~ My Flesh to Jail My Soul
Pairing: Ronin Beaufort x ftm!reader Rating: M Word Count: 4199 Synopsis: This is your first time staying over at Ronin's place, which means unfortunately for you, you'll have to struggle to do your testosterone shot in his bathroom and hope he doesn't notice. A/N: Do not be Ronin Beaufort. Sanitize. Sanitize. Sanitize.
Content Tags: transgender reader, immoral reader, inferred sexual content, needles, shots, blood, religious imagery, serial killers, t4t
Ronin has a habit of showing up inside your apartment. You'll find him reclining on your couch, lounging in bed, or rooting around your kitchen when you come home from work. The first few times you nearly jumped out of your skin, but now you've gotten used to it.
Now when you get home after a long shift with aching feet, you hope that he'll be inside, ready to complain that your wifi is too slow. Sometimes he goes through your computer for fun: reads your recent searches, newest projects, and sorts through your files.
You learned fast that it's best to let him look. It's not like you have anything to hide; your biggest secret is his biggest secret. Since you started dating in earnest, Ronin has completely changed your computer setup.
He'd laughed his ass off when you told him you didn't know what a VPN was. But now you're a lot more secure and less likely to accidentally leak something important when you save another sunset picture to your sunsets folder.
It's nice to have him around. You're certainly never bored if Ronin is there to entertain you.
This time, however, you're spending the weekend at his place. You've seen some of it in the background of your video calls, but you've never actually been over. Never journeyed into his most private residence.
You're trying to tone down how excited you are about the whole thing, but you're really fucking excited. He gave you the address and told you to text when you got there.
It took a bit more work to find the entrance than you expected. He's in a basement unit, which is already tricky to locate, but the door for it is hidden in a back alley with almost no light. You're pretty sure he didn't come get you just to watch you struggle finding the door. He's probably got a camera in the alley somewhere, too busy laughing to help you.
You flip off the alley in multiple directions just in case and adjust the strap of your backpack as you shoot him a text: I'm here.
No one comes to the door.
Your phone dings: Did you bring food?
As if he didn't already know. There's no way he doesn't have a camera somewhere, even if you can't see it. Glancing down at the bag in your hand, full of the foods the two of you always order, you sigh. It's going to get cold.
Maybe you should flip off his hidden camera again. You text back: Nah, I ate it already.
He doesn't reply, but a moment later the metal door opens and Ronin stands in the doorway. Every time you see him, your heart seems to pick up, stomach filling with moths. The thrill of your first encounter starting up all over again.
He's in a ripped black and white sweater and baggy shorts, hair in disarray around his head. He reaches out and snags the bag from your loose grip. "You're full of shit."
With a grin, you follow him into the low-lit hallway. He snaps the door closed, flipping the three locks. This doesn't seem to be his place but instead a back hallway for the building it's attached to. You pass a door labeled boiler room and then turn the corner to another two doors.
Ronin unlocks one with a key, slipping it back into his pocket. It leads to a stairwell lit with a neon red glow, with music playing from inside.
He looks over his shoulder at you, eyes reflecting the red neon below, "This is the second death, the lake of fire. Welcome to Hell."
Without waiting, he sets down the stairs, and you, like a moth to a flame—as it's been since the beginning—are a magnet to follow. There's an energy to Ronin that started this whole thing for you. Something inescapable.
Joining the server, even knowing your life was in danger. But everyone was so kind in their own way, and it got easier and easier with time to see their views, to discount the lives of others you didn't know. Now you're one of them, not a killer, but certainly complicit.
So you follow, because how could you not follow? He's only a few steps down, waiting for you, stopping to close up the entrance. More locks, even a metal crossbar that slots into place before he heads downward.
The narrow cement stairwell leads into a comfortably warm room. The room you've seen the most. It's set up pretty much like a studio apartment. There's a bed in the corner. His desk setup: four monitors, whatever the fuck he needs that many for. Oh, there's the security footage you knew he had.
There are two camera angles for the alley, one for the hall, and one right outside the door you just passed.
There's more you couldn't see from the webcam: a tiny kitchen area in the corner and a door leading into a bathroom. The room is lit with a mixture of red neon and miscellaneous low lights.
It's incredibly cozy and the warmest basement you've ever been in. You spot the space heater in the corner and drop your backpack to the ground by his desk, immediately reaching for your sweatshirt, pulling it off over your head. You pause once it's off, hovering in uncertainty on where to put it.
Ronin eyes you and snorts, "The fuck you think I am, Mother Mary? Just toss it somewhere."
You gingerly rest it over the back of his computer chair, which gives you a zing. Your things in his space, you in his space. It's still hard to believe that you've ended up here.
It's not where you thought you would end up. Somehow you can't imagine your life anywhere else. It's not like you haven't been alone in a room together. He's been in your home, in your bed. You've been fucked so good you could barely get out of bed the next day.
But there's something about being here in this space knowing that no one else has been. He's told you before he's never let anyone in. The handful of times he's met the others in person, it's always been in a location they all agree to, and back with Angel, he would visit her and not the other way around.
You're going to the next meetup. It's displayed on your calendar in bright red ink, one bold-lined skull. You mark off each day in methodical impatience.
This is special, even if he's playing it off just like you are, in a game of cat and mouse once again. Neither of you is saying what you truly feel. His sweater is cropped short; when he lifts his arms over his head, it reveals a thin line along his stomach.
You forget about the takeout.
With a shuffle, you kick off your shoes, leaving them against the wall before the rest of your clothes are shed. Ronin watches you out of the corner of his eye, feigning neutrality before your boxer briefs are ditched like all the rest.
The two of you could get sappy and talk about how much this means, or you could show him. You walk to his bed, collapsing in the pile of soft blankets and pillows, tossing your arms up over your head in surrender.
He blinks at you, head cocking to the side. His tongue dips out along his bottom lip. You like the way it feels when he stares at you like this, as if he's dissecting every sliver of skin. The scars along your chest, the tattoos you've gotten, and the hair that's started to recently appear on your stomach.
"Impressive," He murmurs.
You spread your legs. "What is?"
Ronin yanks his sweater off. "That the Devil can be tempted."
You wake up to a weight draped over your stomach. Ronin's face is pressed into your arm, face smoothed in sleep, lips slightly parted. He's naked minus the necklace he didn't bother to take off. The blankets kicked off to rest around your feet.
Heating up your place like this would cost more than you can afford, but you like how warm it is. Like you've stepped into a different world. It feels surreal here with all the posters that coat the walls and ceiling, the red glow, and the feeling of Ronin curled against you.
You look up, eyeing some of the posters above you, and get caught on a printed photograph placed among all the others. It's a screenshot from one of your video calls. You, in mid-laugh, leaned back in your computer chair.
He's got a picture of you above his bed. You smile, reaching up a hand to press through his hair. Ronin jerks, eyes snapping open. His body relaxes the moment he realizes what's touched him, and he goes supine again.
"Sorry." You whisper and continue running your hand through his hair.
He groans, stretching out against you like a cat. "S'fine."
Instead of replying, you find yourself looking up at that picture of yourself again. Normally you hate seeing pictures of yourself, never want to look in mirrors or see videos. For some reason this one you don't mind.
There's a sliver of the real you in it.
This is your second month taking testosterone. You know that changes don't happen overnight, but still sometimes you find yourself wishing you had a little more to show for it than a couple stomach hairs and a slight drop in your voice.
But that's greed.
Envy?
You're not envious of Ronin. You don't look at his body and covet it for yourself, not in that kind of way. You covet him; you want to trace your tongue along every groove of his skin, but it's his skin, not yours. It's his changes, his scars, his hair, his voice.
You just want a little more of that for yourself, except you're fucking terrified of the shots. A lifelong phobia of needles means it takes forty-five minutes of nerves to do one ten-minute process. Repeat that every week for the last five weeks.
At this point you've tried all of the simple tricks. Ice, music, wiggling the skin. But when it comes to putting the needle into your skin, your body locks up. You can't do it. In the end you manage it, and there's always more blood than there needs to be, and you're pretty sure all the testosterone leaks out of you anyways.
At least that's how it feels, and the knot in your stomach makes you uncomfortable. And the itching, the fucking itching, is the worst. For days, unbearable itching.
Today is your shot day.
As of right now you have no fucking clue how you're going to manage it in Ronin's bathroom. You don't want him to know you're having a hard time.
There are days when you worry if you show too much weakness, he'll get bored of you. It's not even a worry for your life anymore; if he kills you, so be it. The idea of trying to live without all that you've gained sounds far worse than death.
There's no going back to a normal life after this.
Better to get it over with when he's half asleep; maybe he won't notice how long you spend hiding in his bathroom with your headphones, shaking like a leaf.
Slipping out from beneath him, you grab your underwear and backpack. He doesn't bother to open his eyes, instead only draws one of the blankets up and hides his face in the pillow you left behind.
Readying yourself, you close the bathroom door, flicking the flimsy lock on it. There's also a much fancier lock on this one, but you don't bother with that. Flipping the toilet seat down, you rest your bag against it and pull on your underwear.
There's enough space on the counter to get everything set up, and so you go through each of your practiced motions. Step by step.
Put on your headphones. Start blaring music. Wash your hands. Gather your equipment: testosterone, syringe, draw needle, injection needle, sterile wipe, cotton ball, bandaid. You remove everything from its packaging, neatly stacking it in the plastic container you brought.
All of this is easy. You can do this without shaking.
Next you twist on your draw needle. Use the wipe on the top of the bottle and your stomach. Fill the syringe. 0.3. Flick it to get the air bubbles out. Cap the needle, change needles.
This is the part where it all goes wrong. You sit on the edge of the toilet, feeling the cold porcelain against your thighs. The music is slamming through you, lyrics you know, but your hand is shaking so bad you're worried you'll accidentally stab yourself.
Giving up for a second, you rest your wrist down on your knee. Breathe. Fuck, just breathe. You stay like that in suspended fear for too long.
A barely heard thunk.
You can do this. You can do this.
You hear your name.
Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
With an awkward motion you knock the headphones to your shoulders. Ronin says your name again.
"... yes?"
"You've been in there for like thirty fucking minutes." He complains.
"Sorry. I thought ... you were asleep." You call back aware as you say it that that makes it sound more suspicious.
There's a pause, and you think he might have wandered off back to bed. It's not like you're making an escape; there's no window in here. The doorknob wiggles. "Open the door."
You know that change in his voice; it's lost some of the playful tone. Sharper, higher pitch. A sliver of the grotesque making its way through.
Do it. You need to just fucking do it so you can clean up and pretend you haven't been freaking out this whole time.
Your hand trembles. Do it. Do it. You attempt the injection, and your body panics, pulling the needle back out.
"Son of a bitch," You hiss, tears welling in your eyes. Blood wells in the spot. You're a failure, a coward. A little girl.
The door opens.
Ronin stands in the doorway like a grim reaper. He's got a knife in hand, white-knuckled. He's wearing his shorts, hanging low around bare hips. There's something manic in his eyes—alley eyes.
"Did you call the fucking cops?"
You blink at him, letting the syringe droop to your leg. You stabbed yourself pretty good; the blood is starting to trail downwards, catching in the waistband of your underwear.
"My phone is on your desk," You say.
The thought of calling hadn't even occurred to you. Turning Ronin in would mean giving up everything good. You have no interest in going back to being a miserable, lonely nine-to-five who can never finish a book.
He looks behind him, seeing it there. His shoulders loosen, and then he actually looks at you, at your trembling fingers and wet eyes.
"I've .. I've just been having a hard time," You admit. It feels good to tell him, to be able to tell someone about how hard it's been on you.
There's no one you trust more than Ronin, even if you're terrified he won't be able to swallow your weakness. He's where you go when things get bad, when you want to give up. A quick word, a call, and he's usually around in some way.
If you need him, he shows up even if he doesn't ever admit to it.
He eyes your shaking hands. "Oh darlin'."
You start crying.
Ronin sets the knife on the counter, approaching to sink into a crouch in front of you. He takes the needle from your grip and sets it carefully on the edge of the box you have set up. "You've been going through it, huh?"
Hiding away behind your hands, you nod. You don't want him to see you cry. He's only ever seen you cry once, the day you met. That alleyway. His arms caging you in and tears on your cheeks. Not because you were afraid to die, but because you wanted to live with him by your side.
"I can - I can do it." You hiccup. "Just takes a long time."
The headphones get removed, music drifting up from the floor tiles where he leaves them. His hand comes to the back of your neck, a tight scruff grab grip. You like the firmness of it, the way it grounds you to the world around you. To him.
"You do yours in the stomach?" He asks.
All you can manage is a shaking nod.
He pulls your hands from your face, locking his grip around your wrists. Tight enough that it aches. "And why are you hiding this shit from me? You think the Devil can't handle a little blood?"
When it comes to putting your weaknesses out in the world, you make an attempt not to do it. To never reveal your hand. Always terrified that today will be the last of the good old days.
But you never tell him that. You hide it away.
I love you is one thing. I would be nothing without you is another.
Maybe you should; maybe you should rip off the band-aid. Last night was lovely. Surrounded by him in the warmth of his hearth and heart. Fingers to your pulse, hips to your hips, lips on your throat, and dirty nothings in your ears.
You felt so special beneath his fingertips. This would be a beautiful place to die.
Ronin quiets when he looks you in the eye. Maybe he sees where your mind has taken you, to the half surrender. To giving into the void.
"I think I'm not nearly interesting enough to keep the attention of the first Trickster. I'm a coward."
Ronin giggles. He sinks to his knees, settling down onto his ankles as he continues to laugh. "You know - heh - you know what you did last night?"
You shrug, not sure where he's going with this.
"Okay, okay." He wraps his hands around the plush of your waist, digging his fingers into your skin. "You're writing a book, googling all sorts of fun little details. How to dispose of a body. How much blood can someone lose? Blood loss symptoms."
Ronin snorts. Another giggle.
"And then you join a dark web server full of actual fuckin' serial killers. Any sane person leaves, makes a run for it, and tells the cops. You stay. You stay for months. You fall in love~ with the Devil himself. A butcher, The Butcher. You come out to meet him. You get the chance to stab him, and instead you stick your pretty little tongue in his mouth."
He reaches out, pressing a thumb into your mouth. You give in, letting him part your lips. "This tongue." He murmurs, touching the tip of your tongue until you taste the salt of his finger.
"You let a man with a body count in the dozens take you home. You let him into your house. You let him rail you for hours~." Ronin smiles, bright as summer sunshine. "And then you stay in that server. You stay with that killer. You come into his sanctuary. You come three times over in his sanctuary," He winks. "You make the choice to get rid of the grotesqueness in you."
He's leaning in closer. You're captivated by how he looks in the pink-tinged bathroom light. The way the necklace rests on his collar. The Devil is an angel—you forget; he reminds you.
"You're many things, baby; a pussy ain't one of them. And I ain't ever gettin' rid of you."
You let yourself droop forward, a pile of bones into his arms. He cradles you, nuzzling his cheek against the side of your head. "I'm gonna let you in on a secret." He whispers, warm and comfortable in your ear, "And maybe you've heard me before but never really heard me, but I fucking love you. That means your weaknesses are my weaknesses to fix or exploit. Depends on the potential, I suppose."
It comes down to trust. You have to trust him. That means all chips on the table.
You press a tentative kiss to his ear. "Will you help me?"
He huffs out a breath, "Coulda saved us all some time by starting with that."
Against your wants, he pulls away, eyeing the blood on your stomach. He trails a finger through it, shoving his finger in his mouth as he stands. You stay sitting as he rustles around beneath the sink, pulling out a sticker-covered black tackle box.
He pops it open, and you realize it's his own setup. Silently you watch him sink to the floor, shoving up his shorts on one leg. He follows most of the same steps you do, minus going through the proper hygienic steps.
Ronin doesn't seem to give much of a damn about washing his hands or his leg. He fills the syringe with the steady hand of familiarity. It's strange to watch someone else go through the process. All you've done is watch some online videos.
When he switches needles, he looks up at you from his spot on the floor. "This the hard part?"
You nod.
"Scared the needle will break?"
You nod again. That's something you think about constantly. What if it breaks? What if you can't get it out?
"God, you're adorable with your eyes all wide like that. Like a buck about to get shot." He grins at you, "Watch me."
At his whim you watch as he neatly presses the needle into his thigh. His hand doesn't shake; it slides right in without difficulty. He's steady as he does the injection, no signs of discomfort on his face.
He sighs, an exhale of breath that feels like a concession.
Then because he never lets you know peace, he lets it go, syringe sticking out of his leg. "Ronin! Be careful."
He winks again and smacks the syringe. It wiggles in his leg. You squeak, and he does it again. The syringe falls to the floor, but you're stuck on the needle still in his leg.
"Oh no." He hums, sarcasm heavy in his voice.
Ronin may be calm, but you sure as fuck are not. You drop to your knees beside him. "Fuck, fuck. Why did you do that? What do we do? We need to go to the ER?"
His hand catches your chin, forcing your eyes from the spot on his leg to his face. There's nothing but cold calm and the edge of amusement. "Honey." His grip tightens on your chin. The pain sharpens your focus. "Watch me."
You steady yourself and watch as he reaches into his tackle box. He pulls a pair of rubber-tipped tweezers from the box, lines it up, and pulls the needle out of his leg.
It was that easy?
"Did you see how hard I had to hit it to break the needle?" He asks, holding the small piece of metal out to see. Blood begins to well up from his leg, spilling down to the floor. "And you see how little I'm bleeding even though I smacked it around?"
He hurt himself to make a point to you. A part of you is offended on his behalf, but then you think of all the crazy shit Ronin has done in his life. It's hard to be that worried knowing he's gone toe-to-toe with plenty of people.
But he made his point. The needles are hard to break and removable if the worst were to happen. He made the injection look easy.
His blood trickles to the floor, but still he's unconcerned. What's a cat scratch in comparison to some of his scars?
"Not so bad, huh?"
You swallow the knot in your throat and shrug. It helps a little, but when you think of doing it yourself, you go straight to prey panic.
"C'mere." He pulls you into his lap. You fumble forward, one of his hands coming around your waist. The other reaches for the needle he's left on the counter.
The two of you settle on the floor. He surrounds you, your bare chest to his, legs to legs. The feel of him is everywhere. His palm comes to your sternum. "Put your head on my shoulder."
You do as he asks, letting your head droop backward. You close your eyes, feeling his hand scrape down your chest.
Hot breath. He murmurs directly into your ear. "For he is a liar and the father of lies."
Everything feels warm, heady, and light. He grips your stomach. You surrender. A pinch of pain and Ronin's lips on your neck. He bites you; the sting rushes between your legs.
Something clatters to the floor. You barely hear it, barely feel anything other than his mouth to your pulse point. A hand dips beneath your boxer briefs between your thighs, and your body sings from the claiming touch.
He laughs, licking your neck. "Lie with your Devil."
You fall again, willing as Adam into temptation.
