7. Midnight Interruptus & The Great Escape
Midnight Interruptus & The Great Escape
Wreck
We're halfway through round four when the pounding starts.
Not the good kind of pounding. The other kind.
"Boss! Bosses! Code red! Code extremely fucking red!"
Squeak's tiny voice is shrill enough to cut through the oak door and the obscene sounds of... well, everything we're currently doing.
Cinder is on her hands and knees on the table. Ash is behind her. Slade is beneath her. I'm at her mouth again because I have the refractory period of a seventeen-year-old on his wedding night and I'm not about to waste that gift.
"Ignore it," Cinder mumbles around my cock.
Gods, I want to ignore it. I want to ignore everything except the warm wet heat of her mouth and the way she moans every time Ash thrusts and the fact that this is objectively the best night of my entire chaotic life.
But that's the panic squeak. I know the panic squeak.
"Can't," Ash grunts, still thrusting. "That's the panic squeak."
"You have a panic squeak?" Cinder asks, pulling off me.
"Eleven minutes!" Nibbles shrieks from the other side of the door. "Eleven minutes until midnight and you're all still balls deep in royalty!"
Oh.
Oh no.
Oh no no no no no.
"Shit," Slade says, his rhythm faltering.
"Time check," I say, and for the first time tonight I'm genuinely concerned about something other than orgasms. "How long does it take to get from here to the carriage?"
"Seven minutes if we run," Ash calculates, still buried inside her because he's apparently capable of math while fucking. "Eight if there are guards."
"There are definitely guards," Slade says from beneath. "We passed six on the way in."
"Nine minutes!" Twitch screams. "And Murder and Violence are getting twitchy! The mice energy is returning!"
Murder and Violence. My beautiful temporary horses.
They're going to turn back into field mice. While we're three miles from home. While we're naked and covered in Cinder.
This is bad. This is very bad.
But then I look at Cinder, flushed and desperate and still trying to grind back against Ash, and this is still the best night ever.
One-Eye's voice cuts through like a disappointed headmaster. "If you three are not out of that room in sixty seconds, I’m leaving without you and you can explain to the lady why you just turned back into pig farmers mid-coitus."
That does it. All three of us pull out simultaneously.
Cinder lets out a wail of protest that would be flattering if I wasn't suddenly terrified of turning into a pumpkin. Or whatever the male equivalent is. A turnip? A sad, naked turnip who used to be inside a lady?
"Where are my trousers?" I ask.
"That's my doublet," Ash says.
"Why is there cum on my mask?" Slade asks.
"That's your cum, Slade,” I say.
I'm hopping on one foot, trying to shove my leg into something that might be pants but might also be a curtain. Everything is chaos. Beautiful, panicked chaos.
Cinder scrambles upright on the table, gloriously wrecked, cum dripping down her thighs, hair a disaster, looking absolutely furious.
"Where do you think you're going? We're not finished!"
"We're very finished," Ash says, yanking his trousers up with one hand while searching for his boots with the other. "Magic deadline. You wouldn't understand."
"I would understand if you explained."
"No time!"
I've got my shirt on. It's backwards. And inside out. I don't care. "Gerald! Susan! Rally to me!"
Susan shoots out from under a chair, I don't know how she got in here, I don't ask questions, and rockets up my leg, chittering frantically.
But Gerald is nowhere.
"Gerald?" I spin in a circle, panic rising. "Gerald?"
"Seven minutes!" the rats scream in unison.
"I'm not leaving without Gerald."
"You're leaving without Gerald!" Slade grabs me by the collar, hauling me toward the door while trying to button his doublet with one hand. "He's a ferret! He'll survive!"
"He has abandonment issues."
Where is he? Where is my chaos son? He was here, I know he was here, he was trying to steal Cinder's earrings earlier and I told him to wait until she was distracted and…
Oh no.
He's still stealing. He's somewhere in this room, stealing something, and he doesn't know we're leaving.
"Gerald!" I scream.
No answering chitter. No furry face. Nothing.
Ash finds one boot. Just one. He shoves his foot into it, looks around wildly for the other, and makes a split-second decision.
"Fuck it. One boot. Let's go." He throws open the door.
The animals are in full crisis mode.
Squeak, Nibbles, and Twitch have formed a tiny rodent barricade, waving their paws like the world's smallest air traffic controllers. Bastard has a guard pinned against the wall through sheer intimidation, hissing like a demon. One-Eye is dive-bombing anyone who looks at us funny.
"Move move move!" Squeak commands. "Left corridor! Service stairs! The fancy people are still in the ballroom wondering why the lady disappeared!"
We run.
I'm running without Gerald. I'm running and my son is somewhere in that room and I'm abandoning him.
"Slade, we have to go back."
"Five minutes!"
The magic starts failing in the worst possible ways.
Slade's left glove, ornate, embroidered, definitely not something a farm boy should own, suddenly dissolves off his hand and rematerializes somewhere behind us. He doesn't even notice, too busy running.
Ash's remaining boot flickers, the polished leather threatening to revert to mud-caked work gear. He pushes harder, bare foot slapping against marble.
My doublet begins unraveling at the seams, red threads trailing behind me like I'm molting. "I'm falling apart!"
"We're all falling apart!" Slade shouts back. "Stairs!"
I look back. Just once.
Cinder is stumbling after us, sheet clutched to her chest, legs still shaking from everything we did to her. Her voice echoes down the corridor.
"Get back here! I didn't get… wait, is that a goose?"
Bastard pauses his guard intimidation long enough to honk at her, somehow conveying both "sorry about this" and "touch my human and I'll end you" before waddling at top speed after Slade.
We hit the service stairwell at full speed, animals streaming around our feet like a very chaotic honor guard.
"Three minutes!"
We burst out a side door into the gardens.
The carriage is waiting but it's already starting to change.
The glossy black lacquer is bubbling, patches of rotting wood showing through. The silver-spoke wheels wobble ominously. Murder and Violence are stamping nervously, their magnificent stallion forms flickering like candles in wind.
One of them briefly has mouse ears.
Oh no. Oh no oh no oh no.
"In in in!" One-Eye shrieks from the driver's bench. "Now! All of you! Before I leave your sorry asses behind!"
Ash vaults in first, hauling me after him. Slade dives through the door, Bastard somehow already inside and claiming the best seat.
Susan is clinging to my shoulder, chittering mournfully.
Gerald is still in the castle.
"Gerald," I gasp, looking back. "We left Gerald."
"Gerald is a casualty of war!" Slade yanks the door shut. "We'll mount a rescue operation!"
"Gerald is alone and scared,” I shout.
"Gerald is a sociopath who once bit a priest! He'll be fine!"
The first chime of midnight rings out across the castle grounds.
DONG.
The carriage lurches forward, Murder and Violence galloping like their temporary existence depends on it. Which it does.
DONG.
Ash's second boot, the one he's wearing, explodes off his foot, reverting instantly to a massive, mud-caked work boot. It tumbles out the carriage window into the night.
"Shit."
"Leave it!" Slade grabs his arm. "Small price!"
DONG.
Slade's doublet shimmers and begins to shrink, threads pulling tight across his shoulders. He rips it off and throws it aside, suddenly shirtless.
"This is undignified."
"This is Tuesday for us!" I cackle, slightly hysterical, my own shirt now completely transparent and fading fast.
DONG.
Behind us, through the carriage's rear window, I see Cinder burst onto a balcony. Sheet clutched to her chest. Voice carrying across the night: "I'll find you! Every eligible man in the kingdom! They'll all…"
She pauses. I see her look down at something.
"There's a ferret in the antechamber! Is this yours?!"
"Gerald!" I scream out the window. "I'm sorry! Daddy will come back for you!"
Susan lets out a mourning chitter against my neck.
I might be crying. Just a little. It's fine. Everything is fine.
DONG.
The carriage wheels are now actively square. That shouldn't be possible but here we are.
Murder and Violence have shrunk to the size of ponies. Then large dogs. Then…
"We're losing the horses!" One-Eye reports grimly, flapping alongside the increasingly ridiculous vehicle. "They're almost mice again!"
"How far to the farm?!"
"Too far!"
DONG.
Murder and Violence are now the size of cats, still somehow galloping, their tiny legs a blur of increasingly rodent-like determination.
I respect their commitment. I respect it so much.
The velvet interior has reverted to rotting wood and hay. We’re sitting on manure-hauling equipment, half-naked, covered in scratches and hickeys and evidence of the night's activities.
"Best night ever," Slade says.
"We lost Gerald," Ash points out.
"Second best night ever." I clutch Susan to my chest. She's trembling. I'm trembling. We're both thinking about Gerald.
“Gerald would want us to enjoy this,” Slade says.
"Gerald would want us to go back for him," I say.
"Gerald would want us to not be arrested for defiling the lady!” Ash says.
DONG.
The seventh chime, and the carriage gives up entirely.
It collapses mid-roll, dumping all three of us into a ditch on the side of the road. Murder and Violence, now fully mice again, squeak indignantly and scurry off into the underbrush.
I land hard. Susan somehow ends up on my head. I don't move for a second, staring up at the stars, thinking about my ferret.
My sweet, violent, klepto ferret. Alone in a castle full of strangers. Surrounded by shiny things he's not allowed to steal.
Actually, knowing Gerald, he's probably already stolen half the crown jewels and is building a nest somewhere. He'll be fine. He's resourceful.
But Susan won't stop making sad noises, and I can't stop thinking about his stupid face and his stupid war dances and the way he always tried to steal my breakfast.
One-Eye lands on a fencepost, surveying the wreckage with grim satisfaction.
"Well. You're alive. Mostly clothed. And only one of you lost a pet." His good eye fixes on me. "I'm calling this a qualified success."
"We lost Gerald," I say, and my voice cracks a little.
"Gerald is a menace to society. The lady will probably be grateful."
"Gerald is a treasure."
Ash hauls himself upright. He's wearing one mud-caked boot, torn peasant breeches, and nothing else. His chest is covered in scratches that definitely look like fingernail trails. "We need to get back to the farm before Grimwald realizes we were gone."
Slade stands, somehow still elegant despite being shirtless, one-gloved, and covered in hay. "If we cut through the north field, we can make it in twenty minutes."
I remain lying in the ditch, staring at the stars.
"Gerald is in that castle. Alone. Afraid. Probably stealing jewelry from the lady right now, but emotionally alone."
"Gerald is a menace who will be fine," Ash says firmly. "And when she comes looking for us…"
"If she comes looking for us."
"When." Ash's voice carries absolute certainty. "Did you see her face? She'll tear the kingdom apart."
He's right. I know he's right. The way she looked at us, the way she screamed after us, that's not a woman who's going to shrug and move on.
That's a woman on a mission.
"And when she does," Ash continues, allowing himself a small, satisfied smile, "we'll be ready."
From the direction of the castle, the final chimes of midnight fade.
The rats emerge from various pockets and hiding spots, looking bedraggled but triumphant.
"That," Squeak announces, "was the greatest night in the history of nights. We are legends. We are Gods."
"We lost a ferret," Nibbles points out.
"Gerald knew the risks when he signed up for this mission!"
"Gerald didn't sign up! Gerald just wanted to steal a candlestick!"
One-Eye sighs the sigh of a thousand exhausted years. "Walk. Now. Before I abandon all of you and move to a quieter kingdom."
Slade offers me a hand. I take it, letting him pull me up. Susan relocates from my head to my shoulder, still making sad little noises.
"Hey," I say to her, scratching behind her ear. "We'll get him back. I promise."
She chitters mournfully.
"I know. I miss him too."
The three of us, limping, disheveled, and deeply satisfied despite everything, begin the long trudge back to Grimwald Acres.
Behind us, the castle glows in the distance. Inside it, a lady is clutching a boot, a glove, and a very confused ferret.
"Hey Ash?" I say, trudging through a muddy field.
"Yeah?"
"When she finds us, and she will, do you think she'll be mad?"
Ash thinks about it. Really thinks. I can see him replaying the night, the way she demanded more, the way she clawed at us, the way she screamed our names.
"I think she'll be furious," he says finally. "And then I think she'll jump us."
"Promise?"
"Promise."
I brighten. Just a little.
Gerald's sacrifice was worth it.
...Okay, I can't actually commit to that thought. I'm still devastated. But at least there's a light at the end of this tunnel. A beautiful, angry, sexually insatiable light.
From my shoulder, Susan chitters something sharp.
"Susan says Gerald's sacrifice wasn't worth it."
"Susan needs to see the bigger picture."
"Susan says the bigger picture can go fuck itself."
"Language, Susan."
We walk.
Three farm boys under the stars. Leaving behind a ruined lady, a confused court, and one extremely enterprising ferret who, at this very moment, is likely discovering that the crown jewels are surprisingly poorly guarded.
Gerald is going to be just fine.
And so are we.
Probably.