Chapter Text
Lost inside a red abyss, you drifted down into the depths of something unfathomable.
You were floating in a sea of blood, thick and mucosal. You were as naked as the day you were dragged screaming into this world, drowning in a boiling, fleshy mire.
And you were joyous.
The bloody waves enveloped you, but you weren’t afraid. You felt tendrils wrap themselves around your extremities, dragging you deeper into the depths. The tendrils pulsed and split, forming familiar hands. Calloused and cruel, they squeezed your ribs until they ached.
He was all around you, enveloping your flesh. He was inside you, his lips peppering your throat. He devoured you like a wolf, spilling blood into the sea that was himself, taking you into him just as you took him into yourself.
When your eyes opened, they were euphoric. You gazed at the sky as he drew you to nirvana, and ripped your body asunder in the process.
The darkness seemed to crack open like the membrane of an embryo. Red lightning split the sky, revealing a single bloody eye. It burned itself into your soul, and soon, you knew nothing else.
Blood rushed into your open mouth like a tongue, claiming its beloved spouse. Bones cracked, and sinew ripped. His flesh was moulding with your own.
There, right on the cusp of something grotesquely beautiful, that was when you heard his voice in your ear.
Ẁ̸̼a̷̜̫͍͒̽̒͑͆͛̕̕k̶̛͈̘̋̈́̇̀͜e̷̢̡̜̳̫̗̮̎̈́͜ ̸̜̻̳͓̓̒͐̔̀̏͝͠ͅų̴̢͎͈̝͍̗̗͠p̷͕̖̬̞̪̈̋̈́̀̓̅͒̕͝
Wake up.
Wake up.
WAKE UP.
You woke with a start to find the lights were already on. That in and of itself was a surprise. For the first time in years, you’d somehow managed to oversleep. How long were you out for?
Your heart was pounding a little too fast, and you instinctively went to cover your chest. That wasn’t the first time you’d had nightmares about the blood oceans. At this point, who in the C.O.I hadn’t? But this one, this one was strange. The visuals of the dream faded as they always did, but the feeling didn’t seem to fade with it. You felt like you’d seen something that you shouldn’t have.
That disquieting sensation remained with you like a bad aftertaste, but you forced yourself to shake it off.
You were okay.
You just needed to get up.
As you stretched and yawned, the ache in your hips was the first thing you noticed; the second was that your underwear was still halfway down your legs. You blindly shuffled and groped for the edge of your trousers, but the effort just wasn’t worth it. You tugged once or twice before flopping back onto the bed, leaving the fabric pooled about your ankles.
What was the point of modesty right now? In here, you had no modesty left.
You wiped your eyes with both hands before opening them properly. The room was still. Rusted walls and dripping taps, no sign of any food delivery yet. Everything was as it should be.
Breathing in the faint smell of iron and sweat, you allowed yourself to bathe in that fleeting moment of silence. And then Simon snored.
You rolled your head to see that Simon was still fast asleep on the mattress beside you. This time, he hadn’t rolled away.
He’d stripped off at some point in the night and piled his sex-stained clothes in a bundle beside the bed, but he’d been considerate enough to cover his crotch with his shirt. It was draped unceremoniously across his hips and groin like a loincloth.
The sight of Simon caused that disquieting feeling in your chest to twist, but only for a second. No, it had been a dream, nothing more. It was probably just your subconscious trying to make sense of all these new experiences, merging new fears with old ones. It was the first time you’d let a man touch you like that, it was normal to be a little… Frazzled, afterwards.
Instead of waking him right away, you decided to watch him for a little while longer.
He looked like a grubby, unshaven Renaissance painting. Spread out on his back with one hand over his forehead, covered only by that tattered strip of cloth, with his dark curls spread around his head like a halo. He was a picture to behold. Muscled and hairless, scarred and stocky. He slept with slightly parted lips, his thick lashes delicately draped across high cheekbones.
The only thing that humanised him was the unbearably deep snoring. His fingers and lips twitched with every deep inhale he took, like a puppy jolting in its sleep as it dreamed about chasing its own tail.
You couldn’t help but crack the smallest smile. This fucking dumbass, you thought. He was a human, nothing more.
However, that fond moment was short-lived. You quickly sobered up as you began to process everything that’d happened yesterday.
So, you’d been intimate with the Eden man again, or ‘Simon’ as you knew him to be, and this time you couldn’t excuse it away with flaring tempers or desperation. No, you had to accept the reality that you’d just wanted to touch him, and he’d wanted to touch you. It was a bitter pill to swallow.
But now what? How awkward was this going to get? Because it had the potential to be a total fucking disaster.
Eventually, you would have to go back to your own cell, right? So what did you both do when that happened? How did you look at each other across the courtyard, knowing what you’d shared? How did you manage the sudden separation?
What about when your sentence was served, and you went back into the coalition? What would happen if he eventually gained citizenship for his own service? You’d never personally seen an Eden member achieve C.O.I member status, but you’d heard of a case of consolidation assimilation on another ship. It was certainly feasible.
If that happened, then you’d both just be up there, wandering around, bumping into each other. What the fuck did that look like? What if people found out you spent your prison sentence sucking on the fingers of a convicted Eden member, a man who’d murdered your fellow citizens?
And that really was the sticking point. Even if Simon earned his freedom, he would always be seen as a Brotherhood member, and your little affair would stain your reputation just like his cum had stained your garments.
Internally, you cringed. It wasn’t even just a matter of getting out. There was still every possibility that your little affair could result in both of you receiving harsher punishments if it came to light. I mean, you’d hardly been subtle. You were little better than rabbits in a hutch, manically humping each other the second the guards' backs were turned. There was every chance this could ruin what life you had left.
But… Did you want to stop?
It horrified you how quickly your mind answered that question: No.
The reality was that your feelings were getting complicated, and that was the most dangerous thing of all. He wasn’t exactly the most pleasant man to be around, but the pleasure he’d brought you was the only joy you’d felt in years. For the first time since the Quiet Rapture, you weren’t just living minute by minute for the sake of survival. You were indulging, feeling, desiring.
It was a heady sensation, enough so that you were willing to put your body in the hands of a man who should have been your mortal enemy.
Though, to be honest, even that assumption felt strange now. For someone nicknamed ‘the Butcher’, he sure acted like a simpering dolt. A simpering dolt with anger issues, sure, but no real desire to do real harm.
You kept thinking about the misery in his eyes as he described the loss of his childhood, or the way he spoke of his religious convictions with fear rather than revelation. It was a stark contrast to the men you’d heard described to you over the years.
Eden men were either described as fanatics hellbent on death or as soulless husks who had forgotten how to be human. Simon was neither of those things. He was a pathetic, bitter man, full of anger and shame, but he was unmistakably human. He apologised, and he flinched, and whimpered when you touched him.
Come to think of it, how could Eden members be both fanatics and emotionless?
God, everything was so muddled in your head. You wiped your face and dragged yourself back to the more pressing issue: your sticky little affair.
Deep down, you didn’t actually want to leave this cell. You didn’t want to end the comfort you’d found, the escapism that couldn’t be found anywhere else. Your own space sounded wonderful, just not at the expense of what you’d gained. Maybe you really would trade the peace and quiet of your own cell for the warmth of human contact.
Maybe you would have taken getting hurt if it meant you could forget reality, even just for a moment.
It was there, at the apex of your private confessional, that Simon let out a low grunt. You instinctively looked down to find his eyes had opened, and he was gazing up at you from beneath his hand.
Shit. You quickly remembered that you were half-naked from the waist down and scrambled to pull up your underwear. When you glanced back down, Simon was still staring at you, his expression unphased and unreadable. You cursed him internally.
‘… Uh… Morning?’ you muttered awkwardly.
Simon stared at you before grunting back: ‘… Hey. Morning.’
He didn’t offer any further greeting as he began to get up. You watched as he shifted off the bed and rose to his feet, shirt still clutched to cover his crotch. He made no attempt to cover anything else, though, and you were ashamed to admit that you watched his muscled ass the entire time he was standing.
Without speaking, he walked over to the rusty box where your three pairs of fresh clothes were kept. He rifled through the scant pile of shared hygiene products that the C.O.I provided: a hairbrush, a toothbrush, and a flannel. He combed his hair through once before abandoning all the other objects and turning instead to his clothes.
He discarded the old shirt and began to get dressed, but something stopped him halfway through. Maybe he’d sensed you were staring. ‘… Aren’t you gonna ask me to talk about it?’ he asked over his shoulder. You sniffed.
‘Depends. Are you actually gonna talk this time?’
‘… Yeah.’ He didn’t exactly sound thrilled at the idea, but at least he wasn’t putting up a stubborn front anymore. He turned around in just a pair of boxers and a shirt and slumped down onto the mattress beside you. It was a welcome reminder to you of just how toothless he really was, at least in here.
‘So… Fuck.’ He ran both hands through his hair and down to his neck, which he grasped tightly for support. You could already tell he was about to try to make excuses. ‘What happened last night, it was—’
‘It’s going to happen again, Simon,’ you interrupted bluntly. He froze, clearly taken aback.
‘I… I told you, it’s complicated. I—’
‘Mhm. You did. And it still happened again.’
His eyes narrowed. You could see him getting annoyed, both at your interruptions and the truth within them. He scoffed and looked away. ‘What, you think you’re so irresistible?’ he growled, clearly trying to come across as meaner than he was. ‘I’m just some dog with no control?’
‘I literally didn’t say any of that, you shithead. I’m just being realistic,’ you retorted. ‘If we keep pretending this isn’t happening, and waiting until the last second to mess around, then we risk getting caught. We don’t plan, we get sloppy. What do you think will happen to your sentence if the guards find out you’ve been intimate with a member, or my sentence for that matter? I’ll probably be fucking hanged.’
Simon continued to stare at the floor. He was fiddling with his bracelet again, pulling at the broken metal clip. ‘… Okay,’ was all he said in response. He looked remorseful, but he was too wound up to talk about this properly. ‘Do you even know for sure that it's breaking any rules? Convicts fraternising?’ he added in a softer tone.
‘Oh, absolutely! Are you kidding me?’
‘It’s not like the C.O.I don’t lie,’ he muttered. You could see the paranoia in his twitching jaw. ‘They’ll hide things to achieve their own agenda. It’s how they operate.’
You frowned a little, but you persisted. ‘No, this one I’m certain of. Even for citizens, we can’t have sex without signing an agreement. It’s all heavily monitored. I’ve seen the paperwork, its absurd.’
‘We’re not having sex, though. That was the deal.’
‘Yeah, but… I mean, they don’t know that. It’s not authorised. Anything could happen. That’s why they monitor it all so closely. They only want babies that they agreed upon.’
Simon looked off towards the wall for a moment, lost in thought. He didn’t look convinced. However, whatever he was thinking, he chose not to say it. ‘… You people are sick,’ he finally muttered with a sardonic smile. ‘The universe is falling apart, and you’re breeding like cattle.’
‘It wasn’t my idea,’ you shot back. You couldn’t hide the mild offence in your voice. ‘I’m just—Look, that doesn’t matter. I’m telling you, they wouldn’t be okay with it, so we need to keep it hidden.’
Your eyes rolled down to the clothes on the floor. You knew they were covered in your joint fluids, and the thought brought a slight warmth to your cheeks.
Simon followed your gaze. In contrast, he overtly blushed and quickly dropped backwards onto the mattress to avoid seeing his own stained boxers again. ‘I’m in the laundry room today,’ he muttered quietly. ‘I’ll um—I’ll make sure our clothes get washed so nobody else notices.’
‘Oh, uh—good. That’s good.’
You noticed that Simon didn’t bother to deny that you would wind up being intimate again, which was certainly interesting. Perhaps that was the best admission you were going to get from this emotionally stunted fool.
‘… I’m sorry,’ he suddenly blurted. ‘I didn’t—I don’t know what I’m doing. I didn’t mean to… You know. You’re right. You’re right, and I hate it. I just… Fuck. I’m sorry.’
You replied quickly and bluntly: ‘I know.’
It wasn’t much, but you didn’t expect much from him. It’s not like you were any better at communicating. After sitting in that uncomfortable silence for a minute or two, you fell back and flopped down onto the mattress beside him. Simon immediately flinched. He propped himself up by his elbows and looked at you like an offended cat who’d just been pet against its will.
‘What are you doing?’
‘W… I’m lying down,’ you snorted back. ‘What, I can’t lie down anymore?’
Simon narrowed his eyes. ‘Why are you lying right next to me?’
‘Because… I don’t know, I thought we could do that,’ you replied, clearly baffled. ‘What, I’m not allowed to sit near you unless we’re humping?’
The look that crossed Simon’s face was nothing short of mortified. He audibly choked on his spit. ‘Don’t—fuck me, don’t say it like that!’
‘Oh my fucking god.’ You buried your face in your own hands and let out a bewildered laugh. Simon’s scowl deepened. ‘Oh, fuck, we have no idea what we’re doing, do we?’
‘I know what I’m doing,’ Simon argued back. ‘I fucked up my own rules, and now I’m stuck with you. Doesn’t mean I have to get all—cosy.’
‘Aww, I’m not good enough for that, am I?’
‘No.’
Your teasing smile faded, replaced with a pang of bitter resentment. Simon refused to look your way. He was fighting to maintain a cold gaze, but his big brown eyes were glistening with guilt and self-loathing. It was just a shame he had to put that on you.
‘… Prick,’ you spat. You rolled away and buried yourself into the mattress.
You lay there for a while, listening to the fan buzz in the upper corner and the general creaks of the ship, when the mattress abruptly dipped beneath you. You felt weight shifting closer.
‘No,’ you instinctively snapped. ‘No, no, don’t you—’
As you’d predicted, Simon’s hand found your shoulder. You shrugged him off aggressively, and while he did hesitate initially, he quickly began to encroach on your space again. You felt his chest pressing into your spine.
‘No, you—fuck off! No! God, you’re so fucking annoying!’
You squirmed angrily while Simon continued to lay his full weight against your back. It was a strange, pseudo form of spooning, where his head came down to rest against yours, and his upper torso's weight forced your cheek to squish into the firm cushioning.
‘Oh, I’m sorry. This isn’t what you wanted?’ he replied in a sarcastic voice. ‘I’m giving you what you wanted, aren’t I? Oh, look how close we are.’
‘Yeah, I wanted that before you were a dick about it! Go away!’ you snapped back. God, you hated how warm he was. He was so soft for such a rough man.
You continued to squirm and buck until you inevitably elbowed him in the ribs, at which point the Butcher reared his head. He bared his teeth and grasped you by the jaw, forcing you to meet his gaze while he pinned you down with his full weight. His calloused fingers squished the soft flesh of your cheeks until it ached.
‘Why do you have to make this so fucking confusing?!’
His hand squeezed your jaw as he prepared to snap something else, but he was interrupted by the sound of whimpering. He looked down to see that your eyelids had drooped, and your lips were parted into an expression he was now intimately familiar with.
He squinted down at you. He was quiet for a moment, clearly trying to make sense of what had just happened. Then it clicked.
You were enjoying this.
You were enjoying being pinned, but most of all, you were enjoying the passionate fire in his eyes.
God, he hated himself. He hated how that single look could send blood pooling into his engorged cock, forcing it to harden. He felt like a whipped mutt.
‘… You’re pathetic,’ he growled against your lips, but his hips were already starting to move. He hooked one thigh over your legs and shifted his bulge right up against your ass, rotating slowly and deliberately to make your cheeks move.
He watched every minute change in your expression. The shock, the annoyance, and the slow, inevitable slide into pleasure. When your eyelids drooped, he moved deeper, pushing you down into the mattress. When your lips parted to moan, he groaned back, letting you taste his breath on your tongue. His long black curls tickled your cheek, and his stubble buffed your chin.
‘You always have to be right, don’t you?’ he panted and whined. ‘You always have to be so fucking right about everything, about me. Like you own me.’
You could already feel a wet spot forming on his boxers. The fabric chaffed and smeared your ass as he rutted against it, letting you know just how desperate he was. God, you’d never felt so powerless and so powerful in equal measure.
‘S-Say I’m good enough,’ you panted.
‘Shut up.’
‘Say it.’
‘F-Fuck…’ Simon’s eyes rolled as you pushed your rear back up against his hips, arching at just the right angle to make it bounce. You could have sworn he was about to cum right then and there. ‘Nnngh, fuck—you’re good enough.’
Simon shifted his position and began to aggressively thrust from behind. The mattress creaked and squeaked from the rough movement, filling the once quiet room with the sound of skin slapping and rhythmic panting. It was a symphony you would never tire of.
With your jaw still gripped in his right hand, he braced himself against the bed with his left. The friction of his manic grinding was enough to tug the fabric of your underwear right up to your swollen clit, offering just a teasing taste of whother'sat was to come. It was enough to make you lose your mind.
‘Mmm—f-fuck, come here,’ you whined. Nose to nose, you started panting into each others mouths, straining to get closer. You wanted more. You wanted filthy and desperate.
When you poked your tongue out to loll, he licked it. You licked back. The bed began to squeother'sak as his thrusting grew more violent. You were licking each others tongues, eyelids drooping, so ready to just tear into each other like animals.
Simon’s shaking hand found the edge of your underwear. He started to shift it down. ‘Ah, f-fuck—’
BANG
The aggressive pounding on the door caused you and Simon to scatter from each other like mice. You practically flung yourself away from him as he stumbled to find his pants, all while looking exceptionally angry.
Fuck, why do the guards have the worst timing? You hissed internally. You smoothed yourself as you waited for breakfast to come through the porthole, but nothing appeared. Instead, someone banged on the door again.
‘Open up!’
Open up? You darted your eyes to Simon, who was now standing stock-still next to the rusted box of clothes. He’d frozen with his trousers half on; he was clearly as confused as you were.
‘W-What?’ you stammered back. Another muffled knock rang out.
‘We said open up!’
‘Ah- f-fuck, shit—Just a second!’
The Guard’s muffled voice sent you both into a panic. While you scrambled on your hands and knees to find your discarded trousers, Simon attempted to tug his up while frantically kicking yesterday's spoiled clothes into the corner where they were less conspicuous.
‘Open up, now!’
‘I SAID IN A MINUTE!’
You almost got stuck pulling your pants on, but thankfully, Simon was faster than you under pressure. He rushed over and forced them over your thighs until they buttoned up, right as the guards finally yanked the door aside.
Simon was on his feet in seconds; hands raised, face immaculately stern and calm. They caught you struggling to your feet, but nothing else was obviously amiss. Well, aside from your red face, sweaty forehead, and the very slight crease in Simon’s pants where he’d forcibly tried to flatten his erect cock.
Whether the officers noticed anything, you couldn’t tell, because they didn’t say a thing. One of them was carrying a tray of food while the other walked over to handcuff you both in place, ensuring that if you tried to run, you would be easy to catch. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Simon scowling. Poor thing getting blue-balled again, you thought.
Your eyes then instinctively moved to the food, but the officer didn’t offer it. Not yet. ‘You need to stand still for a routine health check,’ he barked.
Your brows knotted. Routine health check? You’d never done a routine health check as a convict. The hospital was always way too crowded. They wouldn’t waste resources unless it was necessary. ‘Why?’ you asked.
‘It’s a new protocol,’ the officer responded. He sounded aggravated about something, but you couldn’t tell what. ‘I just need you to stand and be scanned, and then you can eat.’
‘Um… Won’t he need one, too?’ you replied suspiciously. You made a point to gesture at Simon, who was also staring the guard down with deeply suspicious eyes.
The officer scowled. ‘No. Just you.’
Part of you wanted to protest. This was weird behaviour even by C.O.I officer standards. You kept thinking back to what Simon had said, how they often obscured their real intentions, and felt your gut twist. You weren’t exactly a model citizen, but you didn’t want to distrust your entire coalition.
You glanced back at Simon, but he wasn’t looking at you. He was glaring at the guards with unblinking focus. When the one guard holding your food lowered the tray to pull out a bag of medical equipment from her pack, he visibly switched to a defensive stance.
‘Down, boy.’
The male guard must have noticed Simon’s guarding behaviour, because he decided to push his luck by taunting the larger man. Simon scowled so hard that a vein formed on his temple, but he didn’t move. The guard narrowed his eyes and briefly paused the female officer from approaching.
‘Stand back, Convict,’ he ordered.
Again, Simon didn’t move. The officer narrowed his eyes.
‘I said, stand. Back.’
Simon remained still. You could hear his gloved hands squeaking as he clenched and cracked his knuckles behind your back, and it sent a shiver up your spine. ‘I’m not doing anything,’ he muttered coldly. ‘I’m just standing in my own cell.’
The guard didn’t like being questioned. It must have bruised his pitiful little ego, being unable to make the Eden man cower. His hand moved towards his belt in a clear threat, but surprisingly, the female officer waved him down.
‘It’s fine, leave him be. I just want to get this over with. I’m not keeping the Captain waiting,’ she said with an impatient huff. ‘Just stand on guard in case he does move.’
The officer opened his mouth to spit something back, but the mention of the ‘captain’ caused him to clamp up and suppress whatever issue he had. The male officer stepped back while the female officer approached in his stead.
‘I just need you to stand still,’ the female officer ordered. She sounded almost bored. ‘This won’t hurt at all. Okay?’
You gave a curt and awkward nod. What else could you say?
The bored-looking woman pulled three items from her pack: a multi-purpose scanner, a needle, and a plaster. She pressed the scanner to your forehead first, then your neck, your upper arm, and finally your belly. Each time it emitted a low, eerie whining noise followed by a beep, with no context given for what information it was actually taking. Simon watched all of this with an unwavering gaze.
Once satisfied, she handed the scanner to the male officer, who used it to scan the screen on a heavy-looking box in his other hand. The box beeped to indicate that something was occurring, but from your vantage point, all you could see was a slowly rising progress bar. Was it downloading something?
‘Eyes on me.’
You darted your eyes back to the female officer right as she flashed a light into them. You squinted and flinched. ‘F-Fuck, hey—’
‘Stay still.’
You forced yourself to blink and bear the light as she checked your reactions. Then came the needle. ‘This won’t hurt a bit,’ she muttered. You disagreed, but what could you do?
You gritted your teeth and allowed her to draw a syringe of blood from a vein in your arm. It was quick, thankfully, but she saw you jolt when the needle slid in. Simon’s jaw visibly ticked as he watched it all unfold.
‘Okay. That’s all we need.’ The woman slapped a patch over the needle entry point before sealing the sample into a little vial, something that she also handed to the male officer. He appeared to plug it into the top of that thick, archaic box device, which prompted another loading screen.
You and Simon exchanged a look behind the officers’ backs. He was obviously suspicious, but when you looked at him, he just shrugged and shook his head. You didn’t need words to understand; this was just the way things were.
A soft beep from the machine let you know that the officers had whatever they’d been looking for. Their response only confused you more. The man looked downright angry, while the woman maintained a cold façade. She raised a scanner from her bag, a smaller one, and ran a green light over the entire cell.
‘H-Hey, woah, woah, what are you—’
‘Quiet.’ The woman’s bark interrupted your concerned cry. She didn’t even look at you until the scanner was done, at which point she looked you up and down from head to toe.
‘… Okay. Good. Thank you for your cooperation.’
‘Yeah, like we had a fucking choice,’ you spat beneath your breath. Despite his cold expression, Simon almost cracked a smile.
Whether the officers heard you or not, it didn’t matter. The woman bundled up everything into the bag on her back, including the blood vial and the man’s analysis machine, before waving him off. ‘I’ll take this back to the captain’s room,’ she said. She attempted to add something else beneath her breath just for him, but you just managed to catch it: ‘I think she’ll be pleased.’
The woman then swiftly departed through the cell door, leaving you, Simon, and the petty male guard. He still looked visibly pissed off about something.
‘Shit… Okay.’ The man paced for a moment before finally facing you again. ‘So… We have an update on your cell,’ he gritted out.
Your entire body perked up when you heard that. A wave of fear and tepid curiosity stirred your senses back to life. What was going on? Was your cell free? Would you be made to leave Simon behind? You didn’t dare turn to look at him, but you could feel the tension in Simon’s body as he braced behind you.
‘Yeah? What’s up with it?’
The officer grunted. You noticed that he wasn’t making eye contact despite facing you head-on. ‘Yeah, um—Apparently we had an influx of new convicts. Shitheads who tried to steal equipment. We don’t have enough room to house them, so uh—they’ve been put into your cell.’
‘… What?’
‘We’re going to have to keep you in here indefinitely, since there’s no space,’ the officer sighed, as if this news upset him more than it should have theoretically upset you.
You didn’t respond. You were stunned. Yes, on some level, you’d been hoping for this outcome, but it didn’t make the reality of it any stranger. What did they mean, a random influx of new convicts? How did they not have room? When the prisons were overloaded in the past, they moved them to other ships, but the reality was that there just weren’t enough humans left in the universe to overload the prisons.
It was bullshit. However, it meant you got to stay with Simon, whether either of you liked it or not. You couldn’t help but glance up at him upon hearing this revelation, and he apparently couldn’t help but look down at you as well.
A million thoughts raced through your eyes. You both knew what this meant.
You quickly swung your head away and feigned annoyance. ‘God, you guys are useless at your jobs,’ you whined. ‘I want my cell back!’
‘Ahuh.’ The officer ignored your fake little spat and instead began uncuffing the two of you. ‘Sure. Anyway, you two have chores once you’ve finished eating, so hurry up so I can finish escorting you losers. 204, you’re in the engineering room. We need help melting down some glass we salvaged for a new project build. 307, you’re in the laundry room.’
The officer turned to the door, and you took that as your chance to grab the tray of food. You and Simon ate in silence, mostly because of the officer's presence, but also because you both knew what was going to be said. It was inevitable.
You were going to be stuck together for a long, long time.
You were going to fuck again.
And shit was going to get messy.
…
Simon POV
…
‘Move it, Convict! Hurry up. I don’t want to look at you anymore.’
Simon tried to focus on the sound of his footsteps as they echoed against the cold corridor. You had already left the trio to work in the engineering room, and now it was just him and the officer walking down to laundry.
He was trying to process his thoughts, at least, to the best of his ability. So much had suddenly changed, and all he wanted was some peace and quiet so that he could unpick his own mind. However, the officer was making it pretty fucking difficult to do so quietly.
‘I can’t believe they let you filthy Eden fucks touch our clothes,’ the guard muttered. ‘Piece of shit. They should have shot you.'
Simon didn’t respond. His face was a practised mask of stoic suffering, because even the slightest hint of rage would earn him a taser in the back. Besides, he’d already heard it all before.
But beneath that practised mask, his rage remained. The Butcher wasn’t dead; it dwelled inside him like an animal, snapping and straining to burst from his throat. He wanted nothing more than to just rip it out, but the Brotherhood had put this beast into him, and now all he could do was satiate it with bitter, bloody fantasy.
He fantasised about shoving the officer against the wall by the throat, letting them dangle and squirm until they felt as helpless and alone as he did. He imagined tearing his throat to ribbons with his bare hands, and watching the man choke on his rage. He fantasized about whispering into his ear: ‘It’s not just C.O.I clothes that I’m touching’.
He wanted to grasp every man who’d called him a castrated dog and let them smell your saliva on his fingers. Or, even better, your cunt on his pants. Some deep, vengeful part of him even wanted them to listen, to stand outside the cell door in the cold while you made those beautiful noises for him. Their precious little citizen, mewling for him. Whimpering, begging, screaming the name of this ‘Eden dog’—
But you are a dog, Simon.
The ghost of the Father's voice in his head was so vivid that Simon almost stumbled. He faintly heard the officer barking at him to move, but the sound was muffled by his own inner demons.
You’re no Son of mine. Forsaken blasphemer, your blood is too rotten to ever lie beneath the Tree.
A choir of dead voices screamed inside his mind, and Simon felt his mask slipping. He always let his fantasy go too deep. A wave of guilt washed away that sweet, bitter fantasy, leaving him with nothing but regret. He felt guilty for betraying his roots, but he felt guiltier for even imagining you like that, as some prop to prove his virility.
Is this what sex was? Did it really make everyone into such a grotesque monster?
Was the Father right…?
He almost physically shook his head just to drive that last thought out. No, no, no. You’ve gone through this already Simon, he told himself. They were wrong. They used you, and they hurt you, and they abandoned you at the end. You’re here to make up for what you did.
You can never make up for what you did, dog.
The same intrusive voice cut off his own inner monologue. He physically twitched. Stop, he pleaded, stop, stop.
All bark, all bite. All you care about is rutting your little mate, your little bitch. What’ll happen to your whelps, dog? To the bastard pups you spawn? Are you so selfish that you’ll watch them all drown before you do too?
That was the last straw. Simon drove his fist into the nearest wall, physically indenting the hardened metal. The officer fell back with a cry.
‘HEY! HEY, HEY!’
Simon immediately fell back and raised his shackled hands in surrender. He could feel his heart pounding from his ears all the way down to his bloodied knuckles. ‘I’m sorry,’ he choked out. ‘I’m sorry, I’m—fuck—’
He grunted with pain as the officer drove his boot into the back of his ankle, ignoring his apology entirely.
‘Do that again, and I’ll tase you until you start coughing blood,’ the officer spat into his ear. ‘You don’t get to pull that shit, not anymore. Not after what you did.’
Simon could have broken his neck. He’d done it before, and god knows this pathetic fuck deserved it.
But he didn’t. He didn’t want to be this.
The Brotherhood had imprinted shame into his heart just like they’d imprinted their mark into his skin. It was like a scar running through his psyche. He had resigned himself to the fact that he would never heal from what he was, from what he’d done, but at the very least, he could try.
He wouldn’t hurt anyone else.
He wouldn’t hurt you.
So he replied with a curt ‘yes, sir,’ and continued walking obediently towards the laundry room. He didn’t yell, didn’t snap, didn’t cause even a bit of fuss, even when the pain in his ankle began to flare.
He just had to survive.
The moment they got to the laundry room, the officer slammed and locked the door. It was only Simon in there that day. It was probably intended as a punishment, to leave him with so much manual work to complete, but honestly, it was a blessing. This was what he needed. Nice, quiet, monotonous work, so he could forget how much he still wanted you.
He moved through the pipes that billowed steam, passed the huge iron racks of plain brown and poorly stitched clothing, down to the bulbous metal tubs of hot, scalding water. In this time and place, this was the most efficient way of cleaning they had, no better than the dark ages.
It used to disgust him, honestly. Doing mundane tasks while the world rotted, pretending that any of this was necessary. Eden had taught him that none of these petty behaviours mattered, and that to engage in them was to lie straight from the soul.
But now, it was oddly calming. It was grounding, a way to quietly remind himself of the banalities of living.
That was all he wanted. A banal, quiet life.
As Simon settled down by the first steaming cauldron of water, he pulled the bag slung over his shoulder to his chest and began riffling through the clothes from yesterday. He’d managed to sneak them out with relatively little interrogation, thank god, since he’d just told the officer that the clothes were due for the wash anyway. Now he was tasked with cleaning up the evidence of his mistake.
He pulled his own clothes out and stared down at their limp form in his hands. Deep down, some part of him was twisting with guilt at the idea of just washing it all away. That idea of seed being sacred was still burned into the back of his subconscious, and he felt sick that he’d just wasted it the way he had. This could have been life, and now it would be washed down the drain like it was shameful.
He knew it didn’t actually mean anything. It wasn’t alive, it wasn’t spiritual. It was just semen. But it was hard to shake these ghosts. Deep down, he mourned what he’d done.
You pathetic dog. Wasting life for the sake of your own pleasure.
Simon threw his clothes down into the steaming water and immediately released a choked gasp. He hadn’t even realized that he’d been holding his breath until that moment.
He then turned to your clothes. He lifted them up and prepared to throw them in as well, but something made him pause. They were still slightly warm in his hands, those delicate folds that entrapped your flesh.
His eyes glanced around the room. No one else was in sight.
Slowly, ever so slowly, he raised them to his nose and sniffed. Your smell erupted through his nostrils and left him physically dizzy. God, for such a brat, you smelled incredible. The musky mix of his scent and yours was enough to send blood pooling down into his loins, but he quickly adjusted his trousers to hide it.
Pathetic dog, he thought. If they knew you’d done this, they’d beat you unconscious.
He shifted the clothes around and sniffed again, this time right over your underwear. He hated himself for it, but he just couldn’t stop himself from breathing it in. Warm, musky, the scent of a human being that made such beautiful noises for him.
It was a perverted little reminder that he’d done this, that he’d broken the most sacred rule of his upbringing, and he loved it. He loved the smell of your body.
‘F-Fuck… I can’t quit you.' He whispered that pathetic confession into your shirt before finally throwing them into the water.
You were right. When he got back to the cell tonight, he was going to annoy you. You were going to pick a fight, and he was going to take you down, and he wasn’t going to stop. He was going to devour you like the dog he was, and you would let him. Why? He didn’t know. But he wasn’t going to question it, because this mess was all he had.
You were all he had in this whole, wretched universe.