Tongue On Loving Wound

Lord.

deep end

price x transmasc!reader | 7.9k | AO3

cw: dubcon (power imbalance, price steamrolling reader), hints of daddy issues/mild daddy issues for those who want to see them, abrupt ending, age gap, alcohol, masturbation, praise kink, hand feeding, fingering, oral, anal sex a/n: clit, cock, and cunt are used to describe genitalia of reader's body. reader has top surgery scars.

There’s something to be said for the kind of work that doesn’t pretend to be anything it’s not. 

It’s not glamorous, but it’s yours—a modest business with your name on the side of a sun-faded van, stocked with gear, and enough regulars to keep the bills paid. That’s more than a lot of people can claim. It keeps the lights on. Affords you food and pride, both. Proof you’re getting by.

This little operation, humble as it is, at least gets you outside. And on days like this, that’s a gift. The cirrostratus looks like pulled strands of candy floss overhead, and the breeze takes the edge off.

You tip your head for a moment to admire the clouds, then tug the brim of your sunhat. It’s too big, like everything else you’re wearing. The clothes came out of the same catalog you order your gear from. A stiff, white button-up with your logo on the pocket and shapeless red shorts that skim your knees. Cheap. Chafes in all the wrong places, but expensable.

You scratch absentmindedly near your navel and guide the vacuum along the pool floor in methodic passes. The water is clear, the motion soothing. Slips you into a quiet headspace. 

It’s satisfying. Calming. The zen and predictability of a repetitive task cannot be understated. Lulls you into a lovely state of not-quite-daydreaming. 

So, you don’t hear Mr. Price the first time.

“You with me, lad?”

The vacuum handle nearly slips as you twist around too fast, your foot catching the edge of the pool. You wobble, free arm flailing for balance. Mr. Price steps forward instinctively—poised to surge across the yard. You manage to steady yourself, weight rocking back in time.

Both of you exhale at once.

He scrubs a hand over his face, dragging it across his beard.

“Sorry, sir. I didn’t hear you.”

“I gathered.”

You switch off the vacuum, the underwater hum fading. “Was there, uh, something you needed, sir?”

His sunglasses are too dark to tell, but you feel him sizing you up, same as he did when you arrived. He hadn’t said much then either, just opened the door, looked you over from head to toe, then gestured toward the side gate with a grunt.

You don’t know what to make of him. In truth, you rarely give your clients much thought beyond big house and lucky bastards. If you see them at all, it’s through the windows.

This is your first time at his place, and you’re still formulating an assessment. 

You don’t know if Mr. Price has a family, but his house is big enough to accommodate one. There’s a sporty car parked outside his garage. A sprawling garden, lined with hedges, mature trees, and a wrought-iron fence. No immediate neighbors butting the property line.

And, obviously, a pool.

What sets him apart is that you met him, and not a housekeeper or assistant. Clients typically let others handle the scheduling and small talk. It caught you off guard, putting a face to the voice, and matching the face to the owner’s name.

Still, your gut says to treat him the same as the others. Another man accustomed to obedience. So, you straighten and lift your chin.

Your change in posture seems to amuse. The corner of his mouth lifts.

“I asked if you needed water.”

Your eyes flick to your bag and your beat-up thermos, plain as day. He had to have seen it. Which means this isn’t really about concern. You’ve done this dance before. A casual, innocuous question preceding a snide comment or suspicion. Are you slacking off? Cutting corners?

Knew it, you think bitterly.

“No thank you, sir.”

His mouth twitches again, this time downward, then flattens. 

“Suit yourself.”

He retreats indoors, and the rest of the visit passes without incident. No more words exchanged. The clouds lift, sharing a rare, naked sky.

You pack your tools and log the time. As you pull out of the drive, you check the rearview.

Mr. Price stands at the back gate with a phone pressed to his ear.

You can’t read his face from this distance—but you feel the weight long after the house disappears from view.

You must’ve made an impression, because Price starts booking weekly. On your docket every Friday afternoon.

It mystifies. His pool is never particularly dirty. Maybe a thin film of grime at the most, a handful of leaves blown in from the hedges and bird cherry trees. No signs of children or pool toys. No evidence of parties. It’s clear he lives alone, and doesn’t host.

Far be it for you to question easy money.

It makes for a pleasant, if not boring, routine. Knock on the door. Head around back. With booking and billing handled online, there’s no need to see or speak to him at all.

For a couple weeks, it’s simple. Another lucky bastard with a big house who leaves blank five-star reviews. The best you could hope for.

Then he starts appearing poolside.

At first, you assume it’s a fluke. That he’s forgotten you’re scheduled. 

He’s the picture of leisure. Drink in one hand, cigar in the other, stretched out on the cushions. If he’s startled or annoyed by your presence, he doesn’t show it. He gives you a polite nod, then buries his nose in a magazine.

But then it happens again. And again. 

Like clockwork. The new fucking routine.

You unlatch the gate, and there he is, waiting. He makes himself comfortable—well, more comfortable, given it is his house—and watches. Or seems to. It’s hard to tell with the sunglasses.

He never interrupts, just smokes and reads. The magazines he cradles are dog-eared, covers curled over. Sometimes you catch glimpses of the topics: cars, golf, current events. None of it hints at what he does for money. If he’s retired or working from home. If he’s ever worked a day in his life.

It changes things.

The calm dissolves. You grow more aware of every little thing. The way your shirt sticks between your shoulder blades. The trickle of sweat down your spine. Every time you bend at the waist or kneel by the pool’s edge. 

You try to ignore it, but you feel his eyes brushing over the nape of your neck or small of your back. Yet every time you peek, he’s not looking. You can’t shake it anyway—the sense of being observed, possibly admired.

That’s when the shame creeps in.

What are you doing? What do you think this is, a slow-burn porno? Are you that vain?

This is just a job.

You scold yourself, cheeks burning hotter than the sun overhead. It’s mortifying. To even imagine that a man like him—older, composed, probably has a different watch and woman for each day of the week—would be watching you. You. You’re not special. You’re a line item on an invoice. Background noise.

The thought that you’ve spun some dumb fantasy makes your stomach knot.

You work faster. Keep your eyes down. Try not to think about it too hard.

But when the breeze shifts and carries his smoke toward you, heavy and spiced, and it curls around your ribs like a hook.

Your first real conversation, you’re in trouble.

“You’re late.”

“I know. I’m sorry, sir.”

Mr. Price’s fists sit on his hips, a cigar at the corner of his mouth held in place by a frown. Sunglasses hiding a glare.

“What kept you?”

You’re sweating from the mad rush, juggling the hose and skimmer, and running on fumes. A dull throb pulses in your skull, the tail end of a headache from your last client’s shrill tirade. His threats to leave bad reviews over a handful of rowan petals in his pool and a perceived lack of hustle.

A nutcase, you want to spit. You want to tell Price about how you skipped lunch and nearly got sideswiped on the drive. Complain about how your life depends on the goodwill of people who don’t remember your name and settle for obscenities or diminutives.

Instead, you drop your armful on the grass and lie. “Traffic.”

He cocks a brow. “Traffic got you worked up?”

“Yes,” you bristle, and slam the gate to storm back to collect the rest of your supplies.

When you return, he’s still at the gate, and this time, one long arm swings past. He slows the metal before it slams, guiding it shut with a quiet click. Suddenly, he’s too close, and you’re boxed in. A meld of tobacco, sweat, and body heat seeps into the space between. It’s toothsome. Heady on the tongue.

You form an apology—you can’t afford to lose business—but he doesn’t raise his voice.

“Whatever’s actually put you in a mood, you won’t be takin’ it out on my property.” He ducks his head to chase your eyes and you’re forced to stare at your reflection in the dark lenses. “We clear?”

The steel of his jaw, his arm flexing, the authority crackling in his tone like fire splitting wood—it shouldn’t make your stomach flip, but it does.

“Yes, sir.”

He smiles then. Not kindly. Smug, maybe. “Good lad.” 

The words hit a nerve you didn’t know you had. They sink in somewhere soft and sensitive. The same place that makes a dog’s hackles rise and puts butterflies in bellies.

“And you better not slack just because you’re behind.”

“I won’t, sir.”

He lets you pass, and follows when you do. It’s a struggle to not trip over your own feet.

This time, he makes no secret of watching. His cigar burns out untouched. The magazine flutters in the wind. He sits with his fingers laced over his middle, legs crossed at the ankles. 

Bent on all fours over the system compartment, a prickle at the back of your neck grows impossible to ignore. You glance over your shoulder. 

He appears asleep—utterly still—until the corner of his mouth lifts. A slow, knowing smirk.

You snap back to the task at hand. 

A chuckle follows, low and indulgent. It drapes over you like velvet and settles somewhere deep, where it can hum and hiss like a wasp caught under a jar.

On a night off, you go dancing. Three glasses of cheap vodka in your bloodstream, the taste coating your tongue. You considered ordering whiskey, but lost your nerve. 

Leaning against a wall outside with your friends, getting air between songs, someone asks if you’ve met anyone lately. 

Or are you all work, no play?

You answer without hesitation. Without thinking.

(It’s not until the next morning, hungover and rueing the sun itself, that you understand they meant someone from an app. A date. A one-night stand, maybe.)

But you’d already blabbed. Confessed.

Mr. Price. 

John.

Your mouth runs wild with the liquor in your blood.

He’s a bit odd, you admit. Hard to read. Just the other day, you’d walked in as he finished swimming laps, and he climbed out the moment he spotted you. You swear it happened in slow motion—water rolling off the hard lines of his chest, the softer spread of his belly, the pelt of hair. The treasure trail and fading farmer’s tan. You nearly keeled over at the sight. And it’s hard to guess his age. He’s fit, and the silver threads in his beard do something to you.

It isn’t until the laughter shifts into something sly, that you realize how long you’ve been going on. The teasing comes fast, merciless but fond. There’s no walking it back.

And when they ask—flat-out—if you’d fuck him, you can’t lie.

That gets them going.

“Do you think he’s—?”

You cut them off. “No. No way.”

Denial is easier than the fantasy of hope.

With an excuse, you peel yourself off the wall and flee back into the fray to shake the heat crawling up your neck.

You attempt to bury it all in the mouth of a stranger. Older, taller, dark hair curling damply at his temples. Broad enough shoulders. A cheap cologne that stings your nose. You let him kiss and paw at you against the sticky wall by the toilets, but it’s no good. He tastes like rum. Too sweet, no substance. Nothing like what you want. 

The night ends early, frustration simmering. Alone in your room, sprawled in the dark, you add one item to the shopping list on your phone:

Whiskey.

The weather turns fast one afternoon.

It starts with the trill of Mr. Price’s phone and a curse. He abandons his post, gritting out a clipped Yeah? before striding toward the house. The glass doors shut behind him, and though they muffle the sound, his voice climbs in volume as he disappears from view.

Almost in answer, the sky darkens. In minutes, clouds quicken and roll in, dragging the light with them and smothering it in a drab, gray sheet. The breeze kicks up and then your sunhat is gone, plucked clean off your head and hurled skyward.

You watch it spiral away helplessly.

Leaving your equipment where it sits, you duck beneath the umbrella between the chairs. It offers little protection. The raindrops fatten, splattering against the stone, and without giving it much thought, you scoop up his magazine and half-finished drink.

Clutching the snifter to your chest, the scent of whiskey rises. You’re more of a wine fan, really, but the smell settles you. Warms you, even as goosebumps sprout along your arms and shoulders. Reminds you of your dad.

You shift foot to foot, back turned to the wind and rain. The uniform clings in cold patches as it soaks through.

Then, from across the lawn—“Inside!”

Mr. Price stands in the doorway, motioning you in.

You hesitate. You have a policy: stay outdoors. Liability. Safety. If rain hits, you wait it out or move on. You know this.

Then a sheet of rainwater sluices off the umbrella as it topples sideways in the wind, sloshing down your back. Shuddering, you shove the magazine under your shirt to shield it and bolt.

The rain lashes your skin. Grass squishes beneath your feet. His drink sloshes over the rim with every step, drenching your fingers in liquor.

You slip through the doors, soaked, clothes plastered on. You produce the rumpled magazine and offer it to Mr. Price with his half-drained glass.

“I, uh, tried to—”

“You’re dripping,” he says flatly, his gaze dropping to the puddle forming at your feet.

You glance down at the water pooling at your feet and almost stumble back outside, stammering apologies, but he cuts you off.

“I’ll get you a towel. Shoes off.” He empties your hands, pivoting toward the kitchen to deposit them on the island. As he rounds a corner, he points at the floor. “Stay put.”

Outside, the rain picks up, and you gingerly remove your shoes and socks, not wanting to make more of a mess. Shivering, teeth clacking from the chill, you rub your arms and gawk. You’ve never been inside a client’s home before.

A polished, heavy table anchors the immediate area. Old wood floors stretch beneath it, the tile under your feet a practical addition. Meant for footprints. Framed photos are scattered throughout, on the walls and sideboard, family portraits old and new you assume.

A grand painting behind the grand table seizes your attention: a small fishing boat, crimson and white, nearly lost in a violent storm. The sea churns around it in deep greens and blacks, lightning tearing across a sickly sky. 

You admire the scene until you hear footfalls.

Mr. Price bears a towel and clothes. You accept the towel, pretending not to notice the second offering. When you peek out from beneath the cotton, he’s holding a shirt out.

Does he seriously think—

“Go on. You’ll catch your death if you stay in that.”

A laugh putters out. You shake your head. “You can’t—I can’t take that, sir.”

His chin dips. “You’re not taking anything. You’re borrowing. C’mon. Shirt off, son.”

An ember catching kindling. You struggle to tamp it down.

“Can’t I change in the–”

He scoffs dismissively. “I’m not moppin’ up a trail. Nothing I haven’t seen before. Transparent, anyway.”

Nothing I haven’t seen before. You doubt that. Your scars have faded into blurs, but they’re recognizable. Obvious in their purpose. 

He is right. Your shirt clings better than cellophane, sheer in all the worst places. You tug at the hem, flustered, burning up under his scrutiny.

Another look at his face says arguing only delays the inevitable. It’s fucked—whatever this is, however he keeps pushing and playing with you. Batting you around like a bored tomcat would a mouse. Worse is how easily you’re letting it happen. Part of you, perversely curious, wants to see where it’ll lead, if he’ll eat you whole or what. Another can’t stop replaying the memory of what he looks like, soaked and shirtless.

One-handed, you work the shirt free, and new goosebumps bloom across your skin. Your nipples stiffen. It shouldn’t be a big deal—but Mr. Price is staring.

Maybe your scars haven’t faded as much as you think. You take the shirt, refusing to shrink, and square your shoulders. Posture makes all the difference amongst men, you learned.

The borrowed shirt slips overhead, and you juggle the towel to thread both arms through. It’s loose in the shoulders, hitting the midpoint of your butt. Plain black, clean-smelling cotton.

Price clears his throat. “Better. Bottoms, now.”

If your cheeks weren’t already warm, they’re scorching now.

“Sir.”

He clicks his tongue and swings the spare shorts. “C’mon, these’ll do if you tie the string.”

“There’s no need!”

“You’d rather make more of a mess on my floor?”

You hold your ground, waiting for an indication he’ll back off, but he doesn’t. An unevenly matched game of chicken and you’re losing one concession at a time. You last all of ten seconds.

With a huff, you wrap the towel around your waist. Wiggling your hips, you coax the shorts down without revealing more than you already have. It takes a long, awkward minute. And when you think you’ve made it through with some shred of dignity intact, he kneels, and closing a hand around your ankle.

“Steady.”

You freeze as he lifts one foot, then the other, helping you step out. 

You snatch the shorts out of his hand and hurriedly shove them on, nearly combusting when the towel comes away in his hand seconds after you pull them over your bottom.

And then he’s up, moving, your wet clothes slung over his arm like nothing happened. Like he wasn’t—like he didn’t just—

“Back in a jiff.”

This is where your curiosity’s led you.

Barefoot, in his clothes, heart fluttering ridiculously. Breaths in short bursts, stifled little things, afraid to be too loud. Dumbstruck.

How ridiculous you must look.

Do you think he’s—?

Well.

You dry off as best you can and sidestep the puddle. Your boxers are likely see-through as well now, but you vow to not mention them. You wouldn’t survive Mr. Price insisting on a fresh pair with your ass on display.

You rinse the whiskey off in a haze and find the kitchen as orderly as the dining room. Together, they’re larger than your entire flat. Modernized, no-frills. 

Through the archway, the hum of a tumble dryer kicks up, and Price reappears.

“Some rain. Didn’t expect it, did you?”

You almost ask which part—the rain, or the forced striptease?

Instead, you mutter, “No, Mr. Price.”

“Think you can call me John now.”

Within minutes, he talks you into tea and a sandwich. While you nibble, he fills the silence with small talk. He doesn’t cook much himself—so if you don’t like it, s’not his fault—and arranges for a chef to deliver meals every Sunday. Nothing elaborate, enough for the week, with extras in case of company.

You work up the nerve to ask what he does for a living.

He’s unfazed. Says his parents passed, left him the house. He’s retired military, lives comfortably off a pension. Mentions he does some consulting now and then—vague, detached, the kind of answer meant to end the conversation, not invite it forward.

“But enough about me. Want to know more about you.”

You wash a bite down with a sip, uncertain that he’s serious. He’s being polite, you reason. A man like him—he doesn’t really want to know. You’re a half-drowned dog he brought in from a storm. A good deed.

“I’m not that interesting.”

“Says the kid with his own company.”

Fair play.

You relent. Share little things. Where you’re from how you started, and that most of your work is seasonal. You help out at a school in the off months, and teach swimming at the community pool when they’re short-staffed. He listens intently, attention never wavering. Probably finds it novel, working more than one job.

“Sounds like you have your hands full.”

You nod, swallowing the last sip of tea. “I keep busy.”

He hums. “You do alright on your own?”

The question is light, but it lands heavy. It’s simple, benign—but it isn’t neutral and it needles. He ducks his head when you look away, searching. Like he’s casting a line, hoping you’ll give something up.

Heat flares under your collar. Your throat constricts, shame blooming sharp and sudden.

You shrug, keeping it light. “I manage.”

When the rain finally stops, you’re overdue, and itching to escape Mr. Price—John’s—attention. There are only so many ways to dodge questions.

He meets you at the van once it’s packed.

“Be seeing you, kid.”

“Yeah,” you nod once. “Thanks again, John.”

You offer a cordial hand, business-like, and his palm is hot around yours. You bet it’d feel like a brand elsewhere.

At a light on the way home, you tug the collar of his shirt up over your nose and inhale. For a brief, blistering second, you imagine his hands around your ankles again. Pushing them up and up and up.

You don’t remember the rest of the drive home.

It’s only after you’ve kicked off your shoes and settled into the couch with a sip of your new whiskey, that it hits you—your uniform’s still in John’s laundry.

Shit.

You go back for it after the weekend, off schedule. Have to. 

Having rung ahead, he’s expecting you. He meets you at the door, phone tucked between his shoulder and cheek. You hand off the spare clothes; he passes yours back. He mouths sorry and squeezes your shoulder, before disappearing back inside like it never happened.

You’re already behind, so you change in the van before your first job. The moment you slide the shorts on, your eyebrows hit the ceiling. They sit higher now, snug around your thighs, hitting well above the knee. You assume they must’ve shrunk in the wash—until you pull on the shirt. It’s been hemmed. Clean, subtle stitching. Tighter at the sleeves, better at the waist.

You consider going back, but your schedule’s packed, and the day runs away from you.

When you see him next, he beats you to it.

“Fits better, doesn’t it?” John claps your shoulder, pinching and tugging the shoulder seam.

“Yes, but did you—?”

“Eyeball the size?” He grins. “Not bad, eh? I’ve got a good tailor.”

It’s not like you can undo it and you’re not about to shell out for a replacement. So you thank him, and receive a pleased, grumbled good lad in return, and a swat to the small of your back, a hair north of improper. 

A wordless dismissal. Back to work.

With every window flung wide, you wage a hopeless war against the stagnant heat. Your sheets are drenched in sweat. Restless doesn’t cover it—you’re strung tight and buzzing, sticky and half-mad with frustration.

Sleep’s not happening, not like this.

You groan and kick your boxers down your legs, then roll to your stomach, pushing up onto your knees. The air’s balmy, sticking in your lungs.

You’re not surprised to find yourself wet. Some of it’s sweat, sure, but the rest—that’s your own fault. The consequence of a wandering mind and no one around to check it.

You let your imagination take the reins.

Face mashed into the mattress, you imagine his foot on your back. Weight bearing down on you, pinning you in place. His cock rutting over your ass, one big hand grabbing himself at the base, slapping it against your hole, and the other digging into a fleshy cheek to spread it.

Your cock pulses between your rubbing fingers and a moan spills out. Your teeth scrape the sheets, eyes welding shut. It’s obscene and loud in your quiet room when you steal slick from your cunt to rub over your asshole.

He would work you open, push one finger in at a time. Get you to cry on two, render you incoherent on three. Your own aren’t enough to bring tears to your eyes, but thinking of what he’d say is.

He’d ask if you wanted it. Needed it. Deserved it. All in that frustratingly even timbre of his.

His voice comes out of nowhere, clear as a klaxon in your head.

Good boy.

You come hard and fast, bucking your cock into your palm, fingertips prodding at your rim. Didn’t even get far enough to slip them inside.

You lie there for ages, gasping, limp. Your muscles are too heavy, and you’re too far gone to care about the mess.

Sleep takes you like that—sticky and spent.

The next morning, you peel yourself out of bed and strip the sheets in silence, tossing everything into the wash, shame eating you alive.

You can’t look at John that week without that memory pumping blood south. Imagining him bending you over a chaise or pushing you into the clover until your uniform turns green.

It’s divine punishment when he decides you need feeding. Like he somehow knows what played out in the privacy of your bedroom, or caught the stench of desperation that only comes with a misplaced crush, and you need your nose rubbed in it.

John presents fruit under a mesh cloche and demands you take a break. Not like there’s much to do, anyway. The pool goes unused most of the time, the maintenance minimal at best. You put up little resistance, beckoned toward him by a crooked finger.

He moves his legs for you to sit as if there aren’t three other loungers ringing the pool. Gesturing for you to scooch closer when he uncovers the fruit, stabbing a cocktail fork into a pink cube dusted with tajin. He offers it handle first.

A drop of juice drips onto his shin, and you think, lick it. You could. You would, if he told you to.

The impulse grips you so intensely, it’s absurd. This whole thing is absurd. Here you are, with a client. Not a date, not a boyfriend. A man with at least ten years on you, casually bullying his way past all personal and professional boundaries, and you’re waving him through as if they don’t matter.

You know he expects you to take the fork from him, but that curious twitch stirs, and instead, your mouth falls open.

His eyes narrow, and he turns the fork, tucking the fruit into your mouth. Your lips close around the bite, tugging it off the tines with your teeth.

“Cheeky.” he murmurs.

A good little pet sitting at their master’s feet.

Your head spins.

You’re convinced now. There’s a tear in reality, one that opens every time you turn onto that private lane. You pass through it like Alice through the looking glass, crossing into another plane thrumming with heat and heavy air, a whole world that revolves around Mr. Price and his whims. 

A gravity all its own.

A special request from John arrives mid-week, close to the hottest day of the year.

Full-service. Deep clean, filter flush, system check—the kind of job that’ll eat your afternoon and keep you working well past quitting time. Two other clients will have to be bumped, but he offers triple your usual rate. Says he understands it’s last minute.

Says he’ll make it worth your while.

For the hundredth time, you’re unable to turn him down.

You tell yourself it’s the money, but that’s only half true. The other half keeps your hands tight on the wheel the whole drive over when Friday rolls around.

Nothing helps your nerves. You can’t stop thinking about eating from John’s hand. The weight of his stare. His attention. About that man at the bar—the cheap imitation whose tongue you sucked in a vain attempt to quiet what’s only gotten louder.

It’s all climbing to a fever-pitch, and you want it to break.

John greets you at the gate.

“Glad to see you.”

He lays a hand across the back of your neck, and you fall into step.

“Hosting a mate’s retirement party. Suspect his kids’ll want to swim.” He continues on about the details, but you’re stuck on how he directs your attention via squeeze.

You expect a mess, or evidence of a gathering on the horizon, but everything’s the same. Practically pristine. Swept and hosed down. You glance sidelong toward John when he sits, buzzing with something you don’t want to name. 

There’s no real reason you should be here.

No real work to do.

But he’s bought your time, so you give it, and it crawls. You move equally slow, checking the seals for wear, inspecting the heater, running tests. All of it busy work and theater.

You’re kneeling on a folded towel, bent over the open housing for the pool’s pump system. Focused until his shadow spills across the ground.

“Don’t mean to sneak up on you,” John says.

You twist to peer over your shoulder and almost swallow your tongue at the sight of his trunks at eye-level, and rise to your feet. “Everything alright?” You swipe your forehead with your wrist, willing yourself to relax.

His knuckles brush your cheek, featherlight. He frowns. “You look warm,” he taps one to your chin. “Come on. Enjoy the fruits of your labor with me, yeah?”

You barely put up a fuss when he cajoles you into a dip. Stripped to your boxers, you wade in, relief singing up your legs. Curling around your waist. You nearly groan from how good it feels.

At the other end, John dives in. He slices through the water, sleek and galeoid, surfacing within reach. Veins of water cut down his chest and stomach, disappearing at the elastic at his hips.

“Better?”

“Loads,” you say, hoarse.

He gives a faint smirk, then turns, launching into lazy laps. Says something about needing to stay limber, working out a knot in his back. You hopeless to watch. He puts those shoulders to use, pulling with long, fluid strokes.

You swallow hard, trailing him shamelessly: the sweep of his back, the bulk and muscles under freckled and scarred skin. You’re greedy. You want him. On you. Around you. Inside you. You want to bite down on that smirk and hear him swear your name.

You sit on the steps, draw your knees in, and press your thighs closed to hold yourself together. Your hands flex on the vinyl. They want to reach. Grab.

He pushes off the wall for another loop, and you stay right where you are, trying to think about anything that isn’t the throbbing pulse between your legs.

John doesn’t bother asking if you’re hungry, or if you’ll stay for dinner.

Haphazardly dressed, shirt half-buttoned and untucked, you stow the last of your gear. You’re in a daze, holding fast to denial. The spell will break, your van will revert into a pumpkin, and you’ll head home to scrub the day from your skin. Send the invoice, knock off a percentage, and you’ll do it all over again next week.

Then smoke hits the air.

John’s at the grill laying down strips of pork, the meat hissing on the grate. He halves peaches with a paring knife that’s tiny in his grip and sets them cut-side down beside the meat. The air turns lush with salt and charred sugars, rosemary and garlic.

You slink to his side, salivating, meaning to say goodbye and thank you. Polite and decisive.

Then he jerks his head to the door and tells you to fetch plates and cutlery, and you bound off. Retrieving them dutifully. Inwardly, a part of you raises the fact you didn’t agree to stay, that you shouldn’t stay—but that flicker of good sense snags on the barb of hunger and all your aching.

By the time the food’s ready, you’re ravenous. You never eat this well. Burnished pork glazed in its own fat and blistered peaches. You stop short of licking the plate.

After washing up, you peek at your phone.

“Stop that,” he scolds. “I know exactly how long I’ve got you for.”

And he does—he keeps you through golden hour.

Abendrot, painted in red and gold and soft indigo, bleeds over the sky. You’re boneless in the lounge chair. Content. Melting around the edges, the line between help and guest completely dissolved. Rendered.

John sprawls the next seat over, holding a lowball glass that catches the last of the light.

You lie on your side, head pillowed on your arm, watching the bob of his throat as he swallows.

“Can I have some?” you ask.

“Don’t think you’d like it. Picture you as more of the daiquiri type.”

“Not true,” you sit up. “I’ve got a bottle of that at home.”

That makes him glance your way. Then, he shifts, patting the cushion beside him.

He walks you through it, clearly doubting your tastes and experience: breathe in first, don’t take too much, let it roll. Savor it.

It burns, but it’s smooth. Honey folded in smoke. Leagues better than what you picked up on sale.

“Good?” he asks.

You wheeze, nodding. Emboldened, you try again twice more under his amused supervision. After a shallow fourth, you push the glass to his chest with a breathless laugh.

John chuckles, shoulders shaking. When the sound dies, you notice how close you’ve drifted.

“Well,” you murmur, easing upright. “This has been–well, I should...”

“That it?” he asks. “Off the clock now, aren’t you?”

“Yes, but, I should go, since–”

“Yeah?” he smooths a hand up your thigh. “Aren’t you the boss?”

Your brain stutters. Your mouth moves before your thoughts can catch up. “Aren’t you?”

It comes out soft. Sultry. Unfurls like a red flag in front of a bull.

His face blanks. Then, very quietly, “Careful.”

Panic punches through you. Words spilling fast. “I am so sorry, sir. That was—that was over the line. I didn’t mean—”

Storm clouds darken his blues and you brace for it—for the correction, the ending you walked yourself into.

But he moves.

The glass hits the table with a muted clink, forgotten. His hand shoots out, closing around your wrist, and the next thing you know, you’re hauled straight into his lap.

He’s kissing you.

“John–” you gasp against his mouth.

Devouring you.

His mouth slants hard over yours, tongue parting your lips, taking what he wants with a low sound—part growl, part groan.

You try to breathe through it, to think, but it’s useless. He tastes like smoke and whiskey and stone fruit. He grabs your waist and drags you closer, until you’re straddling him, knees framing his hips.

The lounger creaks.

“Christ,” he mutters against your jaw. His teeth scrape there, making you arch. “You’ve no idea how long I’ve been waiting for you to make that face again.”

“What face? A-again?” you moan, dizzy.

“That one,” he murmurs, mouth trailing lower, grazing your throat. “Like you’d let me wreck you right here, out in the open. You make it all the time.”

You shudder. He feels it—laughs under his breath.

His hand slips to your nape. His forehead presses to yours, thumb brushing your cheek.

“You want this, hm?” he asks.

You nod.

“Words, sweetheart.”

“Yes.”

“Good,” he says, and kisses you again. Rougher this time. Meaner. The decision’s final.

You belong here. On his lap. On his tongue.

“There’s a good boy, fuckin’ good boy.”

A head rush in two ways. The pulse of John’s cock on your tongue rewires your brain, resets it completely when he presses your nose into the steel wool of his hair. Dizzying, both the lack of air and the sheer size of his hand cradling your skull.

Right here, out in the open. Kneeling on a bunched-up shirt.

He had let you take charge to a point. Half-heartedly muttered about there being no need. Though as soon as you slid your tongue along the underside of his cock and hollowed your cheeks, he swore and took the reins.

He fucks your throat in slow, deep thrusts, and tells you what he thinks of your talent. What a nice surprise it is. He coos when tears well and spill, mistaking them, maybe, for strain. But it’s not that. It’s the way he looks at you. He means every word. That’s what’s undoing.

He catches your tears with a thumb, and drags them across his tongue to taste the salt. You could come like this, giving head to a man who calls you kid. When you slip a hand over your crotch he doesn’t stop you. In fact—

“Go on, do it. Show me how desperate you are.”

There’s not a shred of embarrassment when you cup yourself through your clothes, rubbing along the seam, chasing friction. You can’t do much of anything except rile yourself up. It works for John—a line of filthy encouragement streaming from him uninhibited. He grinds his hips up into the heat of your mouth, picking up speed.

John doesn’t give much warning before he comes. A stifled grunt gives it away—then his grip tightens, the pressure turning forceful, insistent, urging you to take more, to take all of him. You gag, sparks bursting in your vision when he spills in your throat. 

He gives another couple thrusts before allowing your retreat. You sputter and cough, lips slick with drool. You curl inward slightly, heels digging into your backside.

While you scrub at your eyes with the heels of your hands, still sniffing, he leans. Drags your lower lip down and hooks a thumb in your mouth to steal a look inside.

“Perfect.”

His bed could eat yours for breakfast.

That’s your first thought when John eases you into it.

Then his mouth finds yours, slower now, pacing himself. He’s got all the time in the world. You’re not going anywhere.

His kiss deepens as he crowds in close, tongue sliding against yours. You can feel every inch of him, chest to chest, the hard line of his thigh slotted between yours. His weight is a delicious trap, anchoring you down.

He shoves your shirt open, one rough palm skimming your waist, the other dragging its thumb across a scar. His mouth works a line down your neck, maw open and hungry.

“You’ve been driving me fucking mad,” he murmurs, gravel-thick. His teeth catch the shell of your ear as he toys with a nipple. “Teasin’ me for weeks.”

You twist your fingers in his hair and pull. He groans, grinding between your thighs.

“I wasn’t trying to,” you gasp. “You—you made me—during the storm—”

“Never made you do a damn thing,” he grunts, tugging at your waistband. “Did I? Didn’t make you wear my clothes. Didn’t force you to eat my food.”

He yanks your shorts and boxers to your ankles, and there’s no hiding it. He finds you wet—slick and ready. His whole body stills to collect himself. Then he exhales slow, grinning.

“Christ,” he kisses your jaw, your cheekbone, your temple. “Don’t need to force a thing.”

John’s touch is as demanding as the rest of him. He learns you fast, using two fingers and his thumb to stroke your cock. His other hand slides under your back, kneading a globe to coax you into another filthy kiss.

He breaks to swipe through your cunt, and you moan into his neck, clinging to him. He groans at the way you flutter when he circles your hole, hips shifting so you feel the hard heat of him against your thigh.

“This alright?”

You nod, helpless.

“Speak.”

“Yes,” you gasp. “Yes, John.”

He slicks his fingers and returns to your twitching cock, stirring you up into a fit of noise, hips mindlessly canting into his touch.

You’re right there—right on the edge—when he pulls away. A desperate sound tears from your lips as he stands, leaving you aching on the bed. You turn, watching him through bleary eyes as he looms.

“John,” you whimper, tilting up.

He doesn’t answer. Just reaches down, huffing through his nose, and rolls you onto your front. You scramble to get your knees set.

“Please, please—”

“Know what you need,” He grits, hauling you by the hips to the edge of the bed, swearing when you’re completely exposed. “Fuck, look at that. Could sink my teeth in right here and eat,” he swipes over your flesh, chuckling at your whimpering. “Another time, baby. Don’t worry.”

You hiss as he massages your rim using the mess from your cunt. Firm circles to ease you open. When he finally breaches, sinking to the first knuckle, you lose a little time, and come back to feel the prodding of a second digit. It’s a touch too soon, but you don’t stop him.

Don’t think you could. Not sure if you’d want to.

Soon enough, you’re tearing at the sheets. Tears roll over the bridge of your nose and slopes of your face, staining the cotton. You’re trembling, hiccuping, overwhelmed—barely able to keep up with him working you over on three of his spit-coated fingers.

Just a job, you told yourself, and now you’re crying into his bed. Listening to him purr your name. You sob once—high and cracked—and he hushes you, holding you still at the base of your spine.

“That’s it, sweet boy. Let it out.”

You cling harder to the sheets, the salt of your tears burning where they admix with sweat. You’re not sure what you’re crying for anymore—relief, need, shame. The staggering, unbearable pleasure of being wanted.

Again, he stops short of letting you come.

You’re too far gone to complain, every nerve lit up and raw. The last of your common sense, a final coherent thought raising the issue of a condom, is seared out of your mind when his cocks glides through your folds. When it slaps over the cleft of your ass. Once. Twice.

Then he’s pressing in.

It’s almost unceremonious—the weeks of simmering tension finally and suddenly boiling over—white-hot and unbearable. It ruptures, spills molten in your veins, and splits you wide open.

John’s belly brushes your lower back, then presses, cushioning when he curls over to push until he’s flush.

“Oh–oh fuck, John,” you choke out, grappling the pillow half-tucked under you.

“You’re alright.”

He keeps you close, anticipating the kick of your legs, the instinct to wriggle away. One hand smooths over your flank, gentle as breaking in a wild thing, until the worst of your shaking settles.

Then he hooks an arm snug across your chest and the other under your stomach. He finds your leaking dick, thumbing it with a hum while his own stretches you out.

“Kept this waiting, didn’t I? Sweet boy, such a mess.”

He saws in and out slowly, luxuriating in it. The rough scrape of his stubble drags over your shoulder and neck, the humid gust of his breath puffs in your ear. His fingers dip and trace your seam, circling your neglected hole. 

“Please,” you try to buck against him, but it’s impossible to move.

“Greedy,” He grunts derisively, though the eagerness with which he burrows a finger in your cunt, betrays him.

He stalls his thrusts to a grind as feeds your cunt his fingers until you cry and shake anew. They probe deep, the rub of his palm to your aching cock almost too much. You snake a hand under to push his wrist away, but his teeth find your shoulder.

“You begged for this,” he growls. “So you’re gonna let me.”

It’s not so much permission as surrender—inevitable, all-consuming. You don’t allow it so much as you yield, helpless but to drown.

The squelch of your cunt around his fingers is damning. Thicker than yours with a longer reach, he finds what makes you clench around him tight, earning a clipped curse. His wrist must be sore with the angle, but he doesn’t let it stop him. He picks up his pace again, keeping your cunt stuffed and smothered, hurtling you toward your release at last.

“John, I-I’m gonna…” you pant, breath choppy. Drool sticking to the corners of your lips.

“That’s it,” he growls. “Give it.”

Eyelids slipping shut, lightning splits the black and shoots through your nerves and muscles. You seize up with a shout then jerk, orgasm rolling through you in waves.

The rest blurs—distant. Muffled.

A guttural sound, John’s fingers retracting. Clenching around nothing and everything. Two sweat and cum-damp palms flitting over your hips and tugging, guiding you back to meet the erratic snap of his hips. 

Clarity returns with the first spurts of his cum. Mouth falling slack all over again around a feeble, surprised moan as it floods you. You can’t see him, but imagine it. Head thrown, a coat of sweat over his front and back, glutes flexing. Rooted in this deep, all-encompassing.

It’s a while before he pulls out. Seconds, minutes. Doesn’t matter. 

It beads out of you like a pearl, smeared under a thumb, then wiped by a towel.

You don’t fight him when he tucks you into his side. It’s far too hot to be this entangled in each other’s arms, but the musk of sex and sweat soothes. Easy to overlook discomforts when you’re so sated.

He sighs sweet dreams into your ear, but you’re already gone. Pulled under.

In the morning, you wake to a scorching quilt over your back. 

His chest fitted to your spine, cockhead nudging at your sore hole. He contorts you some when you rouse enough to sleepily relax for him, hooking a thick arm beneath both knees and drawing them up. They press toward your chest, folding you like a bug. Tight and close to him until there’s no room, until you’re just a precious thing for him to fuck awake.

Dozing anew in bed, you draw circles through the hair on his stomach, lazy and absent, while his fingers trace soft, idle patterns between your shoulder blades. You yawn, stretching a little into him.

“Shouldn’t you be decorating or something?”

He grunts, the movement of his fingers pausing to scratch his stubbled jaw. “Hm? Wha’s that now?”

“The party,” you murmur, eyes half-lidded.

John exhales, then folds you tighter against him, dragging the duvet higher.

“What party?”

animal, sick as they come

summary: Ghost has been starving his whole life. Never enough food to fill his stomach, never enough blood to cover his hands, always leaving him hungry and ready to snap. You’re the supposed solution to his problem, willing or not. (or: the kidnapped home chef au)

wc: 14.2k

cw: GRAPHIC NONCONSENSUAL SEX, kidnapping but you’re lowkey chill about it, rough sex, pain play, dirty talk & light degradation, non-consensual spanking, rough/painful anal sex, gratuitous description of cooking/food written by someone who once lit a pot of boiling water on fire and is really just trying her best

read on ao3 - see the pinterest board

You may have never been kidnapped before, but you can’t imagine this is how it’s supposed to go.

The masked man looms in the doorway to the kitchen, shoulders so wide that he can’t stand in the opening properly because he wouldn’t even fit, the very top of his head hidden by the worn frame. He’s a beast of a man, hulking in every sense of the word, and you can’t help but wonder how he managed to sneak up on you in the first place. Surely you’re not that unaware of your surroundings? He’s easily 6’4, probably no less than three hundred pounds.

Not much time had passed since you’d woken in a dark room with a thudding pain between your temples, mouth dry and throat swollen. You were sure you’d been blindfolded at first, eyes dry and heavy, until ice-cold water splashed onto your face and your eyes flew open on instinct.

He’d just… been there. One minute you were walking home, trying to avoid large puddles and squinting through pouring rain, and the next you were shivering and scared, your captor towering over your crumpled and bound form.

You’d lost control of your bladder the moment the sight of him registered. He’d looked down, snorted, and lumbered away to find a hose. 

You’d been inconsolable when he told you to strip, shaking with your sobs and keeping your arms wrapped tight around your chest. Even when he’d grunted ‘m not gonna fuck you when you reek of fuckin’ piss, you hadn’t been able to calm enough to follow his demands. It was only when he’d reached up to run a hand over his face and his shirt lifted just enough for you to get a glimpse of the piece on his hip that you’d been snapped away from your panic.

You can see the shape of it now, tucked in its holster. You’re fucking terrified that at any moment he could pull it out and end your life, like that. It would take hardly any effort at all. Just a twitch of the finger and bam, you go from captive to corpse.

“How long’ll it be?” The man grunts, massive arms crossed over his chest, breaking you out of your fearful stupor. 

You blink at him, wide-eyed and silent. He’d given you clothes – clothes that fit, to your comfort and horror – so you’ve been spared the further indignity of forced nudity, but the extra layer doesn’t make you feel much safer. 

He dips his chin when you don’t answer, dark eyes boring into yours. That only makes you clam up more, joints stiff.

He huffs. “Dinner. When’re you gonna fuckin’ feed me, bird?”

You stare at him, baffled. “What?” It’s the first word you’ve said to him without sobbing, and your voice trembles, shrill and weak.

He steps forward, angling his shoulders to fit into the room, fuck, and you skitter back, pressing yourself to the wooden cabinets. They’re tall, taller than the countertops in any house you’ve ever lived in, and the lip presses into the middle of your back.

“There’s food in the fridge,” he grunts. “Get to work.”

You’re not sure you could move even if you wanted to, your fight-or-flight instinct having settled firmly on freeze. 

He rumbles low in his chest and plants one hand on the island in the center of the kitchen, leaning over it. He’s so tall that his head nearly reaches the other side of the counter, hardly a foot away from yours. The counters are the perfect height for him. 

“What’s not clicking, girl?”

You pinch yourself, a quick twist of skin to make sure that this is all real and you’re not just trapped in the world’s most confusing nightmare.

“I-I don’t… you want me t-to cook? For you?” You manage, voice strangled.

He looks spectacularly unimpressed with your lack of understanding, and a distant part of you recognizes that you should probably be worried about making your captor displeased so quickly. However, the far larger part of you hasn’t had a rational thought since he hosed you down with freezing water and is still almost entirely useless.

He turns to the side to open his fridge, hand dwarfing the handle, and drops a chunk of frozen meat on the counter. It’s wrapped in brown parchment paper, a little string holding it closed. The fridge rattles with how harshly he closes the door and you can’t help but flinch. 

If he weren’t closer to the exit than he is to you, you’d have bolted away the second he turned his back. But he’s close enough that he could reach out and grab you with one hand if you got to the doorway, and you can’t even bring yourself to think about what he might do if you were caught. 

“Cook it.” He nods at the meat, voice bored like this is simple. Like it’s obvious, and your lack of understanding is an inconvenience that he’s rapidly losing patience with.

You listen, because it is obvious. He’s the captor, you’re the captive. At any moment, at the slightest whim, he could shoot you, strangle you, beat you, or a dozen worse things you can’t imagine for fear of ruining his dinner with your bile. 

He has every advantage and you don’t have anything but the shapeless hoodie and sweatpants he gave you. Here, you are nothing and he is everything.

So with shaking hands and tears streaming down your face nearly the entire time, you listen. 

You find a pan – he doesn’t help you and it’s incredibly awkward to try and dig around in unfamiliar cabinets without turning your back to him, but you manage it – and get the burner turned on. He steps out of the doorway again, still watching you from the hallway, and that gives you just enough bravery to inch towards the fridge, snatching the butter from it like he might lurch forward at any minute. 

It’s a good cut of meat. A ribeye, think and with not much fat on it. You’ve worked in the resturaunt business for a long time and it’s obvious to you that this is cut by a local butcher, not some packing plant. This is fresh. 

You have to stand with your back to the counter beside the stove to keep him in your eyeline. He doesn’t seem to mind, though the black balaclava covering him from scalp to neckline keeps almost all of his expressions a mystery to you. 

“How do you want it?” You manage to ask, after what must be five minutes of psyching yourself up internally and darting your eyes between him and the meat. 

“Rare,” he says, and you find that you’re not exactly surprised by his answer.

Basting the meat is the hardest part, but you manage. You’ve watched your father do this since you were born, spent countless nights in the corner of your parent’s restaurant watching line cooks and chefs and dishwashers and paying them all far more attention than you ever did your homework, nodding off in class the next day because the restaurant was open until eleven and your parents never once left early.

You could cook this meat in your sleep. Even with his minimal ingredients (he just shakes his head when you ask where the garlic is, and you quickly realize the only seasonings you have to work with are salt and pepper), you’re confident that the meat has come out tender and juicy, if flavorless. 

There are no sides. No drinks. No dessert. If you’d made this meal for either one of your parents, they’d lecture you for so long that the steak would go stone cold. 

You don’t have a plate to serve it on. When you ask tentatively about the dishes, voice hardly audible to even you, the man doesn’t answer. 

He instead begins to stride towards you, sending you careening around the island to try and keep as far from him as possible, hips crashing into the sharp edges of the counter and socks slipping across the tile. He ignores you completely as he leans over the over, sniffing loudly. 

You’ve thrown yourself, completely unintentionally, to the side of the counter with a large and well-stocked knife block. Before you even really think about it, you’re gripping a carving knife with both hands and holding it straight out in front of you, like you’re hoping he runs into you and impales himself. It’s probably your best bet, considering your knees are nearly knocking and barely holding you up.

He is entirely unconcerned by you. He grabs an oven mitt that was either always black or has been scorched so badly that it’s been darkened, the back of it split with its thin lining peeking out, and grabs the cast-iron by its handle, turning back to the rest of the kitchen. 

He snorts when he sees you, the sound distinctly amused and unafraid. “You think you could hurt me? With that thing?”

You may be shaking in fear, the knife quivering in front of you even with your knuckles clenched so tight they nearly spasm, but you still manage to find yourself almost offended.

“I’ll stab you,” you threaten, voice quiet but the steadiest it’s been since you woke up in that damp basement. “I’ll do it.”

The cheeks of the balaclava pull up, the imprint of his lips clear throught the fabric as he smiles, an indent where his teeth must be. “Don’t think you’ll like what happens if you try, pet.”

He steps around the island again, striding for the door and completely dismissing you. At least, that’s what you think until he calls, “Follow,” over his shoulder, like you’re an animal being called to heel.

The dining room is visible from the kitchen, a section of one wall carved out so you can see into each room from the other. You only lose sight of him for a second before he reappears on the other side of the wall, heading to sit at the table. 

The room has a horrible dark red carpet, the walls the same old-fashioned panneling as the hallway he’d dragged you down hardly an hour earlier. He seats himself at the head of a small rectangular table. It’s the only chair in the room despite the fact that five more could easily fit at the table, one leg shorter than the other. There’s nothing on the walls, no decor anywhere, just one table and one chair for one man.

You linger in the doorway, shifty and nervous, halfway to rushing back to the kitchen if only for some deluded sense of familiarity you’ve already built. 

“Don’t make me chase you,” he warns, eyes narrowing into a brief glare before he drops the pan in front of himself, silverware already set at his place, cast iron still smoking. “Neither of us’ll like it if you ruin my meal, bird.”

Then, he digs in. 

You’ve seen a lot of people eat. More people than you can count, in fact. You’ve seen them eat good food, bad food, life-changingly good and life-changingly bad food. As a child you’d been fascinated by the expressions on customers’ faces when they tried something new for the first time.

A woman with her eyes squeezed shut and eyebrows raised high as she bites into a new chocolate cake recipe your mother spent weeks making you taste test, moaning so loudly her husband had blushed. A man nearly collapsing over his bowl of soup on a cold winter day, just barely keeping his tie from falling into it as he desperately shoveled another bite into his mouth. You’ve seen people cry over your father’s wagyu, pepper your mother’s face with kisses after tasting her dacquoise.

This man eats like none you’ve ever seen before.

He’s like an animal. It takes him just a second to push his mask up to his nose, revealing pale skin decorated with atrophic and keloid scars both, then he’s pulling the pan as close to his chest as he can and hunching over it like a predator guarding its kill. 

He seems entirely unworried about burning his wrists on the edges of the pan, instead focused on tearing his steak into barely bite sized pieces with his fork and messily rubbing it in the extra butter still pooling in the bottom of the pan. 

He doesn’t even pick the first piece up with his fork. He pinches it between two fingers and pushes it between thin, scarred lips, ignoring what must be a burn on his fingertips. He chews twice, then swallows. His digits shine under the low light of his dining room, juice from the meat dripping down his fingers to cover his hand, nails choppy and with a little piece of fat stuck under one until he digs it out with his tooth.

You gape as he does it again and again, pushing two, then three pieces into his mouth at once as he works through the meat. 

It was a massive steak. It took more than half an hour to cook, if the clock on his stove is right. It’s gone in less than five minutes.

He moans as he eats, nearly pornographic in a way that makes you shift in discomfort. The steak is rare enough that the juice dripping from it is pink, the meat itself a brighter color than the man’s thin lips. Juice sluices down his chin as he chews with his mouth open, bits of the meat caught between crooked teeth. 

When he gets to the last piece of the cut, half of it submerged in butter, he holds it in front of himself for just a moment. Then, he turns to you for the first time since he left the kitchen.

His lips are flat, expressionless, as he holds the piece of steak up in front of himself. His elbow is planted firmly on the table to keep his hand in his eyeline, and he looks at you expectantly, silent. 

Your stomach growls, loud enough for him to hear. His lips twitch up in a smirk before he smothers it. You glare. You have no idea how long the drugs knocked you out for, how many days it’s been since your breakfast omlette. Standing over the oven, smelling the steak as it cooked, has made you hungry. 

The two of you are silent as you inch forward, hardly daring to lift your feet from the carpet. It doesn’t take you very long to reach the table, not when the room is as small as it is.

You shift the knife to just your dominant hand, your now free hand reaching forward slowly as you keep your eyes trained on his. The steak is still so hot that steam is still curling from the pink center of it, right between his eyes. He’s still as a statue.

Then, the second your fingertips brush the meat, he snatches it back, slipping it between his lips. 

You flinch back as your mouth drops open, offended and startled by his sudden movement. Your fist tightens around the knife, no longer so limp at your side. 

He chews with his mouth open, smiling meanly at you. His teeth are stained pink from the juices, and you think for a moment that it almost looks like his gums are melting. 

“Forget your manners, pet?’ He asks, only swallowing once he’s finished talking.

You wince at the lack of manners, your p’s and q’s brow beaten into you with a stiff wooden spoon to the back of your hand when you were young, shocked to see someone ignore what you’ve always seen as instinctual and then ask you about manners. “What?”

He leans forward in his seat, greasy hand set on his jean-clad knee. “You didn’t say please.”

You blink at him, caught in some sort of trance that you have no idea how to pull yourself out from. “Oh.”

He sits, still and silent, for several long moments, belly rising and falling beneath his folded fingers, before speaking again. “You’ll call me Ghost while you’re here.”

Your brows furrow a bit but you nod, fingers trembling where they rest limp against your thighs, knife almost entirely forgotten in this almost-hypnosis he’s dragged you into. You can’t quite make your lips move enough to give him a verbal answer, but he seems to accept the nod. 

He snorts, eyes narrowed as he looks at you. He doesn’t even have to tilt his head up even though he’s the one sitting. The realization makes you sweat, something hot igniting low in your belly. 

Before you even register that Ghost is moving, he’s snatched the knife from your now-slackened grip. He drops it into the pan immediately, the handle and blade both becoming drenched in the butter. 

You’d nearly forgotten you even had the knife but the lack of it now drags the fear back up your throat, makes your heartbeat louder and your fingertips colder. 

“Don’t need that,” he grunts, leaning back and folding his hands over his belly, fingers sliding against the fabric and already staining. This close, you can see that it hangs over the hem of his pants just enough to cover the button. You swallow thickly. 

“‘S good,” Ghost says, looking you up and down. Just like in the kitchen, the chair and table here are taller than what you used to, like they were tailor made for your captor instead of bought from a store. You’re only barely taller than him even as he sits, but he somehow still manages to make you feel like he’s looking down on you. 

There’s something in you that keeps you from backing away, even though being hardly a foot away from him makes the backs of your eyes sting with tears. It’s like your feet have sunk through the floor, like you’re up to your knees in shag carpeting and you can’t even try to get yourself out until the behemoth before you looks away.

“Congratulations, girl,” he rumbles, lips quirked up into a mean smile. “You just bought yourself a life, right here with me.”

You can’t stop the tears from falling, shaking hands clapped to your mouth in a fruitless attempt to muffle your sob. 

Ghost leans forward, smile growing when you stumble back until the small of your back meets the half-wall. “What’re you cryin’ about, doll?” He lowers his voice, like he’s sharing a joke with you. “Think I won’t treat my new pet well?”

Your heart feels like it’s going to beat so hard it gives out, its galloping thump felt even in your teeth, gums numbing. Your tears blur your vision, but you can see enough to know when he stands from his set, the chair creaking as he scuffs towards you.

He comes into focus when he crouches in front of you, his knees hovering just above your naked feet, toes curling into the carpet in a futile attempt to get as far from him as you can. 

“I won’t,” he says lowly, hot breath gusting over your face and lighting your nerves on fire. “Not until you earn it. Y’hear me?”

Whimpers eek through your fingers at his words. There’s something in his eyes that still looks hungry, little drops of grease dripping from Ghost’s fingers to your toes, and it makes you feel like prey just inches away from the predator’s jaw. 

His hand darts out, smacking your clothed thigh and making you yelp. 

“Don’t fuckin’ ignore me,” he snarls, sharp and sudden anger upon him like a wave, your thigh stinging from his hit. 

You nod as soon as the chain of words connects in your brain to mean something, head bobbing up and down quickly in desperation to avoid any more physical contact.

His eyes narrow, unimpressed. “Repeat it, then.”

“I have to–” you cut yourself off, breath suddering out of you almost painfully. “I have to earn it.”

“Earn what?”

Exasperation mixes with terror, eyelids straining to stay widened, unwilling to miss another twitch from him.

Think I won’t treat my new pet well? He’d said. You have to earn it.

You can’t think of a way to distill that down into a singular answer, not quick enough for him, at least. 

“I don’t– I don’t know,” you sob.

His movement is slow this time, but it’s no more possible for you to avoid his touch than it was when you hadn’t seen anything coming. His hand drags into your hair, nails catching on scalp, and he tugs your head back, slamming it into the wall. 

“Everything,” he hisses, the fabric covering his nose brushing against yours, snot sliding down your fingers. “You earn everything here. You work for it all. Get it?”

You can hardly nod this time, his fingers tightening around the strands of your hair and pulling at your scalp, but thankfully it’s enough for him.

“Good,” he spits, leaning back and standing, dragging you with him. 

Once you’re standing, half crouched to try your best to ease the pain rippling from your head but pushed up on your toes so his hand isn’t practically lifting you, Ghost grabs you by the elbow instead and drags you out of the room before you can even fully realize what’s happening.

He grabs you in the exact spot he had when he’d dragged you to the kitchen in the first place, each finger laid precisely where there were already bruises emerging. His grip so tight you can’t even think of trying to rip away – you imagine your arm would come off your body before Ghost’s hand came off of you. 

He drags you from the dining room and down a small hallway. From what you’ve seen of the house, and what you can remember that isn’t clouded over by a haze of panic, the floor-plan is closed off, more claustrophobic than anything else. 

Every room seems connected by a new hallway and they're each thin enough that you couldn’t walk by the man’s side – the two of you might not even be able to walk chest to chest without somehow getting wedged between the wood-panneling, considering the bulk of him. 

Your toes drag, catching on the warped wood floor as he pulls you behind him. Your hands are wrapped around his wrist in a wasted but desperate attempt to keep everything below his grip from going numb, leaving your choking whines and sobs and pleas to rush out of you, voice bouncing off the panneled walls. 

Ghost ignores you entirely, doesn’t even seem to notice when you dig your nails into his skin and you try your best to yank. 

You start to grasp at the walls, trying to slow his stride in whatever way you can. You have no idea where he’s taking you, no idea what you’d do even if you did somehow manage to break free from him, but you try nonetheless. 

He doesn’t react, no matter how much you scream and hiss, no matter how much you claw and kick and make your body dead weight, nearly breaking your wrist from the way you yank and twist. 

It’s only when your fingers catch on the edge of something thin that you’re given a tangible thing to wrap your hope around.

You only realize it’s a picture frame once you’ve already yanked it from the wall, the photo itself a complete mystery to you.

It’s the adrenaline that makes you pull back and slam the frame glass-first into the side of his head, reaching up as high as you can to make contact. There’s a horrible crack when glass meets fabric, a screech when you drag it down the side of his face, glass catching on mask and skin and more glass.

Ghost doesn’t let you go but he does stumble into the wall, grunting like a bull and batting your opportune weapon like it’s hardly more than an annoying mosquito, sending it crashing to the ground despite your death grip. 

He falls back into the wall, tugs you with him with enough force to nearly knock you off your feet, your head a mix of fear and victory and adrenaline and pain and more fear, coherent thoughts a far-off dream.

“Little fuckin’ cunt,” you hear him spit, heavy boot smashing fallen glass into further pieces as he turns to press you against the wall with his body, heavy and hot against you.

His eyes are raging, scarred lips curled to bare his teeth and little pieces of glass sticking from his skin and balaclava. 

You only have about four drops of blood to speak of for your desperate attack, and with your kidnapper furious and holding you down all you can manage to think is why the fuck did I do that? What was I thinking? 

There’s no room for anything but shame when you’re staring down the barrel of God only knows what he’ll deicde to do to you. 

“Off to a bad fuckin’ start,” he hisses, spittle landing across your cheeks. “Thought I’d be nice to you. Send you off to sleep with hardly a damn scratch.”

Ghost snarls, shakes his head like a beast shaking off fleas. Glass goes flying around his head. You can hardly breathe.

“Tha’s not good enough for you, is it?” He says, hand coming up to lock around your throat. You’d cry out if he left you enough air, but he’s squeezing so tight you can barely get enough breath to stay conscious. 

“You need a heavy hand, ‘s that it, pet? Need someone to show you what happens when you fuckin’ misbehave?” He pulls your head a few inches away from the wall on the last word, slamming you back enough to rattle your brain in your skull, eyes unfocused and hardly seeing and unable to groan with his hand squeezing your airway shut. 

You try to shake your head, can’t manage to do anything more than shift with the grip on your throat. You think, briefly, about how he could snap your neck with one hand. His palm rests over your vocal chords, fingertips pressing against the nape of your neck. A flick of his wrist and you’d be dead. You think your heart may give out, overwhelmed and unable to keep up with everything Ghost is drawing from you, spitting at you.

Capture myopathy, a friend told you once, sitting beside you in a required biology class only one of you was interested in. When a rabbit is so scared that their heart gives out on them and they die. Just like that. Snap. Easy dinner for a fox. Isn’t that sick?

Sick. She’d said. This, you think, is sicker than anything a fox could do to a rabbit. 

“You’re lucky your meat was good,” he says, tone calming into something less rageful and more frustrated, hand loosening enough to let you breathe more easily but still keeping you from speaking. “Don’t mind trainin’ you up knowin’ you’ll be an investment. Just need some work, huh?”

You try your best to nod, eager to pick training over certain death any day. 

He hums, thumb stroking the crease of your skin between neck and shoulder and you can’t stop your shiver.

“Don’t worry, bird.” His teeth gleam when he flashes them, finally leaving your space. He practically throws you in front of him with the hand on your neck, letting it shift to wrap around your nape so he can guide you forward. “I’ve had pets before. All those tears tell me you’ll at least be easier to break in than the boy was.”

You only have a brief moment to wonder who the fuck the boy is, if he’s in this house, and what that could possible mean for you, before Ghost is nudging open a rickety door and nudging you down the stairs. 

He lets you go once you’re firmly on the narrow staircase and taking slow, tentative steps out of fear you’ll miss one in the dark. Ghost takes his hand from you, looming as you make your leaden-footed way down.

You can’t stop your sniffles or your tears, terrified of the nightmares that must be waiting at the bottom of the staircase and back in the basement you’d woken up in. You know some of what waits for you, what the room will look like and what will be in it – Ghost had been with you since he dragged you to the kitchen, there would’ve been no time for him to change anything – but you’ve got no idea what training means or what Ghost will do to you when your feet hit concrete. 

You don’t move any further into the room when you reach the bottom, Ghost easily stepping around you and choosing to ignore you in favor of looking for whatever he’s decided he needs. The sight of a small carabiner with keys latched to one of his belt loops makes your idea of running back up to the door leave as quick as it comes.

“Over here,” Ghost calls, back turned to you as he crouches down and fiddles with something at the wall.

You don’t move, feet anchored to the floor.

He huffs when he doesn’t hear you following him, shifting one knee to rest on the ground so he can turn over his shoulder and level you with an unimpressed look.

“You really want to make me come get you?” He rumbles, and the threat is enough to get you rushing forward then pulling to just as sudden as stop just out of his arm’s reach. 

It doesn’t matter much, you can’t really do anything to stop him when Ghost’s arm darts back to grab you by the knee, his torso leaning back to get a hand on you and tugging you forward. 

You can’t keep yourself from falling to your knees right at his side, nothing around for you to grab onto other than him and even looking at a face-full of concrete you know not to make any unnecessary contact with Ghost, not if you can help it. 

The weight around your neck is sudden and unexpected, his quick movements around your head even moreso. You don’t even have enough time to decide if it would be worth it to try and fight him off before there’s a resolute click, and he’s pulling back with something thick wrapped around his knuckles.

It’s a chain. Silver, hardly a hint of rust on it, thick and well-kept, and leading right back up to your neck.

You don’t put it together until shaky hands come up to press around the- the collar. Thick leather, two or three inches wide, just tight enough that you can feel it on every exhale. 

A collar. A collar with a chain leash, heavy enough that you can feel the hint of pressure pulling you towards Ghost, the length of the chain that’s not tight in his fist resting in loops by his boot. 

You can’t do anything but stare up at him, wide eyed and trembling, can’t begin to think of what to do before he’s standing and tugging you with him.

“Here now,” he grunts, not bothering to give you any time to get to your feet. You sort of stumble after him, knee scraping the ground as your head is jerked along. You can’t let yourself lag at all, not unless you want to get dragged along by your neck.

You feel like you’re moving through quicksand, every move only making things worse for you. Every forced step forward is another step closer to him, every jerk of your head pulls at the hair stuck in the back of the collar that he hadn’t bothered to move before locking it onto you, every panicked breath only serves to keep your breathing short and hitched.

Ghost drops himself onto the small cot pressed against the wall, it’s metal legs creaking under his weight. You can’t straighten fully with how short he keeps the chain, which leves you in a terribly vulnerable hunched position, eye-level with his stomach and bent at the waist, knee throbbing.

“Over my knee,” he rumbles, voice quiet. “Get this over with.”

You stare up at him with wide eyes, panting open-mouthed, drooling. A panicked animal with its leg caught in a trap, unable to do anything but stare up at the jaws closing around its body.

“Please,” you beg, voice hardly a whisper. “Don’t hurt me.”

His eyes are hard behind the mask, mouth a firm line as he looks down at you. You can feel your heartbeat in your throat beneath the thick leather. 

Ghost doesn’t give you another chance to obey. One quick jerk of his hand and you’re toppeling forward, choking on spit and holding your hands out to catch yourself. 

He manhandles you quickly – one hand on the chain yanking it further down, head forced lower than his knee while his other hand grabs you by the hips and hefts you on top of him, elbow jamming itself between your thighs while blood rushes to your head. 

You yelp, legs kicking out as you push at the bed with one hand, the rough ground with the other, throwing your head back and forth as much as you can with the leash giving you almost no room to move.

“Settle,” Ghost hisses. You don’t listen, can’t listen with the way panic alone rules your mind, and in response he lands a harsh smack on the center of your ass, enough to push you forward a few inches.

Your pleas come to a sudden stop, breath stuck in your throat as you absorb the pain, a noticeable sting even through the sweatpants.

“You’re gettin’ fifty,” he grunts when you’ve gone silent, tucking two fingers in the back of your pants and tugging them down, lifting up one knee to lift your torso so he can yank them to your waist. “Take ‘em, then we’re done.”

“No, no, please, God,” you choke, one hand flying to your mouth and pressing against it. Tears stream down your face, cheeks blazing with heat, a horrible mix of terrified and humiliated that leaves you all but limp over his legs.

Ghost snorts above you and you jump when you feel his cold hand make a pass over the fat of your ass. “Won’t be thinkin’ that much longer.”

You only have a brief moment to think hysterically is he making a joke right now? before there’s a horrible pain on your ass, the smack loud in the otherwise silent room.

It takes a second for the pain to hit you, but when it does you yowl. You push up on his thigh with both hands as another smack rains down, pulling as hard as you can against the chain.

“Stop, stop, stop it!” You screech, toes sliding uselessly against the cement as you writhe, all of your struggles doing absolutely nothing to stop his hand from falling again, this time right on the center of both cheeks. 

“Y-You can’t- you can’t d-do this!” You wail, throat filled with tears and snot as you realize you can’t even get close to standing, not with his grip on the chain as immovable as it is. “Stop!”

His next smack is his hardest, his grip around the chain loosening at just the right time to allow you to be sent sprawling over his lap, sobbing at the pain that lights up your backside. It hurts, and now your forehead is nearly pressed to the floor, leaving you completely off balance.

Ghost grunts as he shifts one of his legs, tucking your flailing limbs between his thighs and forcing you to be bent over just the one thigh, knees hovering inches off the ground.

“Stop your fuckin’ wailin’, Christ,” he hisses, peppering you with more spanks, each of them as hard as the last and forcing all the air out of your lungs. “Damn lucky this is all you’re gettin’. I should make you count ‘em, start over every time you get one wrong.”

You cry out at that, wriggling desperately and only serving to push your ass further into the air, trapped on both ends.

“We’d be here all damn night,” Ghost mutters to himself, hardly audible over your fit. “One picture ain’t worth bruisin’ my hand over.”

Your feet just barely brush against his thighs when you manage to kick up, but you’re embarrassed to find that you don’t have the strength to do much more than hang limply in his hold, one hand reluctantly wrapped around his calf to keep yourself from falling to the floor. 

Your tears and sobs don’t stop as he continues his assault on your ass, but there’s a part of you that almost… settles. Not into the pain, not when he’s smacking you hard enough to jolt your body forward and make you wail at every new touch, but into the steadiness of his smacks.

He doesn’t wait more than a second between hits, each spank no heavier or lighter than the last. It hurts, hurts worse than anytime you’ve burned or cut yourself in the kitchen, but after the first minute or so your body comes to expect what’s coming.

That doesn’t make it any easier to handle. You couldn’t stop your crying if you tried, like his hand is resting on your tearducts instead of your ass, squeezing every bit of moisture out of your eyes. 

He stops at some point, hand resting on your cheeks. He squeezes, nails digging in deep, and pulls your cheeks apart. You sniffle at the indignity, free hand covering your eyes as your face crumples.

“Half way through now,” Ghost says, ignoring the way you cry out. You can’t imagine taking one more hit, let alone twenty five. 

He shifts back on the cot and for a moment you have absolutely no idea what’s happening. It’s not until he not-so-gently readjusts your legs, his own laid out flat in front of him with his feet hanging off the cot, your body readjusted so you’re lying properly over his thighs.

It’s more comfortable, certainly, but you’re not sure you want comfortable right now. It feels impossible to imagine the brute above you as thinking of your comfort, completely analogous to his actions and leaving you a confused and weak mess. 

Ghost shifts his hand along with the rest of him, dropping the chain entirely in favor of resting a heavy palm on the back of your neck, equally as effective at keeping you still. He doesn’t say anything, doesn’t comment on your heaving breaths or shaking thighs, just lets you breathe with your hands curled beneath your chest and your forehead pressed to the thin sheet covering the cot.

The next spank catches you completely off guard, your body having gone limp and leaving you unprepared for the sudden pain. It reignites your sobbing, your throat on fire from all the screaming you’ve done. You can hear your voice crack as you absorb the pain, shoulder shaking.

“Christ,” Ghost sighs, hand briefly leaving your ass. 

He’s lifting you by your hair a moment later, thick fingers laced through the tresses as he pulls your head back and stuffs something in your mouth. You whimer at the feeling, tongue working at the frankly disgusting taste, brows furrowed.

“Keep that there,” he orders, and you just barely get a glance of the side of his head before he’s shoving you back down, face-first. You realize, blinking slowly, that he’s shoved his mask in your mouth. “Can’t be bothered to teach you to shut the hell up, gonna hafta work on that once you learn how to behave.”

He spanks you again and this time your sob is muffled as you bite down on the fabric and grind it between your teeth. 

His pace is slower now, hand more thudding than stinging. It feels like he’s putting his weight behind every smack, each one delivered with what you’re sure is bruising force. Though truly you can’t tell much of a difference, not with your whole ass already feeling like it’s on fire. 

It gets harder and harder to differentiate between new and old pain as he lays brutal spanks over spots that are already hot and throbbing, varying the strength of each smack this time. You sink into the pain, limp and unable to do anything but take it.

“Better,” Ghost says, the rough pads of his fingers rubbing your scalp when you jerk at the sound of his voice. His next hit lands on the crease between your thigh and your ass, but your whine is almost silent. “Can hear myself think now, for one.”

Another smack, and your body doesn’t even jerk this time. You’re not even fully present in yourself, mind floating. You don’t quite feel like an outside observer, more like you’re just a few inches removed from the situation. All your sensations feel dulled, and you bear the pain as best you can. 

“Can enjoy the sight too,” you hear him say, and suddenly there are pauses between each smack, a little break Ghost takes to rub your glowing ass and thighs as much as he wants before laying another handprint across your soft skin. 

“‘S too bad I don’t fuck where I eat,” he muses, and you groan into the mask at a particularly rough hit. “You don’t take much fightin’. I like that in a girl. Go down real easy with a firm hand, don’t you?”

You shake your head as best as you can, which really isn’t much at all. He snorts at your effort, tightens his fingers to keep your head still.

You’re sapped of all energy, unable to move even as his punishing spanks linger lower on your ass, and even when he bullies a hand between your thighs and spreads your legs.

“Look at that,” he says, voice low. You can feel it through his stomach, goosebumps racing from your ribs to the rest of you. “Dirty girl, are you?”

You’ve got enough wherewithal to try and squeeze your legs shut when his fingers prod at your center, yanked back into your body at the sharp turn from painful to… something else.

He strokes two fingers over your slit, and you groan at just how much slick you can feel him spreading. You have no idea when it happened, have no idea why it happened, but you’re drenched between your thighs. Your cunt feels as hot as your ass, and the realization yanks a horrible little whine from you.

“Guess that wasn’t much of a punishment,” Ghost muses, spreading your lips and letting cool air ghost over you. You feel him blow a breath across you and struggle more than you have since he’d laid you flat across him, knees coming to tuck up under yourself.

“No,” he says simply, landing a horrible, smarting slap to your pussy. It sends you flat to your tummy again, squirming against him and wailing through the pain. It hurts. “Down, girl. No strugglin’ now.”

He only continues to stroke you, now pushing the steadily dripping wetness from your clit to your asshole, making you tense and writhe where you’re pinned, his order ignored.

“Think I’ll do the last few here,” he says, landing another harsh smack to your center, this time focused on your clit. “Make sure you remember your lesson.”

He doesn’t wait any longer, just begins to lay quick, harsh slaps all across your cunt – your spread lips, your hole itself, your clit. Once, even, on your bottom hole, digging his nails into your stinging cheeks to spread you wide for him.

It hurts more than any of the smacks to your ass did, undeniably, but you’re sapped of all energy and find yourself hardly able to cry, let alone struggle. You’re too busy being swept away in a maelstrom of pain-pleasure you’ve never experienced before to even try defending yourself.

Your only option is to lie still and wait for him to finish with you. So that’s all you do.

It feels like it’s been an eternity when he finally stops. 

The hand near your ass gropes you firmly, pinching what you can already feel are tiny little raised spots from where his palm landed the hardest. 

You don’t have the energy to even think of struggling when he finally moves you off him, letting you flop uselessly to the cot as he moves out from under you. There’s the sound of metal clinking, the tension from the collar finally eased as he lets it go completely.

He doesn’t bother to pull your pants up, but he does nudge your legs closed. It’s a bit of decency you didn’t expect from him. 

You can’t do much more than blink wearily at him as Ghost reaches to tug his mask from your mouth, lip curling in disgust at the drops of saliva that fall from it. Good, you think. That’s just the start of what you deserve, bastard.

He crouches in front of you a moment later, bringing his face into full focus in front of you.

He’s… not traditionally attractive, that’s for sure. Even your defeated and exhausted mind can recognize that you would’ve avoided this man had you seen him on the street. Probably would’ve even risked being seen as rude and crossed to another sidewalk before he walked past you. Seeing as this is where you’ve ended up, your instincts wouldn’t have been wrong about him.

He’s got a square head and blond hair buzzed close to the scalp. The scars you’d seen across his cheeks and jaw extend further up his face, something textured across his temple that you can’t guess the cause of, eyebrows patchy and only half-grown in from burns, little bumps decorating his scalp.

But there’s something captivating about him. In his eyes, maybe, such a dark blue that you can only tell they’re not brown because he’s hardly a foot from you. There’s something about him that says look at me. Don’t forget where I am.

Though maybe, you think deliriously, you’re only thinking that because he’s the captor who just spanked your ass raw and dragged his fingers through your cunt.

“Rule one,” Ghost rumbles quietly, breath gusting over your lips. “You hurt me, I hurt you. Heard?”

It takes all the energy you have left to nod, eyes falling shut even as the little prey voice in the back of your head screams at the danger so near, never mind that you haven’t been able to do anything to keep him from you. You’re too loud to listen to the voice anyways, only a very distant part of you acknowledging it as you slip into a sort of half-sleep.

You don’t hear him leave.

From there you settle, bizarrely, into a routine. 

Every day begins with you waking up in the basement. Always before Ghost comes to get you, some primal instinct buried deep knowing that you need enough time every morning to brace yourself for seeing him.

He locks the chain, the leash, to a hook on the wall a couple feet above your cot every night, the key to the padlock always left on him. The chain is long enough to give you plenty of room to roll and shift in bed at night but it’s too short for you to reach the small bathroom across the basement. There’s no clock for you to keep track of time with but you spend what must be half an hour every morning just sitting on the cot, waiting for Ghost to come get you.

He’s always nearly stumbling when he comes down the basement stairs to fetch you, sleep keeping his bones heavy. It’s only in the mornings when you see him with his shoulders hunched, movements weighted down, any other time he’s perfectly alert. 

You think, at first, that your best shot at trying to hurt him would be in those early mornings when he’s groggy and slow moving, but Ghost never lets you off the chain when he’s like that. It’s always after he’s stiffened up, shoulders rolling back and permanent-scowl firmly back in place.

He’ll unhook the chain from the wall first, rarely saying a word as he half-drags-half-leads you over to the bathroom, doesn’t let you close the door while you do your business and shower.

(There’s a way he looks at you in the morning, when he’s at his rawest. Something animal and hungry in a way you don’t see even when you serve him his meals, pupils blown and lingering on your curves, unabashedly staring at your ass when you glance over your shoulder at him.

It had been terrible, at first, to get naked in front of him. He’d just stare, and most days you could see his hardness tenting his pants. Hell, some days he came down the stairs with his cock making itself plenty known, not a speck of shame in him.

You’d once listened to him jack himself off while you were in the shower. You’d had to step over the puddle of cum on the tile when he’d tugged you out of the room, nearly slipped into it when he’d pulled you just a little more harshly than usual.)

The chain stays in the basement, always unlatched from your throat along with the collar before he shepherds you up the creaky stairs, never much more than a foot or two away from you. 

Then, breakfast. 

It had taken a while for you to really believe him after he’d said you were only there to cook. What kind of person kidnaps a woman just to keep her as a private chef? But days went by where he never once touched you any more than necessary to get the collar on and off, his only reaction to your body a seemingly unintentional erection and usually ignored when you were naked. 

Days, weeks pass where all you do is cook. Three meals a day, snacks when he’s hungry (which seems to be always). 

Ghost’s cabinets were bare the first week of your captivity. He had enough meat in his freezer to last him months, but little else. There was a loaf of bread on the counter, a few condiments in the fridge with crusted lids and misshaped bottles, and some cans of soup in the pantry. Nothing else. He’d drop a cut of meat on the counter and expect you to work with it and seemed plenty content when you served him the blandest roast chicken of your life.

It took you three days until you worked up the nerve to ask him to go grocery shopping. It was the first thing you said to him that wasn’t a plea for your freedom. 

You’d been terrified that you’d end up face down ass up over his thighs again, your ass still bruised from his first punishment and his subsequent much quicker corrections. But he’d hardly reacted, had just given you a piece of paper and a short pencil with bite-marks on the eraser, told you to write what you thought you needed.

He locked you in the basement for hours (you tracked the sun through the sole window as best you could, left behind fear and anger for boredom around what you guessed was the three hour mark) when he left. Briefly, you’d regretted asking in the first place. If the bastard wanted to eat nothing but protein and die of a nutrient deficiency, who were you to stop him? It would serve him right.

But you have nightmares, sometimes, of being stuck in the basement. Your captor dead in his bed, fallen to the bathroom floor with his head cracked open, bleeding out in the forest one of the times he goes off hunting. And you, stuck here, chained to a wall. No key, no way out, no one to find you.

A part of you had breathed a sigh of relief when he came home, letting you up to the kitchen and supervising while you dug through the plastic bags and put everything where you wanted it.

He doesn’t… do much during the days, is the thing.

He goes hunting, sometimes. You find that that seems to be his most consistent outing. He’ll spend hours out there at a time, sometimes coming back with nothing and other times coming back with a twelve-point buck you watch him drain through the kitchen window. He also has to keep his weapons – his many, many weapons – in shape, and you find that it’s not rare to spend an afternoon watching him clean guns or sharpen knives.

You enjoy his hunting moods most. He’ll disappear for hours on end to even find his kill, then spend days skinning and preparing the meat, then doing whatever it is he does in his shed with the bits of the body he doesn’t bring you to cook. Those days spent in the forest or the shed for him guarantee you hours of time alone, which isn’t nearly so miserable when he doesn’t keep you in the basement. 

Sometimes he goes out after dinner. You’ll hear the front door slam shut after he locks you up in the basement, his truck’s old engine loud enough to be obvious when he revs it. You’re never sure where he goes, who he might even go with since he never takes calls, but you also have little interest in asking.

But most nights he watches TV. Almost exclusively old VHS recordings of The Price is Right, Wheel of Fortune, Password, and shows so out-of-date you’re sure you could count the pixels on the screen. He’ll roll himself a blunt and relax into an old recliner with cracked leather, eyes half-lidded and hazy.

(You watched him rest a hand in his pants, once. He hadn’t even been focusing on the TV, eyes far away and breathing heavy as he stroked himself slowly beneath his jeans. You don’t even think he finished, he was just… relaxing. You’d decided to just be glad he wasn’t coming after you for that job.)

Sometimes he’ll watch the same Manchester United games every night for a week straight, grunt approvingly or shout at the TV at the same points no matter how many times you’ve seen him watch it. By the end of your first month in his captivity, you could guess who scored every goal in the team’s 2012 championship game. You have absolutely no idea why he doesn’t just turn on the newest games.

You learn quickly that Ghost mounted a hook to nearly every wall in the house, and that he’s not shy about chaining you in the same place for hours at a time and leaving you to your own non-existent devices while he lumbers off. You spend the most time in the kitchen, undoubtedly, but you find that the horrible plush carpet in his living room isn’t too uncomfortable to sit on either.

It doesn’t take many days for your fear to turn to boredom, is the thing. Absolute, complete, mind-numbing boredom. There’s simply nothing to do but watch Ghost, and for a kidnapper he’s turned out to be spectacularly uninteresting. 

He’d laid out the rules in the first few days. You hurt him, he hurts you. Listen to his orders, don’t make him repeat himself. Don’t try to escape, you won’t find anyone to help anyway and he doesn’t want to chase you down. Don’t try to fuck with the food you make him, he expects good meals consistently.

It had been the third you’d struggled most with, though you could hardly blame yourself. You’d thought he was going to make you bleed when he caught you trying to throw yourself out of a recently-broken window.

He’d taken you over his lap a few more times for smaller infractions too. To make sure the lessons stick, he’d said. They did. Ghost hits hard, and even after just his first punishment you’d been plenty cowed. You don’t give him many reasons to punish you again.

The bright spots in your life are, as they have always seemed to be, food orientated.

There’s a part of you that hates how much time you think of ways to quite literally serve him, but you have nothing else to do. He may enjoy his shows, but after about two weeks you think you may go insane if you have to focus on much more Tom Kennedy in an other-wise silent house. 

You spend long hours staring out his windows at the foggy forest surrounding the cabin, running through the recipes you’d wanted to try before you’d been taken, notes for your parents’ dishes that were never listened to, plans on what you could make for Ghost himself with what he would provide.

And he does. Provide, that is. He provides plenty.

The fifth day of your captivity, he drops a chicken carcass on the wood island. Whole, unplucked, the blood from its neck still drying.

“I can’t…” You start, hesitating at the doorway to the kitchen as he moves further in. “I’m not a butcher. I can’t cook it like that.”

Ghost looks over at you, mask covering his expression. You find that it’s a fifty-fifty chance he doesn’t pull it on in the morning, dependent on some factor you’re not allowed to know.

“I’ll cut it up,” he grunts, turning his back to you and tugging a drawer open, digging around noisily. “Don’t need you to do anythin’ but cook it.”

You shift from foot to foot as he turns back to the bird, empty trash bag at his side and carving knife in his hand. 

For a man who you’ve always assumed to be inept in the kitchen, he handles the bird like a professional. He has it plucked in less than a minute, his mess minimal.

His butchering is less impressive, though no less effective. He’s a bit of a slob with his cuts, reckless with his knife in a way that has you craning your neck to see just how much breast is left on the bone. 

Ghost is slow-moving, careful in a way you’ve never seen him when he pops the thigh from the leg joint. It must’ve been a well-fed bird during its life, there’s plenty of meat for his thumb to dig into as he carefully rotates and pulls, not too much strength but not too little. A balance he seems to struggle to find before the thigh finally pops away from the body easily, and he moves on.

It’s… intimate is the wrong word, but it’s not far off. His hands – damp from being washed, something you’d been glad to see him do without you needing to draw his attention back to you – are shiny with the bird’s juices covering them, his thick fingers brutalizing the delicate, pale meat. The job is done quickly and cleanly enough to leave you plenty of meat.

He doesn’t butcher it completely for you. He leaves the wing connected to the breast, the breast and the tenderloin one large piece of meat when he lays his carving knife on the counter. His most precise cuts are around the oysters, each of them dug out and set to the side quickly. 

It’s not a quiet process, his knife cutting through bone and joint. But it feels particularly loud with the only other sound the soft humming of the fridge, the call of a bird outside the window. 

You feel squirmy for reasons you can’t quite place when he’s finished, bird butchered and glistening under the dim kitchen light. The look he gives you, heavy and stifling, doesn’t help. 

You make him get mason jars next time he goes to the store, mourning all the stock that goes to waste because you’ve got no way to store it. He praises the tenderloins you make for dinner that night, voice rough in a way that makes your cheeks heat.

Most of the food he buys for you to work with is store-bought, but the meat continues to be fresh. He enjoys the food most when he kills it himself – he moans when he bites into a piece of duck in a way that you feel no shame in calling pornographic – but you learn that he’ll settle for anything fresh.

There’s a calendar on the inside of the pantry. 

It’s an old military one, each of the pictures a dramatic shot of a soldier, covered in filth more often than not and staring across some sort of beautiful landscape. It’s from 2014, each of the pages worn and ripped where fingers have pinched and flipped. Each of the days is already marked off with an X in the box, some of them even with little notes written in different colors from over the years.

G birthday in Lancaster

S appointment - needs ride

L retirement on base

You know when he flips it to read June that you’ve been with him a month. You’re not happy, far from it, but you don’t spend everyday shaking in fear. 

You know what to expect from Ghost, he knows what he expects from you, and you’ve settled into an almost-peaceful cohabitation. 

He takes to ordering you prettier clothes about halfway through your second week. Sweatpants get traded in for sundresses and uncomfortably tiny shorts, sweatshirts exchanged for cardigans and low-back tank-tops. 

Some days, watching him feed the chickens through the window in your daisy-print sundress and flour-covered apron, you feel almost like a homesteader’s wife.

If not for the chains hanging from the walls, of course. 

You’re wearing one of those dresses when Ghost comes to visit you in the kitchen, nearly six weeks after he’d taken you.

He’d been letting you wander the house off-leash more and more, in small doses. Whether confident in his ability to catch you or your inability to get far from the cabin, you’re not sure, but you’re thankful nonetheless. You’re still a little sore from your last escape attempt, ass smarting from his belt, and haven’t quite gotten into your head to try again yet.

You’re leaning over the counter, tasting a fresh brownie from the middle of the pan while he smokes with his Wheel of Fortune on, having sent you off with a pat on the ass and a I want somethin’ sweet, doll. 

You’ve never been nearly as good at baking as you have cooking, and you’re not sure you’ve perfected your brownie recipe yet. But you’ve always had a bit of a sweet tooth, and Ghost keeps his house cold. Biting into a still-steaming gooey brownie, the top just enough of a crust to give the bite texture, the chocolate melting into your tongue, is one of the best things you’ve done since you first woke up in that basement. 

You don’t realize you’ve made a noise until there’s an echo behind you, Ghost’s groan so quiet it’s nearly drowned out by the TV in the other room.

You jerk back from the counter, hands braced on the rounded corner as you look over your shoulder, sure that there’s a pipe groaning in the wall.

Instead you see your kidnapper, already hardly a step away and boxing you into the counter, hulking body smothering you with ease.

Your spine goes ramrod straight, brownie abandoned in its pan as he presses himself into you, hard chest pushing against your softer back. You’re silent, stiff, too surprised and scared to do more than wait. 

“‘S got you moanin’ in here?” Ghost rumbles, heavy against you. “Thought I said I wanted a treat.”

“I–” You gasp, arching when he presses his hips into you. His sweatpants don’t do anything to disguise his length and you can feel every inch of him against your back. “I–I made brownies.”

“Hm…” One hand comes to rest on your hip, his head lowering enough that you can see his profile in your peripheral. “Let’s have it then.”

You don’t move at first, fingertips tingling and lips pressed tightly together.

He huffs, smacks your ass once. He pushes the fabric of your dress up just enough to clip your skin, simple granny panties doing little to soften the blow. You gasp and jerk forward, soft stomach pressing into the counter.

“Give me one,” he says, hand rubbing where he’d just spanked, fingertips just dipping under the edge of your underwear. “C’mon, bird, I want a bite.”

Your fingers quiver as you lift the brownie in your hand to his lips, holding it just over his shoulder as he feels you up with both hands, roughly kneading the cheeks of your ass as you try to stay as still as possible.

Ghost gives you more of his weight and bites the brownie, the sharp edges of his teeth scraping your knuckles. You jump at the feeling, unwittingly grinding yourself against him. 

“Fuck, pet,” he moans, face dropping to rest his forehead against your temple. You can do nothing but stare at the cabinet. “That’s fuckin’ delicious. I need another bite.”

You’re reaching towards the pan to cut him another piece when you realize he’s shifting to his knees behind you.

“Ghost,” you whine when he takes your hips in his hands, hefting you up so you’re fully resting on the island with your toes unable to even skim the tile. Your eyes are wide as you stare at the backsplash, unable to quite believe what’s happening.

“Hush,” he scolds, and you get a smack to the thigh for your trouble. “I want my sweet thing.”

Ghost eats your cunt the same way he eats your food: voraciously, messily, and shamelessly.

He gives you no warm up, no time to prepare for something he’s only hinted at wanting to do before. There’s one broad swipe of his tongue across your sex, then his lips wrapping around your clit and your eyes rolling back into your skull.

You’re not sure that he cares about your pleasure, but he’s certainly giving you plenty. He licks from cunt to clit again and again, tongue quick and stiff against where you’re sensitive and drawing breathy moans from you, nails scratching uslessly at the counter.

He focuses mostly on your hole, licking up your slick like it’s the best thing his tongue has ever touched and leaving you pushing back for more unconsciously, wanting more than just the tip of his tongue inside you. 

“Greedy,” he huffs when you nearly slip off the counter. He slips two fingers into your leaking hole and you squeal at the stretch, noticeable even with his mouth working you over. “This is for me, not you, pet. Settle down and let me eat.”

You cry out when he laps at your clit, quick, broad licks over the bud and just enough pressure to make your mouth hang open. He gives you almost too much suction, your brain rattling around between your ears when he crooks his fingers and tugs.

He uses just one hand on your thigh and two fingers in your cunt to shove you up the counter, giving him more space to have you practically sitting on his face. He laps around his own fingers, fucking with you just enough to coax more slick for him to drink, your knees knocking against the cabinet.

Eventually, what feels like it must be hours later, you come. The combination of Ghost’s fingers pressing at just the right spot, the suction on your clit and the sound of his mouth against you making you feel insane and finally pushing you over the edge.

It’s heaven, to have him lick and suck you through your orgasm. Your limbs feel tingly, bright white starbusts flying behind your eyes as you go limp across the counter, head pressing against the backsplash.

It isn’t until he doesn’t pull out his fingers, doesn’t pull his tongue away, that you start to feel truly gone, a puppet dancing to his tune, a piece of fruit squeezing whatever juice he wants into his mouth for as long as he wants.

“Not done with you yet,” you hear him murmur, the rumble of his voice against your cunt making you moan from overstimulation. “Gonna drain you dry, pretty thing. Shouldn’t have made yourself so sweet if you didn’t want me taking it all.”

You want to growl that you can’t make yourself taste like anything, but he slips a third finger into your hold, curls his fingers and rubs his knuckles against your g-spot, and you’re coming too hard to even attempt a protest.

By the time he pulls your dress back down and pets your ass, taking a brownie from the pan without even bothering to use the knife to cut himself a piece, there’s nearly as much drool dripping from your mouth as there is your cunt.

From there, your life centers around two things: food and sex. Both of them exist only because of and with Ghost, him your constant companion as you unwillingly grow more and more comfortable in his house. 

You cook him a stew made from cow leg he’d dropped on your counter that morning. Small russet potatoes float in the broth, popped into his mouth whole and swallowed almost as completely, pieces of carrots he chews to mush and celery he avoids, wine soaked meat leaving grease stains down his shirt. 

Ghost puts you on your knees beneath the table, feeds you his cock while he feeds himself your food. You suck him as well as you can, trace your tongue over the thick vein up the side of his cock, ignore the throbbing in your jaw and try to push his foreskin back to suckle on his head.  He wraps his fingers around the base of his cock, doesn’t let himself come until he’s finished with his meal. You can’t tell if his groaning is for your work on the stew or your work beneath the table.

Fuckin’ heaven, that mouth. Want me to send you off with a full belly, huh? Bet you like your meal as much as I like mine.

Half a dozen eggs, scrambled, served with enough bacon to make you feel sick from the smell alone and half-soaked in maple syrup. 

You, needy and desperate, grinding your cunt across his thigh. You lean back as far as you can with your hands carefully resting on the table at your back, desperate to avoid his syrup-sticky fingers, and end up with a view of his cock lancing you. He scoops your slick up with his clean fingers, picks up another piece of bacon and rips it in half, offers you the bit he doesn’t take.

Please, please, Ghost, I need it so bad, it hurts and it’s supposed to, love, I said I wanted a show with my breakfast, didn’t I?

A rack of lamb, sliding off the bone, bites of it shared between Ghost and you as three of his fingers work slowly in and out of your ass, leisurely and for his viewing pleasure more than your own orgasm. Red juices smeared across your lips and face, dripping down his chin and staining his fingers. A thumb on your clit, meat shoved between your teeth as you come. 

Gonna fuck you here too. Gonna make it hurt, listen to you cry a little when I eat. Oh, hush, you’ll be fine, don’t get yourself worked up. Not yet, at least. My cock’ll spread you out at least twice this much, save your tears for when you’ll need ‘em, pet.

Sticky fruit laid across your stomach, cantaloupe and watermelon and kiwi and banana. His fingers picking them off you piece by piece, savoring them as he fucks you hard. You laid flat to the table, legs spread why and throat sore from your cries, the stark difference between the way he relishes the food and the way he fucks you like an animal making you feel wanted in a way that threatens to drown you.

You need it bad, don’t you? Slut. Pretty, tasty, perfect little slut. Fuckin’ squeezin’ my dick off, goddamm, honey. Gonna fuck you full, gonna fill you up and feed you plenty. 

Stir fry you make with hog maw, a recipe you’d never tried before given to you by a girl in cooking school who was set to inherit her parent’s restaurant. His face moving between your cunt and his meal, your whines about a UTI and cross-contamination go ignored, and he holds his bowl beneath your cunt while he strokes your g-spot with two calloused fingers. 

Tightest fuckin’ cunt in the world. Pretty little thing and her pretty little meals, just made for me, huh? ‘S that right, pet? You’re made just for me and my mouth and my cock, hm? Gonna give me a nice little dressing for my food?

A night spent in his bed, after you make him angel-food cake from scratch. Waking up to a cock pressed against your ass, chain leash and collar heavy around your throat and locked around the headboard but the sheets soft under your skin, pillows thick and his own body warm in a way the basement never gets. 

Ghost isn’t awake yet. He’s snoring like a freight train, completely unaware of the way you stare at him in the blue-dark of the early dawn hours. 

The chain is heavy in your hand, cold against your soft palms. You feel almost like you’re in a trance, the world still hazy around its edges as you shift to kneel over him. 

You don’t know how much strength it takes to strangle a person, but evidentially you don’t use enough. 

You wrap the chain tight around either knuckle, press your hands hard into the mattress on either side of his head, and hold your own breath. His snores quiet, his breathing shudders. He coughs once, twice, you feel his hips and legs begin to shift beneath you and you really put your body weight behind your hold. He goes still.

Then, his eyes fly open. 

There’s hardly time for you to think fuck before he’s flipping you onto your stomach, harsh hand shoving you into the mattress while another rips the chain from your hands and pulls.

You wail a breath as your head is pulled back, scalp nearly touching your spine as Ghost forces your back into a steep arch, ass pushed into the air.

“Fuckin’ hell,” he hisses. You can’t tell if the heat in his words is rage or hunger or some sick mix of both, have even less of an idea which one you should be hoping it is. “You tryin’ to fuckin’ kill me?”

You can barely breathe through the anticipation, the fear that’s been gone for so many days suddenly wrapped around you as tight as the collar, but you find enough breath to shout when he lands a horribly heavy hit across your ass. 

“Ghost!” You shout when he only follows it with several more, eyes squeezed shut as he overwhelms you in pain and discomfort.

“What?” He snarls, fingers clipping your cunt and making your squeal. “What, now you don’t like pain? I watched you cream my cock without a single finger in your cunt last night, girl, but this?” Another spank, harder than you’ve ever taken and burning. “This too much for you?”

You huff, squirming as much as you can in your strained position. 

“You wake me up with a goddamn chain around my neck and bitch when I beat your ass for it?” His voice is nearing a shout now, thick with what you’re sure is anger. “You’re gonna try and kill me in my own fuckin’ bed and pitch a fit when I make you sorry?”

You can’t find it in you to do anything but cry, chest tight and eyes squeezed tighter while he doles out punishment, bruising slaps landing anywhere from your cheeks to your cunt to your thighs to your hole, his hand spreading you wide for him.

“Spread,” he grunts eventually, a harsh hand shoving your knees wide. “Need to get to that hole.”

You don’t get to listen, he makes you do what he wants without giving you a chance to, and then lays a dozen terrible, painful smacks to your asshole.

You’re nearly screaming through them all, feet slamming into the bed as the pain rushes through you. He yanks the chain hard when you try to pull forward and bury your face in the pillow, forcing you to keep the tortuous pose he’s holding you to.

You feel the bed rocking with the force of his hits, spit and tears dripping down your face as you can do nothing but lay there and take it. 

“Naughty, naughty fuckin’ thing,” he spits, two rough fingers pushing into your cunt with little care for your cry. “My own little chef tryin’ to strangle me, I can’t fuckin’ believe it. I bring you here to feed me, give you a load in your stomach anytime you need it, and you wrap your leash ‘round my throat?”

“I’m– I’m sorry!” You wail, inconsolable as he roughly rubs a palm over your clit, your cunt quickly getting slick. You’re still damp from the way he’d bent you over earlier, a mix of his and your cum wet between your thighs.

“Not good enough,” Ghost hisses. He quickly fucks his fingers back inside you, once twice, then pulls them out again.

You go taut as a board when those slick fingers move up, towards your far, far tighter hole.

“No,” you gasp, struggling even pinned as you are, a sense of panic shrouding your mind. “No, no, nonono, you can’t, oh God, please, Ghost, don’t–”

Ghost drops the chain in favor of grabbing you by the throat, tearing you back so violently that you’re staring at his sneer upside down. 

“Shut the fuck up.” His spit is tacky when it lands on your cheek, mixing with your tears, and his smile looks evil as he glares down at you. “Gonna make sure you don’t even think of that shit again. Gotta make it hurt if you’re gonna learn a lesson.”

You sob as he lets you go, head finally falling limp to the bed as you turn your face to the side so you can still breathe. You watch as he reaches for a half-full bottle of lube on his bedside table, the label peeling and stained. 

“Gonna cry for me some more?” He coos, laughing when you jump at the cold feel of the lube on your ass, thighs tense with nerves. “You know I like it when you make yourself look silly, pet. Go on, cry all you want. Still gonna fuck you.”

One finger pushes the lube into your ass, then two, then three. He gives you no time to adjust, only one thrust from each digit before he forces you to stretch further, lands slaps across your ass seemingly whenever he feels like it.

“Ghost, pl-ease,” you cry when you feel the hot head of him press against you, sure that it’ll be excruciating. 

He threads a hand into your hair, pulls you up enough that he can bend to speak into your ear.

“You’ll call me Simon while I fuck your ass,” he says, voice low. “I wanna hear you scream it when I hurt you, pet.”

You listen to him against your will, the scream he wanted tearing from you and echoing the sheer pain of being fucked by someone as massive as Ghost with such little prep.

Your hole feels like it’s on fire, the pain racing through the rest of your body and leaving you limp and panting, only able to close your eyes and endure as he mercilessly pushes forward, uncaring of your pained hiccups and cries.

“Simon,” you whine when he bottoms out, warm balls settling against your neglected cunt. “Hurts…”

His laugh is mean, nasty in your ear. “Good, fuck, say it again, girl. Tell me how much it hurts.”

“So bad…” is all you manage, even just those words warbling off into nothing as he pulls out, fucking himself back in with a harsh thrust that nearly chokes you. 

“Can’t believe you tried it,” he huffs, bracing himself over you as he sets a ruthless pace, no consideration for your comfort. You can see the chain in his right hand, feel the way it just barely tugs at your neck with how viciously you’re moving along the bed. “Been waitin’ for you to give me a chance to do this to you, to fuck you up.”

Your fists clench in the sheets as you do your best to breathe through the pain, the slide of the lube only making his thrusts marginally easier to endure.

“Been waitin’ to get my cock in this hole. Wanted to watch you cry and make you put your tears in the food, gape your little hole and make you ride me while I smoke, shit. Tightest ass I’ve ever felt, love, goddamn. ‘S that feel good?” A slap to the side of your face, rousing you. “You feel good with my cock drilling your little ass?”

“No,” you moan, miserable.

“Good,” he hisses, thrusts quickly becoming uncoordinated as he stares down at your ruined face, his eyes gleaming. “You’re so much sweeter when you’re hurtin’, girl. Wanna keep you like this all the time.”

You sob at the idea, already unable to imagine how excruciating it’ll be to sit tomorrow with your ass covered in welts.

“C’mon, c’mon,” Ghost pants, staring at you ravenously. “Cry a little more for me, attagirl…”

You feel his cum shoot deep inside you before his thrusts slow, the heat spreading as he fucked you through his orgasm, face twisted in pleasure. Your tears haven’t slowed, even as the pain lessened and lessened throughout your fucking.

“Fuck, fuck, that feels good,” he breathes, grinding himself against you as he empties the last of himself inside you.

You feel nearly catatonic as he pulls out, only able to whine when he slips free from your hole and then again when he rearranges you on the bed, limbs sore and neck stiff as he continues to hold you by the leash.

“Took it well,” he grunts, shifting to lay on his back again and tossing the lube to the table beside him. “You gonna pull that shit again?”

You sniffle shaking your head no, only verbally answering when he cocks an eyebrow. “No, Simon.”

He smirks. “I’d love if you did,” he whispers, like it’s a secret. “Would love if you gave me another chance to ruin you. Just go ahead, love. I’ll tear into you whenever you want.” He tilts his head, considering for a moment. “Whenever I want too. ‘Cause you’re mine to do whatever I want with, aren’t you?”

You nod, hands tucked beneath your chin as he tugs you closer by the hip, fingers pressing into rapidly developing bruises and making you whimper.

“Yeah, gonna fuck you ‘til you cry as often as I want. And you’ll gimme those tears every time, won’t you?”

All you can do is nod, a part of you calmed and feeling safer as you watch the predator’s teeth pull away from the prey’s neck when he nods.

The plate you balance is larger than your face and still nearly overflowing with food.

It’s filled to the edges with steak, mashed potatoes, glazed carrots, and rolls. You have a bottle of wine tucked under one arm, a corkscrew held between your lips and one glass in your hand as you saunter towards Simon.

“Smells good,” he grunts. You’ve learned that his compliments are concise but rare, and you greedily take in the praise from him. “Enough for us both?”

You snort. There’s enough food on your plate to feed five people, easily. But Ghost’s stomach is never-ending, and you’d made sure that there would be no way he’d go to bed hungry.

He spreads his thighs as you approach, pats one of them like you’re not already lowering yourself to him. He takes the glasses while you lay the plate, setting his silverware to the side as he opens the bottle and fills the glass nearly to the brim.

You hum as you take in a breath of the food, that familiar sense of pride from a meal well-made settling in your chest.

Ghost cuts the food while you lean back on his chest, watching his thick fingers work. 

He lifts one of the little pieces of steak to your mouth once he’s cut it, swiping it through the potatoes and guiding you to look at him with a finger on your jaw.

He presses the tender, rare meat between your lips and you take it greedily, letting your eyes slip shut as you savor the taste. He kisses you almost immediately after, passes his tongue over the food before you can even swallow, but lets you keep it.

You giggle when he pulls back, swiping a thumb over the potato on your lip. He picks himself up another bite, pinches a bit of carrot with his steak and swallows without chewing, a moan slipping from his lips. You feel yourself dampening against his thigh, breath hitching.

“Happy Valentine’s day,” you say, voice quiet and held just between the two of you.

He snorts, ever unromantic. “Eat up, doll. Wanna have you for dessert after a meal this good.”

You smile softly at him, opening your mouth willingly when he lifts a bite of food to your lips.

dark matter | ghost x f!reader

INSTALLMENT TWO — TIME ROT COLLECTION

type: one-shot, part of anthology series, can be read standalone (6.5k)

cw: dark!ghost, mature language and content, mature sexual language and content, mw3 spoilers, death, grief, unhealthy coping mechanisms, dubcon, size kink, manhandling, breeding kink, cumplay, unprotected piv (18+)

You don't know how long it's been. Maybe days, or maybe it's been weeks, you aren't sure, but it's hard to move when there is nothing that waits for you.

All that's left is a box that sits on your kitchen table. It has his name scribbled across the top, and when you opened it up, just seeing the photos of him tucked into the sides was enough to nearly make you sick. You haven't opened it again since. You haven't touched it. When you touch the cardboard, it burns, it stings.

You don't know what you're supposed to do when the love of your life doesn't come home. You don't know what you're supposed to do when there's bills on the table, when half of the bed is empty, when everything that was supposed to happen died along with him.

You used to sit on this very couch and talk about everything you would do and everything you wanted. You used to lay there, your head in his lap, looking up into those baby blues and tell him about what a good husband he would make, how it was going to be so hot watching him fixing the leaky sink and hanging up the new shelves you bought, being the house husband he was always meant to be.

Someone that pretty deserved to be at home all day, baking bread and fixing a vintage car.

He promised you so much. He promised you love. He promised you laughter. He promised you a lifetime of something more.

But there never really was anything more. He never married you. He never proposed. He just fucked you full before every deployment, whispering into your hair as you drooled about how, "I'll see ye when I get back, bonnie, 'n I'll tell ye how much I luv ye."

But he didn't come back. So you really aren't sure now how much he loved you.

You stand in front of the bathroom mirror, fluffing a brush over your cheeks. The makeup helps, but you look dead, and your eyes are dull.

You don't want to go to work, but you can't pay your bills, and Johnny wasn't your husband, so the box in your kitchen stands as a loving gesture from his mother, and that is all he left behind. And when you went to the service and asked for something, for anything, they said it was out of their hands.

You are entitled to no compensation—because on paper, you are nothing to anyone, and you belong to no one. And though his mother kissed you shakily, with tears in her eyes, you couldn't bear to ask her for anything, because she hurts, too, and you are nothing to anyone, and you belong to no one.

So you work; you work, and you don't stop, and you sleep only a few hours before you get up and do it all over again, and even after a long day, you count the pennies in your purse, and it isn't enough. You let yourself get comfortable, you allowed yourself to succumb to a man, a man you loved, and what did it get you?

Fuck all. You have fuck all, and you let a man do it to you.

Fate and destiny are a cruel reality. Unforgiving—they don't care about the choices you make because they happen anyways, and it's hard to be angry when this is how it was always going to be. It doesn't make you hate any less, and it doesn't make the dust collecting on the box any less thick.

When you do gain the courage to touch it again, you have a week left to find a new flat. You don't know where you will go, but you're packing, and you rip the top of the box off as harshly as a band-aid. Your eyes focus on the knick-knacks that Johnny must've kept. A few different sized sketchbooks, the nubs of worn and used graphite and charcoal pencils, a crystal and beaded rosary that his mother gifted him when he first enlisted. You pick up the crinkled and well-loved papers that are stacked at the bottom, and your eyes blur with fresh tears at the ripped out sketches that sit in your hands.

It's you, in different angles. Asleep, staring out at something, smiling at him. He captures your face beautifully, and you can see where he's smudged the shading with a thick finger to cast shadows and light over you. He sketches in exquisite detail—he always has, but he has always had a certain style, a certain eye, that made lead look like real life. 

It’s odd to see what you looked like through his eyes. Bright. Lovely. Soft. He draws with a breath of fresh air, and you can see where his finger has rubbed away all the harsh lines. When you see a few places where the graphite on his thumb has stamped his fingerprint onto the paper, you feel your throat close up. You want to feel those fingers on your face. You want him to brush the hair out of your eyes and look down at you. You want to feel that hand tracing your jawline, your nose, the lid of your eye—you want to feel the warmth that he always radiated, and you want to breathe in the scent of him until you forget the smell of anything else.

You pick up a loved and bound book, with thinner pages that you know can't be a sketchbook. You unwind the leather string on the front, flipping it open, and you swallow thickly when you realize what this is.

A journal. You never knew he kept one.

The first few pages are dated from when he first enlisted, a few years before he met you. He writes just as eloquently as he draws, and you settle into the couch behind you as you read about his enthusiasm joining, the purpose he finally has, the weight of the world lifting off of his shoulders as he thinks about all the things he will be able to do as he rises through the ranks. You let your fingers skim over the words, feeling how his pen has pierced the paper, and you try to imagine him—fresh shaven with less muscle, life in his eyes as he thought about serving his country. You smile a little, but it hurts after a few moments.

You flip a little further, your eyes skimming over times he cursed out his commanding officer, punched a private for sneaking into the women's barracks, the love he has for a detonator that began when he soldered his first pins. His personality shines, and it's like you can hear him talking to you all over again, and when he begins to talk about a love he doesn't know how to handle, you smile to yourself, because you think he's talking about you.

But when you look again, the dates are wrong. You hadn't met him yet, not at this point, and your smile fades when you realize he's talking about someone else.

He never says their name. He writes at length about them, someone who has captured his eye, someone he says he can't have. Someone unattainable, unavailable, and then there is his own reservations. You don't realize until his entries from a few months later that he's talking about a man.

never felt this way before. not about anyone. rosary i always look at is fucking mocking me, i think. i can hear mum, somewhere, telling me to find a good catholic bonnie, but this is real. i know it is, but i don't know what to do about it. not like anyone i've ever met. can't explain the bond. but i look at him, and i think he looks at me, and i just know. i know. it can't be just in my head, can it? i'm not mad. i'm not. but what am i supposed to do?

You flip the pages frantically. There's sketches of hands on one page, hands that hold a handgun, that squeeze a trigger. They're tame sketches, but you feel a little sick because you feel like you're looking at a part of his life that you're not supposed to be looking at. The intimacy of these sketches—just hands, and you feel like they should be censored to your eyes.

The sketches and the words, they morph as time goes on. Sketches of closed eyes. Of blonde lashes. A harsh brow, a scar cutting across a thin lip. There is no softness in these sketches. Johnny draws with an abrasive pencil. It cuts the shapes, jagged edges akin to glass.

i can't tell anyone. i want to tell the whole world. won't let me. want to scream it from the fucking roof that i love you, but you're such a stubborn bastard. so fucking stubborn.

The sketches suddenly become warped. Angry, spiked, and you can see the emotion from how hard he presses the pencil into the page. More hands, and you can’t help but notice how he draws them simply functioning. Hand over wrist. Holding a utensil. Picking nails. These hands tell a story, and you can see the bumps and bruises and the wounds that litter the surface of them—these hands are anything but delicate. They have wrought. They have dug until their fingernails bled. They have been stuck through barbwire, maimed to the point of texture and roughness and the blurring of scar tissue.

don't fucking believe you. it isn't just me.

You're blind for a few moments from the intensity of your tears. You wipe them furiously, you need to know more, you need to know. The dates skip, and you pause on the day that you met.

so bonnie. so beautiful.

Softer sketches. The delicate lashes that are your own, the gentle curve of your pouty lips. You recognize yourself, but only barely, because he draws you like you are out of focus. He draws you as if you are too far away, just out of reach.

she's everything i've ever wanted. so why can't i let it go?

Your bottom lip trembles when sketches of a butterfly overlap skulls. The motifs never disappear, not completely, and it's only obvious what his true feelings are when you smooth a finger down the sketch of a butterfly escaping its cocoon that hangs from the mouth of a discarded skull head.

haunt my fucking dreams. go away. go away. go away. the ring is right there, so why can't i give it to her?

You close it abruptly. It falls to the floor, the cover of it thudding as you cover your face with your hands. Was he thinking of someone else all this time? Every morning, every kiss, every time he looked into your eyes and told you that he loved you—was all of this meant for someone else? Someone he wanted but couldn't have? Someone that just didn't love him back?

You scream. You toss the coffee table. You shatter the flowers that have died, you pick up the box of his things, and you throw it. You watch the papers fly, the books fall, you hear the rattle of his dead memories meet the floor of the home he left behind, and you scream at all of it just to stop, please, stop, stop, stop—

You're not even sure if it's really Johnny you're angry at. Maybe yourself, because you've never really been good enough to be loved by anyone. No one has ever loved you and you only—you've only ever been additional, on the condition of loving another, never enough to be the one and only, and maybe that's your real problem. Maybe the real problem is that you want to die because you always give everything you have, and no one has ever wanted it enough to give you the same.

Maybe you just want too much. Maybe your dreams are too big, maybe it's just that no one wants what you are handing over. Packaged pretty, all shiny and new, but if no one wants it, you shelve that kind of love, and that's where it rots.

Maybe this kind of love died with Johnny. Not the beginning of something, but the reality of it, and now all you can do is accept the things you cannot change and tame the heart inside of you that isn't good enough to be for anyone else.

When you pick up his things off the floor the next morning, you find a scribbled address on the back of a torn sketch. So, you do the kind thing, and you gather his things back into the box, close the lid on what never really was, and you carry it with you out the door.

The door is unmarked. The paint on it is peeling, but you know this must be the place because there's a pair of dark boots caked with mud sitting out by the bottom step. You raise your hand to knock, and you tap it with your knuckles timidly, adjusting your hold on the box in your arms.

A few minutes pass by, but no one answers. You knock again, louder and firmer this time, and it finally swings open. From the dark flat emerges a large man, sticking his head out from behind the chain latched and glaring down at you. You think he's about to close it on you, but then his eyes flicker down, and you know he must read the name scribbled in big letters on the box that you hold.

It’s enough to make him pause. It’s enough to make him stay, rooted to that spot, even if you can tell all he wants to do is sink back into whatever void he came out of.

"Hi," you whisper, and you have no control over how broken the word comes out. "I...I just thought you should have this."

Because he never really loved me. Not really. Not the way he loved you.

The door shuts, and you hear the chain unlatch, and then he opens it wider. He emerges in the doorway, taking up the entirety of the width of it, and he snarls down at you from behind the mask he wears.

He opens his mouth to spit something at you, but then you hold it out to him with shaky hands, and he can see the tears that are coming down your face. You can't control them, he can tell that much, and he reaches out to take the box from you. You look at his hands, and you recognize them immediately. Uncanny, the resemblance, and you recognize the scar that cuts across the knuckles on his left hand. You know if you push his mask down, you could trace with closed eyes the scar he must wear that starts at his nose and ends at his chin.

He doesn’t know it, but you know what he looks like. You know what he is. If he took off that mask, you would see a face you know, even if Johnny never drew the entirety of it at once. Always bits and pieces of him, but you’d know them if you saw them put altogether. You have the puzzle pieces of him in the back of your mind, and you know you could put them back together if you really tried.

He would not be able to do the same for you. The pieces of you are scattered, and you know they are lost, and that there is no getting them back. Johnny took them to grave; you would never ask for them back, anyways.

You don't ask who he is. He doesn't ask you who you are; but when your eyes meet, there is some kind of understanding. Some kind of knowing. You almost don't want to leave—you know he mustn't be kind, not from what you’ve read of him and the way he looks, but Johnny loved him, and you want to cling onto anything that still breathes that might connect you to him. You hate him, but you love him, and Johnny loved this thing, so maybe...maybe—

The door slams shut in your face, and you catch yourself with the step railing as you crumple to sit there, on his dirty step, crying into your hands. You don't know how long you sit there, but it is dark when you drag yourself home.

It is much too dark outside for you to see the shadow that you pick up along the way—and you’re too in your head to realize it never leaves.

When you come home from work, your knees are weak when you see the letter that’s taped to the front of your door.

EVICTION NOTICE.

They give you until the weekend, a courtesy they tell you they don’t normally give to anyone. You aren’t allowed to stay, even if you come up with the money, and you’re in tears as you pack up your flat. The last place you shared with Johnny, and it’ll be gone soon. You don’t know what you’ll do with your things. You don’t know where you will go.

Johnny never married you. You don’t have any family. You’ll have to stuff your car full of as much as it can hold, and you’ll need to toss the rest. You’ll have to—

The knock at your door startles you. You get up off the floor, where you were trying to stuff all your dishes into a small bag. You pull the curtain back on the window beside the door, and your eyes widen when you see a giant man standing at your door. He feels your eyes on him, and he turns his head towards the window, tilting his head to the side menacingly when he looks at you.

You wipe your face, trying to dry the tears on your cheeks. You open the door shakily, poking your head out.

“Hi,” you say. You wish your voice was steady, but it cracks. “Can…C-Can I help you?”

The mask he’s wearing today is different. There’s a skull mouth painted on it, and his hood is flipped up over his head. He seems taller with his boots on, and he takes up nearly the entire width of your doorway. He’s got so much bulk on him—if you reached across and touched him, you know your hand would hit nothing but a solid wall. No give, just pure muscle and fat. His eyes are still dark, and he still looks like the most unapproachable man in the entire world. He clicks his tongue under the mask, and you swallow when he snarls a bit.

He fishes something out of his jacket. You recognize it—Johnny’s journal. He holds it out to you, expectant, and you open the door wider to take it from him. You feel tears come all over again at the sight of it, and you hold the leather to your chest, hugging it. Johnny never married you, but he would’ve taken care of you right now. If he would’ve known you were here, about to live in your car, he would not have hesitated moving you in with him. Getting you into his bed. Shielding you from the world that was much too scary, much too unforgiving. Johnny would know what to do.

Johnny’s dead.

Just as you are about to close the door, a thick boot stops it. You flinch a bit, looking up, and then a big hand presses against your door and pushes it open until it hits the wall. The man cranes his neck to look around you, and he narrows his eyes at the heap of your belongings huddled in the living room of your flat.

You sniffle, shaking your head.

“I’m just…moving.”

You step aside when he moves. He ducks his head just slightly to get through, and you watch as he walks around, taking stock of what’s in front of him. He seems to find what he’s looking for when he sees the notice on your kitchen counter. He snatches it up and and turns it around to face you, and you just stand there, frozen.

“I told you. Moving.”

His house is soulless. White walls. Beige carpet. Grey tiles. There’s one couch, one coffee table, and one TV mounted to the wall. There’s only dishes in the kitchen enough for one person, and he only has one bedroom. It’s the same lifeless place in there, too. His mattress is on the floor, but he has the decency to put a mattress cover and sheet over it. There’s one nightstand, with just a few cables where he must charge his phone, and one lamp. There are no decorations. There is no other furniture. His house is functional, not valuable.

He puts your bag in the bedroom. That settles that.

You cry that first night. You sleep early, curling up under his one measly sheet, and you cry. You cry because you’re sad. You cry because you’re lonely. You cry because you feel like you owe this man now, this stranger who hasn’t told you his name, and you have no idea how you will pay him back. You cry because you miss Johnny, and he never even loved you.

You jump when the bedroom door opens. He walks in, kicking the door shut, and you watch as he strips himself of his jeans and hoodie, tossing them onto the floor. You sit up on your elbows, meeting his eyes, but he doesn’t take off his mask. Instead, he comes towards the bed, plopping down on the mattress next to you, and you pull the sheet up to your chin. You hadn’t anticipated sharing a bed with him, but you’re also too afraid to complain.

“I can sleep…on the floor if—”

A big hand covers your mouth. You’re silenced, startled that he would touch you this way, and you start to cry again when he presses until you are laying on your back again, moving his hand back until it rests behind his head.

“Please—” You hiccup. “Please don’t hurt me.”

He hums at that. Satisfied. Pleased at your reaction. He could pluck your strings right now, and you’d play music. He falls asleep with that thought.

You try to give him money. He never takes it. You try to buy groceries. You find the notes you spent stuffed back into your wallet later. You try to pick up a broom to clean up, and he locks the supply closet after that. The only way you find out his name is when you find his dog tags in the bathroom drawer, because he still hasn’t spoken a single word to you.

Simon “Ghost” Riley. That’s who Johnny really loved.

You don’t know why the sex started—you don’t know why you let him in, not exactly. Simon had been gone, one of his usual spurts of absence that he occasionally had, but he came home earlier than you expected. Simon likes to shower as soon as he comes home, but you are already in there, under the hot water, leaning against the tile as you empty your head of any thoughts. Simon doesn’t knock, and he pulls back the shower curtain even though he sees your silhouette. There are no words exchanged as he comes in, getting under the hot water, and there are no words exchanged when he takes off his mask for the very first time, and he hoists you up against the wall and fucks you into it.

You know this, too. Your hands trace his back, and you can feel every scar you know will be there, and you can taste the same things Johnny said you would taste when you lick over his jaw. Tobacco. Citrus. Animal.

It almost feels like cheating, but you’re too empty inside to be sad about it. It really feels like lying, even though Johnny’s too gone to hear your excuses. At the same time, it feels like getting something back. Not in its entirety, but something close, something that doesn’t feel the same, but feels so good anyways.

You cry again when you realize you like it better. You cry more when you realize that you’re starting to lose your dreams of Johnny in favor of Simon. You see in the dark instead of in blue. At first, you used to mumble Johnny’s name into the pillow. You used to bury your face into it, muffle the sounds as Simon fucked you from behind, two big hands pushing your ass apart as he pulled you back over and over onto his cock. Now your head is turned to the side, and you’re crying Simon’s name, and he’s fucking you harder, getting down onto his elbows, pressing you into the mattress and using your throat as leverage so he can arch your back and get your ass shaking with how firm he pushes his hips against you.

You’re so delicate, but he can’t be nice. He can’t be gentle. He needs to see teeth marks on your thighs and on your back. He needs to taste your blood and your cum and your spit. At first, he thinks he was doing it because he was lonely, too, but now he just wants to eat and eat and eat.

Eat Johnny’s pretty girl. Fuck Johnny’s pretty girl. Keep Johnny’s pretty girl, because how dare he keep this one a secret, and how dare he try and hide her from him? Johnny wrote a lot of things in that journal, but he didn’t talk about Simon’s insatiable appetite, and he didn’t talk about Simon’s rules. He blamed the entire world for his seemingly unrequited love, but the reality was that Johnny was selfish.

Johnny didn’t want to share. He wanted it all for himself, so it’s no wonder he died for it. When your world isn’t in balance, it compensates. Johnny ended up on the wrong side of the scale.

That’s the fucking truth.

Simon’s got you on your knees again. He likes you this way, ass up, face down, on display. On your back, he stacks enough under your back that you’re nearly upside down, pussy in his mouth as he bends you in half and eats it like that. Now, he’s squeezing your hips, pressing down between your shoulder blades, thick tongue inside of you as he teases your ass with his thumb. Johnny used to love that, but you’re such a jumpy girl.

He’s going to fix that.

Johnny is so predictable. Letting you run around, spoiled, never telling you the way it should be. Johnny made you think you were a pretty princess. He probably intertwined your fingers and fucked you in missionary like a good Catholic boy, but soft, delicate things like you don’t need to be reminded of what they are. They need to be so cockdrunk and dizzy that they don’t know anything else but this place right here, in his bed. Simon knows that’s what you really need—to not know the world outside of this bedroom.

Love is useless. Love can be lost. Love comes and goes, it’s subject to change. Time bends it, rusts it like iron, and Simon doesn’t need something else that will slip through his fingers, no. He needs something that is latched onto him forever. He needs to take one of your ribs and absorb it. He needs to taste you on his tongue and between his teeth always. He needs your blood to be his blood, and he needs your eyes to be his eyes.

Marriage is not finality. Love is not permanent. No—it isn’t enough. He couldn’t keep Johnny, and maybe he can’t keep you, but there is something he can give you that will keep you with him. Even if you left, you would stay somehow, some part of you, and he can see it in some distant place.

Once Simon sees something, it’s as good as true. It might as well be real. Simon is something himself of a manifestation, and he realizes now that maybe he never really saw Johnny because it was you hiding in what he couldn’t see.

Everything is in focus now. He knows what he has to do. Johnny was too stupid to see it—to preoccupied with how beautiful you are between the legs, too mindless when he was cock-deep inside of you to understand what he had in his hands. They don’t make things like you. One of a kind. Once in a lifetime. Something that will never be again if you let go, if you look away.

Simon knows all too much about what it means to leave a scar. He understands permanence. It’s why he’s still alive. It’s why he’s got you here, right here, underneath him, wet-faced and sobbing and clenching so tight around him. Your nails are fixtures in his back, holding him here, and he knows that you understand, too. If he asked you, you would think about the answer, but your body knows. It knows who Simon is and what he wants. He’s certain it does because even if he wanted to, your cunt has him tight, barely enough give for him to pull out and push right back in. It doesn’t want him to leave, and he’s glad for it.

You cry so sweet. Blubbers and gentle tears. You want this; it’s evident in the way you claw at him and pull him back in every time he pulls out just enough. When you pull just that hard, he drops onto his elbows, caging you in, and you sob into his mouth as he grinds his pelvis into yours. The wet smack of his thighs has stopped, but the pressure against your clit has you whining so nice. Fuck, you are beautiful, and you look so sad. From the first moment you showed up at his door, you were all big eyes and sadness. You drag around an air of heaviness that hasn’t left, and Simon is so sick of it—Johnny wasn’t man enough to eat you whole, won’t you just fucking let it go?

Maybe Simon did love him, too. Maybe he did love him back. No, he must’ve—that feeling in his chest still hasn’t left. Simon made a thousand excuses. A man like him, simply unloveable. A soldier like him, just too busy and too dedicated to have anything for himself outside of duty. A victim, what a rotten word, but that is what he is; no one can want him, not really. He saw it, in the back of his mind, peeling back layers of himself just for someone to make a face. After everything, after breaking his nails crawling out of an early grave, rejection just might be the thing that finally killed him. Not a bullet, but the sheer pain from the cut of giving a nasty piece of himself over and not even getting everything back.

Johnny was careless. Loving two things at once, pulled in opposite directions. Too distracted by what he couldn’t have that he forgot about how good he really had it—what a fucking dog. Greedy. Naïve. Fucking delusional. Johnny gave up this to chase something that could never be real. It was pathetic. It was stupid.

It was mine.

“Look at me.”

You do. Your eyes, hazy and wet, meet his, and your hands are shaking as you cup his face and sob because yes, yes, yes, please—I need it, it hurts s-so good.

It does hurt. It burns. It steals. It takes. It swallows, like a brush fire against dry land, licking and eating and tearing apart whatever it can reach. Your moans enrage it, and your cunt feeds it, whatever the thing is inside of his chest that is begging to come out.

This isn’t love. This isn’t romance. This is necessity—survival. Without him, you will come apart, and without you, Simon will starve. He used to take bites out of Johnny. Just enough to make the screaming inside of him quiet a little, just enough to be distracted; but he hasn’t eaten in months, and whatever you’re made of is too good to let go of.

This time, he’ll make it permanent. He’ll make it forever. Where you end, where he begins, where his hands have sunk into you, where his teeth are stuck; he’s going to fix himself to this place, and then he’s going to make himself forget how to leave.

You’re buzzing. You’re somewhere else. You feel like you’re floating above yourself, but at the same time, you’re right here. Simon’s so big; he told you he would be, but it’s another thing entirely to have this man inside of you and hitting your squishy cervix. He’s nasty about it, too—he likes putting a big hand on your stomach and pressing; he likes to feel himself inside of you and laugh at how you cry, and he likes the sound it makes when you’ve come, and your thighs are wet, and his skin smacks against yours with a toe-curling squelch.

“‘s mine,” he says, and you whine, and you nod. You don’t know if he’s asking you a question, but you figure he isn’t. Simon isn’t the kind to ask. He just takes what he wants. He always has. When you come back from the dead, consequences don’t apply to you any longer. You’ve cheated reality, and now you get to reap your rewards.

“Yeah.”

Yeah. Yes. Of course. Yes. Yes, Simon, whatever you want, Simon, anything for you, Simon, yes, yes, yes, yes—!

It will take time. As Simon puts his thumb to your clit to hear you sing, he thinks about how it won’t take much of it. You’re already so docile. You’re already in his bed, eating his food, crying with his cock inside of you and your thoughts filled with nothing but white noise and his name.

Simon won’t be like the man before him. Johnny drew you as a butterfly—something in need, but something that would eventually fly away. Fuck that. If there is a light in you, Simon will snuff it out. If he has to keep you from discovering your wings, he will just cut them off. If it’s the blood inside of you that keeps you warm, he will let it drain from the wounds left behind by his teeth because I will keep you warm, I will make it better, no one else, just me—

His index and middle finger in your mouth silence you. You choke on whatever you are saying in favor of sucking on his wet fingers, your eyes crossing a little as he bites down on your ear and pants there. It’s rare to hear him; Simon tends to swallow any noises he makes in favor of concentrating on hitting that same spot inside of you, but you can hear him now. It’s low and rumbly, so much so that you can feel his chest vibrating against yours. A groan—fuck, he sounds so good. To know your pussy feels so good, it’s making him falter is enough to have you just at the cusp of something white-hot and blinding.

You come when he comes. Simon’s other hand has an iron-grip on the side of your thigh, hiking it up around his hips as he comes hot and heavy inside of you. You shake underneath him, sucking hard on his fingers as he presses his pelvis to yours. You can feel it dripping between your thighs, and the heat of it makes you come, too, a sob coming out of you as you spit his fingers out in favor of closing your mouth over his.

He tastes like you. You suck on his tongue softly, lapping it up, and he uses his wet hand to hold your jaw at an angle so he can spit into your mouth and kiss you again. You grip his dog tags hard, tugging him back to you when he tries to look down at where he’s inside of you. He suffocates you when he lays over you, but you don’t care. You need him skin-to-skin. You need his mouth on yours, his cock still this deep, sharing breath and spit and heat. If you lose it, you’ll lose something else, something more, and you can’t lose it again.

His weight crushes you, and you don’t register the significance of one of his hands underneath you and between your shoulder blades. He feels for something that you can’t see, and he kisses you again when he’s satisfied with what he finds. The lack of something. The killing of it. The knowing that you’ve gotten what it is you’ve been searching for all this time.

He holds you like that always. He keeps your eyes on his when he comes inside of you—always wants to look at you when that first spurt of cum fills you entirely. He likes the way your lashes flutter when he brands you. He likes the way you lose the ability to speak. He likes the way your entire body goes rigid and pliant all at once, seizing up and then melting underneath him until it takes no effort to turn you over onto your stomach and do it all over again.

He notices the change before you do. The tender breasts, the warmth of your lower belly. You are wet always now, eager to be bent over wherever you are because the ache between your thighs is tenfold now.

You’re smiling. You haven’t smiled in a long while, and you’re smiling, hips hiked up on the couch, your dress crumpled around your middle as his cum drips down the back of your thighs. Simon licks his lips as he sits back on his heels, thumbing over your puckering hole.

You lay underneath him in your cocoon. Death at your doorstep, and you let him right in. You draw it around you tight, tucked into this blanket of security and warmth and factitious love that you think will hold this time. Simon’s hand draws around your throat, but you easily fall into him. When he squeezes, crushing what you’ve built back up, you sigh with relief, letting yourself fall into his chest and stay there.

When you close your eyes, it feels like something familiar. Like a place you’ve been before. When you open them, it’s gone. Simon is there, staring at your curiously. Your shadow that never leaves. The thing that remains. Time passes, but you know this will stay, you know it won’t go away. When he bends you over again, his hand slides low, cupping your belly, and your mouth twitches—the ghost of another smile. You put your hand over his there and press, feeling the scars you know by memory alone.

You will give him new scars; and these ones will be only for you.

do you think Soap constantly thinks about that one phrase "big boy with the skull face" and nearly ahort circuiting because up until that point, whenever he saw Ghost, his brain almost always went "big boy, big boy, big boy—" and his tail wagging like he's being offered a treat (in the form of eye candy).

there's just literally nothing better than having that man push you down to bend over a table so he can grind his clothed cock against your ass. making sure you can feel the way it bulges against his zipper and presses hot where it catches between your legs. wiggling your ass to try and get it positioned where you want it, just to make your breath catch in your chest and your stomach warm with each bump against your sensitive slit. then hearing that voice behind you growl that he knew you wanted it??? swoon

HYENA JOHNNY

sfw + nsfw. rut. knotting. premature ejaculation. service top!johnny (?)

you meet johnny at a bar.

the place is old but well-kept, a place that’s obviously seen its share of rowdy nights and heavy pours but still holds its charm. dark wood, polished by time and restless hands, stretches beneath your fingertips. liquor bottles line the shelves behind the counter.

the air hums— conversation rising and falling in waves, punctuated by the occasional burst of laughter, the sharp clink of glasses meeting in messy toasts. the dim lighting catches on old brass fixtures, scuffs on the floor telling stories of countless nights just like this one.

and behind the bar, johnny.

he moves like he owns the place, because, clearly, he does. he reaches for bottles without looking, flicks open the tap with a smooth twist of his wrist. the other bartenders glance his way for cues. it’s plain that johnny doesn’t just work here. he runs the show.

and it's that experience that has him spotting you immediately.

“what’ll it be, sweetheart?” the words roll off his tongue, practiced but not indifferent.

"a mocktail.”

johnny pauses, processing, then snorts. “that’s tragic. you say that like you mean it.”

"i do."

he clicks his tongue, shaking his head, the motion loose. “waste of a perfectly good night, that.”

"i’m the designated driver," you shoot back, somehow feeling like you have to defend yourself, jerking a thumb over your shoulder.

your friends are deep in it— half-dancing, half-stumbling, belting lyrics to a song that isn’t playing. one of them throws their arms around another’s neck, nearly taking them both down in the process

johnny follows your gaze, lets out a low whistle. “ah. the shepherd of the drunk.” his tail sways behind him, amused. “a noble role.”

"someone has to get them home alive."

he drums his fingers against the bar, eyes flicking between you and the mess unfolding on the dance floor. “you sure you don’t wanna let natural selection do its thing?”

you huff a laugh, shaking your head. "tempting. but i’d rather not explain to their mothers why they woke up in a hedge."

he grins. “fair enough. guess that means you get a drink that doesn’t kick back.” he rolls his shoulders before reaching for bottles. “what’s the call, then? fruity? sour?”

"surprise me."

johnny hums, tilting his head, eyes narrowing slightly like he’s sizing you up. “dangerous words, that.” but he’s already moving, rolling up his sleeves as he reaches for a shaker. “hope you like a bit of bite.”

"that a threat?"

“nah,” he says. “just a promise.”

you watch him work.

his hands move fast, sure, an efficiency that only comes with time and muscle memory. bottles tip, liquid pours in smooth arcs, ice clatters against the tin before he seals it with a sharp tap. he doesn’t fumble, doesn’t second-guess— he moves with a rhythm stitched into his bones.

and he’s a hyena. no mistaking it.

the broad grin, all sharp teeth. the spots dusting his forearms, darker markings trailing up his skin where his sleeves are shoved back. but more than that, it’s how he carries himself— as if he was built to be here, to take up space without hesitation.

he shakes the tin with quick jerks, wrists rolling, muscles shifting under skin.

“so,” he starts, barely looking up as he strains the drink into a glass, “you always this responsible, or is this a special occasion?”

"i like knowing i’ll wake up in my own bed."

he hums, dropping a garnish into the glass with a flick of his fingers. “can’t argue with that.” then he slides the drink toward you, tapping the rim lightly with one claw. “still. shame to waste a night like this on sobriety.”

you lift the glass, taking a slow sip. citrus, something tart, something fizzy at the edges, a hint of spice lingering at the back of your tongue.

"not bad," you admit.”

johnny leans in slightly, bracing his forearms against the bar, grin widening. “’course it’s not. you think i’d serve you shite?”

"i've known you for all five minutes. forgive me if i didn’t know what to expect."

he chuckles, head tilting, ears flicking forward. “stick around, sweetheart. i’ll raise those expectations in no time.”

"confident, aren’t you?"

“damn right.” his eyes flick over you. “why? that a problem?”

"just wondering if it ever gets you in trouble."

his grin turns wolfish— if a hyena could pull off wolfish. “constantly.”

you don’t take him home that night. not because you don’t want to— because you do, god, you do— but because you’ve got a job to do.

instead, you spend the next hour wrangling your friends, guiding them into overpriced rideshares, confiscating a stolen pint glass, and prying one of them away from a very ill-advised conversation with a married senior executive.

by the time you finally collapse into bed, your jacket still smells like whiskey and citrus, your ears still ringing with laughter.

you tell yourself you won’t think about the bartender with the easy grin and the voice that curled around your name like it belonged to him.

you tell yourself a lot of things.

the work gala arrives like an obligation dressed as an opportunity. the invitation promised networking, an open bar, and a celebration of months of labor.

but you don’t want to go.

you doubt anyone does, but it’s not really a choice. the project your team has spent months sweating over is finally seeing the light of day, and the higher-ups need their captive audience. they need applause, nods of approval, praise whispered over crystal flutes of overpriced champagne.

so you go.

you let yourself be swept inside, past sleek decor and halfhearted compliments, past handshakes that mean nothing and conversations that mean even less. the champagne is crisp, the hors d'oeuvres bite-sized and forgettable, and the smiles around you all feel the same.

the work gala is everything you expected.

the kind of event that looks dazzling in photos but feels hollow in person. the chandeliers glisten, the glasses are always full, and the music hums soft and unintrusive, a backdrop for corporate egos to stretch their legs. it’s all smiles that don’t reach the eyes, laughter that’s a beat too polished, and conversations that carry the distinct flavor of ambition disguised as small talk.

the dress helps, if anything. a deep color, clean lines, the kind that turns a glance into a second look. a little armor against the monotony of handshakes and careful smiles.

you last about ten minutes before you seek out the bar.

and that’s when you see him.

johnny.

standing behind the counter like he owns the place, despite the fact that he very much does not.

his sleeves are pushed up, forearms bared, and his tie is hanging loose like it barely survived a halfhearted attempt at professionalism. he looks like someone who should be on the other side of the bar, drink in hand, making people laugh too loud. but he’s here, somehow, and he’s already watching you.

he leans into the counter, the soft golden glow of the pendant lights casting sharp shadows across his grin— and it looks suspiciously like he’s been waiting for you to notice him.

and of course, you do. how could you not?

johnny isn’t just attractive.

that would be too simple. attraction is easy, common. but johnny is something else. something loud and impossible to ignore, the kind of presence that bends a room around him, that demands attention without asking for it.

you stop short, fingers tightening around the stem of your glass. “johnny?”

he grins. “last i checked.”

your eyes flick down to the neatly pressed vest, the gleaming bar, the expensive bottles lined up in perfect order.

then back to him.

“what the hell are you doing here?”

johnny reaches for a glass, inspecting it against the light before setting it down with a soft clink. “servin’ drinks, apparently.”

your brow lifts. “you own a pub.”

“that i do.”

“so why are you working here?”

“money’s good.” he shrugs, as if that’s a reason.

you give him a look. “you could’ve sent someone else.”

his smirk twitches into a grin. “could’ve.”

you narrow your eyes. “but?”

johnny leans in slightly, resting his forearms on the bar. “but then i wouldn’t have run into you, would i?”

heat pricks the back of your neck. “you expect me to believe you took this job on the off chance i’d be here?”

“nah,” he says easily, reaching for a bottle, twisting off the cap with practiced ease. “but it’s a hell of a nice surprise.”

you exhale, shaking your head. “unbelievable.”

“what’s unbelievable is that you’re still holdin’ that same drink,” he says, nodding toward the half-full glass in your hand. “startin’ to think you don’t trust me.”

“i barely trust this event,” you say dryly. “let alone the bar staff.”

johnny places a hand over his heart, mock-wounded. “cut me deep, sweetheart.”

you roll your eyes, setting your drink down. “fine. impress me.”

his grin turns sharp, all teeth. “dangerous thing to ask.”

he moves with a kind of effortless confidence, each motion smooth, deliberate, like he doesn’t need to think about it. bottles spin in his hands, liquid pours clean, precise. the scent of citrus and something smoky rises as he mixes, the clink of ice against glass filling the space between you.

when he slides the drink across the bar, he taps the rim lightly with one finger. a challenge.

you take a sip.

pause.

lick the taste from your lips.

his smirk lingers, watching. waiting.

“…damn it.” you exhale. “that’s actually good.”

johnny laughs, pleased. “you plannin’ on apologizing for that remark earlier?”

your pulse jumps.

“and how exactly would i do that?”

he tilts his head, considering. “stick around. drink somethin’ strong. keep lookin’ at me like that.”

and just like that, you’re in trouble.

you don’t mean to get drunk. you came here to be seen, to endure, to let your boss soak up the credit for your work while you nod along. but then johnny makes you a drink, and when you finish it too fast, he makes you another.

responsibility starts as a whisper.

drink slower. be professional. don’t plant yourself at the bar all night.

then he tilts his head just so, watching you like you’re a puzzle he intends to solve and the whisper fades.

you order another.

somewhere around your third drink, your laughter turns ease. johnny’s grin mirrors it, fingers working effortlessly over glass and steel as he keeps the drinks flowing.

fourth drink, you tell him he has unfairly nice hands. he nearly spills a cocktail laughing.

five drinks in, you go for a napkin, miss entirely, and send a row of garnishes tumbling. staring down at the mess, you seriously debate the logistics of picking them up without falling under the bar.

johnny exhales, tossing a rag over his shoulder. "i think that means you’re cut off, sweetheart."

"you think a lot of things," you mutter, blinking up at him, heavy-lidded and unbothered.

his laughter softens, turns fond. "and i’m usually right."

you pout at him until you sway a little too much, and the world tilts just slightly before a hand reaches over the bar to steady you.

he exhales through his nose, shaking his head, muttering half-amused, half-exasperated, "jesus."

for a moment, johnny considers just throwing you over his shoulder and dealing with the consequences later. he’s a hyena, after all, and hyenas take care of their own. you’re his, in some loose, nebulous way, and it wouldn’t be difficult to make sure you got home safe.

but even in your current state, he figures you wouldn’t be thrilled about waking up in a stranger’s bed with no memory of how you got there.

so, he does the next best thing.

he steals your phone.

you don’t even notice, too busy playing with the condensation on your glass, and he sighs as he tilts the screen toward your face.

the lock screen slides open instantly.

"oh, sweetheart," he murmurs, shaking his head. "you’re makin’ this too easy."

he scrolls through your messages, thumb tapping with sharp efficiency, scanning over names he doesn’t recognize until he finds a group chat that looks promising. lots of emojis. lots of inside jokes. someone had typed in all caps at some point about a brunch reservation, so yeah— this’ll do.

he thumbs out a message: “your friend is very drunk. come get them before she pukes over my bar.” and attaches the location.

and then, because he can, because he wants to, because some part of him already knows he’ll be seeing you again, he puts his number in your contacts, too.

you wake up to a headache and a mistake.

the headache, at least, makes sense. it splits through your skull the second you shift, a dull, relentless throb pulsing behind your eyes, pressing into the backs of your sockets like a vice tightening around your brain. your mouth is dry, tongue thick with the stale aftertaste of liquor, and your body feels like dead weight, limbs tangled in sheets that are too warm, too heavy. everything is stiff— your neck, your shoulders, your stomach twisting in protest as the memories of last night flicker back in fragments. a bar. dark wood. golden light. laughter that lingered low in your chest, warm and sweet, and—

him.

your stomach flips before your brain can even process why.

you groan, rolling onto your side, pushing your face into the pillow to block out the morning. you want to sleep, to bury yourself beneath the covers and pretend none of it happened— whatever it is. but your body betrays you, instincts dragging your arm across the mattress, fumbling blindly for your phone where it must’ve slipped from your hand sometime in the night.

your fingers brush cool metal. you blink blearily at the screen.

the glow cuts through the dimness of your room, soft and insistent, illuminating the single notification waiting for you.

a new contact.

johnny ;)

your stomach twists harder.

you blink at it.

once.

twice.

the emoji taunts you, cocky even in pixels, a playful little wink that makes something hot curl at the base of your spine. the name itself is bad enough— too much of a reminder of how his mouth quirked up when he poured your drink, and the warmth of his fingers when brushed against yours as he slid it across the bar.

your pulse ticks up. you hesitate, thumb hovering over the screen, torn between the impulse to check and the ridiculous urge to just not know.

but you already know you’re going to look.

you swipe, and the screen shifts.

one unread message.

johnny: still alive, sweetheart?

your first instinct is to throw the phone across the room. your second is to type something back. something quick, something effortless, something that won’t make it obvious that your pulse just stuttered in your throat.

you fail spectacularly.

you: barely. might never recover.

his response is immediate, and it makes you wonder if he was already waiting.

johnny: tragic. if i’d known, i would’ve given you a proper sendoff

heat prickles at the back of your neck. you stare at the message for a second too long, then lock your phone and press it flat against your chest as if that might do something about the way your heart is suddenly working overtime.

and just like that, it starts. small things, at first. quick, snappy messages.

johnny: remind me to never let you near tequila again. i don’t think you’d survive round two.

you: bold of you to assume i wouldn’t win.

johnny: bold of YOU to assume you won anything last night. you begged me for water.

you: lies. slander. i demand proof.

johnny: aye, sweetheart, i’d send the security footage, but i think the sight of you poutin’ at me over a glass of water might be too much for your fragile ego.

you don’t have a response for that. you lock your phone, toss it onto your bed, and roll onto your stomach, groaning into your pillow.

but the messages keep coming.

johnny: how’s the hangover? or should i start gettin’ that funeral procession in order?

you: surprisingly not dead.

johnny: pity. i would’ve made a great eulogy.

it’s easy, too easy.

he starts asking about your day. you start telling him.

johnny: how’d the deadline go? survived it?

you: took three cups of coffee and some questionable life choices, but it’s done

johnny: questionable life choices, huh? do i even want to ask?

you: if you must know, i impulse bought a croissant the size of my head. no regrets

johnny: i admire the dedication. although i’d be more impressed if you could finish it.

you: challenge accepted

he keeps talking to you. keeps pulling you in, coaxing conversation out of you and somehow it all feels natural, effortless.

he makes fun of the salad you regret ordering for lunch.

you: i don’t know what i expected. it’s lettuce.

johnny: truly a tragic meal. if you die from boredom, i promise i’ll give a heartfelt speech at the funeral.

you: that’s the second time you’ve threatened to monologue at my funeral. should i be worried?

johnny: just bein’ prepared, sweetheart. never know when tragedy might strike.

he complains about a difficult customer but immediately follows up with “not that i'm whinin'. boss can’t be seen whinin’."

the more he texts, the worse it gets.

you catch yourself checking your phone too often, waiting for his name to light up your screen. you start carrying your charger everywhere, the battery never allowed to dip low, just in case. when he texts, you answer too fast. when he doesn’t, you fight the stupid urge to stare at your phone, to wonder if he’s busy, to think about what his hands might be doing instead.

somewhere along the way, the teasing shifts into something else. something a little slower.

johnny: long day?

you: feels like it

johnny: go easy on yourself, sweetheart. tomorrow’s just gonna show up and make a mess of things all over again.

your fingers hover over the keyboard. something about it makes you pause, makes your stomach do that stupid little thing where it twists up in knots.

you: that’s bleak

johnny: nah. just means there’s always another chance to make somethin’ good out of it.

you don’t have a response for that either.

turns out you don't need one because then he follows it up with a—

johnny: what are you doin’ friday?

your stomach flips.

you: depends. why?

this time, the response doesn’t come immediately.

you watch the typing bubble appear. disappear. reappear.

johnny: takin’ you out. that’s why.

your breath catches. your hands hesitate over the keyboard, mind racing, running in circles. you type something and delete it. type again. delete. finally, you settle on—

you: at your pub?

his reply is fast.

johnny: christ, no. my staff would never let me leave alive.

you: fair point. so where, then?

johnny: you’ll see ;)

you are, without a doubt, in trouble.

johnny is ready. more than ready. too ready, if you ask his staff.

he’s been buzzing since you said yes, practically vibrating through the walls of his pub, too restless to stand still. his staff have been suffering through it for days— watching him plan the date down to the minute, pick out the restaurant, polish his shoes, practice his stories in the backroom mirror with an alarming level of dedication.

“you’re a grown man,” gaz mutters at one point, rubbing his temples as johnny rehearses a joke for the fifth time. “not a schoolboy with his first crush.”

he’s taken people out before, sure, but this— this is different. his fingers twitch when he thinks about it. his pulse kicks like it’s trying to outrun him. he shoves it all down, tells himself to act normal, be normal, but his body betrays him at every turn.

and then, just as he reaches your door, just as he lifts his fist to knock—

his rut slams into him like a sledgehammer.

hyena ruts are brutal.

unlike wolves or big cats, they don’t creep in slow, don’t build over days like a fire waiting for kindling. no, hyenas go from zero to hundred in the space of a breath— one second fine, the next wrecked by an all-consuming need, by instincts that don’t care for reason or timing.

johnny staggers, barely catching himself before he hits the wall, his shoulder slamming into brick with a dull, shuddering thud. his claws scrape at his own arms, blunt nails dragging hard enough to leave welts beneath his fur, but it doesn’t help, nothing fucking helps. his body isn’t listening. his breath stutters, fast and uneven, catching in his throat like he’s choking on something thick and hot. sweat beads at his temples, slicks the back of his neck, soaks into his shirt despite the night air.

his stomach knots, muscles pulling tight, something twisting low in his gut like a wire wound too far. his mouth hangs open, his tongue thick, saliva pooling behind his teeth like his body is preparing for a bite, for a kill. his canines throb, the dull ache settling deep in his jaw, instincts curling sharp beneath his ribs, thick and hungry and dangerous.

and fuck. fuck, he’s so hard he can’t breathe.

his cock strains against his trousers, the fabric pulled taut over the thick, aching line of it, every throb so deep it rattles in his bones. he shifts, trying to ease it, trying to will it down, but the movement just grinds the swollen head against the seam of his fly, drags coarse fabric over his leaking tip, makes him hiss between clenched teeth. his balls are tight, drawn up so high it’s like they’re trying to retreat into his body, his whole system locked down, caught in something primal and unforgiving.

he clenches his fists, claws digging into his palms, every muscle in his body coiled and trembling with the effort of staying still, of not grinding down against something, of not reaching between his legs and squeezing his own cock in his fist just to take the edge off.

and then he fucking whimpers.

the sound wrenches out of him, cracking at the end. his breath stutters, catches in his throat, his body too hot, too tight.

johnny's head tips back, knocking against the brick, his hips twitching forward in a broken little jerk, chasing nothing, his cock pulsing angrily, trapped and swollen, sensitivity that borders on pain. he squeezes his eyes shut, teeth grinding, sweat rolling down his spine, but it doesn’t help. nothing helps.

and then— the door creaks open.

he flinches, his whole body jolting, his breath shoving out of him in a ragged, shaking gasp.

you’re there.

crouched beside him, close enough that he can catch your scent, something grounding and unbearable all at once. your hand hovers near his arm like you’re about to touch him.

no.

“no-” it breaks from his lips before he can stop it. “no- back inside-”

his fingers barely catch your sleeve before slipping off, his limbs weak, useless. “call-” he tries again, panting through clenched teeth. “call for help- call for- fuck-”

but you don’t move. you don’t go back inside. you don’t slam the door shut. you don’t listen.

you reach for him. and he folds.

the second your fingers brush his skin, johnny's whole body caves, shaking apart under the weight of whatever the fuck is happening to him. his forehead knocks against your shoulder, a shuddering noise ripping from his throat as he clings to you, his fingers fisting into your shirt like you’re the only solid thing left in the world.

“oh, fuck-” his cock aches. throbs. pulses against the stiff, unforgiving line of his zipper.

he grinds against nothing, every twitch of his hips sending another spike of sensation shooting up his spine. his balls are heavy, swollen, so full it’s like they might burst, like they might spill just from the way his trousers dig into them, the way his body is wound too tight, too fucking close to something he can’t control.

he needs. he needs.

fuck, but he shouldn’t.

“i-” he tries to pull back, tries to put space between you, but his fingers won’t listen. instead, they curl tighter, dragging you in, his body betraying him in real time, his cock pressing flush to your thigh, the heat of it scalding even through layers of fabric.

a noise breaks from him, sounding dangerously close to a sob.

he can’t. he can’t.

“fuck-” he buries his face against your neck. “m’sorry- m’sorry, just-just a second-”

he’s trembling, breath stuttering, little whimpers breaking past his lips no matter how hard he tries to choke them down.

you say something and he barely registers it through the thick haze clouding his head but your warmth weight, and the press of your body against his—

it helps. just a little.

and you— well, you know exactly what’s happening.

you don’t waste time pretending this is something johnny can just ride out alone. you grip his arms, drag him inside, shove the door shut with your heel and twist the locks tight. then the deadbolt. then the security chain.

your fingers are practiced, muscle memory guiding you through the steps of securing the space.

just in case. just in case someone else nearby is in rut or heat, just in case some poor bastard catches wind of johnny’s scent and decides to come sniffing around.

(he smells good. too good. sharp and heady, the scent of him curling in the air, thickening with every ragged breath he lets out. you, even you, feel your own instincts stirring, muscles tensing in awareness, your body recognizing his rut and urging you to stay close. to soothe. to let him take what he needs.)

johnny is shaking against you, his whole frame shuddering with the effort of keeping himself together. his breath is hot against your skin, slipping out between the low, broken whimpers he can’t seem to bite back

“fuck-fuck, m’sorry,” he stammers, voice catching. “didn’t- didn’t mean-”

his claws twitch against your arms, not quite gripping, afraid to hold on too tight.

his tail flicks behind him, anxious, ears pressed flat against his skull. his pupils are blown wide, swallowing up the blue of his eyes, his whole expression caught between shame and need.

“wanted this-” his voice cracks, something dangerously close to a whine. “wanted this to go well. wanted- wanted t’please you.”

johnny shudders, forehead knocking against your shoulder as another tremor rolls through him. “wanted you to- to see me. see me as a good mate. confident.”

he breathes in, sharp, and his whole body locks up for a moment, every muscle going taut— then a full-body shiver wracks through him, cock pulsing hard enough that you feel it, even through his trousers, even through your own clothes.

your throat goes dry.

you reach up, smoothing your fingers through his fur, brushing a hand along his back, trying to offer something— some kind of grounding touch, reassurance.

“johnny,” you murmur, voice steady, firm. “it’s not your fault.”

his breath hitches.

“i really don’t mind,” you say again, softer now, pressing the words into the shell of his ear.

a noise catches in his throat, something small, choked and helpless, and he drags his face away from your shoulder, tilting up to look at you properly.

his pupils are still wide, expression still hazy, but he searches your face with almost terrifying seriousness.

his tail flicks again when he seems to find nothing or what he was looking for.

“…can i make it up to you?”

your brows lift.

his ears twitch, jaw flexing, uncertainty plain with how his teeth catch on his lower lip, his eyes flicking down to your mouth and then lower, dragging slow over the curve of your body.

you shift, tilting your head. “how?”

johnny's tail twitches again then stills. he swallows hard, nostrils flaring, then lifts his gaze back to yours, something new burning in the depths of his expression.

“…can i lick your pussy?” he’s puppy-eyed and pleading, expression screaming with ‘please let me- please let me take care of you- please, i need this.’

his breath ghosts warm over your lips, fingers flexing where they’re still curled weakly around your arms.

he’s trembling, cock leaking. and you—

you nod.

his ears twitch, breath shuddering out in a sharp little gasp, grip on your thighs tightening. fingers hook into your waistband not a moment later, and he yanks, dragging your pants down, underwear with them, his movements are frantic, almost clumsy in his eagerness. he groans, wrecked and relieved, the second you're bare in front of him, pupils blown, tail wagging, whole body thrumming with ‘please, please, please.’

and then—

oh.

his tongue is warm.

hot and wet and wide, the rough texture of it dragging over your slit in a slow, open-mouthed lick, firm and eager like he's trying to taste every inch of you.

your breath stutters, hands flying to his head, fingers curling into his thick fur as he groans against you, the sound vibrating up through his tongue, sending sparks of pleasure shooting through your spine.

and he doesn't stop.

doesn't hesitate. doesn't tease.

no, johnny dives in, pressing his face right up against your cunt, burying his nose in the soft flesh of your inner thigh, mouth sealing over you like he's starving.

his tongue flicks, curls, scoops into you, lapping up your slick with these obscene little slurping sounds, breath coming fast and desperate through his nose.

"fuck," you gasp, hips jerking, but he just growls, arms wrapping around your thighs, locking you in place.

his tongue drags up, then circles your clit, flicking once, twice before sucking it into his mouth, lips sealing around it with wet, sloppy pressure.

a sharp, helpless sound breaks from your throat, fingers spasming in his fur, tugging hard, but he just whines, pushing closer, pressing his face deeper between your legs, like he wants to drown in you.

his tail thumps against the floor, hips shifting, rutting, desperate little movements like he needs the friction, like eating you out is wrecking him just as much as it’s wrecking you.

johnny’s tongue works you open, the rough drag of it lighting up every nerve in your body. he’s sloppy with it, messy and eager as a puppy, sucking and lapping and groaning like he can’t get enough— like he won’t get enough, not until you’re shaking, not until you’re breaking apart in his hands.

his nose presses in, nuzzling against your clit as he angles his tongue deeper, the slick heat of his mouth sealing around you, sucking, devouring every drop of slick that spills from your pussy. his grip tightens, claws pricking your skin, grounding you against his face as he buries himself in your cunt, breath ragged.

his ears twitch at every moan, every gasp, tail wagging, thudding against the floor in frantic, jerky movements. his hips roll, little ruts against nothing, cock straining in his pants.

and fuck, the way you’re squeezing around his tongue, the way you’re whining, the way your fingers are tugging at his fur, yanking him closer, using him for your pleasure—

it’s perfect.

his tongue flicks against your clit, so fast he feels like his jaw is gonna cramp and your whole body locks up, muscles tensing, thighs clamping around his head as your pleasure slams through you.

"johnny-!"

you break, back arching, fingers spasming in his hair as your orgasm rips through you, cunt clenching.

and johnny loses it.

his hips snap forward, grinding down against the floor, cock pulsing in his pants, the thick length throbbing in time with your orgasm, so turned on with how you’re gushing into his mouth.

"fuck-” johnny’s body shaking, arms tightening around your thighs as his own climax crashes into him, his whole frame jerking with it.

his tail spasms, ears flicking wildly, and he ruts with mindless abandon, his tongue still lapping at you as he comes, soaking his trousers, thick spurts spilling out in his underwear, making a mess of himself, of the floor beneath him.

johnny’s breath stutters, his tongue slower now, softer. he whimpers against you, his hips giving these tiny, involuntary twitches, pleasure still rattling through his system, buzzing under his skin.

he’s a mess. ruined. wrecked.

but he’s still got his mouth on you. he’s still hard.

even after all that, after coming in his pants like a desperate thing, he’s still thick and straining against the damp fabric, the outline of his cock pressing against his zipper, a dark stain spreading where his release had soaked through.

but he’s smiling up at you, lazy, hazy-eyed satisfaction, ears flicking, tail giving a slow, contented thump against the floor. he looks pleased with himself, looks like he just had the best meal of his life, tongue flicking out to lick the last traces of you from his lips.

you swallow, your gaze flicking down, heat curling in your stomach.

"johnny-" your voice comes out soft. "do you- do you wanna fuck me?"

his ears perk up. his breath hitches.

"fuck," he gasps, pupils blown, hips giving a helpless little jerk, grinding into nothing. "fuck, yes- yes, please-”

your voice comes out soft, barely above a whisper, but he hears it like a gunshot.

"fuck me..."

johnny whines. he’s so happy, so relieved, so thrilled that his hands are already moving before his brain catches up— grabbing at your clothes, tearing them off your body, dragging fabric down your arms, over your hips, tossing them aside like they offend him.

you barely have a second to breathe before he’s fumbling with his own clothes, his pants sticking to his skin, soaked through with his release, and he growls under his breath, impatient, frantic, tearing at the fabric.

you hear the sharp rip before you see him, and by then, it’s too late.

his hands are on your hips again, tugging you back against him, the heat of him pressing up behind you. bare now, nothing between you, and—

oh.

oh.

there is a lot of him.

you don't see it, but you feel it, the weight of him pressing against you, the head of his cock nudging at your entrance, leaking precum against your folds. your brain catches up in a single, dawning moment of realization.

"u-um- johnny, wait-"

he doesn’t wait. he pushes in.

your mouth drops open around a soundless scream, arms giving out beneath you, sending you down onto your hands as your body stretches around him.

"hnnngh- fuck-”

johnny groans, hands locking around your hips, fingers digging in, holding you still as he sinks in deeper, his fat length forcing you open, your walls struggling to accommodate the sheer size of him.

his cock is thick, veined, hot as a brand against your insides, his knot still deflated but already pressing against your entrance, teasing the stretch that’s still to come.

"s’good- fuck- so warm-" he babbles, hips twitching. rolling. driving him deeper. deeper. deeper.

you can feel every ridge, every pulse, the wet sounds of your slick mixing with his precum, making everything so messy, so hot, so unbearably good.

your fingers curl against the floor, nails scraping for purchase, breath coming in ragged gasps. you can barely speak, but you manage a single, broken sound—

"johnny-"

he whimpers, hips jerking forward, sinking the last of himself inside.

he’s so deep you swear you can feel him in your stomach.

he snaps his hips forward, slamming into you with a force that knocks the breath from your lungs.

again.

again.

again.

it’s feral. frantic. mindless. his claws dig into your hips, keeping you locked in place as he fucks into you with the wild, unrelenting pace of an animal.

"fuck- fuck- fuck-"

he’s babbling now, every noise ripped straight from his chest. he’s gone, lost to instinct, breath ragged, panting against your back.

and you— you’re drooling.

your mouth falls open, a string of spit slipping past your lips, eyes hazy, unfocused, body pliant beneath him. it’s like you’re the one in heat, like his need has infected you, sinking into your skin, making you just as desperate, just as mindless.

his knot isn’t even swollen yet, and still— still— it feels like too much, like your body is barely keeping up, like you’re caught in the eye of a storm and all you can do is take it.

and he’s loving it.

“s-so good-" he whimpers, his voice shaking, thick with pleasure, his ears twitching. "s’takin’ me so well- fuck- made f’me, yeah? made t’be bred-"

his teeth graze the back of your neck, not quite biting, but close, breath hot against your skin.

"tell me- tell me y’need it-"

his hips snap forward, hard, cock grinding against the deepest part of you.

"tell me, bonnie-“

you somehow managed a choked moan of his name which seems to please him enough. “j-johnny!”

"hah- hah- hah-" his panting is ragged, tongue lolling out between sharp teeth, drool slipping past his lips, dripping onto your back. his claws dig into your hips, dragging you back onto his cock with every thrust.

you're reduced to a mess of slick and sweat and open-mouthed moans. your vision swims, breath stuttering, drool slipping past your own lips. your cunt grips him tight, sucking him in, slick coating his cock, dripping down his balls, wetting the base of his knot as it starts to swell.

"pretty..." johnny fucking giggles. it’s breathy, boyish, downright giddy as he snakes a hand down between your legs, fingertips dragging through the sticky mess between your thighs, rubbing over your swollen, aching clit.

"pretty clit… so soft... s’cute like this, all swollen f’me..."

he snickers to himself, his other hand coming up to your lower belly, pressing down, feeling the bulge his cock makes inside you. his hips snap forward hard, pressing down at the same time, making you feel every inch of him.

"fuck-" he whimpers, laughter breaking into a moan, tail flicking wildly behind him. "y'feel that? s’me, bonnie- deep inside- fuck, s’good-”

your orgasm crashes over you like a tidal wave, your body locking up, cunt milking him as you shake. your mind goes hazy, all-consuming pleasure buzzing through your nerves, and you barely register the way his rhythm falters—

until he gasps, breath catching, his whole body trembling, hips stuttering against you.

but he doesn’t push his knot in.

his cock throbs, leaking, twitching inside you, but his knot— still swollen, thick and pulsing at your entrance— doesn’t breach. he was too caught up, too lost in you, and now.

well, now it’s too late.

"fuck- fuck, bonnie, ‘m sorry-" his voice is frantic, hands shaking where they grip your hips. "i was s’posed t’ knot you, i- fuck, i know it hurts-”

and it does.

the ache of being left open, empty where you should be full, the throb of your walls still pulsing around nothing.

johnny knows.

he knows it hurts to push his knot in if you’re not distracted by your orgasm. he also knows the second the high fades it’s going to leave you aching, needy, sensitive in a way that burns.

"i got you, bonnie-" he murmurs, voice soft, affectionate even as he drives into you again, already chasing another orgasm from you. "gonna make it up t’you, promise-"

he grabs your hips, yanking you back onto his cock, fucking you harder, faster, desperate to fix it, desperate to make sure you don’t feel the pain.

his fingers find your clit again, rubbing quick, his touch clumsy, eager. “fuck- ‘m sorry, s’gonna feel so good, swear it-"

and he’s right.

your body can’t fight him, can’t deny him, the overstimulation pushing you right back up that peak, another orgasm slamming into you not even a minute later.

your walls clamp down around him, milking him, and he chokes on a moan, his whole body tensing. "fuck, fuck, that’s it- thass it, bonnie-"

his knot swells, stretching you wide, pushing in finally, locking him deep inside you—

and then he comes.

he fills you, cock pulsing, spurts of cum pouring into you, stuffing you full. his hips twitches, grinding against you, voice breaking on your name.

johnny's arms wrap around you, hugging you tight, chest pressed to your back. "s-sorry," he breathes, still panting, nuzzling against your shoulder. "s’never gonna happen again, promise-”

oh but it does. it happens multiple times, in fact.

you don’t know how long it’s been. you lost count after his fifth load. time has lost all meaning, swallowed up by the relentless rhythm of johnny’s rut.

he’s insatiable. a desperate, panting mess, rutting into you over and over, knotting you again and again, rolling his hips even when he’s still locked inside you, grinding his over-sensitive cock against your walls like he can’t stop.

his hands won’t let go of you, always grabbing, always holding— your hips, your waist, your thighs, your wrists. pulling you back onto him, keeping you flush against his sweat-slicked body.

johnny's all heat, burning up against you, whining your name in between frantic, slurred murmurs of "so good, so good, my bonnie, mine-"

but eventually— finally— the first wave of his rut starts to fade.

he slows. his thrusts lose their urgency, grip loosening, breath evening out, the feverish need in his eyes softening into something dazed, exhausted.

you take your chance.

"johnny-" you murmur, shifting slightly beneath him. "you need to drink some water, love."

he doesn't seem to really hear you, nuzzling into your neck. "mmm… later…"

"no, now," you insist, stroking a hand through his sweat-damp hair. "you’ve- we've been going for hours- we need to hydrate, okay?"

he grumbles, but when you finally manage to untangle yourself from his grasp and sit up, he whines, reaching for you again, ears flattening against his head.

"no- bonnie- come back-"

"drink first," you say, grabbing the water bottle from your nightstand and holding it out to him after you've had your own fill. "then I’ll cuddle you."

he pouts but takes the bottle, chugging down greedy gulps, tail flicking sluggishly behind him.

you press a granola bar into his hand next, watching as he blinks at it, then at you, before finally taking a bite.

he chews slowly, brows furrowing like he’s thinking about something, the fog in his brain is clearing just enough for rational thought.

and that’s when you pick up his phone from the mess of clothes, phoning his emergency number.

a guy nicknamed 👻.

you hesitate, fingers hovering over the call button.

johnny tilts his head at you, ears twitching. "whatcha doin’, bonnie?"

"calling your emergency contact," you say, glancing at him. "someone needs to know you’re in rut."

johnny groans, flopping back against the pillows, rubbing a hand down his face. "oh, fuck me-"

"i did," you deadpan. "for hours."

he snorts, but his face is already going pink. "fuckin’ hell… he’s never gonna let me live this down…"

you press the call button. the phone barely rings twice before a gruff, sleep-roughened voice answers. "this better be important, mactavish.”

"uh- hi," you say, gripping the phone tighter. "this isn’t johnny, but i feel like i needed to call his emergency contact so..”

there’s a pause. a sharp inhale. then— "…what happened."

you glance over at johnny, who’s sprawled out on the bed, still naked, still flushed, body twitching with the last remnants of his latest orgasm. his tail flicks, ears pinned back, eyes half-lidded and dazed.

"he’s in rut," you explain. "we- uh- handled it. but he’s still got waves coming, and i don’t think i can keep up with him forever."

"fuck," the guy mutters. there’s some shuffling on his end, the sound of movement, a door creaking open. "how long’s he been at it?"

you hesitate, looking at the clock. "uh… at least five to six hours?"

"jesus fucking christ." more rustling. "i’ll drop some suppressants off. you got any blockers up?"

"yeah, doors are locked, everything’s secure," you say. "no one else has caught onto his scent. hopefully."

"good. last thing we need is someone else getting ideas."

you nod, happy you're both on the same page.

"i’ll be there in twenty," he continues. "keep him calm, get some fluids in him, and don’t let him knot you again unless you wanna be stuck for another hour."

you open your mouth to answer, but before you can, johnny groans, rolling onto his side, tail swishing, his voice petulant.

"is that ghost?"

"is that his name? i mean, i guess so-"

"tell him he’s a fuckin’ cockblock," johnny whines, pouting up at you. "cannae believe this- rut suppressants? really? yer ruining all my fun, mate."

"oh, fuck off," ghost deadpans. "you’ll thank me when you’re not dead from dehydration and a broken dick."

johnny grumbles, burying his face into your thigh, huffing dramatically. "don’t wanna suppressants. wanna keep fuckin’ my bonnie-”

ghost sighs, long and heavy. "jesus christ. twenty minutes."

the line goes dead.

“Charles is the level headed one.” MY Charles. The one who threw a chair in a random direction as soon as the bar fight started? My dude who didn’t hesitate to shoot a poacher and was pissed if you didn’t kill the other one? Mr. stomped a bounty hunter to get him to talk? THE CHARLES THAT THREW MICAH LIKE A RAG DOLL?! My guy, Charles is just quiet. Sure he’s not the one to just fight random people, but he sure as hell is ready to throw hands when the situation arises. His full name is Charles “catch these hands” Smith and we respect it here.

My favorite kind of balls is the ones that have so much loose skin they hang… especially when it’s fresh from somewhere hot, like a bath, so they’re even more relaxed. The swing…. the heaviness

I’m not sane. Not anymore 😪

Price coded....

I know that man's got low hanging fruit, makes you lay on the edge of the bed and warm them in your mouth while he tugs on your tits. Doesn't need to see the way your tongue darts out to lick over the seam of his sack to know you're enjoying yourself. He can see the way you're starting to slick between your legs, the way you press your thighs together to try and relieve some of the ache. If he were a selfish man he might make you stop and take his own pleasure licking you clean, but the hum of enjoyment that rattles through your chest is enough to keep him where he is. Purring like a lazy cat and sucking at his heavy balls without a care in the world to what he might want.

Laving your tongue over the loose skin, opening your mouth wide to suck both balls in, trying to lick the base of his cock. Pulling back only enough to suckle at the heavy weights that hang from him. Ooooooooh that man's got hair too, plenty to wiggle your tongue through and bury your nose in. Makes you feel accomplished to tug at the skin and see the dark hair darken further with your spit, slicked to his balls like he's fresh from the shower. He'll give his cock a few lazy pumps just to keep himself nice and hard for you, for when you decide to stop squirming those pretty hips and let him do his job. But for now you can have your fun.

When you blow johnny and just keep gagging and choking he'll most likely laugh at you. But because you don't just let things slide–that man needs to be put in his place anyway–you pull out one of your dildos, and tell him to suck it. He laughs incredulously at first, though not totally opposedto the idea. But once he saw the expression on your face he knows you're serious. And he was never one to turn down a challenge.

Safe to say he's gagging like a bitch. Can barely take half the thing without tears stinging at his eyes. And if you're mean you tell him, "well, that's pathetic, baby." In a mocking tone. (lt makes his cock twitch dw) and if you're even meaner you decide to 'help out'. Forcing the toy down his throat with your hand. Do it over and over. Like he does when fucking your throat without consideration. He's a mess by the end, sweaty, eyes red with tears flowing from them, drooled all over the toy, down on himself like some mutt. But some time during it he came without even being touched.

He doesn't make fun of you again.