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3-2-whump · 1 year ago

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(Re)Living a Nightmare, part 2

You're still here? Okay, it's not gonna get any better for our poor boy. Do read and heed the tags/CW.

Basic Summary if You Decide to Skip

Also please skim this chapter and this chapter if you haven't already, because they will be referenced heavily in the story coming up

TW/CW: rape/noncon, bound and gagged and blindfolded whumpee, creepy/intimate whumper, knife play, neither safe nor sane nor consensual, blood (lots of blood), victim blaming, internalized victim blaming, whumpee and whumper unknowingly triggering each other, blunt force trauma to the head (face), panic

NOTE: The inner thoughts and opinions expressed within do not align with those of the author, who themself has never and would never condone such thoughts and opinions in real life. Reader Discretion is advised.

All Thomas asked of him was to change into clothes he wouldn’t mind replacing, which usually meant that whatever Khaled wore would be torn/burned/ stained so irreparably that it’d just be thrown away after. Already based on that request, Khaled could guess he was in for a rough night. He had no idea how much worse it could get until he was blindfolded, bound, gagged, and carried out the apartment and down to the cold garage, where the hard foot-well of the back seat waited for him. The car revved to life, and his restrained body lurched forward as Thomas pulled out of the garage and drove them to fuck knows where.

Eventually they came to a stop, Thomas exchanged some words with the night-shift guard at the old house, and then they kept going until they parked. Khaled slowly started to put the pieces together. They were back at the old house, which probably meant Thomas wanted to take him downstairs, which meant whatever he wanted to do to him would be too messy or too specialized to do back at the apartment. What is he planning? Khaled wondered. He’s asked me to wear my most expendable clothes, he’s tied me up like I used to be when I was recaptured, he’s thrown me into the back like when I was recaptured-

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the car door opening. He blindly tilted his head toward the chill of the night and the distant sound of frogs singing. A pair of calloused hands hauled him up from the foot-well of the back seat and slung him over a broad shoulder. “Thought you could escape me this time, did you?” his master’s voice purred in his ear.

A pit of dread competed with the chill of the early spring night in his bones as Khaled realized what all this preparation had meant. Master wants to roleplay my escape attempts. He began shivering, though not just because of the cold. A warm hand rested on his buttocks to steady him as he felt himself being carried inside, through the hallway, and to the front of a very familiar door. Reliving his failed escape attempts but with an added sexual element was one of Khaled’s recurring nightmares. What cruel irony was this, that he had begged so enthusiastically no more than half an hour ago for this man to make his nightmare come true?

The familiar creak of a door opening preceded the dusty, dried-blood smell coming from the stairs leading down into the cellar. Khaled pleaded through the rag stuffed in his mouth and the tape sealed over his lips as they descended the stairs step by concrete step. He tugged at the zip ties binding his wrists and ankles, but all that did was dig the hard plastic further into his flesh.

The cellar in the basement was the only room in Luciano Antonio Costa’s old house that didn’t get renovated when they converted the rest of it into an office space. Mainly because its purpose as a room for torture and interrogation never went obsolete. Khaled didn’t have to see it; he’d been down in the T&I cellar enough times to have the layout committed to memory. Dusty, red bricked walls arched into a curved ceiling where two overhead lamps hung by thick chains, illuminating the large expanse below. A fireplace and all its accompanying iron tools sat to the left, and a rack lined with various instruments of torture was positioned to the right. In the middle was one large table with scratch marks furrowed into its edges, and many other types of equipment were either shoved in a corner or hanging from the ceiling, suspended by heavy chains and hooks like morbid chandeliers. Partitioning a back portion of the room was a large iron gate leading to a small offshoot of the basement, much like a door to a prison cell. Not much lay beyond the iron gate besides a hard-worn bench and several opaque plastic storage tubs full of mysterious items.

Khaled squirmed as he was lowered onto his stomach on top of the familiar table. “What were you thinking,” scolded the nightmare looming above him. A faint swish of a pocket knife and cold steel next to his skin made Khaled pause his struggles as his master cut away the zip ties. “Escaping in this cold weather without so much as a scrap of clothing on you –did you even have a plan?” he taunted. “I don’t know what your plan was, or even if you had a plan, but was it really worth freezing yourself to death?”

Khaled enjoyed the freedom of his unbound limbs for only a moment until his wrists were snatched into a tight grip and gathered in front of him. A coarse and scratchy material –rope, most likely –began entangling around and in between his wrists as his master continued talking. “We have a tracking chip installed inside of you, remember? You can never escape me; I will always find you.” With a forceful tug, Khaled’s hands were pulled in front of him, then he couldn’t move his hands at all. The other end of the rope must have been tied off to the ring attachment at the edge of the table.

His ankles remained free, if only to make it easier to take his pants off.

There were some light shuffling noises before the wooden table groaned under a newfound weight. Khaled felt the body heat of another person leaning over him. The cologne Thomas wore quickly overpowered his senses as the man hovered close. Khaled could feel his master’s breath on his ear and something hard and stiff against his backside. “The last time you tried to run away, a friend of mine advised me to cut your tendons,” Thomas sultrily whispered.

Oh god no. By now, Khaled knew which escape attempt they were reenacting, and, coincidentally, it was the one he had nightmares about the most.

“I don’t want to permanently cripple you though,” Thomas sighed, “mostly because it would be even more of a hassle to care for you, but I will cripple you temporarily, at the very least...”

He could already hear the hiss of the iron.

His panicked cries took on a new pitch of desperation. Without warning, his master’s fingers pinched at the edge of the duct tape on Khaled’s mouth and pulled, making him scream in pain. The rag was quickly removed, only for his tormentor to shove his index and middle fingers past the boy’s teeth to depress his tongue. “Suck,” he growled, “because this is the only lube you’re going to get.”

“Please, no, not this one, please, please no, not this, not this,” Khaled begged around the fingers in his mouth.

The fingers quickly withdrew before Khaled’s head was yanked back by the hair and then smashed onto the table. Stars danced across his blindfold, and a faint trickle of something warm and wet escaped from his nose.

“Let’s try this again.” Thomas shoved his fingers back into the boy’s mouth, burying them to the knuckle and making the boy gag. “Suck.”

Khaled shakily worked his head up and down the length of the fingers as his tongue lapped at each digit. He started to cry. As soon as the fingers withdrew, his pleas picked up again in earnest. “Please don’t burn me, please don’t burn me, please don’t burn me, please don’t burn me-”

“Would you relax?! I’m not going to burn you!” Thomas shouted above him. “What about any of this looks like I’m gonna burn you?!” Khaled heard a frustrated huff above him as his master yanked down his pants and underwear, exposing his bare ass and legs to the cold. The shed clothing was discarded, landing with a soft whump somewhere behind them. The two digits that were in his mouth forcefully entered him below, all pretense of play forgotten as they began roughly working him open. “Besides which, weren’t you the one who wanted to do this? You asked for this, you wanted this! You said you would be good for me!”

And he was right, he did say he wanted this. He asked for this to happen. So, with a defeated sniffle, Khaled went quiet and limp.

“So, are you going to be good for me now?”

Khaled’s bruised forehead scraped against the table as he nodded.

“Thank fuck,” Thomas grumbled.

I asked for this, Khaled told himself. The darkness around his eyes became damp as the blindfold caught his tears. I asked for this, I wanted this. He repeated it like a mantra as the man on top of him replaced his fingers with his cock and steadily screwed him against the table. I asked for this, I wanted this. Something tore down there as an unmistakable thin, warm, and sticky fluid trickled past the cock pummeling his hole. I wanted this. I wanted this…

I didn’t want this.

I never wanted this. Any of this.

I don’t want this. Slowly, the new mantra gained strength, and he let the words slip between his lips with every shuddering breath. “I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this, I don’t want this-”

“Tough shit,” his master grunted.

Khaled pulled against the rope restraining his hands as he struggled against the body pressing into his. “I don’t want this! I don’t want this! I don’t want this! I-” Again, Khaled’s face was smashed against the table. He heard a faint crunch as a new river of blood flowed out of his nose.

“You can scream all you want, nobody’s going to hear you,” Thomas growled, “but for fucks sakes, can you please scream something less annoying?!”

Khaled kept repeating it between every sniffle, like a sad broken record. “I don’t want this,” he sobbed. “I don’t want this… I don’t want this…”

His begging finally outwore Thomas’ need to finish. “Fuck,” his master huffed, unsticking his sweaty torso from Khaled’s clothed back as he pulled out of him. Khaled collected his heaving breaths. It would be too naïve of him to believe his bitchy whining finally got through, but he would appreciate this moment while he could.

He suppressed his sobs and tilted his head to follow the footsteps and shuffling sounds Thomas was making as he tried to guess what would happen to him next. Khaled heard the faint schwing of a different knife being unsheathed. It cut through the flimsy fabric of his t-shirt as his master finally completely undressed him, tearing away the scraps of cotton the knife didn’t excise from his body. “You said you would be good for me, but you have been anything but!” A twisted strip of cloth was wedged between his teeth and hastily tied off at the back of his head. His master’s hand pinned him down by the back of the neck, crushing him against the table with the weight behind it. “You said you missed me, but you’ve only fought against me this whole time!” Khaled screamed into the gag as the tip of the knife sank in between his shoulder blades. Its blade dragged tortuously and deliberately through his skin as his tormentor continued griping above him. “You’re a fucking liar, you know that?” The knife mercifully lifted from the trough it had carved, only to be plunged into a new area of Khaled’s back. “Do you know what I do to liars, boy? I make them pay!” The raw wounds on his back wept with blood as the knife kept slicing, spilling over his sides and pooling underneath his stomach and the table below. It was hard to cry with a gag in his mouth and a broken nose full of blood. He gasped for breaths between sobs, never quite getting a satisfying breath before the pain of the knife would make him scream again. His tears slipped past the saturated blindfold and tracked down his cheeks to join the pinkish smear of saliva, snot, and blood he could feel covering the lower half of his face. “This is for Callahan!” The knife drove down and sliced another line through his skin for each name the monster dropped. “This is for Trémeaux! And Robinson, and Martinez, and Kruger, and Kościelsky, and this-” The knife dug deeper this time. Khaled bit into the gag as his nerves screamed in agony, the steel scraping something hard as it dragged against his back. “-this is for my brother; he is never coming back! Tony is never coming back, and it’s all because of you!” the monster above him roared.

It was in that moment, between the terror and the pain, that Khaled realized with a fascinated horror that his master was reliving a nightmare, too. I need to snap him out of it if I’m getting out of this cellar alive, he realized. So, he set his own trauma and pain aside and began doing what got him into this mess in the first place. The twisted cloth had loosened just enough. He pushed it out of his mouth with his tongue and started begging as if his life depended on it, because this time, it really did.

“I didn’t kill him!” he cried. “I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill him! I didn’t kill him!” Khaled screamed well past the point his throat hurt. “Master, please, I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill any of them! I didn’t kill him, I didn’t kill him, Master, I didn’t kill him…” If the knife had stopped cutting into him and the rope around his wrists had been untied, Khaled was too far gone in his panic induced catatonia to notice. “I didn’t kill him… I didn’t kill him…” he rasped through a throat torn raw from screaming.

Le Tag List: @kabie-whump @rainydaywhump @whumped-by-glitter @skittles-the-whumpee @generic-whumperz @bamber344 @there-will-always-be-blood

#whump writing #heavy chapter ahead #tw rap3 #tw noncon #tw blood #tw victim blaming #internalized victim blaming #creepy/intimate whumper #bound whumpee #gagged whumpee #blindfolded whumpee #knife whump #neither safe nor sane nor consensual #blunt force trauma to face #whumpee just has the worst time #whumpee and whumper accidentally trigger each other #is this too dark?#is it too late to ask now that i've already posted it?

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lemonandpie · 3 months ago

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@b0nes-mcgee asked me for an angsty yaoi reclist, and oh boy am I willing to oblige. A lot of these I read a long time ago, so I don't rememvber all of the content warnings, but when reading yaoi it's a good idea to just assume sexual assault will turn up. I also can't swear by the quality for all of them, but they are all very angsty.

(And yes, I am using yaoi as a catchall term here, even though not all of them are sexual or even canonically gay, just very heavily implied. Also yaoi is a Japanese term and some of the works are Korean).

The Classics

Viewfinder (CW for all kinds of sexual assault between love interests and others; typical mafia stuff). Photographer gets some snaps of the mafia, and mob boss decides to get him to stay quiet via. Well. See content warnings. Last time I looked, it was still unfinished, sadly.

Maiden Rose (CW for sexual assault between love interests. And I'm sure other things that I don't remember considering it's set in an AU WW2). Imperial Prince who is Not Allowed To Be Touched Ever and his bodyguard who decides to ignore that. Basically sent my purity kink into overdrive, RIP baby Lemon. Also potentially unfinished.

Mada Koi Towa Shirazu ni (CW sexual assault, suicidal ideation). Young samurai in training is assaulted by his jealous peers, so he seeks out an older samurai who can teach him how to commit Seppuku. They end up falling in love instead. Most erotic discussions of suicide I have ever seen and yes that is as insane as it sounds.

Ai no Kusabi (CW for sexual slavery). Highly recommend if you enjoy a brattier sub.

Black Butler (CW for... everything?) Not technically a BL, but definitely has the angst. If you cannot deal with any form of underage stay very clear (I'd struggle if I hadn't started it younger than Ciel and prior to developing that particular squick. Nothing is explicit, but Ciel ends up in a lot of sexual situations). I personally gave up on it because the manga has developed gone-on-too-long-itis, where the author has just thrown in any soap opera plot twist they can think of. Others may be fine with that, but if not then I'd say watch season 1 of the anime and then the OVAs.

Newer Works

Ten Count (CW sexual assault between love interests, graphic depiction of OCD, and an incestuous sexual situation involving a child). Office worker with severe contamination OCD ends up in a bet with a psychology student that the student can 'cure' his OCD. With dubcon sex! Messy, but I adore the MC and his backstory fully triggered me.

Obey Me (CW sexual assault, kidnapping, stalking, child abuse, bullying, suicide, homophobia, transphobia... it's a lot). Isolated loner gets kidnapped and held captive by his stalker, and slowly learns the truth of his amnesia. This is super fucked up, and it hit the level of dark where I wasn't sure how good it is but god did it scratch the angst spot in my brain.

Dangerous Drug of Sex (CW sexual assault between love interests, suicide). Suicidal man is kidnapped mid-suicide attempt by a doctor whose partner died by suicide, so now he's determined to keep this guy alive by any means necessary. Noncon BDSM as therapy, my favorite. I've only seen the film so far, which was really good but part of that is in the way it leaned into the horror elements as well as the romantic ones. A sex scene with horror chords and loud screams was too much for a lot of people, so if that sounds like you, maybe read the manga.

Eclipse of the Celestial Heart (CW sexual assault and so much murder omg). Just minutes after their first kiss, main guy sees his new boyfriend be brutally murdered and then just... get up like it's nothing. Then it happens over, and over, and over. A pretty good thriller that gets increasingly horrifying, with lots of betrayal and pain.

Kiraide Isasete (CW sexual assault). This is definitely the sweetest work on this list. MC is an omega who was raped and impregnated by his alpha classmates. It focuses on his healing from that trauma and learning to open himself up to alphas after being hurt so poorly by them. Still ongoing I think.

General Mangaka Recs

Kaori Yuki is made for Anne Rice fans. Gothic horror, romance with debatable morals, and incest coming out the wazoo. If there was ever a manga version of TVA, she'd be perfect. Boy's Next Door might be the only one that is officially yaoi, but they're all good.

CLAMP's older stuff is very heavy on bother angst and queerness, but while it gets very sexy there's no sex.

Harada is the current superstar of kinky angsty manga. All of the trigger warnings, all of the kinks, and so much angst.

I haven't read, but heard good things

Killing Stalking. Sounds kind of like the homoerotic version of You, and I think Obey Me took a lot if inspo from it. Very dark, very angsty. There's a lot of debate whether it counts as a BL because the romance is in one direction, but that's the same logic as people who claim Marimand never had sex because there's no penetration.

Painter in the Night. I don't know a lot about this one, except that it's steamy and angsty and historical.

Ennead. I know, I disgust myself. Inspired by Egyptian mythology, with all of the incest, sexual assault, and general messiness that comes with it.

Kaze to Ki no Uta. Again, I disgust myself. This is considered the original shounen-ai, and basically all of the standard tropes of the genre come from this series. Which means it's angsty af and deals with sexual assault.

#rec list #I'm really bad at keeping track so there's lots more that I can't find #like one I really adored that iirc had death fakeouts and murder and twincest and some of the most beautiful art #if nothing else this should keep you occupied for some time 😅

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bitepoint · 13 days ago

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⋆.˚ ⏾ — detailed rules

✧ this blog is strictly 18+. even if you're wanting to talk about fluff or just wanting to say hi, interacting in this way would still require you to meet this criteria. i'd just be too uncomfortable otherwise, as i frequently rb and post about mature themes. ✧ please do not copy, modify, repost, plagiarize, or otherwise feed my writing into AI on tumblr or elsewhere. ✧ i don't take requests, though my inbox is always open to general yapping & chatting ! nothing personal at all this is just so i can have peace of mind + fun on this blog

⋆.˚ ⏾ — on reading and writing

✧ favorites : love and deepspace, arcane, dmc, resident evil ✧ i frequently read, write, and rb both sfw and nsfw works. this may include dark content/themes. ✧ for darker themes, it really depends on what they are. sometimes i'm willing to read certain topics but not so comfortable writing them, sometimes if an idea is haunting me i may feel compelled to write it. ✧ will generally not read or write: noncon or rape, most dubcon, necro, underage, incest, scat, piss, degradation, ddlg & daddy kink, teacher/student, bimbo!reader, eating disorders. this is a non-exhaustive list ! don't be afraid to ask if unsure; i've written this list to mark out my personal limits, not yuck anyone's yum. ✧ i really, really recommend the liberal use of tumblr's filtering system for both tags and mentions. i sometimes use tags for potentially triggering content (#trigger tw or #trigger cw), but i'm not the most consistent at it and this blog is first and foremost catered to my own tastes. that said, kindly lmk if you'd like me to tag something ! ⤷ you may stumble onto fics or textposts dealing with: horror elements, violence, gore, blood, unhealthy or toxic relationship dynamics, stalking / obsessive themes, age differences (legal), skewed power dynamics, a/b/o, monsterfucking, pseudoincest, dom or top reader, bloodplay, gunplay, knifeplay, pegging, rimming, cumplay, bdsm, etc, etc.

⋆.˚ ⏾ — tagging

#pinned = housekeeping tag for this blog, including navigation and important posts that couldn't all b pinned #v's logbook = my general yap tag #v's recs = fic recs ! rb's of works from other authors and writers that i've v much enjoyed <3 #ask v = for any inbox replies & exchanges

#pinned #rules

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basementcoffee · 21 hours ago

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underdog / final chapter ghost x f!reader / cyberpunk au / masterlist

cw: extremely dubious consent, rape/noncon elements, power imbalance, rough handling, spanking - full tags in masterlist

You hobble off the AV on trembling legs, dress askew, the fabric stiff and tacky where it’s dried.

Your eyes burn and the wind is no help, the night air colder and thinner this high up. Behind you, Ghost licks his fingers, looking thoroughly pleased with himself, then smears them on his vest.

Muttonchops is waiting near the landing pad wearing his own shit-eating grin.

“You took your time.”

A mitt lands on your back.

“Took a victory lap.”

It strikes you then, how the men greet each other like comrades-in-arms. Friendly, at-ease. No time to dwell as you’re nudged toward a waiting cargo lift.

The lift groans as it descends. You try to count the floors, but the view swallows your focus. It’s a sheer drop through the core of a single monolith made of four fused towers, the open shaft offering a dizzying view of every level in between. Near the top, the architecture is sleek and seamless, but further down, the building’s skeleton shows itself in bare concrete, scaffolding, and spears of rebar.

You stop somewhere in the sixties.

Muttonchops leads you down a corridor lined with mirrored doors, your reflection coming in cruel flashes—disheveled, wide-eyed, streaks of blood on your cheeks where Ghost’s tongue dragged it across your skin. A gallery of your own unraveling.

One door sighs open, and a wash of cold air spills out. The room beyond hums. It’s no residence, but a nerve center. Screens cast light in gradients, hexes glowing like a hive in stasis. Wires snake across the walls behind two reclined chairs. A netrunner’s nest.

And that’s where you meet them, the men introduced as Ghost’s long-time comrades.

One by one, your knuckles are kissed in mock-ceremony: Muttonchops is John. Mohawk is Soap. The third, a stranger tapping away at a keyboard, is Gaz.

For a fleeting minute, you think Gaz’s smile carries sympathy, but that illusion dies quickly when your ass lands in one of the chairs.

Gaz’s oculars flick white as he sits, relaxing like he’s done this a thousand times.

“Sorry,” he says, and you almost believe him.

Your HUD flickers. The database winks out and the ports on your neck go dark. Your communication systems collapse like a bridge burned from both ends. All that remains are the bare bones of your optics—plain sight and nothing else.

You know then, with a sinking certainty, that you have no friends in Dogtown.

Sparks flare and burst above the crown of your head.

For one split second, as you come to, you think: you’re back at Prism. Where it’s safe and familiar. If you go downstairs, cross the sticky dancefloor, you’ll find everyone crowding the vanities. Irina will offer you a cigarette, and you’ll laugh about the drunks. Everything will be fine.

Instead, you’re yanked out from beneath the falling stars and the fragile illusion.

Ghost snarls at a worker perched on the scaffolding above the corner you tucked yourself into.

“Oi, I said work around ‘er, not over.”

The apartment allotted to Ghost, and by extension, you, is barely more than a shell. It’s on one of the floors of long-paused construction, underway again with his arrival. Water-stained ceiling, exposed ventilation and plumbing. A sheet of corrugated steel covers what might’ve once been a window—the only thing between you and a seventy-floor fall. There’s not a single item of comfort apart from the mattress you’re forced to share and refuse to look at.

In the days since your arrival, you’ve learned Ghost spent the last four years away from Dogtown—his real home. Hansen had embedded him in a legitimate, corporate security outfit. Sold him to the Goforths as top-shelf talent to babysit their heir, but he was never just muscle. He was eyes. Ears. Insurance. Installed to keep tabs on the family, to measure how far their ambitions might stretch, in case they ever got bold enough to mistake themselves for more than just a pipeline—tools to move guns and gear.

You know how that ended.

Win was marked when he took Szabó’s bait—months before you ever met him. His fate was sealed, expiration date stamped. Your arrival, though? Not part of the plan.

Ghost told you that awful night as you escaped in the AV with your face splashed across the city. Huffed it into your ear as he stroked two fingers against the sweet spot inside your cunt, grinding into your ass. He wanted you the moment he laid eyes on you—gripping your wrist nearly to break it, scanning you head to toe, feeling your skin. A taste of something irresistible. How he hated himself for wanting.

And on your second night in Dogtown, when he caught you bribing a soldier for help and made you watch as he tossed the man from the roof—your ass came under heavy fire for that. Bent over his knee, tears and snot running down your face, he confessed between swings that he had to talk himself into it. Into letting himself want. Letting himself take and keep something soft and nice.

The real clincher was you pulling the trigger before he could—beating him to the punch—it made an impression. It bought you Dogtown citizenship. Szabó’s blessing. Hansen’s permission.

You took the heat off Ghost. Off Barghest. You were the deranged, fame-hungry, jilted ex-starlet who snapped, and the media ate it up.

The apartment. The scratch in his account. You. All rewards for a job well done.

Ghost drags you away from the construction and sits you at the dining table, right where you were meant to stay while he made the breakfast now growing cold in front of you. You have not made captivity easy.

He’s a noisy eater.

“Bein’ awfully quiet, Princess. Chow not to your liking?”

Ghost rips into scop shaped and dyed to mimic bacon. Grease slicks his chin, his fingers. He chews like it’s the best thing he’s had in weeks.

Mere days ago, you were eating filet mignon grown from the cleanest cloned stock, caviar from aquacultured tanks. Your apartment was pristine. Clean, curated, yours. You had bookings and a calendar full of shoots. Friends. A future.

More than half of it had been a lie, and all of it vanished just the same, collapsing like a house of cards the moment you killed Win.

No. The chow is not to your liking. Nothing is.

“I want to go home.”

That kills his smile. He chews the last bite, a flat affect in his gaze. He leans back, wipes his chin, and licks his fingers clean.

You push. “Irina will help me—”

“The NCPD’ll grab you the second you step outside. Then they’ll hand you over, gift-wrapped in a fuckin’ bow.”

“I don’t care, I just want to be gone.”

“You are gone. NCPD ain’t coming ‘ere to find you.”

“Someone will look for me.”

Ghost picks his teeth. “‘ere? Don’t think so, ‘less they got a death wish.”

You seethe. Everything swirls back up, hot and acidic. The chair screeches as you lurch to your feet. Your plate follows, crashing into the concrete in a wet splatter of untouched food.

“You can’t keep me here forever!”

In the next room over, the construction comes to an abrupt halt.

Ghost looks from the mess to you, brow lowering as he rises. His frame expands with the movement. Panels along his torso and arms unfolding like shutters.

“After everything I’ve done to get you…You really think I’d let you walk into a fuckin’ meat grinder so I can ‘ear about it secondhand on a fuckin’ feed?”

He shoves the table aside. It shrieks across the floor, legs juddering.

A sick wave of déjà vu washes over. You pivot to bolt—but you don’t make it two steps before the back of your dress pulls tight. Caught.

Your feet slip and then the floor disappears entirely. In a blur, you end up bent over the table, his hand planted between your shoulders. The breath flees from your lungs in sharp, startled sound. He clicks his tongue.

“None of that. I’ve been nothin’ but accomodatin’.”

He presses over you, pinning you in place with his bodyweight held in check. Tension bleeds off in waves. You see it in the flex of his augmented muscles. Picture the man he whipped into the dumpster like a discarded toy.

His voice dials lower, rougher. Distortion bleeds through, modulation warping it near-inhuman.

“Saved your arse twice, now.”

A shiver crawls up your spine. He doesn’t need to say another word—you hear it loud and clear: You owe me.

“I could’ve left you behind. Could’ve let them scoop you up and dump you in the bay. But I didn’t.”

“And I didn’t mean to kill him,” you hiss, trembling. “I wanted—”

“A way out?”

“No, I—”

In a blink, he lifts and rolls you onto your back. You barely get your hands up before he’s over you, arms braced on either side, blotting out the lights above.

“Don’t kid yourself. You ‘eard ‘is plans, and you wanted out. Congrats, sweetheart. You’re out.” His head tilts. “You’re just sore ‘cause you made your bed, and I’m the one lyin’ in it.”

You glare up at him, chest heaving.

He shifts his weight to one arm and uses the other to hook under your knee and push it back. It opens you up, and he slots the cradle of his hips to yours. It hurtles you back to—

You think about it?

The truth is as bleak and suffocating as the air: this debt isn’t new. You’ve been accruing it from the start. Every time you smiled at a stranger or let them touch you, you drove the hook in deeper. Ghost decided you were his the moment you met, and every time you gave yourself to someone else, you added to what you owe. Now the bill’s come due.

You wonder, suddenly, horribly, if you’d said yes, if you’d danced for him, told him he could have you—would this be different? Would you be here now? Worse, would you want to be?

He leans closer.

“This is ‘ow it was always gonna be. Soon as you stepped in that booth. Soon as you looked up at me like I was the devil ‘imself. Knew it’d take some doing, but I knew.”

The festering tar pit in your chest boils over. Fury rises from where shame and grief have gnawed. All the ways you’ve bent, everything you’ve buried. The man you killed. The life you torched to survive.

You don’t think. You fight, as stupid and pointless as it is.

You manage to rake your nails over his cheek. Land a desperate kick to his thigh, more painful to you than him. It sets him off.

His head snaps toward the kitchen’s entryway. “Out.”

A starting gun.Boots hurriedly pound through the rooms beyond. Tools clatter, abandoned. One by one, the workers duck out. Nobody argues. No one meets your eyes. They know better than you. They want to keep their miserable lives.

Ghost doesn’t move until the door slams shut. Then, without a word, he hauls you off the table.

His hand clamps around your arm, ironclad. You thrash, but it’s like playing tug-of-war with a freighter.

He drags you toward the rear of the apartment, toward the unfinished living quarters, where the mattress with its tangled lump of blankets sits against the wall.

You dig your heels in.

“Ghost—”

“Gave you food, shelter, orgasms,” he mutters, “And you’ve got the nerve to be difficult.”

He shoves you into the room, then turns back to grab the pallet of concrete mix stacked near the threshold.

You watch, stunned, as his muscles flare with purpose. Metallic tendons and plating strain as he drags the whole thing across the exit and seals you both inside.

It’s too tall to climb. Too heavy to move on your own.

When he lets go, his arms hiss and whir with pressure release, but the bulk doesn’t ease. The artificial musculature remains expanded, poised to strike. He doesn’t shrink down to his normal, already massive size. He remains colossal.

With a grunt, he collapses onto the edge of the mattress, forearms resting on his knees, legs spread wide.

“C’mon, then. On your knees.”

His cock is organic. Real skin. Flushed and hot. When he directed you to unbuckle his belt, murmuring— the important bits are all natural— you thought he was joking, but you’re staring the proof in the face.

He’s been wounded here too, a scattering of shallow scars on the shaft that make your legs squeeze tight. Another swath of burned skin slices through his pubic hair, leaving a stark strip of bare no-man’s land in the thatch. Morbid curiosity begs you to ask, but you really don’t want to know.

All you can think of is how uncomfortable it’ll be to pack into your mouth. How it’ll hurt if he fucks you. When he fucks you. Your eyes flick up to his, catching the way his scarred lip curls, tugging at his gouged cheek.

You lean in, tongue-first, resigned, only to jerk back as the taste of ozone hits. Your eyes snap open. His hand is already there, finger and thumb hooking past your lips, prying your mouth open. The digits are cold, pieces of ice sealed in latex, prising your teeth.

He chuckles at the bit of drool that trickles out.

“Wider. Like that.”

There’s no polite introduction or pause. He guides his cock to your levered mouth, exchanging it for his fingers, and pushes in and in and in until the shock wears off. He slots in deep, and you gag. He holds you in place as tears spring to your eyes, throat convulsing, and he groans like he’s kicked his feet up after a long day.

“We’ll work on that,” he sighs, letting you up to breathe. He cocks a brow as you touch the column of your neck and gutter for air. He swipes the head of his cock along your panting mouth, following it as you turn your head, coating it in pre-cum. “C’mon, Stella. You don’t want me callin’ the shots.”

You try to attend him mechanically. Go through the motions with a passive tongue. He corrects your lack of enthusiasm immediately, five fingers pressed to your forehead and pushing until your mouth’s only sealed around the tip.

“Make an effort, or we break that throat in now.”

You summon that dead part of your life and dive back in with trumped-up vigor. Anything to avoid having your teeth knocked out. From then on, you take him as well as you can, ignoring the dull pain that crops up in your jaw from putting on a show. Your fingers settle over his thighs, feeling the steady hum beneath the skin. The warmth of living flesh ends with the cock in your mouth, below that, everything is synthetic again.

“Listened to you and that shit’eel go at it every week, to you gaggin’ on it ‘undreds of times,” he grits out as you suck. If he sees the flash of indignation on your face, the knee-jerk reaction to pull back and spit It was not hundreds of times, he doesn’t acknowledge it.

He chuckles when his words hit their mark anyway—spurring you to move quicker, to get it over with. Careless of the drool that escapes. You’re already a mess.

It works, at least. He doesn’t pause to critique you again. Small mercies are all you have now, you think, as he shoves in deep and spills down your throat with a guttural sound. You wince at the pulse of his cock on the fat of your tongue and how it seems to go on forever.

When the hand on your head relaxes, and you take it as tacit permission to pull off. A string of saliva snaps as you do, splashing over your cheek.

Your lips are tender and swollen, and when you look at him—reclined on his hands, head tipped back, chest plates and stomach contracting with each labored breath—your mouth curls into a smile on instinct. You hate it.

Ghost keeps you strung tight, every waking hour drawn with tension. Sleep doesn’t offer relief. Your body knows what your mind dodges in sleep, that even in unconsciousness, he’s there. Pressed against your back, breath warm, arms locked like a vise around your middle.

Some mornings, you come to with his mouth at your neck, waiting until the very last second before the construction crew arrives to pull away.

For days, he shadows the workers. Oversees everything. Sometimes joins in—shucking off his shirt, shoving beams into place, outpacing them with the amount of implants he’s packing. You’re given no responsibilities, no tasks to busy your hands. Only two options: the table or the mattress in the corner. Sit, and watch. Watch the same arms that reduced a man into paste without breaking a sweat now hoist drywall and hammer in fixtures.

He runs the site like a war zone. You’ve seen him solo, but here he’s in his element. Barking orders from dawn to dusk. Fires three men in the first forty-eight hours for lingering glances in your direction. One makes a joke you don’t hear, and simply doesn’t return the next day. The rest learn fast to keep their heads down. At lunch, he pulls you onto his lap, makes you hand-feed him. The men don’t speak, careful not to look your way.

But when the last boot’s gone down the stairs and the door locks behind them, Ghost shifts. Not softens, never that, but pivots. Follows you from room to room, corners you with questions: which tile do you like? What color do you want the walls? Lets you choose a bed frame like it’s a gift.

And when he’s not directing renovations or away playing lieutenant for Hansen, he’s touching you. Always. You never go a minute without some part of him plastered to your body. A hand resting on your nape. His thigh bracketed against yours. A single finger hooked lazily through your belt loop, keeping you tethered like a balloon he can’t let drift too far.

More often than not, though, it’s a hand shoved up your shirt and fondling your tits. A finger in your mouth after you brush your teeth. Wedged between your thighs as you read aloud to him at night. He says you can’t let all that vocal training go to waste, usually right before he shoves a paw past your waistband.

You’re not sure what the end of this looks like, if there is one. Maybe he’ll lose interest as the novelty of your crime dies down. Foist you off on one of his buddies. Walk you off the rooftop. That thought should terrify you more than it does. Mostly, it just makes you tired.

One night, he studies you. You’re the object of pure focus. There’s nothing to do other than lie still.

He shifts your limbs with an unsettling gentleness, testing the mechanics of your unmodified body. He rolls your wrist in his hand, thumb brushing the hollow dip. Another ghosts down your thigh to sink fingers into the tender space behind your knee. Tracing the curve of your spine.

You realize, distantly, that it might be the only kind of intimacy he understands. Not shared or asked for. Just…taken. Applied. Inventory of where you end and he begins, where you’re vulnerable and he isn’t. How there’s so much of you left to hollow you out and rebuild if he wanted.

And beneath it all, he’s so calm. Unreadable. His eyes a flat and unblinking umber in the dark. You don’t flinch. Don’t pull away. There’s no point in pretending you’re anywhere else. It’s the same as when he bought your champagne and your time. As when he shredded your tights.

Eventually, he settles behind you. One heavy arm slung across your ribs, locking you into place. Constant, unyielding pressure.

Sleep doesn’t come easy, but neither does anything else.

A little over a week into your stay, there’s a party.

No occasion, Ghost says, dropping an armful of gowns onto the bed without telling you where they came from. Hansen entertains often. Unofficially, it’s a celebration for the return of one of his finest soldiers.

If only he knew said soldier was plotting his downfall.

It’s the first time you’re allowed out of the apartment, but the world doesn’t open up much. A different elevator, this one riding straight to the portion of the top floor that’s reserved for gatherings.

You put the idea of escaping right out of your head at the number of soldiers milling about. The crowd itself is a shock—famous faces from Night City’s orbit sprinkled in with top brass, mercs, and gang leadership.

You catch sight of the NCPD Chief, and Ghost chuckles, low and knowing, when you reflexively press closer to his side. The cop gives you a single, withering glance before turning back to his drink.

He’s not the only one who recognizes you.

Eyes flit your way then slide off. Heads bend together in whispers. You can guess what they’re saying. You’re the girl who killed a Goforth. They all seem to know the truth, or close enough, but the version outside, dominating the news, is better entertainment.

Ghost keeps his hand at your waist, guiding you through the crush. He parks you in front of him while he joins Price, Gaz, and Soap. The younger men prod for details, more information about you, trying to coax anything out of him, but it’s like drawing blood from stone.

You stay quiet. Avoid eye contact. A perfect decoration with a sugary drink in hand to dull your nerves.

Then Szabó arrives.

He doesn’t address you. He whispers to the men, and they move. Ghost taps your flank as he slips away.

“Stay,” he orders, nodding toward the bar.

There’s no sense in running. Not when every exit and balcony is manned.

Time passes. The music hums, and the sea of voices melds into one singular, droning noise. You down another drink and ignore the stares in the mirrored wall. Dogtown is a battlefield, but you’re not a contested resource. Best not to trespass.

Until the one person who can, does.

“Didn’t think I’d get to meet Ghost’s girl. I can see why he wanted to keep you cooped up.”

You glance over your shoulder, forced to look up. He’s shorter than Ghost—but then, most men are. Still, he’s broad, thick through the neck and shoulders. His gaze skims clinically over you, amused.

“Kurt Hansen,” he offers a hand.

You take it, your name slipping out. He doesn’t let go.

“I trust you’re adjusting to Dogtown. I imagine it’s a far cry from what you’re used to. Jagged around the edges, maybe, but we like it that way.”

The warmth in his voice is fake, but so perfectly tuned it’s hard not to admire the craftsmanship. Cultivated with enough edge to keep you uncertain, paired with an open posture and affable cadence. Not what you expected. Doesn’t strike you as the ruthless tyrant Ghost painted, but that’s probably the point.

Your other hand is still curled tight in your lap. Hansen reaches for it without pause, prying it open to clasp both of your hands in a warm and heavy grip.

“Ghost is one of my best. What’s his is mine, and I take care of what’s mine. If there’s anything I can do to make your stay more comfortable…I’d be more than happy to offer a personal touch.”

Fucking pig.

You smile. “You’re too kind, Mr. Hansen, but Ghost is…”

The rest of the sentence slips, unfinished, as an earlier thought rises unbidden. Treacherous through the fog of alcohol. If only he knew that said soldier was plotting his downfall.

You freeze. It’s like stepping off a ledge and realizing, mid-drop, that you could twist your body just so, and maybe land on your feet instead of your neck.

At the crossroads again.

Maybe this is your shot. To break the leash, slip the collar, flee for a new captor by betraying another. You could tell Hansen what little you know—it’s enough. Even if he doesn’t let you walk free, maybe the fallout would create enough chaos to disappear into.

Before you can open your mouth, a cold hand clamps down on your shoulder.

Ghost.

The mood shifts like tectonics.

Hansen’s grin grows. “Speak of the devil,” he hums, clearly delighted. “You got a pretty kitty, Ghost. Makes me wonder if we ought to scrounge up a couple more from the city.”

“You’d have no objectors, sir.”

Hansen chuckles, releasing your hands to clap Ghost on the shoulder. “I’ll consider it. A boost to morale,” he says with a wink in your direction. “I’ll let you get back to your keeper. I’ll see you around, Stella.”

Then he’s gone, slipping into the crowd like a shark back into dark water.

You don’t dare look up at Ghost. He doesn’t speak—not at first. He waits, biding his time til the thrum of the party swells loud enough to mask the violence of his tone.

“You looked cozy.” Each syllable soaked in contempt.

You blink hard, throat tight, the buzz of adrenaline souring into something bitter. You barely shake your head, but he’s already crowding in, making you fold inward.

“Fuck, you really are an opportunist,” he says, voice cracked with fury. “First Win, now me. You’d spread your legs for anyone to get what you want, even if it ends with you gutted, wouldn’t you.”

“No,” you breathe. “I didn’t—I didn’t say anything, Ghost.”

“Didn’t have to. Saw it on your face. You were thinkin’ about it. Schemin’. You wanted to.”

The pressure on your shoulder lifts, replaced by a sharp tug at your elbow as he pulls you off the stool and into step beside him.

“You’re gonna smile. You’re gonna walk the floor on my arm like nothing ‘appened. Clear? And later, we’ll talk about what that means.”

You nod once, wooden. Your face obeys before your brain catches up, lips peeling back into a bright, hollow smile just as his friends drift over.

Shreds of your dress mark a trail from the door. His mask lies similarly discarded.

The heel of your hand jams up on his chin, arm shaking from the effort of holding him off. He doesn’t budge. He’s letting you burn energy and flail. You’re not strong enough to stop him—he just wants to watch you try. Even now, he’s toying with you.

You’ve been talking since the bar. Rambling explanations that might dull the edge of his anger. None of it’s worked.

“You think you’d be better off with ‘im?” he growls, his breath hot against your fingers.

“No! I don’t! I really don’t!”

It doesn’t even matter if it’s true. It’s the before all over again: Ghost watched Hansen lay hands on you, speak to you. To him, that’s planting a flag in front of the whole fucking room. Someone touched what’s his, the worst person who could’ve, and now he’s hellbent on reminding you that you’re his.

No better than a dog guarding a bone.

It’s the first time he’s laid you out like this. Legs stretched wide around his hips, his cock hard and heavy, leaking on your stomach. He’s teased, tasted, taken you apart daily with fingers and tongue, peeled you open until you wept—but never like this. All that wondering with your mouth full of him, and never once did you ask why he hadn’t fucked you yet. You suppose it was to avoid it.

His restraint snaps. He grabs your wrist, slams it into the mattress, mouth crashing against yours, all teeth, like he’s trying to bite the next words out of your throat before you can say something else to piss him off. You’re gripped, manhandled, dragged closer under him like he could climb into your skin and take back every inch you ever gave to someone else.

“I’ve taken care of you for a fuckin’ time,” he growls against your lips, rough with restraint he’s rapidly losing. “Ferryin’ you ‘round like a princess, keeping you safe—”

He pinches your cheeks to make you look at him. “—while you pranced around in front of goddamn cameras peddlin’ overpriced trash, lettin’ all sorts paw at you, all for execs who’d leave you in an alley without blinkin’.”

You gasp, try to twist away, but he doesn’t allow it.

“And Win. Fucking Junior. A man who wasn’t worth the spit in your mouth.” He presses his forehead to yours, his hatred one thick, putrid cloud. “Ordered you around like you were nothing. ‘ad you trained to be at his beck and call. Slept around on you, strung you along, and you let ‘im. All for what? A career that was never going anywhere beyond a billboard.”

His mouth finds yours again, all-consuming, and when he pulls back, it’s only far enough to snarl, “Nobody knows what they ‘ad, but I do.”

Fingers split you open and prod, staying whatever comebacks you have left. Breathless when a fingertip dips into your hole. He groans at the pulse of you around his digit, the cool of it rapidly heating in your clutch. It shuts him up, finally, his breath turning rough. He works you over in silence, relentless, until you’re clenching tight on two and a third kicks your legs anew. He swallows the whine when he sinks them in as far as they’ll go, thumb swiping over your clit.

When you start squeezing tight, he rocks his hand as gently as he probably knows how.

“We’re not so different,” he breathes, mouthing the hinge of your jaw. Hot and damp over bone before he grunts, feeling your free hand scramble at his neck. You futilely tug at the anchored cabling. All it does is make him grin against your pulse.

“Both doing what needs doing to get by. Selling ourselves to somethin’ bigger and uglier,” he emphasizes with a lewd, squelching plunge of his fingers, “Just to make it through the next goddamn day.” He noses along your throat like you’re sweating the truth there. “Difference is, I’m a bit better at it.”

You hiss out your protests, but neither of you hear them when you seize up at a particular pump of his hand. He latches onto it, swearing when you moan.

Heat coils low, warmth licking at your nerves like a stripped wire worn raw. It builds with every breath, every grinding pull of friction, tightening, concentrating. A cruel pressure blooms beneath your ribs, sinks into your gut, pulses between your legs. Hot and thrumming, too much and not enough, until it crests—white-hot, electric—ripping through you in a single, blinding snap.

Ghost says something to you in the throes of it, but it’s drowned out.

You sink into the buzzing silence that follows. A minute or two in purgatory, then his hands are on you again.

He hums low, almost coaxing, as he folds your knees up to your chest. Thumbs dragging circles into the underside of your thighs, savoring every wet inch. Gaze fixed, devouring—if only the sight alone would be enough to feed him.

“Fuck, you are so soft. Everywhere. Like these lines, too, little lightning, eh?”

Your legs kick when he pries your cunt apart with his thumbs and abruptly spits. The wad hits your clit, warm and thick as it slips to your already slick hole and down to the other. It’s needlessly disgusting with one orgasm already wrung out of you, but when he eases up to glide his length over your cunt, you’re reminded of his size. He smears your cum and saliva until your cunt’s one big sodden mess, hips twitching, stuck between wanting to chase and run away. He taps his cock to your clit, giving it one more pass.

“Been waitin’ for this, for a long time. ‘oped you’d be a little more excited but…Think you’re ready.”

Your eyes roll back as he sinks in. By sight alone you knew he was bigger than Win, and by feel, he’s got you seeing stars. Whole new constellations turning in a mobile in the black behind your eyelids.

“Fuckin’ Christ, you’re—”

Soft, you know. You mold perfectly around him. Suck him in with a pleasure so startling it strips every other sense bare and hurls all awareness into the act of feeling alone. Like your body’s forgotten how to do anything else.

There’s a dull, pulsing glow visible in the seams of his chest and hips—subdermal light bleeding out in slow, rhythmic pulses. It brightens as he grinds in deep as he can get, flares when he pulls back to set a brutal pace.

It’s not like before. He’s held back every time he’s made you come since you got here, and now that you’re finally underneath him, where he signaled, warned, and told you, over and over, you were always gonna end up , it’s like a switch gets thrown.

Moans come spilling out of you with every swing of his hips. Flesh and metal smacking into you hard, chilled fingers keeping you open. It’s a miracle nothing pinches. His thumb makes it return to your clit, and both of you shudder at the clench.

“That was the real performance, eh?” It takes a second through the fog to realize he’s talking about Win, now of all times. “Fooled ‘im, baby, but you’re not fakin’ it ‘ere, are you? No, cunt’s too ‘onest for that.”

“Ghost, f-fuck, no, wait—”

He doesn’t let you lie. You don’t get to harbor any delusions that you don’t like it. Don’t like him, despite it all. “None of that.”

“Ghost, please—”

“So honest when you want to be…”

It should disgust you, how tightly you end up clinging to him. Arms winding around him in need, a dying star diving straight into the eager earth rising to catch it. But it doesn’t. His tongue licks into your mouth with a breathless chuckle, and the strange, stupid warmth that ignites in your chest burns you right up.

He flattens over you, wrapping his arms around to lever your hips up like he’s trying to fuse you together at the seam. Your skin chafes where your thighs rub against the hard lines of his hips. Beneath the surface, you feel it all—servos working overtime, muscle flexing and rolling beneath taut synthskin, as he locks you in deeper, tighter, closer. Trying to crawl inside you and stay. There’s no give to the frame that cages you. Only take.

“Gonna come?” he asks, smirking into your cheek as he licks the tears away.

“Y-Yeah, yeah,” you pant. “Ghost, please—”

Sticky warm sweat pools at your navel as your stomach cinches tighter and tighter. The pressure creeps in like a returning tide, churning low and deep until it needles into something near unbearable. It sears, nerves pulled painfully taut until they give all at once and you come.

You go rigid underneath him, then break apart. The pressure of your cunt clamping down tips him over the edge, and the sounds he makes are raw, unrestrained. His thrusts turn erratic, desperate as he pumps into you deep. His elbows drop to either side of you, careful not to crush, though the panels of his arms tremble with strain. For a moment, you think he might short out and come apart entirely, but the shuddering slows, steadies.

After what feels like eternity, he peels himself off, bit by bit, prying metal from cooled tar. Your jellied, unmodified flesh. Not quite beaten to a pulp, but rendered boneless all the same.

You hear him move the pallet. The sound of a tap. Cloth ripping. When he returns, he cleans you up with a strip of torn silk in an old, familiar texture and color you refuse to acknowledge in the come-down.

In the twilight that follows, dim and thick with the smell of sweat, sex, and smoke, you pass a cigarette back and forth. He keeps the cherry away from your face when it’s your turn. One arm is curled beneath you, his bicep braced like a firm pillow beneath your cheek.

The question comes in a cloud of smoke.

“You really wanna throw in with Hansen? Or…” He brings the cigarette to your lips. “You want me to keep you?”

You don’t answer right away.

You think about the roaches and thin walls of your old place. Neighbors screaming through paper-thin walls. Of the summer the power failed and people killed for the last functioning AC unit. The man who bled out on the stairs while everyone pretended they didn’t hear him die. The way Mal used to turn a blind eye while desperate hands pilfered crates from the back of the club. The things you would’ve had to do—unspeakable, unthinkable—to claw your way one rung higher on a ladder Win kept greased with empty promises. All the questions you swallowed, not because you didn’t care, but because you couldn’t bear the answers.

This wasn’t the plan. This wasn’t the dream. Dreams are for people with choices.

Ghost isn’t soft. He isn’t kind. He’s not offering a cushy future—he’s offering a cage with a locked door and strong walls and shadow at your back. A monster who’s decided, for reasons you’ll never understand, that you’re his.

He’s never promised more than that.

No pretense. No fantasy of something better down the line. But he’s not lying.

And that’s what you want the most.

He cancels the day’s work to bounce you in his lap after breakfast.

Makes you lean forward and plant your hands on his shins. Your lip gets caught between your teeth as he, annoyingly, hits your spot perfectly. It’s the best time by far. You, facing away, still coming to terms with the fact it’s him , and Ghost, contentedly squeezing and playing with your ass since it’s his new toy.

He makes a couple calls, secures some of your favorites on the next shipment into the district. There’s a new fixer with a fresh pipeline. Ghost doesn’t mind indulging your expensive tastes—not now. Not with how you’ve curled in his lap like a spoiled cat. He’s satisfied. You won’t risk something as reckless as running. Not anymore.

You’re still wanted in Night City. Goforth Senior’s burning through his reserves, trying to flush you out of alleys and crawlspaces you were never hiding in. It won’t take much longer before he figures out where you’ve gone. Word will get back to him eventually, but with a guard dog like Ghost curled around your ankles, you’re not exactly worried.

He buys your trust the way he always does—with action. An encrypted holo call that Irina picks up on the second ring, furious, eyes rimmed in red. She’s been pulling favors, trying to talk her new boyfriend into helping her look for you. A name gets dropped that makes Ghost smirk in the doorway, arms crossed: Nikolai. Of course. The man’s tangled up in Dogtown too. This time, one of Price’s. Which means Ghost’s familiar.

It’s unsettling, how far their roots reach. How many layers deep they’ve sunk into the cracks of Night City like black mold. But it also means Irina can visit. Trade stories. Compare notes about the monsters you’ve chosen to keep.

That gets him another day of good behavior.

The apartment’s done.

No more constant construction. The lights work. The locks hold. Ghost installed the kitchen set himself. You still don’t know where he got half the furniture, probably from other floors. One of the rugs has an old bloodstain you hide under the couch.

You picked the movie this time—an old one, nearly a century in age, though he counts it among his favorites: Silence of the Lambs. Neither of you are really watching.

Slumped in the corner of the sectional, his arm’s slung around your waist, the bulk of him behind and underneath you, one leg wedged between yours. It’s warm, comforting. His breathing is calm. For the first time in weeks, there’s no blade or drill or sidearm within reach. You tuck your bare feet under the throw blanket and let your eyes slip shut.

“Gonna be a busy week,” he murmurs, fingers idly drawing circles on your belly. “Szabó’s meeting with Bennett next week. Some merc named ‘V’ that ‘ands found is gonna keep ‘em civil. Could work out.”

You hum in response, unsure if he’s fishing for praise or warning you.

“If it does…” His hand drifts along your hip. “You’ll have options with the new regime. Within Dogtown, yeah—but real ones. That was part of the deal.”

You’ve been turning it over. A radio station. A broadcasting slot on the blimp.

“They’ve got their own people leashed tight. Reckon it’ll be bloodless.”

“Except for Hansen.”

He huffs a quiet laugh. “Stella….”

You stiffen. The name doesn’t fit anymore. Never has. It’s a relic, stuck to your boot like shit, and you’ve let it cling on too long.

“Don’t call me that again. Ever.”

He’s quiet. You think he might apologize. Of course he doesn’t.

Instead, he nods against the back of your head. “Noted.”

And that’s the end of it. No questions. No correction. Just his grip tightening slightly, his lips at your crown, and the flicker of the film painting shapes on the wall.

In Dogtown, that passes for peace. Best you’re gonna get.

#sy writing #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader

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ao3feed-twistedwonderland · 2 months ago

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Le Chien en Chaleur

Le Chien en Chaleur by messycunt cw: dubcon/noncon, reader in heat, creampie, petplay, stalking (Rook being Rook), obsession, somatic mess (tears/drool/snot), predator/prey dynamics, heat-induced delirium, dehumanization themes, possessive language You’ve always been a good little thing, domesticated, docile, soft around the edges. Just the sort of lovely beastman Rook likes to keep his eyes on. And he's been doing just that, silently and sweetly. Ever since before he was moved to Pomefiore, he’s been watching you. Taking notes. Following your scent. Words: 617, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English Series: Part 2 of TWST Rewritten Fandoms: Twisted-Wonderland (Video Game) Rating: Explicit Warnings: Rape/Non-Con Categories: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Other Characters: Rook Hunt, Reader Relationships: Rook Hunt/Reader Additional Tags: Rape/Non-con Elements, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Creampie, Pet Names, Stalking, rook is his own tw, Crying, Predator/Prey read it on AO3 at https://ift.tt/LH6vmna

#IFTTT #ao3feed #fanfic #twst #twst fanfic

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s0ftpixels · 1 year ago

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DEAD GIRL'S BEACH࿐ྂ "just givin' the same care you gave me, bunny. so whatcha' crying 'bout?"

(KUROKAWA IZANA x f!oc x SANO MANJIRO)

summary: she is a newly graduated psychiatrist and unfortunately, very broke. she gets a job at Sunshine Grove Psychiatric Hospital and catches the attention of a very dangerous patient who likes to hold grudges, even against those who are oblivious of their actions...

pairings: izana x f!oc, chifuyu x f!oc(one-sided), mikey x f!oc

warnings: DARK CONTENT, violence, toxic behaviour, possessiveness, gang violence, criminal activities, drug and alcohol use, mentions of prostitution, non-con elements, non-con drugging, drugged sex, drug addiction, overdose, drug withdrawals, withdrawal symptoms, near-death experiences, extreme violence, past child neglect/abuse, betrayal, misogyny, murder, strangulation, inaccurate depictions of psychiatric hospitals and medical treatment/conditions, stockholm syndrome, emotional incest, polyamory, torture, age gap(9, 6, 5 years), masochism, sadism, voyeurism, hard kinks, piv, smut, psychological horror, power imbalance, torture, waterboarding, fear play, major and minor character deaths, UNHAPPY ENDING

total series word count: 133 797

moodboard | headcanons & character info

ONE — mr kurokawa

chapter summary: enter Kaneko Maya, a newly graduated psychiatrist with a shit load of student debt racked up and her scary but hot patient from 4th floor, Kurokawa Izana.

cw: unrequited love, inaccurate depictions of psychiatric hospitals, usage of drugs, mentions of gang violence, mentions of pedophiles, mentions of suicide, mentions of addiction, mentions of alcohol, f!oc with absolutely zero self-preservation skill

—

TWO — beachy dreams

chapter summary: Maya finds herself at Chifuyu's place with his rowdy friends before hitting the club and she's drawn into flirtatious exchanges with a mysterious club owner. Tensions arise when a revelation links Maya's work to her social circle. Izana gives her an intriguing invitation.

cw: mentions of body image, clubbing, alcohol use, intoxication, mentions/implications of forced prostitution, mentions of gang violence, inaccurate depictions of psychiatric hospitals, f!oc with zero self-preservation skills

—

THREE — iv bags and daffodils

chapter summary: Maya faces a moral dilemma, trying to pick between her livelihood and ethics all while under the watchful eye of the hospital director and her patient, Kurokawa Izana.

cw: inaccurate depictions of psychiatric hospitals, mentions of alcohol, mentions of depression, drug use, allusions to sex, abuse of authority, power imbalance, unethical use of drugs, mentions of alcohol, mentions of rape, mentions of murder

—

FOUR — drunk walk home

chapter summary: Amidst the emotional turmoil of guilt due to her job and Izana's treatment, Maya is left to grapple with the harsh reality of unreciprocated love after spending the night at Kazutora and Chifuyu's place.

cw: alcohol use, intoxication, insensitive comments, (badly written)sexual content, (kinda consensual)drunk sex, penis-in-vagina sex, implied multiple rounds, loss of virginity

—

FIVE — little bunny

chapter summary: with the apparent lack of staff at the hospital, Maya has no choice but to clock in despite her begging for a day off and goes through an unforgettable night. good thing she's wearing running shoes.

cw: minor character death, suicide ideation, self-loathing, mentions of vomiting, corruption, exploitation, death threats, murder, torture, blood, gore, non-con drugging, unethical use of drugs, use of weapons, noncon/rape(not mc), noncon touching, mentions/implications of forced prostitution, inaccurate depictions of psychiatric hospitals, f!oc with zero self preservation skills

—

SIX — the beach house

chapter summary: willing or unwillingly, Maya takes up Izana's invitation and he shows her just what he was feeling the past two months he was admitted into sunshine grove.

cw: DARK CONTENT 18+, abduction, murder, chase scene, noncon drugging, blood and gore, vomiting, physical abuse, slapping, death threats, waterboarding, torture, drowning, near-death experience, dehumanization, objectification, noncon touching, enabler!shion, psycho!izana, PTSD(post traumatic stress disorder), panic attacks, making out

—

SEVEN — the sano family

chapter summary: Maya learns the shocking truth and the tragic life of the Sano Family, all while Chifuyu and Naoto search for answers.

cw: MANGA/ANIME SPOILERS, bribery, noncon drugging, mentions of different torture methods, past waterboarding, vomiting, murder, mommy issues, implied child abuse/neglect, cheating, dehumanization, dubcon, noncon, coercion, choking, thigh riding, humiliation, making out

—

EIGHT — open water

chapter summary: After a phone call with Chifuyu, Mikey and Maya begin to drift closer like two boats caught in a storm and Izana watches with great interest, getting ready to crash down on both of them when the time is right.

cw: dark content 18+, corruption, bribery, implied/referenced prostitution, wet dreams, masturbation(m), jerking off, narcissist!manjiro, mention of past waterboarding, torture, noncon drugging, dehumanization, (slight)humiliation, hand kink, finger sucking, murder, dom/sub undertones, making out, soft dom!manjiro, praise kink, fingering(f receiving), overstimulation, biting, hickeys, multiple orgasms, cunnilingus, slightly unrealistic sex, smut, p in v sex, vaginal penetration, dacryphilia, creampie, unprotected sex, aftercare, brief mention of Korean + Japanese history, gang activity, mention of suicide

—

NINE — spider

chapter summary: with a drug deal gone awry, and multiple drug rings raided, Izana decides that he and Mikey need to blow off steam.

cw: dark content 18+, unreliable narrator!maya, stockholm syndrome mentions of suicide, depiction of corpses, blood and gore, character death, funerals, murder, mentions of drugs, police raid, use of weapons, corruption, bribery, mentions of suicide, implied memory loss, implied dissociation, torture, forced drugging, withdrawal symptoms, addiction, vomiting, power imbalance, dehumanization, humiliation, drugged sex, MAJOR dubcon, noncon(tagging this just in case), no prep, unprotected sex, p in v sex, extortion, hickeys, bondage, ruined orgasm, voyeurism, drug use/misuse, fingering, threesome(kinda), making out, unsafe sex, temperature play, waxplay, dacryphilia, sadomasochism, creampie, aftercare, first-degree burns

—

TEN — i don’t smoke

chapter summary: Kakucho forces Maya to face the reality of her situation and Izana reveals some not so nice things to her

cw: DARK CONTENT 18+, unreliable narrator!Maya, vomiting, drug use/misuse, withdrawal symptoms, possibly inaccurate depiction of at-home withdrawal care/survival, first-degree burns, depictions of injuries and burns, blood and gore, hickeys, bite marks, kissing, thoughts of self-harm, emotional manipulation, slight infantilization, betrayal, dehumanization, depiction of corpses, mention of suicide, MAJOR noncon(not detailed), noncon to dubcon, allusions to sex, unprotected sex, forced orgasm, coercion, implied creampie, memory loss, dissociation, past torture, past waterboarding

—

ELEVEN — what was i made for?

chapter summary: Izana gets carried away and Kakucho and Maya do damage control, bringing them right back to the start.

cw: dark content 18+, character death, depiction of corpses, corruption, slight religious themes, suicide mention, suicide attempt, suicide ideation, self-loathing, slight hanagaki takemichi slander, scarring, bite marks, implied relapse, drug use/misuse, mentioned drug addiction, withdrawal symptoms for unnamed drug, possibly unrealistic/inaccurate withdrawal care, possessive!izana, betrayal, mentions of past torture methods(noncon drugging, waterboarding, noncon, noncon waxplay, first degree burns), emotional manipulation, mental health issues, MAJOR dubcon, unprotected sex, no prep, piv, making out, nipple play, hair pulling(m), multiple orgasms, tummy bulge, creampie, implied cockwarming, implied dissociation, aftercare, possessive!manjiro, noncon, mirror sex, coercion, forced orgasms, hair pulling(f)

—

TWELVE — his dead girl’s beach

chapter summary: Mikey thinks about the past while Maya tries to remember what she missed. Izana helps Kisaki choose an engagement ring.

cw: dark content 18+, self-loathing, mental health issues, mentions of scars, mentions of burns, drug addictions, drug use/misuse, withdrawal mentions, mental breakdowns, emotional manipulation, stockholm syndrome, past noncon, infantilization, possessiveness, emotional incest, mommy issues, dehumanization, oral sex(f receiving), cunnilingus, fingering, implied multiple orgasms, slight hair pulling(m receiving), praise kink, dacryphilia, dom/sub undertones, overstimulation, aftercare, slight ooc!Kisaki, draken & og toman slander, mental health issues, depression, vomiting, toxic and unhealthy relationships, implied emotional abuse, past character death, past picture taking, implied voyeurism, scars, memory loss, kissing, smut, handjob, piv, no prep, dissociation, creampie, use of guns, blood and gore, depiction of corpses, major character death

—

THIRTEEN — can’t catch me now

chapter summary: Mikey goes to the Philippines, leaving a trail of bodies behind him. Takemichi returns to the future. Maya keeps her promise to Izana.

cw: dark content 18+, manga and anime spoilers, multiple character deaths, murder, guns, use of weapons, stabbing, mentions of suicide, blood and gore, depiction of corpses, scars, torture, depiction of wounds, unhealthy attachments, toxic and unhealthy relationships, vomiting, suggestive themes, mental health issues, depression, dark impulses, emotional manipulation, blackmail, corruption, bribery, torture, allusions to sex, suggestive themes, dehumanization, toman + draken slander, slight grandpa sano slander, non-linear narrative in one part, slight emotion incest, funerals, grieving

—

BONUS — sugar bunny

chapter summary: how Maya's first day on the job would have gone if she had been nosy or, Izana and his sugar baby bunny

cw: dark content 18+, inaccurate depictions of psychiatric hospitals and medical treatment/conditions, canon typical violence, gang activity, dehumanization, drug addiction(c*caine), drug addiction recovery, drug withdrawals, withdrawal symptoms, abuse of power, murder, non-graphic torture, blood and gore, panic attack, blackmail, alcohol, slight sugar baby-sugar daddy dynamic, suggestive themes, possessiveness, gold digger!oc, guns, vomiting, threats, very fast-paced, making out, kissing, implied smut, suggestive themes, slight bondage, implied virginity loss, collaring(?), open ending, not edited

notes: cross-posted on my wattpad and archive of our own. I DO NOT condone any of these behaviours or any crimes committed in this fic. This is purely for my own entertainment. Please read all the warnings before each chapter.

All medical terminology is inaccurate and inconsistent as I know nothing about psychiatric hospitals. However, this is a fanfiction so I will write the way that fits the plot the best.

Takes place during the Manila Future Timeline with bad Toman. This fic is simply my take on what happened during that timeline and it will include many canon aspects from the Tokyo Revengers manga/anime.

I CAN NOT write [y/n] fics to save my life so the oc has a name. If you do not like that, then do not read, simple as that.

Enjoy! Asks, reblogs and comments are highly appreciated. It gives me the motivation to continue writing.

this work belongs to me. do not copy or steal my work and do not use my work in any AI or chatgpt program. I also do not want any republishing or binding of my work

banners all done by myself

all dividers by @benkeibear

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just-a-whorecrux · 2 years ago

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🌸 Veritaserum 🌸

Author: just_a_whorecrux

Fandom: Harry Potter

Rating: Explicit

Relationship: Draco Malfoy/Severus Snape

Length: 783

TW/CWs: Noncon, Underage Other Tags: HP Deflower December 2023, Underage Sex, Age Difference, Power Imbalance, Teacher-Student Relationship, Rape/Non-con Elements, Restraints, Loss of Virginity, Painful Sex, Anal Sex, no preparation, Blood As Lube, Somnophilia, Creampie, Size Difference, Veritaserum Potion (Harry Potter), Dacryphilia, Rough Sex, Anal Trauma, Virginity Kink, Minor Harry Potter/Severus Snape, Gaslighting

Summary: Severus should not be working with children; any sane individual can see that. He's cruel, impatient… and opportunistic. If given the chance, he will not let his talents go to waste.

Read on AO3 🔒

@knot-your-mothers-mods

#HP Deflower December #HP Deflower December 2023 #cw chan #dead dove do not eat #snaco #draco malfoy #severus snape #severus x draco

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sweet-sammy-kisses · 4 years ago

Text

Monsters of Past

For my @badthingshappenbingo prompt take me instead. Fandom: Batman Characters: Tim Drake, Jason Todd, Cassandra Cain, Dick Grayson, Damian Wayne, Bruce Wayne, Alfred Pennyworth, and OC Rating: M Warnings: Past rape/non-con, rape/non-con elements, Tim Drake has bad parents (they are the worst) Lots of protective Jason, Cass and Dick Summary: "That is what I was trying to protect you from Damian." Tim's voice was hollow. "You talk about your birthright as Bruce's blood son, that you want everything you deem yours handed to you on a silver platter without knowing that there is a price you are going to pay. Do you know how many there are who would love to have the Crown Prince of Gotham's blood son in their power? Forced to do whatever they want to seal the deal? They are the monster waiting in the shadows knowing their money and power will protect them. I was trying to protect you, Damian.

"To protect Damian Tim gives himself to a monster of his past. Word Count: 2,901 You can also read it on AO3

"Enough is enough. Today is the day that I take my birthright back from Drake." Damian had waited long enough for his father to dismiss the unwanted one, he had already been removed as Robin as one of them now it was time to remove him from his position as CEO - it was his birthright and that Drake was still in his place filled Damian with rage - and once and for all show Drake he wasn't wanted nor needed and it was time for him to move on, far away from them.

Damian had overheard a conversation between Drake and Tam before Drake discovered and destroyed the bugs Damian had planted in the CEO's office the last time he had been there reminding Drake that he was nothing but a temporary replacement until father took back what was his or passed it onto him as it is his birthright.

Tam had brought up the owner of a company that they needed to work with but the CEO was holding out until Tim agreed to a private meeting with him.

"We can't keep putting this meeting off. The board members are beginning to ask questions as to why you don't want to meet with Aiden Tyler."

"I know. His company is doing some good but Aiden Tyler is an ass."

"Tim!"

"I'm sorry but I have dealt with that man in the past and he is a real scumbag and if we didn't need his product I would tell him to go to hell. Call and see if you can make an appointment with him sometime next week."

Damian knew that was his chance to prove he was worthy to take over now, despite his age.

+******+

Aiden Tyler quickly agreed to meet with Damian and the youngest Wayne couldn't help but preen with pride.

"That will show Drake." He will secure the deal and prove once again how worthless Drake is then maybe they could finally be rid of him.

Dressed in his finest of suits Damian arrived at the five-star restaurant where he walked in and owned the place like the Prince he is. "I am meeting Aiden Tyler, take me to him." He demanded.

The host quickly did as ordered and Damian couldn't help but smirk the man knew not to mess with a Wayne.

Led to a booth in the back a handsome man with deep brown hair with streaks of silver the man was fit for nearing his fifties. Dark eyes met his and Damian refused to shiver as they roamed over him with something in them that made him uncomfortable.

"Mr. Tyler, I am Damian Wayne, I am thankful that you could work me into your schedule." Damian greeted him.

Aiden's lips curled up into a smile, "Please call me Aiden and when it comes to Wayne Enterprise I am always willing to make room. I'm sure that we can work out a partnership that is agreeable to both parties."

There was something about the way the man spoke that reminded Damian of a predator stalking its prey. 'Well, Mister Tyler you will learn that Damian Wayne-Al Ghul is no one's prey.' "I hope that as well."

"Well isn't this nice but if you want to do business with Wayne Enterprise you need to talk to me."

"What are you doing here Drake?" Damian hissed out, he couldn't believe that Drake had the nerve to show up here and ruin his chance to prove to his father he was ready.

Thankful for all the train Bruce had given them Tim was able to hide his feelings behind a cool mask as he was forced to face someone he hoped he would never see again unless it was behind jail bars. "I am doing my job, Damian. Now, why don't you run along and leave this to the grown-ups." Tim ordered not suggested.

Damian bristled much like Alfred the cat and he looked ready to spew his usual vile insults towards Tim but right now he didn't care, he needed Damian far away and somewhere safe.

"If you leave now I will not inform Bruce of you trying to endanger Wayne Enterprise's." Tim held up a hand as Damian went to speak, "As you would know because of your age any agreement you reached with Mister Tyler would not be binding. So in order for this partnership to be legal, it is me that must make the deals. Now head home Damian." Tim ordered.

A low growl escaped Damian he hated to admit that Drake had a point, after all, he was not of age to make any partnership legal which is why he had planned on creating the agreement than bringing his father in to show him he was capable. Now he couldn't for that surely end with his father agreeing with Drake. "This is far from over," Damian warned before storming out.

"Such a shame, I was looking forward to seeing what young Mister Wayne had to offer me." Aiden's voice was like nails on a chalk board and all Tim wanted to do was run far away but it was too late for if he did nothing the man would go after Damian again.

'You can do this Tim. You have faced the likes of the Joker and Ra. You can face him.' Tim repeated to himself as he forced the smile back on his face, "I'm sorry but you will have to settle with me."

Aiden's smile turned wicked, "We both know that I won't be settling for you, Tim. Come sit, let us catch up before we get down to business."

Having little choice Tim slipped into the booth.

Tim could feel the vile beginning to build up in the back of his throat as Aiden's hand slid up his thigh. He did his best not to shudder as unwanted memories flooded his mind.

Moving closer Aiden removed any space between the two of them, "I still hope that you cry as pretty as you use to do." Aiden whispered in Tim's ear. "I am going to have so much fun breaking you all over again. It was so sweet of you to offer to take your little brother's place."

Tim wondered if it was wrong that he wished for an Arkham outbreak at that very moment. "As long as you leave Damian alone you can have me instead."

"Agreed." Never had such a word sent pure terror flowing through Tim's body.

+******+

"Father! I demand that you talk to Drake!" Damian growled as he slammed the door to the manor open.

Bruce could feel a headache building, he wished that his two youngest sons could get along. "What now?"

"I had a meeting with Aiden Tyler, one that Drake has been putting off for a month, since he wasn't in a hurry to seal the deal I took it onto myself to see it through."

Cass appeared out of nowhere, her expression hard, "Did you leave Tim with him?" She shocked everyone with her growl.

Damian blinked at Cassandra, taken back by the rage burning in her eyes. "Yes."

Horror filled Cass' eyes before she was moving. Bouncing to his feet Dick followed after his sister, "Cass, what is going on?"

"Tyler hurt little brother in past and is hurting him now." Was all that Cass offered before she was gone, leaving their very confused family behind.

"Yeah, that doesn't sound too good, someone gets Babs on the line and have her find out everything she can about this Aiden Tyler," Jason suggested. Something was bugging him, he had heard that name before and the fact that it made him want to reach for his guns wasn't a good sign.

Worry shone in Dick's blue eyes, "Do you think Timmy might be in danger?" His and Tim's relationship hadn't been the same since he didn't believe Tim that Bruce was alive and caused him to lose his standing in the hero community, he kept meaning to fix it but he kept pushing it off and now his baby brother might be in trouble and he might turn away his offer of comfort.

"I do," Jason growled out.

+******+

At Alfred's suggestion, they had moved down to the cave to do a background check on Aiden Tyler and discovering that Tyler Holdings had a history of deals with Jack and Janet Drake made Jason even more on edge.

He stepped over the edge when Cass returned a protective and murderous aura pouring off of her and a long line of hickies on Tim's neck arrived. Cass was curled around Tim, looking like a mama bear ready to take down anyone who proved a threat to her cub, her sharp glare had everyone on edge.

A gasp of horror escaped Dick, "Timmy."

Jason knew what those marks meant, he had worn his own when he was living on the streets.

Bruce looked like he was going to be sick, his parents and then Alfred had shielded him from the lengths some would go to get more money.

Though Damian had been raised as an Al Ghul his mother had made sure he would never have to lower himself to serve others so he had no clue as to what powder keg he was about to set off. "What is the meaning of this Drake? You were supposed to be sealing a deal not lowering yourself to be a common whore." Damian snarled at Tim.

"Damian! Enough!"

Shock filled Damian's face as he found himself taking a step back at the anger in Dick's voice, his Batman had never spoken to him like that and he didn't know why Richard chose know to speak up. "Why are you defending him now Richard? I am only speaking the truth as I have before, Drake has proven himself to be nothing but a whore unfit to wear the Wayne name."

"I'm only the whore to spare you from becoming one." Tim's voice was soft but it echoed through the cave.

Damian could only blink at Drake before scoffing at him, "I would never lower myself as something so disgraceful. You make no sense."

The fire burned in Tim's dull eyes, "There was a reason that I kept putting off meeting with Tyler. I was waiting until I was sure that Bruce, Dick or Jason could be there with me. The bastard wouldn't try anything with one of them there. He just likes them young and pretty."

"What are you saying, Timmy?" Dick didn't know if he wanted to know the answer.

"You think that this is the first time that I had to give myself over for a business deal?" The laugh that escaped Tim was bitter. "I have been doing this for years. I was a prize that my parents dangled before anyone they could. Now that I am CEO of Wayne Enterprise I am an even bigger prize."

Jason's eyes were glowing green as he realized what his baby bird was saying.

Dick looked like he was going to murder someone.

Bruce looked horrified.

And Damian... Damian looked baffled.

"That is what I was trying to protect you from Damian." Tim's voice was hollow. "You talk about your birthright as Bruce's blood son, that you want everything you deem yours handed to you on a silver platter without knowing that there is a price you are going to pay. Do you know how many there are who would love to have the Crown Prince of Gotham's blood son in their power? Forced to do whatever they want to seal the deal? They are the monster waiting in the shadows knowing their money and power will protect them. I was trying to protect you, Damian."

To no one's surprise, Jason took a protective stance in front of Tim, there were few things he hated more than child rapist, the main one being the Joker, and to hear that his little brother had been forced to entertain monsters like that had him tasting the pit in the back of his mouth and he wanted nothing more than to hunt all those bastards down but that would come later right now all that matters is Tim. "Cass, take Tim upstairs and call those friends of his. He needs to be with people who will love and support him."

It was telling how awful that Tim was feeling as he didn't put up any protest as he allowed Cass to lead him out of the cave, he stopped only once to look at Damian, "You might not believe this but I do love you Damian and there was no way that I was going to let my little brother be forced to do something like that, not if I could protect him in ways that no one protected me."

Bruce collapsed into the chair as he buried his face in his hands. Dick would have offered him comfort but his legs gave out beneath him.

A dangerous growl escaped Jason as he flew a fist at the punching bag, he didn't care what Bruce said tonight he was going hunting.

"I didn't know." A shaken Damian whispered, he thought that Drake hated him just like he hates him but to know what Drake protected him from made his world spin. His mother had drilled into him that Timothy Drake was his enemy and the only way to take his place in his father's family was to get rid of him. "This makes no sense. Why would Drake do that for me?"

"Because you are his little brother and he was trying to keep you safe," Dick answered him with a sad smile on his face. Tim had protected Damian but they failed in keeping him safe. "There has to be a way to fix this." Dick just didn't know how to start.

A strong hand landed on his shoulder lifting his head Dick found himself staring into Bruce's grim face, "We messed up B."

"I know." Bruce felt guilt building up in him, he is Tim's father it is his duty to keep him safe. "All we can do is be there for him. Jason is right though Tim needs his friends here. We need to show him that we love him and are here for him."

No one noticed when Jason slipped away from them he had a monster to hunt.

+*****+

Kitchen

Jason stalked towards the door with purpose in his step.

"Master Jason."

Halting in mid-step Jason clenched his fists at his sides, "I cherish you Alfred but not even you can stop me from doing this." Jason warned.

"I don't intend to Master Jason," That had Jason whirling around to look at Alfred, the man looked calm but Jason could see the storm brewing in his eyes, "I would just like to inform you that Aiden Tyler will be attending a party tonight and from his habits, he will not arrive at home until around 2 am, which at such time the Sirens have promised to keep the rest of the Bats busy," Alfred informed Jason. No one hurt one of his grandchildren.

A wicked grin appeared on Jason's face, "This is why you are the best Alfred."

"Indeed. Now I need to prepare snacks for Master Tim's guests. Do be sure to return tonight and I shall have your favourite cookies waiting for you." Alfred gave Jason a soft smile.

"You rule Alfred." Jason would come back for Alfred and look after Tim.

+*****+

With Tim curled up in a puppy pile with Bart, Connor, Cassie and Cass watching Star Wars. The Sirens leading Batman, Nightwing and Robin on a chase throughout Gotham the Red Hood was free to deal with business.

Aiden was riding a high he had sealed a deal with Wayne Enterprise that was sure to make him an even wealthier man and his favourite toy returned to him. Nothing could bring him down.

That was until he felt the cold metal of the barrel of the gun pressed against his forehead. A red helmet followed and Aiden felt a sense of fear.

The Red Hood was in his home.

"Whoever sent you I am sure that I can pay you double what they offered you."

"I am a Crime Lord I don't need your money and no one sent me. See I have issues with people like you who target children and think because you have the money and power that you are above the law. But you aren't above me. I am here to ensure that no other child is gifted to you."

Aiden had been so focused on the gun at his head he never noticed the second one aimed at his groin until it was too late.

Beneath his helmet, Jason grinned as Aiden screamed in pain on the floor, blood pooling around him.

+*****+

"Is he dealt with?" Dick asked.

Jason grinned at his older brother, "He will never hurt baby bird again."

While Dick wished he had been the one to deal with that bastard he needed to keep Bruce busy, still that didn't mean he wouldn't ruin him in other ways. Someone had sent Clark a copy of everything Babs had dug up on Aiden. He would see that monster ruined, without money and his power stripped from him, until he was as helpless as he made Tim feel.

#badthingshappenbingo #sherri writes #my fics #tim drake #dark elements #cw: noncon/rape elements #batfamily #jason todd #dick grayson #bruce wayne #cassandra cain #damian wayne #dark fic #protective jason #protective dick #protective cass

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clairelsonao3 · 2 years ago

Text

📖 WIP (Re)Intro and Masterlist: Good Slaves Never Break the Rules

NOTE: As of December 2024, GSNBTR is hidden on Ao3 as I prepare to publish NEVER BROKEN, Book 1 of THE UNCHAINED. All previous bonus content will remain on Ao3 and Tumblr, however! Sign up for my newsletter at Everlyclaire.com for all future free content!

Genre(s): M/F Romance, Slavery Whump, Alt-History

Target WC: ~200K?

Rated: M for mature. NSFW. Only intended for those 18 and older.

Summary

Louisa Phillips, daughter of a once-rich family in an alternate version of our world where slavery is an institution, is scrambling to save her university scholarship before she’s thrown out on the street. The only one who can help her is the nameless golden-haired slave downstairs, who, despite his surprising knowledge of organic chemistry, is stuck scrubbing toilets and building fences for her father.

Amid intense study sessions and long nights full of secrets, his wounded amber eyes, rippling whip-scarred body, and infuriating boldness draw her in like a lightning rod. But she’s forbidden from even being touched by him — as if there's any way she can stop at a touch.

The boy may have been whipped and beaten a thousand times, but it didn't stop him from pulling the strings to get here, find his missing sister, and take his revenge on those who stole her away. And though the last thing he needs is an attachment, if he has to use his master’s spoiled daughter to get that revenge, fine.

Except — damn — Louisa’s far from spoiled. She has a heart, and she’s learning to be brave. But as the two of them continue to collide, the only question is when they'll ignite their world — and whether they can help each other pick up the pieces when they do.

General CWs (these are NOT exhaustive): Institutionalized slavery, physical abuse/whump (the majority guy whump -- unfortunately for him! -- and a comparatively small amount of lady whump, with both male and female whumpers), consensual smut including light dom/sub, sexual assault of a male by a female, dehumanization, forced to watch, attempted rape/noncon and references to rape/noncon; references to underage sex, child sex abuse, and underage sex trafficking/exploitation; references to past kidnapping and murder; addiction and mental health issues.)

NO ABUSE/NONCON IS BETWEEN THE MCs. This is not that type of story. In fact, I like to think of this as a slavefic that has much more in common with mainstream romance than it does with most slavefics you might have come across. (In other words, it's a slavefic for people who think they don't like slavefic.)

Other tropes and elements, major and minor: Mutual pining, strangers to lovers, forbidden/secret love, touch her and die, forced proximity, medium burn, sexual tension, flirtatious banter, physical and emotional hurt/comfort, angst, LGBTQ+ rep, found family, fluff, dark and light humor, light academia, scientific and literary themes and discussions, plot twists, mystery/thriller elements, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

The tags on Ao3 go into much further detail so please read them before diving in, as well as the notes before the story and any chapter-specific CWs, which should give you a very good idea of what to expect.

Vibes

Cages, whips, and shackles vs. fuzzy pink pillows, perfume, and jewelry boxes

"How dare you talk to me that way."

Oops, turns out Daddy's newest investment property is actually a person — a really attractive person

Stealing glances and forbidden touch

Light academia in the desert

Power dynamics shifted and played out in the bedroom

Discovering new aspects of sexuality

Cactuses, mountains, palo verde, hummingbirds

Rocket science and chemistry labs

Gambits and speed chess

Shelves full of hardcover classical literature

"I don't need your help."

Eyes opened to the cruelty of the world

Red brick campus buildings among palm trees

"I'm not going anywhere."

"I wish you could see yourself the way I see you."

Desert wildflowers pressed into chemistry textbooks

Short, sharp shocks of pain

"I know what you want."

Burned, bruised, and bloodied hands

"How can we ever have a future?"

Learning to trust, confessing traumatic memories and showing scars

"You plan, I execute."

Forced to choose between everything you ever wanted and the person you love

Series

This is the first in a planned romance series, tentatively titled NEVER BROKEN, set in the same universe and starring different but connected characters.

Masterlist

At least until it's complete, the main story will remain exclusively on Ao3, but starting in October 2023 (and coinciding with my first Whumptober), I started cross-posting some selected GSNBTR bonus content on Tumblr, featuring the two MCs seen through the POVs of secondary characters and new characters.

These stories can also stand alone as they require no knowledge of the main work.

Aveline

A slave girl wistfully recalls an afternoon she spent with her master's son.

From the Moment I Could Talk, I Was Ordered to Listen (Whumptober Day 26)

A renowned professor of chemical physics visits a discount slave auction, looking for something very specific. But what he finds there is not quite what he had in mind.

With a Guarantee of Company (Whumptober Day 30)

A slave girl is caught in a compromising position with her master's daughter's crush and is forced to pay the price for it.

Tag

GSNBTR for responses to tag games, answered asks, teasers, art, and other miscellaneous content related to the story and its characters. Someday I hope I'll get around to cataloguing it all here.

#gsnbtr #wip intro #slavery #slavefic #slavery whump #whump story #wip #romance #alternate history #alternate universe

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piceuscelus · 2 years ago

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once again i am like huh i should throw the things i put in the ciri server onto the blog

not a fic, just imaginings. cw noncon, humiliation, emhyr being a creep (no actual ciri/emhyr tho), ciri/others, some elements of free use, oral/facefucking

ciri becomes emhyr's empress, and both expects and demands to be his equal - to have a throne next to his where she rules, too

and he agrees, but with a catch, of course the only throne he'll allow her is one with two carved dildos in the seat, and if she wants to sit in it, she'll have to sit on them. any event, any court they hold - if she wants a space next to him, her cunt and ass will be so full it's distracting, or she doesn't get it at all

and of course, she's not allowed to have any privacy for this - can't just stop castle life for her to have her pride there are servants with oil and impatient fingers and sometimes knights with nasty grips on her shoulders to force her down onto them, if she's not going fast enough emhyr particularly loves making her lean forward or across to hand him things, so she's forced to raise up and off the toys a little and then sit back down one time, when she mouths off a little too much, he forcibly gags her with a cock shaped gag covers up that she has something in her mouth with a veil, makes some declaration about religious reasons, no one asks any questions just. emhyr humilating ciri by stuffing her holes full, and she can't even protest because he is giving her what she wanted as he does it - she has an equal power and say, just not when it comes to him eventually it evolves to not just a single throne seat in a great room, but any chair that she sits in next to him - even at foreign castles, he has replicas of the dildos brought so they can be stuffed into her before any event where she's sitting next to him all of his carraiges are modified to have a seat especially for her

even in private, there's a chair in his room that's specifically for her; if she wants to discuss something with him privately, she's made to sit in her chair, and he won't hear a word of it until her ass is flat on it and she's panting and a little hazy-eyed from being so full

the cock gag is an effective threat to keep her attitude in place, but one day when even the threat of that isn't enough, he tells her if she's not careful he'll tie her to one of the dildo chairs and let his generals fuck her throat until she reconsiders the sass

just the threat of that is enough to keep her behaved for a bit, but eventually it stops being enough and he has to follow through he does a lot of acting like it's such a chore and he hates to do it, but it doesn't take long before he's finding any and every excuse to make her do it again the first time it happens, he lets her keep at least some of her dignity - she's still dressed, skirts hiding what she's sitting on, and he only ties her arms behind her to the chair obviously he tells her if she intentionally hurts any of his men while they use her throat, he'll entirely forgo any of her dignity and have her flogged in the courtyard at midday, but after that first time, though, he starts making it worse, whenever he has the chance to do it - first taking her dress away but not her underthings, and then eventually she's naked, and then he starts tying her legs to the chair, and then he's putting nipple clamps and a collar on her ciri thinks that's the worst it could get - he'll humiliate her, and let her be degraded in front of and by his most trusted men, sure, but he wouldn't go further than that, if nothing else for image reasons and then she tries to tell him no outright - doesn't want to sit on her designated chair, tries to bite when she's punished by being throatfucked, and he just calmly has her put in stocks in the barracks

lets any of the soldiers have any of her holes - no protection to make sure she's not knocked up, either, that's part of it - and tells her if she tells him no again, that'll be her punishment, being raped for as long as he sees fit by soldiers who have been told to ignore that it's the empress

#celus speaks #celus writes #except for how i don't 🙃#dead dove #dead dove: do not eat #celus wrecking ciri #celus noncon cw #celus humilation cw #celus free use cw #celus sex toys cw

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author-confessions · 4 years ago

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Rules

No N/S/F/W about characters that are under 18.

If your confession contains elements of generally triggering things (rape, noncon, mindbreak, extreme gore/violence), please put a “CW/TW for [topic]” at the start of your ask. Not just the letters “CW/TW”, but at least say something like “cw gore”.

No positive portrayals of adults being in romantic/sexual relationships with characters under 18.

Please don't use the inbox to namedrop or call out authors or works that you don't like or are uncomfortable with; this blog isn't here to facilitate drama. If you want to complain, please do so without namedropping.

All confessions are put into the queue! So it might be awhile before anything you sent in posts!

Readers are free to contribute and send stuff in, too! The same rules still apply

Disclaimer: We do not condone the things people confess.

#rules

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readingreylo · 4 years ago

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OH MY GOD YOU GUYS Just On This Island UPDATED!!!

For context- it's been a year- !!!

So, I stumbled upon this little fic last spring when I dove headfirst into reylo fanfiction

And you guys IT. IS. SOMETHING. ELSE.

After reading it, I just couldnt stop thinking about it and everything else in my reading queue just felt... lacklustre.

It's got engaging prose, fascinating characterizations, a brilliant premise!

AND I AM SO FREAKING STOKED THAT IT UPDATED AND THE AUTHOR PLANS TO CONTINUE WITH IT!

So I couldnt help myself but make something for it

Image by @m1ssjess

#reylo #reylo fandom #reylo fic rec #reylo fanfic #reylo fic #reylo fanfiction #ben x rey

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basementcoffee · 19 days ago

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underdog / chapter 3 ghost x f!reader / cyberpunk au / masterlist

cw: extremely dubious consent, rape/noncon elements, power imbalance, violence and gore, minor character death, verbal abuse - full tags in masterlist

“Need you at your best tonight, Stella.”

“I’m always at my best.”

“I mean it.”

You’re at Solace tonight. A privacy pod at the back of the dining room—soundproof, one-way tinted glass.

As always, Ghost at the ready. Hands folded at his front, blocking the exit. He hasn’t looked your way much since your reconciliation with Win. It strangely irks you, but there are other things to worry about.

“You haven’t told me what this is about.” Whatever it is, it’s serious. He never takes you to meetings like this. “Bushido?”

The past few weeks have been nothing but grind. Preparing for the screen test day in and day out since it’s the one big job on the table. More courses, more practice runs with old scripts. Even started a beginner’s boxing class that’s been kicking your ass four times a week to make you seem more believable. You don’t know the role or your partner yet, but you’ll be ready. You have to be.

Win’s mouth twitches. “No. Not that.” He steals your hand from your lap to kiss your knuckles. “You’re gonna act, though. Be quiet. Look pretty. The guy we’re meeting is serious shit and dry as dust. He’s looking for a partner, and I want him throwing himself at both of us before dessert.”

Your eyebrows hit your hairline, but before you can voice your immediate displeasure, Ghost speaks.

“They’re ‘ere.”

A thin man cuts through the sea of tables, flanked by two figures. You take stock of the leader.

Silver hair, amber eyes. Chrome stretches from cheekbone to cheekbone, crossing the bridge of his nose. His clothes are all wrong for Solace. Plain, utilitarian, function over fashion.

An optical scan returns nothing useful. All three profiles flag the same: Restricted Data.

It’s the green piping on the collars that gives it away. Neon, a tiny detail, but unmistakable.

Barghest.

To make it worse, you recognize the muscle. Muttonchops. You served the bigger men weeks ago, before you quit.

You shoot Win a wide-eyed look, but he’s already rising to greet them. You snap into place at his hip.

The trio enters the pod, and Ghost moves smoothly back into position, squared to the room. His counterparts mirror him.

Their leader wastes no time and closes the distance towards Win’s extended hand.

“Mr. Goforth.”

“Mr. Szabó, a pleasure.”

“The pleasure’s mine,” the man returns, clasping hands in a firm shake. “And who might you be? The starlet I’ve heard so much about?”

“In the flesh,” you smile.

“Organic and ample,” Win adds, gesturing to the table. “Shall we get down to business?”

Szabó lingers on you a moment longer before nodding. “Let’s.”

You never place an order, but the food and more drinks arrive like clockwork. And despite Win’s warning, it’s far from dull. You pick at your plate, sip a delicate gin, and pretend not to listen as the real conversation unfolds.

You can’t help it. This is your first real peek behind the curtain, and what’s behind it is staggering.

The conversation’s coded, but not enough to bar understanding. Product logistics, they say—smuggling. Client bookings, a euphemism for leveraging their high-profile talent, the Goforth Agency’s top shelf, as mules to Dogtown. Sanctioned by Hansen himself as part of a longstanding arrangement, and how Win funds his excesses.

But tonight isn’t about the status quo. It’s about expanding it. Transforming it. They’re talking regime change.

Only, something’s off. They’re not aligned, tension barbing every word. Something went wrong somewhere and amends are piecemeal.

You gather that whatever Win was meant to accomplish in ‘Palm Springs’ backfired spectacularly. He played his hand too soon and inadvertently tipped off a man named Chester Bennett to the plot. Not only did he lose money, he gave Bennett a reason to start digging.

That name conjures something cold and queasy. You’ve heard it before—from the men Ghost turned into ground meat outside Prism.

You excuse yourself to the bathroom and barely make it. The world tilts, stomach churning as you press your forehead to the cool tile. You don’t lose your dinner,but the nausea swells and recedes in punishing waves. Whatever Win’s dragged you into, it’s not just dangerous. It’s suicidal.

When you return, a chill waits in your seat. Ghost stands rigid, fury etched into every line of his body as he glares at his boss.

Win makes a show of furrowing his brows and getting to his feet as you settle.

“Apologies, Szabó, I need to take a call. Shouldn’t be long. Come on, Ghost.”

Ghost doesn’t move. His gaze darts between you and the man across the table.

“Ghost,” Win hisses.

It takes a beat, but he finally pushes off the wall. As he exits, he casts one last glance over his shoulder—then the door shuts, and you vanish from his line of sight.

Szabó watches them go with a small smile. With a flick of his hand, the Barghest dogs file out to stand sentry.

You’re on your own.

Szabó says nothing at first. He reclines slightly, staring. Neither leering, nor with contempt. It’s clinical. Curious.

You shift, prickly under the sudden scrutiny. “You get out of Dogtown often, Mr. Szabó?”

He ignores the question completely, instead gently swirling his untouched cocktail, studying the way its indigo color clings to the rim.

“You’re very beautiful, but you’re not my type.”

You blink. “What?”

“I was wondering if you were Win’s backup plan,” he goes on, cutting clean through whatever excuse you were about to stammer. “Let me guess. He told you to, I don’t know, to flutter your eyelashes and push your tits out?”

Your blood rushes hot, and for a moment, you think you’re drunk—because shame hits in one hard wave.

“Oh! No, I mean—that’s not—I’m not—Win didn’t—”

Szabó sips, unbothered. Pity quirks his mouth. “That is what’s happening. You’ve been served up as dessert. Happens more often than you think.” He tilts his head, eyeing you like something pinned to a board. “According to my intel, he’s done this before. Dozens of times. Bright-eyed little starlets pushed into laps as party favors when he loses leverage. Sold off if and when they’re no longer useful.”

He produces a rumpled handkerchief, presenting it without slowing.

“The young Goforth is laughably and appallingly transparent. Seems the apple didn’t just fall far from the tree—it rolled off a cliff.”

Reluctantly, you take the cloth.

“Shame,” he murmurs. “Scorpions like him always find something soft to sting. You strike me as a decent girl.”

The words dislodge something in your chest. You swallow against the rising lump, but your throat’s too tight. What he’s pointing out—what he’s spelling out so plainly—you’d known it. In that deep, avoidant corner of your mind. The one walled off from everything you don’t dare admit.

You thought you were different. That if you played it right, you’d be safe. Out from under his wings and flying.

You cling to the lie. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m one of Win’s clients. I’m an actress.”

“And you’ve no doubt followed our conversation this evening, haven’t you?”

You don’t answer.

“Then you already know,” he says. “Win’s clients are never just pretty mouthpieces. Call yourself what you like. But you’re not a client. You’re an employee. Employees are tools—useful, but always, always replaceable.”

You go somewhere inside yourself to survive the rest of that sentence. Float a little. You see Win in your kitchen, wild-eyed and dangerous. At Embers, feeding you cake with stained fingers, toasting your future in place of an apology. You thought you understood the trade. One last shot at making it.

“Why are you telling me this? Why not ignore me?”

“There are very few ways in which Junior and I are alike,” he says coolly. “But our preferences in tools? That, I suppose, is where we overlap. You may be useful, yet.”

His gaze dials to the middle distance as he fires off a message. Outside the booth, Muttonchops taps a finger to his temple.

“We’re done here. I will inform Mr. Goforth of my decision. Let Ghost know he’s free to collect his girl.”

He rises and extends a hand, and you hesitantly take it.

“My apologies in advance, by the way. I’m about to make your…boss, let’s call him that, very angry. Still, nice meeting you.”

You don’t need to ask what he means.

The soundproof hush bursts like a bubble as the door slides open and noise from the restaurant floods in. The mohawked guard appears, holding the door while Szabó releases your hand. He strides out without looking back, and Muttonchops falls in behind him.

“Hope to see ye again soon,” the remaining Barghest soldier lilts. His gaze ticks toward the front of the restaurant—and his lips lift in a grin before he chuckles. “That’s my cue tae go.”

Ghost weaves back through the restaurant, servers skittering out of his path.

The Barghest guard’s laugh rings as he slips through the door, leaving you alone for a precious few more seconds as Ghost approaches.

You start to rise, seeing now what he intends, but he’s faster. The solid wall of him fills the entrance before you’ve even taken a full step. His hand finds your shoulder, pushing you back inside.

“Not yet.” He doesn’t stop moving.

He drives you backward until the edge of the table digs into your rear, pinning you there as he looms. His eyes blaze cold fire over his mask.

“Did Jago touch you?”

The question steals the air from your lungs. So he knew. Knew what Win left you here for.

Your lips part, choking out a frantic, “No. No, he didn’t.”

Ghost still leans back enough to look you over anyway, chin dipping to his chest. A finger traces the side slit in your skirt, then disappears beneath it. The others follow until his palm is flush with your outer thigh.

“Did you want him to?”

“What? No.” you hiss, adamant, more confused and flustered than ever.

There’s no urgency in his face. No impatient or cruel words. He’s closing in deliberately slowly, until he swallows the room, until there’s nothing but him crowding your vision. Until you can practically hear his systems humming.

You break first, turning your head away, tracking the cabling that snakes from his neck into the collar of his shirt. Anything to avoid those eyes.

“Isn’t Win waiting?”

“I’ll say you had to use the toilet,” Ghost murmurs, then, “You remember what to do if there’s trouble?”

His hand slides from your thigh down to your knee, where it stops. A chill bleeds through his glove as he rubs a slow circle into your skin. When you hesitate, his pressure deepens.

You look at him again, and this time he’s bent low, stooping until you’re face-to-face. An inch apart.

“Call you? Why? What—what do you know?”

His brow furrows. “Enough.”

“Why? What’s going on?”

His hand hooks around your knee like a brace, fingers slipping into the hinge. He must feel the shiver that rips through you.

“Don’t worry, baby.”

That word again. Baby. It rattles through your skull like a pinball.

He peels away as if the contact meant nothing, catching your arm at the elbow. He steers you toward the exit, reaching for the privacy booth’s door, but you grab his wrist.

“Ghost, wait, I’m scared—”

His eyes flash with something awful at that, like he might drag you back inside, but you don’t flinch. That’s what terrifies the most. You’re not reaching for comfort. You’re reaching for the one thing scarier than whatever’s waiting outside.

But the moment passes.

You stumble over the threshold, and he doesn’t stop. Drags you through Solace securely tethered in his grip, and outside into Win’s orbit just as the call cuts off.

He spins to face you—pale, eyes wide, a storm gathering behind them like a thunderhead ready to break.

You’re sealed in the backseat—doors locked, windows shut, privacy barrier engaged. Ghost and the driver are nothing but shadows beyond the darkened panel, a world away. It’s another soundproof and sightproof box you’ve been shoved into tonight to try and please another audience.

The car pulls away from the curb, and the simmering fury shaking Win’s shoulders at last turns on you.

“Start talking. What happened? What did you say to Szabó?”

“I barely said anything,” you blurt, pressing yourself into the door, hand gripping the handle you know won’t move. “I asked if he liked Night City, and then—”

“Then?” he snaps, eyes rolling as he fights with his lighter, trying to catch the flame to the end of a cigarette.

“He said he...he knew you left me with him so he could—so I could…”

“And? Did you nick him with your teeth or something?”

Ice floods your chest, seizing your heart so tightly you think it’s stopped completely. There’s a tired, put-upon irritation underscoring his anger, like this is a problem you created. Like you failed by not playing the part he sprung on you.

“He wasn’t interested.”

There’s nothing else to say—nothing smart or safe enough. You’re trapped in a moving car with a man who wanted to cash you in like a poker chip.

“Clearly,” he snorts derisively. “Fuck, Stella. Did you even try? I don’t think you did. No—you didn’t. Because if you had, he wouldn’t have pulled the plug on the whole fucking thing.”

You flinch. He barrels on.

“Now what am I supposed to do, huh? He’s got Hansen’s ear. Probably going to tank our agreement entirely. I was this close to locking it in. I was gonna give him Hansen’s head. Make him the leader of Dogtown and make out like a bandit doing it.”

He slouches forward, and the rest comes out miserable.

“Fuck. Dad’s gonna kill me.”

It catches you off guard. It’s so unexpected, so pathetically small. A man playing at kingpin, whimpering over daddy’s disappointment. A laugh escapes, little more than a breath at first, but it snowballs, spilling out in tittering waves. The would-be architect of some ill-conceived revolution, undone at the thought of his angry father. Sitting there, moaning about a coup that never even got off the ground. A boy crying over a toy out of reach.

“What the fuck is so funny?” he snarls.

You shake your head, nearing hysterics.

The cigarette slips—‘accidentally,’ he’ll say later—and lands on your bare knee. Your laughter shatters into a scream that punches through the cabin. The car jolts as the driver brakes.

Win pounds on the divider.

“Keep fucking driving!”

At the very least, you tend your tiny wound in familiar territory.

The burn gel cools the angry welt, but it’s not enough to distract from Win’s pacing. Back and forth, wearing a groove into the floor and your nerves.

You watch from the loft, listening to his desperate calls. He hasn’t acknowledged you since you returned, and it’s just as well. The thoughts swirling in your head are far from charitable, and one look might spill them all.

You know how this goes. Once his temper tantrums end, it falls to you to soothe him. Say whatever needs saying to keep things civil.

This is the last time. He might not be finished with you, but you are with him.

As for how to extricate yourself, that’s a puzzle that can’t be solved overnight. You haven’t seen the contracts since you signed, but you know what they likely say. Escape means making moves before Win even suspects you’re thinking of it. Maybe Irina knows someone who can get you to NU-SSR. A summer on Baikal doesn’t sound so bad now. A smuggler, new identification—you can afford it if you’re clever.

You wonder if the Bushido screen test was ever real. If the acting classes were just to prime you, make you palatable and pliable for whomever came up. The parties and friends you met—they were his real clients.

Funny. A few weeks ago, the idea of giving it all up was unthinkable. You were so certain you’d come out on top after making a deal with a devil. That you’d somehow become a star, untouchable and out of reach.

How many others has Win set up like you? The previous tenant. The one who ‘fell behind on rent.’ Is that what happened? Nausea rolls thick and hot, and you grip the railing to ground yourself.

Snapping fingers call you out of your head.

Win stands at the bottom of the stairs, expression hard and expectant. Right. Your cue. Time for an encore.

You descend, simpering, and weave into his space. “You know, I still think Seattle’s a good idea,” You slip your arms around his neck. “A little break could do us good. A reset. Forget Bushido, forget Szabó. Let’s get out of here. Just us.”

“No.” He shakes you off like lint. “We’re going to fix this. It’s not too late to throw in with Bennett. I’ll send over a peace-offering, nab a meeting. Do it over. This time, we close. This time, you do your job.”

You shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s another gut punch. There’s no bottom with him. Just layer after layer of rot.

“Is that a good idea? After Ghost, y’know…”

He doesn’t miss a beat. “Men like me and Szabó and Bennett—we understand it’s business. It’s never personal.”

Right. Those men were going to carve you up, but it was nothing personal.

“Trust me, Stella,” he goes on. “A couple crates of contraband and dinner with you? Bennett’ll forget the whole thing.”

You stare at him, hollowed out. “You’re serious? After everything—you’re still trying to sell me? To fucking Barghest?”

He bristles. “Sell? Don’t be crass. This is your second chance. Third, really.”

You shake your head. “I don’t get it. Why are you trying to play fixer? Arming a coup, really?”

“What do you think I do for a living?”

“A scout? An executive? I don’t know, your family runs a talent agency!”

Win waves that off. “And you know we do more than that.”

“Well, yes, but I thought—”

“You can’t be this naive.” His voice cuts clean across yours. “Stella, I’m not here to babysit starlets and aging rockstars. When my dad finally kicks the bucket, I’ll be running the whole show. I’m going to take us out of the dark ages. Entertainment’s chump change. You think I care about actresses who peak at twenty-eight? I’m done with that.”

A feverish flush rises high on his cheeks. “I want to be a kingmaker. Politicians, dictators—that’s where the real money is. Real power.”

There it is again, what you glimpsed in the car. He could get a whole new faceplate tomorrow and he’d always look like this to you. Unhinged.

You step back. “You’re insane.”

“Am I?” He follows, tilting his head like he’s genuinely considering it. “I think you’re failing to understand the big picture here. Dogtown wants change. I’m helping to make that happen. All you have to do is help close the deal. A few nights playing host. A little charm to keep the wheels greased once the new regime lands. In exchange? Money. Notoriety. Everything you wanted. Didn’t I tell you these things take sacrifice?”

You retreat toward the kitchen island. He shifts with you, veering off to flank instead of chase like he’s done this before. Maybe he has.

“What if I don’t want it anymore?” you try, desperate now. “Do you really not feel a thing for me?”

“I gave you everything. Everything.” He sweeps an arm at the apartment around you. “You’d still be kissing ass for tips if not for me. I pulled you out. I made you.”

“And now you want me to what? Kiss your ass?”

“I want you to stop fighting me!” he explodes, slamming his hand down on the stone so hard it rattles the drawers. “Stop questioning every goddamn move I make and listen when I talk. I brought you into this life. And if you keep acting like this? I’ll take you out of it just as fast.”

You don’t wait.

You spin and bolt—bare feet slipping on the floor, grabbing the counter to help launch yourself away. Behind you, a stool clatters to the floor as he gives chase. You sprint, dodging past the dining table and hook toward the stairs.

“Get back here!” he screams behind you. “You think this is over, Stella? You think I’ll just let you walk away?”

You scramble up the steps two at a time.

“You don’t get to quit when it gets tough. You don’t get to run!”

You won’t make it to the bathroom. No time. You dive for the bed, arm plunging beneath the pillow until your fingers close around cold steel and—

The pistol kicks in your hand.

Recoil jars your shoulder. A heavier impact slams the bed frame against the wall. A hand claws at your ankle. A wet, choking sound. Another heartbeat, and the grip vanishes.

Your ears ring in the silence that follows. Several seconds pass before you crawl across the mattress to peek.

Win lies crumpled, twitching like a bug. His chest heaves, a grotesque breath dragging in and out of his mouth. Blood pulses in a shallow geyser from a wound just left of center. His eyes are wide, glazed over. Prismatic shades of green kaleidoscope as his vision goes offline.

“Win?” you whisper.

His fingers scrabble at his chest, blindly fumbling.

A fresh bolt of fear poleaxes as you realize he’s searching for his biomonitor. It’s probably already triggered a Trauma Team response. When they arrive, it won’t take long to connect the dots.

There’s only one option drilled into your brain.

Ghost answers on the first ping.

“On my way up. Door better be open.”

You must look like hell. Bloody hands and knees, blood spattered across your face. Your dress soaked in gore.

Ghost takes it all in, giving you a once-over that lasts a little too long, then strides upstairs to confirm what he already knows. That Win’s last breath rattled out minutes ago.

When he returns, he chucks your chin, tilting your face into the light to admire the flecks of red. Everything’s muffled, far away, except for his voice.

“Look at you, little killer. You want to get out of ‘ere?”

Bone-chillingly reverent. Oddly tender. It’s still the kindest thing anyone’s said to you in days.

“Know where you can lie low. You’ll owe me, though.”

Tears break loose, hot and fast, carving tracts through the blood on your cheeks. You try to turn your face, but he beats you to it—watching with eerie intensity, pupils blown. His thumb catches a tear. Lifts it, considering it a second, then smears it across his gums and wipes it over tongue.

Your stomach drops. He’s excited. Giddy, even. Like this is a gift that has been a long time coming.

You don’t move. Can’t.

If there’s anyone who might survive this, it’s him.

What’s another bargain, when the flames are already licking at your heels?

“Okay.”

Even in your daze, you know something’s wrong when the lift carries you up instead of down. The button for the roof aglow, not the garage.

When the doors slide open, they yawn wide to the night, wind whipping into the car and biting your cheeks. An AV waits. Old, dented, and its paint faded to belong to Win. Instinct grinds your heels into the floor but Ghost is a relentless force.

The gullwing door opens, and before you can protest, his hand is at your back, shoving you inside. Piling in after, pushing you to the far wall. He lumbers to the controls and the hatch seals. That’s when you see it. Spray-painted across the inner panel in streaks of lime: a snarling dog, teeth bared. Barghest.

Fuck.

You throw yourself at the manual release, fingers scrabbling for the lever, but it’s too late—the AV’s moving. It lurches. Chugs. You’re climbing into the dark, sailing above a sea of screens and boards.

You grab for the nearest jumpseat as you lose your footing. “Ghost? What...You can’t…”

A click, then a flat and mechanical voice: Autopilot engaged. Flight plan confirmed.

Ghost heaves out from the pilot’s chair. The world lists sideways, not from the ascent, but the sight of his bare face again. His vest hangs from his vest.

He stuffs himself down the narrow aisle, reaching for you.

“Isn’t this what you wanted? Your face on every corner?” Ghost asks, cupping your jaw, forcing you to stare down at the city as the AV takes the long way to Dogtown.

Far below, commandeering screen after screen, News 54 takes over the City Center and the Glen. The footage rolls outward from the epicenter, an oil spill smothering everything with the breaking news: the chaos outside your apartment building, Goforth Sr. screaming into a camera. Then there’s your face. Half of every screen, name stamped underneath it.

Suspect at large.

The tears return anew, and he’s ready for them. His mouth brushes your cheek, tongue sweeping to intercept before they fall. A sound rumbles out of him, almost a purr, vibrating against your spine where his chest presses flush to your back.

“Gotta ‘and it to you, wasn’t sure you were gonna do it. Thought I’d ‘ave to save you again. But you did it all by yourself.”

You sniffle, unable to duck him when his mouth finds your neck.

“Shh, shh. It’s alright, princess. We’re goin’ ‘ome.”

#sy writing #ghost x reader #simon ghost riley x reader #posting and running to download the new 2077 patch. it's like a reward

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