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Ulysses dark eyes glowed, the inky color pulsing with the light of the nearby campfire. He was kneeling just outside the ring of light. Watching.
How is it that you sleep so well?
His fingers flexed as he took in the sight of you spread out over your bedroll. Something about being in your presence unnerved him, but it wasn’t what he thought it’d be.
Ulysses had been watching you, following your movements, for weeks. Since your… death, he’d been curious to see how you navigated the world you were meant to be torn from. You may have left this reality briefly, as the bullets were lodged in your head, but your visage never once left his mind. The idea that one day, he would find you. That he would be able to wreak the same havoc on your future that you had on his. That thought never once left him, even when the news of your “death” reached his ears.
Now, the day had come. Finally, you were here, in his presence, alone. And you were so vulnerable. Any reality that he decided on could become your future, and you needn’t have any say in it at all. Just as he didn’t, when you destroyed everything that was meant to be his.
You’re at my mercy now, as the Divide was at yours. Before it became what you made it.
The thought, of you being completely at his disposal, of your fate and future being in his calloused, vengeful hands, inspired something in him. Ulysses felt his stomach curl, not in fear, nor in fury, as he always assumed it would in your presence; but in anticipation. For what, he couldn’t be sure. For now, though, whatever his subconscious had in mind that elicited such a response in him, it wasn’t… bad.
Without thinking, Ulysses slunk back, receding further into the shadows and away from the glow of your meager campfire, back into the dim depths of the moonless night. His eyes stayed trained on you as he sat back in the dirt, and he prepared to wait.
But for what? Should I not do as I wish now? While you are vulnerable, unconscious? Would this not be the ideal time to strike, to get revenge?
The Legion had used the tactics many times, waiting for a settlement or a tribe to be at its lowest level of defense, with some wounded, some ill, only one or two on watch, before striking with deadly efficiency and corrupt efficacy. It was hardly honorable, but it was what made them successful.
But I’ve strayed from that. Do I want to be what they define as ‘successful’, now? Or is honor my proper path?
He couldn’t see honor becoming a word that defined him. In this life, the last life he led, nor the one before it. Even as a Twisted Hair, he lacked honor, but he’d also lacked success.
Or else I never would’ve become Legion at all. Never would have walked the path that drove me to the Courier.
Ulysses couldn’t bring himself to regret it, much as he knew he should.
It’s what led me here.
His eyes stayed settled on your sleeping form, your relaxed expression. Something about it was inspiring. The trust you had in the world, so new to it despite your age, it was admirable, if foolish as well. He craved and envied your worldview if you believed yourself safe, if you were ignorant to the fact that he’d been tracking you, if you didn’t fear what he is, what he had once been. He’d been following you for so long… he wanted to know what it was like to be inside your head, to think and feel as you do, he wanted…
What do I want with you?
It had always been clear, his plan to dispose of you, using the very same device that created the Divide, that made it what it was today, to dispose of you. Of the entire idea of you. He didn’t want you polluting his thoughts any more.
At least… that’s what I thought.
Now though, his thoughts were… unprecedented.
Ulysses didn’t want to hurt you. Not when you looked like this. He wanted to protect you, wanted to care for you, to shield you from this world that takes, and hurts and destroys, wanted you to become someone that he wants to keep alive, keep by his side, keep in his thoughts, as you have been for months.
Without you, what will I think of?
Before you, it was the Divide, before that, it was the Legion, before that, the Twisted Hairs, but now it was only you. If he were to keep his promise to himself he’d made long ago, he would have to give you up. What would be his purpose, if not you?
You were as much a part of his identity as his coiled hair, as the mask upon his face, as his low-set brow and dark eyes, his strong voice. He couldn’t give you up.
And now that you were in his presence, he couldn’t get enough of you.
If Ulysses was going to have you, he would do it as he had from the moment he started following you. He would put his everything into it.
His own gasp interrupted his thoughts, the sound a hiss from behind his mask as he realized his hand was moving of its own accord. Moving over his crotch. Ulysses furrowed his brows at the action, as bewildered by it as he was intrigued. There was none of the revulsion he’d expected, and he found his hand disinclined to stop its movement.
You shifted in your sleep, drawing Ulysses’ attention as you turned on your side to face him, eyes closed, and mouth slightly open, spilling soft breaths over the sand. Ulysses’ hands moved to his belt.
His conscience gave brief pause to the muscles of his fingers as he managed to tug down the zipper of his pants, as he popped the button, and moved to thrust his hand inside. Ulysses' eyes drew quickly to his action.
This is wrong. He heard a voice inside him say... This isn’t what you want, what you want from them. Stop.
…Though he didn’t know who was speaking. It sounded like him, but he couldn’t bring himself to obey this strange self’s orders. Pulling apart the fabric of his pants, he gripped the waistband of his underwear, and delved his hand inside.
Ulysses’ palm was rough against the skin of his hardening length as he pulled it free. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done something like this. Something about the Legion… It made one look down on acts such as these. It was seen as a waste of energy, of resources that could be provided to create new soldiers. New slaves.
None of that mattered now.
You were more than a means to an end.
It was a strange thought, considering the fact that he’d believed the exact opposite of it for months leading up to this point. All this time that his life has revolved around you, he was planning your end, and potentially his own. That’s all it was. Yet, now…
Ulysses grit his teeth at the dryness as his hand began to stroke over his cock.
The discomfort is what I deserve.
That same voice reprimanded him, but he didn’t cease. His dark eyes were glued to your form. You were dreaming, your body moving despite your unconsciousness. Your eyebrows were scrunching, mouth opening and closing, legs flexing and fingers twitching.
His mind transformed your movements to befit his actions.
Your eyebrows scrunched in pleasure as he ran his hand over your clothed crotch, your mouth opening only when he offered you his cock, allowing him in with enthusiasm. Your tongue smoothed over him in gentle strokes, lips suckling at his tip until you could taste his salty pre-arousal dripping into your mouth.
He imagined the way you would bob your head over him, taking his length as far as you could, your lips stretching around him as your eyes watered with your efforts to please him. To make it up to him, everything you’d done to his would-be home, his would-be future.
He would need a new one now. A new goal, a new driving force to keep him moving forward. Without using a single word, he could feel you begging to become that force, as you laid before him, waiting to be approached, waiting to be his. To learn from him. To feel for him. To understand your place in this world, and how it’s inevitably tied to his own.
He could see it in his mind’s eye. You sucked at him greedily, hollowing your cheeks and gazing at him in awe. In awe of your own love and devotion for him. To him. He could see the way you offered yourself up to him, telling him to take what he deserved. To take all of you. As you once took all from him when you formed the Divide. When you destroyed his hope for his future, right along with it.
You would devote yourself to him wholeheartedly. He could see it now, even in your sleep, you would never refuse him. If you woke to see him deep inside you, taking what he wished, you would thank him.
Pre-cum was beading at the tip of his cock with each stroke over himself, coating his fingers in the sticky slickness and easing his hand’s friction over his aching length. Ulysses’ head fell back as he worked himself, feeling the cool night air grow warmer with each pump of his hand over himself.
“You will be mine.” His deep voice rattled through his mask as he felt his release building within him.
“Like everything you took from me, you will know no future but the one I have planned for you, or you will perish.”
He saw you again, spread beneath him. Awake or asleep, willing, or convinced, it mattered not. You were taking all of him with scrunched eyes and a pained expression. Suffering, as he once did, from your violent attentions.
He imagined the grip of you, the way you would squeeze him like a vice and hold him to you in that same way he wanted to be held, wanted never to have to let you go.
There’s never been anything constant, anything always there for him in his life, and you would be the change.
He imagined your bare form, the way he could manipulate you with small touches, with whispered words and undebatable commands, with his unmatched attention to you. He was known for being relentless, and he would be known for it further in your mind, for making you release around him, as he claimed you, when he commanded it. You would allow him into your deepest depths, the thickness of his girth as painful as it was some sort of divine privilege.
You were made to take me. Made to be mine.
He grunted as his hand moved hard and fast over his hardened flesh, wringing droplets of pre-cum down into the dirt.
It’s why you lived. It’s the reason you survived, against all odds.
His hips bucked into his own contact as his mind imagined your face beneath him, in response to his fevered attention, his harsh, but undoubtedly devoted touch. Something tightened in his gut, and he saw your face. Those scrunched brows, willing mouth open wide in a cry of overwhelming pleasure. He could feel the heat of you, the harsh grip of your body on his when you release, never wanting to let him go.
It’s the reason you and I are here now. Why I was able to find you. Why you came looking for me. I am the reason you have a future, and you’re the reason I will have mine.
Ulysses bit into the back of his hand as he released, his stark white seed spilling over the warm-hued sand and messily dripping onto his fingers.
He marveled at the force of his release, at the potency of his pleasure as his vision darkened briefly, as his cock kept weeping cum, shooting rivulets out towards you, straining to reach your form and stake his claim over you in every way that he could. Starting with this.
Soon enough. Just have patience.
Ulysses opened his eyes, unaware that they’d even fallen shut, and he heaved in breaths, releasing his marked wrist from between his teeth. He unwittingly shook his head at the sight before him. At his softening, fatigued cock, at his spend littering the desert ground.
A waste.
His mind reminded him, as his gaze caught sight of the milky whiteness coating his fingers. His brows furrowed as a thought crossed his mind, his fingers going out of his focus as his eyes settled on what lay behind them in his sights.
Six.
You were still upon the bedroll, still fast asleep, your lips still open as your breath spilled from your mouth.
Ulysses did up his trousers, tucking his softening cock inside without wiping its residue from his fingers.
He stood, slowly, giving his mind time to try and stop him from going through with this thought, but the voice of caution within him, the voice of reason, was nowhere to be found. It was sated, as the rest of him, or it was gone for good. He didn’t know for sure, but it didn’t matter.
Ulysses knelt beside you, he deftly lowered his hand to your lips, and dragged his moistened fingers over the smooth skin.
You didn’t know it would be him.
It would be the man you’d forever be tied to, by fate, by need, by coincidence– it didn’t matter why– but for better or worse, you were going to repay him for the future you stole away. And it would start with just a simple taste.
A taste at the new life he had in store for both of you.