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A Serg makes an ill-advised deal for power
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It is not in fact very well organized for snuggling whatsoever and now that she's not blinded and overcome with incredible joy and only has just a sort of floating bliss it's a lot more annoying than it was a couple of minutes ago, making her shift and shift and shift to try to find somewhere comfortable to be in his amazing and wonderful and spectacular arms and it's never perfect and it's annoying but still worth it and she feels so good being held and gently kissed relaxing in the delight of that experience. She gets more and more comfortable as the sweat slowly dries off and she finds a position that's comfortable and she relaxes into him, feeling his chest rise and fall and feeling her own breathing fall into line with his. She doesn't understand how any of this can be this good. It was so wonderful. She wants to do it again. Later. Much later. She probably shouldn't do much more with him tonight now that she has just a bit of sense back and wow did she go further than she thought. But. She's rather happy with the outcome. And she's more than content to lay here relaxing in his arms for the next while, until she isn't. Which may be a while. 

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Yep, cuddling in this car sure is difficult and logistically awkward. But so fucking worth it.

He holds her and pets her and kisses her forehead and watches her thoughts and feels her skin against his and thinks about how to introduce the subject of him having magic powers. He wants it to be something really special. Jenna is so good when she's happy. But first he should wait until she's had a while to relax and snuggle him and recover.

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Now that she's found a comfortable way to lay in his arms, and all the sweat has dried off in the really good air conditioning of this incredible car, Jenna is more than content to take the time to relax in his arms, her thoughts wandering astray on school and classmates and parents and what they'd all think and circling back to him and the experience and then being in his arms and circling back out to what she's going to do for class on Monday and the essay she really needs to write tomorrow and then circling back in. But more or less just stay relaxing there, without a need to speak, feeling like she can understand him just fine and he her, because they do, until she probably does need to go in a bit, in like 10 or 15 or 40 minutes or so. She's perfectly happy to relax here for a while, though she'll probably get up sometime soon. Eventually. 

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Mmmmmmshe's so good.

Okay.

He squeezes her gently and murmurs, "Hey, question. What's your favourite dessert in the entire world? Like, totally ignoring whether it's even possible to get your hands on it, what's the best one?"

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Jenna is confused for a moment about why he's asking that it's a really weird question but then she guesses realizes understands that he's probably going to take her out for dessert? Or at least, that's what it sounds like. If he's asking her out she should probably limit it to deserts on campus or at least in the city somewhere at this hour at night but he is rich and can get all sorts of things and maybe he knows a secret underground desert shop in an alley with the kind of entrance you knock on and have to give a password and lit inside by neon lights across the ceiling or maybe more of a 50s diner vibe and why is she imagining the secret dessert place that probably doesn't exist when he asked her about the actual dessert? Still even if he does have a secret dessert place he probably can't get her mother's incredible apple-studded banana muffins covered in a crust of butter and brown sugar and cinnamonspice or that one double decker ice cream sundae she had when she was seven with chocolate and vanilla and whipped cream and caramel and chocolate sauce and brownie and banana and strawberries and sprinkles and the cherry on top which her friend's mother shouldn't have let her get and she devoured and threw up 10 minutes later but it was so worth it, but he did ask what would she actually would want, and she might mention those things but also there's warm apple pie with vanilla ice cream melting down the side, cold and warm and sweet and just the right amount of tart and that would do really well in this warm weather if the ice cream was cold enough, or well actually since it was so cold maybe one of those soft ice cream sandwiches with cookies and chocolate chips that her mother never allowed her to buy no matter how much she begged though she had no idea how that would taste though she could guess. And gosh, the best one, there was that one cake she had at a friend's birthday that was just chocolate all the way down, three layers and covered in M&Ms so she could smell it across the room and that had been amazing but that's such a simple thing, no, what was the best? "Um, give me a second to think, there's a lot to choose from, she says," looking back at him and smiling, still floating a little bit on a cloud of bliss. "Why do you ask?" She could guess the answer but she wanted him to say it and then she could maybe figure out what she wanted and tell him based on that. 

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Gosh, so many options.

"You'll see," he says, smiling a little. "Gotta pick one first."

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She playfully sticks her tongue out at him and then blushes just a little when she realizes what she's done, she's acting a bit more friendly than she should with a boy, a boy that she just did such things with, and it's probably cute but also she's embarrassed and forward and shrinks a little but he's smiling at her just a little and she knows it's almost certainly alright. Regardless, desserts! She flicks her mind through the options she's already come up with and others, warm chocolate chip cookies fresh out of the oven sprinkled with sea salt, peanut butter pie studded with chocolate kisses with oreo crumb crust the way her mom used to make, her own birthday cake that same year with chocolate and banana cake layers with butterscotch frosting, but honestly the best was still probably those muffins, warm and fresh from the oven, falling apart in her hands. Those muffins are incredible. She might as well tell him the truth, even if there's no way he could get them for her, and then they can get something more realistic. She smiles at him and goes to open her mouth to tell him and—

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—then his eyes glow gold with a fiery edge and he's holding a little plate with a muffin on it, which he cheerfully hands to her.

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What. 

It looks the same it smells the same his eyes glowed she never told him he read her mind he's magic how is he magic she knows there's no such thing as magic but there's a muffin in front of her and it's her mother's muffin still warm from the oven smelling of banana and apple and cinnamon and wants to pick it up and put it in her mouth but you don't eat fairy food and also he's probably not a fairy he made her feel such amazing incredible impossible things before he could be a demon an incubus which Jenna knew wasn't really but there's a muffin on a plate in front of her a muffin that cannot possibly be here so maybe he is an incubus and he seduced her and maybe he ate her soul but she feels pretty much the same and she doesn't know what's going on but she's terrified and excited and curious and scared and she backs away towards the passenger door and puts her hand on the handle and doesn't take the muffin even though she wants to because it would be delicious but she doesn't know what it would do. 

"Okay," she says, very very slowly and carefully, fingers threading into the handle her body tensing to move to run to flee even if he's magic maybe she can escape if she has to he's amazing there's no good reason to believe he's evil other than the fact that he can do magic and even if she was scared before he can be magic and good he doesn't have be magic and evil even if all the stories she's ever heard are about magic and evil. "What just happened? How did you do that? What did you do to me, before?" The words and questions want to pour stumble out of her lips but even as her mind runs in circles adrenaline pulls her actions into icy focus and she says them carefully, enunciating, one word at a time.

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"I can read your mind, but I'm not a demon, I'm just a guy with magic powers. I haven't even had the magic powers that long, I got them the same day we met. I can make stuff inside my car because my magic powers work in places or on things that are mine. And—I was just reading your mind and the thing started happening and I was like wow that's amazing I wanna do more of that, I wasn't planning on it or anything and I didn't do it by magic."

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Her mother's words echo through her mind, "beware the honeyed words of the devil, for he shall tempt you into sin", even as her grip relaxes on the handle. There's no good reason she needs to think he's evil even if he has been reading her mind and leading her unto temptation and doing things to her that were amazing and incredible and lovely and very very sinful. She's scared but also so very interested this is magic and she wants to know everything and she kindof wants to eat the muffin even if she's worried about it. "Why exactly should I trust you?" She asks out loud and why is she doing that when he can read her mind and he's still reading her mind and she flickers through all the sexy horrible things she's thought about that she doesn't want him to know she's thought about and so shouldn't think about and then realizes what she's done and blushes crimson. But there are more important things than that right now. "I suppose you haven't done much to make me distrust you every except the mindreading thing, which is cool and all, but still really a big thing." She eyes the muffin again. "Also, is there any reason I should be afraid to eat this? And you better tell me the truth."

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"There's no reason to be afraid of it, it's literally just a muffin. As for why you should trust me... man, I don't know. Do you want to read my mind?"

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She really shouldn't have a bite she really shouldn't she doesn't know what's going on but it's there in front of her cooling and smelling incredible and he said it was fine and he hasn't really done anything wrong yet other than read her mind which maybe isn't that bad and he did offer to let her read his in return. Jenna gives him a wary look at takes the plate, still staying close to the door, and takes a bite, enjoying the feeling of the too-hot topping still cooling bubbly not quite yet crispy on top burning her tongue in such a familiar way, an explosion of cinnamon and sugar, the taste of the warm fluffy banana muffin falling apart in her fingers, the hot explosion of tart juice and flavor as she bites down on a chunk of apple, the memory and taste and joy flooding into her mind. It's her mother's muffins, for sure, recreated by magic by this cute boy who might be a fairy and might be a vampire or a demon or devil or incubus or some other kind of magical being and she might taken back to his lair to have horrible horrible wonderful things done to her which she should not be imagining especially when he's probably still reading her mind and she blushes bright red and glares at him a little, unable to fully appear as angry or as cross as she wants to be because the muffin is just like she remembers and she's scooping up another piece off the plate and chewing on it deliciously even as she glares at him worried and terrified and maybe just a little bit excited and this is magic and she wants to know so much more but she needs to make sure she's safe first for sure.

"Is there any... is it dangerous to read your mind? Will it do anything bad to me or convince me of anything bad or let you take my soul or... or anything like that?" She reaches down and takes another delicious bite of the sadly cooling but still very very incredible muffin which he pulled out of her mind.

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He watches delightedly. Her reaction to the muffin is even better than he hoped. It's so good when she likes things!!!!

"Awwwwww. No, nothing like that. It's like—you just know what I'm thinking, that's all, it's like talking but faster and more honest. And better at saying what I really mean."

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Jenna takes another bite of muffin, looking longingly at the crumbs left on the plate, chewing slowly. She probably shouldn't mop them up with her fingers like she normally does she's on a date with a boy but there's weird things going on and she's probably going to anyways because this muffin is amazing and delicious. "Alright, fine," she says, still eying him carefully, wary but curious and a little excited wanting to know and curious to know what reading his mind will be like and what's going on with the magic and what she's gotten herself into even if also a little bit scared and maybe terrified and maybe she shouldn't be as into this as she is and maybe that's the devil pulling her in but she has to know. "It would probably be really helpful, please." She puts the plate down still with crumbs that she'll get to in a minute that she doesn't want to spill with whatever shock and waits for it to hit her. Whatever it is.

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"Okay," he says.

His eyes flash gold, and—

The first thing that hits is how much he likes her. The bubbly delight he feels when he sees her enjoying the muffin; the warmth and affection and intense joy wrapped around his memories of getting her off.

He's nervous that she won't like him anymore after this. There are a lot of things not to like about him. But—he's so tired of hiding—if she won't like him anymore once she knows everything, then fine, good, he'll miss her but he'd rather miss her than lie to her—

Except that it's not that simple, because the world out there is terrifying. He remembers the condition he found Dani in. Someone did that to her, and Sean has no idea who they are or what power they have or how it works, and—he can't take the risk of letting Jenna walk away knowing about his magic powers if she might tell someone, not with that kind of danger waiting out there—he'd have to hide the memories and only let her have them when she's in his car—and then what if the version of her with full knowledge wants to break up with him, does he have to figure out how to dump the other one, that sounds terrible—and on top of that what if Jenna got caught by those same mysterious forces somehow and they messed her up like that, that would be awful, but he only knows one way to protect her against it and he's pretty sure she won't want to belong to him—

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Ok that's really a lot.

The amount he likes her is almost overwhelming, she blushes very very fiercely red when she feels it, the sense of his joy at who and what she is and how she feels and how she thinks and what she thinks (still something to be wary of that he knows all this but just the same) and it's cute and wonderful and gratifying and extra embarrassing and blushy and mortifying about the part where he managed to get her off like that and how it felt for him and for her and how much she loved it and her mother's voice echoes in her mind again about compelling lies but really he's sweet and good and she's curious and how can he be feeling like all of this if he's evil, if he's lying they're very very convincing lies and maybe that means she's going to hell in the hands of the devil to be tortured for all eternity or selling her soul or who knows what but she's curious and if this is how the devil gets her then well she wants to know and really that kindof seems to be unfair.

And then there's the part that she won't like him anymore, the bundle of fear and worry and regret and there's a giant bundle of things about him that she can't see but knows that he's pretty sure she'll hate her about them and he wants to tell her and he's scared and he wants to tell the truth and she wants to know it even if he's scared about what will happen because it's more important to him to tell the truth to her no matter what because lying feels so awful to him, and he's so sure that she'll hate him after and that's worrying and she wants to know what it is he's so worried about telling her and it seems like he's going to anyways and she'll miss him too, probably, this has been so wonderful but she'll be so cross if it turns out this was leading her on kindof...

And then there's that image of what happened to Dani what she looked like what her mind looked like what had been done to her and how awful and how despicable it is and she doesn't need Sean's own anger at it to know that it's wrong, it's so wrong, it's disgusting and despicable and horrible and whoever did that should burn and Jenna has literally never felt this way about anyone so viscerally before well she's almost certainly but whoever did that to anyone deserves hell. She understands his worry and she doesn't want to forget any of this and she's scared but she understands the complicated knot of caring and worry about her mind and her memory and there's no way a devil could be like this it's too convincing and real to be fake no matter what her mother keeps trying to whisper in her ear and she understands him and what he wants and his desire and need to protect her and her feelings and worry and he's cute and sweet and wonderful and it seems like she's somehow stuck in some weird teen romance and she's a little miffed about that and she isn't sure what to do next but find out what he's afraid of her knowing but is going to tell her anyways and try to keep an open mind because he's probably more scared than he needs to be and it's magic and it's amazing and it does seem like she can opt out of this and forget it all even if there will be a breakup and the breakup will be awful and she'll never ever ever know why.

"Alright," she says slowly, still hearing her thoughts, and knowing he's hearing his, a strange incredible echo chamber of worry and caring and all of that being reflected right back at each other, still watching him be amused and happy at the way she thinks and the worry that he'll never get to hear it again and the fear about what she'll think of him and everything else that makes him him. "Alright that's... a lot." She relaxes a little, and moves away from the doorhandle in a sign of trust because he's really trusting her even if it would have been nice if he'd asked before he read her mind. "We should figure this out then" and even though they're both communicating mind to mind some things are just easier in words even if she can see the thoughts in his head going from place to place and he knows what she's going to say before she says it but it's still better to put things in words because words are there. "We should very much figure this out. Let's, well, let's start with what you think I should know about you" since that's the most important thing that seems to be missing and changes a lot of decisions and everything hinges on whether this should keep happening or stop happening or if she should run far away and pretend this never happened or what.

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Sean does not, personally, believe in demons, although maybe after the way he got his magic powers he should probably start. It's weird seeing Jenna see him through that lens—and it's wonderful how she believes him, doesn't think he's evil, at least not yet, that she's willing to hear him out—and that she agrees with him about what happens to Dani, and that she understands him, understands the way he feels about her—

When she speaks, he listens, and he's so so glad she trusts him, and he's pretty sure she's about to stop.

He takes a deep breath and hugs her and kisses her forehead, and then lets go and sits back because he doesn't think she'll want to be touching him for this next part.

The thing is, he's not a good person. He is in fact by many definitions a very bad one.

(He remembers what it's like to hurt people, in brief but vivid flashes of lust and violence and power.)

And—he's trying something new, here, he's trying not hurting people, and (he remembers what they did together just a few minutes ago, how good it was) as far as he can tell it's better, and it's certainly more honest—he's ruthless enough to use mind control and memory editing to protect himself or to make his life easier but he doesn't like to, he wants the people he hurts to know that he hurt them, and be able to have their own reactions to that, and form their own conclusions about it—and the way his power works, he can make people his, and be able to use his power on them anytime he likes, and he wants that a lot, it's one of the best things there is in the world, and it means he can safely let them leave his car with their memories intact, but it only works if they agree of their own will, he can't mind-control them into it and he doesn't want to trick them into it so that means that if he wants to own someone and they'll only agree if he promises not to hurt them he'd better make that promise and stick to it—

And—

His eyes flare gold, and he restores her memories. And he's afraid she'll never want anything to do with him again, and he's certain beyond doubt that it would be fair for her to never want anything to do with him again, even though he's sorry, and he is definitely sorry—she's so good when she's happy, it wasn't worth it, hurting her felt good but if that momentary pleasure makes her never want to speak to him again then the cost was too high and he wishes he could go back and make it not have happened but he can't, he did that, it will always be true that he did that, being sorry doesn't make it not real, regretting it doesn't make it not real, being sure he'll never hurt her again doesn't make it not real, taking her memories away doesn't make it not real, nothing makes it not real because it is.

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Jenna wants to know what he means by being a bad person and then she does know, and she backs away a little bit and shudders at the sudden revelation of his sadistic tendencies, the desire to hurt and make them feel things and she understands where he's coming from and why he's trying to explain it and explain that he's trying something else now because he can still get a similar sort of thing a different way, a better sort of thing, according to him, and he's taken other people and she only get little flickers of who they are and she's just a little bit jealous and worried and confused but she's still listening or whatever you'd call this it's not really listening but it certainly is a listening sort of thing and that doesn't really matter anyways she should go back to listening or whatever this should be called.

And then with a dawning realization and a little bit of fear she starts to get a sinking feeling in her stomach when she realizes what he might have meant about wanting people to know about it, about what he meant with hiding before, how he doesn't want to hide and this is him not hiding and how he doesn't want to trick her and he wants her to know exactly everything and even though he's promising in a sense not to hurt her but there's a small sense of anymore attached to that that she's suddenly dreading when she realizes what it might mean...

 

And then she's no longer dreading what it might mean anymore, there's no more might about it. 

 

Jenna has a moment of disorientation as the memories flood back into her mind, hot and burning and pain and terrifying and blood and ew and pain and rape and everything that was only a few minutes but he made her forget and then he had the gall to like her and find her cute and want to date her the asshole rapist sadist demon wizard who raped her and took her out on dates and pretended everything was fine and she was no one the wiser and she kissed him and he's still in her mind and the very thought of having been tricked like this having him in her mind reading her like this when he gets such joy out of her makes her sick, the whole thing makes her sick, the awful games he played with her and it doesn't matter that he regrets it, what kind of a person does things like that and then purses her afterwards like this, it's sick. It's sick and he's still in her head and she wants to run and leave the car but she knows she won't be able to even with her hand in the handle again he can't let her leave remembering all of this and her choices are to either always know or never know and the version of her who would never know would... she would cry and feel awful and this is a horribly unfair position to be put in, forcing her to make a choice like this. Everything was beautiful and perfect and it was all a lie and she can see just how much that thought hurts him and she thinks it again to get him out of her head, liar liar liar liar liar....

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Yeah, that hurts.

But it's—a true kind of hurt.

Not that anything he said or felt or did with her was fake, it wasn't, he likes her and wants her to be happy just as much as it looked like, but—everything he's done with her since the night they met has been built on that implicit falsehood, the lie that he never did anything bad to her, and she has a right to be upset by that, she has a right to call him a liar—and it hurts even without that, because he likes her and he hurt her and it's painful to watch her feel that and remember that and be hurt by it all over again—it's still good in a way, just watching her feel things, because he does like to watch people feel things especially when they're people he likes, but the bad outweighs the good by a clear margin, it hurts to have hurt her—even setting aside the part where it's sad and terrible watching her feelings about him change, it just hurts to have hurt her at all—but that's right too, these are the true consequences of his actions and it would be lying to himself not to face them.

Not because she's calling him a liar but because she doesn't want him to see, he focuses his will to drop the telepathy. But he hesitates, at the last moment, because he doesn't know whether she still wants to be reading his mind, so he doesn't know whether to do it in both directions or only the one.

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The fact that he still finds it good in a way just infuriates her more and makes her feel more sick how dare he continue to rape her like this taking this pleasure he did not earn from her, he doesn't deserve it he doesn't deserve it at all he's already taken so much from her and now he's taking more and even though she's glad it hurts him to watch, her own sick sadistic glee at getting revenge on him like this which is only a fraction of what he deserves for what he's done to her he still wants him out.

And then he resolves, and he is and she can still hear him but she knows he can't hear her. She knows it and even though his feelings still hurt to feel because she can see how much he wants and cares for her and regrets things even though he hardly deserves forgiveness it's still ok and important because at least this way she knows he's not listening, not invading her space or privacy or continuing to use her against her will and she can actually think.

"Don't you dare drop it," she says out loud, angry and furious and sad. "I want to be sure you're not listening in and taking your sick fucking pleasure from my mine, you sick asshole demon wizard asshole. Don't drop it and stay over there while I think."

And then she tries to think thinking about how much she'd cared for him and been attracted to him and wanted him and how cute and funny and fun he'd been and how their every experience together was tainted by what he'd done before, not real, not real at all, not the lovely fun idyllic experience of a new college girl from a midwest town but some horrible plot to rape her and hurt her and then follow it up like nothing was wrong like they were just dating like normal people when he'd, he'd already raped her, already taken from her and it didn't, didn't matter that he regretted it, because it was all just... Jenna shudders, and curls into a ball and sobs. "Don't you dare fucking touch me you asshole," she says between sobs, feeling his concern for her welling up when she does so.

And then she curls up and cries and cries and cries, thinking through the loss she didn't even know she had lost  of her virginity, and the choice of who to give it to, the loss of a boyfriend, of everything she'd ever wanted or looked forward to from this, the death of her innocence, the horror of the idea that if she didn't take whatever his fucking deal was and become his (how fucking sick) then she would never ever even know, and how amazingly tempting that is, to go back to her original carefree self full of joy and light and happiness that would probably get dragged down by a sudden breakup and Carol would shake her head at her and be more protective but she'd come back, probably, she would, a little tinged but nothing like this, with her innocence dead and buried and burned and stolen by someone without her even knowing, without her ever knowing until it was gone when she looked, and the awful thought pops into her mind that Carol was right this time, not her mother, and she sobs more.

She cries, all of the thoughts whirling around in her head, the constant presence of Sean's thoughts in the background just giving her more spiteful fuel to the fire, watching him feel worse and worse and worse as she cries, taking a vindictive pleasure in changing how she cries to make him feel even worse. Is this how he felt, doing that wonderful thing to her before? A wonderful thing now poisoned forever by his lies, a wonderful thing she could never have back, not unless she forgets things. She contemplates selective memory wipes that will get her everything back but she's worried he'll never go for such things, she considers just saying never to this entire thing and going away forever but that means that this version of her will be gone forever and she doesn't know if she wants that, that sounds scary and awful and a little like dying. She considers asking him to turn the telepathy on again just so she can scream all of her feelings at him and watch him squirm in his head, taking insufficient revenge for how he's wronged her. She considers, since that's too much, making it selective, so she can send only ever whatever she wants. Maybe she'll do that. But mostly she just cries and sobs and shakes, curled into a ball, crying over the loss and pain and the fact that nothing is going how she wants it to go, this teen romance she's in now is much more awful than it should be, and she doesn't know if she can stand going back and she doesn't know if she can stand to stay. She's going to cry and cry and cry until she's all cried out, and then she and that asshole are going to have to figure things out. Unfortunately.

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He sits in the driver's seat, and although he doesn't look at her, her misery is a constant pressure on his thoughts. He did that. He did that to her. Jenna, beautiful sweet Jenna, precious adorable Jenna, is crying in his passenger seat because he raped her, and she's gorgeous when she cries but it's not worth it, not at all. He wants to live in the world where he never did that to her, where he had the foresight at the time to realize what a catastrophic mistake he was making.

He doesn't think he could have, though. He thinks he didn't—realize, at the time, how powerful a feeling it is to like someone who likes you, to make someone happy the way he makes—the way he has made Jenna happy. He's had moments like that before, in handfuls here or there, most recently with the ex-girlfriend he told Jenna about, but between his reputation and April's trust issues she never really let her guard down around him long enough to have a time as good as he did today on his and Jenna's date, never mind things as glowingly perfect as what they did together in the car.

He remembers feeling like it was true, in a sense, that he wasn't doing permanent harm to Jenna or Evelyn, because they were never going to remember it anyway, they'd just go their entire lives having had a perfectly pleasant ride in his car with no lingering effects whatsoever. And maybe there is a sense in which that works, but it's—not good enough. He can't un-happen things just by wishing it. Even if he somehow invented time travel, even if that's a thing he can do, he still can't make it not have happened, because even if he somehow replaces the past with a different better past it's still true that it used to be a different way. And he should have realized that—but he didn't. And he should have realized that once you hurt someone and then take away their memory of you hurting them, anything positive you build with them from that point forward is founded on a lie—and he did, sort of, but he didn't think it would matter that much, he didn't realize how important his honesty really was to him. He thought magic would let him escape all the consequences of his crimes, but, like a complete fucking idiot, he neglected to consider how consistently terrible he feels when his crimes are covered up and papered over and drowned in a pile of his parents' money never to be spoken of again.

So now here they are. And—he was right, it looks like, when he guessed that no one would actually want him to own them once they fully understood what kind of person he is. He was right, it looks like, when he guessed that deciding not to hurt people anymore wouldn't be enough to make them feel comfortable around him after they found out how many people he's already hurt, and how badly. And what the hell is he going to do about that? Keep putting himself through this kind of misery on the off chance that someday he'll meet someone as fantastic as Jenna who still likes him with all his secrets laid bare? Go back to preying on people one by one, never asking anyone to be his, even when he really likes them? He still regrets doing what he did to Irene instead of trying his best to get her to agree willingly. And fuck, if Jenna walks out on him and he does his best to let her down gently after her memories are safely locked away and he sees her again someday wearing an empty smile and offering to fuck him for twenty dollars—thinking about that hurts him more than any amount of watching her cry.

He doesn't think he can go back to how he was before. He's not sure he'd want to if he could. And even if he did, somehow, he'd only end up rediscovering all the same things eventually, and it would no doubt hurt just as much the second time around. But he sure has set himself up for a miserable future, when he knows how good it is to like people and get along with them but he can only have it while constantly hiding things from them that would horrify them if they knew.

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Sean's thoughts make an interesting background to her own, and even though she tunes them out half the time as she sobs, not letting them distract her from her own thoughts running in circles and pain and misery and loss and horror, eventually she does listen, in bits and pieces, switches from sobbing to sniffling, and thinks.

The asshole wanted to make it like it never happened, and while he was ever right that he couldn't ever make it so it never happened, that all of this would be gone forever, honestly, she wishes that too. She wants to go back her simple happy desires and wants and be happy bouncy joyful about meeting a cute boy and dancing with him and dating him and going out with him and having a lovely first relationship and she wants the opportunity for that. Again. She wants to go back to how it was with him, all happy and gleeful and headoverheels carefree and really it can never be like that he'll always be him even if he'd never done that to her, she'd still be horrified by who he really was. She's pretty sure. But she wants to do that with him, she wants things to go back to what they were like before, she wants none of this to be real, and he could make her forget, make her forget it, but then they'd just be back where they started with everything being made of lies. She wants to have the opportunity to have this with someone else, anyone else, to have her first time with a person who doesn't secretly rape her and wipe her memory, she wants the first time she remembers to be good, even if really, it was horrible and nothing could ever change that. But he can change her. And what really matters is what she remembers. She wishes she could forget him forever, but that would require her to be his (ugh) it seems like, to edit her memories so carefully. And Carol would notice. As would the several other dozen people she'd talked to about him the past week.

She needs to talk to him about this, she needs to figure out what the heck their options are at this point. She doesn't fully know what she wants yet, what she can have from what's available, if there's anything available at all, but she has to find out.

Jenna picks up her head, looking at Sean, giving him the hardest and frostiest look she can through her tears. "Alright," she tells him. "We need to figure out what we're doing next. Asshole. Let's figure out our options." She can feel him thinking about her and she wants it to stop but she wants to make sure he doesn't read her and she does her best to tune him out again. "On one end there's you wiping all my memories and and breaking up with me and and letting me go back to my perfectly normal life with only a slight hiccup and regret and loss on my end, leaving you to rot like you deserve." Maybe he would ever find someone who would be ok that he'd done all of this, maybe Jenna would have been ok with this if it hadn't been done to her, if he'd told her and broke down in apology and she'd believed him, she'd have been initially horrified but maybe helped. But that's a road that might be closed to her.

Jenna continues, "On the other end there's me becoming yours, whatever that means, and keeping all my memories or taking them all away, so I'm protected against whatever other shit is out there but vulnerable to whatever you want to do to me whenever you want to do it and I don't care how much fucking regret you feel right now I don't want you changing your mind in a fit of despair and, and..." she sobs again. She takes a breath. "I don't want you reading my mind anymore unless I let you, asshole, you don't deserve it. You really don't. Not from me."

Jenna shudders, and sobs, but catches herself. "But what about in the middle somewhere, you asshole. I really wish you hadn't told me any of this, but I'm sure you knew that already. I'm not asking you to do this, not that I could particularly stop you, but what could you take away. What could you do to get us right back to where we were, having a perfectly normal relationship, no matter how much it fucking hurts you. Or what about making me forget this conversation ever happens and we go to the world where I get to learn about magic and never hear about how you raped me and took away my choices like a thief, you asshole. And then maybe you claim me and maybe you hurt forever and ever but I'm never any the wiser. I don't know if I want any of that, asshole. But I want to know what's possible. What you can stomach with your hatred of lies. What we can take back, as you keep seeming to want to do."

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He sighs.

(She's still so good, even when it hurts to look at her. He likes her. He likes her. If he could just have known how this was going to turn out—)

But no. He focuses on the answer to her question.

He could rewind this conversation back to the point where he tells her about magic. It would hurt him to lie to her that way, but he could do it. And he could wipe all her memories of all of this, and go back to before the muffin, and just have a completely normal relationship with her—except that at that point he suspects she'd be able to tell, eventually, that something was wrong. He pretty much thinks that what memories she wants to keep after this conversation is completely up to her, except that he still can't let her know magic exists while she's outside of his car unless he owns her, and he doesn't think he can do a perfect job of hiding how upset he is—

If she really wants to lose her memories, though, if that's the thing she really longs for—if she, as she is now, with full information, wants to return to the world where he never hurt her, and let that be her new reality—then... that's not as much of a lie, not in the way that matters to him. (Especially if she thinks that someday, years or decades down the road, if she stays with him that long, there's a chance she might be okay if he let her remember again.) It's... something he could see himself doing and not have it hurt enough for her to notice. It would still hurt, but it seems like from her perspective that's a benefit, which, you know, is pretty reasonable under the circumstances.

So—if she really wants, he can take away the knowledge that he hurt her, and let her learn the rest and feel however she feels about it, and let that partly-ignorant Jenna make her own decisions from there about whether to belong to him or go free and ignorant; or he can take away everything to do with magic, and keep dating her without telling her anything; or he can do that and break up with her. He doesn't think he can tell her about magic and then not reveal that he has sometimes hurt people with it; there's just too much he'd have to hide from her, with too much ambient evidence floating around, for that to be feasible.

He doesn't want to let her walk away unclaimed, but he recognizes that there's not much chance of her agreeing at this point, especially given how claiming someone works exactly. (He flinches from the thought of how it turned out with Dani. Doing the same thing to Jenna, with her as upset about it as seems likely, would probably be worse; but it'd be worth it to make sure she was safe. And maybe, since this is a much less desperate situation, they could experiment a little to find something that would work that she wouldn't mind as much.)

Probably it'll be fine and nothing bad will happen, if she doesn't agree to be his. He has multiple friends and only two magical slaves so far. There's no reason to think Jenna might be in particular danger, unless someone found out that Sean has magic and went after her to get to him, and he's being very careful about that. He just... really doesn't want to take the chance. (And—owning her would be good, on some levels, there's no denying that—but owning her knowing that she only agreed for her own safety, and actually hates him? That's going to hurt. Worth it to make sure she's safe, but yeah, it'll hurt.)

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Jenna watches his thoughts go by, the options, and considers them all, it's so much easier to have someone else go through them so she can consider them herself. Many of these are very appealing. Even though she is furious at him, angry furious and horrified at who and what he is, what he's done to her, and doesn't want to be living a lie almost as much as he doesn't, many of the options where she gets her old life back in one form or another are really really tempting. She doesn't want to date him, not anymore, but the idea of being broken up with him feels awful, and really, really truly, she was so happy, and she wants to go back to that. He keeps asking what she wants, and she wants to go back to that, she wants all of this to have been a dream a nightmare, a fading memory dissipating as she wakes up and everything is just how it was and nothing is wrong and her life is normal again, and she has a date with a cute boy to look forward to that weekend. But that would still be a lie. She's so so very tempted but she's terrified. She's especially tempted by the version where she knows everything except that he hurt her, she wants to know how that would play out, if she could in fact forgive him and watch him change, help him change, but she doesn't want to give him the hope. He doesn't deserve it. 

Her stomach turns when she finds out about how it works, how claiming works, and there's no way no way no way in her current state she would ever agree to that. She doesn't particularly care how much he's angry at the magic system, or how much doing it would hurt him especially with how much it hurt him last time, she just. Cannot. Stomach it. Not in her current state. No. 

She's a bit peeved, to be honest, when he finds out that he has other magical slaves, even with Dani who was horrifying extenuating circumstances he has, in a sense, been cheating on her. Not that that really matters in comparison to the rest. At all. 

"What I want," Jenna says finally, "Since you seem to care so much about that, now. Asshole. Is... I want my old self back. I want my old life back. That part of me that you seem to love when you read my mind, when you see my thoughts, the parts of me that you enjoy so much, well, I don't know if I can have that back right now. I want it back. I want it all back. This morning when I woke up I was having a good time with my friends and I was learning things in college and meeting new people and having new experiences and having a good time and I was looking forward to a date with a nice cute boy. I was happy; I was on an adventure. And well, now that part of me feels broken. You picked me up and saw a pretty bauble and you crushed it because you wanted to have some fun. And then..." she sobs. "I don't want to have to deal with any of this! A little while ago I was so so curious about magic I would have loved learning about it. It would have been so wonderful, having a magic boyfriend, even if he had a troubled past, I could have forgiven you! I could have understood. But now I'm not curious anymore. I don't want to do it anymore, I want to turn away and close my eyes and squeeze them tight and pretend none of this ever happened. You took away my curiosity, my joy, my desire to see new things and find out about them and talk to people, and maybe I'd get it back, but I don't know. Right now I just want to go home and go to sleep. And I don't even want to do that, to take the easy way out, because it would mean I would be happily attracted to my rapist. Asshole. Or you could just break up with me, but I don't really want that either, because our time together was so good, and that other me would be so fucking devastated, even if only for a week. So I can't decide what I want. Asshole. Why don't you tell me what you want, just so I know, so I have somewhere to start, not that I should really be caring what you want, and we'll see where we go from there." 

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