Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Lady Boil,” Rue greeted as they opened the door. “Please, have a seat. To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

Lady Boil walked in, but didn’t sit. She didn’t like the look of the offered chair - too primped and polished. “It is a simple matter, but a potentially delicate one, so I would appreciate your discretion.”

Rue nodded. “Of course.”

“I’ll get straight to the point,” Boil said. “Delloso de la Rue, though I am wary of your court, I find myself in need of your assistance with regards to our dear Captain K. P. Hob.”

Rue kept their careful composure, their hands clasped loosely together in front of them, but Boil didn’t miss the slight twitch in their knuckles at Hob’s name. “Oh?”

That boded either very ill, going off Hob’s reports, or very well, if Boil’s suspicions proved correct.

“You may be aware that some of us goblins go through estrus cycles?” she began, eyeing Rue attentively. “It seems that the good captain’s timing was a bit off and he is currently… indisposed, as it were.”

Rue gave a court-appropriate display of surprise, a dainty hand over the mouth and a delicate lift of the eyebrows. But there was a genuine tremble in their lower lip. “Oh dear.”

“Typically, goblins choose their own partners, but as you know, Hob is a bit of an… odd duck, shall we say. He requested that I choose a partner for him.”

Boil decided to leave out the part where Hob had emphasized, hat over heart, that he didn’t want to know who it was. Rue would naturally wonder why and it would be unwise to divulge the strange and tender pain he had been carrying on his shoulders as he made that request.

“Unfortunately, it seems Hob had a set of standards that he himself was unaware of until the cycle began, and the goblin I had chosen for him was inadequate,” Boil explained in as vague of terms as she could. “In fact, none of the goblins are adequate. But you, Master of Ceremonies…”

She trailed off, allowing the implication to stand that, by pure coincidence, Rue happened to match a random list of preferences. They didn’t need to know that Hob, feverish and snarling, had taken one look at the offered goblin, thrown him out the window, and demanded to know where Rue was.

Try as Boil might, there was no getting around it: Rue was the list. If she wanted to make use of her sharpest weapon, this was the only way.

Rue dithered and half-heartedly threw out alternatives, but with some subtle pressing here, a little guilt trip there, a nod to some recent drama to round things off, at last Boil secured the Bloom Master’s agreement.

Rue stepped into the entrance hall outside of Hob’s quarters and put a delicate elven hand on the doorknob. Taking a slow breath, they let the glamour fall away.

They understood that Hob had asked for this, that it wasn’t taking advantage, but they couldn’t stomach the thought of him recognizing them afterward. Of adding even a single drop more of tension to their already stiff interactions.

And, selfishly, despite Rue’s reluctance to admit it, they didn’t want to do this in their false form. Even if it could only be this one time, they wanted to give Hob their most authentic self.

Staring grimly at their clawed hand, they contemplated walking away for a moment. These memories would surely haunt them more viciously than any of their invented fantasies.

No - Hob was suffering and Rue was the only one who could help him. Any price was worth paying for his sake.

The owlbear opened the door and walked inside.

Hob’s room was in complete disarray. The table was overturned in the corner with the chairs broken and then stacked on top according to some unintelligible logic. Books and maps littered the floor, some carelessly discarded, others seemingly placed with precarious care. Claw marks dotted the walls and floor everywhere.

Hob himself lay tangled in his own bedsheets. The fabric had been coiled into ropes and bound tightly around his wrists, torso, and ankles, as if he were ineffectively holding himself hostage. He was curled on his side, twitching with barely contained energy, pulling at the ropes, seeming to be channeling his own restlessness into keeping himself as still as possible. His ear flicked up when the door opened, and then his nostrils flared.

All at once he had bolted upright, his predator eyes locking squarely on Rue. His pupils dilated to perfect inky circles, his target decided. He inhaled slow, a growl rippling across the roof of his mouth, then exhaled with a huff.

The way his fur was all mussed from tossing around on his bed, the heat-musk coating every surface in the room, the- oh goodness, the fact that he was entirely naked, no pants or shirt to speak of… All of it made the coil of guts in Rue’s stomach clench tightly together.

They were a predator too.

They shut the door behind them, magicked their clothes away, and met Hob’s scorching black gaze without flinching.

Hob’s claws flexed, pulling up tufts of down from the mattress, then launched himself forward.

Rue was faster. They tackled him back onto the bed, grabbing his wrists. Hob was snapping and fighting, but Rue held him down with tender force. They leaned in to nuzzle at the side of his mouth, then tilted their head to slide their tongue inside. Hob opened wide, panting wetly, saliva dripping down his jaw. The kiss was filthy, the particulars of their anatomy making it difficult to press flush together, so Rue pushed more fully inside Hob’s mouth. Feeding him their tongue like he was a hatchling.

A low whine escaped from Hob’s throat as he took Rue deeper. His jaw was trembling, surely aching, but still he took them so obediently.

Rue eased back out of his mouth and found Hob’s expression dazed. The fur around his mouth and down his throat was soaked. His eyes followed Rue’s face with trance-like attention, moving through molasses but missing nothing. They sat up and Hob keened at the distance, straining against their grip to follow.

Something in the pit of Rue’s stomach began to melt, becoming soft and all too easy to bruise. It had been a mistake coming in their true form, stripped utterly bare under the weight of Hob’s desire.

Well, the mistake had already been made, so it was best to make the most of it.

“Be good,” Rue warned him in a gentle voice, nipping him on the ear before releasing his wrists.

Hob trembled but managed to keep still, allowing Rue’s hands to travel down his body unfettered. His ears, on the other hand, swiveled up, perhaps vainly trying to reach where he was otherwise not allowed.

Oh, how was it possible for this great military captain to be so adorable?

Rue pinched his waist and Hob gasped. Their hand wandered further, dragging over his navel, then sliding lower to palm between his legs. Hob’s leg kicked out with a pitiful wailing sound that whistled between his fangs. Should Rue so desire, it would be frightfully simple to ease his cock from its sheath.

However, after the noise he just made, they no longer so desired.

Although Hob was quite different from his fellow goblins socially, he still retained the biology of one and, as a species, goblin bodies were not so picky about how they were satisfied.

Rue’s hand dipped lower and found the wet slick leaking from Hob’s ass. They pressed the pad of their finger to his hole, careful to keep their claws out of the way, and Hob sucked in a sharp breath. Feeling rather mischievous, Rue teased him a little, circling the rim, then reaching under to press at the base of his tail. A snarl rumbled through Hob’s chest, making Rue laugh.

“Pray, forgive me, dear captain,” they murmured fondly. “I shall not tarry a moment longer.”

They ducked down and buried their face in his fur, savoring the warmth between his thighs, the thick scent of desire, as they pushed their tongue inside. Hob threw his head back, howling with all the air left in his lungs. His long arms shot out, claws tangling in the feathers around Rue’s head, pulling them closer with trembling urgency. Rue, pleased by his undisguised desperation, decided not to chastise him for moving and instead open wide to lick deeper into Hob’s body. Slick burst on their tongue, Hob’s thighs squeezing around their head, the pleasure wringing him out from head to toe. The sniffling, breathy quality of his voice, the pinballing tones as each snarling inhale became a high-pitched moan on the exhale, the shameless discomposure of his lust - it was all so heady, so real, the coarser, short hair on his arms contrasting with the soft downy fur of his thighs, the graceless jerking of his hips, the force of his fingers in their feathers digging in with bloody intent then relaxing in turns-

Rue wrenched themself away, uncaring that several feathers came away in Hob’s fists. They climbed up Hob’s body to bite his neck and, drawing their own cock out, they drove it inside him at once.

Hob sank his teeth into their shoulder with a muffled yell. Gathering him fully into the circle of their arms, kneeling with their head pressed to the bed so they could crush him to their chest with both arms wound around tight, Rue thrust in deep. Hob released their shoulder from his jaws with a cry. Thrashing in their grip, clenching around them, he pushed his nose into their neck. He panted open-mouthed into their feathers, taking in their scent with frantic gulps of air. He was making little noises too, his jaw working hard to close around what could have been a word, but he couldn’t quite seem to ever form a recognizable syllable.

At last Rue’s strength gave out and they fell onto the bed, dropping their full weight on Hob, pressing him hard into the mattress as they came, bullying their cock into the deepest part of his body to fill him up. Hob seized, his back fighting to arch under them with a choked cry.

All at once, the tension vanished. Burned and bruised in the best way, they both melted into each other.

Hob tucked his nose under Rue’s chin and finally circled his mouth around a word.

Rue’s heart went utterly still.

Chapter Text

Hob awoke aching and sore all over, but otherwise comfortable. He sat up, doing his best to ignore the tender throb that radiated up his back, and realized he had been fully cleaned and tucked in by someone.

It could only have been whoever had shared his bed. It would never have occurred to any of the other goblins that post-intercourse washing was something desirable.

This also meant that his partner had not been a goblin…

He shut down that train of thought. It was no use wondering. He had asked Lady Boil not to tell him the identity of the fey she picked for a reason. 

He looked down at his hands and found his claws tightly clenched around something. Opening his fist, he discovered a handful of crushed green feathers.

Feathers? Someone hailing from the house of the Lords of the Wing?

He stuffed them down his throat before he could think to observe them more closely. Even this had been too much information. His heartstrings, all bound up around his lungs, pulled tight.

He set about unearthing his map from underneath his half-built chair fortress and discarded unruly thoughts from his mind.

Rue was likely to wear a hole through the carpet at the rate they had been pacing.

Hob knew.

They hastened their circuitous steps by another degree to banish the giddy ball of energy in their stomach so they could focus.

They had shown their true form and still, Hob had recognized them.

“Rue.”

They took a sharp turn in their route to avoid giggling.

This was no time for romanticism! They were standing on the precipice of disaster!

Hob was an honorable man. Rue trusted that he would not be one to divulge the secrets of others lightly.

On the other hand, he was also so utterly, unbearably, charmingly- frustratingly loyal to his court. If Boil or Blemish were to order him to find information the goblins could use against the Court of Wonder, there was no objective way Rue could be sure their secret was safe.

Well. They were fairly sure it was safe with him. They wanted to believe that, anyway. But objectively, rationally, setting their heart aside well away from this potentially damning situation, now that the information was outside Rue’s control, it was compromised. Hob was extremely sharp-witted, to be sure, the way his knife-edged gaze dissected his surroundings, the hooded glow of intelligence behind his eyes that others fooled themselves into believing wasn’t there, the meticulous planning that went on in… Nevertheless! His direct honesty made him susceptible to the manipulations of others, especially his superiors. Rue might trust him, but they didn’t trust Boil one bit. Something as simple as a Zone of Truth could be the end of it.

“Rue.”

They abruptly stopped and buried their face in their hands.

Hob knew. Hob knew! Hob-

They inhaled deeply, wrestling the undignified squeal looming in their throat back down, and came to a decision.

If they were being honest… this wasn’t about court politics at all. This was something they had been pondering for awhile now. The experience of being seen by Hob as they truly were, being recognized and accepted and desired as their true self, his nose in their feathers, his black-as-night pupils drinking them in like a man dying, his claws grasping at whatever part of them was within reach - now that they knew what that was like, it was just too hard to stuff it all back into their false skin.

Besides, if it was going to come out anyway, they would rather make an entrance of it.

Try as Hob might, he was a military man through and through. His eyes fell into scanning his surroundings for information by default and he kept catching himself checking the color of the birdfolks’ feathers.

This preoccupation was becoming troublesome. He needed to get a grip. Navigating the complexities of the Bloom was challenging enough for one as simpleminded as he, it could prove quite perilous if he were to attempt anything while so distracted.

It was altogether unappealing, but the most tactically sound move might be to just grit his teeth and find out the identity of his partner so he could put the whole ordeal to rest. The heartbreak he would suffer in the process was not worth endangering his court over.

He called together a small squadron of salt goblins and set them on the case.

Despite all their best efforts, none of them came back with any answers.

Rue couldn’t help it. The instant the glamour dropped, their eyes went to Hob in the crowd like a magnet.

Hob glanced in their direction while he was on his way to approaching Lord Airavis, stumbled rather spectacularly, did a double-take, and then stood frozen there for all to see. The look of naked admiration on his face made Rue flush with pride under their feathers.

He seemed unconsciously to take a step forward, then caught himself. His loosely held expression turned to one of gut-wrenching vulnerability for a flash before he stiffened his jaw back into place, packing himself away into the rigid statue of a military captain. Bowing curtly to Airavis, he turned on his heel and left the gathering altogether.

Rue didn’t know what they expected, but it certainly hadn’t been the good captain fleeing in apparent terror. They immediately abandoned any of their plans to win over the audience as a whole in favor of gathering their skirts to follow him with haste.

Hob retreated into the woods and Rue came upon him steadying himself against a tree. He straightened at the sound of footsteps, but again was rendered slack-jawed at Rue’s appearance.

“Rue- Bloom Master, I-” He made a clumsy salute of an unsuccessful snap and a crossed elbow clap. Looking rather ashamed of the poor display, ears dropping, he bowed and said, “Forgive me, I- Your appearance- Rather, I was- I, I find myself wholly inadequate at expressing-”

Sensing this could go on for some time, Rue laid a hand on his arm and his mouth snapped shut.

“Captain Hob,” they said gently, “breathe. Tell me slowly. What is the reason for your distress?”

Hob breathed deep, in, out, then blurted out, “You are so beautiful.” Seeming embarrassed by the outburst and unaware of the heat blooming beneath Rue’s feathers, he looked down. “I must apologize, I never… That is to say, I requested for the decision regarding my partner in certain private matters to be taken out of my hands, and that was wrong of me. I never imagined you would be caught up in such a distasteful situation. As I understand it, we both agreed to be party to it, but nevertheless, I should not have allowed my cowardice to prevent me from managing my own affairs. I should have seen to it myself that those most in danger of bearing the- unpleasantness of my goblin nature were protected from me.”

“Those?” Rue repeated, taking note of the word ‘unpleasant’ to be addressed later. “Plural?”

Hob seemed even more guilty to be caught out on his word choice. “Truly, I am proven incapable of even the smallest trickery. Not ‘those,’ ‘the one’ most in danger. Singular.”

“I wanted to,” Rue said. “Long before Lady Boil asked me.”

Hob’s eyes flew to Rue’s.

“Did you want to?” they asked. “With me?”

“Yes,” Hob said, voice thin. “Only you. I could bear the thought of no other.”

Rue’s hand slid up Hob’s arm, over his shoulder, to the crook of his neck and pressed down on the bruise they knew was hidden under the layers of stately coat and fur. Hob gasped, head dropping back against the tree, knocking his hat off kilter.

“You will never have to entertain such thoughts of others so long as my heart beats in my chest and air flows through my lungs, dear captain,” Rue told him.

“Knickolas,” he replied through his teeth. “The K…”

Overwhelmed by the tide of affection this information spurred in them, Rue bit his neck.

Hob made a low growl that petered off into a wobbling breath. “Rue… I am still, a bit sensitive to- my, my constitution could be inadvertently persuaded to revert to…”

Rue doubled down on biting him as they crowded him up against the tree, one hand dropping to circle his tail with a claw.

“Is that an objectionable possibility, Knickolas?” they asked.

Yellow - no, black, black eyes glazing over, Hob shook his head.

Rue began stroking his tail, base to tip, with a tenderness unbefitting of the way they proceeded to attack his jaw, one skirt-laden leg shoving between his thighs. All at once Hob’s scent shifted, dropping like a rock into something heavy, feverish, clinging to Rue, claiming them as his own. His temperature spiked under Rue’s palms and he shuddered, words crumbling away into grunts and whines.

Inordinately pleased with their work thus far, Rue encouraged the increasingly incoherent captain to turn around (letting his hat tumble onto the forest floor in the process), hiked up their dress, and pushed inside him.

He howled, digging deep gashes into the trunk of the tree. He was so tight, hot slick leaking obscenely down his thighs when Rue pulled out to fuck back inside him. Snarling, he tried to crane his head to snap at Rue, but dropped his forehead to the tree with a moan when they ground in deep.

The stupid high collar of his fancy jacket was only open in the front. Abruptly annoyed with it, Rue hooked it in their beak and tore it down the back so they could recommence nipping at his neck. They groped the front of his torso as well, finding the overlap of fabric holding it closed and popping the buttons off with a hard yank. Hob only made it worse by struggling, jostling Rue’s claws into his sash, pulling it free from his belt with newly ragged edges. Rue pecked at his ear and he settled down with a whimper.

“Shh,” Rue whispered into his ear. “Dear, sweet Knickolas, relax.”

Grabbing him firmly by the hips, they rolled into him, slow, achingly deep, impelling him onto the balls of his feet with a winded cry. He spasmed, caught, stretched to breaking, and came undone with an ominous crack in the tree trunk.

Rue had no intention of letting him get away so easily.