Remnants of the Earth
SPACE STATIONS => The Cancer => Topic started by: Rhi-Rhi on February 05, 2014, 02:02:09 am
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Trigger Warning: Non-con/rape
It had been a long day on the job, and it felt good to be done and back in something more comfortable than that obnoxious red uniform. The first thing Jake had done was make a beeline to his apartment, throw on a pair of loose jeans and a fitted t-shirt, and grab his cigarettes--which he had been unfortunate enough to forget that day.
Not having them made the day much longer than it needed to be.
Mission accomplished, he headed to the business district to nab a bite to eat, lit cigarette held between his fingers and other hand stuffed in his jeans pocket. Hrm. The worst thing ever was having a craving for something and not knowing what. Noodles? Pizza? He passed by a pasta place and considered it for a moment, but it looked new, and the smells coming out were...dubious.
He was still debating taking chances when a the door opened and man hastily exited, shoving Jake out of the way as he went.
And, of course, as luck would have it he fumbled and dropped his cigarette, which the man squashed as he went by.
"Thanks, asshole!" he shouted after the guy, but he was already gone, and Jake decided the pasta place was a no.
He headed back onto the main strip and pulled out another cigarette--and realized then that he'd left behind his lighter.
Argh.
Maybe this was his sign that he needed coffee, too.
With a sigh, he turned to the nearest guy, an older gentleman, and tapped his arm to get his attention. "Hey, you got a light?"
-
Aydan turned—and nearly did a double take. His first impulse was to look the kid up and down, really get an eyeful of him, but he resisted the urge.
"I'll do you one better," he said, and pulled out his pack of expensive, import Yoreiqis. He offered it, brows raised in question.
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Jake stared, glanced at his own cigarette, and promptly tossed it.
"Shit, man, are those Yoreiqis? Well, alright, since you're offering!" Jake said, and slipped a cigarette from the pack. He handed it back to the man and grinned. "Thanks! Seriously, after the day I had, I needed this."
-
"Now that you mention it, so could I," he said, with a shake of his head like he'd really been through the wringer today.
He stepped up close, butting the ends of their cigarettes together as he lit them both at the same time, hand shielding the flame from the circulating, breezy air.
-
With a happy sigh, Jake took a drag on the cigarette and leaned back against the building they were standing near, one leg bent with his foot braced against the wall. He closed his eyes, held the smoke in several beats, and then exhaled slowly, lips forming an O to puff out a smoke ring.
"Ahh...that's good stuff," he said, looking at the man again as the nicotine kicked in. "Rough day too, huh? Glad it's not just me." And then, pausing, he added, "Uh, not that I'd wish a bad day on you or anything! But you know what they say, misery loves company." He took another drag. "And the assholes are out in droves today."
-
Aydan huffed. "Tell me about it."
He cocked his head just a bit to the side and peered at the kid. "It's nice to know there are still people around who can appreciate a really good cigarette though."
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Jake took another drag on the cigarette. "Ugh, yeah, and I think I'm ruined to other brands now. Thanks a lot," he said, but smiled after to show he was kidding.
Transferring his cigarette to one hand, he held out the other. "I'm Jake, by the way."
-
"Sorry," Aydan said, smiling back. He shrugged. "I meant well."
And this was going well. Well enough to maybe cancel his plans and focus on this. He took Jake's hand and gave it a firm, friendly shake. "Aydan. And I was about to go drown my stress in alcohol. Join in?"
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"Hmm..." Jake considered the offer for a moment, head tilted. He didn't have any plans; his buddies were still at work, he didn't have to be in until tomorrow's night shift, and he'd been planning on just grabbing some food and chilling at home, anyway. Alone. Like a loser. A little social drinking did sound pretty good right now, and less pathetic. He'd just have to watch his intake so he'd function in the morning.
He shrugged. "Sure, why not? I was heading to grab a bite anyway. Know any good places?"
**************************
With perfect timing, the pedestrian sign dinged on to let them cross the street. "Yeah! I go to this little place tucked away near that huge clothing outlet. You can't hardly find the place unless you know it's there, but I've been going for years. Owner's a friend of mine. They've even got vegetarian options."
****************************
"Really? Ha, that's sick! As it just so happens, I'm vegetarian." As Jake fell into stride beside Aydan, he threw him a sidelong look. "Don't worry, I'm not one of the preachy ones. I don't give a fuck if you wanna chow down on a steak. No judgment!"
************************
"Honestly? I've never encountered a preachy vegetarian! It's always the meat eaters who seem to have too much to say."
The emerged into a sprawling mess of clothing stalls. Aydan pointed through the crowd to an inconspicuous door—real wood, too, and old.
"That's it."
********************
Jake snorted. "Tell me about it! It's always a fucking interrogation. Why did you become one? Where do you get your protein? What can you eat? And all in this age of supplements and science and shit. Uh, no offense or anything. Wait. Are you vegetarian, too?" he asked, before looking to where Aydan had pointed.
That looked awfully out of place in Cancer's jumble of steel and old, rusted metal. Pushing past the people browsing the stalls, he forged ahead toward it. "I can see what you mean about this place. Blink and you miss it. Looks neat, though."
-
"I am! Twenty-seven years now."
The crowd was so compact and jostling that Aydan grabbed onto Jake's sleeve so they didn't get separated. Closer to the pub it thinned out.
Aydan held the door open for Jake.
-
"Shit, that's impressive," Jake said said as he slipped inside. "It's twenty-three for me, but I don't think it really counts if you were raised that way. Wasn't like I was ever giving anything up."
As he approached one of the tables, he lightly elbowed Aydan. "So why'd you do it? Ethics? Health? Just can't eat things with faces? And are you getting enough iron?"
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"Ethics," he said, with a laugh for Jake's joke. "I couldn't abide supporting factory farming with my money."
The owner herself, an older woman with long graying hair pulled back in a ponytail, shuffled over to take their order. "Evening, Aydan," she said, smiling. "The usual?"
Aydan gave her a warm smile back. "Yes, please."
The usual being a drugged version of whatever Jake ordered.
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When the lady turned to take his order, Jake smiled up at her and shrugged. "I'll just get whatever's on tap."
Finishing up his cigarette, he ground the butt out into the ashtray and looked back at Aydan with a sigh. "Work tomorrow," he said by way of explaining the weak drink. "God I hate being responsible."
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"What do you do?"
Aydan grabbed one of the menu tablets from their stand in the middle of the table. He only pretended to look at it. They wouldn't be here long.
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"I work security," Jake said, grabbing one of the menus as well. He flipped through it until he found the vegetarian section. "It's not nearly as exciting as it sounds most of the time. Most of the actual action is just like breaking up petty fights. What about you? What do you do?"
Probably something well-paying and neat if he could blow money on Yoreiqis.
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"Oh, I'm in investment trading. You think your job is boring—"
Mona returned with a stout ale for Jake and a bottle of some expensive imported beer for Aydan. He nodded at her and she strode off back to the bar where two of her sons lingered, one of them an off-duty Marshal.
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"Thanks!" Jake told Mona when she dropped off the their drinks, and then he glanced back down at his menu. "Yeeeah, investment trading sounds...way over my head, to be honest," he said, and closed his menu.
He sat back in his chair and took a sip of his ale. "So, hey, how's their tofu in brown sauce? I'm torn between that and the egg rolls."
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"Mmm..." Aydan pursed his lips, pretending to mull it over in his mind. He used the bottle opener on the edge of the table to pop the lid of his beer. Behind the bar, Mona had positioned herself outside of Jake's line of sight. She was slicing a lime, glancing up at him every once in awhile.
"The egg rolls," he said, taking a swig of his beer. "Definitely the egg rolls."
-
"Great! Egg rolls it is!" Jake said, and took another swig of beer. "What are you gonna--" He paused on a yawn and covered his mouth, then continued. "Sorry. What are you gonna get?"
-
"I—" Aydan's phone went off.
Bard, hm? And with a picture for him! Aydan betrayed little when he saw it, only raising an eyebrow before typing a quick text back. "Sorry, work."
He blacked the phone screen again and raised his bottle. "A toast to finally ending a crappy day?"
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"I can get behind that." Jake held his mug up and grinned. "To finally ending a crappy day!"
He clinked their glasses together and took a gulp of beer. "And may tomorrow not be half so shitty," he added.
Though, shit. He might have to consider tucking in earlier than he'd planned. Now that he was sitting after standing on his feet all day, exhaustion was starting to creep up on him fast. But he just sat up straighter (that was supposed to help you not feel tired, right?) and hid another yawn behind his hand. Hopefully the food would wake him up.
"Ha, sorry," he said, propping his elbow on the table and resting his chin in his hand. "Long day. Sitting down's always a trap after standing all day."
-
Aydan chugged a healthy portion of the beer in one go.
"It is, isn't it?" Aydan sat back, watching Jake more conspicuously now. Mona's knife had stilled. Her sons spoke more quietly at the bar, the Marshal shooting glances at Jake out of the corner of his eye.
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"Uh...yeah," Jake said, leaning more heavily on his elbow. He jolted when his hand started to slip out from under him and jerked up straighter, blinking at Aydan.
"Wait, sorry...what'd you say?" His words came out slightly slurred. Shit. No. scratch that. He wasn't going to make it. Aydan was starting to blur in his vision and it was becoming difficult to keep his eyes open. Fuck. He rubbed at his face.
"I...whoa. I think I...um..." He was trying to say he needed to leave, but the words slipped away.
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"I think you're right," Aydan said, watching Jake sway in his chair. He grabbed his arm to steady him so he didn't go toppling. Mona's sons snickered to themselves.
His phone chirped again—Bard with a delightful follow up picture. He texted back with one hand.
-
Something was very, very wrong. Jake's head was swimming, his body heavy with lethargy, and some instinct in the back of his head was screaming this wasn't normal, something was happening, but he couldn't do a thing about it. He felt Aydan steady him but his words seemed to be coming at him as though from a distance, like in a dream.
"Aydan...? Something's wrong," he muttered, his own voice sounding distant and detached in his own ears. He tried to push himself up but wobbled, falling back into his seat.
-
"I know," Aydan said, holding Jake up so he could get a look at his eyes. Near fully dilated. Good enough. He tucked his phone away and pulled Jake up with him, slinging his arm around his shoulder for support.
Mona's hand disappeared beneath the counter. "Room's open, now."
"Thanks. I won't be long." They ascended a flight of stairs up to a steel door.
-
Jake had to cling to Aydan's shirt to feel grounded because it felt like he was floating. He stumbled up the stairs, only held upright because of Aydan. Snippets of conversation came to him, but none of it really made much sense.
At least not until a thought filtered through the haze and he remembered, vaguely, that stairs were...wrong. There hadn't been stairs coming here.
He stumbled on one of the top stairs and let himself sink down like his body wanted to. He shook his head, and regretted it when the world spun. "Wait..."
-
The door gave with but a little pressure, revealing a small room with a table in the middle. Aydan dragged Jake up to his feet and bend him over that table, face down.
He left Jake there while he crossed to one of the walls and flipped on a camera there, one carefully aimed so as to capture Jake, but nothing else.
-
Fresh dread filled Jake at the blurred sight of that room, but he could do nothing as he was dragged to that table, and the only resistance he could offer was to go limp. He slumped over the table and tried to move, but he couldn't will his muscles to work; everything felt heavy, exhausting. And then, head spinning, a red light caught his attention--and a new wave of panic swept over him. Panic that was at odds with his lethargy, giving him a strange sensation, like being on the outside looking in.
He managed to push himself up onto his elbows, shaking with the effort. "Aydan, please..."
-
"Beg more," Aydan said. "They'll like that."
He shoved Jake back down and reached beneath him to get at his belt, unfasten it and yank his pants and underwear down. Not far, just enough to expose his ass to the camera. Aydan did love half-clothed sex.
A supply shelf held some lube, and Aydan spent a minute getting himself hard grabbing a decent sized dildo. Another time he might have played around, taken it slow, but Bard's texts had made him impatient and he eased it into Jake immediately, preparing him.
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"No, no, no..." Aydan was taunting him, but he begged anyway, his voice weak in his own ears. It was all he could do, shoved down on that table with his body betraying him, unable to fight back, as the terrifying reality unfolded like some surreal, terrible dream. A dream he could watch but couldn't participate in, a captive audience to his own violation. He felt Aydan yank his pants down, and his head dropped down onto his arms. He shook his head, denying it, wanting to wake up, wake up now.
"Stop...please..."
The pain he felt was no dream.
Jake cried out, and clawed at the table, but he was paralyzed--from fear, from the drugs. The drug had relaxed him, but his body was unprepared for the cold, hard intrusion, the sensation cutting through the haze. "S-stop!"
-
Aydan was more interested in getting off than drawing this out. He got Jake just loose enough to take his cock and that was it. A few minutes of vigorous fucking and he was done.
When he finished cleaning himself up at a well-supplied sink, he grabbed a vibrator off the shelf, turned it on high, and shoved it in Jake as far as it would go. Before he left, he took the kid's business card from his wallet. Who knew? Might want to look him up again.
Downstairs, he paid Mona. "Thanks, gorgeous."
"Anytime." She winked at him, and didn't bother to count her payment. "Boys, clean up?"
Her sons both downed what was left of their drinks. They headed upstairs, but not before inviting the other guest to join them.
-
Sometime during it, Jake blacked out.
Now and then, there were flashes of consciousness, of awareness. The stinging slap of flesh against his backside, something moving inside him, and darkness again. Time no longer existed. It could have been seconds or hours before he came back to himself, the world reeling around him, something buzzing faintly. Someone was moaning, the sound close to a sob and too close to his ears. He squirmed, body aching, pressure building, head throbbing. Fuck. Was that him?
He faded out again.
Voices, several voices. The world swam back into existence, but everything was fog, and still that buzzing, the faint groans. His face stuck to the surface it was pressed to, drool on his chin. And then figures, their details obscured by fog. Reality flickered again and came back, the figures drew closer, laughing, and he heard muttering, no, no, no. And then that stopped. Something forced in his mouth, gagging, and the world went dark.
-
The three of them—Mona's two sons, plus their friend from the pub—fucked Jake on camera until they couldn't possibly sate themselves anymore.
"All right, let's get him to the alley."
"Hey, leave the vibrator in. Let him find all that cum in him when he wakes up."
They carried him in a plastic tarp through a false door, down a long hallway that cut beneath the entire neightborhood, and finally deposited him several blocks away, in a dark alley cramped by support beams and crates. The Marshal pissed on him before they left back the way they came.
-
When Jake came to, the first thing he did was throw up--which was a blessing, because it got rid of the taste of cum.
He managed to roll onto his side before he did, which meant some of it got in his hair and clothes, but right then he didn't have the clarity of mind to care. Everything hurt. His head felt split in two, his stomach roiled with nausea, and his body...
Oh gods.
Jake almost convinced himself it was a bad dream. Too much drinking, he'd gotten a little crazy. Wasn't like he'd never been dumb and blackout drunk before. He could have convinced himself that's what had happened if not for the throbbing pain between his legs. He reached down, shakily, found the edge of the vibrator, and his mind went numb, his throat tightening until it was hard to breathe. Still inside him.
He bit his lip and managed to ease it out, though it hurt, his flesh torn and tender, blood and semen dried at the edges and keeping it stuck to his skin. But worse even than the pain was the sensation of more semen seeping out, trickling down his thigh.
He threw up again.
Though everything felt fuzzy, there were flashes of memory here and there. Of Aydan, the cigarette, going to get a drink, and then...Jake stopped there, whether by choice or by drugs. But it didn't matter that he couldn't remember everything. The physical evidence was covering him.
Inside him.
Shaking, he got to his feet and stepped out of his pants, movements mechanical. He stripped off his underwear and wiped himself off with it, desperate to be rid of the evidence. Then, tossing his underwear to the side, he yanked his pants back up. They were wet in weird places, and so was his shirt and hair, and the smell was foul--gods. Urine? His stomach roiled again and he leaned against the nearest wall and sucked in deep breaths, eyes shut, hand against his mouth to keep from vomiting again. This was unreal. Fucking unreal.
What now?
What if they came back?
How did he know it was a "they"?
It was those thoughts that made him push off the wall and make the long, staggering trip home, each step painful, head still fogged and woozy from the lingering drugs. Somehow, he made it.
He called out of work. Said he wasn't feeling well.
And then he curled up in the shower, still clothed, until the hot water ran cold.
-
A couple of months later, Aydan stepped through Jake's full-body mirror and into his bedroom. It was the middle of the night, Jake was sound asleep, and Aydan had a gift for him.
Out of curiosity, he'd looked into Jake's past and lo—a draft runner from Aedolis. It was too good an opportunity to pass up.
Aydan had been waiting for just this night. A night when Jake would forget to lock his tablet so Aydan could get onto it. He killed the sound, loaded up the snuff site where he'd uploaded Jake's video, and set it to play on a loop.
The best part? That Marshal's badge was clearly visible, even though his face was hidden. Jake wouldn't be able to go to the authorities and he would know it. After giving it a little thought, Aydan had had them blur out Jake's face, too. For now. The kid needed something left to lose.
One more thing. Aydan left a message for Jake on Jake's own notepaper.
See you soon, baby.
-
Life went on, mostly. The weeks and months went by, and Jake did what he could to just...find some sense of normalcy. And forget. There was no one he could talk to about what had happened. No one he would have wanted to talk to about this. He just wanted to forget it like a bad dream and get on with his life--
But he couldn't.
It invaded his dreams. It followed him to work. He stopped doing a lot of the things he used to do, the sorts of things that had at one point been just harmless fun--like going to a bar with coworkers and picking up chicks. Now he avoided the bars and usually went home after work, and some of his work buddies had even noticed, had complained that he'd been antisocial lately.
He had to just let them think he was being a jerk.
It got a little easier as more time passed without incident. He saw no sign of Aydan. He couldn't remember where Aydan had taken him that day, but he remembered what it looked like, vaguely, and stayed away from areas that looked similar. It was so strange, how normal life was after everything that had happened, how the world around him existed as it always had, like he hadn't had his life and body torn apart. He could almost believe it hadn't happened, and would have been happy to pretend, thought that maybe he could get to a place where he could actually, eventually, believe it.
Except when his cell phone alarm woke him that morning, the first thing he noticed was the glowing light of his tablet screen, bright in his dark bedroom where it lay open on his nightstand. Blinking, Jake rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He'd left it on? Weird. It should have shut off on its own. Hopefully it wasn't busted.
With a yawn, Jake snatched it off the nightstand and had been about to turn it off when he noticed a video was playing and--
Oh my god.
The tablet fell from his fingers. Jake clapped a hand over his mouth as his stomach revolted and it took every ounce of willpower to swallow down the rising bile. Oh my god. There was a note on his nightstand, too, and Jake didn't have to pick it up to see what it said.
See you soon, baby.
He was there. Aydan had been there. In his room. Somehow, he had gotten inside. Somehow, he had put the video on his tablet, written the note, been by his bed while he slept. It felt surreal, but the panic he felt was very, very real. He was here. He was here. Or had been. Where was he now?
Oh god, it was real, it had actually happened, and now he was back and--gods, he had been too nervous to before, but now he had to go to the authorities and--
His stomach twisted again. The badge. He hadn't glimpsed much of the video, but he'd seen enough, and one of the men? He had a badge.
He was a fucking Marshal.
Jake was on his feet before he realized he was moving, pacing around his room without knowing what he was actually trying to do--except that he knew he had to leave. He had to leave now. Aydan was coming back, and he had a fucking Marshal in on it, and that meant there was nowhere he could go here that would be safe. He might even know that Marshal, might even work with him, might have seen him every day before and after...after that.
These men could do whatever they wanted with him.
They could even make him vanish after this.
He couldn't fucking stay here. He had to leave. He didn't know where he'd leave to, but he'd uprooted once before, and he could flee again.
Jake didn't waste any time. He didn't know how soon soon was, so he threw on some clothes, packed his important documents, threw some clothes and other essentials into a small travel bag, and took off, leaving his cell phone and electronics behind and purchasing a new phone; he didn't want to risk being tracked that way, so it was better if he just disappeared. He was getting on the first vessel leaving the Cancer, and he'd deal with the details later.
His travel visa was denied.
Jake tried to argue with the officers--it was supposed to be good for ten years--but it was no use. It would be a couple days before it was cleared, and he would just have to hang tight until then.
And so he checked into a nearby hotel to wait it out.
-
Three days after Jake tried to leave Cancer, Aydan texted him.
Leon.
You'll want come speak to me about Aedolis.
I'll be outside the Capricorn Cafe around noon tomorrow.
-Aydan
-
The text had startled him. The phone was new, and Jake hadn't given anyone the number--for good reason. But he told himself that maybe it was just spam or something.
And then he read the message.
It was a good thing they built these new cell phones so durable, because he dropped the thing like it burned him. His head spun, his heart raced, but all he really felt was numb as a crushing sense of unreality bore down on him. It was all his worst fears instantly realized--and he couldn't process any of it. He couldn't process much of anything beyond the desperate desire to just leave. NOW.
The threat in that message was implicit. Aydan knew who he was. He knew his real name. Knew where he was from. He could expose him, and he would be hunted--Aedolis didn't fuck around, especially not with draft runners. If he didn't show up, Aydan could expose him--
But it wouldn't matter much if Jake was already out of the Cancer, on some ship to who knows where, and so that was the first thing he tried to do: leave. It had been three days and he hadn't heard anything, but surely his visa had to be cleared by now!
If only...
He tried to leave again on the day of the meeting, but there was a complication with his visa, as it turned out, and that was all the information he could get. And that was that. There wasn't much of a choice left. If he couldn't leave, and he didn't show up, he would be exposed--and that was as good as a death sentence.
Not that going to that cafe didn't feel like a long walk to the gallows.
Jake showed up just before noon and took a seat at a table, hoodie zipped even though he wasn't cold. There he waited, seated on the edge of his seat and unable to keep still, legs moving restlessly with the pent up desire to leave, leave for anywhere but here.
He just prayed something would come up. That maybe Aydan wouldn't show. That maybe he'd get in an accident or something before he arrived. Something.
-
Aydan had in fact, at the time Jake arrived, been inside getting coffee. He scanned the crowed upon exiting and what do you know, there was his newest project sitting right there. They had other plans if Jake had refused to show up, but it was nice when things went smoothly. This would keep things easier for everyone.
He plunked his coffee cup down on the table and sat across from Jake.
"Leon," he said, smiling. "Can I get you anything?"
-
Jake jumped, snapped his head up--and froze.
Of course it was Aydan.
Of course he'd show up.
Sliding his eyes back to the table, Jake leaned back in his chair to put more space between them and folded his arms over his chest. "No."
-
Aydan let Jake stew there while he looked him over. Mm. Gods above, he was so fucking cute. Aydan couldn't wait to see that face looking up at him from the floor.
"As it happens," he said, by way of explanation. "My sons are Pilots. Do you need a reminder of what Aedolis does to draft dodgers?"
-
Jake cleared his throat, but his voice still came out strained and quiet. Even though they were out in the open, it felt crushingly claustrophobic, the air thick and hard to breathe. "N-no."
-
"Relax, Jake. This won't be so bad, I promise."
Aydan nodded at the seat beside him. "Come and sit next to me."
Jake may as well start getting used to following Aydan's orders.
-
Jake's fingers dug into his arms through the thick fabric of his hoodie sleeves. Not so bad. It was already bad. It was bad the moment he'd gone with Aydan to that bar.
"I'd rather sit here..." he said, though he wasn't stupid enough to believe that would matter.
-
Aydan took a sip of his coffee. "You'll sit where I tell you."
-
Jake closed his eyes, held them shut for a few heartbeats, but when he opened them again, he was still in the same spot, and Aydan was still there, and this was all real. His breathing grew a little quicker as the realness of it began to sink in. Even after finding that note, that video, it had all felt surreal, and he had gone about the last few days automatically, without really thinking about it. Now that he was here...
He licked his dry lips. Aydan was the father of Pilots. He knew his name, what he'd done.
Don't do anything stupid.
"Okay."
Moving shakily, he rose and slid into the chair next to Aydan's, but pushed his chair away to give them some space. "So is that what all this is about?" he quietly said, still not looking at Aydan. "You're gonna turn me in?"
-
That honestly took Aydan by surprise. The kid hadn't figured out yet that Aydan wanted something from him. That all this business with Aedolis and draft dodging was just leverage.
A short laugh bubbled up. "No. No, of course not! That's why we're here, to avoid that."
Aydan gave some attention to his coffee for a few moments, mostly as he thought over how to phrase this. Finally he returned his full focus to Jake. This was important, this part of it. This was everything. "I like you. I want more of you. I have reason to be on Cancer regularly, for business. When I'm here, you're going to keep me company."
-
It was like being dunked into icy water. Jake's throat tightened, his breath caught, and a chill went all through his body, raising the little hairs along his arms and neck. Never had the words I like you sounded so...sick. In another context, it could have been a confession, but here the words were damning, and Jake was trapped.
There was no one he could go to. No one he could report this to. When he could breathe again, it came out short, panicky, his hands curled into fists in his lap.
"Okay." He wasn't looking at Aydan, but was looking at the table instead, and desperately wishing he could be anywhere else. It wasn't a statement of assent; it was a statement to acknowledge he'd heard Aydan.
-
Aydan's head dropped into a tilt. Jake looked sweet with the spice of fear upon him.
"Don't worry," he said, smiling in a way that might be taken as kind, were they not talking about Jake submitting the use of his body in exchange for his life. "You'll entertain me for awhile, is all. And when I'm tired of you our mutual friend in the Marshals will see you receive a nice promotion for your trouble."
-
"A promotion," Jake repeated numbly. A promotion, like that was exactly what he wanted, to keep working in this place among the people that had allowed this to happen, the people that had violated him. As if he could ever feel safe here again, knowing it could repeat itself whenever someone wanted to, and that there was nothing he could do about it.
He swayed a little where he sat, feeling ill.
-
Aydan lay a steadying hand on Jake's shoulder. Mostly he wanted Jake dealing with this and processing it as quickly and successfully as possible. The sooner Jake wrapped his head around all this, the sooner Aydan could get him back to his apartment and see how he looked when he was well-fucked and conscious.
"Breathe, Jake. Nothing's happening right now. You're just in a cafe, you're fine."
-
Jake reacted without thinking, jerking violently to shake Aydan's hand off. "Don't fucking touch me!"
-
Aydan let it go--this time. Once Jake'd had enough chance to calm down, he would have to submit to this kind of thing. Aydan would demand nothing less than his submission, both in public and in private.
He sighed, and pulled out a credit card, which he slid across the table toward Jake. "This is for you. It's for certain requirements I'll need you to take care of, but you should use it for whatever you like. It has no limit. You can have the rest of the day and most of tomorrow to yourself, but I'll expect you at your apartment by seven tomorrow evening."
-
Jake stared at the card, then stared up at Aydan. He...he could not believe this. This had to be a dream. A horrible nightmare. This man, this monster, couldn't actually be talking to him like this, like this was all completely normal, like he hadn't drugged him and...
He shuddered, swallowing back bile. This did not feel real. This was not how real people acted. This couldn't be happening to him.
"I...I don't want your money." He meant it to come out harshly, but it came out as scarcely a whisper. Worse, much to his shame and horror, he felt his eyes start to burn and blur. Grabbing the card, he slid it back across the table to Aydan and shook his head. "I don't want it. Look, I don't want any part of this. I just...I won't tell anyone, just...leave me alone..."
-
Aydan stared at him. That fucking face. The waver in his voice.
A pleasant heat coiled in Aydan's groin, most insistent but he couldn't indulge. Not yet. Jake would be too much of a crying mess if he forced him into anything right now. He at least needed the kid coherent.
"You may not want it, but you'll need it." He stood, to give his next words the weight of physicality. "You're to start tanning regularly. I need you a bit darker. And before you arrive tomorrow you're to visit the Boutique Veronde on the aft-side plaza courtyard. They're expecting you. They'll have new clothes and a stylist who will see to your hair."
And that was that. He walked away, without sparing another word or threat. If Jake ran, the Marshals would have him before he made it out of the district. And he suspected Jake knew that.
-
Jake watched him leave, his throat and chest tight and making it difficult to breathe. Every instinct screamed at him to run, and yet he knew, with a hollow pang in his gut, that his visa had been denied for a reason. There was no running.
He was fucking trapped in this place that had once been his second chance.
This still didn't feel real.
Jake stayed where he was long after Aydan left, until his breathing normalized and he stopped shaking so much. When he felt like he could stand again, he rose and headed back to his apartment, moving like he was in some sort of disconnected dream. He had to start tanning. Had to get his hair and clothes seen to. It was so absurd it was almost funny, if anything about this could be funny, yet by the time he got back to his apartment and had the door locked behind him, he felt like laughing. Hysterically. And before he knew it, he no longer felt like laughing but was in the full throes of it, cracking up until he was sobbing.
This can't be real.
But the credit card clenched in his hand was proof enough that he wasn't as crazy as he felt, and though he wanted nothing more than to cut it up and toss it and be anywhere but here at seven tomorrow...
The Marshals knew. They were working with him.
Fuck, he'd die if he didn't.
Fear of death and torture, of all the things Aedolian Pilots could do to him, was more powerful than even his fear of Aydan. It was that fear that got him out of bed the next afternoon, it was that fear that took him to that boutique, credit card tucked into his pocket. He couldn't bring himself to make eye contact with anyone there as he slipped inside. Did they know? Did they know Aydan and what he did--and thus know what had happened, was going to happen, to him?