Hello! I'm back with another chapter!

PLEASE READ ME: this chapter is not happy. It is not safe for work, it will not make you feel good, and it probably just shouldn't be read by anyone who is disturbed by anything. If you read it anyway, be forewarned of the following: consensual sex, references to sexual assault, self-harm, rough sex, and sex that borders on dub-con. I'd call it coerced sex because while it's technically consensual, some people still might find that it crosses a line. And I hope it goes without saying, but I don't condone anything that goes on in this chapter. None of it is a good idea. This is not a healthy relationship.

Title and all quotes from get what you want by JJAMZ. Thank you as always to everyone who reads and/or responds.

Did you read the author's notes? Good.

please please please don't kill me.

{this is not a good idea
I know it isn't right
but I'm giving it my all
this is war, so I'll fight}

It's still not enough.

You shut the water off and twist the knob so hard that it sends a shockwave of pain through your bad wrist, the one that's already aching from the warm humid air of the bathroom and the exertion of scrubbing the length of your body again and again. But you're still not clean enough.

As soon as you step out of the tub, you open the bathroom door and are hit by a rush of cooler air, the atmosphere in the room changing so quickly that you swear you could see the cloud of fog that had been hanging over you dissipate in an instant. Goosebumps break out all over your skin and a chill runs through you from the sudden drop in temperature.

It's a delicious feeling, one that's strong enough to allow you to temporarily step out of the current moment. It feels like diving into that frigid lake when you went camping with Brian, or sitting on the floor of his shower in the old apartment on the day you came home from the hospital after being 'rescued'. You didn't feel anything back then. You overheard one of the doctors telling Brian you were in shock, but you think they got it wrong because you weren't shocked, you were just tired and empty. And cold. They stuck a needle in your arm and pumped you full of something that made you numb, so numb that you ripped the brace off of your arm in order to start chopping away at your hair with a pair of dull scissors. If you were in pain, you don't remember it. All you remember is Brian looking sad when he found you, telling you not to worry about the mess and helping you put the brace back on even when you insisted it didn't hurt.

"It will later," he said. And he had been right, but then he brought you that sickly-sweet orange medicine and once again there was nothing to feel but tired.

The chill is wearing off now, bringing you back to the present, and as you towel dry your hair you notice a small amount of liquid still remaining at the bottom of the glass you had left next to the sink. You reach for it and take a sip, just a tiny one to finish it off. You're not drunk, not even really buzzed, and you're proud of how calm you've remained despite what happened earlier. You could've screamed or cried, but you didn't do either. You could've gotten into a panic over Elliot's well-being and sent frantic texts, but you did neither of those things. You definitely could have gathered together all the little bottles that are once again hiding throughout the apartment and drank until the world went black, but you knew that was the wrong choice. Alcohol dulls the pain, makes you go to extremes, to the point where you're holding a lighter to your bare skin and the sensation barely registers until the hangover does. You don't want that. It's not what you're aiming for. If all you wanted was pain, you could pick up a knife or a razor blade, but it's not your goal.

You just want to be clean.

If there's pain in the process- well, that's even better.

You haven't gotten dressed, and the warm air has long since dissipated, but your body still feels hot to the touch. Prickly, like an all-over sunburn. There are times when you would relish the sensation, but right now it's just a nagging reminder that you're not clean enough yet.

You're still calm, though. Part of you wonders if this is a cause for alarm. It's certainly abnormal, but that doesn't make it wrong- right? You don't need to get hysterical and break things or crawl into bed and try fruitlessly to hide from the sound of your tears and pounding heart underneath blankets and pillows. You can stay in control and composed even while you can't stop thinking about it, the way he kissed you like he was relearning everything about your mouth while his hands were roaming your body like they hadn't forgotten one bit. It all happened seemingly in one fluid motion, never breaking contact with each other for even a second, not even when he raised his lips maybe a millimeter above your neck to ask if you were really sure about this.

You promised him you were, oh god you were, and the words had barely slipped off of your tongue before his mouth closed around your nipple and his hand was blindly working the button on your pants. Had there been time to stop and think, you might've second-guessed it. Your nerves might've started to kick in. But there wasn't time to think about anything but how good, how right it felt, and by all appearances he agreed. He kept telling you how much he'd missed you and how much he wanted you, and words can be deceiving, but when you were finally able to push his boxer briefs down far enough to get your hand around his cock, there was no doubt that he really did want this as much as you did.

At least...that's what you thought. One second he's rolling his hips against yours, almost growling in anticipation when he pushed aside your panties and felt how wet you were, saying that you're sogoodsogood as he rubbed your clit. And then suddenly it wasn't good anymore, it wasn't good at all because I can't. not with you.

not with you.

not.

with.

you.

And you let him go and you didn't ask why, and now you're not sure if it was because you were so stunned that you didn't know what to ask, or because you didn't need to ask. Not when you already knew the answer.

You're suddenly cold again, but this time the chill comes from the January winds that slip in through the cracks in the walls of an old garage. Your legs are bare, your ass exposed, and yet there's a heat surrounding you. His warm hands pinning both your wrists against the wall, his body caging you in so you're helpless to do anything but take it as he fucks you with an intensity you've never experienced from him before. You know it's wrong. You know he already thinks you're dirty, and that's without having any clue as to what's going on in your head.

He didn't know that you loved it. That it was exactly what you wanted, craved, and that you were crying because you were disgusted with yourself and angry that you couldn't shut your fucking head off and humiliated at the thought that he knew the kind of power he had over you. That he could be a sanctimonious son of a bitch who doesn't want you around his perfect family, who calls you needy, and then he shoves his hand up your skirt and without hesitation you're grinding against the heel of his palm and moaning like a whore. That you told him yes, yes I want it. please, just short of begging for him to shove you up against the wall and screw you while there's only an unlocked door separating the two of you from his wife and kids.

But he thought he...violated you (you can't use the word he did, because that's not what happened. not with him, never with him). He was so shaken that he left home without a word and hid out until his drunken proclivities for rage caught up with him and he surfaced in a Jersey hospital looking like he had gone ten rounds and lost them all. And it was because of guilt, because he thought he had hurt you- and you were too ashamed to tell him that not only had he not hurt you, but that you liked it. That you'd say yes again if not for the consequences.

Instead you did all you could to prove to him that it was okay, that you were okay and you trusted him just as much as always. You know he still had the guilt, but you could be around each other- be close, even- without it being uncomfortable. You were friends again.

And then it was just like before, how that line got crossed in an instant with no time for your brain to catch up with your baser instincts. It wasn't rough or angry today, though, just urgent. Maybe because it had been so long, or maybe because you were afraid of disrupting this fragile truce between you. Either way, you both wanted it. You wanted it and this time you weren't embarrassed to show it.

But then it all must have fallen into place for him. He heard the way you moaned when he kissed you and how you pleaded with him to keepgoingyeahIneedit when his fingers brushed over your entrance. He felt how eager, how ready you were and it all made sense. Suddenly he was seeing everything from that day in the garage differently and he knew why you refused to talk to him about it. Why you told him it was complicated and he needed to stop blaming himself and just forget it ever happened.

It wasn't because he hurt you and you were too scared to admit it.

It was because he hurt you and you loved it.

«you. loved. it.»

You need to shower again. You stand up and push the curtain aside, and you're about to turn on the water when-

"What the...Jesus Christ, Liv."

It's Brian, back from some going-away party for a guy in IA, standing next to the open door and looking equal parts horrified and inebriated.

"You're home?" you say dumbly, not understanding how you didn't hear him come in. You take a wobbly step backwards until you're leaning against the wall and grab a towel to drape over yourself in a needless display of modesty. "I just...I need a minute, I was just getting in the shower, can you-"

"Liv, your hair's wet. You've already-"

"I won't be long, I just need to-"

"Liv! You're bleeding, okay? Stop."

"What? No'm not, I'm fine, I..." He's careful not to come any closer, just nods toward the towel you're still holding up and mouths 'look.' When you peek downward, your lips form a silent 'o' of shock because he's right, there's probably half a dozen spots on your arms and thighs and torso that are oozing blood from where you've broken the skin. "I don't know how that happened, I don't know what..." Your confusion is genuine. You hadn't noticed, either before or after you got out of the shower- yeah, it hurt, but...you didn't mean to. You were just trying to get clean. "I'm alright. Just let me go rinse off, it'll be okay."

"No, it's not okay. It's not." He shuffles forward, his words a little slurred as he picks up the empty bottle on the countertop. "How much have you had tonight?"

"What? I had one drink. Two. Alright, two."

"Yeah, I think it was a little more than that. You left another empty in the living room," he says before dropping the bottle in the trash can.

"I don't know. I don't know," you repeat, shaking your head because you don't have any memory of even being out there since Elliot left. "You're more drunk than I am, so-"

"Probably I am! But I've been at the bar, I wasn't drinking and...Liv, what happened? You could've called me, you could've..."

"I fucked up, okay? I'm not perfect. Sorry. I just wanted to have a drink and then shower and go to bed and." You're too confused to be angry, confused in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol. There's this disconnect between knowing you should be pissed and being able to summon that emotion, like you've forgotten all the hows and whys, like you felt when you woke up on your living room floor with someone on top of you and you knew you should feel afraid (but couldn't remember what 'afraid' even felt like).You wrap the towel around yourself and hug it to your chest as you sit down on the closed toilet seat, your teeth chattering. "P-please. Just don't be mad at me. Please."

"No, God, I'm not mad," he says, dropping to his knees beside you in a way that may or may not have been intentional. You start shivering even harder from the rush of relief when he says it, because you don't know how you'd be able to handle that right now, not until you can figure out how to feel something again. "Let's just get you...you're cold. You're shivering."

Cold. That's a feeling, another one you didn't notice. "I'll shower. It'll warm me up."

"That's...no. You're good. You're clean enough," he decides.

"But I need to-"

"Will you just get dressed, Liv?!" His face falls as soon as the words come out of his mouth, and he scrubs over his eyes with the back of his hand. "I'm sorry, shit. I didn't mean to yell but you're...will you please just forget the shower for tonight? That's all I'm asking. 'm not mad."

You nod, still wary of what he might say next. "Yeah. Okay. Just...give me some space."

"How about, uh." He looks over his shoulder at the bedroom, swaying as he does. "I'll go in there, but you've gotta keep the door open."

"I'm not going to...it was an accident!"

He tenses up like he's bracing for a punch when you say the word 'accident'. "I won't look, I won't watch you. Just keep the door open so I can hear. I'm gonna get changed too."

"Yeah," you agree, losing the will to argue. "Okay."

"Thank you babe."

When you let the towel fall to the floor, you notice that your skin has stopped bleeding. You know you should put something on it, Vaseline or whatever, because it'll get irritated even by the soft cotton of your pajamas. But that sounds like too daunting of a task when you're still not quite willing to accept that you really did this to yourself again- you weren't trying to!- so you decide against it.

All the lights in the bedroom are off, and the cloudy sky outside allows only a few sharp slivers of moonlight to shine through the blinds. Brian is sitting at the foot of the bed, still wearing the same clothes he had on before, his shoulders slumped forward and his head in his hands.

"Bri? What're you..." As you take a seat next to him, you hear a quiet sniff and then a loud exhale. You rest your hand in between his shoulder blades and feel a telltale shudder. "No, please, Bri, don't. I'm sorry. It was an acc- I fucked up. I won't do it again."

He looks up at you and as you suspected, he's been crying. You've seen him tear up, but nothing like this, not even when you were first reunited after your ordeal or when he found you passed out on the floor or in an immobile heap at the bottom of a flight of stairs. This is foreign territory and you don't know how to navigate the two of you to safety. "Liv, you can't...don't say that. We both know you will, so..."

"But I really. I'm sorry, honestly," you promise. You mean it, but you would've said it even if you didn't just to try and take away the sadness you hear in his voice.

"I know you are, but...you could've called me if there's something wrong, I would've..."

"There wasn't anything wrong, it was an accident-"

"Can you stop saying that? It's not an accident when it keeps happening! I can believe you drank more than you thought you did, that you didn't mean to draw blood with...I still can't even figure out what it is you're doing, cause I know you can't do that much damage with just your nails...but whatever it is, doesn't matter. It's not an accident," he repeats, squeezing his eyes closed as he pauses. "You can't just tell me nothing's wrong. Nothing's been wrong since last summer, but look where we are now."

"You don't think I'm getting any better," you say in a barely audible voice, head bowed.

"That's not what I said. And honestly? I don't know what to think, because I don't even know what the hell's going on in your head. You won't tell me. All I know is what I see and-" He makes a choked sound and then his face is in his hands again, and you're so lost. You used to think you knew how to comfort people- including him. Now the only way you know is to lie, to say things like 'it won't feel like this forever' or 'you're strong, you'll get through this' or even 'none of this is your fault.' But that isn't going to work here, not when he knows all your lies even better than you do.

"Bri?"

"Do you know how hard it is to keep doing this? To wonder if one of these times I'm going to be too late, that you've had another 'accident' and...godfuckingdamnit! You had third degree burns that were fucking infected and honestly, I dunno that you would've done anything about it if you hadn't almost cracked your head open. Do you how much of a shitty boyfriend I felt like when I had to tell them I had no idea what the hell happened? I'm not even talking about them giving me the stare down because they thought I'd- they probably would've called the cops if I hadn't waved my badge around- but I'm not talking about that. It's not what I mean. It's feeling like I fucked up, like if I had been there or said something, I could've stopped it, and-"

"That's not, Bri-"

"Can you let me talk?" He rubs at his eyes, presses the heels of his hands against them, and then blinks furiously a few times. "I don't need you to tell me there's nothing I could've done, because I get that now. I know I couldn't do anything cause I don't even know what's going on with you!" He shakes his head, still drunk enough that the motion causes his whole body to sway slightly from side to side. "I just wish you'd talk to me. About anything. Because I'm not angry at you, I'm not blaming you for...shit, I'm just frustrated because I don't understand. And I want to. I wanna help but I have no idea where to start, what to..."

"Bri?" He's hunched over, not looking at you and not even trying to hide the snuffling sounds he's making. "Stop, please, I...I'm sorry. But I can't. There's just so many things that I can't say to you and-"

"Try!"

"I don't know how to, alright? I don't know how to put it in words, and talking about it isn't gonna help me anyway. If it was that easy, if I just tried harder and...if I could talk about it like that, then I probably wouldn't be doing this, would I?" you ask, tugging on the shirt sleeve that's concealing your battered arm. You're taken aback by your own question, your subconscious having temporarily commandeered your mouth and blurted out something that had never occurred to you, at least in those terms.

"So what's the answer? Maybe talking's not...I would be okay with you never telling me anything, ever, if it'd somehow stop you from doing that. All I want is for you to stop doing shit to hurt yourself. That's what I care most about, that you're safe. And don't promise me again that you'll stop, that it won't happen anymore, cause it's not true. You can't make that promise."

"I know I can't! It just happ- I can't. I know it."

"Then what's the answer?" he repeats. "What's it take to get you to...I want to help, okay, so what do I have to do so you'll stop?"

"You can't. You can't help me."

"Try me! Anything, Liv, I'm fucking desperate here. We need to fix this."

"How? You don't want me to lie, so- maybe I don't want to stop! Did you ever think of that? Maybe I like it, maybe pain helps me deal with things, so unless you're willing to be the one who-"

Oh.

Wait.

{I'm not quite cut out for this
I don't stay mad for long
but my attacks are planned
rockets poised so I launch them}

It took some convincing at first.

You didn't go straight for the hard sell. You thought you might be able to persuade him this way, straddling his lap and mouthing at his neck while one hand snakes down the front of his pants. He was drunk and it'd been a long time since he'd gotten laid and you know exactly what he likes, so while you weren't able to get his total cooperation this easily, you managed to silence his protests of liv what the fuck are you doing, this isn't a good idea, you want me to- what, no, I'm not gonna do that...

You promised him it'd be so easy, all he had to do was listen and follow your instructions and he'd catch on in no time. You tried the flattery angle, that you trust him and you wouldn't ask someone else for something like this, and you didn't even need to mention that 'someone else' by name because he got it. But still he was hesitant.

Time for a more direct approach. A little bit of scorn- jesus, Brian, I'm not asking for anything life-threatening- and then, when that failed, the ultimate weapon. Guilt. you just told me you'd do anything for me, right? you asked me what you have to do to get me to stop, and now I'm telling you.

You didn't say you're not going to hurt me, because that was the point.

By then he was well pissed off, mumbling something that you couldn't understand but knew wasn't kind. You mad at me, baby? Then show me. It's gonna feel so good to let it all out. Your hand was still running leisurely up and down the length of his cock, and when your thumb swiped over the head and he was barely able to keep quiet- fuck, Liv, pl- -you knew you were going to get what you wanted.

You'd played around at the edges of this sort of thing Before- key word there being 'played'. You'd start fake-wrestling after a few drinks, maybe he'd smack your ass teasingly, and you'd call each other every name you could think of while you fucked. Both of you were having fun, and afterwards you'd laugh about how reminiscent of cheesy porn it all was. It was lighthearted and spontaneous and absolutely not what you were looking for tonight.

So even after you got him to agree, there was some coaching involved. You're flat on your stomach, arms behind your back, and he's holding them down like he's trying way too hard not to leave marks. harder, Bri, like you *mean* it...goddamn, how many times do I have to tell you-

"Will you shut the hell up?" He leans over and grabs a handful of your hair, yanking your neck upward. Tears spring to your eyes and you babble yesyesyes until he lets go and your head falls back to the mattress.

"Little bitch," he mumbles, gripping onto both of your wrists with one hand as he shoves your thighs apart and yes, God, yes.

It's like a release valve has been opened inside yourself, like everything else has fallen away and the world has narrowed to only this as he fucks you. He keeps asking you like this and this is what you want as if he's still unsure, even though he's not fucking you like it, but you're not bothered because crying over and over that I want it, I want it, please just makes the whole thing that more intensely degrading.

You do want it.

There is something very, very wrong with you.

{how can I just take it back when my hands are all tied up?
I'm looking for some symmetry
it's fucked but I need some vindication of punishment
I know I'm playing god, but I'm an atheist}

You're up before sunrise the next morning, but he's already gone.

You hadn't heard him leave, probably because you slept so soundly- better than you have in months. You fell asleep without having to fight off your usual fear and anxiety, and while you were asleep you didn't dream.

You don't recall how long things went on for last night. You know that he didn't last long, but then he kept fucking you with his mouth and his fingers until he abruptly pulled away and said that's it, I'm done. He left the room and you were asleep by the time he came back.

As for you, you might have gotten off once, twice, four times, or not at all. You can't remember and it's not really an important detail anyway. What matters is that you hurt all over this morning, that your muscles ache and your arms and legs are bruised. There's blood on the sheets from where the raw skin on your torso had been rubbing against the mattress over and over, and you feel used and disgusting and a little guilty and like you can fucking breathe again.

You get in the shower and put away your scrub brush. You don't feel the need for it today, just like you promised him you wouldn't.

Before you leave for work, you check your phone for new texts and find none. Shrugging, you thumb through your contacts for the right number and then type out [you are amazing. thank you. I don't know what would happen to me without you.]

You hit send and then pocket your phone. Today is going to be a good day.

{what you want is not always worth the trouble
you and I know, but if you stop
it's not giving up to know you're wrong
and I'm wrong}