#noncon references

Their relationship got off to a rough start, that’s all, what with Jax starting off as one of the staff, bought and paid for. Plus, Jax’s dad convinced him Savvie was evil, once upon a time when he ran away from her. Taught him to hate her. She had to have her uncle fly all the way to England to bring Jax back, and it’s taking years to undo all the damage that stupid old man did. 

That’s okay. He’s getting better, he’s definitely getting better. He is. He has to be getting better. 

Still… he’s not an easy man to be married to. Not with having to keep an eye on the remote to his shock collar so he can’t take it off and try to run away again, not with the way he watches her sometimes like he wants to dunk her head into the toilet and hold it there until she drowns. Putting stuff in his drink just lets Savvie be able to relax. 

She doesn’t have to worry about what he might do when he’s so high he can’t do much of anything. Besides, it’s only like one out of every ten nights, sometimes twenty, sometimes she even goes for a month or two without doing it. 

She really doesn’t even want to. If he would just learn to be happy without it, she wouldn’t have to keep drugging him, would she? If he’d just stop being so difficult about being her husband… but that isn’t fair. He can’t be any better than he is, not really. Jax just… isn’t wired that way.

So she has to help him a little, to make it so he can have nights when he can’t stay mad at her. Or at least nights when his anger isn’t able to simmer in there behind his eyes while he says Yes, Miss Savvie or No, Miss Savvie like there’s a gun to his head. 

Still. Trying to give him these evenings where both of them just relax… it’s always a gamble. 

Even if he drinks whatever she makes without realizing it’s spiked, he doesn’t always react the same way. If she’s lucky - if her dice rolls well - the drugs make Jax… softer. He’ll lean against her when some of his strength slides away, not seek out touch but loathe it less. Those are the nights she can coax a sound out of him that isn’t clipped or tense. She still thinks about the night she gave him a back rub and he genuinely fell asleep sitting on the floor between her knees, his head drifting until it rested on her leg, the knots of tension slowly loosening beneath her kneading hands until she got distracted by the movie and forgot what she was doing. 

Sometimes he smiles, when he’s blurry and unfocused. Smiles, enough to show teeth even… God, sometimes he even laughs at some of Savvie’s jokes. It’s rare, but it happens. She loves those nights the best. Those are the nights that their marriage almost feels normal… if she just ignores the dilated pupils and the way he can’t stand up on his own. 

Sometimes he gets so foggy he can’t stop laughing, which is irritating but at least adorable to watch and take videos of to make him look at later on the next day when he sobers up again. Sometimes the side effects make him too scared to smile, his eyes darting nervously everywhere watching the movements of shadows he swears are watching him. She… tries not to give him those pills anymore.

The nights tend to end with her telling him to take off his shirt so she can enjoy the view, or even his pants, too. She usually waits on that, though, because it doesn’t matter how good the drugs are - he always hesitates when it comes to taking off his pants, as soon as his fingers touch the boxers with their oddly rolled waistband. 

It reminds him he doesn’t want to be here. Makes his addled mind come back to the collar he wears around his neck, to the reality of the life they’re living, the marriage Savvie has built all by herself whether he wanted to or not.

And he… he didn’t want to. 

So normally she waits on the getting naked bit until they’re in the bedroom and what he wants matters so much less that neither of them think about it any longer. The drugs, at least, make it harder for him to slow her down in there. 

Savvie tries not to think about that, because she doesn’t remember it that way. She likes the nights best where he doesn’t even try to fight, just lets her pull him upstairs and she gets to bury her hands in his hair and tell him what to do and have him, languid and loose-limbed, follow every command without the tension and misery he usually carries into their bed. 

She doesn’t always roll well. 

Sometimes, she rolls snake eyes… and she gets this, instead.

“Fuck’s sake,” Jax groans, words slurring around the edges, rubbing a hand over his eyes. He pushes clumsily away from her, nearly falling off the couch before he manages to catch himself. “For… f’r fuck’s sake, Savvie, what the fuck.”

His wedding ring glints, light from the TV bouncing off the deceptively plain platinum band. She’s hit all over again with a wave of love for him, for the life she’s built after he was brought back home to be hers forever, just like he always should have been. She’d been an idiot not to see it, not until he was gone and she spent years in prison dreaming about getting him back. 

“Fuck’s sake what?” She asks, voice light, smiling at him and poking him in the shoulder where they sit on the couch. 

He doesn’t slap her hand away, but she sees him look at her and… he wants to. His expression is dark. The light is bouncing off his hazel eyes, too, giving them a strange sheen of white that wipes out the color, obscures even his dilated pupils slowly taking over the iris. “What the fuck was it?”

“What was what?”

“What the fuck did you give me?” He goes to push himself to standing only to have his knees buckle beneath him, crashing him to the floor, barely catching himself on his hands. Savvie’s mouth waters, and she swallows, trying to ignore the flutter of fascinated interest in watching his fingernails scrape the rug as he tries to steady himself. “What the fuck is it, Savvie?”

“It doesn’t matter,” She answers, without changing her own tone, leaning forward with her arms resting on her thighs. Her hair falls in heavy waves down her back and over her shoulders. “It’s not anything that could hurt you.”

This time, he doesn't say Miss Savvie or try out the sad eyes. Instead, he looks away. She can nearly hear his teeth grinding. “Yeah, but once I’m all fucked up, you will.”

“Don’t be rude,” Savvie chides him, but she doesn’t move. He looks good, on his hands and knees on the floor. Well, he looks good all the time, really, but he looks even better on his hands and knees. She knows the physique he’s built with the workout routine she makes him do, knows the muscles there hidden beneath the green sweater and jeans he’s wearing. “You’ve been stressed all week. I’m just trying to help-”

“Fucking shit, the hell you are!” He manages to sit back on his knees, then collapses back until his back hits the edge of the couch cushions, upright through sheer force of will and a bit of good luck. His hands lay limp at his sides, now. When he turns to look at her, his eyes don’t focus quite right - but the fury in them is clear.

Well.

Tonight’s not going to be the best night for them, then, she supposes. She feels the edge of a headache starting up, and sighs, looking mournfully at the movie she’d pulled up for them to watch. Another night, then. A night when the gamble pays off and doesn’t backfire. A night when he can’t remember how to be angry at her.

“Fine,” She says, heavily. “I’m not trying to help you. I’m trying to help me.”Her own voice changes - drops almost a full octave from her usual carefully constructed diction and sweetness to something sharper. “I’m making tonight easier on me. Making you less… less-” She can't think of a good way to end the sentence, so she just lets it hang there between them. 

Jax snorts, looking away again. His head keeps lolling forward until his chin nearly touches his chest before he jerks it back again. “Yeah, I fucking know,” He manages, but his slurring is getting worse. “Shit f’r brains.”

Savvie sniffs, but the fake tears aren't coming as easily as they usually do. She probably accidentally gave him too much again. It’s just sometimes so hard to remember exactly how much the dose is supposed to be…

“I don’t enjoy you being cruel to me any more than you enjoy it when I do it to you, you know,” She says, suddenly… so tired. She spends so much time and effort creating a marriage herself out of a man her uncle bought for her once and abducted for her the second time, and she’s doing this all on her own - no one helps her, not really. And Jax never gives up.

She’d been sure he’d start to settle in and understand by now, but he just… he just doesn’t. And she’s so tired. Her fingers toy with the little black remote to his shock collar. Maybe she should just… just give up on having a good night and punish him for the cursing until he just bites off his stupid tongue. 

No, wait. 

She likes what he does with his tongue, when she gives the order. He’s so good with it now. Maybe… maybe just a small shock. Just to remind him he's hers. She takes a deep breath. “Jax… get on your-”

“On m’knees f’r discipline?” He starts laughing before she can finish, cutting her off, letting his head fall totally back against the arm of the couch until he’s staring at the ceiling. He sounds wild, almost like an animal. Her quiet watchful husband is feral, and Savvie resolves never to give him the pill she gave him tonight ever again. “Yeah, fucking… fuckin’ do it. Second I don’t play along, there y’go. Bzzzt.” He cackles, a cracked bark of laughter she’s never heard him make before. “Shut me up so you don’t hear me say it.”

Savvie’s heart twists. “Say what?”

The laughter dies in him as suddenly as it appeared. He turns his head, or tries to - it mostly just falls to one side until he’s looking at her. Their eyes meet, his all black pupil and hers with nearly no pupil at all. “How much I fucking hate your fucking guts.”

“You don’t hate me.” She says it firmly, as if he’s being ridiculous. “Don’t be mean, Jax. You don’t hate me at all.”

She takes a deep breath. Married couples have fights, even ugly ones sometimes, and they work it out-

“Yeah. I… I really do.” Disgusted, that’s the tone in his voice. Disgusted with her. “I do. I hate you.”

“Why do you hate me?”

The look he gives her is such a blatant are you a complete fucking moron that she can hear his voice even though he doesn’t say a word. 

“No, hold on.” She waves one hand, dismissing her own question. His eyes briefly follow the movements of her fingers, distracted by whatever the drugs make him see there. Trails of light, maybe. It’s probably beautiful. “Hold on. I know why-”

“Do you?” His question is sharp, snapped, even as his every muscle can barely tense enough to move. “Do you fuckin’ really?”

“Yes. I do.” Savvie’s too tired to talk him in a circle tonight. She’s just… too exhausted by her bad gamble, bringing neither the snuggly Jax or the scared one, but this angry, vengeful animal instead.

Her headache is getting worse. 

She grabs her glass of wine off the coffee table and chugs it so fast a little drip escapes the corner of her mouth and runs down her chin. She has to wipe it away, wincing at the… at the idea of how that looks. Her mother would have had a fit about it. If she hadn’t died years ago. “Because I had you kidnapped.” 

Jax is silent, for a beat. He squints at her. “Fuck… what’d you say? Might be hearin’ shit.” 

She laughs, softly. Not her usual laughter, crafted to fill up a room and put all eyes on her. This laugh is barely there, but far more genuine. “No. You're not hallucinating, that shouldn't happen with what I gave you tonight.”

“Oh, good, not this fucking drugging, then, jussss-” His head falls too far to one side and he forces it back up, groaning. “Jusss… others.”

“Only one of the pills does that. And you were cute when you thought there were monsters in the bathroom.” She gets that flat stare from him again and this time she can't hold eye contact, looking down and away, still fiddling with the remote to his collar. “I just. I do know what I did, Jax.”

“Yeah, I fucking know you know-”

“I had you kidnapped.” She takes a deep breath. It feels oddly good to say, like a scene in a movie confessing to a priest. A foul-mouthed priest she’s been sleeping with for over a year. The thought makes her smile, just a little. “My uncle had people watching you, and when I was ready, he knew where you’d be and he abducted you for me. I know that. I know that you’d run, if you could. I’d take your collar off right now if I thought you’d stay without wearing it.”

Jax is silent for so long she briefly wonders if he's flat out forgotten how to talk. Then he shrugs - or tries to, his arms don't quite follow his commands. “You’d find somethin’ else, some other reason for shit ‘round my neck. You fuckin’ like it.”

For the first time, she doesn't deny it. “I do.” She laughs at the way he looks almost comically surprised, unable to keep his usual closed-off expressions in place with the drug coursing through his veins. “What? Can't a girl have a kink?”

“Sure fuckin’ can, but you… you don' have a kink, you got… goddamn victims.”

“... I… yeah. But it-... that's not my point. It isn't about the collar, Jax. Your wedding ring does it for me, too. I could barely wait to get you home after we signed the marriage certificate.”

The glare is back. His hatred is blistering her skin. She watches him try to stand, making it nearly upright before he falls back down again with a heavy thump. 

Her mouth twitches. “You want help, sweetie?”

“Ffffuck you.” 

“Well, I mean, if you’re asking so nicely.” She giggles at her own joke. 

He mumbles something she can't quite hear, trying to stand one more time but quickly giving up. He makes it onto the couch, at least. Savvie stands, turning to grab his ankles, shifting so he’s lying on his back, head and feet each cushioned by the arms of the comfortable, overstuffed couch. He struggles weakly, and it's hard work, but she gets him where she wants him. She barely breathes, taking in his chest rising and falling under his sweater, how his inhales are coming more sharply. 

She can't help herself. 

Savvie climbs on top of him, like she’s done a hundred times. She straddles him, sitting on his hips and leaning down to kiss his neck, nosing under his jaw. At first, his head tips back in resignation - but then he curses and pushes at her weakly instead. “Don’t.”

She grabs his wrists and shoves them above his head. He’s so weak, the drugs have taken all that muscle and made them… useless at holding her off. There’s a shiver of excitement down her spine. “Uh-uh, sweetie. You’re the one who said to fuck you, remember?”

She feels a thrill at saying fuck, like she’s still a kid sneaking swears in her room when her parents won’t overhear. 

“Don't,” He groans. “Sav-... Savvie, stop. G’t off me. I hate you.”

“I know.” She smiles down at him. His eyes meet hers, tired and bleary. Furious and almost resigned. “I know you hate me, Jax… but I love you.”

She leans down, her hair a waterfall curtain, blocking them both off from the world. She can smell the cologne she buys for him, blended with her own pricey perfume. His wrists jerk against her grip and she digs her nails in until he grunts in pain and the skin gives beneath. 

“Savvie,” he whispers. 

“Sssshhh.” She lets go with one hand, shifting both his wrists to her other one, and presses a finger against his lips. “I love you so much,” She whispers. “And I don't need you to love me back, sweetie, I don’t. I just need you to lie for me.”

 She kisses him, then, pressing her lips firmly to his. For half a second, his mouth is slack and unresisting even as his body shudders with disgust. He’s warm, his skin burning up beneath her. Her mouth moves against his, trying to get him to answer her, to open up.

His lips gently part. For a brief moment, Savvie feels the rush of victory.

Then he bites.

Pain blooms in a sudden flare as his teeth bury themselves into her lower lip and he jerks his head to the side, sensitive skin tearing.

“Shit!” Savvie jerks backwards, staring down at him wide-eyed. She can taste her own blood in her mouth. It’s smeared on his lips and his teeth like badly-done lipstick as he gives her a smile that's really a snarl. “Oh my God, Jax-... how dare you-”

“Fuck you! Don't fucking touch me!” He gets his arms more or less under his own control and shoves her off of him. She crashes into the coffee table, the legs giving out, tumbling her to the floor. Pain spikes hot and demanding along her hip where she hits the hard angle of the corner and she finds herself the one lying on the floor, while Jax slowly sits up, wiping blood off his lips. 

Her blood. 

Savvie pulls her fingers from her mouth and gasps. There’s a smear of red, bright and vibrant, the unmistakable sense of blood trickling down over her chin. She tongues at the wound, then winces as the pain flares bright, like he’s bitten her all over again. She considers tears - looks at the loathing in his eyes, the absolute rage written in the lines of his face - and then decides they’re wasted on him tonight. Instead, she just shakes her head. “That hurt.”

“Good. Don' like bein’ the one fucking bleeding for once, huh?” His eyes drift closed. He struggles to open them again, to keep his eyes on her. “Shit feelin’, isn't it?” 

“God.” She swallows. Blood on her tongue is making her feel nauseous and she gets to her feet carefully. Her mouth and hip throb. She’s going to be so bruised tomorrow, going to ache so much. “You’re awful sometimes, you know that?”

“Yeah.” He grins. He hasn't bothered to try and get the red off his teeth. “I know. So… so fffffuckin’ get rid of me, then.”

Savvie snorts, limping a little as she moves to pick up the spilled wine bottle from the floor. She could shock him now - that’s what she would usually do. Or call Isaac and have him carted off to spend another month locked in the kennels with the dogs. He… probably doesn’t care about that, though. Anything to get away from her. Anything is better than her, to him.

“Get rid of you?” She drinks the last swallow in the bottle, washing blood down her throat with the wine. “Then what, Jax? I should just… live here alone, without you, for the rest of my life?”

“Fucking-... yes, or go fucking die. I don't fucking care.” The flush of hot anger bleeds away, his voice softening a little. “I don't… don' care, Savvie. I don’t care about you.”

“No. You do.” She feels a burst of desperation to make him understand. “You hate me, right? That’s caring about me, still.”

“Savvie-”

“No. I love you. You are mine, and I am keeping you. This is love, Jax. What I feel for you is true love.” 

He shakes his head, swaying a little where he sits. He tries to push her away again as she takes him by the arm but his burst of energy seems to have used him up. He lets her, in the end, get him onto his feet. She leads him on his unsteady legs out of the room, and he stumbles along with her. 

“S'not love,” He mumbles. She keeps an arm around his waist to help him balance. “Fucking… fuck you. Let me leave, Savvie.”

He doesn't have the strength to push her away, not anymore. He has to use her to stay up as they take the stairs one at a time, although after three or four he jerks away again and uses the railing, leaning heavily against it as he drags himself upwards, inch by inch, step by step. 

She lets him pull away, watching his determination to not need her, how badly he doesn’t even want her. There’s a canyon inside of her, something dark and deep that hurts so much worse than her hip or her torn open lower lip, threatening to claw its way out as she watches the man she has forced to play the role of her husband do anything he can to avoid her touch. 

Her jaw sets. “It is. It is love, and you know what? It’s all the love you’re going to get. Ever. No one else will ever love you.” Savvie’s voice stays low. “You’re not… you’re not lovable, Jax, but I don’t care, I love you anyway. Nobody else would. No one is ever going to even want to love you but me.”

He slumps. The fight’s all gone out of him, for now. Her gamble failed tonight and Jax is buckling under the weight of what runs through his veins, the heavy expectations in her eyes and her smile and her devotion. 

“Fuck,” is all he says, barely a whisper under his breath.

Savvie sighs, touching her fingers to her lip again. The bleeding has slowed but there’s still a spot of red. “Goes both ways, though, I think.”

He doesn't look at her. “What?”

“This… how much you hate me… how I had to kidnap you, and put that thing on your neck to keep you here, how you wish you were anywhere but here with me… you know, I, I get it.”

He has to stop at the landing and lean over, resting his forehead against the wall. 

She lays a hand on his back, leaning over to speak right against his ear. “I get that your hate is all the love I’m going to get, too, Jax. Nobody else will ever love me, either.” 

Her throat feels tight, and she can’t tell if she really feels the twisting nerves in her stomach, the sense of dread, or if it’s part of her act for Jax. Sometimes even Savvie isn’t sure when she means the things she says. Sometimes, even worse, she really does.

“All we’re ever going to have is each other.”

He doesn’t answer her. But when she takes his arm in her hand, he allows himself to be dragged along towards her bedroom. The fight might be gone, but so is the feeling. There’s nothing in his eyes that shows he even heard her.

That’s okay. She can be honest, in the dark, in the middle of the night, knowing that he’s too drugged to remember anything she said when he wakes up again. She’ll lie to herself again by morning. So will he.

She just needs him to lie. 

-

A single tear fell down his cheek. He took a shuddering breath and wiped it away with the back of his hand. He couldn’t afford to let it out.

“Jesse?”

Jesse jumped. He’d forgotten that Mrs. Perez was still there, Harper in her arms. When did she pick her up? He needed to pay them better attention.

“I know it’s a silly question right now but… are you alright? Do you need anything?”

No, she couldn’t ask that, he couldn’t think about it. If he thought about it then his throat would close up and his face would burn and his hands would shake and he’d start to cry and scream and beg and curse and he couldn’t break down. He wasn’t supposed to.

He put on a sad excuse for a smile and nodded. He couldn’t trust himself to speak.

Mrs. Perez only frowned, setting Harper on the couch with a pillow in front of her. Jesse eyed that nervously.

“It’s okay if you’re not,” she said quietly. “What happened was horrible. You must’ve been so scared, but you did really well. You… you really were a good boy.”

Oh no.

His chin dimpled as his lower lip began to tremble. Tears blurred his vision. Even with his awful guilt and fear and hot, growing panic, the words ‘good boy’ still made something positive bloom in his tight chest.

Maybe it would be okay to let a little out. Maybe the dam wouldn’t have so much pressure if he let just a bit seep through the cracks. That wouldn’t break anything… right?

“Oh, honey…” Mrs. Perez took him and wrapped him in a warm hug, which made the tears finally fall, his chest constricting with a sob. “It’ll be alright. Just let it out.”

Not all of it, he told himself. Just some. Just so you stop shaking so hard.

So he held tightly to their elderly next door neighbor and sobbed into her shoulder in an attempt to lessen the weight on him. He hated being alone all the time, the primary caretaker for three young girls. But he also hated when his owners were home because they hurt him and violated him and didn’t even care for their children or help at all and Jesse was getting sick and tired of it and he just wanted to take a break or leave and never --

No. No that’s bad. This is what he was made for, he needed to love it. He wasn’t supposed to want anything else. He was such a bad, failed pet. He couldn’t do anything right, even the only thing he was meant to do on this earth.

Jesse forced himself to catch his breath and stop crying, his chest still moving with little aborted gasps for air. He wiped away his tears and sniffed, avoiding Mrs. Perez’s eyes.

“Thank you,” he said stiffly, voice still shaking, “but I’m fine. We… we’re fine. Thank you for all your help. You can, um, you can go home… if you want. It’s late.”

“It’s okay, hon. I can stay until the sun come out, it won't be so scary then.” She sat back, eyeing Jesse intensely. “It was a lot, wasn’t it?”

Yes. It was awful and horrifying and it was more than I’ve ever wanted to deal with. I was scared that the girls would be hurt or worse and I don’t think I would be able to keep going if that had happened.

“We survived,” he said instead. “Mr. and Mrs. Bakeman will be home soon, and they caught the men who did it. The girls will be fine.”

“And you, Jesse?”

“Hmm?”

“Will you be fine?”

Jesse put aside all his thoughts and feelings and smiled, just like he was taught to. “Yes. I’ll be fine, thank you for asking.”

-----------------------------------

Mr. Bakeman arrived home around 1 pm. Abigail and Eva ran out to meet him while Jesse waited in the doorway with Harper. He looked disheveled in a way Jesse had never seen before, an anger brewing underneath the surface that was not at all like his strange, calculated cool.

He gave Jesse a scathing look while the girls went inside. As he leaned in to take Harper he whispered, “The den. Tonight.”

The rest of the day was stressful but went relatively smoothly. Mrs. Bakeman called not too much later, she was a couple towns over and would get there as soon as she could. The girls were fine, they just wanted their parents. Mr. Bakeman sat with them while making calls to insurance companies and lawyers and police, while Jesse finished cleaning the house. Mrs. Bakeman arrived and pretended to look like a shocked and worried mother, but Jesse knew that she was wearing the same clothes she left in two days ago, and that she was horribly hungover. So, on the outside, everything was fine.

Jesse kind of wanted to jump off the roof.

No he didn’t. Why would he think that? That’s insane. No, he just… really didn’t want tonight to come. He’d had to step into the bathroom three times to try to freaking breathe because the anticipation of his first real punishment was killing him. Everything he did was with shaky hands and a pounding heart and tears almost ready to fall. People talked around him and to him and he couldn’t really hear any of it over the buzzing in his head and the blood rushing in his ears. He moved through the day not really aware of anything surrounding him except for the words The den. Tonight.

It was already clear that Mr. Bakeman didn’t care for Jesse's well-being at all. That was fine, and Jesse didn’t really deserve to be cared about, since he kept screwing everything up. Plus what he did at night with his wife…

Jesse shook the thoughts away. Nope. Not right now.

Mr. Bakeman has hurt Jesse plenty of times during the nights his friends come over -- kicks and burns and hits and once he allowed Tiny to crush Jesse’s finger under his heavy boot -- but he hadn’t punished Jesse yet. He hadn’t taken him aside, just the two of them, and made him better through learning with pain.

But now it was happening. Tonight. And Jesse really really deserved it. And the thought made his whole body feel hot and detached and weird and he just didn’t want night time to come and he wished he could be a good pet and do what he needed to and he wished he was good last night but he wasn’t and now bad things have happened and will happen and oh no was he gonna be sick all over the clean floors --

When did it get dark outside?

Okay. The girls were put to bed. The house was cleaned. The locks on the doors and the windows were checked and double checked and triple checked and quadruple checked but maybe he should check them four more times just to make extra sure...

Jesse closed his eyes and took a breath. He was being a baby. He could take one punishment that he deserved and be a good pet.

Jesse opened the door to the den, smoke assaulting him. Mr. and Mrs. Bakeman sat across from each other, cigarettes in hand. They didn’t even turn to Jesse when he stepped inside, so he just paused by the door and waited until they stopped their conversation.

“Nice of you to join us, Jesse,” Mrs. Bakeman said. “You can close the door.”

He did, feeling his face grow warm. He hoped Mr. Bakeman didn’t think anything of the way she said his name. He’d never been this close to both of them at once. He didn’t like it.

“Our girls are scared,” Mr. Bakeman said. He took a long drag on his cigarette. “We left them in your care and they were terrified for their lives.” He stood, putting out his cigarette. He looked to Jesse with faux shock. “They’re only children.”

“I -- I know. I’m so sorry it ha--”

Mr. Bakeman slammed his hand on the table. “Did I say you could speak?!”

Jesse’s heart jumped to his throat. He shook his head, skin prickling.

“You have a real problem with following orders. You have one job here -- to take care of our children and our home while we’re gone. And what happened? Criminals broke in and destroyed our home. Our girls were ripped from their beds at gunpoint. All because of you.”

Mrs. Bakeman coughed, smoke pouring out of her mouth. “We can’t let that slide.”

“No,” her husband agreed. “We can’t. You need to be punished.”

He paused for a long moment. Jesse cleared his throat. “I understand,” he said quietly.

Mr. Bakeman nodded. “Good. Take off your shirt.”

Jesse complied, pointedly avoiding looking in Mrs. Bakeman’s direction. He caught her biting her lip out of the corner of his eye and he had to suppress a shudder. She wouldn’t go to his room tonight with her husband home… right? He really really hoped not. It was bad enough seeing Mr. Bakeman come home the next day, Jesse couldn’t imagine having to face him the very next morning when he was in the house.

“Hands on the table.”

There was the sound of metal clicking on metal and Jesse looked up to see Mr. Bakeman unbuckling his belt.

There was a terrible moment of pure panic where Jesse thought that maybe Mr. Bakeman liked the same things his wife did, that maybe he wouldn’t care about what she and him did while he wasn’t there because he was going to start doing the same things.

But there was no unbuttoning or unzipping of pants next. Mr. Bakeman simply slipped his belt out of the loops and wrapped it around his hand, hard metal buckle shining in the light.

“Count out loud,” Mr. Bakeman ordered, moving behind Jesse.

He bit back a cry at the first hit, hunching his shoulders and squeezing his eyes shut. It was fine. He’d had worse. He deserved this. “One,” he said when he could. Another hit. Jesse bit his lip. “Two.”

On the third hit, the buckle flew free and smacked into his skin, causing Jesse to let out a strangled scream. Mrs. Bakeman took his chin in her hands, squeezing his face.

“Every time you scream, we add three more.”

Why not four?

Jesse bit his lip again and nodded, tears shining in his eyes. They fell on the next hit, another welt raising from the buckle.

Mr. Bakeman stopped at sixteen hits, when Jesse was almost on his knees and warm blood was soaking the waistband of his jeans. He was making little, uncontrollable whining noises in the back of his throat like an animal, tears falling with sobs he couldn’t let out.

He opened his eyes to see Mrs. Bakeman’s sick smile across from him. Mr. Bakeman slammed his belt on the table, blood flying off it.

“Do you think that punishment was fitting?” Mr. Bakeman asked, lighting another cigarette. He had Jesse’s blood on his face.

Jesse took a stabilizing breath, all his energy focused on not falling to his knees. “I--” he swallowed back a sob. “I think wh--whatever you think…”

Mr. and Mrs. Bakeman only watched him for a long moment, smoke swirling around their heads. Finally, Mrs. Bakeman stretched across the table, maintaining embarrassing eye contact with Jesse, and ground the hot tip of her cigarette into the back of his hand.

He fell to his knees, resisting the urge to pull his hand back to end the all too familiar burning pain radiating up his arm. He ground his teeth together to stop a scream, and waited until Mrs. Bakeman finally sat back.

“Let’s call it a night,” she said to her husband.

Once they both left Jesse wanted nothing more than to break down crying and clean out his wounds before sleeping for twenty four hours straight, but he couldn’t just yet.

He had to air out all the smoke. For the girls’ sake.

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