Are You Still Taking Requests

Sink to the depths.

The long awaited Christmas Bash Bonten fic, hope it's worth the wait y'all <33

Bonten x female reader

wc. 8.3k

tw: yandere, noncon, dubcon, noncon drug use, murder, abuse, blood, violence, choking, dp, sex trafficking, kinda stockholm syndrome-ish, nsfw, manga spoilers

You’re not entirely sure what it is exactly that stirs you from sleep, only that it’s early, the first rays of dawn light just barely peeking through the window.

Kokonoi’s arm’s slung over your waist, red silken sheets pooling over bare skin, yet even with the warmth of his body lying beside yours, it’s not enough to keep the chill from seeping into your bones. Cool, but not freezing – just on the edge of discomfort.

There’s the temptation to simply roll over, curl up against Koko and drift off for another few hours. You’re still tired, and sleep – even in the arms of a man you despise – isn’t something you have the luxury of squandering. And yet the moment the thought enters your head, you push it aside. Despite the early hour and your seemingly never ending exhaustion, you can already feel the beginnings of restlessness setting in.

You can lie there, close your eyes and will yourself back to sleep, but you’ll only toss and turn – and risk waking Koko in the process.

No, you think, better to try and slip away. Across the hall and largely untouched is the room they’d given you. Your clothes are there, warmer blankets, a bed, your own bathroom with a shower. A far cry from the old, stained mattress they’d so graciously allowed you to use when you’d first arrived.

You can’t remember the last night you’d actually slept in there, but it is nice to have a space that’s just yours – even if it doesn’t truly belong to you at all. Nothing here does. Nevertheless, the thought of a hot shower and some temporary peace and privacy is an alluring one. It’s not just the exhaustion, your entire body hurts from last night, the finger shaped bruises that mar your hips and thighs the least of them.

Slowly – gingerly – you begin to wriggle out from under his arm, trying to extricate yourself without–

“Mmpfh.”

The groan is low and rough, heavy with sleep, and as his arm tightens around your waist dragging you back against him, Koko’s lips brush along your neck, “And where do you think you’re going?”

Your stomach knots. Months ago, you wouldn’t have noticed the faint, warning edge to his tone. Then again, months ago you’d been under the foolish assumption that out of all of them, he was the sane one.

The safest.

“Can’t sleep,” you reply.

He hums idly, long, lithe fingers trailing up your side.

“…That’s not what I asked you.”

He’s not mad per se, not yet. But it’s always a tightrope with Koko; one minute things are fine and you can almost pretend that whatever it is that’s between you two has any semblance of normality, but one tiny misstep; a thoughtless comment, flinching away at the wrong moment, and everything falls apart.

Koko might lack the hair-trigger penchant for violence that some of your other captors favour, but you haven’t been able to shake the unpleasant memories of the last time he’d flown off the handle.

The thought of testing those limits so early in the morning isn’t a pleasant one.

And so you roll over to look at him properly, careful to keep your expression neutral, sleepy even. As if the thought of slipping away from him wasn’t one born of desperation, but merely a whim of your semi-conscious state.

Your reply momentarily gets stuck in your throat, however, when you actually take him in. Naked, propped up against the headboard and bathed in the dim morning light, there’s a certain kind of striking beauty to the man. Even with long, silvery locks mussed and eyes glazed with sleep – those same eyes that flit over your features, narrowed as he awaits your answer.

“I was gonna go take a shower. I still feel all…” Somehow, telling him that you feel gross after spending the night with him doesn’t seem like a smart move, no matter the truth of it. “I didn’t want to wake you,” you amend.

Another half truth. Yet it seems to do the trick in placating him, his expression softening as he presses a chaste, almost affectionate kiss to your lips.

“You shouldn’t have worried. I need to get up soon anyway.”

He smiles as he says it – one you’ve learned better than to believe genuine – laying his hand to rest at the base of your throat. Instinctively, you stiffen, heart skipping a beat. No matter how long you’ve been here, the unspoken rules about leaving permanent damage, you still haven’t been able to shake that innate fear every time their fingers tighten around your neck.

And from the look in Koko’s eyes, the way his smile turns cold, he knows it.

His touch is delicate, teasing almost as his thumb sweeps along the column of your throat, and for a moment you’re confused by the sudden intensity in his expression–

Until he reaches a sore spot; the edge of a shallow cut, courtesy of one of the others, and cruelly presses down. It’s enough to draw a sharp gasp from you; one that’s quickly swallowed up by Koko’s mouth as it collides with yours.

Domineering.

Possessive.

His hips rock eagerly against your own, teeth nipping at your bottom lip – harsh enough to draw blood – and all thoughts of a peaceful, quiet morning go up in smoke.

“But we have some time, don’t we?” he pants between kisses, already drawing your naked body back under his.

It isn’t a question.

Stupid of you to think that it ever is.

—

The glowing red numbers on your old alarm clock tell you it’s a little after three in the morning when the door to your apartment slowly creaks open.

For the fifth time this week.

Squeezing your eyes shut, relief washes over you, the knot in your stomach easing as your brother’s familiar footsteps creep down along the hallway. He’s home. He’s safe, for tonight at least.

And just as you have every other night this week, and the countless nights before that, you feign sleep as he pulls back the curtain of your room, peeking in only to check that you’re where you’re supposed to be.

Tonight, however, he hesitates before leaving.

You can smell the booze and cigarette smoke wafting off of him. The faint, metallic tang of blood that almost – almost – draws you out from your charade. It wouldn’t be the first time he’d done something stupid and gotten himself in a fight at some dingy bar downtown, but the air feels heavier tonight.

Something’s… off, and so you keep your eyes shut.

There’s a dull thud – the back of his head hitting the wooden doorframe. “Fuck,” he mutters, and then he’s gone.

—

“D’ya want some, babe?”

Sanzu’s cheshire grin widens, the scars either side of his lips stretching as you meekly shake your head. The same answer you’ve given every time he’s so generously offered to share his stash.

“Your loss,” he says with an unaffected shrug, shoving you back down to the couch. Just across the hall, in the other room, Mochi and Takeomi are deep in the middle of a discussion about an upcoming meeting, their voices floating down the hall.

You catch a snippet or two, something about distribution and profits – some mid level dealer getting a little too greedy for his own good – but it’s easy enough to tune it out.

And once upon a time, you’d be mortified at the thought that anyone could just walk in and see you like this; half naked and sprawled out before Sanzu like a whore. But this is practically tame compared to some of the other far more public displays you’ve been subjected to in the months since you arrived.

Besides, it’s not like either one of them would be in a position to judge. Only yesterday, Takeomi had you on your knees, sucking his cock under the table while he had his morning coffee and cigarette.

You hadn’t so much as blinked when Sanzu’d come home, splatters of fresh blood staining his pastel suit, and rather than heading into his own room to shower and sleep it off, had made a beeline straight for you. Ignoring the TV show you’d been absorbed in, he’d simply grabbed you by the arm and snapped at you to take off your top.

By now you know better than to argue.

“Lie still for me,” Sanzu instructs, but he’s barely paying attention as he grabs the baggie and taps out a small pile of coke onto your stomach. You watch, steadying your breath so as to not disturb the white powder while he takes out a card from his back pocket and begins cutting it into neat lines.

And despite how many times he’s done this, it never feels any less surreal. Why he chooses to snort drugs off of you when there’s a perfectly good coffee table less than a foot away is beyond you, but you’ve long since given up trying to make sense of the pink haired Bonten executive. All you can really hope for with Sanzu is that if you play along, you won’t get too badly hurt in the process.

A gamble at the best of times.

The leather of the sofa feels odd your bare skin, the room not quite warm enough to be comfortable, yet you’re fairly certain that it’s the way those big, blue eyes bore hungrily into your own that has your stomach tightening and goosebumps prickling at your exposed skin.

And you pretend that it doesn’t send a flood of heat rushing to your cheeks when those eyes flicker down to your breasts, nipples already pebbled, and his smirk widens.

But you only gasp, a shivery, pathetic sound, jerking in his grip – almost disturbing his carefully cut lines of cocaine – when his tongue darts out to swirl around your belly button instead.

The light slap to your face that follows doesn’t bother you nearly as much as the grating sound of his hyena-like laugh.

“I said, stay still,” he taunts, as if he wasn’t the one deliberately trying to rile you up.

You have to remind yourself that it could be worse. That he could have used the knife today, or decided he wanted to share you with the Haitani’s again. That he could just as easily tie you down and paint your skin black and blue, fuck you ‘til you pass out, make you choke on his cock or a thousand other horrible things.

He still might.

Closing your eyes, you murmur a halfhearted apology and let your head tip back as Sanzu leans over your stomach once more, this time with a finger pressing one nostril closed. The sharp snort and the drag of his nose along your skin are bad enough, but it’s the low, drawn out ‘Fuuuuck’ that leaves his lips that sends a shiver rippling down your spine.

Sanzu sniffs again, and even with your eyes shut, it’s impossible to mistake the sound of his belt unbuckling or the hiss of his zipper as he slides it down. Your heart rate picks up, anticipation and not a small amount of uneasiness unfurling inside of you, but you’re not surprised.

You’ve come to learn that Sanzu enjoys three things in life; drugs, sex and frankly terrifying displays of violence. The first two, from your experience, usually go hand in hand. From the dried remnants of blood on his clothes, flecks of it dusting his hands and his pale, scarred face, he’s already indulged in the latter this morning.

A small mercy, you suppose.

You brace yourself for his hands on your skirt, panties being ripped off, or maybe just shoved to the side if he’s feeling especially impatient, so the strange, plastic rustle that comes next takes you by surprise.

Your eyes snap open, head jerking forward just in time to see a little blue pill go into Sanzu’s mouth. And the relief that washes through you only lasts for a split second before his hand is in your hair, yanking you forward to slam his mouth against yours.

It hurts, both the sting of your scalp and the crushing force of his kiss, but the pain gives way to panic as his tongue forces its way past your lips, and you taste artificial sweetness, feel the weight of that little blue pill on your tongue.

“What the fu–”

Sanzu doesn’t let you finish the expletive, clamping his hand over your mouth and squeezing your nose shut.

“Swallow,” he leers.

The drug only takes minutes to kick in.

Warmth begins to seep through your veins. Slowly at first, matching the drag of Sanzu’s tongue along your throat, but it spreads, burns hotter until you’re shifting beneath him, soft little noises escaping you with every touch.

But they’re good noises. It feels good, the way he grabs at you, yanking your thighs apart so he can settle between them.

The press of his cock at your sopping cunt.

And it’s hard to focus, to think as the lights on the ceiling begin to dance, a dizzying haze sweeping through your head. Instead, you focus on Sanzu, the pretty pink of his hair, blue eyes blown wide and that manic, beautiful grin.

You’ve never felt more alive, every nerve ending electrified as he fucks you – you don’t care that you’re in plain view of the others, that you’re moaning and crying out like a two bit whore in a bad porno. All that matters is the delicious stretch of his cock every time he fills you, the buzzing pleasure building in your core with every frenzied thrust.

You’re chasing that high, delirious and in love, and you never want this to end.

—

‘Do you trust me?’

He’d asked you that, months ago now. Another late night, the two of you sprawled out on the old couch in your living room, mindlessly watching reruns of game shows. Or, at least, that’s what you’d been doing – your brother had come in later, bringing the food he was supposed to have brought hours ago, an odd expression on his face.

And the words had just… slipped out. He’d looked almost surprised by them, but glanced at you nevertheless to hear your response.

The answer back then had been the same as it is now; yes. Always.

How could you not, when he was your big brother? The one who protected you, who took you in after your parents left you both orphans at too young an age. He’s never been perfect – a little too rash, sometimes. Irresponsible. Childishly selfish, too, though to his credit he is trying to be better.

He wants the same as you do; a different life. A better one, where you don’t have to work for scraps and every month isn’t a struggle to make ends meet.

So yes, you trusted him. But you never asked for the details, and he never volunteered them.

And you trust him now, even as the pit of unease grows inside of you, and a thousand questions dart through your head. You did what he asked – left work when you got his frantic call, raced home to pack your things.

The only thing you’d faltered on was his last request.

“We have to leave and we have to do it quickly,” he’d told you. “We need the money more than we need those stupid rings, okay? Just… please. Do this for me.”

He was right, really. Your parents’ wedding rings may have been all that you had left of them, but if it came down to a choice of having a temporary roof over your head, and food for the next few days… well, it wasn’t much of a choice at all.

(You didn’t ask what happened to the money you already had set aside.)

That didn’t mean that watching the shopkeeper sniff disinterestedly before counting out a measly sum wasn’t like selling off a part of your soul.

You trust him, but as you return home, money in hand, and the door swings wide to reveal a dark haired stranger waiting for you in the living room, you wonder whether you should have offered that trust to him so blindly.

—

Tonight is a celebration.

For what, exactly, you’re not entirely sure. Another year of successfully flooding Tokyo with drugs and violence, maybe, more competition wiped from the map – they don’t share these things with you, and in all honesty you don’t particularly care.

The less you know about these things, the better.

Tonight, it means a black dress with a slit to your thigh and a choker at your throat that feels more like a collar. Yet it’s not some packed club in Shibuya that they take you to, but an old, abandoned warehouse down by the docks.

From the outside, the place looks like a dump, looming corrugated walls that were once white bleeding lines of rust and grime, the giant lettering out front faded and peeling. There’s not a soul in sight, the night almost eerie if not for the muted thumping of bass that creeps out from the cracked windows.

You can’t help but think back to the first and only time you’d been brought here, Sanzu and Takeomi driving you out in the early hours of the morning. Of course, it’d been different that night. You weren’t dressed up as arm candy for one, and the three of you hadn’t stayed long – just long enough to watch the weighted black bags sink quietly down into the depths of the ocean.

And you might be tempted to wonder if they had similar plans for you tonight, but the grim truth is that if they wanted you dead, they needn’t go to all that trouble. A bullet to the brain while you slept would do the job just fine. After all, they’ve made it abundantly clear by now – there’s no one left to miss you. No one left to care if your body suddenly turns up in some filthy alleyway downtown.

The thought doesn’t bother you as much as it used to.

“You remember the rules, don’t you?” Mikey asks, glancing sideways when you obediently fall into step with him.

He’s forgone his usual attire for a red suit, the colour bringing a flush of life to his normally pallid complexion. Even the dark circles around his eyes look less severe. Yet there’s something else in his expression tonight, a detached sort of… iciness that’s decidedly unsettling.

Whatever the reason they’ve come here – brought you along with them – you’re beginning to think it has very little to do with getting drunk on high end scotch.

“I remember,” you reply, taking his arm when he offers it.

And you do. Since this whole awful chapter began, you can count on one hand the number of times they’ve let you out of the tower, and the rules never change.

“I’ll be good.”

There’s a slight upturn to the corner of his mouth, but he says nothing more as Sanzu steps ahead to push the warehouse doors open.

You’re half expecting that despite the derelict appearance outside, the interior of the warehouse would be something lavish – that would account for Mikey’s suit, at least, the designer dress and heels they’ve shoved you in.

But it isn’t.

Mikey leads you in, Kakucho and Takeomi flanking either side with the others trailing behind, and the first thing you’re assaulted by is the heavy stench of smoke from cigars in the air – so thick it almost chokes you. There must be thirty or so guys inside, drinking, smoking, laughing, lounging back in their seats and hovering over poker tables.

And then there’s the women.

Young and beautiful, half naked as they flit between the men – some dancing, others balancing trays of drinks and food. You watch as one of them, a girl who could be no older than nineteen, pulled by her waist into the lap of an older man, his fingers sliding under the waistband of her thong. He doesn’t even look at her, too busy cackling with his friends over his own stupid joke.

Your stomach turns, and behind you, one of the others snickers.

Ran, you think.

Mikey, of course, doesn’t break stride. None of them do, tugging you along until three men step forward, the one in the middle – the oldest, heavyset with slicked back hair and a too wide grin – opening his arms in greeting with a short, respectful bow.

“Manjiro, my friends, welcome!”

Mikey blinks. “Junichi.”

The man – Junichi, you gather – eyes you for but a moment, dismissing you entirely as he snaps his fingers and two girls step forward with drinks in hand. “Come, let’s talk. The last shipment just arrived, and I think you’ll be more than pleased with the goods.”

Which is how, twenty minutes later, you find yourself perched on Kakucho’s lap, trying desperately to forget the terrified expressions of the women – girls – stuffed into cages, crying and sniffling and begging–

“Drink,” Kakucho murmurs, handing you a glass of amber liquor. You don’t even pause before knocking it back, wincing at the dry burn as it slides down your throat.

His knuckles graze your side, a low hum escaping him when you readjust yourself, but otherwise his attention turns back to Mikey and Junichi’s entourage. Back to the business at hand. Because that’s what this was to them; just business. Girls stolen, manipulated and lied to, forced into their brothels and onto the streets to make a quick buck.

Drugs, weapons, gambling, money laundering, murder; why not add sex trafficking to the list?

It’s not like you didn’t know this was going on, but knowing something to be true and actually having the evidence shoved in your face are two very different things. Those girls, that–

That could’ve been you.

Kakucho’s arm’s still loosely curled around your waist, but suddenly it’s stifling – too hot, too close, too smothering – and your stomach turns. He’s not even paying attention, at least, not until you start to pull away from him.

His brows knit, but he doesn’t say a word as you push to your feet, unsteady.

No, it’s Rindou, seated across from you on the other side of the table, watching you like a hawk, who pipes up, “Going somewhere?”

His bored expression betrays little, but you hear the underlying message clear enough. Keep your mouth shut, do what we say, and don’t leave our sight. The same rules they always have for you.

You can’t summon the energy to care about that right now.

“Bathroom,” you mutter, and don’t look back.

Except it isn’t the bathroom that you head to, but rather the emergency exit door that lies just beyond them. You’re not stupid enough to think you can run (there’s nowhere left for you to run to) but you need space, and air to breathe that isn’t tainted with stale smoke and too much cologne.

The cool night breeze bites at your bare skin; a thousand tiny pinpricks, but it’s a welcome discomfort. The wind that blows through your hair, the distant thrum of heavy machinery and the gentle slap of waves against the docks, even the aching pain in the balls of your feet from your heels, you hone in on them, let yourself be lost to them – even if it’s just for a minute.

You’re not an idiot, you know that one of them will come and retrieve you sooner or later, that you’ll inevitably have to listen to them chew you out, or worse, have to endure the teasing mockery while they make you apologise for breaking the rules.

But at the sound of the heavy door swinging open and footsteps echoing out, you can’t help the stinging disappointment that washes over you.

“I was coming back, I just… I just needed a minute,” you say, not even bothering to turn around.

The laugh that follows, however, isn’t a familiar one, and you jerk back around to find one of the men from inside leering at you instead. “No need to rush on my account, we got all the time in the world."

A very real trickle of fear slips down your back. You’re not so naive anymore to mistake the expression on his face as anything but pure hunger. Not so stupid as to think that if he did try coming at you, that you’d have any hope of fighting him off – not when he’s a full foot taller than you at least, and built like a tank.

He takes a single step towards you, his grin widening as you skitter backwards, almost tripping on your damn heels. “C’mon, don’t be like that. I wouldn’t hurt a pretty thing like you.”

“I-I’m not–”

Not what? Not like the girls inside? Tits out, stuffed into lacy g-strings and thigh high stockings to bend and serve Junichi’s men. Not like the girls in the cages, terrified and filthy, soon to be plied with drugs to make them nice and compliant.

He knows that. You hate yourself for even making the comparison, but the fact you’re fully dressed instead of just prancing around in your underwear should set you apart easily enough. And he had to have seen you come in with Mikey and the others, to know that you’re with them in all the ways that count.

Which, you realise with another stab of panic, means that he simply doesn’t care.

You’re with Bonten, but you’re not one of them.

Intentionally, he’s placed himself firmly between you and the door back inside, meaning that if you want to run the only option you have is the sprawling labyrinth of warehouses and shipping containers behind you. And that’s assuming you’re quicker than him.

If nothing else, you’ve learned that size doesn’t always impact speed.

You swallow tightly, legs shifting as you brace yourself to kick off your shoes and run if you have to–

“Gonna scream for help, girlie?” he calls out, his tongue swiping along his lower lip as he mirrors your stance. “They won’t hear you in there, so why don’tcha just make this easy and come to daddy.”

The words make you want to retch, but there’s no chance for you to react as the door behind him – the door to your freedom – flies open once more and a familiar figure steps out.

Kakucho’s mismatched eyes, one vermillion, the other a milky white, dart from you – shivering and terrified – to the hulking man standing only feet away, and narrow dangerously.

And if you’d bothered to glance at your would be attacker, you might have seen the way his face pales, how he straightens, hands reflexively coming up in front of his chest in a gesture of peace and apologies start to form on his lips.

But your attention is fixed on Bonten’s number three as Kakucho draws his gun from the holster hidden by his jacket, flicks off the safety, and with a casual ease that still terrifies you, shoots.

Once. Twice. Three times for good measure. The man’s dead before his bullet ridden body hits the ground.

“If you’re not careful, Mikey’s gonna put a leash on you,” Kakucho comments after a beat, stowing his sidearm and carelessly stepping over the corpse when it becomes clear to him you’re not gonna come on your own. “You don’t go anywhere without us.”

There’s a thousand things you could say in response to that, but as he grabs your jaw and forces you to meet his stare, the only words that slip from your mouth are, “Thank you.”

He almost smiles.

—

“Please– please, this…”

You look wildly from the dark haired man to the blonde sitting passively on your kitchen countertop.

“Whatever he’s done, I-I can fix it,” the words spill out faster than you can stop them.

An empty promise, to be sure – they know it as well as you do.

The taller of the two, the dark haired one with a scar slashed across his face, holds a gun in his hand. Holds it easily, comfortably, as if the weapon is merely an extension of his arm. As if he’s held it a thousand times, used it without breaking a sweat. And you know, with a sinking certainty, that whatever it is that your brother’s gotten himself mixed up in, ‘fixing it’ isn’t something that you’re going to be able to do on your own.

But you’re terrified. These strangers have broken into your home, your brother’s gone, and now there’s a gun and it’s all you can do to keep yourself from falling apart.

“I-if it’s money, I have some,” you stammer, reaching into your purse to pull out the cash from the pawn shop. “It’s only a few hundred, but–”

“Stop talking.”

Finally, the blonde speaks – and the rest of your rambling words die in your throat.

Tired, bloodshot eyes bore into yours, “Do you know who we are?” he asks.

Again, your gaze flickers between the two. Surely if your brother had mentioned either one of them, they would have made an impression, but there’s nothing.

He never told you anything, and if you’re supposed to–

“Are you deaf?” the dark haired one snaps when your petrified silence stretches too long. “Answer him.”

Wordlessly, you shake your head.

The two share a look of their own, and the blonde hops off the counter. “Unfortunate.”

He sweeps out of the room, not even sparing you a backwards glance… Leaving you alone with his terrifying friend.

Shit.

Time seems to slow, abject terror coursing through your veins as you spin back to face him, fully expecting to see the muzzle of his gun greeting you, a flash, a deafening bang–

But he hasn’t moved – the gun’s still in his hand, yes, but it hangs passively down by his side. Is this the part where you fall to your knees and beg? He hadn’t seemed moved by your pleading earlier, but just standing there mutely, shaking like a leaf while you scramble for something to do that’ll save you feels wrong too.

“Please,” you whisper, “my phone’s in my bag. Just let me call him and we can fix this, I– I can…”

There’s something in his mismatched eyes that robs you of your words. Not pity, exactly – somehow, he doesn’t strike you as the overly sympathetic type – but more a kind of grim understanding. As if he knows that whatever your brother was caught up in, you are a wholly innocent party – and it still won’t save you from what happens next.

“We’re past that now,” he mutters, holstering the gun as he marches forward to grab you by the arm. “C’mon, you’re coming with us.”

—

“Stop fucking whining, you can take it,” Rindou pants in your ear as another strangled gasp leaves you. “You always do.”

Because they never give you a damn choice.

The bathroom stalls at the bar weren’t built with three people in mind, but somehow you’re sandwiched in there between him and his brother, skirt hiked up, Rindou’s hand wrapped around your throat and your panties stuffed in Ran’s trouser pocket.

Ran fucking your cunt, and Rindou’s cock stuffed deep in your ass.

And it burns, every synchronised thrust bringing a fresh wave of searing pain. The tears come unbidden, and yet the sight of them only serves to make Ran grin, leaning down so he can lick them from your flushed face.

“Don’t be shy now, show us what a good little cock whore you are, hm? Takin’ us both like this,” he laughs, and all you can do is whimper when his lips crash roughly against yours.

It’s hardly the first time they’ve fucked you together like this, but back home there’s usually some kind of prep– not since the early days have they split you open without a care. Tonight, however, they’re on a tight schedule. Something about a meeting, a late dinner with the boss, the exact reason they’d given escaping you.

‘Just a quickie,’ Ran had promised with a wink when they’d cornered you on your way out of the bathroom, shoving you back into the seedy cubicle before you could so much as try to protest.

Rindou’s grip tightens, cutting off your air supply and making you jolt and jerk and writhe on their cocks, because between them you can barely stand. And every snap of their hips and the lewd, wet, squelching sound that accompanies it sends you closer and closer to the edge.

It hurts, fuck it hurts more than you remember, but as Ran’s hand slips down to where your bodies meet, and those calloused fingertips graze at your clit, your whole body shudders and shakes.

Dark spots begin to appear in the corners of your vision. You’re screaming, or moaning maybe – the choked noises are hard to decipher as your fingers claw at Ran’s back, trembling on your tippy toes when their rhythm starts to falter and instead they settle on a brutal pace to chase their own ends, fucking you deep and hard and fast.

It’s too much, you can’t breathe, and yet when Rindou’s teeth sink into your shoulder and Ran’s cock hits that sweet bundle of nerves that has you convulsing around them both, a wave of pleasure slams into you so hard that for a second there, you’re almost positive you pass out.

Neither one of them lasts long after that; the younger Haitani hammering into your asshole, cursing up a storm as thick, hot ropes of cum paint your insides, his older brother following only moments behind.

And you – oxygen deprived, stuffed to the brim and half delirious with the potent mix of pain and pleasure – tumble off that precipice right along with them.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Rindou’s grip eases off your neck after a moment. “Knew you fuckin’ liked it,” he snickers, pulling himself free. “Our little pain slut.”

Gulping down heaving breaths, you ignore him, choosing instead to collapse against the stall wall, closing your eyes and waiting for your racing heart to calm.

“She always does,” Ran agrees, and you ignore that too.

Already, you can feel their cum beginning to seep down your thighs, dripping down onto the tiled floor. Unfortunately for you, your underwear’s currently balled up in Ran’s pocket.

Swallowing down the last scraps of your dignity, you begin to turn to the older Haitani sibling to plead for them back when, with an audible bang, the door to the bathroom slams open.

Shit.

You freeze, eyes widening as footsteps approach your cubicle–

“Hey, shitheads,” Koko’s voice calls, and the burst of relief that washes over you is palpable. “We’re leaving, hurry the fuck up.”

He doesn’t wait for a reply, footsteps receding and the heavy door swinging shut behind him.

“You heard the man,” Ran says, grinning all too smugly as he smoothes down the front of your skirt. “Fix yourself up, princess. Can’t keep the boss waiting.”

—

He’ll come for you.

Your brother is going to come.

The words are like a mantra, repeating them over and over again the only thing that keeps you from shattering completely when you lie down on that lumpy old mattress and will yourself to sleep after another night of being used and fucked and hurt for their pleasure.

He’s going to come and get you out of here, and the two of won’t ever look back.

… It’s been weeks now, hasn’t it? You’ve lost count of the days, one bleeding right into the next. A never-ending cycle.

Maybe you’ll start somewhere fresh, move to the countryside and find a job working at a bakery or a little shop – anything to put distance between you and this. You won’t ever have to wake up and wonder what fresh horrors are in store for you, whether today will be the day that one of them will finally reach their limit and end it–

He’ll come.

He’ll come.

He’ll come.

The tears arrive unbidden, silently streaming down your cheeks and seeping into your pillow while you shake fitfully with tiny sobs. So lost hurtling between misery and raw, flickering hope, that you don’t even hear the door, don’t realise that you’re no longer alone – at least, not until the light switches on.

“You’re not still crying, are you?” Ran – still wearing his three piece suit despite the late hour – asks mockingly, crouching down over your mattress.

You don’t reply as he pushes your hair back to revel in your red eyed, teary expression, but the watery glare you shoot him is answer enough.

His grin widens.

“Aw,” he tuts, “and here I thought you’d be happy to see me, especially when I come with a surprise. We brought it here just for you!”

You tense at that word, surprise, eyeing him warily, “What do you mean?”

Ran’s eyes glitter, and there’s a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. You’ve been here weeks now, months even – long enough to know that his idea of a surprise likely won’t bode well for you.

Then again, it doesn’t matter whether you’ll like this surprise or not, because Ran’s already straightening up, beckoning for you to follow with that same cruel smirk.

And you’ve learned by now that it’s easier, less painful, when you do as you’re told, so you quickly scamper to follow him.

He leads you to the elevator, presses the button for the 28th floor, and when the doors open again, you’re surprised to find that unlike the upper floors, this one’s hollowed out. Unfinished. Paint markers still on the walls, fluorescent lights flickering from the exposed ceiling above.

As if the construction crew had simply given up halfway through.

Your stomach twists into a knot. Something is wrong.

Ran steps out of the elevator smoothly, offering you his arm when you make no move to do the same. “Don’t wanna keep ‘em waiting,” he says with a wink.

On shaking legs, you reluctantly trudge after him. But as he leads you down a corridor, and the muffled sounds begin to get louder, clearer, and you hear grunting and laughter – someone howling in agony – you falter, tugging at his arm.

“Ran…”

“Shh,” he says, long fingers encircling your wrist and tightening painfully, “you’re gonna be good and stay nice and quiet. Can’t spoil the surprise now, can we?”

Even if you wanted to back out now, and damn the consequences, his grip on you is tight and you’re not strong enough to pull yourself free. So you walk with him, cold dread mounting with every feeble step.

The reasons for which become apparent as you round the corner of the hallway and the space suddenly opens up. There, in the middle of the empty room are three people. Sanzu, Rindou and a third bound to a chair, head hanging low and impossible to mistake–

Your brother.

The desperate noise that claws its way up your throat is smothered by Ran’s hand clamping over your mouth, his arm snaking around your waist to anchor you in place when you try to run for him. “What’d I tell you about being quiet, hmm?” he purrs, his nose nudging at your temple. “We’re just here to watch.”

And while both Sanzu and Rin meet your wide eyed, horrified gaze with amusement, your brother’s facing away from you, slumped over as much as the thick rope bindings will allow.

At the sound of your arrival, however, he stiffens, struggling to lift his head.

“Huh? W-who’s there?” he slurs. Before he can so much as turn, Rindou’s fist slams into the side of his face with a sickening thwack. Your brother grunts, spitting out a mix of blood and spit, and much to your horror, a tooth as the younger Haitani leans down to grab a fistful of his hair, yanking his face back up to sneer at him.

“Pay attention. We’re not done yet.”

But it’s Sanzu who takes the lead when Rindou shoves your brother off in disgust. “You can’t just fuck Bonten over like that, run off and think we won’t come after ya. Have you forgotten who the fuck we are?” he asks.

Your brother heaves in a ragged breath, shaking his head. “No, no, I didn’t– I gave–”

Another blow, this time to his nose, and he bellows out in agony as the cartilage cracks gruesomely and blood sprays.

Your stomach churns, a strangled cry of your own swallowed up by Ran’s palm – but you hear his laugh, soft as a lover’s touch if not for its malicious edge.

He’s enjoying this, you realise, tormenting you by hurting him. They all are.

They’ve fucked you, used you, hurt you. Made you beg and bleed and moan for them, but through it all, you don’t think you’ve ever felt the same bitter, seething hatred that you do right now.

“Gave what?” Sanzu presses, blue eyed gaze darting up to meet yours as that unsettling grin of his widens.

It takes a moment for your brother to answer him, a steady drip of blood seeping down his face as he waits for the pain to subside enough to speak. “Money,” he pants. “And– and her. My sister.”

The words don’t hit you right away. You can’t make sense of them, they–

They don’t make sense.

You don’t realise that you’ve gone completely still in Ran’s arms, that everyone else in the room, save your brother, is watching as your brain tries fruitlessly to process what you’ve just heard.

My sister… My sister…

My sister.

… No.

That– that can’t be right. You mustn’t have heard him correctly, he can’t have meant what you think he does…

He was going to meet you at the apartment.

He told you that he was going to meet you there, you just had to go and sell off the rings first. He– he was going to meet you there. You were going to leave together, but he got held up – that’s why he wasn’t there when you came back from the pawn shop.

He wouldn’t have sold you out, he wouldn’t have just left you… would he?

There’s a sound in your ears, a dull roar growing louder and louder by the second until it drowns out everything else. You’re shaking, you realise, trembling against Ran as you stare mutely at your brother, your supposed protector.

He gave you up?

“And what, ya think a few grand and some stupid slut was enough to wipe your debt?”

The backhanded insult slides right over you, lost to the pounding in your chest, the black, bitter nausea you feel clawing up your throat.

“Fine,” your brother spits, more blood splattering the concrete. “A peace offering then.”

A… a peace offering?

Ran’s murmuring something in your ear, but you can’t make sense of it, not as hot tears finally spill over and your legs start to give way.

He catches you, of course, lets you cling to him like a lifeline. But the hand that strokes your hair tightens and yanks, forcing you to turn back and watch.

Watch as Sanzu’s manic grin fades away, becomes something cold and predatory as he turns back to the table full of tools and takes up his revolver.

You know what’s coming.

Know it, but can’t make yourself move, can’t force a sound that isn’t a sob from your lips when Sanzu raises the gun and jams it against his forehead.

And as your brother starts to blabber, desperate, hoarse pleas spilling from his lips, Sanzu scoffs.

“Fuckin’ pathetic.”

BANG!

—

The sound of the lock turning draws you from your mindless boredom.

You briefly glance over, long enough to see Mikey slip silently through the door, before going back to staring out the lavish, floor to ceiling windows of his bedroom.

The clock on the wall tells you that it’s still early, but already the sun’s setting over the city, golden light bathing the towering skyscrapers. All your life you’ve lived in Tokyo, and yet before they’d brought you here, you’d never seen the city you loved from a bird's eye view like this.

So beautiful, the sky awash with pink and peach hues and scattered cirrus clouds. So… serene looking. The streets below, the thriving hustle and bustle you grew up in, it’s a world away now, the people down there little more than ants scurrying about.

Mikey hasn’t moved, watching you wordlessly from the doorway. Waiting, no doubt, for you to acknowledge him beyond that first cursory glance.

“You’ve been gone for hours,” you murmur eventually.

“I know.”

Distantly, you nod, drawing your knees up close to your chest and wrapping your arms around them. Still refusing to look at him. “You locked me in here.”

“I know,” he repeats, and that last vestige of lingering doubt that maybe, just maybe, he hadn’t meant to leave you trapped in here when he left goes up in smoke.

And you’d thought that you were spent, all that anger and panic and broken desperation used up hours ago when you’d banged your fists against the door and screamed yourself hoarse.

Even then, you think you’d known the truth, but to hear him admit it with such… such indifference, as if locking you up like an animal is nothing, all those emotions bubble up to the surface once more. Your fists clench, blood pounding and fingernails biting into the palm of your hand and you have to force yourself to stop and breathe for a moment, to calm down enough that you won’t do or say something you’ll regret.

Because you forget sometimes, just exactly who Mikey is and what he’s capable of.

A good thing too, because when you finally deign to turn around and face him, you’re hit with the realisation that something’s off about him tonight. He hasn’t moved so much as an inch, but it’s more than that. There’s a sort of preternatural stillness about him as he stares, an emptiness in his expression that makes the little hairs on the back of your neck stand on end.

As quickly as your anger had come, it recedes, a cold pit forming in its wake.

“Mikey,” you begin, your tone softer as you slide from the same bed he left you in this morning. “Why? I woke up and you were gone and the door was locked and I couldn’t get out. I– was it… did I do something wrong?”

There’s a slight twitch in his jaw, but otherwise his expression doesn’t waver as you pad across the floor to him. He reminds you of a cornered animal, tensed and volatile, dark, tired eyes fixed on your every move when you tentatively reach for him, fingers featherlight as they cup his cheek.

Mikey relaxes, shutting his eyes and leaning ever so slightly into the touch. The knot in your chest slowly loosens at the sight, and you can barely hold back your sigh of relief.

Good, you think, you can work with this.

“It wasn’t a punishment,” he mutters.

“Then why?”

His eyes snap open, “So you wouldn’t go wandering.”

You jolt back at the sudden bitterness in his tone, the hand you have on his cheek slowly falling back to your side, “Mikey–”

His expression darkens, “Have you forgotten that I own you? You’re mine,” he snarls quietly. “I don’t owe you shit, and if I wanna make sure you stay where I fucking left you, you should be thankful I don’t just chain you to the bed.”

You shake your head desperately, scrambling backwards towards the bed. “No, t-that’s not what–”

“Shut up,” he snaps. “You still don’t get it. The only reason you’re not rotting away six feet under right now is because I let you live. You’re not here to settle a traitor’s debt, you’re here because your life belongs to me. You belong to me.”

He closes the distance between you in an instant, cornering you up against the bed frame. One harsh shove and you’re falling onto the mattress with a yelp, the air knocked from your lungs. Mikey doesn’t waste a beat, clambering up after you and yanking at the silk robe you’d thrown on that morning, tearing it from you before turning his attention to his own clothes.

“Mikey, please, just wait–” you gasp, only to fall silent at the dark glare he levels at you.

Grabbing you by the hips, he roughly flips you – ignoring your undignified yelp – drawing your ass back up until you’re on your knees, face shoved into the sheets. You only try to rise to your hands the once – he shoves you back down with a muted growl, one hand curling around the back of your neck to keep you in place.

Stay down.

And you suppose that you should be grateful that he takes a moment to spit on your cunt, before he lines his cock up and sinks himself inside of you.

You don’t know how long he fucks you for, how many rounds he goes, only that by the time he finally pulls out, spent and panting, the sky’s an inky black and every inch of your body aches.

He doesn’t say a word as he collapses beside you, but truthfully you don’t expect him to. Whatever it is that’s just occurred between you two, it’s changed something fundamental. Broken something, and even as you lie there mutely trying to comprehend it, you realise on some instinctive level that there’s no fixing this now, no going back.

But Mikey isn’t the only one utterly spent. There’s no tears left for you to shed tonight, and you’ve no energy to fight it when, after a minute or so, he lets out a frustrated grunt and pulls you close, shifting until you’re lying nestled against his side.

In the darkness of his room, no noise but the soft sounds of your breath and the warmth of Mikey’s body next to yours, drifting off to sleep should be easy. And yet, despite all that, and the bone tired exhaustion weighing you down, you find yourself oddly awake, staring once more out the massive windows.

Watching as a soft blanket of white snow begins to cover Tokyo.

Lucky Find

writing this took a lot longer than expected lol

Warnings: kidnapping, mentions of drugging, mentions of death, blood, smut, dubcon, oral

The first thing you were really aware of was the noise – the sounds of car motors as they accelerated, the screech of rubber on hard cement, followed by a lot of voices, all shouting alongside the sounds of….

Gunshots?

Through the thick haze your mind was currently trapped in, not only could you identify the sounds as being gunfire, but you were aware enough to know that such sounds couldn’t mean anything good. Your automatic response was to try and get away from those noises, but when you attempted to push up from where you were laying on your side, you discovered that your arms were stuck behind your back. No, not just stuck….. You had been tied up?

Trying to shift your legs revealed them to be bound as well, and when you tried opening your mouth to call for help, you found that a wide strip of tape kept you from speaking. You couldn’t see anything, either. Were you also blind-folded?

…. No, it was just dark. Practically pitch-black, and you couldn’t make out anything. The most you could tell was that the space you had been put inside was cramped based off of how your body had been folded up and how your head kept knocking against one of the hard walls.

The surface that the side of your face was laying on was carpeted, the fibers scratching at your exposed skin.

You had heard a familiar sound of tires screeching as a car once again came to a halt.

…. Were you in someone’s trunk?

Keep reading

BIRD DOG | Simon 'Ghost' Riley x Reader

MOODBOARD · AO3

A few times a year, Simon goes home to an empty apartment in a shithole city and counts down the days until he can leave. This time, there's someone waiting for him when he comes home.

Convenient. He was already planning on ordering takeaway.

Or: the live-in masseuse au

tags: Size Difference, Size Kink, Explicit Sexual Content, AFAB reader - Freeform, Masseuse Reader, Forced Cohabitation, Strangers to Roommates to Lovers, Porn with Feelings

The mangled hand of fate lets him go but seldomly. 

He does, though, get a few weeks off a year. Bids farewell to his captain (the barest hint of a nod after leaving each other on the runway, chopper blades spinning faster and faster, the other man headed back out, his duties never finished; the world can never let them both rest at the same time) and then he’s gone, bags long packed and truck loaded the night before last. He drives a long, circuitous route after leaving the military base, the mask only shed when the paranoid prickle in his head finally abates. 

It never quite goes away though.

And then comes the drive back, the road long and the drudgery endless. One hand on the wheel, the other hanging out of the side of the truck, a cigarette pinched between two knuckles. Occasionally, he takes a drag. 

This is the part he always hates. The drive back. Roads winding through quiet towns and over hills, blue disappearing into black, streetlights piercing the darkness and demarcating the beginning and end of civilization. Manchester is a long drive north. He stops once for a piss by the side of the road and then carries on. 

It’s a wonder they let him go at all. He is violence forthright; setting him free does no one any good. It’s hardly even a reward for him, more of just a pretense of normalcy. A week to stretch his legs, so to speak. If he were anything other than human, maybe they’d force him to stay on base indefinitely, secured and contained behind barbed wire fences and reinforced concrete walls.

But a few times a year, they play this game and send him off into the world.

There’s an apartment in Manchester that he’s rented for as long as he can remember. A shithole flat in a shithole borough, and though Simon’s squirreled away enough money to buy a place of his own, the thought of owning anything makes his skin crawl. It’s not in his blood, he thinks. He’d sooner live in a shack in the woods, no fixed address or way to find him. Even his flat in Manchester is rented under a different name, and he pays his landlord in cash for the year. 

It’s dark when he reaches the city, the sky soot black and patchy with clouds. Moon nowhere in sight. Nothing beautiful ever visits Manchester. 

But there’s a light on in the window when he pulls up in front of his place.

Odd.

Would’ve remembered if he left the light on the last time he was in town months ago; filament would’ve blown out in at least that time as well. Still, there’s a light on in the living room window and a new curtain pulled across to keep anyone from looking in.

Simon stares at the light while he leans outside against the truck and finishes his cigarette. Stubs it out under his boot when it’s down to the filter and locks the car door behind him. Violence already itches under his skin, knuckles tingling like they know what’s coming if he opens that door and finds some junkie living in his flat. It’ll be worse if he finds out that his scumbag landlord moved someone else in after picking up on him being gone nearly half the year.

His key still works though. Fancy that. 

He finds you like that, sitting up from a nap on his couch, sweater slouched down a shoulder and groggily blinking open big doe eyes that widen when you notice him in the doorway, fear making you freeze up. 

You’re a pretty little thing; a pleasant surprise to find something like you sitting on his couch. It quells the violence simmering in his belly because it awakens another appetite instead. Like a meal delivered right to his door. He was already planning on ordering takeaway. 

He drops the duffel bag by his feet, propping the door open with it. “You lost, bird?”

Terror leaves you mute. He can only imagine; he must seem like something straight from a horror movie—defenceless girl waking up to the dead-eyed stare of a giant dressed in all black watching her sleep and blocking her only way out. That’s not completely true; there’s a backdoor through the kitchen that leads into a laneway behind the house, but the door sticks in the winter, not easy to open in a hurry. 

He has as much right to ask as you do to run at the sight of him though, considering it is his fuckin’ flat. 

You can’t seem to choke out a single word. Scared stiff, likely, heart slamming against your chest while the worst scenarios possible play out in your mind. Simon nearly rolls his eyes. 

“Fuckin’ ‘ell,” he grumbles, finally kicking his bag out of the way so the door can shut behind him. “Cat got your tongue or somethin’?”

The sound of the door slamming shut must finally snap you out of it because you scramble off the couch, nearly tripping over the arm when you run for the back. Screaming too, just to piss him off extra. His back already aches something fierce from the long drive—he wasn’t expecting a headache on top of everything else. 

“Heeeeeeeeelp! Heeeeelp!” 

Your screams are borderline deafening, almost more aggravating than finding someone living in his flat in the first place. 

You scramble down the hall, so terrified that you go for the first open door, slamming it shut behind you. His eyes follow the shape of your bare legs and the way the muscles in your ass move as you run. 

“I’m c-calling the police!” you yell from behind the bathroom door. 

When Simon looks back down the hall, he notices your phone on the floor, bright side up. Must have dropped out of your pocket when you bolted like a scared cat.

“No, you’re not,” he says blandly, staring at the door. There’s a pause on the other side like you just noticed your missing phone, then a bleat of panic. “Don’t try going out the window either—thing’s been sealed shut since the nineties.”

On the other side of the door, the window rattles in its frame for a good few seconds before you give up on trying to escape that way. There’s a pause while you consider your options. Simon waits patiently on the other side of the door, his temper slowly but surely getting the better of him the longer he goes without a shower and a beer, locked out of his own bathroom. 

What a bloody headache. 

He pounds a fist against the door, bracing his feet in case you try to open it and scurry out around him before he’s had a chance to have a chat. “Gonna come out now?”

“Get out of my house!” you shriek instead of being polite. 

Figures. He should’ve known his landlord would pull some shit like this. “How long’ve you been living here, bird?” 

“I have a knife!”

Pretty thing that likes to lie. There’s not a shot you have anything better than a hair dryer or nail clippers in there. 

“Better get away from the door ‘cause I’m kickin’ it in,” he announces, taking a step back to give himself some distance and waiting a few seconds for you to realize that he’s dead serious before you start screaming at the top of your lungs again. 

Got quite a set on you. That doesn’t matter much to him though. The door caves in after only a few good kicks, the frame splitting right up through the lock when it finally gives, and the two halves—the door itself nearly snapped in half—banging against the wall when it ricochets open. 

You’re trembling between the toilet and the wall when Simon walks in, knees practically knocking together. The crotch of your shorts are wet and there’s a small puddle under you; must’ve pissed yourself in fear, and he’d almost pity you if you weren’t squatting in his flat. 

The closer he gets to you, the harder you wail. Full on bawling now, snot and drool dribbling down your face, and Christ, he sure picked a bad time to grow a heart. He’s not immune to a pretty girl in distress, much as he wishes he could be. 

He kneels in front of you, purposefully blocking your only way out, before knocking his knuckles under your chin, huffing out a breath when you flinch. “Ain’t gonna hurt you, bird. You’re just in my flat, is all.”

“Your flat?” you repeat in disbelief. “This is my flat. I pay rent!”

“Got a lease then?” he asks, and though your eyes are still bloodshot and your nose is still leaking, you nod. 

“Yes.”

“Show me then,” he orders. 

And you do when he steps back to give you some space, scampering shamefully to your—his—bedroom to rifle through the dresser until you pull out a handful of papers that look suspiciously like a lease. He skims it with a growing tick in his eye. It looks like one because it is one.

“See?” you mumble. He ignores the attitude in favour of reading until the end, where he finds his landlord’s name, the blotchy signature underneath it unmistakable. 

“Bullshit,” he grunts through his teeth.

“It’s not. You can call him and ask! Where’s yours?” 

His copy of the lease is tucked away in a drawer in the kitchen, buried under loose rubber bands, old batteries, and takeout menus from restaurants that went under years ago. When he returns with it and holds it up to your nose, you frown.

“Oh. I guess that explains some things.”

“Explains some things, huh? The clothes didn’t tip you off?” Simon asks, referring to the sweatpants and shirts still lining the dresser shelves. Your lips tighten. 

“I thought the previous tenant skipped town and left his clothes. I was gonna throw them out eventually.”

“Good thing you didn’t.” His voice is thick with sardonicism. 

It’s an interesting standoff to say the least. You, standing there in your soiled sleep shorts with tear-streaked cheeks, and him still decked out in his military gear and boots tracking dirt across the flat. You sway on your feet, the adrenaline crash likely intense. He catches you when you sway too close to him and you flinch when his hand clamps down over your shoulder, a new wave of adrenaline coursing through you. 

“I’m fine,” you snap, taking a step away.

For fuck’s sake. His mood darkens at the continued hostility. It’s not like you’re the one who came home to a strange man squatting in your flat—if anyone has a right to be hostile, it’s him. 

Skittering back into the bedroom, you shut the door behind you, likely to change into another pair of shorts. Simon’s mood festers the longer he waits for you to come out. The last string of his patience nearly snaps when you finally creep back out into the living room, the sour expression on your face pissing him off even more.

“I’m gonna call Tom,” you mutter, picking your phone off the coffee table.

“Go ahead.” He doesn’t bring up that it won’t change a thing. Not his problem if you’re so green behind the ears that you think your landlord will drop everything to answer a call, especially after dinner. 

No one answers when you ring, just as he thought. He plops down on the couch and rests a foot on the coffee table, ignoring the way you pace back and forth waiting for your landlord to pick up.

“No answer?” Simon asks rhetorically. 

“Aren’t you gonna try?” you ask.

“Yeah. Tomorrow. When ‘e’ll actually pick up.”

“Well, what are we supposed to do then? I’m not getting a hotel room for the night.”

“Me neither, birdie.”

He meets your stare with one of his own. It doesn’t take long for you to give in. 

There’s a pullout bed in the couch that you offer to take and he lets you because he is, at the end of the day, a selfish prick who won’t give up a week of decent sleep for anybody. Not when his back and neck have been acting up for the past month and keeping him from getting more than three hours at a time. 

The ache behind his eyebrow throbs as Simon sits on the edge of the bed. A slow exhale. 

Tomorrow can’t come quick enough.

In the morning, Simon rings his landlord and listens silently as the fuckhead blubbers on the other end of the phone about late payments and eviction notices.

“This ain’t a charity, y’know,” the other man sniffs. “I gotta pay my bills too.”

He lets the man make excuse after excuse and accuse him of this and that until he finally goes silent when he notices Simon hasn’t said a word in minutes. At which point, Simon icily reminds him of what he does for a living and the fact that he paid him for the year in full just a few months back. 

Not much to be done after that. There’s silence on the other end before his landlord tries to hem and haw his way out of it. He offers Simon one of his other properties currently sitting vacant on the other side of town, but that’s not the answer that Simon is looking for. 

“If anyone’s moving out, it ain’t me,” Simon growls into the phone. 

The wounded look that you shoot at him rubs him the wrong way.

His landlord’s still rambling on about moving costs and lawyer fees when Simon hangs up, no longer in the mood to try and talk things out. 

He doesn’t really understand the legalities here, but he knows he can’t just toss you out on your ass when you’ve also got a lease, same as him.  

“I have every right to be here,” you start up the second he hangs up the phone, not letting him get a word in edgewise, shoulders rolled back like you’re trying to be assertive. “I’ll take it to court if I have to.”

“Jesus fuckin’ Christ.” Simon scrubs a hand down his face. 

“I’m serious. Rent is expensive and this is the only place close enough to where I work that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg—and I don’t have the money to hire a lawyer to get my money back—”

“I’m not gonna kick you out,” he finally snaps, fed up with your caterwauling. 

You pause, hope warring with disbelief. “You’re not?”

He gives a curt shake of his head. “Too much of a headache. I’m only…in town for a week anyway.”

“Oh. ‘Til when?”

“‘Til whenever I’m back.” Purposefully cryptic. He gives you a flat look when you open your mouth to pry some more. 

You reconsider, chewing your bottom lip until a better question occurs to you. “Are you in town a lot? Because I’m not sure how else we could make this work. I could sleep at my cousin’s until you leave?”

“Your cousin live around here?”

You hesitate. “No.”

“Then that ain’t gonna work, is it?”

“At least I’m trying,” you hiss, and Simon has to tamp down the amusement that swirls in his chest at the sight of your shoulders puffing up. “I’m not ripping up my lease and if you’re not either, then we have to figure out something unless you feel like taking this to court.”

While Simon wouldn’t usually take kindly to being threatened, his annoyance never quite develops into anything more substantial. 

“Just keep outta my way and I’ll keep outta yours,” he says. 

“Fine.”

The agreement you come to is that when he’s in town—seldom and erratic—he’ll take the bedroom and you’ll sleep on the couch, a fair compromise since you have the flat to yourself the rest of the year. 

He doesn’t explain himself, of course. Doesn’t explain why he’s allowing this instead of dragging you to court kicking and screaming. It’s no one’s business but his why he chooses not to go down that road.

He tells himself that it’s easier this way; that it’s easier just to run your lease out and spare himself the legal mess. It’s not like he’ll even be around most of the time anyway. 

What he carefully side steps, even in his own mind, is the sharp displeasure that accompanies the thought of forcing you out of his flat and onto the streets.   

Cohabitation is—

Easy wouldn’t be the right word. He certainly doesn’t make it easy on you, leaving his dirty dishes in the sink and his half-empty beer cans in the shower caddy, his cum drying on the wall over the tub spout. You try to do the same by leaving your dirty laundry on the communal furniture, but it doesn’t have the same effect. 

It’s interesting, at least. It’s not as though he’s never lived with anyone before—his memories of his early years in the service are littered with bunkmates packed into every corner of the room, and learning to sleep everywhere from moving caravans to while standing in formation, always surrounded by other people—but he’s paid his dues. Barring deployment, he thought he’d earned the luxury of his privacy. 

But it’s not all bad; it’s been years since he had fun like this. 

You try your best to annoy him in return, but you don’t realize that you’re playing chicken with a man who’s been buried alive. There isn’t much someone like you could do to break him. 

Living with another person doesn’t soften him up one bit. There’s a time for change and it’s not off the back of a four-month covert operation, his nerves still razor sharp and ability to sleep practically nonexistent. He gets precious few weeks to himself and he isn’t going to waste them trying to get in the habit of smoking on the porch instead of in his own living room. 

“I’m a masseuse.”

“Oh yeah?” Simon grunts, barely listening. There’s a match on the telly and a beer in his other hand—a perfect afternoon, if only you’d just stop yapping in his ear for five fuckin’ minutes. 

“Yes, and I can’t show up to work reeking like a chimney,” you explain, scooching closer to him on the couch while being careful to leave some distance between the two of you. For all your posturing, you’re still timid around him, like a kitten hissing and spitting around a much bigger cat. 

“What’s that got to do with me?” he asks rhetorically, not in the slightest interested in how it pertains to him. He takes another drag from the cigarette dangling between his index and middle finger, ashing it over the side of the couch. 

“It means I’d prefer if you didn’t smoke in the flat,” you say, hissing the last few words. 

He takes another drag, turning to look at you before exhaling right in your face. “That’s a shame.”

You cough and squawk, and he fights down a grin. 

For the most part, he leaves you to your own devices, intent only on enjoying his time off. He fixes the bathroom door at least, which you begrudgingly thank him for. 

A week and a bit, Simon reminds himself when you come in through the front door chirping into your phone, your voice effectively drowning out the TV on in the background. When you spot him staring at you from the couch, you go quiet as a mouse and slink off to the bathroom, locking the (newly installed) door behind you. He supposes it’s the only place where you feel any semblance of privacy since his bedroom is off limits until he leaves. It does leave him without a bathroom though. 

Pissing in the alleyway behind the flat half an hour later, he scowls into the darkness and reminds himself that he has no one to blame but himself for this mess.  

When his leave comes to an end, Simon doesn’t bother to give you a heads up. You’ll realize it in a couple of days when you notice his absence around the flat, the siege finally lifted. He supposes you’ll be grateful for his departure and grateful not to make you feign politeness.  

Duffel bag packed away in the car, he leaves with the bed still unmade. Knows that’ll ruffle your feathers later on when you come home, but it’s his parting gift. His reminder to you to enjoy the couple months reprieve his job allows you. 

And then the road slips away under him and he’s gone. 

The months away are just complex rearrangements of the same thing. Each time it drives his soul deeper into the gully, buffeted by katabatic winds. 

His daily life on base is split into brackets of time. Wake up, go to the gym, work, clock out, see the captain for a drink. Wash, rinse, repeat. Each day blending into the next. Back where he belongs, under the thumb of a system that he’s long sold his body and freedom to, and sent out God knows where to do God knows what. 

Then, again the rooster crows at first light and he lifts himself out of bed.

When he’s deployed, everything changes while everything stays the same. He doesn’t have the same freedom of movement as he does on base, but in truth very little changes from one deployment to the next if you zoom out enough. Limited time to sleep on the chopper before it touches down, body tensed for what’s to come, and then he’s off, his objectives clear. 

Driving a knife into a neck to the hilt and pulling it out one inch at a time. It’s the one he knows how to do, and he does it well. He doesn’t have to like what he does; he doesn’t even have to think about it so long as it gets done. 

Ghost exhales and slips the mask back on.

In [redacted city] in [redacted country], he sets his scope up in the window of a building across from one where his target is slated to be in twelve hours and then he waits. Flexes his fingers when they go numb and ignores the thirst clawing up his throat. Four hours later, his elbows ache something fierce from digging into the ground for hours on end, a sharp pain shooting up his arms, but Ghost pays it no mind. Mind over matter. 

Amidst the hours of laying there and waiting for his target to come into frame, his mind doesn’t wander. That’s a luxury for a different time—when the job is done and his target is executed. 

At the very edges of his consciousness though, something flickers. The skin around his eyes pinches as he pushes the half-formed thought away. 

Then his target walks into the room and everything else disappears.

You’re still there when he returns months later on another government ordered leave. Same petulant frown and wobbly lower lip when he walks in through the front door, dripping wet from the rain outside. When he tosses his duffel bag onto the couch, you scowl, nudging the bag onto the floor with your foot. 

“You could’ve rang,” you mumble, pulling the throw from the back of the couch over your lap to hide your bare legs. Pity to be deprived of a nice view, but Simon doesn’t take it to heart. 

“Didn’t think you’d still be ‘ere,” he grunts instead, shrugging out of his jacket and shaking it dry, suppressing a smirk when you start squawking about getting water all over the floor. 

That’s partly a lie, though not one he’ll ever admit to. Simon figured there might be a chance you’d be gone, but in the time since he last saw you, he’s done enough digging around online to know that you weren’t kidding about the lack of affordable flats in the area. There’s hardly a unit nearby that isn’t going for double what he pays, some even more. 

“Well, guess I’m sleeping out here tonight,” you grumble. You’re on your tiptoes in the doorway to the living room now, the throw wrapped around you like a security blanket. 

He doesn’t answer that. No point getting your hopes up when he has no intention of giving up the bed. 

In another life, he might be enough of a gentleman to let you sleep in the bedroom while he takes the couch, but in this one, his back is ravaged by sciatica and his dominant hand and wrist twinge with the beginning of carpal tunnel syndrome. Most nights, it’s a miracle if he can get five uninterrupted hours. 

So no, he won’t be giving up the bed.

But Simon toys with the thought of dragging you in with him. It’s been awhile since he had a woman, so long that the memory is fuzzy when he dredges it up, and though his hand does the job when the itch grows severe, he’s no monk. He could pull you in with little effort, sweet talk you until your knickers are around your ankles and your legs are in the air, hot cunt steaming when your legs part and he sinks his cock in deep. Wouldn’t take more than a half dozen thrusts before he busted, pretty pussy painted with his cum.

In the doorway, you eye him dubiously, scrunched nose expressing your discontent. 

It’s an idea, at least.

He still leaves his dishes in the sink and wakes to you pounding on the bedroom door, whining about having to scrub his plates with a pot scraper, but time and distance have mellowed any hostility in you. You treat him less like a stranger intruding on your space and more like a roommate you’ve grown to tolerate despite his many faults. 

The oddest thing is opening the fridge up to more than just a six-pack, a stick of butter, and three half-empty bottles of mustard. Fresh produce and meat spill from the shelves now, leftovers packed in tupperware and neatly labelled. He eats like a king now, takeout relegated to the days when you don’t feel like cooking. On those days, Simon heads down to the chippie a few streets away and gets enough for the both of you before heading back to eat on the couch with you. 

He still gets a kick out of leaving his cigarette butts in cups strewn around the flat for you to find. 

“So what do you do anyway?” you ask out of the blue.

“What’s it matter?” Simon grunts from beside you. He has to slow his usual gait to keep pace with you—which is irritating as all fuck—but you didn’t leave him much choice when you insisted on going to the store well after dark.

“I’m just making conversation. You always get so squirrely when I ask—what are you, some kind of secret agent?” 

He’d roll his eyes if he had any less self-control.

“No way. No way. You are?” you gasp, suddenly glued to his side, hands scrambling for purchase on his bicep and shoulder. 

Simon stares down at your hands clutching his arm, unconsciously tucking his bicep between your tits. “Best to not ask questions, bird.”

You pout. He ignores the impulse to lean down and sink his canines into that plump bottom lip.

His nose itches because the world is changing. 

He used to catalogue his time off base in much the same way. Wake up, workout, tinker with the junk pilfered from estate sales and scrap yards he’s frequented over the years, then head to the pub for a drink. Wash, rinse, repeat. 

That’s changed since you came into his life. Aside from when you’re out working, you unbalance his schedule. Upset his routines. The structure propping up his entire existence gets taken down in an instant when you open your mouth and ask him to the market with you, giving him no choice but to slam the door shut behind him and drive you there.

Each day comes with its new flavour, a new bite to it. 

“You’re not eating takeout again?” you ask him, aghast when you come home from work to find takeout containers all over the coffee table

“Always a fuckin’ lecture with you, huh?” Simon grumbles into his curry. Shovels another forkful into his mouth. 

Just as he expected though, you don’t let it go. He was a fool to think you would. It’s not so bad at first when all you do is cook for him—with the life he’s lived, he’s never been one to turn down a home cooked meal, so he accepts the proffered food happily—but it’s another thing entirely when you rope him into it.

He’s already pissed off when you wrangle him into the kitchen under the guise of needing his help—absurd after your subterfuge from the day before, his expectation being that you were happy to do all the cooking yourself, not force him to debase himself by chopping up all the vegetables and meat while being ordered around like a line cook. 

What really ticks him off though is that—

he grumbles to himself as he chops the mushrooms into thin slices

—you keep getting away with it.

The worst is when you catch the tremor in his hand at the breakfast table, quick eyes picking up on the subtle quiver instantly.

“Something wrong with your wrist?” you ask. Always prying into his business. 

Simon closes his hand into a fist. “It’s nothing.”

You frown. “Doesn’t look like ‘nothing’.”

“Well, it is.”

“Can you relax your grip? I just want to see that again.”

How he lets you talk him into massaging his wrist is beyond him. Then you press your thumbs into the meat of his palm and rub in smooth, circular motions, and his brain goes offline for half a second. The relief hits him like a cudgel to the head; knocks him upside. 

“Jesus fuck, bird,” Simon groans. His knee bangs against the leg of the table. 

“Feels a bit better, huh?” you ask, the corner of your mouth quirking up in a crooked, teasing smile.

And fuck if it doesn’t feel a thousand times better by the time you’re done. He snaps when your thumbs dig in too deep at his wrist and pain radiates up his arm, but all you do is laugh it off, smiling to yourself when you press down on a tender point on his wrist and his jaw goes slack.

Sometimes, he wishes he could study you like a bug. Pin your arms and legs down to get a closer look. Kneel over you and pin your shins down with his to keep you from squirming away, then tuck his fingers into the inside of your cheeks to pull them open. 

But he keeps his hands to himself. Just barely. 

He doesn’t stay long this time, called back from his katabasis before the week’s even up, Price’s voice urgent over the phone. His duffel bag is packed before the call is even over, boots laced up and mask folded neatly in his pocket for when he leaves the city limits. 

“You’re leaving?” you ask when you notice, and if Simon were less of a realist, he might think you sounded upset. 

“Need me to take out the trash?” he asks, his answer implicit. Yes, he’s leaving. Even if it weren’t for his job, he’s not the staying type; those kinds of decisions are out of his hands anyway, and even if it were up to him, he’d be long gone by now. Adrift; across the pond or somewhere down in the Balkans, far enough away that you couldn’t find him even if you wanted to. 

That’s what he tells himself. Whether he believes it anymore is another question.

You’re quiet for a second. “Sure. Thank you.”

Simon nods. Nothing more to say. The ache in his gut could be anything else. 

He lifts a hand on his way out, ruffles your hair once before he’s gone.

Rain soaks him down to his britches but still he stands in it without complaint, watching some of the privates unload a delivery truck parked outside of the commissary. Even the mundane parts of his job are his to attend to and he does so with little complaint.

When they finish around eighteen-hundred hours, he signs out for the day and heads to Price’s office for a drink. It’s so routine it’s practically part of his DNA. 

Price already has both glasses poured when Ghost arrives, two fingers each, and it goes down smooth when he rolls the mask up over his nose to take a sip. 

“Got out the pricey stuff just for me?” Ghost asks. He can tell by the taste and from the bottle sitting on the shelf behind Price, label facing outward. 

“What else am I saving it for?” Price asks rhetorically. “I’m not letting the good stuff go to waste.”

Ghost hums. It’s still raining buckets outside. He watches as it hits the windowpane behind Price’s desk, almost transfixed.

“Got time for a drink before you’re out on Friday?” 

He shakes his head. “No time. Gotta be out by six.”

“Six?” Price repeats, a mite surprised. “Why? Something waiting for you back home?”

Ghost doesn’t answer. 

Price lifts an eyebrow. “Well, spit it out.”

He shrugs. “Nothing to tell.”

“So there’s no one back in Manchester?”

“Didn’t say that.”

Price’s lips twitch into a grin under his mustache, eyes faintly amused. “Heard.”

Truth be told, he has started to think of you as someone waiting back home. Maybe not for him, but waiting all the same. Why else would you be back in his flat in Manchester in his bed if not to wait for him to come back?

It almost makes him itchy to leave. He can tamp down the urge when the situation calls for it, but it sits right under his skin most days. If he thinks about it for too long, his focus goes razor sharp and the edges of his vision go blurry. 

In the present moment, he brings the glass to his lips and tips his head back, letting it pour down his throat. 

He has some nascent idea of where this is going.

As always, you’re curled up on the couch watching TV when he walks through the front door, on the verge of sleep. When your eyes land on him, you blink away the sleep and smile so brightly that his chest aches. “Simon!”

In nearly forty years, no one has ever said his name like that. Brimming with brightness and warmth. Like for once someone has longed for him in his absence. 

All he can do is stare at you for a time. It should make his skin crawl, and it does, to an extent. He should be out the door already—lease broken, all his shit in the back of his truck, ties cut, and so many kilometers between you and him that he has no choice but to forget your face. 

Instead, he kicks the door shut behind him and ruffles your hair when he passes on his way to the bathroom to piss and scrub a towel over his face. 

It must be a form of self-punishment. That’s the only explanation for why he comes back every single time when he has more than enough money to fuck off down south for a week instead—he could be spending his leave in Costa Brava or sipping rakija in Kotor, but he chooses to come back to this hovel with its bleak weather and seedy underbelly every single time. What other urge would drive him to abuse himself like this other than masochism? 

Any attempt to answer that is swiftly dismissed. 

One day. One day is all he manages after promising to keep himself in check this time around. He manages to get through that first day largely because of the physical distance he puts between the two of you, playing chess with a couple old men in the park, rock doves pecking at the birdseed scattered under the wrought iron tables and benches. 

His restraint breaks when he catches you dozing off in front of the television, socked feet tucked under your thighs and head balanced precariously on your fist, elbow resting on the arm of the couch. 

He sits down beside you and his lip twitches when your head bobs, slumber briefly breached when the cushion under you dips with his weight. 

“C’mere, girl,” Simon grunts, pulling you onto his lap. 

You go somewhat willingly, only putting up a little bit of a fuss. Grumbling to keep up appearances. But that melts away the second he tucks your head into the crook of his neck, body going lax and fingers burrowing into the fabric of his shirt at his belly, gathering it together in your fist. 

Christ, Simon thinks, dropping his head back on the couch. What am I doing?

Even he doesn’t know these days, but his chest aches in a way it never has before. He makes a mental note to see a doctor when he’s back on base. 

His back aches too, but you pick up on that rather quickly, hounding him when you recognize the stiffness in his back for what it is. It takes you days to wear him down enough to agree to a massage, but eventually you do. He regrets it the second the words leave his mouth, leery at the thought of putting himself in such a vulnerable position.  

You lock him out of the bedroom while you set up your table and do all the little things that you need to do in order to set the mood. His nose wrinkles when the smell of incense hits him. 

“You can strip down to your comfort level,” you explain after letting him back into the room, patting the bed as if he doesn’t know where to lie down. “Then get under the blanket and let me know when you’re ready.”

He cocks a brow. “You trying to get me naked, bird?”

“Simon,” you sigh, a touch exasperated, hands on your hips to emphasize your weariness. 

His belt clinks as he unlatches it. “Don’t worry, birdie, just gimme a second to get these off.”

A frustrated growl and then the door slams shut behind you when you bolt out of the room. 

He spares you the indignity of having to repeat yourself, sliding under the towel and barking at you to come back in when he’s stripped bare and covered. You slip back in quietly and flit over to the dresser to press play on your music.

The first touch of your hands against his bare back almost makes him flinch. All his regret comes rushing back and he very nearly calls it off, and then you press the heels of your palms into the meat of his shoulders and the bottom falls out from under him. Then you drag them down the length of his back and he very nearly bites his tongue clean off. 

Simon doesn’t bother muffling his noises when you dig your hands into his back to work out the plethora of knots, huffing and groaning like he’s balls deep. When you get to his shoulders though, he has to fight to stay put, 

“Oh, your back is really messed up,” you note, a bit breathlessly. 

He doesn’t acknowledge your words, too intent on not vocalizing his pain. Not even a grunt passes his lips. 

You work years of hard labour and soreness out of his muscles, leaving behind a new man. The oil coating your palms makes your hands glide across his back. 

He must fall asleep at some point because he wakes to the sound of television in the other room. Groggy at first, cotton mouthed and sleep drunk, and when Simon stumbles into the living room, you’re sitting on the couch with your knees drawn into your chest. 

“Oh hi,” you say when you notice him standing there. “Sleep well?” 

Speech still beyond him, all he can do is nod and plant himself on the couch beside you. Shirtless still. Simon only notices it himself when he tips his head to look over at you and finds that you won’t meet his eyes, gaze steadfast on the TV. 

“Shoulda ‘ad you do that when you moved in,” he says. 

“I could give you another one before you leave,” you reply, still not looking over at him. He bets that if he brushed his knuckles over your cheeks, they’d be hot to the touch. “Just tell me when.”

Maybe he will. What use is there in depriving himself of life’s little pleasures when his soul bears all of life’s bruises? 

He reaches over to pinch your cheek, grinning when you yowl. Just as warm as he thought.

One thing Simon doesn’t take for granted anymore are his scarce moments of privacy. No stranger to a little exhibitionism (barracks walls and tent flaps hardly muffle sound, and he’s learned over the years that men will tolerate anything if it means they can rub one out in peace), he still appreciates the time he gets to himself to take care of things. 

He’s only just finished tugging one out, his jeans buttoned back up and his hand still wet with his spend, when you walk in the front door.

You start up the second the door slams shut behind you, steam practically billowing out of your ears. “Well, thanks a lot—one of my regulars just gave me shit because she said I smelt like an ashtray and she couldn’t ‘properly relax’ for the whole hour—” 

Afterglow proper scotched, Simon sits there and lets you cuss him out until the pounding behind his eyebrow becomes unbearable. 

You go quiet when he rises to his feet, unused to him actually reacting to your whinging. Sometimes you don’t realize how accustomed to him you’ve become—how ingrained he’s become in your everyday life. What continues to elude you for no good reason is that you live with a stranger, and a strange man at that. It would piss him off if it were anyone other than him. 

Practically chest to chest now, you nearly go cross eyed staring up at him. Jaw unhinged and mouth dangling loose, just the slightest gap between your lips like you forgot to close them. He lets you size him up for a second before lifting his hand to your mouth and slowly but firmly shoving his cum-covered fingers into your mouth.

Dumbstruck, all you can do is stare up at him with his cum-slicked fingers in your mouth, holding them there for a few more seconds and whimpering when he drags them out and then feeds them slowly back in. You even go a little glassy-eyed.

When he finally pulls his fingers out and lets his arm drop to his side, you sway on your feet a little, at a loss for words. There’s a creamy sheen on your bottom lip that disappears when you suck it into your mouth on instinct, eyes going wide when you recognize the taste on your tongue. 

“Thanks for cleaning that up, birdie.” And then he reaches down to zip his fly up, smug when your eyes flit down to his crotch. 

The stakes are different now than what they were all those months ago. It can’t be a carefree cohabitation when he’s playing for keeps. Whatever that means. 

But his time is cut short again, the world catching up to him and yanking him back. And when Simon goes this time, he can’t help but drag his feet on his way out.

You’re looking good. A comment made in passing, Price’s face barely twitching through it, but Ghost catches it and he lets it sit for a moment before responding.

“Yeah?” he grunts, looking away. The recruits round the part of the track closest to where they stand, panting through their seventh lap. 

“Put on a bit of weight since you left,” Price notes. 

“Calling me fat, sir?”

He rolls his eyes, huffing out an exasperated breath. “Give it a rest, you fuckin’ muppet. I said you look good.”

Price isn’t wrong though. He both looks and feels different. With increasing regularity, he watches the clock and counts the days down until he’s released from his duties again. His want has him circling like a bird of prey. 

All his life, he’s had to live in the moment, concerned only with the immediate, tangible present because that’s all that life let him have. And though it’s been decades since he’s needed to be in survival mode, those instincts have never quite left him. 

The shock to his system has left him forward-thinking for once. A girl in his house and food in his fridge; his body feeling better than it has in years—he’s still lucky if he gets more than five uninterrupted hours of sleep, but his expectations are different when he’s not at home. Even the concept of home is foreign, like a language he’s just starting to learn. 

The future isn’t some nebulous concept out of his reach but a real place that he gets to walk into. 

Desire tips him like a scale. There may not be any coming back from this.

Love shows him no mercy, so he doesn’t show you any either. 

Months pass before Simon’s leave comes around again, and when it finally does, he’s already packed and signed out before his last day on base is even up. He says his goodbyes to Price on his way out and the other man visibly suppresses a smile, eyeing the bag clutched tight in his hand. 

“Give her my best,” is all he says before getting back to the paperwork in front of him. Simon leaves without another word. 

Then the long drive back. A skein of birds in flight follow him for part of the journey. A train running parallel to the throughway follows him for the rest. Tree boughs bend under the weight of the last snowfall.

Then he blinks and when his eyes open, he’s home.

You’re still sitting on that blasted couch when Simon opens the front door, pretty as a peach in August, and his name rings like a bell off your tongue when you say it, summoning him to you. It’s not his fault that his urges prevail, that he has no choice but to throw his bag down onto the carpeted floor and stomp over to you, lifting you up by the collar of your housecoat and dragging you into a scorching hot kiss. 

“Mmf,” you squeak against his lips, eyes flying open. 

It’s messy and frenzied, spit dripping down your chin and his tongue halfway down your throat. No finesse or skill to speak of, only an incessant buzzing at the back of his head that only quiets when you give a helpless little moan, an instant balm to his suffering. 

Simon pulls back for a moment to let you breathe. “That’s my welcome ‘ome?” he murmurs. His lips brush against yours when he speaks. 

“W-welcome home?” you repeat, flustered, your lip catching against his. He sucks it between his when it does, cock throbbing in his pants when you gasp, hot breath billowing into his mouth and making his head spin. 

This is nothing like being high on pain meds or three sheets to the win. It pulses through him and makes his cock chub up, forcing him to shove a hand down between his legs to readjust himself. That gets you good when you notice. 

He kisses hungry and mean, ever greedy for your mouth, fitting his hand over the back of your head and angling you how he likes. Holding the delicate cradle of your skull in his palm and knowing that he could crack it if he squeezed his fingers hard enough. The thought sends a rush right through him, his violent underbelly scratched in just the right way. 

“W-where’s this coming from?” you gasp when Simon pulls back. You look thoroughly flustered, but he ignores you to hook a finger in your mouth and wrench it open. 

“Open,” he grunts, giving your inner cheek a sharp tug. 

You go cross-eyed when he spits in your mouth, the glob of spit landing right on your tongue, and your affronted little gasp hits him like an arrow shot straight through his heart. He’s considerate enough to seal it in with a kiss, making sure not to let you waste a drop. Tongue pushing in right after to lick it up, growling at you to suck it when you only nervously kiss back.

His patience isn’t infinite though and kissing barely wets his appetite. It’s not enough to plumb the depths of his hunger when there’s something uglier down there waiting with its jaws wide open.

He twists you around and bends you over the back of the couch, rucking your housecoat up to your waist. Your knickers get ripped clean off, tearing at the seams, and your ensuing shriek nourishes the hunger simmering low in his belly. Appetite never satiated, belly never full. 

He likes that you didn’t expect him back so soon. Fuzzy, unshaved legs and holey socks; pimple patches on your face and nothing under your robe. The lazy domesticity appeals to him in a way he never would’ve expected. 

Then his fingers split the seam of your pussy and the runoff of his appreciation cascades down the slopes of his shoulders and his back. Slick drips from your winking hole, gathering together into a tight bulb before a single drop drips onto the couch beneath you. 

“Fuck—now there’s somethin’ to come ‘ome to,” Simon grunts, and then drags his tongue between your dew-slicked lips.

His enjoyment was a foregone conclusion when he imagined this back in his quarters in the barracks, cock in hand, but the reality of having his mouth on your pussy exceeds his expectations a thousandfold. It’s all soft, pillowy skin and sweet nectar. He gorges himself on it, an almost pathological need to be tongue-deep in your cunt.  

“Wet little gash just sucks ‘em right in…” he murmurs, plunging two fingers into your hole slowly. The soft flesh of your hole bulges around his fingers when they sink in all the way to the knuckle. 

“Fuck—don’t call it that,” you bleat, so pathetic that he’s smitten. 

“Shouldn’ta wagged it at me if ya didn’t want me to touch it,” Simon teases, then crooks his fingers just so and your leg spasms. 

He keeps you stuffed full until your legs shake, on the verge of coming, and then he rips them out. 

You practically scream in frustration, twisting to look at him from over your shoulder. “What’s wrong with you?” 

“Somethin’ wrong, birdie?” He smirks when you arch your back, pushing your ass back in his face. 

“I want to come, Simon,” you whine, wagging your ass in his face again. Just his luck that a little slut like you dropped into his life.

“Alright,” he sighs, mock aggrieved. “Lemme see if I can ‘elp with that.”

Ungrateful little thing, he thinks when he turns you over onto your back and heaves you up into the air. 

“Simon—”  you keen his name when he has you pinned up against the wall, his arms scooped under your thighs to hold you in place. 

He plunges into that warm little honeypot between your legs in slow, measured strokes at first, savouring each punctured whimper and hiccup that drops from your lips. Each flex of his hips brings him that much closer to heaven and that much closer to hell.

“Didn’t think you could just barge in without consequences, did ya?” Simon asks rhetorically, voice gone brassy and tiger-stripped, thick in his chest. “Been sleeping in my bed for nearly a year, ‘aven’t ya? Ain’t I owed this?”

He means it too. 

“You’re—so full of it,” you retort, hiccuping through your words.  

Your arms hang limp around his neck, fingers twined at his nape and nails scratching at his hairline. The low ache in his back is barely a deterrent—he’d hold you up all night if it took that long to make you come. A distant voice at the back of his head reminds him that he’ll suffer for it in the morning, but he shakes that thought away. 

He chases the beads of sweat snaking down your chest and tits with his tongue, straightening back up only when that nearly makes you lose your grip around his neck and topple out of his arms. 

“Hey,” you pout when Simon chuckles, digging your nails into his back in retribution for laughing at you. It has the opposite effect though, the pain stoking his pleasure and sending a shiver down his back, his next thrust so rough that you bounce in his arms.

Your skin smells like sweat and musk this close, so heady that his head spins. It registers dimly at the back of his mind that he’s still dressed while you’re fully nude, housecoat and knickers in a pile on the floor in front of the couch, but he can’t pull away now, not with the need to come pressing into him on all sides, dick hard enough to split diamonds. 

He stares down between your legs where his cock splits you again and again, a ring of white cream at the base. He could paint that little snatch white with his cum or stuff it deep inside, both options appealing to his baser instincts. It’ll be a coin flip in the end.

When the ache in his back grows too significant to ignore, he lifts you up off the wall and drops you down on his cock, burying himself to the hilt before carrying you to the open door to the bedroom. 

“Sorry, pet,” Simon murmurs when he feels you clench around the thickest part of his cock, whispering a little oh fuck to yourself under your breath. He kicks the door shut behind him with his heel. “Back’s shit. Mind taking over for me?” 

The mattress squeaks under his weight when he sits down on the end. You blink up at him. “You want me on top?” 

He nods and hums his assent, digging his fingers into the muscle and flesh of your ass and kneading. “Yeah, bird. Still wanna see all the pretty bits though.”

The pretty bits being the globes of your ass facing him while you ride his dick, his hands pulling apart your cheeks to watch you take it inch by inch, thighs quivering with the strain.  

Your thighs are stretched out on either side of him, pretty calves resting perpendicular to his chest and toes curled into the mattress. He eyes those with some interest before your pussy distracts him again. There’s no angle that isn’t nice to look at, but this has got to be his favourite so far, tight bud between your cheeks clenching every time you drop down onto his dick. It’s easy to ignore the ache in his shoulder with a view this nice. 

“Fuck, birdie,” Simon murmurs, dragging his hand over your ass and then swatting it, grunting when that makes you clench up around him, inner walls squeezing his length and nearly milking him dry. “Coulda been doing this the whole time.”

You laugh a bit breathlessly. “No—you were way too annoying.”

Smack. You yelp when he backhands your ass and your shoulders go stiff, spine a taut line with your impending orgasm. Simon can feel it like a knot in his throat, pussy so hot that it nearly burns him alive. 

“Shit,” you gasp, hands on his legs the only thing keeping you upright. You nearly rip out the hair on his thighs when you curl them into fists.

His hands glide up and down your sides, touching wherever he wants. It’s his God given right after housing you for so long, and though Simon clings belligerently to that belief, like the foundation of his existence is built on quid pro quo, on doing nothing for others unless there’s something in it for him, there’s something else that burrows underneath that maxim. Something far truer and more terrifying, and if he were to look it dead on, it would bring him to his knees. 

Simon grunts, lungs pummelled when you squeeze around his length, tight as a vice.

Good thing you’ve got him on his back instead.

In the end, it’s not up to him whether he comes in you or not. When his cockhead bumps against your cervix and he feels teardrops land on his thighs, your shoulders shaking with the force of your sobs, the spigot loosens and his stomach aches with how hard he comes. His heels dig into the mattress, hips lifting up, trying to cram more and more of his cock into your cunt, tendons straining against his neck. 

“Take it, bird,” Simon snarls, teeth grinding together, his voice sounding wrecked even to him. “Take it nice ‘n deep, fuck—wanna see it leak from your hole when I pull ya off—”

Your nails sink into his thighs, cutting him off. 

He does too, when you flop down beside him onto the bed and he tucks you under his arm, spreading your legs so he can push his cum back into your cunt, fingers pearly white with your mixed juices. 

“Oh God,” you whisper, squeezing your thighs together around his hand until he’s forced to wrench them open again, hovering over you this time, the cudgel dangling between his legs already thickening up again. 

And that’s how he spends his week, in a suspended state of euphoria, no sense of time passing. It doesn’t matter where it goes as long as you crawl into bed with him at the end of the day, eyes sparkling with delight. 

The leaving is tougher than it’s ever been, claws scoring right through his chest when Simon tips your chin up and leans down to slot his lips over yours. He’s not made for this sentimental bullshit, but it finds him either way. 

His chest burns on the drive back to base, acid reflux a bitch as always. 

The next time his landlord calls, he comes bearing good news.

“I’ll cut you a deal on the first month to make up for the…mix up,” he starts begrudgingly. “But don’t worry—the girl’ll be out of your hair by the end of the month. Gonna tell her today that I can’t renew her lease.”

Simon hangs up without saying a word, swathed in anger. Nearly crushes the phone in his grip when his landlord calls back a second later. He ignores that call too.

If he were a different man, if this was a different world—

No one ever knows when their world is about to change until it does. 

But even if his walls have grown barbed wires in the years that he’s been alone, there’s always a way to dig out from under. 

The return home is different this time around, the wind under his sails all but lifting him into the air. 

A year to the date almost. Another month and time will wrap back around on itself, the seasons changing the same way they have for all thirty-seven years of his life. When fate lets him go this time, Simon heads over to Price’s office before taking off for the week, carving out time for one last drink before he hits the road. Over a whiskey and kretek, he tells Price his plan and only just keeps from rolling his eyes when Price barks a laugh, clapping his hands together.

“Never thought I’d see the day,” he chuckles, shaking his head. 

“Shut up.”

“It’s a big step, Simon. I’m proud of you.”

Simon rolls his eyes, pleased despite himself. “Stuff it, old man.”

And then he’s gone again, following the same winding road back, with one stop along the way this time. He stays overnight at a local inn after signing the paperwork, too exhausted to keep driving. Too much on his mind anyway. 

It means nothing to him that people do this sort of thing all the time. He has survived the locust years of his life and come out the other side. That should be enough to give himself some grace when he tosses and turns all night, back pain flaring up and immobilizing him for an hour. Only when the first rays of dawn pierce through the threadbare curtains does it finally abate, and he heads out after his morning piss, ignoring the cramp in his belly on the drive over.

You greet him at the door when you hear his car pull up, standing under the door frame while he gets out and rounds the car, bare toes curling at the cold air. And any effort to tamp it down now is in vain, his chest filling with something unspeakable and unsaid. 

“Put your shoes on,” Simon instructs, coming over just to pull you in for a kiss before nudging you back into the flat, shutting the door behind him. 

“Why?” you ask, lifting a brow. “Wanna go for coffee or something like that?”

“Something like that. Why aren’t you putting your shoes on?” 

Herded into the truck after getting dressed, you badger him with question after question the whole drive over while Simon keeps his mouth shut, focusing on the road in front of him. It’s not a long drive at least, but your incessant questions make it last an eternity. 

Until he pulls up in front of a house with a short gravel walkway and a garden in desperate need of attention, milkvetch growing near the front step. The outdoor sconces are new though, and though Simon already has a few things in mind to fix up around the house, it’s got good bones. Leagues nicer than the place you just left.

“Are we picking someone up?” you ask when he puts the car in park, confused. You stare at the door as if waiting for it to open. 

Simon doesn’t respond.

You look over at him and he takes one of your hands, holding it palm-side up and covering it with his own ugly mitt. You feel something cold drop from his hand into yours and he curls your fingers into a fist to hold it.

“No.” 

When his hand moves away, you uncurl your fingers to find a key. It means so little and so much all at once. If he could say it with words, it wouldn’t be the same so there’s no point in trying. 

“It’s ours?” you ask.

“Yeah.”

There’s a watery sheen over your eyes when you look up, and your lip wobbles. And in a way different than ever before, his chest grows tight, the ache in his heart a fresh and welcome pain.

iron tide [1]

fisherman price x reader cw: noncon undressing/bathing, dubcon touching. 11k words. 18+ mdni the crew aboard a deep-sea crabbing vessel rescue a woman adrift in the north sea. you wake up on a boat surrounded by men you don't know, with no memory of where you came from. or: john price rescues you from certain death and decides that you belong to him [masterlist]

Jonathan had long forsaken his godliness; but if he were to deify anything, it would be the Sea. 

Great big blue, infinitely vast and infinitely deep. She was sweet when she was still, gentle, little ebbs like kisses against the barnacled hull — formidable when she was angry, titanic swells like mountains that crashed and shattered and sucked irreverent men down into the depths of her. 

She took as much as she gave, demanded sacrifices for her gifts. Stole his father when he was a boy, swept off the deck of his ship by a rancorous wave and cast out into the expanse before she inevitably swallowed him. But what she purloined she returned in abundance — a cornucopia of life; fish, lobsters, molluscs — and enough crabs for John to make his living for the better part of his life once he retired from the Navy. 

In more recent years, though, he had begun to lose faith in her, too. 

The seas were violent and only getting rougher, warmer when they needed to be cold to let the crabs get meatier, colder when they needed to be warm so they could replenish their numbers. 

A burgeoning resentment had rooted in his crew like a spreading cancer, minute at first but steadily swelling — every year they were paid a little less and damaged a little more, and who else was there to blame but their skipper? 

Wrong spot, wrong depth, wrong time of year; he seemed to keep getting it wrong, despite decades and decades of seafare. As though the Sea was punishing him, as though he had taken too much — only a matter of time before it was his turn to give. 

She made known her spite as he leaned over the paint-chipped railing of the deck-facing balcony, watching his crew haul in pot after pot from the raging ocean. Each cage more vacant than the last, the crabs smaller than he had come to expect from the once generous North Sea, soft brown shells where they should have been thick, ochre red, and thorny. Half of them too small to keep, so were begrudgingly tossed back into the deep.

The sun had set not ten minutes prior, hidden by black cloud and dense fog, the sea and sky smudged into a uniform shade of gloaming blue. The waves were tempestuous, whitecaps high and valleys low — the Iron Tide was a resilient girl, and she carved through the bulk of the swells, but even she could not avoid the plummets and climbs of an ocean this rough. He felt the mist of the cracking waves on his cheeks, the wind blistering cold and forcing him to squint. 

As the Captain he had outgrown the need to get his hands dirty, he could stay in the comfort of the wheelhouse if he wished — but he still liked to venture down to the deck to pull ropes and haul pots when he could, if only to show his crew how it was properly done. He liked to ensure his callouses stayed thick and his mettle hadn’t turned soft. 

“This’s a fucken’ suicide set, captain!” Roared Johnny from the deck, work-worn voice barely audible over the bellows of the waves on the hull. Lead deckhand with the attitude of a first mate. 

The first mate himself, Simon, had begun ascending the rusty steel stairs with an uncharacteristic urgency, the hood of his fluorescent orange jacket around his shoulders, kept there by the wind. 

“How many ‘ve we got?” John asked him, jaundiced, having to shout over the gale. 

“Thirty-two,” Simon said rigidly, “from twenty pots.” 

“Fuck’s sake,” John grunted, aggravated, smacking the rail with his palm. He cynically observed the next pot as it was hauled up, even emptier than the last one, and he made up his mind. “Alright, set ‘em back.”

“They’ve been soaking for twenty-four hours,” Simon disputed, but the pith of his irritation resided in the knowledge of how much labour had already been wasted. It was an inexorable fact, though — there was little point in retrieving them now, as empty as they were. 

“It’s a waste of time to haul them all,” John barked. “What have we got, seventy to go? Set them back.” 

Simon rubbed the bridge of his nose with a thumb, exasperated. “Alright.” 

He echoed the Captain’s command in a roar down the stairs, deckhands looking up to listen before they obeyed — John watched, disenchanted, as they began launching the string of pots over the side of the deck one by one, throwing loops of yellow nylon rope and the bright red marker buoys out to follow them. 

It was easy for John to fall into a sour mood, and after the abysmal stew Nikolai had thrown together for their supper, his fuse was cut even shorter. Seemed the Russian mechanic’s turn to cook always landed on the harshest nights, left everyone crotchety and indolent. 

He needed nicotine. 

He made his way back to the helm with a crease in his brow and his jaw in knots. The bolted windows spanning the length of the bridge were near impossible to see through, the battering of sea spray distorting the view of the dark ocean that extended unendingly past the bow. He glared out into the abyss for a beat, stoically watching the black waves, wondering what next the Sea would punish him with. 

A blink of red pierced through the mist. 

He almost ignored it, at first, rubbing his forehead as he twisted his spinning chair behind the helm — until it was there, again; a pin-prick of bright carmine, cutting through the blue sea fog and disappearing behind a wave. 

Frowning as he leaned into the radar screen, his eyes scoured over the bright blue disk and immediately caught on a tiny yellow blip. Due north, twenty degrees west. It was faint, flickering every odd moment, and he stared at it vigilantly — a spot he would normally dismiss as sea clutter, if not for the blinking light he thought he saw on the horizon. 

He reeled down the window by the seat and stuck his head out into the winds, squinting through the spray — at the top of a crest shone the little red light, blinking at half-second intervals, clear as day. 

The realisation rinsed him colder than seawater. 

A lifeboat. 

He snatched the intercom radio from its hook by the wheel and held it to his lips. 

“All hands—” He barked, “Secure the deck. Got a lifeboat up ahead. Prepare for rescue.” 

Simon’s crackling voice quickly came back through the radio, from the call point on the deck. “D’you say a lifeboat?” 

“That’s what I said.” 

“Roger.” 

John could hear the yelling on deck from the wheelhouse, all that fervour frothing up at the prospect of an emergency; a new challenge. He immediately spun the wheel to adjust the rudder, steering the boat in the direction of the blip on the radar. Gently pushed the throttle to catch up and felt the roaring engine quake through the boat, the sharp bow of his ship cut through the swells like a fist through a wall. 

“See it,” Simon called through the intercom. 

“What’ve we got?” 

“Life raft.” 

He tugged the throttle lever back to halt the boat on approach, aligning the vessel so that the lifeboat was portside, knuckles white on the wheel. He set the engine to hold station before marching out to the deck, bracing for the wind as he hurried across the steel balcony and down the ladder, knurled steel stairs clanging loudly with every thud of his boots. 

“Any survivors onboard?” John shouted, joining his crew where they peered over the railing, as another wave cascaded over the gunwale, greenwater flooding the deck before gushing out of the scuppers. 

There it was, neon orange and climbing up a steep swell. Hardly a lifeboat — an inflatable raft, little red light blinking atop a rounded corner. From the deck he could tell it was ancient, the bright skin of the raft peeling and blistering, exposing the ballooning black rubber within that kept it afloat. Modern regulations demanded modern lifeboats — fully enclosed boats with their own motors, search and rescue transponders equipped. He struggled to imagine the kind of vessel the raft had even come from; certainly not a cruise ship, or any legally operating fishing or passenger boat. 

“Only one,” Alex answered, yelling over the roar of the ocean. 

Nik let out a grunt, dismissing it all with a sweep of his hand. “That woman is dead.” 

John squinted at the raft, and quickly determined that Nikolai wasn’t unreasonable for thinking so.

The woman aboard the raft lay face down in the orange bed, bare-footed, nothing on but a saturated ivory dress that clung to her skin like glue. Sodden hair webbed across her back, tresses floating in the inch of water that filled the basin of the boat. 

Even if she were a corpse already, though, he wasn’t going to let the Sea digest her unchallenged. 

“Alright,” he declared, chewing on his plan before he uttered it. “I’ll strap on the lifeline, jump in and grab her, then you lot can reel me back in.” 

The disputes were quick to gush from his crew, all cursing and shaking heads. 

“Get fucked,” Alex scoffed, appaled, “skipper jumping overboard? What world are you living in?”

“You gonna do it, then, Keller?” John retorted, lips in a line. 

“I can,” Soap yelled, already shucking off his heavy jacket. Daredevil that he was.

John gritted his teeth. Wasn’t sold on the risk of losing his lead deckhand; but as he considered it, he would never be prepared to risk losing any of them. 

“You sure?” 

“Ah’m the best swimmer,” he boasted through a grin, now down to his thermals, shoulders raised in the cold and rubbing his hands together. 

“Good man,” John nodded approvingly, and the crew quickly went to work strapping him in — hooked the harness over his shoulders and secured it in the front, fed the end of the long blue rope into the winch so he could be retrieved after the catch. 

Came the thudding of boots on the deck, running towards the commotion; “Fuck’s going on? Why’s the engine idle?”

Kyle, the ship’s engineer, finally emerging from the engine room with a smudge of gear oil on his cheek. Must have had his earbuds in when the Captain issued the all hands directive. 

John let out a huff, not prepared to give a long justification to the designated safety officer, conscientious as he was.

“Oh shit—” Gaz chirped, discovering on his own the gravity of the situation, as he glanced over the railing and spotted the raft. “Is she alive?”

“We’re about t’find out,” Soap said keenly, bouncing on the balls of his feet to warm himself up. 

“You’re jumping in?” Gaz balked, “That’s — you’re fuckin’ mental.”

John let out a sharp huff. He didn’t disagree, but he thought it counterproductive to express any reluctance. “Got a better idea, lad?” 

Gaz sighed anxiously as he clutched the guardrail, head hanging from his shoulders. He knew as well as John that this was the only option — it was that, or leave the woman adrift in the ocean to die, if she weren’t already. 

John held fast to his pragmatism, but his morals were unyielding. Nobody gets left behind. 

Men took turns giving Johnny good luck pats on the back as he climbed over the railing. He hung off the other side like a monkey with his fist around the bar, looking down into the furious ocean and taking an anticipatory breath. 

The crew watched raptly and let loose a strident cheer as he launched off, diving into the waves with knife-pointed arms and sinking out of sight. Nik remained steadfast by the hydraulic winch, ready to set it off at any indication of either success or failure. 

Soap reemerged from the water with a visible gasp ten-odd metres out, breaking through the white foam and powering ahead in a freestyle stroke. He reached the raft quickly, and climbed aboard like a wet dog, hauling himself up over the ballooning sides and almost pulling it under the water with him. He kneeled beside the woman once he was in, pulling her by the shoulder to assess her — he gave no indication to the crew as to her status before he hoisted her up and held her tight to his chest, arms hooked under hers so that she wore him like a backpack.

He pushed himself back into the water with an eager holler; “Got ‘er!”

Nik immediately pulled the lever on the winch and it zipped loudly as it began spinning, winding up the rope and hauling Johnny through the swelling sea. The crane arm of the davit extended far enough beyond the gunwale that he didn’t slam into the hull on his ascent, and he clung to the limp woman for dear life — John and his deckhands leaned as far over the railing as they could without toppling overboard, hooking the rope that suspended the swimmer and heaving he and his cargo onboard. 

Soap coughed out a splatter of seawater as he gingerly lay the woman on her back, before rolling over and wiping down his face, dripping wet.

“Found yerself a mermaid, cap,” he sputtered, sniffing and shivering violently as he pushed himself to stand. 

“Nicely fuckin’ done, Soap,” Alex lauded, smacking him on the back and earning a screech from the Scotsman. 

“‘S too cold,” he bit, grabbing at his genitals through his sodden thermals. “Ma fucken’ balls are gone.” 

“Go in and get dry,” the Captain barked, as he hurriedly crouched beside the woman, sweeping locks of drenched hair from where it stuck to her face. 

“Jesus,” Gaz muttered concernedly. 

Her skin was bitterly cold, but soft on her cheeks; some indication that resuscitation might have been possible, that her skin wasn’t as stiff and waxy as corpse skin would have been. Eyes were lightly shut, her thick lashes clumped together by seawater. He used a gentle thumb to lift up an eyelid, and her pupils were nice and black — blown out, but not clouded over. Laces of capillaries meshed through her white scleras. Blood still bright red.

“How’s she looking?” Alex asked, crouching beside John, pessimism in his throat. 

“She’s frigid,” John said grimly.

“Could be hypothermic,” Gaz said from behind him, worry leaden in every word. “That water is barely higher than zero.” 

“Mh,” John grunted in agreement, hastily pressing the palps of his fingers under her jaw into a spongy jugular, held there for a few seconds — no pulse. “We’ll worry about warmin’ her up once we get her breathing.” 

He leaned back and interlaced his fingers, laying his hands knuckles down between her breasts. Pushed his weight into her sternum with a hard shove and her ribs sunk underneath him, bouncing back up when he released the pressure. Repeat. Over, and over, grunting with each desperate compression.

The heaving bodies of five men caging her kept the bulk of the angry waves from dousing her, the spray crashed over John’s back and dripped from him, beads landing on her body. Solemn silence hung heavy between them, as though fearful that expressing any hope would condemn her to certain death. Simon clutched John’s shoulder, grip encouraging. 

He counted his compressions until he reached thirty, before he urgently keeled forward and pressed his mouth to her cold lips, pinching her nose and lifting her chin — pumped air from his lungs into hers with a forceful breath, then another, then another. Her chest rose as it filled up with his air, sunk again as he let it seep out from behind her teeth. 

Returned to compressions. Push. Push. Push. He pressed so hard into her sternum that her ribs threatened to snap under the weight of him, but they were rubbery enough to withstand it. 

Continued the next round until he reached twenty-one — when water began to rise up her throat, sloshing about in her open mouth and trickling out of its corners. He urgently halted his compressions to flip her onto her side and tip out the brine, hammering into the midline of her back with an open palm. 

“C’mon, love,” John growled, teeth gritting. “Cough it up for me.” 

As though she had heard him, a gurgle eked from her throat, torso retching as an eruption of water gushed out of her mouth and sprayed over the deck. A few weak coughs followed the first, and she shuddered — the men roared in shock and celebration as John returned her to her back. 

Her eyes fluttered open for less than a second, shrinking pupils fixed on John for a heartbeat — wet, glittering under the beaming of the deck lights, carving straight through him and taking root in the marrow of his skull. Vacant and yet swollen, the glow of life anew, as though glaring right into the heavens — and with a little sigh, they feathered shut again. 

He held a hand to her cheek, gave her head a soft shake; prepared to continue the chest compressions, but as he curled forward and held his ear to her lips, he felt her breathing, shaky and weak against the cartilage shell. 

“She breathin’?” Simon asked bluntly, laden with apprehension. 

“Yeah,” John huffed, relief potent as liquor flooded hot into his chest and made his temples throb. 

“Good shit, cap’n,” Alex commended, releasing a puff of pent air, just as relieved as the lot of them. 

John nodded dismissively, hands on his knees, before he pushed himself to stand. He stood over the girl and hoisted her up with his hands under her arms, before delicately draping her over his shoulder.

“Gaz, help me with her, will you?” He grunted, before marching toward the stairs up to the superstructure. “You three — fun’s over. Get back to setting the pots. I’ll send Soap back out once he’s in his dries.”

“Aye aye,” Alex said facetiously, shaking out his hands as he and the others returned to the stack they had just tied down. 

“What’s the plan?” Kyle asked stiffly, in quick pursuit as John steamed up the stairs. 

“Gotta get her warm,” John said. 

“Yeah—” he agreed with a hesitant tone, “what d’you want me for?”

John’s eyes rolled into his skull. “You did a couple years of health science, didn’t you?” 

“One year,” Kyle corrected. 

John could have said that he wanted Gaz specifically because he was the ship’s assigned safety officer, or because he was the only man aboard with a university degree. But, in truth, he wanted him simply for the fact he was the least likely of all of his crewmen to make stripping the girl into something needlessly lascivious. 

He carted her to the head in steady stride, passing Johnny through the narrow corridor as he dried himself off with a towel around his neck. 

“She’s alive?” He asked hopefully. 

“Uh-huh,” John rumbled. 

Soap triple-smacked the veneer panel of the wall with a flat hand in excitement, all but bouncing off the ceiling with it. “Halle-fucken’-lujah! Need help warmin’ her up?” 

“No. Get your skins on and head back out to deck, Johnny, y’got more pots to drop.” 

Johnny groaned like a teenager, but he went off as he was told.

The head was small — enough room for a toilet, a shower, and a three-inch wide sink, not quite the floorspace to lay her down gracefully. John tore back the curtain and propped her up against the wall of the shower, nestling her into the corner so her head leaned against the perpendicular wall. 

No sense in wasting time. He clinically peeled the sodden fabric of her white dress up her thighs, lifting her limp leg to tug the skirt out from under her. 

“Christ—” Gaz grumbled, disquieted, he turned away. 

“Will y’hold her arms up for me?” John monotonously requested, uninterested in the boy’s reservations. 

Gaz sighed as he obeyed the order, taking her cold hands by the wrists and holding them above her head. John hiked up her dress without reservation, revealing the saturated bra and underwear she wore underneath, as he lifted it her arms up above her head. 

“This’s fucked up,” Gaz mumbled. 

“What is.” 

“Taking her clothes off,” he said, reluctance poignant. 

“You’d rather we let her freeze to death, eh?” John bit, not even dignifying the engineer’s aversion by turning to look at him. 

He tugged her flaccid body towards him, and her head fell against his shoulder — he reached under her arm into the space between her back and the shower wall, unclasping her bra with a single hand. 

“No,” Kyle acquiesced. “Do we really need to take off her underwear, though?”

“She’s not gonna get warm in wet knickers, is she,” John grumbled, frustration blossoming, releasing it in a sharp sigh. “Y’need to grow up, Garrick. Go and grab my jersey and a towel from the laundry, then.”

“Okay. Sure, yeah,” he agreed, marching out of the head like he might trip over in his haste. 

John bit down on nothing as he pulled the straps of the girl’s bra down her arms, adding it to the pile atop her drenched dress. Didn’t help that she was a lovely thing — pudding-soft curves, pretty little face — might lend an explanation to the young engineer’s discomfort, couldn’t reconcile the attraction he felt to a near-dead woman while she was incognisant of her nudity. 

John did not care, he had no qualms. 

A pragmatist, through and through. He felt no shame for admiring her as he leaned her back against the laminate wall, nipples grey-purple and hard as pebbles by virtue of her palpable hypothermia. Soft lips were slack, not as blue as they had been when she was fished out of the ocean, now that her blood was pumping again. 

He wasted no time ogling her, though, he was no reprobate. His only priority was getting her warm and awake. And that happened to involve hooking his fingers into the waistband of her knickers, saturated in seawater and cleaving fast to her skin. 

He hooked an arm around her to lift her from the shower floor, used the other hand to tug her underwear over the swell of her bottom before he set her back down to reel them down her thighs. 

Pretty cunt, too. Unshaven, how he liked them. 

He reached up for the shower head, held it in a fist as he switched on the water. Already nice and warm, preheated by the engine-powered calorifiers. He held the stream of warm water over her chest, watching as it cascaded over her breasts and flooded between her thighs. Didn’t care if he got himself wet in so doing. Checked her pulse every odd moment with the pad of a finger on her wrist, ensured her chest continued to rise and fall. 

Rubbed his free hand over her skin to scrub off all the salt; started modestly with her arms, shoulders, back — but was unhesitant in rinsing and scrubbing her armpits, down her belly, between her legs. Didn’t touch her pussy, though, even John felt that was a step too far. He simply rinsed it. Let the water run over her mons and channel down the cleft of her unaided. 

He tilted her head back and ran the warm stream over her hairline, careful not to let too much water pour down her face. He combed thick fingers through the tresses, scrunching her hair into a ball to wring out the brine before rinsing it out again. 

As he carded his fingers through her scalp, though, he felt a lump; just above her hairline, concealed by the locks. A squishy protrusion from the skull, with a frayed ridge through the centre of it. Only then did he see the diluted blood in the water that puddled at the bottom of the shower, originating from the ends of her saturated hair. 

Add that to the list of ailments, he thought. Poor wee girl. They’d need to tend to that. 

Kyle finally returned with a cautious knock on the door, a single knuckle. 

“D’you fall overboard, Garrick?” John murmured — he had been gone far longer than it should have taken to find the items he requested. 

“Sorry,” he said. “Couldn’t figure out which fleece was yours.” 

John said nothing. 

“She warming up yet?” Gaz asked tightly, likely not even looking in the direction of the shower, now that she was entirely nude. 

The girl’s skin was now plush and pink under the heat of the water, and felt warm to the touch under the back of John’s hand; so with a satisfied nod he shut off the water and hooked the showerhead back into its fastening. 

He reached backward with a gesturing hand, and Gaz handed him the crisp towel he had brought from the laundry without a word. 

“Looks like she got hit in the head,” John commented, as he draped the towel over the girl's front, rubbing her down to get her dry. Arms, shoulders, armpits, thighs, feet. He was thorough. 

“Shit,” Gaz said morosely, half-hearted. Soft young man, soft in a way John was almost envious of. Sometimes he wondered if he had grown too rough around the edges, too abrasive for his own good. “What the fuck happened to ‘er?” 

“Not a clue,” John said. “Nothing good.” 

“That life raft was — that was non-standard,” Gaz pondered aloud. 

“Thought the same thing,” John replied, as he scrunched her hair in the towel, twisting it up to wring out the water. He was careful with the top of her head — dabbing her scalp gently, leaving dark red smears in the blue fibres. 

“Ferry capsized, maybe?” 

“We would’ve heard about a ship capsizing nearby,” John said. “‘Specially a passenger vessel. They’d have blasted the distress call out in every direction.” 

“Mh,” Gaz agreed. 

“She had no shoes on,” John remarked, tone sombre. “No gear, no jacket.” 

“Running away from something?” asked Gaz, picking up what John might have been suggesting. 

“Maybe,” John said, before hanging the towel around her back and hauling her up from the floor with an arm around her ribs. 

He hung her floppy arms over his shoulder, kept her body tight to him, the towel just long enough to conceal her buttocks from Gaz, sensitive lad. He kept her up with a forearm under her rear, bounced her to adjust. She was impossibly easy to lift; John could have carried her one-handed, if he were less concerned about avoiding brandishing her nudity around the ship. 

Gaz followed him out of the head, towards the galley. 

“She had no belongings with her, eh?” Gaz asked, “no wallet, nothing?” 

“No.” 

Kyle let out a long sigh, worry oozing from his every pore. “Don’t wanna imagine how long she was drifting for.” 

John nodded, as he sat her down on the bench seat of the dining table, the thin vinyl cushion squeaking underneath her. He dumped the towel, and grabbed his jersey from Gaz — one of his heavy Patagonia fleeces, fabric thick, plush like sheepskin, dark navy with a zip collar. He pulled it over her head, fed her arms through the long sleeves and adjusted it down her torso. It was long enough that it reached her mid-thighs, hands two-thirds of the way through the sleeves — big enough to conceal everything, and cozy enough to keep her warm. He pulled her hair out from inside the collar and lay it to one side over her shoulder. 

“Grab me the first aid kit,” John ordered dryly, as he leaned her against the seat, holding her head upright with a hand at the back of her skull. 

He fingered through her locks of damp hair, looking closely for the contusion that he felt ballooning out of her scalp — found it, eventually, dark purple and swollen, sticky burgundy blood coagulating around the open wound and gluing bits of hair together. 

“Think she fell?” Gaz asked, as he returned with the red polyester pouch after rummaging through the galley cabinets, unzipping and unfurling it. 

“S’there betadine in there?” John asked, before he had acknowledged the engineer’s question. “Hard to say, it looks rough.” 

Kyle handed him the little brown dropper of iodine solution, popping off the cap for him. “You don’t think someone hit her.” 

John’s jaw tightened. “If they did, they hit her bloody hard.” 

“Fuckin’ hell,” Gaz grumbled, upset, watching with his arms crossed as John tipped over the little bottle. He squeezed out several rust-brown drops, they landed squarely in the wound in her scalp, emulsifying with the tissue. “This’s all — just wrong.” 

“Least she’s alive,” John murmured, through a huff, as he put down the betadine. No use in attempting to bandage it, the laceration was small enough that it would heal on its own if left unbothered. 

“Wonder where her home is,” Gaz mused, tone dismal. 

“We’ll ‘ave to see what the bird says when she wakes up,” John said, laying the girl down on her side, tucking up her knees. 

“What if she doesn’t?” 

“She will,” John asserted as he stood, rapping an appreciative hand on Kyle’s shoulder. “Keep an eye on her, will you? I need to get back to the bridge.” 

“Okay,” Gaz nodded tightly. 

“And get her a blanket,” John ordered on his way to the ladder. “Call me if anything changes, yeah?” 

“Will do, Captain.” 

You tasted salt on your tongue.

It was dark, and your body was so heavy — your neurons fired off to raise an arm, and all they mustered was the twitch of a finger. Skin felt warm and viscid, lacquered in a tepid layer of tar as though fully submerged in gooey black pitch, too thick to move around in.

Your eyes perceived nothing but deep, liquid burgundy, and the sparking of white-and-red stars that encroached on the borders of your vision, writhing and swirling in the abyss of your blindness. 

Still, salt on your tongue. 

It was foul, overpowering, all consuming — that brackish grit in every corner of your mouth, between your teeth, crystallising in the back of your throat. It filled your nose, stung where it adhered to the delicate mucosa of your nostrils, every breath hurt to take in. 

You could feel it in your lungs, too. Shards of salt embedded in your bronchioles, saline glutted alveoli, trachea plugged with viscous brine. 

Your diaphragm spasmed beyond your control, body seizing as you erupted into a coughing fit — wet and phlegmy, salty fluid gurgling in your chest and hucking out of your mouth with every ragged splutter, you almost choked on it as you heaved in as much air as your lungs could imbibe. 

Your eyes shot open, then, vision so blurry that you had to wrench them closed a few times before the membrane over your corneas began to dissipate. 

A rubbery cushion under the side of your head, fuzzy fabric enveloping your arms and chest, something scratchy and heavy over your legs. Warm, sore — you ached everywhere, every joint stiff, every muscle burning, every organ twisting and floundering inside you. 

Dizziness wracked through your head, brain swimming free within your skull, spinning around in circles and bouncing against the walls of its cavity as though you were being tipped forward and backward and forward again. 

Nausea swelled up quickly, filled you up to the ears and made your stomach cramp and contort — bile rose up your throat and burned on its way up, you leaned over the surface you lay on and let it spill out from your teeth. Hardly any vomit, merely an oozing stream of chartreuse bile that dripped in strings from the corner of your mouth. 

You heard a voice, a man’s voice, at first too disoriented to understand it. 

“Shit — oh my god, you’re—”

A hoarse groan escaped your chest in response, not a noise you made on purpose, as you tried to roll onto your back. 

“Are you okay?” He asked urgently, and suddenly you noticed a pair of knees under a table beside you, only as they shifted when the person stood. “Hey — you’re okay, you’re—”

You moaned again, squinting under the bright light above you, vision distorted by vertigo and brine. Tongue too fat to form any words yet. 

“You’re okay, let me — let me get you some water.” 

You heard the hurried thuds of boots away from you, and you rubbed your eyes with the heels of your palms, finally able to see properly once you opened your eyes again. Shakily pulled yourself upright with a hand on the table, muscles quivering so violently that they could barely hold you up — but fired adrenaline began to kick in, thumping out from your chest and buzzing in your fingertips as you glanced around the room, utterly alien to you. 

“Where…” you croaked, soaking in your surroundings. Panelled walls of honey oak, an ugly veneered table in front of you, you sat on its bench seat. A small circular window sat above the table, bolted around its borders, and a single light bulb hung from the ceiling. 

The room smelled like dish soap and body odour, fetid with the scent of an unwashed sponge and a hovering note of fish carcass. A small kitchen, as you turned your head around to check behind you — the man towered over a sink, you heard the hiss of running water. 

“Where am I?” You finally asked, finding your words, but your voice was as frayed as if you had swallowed glass.

The man turned then, and you did not recognise him. Not at all. A complete stranger, with a furrow in his brow, and an awkward smile tugging at the corner of his lips. 

You bolted up from the seat then, tossing aside the blanket that rested on your knees, fight-or-flight reigniting your muscles and setting your heart into overdrive — your head spun with it, and your balance was completely off kilter, you had to continually readjust your feet to keep yourself upright. 

“Hey — hey, easy,” he said edgily, voice soft. 

“Who the fuck are you?” You barked, immediately defensive, you tried to keep your eyes pinned to him while you made note of your peripheral surroundings. 

“I’m — I’m sorry, I didn’t — I’m Gaz. Kyle. I’m Kyle.” 

You scowled at him, panting, hackles raised high as you shuffled away from the table. “I don’t know anyone called Kyle,” you hissed. “Or anyone called Gaz.” 

“We haven’t met before,” he said, body twisting to face you as you inched around him. 

He put down the glass of water he held in his hand, and that only further enkindled your terror. Now his hands were free. He could tackle you, if he wanted to. Tall man that he was, muscular under his black jersey, his big doe-eyes did nothing to soften you to him. 

“We found you in the water,” he tried to explain, “we thought you were dead. But we rescued you.” 

“The fuck do you mean, found me?” You spat, now approaching the kitchen, your eyes scoured around for something to grab. 

He could detect your scheming, inched closer to you on quiet feet, attempting to flank you. 

So you dashed — bolted towards the small cooktop, where a magnetic strip mounted on the wall held an array of kitchen knives. 

“Fuck—” He cursed, through teeth, failing to grab you in time before you snatched one by the handle, and held the blade in front of you with both hands. 

You jabbed it at him as you backed out of his reach, arms so shaky you almost dropped it — but you kept it tight, holding onto it with vicious devotion, as though dropping it would be your death sentence. 

He held up his hands, not in surrender, but as if he were attempting to settle a wild animal. “Okay, love, take it easy.” 

“Stay away from me,” you shouted, trembling, backing away cautiously. 

“Captain!” The man roared worriedly toward the ceiling, and you flinched. “Look, love, I’m not going to—”

“Fuck you,” you bit, before you spun on a heel and flew towards an archway. 

“Shit.” He cursed as you escaped, but he had not yet pursued you. 

You scurried down the narrow corridor, bare feet aching with every step, knife extended in front of you and prepared to slash at anything that got in your way. You were wobbling all over the place, as though the ground beneath you was rocking back and forth; you toppled into the wall on your right, yelping as you tried to get yourself upright again. 

You reached a great big industrial door, painted blue and with a tiny circular porthole too high for you to see through. It had a wheel in the centre of it, connected to a series of bars that spanned it from top to bottom. Not a door you had ever seen before, but you inexplicably knew to twist the wheel — left, first go, and the bars shrunk away from the top and bottom, the steel door unsealing with a clank. 

Now you heard the thuds of running boots, fast, growing louder, closer — you shouldered open the heavy door and leapt over the lip at the bottom, immediately blasted with an ice-cold wind that made you shrivel up and almost retreat back inside. 

The sky was stark black, and you were blinded by floodlights. You stumbled towards the railing, hanging onto it for dear life as you almost slipped over on the frigid metal grating under your feet — it felt like barbed wire on your soles, and you whimpered with every step. 

Your fierce desperation to escape trumped any pain, though, you burned hot as a boiler, thundering adrenaline keeping you aflame. You spun your head around to determine where you were; a pitch-dark abyss surrounded you on all sides — no sky, no ground, no lights on the horizon, nothing. You peered over the balustrade and realised then that you were on a ship, now seeing the building-tall waves that cascaded over the floor below, bedizened in ropes and grates and metal cages and buoys, populated with a few people in neon jackets. 

“Hey—” Came a bark from behind you, and you shrieked — immediately scurrying towards a steep staircase, pole-narrow, almost toppling down it as you bounced to every second step. 

The floor of the deck consisted of slippery water-logged wood, and the soles of your feet struggled to find any grip as you sprinted across it. You weren’t even sure where you were running, just away, from the man who had followed you — but it became quickly clear you had no escape, and the orange-jacketed men on the deck had turned their heads to spot you.

“Oh, fuck—” One barked. 

Another erupted in bewildered laughter; “She breathes, alright!” 

“Oi — girl—” Called one. 

“C’mere, hen!” Shouted another, Scottish. “We don’t bite!” 

You sobbed as you ran, ravaged by a fear so potent it made your heart shrivel up like a raisin — you were sprayed by a crashing wave, blinded by the salt, and your feet slipped out from under you. Collided into the hard ground with a slam, a bounce, you skidded across the wood and your knife tumbled out of your grip, sliding out of reach. 

Only as you flopped around on the greasy floor did you realise your nudity under the sweater you were wearing, bare thighs slick with cold sea water, ass bitten by the arctic wind. You scrambled to get yourself back up, crawling on your hands and knees towards your only weapon — until a thick arm hooked under your belly, swiftly hoisting you up from the ground with yank, and you squealed. 

“Easy, now, woman—” Gritted the man, the hoarse growl of an old dog, and he held you flat to his chest. “In such a hurry to go back overboard, eh?” 

You wailed, attempted to buck yourself free from him while your feet dangled off the floor, but he only secured his grip with another mammoth arm. The other men on the deck approached hastily, concern and confusion etched in their cold-ruddy faces, looking between each other as though waiting for somebody to decide what to do with you. 

“Let me go,” you sobbed, paltry voice broken by hiccups, you spluttered and cried and kicked when you could muster it. “Please, please—”

“Put her down, Nik, for fuck’s sake.” Came the roar of another man, approaching from further away, an authoritative fury that your captor swiftly obeyed. 

You landed on your bare feet onto the wet floor with a squelch, and a sob, but he kept a firm grip of your shoulder to prevent you from fleeing. You wouldn’t have, though — now, it was clear to you — there was nowhere to run. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Yelled the evident commander, “All of you? Christ, look, you’ve scared the shit out of her.” 

You saw him, then, as he stood in front of you — towering, heaving, you felt the vibrations of his heavy feet on the deck with each step. Broad shoulders cloaked in a rugged navy jacket, the hood pooled around his neck, a pair of roomy yellow overalls strapped over the waterproof layer. A black knitted beanie sat on the top of his head, folded just above his furrowed brows. His lips were in a snarl under his dense beard while he addressed the other men, but they softened into a neutral line when he looked at you. 

There was something familiar about him, not that you could place it; a face you might have seen in a dream, or crossing the street once. A face you could imagine with a glowing light beaming from behind it, as though the moon eclipsing a sun. You had no memory to tie to it, and yet, it settled you slightly. 

“Y’alright, love,” he said, voice honey-warm and thick with gravel, he held a hand in your direction and gestured to follow him. “Come back in, will you? Too cold for you out here, eh?” 

You sipped a shaky breath, shivering in the bitter wind, glancing at the men surrounding you from under your brow. Returning to the man that gestured for you, you gave him a feeble nod, and waddled in his direction. 

“Tha’s it, c’mon,” he said gently, hovering a hand at the small of your back. He turned over his shoulder to shout at the others; “You lot have more pots to set, don’t you? Get back to fuckin’ work.” 

He guided you gingerly towards the stairs, close behind you to ensure you didn’t slip over on the way up. Opened the weathertight door to let you in, but walked in front of you down the same corridor you had escaped through. You held your arms tight around yourself, left soggy footprints along the vinyl floor. 

“Got yourself all wet again,” he said, an edge of irritation in his tone. 

“D’you get her?” Came a call from the kitchen you had awoken in, and the man — Kyle — appeared at the end of the hallway. You froze. 

“Go finish your work, Gaz, y’still got an hour on the clock.” He ordered flatly, and Kyle looked at you past him. 

“Yes, Captain,” he grunted disdainfully, shouldering past the man in front of you, and squeezing around you where you pressed yourself into the wall. “Hope you’re feeling okay,” he mumbled sheepishly, before disappearing down a flight of stairs. 

The captain looked back at you, flicked his head in the direction of the kitchen. “C’mon, let's get you dry.” 

The kitchen was much smaller than you remembered it being not a few minutes prior — cozy, much warmer than outside but still not quite warm.

“Siddown,” he said from the kitchen, not as forceful as a command but just as compulsory. You gingerly sat yourself on the same bench you had woken up on, watching him carefully, lips sealed. 

He approached you with a tall cup of water, held by the rim with the tips of his fingers. “Drink it.”

You took the cup timidly, but once it was in your grip you did not hesitate; tipped it into your mouth and skulled it down desperately, a dribble escaping the corner of your mouth. You had no idea how thirsty you were until fresh water touched your lips — fresh, not salty — you panted like a dog when the cup was empty, half-quenched. 

He took it from you, filled it back up at the sink before bringing it back, and you drank the second cupful just as quickly. 

“Better?” He asked, and you nodded, wiped your mouth with your hand. 

“Thank you,” you said quietly. 

You watched as he grabbed a light blue towel from the tabletop, and for a moment you thought he might hand it to you — instead he crouched in front of you, and took your leg by the ankle. 

You immediately chirped and attempted to tug your foot free on reflex, but his grip was firm; entire hand wrapped tight around your ankle, he gave you a tut. 

“Settle down,” he snipped, resting the sole of your foot on his collarbone. “I’m only dryin’ you off.” 

Said with such certainty that you began to doubt your instinct that it was inappropriate for him to put his hands on you — tempered by the feeling that he knew what he was doing, that he was only taking care of you. 

He looked at you impatiently until your tensed muscles eased, before he nodded in satisfaction. He hooked your foot over his shoulder so that your ankle rested on his trapezius, before he bunched the towel up in a fist and ran it up the length of your leg. 

You leaned on your arms behind you, heart in your throat, beating so fast that you could hear it buzzing in your ears. 

He was focused, wiping the seawater and muck off your skin, up and down your thighs, down the underside of your leg. 

“Took a tumble, did you?” He asked plainly, dabbing a fresh graze on your knee with the towel, making you flinch with the sting. 

“Yeah,” you said meekly; you were sure it would bruise eventually, but it was largely painless for the time being. 

He tutted you, but continued, wiped down your calf and dried off your foot last; he was fastidious about it, pushed the fibers of the towel between your toes, engulfed your foot in the cotton, scrubbed it along the sole of your foot and your toes curled with the tickle.

He set that leg down once he was done with it, and wordlessly demanded the other with a curl of his fingers. 

Confounding yourself, you did as you were told, and offered him your other leg; he repeated the procedure, resting your foot on his shoulder and scrubbing your leg with the crunchy towel, unabashedly wiping up to the top of your thigh, between your legs, under your knees. 

It didn’t escape your notice that you were naked underneath the jersey, and if he were to look a little higher his eyes would be square with your pussy. The thought made you tighten, and he gave you a disapproving glance when he felt it — but he finished with the other foot, and set your leg free again. 

“Thank you,” you muttered, tight-lipped, dizzy with confusion. 

“D’you want a new jersey?” He asked as he stood, swiping a hand over the sleeve shoulder, where seaspray had beaded on the outside of the fleece. 

“I’m okay,” you said timidly, tucking your legs together. 

He nodded, dropping the towel back on the table. “Alright, pet,” he said. “Let’s get you a cuppa, yeah?” 

You were quiet, but he busied himself in the tiny kitchen anyway — followed the rumbling of a water boiler and the slosh of hot water, the opening and closing of cabinets and drawers, the tinking of a spoon in a teacup.

“Hope you take it with milk and sugar,” he said. “You’re getting it whether you like it or not.” 

“That’s fine,” you croaked. 

“Good girl,” he said, as he returned with a brown glass mug and set it down on the table in front of you. “Gotta get some sugar in you. You remember the last time you ate?”

You shook your head. 

“Mh, well, let’s get you fed.” 

“I’m not — I’m not hungry right now,” you said hesitantly, and when a divot pulled in his brows, you clarified; “don’t think I can keep much down yet.” 

He nodded. “No problem, love,” he answered, with a pacifying grin. “How’s the head?”

“Where am I?” You asked pointedly, cutting to the chase, unwilling to take a sip of your tea out of lingering suspicion. 

He sat down across from you, landing in the bench seat with a grunt, interlocking his fingers on the surface of the table. His glare was scrutinising, albeit gentle, as though checking rather than inspecting. 

“You’re aboard the Iron Tide,” he said candidly. “We’re fishing for crabs in the North Sea.” 

“Iron Tide?” 

“That’s the name of the ship, love,” he answered, a little patronising. “I’m her skipper, I’m Jonathan. You met Gaz, he’s our engineer — he gave you a fright, I bet, but he’s a good lad.” 

You nodded edgily, looking askance at him. “Okay… but, how did I get here?” 

He smiled sombrely at that, crow’s feet pinching in the corners of his tired eyes. An oceanic blue, you noticed, little round seas reflecting the light that bounced off the table beneath him. 

“Was hopin’ you could tell me that, pet,” he gibed, nodding at your mug. “Drink your tea.” 

You took a sip, as you were told. Just cooled enough to sip with a slurp, blanketing your salty tongue, warm and saccharine, hot as it went down your throat. Earl grey. The taste made you feel tucked in, as though a blanket were over your legs, a pillow behind your head — but the murky memory was as fleeting as it was vague. You swallowed it with a sigh, and he looked pleased. 

“So?” 

“So what?” You asked, with a frown. 

“How’d you end up on the high seas, hm?” 

“I—” You cut yourself off, as you stared into the steaming surface of your tawny-coloured tea. 

Words danced at the tip of your tongue, amorphous and flavourless, nothing you could place. Notions that, if you were to reach for them, would drift away, or turn to smoke. 

You didn’t have an answer. 

“I don’t know,” you said, voice shaky, glancing at him with worry knitting in your brows as though he might be able to remind you. 

“You don’t remember?” He asked carefully. 

A piteous heat swelled beneath your eyes, tears welling from their ducts and pooling in your eyes, your vision went blurry with it. You shook your head. 

“S’alright, pet,” he said, fixing a hand to your wrist across the table. “It’ll come back to you. Do you remember anything at all? If you were on a boat, what country you’re from?” 

Again you shook your head, sniffling, you wiped an errant tear with the soft sleeve of the oversized fleece you have no memory of putting on. “No.” 

Concern cracked through his stoic expression, and it only made you more upset.

“Do you know your name, love?” 

You vacuumed in a slow and trembling breath, eyes bouncing between your hands, as if they might hold the answer. You could think of names — Jessica, Lucy, Nina, Anna, Rebecca — but they were only that, random names floating about in the air around you, and you could not pin any of them as your own with any certainty. 

“No,” you eked, followed swiftly by a sob, despite your effort to swallow it. 

He exhaled, long and beleaguered, stroking the back of your hand with his colossal thumb. Hands as big as saucers, calloused and molten hot to the touch. Made your hand look like a pixie’s underneath it.  

“Don’t fret, eh?” He said, failing to comfort you. “Y’got plenty of time to remember. Just finish your tea.” 

“What do you mean?” You asked weakly, plenty of time comment making you uneasy. “Aren’t you going to take me to — back to land?” 

He smiled, bemused, as he released your wrist with a pat and leaned back against the bench seat, hanging an arm insouciantly over the back. 

“Not heading all the way back to port yet, love,” he said frankly. “We only left a couple days ago. Got a lot more crabs to catch.” 

“I’m — I have to stay on this boat until you’re done fishing?” You asked, fighting back the tears that threatened another cascade. 

He tilted his head. “This’s my job. If I don’t get crabs, I don’t get paid. Neither do the other lads, ‘n they won’t be letting that happen.” 

You pouted, lip quivering and face scrunching, and he let out a huff. 

“Look, sweetheart, what would I even do with you if I took you back now?” He asked, tone rigid. “Y’got no ID, no passport, no papers, nothing on you but that bloody frock. We don’t even know what country you belong to. You’d get snatched up by the authorities and tossed around immigration services until your head is on backwards.” 

You sniffled, wiped your cheek with your sleeve. You had no argument, and even if you had the energy to muster one, you had no knowledge of how such a system worked, or where you would possibly go if they allowed you free movement. You’re sure you’d have a house somewhere, a family, someone out there must be looking for you…

The thought made you cry again, head falling from your shoulders and landing in your hands, you sobbed unremittingly into the dense fleece. 

Jonathan sighed at that, evidently growing impatient, but he pushed himself to stand — he was suddenly next to you, planting himself on the bench with his thigh against yours, and he draped an arm around your shoulder. 

“S’alright,” he crooned, voice as deep and rumbling as an engine, and you found yourself curling into him on instinct. Tucked up under his arm, head on his chest, a warm hand rested on the side of your head and smoothed down your hair. “We’ll sort it out.” 

“I don’t even kn-know where my home is,” you blubbered into him, muffled by his jacket, still speckled with beads of sea mist. “Or if — if I’ve got a family, or a husband—”

“Y’look a little young for one o’ those,” he remarked, with a chortle. 

“What if I don’t remember anything? Ever?” You cried, and he stroked the shell of your ear with his calloused thumb, fingers woven in your hair. 

“None o’ that,” he grumbled, you couldn’t determine if he was rocking you or if it was simply the motions of the boat tipping over the waves. “No wallowing on my ship. Keep your chin up, and you’ll be fine.” 

You whimpered, but nodded, and he petted your head like a cat. 

“We got another nine or ten days at sea,” he said, comforting hand retreating from you, resting on his lap. Kept his heavy arm coiled around you, though, and you were daftly grateful for it. He patted you on the far shoulder with a stiff hand. “You’re a tough girl, yeah?”

“I dunno,” you sniffled, sitting yourself upright and reeling away from him. He released you, then, arms crossing over his chest instead. 

“Well you survived God knows how long floating around in the North Sea, pet, I’d call that pretty tough.”

You attempted to compose yourself, sucking deep a breath and wiping down your face with your sleeves. Hoped that whoever’s fleece it was didn’t care about tears and snot being smeared over the cuffs. 

“Is there somewhere for me to sleep?” You asked cautiously, in an attempt to come to terms with reality — nine or ten nights of sleeping on a fishing boat. It made you sick to think about. 

He curled his lips as he thought for a moment. “You can sleep in my bed,” he said. “Skipper’s cabin is a lot nicer than the crew berths, I’ll tell you that.”

You blinked at him, uncertain — it was unsettlingly vague whether that meant he was offering you the bed to yourself. 

“Or you can ask one of the lads to share a bunk with them, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.”

You shook your head hastily, and he cracked a grin. “No, thank you, skipper’s cabin sounds good, please.”

“Alrighty,” he concurred, with a nod, the deal done. “Sleepy already, eh?”

You nodded sheepishly — for the most part, you just wanted to be alone, somewhere quiet and enclosed, out of sight. But you were utterly drained, left ravaged by receding adrenaline, body battered and bruised. Curling up in a bed sounded luxurious, and heaven only knows how long it had been since you slept in one. 

“Y’only been awake for twenty minutes,” he joked. “And you’ve hardly touched your tea.”

He flicked his head towards the mug, and his imperious expression made clear that he wanted you to finish it. 

So, if only appease him, you clutched the mug and tipped it into your mouth, sucking down the now luke-warm tea in five hefty gulps. Licked your lips when you were done, and dumped the mug back on the table. 

“Happy?” 

He smiled wide, let out a haughty chuckle. “Nicely done,” he said. “Alright, then, let’s get you tucked in.”

He pushed himself to stand with a grunt, finally freeing you from behind the table, and you followed him. 

“Y’sure you don’t want a bite?” 

You shook your head. “Maybe in the morning, if that’s okay.” 

He laughed as he made his way toward an upward staircase. “Morning’s fine, but I’m not having you starve yourself.”

“I won’t.”

As you climbed to the top of the stairs you reached the bridge — a large control station with many screens, all showing different radars and panels and numbers. The wheel was there, too, a spinning chair with a sweater thrown over the back of it tucked in front of it. Sea spray made pattering rain-like noises on the thick windows, but very little light came in from them. The air was thick with cigar smoke and terpenic air freshener, the everpresent ghost of saltwater lingering in between. 

“Just through here,” he instructed, and you followed him around to the other side, through a door, and down a shorter staircase. 

There you were met with a bedroom; it was intimate, stuffed full of bags and boxes and papers. A fold-out desk jutted out from an warm-wood wall, covered in maps weighed down by protractors and a drawing compass. Coats hung over hooks, boots lined up by the door. 

A cot bolted to the wall, perhaps a king single, unmade — a thick duvet with a red-and-navy plaid blanket tossed overtop, heavy wool that you could ascertain would be itchy without needing to touch it. A single pillow in a navy pillowcase, cream-coloured fitted sheet likely toned off-white due to age or overuse. 

It was rich with musk in there, the single porthole window not able to be opened, and the heady scent made you dizzy. You imagined it was only a marginally diluted version of the same scent you’d get pressing your nose into his armpit. It was only tempered by traces of toothpaste and cigarettes, and the potent smell of Imperial Leather bar soap. Daft that you remembered that, and little else. 

“Not a five-star hotel, eh?” He gibed, nudging you with his elbow. You didn’t have a response, at first, and he chided you; “Don’t be a sourpuss. No room for being fussy here, love.”

“No — this is perfect, thank you, I’ll sleep anywhere.” 

He smiled and crossed his arms, rocking on the balls of his feet. “Alright, well, you get yourself comfortable then,” he said. “Loo’s just through there, if you need it. Use my toothbrush if you like, just give it a wash after, eh?”

You almost grimaced at the thought of sharing his toothbrush, but the lingering bile and salt in your mouth had you looking forward to the taste of toothpaste. 

“Need anything else, pet?” He asked, still gruff. “Paracetamol? I can get you something else to sleep in—”

“I’m okay, thank you,” you insisted, perhaps too plainly eager to get him out of the room. 

“Alright, love,” he said. “G’night, then. I’ll just be up there, still got some steering to do.”

“Okay.”

With a firm nod, he turned around and headed out of the cabin, shutting the door behind him. 

You let out a pent breath once you were alone, potent exhaustion suddenly crashing into you like a train. You stumbled into the tiny ensuite — a small toilet and a sink, the shower head jutting out from the wall above the commode — rinsed his frayed toothbrush under the tap and globbed on some colgate. 

Brushing your teeth made you feel marginally human again, and you spent a good five minutes scrubbing out every crevice of your mouth. You washed it afterwards, like he said, and stuck it to the wall with the suction cup on the back of it. 

There was no mirror, and you found yourself glad of it. You couldn’t yet confront the fact that you did not remember what you looked like, an existential dread that simmered in your belly, but too tired to churn up. 

Only then, as you glanced at his bar of soap (it was Imperial Leather, as you had guessed), did you realise how clean you felt — you wondered if he had washed you, and now you were certain that he had changed you. The thought made you shiver, and you tried not to think about it. 

His bed was squeaky underneath you, and the mattress so soft that you sunk deep into it; the weight of him permanently embedded in the springs, you settled into the divot like a cat, curled up towards the wall. It was bitterly cold in the cabin, much like the rest of the ship, so you tugged the blankets up your cheek, rubbing your icy feet together to warm them up. 

The sheets reeked of him, of man and musk, the pillow smelt of scalp and salt. It was unusually comforting. Such a human smell, and as you tucked yourself under his layers of blankets it swirled around in the front of your head and made you dozy. 

Sleep called to you, dark and ebbing, and you slipped willingly beneath the surface. 

You were roused, only slightly, at the sound of a door handle. 

Not alert enough to open your eyes, you still floated deep in slumber, soft and warm. Your consciousness ascended close enough to the shallows to acknowledge the opening of a door, the footsteps across a hollow floor, but the sounds conveyed no meaning to you. 

Sleep pulled you downward but you floated languidly back up at each noise; the fizz of running water, the scrubbing of brushing teeth, the spit of toothpaste.  

A zip being undone, velcro being ripped open, boot laces being untied. The clunk of a shutting door, a cough, a grunt, and you finally broke the surface. 

Now entirely awake, you remained completely still — not out of fear, you didn’t think — perhaps in the hope that he would leave you alone to keep sleeping, absolutely not ready to get up yet. He made no effort to be quiet, as he dumped his boots by the door, rummaged around in his belongings for a moment, coughed again. 

You kept your nose close to the wall, eyes barely open. He flicked off a light switch and the room was abruptly drowned in darkness. 

The blanket was lifted from you, then, and you flinched — with the cold air nipping at your skin, you realised your long jersey had been hiked up in your sleep, and your bare bottom half was starkly exposed. 

You froze, curled up, tongue in your teeth; until a sudden weight plummeted into the mattress, bouncing you up before sinking deep behind you, causing you to slide into the dip.  

With a grunt and a huff the blanket was pulled back up over you, scratchy wool brushing your cheeks. A titanic arm hooked over your stomach, and you squeaked — he paid no mind, yanking you backwards until your back was flush with his chest, ass nestled into his lower belly, his thighs tucked up behind yours. 

You held your breath, skittish, not yet daring to move; he let out a deep sigh into the back of your head, warm breath seeping through your hair and into your skull. 

His entire body was a furnace, burning hot, and you felt yourself melting into him whether you liked it or not. A mammoth hot water bottle, wrapped around and behind you, keeping you soothingly warm. 

His hand ventured nowhere untoward, arm only hanging listlessly over the divot of your waist, forearm tucked into your chest. He felt clothed against you, sweatpants and a thermal on. 

There was something wrong about it — something off, a survival instinct that buzzed around you, humming like a mosquito, a ringing in your ear, annoying and persistent. 

But his pyretic warmth made you lightheaded, so comfortable tucked into him that it felt like you were already dreaming. 

With a heavy blink, and a deflating breath, you sunk deep into him and let slumber swallow you whole once again. 

idgaf this is a politics free zone let me read my fics in peace ffs

Sweet Valentine [wri0thesley OC Lucas x reader]

Title: Sweet Valentine [@wri0thesley OC Lucas x Reader]

Synopsis: It's Valentine's Day and Lucas has some sweet surprises planned, but things don't go as well as you'd hoped.

Word count: 3164

notes: Yandere, kidnapped reader, mentions of cannibalism, abusive relationship, mentions of violence, non-graphic descriptions of noncon and dubcon sex, reader is implied to be afab

“You… want somethin’ special for Valentine’s Day, sweetheart?”

Lucas’ voice is low and tender, and when you look up at him, you see a faint blush dusting his cheeks. It’s a familiar sight. He always gets like this, when it comes to romance. Or what he thinks is romance, anyway.

You think it’s all that vulnerability that comes along with romance; the possibility of rejection, as if you were stupid enough to outright reject anything he wanted to give you. Not unless you wanted to meet the sharp end of a glare

(Or an axe.)

But it’s there anyway, that vulnerability. In the way he sometimes glances away or the way his cheeks gain a deeper tint or the lilt in his voice. He gets awkward and when you’re feeling dark and low, you sometimes wonder what he’d do if you didn’t thank him for his gifts, if you didn’t lean into his arms when he opened them, if you wiped away his kisses, if you were as ungrateful and awful as you were currently too afraid to be. 

The answer always comes swiftly: He’d kill you, moron. 

Maybe not right away. But you’d chip at his goodwill, such as it was, bit by bit until nothing was left but raw steel. And where would that raw steel go? Right into your skull, stupid.

You’re a lot of things. Scared. A liar. Helpless. But you’re not stupid. 

So you return his blush with a practiced meek gaze. The kind where you glance up at him and then look quickly down, and cross one arm (but never both, that’s too petulant) over your chest. 

Shy, that’s what you are; or rather, what you’ve become in order to survive here. 

If he thinks you’re shy and quiet and meek, it seems easier for him to brush aside the way you tremble; the way you flinch; the way you sometimes find yourself begging him to wait, just wait oh please, you’re not quite ready to go all the way yet. 

And if you have to debase yourself by taking his length into your trembling hands, by letting him touch you until you trembled and came on his fingers, it’s what you’ll do to put off the inevitable for another day. 

“Nothing special,” you say, voice crackling with the dryness of the morning air. He doesn’t respond. He’s disappointed, you think. Nothing special isn’t good enough for Valentine’s Day. So you add, quietly but quickly: “But maybe… If it’s not too much trouble… some chocolate?” 

You glance up at him and he’s got an almost goofy smile on his face now. It makes you relieved--it makes you sick.

“Or--or we could watch a romantic comedy?” You suggest. You bite your lip then, a holdover gesture from your old life. “Oh, but you don’t really have any, so I guess we could just--”

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that.” He pulls you close without giving you a choice and you lean your head against his shoulder, just like you ought to do. “I’ll find you somethin’ in town this weekend. Gotta go get some supplies anyway.” 

You smile and press your face towards his chest, so that he feels the curve of your lips against his shirt. “Thank you, Lucas. Really… really any movie you like is fine, but if you can find one, that would be okay.”

He sighs and presses one large hand against the back of your head, trailing it down past your neck--he could snap it so easily--until he’s rubbing your back.

“You’re the sweetest, you know that, angel?” 

You don’t answer, because you don’t need to, and he presses a kiss to the top of your head. 

You were good. You behaved well.  You did what he wanted. Did it matter that you didn’t want chocolates or to watch a movie with him for Valentine’s Day or any day at all? Did it matter that at home, your real home, you were loud and brash and your mother would have pissed herself laughing if anyone called you shy? 

No. Of course not.

If only the truth wouldn’t get you killed. 

You don’t want chocolates or a VHS copy of some outdated romantic comedy.

The only thing you really want for Valentine’s Day is to go home. 

--

The chocolate isn’t great, but it’s not awful, either. There was even a cherry cordial--your favorite--and Lucas’ eyes had lit up when you told him so. 

It was a nice surprise. 

After all, the cynical part of you imagined Lucas showing up with a dusty box of chocolates that tasted like stale sweetness; the kind you find overpriced at drugstores, boxes that forgetful husbands pick up on the way home from work on the day-of. 

But when he came home from town, he’d sheepishly handed over a bouquet of colorfully dyed flowers. A mixture of carnations that were an impossibly vivid pink and daisies with bright blue petals. It was just the kind of bouquet you used to pick out for your mom when you were a kid, because you were drawn to the pops of unnaturally colorful simple flowers more than you were ordinary red roses. 

“Know you like, uh…” He’d held out the bouquet and waited for you to take it from him before continuing. “Know you like this kind of pink, so…” 

You held the bouquet to your chest and felt something that might have been pleasure. It was nice to have something familiar. Something you might pick up at a supermarket on the way home from work. Real flowers were beautiful, of course, and you’d grown to love the sight of them surrounding the cabin. 

But these couldn’t be found in the wilderness in which you were now settled. They were a sign that people still existed out there, people that weren’t you and Lucas and the ghosts of people who came before you.

And that made them more special.

--

“Honey?”

“Angel?.”

“Darlin’.”

It’s the darlin’ that yanks you out of your disassociation. How long had it been going on? You glance down at your fingers and realize you’re holding a half-eaten chocolate bon-bon. Your elbow feels stiff, you must have been holding it up for a while.

You shakily set it back down on the box and force yourself to look over at Lucas, who is cuddled up next to you, holding you in a firm but warm grip, with his arm slung around your shoulder keeping you close. 

He looks irritated. Like you said something wrong again. Only you weren’t saying anything, but that might be the problem; ignoring him was just as bad (sometimes worse) as doing the wrong thing.

“You don’t like the movie?” His voice is gruffer than it should be today, of all days. 

The movie? 

Oh shit.

You blink and blink and slowly details around you come back into focus. The dim lighting in the cabin, to set the mood. The flickering light of the TV and the soft whir of the VCR that could only be heard faintly under the movie itself.

And the movie…

The movie was almost over. The VHS he’d found was of a vaguely familiar movie you remember seeing on TV a few times. It wasn’t a classic but it wasn’t a stink-bomb, either. 

“Angel…” 

He turns toward you and after a moment, takes your chin into his hands.  You quickly glance down--meek, shy, feeble thing that you are--so he doesn’t see the fear that must be blinking through the back of your eyeballs by now. 

“You don’t like the movie, do you? Did I pick the wrong one?” There’s none of the usual sweet compromise in his voice, though, that makes you think saying “yes” might be an option. Instead, you get the sense that he’s laying traps for you to step on. Traps meant for someone ungrateful who completely zones out during what was supposed to be a romantic evening snuggling on the couch. 

Dumbass, you think. I’m such a dumbass.

“Do you…” You speak suddenly and swallow hard. Talking is awkward with his fingers holding your chin, but he doesn’t let go. “Do you want a chocolate?” You offer up the box that’s half-empty by now. The cherry cordials were gone, and maybe you should have offered him one since they were your favorite. But there’s nothing to be done about it, so you hold up the last caramel-filled piece towards him. 

Maybe he’ll appreciate the gesture. 

He finally lets go of your chin and huffs out a snort through his nose. That’s good, usually. A sign he’s calming down. But he doesn’t smile at you, and you can feel the heaviness in the air, a sort of sick pressure that you need to relieve before it gets worse. 

“I’m not much for sweets.” He says this like you ought to know. And you do, actually, it’s just… you don’t know what else to do. 

Your lips quirk downward. You lift the piece until it’s close to his mouth. 

“I know, I just--wanted to share. Please? One bite?” It’s almost a reversal, really; the way he sometimes has to nudge you to eat, when your stomach is all twisted in knots from anxiety or when you can’t shove away the thought that what you’re eating is almost certainly not an animal. Sometimes he feeds you just because he’s in a particular mood, a mood where you need to be more fragile and helpless than you are, which isn’t saying much.

Lucas’ eyes widen then and he finally smiles softly at you. His voice is low and gruff but you think, not quite as irritated as before. 

“All right, angel. A bite.”

He opens his mouth and you slide the chocolate forward until it’s under his teeth. He takes a bite and you pull away, caramel dripping from the half-eaten chocolate that you set back in the box. 

Lucas chews with his mouth closed (he has impeccable manners when he’s not murdering people, thank God for that) but then there’s the thought of the chocolate and caramel being chewed by the same teeth that just ate a “steak” for dinner--what if there’s a stray piece of meat left in his molars and they mix? 

It’s enough to make the sticky sweet flavor of the cherry cordials rise in your throat, acidic and sour from the chocolate digesting in your stomach. 

“Sorry,” you murmur, nuzzling closer to him like an apologetic pet as he finishes chewing. “I didn’t mean to get distracted earlier.” 

Lucas hums and pulls you tighter against him, harder than normal. He presses a kiss against the side of your head. A hint of caramel wafts in the air.  

“Mind you don’t drift often again, honey.” 

-

Lucas is still upset with you. Although you can’t quite call this “still” upset, because this is different from earlier. He’s not still annoyed that you were distracted during the movie or, at least, that’s not the real source of his irritation.

But what--what did you do? You thanked him for the flowers and chocolates. You kissed him (on the lips!) after he gave them to you.  You snuggled on the couch and yes you fucked up during the movie, but you made up for it, you thought. 

You set the table for dinner without being asked, you ate without hesitation and complimented his cooking… you were quiet, you helped him clean up the eggs, you made a joke about Dolly the chicken needing a Valentine’s Day card from him and he chuckled at it. 

You didn’t argue when he insisted he scrub you up during the bath, even when his hand dipped between your legs and lingered on your chest. You quietly let him brush your hair and pick out your pajamas (a pink nightie, tonight) and did everything you thought he wanted.

So what in the hell did you do wrong today that has him practically glowering at you as you both sit on the bed? You’ve re-read the same page in your book a hundred times while you tried to figure it out. You can’t go to bed like this, wondering if he’s angry, wondering if you’ll wake up in the morning to find him hovering over you with a glare and a weapon. Or maybe you won’t even wake up at all. 

“Angel?” There’s a gruff edge to the word tonight that tightens your chest.

“Yes?” Your voice is squeakier than you intended. You tuck a bookmark into your pages and set the book down on your nightstand, and look up at Lucas with practiced meekness that is made all the more real through the gnawing fear in your belly.

Lucas hesitates before he speaks. Emotions shift on his face. Irritation, disappointment, even something you think is sadness. They only make the feeling in your chest worse. What did you do? Why is he acting this way?

“I… wasn’t expectin’ nothing fancy, you know. But I thought you’d at least make somethin’ for me today.”

Make something for him? 

Oh.

Oh.

Fuck.

In all your worries about behaving perfectly, you didn’t even think about getting Lucas something for Valentine’s Day. Making him a card or throwing together a quick embroidery hoop or--something. That’s what a good spouse would do, right? It’s what he would expect from you, on today of all days. Sure, he wasn’t big on presents, and he’d told you a few months ago not to worry about Christmas (you’d embroidered a scene outside the window of his bedroom, the trees and snow and a little silver rabbit) but this was different. 

It was a couple’s day, and you were part of that couple. 

And you’d fucked up.

He’s not done, either.

“I went outta my way to get you everything you wanted. Drove all the way into town… An’ you didn’t even pay attention during the movie.” If you weren’t increasingly terrified,  you might be able to snort at how petulant he sounded, complaining that you didn’t watch the movie well enough. But there’s nothing funny about the way his voice is starting to raise or the way you can practically feel his muscles getting tenser by the moment.

“Did you even appreciate any of it?” It’s more to himself than to you, and that scares you more than anything else has in recent memory. 

Your mouth comes up with a plan the exact moment that your brain does.  You’re not sure if your brain would have let you go through with it, if it had more than a split second to think. 

“I did get you something!” 

Lucas shifts on the bed and looks at you questioningly. He doesn’t look convinced. Not yet. There’s a swift moment in which you have to convince him and you jump into it, feet first.

“I… I just didn’t know how to wrap it, that’s all.” Your throat bobs when you swallow and you look up at him with a soft expression that’s part nerves, part hope. 

“I don’t know what y’mean, darlin’.”

 His eyebrows furrow and you take a deep breath before you reach over and take his hand. You give it a squeeze and shift on the bed yourself, this time leaning backwards on the pillows.

“My gift is…” Oh,  you don’t want to; but you have nothing else you can give him now. You swallow again and fiddle with the end of your nightgown. It’s a flimsy thing, isn’t it? 

“I’m ready to… that is--I’m ready to…” 

You can’t finish the words but you don’t need to, because both of Lucas’ eyebrows raise before his lips curl into a delighted smile as he realizes what you mean.

He looks giddy. He looks drunk, despite not having a drink tonight. He looks like he’s going to devour you, and you can only be mildly grateful that it’s not in the way you normally fear. 

“Oh, angel.” 

In moments, he’s shifted above you, his body looming over your own, filling up all of your space with his size and warmth. 

“This is the best gift you could give me.” He presses a chaste kiss to your lips, then again; a kiss to your cheeks, to your eyes that close so he can kiss the lids. “I’m sorry I doubted you. Oh, honey, you must have been thinkin’ about this all day. No wonder you were so distracted.” 

There’s nowhere to go, if you wanted to go. Nowhere to run, if you were capable of running. He’s here and you’re here and this is going to happen now.

No more putting it off, no more gentle pleas, no more convincing him that you can do that and not this, not yet.

All because you forgot to make a damn Valentine’s Card. 

His hands hold the edge of your nightie and begin to lift it up, exposing the soft cotton underwear underneath. 

“I love you so much. You know that, sweetheart?”

He doesn’t take the nightgown off; instead he bunches it up against your neck, exposing your chest. 

“I love you too,” you murmur, because you’ve had enough of your own stupidity today not to answer his declarations. 

Your eyes flick up to the ceiling as he begins pulling down your underwear. 

It’s going to happen now. He’ll fuck you. And once that happens, well. It’ll keep happening. Every night? Every other night? You don’t know, but he’ll expect it. Things are changing and you can’t stop them. All you can do is try to scramble for what little pleasantries this isolated, captive life can give you. 

Like not-bad chocolates and bunnies outside the window.

Lucas’ hands grip the meat of your thighs and pull them apart with little resistance on your end. You don’t want to make it worse, do you? And it was your idea, you can’t even pretend to be anything but meekly nervous, can you?

He murmurs something in appreciation at the sight of your naked sex and your fingers clutch the sheets underneath you in anticipation. 

You don’t want to look down. It’s like being at the doctor’s--looking away when they give you the shot. You hear the sound of his trousers being pushed down. But he doesn’t push into you just yet.

Instead, he leans down, pressing a hot, wet kiss to your mouth that opens without argument. 

There’s  a faint taste of peppermint toothpaste and a hint of lingering caramel--he didn’t brush his molars well enough, maybe--in his mouth. 

“Love you,” he whispers against your lips. Maybe he sees the nervousness in your gaze and for once, is fine with it. It’s normal to be anxious about your first time, after all. “It's gonna feel good, I promise… I know what I’m doin’.”

Damn, you think vacantly, stomach lurching against your thoughts when you feel the unmistakable press of something hot and hard and wet against your naked thigh. I wish I saved the second cherry cordial for tomorrow.

Hey, can I request mashiho, hyunsuk and junkyu as boyfriends instead🥺💘

tysm for requesting (again)!! tbh they all would be the most softest for their s/o im 🥺🥺🥺 rn

Them As Your Boyfriend Headcanons

Mashiho

would be constantly be a blushing mess

every time he compliments you, you end up blushing and vice versa

definitely the type to invest into couple items

whenever he goes on tour he would always, and I mean always buy a couple item

whenever you two have karaoke dates, Mashiho always makes the karaoke room into his very own concert

mans can sing and rap so you two will be having singing and rapping duets!

sorry but your camera roll wil be filled w him

he’s just so cute !!

yall would take the most cutest couple pictures!!

like going to Disney land and getting Minnie and Mickey Mouse ears !!!

posting stuff like that ^^^

whenever someone brings you up he just turns all giddy!!!

y’all would have fanboys from treasure ngl

they just think you’re both too cute

would probably love being the big spoon since he is small and it probably makes him feel manly 🥺🥺

nah jks if you’ve seen how he is with Junkyu then YOU KNOW that he’s 99.9% of the time gnna be the small spoon

since him and Junkyu are pretty close, y’all are gnna have a third wheeler

and the third wheelers probably gnna be you

jks jks!!

but Junkyu would probably be one of the first people mashi would go to advice for anything related to you

whenever you’re upset he would be upset as well :(

he probably wouldn’t know what to do so that’s when he goes to Junkyu

would most likely give you time to yourself

would probably act cute to make you feel better 🥺🥺🥺🥺🥺

so please communicate with him!!

when y’all fight he’d be so upset aswell :(

like he might not shed any tears but he would have absolutely no motivation to do anything

you two both need to confront each other and fix whatever problem arises!!

the only way you can make up after fights is through a lot of cuddles!!

Junkyu

most optimistic couple you two would be omg

wherever you two go the room just lights up

uk how after a storm there’s always the sun coming up???? THATS YOU TWO

funniest couple as well!!

biggest memes

you two would have so many inside jokes

like if anyone else heard the conversations you two have, they would be like ‘wtf’

y’all have the dumbest inside jokes as well

like whenever you see a black cap you two instantly think of yg balding

you don’t even have to say it you two just burst out laughing

you two would probably have an alien couple type of nickname im srry

okay so; y’all would take the most meme worthy photos ??? like whatever sunglasses you two see you just put it on and start posing

you two would find a wig and make a whole fashion show while wearing that wig omg

he is a sensitive man

despite having a seemingly very outgoing exterior, on the inside he seems insecure

and you’re probably the reason on how he’s slowly getting over those insecurities

you’re going to be reassuring him a lot bc he’s the type to over think ALOT

whenever something upsets him, the only thing that would make him feel better is some alone time with you

you just holding him in your arms whispering sweet nothings as he cries it alllll out

now you see, you’re probably the ‘stronger’ one of the relationship

bc if the positions were switched and you were the one crying in his arms;

he would definitely be crying with you 🥺

it just hurts him to think that the person that is literally the sun of his world is going through some type of hardship

it hurts him vvvvv much

when you two get into fights he would think it’s his fault immediately so that’s why he needs reassurance!!!

if you’re ever upset w him (most unlikely) please communicate with him bc he’ll start making assumptions that you might wanna break up w him :(((

so please talk it out !!

anyways! junkyu: an amazing boyfriend :)

Hyunsuk

the best person to go to for fashion advice

he KNOWS his brands and what accentuates your features

so if you had bad taste in fashion; not anymore with hyunsuk you don’t !!

you two are the power couple

also the fashion couple !

you two both dress up like bad asses

when the two of you walk down the streets people are literally turning heads

the fashion! the power! the vibes!

literal power couple

ppl would take pictures of you two bc of how good you two look

would love to do some raps w you

like some bobby x mino songs 😎

ends with him almost bursting a lung bc of laughter

and it’s bc of u

the type to tease you

if you rap a certain way he’s gnna imitate you for the rest of your life srry

tbh yg has been a piece of shit to him

and everyone knows that

but you’re the one whose threatening to beat ygs ass

and that makes him smile :)

and it does make him feel better

it’s probably rly hard for hyunsuk since only a few members from Team A debuted w him

and since he’s the eldest of the group now he gets stressed

and that’s when you need to hold him and reassure him

(just like Junkyu hehe)

but it’s not as bad as Junkyu

he just needs a bit of reassurance

when you two get into fights he would be more on the mad than sad side

but that’ll soon die down after he realises that he can’t be upset with you

and vice versa

might feel like a disappointment

oh god hyunsuk just deserves better :(

yg treated him like dirt ;(

I’m sad now :((

ANYWAYS

I think he prefers being the big spoon

loves playing with your hair !!

becomes your hair stylist (+your actual stylist)

would make raps about you 🥺🥺

would also have you listen to whatever raps he writes before he shows it to ygs ugly ass

would always send you good morning and good night texts

NEVER forgets to

hyunsuk: soft boyfriend 🥺🥺🥺🥺

also: what happened to the anon who told me they were going to request heaps? I have one request from them and am having trouble on writing for it.

Anon if you’re reading this, please send in more requests for me to work with!!! I don’t want you to think I’m ignoring you or anything!!

Being John’s little wife was the best thing that ever happened to you. John is ten years older than you. He’s big, broad-shouldered, every move he makes shaped by military discipline. But when it comes to you… everything softens. His voice, his touch everything about him turns gentle. You are his everything, and he never lets you forget it.

For example, he always wakes up before you, slipping out of bed quietly to make your coffee. He prepares it exactly the way you like, just the right amount of sugar, the perfect splash of milk. Then, he brings it to you while you’re still half-asleep, hair messy, eyes barely open. He just smiles, handing you the cup. “Morning, little lady,” he murmurs, his voice warm and drowsy.

If you’re busy during the day, he never disturbs you but he never really leaves, either. He lingers close, a quiet, steady presence. Sometimes, he brushes his fingers over your shoulder, presses a quick kiss to your temple. If you’re reading, he rests his head on your lap, just to be near you.

When you go out together, he’s always protective. His hand stays on your waist, guiding you through crowds, making sure no one bumps into you. If he spots a small chocolate he knows you love, he buys it without a word and slips it into your bag. “Saw this and thought of you,” he says simply, but the warmth in his eyes makes your heart melt.

When you get home, if you’re tired, he even kneels to take off your shoes for you. “My little wife’s had a long day,” he teases, then scoops you up in his arms and drops you onto the couch. He massages your feet with those big, calloused hands of his, smirking as he says, “These tiny feet walked too much today.”

At night, if you can’t sleep, he always notices. Without a word, he reaches for your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours. “I’m here,” he whispers in the dark. “I’ll always be here.”

And in his strong, protective arms, you feel like the safest person in the world.

⋆. 𐙚 ̊ Thank you for 200 followers, gonna cry ( ╥ ᴗ ╥). This is John by the way.

Subjugation [1]

💌Yandere!Commander!Enji x Soldier!Reader💌

5.6k words

Summary:

subjugation/sʌbdʒʊˈɡeɪʃ(ə)n/

noun The action of bringing someone or something under domination or control.

Tags: spanking, noncon, corporal (haha) punishment, military au, disclaimer have never been in the military, sexual harassment, vomit (briefly), physical overexertion, workplace bullying, degradation/humiliation, enji gives u a real good belting

-> Pt 2 

Also hello @hearteyes-candyskies ! Im glad to be back too :) btw readers, they recently posted another enji fic that is kinda like this in terms of the. sexual harassment! this isn’t inspired by it (had this one in the works since friday twas the one with the long fic plan n thats why im splitting this up 😭) but you should check it out!!

omg saying hello to each other in different posts reminds me of this meme

anyway! writing this fic is gonna give me a little exercise in pacing bc i want this at least three parts long. i feel like by splitting it up i can put more focus into each segment! this first part is just some scene-setting, enjoy :)

———

“Do you have anything to say for yourself, soldier?”

Your commander looks more intimidating than ever; fierce eyes, prominent scowl, fists clenched. Then again, you think that every time you get called into his office. This is the fifth time this week and it’s for another tiny wrongdoing that, you dare say, he’d never call another solider out on. But you are not another solider. You are you, a person which Enji has taken either an extreme liking or a hatred to- his actions sometimes make it hard to decide which.

“I didn’t mean to hand the book in late,” You respond. “I’m sorry, sir. It was an honest mistake.”

All you had done was taken one book from the library, accidentally forgotten about it, and returned it one day later than you were supposed to. Enji watched your every move these days. He was there to watch you profusely apologise to the caretaker and had caught you on the way out, despite the caretaker’s reassurance.

“No bother!” They had said. “I’m just glad you handed it in at all. So many missing books these days… if you can, ask your comrades if they’ve got any lying around.”

But, of course, for an unknown reason, it was a bother to Enji.

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