Fic: Lies in Silence Ch 13
LIES IN SILENCE CHAPTER THIRTEEN
by SlwMtionDaylite
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I own nothing. Paramount, et al. own all. I really wish they would let me borrow Spock for a while though.
Rating: MA/NC-17
Genre: Angst, Drama, Erotica, Hurt/Comfort
Characters/Pairing: Spock/Uhura
Word Count (Chapter Thirteen): 3324
Beta: jlneveloff
Warnings: Language, explicit and non-explicit sexual situations, slight dub!con, rape, violence, minor Fem!slash
Summary: Alternate Mirror Universe. He wants to protect me; I want that protection, need it, in fact. But I am willing to betray him if and when the time comes. We are not working together. I know my goals. But what are his?
PREVIOUS CHAPTERS
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Dangers of Imminent Collapse
The Wall taunts me. Large, drab, and imposing, it looms above me as I walk down the bloodied sidewalk. Bodies hang from those harrowing hooks. Every day, every time I pass, there are new bodies. For the past several weeks, since Commander Spock has been placed in charge, the body count has increased. It scares me.
I stop and I stare at every new body I see hanging. It's become a ritual. I grieve for these bodies. I mourn because someone has to.
Tonight, there are four bodies. Fresh. The blood still drips from their limbs onto the stained sidewalk below. I still can't see their faces-I’m glad for that-but the injuries their bodies have endured...What did these four bodies-three women and a man-do to earn Commander Spock's swift and brutal punishment? Or was it swift? How the hell can I know? How can I know that he doesn't order them to be tortured first, in attempts to wrangle confessions from their screaming lips? Are their faces forever frozen in fear, in agony beneath those white and red shrouds? How can I know that he doesn't participate?
He must. I swear he must.
I know he does.
I have entered his quarters far too often to the sight of him standing over his kitchen sink, washing his hands far too furiously for a stoic Vulcan and colored liquid swirling down the drain. Red. Green. Black. Blue. Pink. The colors of blood. So much blood. I learned quickly not to question him about that blood.
I have let myself ignore the implications of that for too long.
The man, the Vulcan I sleep with, who I allow to fuck my body, whose touch I long for, is a monster. A conflicted monster of the Empire's creation. He protests. He claims to abhor it. But in the end, he's still the monster the Empire wants him to be. He's thrown himself into this new position Starfleet has bestowed him with an unwavering and frightening resolve. He withdrew himself as professor of my Andorian class. Professor Veleen has returned, bruised and broken, but no less determined to teach the language of his people. I think he was imprisoned behind the Wall. I think the Commander released him. But I have no proof of this. Nor do I have any idea why. I don’t intend to ask him.
I don't see the Commander unless he calls for me, which he does virtually every night. I, of course, go to him. I shouldn’t. But I’m drawn like a vulnerable moth to the encompassing flame. I want to understand him. I want to know why he struggles. Struggles with his newfound Vulcan beliefs and the merciless Empire he places such fate in. He intrigues me, just as I intrigue him.
But I am also frightened.
I stare at the dead bodies. Human, they're all human this time. Last time, there was a Bolian. These humans, their injuries calling out to me. And she, the one nearest me, looks so similar to me, it’s jarring. I can't see her face; I don't want to see her face. But her body is small, delicate, and her skin, her brown skin bears bruises and lashes and gashes. She is the most damaged of the four; she suffered the most. My eyes rest on the dark rings around her limp wrists, my hand unconsciously rubbing the identical bruises around my own wrists.
I close my eyes. The bruises I received yesterday.
The door to his apartment opened upon my arrival; the door always opens for me-he's programmed it to-and I always step over the threshold. When the door slid closed and the lock engaged automatically, I set my bag on the floor and removed my wig, my clothing. Stripped myself bare the way I know he wants me. There's no reason for clothing within the walls of his apartment.
Naked, I listened for him. I heard water running in the kitchen. The kitchen area's one of the first rooms that branches off the tiny little foyer area. I took a couple of steps, my bare feet silent on the floor, and glanced into the room.
The overwhelming metallic smell hit me first and I fought the reflex to gag. He was standing over the sink, hot water-I could see the steam rising-pouring from the faucet and scalding his hands. His bloodied hands. His bright red blood-stained hands. Human blood.
I gasped. Or I made some sort of noise. I'm sure I did, because he jerked his head up and looked at me. A frightfully blank and contained look on his face.
I shook violently. I remember that. I was frightened. Blood was never a good thing. Blood on him, blood that clearly wasn’t his, could never be a good thing.
"You are earlier than I anticipated."
That's all he said, turning his attention back to his hands. If anything, his actions became more fevered.
I took a step forward, heedless of my nudity, for I have long grown used to his eyes upon my bare flesh. I asked him where the blood came from. I couldn’t keep my questions inside any longer.
"It is not your concern," he said. He didn't look at me.
I stepped closer. "Is it human blood?" I asked. "Did it come from the Wall?"
"The Wall?" He was perplexed. Then: "You are referring to the headquarters for the Special Forces, are you not?" He scrubbed fiercely. His hands were turning a bright green, the scalding water and the fierce motions of his hands injuring his skin.
I reacted. I yelled at him, angry at his nonchalance. "Did you torture someone? Am I going to see a new body hanging outside that place the next time I walk by?"
"I cannot logically confirm nor deny your second query, for I do not know how often you encounter the facility." There was a small quiver in his voice. Something was affecting him. I was glad for that. He should be affected.
I moved closer. "Did you? Did you watch some man, some woman bleed? Did you enjoy it?" I was pushing, I know I was. But he was nonreactive, so calm despite the blood staining his hands, the quiver in his voice. It infuriated me. "Did you kill someone today, Commander? That's against the teachings of Surak, isn't it?"
He stopped scrubbing, rested his hands against the edges of the sink and leaned heavily-one might say he sagged-against the counter, his eyes closing. He muttered quietly. "Tilek svi'khaf-spol t'vathu - tilek svi'sha'veh."
My mind quickly translated the words.
The spear in the other's heart is the spear in your own.
My eyes widened. The implications of that quote...were insurmountable. But I didn't want to deal with those implications. So I didn't.
"And yet, you do it. You slaughtered them."
He opened his eyes. "I do what I must. For the Empire." He repeated the words. It was like he was trying to convince himself. "I do what I must because I am bound to the Empire, to Starfleet. We are all enslaved by the Empire."
I scoffed, my anger, my frustration taking control. "Bullshit," I spit at him. "What do you know about enslavement? What did you know about being forced into a life you've never wanted because the Empire deemed it necessary? Forced...forced by your own parents to be a sex slave for the highest bidder, a despicable man who didn't care for your feelings, who didn't care if you screamed in agony and fear, as long as he was able to fuck your body? Tell me, Commander Spock, do you know what it's like to be beg for death, only to have it denied you because your pussy was still useful, still tight?" Tears were streaming down my face. I felt them, but I refused to brush them away.
He was silent. His breathing was slow, steady. His eyes closed. He leaned against the kitchen counter more heavily, as though weight of his actions were buckling his knees. His voice faltered. "The Empire strives to protect its citizens. I was tasked with helping the Empire with this duty."
"And your precious Empire killed your own mother." It was a low blow, I know. But it was all I had. It was all I knew of him. It was all he'd given me.
Silence. He stood at the sink, shaking with the intensity of the emotions that were no doubt coursing through his cold veins.
I released a shaky breath.
Suddenly, without warning, he let out a cry and launched at me. I couldn't get away fast enough and he pushed me into the small island counter behind me, hands wrapped around my bare shoulders. They burned, scorched by the water. I winced at his forceful grasp.
He kissed me. It was bruising, fierce. I moaned into his mouth and he thrust his tongue in. He reached up and entwined his fingers through my hair, pulling me closer. My hands settled on his chest. His hands dropped to my waist and dipped lower, between my legs. Deftly, he forced a leg between mine, spreading them, and a hand against my pussy. I was so exposed to him, nude and trapped against the counter, pliable under his touch. He pressed his fingers between my legs, teasing, arousing.
I broke the kiss to cry out, tightening my grip upon his hair. It should be shameful how little it takes for him to make me wet.
He released me and picked me up, gripping me around my waist. He carried me to his bedroom, where he set me upon the mattress. He undressed quickly, unfastening his own pants and pulling out his cock. He stroked himself a few times then he grabbed my legs and lifted them to his waist, forcing me to lean back and support myself on my elbows. He leaned forward, resting one hand against the mattress beneath me and another pressed into my lower back, pulling me closer, and thrust inside me.
I cried out, grabbing onto his shoulders, tightening my legs around his waist as he pounded into me roughly, burying himself to the hilt with each thrust. He pressed his forehead against mine and kissed me again. He reached up and grabbed my wrists, pinning them above my head. His grip was powerful, painful; I felt the fragile bones in my wrists protest and I feared they would break under his pressure. I cried out, a cry of pain, not pleasure.
“You’re hurting me,” I whispered, looking at his face, gasping in pain, in pleasure.
But he said nothing; he did nothing. He was too far gone, blind with lust and anger. He pounded into me and I could do nothing but whimper, both in pleasure and pain.
It was a brief union. We both quickly spiraled toward completion, panting and gasping against lips.
He collapsed against me, the grip on my wrists finally loosening, and he buried his face in my shoulder. My shoulder grew wet, but I didn’t bother to ask why. I gasped, panted into the air. With my hands now freed, I reached up and pushed him.
He moved off me and I rolled to my side, curling into fetal position, my legs to my chest, my back to him and my hands gingerly inspecting my wrists. They ached but they weren’t broken. Tears leaked from my eyes. He had not been that rough, that painful for a while, not since his confession that I intrigued him enough that he was willing to ignore the laws for me. I had allowed myself to fall into that sense of security that his fascination with me would keep me safe from his deadly grip. But that was before I taunted him with his Empire and his mother.
He needed to punish me.
I should be thankful that at least I still experienced pleasure.
He shifted on the mattress and I froze. He moved closer, pressing his chest against my back, and a hand reached out and touched my shoulder. He ran his hand down my arm to my wrists. I cried out weakly when he touched the rapidly forming bruises and jerked my hands away, pulling them closer to my body.
I felt tears pooling in my eyes and I didn’t fight them. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close, burying his face into the crook of my neck. I felt it grow wet again. Like tears.
But I didn’t say anything.
And he didn’t either.
Not for a long time.
Finally, when he spoke, his voice was a low rumble, rough with raw emotion, more emotion than I’ve ever heard from him. “I do not question your actions, your motives. Please, I expect you to do the same for me. “
I could not stop my response, my emotions so fraught with pain and sorrow, so stretched thin. It was a stupid thing to say. It was absolutely stupid. I replied to him angrily, “At least I’m not a murderer. At least I’m not killing anyone.” But I am. I am a murderer. I don't say that, though.
He released me, turning his back on me. “Please, leave.” Two simple words whispered so quietly, so fiercely. He was holding something back. I could tell. I could hear it in his voice. His emotions were getting a hold on him. I could tell.
But I left. I wasn’t about to question him.
He's a monster. A monster I allow into my body; a monster who sobs silently into my shoulder. I don't know what that says about me. I don’t know what that says about him.
Blood drips onto my outstretched hand-when did I reach for her, she who looks so much like me-pulling me back to reality. A reality I would love to forget, but I can't. It’s inescapable. The cruelty, the pain. I want it gone. But it won’t go.
I'll be late to my meeting with Gaila if I don't hurry.
***** ***** *****
Gaila is not the same. That was the first thing I noticed when I entered the bleak room of the disgusting whorehouse. She is broken. I don’t know when it happened, how it happened. But she sits on the bed beside of me, eyeing my bruised wrists with a blank look on her bruised face. She has matching bruises. Darker bruises.
Her smile is gone.
We look at one another. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know what there is to tell her. I still don’t know anything new.
Not really.
I also don’t know how to talk to her anymore. Things are still tense between us. She still suspects that I want to encroach upon her territory. But, looking at her, at her injuries, I think I need to get her out of there.
Robau is growing angry with her. But I don’t know why.
I don’t know what to tell her. What information I can impart to her about Commander Spock that can keep her safe from Robau’s wrath. I don’t know anything new. I don’t think Robau is interested in how the Commander expertly wrangles orgasms from my body, leaving me begging for more. How one time the Commander used his mouth upon me for what felt like hours. I don’t think Robau would be interested in hearing about how we fuck each other, he fucks me on every surface throughout his apartment.
“Did he hurt you again?”
Her voice startles me. I jump, the memory of Spock’s recent violence against me springing to my mind once more, and pull my hands to my chest, wrapping them around myself. “I, uh, I made him angry.” In hindsight, I should not have taunted him with his mother’s death. I know how deeply he still feels about it, even though he was only four years old when it happened. But he was so cold, so dismissive of the deaths he caused.
I know that’s not true.
I heard the quiver of his voice; I felt the hot tears against my neck.
No, it troubles him.
But I try not to think about that. I can’t let myself forgive him. I can’t let myself feel for him. He’s just a means to an end.
Gaila gives a quick harsh laugh, tainted with a sob. “You need to get out of there.”
I jerk my head up to look at her, startled at her words. “Why?”
“Because Robau is getting angry.”
I know that. I see the evidence of that on her body. “Is that why you look like that?” I jerk my head toward her body.
She gives that same broken laugh-sob again. “I look like this because I made him angry.”
Our eyes meet, mine dry, hers wet.
“What happened?” I ask with a whisper.
Gaila shakes her head, brushing her flame-red hair away from her face. She swipes at her tears. “It was my fault. I interrupted him when he was talking to someone.”
“Who?” It must be someone important if Gaila drew his wrath.
Gaila shakes her head, dropping her head into her hands. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I sigh quietly. No, I don’t blame her. She trusts Robau. She loves him. He equals safety for her. And he betrayed that. I can understand her trouble. Her pain. I reach out and pat her leg, a feeble attempt to comfort her. “Gaila?”
She sighs. And looks at me. “I don’t know who it was. Some captain or something. They were talking about you.”
My eyes widen and my heart pounds in my chest. A captain? What captain? Pike? He’s the only captain I know, the only captain I have contact with. He was the captain who recruited me. Was he instrumental in getting me into Starfleet? Did he get me passed all the required tests and exams? I always questioned it, but I always thought that maybe Gaila worked her magic. I always thought that she used her computer skills to hack into the system and waive me from all of those exams.
But...if Pike is working with Robau, why does my skin crawl when he looks at me? Why does my heart jump in my throat when he approaches me, fearful that he will reveal what I know he must know about me? Why don’t I know that he is a part of the plan?
“What...what did they say about me?”
“I don’t know. They were complaining about how slow you were. About time running out. I don’t know. None of it made any sense to me.”
And it doesn’t make any sense to me. But I don’t voice my concerns. I don’t want Robau to hurt her again. Instead, I voice my fear for her safety. “You need get away from him, Gaila. Don’t forget what he did to Janice.” No, never forget what he did to her. I don’t want Gaila to do what I did and shove that memory away, because it was an inconvenience, because it didn’t jive with the hopes and expectations of what I envisioned Robau to represent.
Gaila looks at me, her eyes wide, wet with fresh tears. “But he didn’t mean to do it, right? He still loves me, right?”
I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t know what to say that can assuage her, what can put her troubled mind at rest. There are no words. I know this. She loves him, trusted him. And now, because of that love, she can barely walk. “You need to run away, Gaila. It’s not safe.”
I should run, too. But I can’t.
“But where would I go?”
I have no answer. Because I don’t know.
by SlwMtionDaylite
Disclaimer: Unfortunately, I own nothing. Paramount, et al. own all. I really wish they would let me borrow Spock for a while though.
Rating: MA/NC-17
Genre: Angst, Drama, Erotica, Hurt/Comfort
Characters/Pairing: Spock/Uhura
Word Count (Chapter Thirteen): 3324
Beta: jlneveloff
Warnings: Language, explicit and non-explicit sexual situations, slight dub!con, rape, violence, minor Fem!slash
Summary: Alternate Mirror Universe. He wants to protect me; I want that protection, need it, in fact. But I am willing to betray him if and when the time comes. We are not working together. I know my goals. But what are his?
PREVIOUS CHAPTERS
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Dangers of Imminent Collapse
The Wall taunts me. Large, drab, and imposing, it looms above me as I walk down the bloodied sidewalk. Bodies hang from those harrowing hooks. Every day, every time I pass, there are new bodies. For the past several weeks, since Commander Spock has been placed in charge, the body count has increased. It scares me.
I stop and I stare at every new body I see hanging. It's become a ritual. I grieve for these bodies. I mourn because someone has to.
Tonight, there are four bodies. Fresh. The blood still drips from their limbs onto the stained sidewalk below. I still can't see their faces-I’m glad for that-but the injuries their bodies have endured...What did these four bodies-three women and a man-do to earn Commander Spock's swift and brutal punishment? Or was it swift? How the hell can I know? How can I know that he doesn't order them to be tortured first, in attempts to wrangle confessions from their screaming lips? Are their faces forever frozen in fear, in agony beneath those white and red shrouds? How can I know that he doesn't participate?
He must. I swear he must.
I know he does.
I have entered his quarters far too often to the sight of him standing over his kitchen sink, washing his hands far too furiously for a stoic Vulcan and colored liquid swirling down the drain. Red. Green. Black. Blue. Pink. The colors of blood. So much blood. I learned quickly not to question him about that blood.
I have let myself ignore the implications of that for too long.
The man, the Vulcan I sleep with, who I allow to fuck my body, whose touch I long for, is a monster. A conflicted monster of the Empire's creation. He protests. He claims to abhor it. But in the end, he's still the monster the Empire wants him to be. He's thrown himself into this new position Starfleet has bestowed him with an unwavering and frightening resolve. He withdrew himself as professor of my Andorian class. Professor Veleen has returned, bruised and broken, but no less determined to teach the language of his people. I think he was imprisoned behind the Wall. I think the Commander released him. But I have no proof of this. Nor do I have any idea why. I don’t intend to ask him.
I don't see the Commander unless he calls for me, which he does virtually every night. I, of course, go to him. I shouldn’t. But I’m drawn like a vulnerable moth to the encompassing flame. I want to understand him. I want to know why he struggles. Struggles with his newfound Vulcan beliefs and the merciless Empire he places such fate in. He intrigues me, just as I intrigue him.
But I am also frightened.
I stare at the dead bodies. Human, they're all human this time. Last time, there was a Bolian. These humans, their injuries calling out to me. And she, the one nearest me, looks so similar to me, it’s jarring. I can't see her face; I don't want to see her face. But her body is small, delicate, and her skin, her brown skin bears bruises and lashes and gashes. She is the most damaged of the four; she suffered the most. My eyes rest on the dark rings around her limp wrists, my hand unconsciously rubbing the identical bruises around my own wrists.
I close my eyes. The bruises I received yesterday.
The door to his apartment opened upon my arrival; the door always opens for me-he's programmed it to-and I always step over the threshold. When the door slid closed and the lock engaged automatically, I set my bag on the floor and removed my wig, my clothing. Stripped myself bare the way I know he wants me. There's no reason for clothing within the walls of his apartment.
Naked, I listened for him. I heard water running in the kitchen. The kitchen area's one of the first rooms that branches off the tiny little foyer area. I took a couple of steps, my bare feet silent on the floor, and glanced into the room.
The overwhelming metallic smell hit me first and I fought the reflex to gag. He was standing over the sink, hot water-I could see the steam rising-pouring from the faucet and scalding his hands. His bloodied hands. His bright red blood-stained hands. Human blood.
I gasped. Or I made some sort of noise. I'm sure I did, because he jerked his head up and looked at me. A frightfully blank and contained look on his face.
I shook violently. I remember that. I was frightened. Blood was never a good thing. Blood on him, blood that clearly wasn’t his, could never be a good thing.
"You are earlier than I anticipated."
That's all he said, turning his attention back to his hands. If anything, his actions became more fevered.
I took a step forward, heedless of my nudity, for I have long grown used to his eyes upon my bare flesh. I asked him where the blood came from. I couldn’t keep my questions inside any longer.
"It is not your concern," he said. He didn't look at me.
I stepped closer. "Is it human blood?" I asked. "Did it come from the Wall?"
"The Wall?" He was perplexed. Then: "You are referring to the headquarters for the Special Forces, are you not?" He scrubbed fiercely. His hands were turning a bright green, the scalding water and the fierce motions of his hands injuring his skin.
I reacted. I yelled at him, angry at his nonchalance. "Did you torture someone? Am I going to see a new body hanging outside that place the next time I walk by?"
"I cannot logically confirm nor deny your second query, for I do not know how often you encounter the facility." There was a small quiver in his voice. Something was affecting him. I was glad for that. He should be affected.
I moved closer. "Did you? Did you watch some man, some woman bleed? Did you enjoy it?" I was pushing, I know I was. But he was nonreactive, so calm despite the blood staining his hands, the quiver in his voice. It infuriated me. "Did you kill someone today, Commander? That's against the teachings of Surak, isn't it?"
He stopped scrubbing, rested his hands against the edges of the sink and leaned heavily-one might say he sagged-against the counter, his eyes closing. He muttered quietly. "Tilek svi'khaf-spol t'vathu - tilek svi'sha'veh."
My mind quickly translated the words.
The spear in the other's heart is the spear in your own.
My eyes widened. The implications of that quote...were insurmountable. But I didn't want to deal with those implications. So I didn't.
"And yet, you do it. You slaughtered them."
He opened his eyes. "I do what I must. For the Empire." He repeated the words. It was like he was trying to convince himself. "I do what I must because I am bound to the Empire, to Starfleet. We are all enslaved by the Empire."
I scoffed, my anger, my frustration taking control. "Bullshit," I spit at him. "What do you know about enslavement? What did you know about being forced into a life you've never wanted because the Empire deemed it necessary? Forced...forced by your own parents to be a sex slave for the highest bidder, a despicable man who didn't care for your feelings, who didn't care if you screamed in agony and fear, as long as he was able to fuck your body? Tell me, Commander Spock, do you know what it's like to be beg for death, only to have it denied you because your pussy was still useful, still tight?" Tears were streaming down my face. I felt them, but I refused to brush them away.
He was silent. His breathing was slow, steady. His eyes closed. He leaned against the kitchen counter more heavily, as though weight of his actions were buckling his knees. His voice faltered. "The Empire strives to protect its citizens. I was tasked with helping the Empire with this duty."
"And your precious Empire killed your own mother." It was a low blow, I know. But it was all I had. It was all I knew of him. It was all he'd given me.
Silence. He stood at the sink, shaking with the intensity of the emotions that were no doubt coursing through his cold veins.
I released a shaky breath.
Suddenly, without warning, he let out a cry and launched at me. I couldn't get away fast enough and he pushed me into the small island counter behind me, hands wrapped around my bare shoulders. They burned, scorched by the water. I winced at his forceful grasp.
He kissed me. It was bruising, fierce. I moaned into his mouth and he thrust his tongue in. He reached up and entwined his fingers through my hair, pulling me closer. My hands settled on his chest. His hands dropped to my waist and dipped lower, between my legs. Deftly, he forced a leg between mine, spreading them, and a hand against my pussy. I was so exposed to him, nude and trapped against the counter, pliable under his touch. He pressed his fingers between my legs, teasing, arousing.
I broke the kiss to cry out, tightening my grip upon his hair. It should be shameful how little it takes for him to make me wet.
He released me and picked me up, gripping me around my waist. He carried me to his bedroom, where he set me upon the mattress. He undressed quickly, unfastening his own pants and pulling out his cock. He stroked himself a few times then he grabbed my legs and lifted them to his waist, forcing me to lean back and support myself on my elbows. He leaned forward, resting one hand against the mattress beneath me and another pressed into my lower back, pulling me closer, and thrust inside me.
I cried out, grabbing onto his shoulders, tightening my legs around his waist as he pounded into me roughly, burying himself to the hilt with each thrust. He pressed his forehead against mine and kissed me again. He reached up and grabbed my wrists, pinning them above my head. His grip was powerful, painful; I felt the fragile bones in my wrists protest and I feared they would break under his pressure. I cried out, a cry of pain, not pleasure.
“You’re hurting me,” I whispered, looking at his face, gasping in pain, in pleasure.
But he said nothing; he did nothing. He was too far gone, blind with lust and anger. He pounded into me and I could do nothing but whimper, both in pleasure and pain.
It was a brief union. We both quickly spiraled toward completion, panting and gasping against lips.
He collapsed against me, the grip on my wrists finally loosening, and he buried his face in my shoulder. My shoulder grew wet, but I didn’t bother to ask why. I gasped, panted into the air. With my hands now freed, I reached up and pushed him.
He moved off me and I rolled to my side, curling into fetal position, my legs to my chest, my back to him and my hands gingerly inspecting my wrists. They ached but they weren’t broken. Tears leaked from my eyes. He had not been that rough, that painful for a while, not since his confession that I intrigued him enough that he was willing to ignore the laws for me. I had allowed myself to fall into that sense of security that his fascination with me would keep me safe from his deadly grip. But that was before I taunted him with his Empire and his mother.
He needed to punish me.
I should be thankful that at least I still experienced pleasure.
He shifted on the mattress and I froze. He moved closer, pressing his chest against my back, and a hand reached out and touched my shoulder. He ran his hand down my arm to my wrists. I cried out weakly when he touched the rapidly forming bruises and jerked my hands away, pulling them closer to my body.
I felt tears pooling in my eyes and I didn’t fight them. He wrapped his arm around my waist and pulled me close, burying his face into the crook of my neck. I felt it grow wet again. Like tears.
But I didn’t say anything.
And he didn’t either.
Not for a long time.
Finally, when he spoke, his voice was a low rumble, rough with raw emotion, more emotion than I’ve ever heard from him. “I do not question your actions, your motives. Please, I expect you to do the same for me. “
I could not stop my response, my emotions so fraught with pain and sorrow, so stretched thin. It was a stupid thing to say. It was absolutely stupid. I replied to him angrily, “At least I’m not a murderer. At least I’m not killing anyone.” But I am. I am a murderer. I don't say that, though.
He released me, turning his back on me. “Please, leave.” Two simple words whispered so quietly, so fiercely. He was holding something back. I could tell. I could hear it in his voice. His emotions were getting a hold on him. I could tell.
But I left. I wasn’t about to question him.
He's a monster. A monster I allow into my body; a monster who sobs silently into my shoulder. I don't know what that says about me. I don’t know what that says about him.
Blood drips onto my outstretched hand-when did I reach for her, she who looks so much like me-pulling me back to reality. A reality I would love to forget, but I can't. It’s inescapable. The cruelty, the pain. I want it gone. But it won’t go.
I'll be late to my meeting with Gaila if I don't hurry.
***** ***** *****
Gaila is not the same. That was the first thing I noticed when I entered the bleak room of the disgusting whorehouse. She is broken. I don’t know when it happened, how it happened. But she sits on the bed beside of me, eyeing my bruised wrists with a blank look on her bruised face. She has matching bruises. Darker bruises.
Her smile is gone.
We look at one another. I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t know what there is to tell her. I still don’t know anything new.
Not really.
I also don’t know how to talk to her anymore. Things are still tense between us. She still suspects that I want to encroach upon her territory. But, looking at her, at her injuries, I think I need to get her out of there.
Robau is growing angry with her. But I don’t know why.
I don’t know what to tell her. What information I can impart to her about Commander Spock that can keep her safe from Robau’s wrath. I don’t know anything new. I don’t think Robau is interested in how the Commander expertly wrangles orgasms from my body, leaving me begging for more. How one time the Commander used his mouth upon me for what felt like hours. I don’t think Robau would be interested in hearing about how we fuck each other, he fucks me on every surface throughout his apartment.
“Did he hurt you again?”
Her voice startles me. I jump, the memory of Spock’s recent violence against me springing to my mind once more, and pull my hands to my chest, wrapping them around myself. “I, uh, I made him angry.” In hindsight, I should not have taunted him with his mother’s death. I know how deeply he still feels about it, even though he was only four years old when it happened. But he was so cold, so dismissive of the deaths he caused.
I know that’s not true.
I heard the quiver of his voice; I felt the hot tears against my neck.
No, it troubles him.
But I try not to think about that. I can’t let myself forgive him. I can’t let myself feel for him. He’s just a means to an end.
Gaila gives a quick harsh laugh, tainted with a sob. “You need to get out of there.”
I jerk my head up to look at her, startled at her words. “Why?”
“Because Robau is getting angry.”
I know that. I see the evidence of that on her body. “Is that why you look like that?” I jerk my head toward her body.
She gives that same broken laugh-sob again. “I look like this because I made him angry.”
Our eyes meet, mine dry, hers wet.
“What happened?” I ask with a whisper.
Gaila shakes her head, brushing her flame-red hair away from her face. She swipes at her tears. “It was my fault. I interrupted him when he was talking to someone.”
“Who?” It must be someone important if Gaila drew his wrath.
Gaila shakes her head, dropping her head into her hands. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
I sigh quietly. No, I don’t blame her. She trusts Robau. She loves him. He equals safety for her. And he betrayed that. I can understand her trouble. Her pain. I reach out and pat her leg, a feeble attempt to comfort her. “Gaila?”
She sighs. And looks at me. “I don’t know who it was. Some captain or something. They were talking about you.”
My eyes widen and my heart pounds in my chest. A captain? What captain? Pike? He’s the only captain I know, the only captain I have contact with. He was the captain who recruited me. Was he instrumental in getting me into Starfleet? Did he get me passed all the required tests and exams? I always questioned it, but I always thought that maybe Gaila worked her magic. I always thought that she used her computer skills to hack into the system and waive me from all of those exams.
But...if Pike is working with Robau, why does my skin crawl when he looks at me? Why does my heart jump in my throat when he approaches me, fearful that he will reveal what I know he must know about me? Why don’t I know that he is a part of the plan?
“What...what did they say about me?”
“I don’t know. They were complaining about how slow you were. About time running out. I don’t know. None of it made any sense to me.”
And it doesn’t make any sense to me. But I don’t voice my concerns. I don’t want Robau to hurt her again. Instead, I voice my fear for her safety. “You need get away from him, Gaila. Don’t forget what he did to Janice.” No, never forget what he did to her. I don’t want Gaila to do what I did and shove that memory away, because it was an inconvenience, because it didn’t jive with the hopes and expectations of what I envisioned Robau to represent.
Gaila looks at me, her eyes wide, wet with fresh tears. “But he didn’t mean to do it, right? He still loves me, right?”
I don’t know what to tell her. I don’t know what to say that can assuage her, what can put her troubled mind at rest. There are no words. I know this. She loves him, trusted him. And now, because of that love, she can barely walk. “You need to run away, Gaila. It’s not safe.”
I should run, too. But I can’t.
“But where would I go?”
I have no answer. Because I don’t know.