Change Is Hard 1/1

[savekeating]

Happy holidays one and all! I'd written this months ago, and have given up on it since. Because it was Christmas, I thought I'd take it out again despite it being unfinished and rough (as an excuse to use dreamwidth). It's still unfinished but here it is anyway lol..

Not going to lie, this format is making me intensely nostalgic as I used LJ to post fic back in the day.

Third installment in the "Sweet Darlin' Come Hold Me" series!

---

The bride he buys himself is lovely.

Clyde is struck with awe the first time he sees him. Skin pale as milk, all that red hair. Nothing like he’d ever seen before, with eyes that looked at him with such kindness. Clyde had never intended to marry, but his father’s will materialized shortly after his death and named him its sole inheritor. There were terms that were set that Clyde needed to fulfill in order to provide Mellie and Jim, both betas, a better life. The farm would be his after he married, after he produced an heir. Jim would not have to work at the mines with his bad leg.

But marriage, Clyde is learning, did not suit people like him. Marriage was not a fine pair of boots to wear only on occasion, to be stowed away until the time was right and then worn again to make merry. Marriage was a vocation, with its own wild laws and unspoken treaties. Marriage was waking up in the middle of the night to Stensland’s soft crying, and being ill-equipped to do much of anything but lie there in the dark because his touch would surely repel him. Stensland, who left his life behind and his home to be with Clyde after a few pretty promises.  

Easy enough to love a stranger whose language Clyde barely speaks, and here he is now reaping the rewards of his folly.

Stensland wants a child.

The doctor visits the next fortnight after days of hard rain that turn the ground to slop, a man with a bad slouch and a prim hat, with glasses that peer around like periscopes. He sits Stensland down in the den, checking his pulse, touching the underside of his wrists, the sides of his neck, humming under his breath and taking little objects out of a battered leather suitcase. The man is well into his sixtieth year, with hair as white as tallow, but Clyde still bristles every time he touches Stensland. He tamps down every instinct to growl, mark his territory and feels silly, like a child, as a result when there’s hardly a need to make his presence known. They’re married; the doctor is a beta. And yet.

When he’s dismissed from the room for the more sensitive of tests, he escapes to the back yard and paces the length of the porch. He has a full view of the little garden Stensland had taken upon himself to build, hauling out little rocks every morning, digging the soft earth, cutting his hands on the grass, but it’s been slow-going and there’s hardly anything to see. The soil is unyielding and the buds are slow to appear. Clyde crouches down next to the vegetable plot overrun with weeds and frowns when he finds a slug trudging its way through the murk.

He is called to attention by a knock on the back door: the doctor, waving him over with a genial smile. He’s the best one there is in town, and therefore expensive, and he ducks his head and whispers solemnly in Clyde’s direction as if only he is privy to hear this: “All is well, Clyde. A child should not be impossible if you mate, well, often. You said you’ve been married a year?”

“Yes,” Clyde says.

“You’ve had — intercourse, since then?”

“Of course,” Clyde says, reddening. That first night, after the wedding, and then a few times afterward. Stensland was beautiful, out of his clothes, as well as in them, with long legs and a body as giving as the inside of a fruit. If Clyde was a man with less self-control he would have him whenever he wanted, when he returned from work, after a long day at the farm, or on the slow evenings they kept each other company by the fire, telling stories. He thought about it sometimes, lying next to him at night, watching him sleep, soft with contentment. I could touch him. Berating himself for the stiffening of his cock each time Stensland made a small noise while he dreamt.

“How often?” the doctor probes, and gives Clyde a knowing look that sends his scalp prickling. “It is common among newlyweds, that the omega is not tended to, but not especially after one year of marriage. See that you care for him when his heat comes. Make sure he eats well and has plenty of rest. If the conditions are right, the seed will take and he will be happily pregnant before the end of the year.” He claps Clyde on the back.

Clyde shows the doctor to the door after promising to see him in another month. Stensland is in the kitchen, a piece of paper gripped in his hand. The doctor must have written him a note. A list of food to eat, some instructions: to take a walk, get some exercise, incorporate more greens into his diet. He’s holding the list upside down.

“What did he say?” Clyde asks Stensland who continues to stare at the list without blinking, squinting and tilting his head. He looks up at Clyde, startling, as if noticing his presence for the first time. Stensland is used to being alone by now, Clyde thinks, because he leaves him everyday in this house doing who knew what. Clyde comes home only for an evening meal, a place to rest his head, and if Stensland happens to soften his fall at the end of the day then he must’ve done something right. Still: he doesn’t like leaving Stensland alone, it isn’t safe, there are people out there that could hurt him even in his own house.

But Clyde also has no choice: people will stare at Stensland at the farm, start to talk. Clyde gets enough of that already; he can take the brunt of it.

“The doctor says you should fuck me,” Stensland shrugs, fiddling with the hem of his shirt. He peers up at Clyde through his eyelashes. “Everyday.”

“Stensland,” Clyde says, taken aback.

Stensland shrugs again. “He also said to buy me these.” He hands Clyde the list.

They prepare for dinner. Clyde puts a kettle on the stove for tea while Stensland prepares his stew, his back turned to Clyde. Clyde watches him, and thinks: he looks good like this. His hair swept to the side, getting longer now, his hands moving deftly. Clyde wants to kiss him, his hands, his neck, every part of him Stensland is willing to concede. Wants to kneel down in front of him and press his face to Stensland’s empty belly, and whisper a solemn oath to a god he no longer believes in, should he make a miracle of their marriage and grant them a child.

Dinner is quick and silent, the familiar clink of tableware as they eat and cut their food. Clyde steps outside afterwards to smoke his pipe, a bad habit he’s slow to wean himself off of. He washes for bed, brings a lamp to the bedroom he shares with Stensland and stops abruptly at the doorway, taking him in. Stensland looks up at him calmly from a corner of the bed. Clyde blinks, and then blinks again to make sure he isn’t dreaming.

Stensland is naked, his chin jutting up defiantly. His cock is half-hard against his thigh. He must have been waiting for Clyde for some time because dinner ended over half an hour ago and he’d disappeared after the dishes had been cleared, the chores evenly split between them, Clyde drying the dishes after finishing his tea.

Stensland leans back on the pillows, spreads his knees and lifts his feet off the bed. There is no mistaking his meaning. Clyde can already see where he’s wet, and wonders if he’s touched himself there to make himself so.

Clyde swallows, and stumbles forward on his feet. He doesn’t have to be asked; his body does all the work for him, his hands clumsy when he fumbles his belt open and pours himself on top of Stensland, leaning on his forearms. Even his smell is dizzying. It makes Clyde’s mouth water, and a part of him shudder like a deck of cards about to tumble.

“I want you to take all your clothes off,” Stensland says. He tugs at Clyde’s shirt. “You’re not just going to fuck me and then go to sleep.”

“You say that word a lot,” Clyde tells him, as he sits up and pushes his shirt over his head.

“What word?”

“Fuck,” Clyde says.

Stensland licks his lips. “It’s what we do, isn’t it?”

“We’re married,” Clyde points out. They’ll need a softer word.

“Does it matter,” Stensland says, and his gaze is hard now and stubborn as a newborn elk. “Well, does it?” he asks when Clyde doesn’t answer.

Clyde sets his jaw, swallows his words. He’s always had trouble articulating himself. So much anger, and so much grief after he’d lost his hand in the mines, but ill-equipped to speak any of it, unless softened by liquor. Growing up, he’d always been a quiet child, content to listen and play second in command to his bother. His father thought him simple because of it, he thought Clyde dumb until he presented, unlike Jim, as an alpha.

“The doctor gave me this,” Stensland says, reaching over to the nightstand where a green vial sits, no bigger than the length of Clyde’s thumb. He brings it up to the light, the glass sticky with residue.

“It’s supposed to — help. Make you want me,” Stensland continues. He flushes, and it spreads all the way down to his chest, his small nipples.

“I always want you,” Clyde says, frowning. “Stensland—” He puts a hand on Stensland’s arm but Stensland gives him a look that makes him drop his hand immediately.

Clyde kicks off his trousers, rolls off his socks, everything out of the way till he’s fully bare, hot and hard and pressing against Stensland’s thigh. Stensland’s whole body is warm, pliant for the taking underneath him, and Clyde can smell how wet he is, can feel it against his cock, how easy it will be to push inside him, how willingly Stensland will let him. He wants to — to fuck him, and is ashamed of the animal urgency of it. How rough and primitive it sounds, taking shape in his own head. He doesn’t want to ruin Stensland anymore than he already has, lying sweetly against the pillows where his hair is splayed like a fisherman’s net, reeling Clyde’s fingers, urging him to drown.

Clyde glances down at the vial in his palm. “How—”

“You’re supposed to rub it on me,” Stensland says. “All over me.”

“Where?”

Stensland shrugs, rubbing at his left elbow. “Everywhere, I guess.”

It’s oil, and it warms Clyde’s palms as he glides his hands over Stensland’s ribs. He moves slowly, his pressure firm, his palms steady. Stensland had been a skinny thing before, skittish as a foal, but he’s softer now in places after being well-fed. He’ll need more meat on his bones, though, if he plans on bearing Clyde children. His hips are much too narrow for childbirth.

Clyde moves his hands down to Stensland’s thighs. He huffs when the scent of slick hits him, tightening his jaw to keep his desire-contained.

“You can look,” Stensland snorts, and when Clyde glances at him, he looks almost fond even when he’s rolling his eyes, his gaze half-lidded with lust. “You’re my husband, aren’t you? You don’t have to be afraid of my arse, Clyde. It’s ridiculous.” He nudges his hips forward, opening himself up to Clyde’s questing finger when Clyde rolls his forefinger inside.

It’s a smooth give; Clyde thrusts in to the knuckle with hardly any resistance. Stensland makes a pitiful noise as his cock dribbles a fat bead of precome, his knees kicking apart as he starts pushing back against Clyde’s hand, gripping his wrist, watching Clyde’s finger disappear inside him.

“Move your finger,” Stensland pants. “In and out. Yes, there — that’s it. Yes. Please, just a little to the — yes, yes. Hnggh.” His head thumps back against the pillows, and he bites his lip, worrying it red.

He’s soaking wet when Clyde pulls out his finger, blindly spreading his legs and already greedy for Clyde’s cock. Clyde looks at him, shivering and muggy-eyed, his cock stiff and pink, the same as his nipples, no shame at all despite his nakedness. Clyde can picture his tits heavy with milk, filling out a little, his belly round and ripe with their pups. He’d be beautiful.

Stensland hitches a leg over Clyde’s hip, shivering when the head of Clyde’s cock catches his sopping wet rim. They both groan once Clyde is fully seated, and then Clyde starts to move, gripping the backs of Stensland’s legs, a sure rhythm that has Stensland breathing choppily in no time, murmuring things in another language to himself.

Stensland reaches between their bodies and starts to stroke off and Clyde’s thrusts falter a moment, then another. Stensland freezes, meets his gaze with some measure of embarrassment, but he doesn’t let go of his cock. It’s stiff, smaller and shorter than Clyde’s, but fat and full, slippery at the head. A perfect fit for Clyde’s palm, and Clyde wants to touch it, kiss it, drink it down. But he doesn’t, too afraid to ask and be denied.

“Sorry, I—” Stensland starts to say, looking everywhere but Clyde.

“Do it,” Clyde says. “I want to see it. I want to see you.”

Stensland looks almost frightened at the growl in Clyde’s voice. Clyde doesn’t know where it’s coming from. Maybe the oil, maybe it’s nothing, a fluke. Stensland nods and then starts to pump his little cock indolently and Clyde almost forgets himself, watching with unblinking eyes, the easy movement of Stensland’s wrist, the pink head of his cock peeking through the ring of his fingers. Then Stensland starts rolling his hips in Clyde’s direction, urging him back into motion, grinding hard against his cock to make his needs known.

“Fill me, come on,” Stensland begs, with his cock all wet in his hand, Clyde’s thrusts getting sloppier, faster, creaking the bed. “Get me with child, I want it, please, please. Your come —oh!”

It’s only after that that Clyde remembers to kiss him, delirious with the rush of orgasm. He runs his lips across Stensland’s eyebrows, the side of his cheek, and then his mouth which opens for him as Stensland lifts his arms to receive his weight, their bodies joined by Clyde’s knot.

Stensland makes that same noise that he makes every time Clyde comes inside him, that little shiver of contentment. Clyde slumps on top of him, careful not to bear down with all his weight, leaning on his forearms. He feels Stensland’s legs bracketing his sides, folding over his hips like wings. He’s breathing has settled; Clyde can smell himself on his skin.

“Did the doctor say how often the oil should be used?” Clyde asks, lips moving across Stensland’s neck.

Stensland doesn’t answer for a while, humming drowsily while Clyde sweeps a finger through his fringe. He jerks awake when Clyde kisses his collarbones, sniffing and snorting. “Whu-what?” he says, blinking sleep from his eyes. “Oh, yes, he said to, to,” Stensland yawns, and stretches his upper body and it makes Clyde’s cock stir treacherously where it’s plugged inside him. “Finish the entire bottle. Then, hm, call on him if we need, if we need another one.”

Stensland yawns again, closing his eyes, and when Clyde has fully softened, is asleep completely, his mouth half-open to gentle stores.

 

*

The doctor says Stensland needs tending to and Clyde, he tries his best. He buys everything on the list, makes sure Stensland gets his exercise every morning before he has to leave for the farm. He takes Stensland to town on market day, buys him a small plant in a pot to add to his garden.

He fucks Stensland at least once a week, sometimes more than, depending on whether Stensland seems amenable. Clyde counts the days in his head. Three days, two, one. And likes the routine of it, knowing he has something to look forward to after every few days, a reward for a week’s hard labor. It seems the only place they ever truly understand each other is in bed where words did not exist. Outside of it is only terse silence, uneasy glances.

Clyde has tried to win Stensland’s favor with gifts of sweets and clothing, though Mellie tells him this is not the way. She says to sit him down and talk to him. But about what? Clyde has no interesting stories to tell except that of how he’d lost his hand. Stensland is the one with stories, a smart-mouthed bride who could not cook, who owned a quick tongue, and Clyde worries everyday that he has whittled away into nothing, quiet as a mouse whenever Clyde is around, barely smiling.

He used to think he could make Stensland happy, but now that he knew better, how could he ever? He’d wanted him after seeing only his photograph, after reading his letters written with a clumsy hand. He’d brought him into his house believing Stensland could love him, that he would not look at him with pity the way others did when they saw what happened to his hand. Clyde loves him already, thinking of the shape of him in his bed at night, his red hair and bright laugh. But Jimmy is right; he’s a fool. Love doesn’t come easy and must be earned. Marriage is always a delicate affair.

The house is silent when Clyde is home early one afternoon, still as a specter with Stensland nowhere to be found. Not in any of the rooms, not in the kitchen, not in the garden where he sometimes idled away his time, with his hands buried in the dirt.

“Stensland!”

Only silence, the squawk of birds overhead. Clyde starts to panic, his heart thumping hard in agitation when he calls for Stensland again and receives no response. His mind races with thoughts: has Stensland been abducted? Did he run away? Each one more awful than the last until Clyde finds him, at last, by the stream, lying naked on the moss-covered bank, his eyes closed. The last of the sunset is fading, and still Stensland lies there, drumming his fingers against his pale ribs. He seems to be half-asleep.

Clyde is tempted to for a second to haul him over one shoulder and carry him home like a sack of grain in this state. Stensland’s cock is soft, a tickle of hair ghosting faintly down his belly button, a lighter shade than the one on his head but still visibly orange.

“What are you doing?” Clyde says, and he knows for a fact that he sounds a little angry, a little hurt, but he can’t help himself, he thought someone had taken Stensland and hurt him. He was ready to take up arms.

Stensland blinks at him and sits up. His clothes are folded in a corner: shoes, socks, trousers, shirt. His hair is wet, plastered against the sides of his face. He regards Clyde with sleepy eyes.

“Swimming,” he says, as if that answers it. “Having a think. What else?”

“It’ll be dark soon,” Clyde tells him. This is true; Clyde had looked everywhere for him for more than an hour, short of bursting into town and knocking on neighbor’s doors.

Stensland starts putting his clothes back on starting with his socks, lifting his foot in the air as he reclines on the grass, then the other foot next, wiggling his toes. There’s a hole in the toe in one of the socks, needing mending. Or Clyde could buy him a new pair; it’s been months since he bought him new clothes.

“Are you afraid of a little darkness, Clyde?” Stensland asks, when he finishes, standing to his full height, hands on his hips. 

“You know what I mean,” Clyde says. “It’s cold at night. The doctor said—”

“I don’t care about the doctor,” Stensland interrupts, in his shirt now which is hastily buttoned up, showing gaps of skin. He grabs his trousers and folds it over one arm, and Clyde expects him to start walking home but he takes a different path ahead, up the steep embankment to a narrow clearing, nimble-footed, like he knows his way around it.

“Stensland, would you mind putting your pants back on?” Clyde says, following after him, glancing away when Stensland gives him a glimpse of his pale ass more than once. He’s seen it a number of times before, in several capacities, but it seems obscene this way, to ogle him while he walks trouser-less about, silly too.

“Why?” Stensland asks. “Because you said so?” He casts Clyde a sly look over his shoulder, his face falling when Clyde frowns back in confusion.

“I was just—” he says and stops. “Sorry, never mind.”

“Stensland,” Clyde tries again, walking ahead of him to grab him by the elbow and turn him around. Stensland’s cheeks are flushed, but he’s not drunk, Clyde would know if he fumbled with the lock on the liquor cabinet, would smell it on him, would taste it on his tongue. But he’s not, his eyes are glassy, but he hasn’t had a drop of alcohol.

“I thought someone had taken you away,” Clyde says. “Or that you’d left.”

“But where would I go?” Stensland asks with a short, bitter laugh, batting at the hand Clyde brings to his face. “Home? Back to Ireland?” He shakes his head, turns away. “I’m sorry I worried you. I know I shouldn’t have left. I’m bored, I think. And I get — bad when that happens.”

“Bad?” Clyde repeats. He doesn’t know what Stensland means.

Stensland huffs, says a word in a language Clyde doesn’t understand and clenches his fists. “Argumentative, unruly, a right pain in the arse. It’s— I come out here, to think, when you’re away. I like the quiet, it’s different. The house scares me sometimes, it makes noises when I’m alone, when you’re not there.”

Clyde doesn’t understand. “You want to leave?”

“No,” Stensland says, and makes that noise again, saying that word. “Clyde! Fuck! Just — forget it, forget I said anything and let’s just go home.”

“If something’s bothering you, you should tell me,” Clyde says, and there it is, that sudden rise in his voice. Clyde rarely gets angry, and he tells himself that he’s not, that he’s frustrated, not livid because Stensland deserves only kindness though sometimes he can be stubborn as hell, testing even the patience of a saint. Clyde’s given him everything he thought he could ever want, fed him, clothed him, put a roof over his head, bought him pretty trinkets at the county fair, but he’s not happy, he never will be, not when Clyde is the source of his misery.

“And you would what, wave your cock in my face and make it all go away?” Stensland pushes away from him, marching ahead where the sugar maples grow low to the ground. “It’s not that simple. You wouldn’t want to hear any of it.”

“Why wouldn’t I? I’m your husband, Stensland.”

“A fact you never fail to remind me of, every single day.” Stensland shrugs off his hand when Clyde reaches over to touch his shoulder. “Like, like it’s your duty to fuck me, to get me with child. Do you always do what you’re expected, what you’re told?”

Clyde looks at him, holding his gaze for a beat and then another. This is not the first time they’ve argued, but this is the first time he’s hearing any of this from Stensland who often falls quiet in the evenings unless Clyde makes him noisy with his cock.

“No one expected me to marry you,” Clyde says. “No one told me to neither, but here we are now.”

“I’m not stupid, Clyde,” Stensland says, “I know about your inheritance.”

“What difference does it make, Stensland,” Clyde argues. “I want you. I chose you. Isn’t that enough?”

“You hardly even know me,” Stensland says, barking out a laugh. “Do you know what my favourite color is?”

“What?”

“Well, do you?” Stensland presses, his lip twitching.

“I think that’s hardly fair, Stens.” Clyde doubts Stensland even knows his.

“Don’t call me that.”

“What?”

“Stens. No one’s ever called me that. So don’t.”

“All right then,” Clyde grunts. “I’m sorry. I won’t call you that again.”

“Good! Because you shouldn’t!” Stensland says, his voice a high-pitched trill, his eyes wild, as he jabs a finger into Clyde’s chest over and over that it actually starts to hurt. Clyde can smell arousal on his skin like a fine layer of sweat and he responds to it, blindly, dumbly, like a moth to a flame, wrapping a hand around Stensland’s wrist to still him, staring down at his hardening cock, a blushing pink. It’s lovely, just like the rest of him, equally angry.

Stensland meets Clyde’s gaze squarely, daring him to say something.

“Turn around,” Clyde says to him, nudging him at the hip. “Hug that tree and bend over. I’ll take care of it.”

“There’s nothing to — what, oh, oh fuck, oh, ah, ah,” Stensland moans when Clyde breaches him in one smooth thrust after discovering that he’s already wet, that he needs tending to, in this way, just like the doctor said he would. Stensland drops his head, bending his body forward in a beautiful arc. He lifts his hips to take every thrust, whining each time Clyde’s balls slap his ass, so easy to make him pliant as long as he gets what he wants in the end, stubborn, and greedy, all the things that Clyde likes so much about him, that make him his.

“Yes, yes, just like that, fuck me, fuck me,” Stensland babbles, reaching behind him to grab Clyde’s hip, yanking him deeper. He’s slick, and tight, perfect like a warm snug glove that curls around Clyde’s cock like home. And then it’s over, and they’re both coming, stuck to each other in the middle of the woods at night, with only the moon to illuminate their way, breathing heavy.

Above them, an owl hoots from its high perch in the trees. Stensland groans and tries to stand, thinks the better of it and then hugs the tree in front of him instead, resting his forehead. Clyde is breathing hard against Stensland’s neck, his heart beating fast, about to jump out of his skin. “Did I hurt you?” he asks. He would have left bruises on Stensland’s hips from how hard he’d been clutching them, not today but tomorrow, when enough time has passed, the skin rising purple in the shape of fingers.

Stensland says nothing for a moment, scratching his thigh where a mosquito has bitten him, rubbing his chest and widening his stance to sit comfortably around Clyde’s knot. “You never hurt me,” he says. “You couldn’t even hurt a fly.”

Stensland chuckles, but that isn’t true at all; Clyde once sent a man to the hospital after he called his sister names. He got into fights as a young boy, all for Jimmy, all in the name of family, and had stolen and lied and threatened a man’s life after he almost swindled his family out of their fortune.

Clyde was slow to anger, but he wasn’t a coward, he’d fight tooth and nail to protect what was dear to him.

“What now?” he asks, when he means to ask: what do you want, tell me and I’ll give it to you.

“Now we wait,” Stensland sighs, his whole body shivering, all the way down to the tailbone where Clyde feels it because they’re connected. “Then after, after, we go home,” he says.

*

The market is bursting with people, shouts erupting from every corner with hawkers trying to sell their wares. Stensland walks past crates of fruit and tables full of soft smelly cheeses, honeyed bread with crenelated peaks, and rows and rows of succulent tomatoes, products of the season’s harvest. Clyde walks behind him, giving him a wide enough berth while keeping him in his periphery. He wants to grant Stensland the freedom to walk around as he pleases, touching things and smelling them, picking them up only to put them back down, always with an eye out for things that shone or sparkled.

Stensland has a basketful of assorted bric-a-brac by the time they make it to the end of the street, heavy and bursting, but it isn’t until he stops abruptly in front of a pair of bleating goats that he seeks Clyde’s gaze in the crowd and beckons him over excitedly, waving in the air.

“I want one,” he tells Clyde, pointing at the animal chewing cud. Stensland bites his lip. He flashes Clyde a hopeful grin.

“You want,” Clyde says slowly, trying his best not to do anything suspect with his face. The goat bleats once, at him. “A goat.”

Stensland nods, determined. Clyde can see his hands twitching, wanting to reach out and touch.

“For eating?”

His smile drops. “For playing. As a pet. A friend. Something to care for.”

“We have a few of them, at the farm,” Clyde says, completely baffled. “I could show you, bring one home for you if you want.” 

“But I don’t want the ones from the farm,” Stensland says. “I want my own.”

He meets Clyde’s inquisitive gaze.

So: a goat it is. They bring it home on the back of a cart, and Stensland tethers it to the tree in the yard after naming it William and patting its dirty head. “Billy, for short,” he says, watching raptly as the goat chewed on a blade of grass. Billy is docile, staring at nothing in particular while ignoring Stensland’s petting hand before wandering off to the other side of the tree to graze.

“Billy the goat,” Stensland says with a happy little noise and a laugh. “We’ll be such good friends. Don’t you think?” He turns to Clyde.

“Sure,” Clyde says dryly. “I suppose he can protect you while I’m away and all that.”

“He’s a beautiful boy,” Stensland sighs, ignoring the teasing. He lifts a hand in Clyde’s direction, a cue for Clyde to pull him off his knees from the dirt and back to his feet. “Should we leave him out there in the dark?” he asks later, peering out the window after dinner, after Clyde has smoked his pipe and they’re both preparing for bed, washing their faces in the basin in front of the mirror, Clyde combing out his hair.

“We can bring him inside,” Clyde shrugs, “But he’ll shit on everything.” 

“Maybe not, then,” Stensland says thoughtfully. He pulls on his night clothes and Clyde does the same, pointedly not looking over his shoulder until Stensland is ready and fully clothed, a short time later when the sound of rustling has ceased. When Stensland finishes dressing, and Clyde can finally look, Clyde turns and finds Stensland standing there with an unreadable expression on his face, the ties of his nightshirt haphazardly fastened. This is how most of his deeper fantasies begin.

“You have a scar,” Stensland says, before he remembers to blink. “Right there, across your back — I’ve never seen, what happened?”

Clyde buttons up his shirt with quick efficient fingers. He hates staring more than anything; it’s even worse when people stare at the hand. “Accident,” he says briskly, and seats himself on his side of the bed, hoping that would be the end of it, that Stensland won’t pry any further. He picks up the comb from the nightstand, patting the empty space next to him, best to divert the conversation altogether. “Do you want me to? Your hair?” he finishes, clumsy with his words as always. He keeps his jaw locked.

Stensland had asked him to do it, more frequently in the recent days, claiming it helped him sleep at night and warded away any bad dreams. His hair is longer now, a mess, curling around his jaw and hiding the sleek line of his neck. Clyde strokes the topmost knob of his spine, peeking above the low collar of his nightshirt, stopping himself when Stensland starts to shiver.

When Clyde runs the comb through Stensland’s hair in rough passes, Stensland tilts his head back in Clyde’s hands and closes his eyes. His throat bobs as he swallows, sat between Clyde’s legs, sandwiched between his thighs. Clyde is careful not to press forward. He doesn’t want Stensland to think he only has one thing on the mind, even though he’s just a man and Stensland keeps shifting against him, brushing his ass against Clyde’s crotch.

“I need to wash my hair soon,” Stensland murmurs, as Clyde works to untangle a small knot.

Clyde could do it for him, but he doesn’t ask. It seems like one of those things Stensland often says without meaning to, without expecting a reply. Clyde listens to him talk, first about the things he bought that day at the market that could he thought could help his garden thrive, then about how they’re running low on that special doctor’s oil, and how he wants to take Billy for a walk down the stream the next day. Clyde puts down the comb after he finishes with Stensland’s hair, leaning back on his good hand and admiring his handiwork. He wants to kiss Stensland’s neck, but it would be sorely out of character, especially since he only allows himself to be affectionate after he’s come, when he doesn’t have to think about acting out of turn.

Stensland flits a nervous glance over his shoulder. “I don’t want to—” He swallows, curling and uncurling his fists in his lap. “Not tonight. But tomorrow, we could try again.”

Clyde nods, understanding. He settles in for sleep, rolling onto his side to face the wall, about to snuff out the lamplight. He turns when he feels a tap on his shoulder, sees Stensland’s flushed face and asks him what’s wrong.

“Nothing,” Stensland says. “Nothing is wrong. It’s just that — you always do that. You never — look, come here.” He pulls Clyde to him, guiding Clyde’s arm to wrap around Stensland’s shoulder so Stensland could lay his head on Clyde’s chest. His hair smells tangy, sharp, laced with a whiff of sweat.

Stensland reaches out, stroking the blunt end of Clyde’s wrist where his hand used to be, his touch tentative. The stitches had been crude, leaving ugly scars in their wake but Clyde is used to it, he isn’t vain. Still, when Stensland runs a finger up Clyde’s forearm, tracing the remnants with a curious sound Clyde tries his best not to abruptly pull away. He still has dreams about losing his hand. Sometimes he wakes and expects it to be there, a part of him still, the muscle alive.

Stensland pillows his head against Clyde’s chest, running his thumb across the healed skin in absent little swipes. Clyde is waiting for him to say something, anything, holding his breath for the inevitable, and is strangely relieved when Stensland keeps silent, fighting off a yawn as his eyes start to droop and he murmurs an unintelligible good night.

His head is a comfortable weight on Clyde’s chest, and Clyde is asleep too before long, following after him.

*

“How long do you think,” Stensland asks one day, “before I’m pregnant?”

Clyde looks up from his newspaper. Stensland’s glum face peers up at him, his arms folded on the table. He’s been restless as of late, despite having Billy for company, asking Clyde when he can take him to the market again.

Stensland licks jam off his upper lip when Clyde continues to stare without blinking. He sighs and lolls his head on the table.

“It’s only been a few weeks,” Clyde points out. “Maybe it needs more time.”

“Maybe,” Stensland says, though he doesn’t seem convinced. He scratches at a spot on the table, wearing a groove with his fingernail.

Clyde turns his attention back to his newspaper.

“I was thinking,” Stensland begins, a long drawn out pause following before he continues with the thought, “that maybe Billy needs a companion.”

Clyde’s eyebrow lifts despite his best efforts. “Another goat.”

“Yes,” Stensland grins, sheepish. Though he seems rather pleased with himself. “To keep Billy company.”