TITLE: House Divided
AUTHOR: roseveare
RATING: R/Mature for this version.
LENGTH: 80,000 words over 10 parts.
WARNINGS: Dubious consent, non consent, dark, Despair Event Horizon.
CHARACTERS: Mara|Audrey Parker, Nathan, William, Duke, Jennifer, Dwight.
SHIPPING: The fic is Audrey/Nathan and Duke/Jennifer in spirit while the active 'pairing' is the threesome of Mara/Nathan/William. (I suspect this almost stands as a warning in itself.)
SUMMARY: In which Nathan still has A Plan To Rescue Audrey, Duke wants to know if it's as lousy/suicidal as the last one, and Mara also has plans, too many of them to count.
NOTES: Okay... I'm going to put this on fanfictiondotnet because Eurydice's Adventures in the Underworld is on this site. It will mean making some cuts to chapter 3, but additionally, the proper version of this story is illustrated, and it also has a vid, and it can be found in full at (archive of our own dot net) (works) 4394303. Or just google House Divided roseveare AO3. fanfictiondotnet really does not want me to get the link in here in any fashion that makes it easy for you to access.
NOTES #2: (so many notes) Direct sequel to Eurydice's Adventures in the Underworld, which has a podfic version if that makes the catchup easier (but which you will also have to look to AO3 for). To recap, in Eurydice, Nathan agreed to accompany Mara to help bring William back from the void after the season 4 finale. During their adventures on the other side of the gate, Mara forced upon him repeated Troubles to help their quest and bind him to her. In the major incendiary moment of that story, Mara, upon finding William again, decided to keep Nathan and physically share him with William, and in the fallout they returned to Haven still bound together while Nathan's plan to trap them all in the void to keep Haven safe unravelled.
There is a warning for rape/non-con for this story on account of events in Chapter 3-4. Even outside of that, all the consent issues for the Mara/Nathan/William triangle. All three of them are manipulated by influences beyond their own choices and the relationship isn't entirely consensual from any perspective. In addition to this specific warning, the fic is generally disturbing and dark in tone. Be warned.
This fic is was posted for wipbigbang on livejournal. It originally stalled last year at the end of Chapter 2, when I did not have time to finish it before season 5 started.
A NOTE ON CANON: This picks up from Eurydice, which was written before season 5 started. Therefore, the rules on how Troubles are created and the Mara-Audrey divide work slightly differently from season 5 canon.
THANKS: Many thanks to my beta reader, Miah_Arthur, who was subjected to discussion about this 80,000 word evil behemoth of a fic for most of June-July.

House Divided

Prologue

The first day she was back in Haven, Mara built a wall around the town, to wall the Troubles in, to keep the outside world out. The second day, pressed by the combined force of Haven's police and the Guard led by Dwight and Vince Teagues, she managed to elude the attention of everyone, disappearing and taking William and Nathan with her. She reappeared on the third day as a storm lashed the coastline and only the bold or foolhardy ventured out to witness her handiwork - a castle built upon the spot on the island where the Barn had once stood - and at that point it became obvious she wasn't intending to hide.

Over the days that followed, new Troubles showed up in town. Some of them strange, unpredictable, weak or half-formed; Mara experimenting, and the whole town waited in fear for where the next curious target might explode.

Mara has been on the island seven days, and in Haven for ten, by the time Duke and Jennifer take a fishing boat out in the haze of early dawn.

Duke isn't ready to give up on Nathan and Audrey just yet. He needs to know. Nathan, when he came back, after he'd hardly been away for half an hour, looked half broken and wholly unlike himself. Duke keeps seeing again in his mind's eye the way Nathan knelt in front of Mara on the floor of that cave. The way Nathan stood up and fell in by her side as if that was where he belonged.

Duke does not know what Mara did to bring Nathan to that, in the time they were gone - which he knows is supposed to be more time than passed for himself and Jennifer, but it wasn't years, and Duke can only imagine that it would take years to make Nathan as submissive and cowed as he seemed that day.

Jen's opinion is ruder, but she's still here for him, muttering under her breath as she helps Duke pull the boat up the shore, her boots sinking over their rims in the sand.

The morning is wet, with drizzle slicking everything, and everything shiny and slimy. The air smells of damp and sea and foliage, of rotting seaweed on the shore. The light is still a little grey. Duke does not really expect that Mara or William will be up and around at this time. Audrey wasn't the rise-with-the-dawn type, though she'd happily spring up at the last minute with her alarm and a hit of coffee for the day's policework. Mara didn't strike as that type, and nor did William.

No. If they're to see anyone around at this hour, it has to be Nathan. And it's Nathan who he wants answers from.

They hide the boat under an overhanging tree growing out of rocks at the edge of the beach. It won't fool anyone looking closely, but he's hoping no-one will do that. They start to pick their way up the rugged terrain onto the main part of the island. Jennifer's boots slosh as she walks. "How come your feet didn't sink?" she hisses irritably.

"Practice," Duke murmurs. He knows where to put his feet, but fifty percent of it is also luck.

"I still think this is crazy," she hisses back at him. "And I'm an expert on crazy."

"Shh." He holds a hand back to caution her. There are trees on this side of the island, the reason they chose to make landing here, but they haven't reached the tree line yet, and Duke just heard something which he does not think was their footsteps or an echo.

A shape moves out of the trees ahead. Duke dives back, pulling Jen down with him, trying to make his body as elastic and slack as his practice of Yoga allows, to curl down quietly. He slaps his hand over Jen's mouth and hopes for the best. She struggles against him for a second, then her eyes fly wide and she stops abruptly as she sees the thing.

Its silhouette looks sort of like a police uniform. For a very brief moment, Duke thinks it's a HPD officer. Then, he realises that the light is on the figure, not behind it. He should be seeing details, not a silhouette. The darkness is intrinsic to the figure. He shudders, creeped out, and the shudder proves contagious as Jen catches it and trembles in his grasp.

The figure turns its head - or hat, since that's almost its only distinguishing feature - and then goes stalking off along the shore away from them.

They crouch frozen in silence as minutes tick by. The creepy figure has been long out of sight by the time Jen asks, hushed, "What the hell was that?"

"Some kind of guard," Duke hazards, not knowing and not wanting to know. Because the first thing that occurs to him... "Mara's giving Nathan Troubles. She has no real powers other than that. That thing was... it looked like a HPD officer, kind of, and Nathan was Police Chief for a while last year. This has got to be something to do with him."

He knew, sure, Nathan loved Audrey, but he doesn't understand why the hell Nathan would let Mara do this. Why Nathan would decide to lend any loyalty to Mara. She killed two people sealing off the town that first day. One got mangled by whatever barrier came down, the other it hit his car and the engine exploded. She didn't care. Duke cares. Doesn't Nathan?

Jen squirms in his grip, growing restless. He lets her go and slowly starts to pick himself up.

"We've seen that and we're still going on?" Jen questions.

Duke swallows. "Yeah. Whatever that thing was, if it's Nathan's... I can't believe he'd hurt us. No matter what's happened to him."

"Yeah, because we've all seen how well people regularly control their Troubles," Jen points out. Which is a good point. Duke's steps waver - he's not made of stone - but he starts moving forward again nonetheless. Jen says, "Damn it," and he hears her following him. It's not that Jennifer doesn't like Nathan (she tells him that, and he keeps telling himself), it's just she finds him irrational and alarming and hasn't known him for thirty years to get the context for that.

"Come on," Duke wheedles. "I have to believe... after what's happened to Audrey, I can't give up on him, too. Not without even trying." He reaches out behind him and she slips her hand in his, nodding quietly. Together, they move into the trees and creep through the shadows. The turrets of Mara's castle rise up above the tree tops. She isn't exactly difficult to find.

They push onward. Duke starts to get that tickle on the back of his neck; that horrible, no-good, you're-being-watched tickle. His breaths feel increasingly short with anxiety and he pulls Jen closer and keeps moving, trying to tell her with the subtle touch of his hands but not wanting to freak her out either so not really telling her anything. He wraps his arm closer around her and draws her in, even though it makes it more difficult to walk. She accepts it as, he suspects, just shield against the cold and the rain. When whatever's stalking them makes its move, he hopes he'll be able to protect her.

Maybe coming here was the wrong choice.

Noises from above startle him, but it's just crows in the treetops. Then something else rustles back in the undergrowth. Then-

Harsh rasping breathing and heavy footsteps pounding the ground, the slap of wet clothes and flesh as someone moves fast and carelessly. And Nathan pounds out of the trees in front of them, meeting the sight of Duke and Jennifer without surprise, yelling a breathless, desperate warning as he lunges closer.

He skids to a halt, intercepting something coming out of the trees. "No!" he barks with panic. "No!" he yells again, arms spread, legs planted in front of a dark shape as tall as he is but immensely more threatening. Duke notices his eyes are shut. "There's no danger. They're friends. Leave them."

The silhoette shape of the HPD officer fades away, and Nathan heaves half a sigh of relief, but doesn't even bother finishing before turning on Duke and demanding, "What are you doing here? Do you understand that you almost got killed?"

"Yeah, uh - thanks for that." Duke holds up his hands, pacifyingly, and takes a step to one side, in front of Jen. Nathan like this freaks her out. She was never exactly great with him before he came back from who-knows-where as Mara's henchman. Nathan falls back as he sees the reaction. Duke squints at him, taking a really good look. "Nathan?"

Nathan's bare chested, which means bullet scars, which okay, Duke knew. He wasn't ready for the burns. He saw Nathan that day in the lighthouse, the day that had been weeks from Nathan's perspective, but he only saw the damage visible on hands and face. Nathan's hair hasn't had chance to grow back in properly, and that's still the most shocking part. But the burns on his hands also extend further up his arms than Duke ever expected, up past his elbows, and there are patches on his shoulders, and on one revealed hip where the waist of his pants is sagging. Duke's shock at the extent of the damage changes to anger as he realises that the burns look months old, and what their healed condition means.

"Did you make Dwight 'fix' that?" Duke asks hotly. "You - her? Is that why he was so fucking terse the other morning? A night-time visit from Mara and the posse?"

Nathan's brows crunch a bit. "I didn't want - Dwight's okay. It was the respiratory damage she was worried about."

He did sound like shit, before, and his voice is back to being only a little rougher than normal now.

"Do you even know what that Trouble she forced on him does to him?" Duke demands. "Or do you just not care?"

"Oh, let me cry a fucking river," Nathan snaps back. He looks at Jennifer and his lips compress and twist. "I've got seven of my own to worry about."

"Shit, Nathan." Duke's anger subsides in an instant. This isn't what he came for. "I know you think you can still pull Audrey out of Mara somehow, but you can't. You don't need to stay with her to - to let her screw around with you like this. Come back with us. Come on, Nate. Right now."

Nathan stares at him. "I can't. Even if I wanted to, she'd come looking for me. That could put you and anyone next to you-" he eyes Jennifer again "-right in the line of fire."

Duke feels something in him relax at Nathan's answer. It's more rational than the one he'd been expecting. It makes him think maybe there's a chance for Nathan's sanity. That he has clearly been through a lot, but there still might be a way back. "Come anyway," Duke says, the urge to salvage his friend a rush inside him. "We can fight her. This is - it's giving in, Nathan! No-one is asking you to surrender yourself to her."

Nathan squints at him. His eyes glint like coals in their deepening pits in his face. "Don't you know what my being here does?" he rasps. "If I'm next to her, I can say no. I can - they'll only do worse things without me!"

"Bullshit." As if Nathan has that kind of control over Mara, let alone William. "Nathan, you can help us. She gave you a fuckton of Troubles. Useful Troubles. Come back to town. Help us fight the rest of the shit she's done. Help us take them both down."

It doesn't make a dent. Nathan's face just goes more stony. "I'm dangerous, Duke. I barely control them. I can't be around normal people. Look..." He edges closer... close enough that Duke is abruptly nervous to have him that close, all bare-chested and smelling of... The earthy scents of sweat and sex tickle Duke's nose, and the punch of that realisation takes his breath away. He almost misses what Nathan's leaned in to so quickly and quietly hiss: "I have a plan. I need to..."

"Like hell!" Duke is still flattened by the revelation that Nathan is screwing Mara. Doesn't Mara have William for that? "Your plans are always lousy, or suicidal, or both! The last one landed us with both William and Mara back in town!"

Nathan grabs his collar, but it's urgency, not anger, despite the jolt that the abrupt action gives Duke. "Shut up!"

Jen's there in an instant, swatting at Nathan's arm with her hands. "Let him go! Are you evil now, too?"

Nathan shoots her a 'WTF?' face and unhooks his fingers, splays his palms out, and takes a very small step back. "Okay, but you need to keep this quiet and short and then get out. Mara's awake, so we don't have much time. She's already going to be wondering where I am. If she catches you here..."

Wait, how does he know that?

"I'm still trying to help," Nathan says. His eyes are sincere and liquid, but they're still wild and half-mad. He came back with that, as well as the scars.

"Duke, let's go." Jen tugs on Duke's arm. "What if he's right? I don't want to meet Mara again. We can't do anything else today."

The purpose of coming to this island was to see Nathan. This isn't the conversation or the circumstances Duke had expected, but then he really didn't know what he was expecting. It's obvious Nathan isn't going to come back with them. Duke could try to force it - he still has the Crocker Legacy, for all that Mara took from him all the accidental extras that were killing him - but he'd have to draw Nathan's blood and he doesn't think he can get through the Sue Storm routine. He's seen the forcefields in action.

If he can't drag Nathan back to Haven, and he can't talk Nathan back to Haven, he's still reluctant to go. Even with Jen in danger. "Damn it, Nathan, you've got to give me something!" He tries hard to keep his voice low. "Help me understand. Am I supposed to walk away and abandon you to this? To Mara's bed?"

A shiver goes through Nathan, rippling across his bare chest as Duke spells it out, and shit. Duke doesn't want to think about that too much.

Nathan heaves a breath. "I brought her back, and I'll deal with her. There is a way. I'm just... figuring things out. Give me time."

Duke rolls his eyes and flails his hands but Nathan is all emoting at him to trust him and there's nothing he can do. He needs to get Jen out of here. Himself, too.

"Damn it!" he cries out, reluctantly looking back to where he'd left the small boat. He sees relief shift the tense lines of Nathan's body as he gives in.

"Go quickly," Nathan says. His face twists as though he's going to say something else, but then he turns and plunges back through the trees, disappearing into the shadows.

"It's not like he could vague it up any more," Jen says.

"No, he's-" Duke's deeply unnerved. "It's not paranoia if they are out to get you. He said 'Mara's awake'. He wasn't guessing, he knew that. He barely dared to speak. I can't even imagine what they've done to him." He makes a noise of frustration. "We got what we came for. Come on." He hooks his fingers in her sleeve and starts picking his way back down the slope to the beach where they left the boat.

"Wait, wait, wait!" Jen trips after him. Her fingers dance on his shoulder, trying to get his attention. "What do you mean, we got what we came for? We got nothing!"

"Talked to Nathan," Duke answers, trying to place his eyes on all directions at once.

"What about... Wade's stuff? The pen?"

Duke grunts. "Well," he says with equal measure of amusement and discomfort. "That would be why I just bugged Nathan's pants."

When Wade - and Jordan - managed to go off the rails and get themselves killed, they still left behind on Duke's boat the surveillance toys that Wade had been playing with. It's those they've brought with them to the island now. Duke slipped the pen with the bug and camera in it into Nathan's pocket as he leaned in so close. He almost didn't have the presence of mind to do it, with all that crazy conversation and the stench of sex on Nathan messing with his brain, but Nathan is particularly vulnerable to actions like that. He couldn't feel Duke's hasty, clumsy planting of the bug.

They retreat to the end of a line of rock pinnacles left behind by cliff falls. It's not easy, but there's a low gravel bank the currents have built up where it's possible to pull the boat up again. Duke isn't sure if the equipment is powerful enough for the signal to carry as far as the mainland, but from here they shouldn't be seen, and it's close to the castle but inaccessible from land.

He boots up the screen under a tarpaulin to keep off the rain and the spray. Jen's head keeps ducking in beside him, for all she's supposed to be on watch. "Let's find out just what goes on between Nathan and Mara," Duke says grimly.

Maybe forty minutes have passed since Nathan stalked away. The dawn has almost shifted into daylight. Duke's concerned that Nathan might have discovered the bugged pen already, but the first thing he sees when he loads the screen is the inside of a decadent room. Mara sits on the edge of an enormous gold and black four poster bed, legs wide, completely naked.

"Oops," Jen says, behind him, and gives an embarrassed giggle.

Given the timing, Duke thinks that, yeah, it probably was forseeably going to be like this.

"Where have you been?" Mara's words come distantly through the feed, only just audible. She's several feet away and it's a funny, sideways view of her. The bug is poking out of the back pocket of Nathan's pants and he's not facing her directly. The view shakes, skews and falls as Nathan drops his pants.

Duke mutters a curse and lifts a hand to block Jen's eyes. "Hey!" she protests, tugging at his wrist.

"Stop staring at Nathan's ass."

"I wasn't staring at his ass," she retorts, with a mock pompous edge.

Nathan's voice in the feed mumbled something about "patrolling" while they were occupied. Now they watch the skewed image from the pen camera, pointing sideways and up, as Nathan walks over to the bed and stands in front of Mara. There's a drag in his steps like he doesn't want to, but he goes to her all the same. Nathan's ass has a burn scar on it, too.

"Nathan," Mara's voice, tiny on the laptop, still manages to sound like she's speaking of him as a piece of precious property.

"You had me create guards for your island," he rasps. His defiance is apparent even in miniature, and for that, at least, Duke is grateful. "It's not my fault if I'm woken up by every pair of nesting sea birds that makes a commotion."

"Nesting..." Jen mouths.

"No-one is coming here," Mara says. "They're all too afraid. Ignore the gulls and come back to bed." The direction of her gaze and words shifts to someone on her right side, even as she takes Nathan's hands and draws him down. "I told you not to be paranoid, my love." Her fingertips slide down Nathan's chest and he closes his eyes and shivers, but she's not even looking at him.

William rises out of the bed behind Nathan, slipping one arm around Nathan's waist with easy familiarity, moving his thigh alongside Nathan's thigh and pressing the front of his body close along Nathan's back. Duke sees all movement in Nathan's body cease. William's other hand slides over his jaw and cups his cheek. Nathan shivers, arching helplessly under the touches - which are startlingly gentle and passionate, considering they come from William, that lunatic, psychotic joker. William lowers his face to kiss Nathan's neck and Duke can only watch Nathan, touch-deprived and screwed-up, press back against the other man's naked body. Duke remembers how helpless Nathan always was before Audrey's power to touch him.

Nathan abruptly shakes himself out of it, jerking within William's grip, fighting the touch and his own reaction to it. Until Mara lays hand on him again, rising high on her knees between his legs, and pulls his head between her breasts. Something happens to Nathan. The fight drains out of him like a switch has been flipped. Duke watches in disbelief as he curls his arms around Mara and his face pushes in, licking and suckling, and he becomes so focused on her that William is left to do as he pleases.

"Oh my God," Jen says.

Duke slams the screen shut and slaps the tarp down over the computer. For long moments, he doesn't have words. He's not going to watch that, he's sure as hell not going to watch Jen watch it, but it's pretty fucking clear what's about to happen. Where William's hands were, where his-

This is the situation Nathan swears he has under control? These are the people he believes he has any influence over? When they're both about to lay him out and use him like-

Nathan has had a lot of crazy plans and a lot of big ideas. It's kind of a thing with him. But to entertain any notion that he possesses some kind of control in this situation...?

Duke shakes his head and looks down. Jen's grabbing at his arm, her face intent and her eyes large. "We need to go back and get him out of there!"

Duke wishes more than ever that he'd tried to use the Crocker Legacy back on the island: grabbed Nathan and bundled him into the boat and to hell with Mara, to hell with Nathan's plans and his new array of Troubles. He wouldn't be sitting here on this boat knowing that's happening to Nathan and he can't do a thing to stop it. "We can't," he says tightly. Even if they went back, it's happening now, and will be over by the time they get to Mara's castle. That's even assuming they could get inside, which they probably can't, but even if they could, they'd be faced with Mara and William, and it's not possible.

Duke clenches his fists at his sides and shakes.

From the way everyone was acting, this was not the first time. Nathan was resistant and unhappy, but not surprised. Neither William or Mara acted like it was anything new.

Is this why he came back from the other side of the gate so changed?

Duke's heart is pounding so hard he can hear it. He can't believe that Nathan... All of this is so much more screwed-up than he ever imagined. It was one thing to think about Mara and Nathan fucking - she's kind of Audrey-gone-bad, after all - but Nathan loathed William, and so far as Duke knows, Nathan's not into men.

Did this start out as some attempt at seduction gone horribly wrong? Or has Mara convinced Nathan she loves him because Audrey did? Does Nathan think they value him more because they fuck him? What the hell happened to him when Mara leaned in and touched him with that expression of intent? Because that was not normal and that did not look like Nathan had a choice.

Duke feels ill.

Nathan has always been so stand-offish and untouchable. The idea that Mara and William have somehow broken down his resistance and his pride to this extent sends Duke into a helpless rage.

He scrabbles for his phone, in a waterproof pouch in his pocket, and gets as far as having his fingers poised on the buttons before he realises the signal's probably too terrible from here to bother. He grunts frustration and mimes a false start at hurling the phone into the sea.

"What are you doing?" Jen asks, alarmed by his erraticness.

"I am..." He makes himself put the phone away. "When we get back to shore, I am calling Dwight. Calling everyone. We may not be able to do anything, but maybe the Guard can."

There is no possibility anything of Audrey remains, if Mara would use Nathan like that. He has to get used to the idea that Audrey's gone and a monster wears her face. If Nathan has multiple Troubles to wield against them, they'll need multiple Troubles to take him down. They can't get to Mara and William without going through Nathan.

To hell with Duke's fate and that damned tattoo.

Mara and William are going down.

It's hazy and unreal like a dream. The devastation of the battle that raged, most of the street around them flattened or buried under rubble. Nathan has become a one man engine of destruction beyond anything Duke imagined, but it's not all on his head. The Guard Troubles were also fucking frightening.

Most of the casualties strewn around are from their side, but not this one, broken and bloodied on the ground in the arms of the woman they were aiming for. All this and they may have only succeeded in destroying what Duke most wanted to save.

Why did he fight so hard for them?

Duke figured all they'd really need to do was prove to Nathan that Mara and William could be beaten. They didn't need his crazy plans, his martyrdom or prostitution or whatever the hell the sacrifice of his body in such a fashion should be called. Nathan would change sides and fight for them.

Duke knows he loves Audrey to the point of madness... But this far beyond it?

His feet crunch on the broken glass and loose stone fragments that coat the road like gravel.

Mara looks up, her eyes incandescent with rage. Her arms are curled around Nathan's bloodied form. He's still breathing - Duke catches the movement and can't breathe himself for an instant, as he realises. William is running up behind Mara. The remnant of the Guard are regrouping to come out in challenge. The shit is about the hit the fan in even bigger ways and Duke is slap bang in the middle of everyone's crossfire, staring, but right now he can do nothing else.

Mara hisses the threat between her teeth, "If he dies, I will destroy this town completely and start my empire anew."

William falls on his knees beside her, hands reaching out to Nathan, joining Mara in holding him. His hand touches Nathan's cheek. Nathan both flinches and yearns into the touch. "Hold in there, buddy. We're gonna get you help."

Duke doesn't know what the fuck he's seeing, and can't reconcile it with what he thought he was seeing four days ago.

Mara and William gather Nathan between them. "If he dies..." she starts again, eyes burning into Duke. He can't imagine what she'd be doing to him if she didn't have her arms and her attention occupied.

"Yeah, yeah," Duke grunts, "insert scary threats here..." He holds out his hands. There's blood all over Nathan, red and alarming, but it's just what he needs to get him out of here faster than anyone else can, and maybe they can salvage something from this. "Give him to me. I know where to go."