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Chapter Text

"Remember, your morning training drills are cancelled."

Mattias had seen Jon Jon's garish sneakers the moment they had entered his periphery, but he hadn't bothered to acknowledge the other man's approach until Jon Jon dropped onto the bench across from his at the mess hall table.

Brow furrowed, Mattias finally looked up. The low din of breakfast chatter mumbled in the background, but no one was sitting close enough to Mattias for it to be too loud to hear. Still, he couldn't be hearing Jon Jon correctly. The Ten Rings never cancelled training drills unless the compound was directly under assault. Or at least they never had, before.

Finally, he gave up trying to figure it out and asked "What?"

"Ugh, I knew it!" Jon Jon threw his hands up. "You never check the notifications. Good thing your best friend Jon Jon is here to remind you."

Mattias fought the urge to grimace. He was too busy thinking about what an indictment of his life it would be if Jon Jon was his best friend, a grim thought that rattled around and wouldn't stop, so much so that Jon Jon had actually risen to leave before Mattias remembered to ask

"Wait. Why?"

"Seriously? Check your fuckin' memos bro." Jon Jon plopped back down to the bench and heaved a put upon sight even though Mattias could tell how much he was enjoying this. "We've got Company coming to the compound tonight. You know, a certain kind of Company. No, don't freak out, they're all vetted. Professionals, you know? Gonna throw a little party, give everyone the morning after off to recover. We've gotta let off some steam and diversify the population 'round here for a night, no one in our crew has seen a fresh face in weeks. Everyone's invited, but you…"

For a single second Mattias thought that he was being purposely excluded from Jon Jon's planned festivities. Intended to be cruel, no doubt, but a large part of him was just relieved that -- no. Jon Jon was just pausing for dramatic effect.

"You." he repeated, eyes dancing with delight at Mattias' blank stare. "Your attendance is mandatory."

Mattias looked back down, snatched chunk of egg with his chopsticks as he said "No. I'm busy tonight."

"I told you, it's mandatory. You don't have to fuck any of them if you don't wanna, but you do have to show up." Jon Jon heaved a put-upon sigh. "And bro, you've gotta stop eating like that."

As objectionable as everything else that came out of Jon Jon's mouth had been, the last part in particular didn't track. Mattias knew that he used chopsticks correctly. Wenwu had taught that to Mattias himself. So against his better judgement, Mattias looked back up to Jon Jon, genuinely confused. "What do you mean?"

"Fuckin'... like this." Jon Jon hunched forward, a miniature version of Mattias' own posture - shoulders up, right elbow braced on the table, head down as he mimed using chopsticks left handed to quickly shovel food into his mouth. "Who are you guarding your food from, huh? No one's even sitting by you!"

Mattias winced, then instantly regretted not restraining the reaction. Jon Jon was like a weakness-seeking missile, sometimes. All the time. "That's just. How I eat."

Jon Jon scoffed as he dropped the act, stood and waved his hand in a dismissive gesture that encompassed Mattias' entire self. Mattias expected some further cutting remark, braced himself for it even, but Jon Jon just wandered away as if he had simply gotten too bored of Mattias to torment him further. Unfortunately, it didn't last.

—

"Hey, one armed wonder!" Jon Jon said "You have anything other than tactical shit to wear tonight? No? That's alright, you can just come shirtless."

—

"See you later bro!" Jon Jon said " You'd better be there!"

—

"Seriously." Jon Jon said "Get the fuck out of this room and go party. Strict orders from your boss."

It was the last part that made Mattias actually turn around and look at him. The cool glow of the security monitors and the revelry that they displayed at his back, as he looked critically at Jon Jon.

"She wants me to?"

"Ha! No. Can you imagine? Raze, my dude, this is seriously far below Xialing's level of concern. I'm talking my orders. You know that I outrank you, what with me being her right hand and all…" 

Jon Jon grinned, sharp, and held his own right arm up in front of his face. He rotated it back and forth at the elbow as he pointedly stared at where Mattias' own terminated in the metallic stub of his prosthesis.

What galled Mattias even more than the dig about his arm was that he knew Jon Jon outranked him. As if he could forget. The new Ten Rings had an "organizational flow chart", and Jon Jon had pasted a copy of it to the wall of Mattias' room. Next to the door, so he had to see it every time that he left.

At the very top, of course, was Xialing - right where she belonged. "Jon Jon" and "Razorfist" were on parallel paths below her, with their various commanders beneath them, but the little box with Jon Jon's name was noticeably higher than Mattias' own. Closer to Xialing. The place where Mattias desperately wanted but did not deserve to be.

"You need to get out there and show the people that you're not just a big white weirdo who doesn't know how to have a good time, huh? This is Ten Rings 2.0, bro. You gotta go rub elbows a little bit. Rub something else if you're feeling like it, huh? You know. Live más!"

Mattias' confusion must have shown on his face, but Jon Jon continued unabated.

"You ever been to a Taco Bell, Razorarm? No? Next time we're stateside I'll take you to one. It's fuckin' awful but you gotta try it." Jon Jon grinned. He had his hands tucked in the pockets of his suit jacket as he rocked back on the balls of his feet. "Just like you gotta try this. Now."

Mattias bristled. His prosthetic didn't have haptic sensors, but he felt a buzzing itch there regardless. It was the ghost sensation he always felt when he badly wanted to unsheathe the razor and decapitate someone. But he was on strict orders not to decapitate Jon Jon so all that he could do was say. "No."

"No?"

"No. I'm going to disregard your order. I will accept the consequ -"

Jon Jon was still grinning, but his eyes were cold as ice when he snapped his fingers to cut Mattias off. The rage that Mattias felt jumped from a simmer to a boil. Yet before he could do anything, Jon Jon simply said

"Okay. Cool. If you don't get your big Romanian ass out there, I'm gonna tell Xialing about your web search history."

Mattias snapped to attention, on his feet in an instant. There was a feeling in his chest unlike any of the other many times in the past in which he had feared for his life - less of a fear that he might die, more that he might have to continue to live after Jon Jon carried out what he had threatened. 

His head spun. His mouth flooded with bile. His heart rate spiked. The frantic beat of it was so loud in his head that he shouldn't have been able to hear at all. But that mercy was not granted to Mattias. He could still hear everything that Jon Jon said, clear as crystal, when he ordered 

"Ah, much better. Come on. You'll have fun."

Chapter Text

It had happened because Mattias had fucked up. By ever going on the internet at all, but even before that when he had miserably failed to live up to Xialing's expectations. 

The month before, she had snapped at Mattias when he hadn't remembered a detail and ordered him out of her sight. Mattias had been so eager to not repeat the burning shame of that failure. This wasn't the critical overestimation of his own abilities, the pure hubris Mattias once had in thinking that he could have possibly won toe to toe with Shang Chi or Xialing. It wasn't something that was beyond his realm of understanding, where Mattias' lack of formal education that still occasionally stymied or humiliated him. It was something that he should have had under control. 

Mattias had thought he'd had it handled, so sure that he had everything prepared to her standards. The details were triple-checked and memorized before he entered the room to brief her. But Xialing had still been annoyed. Mattias had long perfected the necessary skill of keeping his face impassive, but Xialing's disappointment tested him severely. No amount of feigned stoicism could settle his wounded heart when she snapped at him, annoyed and impatient for some reason Mattias' couldn't determine. 

Was it something he said? The way he said it? Did he omit some important detail again but Xialing had simply given up on correcting his repeated mistakes? Did she just hate him? He had certainly done enough to earn it. But he still held onto the hope that he could earn her approval if only he tried hard enough, if only -

It just got so loud in his head sometimes. 

Mattias couldn't tell if other people ever felt the same, constant churning that he did. He doubted it. But he couldn't know for sure. There was no talking about that. Mattias wasn't smart but he was smart enough to know that much, at least. He had proven himself a capable member of the Ten Rings despite, and eventually because of, his physical difference. But there could be no benefit to the type of mental weakness that plagued Mattias. There could only be scorn and dismissal, at best. Disposal at worst.

But it was not solely the grim outlook of his future prospects that motivated Mattias to be better. He just wanted Xialing to look at him and see – 

If only there were some way –

Before Mattias could notice, the hours had slipped through his hands. He had simulated entire conversations in his head - like watching playback footage of fights he had lost to see where he had gone wrong, again and again. By 2am he had arrived at the conclusion that it was all his fault. He should have given her the heads up two days ago on that supply problem. He should have been more upfront about the recruits' progress instead of trying to cover for them.

To think that Mattias had ever considered himself prepared to walk into that meeting. It seemed so stupid now. No wonder she was pissed at him. Maybe if he could get to her early enough the next morning and apologize for his failure. If only she would listen, maybe she wouldn't send him away or. Worse.

Mattias had worked out an entire plan, mulled over contingency after contingency, tried to make use of his time since he had been far too high strung on adrenaline to even think of sleep. He had known that he needed to get it perfect. He needed to learn, finally. To be better than this.

Especially because the consequences of failure under Xialing's new regime were still worryingly unclear. 

Any remnants of the old guard that had resisted her takeover had simply disappeared, swiftly and silently. Mattias had managed to keep the rest of his men onboard with the changeover, had vouched for them under Xialing's scrutiny, but her ascent to power was still recent enough that there hadn't been any major failures yet among the crew. Mattias could have asked Jon Jon about the way that Xialing had preferred to handle discipline at the Golden Daggers, but the thought of asking Jon Jon was… fuck. Jon Jon. Xialing had probably already told him what a mess Mattias had made of their meeting. Jon Jon was probably already trawling the dark web to find a freelance merc to replace Mattias – he would have been all over any opportunity to have Mattias dragged out back and shot.

That sealed it. It was a good thing that Mattias was still awake as the first rays of sun peaked over the mountains, because he needed to get to Xialing first. He would beg, if he had to.

He hadn't gotten the chance.

Mattias had found her practicing forms with the rope dart, alone in the cool early morning of the training room. He had meant to announce his presence, but his world had narrowed instantly to the sight of her body movements . To the sound of her steady breaths and the way the rope dart sliced through the air. To the feel of the mats under his feet and how dearly he suddenly wanted to feel them under his knees…

Xialing had her rope coiled around Mattias' body before he could even register that her attention had shifted to him. 

Mattias' arm had been effortlessly restrained, pulled tight behind his back as another loop of rope whipped around his neck and a quick sweep of her leg sent him toppling to the mats. His big body had landed in a heap and it hurt, a jarring pain that rattled his head and sent meteors swarming around the edge of his vision. That impact should have knocked all the air from his lungs, but even as his chest spasmed the breath was trapped inside his body because -

Mattias had realized, with a feeling that should have been horror but wasn't, that the rope Xialing had looped around his neck had cinched tight as he had fallen. Some clever combination of loops - she was so much smarter than he was that had used the momentum of his fall to cinch from a tie into a strangle.

He'd blinked, dazed. Blackness had started to streak in from where the rope coiled tight round his windpipe, but it had not yet been so thick as to obscure his view of how Xialing had towered over him, so close, right there, glowering down at him, all she had to do was lean a little harder, tug the rope and– 

Her eyes were so dark.

All the world slowed down. Quiet. And then, she had given the rope a gentle tug and then lifted her foot to rest across the very base of Mattias' throat.

Please. Mattias felt the bone-deep plea reverberate through him, desperate. Formless.  

"Were you watching me?"

The noise that croaked out of Mattias was so feeble it could hardly have been called a moan. Seeming inconvenienced, Xialing had loosened the rope at his neck by incremental degrees until Mattias was finally able to draw in a shred of a breath and gasp out

"Sorry. I'm sorry."

"Hmph. Of course you are." 

Xialing's foot had disappeared from his neck, then, and Mattias had felt a loss so deep that he hadn't been able to define it. With a flick of her wrist Xialing had uncoiled the rope from Mattias' body and gathered it back to herself. The oxygen had rushed back to Mattias' brain with enough force that he surely would have staggered if he had been on his feet, but. But he hadn't been. He had been on the floor. Where he belonged. Where she had put – 

Mattias had started to rise. But his mind had been so far removed from his body that he couldn't make it off of his knees. If Mattias would have tried to stand in that moment he would have surely fallen. So he had stayed where he was, fingertips of his hand braced on the mat as he took deep, desperate breaths of air and wished that he couldn't.

"Is there anything else? Or are you just sorry?" Xialing's voice had sounded far away. It had sounded so close. It had sounded like she was everywhere, everything -

Mattias had kept his eyes carefully averted, unspeakably thankful to have been on the ground, still, as he had shaken his head and said "I just w– No. I'm sorry."

She had waved him off, then, but her face had been kindly amused instead of disgusted in the moment before she had turned her back to him once more. And Mattias had -

Mattias had internet access. He had never been particularly frequent in his use of it, but he knew how. The speed of the Ten Rings satellite connection had increased a lot throughout the years. He had access. He could look for… something.

He had been almost unbearably aroused when he had crashed back into his sparse living quarters, breathing hard as his hand fumbled across the screen of the tablet and typed in all the wrong terms. Mattias didn't even know what he wanted, much less how to search for it. Everything that he found at first was so wrong that Mattias almost gave up entirely, but at least it had cooled his blood enough so that he could try to think. 

The way that all his results seemed highly focused on footwear, preoccupied to the point if obsession in a way that struck Mattias as bizarre, prompted him to switch a keyword and then, oh. Once the algorithm caught the hint, Mattias was almost immediately overwhelmed by choice. Heart racing, palm sweating, he flicked through the thumbnail gallery, still unsure. He had clicked on a few. Clicked back just as quickly, face flushed hot. What was he looking for? None of it was– 

In one, the woman, the angle... it was wrong. The vantage should have been... looking up. In another, the woman was too young. The next... it was... how to say... just, wrong. Sometimes the men struggled of purposely disobeyed and Mattias wouldn't, he would never… Wrong. And wrong again. It wasn't even how the women moved. The simpering, growling taunts. It was all of it. And none of it. 

None of them were right.

Xialing could steal his breath with a single glance and not have to move a muscle. It was the heat in her eyes. The calm and confidence in how she held herself. She could look at Mattias from across the room and make him want to fall to his knees because... 

When she had him in her sights, the desperate clamoring in his head only got worse:

(What had he done now? What did he forget? Did he miss something in the briefing? Was it something on his clothes? Why wasn't she looking away... did--

Did she know? But how could she-- did-- did someone tell her? Maybe someone had noticed how he watched her whenever he thought she wasn't looking. He hopes it doesn't show on his face how much he wants to be worthy of the challenge in her eyes. How it felt like a dull blade carving through his chest when she sneered at him.

How could they know he was awed when he first experienced her skill in battle-- and his first, terrible thought was he'd underestimated her.

She'd grown up stronger than Mattias ever could have anticipated. She could have killed Mattias easily, and yet she has not. Somehow she had found enough restraint to let him live and she was....

Incredible.

Terrible.

People could never know that Mattias thought she was beautiful. 

She's still looking, STOP looking; say something, idiot, before she pierces through to the soft, pathetic core of you; don't let her know, she CAN'T know– 

Apologize–

Pick a fight--)

But when Mattias had infringed upon her solitude, had made a nuisance of himself, crossed a line and been put down on the mat with her rope around his windpipe and her foot at his throat everything had stopped. His head had been silent. Mattias had lain helpless as the full bore of her focus narrowed in upon him.

It wasn't that he trusted her not to take his life. He just trusted her to make the right choice. It hadn't been his decision anymore. And that had felt... 

In the aftermath, the absence of that feeling has been so keen Mattias had wanted to weep from it.

It's not that he wanted to die. He didn't. He doesn't.

He just... he wanted... 

He wanted that quiet he found under the oppression of her will. He wanted that peace again. He needed her to look in his eyes with that silent command to recognise his better.

It had been wrenching, when he'd finally had the epiphany that none of the women in those online fantasies would ever be good enough. Because none of them deserved his submission but her. Mattias would have thought his realization too devastating to leave any space in him for desire except for the way that his dick had still been aching, painfully hard.

Mattias had turned over, then, and buried his wet face in the thin wool blanket. He'd barely had enough time to get unzipped and take his cock out before he was stroking roughly at himself, slicking tight circles around the tip until he had come. Shaking. Helpless. A ragged sound had been muffled by the mattress as Mattias had spilled into his own palm at the thought of Xialing allowing him to submit to her.

Afterwards, all that Mattias had wanted to do was sleep. To go somewhere dark and empty where the realization of his futile desires would be forced, at least temporarily, to retreat. Hah. That was as futile a desire as Mattias' inappropriate want for Xialing; pure exhaustion, no matter how desperate, had never allowed Mattias relief from the vivid dreams his brain churned out at every opportunity. It was almost a relief that Mattias had to haul himself off the bed for new cadet drills. He'd need drugs if he really wanted to sleep soundly, but he didn't want -

The screen of Mattias' tablet lit up, and the time at the top had startled him even more than the sudden glow. 

Shit.

He had disappointed Xialing again, and the sneer of disdain that she had shot at him as he hustled across the courtyard a minute late left Mattias cratered to the core. Emotionally extinct. Xialing was the only one that Mattias wanted, but he would never be good enough for her to want him back.

With all the rest of the turmoil in Mattias' head, clearing his search history had never even occurred to him. Now, Mattias had discovered the consequence of that action. And it was far crueller than he ever could have expected.

Chapter Text

"Raze! Buddy!" Jon Jon called out as he swept toward the corner of the courtyard where Mattias had been keeping silent watch for the past hour. "C'mere, I need to talk to you about something."

Jon Jon had a dark drink in one hand, and he sipped from it as he stood up on his tiptoes so that he could sling his free arm over Mattias' shoulders. For a long moment they stood side by side, both of their backs towards the stone wall where the corner of the compound cut into the mountain. There was a pressure across the back of Mattias' neck as Jon Jon tried to force Mattias down to his level, but Mattias easily ignored it.

Torches flickered. People laughed. Music throbbed, not a pounding dance beat but a low almost atmospheric tone that ensured conversational pauses couldn't ripple across the compound and plunge everything into uncomfortable silence. Mattias had to admit, Jon Jon knew how to throw a party. If you were into that kind of thing.

Jon Jon pressed harder and Mattias turned just far enough to look at him questioningly, as if the force of his attempt were nothing more than a feather. Which, it really wasn't for Mattias. He could have slung Jon Jon in a carry and hauled him effortlessly for miles. Mattias wasn't even sure what Jon Jon was trying to attempt, but he resisted on pure principle until Jon Jon finally gave up with a frustrated huff.

"You want me to yell? Fine! I'll yell!" Jon Jon seemed almost to rear back, a snake prepared to strike, before he shouted much too loud to be justified by the throbbing music spilling from the sound system. "What's with the vest, bro?"

Mattias bristled, barely restrained the urge to defend himself, but couldn't manage to resist plucking at the fabric with his fingers. The vest wasn't tactical. It didn't have a single pocket or armor panel. It was… soft. One of the few items of personal clothing that Mattias had, easiest to pull on and off one handed, it wasn't like he needed to look – Why did Jon Jon even care? He had outlined a requirement and Mattias had met it.

"It's not tactical." 

"And yet somehow… it's worse. Off. Take it off. If all you wanna do is stand here making our guests feel uncomfortable then you better at least give them something to look at."

Mattias set his jaw into a hard line as he shrugged out of the vest. Jon Jon could never know how deeply that remark had wounded Mattias or the weakness-seeking missile would never relent. It was best for Mattias to just comply. Do what Jon Jon asked so that the man would have no reason to stay and needle deeper into Mattias' underbelly. An underbelly which was now, quite literally, exposed.

"Alright, better." Jon Jon appraised him blatantly as Mattias, now shirtless, glared back at him. "Now. Remember when I told you that 'you'll have fun'? Yeah, that wasn't a suggestion. So cut the glowery bullshit and –"

All that Mattias had to do was to hold on white-knuckled to his self control long enough to get through this terrible party. He had to make it to the other side in order to see just how long Jon Jon intended to hold Mattias' internet failures over his head. Did search histories…expire? Mattias didn't know but he had to hope, or else Jon Jon would use the blackmail against him forever… oh. Jon Jon was still talking.

"-- they're all well paid! They can go as far or not as they want, nobody's gonna coerce them if that's what you're worried about. Look, this party's a hit! See what a great time everyone is having? You gotta stop glaring daggers, you big dumb buzzkill."

Mattias had, in fact, seen what a great time everyone was having. It would have been impossible to miss. Sure, he felt a bit jealous that guys he had known for years were laughing in the arms of types of people they would never have dared to court under Wenwu's leadership, but that wasn't their fault. It was only because his own harbored longing would remain forever unfulfilled. That was fine, though. That was his own problem. He hadn't meant to glare at anyone, and Jon Jon's claim that he had been doing so made Mattias' guts crawl with guilt.

The only person that Mattias had truly been keeping and eye on was Trevor, but the aging thespian had been installed among a group of theatre-literate ladies who kept him far removed from any of the free flowing alcohol.

Speaking of.

Jon Jon beckoned a large woman with a tray and snatched a glass of something , loose limbed and grinning until the scantily dressed server had passed. Then he snapped back into his shrewd calculation as he swirled the glass at Mattias.

"You want?"

Mattias hesitated just long enough that Jon Jon was able to press the cup into his hand before he could resist.

"Yeah. You want." Jon Jon confirmed, vindicated grin on his smug face as Mattias knocked the drink back in a single go. It was strong, whatever it was. Deceptively smooth. "Listen, you need something harder than that to loosen up you just come find your old pal Jon Jon - it'll stay between us, yeah? No words to the boss lady."

It took everything that Mattias had not to scoff. He didn't believe that for a second. But to call Jon Jon out on it would be to invite the man to linger in his presence even longer when he was finally wandering away and leaving Mattias alone. 

Alone. That was the best possible option for Mattias, really. 

He hated the truth of it, the endless ache, but he'd had enough experience that it was undeniable. Mattias was lucky that he had a life at all. He would never have been so ungrateful as to regret that being a commander with the Ten Rings wasn't the best base for finding lov– long term companionship. That kind of thing should not have mattered to Mattias. He had tried so hard to make it not matter.

Mattias wandered away from his safe spot against the stone wall. People swirled past and spoke to him as he found another drink, and then another. Nothing about it was fun. But Mattias already knew that he was going to give in to Jon Jon's prodding. He just needed enough alcohol to make himself believe the defeated hope that what he was about to do might be better, this time.

The first tims Mattias had sex, he'd been twenty. He had been a fully blooded and branded commander for two years by then, but he'd just– It wasn't like civilians had been allowed at the compound, and Mattias never could have lain with someone when he held rank over them. But even when he'd had leisure time after field assignments he just hadn't… Mattias had thought that he should wait. For the right person, for the right time. But loneliness was a constant dull ache. Eventually when someone looking to make a business deal with the Ten Rings had hired a lady to show Mattias a good time, and he had been weak enough to accept. 

The woman had tried to hide it, but he knew that she was wary of him. Even after Mattias had paid her extra and promised that he didn't mean her any harm, his voice too gruff when he tried to tell her that he only wanted...He had only wanted to know that he could use his body for something other than violence. But saying that out loud would have been a mistake when she was already looking at him with barely concealed disdain.

So instead Mattias had told her that he only wanted a fuck, and it was over quickly enough that hardly mattered anyways. Her breasts were soft against the firm muscles of his chest, the curve of her hip bone hard under his hand. Mattias tried not to think about how he knew the exact amount of force necessary to snap a human pelvis. He tried not to think about anything at all.

Mattias had hidden his face in the soft place between her neck and her shoulder as he rutted helplessly between her legs, silent, whatever little sounds he could have made held back behind ruthlessly clenched teeth. The woman had hardly moved except to wrap her arm around his back and make gentle shushing sounds in his ear as he trembled through the end of it, but she winced when he withdrew. It was a single twitch of pain, a tiny split second of honesty at the end of the awful encounter. It flayed Mattias instantly, to the bone.

The inside of his chest felt open and wet and miserable as he had pulled his tactical gear back on as fast as he could with only one hand. Mattias had fled the city's red light district, stopping only to puke in an alley before he returned to the Ten Rings safehouse. He hadn't been able to look at himself in a mirror for weeks.

After his first terrible experience with sex, Mattias had sworn to himself that he'd never do it again. Not like that. He could wait. Mattias could wait until there was someone who actually wanted him. Someone who wouldn't mind his weaknesses. Someone who wouldn't need to be paid in order to not say no. Wenwu spoke of the love that he had felt for his wife and Mattias hoped... There would have to be someone like that for him, right?

There never had been. But Mattias, well. He kept himself under control through the years but every so often he would slip, cave in when his resolve cracked under the grinding loneliness that was his lot. As hard as he worked to be strong, Mattias just couldn't hold back the clawing need to be touched. Not forever. The thought that he'd only ever be able to exchange money for physical affection made Mattias ill, but it was his only option.

Whenever Mattias had inflicted himself on sex workers, he had only felt worse afterwards. He was too big, too broad. Too rough and quick. So starved for any gentle touch that he inevitably shamed himself with his greediness.

If the first time had nearly broken him, his subsequent sexual encounters had only cemented his realization that he was never going to truly enjoy it. There were things that he wanted to do, that he'd thought about doing, but he couldn't imagine compounding the fact that those women already had to deal with him by asking for. For...whatever. To let him kiss, or try to use his mouth on them, or to hold him after. For things done with lovers, not customers. 

Pleas for closeness that turned to ash in his mouth.

Mattias didn't want to spend time with any of the Company that Jon Jon had invited, not really. It would only have invited more misery in turn. But the temptation was so strong, like acid burning him inside; Mattias knew that it would eat through his walls eventually if he couldn't remove himself from it.

So with only a slight stumble in his step, Mattias made a round along the perimeter of the courtyard. Beyond the torches and colorful party lights his eyes adjusted. Focused on the star-bright sky above as he tried to force the pathetic trembling of his heart to settle back into his chest. 

For a second Mattias thought that the sky was filled with twice as many stars as usual. He was hardly buzzed, definitely not drunk enough that his vision should have been blurring. Mattias wiped at his eyes, which made it better, but the sky still looked wrong until he remembered. Increased automated defense, geosynchronous monitoring satellites, tactical drones and high altitude armament platforms that could incinerate any attacking force before they even sighted the Ten Rings stronghold.

It wasn't just extra security for the party. It was all the time now. Mattias tried not to think about it. Because it wasn't his department, bro - as Jon Jon had so helpfully informed him - but also because Mattias worried deeply about his men and himself being rendered obsolete. There was nothing he could do if Xialing wanted to take the Ten Rings in a new direction. It wasn't his place to...

Mattias could hear the sounds of people fucking in the darkened alcoves along the perimeter wall. Soft slaps of flesh, gasps and giggles and moans. Noises that Mattias knew were sex even if his own sad fumbling had never sounded that way. In his peripheral vision, Mattias couldn't help but catch glimpses of limbs wrapped around bodies only partially obscured by shadow, and he just wished– he just walked past, gave them all a wide berth as he made his way back from the distant fringes to just beyond the edge of the party. 

Just as Mattias had been about to cross back into the sea of noise, a sharp whistle snapped him to attention. He turned to find the source, narrowed in on a figure, leaned against the stone wall with a hand raised in greeting and a voice called out

"Hey. I'm looking for someone. Can you help me?" They spoke to him in English, accented with something that was close to but not quite French, pitched low but loud enough to carry easily to Mattias' ears.

Mattias' ears, which he felt go red and hot in an instant as they crooked one finger to draw him closer to where they leaned so casual against the stone wall.

The person who had beckoned Mattias over was… Mattias couldn't tell if they were a… what type of person they were. He only knew that they had to be a guest since he had never seen them before, even if they didn't look quite like any of the other Company that Jon Jon had brought. Leather jacket, plain white shirt underneath, hair buzzed short but not shaved. They were shorter than he was, definitely older, but through the dark he could see their angular face, dark eyes and long eyelashes, and they were so good looking that Mattias had to swallow hard before he approached.

But before he could ask what they needed, his eyes were helplessly drawn to a small bag on the ground next to their boots. It was unzipped. Opened just wide enough to reveal a bright white coil of rope that stole Mattias' breath without ever having touched his neck. Mattias tore his gaze away, sure that his guilt was plainly written on his face, but then he met their eyes and – 

Oh. 

Oh.

Mattias was weak.

Chapter Text

This one couldn't be trusted to communicate, not in any healthy way. Coda might have been able to work him up to honesty, given enough series of sessions over a long enough period of time. Might have been able to get a name out of him, maybe. But trying to force him to admit what he really wanted in one night would have done more harm than good. Especially since Coda didn't need this guy to say anything - they could already tell just how badly he needed it 

Coda hadn't made it from the Saint-Michel housing blocks to tying up international criminals in a Chinese mountain fortress by being bad at their job, after all.

Men like this weren't half as strange as they thought they were. Whether they wanted to be strange or not varied, but - by the way this one's neck reddened when they took his hand - Coda had known that he was deep on the 'needlessly ashamed' end of things. He listened well, at least. It was a matter of routine to get the guy naked and on his knees, blindfold secured over his eyes, waiting tight with anticipation as Coda uncoiled their rope.

It wasn't the first time they had tied someone with a limb difference, and the termination point of his right arm was low enough that they could do a basic bent strappado tie with his elbows behind his back. The guy's huge chest would have looked good in something more complicated but Coda shook their head silently at themselves to dispel the possibilities. Despite the painfully eager look when he had spotted the rope, he was obviously a beginner. Best to keep it simple 

Coda kept their motions slow and predictable as they led his left arm back and ordered him to keep it in place. Then they reached for the wide metal cuff where his right arm ended, gently tapped it to telegraph their plan to move that arm next, and–

Something had gone wrong there. 

Coda stopped and stood back as the guy's whole body wrenched tight with some unknown emotion. They shrugged out of their leather jacket as they reassessed. It wasn't physical pain, but it curled his wide shoulders tight and quickened his breathing and drained the blood from what they could see of his face. He kept his left arm exactly where Coda had put it, though. And that was…

"Please don't be afraid . I won't use it, I promise." 

His voice was so hurt and hollow that Coda could only blink at the shivering slope of his back for a long moment. Oh. Poor sweet man. 

"Shh, I know you won't. You're gonna be a good boy for me, hein?"

'And that', Coda thought as the man whimpered in response, 'is why I get paid the big bucks.'

After Coda had restrained his arms they just stood for a while with their small hand on his collarbone, enjoying the way his breath evened from nervous huffs to steady draws as he slipped out of his own head. It took a while, long enough that Coda had gone through the shopping list in their head and realized that they couldn't remember what day they were supposed to take their cat to the vet next week, before they judged him ready to continue.

Coda avoided the large brand between his shoulders. They didn't want to trigger any of the surely mountainous pile of baggage that must have lurked behind that level of "workplace devotion", not when there was only one evening in which to put him back together again. Instead they focused on simple, patient, overwhelmingly surrounding contact. Coda kept their touch strictly nonsexual to begin with but they found soon enough that it hardly mattered. His big body was delightfully sensitive, all flushed skin and squirming shame as he shuddered at the relief of skin hunger being sated. At the sensory deprivation of the blindfold and the restraint of the ropes that made it so simple to give in, to give it up, to let it go.

To try to let go, anyway. Coda could tell that this guy kept running up against something, some block in his head that kept him from tipping over into actual catharsis. He kept forgetting that the ropes were there, pulling against them as he tried to curl in on himself. To make himself small. The cringe of his body as he tried to apologize without words, though Coda had neither ordered silence nor scolded him at all for his soft reactions.

Coda couldn't tell if someone had treated him badly or simply hadn't treated him all; repression was a hell of a drug. People weren't things to be used or fixed - no matter how easily they were sometimes broken - but Coda was confident in their abilities. They could give this guy at least some measure of release.

It was tempting to slide a couple of wet fingers into his ass, extremely tempting, but Coda figured that would shove him over the edge too suddenly. Not what they were going for with this one. No, he would just have to figure out what a prostate was at some later date. 

Coda knelt softly before him. They got comfortable in front of where they had taken the huge, healthy animal of his body and bent it to their will. He trembled, helpless, choked with shame as they guided him to rest his face against their shoulder. It seemed like he should have been sobbing with the way his chest had heaved but the only sounds he had made were muffled little mewls as the tears soaked through the blindfold and wet the plain white fabric of Coda's shirt. They made soft calming noises as whatever he was holding inside ripped out of him. They told him that it was okay. They told him that he was good.

And then they just held him.