[ You just have to be his. Saber's been Shadowheart's guilty, ill-kept secret for months. The extent of it, she thinks, was still hidden: her desire to be taken and obliterated, shaped into a toy without autonomy. In Saber's bed, spread open on his cock, she's not a girl with shards of stolen memory, abandoned by a goddess who molded her into a weapon. She's just simple, base pleasure, kept on the leash of it no matter how many times she tries to walk away from him.
But now she's told Stephen, and he's shown her she's right to feel shame like an oil slick inside her. Shadowheart squeezes her thighs together where her hand's already at work between them, the heel of her palm grinding against her clit. It doesn't matter how wet she gets at the thought of him lancing the poison from her--she won't be able to cum. Still, she types clumsily back, one-handed against the pillow: ]
I'll be good for you. I'll be good.
[ Only Saber doesn't let her go, the next morning. It's evening when she shuts the door of her house (their home) behind her, leaning back against it on wobbling legs. She doesn't presume to walk to the armchair where Stephen sits, doesn't want to hasten his discovery of how Saber's left her. Her hair is loose, sticky from his spend; eyeliner smeared from crying, from pleasure and overwhelm and shame. There are bruises, mean and dark, down her jaw and throat, and beneath the thin cotton of her dress they cover her tits. Saber ruined her underwear, so she wears none, aware this is its own perversion of the first time she came to Stephen: when they were other people, and she'd prepared herself just for him, sweet and yielding. Now, Saber's cum trickles down her thighs instead, her cunt slick with it.
Tony's not here. Shadowheart can't decide if that helps or makes it worse, when she turns the lock on the door one-handed, unsure if she's ready to face Stephen's expression (his instruction, rules, inevitable punishment) once he takes the full measure of her.
Softly, aware the clench of desire she feels in the asking is sick, ]
[ In the dark, with a sleeping body at his side and his anger churning in his chest, it had been all too easy to promise her the threat of an Exactor's oblivion. In the morning, he holds onto it as best he can, though the sharper edges are sanded down over breakfast, trying not to sour a morning when Tony is mostly lucid. When he goes out to help in the village, Stephen tells him he'll see him later, swallowing the anxiety that curdles in him to let him go out there alone. There's nothing to be done about it. He has an appointment to keep here at home.
Only she doesn't appear. He spends the day in idleness, lonely hands unable to do what small helpful tasks he might be able to complete around the house without the presence of others to aid him or permission from the one who owns them now. His frustration builds in the discomfort of his solitude, all the more when he's forced to know what's keeping her so long, and when Tony comes home he is not sorry when he crowds him, seeking some relief from the pressure of it, the hollow feeling of being alone.
Evening approaches, and Tony's drawn to another severed part of himself, a part Stephen too yearns to visit and soothe. He almost goes with him to find Lanfear, almost leaves their house empty and cold in order to chase a warmth he's barely felt all day. But he promised Shadowheart his service, and for all she's left him rotting here waiting for her return, he's not sure he can stand the thought of her arriving, emptied out again, only to find their home empty too.
By the time he hears the door, he's tired. Drained from a day of abstention from proximity, the pulled taut feeling of all of his bonds gone far from him, the stress of not knowing how they are when all four of them have of late been doing very badly. His righteous fury, burning so hot last night and flaring again throughout the day, is an old fire's dying embers now. She locks the door behind her, and his soft sigh is equal parts relief (she's here) and resignation, steeling himself to do as he said would, make her as sorry as he knows she needs him to.
Her question helps. A finger jabbed into the wound of his lonely day, one she's spent kept so close that she's now filled and covered with the evidence of it. In the moment, the insult is less Saber's presence in the room than the thoughtlessness of her greed. ]
Did I ask you to speak?
[ He pulls himself up out of the chair, turns to finally take her in, and the stony indifference on his face is a necessary mask when he finds her bruised and skewed and sticky. There is a little war inside of him. Some small flare of yesterday's fury, but most of it is fear for her, hurt for her, frustration. Hate. He has to remind himself that there are parts of this she likes. That her staying there with him, coming back looking like this, is not entirely the fault of the scar at her throat. That she's asking Stephen now for more of the same, and he doesn't need to abandon her here to go and pluck the hands from her aggressor with a power he no longer has at his disposal. ]
Take off your clothes.
[ Part of it is that he wants her uncomfortable: a window somewhere left open, no fire in the grate to warm her, and nowhere left to hide her transgressions. Really, though, he just wants to see the map of her skin so he can begin to chart the safest course through cruel waters.
He doesn't move to help her. Let her shred this dress too. He'll fix it in the morning. ]
[ If Shadowheart felt exposed in her shame through their messages alone, it’s nothing compared to the stony face that greets her—the weariness she can feel in Stephen, the loneliness that doesn’t wholly dissipate with her presence. Saber goads and pokes and prods, feeds off her defiance and drinks deeper when she bends and then breaks for him. There’s always a fight, with him.
She doesn’t want to fight Stephen. She’d thought, in their splintering last month, that maybe that’s all they would ever do again; that they’d meant nothing to each other (that she’d meant nothing to him, realized too late that she wanted to mean something).
It hurts more, to mean something now. If Shadowheart has ever loved anyone in her real life, separate from Saltburn’s implanted memories, she doesn’t remember it—not the feeling, nor the person, whether it lit her from within or she had to smother the fire before it caught. When she thinks the word love, it’s knotted roots in her belly, Stephen’s memories of Christine and Tony’s of his wife. Black nothing where she should have her own to match theirs.
She feels and doesn’t feel. She wants and feels sick with the wanting. The scar at her breast chokes the feeling from her, and maybe that is a kind of love—the kind Shar taught her, bringing only loss with it.
Shadowheart holds Stephen’s gaze, at least, eyes reddened as her hands move to the ties at the front of her dress. It should be Stephen and Tony’s hands in tandem, lifting her hem for her, kissing her shoulder as they undress for bed. She knows by now what happens without their help: her fingers fumbling the knots, tangling them further. Still, she forces it, her jaw closed tight, until something rips—the seam of a strap, slipping off her shoulder.
She pulls sharp, then, to get the rest over with, more seams tearing until gravity does its work for her, and the dress is pooled around her feet. Her body exposed to him, used and dirty. ]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
➡️ 🎬 nsfw, cuck-adjacent content
But now she's told Stephen, and he's shown her she's right to feel shame like an oil slick inside her. Shadowheart squeezes her thighs together where her hand's already at work between them, the heel of her palm grinding against her clit. It doesn't matter how wet she gets at the thought of him lancing the poison from her--she won't be able to cum. Still, she types clumsily back, one-handed against the pillow: ]
I'll be good for you. I'll be good.
[ Only Saber doesn't let her go, the next morning. It's evening when she shuts the door of her house (their home) behind her, leaning back against it on wobbling legs. She doesn't presume to walk to the armchair where Stephen sits, doesn't want to hasten his discovery of how Saber's left her. Her hair is loose, sticky from his spend; eyeliner smeared from crying, from pleasure and overwhelm and shame. There are bruises, mean and dark, down her jaw and throat, and beneath the thin cotton of her dress they cover her tits. Saber ruined her underwear, so she wears none, aware this is its own perversion of the first time she came to Stephen: when they were other people, and she'd prepared herself just for him, sweet and yielding. Now, Saber's cum trickles down her thighs instead, her cunt slick with it.
Tony's not here. Shadowheart can't decide if that helps or makes it worse, when she turns the lock on the door one-handed, unsure if she's ready to face Stephen's expression (his instruction, rules, inevitable punishment) once he takes the full measure of her.
Softly, aware the clench of desire she feels in the asking is sick, ]
Are you going to fuck him out of me?
no subject
Only she doesn't appear. He spends the day in idleness, lonely hands unable to do what small helpful tasks he might be able to complete around the house without the presence of others to aid him or permission from the one who owns them now. His frustration builds in the discomfort of his solitude, all the more when he's forced to know what's keeping her so long, and when Tony comes home he is not sorry when he crowds him, seeking some relief from the pressure of it, the hollow feeling of being alone.
Evening approaches, and Tony's drawn to another severed part of himself, a part Stephen too yearns to visit and soothe. He almost goes with him to find Lanfear, almost leaves their house empty and cold in order to chase a warmth he's barely felt all day. But he promised Shadowheart his service, and for all she's left him rotting here waiting for her return, he's not sure he can stand the thought of her arriving, emptied out again, only to find their home empty too.
By the time he hears the door, he's tired. Drained from a day of abstention from proximity, the pulled taut feeling of all of his bonds gone far from him, the stress of not knowing how they are when all four of them have of late been doing very badly. His righteous fury, burning so hot last night and flaring again throughout the day, is an old fire's dying embers now. She locks the door behind her, and his soft sigh is equal parts relief (she's here) and resignation, steeling himself to do as he said would, make her as sorry as he knows she needs him to.
Her question helps. A finger jabbed into the wound of his lonely day, one she's spent kept so close that she's now filled and covered with the evidence of it. In the moment, the insult is less Saber's presence in the room than the thoughtlessness of her greed. ]
Did I ask you to speak?
[ He pulls himself up out of the chair, turns to finally take her in, and the stony indifference on his face is a necessary mask when he finds her bruised and skewed and sticky. There is a little war inside of him. Some small flare of yesterday's fury, but most of it is fear for her, hurt for her, frustration. Hate. He has to remind himself that there are parts of this she likes. That her staying there with him, coming back looking like this, is not entirely the fault of the scar at her throat. That she's asking Stephen now for more of the same, and he doesn't need to abandon her here to go and pluck the hands from her aggressor with a power he no longer has at his disposal. ]
Take off your clothes.
[ Part of it is that he wants her uncomfortable: a window somewhere left open, no fire in the grate to warm her, and nowhere left to hide her transgressions. Really, though, he just wants to see the map of her skin so he can begin to chart the safest course through cruel waters.
He doesn't move to help her. Let her shred this dress too. He'll fix it in the morning. ]
no subject
She doesn’t want to fight Stephen. She’d thought, in their splintering last month, that maybe that’s all they would ever do again; that they’d meant nothing to each other (that she’d meant nothing to him, realized too late that she wanted to mean something).
It hurts more, to mean something now. If Shadowheart has ever loved anyone in her real life, separate from Saltburn’s implanted memories, she doesn’t remember it—not the feeling, nor the person, whether it lit her from within or she had to smother the fire before it caught. When she thinks the word love, it’s knotted roots in her belly, Stephen’s memories of Christine and Tony’s of his wife. Black nothing where she should have her own to match theirs.
She feels and doesn’t feel. She wants and feels sick with the wanting. The scar at her breast chokes the feeling from her, and maybe that is a kind of love—the kind Shar taught her, bringing only loss with it.
Shadowheart holds Stephen’s gaze, at least, eyes reddened as her hands move to the ties at the front of her dress. It should be Stephen and Tony’s hands in tandem, lifting her hem for her, kissing her shoulder as they undress for bed. She knows by now what happens without their help: her fingers fumbling the knots, tangling them further. Still, she forces it, her jaw closed tight, until something rips—the seam of a strap, slipping off her shoulder.
She pulls sharp, then, to get the rest over with, more seams tearing until gravity does its work for her, and the dress is pooled around her feet. Her body exposed to him, used and dirty. ]