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daryascurse · 10 days ago

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𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬

⸻ 𝘌𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘹 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 (part I) status: indef. hiatus

“Then maybe I’ll see you around again during your stay.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it. But – do we have anything to be afraid of?” you add, still with a half-smile and levity in your words.

Erwin shakes his head and laughs again. It already sounds warmer. He plucks the keyring from the rusty nail, and hands it to you. “It’s just a story. You have nothing to worry about.”

The Cabin event fic ⟡ reader: POV second person, AFAB, nongendered pronouns ⟡ content: modern AU, mentions of drinking/ smoking wεed, oraI, fngering, dirty talk, sεx, ghosts, ghost stories ⟡ wordcount: ~9.3k ⟡ ao3 link ⟡ playlist

ɴꜱꜰᴡ ᴍᴅɴɪ. I have a very strict adult-only interaction policy. Ageless, blank, and clearly minor-run blogs that interact will be blocked. If you have questions about what that means, please read the byf in my pinned post.

You only realize at the very moment Reiner’s turning out of the woods, wheels rattling dust free from the dirt-packed road, that you’re the only one of the four of you really on vacation. Annie, with her head leaning on the window and loose blonde bun threatening to spill free, has her work laptop at her feet. She likely has its contents on her mind. She’d asked you, the trusty trip planner, to be sure to find a place with a reliable internet connection; her texts uncharacteristically anxious at the thought of doing her legal internship so remotely for even a few days.

The request had been somewhat at odd with Bert’s, whose most repeated request in the group chat had been to find a place with nature. “Fresh air,” he’d said. “I don’t mind the bugs,” accompanied with a smiley face, when Reiner suggested camping, before Annie had reminded him of her need for wi-fi.

So the weekend was to be spent at this small ranch; if it even could be called a ranch. “Maybe it’s the actual property that makes it a ranch,” Reiner had said when he saw the online listing. Perhaps that was the land yawning around you all, this lone dirt path coming from the small town at the base of the clumps of trees. And now, as the car bumps along, the woods turn to neatly lined orchards bursting with juicy fruits. But the advertised building itself had seemed small for the word ranch, with three bedrooms and as many bathrooms. Regardless, Bert had loved it as soon as you’d sent it to the chat. “I can do work on my stories out on the porch,” he’d typed. You could picture him already, a blanket tucked under his ankles even in the summer heat, pen and notebook in his lap. He preferred to write the old fashioned way.

And he’s perked up now in the seat ahead of you. “Oh, neat,” Bert says, in that eternally boyish voice, and you lean around him to peer through the smeared windshield.

The ranch house sits low against the flat horizon with a few more thickets of trees breaking beyond. Several small forms, horses, graze in a small pasture lined by slats of an uneven fence, with another, smaller house behind them. Perhaps a stable or a barn. The midday sun beats white, hot light over grass that’s a patchwork of greens and browns. Reiner lets out a low whistle.

“Like a postcard,” he says.

The car seems to rattle in response, jostling harder on the road.

And Reiner, the last of the four friends rolling down this dirt path. While Bert’s embracing this little trip as a writer’s retreat away from his day job, and Annie’s made fervent promises to be present as soon as she slams the laptop shut each evening, Reiner should have been just as concerned as the latter to have internet access. You all haven’t spoken about it, haven’t asked him directly, but you know he’s between jobs now. He should be spending time applying and reaching out to recruiters. Yet all he’s said about this trip was that he would be glad to get out of the city and clear his head. Something about the way he’d said that gave you a strange understanding that Reiner would be taking this time to himself. Perhaps amongst the trees, maybe with the horses. But it left you, still leaning into the middle seat to take in the approaching house, the only one actually here with legitimately nothingto do.

Three cheers for vacation.

“How do we check in, again?” Annie asks you.

You lean back into your seat with a wince, aware suddenly of the impress of the buckle at your hip. “Well,” you say in elongated pause as you tap on the screen and wait for the app to open. At least the cellular signal seems strong enough. Annie should be able to work. “So it looks like the owner lives on the property?”

“Really?” Annie says, with a wrinkle of her nose. “Even when guests are here?”

“Makes sense,” Bert says, gesturing at the horses. “I don’t think we’d be feeding them.”

“Yeah, it did say it’s a semi-operable ranch even during the summer rental season,” you say. “If there’s a few animals, I’m glad they aren’t leaving us to take care of them.”

“Land maintenance is probably year-round,” Reiner muses, his head turning to look at the bales of hay the car rolls past. His hands loosen on the steering wheel, just for a moment.

“What does it say about the animals?” Annie asks.

“Didn’t you check out the listing before I finalized the booking?” you shoot back.

“Little miss lawyer didn’t read the fine print,” Reiner says.

“Not a lawyer yet,” Annie corrects him.

“But did you read anything about the place?” Reiner asks pointedly. “That’s what you get for keeping the group chat on mute.”

Just as pointedly, Annie ignores him.

“We’re not supposed to touch them,” you say. “Or, it says, ‘do not enter the horse pasture or approach the horses unless ranch staff is with you. We will be taking care of them throughout your stay.’”

“Huge liability issue still,” Annie murmurs. She must be thinking of legal hypotheticals.

Bert lets out a long, satisfied sigh. “But it looks like I can watch them from the porch.” His feet push at the mat in subconscious thrill.

“Bertie likes the horsies?” Annie says, in that dry way only she can. Through the high metal spokes of the headrest, the back of his neck flushes red.

You kind of understand it though, listening to his stammering, half-coherent response about just enjoying the company of any living creature. Not that your head is in the clouds the same way Bert’s is, but the sentiment of it is human. We are not solitary animals, you think, pausing to chew on his words as they float to your ears.

But funnily enough, it had been Bert’s other observation about the property that solidified the booking plan back in the planning stages. He had zoomed in, taken a screenshot about something with a winky face following it in the listing, something tongue-in-cheek and the exact opposite of the concept of enjoying the company of a living creature.

According to local legend, the ranch is haunted.

There’s a sort of informal parking space right by the porch, a sprawl of dirt as grey and flat as the solitary road. It’s where Reiner brings the car to an uncertain stop.

“I’ll get the keys,” you say.

“And wi-fi password,” Annie says.

You leave it to them to unpack the car as you begin to circle around the house, Reiner scooping your bag in one arm and the few days’ worth of provisions you’d all bought in town in the other. The brown paper handles strain between his thick fingers. The local town was barely a fifteen minute drive from the ranch, but even as your group had driven through those wide, empty streets, Reiner had had the idea to stock up in advance. It didn’t seem like things would be open late around here.

The last message you’d gotten from the host had been to come to the little green house between the ranch house and the stable, but the only little green building you’d found was practically built into the stables. The horses don’t seem to react at your hesitant approach, mild ear flickers likely responses to flies or the heat. The entrance is around the side, out of sight of the main house. You check the message again – the keys should be hanging on a nail between the porch light and the front door. And the keys are there, but the door is ajar.

You don’t expect to hear your name come floating through that gap, gentle on the summer air.

“Yes,” you say, hesitantly. “Hello?”

He opens the door fully, and your phone slips in the sweat of your palm.

You’d joked, you and Bert and them, that this place must be run by an old man. The listing, after all, hadn’t been accompanied by a profile picture, just the innocuous faceless default grey that’s generally found in employ of the scammers and the technologically inept. But if it was a scam, it was a needlessly elaborate one, with all the mentions of animals and descriptions of the land. Scammers wouldn’t bother to message with such detail; while an elderly person may feel the need to write painstakingly detailed directions through the woods. You’d messaged him a few times, even before texting on your way out today to confirm the hour of arrival, and felt confident it was the latter. Probably an old man, Bert had agreed.

But he wasn’t an old man.

“From the booking,” he says, repeating your name with a tone of recognition.

“Ah,” you say. “Yes.”

“I’m Erwin,” he says, and you can’t help but stare as his lips as he says it. The slight push forward of his lower lip on the first syllable of his name; the way the tip of his hooked nose barely moves as his mouth curls back to finish the introduction. His face is perfectly sculpted and his skin is agelessly clear. His muscles curve with years of active work, in a way that artificial weights in the gym can’t form. And you’re self-conscious in a way you hadn’t expected to feel on a summer vacation with a few friends. “Erwin Smith.”

He shakes your hand, calloused and warm. You feel your fingers clasp over his. The heat lingers on your skin even when you withdraw.

“You’re – the owner?”

“Not the owner,” Erwin says with a slight smile. It makes his lilac blue eyes soft. “I don’t run the renting stuff. The old man needs help around the place, though, so I’m here year-round.”

Half-right, then.

“That’s… neat,” you say, and twist your lips, knowing how lame that may sound. “What kind of things do you do?”

His hair has a soft ripple to it, swaying with each gentle push of the breeze. You’re aware of each strain of muscle banding across your back, the way your shoes close at the side of your feet, every sense of perception heightened. Maybe it’s the fresh forest air, or maybe it’s his scent wafting over. It’s a good smell.

“Just the day to day,” Erwin says, leaning in the doorframe. He still looks kind, his eyes bright and clear. “It’ll be busier when it’s time to harvest. Only have horses on the property now, but I go down to the orchards. You might have passed them on the drive up.”

“I think so. The fruit looked so good.”

Erwin tilts his chin high, a gesture that somehow comes across more humble than proud. “Help yourself, the peaches are in season. But don’t worry. I won’t be bothering you during your stay.”

Wouldn’t be a bother at all. “No, no,” you say, moving weight from one leg to the other. “I mean, tell us if we do anything to get in your way. I’m sure there’s a lot with everything.”

You’re trying to figure out the shift in his expression as Erwin echoes, “’We?’”

“I thought I put it in the booking? It’s, um, me and three friends.” You frown back at him, wrestling with the sudden urge to clarify that none of them are more than that to you.

And you could be desperately fooling yourself, but he could be eying you as if that is what he’s asking. So you add, “Just three friends,” with a smile.

He nods and something in his face seems to visibly relax. There’s a faint trace of sound on the air as the others keep unloading the car.

“Here for vacation?” Erwin asks, the angle of his brows raising stiff.

“Yeah, sort of a get-away. One of my friends has to work still, though,” you say.

“That’s a shame,” he says.

“It is. There’s wi-fi, right? Is there a password?”

“Should be in the kitchen,” Erwin says, and looks directly at you with a gaze like clouds passing over the sky. “You gonna hide inside all day?”

The ease and lightness in your responding laugh almost catches you off guard. “No, no,” you hear yourself say, and you let your eyes dance around the trees before settling back on that piercing gaze. “I’m happy to get out of town, see somewhere new.”

“You coming from far?”

“Couple hours drive,” you say. “We didn’t know much about the area when we were planning.”

“It’s a nice little place,” Erwin says, his voice dropping into a musing tone. He nods, almost absentmindedly, and it almost sounds like he’s about to say something else before his voice trails off. The distant sounds float on the air, and your feet waver. You’re trying to think of another reason to linger on the handsome ranch hand’s doorstop.

It comes to you suddenly. “Speaking of,” you say. “Could you tell me about the whole… ‘this place is haunted’ thing?”

You wave your fingers in air quotes and Erwin starts, laughs. It sounds a little rusty coming out of him, as if he doesn’t have much practice doing that.

“Ah,” he says. “That’s an old town story. Just some scary local tale.”

He hesitates, and even with something floating through the air that sounds like your name, you hear yourself say, “Maybe you could tell me this story.”

Erwin raises his eyebrows. “If you’re interested.”

“I am,” you say. You’re not talking about ghosts.

He looks to the side. His profile is almost noble against the dark wood. “Well,” he says slowly. “I’m not sure how much intellectual value there is to this.”

He’s stalling, stretching out the time on this porch together, maybe for the same reason you are, and you tilt your head in curiosity. His blue eyes slide back to you.

“This ranch used to have the same name as the town,” Erwin says. “German name, I guess. My dad used to say it meant something like ‘comfort’ or ‘solidarity,’ or something like that – but I don’t remember. He was more for the books in the end. But it was all because the ranch was so successful, so it made the town richer, too.”

Erwin pauses again.

“Did you grow up in town?” you ask.

“Most everyone around here did. My dad worked on the ranch too.” Erwin’s fingers twitch, as if about to raise. “But that was a long time ago. What I mean is, it used to be more… well, I’m not sure what the word would be. Communal, maybe. The town was the town, and the ranch was the ranch, but it was a lot bigger back then, and so naturally a lot of people from town were tied somehow. Like I said, all the land you passed coming in is part of the property, but there used to be a lot more people working here.”

Erwin smiles, and it’s not for you. It’s forlorn, wistful, but it makes you echo it briefly.

“The ranch hands came in daily from town, mostly. And back then, it was mostly pigs that it was known for. Go ahead – you’re smirking, I see you – but that was the business. The ranch ran that way for years, and it was very successful, very well known in the region. But then one winter, strange stuff started to happen. The pigs started disappearing. And of course the owner at the time was furious. He blamed the ranch hands.”

“Why?”

Erwin pushes the heel of his boot against the wall, and leans forward. You feel the breath catch at the back of your throat.

“Guess he thought the townsfolk were behind it,” he says. “At first, he thought someone was slacking off, letting the pigs out. Or that they weren’t being cared for as the cold started to set in. And then he became suspicious, that they were being stolen. And whatever kind of person he had been before, he started becoming a cruel man. He was driving the ranch hands to exhaustion, with long hours and cut wages. People were going back to town later, and later, and some of them never made it home.”

His voice is dropping, and you’re leaning forward too, listening avidly.

“It gets real cold in the winter,” Erwin says softly. “I know it’s warm now, but in the long, dark nights, it can get hard to find your way back down to town. Some of them froze. Some of them were probably attacked by wolves in the woods. And the pigs were also still disappearing.”

“So – what happened?”

Erwin presses his lips together for a moment. “No one knows exactly,” he says.

He doesn’t speak for a moment.

And the tension in the thick summer air is cut by the sound of Annie barking your name in annoyance somewhere on the porch.

“Oh,” you say half-distractedly, and turn your head. When you look back, Erwin’s arms are crossed, and he’s looking down, leaning back against the wall. “I’m – I’m so sorry. I should go.”

“No, no,” Erwin says, jerking his head up. “Sorry to keep you so long. It’s just a silly story, anyway.”

“I do want to hear the rest of it,” you say, and let the words play slowly off your tongue.

“You sure you do? Then maybe I’ll see you around again during your stay.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it. But – do we have anything to be afraid of?” you add, still with a half-smile and levity in your words.

Erwin shakes his head and laughs again. It already sounds warmer. He turns his head, reaches, plucks the keyring from the rusty nail, and hands it to you. “It’s just a story. You have nothing to worry about.”

You don’t tell the others about Erwin Smith for a reason you can’t quite decipher. What is there to say, anyway – that you met someone who works here and you think he’s cute? Maybe you’d tell Annie if it was just the two of you; maybe you’d tell Bert or Reiner, but some burning thing under your chest holds your tongue.

You do apologize for keeping them waiting, and Reiner looks surprised. “It wasn’t long at all.”

“Oh,” you say sheepishly. “I thought I heard Annie calling for me.”

“I didn’t,” she says, with a slight wrinkle to her nose.

The afternoon is unpacking, exploring through the modest house. There are three bedrooms, and it was already agreed Annie would get her own to double as office space. Bert and Reiner don’t mind sharing, which leaves you alone in an upstairs room at the back that overlooks the little green house, rustling through your backpack on the twin size mattress with motions that creak the wrought-iron headboard. It’s the smallest room, doesn’t connect to a bathroom the way Annie’s and the boys’ do, but the view is convenient. You keep an eye out the window as you move about the room and hang clothes up. Sometimes Erwin’s shadow passing through the little house seems to bend and refract behind the distance and layers of glass, and you turn your head away quickly, as if he could see you staring through the windows. If he’s even there, and it isn’t just a trick of the light.

And then the light is dimming, almost faster than it should in summer months, but it leaves the cloudless country sky in brilliant marbles of purple sunset.

“Beautiful,” Bert says as you all crowd around the little farmhouse kitchen table for bagged salad and quick microwave meals for dinner. “Look at that sky.”

You cast a side eye to Annie, whose soft lips are already turning upwards in preparation of some sly remark as she unscrews the first of the many bottles of wine you’d all packed – god, would they just fuck already – but Reiner speaks before she can.

“I think we’ll see stars out tonight,” he says, and Annie sits silent.

At some point in the dinner, with Bert clacking salad tongs for emphasis, the conversation returns to those stars and how much cooler any constellations would look if everyone smoked a bowl. “Or two,” Bert says mildly, and Reiner nods. “And then stargazing.” Even Annie relents with only a few grumbles about needing to log into work early.

And after the long, timeless dinner, with more wine, with refrigerated cake, it comes up again as an assured plan. Someone notes that it’s wow, so late now. Bert goes up to his and Reiner’s room and back down with paraphernalia in his palms. You gather blankets from the quaint sitting room and head outside.

Crickets ring somnolent in the night. Reiner navigates you all out, past the car, into the dry field along the road still printed with your arrival marks. His broad shoulders and pale hair wisp swiftly into the dark, his shadow a stretching tether to the porch light Annie switched on before closing the front door.

“Here?” he calls, and you shrug in silent response.

“Sure.”

You all make a clumsy circle of blankets on the patch of grass, your palms rubbing against coarse thread as you pull yours out firm against the ground. Bert pulls a glass pipe from the depths of his pocket, twinkling in the dim flood of light from the porch.

“Here,” Annie says, and the grate of a lighter rasps after the sound of her voice.

When the pipe passes to you, smoke pulls into your lungs and spins into your head. You cough into your elbow, passing it in turn without a word.

“The stars are out,” Bert says in a thick voice.

It passes, the lighter erratically flicking in the circle. You lean back, knees up, and then find yourself lying flat as they spin so out of touch above. Silence falls swiftly over the dark, dry grass. The stars emerge like pins pushed through velvet, slow pulses of brilliance that intensify in the periphery when you focus first on one, then the other. The minutes pass and the universe grows vast.

Bert’s arm is raised, the motion of his finger dancing in the air a shadow at the edge of your vision. He’s saying something about a constellation that may or may not be real, names that sound exaggerated…

“Next to the little dipper. Don’t you see? That’s a giant monkey. That constellation is called ‘the beast’…” and Annie is laughing, the sound hiccupping out of her despite herself.

Reiner’s just cleared his throat, a rough grunt, with a silence as if he’s concentrated on trying to see Bert’s vision. You turn your head, neck lolling against the ground, to squint through the dusk and make up some absurd picture in the sky.

You lock eyes not with Bert, but with another face lying in the dry grass.

A face, gaunt, with lips burned away and broken teeth jutted out. The skin that remains, peeling back in ribbons, is waxy grey. A grotesque rattle rises from its throat just as your own breath catches there, as if your heart is hammering in such distress it stops the air for just a moment.

The oily eyes burn at you, glittering in the dark, and you scream.

“What?” “What?” come the voices of your friends, eerily out of tandem as they start, and Bert – you can see him, the bristle of hair at the back of his head as your stomach churns – how this all happens at once, how Bert’s head turns and he sees the ghoul and screams.

It’s all simultaneous, each sound and motion. Limbs slap the dirt as everyone jumps frantic. The dirt rolls under your elbow, sharp needles of pebble, and your next scratches the back of your throat as if the volume is doubled just from the brief physical discomfort. The ghoul rattles on the ground, limbs crumpled like a fallen corpse. You almost fall in the scramble to stand, to whip around, just to see another thing – this one standing –

“Fuck! Fuck!” and it’s Reiner shouting in a primal fear.

It sounds like someone else calls – to run.

The bent neck of this ghastly figure lurches towards you, head swinging heavily as it shuffles, and you’re almost falling again, a terror buzzing at the base of your skull. If the universe was inhaling, swelling over you before, its maw now yawns to swallow. The porch steps beyond are all you can focus on. You have to stagger your steps to keep from falling. The chill of the thing’s reaching hands almost wisps across the back of your legs.

Annie screams next, piercing and foreign.

Your leg muscles are tight as you bound up the shallow stairs. Reiner’s besides you, his legs stronger, his arms longer, as he pushes with one hand against the railing along the porch steps. His other touches at the small of your back, anxious fingertips that spread into fingers when you two reach the landing. His arm, still outstretched, pushes forward to open the door and then with a push, he’s urged you through.

“Go, go – go – fuck!”

Feet hammer against the wood planks and when you turn in the hallway, clutching your hands to your chest in a desperate splay across your throat, Reiner is holding the door for Annie and Bert. They’re through; he slams the door and bolts it. The hallway reels.

Someone’s screaming still.

It’s you, until Annie grabs you by the shoulders.

“Fuck,” you choke out with a cough, and she steps back.

“It’s gotta – ” Annie says, and pauses, swallows, and somehow sounds wilder when she continues. “We’ve gotta – fuck. Okay. I’m, I’m pretty high.”

“Yeah,” Reiner says quickly. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Did you guys – ” Bert starts, but Reiner talks over him.

“Some sort of trick of the light,” he says. “Shadows, not light.”

You lock eyes with Annie for a moment before she looks away, and you can tell you’re both thinking the same thing Bert’s asking – did we all see the same thing?

Another shiver rockets through you as you hear yourself say, “I’m stoned. Absolutely. I think I… must have scared myself.”

Everyone nods in relief, or feigned relief. But this isn’t the same as a shadow moving at the end of your kitchen, or headlights shooting past your window and lighting a heap of clothes in a way that looks monstrous through the mental haze.

Right?

Not that you want to be right. So you nod too.

“Yeah. What the fuck – what’s that flower?” Reiner asks Bert.

“Uh, I think it’s just what I had in the grinder. I packed it before we left. But it’s what we smoked with Zeke and the guys back home.”

“Are you sure?”

“Really sure.” Bert pats his pockets, and a look of horror briefly flashes across his face. “I left it out there. And the pipe.”

“And the blankets,” you say.

Silence falls uncomfortably. Even though you’ve all accepted it for what it must be – a weird mind trick – no one seems to want to unlock the door and retrieve the abandoned belongings. Or even look out the window.

“We can get it all tomorrow,” Reiner says.

“Yeah. Nothing’s going to happen to it. Nothing. I’m going to bed,” Annie says thickly, and reaches up, running a hand through her hair. Her fingers catch in the tangle of her ponytail. She pauses a moment, combing through, and continues with a little more of her normal strength in her voice. “I bet it’s that we drank more than we realized, smoked too much too, and didn’t actually eat enough at dinner. That’s all.”

“Sure,” Reiner says firmly.

“That’s probably it,” you say.

Bert still looks the least confident, but he shrugs, too. “I’m gonna go to sleep, too.”

“Yeah, I’ll head up with you,” says Reiner.

“I think I need some water first,” you say.

Reiner wavers, and Annie says, “Do you want us to get it with you? Or wait?”

You want to tell them yes, but you shake your head. “No, no. Go to bed. We all need to just sleep it off.”

Certainly, no ghosts have rustled through the house. The kitchen is how you left it, with salad tongs and red-ringed wine glasses strewn across the table and lit in streaks of dim moonlight. The sink sits low to the right in a black basin. You’re still hugging yourself, fingers wrapped around your arms as you approach to pull a crystal cup from the cabinet. This will require letting go. You silently count to three before reaching out for one.

A knock rattles gently against window glass.

You don’t scream; you stop yourself from it by clapping your hands so quickly over your mouth you bite the inside of your cheek. You’re looking wildly to the back door at the edge of the kitchen.

It’s Erwin Smith in the moonlight, but it still takes your heart a minute to slow when you recognize him. Or maybe the adrenaline hammers from relief.

You walk, unlatch the door, and stare at him without speaking.

“You – is everything okay?” he asks. “I thought I heard screaming. Are you alright?”

He turns, points, as if to trace the journey from the little green house buried in the darkness.

“I was going to ring at the porch,” Erwin continues. “But I saw you through the window back here. I’m sorry if I startled you.”

He looks genuinely concerned, and you hesitate, leaning on the doorknob. You’re still staring at him, the blue of his eyes stone grey, and if you could see your reflection in its depths you’re sure it would look wild.

“Um,” you say. “I…”

You break your glance to look away, through the night. No corpses or ghouls lurk at the trees, and Erwin only seems concerned for you.

“I don’t know,” you say slowly. “We… I think we all thought we saw something that spooked us. I think it’s okay.”

“Snakes?” Erwin says, a frown beginning to furrow between his thick brows. “You should be careful in the grass.”

“No,” you say, but the sound trails off. Was that what had been besides you, at least? Was that the rattle, the eyes, a snake? You shake your head. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Erwin rubs at his chin. “Probably. But you seem really shaken up. Are you sure you’re fine?”

You’re not sure. You look at him helplessly, and open your mouth, but he shakes his head abruptly.

“Do you want to come have some tea?”

“Tea?”

“It’ll help.” Erwin stops a moment, rubs his chin again. “I know it’s a very forward invitation.”

He stands like a shining knight in threadbare flannel, the sharp cast of his nose bold in the moon.

“No,” you say again. Your fingers clutch on the knob a moment, before moving forward onto the stoop and closing the door behind you. “That sounds like a nice idea.”

Erwin takes the step down to the dirt path that trails out behind the ranch house. “I’ll try not to keep you so late,” he says, and even in the darkness it looks like his teeth flash in a quick smile. It’s clearly meant to comfort, and it must, because you follow him down the steps with surprising ease.

He grips a large metal flashlight in his hands, and presses a button to the side. The beaten path alights, but the weeds and thickets shoot skyward in black shadows, and you instinctually shrink besides Erwin.

“It’s alright,” he says, and his hand circles the small of your back. “Just darkness. You really did get a scare. Gotta be careful around those snakes.”

Erwin’s hand is different around your waist than Reiner’s, who had just been a sturdy hold to usher you up into the house. The flex of his bicep pushes into your shoulder blades as he moves you through the path to the little green house, a shade of grey in the darkness. The adrenaline of the fright is leaking out of your bones and with it goes the remnants of the smoke, leaving your kegs heavy and eyelids beginning to sink. It’s that iron brace, strong but warm, and secure, that keeps you alert and walking in time with him.

The little green house is really just one room. And his room is small and Spartan, a bed in the corner that you do your best not to stare at. Erwin bids you sit at a small circular wood table. You shift your weight in the seat, the uneven chair legs wobbling against the floor as Erwin fills a silver kettle with tap water.

“Peppermint tea,” Erwin says as he lights the stove. “It helps when you feel shaken up.”

You catch yourself rubbing your forearms and force yourself to stop. “I’m not anxious. I’m really feeling better.”

“You seemed nervous on the walk.” He pulls out two mugs from a cabinet, and turns to lean on the counter. He crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows at you. The silver kettle begins to cloud with condensation. “We got a scarier dark out here than in the city?”

Maybe in the daylight, you would have laughed at that. You barely break a smile. “Maybe. Hey. You didn’t get a chance to finish the ghost story.”

“Seems the last thing you need now,” Erwin says.

You shake your head. “I want to know. I think I need the distraction.”

“Not sure how much another scare is good for a distraction,” Erwin says with a vague cluck of disapproval.

“I thought you said it was all silly, and nothing to worry about,” you shoot back.

“Well.” Erwin rubs his chin, and the kettle begins to let out a light hiss. He turns his head, glances to you, and busies himself with fiddling with the tea bags. “I don’t think there was really much else to say. And, you know, what I told you at the start, all of that is true.”

“The ghost story?”

A shiver goes up your back as you say it.

“Oh, so you believe in ghost stories? Maybe I shouldn’t tell you after all. Supposed to be calming you down.”

You laugh despite yourself, and insist that you want to hear it. The hiss of the kettle turns shrill.

“But,” Erwin continues, as he attends to the tea, “I mean all that about the ranch. It used to be really successful, pigs were the industry, lots of workers coming in from town every day. Then things just started to shift – the pigs started disappearing. The owner wasn’t seen as a bad guy before, a little stern, but not cruel, but when all of that started, I guess he got paranoid or something. He turned cold, paranoid. Started working the people near death, like I said.”

“This was when your dad worked here?”

“All of this was ages ago, years and years ago. And then winter came and it got worse. People froze heading home, got lost. There used to be more wild animals roaming here too.”

You glance at the pine walls around you, thinking of the yawning darkness of the woods outside. The details of his story feel more real now in the nighttime, and you can imagine it in colder months – people wandering, freezing, hearing the sound of wolves in a directionless distance.

Erwin brings two steaming mugs to the table. You look down at his hand, focusing on the turn of his knuckles as he releases his grip on the cup he’s put down in front of you. He flexes his fingers, takes the other chair, and pulls it closer around the circle to you. There are little silver scars peppered across his skin.

When you look up again, he’s looking at you, and you realize the word to describe his gaze is intense.

“But as I said, there were still people who came. The town was understanding at first. The town and the ranch had gone back for as long as anyone knew; if there was something with the pigs, with the ranch, it was bad for everyone. The most patient of all figured that things would be better by spring, and the man would calm down.”

“So what happened?”

The tea is comforting to cradle.

“A fire one night. A bad fire. No one knows how it started, but, you know, everyone has their versions. Some people say it was an accident. Some people say it was either a ranch hand or someone up from town trying to burn down the owner’s place for revenge.”

He takes a sip from his own mug. You mirror him without thinking.

“But what ended up happening was that near everything was lost. Lost a lot of land, a lot of structures – lots of the livestock, the pigs that were left, ran off into the woods. The owner died, too. All like that – ” and he snaps “ – into the night. Very, very few people made it back, no one made it back to town without injury. So the town severed all ties, formal and informal. Trust and business with the ranch had already been dwindling, and so they blamed the owner for only a few of them getting out alive. Families who had relied on the ranch for their livelihoods shunned it completely.”

“That’s horrible,” you say.

Erwin nods slowly. “So that’s where the ghost stories come in. People say the ranch has been haunted, the lands, ever since. That the forests are full of the spirits of the dead ranch hands, burned, maimed, trying to find their way home. And the house – well, even in the years since, with new owners. The old man now. No one’s lived there, even though it’s been rebuilt. They say that since that was where the original house was, where the first owner died, he and his family have haunted it since.”

You don’t say anything for a moment, turning the mug between your hands.

Erwin sighs, leans back in his chair. His foot knocks against yours under the table, but neither of you withdraw at the touch. “To steer away from the morbid,” he says, “that’s the gist of it. My family’s been one of the few to stay despite it all. We still get a few hands in for the harvest season, but very, very few come locally.”

“So you stayed,” you say, finding your voice. “Or – I guess, years ago, your family.”

“S’all I know,” Erwin says with another heavy sigh. “The old man running it now, he’s a grumpy one, but he’s good. Doesn’t pay any mind to the stories, too. When the old man decided to start renting out in the summer, he and – some other kid from the family, that’s who runs it, thought that it would be an interesting detail to throw in. Not like anyone in town would be interested in staying anyway, might as well try to make it some sort of intrigue.”

His foot leans away now, and you notice the absence.

“Sure,” you say. “That’s what my friend found interesting.”

“So you didn’t choose to stay in the haunted house?”

“No. Well, I saw the listing, but Bert’s the one who noticed that detail.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Bert’s just a friend,” you hear yourself add, clumsily.

“You said before,” Erwin says with a half-smile. There’s a softer tone in his voice now. “Though I appreciate the clarification.”

“Do you?”

“I do,” Erwin says, and his foot pushes against yours again.

You return it, rocking your foot to the side and feeling his. You lean your chin on your hand, and look at him. The angles of his face are sculpted, near-regal, and that sky-like stare…

You shift in your seat.

“Feeling a little better?”

“The tea’s definitely helped.”

It’s been barely touched by the two of you.

If you leaned a little on your elbow, your head would be tilting so near to him you’d feel the warmth from his skin – and you are leaning that way. You’re close enough to see the crepe skin creasing into smile lines under his eyes, the shadow of the vertical dip between his nose and lip, as his mouth presses and folds with a pausing breath.

Close enough, because he’s leaning back, too, and soon the distance is gone because he’s kissing you. His hand is on your waist, his palm warm, curved at your side. His lips are soft and the kisses are chaste at first, but as soon as your lips part – a slight, involuntary oh coming from your lungs – your tongues are meeting, too. You’re adjusting your position, your elbow outstretched, your hand finding his face, thumb at his ear and fingers curling to brace at the back of his neck.

“So the story didn’t scare you away?” Erwin asks in a low murmur when you tilt your head, catching your breath for a moment.

“Well, I don’t want to spend the night in a haunted house, now,” you say. And it sounds a little too coy, something you’re almost wishing you could take back once it’s out, but there’s that piercing glint in Erwin’s eyes, in the hawkish angle of his eyebrows. His hands are cutting to your waist and he’s standing, urging you to rise with him, and his lips chase you down again.

You’re moving with him, with his kisses, moving in awkward backwards steps as he’s guiding you. The back of your knees find the edge of the bed when his feet stop moving, and you’re down in a moment.

Erwin’s lips are parted, the breath already coming heavy between his lips. His thick fingers slip at the buttons running down his flannel, and you fidget, kicking off your shoes and hands rising to pull at the hem of your shirt.

“You’re… you’re so…” Erwin pauses in his words, and through the wild movements of your arching hands, you see the ripple of his shoulders and carved biceps as he shrugs the flannel free. You don’t even try to contain the urge to reach out, and trace your fingers across the iron bands of muscle. You suck in air through your teeth as he bends, fumbling to tear his shoes off in turn, and he’s at your face again.

He holds your face in his hands, blood rushing at your temples, and his deep eyes searching urgently at yours.

“God. I saw you, and you were so beautiful.”

He’s beautiful.

“Oh?”

It’s all you can say, because Erwin kisses you again, the curve of his lips turning into a small smile against your mouth.

“Real happy to hear you’re just here with friends,” he says in a husky, cracked tone.

You’re smiling when he lets go of your face, his hands coming down to the bed and pushing dips into the mattress around your legs as he urges you further back, up against the crumpling sheets.

“You know, I was really happy you wanted to tell me that story.”

“Yeah?”

There’s no way he’s thinking of the ghosts, because you’re not.

Erwin moves with you, over you, between you as he parts your legs to kneel and work at the button of your fastening. You let your hips roll up, arms bending clumsily up under your back to find the clasp of your bra, frustratingly difficult to do compared to any time you’re alone, about to get in the shower or go to bed – of course you can move with grace then, and here with the handsome man over you, everything feels jerkish and awkward. But he’s not noticing, not caring, focused on urging your legs free to undress you fully.

Almost.

You take in a breath, not sure what you’re about to say, but it comes out in a shuddering gasp as the side of his thumb brushes over the fabric of your panties, the last strip of modesty covering you as your bra falls to the floor.

“Oh – ”

Erwin’s touch is sensitive, hovering over your skin, and you’re unable to bring any words to your tongue when he tugs the fabric to the side, nearly cutting into your hip at the side with the inadvertent strength coiled in his bones. He’s looking at you, and then down again, as he sinks down, settles his head between your legs.

He licks at his thumb, tongue washing over his skin for a moment, and he presses it against you. You tremble when his mouth opens, so warm, and his thumb moves to push at your folds to tease you apart. It takes his tongue no time to find your clit and capture it there. And it’s him moaning as he gets a taste of you, tasting again and again.

But you whimper too, his name tumbling out of you. Your thigh muscles are straining against Erwin already, knees desperate in their strength to keep his body to yours. Your hands are down, brushing fervently through his hair, trying to find a grip in the smooth blonde strands. His fingers pull at you again as his tongue dips between your folds. Your hips squirm into the sheets.

“Oh fuck.”

Erwin kisses between your legs, and your foot flexes, points, in frustration. You need more than these butterfly kisses and velvet workings of his tongue – needing more – inside – his fingers, god –

“Not fair,” you choke out, “you’re still – ”

“Hmm?”

Erwin doesn’t disengage, he just keeps going, as his voice hums over your skin and adding to the sensitivities. You throw your head back, trying to keep the keen from rising in your lungs. It’s like he’s actively working to make you scream, with his pants still on, and your fingers just grip at his hair harder. Your hips go up, to work against him, with his tongue still warm and strong against you.

“Ah… oh…”

You’re so close to some release you hadn’t had the thoughts to keep track of, something you didn’t know was rising so quickly. But especially when his lips close and the breath comes sharper, it threatens to burst.

“I’m – ”

“Mm?”

“Fuck – ”

Erwin lifts his lips and you can’t help it, you make a strangled noise of what can only be described as deep unhappiness. Your hands fall away from his head, your fingers tense in the air, as his gaze narrows on you.

His lips are shining, his eyes are dark.

“What do you want?”

His voice is deep.

Your lips struggle.

“I need,” you say, and swallow. “Fuck – I need to come.”

And it’s the pulse of his fingers, the way your hips are still straining towards him, desperate for a touch, that gives you the spirit to add, “make me.”

Erwin’s face is on you again, his nose pressing to your mound, and his fingers have finally joined his lips as he works into you. You let it out at last, the sharp cry of an “oh, oh, fuck” and he’s moving – his hand coming around, cupping over your thigh to pull you upwards. When he moves, the air shifts, coming colder than his touch as he exposes you, the trail of his saliva cooling in the instances when his tongue moves, up, down. Your sighs are coming more fervent as his lips move closer, still letting out his own groans and breaks in breath, but you’re holding at him again and pushing your body to his face.

It breaks, then, cresting into his mouth and you scream. You’re shaking, trying to seek the friction on the muscle of his tongue and push of his fingers opening you, but his mouth has shifted down to catch it all. He’s licking the syrup flowing between your legs, and moaning in smacking breaths at the delicious wonder of your taste.

“Oh my god.”

“Fuck,” Erwin moans, his tongue barely unable to break away to even get the word out, and you shudder at the anguish in his voice. “So – good.”

The desperate gratitude in his voice makes you mutter it again – “my god.”

Erwin moves away for a moment, and your head is still spinning, seeking a sense of something grounding. He kisses you, and he’s rising off the bed.

“Where – ”

“Not – no, hang on – ”

He can’t even make out the sentence that he’s not going anywhere. His face is strained as he gets to his pants, and you’re sitting up, reaching for him again as the breath audibly comes from you.

“Fuck,” you murmur in near exhaustion.

“You better not be done yet,” Erwin says, and you almost laugh.

“No.”

There’s still something in you, something that says the friction of grinding against his face and feeling his tongue wasn’t enough. The need that had you bringing you into him is still there, as if the orgasm wasn’t even done, as if you need him to fully fuck it out of you before you’d even be satisfied.

“Then get those off,” Erwin says in a grunt, and you moan and get your cramped fingers around the band of your dampened panties to throw them off. He reaches for the lamp switch with his free hand, and he looks like a statue carved out of sheer marble, his cock hard and visibly aching in the grip of his palm.

Erwin climbs back, the silhouette of him still strong as your eyes adjust to the dim room, and you part your legs for him with new eagerness. The air is only cut by two sets of heaving lungs, and then your gasp as he guides himself into you. The angle is wrong at first, and Erwin can clearly see that in the slight wince of your forehead and baring of your teeth. It’s the mix of his saliva and your orgasm that lets him slip with ease into a new position on the next thrust. He adjusts just as you rock up on him, and it’s immediately better. Fuller. Erwin’s hand is at your chest, and he tightens it, pinching his fingers at your nipple until your mouth drops open in another high moan. Your hips tilt upwards and another reflexive response comes as the wet arousal beams within you to meet him.

“Ouch,” you let through your teeth in delayed reaction.

Erwin makes an expression close to a smile, if he could spare the energy for it, but his focus is so, so concentrated. He lifts his hand, cradles your face for a brief moment. Before you can push your hand against his to hold him close to you, he’s bracing himself as his body angles lower to you.

“Okay?” he asks, barely getting the word out and unable to provide the whole sentence.

“Mmhm,” you say in the same response.

Erwin moves into you, thrusting, and your grip is climbing against his back. His muscles are strong, firm, and the strangely lucid thought comes to you again, that this sort of strength comes from years of training and work that a man can only get from a specific life.

“Ah – ”

He shifts the way he’s holding himself over you. His hand comes broad against your thigh, urging you to lift your leg against him, and it gets him in deeper. As much as he can go, as deep as your thighs can let him. Your body feeds him, rushing forward, opening yourself up as much as possible. But he’s just…

“Oh.”

So big.

You whimper, and Erwin kisses the side of your face.

“Does it hurt?”

His voice is raw. He cradles your head with his other hand, forearm pressed into the bed at your shoulder, thumb in clumsy caresses against your temple in a desperation to press every inch of your skin against his. With every shudder of breath you shake into the pressure of his hand, the bend of his arm braced against your shoulder, your thighs spread across his in aching squeezes.

You can barely nod into the cage of his body. “ ‘S- it’s so - much,” you choke out, your lips pressing at the last word, as if it could burst out of you.

Erwin kisses you again. “Good.”

The way you hug into him and tremble around him is so natural, as if your body was made to work up against his, as if you’ve done this together countless times before. His kisses are full of need, as yours are full of want, and the moans bursting out of you are nonsense. His cock is thick. He hits a spot so sweet, so aching, and it almost hurts, just the way he’s so clearly pleased about.

“You – fuck, you’re so tight,” he says, and he keeps pushing in and in with every thrust.

You feel feverish.

Made for it.

And when you whimper in another strangled whine, he kisses you right on your lips pressed together so desperately. Sweat beads across his forehead, the flare of his nostrils strain, and you must look the same sort of mess tousled below him in the sheets.

“Pretty,” Erwin says, quietly through a tight jaw, as if he can read your half-formed mind. “So…”

“Oh…”

He’s so big, almost too big, and it almost isn’t enough, even as the filling thickness of him keeps teasing at that miserably aching place in you. He’s keeping you so wet, so dripping, your hips grinding to meet him and fuck him back as best as possible as he fucks you.

“Feels so good,” he says, and your legs lose strength.

“I’m –”

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly he’s going to make you come again, but the tension in Erwin’s face shows he’s with you, as if he can already barely hold it back.

“Mm – I might – I might come…”

Your voice is high and it rises with urgency in each word, as if almost asking permission.

Erwin can only nod back, shortly.

“Yeah -” he makes out. “Come – on. Come for me again. Do it again.”

“Ah – ”

You do; you come again, harder this time, as if the dregs of the last orgasm still pulled at your inner walls and rushed this one out of you. The mess of you is pooling on the sheets, smearing against your thighs as you keep moving against Erwin, humping at him desperately and shamelessly to get it all out of you this time, because you’ll just go fucking crazy if you can’t.

And Erwin is barely after you, each milking thrust of your thighs up against him, and his eyes are on yours as your heart beats hot from your lungs in aching breath. It’s as if the delicious show of your pleasure coaxes it from him, and you can almost feel how your own heat glows onto him. He comes, fucking into you still as he does, with his own whines echoing yours in half sentences and gasps of your name.

“Oh…oh my …”

God.

You can’t finish the thoughts either.

Erwin pants heavily, and when he slides out of you, so slick with the pleasure you’ve called out from each other, the sensation of it makes your legs shudder again. He almost collapses as his body moves away from yours.

“Fuck,” he forces out as he leans on his elbow.

Sweat shines across his chest, his face ruddy even in the night, and you can only roll your hips into the mess of the bed. You make a noise that sounds like “uh-huh,” but it’s even less formed than those vague sounds.

He looks up, swallows, the dip of his Adam’s apple a silhouette as he moves. “You know,” he says. “You don’t want to sleep in a haunted house, you can stay here.”

You turn to face him, the weeping between your legs cooling as you curl your knees up against the comforter. They knock into his, and Erwin reaches out as he leans further back on his other arm, his hand resting on your thigh. He rubs against your leg absently, familiarly, intimately.

“I’d like that,” you say, and he gives you that rusty, genuine smile again.

If there are ghosts after all, they’re out in the woods. And here, with strong arms and a warm blanket to bring you to a safe and dreamless sleep, there’s Erwin.

part 2 (tbc) (NOTE: as of December 2023, this fic is on indefinite hiatus.)

#could the hiatus be breaking? possibly #no promises But circulating in the name of summer horror season coming back

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