[Adult] hungry like the wolf

[Timothy Anderson]

The Goose & Gander was a familiar haunt, though Tim hadn't been in some time. Work had kept him busy, and he'd not spent much time around Whitechapel over the summer months. Though the building hadn't changed, and indeed most of the girls seemed familiar, the atmosphere of the establishment had seemed ... different.

The explanation was probably to be found in the tall, dark-eyed man presiding from a half-hidden corner of the common room.

It had taken the undercover detective a long moment to place that long face; watching from the corner of his eye as he chatted up the mistress, waited for his preferred girl to lead him upstairs. Then it had slid into place, and the most he could manage was a rather dismayed ah, fuck. Ambrose Wilkes had no business being here; this wasn't one of his brothels, and they were a bit far from Artillery Street by Tim's estimation.

But the man was here, Tim was here, and as long as he didn't make too much of a fuss, draw attention to himself, it would be fine. (The reassurance held less water when those dark eyes met his, and it was difficult to excuse the flush of his cheeks even to the warmth of the packed room.)

He did his best to put the pimp out of his mind; he was here for a purpose, regardless of whose pockets he filled with his visit, and his girl – a redhead (of course) who said her name was Lucinda, but whose record with the Yard said it was Margaret – was quick enough to lead him to a room, pull his cock out of his pants, and swallow it down. His mouth dry, Tim stared up at the ceiling. If he didn't look down at the redhead's bobbing locks, he could imagine whomever he wanted. Maybe that was why, this time, he didn't protest when her wandering fingers abandoned his balls to instead slide between his cheeks.

She'd offered that much before; he'd always reacted poorly to it, anger aroused by the implication of it all. She would soothe him, ride him, and send him home a guinea poorer. Tonight, though... Wordlessly he shifted, opening his legs slightly to allow her the access she'd wanted. Professional that she was, there was no comment made, merely that questing finger doing its work. One became two, to Tim's stuttering gasps, and she pressed upon some place inside of him. Without warning, he was filling her mouth, back arching slightly.

Embarrassment filled the space that his arousal had been filling, and anger came hot on its heels. "What the fuck, Lucinda?" She was already moving back, but Tim's orgasm had already faded to a nervous energy that had him pushing her away, trying to gain his feet again, shoving his slick cock back in his pants. Between the two of their efforts, her skirt caught under her ankle, and she half-sat, half-fell to the floor. The whore's hands were up in placation, though from the glance at the door it wasn't Tim for whom she worried. "Keep your voice down," she hissed, "You liked it well enough. There's nothing wrong with it, Timmy–"

"Don't call me that!" It betrayed a familiarity that normally didn't bother him; that he wanted, from the woman who he'd bedded so often before. Tonight, though, it curled in his stomach, hot and acidic, and only belatedly he thought to mind her warning.

[Ambrose Wilkes]

The everyday operations of any of his houses was not something that Ambrose Wilkes typically applied himself to. The Powders operated as a well-oiled machine, with cogs and gears all down the line, and layers of loyal troops through whom delegation could dependably follow. The Goose & Gander was a new acquisition, however — Less a proper brothel than a collection of women under a leaky, leased roof — and Rosie had learned the benefit of establishing protocols himself. The girls were yet skittish of him, but they would soften with time and improved treatment, and there was no better informant to have onside than a whore.

It suited Rosie, too, that any regular Johns might take note of the establishment's new broker — The adage was true that prevention was worth an ounce of cure. What a grown man indulged in behind closed doors was of little concern provided compensation was sufficient and the rules of engagement were followed, but a reminder of consequences seldom went amiss. He wouldn't have thought the message unlikely to land with the mousy man who had trailed the redhead upstairs, yet here Rosie was, looming in the door.

Wordless, he looked from the woman hunched on the floor, to the flushed face of the mouse, and back again. He stepped into the room and held out a hand to help her to her feet. Still dressed, not so much as a nipple exposed, which meant she'd gone to sucking him off first thing.

"Rosie, I'm sorry, it isn't—" she began, and he shot her a sidelong glance that clamped her mouth shut.

"Are you all right?" he asked, voice low and velvet-rough.

"I only startled 'im, most like a little up the back—" Rosie's hand lifted and she swallowed back the rest. He dropped his gaze from the whore to the worn floorboards.

"Go on," he told her, and she jolted past him, dressing gown fluttering in her wake. Rosie pushed the door closed behind her with a patient hand and then turned back.

"No one mishandles my girls," he said, pale gaze steady and cold.

[Timothy Anderson]

Of all the ways the night could've gone wrong – on all the nights to have things go wrong – of course it goes like this, when one of Whitechapel's most wanted was around. Tim's face felt so hot it was a surprise he hadn't melted then and there; the shame of what had happened, coupled with his behavior towards Lucinda, and with the cherry on top of it being witnessed, to whatever extent, by him of all fucking people...

It was probably a bit much to hope that he could simply sink straight down to Hell, where he clearly belonged, but that didn't stop Tim from having the idle thought regardless.

Still, he stood ramrod straight, glaring up at the other man in a silent challenge that he already knew he wouldn't win. It hardly mattered if he could survive, or win, a fight with Wilkes; the man had an entire gang at his beck and call, and there weren't good odds that he'd come alone tonight. "She tripped. I didn't even touch her. And since when are any of them your girls?" His voice was as tense as his spine, stripped of any trace of his homeland's accent and painted instead with something not quite anything but London and a bit proper. Jaw set, refusing to back down or tuck his tail; there'd be no apology forthcoming for no wrong committed.

(He'd be more at ease with the door left open and his truncheon at-hand, but he tried not to linger over-much on if only.)

[Ambrose Wilkes]

At the question, Rosie's eyebrows jumped, but he otherwise offered no answer. It was hardly this man's business how long these women had been under his protection; Rosie might have walked in off the street and claimed that privilege from an unruly John. The man's tone was prim, too fussy for Whitechapel, and Rosie stepped forward until the mouse was crowded between the far wall and the warm, stolid column of his own body.

"Afraid if one of the girls in Hoxton stick a finger up your arse, they might talk?" Rosie asked, and splayed one broad hand across the top of the John's throat, just beneath his jaw. He was a fit little mouse, with his wide, dark eyes and flushed lips, and it was impossible not to wonder whether that mouth had ever been put to its best use. Given the hot thrum of shame pouring off the man, it seemed unlikely.

"But no one knows you here, is that right?" he asked, and his fingers firmed against stubbled skin just a little, just enough. Less proper threat than invitation.

[Timothy Anderson]

Tim knew better than to let himself be shut away in a room, unarmed and without backup of any kind. He knew better than to allow another man – a taller man, a broader man – to crowd his space in such a manner. He knew better than to give ground, until there was no more room to yield. The wall at his back was a physical, immovable force; the man in front of him its equal, if not physically then with his sheer presence.

There was no ready answer for the cause of Tim's stolen voice, or for how readily he cowed before the other man. His jaw was still set, chin still lifted in challenge, every nerve singing with alarm, and for all that, the most he could do was scowl and fight to keep his gaze from dropping to Wilkes' lips.

The hand on his throat might as well have been made of fire for how it burned. Tim's adam's apple bobbed with a reflexive swallow, and he did his best to ignore the sensations rushing through his body – though admittedly his best wasn't very good in the face of this particular onslaught. "I'm not going all the way to Hoxton for a whore," he rasped with an impossibly dry mouth, still scowling.

There was no answer for the rest; there was no possible answer he could give that wouldn't betray him, one way or another.

[Ambrose Wilkes]

No answer was in itself an answer, as was the choice to give way beneath the broad palm of Rosie's hand. "Could go to Maggie's," he suggested, and slid the pad of his thumb across the tense line of the other man's jaw. If Rosie himself was known by sight, then Maggie's would be known as well, whether one possessed the constitution to be seen walking in the front door or not. "Mostly bottom boys over there, but I'm sure they've someone who would suit a trim arse like yours, little mouse."

Barely half a step remained between them, and Rosie closed most of it as he wedged a muscled thigh between the John's legs. His own cock had barely begun to stir, too much fight yet in those dark, glowering eyes, but the heat had begun to pool low in his abdomen in anticipation.

"On your knees," he said, and relented, fingers sliding from warm skin as he took a step back and began unfastening the front of his trousers.

[Timothy Anderson]

The name alone was enough to twist Tim's features; turn his angry scowl into something far more similar to disgust. The description was far worse, prompting his eyes to close and his head to attempt to turn away as though he could protect himself from the accusation layered in the words.

His mouth opened to retort, only for a hissed gasp to leave them instead at the intrusion between his legs. For all that he'd squirted down the whore's throat all of a few minutes ago, his erection hadn't ever entirely abated. Now it twitched back to full hardness with a speed that was more fitting for a young man catching his first glimpse of a cunt. "I'm not a sodomite," he spat, not caring about any evidence to the contrary.

Far worse was the humiliation at the casual command. For all his moments of weakness – actions taken that were best left completely unremembered, but had gone no further than fumbling kisses and groping in the darkest of corners – there were lines in the sand that Tim had never crossed. They were lines that he would not cross for anyone – let alone Wilkes, of all people. "Touch me again, and the entire house'll hear that the new pimp's a molly." With the space he'd been given, he made to brush past the other. Staying in the room for more than a second longer than necessary was a dangerous proposition.

[Ambrose Wilkes]

The threat was as much of an affectation as the rest, quite obviously belied by the readiness with which the other man's prick stood to immediate attention, but there was no threat, however mild, however absurd, that could be borne. Not here, not in Rosie's own house. He caught the man's shoulder as he attempted to step past and thumped him back up against the wall chest-first, forearm spanned across thin shoulders.

"Is that right?" he asked, a thread of amusement now sewn through the velvet timbre of his voice. "And how do you imagine such a revelation is going to serve you, little mouse?" Stepping forward, he notched his yet-ambivalent cock into the crease of the other man's arse and craned his neck to speak hot against the shell of his ear. "How do you think these women, making more than they have in their entire lives, will take such news, coming from a man who tried to beat one of them because he can't admit he wants to be fucked in the arse?" More to the point, perhaps, was how the man imagined he would make it from the room, much less out of the building.

Still pressed flush against the smaller man's back, Rosie shifted his arm from the top of thin shoulders so that he could clamp his fingers back around his throat. His free hand took hold of the other man by the crotch, the hard length of him burning through the fabric of his trousers.

"Your cock tells your truth, little mouse," he rumbled, and rocked his hips forward. "Now tell me what you really want."

[Timothy Anderson]

A knife would've been more easily weathered than the weight against his back, the breath against his ear, or the cock against his ass. It felt like his heart was trying its damnedest to escape through his throat, and the arousal twisting in his stomach neared a level of need so intense as to be painful.

"How do you think the johns will take it, knowing you're lurking about?" A half-hearted attempt to push away from the wall got him nowhere... As intended. "I didn't even lift a finger against her, you stupid git. She tripped." The protestation hardly mattered, but at least it was the truth. Tim didn't care what the other thought of him, but the idea of catching a beating of his own on top of all of this for lifting a hand against the woman was unappealing.

The hand on his aching prick stilled all other words and thoughts. He burned anew, and resting his forehead with a quiet thump against the wall, closing his eyes against the humiliation and the disgust and the self hatred, he whispered into the grains a rough and borderline inaudible word: "Please." Even saying that much felt akin to driving the knife into his own back, and even as he said it he knew it likely wouldn't be enough for Wilkes.

[Ambrose Wilkes]

Ah, there. Not so difficult at all once the facade faltered, and Rosie stilled against the other man's back, nose pressed into the hair behind his ear and breathing hot along the curve of his neck. One word, and barely heard, but it traveled directly to his own cock as if on command.

"Please what?" he murmured, tone gentled a touch by a hot wave of desire, and he rocked his stiffening prick against the sweet curve of that waiting arse. "Let me hear you say it, Mouse." His fingers remained tight against the other man's throat, but he loosened his grip between his thighs, deft fingers teasing out the shape of him through fabric.