Joe-Mother

I’m not a pornbot… or am I??? 😎🤏 🥵🕶️🤏 23

[justagirlincaptivity]

𝔐𝔞𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯𝔩𝔦𝔰𝔱

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

𝓗𝓪𝔃𝓫𝓲𝓷 𝓗𝓸𝓽𝓮𝓵

𝒜𝓁𝒶𝓈𝓉𝑜𝓇

Series:

𝒰𝓃𝑒 𝒱𝒾𝑒 𝐼𝓃𝒻𝑒𝓇𝓃𝒶𝓁𝑒: 𝒜 𝐻𝑒𝓁𝓁𝒾𝓈𝒽 𝐿𝒾𝒻𝑒

Ongoing 9/20

The crimes of a husband come back to haunt a mother and her daughter, even in death, even in heaven. 

A03 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74502136

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

𝕾𝖎𝖓𝖓𝖊𝖗𝖘

ℜ𝔢𝔪𝔪𝔦𝔠𝔨

One Shots:

𝖂𝖊 𝖌𝖔𝖙 𝖆 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖑?

A housewife strikes a deal with the devil, and the rest is history.

•┈┈┈••✦ ♡ ✦••┈┈┈•

ɪʀᴏɴ ʟᴜɴɢ

ᴄᴏɴᴠɪᴄᴛ

ᴏɴɢᴏɪɴɢ ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴢᴏɴᴇ 7/?

[justagirlincaptivity]

ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴢᴏɴᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴ: ʙʀᴜᴛᴜꜱ, ᴊᴜᴅᴀꜱ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ʙᴀꜱᴛᴀʀᴅꜱ ɪɴ ʟᴏᴠᴇ

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 2,771

ᴀ/ɴ: ꜱᴏʀʀʏ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ꜱᴜᴄʜ ᴀ ʟᴏɴɢ ᴡᴀɪᴛ ꜰᴏʀ ꜱᴜᴄʜ ᴀ ꜱʜᴏʀᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ. ɪᴍ ꜱᴏ ʙᴜʀɴᴇᴅ ᴏᴜᴛ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ꜱᴄʜᴏᴏʟ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀʟꜱᴏ ʙᴇɪɴɢ ᴀʟɪᴠᴇ, ꜱᴏ ᴛʜɪꜱ ɪꜱ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ɢᴇᴛ. ꜱɪᴅᴇ ɴᴏᴛᴇ, ɪ ᴀᴄᴛᴜᴀʟʟʏ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ʟɪᴋᴇ ᴛʜᴇ ᴛɪᴛʟᴇ ꜰᴏʀ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ʟᴏʟ

“Show me how to love you. Please.” Her hair tickled his lips as he spoke, breathing the words  into life. 

It was a painful admission. I want to love you, but I don’t know how. Simon could guess that she knew he was inept at matters like these, all the doctrine in the world couldn’t prepare you for something as selfish as love. You are the soil that feeds the roots, the body beneath the earth, nothing more. But that wasn’t true anymore, was it? It hadn’t been true the moment he’d touched her for the first time, and before that when he’d agreed to even marry her, and then before that when he’d stood between Eden and Filament and had burned for it. But those had all been static, the place in between conscious choice and full, blatant admission. He no longer stood on the cliff's edge, looking down into the abyss, this was the willing leap into the unknown, the begging for the ground to come up too fast and turn him into a crumbled and broken heap. He wants this, wants so desperately for her to tear him apart. 

When she doesn’t answer, he repeats himself. “Please, (Y/N).” She takes a shaky breath when he says her name. He’d only ever spoken it in private, in the moments he’d stolen away in solitude, testing every syllable on his tongue, savoring the taste. It was a new prayer for him to mutter, Eden’s teachings long gone. He worshiped a new god now, more steady than the Last Tree, sweeter than any fruit in the garden, more beautiful hymns falling from her lips when she writhes beneath his hands than any choir Eden could ever hope for. He was sinful now, covetous and hungry for every communion she would give him. He hungered for every bit of sacrilege, devoting himself entirely to her. 

“I don’t know how.” Her voice breaks, all of her righteous anger giving way to some bone deep hurt. He didn’t know how to love, but that was okay because she didn’t know how to be loved.

For a long time, they just hold one another, his arms around her shoulders, hugging her close against his chest. At some point, she’d reciprocated his embrace, arms covering his as her head falls along his bicep, allowing him to sway the two of them in a gentle rock. 

She speaks eventually, voice a low whisper, like she's afraid she’ll wake the phantom anger he’s put to rest. “I’m from Filament. Did you know that?” 

He gives a hum, no, he didn’t know. But, somehow, he did. Some part of him had always known, always been drawn to her in a way that crackled against his skin. The pair of them with their matching scars, the same heat searing the skin from their backs. Of course she was from Filament. Like she’d embraced a flame he’d thought once. Now, he knew that he was the one to ignite it. He pictures her like this, swaying in the arms of a burning soldier, letting herself turn to ash in arms that were meant to be safe. He hates it, he decides, and he hates himself for the part he played in it. They were both meant to die on that stranded station, swallowed up by the fires of Eden, but here they are, not quite well, but alive. 

“I’m sorry.” It's a weak apology, but there's no amount of ‘sorry’ in the world that can beg forgiveness for the massacre of her people, for the immolation of her home. “I’m so sorry.”

She shakes her head, her hair shifting into his eyes. He doesn’t move away, too greedy for the feeling of her blinding him, the curtain of her hair sheltering him from a thousand judging eyes of all the dead and dying gods. “You tried to stop them, didn’t you?”

“Trying wasn’t good enough.” He thinks of the burning bodies in the halls, the screams that only ended when their vocal chords snapped, lungs full of smoke and skin sizzling. How many of them did she know? How many of the screams that haunt him used to be voices she laughed alongside?

“It's good enough for me.” She can’t possibly mean it, but he’s selfish enough to ignore that detail, wanting her forgiveness more than anything. 

Still, humbly, he shakes his head. Simon doesn’t bother arguing out loud, she’s much better at it than he is. 

“Do you…” He asks before he can talk himself out of it. “Do you think that you could ever love me?”

It takes a long time for her to answer, swaying in his arms. It hurts, just a bit, how long she has to think. He moves against her in silence, nothing to quiet the screams until, finally, she says, “I think I could.”

A selfish part of Simon wanted to hear her say ‘I already do’ or ‘I could never love you’ because both of those would be true answers. Either he was worth loving or he was hopeless, but at least he’d know. He’s here again, on the cliff, waiting to fall or fly.

“Is that okay?” She asks, “If I take my time?”

No, it isn’t, in fact he’d rather her just laugh in his face and call him unloveable so he could feel the hurt all at once and then never again. But, he’s willing to let her be a slow, carving wound, if that could mean there was even a small chance at being loved. No, not just being loved, he isn’t that lonely. It’s her that matters. Anyone in the galaxy could love him and it would never be enough. He wants her love and nothing else will ever be enough. 

“Donec sum humus.” He says, eyes closed as he remembers the vows he’d taken, knelt among the roots of The Last Tree. Until death. He presses his lips to the back of her head, not quite a kiss, something more primal, an ancient sort of affection. He takes a new vow, not kneeling, just holding her. It’s the closest he’s ever felt to god. “You can take forever.”

He really did mean it, too. She could take forever and ten years into the next life and he would still be here waiting. This is what love is, isn’t it? The aching wait in between acceptance and rejection, burning with unsaid pleas and fleeting touches. All touches were fleeting, he decides. Every kiss and embrace, every moment with her pinned beneath him, none of it would ever be enough. Every touch that didn’t last a lifetime was too short to satisfy him. 

The Father was an old man, possibly the oldest man that Simon had ever known. His face was cut with hard lines that bled into sunken cheeks and a thin scowling mouth, eyes always narrowed, suspicion mounting with every passing minute. The Father was the oldest person allowed to live in Eden, all of the other elders churned up and mixed into soil. Hyram was an old man, too, probably nearly as old as Father. But, his face was full of light, a lifetime of incarceration–for what, he never said– could not dim the mirth in his eyes. Why was it that a single man could do what thirty years in a damp cell could not? How had Hyram survived through the Rapture, through starvation and sickness and heartbreak and then crumble beneath the weight of one man? Is that what love is? Simon thought, his palm pressed in the frail hollow between the older man’s shoulders, comfort still unfamiliar. This has to be what love is. Love is the pain of a dead son, of a man who doesn’t know what it means to ease another’s burdens, love is the second oldest man in the universe wailing on the floor of the laundry room. 

Hyram’s son died in his sleep, for what seemed like no reason at all. White foam, streaked with red and brown, had gathered in the corner of his lips, dripping onto the pillow beside his head. Unlucky doctor Ephraim called it, warm hand on Hyram’s shoulder when he’d delivered the news, piles of dirty uniforms and Simon the audience to a father’s grief. Suspicious is what Simon would have called it. Because of the Eden prisoners faceless citizens whispered, shrinking into the walls when Simon passed. When Hyram’s eyes stay dead the next day, and then the one after that, Simon almost hopes he doesn’t ever become a father to anyone. He doesn’t think that he could survive the loss. 

But, that wasn’t the deal, was it? No, his freedom was entirely conditional–procreate or rot in a cell until you die. Worse than that, though–procreate or rot in a cell and Peter would take his place. Like it or not, whatever circumstances put them here, he was (Y/N)’s entirely. Simon had never been anyone’s, but he could say without a doubt that he belonged to her. She hadn’t said she’d loved him back after he confessed, in fact she refused to believe he could even love her in the first place, but he knew he did. This instinctual need to be near her, when a noise would be just a little too loud and his instincts had stopped screaming find cover and started screaming find her instead, that’s when he knew. There was no tree that mattered, no father, no soldier, no butcher, just her. 

It's been days since he confessed, and it's gone unacknowledged in the quiet hours they spend together, both too afraid to start a fight. Today, though, there's something just a bit too wrong about her, so he has to ask. “Are….. Are you okay?” 

She’s been staring down at some schematics on her tablet for the better half of the last thirty minutes, not speaking, not moving, just staring. She gives a hum, not looking up. 

It's strange to think yourself so familiar with someone who may very well just be a stranger. Simon’s fingers itch to curl around her shoulders, to pull her back against his chest and hold her until at least one of them feels better. He tries to ignore the fact that the last time he’d held her like that, she’d all but told him that he was incapable of love. But, he’d promised her that he could wait a lifetime. He thinks of Hyram’s son and how a lifetime can end too soon.

“(Y/N),” The way he speaks her name makes her falter for just a moment, enough that Simon can hope he’s got some form of her attention. “Can we talk? Please?”

She turns, still straight backed in her chair, only her face tilted towards him. It's almost comical how desperately she wants to seem nonchalant. “What do you want to talk about?”

Everything, anything Simon thinks. What he says is “You seriously have no idea what I could want to talk to you about?”

The annoyed quirk of her brow is enough to satisfy him. If he can’t love her–and have her love in return–then at least he can annoy her. “I have no possible clue, Simon.” She says his name like venom warmed in hellfire, the hurt not dulling the satisfaction. He’s sure the sting of it will keep him warm for the rest of his life. Who needs artificial sun when you have a wife like this?

“Well, (Y/N),” He huffs, arms crossing across his broad chest, too caught up in his own ire to notice her eyes glancing down. “We could talk about the weather or what was for lunch, or maybe–I don't know–how you’ve been ignoring me for days now. Does any of that sound interesting to you?”

“There is no weather in space, lunch was rehydrated soy meat, and I spoke to you this morning.” She’s such a smart ass, voice empty and almost bored. 

Simon sputters, top lip curling and brows furrowing, entirely confused at the enigma sitting across the room. “You–But…. You grunted at me when I bumped into you this morning. That isn’t talking.”

“It got the message across, though.” 

“Yeah,” He grunts, fed up with this entire conversation. “It did.”

He’s already snatching clothes up from his drawer when he hears her stand to follow him. Brushing past her on his way to the shower, he grunts, narrowly avoiding her outstretched hand. He can see why she did the same on her way out this morning, it's very satisfying to be unkind. 

“Fine, let’s talk,” She ducks into the doorway to the bathroom, blocking him from escaping. This had been what he’d wanted, only ever leaving in hopes that she’d follow. 

“Move.” He’s more tired than angry at this point, tired of fighting over nothing just to make up with her later. Love is exhausting. 

“No, you wanted to talk, let's talk.” She’s planted herself firmly, palms on either side of the doorway in case he tries to shoulder past her. 

“I don’t want to talk,” He sighs, an exhausted sound that feels like giving up. “It's fine. I promise.”

“It's not fine, Simon.” He tries not to shudder at the sound of his name. “I was being a bitch, okay? I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you were.” He agrees, immediately realizing that this is quite possibly the worst thing he could’ve done.

(Y/N)’s lip curls meanly. “So you think I’m a bitch? Fuck you!”

She shoves past him, or at least tries to, but she’s put herself in such a precarious position. If she could block him, he can do the same. His fingers close around the flesh of her bicep, his chest warm with endearment. Yes, she is a bitch, very often in fact. But she’s still his wife, whatever that means any more. 

“Hey,” He shoves his face into the side of her hair, ignoring her cursing. She’s not trying to get away, more pretending to hate his touch than actually hating it. “I love you.”

She makes a broken sound, the death rattle of something that thought there would be no witness to its demise. But he’s here, and he doesn’t intend to look away. “Don’t say that, Simon.”

He doesn’t listen, gathering her against his chest so that he can secure her with both arms. “I love you. I love you.”

She gives a sad sniffle, “You’re an asshole.”

“I know,” He plants a kiss against the side of her head. “Come on.”

He doesn’t give her any time to actually listen, already hoisting her up so he can hook his hands beneath her thighs. He strips her slowly and carefully in the tiled bathroom, apologizing when she hisses at the cold, murmuring more I love you’s against the goosebumps on her skin. He’ll say it long after she finally believes it, or long after he understands it, either way he doesn’t ever intend to stop saying it. The way she shakes under his hands, keens in his ear, it's all too much.

Once they’re both stripped, he fiddles with the shower knobs until her shaking hands come up, guiding him to turn the thing on herself. He relishes in the way she melts against his chest, letting his eyes close as he holds her against him. Another confession of love gets placed on the skin of her shoulder as his hand finds its way between her legs. She’s ready for him, so responsive and needy for his touch, back arching and thighs shaking as he does exactly what she showed him. It's hard to go slowly–to be patient–when she’s asking for more so sweetly.

“Simon,” She whispers into the steaming air. “Please, Simon.”

He ruts against her backside, fingers moving steadily through her dripping folds. “I’ve got you. I love you.” And he does, he has her, and he loves her. 

One of her hands reaches back, brushing against him, making him still his movements. She whines, hips grinding down into his palm before he pulls away from her. “Why are you stopping?”

He can hear the ache in her voice, the needy confusion. He answers her, voice shaking. “I don’t want you to touch me.”

She makes a wounded sound, offended and hurt and oh so desperate. “Simon-”

“Just let me take care of you,” His voice breaks and he hides his face against the back of her neck, hoping that his tears just feel like more water falling against her skin. “Please.”

“Okay.” Her voice is so sad that it breaks whatever is left of his heart. 

[justagirlincaptivity]

ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴢᴏɴᴇ

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜱɪx: ʜᴏᴡ ꜱᴡᴇᴇᴛ, ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴛᴛᴇᴅ ꜰʀᴜɪᴛ

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 3,173

ᴀ ʟᴇꜱꜱᴏɴ ɪɴ ʟᴏᴠᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀ ʟᴇꜱꜱᴏɴ ɪɴ ʜᴀᴛᴇ.

“Here,” Her hands shove at his shoulders, seating him on the bed so that his back is against the wall, his knees spread wide so she can settle between them.

It had taken a few minutes of convincing for him to go shower and change into his sleeping clothes, but now he was clean and comfy in linen trousers, his chest bare because his tank top had yet to be laundered and was currently stained with last night's events and discarded in the corner of the room. He grunts slightly as she deposits herself between his spread legs, reclining against his chest. Beneath the soap, he still smells like himself, the smell of warm skin and churning earth. She hadn’t seen actual dirt since she was a child on Earth, but she had to imagine it smelt like this—like warmth and light and familiar touches. She hadn’t felt warmth like this since then either, the warmth of the sun in winter, where the air is cold but if you tilt your face up just right, there’s the gentle caress of a distant flame.

She draws his hand over her stomach, the callouses scratching pleasantly over her bare skin. There was no point in her wearing clothes, and the sound he’d made when she’d stripped her shirt off was more than enough incentive to do away with the rest.

“Right here, use three fingers.” She guides his palm to rest on her mound, his fingers parting her folds. Simon shudders at the feeling, pressing his face into the bare skin at the back of her neck. “Small circles.”

His hum reverberates against her pulse as he nods, doing as she says. “Like this?”

(Y/N) gasps at the pressure, his enthusiasm blinding him to her sensitivity. “Not so rough.”

“Sorry,” he amends, slowing his touch and planting an apologetic kiss beneath her ear. “Better?”

She can’t help the way she sighs, arching into his touch as she turns her head to catch his lips with her own. “Perfect.”

“So pretty,” he mutters, more to himself than her, nuzzling against her shoulder. “I didn’t realize it’d be so soft.”

“Thank you,” she breathes a laugh, hips bucking to chase his touch.

Simon’s other hand comes up to grab a handful of her breast, his teeth edging along her skin before he sinks them in with a groan. “How is all of you so soft?”

“Fuck,” The sound that leaves her is a desperate, pleading whine as her back arches. “Please.”

“Mm-mm,” His head shakes, the hand on her chest pressing down hard, keeping her pinned against him. “You know what I want you to say.”

It’s hard to think with him touching her, his fingers intent on tearing her apart and putting her back together. It’s only when he gives a tsk and pulls his hand away that the answer appears in her head, clear as the rising sun.

“Simon,” she whimpers, wriggling until she can press a kiss against his cheek, burying her face into his skin as she begs. “Please, Simon.”

His head falls back, hitting the wall behind him with a thump, exposing the wide column of his throat as he groans. “So pretty when you say it.”

She’s preening at his praise, grateful when his fingers begin moving again rapidly. “Simon, please.”

He’s made his way back into her neck, his breath sending goosebumps over her skin as he pleads. “I don’t know what you need. Tell me, please.”

Her hand finds the one between her legs, shoving at the back of it until she’s guided two of his fingers to her entrance. “Inside.”

The sound of her voice is enough to wreck him. Nodding, he slips them inside, letting his palm rest against her clit. “Fuck, how are you so warm?”

Something about him makes her greedy. “Curl your fingers, dummy.”

“Watch it,” he murmurs, nipping at the edge of her jaw. Still, he does as she asks and is rewarded with the prettiest sound he’s ever heard.

“Thank you,” (Y/N) sighs, thighs closing around his hand as he begins pumping his fingers, keeping his palm flush against her clit so she can grind into it. “Thank you, Simon.”

After going unfulfilled last night and being pent up all day, she reaches her peak quickly, gushing around his fingers. Simon, having never known a woman could orgasm, and therefore never having seen one do so, doesn’t slow his movements. He groans when he feels her clench on his digits, slick gushing out around them with every pump of his fingers.

He doesn’t stop until her body is shaking, her voice broken with whimpers and eyes nearly full of tears. “Simon, stop!”

“I’m sorry,” he pulls his hand away too quickly, making her whine at the sudden emptiness. “Did I do it wrong?”

Somehow, life seems brighter when you’ve just cum on the fingers of what could very possibly be the prettiest man in the known galaxy. Turning her head so she can cackle into the side of his neck, she says, “I think you’ve ruined me forever. You did great.”

“Yeah?” His voice is mistrustful, hesitant to accept praise.

“Yeah,” (Y/N) presses a kiss to the balmy skin of his neck before sitting up and turning to straddle him. “Your turn.”

He’s blushing a pretty pink, his chest rising and falling with quick breaths. Shaking his head, he says, “You, um, you don’t have to.”

This brings a frown to her lips, her brows drawing close together. “What? Why not? I don’t mind, I promise.”

Simon shakes his head, leaning forward to press his forehead against hers, knocking their noses together before he mutters, “I don’t think I can do it again so fast.”

“Again?” She asks, drawing back to look him in the eyes before glancing down, noticing the significant dark spot on the front of his trousers. “Oh.”

“Shut up.” He says without malice when she starts laughing, grabbing her hips so he can heave her off his lap.

There’s a painful, confusing moment where she thinks she may have genuinely upset him, watching him stand and walk out of the bedroom door. But there’s no worry to be had, yesterday’s lesson of ‘we clean up after sex’ was a lasting one, apparent when he returns with a washcloth from the bathroom. This time he’s at least learned not to use the first scrap of fabric he comes across.

“Here,” he mutters, passing the rag to her before peeling off his trousers and collapsing onto the bed beside her.

Wiping the mess from between her legs, she asks, “Not shy any more?”

“Uh-uh.” He grunts, throwing an arm over his eyes like the first night he slept on the couch.

“You should go get your pillow off of the couch,” she pokes at the flesh of his stomach, earning another grunt and a swat of his hand. “Wouldn’t want you getting mutant drool on you.”

“It’s fine. Go to bed.”

“What am I supposed to go to bed on? There’s a non-mutant taking up all of my pillow.” She asks, giving him another poke.

He grunts, patting the skin of his chest. “Here.”

She snorts, but can’t help but smile, standing and walking to the wall near the door.

His arm comes off of his eyes at the movement, frowning and eyes narrowing in question.

“Just turning off the light,” (Y/N) explains, doing so before returning to the bed and complying with his demands.

His chest is solid, warm and languid under her check, rising and falling as he breathes. One of his arms winds behind her, hand resting, fingers spread wide over her side. It’s odd to feel so familiar with someone that you barely know, comfortability found in somewhere among the cloudy haze of post orgasmic bliss, the shared trauma of Filament, or the expectations thrust upon them by humanity’s need for perseverance, but it feels something like what home could be.

“Have you been able to cohabitate?” Mallory asks, glancing up from her tablet.

(Y/N) had gotten the schedule change alert just as she’d reached her desk, meaning she had to leave the maintenance office and go all the way to the fucking admin wing which was damn near on the other side of the ship. So, Mallory was getting no grace today.

“Been fine.” She says shortly, trying to determine exactly how behind schedule this would make her.

“Any issues with Convict 247?”

“No.”

This is how things go on for the next several minutes. Stupid questions, short answers.

“Well,” Mallory says, shoving the glasses on her nose up with her pointer finger. “That's everything with me. You’re needed in Ephraim’s office for reproductive evaluations next.”

Ephraim’s office–thankfully–is not too far away. The short walk is a small mercy, and the only one she’ll get as this will put her another hour behind schedule. When she gets to the medical wing, (Y/N) is surprised to see the familiar face of her convict, who is sitting in one of the plastic waiting chairs and wringing his fingers like they’ve personally wronged him.

“Simon?” She asks, making him jump out of his skin. He’s nervous, another endearing trait to add to him: afraid of the doctor.

He says her name, sighing into the sound like it's his last breath his lungs might ever hold, a death rattle born of rocky starts and quick pleasures. “What are you doing here? Are you okay?”

They really don’t tell him much, do they? “I’m here to get my box looked at. They’ll probably check you too.”

“What box?” He glances around her, trying to find the elusive item.

Snorting, looking down at the confusion on his pretty face, she says, “My vagina, Simon.”

“Oh.” He’s red, shifting in his seat. “I didn’t hurt you, did I?”

The poor, considerate bastard. “No, idiot. They want to make sure you can knock me up. Sorry–forgot you’re bad at slang–I mean they want to make sure you can get me pregnant.”

The mention of the intended purpose of their union amplifies his nervousness and his knee starts bouncing. Sighing, she takes the seat beside him, resting her palm on his shaking leg. “Relax, you’re fine. They’ll ask us a few questions and we can go.”

He shakes his head, frowning. “They gave me the day off, it's gonna be more than a few questions.”

She’s formulating a response when Ephraim’s nurse opens the door. “(L/N)?”

“That's us.” (Y/N) is hauling Simon up by his forearm before he can think to tuck tail and run.

Simon, unfortunately, is correct. Doctor Marianne—the gynecologist within the office—has (Y/N) in stirrups within fifteen or so minutes. Simon, who refused the doctors offer to stay in the waiting room, sits uncomfortably in the chair in the corner of the room, glaring awkwardly at the back of Marianne’s head.

“Have your cycles been regular?” Marianne asks, gloves snapping obnoxiously on her wrists.

“Mhm,” She–like Simon–is refusing eye contact, choosing to focus her glare on the ceiling tiles. “Every thirty or so days.”

“That's good. Your bloodwork and tests came back great.” Marianne’s congratulations are sweet, if not made incredibly uncomfortable by the woman being elbow deep in her patient. “Everything seems to be in order. Ten days from the beginning date of your next menstrual cycle, begin having intercourse regularly. At least every other day.”

A prescription to fuck wasn’t exactly what (Y/N) had thought the woman would say, but at least it was over. Poor Simon, so unused to the concept of anatomy, looks like he’s going to be sick.

“I’ll send Ephraim in to discuss Simon’s results in just a few minutes,” Marianne gives her patient’s bare leg an encouraging pat. “Good luck you two.”

“You okay?” (Y/N) asks, shoving her legs into her trousers, trying to determine if Simon is actually going to vomit.

“Mhm,” He says absently, eyes unfocused.

“It's normal stuff, just doctors making sure we’re okay.”

After a long pause, he finally looks at her. “I don’t think I liked it.”

“You won't have to do anything like that. The most they’ll ask you to do is jerk it into a cup.” She teases, earning a disgusted wrinkle of his nose.

“No,” He frowns, pinching the bridge of his nose like she’s giving him a headache. “I didn’t like that she had to touch you. I thought people didn’t do that when they were married.”

“It's not an affair, dumbass. They just need to make sure I’m alright for us to have kids.”

“I didn’t say you were having an affair,” He grunts, arms crossing over his broad chest. “I said that I didn’t like that other people were touching you.”

“Boohoo, you weren’t even the one getting fingered by the old lady and you’re upset? Grow up.” She’s getting annoyed with him. His inexperience was endearing sometimes, but this was just aggravating. How in the hell is it fair for him to be upset at her when she was the one half naked and getting violated?

“Fuck off,” He snarles, eyes narrowed as he focuses his glare fully on her. “That's not what I meant.”

“And how the hell am I supposed to know what you meant when the only way you can communicate is by bitching at me or fucking me?”

His lips part in affronted surprise, but before he can answer, Ephraim is knocking at the door.

“(L/N), Convict.” The doctor greets, either oblivious to or not caring about their arguing. “Let's go over these results.”

Some small ounce of mercy in the captain’s dead eyed heart had granted the newlyweds the rest of the day for leisure. The woman was smart enough to anticipate that the pair of them would leave the office in some sort of upset, and had erased their daily obligations. The implication of an empty schedule and permission to procreate wasn’t lost on (Y/N), but Simon, who hadn't experienced a day off since childhood, was confused at the concept.

“So what do we do?” They’ve been walking back to their compartment in sweet, passive aggressive silence, when Simon takes it upon himself to break it.

“You do whatever you want to do.” Her words are clipped, snippy and leaning a little more apathetic than truly angry and she speed walks ahead

Simon sighs, frustrated, like it's annoying that she’s upset. “Can you stop for two fucking seconds? Please?”

No, no she can’t. So, (Y/N) starts walking faster, hoping he’ll get lost and wander out of the airlock.

He groans, and she can almost picture him with his head thrown back comically and his hands dragging down his face. Unfortunately, Compartment 4B is only two halls away, so he slips in the door before she can slam it shut.

“Why are you acting like this?” He seems astonished that she would dare to have feelings.

“Acting like what?” She doesn’t turn around, just keeps walking to her bedroom. To hell with him, he can have the couch.

“Hey.” When she doesn’t stop, he grabs at her arm. “Hey! Will you stop?”

“Fuck off!” She rips her arm from his hand, feeling the blunt scratch of his nails against her skin.

All the gentle kindness they’d shown each other yesterday was gone, replaced by the default hatred that seemed to be woven into their DNA by Eden’s hands or the Coalition’s. Maybe Earth superstition endured, giving life to a long dead god whose only purpose was to orchestrate animosity between what little of humanity had survived. This God of mutually assured destruction was doing a fantastic job.

“No. Actually, you know what–” He catches her by the waist, broad hands spanning over her hips and dragging her back.

“Let me go you tree fucking lunatic!” It’s animalistic, the way they move together. She claws at his face, throws elbows, teeth glinting as she tries to bite at him.

“Fucking–Ow!” He hisses when one of her kicks makes contact, releasing her.

Wheeling on him, fists drawn tight, she punches at him blindly, satisfied with every grunt of pain she’s awarded. He’s able to sidestep one of the blows, anticipating her next strike with enough time to grab her into a headlock.

“Calm the fuck down!” His bicep is at her throat, strong arms caging her against his body. She wiggles, sinking her teeth into the bare skin of his bicep, biting until the taste of his blood floods her mouth. He gives a little, indignant sound that melts into a groan, his pelvis pressing against her backside. “Fucking stop it.”

Him getting anything out of this other than pain sets her off. She growls, “Of course you’re getting off to this, fucking freak!”

He laughs meanly, his hold on her not daring to loosen. “And you aren’t?”

Before she can deny it, his free hand is slipping below her waistband, into her undergarments. He gives a pleased sound at the wetness he finds, cupping her through the thin fabric. “I knew it. That’s why you act like this, huh? You like it when I fight back.”

The accusation sends white hot embarrassment through her stomach, right down to where his fingers begin stroking across the damp cloth. “I hate you.”

“No,” he argues, “You don't.”

His breathing labored, the rise and fall of his chest mirrored in hers as hunger takes them both. Was it always going to be like this? Fighting and then sex and then a whole day of peace before things start over? If this is what love is, then why do it at all?

“I don’t like you, though.” Is the only thing she can think to respond with. It’s not quite agreeing with him, but not arguing against him, this unsteady space between denial and acceptance feels like home.

“That’s okay, I love you enough to make up for it.” His words stop her short, her chest freezing with an unfamiliar burn, stealing her breath and making black dot the edges of her vision. Love? He was out of his mind.

So, she tells him so. “You’re delusional. You don’t know what love is.”

“Married people are supposed to love each other,” he presses his nose against the back of her hair, inhaling and letting the smell of her sink into his being. He sounds satisfied when he says, “You’re my wife. So, I love you.”

His reasoning is nonsense, fueled by some childish, idealized notion of what love is meant to be. But, it’s hard to argue with someone while they’re touching you like this.

“Idiot.” She chokes out the word like it’ll save her. When his fingers coax a moan from her, she knows there’s nothing that could save her, not when she so desperately doesn’t want to be saved. “You don’t even know how to love someone.”

“Then, show me.” He murmurs, nuzzling against the back of her neck. “Show me how to love you. Please.”

[justagirlincaptivity]

ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴢᴏɴᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰɪᴠᴇ: ɴᴀᴋᴇᴅ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ɢᴀʀᴅᴇɴ, ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇɢɪɴɴɪɴɢ

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 4,697

ʟᴜꜱᴛ ɢɪᴠᴇꜱ ᴡᴀʏ ᴛᴏ ᴅᴏᴍᴇꜱᴛɪᴄɪᴛʏ ᴀɴᴅ ᴄɪᴛɪᴢᴇɴꜱ ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴛʜᴇɪʀ ᴏᴘɪɴɪᴏɴꜱ ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ᴛʜᴇʏ ᴀʀᴇɴ'ᴛ ᴡᴀɴᴛᴇᴅ.

A/N: They have sex in this one fyi. Another longer chapter, this time edited lmao.

His hands are shaking as his fingers curl around her jumpsuit’s zipper. Anticipation, fear, or just white-hot arousal sends tremors through every inch of him.

​

Tell me to stop, and I will.

​

His teeth find the side of her neck again, just resting along the pulse to keep her from forgetting his presence—not that she could. Inexperience and greed send tremors through his hands as they wander, fingers forcing their way through the partially undone front of her clothes, too impatient to actually finish unzipping her. Simon’s fingers wander across her breast, her stomach, every inch of flesh that's been offered up for his touch. Every brush of his fingers draws a noise from her, the rough scratch of his fingernails, the bruising pressure of his palm, and he meets every breathy sigh, every moan, with one of his own. It's as if her pleasure is enough to grant him his own, and she’s hungry to hear more of him.

​

He turns her, pulling her sleeves from her arms, forcing the denim over her shoulders and waist until she’s in nothing more than her undergarments, her front pressed to his with a searing heat. (Y/N) doesn’t feel self-conscious–it's impossible to with all the blatant need in his dark eyes–but there's an uneasiness in her at being the only one undressed. She remedies this, catching him by the waist and shoving the dark gray tank top over his ribs, relishing the choked whimper he gives in return. He’s scarred, a lifetime of misery marked on tan skin, and for just a moment, she regrets every mean thought she’d had about him. Pale and jagged across his stomach, still healing pink on his hip, these scars map out a lifetime of misery at the hands of some faceless sadist beneath a tree. He shivers when her fingertip traces across the one over his heart. His nose traces the edge of hers, drawing her eyes up, the softness on his face a stark contrast to the venom she had seen just minutes earlier. They weren’t black like she thought, just a brown so dark it swallowed up the light and her breath in one go.

​

His forehead pressed to hers, eyes heavy and breaths coming out in small, low gasps. “Please.”

​

His lips taste like salt and sweat when she kisses him, knocking the breath from his lungs. Simon’s hands find her waist, pulling her hips until his pelvis meets hers. He discovers that his hands can go lower, grabbing at her backside and thighs until there are most certainly going to be bruises come morning, hiking her higher and higher until she’s on the tips of her toes. His kisses are clumsy, wet, and messy, and rushed in a way that makes her dizzy. Simon’s fingers, most likely capable in any other situation, fumble at the clasp on the back of her brassiere. He huffs like a petulant child, giving up and tearing the cups down impatiently so that he can sink his teeth into the tops of her breasts.

​

(Y/N) hisses, reflex more than malice taking over as she smacks him on the side of his head. “Watch it.”

​

He murmurs what must be an apology, arms circling her waist to lift her so he can maneuver them to the bed without taking his face from her skin. When they fall into the sheets together, he pulls back just long enough to admire the blossoming red splotches across her chest, looking shell-shocked and fumbling with his waistband. (Y/N) decides to spare her own undergarments from more slobbering, unlatching, and shoving until she’s entirely bare on the duvet.

​

Glancing up, she finds the convict hasn’t removed his undergarments at all, too busy palming himself and staring her down.

​

With a tsk, she kicks at his ribs. “Hurry it up.”

​

He snatches her ankle, once again tugging her forward so she falls flat on her back, settling between her legs with a cocky sort of smile, the sharp edge of his canines catching in the light. His voice is breathy with a boyish mirth. “Didn’t learn your lesson not to kick me?”

​

She traces the tip of her nose along his, mimicking his earlier movements. There’s just enough time for her to see his eyes close for a kiss before she hooks her thigh over his hip and bucks him off, this time with a bed to catch him instead of the floor. She ends up straddling him, earning a grunt as she settles her weight fully onto his stomach.

​

“Didn’t learn your lesson?” (Y/N) mocks, forcing her face in the space between his collar and jaw in order to return his rough bites. No wedding rings, just twin bruises and crescent indents to bind them.

​

Simon groans at the feeling, hands finding her hips to drag her lower. She obliges, rocking back and earning a pretty sound from deep in his chest. He curses, too preoccupied with the warm slick soaking through the worn fabric of his boxers to bother shoving them down. She isn’t, though, sitting up just enough to lower a hand between them and shove at the elastic until he gets the hint.

​

His boxers barely make it past the thick muscle of his thighs before he's pulling her full weight back down, hands dragging her hips forward and back, making a mess of the both of them.

​

“Fuck,” He hisses, eyes glued to the spot where he’s currently parting her folds. “There you go.”

​

Like he’d know, she thinks internally, rolling her eyes at his praise. Still, though, it’s nice to have someone so enraptured by the smallest thing. (Y/N) angles her hips back, catching the tip of his length against her entrance, sinking slowly so she can savor the look on his face.

​

His eyes clench shut, fingers digging dangerously into her hips, until she catches them in her own, using his preoccupied state to catch him off guard and pin his arms on either side of his head. His eyes fly open just as she’s fully seated, her ass meeting his thighs. Not one for mercy, she rocks her hips, grinding down into him, eager for the friction his pelvis provides. The sight of the trail of hair on his stomach growing slick is a pretty one, but the way his eyes roll into the back of his head is even prettier.

​

“Wait,” he says suddenly, breathless and panicked, hands coming up to hold her still.

​

And so she does, dropping forward to press her forehead to his, voice kind and concerned. Had she pushed him too far? Maybe he wasn’t ready for such a big step. “You okay?”

​

“Mhm,” he hums, body rigid beneath her. “Feels too good.”

​

She laughs, making him groan out a curse as she clenches down on him. “It’s supposed to feel good, Butcher.”

​

“Not that fast.” He chokes out, thighs shaking as she settles back on her knees to take in the full sight of him.

​

“Oh, I see.” Her fingernails sink into the meat of his pec. “I’ve got you ruined already. Don’t I, Butcher?”

​

He whines a bit, back arching in a half-held back attempt at fucking up into her. “Don’t call me that.”

​

“Which one?” she reaches forward to brush a stray clump of hair from his sticky forehead. “Ruined? Or Butch-“

​

The back of her head smacks hard into the mattress, leaving her with just enough sense to see him ripping the boxers from his legs and settling back on top of her. Simon’s fingers encircle her throat once more, now familiar with the feel of her pulse beneath his thumb.

​

“Fine,” he sneers, softness fading fast. “You want the butcher?”

​

It’s not a question. He doesn’t give her time to answer, anyway, because while he's a bit clumsy lining up, he takes no time filling her completely. The intimidation act falls a bit flat when he immediately turns into a whimpering mess, but at this point, she’s having too hard a time thinking with him inside her to make fun of him.

​

It’s only a few thrusts before he’s shaking like a leaf, and his movement begins stuttering, finding his peak with a desperate grunt. He’s groaning out nonsense words as he hikes her thighs higher, releasing his hold on her neck so he can hold her hips up to meet his thrusts.

​

For all his virginal quickness, he’s unrelenting, taking his pleasure and then some as he fucks her through it, drawing sounds she didn’t know she was capable of making. There’s a certain satisfaction with being wrecked by another person, having them use you to reach their own ends, and she can’t help the humiliated little whines she lets out when she feels his spend gush out around him with each bruising movement. It could be minutes or hours, but at some point, he collapses, full weight held up only by the forearm he was able to catch himself on.

​

“Y’okay?” He slurs from somewhere in the depths of her collar, still fucking into her with shallow thrusts.

​

“Mhm,” there’s an absent tone in her voice, her mind more focused on trying to gain some sort of friction from the slow movement of him riding out his high.

​

He moved to press his lips to her neck, her jaw, cheek, wherever he could reach to claim. It's messy, sodden with panting breaths. Simon pulls back the slightest bit to look at her, still too overwhelmed to be parted from her, resting his forehead against her temple. “They said it hurts sometimes?”

​

“Sometimes, but not this time,” (Y/N) reassures, the feeling of neglect fading into guilt at her selfishness.

​

He nods, jostling both of their heads as his hair falls across her face. “What do we…. What do we do now?”

​

The so-called butcher is gone, leaving being the meek, shivering, innocent thing that he truly was.

​

“We get cleaned up and head to bed.”

​

He nods, pulling away with visible hesitation before he withdraws from her, his arms shaking when he has to pause from oversensitivity. Then, he’s standing and searching for something before coming up with his tank top in his hand. He holds the fabric aloft so triumphantly, proud of himself at his successful hunt and satisfied in all ways. Kindly, he passes it to her first, allowing her to wipe him away from her thighs.

​

Maybe it’s the selfish hope that he’ll finish what he started, the comment he made about having a hard time sleeping alone, or just that she grew too used to his touch, but she tugs him back to the mattress once he’s done cleaning himself. There’s no argument or explanation when she throws the duvet over the both of them. No argument or explanation when she wakes in the dark with his head beside hers on the single pillow.

​

They don’t talk about it in the morning, but when she stumbles back to the bedroom after the second night of her alarm going off in the next room over, his face is flushed when he takes in her nakedness. If last night wasn’t evidence of the contrary, she would assume that this little glimpse in the dark was his first time seeing a naked woman for all the stammering he does. It takes him all of a moment to remember his own nudity, drawing the blanket over his chest in shock, making her cackle. They don’t part with a kiss, but the goodbye is significantly warmer than the previous day’s.

​

Today’s tasks are simple to the point where it’s boring. There’s an oven that won’t heat past three hundred degrees Fahrenheit in the galley and a breaker that keeps flipping in the administrative wing. It’s easy work, tasks that will take less time than the reports she’ll have to file on them. Except there’s an apprentice shadowing her today, so she’ll have to take the time to hold his hand through every step and ensure he doesn’t get electrocuted or blow a hole into the side of the vessel. She’s at her desk in the maintenance office, typing up the resource form for the parts that they’ll need when he finds her. He’s older than the rest of the apprentices she has on hand, maybe late twenties, with hair so pale that it seems translucent.

​

“Call me Zach,” he says, offering a hand in greeting.

​

“(L/N).” Peers know her by her last name, familiar enough to not feel cold, but impersonal enough that it doesn’t make her itch when they say it.

​

He’s not entirely useless, asking questions and only handing her the wrong-sized socket once. His fatal flaw is his curiosity. She learns this while neck deep in the vent shaft with the fan that keeps breaking the circuit.

​

“So, how long have you been on Beta 7?”

​

The actual name of the ship stops her short, so used to calling it Rust Bucket or some other insulting and affectionate name.

​

“Not sure, a month or three.”

​

He makes a sympathetic sound. “Ah. You’re from Filament, then?”

​

She ducks a little so she can look at him, the ladder she’s standing on wobbling just slightly in the apprentice’s hold. “Yes. Hand me the replacement ground wire.”

​

He does his job, still talking too much. “Bad bit of business, that.”

​

Bad bit of business

​

(Y/N) could think of a million better ways to describe the massacre of her neighbors and colleagues, but that won’t do her any good at the moment. She gives a noncommittal hum, resuming her work and already planning his transfer to another engineer. Paula, a surly woman in her fifties who tolerates little, will be perfect for him.

​

He relents for a while, allowing her to finish the work in the admin wing and all the way through half of the gas line before he’s talking again.

​

“Did you hear that they’re trying to give the Eden prisoners citizenship?”

​

“Yup.” She replies, growing more agitated with every stupid breath he takes.

​

“It’s insane, right?” He’s got a grand sort of incredulousness going, to the point where it seems conspiratorial and fake. “I mean, I get that there was an issue with the population, but come on. Right?”

​

She hated people who talked and talked and then said an obnoxious ‘right?’ Like you’d be a fool for not agreeing. “Not enough people left in the world to hold grudges, I guess.”

​

Zach barks a laugh, “Guess not. Shit, speak of the devil.”

​

The devil in question is none other than the reason for the ache in her thighs. Although he doesn’t wear shackles, there’s a guard accompanying her convict, the pair of them walking straight toward where she’s currently attempting to repair the valve and trying even harder to ignore her assistant.

​

Zach seems to recognize the guard, greeting him familiarly. “Hey, man. They got you on babysitting duty now?”

​

The two talk amongst themselves, ignoring Simon and (Y/N) completely. For someone so caught up in the dealings of Filament and Eden and worrying about prisoners, Zach seems more caught up with discussing the semi-illegal pastime of gambling with the guard.

​

“Hi.” Simon greets, stepping closer, but leaving a respectful distance between the two of them. Her fingers burn with the urge to reach out and brush the stray hairs from his forehead, the digits trying so hard to recall what it felt like to smooth the damp strands away. He nods toward the apprentice. “Who’s that?”

​

Her eyes roll involuntarily, too comfortably with him to bother with niceties. “New apprentice.”

​

Seeing the aggravation on her face, he grimaces and asks, “That bad?”

​

“I’ll be joining you on laundry duty if he doesn’t stop asking me stupid questions.”

​

A thoughtful look takes over his face as he nods, “That would be nice.”

​

(Y/N) smiles at him, confusingly enough pleased that he’s pleased. Was one night of sex and tolerance enough to make up for the lifetime of mistrust bred into both of them? “I was kidding.”

​

“That makes sense,” he nods, “Who would fix everything if you’re busy scrubbing dirty underwear?”

​

The look of disgust that crosses her face is so visceral that it coaxes a little laugh from him. It’s short and more of a huff than a cackle, but the sound catches her so off guard that she smiles, catching the eye of Zach.

​

“So,” he saunters over from where he’s been chatting with the guard. “You gonna introduce me to your friend, (L/N)?”

​

“(L/N)?” Simon asks, eyes never leaving her, despite the interruption.

​

“My last name.” She clarifies.

​

“I don’t have a last name.” The convict admits, frowning a bit, brows drawing tight.

​

Poor, neglected, annoying Zach decides this is the perfect opportunity to resume getting on her nerves. “That makes sense. Why would Eden name their cannon fodder, huh?”

​

The guard and Zach are the only ones laughing at the poor joke.

​

“You can have mine. Simon (L/N) sounds nice.” (Y/N) offers, more pleased than she’d like to admit at the thought of claiming him like this.

​

And Simon agrees, pink dusting across his pretty face before he clears his throat. “My meal schedule changed. They want me to eat with you now.”

​

A glance at the datapad confirms that it is indeed ten minutes past the dedicated beginning of midday recreation. She slides the pad into her bag before securing up her tools and slinging the heavy tote over her shoulder. “Come on, let’s grab some food.”

​

If Zach has anything else to say, she doesn’t bother catching it, guiding Simon to the line of citizens waiting their turn in the cafeteria.

​

They don’t talk, just sit in silence and eat their rations. Last time they talked at a meal, they ended up fighting, and then ended up doing other things. (Y/N) would rather avoid either of those happening in public, and was almost certain Simon would as well. Instead, they listen to the conversations around them, watching one another for reactions when they overhear something ridiculous. It’s nice to do something she would have done anyway with him, to share in this daily ritual with someone she was begrudgingly beginning to tolerate if not actually like. At some point, the two familiar young women take their seats at the end of the table, talking about some new conspiracy that a friend of a friend may have heard. Both girls are from Filament, so they’re as good as family. Besides, (Y/N) wants to see the look on Simon’s face if they bring up their theory of how Eden chops their soldier’s dicks off and buries them under the tree as a rite of passage. One rumor that can be squashed in her mind, at least. The pleasant ache he left between her legs burns in reminder. There are fifteen or so minutes left of their leisure time when Simon speaks.

​

“Do you think,” He begins, “That you and I would have been friends if things had been different?”

She thinks for a long while before speaking, deciding between sweet lies and truths, resting her chin on her palm. “You would have had to have been born in the Coalition.”

“You could have been born on Eden.” He offers.

​

“I didn’t think there were free women there.”

​

Her admission seems to confuse him. He looks nearly like a puppy, head tilting slightly. “What? Of course there are.”

​

“They say that the only women on Eden are considered resources.” She can sense that there will be a fight by the tick of his jaw.

​

“No.” His head shakes, sending pretty black waves over his eyes, which he shoves back a little too roughly before he crosses his arms over his broad chest. “Of course not.”

​

“Did you have any rumours about the Coalition?” Surely shit-talking will help his anger.

​

He thinks for a long minute, weighing his options in his mind, head tilted in the same silly way. Finally, he says, “That you’re mutated.”

​

She nearly chokes on her own laughter, fighting back tears when she sees his serious face. “No way.”

​

Simon’s cheeks flush, pink traveling all the way up to the band wrapped around his forehead. Nodding, he says, “Because of all the chemicals or something.” He takes a breath, admitting his deep, dark, and embarrassing secrets. “When I was a kid, one of the soldiers told us about how he fought a man with three eyes and two big teeth that looked like knives.”

​

“What the fuck,” Each word punctuated by giggles. “Were you scared?”

​

“Terrified,” he’s smiling a bit, seeming pleased that he made her laugh.

​

“You still scared of us?”

​

He frowns, a big, exaggerated draw of his lips, shaking his head. “It's hard to be scared when you wake up with another person's drool on your face.”

​

“Fine, you can go back to the couch where the mutant drool can’t find you.” It’s an empty threat, and they both know it.

​

The clock on the wall buzzes, signalling the end of their mealtime. Smiling, they part, Simon being collected by his guard before heading back off into the treacherous laundry room and (Y/N) back to her asshole apprentice in the kitchen.

​

“You should have told me that you were cozy with one of those Eden freaks.” Is the greeting she gets from Zach.

​

This irks her for several reasons. One: She refuses to be told what she ‘should have done’ by any man, much less a subordinate. Two: It’s none of his fucking business. Three: His stupid face is annoying.

​

“Doesn’t matter, I can still do my job just fine.” It seems like it's better to go back to apathy than to tear into him, but she’s already planning her letter of recommendation that he be put on janitorial duty. Scrubbing toilets is humbling, and he very deeply deserves to be humbled.

​

“So, he’s what?” Zach thinks for a moment, probably trying to figure out the most offensive thing he could say. He finds it before too long. “Your fuck buddy?”

​

To hell with apathy and recommendations, if he doesn’t shut the fuck up, there will be a wrench-sized dent in the side of his head. Turning to him, every bit of disgust clear on her face, she asks, “Do you plan on actually doing your job or just running your damn mouth?”

​

His hands come up in mock surrender, smiling a bit. “Whoa, relax. I just think it's weird that a Filament survivor would shack up with, ya know, one of the assholes that caused it.”

​

“Eat shit, you rat-faced fuck.” (Y/N) snarls, jerking her chin to the door. “And get the hell out of my way.”

​

His lip curls in disgust as he walks away, muttering something low that sounds suspiciously like ‘fucking bitch’. She has just enough sense left to not go after him. Without him, she finishes things early, leaving plenty of time to type up a report to the labor administrator.

​

When Simon finally makes his way into the compartment, he finds her reclined into the arm of the couch, typing up all of the former apprentices' bullshit on her datapad, her hair still wet from her shower.

​

“Hi,” He hesitates a bit before asking. “What's wrong with you?”

​

“Asshole apprentice had some things to say about my ‘fuck buddy’.” She makes her voice nasally and annoying on the last two words, imitating Zach as best as she can.

​

“I don’t know what that is.”

​

Eden really didn't teach him shit other than how to kill people and garden, huh? “Friends who have sex.”

​

He looks startled, choking on his spit. Part of her chest feels strange that he would be jealous. “You’re having sex with your friends?”

​

Sighing, (Y/N) says, “He was talking about you, idiot.”

​

“.....But we’re married?”

​

She wants to say and not friends, and have only had sex once, and I didn’t even cum, but that seems besides the point. Instead, she says, “I know that. Do you think janitorial duty or latrine duty is worse?”

​

Simon takes a seat beside her on the sofa, trying to peek at her screen. She tries not to enjoy the smell of him so close, heady and entirely him that it hurts. “What are you doing?”

​

“Getting him transferred to a different department so I don’t have to deal with him.”

​

“Latrine duty, then.” He looks a little evil when he smiles like that, but still pretty enough that it doesn’t matter. “I saw the doctor today.”

​

He seems like there’s more he wants to say, so she asks, “Yeah? How’d that go?”

“Fine. I talked to him about…” He trails off, hesitant. Finally, shrugging, he says, “About last night.”

​

She snorts. “You get an ‘atta boy’?”

​

Simon shakes his head, frowning. “He said something about you.”

​

Her turn to frown, sitting up to face him. “Me?”

​

Nodding, Simon says, “Mhm. I didn’t know it could feel good for you, too.”

​

“Of course, it felt good. I thought I was making that pretty clear.”

​

“No,” He shakes his head, awkward and uncomfortable, shifting like it was painful to sit still. “I didn’t know that women could….. Feel good in the same way.”

​

Oh. Oh. That explains a lot. “You mean you didn’t know women could orgasm?”

​

He won’t look at her, staring ahead, his face doing its best impression of a tomato. “Yeah.”

​

She can’t help it, she really can’t. She laughs. What happened to the Butcher who pinned her to the mattress last night and took what he wanted? This man was shaking like a leaf at the thought of the female orgasm.

​

“Shut up,” He mutters, somehow getting redder. “Did you?”

​

“Did I know that women can cum? Yes,” Still laughing, grinning at her stupid, cult member ‘fuck buddy. The thought makes her laugh even harder.

​

“No,” He sighs, dragging his hand over his face before he gives up and just buries the palms of his hands over his eyes. “Did you orgasm?”

​

Her laughter is dying down, but she’s still smiling as she coos at him. “Aww, you worried you didn’t fuck me good enough?”

​

He groans, elbows falling to his knees so he’s hunched over, prompting her to rub a soothing hand across his back. One of his elbows comes back in a weak attempt to fight off her teasing. “Don’t say stuff like that. Just forget I asked.”

​

“I’m just messing with you. I had a good time, don’t worry.”

​

“But you didn’t…you know.” He says.

​

(Y/N) shakes her head, even though he still won’t look at her. He’s so pitiful that she feels a little remorse for how upset she’d been about her own pleasure being neglected. “No, but that’s okay.”

​

“It’s not.” He sits up, turning so he can finally look her in the eye. “Show me what to do.”

​

His words are bold, forward in a way that makes her stomach ache with excitement.

​

“You want me to show you how to make me cum?”

​

He nods his head vigorously, determination in those dark eyes. She feels her face begin to heat up as he looks her dead in the eyes, with clear hunger on his face.

​

“Okay.”

[justagirlincaptivity]

ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴢᴏɴᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰᴏᴜʀ: ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴅɪɢᴀʟ ꜱᴏɴ

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 4623 ᴛʜᴇ ᴘʀᴏᴅɪɢᴀʟ ꜱᴏɴ ᴅᴏᴇꜱ ɴᴏᴛ ꜰᴀʟʟ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ɢʀᴀᴄᴇ; ʜᴇ ᴛʜʀᴏᴡꜱ ʜɪᴍꜱᴇʟꜰ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ɪᴛ.

Simon had never loved anyone consciously. He’d been so young when his mother died, and the way he loved her was instinctual. He hadn’t even known what love meant, just parrotting back ‘I love you’ to the only person who cared about him in the way that little kids do. Outside of her, had anyone loved him? The Father loved him for his usefulness, his brothers loved him out of respect. But nothing like this. If this was love, he wasn’t sure he wanted it. He hadn’t expected romance, to be swept off his feet and into a loving embrace, just the quiet indifference of two people following orders. Even not expecting much, he’d still been caught off guard by just how catastrophic the proximity of another person could be. It started with the escort being surprised by his ability to write and ended with that woman, (Y/N), implying that he was too stupid to understand basic biology. Eden hadn’t bothered teaching the Brothers much about reproduction—lest they fall into temptation—but they understood the basics of an act they were not allowed to commit. A part of him was grateful for her insulting him, because that meant he could be angry and ignore her. The other part of him, the humiliated part that felt like a stupid child, left him feeling hopeless on the couch. The couch was a small and wonderful mercy. It was comfortable, warm, and free from the expectation of sin. Beds were a solitary place where it was blasphemy to lay beside another person. Couches were meant to be shared in camaraderie. He was doing no wrong by laying on the couch, no wrong by wishing she might come out and sit beside him so they could make amends. He hadn’t been able to sleep after listening to her stomp around behind the closed door, not even when she’d quieted down and the lights had shut off for the night. He’d wanted to explore, but every inch of this place reeked of her, claimed by her things or her scent. He’d laid down as quietly as he could, like the woman in the room next door was some sort of wild animal that would rip him to pieces for being in her den. The analog clock on the wall read 0400, his eyes burning as he tried to ignore the creeping darkness in the corners of the room. She must have been important to have a datapad, but he felt very unlucky to be married to an important person when the damn thing started screeching in the dark and interrupting his tumultuous peace. He felt a sick satisfaction when he heard her hiss in pain behind the door, having tripped over something in the dark. She was no longer an animal to be feared, just as unfamiliar in this place as he was. The door to the bedroom opened with a thump as it smacked into the wall beside it, and he heard her scoff as she looked at him before she grabbed her stupid screaming piece of metal and stalked back into the bedroom. If she had unnerved him, he had unnerved her as well. 

It had been jarring to see her face when the captain had shown him the profile of his soon to be partner. The woman from the laundry room with the angry scars and glaring eyes. He found her pretty in the same way he could admire the freshly sharpened edge on a blade. He didn’t like feeling this way, it was much easier to dislike a person when you didn’t admire something about him. But he didn’t even want to dislike her, just being civil would be enough. He’s given up on sleep, sitting up and staring at the wall across from him, when she exits the bedroom. Her eyes catch on him for a moment and there’s a single second where she’s unguarded, and then she's cold again and walking past him to the bathroom. She’s not yet fully dressed, just the sturdy trousers and a shirt with just straps across her shoulders to hold it up. Her scars are calmer than the first time he saw them, a pale pink rather than red, and they're on full display. Worse than he thought, too, crawling halfway down one arm and curling over her shoulder before they creep up her jaw. He’d only seen the ones on her neck in the laundry room and speculated on where she could’ve gotten them. Now, seeing the brunt of the damage, he could only guess she’d tried to embrace a living flame. He tried not to think about just how similar their burns look, too afraid he’d find answers he wasn’t searching for. When she leaves the bathroom, he’s unprepared to see her full on. Despite the unsteady first meeting, there's something sweet in the domesticity of seeing someone first thing in the morning, their hair still mussed from sleep and eyes half lidded. There's something sweet about seeing a person and knowing that, even if it's just on paper, you still belong to them. He’s married to an important person with battle scars, someone–despite being infuriating–would be well respected on Eden. 

“Morning.” It's an olive branch, piss poor, but all he has. 

(Y/N) nods back passively, too tired to resume last night’s hostility as she combs her fingers through her hair. “Morning. Your uniform request was processed. I’ll pick them up on my way back after work.”

“What do you do?” He eyes the tools on the desk, knowing there can only be a few possibilities. Still, he wants to hear more of the scratch of her morning voice. 

She frowns, not apprehensive, just confused. “They didn’t tell you?”

When he shakes his head, she explains. “I’m an engineer. I mostly do maintenance these days, but I get to do bigger projects once in a while.”

“Thats what you were doing in the laundry room?” 

Nodding, she begins gathering her things into the toolbag on the desk. Every piece looks at home in her hands, her fingerprints having worn their legacy into the metal. “There was a break in the release valve for the coolant on one of the machines. Just had to replace the rubber piece and it was fine.” 

He watches her finish packing her things and slip on her boots, a quiet observer in her daily ritual. She stops short as she’s about to leave the compartment, turning around and saying, “Have a good day.”

He barely gets out, “You too.” Before the doors closing between them. 

His own chores don’t start for another hour, so he takes the time to explore without the possibility of offending her. The bedroom is small, bed just big enough for two, he has to close the door to stop himself from thinking of the implications. The bathroom is nice, cold gray tiles spanning across every wall and the floor, a single stall shower, toilet, and sink. There’s soap in the little tray beside the shower, and when he sniffs it he can only guess what it would smell like on her skin. 

Hyram claps him on the shoulder when he walks into the laundry room. “I hear congratulations are in order! And to think, you didn’t even ask me to be your best man. For shame.” His words are accusatory, but there's nothing but light mirth in his voice. 

“Sorry.” Despite his oddness, Simon really does like Hyram. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

“Not a big deal?” The old man asks, incredulous. “My best friend got himself hitched and didn’t even tell me.”

Simon wouldn’t consider them best friends, but Hyram is probably the closest thing he has to a friend at all. He smiles a little, “Sorry.”

“I guess I can forgive you. Tell me about your lady love.”

Simon tries to think up words to describe the woman he’s now intrinsically tied to. He wants to keep the small things to himself, the tangle on the side of her head before she’d combed her hair, the way her lip curls when she wants to say something cutting, the way she’s pretty like something dangerous. “She’s an engineer. She fixes things around the ship.”

Hyram gives an impressed, “Ooh, a tradewoman. You married well, my friend.”

“I know.” And he’s proud of it, that he had been deemed worthy of marriage, and now stood alongside someone who mattered. He could at least enjoy this until they argue again.

The rest of the shift goes by somehow too slow and too quickly all at once. Before long, he’s escorted back to his new quarters by the armed guard on watch duty, the boy’s heavy boots not clomping away until Simon is safely locked behind the door. She’s not here yet and there's little else to do while he waits on her return. His knees hit the ground near the far wall, lips forming silent prayers. He was healing from the wounds Eden had left, but there was always comfort in the ritual. She finds him still kneeling when she opens the door, a stack of fabric in her arms and her toolbag slung over her shoulder. He has to force himself not to look up, to mutter the last lines before standing. He wants to look impassive, but he had been half distracted by the thought of her return the entire time he’d been back. Maybe it had been the need to belong with someone, anyone, that fueled this. Every form of family had been ripped from him by death, betrayal, or both. But whatever this was, marriage, union, roommates, it was a binding act that said Simon has somewhere to go, Simon is not alone. The emptiness of the world didn’t seem all that daunting when you have someone to love or dislike in the room right next door. 

He stands shakily to face her, legs unsteady after so long spent kneeling. “Hi.”

Her brows are drawn in, a small frown playing on her lips as she looks at the spot he just vacated. “Hi. I thought you didn’t do that any more?”

Simon shrugs, unsure of himself in a way that he doesn’t care for. He knew the C.O.I wasn’t particularly religious, but there’s still something uncomfortable about the apprehension in her eyes. “Habit, I guess.”

She doesn’t respond, gently placing the uniforms on the small table near the door and letting her bag drop to the floor with a clatter. “Have you showered yet? There are two sets of recreation clothes that you can change into. They only had one spare jumpsuit, but I’m sure it's better than what you have.”

She’s right, proving it by unfolding the jumpsuit and holding it up for his inspection. It's a dark blue with gray cuffs around the ankles and wrists. “No, I haven’t.”

(Y/N) plops the jumpsuit down on the table, eyes on him, looking like she can’t quite figure him out. “Go ahead, I’ll go to the mess hall and grab us some dinner.” And then she’s gone out the door again. He doesn’t know whether to be satisfied with her avoidance or hate it. 

Under the jumpsuit and recreation clothes–which are made up of breathable cloth trousers and thin shirts with short sleeves, he finds undergarments. Two gray shirts with the shoulder straps like the one she had been wearing this morning and two sets of boxers. He does mean to shower, making it all the way into the bathroom with a set of the shirt and pants and boxers before he realizes he has no idea how in the hell to operate the contraption of knobs on the wall. Simon presses a button, no dice, another button, nothing. Finally, he decides to just jam his thumb against every single button a few rough times before he just gives up and tosses the clothes down, making his way back to his sofa. 

She’s back quickly, this time with a metal tray balanced on her forearm and a canteen in the crook of her elbow. She sets both on the table, scooting his new clothes over to make room. “If you’re not gonna shower, I will.”

There's a long stretch of silence before he, albeit begrudgingly, admits. “Something's wrong with it.” 

She sighs, a stray hair blowing out of her face. “‘Course there is.”

He would have thought she was being snippy if she hadn’t scooped up her tools from the floor and walked to the bathroom. He follows, curiosity outweighing sense as he finds himself trapped in the small space right next to her.

Awkwardly, he clears his throat, choking on spit and actually needing to clear it a second time. “The buttons don't work.”

She nods, glancing up at him. There’s not a tremendous height difference, but she still has to tilt her head back just a little to see his eyes. “Did you put in the code?”

“What?”

“The code.” She nods to a little knob behind him that rests on the wall near the sink. “We’re only given so many gallons per household so you have to input your code to access the water system.”

He knew the C.O.I was strict about resources, but this was ridiculous. “No one told me I needed a code.”

She sighs, giving a little tsk. “They really just threw you to the sharks, huh?” 

She reaches past him, her forearm burning as it brushes his side as she inputs the code, reciting it aloud as she does so. “4807. Don’t press any other buttons until you’re ready to shower. There's a towel you can use under the sink.”

He’s staring down at her, only a few inches between them, when he realizes that this is the closest he has ever been to another person. Sure, he’d been stitched up a dozen times by his brothers and even a few Coalition doctors, but that was impersonal, clinical, completely necessary. There is nothing necessary about this proximity, about the closeness between them. She could have just told him the code. But she wanted to reach past him, to brush her arm against his side and make herself known. He’s still nodding dumbly when she exits the bathroom, closing the door behind her. 

Five minutes later, still damp, he finds her sitting criss cross on the left side of the couch, the right having already been claimed by him last night. She’s dragged the table from the wall and unpacked the tray of food. It's divided evenly between the two of them. Two portions of some kind of white stew, two slices of bread, and the canteen of water to be split. 

They eat in a peaceful silence that he can’t help but break. “What's a best man?” He asks, glancing sideways at her from his spot on the couch.

“It's an old Earth tradition, the groom's friend or something like that.” She’d been taking a sip of water, faltering as she’d been caught off guard. “Why?”

He shakes his head. “Hyram, another convict from laundry duty, he said he would have been my best man.”

“It wasn’t exactly that kind of ceremony.”

“No,” He agrees. “It wasn’t.”

“Did you sleep at all last night?” She asks, looking at him for another long moment, once again trying to figure out what's beneath his skin. “You look like hell warmed over.”

“No,” The need to confide in someone makes his throat itch with unsaid words. He says them, hoping to clear the ache. “I don’t sleep so well alone.”

She snorts, lip curling so he knows she’s fighting back saying something that will hurt. “Did that line work for you in the past?”

“What line?” He wants to add ‘and worked for what?’ but between this moment and the shower earlier, he doesn’t want to seem even more inept than he already does.

Her voice drops low and it takes a moment for him to realize that she’s trying to imitate his own him. “I can’t sleep alone, woe is me. Could I share your bed? You know, so I can sleep better?”

He feels like he’s back at Filament, burning alive. “No! That's not what I meant!”

She does that little scoff thing that she seems so fond of. “Sure it isn’t.”

“It isn’t.” He fights back the little cold spot of realization in his chest. He was already picking up on her little quirks. He repeats. “It isn’t. I’m just used to sleeping in the barracks. It’s too quiet here.”

“Well,” She huffs, “Last time marital duties were mentioned you just about bit my head off. Don’t go expecting invitations now.”

“I wasn’t,” He groans, slapping his palm to his forehead. “You’re an asshole.”

“And you’re afraid of pussy, but I’m not calling you any names.”

“I’m not afraid of-” But he cuts himself off, the last word resting vulgarly on his tongue. 

They’d had a few peaceful hours, at least.

“See,” She shoots a leg out to kick his thigh, now resting her back against the arm of the sofa. “Scared.”

His arm shoots out–his first time deliberately touching her–to grab her by the ankle and throw her, sending her flat on her back so he can rest between her legs. “I’m not scared.”

But he is. He’s bright red and shaking, but so is she. “Get the hell off me.”

“You wanted to talk about ‘marital duties’.” He growls, “So lets talk.”

She grunts as he settles his weight on her fully, his stocky build flattening her into the plush cushion before she hooks her thigh over him, bucking him off her and onto the floor. “Eat shit.”

His hip had caught on the table, sending it down with him, and he’s barely made it up onto one knee, hissing in pain, when her own knee makes contact with his stomach. The hard plane of her bone meets the flesh of his stomach, doubling him over as he groans. 

His head is whipping up, half feral and spitting curses. “What the fuck is your problem?” Not a question, more of an accusation. You have a problem.

She swipes at his indignant face with an open palm. He has just enough sense to bolt to his feet, only her nails catching against the edge of his jaw. 

She seems humiliated, insulted. “Leave me alone! Fucking asshole!”

He throws his hands up in disbelief. Hadn’t this been what she wanted? “How am I the asshole when you started it?”

“I didn’t start shit!”

He jabs an accusing finger into her face, genuinely hoping she won’t bite it off. “You did! You think I’m scared so I proved I wasn’t.”

“I was just messing with you!” She slaps his hand out of her face. “I didn’t think you’d tackle me.”

When he groans, burying his face in his hands, she–ever the strategist–takes this opportunity to knee him again. Except his standing, not kneeling, and his instinct kicks in faster than he can tell it not to. He should have just taken the hit, but his body decided it was better to stoop into her hit, shoulder catching on her midsection as he hoisted her upwards. For all his shaking and nerves and inability to repeat certain things, he was still a soldier, still a brother of Eden, still a butcher. 

“Put me down, fucker!” She rages, fists connecting with his back, legs kicking at his stomach. 

He rests one hand on her hip, the other hooking behind her thigh, pinning her legs against his chest. His voice is raspy with exertion, like the burn after the rotgut liquor they used to smuggle into the barracks. “Will you stop trying to maul me if I do?”

She thinks on this for a moment, stilling her attack against his back as she rolls her options around her mouth, savoring each. “Fine.”

He’s still a soldier, still a son of the tree, still trusting after years and years of blind faith. He eases her down slowly, and then slower still when she hisses in pain. Finally, eye to eye, he can see just what a mess he’s made of her. Her face is flushed, her chest rising and falling rapidly, hair mussed from their little sparring session. She puts distance between them, one step, and then two, and then her arm goes behind her, fingers catching on something on the desk behind her. She’s quick, her datapad flying up, ready to be flung at his head, but he’s just a breath quicker, catching her wrist in one hand and using his weight to knock her back onto the desk’s surface, pinning her hips with his own. He brings her wrist to rest on the table beside her head, slamming it down into the cold metal a few times until she’s forced to release the tablet. It clatters to the ground. 

Near entirely disabled, she has one defense left. A glob of hot saliva splatters against his cheek, wetting the scruff and dripping down his jaw. He doesn’t bother wiping it away, just takes his free hand to cup under her jaw and draw it up tight to force her mouth closed. There’s some sort of gratification in this, in the way she’s marked him. He’s been bled on before, by his brothers and his enemies, but there’s something different about the way her teeth had bared before she spat at him. He’d never thought an adversary had looked pretty before, but she is undeniably pretty. Her teeth catch sharply on his palm. Pretty like a blade. 

He curses down at her wholeheartedly, his weight resting heavy between her parted thighs. Her eyes are pretty up close, narrowed in anger, pupils blown. He releases her chin when her teeth sink deeper into his palm, choosing to rest it on her throat instead. Her top lip curls, exposing her teeth and the plumpness of her lower lip. He decides he’d like to know how it feels to sink his teeth into it, to mark her the way she’s marked him, unsure if the urge is from hate or lust. Lust he decides, suddenly all too aware of the solid length he has pressed against her. It must be instinctual, he tells himself, when her hips roll, eager to catch against him. She was an infuriating, contradictory little fucker, but damnit if he wasn’t just a little proud of himself for putting the hunger in her eyes. Her hips roll again, drawing a choking sound as she angles her hips upward. Its a groan deep in his stomach, the kind she’d intended to gain when she’d kneed him, like he was just realizing that there was relief from a lifelong ache if only he would reach out and take it. His breath fans across her face and he watches her nostrils flare like she’s some sort of predator from Earth catching his scent on the wind. His hand goes slack around her throat until he has to brace himself on the table beside her head. 

“Fuck, don’t,” Another choked moan, this one sending Simon’s head tilting back, baring the wide column of his throat. “Don’t do stuff like that. It’s not right.”

He hadn’t been trying to act superior, every bit of control left him the moment she’d moved against him. She must still take his words this way, because she’s back to being mean. “How? We’re married, idiot.”

She’s right, they are. At the reminder that he belongs to someone, he begins shaking, freeing her wrist so he can get a hold on her hip, anchoring him against her, pressing closer and closer until it hurts. 

“S’not right,” He repeats, gasping as he begins moving against her in earnest, not pulling away, despite his words. “Not supposed to do it like this.”

Procreation is meant to be solemn, dutiful, honorable. He feels none of that now, he doesn’t want honor. He wants to be ruined by her, and ruin her in return. It's just talk. Plausable deniability that the prodigal son had tried to resist temptation. He drops his weight, chest pressed against hers as he buries his face in the scarred skin of her throat. What spit remains on his cheek smears across the heady sweat beading on her skin. His lips move unseen against her pulse as he mutters a prayer at the altar of her heartbeat. He’s breathless, little grunts and hisses breaking through his words as she pants beneath him.

“Butcher,” Her hands come up to press at his shoulders, her voice just as breathless as his. “Get the hell off.”

That name on her lips seems to snap something in him, sending him flying away from her, shame and disgust making his face go white. His arms are up, palms extended toward her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“No,” She says, “You didn’t want to do it like that. Fine. How is it done on Eden?”

The thought of taking her like that spreads revulsion through his veins. Too impersonal, too formal. He likes the feeling of her tearing him apart much better. “No, you don’t have to-”

“Fine!” She throws her hands up, stomping away to the bedroom. “Fuck off then! I’m sure that other crazy asshole they’ve got locked in the dungeons is still willing to take your place.” That other crazy asshole. Fucking Peter? Peter who is over six and a half feet tall and just last week was screaming his head off about becoming fertilizer? She had a death wish. That’s how she got her scars, by being an idiot who didn’t know when to stop.

So, he goes stomping after her, kicking the datapad out of his way as he goes, sending it into the wall with a clang. Her hair feels nice as it slices across the fresh wounds she’d put on his palm, stinging the both of them when he jerks her back into his chest. He pins her backside against his pelvis with a palm on her hip, releasing her hair to grasp her throat once he’s sure she can’t go running off again. Unions on Eden were something to be respected, cold and unloving, but sought after because only the most important people got the honor of procreation. Once, when he’d been young, the Father had been disrespected by one of the councilmen. The councilman’s marriage was annulled and his wife given to a better candidate. Simon remembered the councilman’s face every time he saw his former wife and her new husband, the grief and the rage. He refused to feel that, much less because of Peter, who was the weakest of the brothers. He wasn’t a convict any more, not even just Simon. This was the rotting fruit plucked from a monstrous tree. This was the butcher. 

“Don’t you fucking dare.” His voice is a low snarl against the shell of her ear, giving little warning before blunt teeth come across the skin of her unscarred shoulder, marking the unmarred flesh. 

She howls in pain, hands flying up to claw at him as her blood fills his mouth, but he just ends up silencing her with a fresh, bruising grasp on her throat. She can’t spit out any new protests before he’s kicking at the back of her legs, marching her toward the bedroom. 

“I don’t want to do it like it's done on Eden.” His voice shakes just a bit, anticipation and fear making his words sound almost like a dying whine. “Tell me to stop and I will.”

But her hand comes up to rest across his, keeping his hand secure against her airway, giving him his answer.

[justagirlincaptivity]

ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴢᴏɴᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ: ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀʀᴛᴍᴇɴᴛ 4ʙ, ꜱᴜʙʟᴇᴠᴇʟ 8

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 2606 ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇɢɪɴɴɪɴɢ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀꜱᴛ ʜᴏɴᴇʏᴍᴏᴏɴ ɪɴ ʜɪꜱᴛᴏʀʏ.

ᴀ/ɴ: ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ ɢᴏᴛ ᴛᴏᴏ ʟᴏɴɢ ꜱᴏ ɪᴛ ʜᴀᴅ ᴛᴏ ʙᴇ ꜱᴘʟɪᴛ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛᴡᴏ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀꜱ, ɪ ᴘʀᴏᴍɪꜱᴇ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇʏ ɢᴇᴛ ᴅᴏᴡɴ ᴛᴏ ɪᴛ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ɴᴇxᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ

Sometime near 0700, two whole days after her talk with Ava, the datapad gives a high ping in the dark of her room. She hadn’t really slept, at least not for longer than thirty minutes, but the chirp was startling in the silent room. He’d passed his evaluation with flying colors, with the doctor noting particular progress in his remorse. Guilty conscious or not, he was cleared to be rehabilitated. 

Patient struggles to disconnect from core Eden values, recurring sessions recommended. 

Below that, a treatment plan. Meetings once a week with the psychiatrist, recommended chore rotations, more clinical numbers. He’s still holding on to Eden’s teachings—a few months away from them isn’t going to convince him to let go of thirty years of indoctrination—but as long as he’s not showing homicidal tendencies, he’s fine to rejoin society. That’s a bit of a generous statement, he’ll be heavily restricted until the doctors say otherwise. His world will consist of supervised work and what little privacy their shared living space will offer him. Her own schedule will stay the same, bar this evening. At 1700 she will leave her assignments for the day and be allowed time to move her things to her–their–new quarters. Compartment 4B, sublevel 8. Close enough to the rest of the living spaces that they aren’t isolated, far enough away that no one will be offended by The Butcher snoring next door. She’s been to those compartments before, just routine maintenance in one of the air vents. They’re nice, well, as nice as can be expected. 

The day goes by in an apathetic blur, and more than once, (Y/N) ends up dropping a wrench or hammer. Brain fogged by expectation and the reality that someone will be sleeping beside her tonight, 1700 comes by too fast. Impending doom is a funny thing, all white hot denial and annoyance. I’ve lived alone since my first assignment, there’s no way I’ll be living with a stranger. I’ve never been married before, there’s no way I’ll be in a union by tonight. One last terrifying reality surges up. I’ve never had children before, there’s no way that I’ll ever be a mother. She’d always been like this, the difficult exasperation of this has never happened, so it will never happen. Like that was a plausible defence. The captain’s lackey is waiting outside of the maintenance room when she finally puts away the day, holding a clunky little datapad–the archaic kind that lesser ranking workers get if it's deemed necessary that they have them at all. The weight of it seems to drag the young woman’s wrist into a grinding lock as she holds it steady with both hands, and (Y/N) is grateful for the slim model that rests in the bag at her hip. 

“Hello, citizen.” She starts, tapping busily on the screen. “My name is Mallory, the captain has requested that I show you to your new quarters.”

She let Mallory talk, even if she was entirely aware that her schedule had been changed. The assistant seemed to like talking, liked sounding official, and there was no harm in wasting time that wasn’t her own.

Together, they walked to her current quarters, a single roomed thing that was more like an overcompensating closet than an actual room. She’d packed her things that morning before work, just in case this merger was actually happening. It wasn’t much, tools, a few standard issue uniforms and recreation clothes, a pillow, and little odds and ends for various projects. It all fit into two boxes, one in her own arms and the other in Mallory’s. She’d given the assistant the smaller of the boxes, but the woman’s nose still wrinkled a bit when it was passed to her. There was no small talk, not in the whole thirty minutes it took to relocate her things. “Congratulations on your union, citizen.” Was a sufficient goodbye as Mallroy dropped the box in front of a door labeled 4B, -8.

It was small–they would be moved to a larger unit if the union was successful and they contributed to future generations–but still sizable for two people. There was a decent sized entry room, already outfitted with a desk that was most certainly intended for her use, a sofa, and two doors. The first led to a private lavatory, and selfishly, she was grateful that communal showers were a thing of the past. The second door led to a bedroom outfitted with a two person bed and a chest of drawers for their clothes. The convict would be brought in an hour or so, and she took the time to claim the space. Her tools and datapad on the desk, soap in the shower, her clothes in the top drawer, her pillow placed dead center on the bed. He could sleep on the couch. She’d seen the bedrolls given to convicts, the couch would be a welcome improvement. The datapad pinged, signalling an update to the convict’s file–former convict’s files. His release paperwork has been logged, there's not much to do but wait. 

The whole thing seems absurd, that a known murderer could be released if only he did one act of good, but she’d taken the time to read through his evaluations. Recruited at four years old, indoctrinated and blooded by ten. Would things have been different if the roles had been reversed? Would she have been a man-made monster searching for a way to free her guilty conscience? The girl from the mess hall’s words blare in (Y/N)’s skull: the women are locked up with the rest of the resources. She would be another commodity placed in storage, if not already dead and buried. But, that was a life that never existed, so there was no use in lamenting on it now–they were opposites, and that would have to be alright. Eden had left them both burnt up after Filament, so at least they had something in common, even if it was trauma. 

They had the courtesy to knock and wait for her to open the door, and when she did, she found another Mallory-type thumping away on a metal box while her charge shrunk in on himself behind her. (Y/N) hadn’t been back to the laundry room since the first time they’d seen each other, before she knew that things would end up here. If she had known, she would have savored it more, looked him over and truly picked him apart in her mind. She took the chance to do so now, noting that his mugshot was a poor example of what he could look like. He’d been cleaned up, whether by his choice or he’d been hosed down in one of the communal showers. His hair was no longer stringy, now pushed back from his eyes with a dark band across his forehead, his scruff trimmed back to neat stubble. Those eyes, black as an empty sky, remained the same–less bloodshot, bruises beneath them faded to a light purple–but still a paranoid sort of void lingered around his iris. 

She moves to the side, allowing them to enter. The convict's black eyes are wide, pupils blown as he takes in the space, his hands shake a bit as he refuses to look at her, trailing behind the Mallory-Adjacent like a lost puppy. They set up shop on the desk, the assistant pushing away her toolbag and placing her datapad on the scuffed surface. 

“I need both of your signatures-” She stopped short, frowning and turning to the convict. “You do know how to write, don’t you?” 

It wasn’t quite condescending, at least not in intention. She wasn’t snarky, accusing him of being too stupid to hold a pen, she truly didn’t know if Eden members knew how to write. He frowns right back, lips parting. For a moment, (Y/N) thinks he's going to say something, but he closes his mouth and nods his head once. It's a jerky movement, like he’s pretending to be human and isn't quite sure about motor function yet. 

“Good.” The assistant says, passing a stylus to him and jabbing a pointy finger down onto the screen. There’s a wall of text, some legal agreement about living quarters and expectations, and below it is an empty line that will bind them. “I need you to sign here and print below it.”

Simon is scrawled on the line, his letters messy and sharp, but still legible if just barely. No last name.

The assistant motions for her to step forward, and Simon is forced to look at her to pass the stylus. There's a small moment where they’re both holding an end of the thing, and she has to tug a bit before his hand springs open. (Y/N) hopes that it's just nerves, that it won't always be this tense dance around one another. 

(Y/N) (L/N) joins alongside his name, neat and careful loops and lines, a stark contrast in the way C.O.I and Eden raised them. The datapad is snatched off of the desk, and the assistant leaves with another “Congratulations on your union, citizens.” before stalking back to whatever broom closet they hide the Mallorys in. The door shuts with a click, and the pair of them are left in a deafening sort of silence. 

She decides it's better to run this marriage like it's a job, easier that way, too. “Have you been briefed on expectations and protocol?” 

He nearly jumps out of his boots at her voice, clearly expecting them to spend the rest of their lives holding their breath. How in the hell is this The Butcher? The only thing he seems to be butchering is social skills. 

“Yes.” His voice is low, not just in volume, but in pitch. Meek people are frustrating, more so when they have a reputation for the opposite. 

“Good,” She nods, walking to the door to the bedroom. “There’s a dresser in here. You can put your things in the bottom drawer, and your pillow on the couch.”

His full brows are drawn tight, and he shakes his head. “I don’t have anything.”

“Where are your clothes?” She hadn’t realised how empty handed he was. 

He pinches at the fabric across his abdomen, perpetual frown on his face. All his worldly possessions came down to the worn rags on his back that they hadn’t bothered to change him out of. 

Sighing, she grabs her datapad off of the desk, glaring down at it and she jabs her fingers at the civilian office’s contact form. “I’ll put in a request for some standard issue uniforms.”

She hadn’t wanted to care, she’d wanted to just be passive and cold, but something about the way he looked like a half drowned animal made him pathetic enough for her to care. Besides that, she didn’t want to have to look at him in the threadbare scraps. 

He doesn’t say anything for a moment that's just a second too long, seeming confused as he watches her fingers move. “.......Thank you?”

She just hums back, turning away from him to avoid the awkward reality of their situation. It was easier to think of him as another project, not a person. He was a machine to be undone, a problem to be solved. Getting him proper attire was just her peeling back the first layer of his mechanic shell, before long he would either be scrapped and recycled, or put back together with mixmashed pieces. Either way, he was no use to anyone half mad and shivering in the artificial light. 

You can’t fix a machine without being blunt. There's no room for niceties and sugarcoating when you have a job to do. “Did Eden give you any form of sex education?”

He stumbles a bit like he's been struck, the question seeming to take him as a physical blow square in his chest. “What? I-I don’t-” 

“It's fine, we can work around it. I just need to know what you know and what you’ll need to be taught.” She tries to keep her face as neutral as possible, mimicking Dr. Ephraim in his disconnected clinical way. “Do you know how it's done?”

“Yes.” He says just a touch too aggressively, flush creeping up from under his raggedy shirt. “I’m not stupid.”

She frowns, “You don’t have to be defensive. I literally just said it's fine if you don’t know things. I never said that you were stupid.”

He kissed his teeth, smacking obnoxiously. She liked him better when he was meek, or even better when he was concussed on the floor of a hallway. “You didn’t have to say it, it's on your face.”

“You haven’t known me longer than five minutes and you know me better than I know myself?” What an asshole. “Don’t be an asshole. I’m just trying to help.”

“Trying to help yourself?” He asks it like he doesn’t care about the answer. He’s already made up his mind about this. “What’d they offer you in exchange for this, huh? Must have been pretty good for you to end up here.”

Say what you want about the Coalition, but greed is the ultimate crime. Selfishness is the worst possible thing a person can be here, and this stranger with a body count in the hundreds was accusing her of gaining from this? “They didn’t offer me shit! I’m doing my duty to preserve humanity. Not all of us had a life sentence we needed to get out of.”

This sets him off, all signs of the nervous puppy that walked in that door are swallowed up by his temper. “Thats not fucking-” He grunts, gasping in at the last word like he can swallow it back down. He takes a deep breath, eyes clenched shut alongside his fists. When he speaks again, his voice is back to the low velvety tone he’d first used, now laced with agitation. “They wouldn’t have offered me this if I was beyond rehabilitation.”

“Keep telling yourself that, asshole.” Is all she offers before slamming the bedroom door, clear lines drawn in the metaphorical sand. 

The alarm of her datapad rings in the other room, and the thought of there even being another room is so strange that she stumbles around the bedroom in the dark for a good few minutes before realizing that she is no longer in her old quarters. In the living room, her datapad chimes, the light of the screen guiding her way as she walks on silent feet, trying to avoid waking the creature laid across the couch. In all honesty, she hadn’t expected he would still be here. She’d fallen asleep to fantasies of him stomping out the door and declaring himself unfit for society, wrists jutted forward and ready for cuffs. But, no, there he is, taking up space on the too small sofa. He’s on his back, one knee drawn up and an arm over his eyes, but it's him alright. She takes a page from his book, sucking her teeth in the same annoying way he’d done, before she’s back in the solitude of her bedroom. She dresses for the day, eyeing the tablet and cataloging all the supplies she’ll need for each task. It's a simple, but comforting ritual, done every morning. 

Plastic tubing for the water coolant line

PVC for the cracked pipe in level 3

Two bolts for the loose panel in the galley

Thinking of the man on the couch, she adds white liquor and the patience of a saint. She doubts the storage rooms will have either. 

[justagirlincaptivity]

ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴢᴏɴᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴏ: ᴄɪᴛɪᴢᴇɴ 32084

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 2,301

ꜱʜᴇ ꜱʜᴏᴜʟᴅ’ᴠᴇ ʙᴜʀɴᴇᴅ ᴜᴘ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴀᴛᴍᴏꜱᴘʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡʜᴇɴ ꜱʜᴇ ʜᴀᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʜᴀɴᴄᴇ.

On Earth they used to say that the world began with a bang, and would end in one too. Earthling superstition flowing over every syllable of prophecy. Armageddon, Endtimes, Rapture. But, they were wrong. Every rich man and priest and crazy bastard on the street was wrong. The world began with a bang, but it ended in a whisper. The Quiet Rapture they called it. Galaxies and people gone in a single breath, like whatever God existed–if any had at all–had gotten bored of them. Eden thought they were special, not here by happenstance, but chosen to shepherd those who remained toward death. Death cults had existed back on Earth, too, hidden in jungles and mountains, but here among the empty atmosphere where the stars had all gone to bed, their screams were deafening. The Coalition was hardly any better, scarce resources were only prolonged whenever someone died. Still though, two meals a day and a somewhat warm bed at night was better than castration and servitude. 

“There are no women!” The girl at the end of the table groaned as though she was explaining the simplest concept for the thousandth time. “They’re all men. That’s why they’re called Brothers.” 

“No. There are women, but they’re locked up with the rest of the resources.” Her companion argued, picking at the food on her tray. The girls had been at this same squabble for the better half of an hour, their little recreation time spent debating on the madmen who’d rather fuck dirt than be normal human beings. 

These little moments were familiar, because human nature loves an argument. Eden was the evening’s hottest topic. It was a relief to (Y/N), who was tired of hearing about the atrocities at Filament Station and condolences and ‘your scars are looking much better’. Let them speculate on the men locked away in cells near the boilers, let those lunatics cook inside and out and maybe, just maybe, the world will be better for it. It was cruel, and morbid, but she couldn’t help it. At night, when the burns itched and she couldn’t sleep, she thought of the men slowly steaming in their own sweat in the bowels of the ship, and that made things so much easier. Once, before the rapture, when the future still seemed a distant dream, she would stay awake and watch the constellations. Little stars in haphazard lines scattered the heavens, and nothing hurt, and she was just a little girl staring up out of her window. And then she was a woman, an engineer, aboard a fine ship in the empty nothingness. And then, for just a moment, she was a new star burning in the sky, Filament was a new star. Together, they were a piss poor constellation.

“(Y/N)?” Ephraim was an old friend by now, for all the time they’d spent in the medbay together. “Ava wants to see you.”

Captain Ava Carter had about fifty side projects, Filament survivors being only one of them.

“Alright.” She agreed, standing from the table. “Lead the way.”

The captain’s office was undecorated and impersonal, the only sign of use being the woman sitting at a desk and a coat thrown across a couch in the corner. (Y/N) could guess that the captain slept here often.

“Hey, kid,” Ava said, despite the fact that they were only a few years apart in age. “How are you doing?”

“Doc says I’m clear for regular shifts,” (Y/N) shrugged. Discussing her health had a way of making her feel overexposed, but Ava had a way about her that made it seem like she’d seen everything there was to see, and nothing was too much to handle. 

“That’s good,” Ava said, nodding with pursed lips. “We’ve used a lot of resources to save the Filament survivors.”

“You here to cash in?”

Ava laughed, a short, almost humorless laugh. She didn’t show amusement so plainly often, and it was a bit disconcerting. “Just wanted to talk to you about a few things. Have you been informed about the Convict Rehabilitation Program?”

No, no she had not. In fact, the idea that those homicidal maniacs could even be rehabilitated seemed so ridiculous it had never even crossed her mind. Ava took her frown as an answer, if she even cared to get an answer at all. 

“They will be going through meetings with doctor Ephraim and doctor Cassandra to see if there's any hope for them to function in society, and then….” Ava trailed off. The pause was calculated, letting (Y/N) digest her words before she said whatever fresh hell comes next. “If they can be released, they’ll be put into the gene pool.”

Filament didn’t have a gene pool, being a storage vessel. No need for unions to be arranged when you’ll be transferred to another colony and matched there in just a few years. 

“Thats a hell of an idea.” (Y/N) said finally, unsure of what Ava would even want to hear. “Why are you telling me?”

“Well,” Ava began. “As senior engineer, you’re the highest ranking survivor of Filament. The rest of the survivors are going to follow your lead, like it or not.”

“And what exactly am I supposed to be leading them in?” Ava took a deep breath, a frown forming on her face, the skin pulling around her scar in a way that (Y/N)’s own itch. “You came back as a genetic match with two convicts.”

(Y/N) thought about all those resources used up to put her through the tech in the medbay, how much electricity and time was put into the machines that had stitched her back together in only a few weeks. Ava was cashing in. The words tasted like bile on her tongue, warring between this is bigger than me and the selfish desire to isolate herself. “I’m not going to fuck someone responsible for the massacre of my home.”

“You won’t have to.” Ava produced a data tablet from the drawer on her desk, flipping the screen to show grainy footage. 

The hallway on the screen was empty of any decoration, but having lived there for so long, she could recognize little bits of home in the metalwork. The rust on the corner panel, the missing bolts near the doorframe. It was the hallway near the reactor on Filament Station. The figure standing in the hallway was fidgety, tugging at the hood covering his head and glancing to the hall that would lead toward the atrium. There was no sound, but (Y/N) could feel the thump of boots in her mind as two more men ran down the hall to join the figure. Was it really so long ago that she walked that same hall? In the hands of the tallest man was a hunk of metal with wires crossing every which way. It was an incendiary, likely the one used to melt the reactor core, made entirely of scrap. At least Eden could be called resourceful, if nothing else. An argument broke out, punches were thrown, and the hooded man was left slumped in a puddle of blood on the floor. 

“He tried to stop them.” Ava clarifies. “They left him there to die. He only survived because his friends fucked up the bomb.” Was it really that big of a failure if Filament and her people were still dead? (Y/N) decides not to say this. Instead, she says, “Good for him.” He should’ve burned with the rest of the innocent people who tried to stop it. 

This answer doesn’t seem to satisfy the captain. “Your options are him or the lunatic we caught trying to run before the bomb even went off.” “I thought Eden was all about honor. Running away from danger doesn’t seem all that noble.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Ava agreed. “But he’s willing to do anything to save his own skin, including joining the program.”

“And the first one?” Both options were shit, but at least the nervous one had a conscience, even if it was too little too late.

The captain smiled a bit, finding a small victory in what little interest she’d shown. “He’s a hold out, but we have hope.” 

A sigh fights its way out of (Y/N)’s chest, this is bigger than me. That night, in the quiet hum of her borrowed living quarters, she thinks of men boiling near reactors and nervous men in pools of blood and men who run like cowards. 

She's in the middle of repairing the cooling line in the laundry room when she feels eyes on her back. Nothing new, not since she left Filament Station more charred meat than not, but it's a perverse sort of look, one that looks past the clothes and the skin and bones. The kind of look someone gives you when they size you up, when they're trying to figure out how you tick. It's a bit hypocritical, the way this unnerves her, as if she wasn’t just glaring at the kill switch in the pipes with the same stare, but still. Back on Filament, she was a person to be admired, someone you looked to for answers. Here, on the crumbling rust bucket that, coincidentally, is known as The Rust Bucket, she was just another new thing for the entertainment starved masses to look at. Like a new mold spot or tarnishing wall. They were strict here, stricter than most. No books, no pencils or paper, nothing to distract from the impending death of the universe. Nothing to draw the eye except the influx of prisoners and refugees. For now, broken plumbing and staring assholes was enough of a distraction for (Y/N). By the time she’s freed the lodged piece of rubber that snapped off the valve, the eyes are gone, but there can only be two culprits. The older man, who seems content with singing out of tune and occasionally cracking jokes, doesn’t seem the type to stare. The surly looking convict hiding behind unwashed hair, on the other hand. He’s still glancing up, every now and again, though she only catches his eyes once before he’s realized she’s staring back, and then he fully turns away from her. She only manages to see them for a second, but the black of his eyes linger in her mind, like a sky without stars. She doesn’t end up back in the laundry room.

“Hey,” Ava says, sliding onto the cafeteria bench. It must be something important for the captain herself to come personally. “I’ve got good news.”

Citizens get two meals a day, and while (Y/N) would have preferred not to eat her second meal under the watchful eye of Ava Carter, it's easier to eat when you aren’t arguing. “Oh?”

“Convict 427 has agreed to join the program.” 

“Is that the one who ran or the one who got knocked out?” It’ll be good to put a name–a number, really– to her future impregnator. 

Ava, once again amused and self satisfied at the scrap of interest she shows, is smiling a little. “He’s the one who got knocked out.” 

“Thats good,” (Y/N) sighs as she sips her water. Small, slow sips to make it last. “I can probably knock him on his ass if he tries to kill us all. I’m handy with a wrench, you know?”

“So I’ve heard, Senior Engineer.” Ava taps her fingers on the table in a happy little rhythm. “He still needs to be cleared for any mental instability, but he’s been doing well with chore rotations.”

“I’ll make a house-husband out of him.” (Y/N) agrees, thinking of the dirty uniforms piled in the corner of her room and the tools scattered across her desk. It's a silly thought, that anyone could be allowed to do anything that wasn’t for the greater good. Somehow, she didn’t imagine cleaning up after her would benefit the coalition. “Be nice to come home to a clean room.”

“Let me know how it goes for you. I might just have to get one for myself.” Ava stands from the table, hands straightening her lapels. “He has evaluations at 1600. I’ll send the files to your data tablet, make sure you’re kept updated.”

It's a small effort to build a connection between bride and groom, and while she doesn’t entirely care, (Y/N) is at least a little grateful that Ava would put in the effort. “Thanks, captain.”

“Anytime, senior engineer.”

His identification photo is a mugshot, and even though he looks half dead, she still recognizes him. The man from the laundry room. It's nice to be able to take her time, to pick him apart like he's another machine that needs fixing without worrying about him doing the same to her. Shaggy black hair slick with blood and grease, glassy eyes that stare past the camera, and facial hair that could use a good trim. Do they not have clippers on Eden? Every convict from there seems to share an unkempt look, but this one looks worse for wear. Probably the concussion, but still. Convict 427 has one known alias, The Butcher. Morbid and dramatic, exactly how Eden likes it. The man in the mugshot and his twin in the laundry room don’t look threatening enough to earn a name like that. His file lists his intake statistics, height and weight, and while he’s stocky, he’s not particularly tall. If the coalition wants short, violent children, who is she to deny them? 

Tonight, her dreams are an empty black void, like a starless sky, like The Butcher’s eyes. No nightmares of fires and bodies that couldn’t be saved, no churning worms eating her beneath a tree, just emptiness that almost feels like relief. 

[justagirlincaptivity]

ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴢᴏɴᴇ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴏɴᴇ: ᴄᴏɴᴠɪᴄᴛ 427

ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 3224

ᴀꜰᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇꜱᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴏꜰ ꜰɪʟᴀᴍᴇɴᴛ ꜱᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴛʜᴇ ʙʀᴏᴛʜᴇʀꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴇᴅᴇɴ ʟᴇᴀʀɴ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴀᴛᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄ.ᴏ.ɪ ʜᴀɴɢꜱ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴀʟᴀɴᴄᴇ

Cinere, pulverem, terram

Cinere, pulverem, terram

Cinere, pulverem, terram

The words were a comfort — a stale comfort in a long dead language, carved into him with bruises and ink and blood not his own — but a comfort all the same. 

Cinere, pulverem, terram

Ashes, dust, earth. 

This is all you are, all you will ever be. It was a thought he could retreat to in moments like these, pinned between the freezing steel of the wall and the onslaught of water pounding against his back. I am nothing, this is all bigger than me. He watches as the water, stained a sickly red and brown, flows through the grate beneath his feet. 

“427, grab your garments and go to your quarters!” All of the words were harsh, wrong and violent, fallen from the snarling mouth of a soldier. 427 was an intake number, not a name. Garments were rags so threadbare that it barely mattered that they were the wrong size, not clothes. Quarters were just a kinder word for a prison cell. These word tricks were a speciality of the C.O.I, to control the narrative. Realizing he had done the same was a gut churning sort of disgust. Not a soldier, he thought, eyeing the little thing barking orders, gripping a rifle nearly taller than he was. Just a boy. 

Cinere, pulverem, terram

His quarters were just as threadbare as the rags on his back. A single faucet, waist height, above a grate on the floor. A lopsided mass of fabric that could potentially be a child’s bedroll. A plastic tarp, which held all the worldly secrets of a commode. These were the fine quarters that the C.O.I could spare for a mass murderer. He felt naked, and might as well have been by Eden standards. The shirt, though awkwardly long at the hem, had stubborn threads hanging on at the shoulders, where sleeves may have been once. The empty air burned at the skin on his arms, making him itch for the roughspun sleeves of his gear, for the bindings on his forearms that meant honor, bindings that marked him as a Brother. His feet were steady, long familiar with treading foreign spaces, as he walked to the tap, twisting the singular knob. As the pipes groaned and clattered above him, he readied himself to be cleansed. No more C.O.I eyes staring at his nude form, no more empty air, just prayer recited over water in this small cell. He’d already been muttering the first few lines of scripture when the faucet coughed out a few flakes of rust. He stammered through the next line of scripture, which in itself felt like a sin, looking down at the orange dust in his cupped palms. Above him, the pipes creaked, and something tore loose with a metallic crunch. Whether it was instinct or bad luck, his head tilted back just in time to catch an eyeful of water that stunk with the smell of iron. 

Cursing and clawing angrily at his eyes, Simon turned from the leaking pipe, feeling more unclean than when he started. He slumped against the bedroll, glaring at the puddle slowly forming with every drip, as he restarted his scripture. 

Dinner was sparse, consisting only of potato flakes that were meant to be rehydrated served on a plastic tray. No water. It was brought by another one of the C.O.I’s angry soldier boys, kicked through the slat at the bottom of the cell door by a filthy boot, leaving clumps to scatter across the floor. 

“Eat up, Butcher.” It was more of a sneer than a command, meant to cause offense rather than urgency. 

There is disgust and anger as he surveys his meager supper which has been discarded across the cement floor, but deeper than that, is the churning hunger in his gut. He’d eaten that last morning at Filament Station, small bites of a flavorless protein pack, too anxious to stomach any more, and then nothing since. One day at the station, and another day for transport, then three days in processing. Water had been the only thing provided, and even that was rationed into tablespoon sized portions. He was about halfway through gathering up the salvageable lumps of starch when the cell door clanged.

“427, against the wall!” The words were punctuated with another fist slamming against the door, a hollow clang that means hurry, or I’ll hit you instead of the door.

Obeying is easy, a lifetime as a soldier has etched this instinct into his very bones. It was easier this way, to close his eyes as he moved against the wall, replacing the faceless C.O.I man with The Father, hearing his voice instead. The illusion is shattered too soon when the boy opens the cell door, approaching him carelessly to slap cuffs on his wrists. Another child, a boy too young to know what real fear is. This child’s authority spans across all ten square feet of the cell, and he wields it ignorantly. They make an odd pair, walking through the prison sector. Somewhere behind one of the many doors, someone was screaming. It was odd, animalistic, but it only took a few words for Simon to recognize the voice. Peter, a Brother, shouting the juvenile prayer that children are first taught. 

Roots, bark, leaves, and sap, we are the saplings in the forest. 

Peter was more than a sapling now, but less of the man he was before this. Before Filament. 

“You’ve been out of processing for a day and you’re already trying to flood your cell.” 

The captain was a severe looking woman, made all the more ferocious by the destruction of her face. Scars ran from her jaw, through one milky eye, to the space above her brow. Scars like these meant honor in Eden, battles won, adversity overcome. Simon wondered if her scars brought respect or fear to the citizens she was responsible for.

“Was just trying to get water.”

“Well.” She huffed, “What you’ve got is a broken pipe.”

“I didn’t mean to break anything.” He huffed right back, respect be damned. She was another useless Citizen, scars or not. “If the pipe broke from me twisting a knob, then you’ve got other problems.”

She nodded, frowning. “I’m well aware of the problems I have. Starting with the eight terrorists I now have to feed.”

The number chokes him. “Eight?” 

There were fifteen Brothers total, and only four on Filament. How many had been rescued? Who had been left behind? Was there anyone left on Eden? Peter survived, mad and surly in his metal coffin, but alive to be so.

She ignores him. “It’s protocol to put prisoners to work until the sentence is served.”

She says it like it should mean something to him. It doesn’t. “You sure you want “terrorists” scrubbing your floors?”

The captain looks thoughtful, seated at the empty table across from him. “No, I don’t. But we can’t afford to house any of you without your own contribution. There aren’t enough of us left in the universe.”

This, at least, they can agree on. 

“Three years ago there was an epidemic.” She stared through him with her one good eye, remembering the faces of their dead. “Our population has barely recovered, if it ever will.”

It seems like a bad idea to tell your enemy how weak you are, but he’s not a captain, so maybe it isn’t. 

“You and the other members of Eden will serve time, and if able — and this is a big if — then you’ll be rehabilitated and given citizenship.” 

His veins freeze suddenly, the icy lick of temptation pumped through his heart. To take this offer would go against every teaching, contradict every hard fought battle. Why does the ache spread? The Father had sent them to their deaths for his own fanatical vision, his brothers betrayed him in the eleventh hour. What could he possibly do now except become another sack of meat to be ground up in the C.O.I’s teeth? 

He speaks the only defense he might have. “And your people are just okay with a bunch of homicidal maniacs sleeping next door?”

The captain looks thoughtful for a moment, tapping her fingers against the table. Finally, she speaks. “We have the footage from Filament.”

This is worse, so much worse. They’ve seen what he’s done, Father has seen. Simon gives a noncommittal hum, like it doesn’t phase him. It does though, painfully so. 

“You can be rehabilitated, Convict.” She sighs, speaking slowly like he’s nothing more than an ignorant child. Maybe he is. “I can’t be sure about the others, but–”

“How many more C.O.I bastards do I have to put down before you just give up and execute me?”

The captain’s brow quirked, the scar bunching the skin awkwardly. “That depends. Are you trying to convince me that you’re a monster, or are you trying to convince yourself?”

The captain let him stew in her accusation for a week or so, the only indicator of time passing being the lights turning off and the occasional tray of rations. Peter kept his rambling, voice shaking through the concrete as he proclaimed his body to be no more than fertilizer. It was hard to hear his voice and not think of the betrayals committed, the skin burning. He passes time by counting constellations, trying to remember the shape of them, the names. He’s made it all the way to Dyctynna when he’s ordered against the wall again, slapped into a set of cuffs, and hauled into the room with the table again. This time, the captain is joined by a tall, thin man in a long coat. The captain introduces him as Doctor Ephraim.

“So,” The captain starts, nodding toward the chair across from her. She clears her throat, “Your tests have come back.” 

He vaguely remembers being hauled onto a bed in a sterile room, having needles jammed into his arms. Don’t let the Butcher die before he’s paid for his crimes.

When he doesn’t say anything, she continues. “The other’s tests have come back as well.” 

This does interest him. Years of patching each other up, training together, sleeping in the small barracks, none of this can be erased by what happened. 

“Are they okay?” It’s hard to define what that word even means these days, but still, he needs to know.

She nods to the doctor, who presents a data tablet and slides it across the table. It’s awkward, handling the thing with his hands cuffed, and he finds it useless once he does. There are scans here he doesn’t understand, color coded lines and boxes that seem to connect in certain places and fall apart in others. It clatters when he sets it down, looking up at the pair for an explanation.

“When the epidemic happened, those of us who survived had lasting…..” The doctor searches for a moment, looking for a tactile word to describe the aftermath. Finally, she settles on “Complications.”

“You guys are mutants?” It’s a story told by the Father, of eugenics and experiments done on children, and malformed babies who cannot be loved, so they are sent from the airlock. 

The thought seems to unsettle the pair of them, a look of unease so unrehearsed coming across their face that he thinks I’ve got it right, Father was right. “Mutants?” The captain asks, brows pulled tight in confusion. “No. The virus left many people sterile.”

It’s his turn to be confused and agitated. “Sterile is a good thing, though, right? They’re clean.”

The doctor gives a sound of understanding before he clarifies. “Not that kind of sterile. It means they can't reproduce.” 

Simon flinches, looking at the captain and expecting to see shake, disgust, rage, any emotion at all. Her face is as neutral as still water, despite the blasphemous words the man beside her speaks.

On Eden, children are a regulated thing. Procreation is done only by a select few, and only after the Father allows. Even to speak of the topic is a taboo, yet here she is, reacting to the man describing an inability to produce children as if she’s once again being informed that her dinner will be a few minutes late. Passive upset, the kind that’s barely even there. 

He thinks for a moment about Yeshua, one of the Brothers. As a boy, he’d gotten a fever so high that his body seemed to glow red as he shook violently from the chills. This must be what he looks like now, if the shaking in his hands and the heat on his neck is any indication. They either don't notice or don't care.

The doctor states plainly. “Those images are the genus of you and the other Eden prisoners. All of you have more diverse resistances and immune systems, meaning that reproducing with Citizens would result in stronger children.” 

It takes a moment to understand what has been said, and all the sudden the chair under him seems unsteady. Simon shoots to his feet, feeling like he’s going to vomit. Children? To have them on Eden is an honor that only Father can allow, but to propose that sworn Brothers mate with Citizens is downright revolting.

“No!” He chokes on the words, audibly gasping a few breaths as he steadies himself on the back of his newly empty chair. He recites the words that he knows by heart. “I will not spill seed, for it is a blasphemous, self-serving act. Cinere, pulverem, terram.” 

If he could do anything but draw in ragged breaths, maybe Simon would see how deeply he has startled the pair of them. He can’t do anything but mutter out those three words, the sacred oath, as he’s led back to his cell. 

Cinere, pulverem, terram

Down the damp hall, Peter is still wailing about lost saplings bending in a sinful breeze. Simon can’t help but join him, in a small way. He’s still murmuring his oath, knelt in the corner of his cell, when the next tray of rations is brought. The steady drip of water on the floor is a quaint hymn as he takes communion in the form of stale hardtack. 

Simon’s first assignment comes in the form of laundry duty. He cannot yet be trusted in the kitchens, where knives line the walls and food is so easily poisoned. Not allowed to work maintenance, where a wrench could be a bludgeoning tool. Laundry, though, is safe. This is explained to him thoroughly by an older man known as Hyram. 

“Yeah, they don’t trust you boys just yet.” He says as he claps Simon on the shoulder, like they’ve known one another all their lives. “Don’t take it too personal. I myself didn’t get past laundry duty until I was four years in.”

He’s another inmate, marked by the same sparse rags on his back. Simon doesn’t ask how long he’s been imprisoned, doesn’t ask how much longer he has left, either. Hyram is humming some mismatched tune, every now and again interjecting with a word or two when he can remember the lyrics. People glide in and out of the utility room to dump off soiled laundry or crack jokes with Hyram, always keeping a wide berth of the Eden Freak. It's four days into laundry duty when she walks in. It's odd, seeing someone you may have once known. There's a moment in between sight and recognition where you feel something unexplainable in your bones. Love, hate, sadness, or something else. For Simon, the moment between catching sight of her and recognizing her was full of guilt. He couldn’t place her face, nor the color of her hair, but the scars licking up the side of her neck were familiar. He had his own, just like them, across his back. Filament station had gone up in flames, and he’d been caught in the heart of it. Simon wondered where hers came from, and spent the rest of the day going mad trying to figure it out. Too severe for a kitchen fire, the pattern not quite right for a weld fire. He waits for her to walk back in for the rest of his shift. She doesn’t, but there are more burned Citizens walking through those doors every day. He thought of Father’s words, the first time he saw them, fire cleanses, my son. Words spoken as the hot iron pressed against the base of his neck. Branded brother Zeniath called it like cattle. Simon had never met a cow, but he’d seen them in books and wasn’t fond of the comparison.

Two weeks of radio silence in the laundry room don’t change much, but the captain seems to think it does. 

“So,” she starts, fiddling with the data tablet in front of her. “Any thought to the Convict Rehabilitation Program?” 

This nearly sends him off the deep end again. He’d been so caught up in the chemicals and dirty rags that he’d nearly been able to forget the entire concept. He thinks of the stinging of the acid baths and boiling water and Hyram’s nonsensical thinking. “No.”

The captain hums, turning the data pad so he can see the interface. On it, there are more lines and colors, parallels of blues and reds and orange making a constellation of what he can only assume is more gibberish. 

“Well, you should make a decision. This is you,” She points a finger to the orange line and then the red. “And this is one of your brothers.”

“Who's blue?” He doesn’t want to seem like he cares, but not knowing things irks him in a way that defies every bit of follow orders, soldier that Eden beat into him. Small rebellions.

She seems self satisfied, nodding as she pinches the screen to make the image bigger. “That is citizen 32084. She’s one of the only citizens to agree to be part of the program, so she’s very likely to be your only chance of getting out of here. Or Convict 433’s. Either way.”

“Who is 433?” It's terrible knowing that there's something you don't know. 

The captain frowns for a moment, taking her data pad back to tap on some more before she finds her answer. Do they really not know our names? Simon thinks. He thinks of all the faceless people who have bled because of him, and he’s grateful they don’t have names. 

“Peter Hermaeus, born on Mars seven years before the Rapture-” She begins reciting his entire history, but all Simon can think of is the ranting and raving madman in his cell. 

“He’ll kill her.” Simon says suddenly. “You know that, right?”

The captain frowns. “He’s already agreed to participate in rehabilitation. We would have preferred you, but, well. Beggars can’t be choosers.”

He shouldn’t care, he really, really shouldn’t. More faceless and nameless blood, only on his hands by proxy. “I get my freedom if I do this?”

“Freedom, new assigned quarters, two meals a day.” She doesn’t add the faceless, nameless woman to the list, though they both know she's there. 

It feels like a lifetime of deliberation, but he’d already decided his fate when he thought of 32084 dead at Peter’s feet. “Fine.” 

[justagirlincaptivity]

ᴅᴀɴɢᴇʀ ᴢᴏɴᴇ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ

6/? ᴡᴏʀᴅ ᴄᴏᴜɴᴛ: 20,522

ᴀꜰᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴇꜱᴛʀᴜᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴏꜰ ꜰɪʟᴀᴍᴇɴᴛ ꜱᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ, ᴛʜᴇ ʙʀᴏᴛʜᴇʀꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴇᴅᴇɴ ʟᴇᴀʀɴ ᴊᴜꜱᴛ ʜᴏᴡ ᴍᴜᴄʜ ᴛʜᴇ ꜰᴀᴛᴇ ᴏꜰ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄ.ᴏ.ɪ ʜᴀɴɢꜱ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴀʟᴀɴᴄᴇ

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴏɴᴇ: ᴄᴏɴᴠɪᴄᴛ 427

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛᴡᴏ: ᴄɪᴛɪᴢᴇɴ 32084

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ᴛʜʀᴇᴇ: ᴄᴏᴍᴘᴀʀᴛᴍᴇɴᴛ 4ʙ, ꜱᴜʙʟᴇᴠᴇʟ 8

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜰɪᴠᴇ: ɴᴀᴋᴇᴅ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ɢᴀʀᴅᴇɴ, ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴀᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ʙᴇɢɪɴɴɪɴɢ

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜱɪx: ʜᴏᴡ ꜱᴡᴇᴇᴛ, ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴛᴛᴇᴅ ꜰʀᴜɪᴛ

ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ꜱᴇᴠᴇɴ: ʙʀᴜᴛᴜꜱ, ᴊᴜᴅᴀꜱ, ᴀɴᴅ ᴏᴛʜᴇʀ ʙᴀꜱᴛᴀʀᴅꜱ ɪɴ ʟᴏᴠᴇ

[justagirlincaptivity]

The support I got from tumblr and ao3 is honestly just <3333. The Remmick one shot was so fun to write and I'm so glad people enjoyed it. I've got a couple concepts thought up for potential one shots in the same universe, so hopefully i get around to writing them :p

[justagirlincaptivity]

𝖂𝖊 𝖌𝖔𝖙 𝖆 𝖉𝖊𝖆𝖑?

Pairings: Remmick x Reader

Description: A housewife strikes a deal with the devil, and he plans to collect.

Tags: They're toxic for each other, hivemind sex, smut, exhibitionism, canon typical violence, cheating, Remmick is probably a little oc, I snuck a lil WLW in there, VERY LIGHT dubcon

Word Count: 9,793

This is honestly super unedited and rough, but I honestly couldn't stop writing my muse had me in his clutches. If people enjoy it I'll probably write a prequel abt how they met and stuff, but for now, here ya go.

“He’s really gonna let you be the one to do it?” The lips at my throat pause, and I can feel the cool breath of a chuckle beneath my ear. 

“He don’t mind who does it, ‘slong as it gets done.” His voice is a thousand accents all mashed together, like the words don't quite belong to one another. He begins his kisses again, all open mouthed and sharp as his teeth trace up the side of my neck, down to my shoulder. 

“He’s in your head, ain’t he?” I try to sound less desperate than I am, but I know he can hear my heart beating, so there's no use. He spares me the embarrassment and seems to ignore my fear at best, and relish in it at worst.

“‘Course he is,” There's a grating sound that bubbles up from the back of his throat, a sound like metal giving way. “We all are. He’s in your head too.”

One of his fingers comes up to trace along my temple, tapping emphasis just above my left eye.`

“Let me talk to him.” 

I jerk in his grasp as he starts laughing. He’s smiling, I can feel it against the shell of my ear, hear it in his voice. Even then, his arms tell a different story. While his face is laughing and smiling, his body turns into an animal waiting on its prey to escape. The hands at my waist come up, winding around my torso in a blasphemous rendition of an embrace. I can feel him stiffen like a chord about to snap, like a guitar string that knows it's about to be strummed. The body behind me is taut with a giddy anticipation, waiting, waiting, waiting for me to try and run so he can have the thrill of chasing me first hand.

“Missed me that bad?” I know it's him by the tone. The voice stays the same, but now there's some kind of audacity about it, a familiar way his tongue rolls around each syllable like language was made just so he’d have something to say.

“Let’s make a deal.” When I move this time he lets me. I know I’m only pulling away because he lets me, even so, his fingers linger, following me until I’m several steps away and out of his reach. 

I see the skin he wears for the first time. Before, when I was running through the fields and dodging tree roots in the forest, he was nothing more than a shadow, hooting and hollering. He was good at letting me know he was there, filling the silence with his amusement. It was worse when he was quiet. He’d go silent as death, stalking me in the underbrush. I’d pause for a breath when the sound of him faded in the distance, and I’d know he was near when the cicadas stopped singing. My only warning was the world going silent. When he was quiet, he’d let me catch little glimpses of him, always just out of sight. He liked to play little games like this, the kind that make the world hush in fear, that way he could hear me better. 

“A deal with the devil? Thought your daddy raised you better than that.” The man he wears is handsome, his hair just the right amount of curl to break hearts, eyes a little too honey brown. “Go on, now. Tell me whatcha got. Anything you want, darlin’.”

I know he’s right, if I just give in he’ll offer up the world. 

“Anything?” It's risky, and I know the answer, but I can’t help but roll the idea around in my head. Anything includes letting me live. 

His head tilts, a teasing smile playing on his lips, flesh pulled back over his gums to show ever sharpening teeth. “Not that.”

“Let me go,” My voice shakes. “I’ll let you take me, but you have to let me go first. Let me live my life and when I’m ready I’ll call for you.” He shifts his hips, swaying and contemplating. Then he’s tapping a finger against his chin and sighing wistfully. “And why couldn’t I just take you now?”

“I’ll hate you until the end. Everything is gonna be dust and you’re gonna have to live with me hating you ‘til we figure out how to die.”

The thought must do something for him. “All right. Say I let you go, now, how do I know you’ll come back?”

“Stay with me, just watch like you’ve always done, and when I’m ready I’ll call for you.”

Nothing would change, not really. I’ve had a thousand nights of him watching from the treeline, I could live a thousand more. 

“See, that just plain don’t seem fair-” I interrupt him. He hates being interrupted.

“I’ll let you be the one to do it.” 

This earns a laugh, a genuine laugh, not the kind meant to taunt, but a real one that sends his head back as he grabs his stomach. I try and ignore every instinct in me that says to go for his throat when he laughs up at the sky.. 

“I’ll be the one doing it either way. I’m still in here, ain’t I? I’m in all of ‘em.” He reminds me, like I could ever forget just how many eyes he has. I have no doubt he’s got a few more of his disciples scattered through the underbrush, every angle of this interaction playing through his head at once. No wonder he’s gone mad. 

“The real you, the one you used to be.” I know the real version of him as the blue eyed creature that stares from the forest, he who speaks without moving his mouth. The thing in front of me is a monster wearing a man’s skin, the thing that watches through my windows is something else entirely. 

The thought must intrigue him, because he actually seems to consider it. “Naw, that won’t be enough.”

“I’ll ask you to do it,” I promise. “I’ll beg you to take me. You just have to let me decide when you do it and I’ll beg to spend forever with you.”

He smiles wider, wider than should be possible, splitting his face in two to show off rows and rows of teeth, some human, some animal, some I wouldn’t even know how to guess the origin of. When he reaches his hand out, I grab it, ignoring the way his nails, his claws, dig into the skin of my forearm. He pulls me in by my arm, sharp force threatening to tear the limb from its socket. Our faces touch, now. This stranger he’s taken has a long nose, the kind that points downward with a bump on the bridge that I would find charming in any other life. He traces the tip of his nose across mine, nuzzling me like a wild animal, committing the scent of me to memory like it’ll be a lifetime before he gets the chance again. 

“You’ll make it worth my while, won’t you?” His breath smells like the sweetness when fruit starts rotting, not yet decayed but past the point of no return. “Beg real pretty, bat those eyes, and make all sorts of promises?”

I nod, and that’s the beginning of the end.

“Deal.” It's the last word he speaks to me, and he’s gone. It happens fast, soundlessly. Here, and then gone all in the span of a breath. This only further cements the fact that he wanted me to know he was there when he chased me. I shudder, ignoring the paranoia that creeps in. How many times had he been there and hadn’t wanted me to know.

My side of the bed is cold when I get home, the snoring from the other side makes it impossible to sleep anyhow. The sofa downstairs is inviting, it doesn’t complain at the coldness of my skin or the soggy hem of my nightgown, it just holds out its hand and welcomes me. I close the curtains in the sitting room, and try to sleep. 

All my life I had wanted someone to want me, so who could blame me when a man with the greenest eyes I’d ever seen walked into town and I just had to have him. Now, after five years of marriage and an ocean of bitterness between us, he’s little more than a nuisance who funds my life. It's a nice give and take we have. He leaves a neat money clip full of paper on the cabinet by the door and I buy the groceries. He pretends not to notice when I buy a little something for myself, something harmless like a new bolt of fabric or a nice bottle of wine, and in exchange, I pretend not to notice when he comes home smelling like rye and perfume with his pockets far lighter than they were when he left. Give and take. It's the best we can hope for. Maybe we’d loved each other once, but the days had eaten away at us like moths and all the sudden we were full of holes and resentment. Right now, the resentment that had since faded into annoyance was about to bubble over. 

“Where the hell-” He cuts himself off with a groan, carelessly banging the door to the hall closet shut. “Found it.”

I don’t know or care what he lost and found, only that he does it quieter when I’m trying to rest my eyes. 

“What’re you doing?” I don’t know what it looks like I’m doing to him, but for me, when I see a person with their eyes closed covered with an afghan, I usually guess that they’re sleeping. I didn’t marry him because I thought he was smart, so I guess this one is my fault. 

“Couldn’t sleep, figured it was better to come down here than wake you up with my tossing and turning.” I sneak in little morsels of good. I am a Good Wife who lets her husband rest and sacrifices my bed for his comfort. 

He nods, looking proud of himself, like he was the one who came up with such a fantastic idea. “I’ll be out late tonight.” 

He doesn’t offer an excuse of work or friends, because we both know he’ll be down at the bar. I can appreciate this honesty, even if I often don’t give him the same. 

I give a half hearted ‘Alright’ before I hike my blanket up around my shoulders and prepare for my treacherous journey up the stairs and into our bedroom. On my way past, he stops me with an arm around my waist and plants a kiss on my lips. I smile at him, the kind of lovesick smile that smoothes the wrinkles on his forehead, and tell him I’ll leave his supper in the warmer. Give and take. He leaves without an ‘I love you’. I don’t bother watching out the window as he starts the auto and makes his way down the dirt road.

My bed doesn’t smell like my husband, even the warmth from his body has been leached from the sheets. If I hadn’t seen the lingering sleep on his face, I never would have guessed he’d been in here only moments ago. I get the answer to a question I didn’t ask when my head hits the pillow. The smell is one like wind blowing through trees, not quite like the earth, but more. Like the ozone was sprinkled across my duvet. Beneath that is the smell of heat, hot iron like the smell of a cast iron drying in the stove. Wood ash, ozone, and fading rust. The smell is entirely Remmick. Stay with me, watch me like you always have. The invitation was slipped between the cracks in my words, and the deal had been struck without me knowing what I had truly promised. He’s somewhere around here, smiling like the cat who got the cream, like the man, the thing that would get me, leaching all the human warmth from my world and my bed. I see a twitch in the treeline, and I close my eyes and roll over, trying to ignore the eyes that watch, that have, and always will, be watching. To close the curtains means admitting that I’ve seen him, and in any case he’ll have to disappear once the sun truly rises, tucking tail and holing up in the barn in the neighbors field or some other place hidden from the sun and from god and from me. More likely he’ll scurry off to the cellar beneath my home, dominion over my doorways now his entirely, permission and chivalry lost somewhere between my words and my hand in his as we struck our deal. To hell with him, I didn’t need anything from down there anyways. It's intentional, I know it is, when he bumps against something down there so loud I can hear it from the second floor. I hope the sound rings in his ears. 

The days fade into nothing, but somehow he hasn’t gotten bored yet. When what little Fall we have turns to Winter, my wood pile never grows empty. Every morning there's more, resting easy on my porch. Beside them now rests a basket of eggs. It's another little routine, another give and take. He leaves wood, I keep the house warm, I leave a basket on the porch, he collects the eggs so I don’t have to brave the cold. It's a statement, more than anything. I can provide. And as he does it, I ignore him. When he sings me to sleep, low melodies of songs in dead languages, I ignore him. I can almost feel him growing restless. I can certainly hear it every morning as he bumps his way down into the cellar, louder and louder every time. A petulant, monstrous child, causing a commotion to wake me after my husband leaves. He must be bringing things in to break, because there would be nothing left by now if he hadn’t. I haven't gone down there since before the deal. I don’t know if I ever will. Up here, with my fireplace filling the house with gentle warmth, is my domain. Down there, where spiders spin webs for men to get caught in, is all his. 

By early Spring, more gifts, real true honest to god gifts start appearing and he’s letting me sleep in later and later. Not just eggs or firewood, but pretty flowers left on the kitchen windowsill that I just know I closed, golden rings left on my vanity that beg me to wear them. Worst of all is the letters. I’d never thought about the creature that lives in my cellar as something that could write, but he can. His handwriting is rough, chicken scratch, like he’d forgotten how to hold the pen or he knew english only in theory and not practice. There are ink splatters just about every other word at first, but by the fourth letter, the page is free of streaks and imperfections. I leave paper and fountain pens out where I know he can find them and he tucks letters beneath my pillow, in my jewelry box, wherever there’s space for him to sneak into my life. Give and take. Every letter devolves into sin eventually. The first letter only took a few sentences, by the tenth he can go nearly a page without debauchery. 

He writes to me about the way the sunset used to look when he was still a real person, and compares it to how it sets now and compares both to me. 

I’d bet my life that you’d look much prettier than the sun when I’ve got you laying in our bed. 

He writes about wine. Honey wine that the old women in whatever home he came from swore could heal any sickness. He promises me that it could. That there’s a special wine that the women make that will get a woman out of a marriage.

It could never taste as sweet as you.

I try not to think about him chewing, little pieces of my flesh getting caught in those sharp teeth as he gets a taste. What wine would he pair me with, I wonder? 

The worst letter of all is the one where he tells me that he’s been tailing my husband. Not me, not the real me, I’d never leave you alone in this lonely house. He promises. One of the other ones. He’s got another one of his human dolls following my husband. He tries to soothe me in the parchment, every swooping, crooked letter full of false empathy that I haven’t earned and don’t want. Remmick would never treat me that way. He’s so sorry that he’s got to be the one to tell me, but I deserve to know. He writes about the woman who welcomes my husband into her bed like it's something I don’t know. Better her than me. This letter, I crumble into a ball, and then smooth it out the best I can, and then rip it apart with my hands and scatter it onto the flowerbeds at the edge of the back porch, right next to the door to the cellar for good measure. I didn’t bother reading to the end, not caring to hear about how he’ll always be faithful to me in all the ways my husband isn’t. 

The man I married is a gambler, and a drunk, and he runs around town like a tom cat, but he’s the one paying my way. He keeps me fed, keeps a roof over my head, clothes on my back. To think that the devil himself who lives in my cellar could think that I’m some sorry wife with a heart broken over an adulterous man is laughable. The same devil thinking that damnation would be an improvement over the life I have is even more ridiculous. The thought that the devil could save me from one mediocre hell by dragging me into an even worse existence makes my chest ache with a laugh I don’t think I’ll ever be able to let out.

When I wake up the next morning, the parchment is laying on the pillow next to me in a neat pile. 

“Was rude to rip up my love letter, you know.” I haven’t seen him since the night in the woods. He’s leaning on my dressing table like he owns it. No, not owns it, like he made it. Chopped the tree, sanded the wood, varnished it and screwed the brass on too. He does that with everything. He walks like he created the world with his own two hands and for all I know he very well might have. 

“It was rude to stalk my husband.”

His face twists up at the word, at me reminding him that I don’t belong to him. I don’t even belong to myself anymore. 

“He’s not a good man.”

“You’re not good either.” I remind him. “I’m not sure you’re even a man.”

“Me neither, but whatever I am, I’m all yours. You think he can say the same?”

“I don’t care what he has to say!” It hits me all at once that I’m arguing with the devil while wearing nothing but my nightgown. “I don’t like him and he doesn’t like me neither and that's fine.”

He reflects my anger, feeds off it even. “Well, that is just fine, ‘cause he likes that girl of his much better than you anyhow.”

I scoff, tossing the blankets off me, fully intending to stomp from the room and take refuge down in the sitting room.

“Want me to tell you what he did to her?” His voice is taunting, taking a cadence that sounds more like a rockslide than anything else. “Did things to her that made me blush. I’ll bet he’s never touched you like that, huh pretty girl?”

When I wheel on him he’s grinning like he knows he won, because he thinks he’s hurt me. Maybe he has. I plan on hurting him worse.

“What?” I shout, grabbing the nearest thing to me and hurling it at him. The throw pillow I grabbed from the foot of the bed lands a direct hit, but does little damage. “You gonna tell me that you’ll touch me like that? How you’ll make me feel good? Huh! You don’t know what he’s done to me. For all you know I taught him everything he knows about pleasing a woman.”

In that moment, I know he’s won. He knows it too. He smiles sickly sweet, tut tutting me with his tongue. His hair falls into his eyes when he gives a sad shake of his head.

“Well, you don’t know much about it then.” His eyes are full of laughter, even as his face is a mask of sympathy, lips pouting. “‘Cause he was on top of her flopping like he was dying for just about a minute before he rolled off her. Not much pleasing going on. I don’t mind teaching ya if you ask nicely.”

My entire body must flush with the heat I feel, anger bubbling over and out of every pore in my skin. “Get the hell out!” 

I point sharply toward the door, and when he makes no move I grab another object to sling across the room. The decorative vase on my bedside table has a nice weight to it, and I know it'll bruise him, maybe even cut him up if it shatters. My mother gifted that to me as a wedding present. A family heirloom a hundred years old. Only fitting to use it on someone a couple hundred years old, if not older. I don’t bother thinking about whether he can actually be harmed, too angry to bother with anything other than the porcelain in my hands and the target smiling at me. 

He does it again, that thing he does where he’s one place and then another in the time it takes for me to blink. His fingers are cool and clammy as they trace up my shoulder to my jaw. It's completely instinct when I swing my hand up, catching him across the side of the face with the vase. I was right, it shatters. I can still feel the vibrations across my palm from the impact when I’m running down the stairs, bare feet thumping across hard wood. Up the stairs, he yells, and then comes down right after me. He catches up to me somewhere around the hallway leading to the living room. I’m already scrambling over the sofa by the time his fingers circle around my calf. I stumble for a moment, hitting my knees on the leather, my nails digging into the backrest, and with my free leg I kick back blindly, as hard as I can. I can’t risk looking back, I’ll scare myself and lose my nerve. My kick must land, because his grip loosens, whether he really is hurt or he’s just worried I’ll hurt myself trying to get away is a mystery to me, but I can guess it's probably the latter. 

I’m clambering over the back of the sofa, and in my rush end up slamming my shoulder into the fireplace mantle. There, I find a weapon I didn’t even know I had. 

The handle has little chips in the metal, imperfections that dig uncomfortably into my palms, but I grip the firepoker tighter. Wrought iron is just as good as regular iron, and even if it’s not, the end is pointy enough for me to poke a hole or two in him. He gives me a wide berth, eyeing the poker clutched in my hands, and I get a good look at him for the first time since he was leaning against the vanity. There’s blood smeared across his cheek, and little flakes of porcelain rest in his hair like fallen snow. This is dangerous to know, because now I know I can hurt him. 

“Your hands are shaking.” He clicks his tongue at me again, and there’s risk in the way his jaw moves. It reminds me of what’s waiting inside, all those teeth, bits and pieces of love letters and flesh stuck in between grinding teeth. Those fangs will be my tombstone, my final resting place, the maw of an ancient sort of evil. I’m scared all of the sudden that I’ve truly done it. I’ve made myself out to be more trouble than I’m worth. He won’t let me go, he won’t take me and make me a part of him, he’ll just eat me here and now and there will be nothing left but a red smear and ground up chunks across my rug. “Put it down, and we’ll talk about this like civilized folk.”

I feel my lip start to shake, my eyes welling with tears. For all my talk of monsters and devils, I sure got comfortable thinking of him as a man. A man can be killed, a man can bleed, a man chops my wood and leaves me flowers and writes me letters. He’s not a man, not really. Maybe he used to be, but that time is long gone. I’m confronted by my own mortality and stupidity all at once while his eyes glow like an animal’s in the low light.

Those eyes soften at the choked sound I make, and a part of me insists that it’s just a trick, he’s not kind or understanding, he just wants me to let my guard down. He has a way of bringing out all this hopelessness in me. His hands are up in a sign of peace, but mine are still pointing the sorry excuse for a weapon I’ve found at him.

“Remmick,” My voice shakes, words tumbling around my trembling lips. My teeth ache and saliva fills my mouth. My body knows I’ll have to bite down hard on his neck to kill him. I can’t. He’ll snap my neck before I’m able to break the skin.

He shudders at the sound of his name on my tongue, panting like he can taste it on the air. His eyes close, and I think this is my chance but I don’t move when I should and his eyes are back on me.

“You’re bleeding, pretty thing.” 

He’s right. The vase cut my palm up good. My hands tighten around the handle of my poker. There’s chips of porcelain in those wounds, I just know it, and I grit my teeth when I feel them crunch beneath the metal. 

He swallows deeply, taking a breath he doesn’t need. “C’mere, let me get you cleaned up.” 

I nearly drop the poker and do as he says, but what little common sense I have wins out and I grip it tighter. It doesn’t even matter what I was going to end up doing either way. He catches the hesitation in my stance, and he’s on me. I squeal like an animal caught in a trap, which I am, swinging my stupid poker at him like it’ll do a damn thing until he rips it from my hands and throws it somewhere across the room. There’s a clatter of impact where it hits, and then silence. 

“Always so difficult,” He sucks his teeth, “‘Course I had to go an’ pick a difficult one.” 

This means I was right, he’s gonna cut his losses and kill me here and now. I grasp on to what little defense I have.

“Our deal. You promised,” I'm choking on my words when he catches me around my waist, screaming bloody murder while he’s hauling me with him wherever he’s decided to have his dinner. “You promised you wouldn’t kill me!”

He groans, like I’m a mosquito buzzing by his head, and not a woman afraid to die. 

“‘M not gon’ kill you.” 

“You said you wouldn’t take me until I asked either.”

Another groan. “Not taking you neither.”

His hands are on my shoulders and suddenly I’m sitting on the couch, leather cold against the back of my legs. Fear has made me sweat through the fabric of my gown, and the leather is all the chillier for it. He walks out of the room, down the hall, and into the kitchen. This could be a moment to escape, but what would I do? Where would I go? All the fight has left me. 

“Keep them eyes open.” 

I do as he says. He’s crouching in front of me, spreading my knees and settling between them. The only man who’s ever been between my legs is the one I married, but I’m dead meat anyway so what do I care about propriety. One hand rests on the side of my thigh, the other held out expectantly.

“Gimme your damn hand.”

I can tell I’m really annoying him now. There are tears running down my face and soaking the collar of my nightgown, but I can’t care about that. 

Once again, I do as he says. His hands are still cold and clammy, but they’re feather light as he wraps gauze around my knuckles and across my palm and back around my knuckles so he can tie a knot to keep it in place. The blood smeared across his face is drying into flaky patches, and the sight of it makes my own face itch.

“It’s yours.” He says, meeting my eyes. I never noticed the little pieces of gold that rest just outside of his irises. 

I give a noncommittal hum. We’re in my home, so many things here are mine. 

“The blood, darlin’” He brings a hand up and loosely gestures to the side of his face. “Left a mark on me, even if it’s not the one you wanted.”

I feel guilt, and then anger because why should I feel guilty. I apologize anyway.

“I’m sorry.”

He smiles up at me, his teeth are a little crooked and his canines are a little too sharp, but for the most part it’s a nice smile. If you can forget who, what's giving it.

“Don’t be.” He makes a show of opening his mouth a little, a too long tongue slipping out from between his teeth and giving a little lick to the side of his face. “I was right. You taste better’n anything in the world.” 

I decide to not notice the fork in the end of his tongue, like a snake’s. 

“Didn’t mean to scare you, pretty girl.” He raises my wrapped hand, planting a kiss over the fabric there before pressing my palm against his cheek and rubbing his face on me. “Just can’t help myself, you look so pretty running away, all of me just wants to chase you.”

I nod, like I understand. I don’t, not really. Last time I chased something it was a husband I liked the idea of. The man waiting at the altar was piss poor in comparison to the one I’d been picturing in my head. I feel superior in that moment, having learned something in my singular lifetime that Remmick hasn’t learned in all of his. Chasing doesn’t end well, it ends in tarnishing wedding bands and scraped knees when you trip.

“‘M so proud of you, though.” His voice comes out in a deep hum, shaking the air around me and settling in my bones. “If I was anyone else you’d have done some real damage. My brave little cuisle.”

I don’t know what the word means, but I can only pray that it doesn’t mean dinner. I’m not sure prayers will work for me anymore, if they ever even did.

“I coulda killed you.” I insist. The iron poker could have run him through and burnt him up, stabbed him and cauterized the wound all in one go. “That poker was iron.”

He takes a seat beside me, leaning his back on the arm rest so that he can drag me to lay between his knees, tucking my head into the column of his throat. It’s a gesture of vulnerability that I want to take advantage of. I want to make a fool of him for letting his guard down and sink my teeth into his jugular.

“That thing was copper, darlin’. It’s just polished up nice.” He smoothes his hand over the back of my hair, still mussed from our altercation. 

The sound that comes from me is entirely pathetic. I stood, I stand no chance. What’s more humiliating is that he knows it, and has known it long before now. He let me make a fool of myself thinking I could do a damn thing.

My misery inspires him in some type of way. “Naw, pretty girl.” He coos, eager to soothe me. “You coulda done me in for good. I promise.”

Humiliation and anger and desperation all well up inside, threatening to burst me at the seams. 

“Stop making fun of me.” I snarl, angry tears running down my face and soaking into his collar.

He shushes me. “Not makin’ fun. I’d die for you in a heartbeat.”

“You don’t even have a heartbeat.” He doesn’t, there’s no pulse thrumming under my head as I lay on his chest. 

“Mhm. I do,” He insists, tapping a finger against the pulsepoint on my wrist. “Right in here.”

I pull my hand back, safe and close against my chest. “I couldn’t kill you, not unless you’d let me.”

He nods, jostling me when he adjusts us so he can look me in the eye. “I would let you. Hell, just say the word here and now and I’ll drop dead.”

I huff at him, but he just keeps on running his mouth. “You just gotta smile real pretty at me when you ask,” He traces a finger across the corner of my mouth, and then down to cup my jaw. “Want the last thing I see to be my pretty girl smiling down at me.”

I think I hate him more than ever in that moment. “Well go do it outside. I don’t want you making a mess.”

He laughs, nosing against my hairline. “You already made a mess, sugar. ‘Sides, do you really want me gone.”

I huff into his collarbone, and feel the condensation gather against his cold skin. I think of all the gifts and the arguments and how good I feel in his arms. “No.”

“I know, baby.”

He hums to me, another one of his old songs from a time before men became monsters and people starved all for the sake of greed that would soon grow into nothingness. Its a somber kind of melody, but when his fingers slip between my shoulders, banishing knots and stress and what little argument that remains in me, the song sounds like a lullaby. I find sleep easy in the devil’s arms, caged next to Lucifer’s unbeating heart. He plants a kiss on the top of my head, and I pretend not to notice. I curl in closer, and he doesn’t comment. It’s the best sort of give and take I’ve ever felt, the kind that dissolves on my tongue like spun sugar. 

When I finally wake, it's late in the evening and the sun has just barely started slipping down. I’m tucked into bed, wrapped snug in my duvet. The pieces of the vase have been swept away and the pillow I slung at him is soft under my head. Beside me, on my husband's pillow, there's another love letter. 

Offer still stands if you need me to teach you - R

Bastard. 

Below me, a door slams, and I’ve learned Remmick’s patterns enough to know its not him. The heavy footfalls are the man of the house’s. I’m on my feet in an instant, ripping my nightgown over my head and pulling some real clothes on. The dress rubs uncomfortably without a slip under it, but to hell with undergarments. 

There’s a shout of my name, and once again I’m running down the stairs, taking them two at a time. 

“Hi, hon.” I’m planting a kiss on his cheek, “You’re home sooner than I thought you’d be.”

He is. The sun hasn’t even set yet. He must have come straight home from work. The whole thing is so unusual that it makes me nervous.

“Thought we could have supper together tonight.” 

Shit. 

“I’m sorry,” I frown up at him, brows drawn close so I can look especially apologetic. It's the same sort of mock sympathy that Remmick used on me just this morning. This morning? It feels like a lifetime ago. “I usually start dinner late so that it’s still warm for you when you get home.” 

It's the perfect thing to say. Demure and apologetic and such a sweet thing for his oh so doting wife to do. 

“That’s alright, I’m sure it won’t take you too long.” Is all he says before he’s making his way upstairs to strip off his work clothes.

It doesn’t take especially long, but I still draw it out longer than I should just to be an asshole. Peeling potatoes takes a good fifteen minutes, and even though the meats already defrosted in the ice box, I still let it thaw for another thirty minutes just to be sure. 

He’s two drinks deep when I’m setting a plate in front of him and I can smell the rye on his breath when he plants a kiss on my lips as I move past him. He’s started on a third glass by the time I’ve got my own plate made. 

“Work was rough today,” He starts in on a long rant about Mr. So And So who gave him a backhanded compliment about his work ethic. 

I sneak in little mhm’s and outraged really’s as I eat. Beneath us, there's a thump in the cellar.

“Damn animals,” My husband huffs, “I’m gonna have to find where they’re getting in at one of these days.”

I don’t tell him that I’m the one who let the animal in.

That night, when he’s sober enough to get it up, he climbs on top of me. I give the performance of my life for the few minutes it lasts, crying out my husband’s praise loud enough that the neighbors can hear a mile away. Loud enough that the creature in the cellar can hear. The cuts on my palm sting when I release my grip on his shoulders. My husband doesn’t ask what happened, and doesn’t question how on earth I tied a knot with one hand. Remmick starts breaking things down there again and I fall asleep naked beside the man I married. I don’t wipe away the mess he’s made of me, let the devil come up here and see what my husband left running down my thighs. The tenderness I felt this morning was a mistake, falling asleep in his arms was a mistake. 

I know that today will be terrible before I even open my eyes. There’s a creaking in front of me that just won’t end, rhythmic and annoying, and I just know it’s Remmick. I sigh, opening my eyes.

Sure as the sunrise, there he is. He’s hauled my great grandmother’s rocking chair up here from the living room and put it right beside where I’m trying to sleep. Elbows on the armrests, hands crossed lazily across his stomach, and legs spread obnoxiously wide, he rocks. He perks up when he sees my eyes are open and trained on him. It’s dark, still night, but he’s got a candle lit that I know is for my benefit alone. He can see just fine without it, and the thought that he made the effort to provide me with a way to see him be irritating makes me even more frustrated. His eyes reflect the light. 

“Sleep well?” His head tilts to the side, as if this is some casual interaction and he didn’t just wake me himself.

“I was until you started up with that.” I nod to the chair he’s on, still creaking away.

“I was sleeping well too, yester’dy evenin’.” He nods, looking contemplative. “‘Til some sorta banshee started hollerin’ up a storm.”

“Go to hell.” I shut my eyes, willing him to go away so I can sleep just a little longer.

He laughs, a joyless sort of laugh that aggravates me more than the ones he genuinely enjoys. “Already there, darlin’. I’m there every night he has you and I don’t.” 

Beside me, in the quiet gives way to a sound. A wet, crunching, broken sort of sound. 

“Don’t turn around, pretty girl.” He’s grinning, teeth sharp. “You’ll just scare yourself.”

I turn, slowly inching onto my back. The sound echoes in my ears, slurping and groaning and the crunch crunch crunch of snapping sinew. I see it out of the corner of my eye, the shadowy mass writhing on my husband’s chest. I turn only my head, and meet my husband’s wide, fearful eyes. 

His mouth is open, lips twitching as he takes shallow breaths. His throat is torn, blood dripping weakly into a puddle that stains our sheets. There’s a woman, a beautiful woman with black curls, slick with blood straddling his chest. In her hands are chunks of dripping meat. She takes a bite from them, hips bucking as she groans at the taste. She wears only a skirt, breasts heaving with breaths I know she doesn’t need.

I choke, a sobbing sort of breath knocked out of me.

“Shh.” Remmick soothes. “I told you, sweet thing. I said you’d just end up scared.”

I feel his fingers brush the hair along my temple, but I can’t stop looking the man I used to love in the eyes. 

“You never listen, do you?” Remmick sighs.

“‘M sorry,” The gorgeous woman moans, plump lips parting in ecstasy. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

She’s talking to me. I know this because her eyes are a brilliant pale green and they're looking right at me. Her brows knit together and her eyes pinch shut as her thighs start shaking. 

“Introduce yourself.” Remmick insists, watching her fall apart.

“My-“ Another pretty whine falls from her lips. “My name is Dotte. I was sleepin’ with your husband.”

Remmick nods, looking pleased. “Tell her what happened.”

And she does. “He came drunk one night,” Her hips buck again and I can see the curve of her backside when her skirt rides up around her hips. “I told ‘em no, he didn’t like that.”

I know what she’s talking about, I’ve seen how angry he gets. 

“I was so lucky Remmick had someone watching,” I can hear the gratitude, genuine and wholehearted. “I thought he was gon’ kill me when he started throwing things and grabbin’ at me.” 

Movement on the other side of her catches my eye, and I realize just how surrounded I am. Half a dozen eyes glow back at me. My nose drips, and my eyes burn from not blinking. I can’t blink, if I close my eyes I’m scared I’ll never be able to open them again.

“Don’t mind them, they just wanna make sure you’re alright.” Dotte comforts, talking around another mouthful of meat. “We know Rem wouldn’t let anything happen to you, but we like being close just to make sure. You can never be too safe, darlin’.” 

There’s a cool hand on my jaw as Remmick turns me to look at him. It’s an effort on his part, because I’m scared to look away from the strangers that crowd my bedroom. Scared to look at them, scared to look away. 

The bed shifts beside me as Dotte climbs off my dying husband, sliding in beside me and pulling my head to rest on her bare chest. Her breasts are soaked with blood that sticks to my face and mixes with my tears. I feel my hair being matting with the foul combination.

“It’s gonna be alright, pretty girl.” No one but Remmick has ever called me that, and it sounds strange on a voice so airy and light like her’s. “We’re gonna take such good care of you.”

Remmick hums his agreement, and I start shaking as he pulls the duvet down slowly, like he’s scared moving too fast will make things worse. My chest, my hips, the blankets tugged all the way to the foot of the bed and then all of me is exposed to the cool stagnant air. I regret every part of last night when I feel the reminder of it freezing and sticky between my legs. 

Dotte’s fingertips rub gentle circles over my ribs, up my side, and then all of the sudden she’s cupping my breast and kissing my temple. 

“So pretty,” She hums against the top of my head, her thumb circling my nipple as her long legs tangle with my own. “Too pretty for him, he never appreciated it.”

As if he can hear her words, my husband lets out a grating rasp.

“She’s right.” Remmicks caught me by the thigh, spreading me open. Dotte’s got the other one caught under her hooked leg, so it’s useless when I start squirming. 

“He made a mess of you,” She sounds distraught, trailing her hand down to cup my sex. “Didn’t even bother cleaning you up.”

So, Remmick does. He takes a rag from the washbasin on my vanity, wet with warm water. I picture him downstairs at my stove, boiling a pot just for this. He’s diligent, tenderly brushing away what's left of my husband from my body, taking care to plant kisses as he goes. Kisses on my knee, my hip, my thighs, and then at the apex between my legs. His lips are as cold as the rest of him when he plants a kiss on my slit. The feeling is so bizarre and foreign that I jolt. Dotte hushes me, cupping my cheek and turning my face up to her. Her lips are plush and soft when she kisses me, her tongue dragging across my bottom lip. I start sobbing at the taste of my husband’s blood, muffled cries swallowed up by a stranger’s kiss. Another set of eyes takes Remmick’s place in the rocking chair. I’m afforded a glimpse when Dotte starts trailing kisses down the side of my neck. It's the man who chased me through the woods last year, looking smug as he reclines, taking in the sorry sight I must make. 

I start panicking in earnest when I feel a tongue part my folds, tasting me slowly. Dotte calms me with her kisses again, this time slipping her tongue past my teeth to get a taste of my fear that’s beginning to turn into something else, something I’m afraid to name.

He takes his time, lapping slowly, the flat of his tongue trailing across every inch of me. I can feel the split of his tongue flick against every nerve ending, my thighs trembling on either side of his head. Another woman joins us, stroking a pale hand up the inside of the thigh Dotte hasn’t claimed, taking the limb from Remmick’s grasp so she can hold me open for him. She curls into my other side, smiling over me at Dotte. She, like the woman stealing my kisses, is breathtaking. They all are. Every person Remmick claims is beautiful. All the better to catch his prey. He must think I’m beautiful, too, with how badly he wants me to join him. He tells me so often, calling me pretty girl every other sentence. There’s an icy jolt in my chest, jealousy, maybe. Did he call these women that, too? How many did he seduce to grow his menagerie? I’m angry and hurt and terrified, made all the more overwhelming by the kindness these women show me. The redhead at my thigh strokes softly across my leg, smiling up at me like I hung the stars in the sky, like I’m something extraordinary. Dotte, too, touches me like I mean something. And Remmick, God, Remmick, he’s doing things I never realised where possible. His tongue dips into my entrance, savoring me. I gasp and writhe under their hands, and Dotte pants into my mouth. Remmicks hands wind under my thighs, too long fingers anchoring my hips to a hungry mouth, making little cuts along the flesh where his claws find purchase. He groans into me, drowning out the sound of my husband’s last breaths. 

Dotte nuzzles her nose against mine, a habit all of Remmick’s disciples seem to possess. “You’re so beautiful like this.”

Murmurs of agreement sound around the room, all disembodied, breathless voices become a cacophony of moans. I sniffle, panting and aching. 

“Remmick-” Dotte hushes me, placing a delicate kiss on the tip of my nose, green eyes looking deep into mine. 

“Just let us please you, cuisle.” The redhead speaks. There’s that word again, foreign even in her sweet tone. “You’ve gone too long without knowing what real love can feel like. Let us show you.”

Around us, more pleas drift into the empty air, and below us, Remmick starts feasting on me in earnest. It’s messy and rough, sharp teeth catching on my folds, and when I yelp and jerk in his grasp, the redhead plants a kiss on the side of my head and Dotte reassures me that he is so sorry. I believe her, he’s part of her now, forever embedded in her brain like some sort of parasite. I could be like that too, if only I wasn’t so stubborn. It would feel good, wouldn’t it? No more nights waiting for someone to warm the other side of the bed. No more loneliness when I’ve got a dozen brothers and sisters in my mind telling me I’m loved. I am loved by them, I know it because the redhead murmurs it into the column of my throat before she dips down to plant kisses across my breast. 

I should just give in, and it's all I can think when the pleasure overwhelms me, whining like I'm dying, which I very well may be, into Dotte’s shoulder. She giggles, her laugh as pretty as the rest of her. 

“That’s it, my love.” She sighs, stroking my cheek. “Let go for us.”

And so I do. It hits me like lightning, pleasure turning to pain and then back to pleasure as Remmick refuses to let up. He doesn’t relent, and I’m on the precipice of another when he finally pulls away. His hair is a mess, his jaw soaked and dripping, the front of his shirt too. The man dying in the bed draws his attention with a sound that could be my name.

“Kill him,” Remmick says, and I know it's for my benefit, because he could just want it and the rest of them would fall on him like a pack of wolves. He wants me to know that death is coming, he wants to smell my husband’s fear in the air when he realizes he’s about to die. 

Remmick strips slowly, making sure I’m watching every moment as he undoes every button of the threadbare shirt he’s wearing, and once that's gone, he takes the hem of the undershirt he's wearing and pulls it up to wipe the slick dripping off his face. He wipes it away, never taking his eyes off me. There’s appreciation there as he takes stock of the mess I’ve become. By the time he’s taken the undershirt off too and begins working on his belt, there’s something new pooling in the corner of his mouth, and I realise he’s drooling. 

“You alright, pretty girl?” He asks like I have the breath to answer as he crawls between my open thighs, now as bare as the rest of us.

“She’s perfect,” The redhead sighs, taking my nipple in her mouth. Agreements ring around the room.

He’s grinning, “You gonna beg me to take you yet, or do you want me to make you cum again first?”

He lets me catch my breath for a few moments and I’m snarling at him. “Again? Didn’t even do it the first time.”

There’s amusement in his eyes as he lowers himself, gently bumping my forehead with his. “I could feel you clenching down on my tongue, sweet thing. I can hear you whining my name at night when you’re dreaming about me, too.”

Dotte giggles again, because she enjoys everything about this and about me. “Our little liar, ain’t she?”

The room answers her with agreements and moans. I can hear the slick sounds of pleasure all around me, but my eyes haven’t adjusted to the light enough for me to see. I can guess what they’re doing. 

I feel Remmick, hard and heavy resting against my stomach. I don’t look down, scared to see whatever kind of tumorous cock rests between a demon’s legs. His lips catch mine for the first time, and I can taste myself on his lips. His hand comes up, mindful not to catch me on his claws as he pinches my cheeks with one hand, parting my lips. My mouth floods with the taste of him and of me too, I suppose. He’s drooling thick slobber down my throat, his tongue exploring every inch of my mouth. He groans, hips grinding down into mine, making me gasp when his length meets my oversensitive skin. 

“You taste so sweet, baby.” Dotte coos, planting a kiss just beside Remmick’s fingers on my cheek.

I feel the head of him catch against my folds, sliding easily with my arousal. 

“Just ask,” The redhead pulls away from my breast long enough to sigh against my skin. “All you have to do is ask and he’ll make you ours. Wouldn’t that be nice? You could have this every night, be ours forever and ever.”

I choke when the head catches against my entrance, splitting me with an aching dread. Nothing could have prepared me for this. No matter how many times I peaked on his tongue, no matter how many times my husband had me, nothing could make me ready for this. 

I make it known, crying out against his lips. “Stop! Please. Please I can’t.”

I take refuge in Dotte’s neck, shaking like a leaf. 

“It’s alright, sweet girl. Let us help.” The red woman releases my nipple, moving beside me so that her lips brush against the shell of my ear as Dotte’s hand smooths over my breast, down my stomach, and finally between my legs. 

“‘ts okay, baby.” Remmick promises, “We got you.”

His hips shift back, pulling away so that Dotte’s fingers can stroke gently through my folds. Her thumb rubs little circles over my clit as her fingers slide inside. After Remmick, two of her delicate fingers feel like a blessing. His tongue trails across my chest, soaking me as his saliva mixes with my sweat. She crooks her fingers, shifting so that the other woman’s hand can come down to toy with my clit. The women work in tandem, stretching me slowly, as kindly as they can, as Remmick claims my lips again.

“It feels good, baby?” He asks, kissing at the corner of my mouth.

I answer him with a moan, turning so that I can catch his lips in earnest. He snarls like a wild animal, releasing my face so he can brace one arm on my headboard as I wrap my arms around his shoulders and pull him into me. The women on either side of me offer sweet words of encouragement as I come undone by their hands. 

Remmick groans, whining and just as desperate as I am, pleading with a shaking voice. “C’mon, you can give me another one, can’t you?” 

It doesn’t matter if I can or can’t, because the redhead is certain that I can. Tears are gathering in my eyes when she’s proven right and I gush around Dotte’s fingers.

“Can’t wait any longer, pretty girl.” He pleads, head thrown back as he can feel the phantom of me on his fingers.

“Please,” I pant against his throat.

“You can do better, my love.” The redhead insists, “Please, for us? We wanna hear what pretty sounds you can make.”

I answer her, praying to the god that is him, them, on the altar that they’ve made of my bed. I’m a willing human sacrifice and I’m all his. “Remmick, please, I’ll do anything. Oh my god, please!”

It’s a strange thing, when you realize you’re about to die. There’s a small moment where your body goes cold on the surface and starts leeching down into the rest of you, like it knows your time is up before your brain does. 

Dotte giggles, pulling her fingers from me with a slick pop. Whispering in my ear about how well I’ve done and how good I am. The room echoes with joy as Remmick pulls back to look me in the eye. 

“You’ll make it worth my while, won’t you?” He plants a quick kiss on my lips before he trails them along the spot where my pulse jumps on the side of my neck.  “Beg real pretty, bat those eyes, and make all sorts of promises?”

“Deal,” He hasn’t tricked me, and I need him to know that. I want them all to know that I walked into this with my whole heart. I need him to know I chose this. That I chose him.

He hisses, hips jerking forward as Dotte brings him to my entrance. In an instant I’m filled to the brim and his teeth are sinking into my neck. He’s thrusting sloppily, experiencing this moment through a dozen different eyes, feeling phantoms of me gushing over his fingertips as the redhead begins circling my clit again.

“So good fer me, sweetheart,” He slurs, his mouth full of my flesh, fucking me in earnest. “So perfect.”

The praise, their hands, the teeth sinking deeper and deeper, it’s all too much. 

“I’m scared.” I say through gasps, teary eyed and shaking as Dotte hikes my thigh higher up, letting him find the deepest parts of me.

“Noooo, pretty baby,” Dotte round lips offer promises, “We’re right here. We’ve got you.”

Little specks of black creep across the ceiling and before I can stop them, my eyes squeeze shut. The last thing I feel before the devil claims my soul is the feel of his teeth tearing clean through my shoulder and his cock twitching inside me. 

[justagirlincaptivity]

I dont CARE if its a run on sentence. the commas stop when my heart tells me its enough

[justagirlincaptivity]

I just started writing a new series and I need a beta reader if anyone would like to help out :)