> You’re still reeling over the sweetness of your captor, even after all this time... but you desperately need some normalcy, and getting it isn’t easy.
Writing muse brought on by @collected-soul’s Jay wouldn’t leave me alone!
MINOR WARNINGS for captive situation, mentioned dubiously consensual fuckin’, and that good good Stockholm syndrome. Also, feels??
—-
There are tears in his eyes. You feel like a monster for even asking, but at this point, it’s no longer optional.
Your hands go to his face, thumbs tracing over his cheekbones; his own go to your wrists immediately, grip tight. God, you can feel him shaking.
“You remember the little walks I went on? Like the one yesterday?”
He clicks, once. Yes.
“I came back, didn’t I?”
Click.
“This one is a little longer, but I’ll come back again, sweetheart. I promise.”
His trembling hands tighten, the distress in his expression as he looks at you beseechingly making your heart twist. Fuck, you hate this. You hate this and you hate what you have to say, but he has to understand…
“….I need to do this, dove. To be happy.”
He flinches almost like you hit him, and then nothing, for a moment.
Click.
He slowly lets go of you, taking a reluctant step back, eyes flitting over the beads and bangles that decorate you: the bright jewels and feathers that dangle from your ears, the riot of chain and ribbon that encircles your neck, the glittering, mismatched bracelets that clink at your wrists- his gifts to you, and you can tell he’s trying to figure out why they weren’t enough.
Shot through the heart.
“I’ll come back,” You insist, bringing his hands up to kiss his roughened knuckles. “I’ll bring you a present, too. Would you like that?”
“You,” He rasps in reply, the disuse of his voice making half of the word only air.
…. Should’ve seen that coming, but it doesn’t stop the sting of your eyes going glassy. You nod and kiss him again, making a hasty retreat so you don’t see his face as you pull away; you can’t take any more heartbreak for today.
—-
Sitting at a little table by the front window, you breathe the heavenly scent of roasting coffee beans with nothing short of elation, hands wrapped around the paper cup to absorb every bit of the experience. Mundane, sure- but not to you.
Not anymore.
You ignore the stares; You’re in faded, well-worn clothes with mismatched, hand sewn patches, scratches and bruises on every speck of skin from an amorous, overzealous someone, glasses repaired on one side with wood and twine, nevermind all the jewelry- you know you look like a flea market at a post-apocalyptic hippy festival, but you don’t care.
You have coffee.
You look out at the little town as you take a slow sip. You could just…. walk down the street. There’s a train station, you know there is, you’ve been there before- you could buy a ticket, get on the train, go back to the city, and never, ever come back here. Jay would never come after you, not where you live. You could go back to your life before he stole you right out of your little hiking trip like you had never left- aside from dealing with where you’ve been for the past five months or so.
The pang of longing is nearly unbearable, but the memory of Jay’s pleading, distraught face pushes the thought out of your mind.
You could leave, sure… but you’d never be able to live with yourself.
He’d be inconsolable. Probably kill himself looking for you. He barely eats as it is, and you know he’d eschew his needs entirely with you missing. He already does that enough-
You shake it out of your head and sigh, leaning back in your chair. Whatever life you could go back to isn’t worth it, not after all your painstaking work to gain his trust- and it took a lot to get to this point. If he thought someone else had stolen you while you were out, that would be bad enough… but if he figured out that you, his treasure, his Pretty, left him, on purpose…
How could you sleep at night knowing the pain you’d have caused him?
Gazing down the road to the train station, you know you can’t do it.
You’ll get the things you came here for, you’ll go back, and you’ll keep working on him. Maybe in another six months you’ll have made enough progress to convince him to move out of the forest- at least to the edge, maybe? Close to blessed civilisation, close to Jay- it’s the best case scenario you can think of.
You already know you love him despite yourself- whether Stockhom had any part in it isn’t worth fretting over.
