#dynamites writes

You had not spoken aloud since you left the city gates.

It was silence borne out of practicality for the most part - not only were you traveling alone but the persisting heat had willed you to preserve your breath. Though it had gotten better once you passed the stretch of desert, the forest’s humidity was no less a pain. 

Should this be all a test of your flesh and spirit, it is certainly an arduous one. Every so often, sweat trickles into your stinging eyes. You check and re-check your pack every hour, even if you hadn’t touched it since. Your blinks are slower, or maybe it just feels that way. 

At any rate by the time you reach the laboratory, a dark mar in the idle forest, your mind is far away, dreaming of chalices of ice-cold water; and fully, entirely unable to appreciate the vast land you’ve trekked under the order of Lord Liu Kang.

Only now does it strike you: you should have asked him to create a portal. It would have been so aggravatingly easy. 

And you’re only half-lucid when you finish securing its perimeters. It’s more of a tedious affair than you anticipated but for what it was worth, you’re content in doing it by yourself. You all but rush in once you were confident there hadn’t been any indication that a certain sorcerer had come back for his supplies.

Shang Tsung’s laboratory, entirely deserted, exists like a picture: it possessed still the facade of a living machine, but the absence of its quasi-scientist owner kept it frozen in time. Had you not known any better, you could easily imagine in your mind’s eye someone returning for their scribbled notes at any given second. You had to concede that Shang Tsung maintained the upper floors with impressive care, no matter its artificiality. 

And for all that you endured out in the elements - best yet, the room feels like paradise on your skin. Cool, dry air, if a bit dusty. If you just ignored the sharp chemical odor that also pervaded the room, the sensation was almost entirely pleasant.

Where the smell originated, you were unsure: there were innumerable flasks on the wall shelves that contained liquid behind its amber glass.

Curious, you lean over the desk and flick absentmindedly at a plugged flask with a half-gaseous, half-liquid residue in it, watching the dark particles convect up the neck. Lord Liu Kang ought to have sent a scholar, you think: they’d know how to separate the valuable information from the drivel. 

Even an imperial mage would be familiar with some of this writing scattered across the table. Still, with the discord done unto the Shirai Ryu and disappearance of Shang Tsung’s allies, having to outsource in other measures was a fair choice to make - just not one you would have made. 

With your head lowered, you take stock of the papers, taking any that looked of import and folding them away into your pack on the ground. This carries on until goosebumps crop up on your arms, a particularly chilling wind sailing up your skin. The room had sapped all warmth from your body.

You almost don’t even realise the atmosphere has changed, the air growing heavier: only when you pull back far enough to witness your visible breath wisp into the air.

Not merely sheltered from the blistering heat outside any longer - 

You’re cold.  

In a matter of milliseconds, you turn your cheek and something sings through the air right over the bridge of your nose, freezing your eyelashes. It drives right through the window, leaving a splintered hole in the glass pane in the wake.

Your body moves on instinct, rolling to the side. You keep from flinching even as a shard of glass - or was it ice? - scrapes your cheekbone.

You hold a gasp back in your mouth, willing the stinging to subside. By the stairs, an approaching silhouette sharpens against the cloud of pale frost. You’re slowed down by shock, disbelieving in your sight.

He shouldn’t be here, not in Outerrealm. Well, you think miserably. Lord Liu Kang isn’t going to like hearing about this encounter. That is, if you survive it. 

“Stand down,” Sub-Zero barks, a guttural demand cutting through the air. In his palm he draws together another stake. It comes together with a splintering crunch, like the collapse of hard plastic. 

It doesn’t make sense - you’re unsure what sorcery, what technology he’s equipped to sneak into this realm without alerting the empire. Though you don’t have time to hypothesise on this as he draws his arm back and jets the projectile your way. You push away from the desks and onto your knees, tucking in your shoulder just in time for the frozen stake to pierce through wood to your left, embedding in a drawer.

Your breath is bedraggled, the frozen air hard on your lungs. Still, you ask, “Where is Shang Tsung? Earthrealm?” 

Sub-Zero’s eyebrows come together; you can easily imagine a snarl under his mask. “Like I’d tell you even if I knew.” 

If he knew?

He hadn’t seemed concerned with divulging this, which demanded further questions. If he knew not of Shang Tsung’s location and spoke truthfully, then it was clear he had the same objective as you here. Before you could act on this understanding, his gaze slides away, focused on something on the ground. You follow its trajectory, dread burrowing in your stomach when you realise he’s looking towards your pack where you’ve tucked away the majority of Shang Tsung’s discarded notes. Half-open, loose corners of scrolls peek out the top. 

Under no circumstances were the Lin Kuei to possess those. Should there be something important, you couldn’t even fathom how Sub-Zero might exploit it for his own ambitions. 

Forcing yourself to your feet, you manage to utter, “Fine. But there is nothing here for you. Leave!”

He doesn’t turn his head but his dark gaze flits back to you. You refuse to let yourself be intimidated by his vitriol - you are better than that. Although you’ve once before met Sub-Zero and his brother in the capital, you doubt any familiarity would give you a boon to this encounter. It was better that he did not recognise you, even, as it would make subduing him all the more professional. 

You can only hope you are choosing correctly to not kill him outright, for that ought to be the choice of the Shirai Ryu. He doesn’t seem to be so self-limiting however, what with the way his hands twitch. It was clear now if it hadn’t been before: he was not to let you leave alive and with your stolen intel.

“You dare tell me what to do?” he says, rounding on you. 

You warn, “They will stop at nothing to capture you.”

“They? Of whom do you speak - the empress or Liu Kang? Both?” He makes a condescending noise, a wisp of pale breath seeping out his mask. “You’re a lackey of theirs. Of course.”

You exhale low. You need only to grab your pack and make it down the stairs past him. You were positive you could shake him in the forest, even if he had stationed more of his assassins around the building. 

“You’re a fool,” he is saying but you are only half-listening, mind racing in a multitude of directions. You could afford a fight, one that would only impede him but it would not be feasible in this space given your arsenal.

Leaving without one would, of course, be ideal but it seemed almost exponentially worse to be later ambushed in the scorching outdoors. 

Perhaps you should not have come alone, after all. It’s too late now. Over the course of your perusals, you’ve familiarised yourself with your surroundings, which were really full of unidentifiable baubles. Any real weapon was out of reach from where you stood, and you’d do anything to avoid touching the various scalpels on the desk - gods know where they’ve been. 

Your options were whittled down to pure martial arts - which was fine, really. But you could appreciate an advantage. So you don’t think too hard at what exactly you’re grabbing as you lean back, fingers in search of something sizeable.

They clutch around a smooth glass bottle neck that feels somewhat heavy, as though partially filled with something, and the choice is made for you.

The bottle is an amber blur in the air once it leaves your hand. With a narrow arch, you swing a rogue bottle aimed at his head, in dire hopes it would combust grand enough for you to flee. 

As it turns out, nothing of the sort happens. Of course not.

With an unnatural deftness, Sub-Zero crosses his forearms, steeling them in ice just as the bottle makes impact. Though the glass explodes, it is hardly to the extent you would have liked. They merely drop in shards to the ground by his feet, nary a cut made. A viscous and inky liquid concurrently splatters his gauntlets and across his face, not even enough to blind him. He grunts. 

Gasoline? It didn’t seem likely, as you would have smelt its pungency if it was. Unfortunate, of course. Lighting him on fire would certainly be a fast solution to this problem.

For a moment, Sub-Zero stills. He wipes a droplet from above his brow and inspects the dark stain between his fingertips; when nothing happens, he growls, snapping back to you.

“Pathetic,” he spits out, seething. 

Sub-Zero launches himself at you. On the defensive, you slip out the way, narrowly missing the sheet of ice that would have trapped you in place behind you. You prowl one another in a circle. You’ve angered him and you could only hope this would make him sloppy. 

As you soon discover, he is terribly ferocious. A performance befitting a clan grandmaster. You spend most of the engagement on the defensive, narrowly avoiding being split in half by axes and maces. Every time an ice-formed weapon swipes by your head, needles of ice spray you, buffeting your skin painfully. 

No longer than a few minutes in, you think you should just go ahead and kill him after all. Jumping around like this only serves to tire you out. The blade you carry burns where you’ve hidden it in your jacket uniform. You surge forward, not yet unsheathing it as to surprise him, but your boots skid. 

What - ?

When had he frozen the ground…?

You miss your mark by what must have been a finger’s width, your energy spent on balancing yourself instead. As you grapple for that stability, he closes the distance. 

With one large hand on the base of your throat, you are brought hard to the ground, pretty much thrown. You wince when the back of your skull taps the rug below you but that is hardly a concern with the weight on your entire body, Sub-Zero boxing you in from above.

He is everywhere and all that you can see, his large body hovering yours and his sash dropping onto your torso.

The metal of his gauntlets are streaked with the unidentifiable dark liquid and it smears you below the chin, cold and wet like blood.

Out of sight, one of his knees dig painfully into your thigh but you do not allow him a single cry of pain. Spots dance in your vision and although the pressure on the sides of your throat grows, fogging your brain, he isn’t putting in nearly enough to end you. When you wheeze, you barely feel it pass through your lips.

It is a despicable move. You thought him merciless, indeed, but you hadn’t thought him cruel. You grab at his wrist, staunchly attempting to pull him off but with gravity on his side, it was a near futile effort. He watches with acuteness as your chest lifts and drops unevenly. “Get off,” you grit out.

He leans so close you could see his blown-out pupils quivering. Then, he speaks.

“I know you.”

For a flash, you tense. “No,” you say. “But I know you.”

“Liar.”

Unblinking and unfazed, he lifts his free hand and in one rough motion, rips off your mask. He throws it to the side, not bothering to look at where it lands and immediately you scowl. 

His eyes thin - you realise he’s strangely humoured and sneering. 

“How dare you,” you say.

Though he doesn’t seem to hear you, his gaze is concentrated on your mouth. “I knew it. One of Liu Kang’s lapdogs from the academy. How honoured you must feel, to be sent on a suicide mission by him.”

There is nothing to be gained in entertaining his goading. Still, something inflates inside you. “He’s done nothing of the sort. His rule is just.”

“You must mean restrictive.”

“You will not blame your greed for power on him!”

He blinks at your anger, his visage relaxing ever so slightly though no less blazing. “Your fealty is commendable,” he says. “How did he train you?”

“Fuck you.” Like a dance, you lift forward and he shoves your shoulder back against the floor harshly. 

“What do you anticipate as a reward, should you return successfully?” he asks, ignoring you. “Acknowledgement, praise? That he’ll tell you ‘good work’ and bend you over the nearest table?”

The image is so violently crass, you shudder. His eyes glitter, delighting in your discomfort. The mouth on this man - if you could move, you had half the mind to sock him in the jaw as hard as you could.

It’s hard to believe that someone this provoking was once a close confidante to Lord Liu Kang. And having only ever met Sub-Zero during conferences with Lord Liu Kang present, you felt appalled just hearing this vulgarity uttered with little fanfare. Unexpected was an understatement.

Mind games! Mind games, of which you never thought him capable. 

You grimace, glaring up at him through your eyelashes. “I suggest you keep your fantasies to yourself, unless you speak from experience.” 

A dark scoff leaves him before it is cut out abruptly. All of sudden, Sub-Zero blinks and breaks eye contact, dipping his head to the side and although you’re unsure what he is looking at exactly, you don’t care to enquire. 

At a glacially-slow pace, you try to wiggle free the fabric of your pants from where he kneeled. As soon as you could bring your own knee up, you would have leverage for a number of things that could put distance between you and him. To distract him from your legs, you continue to claw at his arm. “What is this wait, Sub-Zero? Are you going to kill me or what?” 

A deep crease forms between his eyebrows as he regains his focus. “You,” he mutters accusatively. “You did something to me.”

You frown. “What?”

He makes another low noise that you vaguely register as a chuckle. “You monks are all the same, convinced your training gives you supreme dominion over the body. Wrong, of course. The Lin Kuei will still best you in that respect, as with all.”

“Your pride will be your clan’s downfall.” 

“Wrong, again. And your little distractions are child’s play.”

Then, Sub-Zero looks down. As best you could, you follow the trajectory to your own fidgeting legs. He knows. The window to react and wiggle free shrinks into nothing but before you can plan contingently, he moves. 

Without warning, the knee that was on your thigh lifts - and nestles hard instead right in the apex of your legs. 

It’s like all the air leaves your chest in one fell swoop.

This time, you do groan aloud, noises vibrating under his palm. And, worst of all, it is a shameful sound, mortifyingly loud in the spacious room and ringing in your own ears. Oh, gods. Your eyes snap open, the unexpected pressure not excruciating but stimulating, enough to have you jolting out of your skin. 

It must be an accident, because there is no way, no reason why Sub-Zero should be threatening you like this. It must be - isn’t it?

Dumbfounded beyond belief, you go slack; it no longer figured a good idea to knee him in the crotch. For the first time, you look at him directly and see beyond his feverish eyes and the streaks of black residue flecked across his skin from the liquid you threw. In fact, you find his ears are flushed pink, and have been pink for some time now. 

Something inside you awakens. “What - what the hell do you think you’re doing?” you snap, now scrambling on the floor with a renewed determination. Arching your back to put some distance between his legs and yours comes at a terrible price: your chest lifts up to his. Sub-Zero, fully cognisant of the motion, says nothing. “Unhand me!”

“Had you been smarter and stood down when I ordered it, none of this would be necessary,” he tells you.

You found yourself baring your teeth. “I will not be humiliated by you.”

This captures his attention in particular, his gaze morphing and settling into something indescribable. For a beat, you could almost consider it something as gentle as curiosity - then, it disappears as quickly as it came.

In a cool voice, he says, “Look at me.”

When you ignore him, the pressure on your throat disappears, replaced by a new force on your jaw. His hand from under your chin yanks your head straight. The hand holding your wrists down tightens its grasp.

“Look at me,” he repeats. He grinds his knee between your legs again, this time with malicious purpose. 

Be it distress or arousal mounting in your flesh, a soft gasp escapes your mouth. You’re desperate for relief and with him getting you this far but then stopping, you had to take measures into your own hands. Your hips roll against him and you’re only vaguely aware of your body moving, as if you aren’t even in control anymore. You drag yourself on his leg once more and for what it’s worth, you appreciate him staying so still.

There’s a pause, before -

“Humiliate?” he echoes you, intonation unbearably slow. “I could not humiliate you any more than you have already done to yourself.”

You can say nothing in protest. Your insides thrum, wanting to come so badly they ache. You should feel terrible, having debased yourself with an enemy but your brain is too hazy to think ethically. What a descent you watched yourself fall into. 

You were not in control of yourself, that much you could deduce for yourself. It ought to take much more than this to distract you and yet -

When his hands relaxed, affording you space, you still had not shoved him square in the chest even though it would have been so easy. Something was terribly wrong with you. You should gut him alive for what he’s done to you. 

Nonplussed, Sub-Zero rearranges himself on top of you, pulling his knees in and sitting straddle on your leg. He rests on one forearm parallel to the floor as the other arm trails down your abdomen. 

The cold leather and metal of his gauntlets slip under your hem and you are much too aware of how his fingers dig into your flesh, groping and demanding. What should feel brutalising and repugnant is instead entrancing. There is nothing else to think about from below him, because if it wasn’t his touch you concentrated on it would have been his equally penetrative gaze that which never leaves your face. 

Every soft shift in your expression is noticed, internalised, and responded to accordingly. When his rough fingertips find the swell of your breasts, your diaphragm unsteadies and there is no way he does not feel the tightening of your stomach under the skin. He rolls your nipple under a callused thumb until it hardens, your bra shoved aside. Nothing you do is unseen.

For once, he says nothing grating but that is hardly a relief - you can feel his domination over your flesh and spirit through physical means alone. 

It was impossible to avert your eyes from the truth: you were letting him take control of you. 

Your weakness was worthy of condemnation. The odes you chanted at the academy - limiting yourself from carnal pleasures in the pursuit of the ethereal - were as solid as steam slipping through your fingers. As Sub-Zero touched you, the heat of his palm skimming up and down your navel, you could not cohesively pull any dictum of asceticism into the forefront of your mind. You need not absolute chastity, but even a modicum of self-preservation for your own pride was adequate enough to absolve your acts, present or those soon to come. 

As it were, you possessed neither. Something else entirely was unfurling inside you, ravenous and anxious, encouraging you devilishly to deplete yourself. 

As though somehow able to hear your internal conflict, Sub-Zero speaks. “It is a fool’s errand to deny one’s truths,” he calmly says. 

Truths? What truths? His affliction had spread to you and he was blaming you for it. Mindless carnality was not in your nature, and if it wasn’t his, then you had… then you had unwittingly poisoned yourself. And him.

You grimace, thinking he is trying to assuage you in your position, console you through your own guilty arousal. “There must be another way,” you say, but then he sighs through his nose and his palm grows ice-cold in a flash. Pushing under your waistband, he cups your mound and you gasp, the frigid sensation sparking up your spine. 

“Fuck!” you hiss, splaying a hand on his chest and pushing but there is no force. Your other hand comes around his wrist; he doesn’t budge. Rather, his fingertips press in-between your folds, testing your limits. 

“What were you saying,” he says although the edge in his voice indicates it is rhetorical.

Your face scrunches as he continues to pet you. You begin to throb painfully, anticipating being properly filled. “Stop that. You’re going to - ”

“Give you frostbite? No. There would be no point in that,” he says, flatly and hardly convincing, “I still want you to feel me.”

He didn’t seem to care about breaking you off necessarily but rather in pursuing his own pleasure, he liked making you squirm in obscene desperation. 

His solid metal gauntlets press against your front as his exploratory hand slips further between your thighs. Though you’ve clamped your knees together, his own movements don’t seem impeded; you gasp for the second time, grasping the air, as he enters two cold fingers into you and pushes against your walls. 

It is a strange sensation. You loathe it and yet you’re so wet, so much so that he takes off his gauntlets intermittently before returning. When he cupped you again, your hips rolled for him, lifting off the floor. It’s so lowly of you, to be done in by an erotic touch.

As with yours, his patience seemed to be thinning.

You blink and his fingers are hooked at your waistband, pulling your pants and underwear to your knees; you blink again and his weight disappears. On his haunches before you, you watch in silence - voyeuristically - as he pries loose his sash, his own pleated pants sliding halfway down to his solid thighs. Although the front of his outer jacket fell long enough that it covered his front, even the slightest sight of his exposed body made you shiver. 

By now, the drug had dried on your skin; it came off in flecks as you rubbed your chin. “What the hell?” you mutter drunkenly, only half able to focus. The other half went into spectation, making certain he didn’t make any sudden moves. For this reason, you could not be sure whether the tingling you felt was real or not. 

You try to vocalise this to Sub-Zero, who was splashed much more heavily than you, but he wasn’t listening. “The bottle… I think - ”

“Shut up. Move.”

Although he’s the one who put forth the command, he decidedly manipulates your body himself. Without so much another word, he puts you on your stomach, your bare thighs against the rough floor rug. You don’t fight back because… well, why don’t you fight back, actually? Cognisant of your own compliancy, this question stumps you. 

Astride your legs, you feel the heaviness of his cock prod your skin. With one hand, Sub-Zero spreads your cheeks apart and guides himself into the cleft with his other. There are no warnings besides a husky sigh when he broaches you, the head of his cock stretching you out so luxuriantly. Mercilessly, he drives into you half-way and the speedy intrusion rips a filthy moan from your mouth. 

Pragmatically, you know you should feel some discomfort by nature of anatomy at least - but none of that is a reality for now. He slides the rest of the way in snug, hips flush against your backside, arms straight supporting himself on either side of you. You are so wet that all you feel is full. 

You almost wished it was painful, especially when he begins to move, inching his pelvis away from your rear and coming close to pulling out entirely but it really never does. It’s a disquieting revelation.

If it were painful, you would have reason to rue this entire encounter as a nightmare. Worse, you’ve never felt so comfortable in your life, with your forearms on the hard ground and being taken by a man who has half the mind to kill you after this. 

“Fuck,” he says, dragging out the syllable. You had to agree with the sentiment. 

He gives a few perfunctory thrusts before finding a sustainable rhythm. The carefulness he exhibits dissipates into thin air once he does, his first real thrust almost pushing your body forward by sheer force alone. It knocks the air out of you and you wiggle to establish yourself against the rug.

Apparently frustrated by your sliding forward, you feel large hands shove your shoulders down, smushing your cheek against the rug. You breathe hard through your nose, eyes rolling back in your skull. 

Distantly, you hear a clatter of something hitting the ground in a haphazard fashion. Before you toss a look to the side, cold fingers find themselves back on the developing bruises on your neck, twisting your head back to look up at Sub-Zero instead. You only have a second to register that he has removed his mask before he compels you to his mouth. 

As per his disposition, his kiss is equally as vicious; he does not let up until you’re dizzy and spent. It’s an awkward angle too, given his large stature, making you feel you’re about to drool out the corner of your mouth. You expected no less. 

And he must have done something especially delirious to you because as he draws away, you find yourself already wanting him back, to violate you in every which way he could. He smells of incense and his stubble ghosts you. It is not enough to just feel Sub-Zero pulse inside you, you need to hear his faint huffs by your ear, to feel his tongue against yours - 

“This is your doing,” he says, ticklish breath against your nape. He inhales deeply, his cold nose against your sensitive skin. “What was in that fluid?”

“I don’t know,” you cry out. So he was already aware. Then why did it feel like you were the only one objecting to its lures? 

“More lies. You wanted this. For me to take you like a bitch in heat.”

“I didn’t know. I don’t know. If I did, this would never - I would never have… it’s affecting me, too - ”

He pulls off your backside, dragging his cock out. It slides onto your back thigh, leaving a wet glaze. “Turn over,” he demands, putting a hand on your hip and squeezing hard. 

You do so because there is no alternative. Carefully and inspite of your lightheadedness, you roll onto your back, knees bent and shoes flat against the ground. He pragmatically removes one of your pant legs entirely off you, leaving the other still hanging, and it’s such a desperate, heated scrabble to get you further out of your clothes that at once, your heart quivers in your chest. 

Unexpectedly, you find then that he doesn’t crawl on top to take you vis-a-vis this time, but rather he yanks you forward into his lap, your centre of balance going utterly wayside. You take his collar in fistfuls to counter the inertia. You see your reflection in the shine of his eyes and it is almost too intimate for you to handle.

“You wanted this,” he repeats. “So take it.”

In his lap and resting against your stomach is his erection, wet and shiny and flushed. It does not take a scholar to know what he wants - what you want. You swallow, and draw in. 

His breathing is all you can hear as your hands spread out on his broad chest, sliding down. Two fingers hook at the junction point of his jacket and shakily, you pull it open. When he doesn’t move to stop you - or do anything for that matter - you undo the knots to his inner jackets as well. The jacket sides fall naturally to the sides, exposing his firm chest. He’s warm - you don’t know why that surprises you - and clean-shaven; and as you pass down his abdomen, feeling the jump of hard muscle under your palms, you remember yourself. 

It feels almost embarrassing to appreciate his body, especially so since you were still covered up fully from the waist-up. Now, with him more exposed as well below you, odd emotions were in order, none of which you cared to examine. 

You tear your hands away, missing the heat all the same. His heavy gaze on you doesn’t fetter. Still, at this point you were existing on borrowed time. You lift yourself on your knees and with a breath tampered in your lungs, you guide yourself down on him. 

You watch him as he watches his cock disappear into you, his expression tight. There is a muscle visibly twitching in his jaw and though his palms are flat against the floor for support, his fingers are ever-roving and flexed, a moment away from grabbing your waist and taking lead. You settle onto him, the blunt head of his cock easing into you with a satisfying pressure. 

“Go ahead,” he says - or rather, commands, with a razor-like edge of competition. “Get yourself off.”

The remark is so unnatural you inadvertently shoot him a bewildered look. It was difficult to take it face value, after all: you had no capacity to believe he meant it charitably. But when he counters your bewilderment with a subtle lift of an eyebrow, inciting you to question him aloud, you end up backing off. 

You don’t need to be asked twice. An orgasm to rebalance your hormones that were thrown off by that drug seemed logical in any case, but before you even get to moving, he hums, his head tilted to the side, the expanse of his throat appearing particularly inviting. 

“What?” you have to ask, bracing yourself in suspicion.

“You listen so well.” He purses his lips, clearly in mock-thought of what to say next, before, “Liu Kang wastes your talents.”

Your whole face flushes at the insulting implication that doing this was your talent. But what should take you right out of the mood, has you instead clenching down around him, agitation channeled elsewhere. The sudden pressure makes him grunt, a hand pulling forward to clutch your waist. 

“I am no more in control than you are,” you say and you lift yourself on your knees. His cock drags slipperily against your walls.

Even so, riding him is no easy feat. 

The angle forces you to take his full length every time you lower and though his thick legs cushion you, you have an inkling that he presses right up to your cervix. It doesn’t hurt thankfully but it feels a lot, certainly much more than before. You think he’s probably getting more out of this than you given the flashes of unsteadiness that cross his face when you least expect it, until you roll your hips at a different angle and it makes your calves tremble, to the extent your hands whip out and land on his shoulders for support. 

You take one hand off and slide it down your front, resting at the crux of your legs. You’re close now, and you’re convinced that a little attention towards your clit will get you the rest of the way there. Abruptly then, he smacks the back of your hand away, the lasting prickles of pain on your knuckles startling you. 

“No,” Sub-Zero says. “Don’t you fucking touch yourself.” You glare at him, having no interest in complying. But, almost like consolation, he raises his hips and claps against you in perfect tandem as you’re coming down. You pull your hand away, albeit begrudgingly. 

His energetic thrusts back… it helps round off the ache, a little, you must admit. You possess a perfect view of his core muscles flexing every time your pelvises connect; it is impossible to not be in awe of his stamina. 

You fear that it is this notion, the recognition of his pure strength and endurance, that eventually turns erotic for you. A tension builds in your lower stomach, all endeavours pointed to quelling the heat. You’re pawing him, entranced and stupefied, when you exert the last of your might to will his hips to a standstill.

Resting your full weight on his lap and rocking back-and-forth gently, you come powerfully. Your toes curl at the full-body sensation that tickles every nerve; even he cannot deny himself a ragged groan upon feeling your convulsions wrap around him, contracting and vibrating on his cock. 

He shifts under you, and you let him remove the rest of your uniform, tossing it somewhere to the side. He wraps a thick arm around your waist, dragging you flush against him. You wriggle, grimacing, his cock still rigid inside you. Without much effort at all, he tucks his legs under himself, forcing you to anchor yourself with hands linked behind his neck lest risk falling backwards. It brings your faces closer together than anticipated and as you try again to find your footing and weasel out, his arm tightens.

His opposite hand grips your ass, rooting you to him as deeply as possible. “You’re not going anywhere,” he growls by your temple.  “I didn’t say we were done.” 

You don’t get an opportunity to bemoan, still twitching in his lap. It should be both impressive and frightening, how quickly he pins you down exactly where he wants you, but you’re too dazed to appreciate it. You loosely hang off him as he crushes you, chest to chest, your soft breasts against his pecs, your hands on his nape and neck. Where you and him are still connected is a complete and utter wet mess, fluids running down the cleft of your ass and onto the damp rug beneath. Every slap of skin has a sticky noise following in its immediate wake. 

His head ducks into the corner between your shoulder and neck. With your chin beside his hair, you inhale the scent of warm, clean incense. You get the debilitating thought that this isn’t so bad. It’s not great either, given the circumstances, but after a while, his barraging into you was a pleasant sting. 

You found you did want him to orgasm, with haste - genuinely. Just as you were beginning to think he was being predictable, Sub-Zero skates his teeth on your shoulder and bites, earning himself a cry. You don’t think much of it until he laves his tongue on the bite mark, and it actually stings - he must have drawn blood. 

You lose it a little more this time. 

“Oh, gods,” you begin to plead, your voice so strangled and wimpish it’s hard to believe it’s coming from you, “I can’t…”

His scoff is warm against your collarbone. Sub-Zero lifts his head: his hair is messy, his bun coming undone; several long locks of stray hair now spill over his eyes. “Yes, you can,” he says. “Open your mouth.” He draws away and your lips part, unthinkingly but so very obediently. 

Stilling ever so briefly, he spits into your mouth and your eyes widen, unable to process the sheer depravity of what he’d done. It lands squarely on your tongue and under his heavy-lidded anticipation, you swallow. It reminds you that this - the pain, the domineering, the humiliation - is all for him now; you already got your orgasm.

It gets him closer, you can tell from the way his hips speed up, deep strokes reduced to pumps, though with still enough force to ripple the flesh of your thighs. In a way, it does help - if you could handle something as vile as that, why, what couldn’t you handle? 

But toleration and voluntariness were two different functional spheres entirely. Part of you thinks you would have preferred an outright fight, because then the victor and the loser would be clearly defined. Being orgasm-wrung and panting on the floor, you could constitute yourself as neither. 

Thoroughly robbed of any remaining decorum, you chase after his mouth hotly, groaning into him. Sub-Zero adapts to your strain of desperation, hands planted on the sides of your face to keep you from ever wriggling away before he allows it. And yet his kiss is a respite, ridiculously enough, from how he is making you ache below. 

Your hands run along his bulging triceps, stroking him almost affectionately. Your core was growing tight again and the feeling grew no matter how you tried to suppress it. “I need to… I need…” So muddled, you don’t think your words are even coherent. 

Unable to restrain yourself any longer, you convulse around him for the second time. Pleasure buzzes in your chest, spreading in every direction. 

“Coming again?” he huffs. “I thought your type - ngh - valued self-discipline.” The gait of his taunt is erratic, clearly moved by your sudden tightness. 

“It’s the drug,” you counter, but you don’t believe that at all. No, this must be all you now. 

He does not deign to reply, because right then he tenses - and you felt a liquid heat begin to pool inside you. It registers too belatedly that you should have said something earlier to stop him from ejaculating inside. It rests heavy in you, real evidence of what you’ve done if the scatter of bruises up and down your body wasn’t a sign enough. He pumps in small oscillating movements until you’ve milked him completely and you lay there, stunned and in resignation.  

He sighs again, deep and low, more of a rumble than anything else. Sub-Zero blinks languidly, his eyes downcast and for the first time, you see the exertion in his expression. The loose hair that sweeps across his forehead begs to be tucked away but knowing better, you keep your hands to yourself. 

Sub-Zero pulls off you unceremoniously, dick soft enough to tuck away into his pants. With every passing second, you drop from your high. In silence you drag yourself into a sitting position, eyes trailing him lazily as he stalks off and without warning rips a hanging red cloth off a stand, so violently it leaves the metal stand wobbling. It’s as large as a body towel. He wipes himself first before rolling it up and tossing it to you, its large golden tassels smacking you in the outer leg. 

It is, again, a funny gesture that feels out of place with the rest of his conduct. As you clean yourself with the dry velvet - Shang Tsung’s cloak, seemingly, a fact which you drove yourself to ignore - you had to face the reality of Sub-Zero’s come dripping out of you. Even without contorting yourself, your sopping and battered cunt was obviously the culprit of the dark stain spreading across the rug.

There was, of course, no point in protesting now. And had you said something, you figured without resentment that there was no guarantee he would have listened anyway. Nevertheless, you’ll need to remedy this as soon as possible lest there be undue surprises…

You gather yourself on legs like a newborn faun, teetering until you grasp the edge of the desk, toppling a miniature astrolabe. You shove the stained cloak to the side. Your libido has wicked into almost nothingness for which you had to be relieved, but that did not quell the perceptible imbalance in your energy.

Perhaps the true purpose of that poison was to affect your chi, not your… sexual appetite, after all. It merited further research but too bad the liquid off the floor already evaporated and the bottle itself was unlabeled.

Leaning for support, you redress yourself whilst thinking about your filled womb; it makes you just cringe. Shit. It’s a major inconvenience to now have this on the forefront of your personal concerns and though you hardly had the mind to tell Sub-Zero, the mere thought of him made you faintly aware of how deathly quiet he had become.

You look up. Immediately your adrenaline spikes because he’s not there, not in your line of sight. His mask was no longer where it once was tossed either. 

This, in hindsight, is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. You had no intention to rest in any afterglow, but it appeared even a moment to catch your breath was overly-indulgent. 

Movement flicks on your left. And you have to blame your fatigue because otherwise you’d beat yourself up about this, because before you know it you hear that familiar crunch of ice coming together and the entire room drops several degrees.

You duck but it is the wrong direction and within a millisecond both your shoes are encased in ice. You lurch, unsteady in the trap.

You exhale. You suppose it was always going to converge back to a tussle, one way or another. But then you spot him kneeling by your pack, invasively filing through what you’ve uncovered, and you’re incensed again. Already having wasted enough time, you snap, “You won’t get away with this, Sub-Zero.”

He lifts the pack by one handle and sends a provoking look your way. “I already have,” he says and you bristle. You’re so stupid for letting your guard down, letting him leave your sight for even a second. The muffle of his mask is not enough to conceal the smarmy condescension oozing out. 

Of course, you weren’t expecting him to be romantic, beaming in post-coital bliss, but going back to wanting each other dead so promptly after being drugged up feels dramatically unhinged.

“We need to figure out what that stimulant was,” you say. “You felt what it did to you - what it did to us. This place is dangerous and I have contacts with the Edenians to help us sort through it. I just need… you to hand that bag over.”

You think it’s convincing enough because it’s true. Like hell you’d ever want to be caught up in a position like that, being splashed by liquid that had the ability to strip you of your chi and basic self-control. 

“Come on,” you insist, more aggrieved than ever before, “you were just induced into having sex with a complete stranger. Shouldn’t you be more worried?”

Sub-Zero pauses, smoothing his hair back with the heel of his palm. Somehow in that short span of time, he’d managed to equip all his gear back sublimely. This fact only aggravates you further. “Hm. I didn’t expect you to think so lowly of yourself.”

“You cannot be serious - ”

Then, like a gut punch to cap-end the entire affair, he interrupts, “Should you want this back, you know where to find me.”

No. No, no, no.

It’s the last thing he bothers saying. None of your angry shouts purportedly get to him, even as he vanishes down the stairs and although your backup knife is miserably tiny, it’s the only one you have on-hand. At a loss, you bend your knees and start chipping away the ice.

The upside, you find, is that the ice is very hard: it provides for you an exercise in releasing your stress by hacking into it without holding back. The downside, equally, was that it was very hard, so hard it would seemingly take you ages to free yourself.

Shards of brittle ice spit up from where you stab. Your body trembles; your face is so flushed that you’re surprised the ice hadn’t already melted under the spotlight of your anger and embarrassment. 

You’ve scarcely a desire to enter Earthrealm, and certainly none in hurtling towards a viper’s den like a Lin Kuei stronghold, but - 

You also cannot go back to Sun Do empty-handed. 

What would you even say to Lord Liu Kang when he requests your report? Should you even mention Sub-Zero? You’re sick to the stomach at the mere thought of having let Lord Liu Kang down so gravely… your fretting was giving you a headache.

It did not help that you were already dehydrated the moment you stepped inside the building.

Pinched between your thumb and forefinger, you break off a small chunk of ice and place it on your tongue. It’s so brilliantly cold it practically burns. As you wait for it to melt into water by sucking gently, you try very, very hard to not think about how the cold felt on the rest of your body.