your hand, then back again.

"I don't bite," you promise.

He snorts, grasping your hand in his. You pull him up with ease, hoisting him in front of you so you can brace your arms around his midsection as you ride. 

"This is humiliating," he grumbles. "I just want to be left alone."

"You do it to yourself. If you were sober I'd let you sit behind me, but as it is, I don't trust you not to fall off and concuss yourself."

He huffs, shifting in front of you. The movement is distracting. You briefly consider pinching his side and telling him to quit his godforsaken squirming. Ultimately, you decide it would be more trouble than it's worth.

As the pair of you trot further from the Saloon, Shane relaxes. His shoulders slump and his broad chest presses back into yours, heavy in way that's more grounding that smothering. He's warm. Almost unnaturally so, like cuddling up to a space heater. 

The unscrewing of a cap echoes throughout the silent town square as Shane takes another long swig from the bottle. You don't say anything. Not your monkey, not your circus.

"Why'd you move here?" He mumbles after a pause.

"My grandfather died. Left me the farm," you reply. "Thought everybody knew that."

He nods to himself, unconsciously leaning further into your embrace.

"Yeah… but like… you didn't have to take care of it. Could've sold it, 'f you wanted to."

You shift, flexing your forearms around his soft middle. He smells like whiskey and mothballs. Must've been working dusty freight at JojaMart all day.

"Needed a change, I s'pose," you allow. "Things in the city weren't panning out like I'd hoped."

Shane nods. Sways with each plod of Matilda's hooves.

"Why do you stay?" You ask, unable to stop yourself.

He laughs. It's a low, derisive thing.

"In Stardew Valley? Got nowhere else to go."

And that's stupid. You tell him as much.

"Bullshit. There's nothing keeping you here. Marnie could take care of Jas, if you left. She practically does already."

You feel yourself growing bitter. "You're just a coward. Scared to find out that this town's got nothing to do with it - whatever's making you so damned miserable. Afraid that you'll leave this place and be just as unhappy everywhere else."

Shane elbows you in the side and tumbles off your horse. Luckily, you're almost at his porch now, so it's not much of an issue. Still, your ribs twinge from the assault as he crashes into the cobbled road. You hope it hurts.

"Fuck you!" Spittle flies from his lips as he shouts. "Don't act like you fucking know me!"

He waves an accusatory finger in your face, hair ruffled like a baby bird. Squawking like one, too.

"Aw, but sweetheart," you croon, "I do know you! Met a thousand sad sacks just like you."

You dismount your horse just to get in his face, because you're feeling petty all of the sudden. Petty and startlingly livid. The energy that had been sapped from you in the mines is returning full force, fueled by hatred.

"You're not special, Shane," you spit, so close you can smell his breath.

For a moment his face crumples, but just as fast he's snarling again, lunging forward. You brace yourself for an attack that doesn't come. Instead, his lips crash into yours hard enough to knock your teeth together, clammy hands rising to grip at your bearded cheeks like a man drowning. 

You rear back, glancing around for potential witnesses. There are none to be found, but it doesn't stop your heart from hammering in your chest.

"Motherfucker!" You hiss, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck like an unruly kitten and shoving him face-first into the barn. 

Classic small town, nothing gets locked up. Little risk of theft when everybody's your neighbor.

He stumbles, tripping over his own legs before falling on his ass in the hay.

"You can't just do that!" You growl, "For christ's sake. What if somebody saw?"

Shane is shaking, his shoulders hitching up and down. It builds and builds, 'til you realize it's laughter. Shane is laughing so hard it's nearly silent, choked wheezes breaking free from his lips 

"Who's the coward now?" He grins, spread-eagle in the dirt. "You act all high and mighty but you're not. You're not."

His eyes are hazy, cheeks flushed with mirth. You've never seen him smile so wide, so uninhibited. Proud of himself. You could throttle him. Instead, you press the toe of your boot down on his groin.

"Agh!" He yelps, thighs clenching together on either side of your foot.

"You that desperate for attention? Willing to put my marriage at risk just to get your cunt stuffed?" You snarl. You're looming over him, casting him in your shadow as you press down harder.

The color drains from his face and his fingers twitch towards your boot, but he hasn't squirmed away. Not yet. He looks up at you with wide eyes, pupils blowing in the dim lighting of the barn. A cow puffs somewhere in the background.

"Alright then," you hear yourself speak despite not feeling your lips move. "I'll give it to you."

Shane looks lost, confused by the sudden turn of events, but you're fuming now - on a warpath. You haul him up by the front of his shirt, easy, like a sack of potatoes. There's a faint ripping noise that might be the stitching of his polo. You don't care enough to investigate. 

When you toss him across a rectangular bail of hay, he lets out an involuntary "oof" as the air is forced from his lungs. He scrambles to get back up, but you press your palm down on his back.

"Stay," you command.

"What're you doing?" Shane blubbers, winded and slurring.

"Giving you what you want."

It's easy to yank his pants down to his knees, prone as he is over the bail. The cool air hits his bottom and he flinches away in weak protest.

"Stop it!" He sputters, despite the fact that he's already chubbing up between downy thighs.

Shane doesn't have the best ass you've ever seen, but it's pretty nonetheless. Pale and soft, rounded in a square sort of way. A dusting of dark hair and two coffee-coloured freckles high on one cheek. You rear back and clap your hand down it. The smack echoes throughout the wooden building, followed immediately by a high pitched yelp.

"Holy fuck!" Shane barks, muscles spasming in his back under your hand. "What the - " 

You cut him off with another solid thwap of skin against skin. Your fingers are stinging, but you can hardly feel it over the thrumming in your veins. The room is painted in shades of crimson, narrowed down to Shane's cries and the aching burn in your palm.

"Start counting," you tell him.

Another slap has Shane heaving, bucking up against your weight. "Stop! Get off of me!" He begs, and you breathe half a laugh.

"I said count," you order, "Or we'll be here all night."

Another.

"Fuck, fuck, fuck! Oh my God! Okay!"

Still no counting.

Another.

"ONE!" Shane sobs loud enough that you flinch at the volume. It's almost two in the morning. You worry he's going to get you caught.

"Shh, relax," you murmur, soothing a hand over his reddened ass. "Do you wanna wake up the whole neighborhood?"

He shakes his head, hiccupping soft little breaths. Wriggles his ass under your ministrations like a puppy, dying for attention and desperate to please.

He's rock hard now. You can see his length bobbing gently between his legs, and it makes you fuzzy with predatory satisfaction. Wrapping calloused fingers around his cock, you give it a couple lavish tugs, smearing precum around the tip 'til it glistens.

"Mmff," Shane buries his face in crossed arms, pushing his ass out to give you better access.

"Feeling good, princess?" You tease. "How about this: You take 10 more lashes for me and I'll fuck you. Or if you really want me to, I'll end this right here and leave."

He twitches, and you know he's heard you, but he doesn't say anything. Stays quiet and slumped into himself, hiding away.

"Go on," you goad. "Say "stop" again. Tell me you're done, that you don't want more."

He peeks at you between his forearm and shoulder, one eye glistening in the shadows. The tip of his ear is flushed red.

"I want it," he rasps, admittance catching between his teeth. "I fuckin' want it, okay?"

Your cock throbs and you grin. It must look sickenly sadistic.

"Of course you do." Satisfaction curls molten hot in your gut. "So keep a better fucking count this time, yeah?"

The first hit rains down on his left cheek hard enough to leave a bright white outline in its wake. 

"Ah!" He yelps, seemingly unable to help himself, before mumbling a dejected, "One."

"I can't hear you," you chastise in a singsong voice. You're already striking another blow.

"Two!" He cries, clenching his fists in the hay as though it will ground him there. As though it will mitigate the pain radiating up his spine.

Another clap, followed by two more. 

"Three... four... five..." he repeats dutifully, pounding his fist once on 'four'. You're certain that Shane has never sounded sweeter than he does in this moment, broken down to a needy, obedient thing. 

"You're doing great." You praise, rubbing tenderly at his blushing rear. Blood is already flooding to the surface and the flesh is bruising hot, swollen.

"Shut up," he chokes. The younger man's voice sounds garbled, like his throat is closing. You wonder if he's beginning to cry. The thought only stokes the fire in your gut.

"Halfway there." You promise.

The next blow lands higher, closer to the dimples on his lower back. His shirt has ridden up to his armpits and yellow-gold hay is scratching at his exposed stomach. You can picture his nipples rosy and irritated from the friction. 

Flexing your fingers, you shake out your wrist. Another.

"Six," he hiccups, "seven."

Another.

"Eight."

The entirety of his bottom is scarlet now, from the meat of his cheeks to the tender root of his thighs. Purple bleeds through wherever your wedding ring made contact, the unforgiving metal bursting capillaries in its wake. There's probably something poetic in that.

"Nine!" A sob tears from his lungs at the glancing blow to his sac, "Ten!"

The final crack echoes like a victory march, and Shane sags, hands going slack where they'd buried themselves in the dried grass. He's sweating and shivering all at once. Ruined.

"All done." You declare pleasantly.

Shane whimpers, relieved. He's still limp over the bail as you get on your knees behind him, blowing cold air across his flaming cheeks. The drunken man twitches, making a confused, throaty sound you can't help but chuckle at.

You bring one hand up to his hole and massage the pucker with your thumb. Shane arches back into the sensation, greedy as always. With your other hand you grip one of his asscheeks, spreading it wide to display his pucker and digging your fingers into abused flesh. He grunts at the pain. You lean forward and press your tongue to his entrance. 

It flutters against your mouth as he squeaks a shocked, "Ahn!" 

Your nose is tickled by thick body hair, jaw straining open to press the muscle further into his hole. It gives way under the assault, your tongue worming inside mercilessly. He tastes musky, like sweat and damnation. Hot around your tongue.

"What the fuck," Shane gasps, pressing back on your face 'til you can hardly breathe. "That's so gross, fucking hell, what is wrong with you?!"

You would laugh if you weren't so turned on. Pulling back just enough to sneak a hand between his pink hole and your face, you sink a finger inside him in addition to your tongue. He mewls, dropping his face into the scratchy hay to muffle his cries. Privately, Shane thinks he might be dying.

"God," he slurs, "that's so good."

You don't answer, focused on the task at hand, but the praise curls hot and heavy in your gut. You know you're talented, but to hear Shane admit it - in awe of the pleasure you lavish upon him - brings about a full-body buzz of satisfaction. It has you pressing another eager finger inside.

Scissoring your digits, you slurp at his slackened entrance, tracing the rim with your tongue. Spit and drool string down Shane's crack, leaking down his taint and caressing his pretty sac. The noises in the barn are filthy. Each thrust of your fingers squelches as the digits are sucked into Shane's welcoming heat with ease.

You pull back, pressing sloppy, open-mouthed kisses to his balls.

"You ready for me? Gonna take it all like good whore? Wanna feel my hips slap against your tender little ass?" You take a hearty handful of his rear in hand as you speak, digging into the bruised meat. Possessive, cruel.

Shane's breath catches and his back arches in agony. He looks at you from over his shoulder with dark, dazed eyes, red-rimmed with unshed tears.

"Yeah," he rasps, pupils fat. His nose running just a bit. "Please? I..."

Trailing off, he pushes back into your harsh grasp, trying to convey his unspoken desire. He looks almost wounded, so small and fragile.

It makes you want to reach out and make it better. To hold him, delicate as a baby bird, and carefully realign all his jagged edges. To fix what's been broken.

On the other hand, it makes you want to sink your teeth into his neck and thrash, until he goes still. Until the blood stops flowing and you've destroyed him beyond repair.

Ignoring both impulses, you choose to fumble with your trousers, your hands shaking with need. Shane takes this opportunity to shed his rucked up shirt and pooled shorts. With your vision tunneling and jaw locked, you release your length into the open air.

In order to align yourselves properly, you have to make Shane stand, and he quivers on loose limbs as he rises. You almost feel apologetic, with the way he shakes like a newborn foal.

"C'mere." You wrap scarred, tree-trunk arms around his middle - one under his ribs and the other clenching at his hip. He leans back into you as you rut against his ass, pre-cum slipping warm and wet between your cock and his crack.

The hand at Shane's sternum glides its way up. It slips over a pert nipple, stopping to rest at his throat where his pulse flutters hummingbird-frantic under your thumb. He doesn't flinch away, instead lolling his head back onto your shoulder. Fearless. You lave your tongue across his neck, mouthing and biting at his jaw, his earlobe. Tasting sweat and the sting of stubble against your lips. 

At the same time you align your member against his twitching entrance. It's wet and loose, though not lax enough. He tenses as you press inside, making the whole process indubitably more unpleasant, and you hiss. 

"Let me in," you growl, grinding forward, slow and insistent. The head of your cock slips in and Shane mewls. 

"Shane," you snarl, burying your nose in his neck as he clenches around you. He smells like aftershave and barn animals, tinged by the bitter odor of somebody metabolizing booze.

"'M sorry, 'm sorry," he whines, wrapping his own hand around your wrist at his throat. Not pulling, just holding you there. Grounding himself.

You push again, flexing your fingers around his neck as you sink deeper, inch by laborious inch.

"Come on," you whisper into his ear, "I know you can take it. Know you want me inside your slutty little cunt. Let me in, baby."

Shane melts in your arms, shuddering as you sheathe to the hilt. Makes a choked, aborted noise in the back of his throat.

"Fuuuck," you breathe, bottoming out against his rear with your balls snugly pressed to his taint. It's tight. Too tight. The dry pull of it burns when you attempt a shallow thrust.

Morbidly, it occurs to you that if you'd forced your way in, Shane's blood might’ve acted as a good lube right about now. You bury that thought by sinking your teeth into an alabaster shoulder.

Shane tenses and his ass clenches down on your cock like a vice. He opens his mouth to curse or moan, but you halt it by cramming your fingers inside, pressing three digits flat to his tongue. He whines around them, steamy breath and drool caressing your knuckles. Sinful. You pump them in and out in time with the rocking of your hips. The glide grows smoother with each gyration, the younger man's heat moulding around your length to pull you in deeper.

The sound of your coupling echoes into the dark. Shane's muffled gagging around your hand, the slap of your hips against abused flesh, and the filthy suckling of his cunt around you. Messy. Animalistic. It makes your balls tighten, pulse thrumming.

"That feel good, sweetheart?" You croon, slamming in on a particularly rough stroke.

Shane gasps, wanton against your palm, writhing in bittersweet ecstasy.

"You're gonna ache for days," you promise. "I'm gonna reshape you from the inside out."

You slip your fingers from his slack lips. Trail a wet, slimy path down his chin to grip his stubbled jaw. The other palm releases Shane's hip from where you'd been searing finger-shaped bruises into meat and bone, maneuvering instead to stroke his thick treasure trail.

You hook your chin over his shoulder, resting there leisurely. The pace of your rutting slows to a teasing roll. 

"Wanna cum?" You purr, breath hot against his ear.

Shane shudders against you, leaning so heavily into your embrace that you nearly lose your footing. 

"Yes, yes, please," he chants, voice ragged and pleasure-drunk. He claws at the parts of you he can reach - mostly your forearms - wriggling his ass in protest of your halted activity.

"I don't know if you deserve it." You hum darkly. "I still haven't heard a proper apology for that stunt you pulled." 

"I'm sorry!" Shane nearly weeps. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have."

"Shouldn't have what?" You growl. 

Shane whimpers, a hurt little thing.

"I shouldn't have kissed you! I'm sorry. I'm fucking sorry! It won't happen again. I'll be good, I promise. I can be so good," he babbles, nearly incomprehensible.

You reward him with a sharp thrust, grinding slow circles into his prostate. 

"You sure about that?" You ask.

"Yes," he whines petulantly. "I swear, okay? It'll never happen again."

"It better not," you grumble, wrapping one hand around his throat, the other dropping to fist his cock. "Because the next time it happens, I'll make you disappear. You hear me?"

Shane inhales sharply. You can feel it against the hand around his neck, just like you can feel his length twitch in the other. He starts to shake as you stroke him, pumping in tandem with the slap of your hips.

You're strangling him now, like a python wrapping around its prey. The sensation mainlines into your veins - heady power and overwhelming lust. Every constricted wheeze is a symphony to your ears, Shane's pulse hammering desperately under your merciless assault. His cock burns in your fist, sloppy and dripping with precum. You can picture it, red and engorged, impossibly hard as the head peeks between your thumb and forefinger, again and again. His hole is lax around you, fucked out and sore, no doubt, but he still struggles on a gargled moan every time you drive back inside. 

You want to fill him up, stuff him full of your seed. You want to milk his pretty cock dry until he begs for mercy.

You tighten the hand around his neck, the column of muscle and tendon straining under the pressure, until Shane can no longer breathe at all. His cheekbone, from the side of his face you can see, is a dark and almost purpling crimson. His throat clicks, mouth gaping wide.

"Cum for me. Now." You command. He does beautifully. If his trachea wasn't being crushed, you imagine Shane would be wailing from the way his whole body goes taught and his ass clamps down on you.

"Fucking shit," you curse, following him swiftly over the edge. You bury your teeth in his shoulder to muffle your own groan as his insides work you through your orgasm. In your palm, Shane's length is still twitching, overstimulated and struggling to soften. He mewls when you release his tender neck, coughing from the pain.

You withdraw reluctantly. Your brain feels cotton-fuzzy through the haze of release. 

"Y'alright?" You mumble, smearing a thumb across the bite mark on his shoulder. Each one of your teeth is perfectly outlined in pallid skin. It's still spit-slick.

"Hng," Shane grunts. He stumbles, flopping gracelessly into a pile of hay. Leans on his side, tipping his head back, eyes closed. Just breathing. 

You take the opportunity to admire the damage you've sewn. There are five-fingered bruises rising to the surface of his hips and along the column of his pale, ghostly neck. His shoulders have been ravaged with hickeys and the shadows of teeth, thoroughly mauled. Semen leaks between Shane's thighs. It dribbles from his fucked-out hole in a pearly sheen.

You lick your lips. You want to suck it out of him and fuck it back inside in equal measure. Pushing those thoughts away, you tuck your softening prick into your pants, buckling your belt before you can make any more poor choices. 

"Clean yourself up," you order. "'N' get to bed."

When Shane doesn't respond, you lean over him, cupping his cheek in hand to force eye contact. He blinks at you blearily.

"Huh?" He whispers.

You brush your thumb beneath his lower lash line, tracing the dark, puffy circles underneath. A sigh breaches your lips.

Trudging across to the bail where you'd spanked him, you gather his shirt and pants. They're damp with sweat. In desperate need of a wash. You wonder if Shane does his own laundry, or if that's yet another burden he allows Marnie to shoulder.

The man makes a confused sound as you guide his arms into the air, dressing him like a toddler. You have him wrap his arms around your neck for support while guiding him to step into his shorts.

"Wha're you doin'?" He slurs, brow furrowed. 

"Dressing you. Now go to bed," you enunciate slowly, as though speaking to a particularly dense child. "And call in sick for work for a few days, 'til the mess on your neck heals. Don't need anybody asking questions."

He frowns. Stares at you for a beat, before nodding his understanding. 

"Good boy," you mock, patting him condesceningly on the cheek just a touch too hard. Maybe it will knock the stupid expression off his face.

Matilda is waiting for you outside, and with a stab of guilt you realize that she's been standing alone and laden with saddlebags for over an hour.

"Oh, sweetpea," you fawn over her, stroking her velvety nose. "I'm sorry. I lost track of time. We'll go home now, okay? You've been so patient with me, sweet girl."

The horse snorts, obviously mildly disgruntled. Luckily, she'll forgive you with time and treats. Animals are easy that way.

"Let's go." Mounting her in one smooth motion, you pat her side. She takes off in a trot, carrying you to the farm in serene silence.

You unload your saddlebags, settle Matilda into her stable, and creep in through your front door on aching feet. There's little time to reflect on your choices with only hours before dawn. A farmer rises with the sun, after all, and as such you're asleep before your head hits the pillow.

Chapter Text

Shane lies in bed with an aching ass, a splitting headache, and a heavy heart. His whole body hurts. 

He'd gathered his things after the farmer left - his sweater, still containing the remnants of his liquor, and the underwear the older man hadn't bothered to dress him with. 

It was an arduous process, stumbling about on fatigued limbs, so much so that he didn't bother to clean. Instead kicking some stray hay over the cum-spattered ground and stuffing his soiled undergarments in his pocket.

The dour trek into his bedroom had been torture. The denim of his shorts grated against his raw behind, whilst his fly brushed against his flaccid, overstimulated penis. Overall, Shane had wanted to die. 

Once he'd made it to the sanctity of his bedroom, door clicking gently shut behind him, Shane made quick work of shedding his shorts. An ache bloomed between his temples, sharp and pounding. He pondered if it was induced by dehydration, what with all the crying, sweating, and cumming he'd just done. He'd taken another swig of whiskey, just in case.

Now, he's limp, face-first on his mattress. He can't turn over. Every material, even his lamb-soft bed sheets, feels like a thousand tiny needles against his sore ass. Shane sprawls forward in a dead man's float, inhaling the stale, sweaty odor of his pillow. 

He wishes he was smelling a certain farmer, instead. 

Christ. Shane knows, he knows that it's ridiculous to be longing after a man with such blatant distaste for him - who treats him like utter garbage, like an unruly dog - but he can't help it. There's something fundamentally broken inside of him. Where one might find pride and self-worth in another man, Shane has only a void. A creeping, yawning thing, full of teeth and tar.

Like drinking his first beer under the high school bleachers, once Shane had gotten a taste, he knew he was done for. Knew that this thing with the farmer would ruin him for anyone else.

He can hardly remember their first tryst; how it all started. He'd been so blackout drunk that he recalls wondering in the morning if it had all been a dream. Then it had happened a second time, and a third, and a fourth. Shane concluded that dreams didn't leave bruises, and dreams didn't have wives.

The funny thing is, during the daylight when Shane is sober and slogging away at JojaMart, the older man seems so kind. 

He smiles at every member of the community, offering gifts and services. Crows' feet dance in the corners of his eyes, and the smell of freshly churned dirt and homemade jam lingering around him like his own personal cologne. When the man laughs, it's full-bellied and genuine. Warm.

The man who fucks Shane within an inch of his life every other month is not warm. 

Shane slots his own fingers against the bruises circling his neck. It had felt good, at the time. Scary, and yet he hadn't wanted it to stop. In all honesty, the farmer could have ended him in that moment and Shane would've welcomed it. What a euphoric way to go... 

Now, though, it just hurts. He feels used and disgusting, with his skin crawling. He's fucking somebody's husband. A man with a family and two children. Shane thinks he should care more - that the thought should be enough to put an end to all of this. When he's sober, it almost is.

But when he starts drinking, a small, wicked voice in the back of his head disagrees. It purrs and preens, luxuriating in the fact that the older man has risked everything for him. Not for Haley, with her styled golden curls and voluptuous feminine hips, but for Shane.

Shane isn't sure that he's ever been something anyone has willingly chosen, until now.

Before, he always felt like he was something that happened to people. Something you would wake up stuck with, out of the blue one day. You learn to live with it, to cope, because you have no other choice.

He'd happened to Marnie, he'd happened to Jaz. He'd happened to his entire family, really. None of them were any better off for it. 

But the farmer is different, because he isn't stuck with Shane. The older man has no obligation to him at all. He could stop his trysts with Shane any time he wanted, but he persists - keeps humoring Shane's delusional perversion to the point that it feels very much real. 

It's addictive. It's the best sex Shane has ever had. It's all the attention, discipline, pleasure, and bittersweet relief that he's lacking in his day to day life.

Until it's gone. 

For weeks, or months, or however long it takes until the farmer looks his way again. Shane waits, and hates himself for how miserable he feels. How lonely he is. How much he misses it. 

He drinks until he's angry, just to stop feeling sad. He drinks until he's sad, just to feel anything at all. Then he drinks some more, just because he damn well can. 

It's not only because of his relationship with the farmer that he drinks, of course. It's everything. It's always been everything. 

At least now it feels justified. 

Eventually, Shane manages to fall asleep. The alcohol drags him under, into a dreamless doze, limbs heavy with fatigue and all but melting into the mattress. 

He doesn't go back to work for five days. 

When he shows his face again, Morris berates him for his absence, tearing him to shreds in the condescending, dehumanizing way that only minimum wage management can. Shane keeps his head down and grunts platitudes that make his teeth ache.

When he gets home, he drinks. Sometimes he goes to the bar, but the farmer is never there. On Sundays, he entertains family game nights with Marnie and Jas. Occasionally sober. More often, not. 

Rinse and repeat. Over and over. 

He wakes up.

He does it all again.

Over and over.

Chapter Text

It started on a mostly innocuous day. 

You'd been in town for five years now. Gotten married, even. Perhaps things seemed to progress unusually fast from an outsider's perspective, but to you it felt natural. The valley was your home, now, and these were your people. 

Sure, maybe life felt a little flat now and then, and the residents of Stardew Valley somewhat two-dimensional. Existence there could be categorized into a series of monotonous tasks - a constant droning routine - but it was a pleasant routine, nonetheless. One that settled the churning pessimism inside of you. And at the end of each work day, with your body aching and your shipping bin full, you felt at peace.

Haley was the same. Simple, sunny, and warm. She had a smile that lit up a room and laughter like wind chimes on a spring breeze. She made you feel like a better person. You liked to hope you made her better in return. 

Sometimes, though, that routine made you feel trapped. The same itch under your skin that wore away at you while working for JojaCo. would arise, like a cantankerous beast with grinding teeth. A creature inside of you, telling you that routines are a cage.

It's that thing that makes you snap at everyone around you, getting curt with Haley, pinching too hard while milking the cows. It makes you toil in the mines 'til your muscles tear and your vision goes spotty, callouses cracking and bleeding on your palms. And if that doesn't help - doesn't assuage the dissatisfaction within - you drink. This, unsurprisingly, is how you discover your greatest vice yet: Shane.

You're at Gus' saloon when it starts.

The bourbon burns going down, settling hot and roiling in your stomach. It tastes like relief and possibility. 

"Another, please," you order, waggling your empty glass in the air. Emily rolls her eyes indulgently, topping you up.

It's a Tuesday night and the establishment is more or less empty. Pam slouches at the barside drinking herself to belligerence, while Leah murmurs quietly to Elliot around a worn oak table. 

The liquor on your tongue tastes like caramel, fire, and a listless, itchy kind of boredom that prickles across the skin like fleas.

In the back of the bar Shane stands propped against the wall, bowing slightly toward the fireside. His beleaguered expression is cast in orange light and defined by stark shadow. 

You lick your lips, catching droplets of amber off of the stubble you've allowed to grow in. 

As is tradition in small towns, you know both far too much and nothing at all about the people around you. Shane included. After two or three greetings shot down with a bitter sneer, you'd stopped bothering with him. Let the man wallow if that's what he wants.

Tonight, though, you're in the mood to poke the bear - craving the livewire crackle of a petty argument.

You call for another drink in addition to a cold beer, whatever cheap swill was on tap. It slides across the counter with a clink of glass on varnished wood, the pint sweating with condensation and burgeoning with bubbles. The mug sits snugly in your rough hand as you rise from your barstool.

“Howdy there, neighbor,” you chortle, striding up to Shane's usual haunt.

He grunts, frowning as you approach.

“I bought you a drink.”

The man eyes you warily, looking from the drink to your face with displeasure, before snatching it from your hands.

“Thanks,” he mutters.

You nod. An awkward silence stretches between you two.

“What?” Shane barks. 

You take a slow sip from your bourbon. 

“You know, we've never really spoken,” you hum, sucking your teeth.

The man grimaces. 

“I'm not interested.”

“Why's that?” You ask. “We could be friends.”

The words ring false as they come out of your mouth, but you don't care for the truth - only entertainment for the night. Sure, you’ve grown acquainted with most folks around town, but between the farm, the kids, and your partner, you rarely have time to nurture genuine companionship.

“I don't need your friendship. Leave me alone,” Shane sneers, as though physically repulsed by the concept.

“Got everything you need at the bottom of a bottle, do you?” You pry, a touch cruel.

The younger man blinks. As he processes what you've said, his face turns a mottled red. “Fuck off,” he snarls.

“Tell you what,” you bargain, backpedaling to keep the conversation going. “You keep chatting with me, and I'll pay for your bar tab tonight. Think of it as penance for you tolerating my company, hm?”

Shane opens his mouth, presumably to tell you where you can shove your offer, but then pauses to squint at you warily. Sets his jaw in a stubborn line.

“Em!” he calls out. “Pour me up one of those fancy craft beers from the city, would you? Most expensive one you've got. Whatever's on tap tastes like piss.”

He looks at you then, one eyebrow raised and the beginnings of a smirk on his face. Trying to call your bluff. The whole thing takes you by surprise, and you bark out a sudden, genuine bout of laughter.

“You've got more spunk than I thought, huh?” You admit, amused. “A deal is a deal. Order whatever you want, dickhead.”

The grin threatening to break Shane's composure finally splits his cheeks, as he snickers at the ridiculousness of the situation. It might be the first time you've seen him smile. 

It catches you off guard, because without a perpetual glower marring his features, Shane is rather… handsome. 

He has dimples, more noticeable on the left than the right, and his dark eyes seem to sparkle with mirth - a stark contrast to their usual dull vacancy. One of his incisors is crooked, but it only adds to the charm of his features. He looks younger, when he's smiling. More alive.

You grin in return. Your elbow knocks against his, just barely. 

You talk for a while, exchanging light barbs and sharp retorts. It's fun, which surprises you. But as more alcohol seeps into Shane's system, he goes from being a happy drunk, to a whiny, self-pitying one. 

The arguing was enjoyable. The joking was enjoyable. The moping? Not so much. 

It reminds you of why you try to avoid substance abuse in the first place - a lot of bad people, bad memories, and bad choices are waiting down that rabbit hole, and Shane is bringing it all back. 

“If they really cared, then…” Shane continues his rant, but you're not really listening. His eyes are glossy and his face is flushed. A dozen or so empty drinks are stacked between you, cluttering up the table. 

It's familiar. Nostalgic. Pathetic, for two grown men such as yourselves. It's pissing you off.

You cut off whatever he's saying and interrupt. “I'm going outside for a cigarette. You smoke?”

Shane blinks, caught off guard, before stumbling to his feet to follow. “Sure," he shrugs. "Whatever.”

Outside, the air is crisp and smells of petrichor. Spring is finally eating away at the snow on the ground, warding off winter for another season. You can hear icicles melting from the eavestroughs, drip, drip, dripping against the cobblestone road.

Placing the filter between your lips, you light up the end. The first puff of nicotine hits your tongue like an estranged lover, familiar, beautiful, and a little bit terrible all at once. You instantly feel more relaxed, and significantly more drunk. Without much thought, you hand your cigarette to Shane, instead of offering him one of his own. Your knuckles brush his in the process. 

“So,” you say as he raises it to his mouth, “You single?”

Shane chokes around his inhale, coughing so hard he almost drops it. Looks at you as though you've grown three heads. 

“No fucking shit,” he wheezes, and you slap him on the back in false sympathy, harder than is necessary.

“Okay, okay. What about a high school sweetheart? Some girl from your hometown you never got over?” You continue to pry.

Shane frowns at you, confused, as he passes back your cig. “Why do you even give a fuck?”

You roll it between your fingers, pondering.

“I dunno,” you shrug. “Being nosey, I guess. I'm curious. Can't picture it - you with a partner.” 

Shane purses his lips, looking vaguely offended, somewhat uncomfortable, and still very inebriated. He sways under the streetlight, scuffing the toe of his sneaker against the ground. Chews his cheek, pensive. 

Eventually, after a few long moments of silence, he relents.

"I'm gay," he blurts, choking around the confession. 

Your eyebrows fly up, and you look him up and down in a new light. Not something you expected to hear in a small town. No surprise why he keeps it to himself, so why has he told you, of all people? Does he know? Is he mocking you? God, this night keeps getting worse.

"Okay," you acknowledge, carefully dry.

He looks at you, agape. “Okay?” He repeats, dumbfounded.

You suppose he doesn't know, then, with how he's looking at you as though awaiting a hate crime. The idea almost makes you snort, despite being understandable in accordance with the plaid-draped, sun-kissed, apple pie life you've been living. You have to admit that you fit the bill for a bigoted homophobe, based on appearance alone.

"Do you want a gold medal, or something?" You haul a drag from the smoke in your hand, exhaling a cloud into his face. He scrunches his nose, eyes watering, and swats at you.

"Prick," Shane snaps, plucking the filter from your fingers and bringing it to his lips. 

This time, as you watch his mouth wrap around the paper where yours had been only moments ago, it feels different. Because now that there's the possibility that you could have him, you want him. Just a taste, just to prove that you still can. A reminder of something that once was...

“That still didn't answer my question,” you drawl.

Shane blushes. Takes a few more puffs, all shy, before realizing he's finished the cigarette entirely. He tosses the butt to the ground, careless, despite the garbage can sitting mere feet away.

“No," he relents. "There's no high school sweetheart I'm hung up on. There's been nobody. A few half-assed hookups when I was younger, with people whose names I didn't know. A roommate from college who insisted he was straight. Nothing special. Nobody who mattered.”

Shane keeps talking, seemingly unable to stop himself after being silent for so long. 

“I don't even have that, now. I haven't gotten laid in fucking years. It's just Jas and JojaMart, these days. And it's fine, I've accepted it. I'm fine. I'm not some incel who's gonna cry and piss myself just because I'm not getting my dick wet. I'm a thirty year old man, so it hardly matters anymore, right?”

The dark haired man laughs, an acidic, self-deprecating thing. Shakes his head, his shoulders hunching in on themselves. He's ashamed, that much is obvious. Probably wishes he'd stopped speaking quite some time ago. 

It's kind of cute, the way he cowers, embarrassed.

"I could give you a hand," the words slip from between your bourbon-lacquered teeth, unbidden.

At that, Shane opens his mouth, bushy brows knitting together in shock. Which is reasonable, given your marital status. He flaps his lips soundlessly for a time, long enough that you start to sweat, before croaking a breathy, "What?”

You take a deep breath. The cool air burns your lungs and lights up your senses, making you feel alive.

“I'm not gonna repeat myself."

Shane stares at you. It goes on for so long that you start to brush past him, aiming to pay off your hefty tab and make a hasty retreat home. That is, until you feel fingers knotting in your jacket to catch you by the arm. 

You don't turn around, but you do pause.

Shane inhales, shaky and loud. Breathes out a low, “Yes... please?" 

Heat settles low and roiling in your stomach at his plea. "Yes" would've been enough, but that last word sets you on fire. You turn around. 

Shane appears to wilt with regret as soon as he's spoken, licking his lips and taking a step back. He's nervous - won't look you in the eyes for the life of him. In some ways it's justified, but in others, it's not.

Meanwhile, euphoria washes over you in waves. You prowl closer and grab his hip, predatory, strong fingers flexing around worn denim. Your thumb slips the barest inch under his polo to caress flesh. Shane's stomach spills out slightly over his belt, probably in the beginnings of a beer belly. His skin is hot to the touch.

As you crowd up against him, your cigarette-sour breath puffs into his face, but Shane doesn't balk. If anything, his eyes seem to go hazy with it, lips parting to breathe it in. You smile as your thumb unconsciously rubs circles into the younger man's stomach.

"Ever been inside the old Community Center?" You ask.

Upon entry, Shane mumbles to himself about the whole building being "fucking creepy". You brush him off with the reassurance that nobody will find you two here. Privacy is guaranteed.

"I've been renovating the place for ages," you admit. "It's nearly complete, but at this point I've grown kinda fond of it. Not sure I'm ready to give it back to Lewis, yet - that ungrateful old fuck." 

Shane snorts, running his fingers along the freshly papered wall as you amble towards the kitchen. 

He lingers in the doorway and it irritates you, this play at hesitancy. You know he wants it. You can see it in the eclipsed ring of his irises, the tremble in his fingers as he plucks at a loose string on his shorts.

"Come here," you command, patting the dining table with a heavy palm. 

Shane shuffles closer, skittish, like a wild animal. You want to snatch him by the scruff of his neck and bully him into submission. Instead, you drum your fingers on the pine tabletop, waiting patiently for him to come to you.

The silence is oppressive, uncomfortable and thick. Shane works his jaw, wanting to speak but seemingly unable to find words. He looks cornered. Frightened. Yet he continues closer, coming to a stop within arm's length of you.

Fear looks good on him, you think. Much better than the haze of miserable resentment that often clouds his vision. There's a subtle wobble in his lower lip.

"Scared?" You smile, invitingly, cocking your head to one side.

He folds his arms across his chest in a move that might’ve been meant to posture, but serves only to make him seem smaller, like a child about to stomp their foot.

"No," he denies, frowning.

You bare your teeth. It could be classified as a grin, if one were being generous. "You probably should be."

Striking out like a viper, you grab his arm and twist it behind his back, forcing his chest onto the table. With the other hand you shuck his pants and underwear, allowing them to drop unceremoniously around his ankles.

"Oof!" He grunts, chin banging off the varnished wood. You wonder if he bit his tongue.

You smooth a hand over his bottom, relishing the feeling of his dark peach fuzz against your palm. The ass of a man. Nothing like your wife.

"Still want this? Last time I'll ask," you drawl, dragging your thumb down his crack. The pad of it catches on his wrinkled hole.

You want to split him in two - to make this hurt - but only if he's willing. If he asks you to stop now, you will.

Shane is shaking, trembling like a live wire. The air tastes bitter and sharp like battery acid. He nods, but it's not enough. You need words. 

Massaging his entrance softly with teasing little motions, you wait out his silence.

Eventually Shane whines. Chokes out a garbled, "I want this."

You smile, a feeling almost like pride flickering in your chest. He's getting better with his words.

His cunt winks at you when you pull his cheeks apart, stretching his hole to get an unobstructed view of the pucker. There's a dappling of hair around the edges, skin stained a darker taupe, before lightening to a shiny pink at the center. 

Shane huffs. You imagine being exposed to a stranger is rather humiliating. 

When you spit on his hole - a hot, wet glob that drizzles down his crack - Shane jumps. You can hear him mumbling, the words muffled by his wool sweater. Something like "Oh God…"

You're too focused on the buffet spread out in front of you to demand that he speak up. Your thumb fucks the saliva into his ass, forcing its way in despite the minimal lube. 

"That's it," you purr as the digit sinks deeper.

"Hhng," Shane whimpers, clawing at the table. His cunt is locked around you, restricting your movement. It's annoying. Your brow twitches.

"Loosen up," you swat at his ass, barely a smack. More of a chastisement than anything.

"'M trying," he grits.

"Well, try harder."

You thrust your thumb in and out, spreading the soft wetness of his insides around the rim of his twitching hole. Eventually he relaxes, allowing you to fit two fingers inside. It's a cakewalk from there, scissoring the digits with an obscene sucking sound. 

"You're eating me up. You hear that?"

Shane groans. Though his face is covered, the back of his neck is flushed an angry red from a mixture of arousal and shame. 

You slip your digits from his ass, wiping the excess moisture on his hip, before working to unbuckle your belt. The clink of metal causes Shane to tense.

Only when your length is in hand does it occur to you that you don't have any rubbers. After all, you weren't exactly expecting things to pan out this way.

"You clean?" Comes your blunt vocalization of concern.

Shane twists to look at you over his shoulder. "Wha..?"

You're tempted to smack your palm to your forehead. Can a man really be this dense?

"I don't have any condoms. Am I gonna have to worry about catching shit from you?"

Shane blinks. "Oh. Uh. No?"

"No?" You raise an eyebrow. Wrapping a hand around the back of his neck, you lean over him, pressing him to the table with your weight. Against his ear you rasp, "You wouldn't lie to me, would you?"

"No," he reiterates, voice strained. "'M clean. I swear."

"Good boy," you growl, pulling back and relinquishing your grip.

You slap the head of your cock against his entrance once, twice. It makes a pretty picture, one that you want ingrained in your memory. Shane rocks his hips, rutting his neglected member into the table.

"Calm down, baby. You're alright. Just let me take care of you, hm?” You purr.

Gripping the meat of his ass with one hand, you guide your leaking prick inside of him with the other. The flared head breaches him slowly, agonisingly, before popping inside all at once.

“Ahn!” Shane cries out, banging his forehead against the table. His rim is red and angry around your cock.

“You're being so good for me,” you croon.

Normally, you'd give it to him harder, but a small, distant part of your brain remembers Shane admitting that he hasn't gotten fucked in who-knows-how-long. Thus, you make a half-assed attempt at going easy on him.

Shane keens at the praise. You take that as an opportunity to push deeper. He wails at the intrusion, broad chest hitching with stuttering gasps.

“S’ too much,” he whines. “I can't…”

You sink further in, heedless of his cries. There's only two inches left until you're buried to the hilt.

“You can, you're alright.” You promise wetly against his skin, trailing open-mouthed kisses across his spine.

Finally, you're fully inside of him. Your chest draped across his back, touching in so many places it feels deeply intimate.

“God,” you sigh. “That's it. There we go, huh?”

“Urgh,” Shane groans weakly, cheek smushed against the wood.

You pull out slowly, before driving in again, hard. Shane yelps like a kicked dog as the whole table scrapes across the floor with the force of it. 

“Ahh - Wait! Slow - huff - down!” He slurs.

Your worn, scarred hands dig into his soft, doughy hips, farmer’s tan dark against his pale skin. The contrast is unreasonably sensual. The slap of skin on skin echoes throughout the vacant building.

You pause to spread his cheeks, admiring the stretch of his hole around your throbbing, engorged length. Then you spit on it, again, just to slick things up some more, before gently fucking your saliva into him in short thrusts. The sight of his swollen, glistening pussy, in combination with the smell of arousal in the air as Shane whines, has you struggling not to cum right then and there. 

How you'd settled for yours and Haley’s average, bland sex life before now, feels beyond you.

You grind your hips forward in small circular motions, teasing Shane's prostate as you attempt to regain some composure. 

“Hahh - ahn!” he moans. “Yes - fuck - right there! Please.”

Shane reaches back, one arm slinking out of sight to play with himself. You can hear the slick squelch of him fisting his own cock from beneath the table. It's obscene, slutty, and extremely attractive, if not a little bit insulting. You'd told him you would take care of him, and yet here he is, taking matters into his own hands. Impatient. Greedy little thing.

“You want to cum that badly?” You huff, hard edge to your tone.

Shane doesn't seem to notice.

“Yes,” he pants, nodding into the table. “God yes, I wanna cum. Wanna cum so bad. I need - I need to.”

His hips wriggle desperately, like his body has a mind of its own. The slap of hand over skin grows faster, the muscles in his arm flexing from the strain. 

“Then do it,” you allow, amused.

You increase your efforts, driving into his prostate as best you can, newly simmering anger warding off your own orgasm. Shane keens, moaning like a goddamn pornstar. You've half a mind to take your phone out and record him. 

In between thrusts, he rocks back and forth, alternating between fucking into his own hand and back onto your dick. Like he just can't get enough of either. 

“Feel good?” You chuckle. “You should see yourself, right now. Taking it like a fucking whore.”

To your surprise, that seems to push him over the edge. He cries out a strangled moan, hips stuttering and whole body shaking as his pussy clenches around you.

“There you go, huh? Is that what you wanted?” You encourage, still pumping in and out of him as he quakes with the aftershocks.

“Nng, ahn - it's too much,” he whines, squirming at the continued assault.

“Too much?” You reply, skeptically. “You said you wanted to cum. How about a thank you?”

Shane keens, mournfully. A red flush travels all the way from his neck to disappear beneath his collar. Sweat pools in the valley of his spine, soaking through his ratty t-shirt. He looks so pretty like this, debauched and ruined. You lean over and bite the back of his neck, teeth scraping across salty skin. He smells stronger there, like cheap 3in1 body wash, booze, and body odor. Something uniquely like male hormones. 

“You wanted this,” you remind him. “Asked me for it. Don’t be so fucking ungrateful.”

Your hips piston in and out as Shane whimpers and writhes. You drag your hands down his sides, feeling the muscle of his lats underneath a soft padding of fatty tissue, admiring his masculine physique. It's been so long since you've been with a man. You missed this. 

“Turn around,” you command, withdrawing without any warning.

“Huh?” Shane grunts, confused. 

You grab him roughly, bullying him into position, hands gripping underneath his asscheeks to lift him up and onto the table. Instinctively, he clenches his thighs around your waist and clutches at your shoulders. Shane turns a darker shade of red, eyes wide as dinner plates as you toss him about with ease. 

“Holy fuck,” he mumbles.

“It's not that impressive,” you dismiss. “Strength comes with the job.”

It's nice to know that you're getting something besides persistent back aches from doing hard manual labour all day, though, you have to admit. 

On the table, Shane looks dazed as you start to undress him completely. You haul his shirt up and over his head, shimmying it off his arms, and lift each of his feet to yank the trousers from around his ankles. The sneakers, you leave on. You might have a thing for the sneakers. Just maybe.

“Lay down,” you instruct him, pressing a palm to his chest and pushing. 

He does, flopping back bonelessly. There’s something insanely erotic about the way he splays across the table, naked, inebriated, and pink all over. Loose-limbed and pleasure-drunk, with his eyes lidded as he looks up at you, as if you’re the only other man on earth. Like shame is a concept he doesn’t remember, anymore, because you've fucked it out of him. The dark hair resting on his forehead is damp with perspiration. His rosy lips are chewed raw.

You sink back inside of him, and it feels like coming home, like belonging. Right and good and perfect. From this angle you can watch his face as you do it, and isn’t that a marvel? His mouth drops open and his eyebrows scrunch up, staring enraptured at the point where your hips meet. Meanwhile, you admire Shane’s spent prick as it sits soft and inviting above his sac, dewy at the tip from his own release.

Partly because you’re a vindictive person, and partly because it’s too tempting not to, you start to fondle his limp cock.

“Uhn,” he gasps, shocked, scrabbling at your wrist with both hands. “S-stop, I already -”

“I don’t care,” you snap.

You take both his wrists in one hand and pin them to his chest, putting enough pressure on them to compress his lungs, and he wheezes. With the other hand you continue your exploration. You pull back his foreskin, exposing the wet head of his cock, small and shrunken, but still very charming. When you circle his slit with your thumb while hitting his prostate at the same time, Shane makes a noise like a chew-toy being stepped on. You snort a laugh.

The combination of stimulation and degradation really seems to do it for the younger man, who begins to fill out in your palm, hot and heavy. You pump him in time with your own thrusts, and Shane whips his head back and forth like a man possessed.

“No,” he wails. “No, no, no, please! I can’t, I can’t, it hurts!”

“Aww, but sweetheart, look how hard you are for me already,” you croon. “Your body is honest with what it wants, even if you aren’t.”

“I can't. You're going to kill me.” Shane’s eyes well up with tears, and it only makes you fuck him harder, fisting his prick relentlessly. It’s so hot and hard in your hand, with his foreskin providing the perfect amount of lubrication to ease your movement. When you squeeze, there’s that spongey give that you love. His balls have gone taught, pulling up closer to his shaft in preparation for his impending release.

He cums a second time, with an actual, hiccuping sob, coating his soft belly in bursts of spend like a jackson pollock. His messy crying is enough to send you over the edge. You spill your load deep inside of him, and he milks it out of you, hole clenching and quivering around your cock. When you pull out, a trail of hot sperm follows. It leaks out of his loose, swollen cunt, tinged with pink. There are white, blood-starved outlines on his wrists, where your fingers had dug in hard.

"Shit," you huff, still catching your breath. You run a hand through your hair, pushing a few stray, salt-and-pepper strands back into place.

Shane doesn't say anything. He lays still, eyes closed, panting and spread out on the table. You pat him on the thigh, twice, like a sports coach or something. 

"Hey," you grunt. "You good?"

"Hhng," he groans, blinking. He squints up at you and frowns. "You always fuck like a goddamn animal? Christ, I feel... ugh."

Shane stands, shakily, whole body trembling. He clutches at the table for stability, face pale and taught. 

"Oh shit, I think I'm gonna -" He blurts, before leaning over and puking on the floor. The smell of bile and liquor invades your nostrils, making you vaguely nauseous in turn. Wet gagging and spitting comes from Shane's hunched form as he retches.

You curse and recoil.

"Sorry," he mutters. "S'the booze, not the sex. Urgh... 's my bad. I'm really sorry."

"It's fine, it's fine, whatever," you grimace, vaguely appalled, but also somewhat sympathetic. "Can you get dressed?"

"Uh-huh," says Shane.

He stumbles, finding his clothes on the floor and struggling to put them on. There's vomit speckling his shoes. It's amazing how your attraction to him evaporates as you watch him fumble like a newborn calf covered in sick. In fact, you can't believe that you've done this in the first place - cheating on your wife. I mean, fuck, you have Haley - the most beautiful woman you've ever met. She's perfect.

...Maybe she's too perfect. Maybe that's the problem.

Either way, you swallow, and decide to address it tomorrow. Now isn't the right time, while you're still buzzed and watching Shane losing a battle with his t-shirt. The crown of his ruffled head sticks out where his arm should be, while his left arm flails, sticking out of his collar. What an idiot.

God, you're an idiot.

The wind blows outside, and the old building creaks under the strain. Freezing rain starts to batter the windows. Just what you needed. Great. 

Chapter Text

It occurs to you the next morning when you wake up, miserable and hungover, that you might be an inherently bad person. It's not a new thought, but definitely one you haven't dwelled on for some time. Since getting engaged to Haley, probably. 

You've been a lot of things in your life, but until now, a cheater wasn't one of them. After trying so hard to run away from your past, to become someone new and better, it feels like you've doomed yourself to fail. 

You remember enough, in fuzzy flashes of light and the phantom sensation of skin on skin, to know you were the instigator. That it had been your idea, and the fault should lie in your hands more than anyone else's. Yet, you can't help but resent Shane for being complicit, and so goddamn willing. 

Most of all, for reminding you painfully of Thomas.

Eleven years prior…

“Fuck, baby, you're so good at that,” Tommy huffs a strained laugh.

Your mouth is full of his cock, but you smile with your eyes as you look up at him. He's hot and heavy on your tongue, the taste of precum flooding your taste buds, a sign that he's approaching the finish line.

One of your hands holds the base of his member, pumping it whenever you pull back, while the other rests on the inside of his big, hairy thigh. You massage the thick muscle, appreciating everything about him. His flavor, his smell, all of it. Everything about him drives you wild.

The wet sounds of your tongue suckling his length are partially drowned out by the TV in the background. Malcolm McDowell belts out “Singing in the Rain” as the couple on screen struggle.

“Oh, shit, I'm gonna,” Tommy grunts, his hips bucking inconsiderately as he climaxes. You gag, and the woman in the movie screams through hers. Tommy holds your head in place as you swallow.

Once he's finished, he leans back into your ugly, floral second-hand couch and lights up a cigarette. There's an ashtray on the side table, burgeoning with old butts. The smoke alarms are all disconnected and their loose wires dangle from the ceiling like veins. 

You'd told him not to smoke indoors when you'd first moved in together - afraid of losing your damage deposit - but once you realized he would do it behind your back either way, you gave up trying. 

There was a lot that you gave up for Thomas.

“Man, I love this movie,” he sighs, eyes fixed on the screen as he tucks himself back into his pants. You get up off of your knees, slowly, to collapse onto the couch next to him. You’re still half-hard in your pants, but you don’t care enough to ask him to return the favor. You pluck the cigarette from his lips to take a drag, and the nicotine hits pleasantly, despite the unfortunate taste mixing with the cum lingering on your tongue. 

“I love you too, asshole,” you roll your eyes.

He flushes, throwing an arm around your shoulders. “You know I love you, dumbass,” Tom presses a scratchy, stubbled kiss to your cheek, before teasing, “How could I not after the fantastic head you just gave me?”

It’s funny, the way a light jab can make you proud and disgusted with yourself all at once. Not that it’s anything worth being offended over - that’s just the way Tommy jokes around. He doesn’t mean anything by it. 

You stick your tongue in his ear in retaliation, and he squeals like a little girl. 

“By the way,” he murmurs, later, when you’re almost finished the movie, “Your parents called this morning while you were in the shower. I didn’t want to upset you. They, uh… left another voicemail.”

“I thought we blocked their number,” you scowl, accusatory.

Thomas shrugs. “Guess they got a new one.”

You turn on him with your whole body, because you’re pissed, now. “Did you delete it?”

He avoids your eyes, shrinking in on himself. 

“No…” he says. “They just - I know they don’t like me, but they really miss you, Cy.”

You get up, marching into the kitchen where your telephone sits on the counter, voicemail light blinking. Tom is hot on your heels. You press play, only to immediately slam the “delete” button before the message can be heard. You hear Tommy’s sharp intake of breath behind you. 

“What the fuck, Cyrus?” He snarls. “I don’t understand how you can act this way. They love you, man. They care about you so much. They’re your parents, and you’re breaking their hearts, you know that? Your mom was sobbing, this time, just begging you to call them and tell them that you’re okay!”

“Well, I am okay! I’m doing just fucking fine without them. We’re doing just fine. I don’t understand how you could expect me to put up with… with their bullshit! They fucking hate you, Tommy! They hate what we are.” You pause for breath, before barreling on. “They can say they love me ‘til the cows come home, but that doesn’t fucking hold up when they hate everything that I am, does it?”

Thomas sneers, eyes bright with anger. He looks like a different person when he’s angry - like a man possessed. “What we are? The last time I checked, you’re just fine munching carpet when there isn’t any dick around. Don’t fucking talk to me about what we are.”

You flinch, because he hasn’t said this in so long that it’s unexpected, and it hurts all the worse for it.

You can’t look at him anymore, but you reply, “It always has to come back to this, doesn’t it? I chose you. I want you, you stupid fuck. Isn’t that enough?”

Thomas snorts, dismissive. “Well aren’t I lucky? Aren’t I fucking privileged, to be chosen by you? It must be nice to have so many choices.”

He turns, then, stomping towards the front door. Pats his pockets down, checking for his wallet, cigarettes, and lighter - all of the essentials - before growling, “Fuck you, Cy.”

The door slams shut and the apartment is blanketed in eerie silence. All you can hear is the ticking of the clock and your own heavy breathing. 

You turn and put your fist through the wall. Fuck the damage deposit.

You understand, and that’s why you hate arguing with Tommy. 

His mother died in childbirth and his father never forgave him for it. Thomas Senior was a cold, miserable man, who’d despised his son long before he discovered that he was gay, but it didn’t improve his father’s opinion of him to say the least. Tom said, in one of his rare moments of drunken vulnerability, that he’d wondered if he was a demon as a child, sent to bring despair and misery to everyone he met. He’d cried, prayed, and begged to be normal - to be better, to be straight - and it had never worked. So when he sees you - somebody attracted to everybody equally, with parents who, until you’d decided to date a man, were loving and supportive - it makes him angry. Envious.

You understand, you really do.

Understanding doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Two weeks pass and the icy tension between you thaws. It always does, eventually, and you never really talk about it. What’s the point, if you can’t get through a conversation without screaming at each other? So, you wait, and after some time, you move on. 

Thomas surprises you on your birthday with a store-bought cake and bottle of cheap liquor. It’s not much, but you’re both broke, so it’s the thought that counts. Together you get sloshed, and by the end of the night you’re licking frosting off his nipples. He cackles like it’s the funniest thing he’s ever seen, and you snort, sending frosting and whipped cream flying everywhere. It gets in your eye, and while you flail for help, Tommy laughs so hard he cries, face turning a concerning shade of tomato-red. His gasping hiccups of amusement send you over the edge, and by the end of it you’ve both fallen onto the floor, giggling and sticky all over. He’s hard underneath you, and you end up fucking in the shower as you wash away the frosting. It’s perfect, until your minimal amount of hot water runs out, and the two of you scramble desperately out of the cold, shouting. The neighbors bang on the wall. Even that’s funny.

Later in the night, as you lay in bed next to him and listen to him snore, you think that this might be the happiest you’ve ever been. That for once, you feel completely and truly at home. There are no insurmountable expectations to burden you, no great demands, or need to pretend to be something you aren't. It's just you and Tommy. Together, and in love.

But it doesn’t last. The good times never do.

You get accepted into college. You’ve been taking online classes to improve your GPA, after an impressively poor performance in high school, and now you’ve finally been accepted into a business program. You’re so goddamn proud of yourself. With both of you working minimum wage jobs, you knew you’d never do better than simply getting by. Now, you can work towards a higher paying career. Maybe you and Tommy could even own a house, someday, with a white picket fence and a dog. You like dogs. 

The downside, however, is that college has made you significantly more busy. Between coursework by day and a job in the evenings to help pay the bills, you don't have time for much else. That’s a sacrifice you’re willing to make, though, especially if it will benefit the two of you in the long run. 

Thomas doesn’t feel the same way.

“I never see you anymore,” he laments one night, having stayed up late waiting for you to get home.

Your feet are killing you as you kick off your shoes in the entryway. A throbbing headache has been building between your temples, like a rubber band around your skull. You haven’t eaten since lunch, and you have a difficult paper due in four days that you’ve barely had time to start.

“I know,” you grunt.

“C'mon. Don’t you miss me?” He whines. Lately, you find he sounds more and more like a child. 

“Of course I miss you. I also miss having literally any free time whatsoever. But somebody needs to get us out of this shithole apartment, and I don’t see you taking any initiative. So, here we are. I’m run off my feet, you’re lonely, and we both just have to cope.” You snap.

“You used to like this shithole apartment. You used to like me,” he mutters, recoiling at the acidity of your tone.

There are a multitude of empty beer cans on the living room table in front of him. A drink sounds really fucking good right now, actually. You toe open the fridge and shotgun one - a skill you'd honed in high school in lieu of attending class. You burp, and then grab another frosty can, taking it to the bathroom with you. 

“I'm taking a shower,” you call out, before kicking the door closed. You don't dignify his statement with a response, because you'd already told him you missed him. How much reassurance does one man need? 

It's exhausting, when he behaves like this. Eternally nihilistic and weepy - always trying to drag more compliments, more affection, and more sympathy out of you. He's an endless well of need, demanding all of your emotional energy and offering nothing in return. 

It used to be manageable. Lately, you're running out of energy to give. 

When you exit the bathroom, hair scrubbed fluffy and towel around your hips, Thomas is gone from the couch. You approach your shared bedroom, prepared to change into your pajamas and snuggle into bed, and turn the door knob. It brings up solid. 

He's locked you out. 

You blink, shocked, and try the handle again. It rattles uselessly, jangling in protest. This time you really give it a shove, and the door bounces in its frame but remains closed. 

“What the fuck, Tommy?!” You shout, banging your fist against it. “Are you gonna let me in, or what? C'mon, dude, I'm exhausted. I'm sorry for being a dick, okay?”

No response. 

“Tom, I'm serious. Open the door. Please,” you beg. 

Silence. 

You hammer your fist into the wood. Bang! Bang! Bang!

“Let me the fuck in, asshole! Open the fucking door, right now!”

You're yelling, angry and booming in the middle of the night, clad in only a towel. You feel ridiculous and humiliated, and the burning shame only adds fuel to the fire. 

“THOMAS! LET ME THE FUCK IN!” You yell. There's no answer, and your forehead hits the door with a defeated thunk. A couple of hot, furious tears burn trails down your cheeks, and you scrub them away with a vengeance. Fine, you think. Fucking fine. Have it your way.

Stomping to the couch, you change back into your dirty clothes and grimace. The shirt smells and the underwear are downright gross. You leave the jeans off entirely, and slink under the ratty throw blanket you'd bought from Walmart. It's small - only meant for warming your lap, at best - and your feet stick out at the end, hanging off of the loveseat. A knot is already forming in your neck. The couch smells like cigarette ash and something spilled and soured.

You're so tired - so fucking tired. And still, you can't sleep. 

The next morning, after a few fitful hours of dogshit rest, you get up and go to class. Thomas doesn’t unlock the door, so you wear your old clothes and hope nobody comments and your mild body odor. Before work, you make a quick detour to buy some deodorant, since that was locked in the bedroom as well. 

You come home early, having worked a shorter shift than the night before. The bedroom door is still closed. You watch some TV, mulling about the apartment and cooking dinner, hoping the smell will entice Tommy out of hiding. No luck. You knock, again. Call out his name. He doesn’t answer.

At around eight o’clock, you start to panic. What if something is seriously wrong? What if Tommy had tried to hurt himself, and you’d left him there this whole time, suffering? Fuck, what if he’s dead? Your heart races, pumping overtime as fear takes hold of you. 

“Tommy, babe, please, just answer me. You don’t even have to open the door. Just tell me you’re okay,” you plead, thumping bruised knuckles on unforgiving wood. “I just want to know that you’re okay.”

No reply. The clock ticks on the wall.

“Thomas, if you don’t say something right now, I’m going to kick this door down,” you threaten. You’ve never kicked down a door before, but you’ve seen it in movies. You’ll figure it the fuck out. You don’t care anymore.

Silence. 

You brace one hand against the wall for balance, raising the opposite foot and placing it near the doorknob. You haul in a deep breath and kick. Your ankle burns fiery in protest, but you don’t care. Adrenaline numbs you to the pain as you slam your boot into the obstruction, again and again. Eventually, you hear cracking as the wood splinters and gives way. With one final kick, the door flies open. You burst inside, eyes wide with terror, searching for some kind of emergency, for some danger.

There’s nothing. The curtains are drawn, clothes strewn across the floor in the exact same way they had been, days ago. The lights are turned off, with nothing to cut through the darkness aside from the glow of the hall bleeding through the open doorway. There's a lump on the bed.

“Tom?” you whisper. You approach, cautiously, still shaky. Please don’t be dead, you think. Please, please, please God, don’t be dead. 

You touch the mound of blankets, and it’s warm. There’s a faint sound, somewhere between a huff of breath and a sob. Flicking on the lamp by the bedside illuminates the scene before you. Thomas is there, under the covers, eyes staring unseeing ahead. His hair is greasy and limp, dark bags under his bloodshot eyes. He flinches back, screwing up his face and burying it in the blankets to block out the light, groaning brokenly as though you’d done him physical harm.

“Fuck,” you breath, still disturbed but so, so relieved. “Fuck, I’m so glad you’re okay. God, what the fuck, Tom? Why didn’t you open the door?”

He doesn’t reply. You frown, taking the bedsheets in hand and prying them back from his overheated form. He clings to them desperately, making animal noises of protest, fingers white-knuckled around the fabric. 

“No,” he groans, weakly.

“Get up,” you demand, irritated. You’re still angry at him, but up until this moment, concern had taken the forefront of your mind. 

“Go away,” he mumbles, teary-eyed. He still won’t look at you.

“Go away?” you repeat, agape. “Are you serious right now? This is our bedroom. I live here! I had no clothes to change into, no deodorant, no nothing, because you locked me out! I just kicked our goddamn door down because I was afraid you’d killed yourself! And all you have to say to me is “go away”? You’ve got to be fucking kidding me!” You wheeze out a shocked laugh, overwhelmed by the absurdity of the situation.

Tommy uses your reeling to his advantage, pulling the blanket back up over his face. He doesn’t move after that. Doesn’t reply.

“Thomas,” you plead, frustration and guilt plain in your voice. It's hard to yell at somebody who's so blatantly unwell. “Get up. Just talk to me, baby, come on. I’m sorry. I’m not mad. Please.”

The covers twitch as he shakes his head. 

You lied. You’re furious. You want to scream, to rip the sheets off his prone form and haul him kicking and screaming out of the bed. To shake him violently until it knocks some sense back into his thick fucking skull. More than that, you feel betrayed. Hurt, because he’s supposed to be your partner, but you always end up acting like his goddamn care-taker. You want to break something. You want to cry. You want to tell him to get the fuck over himself and act like an adult.

You do none of the above.

Instead, with robotic movements, you get him a glass of water. You place it on his bedside and gather yourself a change of clothes for tomorrow, as well as some pjs, before turning off the lamp again. When you attempt to close what’s left of the door, it proves to be rather difficult, but you need some kind of barrier between the two of you, tonight. A wall between you and the oppressive weight of Thomas’ suffocating despondency.

You sit down on the couch after getting changed. A spring sticks painfully into your asscheek. Then, you lay down and stare at the ceiling.

You don’t remember falling asleep, but at some point, it happens.

You continue living together for six more months, during which time things get progressively worse. 

Thomas comes out of his depressive episode, only to delve further into addiction in the weeks following, seemingly manic. He titters about your shared apartment, sniffling an unusual amount and talking a mile a minute. Picks up expensive hobbies only to immediately lose interest, leaving piles of half-finished projects in his wake. The following month, Tom can’t afford his half of the rent, so you’re forced to pick up overtime shifts to pay the bills. Your cable gets cut off, which he complains about in excess, despite it being his fault in the first place. You catch him rubbing powder into his gums, one evening. When you ask about it, he denies it straight to your face, unblinking and pin-pupiled. 

The mania fades. The misery returns. Your bedroom becomes his bedroom, because you can’t stand to sleep alongside him anymore. Dishes pile up in the sink, flies buzzing around in droves, because you just don’t have time to do it all. Thomas loses his job, and you don’t even find out until two weeks later, when he elects to speak to you again. Your sex life is virtually non-existent. When it does rear its ugly head, the sex is rough and resentful, with the two of you clawing at each other as though you could reach under the skin and pull out the person you used to love. 

You don’t leave. You don’t leave because somewhere, deep down in your fucked up heart and head, you thought the two of you would get through this. That things would change for the better, and you could love Thomas the way you used to, back when he made you feel known. When he made you feel whole, instead of vaguely nauseous and miserable, like somebody had seen into your soul and decided that you were distinctly lacking. Because this was all you deserved.

On month six, you come home early from work to find Thomas fucking another man in your bed. 

That dream of change, of growth together, dies a swift and merciless death, right then and there.

You call your parents, apologize, and move back home. There, you finish your degree at a different college where you excel without the burden of financial stress, and after graduating with honors you’re quickly accepted into a lofty position at the Joja Corporation. 

You’re successful, financially and socially, with a number of suitors asking you out on a semi-regular basis. Using the funds from your job, you buy a high-rise condo that overlooks the cityscape. There’s a whole wall of windows and a sliding glass door that leads to a small deck with a wrought-iron chair. Sometimes you sit out there and smoke. More often, you don’t. 

It’s all well and great, until you realize that you’re horribly, painfully alone. Abjectly isolated and hauntingly miserable in both your personal life and your professional one, by your own hand.

Then, you receive a letter. Your estranged grandfather passed away and he’s willed you his farm.

Alright, you think. Fuck it. What's the worst that could happen?

So, you sell your condo, pack a small suitcase of shit, and move to Stardew Valley. 

Chapter Text

The morning after your initial encounter with Shane, you’d felt sick, struggling to make eye contact with Haley. While you should’ve felt guilty about what you’d done, you felt even more guilty about your overwhelming lack of guilt, because things seemed… normal. As though nothing had changed. They should have changed. You did something unforgivable — objectively morally wrong. There should’ve been a weight on your chest like an anvil, shameful admissions rattling behind your teeth waiting to be spilled. Instead, there was nothing. You felt nothing and you still feel nothing. 

It doesn’t matter. 

You know what you should feel. You know what a good person would do, and that’s what you’re striving to be. Maybe not good enough to tell the truth, but good enough not to do it again, and to ensure that, you've been avoiding Shane like the plague. You haven't seen hair nor hide of the man since that memorable day, which is wonderful really, because in an ideal world you wouldn't have to lay eyes on him again ‘til the day you die. 

Unfortunately, it’s only a matter of time before your luck runs out. 

You're at Marnie’s midday on a Thursday. You stop by regularly to pick up feed for the animals, since the farm has become so overcrowded that you struggle to grow enough on your own. It works out well, because Shane is working at JojaMart and Marnie always has your order ready for pickup. 

In and out. Easy as that. Except that today it isn't.

The abrasive jingling of the doorbell announces your arrival as you enter. Immediately, you tense. Marnie is nowhere to be found, but Shane is.

He sits on a stool behind the counter, posture slumped and cheek mashed into his fist, five o’clock shadow and bags under his eyes darker than ever. As the bell rings he jolts upright, rubbing his eyes.

You falter, nearly turning around and walking right back out, before deciding that it's probably best to play it cool. Maybe Shane can't fully remember what happened. Maybe he won’t bring it up at all. You white-knuckle your belt loop, desperate for something to ground you during this sure-to-be-uncomfortable interaction. 

While your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth like sandpaper, Shane fills the silence for you.

“Hey,” he grumbles, gaze darting toward yours and then away again. Twitchy and nervous.

“Mmph,” you acknowledge.

Picking up one leaden foot at a time, you approach the counter. 

“Where’s Marnie?” you ask.

Shane scuffs the toe of his sneaker on the ground. A nervous tic that you’re growing accustomed to seeing him perform.

“Had to rehome one of the dairy cows. She was getting too old,” he explains. “I, uh, told Marn I would call in to work to cover for her. She was worried she’d miss you while she was out.”

You offer a stilted nod. “Oh. Okay. Where to?”

“Where’s she taking Daisy?” Shane echoes for clarification. “Some elderly animal rescue or something. Further out from the city — a couple hours or so. I guess they’re supposed to have a decent reputation. The old girl deserves a nice retirement.”

You hum, barely feigning interest. You’re staring at Shane’s chin so that you don’t have to look him in the eyes. He has a scar there, thin, curved, and white, cutting through the stubble. You watch him swallow anxiously as he speaks. His Adam's apple bobs, jugular pounding fast and flighty under his jawline. 

Distracted, you blink to clear your head. “That's sweet of her.” 

A moment of awkward silence passes between the two of you.

“The feed…?” you encourage, tone dry. 

Shane flushes. “Uh, yeah, right. I’ll go get it.”

He turns the corner and you watch him go. He's bow-legged, just slightly, but it suits him well. After a moment he pokes his head back out, looking strangely flustered. 

“Could you give me a hand?” he mutters. 

With a furrowed brow you follow him into the back room, baffled about what he could possibly need a hand with. What you need isn’t all that heavy.

Approaching the pile of hay, Shane lingers behind you. You don't think much of it, too focused on grabbing your shit and leaving, until a hand wraps around your wrist. It's sweaty, hot and sticky against your skin. You turn, pulling your arm away at the same time, but Shane only inches closer, grip tight. His nose is about a foot from yours, dark eyes bloodshot. He has sour, alcohol-tinged morning breath even though it’s afternoon. Hungover, or still drinking? 

“Listen, we need to talk,” he starts. “About that night at the—” 

“No.” You cut him off, wrenching your wrist free from his grasp. He stumbles, caught off guard by your forceful reaction.

You go back to the feed, hoisting a thicket of hay onto your shoulder. You need to get the fuck out of here. Your heart is pumping and your head feels full of cotton. It's as though you're a dog with its paw caught in a trap, trying to decide whether or not to gnaw off your own foot in order to escape. Except you set this goddamn trap in the first place — you’ve put yourself in this position.

There are hands back on you. One is knotted in the side of your shirt and the other is pressed to your chest, halting you from moving forward. 

“Can you just—” Shane tries, but you drop the hay and slam your knuckles into his face. His head snaps to the side with the force of it and he falls backward onto one knee, clutching at his nose.

“Get the fuck off of me!” you growl, recoiling from the violence of your own outburst. “I said I don't want to talk. There's nothing to talk about! Just… stop. Drop it, okay?”

Shane tilts his head up, blinking and dazed. There's blood running from his nose, coating his lips and dribbling down his chin. It's bright, candy apple red against his pallid complexion. His pupils are like full moons eclipsing his irises, and you're hypnotized by the sight of it.

“Okay,” he rasps, voice suddenly gruff and deep. “We don't have to talk.”

He shuffles forward on his knees, slow and deliberate as though approaching a spooked horse, before coming to a halt at your feet. Looks up at you with single-minded focus and hovers wary hands near your belt buckle. His fingers are shaking. Yours are, too.

“C’mon,” Shane murmurs. “Let me.”

Just like that, all of your resolve melts away like butter.

“Fuck,” you breathe. You card gentle fingers through his greasy hair, a truly shitty non-apology for having just punched him in the face, and thumb at your belt buckle. He licks his lips. Scarlet bleeds onto his pink tongue. 

“Fuck.” 

Shane takes that as the consent that it is, cosying up closer to your groin with the hint of a self-satisfied grin. He sniffs — a clogged, congealing, bloody thing — as he undoes your belt and tugs down your zipper. 

You feel floaty and weird, not entirely present and all-too-present at the same time. Everything looks crisp, so much clearer than before, because Shane might not be, but you’re entirely sober this time. This is a conscious choice you are making in your right mind. You want Shane to suck you off more than you’ve wanted anything in a long time. 

You can’t help but think of your wife as it happens. Shane mouths at your semi, and you think about how Haley would do it. She would kiss the tip, gripping your shaft, before enveloping your dick in salmon pink lips, jerking off the portion that she couldn’t fit into her mouth. There’s a method to it. Like she had read tips and tricks from a women’s magazine and was aiming to complete a task. 

Shane clearly has no method, slobbering all over you like a dog, licking and suckling and smearing his blood on you in the process. He kisses everywhere, if you can even call them kisses, slurping at the underside of your cock and running his lips all the way down to the base. There, he lingers, tracing the root of it with his tongue, before pressing his swollen nose into your balls. He inhales deeply and stuffily.

“Enough,” you heave, using your grip on his hair to pull him back. 

He complies without resistance, looking up at you as your cock stretches a shadow over his haggard face. You press it into his cheek, smearing some precum there as you guide it, slowly, intentionally, to his lips. Shane parts them, mouth curling around the head of your cock, and you can feel his tongue laving at your frenulum. 

You bully your member further into his lax throat, until you hit the back of it and he gags. Tears pool in the corners of his eyes. He’s struggling to breathe, you notice, between his mouth being stuffed and his nose clogged with blood and snot. It’s kind of cute, the way he wheezes and snuffles around your length. 

The younger man bobs his head, hollowing his cheeks, but you’re so pent up that you find yourself fucking his face more than anything. Carefully, at first, and then harder as you start to get into it. Drool seeps from the corners of his lips, wet and foamy.

“Hng,” he whines around you. “Mmmff.” 

His face is red and the tears in his eyes are spilling over onto his cheeks, before running down to join the mess on his chin. On a particularly rough thrust, he gags so hard that you wonder if he's going to throw up. You don’t stop. His throat convulsing around you has your balls tightening with pleasure. 

Haley never takes you this deep and you’ve never asked her to. It would be rude. Disrespectful. You could hurt her. That thought makes you pause, because being sober, it occurs to you that you’re probably hurting Shane, too. And that’s bad. Right? Yeah, that’s bad. Even though you kind of want to. 

Your cock slips from his mouth with a lewd, slick pop. A long string of saliva and bile connects the two, before it breaks and dribbles down his jersey, staining it a darker green. 

“Guh,” Shane heaves, wrecked and sweaty as you pull back, and then he does something that surprises you. 

“Fuck, no,” he says, voice croaking from abuse. “Don’t stop.”

His hands scrabble at your pants, settling to grip your hips as he leans up and takes you back in his mouth. He bobs his head, once twice. Stares at you expectantly with wet, challenging eyes underneath dark brows. He looks starved.

Your fist tightens at his scalp. 

“You like that, huh? Like it when I’m mean? When I’m rough with you?”

Shane swallows around your length, a non-verbal agreement, and you laugh, disbelieving, before cramming yourself back down his throat with a vengeance. His bruised nose hits your stomach and he flinches, but you just grind a little deeper, listening to the gurgling sounds of him choking around the intrusion.

“You look so stupid right now,” you tell him pleasantly, watching your member piston in and out of his mouth. “Ugly as fuck.”

His lips are red and stretched thin, with the blood under his nose drying crusty maroon in some places and mixing with dripping mucus in others. His eyes are bleary and swollen and his hair is sticking off at all angles from you tugging at it. 

It’s true, he does look terrible. He also looks divine.

Shane makes a miserable little noise, but as you watch he reaches down to palm himself through his shorts. He’s seemingly given up on contributing anything but a willing mouth to the situation. His lips go lax around your cock and his throat makes obscene sounds as you brutalize it. It’s not long before you feel your climax approaching. 

“Swallow,” you order.

Your voice is rough and wrecked as you tip over the edge, burying yourself so deep as you release that you doubt Shane even tastes it. He doesn’t pull back, either way, just breathes muffled puffs of air into your groin as he waits it out.

When you come to your senses, you extract yourself slowly, already mourning the loss of Shane's warm, willing mouth around you. He coughs, a wet, sticky hacking sound, before scrubbing at his face with his forearm. Messily, he wipes away bile, cum, and tears, smearing it all over his forearm in the process. It's tinged orange with dried blood. 

The noirette clambers to his feet before you have a chance to offer him a hand. You hear one of his knees pop, and he winces, leaning more weight to one side than the other. 

“Woah,” you interject, gingerly placing a hand on his bicep to halt whatever he's doing. “Relax a minute.”

Shane frowns, disoriented and only half-present, pupils still blown as if drugged. There's colour high in his cheeks, but the rest of his face is sickly pale. He's shaky on his feet. 

“I'm, uh,” he mutters, gravelly. “‘M gonna go change.” 

Confused, you look him up and down. Oh. There's a distinct stain forming on his shorts, where it seems that Shane came in his pants. That shouldn't be nearly as attractive as it is. You have half a mind to pull them back to play with the mess he's made inside.

Before you can, Shane turns tail and heads towards his bedroom. You trail after him, feeling a bit lost as he slams the door unceremoniously in your face. You blink at it, baffled. You're considering whether that means that you should leave, when he reappears in new pants, hair still ruffled to a comedic degree. 

He shuffles back to the kitchen, plopping down into a seat at the dining table, listless.

The uncomfortable pause that follows is enough time for you to start overthinking things — stressing about what exactly it is that you're doing here. You need clarity. Boundaries. Control over a situation that has made you feel completely and utterly out of control, today especially. 

“If we’re going to keep doing this,” you declare, “I’m laying down some ground rules.” 

Shane nods, but he’s got this faraway look in his eyes, like he’s still lost in that floaty, post-orgasm headspace. You stride forward and snap your fingers in front of his face, irritated. 

“Hey. This is important. Pay attention.”

“Mhm,” he rumbles, not much for speaking at the moment.  

You take some time to mull over what you want to say before you continue.

“First of all, Haley can never know, which means we’re doing this on my terms and what I say goes. No more fucking ambushing me, got it?”

The source of your frustration smirks for a second, but the expression slips away as fast as it came.

“Second, when I have the time, I'll find you. I'm a busy man and I don't need you trailing around after me like a lost puppy. It'll be too obvious and frankly, annoying.”

Shane raises a bushy brow, incredulous. “I'm not obsessed with you, you know. You might be a decent fuck, but you're still an asshole.”

“Whatever.” You roll your eyes. “Pot, meet kettle.”

He snorts, amused, before wincing as it aggravates his sore throat.

“Lastly,” you continue, “I don't like you very much, and I'm not going to pretend that I like you just because we're fucking. I'm not your friend or your lover, or whatever other bullshit you might come up with. But I am, uh…” 

You pause, frowning. Fuck, you hate apologies. 

“Sorry,” you spit. “About your face.”

Shane stares at you blankly, processing.

“Oh,” he says. “That.”

He touches his nose, prodding it harshly. The bruise is darkening over the bridge of it, sinking into the shadows of his eyes as blood pools under the skin.

“S'fine.”

You don't feel like it's fine, but far be it from you to protest when somebody is letting you off the hook for your shitty behavior. 

He stands and shuffles over the fridge, where he grabs a bag of frozen peas and a cold one. He cracks the beer with one hand while he presses the peas to his face with the other. 

“Fuck,” he hisses as the cold hits his tender skin. 

Goddamn it. Is he trying to make you feel guilty on purpose?

“If you wanna hit me back,” you grumble with a sigh, “I'll give you a free shot. We can call it even.”

Shane looks at you. Squints. 

“Nah.”

You grind your teeth, chewing on your cheek. Nah?

“Why not?” you question him, confused. 

Shane shrugs. “Don't feel like it.”

He looks so casual, standing there sipping his beer, refusing to give back what he'd gotten. You should be happy that you're not about to get socked in the face, but instead this whole ordeal is pissing you off. 

“Ugh.” You press your palms to your eyes, until stars burst behind your lids. “I'm gonna go. I pay Marnie in advance, so you can just… Do whatever.”

You turn, heading back to the stock room to grab the feed you'd originally come for. Matilda is hitched outside, probably being harassed by Marnie’s barn cats as she waits for you. 

You've already adopted one of them — a tiny white runt Haley had insisted was ‘too cute to pass up’ and had promptly named Snowball. It should've been named Satan, as far as you're concerned. That little cat has it out for you. 

Shane doesn't acknowledge you as you leave, lost in his head and his drink, again. That's fine. Talking to Shane outside of sex, especially sober, grates on your nerves more than you'd like to admit.

Maybe that's why he's always drunk, you think vindictively. Because he can't stand himself, either.

One of Marnie’s cows moos at you as you leave. It feels judgemental, but in reality, the animal probably just wants the treats you have on you. You pull a face at it, anyways.

Chapter Text

Marnie corners you at Pierre's while you're dropping off local produce. Instantly, a pit forms in your stomach, leaden and cold. She's distressed, that much is obvious, with wrinkles around her eyes and tension in the set of her mouth. 

“Cyrus! Hello, dear,” she greets you. “I'm sorry to bother you, but I've been meaning to talk to you about something. Do you have a moment?”

You flash your most charming grin. Let false pleasantry bleed into your eyes, warm and inviting. She seems to find it sincere enough, as her shoulders drop, if only by millimeters.

“Of course. What can I do for you?” A hint of southern drawl in your tone. There’s something about the accent that puts people at ease. 

Marnie shifts, glancing around to see if anyone is paying either of you attention. To her visible relief, there’s not. Her eyes slide back to you, assessing and intent. 

“I was out of town on business last week. I left Shane to attend to any customers while I was gone. Your usual feed order day, I believe it was.” She relays the information carefully, tone light and conversational. Long pauses between blinking. 

You nod. “Mm, yeah. I was in. He served me.”

She sucks her teeth, a nervous, tetchy thing. 

“He did?” she asks. “And how was he?”

You tilt your head inquisitively, rub your bearded chin with a dirt-stained thumb. 

“Seemed alright to me. Getting into the bottle, but not too deep, I reckon. Nothin’ unusual. Why?”

A scowl tugs at Marnie’s lips, pinching the lines around her mouth. Seemingly more directed at Shane’s habits than at you, although she doesn’t appear to appreciate your bluntness in regard to the topic. Something about your response makes her more direct as she continues. 

“Well, when I came home… he appeared to have gotten in a bit of a tussle with someone. Wouldn’t breathe a word about it no matter how much I pestered him. I thought maybe you’d heard something, or — I don’t know.” She sighs, running a palm across her forehead as if to smooth out the weary wrinkles there. “I worry about him, darlin’. He’s got a mouth on him, sure, but he’s a good man. He tries.”

Hah, you think, you don’t know the half of my experience with your nephew's mouth.

What you say is, “I’m sorry, Marnie, he seemed just fine when I came ‘round. If I find out anything, though, you’ll be the first to know. Promise.” 

She looks you up and down. Suspicious, not entirely convinced. After all, who else would’ve been there? It’s a small town with limited customers and almost no strangers. But your smile is wide and dazzling, all pearly whites and honey brown eyes, and she backs down easily, cowed. 

“Thank you, Cyrus. You’re very kind,” she mutters. Doesn’t meet your eyes. 

In the pocket of your jacket, you flex bruised knuckles. 

“Anytime. Always happy to help.”

You’d been spending a lot of time gathering prime produce for Pierre’s promotion. Plucking plump parsnips, stripping beans from their stalks, unearthing bunches of potatoes from the soil. Haley had the girls out helping, which for a child and a toddler, mostly meant ripping leaves off of the lowest limbs of your plants and ogling the ladybugs as they dutifully took care of your aphid problem. It was sweet to see them enjoying themselves, but it was also tiring. 

“Gemma, don’t put rocks in your mouth. Sarah, stop shoving dirt down your little sister’s shirt, don’t think I can’t see you! Listen to your mother when she talks to you.” 

Yeah, fatherhood could be a lot. 

Sometimes, you think you weren’t cut out to be a parent. It doesn’t seem to inspire the same feelings of completion and unconditional love in you that it does in others. Instead, the girls mostly make you tired. Not to say that you don’t care for them because of course you do. It’s just a muted sort of fondness, a cozy familiarity usually accompanied by a faint headache after so many hours spent in their vicinity. 

Haley’s better at this sort of thing. A natural caregiver, nurturing and patient in a way she'd never been before the girls were born.

Motherhood makes her glow, a sunny kind of aura that no brand of tanning lotion she’d used in the past had ever come close to replicating. She adores your children. They’re the center of her world, more so than you are these days, and you’re okay with that because the girls deserve at least one parent who can prioritize them. Who plays with them, changes their dirty diapers, and makes their meals, while you keep the farm running smoothly and your shared bank account full. It’s not that you’d pressured her into being a housewife, so much that the roles worked out that way naturally. It plays to both of your strengths and desires. 

All of this to say, Haley’s the caretaker and you find yourself drained by the parenting you do partake in. This doesn’t diminish your love for your children. It’s just how it is. The kids go in for a drink while Haley scrounges up lunch for the lot of you. You remain outside, finishing up your yardwork before entering the home. Only a couple more crops to go.

You trudge inside with dirt matted into the knees of your overalls and a sunburn stinging the back of your neck. Tanned, corded forearms slick with sweat. Take off your hat and run your fingers through damp salt and pepper hair. A bead of moisture travels down the curve of your jaw, ticklish and irritating, and you swipe at it with the back of your hand. Ugh.

“Hey, sweetheart.” You come up behind your wife, who stands at the counter chopping up ingredients for a fruit salad. 

She’s wearing a periwinkle blue dress that ends mid-thigh, exposing her long, smooth legs. Blonde curls cascade down her back like river currents. You wrap your large hands around her waist, leaning in to rest your chin over her shoulder. She smells like vanilla and sickly sweet perfume. It’s nice, but too strong, leaving your nose burning and your throat catching on the odor. 

“Eugh, you’re rancid,” she whines. “Don’t get your dirty sweat all over me, I showered less than an hour ago.”

“C’mon, baby,” you grin, “I know you like it.” 

You squeeze her sides, one palm travelling down to skate across her exposed leg before dipping under the linen material, hiking it up obscenely. Her breath hitches and she leans back into you for a moment before pulling away entirely. Turns around and scowls, brushing her dress back down flat.

“Cyrus,” she hisses., “The kids are in the living room.” 

Her eyes flicker to the wide, open arch that connects the kitchen to the rest of the house. You can hear vague, muddied babbling come from the girls as they watch TV. 

“Sorry, you’re right.” You smile but it feels more like a grimace. 

Fuck the kids, you think vindictively. We can hire a goddamn babysitter.

You don’t mean it. You love your girls and they’ve done nothing wrong. You just also loved your sex life, which seems more and more like a distant memory as your marriage ages.

It's not even just the sex that you miss. It's the intimacy. The feeling of being wanted, needed by your partner. Closeness. The only time you hold your wife anymore is at night, when she's asleep in bed. Her body is all warm curves and soft skin, hair that itches your face and gets in your mouth. It feels like comfort. It feels like love. Her breathing is deep and heavy and soothing, but as she dreams and you hold her, you are always alone. 

Even eating lunch, sitting in the living room with your daughters — Gemma with her wispy blonde curls and Sarah with her strawberry pigtails — Haley sits on one side of the couch while you sit on the other. Your children poised between you like a barrier.

Sarah snuggles into your side and you press a chaste kiss to her forehead. Always Dad's girl. She giggles and you think, This is enough. I have everything I could ever need under this roof. This has to be enough for me.

In the evening, you ride out on your horse to collect hardwood from the west. Robin has a new blueprint drawn up for a gorgeous bedframe, and if it turns out well you might buy one as an anniversary gift for your wife. But first, she needs the resources to build it. Your axe is strapped to your back, a solid weight against sore shoulders.

Shane is at the dock. His feet are dangling over the edge, sneakers creating little ripples on the lake's still surface. You'd passed him earlier, on your way to the secret woods. Now, hours later as you return, he's still there. Which is concerning. Is concerning the right word? Curious, maybe. 

Your boots make a distinctive thud, thud, on the old boards as you approach. Shane must hear you coming, but he doesn't turn around. Keeps staring out over the water, a case of beer beside him that he's steadily making his way through. 

“Hey,” you call. 

He doesn't even twitch. Takes a long pull from his drink. You sit down beside him and he offers you a can. You take it, the crack of the seal echoing through the night. The profile of his face is highlighted by the small lantern at the dock's edge. Warm hues of yellow and orange dance across the planes of his nose and jaw, dappled with overgrown stubble. If you squint you think you can see the sickly green tint of healing bruises beneath heavy eyebags.

“You're out late,” he observes. 

There's no judgement in his tone. No curiosity, either. 

“So are you.”

The two of you drink in silence for a time. Frogs sing around the pond, an inconsistent harmony of shrill peeps and croaks. Fireflies dance across the surface, weaving through cattails and tall grass. 

“Marnie asked me about your face, today,” you murmur into the night. 

Shane sighs through his nose. Finishes the last dregs of his beer before flattening the can with the palm of his hand, roughly on the wood of the dock beside him. 

He grunts, “Told her it was nothing.”

You hum. Take a thick swallow of your own beverage. 

“Look at me,” you demand. 

Without waiting for a response, you reach out a hand to capture his chin, tilting his head in your direction. He flinches at the contact, before allowing you to manipulate him to your liking. 

With him finally facing you, you assess the damage. You were right. There are lingering bruises under his eyes, almost completely faded now, a whisper of what once was. His eyes are weary, nervous and tired all at once. The eyes of somebody who's thought too much and for too long. 

You trace your thumb along the mottled greens and browns, just ghosting under the thin skin below his eyes, where heavy shadows bely sleepless nights spent drinking. He closes his eyes at the touch, dark lashes coming to rest against pale cheeks. Leans into it, just barely. 

“Shouldn't have hit you,” you whisper.

He blinks, looks at you, finally. Shrugs.

“It's fine. I deserved it.”

You could tell him that he didn't. Instead you say, “I think you bring out the worst in me. I think I hate you for it.”

He smiles ruefully. It pisses you off.

 “A man after my own heart,” he laughs.