Welcome to the dark side of my mind - NSFW reblog zone - lets just assume everything is whump related - very fucking adult - likes and follows from @starlit-hopes-and-dreams
whumpee who was abused as a child is abused as an adult. it ruined them, they can't be handled any other way, they need to be shouted at or hit or shoved to keep them in line.
whumpee who was raped is raped again by someone else and raped again and they start to think well nobody gets raped this many times, this is my fault. this has to be my fault.
the fear. the silence. the guilt, the shame, the this has to be about me at this point. they wonder if people can smell it on them. they wonder if it's ever going to stop. they wonder if they can even tell someone - who is going to believe someone could let this happen to them twice. and besides, what's to say that person won't hit them, won't call them words they can't repeat, won't touch them?
Red is for posted, white is for requested/planned/written
Marcus and Jake are finally safe from AMTEC - although their escape nearly cost them both their lives. Now they are free to heal and discover what they might be to each other - and they learn that AMTEC’s influence leaves not a single person in their lives untouched.
AO3
Masterlist
This is a sequel series to Beneath Gunmetal Skies. Start here, continued from here.
Contents: nightmare [captivity, torture, broken bones, bound and gagged, forced to kneel, grabbed by the hair, collared, explicit noncon, forced to watch, ring gag], comfort
They had let him sleep in this morning. Jake knew this without knowing it, dull dread creeping into his stomach as he lay on his cot, half-awake, half dead to the world. He felt pain: the creak of his ribs with each breath, the ache of the cane and whip marks on his back, the prickle of scabs on his chest, the click in his throat as he swallowed. The throb in his arm from where they… where they broke it.
When did they break my arm?
He couldn’t remember if that was part of a scheduled punishment, or something Surles and Brady had done to him during his off time. When he twitched, he thought he felt a brace on his arm.
That didn’t provide any additional information. Puera tended his wounds whether they’d been caused in the interrogation room, or in his cell.
He swallowed, and felt his throat shift. He should raise his head to look around. It felt late. They never missed a day; not unless he was too badly beaten to stand for his punishments. And he didn’t feel…
He shuddered. He felt worse than beaten, but they didn’t seem to care about that.
Peeling his eyes open took almost everything he had. When he did, he felt every muscle in his body convulse like his chip had been activated.
He was still in his cell; he’d known he would be. But kneeling in the center of his cell, bloodied, gagged, his hands bound behind him, was Marcus, his eyes fixed desperately on Jake.
But Marcus was dead. The men who hurt Jake had seen to that.
“Damn. There’s… nothing left. Big smear of blood. It probably got dragged.”
“Marcus,” Jake breathed.
Marcus let out a muffled plea through the gag. Jake didn’t have the chance to go him, though – Alex’s hand closed on his hair and dragged him bodily out of the cot.
He couldn’t remember Alex being one of the officers who’d been assigned to hurt him. It was all blurring together now.
“Marcus… wait,” Jake heaved. “You’re… Just let him go, you have me, I’m the one who—” A blow smashed his face to the side. Marcus roared through the gag, but didn’t rise to defend him.
It took Jake a moment to realize why: a collar around Marcus’s neck chained him to the floor. Jake gasped as Alex hauled him up and shoved him down onto all fours in front of Marcus.
Pain thudded through Jake’s broken arm. He sobbed as he met eyes with Marcus.
The hand on his back felt inevitable as it bent him forward. The shock of air as Alex jerked down his pants and underwear did, too. It felt so familiar already. He’d been through this so many times now—
How many times?
How long have I been here?
Alex chuckled as Marcus screamed, throwing himself against the collar. “Jealous that I’m putting hands on your little trainee, huh?" he smirked. “I knew there was something off about you two. Should have seen it coming, really. It was right there in front of my face. How do you bond two Levs?” Jake desperately shook his head as Alex pressed into him – too fast, too much of him, it hurt – and ground his forehead against the concrete floor. Marcus roared through the gag. “Easy. Just let them fuck like rabbits, and they’ll get the taste for each other soon enough. I’m honestly embarrassed I missed it.” Alex’s belt buckle jingled as he took up a punishing rhythm, fucking into Jake as Marcus watched.
As least Jake wasn’t alone. He sobbed, whimpered, but he wasn’t alone.
Alex’s hand was rough on the back of his neck as he pinned him down. Jake’s knees ached on the floor, and he pressed his palms into the cool cement. He thought about reaching out to Marcus and just resting his fingertips against Marcus’s knee.
He held himself back. Marcus probably didn’t want to be touching him while this was happening. He didn’t… like being touched, when things like this happened.
Marcus was screaming like Alex was burning him to death. Jake bore the assault in near-silence.
Alex had to raise his voice to be heard. “I could be doing worse to him, Levy,” he sneered. “I’m just fucking him. You’re both used to this, aren’t you? Honestly, you sound like a jealous fucking boyfriend to me.”
Jake choked on his grief, his horror.
We never.
He thought he could remember Marcus telling him that he did want him like that, but… he couldn't remember when. Before he died, maybe.
Is Marcus dead?
His head pounded. His body hurt. Alex pinned him down harder by the back of his neck, hips stuttering as he chased his climax.
Jake could tell he was close. He’d done this so many times already.
Hadn’t he? Jake had been raped by someone in an AMTEC uniform… hadn’t he?
Who did Alex rape?
“Marcus,” he whispered.
Marcus let out a scream of anguish.
Alex let out a filthy groan, his last few thrusts smacking against Jake’s hips. Jake trembled with pain, with humiliation, with dread. Alex pulled out of him and shoved him to the floor.
Alex is going to make Marcus rape me now.
The thought made him recoil. He wanted Marcus – had wanted him for months, since the first time Marcus put himself between Jake and River. But not like this. Never like this.
He would bear that in silence, too. He would die before he made Marcus feel guilty for this.
“Your turn, Lev,” Alex said, smiling cooly.
Jake whimpered. Marcus turned his gaze to Alex. His eyes were horrified, full of tears.
Jake did his best to push himself up to his hands and knees again. Marcus’s breathing changed.
Jake’s head snapped up. Alex was removing the cloth gag from Marcus’s mouth – and replacing it with a ring gag.
“N-no, no,” Jake breathed. “NO!”
Marcus was shutting down – Jake watched it happen. His eyes went blank, his shoulders slumping as Alex buckled the gag tightly around his head. Quick, rasping breaths heaved in and out of his open mouth. Alex didn’t even bother closing his pants while he did it. They hung around his hips, his cock still out and half-hard, his eyes merciless, his mouth curved into a mocking smile.
Marcus wouldn’t look at Jake. His eyes stared at nothing.
“No, don’t,” Jake sobbed. “Alex, I… I’ll do it, I’ll do it again, just… please, not him. Not this, not to him.”
Not to him. Not again.
Alex lazily stroked himself, his other hand fisting in Marcus’s hair. “Oh, I’ll be doing you again soon enough, Lev,” he sighed. “And I’ll get Brady and Surles in here, too. Who knows, maybe I’ll get the captain in here to let off some steam. Might even get Puera in here. Miracles might happen.”
“Please,” Jake sobbed. He was helpless to move. Something was stopping him – pain, cuffs, or something else, he didn’t know. “Don’t do this, please.”
“So glad I have two to play off each other again,” Alex sighed. “Now, be good, Lev, or the next thing I fuck will be a wound I carve in your trainee’s gut.” He thrust his cock into Marcus’s mouth, all the way to the base. Jake screamed as Marcus gagged weakly.
Jake’s fingers dug into the warm solidity of Marcus’s body, nails catching on his shirt. His mouth stretched wide with each shuddering breath he took. There wasn’t enough air; there was nothing but blood and pain in his chest. They were hurting Marcus, they were hurting him. Jake needed to… to do something, to throw himself in front of his captors and offer himself, it had worked before, fuck the consequences, fuck the cost…
“Jake you need to breathe.” Those arms were around him, holding him. Cold fingers cradled his face. Jake’s tears cooled under the touch.
And Marcus was… he was here, he was right in front of Jake’s eyes.
Jake’s eyes were open, and Marcus was here.
“Marcus,” Jake whimpered, and buried his face in Marcus’s chest. He could smell the warm scent of Marcus’s skin and sweat, and Lars’s laundry soap, as he heaved open-mouthed sobs against Marcus’s shirt.
Through the roaring in his ears, Jake heard the bedroom door click open. He felt the vibration of Marcus’s voice in his chest as he spoke.
“I got him,” he said softly. “Nightmare. It’s okay.”
“Sounded like he was being fucking murdered,” Lars said breathlessly. They sounded shaken.
Not murdered, Jake thought. Alex never tried to murder me. And… Brady and Surles only tried to murder me at the end.
For so long it was just… torture and rape.
He shook his head, trembling. His tears soaked into Marcus’s shirt.
“Okay.” A huff. “I’ll… go try to get my heartrate below 200 now, I guess.” The door shut once more.
Jake hitched a weak sob. “Sorry, I’m s-sor—”
“Hey.” The metal arm around Jake was cold and hard, but Marcus kissed softly into his hair, nuzzling along the top of his head. “Don’t do that. It was a nightmare. A fucking bad one, sounds like.”
Jake shuddered. “They—” The words caught in his throat. It sounded so patently false, when he thought about it now. Alex was never at the blacksite; he probably never knew it existed. And the rest…
The rest had happened, though. Watching Marcus get raped. Feeling it happening to himself, knowing he was helpless to stop it.
He tongued the sharp edge of his incisor where Surles had chipped his tooth tearing the ring gag from his mouth.
Marcus interrupted his train of thought. “Hey,” he murmured. He brushed his lips to Jake’s forehead, his temple, his cheek. He kept far away from his mouth.
Jake wouldn’t have minded a kiss. But… nothing more. The thought of doing anything more right now, even with Marcus, made his stomach churn.
“I love you,” Marcus breathed. “I got you. You don’t have to tell me what it was, okay? We can just… be here. Awake. In this room.”
“With you,” Jake whispered against Marcus’s chest. “Free and… and safe.”
There weren’t a dozen locked doors between Jake and the men who might want to hurt him, but there was a locked door and another bedroom door. And Marcus. Marcus’s arms wound tight around him, strong and solid – one flesh and blood and one metal. Marcus could protect him. Marcus had protected him, again and again. He had protected him against Jake’s failures that had gotten the two of them hurt, and against the mechanism of the system that had tried to grind them both down into dust.
And, as if Marcus had heard his pleas from hundreds of miles away, he had returned from the dead to rescue Jake from a place that existed to snuff out of the lives of everyone AMTEC couldn’t beat down, turn, or buy.
“Th-thank you,” Jake whispered.
“Hm?” Marcus held him close. “For what?”
“Everything.” The word hardly made a sound at all. “The blacksite. And before. Just… I love you.”
“Yeah, Jake.” Marcus kissed right between his brows. “Love you, too.”
If you want to be on the taglist (including for the spicy chapters,) let me know! I only tag people in 18+ chapters if I know they are adults through conversations or if their age/age range is in their bio.
i just do love the idea of whumper kidnapping two whumpees and forcing the whumpees to have sex. they're on the floor crying meanwhile whumper's looming over them, encouraging the one on top to go faster and harder, telling the one on the bottom that they're taking it so well. but one whumpee actually ends up coming. and suddenly whumper's entire attitude changes. whumper grabs the whumpee that didn't come, drags them away from the other whumpee, starts beating and torturing and screaming about how dare whumpee rape other whumpee. how dare whumpee "like" that they were being raped. in reality whumper's just insecure that whumpee got other whumpee to come long before whumper ever could. but it's the only time during whumper's sexual abuse of them that whumper lets it be called rape, conveniently leaving out that whumper manufactured the entire situation and is also using whumpee's own body to abuse them too and literally pushed them against each other (and, if applicable, whumper was the one that harnessed the strap-on on the penetrating whumpee)
whumpee is used to whumper taking off their belt to hit them with it, so when they hear the clink of the buckle they think they know what to expect. they brace to be struck, but this time whumper has other ideas, and whumpee has barely a second to process this new, totally unexpected violation before it really begins.
oh this is brilliant. this is utterly brilliant. belts in whump is one of my favourite things, i love that, and the specific bait and switch of knowing what kind of abuse to expect, being braced for it, and then experiencing a very different, unexpected kind of abuse.
whumpee is bent over, on a desk or a bed or over the back or arm of a couch. their head is down, they can't see whumper, but they don't have to. they always hear the belt before it comes off and they know what comes next. their shirt is off or maybe whumper even forces them to strip naked before they're beaten.
and maybe when whumper starts touching them, groping them, beginning the assault, they fight. whumper forces their legs open, pushes something inside them - whumper's fingers, or dick, or a toy - and they start thrashing, yelling. and that's when whumper gets frustrated and grabs the discarded belt, folding it in half and cracking it across whumpee's shoulders.
if they're going to make such a problem, they can get both.
Reopening an Old Wound for @badthingshappenbingo, requested by @wildfaeworld
Red is for posted, white is for requested/planned/written
Marcus and Jake are finally safe from AMTEC - although their escape nearly cost them both their lives. Now they are free to heal and discover what they might be to each other - and they learn that AMTEC’s influence leaves not a single person in their lives untouched.
AO3
Masterlist
This is a sequel series to Beneath Gunmetal Skies. Start here, continued from here.
Contents: aftermath of torture, aftermath of noncon, STDs, guilt, fucky thoughts about noncon, flashbacks, PTSD, flashback of: (noncon, dehumanization, humiliation, tied to a table, gangrape), past foster home, food, nsfwhump
~
Marcus stared at Lars’s back as they awkwardly slunk out of the room. Jake was in his arms, warm, alive, as healthy as he could be expected to be after being tortured nearly to death – and yet all Marcus could feel was cold. A hard, metallic coldness solidifying in his chest.
Jake was sick. Those evil monsters had tortured him, scarred him, fucked him, and Marcus had carried Jake away from that place with a sickness inside him. A sickness those rapist motherfuckers had fucked into his body.
Marcus’s stomach heaved. And I never caught anything. They did that to me for years – so many of them – and I never caught a damn thing.
He paid for my failures again. He always fucking pays.
He was trembling. He could feel it, because Jake was not.
He kissed into Jake’s hair, felt the curls made brittle and rough with weeks of whatever the fuck they’d been cleaning him with in that place. Jake turned into the kiss and pressed their foreheads together. Marcus breathed out a shuddering breath.
“Sit tight,” he croaked. “I’ll be back in a bit.”
Jake nodded. “I’ll be here.”
Marcus slid out of bed and stalked to the door. He was shaking as he closed the bedroom door behind him and made his way into the kitchen.
Lars looked alarmed as Marcus approached them – wide eyes flicked to the door as if judging the distance, and their throat bobbed as they swallowed. Marcus didn’t get close enough to touch them, though. He just stood in the center of the kitchen, sick with grief, with rage, with guilt.
“Are you telling the truth about what he has?” he rasped, hands shaking. Or rather, only his left hand shook. His right hung perfectly still, a tool at the end of his arm.
“Yes,” Lars murmured.
“And how easy it is to treat it?” Marcus didn’t even see Lars in front of him now. He was just seeing Jake behind his eyes. What Jake must have looked like. Screaming as they held him down and raped him. It happened at least half a dozen times, if the bruises were any sign. Half a dozen times at least, they did the thing Marcus had done everything in his power to protect him from.
“Yes.” Lars’s body looked tense as a hair-trigger. “I swear.”
How did they do it, Marcus wondered? Did they hold him down on his back, so he had to look in their faces as they fucked him? Did they string him up from the ceiling, just meat on a hook for them?
Did they just bend him over something, like they usually had with Marcus? That seemed to be their favorite thing to do. Bend a piece of Levy ass over the nearest heavy piece of furniture, jerk their pants down so you can get at the parts you want, maybe tie their hands, maybe gag them, because in the end you’re not fucking a person, you’re raping a Lev—
“Marcus?”
He gasped weakly, blinking away the tears he hadn’t realized had formed. Lars was still across the kitchen from him. He didn’t know what he would do if they came any closer.
His breathing hitched. “Th-they… they raped him.” The tears cascaded down his cheeks.
“I know.” Lars’s voice was exceedingly gentle.
Marcus’s muscles were pulled so tight he thought they might snap. He knew he was standing in Lars’s kitchen, he could see it – but he could feel the hands on him. He could feel his own rage, decades of it, charring his insides and searing his blood as his body buckled under their touches. So many of them. So fucking many.
So fucking young when it started.
He flinched, aware that he was tipping over the edge but unable to stop himself. He suddenly wished he was alone. He was rooted to the spot.
He could see green.
Vivid, grass-like green as they shoved Marcus forward – although he wasn’t even Marcus yet, he hadn’t even picked that name for himself yet – and ground his cheek into the velvet. It had looked soft, but the force of the hand on his head made the texture feel rough on his skin. He pushed against the side of the table, desperate to fight back, even though he knew – he’d been instructed, he knew – he must obey these men, this officers.
“Calm down, Levy, we just want to have a little fun.”
He felt the bite of rope on his wrists, binding them behind him. He sobbed as an officer stepped behind him, shoving his hips forward against the edge of the table. Groping hands jerked his pants and underwear down.
“P-please, please, I have conditioning in the morning, don’t do this—”
A sharp smack on his ass. “You hear that, boys? It has conditioning in the morning. That’s our bad, Levy. In that case we’ll just call off the whole thing.”
Then the laughter. The horrible, chilling laughter.
Marcus shrieked as lube as dribbled onto his ass, tried to rear back even as his newly-minted training screamed at him to stay still and take what these men were about to dish out. A hand slammed down on the back of his neck, pinning him to the table. His tears soaked into the velvet beneath him.
“N-no,” he sobbed.
Then a cock pressed into him, thick and hot and so, so fast. He cried out weakly and did his best to squirm away.
“Fuuuuuck,” the officer behind him sighed. “Think we got ourselves a virgin. It’s just. So. Tight.” His hips slammed into Marcus’s with each word. Marcus screamed through each thrust.
The hand on the back of his neck was replaced by a rope encircling his throat, which was tied to the underside of the table, keeping him bent over. He sobbed as his neck strained against the rope. The officer fucking into him gripped his hips tightly and fucked him hard, groaning filthily. The more noise the officer made, the more his friends egged him on.
He finished quickly, burying himself in Marcus until his cock twitched. Marcus sobbed with abandon. He hoped with every shred of his being that he would be let up, that this had perhaps been some horrible hazing ritual that he had passed through. His tears and spit left dark stains on the green velvet.
Instead, another officer stepped behind him, wiped off his ass, and pressed his lubed cock into Marcus.
“Please, please, no,” Marcus begged. “Please, please…”
“It begs real pretty,” one of the officers admired.
“Yeah,” said the one fucking him. He shoved Marcus’s shirt up around his shoulders. “Hit it with a pool cue. Right across the shoulders. I wanna see that skin bruise.”
“Marcus,” Lars snapped.
Marcus jerked back so hard he felt tissue strain in his flesh-and-blood shoulder. His chest heaved and tears blurred his vision – but his vision was here, he saw the kitchen, not the horrible commissary basement and the pool table where the officers had raped him for hours. He raised his shirt and swiped the neck of it across his eyes.
“I’m good.” His voice quavered.
Lars wet their lips. “You don’t… have to be good, Marcus. You and Jake… you’ve been through the fuckin’ wringer, dude. You don’t have to be alright. If you need a sec to fall apart out here, away from Jake, that’s fine.”
“I’m good.” Marcus insisted. His voice still shook. He felt the hands all over his body. He felt the rope on his wrists. But all he saw was the kitchen, and Lars standing in it.
Lars hadn’t moved the whole time. It wasn’t the first time they hadn’t taken advantage of Marcus’s weakness to hurt him. He met their eyes.
“I don’t have… anything? From them?” he croaked.
Lars shook their head. “Nothing. I tested for everything that I tested Jake for, and it all came back negative.”
Marcus tried to swallow past the lump in his throat. “After… after all of the… and Jake’s the one who got…” He shuddered with shame.
They wet their lips. “Communicable diseases are… weird… like that,” they said carefully. “I’m sorry he caught one. And I’m sorry you… went through something similar to him.”
It should have been me. Marcus wasn’t sure how to say that part. All he said was, “I just need him to get better.”
“And he will. I swear… I swear on my fucking HRT clinic, it’s a week of antibiotics and he’ll be good to go. I absolutely promise you.” Lars’s gaze was intense. “This doesn’t make him dirty.”
Marcus’s lip curled. “I know that.”
“Okay.” Lars huffed. “Good.”
There was a knock at the door. Marcus whirled, his stomach clenching so hard he nearly gagged.
“It’s just the pizza,” Lars said, already walking to the door. “Keep your fuckin’ shirt on.” They opened the door, retrieved the pizza, and turned back toward the kitchen carrying two large boxes. The scent of pizza washed over Marcus – along with a sudden, bone-deep memory of sitting on the floor of his third foster home, eating a slice in front of a TV screen.
The third foster home was probably the best one. The floors were always sticky and food always ran out quickly and there was a dog that barked too much, but it was probably the best one. Because of the pizza. And the TV. And the lady who owned the house was nice, too.
Marcus’s stomach grumbled as he stared at the boxes.
Lars angled their head toward the bedroom. “Wanna grab some plates, and then what do you say about getting your boy fed?”
Marcus’s stomach tingled when Lars referred to Jake as his boy. He considered correcting them. The words never left his mouth.
“Y-yeah,” he grumbled, fetching down some plates. He remembered where they were from when he’d scoured the place from top to bottom after he’d been shot. See? he offered to Lars silently, as way of pathetic excuse. There was a good reason for me doing that, after all.
When Lars opened the door to the bedroom, Jake smiled at them, but he immediately looked for Marcus. His smile instantly widened – then fell when he took in Marcus’s haunted expression, the red-rimmed eyes. Marcus crawled into bed with him and tenderly kissed his forehead.
“Let’s get you fed,” he said before Jake could say anything.
Jake slowly nodded. “Alright.”
Lars opened the pizza boxes. Greasy cheese glimmered in the dim light. Marcus’s stomach growled again. “Excellent,” Lars said as they began to divvy up the slices onto the plates. “I hope you like it.”
Marcus made sure Jake started eating before he took his first bite.
If you want to be on the taglist (including for the spicy chapters,) let me know! I only tag people in 18+ chapters if I know they are adults through conversations or if their age/age range is in their bio.
Explicit sexual content from the first line! This is my first time actually writing smut, but I had a blast. This is very gratuitous Val and Vincent content. It is dubcon due to the inherent power imbalance between an officer and an NCO, but Val is ostensibly participating consensually (whether or not they have much of a choice if they want to keep their current safe position in a detention centre and not on the front lines of a civil war is another question).
If you want more context on their relationship, read these pieces from earlier on in their relationship: Eyes Open and Back for More? . This is written in the VMD setting that I co-write with @pythagoreanwhump
My bestie is convinced that Val is a woman and hasn't figured it out yet, which, yeah may well be the case. Forcefem them in the comments, I guess. I can't bring myself to spell estrogen with an o, sorry.
Contains: dubcon, explicit sex, referenced whipping, cigarette burns, dehumanising language towards a prisoner, brief reference to vomit, the military, slapping, biting, power imbalance and taking advantage of a hierarchical workplace relationship.
Staff Sergeant Val Winters can feel the blood from their torn back sticking to the sheets with every thrust of their commanding officer’s cock. They’ll have to wash the sheets later, they know, but they have long figured out the best methods for removing stains from laundry. Colonel Evelyn Vincent, as always in his full uniform, trousers unbuttoned, is trying to tell them something. They should be listening.
But Val can only think about the next week’s rota. They should really have predicted that the matter with the new recruits would not have resolved itself as neatly as they’d hoped. Now Private Thorson is in the infirmary, which means the rota must be changed, and probably, there will be punishments to administer. Really, Val thinks that the beating she received was well-deserved and had been a long time coming, but still, it isn’t proper to let such matters slide. A reminder of their authority in matters of discipline is due.
It doesn’t take much thought to make the sorts of noises they know Vincent likes to hear. They don’t have to fake the sounds of pain and pleasure intermingled together; Vincent is wearing one of his crueller sleeves, with sharp little ridges that scratch against Val’s entrance with every slide in and out. It’s just slick enough for there not to be blood, not enough for it to be truly comfortable, but then Val knows they don’t need much prep to be taken these days.
“Are you listening?” Vincent delivers the question with a slap, open handed, against Val’s left cheek. They allow themself a quick gasp of surprise. It’s just a warning; if it were a punishment it would be fist, no doubt. Val should know better than to ignore their commander when he’s in one of his moods. Some frustration with a prisoner, as always, that was now being taken out on Val.
“Yes, Sir,” they smile. They’re not even close to being hard anymore, but still their cock twitches slightly, dripping against their abdomen. The whipping had made them stiffen, their body always so eager for the pain even when their mind was screaming for mercy, but they could never keep it up these days without careful touch. It hadn’t been a standard whip, not the one they themself used to punish their soldiers, but something worse, with metal tips. Do you feel you could say no to him? The voice of the Loyalties Officer echoes in their head. I never have any need. He knows my limits. And surely that must have been true. He’d never broken them yet, stopping before they could beg, even as the taste of blood filled their mouth from biting their tongue.
“Fucking slut,” Vincent laughed, slapping them again. “At least someone around here appreciates what I do for them. Unlike that thing in Cell 30, the feisty one with the scar across its cheek. It fucking bit me, can you believe that? I wasn’t stupid enough to get my cock anywhere near those teeth, of course, but it ripped a hole in my shirt, and then got vomit and blood on my boots.” He looks down at Val with disgust. Another task to add to their ever growing chore list for the week. “Why do they never understand that I could make it good for them if they behaved?”
Val knows better than to answer. They’ve filed the rota problem away in their mind alongside the ever-present background noise of pain, and they try instead to pull up a mental image of the prisoner that Vincent is referring to. There’s so many of them, too many to properly keep track of, and they disappear sometimes, at the behest of Intelligence or in impromptu summary executions (intentional or otherwise). Still, they attempt to keep their secret records, stashing them away in disused store rooms and behind loose tiles. One day, they’re sure, maybe soon (they hope, they dread), some rebels will come asking.
They think they know which particular prisoner Vincent is currently complaining about: the one who is always fighting even when there is nothing to be gained from it, shouting that they won’t answer any questions. What they haven’t seemed to grasp is that Vincent is not in the business of interrogation. This part is just the punishment. Val will need to try to have a chat with them, in private: tell them to submit, to lie to him, pretend, do whatever they have to do in their mind. He’ll kill you. Don’t you understand? He will kill you if you don’t give him what he wants. And until then, he’ll make it Val’s problem.
“You’re so pretty like this,” Vincent tells them, running a hand through their light red hair. He lets them keep it just a little longer than strictly permitted, almost touching the collar. He enjoys it like that. Val thinks that when (if) they ever get out of the military they will let it grow long enough to rest on their shoulders, but not long enough to tie up into a regulation hairstyle. “You like this, don’t you?” Vincent asks.
“Yes, Sir,” they reply, as always. Vincent’s hair is loose from its usual bun, forming a curtain around his face. Val imagines what it would be like to run their hands through it, to feel it part against their fingers. Even if it were allowed, their hands are tied above them to the headboard, with the same rough rope that is kept for use on prisoners, when cuffs just won’t suffice.
“Tell me you like it, Sergeant Winters,” Vincent demands, though he isn’t angry anymore, not really. Seeing Val moaning and writhing underneath him always turns his mood around eventually. “Tell me you like it when I fuck you, and you like it even more when it hurts.”
“Yes, Colonel Vincent,” Val gasps out, bucking their hips and pushing back against their commanding officer, impaling themself further on his cock. “I love it when you fuck me, when you hurt me-” They choke down the unbidden ‘please’ on the tip of their tongue. They’re so close. If only Vincent would touch them between their legs… but they know better than to beg for it. They will come from the warm heat of the lash marks on their back, the ache of Vincent’s cock deep in their guts, or not at all.
Somehow, Vincent is always able to see right through them. He leans down, close enough that Val hopes for one, foolish, desperate moment that he might really kiss them, just the once. Their mind presents them with memories of a man, the night after a leadership course: the way he ran his hands over their body, toyed with their nipples, and pleasured them with his tongue, like someone who truly understood how their body worked. Vincent’s lips are so close to theirs, hair tickling their naked chest, their breasts. They imagine his tongue on their nipples, kissing a line up their sternum.
But instead he sinks his teeth into their neck, and bites – just above the collar line, so everyone will see the bruise for days to come. He punctuates the bite with a hard thrust, and Val can’t help but cry out, eyes shut, lips parted. Their cock twitches and a small pool of clear liquid gathers on their stomach.
Val is never quite sure when (or if) Vincent finishes himself. They understand that he can’t produce semen the way a cis man would, but it’s never felt appropriate to pry further. Either way, he always appears to reach a point of satisfaction, sliding out of them and tucking himself back into his trousers. It isn’t cold in his quarters, but Val can’t help but shiver. There’s no part of them that he hasn’t seen before, but they still close their thighs, feeling all too exposed.
“Get dressed,” Vincent tells them. There’s only a slight twinge of disappointment in Val’s chest at that. Sometimes he permits them to stay over, letting them sleep on the floor or, even more rarely, in bed with him. They’ve learnt how he likes his coffee (filter, splash of cream, no sugar) though they still don’t understand what difference it makes in what form caffeine is consumed.
By the time they’ve wiped themself clean and pulled their uniform back on, Vincent is smoking, leaning out the window. Val is acutely aware that there will be crimson marks on the fabric, as though they had spilled a jar of Vincent’s favourite ink on it. They had only made that mistake once, their first time handling a fountain pen, and had paid for it in the fresh scarlet of their blood blending with the ink. They’re also aware that they should probably requisition a larger bra.
Now that they have a moment of peace, Val realises just how exhausted they really are. They’re barely standing, swaying slightly on their feet. Please dismiss me, they beg wordlessly. Surely Vincent would not want to work this late into the night. At least let me kneel.
“Come here,” Vincent orders. Val obeys, of course they obey, step by step. Taking them by the chin, Vincent tips their head up, forcing them to look at him, and in that moment, all the exhaustion and the pain melts away in the gaze of his warm, brown eyes. “Give me your hand.”
Sharp pain blooms from Val’s wrist. Vincent grinds the glowing ember of his cigarette into the skin at the base of their thumb, just past the edge of their sleeve. It’s a mark intended to be seen. Val shudders slightly, makes a noise almost like a sob, never breaking eye contact. Ignores the stir of interest from their traitorous cock. Then they take a breath, compose themself, and smile. They don’t cry. They had been afraid that the estrogen would undo all the work that they had done in that regard, but the training seems to have stuck, at least in the company of others.
“Thank you, Sir,” they finally manage.
“My pleasure, Val, really.” It’s the most earnest thing Vincent’s said all night. The warm affection in his eyes almost makes it worth it. They pursued him, Val reminds themself. They wanted this. They could bask in his gaze forever.
a whump scenario that i am completely and utterly enamoured with is whumpee who's experienced some sort of sexual assault or violence having to shower, whether it's for the first time after the attack or it's the first time that their trauma hits them. they're under the scalding hot water and they're washing themselves, hands to skin, when suddenly all they can feel is someone else's hands. cruel, hard hands, the hands of their attacker. the horrible strangled moments of thinking for a second that they're not alone. being transported viciously back to that place, to that moment. their body no longer belonging to them. and they try to shake away the memory but the steam is thick and close and there's constant touch on them from the water and they can't breathe, they can't breathe. they end up curled onto the wet tile in the corner, knees to chest, gasping around the bruised terror of their ribs until the water goes cold and the sharp fear fades into trembling, twitchy numbness.
hey on your reblog of that "would the character be a dom/sub" post you said you had a lot of thoughts about Marcus & Jake... please tell us the thoughts I want to know your thoughts!!
(i could see either of them taking on a soft dom role depending on who needs to feel comforted and who needs to feel in control)
Omg DEFINITELY 😍
So I am gonna be decoupling dom/sub from top/bottom, (because the two aren't actually related) and because Jake would prefer to bottom and Marcus would pretty much rather die than bottom again. So Jake would always bottom, and Marcus would always top.
I'm also coming at this from the fact that I'm still not sure if they're ever going to sleep together. They (both, now) have a lot of sexual trauma and Marcus also just doesn't have a super attuned relationship with his own sexuality. But they could also have a healing, platonic sexual relationship, who's to say. (Certainly not me, I'm historically the last to know with this sort of thing.)
So.
Dom!Marcus and sub!Jake. Marcus taking control, holding Jake firmly, pushing him down to the bed as he fucks him deep. Jake cared for and open and safe. Jake, experiencing care as Marcus carefully responds to his every gasp, his every plea for more, harder. Marcus reminding him why he fell in love with him in the first place. Jake letting go and knowing Marcus has him, body and soul.
Sub!Marcus and dom!Jake. Jake no longer begging to be fucked, but telling Marcus how and what he wants. Talking Marcus through exactly how to please him. Marcus shivering with relief as he pounds into the man he loves, because he thought this would be scary, he thought he wouldn't know what to do, but Jake is giving him the kindest orders he's ever known and he feels such joy in fulfilling them. Jake praising Marcus with his face pressed into the mattress. Marcus desperate for the praise. Jake being the one to take the lead because he's the one with the experience, he knows what he likes and what pleases him, and Marcus knows only that he wants to please Jake. Pressing kisses to the back of Jake's neck even as Jake cries out softly. Feeling tears flood his eyes as Jake shakes apart beneath him because after everything, after the pain and fear, Jake trusts him with this. Hearing his name in Jake's mouth and knowing he's helpless to this, he's gone.
Hang on I just got so horny I blacked out, what were we talking about?
Alec liked to keep things "fresh." That's what he told her, anyway.
He'd said it to Vienna as he undid the restraints that had held her in an impossible position — she trembled all over, muscles sore, skin damp with sweat. The massive bed in the main room, she had come to realize, was rigged with all sorts of ropes and chains and harnesses to force her body into any shape he wanted.
As soon as the restraints loosened Vienna crumpled onto the mattress, unable to hold herself up on her own. Alec chuckled softly.
"That was a rough one, huh? Bet you and your boyfriend never tried it like that."
Don't let him in. It was the same refrain she always repeated to herself when Alec tried to bring up Zander. He didn't exist here. Not like that. It worked, a little. The lack of reaction, she supposed, made it boring, made Alec bring him up less and less. Just every so often, a barb to hit where it hurt.
"That's the fun thing about us, little girl. We have all the time in the world. We can try so much. Keep things fresh. I love seeing your shocked little face every time."
The words echoed in Vienna's ears long after he locked her back in the small bedroom. Because that was it, wasn't it? The time. It's not like he had to be quick before someone came, before someone overheard. As the past weeks had proved, he could stretch it out to his heart's content. Use his imagination to do anything he wanted to her.
Keep things fresh. Yes, she knew that by now. It was why he liked to space out certain types of torments, let her think that just maybe she could survive before whipping out some new torture that had her break down in horror all over again. Maybe the worst part, too, was she knew how much he enjoyed seeing her react, beg, cry, scream, whatever — and yet she still couldn't stop herself. It was as if….almost as if she were complicit. Making it better for him.
Vienna made sure her shower was extra long and scalding that day.
****
The next day, the room was filled with the mindless chatter from the TV. It was Sunday morning, so a talk show was on. Vienna let the sound center her. She was still part of the world. She could ignore the fact that it was a weekend, hours stretching ahead of her.
Sometimes these moments felt like the only shreds of normalcy she had left. Vienna tried not to think about that part too much.
She sat on the floor between the TV and bed folding laundry. It was an unexpectedly soothing activity — the gentle rhythm of it, the sense of actually being able to be productive and accomplish something. Sometimes she found herself folding and re-folding clothes just for that grounding effect.
The door beeped, lock clicking automatically. Vienna's chest seized. She'd been so focused on her little bubble of domesticity she hadn't even heard him coming.
Alec sauntered in as usual, like he owned the very air they both breathed. A smile curled on his lips at the sight of her.
"Laundry again, huh? This is like your new hobby?"
Vienna didn't answer. She was doing her usual rapid assessment of Alec when he came downstairs: he seemed sober. He didn't seem angry, but he wasn't exactly calm either — his body seemed to buzz with a sort of excited energy. That didn't bode well.
She was startled out of her calculations when Alec turned the TV off. He correctly read the dread on her face and grinned.
"We don't need any distractions, do we? I know why you keep that on all the time, you know."
She resumed folding the clothes, hoping he couldn't see the tremor in her hands, the way her pulse picked up.
"You have nothing else. Nothing else to do but wait for me. Do you think about it? When I'm gone?"
She could tell from his tone it wasn't rhetorical. She forced her lips to move. "Sometimes."
"Sometimes," he jeered. "You know you're a shit liar, right? Oh, I bet it's constant. Thinking about me. The way I touch you. What I'll do to you next time I visit."
Fold. Fold. Flip. Fold. That's all the world had to be right now.
But Alec noticed. As usual.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you."
Vienna forced her eyes up to him.
"There you go. I don't want it to get so dull down here your little brain gets even slower. Would you like some more books or games or something?"
It felt like a trick question. Deny it, and set him off, or lose the meager privileges she already had. Admit it, and get taunted or have her words twisted. A split second deliberation — tell the truth.
"Yeah, I would."
"I thought so. Must be getting boring as hell down here when I'm not around."
He wasn't wrong. Her days ricocheted between heart-stopping terror, roiling disgust, and a mind-numbing boredom. The feeling was so deep that it almost frightened her, how her mind could either create entirely new worlds or just give way to a dull, buzzing static for hours on end.
"But you know, nothing comes free."
Her heart dropped like a stone into a deep, deep ocean. That satisfied grin was still pasted on his face.
"I was thinking about our game the other day, you know."
Vienna couldn't help but wince. She knew exactly what day he was talking about.
The first time he'd put the collar around her neck had felt surreal. It was made from the same leather as many of the restraints, meant to hold her tight but not cause too much damage to the skin. It was connected by a chain to the wall, giving her a small range of motion, use of her arms and legs.
Alec ordered her to try and get away. If she could avoid him, he'd said, she'd win a break for the day. She just had to try.
And God, she tried — running in every direction until the chain pulled taut, shoving at him with shaking hands, pleading at the top of her lungs. The tiny possibility of relief fueled her, made her desperate. Alec enjoyed every second, chasing her down, touching her more invasively each time before letting her go to try again. It was a cruel game of cat and mouse, one she was never meant to win. Vienna was sobbing, gasping by the time he finally shoved her to the hard floor to take what he wanted. He drew it out this time, luxuriating in her torment, in crushing the tiny spark of hope he'd planted.
The humiliation of it burned, that same old shame that kept following her like a shadow: you made it fun for him. You gave him what he wanted. You.
"We'll be doing a lot more of that."
His matter-of-fact voice broke Vienna's reverie.
"I — what — the collar —?" The word came out as a squeak and he laughed.
"Ooh, you know I love that little whimper of yours, don't you? Not the collar. The game."
"That wasn't a game." Vienna's voice trembled. "You were just messing with me."
Even speaking to Alec like that was a gamble, but this time it paid off: his lips twitched in a grin.
"Aw, don't be a sore loser, now. I'll tell you what — I'll make them more fair from now on. You could win. That's how you'll get your little prizes, hm?"
"I don't need a prize," Vienna said quickly, heart starting to hammer in her ears. Not like that.
Something flickered in his eyes. He stepped closer, crouched down so they were eye to eye. Vienna forced herself not to look away. In a low voice, he said, "That wouldn't be fair either, though, would it?" He let a finger trail along her jaw, seeming to enjoy the way her throat locked in fear. "I get my prize every single day. Don't you want a little something?" His finger dropped to trace her collarbone. "And I'll tell you something right now — we're doing this whether you like it or not. Don't be stupid and give up your winnings."
His hand drifted lower. "So — are you going to try my little challenge? Yes or no?"
"Yes." The word forced itself past her lips, anything to interrupt this moment.
"That's what I thought." Alec stood cheerfully, all the predatory threat of the last moment gone like it was nothing. "What kind of prize would you like to try for first? Another book? Any particular snack?"
"A crossword book." The words came out without her even consciously conjuring them, but it felt right: something interactive, to get her brain working, to stave off the feeling that her mind was atrophying.
"I could make that work."
The electronic beep of the lock seemed to fill the room as he opened the door again.
"Come on, then. I have a perfect first idea."
"N-now?" Vienna squeaked, clutching the shirt she'd been folding like a shield.
"No, I'll wait for you to decide," Alec said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. "Yes, now, bitch. Get up."
Even just a few minutes after it was over, Vienna couldn't quite recall the details of what had happened out there in the main room. Just that his "challenge" had been to lie back, pliant, and not push him away while he lowered his mouth between her legs for a predetermined amount of time. When she failed within the first couple of minutes, desperate for it to end, he'd restrained her anyway and doubled the time.
She didn't have a snatch of memory after that, like she'd blacked out. But the bite marks and bruises all over her hips and thighs told her that Alec had not been happy with her dissociation.
By the time he returned her to the bedroom, shoving her into a chair, Vienna was coming back to life enough to know that she had upset him by refusing to participate in the game — but it only vaguely registered. Her stomach was sick, her inner thighs sticky and tender, and she was shivering so hard her teeth chattered.
"We'll have to play another one, then," Alec said, chest heaving with frustration even as he tried to keep his voice smooth. "You don't get to just space out and forfeit"
Vienna wrapped her arms around herself. Like he hadn't done enough already. "C-can't you just g-go?"
SMACK. His palm slapped against her cheek, making her head crack to the side as a startled yelp escaped her lips.
It seemed to soothe Alec's anger a bit. "There we go. That's what we'll do."
Vienna looked back at him in confusion, clutching her pink cheek.
"Five slaps. Count each one. You mess up, we start over. Get through it….you win."
He hit her again before she could even process his words. Vienna cried out again, trying to twist away in the chair, but he grabbed her shoulders and forced her to sit up straight.
"Alright, that one didn't count then."
SMACK.
"Ow!"
"Oh sure, cry. I could do this all day, you know."
She didn't have time to reply before his palm was flying at her face again. SMACK.
"O-one!" Vienna gasped out, looking up at him desperately for approval.
"There it is." The anger faded a little more and his smirk returned. "You're not the brightest, little girl, but I figured even you could get the hang of it."
He slapped her other cheek.
"Ah — two —!"
And the other again.
"Three!" Vienna's hand flew up instinctively to soothe the sting, but he grabbed it and forced it down.
"Ah, ah. No blocking. That's grounds for starting over too."
Vienna clenched her hands around the seat of the chair, willing herself not to move, not to block him. Alec paused this time, letting the awful anticipation build before rearing back to hit her again.
"F-four."
"See? You know how to play. One more. Are you ready?"
Vienna nodded, tears slipping down. He raised his hand.
"Are you sure?"
"Y-yes…."
His hand swung forward as if to hit her and she flinched violently. Alec laughed as he stopped short.
"You're so jumpy, you know that?"
SMACK.
The final slap was so hard she nearly fell out of the chair, saves only by her tight grip around the seat, but Vienna still managed to whimper a "five," and Alec chuckled.
"Well, you're the big winner, little girl. Feel good? Hm?"
Her cheeks stung like fire and she raised her shaking hands to them, wiping away tears and trying to soothe the skin. She'd done it, humiliating as it was. At least she was able to wring some sort of win out of it. Maybe he'd even leave now to go get it.
"So you'll get your little crossword book. And I'll even let you choose how you want it this time."
Before she could process the words, Alec grabbed her by the shoulders and threw her onto the bed. As he loomed over her, Vienna cursed herself for thinking there was ever a way to get out of this part.
****
The crossword book arrived the next day, as promised. "Well played," Alec had said cheerfully, slapping it down on the table.
For days she let it sit untouched, like it was radioactive. To open it felt like admitting the trade had been worth it. Like admitting she had willingly played his game.
But the hours stretched endlessly. She had already paced until her legs ached, already scrubbed the same patch of counter raw. The drone of the television was no more than background noise.
Finally, Vienna's hand moved on its own, dragging the book toward her. She opened it and stared at the neat black squares. Her pencil hovered. The familiar comfort of words, of filling blanks, teased at her.
She hated herself for the relief that trickled in when she wrote the first answer. For the way the silence loosened a little, the way her mind stopped spinning so frantically.
When she was halfway through, she caught herself smiling faintly at a clever clue — and the smile died instantly. Because even this, even here, Alec was in it. She had him to thank for the entertainment in her hand.
Her stomach turned. She pushed the crossword away, burying her head in her arms.
Marcus knows his role on his team: he’s the one who carries the gun, makes the hard calls - and takes the hits. He has no time or patience for anyone or anything else. But when Jake - a brand-new recruit Marcus has been tasked with training - messes up on his first mission and gets them both captured, nothing could prepare Marcus for the way his world quickly spirals out of control.
AO3
Masterlist
This is a series. Start here, continued from here.
Levy: (historical) the act of enlisting someone for military service
Contents: military whump, captivity, torture, dissociation, past nonconsensual photos, handcuffs, dehumanization, forced to kneel, ring gag, grabbed by the hair, gang rape, explicit noncon, oral sex, anal sex, homophobia, victim blaming, death threats, spitroasting, grief, thoughts of death, shock torture, chipped tooth
~
There were two sets of footsteps coming for him tonight. Jake felt the terror, felt the revulsion as he slid his aching body out of the cot and lowered himself to his bruised knees, felt the tears already beginning to roll down his cheeks as Brady and Surles stepped into his cell. After so many long weeks of this – he had lost track of the days long ago, but he’d heard Puera say something about five weeks about a week ago – there was only so much pain and humiliation he could bear before he just… checked out. Like the camera in his mind stopped recording, and the light entering his eyes passed over an empty screen. Dimly, he wondered what the two of them wanted with him. He resigned himself to the knowledge that he would find out soon enough.
They were laughing, as they entered his cell. Brady was holding out his phone, showing something to Surles. Jake stared at the floor and waited for what they were going to do. Maybe a beating. Maybe the chip. It was always something like that. The only strange thing was that they were both here so late in the night.
Brady tucked his phone into his pocket and grinned at Jake. “So, yeah,” he said, rolling his shoulder. “I guess the secret’s out.”
Surles leered at Jake. “More than a little pissed you kept it to yourself all this time,” he said. “Here I thought we were trying to be professional.”
Jake’s head fell forward, and he whimpered softly.
“Yeah,” Brady murmured. “Yeah, Levy, you guessed right.” He stepped behind Jake and cuffed his hands behind his back. “So, how you wanna do this?”
Surles showed all his teeth in a grin. “Well, here’s the thing… I had something delivered to my quarters. On company time, too. Better not tell anyone.” He chuckled as he reached into his pocket. When his hand emerged, he was holding a leather strap that Jake recognized instantly.
A ring gag.
“N-no,” Jake whimpered. “No.”
Brady snorted. “You can fuck its mouth without that, you know,” he said, rolling his eyes. “I’ve done it plenty.”
“Yeah, and you’re fucking insane,” Surles said. “It’s a Lev, and you willingly put your dick in close proximity to its teeth? Naw, man. I want to keep my shit exactly where it is.”
“Yeah, a fucking pathetic Lev.” Brady smacked Jake across the mouth. Jake gasped.
“Whatever. I like how these feel anyway.” Surles stepped forward and seized Jake’s hair in his fist. “Open up, Levy, or this will royally fucking suck for you.”
Jake sobbed weakly as Surles pried his jaw open and forced the ring between his teeth, buckling the gag behind his head. With his mouth forced open, his sobs sounded horribly loud in the close proximity of the cell. Tears poured down his face.
“Fuck, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this,” Surles murmured, pressing his thumb into Jake’s mouth through the gag and pressing down on his tongue.
“Yeah, well, you know now.”
“While it lasts.” Surles jerked Jake’s head forward by his hair, burying his face in his crotch. “You doing this with me, or what?”
Brady chuckled. “Hell yeah, man.” He knelt behind Jake and jerked his pants and underwear down off his hips.
Jake cried out, shying away from the hand suddenly groping him. That only served to push him harder into Surles’s crotch. He whined softly.
“I think it likes you,” Brady said as he popped the lid on his bottle of lube. Two fingers pressed into Jake a moment later. Jake groaned and twisted his wrists in the cuffs.
“Fuck, it just makes the best noises, doesn’t it?” Surles sighed, gripping Jake’s hair in one hand and undoing his pants with the other. He palmed himself over his boxers, moaning, holding Jake’s face an inch away from his hardening cock.
“Just wait until my cock’s inside it. Moans like a whore. It was a cocksucker before this, you know that? And I don’t care what it says, you know that other Lev was riding its ass all day and all night. Probably why it’s always ready to go.” A third finger entered Jake. He cried out at the sharp pain.
Surles sighed. “Fuckin’… hurry up. I wanna try it out.” He drew his cock out of his pants and tapped it against Jake’s cheek. Jake shuddered.
“Yeah, yeah, alright,” Brady grumbled. “Not like we need to keep it in one piece for much longer, right?”
Before Jake could even think to feel dread at what Brady meant, Brady’s cock pressed inside him. He sobbed and tried desperately to shuffle away on his knees. Surles gripped his hair and shoved his cock into Jake’s mouth, all the way to the base. Jake gagged immediately.
“Fuck,” Surles groaned. “Ungh, fuck.”
Jake’s eyes streamed as Brady’s hands gripped his hips and pulled him back onto him, hard. Surles guided him along his cock, roughly fucking into Jake’s mouth. The two men got into a rhythm as they used him. Jake desperately dragged in air whenever he could, and whimpered with each exhale. His knees ached against the floor. Surles kept him canted forward even as Brady pulled him back hard onto his cock. It was all pain. It was all humiliation, intrusion, use. He felt like a thing, stretched between the two men raping him.
He felt like a Lev.
Brady was fucking him harder than usual, like having his friend there was egging him on. Or maybe…
“Not like we need to keep it in one piece for much longer, right?”
Maybe Jake had misjudged the passage of time, and this would be over soon. Maybe they were taking what they could from him while they still had the chance. Maybe he only had a few more punishments, a few more rapes, a few more days of pain before they would let him die.
Marcus, Marcus, Marcus.
Every thrust into his mouth hurt, bruising his already bruised throat. He could hear the wet, punched-out sounds, even over Brady’s moans. Surles was getting into it, too. His fingers were tightening on Jake’s hair.
Even his scalp hurt. There were whole sections of his hair that had been torn out at the roots. He just wanted this to be over. He had nothing left for them to take.
“Hnng, fuck,” Surles groaned. “I’m… Mike, I’m gonna…” He abruptly pulled out of Jake’s mouth. Cum spurted on his face, and he flinched back. He sucked in air freely through the ring gag. Saliva dripped from his lips.
“Almost there,” Brady sighed. “Fuck, this is hot.”
Jake nearly pitched forward with the force of Brady’s thrusts into him. Only Surles’s firm grip on his hair kept him upright. Brady came inside him with a groan. Jake flinched as he felt Brady’s forehead drop forward and press between his shoulder blades, sparking pain in the layers of lash marks he bore now. He whimpered, trembling, still full of Brady.
“That was good,” Surles said approvingly.
“Mmm.” Brady pulled out of Jake and stood. Surles unbuckled the gag from behind Jake’s head and yanked hit from Jake’s mouth, clanking it on his teeth. He kicked Jake to the floor and spat on him for good measure. Jake lay motionless at their feet, cuffed, sore, covered in their fluids as he waited for what they wanted to do to him next. He ran his tongue along the inside of his mouth, wincing as he found a sharp edge.
The ring had chipped his front tooth as Surles pulled it out.
He was so tired. He was so tired of this.
Brady grinned at Surles. “Happy now? Told you it was good.”
Surles shoved him. “You could have told me when you started fucking it, you know. But yeah. Pretty fucking good.”
Brady bent and unlocked the cuffs from Jake’s wrists. While he was bent down, he grabbed Jake’s face in a clawed hand and shook him hard. “You’re truly gifted, Lev. It’s a shame we’ll be putting you down soon. We could keep you as a pet. Take you to the officer’s quarters. Chain you to my bed. You could be, like… my lapdog. Maybe I could ask the captain for a stay of your sentence, huh? Maybe the brass would go for that. Maybe they’d let me keep you, if I promised to keep you stupid and full of cock for the rest of your life.”
Jake yanked his face out of Brady’s hand and pressed his forehead against the floor. “Just shock me and go,” he croaked.
Surles huffed. “I mean… if you insist, little cocksucker…”
Agony burrowed inside Jake. He screamed through his teeth as he writhed on the floor in front of the two men. Surles hit the button again. And again. His shirt was soaked through with sweat by the time Surles was done.
“Like I said, Levy,” Brady said. “I’ll miss you when you’re dead and rotting.” He stepped over Jake’s prone form on his way to the door. Surles followed him out and shut the door behind him. As their footsteps echoed down the hall, Jake used his damp shirt to wipe off his face. He pulled his pants up, crawled back onto his cot, and waited for the next day to start.
Continued here
If you want to be on the taglist (including for the spicy chapters,) let me know! I only tag people in 18+ chapters if I know they are adults through conversations or if their age/age range is in their bio.
Life now held patterns, but no predictability. Vienna did all she could to hold onto some sense of meaning in her days, stick to some sort of vague schedule that helped time make sense, held her sense of self together when it felt close to shattering entirely. But Alec always had some way of knocking her off balance, of reminding her that any feeble control she thought had over things was just that. Weak. Thin. Breakable.
One of the most common ways he did that was by coming down to the basement drunk.
The first time, she'd dared to hope. The way he stumbled into the room, eyes glassy, reeking of alcohol, made Vienna wonder if this was her chance. If he'd be clumsy, thoughtless, make some sort of mistake that would allow her to escape.
But that was never the case. Being drunk made Alec erratic, but never careless. Not about something, as he often told her, he'd worked so hard for. If anything, it just accentuated the most frightening parts of him.
Sometimes he'd come down drunk and mean. His words were jagged glass, his hands rougher than usual, even when she didn't resist. He called her names that stuck in her ears long after he stumbled upstairs again, left her bruised and trembling, braced for the next round. Those nights, she could almost predict the storm: bottle in hand, slurred accusations, rage looking for a target. And her, the only thing standing there.
Other times, he came down drunk and soft. That was worse.
He would drop onto the bed beside her, arm flung heavily across her stomach, face nuzzled into her hair. “You’re mine,” he’d murmur, sloppy and sing-song, demanding kisses that made her skin crawl. When she tried to resist, he’d whine like a child until she gave in, terrified he’d turn sharp in an instant. He often did.
And a couple times — just once or twice — he'd cried. Really cried. His head in her lap, words tumbling out in an incoherent mess about being unappreciated, unknown, unrecognized. About how nobody saw him the way she did. She’d sit frozen, hands hovering over his shaking shoulders, hating him and hating herself more for the way she sometimes pitied him in those moments. A larger part of her, though, wanted to shove him away, wanted to scream, You are! You're pathetic!
But some primal force in her, instinctual and intuitive, knew that she couldn't. She'd sit there, still and silent like a prey animal, knowing that acknowledging his vulnerability in any way could only make him more dangerous. He never mentioned these occasions later, and she didn't know if he'd forgotten it in his drunken haze or just refused to bring it up.
The worst part was, she never knew which version would stumble through the door. Angry Alec, clingy Alec, sobbing Alec — all of them dangerous in their own way. She learned to read the tilt of his shoulders, the glassiness of his eyes, the first words out of his mouth like weather signs, trying desperately to prepare herself.
But it didn’t matter. He always changed direction without warning. She could never be ready.
So Vienna learned the only rule that mattered: never let your guard down. Not even when he was slurring, not even when he seemed half-asleep, not even when he was laughing like they were sharing some private joke.
Especially then.
All her senses were attuned, so much so that on this night, she heard him coming from the first step.
Her chest tightened. Drunk again. She could hear it in the stagger of his steps, the sloppy rhythm that made her skin crawl before he even entered the room.
Vienna's body locked up as he swung the door wide and stumbled in, grinning like he owned the air. His shirt was already half-unbuttoned, a bottle dangling from his hand. The sour stench of liquor hit her throat.
“Hey, sunshine,” he slurred, collapsing onto the bed and slinging an arm around her shoulders. His body was too hot, his laughter sloppy. “Miss me?”
She said nothing. She had learned silence could sometimes keep him steady, like not jostling a glass already overflowing.
But he noticed. He always noticed.
“No hello? No smile?” His voice dropped, suddenly sharp. His hand dug into her arm. “You ungrateful little bitch.”
Her stomach flipped. She forced her lips to move. “Hi.”
For a moment, he studied her — then just as quickly, the anger evaporated. He laughed, pressing a sloppy kiss to her temple. “There she is. Knew you loved me.”
Vienna’s heart pounded. It was like walking on ice, never sure when it would crack and pull her under.
His hand trailed down her side, fingers fumbling against her clothes, pulling, tugging. “Soft little thing,” he murmured. “You never do get used to this, do you? So tense. So fun."
And then, just as her body began to uncoil — smack. His palm cracked against her cheek. The world flashed white.
“Look at you,” Alec sneered, laughing again. “Crying already? I barely touched you.”
Her ears rang. She tasted blood on her lip.
He yanked her chin, forcing her gaze to his, his pupils wide and glassy. “You thought nothing would ever touch you, didn't you? Never thought someone like me was waiting. Watching.”
Vienna squeezed her eyes shut, wishing she could vanish into the mattress, into the dark. But he was still there — his weight, his heat, his voice slurring against her skin, weaving tenderness and cruelty together so tightly she couldn’t tell them apart anymore.
And that was the worst part: not knowing which touch was coming, only that it would.
The sting in her cheek still burned when Alec’s mood swerved again. He laughed, brushing his thumb over the red mark like it was something precious, like he had crafted it just for her.
“Beautiful,” he whispered. “My beautiful little canvas.”
Vienna’s stomach churned. She could feel the shift — the way his weight pressed heavier against her, the way his grin softened into something more deliberate. His hand wandered lower, clumsy but certain.
No.
Her chest seized. She knew that tone, that look. Even drunk, even more so because he was drunk, this was the part that always followed. The part she couldn’t fight, couldn’t outrun.
A tremor shot through her body. She swallowed hard, willing herself to stay silent, but a broken sound slipped from her throat.
Alec caught it instantly. He grinned wider, triumphant. “There it is. That little whimper. I swear, I could live off that sound.”
Her skin crawled. She turned her face away, staring at the wall, at the chip in the paint she had memorized a hundred times already. If she focused hard enough, maybe she could go somewhere else. Anywhere else.
But he wouldn’t let her. He never did. His hand forced her chin back. “Don’t hide from me. You know I like watching your eyes when I take what’s mine.”
The room tilted, too hot, too close. Vienna’s pulse hammered so fast it hurt. She hated how her body shook, how helplessly it betrayed her terror.
And beneath it all was the crushing weight of inevitability.
Because he was drunk, unpredictable, violent — but this part? This part was always the same.
***
Alec shifted against her, groaning like a man after a feast. His weight still pressed down, every inch of him heavy and hot, as though he were branding her into the mattress.
“God…” he breathed, nuzzling into her shoulder. “You have no idea what you do to me.”
His arm slung lazily across her stomach, trapping her even though she hadn’t dared move. She stared straight ahead, face damp with tears, every muscle aching from holding herself rigid.
He tilted his head up, studying her. She felt his eyes crawling over her face even though she refused to look back.
“You’re so quiet tonight,” he muttered, voice thick with liquor. “Not as fun when you don’t fight me.” His fingers brushed her cheek, clumsy and almost tender, except for the way her skin crawled under it. “Still….you look so pretty wrecked like this. My pretty girl.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, bile rising in her throat.
For a moment she thought he might finally roll away, stumble upstairs, leave her in the silence she craved. But instead, Alec shifted again, tugging at the blanket until it half-covered them both. He let out another sigh, content.
“I think I’ll stay here tonight,” he said, almost offhand, like it was a kindness. “Don’t want to miss you if I wake up.”
Her chest seized. No. No, she needed a minute to just breathe….
She swallowed hard, fighting the rising panic. His breathing began to steady, already sinking toward sleep, while hers raced like she was drowning. The sour reek of alcohol, of him, clung to her hair, her skin. Every place he touched burned with the certainty he wasn’t going anywhere.
The thought of hours — long, endless hours — pinned beneath his presence made her stomach twist until she thought she might choke.
She wanted him gone. She wanted to claw herself out of her own body just to be anywhere else.
But Alec only hummed softly, nestling closer, as if he belonged there. The night stretched out in front of her, impossibly long.
***
Vienna lay there, staring at the wall. She didn't know how many hours it had been — just that the sick warmth of Alec was still next to her. Asleep, thankfully, from the way his chest rose and fell, the soft snores rumbling from his chest. So relaxed. So at ease. All while every muscle in her body clenched so hard it hurt. She'd been able to worm herself away from him just enough to avoid touching him, and even that felt like the world's greatest gift.
She wondered, for the millionth time, how this had become her life. The last moments of normalcy played in her head in a loop, haunting her. Chatting playfully with Abigail in the library. Talking with her mom on the phone. Texting Zander.
God, it hurt to think about. To think that they were probably replaying the same moments in their minds. Because the what-ifs were just too strong. What if she had hung back in the library with Abi? What if she'd stayed on the phone with her mom? What if she'd gone to meet Zander instead of head back to her dorm?
Any scrap of a chance at things turning out differently, Vienna clung to. There must be a world where this never happened. She tried to count in her head how long it had been. She knew she was kidnapped on May 9. The television helped her keep careful track of the time, so she knew in the morning, it would be June 14. She swallowed thickly. Over a month….
Wait. A month. A month.
A sick, dizzying feeling hit Vienna over the head like a cinderblock. Time seemed to move so differently here, she was so focused on surviving day to day, she'd barely thought about it….
Her hand went automatically to her stomach, as if she could have felt something growing there already. The urge to vomit surged hot and fast, and she had to stare up at the ceiling, take in shaky breaths to calm herself.
No. Not possible. It couldn't be.
She had stopped keeping track of the number of times he'd assaulted her somewhere after twenty. It had started to become too unbearable, too surreal. But she did know that in all those times, he'd never used protection, not once. Never seemed worried about it in the slightest. What were the odds of it not happening at any given day over the past five weeks?
Her mind spun furiously. There was no good option, nothing that guaranteed her safety. But it had been a while since anything had. She dared to look over at Alec, sleeping peacefully. It was better to get it over with, not live with the anxiety choking her any longer than necessary. In the morning, she would say something. Even if it made her heart sink with dread.
***
Like all things that are looked upon with trepidation, the morning came much too soon. The windowless room made it hard to tell, but Alec stirred, glanced at the clock, then sat up and stretched. Vienna lay still, calculating: he didn't seem too hungover, so maybe he wouldn't be in a bad mood. But at the same time, it was a Saturday, he would probably be down here most of the day —
His hand clamped down on her arm. She froze.
"Wake up. Or don't, I really don't care."
It was quick this time. That's all she could really say.
After he was done, Alec got up, the mattress finally creaking as his weight came off it. Left her shivering form in bed as he got dressed. Vienna watched him carefully, like he was a bomb that might off if handled incorrectly.
These in-between moments always felt like a trap: if she stayed in the bed, it felt like an invitation for him to return. But sometimes movement alone could spark his appetite again, encourage him to drag her out to the main room for something even worse. She compromised by sitting up but keeping the covers wrapped around her body like a shield. Alec moved through the small room without a care in the world, filling up a glass of water in the sink, throwing it back like another shot of liquor.
Now was a good a time as any. At least right now he was….satisfied.
"Can I ask you something?" Vienna tried to keep the tremble out of her voice.
"You can ask," Alec replied, looking at her curiously as he refilled his cup in the sink.
"Do you remember….that second day? When you were asking me all those questions? And you —"
"Oh, I definitely remember that day." His smile was sharp, all teeth.
Vienna let the wave of disgust roll through her as she paused, not daring to talk over him. When it looked like he'd just wanted to taunt her, she forced her throat to unlock and continued, "You asked me if I was taking any medicines. And I said birth control and vitamins. And you got me the vitamins, but you never…." She was too afraid to finish the sentence. Too afraid to voice it into reality.
"What do you need birth control for? You afraid you might be pregnant?"
Vienna's breath caught in her throat at how easily he named it, and Alec cocked his head with a grin, attention fully on her now.
"That's right. You haven't had a period at all, have you?"
And there it was. Dread threatened to overtake her, but she shoved it away, tried to stay calm, not get him worked up. Vienna forced herself to nod, the smallest movement, watching for any sign in his face of what might come next. But he was, to her surprise, still smiling.
"Well, this is no good, little girl. Unless you want to have my baby?"
Her stomach lurched. "No."
"Then we've got to think of a way to take care of this." He leaned back against the kitchenette counter, not seeming worried at all. "Easiest way would be to beat it out of you. See how many kicks to the stomach that takes. Could throw you down the stairs a few times." Vienna shrank in her spot instinctively. He seemed to be reveling in the thought of hurting her, and she knew by now he had no problem doing it for real.
"Or," Alec continued louder, "a week without food might do it. Could also be interesting to see how much alcohol you need to down to kill it."
The images forced themselves into Vienna's brain before she could stop them, and when Alec made a move towards her, she couldn't help it: she let out a strangled scream and scurried backwards on the mattress. He stopped. Laughed out loud.
"Jesus, little girl — I'm kidding." He laughed again, a full body sound that made everything in Vienna recoil. "You are not pregnant. No, baby, I plan ahead. Got a vasectomy a long time ago. Shooting blanks. If anything," he smirked, looking over her terrified form with satisfaction, "your body's just so stressed out it's not working properly anymore."
He stepped closer again, voice practically a purr. "I've got that effect on you, don't I?"
Vienna wanted to deny it. But the fact that she could sleep entire days away, never had a true appetite, the fact that her body could now endure extremes she never would have imagined….her period going away from stress didn't seem so far-fetched. And it was certainly better than the alternative.
"Are you sure?" She hated how small her voice was. Hated that she had to ask him for reassurance.
Alec saw it and patted her cheek with condescending comfort. "Don't worry. I've always had lots of plans for you, little girl, but raising a family is not one of them."
Vienna grimaced and instinctually flinched away from his touch. A smile twitched at his lips.
"No. That's not in the cards for you anymore. You've got one job now. And you just get better and better at it."
He was still chuckling when the door closed behind him.
Vienna tried not to gag as his voice rang in her head. It's not my job. It's not. My job is to survive.
Her hands shook. Her face was flushed with humiliation, though she couldn't even pinpoint exactly why. She just felt….small. Stupid. Naive. Worthless. Gross.
That was it, more than anything. Even the idea that she could be….that he could've…..
She pressed the pillow against her face, hard. For half a second she wondered if she could just smother herself.
But no. Because at the end of the day, it wasn't just about her, was it?
Vienna let their faces and names flash through her head. Mom. Dad. Zander. Abi. Daniela. Kaya. And on and on…..
I'm not just a toy to them. Not a thing to use. I'm Vienna. I can still be Vienna.
Time seemed to blur after that. It became something somehow both sticky and fluid, grounding Vienna with unbearable awareness to the present while also slipping through her fingers faster than she could catch it. She kept track of it through the clock, the television, the tiny windows in the main room of the basement when he took her out for those extended sessions. More than once, Vienna had caught herself admiring the quiet beauty of dust floating in the small rays of sun, as if it could take away from Alec grunting and panting on top of her at the very same moment.
Time was easily lost in those early days, when Vienna didn't realize yet what a tether to sanity it was. Entire days could be slept away, her mind and body giving into the numb oblivion they so desperately craved until she was roused by the sound of his footsteps coming down the stairs. Sometimes after he left, she'd be so enveloped by panic that she could spend hours sobbing and gasping for breath without any notion of how many minutes had passed.
Some mornings she clung to the idea that maybe he would kill her after all — the thought came with a guilty rush of relief, though she hated herself for wanting it. Other mornings she willed herself to be numb, to drift somewhere outside her body, because that was the only way to survive his hands, his words, the endless cycle. It didn't work nearly as often as she wanted it to.
Survival meant she had to learn a new language. One she never wanted to know — Alec's. Not in the way of words, necessarily, but of footsteps, of tone, of actions. She learned to brace herself for anger and fists when his feet came down the stairs hard. She learned when it was okay to push back at him, when it would amuse him, and when it would just earn her punishment. But sometimes it felt like it was a learning curve she could never catch up to.
The energy in the air changed before she could even blink. One moment they were sitting, almost normal, as he ranted about his day — and then he was on her, yanking her hair, pinning her wrists, pulling at her clothes. "Wait — wait —" she cried, completely caught off guard. He didn't care. He shoved her face into the mattress, muffling her scream as he tore into her with no preparation. Panic spiked as she couldn't breathe for a moment, and she gasped for air as he flipped her over. But it was only to shove into her again, hands holding her in place as he forced a suffocating kiss onto her lips.
The weekends were different.
There was no clock to count down, no sound of him leaving for work in the morning. He stayed. Hours stretched and folded in on themselves, and she stopped trying to guess how long it had been.
What lingered with her was the way he seemed almost lighthearted. He laughed easily, whistled under his breath, narrated his own enjoyment as if he were sharing a private joke. The sound of her crying never slowed him down. If anything, it seemed to give him more energy.
What unnerved her the most was that nothing about it felt secret or shameful to him. He wasn’t hiding. He wasn’t angry. He was having fun. And she was the toy — not just her body, but her mind, too.
He was making noises deliberately to humiliate her. She knew that. She knew that. But still, Vienna couldn't help but grimace and choke out a sob as Alec moaned, the sound reverberating against her chest. His mouth made a sloppy smacking sound against her skin, and she felt nauseous. "P-please just stop —" she tried to beg, and the groan turned into an outright laugh. "Stop? Oh, sweetheart. Hours before that word matters. I’ll enjoy every second. And it's not like it hurts this time, right?" His hand wedged between their hips, to the stickiness on them both, and shame surged so hot another sob burst out. He laughed again, a grotesque loop as he lowered his lips back to her skin. Every movement was excruciatingly slow, giving them both time to drink it all in.
The television, of all things, became her lifeline. Its flickering light and constant hum were a poor substitute for company, but it was better than silence. She watched everything — sitcoms, game shows, sports, documentaries, infomercials she could recite by heart. For a few hours each day, she could pretend she was somewhere else, anywhere else. The news was harder. She was hit with something that was equal parts dread and longing when her name came up. If he knew it was coming, Alec would invariably be in the basement to watch with her — watching the reporters talk about her “mystery disappearance,” watching her parents’ pleas for answers, watching her watch it all.
He loved boasting about how lost the authorities were, how he'd outsmarted them all. He'd sprinkle in memories of watching Vienna before she'd ever known he existed — so many instances she never knew about, she thought he must be lying, but then he'd drop in a detail, a gut punch that told her it must be true. How she bit her lip while she studied in the library. How she'd worn a blue and green sundress to Zander's last basketball game. How she'd dropped her books one time in the cafe and she and Abi had both bent down to pick them up. Every last thing he'd imagined. And how he could do it all now.
SMACK. SMACK. SMACK. Alec was hitting her hips again and again, in time with his thrusts, and Vienna was sure her skin must be glowing bright red by now. "Please - it h-hurts-" Vienna gasped, stumbling over her words as she realized the admission would just spur him on. And it did. "Good!" he snarled, slapping her again and then holding onto the red flesh, digging his nails into her. "I can beat you black and blue, bitch. All while you fucking beg me to stop."
She quickly learned that for Alec, it wasn't just about the sex. Not only that, anyway. It was about him reveling in his complete control over her, breaking her down over and over, doing whatever he pleased that pushed her to that space that left her crying, begging, screaming.
The rapes almost always brought those reactions out, except on the rare, blessed occasions she was able to dissociate the entire time. But Alec seemed to like to switch things up. Some days he seemed more interest in maximizing any type of violation for her, whether he got physical pleasure from it or not. Other times, it was all about the pain. Vienna began to have visceral reactions whenever he approached the closet doors in the main room, knowing exactly what its doors held. Minutes and sometimes even hours would drag, his laughter and taunts mingling with her cries and pleas like it was the most natural thing in the world. And it always had the same ending: Alec dragging her to one of the beds, or set of restraints, or even just the floor to cap off the day.
Oftentimes, his words were the worst - crude, mocking, smug, unbearably satisfied. They wormed their way into Vienna's head more deeply than any physical torment, ringing in her ears long after he'd left.
"Tastes perfect, feels perfect…. just like I imagined. God, it's like you were made for me." She felt his breath against her skin, making her feel trapped in ways the restraints never could. A sob ripped from her throat, legs shaking, trying to close, and his laugh vibrated between her legs. "That's right. Just like that. Let's see how much more you can take."
At the end of the day, it was hard to decide what was the most painful. Being torn from her loved ones, being treated like nothing more than a plaything, the physical intensity she was forced to endure again and again. But it may have been the way Alec crushed what she knew of the world beneath his fingers. The way he reacted to her tears, her fear, her pain with pure delight shocked Vienna every time, each laugh and taunt made the world shake around her. She had never known a person could be this way.
During the most intense moments, when his laughs and taunts bounced off the walls amidst her screams and pleas, she had trouble reconciling that it was her own voice mixing with his. It sounded nothing like her own, more like a clip from a horror movie, a scene taken from a nightmare. And she knew he loved that.
It was like being buried alive, over and over and over again, and still somehow waking up the next morning. Truthfully, she had no idea how she survived it. The simplest answer was that she had no other choice.
She tried to plead, to beg, but her words slurred with exhaustion. Her throat was raw from screaming, and still he demanded more. “Beg louder,” he growled happily against her. “I want to hear you choke on it. Tell me how bad you want me to stop.”
“I can’t — I c-can’t —” she sobbed, her voice barely there.
“Yes, you can. You can, and you will. You’ll do it all day long for me, little girl.”
One thing became clear: Vienna's life was not her own anymore. She fought the idea that it was ruled by Alec — by his moods, his hands, his visits — but every day he seemed committed to driving her deeper into despair, into helplessness. An average day before might have been going to class, eating a meal with Zander, watching TV with Abi. Now, it was anticipating footsteps above her, counting the minutes until his weight shifted off her, singing songs or sketching landscapes in her head to try and push through the pain and pure violation that had become her daily life.
It was mornings like this. Alec had come down for his usual visit before work. He was in a good mood today, practically giddy, but it didn't make things any better for her. No, instead it meant he wanted to play a game: forcing her to beg for him to stop before clapping his hand over her mouth again and again, enjoying the way her words got muffled against his palm.
"Try again." He grinned, rocking his hips. Humiliated tears streamed from Vienna's eyes as she stammered, "P-please - please stop - it's almost been an hour, you're going to be late for work, please just — mmph!"
Alec laughed, an ugly, delighted sound. "Ohh, I'd be pretty unhappy with that. And you'd be to blame, wouldn't you? You better help me finish quick."
He moved off of her then, took his hand off her mouth, but there was no relief. She knew by now what those words meant.
Ten minutes later, he was finally getting dressed, splashing water on his face at the bathroom sink before heading off to work like nothing had happened. Vienna stayed curled on her knees, arms wrapped herself as the footsteps faded away above. Her new favorite noise sounded: the mechanical scrape of the garage door opening and closing overhead. He was finally gone for the day.
The basement was cold. Her body was wrung out, trembling with the raw, heavy weight of what had just happened. She hated that she could feel every trace of him lingering, that her muscles remembered in ways she didn’t want them to. She felt miserable, used up, like a shell of herself.
But after a few minutes, she took a breath. Sat herself up. At least it was a weekday. At least she had the blessed reprieve of Alec being gone for a few hours. At least her body had a moment to recover. She should take advantage.
The shower was scalding, how she liked it now. In her mind, she organized what her day would be like. Whether it was sane or insane, she couldn't tell, but she had started breaking her days down by hours, themes. Each hour correlated with someone from before. A reminder that life outside these walls existed.
Every morning after he was gone started with a mom hour. Vienna would take meticulous care of herself, even when she wanted to tear off her own skin. She would shower, gently brush her hair, sometimes braid it like her mother did when she was little. Then she'd wash the soiled sheets, remaking the bed with slow, deliberate care, no wrinkles. Clean the bathroom or kitchenette. Try to tell herself one kind thing her mom might say if she were here.
After that was a dad hour. She'd find something to eat, think about what she would have for lunch or dinner. It wasn't possible to really cook like her dad liked to — classic Filipino dishes or cozy baked goods weren't doable with the kitchenette — so oftentimes she'd just pretend, even narrating out loud as if she was on a cooking show. She ate slowly, mindfully, trying to notice flavors or textures she hadn't noticed before. Some days it all tasted like ash.
Next might come an Abigail hour. She'd watch TV. Vienna had almost laughed when she came up with this one, imagining Abi's playful indignation. What, that's the first thing that comes to mind?! But there was a comfort to it, a familiarity nothing else in the basement gave her.
Nearly every day, she did a Zander hour. She'd sit at the table and read, whatever Alec would give her. It didn't really matter what. What was more important was the steadiness of it, how much it reminded Vienna of Zander. Sometimes she'd try to imagine what he might say about a scene, or read a passage in his voice. Even more often she'd stroke her own hair while reading and try to imagine it was him.
And there were plenty of others, too. A Kaya hour — Vienna would do light exercises, trying to give her body some other function. A Daniela hour — she'd play cards by herself, make up new games. A Jay hour — she'd put a random sport on the TV and try to learn the rules.
Anything that made her feel human. Anything that kept her from thinking about what was coming again soon.
Because, without fail, the garage door would open again. Footsteps would descend the staircase. And it would start all over again.
