![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Content warning: this chapter includes mentions of myasis (maggot infestation).
Sometimes The Mountain Buries You is a queer novella about the monster that threatens your attempt at a much-needed quiet life. Check out the about page here.
There are more salmonberries than the ones that had been rearranged elsewhere. Sheppard tells you this while you debride mostly shale from a scrape over your kitchen table. You met him while headed to his cabin, much like you wished could have happened when you brought Murre to him including the light enough injury that he'd normally not come down for. You asked if It is around. "Oh, maybe, I didn't check. I figured I have to meet Murre at some point," they twist their arm to look at the scrape, "I figured this was better than something, uh, serious."
As much as you're glad for his foresight, you do wish he had come into town during clinic hours so this wasn't happening at your kitchen table—you had considered this happening in the clinic any ways but that meant swinging by your cabin to pick up Murre and the three of you walking back through town to the clinic together.
"Oh you know some good salmonberry patches?"
"Yeah," Sheppard says, smirking a little. "I know all the good patches."
"Huckleberries?"
"Of course."
"You'll be out of town by then," you remind Murre.
Murre nods with an 'ahuh', as though the implication wasn't implied at all.
When you come downstairs wearing not the Grace knit sweater and with your backpack to replace by the front door lighter without the bag that belongs in your bedroom, you're hearing French. "Oh hey," Murre calls over the back of the couch you don't wish to be a third body on. Murre doesn't say whatever they were about to but you look Sheppard's way as you sit in a reading chair next to the tea he made you. He taps his head and lets you figure out the rest.
You figure you'll ask him later to know for sure.
In the little hall of upstairs, you ask Sheppard if it's genuinely safe for him to make the trek home so late at night. "It keeps Its distance," he's frustratingly nonchalant.
"I wasn't necessarily talking about It." As far as you know every injury stitched together from things claw and teeth shaped didn't come from It.
"Right." He leans in, "Concerned?"
You raise a hand to his bare throat and all its scars. You run the pad of your thumb up his sternocleidomastoid, when you reach his jaw you apply pressure and run back down his jugular and carotid until where they're obscured by muscle. He's shakily failing to hold his breath. You shift your weight backwards until you find the wall to press your back against while Sheppard watches you carefully like he's about to be caught in the jaws of something pretending to be prey.
[nsfw just this paragraph]
Your fingers on the back of his neck slip to the lowest of his cervical vertebrae and push him the half steps forward to straddle your crook'd thigh. He drops his head to hum and kiss nettle sting along your collarbone, broken by a hiss when you urge him to grind against you. There's two and a half whining breaths of his before you're reminded that his hands know you too well.
This is when Murre makes their escape from the not a second bedroom, they knock on its door and ask if they can pass through. "Yeah." They apologetically duck their head with a notebook of poems in hand held up both to explain why they were there and to afford you and Sheppard privacy.
Both you and Sheppard mutter "fuck" quietly.
After enough time to be sure Murre is settled downstairs, you breathe a laugh to Sheppard's searching eyes.
You get one solo visit to Sheppard's cabin before he shows up at the clinic burping maggots with Murre already out for the day. "You said you were fine." You had found him stitching back together an old puncture wound on his chest, sitting on the hill that is effectively the roof of his cabin. He doesn't admit to you that it's not the first old injury to reopen but grimaces when you make a scurvy joke. He swears he has enough vitamin c sources.
It's late enough for the gas station general store to be closed and dark enough you don't insist on hiking the outskirts of town to get to your cabin. You spend the walk trying not to think where along in the growth cycle the maggots were while you had spent the night in Sheppard's bed.
Your pantry is well-stocked with juice in tall containers just shy of a litre each, with a couple at a time open in your fridge—now crowded with Murre's preferred beverages. Murre drinks hard ciders and hard iced tea. There's a can of one in their hand when they hear about the maggots, immediately struggling to sit up on the couch without tipping it over. "Woah. Cool."
"'Woah, cool'?" You shuck off your shoes and head for the kitchen.
"I swear I don't need any juice," Sheppard calls after you.
"Are you still...?" Murre makes a sound with their throat that might imitate a frog croak if it weren't for the context.
"I might a little. Got a bunch out but it'll be a while for the meds to take care of the rest." Sheppard audibly flops onto your reading chair and fails to suppress his smile at Murre working through nausea at imagining the process. He looks up as you come back with a bag of half a dozen tall juice containers. "No for real, I have plenty vitamin c. All those spruce tips, and berries are in season." He'll take the bag regardless.
Murre takes the opportunity to whittle Sheppard into setting a day for the three of you to pick salmonberries.
Sometimes The Mountain Buries You is a queer novella about the monster that threatens your attempt at a much-needed quiet life. Check out the about page here.
There are more salmonberries than the ones that had been rearranged elsewhere. Sheppard tells you this while you debride mostly shale from a scrape over your kitchen table. You met him while headed to his cabin, much like you wished could have happened when you brought Murre to him including the light enough injury that he'd normally not come down for. You asked if It is around. "Oh, maybe, I didn't check. I figured I have to meet Murre at some point," they twist their arm to look at the scrape, "I figured this was better than something, uh, serious."
As much as you're glad for his foresight, you do wish he had come into town during clinic hours so this wasn't happening at your kitchen table—you had considered this happening in the clinic any ways but that meant swinging by your cabin to pick up Murre and the three of you walking back through town to the clinic together.
"Oh you know some good salmonberry patches?"
"Yeah," Sheppard says, smirking a little. "I know all the good patches."
"Huckleberries?"
"Of course."
"You'll be out of town by then," you remind Murre.
Murre nods with an 'ahuh', as though the implication wasn't implied at all.
When you come downstairs wearing not the Grace knit sweater and with your backpack to replace by the front door lighter without the bag that belongs in your bedroom, you're hearing French. "Oh hey," Murre calls over the back of the couch you don't wish to be a third body on. Murre doesn't say whatever they were about to but you look Sheppard's way as you sit in a reading chair next to the tea he made you. He taps his head and lets you figure out the rest.
You figure you'll ask him later to know for sure.
In the little hall of upstairs, you ask Sheppard if it's genuinely safe for him to make the trek home so late at night. "It keeps Its distance," he's frustratingly nonchalant.
"I wasn't necessarily talking about It." As far as you know every injury stitched together from things claw and teeth shaped didn't come from It.
"Right." He leans in, "Concerned?"
You raise a hand to his bare throat and all its scars. You run the pad of your thumb up his sternocleidomastoid, when you reach his jaw you apply pressure and run back down his jugular and carotid until where they're obscured by muscle. He's shakily failing to hold his breath. You shift your weight backwards until you find the wall to press your back against while Sheppard watches you carefully like he's about to be caught in the jaws of something pretending to be prey.
[nsfw just this paragraph]
Your fingers on the back of his neck slip to the lowest of his cervical vertebrae and push him the half steps forward to straddle your crook'd thigh. He drops his head to hum and kiss nettle sting along your collarbone, broken by a hiss when you urge him to grind against you. There's two and a half whining breaths of his before you're reminded that his hands know you too well.
This is when Murre makes their escape from the not a second bedroom, they knock on its door and ask if they can pass through. "Yeah." They apologetically duck their head with a notebook of poems in hand held up both to explain why they were there and to afford you and Sheppard privacy.
Both you and Sheppard mutter "fuck" quietly.
After enough time to be sure Murre is settled downstairs, you breathe a laugh to Sheppard's searching eyes.
You get one solo visit to Sheppard's cabin before he shows up at the clinic burping maggots with Murre already out for the day. "You said you were fine." You had found him stitching back together an old puncture wound on his chest, sitting on the hill that is effectively the roof of his cabin. He doesn't admit to you that it's not the first old injury to reopen but grimaces when you make a scurvy joke. He swears he has enough vitamin c sources.
It's late enough for the gas station general store to be closed and dark enough you don't insist on hiking the outskirts of town to get to your cabin. You spend the walk trying not to think where along in the growth cycle the maggots were while you had spent the night in Sheppard's bed.
Your pantry is well-stocked with juice in tall containers just shy of a litre each, with a couple at a time open in your fridge—now crowded with Murre's preferred beverages. Murre drinks hard ciders and hard iced tea. There's a can of one in their hand when they hear about the maggots, immediately struggling to sit up on the couch without tipping it over. "Woah. Cool."
"'Woah, cool'?" You shuck off your shoes and head for the kitchen.
"I swear I don't need any juice," Sheppard calls after you.
"Are you still...?" Murre makes a sound with their throat that might imitate a frog croak if it weren't for the context.
"I might a little. Got a bunch out but it'll be a while for the meds to take care of the rest." Sheppard audibly flops onto your reading chair and fails to suppress his smile at Murre working through nausea at imagining the process. He looks up as you come back with a bag of half a dozen tall juice containers. "No for real, I have plenty vitamin c. All those spruce tips, and berries are in season." He'll take the bag regardless.
Murre takes the opportunity to whittle Sheppard into setting a day for the three of you to pick salmonberries.
