crack_van | Salt Water by Otter (PG-13)

Fandom: WILBY WONDERFUL
Pairing: Duck MacDonald / Dan Jarvis
Author on LJ:

agentotter
Author Website: Faded Press
Why this must be read:

One of the inaugural offerings in the new community

wilbywednesday's and a great addition to the fandom. This is an honest and stark look at the cost of Dan's closeted life and how it is suffocating him even before the scandal at the Watch happens. I really loved how it is Duck's intimate understanding of being in Dan's shoes in the past that is both the motivation for his understanding of as well as his attraction for Dan.

Dan needs a lot of things, probably even thinks he needs the Watch, but Duck isn't so sure. Duck's seen how the Watch is breaking him down piece by piece, the way Dan's shoulders round over and how he stares at nothing and how the shame and the secret are whittling him away. It's a desperate kind of unhappiness that the Watch breeds in people, and Duck knows it intimately: the way a man can take a little seed of wanting and swallow it down and not even notice the way it grows and spreads and takes root until it's something that keeps him pinned to the ground, until he's as much a part of the Watch as the bedrock, always a little swamped under by the sea.

Salt Water