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Your Debt is Paid - Chapter Five

☆ Series Summary: Your roommate borrowed money from the wrong man and left you to pay the price. Levi Ackerman knows how to collect what he’s owed, but he doesn’t expect himself to protect the very person he meant to break.

☆ Chapter Summary: You’re trying to build a life outside Levi’s home, but every closed door makes the walls around you feel smaller. When hope falls apart, comfort comes from the last person you should want it from.

☆ Pairing: Levi Ackerman x Female Reader

☆ Genre/Tags: Modern AU, Crime AU, Loan Shark Levi Ackerman, Smut, Angst

☆ Content Warnings: Captor/captive relationship, power imbalance, stockholm syndrome elements, lima syndrome elements, morally grey Levi Ackerman, TW job hunting (lol), explicit sexual content, mildly dubious consent, possessive Levi, fingering, praise kink, unprotected PIV, hickeys/marking, creampie

☆ Word Count: 9.6k

☆ AO3 Link

☆ a/n: surprise! releasing this early because I felt like it lol. please try not to ask when the next chapter is coming out, I haven't even started the next chapter. thank you to my beta reader @slaytherinthoughts!

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[ Art by leviluminary on Pinterest ]

You think you’re starting to go insane.

Every job listing is another promise you’re beginning to distrust. Administrative assistant, receptionist, customer service representative, cashier, part-time bookkeeper, weekend front desk support. Must be self motivated, must be reliable, must have three years of experience for minimum wage, must be comfortable in a fast-paced environment which just means we will overwork you.

You sit at Levi’s kitchen table for hours, elbows planted on the wood he’s already wiped down twice now. Your resume is open in one tab, your email in another, and seven job sites spread in your top bar. You feel either almost qualified for some, and for others, it feels like you’re insulting the entire job market by applying to them. But you keep going.

You send one application, then another, then another after that. It has to count for something, right? Because sitting here all day with your spine stiff and your hands shaking has to mean something, because if nothing else, you’re proving that you’re not just taking up space in Levi’s home, eating his food, sleeping under his roof, and taking advantage of his protection. You’re trying. You really are.

Levi doesn’t hover over you, but he passes through the kitchen often enough that you start to notice a pattern. He comes in for a drink he doesn’t drink. He checks the lock on the front door even though you watched him check it twenty minutes earlier. He opens the fridge, stares into it, closes it again, then looks at the back of your head. You ignore him mostly.

Around noon, your stomach starts to growl, but you don’t bother getting up. You have four listings open that look possible if you squint, one rejection email sitting unopened because you already know what it says, and a sick little hope that the next application will be the one that changes everything. Food just feels like a distraction.

A plate lands beside your laptop. You look down at it. Salad. Actual salad, not just a handful of leaves thrown into a bowl, but greens, sliced vegetables, grilled chicken, and some kind of dressing on the side. You look up. Levi is already turning away, one hand tucked into his pocket.

“I’m not hungry,” you say, looking back down at your laptop.

“Didn’t ask.”

“I’m working.”

“You’ve been glaring at your laptop for hours now.”

You open your mouth to speak, but nothing comes out. Levi glances at the laptop just long enough to see the rejected application notification sitting in the middle of your screen. His eyes narrow, but you catch it, because you’ve grown so used to the tiny movements of his face. You half expect him to say something, but he doesn’t.

He leaves, and a few minutes later, he comes back with a cup of tea and sets it down by the salad. He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t tell you it’ll all be okay or to stop sulking, because he knows neither of those will do anything to ease your worries. He just gives you a little pocket of warmth and walks away.

You stare at the steam rising from the cup. You try to fight the urge, you really do, but between your stomach growling and the strange comfort you always feel when you’re around him, you eat the salad, drink the tea, and keep applying.

.

The next week and a half is a series of repeated humiliation.

You learn too many company names. You edit your resume until it no longer sounds like you but as if artificial intelligence wrote it. You write cover letters full of cheerful lies about passion and growth and exciting opportunities, and every time you type I would be grateful for the chance, you die a little bit more inside.

Levi notices more than he lets on. He notices when you stop tapping your foot and start picking at the skin around your nails instead. He notices when your eyes go glassy after another automated rejection. He notices when you reread the same listing three times before clicking away with a sigh. He never asks if you’re okay, which would be useless because you would just lie, but he starts leaving tea beside you more often, starts making food without asking whether you want any, and starts lingering in the kitchen under pathetic excuses that frankly feel like an insult to your intelligence.

It shouldn’t matter. He’s only doing it because keeping you alive and functioning is in his best interest. At least, that’s what you tell yourself. And you have a very bad habit of lying to yourself.

Then, on a Thursday afternoon, you refresh your email and see it. You stare at the first message for so long that the words don’t make sense. Then you open it, and then you read it again. Then, you click back to the inbox and realize there’s another one beneath it.

Two interview requests. Two.

You sit there for a moment, frozen, your heart pounding in your chest hard enough to make your ears ring. Hope rises so quickly it almost drowns you. Levi suddenly appears, summoned by the hitch in your breath.

“What?” he asks.

You look up at him, gripping the edges of the laptop tight. “I got interviews.”

He looks toward the screen, then back at you. “How many?”

“Two.”

“When?”

“Tuesday. One at ten, one at one-thirty.” You swallow as the excitement wobbles under reality. “But they’re on different sides of town.”

“I’ll drive you.” He says it immediately, like the decision was made long before you were even part of the conversation.

The hope in you dies just slightly. Of course he’ll drive you, because even with interviews and resumes, you’re still not allowed to walk out the front door by yourself. You’re still a woman living under the protection and control of a man who locks you inside while calling it safety. You’re still breathing borrowed air.

“You don’t have to act like my parole officer,” you say.

“You’re not going alone,” he says.

“I know the way by bus.”

“Good for you.”

“Levi.”

“You are not going alone,” he repeats firmly this time.

You look back at your laptop because looking at his face feels like too much right now. These interviews were supposed to feel like freedom. “Fine,” you say quietly. You think for a moment he’s going to explain himself or try to soften the blow, but he doesn’t.

“Eat something,” he says.

He walks away. Your eyes don’t leave him until he’s out of sight.

.

Two days later, Levi drives you to the first interview in a black car that smells like his cologne. One hand is loose on the wheel while the other rests on the gear shift.

You had changed outfits twice, checked your bag five times, and reread your printed resume to look for any typos. You bounce your knee against the passenger-side door, your fingers playing with the strap of your bag.

“I’m going to mess it up,” you say, looking through the window.

“You won’t,” Levi says.

“You don’t know that.”

“You’ve been practicing answers in the shower for two days.”

Heat rushes to your face. “You heard that?”

“The walls aren’t made of concrete.”

“You could’ve said something.”

“It was cute,” he says under his breath.

You turn to glare at him, and he keeps his eyes on the road, mouth flat, though you see a suspicious twitch at the corner.

Your anxiety surges again when the car turns onto a busier street. You see the city spread out around you: pedestrians under awnings, storefronts with neon signs, a woman balancing coffee, two shopping bags, and an umbrella, traffic lights blinking red through rain-blurred air. The outside world looks almost painfully ordinary.

You’re out. You’re actually moving through the city. You’re seeing something other than Levi’s apartment, his kitchen, his couch, his bathroom.

But the relief is swallowed by bitterness quickly, because even though you can see the sidewalks, you can’t step onto them unless he lets you. You can watch people come and go with bags on their shoulders and phones in their hands without needing permission, while you’re still buckled into Levi’s passenger seat, being taken from one point to another.

“I’m scared,” you admit. “What if they can tell? What if they know I’m desperate? What if I say something stupid, or—or they ask about my previous job, or I sound like I have no idea what I’m doing? Oh my god—I feel so useless right now.”

Levi glances at you. “You’re not stupid. You’re not useless. You’re just panicking, so get it together and stop crying.”

You turn slowly toward him, pouting slightly. “I’m not crying.”

“You’re about to.”

“I am not!”

“Then why are you doing that thing with your face?”

“What thing?”

“The thing where you look like someone just slapped you and you’re trying to kiss ass about it.”

You stare at him, offended, embarrassed, and unfortunately somewhat calmer than you were thirty seconds ago. “That is the worst pep talk I’ve ever heard.”

“It worked.”

“It did not.”

“You stopped spiraling.”

“I stopped because I was too busy being insulted.”

“Same result though, huh?”

You, unfortunately, laugh. Levi’s eyes flick briefly toward you again before returning to the road. Eventually, he pulls up outside the first building and puts the car in park. You stare at the entrance, your stomach dropping.

“Hey,” Levi says. You look at him. “Breathe. Walk in like you own the place.”

“And if I feel like I don’t?”

“Lie.”

For some reason, that helps more than any encouragement could have, so you breathe and you get out. Levi waits in the car. You’re about to walk away when he suddenly rolls down the window. He calls your name. You stop and turn around, then lean down, locking your eyes with his.

“Don’t pass out in there,” he says.

You huff out a laugh. “No guarantee.”

The first interview isn’t perfect, but it’s not a disaster either. Your voice shakes once, maybe twice, but you recover. You answer the questions, you smile at the right times, you remember to ask about the role, the team, and the schedule. When you step back outside thirty minutes later, Levi is waiting for you.

The second interview goes better. By the time you return to the car after one-thirty, your back hurts from keeping a straight posture for too long, your mouth is dry from talking too much, and the exhaustion has finally settled into your bones. Levi notices before you say a word.

“Well?” he asks as you slide into the passenger seat.

You buckle yourself in, then look down at your hands. “I think they went well.”

“Both?”

“Yeah.” You hesitate, then continue. “I mean, in my opinion. I didn’t completely embarrass myself.”

“Atta girl.”

You don't know how to properly respond to that without embarrassing yourself, so you settle for a dry, “Maybe they’ll hire me out of pity.”

The car goes quiet. Levi reaches over before you can look away from him, his thumb brushing along your cheek with a touch so brief your whole body freezes around it.

“Stop talking down on yourself,” he says. Your breath catches. His thumb leaves your skin, but the warmth of it lingers. You want to crack a joke to ease the tension between you, but nothing comes, so you just look out the window.

“Okay,” you say, and it comes out softer than you mean it to.

Levi drives. A little while later, he turns into a small parking lot instead of taking the road back to the house. You look around in confusion until you recognize the shop. Your favorite drink place. The one you had mentioned once, a few days ago, offhandedly, in the middle of complaining how nothing in his house had enough sugar.

“You remembered?” you ask.

“No,” he says, unbuckling his seat belt.

“Levi.”

“I have a functioning memory. It means nothing more.”

You follow him inside, still wearing your interview clothes. You watch him order your drink without asking. He must have remembered when you told him which drink you always ordered. When he hands it to you, the condensation cold against your fingers, your throat tightens.

“You survived two interviews. You deserve it,” he says.

It’s just a stupid drink. Sugar and ice in a plastic cup with a straw punched through the lid. It isn’t the freedom you’ve been craving. It isn’t a promise that your life will be worth living again. But it's a celebration because Levi treats it like one, even though you think he would rather chew glass than call it that.

And that scares you, because he’s starting to sound like he cares. Or maybe, he’s cared for longer than you wanted to notice.

You sit in the passenger seat afterward with the drink held tight in your hand. The city passes by you outside the window. You try to come up with a hundred different reasons why you should hate him. He’s dangerous. He’s controlling. He’s the reason you only have freedom in the form of a car ride. He’s the man who says you’re not going outside alone and expects you to just sit and take it like a good girl.

But he’s also the man who’s given you a roof, food, protection, transportation, tea when you’re stressed, salad when you refuse to eat, and now this stupid, sweet drink.

You take a sip and hate him for remembering. You take another and hate yourself more for smiling.

.

That night, you cook dinner. The kitchen is warmed by the steam curling from the pot on the stove. Your knife slices through the vegetables on the cutting board. You let yourself imagine it while the pot hisses and the smell of garlic rises around you: a job. A real one. Maybe not a perfect one, maybe not something you would’ve chosen before this, but a job that pays actual money. Money means options. Money means you can move on. It means you’ll be able to give something to Levi that isn’t an apology or an excuse.

You’ll pay him back. You’ll get out of here. You’ll be able to go outside alone and stop needing him.

Levi sits at the table while you cook, his chair angled so that he can watch both you and the front door, because even now, he’s on edge. He doesn’t offer to help, which you’re grateful for, because you want to do this yourself. You want to feed him tonight. You want one small piece of evidence that you can contribute something other than problems.

But you realize quickly that nothing about him should matter this much.

When you set the plate in front of him, Levi looks down at it, then up at you, and for one unbearable second, you feel self-conscious under his gaze. He picks up his fork, takes one bite, chews, swallows, then says, “Good.”

Just like before. Simple and blunt. Too small to be called praise. You cross your arms and lean against the counter. “You know, one of these days, you should try being grateful without sounding like you’re being tortured.”

“I said it was good.”

“Real convincing.”

“If I hated it, you’d know.”

“You’re a poet.”

“I’m eating it, aren’t I?”

You roll your eyes, but a smile threatens your mouth. You turn away before he can see it. You busy yourself with your own plate, trying not to focus on how normal this feels: the table, the food, Levi eating what you made.

Across the table, Levi watches you. His gaze shifts down when you finally sit, when you pick at your food before eating it, when your shoulders finally ease after the first few bites. She’s smiling, he thinks, and then shoos away the thought before it can mean anything. It doesn’t mean anything. It can’t.

You getting a job would be better for both of you. A step toward whatever comes next when this arrangement ends and he no longer has you under his care. But the thought of you raises more emotion in him than he’d like—emotions that he would rather die than say aloud.

Dinner passes with small conversation, mostly about the interviews because you can’t stop circling back to them. Levi listens more than he speaks. He makes one or two comments, dry enough to make you scoff. Afterward, he clears his own plate, but you take it from him at the sink before he can wash it.

“I’ll do the dishes too,” you say.

“You cooked. That means I do them.”

“Not tonight.”

He looks like he wants to argue, then decides, for once in his life, to not push. “Don’t break anything. My dishes are expensive.”

“Your faith in me is inspiring.”

The water runs lukewarm over your hands. You listen to the clinking of the dishes, the rustle of Levi moving somewhere behind you. You wash slowly, mostly because you don’t want the evening to end. Once the dishes are done, the hope will have nowhere to go. Once the kitchen is clean, you’ll have to return to the couch and the knowledge that this isn’t your home, no matter how many meals you cook inside it.

You’re rinsing the last plate when Levi comes up behind you. You feel him before he touches you. Your body recognizes the proximity of his. Then his hands settle on your hips. Your breath catches, and the plate nearly slips from your soapy fingers.

“Levi,” you whisper.

He leans in, his chest brushing your back, and presses his mouth to the side of your neck. The kiss is slow, almost restrained, his lips warm against your pulse point which jumps beneath his mouth. A shiver travels down your spine, and his fingers tighten slightly at your hips.

For a shameful second, you want to lean back. You want to feel him. You want your mind to go blank. Then the thought hits you so hard your stomach turns. You’re still dependent on him. You have nowhere else to go. The food you cooked, the interviews he drove you to, the drink he bought you, the roof over your head, the safety, the care he’s been showing you—all of it gathers at once in your gut.

Maybe this is what you owe. Maybe this is how you repay him.

Levi presses closer, his hips fitting against your ass, and whatever held you in place finally snaps. You turn around, wet hands shoving against his chest.

“No,” you say.

Levi stops. His hands leave you like the contact burns him. He steps back once, then again, putting enough distance between your body and his. You stand there, breathing too fast, fingers dripping water onto the floor. You brace for anger or something horrible to leave his mouth, something to make you feel stupid for thinking you could refuse him.

But Levi says nothing. He only looks at you for one long second, something unreadable moving behind his eyes, and then his gaze drops to the floor. He backs away fully.

“I’ll be in my room,” he says, leaving you standing in the kitchen with the sink still running and your heart pounding.

You turn the water off with shaking hands. For several minutes, you just stand there, gripping the edge of the counter. You stare down at the unfinished dishes, at the water draining in the sink. Shame crawls over you even though you know, somewhere underneath the panic, that you did nothing wrong.

You said no. He stopped. That should be the end of it. But it isn’t.

Night comes, and you lay on the couch beneath your blanket, curled onto your side with your back to the room, staring at nothing while the city keeps moving outside. You try to sleep, but every time your eyes close, you’re back at the sink with his mouth against your neck and his hands on your hips, back inside that terrible second when you wanted him and feared what wanting him meant.

Your body remembers the warmth. Your mind remembers the debt.

You feel ashamed for pushing him away, then ashamed for feeling ashamed. Then angry that you miss the contact you rejected. How dare your body ache for something that you fear? How dare loneliness turn you into someone who wants comfort from the man who hurt you?

You roll onto your back and press the heels of your hands over your eyes. You did nothing wrong, so why do you feel like you did? You lie there until the house goes near silent. Levi’s bedroom door remains closed. He’s given you so much space it feels like near abandonment. You told him no. He listened. Now you’re lying here hurt because he’s respecting it.

There’s something wrong with you.

You feel a wave of loneliness move through you. You want another body nearby. You want warmth. You want to close your eyes and feel safe with someone else. You want to sleep without listening for footsteps, without wondering what tomorrow will take from you.

You sit up before you can talk yourself out of it. The blanket slips from your shoulders. You simply sit there in the dark, staring toward the hallway that leads to Levi’s room. Then you stand. Each step feels louder than it is. The floor is cold beneath your bare feet. Maybe you’ll just go to the bathroom. Maybe you’ll get a glass of water. You tell yourself so many lies so weak that they fall apart before you finish thinking them.

You stop outside Levi’s bedroom door. The house is dark around you. There’s no light spilling through the bottom of his door. He might be asleep. He might be awake. Knowing Levi, he might be laying perfectly still on the other side with his eyes open, staring at the ceiling.

Your hand rises. All you have to do is knock.

You could ask. Just ask. You could say you can’t sleep. You could say you don’t want to be alone. You could tell him it’s not about earlier, even if that would be a lie and you both would know it. You could ask for comfort without offering your body as payment. You could see what he does with that kind of trust.

Your knuckles hover inches from the wood. Then you realize, with a rush of fear, that Levi already has too much power over you. He decides when you leave. He decides how far. He decides what danger is worth risking and what isn’t. He knows what you eat, when you sleep, how you take your tea, what drinks you like, how your voice changes when you’re trying not to cry. He already sees too much.

If he knows you want comfort from him, what is left? If he knows you’re lonely enough to come to his door after pushing him away, how much smaller will you become?

Your hand slowly curls into a fist. You let yourself imagine knocking anyway. Let yourself imagine the door opening, his tired eyes narrowing as he takes you in, his voice low and rough with exhaustion as he asks what the hell you’re doing standing there. Let yourself imagine stepping inside.

Then you lower your hand.

You turn away before you can change your mind and walk back to the couch with your arms wrapped tightly around yourself. It feels like the most sensible thing you’ve done all night.

You lie down beneath the blanket again. And down the hall, behind the door you chose not to knock on, Levi lies awake longer than he should, staring at the dark, listening to nothing, telling himself that giving you space is the right thing to do.

It is. He knows it is.

So he stays where he is.

.

A few days pass, and hope becomes a nervous habit. You check your email too often. People do that kind of thing—it’s normal, you know this. The waiting makes everyone a little jumpy. But then an hour becomes thirty minutes, then fifteen, and every time the silence stretches too long in the house, your mind searches desperately for something to cling onto.

You check it from the kitchen table with your tea going cold beside your hand. You check it from the couch with the television playing some random daytime show. You check it standing in the hallway, halfway between rooms. And nothing.

Then you get newsletters. Spam. A coupon from a store you haven’t been to in three years. One automated response from a place you applied to two weeks ago. No interview follow-up, and no offer.

Levi is gone for most of those days, swallowed up by whatever version of work he disappears into when he leaves the house. He doesn’t tell you where he goes, and you’ve learned not to ask. One day he comes home late smelling faintly of smoke and something metallic you don’t think about identifying. One day he comes home with a bruise across his knuckles and acts like you’re committing a crime against him for noticing.

But, he’s mostly gone, so you’re left alone with your own thoughts, and your thoughts are vicious little things that eat away slowly at your mind.

The house feels larger without him, and somehow less breathable. It becomes hollow. You try to apply to more jobs one morning, but every listing looks impossible. Every paragraph of requirements makes you feel like no one will want you. Not like this. Not desperate. Not half-owned by circumstances you can’t explain.

You’re being dramatic. You know this. You check your email again.

On the fourth morning, both rejections come in less than an hour apart.

The first one arrives at 9:17 a.m. You see the subject line before you open it, and part of you knows before your finger even touches the trackpad. Your heartbeat slows instead of quickening, sinking as you click, as the message opens.

Thank you for your interest. We appreciate the time you took to meet with us. We have decided to move forward with another candidate.

It stings. Like a slap you were bracing for and still somehow felt across your entire face. You sit there at the kitchen table, staring at the screen, trying to stop yourself from spiraling by telling yourself it’s just one job, one place, one decision, and the other interview went better anyway. The other one had to go better. You remember the hiring manager smiling. You remember answering clearly. You remember leaving the building with your shoulders lighter, letting yourself think, just for a few minutes, maybe.

You close the first email. You don’t cry. You’re proud of that for exactly forty-three minutes.

Then the second rejection arrives, and it crushes you.

Your hope breaks without dramatics. You simply feel empty, like everything inside you has been scooped clean out. You read the email once, then again, then a third time, because your mind refuses to believe that two doors can close so quietly after you spent days trying to force them open.

You don’t move for a long time. The laptop sits open in front of you. The kitchen clock ticks. You close the laptop, then you leave it there. You don’t job hunt for the rest of the day. You don’t make yourself tea. You don’t clean the counters, even though there’s a ring of water near the sink that would normally irritate you enough to wipe it away. You don’t fold the blanket on the couch. You don’t change out of the pajamas you slept in. You don’t cook, because the thought of food makes your throat close.

You lie on the couch instead. The television plays for hours. A woman laughs brightly on a game show. Commercials play, promising a better mattress, clearer skin, and a medication whose side effects sound like a disease in itself. Someone in a cooking segment explains the importance of fresh herbs. The world just keeps moving. You stare through all of it.

You can’t leave. You can’t pay Levi back. You can’t get hired. You can’t even turn two decent interviews into one mediocre offer. You’re stuck in Levi’s home, stuck under Levi’s protection, stuck waiting for permission to step outside, stuck eating food you didn’t buy and sleeping under a roof you didn’t earn, and the worst part is that you're not even afraid of him anymore.

You’re realizing now that the cage is softer than you thought, that the lock on the door has kept other monsters out, that the man holding the key remembers your favorite drink and notices when you skip lunch. You despise him for that. You despise yourself more.

By the time the front door opens that night, the sky beyond the windows has gone dark. The living room is lit only by the flicker of the television. You hear Levi’s keys first, then the click of the lock, then his footsteps stopping just inside the apartment.

He notices immediately. The television is on, but you’re not watching it. You’re lying on the couch in the same pajamas he saw you in that morning, your hair a mess against the cushion, your body curled up defensively. The kitchen is empty. No dinner. No dishes in the sink. No smell of garlic or tea or anything that proves you existed inside this house today.

Levi stands there for a moment, the door closing behind him slowly. “What happened?” he asks.

You don’t look at him. “Nothing.”

A pause. You can feel him staring. “You’ve been lying there all day?”

“No.” That’s a lie, and a bad one. You don’t even have the energy to make it convincing.

Levi’s mouth flattens. He sets his keys on the small table by the door, removes his coat, and drapes it over the back of a chair. You wait for him to push, for the interrogation, the command, the force he’ll use to cut the truth out of you whether you want to offer it or not.

But he just says, “Fine. Don’t tell me.”

You wish you didn’t feel abandoned by his words.

He walks into the kitchen. You stare at the television, your vision blurring. You half-listen to the sound of him moving through the kitchen, opening the fridge, setting a pan on the stove. You don’t know what he’s making because you don’t bother to turn around, but the house eventually fills with the scent of something savory.

Levi doesn’t ask if you want any. He already knows you’d say no, so he sets a plate on the coffee table in front of you. You look at it, then him. He’s changed nothing about his expression, but his eyes move over your face too carefully, taking inventory of the damage you’re hiding.

“Eat,” he says.

You push yourself upright and pick up the fork. You take a bite. It tastes good. You take another, then you stop. Levi sits in the chair across from you, his own plate balanced on his knees. He barely touches it though—he’s too busy watching you.

“Eat more,” he says after a while.

“I’m not hungry,” you say.

“That’s bullshit.”

You stare down at the plate. “I’m not hungry.”

Inside his head, Levi’s first instinct is to demand an answer. It’s ugly: press until something gives, use violence if he has to, pull the truth out by your hair. It would be easy. You’re tired and breaking. One hard question and you might just crack open right here on the couch.

But he doesn’t do it. He thinks about your hands shoving against his chest in the kitchen days ago. The way your voice shook when you said no. The way you looked at him like you expected him to become every bad thing you feared. He sets his fork down.

“Fine,” he says again. You wish he would stop saying that as if he’s leaving a door unlocked, waiting for you to walk through it.

The rest of your dinner goes cold. Night comes slowly, then all at once. Levi goes to his room after cleaning up what little you ate. You remain on the couch, the television turned off now. The house is dark except for the strips of moonlight coming in through the windows. You lie on your side with the blanket pulled to your shoulder, staring at the back of the couch. The silence is overwhelming, and then, finally, there’s nothing left to distract you from yourself.

What if this is it? Another week. Another failed application. Another month of him driving you places because it’s not safe. Another meal you cook because you need to feel useful. Another night listening to him move behind a closed door while you lie on his couch. What if you never get out of here? What if he never lets you? What if he does let you, eventually, and you have nowhere to go?

You think of the people he protects you from, whoever they are. You think of the violence that sits dormant in his body. You think of his hands and mouth on you. You think of how quickly he stopped when you said no both times. You think of how badly you wished, hours later, that he had opened his door and given you somewhere to put your loneliness.

You’re afraid he’ll hurt you. You’re afraid he’ll keep you. You’re afraid he’ll get tired of keeping you. That’s what scares you the most, because what are you if you can’t pay him back? What are you if you can’t get hired, can’t leave, can’t offer anything useful except dinner and the occasional warmth of your body when you’re too lonely to be proud? What happens when Levi realizes you’re not worth the trouble or the danger?

You don’t like that you want to be useful to him. You don’t like that disappointing him hurts—more than it should. You don’t like that part of you isn’t crying because you failed, but because failure means you’re still here with nothing to give him.

The first sob slips out before you can swallow it. You slap a hand over your mouth, but it’s too late. Another follows, harder, your body shaking beneath the blanket. You try to keep quiet, because you can’t bear to ask him for anything else. Not comfort. Not mercy. But the harder you try to stop, the worse it becomes, grief clawing up your throat in humiliating sounds you can’t control.

You don’t hear Levi’s door open at first. Or maybe you do, and the sound simply doesn’t reach you because you’re too busy drowning.

He stands in the hallway for a second, barefoot, shirt wrinkled from lying down, his hair messy in a way you’ve only ever seen a few times before. He doesn’t move at first. He gives you a chance to notice him, to tell him to go away if that’s what you need, but you’re curled up so much that you don’t see him at all.

Levi crosses the room quietly and crouches beside the couch. He says your name. You jolt, turning your face away immediately, one hand dragging clumsily over your cheeks as if you can erase the evidence before he can see it.

“Go away,” you choke.

“No.”

“Levi—”

His fingers touch your face before you can finish, brushing the wetness from your cheek. You push at his hand. It’s weak and pathetic, barely a refusal.

“I said go away.”

“I heard you.”

“Then why are you still here?”

He looks at you for a long moment, and whatever answer he has must not be satisfying enough to him because he doesn’t speak it. He only slides one arm beneath your shoulders and the other beneath your knees. Your body tenses, fear waking fast as he lifts you off the couch. The blanket slips. Your hands fly to his shirt, not knowing if you’re trying to push him away or keep yourself from falling.

He doesn’t put you down, and instead carries you down the hall. You should fight. You don’t know what he plans to do with you. You should twist and kick and make yourself impossible to carry, but his hold on you is firm. Grief has emptied you so much that resistance slips through your fingers. You clutch at his shirt instead.

He pushes the bedroom door open with his shoulder. His room is dark and extremely clean. The bed is made, as if he wasn’t just sleeping in it. The air smells like him, faintly like soap and cologne and cedar. Your crying hitches into smaller breaths.

He lays you down on the bed. He doesn’t climb over you. He sits at the edge at first, giving you space even now. That small amount of restraint breaks you even further, because you know what it means to him. You know he could have demanded answers by now and has chosen, again and again tonight, not to.

You reach for him before you can stop yourself. You grab his shirt, and then you’re pulling yourself toward him, or he’s moving toward you, or both of you close the distance at the same time because neither of you has the strength left to pretend this isn’t what you need. He pulls you into his chest, one arm wrapping around your back, the other hand coming to the back of your head as you bury your face against him and sob like no one is listening.

Levi holds you. He doesn’t mock you or sigh or tell you to stop crying, though part of him wants to because crying means that something is wrong, and he’s always been better at breaking wrong things than fixing them. He only keeps his arm around you, his palm slowly moving over your hair. You can’t imagine where he could have learned such tenderness.

Your tears soak into his shirt. He lets them. For a while, the only sound is your crying and his breathing, low beneath your cheek. His heartbeat is calmer than yours, and you cling to it because your own feels frantic and trapped in its ribcage.

“I’m sorry,” you whisper, the words coming out mangled against his chest.

His hand pauses in your hair. “For what?”

You don’t even know where to begin. For failing. For crying. For needing him. For pushing him away. For wanting him anyway. For sitting in his house all day doing nothing. For becoming another problem in his life.

“For everything,” you say. “I feel useless.”

Levi shushes you and resumes the path of his fingers over your hair. “You’re not useless, baby doll.”

You squeeze your eyes shut. The sob that follows is weaker than the others, almost exhausted. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.”

“You don’t.”

“I do,” he repeats, and this time, he says it more firmly, filled with a hint of anger on your behalf. He would gladly put his fist through whatever part of your mind keeps feeding you this poison—if only it had a face.

You breathe unevenly against him. “I’m never getting out of here.”

The truth comes out. The truth beneath the job rejections, beneath the shame, beneath the untouched dinner and the crying you couldn’t silence.

Levi goes very still. You feel his entire body lock up. You think you’ve said something wrong for a moment. Maybe you have. Maybe there’s no right thing to say in a bed that isn’t yours, against a man who’s both the reason you’re protected and the reason protection feels so much like captivity. His hand shifts from your hair to the back of your neck.

“You’re not stuck because you failed two interviews.”

He says your name. You pull back just enough to look at him. His face is close, shadowed in the dark, his eyes fixed on yours with an intensity that makes it hard to breathe. He looks tired, like the sight of you breaking has forced him to face a part of himself he doesn’t want to face.

The room is too quiet. The bed is too warm. His hand still rests at the back of your neck, and yours are still gathered in the front of his shirt, wrinkling the fabric because letting go feels impossible now that you’ve already humiliated yourself by reaching for him. Your tears have slowed, though your face is still damp, and your breath still catches now and then.

Levi watches one of those breaths tremble out of you. He tells himself not to do it. You’re upset and vulnerable. You’re in his bed because he brought you here. There are a dozen reasons to stand up, put space between you, tell you to sleep and leave before this becomes something neither of you can take back. He knows all of them. He's counted them. He’s survived this long by knowing when want is a liability.

But then your gaze drops to his mouth for one brief second, and when you look back at his eyes, there’s fear there, yes, but want as well. Loneliness. Need. The same contradiction that’s been floating between you for days.

“Tell me no,” he whispers.

Your breath stops. He’s not touching you like he did in the kitchen. He’s not pressing. He’s not taking. He’s giving you the word before he takes anything else, placing it in your hands because you both know what happened last time.

You should say it. You should pull away. You should lie down on the far side of the bed and let this pass through you without turning it into another complication, because that won’t fix the rejections, it won’t pay your debt, and it won’t make you free. It doesn’t solve anything. It might ruin everything.

But Levi’s hand is warm at the back of your neck. His shirt is damp beneath your cheek. The room smells like him. You’re so tired of being alone with yourself that the thought of pulling away feels like stepping back into the cold.

You understand the consequences. You see them clearly. You choose him anyway.

You lean in. Levi meets you halfway, and the kiss is nothing like the hunger that sparked in your apartment or in the cell. This is slower, more careful. Tender in a dangerous way, because tenderness means trust, and trust is the one thing you’ve been trying not to give him.

He’s holding himself back by force, and every second of softness is a choice he has to keep making. You kiss him back with a shaky breath caught between you. You grip his shirt a little tighter, your body turning toward his before shame can turn you away.

All you feel is comfort for a moment. Then desire pools beneath it, terrifyingly alive. Levi feels the change in you, the small shift of your body closer to his, the way your mouth follows when he starts to pull back. Something fractures in him. He pulls back a sound he refuses to make. He keeps one hand at your neck, the other at your back, holding you carefully as if you’re fragile.

He draws back only enough to look at you. You open your eyes slowly. His forehead nearly touches yours.

“Still with me, sweetheart?” he asks.

Your chest aches. You know what the right answer would be if you were smarter, if you were freer, if wanting him didn’t feel like handing him another key. But you’re here. You’re in his bed. You’re not crying anymore. And for the first time all day, your mind is quiet.

So you nod. Then, because nodding isn’t enough, because he told you to use your words once and the memory rises unbidden, you whisper, “Yes.”

Levi closes his eyes for half a second, then he kisses you again. He’s soft at first, lips barely brushing against yours. The warmth of his breath mingles with your own. There’s no rush here, only the slow press of his mouth, letting you decide how much to meet him.

Your fingers tighten in his shirt, pulling him ever so closer. Levi’s thoughts flicker with restraint. He wonders if you can sense the effort it costs him to keep his hands on your neck and back instead of letting them roam. The rejections and the weight of the day fade under the kiss. You taste the faint salt of your earlier tears. He’s here, solid and warm, and the cage of his arms no longer feels like confinement. It’s a place where vicious thoughts can’t reach you as easily.

The hunger begins to surface. He deepens the kiss with a low sound he can’t quite suppress. His tongue traces the seam of your lips, seeking entry, and when you part them, he takes it with growing intensity, the gentleness finally giving way to the need that surges through him. He rolls on top of you, your bodies aligning from chest to hips. The grind of his pelvis against yours sends a spark through you. You feel the hard line of him through his pants as he moves once, then again. Your legs part to accommodate him. The fit of your bodies draws a shared breath from both of you.

Inside Levi’s head, the sight of you beneath him like this pulls at old instincts to both claim and protect. He tempers it with the memory of your earlier sobs, choosing instead to let the motion speak of comfort laced with desire. Your thoughts race with the same fear. The fear of losing yourself to him warring against the pull of wanting to be wanted, to matter in a way that doesn’t require payment.

Levi’s hands move to the hem of your shirt. He lifts it slowly over your head. You don’t stop him. The fabric slips away. Your shorts follow, leaving you only in your underwear. The air of the room brushes your bare skin. His gaze drops for a moment, taking in the curve of your breasts. He removes his own shirt in one fluid motion. The muscle of his torso comes into view. Tattoos snake down his arms. He lowers himself again to kiss you, skin meeting skin. You arch into the contact, your hands sliding up his back to feel his warmth. The praise he murmurs against your mouth comes low.

“You’re so beautiful like this.”

He trails his hand down your stomach, slipping beneath the waistband of your underwear. One finger parts you gently, finding the slick evidence of how his kisses and touch have already affected you. Levi circles your entrance with tender strokes, his mouth never leaving yours as he kisses through the first soft gasp you give him. He adds a second finger, easing them inside with a slow push that stretches you in a way that draws a whimper from your throat. His pace is slow at first, thumb brushing your clit in light, passing circles.

Levi increases the pace, your hips moving with him. His fingers thrust deeper and faster, thumb pressing more firmly against your clit. The kiss grows hungrier, his tongue matching the rhythm below as he swallows the sounds you make. Your mind is finally at peace, the fear of tomorrow replaced by the immediacy of his touch. The pressure builds steadily, your thighs trembling around his wrist as he works you through the pleasure. Two fingers curl just right. His thumb maintains its relentless circling.

Your climax catches you with a sudden rush, your walls fluttering around his fingers. The pleasure crests and breaks through you in waves. Levi kisses you through it, his movements slowing only when your body begins to still. His thumb eases pressure to gentle strokes that draw out the aftershocks without overstimulating you. He stays close, forehead resting against yours. Your breathing evens.

Levi withdraws his fingers slowly, watching your face for the flutter of your eyelids. The absence of his touch leaves you momentarily untethered until his hands move to the waistband of his pants. The fabric slides down his hips and off his legs to reveal his hard length. He climbs over you, movements almost predatory.

He lifts your legs, positioning them over his shoulders gently, a stark contrast from the pure dominance in his gaze. His palms slide down the backs of your thighs to grip firmly before he aligns himself with your entrance. You feel him press against your heat before he pushes forward with a pressure that stretches you open around every inch.

Levi’s thoughts are a storm, his jaw tight with the effort of holding back when every instinct demands he bury himself to the hilt. He watches your face, searching for pain, for hesitation, for any signs that he should stop. Only when he sees your lips part on a gasp that contains no distress does he sink fully inside. He fills you, and you’re able to feel the pulse of him against your walls.

Your hands fist in the sheets as your body adjusts to the intrusion. Levi holds still, his chest heaving with controlled breaths. When he begins to move, it’s with slow, testing thrusts. Each withdrawal and return means to let you feel every sensation. You find yourself arching into him. Your legs over his shoulders creates an angle that makes each stroke press against a sensitive spot inside you.

The contrast of his gentleness and his power, how he holds you open and vulnerable yet shields you from the roughness you might fear, feels almost terrifying. You let your head fall back, exposing your throat to the air. But the inhibition in Levi’s movements begins to falter as your body submits to him, your muscles relaxing to accept him. His hips snap forward with increasing speed, the careful rhythm giving way to a harder, deeper pace.

He leans forward, folding your legs back further. The change in angle makes you cry out. Your hands fly to his forearms where they grip your thighs, holding on as he fucks into you with a force that rocks the bed beneath you. The control he maintains is a thin thread, snapped and rewoven with each sound you make, each clench of your body around him that tells him you’re with him, that you want this, and that you’ve chosen to be here beneath him.

You can’t speak. The words you want to say are reduced to gasps and whimpers that he swallows with your gaze. You let him set the pace, let him use your body for his pleasure. He drives into you harder, seeking the places that make your vision white at the edges. Levi curses under his breath.

“Fuck, just like that.” he groans. “Take it, sweetheart. Take everything.”

He lowers your legs then, guiding them down to wrap around his waist. The shift brings him closer, chest to chest, his face hovering inches above yours. You feel the difference immediately, the intimacy of his mouth claiming yours as he fucks you. His tongue mirrors the rhythm below. His hand finds your breast, thumb circling the nipple before pressing down lightly.

Your body moves with him rather than merely receiving him. Your hips rise to meet each downward stroke that pounds into you. It should hurt, but it builds an exquisite pressure. Levi looks at you, marveling at how you’ve transformed from the weeping creature on his couch to this responsive, hungry being in his bed. He thinks, suddenly, that he would kill to keep you here. Safe, and his.

“You’re mine,” he whispers against your mouth.

You nod frantically because in this moment, suspended between the threat of tomorrow and the reality of his body inside yours, you want to be his. You want the protection he offers even if it comes with chains.

“Say it,” he demands, his hand leaving your breast to brush your clit in a sudden touch that makes you whine. “Tell me.”

“Yours,” you gasp, the word breaking on a moan. He hits a spot that makes your toes curl. The admission feels both like surrender and relief, a confession of need that you’ve been denying for days.

The pace becomes relentless then. Levi’s control slips entirely as he chases his release. His hips work in powerful, grinding thrusts that leave you breathless. His hand comes to rest on your hip, gripping and holding you steady for his use. He curses again, a stream of praise and obscenity washing over you.

“So fucking good. You’re doing so well, taking me so deep,” he moans.

Each word brands you, marking you as his, transcending physicality. You feel the tension in him building. His rhythm stutters as he swells inside you. He buries his face in your neck, teeth grazing the tendon there. He sucks hard, a hickey blooming across your skin, throbbing, leaving a visible claim that you’ll wear tomorrow.

He cums with a broken sound, a groan that vibrates against your throat as he spills inside you. He fills you in pulses that seem to go on forever, grinding lazily as he empties himself. But he doesn’t stop, even as his own climax breaks through him. His hand slides between your bodies to find your clit, rubbing tight circles that force you closer to the edge.

“Cum for me,” he commands. “I wanna feel you squeeze me, baby doll. Give it to me.”

Your body responds to him even as your mind reels. The stimulation on your throbbing clit is intense, almost too much, but his fingers work you as if he knows your body by heart now. You still feel his hardness in you. You finally tip over the edge, and your orgasm crashes through you, making you cry out against his shoulder. Your walls clamp down on him, milking him as your vision goes dark and your body bows off the bed. He groans at the feeling, free arm wrapping around your back to hold you through it, whispering praise that you barely hear through the rushing in your ears.

“That’s it. Good girl, so beautiful.”

When the wave finally recedes, you’re limp, trembling, and utterly spent. It leaves no room for thought or fear or shame—only the floating aftermath of sweet release. Levi pulls out slowly, hissing at the sensitivity. You feel the loss of him and whine. He collapses beside you with a graceless fall, exhaustion claiming him. His chest heaves as he drags air into his lungs. For a moment, you lie apart, the sweat cooling on your skin, the sound of your breathing filling the dark room.

Then his arm reaches out, pulling you toward him. He guides you to roll onto your side, and he fits himself against your back. His chest is a solid wall of heat. You’re too tired to resist, too undone to maintain the boundaries that seemed so important hours ago, and you let him move you as he wants. It almost terrifies you how trusting you are.

His arm comes around your waist. You find his wrist with your hand, holding onto him like a lifeline. Your fingers circle his wrist in an absentminded caress. Levi shifts, his hand moving to find yours, threading his fingers through your own. He locks your hands together before he brings them to rest of your stomach, just below your navel where you can feel the phantom pulse of his release.

The gesture is so intimate, so domestic in its possessiveness, that you almost forget who you’re lying next to. You lie there in his arms, your hand locked in his, feeling the rise and fall of his breathing against your back. The warmth of him envelops you. Sleep pulls at you, your body demanding restoration after this mess of a day. Your mind fights to stay awake, to remember that this is temporary, that you’re still trapped, that the rejections still wait in your email and the debt still hangs between you.

Yet, as consciousness fades, the conflict within you worsens instead of resolves. You fear him—the violence you know he’s capable of, the control he exerts over your life, the way he’s made you need him not just for safety but for the warmth of his praise and the shelter of his body. But you want him with a hunger that shames you, want the safety of his arms and the sound of his voice calling you his, want the way he looks at you as if you’re precious even while he fucks you until he leaves marks.

The duality tears at you, the knowledge that you’ve handed him a piece of yourself tonight that you can’t take back. You crossed a line from which there may be no return, and yet the comfort of his heartbeat against your spine lulls you toward surrender.

You fear what he’ll demand tomorrow, what price this intimacy will be, whether the gentleness will vanish with the dawn and leave you with only the cage you dreaded. But you want to wake up still held, still his, still protected from the world that has shown you no mercy beyond these walls. The last though that flickers through your mind before sleep claims you is the awareness of his thumb stroking the back of your hand.

You sink into darkness with his name unspoken on your lips, your body curled into his, your hand prisoner to his on your stomach, and caught between the terror of captivity and the terrible, aching sweetness of finally—finally—not being alone.

For every person that asks "when's the next chapter?" immediately after this was posted, I'll add another day of not working on this fic :P

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