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“Are you alright, my bookburner?” Michael purrs. Gerry can’t reply, of course, not through the silken cloth tied into their mouth, but they hum, content.
They are alright. More than alright, really. They’ve been here for a while now, they’re not sure how long, but they feel … good.
Michael laughs softly and tips their head up a little. They can’t see it, but they imagine it to be fond.
It looks at them like that sometimes, fond and almost soft (for a creature that’s nature defies softness), and they like it. They like feeling cared for.
Even by someone like Michael. Something like Michael. Maybe because Michael is Michael.
They’re not so different, the two of them. They both dance just outside of the expected, of the normal.
“Shh,” it whispers, curling a finger in their hair, and they tip forwards a little, wanting more.
They like to be touched, especially when it’s Michael touching them. Perhaps they didn’t get enough love as a child.
It hasn’t taken its hands off them yet. Not while it was tying the ropes and not since then. It strokes and pets and tells them how pretty they look like this, tied up for it, and they believe it.
Perhaps they shouldn’t. It is a being of lies, after all, but it doesn’t sound like it’s lying now.
“Pretty thing,” it tells them, hand sliding down to cup their cheek. They can feel how sharp its fingers are, but the soft pressure is more comforting than anything else.
They murmur something into the gag, though they aren’t sure what it was supposed to be. They’re a long way past the point where usually they would be begging, but it’s different this time.
Maybe because everything is so entirely out of their hands. They’re trusting Michael with everything, and it hasn’t let them down yet.
Strange, really. For a creature of deception to be so trustworthy.
It moves its hand down from their face, down the column of their neck and across the ropes wrapped around their chest, across the scars from their top surgery and further down, until its resting on his thigh.
Its other hand reappears, too, resting on their hip.
They feel so much, every touch of its fingers and every place the rope is laid across their skin. Everything else is muted, unimportant.
“My bookburner,” Michael says, and Gerry hums into the gag. It’s damp and has been for a while, saliva pooling in the corners of their mouth and dripping down onto their chest, but they’re not self-conscious about it as they might be if they were more in their mind.
Perhaps if they were more in their mind they could parse out why Michael likes them like this, soft and pliant and a few steps removed from the person they are usually, but now? They don’t care.
By the time this is over and it’s rubbing the redness from their skin they’ll have forgotten completely, the thought washed away by more important things.
Michael laughs, loud and echoey, and Gerry feels so safe.
They shouldn’t, but that’s long since stopped mattering to them. Michael wouldn’t hurt them, not now. It’s had so many chances.
And they don’t have to be scared anymore. There are so many things to be scared of, so many things that want to be feared, but not here. Here it’s just Michael and Gerry and nothing that can hurt them.
Michael rubs soft, gentle circles into the soft flesh of their thigh and they feel lips against their cheek, and they know that they are safe and loved.