rage

“Fuck you,” you sniffle, pushing past him irritably, as if you hadn’t come of your own free will. Shoto doesn’t love you, but he has things about you he loves. He thinks. This is one of the things that make you so fascinating to him: you are so stubbornly persistent in denying yourself what you crave. It’s almost admirable.

Shoto trails you to the kitchen, admiring the lines of your body. He’s not shy about the way he watches you when the two of you are alone. He likens it to an artist and their preferred medium, but you hate it when he “says it like that”, so he follows the sway of your hips silently. Besides, he wants you to do the talking tonight.

“Did you break up with him?” Shoto asks tepidly as you round the corner into his kitchen, already making a move to dig through his fridge. You emerge with a bottled water, and something with claws stirs behind his ribcage.

“Fuck you,” you say again, but it’s a little sadder this time. His cock twitches. You have a rather nasty habit of this, keeping around the little boyfriends that Shoto lets you entertain even if you’re coming to him to get your fix. He tilts his head, studying you.

“You’re very toxic,” Shoto says mildly, holding his hand out expectantly. Your jaw drops by a fraction, but you bite back whatever snarky comment you were about to make, handing him the bottle anyway. Shoto notes this– you don’t seem in the mood to antagonize him too much. You’re learning. It thrills him.

“We got in a fight.” You don’t meet his eye when you tell him this. Shoto cocks an eyebrow; you don’t often give him any details about the pests you waste your time with when you aren’t staining his sheets.

“Do you…” he thinks for a beat, “want to tell me what it was about?”

You look up at him, surprise plain on your face. “You care?”

No. Shoto doesn’t want you to think he doesn’t care about you– well, he does sometimes. He will admit that he wouldn’t want your feelings hurt by someone so beneath you. You’re too good for anyone to hurt. Anyone else, anyway.

You smile lightly at him, but it’s a mean thing. “Didn’t think so.”

“You usually don’t like to tell me these things,” Shoto says. He’s feeling generous today, elated that you’ve come to your senses at least partially, and he grabs you by the waist, pulls you up to sit on his counter. He thinks while he comes to stand between your spread legs. This is unfamiliar territory for the both of you– you, hurt…emotionally. Coming to him. The realization is unexpectedly pleasant, gluttonously so. Shoto rubs a thumb absentmindedly over the warm skin of your thigh. See? I can be kind.

You eye the slow drag of his finger over your thigh, suspicious, but you sigh.

“We got in a fight about you,” you tell him, the bite returning to your voice when you shoot him a mean little look.

“Me?” Shoto fights the smile that threatens the corner of his mouth. It won’t be a kind one. “Why is that?”

“Because you, you fucking– ugh.” You dig your hands into your eyes, fingers balled into fists. When you look up at him again, it’s accusatory. “You paid for our dinner.”

“You’re welcome.”

You look like you want to slap him, and Shoto so hopes for your own good that you can control yourself.

“That’s fucked up, Sho.” You’re glaring at him. “You can’t do that. We were on a date, that’s like– like cucking him, or something.”

“You were taken care of like you like to be,” Shoto says, feeling dangerous annoyance rising in his chest. “I don’t see why you care who footed the bill.”

You furrow your brow. “Don’t say it like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m a fucking lapdog.”

Oh, aren’t you though? What a picture you’ve painted in his head: you, coddled and complacent, locked away in his apartment just waiting for him to come home and play with you. Shoto smirks, and you scowl outright at him.

“You’re sick,” you tell him, and he can hear the very real malice behind it. You get so testy with him when the mask slips. Shoto just scoffs.

“Then leave,” he says, tilting his head toward the door that he made sure to lock. Something flashes in your eyes, like panic. His blood sings. “Or, you can thank me for dinner.”

Shoto knows your decision was made the second you left your apartment, but he’s feeling merciful, watching interestedly while you pretend to fight yourself on it. He doesn’t often have patience for you in this way, but he’s missed you. You’ve spent weeks apart now, letting that asshole you’re playing house with drape his arm over you like a cheap coat in front of all of your friends. It had taken every modicum of Shoto’s self-control not to drag you into the bathroom and remind you exactly who you really belong to. He was rather impressed with the restraint he’d displayed.

“What do you want?” He sees the shift in your eyes, probably before you even feel it. That gorgeous, submissive thing that you become for him when you finally stop pretending. The gratification Shoto feels at watching you crumble, bit by bit, makes him lightheaded.

“What do you want?” He lobbies the question back at you, not because you have any control here, but because he likes making you say it.

You waver, eyes flicking toward the door. Shoto’s throat grows thick with the sticky rush of dark arousal that floods him because he’s just remembered that you still don’t know about the new lock he’d installed. The key weighs heavy in his pocket, as his pretty bird eyes the door of her cage. You just don’t know that it doesn’t open anymore.

“I…” you trail off, a fresh wave of tears welling in your eyes. Shoto sighs, thumbs at the wetness and sucks it off his finger while he waits. He knows this part is difficult for you.

“What do you want?”

“I want you to fuck me,” you whimper, shoulders shaking with a small sob. Shoto almost rolls his eyes; you’re always so dramatic.

“And?” Your bottom lip wobbles, threatening more tears. Shoto tsks down at you disapprovingly. This is why he won’t let you go for so long next time; you forget so much of yourself when he loosens the leash. “Go ahead. Say it.”

“I want you to hurt me,” you say, watery and defeated but so hungry all the same. Shoto nearly hisses when the lovely admission reaches him. Your lips to god’s ears.