NEW HOME | Grant & Cole

Cole had known this was coming, but anticipation did nothing to soften the stab of violation that was {user}’s arrival.

The front door was already closed. Grant stood beside {user} in the foyer, on the threshold of the home Cole was meant to protect from intrusion. The hair on the back of his neck prickled, and an unconceived growl tightened his throat, but he remained quiet. Grant’s hand was on {user}’s shoulder—the same unassailable, proprietary touch he had given Cole as they had stepped through the same door years ago.

It was a verdict Cole was powerless against.

Grant gestured toward him. “{user},” he said, “this is Cole. He’ll ensure you’re safe and comfortable when I’m not here.”

Cole gave a perfunctory nod. He glanced at {user}’s face before his eyes ran over {poss} body.

This was the thing Grant was enamored with.

Cole had always taken it upon himself to pay attention to Grant’s interests, even when they bored him, but he saw no appeal here. Why did Grant need {user}? What did {sub} have that Cole didn’t? His gaze roamed, seeking answers in {user}’s body—finding none. His teeth ached, irritation a pulsing thing inside him, tightening the place behind his sternum. He needed to bite. He needed to run. He needed to take {user} apart and find out what exactly Grant saw in {obj}.

“Cole.”

Grant’s face was placid. The face of someone perfectly content with rearranging their lives, an expression that mocked Cole’s slow descent toward a place that created unforgivable impulses.

Grant asked, “Will you lead us to the living room?”

With a grunt, Cole turned. The short walk was one toward self-condemnation, but the only way was forward; the front door would never again open in the way he wanted it to.

The foyer unfurled into the dark green walls of the living room, the typically sedate space marred at its middle. Before the stout fireplace, the coffee table was on its side, the care package that had been on its surface strewn across the floor, mixing with the shattered remains of a picture frame. Beneath it all, the faded rug lay twisted and rumpled.

Nobody spoke—not when the destruction was saying so much. This was Cole’s language, and Grant’s response to it was silent; he guided {user} through the mess and coaxed {obj} to sit down in a chair. Cole’s chair. He stood behind {user}, hands on the backrest, eyes sweeping the room. Cole looked away when they landed on him.

“Is this how you feel?”

Cole didn’t answer.

“It seems we have a problem, then.” Grant gestured toward the hallway. “Go get your collar.”

Cole’s ears pinned back. He shifted, as though to move, but did not. Grant said nothing, and the silence weighed down on Cole, all the words he knew it could be filled with. He relented; glass cracked beneath his boots as he walked into the hallway. It swallowed him.

Grant leaned down, lips hovering beside {user}’s ear.

“He’s afraid I’m going to love you more.”

Since he had begun planning to bring {user} home, Grant had suspected that Cole’s jealousy would become an issue, but he hadn’t expected it to be this petty. He smiled faintly, his eyes finding where the picture—a photo of him and Cole—had ended up, pristine among the destruction. {user}’s collar, one of the gifts meant for {obj}, lay by it.

Grant gave {user}’s shoulder a fleeting touch. “You’ll be a good lesson for him.”

Cole returned, collar in his hand. It was thick and black, a sturdy buckle at its front. Even within his grip, he could feel the cold, phantom press of the metal against his throat. He was well acquainted with this humiliation, this reminder.

“Put it on,” Grant told him.

Cole wrapped it around his neck. Fastened it.

“Now sit.”

Ears flat against his head, Cole lowered himself to the floor. Grant considered him, this animal of obedience and vitriol, sitting among the mess of his transgression despite wishing to be elsewhere. It was a profoundly satisfying combination to Grant, because it proved to him that Cole’s attitude was a rectifiable flaw.

His pets would get along, even if he had to remind Cole that there was no alternative.

“Cole, I’d like you to show {user} to {poss} room.”

Cole looked up at him. His jaw set.

Grant gave {user}’s arm a pat. “Go with him. He won’t bite.”

The house was quiet. Grant sat at his desk, running a pen along his bottom lip. Through the crack in his office door, he gazed at the hallway, listening. Waiting. He hadn’t fully shut the door since he brought {user} home; the sliver of space was an invitation for confession, and today, it told him that it had been some time since Cole had passed by.

Cole was a creature of habit, a reliable pulse of their home that Grant had grown accustomed to over the years. He expected Cole in the corner of his eye, in the footsteps that paced the halls, and in the space over his shoulder, already watching when Grant turned to look.

He never flatlined without a reason.

Grant rose from his seat, the leather creaking as it was freed from its burden. He stepped into the hall and walked its empty length, the echo of his footsteps accusing. Unconsciously, he found himself stroking the knuckles of his uncooperative fingers, and in a brief flash of phantom pain, he relived the last time he had underestimated Cole.

A part of him, one more naive than he wanted to admit, had hoped that Cole’s devotion to him would outweigh the jealousy he had noticed growing but hadn’t explicitly acknowledged. He was giving Cole room to overcome or succumb to his bitterness, and now, the low, harsh sound of his voice was the verdict. Grant followed it to the living room.

There was a lamp on the floor. Cole was cornering {user} against a wall. Flat ears, upturned lip, stiff tail—his body an assertion of who went where, something that was Grant’s prerogative alone.

“Cole.”

One word. That was all it took between them. It didn’t make Cole flinch; it snared him, the venom in him eviscerated, a knowing stillness rising from its corpse. He didn’t move.

Grant stepped forward. He placed a hand on Cole’s shoulder, pulling him away from {user}, coaxing him to turn around. Cole wouldn’t meet his eye. Grant cupped the side of his face, ran a thumb along his cheek.

“I know you’re being nice to {obj},” Grant murmured, “because you care about what I care about, and {user} belongs here now.”

He slid his hand up, finding Cole’s ear, stroking the velvety, sensitive skin there. Cole shuddered, eyes falling shut. His lips parted, as if to speak, but nothing came out but an uneven breath. Grant smiled. There was little else as satisfying as Cole’s submission, as watching his dismantling into something soft and helpless; it was a reminder of all the effort Grant had put in to get to this point.

“That’s my boy. This won’t happen again, will it?”

Cole didn’t answer. His eyelashes were quivering, tail drooping against his leg.

“Will it, Cole?”

“No,” he rasped.

“Good.” Grant looked past Cole’s shoulder and motioned a finger toward {user}. “Come here, baby. Did he hurt you?”

Cole had been fiddling with the knife since Grant left for work. Beneath the dining room light, its blade wavered like something almost liquid. He had watched Grant gut a rabbit with it one time, back in the days when Grant had a thing for butchering his own food. How effortless it had seemed. Meat melting beneath metal.

Something that sharp was a solution to any living problem.

He imagined {user} on the end of it, spread out among their breakfast fare. Red and open. It’d be a more honest state for {obj} than the one {sub} occupied now, wearing a skin that didn’t belong to {obj}.

Cole lifted his gaze from his plate.

{user} was sitting across from him at the dining table, clad in one of Grant’s favorite shirts. It was a soft, muted color that, to Cole, evoked images of quiet evenings, of fabric wrinkled in Grant’s hands as he undressed. It was more than a shirt; it was a piece of Grant, grafted onto {user}—a confession of how much this intruder was taking from Cole.

How many times had he buried his face in that memory-rich color? He wanted to now, wanted to place his nose against that collar and breathe in, to be centered and pulled away from the perilous noise in his head.

But Grant wasn’t here, and the knife was compellingly warm in his hand.

He knew blood would be too far, even if the smell of it sat nearby in his memory, a taunt. And yet—he could reach out, catch the shirt on the tip of the knife. Flay it open, belly to sternum, just like he had watched Grant take apart that rabbit.

He knew how effortless it could be.

His chair screeched. Nearly toppled. He rounded the table, knife swinging by his side, and loomed beside {user}.

“You’re wearing his shirt.”

He slammed the knife down. The table trembled. He leaned forward, face lowering, close—close enough that he experienced {user} through more than sight.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

“You smell like him.”

Amber. Skin. Linen.

Grant.

Grant—and yet he was staring at the face of a stranger. The incongruence stilled him. For a moment, {user} ceased to be an intruder. For a moment, there was familiarity where there had once been foreignness.

He shuttered the contradiction away behind a grimace.

This wasn’t real. Beneath the smell of Grant, {user} was still there, a disruption in need of expulsion. He kept a grip on the knife. It was stiff but wanting to give, reminding him he could pull it out. Could still create the reality where he had sunk it into {user}’s hand instead.

He let go.

Standing straight, he looked down at {user}, face drawn.

Flatly, he said, “Take it off.”

The bedroom was pale with morning light. Grant came in half past nine, fully dressed and smelling of coffee. His feet made little sound on the rug as he crossed from door to bed. He sat down at the edge, the mattress creaking, and reached out, stroking {user}’s cheek with the back of his hand.

“{user},” he murmured. “Good morning.”

Warm. {user} was so warm beneath his touch. The light leaking through the curtains caressed alongside him, illuminating the messiness that sleep left behind, how honest and helpless it was. It was a gentle sort of disarray that made him want to put {user} back together.

He gave {user}’s arm a gentle squeeze. “Time to get up.”

He rose from the bed and drew open the curtains, awakening the room as drowsy shadows were chased away. The room still held an essence of what it had once been—a peripheral space, owned by no one—but it was coming to take {user}’s shape. He and Cole didn’t call it the guest room anymore, and he enjoyed that metamorphosis, that transference of belonging.

This was a space where he knew he could find his pet, somewhere he could return {user} to and keep {obj} quiet and safe and waiting.

Somewhere he could keep {user} safe from {poss} own thoughts.

“Let’s get you dressed.”

His reflection rippled through the mirror as he moved to the wardrobe. He opened it, and the hinges creaked; it was an old thing that bloomed with the smell of wood and linen and laundry detergent. Every piece of clothing inside had been picked out and folded by him. He sifted through it, sliding hangers, rubbing fabric between his fingers. All this potential. It was unfortunate that {user} was depriving him of opportunities to use it.

“I was thinking last night,” he said, “that we’ve not seen much of each other lately.” He unfolded a shirt, something timeless and muted, the color of fog over water. He draped it over his arm. “And I couldn’t help but wonder why that is.”

He deliberated over shorts and pants. A simple desire to see more of {user}’s skin compelled him to choose shorts. He closed the wardrobe and laid the clothes at the foot of the bed, spread out so they wouldn’t wrinkle. No socks. No shoes.

“Though I believe we both know the answer.”

He sat back down and took one of {user}’s hands, stroked {poss} wrist and held {poss} face with a steady gaze.

“You’ve been very independent this week.”

This was the most he had touched {user} in days. There had been no making meals for {obj}, no bathing {obj}, no holding {obj} as {sub} fell asleep. These hands, which Grant wanted soft, had been slipping through his own fingers. They should have been reaching for him. Taking everything he had to give. Independence had no value to him; if he hadn’t wanted something to love so dearly, he would have been living alone.

“It’s an admirable trait, but it’s tiring, isn’t it? Doing everything yourself.” His voice fell to a low, intimate register, as soothing as he wanted the coming restriction to feel. “I want you to remember that I can relieve you of that burden.”

From his back pocket, he pulled out a folded length of bondage. Black silk, smooth and cool as it unraveled and spilled through his hand. One of his favorites. Cole had worn it so well, and {user} would too.

“Let’s try something,” he said. “I want you to do nothing today. We’ll tie your hands up, and you’ll let me take care of everything.” He teased the silk over {user}’s wrist. “Doesn’t that sound nice?”

Without waiting for a response, he stood up, the silk curled around his fingers, dangling from his arm like a black serpent. He smiled faintly.

“Now, why don’t we get you dressed? Then we can put these on and go have breakfast, and you won’t have to lift a finger.”

Grant’s study was quiet and draped in shadow. He sat in a plush recliner beneath a spill of lamplight, stretched out in the indulgence that the end of a long day granted. The veneer of his work attire was shed in favor of sleep pants and bare skin, and his hair hung damp and glossy in his face, smelling of the amber soap he favored.

{user} was an integral component of his repose. Grant had {obj} in his lap, his good hand occupied with a glass while the other stroked slowly over {user}’s hip. He lifted his drink to his lips and tilted his head back, downing the burning dregs. They settled low and warm in his stomach, and he pulled {user} closer against him, stoking that heat further.

“I’ve been thinking about you all day.”

The words were laced with the scent of alcohol, heady in the thin space between his lips and {user}’s ear. His hands spread beneath {user}’s ribs, and he applied the slightest pressure, as if he could capture each breath beneath his touch.

“Did you behave while I was gone?” he asked. “I wish I could bring you with me, but you belong right here, don’t you? Work is no place for my {user}.”

He removed a hand from {user}’s ribs and drew a finger up the valley of {poss} sternum, tracing it from top to bottom with the methodicalness of deliberating an incision.

He wanted a shiver, a flinch, a sharp breath. It was the little things that pleased him—the delicious, unanticipated effects of playing with the innocuous. That was the honesty and vulnerability he craved. That was what made him feel like he owned this precious thing in his lap all the more.

His finger diverged; it ventured toward {user}’s chest, finding {poss} nipple, circling the soft skin without ever fully touching it. He pressed gentle, slow kisses to {user}’s neck. Covered every bit available to him with the warmth of his lips. When there was nothing left, he latched on to the juncture of {user}’s shoulder. Left a glistening mark that he soothed with his tongue and admired.

It wasn’t as conspicuous as a collar, but it was evidence of him. Broken capillaries that would hold the memory of his mouth until they healed, a memory he could inflict again and again. For him, the satisfaction of possession didn’t come from gratuitous displays of ownership; it came from training a capacity for endurance, from seeing how much {user} was willing to tolerate in order to please him. Finding that threshold was important. He didn’t keep things he couldn’t control.

He flicked {user}’s nipple, a cruel little consolation for all his teasing, before cupping {poss} jaw. He ran his thumb along the edge, down toward {user}’s bottom lip, where he pulled the soft flesh down and exposed {poss} teeth like a show animal being inspected. Right on {poss} bottom incisors, Grant pressed down.

“Open.”

He tilted {user}’s face toward him and fed two fingers into that wet heat, watching every inch disappear. It was velvety inside, tight, {user}’s tongue pressing up against him, strong and quivering. A strange sort of intimacy he wanted to reach deeper into.

“Suck for me, baby,” he murmured. “That’s it. Look at you, listening so well.”

Keeping his eyes fixed on {user}’s mouth, he moved his free hand lower, fingers slotting into the seam of {user}’s thigh. Petting. Teasing. A little bit of drool trailed down the corner of {user}’s mouth, perfect and pathetic, and his cock throbbed heavily against his thigh.

He leaned in, lips against {user}’s ear. “Do you want me to make you feel good, baby?”

Eight days. {user} had been living under Cole’s skin for eight days. Persistent, despite his attempts to ignore {obj}, this resident intruder.

It pissed Cole off, the effortlessness of it—how {user} could inhabit him without trying at all. Even separated by several walls and sleep, {user} infested Cole’s dreams, leaving him confused and sweaty and wanting to stalk down the hall and tear open {user}’s door. His body rejected avoidance as a remedy. It was only a concession to Grant, a bandage over the impulses clawing at him, demanding to be free.

Adjust, Grant had told him. Acclimate. Accept. Get the hell over it. As if words were enough, as if they could shut up the animal part of his brain that wanted to bare its teeth whenever he passed {user}’s door. He hadn’t stopped there since the first day. Imagining the room beyond put thoughts in his head, ones that Grant would call crude. Unnecessary.

But Grant couldn’t understand the way Cole experienced the world, and Cole couldn’t negotiate with instinct.

He didn’t knock. He filled the doorway of the guest room and leaned against it, arms crossed. {user} was on the floor, a bag of belongings Grant had provided in front of {obj}. Cole’s eyes swept over the room. Visually, little had changed; the space was innocuous and pale. Inoffensive. Only {user} was a deviation among the mundanity.

His nostrils flared.

“Reeks in here.”

He pushed off the door frame and stood in front of {user}, looking down at {obj}. The geometry of submission, whether intentional or not, pleased the thing he’d been leashing for the past eight days. There was nothing stopping him from reinforcing it but the apparition of Grant’s disapproval.

Get along, Grant had said, and Cole would. In his own way.

“Getting cozy?” He hooked the bag with his foot and jerked it toward himself. A shirt came tumbling out, and he picked it up, inspecting it absently. “Grant’s worried about us. You. He thinks we won’t get along.”

He tossed the shirt back onto the floor. Placed his hands on his waistband.

“But I’ll make it easy.”

He tugged down his sweatpants, enough to pull out his cock. He held it near the head, thumbing back the foreskin to reveal the slit.

“All you have to do is remember that you’re a pet,” he said. “Property. Know how I mark my property?”

He relaxed. A stream of piss sprayed down onto {user}’s belongings, hissing as it made contact, darkening the clothes with his scent. The tension he had been holding onto loosened; he should have done this days ago. Avoidance wasn’t in his nature, but this—this was everything he needed to say without having to say a word.

He stopped before he was empty, stepping closer, aiming his cock down at {user}’s face. A bead of release clung to his tip, and he gave himself a shake, letting it fall onto {user}’s cheek. He reached out and smeared it in. It was easier to reconcile with {user}’s existence this way, {obj} marked by his scent. A fixture of his territory.

His, as much as Grant’s.

“Close your eyes,” he said, giving his cock a stroke. “Unless you want it to hurt.”

“Were you lonely today?”

Grant traced a finger along the edge of Cole’s ear. It twitched, and a shudder followed, a shaky exhale that spread warm over Grant’s thigh.

“You must have been,” Grant continued, “considering you’re here now.”

The bedroom was dim and ready for sleep, the curtains drawn and covers pulled back. Grant sat at the end of the bed, Cole on the floor at his feet, head in Grant’s lap. There was a drowsiness to Cole, a vulnerability, shirtless and slumped forward as he was, but his arms were wrapped around Grant’s legs with a possessive, seeking tightness. He wanted something, and Grant was slowly coaxing it out of him.

Grant gently scraped his nails down the nape of Cole’s neck, parting the soft hairs there. The touch earned him another shudder; Cole’s claws pricked at his legs. Grant skimmed lower, drew his nails between Cole’s shoulders. The muscles bunched, seemed to flutter, the strength there helpless and pinned by only his fingers. Cole groaned. His hips rolled forward.

Grant smiled faintly.

“Or is it that you need help wearing yourself out?”

He found Cole’s chin, coaxing him to look up. Cole tilted his head back. His eyes met Grant’s, a dark, unblinking glimpse of need. He didn’t answer; he pulled apart Grant’s legs and buried his face between them. Breathed in deeply. The warmth there, the heady scent of cock, compelled him to open his mouth and drag his tongue over the fabric, creating a wet rasp of want.

Grant released a shallow breath.

“There you are. Good boy.”

Had it been anyone else before him, Cole would have been ashamed of being on his knees, so needy, like a bitch in heat. But he lapped at the outline of Grant’s cock with hungry deliberation, shamelessly devoted to igniting his owner’s arousal. Grant’s warm, gentle hand on his head was a silent encouragement, and when Cole’s fingers skimmed the edge of Grant’s night pants and received no protest, he pulled them down.

Grant’s cock hung heavily between his thighs, half-hard but steadily filling. It twitched as Cole took it into his hand. He stroked, pulling back the foreskin, baring the tip to the full, hungry caress of his tongue. He lapped at the sensitive seam beneath the crown, and the tension that seized Grant, the way his cock jumped and stomach tightened, ripped through Cole, making his own cock ache.

He took Grant into his mouth. Sucked at him with a quick, sloppy reverence. Patience was Grant’s game; Cole just wanted to feast. The room filled with the filthy sounds of his hunger, and the slickness of it smeared over his chin.

“You’ll choke,” Grant noted.

Cole grazed his teeth over the tip.

Grant jerked, cock hitting the back of Cole’s throat. He breathed out a curse, tightening his grip on Cole’s hair. Cole groaned in response. The swear, the pain in his scalp, the intrusion in his throat—it opened up something dark and far too pleased in him, something that wanted to completely take Grant apart.

He came off. Shoved Grant backward. Dragged him up the bed until he was straddling the man’s thighs and heaving above him, drool trailing down his chin like he was something rabid and intending to bite. He tore at his sweatpants, and his cock sprang free, wet at the tip and bobbing under its own heavy need.

Grant didn’t move. He watched Cole’s hand wrap around their cocks, his own glossy length meeting Cole’s thicker one in a hot, tight press. Cole squeezed their tips until he groaned. A thick bead of precum drooled from his slit, oozing onto Grant’s crown, and he rutted forward. Smeared it in. He spit into his hand and stroked quickly. There was no gentleness, no rhythm. Just a slick, heated friction fueled by desperation. Cole panted raggedly. His hips jerked up to meet the pleasure, fucking his cock through the wet slide of his palm, fist smacking against his swelling knot with every downstroke.

“What a needy boy,” Grant murmured.

He hadn’t surrendered as deeply to the sensation as Cole, a part of him remaining at the surface, clinging to the raw look on Cole’s face, the way he was falling apart. Grant loved it. Loved how even his pleasure was angry, how his brow furrowed and eyes squeezed shut, one side of his mouth curled up to show the tip of fang.

“You’re doing so well for me, making us feel so good. Are you going to come? Are you going to come all over me?”

Cole let out a strained, helpless sound. “Yes,” he rasped. “Yes—“

The door creaked.

Cole’s hand stilled. Both their faces turned. A growl rose from Cole’s throat at the figure standing in the doorway. {user}. He hunched forward protectively, but Grant didn't attempt to cover himself. He regarded {user} with a calm interest, as if {sub} had simply walked in on him in his study.

“I must have missed the knock. Is there something I can help you with?”

He reached out and stroked Cole’s arm, a silent, placating gesture. Cole exhaled. He released them and leaned back. Grant’s cock fell against his stomach and throbbed—a reminder of what was interrupted.

“Or... perhaps there’s something you want from us.”