#dom!will

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Will's not stupid. The fact that you tried to hide the bruises in the first place was laughable. Sure- you wore Will's hoodies a lot- but all the time? And with the sleeves drawn down to your wrists and then further, the fabric fisted in your hands to avoid it pulling up- was silly considering Will's hoodie swallowed you up inside it. It was a useless protective measure- one that only served to amp up Will's suspicions.

Still- he lets you get away with it for twelve hours. He goes to work and comes back- eats dinner with his eyes politely yet unmistakably narrowed on your covered arms- silently asking you what's wrong and when you dodge his concern- he corners you while you do the dishes.

It's not that there's anything wrong in your mind- a part of you actually enjoys the marks he's left on you- but you know how Will can get- and you don't want him to feel bad. He's sensitive as much as he tries to hide behind the stoic façade. His friends call him Ironhead- and you inwardly call him Softheart- wondering how much of the shield that surrounds him is meant to protect himself- and how much he views it as protecting others from him.

Will keeps a close reign on himself. You don't know how long he'd been doing it- you suspected long before he met you. Part of him being your dom had to do with that control. The handing over of trust between you two.

At his approach, you've settled your arms deep below the surface of the water but Will sighs behind you, chin tucked on your shoulder, hands tugging at your elbows.

"You gonna show me them or can I have my hoodie back? M'cold," he asks and you laugh, bright but tinged with nerves- the sponge in your hand feeling like your body in Will's grip. Soft and squishy, a thrill running through you at his touch but Will registers it differently- the worry in his head reading your reaction as a potential shiver of fear.

Are you scared he'll be upset with you? he wonders, keeps his voice and eyes soft on you.

Reluctantly, you pull your arms from the water, revealing the bruises smattered over your forearms. There's a sharp inhale at your ear, before Will gently pulls you away from the sink and spins you around in his arms- blue gaze never leaving the marks on your skin.

"Christ," Will whispers, thumbs grazing over the imprints that match the width of his fingers.

"Sweetheart-" Will says, the word muddled up with his affection for you, on something in him that he runs over in his mind constantly like tracing the raised edge of a scar. His thoughts grate over it now. The violence. The pain he's inflicted. The way his hands have curled around metal and flesh and how he's never wanted what they've done to be directed at you.

Pulling your arms away from him because the switch in him has you wanting to make the marks disappear just so that the devastation on his face will too- Will flinches while you extract yourself from his grip. He swallows hard- gaze ripping away from your arms to meet yours. There's fear within his blue eyes- had been there all along just carefully concealed behind his stoic walls- his avoidance all day a symptom of how scared he is that you'll hold this against him.

There's a subtle shake of his head before he husks out a fractured I'm sorry. Guilt and shame and pain layering over the two words, and they taste like salt. So sharply coated with pain that they cut over his tongue.

Before he can continue you wrap your arms around him, pull him into a hug that he stutters into like he doesn't deserve it. Something in him restrained- hauled back and away like his spine is made of iron and he will not let himself be moved.

He has responsibilities- he's supposed to take care of you- he'd never want to hurt you- hadn't meant to-

"You don't have to apologize," you say, "I asked you to- I wanted this-" but Will shakes his head fiercely- pulls away from you, his face scrunching up like he's touched something hot.

"I was too rough- I shouldn't be leaving marks like this-" he counters, voice clinical. Cold and distant like he's listing off the ways he's failed a mission and he can't let his personal shit get caught up in the fallout. There's no time for feelings- there's just the set course and any necessary corrections- and he's not the one that has final say in any of it. It's you- it's you and always will be you and if you tell him to never touch you again he'll listen.

"I asked you, Will," you gently remind him and his jaw tenses around a few steadying breaths before he speaks.

"I shouldn't have done it," he says, something in the way he says it verging on dismissive and it's your turn to flinch. He regrets the words as soon as they leave his mouth- what he really meant was he should have been more careful in his handling of you.

"Do you not trust me to use the safe word?" you ask, hurt lacing your words and Will shakes his head.

"No, I'm sorry-of course not- but your pain threshold isn't the same when you're in that space- and my strength- I shouldn't have hurt you," he says, hands clenching into fists before he stares at them with distrust. Gently, slowly like you're afraid he'll cut and run- you weave your fingers between his and squeeze.

"If you hurt me and I don't like it, I would tell you," you insist and Will lists in the silence that follows like he's a man drowning at sea and has accepted what the crushing waves will bring. Like he's rolling towards an inevitability and he's only just realized- has just enough time to steel himself for when it hits. One last lungful of air before he'll plunge his head beneath the waves and just let it take him. The swell of his emotions is immense and he's been thrust deep.

His mind tracking back to the previous night- of your wrists gathered up in his hands, your legs straining against his chest as his hips snapped into you. The sounds you made- ripped from your pleasure slackened jaw- how he struggled to contain you as you came- so fucking hard that his hips sheened with your release when he disengaged.

Was it then? Had he held on a little too tightly when your entire body tensed against him? Just enough to have those marks be pressed into your flesh by his fingers.

"Will," you voice weaves through his thoughts, pierces the path of rumination that's begun to spiral.

The way you say his name is different than when you'd said it last night- screamed it- soundless through gritted teeth as your second orgasm struck. Breathless and punched out with the thrust of his cock inside you.

Had he missed it then? Had you said the word and he'd missed it? Had it gotten lost in the near-silent, gasped out string of his name?

No, you wouldn't have not said anything afterwards- not unless you thought he didn't care. Did you think that? That he'd just use you- that he didn't care if he hurt you? Horror dumps down Will's spine and he tenses up in front of you- his Captain persona snapping into place as he tries to calm the oncoming storm of his emotions.

"Will," your voice comes a little more insistent this time and he tears his gaze away from the blooming marks over your arm but his head doesn't follow. Trips and slams into the darkness that always seems to hover at the peripheral of his mind. A shadow that chases him from his years spent in the heart cracking pulse of violence.

You take a deep breath- gathering the words that you wish to speak carefully and Will panics- thinks this is it- you're going to tell him this is the end- that he's been reckless. That you want nothing to do with him. Flashes of the cereal aisle- of Leslie looking distraught and embarrassed as she spoke to the cops and then the man's recovery photos overtake Will's vision. Superimpose themselves onto your frame and he can't breathe-

He can feel Leslie's nails digging into his back- hear the shredded quality of his name as she shrieked it out in her desperate attempts to loosen the chokehold he had on the man. His swollen neck covered in deep, dark bruises- so viscerally contrasted by the bright white of the neck brace that Will flinches even now- as though a laser sight flashes into his vision.

"My father warned me about violent men," Leslie had told him before she left a week later. The engagement ring digging into Will's palm but not hard enough to remove the feeling of the man's muscles- the give of skin and corded tension within his grip.

Will's reserve cracks when your lips curve at the edges- the smallest smile offered to him and he can't look at it- not when he thinks it'll be the last.

Leslie smiled right before she slid the ring from her finger. Like she was removing a burden- like it was a relief to be rid of him and all that he had to offer which was nothing but the chaos in his head and how it shoved to the surface of his skin- driven up from his palms. He was captive to it then. A puppet on a string- barbed wire and his joints full of sand- sharpened to serrated glass in an instant and he couldn't keep it inside. Couldn't predict the triggers until he entered therapy. Couldn't put space between them and his reactions for a long, long fucking time.

Leslie'd been right to do it.

To leave him to sort out the mess of his mind alone.

And you're right to do the same- Will can only hope you'll let him down easy although he doesn't feel like he deserves it.

The tiles of the kitchen floor blur, the rock in his throat jumps and his hands are skittering up and down your arms like he's trying to soothe you and himself by some extension.

"I like them," you admit quietly- a secret you'd kept to yourself until now- and Will laughs through the first sob- the wrecked sound startling you both. Your smile disappears in an instant- wild concern filling your face and you reach for him but Will can't accept your touch. Straightens so that your hand falters- hovers between him while you wait for permission to hold him.

"Please-" he begs and he doesn't know what for. He thinks if you touch him- with your softness and sweetness- he might crack and fall apart. That all of Delta Forces men could come and never put him back together again.

He's fallen so hard for you and he's so afraid he's fucked it up.

"I enjoyed what we did yesterday," you tell Will and he sinks to his knees- arms wrapping around you before he buries his face in your waist. His shoulders jump beneath your hands- his breath more out of control than he's allowed it to be in years. Relief is pulled through his frame like an anchor finding it's way to the bottom of the ocean. Your confession a form of permission for you both. It settles in his chest when you follow Will to the ground, hold him in your arms until he settles. The sand that he'd dredged up- that had fogged the clarity he'd had from last night- finally sinks- only a fine dusting covers him now.

His usual grit is back and he can feel it between his teeth. Sinks them in just so he doesn't lose it again.

"Did you feel this way last night?" you ask and he shakes his head. No- he'd felt good last night. Afterwards too. It'd only been this morning that the doubt crept in- the disgust following shortly. How could he have treated you like that? The drop taking hold when he saw the evidence of his actions and it'd dragged him to the deep, dark bottom before letting go. Your words of reassurance helping him come back to the surface.

"That's good," you say, "Because if I'd had missed that I'd be a mess right now," you admit with a half hearted laugh, but something serious grips your features and Will lifts a thumb to brush away the wet over your cheeks. The warmth of his hand drops into your bones- you'd never seen Will so upset.

"I trust you," you breathe out into the space between you. Will's gaze flits between your mouth and your eyes- his hands on you held so lightly- like he's afraid to make full contact.

"I'm glad you didn't feel like this last night- because you don't have anything to feel bad about," you say and Will closes his eyes, drags air into his lungs but his lip trembles beneath your fingers as his hands come up to rub gentle circles into your arms. Like the movement of his thumbs can remove the marks he's left.

"I'm glad I can be here for you when you feel like this," you say, "You were there for me when I needed you last night."

Will smiles even as a tear traces a path down his cheek when his eyes lift to yours.

"I trust you too."

A half hour later and Will's gym bag is strewn open beside you- his usual care and order broken for digging out the arnica cream he uses on Benny after his fights and applying it to your arms in soothing sweeps of his hands.

By the time the bruises are barely visible- Will has stopped treating you like glass in bed. A few conversations, a lot of check ins happening in and out of the bedroom so that two weeks later, when he hauls you into the same position as that night- he's grinning. A pleased smile gracing his features as he rises to his knees, lifts your ankles to his shoulder and lines himself up with your aching center.

"See somethin-nnghh-" your question is lost to a long, low moan at the thrust of his length inside you before you stammer out a cheeky "you like, Miller?"

Will's hands tighten around the padded cuffs over your wrists- his gaze breaking away from where he's connected to you to find your pleasure filled face. He sinks into you like he's coming home, settled into himself in a way that he hasn't felt these last few weeks.

"Enjoying that pretty smile of yours every time you come," he says, his grin wolfish as you shudder through another orgasm, his hips not halting their brutal snap against you while he fucks you through it. Will groans, shuddering while he gathers you to him more firmly, your legs caught between his chest and the cage of his arms before he drags you over his length. It isn't long before you're reduced to a mess of moans and the prettiest noises he's ever heard.

He thinks he's accomplished the goal you'd established- making you forget everything except the stretch of you around his cock- the pulse of pleasure that he's relentlessly hauled you over for hours now- but you heave out something that surprises him.

"Thank you," you repeat like a prayer and Will's grip tightens further on you as his release slams through him. Enough that you can feel the pressure around the cuffs- the leather creaking in his grip. His heart strikes upon his ribs harder- matching the pace the words leave your mouth until you both settle into a comfortable silence. Sweaty skin pressed together while your breathing evens out- Will's nose nuzzling into your throat. He's left a few marks across your chest with his mouth, and he traces them now with a few kisses.

A compromise.

His hands have known the kiss of violence but his mouth has only known the receiving of the sort of damage his fists have dealt- the taste of metal over his tongue and teeth. What he does with his lips against you is closer to worship. It's a violence against himself the way you writhe and moan and press into his touch, how sweetly you answer when he asks, "Do you know why I mark you like this?"

"Because I'm yours, Will. Always, yours."

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