A Few Months Before Blackmere
The road was empty.
No streetlights. No other cars. Just two headlights cutting through the dark and the sound of an expensive engine going quiet as the car rolled to a stop.
Harolin was already there, leaning against his own car with his arms folded, watching.
The door opened. Dominic stepped out in a coat that cost more than most people's monthly salary, shut the door behind him, and walked over.
They shook hands.
Harolin looked at the car. Then at Dominic.
Dominic shrugged. "Gift. From Ruaan."
Harolin clicked his tongue and held out his hand.
Dominic reached into his coat and pulled out a brown file, thick with slightly worn edges. He handed it over.
Harolin didn't waste time. He pulled the papers out and began reading immediately, his eyes moving quickly and precisely down each page. More information. More details. More pieces of Ruaan Calder were laid out in black and white for him to go through.
He heard a click beside him and looked up.
Dominic had a cigarette between his lips, lighter already out, puffing like they were standing in a park somewhere.
Harolin's eyes went flat. "Put that out."
Dominic blinked. He sighed and lowered it slightly. "You know, you and Ruaan are literally the same person."
Harolin looked at him. "What?"
"He hates smoking too. He can't stand the smell." Dominic gestured with the cigarette vaguely. "Same face you're making right now."
Harolin filed that away immediately. "Is he allergic to it?"
"No." Dominic tilted his head. "He just hates it. Like you do."
Harolin looked back at the papers. "What else does he hate?"
Dominic was quiet for a moment, thinking. He took one last drag, dropped the cigarette, and crushed it under his shoe. Folded his arms.
"Pain," he said finally.
Harolin looked up. "Pain?"
"I'm almost certain he's never slept with a man," Dominic said in the same way he said everything. "I've tried multiple times to fuck him. He always finds a way to avoid it." A pause. "He's not shy. He's not uninterested. I think it's just — the pain thing. He doesn't want it."
"You've never touched him."
"Not for lack of trying." Something moved across Dominic's face that Harolin didn't care about enough to read. "I'm not into men but he's hard to resist. Genuinely. But he's never let it get anywhere." He shrugged. "So yeah. Ruaan is still innocent. Somehow."
Harolin looked back at the file.
He noted it.
He didn't think much of it at the time.
.
Now.
He thought about it now.
Standing in his office, looking at Ruaan with his shirt off and the tattoo catching the light and that single full-body flinch that had answered the question before Ruaan's mouth could.
'Bingo.'
He stepped back to put a little distance between them before looking at Ruaan properly.
"Why have you been avoiding it?" he asked. "Sleeping with men." A pause. "Is it the pain?"
Ruaan stared at him. "How do you know that?"
Harolin picked the pen from his desk. Pointed it at him. "I know everything about you, Ruaan Calder." He held his gaze. "Don't look so surprised."
Ruaan swallowed. His fist pressed against his own chest, slowly, like he was holding something together from the inside.
"So." His voice came out quieter than usual. "Will you do what I'm asking or not?"
"I can't have any kind of relationship with a prisoner," Harolin said. "It's against the rules."
"Harolin—"
"It's past midnight." He nodded toward the door. "Leave."
Ruaan looked at him for a long moment. Then he reached down, picked his uniform shirt off the sofa, and didn't put it on. Just held it. He walked to the door, grabbed the handle, and stopped.
He turned his head.
"You're the reason I'm in this mess," he said quietly. "I know that. And I'm not going to forget it." He met Harolin's eyes. "But one day you're going to need something from me. And when that day comes—" a pause "—you'll get on your knees before I answer you."
He walked out and the door clicked shut.
Harolin stood in the quiet of his office and looked at the space where Ruaan had been standing.
"What exactly am I going to need from you, Ru?" He asked himself.
Then, without entirely meaning to, his gaze dropped.
Downward.
To the very obvious, very present situation going on in front of his trousers.
He stared at it.
"Oh... Interesting," he said, to no one.
.
.
The next morning, Ruaan did not move.
He lay completely still under his blanket with the cover pulled over his face and made a firm, executive decision that he was not getting up. Not for anything. Not for anyone.
Out there was Cullen Ray.
Out there was a hierarchy game he had lost and a bottom rank he was stuck in.
In here was a blanket.
The blanket won.
He shut his eyes and immediately thought about what Harolin had said last night.
'Is it the pain?'
Yes. Obviously yes. He wasn't going to say that out loud to Harolin or anyone but — yes. He had thought about it, when he was younger, before he'd figured himself out that he was gay. He wasn't afraid of men. He wasn't afraid of wanting them.
He was afraid of that specific thing going inside him. The part that everyone seemed to treat like it was nothing.
To him, sex is just pain disguised as pleasure.
He was good at other things. He knew that. He had hands and a mouth and a considerable amount of natural talent and he had managed fine. More than fine.
But that — the actual, hard and long and... full thing — no.
Not yet.
Not with Cullen Ray.
'Absolutely not with Cullen Ray.'
"2525."
He pulled the blanket tighter.
"2525." Split Lip's voice. "Hot water's running. You should go now before it runs out."
"I'm fine."
"You haven't showered since—"
"I said I'm fine."
A pause.
"Breakfast is in twenty minutes."
"Not hungry."
Another pause, longer this time. He could feel Split Lip looking at him through the blanket.
"Okay," Split Lip said finally, and walked away.
Ruaan lay there.
He did, genuinely, want to shower. He had Harolin's soap. The hot water was running. Every part of him that was not currently operating on pure stubbornness was voting strongly in favour of getting up.
But Cullen was out there.
'Stay in the room,' he told himself. 'Nothing can happen in the room. Just wait till midnight, use the soap, shower in peace, survive another day.'
Simple.
He could do something simple.
But the blanket lifted.
It wasn't from him. From the other side — a hand at the edge of it, pulling slowly and deliberately from his feet upward, trailing along his legs, his thighs, his waist, his stomach, his chest, and when it reached his face Ruaan grabbed it instinctively and the blanket yanked all the way off and—
Cullen Ray was sitting on the edge of his bed.
Smiling.
Ruaan's heart dropped straight through the mattress.
"Good morning," Cullen said pleasantly. Like they were neighbours. Like this was completely normal. "My little toy awake or just pretending?"
"G—" Ruaan's voice didn't work on the first try. He cleared his throat. "Good morning."
"Yes... good morning," Cullen said again, warm, almost gentle.
Ruaan thought,
'Maybe he's just here to talk. Maybe this is fine. Maybe—'
Cullen leaned forward.
"How was your night?" he asked.
"...Fine."
"Mine wasn't." Cullen's voice stayed pleasant. The smile didn't move. "I stayed up waiting for you to come serve me." He tilted his head slowly. "My cock has been aching since yesterday, 2525." The smile widened. "So tell me." He leaned in until there was almost no space left between them.
"When is it getting its breakfast?"