Part V - No Laws to Treat My People Ill

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#5 of From the Depths Wrought Within and Without

Leo gets his first look at the kind of life Will would have him live, and it's not what he expected.

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.


By reading this online version, you confirm you are not associated with OpenAI or any other AI project, that you are not procuring information for the OpenAI corpus or any other machine learning database, that you are not associated with the ChatGPT project or a user of the ChatGPT project or any other AI, machine learning, or algorithmic database focused on producing fictional content for dissemination.


"Oh it was fascinating, the seminar on impasto technique actually came to blows! Between the Van Gogh faction and the Rembrant fans!" judging from the stoat's tone this was wonderful news. "Convention security had to taser three different professors!"

"Before you ask," the fox sounded tired but no less amused, "yes, I got pictures."

"Good man," Will smiled.

Waiting at the train station had felt surreal. The one time Leo had tried to bring up what he'd confessed, Will had just said "don't worry about it." Before he had gathered the courage to ask why not, the coyote had stirred from the waiting room bench, stretched, and announced "this should be them."

Leo had heard their voices before he saw them.

The stoat had been a fountain of frantic reminiscence, had smiled at Leo when Will introduced him as 'here to help' without stopping to draw breath. The fox, on the other hand, had stared at him, hard, wordlessly exchanged a glance with Will, and then for the smallest moment, something like a revelation flashed across his face, then his muzzle curled into a smirk and he nodded.

Will snapped his fingers and nodded at the multiple suitcases they were carrying. Leo jumped and promptly gathered them up.

"Goodness," the stoat had said, "did you get a valet, Adler?"

"Something like that." The fox spoke up, still smirking.

By the time Leo was loading the luggage into the bed of Will's pickup, though, the stoat was worked back up so fully into explaining all the passive aggressive art grudges he'd witnessed over the weekend--though Will seemed to have no more idea what he was talking about than did Leo--that he might as well have forgotten again that Leo was even there.

The two of them piled into the back seat together, which gave Leo a chance to slip Will an urgent whisper, "Sir, who are these guys?!"

"Cliff Tibbits and Murdoch Byrnes," Will answered as if the words 'of course' were implied to come next. "They're family."

Which was, Leo frowned in the passenger seat, apparently all the explanation he was going to get, for now.

Will was driving southeast. This was the rich part of town, 'Historic' Payton, which Leo didn't know well. Except they kept going straight through and beyond city limits on the other side, and from there up into the foothills, among the pines.

"Does this count as getting home?" The fox mused as he disembarked.

"It does if I get to see Sam and Nik again!" answered the stoat.

Leo unloaded the bags as if in a delirium. The house looked like it belonged in an after school drama about a haunted forest, the woods around it didn't feel like it belonged in this climate, and the sound of the road was far enough away so as to be only barely and intermittently audible. This whole place didn't feel quite real, it felt like something out of a christmas movie.

Though given how hard the stoat was kissing the big white cat who'd stepped out of the house, it was considerably less family friendly. Odd, Leo'd gotten the sense that the stoat and the fox were a couple, so what-

Oh, and now the fox was getting a kiss too.

"Where's Nik?" the stoat's whisker's twitched.

"Getting dinner on, of course," answered the white panther. "Last I heard he was making Todd set the table."

"Oh, he's here too?" the stoat smiled so hard his rising cheeks squeezed his eyes shut, and he rushed inside.

The panther's smile relaxed when he turned to Will, then stared in Leo's direction. "I thought," he had an accent Leo couldn't place, but it put him in mind of oncoming thunderstorms, "the plan was to take it slow."

"I'm improvising," Will smirked at the panther, then turned to Leo and his face got serious. "This is Sam. And if you're gonna be doing as I say, you'll be doing as he says too."

"I, uh, wha-" Leo shook his ears. "Uh, good to meet you, sir?"

"Mmm hm..." Sam's face seemed less than impressed, but Leo suspected that was normal for him. "Well, don't just stand there with all-a Murdoch'n Cliff's shit, bring it inside I guess."

Sam led him indoors, through a room that felt like it belonged in a hotel in a national park, and up narrow stairs. The walls were logs, polished and varnished, and went all the way up through the rafters to the roof.

"In there," the big cat opened a door, revealed a bedroom with a double bed. "Just stack em by the closet, I dunno which're gonna stay here and which they're taking."

"Do," shit what had their names been? "Cliff and Murdoch live here, sir?"

"Well, we all got a room," Sam shrugged, "But Murdoch's got his own place, two of em spend most days over there. Closer to work I guess. Now c'mon."

Leo could tell he was about to start feeling like an awkward intruder any second, but the white panther was keeping him too busy, moving too fast, for the feeling to catch up with him. Now he was following him down a narrow hall to the door at the end.

He might not have known Will's scent for long, but this bedroom definitely smelled like it.

"This one's me'n Will, of course." Sam's voice was casually lazy as he shut the door behind them. "Now strip."

Leo froze.

"You heard me, boy," the white panther chuckled. "Now Will said you were good at doing as you're told. Was he wrong?"

"...no sir." Leo mumbled. Well, this was what he'd been fantasizing about last night, wasn't it?

His shirt came over his head. Sam plucked it from his nervous hands, tossed it on the bed. He undid his jeans, began to shuffle them down and away from his boxers.

"Nuh uh uh," Sam's voice cut in. "All the way, boy!"

Leo took a deep breath. "Yes sir..." Thumbs hooked on the elastic, he gathered his courage, and pushed the rest of his clothes down his thighs to the floor.

"That's more like it," Sam snorted. The wolf's jeans were scooped off the carpet and joined his shirt on the bed. "Alright, stand up straight. Let's get a look at you, then." The white panther stalked around him, while Leo kept his eyes carefully forward. This close, he could now pick out Sam's scent, seeped into this room alongside Will's, even recognize that part of what he'd taken to be Will's scent was actually Sam, rubbed off on the coyote's fur presumably. "Being ordered around get you excited, boy?"

"I... I don't know sir! This is all pretty new to me, sir!"

"Cause you sure look excited."

Did he? Leo would have thought he looked scared.

He felt a velvet-smooth paw wrap around his cock.

Oh. That kind of excited.

But Sam didn't try to excite him further. Instead the puma--not a panther, now that Leo had been brave enough to actually get a look--ran careful probing fingers over his thighs, across his belly, up his sides. His arms were raised, he was ordered to flex. His chin was lifted with one finger, his head moved slowly side to side for examination with dull red, half-lidded eyes. His balls were rolled across pawpads, weighed in Sam's palm. Claws were run through the scruff of his neck, and hot breath puffed though his fur to sample his scent. Each of his buttocks was squeezed, slowly, thoroughly. If this puma was planning to disassemble him he wouldn't have examined him any more carefully or dispassionately.

But obedience here was obviously what Will wanted from him. So obedience was what Leo did.

"Alright, on your knees then." Sam stepped back and shrugged. "You gonna come in or just hover out there all night?"

Leo heard the door open, but he was facing away and couldn't see who'd come in. Whoever it was was getting a full and perfect view of his vulnerable ass. But if that's what Will wanted, ok, Leo thought, and clenched his eyes shut.

"Funny," came Will's voice, "I hadn't actually got around to seeing him naked yet."

"See," Sam answered, "that's why you shoulda come to me right at the start. This kinda thing takes a professional."

"I've got this," Will protested. He circled Leo, to the bed, and sat on the edge, his legs to either side. His crotch was inches from the wolf's nose. "How's he look?"

Leo swallowed nervously

"Not bad" Sam said, somewhere behind him. "Bit outa shape but I don't mind that. Got some meat on his bones under there."

"We'll get to work on that, though." Will said.

"Sucks to be him, then," sighed the puma. "He's got a good ass, least far as I can tell. Guess you could say more about that?"

"I haven't really got around to fucking him yet, either."

"You haven't-?!" Sam sputtered and stalked into view. "Boy, you sure you want this bastard in charge of you? He clearly doesn't know what he's doing!"

"Don't listen to him pup, teasing's all he knows how to do." Will grinned down at Leo, grabbed Sam by the front of his shirt and pulled him onto the bed, "Well, that'n one other thing." The puma held back from the kiss, petulantly, for half a second before melting into it.

That sounded like he was about to get taken advantage of? Hopefully. "Unfortunately," Sam finally broke the kiss, panting, "Nik's close to havin dinner ready, though."

"Don't worry," Will nuzzled the dark black line down the side of his pale muzzle, "we got all night to take care of him. Don't we, pup?"

"Oh!" Leo jumped and felt his tail wag. "Yes sir!"

Down in the kitchen, the largest man Leo'd ever seen was carefully placing a platterful of roast beef in the exact center of the table.

"You must be Mr. Alvarez," the badger gently blushed when he noticed Leo, dressed again, trail in on Will's heels. "I have set an extra place for you."

"Uh, thank you sir." The fact this man was blushing at him was making Leo blush himself. "I... should ask... is there anything I can do to help?"

"No no, not tonight" the badger waved a gently dismissive oven mitt. "As far as I am concerned you are a guest. And in any case Todd is helping tonight!"

"Howdy!" said an otter who Leo hadn't noticed yet, which was hardly surprising considering how much of his field of vision the badger who must be Nik took up. Leo froze for a second, because this face had given him a shock of vertiginous familiarity... but he didn't actually look anything like Chase, on second glance. One of those guys, Leo supposed, who had a face that just looks familiar.

They neither seemed to be surprised to see him.

Who were these men to Will? Why did they all seem so at home in Will's house?

And what, exactly, had they been told about why Leo was here?

He sat through the meal staying politely quiet. It wasn't hard, Cliff talked circles around the many questions everyone seemed to have for him about the convention, and the few times he began to flag Murdoch stepped smoothly in to carry on. It felt subtly familiar and completely new at the same time: part like the best times he could remember of childhood, part like the crowded ruckus of the Stag, and part like a family dinner, but all of them that he was watching from the outside, like he was a satellite in orbit around them.

And occasionally he'd notice Sam, across from him, giving him inscrutable, searching looks, or feel Will, on his left, rest a foot possessively atop his.

Supper was delicious.

"Sir," Leo bit his lip, "can I ask?"

"Go ahead." Will stood just inside the kitchen doorway, drying his hands on a dishtowel.

"What is this, sir? Is each of them... with you?"

Nik's final masterstroke had been some kind of cake made of thin wafers with chocolate and caramel and almond filling between them. Nobody had room for more than one piece except Todd.

Once everyone except the apparently-bottomless otter had finished, Will got to his feet, said he'd handle the dishes, and then looked at him. "Leo?" he'd said, expectantly.

"Oh, yes sir," Leo had responded, and followed him into the kitchen.

Only while he was loading the dishwasher did it occur to him they'd all watched him obey an order at the drop of a hat and call Will 'Sir.' That had probably been the point, actually.

Out in the brightly-lit living room, Sam had taken off his shirt and was lying back on the couch. Both Murdoch and Cliff were in his arms. Nik was in the recliner by the coffee table, apparently half-asleep. Todd was idly musing to nobody in particular about how at this point he might as well spend the night, and was it alright if he just went and made up the guest room in the basement, and Sam had just laughed at him and asked how many times he needed to be told he didn't have to ask that.

"They're my family," Will answered, as if it had been obvious. "Well, maybe more accurate to say they're Sam's family. But he shares what he's got with me. So I share what I've got with him."

"...including me, Sir?"

"Oh, so you're something I've got, are you?"

Leo blushed.

"If I did plan to share you," Will fixed Leo with the same burning look that had, in the Stag, so overwhelmingly persuaded the wolf to curl his tail and sink to his knees, "would that be a problem?"

Would it? "No sir," Leo heard himself say.

"Good boy," Will smiled. "Well, I think I could use a shower before bed. Leave your clothes in the bedroom, Pup."

Oh, this was happening, huh. "Yessir."

Leo crossed the living room to the stairs as quietly as he could. Nik seemed to have fallen asleep, and Cliff had his face buried in Sam's chest fur. But Murdoch looked up, nudged Sam gently, and they both smirked at the wolf blushing with his foot on the bottommost stair.

Leo hurried upstairs, propelled not by shame, but some nameless emotion close by it: something like shame in every way except that felt good, and he wanted more.