Page 10 of Regal Feather
Ever swallowed. “I do. You don’t.”
The words were barely a whisper. They hit like a fucking punch to the gut, though. I was taking a step back before gaining consciousness of it.
“What haven’t I told you?”
“Like…” Ever wrapped his arms around his waist. “You never talk about kink. My friends asked about it, actually. When I told them about you coming here last week? They asked if I had a crush on you, and then they asked if you were kinky, and when I said I didn’t know, they said I had to find out?”
The more he spoke, the more he deflated. Oddly enough, it was comforting. The familiarity of it. The cadence of his voice, even when the words he was saying had me wanting to yank out my hair.
“All I know about kink is because of you,” I admitted. It was vulnerable, but vulnerable was my default setting when he was around. “You started talking about it, so I started reading about it, and stuff. That’s it.”
Ever frowned. “That’s it?”
I scrubbed one hand down my face. What the fuck was I supposed to say? My head throbbed, replaying the thing about having a crush on me, the gutted look in his face when he accused me of holding shit in. I didn’t know how to cope with all of it.
“Pretty much.”
Maybe this had been a bad idea. Everyone back at headquarters had said I needed to slot some time in to adjust tocivilian life, to adjust to a world that had kept spinning while I’d been sheltered by routine and discipline and trainings and the occasional aid relief mission. I’d thought it would be fine.
Ever and I, against the world. That had been our whole motto.
I clenched my fists, once, twice. The psychiatrist who had cleared me, even though I’d never really been in any traumatic scenario, had said grounding exercises would help.
“Santos?”
“Stop.” I didn’t know how I managed to get the word out. The world was spinning, and everything was unfocused, and I could only keep my gaze pinned to the stupidly expensive hardwood floor. “I think I overestimated how long I can run without sleep. I’m going to crash.”
“Oh. Okay.”
None of this was okay.
“Yeah.”
Look at that, me fucking up my very first day of freedom. Stuart would be real proud.
four
Sir Ismael
What’s going on with you?
caged_pig
Why do you ask, Sir?
Am I not being good to you?
Sir Ismael
Drop the formalities for a second, you’ve been acting off.
If you want to get out of this, you just have to say the word
caged_pig
What?
No, no I don’t want that, Sir
