i know bruce gets sooooo hard looking at your mris. the fact that he can see ALL of you in perfect detail is so intimate.
at his most depraved and repressed i think bruce has an exact replica of your skeleton made,,, not to do anything horny with per-say, but just to look at. run his hands over. occasionally lie next to while he counts the carpel bones in each of your wrists. he needs to split you open and see that every individual part of you is safe. since he can't do that without hurting you, this is the most he allows himself.
Is getting the pages of lore on the hivemind a commission because I assure you I’ll pay
hmmm i'd be open to it but the only readable format for this kind of thing i could imagine involves like. the reader-insert not showing up until maybe the last few paragraphs and. how little reader-insert does their get to be in a reader-insert fanfiction. it it legal. are we still doing fanfiction at all at that point or are these just really horny short stories. these are ethical questions that will need to be answered prior to my next commission batch.
Oh hey in your new story, did I spy a Dancing Plague reference with the bit of backstory?
fdkslfjksldjfksl yesssss i'm so glad someone caught that <3 in my very personal headcanon, that was the first time the hivemind entity had human hosts and was still adjusting to the physicality of it all. it did kill like a lot of people by accident but it was mostly just trying to have a little fun :) and the other villages kept sending it new parts to replace the ones that broke :) :) everyone had a great time all around :) :) :)
Beinging up forcemasc again because I'm rewatching ohshc and I feel that haruhi is an important statement piece to this conversation as she is simultaneously being forcemasced (financially extorted and blackmailed into hiding her sex and dressing like a boy) and also still so forcefemmed (tamaki everytime he breathes a thought in her direction) and caring not even a slightest either way
truly haruhi is the best nonbinary representation because they simply. could not care less. which i find to be the most authentic enby experience. every episode they're either getting sexualized by their peers or pressured to come out as a girl or just in general going through it and the biggest reaction they have is "okay well i still have to do my homework no matter what uniform i wear :|". writers would kill to have queer characters that true-to-life and bisco hatori was out here doing it for fun. god bless.
i like how you choose to write redhead jason in winter lamb. his greasiness just fits.
i think making jason a natural redhead is a punishment he only deserves in like. his truly worst fics. as evidence of his crimes. winter lamb jason is a strong ginger and sugar bowl jason definitely had like. the recessive gene of doom. the black hair dye is only accessible to the pure of heart and sometimes he just doesn't make the cut.
daydreams you’ve outdone yourself with the latest hivemind fic it’s so good 😭😭 the hivemind is genuinely kind of likeable but it’s such a terrifying situation it’s like. damn. he’ll never understand but he loves you anyway. big fan!
hehe thank you <3 i do think the hivemind entity is one of the sweeter (purely in comparison) character i've written, it's just a shame that you two were kinda,,, doomed from the start. they've never had to love anything they couldn't become. their sole method of interacting with the world is consumption and it makes them miserable but they don't know how to do anything else. you can't stand being watched and they have 16 billion eyes. it'd be a mercy just to swallow you down but they've only just learned how to bite without breaking the surface. just a tragedy on all fronts T-T </3
rip to Reader but ME PERSONALLY i would have been all up in the hivemind's business. like WHAT are you actually. no but actually. what do you mean you were trees. what do you mean you were a TOWN!!! but no like how does that work. how old are you. what do you Know. put aside that world domination and Tell me im literally climbing up the walls about it. i wanna know!!! amazing incredible spectacular show stopping i loved loved LOVED it!!! thank you for writing it!!!
fkjdkslfjksdjfksl that's one of the many draw backs of writing for original characters,,, if i had it MY way there'd be a four page interlude wherein the hivemind entity clinically explains its lore, abilities, and unique motivation, but alas that'd be boring as hell T-T and the reader-insert is absolutely not asking follow-up questions about any of that shit T-T T-T you'll have to be satisfied with the knowledge that i thought about an in-depth, timeline plottable backstory and then decided it would be sexier if i didn't include it.
genuine question, pls dont crucify me but when u write, do you write what the characters do as a 'my story, my plot' sort of thing or do you try to align a character's yandere tendencies to be how you think they'd be as a yandere. excluding commissions tho
hmmmm i feel like i'm one of. three fanfiction writers total who don't view yandere-izing a character on its own as writing them inherently ooc, so definitely the latter. i do make some exceptions, mostly for dc where there's canonical backing for literally every interpretation of any given character, but overall it is not that difficult to think of a scenario and then find a little guy who fits that scenario. even if you have to make him kinda crazy in the process.
TW: Non/Con, Dub/Con, Fem!Reader, Public Sex, Mentions of Blood + Violence, Exhibitionism/Voyeurism, Fingering, Past Abuse, Prolonged Entrapment, Soft Apocalypse, and Obsessive Behavior.
[Part One] [Part Two]
After reaching the surface, you learned quickly that living above the water wasn’t all that different from being trapped underneath it.
Most of your time was passed the same way. Crying, hiding, occasionally bargaining with the all-knowing, all-seeing monster who’d appointed itself your omnipresent caretaker. You’d even brought one of your favorite hobbies up with you: sitting on the cold, hard floor in front of a window too thick to ever so much as dream about breaking through, looking out at a landscape so dark and so lifeless and so alien, you might as well have been staring at another planet altogether. The only difference was that, rather than being able to seek out the occasional flicker of bioluminescence to remind yourself that you weren’t the last living thing in the world, the only lights you could see from the penthouse window were those of the city below. The city his dead-eyed inhabitants kept running. The city you’d been trapped in for two months. Really, it was like you’d never—
“Dinner, love.”
The captain’s voice, low and easy and sweet with harmony. You grimaced.
It was like you’d never left the facility at all.
You could feel him staring at you. The penthouse was obnoxiously open-concept, meaning even from the kitchen, his eyes could bore into your back where you sat at the farthest edge of the living room. You tried to ignore it, to focus that much more intently on the city below, but one by one, the lights you were watching began to flicker out — the houses at the edge of the urban sprawl first, then the apartments and the office buildings, before finally even the streetlamps were extinguished and the world was cast into pure and unrelenting darkness. You gritted your teeth, burying your face in your hands and groaning deeply. You let yourself wallow in misery for a moment, then another, before finally pushing yourself to your feet and trudging towards the kitchen.
You had less company than usual, tonight. It wasn’t uncommon for the sun to set and you to find yourself surrounded by a dozen faces you’d never seen before, all sporting the same fixed smile and lifeless eyes. Thankfully, your captor had shown more self-restraint tonight. The captain stood at-attention near the island, perfectly comfortable remaining on his feet indefinitely. Even after you’d left the facility, he’d stayed your captor’s favorite mouthpiece. Sometimes, you let yourself wonder if the sentimentality was for your sake. A familiar presence to make the loss of everything you’d ever known that much easier. Or, maybe, he just enjoyed wearing a skin that knew the taste of yours.
A woman was at the stove, chopping vegetables with single-minded focus. Her red hair was pulled back into a severe bun, her pale skin flawless. You glanced between the two, acknowledging the juxtaposition with a sense of distant revulsion. Youthful where the other was aged. Smooth where the other was rough. Setting up a contrast. Giving you options.
You narrowed your eyes at the captain. “You’re disgusting.”
He only laughed. “How filthy your mind is, darling. All I’m trying to do is feed you.”
He hadn’t tried anything since bringing you to the surface. Not as explicitly as he had in the facility, at least. He slept in your bed and held your hand and watched you bathe, but it was all with the same distant affection — as if he was simply observing a well-loved animal in its enclosure. Still, you kept your guard up. The relativity of your paranoia made it easier. He had a hundred-thousand lives to cycle through. You only had to survive one.
You tried to slip into one of the chairs pulled up to the island, but the captain sighed, shook his head. Less patiently, the chef drove her knife into the cutting board with enough force to split the wood. You took the second warning to heart and, with your head bowed low, allowed the captain to slip past you and fall into your seat. He pulled you into his lap — resting your back against his chest and looping a heavy arm around your waist. A moment later, the chef placed a plate in front of you. It went without saying that you did not get to feed yourself.
Of all the inhumanities that’d been inflicted onto you over the past sixty days, the food was the cruelest by far. In the facility, there hadn’t been much room for improvement. You could only expect dehydrated rations and colorless nutritional pastes to taste so good. Here, with access to cookbooks and spice cabinets and fresh ingredients, mediocre meals were less excusable. The meat was under-seasoned. The vegetables were overcooked. Even the water, held to your lips by a patient hand until you’d drained the glass, had too much ice. If you’d had more dignity, you might’ve starved yourself. Thankfully, your ego had always been less demanding than your stomach.
You ate with the grim determination of a soldier gnawing on boot leather to stave off hunger. The chef watched you from across the table, head cocked to the side and eyes unblinking. It was only when you were done and she’d turned away to start on the dishes that you spoke.
“I can cook for myself, you know.”
“I’m sure.”
“Then why won’t you let me?”
He hummed. His hand came to rest just above your knee. “Do you know what it’s like to taste a thousand things at the same time?”
Euphoric. Paradise on Earth. Better than sex. “I’m guessing it’s not great.”
“Not always. Sometimes, I can concentrate, differentiate one flavor from the next, but—” He broke off, thinking. “It can all get so bland. The cravings remain, but given enough repetition, the palate becomes incapable of tasting much of anything at all.” His fingers burrowed into the plush of your thigh one at a time, pressing down just hard enough to dent the skin. “It’s much more rewarding to watch you enjoy yourself.”
“Then why not feed me something enjoyable?”
He grinned. “Maybe that was the wrong word for it. Slight miscommunications are to be expected. I am still new to this type of host, after all.”
Rather than clarify what he’d meant, he snaked an arm under your thighs and stood up, taking you with him as he started deeper into the penthouse. When you glanced over his shoulder, you found the chef following silently.
There was no point trying to get away, so you sulked and slumped against him, doing what you could to make yourself into dead weight. “What now?”
“Something new,” he said, his satisfaction audible. “Something I haven’t tried before.”
“Human decency?”
“Even better.” He was all but purring, now. “A cold shower.”
You buried your face in his shoulder and screamed.
You should’ve drowned in that trench when you had the chance.
~
As far as you could tell, you were the only person left.
You’d checked. You were allowed to wander freely — as freely as you could in a claustrophobic city on an isolated island with a hundred pairs of eyes on you at any given time, at least — and you had the time and patience to be meticulous in your search. You’d scoured warehouses and emptied-out malls. You’d vetted forgotten apartment buildings and abandoned homeless encampments. You’d poked your head into every place a person might think to hide, to run, to wait for help, and hadn’t found so much as a trace of another living person. You still had some hope that things might be better on the mainland, but not much. The only reason you hadn’t been infected was because your captor needed entertainment more than another pair of hands and eyes. You doubted the same exception had been made for much of the human race.
But you had to check. You needed to be sure. You would’ve given anything, opened your arms to anyone, if it meant not being alone for another minute.
Today, you dragged yourself through the shopping district, ducking into shuttered convenience stores and darkened restaurants, anywhere hungry survivors might go to look for food. The spare bodies were hard at work around you. Some dedicated themselves to maintenance. The shining of skyscrapers, the picking up of litter, the beautification of a world no one would ever see again. A few were focused on mundane necessities, tending to gardens and keeping the hospitals running. More still had taken to dismantling the less aesthetically pleasing remnants of your world — highways, billboards, rotting concrete lots. When you asked why he bothered, the captain only shrugged.
“I wondered what the view would look like unimpeded.” And then, more airily, “It’s not as if we don’t have the manpower.”
You did your best to ignore him, but the others were more difficult to block out. A dozen bodies, a hundred, a thousand, all turning to stare as you passed by. You kept your head low and moved quickly, determined not to be any more interesting than a scurrying insect. It didn’t help.
Finally, more out of desperation than anything, you ducked into a dark bodega and slammed the door before anyone could follow you. Safely inside, you slumped forward and shut your eyes, sucking in a deep breath and savoring your first unobserved moment in—
“Looking for something?”
A feminine voice, high-pitched and cheery. You flinched, glancing up to find a grinning young woman bent at the waist in front of you. The question was so innocuous, her tone so light, that for a second, you could only imagine that you’d made some terrible mistake — that she was just a normal clerk trying to gauge if the customer who’d just stormed into her store was regular-crazy or dangerous-crazy. But then you noticed the too-steady rise and fall of her chest, the way her eyes seemed to be open just a little too wide, and the illusion broke.
“I don’t like crowds,” you said, more than a little bitter.
“It’s just you and me, love.”
“You can’t say that when you’re everyone.” You sank to the floor, pulling your knees into your chest. “I’m probably the only person on the face of the planet who you haven’t gotten your hooks into, yet.”
Her smile didn’t waver. Her posture didn’t change. And yet, there was a momentary lapse, a second’s worth of hesitation. She swallowed once before speaking, her tone just as sun-bright as it’d been before the pause.
“Obviously.” And then, kneeling in front of you, “Who else do you need?”
You grimaced into your lap. “A therapist, for one.”
“I’m quite a few therapists if you’d like to—”
“Not right now.” You pushed yourself hastily to your feet, already shouldering open the door. “And definitely not with you.”
You slipped back onto the street before she could respond. Of course, when you glanced over your shoulder, yet another body had fallen into stride behind you — eyes blank and expression overjoyed.
~
It was a small kindness that your captor, for all its many brains, had a remarkably short attention span.
You waited three days exactly. Not so soon that your conversation in the bodega would be fresh on the mind, but not so long that it seemed like you were counting the minutes. Each second was torture, every passing hour more excruciating than the last. Finally, on the morning of the fourth day, you snapped awake, clambered onto the captain’s chest, and announced the only thought you’d been capable of for the past seventy-two hours.
“I want to go on a date.”
You’d never seen him smile wider.
An hour later, you found yourself wearing a sundress nicer than anything you would have even been able to afford before the end of the world, standing in front of a tank larger than anything you’d ever seen. Lively tropical fish darted between bright flashes of coral, nothing at all like the lightless abyss you’d found yourself trapped in for more than a year. The aquarium lights were tinged a deep, artificial blue, and a tinny audio tour played distantly through unseen speakers. The captain stood beside you, never once glancing towards the display.
You wandered through halls of ceiling-high tanks, pausing occasionally to point out particularly ugly fish to compare the various branches of your captor to. You were content with minimal conversation, but the captain was not so easily satisfied.
“I was surprised you asked to come here,” he said, as he followed you into the glass tunnel that ran beneath one of the larger displays. Whale sharks circled overhead, swimming through clouds of silver guppies. “I would’ve thought you’d had enough of water.”
“This is different.” He hummed questioningly, and you filled in the blanks. “I don’t need your permission to leave.”
“Surely, you must love something for reasons other than your loathing for me.”
He was pressing. You glanced to either side, looking for a distraction, and found a parrot fish loitering just a little too close to the glass, its pin-prick eye fixed on you. A new fear washed over you abruptly, and you snapped back to the captain. “…you’re just people, right?”
He laughed, closing the distance between you. “For now. I find it easier to keep myself whole, that way.” He thought for a moment. “Although, I did used to change my mind about what I was a great deal more often.”
That caught your attention. “You’ve been other species?”
“I’ve been a great many things. Trees held my interest for a rather long time, but I became quite fond of a particular kind of humming bird that would nest in my— Oh, and there was that very fun French village, of course, but that was only for a summer. Then I realized how much of the ocean I hadn’t seen, and—” He paused, sobering abruptly. “And then my last remaining host found itself trapped beneath a million tons of stone and water pressure, and for the longest time, I was nothing at all.”
There was a quiet lapse, then another. Your eyes fell to your shoes.
"How long were you…?”
“Long enough.” He took a deep breath. “My hosts are resilient. Those I’m the most present in, especially. I’m not sure I can die at this point, even if I wanted to.”
His voice was steady, but there was no humor in his tone. The over-conditioned aquarium air suddenly felt colder than it had the moment prior.
“My ex used to take me here. The bad one,” you clarified. “It was always pretty empty on weekdays. Even when we were doing good, he’d get so jealous, it was easier to just—” You cut yourself off, swallowing. “It’s nostalgic, I guess. That’s probably why I agreed to be shipped down to the facility. It calms me down. Keeps me from thinking about how things ended.”
When you finished, there was another beat of silence. He looked like he wanted to say something, but you were faster.
“C’mon,” you said, waving for him to follow as you rushed down the tunnel. “I think the penguin exhibit’s around the corner.”
You didn’t let yourself look back to see if he was following, but it would’ve been a lie to say you weren’t just a little glad to hear his airy laugh as he fell into place behind you.
~
The aquarium had been your only request, but on the way back to the penthouse, you stalled in front of a cafe near the center of town. The captain stopped walking, and you fumbled to explain yourself.
“I was getting kind of hungry,” you said, nodding towards the cafe.
“Of course.” You could see his eyes glazing over, his attention drifting to other minds, other bodies. “Let me find—”
You cut him off before you could lose your nerve. “Actually, I thought that I could cook for you, this time. For both of us. If that’s alright.”
“Oh.” There was a moment of hesitation before he seemed to process your hushed tone, the way your eyes were fixed so pointedly on his feet. A smile spread across his lips, easy and warm and only a touch too wide. “Of course.”
You didn’t see anyone else as you let yourself into the cafe, but by the time you reached the second floor, a table had been pieced together on the balcony — a basket of stale bread set out and wine poured so recently that the condensation was only beginning to bead on the glass. You should’ve scurried off to the kitchen immediately, found some excuse to do anything but loiter here, but the sun was out and the sea breeze was nice and it felt good to be too high above the city to see the uncanny stares of its new inhabitants, but not so from it that you could convince yourself you were the only living thing in the world. You let yourself lean onto the guardrail for a long moment, breathing in the fresh air. As you moved to turn away, two hands found your waist, the captain’s chest pressing into your back and pinning you against the railing. Trapping you where you were.
You forced out a choked laugh. “I actually have to get to the kitchen to cook, y’know. We can’t all be everywhere at once.”
“I’ll only be a moment.” His tone was sickeningly sweet — that of an animal trainer trying to comfort something helpless and terrified. “This is how dates usually end, isn’t it?”
His hand slipped up from your waist, finding the traitorous elastic of your neckline and easing it down, exposing your chest. You tried to cover yourself on reflex, but he only leaned forward — easing you that much closer to the iron bar and making it impossible to raise your arms. “That’s not why I—”
“I know.” It was his turn to interrupt you, now, to kiss your cheek and cut your skin with his terrible smile. “But this is what I want. You’ll let me be selfish this once, won’t you?”
You didn’t answer. It wouldn’t have mattered, even if you did.
He wasn’t listening.
A large, calloused hand cupped your chest, squeezing experimentally. He groped you once, twice, pinching your nipple between his thumb and his forefinger before his attention dipped lower. You felt cool air against your skin as your skirt was hiked up to your waist, the fine material crumpled beyond any hope of lying smooth again. The captain didn’t seem to notice. Of course he didn’t. His closet was bottomless and you were the only doll he had to worry about dressing up, anymore.
He touched you the same way he had in the facility — slowly, brashly, like he was trying to map every inch of your body with his fingertips. His palm slid over your diaphragm, your navel, before finding the space between your legs. Resting his chin on your shoulder, he traced two fingers over the length of your slit, completely unbothered by the fact that your panties were still in the way. You nearly let yourself relax, nearly convinced yourself that he’d be satisfied with a little one-sided intimacy, but his fingers slipped underneath the fabric and smothered your hopes before they even had a chance to spark.
You clenched your eyes shut as he eased inside of you, and when that failed to block out the feeling of your neglected body splitting open, you cast your attention outward, desperate to find something, anything else to focus on. Instead, you found a young man standing on the sidewalk below, unblinking eyes fixed wholly on you. The captain’s fingers spread apart, and suddenly, there was another — a woman, this time, watching you from a window of the office building across the street. As soon as you noticed them, they were all you could see. For every flick of the captain’s wrist, every curl of his fingers inside of you, there seemed to be another pair of staring eyes, a new body positioned with a perfect line of sight to the balcony. You shook your head, trying to push yourself away from the edge, but the captain held you steady. You weren’t going anywhere. He’d already made that clear.
And yet, you tried. Anything for this to stop. Anything for no one to be able to look at you like that ever again.
“I can’t—” He forced a third finger into you and anything you might’ve said was swallowed up by a fractured moan. His mouth was hot against your neck, teeth moving against your skin. There would be a mark, but that didn’t matter. You were the only person who’d ever have to see it. “Alone,” you managed, finally, wrenching your head to the side. “I want to be—”
There was a cruel laugh, cold and joyless. He pulled away just far enough to take you by the chin, forcing you to face the growing crowd. “We are,” he assured you, resting his forehead against the nape of your neck. “I don’t know how much clearer I can be. It’s just us.”
Except it wasn’t. Except you could feel it boring into you, tearing at your skin, prying your fingers from the rocky shore and dragging you into the current. Water rushed past your ears, down your throat, into your lungs. You were here and you were on the street and you were halfway across the world. Your body was sinking and the tether that dragged you down with it was coming loose. A voice that was not your own sang in your throat and blood that didn’t belong to you coursed through your veins and you were going to drown in—
He pulled away from you, letting you collapse to the cool tile of the balcony. You were breathing heavily, but there was no relief to the action. Above you, the captain stood still as death. The only comfort was that his terrible eyes were still focused elsewhere.
“I’m sorry,” he said, eventually. If you hadn’t known better, you might’ve thought he sounded scared. “I thought it would be better if I wasn’t—” And then, kneeling to help you up, “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine.” You brushed him away, standing on your own. “I’d just really, really appreciate a second alone.”
“Right. I can show you where—”
“Alone,” you said again, hissing the word through clenched teeth. “If that’s alright.”
There was a moment’s worth of hesitation, but not much more. He nodded wordlessly, and you slipped into the cafe without being followed. After giving yourself exactly three minutes to wretch and sob in more-or-less soundproof corner of the kitchen, you scrounged up a booklet and pencil from the host-station, jotted down the note you’d been scripting in your head for days, and stowed it away in the dry-foods pantry — the most appealing target for any wayward survivalist looking for their next meal.
You could only hope someone would find it while you were still you.
~
There were no clocks in the penthouse. Your sole method of keeping time was the captain’s watch — a simple, analog thing he’d worn even before he was your captain. You lay beside him silently, watching the hands tick through your eyelashes. At three in the morning exactly, you shrugged out of bed and made your way to the door.
The captain stirred just as you were about to cross the threshold, calling out to you with sleep still heavy in his voice.
“Where are you going?”
You didn’t dare to look back.
“I need something to drink. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“I’ll come with—”
“No, thank you.” You set your jaw. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
There was a beat of silence, a moment of hesitation, but nothing more. Eventually, he nodded, and you slipped away. He’d been making more of an effort to give you space, lately. He hadn’t even touched you since the cafe.
It was almost enough to make you feel guilty about what you were about to do.
Almost.
The elevator routed directly to the parking garage. Plenty of cars had been left behind to rust, but you’d only been able to steal a spare set of keys for one — the black sedan in the farthest corner. If there were really other survivors, if they had by some miracle found your note, then they would be waiting there.
And they were. You could see someone from across the lot — around your age, tall enough for their head and shoulders to be visible over the roof of the car. They were facing away from you, but already, you were giddy, grinning, all-but running towards them. This was it. This was the person who would free you. This was your salv—
They turned— He turned, and you froze where you were. This was not a stranger. Even a year older, you recognized him immediately.
The man who’d sent you to prison. The man who’d kept you hostage in your own home for months, assuring you that it was for your own good all the while. The man you should’ve killed when you had the chance.
The first monster to decide you didn’t need anyone else.
You felt a million years older, but he hadn’t changed at all. You recognized the sharp slant of his jaw, the half-hearted way he tied his dark hair back. The only difference was the new scarring over his left cheek, the too-dark tint in the iris of his left eye. Glass — you realized belatedly, as it caught the garage lights. That tracked.
You remembered gauging the real one out.
The panic was instant, overwhelming. You stumbled back, moved to run, but he called out — tone equal parts caution and urgency. “Wait!” And then, when you froze on reflex, “I’m not one of them. I— I found your note.”
“No, that’s not—” You broke off. It had to be a trick. This was too much of a coincidence. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He had the nerve to laugh. His body came into view as he rounded the hood. His clothes were clean, but strange — too many layers for the middle of summer, all too mismatched to be anything but utilitarian. He was carrying a hiking bag over one shoulder, visibly swollen with a Swiss army knife clipped to the zipper. A survival kit.
“Do you actually still think any of that matters? The world is ending, (Y/n). There’s no one left but— those dead-eyed zombies.” He inhaled sharply, shaking his head. “No one but us.”
“There has to be—”
“There isn’t. Not here.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “Look, I know I’m the last person you wanted to see—”
You knew what he was going to say. You couldn’t stand to listen. “Don’t say—”
“But I care about you.” As always, though, what you wanted didn’t seem to matter. “I’ve got a hide-out away from the city. The infected don’t wander that far. Please. I don’t want to lose you. Not like that.”
For a long moment, you didn’t dare to move. The monster straightened.
“Unless you’d rather stay here.”
Something in your chest twisted painfully. You didn’t trust him. You didn’t want to go with him. You didn’t want to give him what he’d always wanted — you and him, alone together for the rest of your lives.
But, if you were alone with him, at least it would mean you weren’t just alone.
Wordlessly, you strode past him and climbed into the sedan’s passenger seat. He followed your lead, gesturing for the keys once he was behind the wheel.
You handed them over without hesitation.
~
The drive was long and quiet. The monster knew back-roads, shortcuts, ways to get out of the city without being seen. You watched the passing scenery in a sort of disconnected trance. Finally, once the last traces of civilization had faded into tangled wilderness and rocky beaches, you asked, “Why didn’t it take you?”
He spared you a look out of the corner of his eye. His lips were downturned, his expression creased by concentration. Never before had you been so thankful to see someone scowl. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“It did. Or, it could’ve, at least.” Just remembering what it felt like to hold so many voices in so little space made you feel dizzy, heavy, as if someone was holding your head underwater. “It poked around in my skull for a while, but it must’ve decided I’m more of a pet. Not really total-assimilation material, I guess.”
He smirked. “Maybe it saw how you remembered me and figured I was rotten meat.”
You laughed despite yourself. “Yeah, maybe.”
Eventually, he pulled off the main interstate and into the backwoods. You followed a dirt road a few miles inland before arriving at a small, rustic bungalow — all but totally hidden by the encroaching forest. The inside was only a touch more impressive. Two rooms, minimal furniture, no electricity. The monster stalled by the door to light a gaslamp while you wandered into the surprisingly well-stocked kitchen area. Pots and pans were stacked to either side of the sink, a fully equipped knife block pushed towards the other end of the counter. Out of sheer curiosity, you opened one of the cabinets and found it empty.
Huh.
Weird.
You might’ve had more time to realize how weird if you hadn’t been immediately distracted by the clicking of a deadbolt falling into place, by the monster’s voice — suddenly so much colder than it’d seemed, outside.
“You left me.”
You stiffened, scanning the room for exits. There was only one door and he was standing in front of it. The windows were boarded shut.
“I was sca—”
He cut you off with an airy laugh. “Right. You were scared. How could I forget? I tried so hard to love you, to take care of you, but you were scared.” Footsteps, slow and methodical, moving in your direction. You clambered further into the kitchen, seeking refuge. “Do you know what it felt like?” And then, as you reached the end of the counter, “Realizing you were gone. Knowing I’d done everything I could to make you happy and realizing you just— you didn’t care.” His voice fell into something low and thin. Miserable and angry and so, so afraid. “I’ve never been so alone.”
You turned on your heel, pressing your back into the wall. You could see the door in your peripheral — unblocked, unguarded — but he was already there, already lodging a hand next to your head. Something glinted to your right, silver and tempting. You didn’t think. You couldn’t, even if you wanted to.
You were the only mind in this body but, for that moment only, you would’ve given anything not to be.
You felt your hand close around a sleek wooden handle. There was a phantom of resistance, a flood of something warm and thick, and then your blade was buried in the monster’s heart.
His frigid gaze fell away from you, finding the knife sticking out of his chest. He sighed, cupping his hand over yours and clamping down. Quickly, fluidly, he drew the weapon out and let it clatter to the floor. You made no attempt to hold on.
Fresh blood washed over his chest, soaking into the material of his shirt. He clicked his tongue and drew the ruined garment over his head. When he was done, he looked to you. Your heart was beating in your ears, blocking out all other noise. When he took you by the hand, it was all you could do to allow yourself to be led.
The bedroom was cramped. The ceiling slanted low over the metal-framed bed, the dim light barely reaching beyond the doorway. He led you to the foot of the mattress and, with surprising strength, lifted you onto it, laying you on your back. You moved to sit up, but the monster only shook his head.
“I need this,” he explained. “I don’t want to— I don’t know what I might do, otherwise.”
It wasn’t a threat. Or, it wasn’t meant to be, at least. Nothing malicious could have sounded so pained.
You laid back, staring at the low ceiling. He wasn’t smiling, but you recognized the captain in the slow deliberation of before each of his movements, in the dullness of his remaining eye. As he eased your shorts down your legs, you found yourself wondering how you ever could’ve mistaken the thing in front of you for the man you’d known, the man you’d hated. It wasn’t even a good imitation. You’d just been too desperate to look deeper than the skin.
His mouth found your cunt, drawing a long stripe over your pussy. You flinched back, but he only fell that much lower to follow after you — as desperate as a starving wolf over a fresh kill. His affection was usually playful, experimental, but he didn’t seem to have that kind of patience at the moment. He devoured you tenderly, easing you open on his tongue, suckling your clit every time something stronger than a miserable whimper slipped past your sealed lips. His hands knotted around the sheets to either side of you, his chest hovering awkwardly over your legs. As if he was minimizing contact. As if he was scared to touch you more than was absolutely necessary.
If only he were a little more afraid. Then he might not touch you at all.
Your inevitable climax was a slow, aching thing. It was drawn out of you too soon, strung out for too long. The flat of his tongue traced patterns over your entrance as you bucked and writhed underneath him, your vision burning white then blurring around the edges as the world faded back into view. Finally, he pulled away, latching onto the inside of your thigh to suck a bruise into tender flesh. He was going to eat you, you thought to yourself. And not even as kindly as he’d eaten everyone else. They’d, at least, been swallowed whole. With you, he’d go piece by piece.
But his mouth fell away and the fear passed. He draped more of himself over you — lodging his body between your legs and pressing his chest into yours. He braced himself with one hand and brought the other up to your face, cupping your chin. His thumb ran over your cheek, and you realized belatedly that you were crying. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, kissing your forehead. “I love you.”
You only let out a fractured sob in response.
He inserted himself with the same painstaking delicacy. The captain had been a stranger to you before the infestation. The pilot, too, and every other face it wore while tearing you apart. Now, with a body you knew, the wrongness was nauseating. Every little movement, from the way his hips ground into yours to the cool breath on the curve of your neck, was dizzyingly out of character. You’d known the person who should’ve been touching you. You knew that, no matter how deep you dug, you wouldn’t find them again. Not in this shell.
But you tried anyway. You wrapped your arms around his neck, drew him closer, hid your face in the dip of your shoulder. He was cold — sickly, deathly cold — but you nestled against him like he was the only warm thing left in the world.
There was no pleasure to it. Not on your end, at least. You held him close until his breathing grew short and ragged, until he could hardly stand to be more than an inch from you at any given time. Finally, he stiffened, burying his cock inside of you as something frigid and unspeakable filled your cunt. When he was done, he went limp on top of you, panting with relief. “I did it,” he managed, after a few agonizing seconds. “I did it. You’re still you.”
He sounded surprised, elated. You weren’t so emotive.
“There’s no one else left.”
There was a thin laugh, kiss to the tender flesh above your jugular. He picked himself up, staring down at you from above. You saw something flash across his expression and thought that, for once, there might be something other than still water behind his eyes, but it’d just been a trick of the mind — ambient light catching on lifeless glass.
“Of course not, love.”
Your monster bent low, resting his lips against your forehead.
TW: Non/Con, Dub/Con, Fem!Reader, Public Sex, Mentions of Blood + Violence, Exhibitionism/Voyeurism, Fingering, Past Abuse, Prolonged Entrapment, Soft Apocalypse, and Obsessive Behavior.
[Part One] [Part Two]
After reaching the surface, you learned quickly that living above the water wasn’t all that different from being trapped underneath it.
Most of your time was passed the same way. Crying, hiding, occasionally bargaining with the all-knowing, all-seeing monster who’d appointed itself your omnipresent caretaker. You’d even brought one of your favorite hobbies up with you: sitting on the cold, hard floor in front of a window too thick to ever so much as dream about breaking through, looking out at a landscape so dark and so lifeless and so alien, you might as well have been staring at another planet altogether. The only difference was that, rather than being able to seek out the occasional flicker of bioluminescence to remind yourself that you weren’t the last living thing in the world, the only lights you could see from the penthouse window were those of the city below. The city his dead-eyed inhabitants kept running. The city you’d been trapped in for two months. Really, it was like you’d never—
“Dinner, love.”
The captain’s voice, low and easy and sweet with harmony. You grimaced.
It was like you’d never left the facility at all.
You could feel him staring at you. The penthouse was obnoxiously open-concept, meaning even from the kitchen, his eyes could bore into your back where you sat at the farthest edge of the living room. You tried to ignore it, to focus that much more intently on the city below, but one by one, the lights you were watching began to flicker out — the houses at the edge of the urban sprawl first, then the apartments and the office buildings, before finally even the streetlamps were extinguished and the world was cast into pure and unrelenting darkness. You gritted your teeth, burying your face in your hands and groaning deeply. You let yourself wallow in misery for a moment, then another, before finally pushing yourself to your feet and trudging towards the kitchen.
You had less company than usual, tonight. It wasn’t uncommon for the sun to set and you to find yourself surrounded by a dozen faces you’d never seen before, all sporting the same fixed smile and lifeless eyes. Thankfully, your captor had shown more self-restraint tonight. The captain stood at-attention near the island, perfectly comfortable remaining on his feet indefinitely. Even after you’d left the facility, he’d stayed your captor’s favorite mouthpiece. Sometimes, you let yourself wonder if the sentimentality was for your sake. A familiar presence to make the loss of everything you’d ever known that much easier. Or, maybe, he just enjoyed wearing a skin that knew the taste of yours.
A woman was at the stove, chopping vegetables with single-minded focus. Her red hair was pulled back into a severe bun, her pale skin flawless. You glanced between the two, acknowledging the juxtaposition with a sense of distant revulsion. Youthful where the other was aged. Smooth where the other was rough. Setting up a contrast. Giving you options.
You narrowed your eyes at the captain. “You’re disgusting.”
He only laughed. “How filthy your mind is, darling. All I’m trying to do is feed you.”
He hadn’t tried anything since bringing you to the surface. Not as explicitly as he had in the facility, at least. He slept in your bed and held your hand and watched you bathe, but it was all with the same distant affection — as if he was simply observing a well-loved animal in its enclosure. Still, you kept your guard up. The relativity of your paranoia made it easier. He had a hundred-thousand lives to cycle through. You only had to survive one.
You tried to slip into one of the chairs pulled up to the island, but the captain sighed, shook his head. Less patiently, the chef drove her knife into the cutting board with enough force to split the wood. You took the second warning to heart and, with your head bowed low, allowed the captain to slip past you and fall into your seat. He pulled you into his lap — resting your back against his chest and looping a heavy arm around your waist. A moment later, the chef placed a plate in front of you. It went without saying that you did not get to feed yourself.
Of all the inhumanities that’d been inflicted onto you over the past sixty days, the food was the cruelest by far. In the facility, there hadn’t been much room for improvement. You could only expect dehydrated rations and colorless nutritional pastes to taste so good. Here, with access to cookbooks and spice cabinets and fresh ingredients, mediocre meals were less excusable. The meat was under-seasoned. The vegetables were overcooked. Even the water, held to your lips by a patient hand until you’d drained the glass, had too much ice. If you’d had more dignity, you might’ve starved yourself. Thankfully, your ego had always been less demanding than your stomach.
You ate with the grim determination of a soldier gnawing on boot leather to stave off hunger. The chef watched you from across the table, head cocked to the side and eyes unblinking. It was only when you were done and she’d turned away to start on the dishes that you spoke.
“I can cook for myself, you know.”
“I’m sure.”
“Then why won’t you let me?”
He hummed. His hand came to rest just above your knee. “Do you know what it’s like to taste a thousand things at the same time?”
Euphoric. Paradise on Earth. Better than sex. “I’m guessing it’s not great.”
“Not always. Sometimes, I can concentrate, differentiate one flavor from the next, but—” He broke off, thinking. “It can all get so bland. The cravings remain, but given enough repetition, the palate becomes incapable of tasting much of anything at all.” His fingers burrowed into the plush of your thigh one at a time, pressing down just hard enough to dent the skin. “It’s much more rewarding to watch you enjoy yourself.”
“Then why not feed me something enjoyable?”
He grinned. “Maybe that was the wrong word for it. Slight miscommunications are to be expected. I am still new to this type of host, after all.”
Rather than clarify what he’d meant, he snaked an arm under your thighs and stood up, taking you with him as he started deeper into the penthouse. When you glanced over his shoulder, you found the chef following silently.
There was no point trying to get away, so you sulked and slumped against him, doing what you could to make yourself into dead weight. “What now?”
“Something new,” he said, his satisfaction audible. “Something I haven’t tried before.”
“Human decency?”
“Even better.” He was all but purring, now. “A cold shower.”
You buried your face in his shoulder and screamed.
You should’ve drowned in that trench when you had the chance.
~
As far as you could tell, you were the only person left.
You’d checked. You were allowed to wander freely — as freely as you could in a claustrophobic city on an isolated island with a hundred pairs of eyes on you at any given time, at least — and you had the time and patience to be meticulous in your search. You’d scoured warehouses and emptied-out malls. You’d vetted forgotten apartment buildings and abandoned homeless encampments. You’d poked your head into every place a person might think to hide, to run, to wait for help, and hadn’t found so much as a trace of another living person. You still had some hope that things might be better on the mainland, but not much. The only reason you hadn’t been infected was because your captor needed entertainment more than another pair of hands and eyes. You doubted the same exception had been made for much of the human race.
But you had to check. You needed to be sure. You would’ve given anything, opened your arms to anyone, if it meant not being alone for another minute.
Today, you dragged yourself through the shopping district, ducking into shuttered convenience stores and darkened restaurants, anywhere hungry survivors might go to look for food. The spare bodies were hard at work around you. Some dedicated themselves to maintenance. The shining of skyscrapers, the picking up of litter, the beautification of a world no one would ever see again. A few were focused on mundane necessities, tending to gardens and keeping the hospitals running. More still had taken to dismantling the less aesthetically pleasing remnants of your world — highways, billboards, rotting concrete lots. When you asked why he bothered, the captain only shrugged.
“I wondered what the view would look like unimpeded.” And then, more airily, “It’s not as if we don’t have the manpower.”
You did your best to ignore him, but the others were more difficult to block out. A dozen bodies, a hundred, a thousand, all turning to stare as you passed by. You kept your head low and moved quickly, determined not to be any more interesting than a scurrying insect. It didn’t help.
Finally, more out of desperation than anything, you ducked into a dark bodega and slammed the door before anyone could follow you. Safely inside, you slumped forward and shut your eyes, sucking in a deep breath and savoring your first unobserved moment in—
“Looking for something?”
A feminine voice, high-pitched and cheery. You flinched, glancing up to find a grinning young woman bent at the waist in front of you. The question was so innocuous, her tone so light, that for a second, you could only imagine that you’d made some terrible mistake — that she was just a normal clerk trying to gauge if the customer who’d just stormed into her store was regular-crazy or dangerous-crazy. But then you noticed the too-steady rise and fall of her chest, the way her eyes seemed to be open just a little too wide, and the illusion broke.
“I don’t like crowds,” you said, more than a little bitter.
“It’s just you and me, love.”
“You can’t say that when you’re everyone.” You sank to the floor, pulling your knees into your chest. “I’m probably the only person on the face of the planet who you haven’t gotten your hooks into, yet.”
Her smile didn’t waver. Her posture didn’t change. And yet, there was a momentary lapse, a second’s worth of hesitation. She swallowed once before speaking, her tone just as sun-bright as it’d been before the pause.
“Obviously.” And then, kneeling in front of you, “Who else do you need?”
You grimaced into your lap. “A therapist, for one.”
“I’m quite a few therapists if you’d like to—”
“Not right now.” You pushed yourself hastily to your feet, already shouldering open the door. “And definitely not with you.”
You slipped back onto the street before she could respond. Of course, when you glanced over your shoulder, yet another body had fallen into stride behind you — eyes blank and expression overjoyed.
~
It was a small kindness that your captor, for all its many brains, had a remarkably short attention span.
You waited three days exactly. Not so soon that your conversation in the bodega would be fresh on the mind, but not so long that it seemed like you were counting the minutes. Each second was torture, every passing hour more excruciating than the last. Finally, on the morning of the fourth day, you snapped awake, clambered onto the captain’s chest, and announced the only thought you’d been capable of for the past seventy-two hours.
“I want to go on a date.”
You’d never seen him smile wider.
An hour later, you found yourself wearing a sundress nicer than anything you would have even been able to afford before the end of the world, standing in front of a tank larger than anything you’d ever seen. Lively tropical fish darted between bright flashes of coral, nothing at all like the lightless abyss you’d found yourself trapped in for more than a year. The aquarium lights were tinged a deep, artificial blue, and a tinny audio tour played distantly through unseen speakers. The captain stood beside you, never once glancing towards the display.
You wandered through halls of ceiling-high tanks, pausing occasionally to point out particularly ugly fish to compare the various branches of your captor to. You were content with minimal conversation, but the captain was not so easily satisfied.
“I was surprised you asked to come here,” he said, as he followed you into the glass tunnel that ran beneath one of the larger displays. Whale sharks circled overhead, swimming through clouds of silver guppies. “I would’ve thought you’d had enough of water.”
“This is different.” He hummed questioningly, and you filled in the blanks. “I don’t need your permission to leave.”
“Surely, you must love something for reasons other than your loathing for me.”
He was pressing. You glanced to either side, looking for a distraction, and found a parrot fish loitering just a little too close to the glass, its pin-prick eye fixed on you. A new fear washed over you abruptly, and you snapped back to the captain. “…you’re just people, right?”
He laughed, closing the distance between you. “For now. I find it easier to keep myself whole, that way.” He thought for a moment. “Although, I did used to change my mind about what I was a great deal more often.”
That caught your attention. “You’ve been other species?”
“I’ve been a lot of things. Trees held my interest for a very long time, but I became quite fond of a particular kind of humming bird that would nest in my— Oh, and there was that very fun French village, of course, but that was only for a summer. Then I realized how much of the ocean I hadn’t seen, and—” He paused, sobering abruptly. “And then my last remaining host found itself trapped beneath a million tons of stone and water pressure, and for centuries, I was nothing at all.”
There was a quiet lapse, then another. Your eyes fell to your shoes.
"How long were you…?”
“Long enough.” He took a deep breath. “My hosts are resilient. Those I’m the most present in, especially. I’m not sure I can die at this point, even if I wanted to.”
His voice was steady, but there was no humor in his tone. The over-conditioned aquarium air suddenly felt colder than it had the moment prior.
“My ex used to take me here. The bad one,” you clarified. “It was always pretty empty on weekdays. Even when we were doing good, he’d get so jealous, it was easier to just—” You cut yourself off, swallowing. “It’s nostalgic, I guess. That’s probably why I agreed to be shipped down to the facility. It calms me down. Keeps me from thinking about how things ended.”
When you finished, there was another beat of silence. He looked like he wanted to say something, but you were faster.
“C’mon,” you said, waving for him to follow as you rushed down the tunnel. “I think the penguin exhibit’s around the corner.”
You didn’t let yourself look back to see if he was following, but it would’ve been a lie to say you weren’t just a little glad to hear his airy laugh as he fell into place behind you.
~
The aquarium had been your only request, but on the way back to the penthouse, you stalled in front of a cafe near the center of town. The captain stopped walking, and you fumbled to explain yourself.
“I was getting kind of hungry,” you said, nodding towards the cafe.
“Of course.” You could see his eyes glazing over, his attention drifting to other minds, other bodies. “Let me find—”
You cut him off before you could lose your nerve. “Actually, I thought that I could cook for you, this time. For both of us. If that’s alright.”
“Oh.” There was a moment of hesitation before he seemed to process your hushed tone, the way your eyes were fixed so pointedly on his feet. A smile spread across his lips, easy and warm and only a touch too wide. “Of course.”
You didn’t see anyone else as you let yourself into the cafe, but by the time you reached the second floor, a table had been pieced together on the balcony — a basket of stale bread set out and wine poured so recently that the condensation was only beginning to bead on the glass. You should’ve scurried off to the kitchen immediately, found some excuse to do anything but loiter here, but the sun was out and the sea breeze was nice and it felt good to be too high above the city to see the uncanny stares of its new inhabitants, but not so from it that you could convince yourself you were the only living thing in the world. You let yourself lean onto the guardrail for a long moment, breathing in the fresh air. As you moved to turn away, two hands found your waist, the captain’s chest pressing into your back and pinning you against the railing. Trapping you where you were.
You forced out a choked laugh. “I actually have to get to the kitchen to cook, y’know. We can’t all be everywhere at once.”
“I’ll only be a moment.” His tone was sickeningly sweet — that of an animal trainer trying to comfort something helpless and terrified. “This is how dates usually end, isn’t it?”
His hand slipped up from your waist, finding the traitorous elastic of your neckline and easing it down, exposing your chest. You tried to cover yourself on reflex, but he only leaned forward — easing you that much closer to the iron bar and making it impossible to raise your arms. “That’s not why I—”
“I know.” It was his turn to interrupt you, now, to kiss your cheek and cut your skin with his terrible smile. “But this is what I want. You’ll let me be selfish this once, won’t you?”
You didn’t answer. It wouldn’t have mattered, even if you did.
He wasn’t listening.
A large, calloused hand cupped your chest, squeezing experimentally. He groped you once, twice, pinching your nipple between his thumb and his forefinger before his attention dipped lower. You felt cool air against your skin as your skirt was hiked up to your waist, the fine material crumpled beyond any hope of lying smooth again. The captain didn’t seem to notice. Of course he didn’t. His closet was bottomless and you were the only doll he had to worry about dressing up, anymore.
He touched you the same way he had in the facility — slowly, brashly, like he was trying to map every inch of your body with his fingertips. His palm slid over your diaphragm, your navel, before finding the space between your legs. Resting his chin on your shoulder, he traced two fingers over the length of your slit, completely unbothered by the fact that your panties were still in the way. You nearly let yourself relax, nearly convinced yourself that he’d be satisfied with a little one-sided intimacy, but his fingers slipped underneath the fabric and smothered your hopes before they even had a chance to spark.
You clenched your eyes shut as he eased inside of you, and when that failed to block out the feeling of your neglected body splitting open, you cast your attention outward, desperate to find something, anything else to focus on. Instead, you found a young man standing on the sidewalk below, unblinking eyes fixed wholly on you. The captain’s fingers spread apart, and suddenly, there was another — a woman, this time, watching you from a window of the office building across the street. As soon as you noticed them, they were all you could see. For every flick of the captain’s wrist, every curl of his fingers inside of you, there seemed to be another pair of staring eyes, a new body positioned with a perfect line of sight to the balcony. You shook your head, trying to push yourself away from the edge, but the captain held you steady. You weren’t going anywhere. He’d already made that clear.
And yet, you tried. Anything for this to stop. Anything for no one to be able to look at you like that ever again.
“I can’t—” He forced a third finger into you and anything you might’ve said was swallowed up by a fractured moan. His mouth was hot against your neck, teeth moving against your skin. There would be a mark, but that didn’t matter. You were the only person who’d ever have to see it. “Alone,” you managed, finally, wrenching your head to the side. “I want to be—”
There was a cruel laugh, cold and joyless. He pulled away just far enough to take you by the chin, forcing you to face the growing crowd. “We are,” he assured you, resting his forehead against the nape of your neck. “I don’t know how much clearer I can be. It’s just us.”
Except it wasn’t. Except you could feel it boring into you, tearing at your skin, prying your fingers from the rocky shore and dragging you into the current. Water rushed past your ears, down your throat, into your lungs. You were here and you were on the street and you were halfway across the world. Your body was sinking and the tether that dragged you down with it was coming loose. A voice that was not your own sang in your throat and blood that didn’t belong to you coursed through your veins and you were going to drown in—
He pulled away from you, letting you collapse to the cool tile of the balcony. You were breathing heavily, but there was no relief to the action. Above you, the captain stood still as death. The only comfort was that his terrible eyes were still focused elsewhere.
“I’m sorry,” he said, eventually. If you hadn’t known better, you might’ve thought he sounded scared. “I thought it would be better if I wasn’t—” And then, kneeling to help you up, “I didn’t mean to—”
“It’s fine.” You brushed him away, standing on your own. “I’d just really, really appreciate a second alone.”
“Right. I can show you where—”
“Alone,” you said again, hissing the word through clenched teeth. “If that’s alright.”
There was a moment’s worth of hesitation, but not much more. He nodded wordlessly, and you slipped into the cafe without being followed. After giving yourself exactly three minutes to wretch and sob in more-or-less soundproof corner of the kitchen, you scrounged up a booklet and pencil from the host-station, jotted down the note you’d been scripting in your head for days, and stowed it away in the dry-foods pantry — the most appealing target for any wayward survivalist looking for their next meal.
You could only hope someone would find it while you were still you.
~
There were no clocks in the penthouse. Your sole method of keeping time was the captain’s watch — a simple, analog thing he’d worn even before he was your captain. You lay beside him silently, watching the hands tick through your eyelashes. At three in the morning exactly, you shrugged out of bed and made your way to the door.
The captain stirred just as you were about to cross the threshold, calling out to you with sleep still heavy in his voice.
“Where are you going?”
You didn’t dare to look back.
“I need something to drink. I’ll be back in a minute.”
“I’ll come with—”
“No, thank you.” You set your jaw. “I’ll be fine on my own.”
There was a beat of silence, a moment of hesitation, but nothing more. Eventually, he nodded, and you slipped away. He’d been making more of an effort to give you space, lately. He hadn’t even touched you since the cafe.
It was almost enough to make you feel guilty about what you were about to do.
Almost.
The elevator routed directly to the parking garage. Plenty of cars had been left behind to rust, but you’d only been able to steal a spare set of keys for one — the black sedan in the farthest corner. If there were really other survivors, if they had by some miracle found your note, then they would be waiting there.
And they were. You could see someone from across the lot — around your age, tall enough for their head and shoulders to be visible over the roof of the car. They were facing away from you, but already, you were giddy, grinning, all-but running towards them. This was it. This was the person who would free you. This was your salv—
They turned— He turned, and you froze where you were. This was not a stranger. Even a year older, you recognized him immediately.
The man who’d sent you to prison. The man who’d kept you hostage in your own home for months, assuring you that it was for your own good all the while. The man you should’ve killed when you had the chance.
The first monster to decide you didn’t need anyone else.
You felt a million years older, but he hadn’t changed at all. You recognized the sharp slant of his jaw, the half-hearted way he tied his dark hair back. The only difference was the new scarring over his left cheek, the too-dark tint in the iris of his left eye. Glass — you realized belatedly, as it caught the garage lights. That tracked.
You remembered gauging the real one out.
The panic was instant, overwhelming. You stumbled back, moved to run, but he called out — tone equal parts caution and urgency. “Wait!” And then, when you froze on reflex, “I’m not one of them. I— I found your note.”
“No, that’s not—” You broke off. It had to be a trick. This was too much of a coincidence. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not going anywhere with you.”
He had the nerve to laugh. His body came into view as he rounded the hood. His clothes were clean, but strange — too many layers for the middle of summer, all too mismatched to be anything but utilitarian. He was carrying a hiking bag over one shoulder, visibly swollen with a Swiss army knife clipped to the zipper. A survival kit.
“Do you actually still think any of that matters? The world is ending, (Y/n). There’s no one left but— those dead-eyed zombies.” He inhaled sharply, shaking his head. “No one but us.”
“There has to be—”
“There isn’t. Not here.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “Look, I know I’m the last person you wanted to see—”
You knew what he was going to say. You couldn’t stand to listen. “Don’t say—”
“But I care about you.” As always, though, what you wanted didn’t seem to matter. “I’ve got a hide-out away from the city. The infected don’t wander that far. Please. I don’t want to lose you. Not like that.”
For a long moment, you didn’t dare to move. The monster straightened.
“Unless you’d rather stay here.”
Something in your chest twisted painfully. You didn’t trust him. You didn’t want to go with him. You didn’t want to give him what he’d always wanted — you and him, alone together for the rest of your lives.
But, if you were alone with him, at least it would mean you weren’t just alone.
Wordlessly, you strode past him and climbed into the sedan’s passenger seat. He followed your lead, gesturing for the keys once he was behind the wheel.
You handed them over without hesitation.
~
The drive was long and quiet. The monster knew back-roads, shortcuts, ways to get out of the city without being seen. You watched the passing scenery in a sort of disconnected trance. Finally, once the last traces of civilization had faded into tangled wilderness and rocky beaches, you asked, “Why didn’t it take you?”
He spared you a look out of the corner of his eye. His lips were downturned, his expression creased by concentration. Never before had you been so thankful to see someone scowl. “I could ask you the same thing.”
“It did. Or, it could’ve, at least.” Just remembering what it felt like to hold so many voices in so little space made you feel dizzy, heavy, as if someone was holding your head underwater. “It poked around in my skull for a while, but it must’ve decided I’m more of a pet. Not really total-assimilation material, I guess.”
He smirked. “Maybe it saw how you remembered me and figured I was rotten meat.”
You laughed despite yourself. “Yeah, maybe.”
Eventually, he pulled off the main interstate and into the backwoods. You followed a dirt road a few miles inland before arriving at a small, rustic bungalow — all but totally hidden by the encroaching forest. The inside was only a touch more impressive. Two rooms, minimal furniture, no electricity. The monster stalled by the door to light a gaslamp while you wandered into the surprisingly well-stocked kitchen area. Pots and pans were stacked to either side of the sink, a fully equipped knife block pushed towards the other end of the counter. Out of sheer curiosity, you opened one of the cabinets and found it empty.
Huh.
Weird.
You might’ve had more time to realize how weird if you hadn’t been immediately distracted by the clicking of a deadbolt falling into place, by the monster’s voice — suddenly so much colder than it’d seemed, outside.
“You left me.”
You stiffened, scanning the room for exits. There was only one door and he was standing in front of it. The windows were boarded shut.
“I was sca—”
He cut you off with an airy laugh. “Right. You were scared. How could I forget? I tried so hard to love you, to take care of you, but you were scared.” Footsteps, slow and methodical, moving in your direction. You clambered further into the kitchen, seeking refuge. “Do you know what it felt like?” And then, as you reached the end of the counter, “Realizing you were gone. Knowing I’d done everything I could to make you happy and realizing you just— you didn’t care.” His voice fell into something low and thin. Miserable and angry and so, so afraid. “I’ve never been so alone.”
You turned on your heel, pressing your back into the wall. You could see the door in your peripheral — unblocked, unguarded — but he was already there, already lodging a hand next to your head. Something glinted to your right, silver and tempting. You didn’t think. You couldn’t, even if you wanted to.
You were the only mind in this body but, for that moment only, you would’ve given anything not to be.
You felt your hand close around a sleek wooden handle. There was a phantom of resistance, a flood of something warm and thick, and then your blade was buried in the monster’s heart.
His frigid gaze fell away from you, finding the knife sticking out of his chest. He sighed, cupping his hand over yours and clamping down. Quickly, fluidly, he drew the weapon out and let it clatter to the floor. You made no attempt to hold on.
Fresh blood washed over his chest, soaking into the material of his shirt. He clicked his tongue and drew the ruined garment over his head. When he was done, he looked to you. Your heart was beating in your ears, blocking out all other noise. When he took you by the hand, it was all you could do to allow yourself to be led.
The bedroom was cramped. The ceiling slanted low over the metal-framed bed, the dim light barely reaching beyond the doorway. He led you to the foot of the mattress and, with surprising strength, lifted you onto it, laying you on your back. You moved to sit up, but the monster only shook his head.
“I need this,” he explained. “I don’t want to— I don’t know what I might do, otherwise.”
It wasn’t a threat. Or, it wasn’t meant to be, at least. Nothing malicious could have sounded so pained.
You laid back, staring at the low ceiling. He wasn’t smiling, but you recognized the captain in the slow deliberation of before each of his movements, in the dullness of his remaining eye. As he eased your shorts down your legs, you found yourself wondering how you ever could’ve mistaken the thing in front of you for the man you’d known, the man you’d hated. It wasn’t even a good imitation. You’d just been too desperate to look deeper than the skin.
His mouth found your cunt, drawing a long stripe over your pussy. You flinched back, but he only fell that much lower to follow after you — as desperate as a starving wolf over a fresh kill. His affection was usually playful, experimental, but he didn’t seem to have that kind of patience at the moment. He devoured you tenderly, easing you open on his tongue, suckling your clit every time something stronger than a miserable whimper slipped past your sealed lips. His hands knotted around the sheets to either side of you, his chest hovering awkwardly over your legs. As if he was minimizing contact. As if he was scared to touch you more than was absolutely necessary.
If only he were a little more afraid. Then he might not touch you at all.
Your inevitable climax was a slow, aching thing. It was drawn out of you too soon, strung out for too long. The flat of his tongue traced patterns over your entrance as you bucked and writhed underneath him, your vision burning white then blurring around the edges as the world faded back into view. Finally, he pulled away, latching onto the inside of your thigh to suck a bruise into tender flesh. He was going to eat you, you thought to yourself. And not even as kindly as he’d eaten everyone else. They’d, at least, been swallowed whole. With you, he’d go piece by piece.
But his mouth fell away and the fear passed. He draped more of himself over you — lodging his body between your legs and pressing his chest into yours. He braced himself with one hand and brought the other up to your face, cupping your chin. His thumb ran over your cheek, and you realized belatedly that you were crying. “I’m sorry,” he muttered, kissing your forehead. “I love you.”
You only let out a fractured sob in response.
He inserted himself with the same painstaking delicacy. The captain had been a stranger to you before the infestation. The pilot, too, and every other face it wore while tearing you apart. Now, with a body you knew, the wrongness was nauseating. Every little movement, from the way his hips ground into yours to the cool breath on the curve of your neck, was dizzyingly out of character. You’d known the person who should’ve been touching you. You knew that, no matter how deep you dug, you wouldn’t find them again. Not in this shell.
But you tried anyway. You wrapped your arms around his neck, drew him closer, hid your face in the dip of your shoulder. He was cold — sickly, deathly cold — but you nestled against him like he was the only warm thing left in the world.
There was no pleasure to it. Not on your end, at least. You held him close until his breathing grew short and ragged, until he could hardly stand to be more than an inch from you at any given time. Finally, he stiffened, burying his cock inside of you as something frigid and unspeakable filled your cunt. When he was done, he went limp on top of you, panting with relief. “I did it,” he managed, after a few agonizing seconds. “I did it. You’re still you.”
He sounded surprised, elated. You weren’t so emotive.
“There’s no one else left.”
There was a thin laugh, kiss to the tender flesh above your jugular. He picked himself up, staring down at you from above. You saw something flash across his expression and thought that, for once, there might be something other than still water behind his eyes, but it’d just been a trick of the mind — ambient light catching on lifeless glass.
“Of course not, love.”
Your monster bent low, resting his lips against your forehead.
TW: Non/Con, Dub/Con, Fem!Reader, Prolonged Captivity, Social Isolation, Exhibitionism/Voyeurism, Hivemind Dynamics, Implied Previous Domestic Abuse, Non-Consensual Touching, and Obsessive Behavior.
It had been six days, three hours, and twenty-four minutes since the last time you saw one of your crewmates blink.
Which, admittedly, might not have been the smoking gun you were trying to make it into. Most of your conversations were spent with your eyes cast respectfully downward or held through comms, since they preferred not to acknowledge you directly whenever possible. Still, from the control bridge’s auxiliary seating, you had a pretty good view of their stiff, expressionless faces – the way their glassy eyes seemed to focus on nothing in particular as they carried out their respective roles with all the life and all the energy of clockwork dolls. Really, the fact that they’d asked you to join them on the bridge at all was a red flag. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to work. You were more of an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ issue.
And yet, here you were, sitting on a cheaply cushioned titanium bench as a dozen or so scientists sat in complete silence, toiling away at their various monitors with their various instruments. No one had spoken in the past ninety minutes. The last person to stand up had been the engineer, when she’d wordlessly brought the geologist another pen after his had run out of ink a few seconds prior. No one had anything to eat or drink save for the captain, who kept a thermos on the corner of his desk and took a long sip every six minutes exactly. You’d timed it. Somehow, that was worse than if none of them had done anything at all.
For your part, you stayed where you were, doing everything in your power not to move or breathe or think too loudly. You might’ve stayed like that for the remaining daylight hours, for as long as you had to until dismissed, if the pilot hadn’t spoken.
“It’s a beautiful view, isn’t it?”
You startled, then snapped in her direction. The visuals were more-or-less right – her long hair pulled into a thick braid, the sleeves of her coveralls tied around her waist, all the little things you’d subconsciously come to expect after months of living in proximity to one another – but her tone was all wrong, far away and airy where you’d come to expect a certain edge, a directness. She also, notably, had not looked away from her monitor. The captain was the only one with his gaze directed upward, toward the floor-to-ceiling windows at the bridge’s helm.
You took that as a sign to do the same. Admittedly, the view was beautiful. The sea floor stretched on as far as the eye could see, illuminated by spotlights and roaming underwater drones and what few rays of sunlight managed to dive this deep. When you strained your eyes, you could see the dull glow of bioluminescent animals emerging from the sea floor, always moving so slowly toward the surface, but they tended to keep their distance. The walls of the Mariana Trench sat snugly to either side, your stationary base nestled between them. Usually, you loved it – that feeling of being so totally enclosed, how simple the world felt when cast in shades of blue and green. Now, it just felt a little claustrophobic.
The geologist turned to you, dull eyes over wire-framed glasses, and you realized that you were supposed to answer. “I guess so.”
The captain nodded, pleased. You forced yourself to clear your throat and go on. “How did last week’s expedition go?”
The biologist straightened. He’d always struck you as the quiet type, only liable to respond when addressed directly. Today, though, he seemed more than capable of speaking for the group. “Oh, it was uneventful.”
And then, the engineer, her normally clipped voice melodic, as if finishing the biologist’s thought. “Nothing to report. Just the usual marine activity.”
It was a lie and it wasn’t even a good one. They should’ve corrected you the second you called it an expedition. In reality, the captain, the pilot, and the biologist had taken one of the submersibles on an unplanned voyage to an area worryingly close to your base that had been exhibiting readings no one could seem to make sense of, least of all you. As soon as they’d gotten back, the geologist and the engineer were called to the labs for some unspecified emergency. They’d locked themselves away for hours, not making a sound, only resurfacing once you gathered up the courage to knock. You’d been too shocked to do anything when they actually opened the door, when they invited you inside, when they showed you the deformed remains of a new specimen and tried to tide you over with explanations of unusual geological activity and pre-historic fossilization. The not-blinking had started around then, too.
“Huh,” you said, layering the nonchalance on thick. You pushed yourself to your feet, stretching your arms above your head. “Well, I—um, I better get going. Filters to check and all.”
Five heads snapped in your direction at the same time. Thankfully, your panic was limited to a pair of pressed lips and a small, mostly swallowed squeak. Only the captain actually spoke, his voice calm and his tone easy. Somehow, that made it worse. You would’ve preferred the chorus, discordant and unintelligible, to a lone mouthpiece. “You’re in such a rush to leave us. Did we do something wrong?”
“I have to do my job, sir.”
He hummed. “Make sure to report back when you’re done.” He paused, something like a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. “Your input is so very important to us, after all.”
You hated the way he said it, like he was fighting not to laugh. You hated the way the pilot was looking at you, now, head cocked and fingers drumming over her desk. You hated the way the geologist was moving, back too straight and limbs too stiff as he started to push himself out of his chair and—
Oh, fuck.
It was time to go.
You offered another dull excuse before slipping out of the bridge and back into the vessel proper. You knew where you were going – hell, you’d spent the last twenty weeks dreaming of the day you’d finally get to make this walk. Down the hall and past the communal spaces, then up through storage – carefully avoiding the labs on the same floor. The transport module (or, more realistically, the elevator shaft) had its own compartment, carefully sectioned off from the rest of the craft. It was only meant to be used twice: on the day you arrived and then again on the day you left, when you would be ferried up to the surface and granted the privilege of never having to think about life on the sea floor again. Only the captain knew the launch code, but there had to be a manual override. And hopefully, you’d spent enough of the past few months wrist-deep in the vessel’s wiring to figure out how to activate it.
You didn’t have time for delicacy. You’d barely stopped moving before you were dropping to your knees in front of the access panel and prying the interface out of its casing. It came away easily, and then you were digging through wires and ports, searching for something to connect, something to pull free, something that would get you out of this godforsaken pit at the—
There weren’t footsteps, or voices, or any warnings you might’ve heard over the sound of your own racing pulse. There was only a hand on your shoulder, another around your wrist – gently easing you away from the open panel.
“Oh, no, that won’t be necessary.” A voice, simultaneously painfully familiar and altogether alien, sighed in your ear. Your captain. Or, what used to be your captain, at least.
You weren’t sure you ought to be calling him that, anymore.
And, judging by how softly he spoke as he went on, he seemed to be thinking the same thing.
“I think it’s about time we met properly. Don’t you agree?”
~
The captain, as you’d known him, was a man just south of middle age with white streaks in his startlingly dark hair, crows’ feet carved into the corners of his eyes, and a scar across the left side of his mouth that he would joke was from biting down on a fishhook in college. At least, you’d assumed he was joking.
You guessed you’d never get the chance to ask, now.
He was also gigantic – taller than most sailors with the physique to match. Even seated, he seemed to dwarf his surroundings, to leave you frail and minimized on the other side of the table. He’d wanted to do this in his office, but you’d insisted on the canteen. At the time, it seemed like neutral territory, somewhere wide and open with plenty of space to breathe. Now, you could only lament not pushing for someplace more closed-in. At least, if you were cornered, you wouldn’t have to keep glancing over your shoulder.
It didn’t help that the engineer was posted by the doors, back to the wall and her unblinking stare focused on you. The captain tilted his head to the side apologetically. “I’m sorry. I’ve only just gotten used to having so many eyes.”
“Eyes you stole from my friends.”
“These people weren’t your friends.” Pity dripped from his voice, honeyed and thick. You squared your shoulders. “This one, maybe, but not the rest. They saw you as—What’s the word?”
“A janitor?”
“Oh, dearest, not even that.” He paused, smiled. The expression looked wrong, like he was manually calculating how far to strain his lips. “A criminal.”
You inhaled slowly, holding your breath for a moment before letting it out again. The sting was present, but manageable. You’d known that. You must’ve known that, even when you first volunteered for this. There weren’t a lot of people willing to spend half a year of their life on the bottom of the ocean, and even fewer who would spend that half-year doing laundry, sweeping floors, and changing lightbulbs. But it was better than jail. This way, you could pretend you’d chosen to be here.
“Not to worry!” He clapped his hands together. “They won’t be saying much of anything, anymore. And the names I call you won’t nearly as cruel.”
“They weren’t—” You cut yourself off, shaking your head. “What are you?”
“You can see that for yourself. I’m sitting right in front of you, love.”
“No, I mean—Where did you come from?”
“You call this the… Pacific Ocean, don’t you?”
You shot to your feet, slamming your palms into the tabletop. “Why are you doing this?”
He glanced over you, then met your eyes. “That would’ve been a question for your coworkers. They were the ones who dug me up.”
You fell back into your seat, huffing. This was getting you nowhere slowly. The captain – the monster – seemed to feel the same way.
“You don’t seem very scared.”
“I don’t have to be. If you could do—” You gestured vaguely to the engineer, still lurking in your peripheral. “—that to me, you would’ve.”
“Would I, now?”
You opened your mouth, but stopped short of spitting anything out. It felt like a dial being turned, a switch being flipped. There was nothing, and then, there was everything.
In an instant, it was all too much. A hundred thousand voices in the back of your mind, chanting the same hymn at their own tempo. A hundred thousand images flashing across your vision, each stolen from a new set of eyes. You tried to focus on something else, to feel the cool wood under your hands, but even that sensation soon blurred into a million others until you couldn’t tell what belonged to you and what belonged to another body, another mind. You were being pulled downstream and the current was using your arms and legs against you. You were listening to the loveliest song you’d ever heard and you couldn’t seem to open your mouth and—
And the music stopped as you fell back into your own body, as you blinked away other perspectives and heaved air into your own aching lungs. You were on the floor, splayed across the tile. There was saliva at the corner of your mouth, and more concerningly, the captain was kneeling over you, his thumb stroking your cheek.
“Do we understand each other?”
You forced yourself to swallow. Your voice came out hoarse, dry. “Get away from me.”
“I can try, but it’s a small craft.”
“Then let me leave.”
His thumb settled, then slipped lower. “You know, there are so many things I’ve always wanted to try.” He cupped your chin, stifling a laugh. “With someone who isn’t myself, I mean.”
Disgust tore you through you, curdled and vicious. You brushed him off and scrambled to your feet, stumbling past the engineer and out into the hall. The captain joined her in the doorway, but only watched on as you did your best to get away.
~
The weeks following your conversation passed slowly, cold honey through a tight bottleneck.
The assigned date of your designated departure came and meant. It was quickly made clear that you weren’t allowed anywhere near the transport module. Someone, usually the geologist, always seemed to be posted outside, just waiting for you to try your luck again. For the first few days, the engineer also followed you in-person, but that wasn’t a permanent feature. You couldn’t get into much trouble nearly seven miles below sea level, and whatever project your captor was working on seemed to be an all-hands-on-deck situation. It had something to do with excavation, but how far it fell outside of the vessel’s expected field of research was lost on you. Still, you were thankful they were distracted. It seemed to be enough to know that, no matter how much distance you tried to maintain, you’d always be within arm’s reach.
You spent most of your time hiding. It felt a little childish, honestly. Not very long ago, you would’ve gladly done anything if it meant never feeling alone again, and now you were locking yourself in your bunk, tracking movement patterns on security cameras, pressing your ear to every door before you opened it and praying that there wouldn’t be footsteps or voices on the other side. Your contract was only for half a year, but you had enough food and fresh water to last five times that, meaning that entertainment was going to be more of an issue than survival. You ransacked the others’ rooms, stealing books and card decks and gaming consoles, anything that might help pass the time. And, at night, when the isolation was almost too much to bear, you fled to the atrium.
It was a large, open space on the vessel’s uppermost floor, which was otherwise reserved for vehicle bays and tool storage. The ceiling was high, domed, and entirely transparent, and even before something took over your crewmates and everything went to shit, you liked to lie in the center of the room and watch the dark water ebb and flow. Now, you tried to keep your visits brief, to leave before anyone had the chance to join you. You’d only slipped up once. A swarm of bioluminescent jellyfish was passing over your vessel in the small hours of the morning, and you must’ve lost track of time. A storm of gold and crimson lights was still gently bobbing past when he joined you.
They were all limbs of the same creature, but the captain seemed to be the designated face. He settled next to you, legs crossed and head bowed. You stiffened, got ready to bolt, but he only laughed, waving off your skittishness. “You’ve been avoiding us.”
You swallowed. “…should I not be?”
The way you said it, muted and questioning, must’ve given away your paranoia. The captain shook his head. “There’s no need to worry. If I wanted to keep you on a shorter leash, I could.”
Great. Perfect, actually. He thought he was being nice.
“I have something for you.” He never looked away, but the sound of clipped footsteps drew your attention to the doorway. The biologist, uncanny smile plastered over his face and a small, silver tray in his hands. “A gift. To celebrate our three-month anniversary.”
The biologist stopped in front of you, and you recognized what you’d desperately been trying not to. A perfectly round, perfectly generic cupcake, the icing only a little smudged. Your stomach dropped. Perishable food was hard to get down here, even harder to keep fresh. There was one for every member of the crew, and they were supposed to be saved for birthdays – a little piece of home to keep you all sane, in theory. Anyone taking more than their share would mean there wasn’t enough to go around, which meant someone would be angry, which meant someone would be angry with you and—
And you took a deep breath, forcing yourself to look at the biologist’s grinning face.
You guessed you didn’t need to worry about that, anymore.
Still, the idea of choking down freeze-dried cake was enough to make your stomach turn over. “I’m sorry, I—” You pushed yourself to your feet quickly enough to make your head spin. The captain followed you up, catching your arm when your balance threatened to give out. “I really can’t do this, right now.”
“Of course. You must be tired.” The biologist was already leaving. “Let me walk you back to your room.”
It wasn’t a question, but you shook your head regardless. “I’m alright, just a little—”
“I insist.” His hand slipped from your arm to your upper back. “Unless you’d prefer the captain’s quarters?”
“No.” Bile rose into the back of your throat. The repulsion was instinctual, the rejection reflexive. “Please, no.”
“How you break my heart, love.”
This time, his hand slipped down to yours, squeezing gently. You should’ve just taken the fucking cupcake.
“It’s a good thing I have spares.”
~
Four months. That was how long you made it post-invasion, trying to live every moment as if you were under constant observation, ignoring every base human urge that might’ve been at odds with your all-seeing captor. Sixteen weeks. One hundred and twenty days. People had cracked under much more banal forms of torture in much less time.
And, in your defense, you had the foresight to take precautions. An especially busy day that saw all useful members of your crew posted at their stations. An unused wing of the medical bay rather than your own room. An allotted fifteen minutes to do what you could. You figured, failing everything, you could be proud of yourself for giving it your all. Admittedly, you hadn’t spent much time thinking about worst-case scenarios.
This was definitely worst-case.
The pilot stood on the threshold of the medical bay, the door hanging open behind her. Heat flooded your face, your cheeks, and you made a valiant effort to pull your hand out of your pants and wrestle your coveralls back up to your waist – as if that’d do anything to undo the damage. She waited until you were (mostly) redressed and scrambling off of the cot before edging forward, careful to keep her body between you and the door. That was fine. You were too mortified to so much as think about going much of anywhere.
“It’s a—a human thing,” you rushed to explain, as if it made this any better. As if it would get her to stop staring at you like that. “To blow off steam, and kill—”
You tried to step around her. An arm lashed out to stop you, barring any hope of retreat to your left. “You’re so cute when you’re flustered.”
“I’m not—” You cut yourself off, swallowing. “I’d like to go back to my room. Please.”
The pilot didn’t respond. Her attention flicked downward once before returning to your face and refusing to let go, pinning you under the weight of her wide-eyed gaze. You were stuck there, trapped and immobile, as her free hand found your collar, then drifted south, lean fingers grazing over your collarbones, your midriff. Finally, she dipped below the waistband of your coveralls, dragging her two fingers over the seat of your panties. The material was still disheveled, too flimsy to provide any real sense of comfort. Her thumb caught on your clit and—
“Please,” you gasped, surprising yourself. She didn’t seem fazed. “Stop touching me.”
A second passed, then another. When she eventually did draw back, it was with an airy sigh, the smallest quirk of a frown tugging at her lips. “Fine.”
You waited for her to pull away entirely, to lose interest and return to the bridge with the rest of the crew – not totally unlike the previous inhabitant of her body had, on the rare occasion she was forced to speak to you. Instead, her hand curled around your wrist, blunt nails pressing into your skin as she tugged toward the door. You half-expected her to take you a little too literally, to drag you back to your bunk and lock you inside, but she passed the rooming area entirely, taking you down the hall toward the captain’s quarters. Your heart seized up inside your chest, but you tried not to let the panic seep into your voice. “Where are we going?”
“To do different human things.” And then, more cheerfully, “You’ll like it.”
You doubted that, but her pace was steady and her grip was unwavering. It didn’t seem like she planned on giving you another choice.
The engineer was already waiting by the door. She followed you and the pilot in, keeping close in case you tried to bolt. You were given all of a second to take in the massive, king-sized bed before being mercifully pulled in another direction, into the en-suite. The engineer must’ve worked quickly. The shallow tub (an Olympic pool compared to the shoulder-width shower stalls in the communal bathrooms) was already full, steam still rolling off the water’s surface. A body scrub and matching oil sat on the low wall, neither used. You did your best not to wonder who’d brought them.
You looked to the pilot, then the engineer, who both watched expectantly. It took an embarrassingly long moment to realize they were waiting on you. “Oh, I’m supposed to…?”
You nodded to the tub. The pilot’s smile turned sympathetic. “Before the water gets cold, yes.”
The engineer chimed in, “You have taken a bath before, haven’t you?”
“Shut up.” And just like that, more out of spite than anything, you were wriggling out of your uniform. Your clothes formed a wrinkled heap where you let them drop, each layer leaving you that much more exposed, that much more desperate to crawl back inside of something thick and warm and protective. Covering yourself would’ve been an admission of defeat, so you kept your arms stiffly at your sides as you stepped into the tub. The scalding water burnt at your numb skin. You hadn’t realized how cold you’d been until you started to thaw.
Surprisingly, they didn’t join you. The engineer perched herself on the basin’s wall while the pilot leaned against the vanity, taking in the view. You pulled your knees up to your chest, but it was clear you were being overprotective. The engineer only hummed as she cupped the water in her hands and poured over your head, soaking your hair, your face. It reminded you of something else, something sacred. You had to hold your breath, but that part was holy, too.
The engineer’s hands found your shoulders, massaging gently. The words caught in your throat and snagged on your lips, but you spit them out regardless. It would’ve been more painful to let the silence sit. “Is this your idea of what humans do? Or did you just want to embarrass me?”
“Partially,” the pilot answered. You chose not to wonder which question she was responding to. “My other reasons are much more selfish.”
“Tell me.”
“It’s a little silly.” If you hadn’t known better, you might’ve thought she sounded shy. “I wanted to see what it was like to take care of something else.”
Oh.
You sank that much deeper. The engineer’s hands followed you down, never leaving your skin for a moment.
You’d never noticed how cold she felt, before.
~
“I really didn’t mean to.”
The biologist hummed. He was sitting at your feet, leaning against the wall next to your cubby of a bed. He’d brought tea, the mugs mismatched and the contents still hot enough to steam. You were determined to let yours go cold, and he seemed happy enough to run his thumb over the ceramic rim, soaking in the warmth as it seeped out.
“You did an awfully thorough job.”
“I didn’t—” You stopped yourself, sucking in a deep breath and pressing your cheek into your stiff pillow. Behind you, the geologist shifted, slotting his chest against your back and draping an arm over your waist. Your captor had become increasingly more interested in that type of thing, recently – touchy, sentimental, human. You would’ve liked to say that they wore you down, but honestly, you hadn’t put up much of a fight to begin with. “It was self-defense.”
“You didn’t call the police.”
“I was going to, but there was so much blood, and—and then they were already outside, banging on the door. Anyone would’ve frozen up.” You let your voice get very, very quiet. “He kept me in that apartment for sixty days. Two months. What was I supposed to do? Go outside and make small talk with the neighbors?”
“And the trial?”
“I wasn’t allowed to talk at the trial, the lawyers—” Again, you cut yourself off. “And you already know this. You’ve been in my head.”
The geologist’s forehead settled against the back of your neck as the biologist spoke. “I like the view better out here.”
“You’re so creepy,” you huffed. “It’s just, if this is hell, or some stupid karmic punishment you’re all in on, then—”
“You don’t think I’m real?” He almost sounded offended.
“I don’t think you deserve to keep me here.” There wasn’t a point in answering. Whatever was happening to you, it was real enough. “I’ve got family waiting for me to come back.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Fine. I have friends. People who are going to miss me.”
The biologist sent you a skeptical glance. You bit down hard on the side of your tongue.
“You can’t keep me here forever.”
The geologist’s hold on you tightened abruptly, crushing your ribs into your lungs before going slack just as quickly. “Not forever,” the biologist mused. “How long do you think the oxygen recyclers will hold out?”
This time, you didn’t bother responding at all. The geologist seemed content to draw you that much closer, and the biologist was more than happy to sit at a distance and watch.
~
You found the captain on the bridge, sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of the glass wall. The room was dim, the overheads switched off in favor of the softened blue of the emergency lights. No one else was there, his spare sets of eyes scattered to different parts of the vessel. It looked like he’d been waiting for you.
The jellyfish were passing through again, too. The swarm was dense and close, the view all-but completely obscured by bobbing golden lights, casting the bridge in a ruddy bronze. If you didn’t know better, you might’ve thought you were on another planet.
…you did know better, and the thought still lingered longer than it should’ve.
You sat down next to him, legs bent in front of you. It was uncomfortable, but that didn’t matter. You doubted you’d be staying in this position for very long.
“If I—” The words burnt like acid on your tongue. You rushed to find a less corrosive replacement. “If I do what you want me to, I can leave, right?”
“I don’t remember saying that.” His voice was lilting, tone playful.
“Then say it now.” You huddled into yourself. “I need to get out of here, and this is the only time I’m going to ask nicely.”
“I don’t seem to recall you ever being particularly nice, either.”
Something shifted out of place deep in your chest. You moved to stand, but he laid a hand over yours, laughing. “Sorry, sorry. I should know better. I know what it’s like to be trapped somewhere very, very small for a very, very long time.” He lowered his voice. “Let me have this. You’ll get what you want out of it, too.”
“Just this once?”
“Just this once. Then, I’ll take you back to the surface.”
You didn’t want to. No part of you wanted to give anything to the monster that’d held you captive for over a year, but you needed fresh air in your lungs. You needed to see another person, someone who didn’t look at you like something to cut open and dissect.
This didn’t seem like a lot to give up, in comparison.
You nodded, and his hands were on your hips immediately. He hauled you into his lap, and then you were straddling him, your legs clumsily thrown around his waist and your chest pressed into his. There was no pretense of reluctance, just his mouth on your neck and his fingers working at the buttons of your uniform, haphazardly pulling and dragging until fabric slackened and you felt cold air wash over newly exposed skin. This close, he should’ve been enough to warm you up, but even that small comfort rang hollow. His body was malleable stone against yours – willing to give, but so undeniably lifeless below the surface.
A calloused hand cupped your breast, groping harshly. A pained hiss slipped through your grit teeth, and his head tilted back, wide eyes meeting yours. “Can I kiss you?”
“Would it matter if I said no?”
“Of course.” His smile had turned simpering. “I would cherish any reaction you showed me.”
That didn’t mean he would listen, though.
His lips were chapped and tender against yours. There was nothing romantic about the way he kissed you, just a heady sort of affection and a curiosity that made him lap over your tongue and push into the hollow of your cheeks like he was trying to memorize the shape of your mouth. At the same time, his thumb swiped over your nipple, fingertips biting into the plush flesh of your chest. It was almost a relief when he moved on, his touch skirting over your midriff, your navel, your stomach before settling just above the waistband of your panties. You wished you hadn’t worn them at all, in hindsight. Anything to save yourself the stabbing agony of realizing he would have to take them off of you.
Not that he seemed to be in a rush to. The pad of his thumb dragged over your clothed slit, mapping the terrain, before pulling back and pressing into your clit. His mouth fell to your throat, sucking harsh bruises into your skin as he traced mindless patterns into the most sensitive part of you. It was humiliating – how quickly your deprived boy gave in to the first hint of stimulation you’d gotten in the better part of a year. You could feel yourself getting hotter, getting wetter, the seat of your panties soon uncomfortably damp. You felt the captain’s grin against your jugular and clenched your eyes shut.
His touch was sickeningly exploratory. Your panties were pulled to the side, two thick fingers eased inside of you. Even that was too much of a stretch after surviving so long on nothing at all. You buried your face in his chest as he rocked his palm against your cunt, doing your best to keep your teeth planted in the flesh of your cheek, your nails burrowed into the back of his neck. It was unfair – he was still dressed while you were being split in half. He was going to get what he wanted and you’d be the one to suffer for it.
A third finger, added while the heel of his palm ground against your clit. You jerked forward, a strangled moan escaping before you had a chance to swallow it down, and the captain cooed in sympathy. “That’s it, love.” He pressed a kiss into your temple. “I’m only trying to make what comes next a little easier.”
“I—” He curled his fingers and you sucked in a shallow breath. “I don’t know what that means.”
“Yes, you do.”
God, you hated him.
“No, you don’t.” There was another kiss, this one to the corner of your mouth. You were beyond caring where he touched you, how he touched you. Minutes too soon, you could feel a steady pulse playing in the pit of your stomach, a tightness in your chest that wasn’t entirely due to burning hatred. You felt his tongue against the side of your neck, following the curve of your throat once, then twice before biting down – teeth sinking into skin too fluidly, too easily. It took you a second to decide why it felt so unnatural beyond the initial shock, but not much longer.
He hadn’t hesitated. Not the way he should have, when he knew what he was doing to you might hurt. Not the way anything human would have.
He stayed there, latched onto you and sucking gently, as what was left of your self-control eroded and fell away entirely. Your hips bucked against his hand, the movement jolting and involuntary, and then you were moving on your own, working to fuck his fingers that much deeper, to make up for that many more days of your third and final stay in prolonged captivity. When he raised his head, it was only to chuckle, to nuzzle against you, to pay more attention to the angle of his wrist, to how exactly he nudged you closer and closer and closer to the ledge. “So beautiful,” he whispered, mouth close enough to your ear for his voice to echo in your mind. “I could keep you like this forever.”
You made a mewling, pained noise, cut off abruptly as your body went rigid against his. He led you through the worst of it, pace slowing as he drew out every little clench and tremor, but his patience was clearly thin and his attention clearly elsewhere. You felt him shift underneath you, and then your body was being lowered to the floor by too many pairs of hands. You didn’t realize that you’d shut your eyes until you had to force them open, until you saw the pilot’s smiling face above you, her unblinking stare fixed on your face.
Dread and embarrassment and panic flared in your chest, driving spikes into your heart, your lungs, your throat. “I don’t want other people to—”
“They won’t.” His hands were already pulling at your uniform, dragging it off. Your panties were stripped away just as quickly, just as heartlessly. You tried to grab for his wrists, but the pilot was faster, catching yours instead and drawing them above your head. “It’s just us. It’s only ever been us.”
But it wasn’t, not really, not in the way that matters. You could see the others in your peripheral, made shadowed and faceless by your refusal to look closer. It was almost a mercy when the pilot ducked, lowering her head to your chest and latching onto your breast, reminding you that there were worse things in the world than unwanted voyeurs – worse things you were currently experiencing, in fact. The captain’s hands found your sides, then your hips, pinning you to the floor as he settled between your legs. You whimpered, sobbed, but it wasn’t enough to drown out the sounds of rustling fabric and hitched breathes, to distract you from the feeling of something hot and blunt pressing into you pussy.
He hesitated there – the pilot, too, her tongue going still where it was lapping over your nipple. “I love you,” he said, nearly under his breath. “And I wish this wasn’t the only way to make you understand that without getting rid of the you.”
You didn’t know what he was talking about. You didn’t have time to figure it out, either.
He was already inside of you.
Big. He was too fucking big. For the first time, you genuinely resented – sincerely, deeply, searingly resented – that the captain had been chosen as the dominant mouthpiece, rather than one of your much more moderately sized crewmates. It felt like you were being torn open from the inside out, his thick cock splitting your cunt in half, jagged veins and liquid heat arousal only making it more overwhelming. Your legs snapped closed around his waist, hips bucking against his hold, but the captain didn’t seem to notice. He buckled, head falling low as he caught himself with a palm planted next to your head. The pilot moaned against your skin.
Long, agonizing moments passed before he started to move. You became terrifyingly aware there was still more of him that he was trying to ease into you. His thrusts were short and slow, every inch another way to make you squirm and clench. You weren’t in control of your body, anymore. If you cried, if you struggled, if you went limp – that wasn’t your fault. You were only doing what you had to.
Finally, finally, you felt him bottom out, his hips pressing into yours. There was an airy grunt, another less dignified noise, and then he fell into a steady pattern of grinding down and pulling back and thrusting in with enough strength to force the air out of your lungs, to make your back arch off of the unforgiving cement. Your hands grabbed for his shoulders instinctively, and he let you, falling that much closer. The pilot retreated, but only far enough to pull your head into her lap. Touching wasn’t the priority. She and the others were just there to observe.
His cock twitched inside of you. There was no cursing, no unconscious reactions, but his hold on you tightened and he buried his face in the crook of your neck, breath cold and wrong against your skin. “I’m sorry, I don’t—” A rough groan, a stilted thrust. “I don’t want to, but—”
He didn’t have a chance to finish. It was already happening.
It wasn’t like the first time. That day, it’d been deliberate, a calculated plunge into the middle of a very large, very cold body of water. This time, his influence came in fragments, pulling you into the river but giving your mind a chance to cling to the shore. You could feel the ground against your back as you blinked through a hundred million sets of eyes, and you were aware of the pressure in your core as that pulsing, heartbeat choir overwhelmed anything else you might’ve heard. There was water in your lungs, but at least you still knew which lungs were yours.
Your orgasm came in waves, flooding in from multiple perspectives. There was your pleasure, strained and confused, and then his, tender and so loving and filling you to the brim. That was enough to bring you back to yourself, although there wasn’t anything you could do to mitigate the damage. His hips were pressed flush against yours, his hands clamped tight enough around you to bruise, excess cum dripping down your thighs, the curve of your ass. You couldn’t be sure how long you stayed like that – a second, a minute, an hour. It didn’t matter. It was all an eternity to you.
Eventually, he seemed to catch himself, straightening with a slight laugh. “How embarrassing. I—” He cut himself off, smiling. “Next time. I’ll be more considerate, next time.”
Your only response was a low, disgruntled whine. Sympathy softened the corners of his expression. “Why don’t we get you cleaned up?”
“And then—”Your voice gave out immediately, dissolving into a coughing fit. The pilot rubbed the back of your neck. “Then the surface, right?”
“Of course, love.” The words might’ve been more comforting if it hadn’t been for the way he looked at you. “And then, the surface.”
~
Half an hour later, you found yourself slumped against the captain’s side in the transport module, still not quite able to rely on your own legs. Both the elevator walls and its shaft were entirely made out of glass, but even as you ascended out of the abyssal darkness, through the brightening twilight and back into the more hospitable sunlight zones, you couldn’t quite bring yourself to enjoy the view. A few stray jellyfish from the previous swarm were still bobbing diligently toward the surface. You tried half-heartedly to name the species, but nothing came to mind. You’d had a tense conversation with the captain (the real captain) early on about deep-sea life, but he didn’t seem to think you’d run into anything more interesting than—
You straightened abruptly. The captain hummed, holding that much tighter. “Is something wrong?”
“There aren’t supposed to be jellyfish this deep. Not in a group this size.”
“So there aren’t.”
You hesitated, then tried another angle. “Whatever you’re doing down there, is it—”
“The work will carry on, but the worst of it is over.” He squeezed your side. “You’ll understand, soon.”
Neither of you spoke for the rest of the ascent. There was a brief depressurization, and then the doors opened into the sterile, chromatic control bay you only vaguely remembered from the day you were sent down. You let go of the captain, rushing forward. You were going to get out of here. You were going to breathe fresh air and feel the sunlight and talk to someone else, anyone else. You were going to kiss the first person you saw. You were going to—
You made it one glorious, euphoric step outside of the module, then came to a stuttering halt. A half-ring of strangers stood perfectly still in front of you, a mix of scientists and engineers and operators you wouldn’t know if you recognized. Any familiar traits, any human spark – all of it was made alien by identical, calculated smiles and those unblinking, unfeeling, unthinking eyes. You were tempted to rush to the closest window, to hope beyond hope that this hadn't spread any farther than the facility, but you smothered the urge quickly. You already knew what you were going to find.
The captain stepped behind you. “You can go on running, if you’d like,” he said, resting a hand on your shoulder. “I shouldn’t have problem catching up.”
“But, it can’t be—”
“It is.” He laughed, the noise bright and giddy. For once, it sounded natural.
I love the way you write in general! You are fantastic at what you do.
Is there a way or place for us to read your non-fanfiction/yandere/freakshit projects/works? Do you post it online?
I wanna support ALL TYPES of your craft >:)
ahhh unfortunately not T-T my hope is to get traditionally published one day, so all of my non-freakshit projects are locked up pretty tight at the moment. i've considered starting a secondary blog to talk about them a little more + my nonfreakshit reading, but i'm just not sure if there's really an interest for that sort of thing. i have prolifically bad taste and very strong opinions, and i do not think there's a single person on earth who wants to hear me yell about the plot structure failings of chuck tingle's bury your gays.
unfortunately i am sexy and fascinating so of course i am always tempted to put more of myself out there. consider this a very unserious interest vet.
Like imagine him finding out that reader is genetically predisposed to certain illnesses or that reader shares a genetic relationship with one of his rogues
truly one of the scariest and funniest things about catching the attention of any member of the batfam is that they take reconnaissance work. so seriously. try to eat a croissant at breakfast and tim will casually mention that your great-grandmother had a gluten allergy so maybe you shouldn't. say something about your brother's cousin's sister-in-law's neighbor's coworker and dick will tell you that she got married last spring. tell them your favorite color is hot pink and bruce will flatly inform you that you actually trend towards light pink. at some point you'll just have to start lying because the alternative is let them be this annoying forever.
Is there ever going to be a situation where Bruce might seek sexual contact? Or is he genuinely, never planning on touching reader, at all if he can help it. Which, honestly, might be it’s own form of torture for them too
hmmmm yes to both unfortunately. he plans on never touching you, speaking to you, or letting you know he's there at all. he plans to keep his distance and let you live a normal life, unaware of his protection. he plans on limiting his presence in your life to the feeling of being watched when you ought to be alone, a too-peaceful walk home in the middle of the night, a clean track record in a bad neighborhood. that's what he plans on, what he tells himself, and yet, as soon as the thought crosses his mind that you might be safer in his care than outside of it, you'll find yourself sedated and restrained in an isolated wing of the wayne estate, your selfless protector smiling as he runs his fingers through your hair.
he still tries not to touch you, but he finds reasons to. if you neglect hygiene due to the stress of, you know, being kidnapped, he'll insist on helping you bathe. if you lose your temper or lash out, he'll bend you over his knee, treat you like the petulant child you're pretending to be. and, if you come to him for comfort, you'll inevitably find yourself in his bed, his mouth on your neck and his hands on your skin as he promises he's only doing this out of love. he wants to keep you safe. he wants to take care of you. it'll only a shame that the safest place in the world is underneath him.
so would you say bruce is more of a platonic yandere in those fics or is it more of a beating himself off in the shower thinking of the reader kinda situation?
hmmm i don't think he's platonic but i think he's too guilt-ridden and catholic coded to ever actually jerk off about it either. he's, like, hanging up pictures of your full-body x-rays in his office so he knows that you're still in one piece and having tim sequence your genetic code so he can make sure there's no part of you he isn't prepared to take care of. and he's doing it all hard as a fucking diamond. what a man.
