Running for Home - 47. January 28, 2022

January 28 2022

I woke up this morning with Bobby pressed up against my back, and it was all I could do not to cry over the wave of happiness that flooded my being. It wasn’t just his touch, the warmth of him against me. It was his smell, too. I noticed it at his condo at New Years’, but this morning it really hit me how much I loved it. It was like something I craved, something my body was desperate for but had long been deprived. Which is the truth, I guess. I remember his smell from when we were roommates before I left. Scents form some of the strongest, most primal memories so I guess this shouldn’t be surprising.

I would have been happy to just continue laying there, but Bobby began to stir a little and then the alarm clock went off. I didn’t make a move for it, and at first neither did Bobby but eventually he groaned and turned away from me, swatting at it blearily until it shut up. I rolled towards him, struggling to hide the twinge of pain that coursed through my still aching body before he turned back over. When my eyes met his, when I felt myself mirror his contented smile, when his hand came up to softly caress my cheek... I knew I was in love. I know I’m in love.

Bobby gave me a gentle kiss, but pulled back before I could deepen it. It was probably for the best, as I remember he sometimes had killer morning breath if he forgets to brush his teeth before bed. I thought he did last night, though. I pulled him closer, almost asking him to stay. He smiled again, softly, and said he didn’t want to get up either. But he had classes to teach and he’d set the alarm a bit late as it was just to spend a few extra minutes snuggled up with me. He asked me if I wanted help getting up but I declined, deciding to roll over and sleep a bit longer. Cecilia told me getting some extra sleep will help with the healing as long as I don’t overdo it and as long as it is good quality sleep - deep and no nightmares. Well, I didn’t have any nightmares last night with Bobby sleeping at my side, so I figured I was good to at least try it. I slept okay for a while, too, but I guess I was a little too optimistic. A nightmare came on just before lunchtime, around when I wanted to wake up anyway. I don’t even remember what it started out as anymore, just what it transitioned into. Something in the dream had caught my attention and suddenly my limbs were heavy and slowed until the point where I couldn’t move. I was on the ground and trying to talk, to cry out for help, but I couldn’t speak and then I could barely breathe. I was surrounded by darkness, wrapped up tight in something and there was something on top of me, this presence right on top of me pressing down with all its weight. And that’s when I jolted awake, breathing hard and soaked in sweat. It sucked, but at least it wasn’t a flashback, not to Iraq and not to the mindfuck I just endured.

It’s late afternoon now. I showered and took care of business before grabbing some food after the lunch rush finished. It’s not that I don’t want to see people, I just don’t feel like I can handle being around more than a handful at a time. And now it’s time to write. Time to get back to the story of what happened over the last twenty-five days.

After the first time Dom fed me, things continued in a rather similar vein for a while - these oscillations between anger and sadness, frustration and grief, contempt and tenderness. I’m not sure exactly how much time passed because I had little to reference other than when he would show up. I don’t know how many times a day he was feeding me, though I feel like it was likely two meals. He was never a breakfast person, so I was probably suffering alongside his habit. I got to ‘enjoy’ the humiliation of having to take a shit and then ask for an arm to be uncuffed so I could wipe my ass, and then being hosed down afterwards. He was drunk and in one of his more belligerent moods the first time he did it, so it was full of insults and jerks to my shackles to make me fall over and struggle. He seemed more remorseful the second time, though, and even soaped me up before washing it down the floor drain.

We talked a bit sometimes, but it was hard for both of us. I was trying not to prod the sleeping monster and he was… well, I’m not entirely sure what the fuck to think about whatever was floating through his mind. He was clearly conflicted about the entire situation. It took all I had in me to not beg him to let me go, sometimes. I learned pretty quick, though, that even hinting at the possibility that he release me would cause him to go cold. It was dangerous. It put him on the edge of… I don’t know. The edge of beating me? Yes, if he was drunk, but I was smart enough to avoid going there whenever I could smell the booze. I was taking enough hits as it was. But what else was there? What else could I have been pushing him towards?

I did learn a few things, though, in the talks we did have. The palimony suit wasn’t out of revenge. Not totally, anyway. There were things he was upset about when it came to the breakup and my move back east, but he admitted he didn’t have a right to be after everything he’d done. No, the real reason he filed the suit was a total doozy.

Dominik has a daughter. It was with some woman he’d been fucking on a semi-regular basis while we were still in the Brotherhood. He remembered that they had a condom break once, not too long before we were arrested and sent to prison. He’d never thought anything of it because it was fourteen years ago and nothing had happened before now. Anyway, his daughter’s name is Helena. Dominik says she has his eyes and smile, but her mother’s nose and hair. Apparently the mother decided to track him down and came after him for money in June, not long before we broke up. Why had he never told me about this? Why did he think he needed to take it all on by himself? I didn't understand, but I wasn't going to ask. Not right then. I still don't understand.

Anyway, she was all lawyered up so he didn’t have much choice but to bow to some demands. She wanted back-payment of child support owed along with ongoing support, including money invested into a college fund. Dom had apparently already secured this place and he had his plans brewing for the alternative bar he wanted to run on the main floor. He knew that even if he was doing fairly well by the time he was finished with the lawyers and court appointments to flesh out his responsibilities to Helena, there was no way he was going to be able to afford what she was asking without some help. He already was indebted to Magneto for essentially donating this place to him, even if it was going to be a safe space for mutants and their allies to gather and unwind. He needed more funds and if things were rough he definitely couldn’t afford to be dealing with both at once.

I snorted at that and asked him why he thought I should have been giving up my hard-earned money as palimony to pay for his ill-begotten spawn. He cringed then gave me this tired, mournful look. There was something else. Something he wanted to tell me. But he shook his head and blinked back tears that were suddenly brimming. He took a breath and then asked me whether if he’d done right by me, done right by both of us, if I might have liked being a stepdad. A couple tears slipped down his cheeks and then he quickly turned away from me. Before I could regain my wits and say something, he was out of there.

I lay there again in my chains, once again with my mind and heart in turmoil. I was getting really fucked up. I kept finding myself slipping into these states, imagining what our life could have been like if things had been different. Imagining a life as a stepdad. Imagining what it would be like to have someone to take care of, someone to watch grow up and be proud of. It was hard, so hard to fight against the pull I kept feeling. It scared me, because I felt like I was starting to lose myself into the situation Dom had put me in. So I stopped, reminded myself of what he did to me. Reminded myself of him going to jail. Reminded myself of his drinking. Reminded myself of my job at Xavier’s, of my students, of my friends. Reminded myself of Daniel, of Connor, and of Bobby.

When he came back the next time, it was with a meal. Some pork souvlaki and a big glass of orange juice. I could smell the alcohol on Dom. Not that I really needed it to tell he was drunk - he seemed a touch uncoordinated and had the barest hint of a stagger in his step. He actually uncoupled my wrists and put enough slack in the chains holding my arms that I could feed myself for the first time since he’d taken me captive. As grateful as I was for regaining that modicum of freedom and dignity, something was off. I told myself that it was just me being hypervigilant since things were a bit more unstable and unpredictable when he was drunk, but it wasn’t that. It really wasn’t.

The food was good, and I really needed the juice because I’d been feeling parched all day. It was annoying, though, because I tend to avoid orange juice because it’s so acidic. It doesn’t sit well in my stomach anymore, even if I drink it along with a bunch of food. I was so thirsty, though, that it was like tasting orange juice for the first time ever. It was wonderful. I ended up eating quickly, hoping if I could hurry through this Dom wouldn’t stick around for long this time. I wasn’t ready for another big conversation, not after the last set of bombshells he dropped on me. Thankfully it seemed he was of the same mind and left as soon as he had bound my wrists together once again and had the mechanism remove the slack from the chains on my arms.

As I lay there in the darkness, something started to happen. I wasn’t consciously aware of it first, just something nagging at me, but eventually it brought me back from the fevered wanderings of my mind. I was starting to feel flushed, hot. My body was tingly. I kept swallowing, but I wasn't salivating excessively nor was my mouth dry. Was I having an allergic reaction? No. At least I didn't think so. I didn't feel constriction, I wasn't breaking out, my tongue wasn't swelling. The cardboard underneath me all of a sudden seemed to have an infinitely more detailed texture and I was noticing more of the sounds of the room around me. All of this was happening to me, but for some reason I didn’t start to panic. If anything, I relaxed. I calmed. A lazy thought occurred to me that while Dom’s cooking was usually good, tonight it had been especially good. Something almost special. I found that amusing for some reason, and I chuckled to myself.

Dominik returned much sooner than I’d expected, this time with a small bag that he set down at the edge of the illuminated area. He stared down at me. As I returned his gaze his own morphed into a gentle leer. I felt my cheeks colour. I could feel it, feel the lust radiating off him. His pupils were dilated. He wanted me, wanted me so bad. The predatory grin that followed showed just how much he knew that I was at his mercy. Oh God, he was going to fuck me wasn’t he? To my horror (except it sure as fuck didn’t feel like horror), my dick started to harden. Here I was, about to be raped, and my dick was getting hard. So fucking hard, and he could see it. There was no way to hide it from him.

My mind was reeling. My body wanted it. Wanted him.

I wanted him.

He left the illuminated circle and moments later the chains had pulled me up onto my feet. He came back, smiling. A jolt ran through my body when his hand cupped my cheek, sending a wave of goosebumps over my skin. I felt myself leaning into it, my body aching for more contact. Why? Why was I reacting like this? His hands began to trace ever so gently over my body, sending more shivers and jolts. I heard a moan and it took a second for me to realize it was my own voice. He was behind me now, his hands still caressing my skin. I could feel his breath on my shoulder.

“I’ve been wanting this, waiting so long.”

I shuddered. His hands descended along my sides and played over my hips and ass, fingers teasing the edge of the crack. “D-Dom, what-”

“We’re going to fix this, fix everything,” he whispered into my ear then kissed my neck. I arched into it, but he backed away from the contact. I whimpered. I fucking whimpered. I heard the whisper of fabric as he disrobed behind me, then the press of his warm flesh against my back, the hardness of his thick member lodging along my ass crack. As he kissed the back of my neck his hands wandered around my torso, his touch with more pressure this time as he felt out the definition my muscles had regained from all the time I’d spent in the gym.

“You’re so beautiful, St. John. So fucking sexy,” he murmured, tweaking my right nipple with his left hand as his right descended down my abdomen. His fingers buried themselves in my pubes and then circled the base of my cock. He ran them up my length teasingly and I bucked forward into the touch, my breath coming out in a ragged gasp. “Yeah, you need this, don’t you?”

I swallowed, my mouth dry from my almost panting breath. “Don’t you?” he repeated as his grasp closed gently and he gave my dick a pull. I moaned, bucking again but the moan turned into almost a whine when his hand quickly moved back to sweep up across my abs. He was pressed fully against my back again and I felt my body trying to meld with his.

I wanted him. Oh fuck, I wanted him. It was wrong. This was wrong. But... But...

He kissed the back of my neck, eliciting another gasp and shudder from my body. “Need… need it,” I mumbled quietly.

I groaned as he bit into the side of my neck lightly. This time both his hands descended my body to encircle my genitalia, his fingertips slipping behind my scrotum as he lightly grasped the inside of my thighs.

“Louder.”

My body jerked as his right hand began to caress my balls.

“I… I need… fuck…”

He chuckled against me, those hands coming up to stroke along my length, then up my abs again as he kissed my neck. “Oh, don’t you worry. I’m definitely going to fuck you tonight.”

And he did.

Thrice.

And I came every goddamn time.