#Box Hauler

[nocternalrandomness]

MD-11 hauling boxes out of Warsaw

[fredricksebastian]

[bitterrfruit]

kerosene

ghost x f!reader. 17k words. cw: noncon. kidnapping. gun violence. free use. smut. mentions of involuntary groinal responses lol. simon is a smug asshole and reader is into it you get robbed at gun point while working the lone register at a nowhere petrol station. the money in the till is not the only thing he takes with him. or [read on ao3]

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, so they say. 

The devil should have been busy with you, then. Malignant boredom had taken root in you, rankled in every crevice and swell, metastasized like knobbly tumours that parasitised on your will to live until only the gritty alluvium was left. 

You began your shift behind the till at the Gulf station in the late afternoon, shy of four p.m., as you had done yesterday and as you would tomorrow. You took over from Mitchell, who worked the morning shift, the old man with a wiry grey beard and eyebrow hairs like corkscrews sticking haywire out of his forehead. You’d work until midnight, when you would be replaced by Charlie, a pinguid twenty-something with legs like beanpoles and eyes so sunken they were hollow as caves in his skull. 

They had been your co-workers for the better part of three years, yet they might as well have been strangers to you. The scant exchanges you would share with them were a few words at shift change, if that. Mitch would prattle on about some rude geezer and tell the same story about his ex-wife that he had every other week. Charlie, bedecked in his cheap headphones and carrying an egg sandwich cling-wrapped by his grandmother, would only give you a nod and ask been busy? with little attention paid to your answer. 

You had been offered the morning shift when you first started. 

The owner of the franchise station, Dave, was uneasy about the prospect of a ripe (his word) young woman working alone behind the register after dark, at a nowhere white-pole station in the sticks, where the only customers were long-haulers and on-the-way-home farmers. A just concern, you supposed, and a part of you had considered taking him up on his offer. 

You refused, in the end. 

Told him that someone like Mitch (frail, near-blind, on the cusp of Alzheimer’s) would far more likely be victimised by the ilk of patrons that trudged through the station. In your experience, anyway, most of the late-night customers that came through the push-door understood the implication of a burly old man being served by a young woman on her own. They’d tread more carefully, offer you kind smiles, sometimes mention their wives to make sure you understood they were not a threat to you. 

There was always the odd lecher, though. Goes without saying. 

The kinds of yellow-toothed men that would lean too far over the counter, talk to you like they knew you, overly familiar. The type to ask you to smile for them, or for a discount, or for your number. Ones that would joke about coming back, just to visit you. That would say you’re too pretty to be working in a dump like this, you should be in a bar instead. Maybe on a pole. Maybe in the passenger seat of their truck, to keep them company. 

It never frightened you, really, because nothing ever happened. You stuck with the late shift because it offered the fanciful possibility that something interesting might come to pass. Maybe, if you were lucky, there would be a car wreck outside the station, or a patron threatening enough to justify hitting the panic button, or a fire set off by the fuel pump and you’d finally be able to put the ten-year-old extinguisher to use. 

But you were confident that every shift would be the same, as always. 

Nothing would happen, you would drive home to your shoddy seventies cottage in the pit-stop hamlet of Dunhill, eat a frozen pastry, sleep alone, and do it all over again. Days came and went like empty boxes on a trundling conveyor belt, your life a deserted factory, only still whirring because the last attendant forgot to switch off the machinery when they left. 

Today was no different. 

You perused the grocery shelves with cheap earbuds stuffed in your ears, the kind with squishy mushroom plugs that made it sound like you were underwater. Shuffling through the same playlist you had been slowly adding to over the last year — you liked the songs you already knew every word to, creature of habit that you were. Busied yourself by twisting the canned foods so that their labels all faced outwards, then backwards, just for a laugh. 

It got to half-nine, the sun had long since set, and you had served one customer since your shift started. A middle-aged man with a muddy van, who bought three RedBulls, a pack of Chesterfields, and half a tank of diesel. He scarcely acknowledged you, a hi when he walked in and a cheers when he left. 

Your meal for the evening was a pack of Walkers salt and vinegar crisps and a bottle of chocolate milk, plucked from the shelves and not logged. Leaned back in the plastic chair behind the till with your Chucks propped up on the counter, some Sally Rooney book with its spine broken folded in half in your hand. 

You had milk in your mouth when you heard the characteristic thud of a closing car door, a harsher slam than you were used to. Attuned to the noise even while your ears were plugged. You swallowed it hard when you heard the chime of the bell, the swing of the door, the thuds of boots. New customer. 

Sat upright, you peered over the register to see who had entered the station, and you were flummoxed when there was nobody there. 

You grabbed your earbuds by the flimsy cord and tugged them from your ears with a pop — there were footsteps, someone was there, you weren’t crazy. You could hear the sound of provisions being swept from shelves and shoved into a bag, the bonking of cans and the crinkling of plastic. 

Only once you stood did you see the head above the shelves. 

Black hood pulled up. Could only see the side of him as he wandered down the aisle, towering beast shuffling along and torpidly picking things up just to put them down again. A foot taller than the racks he meandered between. Wore a black leather bomber over his hooded sweater, well-worn hide, turned tawny brown in the creases and at the edges. All bulky. Padded up. His shoulders swayed with the bravado of a gladiator who spent his life unchallenged.

Had you any remaining hospitality in your system you’d have greeted him, but you circumspectly held your tongue. 

There was something in his presence that did not augur well. Something crooked, something bent. Turned the tired air inside the station dyspneic, too dense and thick to comfortably breathe. 

Call it a woman’s intuition, if you believed in such a thing. 

Simon hadn’t accounted for a bird at the till. 

He’d have expected some ruddy-cheeked man with buck teeth and brown-bordered sweat stains on his shirt. The typical clerk at a shithole backroads petrol station, in his experience. They’d shoot him a grimy look, eye him up-and-down with a curl in their lip, all ruffian until he brandished the Sig Sauer he had tucked in the waistband of his jeans. 

That was what he had prepared for. He came to stick the gunmetal barrel in the face of the old bloke behind the register, demand every stack of cash from the till drawer and anything valuable he had on his person, maybe fire at the ceiling if he moved too slowly. Piece of cake. In and out. 

Instead, it was you. 

Sneakers propped up by the register, sucking the crisp dust off your fingers with pink lips. Reading a book as disinterestedly as you might watching paint dry. 

Unluckily for you, it didn’t make a difference that you had a pair of tits. He wanted that money. 

Your chary little head poked up from behind the counter once he was done collecting his supplies. A few cans of Baked Beans, couple bags of crisps, some vacuum-sealed biersticks. A roll of gauze and a bottle of Dettol for the flesh wound in his thigh. Pack of tissues. Bic lighter. KitKat for a treat. All shoved in the duffle bag he held in his fist, heavy with the wads of cash he had already collected from the last pit-stop on his trip north — an offy in a piss-stained back alley in Cheltenham. Grabbed a few pilsners for the road from there, too. 

He forsook his urgency as he approached the register, measured pace, duffle in hand. Eyeing you up with each step as if you were a candybar on a display rack. 

Pretty wee thing. 

He hadn’t even shown you his gun yet, and your eyes were already peeled wide, glistening in the bright fluorescent lights hanging overhead. 

None of the goods he intended to pay for. He didn’t need to make that any clearer to you, the assumption was already plastered on your face as he loomed towards you. Had his mask on, after all; thick black ski mask pulled over his head, jagged holes cut out for his eyes. No doubt that made quite plain his intentions. 

You stood pin straight, curling the purple cord of your earbuds between your fingers as if some attempt to ground yourself. Not a drop of makeup on, he could see the satin sheen of sweat on your forehead, the plum rings unconcealed under your eyes. Nobody to impress out here. Still pretty. 

“Um, which pump?” You asked flatly, tone meek, in denial of the obvious. 

Your stupefied stare followed his hand as it ventured to the base of his sweatshirt, a frown fluttering in your brow as you all but tilted your head in nervous confusion. He reeled up the heavy fleece, white t-shirt underneath — but that wasn’t what your eyes clung to. 

His hand curled around the grip of his handgun, plucking it out from the waistband and holding it insouciantly at his side. No need to point it at you, not yet. 

Your skin turned cadaver grey as your blood flooded to your feet, eyes bulging with the instantaneous panic that wracked you as though you had been smacked in the face with it. 

“Oh my god — ohm — oh my god,” you squeaked, tongue knotting in your mouth, tears quick to well. “Oh my god — y-you—”

It was this, the histrionics, that he hoped to avoid. The tears, Christ, the fucking tears. There wasn’t anything to cry about, not yet, but your rheumy eyes glowed sanguine, and the tears that oozed from them were clear and glittery. Rolled dramatically from their wells and dripped from your chin, seeped into the corners of your trembling mouth. All flushed and glossy and he hadn’t even spoken yet. 

There was no blood-curdling outburst, though. You didn’t scream, didn’t wail, didn't scurry around hysterically like a decollated hen. You were stiff as a board, arms pinned flat to your sides. Merely whispered the Lord’s name in vain over and over as if he might answer your call. 

“Please — ohmygod — please don’t hurt me,” you cried, lungs seizing with every word, hiccuping and spluttering like you had just been pulled ashore. “What do you want, you can — you can take anything. P-please—”

“Shut up,” he barked, and you flinched at his aggression. “Just open the fuckin’ till.”

You nodded so vehemently he thought your head might roll off your shoulders, and your pallid hands began raking over your body in desperate search of the pocket you kept your keys in. His glare followed keenly as they ran over your hips, waist, unabashedly caressing your arse in the search. After finding them in a back pocket you tried to orient the keys in your grip, but your fingers trembled so vigorously that you immediately dropped them to the linoleum floor. 

“Fuck — I’m sorry,” you bleated as you bent down to pick them up, eyes still riveted to him, “I’m sorry, let me just — please, I’m sorry—”

He let out a grunt of exasperation as he marched around to the other side of the counter. Your feet remained planted still as though you were bolted to the floor, leery eyes following him while your head kept rigid. 

A deer in headlights. Fawn, more like. Small and doe-eyed and too stupid to get out of his way. 

You only whimpered when he jostled you away from the till, physically driving you to the wall with his hands under your arms, clearing his path. He took your shaky little hand in a fist and peeled it open, plucking the keys from your sweaty palm. 

The register was old, something from the nineties, yellow-faded plastic with cube-clacky buttons. He shoved the tiny key into its slot on the drawer, gave it a good shimmy to loosen it up, and it popped open with a ding. 

Pretty much empty. 

“The fuck is this?” He growled, fingering through the notes in the drawer — all twenty-two of them. “There’s fuckin’ nothing in ‘ere!” 

Your face screwed up like a wrung cloth when his glare shot to you. Great gulping sobs, your eyes squeezed into fleshy little crescents and spewed tears from either corner, terror rilling from your nose and making your lips all wet. 

“I’m sorry — it’s not my — I think Mitch m-must have done the cash drop this morning,” you wailed, “Please — it’s not my f-f-fault!” 

“Shut up,” he snapped, jutting the mouth of his Sig Sauer at you, callously reminding you of the fate he held in his grip. 

He snarled to himself as he plucked out all of the notes, flipped through them to count it up. Nine fivers, six tenners, five twenties, two fifties. A few quid worth of coins floating around unorganised between the compartments. A prodigious spoil of three-hundred-and-five pounds. 

Fucking joke. 

He rancorously shoved all the paper in the bag — left the coins, ego too tall to fish out the petty change. 

“Piss take,” he grumbled as he slammed shut the till drawer. “What else y’got.” 

You blinked up at him timorously as he tucked his gun into his jeans and marched towards you, almost buckling over as though you could curl up into a shell to protect yourself from him. 

Only cried as he spread your arms, shamelessly smearing his hands over your body to feel for something in a pocket. Down your waist, stomach, hips; all pillowy under the pressure of his hands, soft even through your t-shirt. Prodded the undersides of your breasts with shameless fingers, checking for anything tucked in your bra, and your lips curled in disgust as you looked away from him. 

He almost cracked a smile at your diffidence. Maybe another time, pretty thing. 

He flipped you around, manhandling you until your nose pressed into the wall. Hands smoothed down your back, before finding something rectangular tucked into the tight pocket of your skinny jeans. You squeaked in dispute as he stuck his fingers in the pocket, flush with your arse, but he had no time to enjoy it. 

Little red wallet. 

He flicked through it — a visa debit card, expired Primark gift card, two quid in the zipped pocket and a tenner note folded in a card sleeve. Eyed your license for longer than necessary — cute little photo of you, a tiny smirk in your lips as you gazed at the camera. 

“Pretty name,” he said wryly, and you only huffed with your forehead pressed against the wall. 

He didn’t bother taking any of the change. Looked like you needed it as much as he did. You winced when he pushed a finger in your back pocket, tugging it open so he could shove your wallet back in. 

He instead returned his attention to the checkout, scouring the counters for anything else that could be deemed at all valuable. Nothing, obviously. Merely cardboard display racks of chewing gum and cheap candies. There was a cigarette cabinet behind the till, at least — after some fiddling he found the key on the ring that fit the lock, broke open the steel door, and swept an entire rack of cartons into the duffle bag. 

As a last resort, he dropped the bag and crouched down, wiped underneath the countertops with gloved hands, hoping for a vault, a hidden compartment, or—

His fingers brushed plastic, creasing and soft; something wrapped in film, taped to the underside of the counter. He tore it off with a zip, held it in a tight hand; a stack of notes, more than a centimetre thick, wrapped with a hair tie and shoved in a zip-seal sandwich bag. 

You let out a remorseful sob as you sunk to the floor with your back against the wall; thighs tucked to your chest, head dropped to your knees. 

A grin peeled his lips from his teeth as the realisation settled. “This yours?” 

“No,” you chirped, a pitiful attempt at a lie — he was unsure why you wouldn’t admit to it, it wasn’t as though he’d have informed your boss. 

“Skimming, eh?” He snorted, peeling open the yellow seam of the plastic pouch and fishing out the stack. Flipped through them — mostly tens and twenties — easily a couple grand, at the very least. 

“I just—” you sobbed, shoulders hunched, “I was just saving up. It doesn’t matter. Just t-take it.” 

“Saving?” He asked incredulously, voice thick with amused derision. “Little thief. No better than me, are ya?” 

“Whatever,” you bellyached, arms wrapped around your knees, snivelling on the floor. 

He sucked his teeth as he dumped the stack in his bag. Too bad. His now. 

As he went to stand, though, he went dead still — eyes hooked on a flashing blue light under the counter. Squinting, he leaned closer, to substantiate his hunch—

A fucking panic button. 

His rage burst like a purulent blister — apoplectic with it, he ripped his handgun from his jeans and steamed towards you. 

“You fuckin’ hit the alarm?” He roared, and you shrieked in terror as he took the collar of your t-shirt in a fist and heaved you up from the ground. 

“I — I’m — I didn’t—”

Your spluttering only enkindled his fury. You cried out in despairing dread when he shoved the mouth of his pistol into the soft flesh under your chin, and he held his teeth to your cheek. 

“Why the fuck would you go and do that, eh?” He growled, inexplicably disappointed. Thought you were smarter than that. 

“I’m sorry,” you bawled, shaking your head, wet eyes bolted to the ceiling. “I didn’t know what to do, I just — I thought I was s’posed to, I’m s-sorry. Please — god, please, don’t kill me.”

He huffed, jaw rigid. 

He wouldn’t put a bullet in you, pretty thing. Too lovely to mire with lead, that butter-soft skin. 

It was a shame you were such a thorn in his side, fractious girl, because otherwise he would have just left you be. Would have taken his cash and been done with it, left you in your piss-wet jeans to cry to your boss about the ordeal and rightfully request some weeks off to escape to somewhere more therapeutic for the soul than fucking Dunhill. 

“Would be a damn waste,” he grunted, finally pulling his gun from under your chin, sticking the barrel into his jeans. A moan of relief leaked from your throat once the instrument of your imminent death was no longer kissing your jaw. 

Premature relief, love. He grappled you away from the wall, and with a shove, had you in front of him. You yelped when he collared you with a tight hand around the back of your neck, stumbled over your feet as he began driving you forward.

“What are you—”

“Use those legs, girl,” he barked, as he reached to hoist up his duffle bag from where he left it on the floor. 

You blubbered like a toddler, sobbing and sobbing and sobbing, as if your tears might engender pity from him. “Are you t-taking me?” 

“Not gonna leave you to blab to the cops, am I?” 

Another sob. “No — I wouldn’t — I won’t say anything, I don’t even know what you look like. Please—”

“Christ, you’re a whinger, aren’t you?” He rumbled, barrelling through the swinging door and hauling you across the asphalt of the forecourt.

The air was thick with the greasy smell of petrol seeping from lousy fuel pumps, amalgamated with the distant fumes of factory farms and cow manure that hung in a blanketing smog from there to Birmingham. Only the corrugated metal infrastructure of beef and dairy industries for miles in any direction out there. 

He couldn’t fathom what a bird like you was doing with her feet in the mud, stagnating in such a miserable shithole. Maybe he was doing you a favour. 

He tore open the passenger door of his twenty-year-old Mitsubishi L200 — a rusty black pickup he bought with cash from a shrivelled old man on Gumtree, with hopefully just enough life in it to last the drive north. 

You stuck your hand out and planted it on the edge of the door as he pushed you towards it, vigorously shaking your head. “No, n-no — I’m not going with you, I’m not—”

He snorted, and when you didn’t capitulate with a shove, he swept an arm under your knees and hoisted you upward before dumping you into the passenger seat whether you liked it or not. You landed with a squeak, and before you could spew out any more vacant refusals he slammed shut the door. 

He stormed around to the drivers side and hopped in beside you, tossing his duffle bag back between the seats, hastily igniting the engine as he shut his own door. Hit the central lock button and the entire truck locked shut with a clunk — you whimpered when you heard it, and turned your knees away from him.

“Where are you taking me?” You cried, as he revved the truck and rapidly accelerated, tearing out of the forecourt and over the curb, landing on the road with a sharp bounce and a tire screech. 

He paid little attention to your whimpering as he sped off down the dilapidated country road, eyes flicking to the rearview every odd second to make sure he saw no flashing lights in pursuit. The vehicle dipped and recoiled over every pothole on the crumbling old road — motorway would be preferable, but he decided heading in the opposite direction to loop back around would be the safest bet. 

You only sobbed quietly to yourself in his silence, no doubt his lack of response was a threat in itself. 

He had no issue frightening you. Served you right. 

Took some morbid glee in considering what you imagined he planned on doing with you. Whether you considered weighing up your chances. Might you survive if you were to attack him? Would he go easy on you? Might he enjoy the struggle? 

Perhaps you were girding yourself for what he might do next. 

Truth was, he hadn’t decided yet. 

His decision to take you was as impulsive as it was inexorable. 

You weeped until your tear troughs were droughted and nothing more could bleed from their ducts. Cheeks had gone sticky with it, salt dried gritty on your flushed skin, lips shrivelled and thirsty. 

Transient thoughts of rebellion had been ignited and snuffed out in the ten minutes since he had abducted you from the station — you could have reached over and pulled the gun from his waistband, could have tried to kick through the passenger window, could have thrown a nuclear tantrum and bucked and screamed until he was forced to pull over. 

All would have been futile. You weren’t stupid. 

He had that gun in his immediate reach; in fact he kept a heavy hand resting high up on his thigh, prepared to yank it out of its nest above his crotch at any given opportunity. He had made abundantly clear the shortness of his fuse, and that his reflexive reaction to annoyance was to threaten your life. 

Best you settle down, you thought — wait until his guard was down, until he pulled over somewhere, then consider something more drastic. While you were trapped in a car with him such an opportunity was unlikely to present itself. 

There were no streetlights out this way; your abductor had bypassed Dunhill entirely, sticking to unmaintained back roads that had you bouncing up and down in your seat. Not the motion alone that made you queasy, but the fact he was driving even deeper into nowhere, where the only sources of light were the headlights of his truck, illuminating the dark road ahead like something out of a found-footage horror film. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” you croaked, voice abraded to the point of gurgling stones. 

You felt his head turn to look at you, but you kept your stare pointed out your window. Knees turned so far away from him that they burrowed into the door. 

“Eh?” He huffed dryly. 

Sipped a cautious breath before repeating yourself. “Where are you taking me?” 

“I’m ‘eaded north,” he said, no elaboration. 

“Where north,” you asked more firmly, warily frustrated. 

He let out a breathy chortle, as though surprised you’d interrogate him. “Scotland.” 

You cocked your head back in bewilderment and turned to glower at him. “Scotland?” 

“S’what I said.” 

“I don’t want to go to Scotland,” you whined, realising quickly the length of the drive — easily six hours to Glasgow if he stuck to the motorways, but you got the sense he was avoiding them. 

“That’s a shame,” he said. 

“I don’t understand,” you pleaded, terror thick in your throat. “What do you — what do you want from me?”

You regretted the question as soon as you uttered it, because there was some comfort to be found in uncertainty — that is, the possibility that he wasn’t going to throw you into the bed of his truck and rape you in the pitch dark of the backcountry night. 

He looked at you again, eyes tar-black in the shadows of his balaclava, and you held shut your thighs on instinct. 

“Dunno yet,” he said. 

You might have cried if you had any tears left to give. Instead you blinked at him uneasily, petrified into a surreal state of milky numbness — maybe you were in shock, you had heard of that before. 

“So you — you just took me because you felt like it?” 

He shrugged with a single shoulder. “‘Spose so.” 

A minute of stodgy silence settled in the cab as you stared blankly ahead down the spotlighted country road. You weren’t sure what you should do with yourself, and it made you itch all over. From the pits of you echoed screams to put up a fucking fight, to do something — instead you sat quietly, vacantly, erosively indecisive. Waiting for something to happen. For the other shoe to drop. 

“Are you going to shoot me?” You timidly asked, words eking out like dripping water from a tight faucet. 

“Hopefully not.” 

“Then — then why did you take me?”

His head rocked back and bounced off the headrest as he let out an exasperated puff of air. “Y’make a lot o’ noise, don’t you?” 

“Well there would be no noise if you hadn’t.” 

He laughed at that, you could see the fine lines creasing in the corner of his puckering eyes through his mask. “Got me there.” 

“So then why don’t you just let me out?” You pestered, only emboldened by his droning indifference. Apathy exuded from him like serum from an open wound, oily yet salutary, and you found it grotesquely reassuring. 

“Don’t want to,” he bluntly replied. 

“Why not?” 

He was twitchy. On a razor edge. He lasered a glare at you and it stung, and you shrunk into yourself under the heat of it. 

“Because I don’t want to.” He repeated, jaw tight. 

You should have heeded the venom in his throat as a warning to shut up, but despite effort to wire your jaw shut, your compulsion to fill the silence was pathological. 

“Are you — are you going to—” Couldn’t bring yourself to finish the sentence. The tail of it sat heavy and sour on your tongue. 

“Goin’ to what.” 

A quivering breath leaked through your teeth. “Rape me.” 

He sighed heavily, languidly rocking his head to the side, and you felt his hard eyes on you. Excoriating you from legs to lips. 

“Thought about it,” he said. 

Ribs closed like dog jaws around your lungs. 

Said with such torpor that it didn’t cut you like a threat. Instead it made your heart tight and hot, shuddering rather than beating, pumping out needly adrenaline that made your hairs spike up and your stomach drop heavy. 

“And?” You creaked, voice scratching in your trachea. 

“Wouldn’t mind a fuck,” he grunted indifferently. “But I don’t like crying.” 

A mortifying heat feathered over your cheeks. Something pre-programmed, an evolutionary reaction to the suggestion of sex at all, consensual or otherwise — that’s what you told yourself, when you felt a reflexive shiver between your legs, and your ears turned hot. 

“So that’s why you took me,” you mumbled anxiously. 

“To fuck?”

You shot him a pointed lour in place of a response. 

He shrugged. “Maybe.”

Fucking weird girl. 

Your curiosity was potently unsettling, riveting in the same breath. Didn’t make sense to him, that you’d ask him so unabashedly whether or not he intended on defiling you. What answer were you hoping for? Did you simply want to make sure he said no? 

You blinked at him vacantly after his candid response. No use in lying to you. 

It wasn’t his style to brutalise himself into a bird, to bulldoze through wails and shrieks of refusal, physical capability to do so notwithstanding. He simply didn’t like tears. Felt beneath him, really, the impotent sadism needed to enjoy milking them. The only wetness he liked in a girl was a wet mouth and a wet cunt. 

He was partial to a hisser, though. Liked his spitters and scratchers. The kinds of girls that would gripe and grouse about his brutishness but turned treacly sweet when he inevitably overpowered them. 

Perhaps you’d be a hisser. 

He would have liked to find out. What noises you might have made. What the skin of your thighs might have felt like when free of their denim sheaths. How your nipples might spike up in the invasive cool of the September evening, or under the unwelcome brush of his fingers. 

There was a glimmer in the pools of your eyes, fretful yet inquisitive. He was probably only seeing what he wanted to see. 

You went quiet after that, at least. For the best. Kept your little knees nailed together as you glowered out your passenger window, pleasantly pacified for the time being. Sulking like a fucking child, but he supposed he couldn’t blame you. 

He wasn’t stupid enough to expect that you’d be cheerful after he kidnapped you. And he wasn’t in denial, either — he did kidnap you. There was no dancing around it. He threatened to kill you and then he abducted you, because he felt like it. Because he liked the look of you. 

Not remorseful, though. It would be a cold day in hell before he ever felt sorry for anything. His brain just didn’t function that way. If he wanted something, it was his. No use wasting time feeling guilt over something not even he could prevent. 

He spent his time in your silence considering how to make it worth his while. Whether he would, in fact, drag you all the way to Scotland with him. Whether he’d have you aid and abet his next robbery to make up for the piss-poor spoils he purloined from your petrol station. Whether he would find a way to fuck you on the way, or perhaps once he got to his destination. 

Maybe he’d let you keep some of your savings if you showed him your pussy. He looked at you briefly as he thought about it. Wondered how badly you needed the money. 

“What were you savin’ for, eh?” He asked suddenly, and you flinched at the sound of his voice. 

Soft little girl. He’d need to harden you up. 

“What do you mean,” you murmured, hardly a croak. 

“Don’t play dumb,” he gritted.

You sighed warily, eyeing him before you answered. “Doesn’t even matter,” you grumbled. “You took it, so now I haven’t saved anything.” 

He glowered at you, and something in his dissatisfied stare must have compelled you to elaborate. He had that effect on people. Birds, especially. Intimidation coursed through his blood and emanated out of his skin, it didn’t take much effort. 

“I wanted to leave Dunhill, obviously,” you groaned, reluctant to spill every word. 

“Yeah?” He asked, “where were y’off to?”

“Fucked if I know,” you muttered. “Literally anywhere else.” 

He snorted at that. “Couldn’t do that without skimming, eh?” 

“What, do you disapprove?” You hissed, scowling at him. “At least I don’t kidnap people when I need money.” 

“I’m not judging, sweetheart,” he crooned through a grin. “M’only impressed.” 

“Whatever,” you groused, crossing your arms and glaring out the window. “I only took it because I owe a bunch of money.” 

He quirked a brow at that. “To who?” 

“Why do you care.” 

He shrugged. “Boring drive.”

You let out a petulant huff before you inevitably decided to answer him. 

“I’m behind on rent,” you said, through gritted teeth. “Like, four months behind. And I’m still paying off my car, which I just needed to get repaired, so now I also owe money to the mechanic who did me the favour. Fucking owe money to the government, too, because they found out I was on the dole while I was working at the station.” 

A curl tugged in his lips, brows raised in intrigue. No surprise you had managed to find yourself burdened by so many favours — landlord giving you grace, mechanics fixing your cars without payment upfront. Pretty thing like you, though, he’d expect you’d get everything for free. Couldn’t imagine what kind of penny-pinching wankers would still demand money from you when you looked like that. 

Shame you didn’t cross his path sooner, he’d have fixed your car for you. No charge. Might have even let you squat at his place rent-free, assuming you made it worth his while. 

Started to imagine it, despite himself. Pictured having a pretty thing like you to come home to. Standing in the kitchen in his t-shirt, nothing under it. He’d bend you over the counter and fuck you right there while you stirred your tea. Wouldn’t have taken much to get your cunt nice and wet, he thought. You seemed like you’d be easy to please, bored little thing, hopelessly awaiting a man like him to show you what’s worth living for. 

Maybe he would take you all the way to Scotland, after all.  

“What about you,” you asked dully, snapping him from his reverie. “Why do you need the money.” 

He glanced at you, you picked at your fingernails and glared at his hands on the wheel. 

“Must need it pretty bad,” you muttered, scorn bubbling in your throat. 

He tapped the steering wheel. “Long story.” 

“What, are you a fugitive, or something?” You asked, contemptuous eyes raking over him. 

“Is it that obvious?” He asked, through a chortle. 

You gulped, almost cartoonishly. So scared of him. He was sure the mask didn’t help, but he didn’t feel like taking it off yet. 

“What’d you do?” You questioned, that pang of anxiousness never quite leaving your voice, despite your attempts at feigning bravery. “Kill someone?” 

“Worse than that,” he said frankly. 

Your brows knitted together worriedly, fingers knotting. Nervous fidgeting. “Some kind of rapist, then?” 

“Not quite,” he replied facetiously, certain you must have found his amusement at the prospect ill-placed. 

“Then what?” 

“Got in trouble with people you shouldn’t get in trouble with,” he explained, purposefully vague. He enjoyed your inquisitiveness. 

“A gang?” 

“Could call it that,” he jeered. “Special air service.” 

Probably shouldn’t have told you that. Couldn’t help himself. 

“Special — wait, you’re in the army?” 

“Not anymore,” he said. 

You frowned uneasily. “What happened?” 

“That’s a tale for another day,” he grunted, and you turned to glare out the window again, spiteful now that he left your curiosity unsated. Little brat. 

Twenty uneventful minutes passed uninterrupted, then, and Simon focused on the route he had set out to follow. He had successfully avoided main roads for the better part of an hour, now electing it safe enough to return to the highway. Took a few dark turn offs, and every time the truck slowed, you visibly tensed up; so terrified that he’d pull over for a rest stop and drag you into the grass on the side of the road.

He didn’t like the streetlights. They were confrontational, accusatory, as though their beams of light were enough to alert every cop in the vicinity to his presence underneath them. 

The highway was largely empty, at least. Only one car passed in the opposite direction as he cruised along the smooth asphalt, decidedly more comfortable to drive on than the tattered backroads. Meant he could drive a lot faster, too. Might have been able to cut his trip by an hour, if he stuck to eighty-five miles an hour for the stretch between there and Birmingham. 

Your girlish little hands clutched the armrest of the door as he accelerated, the speed of the vehicle pushing you against the window as he followed a curve in the wide road. 

“You’re driving too fast,” you said quietly. 

He cracked a grin. How endearing that you thought to warn him. You were lucky he was trying to keep a low profile, in any other circumstance he’d be brushing a hundred. Then he’d really scare you, wouldn’t he? You could do with some toughening up, he thought. 

“Now you’re worried about the law, eh?” He sneered. 

“I just don’t want to die in a car wreck,” you bit. 

Seemed his docility was emboldening you. Perhaps you were a hisser, after all. Wondered if he needed to correct your behaviour. Maybe you’d spit on him if he reached over the centre console and fixed his hand to your thigh. 

“You’ll be fine,” he said. 

He avoided the arterial motorway that cut through Birmingham, choosing instead to stick to the A roads that bounced between exits and junctions in a zigzag. Hardly efficient, such a route would tack on an extra three hours of travel between there and Manchester, but at least far less monitored than the M5. 

He got cocky, he supposed. 

Saw the flashing red-and-blue lights before the sirens started blaring, and you jumped like a bunny — your head wracked around with a speed that made your neck crick, glaring at the cop car through the back windscreen. 

“Fuck,” he barked, through a clenched jaw, eyes jumping between the cruiser in his rearview and the highway ahead of him. 

He could have shoved his foot down, pressed the accelerator flat to the floor and fled the likely jaded cop patrolling the country highway at eleven p.m. on a Tuesday. There was a chance the fat old bastard wouldn’t give chase, but that chance was slim. Simon didn’t need the attention. 

He sunk his foot into the brake and slowed to sixty, veering into the shoulder. “Fuckin’ tosser.” 

And didn’t you perk up? Itching all over to bounce out of your seat, head swinging back to look at the police car twice a second. All twitchy and riled up. He could see what you were thinking, it was printed in your cheeks, bright in your eyes; now’s your chance. 

He hoped you weren’t that stupid. 

“You gonna be a good girl?” He asked rigidly. 

“What do you mean,” you squeaked, panicked, eyes peeled wide and skin glossy with sweat. 

“Means keep your fuckin’ mouth shut,” he snapped, lifting up his jersey, and you gawped at the gun against his stomach. “You make a scene, I’ll have to shoot him. And then I’ll have to shoot you. Y’understand?”

You nodded tightly, wiping under your eyes with your palms, some paltry attempt to collect yourself. He sincerely hoped you’d behave. He didn’t want to kill you. Would be a waste of a pretty bird. Not to mention a fucking pain in the arse to hide not one, but two bodies. 

“Good,” he muttered, as he tore off his mask and tossed it on the ground between his feet, slowing the car to a stop on the side of the highway. Rubbed his hand over his buzzed head on instinct, cropped hair velveteen under his palm. Hopeful the knit didn’t leave suspicious imprints in his skin. 

Your lips went a little slack when you looked up to see him unmasked, and a grin creased in his cheeks. Saw plain as day that glimmer in your little eyes, as they scoured over his face as if reading the pages of a book. 

Didn’t think he’d be pretty, did you? He was not ignorant of his looks, and wasn’t humble about them either. So blatant in your flustered expression that you liked what you saw, only too virtuous to admit it to yourself. 

He wound down his window before the policeman approached. He was adept at pretending to be a good boy. Spent decades licking boots in the military, and cops were even easier to please. 

The officer was middle-aged and saggy-eyed, just as jaded as Simon had predicted. The truck was taller than him, so his hatted head peered through the center of the open window, assessing the cab with his lips in a line. 

“Evenin’,” Simon said simply. 

“Heading home, are we?” The officer asked, eyeing up the bird next to the driver, lathering you in more attention than necessary. 

Could’ve clubbed him in the nose for so shamelessly drooling over you — as far as the cop was likely aware, you were his bird, not some slapper along for the ride. He had king-hit men for less. 

“You bet,” was all he said. 

“Must be in a hurry,” the cop said derisively, glare finally returning to the driver. “Any clue how fast you were going, mate?” 

Mate made Simon twitch. Swallowed back the urge to spit not your fucking mate, instead offering a placating grin and a pat of the steering wheel. 

“We are in a bit of a hurry.” 

“Yeah? Enough of a hurry to be going twenty over the limit?” 

“Bird tells me to hurry home, I hurry home,” Simon jeered. “Y’know what I mean.” 

The officer almost tutted, until your voice cut across from the passenger seat, and Simon’s knuckles turned white on the wheel. 

“Don’t blame me,” you snapped. “It’s not my fault you can’t control yourself.” 

To Simon’s surprise, the cop chuckled at that. 

“Need to rein your fella in, love.” 

“I tried,” you lamented. “I told him he was going too fast and he was going to get pulled over. I told him so. Bastard doesn’t listen to me.”

Simon blinked in your direction, to see you sitting upright with your arms spitefully crossed over your chest, cheeks red-hot with panic and knee bouncing in frustration. If he didn’t know the root of your unease was the fact he had abducted you, he’d have believed you were a contemptuous wife itching to castigate her reckless husband for getting in trouble. 

Seemed the cop believed that, too. “Bird’s smarter than you, eh?” 

Simon snorted, electing to play along. “That she is.” 

“Looks like you’re in plenty of trouble, then,” he taunted.

Simon looked at you, again, to see you scowling at him before you glowered out the windshield. “Mh. Think so.”  

“You’re lucky I’m not in the mood to do the paperwork,” the policeman said sternly. “I’ve got your plate, though, so slow down, yeah? Way down. No excuse for eighty-five in a sixty.” 

“Understood.” 

“Don’t let me catch you again, eh?” 

Simon smiled politely, concealing the chortle that curdled in his throat. Cop wouldn’t be seeing him again at all, ever, because he was fucking off to a different country and intended to stay there for as long as he remained under the radar. 

He’d have to dump the car, though. With the plate on the record it was fated for the scrapyard. 

“Appreciate it,” Simon said through an artificial grin. “Have a good one.” 

The cop only nodded, patted the car door with a flat hand, before waddling back to his cruiser without another word. 

Simon was humiliated to admit the relief that doused him was sobering, letting out a ragged sigh as he rolled up the window and twisted the keys in the ignition. He was certain that the encounter would have been far uglier — felt his hand twitching towards the gun on his stomach more than once, imagined how quickly it could have been over if he simply tore it out and pointed it at the wanker’s forehead. 

You, strange girl, saved his arse. Whether or not you had intended to help him, you did. His eyes fixed to you as he pulled back onto the motorway, speedometer creeping back up to sixty and staying there, while the police car was still in sight. 

“‘Bastard doesn’t listen to me’?” He quoted with a brow raised, incredulous amusement rich in his tone.  

“What,” you muttered derisively, staring rigidly out of the passenger window, arms tightly interlocked. 

“Think of that on the spot, did ya?” 

Seemed you were avoiding eye contact with him now, glare fastened out into the moonlit countryside and head bolted still. Ashamed, perhaps, that you had thwarted your only real opportunity to escape him. Or, worried that if you looked at him for too long, your fear of him might have mutated into something far more difficult to justify. He smirked at the thought. 

“You should be grateful,” you grumbled. 

“Should I?” 

“You didn’t get arrested because of me.” 

He chortled at that. Maybe your tactic to ingratiate yourself was to help him, but he got the sense that wasn’t your intention.

“In that case, ‘course I’m grateful.”

“Then say thank you,” you spat, finally swivelling your head on your neck to pin your grouchy little lour to him. 

“Thank you,” he crooned, grin sharp. 

“Whatever,” you griped, slumping back into your seat with a huff. 

He wasn’t sure if he preferred you whining and crying to pouting like a teenager, either option tested his patience. He at least found the latter vaguely amusing, only slightly more endearing than a whimpering abductee in his passenger seat. 

“Thanks not good enough for you?” He asked mordantly, and you scoffed. “What, do I have to lick your cunt to prove it?” 

Your stare cut to him out of the corner of your eyes, head impudently bowed to avoid facing him head-on. 

“Don’t say things like that,” you murmured uneasily, eyes glittering under the streetlight that passed by.

“Like what?” He sneered, “don’t want me to talk about licking your cunt?” 

“Shut up,” you chirped, stiff-lipped, tipping your knees away from him and once again scowling out of your window. 

He snickered at you, couldn’t help it, watching you get all tight and restless when he said it again. Certain you were involuntarily picturing his head between your legs, whether you liked it or not. 

“Don’t like the word cunt?” He teased, winding you up for his own enjoyment. “Or don’t like thinking of me licking it?” 

“Stop it,” you whined, shrivelling up like a raisin. 

He grinned. “I can call it your pussy instead.”

“You’re disgusting.” 

“Uh-huh,” he laughed. 

You turned to tug at the door handle, yanking at it unrelentingly, and it only thumped as you failed to break through the lock. “Let me out.” 

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist.” 

“Open the fucking door,” you spat, spite simmering in the back of your throat. “Let me out.” 

He liked this better. Hissing derision, contemptuous attempts to escape, to demand your freedom. Much more enjoyable than your earlier weeping, all snotty and puffy-eyed. 

“Not gonna happen,” he said.

“You’re a pervert,” you growled.  

“So?” 

“Let me go,” you repeated, glaring daggers at him. 

“You’re not goin’ anywhere,” he said candidly, tone as rigid as he intended it to be. He meant it. 

Again stymied, you slouched over and turned away from him, and went petulantly silent. Simon drove ahead unruffled, took another exit off the motorway — once again trundling over a poorly kept rural road, heading in the direction of the next highway junction half an hour north. 

It was evident being off the beaten track put you on edge, pellucid in the way you tightened your arms around yourself once the streetlights became fewer and further between. He couldn’t blame you, it was certainly slasher-esque to cart you around backroads, where the only buildings were abandoned barns and grain silos. Lucky for you, he wasn’t a murderer. Not anymore. Besides, all of his past killing was government sanctioned. Most of it, anyway. 

You kept your mouth shut for the next long while, huffing and puffing every now and again, making sure not to let him forget how unhappy you were with your circumstances. Strangely enough, he found it endearing.

“I need to pee,” you said suddenly, a squeak, shy to say so. 

He snorted. “Think I’m thick?” 

“I — I’m being serious,” you stammered. Unconvincing. 

“Hold it,” he said unsympathetically, turning a left corner, the momentum making you tip into the centre console, your shoulder nudging against his before you spitefully tugged yourself away.

“I can’t,” you grouched. 

“Piss yourself then,” he sneered. “I’m not keepin’ this car.” 

Your brows scrunched up in disappointment. “I don’t want to — to pee on myself. That’s just gross.” 

He smiled. Something cute about you. 

“You can piss when we stop for the night,” he said. “How’s that?” 

“We’re stopping?” You asked quietly, blinking at him charily, as if he’d change his mind if you spoke too loud.  

“Been a long fuckin’ day,” he grumbled. “I’m not driving for nine hours straight.” 

“Nine hours?” You pestered, “I thought we were going to Scotland?” 

He couldn’t help but grin at that. Perhaps it was a Freudian slip — we. Maybe you had come to terms with it already, the ineludible fact that you were stuck with him for however long he wanted to keep you. So far, that looked like a good while. 

“Taking the long way,” he answered. 

“What the hell, how many people are looking for you?” You asked, pouting in worry. 

He sucked his teeth. “Not enough to find me.” 

You didn’t need to pee at all. 

In fact, your nerves had sucked up every drop of water that remained in your body after your deluge of tears. They were glutted with it. All swollen and pinging with panic every odd moment, when you remembered you were supposed to be in fight-or-flight. 

You were seething, though, that you had failed to convince him. 

The plan was poorly conceived, in fairness — you only imagined getting as far as an unlocked door, girding your legs to bolt off into the endless fields on the side of the road in whichever direction they took you. Didn’t spend a moment considering whether you could outrun the goliath, or how rough he’d be when he predictably tackled you. Maybe he’d simply have shot you as you ran away, turned it into a game of target practice for his own amusement. 

There was shame brewing within you, now. 

Sweltering, emetic, frothy as it crawled up your throat — you were disgusted with yourself, at how pathetic you were being, at how little you had done in the interest of your own escape. How you had let all of it happen. 

You always imagined yourself a fighter, it was easy to imagine such a thing. In hypotheticals you would kick and scream, could easily overpower your assailants by sheer will, your resolve to survive so strong that capitulation was inconceivable. 

Reality stung. 

You weren’t a kicker or a screamer. You were a sit-and-waiter, and that realisation was sobering as it was disappointing. 

Humiliated that you had forsaken a real opportunity at rescue for no discernable reason. No reason you could truly justify. Perhaps you had done it to save the police officer; if you hadn’t intervened, your deranged captor would have shot the innocent man for sticking his nose where it didn’t belong, and it would have been your fault for making a fuss. 

Terror was the next excuse, but that didn’t quite justify it either. If you were so terrified that the man would shoot you, you would not have uttered a word. No, you would have been quiet, a good girl, just as he ordered you to be. 

It assuaged your fear, you thought, to see his face. 

You were surprised to see a face at all beneath the mask, forgetting he was a man and not some caricature of chaos and violence. He looked like a soldier, too. All scarred and cynical, disillusionment was inlaid in his features despite how caustically he grinned at you. 

His hair was freshly buzzed, sandy blond velvet coating his head, long pink cicatrices carved lines into his scalp as if someone had attempted to cut through it and peel it from his skull. He was tattooed, you could tell, by the teal-black engravings that crept up the side of his neck, the rest concealed by the thick hood of his sweatshirt. Nose a little swollen at the bridge, fractured once and poorly healed. 

The shame was even more potent when you caught yourself eyeing him for too long, flicking over to him every now and again just to get a glance, the shortest possible eye contact to ensure he didn’t catch you staring. 

Fucking mortifying that he was good-looking. 

That your mind even allowed you to think so, that your eolithic subconscious had considered your abductor’s appearance at all. The way he had rakishly smirked at you was arrogance manifest, you could see in his russet-brown eyes a patent awareness of your attraction. As if he could smell it on you, goading you to admit it, ego stroked every time you caught his eye. 

So you didn’t. 

You kept your body tilted away from him, gaze locked out of your passenger window, sweaty hands clamped together. Every now and then you felt his glare on the back of your neck, heard him breathing in your direction — it felt as though you were counting down the minutes until he felt compelled to reach over the console and touch you. 

It was only a matter of time, undoubtedly. That’s what he took you for, you were certain, despite his supposed ambivalence. The thought made your heart sit fat in your throat. Stopping for the night was a deadline.

“Where are we stopping?” You asked weakly, voice aimed at the passenger door. 

He let out an exasperated breath. “Not sure yet.”

“Are you going to sleep in the car?” 

He seemed to find that amusing. “I might not look it, love, but I’m a creature of comfort,” he said. “I’ll get us a bed.” 

Us. You shivered when he said it. 

A scornful refusal knocked at the back of your teeth, but you knew how he’d twist it, would mock your aversion. He’d make another foul little quip about your pussy, you thought. 

You didn’t want to give him the chance to say the word again. Not simply because it was revolting to listen to the degenerate joke about eating you out — licking your cunt, it echoed in the sauna of your skull — but because the mere mention of it turned your cheeks claret-red and the back of your neck all clammy. 

What was worse, is that you knew he could see it on you. Plainly emboldened by how much it ruffled you. Could decipher your unease as an effort to conceal some biomechanical reaction, one provoked by the mere suggestion of it, by the vibrations of his voice as he said it. 

“Do me a favour,” He suddenly demanded.

You refused to turn and look at him. “What.” 

“Grab me a fag, will ya?” 

Animosity congealed in your mouth. The fucking gall to request favours of you. “From where?” 

“Bag in the back there,” he said simply, “light’s in there too.” 

“Fine.” 

You peered behind the headrest, his unzipped duffle bag was dumped on the back seat; just out of reach if you were to extend an arm between the gap. Instead you had to twist your entire body and contort yourself through the middle, waist between the front seats as you climbed over the console.

You resented being in such a position, arse jutting out towards the windshield, unable to see the driver that sat so close to you — so you were quick about it, burrowing through the sack, stuffed to the brim with junk, and myriad different brands of cigarette cartons. 

“Which ones do you want,” you asked impatiently.

He huffed as he thought about it. “What’ve we got?” 

“Um,” you murmured, digging through the cardboard cartons. “Mayfairs, Richmonds… uh. Embassies, Davidoffs—”

“Mh. Gi’s a davidoff,” he interrupted. 

You followed his instruction and plucked out the trim red box, and an orange Bic lighter once you found it at the bottom of the bag, wedged between wads of cash. You peeled away the thin plastic covering and flipped open the card lid as you reeled your body back between the seats — immediately you caught him lavishing your rear in attention. He sniffed casually when he caught your eye, utterly shameless. 

Heart shuddered in your ears as you sat back down in your seat, gooseflesh prickling up in your skin as you held the carton out for him to pluck out a roll. 

He pinched the end of one and stuck it between lips curled over his teeth, before gesturing wordlessly for you to give him the lighter. 

“You’re a doll,” he said, muffled by the filter in his lips. Jaw jutted out to angle up the cigarette, he flicked the lighter in his fist with his thumb, little orange flame hovering under the end of the roll as he sucked it. 

“Whatever,” you grumbled, swiftly turning away from him to return your attention to the road out the window. 

Seemed he was approaching some area of population, little brick houses began popping up on the side of the street, lampposts peppering the road ahead. A surge of adrenaline made your hackles spike up — bystanders, you thought, people who might have heard you if you screamed loud enough. 

“Want a puff?” He asked indifferently. 

“I don’t smoke,” you snarked, distracted. 

He snorted. “Goodie girl, are ya?” 

“No,” you said curtly. 

“Mh, that’s right — you’re a little thief,” he taunted. “Not a good girl at all.” 

There was no response that would spare you his teasing, so you kept your mouth shut. Stayed silent for the remainder of the drive, in fact, a solid quarter-hour — until the car bounced over something and you jolted in your seat. Quickly realised he had pulled up into a parking lot as the truck began to slow. 

A two-star Travelodge, evidently, one planted directly on the side of the northbound highway. It looked barren, coral bricks all grimy with lichen and sludgy brown water stains, every window blocked by shut curtains. Not a single light glowed from within a hotel room, only the dim yellow lantern bolted to the wall above the sliding door at the entrance. 

You held your tongue in your teeth as he drove to a park at the very back of the lot, under a low-hanging tree branch, concealed by shadow. Your skin began to itch, crawling with bugs and alight with adrenaline — you could run, now, if he opened your door. Maybe you could sprint to the nearest building and hammer on the door, shriek that you’d been kidnapped, and to please please call the police. Or, maybe you could try to snatch his gun from him and shoot him in the fucking head. 

Instead you sat still in your seat. Felt your chest breaking out in a panic rash. 

“Righ’,” he said casually as he killed the engine, the suspension of the truck bouncing under the weight of him as he adjusted in his seat. “Look at me.” 

You shook your head in refusal. Entire body stiff as wood. Anticipation frayed your nerves and made your hairs stand on end. It was suddenly real. 

You kept your eyes pinned away from him, but it was futile, because he reached a massive arm across the gap and seized your jaw in a single hand. Fingers dimpled your cheeks as he twisted your head to face him, and you attempted to scowl at him, but your quivering lip made plain your alarm. 

“You gonna make a fuss?” He asked stiffly, pinching his cigarette with his free fingers, silvery smoke clouding out from behind his teeth. 

You just about said no on reflex, but bit down on it instead, because it likely would have been a lie. Only pouted at him scornfully and shivered in his grip. 

“What d’you think will happen if you do.” 

You swallowed. “You’ll shoot me.” 

He shook his head. “Would be an uncomfortable night for you, though, I can tell y’that.” 

A crease pulled between your brows. “Are you going to — to beat me up, or something?” 

He chuckled at that, a cocksure grin; you suddenly felt a weight in your chest, burning hot, made your ribs sink and your heart flutter. 

You hadn’t yet seen his face up close. His cheeks were stubbled, skin peppered with freckles and the creases of early aging. Teeth were sharp and unexpectedly white, raffishly crooked with pointed canines, a silver cap on a premolar. His lips were full, pale, a single scar running through the top one, white stripe in the ruddy pink. 

The shame returned with a kick to the stomach when you noticed yourself staring at his mouth, and you tried to look away from him, but he riveted your head in place. 

“Don’t plan on it,” he said, after a beat too long. 

Sweat pricked along your hairline. “Then what.”

“I’d like to have a nice long snooze,” he grumbled. “I don’t wanna be up all night wrangling you. So if you throw a tantrum you’ll be sleeping tied up with a sock in your throat. S’that what you want?” 

“No,” you chirped. 

He nodded approvingly. “I don’t want that either. I like the sound o’ your voice. Be a shame to snuff it out, wouldn’t it?” 

You attempted to nod, and though his hand kept you still he understood the intention. With a ragged sigh he finally released you, giving you a condescending pat on the cheek. 

With a grunt he suddenly twisted and leaned between the seats, gargantuan body taking up the entire cab as he reached behind you to grab his duffle bag, and you wedged yourself against the door to avoid touching him. 

Clambered about as he reeled the giant bag back to the front, before snatching the car keys out of the ignition and unlocking the driver side door. He kicked it open and hopped out with a huff, immediately slamming it shut behind him — only unlocked your door with his keys once he was directly outside it, pre-empting any of your attempts to slip away. 

He opened the door for you with a clunk, and the biting air of the late autumn night made your entire body tighten up. 

“Get out,” he said.  

You nodded, swivelling yourself on your bottom and sliding out of the truck cab, landing directly in front of him. He flicked his cigarette to the ground and left the stub smoking on the concrete. 

“C’mon.” He fixed a hand to your bicep and yanked you away from the car, shutting the door with a slam. 

You were light on your feet as he ferried you towards the entrance to the cheap hotel, his other fist white-knuckled around the strap of his bag. 

“You don’t need—” you chirped, almost tripping over your feet, “—to hold me so tight.” 

“No?” He snorted. 

“I’m not gonna run,” you spat, hushed despite yourself. 

“Obviously.”

The sliding glass doors trundled open as you approached them, a tired ding echoing out to welcome you. The reception was quiet, poorly lit by vibrating fluorescent bars, stunk of fresh linen toilet spray and floor cleaner. 

Your abductor let go of your arm abruptly when he noticed the receptionist — a teenage boy with headphones on, who disinterestedly looked up from a Nintendo Switch to address the tall brute that sauntered in with you in tow. 

“Y’after a room?” The kid asks monotonously. 

“Standard double.”

The receptionist clicked around on the computer, smacking chewing gum between his teeth. “How many nights.” 

“Just the one.” 

Click click. “It’s sixty-eight for the night.” 

“Y’take cash?” 

The kid frowned dubiously at that, jaw hanging open as he rolled the wad of white gum along his tongue. “Sure.” 

“Lovely,” your abductor grunted, unzipping the flap of his duffle bag and fishing out a thick wad of paper notes. 

Jaw gaped as you watched him unashamedly finger between the notes to pluck out three twenties and a tenner, slapping them on the counter of the reception before tucking the stack away again. As agape as the receptionist at his brazenness, all but showing off his spoils, plainly stolen. 

The kid pouted skeptically as he swiped the notes and counted them again, tucking them aside, and you wondered if he used the same technique as you. 

He dropped a keycard on the counter. “Room thirteen,” he said. 

“Cheers.” 

Your abductor scooped up his bag and planted his other hand on the small of your back, nudging you ahead of him towards the narrow hallway, never allowing more than two feet to grow between his body and yours. 

You glanced around feverishly as you wandered meekly down the corridor, identical doors mirroring each other for as far as you could see, until the hall turned a corner. Eyes clung to the glowing green emergency exit lights dotted along the ceiling, as if they might lead you to your salvation. 

“Can’t believe you actually paid for a room,” you murmured spitefully, when he nudged you forward by the arse as if guiding a ewe. 

“Wouldn’t want to break the law,” he chuffed. 

In any other circumstance you would’ve giggled. You might have found him funny if he weren’t the deranged fugitive who had kidnapped you. 

A yank of your shirt stopped you in your tracks, tugging you back — your abductor had flippantly taken your t-shirt in a fist, as he shoved the key card into its slot under the handle of a door behind you. 

“In,” he snipped, shoving you through the door once he had pushed it open. 

The room was small. Hardly enough room for the double bed in the middle of it, skinny end tables wedged on either side. The only amenities were a shin-height fridge and a kettle on a bench, tucked into a nook by the door. It was hot in there, too — radiator bubbling all day, you guessed, to counteract the cold weather. 

Immediately you fixed your stare on the window by the bed; a good metre across, brown aluminium trim, lumpy textured glass that distorted the view of whatever sat directly outside the hotel room. Ground floor, you thought, easy to slip out, if you could open it —

Noticed, then, that there was no indication it could be opened at all. No hinges, no frames, no handles. Simply a flat plane of glass stuck in the wall. 

Your stomach wrung itself, and you did your best not to keel over. The air was suddenly infinitely stuffier, sweltering, torrid in your lungs. 

He flipped shut the bolt on the door, and landed a pat on your shoulder. You could unlatch it, obviously, but the old thing was squeaky, clanking old brass, and undoing it would certainly alert him. 

He nudged you out of his way and dumped his duffle bag on the floor beside the bed, evidently claiming the side closest to the door, as if prepared to catch you should you try to slip around him. 

In truth, the notion of escape was scarcely a whisper. Supplanted by a nauseating docility — a survival instinct, you thought, to simply behave. To do as you were told. 

He began undressing himself, uninterested in whether you observed him; shucked off his old leather jacket and hung it over the back of his bag, unlaced and kicked off his muddy old boots. Your toes curled involuntarily into the soles of your shoes, watching him like a degenerate, as he tore off his hoodie and t-shirt and tossed them to the floor. 

Something out of a movie, you thought; gargantuan beast of a man, broad-shouldered and cladded in such a dizzying mass of muscle and adipose bulk that he looked encumbered by it all. The icteric light of the sconces by the bed carved out the divots in his back, the valley of his spine, the symmetrical dimples above the waistband of his jeans — you felt sick with yourself, that you even let your eyes venture there, but they cleaved fast to him despite your chagrin. 

He was slathered in tattoos as you had imagined, all flames and skulls and barbed wire, broken up by the occasional stamp of something more meaningful — a sacred heart, serif-font numbers, somebody’s name with a date beneath it. You could read it from where you stood; Johnny, 11/2023.

You were only thankful he hadn’t turned around — couldn’t see you leering at him, and spared you having to see him from the front. 

“Still need to piss?” He asked roughly, and your lips twisted. 

“No,” you said, still standing awkwardly by the door. 

He snickered. “Seemed pretty desperate before.” 

“I — yeah,” you stammered, “I don’t know. I’m fine.” 

Gave you a shrug as he lumbered into the ensuite bathroom, and you heard the unbuckling of a belt and zip of a fly, the clunk of metal on a counter, then the steady stream of his piss landing in the toilet water. 

You scoffed in revulsion. Fucking pig. Couldn’t even close the door. You heard him rinse off his hands at least, though you couldn’t be sure he had used any soap. 

He emerged from the bathroom rubbing his shaven head and with his belt undone, leather straps hanging loose from his hips, zipper of his jeans wide open. His gun was gone. Plaid boxers bunched up, distended by the mass within and protruding through his fly — you felt yourself turn berry pink, more repulsed by yourself than him. 

This time he caught you staring, and he was manifestly pleased about it. A smug grin pulled in his lips as he shuffled towards you, and you rested your weight on your hind foot. 

“Y’want a Valium?” He asked you, and you frowned at him bewilderedly. 

“What?” 

In front of you, now, you panted like a cornered animal in the shadow he cast. “Might help you sleep.” 

You grimaced at him. “You just want to knock me out.” 

He snorted. “Why would I do that?” 

The daggers you stared at him served as your only reply, and he half-heartedly rolled his eyes at you. 

“You reckon I’d want to fuck a sleeping bird?” 

“Probably,” you muttered, averting his gaze when he uttered the word. 

“No fun in that,” he said simply. “No nice noises if you’re asleep.” 

You scoffed, perturbed by how he discussed it happening with you as if it were an inevitability. “What, like screaming?”

He cracked a grin. “Screamer, are ya?”

Your blood went runny. “Stop it.” 

He brushed a knuckle under your chin, and you flinched — but to your relief, he relented. Turned away from you and squeezed the back of his neck as if to release tension. 

“Get into bed,” he grumbled, plodding towards the bathroom, returning swiftly with his gun in hand. 

You went cold. “Why?” 

“The fuck do you think?” He replied curtly, shoving his pistol under his pillow, before he pulled his jeans down and your mouth went dry. 

“I don’t want to,” you squeaked. 

He chuffed at that. “Christ, fucking is the only thing on your mind, in’t it?” He taunted, “don’t get all worked up.” 

“I’m — I’m not worked up, you—”

“I’m too tired for this shit,” he grunted, “‘n I’m not havin’ you up and about while I’m sleeping. Get into bed or I’ll put you in bed.” 

There was no give in his expression, it was a final order. He did look tired — eyes were sunken and beset with aubergine rings, lids heavy with frustration and exhaustion. He stood with hands hooked on his hips as he impatiently awaited your acquiescence, and you sensed you were on a short timer.  

“Fine,” you murmured, shuffling around the end of the bed with your arms crossed tightly, eyes averting him.

He watched you, though. Scrutinised your every move as you bent over to untie your shoelaces, pulling off your converses and dumping them on the carpet. 

“Sleepin’ in your jeans?” He jeered, when you reached to pull back the blankets.

“I’m not taking my clothes off,” you retorted, sitting on the mattress and swiftly tucking yourself under the covers. The mattress was foamy, soft, sunk deep as though permanently impressed by all the bodies that have ever slept in it. 

“Hardly comfortable,” he said, smirking, decidedly amused. 

“Don’t care,” you groused, rolling onto your side away from him, blanket up to your ears. 

He chuckled. “Suit yourself.”

You bounced on the mattress as he fell into it, springs moaning as they sunk deep beneath him, and you felt your body tip back towards him — you curled up, as close to the edge of the bed as you could get without toppling over the side. 

He switched off the sconce above the bed, and the room was abruptly black as pitch. 

The mattress recoiled as he adjusted himself, settling into bed with a gruff sigh, and you felt his warm breathing on the back of your head. 

He seemed to find comfort quickly; exhales turning deep and languid, you sensed he had fallen asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. 

There was some relief in that. Temporarily escaping him while he was unconscious. 

With your heart thundering in your ears, though, sleep was impossibly out of reach for you. You could hardly keep your eyes shut, they fluttered and twitched as you tried to close them, and they’d bolt back open as though spring-loaded. 

Now’s your chance — it echoed ad nauseum in your skull like the chiming of a clock, over and over until your ears rang. 

You could have slithered out of bed and scurried to the door, unbolted it and ran down the hallway if you were quick enough. You could have used the steel-legged chair in the corner to shatter the window and sprint into the night. You could have slipped a hand under his pillow nice and slow, snatched his gun from under his head and shot him while he slept. 

Instead you lay dead still, save for the trembling that never quite subsided. 

You tried to vivisect your own mind while you stagnated in the bed. Attempted to determine why you failed to enact your own rescue, why you actively avoided pursuing your freedom. 

The answer eluded you, in concrete terms anyway. 

Truth was, you didn’t know where you’d go. 

Literally, of course — you had no idea where you were, no phone with you, no sense of direction. You could run to a bystander and ask, of course, but you didn’t want to do that either. 

It was as if you didn’t want to go back. 

The thought of it nauseated you almost as gruesomely as the uncertainty of the path ahead. Of being dragged back to Dunhill, of being back to square one, of having no money, no prospects, no future. 

It was the obscurity, you thought, that kept you there. Something new. Something different, albeit terrifying. The ambiguity of any future, however short, was somehow preferable than the certainty of not having one at all. 

Worse to admit was whatever churning you felt between your legs. What seed he had planted when he took you had taken root, tendrils burrowing into the recesses of you and tumescing with a reluctant anticipation. You all but throbbed with it, as if your body were preparing itself for the inevitable, manipulating your mind into assenting to it. 

It made you feel sick, and your skin was febrile, sticky with apprehension. 

You were baking — the air was thick with it, stifling heat, though in truth it was likely your thundering nerves that set your body alight. Too anxious to release yourself from under the covers, or to roll into a cooler position, or to flip over your pillow to the cooler side. 

You lay cocooned for as long as you could bear the heat, but your blood was molten and your head began to ache, and you resorted to uncovering yourself. 

You did it desperately slowly, peeling the cover away from you inch by inch, and even in the air you found no relief. Your last resort was to turn off the radiator — if you could — but you’d need to get out of bed for that. 

Slinked a leg over the edge of the mattress, whisper-slow, used your elbow to prop yourself up—

You felt a hand grab at your hip, and you were unceremoniously yanked back into the bed with a squeak. 

“Where d’you think you’re goin’,” he grunted, voice gratingly hoarse after a half-hour sleep. 

A ten-tonne arm was suddenly hooked over your waist, and you were flush with his back, his knees folded in behind yours. 

“I just wanted to turn the heater off,” you whispered, hoping he wouldn’t hear you. 

“Too hot, eh?” 

You exhaled shakily. “Yeah.” 

“Y’know why you’re too hot,” he murmured, and you felt him stick his fingers into the back of your skinny jeans, tugging the stretchy waistband and snapping it against your lower back.  

“I just can’t s-sleep when it’s warm,” you stuttered, tongue tangling in your mouth. 

“Bit restless, are ya?” 

You felt his hand glide over your belly, and your muscles turned to stone, entire body tensing up with the touch. 

“I’m not havin’ you tossing and turning all night,” he grumbled, thumbing at the button of your jeans, unfastening it with a pinch. 

“Don’t do that,” you breathed, heart plugging your trachea, unable to swallow a real breath. 

He persisted unimpeded as if he had not heard you, pushing down your zipper and stuffing his hand unhesitantly down the front of your underwear. 

You squeaked in fright the moment his fingers brushed your mons — every millilitre of blood in your body flooded out of your extremities and pooled between your legs, a reflexive reaction that fired off every nerve ending under your skin. 

“No, d-don’t—” your whimpers of refusal eked out between your teeth on instinct, but their root lay more in humiliation than fear. 

His hand was icy against your feverish skin, and goosebumps bristled out from his touch — your vision went foggy as a cold middle finger the size of two of yours slid along your seam, lips went slack as the tip burrowed deeper. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he grunted, his stony voice tickling the hairs on the nape of your neck, “you are warm, aren’t ya?”

“Stop it,” you whined, half-heartedly, defeat viscid on your tongue. 

His finger snaked deeper between your legs, the others flush with the puffy outer lips of your cunt, thumb burrowing into your groin as he wedged his hand in the tight gap between your pussy and your jeans. 

He chortled under breath when the tip of his finger broached your entrance, dipping into the mortifying abundance of your fluid that had pooled there. God, there was so much of it, you were humiliated — you had been in denial, ignoring it, even as you felt it slicken the gusset of your underwear, maybe even the inseam of your jeans. It was only instinctive, you told yourself, it wasn’t like that—

“Jesus Christ, girl,” he chuffed, breathless, and you could not for the life of you tell whether he was proud or disgusted. “Made you wait too long, did I?” 

You shivered, cunt pulsing around nothing, felt the nettle sting of adrenaline crawling down your spine. 

“N-no, I—”

Bit down on your tongue as his slippery finger dragged up between your folds, catching your clitoris with a swipe and making your legs clamp together in a vice. 

He only scoffed in awe. “Sensitive thing.” 

“Stop doing that,” you mewled, so embarrassed that your cheeks were aflame, ears burning red-hot, heart galloping in your chest. 

He didn’t believe your attempts at refusal, and you weren’t certain you did either — not when he stroked your clit with the palp of his finger, up and down, all of his movement honed in on the one spot that made you choke on air. 

“Not so bad, is it,” he sneered. 

You curled up like a cat, but he kept you fastened to him, immovable hand burrowed deep in your jeans. His finger slid between your folds effortlessly despite how hard you pressed your legs together — there was no escaping it, every brush of his fingertip against your slippery clit burned more than the last, igniting an inferno in the core of you that seemed inextinguishable. 

Fucking humiliating, degrading, shameful, that the brute who had abducted you could make you feel that good, do so little to have you so, so—

“You’re a fuckin’ furnace,” he jabbed, and he swiftly tugged his hand from between your legs and out of your jeans. 

Whatever remorseful noise spilled from your mouth was beyond you, high-pitched and so wanton it made you sick to hear it, but he only snickered. 

“Quit whingein’,” he chided, taking your waistband in a fist.

He hiked your jeans down with a violent tug, tearing them down to your thighs, underwear pulled down with them. What little abnegation you had left turned to sugar on your tongue, dissolving in your saliva and sliding down your throat. 

The blanket was gone, then, pulled off and pooled at the end of the bed — the slightly cooler air biting at your bare skin scarcely settled your tempers, even less so when he roughly shoved his hand between your legs again, now unobstructed. Three avid fingers prodded against your hole as if to collect the syrup that pooled there, slickening themselves before they dragged back up. 

You yelped like a kicked puppy when he kneaded your clit, pads of his fingers pressing and pulling in firm circles, bud swollen and shuddering and so sensitive it was sore. 

You could only whine about it, now unwilling to fight him off and likely incapable even if you wanted to. He had you riveted to him, chest solid against your back, heaving arm locking you in place. Your compunctions had melted, deliquescing into the stodgy recesses of your mind; usurped by the revoltingly animal, blood-thinning want that thundered in your temples and made your mouth all wet. 

“Don’t, p-please, you’re—”

“Tha’s it, girl,” he rumbled, directly into the back of your skull, and it made you dizzy. “Let it happen.” 

Your core tightened up, cunt constricting as tight as a vice, painfully empty — the surge was as sudden as a flash flood, just as violent, and you drowned in it as it swept you under. You came beneath his fingers with a winded whimper, so forcefully you bucked your legs to evade him, bullied clit ablaze and spasming in waves that made your heart stop with each contraction. 

“Fuckin’ hell,” he chortled, easing his infliction but not yet stopping. “Listen to you.” 

“Shut up,” you whined, unable to catch your breath. 

“That’ll help you sleep, eh?” He teased, fingers finally retreating, trailing your slick up your mons before he landed flat on his back with a huff.

You were molten, sweaty hair clinging to the nape of your neck, and you wanted nothing more than to take off all your clothes and have a cold shower. All you could muster was your jeans, though, already half-off — you used your feet to peel them down to your calves, kicking them off into nowhere. Your shame had dissolved, now, utterly irretrievable. 

The stale air was cool against the wetness of your inflamed cunt when you rolled onto your back; a potent relief, despite how unbecoming you felt it to leave yourself so exposed in the company of a bedlamite.

“Now stop fussing,” he grunted, settling into the mattress, hand resting on his stomach. “Don’t want you wakin’ me up again.” 

You couldn’t have fussed, even if you tried. Body utterly siphoned of all energy, mind as foggy and blank as smoke. 

It took you less than a minute to fall asleep. 

Morning came with rain. 

The glow of daylight through the embossed window was powdery white, you heard the gentle patter of raindrops landing on the pane, the loud dripping of a leaky gutter pipe somewhere outside. 

Your mouth was chalky, tongue swollen, vision too blurry to identify where you were at a glance. 

The realisation rinsed you like cold water when you heard the gruff breathing from beside you. Heavy and deep, the warmth of a body lying too close to you, you felt the hirsute skin of a leg against yours. 

You were nauseous as you remembered the night before, when your legs brushed together and you noticed they were bare — no underwear on either, the sheets tangled up between your feet and your hair greasy on your forehead. Your cunt was still sticky and it made you wince to move and feel it, remembering how he had touched you, that his fingers were likely still covered in the dried residue of the orgasm he had milked from you. 

The remorse was as pounding as a migraine. Brontide in your skull that made the room spin, and you wanted nothing more than a glass of icy water and some ibuprofen.  

You peered over your shoulder at your abductor; lying on his side with an arm folded under his pillow, shoulders rising and collapsing with each heavy breath, scarred face somehow peaceful in his slumber. It was surreal to witness him like that, observing him in his most vulnerable state — you knew his gun was under that pillow, but the thought of trying to steal it faltered as fast as it came. 

Instead you slipped out of the bed, pattering on the soft soles of bare feet to the tiny kitchenette, and filled up a brown glass mug with tap water. You drank it all in three hard gulps, then filled up another. 

He didn’t stir, not even slightly. In such a deep sleep that you likely could have put your jeans back on and unbolted the door without even waking him. 

Instead you went into the ensuite, shutting the door behind you. The bulbous knob had a push-button to lock it, but it was loose, and no matter how many times you pushed it, it failed. You gave up quickly, though — didn’t want to wake him up yet. 

The bathroom was arranged nonsensically — the toilet sat by the door, the vanity across from the shower that was tucked into the corner. Its glass walls were grimy with limescale, every amenity made of faded ivory acrylic and stained brown at the edges where the janitors had failed to clean it.  

You flushed the toilet when you saw that he hadn’t and swore under your breath in disgust. Fucking animal. You quickly peed, rinsed out your mouth with water from the sink, then turned on the shower. You only had a t-shirt to take off, revolted that it was all you had worn during the night. You hung it on the towel rail. 

You kept the water lukewarm, too sensitive for cold and too feverish for hot. An array of cheap mini soaps and shampoos lined the tiny in-built caddy, and you were not frugal in using them. Used almost the entire bottle of body wash to lather every crevice of your body, washing away the sweat of panic and ignominious lust that mired your skin. Shampooed and conditioned your hair with products that smelt like pine and citrus with an undercurrent of battery acid. 

The water was cleansing, a pleasant distraction, and you shut your eyes as you rinsed off your face, rubbing the grease off your skin. 

You rubbed your eyes before you opened them — immediately spotted a silhouette outside the shower, and a blood-curdling scream erupted from your chest as you sprung from the ground. Almost slipped over when you landed on the PVC floor, but you managed to catch yourself with your hands on the glass.

“What the fuck!” You shrieked, heart galloping so rapidly you worried it would break a rib. 

He was blurry through the spray of water landing on the shower walls, but you could see him lumber towards the shower door. You shrunk into the corner when he cracked it open, back firm against the square tiles as if you could slip through the fractures in the grout. 

He stepped into the shower as if he hadn’t noticed you there, leviathan that he was, his body took up two thirds of the space in the narrow glass box. Boxers were gone, his cock hung heavy and unashamedly, and your stare caught on it like a fish on a hook. Fucking bludgeon of a thing; it swung as though prideful, thick from root to head, roped with veins and sheathed in rosy foreskin. Half-hard, it jutted out from his bed of wheaten curls at a forty-five degree angle, and it bounced as he took a step. 

You looked at it for too long, breath caught in your gullet, and he noticed. 

“Settle down,” he taunted, hardly a croak, morning voice abraded and gurgling from his throat. He shut the shower door behind him. 

You had a plethora of disputes to mount — get the fuck out, how dare you, you didn’t even knock — but they all fizzled at the back of your throat, when he hauled you out of the corner by the hips, swivelling you around until your nose was flush with the shower wall. Kept you there with a hand cuffed around the back of your neck, wet hair knotting in his fingers. 

“You can’t—”

“Prettier than I thought,” he murmured to himself, a rough hand smoothing from your hip to your ass, brazenly taking a handful and squeezing hard enough to make you chirp.

“Get off—”

You choked on the rest of your dispute when he packed his hand between your legs, the gap tight where you held your thighs together — he gave no warning when he snaked his finger between your folds, nudging for an entrance. 

It happened so fast you couldn’t catch a breath — he found it quickly when your hole twitched at the intrusion, and you yelped in shock when he unhesitantly pushed it inside you to the knuckle, palm flush with the base of you. 

“Lovely little cunt.” 

And despite every effort to maintain some dignity, every bulwark you had attempted to erect against succumbing to your baser appetites, came toppling down in the quake of his words. Scruples sloughed off from you like the shed of a snake, and whatever slithered free was as shameless as she was hungry. 

“Mh, still nice and warm after last night, in’t she,” he crooned, flexing his finger to push it deeper before raking it out. 

He was priming you, evident in how he stretched you open around his thick finger, pumping it in and out of you as though assessing how deep he could go. You pressed your forehead against the cold tile, toes curling into the plastic shower floor, whimpering like a wounded animal.

You felt like one, when he tried to push a second finger in — he had to wriggle it to wedge it in, bully it deeper before your hole could stretch to fit it. It stung where the fragile skin pulled taut, but it was a delicious pain, like the burn of liquor or the sting of pulled hair. 

“Christ, that’s tight,” he grunted into the shell of your ear, and a chill prickled down the side of your neck. 

He ran out of patience, you supposed, because he slid his fingers out of you and your cunt spasmed in protest of its emptiness. He had spun you around then, handling your body like a ragdoll, moving you right where he wanted you — had his hands under your ass in a blink, and he deftly hoisted you upward, back grinding against the tile wall. 

You hooked your legs around his hips on instinct, arms slung over his shoulders when he put them there, his face level with yours. Water ran in rivulets down his face, dripping from his hairline and off his chin. Pupils distended and black as tar, beady as a shark, and glaring into the depths of them made your tongue even wetter. 

His titanic arms held you up without exertion, and one released your thigh to scoop underneath you — held his cock upright in a fist, and with no pause he lodged the clubbed head of his cock against your opening. He pushed in with his full weight, reaming you open on the girth of it, and your eyes glassed over. 

The noises you made were animal, mewling and gasping, coughing when he landed against the spongy plug of your womb, cock as hard as a gun barrel and just about as threatening. 

“Fu-hu-huck,” he chuffed into your cheek, voice oozing ardent satisfaction, vibrating directly into your skull. “Tha’s heaven.” 

It tracked that he was a talker, given how chatty he was for the duration of the drive — but you liked it. God, you liked it. Mortifying, yet liberating to admit to yourself, that you wanted to hear him talk; you wanted to hear him tell you how lovely, how pretty, how perfect you were. 

“All sweet now, aren’t ya?” He purred, bouncing you upward as he rutted hard. “Just what she needed, mh?”

You almost said it aloud — yes crept along your tongue and prickled at the tip, but you weren’t quite ready to let loose the confession. It escaped instead as a moan, head rocking back and knocking against the tile, and he let out a low chuckle, because you said it in all but words. 

“Yeah,” he grunted, panting, pelvis grinding against yours as he pistoned into you, somehow deeper every thrust. “Fuckin’ knew it. Barmy for it the second I walked in, weren’t ya?” 

He grabbed your face by the jaw, angling your head to look directly at him, the squeeze of his fingers forcing your lips to pucker. His cheeks were ruddy, blood fresh and hot under his skin, eyes rabid with hunger and pride. They scoured every feature on your face and you melted beneath their attention. 

“Gorgeous girl, aren’t you?” 

He rutted with purpose, chasing his own end with no mind paid to your squeaks of sore rapture, grunting as his cock reeled out and stuffed you full again in steady rhythm. You could only burrow your fingernails into the meat of his back, carving into his wet skin as if holding on for dear life. 

“Just fuckin’ perfect,” he grunted, a tirade that persisted through every thrust, 

“Sweetest thing I ever stole.” 

“Who needs fuckin’ money, eh?” 

“Hit the jackpot with you, din’t I?” 

“Might just keep you forever.” 

“You’d like that, wouldn’t ya, sweetheart?” 

Perhaps your brain had been knocked against your skull one too many times, turned soggy and stupid in the heat, because you whimpered; “Y-yeah.” 

His brows shot up at that, shocked — but that surprise quickly gave way to a lavish conceit, a vicious smile that oozed pride for having conquered your inhibitions without even having to try. You’d have been embarrassed if you had the capacity for it anymore, but all shame had been bled from you. 

“Yeah?” He goaded, grin wide and jaw loose, panting through his teeth. “Want me to steal you away, eh?” 

You nodded as much as he would allow you to, and his lips planted on your chin as though tempted to bite you. 

“I can do that, love,” he crooned, “I can take y’where no one will ever find ya. Keep you all for m’self.” 

You whined when he only fucked you harder, tender skin of your back chafing against the grout with every jolt. Seemed he was approaching the summit of his own pleasure — huffing like a bull, thrusting with anger, not nearly as chatty as he had been for the rest of it. 

“Agh, shit—” he groaned, mouth landing on your shoulder, teeth catching your skin. “Fuckin’ hell—”

He hastily reached underneath you to unsheathe his cock from your hole, leaving your cunt bitterly empty and convulsing in its sudden vacuity — his entire body jerked against you as he came, you felt his cock jolt beneath the cleft of you as it spurted ropes come against the tiled wall he held you to. 

His climactic groans were music, to you, little lecher that you were. Some foul part of you was remorseful he hadn’t come inside you instead, hadn’t carelessly pumped you full of it — not a drop of rationality left within you, evidently. 

You didn’t expect him to kiss you, but he did; planted a slovenly kiss on the side of your neck, pillowy lips wet with saliva and the water of the still-running shower. 

He released you, then — didn’t quite drop you, lowered you as gracefully as he could before letting you land on your feet with a thud. Gave you a pet on the head as though to praise you, a prideful kiss into your scalp. 

He shut off the water with a shove of the chipping lever, and the showerhead continued to leak fat drops of water despite it being shut off. He pushed opened the shower door for you, and you slipped out, sodden feet landing on the bathmat. 

There were scant words exchanged as you handed him one of the towels, using the other to dry yourself off. You couldn’t help but watch him as he rubbed himself down with the teal-blue cotton, polishing his head like a bowling ball, flossing under his arms, unabashedly rubbing the towel under his balls to dry between his legs. Something in his nonchalance, unapologetically going about it all as if it were normal, was endearing to you. Made your hackles soften, if they were still at all raised. 

You put your t-shirt back on, wishing you had a change of clothes, and ventured back into the bedroom — the air was still thick with the dusty warmth of the heater, and ripe with the musk of both of the worked up bodies that had spent the night in it. 

“Get dressed,” came a demand from behind you, followed by a coaxing pat on your bare arse. “Need to hit the road.” 

You looked over your shoulder at him, watching as he pulled on his boxers, tucking his cock away and snapping the elastic waistband around his hips. You picked up your knickers from where they had landed on the carpet the night before, shimmying up your legs. 

Couldn’t yet believe what you were girding yourself for. What you had already accepted as the next step you would take. 

You caught his eye, a pout in your lips; 

“Can we get breakfast first?” 

i've got a pinterest board for this one. the vibes have been stewing for a long while

[aerhartdraws]

Gave our girl a big gun.

I'm sure she'll use it responsibly.

Rescue Mission

“Greyskull-Zero-Two, report.”

Catra surveys the scene before her, brow furrowing as she counts the figures ambling in the valley below her, loading boxes onto the waiting hauler. Their quarry is in there, no doubt about it. Just a matter of– “Greyskull-Zero-Two, report.” An eye twitches at Command’s insistence. “There’s some kind of auditory disturbance coming through my earpiece,” she mutters, through gritted teeth. “It’s very distracting.” “… Very funny, Zero-Two. Report.” Catra sighs, flipping through scan modes on her visor. “Twenty bodies, twelve armed,” she replies. “Most of the cargo’s loaded. Can I shoot them now?” “Negative, Zero-Two. Stick to recon.” Her eye twitches again. “Command, I thought our objective was locating Zero-One. If she’s here, we have to move now. The rest of the 52nd won’t arrive in time to respond to our reinforcement request.” The tension in her voice is barely concealed, the temptation to blurt a string of expletives down the comm withheld but for the thinnest thread of restraint. “Negative,” comes the response. “That’s an order, you hear me? You do not fire unless fired upon.” Catra sits there for a moment, considering. Finally, she stands up, walking towards the edge of the outcrop, her armoured form silhouetted against the planet’s pale sky. “HEY, ASSHOLES!” “Zero-Two, what–” All twenty of the insurgents turn to look at once, twelve guns immediately blazing to life, spewing plasma in her direction. Catra pulls back, narrowly avoiding the hail of glowing bolts spattering across the cliff edge. “Permission to engage now?” A wry smile spreads across her face as she asks the question. It’s greeted with a groan and an exasperated sigh. “… Fine. Cleared to engage. And Catra?” “Yeah?” “You're working for us, now. No more war crimes.” Catra huffs as she steps forward once more, hefting the autocannon to her shoulder, taking aim as her finger finds the trigger. “You’re no fun.”

[sweetbans29]

Back to You (2) - CC Series

Pairing: Caitlin Clark x Reader

Summary: Who knew Indianapolis would feel so small...

Warnings: little pains

Word Count: 2.1k

Previous - Next

Back to You Masterlist & Sweetbans Masterlist

2.5 YEARS LATER

Moving to Indiana was not your first choice. It also wasn't your second or third for that matter but here you are.

You stand in your new apartment, looking around at all the empty space you are going to have to fill. You hate filling space.

"Yo, where are you going to want this?" Kate comes walking in holding a lamp.

"Well considering there is no furniture here yet, I'd say the middle of the living room floor should do," you say sarcastically.

"Ha ha ha, very funny," she says as she places it on the kitchen counter. Claire comes through the door with a small box and places it next to the lamp.

"Okay, once the movers get here with the hauler I will have them working from the bedroom out. We will need to go to Target and a few other stores to get all the smaller stuff," Claire says. You are beyond glad that she is here to help, also that she has an eye for filling space.

"I think that is my queue to go grab food," Kate says as she picks up her keys and shuffles her way to the door.

You shoot Kate a glare but know that you can't go without food for much longer.

Over the next few hours your apartment slowly starts to look inhabitable. The following few hours are spent shopping for things that you know are just going to collect dust but don't say a word about because Claire seems to be really enjoying herself.

After you drove away from Caitlin, you did everything you could to make it seem like nothing had changed. To everyone around you, nothing had changed - they had no idea your world had just been torn apart and run over. The only thing that has changed is you stopped going to basketball games. You came up with every excuse in the books to get yourself out of sitting in a stadium where everyone was cheering on your girl - who used to be your girl.

It took Kate halfway through the season to figure out what had happened and when she did - she ran straight to you. It all started to make sense in her mind, why you weren't at games and never really around anymore. She never suspected anything because Caitlin seemed so normal.

When Kate confronted you about Caitlin - you broke down in front of someone for the first time over the girl you loved. She sat there and listened to every word you said and she was infuriated but she never left your side. She had every intention of confronting Caitlin but you begged her not to. It was already hard enough to pretend like you haven't been struggling to survive.

Ever since then, you made Kate swear that she wouldn't let what Caitlin did to you get in the way of her relationship with her teammate. And Kate kept her promise - even if it took her a while to look at Caitlin the same again. Kate did an above and beyond job at maintaining both of your friendships and it is because of that ability that you consider her your only real friend.

After getting back from all the shopping and taking orders from Claire on where to put everything you got all around your apartment, the three of you collapsed on your couch.

"I don't know how I could ever thank you both for helping me with all of this," you say.

"It was my genuine pleasure," Claire says with the biggest smile. You smile back and hear Kate groan.

"I am never doing that again," Kate says, causing Claire to hit her shoulder.

The three of you laugh all sharing in the fact that Kate did the least amount of work. You all fall into a comfortable silence and it begins to hit you. You are now living in the Caitlin Clark center of the world.

Over the next few weeks you settle into the new city, doing everything you can to avoid Gainbridge Fieldhouse even though you know you will be there sooner or later considering that is now your new place of work. If you had a choice, you would be working for any other WNBA team building out there - hell, you even looked into every NBA building option. But you didn't have much say when your executive director said they wanted you in Indiana, that is where you were forced to go.

Aside from it being home to the one person you try your best to avoid, the job you are stepping into is one of your dreams. You worked day and night to get to where you are and you are super proud of how far you have come in the short time after college. Becoming the Director of Player Relations for Gainbridge Fieldhouse, you knew you would only be able to dodge Clark for so long.

You have settled into your office and have made your rounds to introduce yourself to your new team. You have even started connecting with the Fever players which has been quite eventful. You first met Aliyah Boston and connected immediately. You tried not too but ended up fan-girling over her TikTok's. She tried to get you to join one but you refused, not wanting to be the cause of her losing followers due to your horrible dancing.

You then got some time with Natasha Howard and Kelsey Mitchell. Both of whom loved your intentionality and vision for how management can support the players.

You have met the rest of the team, minus a certain someone, in passing making sure to figure out a time to connect. At this point, you assumed that Caitlin knew you were in the building but haven't seen her yet to confirm.

Today's the day that all changes. At least that is what you are telling yourself since it is the first game of the season.

After getting to Gainbridge, you planned to take some time in your office before heading down to the floor but the second you walk in the door you are swept to do 20 different things. Before you know it, you are on the floor as the team runs out for final warm-ups.

Walkie in hand, you do everything in your power to stay busy the second you have a moment to breathe. As much as you want to breathe, you don't want to see that girl plastered all over this arena. You keep your head down and find your shoes uncharacteristically interesting.

A hand graces your shoulder and you peek up to see your assistant looking at you with soft eyes and in that moment you feel like you are back in college - broken and hiding.

"Hey Ben, what's up?" You ask, trying to shake the pit in your stomach.

"One would think after a few seasons this would feel normal," Ben says as he looks around at the crowds.

"This will never be normal, it will always be special. Trust me," you say. It comes out just above a whisper. Ben smiles at you and you smile back, shifting your eyes from Ben to the court for the first time. With the amount of people in this place you are certain you will blend into the background.

Big mistake.

As your eyes hit the court, they are met with all too familiar brown ones. Your smile fades as your eyes lock on hers. Both of you froze in time. It feels like your eyes are locked for hours but in the 5 seconds of gripping despair your breath is taken from you and you feel the air sucked from your lungs. You turn away and take a hold of Ben's arm.

"I left something in my office, I have to grab it" you say as you begin to walk towards the back.

"I can go get it, you should be here when they announce the players - it's thrilling," Ben says with a smile.

"No, no, I got it," you insist and continue walking. You feel like you are suffocating.

When you get to your office you close the door and turn the lights off. Back against the door, you sink to the floor and bring your head to your knees.

Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

You sit there for who knows how long. When you feel your heart calm and your breath steady - you stand. Even after 2+ years of not seeing her, she still controls your heart. You grab your walkie and head back out.

You have no idea how much of the game has passed. As you are walking back out the tunnel an arm grabs you and pulls you into a small room.

"What the-", you begin but shut up immediately when you are met face to face with Caitlin.

She is looking down at you, hand still on your arm. Her fingertips brush the exposed skin on your forearm - a gesture you both were all too familiar with.

Neither of you say anything, not knowing what to say. You have imagined this moment every day since getting to Indy and now that you are here and alone for that matter, nothing comes out.

Caitlin hesitates but unlike your last meeting she brings her free hand up to brush her fingers against your cheek and her thumb against your bottom lip. You want to pull away but you lean in ever so slightly - she is too familiar.

Your eyes close as you feel your heart break all over again.

Caitlin can't take her eyes off of you. This feels like a dream, she has thought time and time again of how different things would have been if she cared more about you and less about the world. Cait continues to rub her thumb against your bottom lip until she feels a wet sensation meet her fingers. Her eyebrows furrow then ease when she realizes it's a tear.

She opens her mouth to say something, not that you had any reason to listen but she had to try. Before she can, the door opens and Steve pokes his head in.

"The second half is starting," Steve says and leaves right after.

Before Caitlin can do anymore damage, you step away from her. You don't look her in the eye - you can't. You see Caitlins hands grip the bottom of her jersey, just like they did the last time the two of you talked.

The last thing that Caitlin wants to do is walk away from you right now but she knows she doesn't have a choice. You watch as she makes her way to the door, stopping right before it and leaning her head against it.

You don't know why but before you stop yourself you find yourself reaching out and brushing one of her fly away hairs. It is now her turn to close her eyes. You pull her headband down and smooth some of her fly aways back before sliding it back onto her head. You bring your hands to her shoulders, giving them two squeezes like you would before every game to regulate her thoughts.

There is a soft knock at the door and you know Caitlin really needs to go but she doesn't move. She finally opens her eyes and you know she is doing everything she can to keep herself together.

She doesn't deserve your comfort. Both of you know it.

"Go," you say. It comes out softer than you intend - not that it was intended to be harsh.

She nods and reaches to open the door. Before letting herself out, she speaks.

"I would do anything to go back to that night," she says.

"Cait stop," you say, not wanting to do this right now. Not when she has to go out and finish a game.

"No," she says and turns to face you again. "That was the biggest mistake of my life and things are different now-"

The door opens and Caitlin is cut off.

"Clark, get your ass back out on that floor," one of the coaches comes in, grabbing her and dragging her out. You go unnoticed as you watch Caitlin be pulled out mid conversation.

Different? What could possibly be different now?

You have blocked her out of your life so much that you have no idea what is going on in hers. You shake your head - nothing has changed. This moment changed nothing. She is still the Caitlin that blindsided you and you did not spend the last two and a half years rebuilding your life to be broken again.

You grab your walkie and head back out, lighter than you have felt in a while.

The Fever lost that night and you can only hope that you had nothing to do with it.

AN: Part 2 in the books. Let me know what you think! And as always, thank you for your love and support 🤍

Next

[asuspiciousfish]

As promised, I have made a ship for my character. Mazuki Space Enterprises Type 2 Hauler. It's meant to look simple, cause it's more or less the space equivalent of a box truck. It has several cockpit windows, separated for reduction of stress on the parts of the frame that hold them in. One combination radar and scanner on either side of the main hull, and one dome radar and scanner on top to maintain situational awareness. Two primary engines for moving it around, and several adjustable vents at the top to adjust for pitch. Tear it apart, and let me know what needs to be improved and changed.

[afairerplace]

Truly my life is a comedy of errors I have within the past week gotten so flustered by my crush flirting with me that I instinctively panic-friendzoned him, spent an ungodly amount of time putting together a box spring only to discover that I put it together wrong*, and still cannot manage to make Power BI do what I want

*mind you, this is only a problem because I let junk haulers take away my old box spring with my old mattress, reasoning it couldn't be important enough to make them bring it back inside when lo, it very much was

[thenekofreak]

"Telefon for Telefon" deck

x2 magicians' souls

x3 morphtronic telefon

x2 Maxx "c"

x1 mecha phantom beast o-lion

x3 gizmek naganaki

x3 ash blossom

x3 gadget gamer

x1 nemeses corridor

x3 gizmek arakami

x1 gadget hauler

x2 illusion of chaos

x1 foolish burial

x3 machine duplication

x1 one for one

x3 junk box

x3 small world

x3 morphtronic converter

x2 called by

Extra deck:

Thunder dragon Colossus

Cupid pitch

Morphtronic earfon

Naturia beast

T.G. hyper librarian

Stardust charge warrior

Wind Pegasus @ignister

Scarlet red dragon archfiend

Borreload savage dragon

Hot red dragon archfiend abyss

Ravenous crocodragon archethys

Baronne de fleur

Linkurinoh

Baricadeborg blocker

Mecha phantom beast auroradon

[cargocamper]

Stealth Apartment + Toy Hauler in a Box Truck? DETAILED TOUR!

[nocternalrandomness]

Rotating in the rain

[wheelscomedyandmore]

Sebring 1969: After campaigning 2 Camaros at Sebring the previous year, Roger Penske brought one entry in 1969, the #9 Lola T70 Mk III. Coming off its win at Daytona, they knew the Lola would be in contention for the overall win that year but would the Lola be able to handle the beating that the Sebring circuit always handed out??? Penske rented out the circuit for some testing a few weeks out and beefed up some of the areas of the chassis that they thought might break from the rough course. Penske always made sure to stand out…he even had his pit box painted in Sunoco Blue. The Lola was immaculate…the blue and yellow trim made it stand out among the other entries. He also brought two of the best drivers around…..Mark Donohue and Ronnie Bucknum to pilot the Lola. And they were fast…the Lola qualified 2nd on the grid, right behind the #25 Ferrari. They were running great for the first couple hours after the last LeMans start at Sebring. They were in the overall lead before a major rear suspension failure brought them into the pits for good around the 4 hour mark. While this wasn’t what they had hoped for, there were plans to take the car to LeMans in June, so they packed up and started on the road back to Pennsylvania. Penske, Donohue, and many others flew back home while 2 of the crew were in charge of driving the car hauler back to the shop. Like everything in Penske’s world, the car hauler was immaculate and stood out in its Sunoco blue paint and I’m sure with the Lola strapped to its back, made the rig stand out even more. After a crappy weekend in Sebring, the 2 crew guys decided to stop for the night in Daytona Beach and have some fun. Why not blow off some steam and party it up? Lol! When they woke up the next morning after a night of partying, they walked out to where they had parked the car hauler for the night, only to find it missing! Someone had stolen the whole damn rig and everything in it! A massive search was put out and the hauler was found the next day. Unfortunately, the thieves had almost destroyed the Lola removing the engine and taken all the spare parts and tools with them. The Sunoco Lola dream trip to LeMans was over before it really got started. About a month later, Donohue got a tip on where the stolen parts were and went with the police when they raided the site. He found it all, including the Traco engine, which the thieves were putting in a Shelby Cobra. So, they did have some closure on the whole event. While the Lola would never race again under the Team Penske name, the team did put it back together and added some parts to make it street legal and sold it to a guy in California. It was later sold again and restored to its 1969 racing livery.

To learn more about the Automobile Racing Club of Florida and our mission to preserve the history of the 12 Hours of Sebring, please check out our website, ARCF.net. If you find an interest, please sign up to become a member.

[onlyhappyvibes]

Another scrap load going in

[writingsofhubris]

tomcat disposables

[AO3] [Patreon] Rating: E WC:  3884 Tags: Family Fluff, Healing, Sex Pollen, Transgender, Implied/Referenced Drug Use Alcohol, Tossball (The Outer Worlds), Fluff and Angst Fandom: The Outer Worlds Ship: The Captain/Felix Millstone

“Uh… that it’s delicious?” The question felt dumb to the ex-box hauler. He was hoping this would allow him the chance to shed that title. Maybe he’d take up ‘gunslinger’ or maybe ‘crusher’. The thoughts made him smile, looking down at the noticeably short captain questioning him outside of their ship. 

The Vicar standing behind them didn’t quite hide the roll of his eyes, but he saw Ellie’s dry smile. 

“That’s…” The captain’s chuckle caught his ears, and he honed back in on him. A handsome person, clearly enjoying his answer. Felix didn’t quite see the humor in his response. “Perfect. What’s your name?” 

“Felix Millstone, sir.” 

“Welcome to the crew, Felix. Come aboard and pick a cabin.” 

His smile was wide, excited. Perfect. His answer had been perfect. 

“You won’t regret this, Captain.” 

“The Darlings - “ Max’s voice was suddenly cut off. 

“Are too weak this year! Why they scrapped their entire team - “ 

“Because the Rangers almost killed half them, and the other half were too scared to stay!”

“Fear is an entirely legal tactic-”

“But attempted murder is not.”

“If the Darlings would stop accruing fouls every damn game, maybe we could talk about…” 

“Those refs were paid off.” The dismissive comment was paired with a swig of a zero gee, Max’s bottle tipped up to the ceiling. 

“Still legal!” Felix’s bottle gestured in exuberance, as if he’d just made the argument-ending point. When Alex suddenly laughed, Felix’s head lolled over his shoulder, looking into the man’s eyes. There was something spinning around in his head, thoughts that jumbled into some kind of want, some kind of need, that he didn’t want to address. Felix couldn’t think too heavily about the way this captain had saved his life, had taken him in. 

No, they were arguing tossball. 

“And even if they weren’t paid off-”

“Which they were”

“If they were.” Felix reiterated, leaning forward on the table, wrinkled jacket bunching around his elbows. “It wouldn’t have mattered with how the Darlings were playing. it’s called tossball, not drop ball.” 

“Did you think of that all on your own?” 

There was warmth at Felix's right, the air stopping against a body moving to sit next to him. 

“What are y’all arguing over?” 

“Max thinks the Darlings are worth a damn.” 

“They are!” 

“Not!” 

“Law help me.” 

“- Hope, hope hope, 

Sing again, again again, 

the cold of space holdin’ nothin’ for the win. 

Our sweet ole hope, 

Holdin’ us close…”

The melody suddenly broke when Felix hic’ed from the alcohol on his tongue, laughing as he realized he’d lost his tune. 

“That all?’ 

“That all!” the door to the unreliable closed behind them, his arm around his Captain’s shoulders. It did nothing to his balance, except made it worse, but he was close to Alex. He could feel their warmth, their breaths under his hand, and he wasn’t even in a fight with the Vicar. 

“Okay, let’s walk up these stairs.” They started up the even stairs, as unevenly as Felix attempted them. Too short of a step almost took them down, and his care much increased tenfold, almost to the detriment of them falling backwards at one point. 

It was perilous to finish the last few steps on the stairs, only for Alex to turn left, and Felix’s bed came into view. His beautiful bed, surrounded by his random trinkets. 

They made it to the covers, and Felix took a dive into the metal and soft padding. 

“Fuck!” His hand instantly moved to his forehead, before Alex’s laughter filtered into his ears. Music, bells, peels of joy that he couldn’t help but grasp around the pain pounding into his head suddenly. 

Alex guided his feet into the end of the bed, and started to pull up the blanket. That was his fatal mistake, as Felix’s hand grasped onto his wrist, pulling his captain into his bunk, wrapping his arms around the smaller man. A hand on his colorful hair, pulling his face into his neck. 

“Thanks, cap’t.” The slight slur of his words were still evident, the sudden depressive effects catching up with his body. He was slowly losing the ability to even keep his eyes open. 

“Felix!” a small wriggle in his arms, determining just how tight they were being held. Too tight to move an inch out of Felix's arms. It didn’t take more than thirty more seconds until he was starting to snore, repetitive sound against Alex’s ear, soothing in the most comforting way. 

Alex wasn’t going to be leaving for at least a couple hours, so he tried to get comfortable. 

“How could he just…” Felix’s eyes were full of distrust, a distrust of what he believed. Harlow… Harlow had betrayed him. How could Harlow betray him, his cause? The pain in his body was physical, sting deep in his core that twisted into an ugly anger. 

“Felix.” His captain’s hand was on his forearm, stopping him from moving any further. It was small, the touch, nothing more than a moment to pause and hear their voice. 

“What?” The venom in his voice was immediately regretted as he looked back into his captain's eyes. The apology was on his tongue nearly instantly, but they could see the shame in his eyes. 

“I’m sorry he betrayed you. But he’s not your family anymore.’ 

“But he was.” 

“Yeah, once. Then, he wanted a couple extra bits in his pocket, more than he wanted you.” The vitriol was accidental; the bluntness was a shock. A splash of cold water, right into his face, a pause of his words as Felix felt his jaw tense, his shoulders stiffening. 

“Yeah. I know. Thanks for the reminder. I forgot about being the cast off.” 

“Felix, no. Stop.” His arms crossed over his chest, chest puffed out just the slightest In defense. 

“Is that an order, captain?” 

“It's a request!” There were a few moments of silence before Felix broke. 

“What, then?”

“Just because Harlow was able to use you doesn't mean there aren't people who love you. That there won't be people who love you. I mean, it sucks, sure. But you've got us. Max, Ellie, Nyoka, Parvati…. Hell, Sam and ADA.” Alex took a step forward after just a moment. “You're part of My crew now. I think we both know that's worth more than Family, don't we?”

The door was closed, right? Right? He’d kept it closed, too nervous for Ellie to walk by. He’d made a deal with that scientist collecting musk, he’d made a dumb, stupid deal, and it was clear the scientist was just trying to hide the real purpose of this musk. 

Felix felt a deep moan rip from his throat, chest reverberating with the intense ache that developed. Carefully, he shoved his face into the pillow, trying to decide if he should run to Ellie's room, ask for some kind of help. She was their sawbones, surely she’d have something to counteract his dumb choice. He wasn’t sure if he could manage even that; the slightest shift of his thigh against even his balls set him alight with sensation, his eyes rolling back in his head. More attractive to the objects of his desires, his ass! This was pure hell, just a need, nothing more. 

Felix shifted his thighs against his calves, feeling the cheeks of his ass separate, the cold air brushing against his hole. Empty, cold, fuck he needed something, anything more. His hand once again moved to his cock, trying to stroke even slightly, the pleasure too intense to stroke for long. It was painful, and he couldn’t even get himself off. 

Another whine, and he let his legs straighten, his cock and balls pressing into the blankets and instantly twitching against the scratchy fabric. Fuck. Fuck, Felix had asked Alex to show up in the next five minuets, there was no way this would be over by then. He could only feel his need getting worse, thinking of his captain. 

How could he? The man who had saved his ass from the ground breaker, Felix couldn’t even hold onto the shame of wanting more and more from this person. 

Until his mind took a quick detour to thinking about his captain’s hips, how pillowy his ass looked, the hair that could be pulled so easily as he fucked into those lips- 

His face pressed into his pillow again, hips jerking hard. a spurt of precum soaked into his blankets, and his hands grabbed the edges of the pillow, balling them up. 

They’d look perfect, so perfect with their legs held up by his hands, buried in them deeper than he’d ever been in anyone. 

The blanket was too much, too much stimulation, he couldn’t handle the feeling, the musk overriding the need to cum with the need to breed. He needed something warm and tight and wet and squeezing, surrounding his dick with their own orgasm. His thoughts once again betrayed him, law, Alex pushed over the edge of his bed, he was certain that his captain would be so slick and just what he needed, perfect to work out this fucking musk, pumping his cum into the man…

“Felix?” their soft voice rang between them, and he realized suddenly it wasn't in his dream. Felix allowed himself to look at a vision he wasn’t sure of being a blessing or a curse. Alex, the door to the hall closing behind them, stepping into his room. He was delectable, more entrancing than anything Felix could think to compare them to. He flopped onto his side, a mistake for his modesty and his cock.

“Ca…” His words trailed off with a needing keen. 

Felix didn't need to look down between his legs to see just how hard he had gotten against his stomach. He could tell how much he was leaking. The only thing he had eyes for was his captain, who couldn't look away from his cock. It took a moment to realize that was where he was staring. But it was clear after that. Alex was breathing deeper, trying to keep their composure. .

“Captain,” Felix tried again. The whine had turned into a plea, Hips hitching forward into the air, a drool of precum dripping from his cock. “I need…”Alex took his first couple steps forward as if his body was deciding for him.

“What did you do?” Alex was in front of him, his thumb inches from Felix’s lips. Without answering, he sucked on the digit, moaning around it to show them just what he could do with his tongue, begging for their sexual attention. When their hand moved to his inner thigh, he felt himself twitch. His thighs, arms, stomach, cock, his entire body felt the touch. 

Felix was a sight, even if he couldn’t recognize just how pathetic he looked. Spread legs with his shirt bunched into his sweaty armpits, hair stuck to his forehead, and a flush covering his cheeks. He had no idea just how tantalizing of a meal he was to his captain. 

His loud moan echoed through the room when Alex brushed his finger along the length of his cock, Felix's lips falling open. 

“Per, ahh-fec,” the word was so broken it was generous to even call it that. Felix’s eyes were screwed shut, his breathing fast and hard. 

Seeing Felix so desperate infected Alex as well; he slipped his lips around Felix’s cock, sucking harshly on the head. The warmth, the wetness, Felix couldn’t have stood a chance. A moan choked out of his throat, cum spurting into Alex’s mouth. Shots hit the back of his throat, causing him to swallow hard around Felix. 

As he pulled off, Felix found his tongue, clearly already tired from his actions. 

He looked into Alex’s eyes, sighing out. 

“Wanted to find you, Captain. Didn’t expect you to find me first.” 

“What’s going on?’ 

“I don’t think…” Felix’s thought trailed off as he saw Alex’s tongue dart out his mouth, licking along his lips for a swipe of cum that almost dried. 

“That you could keep this from me?” Alex’s hand is still at the base of Felix’s cock, letting him feel the blood starting to pump through him again. “What’s going on?” Felix’s face turned bright red, regretting the words before they fell. 

“Rapt musk.” 

“R..Rapt musk? From Roseway?”

“Ellie said it makes you more desirable…” and his dick twitched in excitement. Felix whimpered in frustration, already nervous on how long this would take. “Didn’t think it’d be like this.” 

“Who were you…” Alex’s words trailed off, remembering just who he’d said he wanted to find.

“You, captain.” Admitting it again, after admitting to the musk, released a wave of shame through felix. Alex’s hand was starting to move along his cock, slow enough to tease, but not make him think he’d forgotten. Already, Felix felt himself hardening again, that little attention all that he needed. “I can't, ah,” and his head fell back against his pillow. 

“Let me help you through this…” Alex looked up at Felix, breathing softly against the tip of his cock. Unintentional, but effective regardless. Felix felt heat thump through his body, and his eyes screwed shut. 

“Please…” His hands were fisted in his pillow, his back arched. “Need, ha, some help.” Alex was already shucking their pants, hurrying to scamper onto his hips. “I’ve got you, Felix…” 

Felix barely managed to lift their daughter with one hand. Daisy had grown so much in the last few months, gaining height and weight like crazy. He'd already resolved to start working harder, insistent that he'd be able to hold her for the rest of his life. 

“Babe. I'm her dad. What if something happens? I gotta be able to carry my little girl out of a fire!”

“Our daughter knows to run away from a fire.” 

“What if her leg is broken?”

His nerves had shown in every facet of their children. What if, what if, it's kept him up the nights Alex had slept away. Every night the baby bumps grew before him, the more concerns would appear in his head. Without parents, Felix wasn’t even sure how he was supposed to refer to the kids, much less how to parent them. 

Neither of them expected how easily parenting came to Felix.  Even without a template from his childhood, he found being a father comforting and nearly natural. When his children would come to him with excitement, it was easy to simply forget his work, and focus entirely upon whatever his children had brought up. 

His daughter was on his shoulders, finally at the tipping point he'd be counting each time they were still able to do this. As an ad drone flew by, Daisy laid against his head, playing with the curls that flew up as each step he took. 

“Papa,” she started, and Felix felt his ears perk up. 

“What’s up, buttercup?” 

“Can we go to Monarch again soon? I miss Mr Nandi’s jokes.” Felix remembered the square of a man. He wasn’t the worst of the lot, and he and Alex did need to see Zora again. 

“I think we can. It’s been a while, huh?”

“Restricted Millstone.”

“I helped save Halcyon and this is the thanks-” Felix’s words were cut off quickly. 

“That's stopped working on try fifteen.”

“Lucky try forty-two?” The col. looked down at Jesse, a stern look on her face. “Take mind to not end up like your father, kid. it's easier to keep yourself from getting spaced if you respect restricted areas.” No words dropped from their lips, and they stood up straight, and saluted the Colonel. “Hm. Maybe you could learn something from them, Millstone.” As soon as she turned around, Jesse's Hand snapped away from their head, and promptly flipped off the Colonel. Felix couldn't help it, boisterous laughter rang in the hallways. 

Their laughter joined in, and Felix knelt down enough for them to jump onto his back, wrapping their arms around his shoulders. “You're learning well, kid,” he said, standing and walking Back to the unreliable. “Pretty damn well.” 

“Vincent was just a darling .” Max led the eight year old by his hand back to his father. The second of the Millstone clan was smiling ear to ear, already excited to show off his newest book that he’d been shown, and the new Québécois that Vik had taught him. 

“What did you just call him?” 

“Dad!” Vincent distracted Felix enough from Max’s answer, attention split fast. 

“Hey Bud!” 

“Grandpappy Vik taught me new words!” The other captain finally joined them, the cane in his hand not taking from the smile on his lips. His hand moved to Vincent’s shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze. 

“And what did he teach you?” 

“Nique ta mèr-” 

“Non, non,” Vik suddenly stopped the final letter from tumbling out. “Not quite,” He said with a small laugh. “Try and tell him the colors you learned.” 

“Oh! bleu, rouge, vert…” Vik patted Vincent’s shoulder again, and grinned at Felix. 

“Do you have room at your table for two old men?” 

Alex was going to kill him, where the hell did Ruby go off to this time? She’d just been next to him, just between him and Jesse, and she’d slowed down to pick up something off the floor, and… Crap. 

“Do you see her?” Jesse shook his head no, looking back up at Felix before once again scanning the area. “Crap. Glad-'' Felix cut himself off as soon as he looked up to the balcony over Gladys’ room. “Ruby! Get down here!” He saw the thought pass through her eyes the moment he said it. “Ladder!” Felix saw her shift her weight onto her hands, placed on the railing so her feet cleared the ground by a few inches. There was a moment of her swaying over and back, gaining her balance. 

“Ruby!” 

“Dad!” Her voice called through the open air, and she leaned over the railing a little bit more. Felix was watching her too much, and didn't even notice when Gladys had walked from behind her desk to stand just next to him, looking up at Ruby. 

“Well now.” Felix jumped, his eyes ripping from Ruby to look at Gladys. 

“H..hi.” 

“Didn’t expect you to pop out any.” 

“What can I say? I got lucky.” Suddenly, Ruby fell backwards, hearing a soft ‘oof’ from Jesse. He realized that in his hurry to find Ruby, Jesse had simply taken action and pulled her back from the railing.

Felix ran to the ladder, scurrying up the rungs as fast as he could. Jesse had just grabbed Ruby’s hair, her elbow drove into Jesse’s stomach, both kids were starting to really fight in true sibling anger. Felix’s hands were quick to tug the two apart, worry clear on his face.

“Are you two alright?” Jesse’s scowl was clear, but right as their mouth opened, so did Ruby’s. 

“They started it!”

“She started it!” If it wasn’t for Felix’s hands on each of their shoulders, the two would have lunged forward once again. 

“Hey! Let’s calm down, both of you.” Both kid’s arms crossed, but not before Ruby’s tongue stuck out at her sibling. Her face turned away, refusing to look at them again. 

“Do I gotta clean up any blood from those two? My knees can’t get up there easy anymore.” Gladys’ voice rang from the first floor, straining slightly as she projected.

A quick look over the two of them, and Felix felt his shoulders relax just slightly. 

“We’re good! Thanks!” Felix looked at his two kids, sprawled on the floor. If nothing else, they were going to know how to throw a punch if the Mardets ever caught them. 

“Dad, I want to go find Mom.” Ruby’s frown had only gotten deeper. 

“Let’s go. I think I know where they’re hiding. And no more climbing on rails like that.” 

“But-” 

“C’mon kiddo, I don’t want you to get hurt.” 

“Here we go!” Gunnar said, smoothing the sticky goo into Diesel’s hair, pressing the edges of his mohawk together. “Now lean over here to dry it out.” He half pulled the kid’s head by the mohawk, half guided him to the vent nearby, spewing warm air at all times. 

“How long?” 

“Dunno. Mine only takes thirty seconds.” 

“Bullshit!”

“Hey, don’t talk to the king like that! Didn’t your old man teach you respect?” Captain Macredd’s chest puffed up. For once, his goggles were pushed up, showing off the new burn scar that marred his face. Perfect circles of unscarred flesh around his eyes showed the benefit of safety when playing with fire. 

“Yeah, to those who deserve it.” Gunnar’s loud laugh echoed around the back bays, and he positioned Diesel’s hands up to his hair. 

“Hold that here. Want an ale? Some mushrooms?” It wasn’t the first time that Gunnar had offered, but he didn’t care for the taste, or the feeling. 

“You know I don’t.” Gunnar returned with an ale for himself, and after a few moments he touched the mohawk. 

“Do you feel how it’s all crunchy now?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Good, that means you’re done. Peel off your hands.” Diesel slowly managed it, but some goo still followed the tips of his fingers. “Go clean it off kid.” Hurrying over to the sink, Diesel felt the hair on top of his head swaying. His head tipped forward to look at the taps, and his hair hit the wall. The jump back made Gunnar laugh again. “Changes your awareness, don’t it?” 

“Yeah…” He finished cleaning off his hands, rubbing them dry on the patched pants he was wearing. Looking out the random hole in Gunnar’s wall overlooking the back bays, he could hear the drunken and high singing ringing around the open air. It was a song he’d heard many times sung around the colony.

‘Our Hope, Fighting for life;

Home, new, waiting for warmth;

Waiting, baited, for our hope to return,

Blooms of flowers welcome them home,

Waiting longer than stars can burn.’

On the third line, Diesel heard Gunnar’s door open, and steps coming up the stairs. Turning around, a trill of fear appeared in his back, worried that it would be Mardets walking up the stairs. Instead, Felix stepped around the Corner, and the kid grinned wider than he had all night. 

“Dad! Look at what the King just taught me!” He turned his head, showing off the entirety of the mohawk. 

“So that’s why you haven’t let me cut it.” He walked over, and curiously poked at the crispy edge, before giving a little hiss and pulling his finger back. “Sharper than an Inferno scythe. Mom’s looking for you.” 

“Already?” 

“C'mon dude, we gotta get back to the ship.” 

“Can I stay with Gladys? Or Gunnar?” 

“Not this time. Special trip.” 

“Special enough that you won’t even give me a hello?” Macredd’s voice suddenly broke through the two’s conversation. 

“Sorry, your majesty,” Felix redirected his eyes to the king, and bowed slightly as a laugh. “You comin’ to his birthday next week?” 

“Wouldn’t miss it for the world! Maybe I’ll get to see Sanita there.” 

“Please don’t hook up with someone at my kid’s party.” 

Once more, that grin that spoke of insanity sparked onto Gunnar’s face, and he laughed loudly. 

[lunar-disillusionment]

The Blood Stained Knuckles:

[CW: Minor Depictions of Violence and mentions of Energon/Blood]

Eviscerate had finally gotten her sons to sleep, hyperactive gremlins they were; ever since their sparkling years. Eviscerate sighs tiredly as she pulls himself into bed, he lays down after a short moment and just stares up at the ceiling. She sighs once more as she slowly powers off her optics to finally sleep.

When he opens his optics. He finds himself in the pits once more, being cheered at by middle cast and leered at by elites in their precious box seats, away from the bloodshed and rabble rousers. Eviscerate look onward to the crowd not feeling the same way he did many years ago. He felt so tired and bored of it all, the sadistic joy he once had for this blood sport long since faded and all she felt was disgusted for being used so long.

She unfortunately didn’t have time to process her past sins as her opponent appeared before him. He took a breath as he looked up at his larger opponent. He wasted no time and begun his attack, even with one of his legs not being as strong as it used to, he maintained his speed and agility. She swung her fist right into her opponent’s face with all the trained force she could muster, busting her opponent’s jaw and disorienting them. The opponent stumbles back but as it does so more fighters appear in the ring, many of shape and size that she had defeated many centuries ago, all coming back to haunt her for all their energon she had spilt on the arena floor. He was overwhelmed but knew never to show that while fighting, opponents always took advantage of that.

She brutalized them all like clockwork. Torn off the wings of another flightframe, snapped the neck and torn the spark out of a Hauler, bludgeoning many insecticons with her bare fists. The crowds cheered and roared loudly as there was one opponent left standing, a speedster. They were always tricky but they found out much like flightframe as she was one, speedsters got cocky when they presumed they were untouchable due their speed. Eviscerate knew better and waited for the right moment and grabbed the speedster by their face and began to squeeze with practiced strength. Her demeanor immediately shifted when the shadowy look off the speedster slipped away revealing, “Scythe?”.

Eviscerate snapped opened his optics immediately from recharge, breathing heavily as he looked up at the ceiling once more. She hated that dream, nightmare? Didn’t matter which, she hated it. She would never do that to her children. Ever. He laid there a moment longer before drifting back to sleep. Feeling the energon staining his knuckles as he did so.

[delta-lethonomia]

The joys of cleaning up someone else’s life. Spend a half hour waiting at the Xfinity store to return a box. Another hour at the bank. Another hour waiting for junk haulers. Two days for cleanup. Another hour—

Starting to think the point of life insurance payouts (assuming the breadwinner hasn’t died) is just to have something to look forward to and compensate for all the time and nonsense!

I’m gonna book the nicest vacation after this 😮‍💨

[mosswolf]

Please tell us about Fly By Night 👀

okay. in a universe of signals that crackle and metal that rusts, where buttons click and brakes screech, we are in the midst of the wreckage of war. ten years ago, the perennial empire- slow, clinging, suffocating- was overthrown by the luminous fleet, a group of flashy revolutionaries better at words than actions. for the people on the outskirts, however, nothing much has changed, new words for new leaders, but still the same hardships. the galaxy is still full of the wreckage of this war, with more hulking, twisted ruins emerging into the skies above planets every day, bringing mangled ghosts to scream across torn horizons.

here, we find the crew of the grocery hauler turned renegade ship, the fly by night. seven and merrick are psychically pairbonded ex child soldiers, created by the perennial empire as part of a secret biohacking weapons programme, who became instrumental in the perennial empires destruction when merrick destroyed the perennial flagship, the assurance, by summoning a lightning storm, which almost killed both him and seven. a decade later, they're living paycheck to paycheck using their skills to hunt and cleanse ghosts from war wrecks, while doing drag performances and boxing matches (seven) and taking weird space drugs and trading life and limb for information about what happened to the rest of their programme (merrick) on the side.

enter solaire, a neon fifteen year old with dreams of becoming a racer and has no impulse control, who they rescued from a shipwreck and have been haphazardly trying to parent.

enter october, a traumatised fifteen year old with powers that they can't control, on the run from what seven and merrick quickly realise is the sequel to their own programme, who is being hunted by the remains of the perennial empire, now a desperate and cruel militia.

being forced at last to confront the horrors that they both witnessed and caused, and all the ways that's fragmented them and brought them closer together, seven and merrick have to navigate protecting their teen charges, keeping their ship running, escaping from the perennials and not murdering each other along the way.

so yes. that is my current original fiction project, working title fly by night,