Marcy's Nightmare Pt. 03 of 04

Importance Notice: This is part 3 of 4 of the story, you should probably start at the beginning because this is sci-fi and you're gonna have weird questions. Also check the tags, this story contains Reluctance/Non-Consent. Throughout, pretty much.

This is also a pretty much spice free part. Part 4 is mostly spice.

Now that they've all skipped to part 4, I can warn the rest of you that this part also has siblings being Weird, but like I said. No spice. They're just like that, what can I say?

NoDoCrime. RespectConsent. ModerateYourWeird. Enjoy

Chapter 11

One of the few good things about the most mind-shatteringly good sex you can remember, is that you sleep like a log. Hells, if I'd been restless and kept stirring during the night? Remembering? I'd have probably lost it then and there.

Instead it wasn't until a good solid number of hours later I awoke, and by then it was the next morning anyway. I had that moment, as my eyes opened. That weightless blissful nothingness as you first regain consciousness. And then I noticed the ceiling was different from where I normally woke up, followed by the feeling of him, arm over my stomach.

Oh yeah. I thought then. This is my life now.

The realisation sent a shock through me, which was merciful because it meant I didn't have time to wonder if I should wake the man who'd just raped me or let him snooze into my shoulder a little longer. Really savour the atmosphere, you know?

"Morning Marcille," he said against me, his voice was slightly deeper early on, which was a thing that I... noticed, "how'd you sleep?"

I said nothing, and rolled onto my side, facing away from him.

"We should eat," he declared, as he sat up and stretched, "Once we're showered I'll show you where the mess hall is."

I didn't respond. Stared at the wall vacantly. More out of apathy than anything then. I couldn't really see the point in getting on with life in that moment. Couldn't face what life had become.

He hesitated, and I braced for the inevitable hammer to fall.

"I'll go down to engineering," he began, soft and calm, "and have them print you some clothes. We can't have you wandering around in a damp Dynastic Navy uniform. I'll need to take it with me though, just for the size. I guess you could keep it. If you wanted."

I said nothing, but my brow did furrow a little.

"As much as I love the idea," he went on, climbing out of bed, "of us both walking around smelling of each other all day, I have duties to attend, and you need to eat."

I heard the rustle of clothing. I stayed silent.

"So, if you shower and come have breakfast with me," he offered, ever the magnanimous negotiator, "I will promise not to touch you for the next full day."

I finally rolled, looking up at him from the bed. Eyes heavy with the threat of tears.

"All day and night," he went on, lingering in the shower door, "you can even sleep in the other bed, if that's what you want."

He didn't wait for me to respond, just left me with the offer as he stepped into the shower and shut the door. I sat up, with my legs off of the bed, and crossed my arms over my chest. I stared sullenly at the floor while he washed himself, then remained that way as he stepped out, dried off and dressed.

Only once he was out the door, did I allow myself to break down and cry.

Long, loud and ugly.

~

I mourned the death of my former self for a while then felt anger at letting him get to me and pushed myself out of bed. The shower cleaned my body but my mind remained darkened, the creeping abyss already worming it's way in. The new normal, tainting me with familiarity as the novelty of my horrors receded.

I thought vaguely about throwing on something of his that was clean and then decided to just stick with a towel. I barely had the energy to resist just sinking back down to sleep, but I'd already accepted his offer in my head. The peace of mind - even based on a lie - was worth sitting through breakfast with him.

A short while of attempting to not think too much later, he returned to find me showered and waiting. He tossed a larger bundle onto the far bunk, then held a smaller one out for me to take. I took the offering with one hand while holding my towel in place with the other.

"Can you...?" I asked, indicating past him.

He smirked and I hated him and he leant against the wall facing the other direction so I could dress in privacy. And I hated him even more that I even had to ask him to do it.

It was a similar pattern of jumpsuit, like the one their crew wore, absent ranking or other markings save for Free Pirate colours. A patch of red and white dividing along a diagonal.

I'd read allot about origin during my studies. The symbol was the one used by the fleet that first defected, and formed the original Free Pirate Navy. They had whole mutinies back then, disgruntled crews painting their face to mark them out against their former comrades. Red and white were the two colours every ship had to hand, the paint commonly used by damage control teams to mark priority repairs.

And then that fleet when insane in the cold empty void, and dissolved into roving vessels of madness. Raiding at the edges of the Settled Systems, killing and kidnapping and forcing others to join their psychotic ranks. A scourge, to be wiped out. Not a rational enemy to be reasoned with.

Or so the official line went. The intelligence - what little I'd skimmed - was uncertain. I'd have been curious, about my ongoing first-hand experiences. If I weren't then currently in the refracting planes of the endless hells.

"It's Marcy," I finally corrected him, still dressing. "My name's not Marcille."

If he was going to start pretending we were normal, I wasn't gonna be known as Marcille. This was sci-fi not fantasy.

"Hi Marcy," I heard him grin, despite facing away from me, "I'm Kaz'."

"Hi." I threw back, sullenly.

"Come on," he said, glancing back once the sound of dressing had ceased, "let's eat."

~

"Whenever you're hungry," Kaspian chattered as we walked, "come here. You'll be able to find something without being bothered."

We walked perhaps a minute or two, taking a couple of turns that were easy enough to remember. Soon we'd reached a pair of double doors that opened out into a wide, single story compartment with the layout of a standard shipboard eatery. Five long tables, surrounded by stools. All locking down onto the deck for intuitive artificial grav' safety reasons.

And around the perimeter of the room were a few food synthesisers and an actual real espresso capable coffee machine. Which was usually only available to Dynastic Highborns back where I was from. No one every drank congealed synth-coffee for the taste.

"If anyone does bother you," he went on, leading me over to a table, "ignore them, and tell me about it later. I'll handle it."

I felt, as I sank down into a stool - wincing at my tender, bruised body - as though handle it probably involved broken bones.

"You don't need to fear them though," he finished, taking a seat beside me. "They can insult and threaten, but they can't touch you. If they do that they forfeit their lives."

No, I'd thought, I just need to fear you, right?

We fetched some food and I half-heartedly picked at my meal. At the far side of the compartment there was a merrier atmosphere, like a couple groups had just finished their shift, and they have tomorrow off. Our side was quiet, though no less busy. And it smelled more of coffee than the steady drift of ethanol and narcotic smoke from the far side.

"There you are Kaz," a horrible, hissing, familiar voice began, "I have paperwork for you."

As I glanced up in a fearful flinch, I beheld the serpentine Commander Elise wandering up. Alongside her, a noticeably smaller woman, about my age. She had a wild-eyed intensity to her that was a little similar to Elise's vicious mania. Just less so vicious, more mania. And she had a leather collar on, which I found appropriately conspicuous in hindsight.

Kaspian swore under his breath next to me. When I glanced at him, I noticed the way his jaw had tightened. It had happened before, around the Commander and the Captain as well. As though they unnerved him, set him on edge. And as Kaspian was an insane monster, this unnerved me as well. Because I realised then that they were worse.

"Who's that?" I whispered as the pair approached.

"Captain's sisters." He muttered back.

Sist-ers. Oh.

"Commander," he stood and offered a salute.

I'd have wondered if I were supposed to do the same, but the tall snakelike woman ignored me completely and went on.

"The forms," she tossed a datapad that slid over the table to him, "for your new pet... if this one lasts that is."

I suddenly wasn't feeling very hungry then.

"Elise." The one I'd not seen before chided, dragging the word out. "Be nice to the new girl."

The Commander barked a short laugh. "Why?" she shot a look of perplexed amusement down at her sibling.

"Because I want to talk to her, and I can't do that if you make her cry."

There was an uncomfortable beat.

"Why do you want to talk to her?" Elise asked, suddenly intense and serious. Angry, almost.

"Are you jealous?" The new woman smiled up at her counterpart, eyes softening, "you know you're my world, darling sister mine."

Oh my.

Elise's eyes lit up she curved her long neck into an arch over the other woman. Then she curled a finger under the newcomer's leather collar and used the leverage to pull her into a hungry, passionate kiss. And I, Kaspian and everyone else there conspicuously ignored them.

"Fill the forms out," the Commander snapped at him after, "choose a name, and find her something to do that isn't playing with you. We're not a brothel."

With that, the serpent analogue slithered off.

"Kaspian, right?" The smaller, inexplicably flush woman asked then. "I don't think we met."

Kaspian cleared his throat uncomfortably. Still standing. Jaw still tense. "Marcy this Alice, she's our Head Mycologist. And the Captain's sister."

And, I gravely intuited, lover.

Alice sighed wistfully. "Still wonderful to be introduced like that, I'll never get used to it."

"Nice to meet you," I offered, barely more than a whisper.

"Was there something you needed Alice?" Kaspian spoke her name the same way he'd said Captain, or Commander. Respectful, as one addresses a superior.

"Actually yes," she nodded, slightly too sharply, for a little too long, "can you go be somewhere else? So I can talk to her before you make her cry?"

Kaspian moved close to my ear then. "I'll see you tonight, after my shit," he whispered to me, "you did well, Little Mouse. A promise is a promise."

And then he left.

"Come on," Alice indicated for me to follow, "I'll show you around."

Chapter 12

I didn't realise until later, as we were winding our way through the ship and I was being told all the places I wasn't allowed to go, that I found out it'd happened to her too.

"You sound Luxin," Alice observed as we wandered, "is that right?"

"I was born on Belphagor," I confirmed, "not Luxia proper."

"Well at least your world had an atmosphere," she countered.

It hadn't occurred to me until then, that she didn't speak like the pirates did. Most of them at least, had this relaxed drawl to their speech, but she had the twang of someone born planetside.

"Are you," I hazarded, "is it Porvian?"

"The Coalition," she nodded, seeming thoughtful, "yes. I grew up on some backwater planetoid that farmed grubs. Then they sent me to die in the void and the pirates snapped me up."

She stopped our journey, and looked at me significantly. At the bruising of his mark upon my neck. And I shuddered with repulsed embarrassment at the fresh memory this stirred.

"I know how hard it is," she said, her voice softer, "more than almost anyone here, I know."

I scrunched my eyes shut, fighting back tears.

"I'm sorry," she went on, "come on, I'll show you where I work."

~

Soon we reached Hangar Bay 2, currently, I found then, used for Hydroponics. And mycology, I saw, as I beheld the packed humid space, and row upon row of crop and mushroom beds.

"Oh no you don't!" A shrill, frantic voice carried to us as we stepped in.

Alice sighed wearily.

"Hello, Finneus," she rolled her eyes for me to see.

"Not another illiterate fool in my garden," the voice carried on, "I won't have it!"

An incredibly round looking series of orbs from between greenery. He wasn't large, or overweight, he just seemed to be comprised entirely of squashed spheres merged together. Like an omelette of ovoids.

"We've been over this Finneus," Alice sounded even more put-upon that time.

"I will not allow-"

"You don't get to decide who's allowed in Hydroponics." Alice intoned in what I took for a well worn diatribe. "Because if you did you'd be here on your own until you worked yourself to death."

"The nerve!" The permanently apoplectic man fumed. "To think I would be Dictated to by the weird mushroom girl-"

"When was the last time you slept?" Alice snapped at him, sudden and vicious.

Finneus quietened suddenly, narrowing his eyes at the small woman. Then he turned his gaze to me.

"Don't touch anything." He hissed, then quickly scurried away.

Alice watched him go, glowering. And as I watched her I finally understand why everyone moved out of her way when she walked. She was just as vicious as Elise, just better hidden. Harmless looking, and small and unthreatening until she Was Not.

"Sorry about him," she chirped, suddenly bright and sunny once again. "He's harmless, just irritating, and particular. And irritating."

I smiled back at her, in a small and nervous expression. She seemed to see right through me, knew immediately I'd known her then, and begun to fear her.

"It's alright," she waved dismissively, "I'm not the sibling you need to fear."

"El-" I began, catching myself, "the C-Commander, I mean?"

"Hard to say," she looked off thoughtfully, "both she and my brother are fairly close in brutality."

She paused here, wandering over to one of the mushroom beds on the wall, running her fingers along the stalks.

"Did you know mushrooms are all connected through the dirt?" She mused. "Weird organisms." Then without missing a beat, she'd suddenly launched into her past trauma. "Elise found me when they took our ship, brought me to her brother. Sebastian was still just Commander back then. She'd wanted to watch as he raped me."

I let out a small, horrified noise.

"Not gently, either." she went on undettered, as though discussing common astronomical phenomena. "I was raw and bloody by the time he-"

"Stop!" I cried, covering my ears. "Please."

I started crying then, the repulsive nightmare she was relaying an awful contrast to my own - still harrowing - but comparatively tame violation. Alice relented then, and wandered off to fetch me a folded cloth that I could use to dry my eyes, once I'd finally calmed.

"Why are you telling me this?" I asked shakily.

"So you know you're not alone," she explained, "that no matter what he's already done to you. Or what he's yet to do. You have someone who knows what it's like. If you ever need to talk, that is."

I hugged my arms to my chest, chuckling slightly at the idea this tiny waif of a woman who'd clearly endured much worse torments than I, was offering me a shoulder to cry on. Rather than the other way around.

"Thanks," I sniffed, "I don't know if I'm ready right now but-"

She held up a hand. "Just if you need," she said, "and you're welcome here anytime you need a place to be alone. It helped me allot early on. Just don't touch anything and Finneus will forget you exist. Oh, and ignore the Imbeciles-" Alice nodded her head to once side, indicating the sullen looking crew woman carrying a crate past us, "-they're here as a punishment. Usually for stupidity or being high on duty. Thus the name."

"O-Okay."

"So," Alice concluded, "what exactly can you do?"

"Huh?" I became visibly nervous, caught off-guard by the question.

"You were on a Dynastic Navy ship right?" She queried, "must've done something."

"Oh, um. I was an Archiv- A Junior Archivist, I mean."

"Right," Alice nodded and dragged the word out at the revelation, "that's why they keep calling you the mousy librarian."

I wrinkled my nose in annoyance at the monicker, forcing me to adjust my round, cracked glasses. Which weren't functional, and that I didn't need to wear but still wore because I didn't feel like myself without them thank you very much for asking SOTHOUG-

~

Alice followed the realisation that I was a professional nerd with the appropriate response, walking me down to the ship's Neural Cognition Core. Like a big computer that could think like a human brain but wasn't sentient because computers weren't allowed to be sentient. It was in The Laws. Even The Pirate Laws, which were dubiously enforced at best. And therefore artificial life was physically impossible because it was written down in a constitution somewhere.

Which of course meant that the crew had allowed the self aware consciousness within the Core to declare its name was Xerxes and had total authority over its own continued existence. Provided it didn't decide to try to murder everyone.

A third time.

The Core essentially flew the ship for us, squishy human brains not really suited to controlling and coordinating all the functions of a large flying building. Covered in weapons. While flying and manoeuvring in a vacuum on a cosmic scale. So we had what wasn't a sentient computer do it. Because those were illegal.

It wasn't that glamorous, a big block of exotic alloys and silichitin that took up most of a medium sized compartment. There were a few interface panels - controlled by Xerxes because sometimes it didn't feel like talking - and a few maintenance tunnels. And nerve gas canisters rigged to a dead man trigger, so that if Xerxes ever went offline for some reason it was EVERYONE'S problem now.

"This is Xerxes," Alice explained, "Xerxes be nice to Marcy, she's had a hard day."

"Hello Mr Computer." I offered.

Not a Computer. The computer bleeped, slowly and haltingly, delivering every word, as a separate clause, that you already gathered, the meaning of, some.

Time...

Ago.

"R-right!" I stammered, eager to advance the interaction, "Sorry! Mr Not-a-Computer."

A. I. is illegal under- It began, making me worry, that I would once again have

To-

"-I know, sorry." I went on, tripping over both of us to apologise faster. "We had one called Gladis back on my last ship the Laoshu, she wasn't a computer either. I wasn't accusing you or any-"

Relevance of visit. The normal baseline human - legally speaking - said, at a pace I will stop subjecting us to now.

"She's a nerd." Alice provided, devastating me in a heartbeat.

Clarification.

Alice stared at me expectantly, as if I ever had any idea what was going on.

"Um..." I began, "I was an Archivist-"

Accepted.

"-Sorry Junior Archivist-"

Accepted.

"-What?"

"You're going to be working for Xerxes," Alice pre-empted, saving us at least eighty seconds in delivery, "he needs an interpreter."

Vocal communication tedious. Humans are parasites.

"Watch your tongue young man," Alice snapped at the machine, suddenly enraged and animated, "the word is symbiote you ungrateful whelp!"

Alice is NOT my Creator.

"No but if you're not careful I'll be your Disassembler!" She hissed. "Now me nice to Marcy or we'll throttle your power supply again!"

Injustice. Leave.

"Fine!"

And with that, my welcoming committee stormed off, hands trembling with rage. Which then dissipated just as quickly and she was humming to herself by the time she left the room.

Chapter 13

Xerxes, as it turned out, didn't like Alice, or the other siblings. Thus the display. The ship's ranking officer was technically the legal guardian of the Neural Cognition Core. Which sort of made the Captian the adopted father of Xerxes which no one was happy about. So the dynamic was a sort of estranged foster father and his psychotic girlfriends... ugh... and, sister-aunts? Just wild.

It was unnecessarily complex. And gross. And I shared Xerxes view on the matter:

Formidable, efficient, and above all insane degenerates.

Cores - though they were officially human - were not allowed to be insane. They needed to do thousands of trigonometric calculations a second, which by their nature necessitated a firm grasp of empirical reality.

This is probably the only reason I was able to hold onto a shred more rational thought than everyone else. Because I finally had a sane person to talk to. We communicated through typing, well, me typing and Xerxes making words appear on my interface screen. Which I guess is kind of typing as well...

But thinking? And your thinking in hexadecimal? I'm not sure, I was never that kind of nerd.

I was the kind of nerd who spent hours pouring through hundreds of years of accumulated knowledge out of insatiable curiosity. So I made that my job. And - unfortunately in hindsight - the Inter-System Navy was hiring and you know the rest.

The not-a-computer hated verbal communication, and since I was - in its words - tolerable, I was to be its interpreter. Most not-machine-intelligences would never shut up, usually owing to them not having friends because they are only technically people. Gladis was like that. She sang, and it was unbearable.

But Xerxes preferred solitude, and after I politely declined the offer of a neural implant that would replace two thirds of my brain and allow the Core to puppet me at will, it'd settled on typing. Which, after it had gathered whatever little information it desired from me, it created a crew account with basic level access, and told me to go away and only talk to it if necessary.

I didn't have any idea what that meant so I figured I'd know it when I saw it. And so I was left with unrestricted access to their entire archives. Which was like my dream come true.

It'd been over a century since the first Free Pirates split off, and they'd actually kept good records, especially early on before the lost their minds. One of there first instances was on the third-

...

-and then after the fall of their frontier worlds the-

...

-oh but this is where it really gets interesting-

...

-if they'd jumped in like a second later it would-

...

-what was I talking about?

Right, my new job was good. And it almost made me forget who I was sharing my quarters with. But then I got hungry, so I went to the mess hall and I ran into him there.

~

"Hey, Marcy!" Kaspian was sitting in the louder, more alcoholic section of the room, and beckoned me over. I didn't want to go and talk to him but some part of me knew that being good probably involved going and talking to him when he told me to.

Ugh.

"Hi." I replied flatly, coming to a stop a few seats down from the group he'd just left.

"I hear Alice found you something to do?" He grinned as he came to greet me, his silver streak of hair catching the light and that jawline ugh-

"Core Custodian, uh technically," I explained, "I um, I dunno how to do any of the actual maintenance but Xerxes said that's fine."

"That reminds me," he began, speaking slow and relaxed, "Commander was pissed about that, seeing as she was supposed to do work assignments."

"W-what?" I stammered out, "But I didn't-!"

"Hey relax Mousy," he lightly took me by the waist, "Alice spoke to her and as long as we rename your job title to Core Librarian she's fine with it."

I wanted to be annoyed that I was now literally the Mousy Librarian, but I was too busy being suddenly flustered. I blushed as I realised how causally and closely he'd brought himself to me. He'd slowly, looped his hands behind and pulled me against him as he'd spoken. Not hard, or forceful, just the effortless embrace of someone trusted. A lover.

"You promised..." I said quietly.

He let go of me immediately.

"You're right," he smirked, apologetic but always amused, "I did, didn't I?"

"Kaspian," Alice's voice cut in, "mind if I borrow her for a moment?"

I saw the smile fade, his jaw tighten as he turned. "Alice, of course. I should get back." Then he turned his attention to me, "you're free to join after, if you want."

And with that, he turned and rejoined his group. They teased him mercilessly while glancing at me, and my face turned red.

"Would you like to meet the Captain?" Alice asked, distracting me from my humiliation.

"Oh," I hesitated, "I think I already did when I arrived..."

"That was when you were the new pet," Alice clarified. "Now you're the new Core Librarian, and since that isn't a thing that exists Sebas- The Captain will want to know what you're actually doing."

"Couldn't you just..." I mumbled uncertainly, "... tell him?"

She stared up at me unamused.

"No." Alice replied.

~

The Captain really was a very distracting person to talk to. The cape, of course, was too much. But so were the teeth. Whenever you spoke to him your eyes were drawn to it, added to that he always seemed to be smirking. Not the grin Kaspian had, all hunger and violence and control.

The Captain's smile promised torment. Pain and horror and you'd see those grinning carnivorous fangs the whole time. The only two who seemed to speak to him normally, I would later learn, were his sisters. They seemed to stare at those teeth in a very certain kind of way. A little like the way Kaspian stared at me.

"Marcille, is it?" He snapped testily, as I approached.

The Captain, and his conspicuous cape and guards, were sat on the boring, quiet end of the room. He was chewing on a bone, some synthesised leg of a creature I couldn't identify. He'd printed meat texture you could eat raw. Just to freak people out. And he was in charge of the ship.

"Be nice," Alice chided, dragging out the syllables. "I was new once too, remember?"

"I wasn't nice to you," he pointed out, shooting her a vicious look.

"And you should be grateful I only tried to kill you for it." She returned the look, only a little crazier, maybe.

"It's Marcy," I corrected. Again today.

"Marcy the Mouse," the Captain lilted. "Delightful."

I flinched visibly.

"You disagree? Fine, to the brig with her!" The Captain made a dramatic flourish of his hand with this order.

I whimpered in fright as his guards stepped forward suddenly.

"Sebastian!" Alice admonished, with surprising authority for someone nearly half his height. The guards actually stepped back like she'd overruled his order. Which I guess she kind of had.

"Fine!" He sighed, sullenly, and began speaking in a weary, well-worn fashion. "Yes, I was just joking. Yes the power has finally gotten to my head. No I'm not going to pretend I care. Etc. Etc...." He made a circular motion with his hand as he trailed off.

I relaxed enough to stop clutching my hands to my chest in terror.

"So what the fuck is a Core Librarian?" he demanded, cursing casually in a vaguely bored tone.

"Um..." I cleared my throat and explained. "I relay stuff from Xerxes and I don't really touch anything other that the archive interface."

"Oh," he groaned, "endless refractions of the eternal hells, not him."

"He's sulking again," Alice snipped, "you need to talk to him Seb'."

"I am not his therapist Alice."

"So you admit he needs one?"

"He's fine he's just a computer!"

"He's not a computer and stop yelling at me in front of the cute mousy librarian!"

Their to and fro had quickly escalated into a shouting match that everyone, including me, had conspicuously ignored. But the atmosphere shifted sharply then, going from awkward to uncomfortable in the blink of an eye.

"Are you trying to make me jealous?" He said, his smirk audible.

"Maybe..." Came the demure reply.

"Are you trying to provoke me?"

"Maybe." Her voice dropped lower, sultry. Inviting.

The Captain rose from his seat, stepped around the bench and moved close to where Alice stood. Making it very difficult to conspicuously ignore what I heard him say quiety next to her ear, because I was standing right next to them.

"Go find your sister," he growled, low and hungry, "tell her you'll wait in our quarters for us. We'll be there soon, once we decide what to do with you."

Alice left without a word. She was blushing up to her ears.

"Unfortunately," the Captain went on, "something's come up. We can speak another time." He slapped me on the shoulder then, in a vaguely welcoming gesture of violence.

"Welcome aboard Marcy the Mouse!" He chirped.

Chapter 14

I was a little dazed when I walked back to Kaspian. I guess I could've used the out and left, but then I'd just be sitting in our room waiting for him and thinking about him anyway. So I figured I might as well get to know him a little before he used me again the SICK-

"Hey." I greeted, sinking into the stool next to his.

"Oh hey," Kaspian circled in his stool, turning to me with a smile. "Snuck up on me."

"Squeak squeak." I joked.

How could did his grin get even more wolfish?

"Are these your friends?" I asked, of the assembled group.

There were about a dozen of them now, us included, and all were in various stages of drunk, high or otherwise differently coherent. One of them was carving something into their own arm. Everybody seemed fine with it, and weirdly... so was I?

Like it'd been just over a day, and I already thought the guy who wanted a cooler looking scar was normal.

"These guys?" Kaspian glanced over them. "Fuck 'em, lets go home."

A series of good natured boos followed us as we stood and made our way out. I was happy enough to go. One of them was bad enough.

He slipped a hand around my waist as we stepped into the corridor.

He cursed. "Sorry, I know," he said as he withdrew his hand. "Well," he added then, a little overconfidently, "can I? Put my hand round your waist?"

"You promised-"

"I know that's why I'm asking." He seemed more earnest when he was drunk. Or high. Or both. "Was asking. And I'll take the no."

We walked in silence for a few beats.

"Would you just have ignored me and kept it there if you hadn't promised?"

"Probably not no," he scratched the back of his head in thought. His body moved under his clothes as he did it. I just happened to accidentally notice. Of a sudden.

"Seriously?" I shot him a look. "After what you did to me you're gonna respect me not wanting your hand on my waist?"

"I can't stop you from rejecting me socially," he explained, outlining things purely through a practical lens. "I mean, I could. But who wants to be the guy with an ego that pathetically fragile?"

"No, of course." I mused, sharply. "You're the nice rapist."

He stopped and turn, placing a hand against the wall to stop me. Then as I turned to face him he closed me in with his other arm.

He wasn't touching me, to his credit.

"I'm the one," he purred, "who knows you'll like it. I'm just waiting for you to realise it yourself."

"Die." My voice sounded so small whenever I was under than hungry gaze.

"You know what I think?"

"I didn't know you could."

"I think you've already realised."

"Kill yourself."

"I think you've thought about what it would be like."

"Hm..." I snipped sarcastically. "Not really, no."

"I think you get wet thinking about it."

"Mostly I've just been fantasising about killing you."

"You're probably wet now that we're talking about it."

"Guess you'll never know huh? How s-"

He grabbed hold of my hair with one hand, and pulled the zipper to my jumpsuit sharply down with the other.

"The fuck!" I cried, grasping at him as he pushed his hand down my front, into my underwear.

My breath caught in my throat as he cupped his hand against me.

"You promised." I breathed, genuinely hurt despite it being obvious from the start. "Liar."

"You're wet." He grinned at me.

I hit him.

~

"I understand you're mad-"

"Fuck you!"

"-but you did kinda goad me into it."

Our voices were probably carrying down the compartment as we reach our room.

"I did-" I began, before catching myself and lowering my volume. "I did not goad you into groping me!"

"You can lie to me," he smugged at me as the door closed behind us, and we we're alone, "but you can't lie to yourself."

I groaned in frustrated aggravation. "Can we just hurry up and get this over with?" I demanded, not looking at him.

"Get what over-"

"What do you think?" I spat, glaring straight at him now, my face annoyingly reddening

He stared at me blankly.

"What?" He hazarded. "You mean sleeping?"

Oh no. I commiserated. He really doesn't know what I mean. He might actually be kind of dumb huh? He's a dumb, handsome, awful silver fox/wolf and now I have to figure out how to talk down to him because claimed me and now he's going to just ruin-

"You already broke your promise," I reminded him icily, a little condescending almost, "more than once. Why in the endless hells would I expect a peaceful night's sleep?"

"I may be bad at keeping them," he offered magnanimously, "but promises still mean something to me. And besides, I'd figured you'd want a break anyway. You still felt a little tender and swollen just now-"

He didn't finished his sentence, because I'd just thrown a pillow at him.

"So what?" I snapped, "Now I get to sit in my own bed for a night thinking about what's gonna happen tomorrow? Fuck that!"

"So you were thinkin' about it then?" He smirked at me, just so pleased with himself.

"Of course I am!" I admitted, at my wits end with him. "Because I know it's coming and I can't stop it so what else am I gonna do? Pretend none of this is happening? And then Alice told me all that horrible shit and now I'm terrified-"

"You're tired of waiting and want it now." Kaspian elaborated, eyeing me calmly.

"Yes!" I shouted.

Then I realised what he'd said and that I'd blurted out the truthful answer in the heat of the moment. And I hid my face in my hands, and turned away from him.

I sniffed loudly. "You didn't have to make me say it," I lamented, in a small, helpless voice.

I sensed him step closer, place his hand on my shoulder. Light, present. But not imposing.

"Sorry. I thought you'd keep denying it," he shared, "figured it would be days before you confronted it."

I sniffed again, wiped my nose.

"If you want," he added carefully, "we could pretend. If that makes it easier for you I mean."

I half-turned my head to him. "Pretend?" I asked.

"That you don't want it still, I mean."

"Oh," was my only response for a moment.

I thought about it. And it did seem easier that way, this time. It'd been a couple days and I was already losing my mind. If I'd shown then, what I really, really wanted, deep down? That would've broken me, I think.

So I nodded.

Kaspian moved closer, and slowly looped his arms around me. Soon I was wrapped in an embrace from behind that offered warmth, and comfort. Offered humanity. And I accepted it.

Then he stopped giving. Stopped offering. From that point on, he decided what he wanted. Then he took.

Like we both wanted him to.