Frustration

Franklin x female!reader

Warnings: smut, dubcon, mentions of noncon, captivity, aphrodisiacs, drugging, spanking, manipulation, gaslighting

Word count: 7.5k

Your attitude towards Franklin could be best described as that of a tide moving to and from a beach.

You went to him when you needed the social interaction, when the loneliness of your new life hit you too hard and you needed to talk to someone just to keep yourself from losing it. You spoke to him civilly, starting with topics as basic as what the weather was like until you were willing to have more in-depth conversations regarding genuine interests. Eventually you would let him touch you without much fuss, not shying away whenever he would place a hand on your shoulder or lower back. Those moments you allowed were brief, and would end once he sensed that you were becoming uncomfortable.

With enough time, the short moments of physical touch turned into longer ones. You allowed him to keep his hand on your thigh when you were sitting close to him and let him to hold your hand in his. And it would soon get to the point where you would have no issue with him pulling you onto his lap and holding you; sometimes you held him back.

When you were at your most comfortable with him, there was no protest from you when his hands would begin to wander.

His touch would be tame at first as he continued the process of easing you in. When you would sit in his lap, he would take the opportunity to caress you, stroking your hair or massaging your shoulders you would relax further. Then his hands would wander further, caressing your inner thighs before he slipped one of his hands beneath your shirt so he could grope your breasts while he began to mark up your neck with his mouth. At that point it would culminate in sex. Unlike times in the past where you would cry, during these times you would reciprocate. You held him, kissed him and didn't hide how much you were enjoying yourself when he fucked you, your moans and squeaks of pleasure echoing through the room while he had you writhing on his cock.

Afterwards, late into the night when you were both exhausted, you always fell asleep before he did, not complaining when he held you and instead being content in his arms, resting your cheek against his chest while you slept peacefully.

Franklin always felt that he was at his happiest in those moments, when you were able to let go of the resentment you held towards him and allow yourself to feel good with him. When you freely gave him your love and affection. Less like his captive and more like his lover. The way he wanted it.

But those moments of bliss would only last for so long.

After that point, like a tide pulling out, you would begin to pull away from him. Days later you would go back to shying away from his touch, sleeping at the very edge of the bed so as to create a physical distance between you two and only giving him one word answers at best whenever he spoke to you. You retreated from him in all aspects that you were able to within the space the two of you shared and only interacted with him when you had no other choice.

It would stay that way until you couldn't stand being alone anymore and you would go to him, at which the cycle would start over again.

Franklin was used to it, and while the situation wasn't something he liked, he could live with it for the time being. Until you were able to better accept your new life and those instances of you shutting him out ceased, he would take what you would give him only when you were comfortable enough to do so. Until that time came, he'd be fine.

Or so he thought.

This latest instance of your refusal of him was lasting longer than normal, and the longer you went rejecting him, the more frustrated he became.

Maybe it wouldn't have been as bad if it weren't for the fact that the last time the two of you had been intimate, you had been the one to initiate.

He hadn't been expecting it as he didn't think he had worked you up to that point yet. But one night you surprised him when you climbed on top of him in bed, silencing his questions by pressing your lips against his. Your intent became clear when you slipped your hand into his sleep pants and began to stroke his cock.

That night was the first time you went down on him. The sight of you sitting between his knees, your tongue sticking out to lap at the metal piercings at the tip of his cock before you opened your mouth wide and took in as much of him as you could while you stroked at what wouldn't fit – those were images he was certain would be forever engraved in his mind. At that point, he didn't care what had brought this on. When you pulled your mouth off of him, he grabbed you by your hair and brought you up to his level so he could kiss you. He'd been rougher with you than he intended, but you didn't complain. If anything, you seemed to like it, and you kissed him back with just as much fervor.

You were desperate for him that night, placing kisses on his jaw, neck and along his chest, guiding his hands to where you wanted him to touch you and staying on top of him, riding him while you pressed your hands against his chest, your nails digging in and leaving small crescent shaped marks in his skin while his cock repeatedly disappeared into your cunt, engulfing him with your wet warmth. You shuddered and cried out when you came, and the way your walls squeezed him so tightly brought him to his own climax. When Franklin grabbed you by your hips and pushed you down all the way as he came inside of you, you cried out once again and reached out to wrap your arms around him as his cum began to dribble out of you.

You were completely spent after, falling onto his chest while you tried to catch your breath. A soft but appreciative moan left your lips when he ran a hand over your back to sooth your sweaty skin. He'd wanted more from you and part of him felt as though he was ready to go again, but at the sight of your exhausted form laying on top of him, Franklin told himself not to. There was no sense in ruining things by asking too much of you.

You placed a few more kisses on his skin before you fell asleep, and he felt content with the progress you had made.

The day after had been a different story.

Like someone had flipped a switch within you, you walked around like a zombie that morning, your gaze looking distant at times. Whatever thoughts had plagued your mind, you seemed to be struggling with them. That afternoon you had taken a long shower, and when you had gotten out, it was clear that you'd spent a long time scrubbing at your skin to the point that it had become irritated, and he saw that the damage was worst in the places you had guided his hands to the night prior.

When he tried to ask what was wrong, you only shook your head before you walked away.

At the time, he had told himself to think nothing of it. You were pulling away again only because you were still struggling to adjust. You would come back to him once you were desperate enough, and he would get to feel your loving touch once again. It wouldn't be long until you reached that point again.

Only the days had turned to weeks, and you were still avoiding him.

As a result, his frustration was mounting.

Before all of this Franklin never would've thought the lack of physical contact would bother him so much; with everything he'd gone through in life, he should've been able to deal with such a thing easily. Maybe before he could've, but it was different now. After the taste he had gotten of you freely giving into him and going to him on your own, it angered him that you would insist on pulling away.

But he wasn't sure what he could do about it.

His gaze returned to where you were sitting at the table with a book in hand, reading quietly with your back turned to him. Originally you'd been sitting on the couch, but when he sat down to join you, you got up and moved. You weren't even trying to be subtle about avoiding him.

Did you want him to get angry?

Franklin chose not to say anything. Lashing out wouldn't help the situation.

Even if it would be incredibly easy to do something to you.

No doubt because of what had happened the last time you went to him and how those images of you were still fresh in his mind, intrusive thoughts came to the forefront as he looked at you. They plagued his mind as he looked you over, running wild and distracting him. Thoughts of what he could do if he decided that he really didn't give a shit about what your reaction would be to any of it.

If Franklin really wanted to fulfill those urges right at that moment, all he would need to do was bend you over, kick the chair away and remove the clothes that covered you. Then he could do what he wanted. Take care of the frustration you had caused while he got to experience your warm pussy walls again. With how weak you were compared to him, he wouldn't even need to use much of his strength, and while the lack of recent intimacy would make it uncomfortable when he initially shoved his cock into you, the resistance on your part would die out soon enough. You would probably start to enjoy it after a time, and with some encouragement and a few orgasms of your own, he could get you to hold and kiss him again.

But that was a horrible idea.

He'd be taking several steps back if he went about it that way. When the next morning would come, you would go back to ignoring him – or worse, you might go back to the way you'd been when Franklin had first brought you here, where you would alternate between crying and raging in between pleas for him to let you go.

Forcing you into it would just make you resent him more.

Make you fear him more.

So he kept his distance, keeping the fantasies of forcing you into positions he liked in his head while you continued to read in peace. Franklin tried to do the same, though after a few futile minutes, he found he wasn't able to focus well on the book he'd selected. He closed it while his free hand went up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

Ah, right. He remembered what he needed to mention to you.

“I'm going to be leaving tomorrow,” he said.

You didn't say anything, but you glanced back at him.

“I'll be in Meteor City,” he explained, “if all goes well, I'll only be gone for a week. But it could be longer than that.”

A beat of silence passed, with you still looking back at him, as though you were waiting for him to say something else. When he didn't, you finally responded.

“Okay.”

The reply you gave was barely audible and you immediately returned your attention to your book.

Franklin frowned.

That was all you had to say, apparently. Though with the way you'd been acting, he wasn't sure why he'd been expecting anything different.

Despite knowing how useless it was, he kept trying to engage with you.

“Will you be alright being on your own that long?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

You didn't even look away from the book that time.

“Is there anything you need before I leave?”

“No.”

He stared at the back of your head while you turned the page. But even with your dedication to the book you had in hand, he saw the way you tensed when you heard him lean forward in his seat, as if you were expecting something bad to come after.

If you were that nervous then why the hell were you acting like this?

Franklin ignored it again as he spoke once more, saying “I'll be passing through Olsoria to get to Meteor City. The place with that bakery with those macaroons you liked. If you wanted, I could get some for you on my way back.”

“No thank you,” was your curt response.

I don't want anything from you

That felt like what you were really trying to say with that, and Franklin felt himself becoming irritated. You clearly sensed that fact as he saw your figure become even more rigid where you sat.

The question came again: why were you insisting on acting like this if you were really that scared of him?

His mind started to go wild with fantasies of taking you again. Of storming up behind you and forcing you against the wall, lifting up one of your legs and fucking you open after tearing away your pants and underwear, taking any and all fight out of you with every thrust of his hips.

He wanted you. And at one point, you had wanted him as well.

Since you seemed desperate to pretend it never happened, he could easily remind you of that fact.

…..

If he went through with that, all of that work he'd done in warming you up to him would be for nothing, he reminded himself.

With that, Franklin's self-control won out yet again, and he stood up as he decided to give you some space for now. He didn't miss the way you flinched when you heard him stand, nor did he miss the way your shoulders sagged in relief as he left the room.

You were having trouble adjusting, he told himself. You would come around eventually. You needed to.

Franklin's business in Meteor City had taken less time than he initially anticipated, so it was only just over the week mark when he had returned. While the more practical side of him anticipated that your attitude would be the same as before, another part of Franklin was hopeful that things would be different once he came back. That maybe you wouldn't push him away anymore, and that perhaps the week away was what you needed in order to warm up to him again.

Why he had such a hope, he had no idea.

The practical part of him turned out to be correct, as you had the nerve to look disappointed when he walked through the door, only offering a small nod in response to his greeting to you before you quickly disappeared.

Nothing had changed since he had gone: once again he would try to talk with you, and once again you never engaged in any meaningful way. If anything, things had escalated. You now made a point to move to another room whenever he walked into the one you were occupying, and that first night back ended with you laying at the very edge of the bed again, almost teetering on falling off the mattress completely in your refusal to be close to him. The day that followed was the exact same as you treated him with apprehension and barely hidden disgust. You said maybe five words to him that day, and the distance between the two of you in the bed stayed.

He truly wondered what exactly your endgame was in all of this – you needed to know that he wouldn't put up with this forever. The way you looked nervous whenever he came close was clear indication that you anticipated he would snap at some point.

But instead of again questioning why you would continue when you feared him in that way, Franklin didn't comment on any of it. While he still felt some irritation at how you rejected him, he was now having an easier time dealing with it. Because, unbeknownst to you, he'd returned from his childhood home with a backup plan that he'd tucked away among his things.

A chance sighting while he'd been back in his roots of Meteor City had brought forth an idea, and within the hour Franklin found himself in possession of what could possibly be the answer to the problems he'd been experiencing with you: a pricey bottle of pills that had made the seller snicker when he had asked for them.

Franklin wasn't a stranger to illicit substances. Just about everyone in the troupe had tried something at one point or another, and he wasn't any exception, trying various things alongside some of the others when they all were younger. Maybe it was because he was getting older, but such things didn't interest him anymore. Do too much, be it D² or some other drug that was popular, and you ended up enslaved to it. A fair amount of the residents in Meteor City fell into that hole, rotting their bodies and minds with drugs all so they could have some relief from the harsh life they lived in the junkyard they called home.

These pills were different. He didn't need to add to your erratic behavior by getting you addicted. All he needed was for you to let go of your fear for just a little bit.

Initially after buying them he'd found himself struck by a case of buyer's remorse, uncertain if it had been a stroke of genius or a horrible waste of jenny. There was also a great risk involved: if you managed to find out what he intended, you would never warm up to him again.

But if the aphrodisiacs worked in the way they were supposed to, you would go back to wanting his touch. Maybe even begging for it.

And with every instance of you pulling away from him, you made his decision to use them on you that much easier.

All he had to do was wait for the right time.

It was close to a week after Franklin returned that you needed to go grocery shopping, and you didn't say much to him beyond the fact that you needed to get more food. You walked away without any response when Franklin said that he would be going with you.

Franklin didn't comment on it.

Not much was said between the two of you after you left, though you managed to get out a half-hearted “thanks” when he complimented you on the skirt you were wearing. The only bit of conversation you initiated after that was to quietly mentioned at that he didn't need to come with you. Franklin's reply was that he wanted to spend time with you. You nodded, though based on your expression it was clear you would have preferred to have been alone.

Franklin again said nothing about it.

When the two of you made your way around the store, you were guarded around him. Not as bad as you had been in the past, admittedly, but every now and then you would look back at him nervously. Did you think he would try to do something? What exactly did you think he would do in a place as public as this one?

Only once did he step closer to you, intending to place his hand on your lower back when you were reaching up for something and it looked as though you were becoming unsteady. You saw it coming and darted away from him, throwing the item from the shelf into the basket as you mumbled some excuse about why you needed to be away from his proximity right at that moment.

That irritation in him wanted to bubble up to the surface, but Franklin once more remained silent.

By the time you had made it to the checkout lane, he had made his decision:

Franklin would use the pills on you tonight.

That was how he got to where he was now: standing close by with a single pill in hand as you began to separate the meal you had prepared into two different portions, all the while he waited for a moment when you wouldn't notice him slip it into the food. A bit difficult to do when you were currently standing over it, looking over to him every once in a while. It didn't seem likely that you suspected he planned to do anything – you were probably just unhappy that this was a situation where you couldn't get out of being in his presence.

He waited until after you had turned away before he made his move, telling you “I'll take the plates out if you want to set out the drinks.”

“Why?” you asked.

“You've done all the work; I'd like to help out a little,” he answered.

“… Fine.”

There was a slight frown on your face, but you didn't stop him as you grabbed two drinking glasses from one of the cabinets. With your approval, he collected the plates and set them on the table in the other room. And in the time it took for you to reach your seat, he had mixed the pill in with your food.

You didn't say anything when you sat down. Nor when you began to eat. With the rest of the ingredients you'd used, you didn't notice the pill at all. Once he was certain that you had taken it, Franklin told himself to wait as he kept an eye on you. The seller's words came back to mind as he routinely glanced over at you through the silent meal. The aphrodisiacs were fast acting, they had said. Guaranteed to get whoever had taken it desperate and needy enough to throw away whatever reservations they might have.

The moment of truth didn't take long to come.

In the middle of the meal, he noticed when you paused between bites as you suddenly tensed up. You stayed frozen like that for a moment, and while your face was blank, he saw a growing panic in your eyes. It only lasted for a moment before you ultimately continued eating your meal as though everything was normal.

Only it clearly wasn't. Your growing uneasiness was plain to see as your movements became more stiff and robotic, and he saw the way you glanced up at him as you though you hoped he hadn't noticed your change in demeanor.

Franklin chose then to speak as he said “it tastes good.”

The compliment caught you off-guard, and you blinked at him for a few moments before you replied with a small “thanks.”

Your voice was hushed when you answered him, and you quickly averted your gaze as you took a long sip from your glass of water. You were doing your best to act as though everything was normal as you continued with the meal, forcing yourself to take bite after bite in between nervous looks over towards Franklin when you thought he wasn't paying attention. An uncomfortable huff of breath left your lips as you shifted in your seat, causing a twitch ran up your spine. The softest noise escaped you, one that was stifled when you bit down on your bottom lip to silence it.

Even if Franklin hadn't been watching your every move, he would've noticed that.

“Are you alright?” he asked you.

There was a guilty look on your face the second he asked that, horror overtaking your features before you hurriedly shook your head in response.

“I'm fine,” you replied.

“Are you sure?” he pressed.

“I…. I think I might be a bit lightheaded, but it's not a big deal,” you said.

There was a breathlessness in your tone, and that caused a heat to stir within Franklin as well.

“Are you sure that's all it is?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

You tried to continue as though nothing was wrong. No doubt you were confused by your body's sudden reaction and horrified at the thought of Franklin finding out what was happening. No doubt that horror drove you to try and prove to him that you were okay with every bite you took. But eventually, you gave up.

You set your fork down as you said “I don't think I can finish this. I'm gonna lie down for a bit.”

You didn't wait for him to respond before you got up and left, heading back to the bedroom.

He waited a few moments before he began to gather everything up, taking the plates and bagging up whatever was left of the meal for leftovers. But once that was finished, he found that he couldn't be bothered to do a thorough job with the rest of the cleanup. Franklin threw the dishes and cutlery into the sink and rinsed them for a moment before shutting the water off as he decided that was good enough. He was more interested in seeing how you were doing, and how much of a mess you were by now.

If you were desperate enough to beg him to fuck you.

He again thought of that last time together, of how bold you had been and how you had grabbed at him. How you had directed him to touch you as you placed kisses all over.

He wanted that again.

He wanted you.

And tonight you weren't going to deny him.

You were curled up into a ball on the bed when he entered the room, facing away from the doorway with your legs pulled in and your arms wrapped around yourself. When he looked closer, he saw that you were trembling. The shaky breaths that escaped your throat were easily audible within the space of the bedroom, and Franklin watched you rub your thighs together in subtle movements as though you were trying to find some relief that way.

Desperation was beginning to take hold, but you were clearly trying to keep it under control.

He spoke your name softly, and you stopped, freezing in place on the bed. Had you not realized he was in there with you?

Franklin said your name again as he asked “are you sure you're alright?”

“…. Y-yeah,” you said, keeping yourself turned away from him as you added “just n-need to rest.”

“Hm.”

The sound of his footsteps coming closer to the bed had you curling in on yourself further, and you bit your lip again in an attempt to keep in any noises. Sitting down behind you, he watched as you tried to bury your face in the sheets to keep him from seeing what you looked like in that moment.

“It's really nothing,” you managed to get out.

You really thought he would believe that this was just some lightheadedness?

“It doesn't seem like nothing,” he said to you, reaching towards you.

“It's noth-”

He grabbed you by the shoulder and flipped you onto your back.

Your eyes were wide in surprise, your mouth gaping open as you stared up at him. When it looked as though you were about to say something in response to him grabbing you, his hand traveled up to cup your cheek. Once again you were cut off as you whined at the skin on skin contact, your legs falling open as you leaned into his touch. Your whole body was running hot as Franklin glided his free hand on top of your clothes, and more gasps left your lips in the wake of his touch.

Just hearing you make those noises was having an effect on him, and the sight of you so vulnerable, so needy, had his dick hardening.

Having reached the hem of your skirt, he pulled it up to reveal the state of your underwear.

There was a wet patch on the fabric of your panties. And it was only getting bigger.

You squealed when he pressed his thumb against the spot, rubbing the folds of your pussy through the fabric. That action had you moaning and you began to buck your hips to the sensation.

Despite how this current sight of you was starting to affect him, Franklin kept his voice level as he spoke to you.

“You should've told me that you were lonely,” he said softly, thumb still pressing against your burning pussy.

Hearing his voice had done snapped you out of your state somewhat, as you now pulled away from the hand he had kept on your cheek, though the way you bucked your hips against his hand didn't stop even when worry took over your features.

“I-I… I'm not…..”

Whatever sentence you were trying to form died when he rubbed your clit, a loud moan coming from you. You slapped your hand over your mouth, looking away from him.

“Leave it to me, I'll take care of you,” Franklin muttered.

For a brief moment, you took back the control of your mind that the aphrodisiac had taken from you, a look of horror returning to your face.

“No…. I can't…..”

You actually tried to move away.

Franklin snapped. That rejection was the last one that he could take and he ripped away your panties, shoving a finger into you before you could say anything else.

The sensation of that single thick digit being forced into your pussy had you cumming instantly.

You cried out, arching your back while your pussy clenched around his finger, milking the digit as your release came leaking out after. Your gaze was unfocused and you struggled to control your breathing while your legs continued to tremble. The hand of yours that had tried to push his away was now gripping him tightly.

Franklin was only vaguely aware of your reactions as he was far more concerned about the way you clenched around his finger. How your muscles felt as they pressed down on him. How your release dripped out onto the sheets beneath you. How with every mindless movement of your hips, you encouraged him to fill up that emptiness inside of you.

All of those sensations would feel better once it was his cock inside of you, and with the way his erection that was starting to get painful for him as it pressed against it's confines, he was more than eager to get to that part. Though a voice at the back of his mind told him to open you up a bit more – with how much time had passed since you had last let him fuck you, the stretch would be more than a little uncomfortable without a bit of prep.

He moved within you to press against your walls, and then he heard the way you moaned and felt how you moved your hips to full on grind against him. Just like that, he removed his finger as he chose not to bother with preparing you any further.

You could deal with it.

Your whine of disappointment was cut short as Franklin grabbed you by your hips to pull you so you were facing him, resulting in your skirt pulled up further around your waist while your legs hung off the edge of the bed.

The sound of a zipper opening and his pants falling to the floor brought your attention back to him, and when you looked back to find his cock rubbing against your slick folds, you bit your lip in anticipation. Now, instead of fighting him, you tried to move your hips so he could slip into you, an effort that was thwarted when he grabbed you by your waist and held you there. You looked up at him with dilated pupils and tears forming in your eyes, your hands going down to grasp his in an effort to encourage him to enter you.

The expression you wore was one of pure desperation.

Franklin shoved himself inside of you. Despite how wet you were from your previous orgasm, he only managed to go in about halfway, your walls having tightened up since the last time he had fucked you, and from the way your face scrunched up, he saw that you were in pain, tears pricking at the edges of your eyes.

Seeing the way you had cried in the past had killed his mood on more than one occasion, but all the sight did this time was spur him forward.

With a slow drag of his hips, Franklin pulled out until only the tip remained in you before he pushed in again, his large hands tight around your comparatively tiny waist as he bullied his way in further, intent on burying into you to the hilt. All resistance on your part was gone; unable to move your hips as he kept you in place, your hands reached out for Franklin, desperately grabbing at the sleeves of his shirt in an effort to pull him in closer. You wanted the closeness. You wanted to hold him and for him to hold you back.

Using those sleeves that you had gotten a death-grip on, you pulled yourself into a sitting position as you attempted to wrap your arms around his neck.

With one hand he shoved you back down onto the bed.

And after he readjusted his grip on your hips, Franklin picked up his pace as he began to fuck you faster.

Your cries of pain quickly filled the room, accompanied by a lewd squelching sound as Franklin thrust into you again and again. Every time the metal piercings that lined his cock scraped along your walls, it caused you to jolt, your voice going up a few octaves as you still tried to move your hips out of the iron hold of his hands. But even though you were full-on crying now, you weren't doing anything to stop him. The affects of the drug in action: keeping your mind focused on the burning feeling inside of you that needed to be satiated and disregarding everything else. Whatever worries you had about the whole situation would come later; right now, all you could do was take the harsh treatment he was giving you.

Franklin stared down at you, watching your pained expression slowly fade as you got used to the feeling of his length being inside of you again, though every now and then you would still tense up, a soft, short whimper interrupting your frequent moans.

It wouldn't hurt so much if you'd given in on your own earlier

With that thought in mind, Franklin kept up the harsh pace, his cock battering open your pussy until he was able to sheath himself in all the way. Your tears that fell as a result of that were numerous, but never once did you tell him to stop.

Eventually Franklin flipped you over onto your front, forcing you onto your hands and knees to fuck you from behind. He changed up where he held you, now keeping one hand securely in your hair while the other slapped your ass. Once again your shrieks and squeals echoed in the room, and Franklin alternated which hand was holding you, delighting in seeing the way your skin became marked up from the force of his hits.

The way he hit you combined with his dick hitting a particular spot inside of you had you cumming again, and the feeling of your heat pressing down around his cock was what pushed him over the edge. With one hand still in your hair, Franklin pressed you down into the mattress while he kept your hips raised, leaving you to squirm as you felt his cum spilling out and dripping down your thighs.

A satisfied moan left his lips as Franklin loosened his grip on you, keeping his cock inside of you as he began to stroke your hair softly as he looked you over. Your skin was still hot to the touch, a layer of sweat covering you as you trembled beneath him. A quick glance towards the quickly bruising skin of your ass and there was no doubt that the next day would be uncomfortable for you whenever you would need to sit down. With how hard he'd hit you, maybe it would last longer than that.

Good.

Franklin leaned over you, the brief reprieve all he needed before he felt he could go again as he moved you over onto your side. He began fucking you from a new angle, and with how sensitive your previous orgasms had left you, your throat was quickly turning raw from how often he had you moaning.

When you pushed yourself up by your arms and once again reached for him, he chose to indulge you. With a shaky hand, you reached out to cup his cheek and pull him forward, and the action ended with you placing a soft kiss on his lips.

He kissed you back, at first matching your softness, then he pulled away to bury his face in your neck, covering it in lovebites and resuming the harshness of his thrusting.

He took you several times that night, and it was long overdue for both of you. Franklin painted your hot little walls white several times that night as he claimed you, and any and all fight had completely vanished from your system. Even in your exhausted state, you still tried to meet his thrusts, the drug having you far gone enough that you wanted him just as much as he wanted you.

By the end of it, you were fully naked and slumped over on the bed, your body still twitching as you tried to recover while Franklin's breathing was still calming down as he sat next to you. He reached out to you again, once more to pet your head after he brushed the hair out of your face. The noise you made upon feeling his touch sounded as though you were satisfied.

Not long after, the toll of the long night finally forced you into sleep.

Despite being early in the morning, it was still dark out when you got up from the bed, Franklin waking up shortly before you left the room due to the loud way in which you had stumbled about on your way out the door. A light on the other side of the hallway shone into the bedroom afterwards.

When he heard no further activity, Franklin got up to follow after you.

He found you standing at the sink, your hands gripping the edge of the surface to hold yourself up while you stared at the mirror before you. Your eyebrows were furrowed and you were frowning as you looked at the figure that stared back at you, taking in the sight of the bruises that had been left upon your skin. Your gaze went to him when you realized he was standing in the doorway, and it then seemed as though you were filled with a vague sense of distress just at the sight of him.

Franklin pretended not to notice that as he asked “everything alright?”

“….. I don't know,” you answered.

You looked back to the mirror as your hand left its place on the sink to trail over a mark that had been left on your collarbone, though you almost immediately placed your hand back on the sink when you unintentionally began to lean forward. Franklin was quick to steady you as he held you by your shoulders.

“You should come back to bed and lay down,” he told you, “I don't want you falling over.”

You didn't reply, instead looking down at the bruises that were scattered across your body.

“What happened earlier?” you asked suddenly.

Franklin blinked.

“What do you mean? We had sex.”

“Yeah, but….”

You trailed off as you looked away from him, your hands gripping the sides of the sink hard while your mind going over the events from only a few hours earlier. Then you opened your mouth as if you were going to speak, and after struggling to come up with the words, you spoke again.

“Did you…?”

Once more you left your sentence unfinished, and this time it seemed as though you were too scared to complete it.

“Did I what?” Franklin asked, making a point to raise his brow in question as though he had no idea what you were getting at.

“…. Did…. Did you drug me?”

Your question hung in the air while the seconds passed by in silence. Franklin didn't reply and you didn't look at him.

Then Franklin's hands fell from your shoulders. You looked back to him then, only to find an irritated expression on his face.

“Really?”

That one word that was dripping with disgust was all he said to you before he turned away, heading back towards the bedroom and making it a few steps into the hallway, intent on leaving you where you were.

Franklin was stopped when you grabbed him by the arm.

“I'm sorry!”

You were crying – sobbing, as you held onto him, both of your arms wrapped around his.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry!” you repeated, “I don't know why I said that. I'm sorry, please-!”

Apologies continued to spill from your mouth as your knees sank down onto the floor, still keeping your grip on his arm as your hands slid down to hold onto his wrist. He looked down at you, watching the way your tears flowed while you sat on the cold floor of the hallway, your weak hold on him likely the only reason as to why you were staying upright.

If Franklin wanted to be cruel, he would've wrenched his wrist away from you and gone back to bed, leaving you a sobbing mess in the hallway. Maybe he would give you the same treatment you'd been giving him for the past few weeks. How devastating would it be if you could only get one word answers from him? To have your only source of company not want anything to do with you? How well would you handle any of that now that you'd been forced into this state?

As interesting as it might be to find that out, he didn't want that right now.

While he did pull out of your grip, he did so gently and scooped you into his arms after, holding you while you cried. You wrapped your arms tight around his neck, as though you were scared he would vanish right then and there.

“It's alright. Don't cry,” he began, petting your hair again as he added “you haven't gotten a lot of sleep. That's probably making you say things that you don't mean.”

You nodded.

“The only reason you're feeling strange is because you've been feeling alone and stir crazy for a while now, right?” he asked.

You nodded again, eagerly accepting the explanation Franklin had provided for you without an ounce of hesitation. He wondered if you were actually listening to him or if you were just so desperate for him to not reject you that the words were going right over your head.

Regardless of what it was, at least it had you holding him again.

Franklin placed a kiss on your forehead, and that seemed to calm you down some, though your grip around his neck didn't loosen much.

“It's okay. So let's just forget about this and get some sleep,” he mumbled against your skin.

You nodded in agreement for a third time.

You clung to him even after he had placed you back in the bed, one of your hands on his chest while you cuddled up against his side. Franklin wrapped an arm around you to hold you close, and that further helped in calming your mood as your tears finally stopped, though you continued to sniffle for a few moments longer. He continued to give you reassuring touches as he caressed your skin, something you appreciated as you nuzzled your face against his chest.

Not long after the sad noises coming from you stopped as you finally fell back asleep. Your arms were still around him, and his body felt warmer in the areas where he felt your touch.

Franklin felt content as he continued to caress your skin.

This was the way it was supposed to be, he thought to himself.

You by his side, readily accepting his touch and offering your own affection in return. That was how things should be between the two of you.

And things would be like that from this point onward; Franklin would make sure of it. No more of the constant back and forth of ignoring his presence and then being all over him. No more of your barely hidden contempt as you went out of your way to avoid him. You were his, and just as much as you were meant to love him back, you were meant to give yourself to him so that the both of you could feel pleasure.

Franklin hoped you would remember that from now on.

And if not….

Well, he had plenty of pills left.

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.

5K notes View Post

junkyuholic

1 month ago

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.

1K notes View Post

junkyuholic

1 month ago

The Driven Snow [Yandere Coriolanus Snow x Reader]

Title: The Driven Snow [Yandere Coriolanus Snow x Reader]

Synopsis: You're a District 2 school graduate who comes to the Capitol with her father before the 11th Hunger Games. You don't expect to meet anyone kind, especially not someone named Coriolanus Snow who offers you his arm, his smile, and treats in secret.

Word Count: 5270

notes: yandere, abusive relationship, non-graphic descriptions of torture and death (not against reader); uses a mixture of book and movie canon

The Driven Snow [Yandere Coriolanus Snow X Reader]

The Capitol was not as dazzling as your father described it but then, he had seen it before the war. Though perhaps it was your own bitterness that made you ignore the signs of returning prosperity that sets it above everywhere else.

The repaired elaborate buildings, the fresh pungent smell of plaster and paint. The cars pumping exhaust fumes into the air. The low rumble of garbage trucks that pick up bright green garbage cans, some of which are actually teeming with plastic trash bags. Such waste was unheard of, even in the oh-so-loyal District 2, where only the lowest of the low find themselves starving.

Although not-starving didn’t mean that everything was plentiful.

You, though, were lucky enough to avoid the lima bean heavy diet that some of your classmates (now former--graduation was months ago) lived on. Or were you? The meat that graced your family’s dinner table, the pats of butter on toast, were all courtesy of your father’s immense talent in building creative weapons that allowed the Capitol to stamp out every last bit of rebellion in the Districts. That allowed them to regain control. That allowed them to create the Hunger Games.

Which is why you were in the Capitol now. Oh, not to participate in them. Your father’s status in District 2 had seen to that; it would be a scandal if the name of his beloved daughter were to ever be pulled.

You were there because your father had been given a lucrative contract, one that was sure to cement your family’s wealth for generations: a contract to build high-tech weapons for the Hunger Games themselves.

They would still be killing. But on a much smaller scale, you supposed, than the weapons your father designed during the war.

Still. Blood was blood. And if it had to be spilled, well, there was nothing you could do about it except hope they died quickly. Especially the ones from District 2.

Last year’s Games’ had been awful enough. Your family had watched the Games on a modest television set in the privacy of your living room, sent courtesy of the Capitol.

You wondered if you would ever get the sight of Marcus’ battered, bloated face from your mind; if you would ever unhear the way his body thumped to the ground when that girl had killed him, out of mercy. If you would ever stop imagining what it must have felt like in those last moments.

But it wasn’t all horror. You’d liked Lucy Gray well enough, even though she was from 12. She had a wild way of dressing and the singing--it was practically theatrical, compared to what you’d heard about the previous games.

Maybe that was why your father got this contract: theatrics. Maybe the games would be more dramatic from now on. Maybe they wanted tributes like Lucy Gray, who sang and spit and poisoned her way to Victory. It was strange, really, that there’d been hardly any talk of her since her win.

“Father?” You asked, quietly as you could.

Both of you were standing in the foyer of the grand university in the Capitol. The outside was still a little ravaged, but inside, it was perfectly lovely. Walls lined with books--perhaps some of them were fake--and marble floors and marble busts dotting the sight lines.

“Mm?” He replied, eyes scanning over his clipboard. He flips it, here and there.

“I was just thinking. About last year’s games. About Lucy Gray, and how the Games--”

Your father rounded on you, eyes suddenly serious and blazing.

“Quiet. Weren’t you paying attention on the way here?” Admittedly, you were not. You’d been daydreaming about what you might do now that you were done with school. There was no university in District 2, and your father hadn’t even mentioned a job. “You’re not supposed to mention--”

“Not supposed to mention whom? Ah, ah, ah. Lucy Gray Baird?” called a voice, almost in sing-song.

Your father stood up stiff, and the life seemed to drain from his face.

Both of you look towards the sound of the voice, and now it’s your turn to stiffen. The voice came from a woman standing in the doorway of the very office that your father was waiting to enter. She was wearing an elaborate jacket made of what looked like rainbow snake scales. Her hair was gray and curly. She had, you realized, two different colored eyes.

Your father swallowed, and you could see the apple of it bob up and down. It made you think, abruptly, of suckling pigs.

“Dr. Gaul,” he said, in a voice far too tight to be relaxed. “I apologize for my daughter’s insubordination, I assure you, she meant no--”

Dr. Gaul waved her hands at him and approached you.

“Did you like last year’s games?” She didn’t look angry. No, she looked delighted.

“I…” It was your turn to swallow, your turn to feel that tightness. “It-it was the first time I’ve watched them, ma’am.” You want to ask this woman: do you think I liked watching someone from my District 2 so horribly? Or any District, really? Did I like it?

Her smile grew wider.

“I’m glad. You’ll be watching them every year from now on, I hope. We have big plans.” Her eyebrows raised high. “Big changes. Thanks to men like your father.” She glanced at him and you saw disdain flicker across her gaze.

And then another door opened, and you heard the sound of polished shoes on the marble floor. Dr. Gaul’s attention dropped away from you like you were nothing at all. She turned to meet the sound of these footsteps, and you did too.

It was a young man. Probably your age, you thought, with light blonde hair and eyes that your mother would have described as “baby blue.” He didn’t look at you, or your father. But that was nothing new. You’d only been in the Capitol for 2 days, and you’d already gotten used to being treated as lesser than. Though, at least, you were not so far down on the food chain that you lost your tongue.

“Ah, my protege,” said Dr. Gaul, giving the young man a grin. The smile on her face almost looked warm, which was somehow far more terrifying than her manic smile from earlier. “Ever the earnest student. Aren’t you supposed to be enjoying the day off, Mr. Snow?”

The young man, this “Snow,” chuckled and lowered his gaze. “I couldn’t stay away once I heard you were discussing some of the new prototypes for this year’s games.”

He finally looked at your father, and then at you. But only briefly.

“Can I assume that this is…?”

Dr. Gaul nodded.

“Yes. My little designer from District 2. And his daughter.” Her voice dropped a few octaves when she referred to you. She probably didn’t want you here, you thought. You weren’t supposed to come, but your father had begged the Capitol for a pass; it would probably be your only chance to see it, he said, so you may as well take advantage of the chance.

Snow nodded to your father. It was a surprising gesture, almost respectful. But cold, too, like it was done from necessity rather than anything else.

Your father stammered a bit and nodded back, and you felt shame begin to creep into your bones. It wasn’t fair, to be lesser-than. But weren’t others lesser-than you in your own District, where you ate better food and never worried that your name would get picked, that your blood would be spilled?

Everyone

But when Snow turned to you, he smiled. It gave him dimples.

It was the first kind smile anyone in the Capitol gave you.

“My name is Coriolanus Snow. I doubt you’ve heard of me, but if Dr. Gaul’s teachings have anything to say about it, perhaps one day you’ll know me as a Gamemaker.”

You didn’t know what to say. Congratulations, one day you’ll be coordinating Games that kill people? Instead, you gave your name, voice squeakier than you meant it. But it was fitting, you supposed. Here, you were a mouse, hoping you would get a bite of cheese and make it home unpoisoned.

Dr. Gaul’s face seemed to react slowly, as if she couldn’t decide what she thought about his words or your interaction, but a small smile grew on it, eventually. “I do have high hopes for you, Mr. Snow. Now, shall we?”

She gestured for your father to follow, face once again impassive with a sprinkle of disdain, as she led the two of them into her office.

Snow gave you a smile and a nod before he left.

You waved, stupidly.

Your father didn’t even look back.

I’m dead. I’m dead. I might as well be dead.

Your heartbeat kept time with your racing thoughts as you went up and down corridors, begging your shoes to be silent, wishing your breath would catch and stop coming out in terrible pants.

You were lost. You weren’t where you were supposed to be. If someone found you, if the wrong person found you, they would think you were running, trying to get lost in the Capitol; they’d think you were a rebel. They’d shoot you.

Just when you thought you might collapse and die from your own nervous exhaustion, you heard the most wonderful sound in the world.

Your name.

It was only the moment after that you realized it didn’t come from your father’s mouth, but the lips of--what his name--Coriolanus Snow. The young man who was a Gamemaker-in-training, or so your father said. But that’s all he would say. He kept tight about anything that went on behind closed doors.

But this Coriolanus Snow smiled at you, and didn’t look at you like you were some kind of insect he might want to pin on a board, and so when you whirled around to look at him you were smiling.

Ah--for a moment. For just a moment, you saw his muscles tense. You saw the expression on his face falter in worry. Like he thought he was about to miss a step on a staircase, and corrected himself; like he thought you were a wolf and you were only somebody’s dog, off their leash.

But it wasn’t too surprising. You knew most people in the Capitol thought anyone from the Districts wanted to rip out their throats.

Well, the worry was mutual. Except in your case, you were forced to walk around with the living proof of that worry--all those “Avoxes,” they called them. Without tongues, without freedom.

But you swallow all that. Because he smiled at you. Because maybe it wouldn’t hurt to make a friend. Especially right now.

“I’m--I’m lost,” you tell him, giving a shaky smile. “I was waiting for my father, but you see, I got to thinking, and I started to wander around and now I’m… well. I don’t know where I am, actually.”

His smile wasn’t very deep, was it? It was like the gloss of paint on the outside of the Capitol buildings. Pretty to look at, but there must be more underneath.

You expected him to lead you right back to where you’re supposed to be.

Instead, he asked you something.

“What were you thinking about?

You couldn’t tell him. Could you? But something about

“About… the Games.”

You don’t tell him that you were thinking about Lucy Gray and all those snakes, and the way that Dr. Gaul’s outfit that first day made you think of them. Because your father had slapped you across the face when you got back to your lodgings that night, and told you to never, ever bring up Lucy Gray Baird or the 10th Games unless you were directly asked. And you would probably never be asked.

Coriolanus gave a little snort through his nose. You liked it. It was nice to know that even Capitol people could seem a little dorky.

“They aren’t for another 3 months. Are you that eager to see them?”

You didn’t know what expression you made, exactly. It was so instinctive and fast that you didn’t have time to control it.

You only knew that it made him shake his head and offer you a sympathetic look.

“I apologize. That was rude, wasn’t it?”

And then he did a strange thing.

He offered you his arm.

Like you were Capitol, like you were a real person, and not some visiting District wench walking on the coattails of her arms-dealing father.

“Let me walk you back to the waiting area.”

And the stranger thing?

You took it.

You and your father were quickly moved into a small apartment within the university, once it became clear that he would be staying in the Capitol through the duration of the Games. It was best, he said, because ordinary people in the Capitol didn’t really want to see new faces from the Districts mingling around unless their tongue had been cut out first. It made them nervous. The rebel bombings, and all that.

You didn’t mind, because it meant you didn’t have to be flanked by Peacekeepers on the streets.

And, well.

You got to see Coriolanus more often. Sometimes he greeted you, sometimes he didn’t. He did it less often when Dr. Gaul was there, unless she was talking to your father and it gave him an opportunity.

He asked you things, too, when he caught you walking back to your father’s little apartment. Like what you did back home. What you liked to do. Whether you went to school, and what you planned to do now that you have graduated.

This morning, he caught you drawing while you waited in a chair outside Dr. Gaul’s office. Sometimes you waited there--you would admit to no one that it was to catch a glimpse of the kindest person you’d met in the Capitol--and other times you stayed in your temporary home.

“What are you drawing?” He asked. But he had a way of speaking that you’d quickly clocked into. He can make a demand sound like a polite little question. Oh, he wasn’t mean about it, but it reminded you of the way your father talked to his underlings back in District 2. On his home turf, he was far smoother than he was here, where his voice stammered and sweat beaded on his neck.

So you handed it over, even though, to your greatest embarrassment, you’d drawn… him.

“Why me?” He had a smile on his lips. His smiles were nice. Kind. The kindest you’d seen since you came here. But they always felt like that fresh coat of paint; like you didn’t know what he really meant by them, and that was how he liked it.

“You’re… important,” is all you could come up with. You felt small, then. He would dismiss and probably never want to talk to you again. What a stupid answer from a stupid girl.

But he just smiled. It was like paint peeling a little. You could see underneath that he liked what you said, although you weren’t exactly sure why. And his expression tightened up so quickly, protecting what you’d seen, that you weren’t entirely sure if it was real or not.

“I’m just a humble student at this university. Not so important. Not yet.”

You were really going to die, now. This wasn’t some panicked imagination gone wrong, some flight of fancy that took a wrong turn.

A pair of stony-faced Peacekeepers had walked up to where you sat in the waiting area near Dr. Gaul’s office and ordered you to come with them.

You asked to talk to your father. They said no. You asked where you were going. They yanked you up.

And now they were leading you down hallways that you’d never seen before, where there weren’t even Avoxes roaming the halls with brooms and dustpans.

They didn’t even answer, just spun around and walked back the way they came. You pushed the door open reluctantly--what the hell was going to be on the other side?--and it was--it was--

It was Coriolanus. Standing there in a nice suit, eyes downcast on a book. Until the door creaked and he looked up.

“What--why did you bring me here? Did I do something wrong?” The thought went through you, that perhaps this had all been a test, to see if you were loyal to the Capitol and he’d found you wanting.

“No,” he said, simply enough. He set the book down and gestured for you to step inside. You did, because what else were you going to do, in some strange room in a Capitol University where you’d been forcibly brought by Peacekeepers.

Snow studied your face. Your eyes darted around, from him, to the room, to the door.

“I wanted to see you,” he said, a little softer. “In private.”

“Me?” You furrowed your eyebrows. “But… why?”

He smiled. “Come now, you’re a smart girl, even if you aren’t in university.”

You really didn’t know. Not at first. But then you watched the way his expression softened, and you remembered it, or glimpses of it, that he’d given you before. When he complimented your drawing. When he said your name. When he escorted you back from the maze of hallways. And his smiles, all his smiles, although you were never sure how much they meant coming from home.

He took a step closer. You didn’t dare step back. You weren’t sure if you wanted to step back, but it didn’t matter, either way.

He pressed his lips to yours and took your first kiss, in a secluded little study in the heart of the Capitol University.

Your days became routine, although the routine was strictly forbidden and could have probably gotten you executed or at best, gotten you a one-way ticket to a tasteless existence.

You wake up. You stay in your apartment. You wait for the Peacekeepers. You get summoned here and there, always private rooms, secret rooms, rooms out of the way. You meet Snow--Coriolanus, he said, call him that--and you talk (well, mostly him) and kiss and sometimes a little bit more. He gives you gifts. Trinkets, necklaces that you can only wear under your shirt. Food, flaky pastries made with mountains of sugar, sandwiches made with cream and cucumber.

But how much longer could it go on? The Games were going to start soon. As soon as they were over, you were going back to your District. There would be no more meetings, no more kisses. No more wondering how far he wanted to go or why he liked you or even if he even liked you as anything more than someone to keep him busy.

You didn’t dare talk about the Games, but you did talk about this. In the kindest way you knew how for such a sensitive subject.

“I’ll miss you,” you told Coriolanus after one meeting, when you’re both sitting on a sofa and he’s got your fingers tightly wound in his. He squeezed them tight.

“Miss me?”

“After the Games,” you clarified. “We’re being sent home right after.”

He squeezed your fingers until it hurt a little. Then he looked up at you. To see if you would say something? Or did he not know how strong he was?

“Oh, that. I can arrange for you to stay.”

Your chest began to feel sick.

“Stay? In the Capitol?” You were torn about Coriolanus, but you didn’t want to stay here. You couldn’t.

“Yes,” he said, as if it was the simplest answer in the world. “You wouldn’t be the first person from the District granted such an extreme privilege. I’m sure I could--”

“But I don’t know if I want to stay.”

His gaze narrowed and you felt your stomach clench. He looked at the necklace you’d pulled out as soon as the door was shut, at your lips where a dollop of strawberry cream still rested.

“I treat you so well, and you don’t know if you want to stay with me?”

His voice was calm, and that scared you. It would have been better if he flew off the handle.

Instead, he simply stood up and gently sent you out the door, and called the Peacekeepers to bring you back to your apartment.

Every night for the last week, you have cried yourself to sleep. Because every day for the last week, Coriolanus Snow has not sent for you. Not even once.

What if he told someone? What if you got sent back early, and your father was shamed? What if they broke his contract? Or--worse, worse, worse. There were so many worse things than merely being sent back to District 2.

And then he sent for you, and it was the longest walk of your life, though it was no farther than any of the times you’ve been escorted to your secret meetings.

This time, when you pushed open the door, Coriolanus was not alone.

There was an Avox in the room.

It was someone from District 2.

You didn’t know her. Not personally. But you saw her, before. She worked in one of the munitions factories and you watched her walk to work from your classroom window sometimes. Then she stopped showing up, and you thought perhaps she got married.

That delusion was shattered the moment you saw her, eyes downcast to the floor, wearing a simple gray tunic.

It’s not until Coriolanus tells you to hurry up and come in that you’re able to move. Even then, you weren’t sure how your body did it; how your arms managed to gain the mobility to shut the door, to twist the lock; how your legs moved, one foot in front of the other, until you were standing stiffly in front of him.

The Avox--you wish you knew her name, but she couldn’t give it to you now, even if you asked--moved seamlessly to a table set up nearby. There was tea and sweets. The sort of thing that you and Coriolanus had been enjoying together for the past few weeks. The sort of thing that you were sure would sit sour in your stomach, now.

The cup shook in your hands when she handed it to you, and your tears dripped right into the tea.

Coriolanus glanced at the Avox and waved his hand. She left obediently. She would never tell the secret she witnessed in his room, that much was certain.

And then he looked back at you.

“Don’t cry,” he said. Soft but firm. A command, not a coo. “You shouldn’t cry here, in the Capitol. You should be grateful to be here. You should be grateful that I’ve arranged all this for you.”

“I am,” you whispered.

“Then show me that you are.”

And you did.

You said what he wanted and looked to him to show you how he wanted you to act, and did just that. You didn’t argue, even to lightly banter. You kissed him and nodded along when he told you about how things would be after the Games, when he had arranged for you to stay.

All you had to do was keep him happy until the Games were over, and then you could go home.

Bitterly, all of this made you realize just how much of your father is in you; he knew how to appease the Capitol. You could do the same with Coriolanus Snow. At least until the Games were over. Just keep him happy until the Games were done and the blood was spilled, and you would go home.

They wouldn’t let him keep you here after the games. You were sure of that. You’d overheard some of Dr. Gaul’s assistants murmuring how glad they would be to send the District profiteers like your father home once the Games were over. And you? You’re just his useless daughter, an appendage he brought like an unwelcome suitcase. Why would you be allowed to stay?

The Games were over. The winner was from District 1.

You were going home any day now. Just as soon as your father finished tinkering with the designs, gave his notes on improvements that might be made for next year.

The thought gave you a delightful bounce in your step. It was like having a pat of sweet butter in your shoe on a day when you needed good luck-- District 2 superstition, although the strict rationing meant most people didn’t have even a pat to slip into their shoes anymore.

The sweetness didn’t even disappear when the Peacekeepers showed up to bring you to Snow. It was going to be a bittersweet farewell, you were sure. He might be angry. But you would kiss him and tell him that there was nothing he could do, and how sorry you were not to be able to stay, but that was how things had to be.

Except they didn’t bring you down a maze of corridors that led to a secluded room.

They brought you right into Dr. Gaul’s office.

Breakfast threatened to evacuate your stomach with every step. Not just because of nerves, but because of what you saw. Rows of experiments in glass tubes; some of them move. You walk by a room with a half-open door that showed someone strapped to a gurney, face contorted in a silent scream as they fought against restraints. You almost did lose breakfast, then.

But somehow you made it to the desk of Dr. Gaul without a dribble of vomit to show for it.

The Peacekeepers left with no fanfare and you stood there, ramrod straight. Did she know? Was she going to tell you that you were going to be strapped to one of those gurneys, now?

“I’m keenly aware,” she said, keeping her hands primly folded, “on how much you’ve enthralled my star pupil.”

Toast. That’s what will come up first, you thought . The toast.

“I don’t know what you mean, ma’am.” Your voice was so thin and tinny that you didn’t even believe yourself.

And then the prim facade cracked, and Dr. Gaul threw her head back and grinned.

“You really think I don’t know everything that goes on within these walls? I know every time one of my lab assistants runs into the bathroom to throw up after a particularly nasty experiment. I know every time one of our university professors sneaks into a closet to down a vial of morphling with a student. And I certainly know when my newest protege is having an adorable little District girl brought to him for… canoodling.”

You weren’t even embarrassed. No. You just felt terrified to the bone. You only hoped that you’d be killed, shot against a wall, instead of made into an Avox. Let there be some mercy in this world.

”He’s asked to keep you, you know.” Her voice was low, almost a drawl. She tapped her fingers on her desk rhythmically.

“My Coriolanus Snow wants a bird of his own.” Her smile turned darker. “Not a songbird, though. Oh, no. I think he’s had enough of those.”

Her gaze bored into yours, each color magnified by her intense expression. “I think if I let him have his pretty caged bird, he’ll be happy. He’s more productive if he’s happy.” She smiled. “I like productivity. It keeps the Games more interesting.”

She looked you over one more time, and then waved you away.

“I’ve granted his request. You’ll be staying here indefinitely, courtesy of one Mr. Snow. Your father has already been told.”

You were wrong.

It was not the toast that came up first, but the sweet butter you’d patted on top.

You still had your tongue, but you felt as though it was useless, stuck to the roof of your mouth, as Coriolanus fussed over your outfit. Or rather, as he directed an Avox to fuss over it for you. He could afford his own personal servant, now, he told you. He’d almost flinched after he said now, and you didn’t dare press him on it. Had he not been able to afford one before?

“We can’t walk arm-in-arm in public,” he said, walking around you, making sure the outfit was just-right. “But you can stand by me if I stop and direct you forward.” He reached over and fixed one of your buttons. “Don’t speak to anyone unless I’ve told you to, or they speak to you first. Always address someone older as ‘sir,’ or ‘ma’am.” He pointed at your hair, and the Avox began to fuss with it, eventually covering it in a colorful wrap that Coriolanus said was popular right now. “Address someone our age by the last name and Mr. or Ms.”

When he was satisfied with your appearance, he sent the Avox away. You liked it better that way, it was one last reminder of the horrors in the Capitol, even for someone “privileged” like you. You’d only been without your father for 3 days, but you felt like your nerves were continually on fire. You wanted to go home. You wanted your family. You wanted out of this place.

But that wasn’t going to happen.

For now, you were still living in the small university apartment the Capitol had given your father. Coriolanus insisted on it, until he could figure out how to move you into his own sprawling apartment that he shared with his cousin, Tigris (who, at least, genuinely sounded lovely) and his grandmother, Grandma’am. She was the sticking point, or so you were told, with a thin smile. She hated Districts, and she ought to, he said. They killed her son. His father.

She would hate you, too. Even if Coriolanus wanted you enough to make you stay with him; wanted you enough to keep you. But for how long? And would he change his mind, if you couldn’t fit in?

He said your name, and you snapped yourself out of your thoughts. He held you by your shoulders. Gently. Like one would an unruly child that hadn’t yet learned that there were such things as salad forks and dinner forks, as polite conversation and etiquette.

You got the feeling you wouldn’t have long to learn all of those things and more, to make him happy.

“Remember,” he said. “You’re District. You’re here because the Capitol has recognized that your loyalty can benefit us in some way. Be grateful.”

“I am,” you said, reflectively.

“Be happy..”

“I am,” you said again, your chest hitching.

He smiled at you. Was it real or not real?

You smiled back, regardless. And he liked that, evidently, because he leaned forward and kissed you. Then he scrutinized your face and wiped at your lips with his thumb--the kiss had smeared your lipstick.

“Good.”

He gestured towards the open doorway. This time, he didn’t take your arm. There would be too many people lingering in the university hallways, all making their way to the soiree held to celebrate the end of this year’s Games and discuss what improvements might be made for the next year.

You dutifully walked behind him, just like he said. And you would do exactly what he said in all respects. You would stay quiet unless you were spoken to, you would certainly never bring up anything confrontational or controversial, and you would make a good impression. You would be a loyal, grateful District citizen who was given the opportunity of a lifetime thanks to the graciousness of Coriolanus Snow.

Of course you would.

Your life depended on it.

1K notes View Post

junkyuholic

2 years ago

that doyoung fic i just posted was written three years ago and honestly, if you liked my stuff from then, i apologise for my bad writing😭

idk if i’m back for good, i miss writing. but writing allows me to escape thanks to the freedom of it. also the love i received and compliments made it worth my while !

i may be back just to relieve some writers stress?

anyways, thank you all for your support and even those who still followed me after my last post years ago. thank you to those who still read my stuff.

Yandere! Sanemi Shinazugawa NSFW Profile

Yandere! Sanemi Shinazugawa x fem! reader

Tw: stalking, kidnapping, mentions of non-con and dub-con, public masturbation, voyeurism/non-consensual voyeurism, exhibitionism, spitting (m and f receiving), dick slapping, cumplay, possessiveness, mild gore, mentions of death, Stockholm Syndrome/reader is implied to start liking him, Sanemi is kind of a hot mess approaching sex so hopefully that has been conveyed, I hc hard that Sanemi is a virgin so don't bother fighting me on it, fem reader, MDNI

I do not condone any of the actions described in this post - this is fiction and should be treated as such. If you or a loved one is in a similar situation to anything contained in this post or my blog in general, please seek help. You're in charge of your internet consumption; please make responsible choices. With that, enjoy!

WC: 15K

HABITS:

Intimacy is very much not something that Sanemi is familiar with. He’s never even considered taking a partner, staunchly ignoring his fellow Hashira’s taunts (almost exclusively from Tengen and the odd, poorly-timed comment from Giyuu) about how he’d just ‘calm down’ a bit if he had a pretty woman to relieve his stress onto.

And while he’s mature enough to admit there’s probably some truth to that, he’s still rejecting the very few advances that come his way. He’s not only entirely uninterested in dealing with the intricacies and expectations of a relationship, but he’s also convinced that due to his traumatic past and the way he deals he interacts with those he loves, he’s unfit to be a partner.

He doesn’t think he has the capability to properly commit himself to someone, to become emotionally dependent on them – and frankly he doesn’t want them to become emotionally attached to him, either. It’s just too risky considering his job and his habits in battle – every night is a question of survival, missions leaving him so bloody and battered that it’s a miracle he pulls through, a miracle that Shinobu doesn’t just kill him herself with how often he winds up in her infirmary.

It’s just wildly unpractical – and it’s not like he chooses to become so horribly, deeply obsessed with you. He’s angry in the beginning, genuinely trying to hate you and distance himself from you in every possible way, but you’re like some irritating, persistent bug that manages to crawl back to him every time he thinks he’s shaken you off.

(A mindset that makes him feel incredibly guilty later on, ashamed of himself for having thought of you in such a derogatory, rude way. This is particularly true because now he’d be absolutely devastated if you were to leave his life, panic and terror engulfing him because no no no you’re not allowed to leave him.)

But once the feelings have been cemented and Sanemi finally, finally accepts that he can do nothing to change him, that outlook on intimacy being unavailable begins to change. Of course, he’s not immediately grabbing and groping at you, nor is he fantasizing about the way you’d look underneath him whimpering and writhing as he fucks into you.

(Wet dreams aside, of course. He doesn’t often wake up to messy, sticky sheets, but the shame that swallows him when he does is so palpable that even his fellow Hashira notice. Rengoku will ask in a much-too-loud voice if he’d slept well, if he’s okay, why there’s still a slight flush on his face, leaving Sanemi to only snap at him and storm out of whatever area they’re in.)

No, his fantasies are genuinely more innocent in the beginning – virginal, really, with the way he blushes a light pink at the thought of wrapping you in his arms, the simple idea of hugging you being enough to get him covering his mouth with his palm, too flustered to function. The mere concept of you pressing a kiss to his cheek – not even his fucking lips – gets him feeling hot under the collar, body too warm for him to sit still, needing to blow off the steam and refocus himself before he embarrasses himself in front of you.

It makes him feel weak, really, how these simplistic, easy forms of intimacy and affection are able to affect him in such a profound way, and as time passes it’s really only natural for his imagination to start turning lewder. It’s not something that he thinks of on his own necessarily, if only because there’s a large mental block there where he tries to separate the thought of you from anything he deems disrespectful or dirty.

He tells himself that you’re pretty, not sexy. (But oh god does he think you’re sexy, everything from your voice to your hair to your skin making him drool like some sort of perverted old man, blood rushing between his legs when he sees you bite your lip or flick your hair, having to quickly excuse himself for fear that you’ll see the way his pants are growing sinfully tight.)

You’re sweet, not naughty. (But oh, Sanemi wouldn’t mind if you were a bit bratty in bed, if you had a rebellious streak to you and made him work for it, made him put in every ounce of effort just to get you creaming on his fingers or tugging on his hair or letting him spill every last drop of cum he has to give you inside that tight little cunt of yours.)

It’s a strict boundary for him, but all it takes is a single seed to be planted that ultimately breaks his moral high ground. Perhaps it’s Rengoku noticing off-hand that Sanemi seems to be a bit quieter these days, the former laughing loudly and congratulating Sanemi on finding that beautiful woman Tengen was talking about – tell me, does she satisfy you in all the ways you require? It makes Sanemi sputter and cough slightly, shocked at both Rengoku’s observational accuracy and the insinuation of you pleasuring him.

(And also seething in jealousy because how the fuck does Rengoku know about you? Has he met you? Has he fucked you? Is that why he’s thinking about you in a sexual manner?)

He tries to stop it, but it’s too late – there’s a quick, shockingly explicit image of you on your back, knees folded up to your chin and Sanemi’s cock stretching you so widely that you’re crying, nails scraping down his back and moans of yes yes please more ‘Nemi please falling past your lips.

He’s ashamed of himself, training until he nearly blacks out from the exhaustion, Iguro shocked and mildly concerned at just how hard and raggedly he’s pushing himself.

(And, out of respect for the unspoken friendship between them, he ignores the way Sanemi’s been sporting a raging hard-on for the duration of their some three-hour sparring session, cock swollen and not settling down for even an instant. Frankly, he’s amazed Sanemi could fight as well as he did considering his situation.)

It’s shameful, Sanemi thinks, and it leaves him utterly mortified that he's letting his more primal thoughts win, but once the door opens he can’t quite shut it. He still tries – pushing idle thoughts of you on your knees for him out of his mind, cursing under his breath as he follows a few feet behind you, acting as your shadow and trying so, so very desperately to not notice the way your kimono is spread tightly across your ass. It’s commendable, really, just how long he manages to keep himself accountable, but it becomes more difficult the more time he spends watching you, seeing aspects of you that are really much more personal than he has a right to know.

And the final straw comes one sunny afternoon, when you’re walking with him down the rather crowded street of your town. He’s accompanying you because ‘it’s too crowded for you to be out alone’, as he’d told you, and he’s staying close to your side, careful not to touch you but always in your peripheral.

And really, maybe he’d had a point – because all it takes is a single shove from a woman next to you, and suddenly you’re falling forward, arms automatically reaching out to steady yourself but instead slamming into Sanemi’s chest, his noise of shock and the feeling of your thumbs touching his bare skin distracting him enough to leave the two of you tumbling the to the ground.

And of course you land on top of him – directly on top of him, with your kimono slightly askew and your clothed breasts pressed up against the expanse of his exposed chest, able to feel the fullness and softness of them. Your breath’s fanning against his neck as you blink and mutter a quick apology, your ascent ungraceful as you accidentally grind your thigh against his crotch, a small, nearly mute groan falling from his lips at the action.

He’s dazed, cheeks flushing a warm pink color and his eyes wide as they stare at you, even as you stand up and try to help him up. But he just can’t move – the feeling of your skin and body against his is too fresh in his mind, imprinted and replaying over and over as he closes his eyes.

And even the feeling of your hands grasping onto his as you try to lift him to his feet is sending him dangerously close to the edge, already feeling himself growing hard and his breathing getting labored.

He doesn’t say a word of it to you, only grunting at your frenzied apologies, not trusting his voice because he’s sure if he tried all he’d manage to push out would be a weak moan of your name. He takes you back to your home immediately, dropping you off in an uncharacteristically abrupt manner, only stopping to make sure you make it past your front door before he’s practically sprinting off, only able to heave in the deep breaths once he’s a good mile or so away from your home.

It’s only then that he finally lets go of the desperate, difficult breathing techniques he had to employ to keep a check on his cock, stopping himself from getting fully hard and only making the smallest of tents in his pants so as to not catch your attention. But as he heaves, wild eyes staring up at the sky, he’s clutching onto the fabric of his haori, knees slightly weak as he stumbles into the surrounding forest.

He’s in an empty area, and as he ventures deeper into the trees and shrubbery, he finds himself leaning against a nearby trunk. Fuck fuck fuck, all he can think about is the way your body was so warm and how you fit perfectly against him, as if your body was molded to fit his. It’s driving him crazy – everything feels too hot, sweat beading at his temple and his palms clammy. He tries to regain his breathing but it’s still coming out ragged, winded and sloppy, his cock so hard that it hurts, mind swirling with thoughts of you and only you.

And even after ten minutes of trying to calm down, Sanemi eventually curses, eyes squeezed shut and palm slapping the trunk of the tree as he realizes that the only way to get his body under his control again is to deal with the problem. It’s embarrassing, more than anything, and he quickly glances around the thickly forested alcove he’s found himself in, the daylight trickling in through the gaps in the trees and illuminating his chest.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Sanemi undoes his belt, the metal sounding loud in the quiet of the forest but slightly muffled by his breathing. It makes him bite his lip, flushing an ever deeper red color, but he shimmies his uniform pants down slightly, just enough to rest under the curve of his balls, staring with pinched brows at the way his cock is absolutely red – it’s swollen, almost visibly pulsing, so heavy that it only stands at a measly ninety degrees.

After a moment of contemplation Sanemi almost, almost tucks himself back into his pants, the guilt at masturbating to you nearly overwhelming, but then he’s hearing your voice in his head, ringing through and saying Sanemi thank you for catching my fall, Sanemi Sanemi Sanemi…

He’s spitting into his palm before he can stop himself, fingers wrapping deftly around his base and immediately flicking up and down, a mixture of a groan and a sigh of relief slipping from him as he finally, finally gets stimulation. His eyes close and he rests his arm against the tree over his head, leaning his forehead against his forearm.

He’s immediately imagining you – the feeling of your chest pressing against his, and images of times he’s accidentally seen you nude while peeking in through your windows crossing his mind. (And truly, they had been accidental – he’d looked away as soon as he regained his senses, blushing bright and running a hand through his hair, waiting for a good twenty minutes to ensure you were properly clothed before he chanced another glance.)

They’re so fucking perfect – he’s never felt a pair of breasts in his life but he’s sure yours are unbearably soft, that they’d be dense and squishy and perfect to squeeze and paw at. He’s biting his lip as he remembers the way your nipples look, licking his lips and even puckering them slightly as he imagines sucking at them, wondering with a particularly harsh tug of his cock whether you’d keen and sigh and moan.

His fist gets tighter as he thinks of the way your knee had brushed against him, balls clenching a bit at the idea that you’ve touched his cock, even accidentally and through multiple layers of clothing. He can’t help but imagine your hands wrapped around himself, fingers daintier and prettier than his own calloused, scarred ones, and his eyes peel open to watch them run up and down his length, looking crude and barbaric as he fucks into his fist harder, his hips starting to move in tandem with his wrist.

You’d look cute, he decides, when you jerk him off – you’d be such a juxtaposition, with feminine hands and soft skin against his masculine, thick cock, and the thought alone makes him grit his teeth, embarrassment and pleasure creeping up his spine because fuuuck he’s never felt this close so quickly before.

His mind snaps back to right before the fall, and suddenly he’s gasping your name and opening his eyes wide as the phantom touch of your fingers against his bare chest hits him, hips stuttering and sounds that are much too high-pitched for his liking filling the small forest area.

He’s turning around, back slamming against the trunk as he continues his brutal pace, keeping his fist stationary as his hips thrust and pound away, imagining it’s your pretty cunt instead. His free hand comes up to his face, the feeling of you grabbing at it and clutching your fingers against his driving him to press his palm tightly against his nose, deeply inhaling and sliding down the trunk a bit as he catches what he thinks is a very, very faint whiff of you on his skin.

His head tilts back, his thrusts getting sharper and more carnal, unconsciously angling them to brush against the top of his hand, where he knows you like best. He’s inhaling over and over again, smelling his hand like some dog, only pulling away to briefly lap at his palm, tongue lolling out and licking long, fat stripes across the skin, desperate to taste you, too.

He’s breathing hard, panting and chanting your name like some sort of prayer, the pleasure in his navel starting to build and grow. You’re just so fucking perfect, and he just knows you feel soft and warm and god he can’t fucking wait to touch you and feel you and pleasure you and make you moan his name and come for him and oh god oh fuck it’s coming it’s coming –

He nearly yells your name as cum oozes from his swollen tip, biting back the gaspy, airy groans that threaten to spill from his lips as his hips wildly jerk, uneven thrusts complimented by his abs clenching so tightly that his knees go weak, crouching against the base of the tree trunk.

He’s panting still, chest heaving as if he’d just run for hours, his face still flushed as he looks up, trying desperately to regain his senses. He’s still clouded by the smell and taste of you, and he only moves his hand to come clutch at his uniform, grabbing the same spot you’d grabbed earlier, squeezing at the fabric so tightly that his knuckles turn white.

There’s a trail of cum on the forest floor in front of him, white slowly cooling and smearing against the leaves, but Sanemi can’t find it in himself to care. There’s guilt settling deep in his chest as he comes down from his high, cock going pathetically limp against the waistband of his pants. He curses, closing his eyes and covering them with his hand, shame weighing heavily on him.

He’d just masturbated to you and reached the fastest orgasm of his life because of it.

It feels like some sort of selfish defeat, and he’s filled with self-loathing as he makes his way back to the Wind Estate for a change of clothes, berating himself for his weakness and promising to never give into his hormones like that again.

And yet, a mere five days later, he’s got his fist wrapped around himself again, fantasies of you bouncing in his lap like he’s just some toy for you to use racing through his mind, his composure slipping because he’d give absolutely anything to be of use to you, even just as something to get you off and discard afterwards.

It makes him feel pathetic, like a perverted, sorry excuse of an admirer of yours, but he just can’t help himself – how can he, when his every waking thought revolves solely around you?

FAVORITE BODY PARTS:

Your Ass

In general, Sanemi loves the parts of you most that are the softest and the squishiest. He’s all hard lines – plains of muscle that’s rock hard to the touch, scars that are ragged and bumpy against the smoother texture of his skin. He’s all hard edges, but you’re the complete opposite – you’re sweet and soft, and Sanemi naturally gravitates towards areas that really showcase this.

Consequently, he finds his hands edging close to your ass from pretty much the beginning of your sexual relationship. He likes how plump the area is – he adores when you wear shorter skirts around him, or, ideally, just the pretty, lacy panties he buys for you with heat on his cheeks and embarrassment creeping up his spine.

(Of course, he’d bought many of them long before he’d stolen you away, long before he’d ever touched you in any serious capacity. He’d seen them when he was passing through an adult shop on a mission, and while he’d felt like a massive pervert for it, he’d purchased a pair that’s a particularly eye-catching emerald green, white lace trim at the edges and a matching garter belt and bra to go with it. He’d been mortified when he’d returned home and stared at the fabric, the fatigue and adrenaline having finally worn off, but the mere idea of you wearing the pretty fabric was enough to get him breathing heavy. It was enough to get him covering his mouth with his hand, cock painfully hard because even his imagination of how your pretty ass cupped by the cheeky underwear would look is enough to get precum staining his pants.)

When he’s kissing you, his hands are resting on your ass, groping and idly squeezing, playing with the fat and very, very gently slapping at it, kissing you even harder when he feels the way you squirm and yelp.

He prefers positions where you can make eye contact, but the somewhat rare times he has you bent over, Sanemi is absolutely feral – he’s smacking your ass and pounding into you as hard as he can, his grip on your hips tight enough to bruise as he loses himself in the way your ass ricochets against his pelvis, the wet slap slap noise forcing him to get on one knee, mounting you even more, fucking you like an animal.

(And while he’s not the absolute loudest during sex, you’ll hear some of the filthiest, foulest things fall past his lips when he’s fucking you from behind – he'll have you in prone bone, breath hot against your ear as he tells you that ‘s fucking tight, you’re so damn tight, fuck fuck fuuuuck, his voice groaned and strained as his hips punctuate each curse. And his grip on you is tight – fingertips digging into the plush of your hips and lovehandles, gripping hard enough to leave small imprints behind, feeling like he’s clutching onto you, like he’s scared you’ll disappear.)

He’s not picky about your shape, either – you could have perfectly round, full cheeks or very little definition and he’d still be in love, his fingers still twitching and flexing at his side with the urge to reach out and squeeze, to knead at the skin and hear the way you’d yelp and cling onto him.

(Perhaps you’d even smack his hand away, embarrassment creeping up your spine and your flustered expression making him lick his lips, hellbent on making you come so many times the only thing you can think of is him him him. He always has grand plans to tease you, wanting to have you looking at him with glossy eyes and be completely under his thumb, but every time he gets you naked in front of him it’s him who’s at your beck and call, pathetically eager to do whatever you wish.)

He won’t try to touch you until you have a more established sexual relationship in place, which will take several months of being trapped with him to achieve. But once the floodgates are opened he becomes extremely touchy – he’s always got his hands on you, squeezing and groping and touching, and you’ll often even find that when you’re laying on your front, he’ll come lay behind you, shyly at first as he places his cheek against the soft skin, a hand gripping onto your thigh as he relaxes, too embarrassed to make eye contact but basking in the softness of you, in the peace of the moment, in the way you’re really here, with him.

He loves the rest of your body too, of course, but his natural resting place for both his hands and eyes is your ass, and he’s not nearly as subtle as he hopes he is.

(Not at all, but there’s almost something endearing about it – the quick-tempered, serious Hashira so blatantly ogling you, his lips parting and his nostrils flaring as he stares, almost unblinking. It makes you feel good, truly, flattered despite the perverted nature of his staring. And so as time passes you’ll find that you can excuse it, his bashfulness and obvious attraction to you almost flattering the longer you go without other human contact.)

His Abs

By and large, Sanemi desperately wants to impress you.

He lives for your praise, finding that the sweet words slipping from your lips are enough to leave him feeling like he’s floating, a sort of genuine joy he hasn’t felt in years settling into his chest, making him fight off a smile. As such, he’s very, very attentive to your reactions to his body.

Years of pushing himself to become stronger and battling so often have left his body riddled with muscles and scars, leaving him in peak physical health. And you’ll know this from nearly the first moment you meet him – after all, it’s difficult to not notice the little peek-a-boo at his abs in his uniform, the skin defined and often glistening with sweat.

He’s proud of his chest, and he has to swallow very, very hard the first time he catches you glancing at the exposed skin. It makes his ego inflate, something pleasant licking at his chest because oh, were you just checking him out? It doesn’t matter if you were or not – because to Sanemi you were, and that fact doesn’t leave his mind for weeks.

He’s proud of his abs, and quickly grows to love showing them off to you. He elects to keep a shirt on for most of your early time trapped with him, not wanting to scare you or frighten you by being half-undressed. (He doesn’t want you be to feeling pressured into anything, because while he would never force you into anything even remotely sexual, he doesn’t want there to be any sort of dubious fear or doubt motivating you to finally seek out intimacy with him. Aside from your kidnapping and the stalking, of course. And the way his desperation for you is so thick it leaves you squirming in discomfort.)

But once your sexual relationship starts?

Oh – he’s constantly shirtless, purposefully flexing when you’re nearby so that his abs stand out more defined, pectorals looking firmer, the muscles of his back standing out and practically begging for you to run your finger over them. He loves when you trace the lines of his six-pack, your soft finger dipping between the muscles and sending shivers along his skin because fuck, even just your finger is getting him hot under the collar.

Press kisses against the area, murmuring to him that he’s so strong and that you feel so safe with you ‘Nemi, I know you could protect me from anything. He’ll grumble under his breath but the blush sporting his cheeks and neck give him away, as does the way his hips involuntarily and imperceptibly buck.

Kiss further down to the happy trail of silvery hair leading below the waistband of his pants, the skin ticklish and sensitive enough to leave him sucking in a breath, his fists tightening until his knuckles are white because oh, you’re such a damn tease. When you’re perched on top of him, rolling your hips and letting him cup at your ass to help guide you, rest a hand against his abs and he’ll groan, the muscles clenching underneath your palm.

(Often, when he’s getting too close to his orgasm and he doesn’t want the moment to end quite yet, he’ll pull you forward so that you’re straddling his stomach, looking up at you with dazed lilac eyes, telling you in a hoarse, heady voice to grind on me, use me, ‘m all yours. He wants you to touch his abs, to feel your cunt scooping and rubbing against the planes of muscle. He wants to watch the way your face contorts as you catch your clit on a particularly raised section, maybe even on a scar, his orgasm slowly – very slowly – fading off but his cock still remaining starkly at attention. You’re just so damn pretty when you’re smearing slick against his skin, the sight wanton and lewd but feeling so very right. And later that night, when he’s helping you to the bath and diligently washing your body, he’ll scowl before he washes off his own abs, slightly pissed that he has to wash away the trace of you.)

He just likes you to touch what he’s so proud of, and each and every time you have a remotely positive reaction towards them, Sanemi is in heaven. After all, you’re looking at him, and that’s something that makes both his cock and his heart swell.

DRIVE:

Sanemi is, for a lack of a better term, sexually frustrated. He’s never touched anyone before and never been touched himself, and even touching himself is something he rarely partakes in. Every ounce of irritation, anger, anxiety, and stress is taken out via rigorous training and often yelling. When he feels pent-up he finds that a good, quick spar is often a more effective way to quell it rather than jerking off.

Not to mention, there’s something about masturbating that makes Sanemi feel even more lonely and frustrated than before – it hurts slightly to know that he doesn’t have anyone to be thinking of, that while he saves men and women with partners and lovers, he’s not quite like them. Hell, even a few of his fellow Hashira have partners, someone to touch them and hold them, reassuring them and comforting them when the nightmares of screaming family members and demons become too much. It makes him feel pathetic when he feels sorry for himself for being so painfully alone, and this results in Sanemi avoiding pleasuring himself as often as possible.

But of course, biology has other plans for him – he’s in the sexual prime of his life, and when he can’t quite seem to work off the steam with a thorough work-out or eventful patrol, he’ll begrudgingly resort to his hand. It’s typically impersonal, wrapping his fingers around himself and steadily jerking up and down while he closes his eyes and bites back his groans.

He’s not thinking of anything in particular – maybe imagining it’s the hand of some mystery woman replacing his own, but nothing more than that. It’s fast, too, the pleasure slowly mounting and then crashing through him, gritting his teeth as he finishes and promptly cleaning up, wanting to waste no more time with it. It’s all just so very clinical, almost – even when he’s horny, even when the frustration mounts so high that it’s unbearable.

And while he’s slow to warm up to fantasizing about you in a sexual capacity, Sanemi’s irregular indulgences in lust remain. Of course, it’s much, much better now – now that he has someone to actively close his eyes and think about, imagining your voice and your body and your touch. It’s infinitely better because while you’re still not by his side or touching him with your own hands and lips and cunt, he can still fantasize that one day you will, that one day you’ll want him like he wants you.

And it’s enough – his sex drive is still fairly low, and even once he begins actively having sex with you it remains on the lower side. He’d just truly rather hold you or listen to you speak than pin you down and fuck you.

(Or have you pin him down and ride him until he’s shooting blanks and tearing up with red cheeks and fisting the sheets so hard his knuckles are white.)

But of course, he’s only a man and those urges do hit him – enough so that he has a sort of system in place for signaling that he’s feeling hot, that he’s restless, that he’s mentally undressing you and planning out all the positions and ways he can get you creaming on his cock. His signals aren’t particularly graceful, either – it starts with him sitting closer to you, his body completely tense and every muscle clenched.

(He does this unconsciously, both as a way to control himself from just reaching out and snatching you, and also to subconsciously make himself seem bigger, to look stronger and more masculine, to appeal to your more feminine side. He’s not even aware he does it, and if you point it out he’ll vehemently deny it, calling you deluded and making some comment about how you’re projecting your own lewdness onto him, but he knows you’re right, and he also knows he can’t stop it.)

Then he’ll start looking at you with more focus. He’s always staring at you, those wide eyes never leaving your form, but now he’s doing things – again, unconsciously – without realizing that give it all away; licking his lips, adjusting his pants, swallowing audibly.

It’s all things that you’ll notice, and depending on how far along you are in your captivity with him, your response to these signals dictates whether or not you end up with cum smearing the inside of your thighs – if you grimace and shy away from him, Sanemi will clench his jaw, nod slightly and look away. He’ll immediately get up and leave the room both from embarrassment and hurt at your rejection, and to avoid making you feel any sort of pressure or guilt to give him physical intimacy.

But if you scoot in closer, clench your thighs a bit, give him that sultry fucking look you know he loves, then he’s immediately kissing you, big hand cupping your cheek as the other latches onto your breast, kneading and squeezing as he groans against your lips.

And it’s messy – the kiss is all tongue and spit, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as he presses his body into you as far as he can, desperation and relief flowing through him because the feeling of your skin against his is satisfying parts of him he didn’t even know existed. If you accept his advances, he’ll maneuver you onto your back, nudging between your thighs and immediately licking and sucking away, the loud suction noises making your cheeks feel hot and making it difficult to not squirm around.

(Something that strokes Sanemi’s ego but also frustrates him because he wants you to lie still so he can properly touch you. He can’t go at the pace and angle you like when you’re wiggling around, so he’ll just take a thigh in each hand and keep you steady, using his strength to pin you down so that you can’t move away from his eager, sloppy mouth. Because he wants absolutely everything to be perfect – he wants you to feel so good that you’re begging for him, associating him with pleasure, knowing that he can and will give you exactly what your body needs.)

He’ll make you finish on his tongue and only then will he start working his pants down, cock already so red and wet with precum that it’s a miracle a single brush against your cunt doesn’t make him immediately release. The sex is eager – that’s really the only word for it, because Sanemi’s grabbing every part of your body he can reach, hands unable to stay still because he wants to feel everything, mapping every inch of your body with his fingers so that if somehow you disappear, he’ll remember everything. He’s handsy, and yet his hips are absolutely brutal – he’s fucking into you like a wild animal, hipbones smacking against your ass in a bruising rhythm that leaves your whole body bouncing, every soft, jiggly bit of you drawing his attention and only making him go harder because he wants to see more more more.

But he’s loud, too – all kinds of curses and rough, uneven praises of the way you feel and how you look are falling past his lips, voice sounding nearly pained with the overwhelming amount of stimulation you’re giving him.

He’s truly pussydrunk in every sense of the word – so when he very unnaturally and awkwardly tries to put his hand on your thigh when he’s signaling he’s feeling hot and needy for you, just know that you’ll have a lot of difficulty walking the next morning.

That said, Sanemi will absolutely never force you into anything sexual without your explicit (and frequent) verbal consent.

Despite his rough-around-the-edges appearance, he’s staunch on his moral beliefs that sex is something intimate that should be reserved for partners who truly care about each other. He believes that it should be something enjoyed, something meaningful, something wanted – and so, to have you actively fighting him or not engaging in what he’s doing to you would leave his skin crawling, disgust and a new, different kind of shame seeping through him.

(Different if only because up until that point, everything he’s done he’s been able to spin as somehow being for your safety – stalking you to make sure no one bothers you, learning all your habits and favorite foods, clothes, and hobbies letting him notice any deviations signifying something is wrong. Hell, even kidnapping you has some benefits for your safety – no demon is stupid enough to enter the Wind Estate, and he’ll be damned before he lets any strangers in with the possibility of coming into contact with you.)

But intimacy is different – he’s not good at being vulnerable, and to be naked with you, to hold you in his arms and feel your hands caress the parts of his body that are deeply scarred and unused to touch is a new level of unguarded that makes him anxious. He’s so used to keeping up a pseudo-façade of being reckless and wild and in these moments all he wants is to let you see him raw, the real Sanemi Shinazugawa that wants you so badly that it physically hurts.

And so, if you don’t want him he’ll respect that – it hurts, of course, and he’ll have trouble facing you for the next few days, but he's man enough to know that your consent is key. But it’s also this crippling fear of rejection and putting himself in a position of possible weakness with you that bars him from trying to progress your sexual relationship for a long, long time.

He’s desiring you in risqué and lewd ways long before he’s stolen you away, but it’s difficult to act on those, to put himself out there and risk your harsh, painful rejection of him.

(And he’s convinced you will reject him, if only because despite his persona, Sanemi harbors insecurities about his ability to be loved. He thinks there’s something deeply wrong with him, something that makes others fearful of him and something that will deter anyone from getting too close. Besides Genya, of course, but the matter is complicated.)

And so, he holds himself back from making any sort of move in your sexual relationship – he wants to either have you bring it up, or to keep everything between you as strictly protector-protectee as possible, even if he craves to touch you and lay with you.

But, like most things in your relationship, Sanemi’s restraint snaps one day. To be fair, it’s not entirely Sanemi’s fault – months of repressing his sex drive and ignoring the tantalizing way you look in the kimonos he hand-picked for you leaves him on the brink of exploding, so pent-up and sexually frustrated that it nearly drives him mad.

The final straw is a particularly brutal, gut-wrenching mission – he’d been tasked to stop a demon in a few towns over, a simple mission that he really, really should’ve been able to fix much quicker. But the demon was smart and seemed to sense his approach, and the carnage was far, far greater than Sanemi was expecting. Small children stained red with parents dismembered a few feet away, visible bite chunks leaving the smell of rot and death heavy in the air. It left his stomach churning, but what truly sent him off the end was hearing a small sob after he’d sliced the demon’s neck, the little boy crying next to what Sanemi could only assume was his dead mother.

That in itself wasn’t out of the ordinary, but the boy’s striking, uncanny resemblance to his own brother Koto makes him stop in his tracks, lips falling open like a gaping fish. He’s frozen, simply staring like some fool, but then everything happens much, much too fast.

The demon’s suddenly swooping in, the boy’s head severed in the blink of an eye, a deranged cackle falling from the creature as a resounding crunchnoise fills the air. Sanemi’s thrown into a state of rage, immediately killing the demon and stabbing at it repeatedly. He’s cutting up each and every part of the monster (careful to avoid touching the boy’s head, though), yelling and cursing at it for what feels like hours.

By the time he’s done there’s tears pricking his eyes, and the walk back to his Estate is blurry and heavy with his own grief. He hasn’t cried in years, but something about the little boy’s face and the weight pressing on his back leave him with wet cheeks, the shoji door quietly sliding open to your room before he can catch himself.

You’re still awake, and he doesn’t even have the right mental state to be angry at you for cutting your sleep. He’s quiet, simply staring at you from the doorway as you wearily approach him, concerned and slightly scared because there’s blood smeared across his uniform and his eyes are bloodshot.

Sanemi? Your voice is weak, and you gently, hesitantly press a hand against his trembling fingers grasping onto the scabbard of his sword.

He swallows harshly, eyes locked onto yours. He whispers your name, voice low and hoarse, but before you can say anything he’s wrapping his arms around you, clutching onto your so tightly that your breathing is restricted. It leaves you yelping, unsure how to respond to the uncharacteristic affection, but the shallow shaking of his shoulders makes you soothingly run a hand through his hair.

Sanemi… You trail off again, but he only hugs you tighter in response. It’s some ten minutes before he finally sniffles, mumbling something against your clothed shoulder that you can’t quite hear.

When you don’t respond, he grips you tighter, pulling his face back just a hair to say again please, I need you to touch me.

It makes you stiffen in his grasp, and that makes him panic. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, I just – he stops, swallowing again and letting his weight sag against you even more. I just can’t be alone right now.

And maybe it’s the vulnerability in his tone, the strange, gentle side of him you so rarely see, or maybe it’s your own longing for human contact and touch that drives you to press a kiss against the crown of his head.

He gasps sharply, his grip loosening ever so slightly. You take the opportunity to gently pull back, grabbing his wrist and leading him over to your bed in the center of the room. He’s staring at you with wide, puffy eyes, shellshocked and unable to say anything as you grasp at the edge of his uniform.

Your voice is still soft as you tell him take this off, no blood on my bed, and he’s only staring for a single, long moment before the fabric is flying over his head, his pants quickly falling suite and leaving him bare aside from a pair of thin undergarments sitting dangerously low on the sharp v-line of his navel. He’s still looking at you, eyes wild and wide, his chest rising and falling so quickly that it almost worries you.

You’re much slower when you peel away your own sleeping clothes, leaving your body in only a thin, light-weight slip that makes Sanemi lick his lips. You’re so fucking pretty – it’s making something in his chest ache, his palms flexing by his sides, brain warring between the extreme emotional distress and arousal at seeing your partially exposed body and your desire for him.

You step forward, palm pressing against his cheek, and slowly pull him to you. Letting your lips ghost against his for a moment, you press a soft, barely-there kiss against the corner of his mouth. Murmuring his name, you feel the way his whole body shivers.

Finally, finally, you press your lips against his, moving slow and trying to let him relax into it. He’s still so tense – he wants this badly, but now that it’s actually happening he’s freezing up a bit. He’s dreamed and fantasized about this moment for months, lying awake and feeling pathetic for imagining that you could want him like this.

But the moment passes and he’s suddenly kissing you back, his movements sloppy and uncooridinated, evidence that he’s never done this before. But you take it in stride and pull back, the sound making his nostrils flare. He moves forward, chasing your lips, but you stop him with a lay down with me, please Sanemi.

And it’s as if he’s some well-trained pet – he’s immediately laying down, body tense and taut over your blankets, and he watches with baited breath as you straddle him, your thighs warm against his skin and oh god oh god –

He can feel it – can feel you.

You’re incredibly warm, the heat permeating through his underclothes as you press against his cock, the sensation forcing something that sounds much too similar to a moan to slip from his lips. It feels surreal – and when you start slowly moving your hips, grinding on him in teasingly slow, agonizingly pleasurable little circles, Sanemi’s gripping at your thighs, his self-restraint nearly buckling.

The evening passes full of slow, tender touches, exploring fingers and tongues covering every inch of your skin and his. The sex is soft, thrusts gentle and deep, rolling and pressing against every spot that makes your toes curl. He’s kissing you the whole time, grasping onto your skin like you’re his life line, a near-growl coming from somewhere deep in his throat when you take even a hand away from holding him. He wants your fingers tunneling through his hair, your leg wrapped around his waist, your nipples brushing against his own.

It's heaven, he thinks, and though he tries to hide his face as he ruts into you, the tears return to his eyes and before he knows it he’s chanting a slurred, choked mantra of your name, timing with his thrusts and begging you in a near-incomprehensible plea of never leave me, you can’t leave me, I won’t let you leave me.

It’s only after his hips stutter, a gasp of your name and his hot breath going ragged in your ear that he finally goes limp. He’s still inside you, the last throbs and bits of his orgasm rocking through him, but he’s carefully maneuvering your bodies so that he’s laying behind you. You’re caged in his arms – a heavy, muscular limb wrapped around your waist, body molded to yours and pulling you flush against him. He falls asleep like that – flaccidly inside you, his breath in your ear, his grip on you remaining deadly tight even as dreams overtake him. And eventually, you fall asleep too – exhausted, confused, and embracing this small, intimate moment even if you’ll regret it.

He’s gone the next morning, the covers wrapped up to your chin, the blankets and sheets on his side perfectly pristine.

He doesn’t mention that night for the foreseeable future, embarrassed and angry at himself for giving into temptation and allowing himself to be so weak in front of you. He’s worried that you might regret it, that you’ll find him disgusting for being so wanton and blatant in his begging for you, and he bars himself from engaging with you sexually again. (Out of embarrassment, out of shame, out of fear because god, he’s never been as desperate and depraved as he was the moment he slipped inside of you, and how would he react the second time? The third? The tenth?)

He won’t acknowledge that it happened, but you’ll notice the glances he starts throwing your way, the way his gaze lingers on your body, how he stiffens up the moment you get even remotely close to him. It’s a stark contrast to the man who’d been groaning out your name like salvation the night before, but just know that if you were to approach him, Sanemi will be putty in your hands.

If you were to kiss him or touch him or tell him how badly you need him, he’ll fold. He’ll get onto his knees, mouthing at your cunt and struggling to mutter out how he’d thought you’d never ask, fuck.

MAIN THREE KINKS:

Cumplay

While Sanemi will bend to your whims almost always in bed, there are a few very, very specific things that he won’t compromise on.

That is, he absolutely must finish either inside you, down your throat, or on your body. It’s a possessiveness thing for him – he’s in ecstasy and still slightly shocked that you’re touching him (and letting him touch you), but it’s still not quite enough. He’s licking and sucking at your neck, leaving marks and hickies and the imprint of his fingertips lightly against your skin, trying to mark you up as his his his. He wants to leave a physical imprint of his possession over you, because while it feels dehumanizing to think of you as his, he can’t help the way it makes something in his chest twist in just the right way, nor can he help the way his cock stands up at attention, growing hard just at the mere idea of physically making you his.

And Sanemi quickly finds the quickest, easiest way to claim you as his is to leave you absolutely dripping with his cum. He’s territorial, completely believing that you’re his woman and he is your man. It’s this possessiveness mixed with his obsession over being your protector that drive his compulsive need to fill you with every last drop he can give you – it feels better this way, more natural. It’s like he’s giving you what you desire – he’s giving you everything he can, the most intimate, sacred part of him, something he made for you and you alone.

And so, every time he’s got hic cock out and your kissing, sucking, touching, or fucking it, Sanemi’s throwing his head back and groaning, all sorts of filthy, dirty promises about how he’s going to finish for you falling past his lips.

He’ll have you on your knees, his thighs tense and his abs clenching, his hand in your hair and fighting very, very hard to not pull you down until his cock’s in the back of your throat, choking and gagging you. (He wants to – god does he want to, but he doesn’t want to hurt you, so he’ll stop himself. A mind-numbing orgasm with your hot little tongue pressed against his underside isn’t worth you being angry or hurt.) He's groaning your name and telling you that that you’re gonna – fuck, gonna take it all, yeah? Gonna swallow every last fucking drop, o-oh fucky baby, god wanna see you swallow ngh –

Your hand is wrapped around his girth, wrist flicking up and down so quickly that it makes him pant, your free hand delicately groping and squeezing at his balls. He’s bucking up against your tugs, a red flush on the bridge of his nose as he grunts, rushing forward to kiss you with way too much tongue, pulling back only when he starts shuddering, breath ragged as he tells you that he wants to finish on your chest, voice getting slurred and strained as he tells you he’s gonna come on your tits, god so fucking pretty fuck fuck fuck –

(He’ll stare with this sort of boyish look in his eye and something feral, predatory at his handiwork once he does, white smeared across your skin and leaving a film that he rubs at with his thumb, pinching your nipple and licking his lips when you squirm.)

He’s got you pressed into a tight, suffocating mating press, his forehead pressed against yours and his hands holding your knees up, the angle and feeling of you making teeter on the edge. ‘M gonna, ‘m gonna come soon, where do you want it? He’ll ask, eyes fluttering shut as you clench down on him, only to open wide when you whine out to finish inside ‘Nemi, please please please want your cum!

And it’s lewd and dirty and it gets him fucking into you deeper, hips snapping into yours so hard that you’re physically moving up the length of the bed, his voice a growl as he grins, groaning yeah? Want me to come in this tight – fuck, tight little pussy? So damn greedy, fuuuuck, you better take it, don’t let any drip out or I’ll have to fill you again. He’ll press kisses against your lips, jaw, and neck, his voice growing louder as he growl again between each kiss.

And when he’s right on the edge, his thrusts growing uneven and choppy, his eyes are meeting yours again as he gasps take it take it take it, cum spurting from his tip and leaving you feeling warm and so very, very full. He produces a lot with each orgasm, seeming to never stop as it oozes from his hyper-sensitive tip, and Sanemi uses it to his advantage.

He’s obsessed with looking at the product of his orgasm – he’ll kneel between your legs so that your cunt’s eyelevel and simply stare as his cum slowly leaks out, down the grooves of your folds and over your pert hole, dripping onto the floor below you and making him scoff. He’ll scoop it up with a single finger, pushing it back inside of you and kissing you to muffle the sound of your surprise, slightly embarrassed because he absolutely can’t let even the smallest amount not end up inside you.

When you’ve convinced him to be a tad bit rougher as you bob your head between his legs, Sanemi will grant your wish and finish on your face, groaning and biting his lip at the way you look, his cum dribbling down from your lips to your chin, dripping down to land on your nipples, thighs, other parts of your body.

(And as disrespectful as it felt to finish there, Sanemi secretly loves it – he won’t request it because he doesn’t think you’d enjoy it, but he’s nursing a fantasy that you’ll let him smear his cum all over your lips and cheeks, and then simply not clean it for the rest of the day. He wants the physical evidence of his intimacy with you to be constantly visible, so that every glance reminders him that you wanted him, that you were practically begging him for his cock like some common whore. You aren’t, or course, but the possessive, animalistic part of him that desires rough, carnal sex with you is satisfied by the idea, something primal about the idea of leaving a mark of him him him against your pretty face. He’ll never bring it up, simply stewing on it in silence, but if you were to mention the idea, or tell him that you want to keep his cum really anywhere against your skin, you’ll witness something that absolutely mortifies him – a dry orgasm paired with a sad, shocked little whimper, the embarrassment and unexpected pleasure making him too ashamed to even look at you for a few hours afterwards.)

He just really likes the concept of leaving you stuffed full of him. (And there’s a small part of him that hopes desperately with every load he gives you that it’ll finally take. He’s always fantasized about having a family with you, but with each time he stuffs you full, he can only get closer and closer to the dream, the mere idea of you pregnant enough to get him hot under the collar and desperate to get his hands on you.)

And to his credit, this kink goes both ways – he’ll gladly let you cover every inch of his skin in your spit and slick, rubbing yourself against his body and licking at him until you’ve had your fill.

(And fuck, if you squirt? He’s wearing it like a badge of honor, pride and arousal coursing through him in such potent amounts that he’s nearly dizzy, nearly unable to function because god he needs to fuck you and make you do that over and over again until you can’t anymore.)

He’s just possessive, and while you might initially be rather disgusted simply by his eagerness and fixation on it, eventually you might even find it hot, too. Because really, he may be deranged, a stalker, horribly and uncomfortably dependent on you for his emotional stability and health, but isn’t there something so very sexy about a grown man moaning in your ear and begging you to please let him finish inside you?

Voyeurism

Perhaps it’s a remnant of having stalked you for so long, but there’s something that gets Sanemi so fucking hard about watching you pleasure yourself.

There’s layers to it – of course he loves the physical sight of you with your fingers stuffed into your cunt, tits spilling out of your lounging shirt, thighs quivering and your lips parting into that pretty ‘o’ shape that Sanemi wants to fill with his fingers. He loves the way you look all fucked out, pretty and writhing and gasping, letting all your natural sounds out because there’s not a soul around to hear you and you can be truly free. So yes, from a purely carnal, sexual standpoint, Sanemi very much enjoys the sight of you touching yourself.

But even beyond that, there’s something morbidly fascinating and addicting about it – there’s something indescribably intimate about watching you at your most vulnerable, those lilac eyes widening and staying transfixed on every aspect of you that he can. He’s watching like a hawk as you squeeze at your breast, watching to see if you pinch at your nipple or roll it, if you squeeze hard and hold it there or opt for weaker but more frequent squeezes.

He’s carefully watching your fingers, analyzing the patterns and shapes you’re drawing against your clit, how fast you’re going and whether you vary anything or keep it all consistent.

(He’ll even press his fingers against the expanse of his forearm as he watches, mimicking your motions against his own skin in an effort to practice, to learn by muscle memory exactly how you like to be touched so that once he gets you naked and spread out for him, he can be exactly what you want and give you exactly what you need. He’ll do this with the way you finger yourself, too, guessing at the particular angles you’re reaching for based on the way your wrist flexes, how your knuckles move. He’ll go home and practice this, too, using his pillow as a poor stand-in for your body and practicing thrusting in the pattern you seem to like, angling his hips to brush against the spot that always gets you gasping, buffing up his stamina because he’ll be damned if the first time he gets you naked underneath him is thwarted by his own physical inabilities.)

It helps him feel connected to you like this – easier to pretend that he’s the one making you moan and curl your toes rather than your own hand or the toy you’d purchased for yourself.

(A toy that he absolutely fucking hates, always glaring at it and scoffing because he’s sure that he could fuck you so much better – he’d get the angle right, he’d get the depth perfect, and he’d do all the damn work – you just need to lay there and look pretty, grasp onto him and moan his name and he’ll take care of the rest. He'll always take care of you, after all, and he wants the sex to be absolutely perfect, for you to crave him even a fraction as much as he craves you.)

And even once he’s forced to steal you away, these habits of peeping in on you while you’re lost in your own little world don’t magically disappear. It’s more difficult now, sure, because standing and peering through your window was always easier, always less risky, but Sanemi becomes too desperate and in withdrawal to stop himself.

His lucidity leaves him feeling guilty every time, but he’ll crack the door into your room open ever so slightly, having returned home from a mission or an errand earlier than he’d told you. He’ll peek in, doing his best to move slowly and silently to avoid grabbing your attention, and he’s immediately got his hand in his pants, gripping himself so tightly and harshly that it nearly brings tears to his eyes.

His orgasms are always stronger when he’s got you in his sight, and as he times his strokes with your thrusts inside yourself, he’s clenching his abs and shaking, hips coming up to thrust and rut against his fist. He’s staying deathly quiet, intent on hearing the sound of your moans and the wet squelching of your cunt sucking your fingers in again and again. And when he comes, he’s praying that you’ll finish at the same time, forcing himself to stop and endlessly edging himself just so that you can come together, to have something romantic and sweet like a simultaneous release.

(Of course, the aftermath of cum staining the front of his trousers and his upper thighs is less sweet, but Sanemi can’t quite care – even as it dries and grows cold, feeling slimy and sticky against his skin. He’s too transfixed watching the way your chest slowly stops heaving, how you relax and bask in the afterglow of your orgasm, how you idly play with your nipples and smile up at the ceiling, and if he tries harder enough - pretends hard enough, really - he can even hear you murmur his name.)

The intention is relatively sweet, no matter how deranged and creepy he may feel for actively spying on you as you undress, but he’s just a man, and how can a man be expected to deny himself the viewing pleasure of the woman he’s so madly, pathetically obsessed with?

But unfortunately for Sanemi, you’re not as oblivious as he hopes – you’ll notice the way he lingers at your door, his occasional soft, shuddering gasps not going unheard even over the sound of your own moans. You’ll see his shadow against the door panels, even seeing the shadow of his cock when he pulls it out of his pants, the mere sight making your orgasm hurtle closer and closer, even despite your shame at finding your kidnapper’s cock arousing.

You’re not blind, and it’s almost therapeutic to watch how easily he falls apart for you, the shadow of his back hunching over slightly as you both near your ends, the wet squelching sounds of his fist going up and down just barely audible if you strain yourself hard enough. It’s endearing, in a fucked-up sort of way, but if you were to ever mention something about it, Sanemi will immediately bristle, embarrassment crawling up his spine and his cheeks glowing a soft, subtle pink, entirely caught off guard and unsure of what to say.

(He’s mortified that you know, that he’d been caught, if only because now he’s absolutely convinced you must think of him as a pervert, as a monster, and it kills him to know that it’s true. And yet, there’s some small, masochistic part of him that’s almost glad, finding the whole situation so, so very hot because now he can’t help but wonder if you’d started touching yourself on purpose, perhaps wanting to draw him out, perhaps wanting to listen to him losing his fucking mind over your naked body. You naughty, naughty thing.)

And so, once your consensual sexual relationship begins, Sanemi is using every piece of knowledge he’d gathered from watching you to his advantage – he’s not wasting any time putting all that practice into use, curling his fingers and rubbing and kneading just how you like it, watching with wide, almost nervous eyes to see how you react, hoping that he’s doing good and making you enjoy it, enjoy him.

He wants you to tell him how it feels, to hear you say that it’s good, that you love it when you touch me ‘Nemi, and that alone gets him doubling in his efforts, frantic to get you to orgasm for him and only him, filled with a sort of crazed need to be the one to finally, finally bring you your high.

And as time passes, you’ll notice that Sanemi tends to bring this kink into the bedroom, too, even when you’re fully aware of his presence – he’ll tell you to touch yourself, settling across the bed, and slowly fisting at his cock, licking his lips and watching with rapt attention as you spread your legs, playing with yourself and humming his name.

But it’s not quite the same as when you were alone, though, and Sanemi will tell you to act like I’m not here, don’t make shit up or fake your moans. He wants the authenticity, the rawness, the realness of you fully indulging in yourself.

It’s in these moments that you’ll see the more submissive side of Sanemi – the small part of him that absolutely loves when you ignore his existence, pretending he’s not fisting his cock like a madman simply to the sight, smell, and sound of you. He likes the way that you’re not paying him any mind, completely focused on yourself, Sanemi merely a bystander and watching you. It doesn’t happen often, but it’s in these moments that his obsession only further solidifies, his feelings for you growing stronger and latching into him deeper, like claws that make him shiver in pain-tinged pleasure. Because really, he can only consider himself lucky and cruelly blessed for getting to see you like this, for being allowed so close to you as you gush on your fingers and pinch at your nipples. It’s an honor, even if that explanation makes you shift uncomfortably and try to ignore the reverent look in his eye.

You’re just so damn pretty, can he really be blamed for wanting to stare and stare and stare?

Marking

While hyper fixated on your health and safety in every aspect of his obsession, one area where he’s ever so slightly lenient is in bed. He’ll outright refuse to do anything that draws blood or involves hitting you, but there’s something rather tempting about the idea of leaving a trace of himself after he spends hours upon hours getting you to come on his fingers and cock.

He likes the reminder that he’d been able to pleasure you, the feeling enough to get you moaning and clawing at his back and whining his name. And so, Sanemi develops a liking for leaving all sorts of hickeys and love bites all over your body.

He’s passionate when he fucks you, leaving kisses on every inch of skin he can reach and grasping onto you tightly enough that sometimes bruises appear.

(And he feels guilty for it, in the beginning, always scowling when he sees them the next day. But alongside the guilt there’s something good – something that makes him smug, pride settling in his gut because those are his fingermarks on your body, showing that he attends to your more intimate needs. Reminding him that you let him attend to those needs – that you let him kiss and hold you, that you let him squeeze and grope at your skin, that you let him spread your legs and push himself inside until he’s filling every possible inch of you, connected with you in the most raw, natural way. It’s romantic, almost, and it makes Sanemi squirm slightly just thinking about it because oh fuck, now he’s hard again and really you should take some accountability for showing off your collarbone and the barrage of hickeys like that…)

He’s not picky about where or how he does it, either – what you’ll mostly be covered in are hickeys, the dark spots dancing in patterns all along your neck, shoulders, collarbone, inner thighs, and even your stomach and ass. His favorite is your neck, though. He likes the way you get all breathless when he kisses and sucks and licks at the skin, the sensations making your breath go light and airy against his ear, the harsh puffs of air blowing against the tufts of white hair on his head.

And he’ll leave all over your neck – at the juncture at your jaw, sucking a few right below your ear.

(He’ll take a few moments to lightly nibble and bite at your earlobe, liking the way you whine his name and tell him to stop being weird, but it’s endearing, the way you clearly like it and are just saying that to keep up images. Silly girl.)

He’ll flutter kisses along the column of your neck, tracing your windpipe and smiling against your skin when you swallow heavily. He’ll suck dark hickeys into the flesh of your shoulders, the soft slope the perfect canvas for him to leave littered with his marks. Sometimes he’ll randomly pick spots, the final result looking a little unorganized but still enough to make his heart swell and his breathing to get heavier. Other times he’ll very strategically place them – spelling out an ‘s’ character or a heart or something sappy that leaves him feeling a bit embarrassed but he just can’t help it.

Your neck is his favorite because of the intimacy and the difficulty of hiding the particularly high ones, but your inner thighs are a very close second. When he settles onto his stomach and spreads your legs, mouth hovering over your cunt and his warm breath making you twitch, he’ll take his time kissing up the space from your knee to your pelvis, taking the skin between his teeth and lightly nibbling, pressing dark sucks against the area and loving the way you squirm underneath his rather harsh grip on your thighs.

He’s a tease once he grows confident in the fact that you crave intimacy with him, loving the way you get desperate and beg him to give you what he knows you need. (He’d watched you with enough consistency and thoroughness for all those months before stealing you away and now he knows your tells – the way your face looks, how you sound, how your body jerks and shakes, hell, even the way you smell when you get close.)

He’ll push you right up to the edge, fingers working magic in a come hither motion against that spongey spot inside of you that makes your whole body tense in pleasure, all while his thumb is rubbing circles at your clit that leave you bucking your hips and chanting out his name. He’ll get you right there, then pull back, going back to your inner thigh and working on a fresh, new hickey, the loss of stimulation making you pout and whine for him to touch you again.

He’ll only roll his eyes, pulling back with a loud thwap noise as the suction breaks, your slick still visible on his lips, chin, and cheeks. So demanding, he’ll start, sending a sharp brush of his fingers over your clit that gets you gasping.

He’ll hold out for a while longer, milking out the way you plead with him, before he’ll eventually give in and get back to your neglected cunt, bringing you to your high and rutting at the bed below him with the way you writhe and cry out. And for the next few days, every time he sees that particular hickey he’s suddenly way too red, sweaty and panting and growing more desperate by the second to give you more more more, wanting your whole body to be evidence of his presence in both your life and your bed.

And he’ll proudly wear any marks you make on his body, too – leave hickeys and love bites against his skin and he’ll only shiver and let his eyes roll to the back of his head. He’ll encourage you to run your nails down the expanse of his back when he’s got you in missionary or a press, growling your name as his hips fuck into you harder, faster, with more intent and purpose.

(And later, when he’s dressing himself and happens to see himself in a mirror, he can only gulp, thumb tracing along the scratch marks and blemishes left behind from you. It makes him giddy, often absentmindedly running a finger over them while he travels to missions, during pointless conversation, during times when he’s away on a mission and starting to think himself into a panic about how you’re doing, if you’re safe, if you’ve escaped him somehow. It calms him and only kindles his feelings for you, the knowledge of you willingly leaving your mark on him enough to get him licking his lips and palming himself over his pants, trying to restrain himself so that he can get you to leave newer, fresher marks.)

He just likes the idea, and while he’d never bite you hard enough to cause genuine pain or give you a hickey so deep that it hurt, he will be marking you from head to toe so that everyone you come into contact with (no one besides him, really, but that’s besides the point) cannot deny that you are Sanemi Shinazugawa’s woman.

OTHER NOTABLE KINKS INCLUDE:

Slapping

But in a very, very specific way – Sanemi treasures you, idolizing and worshipping you to the point of self-loathing, and consequently he’s not terribly mean in bed. Once a steady sexual relationship is established between the two of you, he’ll get more vocal and adventurous, adapting to what you like.

(And he’s willing to do just about anything you want of him sexually – he’ll get on his knees and kiss up your thighs, lapping and sucking at your cunt until you have to physically push him off of you, slick smeared across his lips, cheeks, and chin while he stares up at you, equal parts hazed and irritated that you’d pulled him away. He’ll let you climb on top of him, pinning his wrists above his head and letting you play with his cock until he’s near tears, the edging and phantom touches making him grit and groan, desperation eating away at him because your touch feels so good but oh – it’s the attention you’re giving to him that ultimately makes him paint your fist white.)

And though he’s not naturally inclined to be degrading towards you during sex, there’s one stark exception – that is, there’s something that makes the possessiveness and territorial feelings Sanemi harbors for you flare up when he smacks you with his cock. Nothing too hard, of course – the intention isn’t to hurt you or bruise you, but rather it’s like staking his claim on you.

It’s like showing you that you belong to him – he’ll grip himself at the base, biting his lip and flexing his arm as he shifts his weight, hovering over you and smacking his fat, soaked tip against your pretty, puffy clit, stifling a groan at the way you jerk at the contact.

He’s smacking himself against your folds, the wet and tacky noise making his fingers tighten against the pillow under your head, his breath getting heavier because fuck, you look so damn pretty underneath him like this, reactive to his cock even when it’s not inside of you.

He’s tracing his tip against your lips when you’re on your knees for him, whispered chants of your name falling from his lips as he lightly taps his tip against your cheeks, your lips, your outstretched tongue.

(And, after he smacks himself against your tongue, if you smile and giggle ever so slightly? Well, don’t be surprised when he stiffens up, his orgasm crashing through him after a mere minute of your hot, wet mouth around him. Don’t be surprised when he starts cursing and murmuring things under his breath right on the brink of his high, your name mixing with gravely I love you’s as he gives you rope after rope after rope of his cum, hot and potent and made with only you in mind.)

He just likes the physical action of it, the way that even something so small gives him the slightest bit of acknowledgement that you’re his, that you’re here and touching him and looking at him just as he’s been fantasizing of for so long. It’s hot, he thinks, and while he’d be extremely reluctant to actually hit you during sex, he’s rubbing and smacking his cock against every inch of your body that he can – your face, your ass, your tits (he especially loves to rub his cum-soaked tip against your nipples, watching as they get hard and get glossy in the candlelight), your thighs, hell, even your arms.

He wants to claim every part of you, and so between covering you in his cum and the imprint of his cock, you’ll be fully and utterly his.

Spitting

Again, it’s a possessive thing – tying into his desire to mark you as his and only his, Sanemi grows a penchant for spitting. It’s something he harshly avoids when you first begin your intimate relationship, finding the act too disrespectful and frankly gross to partake in. He’s worried you’ll find it derogatory and that you’ll see him as some misogynistic freak who views you as his property.

(Which is, in some ways, ever so slightly true – he does see you as his, but it’s reciprocal. You’re his just as much as he’s yours, and if you want to think about in such a crude, black-and-white way, then yes – he sees you as his property. But he’s your property, too, if it makes you feel any better.)

And frankly, he won’t bother indulging in the kink unless you initially bring it up – he’s too tied down to this philosophy and he doesn’t want to risk you getting disgusted or turned off when he’s touching you.

But if you bring it up and use a lot of ‘please’ and compliments, Sanemi will cave.

It’s awkward the first few times, hovering over you and perched on his elbows, nose scrunching slightly because he’s not sure how to do this in a way he thinks will be sexy for you. He wants to live up to your fantasy, so he presses his tongue against the roof of his mouth, collecting the saliva, before puckering his lips, letting the glob fall with a rather obnoxious noise.

Your mouth’s already open for him, tongue lightly sticking out and your eyes half-lidded with lust, and the mere sight alone makes Sanemi gulp, scared he might accidentally drool into your mouth.

(Though, perhaps you’d like that – you’re a freak, he thinks, but it still makes his cheeks feel hot, his cock jumping against your thigh, his Adam’s apple harshly bobbing.)

It’s in the moment when he watches his spit land on your tongue, pretty lips closing and the swallowing motion you make exaggerated and loud. He’ll pause, staring down at your lips in a daze, before suddenly telling you to do that again, the sight so strangely erotic that he needs to do it again and again and again.

It strokes something in his ego – some sort of feeling of dominance and claim on you, marking his territory by making sure you’ve got a little piece of him in you. Soon he’s cupping your jaw every time your clothes get stripped off, forcing your lips to open and immediately spitting onto your tongue, watching with hazy eyes and a small smirk as you obediently swallow, the sight never failing to get him even more eager to spread your legs and sink inside of you.

It gets to the point where it even becomes a non-sexual thing sometimes – it feels too good to be showing such an obvious sign of claim on you that he’ll slowly kiss you in the mornings, your soft lips and little sighs making him light-headed. He’ll pull back, his morning voice hoarse and gravely as he tells you to open up, immediately spitting into your open mouth and following it up with a few kisses against your jaw, a murmur of good morning.

He likes to start the day with it because it puts him into a good mood – a light, peaceful one, quelling the jealous, anxious worry that you’ll leave him, that you’ll be snatched up by another man, that you hate him.

And his fixation for spitting doesn’t just end at your mouth – he’ll spit onto your cunt when he’s kneeling between your legs, two thick fingers rubbing the fluid against your pretty folds, taking extra care to let it lubricate his fingertips before he presses quick, steady little circles against your clit.

He’ll spit into his own hand, coating his fingers and slowly pressing them into you, grunting at the way you gasp out and tighten impossibly around them. It’s lubrication, he thinks, and the idea of his saliva being in your pussy makes him shiver, the thought so dirty and taboo and so very good.

And he’d be happy if you wanted to return the favor – he’ll look at you expectantly, irritation evident in his gaze, before he sits down and forces you to stand over him, his own mouth open and awaiting. He likes it for all the same reasons, just reversed – he likes the idea of you wanting to stake your claim on him. He wants to feel wanted and cherished by you, and if you were to spit into his mouth it’d be direct evidence that you want him, at least in a sexual capacity.

It’s thrilling, frankly, and it leaves Sanemi eagerly swallowing, immediately attacking you with passionate, needy kisses and wandering hands that swiftly find purchase in groping at your ass.

He just thinks it’s romantic, and he’ll do everything in his power to win points with you. Anything to get you liking him more, craving him more.

BIGGEST FANTASY:

Despite holding status as both a Hashira and your captor, Sanemi is very, very shy about asking you for any sort of deviation in the bedroom. It’s a combination of things that hold him back – fear of rejection, mainly, but also embarrassment because he’s worried that you’ll think he’s strange for wanting to try certain things.

Namely, Sanemi desperately, desperately wants you to sit on his face.

He has no sexual experience and hadn’t even been aware this was an option until he’d accidentally overheard a conversation between Uzui and a (very uncomfortable) Giyuu, and while he’s ashamed to admit it he’d stuck around, eavesdropping just around the corner as Giyuu asked the older man what exactly that meant (only to very quickly regret it, his cheeks flushing a light pink and not even bothering to make up an excuse as he hurried away).

It’s where the woman sits down on the man’s face, giving him better access to pleasure her with his mouth! It’s quite flashy, and a good view, too.

Sanemi had been flustered at his words, too, but had spent the whole day struggling to get the thought out of his head. Fantasies about eating you out and making you fall apart with just his tongue and fingers had long been circling through his head, keeping him up at night and forcing him to wrap calloused fingers around his cock, holding the scrap of fabric from your kimono he’d managed to snag between his teeth, groaning and growling at the mere thought of what you taste like.

But this?

This is risqué, vulgar, perhaps even crude – and something he grows more and more antsy to try with each passing day, unable to stop his gaze from lingering on your thighs, biting his lip and imagining the way they’d feel around his head.

He generally likes sexual positions and scenarios where you’re getting most of the pleasure, genuinely getting off on the idea of being useful to you in the bedroom. And he finds the idea of being so surrounded by you – his sight, his hearing, his taste, his smell – enticing, loving the idea that he gets to spoil you by working at you for hours and letting you ride his face, all the while getting to indulge himself in all things you.

And he truly wants you to use him – he wants you to grind your hips against the expanse of his tongue, to let your clit press against his nose and hump at it. He wants his entire lips, chin, and cheeks to be smeared with your release, to have it seep into his skin and soak in so that he has a piece of you with him always, a reminder that you let him touch you, pleasure you, that you want him.

“Are you sure about this, ‘Nemi?” You ask, biting your lip and watching as he scowls. He’s laying down in front of you, clothes thrown off to some other part of the room and his cock already half-hard, flushed a deep pink color.

He’s cocking his brow at you, embarrassment creeping up his spine. He knew you’d find this weird – stupid Tengen, giving out stupid advice.

“Yes, hurry up!” He snaps, swallowing and looking away for a moment to collect himself. Excitement and anxiety eat away at his stomach. He’s surprised you’d agreed to this, given the way he’d very haphazardly and defensively presented the idea. He’s pleased, of course, but now there’s that familiar self-imposed pressure to make sure that he preforms perfectly, that you enjoy every minute of it, that you’ll be satisfied and happy with his performance.

When you still don’t move, his scowl morphs into a frown. He opens his mouth to speak, to reluctantly tell you that you don’t have to unless you want to, but your small nod and footsteps towards him snap his jaw back up.

He’s practically brimming with anticipation, fists clenched at his sides.

You step over him, slowly kneeling down and standing on your knees. You’re hesitating, shuffling forward but scared to lower yourself those last few inches, and Sanemi grumbles underneath you.

“I don’t fucking bite,” he starts, hands coming up to grip at the plush of your thighs. He guides you up further, moving you forward and forward until your cunt’s directly above him, a shaky exhale brushing against the sensitive skin of your folds and making you shiver.

“Now just sit down.” He tells you, squeezing his fingers as if imploring you to just do as he says. You lower down but still leave most of your weight on your own legs.

He inhales deeply, the sound filling the room and making you blanche, embarrassment eating away at you. Sanemi groans at the scent of you, the familiar musk making his cock throb even harder against the confines of his pants.

He’s slow when he starts – kitten licks against your clit and large, flat licks along your folds. His eyes are fixed on you’re the whole time, staring and transfixed, trying to note every minute, small change in your expression.

He’s steadily tonguing at your clit now, and a moan rips its way out of you before you can really stop it. Closing your eyes, you focus on the feeling of his tongue against you, his fingers pressing against your thighs, the brush of his hair against your bare skin.

But then he’s suddenly grabbing onto the globes of your ass, pulling you down down down –

“Sanemi!” You gasp, the sensation so much stronger now that you’re flush with his face. He’s using his strength to pull you down – muscles flexing in an effort to keep you still and exactly where he wants you.

Lilac eyes stare up at you half-lidded, the taste of you clouding his senses and leaving him eagerly licking for more, slurping at you with lewd sounds that only serve to get him harder and harder.

Soon your stationary position isn’t enough, though, and he’s guiding your hips in a forwards-backwards motion, effectively grinding you against his lips and noise. Your breath catches as the action and Sanemi swears he sees stars – you’re so damn pretty, and Tengen had been right about the view. He can see your face, feel your thighs around his head, and see your pretty tits from up close.

He’s gripping onto you so tightly that you can’t even try to break the control he has over your movements – he’s pulling you across his face in a rhythm that makes your breath stutter and your hands blindly reach out to steady yourself on anything nearby. It ends up being the wall in front of you, both palms laying flat against the paneling as you pant and sigh his name. His nose is pressing against your clit, the sensation only causing you to shake as he slowly builds up your orgasm.

He pulls away for the smallest moment, licking his lips and squeezing your ass even harder, kneading at your cheeks and spreading them apart from one another. “Use me, ride my face.”

You blanch at his words, doubt settling in your chest, but at the insistent tug of your cunt back down onto his face, you can only shakily sigh, taking his advice and slowly starting to gyrate your hips. The response is immediate – a groan of satisfaction from Sanemi, his tongue efforts doubling as you control the pace, smearing your cunt against his skin and feeling like you’re suffocating him.

He’s in heaven, meanwhile, tasting you with a fervor and lightly bucking his hips, the phantom ghost of your touch through his clothing making his mind spin. You’re so damn pretty and perfect and lovely and when you’re using his face like your own personal pillow to hump and fuck, how can he complain?

He can’t, which is why he’s groaning equally as loudly as you when you reach your high a few minutes later, your shakes and shivers against his skin leaving him drooling at the sight of your back arching, tits jutting out and your thighs clenching even tighter around himself. You’re so attractive like this – all sexy and adorable even when he’s doing such filthy things to you, and it’s the sight and knowledge that he’s the one making you feel this good – that it’s his face and tongue and cheeks and body – that are getting you to violently jerk and moan his name, fresh rounds of slick dripping against his tongue and making him groan tightly against you.

And you’ll be able to tell just how much the mental and physical pictures affected him because once he’s had his share – pulling four or five orgasms out of you with just this method – there’s a distinct wet spot over his trousers, seeping across the fabric and leaving everything thick and warm with cum.

But don’t worry – there’s plenty more where that came from that he’d love to you.

Plenty.

427 notes View Post

junkyuholic

4 months ago

the solace of banality - lucas (yandere oc) x reader (6.6k)

your time in the hospital has made you miss the simplicity of a life not held captive by a madman in the woods - and has made you just foolish enough to ask him about it.

cw: dark content, yandere, kidnapped reader. hospital setting. chubby fem reader, references to past dub-con and non-con, references to cannibalism, forced intimacy and domesticity, physical abuse.

a/n: for a primer on lucas, see here or his tag on my blog.

this was a commissioned work.

Lucas had not taken his hands off of you the entire ride from the hospital, back into the woods. He'd mumbled something about needing to make sure he moved the truck later on, as he'd stepped out and helped you down in return, strong arms wrapping around you so that you have to do the bare minimum of exertion yourself. His grip is as assured as ever, but there's a tightness there that you haven't felt for some time - as if he needs to press himself into you, just to be sure that you're still there.

And, too, to make sure that you don't run.

You suppose he doesn't like the idea of you knowing where the truck is parked, but it's not like you could drive it even if you did remember. Lucas treats it like a spooked animal, a strange little creature whose quirks and foibles he has learned over time - you're almost certain that if you were to get behind the wheel, it would not obey you the way that it obeyed him. So you keep your mouth pressed shut and concentrate on the slow journey from the truck to the front door of the cabin. Your gaze returns to it, just once, parked closer than you've ever seen it - but Lucas coughs, and his brows draw in, and you guiltily return your gaze to your feet.

It's getting colder. It's the end of November, and the ward at the hospital had been decorated early (to give some festive cheer to the people who were stuck there, you suppose). Frost crackles beneath your feet. The moment you'd been signed off as able to go home, Lucas had rushed you out of there, tension tight in his shoulders - so the sun has barely risen, and there's been no time for the cruelty of winter to be tempered any by what warmth it has to offer.

"Want you home, sweetheart," he'd grumbled, as he'd signed papers at the hospital desk with a surname you do not recognise. He'd let you keep your first name, but he'd given 'Smith' at the hospital as your surname (are you missing, you wonder? Would your real name have been too much of a giveaway?), calling you his wife, smiling tightly as he'd said you'd wanted to keep your maiden name in a very good imitation of a husband a little frustrated by this. "Sooner the better. This place makes me nervous."

His hands do not move from you as he unlocks the front door, either. As he ushers you in, as he breathes a sigh of relief at the comfort of the cabin around you.

He'd gone home, just to tend to the chickens. It was the only moments you'd had free from his stifling company - well, that and the surgery. You breathe out, tight and controlled, counting in your head as you feel the twinges of pain. Cold air. The doctor had said you might feel it in the scar for the rest of your life. You'd had maybe an hour and a half at most a day, to be alone with your thoughts and the room--

You'd thought, only once, about telling the doctors the truth. About begging them to help. Do something.

But you'd remembered the hissed warning in your ear, when he'd driven you to the hospital with a fear you'd never seen spread over his features. If you did that - if they knew - he'd said he wouldn't hesitate to bring as many people down with you both as he could, and the thought of what he might do in an enclosed space to strangers and doctors with no worries as to who got hurt--

No. Better to keep your mouth shut, and pretend everything was fine.

"Let's get you on the couch, darlin'," Lucas murmurs, still tightly holding onto your waist as if you don't know every inch of this cabin as intimately as you know the back of your hands. "They said for you to stay restin', didn't they? I ain't lettin' you get worse. Not takin' you back there if I can damn well help it."

You nod, as he lifts you up with ease and deposits you onto the crease of the sofa, the deep comforting dip that is usually Lucas's space. For a moment, you look up at him, and he looks down at you.

You take in everything about him. The worry etched into his features, the bags beneath his eyes, the coiled tension ready to snap at any moment if you don't do exactly as he says. You take in, too, that he's been wearing the same shirt for three days, that his stubble has grown out some, that he looks at you like he can't believe you're back here on the couch.

(He'd been afraid he'd lose you, you think. It's the only explanation you can possibly conjure for why he'd taken you out of the cabin, to a place teeming with life, risked everything he had here in order to make sure you didn't die. You'd been here, in this exact spot, the night he'd taken you to the hospital, curled up and sweating and nauseous and too weak to make it to the bathroom to do anything. You'd thought you were going to die right there too).

You wonder what he sees in you, in turn.

He'd brought you new pyjamas from the hospital gift shop. They were cheaply made, pink and white stripes, that kind of satin that pulled if you so much as rolled over in bed. But they were new, and they'd been bought for you, so you hadn't mentioned the pulls under the armpit to Lucas. You're wearing them now (they'd laundered them at the hospital for you), with an old dressing gown wrapped around you that you've only ever seen Lucas wear. It smells like him.

You wonder if you look wan yourself; if your eyes are shadowed, if your mouth is drawn, if your hair is lank. You'd been able to shower, you'd been able to use the bathroom on your own - but you'd almost . . . missed his cloying presence. The nurse had helped you, when you were still too weak, but . . . her hands lathering shampoo through the strands of your hair had not been as gentle, as slow, as thorough as Lucas's always were--

He lets out a slow, controlled breath.

"You really gave me a fright there," he rumbles, and summons a smile from the pit inside of him for you. "I really thought . . . Well. Don't wanna dwell on nothin' too dark there, do we?"

It's a question he expects an answer to, you realise, that stern green gaze stuck on you. You shake your head - and then, trembling, put forth;

"I . . . I was scared too. I . . ." Swallow the confused feelings that come swimming up in you before you say it; you've learnt to play this game. It's better to be alive than it is to be chopped to pieces, and if you weren't so good at this part you're certain Lucas wouldn't have bothered to take you to the hospital. "I didn't want to leave you."

His face softens.

"Sweetheart," he murmurs, leaning forward, to press a lingering kiss on the crown of your head. "I wasn't about to let you go nowhere, y'hear? Now. Let's get a blanket 'round you. Let's get you tucked in, and I'll bring you somethin' to eat. I don't trust the food they gave you in there."

When they'd done the blood tests, the nurse had said that your iron levels were the most perfect she'd ever seen, and you'd thought about Lucas's meals. The meat bleeding dark juices onto the plate. You'd swallowed your disgust and smiled at her, shrugging modestly, telling her that your husband handled the menu and you just ate what he gave you.

He'd been sat beside you, and he'd shifted when you'd called him your husband, his mouth twitching at the corners. She'd congratulated him on it, a smile on her face - taken in by the size of him, the dog tags shining around his neck, his obvious care for his poor invalid wife--

If only she'd known.

It's strange to be back in the cabin again.

Altogether, you'd been in the hospital for nine days; there'd been some complications, they'd wanted to keep an eye on you, they'd had to do a more complicated surgery type than they'd originally thought-- and those nine days had been . . .

You don't want to call them blissful. Nearly dying is not blissful, oxygen tubes and cannulas and blood tests and the smell of antiseptic are not blissful things, really. But it had been so different from the life you'd been accustomed to living! It had been so different to be somewhere else, to see other people--

You don't know quite how long you've been with Lucas, but if it's November again you think it's been over a year. You'd been taken in September, you remember - and he'd mentioned Christmas, that first year, but you'd still been too scared to really think much of it beyond giving him a trembling kiss on Christmas Eve and letting him dress you up in one of the more scandalous pieces from the wardrobe, as a gift, that night--

A year of solitude can do a lot to a person. The only other human being you've interacted with is Lucas - and one lost hiker, once, who'd come limping out of the trees whilst you were feeding the chickens with Lucas in the doorway and had called out to you. You'd been too startled to call back, but you'd waved your hand in greeting - and then Lucas's own hand had been on your shoulder, and you understood in no uncertain terms you were to go back inside, and you'd put the record player on when you'd heard the first scream.

You don't know if that really counts, all things considered.

But suddenly, you had found yourself surrounded by people! Nurses came and spoke to you, and doctors, and other patients (though Lucas had insisted that you needed a private room, you'd still come across them in the hallways and the corridors when you'd moved around, when they'd taken you out for walks to ensure that you were recovering well). You'd heard more voices than you had in forever, different accents and different inflections and you'd been bombarded with names you didn't always remember.

Some of the strangers stuck in your mind more than others. There'd been a nursing student who got all red and awkward and stuttery when Lucas spoke to her. There'd been a doctor who had also been a veteran, who had made Lucas's spine stiffen and his words go clipped and rough. There'd been a mother of a young woman who had her granddaughter with her for visiting, who'd mistakenly barged into your room thinking it was her daughter's - and though you'd expected Lucas to lose his temper at them both, he hadn't. He'd crouched down on the floor and asked the little girl about the stuffed bunny she was carrying with a perfectly serious expression, and for a minute you had forgotten about the axe and the blood and the snarl and the lies, and you'd thought what a good father your husband would make.

You'd had to give yourself a stern talking to inside your head, when the visitors had been sent to the right place and Lucas had turned back to you to fuss over your blankets and his eyes had still been soft with a longing that you did not want to think about. In a different world, maybe. In a different time. In different circumstances--

And there was everything else, too. All of the other little freedoms you'd forgotten about.

Food and television and human contact, being alone, a bed to yourself.

You'd thought, then, how much you'd taken it all for granted.

"Is your husband not here?" The nurse says, cheerfully bustling into the room with your breakfast on a tray. She looks around for him, before she winks at you and pulls from her pocket a tiny packet of chocolate spread, which she lays on the plate next to the toast and the packet of butter and the tiny jar of jam.

The first time you'd asked for toast, they'd brought you chocolate spread, and Lucas had shaken his head and taken it off your plate before you could even think about it.

"It ain't good for you," he'd said, sagely, with all of the assurance of a man who was used to being listened to. "Have the jam instead, if you've gotta. The butter on it's own's plenty rich enough though, I think."

He'd watched you like a hawk, and you'd been too scared to put more than a sliver of the strawberry jam on the toast, so you'd eaten exactly what he wanted.

"He's gone home," you say to her. Your voice still feels a little rough and croaky - you'd been told that they'd put a tube down your throat for breathing, during the surgery. You haven't had much experience of hospitals before, so all of this is a novelty in more than just the freedom from Lucas. "He has to feed the girls - h-his . . . o-our chickens, I mean."

She shakes her head, smiling.

"I'm sure he means well," she says, perching for a moment on the chair by the bed that Lucas usually occupies. "I mean! He clearly cares about you - I almost never come in here and see the room without him, he's part of the furniture! - but sometimes a girl just needs a treat, you know?" She winks again, and you laugh.

A part of you feels guilty about it - that same part of you that occasionally looks at Lucas and does think about him as a spouse, that same part of you that sometimes drives you to press a kiss onto his cheek when you're not thinking because he says something sweet. It's the part of you, you think, that wants you to give in and accept and be what Lucas wants and forget everything else, just to make it easier.

But it's a part that's easier to quell amongst the hustle and bustle of the hospital.

"Now," she says. "You're going to be in here for a few more days, so I've brought you the menu - just circle what you want and I'll take it to the kitchens. If he doesn't see it, he doesn't know if you chose the unhealthy options!" You laugh aloud again, and reach for the menu, flicking through to see all of the other options. So many foods you haven't had in over a year - so many things you'd never dare ask Lucas to make--

You feel another twinge of guilt when you circle the roast chicken and vegetables, but you tamp it down as you circle apple pie. You'll give Lucas a bite or two, and he'll forget that he'd said you were a vegetarian--

"Good choice," the nurse says approvingly, as she takes the menu from you and tucks it into the pocket of her uniform. She gives you a conspiratorial nudge. "Honestly, I shouldn't say it, but you'd be amazed how many vegetarians take the meat option in here! Good for them, I say. You need to keep your strength up! Now - where's that remote? Shall we put it on that horror channel you wanted and I'll take it with me, so you can say it's lost and he just has to put up with it?"

You do war within yourself before you dare ask him. You know Lucas's temper - it's hard not to know it, living out here with him for so long. Ordinarily, you do anything possible to make sure that it doesn't flare too openly; you act soft and sweet and agree with him and avoid any topic of conversation that you think might set him off. It's terrifying to see how the way he stands change, the curl of his lip and the grit of his teeth and the slightest tilt of his brows - it reminds you of all of those other people, out there, who have not been so lucky as you. All of those people who have seen him get angry and then learnt his anger in the swing of his axe instead of in the blade of his words. You could so easily have been one of them, you are usually able to sternly remind yourself when the whisperings at the back of your mind get almost too loud to handle. If you hadn't been soft and sweet and scared and what Lucas had found pretty, if you'd screamed instead of begged or fought instead of cried, you would have met your end in the woods too and your flesh would have been parcelled up into the old chest freezer and none of this would have happened--

But that was before the hospital, wasn't it?

That was before he'd shown you that he cared about you enough to take you into town if things were dire enough - before you'd shown him in turn that you could be trusted to keep his secret. You'd had so many chances to blurt out the truth, but every time you'd held your tongue and you'd smiled and laughed and called him your husband as if it were real.

The fourth day, Lucas had come in and had slipped a plain gold band onto your finger as a doctor had watched, taking your blood pressure.

"Found it," he'd said, gruffly, and you'd seen that there was a matching one on his own. "I know y'don't like to be without it."

You'd kept it, even when you could take it off and you were back in the truck and were free of the ruse. Now, as you slowly bring yourself to the kitchen doorway with a blanket wrapped around you, you play with the ring on your finger and hope he notices that, and that the little movement wins you points.

"Lucas?" You ask, to get his attention - but you don't need to. He has already heard, his head up and cocked, and he shakes his head and sucks his teeth when he sees you standing there, bare feet on the cabin floorboards. Of course he'd heard the couch creak, of course he'd heard the pad of your footsteps - this is a man who'd heard you so much as sit up in bed from the couch, back when you'd first gotten here and he'd slept on the sofa instead of intertwined with you. He'd always come, always asked you if you were alright, if you needed him to help . . .

"Darlin'," he says, shaking his head. "You shoulda just called. You ain't s'posed to be on your feet too much. I'll bring you anything you want."

You swallow, still absent-mindedly twirling the ring on your finger. It's perhaps a size or two too big; if it were really your wedding ring, you're sure you'd have lost it doing the washing up or getting it caught in your clothes or something by now.

(It's not yours though, is it? You wonder if Lucas bought them in a pawn shop - but no, that would have caused whispers around a small town that might have gotten back to the hospital eventually. You know the far more likely scenario is that he's had them this whole time, pried from the fingers of some poor unsuspecting camping couple who pitched their tent a bit too close. You don't like to think of the little metal band that warms your own wedding finger on the cold hand of a corpse. You haven't taken it off since he gave you it.

You're too afraid there'll be an engraving inside, a name that isn't yours, a promise that only means something to two people who are no longer on the earth.

At least, you suppose, they died together.)

"I . . . I've just been thinking," you say, gathering all of your courage up to try and screw it to the sticking place. Lucas is still being a little too indulgent with you; letting you get away with things that he wouldn't normally. A later bedtime, a bit of pouting, a VHS he'd gotten for you of a fantasy film that he didn't much like played at night instead of one of his own. He's still too raw and open at the thought that he could have lost you, and you don't think you'll ever get a better chance than this one.

And he's noticed the ring, still on your finger, and there's the faintest dusky flush up his cheekbones. You let your gaze flick down to his own hands, to see that the matching band is still in place on his finger.

(Lucky, then, that they both almost fitted. You're certain that Lucas would have taken that as a sign; another piece of proof that the two of you were always meant to be. That thought makes your stomach roil uncomfortably, but you try to ignore it. The more he thinks the two of you were destined, the more attached he is to you, the more he loves you - the more likely he's going to be to agree to the thing you're about to ask him).

"C'mon then," he says, shaking his head in fond exasperation, moving from the kitchen counter to come and take you by the waist and propel you back towards your comfortable nest on the sofa. "You can tell me just as well in there as out here, an' I won't worry half so much. I bought some ice cream one of the days we were in town, y'know. Been waiting for you to feel a bit better. How's about I go grab it from the freezer and make us a bowl and you can tell me what it is that's on your mind, huh?"

"That would be nice," you say, fluttering your lashes, looking up at him from under them in a way you've learnt makes him swallow, his throat bobbing. "Thank you."

"Aww," he says. "Anythin' for you, darlin'."

You wrap yourself back up in the other blankets left on the couch and let Lucas leave the room to go out to the freezer and fetch the ice cream. You force yourself not to think of it nestled in the chest freezer, surrounded by cuts of meat - an incongruous tub amongst flesh and bone, a ropy thigh pressed against the lid, a fleshy cheek pressed against the bottom.

There's no sign of that when he returns with a chipped willow-pattern bowl full of vanilla ice cream and he passes you a spoon, cuddling up close to you on the sofa. You let yourself be manipulated half into his lap, his chin on the top of your head, the warmth he kicks off enough to make the ice cream melt to a pleasing consistency. He insists on feeding you the first bite, and you do not protest it - all the better, to make him soft and adoring. You even force yourself to giggle like an idiot, in a way that makes him growl in approval.

"Well then," he says, between spoonfuls, and you're grateful that at least you won't have to look him in the eyes when you ask the question. "C'mon, let's get it outta you. What did you wanna ask?"

Last chance saloon, if you want to backtrack. If you want to think of some other silly question that might not set him off - for another pair of new pyjamas, a colouring book and some fancy pencils, anything that he'll see as an indulgence but not as a declaration of war.

But, oh . . .

The freedom of those days. The sound of people around you had made you miss the sound of the city, the smell of antiseptic had made you miss any smell that wasn't Lucas's aftershave and the chickens and the frosty air. Controlling a television, choosing your own menu, seeing other people going about their days and knowing that despite the isolated existence you're now living, people are still out there living their lives in a way you know Lucas will never let you.

It doesn't matter, you force yourself to think, if you will never get that freedom back. Lucas would never let you go, and you're not foolish enough to so much as think about it, let alone ask. You're never going to fulfil so many of your dreams (you'll never see Tokyo, or Paris, you'll never see the Northern Lights or try that fancy hotel in your hometown and you'll probably never know how your favourite manga ends) - but just a taste of it, every so often, with Lucas's hand in yours and him beside you to watch over you--

That's not too much to ask, is it?

You swallow again, feeling heat rising to your own cheeks.

"I've just been thinking," you say to him, careful and calm. "About . . . the town? The one that the hospital was in?"

He stiffens all over, and you feel it where you're pressed against him. Like a coiled up spring, tension in every curve and line of his body.

"Yeah?" He says, his tone warning - if you were smarter, you'd stop there, but you've opened the floodgates now. Your mouth seems to be operating without the express consent of your brain, and the words come flowing out awkwardly smashing into one another in a rush of noise.

"It's just - couldn't we do something there? Together? See a movie? Run errands or go shopping or surely they have a bowling alley or something we could go to on a date?"

"Sweetheart."

It's rough and dark and angry, but now you've started you cannot stop.

"I mean, they've seen me! They know I live with you, they're going to ask questions about me, and I don't mind I'll tell them exactly what you want me to tell them but it would be so so nice to do something with you, even if it's just once every few months, I'd just like to be outside--"

The bowl of ice cream clatters to the floor, the remainder of the sticky yellow-white treat oozing across the floorboards like spilt blood, and your brain finally catches up with you and you go stock-still like a deer in headlights as Lucas eases his arms from around your waist and shifts so that he can be next to you, so that he can look you in the eye before he tells you he's going to kill you.

His gaze catches yours, stern and forbidding and cold as the frost had been when you'd stepped out of the truck. Your hands start to shake as you desperately try and reassure yourself that, if you're lucky, the first blow will kill you and you won't feel any of the rest--

But to his credit, Lucas doesn't jump straight to blazing anger.

You can feel it simmering in him, like it's rising off of him like steam - but instead, he says, his voice cold and deep and barely restrained;

"No."

"Lucas--"

"I said no."

He doesn't soften the phrase with a pet name, and this is a bad sign. His gaze remains affixed onto yours, pinning you in place, as much a captor as the man himself. You feel like you will bow and break under it, but you have gotten this far - your foolish heart cannot resist just one more attempt, as if you will somehow find the chink in his armour that will allow you this one tiny freedom.

"Not often. Just--"

He stands up suddenly, like a tree being shaken to its foundations, and your heart jumps into your throat. He's going to pull down one of the weapons mounted on the wall in the hallway, you know it - he's going to drag you outside and you're going to bleed out on the frosted grass and he'll prise the ring off your finger and wait for someone else it will fit, he'll bury you in an unmarked grave, he'll spin some story next time he's in town about why you're not there--

"I need some air," he says instead, shortly. "I'll be back home in a bit." He reaches to pick up the bowl, not looking at you now. You can see that his grip is white-knuckled, that the veins in his wrists are more prominent than usual. His mouth is set in a grim line.

"L-Lucas--"

"When I get back," he says, as if he hasn't heard you at all. "I don't wanna hear another word about this nonsense, understand? I keep you safe. I keep you fed and warm and safe an' loved, and I'm not gonna take you out back into a world that doesn't deserve you just so it can fuckin' chew you up and spit you out."

He turns away and walks, the thud of his boots heavy on the floorboards.

"We're gonna have an early night," he says, pausing at the door. "I think all that time in the hospital's scrambled your brain good and proper. But don't worry, sweetheart," he looks over his shoulder, gaze like frosted green glass, words a bladed threat. "I'll make sure t'remind you."

You know you have gotten off lightly.

It is hard not to think that if you had been someone else, if you hadn't played your game so well, Lucas would not have suffered the question as coolly as he managed to. Or even if you had asked such a thing a few months ago - he would have taken it as a personal attack, as you saying he was not enough for you.

The fact that he comes back, that he manages to give you a tight smile when he sees that you haven't moved from the sofa where he'd left you except to pick up a battered old fantasy book from the shelf full of mismatched paperbacks - that seems to calm him. You suppose that he's thinking at least you listened to him, hopefully you've taken everything he's said to heart . . .

But that's not the truth. Not really.

Despite what you know is sensible, you have been thinking about freedom for every moment whilst you've been alone.

Or, 'freedom' in a sense. You have been thinking about the laugh of the nurse and the buzz of the television and the food in front of you on a clean white plate that has never before played host to a hunk of meat that was once a person. You've been thinking about the sounds of the city and the feel of warm worn leather beneath you in Lucas's truck. You've been thinking and plotting and rewriting in your head exactly what to say to try and convince Lucas that maybe, just maybe, it might be alright.

Once or twice a year, even! Christmas shopping, perhaps. A Valentine's Day movie - a sappy romance, or a musical, or something he couldn't object to. Something all romantic and soft and chosen specifically to be done with him, so he doesn't feel as though you're trying to escape.

Lucas lifts you from the couch and guides you into the bathroom - kisses the top of your head and presses against you wanting and needy in the shower, as the hot water cascades over you both, as his fingers brush oh-so-gently the scar left on the soft roundness of your flesh in wonder. His eyes soften as he looks at it, as you suppose he remembers how close he came to losing you - and it's that look, the soft devotion in his gaze, knowing that despite it all Lucas cares about you enough that he broke his own rules to take you somewhere safe, that makes you think that perhaps it might be safe to bring it up again.

He brushes your hair before bed; helps you put on one of the pretty cotton nightgowns patterned with sprigs of flowers that he always chooses, when he gets the choice (your pink and white striped pyjamas are in the laundry basket, waiting to be washed, Lucas wrinkling his nose and mumbling about the smell of that place).

You sit up in bed as he pulls out his own sleepwear, and you clear your throat before you speak.

"A-about earlier . . ."

"If it ain't an apology," Lucas says, voice tight, his back to you - your eyes are drawn to the scars that decorate his body like badges of honour as he pulls the old shirt he sleeps in down, "I don't wanna hear it."

"C-can't we just . . . talk about it? Like a . . . like a married couple would?"

Lucas turns around now. He does not lower himself onto the bed, as he stares at you with something inscrutable in his gaze that makes you trip over your words.

"I don't want to run, Lucas! I love you!" That's a lie, but you hope he won't notice, won't care, because you said it yourself and not because he demanded you did so. "I just . . . I want to show you off, I want to do normal things with you! Even if it's just the groceries, even if it's just picking up flour or sugar--"

"I've already said no," he bites out. "I've already said no, and I've already told you to stop askin'."

"Lucas, please--"

"Stop."

You'd been wrong. You feel it slipping out of your grasp - the thought of that tiny freedom, grabbed with both hands, slipping through your fingers like fine sand. His words are horribly final, obviously designed to get you to stop asking, to keep your pretty mouth shut and be the quiet and well-behaved little spouse he wants you to be, but . . .

The thought of something that is so close just being stolen from you like this is too much for you, and you can't let yourself be cowed.

"Can't we just talk about it--!"

"I think you've done enough fuckin' talkin'."

He looks at you with murder in his gaze and you cringe back into the pillows. Here it is. He's going to beat you to death. He's going to kill you. You've really fucking done it now, haven't you?

But he doesn't.

He looks at you for one more beat, before suddenly a slow smile spreads across his face.

"Okay," he says, and the change in his demeanour is scarier than anything else you've seen in months. "Okay, yeah. Get outta bed, sweetheart. C'mon. Let's talk this through in the kitchen like grown-ups."

He doesn't help you to the kitchen, this time. He leaves it to you, and you're slow about it - your body protests being taken from the warm embrace of the bed and back out. The nightgown tangles uncomfortably around your ankles, and you stumble more than once.

Lucas, though, had left immediately. Consequently, you're not surprised to see him up and at the stove when you get into the kitchen. The kettle is on the hob.

"We'll talk it through with a hot drink," he says, pleasantly enough. "The way real married couples do, yeah? Sit down, darlin'. Just let me get this to boilin'."

You can't believe how reasonable he's being. You wonder what it is that you said that brought him to this point - the married couple thing, perhaps? The profession of love, that maybe hadn't pierced him properly until a few minutes later? Whatever it is, you're grateful for it, as you sit down on one of the wooden kitchen chairs and let out a soft sigh.

"Y'know," Lucas says, from over by the stove. "I thought about just fuckin' cuttin' your tongue out so you couldn't ask me anymore."

A cold shiver down your spine, but Lucas's tone is conversational, and you do not see one of his big knives out in the kitchen anywhere. Maybe he is going to apologise, you think.

"I . . . I'm glad you didn't," you say, voice soft and thready. "Thank you."

Lucas snorts.

"Yeah. Thought 'bout what you said . . . People in that town sure do know you exist now. And though I ain't planning on takin' you back, just in case . . . Thought that a missin' tongue might be kinda hard to explain, y'know?"

The kettle whistles, high pitched enough to make you flinch. You notice, suddenly, that he has not put any mugs or cups on the table, and your entire body seems to feel as though it's made of ice.

He has one of those old-fashioned kettles; enamel, white and blue, a long spout and a metal handle that needs to be warmed through on a hob. He picks it up by the handle now, and walks towards you.

"So I thought," he says to you, his tone still pleasant, but his voice rough and low. "How am I gonna stop her runnin' her mouth? How am I gonna teach her that when I tell her to stop bringin' somethin' up, she oughta heed my words?"

"Please don't--" You babble out, as he lifts the kettle up. You can hear it bubbling inside, boiling away against the enamel and tin. You've burnt your tongue on a hot chocolate before, sure, tried to drink a coffee before it was cool . . . But the thought of what Lucas is about to do seems far, far worse than that.

With the hand that is not wrapped around the kettle's handle, he grabs a fistful of your hair and pulls it back fiercely until his hand meets the back of the chair, forcing your face up and pinning you in place.

"It's just a lesson," Lucas says, infuriatingly calm. He lifts the kettle up, and you feel the heat radiating off of it as it comes too close to your skin. "I didn't wanna do this, darlin'. But you ain't left me much of a choice."

"I won't bring it up again!" Lucas lets out a snort, and the barest drop of water snakes from the spout. It splashes onto your bare neck above the nightgown's collar, and you swear you hear the flesh sizzle as you squeak out in pain.

"It's a bit too late for that now," he tells you. "C'mon. We don't want this to get cold now, do we?"

"Lucas, please--!"

"Open your fuckin' mouth," he says, his eyes glittering. "And swallow like a good girl, and I'll only make you drink this one kettleful. I can boil another as easy as pie. I can keep fuckin' going until you can never talk again, y'hear me?"

You're shaking, but he has slowly, slowly started to tip the kettle now. The spout is coming far too close to your lips for comfort.

"You'll wanna wrap your mouth around it," he says, and you do not miss that it's not the first time he's said that kind of thing to you. Hot tears of fear and frustration well in the corner of your eyes. "If you make me pour it into you like you're a teacup, you're gonna panic and just get burns all over your pretty face too."

The spout nudges your lips.

"Open your mouth," Lucas coos to you, and you squeeze your eyes shut. "Open your mouth, and we'll just do one kettleful, and I'll get you s'more ice cream once you've learnt your lesson. One kettleful and it'll prob'ly only be a week or so 'fore you can talk again."

You try and will yourself to think of something to get out of it, but Lucas is getting impatient. He tugs roughly on the hair in his fist and lowers his own mouth close enough to hiss into your ear;

"Don't open it and . . . well. You don't really wanna find out, do ya'?"

Outplayed.

You open your mouth.

108 notes View Post

junkyuholic

6 years ago

Can you do treasure 13 reaction to an idol saying that their gf is their ideal type? Does that even make sense? Lol i hope it does

Yes it does make sense! This took me a whole hour to write omg.

The idols I picked for this are Stray Kids, NCT Dream and a Sexy Zone member, I tried getting the idols to be similar ages to them.

I’m assuming that the girlfriend is also an idol from a girl group and I made it in a way where their relationship is private, so none of the public would know about it :)

Treasure13 Reaction To An Idol Saying Their Girlfriend Is Their Ideal Type

Hyunsuk

When Hyunsuk was watching you on weekly idol when Seungmin from Stray Kids made the confession. You had just released a new song and one of the guest MC’s were Seungmin as you entered the set, Seungmin cheeks turned bright red, the other MC’s noticed and started asking him why he was blushing, that’s when he said “Y/N is actually my ideal type, I’m really happy to meet her”. Hyunsuk would be all cocky, bragging, “Of course, who wouldn’t have Y/N as their ideal type?” But he would make sure to keep a closer eye on Seungmin on the future, if the two ever crossed paths.

Jihoon

Jihoon was eating ramen while live streaming the Running Man episode that featured you and another member of your group along with Renjun and Jaemin from NCT Dream, as Jaemin had been on a hiatus for awhile Yoo Jaesuk asked him if there was any particular songs he listened to. To this, Jaemin replied that he listened to your groups songs, Yoo Jaesuk then asked if there was a particular member he was fond of from your group, “I really like Y/N, she’s been my ideal type for a while.” All the members of Running Man would break into havoc at the sudden confession while Jihoon would be shocked at the confession. Jihoon’s ramen would fall from his mouth as his jaw drops. ‘He’s pretty gutsy isn’t he?’ Doesn’t blame him though, you’re charming.

Yoshinori

Yoshinori was on a Japanese cooking show along with the youngest member of Sexy Zone, Yoshinori was busy cooking while all of a sudden he heard a voice mentioning your name, as he looked up he saw the owner of the voice, it was the member of Sexy Zone. “I’m a big fan of Y/N, she’s my ideal type.” The other hosts of the show started saying that the two would look good together. The boy was blushing but Yoshinori was taken aback, wasn’t mad, but after the show he talked to his manager about being able to shoot a commercial with you, to prove to the hosts, the Sexy Zone memeber whose name he had already forgotten and to prove to the world that you two look the best together.

Junkyu

Would be on the same show as you, along with Jeno from NCT Dream. Junkyu, Jeno and you had shot a commercial together, that went viral all over the nation, making headlines how good looking and powerful your auras were when the three of you were together. After the commercial, many brands had been asking the three of you to star in their commercials, the three of you made such a big deal, that the Knowing Bros had asked you to star on their show. That’s how the three of you ended up there. When the three of you entered the class room exclaims were heard from the Bros, no one could doubt that the three of you were good looking, have powerful auras and are tall - like models, (say you’re about 170cm). As the show progressed, one of the Bros asked Jeno and Junkyu if they could recreate your legendary fancam, as your fancam was being played, Jeno wasted no time in recreating it, the whole studio was in awe, including you and Junkyu, as the fancam and Jeno’s dancing came to an end, one of the Bros said “The only way Jeno could’ve gotten the dance so precise is that if he had a crush on Y/N.” Jeno’s cheeks turned crimson, while Junkyu’s brows shot up to his hairline. “To be honest, Y/N is my ideal type.” The Bros were screaming and jumping up and down, while you were flustered, Junkyu said “Play the fancam again, it’s my turn!” Thats how it turned into a dance competition between him and Jeno, as the two competed more fancams of you were played, after the two had been completely drained, you decided to show them that you were better at the two of them. I got a lil carried away

Yoonbin

Yoonbin and Changbin from Stray Kids were on weekly idol, a competition of who had the most darkest aura, half way through the show, the two only proved that they were fluffiest cinnamon buns ever. The two had to send a video of them doing aegyo to a celebrity, Yoonbin was first, “Sajangnim, I hope you give me more lines and more screen time in our music videos” he exclaimed in a high pitched voice, the MC’s absolutely loved it and asked him again if he was sure if he wanted his CEO to see this, “I have nothing to lose” Yoonbin replied which caused the MC’s burst into laughter. It was Changbins turn now, ‘Who is this video to?’ An MC asked, “To my ideal type” the MC’s were found ‘ooooh-ing’ along with Yoonbin, “Who? Who? Who?” They persisted, with red cheeks Changbin replied, “Y/N.” Yoonbin was shocked but he made sure not to show it, after the show, Yoonbin headed home and smothered you with aegyo, despite you not liking aegyo, you could admit that you only liked it when it was Yoonbin doing aegyo, “Right? You only like it when I do it?”

Mashiho

Mashiho was in Japan touring, while he was in bed live streaming your groups TV show, on this episode, you and your group had gone to your company’s building to meet up with your brother group - Stray Kids - to hear some tips from them, as your group had just debuted. Your group entered Stray Kids dancing studio and watched them practice their song, not wanting to disrupt their dancing. As the song came to an end your group started clapping and ‘wowing’. Your group and Stray Kids were now sitting in a circle while your member spoke up, “As our seniors, are there any tips for us?” Bang Chan spoke up “Dating is something normal, you can’t get rid of feeling, but if you do get caught, JYP won’t be hard on you.” He said all this while staring at Jisung, “Trust me, I know from experience” Hyunjin said making everyone break out into laughter. “Y/N, do you have an ideal type?” Jisung asked out of the blue, “Uh, I like guys who loo cute and have a soft vibe.” You replied, Mashiho watching from his laptop, nodded his head in approval, knowing you had just described him, no doubt. “You’re my ideal type.” Jisung blurted out, “What are you saying?” Minho slapped his back laughing, your group and his group all laughed it off. Mashiho knew that when the two of you met again, he was only going to spoil you in affection.

Jaehyuk

Jaehyuk was just scrolling around on Instagram when he saw a picture of your cut out at a makeup store that you model for, and infront of that cut out was I.N from Stray Kids. He frowned at the photo, clicked onto it and read the caption ‘My ideal type’ it read. Reading through the comments his frown only got deeper, seeing that so many people though that the two would make such a cute couple. He went onto his Instagram and posted a picture of your latest album, captioning it ‘Y/N is a very talented singer, hopefully one day I could collaborate with her ☺️.’ He was jealous, I.N can’t couldn’t compete with him because he already had your heart and vice versa. You best believe that a collaboration between the two of you would happen.

Asahi

This guy is so confusing like I just can’t figure him out, and there isn’t much ‘footage’ of him for me to even guess how he’ll react.

Would have a blank space, ‘so what’, your his ideal type too, Chenle ain’t special. Difference is that Asahi is your ideal type and Chenle isn’t. He keeps your relationship private so it’s only the two of you that can share special moments together with each other, not with the rest of the world, that’s why his reaction is blank, he doesn’t want anyone suspecting anything, for your sake and his. I’m sorry it wasn’t that good.

Yedam

When he heard Hyunjin from Stray Kids say that you’re his ideal type, he would be a bit ‘down’, Yedam just seems to be someone who isn’t 100% happy with themself, he’s always pushing himself, pushing himself to his limits at such as young age, he would probably think you would be more happier with Hyunjin, so you’ll have to help Yedam love himself more :(

Doyoung

He and Jisung from NCT Dream were on a dancing program and your song came on, the two of them raced to the front and started dancing to your song as best as they could, the two were on opposing teams so pushed themselves, Jisung was the winner of this round, which has dampened Doyoung’s spirit a bit, he was your boyfriend so how could he have not been a better dancer at your song? One of the hosts asked Jisung at how he was so good at dancing to your song “She’s my ideal type, that’s how.” Doyoung just became more and more competitive, he became more determined in winning, Jisung had won at the dancing round, but he has not won your heart like Doyoung did.

Haruto

Would be taken aback when he heard Felix from Stray Kids say that you were his ideal type, Haruto was so taken aback that he said “Really? Me too” out loud, the hosts would make the two rap out their confessions or something like that, at the end of the show Haruto would be thinking something like ‘I’m not only Y/N’s boyfriend but her bestfriend also.’ He knows he has nothing to worry about.

Jeongwoo

“Okay but do you know all her songs off by heart?” He would say to the screen watching [insert a boy group member was young as Jeongwoo] say that you’re his ideal type, “okay but do you know how to reach all her high notes like I do?” He would have a mini argument with his phone screen, “Plus, Y/N doesn’t date people who wear NIKE.” “She doesn’t even breathe near them, he knows nothing of her.”

Junghwan

“Oh, really?” He wouldn’t know how to react he’s such a baby omllllllll you guys are probably more like best friends than boyfriend and girlfriend 🤷🏻‍♀️