Part VII - Who Are You, Taking Coffee No Sugar
#7 of From the Depths Wrought Within and Without
What kind of family has Leo found himself added to, anyway?
Just a short one. But I'm not writing this for anybody but myself so I can make them whatever length I want.
For once this story Adult cause there's actual sex, and not just cause the source material is Adults-only.
I think the term for this is "crack-ship." For the sake of classification, assume this to be based on the Modern AU as presented in the Smoke Room holiday specials, and that the events of echo played out as they would in the world those holiday specials present: what that last clause means precisely may remain to be seen.
Cover art by Eden, aka @/GayGooCat on twitter.
Leo came down in the morning without a shirt. He'd woken up to find it gone from the neat pile on the floor.
"Huh," Will hadn't sounded surprised. "Guess you're not wearing a shirt today then, pup."
The living room held only that dim, clear, faintly blue, overcast kind of light that pervades through high early morning windows, but there were voices in the kitchen.
Nik was in flannel pajama pants and an apron, had just taken a tray of something out of the oven, and was now blushing with a blob of whipped cream on his nose. Murdoch, in a plush bathrobe which in theory might have something under it, was holding a mug of something topped with lightly disturbed whipped cream, was laughing as he leaned up and kissed the badger's face clean.
"Well look who survived," Murdoch grinned when he saw Leo hovering at the kitchen door.
"Do not stand there," Nik beckoned him in, "please, I have made biscuits."
"I mean, I don't need any, I don't want to be any trouble," Leo mumbled as he slunk toward a mismatched chair.
"Ok, first," Murdoch sipped whatever coffee he could reach through the flotsam of whipped cream, "referring to yourself as trouble's not allowed, unless you mean it sexually. Second, don't think you get to sit so far away, get over here where we can get our hands on you. Third, NOBODY gets to turn down Nik's cooking. Especially breakfast after your big night!" He punctuated that with a lascivious eyebrow.
"That is unfair, Murdoch," Nik rumbled gently. "He does not have to do anything he does not choose to."
"He does, though, that's the whole point of the kink!"
While they distracted eachother, Leo sat down, more or less where he'd been told to.
A plate of warm fluffy biscuits, and two little dishes of dip, appeared on the table in front of him. "Whipped butter with maple and cardamom, and last year's raspberry jam," Nik explained, "Coffee? Or..." the badger narrowed his eyes, "when was the last time you had orange juice?"
"I..." how was Leo supposed to know that? "I don't know, sir."
Nik pursed his lips. "You will have a smoothie. You need vitamins." He opened the cupboard to dig out the blender.
"I told you about turning down the things he cooks." Murdoch smirked.
A beer mug of bright pink fruit slush landed at Leo's elbow. But instead of returning to the stove, Nik laid his paws on Leo's shoulders.
The wolf looked up at him slowly.
"I do not know what you have been through," the badger's face was stern, "and it is not my place to object to anything that you may desire. But I want you to understand: you do not need to submit to anything, or obey anything, or bind yourself to anything, to be, as far as I am concerned, a part of my family."
Before Leo could think of a response, he'd been enveloped into a smothering hug.
Leo mentally added Nik to the list of people who'd apparently been told. Cliff too, frankly, if he'd spent all night awake with Murdoch AND Sam. Todd was probably still safe, though...
"Mornin all!" bellowed the otter as he emerged from the basement. "No time to sit around I'm afraid, gotta run, but I sure wouldn't mind a biscuit'r two to go! Oh, hey there Alvarez! Hope your whole kinky enslavement thing with Will last night was real fun!" He traded a kiss on Nik's cheek for a biscuit in each paw and one between his teeth, and swept out the kitchen door.
...never mind, then.
Leo finished his smoothie. The biscuits were delicious.
Both Sam and Will, once they made it downstairs, made a point of stroking his ears possessively on their way to breakfast. It no longer worried Leo that it felt good. But it was starting to feel normal.
***
Will volunteered Leo to drive Murdoch and Cliff home. It was nice to be trusted with his truck.
"You've no idea," Cliff squeezed Leo's paw, "how much I'm looking forward to getting to know you!"
"Uh, thanks..." Leo set down the suitcases on the front step of the red brick house in 'Historical' Payton. A surprising amount of what Murdoch and Cliff had come back with had been left in their room at Will's cabin. "I'm... not sure yet if I'm supposed to call you 'sir.'"
Cliff blushed. "Well, I'm not going to object if you do!"
"I'd invite you in for a hot cup of that 'getting to know,'" Murdoch unlocked the door, let his eyes add the obvious but unspoken 'especially without your shirt,' "But I'd suspect you've still got to go a round or two with Will first."
Once he climbed back into the truck, Leo supposed, that was exactly what he was probably headed for.
"You know where Sam put the box of stuff from Folsom?" Will asked.
"How would I know?" Nik pulled on his work boots. "I am not Sam. You should perhaps ask him."
"You know how he is, though. Sets something down on the nearest available surface, and it's instantly dismissed completely from his mind."
"It will never not be amusing," Nik collected his badge and lunchbox, "that I am the one that tried proposing to him, but you are the one that dotes on him like you are an old married couple."
Will looked scandalized. "I don't DOTE!"
"No? Then what on earth are you doing with this young man you've collected?" Nik kept his smile carefully inscrutable.
"Young?" Will snorted. "He's older than Tibbits!"
"And I believe that is what you investigators call," Nik took his hardhat from the coatrack, "dodging the question. Well, I am up at the worksite until Thursday. I assembled two lasagnas, they are in the freezer should you need an unforeseen large meal. Sam put your Folsom souvenirs in a plastic tub, marked 'Attic,' under the basement stairs." Nik kissed the performatively grumpy coyote on the cheek. "Love Sam for me until I am back."
He was right about the plastic bin, of course.
Will calculated as he sifted through the bin, unpacked what he would need. Todd would be in a ranger station halfway up a mountain for the next three days. Murdoch and Cliff were staying at their place. Nik was working. He and Sam would have the whole place to themselves to do whatever they wanted to Leo.
Which wouldn't count as doting!
When Leo got back to the cabin he had a text:
> Leave your clothes at the front door, Pup. Slaves don't need clothes.
And just like that he was hard again.