You ache. You ache in ways you didn't know it was possible to ache. You ache in ways you'd previously feared aching, hearing Feitan work on his victims time and time again.
He never let you into the basement where he kept them, so you never actually saw what he did to them, and you were grateful for that. But you could still hear their screams.
And sometimes, if you listened carefully enough, like a child pressing their ear to the door of their parent's room to catch forbidden grown-up secrets, you could hear the scraping of tools down there. High, silvery sounds punctuated by moans of pain that gave you goosebumps. Slicing. And pinching. And ripping.
You're the one doing the screaming now.
The silvery sounds are not faint and haunting, but right in front of you. You can't see them-a blindfold-but you hear them and you feel them. Oh, you feel them.
You felt the coldness of a knife as it cut into your cheek, slicing the soft flesh so deep you thought through your bright pain that he might have cut all the way through. But your desperate, probing tongue hit only solid flesh, and it was a terrible relief, despite the searing pain.
Your cheek aches, now. It was a deep cut. It's still seeping. You should get stitches. But he won't give them to you.
You felt the heat of the brand as he pressed it into your thigh. Not just once, but several times over. On the thick of it, close to your hips; on the inside, far too close to your sex; and most horribly, on the back, on sensitive skin that was unused to anything but the lightest of touches.
The branding was punishment for being a whore-that is what he told you after he heated the metal up on the coals, as he kept it hovering above your bare skin. You could feel the pain of the heat even before he pressed the metal brand down, and the pain was genuinely shocking. So was the smell of your own cooked flesh.
Your thigh aches, now. The burns hurt continually, like there's still residual heat searing onto your skin. Especially the burn on the back of your thigh, which chafes against the chair you're sitting on. You can't even lift it up for proper relief. You long for something cold to press on the burns-but you get no such mercy.
You felt the solid firmness of the pliers on your fingernail, hard and gripping and horrifying in their implication, before they twisted and ripped the nail right off. It was another shock. A horrible, burning pain to an area that felt ten times more sensitive than you ever imagined.
He did it to four of them. He waited a few minutes in between, so you could feel each one individually. He's not done, he said, the rest will come later. He doesn't want you to get used to the pain. He wants to space ever-y-thing out.
Your fingers ache. You want to wrap them in cloth, press down on them, soothe the pain and calm the throbbing. But your hands are cuffed tight against the arms of the chair and you can do nothing but flex your fingers uselessly. An errant draft blows against the raw skin and you whimper.
Your wounds ache. Your body aches, shoulders stiff, throat sore, muscles cramping.
And your mind is not spared. Your mind aches, too. For freedom. For mercy.
But most of all, you ache for Feitan. You ache for Feitan's voice and face and hands. You ache for Feitan to make all of this go away.
You ache for Feitan to rescue you.
You hope, no, more than that; you pray to a God who hasn't listened to you in ages, that Feitan will save you from the man who kidnapped you from Feitan's hideout. He brought you here as some twisted act of vengeance.. Maybe Feitan had killed this man's lover, or child, or parent. Probably in a gruesome way, if the people you heard down in the basement were any indication. He hasn't told you what Feitan did to him, and you don't know if he will.
But it doesn't matter. Any pity you had for this man disappeared the moment he cuffed you to the chair and told you with thick glee in his voice all the things he was going to do to you. You told him that Feitan had kidnapped you, that you weren't with Feitan willingly, but the man didn't listen and didn't care. No. He said he was going to hurt you, make you scream, make you beg for death just like Feitan did to so many others.
And you have screamed, and you have begged and yes, you hurt. You hurt so much that tears no longer come to your eyes. But you don't want to die. No. You want to live. And the only way you'll do that is if Feitan finds you.
So you cling to that thought: Feitan finding you. Feitan saving you. You keep your eyes open behind the blindfold, trying to catch what little you can see towards the bottom of the fabric, where it doesn't quite meet flush with your nose. You strain your ears and listen for something other than the sounds of the man who took you. His husky voice and the way he breathes through his nose sometimes, making a faint whistling sound.
You listen and hope for one thing and one thing only.
What little hope still flutters in your chest rests on Feitan rescuing you, and can you help it if that realization makes your stomach churn? Feitan kidnapped you. He took you away from your life, your family, your friends. He took away your future and replaced it with a grey, oppressive existence that left you constantly on edge.
No, you can't help the way your stomach rebels at the way you keep praying for Feitan to find you. If you hadn't already thrown up all the contents of your stomach down to bitter thick bile, maybe you would throw up again.
As it is, the bitter bile rests in your throat and on your tongue, along with the iron of your own blood from gnawing relentlessly on the inside of your cheek. The pain is nothing compared to the knife gash on your face, or the burns on your thighs, or the rawness of your fingernails.
The pain is nothing compared to the fear of your tormentor coming back after his rest to continue the job. It was going to get worse. So much worse. This was just a little warm up. His own words. A warm up to get himself used to hurting you.
You hear footsteps and it's like someone runs a cold knife up your spine. You straighten. He's back. He's back and this time he'll hurt you so much worse. Maybe after a while he'll start to panic, thinking Feitan might find him soon, and he'll start to hack away at your limbs with a saw or even the knife he used earlier. He could-
The steps are light. Too light. They're quicker, too, hurried. There's an almost anxious pace to them.
It's not the man. It's not the man, and if it's not the man, it can be only one person-
You hear the door open and you barely register the sound of the quick steps that pause right in front of you. Assessing. In the small gap near your nose, you can see familiar black pants.
In the silence, you find you can cry again. Hot tears sink into the blindfold.
"Feitan," you say, and even through your pain and swirling mind, you recognize that your voice sounds relieved. It's the first time you've said his name with anything resembling happiness.
The blindfold is lifted off and it's too bright, you shut your eyes, only letting them open bit by bit as you desperately try to get used to the light again.
Feitan is staring down at you. He's blurry, at first, but as the moments slide by he begins to come into clearer view. His eyes are not focused on yours; instead, they flit around your body, taking note. The cut on your cheek is first, then your shaking hands. You look down with him, and see the red, bloodied splotches where your nails should be. Your bottom lip curls in a sob that doesn't make it out of your mouth.
You hear the jingle of keys and watch, mind bleary, as he uncuffs you from the chair. Your hands, then your ankles. You don't move. You get the feeling he doesn't want you to move, and your mind rushes to obey. Your body doesn't quite get the memo-you're trembling now, the complete rush of anxiety and relief overwhelming your ability to control yourself. If he's annoyed by it, he says nothing.
His silence is surprising. If you could register anything more than pain and relief right now, you might wonder at it. No passive insults, no annoyed hums at your pathetic state. Nothing but silence and his eyes on you-and now his touch.
His hands come down, light, assessing just as much as his eyes. He turns your arms over, noticing the skin rubbed raw where you pulled on the cuffs in your desperate agony. There's a few finger-shaped bruises on your arm-the man must have gripped you hard. You didn't even feel them, not with your other wounds to worry about.
Then he pushes up your skirt and sees the burns. He pauses completely when he turns your leg a little and sees the weeping burn on your inner thigh, red and blistered and shiny. You look up at him because the sight of the burn makes you feel sick. And the sight of his face is confirmation that he's really here, and the man won't be back to hurt you. He's dead... well, maybe not. He's only dead if he's lucky, and not a lot of people are lucky around Feitan.
Feitan's eyes finally do meet yours.
"There's... there's another on the back." Your voice is hoarse from all the screaming.
You lift up your trembling leg as much as you can, and Feitan crouches down, fingers pressing into your thighs as he holds it above the chair. The sudden release of pressure and cold air on your burned flesh makes you hiss, and the sob does come out, this time.
He slowly lowers your shaking leg back down, and it hurts to rest it against the chair, but there's nothing to be done about that here, so you endure.
He's still crouched when he speaks. His voice only serves to ground you further, the fluttering anxiety about what the man was going to do to you later ebbing away bit by bit.
"You can walk on your own?"
You shake your head without even trying to see if you might be able to do so, as you might have done in normal circumstances. As though being held captive by Feitan in a dimly lit house before this second man kidnapped you was anything close to normal. But it's your normal, and you've learned to live with it the best you can.
And you know that Feitan hates it when you're so pathetically weak, hates it when you don't try to do things yourself. But all of your energy and bravado and self-preservation has been drained out of you now. This was not one of Feitan's creative punishments, horrible as they were; this was real torture by someone who wanted to cause you the utmost agony before killing you.
Feitan stands, and sighs. It's an annoyance to carry you. But he doesn't insult you for your weakness-for once. Instead, he wordlessly leans down and wraps his arms underneath your legs, avoiding the spot on the back of your thigh where you were burned. It hurts to be moved, and you can't help but cry out as he lifts you up. Your arms go around his neck without being told, and in that moment your head turns toward where the man had kept returning during your torture.
There's a table there, filled with tools-some already tinged with your dried blood-that were sure to hurt you in ways you had never dreamed of. Knives, needles, pliers, a wire gag-you run your tongue instinctively over your teeth. Next to it is a hammer, shiny and waiting.
There's a twisted comfort that comes when you bury your face into Feitan's shoulder to block out the sight.
You let him carry you until he sets you down into the passenger seat of a car you've never seen before.
He doesn't say anything, and you keep the silence between you as something to grip onto. Nothing can go wrong in silence.
The car ride is long. The man had knocked you out with some drug, so you didn't notice it the first time around. Your body aches, the pain in your face and thigh sharper now that you've been moved, now that there has been time for your mind to relax from its heightened state of anxiety.
Above the pain, though, is simply the repeating, tired thought: I want to go home. I want to go home.
And in that weary thought is something which sends a little electric spike of terror down your spine: you're not thinking of the apartment where you lived before you ever met Feitan. No. The home you're thinking of is the house where Feitan keeps you.
In the end, Feitan takes you (where else?) back to the house in the middle of nowhere. Home.
He carries you through the threshold and then sets you down. He watches as you stand, wobbling and unsure, but steady enough to avoid falling flat on your face.
You can walk now, after all. Your limbs are weak, and you hurt, but you take slow, halting steps as Feitan locks everything behind you.
The house is familiar by now. Not just the house itself but how you feel in it. You start to feel that familiar edge of anxiety creep its way back under your skin. Anxiety of the unknown. Before, it was always worries about making Feitan... happy wasn't the right word. Making Feitan not-pissed-off-with-you was a better fit.
But now you don't know what he'll do with you. Is he mad that you let yourself get kidnapped? Would he punish you for leaving the house, even if it was unwillingly? Will he get stricter with you now? And what about your wounds-will he take you to a doctor?
That particular thought seems silly and flimsy even as you think it. Feitan knows how to keep people alive. You're no exception.
This is proven quickly as he guides you into the bathroom and orders you to sit down on the closed toilet lid. You do, keeping yourself on the edge so that the cool porcelain doesn't rub up against your burn. You close your eyes and listen while he gathers supplies from underneath the sink. Bottles of various liquids and bandages and, you open your eyes to confirm it, a needle and surgical thread.
Your breaths are shaky. You know it will hurt. But Feitan has patched you up before, though it's never been anything as bad as this. Cuts and scrapes, a dislocated shoulder, but never quite like this. He's always been efficient and quick about it; the fixing-up is never part of the punishment, after all.
He's methodical and quiet. He doesn't speak except to give you orders in a tone that betrays nothing about what he's feeling. Anger that you were taken from him? Annoyance that he's having to waste his time doing this? Or maybe... and the thought is twisted, you know... but maybe happiness, at you being safe and alive?
You've always wondered how Feitan really feels about you. He kidnapped you, he won't let you leave, he makes you be in his presence... but he's never touched you, except to punish you or give you the occasional smack on the head for saying something dumb. Once you thought he might kiss you, but he just pursed his lips tighter and told you to stop looking at him. He's certainly never said that he loves you. So then why did he keep you at all?
Your mind is too occupied to ponder these things too deeply. The stinging pain of antiseptics and ointments, the bizarre feeling of your skin being tugged back together, reopening a flood of pain in your cheek, overtake your thoughts. You let yourself be carried away in them.
When it's done, he sits you down on the kitchen table. You scoot forward again without being told, keeping your now-bandaged thigh wounds free from pressure as much as you can. He gives you a glass of water and a plate. There's plain toast and a few strawberries, still wet from being run under the sink.
You start to protest-your stomach is beyond empty-but he shakes his head.
"Eating too much... you'll throw up." There's a tinge of annoyance in his voice. You can't quite blame him. You know the drill when it comes to this-it's not the first time you've been deprived of food for a while. Just the first time that someone other than Feitan has done it.
So, you don't argue. You drink your water and nibble your food and while you're not even close to feeling full, the edge is taken off, and the taste of bile is gone, replaced with the mild aftertaste of strawberries.
Then, he leads you back to where it all began: into the little bedroom where you slept.
When he first tossed you in here-however long ago it was now-it was nothing but a bare room with a bucket and a blanket on the floor. But it's nothing so bad now. You've earned privileges over time. Or he's eased up on you. Or some indeterminable mixture of both.
There's a twin bed and a little shelf for your books and a rug so your feet don't freeze at night. You have a warm blanket and a pillow. A dresser for your clothes. You're allowed to roam the rest of the house (except of course, the basement) as you please now, so there's no need for the awful bucket anymore.
Feitan turns on the light-it's night time now, bedtime, actually-and that sense of relief claws itself back up again as you take halting steps back into your room. It's familiar. It's yours. You sit down on the edge of your bed and fix your pillow. You don't even bother with pajamas (all white night gowns, Feitan's choice) as you pull the blanket around you, curling up on your side, feeling sleepy already.
If Feitan cares that you're deviating from the bedtime routine, he says nothing. It's been a long day, after all.
He only watches you, hands in his pockets, eyes curious and assessing. You wonder how long he'll keep that expression, which seemed to begin as soon as he saved you from the man.
You don't want to go to sleep. Not just yet. You look around the room that's become your bedroom and take it all in.
The little night light plugged into the wall-he teased you horribly about it, but the comforting light in the dark was worth the humiliation. The books in alphabetical order on your short bookshelf. The warm rug, placed closer to your bed, so you won't have freezing feet if you have to get up and go pee in the middle of the night.
Seeing all of your things in their place means something. It means that you're here, not with that man. You're in your bed, not cuffed to a chair. Feitan is right there, and not gone from view while a man you never saw from beneath your blindfold hurt you with sharp, horrible things.
And then Feitan turns, flicking off the light, preparing to walk through your open doorway.
You don't plan it. It seems to come out of something deep inside.
"Feitan," you whimper out his name. A soft, pleading sound that you've never made before.
He turns, but you can't quite see his expression with only your night light on.
"What?" He's not annoyed, no, you don't think so. He sounds curious.
You sit up in bed and your hands fidget, playing with the edges of your blanket. You know what you want. You know what you want him to do. The thought of asking it of him makes you feel a little dizzy. Or maybe that's the lack of food and the result of being tortured over the past 24 hours. Doesn't matter, because the effect is the same.
You're scared he'll say no. But you have to ask it, or the answer will be no by default.
Your words come out soft, the lingering hoarseness in your voice giving way to a pathetic, childlike tone; a tone that begs for parents to read them one more story to keep them longer, out of that dreadful fear of what might come in the dark.
"Could... could you stay here?" Your heart hammers in your chest. He'll say no. He'll say no. "Just until I fall asleep?"
For a few moments, you hear only the low buzz of the house. The thrum of the fridge, a creaking pipe, some insects chirping in the unkempt grass outside.
And then Feitan scoffs, a low sound in his throat that hits you as well as any verbal jab. Your chest feels like it freezes as your hands clench the blanket tightly, preparing to deal with the onslaught of fears that come flooding in.
Of course he won't stay, what are you, a child? But-what if the man comes back, what if he's not dead, what if he has friends and there's more of them this time and they get you and keep you and hurt you SO BAD-
But then Feitan is approaching your bed, and all thoughts cease like the a plug being pulled on an electrical cord. You watch as his shadowy figure, lit almost eerily by the softness of your night light, sits down on the rug by your bed. He's here. He's going to stay until you're asleep, safe in your dreams.
Your mouth closes and opens. Should you thank him? Or would acknowledging it make it worse? It's a coin toss that you're too confused to make. The words, whatever you might want to say here, don't come.
"Well?" He says, head turned towards you. "Sleep." It's a command, given softly but with no room for disobedience in it. You're well attuned to these commands of his by now, and your body reacts accordingly. You slide back down on your pillow and curl up, keeping your eyes on Feitan, making sure he's still there.
As your body begins to feel heavy and your mind slips into the confusing thoughts of sleepiness, you reach your arm out in a gesture that comes from the fear of an unknown man barging into your cozy, curated bedroom. Your bandaged fingers grip the edge of his sleeve tightly, clenching, grounding you to his presence. There's the almost undetectable sound of an intake of breath. But he does nothing more than that.
Feitan doesn't move at all as you fall asleep, fingers still gripping the fabric of his shirt like a security blanket.
Soon enough, the heavy greyness of sleep overtakes you.
You wake up to the sound of horrible screaming. A jagged, raw, naked sound that pierces right down to your bones.
For a brief moment, you think it's your own scream. You think you've bolted upright in bed, screaming out nightmares that you can't recall. Your heartbeat thuds in your chest as you realize that you didn't make a sound, save for a gasp as you were torn out of sleep too quickly.
Feitan is gone. Your bedroom door is open a crack, letting in a sliver of light from the lamp that he sometimes keeps on in the living room. Maybe he left it open in case you got scared, you think, and then you get the urge to pinch yourself for the strange hypothetical altruism you're applying to him. But why not? He did stay with you until you slept, after all, even though he had no reason to do so. So why not leave you a little more light, when he knows you're on edge.
Your thoughts are interrupted by another sound. It's low and rumbling. Like a drill. There's another ragged scream, and the sound is muffled, but you know exactly where all these sounds are coming from without even peeking out the door: the basement.
You shouldn't get out of bed. Really, you shouldn't. You should shut your bedroom door and curl up under your blanket and press your pillow around your ears, quietly pitying whoever it is Feitan has down in his torture chamber, until you drift off again.
But you don't.
Because whoever it is is almost certainly not some stranger. Because whoever it is might be the man. You have to make sure, don't you? You have to make sure it's the man, because otherwise you'll always be afraid that he'll come barging in again, tearing you from your dreams. You'll always be afraid that he'll find you and hurt you again.
Assurances have to be made.
You swing your legs over the side of the bed and place them on the warm rug. There's a horrible muffled wailing noise.
You stand up and walk to your door, holding onto the cool silver handle for a moment before you pull it open. The screams are a little louder now.
You walk towards the foreboding basement door. You're not allowed to go into the basement. You're not even supposed to touch the door.
But your hand grips the knob and you swallow down the fear of what Feitan might do, because there's a sick curiosity growing in your gut. It's not just the need to make sure it's the man who took you, but... the desire to see him down there, under Feitan's cruel touch.
It's desire that compels you to open the basement door.
You make it down a few steps, the sound of wailing and the clinking of silver tools now penetrating and unburdened by walls and doors, before you hear the firm clang of something heavy dropping on a table.
There's nothing now but moaning, ragged breathing.
And then, footsteps. Light ones that you know and recognize so well.
In a few moments, Feitan stands at the bottom of the stairs, watching as you force yourself to take a step down, then another, then another. His expression is shadowy, lit by the light from upstairs and the hanging lamps towards the center of the basement. But he doesn't tell you to stop. He doesn't seem angry, either.
Instead, he looks pensive. Worried. But about what?
You're very familiar with wariness by now, but it's usually your own. Wondering if something he's doing is a trick or trying to decide if doing a certain thing is what he really wants. But on Feitan, the expression is entirely new. He looks concerned in an intimate, exposed way. He looks like you've stumbled onto something you shouldn't have. It reminds you of a teenager wanting to hide their latest passion project from a disapproving parent, worried that they'll shoot it down in the cutting way only parents can do.
He waits until you're at the bottom step to speak. His face becomes clearer the farther down you go, and you can see tension in his body language, like a spring waiting to snap.
"What?" It's all he asks, and in his tone you sense that wariness crystal clear. It seems to ask-are you going to tell him he's disgusting? Are you going to tell him to stop torturing the man?
You peer around him and look at the man on the table. He's strapped down, arms above his head, legs splayed out and cuffed to the sides. He's bruised and bleeding, of course, but-there. There. There's a jagged cut on his cheek and your hand instinctively rushes up to touch the bandage covering your own. Feitan did that... because of how he hurt you?Why does that make you feel so good?
"Is that..." You swallow. "Is that the man who kidnapped me?" You know it is, of course it is. But you need to hear it from Feitan's mouth most of all.
"Yes."
Feitan glances back at the man, and then at you.
A silence stretches between you. Your hand grips the bannister so hard that your fingers begin to ache again. Curiosity. Desire. All of these feelings swirl in your stomach and force the words out before you even know you wanted to say them.
"Can I watch?"
Feitan's eyes widen, just a little, his eyebrows raising as they do. You've never seen him look surprised before. It looks nicer on him than it should.
He doesn't say anything, but you see the tension melt from his shoulders as he retreats to a far corner of the room, pulling out a folding chair. He sets it down close to the table and gestures to it.
You've never watched Feitan work before. You've never wanted to; why would you, when the people down here were, for all you knew, as innocent as yourself?
But this is not an innocent stranger, it's someone who hurt you and hurt you and it's that knowledge that pushes you down from that last step, guiding you over to the chair, though you don't sit down yet. Instead, you have your first look at Feitan's handwork, lit by the bright overhead lamps that hang above the table.
It's like a scene from a movie at first. Something slick and unreal. And then inch by inch, reality sets in. This is a real man and real gore, not a movie scene. The blood doesn't spatter in a carefully planned aesthetic way and the scene doesn't cut to black at just the right time, shielding your eyes from the most visceral of moments.
It's all here to take it at once, an overwhelming tableau of work-in-progress violence.
The man is half-naked, his chest bared and heaving. There's a puncture wound on his side that seeps thick blood, slow and oozing. He moves his head from side to side, wordlessly groaning in pain. Up close, you can see that Feitan has actually cut all the way through the man's cheek. There's a little hole that opens up just enough when he turns the right away. His face is bruised-one of his eyes is rimmed in dark purple mottling. It's terrible, yes, but you can tell Feitan has just barely started.
And then the man notices the addition of a second person in the room, and he meets your gaze. His bleary eyes go wide in recognition and fright. He mumbles something, shaking his head-no, no, no. Blood dribbles from his mouth as he talks. There's that familiar whistling noise as he breathes through his nose.
It's that noise that finally brings tears to your eyes. The memory of that noise he made, breathing, while you sat crying and begging in that chair. You couldn't even see him. All you could do was hear him shuffling, hear him picking up tools and considering them. Hear him breathe through his nose, a soft, high sound.
Tears spill down your cheeks and you wipe at them, childishly. You don't want this man to see you cry ever again.
Taking a deep breath, you lower yourself down to perch on the edge of the chair. Feitan walks back to the other side of the table, where he keeps his array of tools. But instead of thumbing through them, he looks at you. And you look back.
With the crying, bleeding man between you, you and Feitan stare at each other with something you've seen several times over tonight. Curiosity.
And then you break the spell. You look back at the man, who seems to recognize something going on between you before he begins incoherent pleading. You recognize the sound as your own from hours before.
You stare down at this man, this wounded, helpless man. This man who pressed a brand into your skin and seemed to relish your screams. This man who said the pain was just beginning, that he was going to do to you what Feitan did to so many others-and worse, besides. This man who told you he was going to cut out one of your eyeballs and shove it in your mouth before he was done. This bleeding, crying man.
Then you turn your eyes toward Feitan, who is watching you mutely.
And you smile.
"Don't forget his fingernails."
It's hours and hours, and the man is still not dead. His skin is slick with his own blood. A few of his fingernails are missing-not all, and Feitan murmured that the man did get something right, that you never take them all out in quick succession. Feitan also burned the raw skin of the fingernails afterward. You shivered as you watched. It was not a terrified shiver, but something akin to pleasure. It felt good to see him get what he deserved. It felt better that Feitan was doing it because of you.
It went on and on. The human body is a marvel-it is amazing, the things one can experience and not die. You watched as Feitan work and something else was at work, too; something seemed to knit itself together as the two of you watched over this man's suffering. A web that weaved in and out of his screams, tightening around both of you, pulling you closer. Was it only in your imagination?
You only know when that so much time has passed because Feitan glances at the clock on the wall and clicks his tongue in annoyance.
"3 AM," he says, though his words are heard through the gagging, choked moans of the man before you. Feitan got tired of his pleading and cut out his tongue. Every once in a while, he grasps a lever on the bottom of the table and flips it, bringing the head of the table up; this is so the man doesn't choke to death on his own blood before Feitan decides it is suitable for him to die.
He won't die tonight. Feitan hasn't said as much, but he doesn't have to; it's clear that he intends to enact a slow revenge, a slow death.
And it's... it doesn't feel good. You won't lie to yourself and claim that it feels nice. But you can't forget that initial shocked feeling of seeing the wound on the man's cheek, the way Feitan gave your torturer a taste of his own medicine. The way it made you feel-God help you-flattered in some dark way. Flattered and avenged, and that feeling only grew as you watched Feitan work, your knuckles curling tight on the edge of the chair.
It was a way for Feitan to show that he cared about you, and until tonight, until he silently sat next to your bed, until he cut this man's cheek, you weren't entirely sure that was something he could feel.
And wasn't that just fucked up beyond all belief?
Of course. But you've been sitting in a basement watching a man be methodically tortured for hours. It's not the most fucked up thing in the world, is it, that you can take something positive out of the trauma you've just been through? It's not fair that you're never allowed to feel good, to feel wanted. So you are taking what you can get, even if other people might raise an eyebrow (or two) at the notion.
Feitan pulls the head of the table up so the man won't choke to death in the night. If he's lucky (but he isn't, is he?) he might get a few hours of blackout sleep to reprieve him from his pain.
He beckons and you stand, legs wobbly. He watches for a moment, perhaps wondering if you can make it up the stairs on your own, but you feel the sudden urge to show him that you have the strength and energy. There's a renewed humming underneath your skin. It's a strange, nervous feeling that congeals in your stomach, but it keeps you going. Like a jolt of caffeine.
Away from the table, it's easier to see Feitan as his own entity, rather than the figure exacting revenge on the man that hurt you. His clothes have splotches of blood and bits of skin-the drill made quite the mess. There's a red smear on his forehead, from when he pushed his hair out of his face. But he looks relaxed, less tense than he did earlier in the evening.
He looks every part a killer, covered in blood and bits of gore, but after what you've seen-what you've been through-it doesn't bother you like it should.
He gestures slightly with his chin towards the staircase, and you go up without any complaint. You're slow, still, holding onto the railing. But you make it up without issue and take a few steps toward the kitchen, turning and waiting for Feitan. He probably wants you to go right to bed.
There's that strange humming feeling again, forming a pit in your stomach. It's not anxiety, exactly, but a peculiar kind of nervousness. Yes, that's it-a fluttery nervousness. It's not unlike-you flinch at the comparison as soon as you think it, but it's what comes to mind-how you used to feel before a first date. You're anxious to see him, because there's something more you want to do tonight. You realized it before you even went up the stairs. That something is what makes a nervous ball weigh down your stomach, what's making your skin feel all light and tingly.
For the first time, you can see Feitan in a different light. A green room light, maybe, one designed to blur and flatter. Because now you can see him as more than simply your kidnapper, someone who kept you locked up like some sort of bizarre prize. You can see him as something more... intimate. A partner, no, maybe a co-conspirator. Something that brings you closer to equal footing, even though if you dared to think more on that, you would remember that you're not anywhere near equal to him.
When he emerges from the basement, he waves his hand toward your bedroom.
"Go to bed," he says. But-you could swear it, yes, you would swear on it-it lacks his normal command and conviction. As if perhaps he's feeling the same strange sort of connection, that buzzing humming urge to keep the night going somehow.
He doesn't wait to see if you obey. Instead, he heads for the bathroom. You hear the shower turn on moments later.
Your feet don't move. You stand there, staring at the closed bathroom door, listening to the sounds of running water.
You should go to bed. Really, you should. You're tired. You've been through something traumatic, on top of your already traumatic existence. You're not thinking straight.
Clearly, you're not thinking properly at all, because what you're thinking about is Feitan stripping off his clothes. What did he look like underneath them? What would he look like, with water running down his body, glistening, washing away the blood of the man who hurt you?
What would he look like if you kissed him?
Your hand goes to your mouth, almost a slap.
That's what has been humming under your surface for a few hours now, as you watched Feitan enact his own form of retribution against the man who took you. That's what has been building all night. Perhaps from the moment Feitan took off your blindfold, surely, it was there as you drifted off into a hazy sleep.
And wasn't it desire that urged you down the stairs? You thought it was desire to see that man bleed, perhaps it was, but it was also desire for something else. Something forbidden and fucked up but God help you, something that felt inexplicably good and nice. Didn't you deserve that, for once in your miserable life? Didn't you?
You answer your own question by taking hesitant steps towards Feitan's bedroom. Another area of the house you never set foot in, though, technically speaking he'd never said you couldn't go inside. You'd already broken a rule today anyway. He couldn't be mad at you for this. He wouldn't be. You were sure of it, somehow.
His room is shrouded in darkness, and you fumble for the light switch before entering. It's plain and unassuming, much like your own. There's a bed-larger than yours-and a nightstand, a dresser, a shelf with books. A desk and some papers. They would be boring, if you didn't know who slept in this room.
There's nothing to do but wait on the edge of his bed and ruminate on your decision. Your thoughts are cloudy, muddled. You're tired, in pain, not thinking clearly. You know all of these things, and you know that you should be questioning your choices right now.
But there is that overwhelming sense of unfairness that keeps you planted firmly on the edge of his mattress. You deserve something that makes you feel good. It's not your fault that the only thing making you feel good is a perverted sense of flattery brought on by your first kidnapper tormenting your second one, is it? No, you're helpless in all this. Blameless. You can't be hard on yourself for seeking something that makes your stomach flutter in a way that's not associated with terror.
When the water stops running, every muscle in your body tenses. He'll be coming in soon. He'll be coming in the room, and see you, and then you'll have to find out if you've truly lost your mind or if there really was something different between the two of you tonight. Maybe it will be better if he rebuffs you, maybe it will be better if he sends you to bed like some scolded child.
Maybe-maybe-maybes are all you can think of while you watch, frozen, as he walks through the bedroom door.
"What are you doing?"
Wariness has crept back into his voice, back into his expression. You don't know that you can blame him.
He's half-naked, shirtless. He's toned, though you had no reason to doubt that notion based on his strength. Something low in you twists at the sight of his bare chest. There's a slight sheen to his skin, as if he didn't bother to dry himself off all the way. His hair looks damp.
Your body trembles. Your conviction wavers. That little something hard and dark that urged you down the stairs seems to grasp you from underneath the armpits and haul you to your feet.
As you stand, you think, if my legs give out, then I know this was the wrong idea. If my legs give out, I'll say I was confused, and go to bed, and never think about this again.
But your legs don't give out as you take a few halting steps toward him.
When you're close enough, you lean in-and you kiss him. It's a desperate, pathetic little gesture. Chaste, really.
His hands immediately grip your shoulders, tight, unyielding, pulling you backward and revealing the strength behind them that could snap your bones in an instant.
His gaze turns sharp and pointed. You half-expect him to be angry, half-expect to be slapped to the ground, but no-it's not anger in his eyes. He's assessing you, figuring out what you're doing and why you're doing it and if he wants to do it, too. The penetrating nature of his gaze makes you feel naked and it's thrilling to be seen in such a way after all you've been through.
Your lips part a little and there's a slight pant in your breath.
"Feitan," you say, and that's all you get to say, because this time he's the one kissing you. One of his hands grips the back of your hair and pushes you closer. This second kiss is hard, insistent, and oh, your lips might just bruise. You part your mouth and let his tongue inside. It's wet and sinful and sparks shoot down your stomach at the feel of it.
He pulls you back by your hair when he's done, and you realize that you're out of breath, panting softly. Tingles fill your lips and you want more, so much more than a kiss.
Your lips part and your eyes close a little, half-lidded. You want more, yes, but you don't want to ask directly. Somehow, saying it out loud so explicitly will break this spell that you're under.
As if he can read your mind, Feitan does the talking for you. His other hand trails down your neck, and goosebumps follow his fingers as it travels down, curling into the waistband of your skirt. You lift up on your toes, and his fingers slide inside your skirt, just a little.
Feitan's eyebrows raise at the gesture. But it's enough to get your point across, because then his hand does slip fully inside. Fingers trail on one of your bandages-you gasp-before resting on the top of your underwear.
"You want this?" He says.
You shouldn't. God, you shouldn't. If you were thinking straight, you wouldn't, never never. But your body feels electric and this is the first time you've felt anything resembling real pleasure since Feitan took you away. It's like everything else is blurred out by the man in front of you, the way his lips feel on yours, the thought of him inside you.
"Yes," you whisper. And it's enough.
Your arms wrap around Feitan's waist, and you take a step backward. He lets you, removing his hand from your skirt but keeping a firm grip on your hair, matching you step for step until you get to the bed and sit down.
The sudden pressure on the back of your thigh makes you hiss, and your eyes clench shut. You scramble backwards as Feitan releases your hair, leaning up on your elbows so that your thigh isn't pressed down against the bed.
You feel Feitan crawl onto the bed, hear the rustle of his pants as he undoes them and shifts them aside. Then you feel his hands on your skirt, and you lift your hips to make the job easier as he slides it off.
The air of the bedroom feels cool against your panties; even cooler still when Feitan wastes no time in tugging them down, revealing your bare sex. They land softly somewhere on the floor, and you finally open your eyes.
Feitan is above you, naked and waiting. He's looking down at you with lust and there's something low and dark in his gaze. It should make you frightened, but instead you find yourself hoping to match it, wanting the dark desire under your skin to seep out and envelop the both of you.
You can't help but look down, getting your first view of his cock. It's short and thick, and you're thankful that this is not your first time having sex, that you aren't naively gazing down at the girth and wondering how the hell it will fit inside.
He catches your chin in one hand, holding it tight, and tilts your head up until you're meeting his gaze. You feel goosebumps rising on your arms as he stares.
"Spread your legs," he says. There's an almost purring quality to his commands now, and you're ashamed at the way it seems to shoot pleasure down your stomach.
You obey as you've taught yourself to do, and if you felt naked under his gaze before, actually being naked is a million times more illuminating. And why does your heart clench when you see him looking at you down there? There's a sense of familiar embarrassment, the type of intimate worries that always come with having sex for the first time. Will he like what he sees?
You watch as Feitan slides a thumb in between your folds, before bringing it up to nudge your clit. You're already a little wet, and the firm touch of his thumb makes you gasp.
He begins to rub your clit in circles, varying the pressure as you start to rock against him. There's a jolting pleasure in it, but pain, too, from the various wounds on your body. Your thigh aches when you accidentally push it closer, rubbing against him, but it's all mingled with the pleasure sparking down in your clit.
It's all just so much, pain and pleasure and shame and indulgence, all at once. Tears prick at your eyes and you rock your hips against Feitan, wanting him to touch you harder and faster, to take away everything but the pleasure in your clit.
"More," you gasp out, and you almost don't recognize the neediness in your voice. "Please don't stop, Feitan, I'm just-I'm so close-"
He doesn't stop, and it feels so fucking good when you come, legs trembling, hands gripping the comforter underneath you in desperation. You buck your hips until the pleasure begins to recede.
Feitan brings his fingers to your lips. You open your mouth before he can even give the command, and you feel almost delirious with a sticky sinful feeling as you taste yourself on his fingers. There's a slight copper taste underneath it all, and you wonder sickly if it's remnants of that man's blood. The thought makes you groan around the digits.
He pulls them out of your mouth without fanfare, and then that same hand is on his cock. You lean yourself up more on your elbows, wanting to see him touch himself. There's a strange pride as you realize that he's watching you as he strokes himself, getting hard because of you-your face and your body and the way your clit twitched under his fingers.
"A virgin?" He asks, suddenly. For the first time since you kissed him, you feel uneasy. Should you lie? Does he want you to be a virgin? But he can always tell if you lie-you learned that the hard way. So you swallow down your fear, chest tight, and give him the truth.
You shake your head, unable to meet his gaze. "No. I'm... I've done it a few times." You don't reveal further details. He probably doesn't want them. You keep your eyes averted until he speaks.
"Doesn't matter," he answers, and you feel your chest relax at the ease in his tone. You can look at him now, and find that dark gleam in his eyes again. There's lust, yes, and something else. Assurance. Possession.
"You're mine now," he says, a little gruffness in his voice as he positions himself between your legs. Your heart feels like it's hammering as he pushes inside. It's been a while. There's discomfort-he's thick-but he doesn't move just yet. Whether he's letting you get used to him or simply waiting until he's ready is something you don't dare to guess.
Your breath hitches when he finally begins to thrust inside you, quick and powerful. It's too much, even from the start.
"You're only mine." He reaches back down with one hand, and you practically jolt as his fingers begin manipulating your over-sensitive clit. "Mine."
He's rough, pulling out almost entirely and then slamming back in over and over, fast and unrelenting. There's pleasure in it, in the way you feel that he can't help but seek out his own orgasm now that he's inside you.
It's what you need right now. Fast and intense and dark and mean, possessive and all-encompassing, taking away everything but you and Feitan and the pleasure between your legs. You don't want something soft and sweet, that might make you remember where you are and who he is and why this is so wrong.
His fingers continue their manipulation of your clit, pressing harder, firmer, and you're dragged to the peak of another orgasm, this one prickling with over-stimulation. You make a keening sound, whining, and you hear him snort out a chuckle above you.
"Go on," he says, "Come." And you want to obey-but you can't, oh fuck. You can't-you-can't-you-can't. You're too sensitive and it's too much and you just can't-but in the end you do, of course you do, with Feitan's fingers refusing to give up.
There's an overwhelming crescendo over the peak of your orgasm, and you come around his cock. Your legs shake and there's an almost throbbing pain in your burns as your overstimulated nerves shoot pleasure through your core.
You clench around him as you ride out your second orgasm, and soon enough he begins to thrust even harder; the room is filled with a wet rhythmic slapping as he fucks you into his own orgasm. He groans, the sound so close to your ears, and there's damp warmth inside you as he finishes, thrusting until he's spent.
He doesn't pull out right away. Instead he looks down at you, eyes lidded, gaze hazy. For a few moments, there's nothing in his expression but contentment. Tears come to your eyes at the unusual sight and you want to wipe them away, but he does it for you, a single finger catching your tears before they soak into the bandage on your cheek.
He pulls out, slowly, and coolness sets in even as you feel some of his come trickling out of you. He stays above you on the bed, leaning down on his elbows. Your chests are almost touching.
But now that own pleasure has faded into a pleasant afterglow, the low, dark hold that the past day or so has had on your mind begins to loosen. And with that comes a clearer head. You just... with Feitan... and you wanted it, and you're in his bed, what the hell is wrong with you, you sick, fucked up-
Your chest heaves. No no no. Not yet. You don't want to go back to reality yet. You want to stay here for a little while longer, in his arms, forgetting everything else.
So you lean forward, wrapping one arm around his shoulders, and you pull him closer to you.
You kiss him, and there's a moment of hesitation on his part, as if he's wondering why you kissed him the second time around. But then he relents, and you're pressed firmly into the bed as he pushes you down against the bed, returning your kiss with fervor. His teeth nip at your lip and you groan at the sting, at the taste of fresh blood in your mouth. The back of your thigh hurts and your lips are sore but it doesn't matter.
Feitan's hands begin to fiddle with the buttons on your shirt, and you don't resist as he opens it entirely. You don't know if he'll fuck you again, if he'll be rougher, if he'll leave you bruised and sore and wanting-but it doesn't matter. There will be pleasure and there will be pain, and it will be enough.
You can go back to being terrified later on. For now, you'll let yourself feel something good.
You deserve that much at least-don't you?