shipping a consensual, safe & sane pairing all the while i'm shaking my head in disapproval so the audience knows i still love wildly toxic abusive fictional dynamics
My Lamb And Martyr (Ettore x Female!Reader) one shot
a/n: my growing obsession with Ewan Mitchell culminated in the worst possible one of his characters. clap if you're surprised. anyways i have a very high fever and i did not proof read this so... enjoy
Warnings: Non-Con (like really, be warned, be safe), just pure Smut with little to no plot, this one's rough i'm not even gonna lie. Cross-Posted on AO3.
Summary: The sprinklers in the greenhouse need to be turned on manually. All five of them. You treat it as your own, personal mission, and Ettore... He likes to watch. Until he doesn't just watch anymore.
MASTERLIST
"And you have to turn on those sprinklers individually? I thought we were living in the future..."
That was the first time he's heard your voice. A quiet murmur almost swallowed up by the constant hum of the ship's machinery, tinged by something Ettore could only describe as a hopeless disdain. You've volunteered to help out in the garden some months into living on the ship, content to spend your hours with your hands dirty from soil. And Ettore didn't give a shit about all that, not really. Sure, he enjoyed the illusion of a fresh strawberry mixed in with the usual porridge. Who wouldn't, after two and a half years stuck inside a metal box hurling through space? He didn't care about the specifics of how that strawberry got there, however. So then, why was he so interested in the garden?
You. It all came back to you in the end.
You were quiet, almost unnaturally so. In all of two years he's heard you talk maybe a handful of times, never more than a few words in passing. A stray greeting here, a hum of acknowledgement there. Never a full sentence, not to mention any genuine human emotion bleeding through. Nothing. Like a pillar of salt, you'd slide through the corridors of the spaceship, a ghost more than a tangible human woman. Leaving behind a trail of scent he couldn't help but follow.
It made him feel less than a person, and more like a rabid dog being held on a very tight leash.
A leash held in the hands of none other, than Digs. She shielded you from the very start, treating you like a piece of decoration in her stuffy lab. Many times he's found her, petting your hair with a tenderness only a failed mother could give, whispering to the soft swell of your stomach like it held all the secrets of the universe. "My little desert", she called you. He's heard it in passing, through the thin material of the curtain, shielding his none existing dignity from any lingering gazes.
And that's what you were, to the very core of your being, weren't you. A barren desert, where no life could grow. Such a shame, really, in Etorre's eyes you looked the most like a perfect mother. With hips wide enough to house a host of new doomed astronauts, and tits heavy enough to fall to the sides, whenever you laid down on one of the bunk beds. And yet, despite that, you were completely untouchable, like some unattainable icon of a chubby Virgin Mary.
He's lost count how many times the image of you brought him to completion in the cold, sterile interior of the Box.
And then, suddenly and without mercy, there you were. No longer a memory of a person, but a real thing, a woman of flesh and blood, who talked. Actually talked.
He soaked in the tone of your voice like a man starved.
The slight uptake at the end, like you couldn't quite believe this miracle of scientific human endeavor would require something so base, so repetitive, as manually pushing the buttons, one by one. The irritation, mixed in with a hopeless acceptance everyone on the ship knew deeply, to the very core of their being. Two years stuck, hurling through space towards a black hole, that would devour them all, and this is your task. Putting the sprinklers on. Spending minutes out of the rest of your life on such a mundane task, which by all means should've been attributed to a machine, just like every other aspect of this ship.
Their lives depended on lines of code, on mechanisms, and yet...
Every day, after the arduous task of being alive lulled the rest to sleep, you'd slip down the ladder, towards the greenhouse. And every day, like a shadow, Ettore would follow.
The sedatives flowed in his blood, slowing it to a steady pump, each heartbeat feeling like a task rather than a subconscious part of life. Despite that, he chose those exact moments. He chose to spend them lurking behind the tightly locked tarp, where the blurry outline of your body was visible through the translucent white. Crouched down between the greenery. Every single time, without fail, his muscles would jump, at the sound of the sprinklers being turned on. A miniscule reaction he couldn't quite get rid of.
Each time the valves released the pressurized, recycled water, his pulse jumped, and he knew why.
It was the closest he'd ever get. To the anticipation before the sweetest of shocks, to you, so warm and human, and always just out of reach. He didn't know when his brain twisted such a mundane situation into something so utterly erotic. He didn't remember the first time his hand drifted past the worn out elastic of his shorts. All he knew, is that the Box couldn't quite offer what he was seeking, it's cold, clinical interior built for quick releases. For collecting data, samples. Not for this. The thrill of waiting, poised in the shadows, so close to being found out, and yet so far away.
The anticipation carried him through the two years like an unwelcome guest, at the same time being his most trusted companion. It was just your shit luck, you've been the one tending to the garden. That it was the curve of your body in particular, barely visible through the tarp. Because really, it could've been any woman. Given Dibs' dedication to her experiments, the indulgence mixed with the utter abstinence, any woman would do the trick.
But you weren't any woman, were you? You were the most prized possession, forever stuck in limbo of being useless to the research, while being irreplaceable to Dibs' obsessive attentions.
Softer, so much softer than the others. Despite the food rations and the constant labor, there was just so much of you. Flesh, plush and gentle, hidden from him under the ordained grey scrubs. He knew it was there, though. Oh, he knew that with utmost certainty. The way it pulled on the fabric when you moved, the slight jiggle of your arms, when you reached for something, the soft slope of your jaw connecting to your throat.
One, two, three, four.
The forth sprinkler was his que to leave. Like clockwork.
There were five in total, and you always breezed by the last two. It gave him just enough time to gather his bearings, to stuff himself back in his pants and put on the veneer of self-assured indifference he wore so well around others. It should've made him content, this momentary one-sided connection, but Ettore was a pusher. He was a taker.
And if anything, wasn't Dibs supposed to be this high and mighty doctor? Wasn't she supposed to know, that people exposed to an element eventually build tolerance to it?
Droplets of mist from the sprinkles cover your skin with dew.
It feels like heaven. Feels like an illusion of home you would never part with willingly. At first, your greenhouse duty seemed like a chore, something to follow through with quickly, then slip back into the bone crushing boredom of the ship. Of waiting, whether for the black hole, or for the moment Dibs' experiments finally take root. And you waited, because there was simply nothing else to do.
First few weeks, you did try to fight it, just as the rest of your female crew members, although the description could be considered a bit too generous. You stuck water bottles into yourself, you squeezed your thighs, you bit, you screeched. You cursed every being in existence. But as time wore on, so did your resilience. And then, the revelation hidden within your files came, crushing down like a hand of a particularly vengeful god.
And you became useless. A mouth to feed, a back to clothe, with no real purpose, other than existing until the black hole would swallow you all.
Which is why, you were grateful for those stolen moments, between each press of the button, between each valve releasing pressurized, water from the sprinkles. Those were the pockets of time, where you could pretend to be something else, somewhere else. Where you could give a part of yourself, and watch something else take root, grow.
You were aware of him watching you. His footsteps, however light he tried to keep them, followed you whenever you descended the ladder to the lower regions of the ship. Past that hellish Box, right to your sanctuary of green and water. Where the air was sticky, smelling of earth and vegetation, a scent that clung to you like second skin.
Ettore scared you.
Not many people did, but there was something about those unmoving, shark-like eyes of his, that made your skin crawl. You didn't know the extent of his crimes, no one really knew those parts of each crew member files, but you had a pretty good feeling you could guess. His tells were subtle, but they were enough. Lines of white scars down his arms, his shoulders, visible under the artificial light, when he turned just right. The small indents of teeth left by some poor soul on the juncture between his thumb and his index finger, on his throat. You've seen it all, you've always been good at picking up things like that.
And most importantly, you've heard him.
Many times, as you pushed by the Box, to get to the greenhouse, you'd hear him inside. The words he spoke, brutal and cutting, the snarls, the...
You know a slaughterhouse, when you see it, no matter what package it is wrapped in.
You were always unlucky like that.
Just like you are now, with water dripping down your hair, soaking into the thin material of your shirt. There's a nagging feeling at the back of your neck, like something bad is about to happen, but you ignore it, against your better judgement. The sedatives coursing through your bloodstream making you feel sluggish, tempering with your otherwise sharp senses.
So, when your hand presses the last, fifth button of the sprinklers, when you turn around, you barely react.
There he is, tall and broad, standing just outside the thin layer of plastic film, the only barrier between him and the inside of the greenhouse. Between you. You can see him move, slowly, like he has all the time in the world and truthfully he has. All of you do, this is the rest of your lives after all. Even through the foggy whiteness of the plastic you can see the unshakable concentration on his face, the furrowing of his brow, the tightness locking his jaw in place. And then your gaze drifts lower, past the exposed plains of his bare chest (more scars, more scratch marks, more teeth), to his right hand. Stuffed into the red of his shorts, working at a pace that could be considered slow torture.
Shuffle... Shuffle... Shuffle...
Your eyes widen, despite yourself, and you take a reflexive step back, bare feet sinking into wet soil.
"Look up" his voice, heavily accented and so, so rough, cuts through the sizzling of the sprinklers.
You refuse, eyes glued firmly to the ground, like it just might save you, if you stare at it hard enough. He drinks you in with a shuddering inhale, his chest expanding under the flickering lights, the whiteness of his skin almost glowing. It's a slow glide, the way he takes in the fabric of your clothes sticking to your body, highlighting the plains and valleys he dreamed about, fantasized about into a frenzy.
God, you look so good like this, shaken out of your usual stupor, with a blush so fierce it's visible through the plastic.
"Don't be a fucking prude" he huffs out, his breath collecting on the translucent film in a cloud of condensation "Look up at me, and I'll go. I promise."
He's such a god-damned liar. You have half the mind to yell at him. To demand he goes back to the Box if he needs this so much. Hell, threaten him with retribution from Dibs, even if the words would feel like bile on your tongue. But all that comes out of your mouth is a choked sound, some word half-formed and pathetically weak. He laughs in your face, sharp and mocking, making your insides curl in on themselves.
His hand speeds up beneath his shorts, and he lets out another huff, like the air is being punched out of his lungs. You knew what he was, you always knew but you couldn't quite put your finger on it, could you? And now, here you are, stuck with a man who seems to thrive on the sound of your fear.
A startled yelp pushes past your lips, as his free hand collides with the metal framing of the greenhouse. The entire skeleton shakes from the impact, and finally that forces you to look up, to confront this beast of a man head on. He groans, actually groans, as your eyes meet, his hand stuttering in its movements.
"There you are" he murmurs, blunt nails raking down the plastic film, the tarp offering little give under his touch "Good. Don't look away."
Your eyes dart around the greenhouse, searching for a means of escape you know doesn't exist. It just makes him laugh some more, the sound fizzling out into a shuddering moan, as he tugs at himself roughly. You can hear him, hear the material shuffling rhythmically over the sound of the sprinklers. Heat, bold and treacherous, rises within your body, spreading through every limb, coiling deep within your stomach. Every beat of your racing heart is like a thunderstorm in your ears. Every twitch of your muscles, like a coil of snakes beneath your skin.
Ettore slams his hand against the metal once more, harder this time, just so he can see you jump.
"Stop looking at the god-damned walls, and look at me" he demands,
"Go fuck yourse-"
The scalding words die down on your tongue, as suddenly he rips his hand away from his shorts, fingers glistening with the evidence of the depth of his desire.
He's a pusher. He's a taker. He's violent.
The lights flash blue, once, twice, and the sprinklers die down with a mechanical click, leaving you soaking and shivering among the vegetation. You blame them, blame the sudden overwhelming quiet, for what happens next.
Ettore discards all pretense with a snarl, hand ripping at the zipper attop of the metal bars. The plastic tarp falls away, the flimsy excuse of a barrier between the two of you dissipating like a magicians curse. Mist flows out, falling in heavy clouds onto the metal floor of the ship, connecting the threshold of your sanctuary with the animal stuck outside. No longer on a leash, no longer contained.
For a moment, neither of you dare to breathe, simply watching with something akin to wonder, as water curls around his legs, slow, gentle. And then, the atmosphere shifts, from what once was a tense observation, into a raw, unshielded confrontation. The muscle in his jaw twitches.
You're the first to move. A sharp pang of pure, unadulterated fear shooting up your spine, as you bolt forward, kicking up the soaked earth. Freedom is just out of reach, just past the bulk of his shoulders, and while you've felt desperation many times in your life, it all pales in comparison to the sheer force of what comes crushing through your system. No sedative can truly dim the bone deep instinct of flight, because fight is immediately thrown out of question, considering his sheer size.
The attempt, as commendable as it might've been, is futile. Ettore is faster, way too fast not to catch you. His hand digs into the fat of your upper arm, sinking into it like a stress ball. He uses your momentum against you, redirecting you straight into the side of the greenhouse with a forceful tug. You back hits the metal with a dull thud, air escaping your lungs in a punched out gasp, as the back of your head collides with the wall. Your vision swims, specks of white flashing in front of your eyes like little reflectors, soon to be swallowed by the image of his face.
His eyes are almost completely black, with a thin ring of cold blue around the irises that seem to swallow you whole. Ettore presses his body into you, crushing all hopes of escape between his grinding teeth.
"Where are you going, hm?" his breath warms the skin of your throat, as he pushes his face closer, until he can smell the scent of you mixed in with traces of ozone, of wet dirt. "Where the fuck do you think you're going?"
"Get the fuck off of me" your voice trembles, hands coming up to his forearms, adding new lines of red fingernail tracks, next to the fading white lines of his previous conquests.
Ghosts of another life, now joined by your struggle.
The weak drag of your nails feels pathetic to him, he's seen worse, felt much more fight from others. Still, the way your eyes widen, your pulse jumping wildly under the skin of your neck, makes a deep, depraved heat coil tightly in the deepest parts of him. When was the last time, he's felt such a high? When was the last time he's crossed a line so finite?
"Make me" he grinds out, hands moving over your body with a violent sort of finality.
He doesn't tease, he doesn't caress. Ettore is a pusher. He's a taker.
"So soft" his hands dig into the swell of your hips, testing the give, pushing it to its limits "All that fight, and you're just... Fucking soft."
You let out a sound stuck between a groan and a gasp, as he angles his hips into you, pressing the hard ridge of his cock into the plushness of your stomach. He's determined to make you feel it, to make you acknowledge the starving desperation of a beast forced to be nothing but a number for far too long. Forced to watch you, always from afar, but not anymore.
His hands are everywhere, all at once. Catching on the heavy swells of your breasts, palms digging into flesh through the flimsy fabric of your soaked shirt. He feels the staccato rhythm of your heart under his groping fingers, and he knows with utmost certainty he needs to consume it, needs to feel it on every part of his body. Each whimper, each uncoordinated attempt at pushing him away makes something ugly twist inside his chest. With a rough drag of his palms, he pushes against your stomach, groaning from deep within his chest at the way your flesh gives way to his ministrations.
"God... All this..." he grumbles, one arm sneaking around your trembling back, just to grab a handful of your plush behind, marveling at the way it jiggles under the weight of his touch.
Finally, his other hand sneaks lower, forcing itself between your legs with single-minded focus. His fingers curl into the heat, nails scratching over the rough material of your pants in an attempt to push inside, despite the barrier.
"Fuck..." his grip tightens to the point of pain, palm digging into the soft swell of your mound "You're fucking soaked."
No. No you're not. You can't be.
Your brain reels inside your skull, coming up with a million of excuses, trying to make sense of your body's treacherous response to his violence. The isolation, the cold, clinical walls of the Box, the way you haven't been touched like this by anyone, in two fucking years. It all comes to a screeching stop, when he drags his clothed cock over your thigh, like he wants to somehow fuck the very essence of you.
"Tell me you don't want this. Tell you're not wet for me, you little liar."
"I'm not- ah!" your words are cut off with a sharp yelp, as his hand connects with the flesh of your right breast in a rough slap.
The sting is immediate, heat blooming from the impact point, leaving your skin a deep throbbing red. His hand presses into the marked flesh, as if he wants to prolong the discomfort, as if he wants you to keep feeling him, no matter the cost.
"You're body's telling another fucking story" his voice is barely coherent, a lust-filled rasp that causes an onslaught of shivers to tumble up your spine.
Tears sting the corner of your eyes, as once more, you try to wriggle free out of his grasp. And ultimately it's your tears that are the undoing. He sees them, filling the space between your eyeballs and your bottom lashes, the moisture catching in the flickering blue lights, painting them into something tragically beautiful. A deep, dark sense of satisfaction twists inside his core, and as the first salty drop falls onto your cheek, his mouth follows. He sucks in the moisture, tongue pressing flat against the trembling skin of your face, and a sense of helplessness falls to the pit of your stomach, like a ten tonne boulder.
He was making you feel something. After two and a half years of numbness, of sedation, of being treated like a glorified lab rat, a number on a spread sheet... He was making you feel. The realization might be worse than any violation to come.
Ettore's hips drive upwards, the hard ridge of his cock dragging into you with grinding insistence through the barrier of your monochrome clothing. His hands grab onto your ass more firmly, lifting you just a bit more, just so he can push in closer, seeking heat, seeking the snug fit he's been craving for years. The friction is bringing him to the brink of madness, teasing him with what he so desperately needs. So close to it, yet still so far away.
He needs to bruise you. He needs to leave some evidence of his touch, something that would remind him he's been here. That for this small moment, you've existed only for him. Not for Dibs and her twisted fascination with the wreckage that is your womb, but for him.
"You're going to remember this." he says, voice dipping low, as his nose drags up the curve of your neck, his tongue following close behind, lapping at the water from the sprinklers "Every time you walk past me like a fucking ghost."
His hips snap up, the give of your stomach, the plushness of your thighs making his vision turn white and unfocused around the edges.
"Every time you smell your own cunt. You'll remember I've had you first."
You can't help but shiver, harsh and violent at the sheer, dripping amount of lust in his voice, you chest heaving with a choked sob. It's not a delicate sound of pleasure, but a primordial noise of something much older, much more overwhelming, and the way it bounces off the metal walls of the ship drives him into a frenzy. All of a sudden he's done with it all, the barrier of fabric, the pretend laws keeping this ship from collapsing in on itself. Damn the consequences, damn the wrath that will surely descent upon him soon after. All that matters is here, and now, and- God, you're so fucking warm.
In a flurry of motion, his hands grip the collar of your shirt, fingers curling into the wet fabric, and then, he tugs with violent efficiency. The material strains for only a moment, followed by a harsh tear, the seams giving way. And then, it's skin. Hot, smooth, pebbled with goosebumps rapidly raising at the recycled flow of air inside the room.
"Stop it, or I'll give you a real reason to cry about." Ettore murmurs, his voice less of a comfort and more of a command, a hissed instruction to endure.
He doesn't wait, he can't wait. Not when you're here, all round and ready for the taking. He moves to your waist, palms dragging to the waistband of your trousers, yanking it down past the swell of your hips with a sharp movement, which causes your entire body to lurch against the cold metal wall.
The sight is simply too much.
The flickering blue light catches on every detail. From the beautiful heavy breasts, shaking with each inhale. The stiff peaks of your nipples, finally exposed to his hungry gaze. The reddened marks his previously rough handling left on your skin. And oh, the thick patch of curls at the juncture of your thighs, making you look like some beautiful, ancient painting. You're so soft, so utterly broken, staring at him with those big, wet eyes, and with a sound that is almost a sob of relief, he dives in.
He doesn't care anymore, not about the crew, not about the experiments, not about the cold vacuum of space, which will end in the nothingness of the black hole awaiting for them like an open maw of a monster. All he cares about, is the warm body in front of him. One he's determined to make welcoming.
Once more, your head thuds against the wall, as he pushes you into it, ignoring the startled sounds of protest. New lines cut through his skin, red against white, as you push weakly against his chest. Ettore kicks off his shorts with a clumsy sort of desperation, adrenaline pumping through his veins, dimming any traces of sedatives, boiling them straight out of his bloodstream. He's hard, harder than anytime before on this godforsaken ship, his head pounding with a deep need that threatens to split his mind in two.
Your stomach lurches, as he uses his brute strength to haul your leg around his hip, forcing you to part, to accommodate him. The sharp edges of his bones find their place between your trembling thighs, sinking into them with a groan you feel reverberating through the very essence of your bones.
Without a moment's hesitation, he drives himself forward, not to slide in, but to impale. A single, unshakable thrust that forces his entire length into your heat. Your eyes widen, tears spilling down your cheeks, to the corners of your mouth, which open in a silent scream. The sensation is like two tectonic plates finally colliding. He feels the resistance of your under-prepared body give way, muscles gripping him like a vacuum, with an intensity, that makes his knees buckle under him.
Something tears out of his throat, a groan so jagged around the edges it feels like a knife in your eardrums. You can barely hear it through the rush of blood thundering through your skull, but you can feel the rumble of it vibrating through his chest. You can feel it all.
Ettore tries to brace himself on the wall, his hands scrambling for purchase against the cold metal, his chest heaving against your breasts in sharp bursts of air. The feeling of you, of the tight, white-hot muscles spasming around him is like an electric shock to his senses. He doesn't pull away, he simply can't, for a moment content with simply savoring the feeling. The scent of your skin, the droplets of water cooling on your shoulders, and the headiness of sweat joining the ozone sizzling around them.
"Feel it" his voice comes out strangled, almost to the point of pain, his hips stuttering into a deep grind, trying to get deeper "Feel us."
Then, finally, he begins to move, slow and so, so heavy.
Every drag of his hardness within you pulls a guttural sound from the deepest part of you, and he treats them like the sweetest of victories. Years, fucking years spent chasing the smallest sounds of your voice, and finally, he has it, right in his ear. And so beautifully broken at that.
Ettore doesn't flinch, when your nails find the skin of his back. Instead he leans into the stinging sensation, his mouth twitching into a lopsided grin that tapers into an open-mouthed moan. He needs it, he needs the proof that this isn't some illusion the Box has conjured up, a tangible evidence that despite her otherworldly presence, she's real as well. She's still here, she's still fighting.
"That's it" he hisses through clenched teeth, voiced wrecked beyond recognition "Tear me apart... Please..."
"I fucking hate you"
What you initially hoped would sound like a crack of thunder, slides into a broken whine, when he angles his hips, driving into you with a squelch that betrays just how much your body has been craving touch. Any touch.
"Hate me then. Hate me until it burns."
His mouth descends upon the tight line of your throat, all teeth and no gentleness left. And just like that, the fight spills out of you like a broken faucet, leaving you drowning in him, in the flickering blue lights of the ship.
"Come on, tell me just how much you fucking hate me."
He can't find it in himself to lie, he knows you hate it, it's evident in the tight line of your tensing spine, in the rhythmic fluttering of your inner muscles, that still seem unsure whether they want to push him out, or suck him in completely. But every whimper, every new spurt of resistance feels more real than anything else on the ship, and he can't possibly let go of the feeling. It doesn't matter where it comes from, what the real source is, he just needs some reprieve from the suffocating dullness. He needs a vessel, to pound all the years of rage and isolation into.
He's a pusher. He's a taker. And he needs to be deeper.
His arms lock around your body, muscles bulging out under his skin, as he lifts you into his grip, until your legs scramble on the cold metal floor. The artificial gravity aids him in the cruelest of ways, and he tilts his pelvis upwards, seeking a deeper path, made to invade, to sink into the very core of your soul. When he does, digging those last, throbbing inches into you, something breaks within him.
The world vanishes from the edges of his vision, a sharp pang of shivers stabbing him through the spine, as he finds his release. He's quiet while it happens, his entire body going rigid, but not a sound breaks out of him. He clings to you, like he wants to climb inside and live within your skin, like the answers to all his questions are hidden within you.
And then he sighs. Deep, shaking from the intensity of his release, warming the clammy skin of your shoulder.
You can still feel him, wedged inside, pulsing with years spent on imagining. By all means you should feel disgusted, by the way he drips down your thigh, by what just transpired. But all you can feel is the most terrifying of longing, the treacherous need for human connection, no matter how volatile.
"You're still breathing" he says, his voice breaking around the edges, as if this simple observation is meant to bring them both back, keep them from floating away into the ceiling.
"Am I?"
You don't recognize your own voice the way it scratches at your throat, coming out in a jagged rasp. The muscles of your stomach jump involuntarily, as his hand drifts over them, no longer meant to grab and squeeze, but a gentle pass over your skin.
"You are." he confirms, his other hand pushing the wet strands of hair from your face "Cause you never know when to fucking quit, do you?"
He groans, spent, but still unable to pull out, as you flutter around him. An involuntary spasm that curls low within your stomach. It feels like fire, like molten lava being pushed through your bloodstream.
"Does it hurt?" he asks, not bothering with faking concern "Being filled by me?"
"Yes- ah..." you answer fizzles out into a moan, when he shifts, just slightly, just to remind you he's still there.
Your eyes roll to the back of your skull, thighs shaking around his hips.
"Yes?" he echoes, pushing his face into the crook of your neck, where your pulse jumps and stutters. "You don't look hurt to me"
No one knows, how long you stay like this, stuck in a limbo of two bodies settling after a collision akin to a car crash. Minutes, maybe hours, maybe entire centuries pass before you finally disconnect. After that, Ettore doesn't linger. He doesn't help you to your room, doesn't check on the bruises. He just leaves, slipping out of the greenhouse, like waking up from a dream neither of you were supposed to indulge in.
He's a pusher. He's a taker. And you've got so much to give.
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🌐 Platform: AO3
📅 Last Updated: 15 Mar 2026
📊 Status: Incomplete - 12 Chapters | 48,979 words
✨ Status info reflects the fic at the time I wrote this rec. Always check AO3 for the latest chapters!
💞 Relationships (as tagged by author):
The Homelander | John/You, The Homelander | John & You
❗️Rating | Warnings:
Explicit | Canon Compliant Violence, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Dubious Consent, Possessive Behavior, Power Imbalance, Threats of Violence, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Canon Compliant, Sexual Tension, so many boners, Stalking, Unhealthy Relationships, Masturbation, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Cigarettes, Vaginal Fingering, Non-Consensual Touching, Non-Consensual Kissing, Extremely Dubious Consent, Psychological Trauma, Homelander is his own warning with blaring hazard lights and waving red flags
//This is The Boys so this fic contains intensely dark content that may be psychologically disturbing. Please check AO3 for the full list of tags!
✨️ Tropes & Themes:
Reader-Insert, Reader is a supe, Mentor/Protégé, Workplace relationship, plus size reader, Sexual Tension, Aftercare
📋 Official Fic Summary:
Sidekick projects have been scraped completely after numerous accidents, but as a viral video of your hero work makes rounds through the public, you're forced to take part in a six moths program, that will forever change your life, as well as Homelander's
Title from the song "Vicarious" by Tool.
Edited some tags!!
🔗 Read It Here: Vicarious // Please always read the full AO3 tags list!
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And while I'm on the topic of Ryan's fight with Homelander.... The way Homelander says "my sweet boy" to him is such a creepy detail, given where he knows those words from, what they entail to him. And Ryan, my poor Ryan, finding out on his own skin exactly what it feels like to be at the mercy of his fuckass father. Just like his mother has been...
I am unwell, I don't think I'll ever be well again after that scene
I'm m not even gonna lie, this is the first time I've been so angry at a fictional character. Like at the end of the episode i was actually crying from anger and frustration.
I don't remember the last time I've hated a character as much as I've hated Homelander this episode.
Like, keep Becca Butcher's name out your stupid milk stained mouth. That's it.
