Me, constantly writing and loving the trope of conditioned whumpee talking about receiving punishments for breaking rules that they don’t understand but have decided must be normal for everyone while others listen, horrified:
Jax Gallagher held her hand when she got her nose pierced.
They were sort of close, not hanging out one to one, but always getting the bus back from town in the early evening. He worked at Coffee Revolution and twice a week he stayed late to clean down the place, but the other three weekdays he would show up at her bus stop and they’d chat or share music. It was always a good surprise when she saw him turning the corner.
“Shit day, Roz?” he’d say to her.
“It’s a day ending in a Y,” she’d reply. And they’d laugh, and start bitching.
God, she’d been so young. They’d met in first year of college, before he dropped out and started working instead. They sat down on the same table in the music lab, the first day they got to go in it, and he was so excited he could barely sit still, and she had thought he was so cool. He’d been wearing a black t-shirt even though it was September – he was one of those Northern guys who never felt the cold, but she’d moved up from Kent and still got
ribbed for having long ah’s in laugh and class – and the shirt had ripped sleeves and you could tell he liked to exercise. She’d probably been smitten right then and there, to be honest.
She got over it pretty quickly. She hoped it would be more for a few months, but he liked flirting with people for fun, and it was hard to tell if she was fun or if he fancied her. But being friends with him was a good time. He was funny, and full of himself in the good way, and he had four piercings by the time she worked up the courage to get her nose done, so she asked him to come with her.
And he did. And he held her hand and talked about this guy who brought his dog into the shop, and she barely even felt the needle go in. And then he got distracted and decided to get his cartilage done, right there, on the spot.
Those were the memories that went around and around in her head when they stood in Hulme Park with the tea lights in little jars, trying to protect them from the rain. She’d been invited through a massive group chat of friends, and it seemed like there were even more. The papers said later it was nearly a hundred people.
She’d come on her own, expecting to hang around the edges and slip away if it was too small and she’d be looked at funny because she only knew him from bus rides and sometimes pubs. But there had been enough people that she had seen some familiar faces from college, and mates from nights out, and even people from Coffee Rev. His sisters both said a few words but his dad couldn’t and his mam was sick and couldn’t come. Then people had
started talking, and someone had started singing and everyone joined in, and she’d started crying and couldn’t stop. Loads of people there for him.
It wasn’t a wake, but it felt like one. A wake in the rain with candles. A vigil was supposed to be about keeping hope alive. Or standing by and ready for them to come back.
-
As soon as he’d made contact with someone, there it was, on the group chat they still used to talk about him. She had stayed in it, even made some friends, and one day when she saw the 99+ sticker on the chat, checking her phone after her shift, she knew in her gut. He was back.
Everyone invited, he says he’ll be there from eight till late. He made it!!!
She saw him before she heard him. Sitting at the table with familiar faces, everyone older but still punk as anything, he even looked quieter. When she sat down, he gave her a smile, and it didn’t show his teeth. She had already decided not to ask how he was, and nobody else did, by the time she’d arrived. They were two drinks deep and the bar had turned the music up, and she didn’t fucking care. There he was, in the flesh. Older, but alive.
“Hey, Roz,” he said. Like nothing was different. “Shit day?”
“Don’t make me cry,” she said. She’d cried enough before coming. “I’m buying you a drink.”
Almost everyone must have bought him a drink that night, and before long he was just like how she remembered him: energetic, positive, and everyone’s mate. He asked questions constantly, wanting to know about everyone else, and laughed and swore and gave every impression that he was celebrating.
It took time before she started noticing things. His cartilage piercing was still there, but his nose ring was gone, until it reappeared two months in, redone. He adopted a jacket-and-scarf look that his younger self would have sniffed at for being weak to the cold. He started dating guys nobody had met before and rarely brought them to hang out. The one guy he did bring was the kind of elitist punk twat that everyone hated, and he was so sarcastic about
his and Jax’s relationship that she never figured out if they were actually dating or just screwing around.
When she finally got to have a proper conversation with him, almost a year in, he asked her what she was doing these days. She told him about finishing uni, working at a games shop, putting out music when she had the time, and then asked him back. He shrugged. “Being fucked up,” he said.
She didn’t read the news, but she couldn’t help hearing about it. Some people were weirder about it than others, and she tried to distance herself from the ones who were following the trial and sharing details around. She didn’t want to know about modern slavery practices and trafficking charges and the total psycho who had bought him. She was pretty sure the Jax she knew wouldn’t want her to know, either.
-
They didn’t hold a vigil, the second time. Nobody came together and stood with their little candles and sang songs in the rain.
It was a message in the group chat. They’d barely used it since he was back. She could scroll up just a few screens to see the invitation to the pub night where they’d all reunited with him.
It was a message. Simple message. Anyone heard from him this week?
Nobody needed to ask who.
Nobody had.
Anyone got his dad’s number?
Are we worried?
His sister posted on Instagram. It’s not good.
The group chat exploded. Roz watched it where she could, sick and desperate for updates. When she woke up in the middle of the night, she checked it. When she had a moment at work. Between scenes of shows. Between bites of meals.
At first, they wondered if he’d run off. It was common knowledge that he’d had flings with bad dudes. He’d been getting better, though, and none of them had bothered him since he ditched the last one.
It was a few days before someone dared put out the obvious question. He said the psycho bitch was following him.
She got out of jail not long ago. She wasn’t following him before that?
The cops said it was nothing, someone pointed out. But floods of ACAB shut them up.
Roz hadn’t known he was being stalked, or thought he was. She hadn’t known that woman was out of jail. That was the first time she looked it up and forced herself to learn what had actually happened to him, and she didn’t sleep that night, and called in sick the next morning, and she really shouldn’t have forced herself through it.
There were news stories all over. There were even some recent ones, about her getting out of jail, and every single one said The Gallagher family declined to comment. The Gallagher family did not respond to requests for information. Jackson Gallagher could not be reached for comment.
News broke nationally that he was gone again. Everyone knew his family didn’t know anything, but his old friends from school reached out anyway. The pigs took on the case and at first they thought he was dead, then decided it could be an attempt to make him look dead. They got American cops to search her house and found nothing. They floated the idea of suicide but there wasn’t a body. He was just gone. A jacket and backpack with him, but no
scarf.
The group fractured and died. Roz watched it happen.
He was paranoid. We all know it. He was fucked up and in therapy the whole time. They didn’t find him there, he’s not there.
Respectfully, fuck off if you don’t believe HIM on HIS life. He said she would come back for him and so she fucking did.
The scarf emoji became the symbol for the ones who believed. He hadn’t been anywhere without one since coming back. That meant he hadn’t left on his own. He was taken from the flat.
Roz stayed with the believers, for a while. But they were just as clueless as everyone else, when it came down to it. Some people got too into speculating what was happening. She got sick of them sharing every new think piece and speculation post that had nothing new to it. She got sick of the constant reposts and updates on the woman who had him. She got sick of them going over every tiny detail of Savannah Marcoset’s life.
When the pregnancy was announced, she left the group chat and blocked them all.
-
Life went on.
She kept putting in shifts at the store. It was nice to be busy, and she enjoyed getting stuff organised and making good recommendations. She became supervisor and started training new waves of college and uni students who would come in and out. Within a couple of years, she was assistant manager. Corporate still had ultimate control, but she was able to get some local events going for a while and build a bit more community. New friends. New
interests.
She dated, a little. She never told them about her first major crush, unless they asked, and Joel did. A few months after they got kind of serious with each other. He wanted to know one day. Sitting in a restaurant getting lunch, on a warm spring Saturday.
He phrased it in a nice way. “Who was your first real crush?”
She took a breath. She remembered him, leg bouncing on the music lab stool. His hand in hers, way after the crush had passed, but still bringing a bit of flutter to her stomach because he was so straightforwardly nice. He was there for her. Because he could be.
Joel was like that too. His hand reached out and closed around hers, and he was already frowning when she looked at his expression. “I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer,” he said.
She knew that if she said his name, he might recognise it. That had happened a couple of times. First time, they’d just given their condolences, and that was okay. Oh, you were one of his friends. I’m so sorry. It was awful.
The second time they’d asked questions.
“A guy from my college,” she answered. She squeezed his hand. “He’s um, he’s not around anymore.”
“I’m sorry,” he said again, his sympathy deeper than before. “Do you want to tell me about him?”
She shook her head. She didn’t want to go into detail. She didn’t want to leave him with the same open, empty question she had. Like this, he could make his own tidy assumptions, and let the memory be. “No, it’s okay. Tell me yours.”
-
She doesn’t think of herself as someone whose friend disappeared.
After a year or two, she reconnects with a few of his friends. They still share interests, show up to the same local gigs, and they talk. He sits unspoken between them, most of the time. Once in a while, one of them will think of him. Their messages have heart reacts and no replies, when it happens. No scarves.
He’d bloody love that album.
Dog that looks like Casey.
Once, her picture of a bus stop. They knew enough to know why. Part of me still waiting.
She decides it would be self-indulgent to reserve a seat for him at her wedding. Only a couple of his old friends are in her section anyway, and they say they like the idea if she wants to do it, but it’s her choice. She decides to let it rest. She doesn’t even know if they’d still be friends.
She sees his dad once, at the library. He looks like a heavy-set version of his son, and she finds herself unable to speak to him.
-
Roz spends eight years grieving him, and then he comes back to life a second time.
They’re all in their thirties now. She’s got a little girl who is the light of her life and the cause of her first wrinkles, terrible twos that are turning into her terrible threes without a hint of slowing down. She’s got a house in Didsbury that badly needs new carpets. She’s still making music, but all acoustic these days.
They find out through the news, and after two months, when he still hasn’t reached out to anyone, they reach out to him. His Instagram page was memorialised, so she has to cross her fingers that he still lives at the same flat, and send him a good old-fashioned letter.
Working out what to write to a twice-disappeared, now-reappeared friend who has been gone for nearly a decade and is apparently now a father and hasn’t tried to contact them so might not even care… It’s the hardest letter to write fucking ever.
She keeps it brief.
Hi Jax. It’s Roz writing this on behalf of myself, and Nicky, Mo, Sophie and Niall. All our numbers are below. We missed you and we hope you’re okay. Please reach out if you want to.
Then, because she can’t imagine what she’s been through and no words will cover it… And if she still knows anything about Jax, she’ll know he doesn’t want to talk about it either… She finishes with, Sorry about your shit bunch of days.
-
He wears his years heavily. His hands shake. His face is numbed and his voice is low. He still dresses how he used to, but taken down another notch. Maybe all of him has been taken down a notch.
She doesn’t ask him where he’s been. She could know all about it if she wanted to. He’s been out of contact so long because he was sending Savannah Marcoset to prison forever. It’s in the news. One of their first messages from him was asking them not to look it up.
None of them have.
They meet at a coffee shop. Coffee Rev is gone, but they do their research and find one with a good vibe. He sits with his black coffee and gets them to tell him about their lives.
He stays for less than an hour. “Gotta get home to the kids,” he says when he gets up.
He now knows all about Roz’s daughter, and Nicky’s twins, and Mo’s two sons and Niall’s stepkid. He knows none of them will object. He heads off to carefully guilt-free, pressure-free goodbyes and well wishes.
It’s enough to make Roz giddy with happiness. He’s alive.
The lights in the lecture theatre are more yellow than white, and the floor is carpeted with thin grey material. It makes the space in front of the seats feel more like a sparse living room than one of the largest halls on campus.
The lectern’s surface is a simple rectangle of wood, but does have enough space for his laptop to rest on. Connected to the screen, he’s free to move away from it with his Bluetooth clicker in hand. Resting on his cane with each alternate step, he makes his way over to the chair that rests alone at the front of the room, and sits. The cane hooks over its arm, and he props his leg out in front of him.
Gone are the days when he could claim only to have a bad ankle. Physio and surgery are behind him, and while the pain is lesser, it has spread as he’s aged. The years of compensating have left its mark on his knees, hips and back. He has never delivered a full lecture standing, and he probably never will.
He waits there, patient, as the students filter in. He likes this lecture hall for the lighting, but its main appeal is that the doors are on the sides instead of at the front, to one side of the projector screen. It allows him to observe as people enter.
This lecture is an annual event, and always attracts a range of attendees. Mostly he sees second- and third-year teens, and a rare keen first-year, still exploring their options and interested to learn. Occasionally he picks out an older student, although mostly it is impossible to tell whether they are undergraduates or higher up in the academic ladder.
Every year, the audience has more female and gender-nonconforming students. He enjoys seeing the shift and broaden of his field. Although there will always be a high proportion of nerd-aligned young men before him, he relates to both sides. Even now, he keeps his hair long enough to pass his shoulders, and wears a smart cardigan instead of a blazer.
Last of all to enter, forgivable because she also helped him set up, is Doctor Lee. She is probably the only student of astrophysics in the room, but she’s the one who asked him to start this yearly talk for Careers Week, so she’s honour-bound to attend. She wears a blazer, and it suits her well.
The students must never, ever know that they are not just friends, but exes.
He waits patiently for the room to settle, being careful to keep his shoulders relaxed. Then, he flicks the mic on.
For a moment he is gripped, as he often is, by the memory of a version of himself that could never have done this. He was, once, someone who couldn’t even speak aloud to a loved one in a private room. Raising his head, hair tied back, showing his face to the two or three hundred students in the seats…
Iz has climbed the central staircase and is sitting halfway to the top, right in the centre, as she always does. His eyes find her when they need a place to rest. His voice comes loose without a conscious effort.
“Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining me. My name is Ellis Reece, and I’m a freelance full-stack web developer. I’m here to talk to you today about my field, and the careers and skills that relate to it.”
Another voice flickers in. Rule five.
He ignores it. “Let me start by telling you about what I do, before we explore related roles. I’ve been working as a freelancer on and off for twenty years. I started as a front-end developer, and quickly expanded to back-end, so I could pick up more work.”
He taps the clicker to progress to the next slide, which shows examples of his recent sites and clients. It stands in place of what other speakers usually give, which is more like a CV extract showing roles and skills undertaken. He prefers to let his work speak for himself, and always has.
Besides, those slides are often year by year, and his has a noticeable gap, near the beginning that would only distract them.
“I have also worked in some corporate positions,” he acknowledges, “and spent some time on software and UI teams. I will touch on those in a moment. For the majority of my career, I have been a solo developer, responsible for every aspect of a site design and implementation.”
Nic played a big part in writing his lines, although he knows them by heart these days. Self-promotion was never his strong suit. But facts are facts, after all.
Another comment from a voice. I don’t know what’s real. Nobody is close enough to have said it.
“I will be happy to answer questions about any of these experiences,” he adds. “As it is, my day consists of the technical work you would expect, alongside conversations with clients, collaboration with branding teams and other stakeholders, self-development and training courses, and, I’m sorry to admit, self-assessment tax returns.”
There is a reliable murmur of chuckling at the gentle quip.
He no longer admits, for me, the hardest aspect is the boundaries.
“Self-employment requires you to have knowledge in your chosen profession, but also administrative skills. The perks,” as the slide now shows, “include setting your own wage, taking holidays when you want them, more control over the work you do, and flexibility in where and when you work. The downsides…” He brings them on screen. A few of the quicker readers in the room grant him another soft laugh. “…are exactly the same. The boundaries,
motivation, creativity and discipline all come from you and you alone.”
You don’t get boundaries, pet.
It’s no longer true.
Instead, as he often does, he pauses for early questions on self-employment, and then moves on to an additional point that draws non-compsci students to his talk year on year.
“Another underrated benefit of self-employment is how well it combines with self-advocacy. For example, my capacity for work fluctuates depending on my level of pain and how suitable my work environment can be made.” He moves his free hand to gently encircle the chair, cane and clicker. “When I worked as an employee in a team, I benefitted from their support, the structures of policies and HR, and accessible workplace wellbeing measures, including a useful occupational health referral. However, I made the decision to return to freelance and consulting to regain the ability to refuse work that would be detrimental to my health.”
The students before him will be picturing high workloads, horrible offices and inflexible bosses, and mostly, that is exactly what he means. They have no reason to think any different.
Another university reached out to him once to do this talk, and he declined. He told them he only did it at all as a personal favour, which was true. Their old economics guest lecturer was ancient history.
“This includes when work is offered to me, but also during the course of a project. I am fortunate to be in a position where I can, if needed, walk away from an employer who does not treat me as I deserve.”
It’s been years since he felt a flutter of nerves at saying those words. Instead, now, as he often does, he smiles with pride.
Jim freezes in place, hands around the curtains, back to the bed where Ty sits propped
half-upright on his pillows, splinted fingers resting on his lap.
“No light right now?” he asks, his voice steady and light. “That’s okay.” He turns, hands
dropping down. He fixes his eyes on the glass of water by the bed, still mostly full. “Let me
freshen up your water.”
He avoids Ty’s gaze as he grabs the glass and exits the room. He manages to hold it
together long enough to get to the kitchen, where he sets it down in favour of bracing both
hands on the counter, head dropping between them.
He’s made four loaves of bread this week. People are starting to notice. Ty’s probably known
for days and hasn’t had the energy to speak.
Pulling his head up, he tips it back towards the ceiling and sucks in a deep breath. The
candle’s been burning at both ends for so long he’s not sure there’s a drop of wax left in it.
Every day is a relentless cycle of taking care of Ty, doing a shift at work, taking care of Ty
some more, squeezing in a shower, and crashing into bed for four to six hours, rinse, and
repeat.
Plus, the ‘bed’ is actually the sofa.
Bibi comes most days, while Jim works, but she’s not able to come every day, and she’s not
always good company. She’s miserable in her own way, with one grandchild returned but
another lost.
Jim’s parents came down two weeks ago, but they didn’t know what to do with Ty so still and
quiet. They hinted that they wanted Jim to have a break but they didn’t have any solutions to
offer for Ty’s care in the meantime.
AJ, in his usual way, said, “What about his family?” That hadn’t been a fun conversation.
Everyone else that would have come were miles away in Leeds or further. It was just Jim
and Ty.
Hands dropping, Jim takes another breath and focuses his gaze back on the glass of water.
He dumps the contents in the sink and refills it. The ruse was transparent and he knows
what is waiting for him when we goes back.
But then, he brought it on himself. He can’t leave Ty without water.
He moves on that instinct, picking up the glass and returning with soft steps to the bedroom,
hoping against foolish hope that Ty has fallen asleep.
Thoughtful, concerned brown eyes hit him as soon as he walks through the door. Jim meets
the stare for a moment, then places the water down and sits in the chair by the bed.
Ty doesn’t immediately speak. He just looks.
Jim sighs, rubbing his face. He knew that expression. “Yeah,” he admits. “I know. I’ve just
taken so many sick days and personal leave.”
There isn’t even a need for Ty to respond to that one.
“I know they can do without me, and it’s not my job to make sure when I have stuff going on.
I know they want me to take care of myself. But they also want me to do my job, and we
need the money.”
That one takes a few seconds. But he knows.
“I don’t like being in debt to people. Even my parents. And I like my job. It’s a nice...break.
From you.”
He glances over, but there is no guilt or apology in Ty’s expression. The honesty is always
welcomed. The truth is always accepted.
“You’d say I should have time for myself without using work as an excuse,” Jim supplies.
“Work isn’t exactly restful. And I do get time, when Bibi comes over. It’s - not a lot, I know.
Not enough. But I could take a day, and then what? It’s back to normal. Back to how we are
now, and it just happens again later, doesn’t it?”
If someone could read minds just by looking, it would be Ty. Jim sighs again.
“And you’d say to that… It’s still worth doing. Even if it only helps for a while. It’s better than
nothing. That’s what I used to tell myself while you weren’t here, and I felt bad for doing nice
things when I knew you were suffering. Still worth doing. Even if I was just gonna get home
and feel exhausted and useless again.”
He glances up, then away. “And yeah, I know. I’m not useless.”
Ty shifts slightly, drawing his gaze back. A bandaged hand opens on top of the duvet, and
Jim gently places his inside it, palm to palm. Ty squeezes.
The hairline cracks in Jim’s composure shatter, all at once, from that light pressure, and he
leans forwards to drop his head onto the mattress with a soft thump. He feels his shoulders
shake. “I’m sorry.”
Ty’s hand slips out of his and tears rush to his eyes at the sensation.
Then, light fingers drop weight onto his hair. One loc is moved gently from his shoulder. Ty’s
hand runs over the back of his head, light but tender.
Hot tears run out of Jim’s closed eyes at a feeling he hasn’t experienced for years. An old,
nostalgic feeling of safety awakens, and he feels himself relaxing, submitting to the care. It is
so rare and special, still, to feel Ty initiate contact, and for him to offer contact for Jim’s sake
has been a poisoned chalice ever since that time he’d been delirious with fever and in his
confusion, had shown Jim a hidden side of his post-slavery self.
But this is being comforted, actively, deliberately, and everyone tried to comfort Jim all the
time about his husband and his situation and how hard he’s working and the loss he
suffered, but none of it is anything close to a gentle stroke of his hair from the man he loves
with his whole life.
Jim is exhausted and miserable, and Ty is too. Nothing is better, but. It is shared.
36: bite my muse for tucker cause i’d definitely bite him or let him bite me…🧍🏽♀️
I know this was a while back anon but just for you, a bite and a bite back. From the unnecessary Tucker backstory archives. Which makes this baby’s first beating 🥰
Tucker doesn’t even pause scrolling let alone look up from his phone. She’s been trying it for about twenty minutes now.
“Please, please, please, just let me go.”
She’s gone through the cycle now. Sweet talking, bargaining, fear-mongering, and now she’s straight on to begging, voice pitched high and pathetic.
“Please, I want to go home. I just want to go home. I’ll do anything you want. Pl-“
“You say please one more time and I’m gonna tie you up tighter just out of spite.”
Becks gives up on the shtick quick, head lolling back against the back of the chair in frustrated defeat. She’s never really been great at perseverance in all the time Tucker’s known her. Never really been very good at playing sweet either. It’s cute that she gave it a try all the same.
Instead, she goes back to bargaining, “Don’t suppose there’s any point in me trying to seduce you?”
Tucker laughs without looking up. At least she has a sense of humour about the whole thing.
He likes Becks. Always did. But she was a dumbshit and now she had to face the consequences. Simple as that.
And part of those consequences meant Tucker wasn’t gonna give her shit. Not least of all because he was having to give up is Saturday night to babysit because Mal was too soft hearted to be left alone with his ex.
She’s still trying it on though. Over and over and over again…
“TJ, come on.”
He hums. “I’d watch yourself with that one if I were you.”
“Just tell them we were fighting or some shit and I got away.”
“They won’t believe that.”
“Why not? They know I fight.”
“Yeah and they know I don’t,” he sighs. “I don’t do violence.”
Becks snorts. “How very moral of you.”
“Not really, I just don’t like getting my hands dirty.”
“Won’t get your hands dirty but you’ll do their accounts.”
“I just get the numbers,” he shrugs. “As far as I know, all they’re selling is houses.”
“As if the cops are gonna believe that.”
“Well you’d know a bit more about what the cops would and wouldn’t believe than me, wouldn’t you Becks?”
She glares at him a moment but rolls her eyes not long after. She’s getting a little exasperated now. Cute.
“Fine. No fight,” Becks concedes. “Just say I lied about needing the bathroom or something then kicked you in the dick and got away that way.”
“Mmm, you’re right, it’ll be so much better for me if I come across as incompetent and incapable as well as straight up stupid.”
Becks groans, head rolling back again in frustration. “Come on, TJ.”
“Strike two.”
“You’re her son. It’s not like you’re gonna be the one facing the consequences.”
He snorts and finally glances up at her over his glasses, “You have actually met Lillian, right?”
Becks scoffs and sighs and from the corner of his eye Tucker can see her flexing her arms against the tension of the zip ties holding her. The muscle tee she’s wearing is doing shit all to hide the strain in the tendons. Must be aching like a bitch.
“TJ-”
“Rebecca,” he mocks back in a sing-song.
“Don’t.”
He shrugs, “You started it.”
He hears another groan, sees a put-upon flip back of her head from his periphery. “Tucker.”
He responds as though he’s only just heard her, thumb sliding away the whole time. “Mm?”
It seems to take a beat for her to realise that she’s going to have to keep competing for his attention with his phone screen. She tuts her tongue and kicks her foot out, too far away from the nearby table to actually hit it. “C’mon I’ve been like this for hours.”
“Uh-huh.”
“My arms are cramping.”
“I bet.”
“And my butt is numb.”
“So?”
“So it would be really nice to stretch for five minutes.”
He glances up again, lips curling in a smirk. “You really do think I’m stupid, don’t you?”
“I was just hoping for a bit of fuckin’ empathy.”
Tucker tuts his tongue disapprovingly and pouts. “Wrong twin, Becks, you know that.”
Becks glares at him. “Mal’s about as empathetic as period cramps.”
Tucker laughs and goes back to his phone. Most people’d probably gawk at that call but Becks, of all people, would know, wouldn’t she? He always hated that. Smile and a wink and Mal could get away with anything. He could steal a baby and eat it on camera and people would still defend him.
What? You mean the shining, go-lucky golden child has a selfish side? A mean streak? Drinks too much and steals from homeless shelters? Convinces your kid to do the same drugs he’s doing for a laugh and then pockets the profit? Surely that wouldn’t be Mal. Not smiling, joking, sunshiney Mal. Definition of a good guy. Just there for a good time.
At least with Becks there was very little pretense.
“Can I use the bathroom at least?”
“You can piss yourself for all I care.”
“Yeah but then you’ll have to clean it up.”
Tucker glances up over his glasses. Becks raises a you wanna try me eyebrow. He sighs rolls his eyes. For fucks sake. Fine.
He stands. Pockets his phone. Closes the gap across the empty living room.
Everything happens ridiculously fast. The second he cuts the cable ties around Becks’ wrists, she’s punching him in the gut. Tucker grunts and shoves, the heel of Becks hand slams up towards his nose. He grabs at her arm, she grabs at his middle finger. She wrenches it back until he yelps and lets her go.
He just barely manages to grab her by a fistful of her tee as she runs, the cheap fabric tearing at the seam of one side as he yanks her back against the chair. He can already feel blood stuffing his nose, overflowing, running down over his lip. If she’s broken he’s fucking nose he’s going to gut her on the kitchen floor.
She stamps his foot. He slams his knee into her gut. He grabs her hair. She grabs his arm. Her teeth sink into the flesh below his elbow.
“You fucking-“
Rage, pure and white hot, burns right in the centre of his chest in a brilliant flare as he slaps her. She bit him? She fucking bit him? Ferocious little shit. Fucking animal.
He twists the hand in her hair and yanks her head to the side. He brings his mouth to the juncture of her neck. He doesn’t think. Just retaliates. Sinks his teeth in.
Becks’ yell is piercing and too close to his ear but it makes him feel electric. He pins her thigh with his knee, one hand in her hair, one hand clawed over her shoulder, keeping her seated. She thrashes like something dying. He keeps his jaws clamped tight. Feels his teeth break skin. Tastes blood. Hears grunt turn to scream.
It’s sharp and hot. It’s metallic and shining. It lights him the fuck up, toes to teeth.
“Stop,” Becks’ voice is shrill and girlish, completely unlike the apathetic, low monotone she usually keeps it at. She beats at his chest. “Stopstopstop. You’re hurting me, you’re fuck- You’re hurting me.”
He releases his jaw and pulls back, grabbing her wrist while she grabs at her neck.
“You’re fucking feral.”
Tucker grins and shoves his arm in her face in manic defence, the bite mark she gave him a pitiful indentation compared to the wound on her neck. “You started it.”
Becks recoils from her own handwork. “Your face is fucked up, shit lord.”
Tucker frowns, bringing his hand up to touch under his nose, smudging blood with his fingers as he pulls them back to see it, red and glistening. His tongue flicks out to taste it, leaking down onto his top lip. Sharp, metallic, hot.
Fucking hot.
He hadn’t even felt it.
He laughs and licks the blood clean from his lips, from his fingers. What a rush. What a fucking treat. Without a glance in her direction, he curls his hand, still glistening with blood and saliva, into a fist and punches Becks in the face. It’s hard enough that the chair knocks backwards, onto two legs then to one, then to none, crashing to the floor spectacularly.
Tucker's fist hurts. His face hurts. He can’t stop grinning. He hasn’t felt this buzzed in months. Years. Ever.
Shit he feels good.
On the ground, Becks has her head tilted back against the tiles, gravity craning her neck along the back on the chair. Tucker crosses the few steps between them and crouches down by her face, taking her in. It’s like drinking good wine without knowing what’s meant to be the good parts. Just knowing that it’s fucking delicious.
Blood is smeared down Becks’ neck, over her hand where she’d held the wound before falling. Her wrists are red from pulling against the zipties for hours. Her hair, dark and choppy, splays out behind her like a dead bird. Her mouth gapes wide, desperately searching for air that was clearly locked out of her when she fell.
His thoughts flash briefly to Billy Laudner back in high school. On his knees behind the bike shed, cheeks flushed and lips parted. It’s nearly the same thrill. Something you know you shouldn’t be doing with someone you know you shouldn’t be touching. Flesh on flesh. Blood running hot.
He brushes Becks’ hair back from her forehead like he’d brushed Billy’s back before pushing him onto his back on the tanbark. Unlike Billy Laudner, Becks recoils from his touch. How fun.
To Tucker’s dismay, her nose isn’t quite bleeding, though her sinuses are probably clogged with it, gravity against him. Instead he dips too fingers down to where her neck is still bleeding from his teeth. She hisses at the contact and he breathes that in, smiling as he draws the blood up to draw under her nose, over her lip. For good measure he smears some on her cheek too.
He smiles down at her, saccharine. “Now we match.”
“F-fuck you,” she spits, trying for a snarl. But Tucker sees it. He sees right through her. Into her. Beneath, to what she’s hiding.
Becks is afraid of him.
Terrified of what he’ll do next.
And fuck if that doesn’t that feel good.
He taps her nose with his finger, a dot of blood left on the tip of it like an obscene Rudolph dress up, before he pulls her chair upright, grabbing at her wrists to zip tie back to the chair again.
“You look good bloody, Becks,” he says, murmuring it in her ear as he locks her hands in place. “Mal ever tell you that?”
She huffs, shaky from the fight, and whatever fear she’s still got in her system. “Thought you didn’t d-do violence.”
She clearly means it as some sort of gotcha but Tucker laughs, the sound high and tinkling. He looks up and catche his own reflection of a picture frame hanging on the wall opposite. The picture itself shows a picket fence, 2.5 kids family, a display picture for a display home, white bread as they come. His own face is shown in ghostly reflection, smeared bloody and bright from the fight.
On the one hand, Becks has a good point. On the other hand…
Well, he didn’t do boys until he met Billy Laudner.
Hi, just want to say I love your writing, I miss seeing you on my dash, and I hope you're doing okay. ❤️
I am doing just fine ❤
I'm sick rn and too tired to go into details but it's been over five years since I started this blog and I've had a good run. I'll come back when it suits me.
When she is at her kitchen table, eating cold pasta from Saturday night’s batch cooking session, she sits with the box. Its cardboard is slightly bent around the corners, the brown colouring uneven where it must have spent time in the sunlight. The lid fits snugly on, unadorned. It’s an odd box. It must be the kind that was bought just to be a box, not repurposed and reused as most boxes are. It has no personality except a little wear and tear.
When she is at her desk, messaging friends and working on her heritage research, she sits with the box. It is buried at the base of the family tree she sketches out, neat lines tracking siblings and marriages, dates written in pencil as she discovers them. The story of her family opens out with her at the centre, the middle child of three. B. 1849, she writes, after scrolling through handwritten records scanned two decades ago. B for born. M for married. D for death.
When she is half-curled across her sofa with a book open in her hands, she sits with the box. The stories she likes are historical romances, where the steps towards courtship are subtle and mild, and the barriers are antiquated and unrelatable. She turns the pages with a finger, slow over the paper. She loses herself in another time and another country, but the box is always in her mind.
When she is out with friends, the box is there. When she goes to work, the box is there. It’s under her seat on the train. It’s tucked amongst the street furniture when she walks. She feels like she should be carrying it around with her, never once letting it out of her sight. A little shoebox like that, and one that hasn’t even held shoes, should be unremarkable. But it won’t let go of her.
After a long day at work, where spreadsheet grids are burned into her eyes and her head throbs with each glare from each passing pair of headlights, she comes home to it. She drinks a glass of wine with dinner. She reads. She researches. She returns to it.
It makes her feel sick just by existing. Pulling it out is worse. Opening the lid is enough to make her feverish, her heart running wild and her blood rising to he surface. She glances at the curtains, closed. She resists the urge to check over her shoulder.
Her vision blurs as she reaches in. Her fingers flinch from the soft plastic of the toothbrush grip, as if its slight yield is cold flesh. Her fingers skim over the splintering wood of a roughly-sharpened pencil. Then they slide over paper.
She closes her eyes tightly enough to worsen her headache. She swallows each breath, fighting back a sob or a scream. She pulls out a random piece of paper from the pile. Some sheets are whole. Some are scraps, torn into halves or quarters. Some are folded, sharper corners pricking her fingertips. If they draw blood, she could sleep for a thousand years. She could wake up when all of this, and whatever it becomes, is ancient history.
She unfolds the paper. Her thumbs find the tiny indents of the writing, and feel the smooth, dusty graphite. She can feel her stomach pushing up against her ribs in rebellion.
She owes it to him to look.
Through swimming eyes, she can see it.
1. I must always obey Master.
She huffs out a lurching breath. It doesn’t get easier. It doesn’t ever, ever change. The grief twists and spasms and writhes, but some days the leech of it is weak and placid, clawless. This is what never fades.
Her stomach rebels against the words.
2. I must never question Master.
She’s sweating, or shivering, hot and cold. She should ask someone over to take care of her, but who could she ask? This is a whole other world to her colleagues and friends. Her parents don’t deserve this burden. Her sister has already faced too much.
Josie is the one who has to hold the box.
3. I must kneel and submit to Master.
God. She knows what it sounds like, when she reads that.
4. I must always address you as Master.
She tries to breathe. The words are true, and real, and held between her hands. No matter how badly they jar and splinter against the memories in her head, this is her reminder of how wrong she was. How wrong they all were.
5. I must make no noise unless invited to by Master.
She lets the paper fall, her legs pushing her back from the box. She needs a break. She needs to stop getting sucked into this endless, eternal spiral. Every time she opens the box, if she even thinks too hard about it, she ends up here.
She rubs her wet cheeks with the palms of her hands. Why did this have to happen? Why did it have to be so close to her, and hurt so much?
There is nobody who can know. Nobody. Her brother’s memory depends on it, this secret she keeps in his shoebox. She can’t imagine ever saying it aloud. My brother was a monster. The details are too lurid, a horror story she lives inside. He banned his captive from making noise, so even when we were there outside, he didn’t call for help.
Marcie doesn’t talk about it anymore. Mum refuses to believe it. Dad clings to excuses. None of them want to know about the box. Josie was the only one who looked inside it, and she took it home to hide it, and the truth it held. She thought she was protecting them.
Even so, she can’t stop herself opening it, grasping the weapon to hurt herself over and over. Her eyes are drawn back to the paper. She can see the numbers continue down the page. Every piece of paper in the box has the same message.
She doesn’t need to read them anymore to know. She can remember the key parts. I must ask Master for permission. I must treasure Master’s touch. I must always thank Master for punishment.
Sometimes, she thinks that she should destroy it. It doesn’t make any difference, of course. The evidence was burned into his skin. She could, maybe, protect his memory from the world. She could let these details go unknown. The nauseating everydayness of the toothbrush, a reminder that he was there for years. The confessional pages of these rules, transcribed on repeat.
Why him? Why her brother? How could he do that to them? And how could he do that to someone? Josie has looked him up online, has read his missing person reports, and has watched the statement from his mother that she gave on his birthday. Ellis was a gentle, kind boy, who never hurt anyone.
She could still remember his smile, when Marcie had found him in the cupboard. She remembered his words. She hadn’t known his name until much later, because he didn’t give it.
12. I am Master’s pet and I need to be kept.
She puts the lid back on the box and crawls into bed.
I don’t usually make posts like this but I feel like it’s right for the community to know about and block this person.
@helpful-writing-tips has been stealing people’s posts, including posts from the whump community, and posting them without consent (sometimes with credit but often without).
I’ve tried to reach out to them directly and discuss how what they’re doing goes against tumblr etiquette and isn’t acceptable but I’ve received no response and I feel like people should be able to prevent their work being stolen for notes.
CW: lady whump, male whumper/female whumpee, poc whump (whumpee is a Black woman), age gap whump (whumper is an older man), religious whump, implied drugging, use of restraints
A huge shoutout to Marz, Gen, and Beck for beta reading this first chapter
Word Count: 2,229 || Next
When Dani woke up, she knew something was wrong.
It didn’t occur to her while she still floated in a black haze from last night. It didn’t even occur to her as the bright, offensive sunlight struck her face, pulling her from sleep. All of those things could be explained away as ordinary occurrences, the result of a long night’s rest. However, what could not be explained was the hardwood floor that rested against Dani’s cheek.
Her apartment didn’t have hardwood floors.
She awoke slowly, despite her panic. She still felt submerged in a sea of tar, and she knew that something was wrong about that, too. She was sure she hadn’t had anything to drink last night, and she hadn’t worked a long enough shift to be this tired. She couldn’t remember going to bed last night. She couldn’t even remember stepping foot in her apartment. Even if she had, she clearly wasn’t there now. When her eyes finally peeled open, she begun to see a room she didn’t recognize, and the shape of someone seated in a worn leather arm chair across from her.
She wasn’t in her apartment, and she wasn’t alone.
She tried to move, despite how heavy her limbs felt, and felt resistance as her legs attempted to kick out. She looked down at them and saw a metal cuff clamped around one of her ankles, its chain snaking down and looped to a matching, rusted ring in the floor. She stared at it, the pieces slowly coming together in her muddied mind. She was chained to the floor in a room she didn’t recognize with a person she didn’t know sitting across from her. It felt so surreal. She gave her ankle a little shake, just to be sure.
“Well, look who’s finally awake.” A voice rang through the air.
Dani knew that voice.
She remembered when she’d first heard it at the diner, its southern drawl different from the way her regulars usually spoke. He was from out-of-town, there for one reason or another, whatever reasons brought a man like him to a small town like theirs. Maybe that knowledge, the thought that she’d never have to see him again, made her particularly brave that day. To do what she had done to him.
Look how much good it’d done her now.
As she squinted her eyes to make him out through the shroud of sunlight surrounding him, she could tell that not much about him had changed. He still had that sandy blond hair, perhaps streaked with more gray than the last time they’d spoken. His square jawline was now covered in stubble. The harsh sunlight deepened the lines on his face, especially as it shifted into a grin.
The man stood, faintly groaning as his knees snapped into place, and made his way over to her, then bending into a crouch. He was so much closer to her now. Dani wanted to crawl away, far from the appraising gaze of his piercing blue eyes, but her limbs simply would not cooperate.
“It’s been a while since we’ve last spoken, hasn’t it?”
Whatever strength Dani still had went into kicking her leg out towards him. The chain pulled and stopped her short. He sighed as her foot lightly made contact with his work boots. “We’ll work on that.”
She could make out so much more of him now that he was closer. The way his Adam’s apple bobbed as his eyes made their way up and down her body. She wanted to kick him again. As if reading her thoughts, the man leaned back, out of her reach. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he chided. “I don’t think you’ll like what happens if you do.”
“What the fuck do you want?” Dani croaked, her tongue heavy.
He gave her a small smile. “Do you remember me, darlin’? What happened the last time we spoke?”
Of course she did. She almost lost her damn job over it. “I’ve got some sort of notion,” she growled, attempting to push herself away from him. It was a clumsy ordeal, but she managed.
He laughed. “I’m sure you do. I can’t imagine that went over well with your boss. Tell me, how close was he to firing you after what you’d done?”
She steeled her jaw.
He rolled his eyes. “Oh, darlin’. Let’s be civil about this. I just want to have a conversation with you.”
“Maybe I’ll consider it,” Dani said, attempting to ignore the way her head swam as she pulled herself into a sitting position. “Once I’m not chained to the floor.”
The man shook his head. “No, not yet. You haven’t earned it.”
Earned it? “Then I’m not interested in speaking to you.”
He sighed again, fiddling with the pocket of his jeans. “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll realize that talking to me is a lot better alternative to what else I could be doing to you right now.”
“Like what?”
He chuckled. “Would you really like to find that out?”
No, she didn’t. But she wasn’t going to be the one to admit it.
The man pulled a wrapped up piece of thick leather from his pocket. “Do you know what this is, darlin’?” He asked, wrapping the leather around his hand. “It’s a whip switch. Now, I’m not opposed to using it on you if that’s what you really want, but I’m sure you’d prefer talking to me instead. Wouldn’t you?”
All Dani could do was nod.
“What do you mean about having to earn it?” She asked, voice wavering.
The man hummed, rocking back and forth on his feet. “I have plans for us, darlin’. Plans you aren’t gonna like. But that’s okay. You don’t gotta like them. You just have to go along with them, save yourself some trouble that way.”
“Like what?” She spat out, frustrated.
He stood up, groaning as he straightened his legs. “Now, it wouldn’t be any fun if I told you from the jump, would it?” He began to pace the room, a study of some kind. Dani could feel the wall to wall bookshelves pressed against her back. Could see the leather arm chair in the opposite corner of the room, with the side table and lamp next to it. It would’ve been charming, had Dani not been chained to the floor. “I’d say we’ll start off slow, but that wouldn’t quite be true. I like to get the dirty work out of the way first, makes it easier down the line.”
“You say that like you’ve done this before.”
He looked at her, amused. “What makes you think I haven’t?” He gestured down to the metal ring. “That’s not new, you know. It’s seen plenty of girls before it’s seen you.”
Dani’s stomach curled in on itself.
“I think we should establish some ground rules first. How does that sound?”
“Fuck you.”
The man cleared his throat. “So, rule one: you’re gonna do what I say, when I say it. No, don’t look at me like that—you’re gonna want to follow this rule. Because if you follow it, you’re gonna save us both a lot of time and energy avoiding some of the punishments that’ll happen if you don’t. Do you understand me?”
Dani bristled. “Like hell I will.”
“It’s non-negotiable. Break a rule, I break something of yours. It’s simple, really. Rule one won’t be as hard as you think it will. At least, not after a while, it won’t. You’ll catch on fast.” He fixed her with another look. “Rule two will be harder for you. You’re gonna have to watch your mouth.”
“This is bullshit,” Dani muttered to herself.
“Ah, ah. We’ve barely even gone 0ver the rules and you’re already starting to break them. Would you really prefer to have this conversation end in a punishment?” Dani shook her head. “Then watch your mouth.”
Dani looked around the room for something, anything, that she could reach. She had the books behind her, but they wouldn’t do much, not against him. You couldn’t pick a lock with a book, either. And she wouldn’t be getting very far with that damn cuff on her ankle.
“Rule three: you won’t, under any circumstance, leave this cabin without a chaperone. That will most likely be me. There are gonna be some pretty damning consequences if you do, and, quite frankly, I don’t feel like chasing you down to see where you’ve ended up.”
“How the hell am I gonna leave the cabin if I’m chained to the floor, genius?” Dani asked, chain rattling as she shook her ankle.
The man sighed. “You really are a bad listener, aren’t you? You’ll lose the chain when you’ve earned it. Which means following the rules. Which you are currently doing a piss poor job at.” He got closer to her. Dani tried to push herself into the shelf behind her, but there was nowhere left to go. “Do you know why I’m doing this? Why I’ve gone to all the trouble of doing this instead of just killing you?”
“I’m gonna guess it’s because you get off on it.”
She hoped she sounded braver than she felt.
He just shook his head. “It’s because I think you and I’ve got some unfinished business to attend to. And killing you just ain’t gonna cut it.”
Dani straightened up. “And what happens if I keep breaking the rules?” She asked. “Will you get sick of me and get it over with?”
“No,” He said slowly. “But you’re gonna wish I had.”
“Oh my God,” Dani groaned. “You’re insane.”
His eyebrows rose. “Is that right.” Dani could tell his patience for her antics was dwindling. His finger tapped against his crossed arms impatiently. “Well, I think I’ve had enough of this for the day. We’ll get started on our lessons together tomorrow.”
“Lessons?”
He ignored her and started for the glass paned double doors on the other side of her.
A thought came to Dani. “Wait,” she called out. The man turned back to her, eyebrows raised. “Do you think you’ll do it?”
He sighed, exasperated. “Do what, darlin’.”
“Whatever it is you plan on doing with me. Do you think you’ll do it?”
The man gave her a small smile. “I sure hope so.”
As he went to leave again, Dani piped up, saying, “I really need to use the rest room.”
The man stopped.
“Can I—” Dani sighed, frustrated. “Can I go to the bathroom, please?”
He considered it. “It’d probably be best to get that bit of business over with, wouldn’t it.” He made his way back over to her.
“Good to know you’re not into that as well,” Dani murmured as he began to mess with the cuff around her ankle. He yanked on her ankle as he gave her a dirty look. “Jesus, sorry.”
The man pulled at his collar, producing a necklace with a key hanging from it that he then pulled over his head and held in his hand. Dani watched reverently, noticing how the dull metal rubbed against his fingers as he brought the key to the cuff and turned it into the lock. She yanked her ankle out of the cuff as soon as the lock popped open, leaning down to rub circles into the tender skin. He didn’t wait for her to finish, instead pulling Dani up by the arm to stand.
Walking her to the door, he turned to her and said, “Don’t get any ideas.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she grumbled back.
They were instantly met with the back of a sofa once they stepped out of the study, into a room with both a living area and a dated kitchen. Dani glanced past the red knitted blanket hanging from the arm of the sofa and the end table to stare at the wooden door from across the room, sunlight peeking through the window in it. An exit. As they walked past the kitchen down to the hall, she saw a figure standing by the sink, who turned to look back at her.
Another girl.
She was young, younger than Dani was, but taller, too. Long, blonde hair hung down her shoulders, running down in rivulets that reached past her elbows. Her height had left her willowy, limbs slim enough to snap at the slightest bit of pressure. She pulled down the rolled up sleeves of her blue sweater and worried the loose threads as she stared back.
The man quickly ushered her along, not giving her any more time to watch as the other girl stared right back at her. “Who is that?” Dani asked, craning her neck to get another look.
“She’s none of your concern,” was all the man said back, pulling the second door down the hallway open to reveal a modest bathroom, tightly squeezed with older fixtures. “Make it fast, I don’t have all day.”
Dani nodded, turning to enter the room.
Then, she turned back around and swung her fist right at his jaw.
It connected with a crack, sending him careening towards the wall, gripping his face and groaning. Dani could hear a gasp from across the cabin. She didn’t waste a moment. She wrenched her arm away and backed out of his grasp.
And then, she started to run.
Tag List: @flowersarefreetherapy, @generic-whumperz, @heartinthehospital, @another-whump-sideblog
CW: Captivity, creepy whumper. For @amonthofwhump Tropeathon Day 5: Covert Identity. (Jax, as always, used with permission and oversight from @comfy-whumpee)
Takes place during Jax’s first captivity.
The Motherfucking Gallaghers Masterlist
-
The ocean sounds like it’s breathing, a constant rhythm of water against the shore. Further down the way, groups of people laugh, throw beach balls, or otherwise enjoy the brilliant sunshine and growing warmth of the day.
Outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of one of the Marcoset vacation homes, the beach is perfectly empty. Private, and privately theirs. At a white table in a white kitchen, Savvie sits, one hand laid over his, watching her best friend speak to his father on the phone.
Jax is allowed one phone call per week, with Savvie by his side of course. She’s written out a few ideas for him on what to talk about on a little piece of paper.
If he asks about:
How you are: Great!
Mention foods you have eaten recently that you like
Change the subject
What you’re doing: Hanging out with friends!
You love traveling around with me
We have a goal of seeing all fifty states! You’re really looking forward to seeing Alaska
Where you are: Tell him we’re at the beach in Florida
Seashells
Walking by the ocean
Sunshine
Talk about that concert we went to
Ask him about himself as often as possible
I will end the call if he upsets you
They’re really… optional.
Just guidelines on how to keep the conversation nice and light. He doesn’t have to use them, if he doesn’t want to, although of course he wants to. Easier, that way, it must be so much easier than trying to come up with things to talk about all on his own, right? Besides, she’s been able to keep his collar off all week here, and she’d like to not have to put it back on before they even get back home.
Taking him out to eat and to shops feels like regular, normal life - briefly, Savvie forgets her grief over the loss of her parents, which still sometimes appears in deep waves that knock her over and leave her lying in bed weeping for a day or two on end, Jax cleaning somewhere in the house while Savvie can’t even begin to know how to go check on him or see what he’s up to.
It doesn’t matter. He’ll just be cleaning, anyway. Unless she forgets to let him out of his room, and then he’ll just be sitting on his bed, or staring at nothing.
“We, uh-” Jax clears his throat, and it jerks Savvie out of her reverie. She shoots him an encouraging smile, and he answers it automatically before he looks away from her again, looking out at the sea where it laps against the shore. His arm shifts under her touch, and she watches with fascination as goosebumps rise. She rubs at them, watching with delight as he shivers. His voice trembles, but only a little. His dad probably can’t hear it. “We’re in Fl-Florida, right now. Spent last week at the beach, yeah. Picking-... seashells and shit like that.”
“You picked… seashells?” There’s a note of something Savvie can’t read in Jax’s dad’s voice - he sounds almost doubtful, although it’s honestly true. Not the Florida part, but they did spend the last week at the Marcoset family beachhouse in North Carolina. Close enough. In any case, Jax absolutely spent a couple hours yesterday picking up the seashells Savvie pointed out to him, putting them into a little bag to wash and take back home. She'd even found a little bit of rock washed smooth by saltwater in the shape of a heart.
“Uh, yeah, we-... my-... my friends are into it, I guess,” Jax says, and looks at her again. She nods, and smiles, and gives his hand a little squeeze of approval. He’s doing so well. “Honestly I m-mostly just… hang out.”
“Getting a tan, then, are you?”
“B-bit of one,” Jax responds. He’s pale as a ghost, he hardly ever goes outside. When they lay out on the beach, Savvie makes him wear SPF 100+ sunscreen that lathers on as thick as chalk paste. But… his dad doesn’t need to know that either.
“Well, that’s good, then. But, Jax… these... friends of yours that you're with…”
All the conversations happen on speakerphone, but Savvie stays quiet and neither of them mention to the soft-spoken Brit on the other end that she is there. Jax knows better.
His eyes close, briefly, and then he looks steadfast out at the ocean. “They’re nice, Dad. I t-told you.”
“Right, but-”
“How’s Mam?”
The subject change isn’t done well, but his dad goes with it, answering reluctantly and allowing himself to be led away from questioning Jax’s mysterious friends. The first few times he asked, Savvie reached over and hung up the phone, and then made sure Jax didn't call him for weeks on end.
Now, Jax makes sure the wrong kind of questions stop fast.
She isn’t forcing him to. It's not like they aren’t friends, like they aren’t on a beach trip, like he isn’t having a great time. And he can still call his dad, of course. It’s not like… a threat, or anything. Just that Jax gets so worked up, and it’s better for him to just not talk to his dad at all for a while if it’s going to cause him so much pain and worry.
That doesn’t happen anymore. Jax cuts it off before it can.
Content, Savvie curls her fingers until the tips brush against his palm, and feels his muscles twitch in response. Savvie tells herself he’s squeezing back. They’re friends now. She tells him everything, and he’s such a good listener. They go on weekly coffee dates, just as friends of course, where he sits in the sun by the window, sipping black coffee and watching Savvie as she tells him about… anything. Everything. She’s gone on three dates during this monthlong beach vacay and told him all the dirty details the morning after each one, while they wait for breakfast to be delivered from the bakery down the road.
One man she'd even brought back to the beach house, and Jax had been there, an unobtrusive presence cleaning up after breakfast that her date hadn't even asked about.
All her thoughts and feelings spill out of her with Jax, and it’s amazing. She’d been feeling so alone when her parents died, and Jax has made sure she knows she’s never, ever going to be alone again.
He’s been such a good friend to her. And she’s been such a good friend to him in return, giving him these trips out and days off his work cleaning her house, letting him speak to his dad as long as he doesn’t start telling him lies or anything like that. Letting him come out of the shell the training place had put him into, letting him be sober most of the time instead of drugged like her uncle keeps telling her he should be.
He’s such a good friend.
He’s so good.
They’re going to be best friends for their whole lives.
She gives his hand another little squeeze and smiles. He echoes the expression, a half-second delayed, his attention torn between her and the voice coming through the phone.
“... -coming home any time soon?” His dad asks, a little hesitantly. He’s asked that before, and Savvie’s smile briefly fades away, her brows furrowing in distaste.
He keeps asking.
Jax’s eyes flicker to her, searching her face for what he’s supposed to say - this isn’t written on the paper in front of him. She’d figured the old dolt would stop asking by now. She gives a slight shake of her head.
“N-not soon, Dad, no,” Jax answers, without looking away from Savvie. The sun warms the handsome lines of his face and sets those hazel eyes to sparkling. Honestly, you could get lost in eyes like that. If she ever meets a man she wants to marry, and lets Jax date once she has someone else to spend her time with, some girl is going to fall head over heels for him just because of those pretty eyes.
She ignores a twist of some faint ugly feeling, refusing to see it as jealousy. He and his girlfriend can both work for her, that would be fine. Isaac probably has some staff he could choose from, if he wants a girlfriend or a wife. Or maybe one of the other families would have someone. Savvie would have to approve, of course. He'd have to marry someone Savvie thought was good enough for him.
Maybe she should pick someone out for him, she'd know better than he does what he needs, anyway.
“We’d like to see you,” Alfie offers, voice soft, not judging or angry. “We all miss you. Your mam, too, and your sisters-”
“I-I know, Dad.” Jax swallows. There’s a pain in his face Savvie wants so badly to soothe, to hug right out of him. She squeezes his hand again, harder this time, and he jumps a little, as if shocked back into awareness. “Sorry. You… you know h-how it is in America.”
His dad hums, noncommittal. He probably doesn’t know anything about living here, really, and Savvie can’t blame him - she knows more about Russia than she does England, and one day Jax can go with her to visit Moscow and see the ballet…
The thought makes her smile, wistful and daydreaming already about how Jax will get to see so many new things, living with her. She’ll be as good a friend to him as he’s been to her and show him so, so much…
Jax’s shoulders relax just a little bit when he sees her expression back to pleased. He chances a look back at the phone, but of course there’s nothing there but the call screen, the number, the time ticking away in seconds and minutes until Savvie tells him to say his goodbyes for another week.
“I’ll let you know if I-I can come sometime,” Jax says. His breathing isn’t quite as steady, now. He isn’t looking at her.
She doesn’t like him as much when he isn’t looking at her.
“Jax, are you-... are you safe?” His father’s voice softens even further, hard to hear through the phone. “Is someone keeping you from having your own phone-... I don’t know, just. We miss you. You know if you ever need to talk-”
Savvie’s eyes narrow. She leans over and firmly presses her index finger down on the red button to end the call.
Jax exhales in a rush, looking over at her with wide eyes that look oddly hurt. She pulls the phone back to herself and turns it off in case the stupid old man calls back.
“Don’t look at me like that,” She snaps, her good mood dissipating now, dissolving as she thinks about the question.
Are you safe?
His hands are rough, calloused and with skin that cracks and peels from the harsh chemicals that he cleans her house with. There are circles under his pretty eyes because he doesn’t sleep very well. Savvie isn’t much of a cook and the two of them mostly live on delivery and whatever can be safely popped into an oven and ignored for a while. He has scars around his neck in a little circle, like an odd reddish necklace.
Sometimes she has him sleep in her room and she holds him, feeling the careful rise and fall of his breathing beside her. She has given him new clothes to wear when they go out and takes off his collar so no one will realize that he’s just staff. She lets him call his stupid family when Savvie should be all the family he needs, and his dad has the gall to not even be grateful for it.
Is he safe?
What kind of question is that?
“Miss Savvie-”
“Shut up.” Jax’s mouth snaps shut, and Savvie fights a prickle of guilt, trying to tell herself it isn’t what it seems like from the outside. “Honestly, how dare he? As if I would ever let any harm come to you. How dare he!”
She throws the phone. Jax flinches when it bounces off a wall and hits the ground with a crack, shoulders hunching in an attempt at self protection.
“He, he’s just-... w-worried, Miss Savvie-” Jax is leans away from her when she stands. She ignores it - he’s her friend, he’s not scared of her, he’s just surprised by the phone being thrown, is all. They were nasty to him at that place where he learned how to work, and he just… doesn’t like sudden movements.
That’s all.
He knows Savvie would never really hurt him, if he’s good.
Savvie stalks over to the fallen phone and picks it up, rolling her eyes when she sees the screen is cracked now. “Not again. Ugh, Jax, your dad drives me crazy! Maybe I should take you to see him just so he’ll stop asking all the damn time about it!”
“If-... that’s what y-you want, Miss Savvie,” Jax answers, cautiously. Savvie hates this version of him the most, where he gets quiet and barely speaks. Hates even more that it’s her own anger that made him that way.
No.
It’s his dad asking stupid questions, that’s what did it. Not Savvie’s perfectly logical response to them.
“He… he is just awful, isn’t he?” Savvie says, voice flat and angry, setting her broken phone down on the counter. She’ll have another one delivered today. “I don’t know how you can stand to even talk to him, Jax, he’s so… rude.”
Jax is silent, now.
That rankles even more, that he doesn’t agree with her and he doesn’t argue. He just watches her, and she can feel the weight of his eyes and usually it just means he’s listening to her but right now she’s sure it means he’s judging her.
“Right. Well, he’s clearly stressing you out.” She straightens her shoulders, taking in a deep breath. She makes her voice cheerful and relaxed, hoping her body will follow suit. “So. Here is what we’ll do. Until I think you’re okay to talk to him without getting so worked up, then we’ll take a break from the calls, huh? Doesn’t that sound like a good idea?”
He still doesn’t answer.
His answer is not required.
Honestly, she’d just get angrier if he did answer.
Is he safe. It circles around and around in her mind. She’s the best thing that ever happened to him. She was given a cowed, frightened, silent slave to clean her home and now he’s got his own room, his own things, he’s her very best friend. He goes everywhere she goes. She hardly even lets him out of her sight.
Is he safe?
“Get your swimsuit on,” She says, turning away and pointing towards the stairs to the second floor, watching as he hesitantly gets to his feet, watching her still. “We’re going swimming.”
“M-Miss Savvie-”
“Not one word about it, Jax. You can talk to that nasty creep again when I am damn good and ready.” She finally looks back at him. "You don't belong to him, Jax. You don't owe him anything."
“Yes, Miss Savvie.” Whatever he must see in her eyes keeps him from trying to talk it out any further. Good.
He heads for the stairs, and she falls in just behind, running her fingers over the cracks in her phone screen, her skin catching at the edge of one, just a little.
Is he safe?
He’s the safest he’s ever been.
As long as he doesn't care about anyone else more than he cares about her.
Takes place during Jax’s second captivity. As always, Jax is used with oversight and permission from @comfy-whumpee)
-
Savvie rolls dice every time she uses the mortar and pestle in the kitchen to grind up one of her collections of pills and mix it into Jax’s drink.
She’s always gambling with the drugs. The first part of the game is seeing whether he’ll drink it before he realizes there’s something in it. If she doesn’t mix it well enough, he’ll see the cloudy bits floating around in the glass and look at her with terrible sad eyes. Sometimes she can’t take it. She just takes the drink right back out of his hand and pours it out, makes him a new one.
Other the other hand, sometimes his sad voice and sad eyes piss her off worse than anything else could, and she just tips it up until he chokes and makes him finish it anyway. Or shocks him, pressing the button to the remote and watching his muscles lock up, knowing he’ll look sweeter once he’s fighting the way his muscles jerk afterward, the unconscious twitches he can’t quite get rid of as the aftermath works its way through him.
Sometimes he even looks scared. Those nights are some of her favorites. Savvie never loves Jax as much as she does when he is scared of her.
But... she can’t keep him scared all the time. What kind of marriage would they have if she did that? No, the drinks aren’t to scare him, they’re just to make… to make things easier. And she doesn’t always do it! She doesn’t always drug him, but it’s enough that he never trusts her. She knows that. He doesn’t… trust easily.
That’s okay.
Their relationship got off to a rough start, that’s all, what with Jax starting off as one of the staff, bought and paid for. Plus, Jax’s dad convinced him Savvie was evil, once upon a time when he ran away from her. Taught him to hate her. She had to have her uncle fly all the way to England to bring Jax back, and it’s taking years to undo all the damage that stupid old man did.
That’s okay. He’s getting better, he’s definitely getting better. He is. He has to be getting better.
Still… he’s not an easy man to be married to. Not with having to keep an eye on the remote to his shock collar so he can’t take it off and try to run away again, not with the way he watches her sometimes like he wants to dunk her head into the toilet and hold it there until she drowns. Putting stuff in his drink just lets Savvie be able to relax.
She doesn’t have to worry about what he might do when he’s so high he can’t do much of anything. Besides, it’s only like one out of every ten nights, sometimes twenty, sometimes she even goes for a month or two without doing it.
She really doesn’t even want to. If he would just learn to be happy without it, she wouldn’t have to keep drugging him, would she? If he’d just stop being so difficult about being her husband… but that isn’t fair. He can’t be any better than he is, not really. Jax just… isn’t wired that way.
So she has to help him a little, to make it so he can have nights when he can’t stay mad at her. Or at least nights when his anger isn’t able to simmer in there behind his eyes while he says Yes, Miss Savvie or No, Miss Savvie like there’s a gun to his head.
Still. Trying to give him these evenings where both of them just relax… it’s always a gamble.
Even if he drinks whatever she makes without realizing it’s spiked, he doesn’t always react the same way. If she’s lucky - if her dice rolls well - the drugs make Jax… softer. He’ll lean against her when some of his strength slides away, not seek out touch but loathe it less. Those are the nights she can coax a sound out of him that isn’t clipped or tense. She still thinks about the night she gave him a back rub and he genuinely fell asleep sitting on the floor between her knees, his head drifting until it rested on her leg, the knots of tension slowly loosening beneath her kneading hands until she got distracted by the movie and forgot what she was doing.
Sometimes he smiles, when he’s blurry and unfocused. Smiles, enough to show teeth even… God, sometimes he even laughs at some of Savvie’s jokes. It’s rare, but it happens. She loves those nights the best. Those are the nights that their marriage almost feels normal… if she just ignores the dilated pupils and the way he can’t stand up on his own.
Sometimes he gets so foggy he can’t stop laughing, which is irritating but at least adorable to watch and take videos of to make him look at later on the next day when he sobers up again. Sometimes the side effects make him too scared to smile, his eyes darting nervously everywhere watching the movements of shadows he swears are watching him. She… tries not to give him those pills anymore.
The nights tend to end with her telling him to take off his shirt so she can enjoy the view, or even his pants, too. She usually waits on that, though, because it doesn’t matter how good the drugs are - he always hesitates when it comes to taking off his pants, as soon as his fingers touch the boxers with their oddly rolled waistband.
It reminds him he doesn’t want to be here. Makes his addled mind come back to the collar he wears around his neck, to the reality of the life they’re living, the marriage Savvie has built all by herself whether he wanted to or not.
And he… he didn’t want to.
So normally she waits on the getting naked bit until they’re in the bedroom and what he wants matters so much less that neither of them think about it any longer. The drugs, at least, make it harder for him to slow her down in there.
Savvie tries not to think about that, because she doesn’t remember it that way. She likes the nights best where he doesn’t even try to fight, just lets her pull him upstairs and she gets to bury her hands in his hair and tell him what to do and have him, languid and loose-limbed, follow every command without the tension and misery he usually carries into their bed.
She doesn’t always roll well.
Sometimes, she rolls snake eyes… and she gets this, instead.
“Fuck’s sake,” Jax groans, words slurring around the edges, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He pushes clumsily away from her, nearly falling off the couch before he manages to catch himself. “For… f’r fuck’s sake, Savvie, what the fuck.”
His wedding ring glints, light from the TV bouncing off the deceptively plain platinum band. She’s hit all over again with a wave of love for him, for the life she’s built after he was brought back home to be hers forever, just like he always should have been. She’d been an idiot not to see it, not until he was gone and she spent years in prison dreaming about getting him back.
“Fuck’s sake what?” She asks, voice light, smiling at him and poking him in the shoulder where they sit on the couch.
He doesn’t slap her hand away, but she sees him look at her and… he wants to. His expression is dark. The light is bouncing off his hazel eyes, too, giving them a strange sheen of white that wipes out the color, obscures even his dilated pupils slowly taking over the iris. “What the fuck was it?”
“What was what?”
“What the fuck did you give me?” He goes to push himself to standing only to have his knees buckle beneath him, crashing him to the floor, barely catching himself on his hands. Savvie’s mouth waters, and she swallows, trying to ignore the flutter of fascinated interest in watching his fingernails scrape the rug as he tries to steady himself. “What the fuck is it, Savvie?”
“It doesn’t matter,” She answers, without changing her own tone, leaning forward with her arms resting on her thighs. Her hair falls in heavy waves down her back and over her shoulders. “It’s not anything that could hurt you.”
This time, he doesn't say Miss Savvie or try out the sad eyes. Instead, he looks away. She can nearly hear his teeth grinding. “Yeah, but once I’m all fucked up, you will.”
“Don’t be rude,” Savvie chides him, but she doesn’t move. He looks good, on his hands and knees on the floor. Well, he looks good all the time, really, but he looks even better on his hands and knees. She knows the physique he’s built with the workout routine she makes him do, knows the muscles there hidden beneath the green sweater and jeans he’s wearing. “You’ve been stressed all week. I’m just trying to help-”
“Fucking shit, the hell you are!” He manages to sit back on his knees, then collapses back until his back hits the edge of the couch cushions, upright through sheer force of will and a bit of good luck. His hands lay limp at his sides, now. When he turns to look at her, his eyes don’t focus quite right - but the fury in them is clear.
Well.
Tonight’s not going to be the best night for them, then, she supposes. She feels the edge of a headache starting up, and sighs, looking mournfully at the movie she’d pulled up for them to watch. Another night, then. A night when the gamble pays off and doesn’t backfire. A night when he can’t remember how to be angry at her.
“Fine,” She says, heavily. “I’m not trying to help you. I’m trying to help me.”Her own voice changes - drops almost a full octave from her usual carefully constructed diction and sweetness to something sharper. “I’m making tonight easier on me. Making you less… less-” She can't think of a good way to end the sentence, so she just lets it hang there between them.
Jax snorts, looking away again. His head keeps lolling forward until his chin nearly touches his chest before he jerks it back again. “Yeah, I fucking know,” He manages, but his slurring is getting worse. “Shit f’r brains.”
Savvie sniffs, but the fake tears aren't coming as easily as they usually do. She probably accidentally gave him too much again. It’s just sometimes so hard to remember exactly how much the dose is supposed to be…
“I don’t enjoy you being cruel to me any more than you enjoy it when I do it to you, you know,” She says, suddenly… so tired. She spends so much time and effort creating a marriage herself out of a man her uncle bought for her once and abducted for her the second time, and she’s doing this all on her own - no one helps her, not really. And Jax never gives up.
She’d been sure he’d start to settle in and understand by now, but he just… he just doesn’t. And she’s so tired. Her fingers toy with the little black remote to his shock collar. Maybe she should just… just give up on having a good night and punish him for the cursing until he just bites off his stupid tongue.
No, wait.
She likes what he does with his tongue, when she gives the order. He’s so good with it now. Maybe… maybe just a small shock. Just to remind him he's hers. She takes a deep breath. “Jax… get on your-”
“On m’knees f’r discipline?” He starts laughing before she can finish, cutting her off, letting his head fall totally back against the arm of the couch until he’s staring at the ceiling. He sounds wild, almost like an animal. Her quiet watchful husband is feral, and Savvie resolves never to give him the pill she gave him tonight ever again. “Yeah, fucking… fuckin’ do it. Second I don’t play along, there y’go. Bzzzt.” He cackles, a cracked bark of laughter she’s never heard him make before. “Shut me up so you don’t hear me say it.”
Savvie’s heart twists. “Say what?”
The laughter dies in him as suddenly as it appeared. He turns his head, or tries to - it mostly just falls to one side until he’s looking at her. Their eyes meet, his all black pupil and hers with nearly no pupil at all. “How much I fucking hate your fucking guts.”
“You don’t hate me.” She says it firmly, as if he’s being ridiculous. “Don’t be mean, Jax. You don’t hate me at all.”
She takes a deep breath. Married couples have fights, even ugly ones sometimes, and they work it out-
“Yeah. I… I really do.” Disgusted, that’s the tone in his voice. Disgusted with her. “I do. I hate you.”
“Why do you hate me?”
The look he gives her is such a blatant are you a complete fucking moron that she can hear his voice even though he doesn’t say a word.
“No, hold on.” She waves one hand, dismissing her own question. His eyes briefly follow the movements of her fingers, distracted by whatever the drugs make him see there. Trails of light, maybe. It’s probably beautiful. “Hold on. I know why-”
“Do you?” His question is sharp, snapped, even as his every muscle can barely tense enough to move. “Do you fuckin’ really?”
“Yes. I do.” Savvie’s too tired to talk him in a circle tonight. She’s just… too exhausted by her bad gamble, bringing neither the snuggly Jax or the scared one, but this angry, vengeful animal instead.
Her headache is getting worse.
She grabs her glass of wine off the coffee table and chugs it so fast a little drip escapes the corner of her mouth and runs down her chin. She has to wipe it away, wincing at the… at the idea of how that looks. Her mother would have had a fit about it. If she hadn’t died years ago. “Because I had you kidnapped.”
Jax is silent, for a beat. He squints at her. “Fuck… what’d you say? Might be hearin’ shit.”
She laughs, softly. Not her usual laughter, crafted to fill up a room and put all eyes on her. This laugh is barely there, but far more genuine. “No. You're not hallucinating, that shouldn't happen with what I gave you tonight.”
“Oh, good, not this fucking drugging, then, jussss-” His head falls too far to one side and he forces it back up, groaning. “Jusss… others.”
“Only one of the pills does that. And you were cute when you thought there were monsters in the bathroom.” She gets that flat stare from him again and this time she can't hold eye contact, looking down and away, still fiddling with the remote to his collar. “I just. I do know what I did, Jax.”
“Yeah, I fucking know you know-”
“I had you kidnapped.” She takes a deep breath. It feels oddly good to say, like a scene in a movie confessing to a priest. A foul-mouthed priest she’s been sleeping with for over a year. The thought makes her smile, just a little. “My uncle had people watching you, and when I was ready, he knew where you’d be and he abducted you for me. I know that. I know that you’d run, if you could. I’d take your collar off right now if I thought you’d stay without wearing it.”
Jax is silent for so long she briefly wonders if he's flat out forgotten how to talk. Then he shrugs - or tries to, his arms don't quite follow his commands. “You’d find somethin’ else, some other reason for shit ‘round my neck. You fuckin’ like it.”
For the first time, she doesn't deny it. “I do.” She laughs at the way he looks almost comically surprised, unable to keep his usual closed-off expressions in place with the drug coursing through his veins. “What? Can't a girl have a kink?”
“Sure fuckin’ can, but you… you don' have a kink, you got… goddamn victims.”
“... I… yeah. But it-... that's not my point. It isn't about the collar, Jax. Your wedding ring does it for me, too. I could barely wait to get you home after we signed the marriage certificate.”
The glare is back. His hatred is blistering her skin. She watches him try to stand, making it nearly upright before he falls back down again with a heavy thump.
Her mouth twitches. “You want help, sweetie?”
“Ffffuck you.”
“Well, I mean, if you’re asking so nicely.” She giggles at her own joke.
He mumbles something she can't quite hear, trying to stand one more time but quickly giving up. He makes it onto the couch, at least. Savvie stands, turning to grab his ankles, shifting so he’s lying on his back, head and feet each cushioned by the arms of the comfortable, overstuffed couch. He struggles weakly, and it's hard work, but she gets him where she wants him. She barely breathes, taking in his chest rising and falling under his sweater, how his inhales are coming more sharply.
She can't help herself.
Savvie climbs on top of him, like she’s done a hundred times. She straddles him, sitting on his hips and leaning down to kiss his neck, nosing under his jaw. At first, his head tips back in resignation - but then he curses and pushes at her weakly instead. “Don’t.”
She grabs his wrists and shoves them above his head. He’s so weak, the drugs have taken all that muscle and made them… useless at holding her off. There’s a shiver of excitement down her spine. “Uh-uh, sweetie. You’re the one who said to fuck you, remember?”
She feels a thrill at saying fuck, like she’s still a kid sneaking swears in her room when her parents won’t overhear.
“Don't,” He groans. “Sav-... Savvie, stop. G’t off me. I hate you.”
“I know.” She smiles down at him. His eyes meet hers, tired and bleary. Furious and almost resigned. “I know you hate me, Jax… but I love you.”
She leans down, her hair a waterfall curtain, blocking them both off from the world. She can smell the cologne she buys for him, blended with her own pricey perfume. His wrists jerk against her grip and she digs her nails in until he grunts in pain and the skin gives beneath.
“Savvie,” he whispers.
“Sssshhh.” She lets go with one hand, shifting both his wrists to her other one, and presses a finger against his lips. “I love you so much,” She whispers. “And I don't need you to love me back, sweetie, I don’t. I just need you to lie for me.”
She kisses him, then, pressing her lips firmly to his. For half a second, his mouth is slack and unresisting even as his body shudders with disgust. He’s warm, his skin burning up beneath her. Her mouth moves against his, trying to get him to answer her, to open up.
His lips gently part. For a brief moment, Savvie feels the rush of victory.
Then he bites.
Pain blooms in a sudden flare as his teeth bury themselves into her lower lip and he jerks his head to the side, sensitive skin tearing.
“Shit!” Savvie jerks backwards, staring down at him wide-eyed. She can taste her own blood in her mouth. It’s smeared on his lips and his teeth like badly-done lipstick as he gives her a smile that's really a snarl. “Oh my God, Jax-... how dare you-”
“Fuck you! Don't fucking touch me!” He gets his arms more or less under his own control and shoves her off of him. She crashes into the coffee table, the legs giving out, tumbling her to the floor. Pain spikes hot and demanding along her hip where she hits the hard angle of the corner and she finds herself the one lying on the floor, while Jax slowly sits up, wiping blood off his lips.
Her blood.
Savvie pulls her fingers from her mouth and gasps. There’s a smear of red, bright and vibrant, the unmistakable sense of blood trickling down over her chin. She tongues at the wound, then winces as the pain flares bright, like he’s bitten her all over again. She considers tears - looks at the loathing in his eyes, the absolute rage written in the lines of his face - and then decides they’re wasted on him tonight. Instead, she just shakes her head. “That hurt.”
“Good. Don' like bein’ the one fucking bleeding for once, huh?” His eyes drift closed. He struggles to open them again, to keep his eyes on her. “Shit feelin’, isn't it?”
“God.” She swallows. Blood on her tongue is making her feel nauseous and she gets to her feet carefully. Her mouth and hip throb. She’s going to be so bruised tomorrow, going to ache so much. “You’re awful sometimes, you know that?”
“Yeah.” He grins. He hasn't bothered to try and get the red off his teeth. “I know. So… so fffffuckin’ get rid of me, then.”
Savvie snorts, limping a little as she moves to pick up the spilled wine bottle from the floor. She could shock him now - that’s what she would usually do. Or call Isaac and have him carted off to spend another month locked in the kennels with the dogs. He… probably doesn’t care about that, though. Anything to get away from her. Anything is better than her, to him.
“Get rid of you?” She drinks the last swallow in the bottle, washing blood down her throat with the wine. “Then what, Jax? I should just… live here alone, without you, for the rest of my life?”
“Fucking-... yes, or go fucking die. I don't fucking care.” The flush of hot anger bleeds away, his voice softening a little. “I don't… don' care, Savvie. I don’t care about you.”
“No. You do.” She feels a burst of desperation to make him understand. “You hate me, right? That’s caring about me, still.”
“Savvie-”
“No. I love you. You are mine, and I am keeping you. This is love, Jax. What I feel for you is true love.”
He shakes his head, swaying a little where he sits. He tries to push her away again as she takes him by the arm but his burst of energy seems to have used him up. He lets her, in the end, get him onto his feet. She leads him on his unsteady legs out of the room, and he stumbles along with her.
“S'not love,” He mumbles. She keeps an arm around his waist to help him balance. “Fucking… fuck you. Let me leave, Savvie.”
He doesn't have the strength to push her away, not anymore. He has to use her to stay up as they take the stairs one at a time, although after three or four he jerks away again and uses the railing, leaning heavily against it as he drags himself upwards, inch by inch, step by step.
She lets him pull away, watching his determination to not need her, how badly he doesn’t even want her. There’s a canyon inside of her, something dark and deep that hurts so much worse than her hip or her torn open lower lip, threatening to claw its way out as she watches the man she has forced to play the role of her husband do anything he can to avoid her touch.
Her jaw sets. “It is. It is love, and you know what? It’s all the love you’re going to get. Ever. No one else will ever love you.” Savvie’s voice stays low. “You’re not… you’re not lovable, Jax, but I don’t care, I love you anyway. Nobody else would. No one is ever going to even want to love you but me.”
He slumps. The fight’s all gone out of him, for now. Her gamble failed tonight and Jax is buckling under the weight of what runs through his veins, the heavy expectations in her eyes and her smile and her devotion.
“Fuck,” is all he says, barely a whisper under his breath.
Savvie sighs, touching her fingers to her lip again. The bleeding has slowed but there’s still a spot of red. “Goes both ways, though, I think.”
He doesn't look at her. “What?”
“This… how much you hate me… how I had to kidnap you, and put that thing on your neck to keep you here, how you wish you were anywhere but here with me… you know, I, I get it.”
He has to stop at the landing and lean over, resting his forehead against the wall.
She lays a hand on his back, leaning over to speak right against his ear. “I get that your hate is all the love I’m going to get, too, Jax. Nobody else will ever love me, either.”
Her throat feels tight, and she can’t tell if she really feels the twisting nerves in her stomach, the sense of dread, or if it’s part of her act for Jax. Sometimes even Savvie isn’t sure when she means the things she says. Sometimes, even worse, she really does.
“All we’re ever going to have is each other.”
He doesn’t answer her. But when she takes his arm in her hand, he allows himself to be dragged along towards her bedroom. The fight might be gone, but so is the feeling. There’s nothing in his eyes that shows he even heard her.
That’s okay. She can be honest, in the dark, in the middle of the night, knowing that he’s too drugged to remember anything she said when he wakes up again. She’ll lie to herself again by morning. So will he.
She just needs him to lie.
-
@whumpyourdamnpears consider this my evil savvie gift to you
GOD i just love whumpees kept against their will in luxury
King sized beds with fluffy blankets, fine wines and gourmet dinners, expensive clothes and jewelry, constant affection 24/7...
Only to be met with a whumpee who spits and fights back at every turn, demanding release. A whumpee who'd rather be out on the streets and free than to live as a pet in some creep's mansion.
-> Glaze your art if you have the access to Glaze. the computing power for it is insane, it sucks, I know. cook dinner while your art glazes or go on a walk.
-> if you have the power necessary to use Nightshade, use it too.
-> data sharing has to be turned off individually for every blog. go do that
-> if you are on desktop, go to Account and choose a blog. on the right side menu, select Blog Settings. the setting is at the bottom under Visibility. I recommend turning it on even if you do not trust that your data will not be used for training AI models
-> please do this even if you are not an artist/don't post your own images! the wording wasn't clear on whether reblogged posts will be included in scraping, and given the other info coming out, it is likely that it might be
titsay
dededos
blakekathryn
jbbartram-illu
izzy806
kaledo-art
origamiaround
prguitarman
