Chapter Text
The pill grates against your tongue.
Chalky. Bitter. It clings, softening at the edges no matter how quickly you try to swallow it down. The water doesn't help either – too cold, too thin to wash it away properly. It just pushes it further, dragging the taste with it as it sticks somewhere halfway down your throat.
Your fingers hover near your mouth a second too long, still damp and stringing with saliva, still tasting faintly of chalk and something sour beneath it. They tremble as they lower, nails dragging across your bottom lip, catching briefly on dry, split skin.
As if you could still reach in and take it back.
You don’t move. Don't even dare to breathe properly; instead, you hold gulps of air down until they burn and you have no choice but to let them out in shaking gasps.
Fatigue presses in from every angle, heavy and dull, like something packed behind your eyes. Your head tips back slowly until it meets the wall, the cool hard surface almost feeling grounding. Your eyes fall shut, though not from any desire to let rest creep in.
Everything other than darkness feels uncanny. Flat. Blurred at the edges. Like being held underwater. Sound warps, time stretches and everything becomes far too distant. Out of focus and wholly wrong. You've existed in this state for weeks, floating just under the surface, barely able to keep up.
You told yourself you needed something. Anything to cut through it. To level it out. To bring everything back into focus, even for just a little while.
People did this kind of thing all the time.
In college. Late nights, too much work, not enough hours. It was normal. Temporary. Within your own control.
Just a good enough solution to keep up.
Just enough to stop falling behind.
Just enough to get him to leave you alone.
Your throat tightens slightly at that thought. Or maybe it doesn't. It's hard to tell anymore. Instead your mind swims away. You wait for it. For something to hit you. Guilt. Revulsion. Anything that rings alongside such a boundary being crossed.
Your pulse ticks slowly in your throat. Your fingers twitch once at your side before stilling. Somewhere, distantly, a pipe groans in the wall; the sound stretches far too long and far too thin.
Nothing comes.
No sharp drop in your stomach. No surge of panic rushing through your blood. No voice telling you to stop. Only the same steady, familiar pressure that's been driving you for days now, coils even lower within you. It’s wholly Impossible to ignore.
Do better.
Be better.
Just keep up.
Show him why you’re here.
“Better.”
The word lands before you’re ready for it.
Your body stings with all too evident self-satisfaction. Heat blooms instantly, sharp and rising, catching at the tips of your ears before slipping downward, coiling along your spine in a tight, restless line. It gathers low, something warm and unsteady twisting in your gut.
A smile threatens, small at first, then sharper, pulling faint creases into the corners of your mouth before you can stop it. You press your lips together quickly, flattening it out, swallowing it down, not daring for it to betray you should it linger too long.
Better.
Not do better.
Not be better.
Just better.
Finally,
The only word you've heard from him in two painful weeks that isn't soaked with disappointment or followed all too swiftly with a form of correction or edged with salty sarcasm.
Satisfaction pulses faintly through you, settling in your chest humming with something low and unfamiliar and almost sweet. Like a reward you hadn't realised you had been starving for until it was finally placed in your hands.
You don’t look toward him.
You can’t.
Your gaze fixes just past him instead, somewhere safe, somewhere meaningless. It drifts, unfocused, catching on the wall behind him where the paint curls away in thin, brittle strips, edges lifting like peeling skin. From there it slips far too quickly, darting to the mats beneath your feet, their surfaces worn smooth in some places and split open in others where the inner padding presses faintly through.
You stay focused on the cracks for a moment, tracing across them tip to bottom and then bottom to tip again over and over. Anywhere but him. They don't stay still. They flick, small, sharp movements you can’t quite control. Wall. Floor. Back again. Never settling long enough to risk being caught looking where you shouldn’t.
Just in case.
Just in case there was something you’d misread in his word evident in his face.
Something waiting to undo it.
Your eyelids flutter more than they should, quick, uneven blinks that don’t quite sync with your breathing. You wonder, for a moment if he can tell.
“Thank you.”
The words slip out before you can shape them properly in a desperation to fill the silence that's started to swallow you both. They're too unevenly spoken, caught somewhere between sincerity and edged with something thinner, more sarcastic. Quick to defend yourself before even being challenged.
You don’t mean to look at him. Yet, your shaking gaze lifts anyway. Snagging on him and his stony features.
His face offers nothing back.
Dark lenses swallow whatever might be there behind, eyes, intent, and judgement, all concealed, leaving only that same smooth, impenetrable stillness you’ve come to recognise as worse than open disapproval.
At least you can read disappointment. You can’t read whatever this is.
He should play poker. Probably does already. You almost huff out a breathy laugh at the thought. It doesn’t make it out.
“I said better, not good, yet.”
Yet.
It sounds like a promise.
You don’t know if that’s worse.
There's no deliberate shift in his tone, no amount of extra pressure placed on the word. Yet it's the only portion of the sentence, not the dismissal, not the criticism, that catches. It threads through you, thin and bright, catching and pulling on something deep-rooted in your psyche before you can stop it.
You don’t realise he’s moved until the space between you is gone.
All it takes him is three strides before the musk of his cologne begins to worm its way through your nostrils. Deep and rich. Earthy and Woody. Like the aroma of varnished old furniture.
Just like that. Close as ever.
Your spine straightens before you tell it to. A reflex. Entirely unwilling. Everything in you draws tight, pulled thin, and wound too far, as if bracing for impact that hasn’t come yet. It settles low in your stomach, that hollow, dropping weight, the same sick anticipation that comes just before pain.
You don’t move. Not an inch.
Not your arms, not your stance. You stay still, held in place like something set and waiting, as if adjusting now would only prove him right before he’s even said anything.
“Better suggests I’ve improved.”
You hear it as you say it. Too quick. Too light. Like you meant it to be a joke, yet it doesn't land like one. A half-formed laugh catches in your throat, living on your lips for a beat before dying on your tongue. It twists into something tighter, something that pulls unevenly at your mouth before you can stop it.
Another mistake.
You feel it before he even reacts. In the way he stills. Just enough to be deliberate. Just enough to be his level of measurement, as if your words need time to steep in his brain before he decides what to do with them.
You don’t take them back. You don't even try. Not this time.
“It suggested you required improvement.”
The response comes without inflection. Flat. Clean. Precise. It lands harder for it. There's no real irritation. No edge. Nothing you can push back on in response again. Just the cold hard fact of what he's said.
His hand moves as he finishes speaking. Slowly. He doesn't reach for you immediately; instead, he just hovers. Just above your wrist, close enough to make each hair stand on end. Close enough that you can almost feel it as he glides up your arm.
Your fingers twitch before you can stop them.
Two fingers at your elbow. A light pressure. Barely anything, yet it moves you all the same. Your arm lifts a fraction higher, angles correcting by degrees so small you wouldn't catch them on your own. Your body follows without any kind of thought, falling into place before your mind catches up with it.
Another soft tap against your arm marks his approval.
You feel it more than you see it, the weight of his attention settling over you again, slow and searching, like he’s taking you apart piece by piece.
You don’t look at him. You already know what he’s looking for. Yet, all at once you feel the urge to push back again, fuelled by some indignant, desperate desire to bite back at him. To be able to at least keep the praise he’d set upon you.
Not let him ruin the progress you knew you’d made just because you’d dared to acknowledge it.
“You said yet.”
It comes out steadier than it feels. Something sharp curls under your ribs, irritation forged from exhaustion that had started to burn through the stimulant, thin but persistent. You hold onto it; hold onto your frustration at his nature.
Your eyes betray your composure anyway. Your eyelids just won't settle. Blinks come fast and uneven, out of step with your breathing you've consciously willed to slow down to a steady pace. You force them still for a second—
Too long.
They sting.
You give it up, breath catching slightly as you let them fall back into that uneven rhythm, something in you already fraying at the edges.
He steps back.
Not far.
Just enough to break contact.
Just enough you can feel his evident dissatisfaction.
“Don’t assign intent where there isn’t any.”
You force yourself to look at him. Your head tilts up too quickly, and the motion sends a faint rush through you, something lightheaded and sharp at the edges. Your vision catches for half a second before settling back into place.
Too fast.
Your mouth is dry. Painfully so. Your tongue drags against the inside of your cheek, and it feels wrong, too rough, like it doesn’t belong there.
Still, you hold it. You don't dare to speak. Not yet.
“I said you aren’t close to good”
Your stance collapses before you realise you’ve let it. Your arms fall loose at your sides, the tension that held you upright draining out all at once.
You turn on him.
It’s instinctive. Immediate.
Your hand comes up, finger pointed, sharper than you meant it to be, but the words don’t follow. They stall somewhere behind your teeth, crowding, slipping past each other before they can form.
Your breath catches.
Too fast. Too uneven
“And what is good, then?”
It comes out wrong.
Too sharp. Too quick.
You break first, edging a step away. The words trip over each other as they leave you, barely holding together. Your pulse pounds in your ears, loud enough to swallow the silence between you.
“Whatever you decide it is?”
Something sharp rises before you can swallow it; heat climbs faster than you can contain it. You turn before he can see the rest of it, before you can make out what nothing-expression saturates his face. Three quick strides to get off the mat, each one just slightly off-beat, your balance not quite landing where it should.
The entire room feels wrong around you. Too bright. Too close.
Something catches you midstep.
Him.
Always him.
His grip lands just shy of painful, fingers pressing into something sensitive, and your body stills under it. Like it isn’t yours anymore.
His hold tightens.
and you’re pulled back into him.
Too close.
Those dark lenses give you nothing. Only the certainty that you’re meant to be looking at him. That he wants you to look only at him. Not the door, not the mat, not the wall. Just him.
His jaw tightens. You’re close enough to see it.
“Good doesn’t need to ask.”
You try to hold his gaze. You really do.
It slips anyway, tilting down.
His mouth.
His jaw.
The line of his collar.
Anywhere but his eyes. Where he wants it.
His fingers press deeper into your shoulder blade. Enough to move to. You refuse to heed the motion. Refuse to let him control you more. Your irritation flares hotter for it, crawling up the base of your spine with red-hot intensity.
“Then you’re not giving me anything to work with.”
Your voice breaks its leash, ragged and louder than you'd meant it to. The words come out raw and wrong, catching somewhere between teeth and chest. It lands wrong the moment it leaves you, echoing against the walls, too loud for such a small space between you both.
You can feel something slipping further into misalignment within yourself, something you wouldn't be able to take back.
You don’t grant it enough time to settle; the tip of your tongue already burns with it, with every thought you've just about managed to leave unsaid, sharp and waiting.
All at once your body recoils before you can stop it, burning with discomfort; your shoulder twists free from his grip.
Air hits the place where his hand was. Cooler than it should be
You don’t get the chance to step away. He finds you again, too quickly.
This time higher.
Your breath catches, unfinished, as his hand closes around your jaw. Not rough. Just firm enough to stop you.
The leather is smooth against your skin, save for the faint seam pressing beneath his fingers. His thumb settles beneath your chin.
A slight pressure, tilting and guiding until your head lifts. You don’t resist. You’re not sure you can. The fact it isn't all entirely rough almost makes it worse.
Something low in your stomach tightens. Unseamly
Not now.
Heated with a shred of defiance, you force your gaze to slip past him, over his shoulder.
It doesn’t last.
A quiet click of his tongue and your focus is pulled back to him, to his unreadable lenses.
You look at him. You have to.
Your lips part on instinct, breath catching, shallow, and uneven, and for a second your brain lags behind the movement entirely.
His mouth shifts at your obedience. Barely.
You still see it. You hate it.
You try to focus on that.
“...anything to work with, Captain.”
His voice stays low. Controlled. Until the last word, where it tightens. You’re close enough to see it, the tension pulling along his jaw, down into the line of his throat as he speaks. Sweat prickles along your arms, gathering at your hairline. Something there expects obedience. Yet you don't; you're too far gone already in quick, roaring emotion.
And you don’t. Not quite.
Whatever sharpness you had moments earlier falters on your tongue, caught somewhere between heat and breath, silent words slipping out of reach as quickly as they form.
And still.
Something stubborn stays.
You let the moment stretch. Let it settle like he's somehow said something worth considering.
Let him think it lands.
His fingers shift against your jaw. Barely.
A small adjustment, almost careful and subtle enough you might have imagined it.
Your gaze slackens, edges blurring just slightly as your focus settles on him, on the shape of his mouth, the stillness of his face, the way nothing ever quite gives. Your lashes lower, slow, uneven, your eyes catching the light in a way that feels almost artificial.
Too soft. Too open. Not right.
And this time you don’t look away.
With sinful slowness your lips part. Deliberately.
You feel the movement as it happens: the drag of dry skin, the faint pull at the corner where your lips have cracked, the way your breath catches halfway through and doesn’t quite recover.
You don’t speak.
You let it form silently instead.
Captain.
The word shapes itself against your mouth without sound, your tongue brushing faintly against your teeth as you finish it, the last syllable lingering just a fraction too long. Your lips curl, just barely, around the word, with something more mocking than just a smile.
You don’t know why you did that. Only that you wanted to see what he’d do.
Your breath slips out after, light, uneven, ghosting across the space between you. Close enough that it almost touches him.
His grip tightens all at once. Sharp and sudden.
Enough to make your jaw shift under his fingers, pressure bordering on painful now, no longer measured, no longer subtle.
But his thumb moves. Just slightly. A small drag along the line of your jaw before stopping, Controlled again. Like he caught himself.
Your brows pull together before you realise you’ve moved them. A sharp breath catches, hisses, between your teeth – too sudden, too loud in your own ears. Something sits on your tongue, half-formed, something you meant to say!
It never makes it out. The room slips. The edges blur first, light bleeding faintly at the corners of your vision, the lines of the room softening like they’ve been dragged out of focus. Your balance shifts a fraction too late to correct.
And then force.
It hits after. Always after.
His hand doesn’t even fully leave your jaw before the other is there, your side firm, driving you back with a sharp, controlled shove that your body doesn’t register quickly enough to resist.
“That’s the problem.”
His voice cuts through everything. Low and measured.
“You spend all your time thinking.”
Your foot misses where the ground should be. Or maybe it’s just late.
Your weight follows a second behind, your body lagging always just slightly out of sync as the mat rushes up to meet you, impact slamming through your back and knocking the air clean from your lungs.
“This is what happens.”
The words land somewhere above you, paired with the slightest hum, as if he hadn’t quite expected you to fall so quickly. You can’t quite place it.
Not properly. Your breath doesn’t come back right.
It stutters, sharp, useless pulls that don’t fill your chest the way they should, your ribs tightening around nothing as the ceiling swims faintly into view.
All too bright.
The lights hum. Too loud.
You don’t move. You’re aware of your body before you’re aware of being in it. Your hands are somewhere. Your legs too. But they feel distant. Delayed. Like they belong to something just slightly out of step with you. Like you’re catching up.
You don’t try to look up. You already know he’s above you watching. Always watching.
“You had a lot to say a moment ago.”
His voice threads cleanly through the ringing in your ears, untouched by it. Calm, even and unaffected. Despite how clearly he’d lost his temper.
You swallow. It takes effort. Your throat feels wrong, too tight, too dry, the motion dragging slow, like it has to force its way down.
You don’t answer. You don’t trust it.
Everything comes out wrong anyway.
“You were improving. Here I thought you were behaving better.”
That word again. It doesn’t settle the same way this time.
It slips. Slides somewhere you can’t quite hold onto, your thoughts struggling to catch it, to make sense of it, to keep up.
“Let’s not waste it.”
Your body moves before you decide to. A hand, you know, has to be his, finds its way onto you, though it's so much softer this time, more guiding, closing somewhere on your arm, your shoulder – you’re not entirely sure where – only that there’s pressure and then motion until suddenly you're upright again.
Back on your feet.
Exactly where you started.