Professional Simp

“Thank you for doing this, by the way,” you said. “I know it’s a drag, but I really appreciate-” 

“I’m not doing this because I want to,” Felix said, cutting you off. 

As far as starts went, that was about as rough as any could imagine. You tried not to frown, wanting to keep your dismay hidden. The idea of training with Felix hadn’t been entirely appealing to you, but it had come as an order in all but writing. And it was practical. Not only was he the best swordsman in the entirety of the Imperial army, he was one of the few that had unique insights into how to fight against the Kingdom. Besides, the two of you were friends. Or, at the very least, friendly. Well, you were friendly to him. And although he was generally a stoic loner, he had never been so overtly rude to you before.

“Ah, yeah, I know,” you mumbled. “I still appreciate it.”  

“Hmph. Let’s get this over with.” Felix strolled into the middle of the arena, swishing his sword with a casual grace. He stopped in the center, turning to you with an unreadable expression. His stance wasn’t aggressive, he hadn’t even raised his weapon. When you didn’t move, his eyebrow quirked. “Well?”  

“Shouldn’t we start with warm ups or something?” you asked uncertainly, feeling quite awkward standing with your sword in hand. At the very least, the two of you had the training grounds to yourself. Felix had borrowed the keys and told you to arrive at night, the only time he could carve out for this apparently tedious endeavor. It had seemed frustrating at the time, but now you were grateful that nobody else would witness whatever humiliation you were about to suffer.

“No.” 

“Right, okay. Do, uhm, do you have any suggestions?” you asked, stepping into the ring. Stars glittered above the towering walls, the moon a mere sliver in the night sky.

“Don’t lose.” 

“I’ll do my best,” you said with a smile, thinking he was joking and more than happy to offset the awkward tension. 

Felix didn’t smile. Lit only by the two torches on either side of the arena, it was somewhat difficult to tell, but you were certain that there wasn’t a shred of mirth in his gaze. “This isn’t a game,” he snapped. 

Your heart sunk and your smile faded, embarrassment forming a pit in your stomach. “I know,” you said, having to swallow down the lump in your throat. “I know that. Sorry.” 

Whether or not your apology mattered to him at all, you couldn’t tell. His expression was entirely impassive, his stance equally unreadable. Facing him, you breathed in and breathed out, eying his form as you would any opponent and settling into a more dominant sparring pose. 

Felix didn’t move, staring you down and daring you to strike. He still hadn’t raised his weapon, not even in a defensive position. Despite that, the confidence that radiated from him was unmistakable. Where you felt awkward and ungainly with your wide stance and raised blade, he was as comfortable as could be with his body entirely exposed. With anyone else, that would be a weakness. With Felix, it was a taunt. He didn’t acknowledge you as a worthy opponent. 

Trying to buy time, you circled around him, sword at the ready. He pivoted to match your movement with steady steps, amber eyes sharply focused on you. 

“You’re wasting my time,” he warned as the seconds dragged on, not attempting to hide his irritation. 

“Sorry,” you muttered. Your heartbeat raged hot and hard in your ears as you prepared yourself. There was no point in delaying any longer. If you wanted his help, you had to prove yourself.

Just as you had been taught, you lunged forward, sword swiping through the air. Felix dodged with sinuous grace, moving as if he knew where your blade would land before you did. Thinking fast, you attacked again, pressing against his evasion with increasingly frantic movements. Nothing landed. He wasn’t parrying, just weaving around you like the wind. Realizing your tactics weren’t going to work, you relented, drawing back. 

Felix’s counterattack came before you realized he had finally raised his weapon, taking advantage of your disorientation to strike at your unprotected left side. You attempted to knock his blade aside, but it was a sluggish movement and the dulled edge met skin. You yelped in pain, reflexively slashing at him, but Felix moved out of your range. His feet were so quick and sure, almost like a dancer’s lithe step. In comparison, you stumbled back like a drunk, your breathing shallow and heart racing. 

“You hit me,” you said in disbelief, looking down at your stomach. The wound was shallow, but it had been enough to rip your shirt and mark the skin.

“And?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. 

That, more so than the stinging slash across your torso, took you aback. But it did help you understand. What he intended was trial by fire. You set your jaw, nodding. 

He settled back into his relaxed stance and raised his chin tauntingly. “Again.” 

The next bout went about as well as the first, ending when he delivered a painful slash across your forearm. 

“Try harder,” Felix recommended, pacing the perimeter of the arena with his sword whispering through the air in unconcerned figure-eights.  

Try harder. 

Oh, you tried. 

You had no idea how long you lasted, how many short rounds you endured with the same painful results. He barked out corrections here and there, but they weren’t useful so much as they were insulting. Rather than being impressed by your tenacity, Felix only seemed to grow more and more infuriated by your attempts, his landed attacks becoming harsh enough to draw blood. 

“Stop,” he finally demanded, knocking your sword away with an easy flick. At this point, your arms were jelly and your legs were trembling from strain, it didn’t take much to knock you out of your stance. You didn’t think you had ever trained like this, with such intensity. “You’re pulling your attacks.” 

You blinked at him, making a vain attempt to catch your breath and adjusting your sweaty grip, wiping your brow with the sleeve he’d sliced apart. “I-I’m not trying to.” 

“Of course you aren’t,” Felix responded, clearly annoyed. “You lack the nerve to strike me. As if you could hurt me.” He shook his head with a sneer, seemingly disgusted by the idea. Before you could think of a response, he met your gaze. The weight of the look sent a shock down your spine, the scorn of it withering you where you stood. “Always fight like you mean it, no matter who your opponent is. Fight to win. Fight to kill.”

“I know,” you said, your voice considerably weaker.

Felix’s eyes narrowed. “No, you don’t. Look at yourself,” he said, punctuating the statement by giving you an obvious once-over. “You’re weak.”

Attempting to hide your hurt, you accepted that as criticism of your skill, doing your best to not take it personally. Still, worn out past the point of reason, it was getting harder and harder to control your emotions. “I’ll get better.” 

"You'll get killed,” Felix told you flatly. “You won't last a minute on the battlefield."

You exhaled harshly, physically recoiling from that hostile response. “I know,” you said again. “But I can’t give up. I want to do my part⁠—as a soldier, I have to.” 

Felix’s expression darkened further, a muscle in his jaw ticking. Instead of relenting to your attempt at an emotional appeal, his attitude only seemed to harden. “Do you think you’re brave?” he asked. “Pathetic. You’re slow, unfit, and your technique is sloppy. You don’t have the skill or resolve to win. It’s embarrassing. You have no right to hold that sword, let alone call yourself a soldier. Do everyone a favor and give up before you die a meaningless death. Or worse, get someone else killed.”

Your grip around the hilt of your sword tightened, your eyes prickling with tears. His tongue cut deeper than the blunted sword. You already knew you were weak, that was why you wanted his help. Couldn’t he see that? Didn’t he care? You focused on breathing evenly, willing your hands to quit shaking. 

“I can’t.” 

Rather than responding, Felix lunged forward with a speed you hadn’t yet seen. Yelping in surprise, you raised your sword. Somehow, you were fast enough to block the attack. The cruel sound of metal on metal resonated through the entire arena, right out into the night sky. What you hadn’t expected was for the force of the two blades meeting to send a harsh vibration down the length of your sword straight down your arm. A pain worse than if he’d hit you shot through your bones, twisting your arm and radiating all the way to your shoulder. Crying out, you let go of the weapon to spare yourself a broken wrist, your sword flying out of your hand and skittering across the floor. Disarmed and reeling in pain, you did the only sensible thing and made a hasty, panicked retreat. 

Instead of backing off like he had every time prior, Felix stepped in close to match your escape, burying his left fist in your stomach. That was all it took to upset your balance entirely. The world whirled, all sense escaping you until you landed hard on your back, knocking your head against the ground and all the air from your lungs. 

Wheezing, dizzy from how quickly the sequence of attacks unfolded, you got your elbows beneath you to sit up before your vision even cleared, adrenaline and some form of defensive instinct kicking in. The edge of Felix’s blade was ready to meet you, the tip poking into your throat to keep you from rising any higher.

Tears blurred your vision as you looked up at him looming above you, his image slowly sliding into focus as the dizziness faded. Alarm bells shrieked in your head, pulsating with the pain. For the first time, you understood what should have been obvious. You were in genuine danger. Alone on the training grounds, far away from intervention, he had you at his mercy. What you had previously seen as an idiosyncratic but ultimately harmless attitude now felt rather more like madness, a ferocity that hid behind his inscrutable mask. 

People whispered about that, about him. He had, after all, been the best friend of the mad king Dimitri before he joined the empire. You hadn’t believed the claims held any truth, but now you weren’t so sure. 

Felix’s eyes lingered where your clothes were torn, zeroing in on the exposed skin. You couldn't tell if he was aware of it, aware of the way his eyes darkened, his tongue peeking out to swipe across his lips. The edge of the training sword bit shallowly into your neck, keeping you from moving out of the uncomfortable prone position.

When the silence had drawn on far too long for comfort, you drew in a breath to speak. It hurt, your stomach aching from the blow, but you didn’t want him to know that. “Do you want me to tap out or something?” you asked, a vain attempt at levity. 

Felix’s lips curled in disgust. “Do you know why you lost?” he asked. 

You swallowed hard, head spinning as you tried to think of what answer he wanted. “I wasn’t prepared,” you guessed, hoping that was the right one. 

“Wrong,” he told you flatly. “You lost the minute you picked up that sword. Fighting a battle you have no hope of winning doesn’t make you a hero, it makes you an idiot.” 

“Stop,” you told him, your voice quickly approaching a whine. “I get it.” 

“Do you think the enemy will relent if you look pathetic enough?” he asked incredulously. “If you want me to stop, make me. A true swordsman wouldn’t cower on the ground with her opponent’s blade at her throat, she would fight to the bitter end.” 

The unfairness of it all had your lower lip trembling, eyes stinging all over again. Give up and lose, or fight and lose. It didn’t matter which you chose, he would disdain you either way. You pulled back further from his sword, but the blunted edge just followed you. This was too much. You were sore and exhausted and covered in shallow wounds and bruises. From insult to injury, Felix had you beat. 

But you couldn’t just give up either. He was testing you, daring you to do so. You had to overcome this. Thinking fast, you did the only thing you could think of and kicked his legs, using the leverage to slide out from under his sword. 

Felix stepped forward, stumbling. You lunged up at him in a desperate grapple, meaning to steal his weapon. He registered your intent immediately and, rather than let you take his sword, he tossed it aside. The weapon hit the ground with a clatter and you were back on the dusty arena floor, the breath knocked from your lungs all over again. Felix kept you in place with the weight of his body, pinning your dominant hand with an iron grip.

“Obvious,” he practically spat. 

“You’re hurting me,” you whined, truly panicking now that you were so utterly defenseless. Terrified of how close he was and the implications of this position. 

“Then make me stop.” 

You actually whimpered, fighting desperately to keep yourself from crying. “Please, Felix.” 

His entire body jolted, like the use of his name had electrocuted him. “Shut up,” he said, his voice dangerously low. He backed off a moment later, his grip on your wrist loosening somewhat. “Why are you so infuriating? Most people would just give up, why won’t you?” He seemed to be talking more to himself than you, mumbling the words quickly, frantically. “I should just let you get yourself killed. You’re an irrational and idealistic fool. But I…” He trailed off with a frustrated sound, shaking his head. “It’s your own fault.”

“I’m sorry,” you said quietly, senseless guilt swelling in your chest.

He didn’t respond, simply staring you with a look you couldn’t decipher. After a tense moment, he released your wrist, letting you curl your arm against your chest, rubbing at the marks his fingers had left. Before you could make use of your freed hands, Felix pulled you up off the floor by the front of your ruined shirt. You didn’t understand what was going on. The instinctive part of your brain thought it was another attack, and you grabbed at his wrists to try and get away. 

But then his lips met yours. They were dry and gritty, and both of you had sour breath from training, but there was an insistence behind it. A fervor. That was all it was, a harsh press of his mouth slightly offset on the corner of your own. Chaste. Felix pulled away before you could think to struggle, although he didn’t release you, holding you suspended while you pulled at his wrists.

Since you hadn’t shut your eyes⁠—they were wide with shock⁠—you saw his open. You saw the way his expression shifted rapidly, a dozen variations of concentration, anger, and smoldering darkness churning behind his amber gaze before his eyes narrowed, scanning your face with piercing intensity. You said nothing, barely daring to breathe.   

Scowling, Felix released the front of your ruined shirt, letting you drop back down onto the floor with a pained grunt. 

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing? Everyone else may have fallen for it, but I…” He ran a hand through his loose bangs, shaking his head. “I refuse to pity the weak. You either fight and win, or you don’t fight at all. You have no business pretending to be a soldier.” 

“Why did you…” With a trembling hand, you touched your lips, holding absolutely still rather than struggling like you knew you needed to.

Felix didn’t answer. His weight lifted from you somewhat so he could pull at your shirt again. 

“What are you doing?” you asked, attempting to fight him off as the reality of the situation slowly sunk in, squirming to try and get out from under him. “Please stop.” 

“Begging?” Felix asked, using the scraps of your shirt like a harness to pull you back into place beneath him as you inched away. It ripped further, an ugly sound. “Is that your plan after you’re defeated? You’ll beg the enemy to stop?” Felix scoffed. “I told you. If you want me to stop, make me stop.” 

With that, he pulled off your shirt completely. It was ruined anyway, he barely had to do anything to tear it off. The skin beneath was torn as well, shallow gashes sliced across your ribs and stomach. With real weapons, the wounds would be deadly. 

Felix’s lip pulled back in disgust as he traced one of the red marks with a gloved finger. “This is the price of heroism,” he told you. You pushed his hand aside, thrashing to try and displace him. In response, he dropped more of his weight onto your stomach. You couldn’t breathe. It hurt. You stopped struggling, hoping he’d ease up. He didn’t. Instead, his eyes trailed upwards, locking on your own. “Swear that you’ll give up this pathetic charade and I’ll leave. Otherwise I’ll…” he trailed off and, for the first time, you saw doubt in his expression, quickly chased away by disgust. “Just give it up, okay?”  

The amber color of his irises blurred with your tears. Even still, you could see the fire in his gaze. Anger, maybe even hatred. You should have agreed, even if you didn’t mean it. To do anything else was dangerous, your lips still tingled with the memory of his and your frazzled mind was no closer to understanding why he would have kissed you. Prickling chills rose across your skin in response to being exposed, making the cuts sting painfully. 

“No,” you wheezed, shaking your head and pushing at him with weak arms. “Even if it kills me, I-I won’t give up.” 

“You’ll be lucky if all they do is kill you,” Felix said. “A pretty, pathetic girl in the emperors inner circle would make for a perfect captive. Do you have any idea what they’ll do to you?”

“Stop,” you told him, unable to come up with anything more eloquent when your brain was shorting out at the threat. And it was a threat. Despite his words, you weren’t frightened of the potential torture at the hands your enemies. Not when Felix was staring at you with dark eyes and flushed cheeks, his body hot and firm against your own. Whatever he was trying to convey wasn’t in his words, but in the intensity of his voice, in the way he looked at you. There were too many things you couldn’t piece together, too many baffling parts of this situation that you couldn’t make sense of.

“They’ll ruin you,” he said. His sharp anger now wavered with something tremulous and soft, his control fraying. “You’ll die a meaningless death. And for what? Your sense of honor? Your country? That’s bunk, all of it.” Your stomach tensed up, your breath hiccuping. 

“Felix-”

“Don’t,” he told you, low and careful. An admonishment. A warning. “Why can’t you just…” Whatever he meant to say trailed off, his lips forming a tight line. 

Felix pulled the knife from his belt. A terrified cry left your mouth, your body resuming its futile thrashing. He pressed his hand beneath the hollow of your throat to keep you still, pushing the blade beneath the tight garment you used to keep your chest bound and slicing the fabric down the center in one smooth motion. Just like that, no preamble, no warning. Your nipples were already stiff, your body electrified with adrenaline and fear. The cool air didn’t help, its shivering touch worsened by the sheen of sweat on your skin. He looked at you hungrily, like a wolf.

“We shouldn’t… You…” the words came out stumbling and clumsy, your shaking hands desperately trying to cover your chest.

Felix wasn’t paying attention. He scanned your body with an odd expression, not the disgust or anger of before but just as intense. Color stained his cheeks, dark against his pale skin. When he momentarily met your eyes, he ducked away. You wondered if it was remorse that twisted his lips into a frown. 

“Shut up,” Felix muttered, knocking your hands aside. He offered no more explanation, moving down your body so he could straddle your hips instead. The position gave him easy access to your chest. The first brush of his mouth on your skin made you yelp. Without looking up, he pressed a hand to your mouth. It smelled like metal and leather and it muffled any further complaints as his lips closed around your nipple, sucking hard. You pulled at his arm with all your strength, tugging on his hair. It didn’t matter. 

When Felix’s teeth scraped skin, you tensed up, forgetting even to struggle at the shocks of pleasure. So far, you’d been able to ignore the sensation, too caught up in your panic. Now it was all you could feel, sparks of warmth sinking low into your core.

Felix groaned against you in response to the sound you couldn’t swallow back, biting you a little too hard. It hurt. It made you whine, a high sound vibrating through your throat, your back arching because, even with the pain, it felt good. He pulled off, switching to the other side.  

Your hips unconsciously bucked against his, jerking relentlessly, heels digging into the ground for traction. It was involuntary, you couldn’t control your body, or stop it from reacting. Giving up on freeing your mouth, you pressed a hand to your flushed face to hide. You arched your back to get away from him. It didn’t matter. All it did was push your chest even more firmly to his face. It was as if you were a woman possessed, you had no control over your overworked body. Each scrape of his teeth on your nipple had you whining, pleasure shooting straight to your core. Felix was being far too rough, but your body liked it. Responded to it gleefully.

Every thought ended in a confusing loop. Could you stop this? You didn’t know. Certainly, you wanted him to stop. So why weren’t you fighting? Why weren’t you denying him loudly and firmly? Why were you doing nothing to stand up for yourself? Why was he doing this? Why did it feel so good?

He grunted, pulling off of your nipple with a slick sound. Paying you no mind, Felix used his teeth to remove his glove. With his palm still muffling your pleas, his other hand shoved beneath the waistband of your leggings and underwear. There was some fumbling, his fingers roughly pressing past the outer lips and feeling their way down across your clit. When he reached the tense muscles of your entrance, his fingers slipped knuckle-deep into your pussy. It wasn’t difficult, you were wet. Felix’s entire body stiffened. You didn’t dare open your eyes to see what expression he was wearing, shame overwhelming you.   

“Unbelievable,” he said under his breath, the word coming out harsh, like an insult. You objected, but it was muffled by his palm. His fingers drove deeper into your pussy, exploring your fluttering inner walls. At the same time, his mouth returned to your nipple. It was still sore from his teeth, making your back arch and cunt clamp down hard around his hand. He groaned, doubling down with his teeth and pulling out his fingers to thrust them in roughly, mimicking the lewd motions of sex. 

Rationality fled further back into your mind, acceptance weighing heavily on what little sense still remained. You couldn’t do anything about it. Not make him stop, not deny him your pleasured reactions. There was despair in that, but also escape. 

Felix’s ministrations were artless, but it didn’t matter. The rhythmic thrusting filled the arena with a decidedly obscene squish, his fingertips dragging roughly against your inner walls with each pass. And you were so painfully receptive to it, your hips meeting his hand with a desperate sort of restlessness. When he paused to shove your leggings and underwear down your thighs, you actually mourned the loss of his touch, your mouth open and leaking drool into the leather of his glove. 

Without the barrier, he was able to fuck his fingers into you with even more vigor, adding a third to really make you whine and writhe beneath him. So good. So good, that was all that remained in your broken, tired mind, all you could feel, it overrode everything else, even if it was wrong. Even if you really didn’t think you wanted it. All he had to do was curl his fingers against the spongy tissue inside of you, or graze his teeth cruelly against your nipple, and you were reduced back to the mindlessness of lust. Dripping around his hand, your hips twitching and jerking to meet each thrust, your chest pressing needily against his mouth. 

The cresting waves, the rising tide, pleasure was intense and wet and inescapable in the same way you’d feel facing a relentless oceanic storm. It blazed and coiled and built within you with abandon, existing outside the part of you that understood the grotesque immorality and wrongness of getting off on the unwanted touch. 

Felix pulled off your nipple with a slick pop and you knew he was looking at you but you refused to open your eyes, refused to acknowledge reality as it was. And he hadn’t stopped pumping his fingers into you. Too rough, but you realized too late that you liked it like this anyway. 

“Go on and come already,” Felix said, his voice low. You jerked beneath him, your head thrashing from side to side and eyes squeezed shut as if you had any capacity to escape from this. From him. You said something, but it was muffled by his palm. Surprisingly, he removed his hand, sitting back so it could reach between your legs, leather-covered fingers grazing over your painfully swollen clit. Your eyes shot open, your entire body shaking. 

“I ca-n’t,” you told him, your voice tight and breathless and panicked. That wasn’t what you should have said, that wasn’t the appropriate response. But the truth was that you were achingly close to getting off and you wanted it.

“Really?” Felix asked, and it was mean. Not only his tone of voice, but the way he pressed a bit harder against your clit, grinding dirty little circles against it while his fingers pumped into you in tandem.  

Silent, your mouth fell open, eyes squeezing shut. There was nothing to say, no noise that would convey the impact of what you felt as you came undone. Everything, everything, within you focused only on that sensation, that flare of heat and goodness. Your hips rolled into it mindlessly, your pussy squeezing his fingers as the pleasure rolled through you. Felix didn’t stop right away when your orgasm had abated, only when your body relaxed somewhat did he pull away. 

There was no lingering sense of warmth or endorphins afterward. Just sweat and the taste of blood in your mouth and the dirty, sticky, awful crawling of your skin. You covered your face with one hand, the other attempting to hide your chest. Shame coursed through your veins like poison in your blood. Why did that happen? Why did he do that? Why did you get off on it? You felt frozen. Unable to think. Unable to speak. Unable. Incapable. Weak.

“Hey,” Felix said, ripping you from your thoughts. “Look at me.” 

You shook your head. 

“Look at me.” 

Responding to the threat in his voice, you lowered your hand, peeking up at him through your eyelashes. He sat on his knees, his cheeks stained red and his eyes too dark. 

“You’re fine,” Felix said. The words were a statement, but it was phrased almost like a question. 

You opened your mouth. Closed it. Shook your head with a helpless sound and fresh tears stinging your eyes. You closed them again, your breath hiccuping unsteadily. What a mess. Helplessness and despair oozed through you like sludge and you just wanted it to stop. Everything, the world itself. You wanted to be somewhere else, you wanted to undo everything that just happened. But when you reopened your eyes, nothing had changed. If anything, his expression had only darkened. Lust? Rage? 

Gritting your teeth, you propped yourself up. It was difficult with one arm still trying to cover your chest. Worse when you tried to fix your panties and leggings. Exhaustion trembled through your muscles, down to your very bones. It wasn’t just the aftershocks of pleasure and shame, it was the pain from training, the cuts and bruises littering your skin, the soreness in your arms and back and legs. 

Felix stood up, far too composed considering you could see his erection straining the front of his pants. When he held out a hand⁠—the ungloved one, the one that was still tacky with the wet remnants of your arousal⁠—you took it thoughtlessly. He easily hauled you up onto your feet. His strength really was unmatched. Inhuman. 

As soon as you were sure you weren’t going to fall over, you dropped his hand, wrapping the arm around yourself self-consciously. The silence was awkward, but you had nothing to say. It was hard enough to parse what you were thinking, let alone try and verbalize any of it.

“I’m trying to help you,” Felix suddenly said, sounding utterly determined to convince you. Or, maybe, convince himself. “You get it, don’t you? You’re powerless. There are no heroes, only those who are strong, and those who are weak. You’re weak, so you lost.” He scanned you slowly, frowning. “You should have known better. I told you⁠—I warned you. It’s your fault. You’re blind to reality.”

“My fault?” you repeated, managing to look him in the eye. Half naked and raw like an exposed nerve and trembling from exhaustion and his touch, you couldn’t comprehend what he was saying, reacting to it on a base level.

“Yes.” Felix’s jaw was set in a hard line, his eyes narrowing dangerously. “Why are you complaining anyway? It felt good, didn’t it?” There was a petulance there, an aggressiveness to the justification that made your head spin. “I could have done anything I wanted, you weren’t even trying to fight.” 

Disgust and despair flooded your system, your vision fading around the edges because that was too much. Too far.  

“You’re terrible,” you said softly. 

A muscle in his jaw ticked, his eyes hard as steel. “I’m right. Unless you still think you have a chance.” You didn’t respond, didn’t move. Felix rolled his eyes and turned away with a dismissive sound. You had proved his point. 

Violence came over you in a heady flush, buzzing hotly in your head before any sort of rationality could soften its aggression. So you stepped forward on an unsteady leg, your right hand balled into a fist meant for him. Felix accused you of pulling your blows, but not this one. 

Not that it really mattered. He probably expected it, or his reflexes were just that fast. Either way, Felix caught your wrist before you could hit him, his black ponytail flipping dramatically as he turned. The whole thing spanned a scarce few heartbeats, it took longer than that for your mind to catch up. And then you were frantically attempting to pull yourself free, blood pounding in your ears. 

“Let me go,” you demanded, a half tone off from sounding shrill. Felix held onto your wrist with a painfully tight grip, keeping you from getting away. 

“What was your mistake?” he asked without emotion, staring you down pitilessly. 

You shook your head, caught between using your left arm to fight him off and the need to keep your chest covered. For a long moment, all that existed was the amber color of his eyes and the infernal tension. By the time he tugged hard on your wrist to pull you into a hard, mean kiss, you almost expected it. That was the only thing you’d get out of testing him, you knew that. 

This kiss wasn’t much different from the other. Sour breath and chapped lips and a fervency you couldn’t understand. It ended quickly. While your head spun, he turned you around and forced you to stumble forward until he could push you down onto the weapons table. It smelled like wood and metal. The finish was old and wearing thin, the wood grain biting into your hands and cheek.

He shoved your leggings further down your thighs, waking up some sort of impulse within you that rejected this. Felix slapped your hands away when you tried to cover your bare pussy, keeping you pinned with his other hand. It was that easy to deter you. 

“We… we can’t,” you told him. 

“What did you think was going to happen?” he asked, an accusation in his voice. Blame, anger, irritation. This was your fault, that’s what he meant. He had been willing to let you go, but you forced his hand. That’s what this was. Of course you had no answer. 

You heard the sound of a belt being undone, of fabric shuffling. When you felt the tip of his cock pressing between your legs, that was it. Air froze in your seizing lungs, every muscle in your body drawing taut and your limbs locked in place. He drew the head of his dick across your arousal slick flesh until he felt the give of your entrance, or maybe he was estimating from the panicked squeak that left your mouth. He grunted and pushed you more firmly against the table to keep you still as he rolled his hips. You were too tense for him for that to work. He had to pry apart your outer lips and force himself past the flinching muscles, making your cunt stretch around his cock until he was deep enough to rest inside of you without guidance. After that, all it took was a few harsh thrusts to fill you completely, stopping only when his pelvis met your ass.   

 Resignation kept you from struggling, this overwhelming sense of inevitability now that prevention and escape had failed. He would do what he wanted, there was no point in trying to stop it. And if you liked it, if you could get off just from his fingers, how could you even claim you didn’t want it? A part of you merely treaded water, floating in the vague idea that this wasn’t real, that this couldn’t happen to you, that you wouldn’t be in this position. If you were incapable of making a decision, if you were beyond fighting or even arguing, maybe you weren’t even really there at all. 

Felix choked back his groan, pausing now that he was fully settled within you, giving some time for adjustment. Maybe it was kindness, but his discipline was fraying. When your body hiccuped with a little sob, his hips jerked in a shallow threat of a thrust, letting out a sharp hiss from between his teeth. Your mouth fell open silently, wide eyes fixed on the wall. It did hurt, although part of that was your body’s own reluctance to accept his. Mostly, you just felt shocked. In utter disbelief that this would happen. It wasn’t meant to, you weren’t supposed to let this happen. You were strong, you were brave. You were-

Why was this happening? 

Pain and all, having him inside of you felt good, just like with his fingers. There was a sense of fulfillment, satisfying some sort of innate ache within you. If he had started with his dick, maybe your body wouldn’t respond to the pleasurable weight of his cock selfishly seated within your fluttering inner walls. Violation wasn’t meant to feel good and he claimed that this was punishment. But Felix hadn’t started selfishly, he started by making sure you knew pleasure, making sure that you wanted more. That was proof of his point, proof that you had no genuine strength, that you were defenseless.

This was happening because you were weak. 

Taking his time now, he pulled out, bringing an abrupt end to your seemingly endless internal spiral of thoughts. You whined, kept from wiggling away by your lack of leverage. Pinned between Felix and the table, held down by an unyielding hand. He still hadn’t removed the glove, and it was still damp with your drool. Your fingers fretfully searched for traction on the table, your legs trembling. Even pulling out, relieving the pinching pressure, wasn’t what you really wanted because you could feel every ridge, every vein, every private spot within you that he now claimed. 

Felix gave you no warning before thrusting back in, his pelvis meeting your ass with a vulgar clap, both of you moaning at the feeling. His cock twitched as your inner walls desperately tried to adjust all over again and it was such an intensely invasive feeling. The stretch was intimate, a pinching sort of feeling that drew your lips into a line as you tried to swallow down the pained whimper. And the mental process restarted. The shock, the confusion, the disbelief, the inability to understand the meaningful difference between what felt good and what hurt. What was your fault and what wasn’t. 

Distracting you from that, Felix’s hand drifted down between your legs, fumbling a bit before brushing against your swollen clit. It made you shudder, reminding your body of the pleasure from before. 

“No,” you squeaked out, hating yourself for the breathless moan that left your mouth. He pushed away your attempts at making him stop, returning to your clit with purposeful little circles and a hard, punishing thrust. You closed your eyes and bit your lip, although it did nothing to stifle the pathetic whimper. If he only intended to make you feel powerless, why bother touching you? Why bother making you feel so good? None of this made any sense. 

“If you weren’t so damn stubborn,” he said with another thrust, this one less rough than before. In time with the slow circles he rubbed against your clit, it didn’t hurt so bad. No, you could feel where the pleasure would build, hot and intense enough to make you come again. The weight of Felix inside of you was inexplicably good, and the way his cock pressed intently against where you were most sensitive⁠—places even his clever fingers hadn’t been able to find⁠—had your toes curling and fingers clawing into the table. Thinking like that made you whimper shakily, your pussy squeezing his cock as if trying to pull him deeper. Felix groaned, low and honest. It sounded like he was in pain, suffering from the strike you hadn’t been able to land in combat. “If you just listened-” 

“Felix,” you said, trying to cut him off, trying to stop him. But your breathless voice held his name like a moan. It was a moan. He was making you feel good, and you were too weak to fight it. 

He swore in response, hips stuttering. Pausing, he wrapped an arm beneath you, pulling your spine into an awkward arch. The fabric of his shirt was rough against your bare back, but the brush of his lips on your neck was soft. Almost like a kiss, the harshness of his breath was heavy enough to make you shiver, cooling your sweaty skin. His leather-clad hand groped at your chest, pinching your sore nipples to make you really whine. You wouldn’t have expected anything so sweet from Felix, the intimacy of being held like this contrasted dizzyingly to the violence of what he was doing. This was practically the embrace of a lover. 

Felix didn’t seem so inclined to explain, rolling his hips and touching your clit, his lips mapping out all of the skin he could reach. The angle like this was awkward, but its intent seemed obvious. He wanted this to be good for you, in some way. Or, at the very least, you weren’t being allowed to escape from him, weren’t allowed to mentally retreat to some place far away. Your eyes rolled around, searching the hauntingly empty training grounds for some sort of help, some anchor to pull you out from this, but there was nothing. Nobody. Only the stars were witness. Only the thin moon could hear the depraved sounds of skin slapping skin and the wet squelching of each of his uneven thrusts, the noises both of you were making. 

“You’re so loud,” he told you, the shape of the words branded into the side of your neck, disturbing the fine hairs there. Hearing him like this made you shudder, the hot sensation sinking all the way to your core. Even though it was clearly intended as a criticism, Felix sounded hot, his voice a little husky, far lower than normal. 

“‘m s-sorry,” you got out in a slur. “I-I can’t-”

“I didn’t say I disliked it,” he responded, punctuating the words with a sharp thrust that cast away all your best intentions to keep your voice down. You clawed at the arms holding you, grasping desperately at the table for balance.  

“Felix…” 

While you knew that his name would get a reaction, when Felix bit you, a harsh, frightened yelp tore from your throat, the thin gauze of pleasure muffling your ability to react. He inhaled sharply, sucking on the mark as his hips moved faster. This was more of the violence you expected, but you responded to it just as well as you had his sweetness. More, maybe, just because of the sudden intensity. 

Loud, panicked moans were punched from your lungs when he pushed you back onto the table to fuck you properly. The different angle shot white hot through your body, the sudden shock of pleasure far too intense to react to. Or maybe you did, maybe you moaned his name, maybe your pussy tightened like a vice around his cock. There were things that you were aware of doing, but you refused to acknowledge your response, holding with a white knuckled grip to the idea of pleasure driven madness. Only madness⁠—insanity, really⁠—could be used as a defense against the way you cried his name as you came, tight and frightened and anxious and undeniably blissed out. So different from just his fingers, the pleasure hit hard, your cunt sucking him deep with truly sinful sounds as your hips tried to tilt to take more, your clit pulsing hot, hot blood beneath his unyielding touch. 

Felix stopped touching you before you were really down from that high, your orgasm cut short as his hands, one gloved and the other bare, abandoned touching you to grip your hips instead. It wasn’t difficult to understand why. Blood pounded in your ears as his thrusts lost any and all tempo, his fingers definitely bruising your hips. You muttered some kind of denial, stress of the harshness and how perverse it all sounded catching in the fiery mess of your mind, but it didn’t matter. The weak relented to the strong. 

At the very last second, Felix pulled out. You heard the slick noise of his hand working his cock only a heartbeat or two before you felt the hot spurts of cum hit your back. He held you still all the while, his gloved hand keeping you pinned flat onto the table. And that was it. No intimacy, no ceremony. Felix released you a few moments after he ran the tip of his cock over your ass, spreading the last beads of cum thin across your skin, his breathing erratic and harsh. 

He stepped away and you could have moved, could have gotten up, but all you felt was the cooling ropes of cum slipping off of your sweaty skin and the pinching ache of penetration between your legs and this soul-deep sense of confusion. Fabric shuffled when Felix presumably fixed his pants and you didn’t move. You didn’t even open your eyes. All you could do was will the world to stop turning, mentally beg that the universe itself collapse to save you from having to deal with whatever happened next.

Blood roared in your ears, its taste biting the back of your dry tongue. Your legs trembled and twitched. You didn’t want to move, you wanted to disappear. You wanted to never have existed in the first place. 

Felix cleared his throat. You jolted in surprise when you felt the brush of fabric on your back, but you quickly realized he was only wiping you up. Cleaning his mess. Then, awkwardly, he fixed your leggings and underwear, pulling them up your legs as if that would do anything to hide the memory of what he’d done. 

“Can you stand?” he asked gruffly. 

Could you? 

Yes, you decided after a moment. You straighted out and turned, your arms covering your chest. He held out his jacket without looking at you, stipped down just to his sweaty button up. Mutely, you accepted it, glad to have something covering your abused nipples and wounded skin. 

Felix glanced at you, his eyes lingering, before he winced and looked away. “I’ll tell them,” he said. “You’re not fit for combat.”

Combat. Right. The abandoned training swords laid in the arena, not too far off from your ruined shirt. “Okay,” you mumbled. You wished he would go. You wished you had the strength to leave, to escape to somewhere dark and quiet so you could cry. Well. You wished for a lot of things.

He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it with a scowl. The night was utterly quiet, not even the far off bugs daring to intrude on the terrible moment of silence. It ended with the sharp, cruel sound of boots on stone. No matter what you thought you wanted, it still hurt when Felix turned on his heel and left the training grounds without so much as a word of goodbye or comfort. Sapped of anger, empty of strength, and internally, mentally, physically ruined, you did nothing to stop him.