Archive of Our Own ^beta

"Don't get close to the glass, and be careful. If he smells your fear, he'll eat you alive."

Through the interrogation room's two-way glass, he watches Augustine pull the same song and dance Spider did when they first tossed his ass in there. When one of Sully's ilk was off sporting the purple-red outline of Jake's RDA sanctioned boot stomped into his chest months ago. The fear of a bigger God slammed into their pounding, hummingbird hearts he could see fluttering in their jugulars. The smallest one whimpering, cowering, pressing out a teeny tiny, "daddy," while the human kid, their tiger with the wrong set of stripes—

Oh, he had gaped behind the glass of that mask, not at his big blue daddy kneeling down in the grass, no, no— at him. At Jake, stood right over the colonel's shoulder, Jake's name dripping from those pretty pink lips. Like prayer, like a haunting. Everything he ever wanted to hear since getting in that link bed and blinking awake.

He'd curled his knuckles tight around the handguard of his rifle at that, teeth catching his bottom lip as a tingle shot straight to his groin when dark eyes held steady with his. Burning with the colonel's kind of fire, it was like staring fate right in the face, the same way Sully must've been about to shit his pants coming nose to nose with that thanator he yapped about on those old videologs— it was like that, only this was euphoric.

Cargos about to get a whole hell of a lot tighter if his dick had anything to say about it. Because that was the colonel's flesh and blood, and anything that belonged to the colonel, his gun, his soldiers, his spit, his cum, his knife, even living breathing taut tan flesh, he wanted to snap it up whole in his teeth. He wanted to gulp him down, show him a good time so they'll be one more reason for the colonel to thread his fingers through his hair; tell him he's exactly where he belongs, that he's a damn good boy, an even better soldier; carrying his son home in his jaws for him as a consolation prize on their wild duck hunt.

Luke or some shit, yeah, he must've smelt it, not that it was any of his goddamn business what turned a guy on, that was grown-up shit. But he acted an idiot anyway, he'd been the one to take the brunt of Jake's rage when the blue pipsqueak hissed, lunged at him, breaking out of Warren's hold. And Sully must've been a shitty father if the kid was willing to attack a copy of him like a jumped up cat on crack. Just snap, like that, not even a bit of hesitation, not awash with shock like the others. Jesus, talk about Daddy Issues.

(And he thinks he was spot fucking on, instincts and all, honestly— he never misses with that crap. Because Sully got his oldest son deader than dead, and nearly got the rest killed on top of it, not to mention he let them get away with one of his daughters. What a self-righteous prick thinking he's as noble as goddamn Theseus, coming to slay the wicked beasts with his battle axe gleaming gold in the firelight. Everyone for a mile around could see Toruk Makto, he's just a disloyal cunt getting too old for this shit, letting all the blues down over and over again.)

It'd been hard to differentiate names from the chatter of Na'vi at the time, the bits of English thrown along their accents, but he figures the way those kids said it when the colonel pulled out his knife, well, that's gotta mean something, doesn't it? And yeah, Spider told him every name in the aftermath, in the weeks to come, those first few days.

He said them with those tears sparkling in his blown eyes, diamonds against night skies, red rimmed and puffy, but he thinks Lo'ak is a stupid name for an even stupider kid— so, he's not gonna use it. Besides, there's something about the way Spider always pinches his brow when Jake gets each one of them wrong, the way he squirms, bites his tongue, shifts his hips, and chokes it down.

'Cause he's a good boy, born and bred to be the best.

Not like those brats he knows are running loose, crying to Mommy and Daddy with their tails tucked between their legs. What he wouldn't give to have seen it through, bruised ribs weren't enough for the pain in the ass that would come slamming their doors down later, sinking the whole fucking ship with that big fucking whale. It wasn't enough, not for him, not for the way his vision tossed red at that scrawny reflection molded into a shape to match Sully's bitch wife in all those pictures, the green tinged images of her ripping through troops, through the colonel, smacking a perfect blend of Tommy's avatar in those eyes, those brows, that scrunched up nose.

And lo and fucking behold, Luke wasn't the only one to be some sort of carbon copy, Augustine had stood right there looking way too much like the original doctor in Wainfleet's grip. That dumb look on her face, the sort of one she got when she was shit out of luck, right before she'd crumple into those stinging bitch fits, making her fuck-ups everybody else's issue. Screaming the lab down, hounding on Parker's ass, on the colonel's, any schmuck who got in her Highness's way, hell even Spellman anytime he tripped over his two left feet.

He half expected Augustine to pull out a cigarette from that skimpy top while they held them all there, waiting for evac to get their slow asses out to the rendezvous, the forest awash in a smatter of rain, the pulsing glow of eclipse. Or at least she should've stunk like smoke, but no, when he was the one to watch Lopez' flank, standing beside Augustine, she smelt like rain, earth, freshly cut bark and ozone. A bit of charred wood, which conveniently matched the scents smeared all over Spider when Jake scooped him up off the forest floor, when Daddy came swooping in after, lifting him out of his arms like Minos grabbing up Ariadne, and he felt like quite the bull, aching, hollow, snorting out each breath.

Chainlink tattoo itching with each splatter of rain down his face hot as blood. He watched them go; watched his colonel toss that boy over his shoulder without glancing back. Because he knew his corporal would always follow. (He knew, when Quaritch said they were nothing to each other, he was always fucking lying.)

Still, crammed in the Kestrel, it didn't take a genius to connect the dots, that Spider and Augustine smelt like each other, the way dogs do when they roll around in the filthy fucking dirt, play fighting, nipping. And he's asked it more than once, but he's pretty sure Spider's lied to him every time since, about fooling around with her before they saved his ass from dying a miserable death in that jungle.

Of course, she's a lot more animal about being thrown in a cage, ears set back, teeth parted in a fanged hiss that no matter how hard Spider tries with his kitten-esque parodies— he's never gonna master it, and unlike their boy, she's raising a heel to kick at the glass. She only smacks the barrier between them. She goes fucking nowhere. Hell, she knows it. Shoulder first, she throws herself at it next, then scrapes to her feet only to do it again, her fingers scrabbling at her red rung bird-throat, gunmetal collar with its teeth dug hungry into her flesh.

It suits her. The RDA lettering stamped in white powder coating on the side.

It doesn't budge. Her brand spanking new metal coffin doesn't give. This world isn't hers to command within even an ounce of control, no more vines, no more anemones, no more crackling fingertips and glowing eyes and hot fire blazing, stabbing through any of their brains. She's useless like she was meant to be.

Her nose bleeds, her eyes roll.

There's an Atmos mask and airmix pack they chucked in there with her that she barely touches.

His body thrums in time with the heave of her shoulders, the wild look of her hair, those slut strand braids half undone after the SciOps had their fill.

They had him hold Augustine down when he wrestled her into the lab, his fingers gouging hooks into her collarbones, thumbs dug into the squirming of her shoulders. As she screamed, bloodied fingers no longer reaching, not searching for another mind to rape. She was beat, finished, even witches have their limits and she'd stretched hers very, very thin.

Thin enough the moon wasn't rallying to come save her, no it turned its back like a too familiar traitor. It didn't seem to give half a shit when he dragged her kicking and thrashing through the corridors, when he had his Atmos mask on and she had jackshit, and the air took its toll about twenty minutes into her heaving, screaming Spider's name. She failed, she fucked up, it's like that whole Eywa thing knew— and now they've got another one up on Sully.

Some dead kid, Spider still theirs (thank fuck, thank God, he would rip up the moon with his bare teeth before letting what almost happened happen. A stitched up cut across Spider's delicate chest as an ugly reminder of a bitch wife's knife), and Augustine's freaky recombinant in the RDA's hands with her ticking time bomb disposition, raw power out the ass; each a new notch in the belt cinching tighter around Sully's neck.

He'd leaned down, lips brushing the edge of her ear. He shushed her the way he imagined Sully had a thousand times before, the way Dad used to decades (years, months) away now, the way the colonel does to Spider, to him, to—

"Shh, hey, hey. It's alright, babygirl." His breath fanned out against her face. "The doc's gonna take care of you now, you had a nasty fall, remember?"

And fall she did, twice. Once, when he caught her the first time. Again when she wouldn't sit the fuck still on the final flight back to Bridgehead, biting at him, getting her perverted fingers on his skin, in his head even with her wrists cuffed. If he didn't know any better he'd say she liked what she saw, going for round two all eager, all panting, her eyes blown, hair crusted with blood, wild the way Spider's gets. Her tail all curled up right against her scraped up back, trembling as he kept a bruising grip on her kuru, her waist, like she wanted it, wanted everything he's got to give.

Just like another little pain in the ass who tried getting away until he was nestled back in Jake's lap. She didn't sit as still as Spider did. It only pissed him off.

So, he shoved her off, unceremoniously, without warning. Relishing her hiss turned into a scream before he dove right after her, pressed tight to Alex's back. Vision doubled, his toes flexed in time with Alex's talons as his banshee snatched her up by an arm, a leg. He figured if Alex carried her, he wouldn't be as affected. And at first Alex dipped, thrown off kilter by her hands grasping at Alex's leathery heels nonetheless, stabbing through him in a dozen mini lobotomies up through their queues. Back to back, numb, fucked out sort of screwed up feeling, but the bad kind, the kind he hated, that made him slump, list, the colonel barking through the comms loud enough to snap him out of it.

He pushed through the bond, claws gripped into Alex's nervous system until he dug their combined talons in like meat hooks, until all Augustine could do was squirm, thrash, her freckles lit up in a fireworks display that twinkled harmlessly down below. Her curses spat out loud, in his head, through Alex's rapid fire thoughts, pinprick hellfire wasp stings that drove him and Alex to gouge harder. The banshee huffed through his spiracles, he huffed air from his lungs, and together they headed on faster to catch up to the colonel.

His nose bloodied by her slimy hands.

Too bad she wasn't prepared for what she'd find.

Too bad Sully's witch of a brat didn't understand that his mind was a lot like that old proposal for getting rid of nuclear waste, with the spikes, and the message, and the never burying things deep enough—

Because if she's a witch, he's the pyre that the preacher burns to chase out the Devil, and the colonel? Well, he's God— that big Daddy in the great blue sky come down to Pandora, like kings who commission prisons, whose wives fuck bulls when they piss off the neighboring deity, who's sons eat the virginal and the pure to stay alive in their starry homes, to grow strong enough to beat the men with golden blades who would come to take it (the little sorcereresses who guide them with their red thread, glittering diamonds and ruby succubus lips). The colonel trained him to take a punch to the frontal lobe, those fucking scientists did a whole hell of a lot more than that with their needles, their tests, their pharmacology trial runs to build him back better.

He knows how to burn the sin out of a sinner. He knows how to redeem the unholiest sons of bitches, the nastiest, neediest of whores, because he was one of them, choking down each lesson with a grin, learning from the best. The Colonel fucking fixed him right up, set him straight.

So, he'd dropped his guard as he stood there facing them on the upturned hull of that ship in the heat of the skirmish. He let her in, let her have it. He let her leave him convulsing on the sinking salt slick sarcophagus, and she let him roll right into the water face down as the world caved, crashed, and fractured into a bursting kaleidoscope— letting her think she'd finished him. Her snarling, "monster." The voice of an angel screaming, "don't, don't, stop— stop, Kiri! Please, fuck— you'll kill him!" right alongside her.

His heart fluttered at how gut wrenching his babyboy could belt it out.

Listening, waiting, his spine tingled the way elbows slammed against tabletops do, because she'd dragged that old shit up like it would get her anywhere.

And he heard the thunder of their feet echo, the hull groaned as they ran together. He rose from the water dripping, snarling, clawing back up to that perch where Augustine had been, where his blood splashed across his lips, down his chin, teeth now parted with the reddest damn grin. Alex swooped in with quiet clicks, barely a scrape of his claws as he alighted on the hull beside him. Jake swung up in the saddle. He clicked into his banshee's brain. They were several pairs of golden eyes locked on to their targets then.

Chasing infrared splashes against the cold clutch of the sea, the hot lick of flame pillars. A beautiful frame, Spider outlined against Augustine's alien heat, all of it threatening to smear him out completely.

Alex dove, Jake pressed tight to his back, they slipped under the water echoing the quiet scream of waves all around them. No more battle strap of a rifle to generate drag, only a knife in a hilt on his thigh he doesn't need to draw. Alex cracked open his jaws, wings flapped, Jake's shoulders flexed, braced for the weight of the water ceiling as they broke the surface tension. Their eyes locked onto the bright blobs paddling frantically in the dark belly of the ocean just ahead of them.

Catching them—

It was a breeze, a blur.

It was how he remembers most things these days, in snippets strung on loose strings. All switchback, fraying reds tangled up in some maze turned labyrinth. No more keeping a hand on the wall to find the center bullshit. No, it was a trap set like the smash of banshee jaws through Augustine's shoulder. Alex holding on too tight for too long. Augustine screeching and slapping a hand on Alex's neck, kitty claws gouging, eyes glazed with pain, that cut on her neck the colonel gifted her oozing out as well— Jake reached down as Alex's wings beat the opposite direction. He snagged Spider by back of his life vest before he could get away.

They rose in the air, Alex's belly licked by fire reaching up like fingers. Boiling, the ocean sloughed off, steamed off as they shot forward through the cover of eclipse. Sweeping over burning, twisted wreckage, that tulkun with the last Sully son clinging to its starry back. Gaping up at them and then shouting, screaming, reaching fruitlessly— Spider yelling back. Jake tugs Spider all the way up into the saddle with a grunt, lips curled in a snarl as he wraps an arm around that heaving little chest, squeezing him tight to his body; scorching and solid. Safe— he's got him, he's always got him. They stick together; always. They have to.

A croaking yelp flees Spider when Jake tightens his hold further, other hand gouging into Alex's queue in turn, a prickly signal the banshee takes in stride.

Warmth swirls between them at the weight of their boy swapped between their brains, man and beast and their Little Red Riding Hood with her little red life vest, the blood slicking down the valley of a sternum he's brushed his lips down countless times, heartbeat thudding against the back of each breast bone. Canary fluttering in the coal miner's cage, he would give anything to miraculously transport back to Bridgehead.

Snap of fingers, Dorothy's heels tapped together three times, chanting there's no place like home, there's no place like home, there's no place like home— and when he feels one of Spider's hands grip his knee through his cargos, the other hooked into the meat of his forearm, he knows they're both thinking the exact same thing.

Maybe his is a bit more drenched in red, he's fine with that, it always is. A cheery cherry kind that matches the ampules Eden loads in her auto injectors with snaps that remind him of loading up vintage PEZ dispensers with shitty, mint candy when he fucked around with them at the children's museum both too few and far too many years ago.

He's never been one for consistency. Never been one for past, present or future, blending them all at once in his head, in the colonel's eyes, with his teeth grazing the edge of Spider's ear, mouth big enough to sink his fangs right into the side of Spider's head if he wanted to. Diagrams of sabertooth tigers doing the exact same thing back on Earth.

There's a dozen names on his breath when he's edged, on his tongue when he hunts, dripping mercury, snorting out smoke, pale and blue and crimson eyed with gold rings around the edges— he's probably just fucking crazy, but he has to believe Spider quieting down, going still, leaning back into him and sliding that hand from his knee up to the inside of his thigh as they fly further and further from the epicenter of that Sully shitstorm, towards the distant lights of the harbor, stars blinking atop the marine walls the way that green light on Daisy's dock taunted Gatsby.

He has to believe that's love. That's home. Only they're missing the vertex to their perfect triangle. He glances back over his shoulder. (He knows he did, does, every time they get separated, looking towards home, towards Him). No fingers reach up to press at the buttons on his comm. It has to be worth it. It has to be—

He's right back in it. Part of him in the observation room staring at Augustine through the non-existent bars of her cage, present, barely grounded, the up and down jostle of a fast flight sweeps through him like the bob of waves. Part of him, larger, hungrier, pissed off, is still flying over that sea, Spider practically in his lap, Augustine destined to bounce across reef rocks below, to collect cuts as she ragdolls and scrabbles like a useless animal. Before that, trapped in Alex's jaws the same way she's trapped under the general's mechanical thumb inside this interrogation room, this graffitied and dirtied holding cell.

It's one little trip to Bridgehead, an intermission in between, this is how it goes;

Alex clicks, twitching to turn around, to circle back towards the SeaDragon, visions of the colonel bruised, bloodied, dead with a yellow fletched arrow stuck out of his chest flicker between them. Shit, shit, shit, no— Mo'at'ite, indestructible demon bitch that she is, future widow if he has anything to say about it, she went down that hatch after her smallest cub. She's not a threat. Right now, it's one on one, mano-a-mano, Colonel versus the Corporal who ran off to the jungle for some blue cooch, some hoity toity savior complex manifest destiny. It'll be that videolog from the AMP suit all over again, where Miles Quaritch V.1 wiped Sully's ass with the fucking ground.

His colonel's a goddamn cat with eight more tickets outta hell.

Still, Alex huffs around Augustine who's gone limp in his mouth. Jake smoothes a thumb against the antenna of the banshee's queue to soothe him, doing the same against Spider's shoulder.

Press on, he orders through the bond, squeezing Spider that much tighter, enough that he feels the kid draw in a choked breath. Slick skin against skin loads the thought of sex in a bullet and fires it across his brain. He'll follow. He'll come.

Come, shit— he smirks, Alex chortles in turn, Spider tenses up further, wound up Jack-in-the-Box tight. Nimble fingers brushing dangerously close to where Jake's dick would be if this was in a very different setting and not a couple meters over the ocean booking it like a bat out of hell.

But he thinks he remembers it well enough now, all of it reeling across his eyes with the click-click of the ancient film reel, churning faster, brighter, clearer. Augustine's eyes meet his from across the barrier of the two way glass separating her from them. From Spider, from the sorry sonuvabitch technician sweating under the general's silhouette looming right behind his chair, and yet Augustine's looking right at him, gold to gold, or rather amber to amber.

She's looking at Jake like the mirror's not even there, like she's still crawling around in his skull. Watching the projector play out. Her fate, how she wound up here, rewind, playback, rewind again, the salty spray tickles his nose even in the sterile environment of this room. Even with the Atmos mask pushed up to his face every once in a while. He keeps his hands on Spider's skin, smoothing circles with his thumbs until there's no difference between now and a few hours ago above the Eastern Sea.

She's trying to get in his skull, play around some more, make him bleed, make him sing, and he wants her to. He's never felt this alive after a molestation, her clever nails raking lines through scabs in his grey matter he forgot about. His blood crusted on his lips, his chin, fingertips numb as his eartips, hell he thinks half his face might've gone slack there for a bit after she finger blasted his brain— but it's fixed now. He's thrumming with the aftershocks, crackling with the power she pushed through his veins, best damn orgasm of his life, if he's being totally honest. The loudest he's ever screamed, eyes rolled back and legs shaking, the world ripped apart and smashing together with cruel ecstacy plus a billion memories.

Naughty fucking thing.

She's trying to get back in his head, even with the collar, even with the glass, even with the distance between them. She places her hands flat on the glass, nose pressed against the barrier, eyes locked with his. Teeth bared.

He smiles back.

He knows, he knows, he likes to think she can see it when he lets himself slip back in… how it all went down, like this;

Let up. Bank south.

Alex shakes his head, a minute thing that tugs at Jake's gums, blood washing across their tongue. He presses harder, shoving through his banshee's doubled rage, the ache lancing up the animal's neck, down his wingtips, through his spiracles. He'll kill Augustine at this rate, not that he fucking blames Alex, but he needs her in one damn piece.

He sets his jaw, grips his fingers into Alex's nervous system and forces him to let Augustine slip from between those needle teeth as they pass over some reef rocks. Alex flashes his gums, eyes rolling, Spider shouts, kicks, hisses at him, at the banshee, at anything and everything, all piss and vinegar oily. Thrashing against the arm around his middle like he wants to join his girlfriend down there slamming into the rocks from a height that would shatter his very human skeleton.

She wants to be Na'vi so bad, then she can fucking take it.

But he's not letting Spider think he's one of them.

Alex lands roughly, claws struggling to find a grip on the slick rocks.

"Easy boy."

Hopping off his mount, hands wrapped around Spider's middle, it's supposed to go a certain way: Spider's supposed to hang there like a good kitty in its mommy's teeth, scruffed and safe. But no, not this time, not with all these dangerous new ideas planted in his head. The kind that leave Spider wriggling out of his fingers, smacking his knees as he falls, crumples, thud-cracks loud enough to make Jake wince— reach for him, because he can smell the fresh blood, the flavor clashing with Augustine's, the older stuff already coagulating on Spider's chest.

He doesn't want him to get hurt. His boy doesn't usually do this. Spider shouldn't be tripping over himself to get to Augustine. She shouldn't be reaching for him, he shouldn't be reaching back, crashing to his bloodied knees again, not caring when those shins rip open this time, gripping her tighter then he's ever gripped anyone.

Jake smooths a hand down Alex's neck, nails catching in the holes ripped in the banshee's battle gear. Red gnaws at his brain stem, something curdles low in his stomach and Alex echoes it with a grumble, eyes locked onto Augustine with a quivering urge to lunge. He breaks the bond before Alex gives in, tapping him once under his chin, ordering him to stay. Alex does, wings shuffling, neck pulled back. Snorting to echo every loud rasp of Spider's mask just yards away.

At least someone knows how to follow orders around here. They'll have to put some elbow grease into working Spider back to baseline. All this stress, this exposure to a thousand new threats, it's thrown him off, made him confused; he gets that, he understands it all a little too well. How dangerous that is, the kind of world-ending, apocalyptic shitstorm that can lead to if he takes one wrong turn. Catastrophic failures that get good men and good women killed. That get brothers dead, stolen, picked over like carrion. Worn like new suits and there aren't exactly any do-overs for that, not even for the likes of him brought back big and blue and with a bone to pick— a vendetta, a mission, a better soldier in every way— but there's even less of some potshot at a second chance for Spider.

No, if he fucks up, it's for life. And that's on Jake. That's why he's got to grit his teeth and get through this, get Spider back to Bridgehead before he does something he can't reach out and snatch him back from.

And he knows Spider doesn't want that, he knows. None of them do. It's just that right now, it's hard to see the forest for the trees— blue hands gripping tan skin, and they're not his, and they're certainly not the colonel's. Fuck. Shit…

His tail lashes as he watches them with a hand at his belt, the other resting on the strap of his tac vest. Augustine's practically curled up on her stomach, a trail of blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, fingers gripped tight in Spider's hand. Her shoulders heave. Her tail stays limp against the back of her thighs.

This far out, the star freckles sparkling on his skin are the brightest celestial objects, followed by the cartridge light on Spider's exopack, and finally Augustine's freckles sputtering out as she rolls on her back, coughs, groans. The flames lick at the sky in the distance, the ship all but sunk below the waterline; they're nothing out here. Only flickers against the backdrop of actual stars blotted out by a smokescreen haze.

It glows on the horizon, an artificial sun sliced along its throat, gold spilled out to slither across the sea. Dancing, screeching, groaning, like any other bombed out wreckage worlds away. His ears flick back when a submerged fuel compartment splits, gives and explodes with a shudder. The lights flare, a plume chases up into the sky, before dying down again. The world rings silent, hollow.

He snaps his head back around, a glow arcs across Spider's mask as he meets Jake's eyes. As he stares up at him with a trembling lip, moisture gathered heavy on those bottom lashes. Prettier than ever when he blinks, and blinks, and blinks a little more. When his face crumples. If he could, he'd rush over, cup Spider's chin in his palm, brush his thumb through those tear tracks. Press a kiss to the top of his golden crown, the wild braids, tell him Daddy will be alright— 'cause he is, he always fucking is. Don't worry, baby.

But he can't. Not with her there.

Not with his vision doubling, his head stuffed with the sort of awful high from getting crossfaded on too many designer drugs. With her bold declaration, monster, monster, monster ringing like the thump of his own heartbeat only mightier against the shell of his skull. Skin crawling. He doesn't have his pistol, nor his rifle, but if she tries to sink her claws in Spider's mind he's got a couple of knives with her name scrawled on them. She's no Neo from The Matrix, he's pretty sure metal is out of her jurisdiction unless there's some plants around she can fuck with.

Right now, he has to admit the only thing keeping Spider from running off is that the kid can't carry her. (He has to admit how much that makes him want to sink his teeth into her throat until his canines click. How much he wants to rip Spider's mask off and let her blood slip down Spider's esophagus, massage the outside of that jugular until Spider swallows the last of her down. He can give him everything he wants. He can make sure she never leaves him if that's what he needs. Her blood splashed between them even if it'll be acrid and tasteless. Her blood nestled in the pit of his stomach, forever.)

Right now, Augustine's half glazed glare shot his way warring with those dewey eyes of Spider's, it's all for show. Because they both know what Augustine saw when she went sniffing where she didn't belong. She can't deny that anymore than he can.

That Spider's a lot of things, but being a hero— shit, now that just isn't one of them. It's not in him. Fighter like his daddy, sure. Spitfire like the reverence spinning off the colonel's tongue about his late baby mama, hell yes.

But a savior, the kind of Alexander the Great who grew up on the battlefield, who refused to drink even a drop of water if there wasn't enough to go around, who charged forward on the front lines with no quarter; fuck no. No, Spider was a whole hell of a lot better at being on his back, kicking, clawing, and spitting at sixteen. In the service of men, not leading them; not Macedonia's undefeated king, not Pandora's chosen godboy, not even Daddy's little soldier. Not when he was this needy, greedy wonderful fucking thing, who wilted in the ugly faces of war— crying hard enough about a few burnt huts that he'd realized just how fragile Spider was when they got back to the ship after that first village.

When the colonel held Jake back by the elbow, shook his head, let Spider have his space curled up in a ball in the corner of the cabin, rocking with his face half hidden the way he'd been in that interrogation room so many months ago. How they came back from the helm, the mess hall, only to find Spider on one of the bunks, back to them, knees tucked up to his chest.

The colonel nodded, angled his head, ears flicked back a second. Jaw set.

And he'd done his best to follow those orders, duck into the cramped space, smooth a hand down Spider's arm, cup his shaking fingers in his. Clammy, cold with sweat. Taking care of the colonel's son 'cause he could fit in that space better, 'cause he was smaller, 'cause sometimes the last thing a son wants is his daddy. (Of course, he'll always need him, he'll tumble into his arms the moment he's done hiding in Jake's. That's how it works when they can't share him perfectly.)

So, he pressed in close, chest to back, chin hooked over Spider's shoulder, nosing at his neck, lips ghosting praise along goosebumps that pimpled on his throat. Spider's torso curved into each touch, hips wiggling the other way, breath hitched, eyes screwed shut, it was a scalding reminder— a slap to the face, a heart beat rabbit fast against his palm as he flattened it over Spider's chest, kept the squirmy kid from banging himself into the metal wall, or worse falling off the bed. His own heart panged at all those red, tender marks Spider sported from the hot ash, the flying embers, stinking like a cookout gone charbroil, hair brittle, frizzy from the heat.

All of it reminded him of how much Spider couldn't be built for more than the dip of a mattress, the hot guide of pleasure as true north on a compass, a big strong body curled around him at all times; two bodies in the best case scenarios, not this nightmare of a ship fast-built for packing humans in tighter than sardines. Spider was built for a nose pressed into the crown of his itty bitty head, an arm wrapped around his chest, tucking him in so close he might graft right into the cyanin of his skin. And that's fine; some boys never grow out of needing that. Some stay little forever, loved forever, soft and perfect and never wanting, never worried about all the wicked shit that would eat them alive.

The strong prey on the weak. He understands that better than anyone, what they'll do if given even half the chance to sink their claws in, and Augustine, hell, she knows it too.

Last thing he's gonna do is let her.

It takes serious restraint not to do more than grab Augustine by the queue, wrenching her up until she gurgles, writhes.

"Wait—"

He ignores Spider, wrapping Augustine's braid around his hand until she reaches up to grab at him with fumbling, slick fingers. Shaky, scraped, bruised, pathetic. Her back's weeping jagged lines of red, because the animals might love her, but reef rocks are cruel, impassive and don't give a fuck about stupid little girl gods.

He cuffs her. Hands digging into her arms longer than they have to, but the way she squirms chases something through his frame. Tail curling tight and high, he sees Spider move in his peripheral.

Spider hits him, fists glancing off his hip, his lower back, and Jake huffs as he scoots him back with the side of his leg.

"Get off her, you rapist freak—" Spider spits.

"Damn, kid." Jake whistles, shoving Augustine down to her knees, grip on her queue firm as ever. Practically having to hold her up by the damn thing when she lists forward, and really that's not on him. "Look who finally expanded his vocabulary."

He grins even as his blood boils. Spider clenches those puny fists at his side. The kid looks about ready to tackle him. Like it'll do a damn thing. Like this isn't for his own fucking good because—

"You know, you should be telling her that crap. She scraped through my mind like she was fast forwarding porno vlogs," Jake bites, satisfied when Spider's face slacks. Pinches. Eyes darting to Augustine who offers a limp protest a shake of her head. Darling doesn't even know who the dirty one truly is.

"You're gonna act like I'm the freak here?" Jake laughs, fingers pressed to his chest, twisting Augustine's queue at the same time. "Hell, I'm pretty sure she lingered on a snapshot of your dick like six separate times."

If he looks hard enough, he knows he'll see his grin reflected in Spider's mask. Wide, hungry, flashing a careful warning. Not even Augustine dares to grip at his wrists anymore, her prickly nails no longer scratch him, her mind games all dried up without that viper touch. She hangs limp, cuffed hands in her lap.

And fuck, it's only standing there, the sinking ship sputtering its last death throes in the distance, Spider in front of him with that heaving frame, Sully's precious girl at his feet that it really goddamn hits. He's so horny that his stomach cramps. Rats chewing right through his middle. Bowl placed over them, flame placed over it, burning hotter, hotter, and the only way out for those rodents is through. They'll burn alive, so they'll burrow through flesh, tight, wet viscera, shit— he'd do the same, he'd…

He wets his lips, gut crunching, red dancing at the edges of the world. Jolt from somewhere inside his cunt to the base of his throat.

Lips curled, he lets Augustine's queue go, grabs her shoulder, and tosses her in Spider's direction. Alex looms behind them, claws scraping the rocks, ensuring they won't get away with his teeth bared, his wings turned into barricades. They crouch together in the banshee's shadow, wet eyes cast up Jake's way, his dick's never twitched quite that hard, even tucked up inside him the way it is. Desperately looking to worm its way out like a dog's red rocket.

"Keep an eye on her, tiger." He places a hand on the hilt of his knife, smiling the way thanators show their teeth. "You try anything and I will rip her apart and fuck each piece right in front of you."

Spider looks down. Whispering a yessir so small it's snatched by the waves. Augustine shakes. Whether in rage, or fear, or whatever juice she has left in her— it won't matter in the long run.

"I've got 'em, sir," Jake barks into the comms.

"I ain't leaving without Sully," snaps back the colonel.

Jake grits his teeth, barbed wire scraping through his frontal lobe. Urging, begging, slithering through the back of his brain; baying for Sully's blood, his skin, everything he took from him. He's giving it all up for something more precious. That's what he tells himself, what he injects into his voice when he lifts his chin towards the horizon line, ears tight to his skull. "We have one of his daughters, the one he half cuffed himself for back there. She's enough."

"Shit—" a barked laugh tumbles from the comm. A cough crackles through next. "Hell no, not while I'm still breathing."

Fuck… fuck, he half draws his knife like Sully's right in front of him. He shoves it back into its sheath, jerking his head with a snarl before he grinds out justification for their retreat.

"We've got our package, Colonel. This is our in. The squad's dead, the SecOps blown to shit, you wanna join 'em 'cause you couldn't let off?"

Silence.

He tracks invisible patterns along the ocean, searching for signs of the colonel, of their targets, of anything. But they're too far away. And he's close to leaping on Alex, of saying fuck it; torn. To the point of needing to sink his teeth into the nearest living thing.

Normally he's the one who's gotta be yanked off someone's throat. Not the other way around.

"My dad's gonna kill you," Augustine rasps, gnat biting his eardrum.

Jake levels her with a glare. She dares to hold his gaze, dark ink splashed down the side of her face, blood spilt from her hairline.

Spider motions for her to stand down, bowing lower. "Kiri, don't… Don't."

"My dad's gonna kill both of you, you and Ranger fucking Rick—" she dares to toss at his feet. Her silhouette shattering into a fiery head of hair, blue eyes that make him want to gouge them out with his thumbs. He settles on scoffing, tipping his head back to stare her Royal Cuntress down the length of his nose.

(He's gonna break her, that's what he decides in that moment. It's what he should've done all those years that exist only as months ago in his head. Dr. Augustine and her haughty, uptight, bitchy tongue. How she tossed Tommy's name around like he was a wasted commodity, not a person, not a brother, not Everything, and his stomach had flipped, flopped, sunk through the seat of his wheelchair, ash thick in his mouth, he'd managed to snap back with thorny sarcasm, but now? On a do-over? Oh he's gonna make sure she'll never talk like that again. She'll never look anyone in the eye again.

She'll never get off her knees ever again.)

"He's gonna kill you," she hisses, blood on her teeth.

Cute. He smirks, oil slick. "Nah, I don't think he will. Besides, it's Mrs. Sully who did the colonel in— remember? She's the real threat, give her a little more credit, doc, not everything's a fucking sausage fest."

"Screw you," Augustine mumbles. Her voice ringing louder than it should.

He can't stop the laugh that rumbles out, the tingle on his scalp, the power rolling off her hits like a damn drag of nicotine, buzzing, electric. Soothing in a barrel of a gun ghosting down his throat kind of schtick, as he draws closer with a few steps. Lidding his eyes, pushing his lips into a sloppy grin, hands on his hips as he stoops at the waist. Gets right in her face. She rears back from him when he says, "that can be arranged."

"Kiri." Spider presses close to her. Chin dipped and eyes cut up towards Jake. The smallest shake of his head.

Good girl.

And he's thinking about the both of them.

Because Augustine keeps her mouth shut, too. Her eyeing the knife on Jake's belt when he stands back up. Glued to his knuckles, drifting towards the center, just below his belt buckle, then back up to somewhere around his shoulders before fixing on Spider.

He thinks he could find an easy enough excuse to reach forward, stick his fingers between her teeth and wrench her jaw down until it dislocates. It'd keep her from talking, bonus points for it keeping her from biting his dick if he really wanted to teach her to watch that lip, wash her mouth out the way he's washed Spider's before. He really considers it, studying her like an insect. A blue beetle who needs its wings stretched out on the board, who needs some well-to-do manipulating to be made just right.

It's only fair these things get passed down the line, a wealth of generational discipline, him growing up, learning all that soap on his tongue was just for show and Dad's cum on those nights tasted so bitter. You know how it is, lessons gotta be learned, baby—

"Corporal," The colonel's honey tongue slips through the comm line, drawing him out of the thought. Spider sags as Jake steps back. The heat in Jake's middle ratchets up as he angles away, hand hovering over the buttons on his throat. "If the general gives me an ass chewing for this shit, you'll be lucky to walk straight for a month."

Relief spirals up his spine. "Welcome back, sir."

"Wainfleet?" comes the next question.

"MIA."

Smaller then. "...Miles?"

"Fuck, yeah, he's here. Staying like a good boy, no cuffs required."

Spider bares his teeth, the hiss that follows hardly makes a sound.

"You take Augustine, we gotta get her secure before she tries anymore of that fantasmagoria crap. I'll grab my son, and Wainfleet, if I can find him." If he doesn't got a bullet in his skull, or an arrow, the colonel doesn't add. Doesn't have to. A part of him almost— almost hopes the prick's dead, only because it means it's him and the colonel and that's It.

A part of him hopes he's alive just so he can fuck the shit out of him later since he won't die from taking a pounding, a beating, he needs that— things he can't get from Spider and the colonel and that's fine. It's fine, Wainfleet and him have a mutual fucking agreement, literally. (And it's funny, like really fucking funny how much Wainfleet chases after the colonel through him, how much he'll fight to stick his dick in him and give up if Jake just presses hard enough on the right buttons. Puppy dog praise, service with a drooling smile, singing Sir, Yessir. Yeah, even if Wainfleet's permanently injured, he'll find a good use for him.)

Jake spots a tiny shape circling over the last flames sputtering across the sea. "Looks like his banshee will get him, I see her circling back now. No sign of hostiles."

"The ship's sunk, Corporal," the colonel confirms. "They'll be headed home for a heavy victory, licking wounds, grabbing up their dead. Sully brought this shitstorm crashing down on their heads, he'll be lucky if they let him come crawling back, tail tucked between those legs."

He sets his jaw, hand slipping off his comm.

Luckily, it doesn't take long for the colonel to show up. He makes quick work, even with his face busted up, bruises, cuts, a swollen eye and a bloody nose painting him. Like he got whipped by something heavy, metal.

He gave them the runaround, the colonel claims when Jake asks as he helps set Spider up on Cupcake's neck, Augustine not even twitching to follow her monkey boy. Spider doesn't move either, five fingers wrapping around Cupcake's queue, the others digging into the colonel's thigh, just above the knee.

Sully will be chasing his own tail, the colonel is sure to add when Jake won't stop looking past him.

"How'd you shake him, sir?" he asks again. Red wiggling in his vision.

The colonel doesn't answer. And Jake swears he can see Sully's tiny shape somewhere out there. The cut of that big fuck-off whale making it's rounds, the cry of Dad! so far away, shattering the way Tommy's once did, the way his own did again, and again as a kid. For completely different reasons.

His nose scrunches, nostrils flared.

And he thinks it doesn't matter, the fact that the colonel wanted to be the one to take Spider home. He gets that, it's personal, not a dig at him, it's not an insult, he's the one who fetched him after all. He's the one the colonel looked at with relief the moment he laid eyes on his son, their boy. It doesn't matter that Sully's still kicking alongside half of his ill–bred pack, there's always the next sunrise.

Because in a dozen other worlds, this shakes down differently. But that's neither here nor there, not when there's a hostage on the table, in his lap, and finally back in Alex's jaws as they race towards Bridgehead. There's a mission to get done. And it doesn't matter that he'll never know how everything was just off enough from center to let it all play out perfectly in his favor.

That Winner takes all, Loser gets shot, choked, drowned. Somehow, he feels like they dodged a bullet, not like Sully's son who took a hollow point to the chest. And he hopes that decrepit motherfucker knows what's about to go down with his daughter, somewhere in the back of his soft head, ghost in Tommy's brain, staring down at a cooling corpse, that they both know exactly what they're capable of.

It wasn't long before he was dragging her through an airlock, into the nearest lab at the direction of the SecOps and SciOps rushing out to meet him, milling like ants. He's rehashed that moment s dozen times. The bright eyed, bushy tailed, armed to the teeth, but not stupid enough to get too close, personnel. Not until he slammed Augustine down on the table Eden gestured to. Her white coat quickly smeared with blood when a kick from Augustine grazed her. Jake pinned Augustine hard enough to crack her skull. Talking in her ear. Listening to her shout. Jostling her again. He said it with a growl,

"Calm down, babygirl—"

"Fuck— off! You are not my dad you evil fucking—!" She screeched, twisting to bite at him. The last words she managed to get out before he shut that shit down.

He snapped his teeth in her face, hands dangerously close to sliding over her tits as he slipped them down her battered ribcage, dug in. His elbows pinning her shoulders to the table and the top of her head pressed into his stomach. His shadow obscured her from the harsh lights above. She tucked her chin to her chest, pupils pinpricked, stock still all of a sudden.

There were easier ways to pin her, sure. But this one was amusing, seeing her cuffed hands sit there on her bare stomach, the way she didn't even try to bludgeon them into his skull, the way she could, and yet she practically arched up into his thumbs when he pressed them between her ribs. Inching them back up towards her chest, just enough to watch her ears flit, heels ground into the table. Her eyes caught on anything but him.

Stinking of blood and sea water and piss from the fall, and something else, rosy and earthy beneath it all.

"I need a medikit, these bite marks are too deep."

He lifts his head to see Eden doing a cursory look over. "Well, excuse the shit out of me—"

"You're excused."

He rolls his eyes. "Hah, funny. Yeah, can you just hurry the hell up then?" He bristles, tail high. Nails gouging into Augustine's skin. "You've got the tech to patch her up. The wound's not that bad."

To punctuate, he lifts a hand off Augustine, watching how she slumps against the table only to seize up when he wiggles his finger into a tooth mark on her collarbone. Blood bubbling up like a well. Sweet, heady. Fucking hell… wetting his lips he shoves it in further, Augustine squeaking, tears spilling as she finally raises her wrists only for them to flop back down uselessly.

Apparently it's exactly the window Eden needs to get in close, because she's reaching over his arm, clamping a metal collar around Augustine's throat.

It snaps in place, twists tight, gouging into her throat, turning it dark, almost purple as blood rushes to the area. Something tells him he can let go. So, he does, backing up, swiping his hand across his mouth to catch the blood there. To get just a taste. Red dripping as he looks from Augustine's dazed form staring up at the ceiling, to Eden with her hands shoved into her coat pockets, shoulders drawn towards her ears. Without an exopack mask, it's easier to see the dark circles rung around her eyes.

"Originally, it was for you," Eden says. "The general changed her mind."

Molars ground at those words, Jake lifts his Atmos mask up to his face, taking a long drag. Twisting, turning, stuck on the glint of that thing around Augustine's throat. The stamp of RDA property curved down the side.

He pulls the mask from over his head, steps towards Augustine once more, and presses it over her nose, her parted lips.

She lets out a gasp that goes straight to the tip of his dick.

And it's still going straight south, honest to God.

Staring at her through the two way glass, watching the way her hair sticks to her sweaty forehead and her cheeks. It makes his blood hot, his tail coil, snaking, slipping across the backs of his thighs through the fabric of his cargos. Pants getting tighter by the second in the front.

And it's not that he wants her cunt stuffed in a way that'd make sense to the remainder of the squad. No, she's more cute than pretty, she's more off-putting than fuckable. She's Pandora's little witch. She's Doctor Augustine's fucked up recombinant experiment; cuntress extraordinaire.

No, no, he fucks what he can't control, he screws what tries to run away, he cannibalizes what he's never gonna understand. He takes to heart those old lessons about warriors who devoured livers to be imbued with their power, organs slurped down, lifeblood, gristle, the slip of veins and aorta to pool in the pit of his stomach. His daddy among them, the first one, his first betrayal when he left him behind.

(Daddy loves you, he'd say, and press a kiss to the top of his head, He loves you so much. That's what he hears the most when he's nestled in Daddy's lap, big knuckles brushing his spine through his shirt. Up and down. One of Daddy's hands gripping his shoulder, massive, strong, thumb hooked around his neck.

He kneads at the stuffed dog in his own lap, moving its floppy legs, talking to himself because Daddy seems to like that. Hands so much smaller than Daddy's, and he hates that, hates that he can't do much with them, not like Daddy can.

Sounds like stirring a pot of macaroni right behind him, but muffled, softer, kind of similar to Mommy when she rubs lotion on his small elbows, his hands, his knees, telling him to not let them get so dry.

The sounds make him squirm where he's balanced on Daddy's leg. Daddy panting like he's been running, except he's sitting, they're both sitting and he cranes his head to look up at Daddy's flushed face above him, and Daddy says he loves him again with a smile as something pokes him in the back and Daddy jostles him in his lap with two hands around his waist, fingers slipping down over his shorts, towards the middle. Making him shuffle his feet, giggling at the way it feels really, really weird and Daddy doesn't stop until he's panting and dizzy just like him, too.)

The closest he'll ever get to love in this lifetime is whatever it looks like when he's got Spider and the colonel in his arms. When Spider laughs, when there's a big, dopey grin on his face, tears flashing in his eyes, when he's got something to fight for, live for, stay for. When he can finally replace what he's been chasing since he outgrew his father, when Dad acted like he never did any of that; like he never loved him that much. Like it was fine if he wanted to go get himself blown up by a landmine in another county, fuck it, he's grown, and all he wanted was for him to say, no, stay, I fucking need you— just like he did when he was growing up.

He keeps a grip on Spider now, tighter, forcing him to stay right in front of him, pressed against him. Back to crotch. To watch. This is what happens when you run, this is what happens when you disobey, this is what happens, this is what happens—

(I need you, to stay. I need you. I love you.)

Spider still smells like kerosene and alkaline, bitter; metal, chlorine, ammonia, blood, her— her.

She's in there somewhere, in his fucking head, the room might be soundproof, but that doesn't mean jackshit. Not for a witch. Her needle teeth nipping at his ear drums; an afterthought. His pinna flick, his face bends, his gums itch. Grip tightening on Spider, the boy flinches under his fingers, twisting an inch, dog whimper chased out. He's a good boy, well, except when he's Bad. But that's why he needs this, that's why they all need this.

Don't play with your food, Corporal.

That's what the colonel always said. But he's got her Daddy's face after all. He's got a bone to pick, a grudge ten miles wide and Marianas Trench deep—

He remembers downing a canteen of something strong, barely enough to take the edge off, shower pattering on his head as he leaned against the wall breathless. Gunshots, arrows, blood, soot smeared into the grooves of his palms. Moss, grime, mud from the forest, swirling down the drain, the way he watched soldiers go down one by one against the backdrop of the rain. Muzzle flash stuck on the back of his eyelids as he shut them, the canteen clattering to the tile. He fumbled for another one to drink himself into oblivion, to forget the rankle of the outdoors against his skin, fur rubbed the wrong way at the brush of every leaf and the chirp of every Pandoran bird, the thrum of Tom Sully's kids under his hands.

Don't play with your food, the colonel said the first time Jake was between his legs, nosing at the underside of his dick, fingers spreading his cunt, lips teasing at his sex.

Don't play with your food, he heard lazily in his head the first time he had Spider on his back, nipping at the inside of his thigh. Palm splayed wide over his stomach.

Because something in him turned, twisted, snapped;
Because—
Because—

"We're not playing with our food here, Corporal. Our goal is to eliminate unnecessary factors without creating new ones," Ardmore said, her back straight, her hands clasped. Both of them watching Quaritch from the other side of the two way, a trickle of smeared blood under Spider's nose. "Make sure it stays that way."

And it hadn't crossed his mind more than a ping at first, the same way it did with all of Sully's kids, every Recom, every person, the way eating someone out feels a lot like digging his teeth in, crouched over a technician's broken body, maw dripping red. Wrong place, wrong time, shit happens.

No matter who he sets his gaze on, he's guaranteed to see something cinematic thrown across his mind, all audio, full color. Getting his dick wet promptly and vigorously. Fucking anyone and everything with total disregard.

It happened with those freaky altered cybernetic thanators, his fucking banshee, it went so far he watched those prolemuris mill about through the canopy and figured fuck it, they'd make a good fleshlight if he ever snagged one.

But it went from thought, to full fledge fucking impulse, full fledge hunger he hadn't felt since the colonel cupped a hand against his neck in their new blue contract skins. When the Neuroscanner threw up something so fast no doubt the human personnel never caught it with all of Spider's screaming, the flash of colors, flickering, there— right there, Sully's worn face in juxtaposition to a memory of Spider jerking off, red weeping cock in hand. Smeared like a palm on fogged glass, there and gone, and starving.

"Don't play with your food, Jake. You want something, then you take it. Don't be teasin' like that, yeah—" his dad once huffed against his neck, when he was ten and all he could figure out how to do was hump him through his clothes to try and get off. Fumbling, confused, frustrated. He was teaching him everything Mom couldn't, everything Tommy would never understand. He said if he wanted something, he should take it, don't pussy foot around, because he can fuck his dad, but do not fuck with him, and so a heavy palm grabbed his shaking wrist and showed him how to get rid of that wind in his gut so tight it ached.

And sold.
Jake was sold.
All it takes is a second.

A second to bend fellow soldiers over against their will. A second of fighting, biting, mauling, teething; shoving Spider face down into the bed. A second to slither up his back, dick a ruby-purple apple red to match. A second to shove in.

He has had dreams like this ever since that first mission out there. Of having everything Sully cares about in the palm of his hands. Dreams of devouring each bit of this world he adores, tiny blue twisting bodies slipped down his throat like weighty slugs, cocks, salty, hot, gorging—

Flecking his irises red. Even now he can see them in the glass, hovering over Augustine's head as he sits perched on the desk behind the monitoring station. Spider safe, nestled between his legs, kept in place by a palm. Red at the edges of his vision.
Metal taste in his tongue. Craving. Hungry.

The sting of wounds, bruises, cuts, scrapes, peppering his skin, healing faster than they should, and he itches for the next hit of that cherry red shit he's not allowed to live without now.

Some genius called it ADAM, the three links on his wrist tell a story of predetermination greater than the Sully he split off from fifteen years ago. It's not like they were any different then, the both of them relishing in the wiggle of their avatar's toes, the hot curl of heat up through their gut, the buck of hips, shared brother's cock slick in their hand.

Fuck, he's getting lost again. He takes a hit of his Atmos mask. He grounds himself with the quiet touch of Spider's hand on his leg, knuckles pale where Spider grips him, because that's what he does all the time now, digging his nails in to keep himself steady. They've got that in common.

He asks Ardmore's parameters. She angles her head, icy gaze still on Augustine as she pretty much says everything up to Guantánamo is golden. "You remember what they used to do there, Sully?"

And he does, because who fucking doesn't?

Maybe he gave a shit about it back on Earth because those were people, guys who were so fucked up from torture they couldn't even stand trial for the crimes they'd been accused. That they finally wrangled the prison back into the reach of international law and shut it down, but not before it lingered on longer than any civilian ever knew about. But Augustine's not human, he can't violate a law that doesn't exist to protect her in the first place. He can't make any sort of moral grandstanding about a blue cunt who would wipe them out with a snap of her fingers, putting even the word terrorist to shame. She's a bomb. A nuke.

A weapon.

"The Neuroscanner's a bust here," Ardmore continues, picking up her mug to sip at it. The technician in the hot seat of the observation room taps away at his keyboard beside her. "The collars holding tight, if you find a way to loosen her up, you'll avoid a court-martial. You and the colonel both."

"And Wainfleet?" Jake asks, tail thwacking against the desk. Not that he cares, he's just curious. "He's getting off scott-free?"

She sighs, long, harsh. He can see how much she wants to pinch her nose, shut her eyes, drive off that migraine no doubt swimming up there. But she only sips her coffee again. She looks right at him, tone frozen over. "Focus on the matter at hand. If you do your job right, she'll be a valuable asset to study. Screw this up, and I'll guarantee that you take her place until we can bring in something better. Am I clear?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"And take care of this as well." She gestures at Spider.

Jake curls his lips when her back is turned, Spider tensing up against him. Thankfully, she leaves, headed off to go bark some more orders, wipe some asses, chew some NCOs out, 'cause god forbid she let something scrub the back of her eyeballs that would needle at her sense of honor, heroism, and justice. She's like a walking billboard for jingoism, which makes the whole not wanting to see him thrash their newest prisoner all the more ironic; she ordered it, not him, the fuck did she expect? Roses and puppies? Some casual beatings and a bit of waterboarding?

Nah, this is personal.

The tech left in the room with them casts them a brief glance. He's some SciOps, silver DMT hanging off a chain on his neck. Bunch of shit thrown up on his workstation, some diagram that matches the collar Augustine's wearing, readouts, data.

"Showtime." Jake pushes off the desk, guiding Spider with a palm at the back of his neck. The kid doesn't protest. Hell, he even seems relieved as they head out the door, into the corridor, and to the next door leading into the interrogation room. Spider doesn't even try to sputter out a 'please' or a 'you don't have to do this', his silence circles in the air like a lamb to slaughter. Dumb, dull, and despondent, his head down, hair covering his face.

The sheer obedience makes Jake have to clench to keep his boner in even harder.

When the door thunks open, he sees Augustine through the glass readying herself to lunge, but it only takes a raised signal of his tail for the technician to activate the collar. She drops with a thud, convulsing, Spider trying to wrench out of his grip to get to her as she pays for her transgression with a shock. Foam at the edges of her mouth, freckles strobing, her eyes rolling.

"Fuck you!" Spider punches at him, voice hoarse. Jake keeps a lazy grip on him as Spider kicks. Kid tells him some shit about seizures— well, tiger, she should've thought about that before she tried rushing at the glass.

He raises a hand to cut it off, a look cast towards the two-way mirror.

Pushing Spider behind him, motioning for him to stay with a snap and a downward point, Jake crouches by Augustine's limp form. Fingers reached out, tucking a chunk of hair behind her twitching ear. "That's one strike, you gonna make me go for two?"

She doesn't say anything, drool trickling down the corner of her mouth as she lifts her head to glare at him. Elbows shaking where she pushes herself up. She spits in his face, hisses weakly, and collapses again.

"Kiri—" Spider whines from behind him. "Jake, don't, okay— don't—"

There it is. A smirk tickles the corner of his lips as he wipes the bloody spittle off his cheek with the back of his wrist. Slow, languid, the same way he twists his fingers in the hair at the back of her head, feeling where her queue connects, and letting his nails dig in.

"Don't what?" He asks, watching Kiri fumble to sit up, follow where he's wrenching on her. When he glances at Spider, he sees the kid standing there, holding on, fists clenched at his sides while his feet shuffle. Forward, back, ground into the cell's floor. Jaw working just like his daddy's does. Such a strong boy, such a good fucking boy.

"You don't have to do this."

"Do what?"

"Fuck—" Spider barks, tugging at the end of his rope. "Fuck you, man. You know— you fucking know." Tears glittering in his eyes. "Just hurt me, alright? I'm the one who fucked up the ship's steering, I'm the one that ran away, alright? It's me. It was fucking me. She's just… let the labcoats have her, just— just—"

Jake nuzzles at the side of her throat, lips grazing her jugular. Breathing in the way she jolts, her hands going from scrabbling at his wrists to shoving at him. A grip on her queue, another on her upper arm, if she doesn't sit still, this is about to go down a whole lot faster.

"You'd let your little girlfriend get turned into a lab experiment just to get my hands off her—" Jake laughs against the side of her throat, tugging her into the cage of his lap where she won't be able to fight her way out of it. "Shit, you're a jealous little fucker aren't you?"

"No…" Augustine finally rasps, throat bobbing to form words as her head lulls. Her palms drum against the outside of his thighs as she keeps trying to lift herself off of him. But he's crisscross on the ground, legs folded up under her, dick hard and tail twisting against hers. Maybe some part of her thinks he's Sully, keeping his babygirl tucked in his lap, secure and shielded from all the big bad wolves out there because her tail tip curls around his even as she struggles.

She only sends herself snuggling deeper into his chest, like a baby deer that can't get up off the ice, falling and falling and falling.

There's a lot of ways he can do this.

And he's been thinking hard about them for the last hour and a half. Spinning each one in his head, considering the outcomes. Bending her over the table, cold and impersonal, flipping her on her back instead and railing her that way so she's forced to see Papa Bear's face, so she'll never forget what her daddy looks like when he pounds her within an inch of her life. Spider forced to hold her wrists over her head, so he'll know what it looks like when she comes, when she cries, when she gasps, so he won't forget.

Against the wall, maybe, so Spider can only see her legs wrapped around his waist, her fingers hooked into his shoulders, so he can watch and he can stew on it. So the colonel can walk in on them just in time and call her out like the whore she is, so he can watch Augustine babble and break after the stunts she pulled. This time a cock in her gut, not a bullet, but it'll bleed her out just the same.

He thinks he could do it with her in his lap just like this, just like what he grew up with— Spider reduced to a disobedient dog in the corner. A little ghost of a boy that he'll deal with when he's done, maybe— hell, maybe once he's left Augustine on the floor he'll leave her legs spread and her cunt wet and sloppy, and he'll drag Spider over to her, pull that skimpy loincloth off him. Force him to get balls deep inside her. His hand pushing on Spider's lower back, cupping his ass, making sure he does each thrust good and proper. Knees bruised against the floor by the end of it with how hard he'll have his boy fucking into her.

A reward. Because not everything has to be a punishment, sometimes reinforcement gets better results than an ass whooping ever could. It's about the circumstance, the situation, and he's having a hard time keeping track of what he originally had in mind when he smells Spider's fear stink smack the air, hears the rasp of his rabbit fast breaths, something sharper under the surface when Jake grips at the inside of Augustine's naked thighs, spreading them wider.

"Spider—" she babbles in his ear. Her own fear sharp as ozone in his nostrils. Power rattling in her frame that can't escape. Lightning brewing that will never strike with that thing around her neck. He grins into her hair the way he does when it's Spider gathered in his lap instead. He's never felt something quite like this. Not since the first time he had his teeth wrapped around the side of Spider's neck.

"Please," Spider begs. And that's what he's been waiting to hear, the same voice crack Spider had when they ripped through village after village along the coast. When Jake watched the colonel fuck his son for the first time without ceremony. "Please fuck—"

He doesn't get the thrill of hearing the rest of what Spider says.

"En route, Corporal," the colonel hails over his comm.

Now it's a fucking party. Daddy on his way after what was no doubt the worst debrief in modern history.

"Hey, you hear that, doc?" Jake shakes her, watching her head wobble. "Looks like Ranger Rick's gonna join us after all. You always had a hate boner for him, right? Yeah, fuck, it was in that bitchy fucking tongue, that dried up cunt that only got wet when you were jabbed at by a bigger, harder dick sharing the same room."

"I… would rather drink fucking acid." Augustine bares her teeth, thick with labored breaths. "Get the fuck off— me."

She crackles like a live wire under his palms. It barely tickles.

He watches her look towards Spider then, this desperate strain to her folded expression, her half-whimper half-growls that grind through Jake's frame. His hands kneading into her muscles, feeling how she strains against his touch, her tail smacking against his side, slipping across his stomach. Her heels shoving against the floor. Getting nowhere.

And Spider keeps his arms crossed, spine pressed to the wall, doubled over like he's gonna be sick, whining the word fuck, don't, don't, don't, over and over. Eyes screwed shut, sweet Nancy trapped in her Nightmare on Elm Street, Bridgehead's bowels the maze of that boiler room.

"Fuck off! Fuck the fuck off—" Augustine thrashes hard when it hits home. Nearly slipping out of his lap, he yanks her back by the queue, bar of an arm around her waist.

Still, Spider doesn't budge, doesn't try to save her, his chin stays dipped, tears plopping fat and thick on the floor. Gurgled, sick sounding breaths. Sniffling. He's learning fast.

Pride swells in Jake's heart. He thinks he might as well warm Augustine up. Gotta test how far this will go; see what'll shove Spider over the edge, make him lunge, make him fight, bring out that spunk in him.

(And, of course, find an excuse to put some literal spunk in him. Fuck, maybe even in front of Augustine herself while she's leaking out her cunt still, who knows— he's down for anything that'll earn him a decent night's rest, absolutely no fucking dreams because somehow when he shuts his eyes now all he sees is Sully, Sully, Sully.)

She doesn't have a lot to strip off, her top mangled beyond repair at some point, the strips left clinging onto her chest were promptly cut from her on the lab table after the collar snapped in place. Her nipples already perked up from the cold, chest heaved, back arched. She's not much different here.

She stops moving altogether as he snaps the leather tie on her loincloth between his fingers. Where it's weakest at the tie loop on her hip. Undoing the bits wrapped around her tail, the appendage goes stiff. It curls down against his groin, his inner thigh. He's pretty sure she's stopped breathing.

He sweeps her hair over her shoulder, slow, reverent, waiting for her to shiver at the touch, but she doesn't budge. Doesn't even flick her ear. Leaning forward, chest pressed flush against her back, he brushes the edge of his jaw along her cheek. Rumbling low in his throat, "it's alright, babygirl. I got you."

Silence, the rasp of a sharp inhale, and ever so quietly she whispers;

"Dad..."

A jolt lances through him, cock to cunt to brain matter.

He slips his hands up the inside of her thighs, palms catching roughly where the sea water's dried out her skin, her pussy parched as hell when he dips a thumb into her slit. Feels her jolt back into him, and then snap forward, and he hooks his chin over her shoulder to keep her in place. Tutting under his breath, index finger moving to pet circles, spread her, run along the length of her. She's barely slick at all, like they never taught her how to take fucking care of herself— he'd think Sully would at least do better than that.

And he hears the door to the room thunk just as he firmly flicks his finger over her clit.

She chokes out a sound, a gutting, bent double, scrabbling to get away. Babbling in her jagged tongue, Na'vi he barely understands besides stop, stop, stop, the name of the god who abandoned her all blended together.

Spider snarls, screeching something wordless when Jake presses against her firmer, causing her legs to kick out, her head to snap back against his shoulder. But the colonel's there, grabbing Spider under the armpits swinging him into the air. Holding Spider so he dangles, kicks, shoves at the colonel's arms and peppers him in curses, fists, aiming for the colonel's junk with a heel kicked backwards.

"You got her?" The colonel asks, eyeing Jake.

"Yeah, shit—" Jake's mouth twitches, slipping two fingers down, dipping into Augustine's cunt for real this time. She gags. Clenches around him. And his dick twitches at the faint smell of new blood, the way she's getting wet whether she likes it or not. Straining against him. "Pretty sure I should be asking you that."

The colonel only grunts in response, Spider hissing and spitting without anything intelligent fleeing him. Brain gone, probably 'cause he's playing with Augustine right in front of him, everything about her on display, her perky tits, the pink middle of her cunt framed by slippery dark cobalt, pinprick stars, her clit growing from a thimble to the size of his thumb. Her neck sweaty, hair clinging to it, breaths punched out alongside more glares aimed his way as she angles her head.

He'd be shocked if Spider wasn't sporting at least a half-chub by this point. Squirming in Daddy's hands, trying to tell himself he's not just as fucked up as he is. That's what a savior complex is after all, swooping in, saving her, and fucking her when she spreads her legs, bats her eyes, claws at his back and tells him what a big, brave hero he must be.

"Get on with it, Corporal."

(Don't play with your food.)

One final warning, he's getting sidetracked and the colonel knows it.

Spider's standing at the colonel's hip, blue palm wrapped like a collar around his throat, face red, chest blotched with it, too. Eyes harder, sharper than Jake's ever seen them and he glances down to the kid's loincloth, wondering if he'll see a tent in the fabric there, but it's hard to tell in this light.

Eyes back on Augustine, he takes a breath from his Atmos mask, pressing it to her face one last time as well. Long enough that she'll last through what comes next.

He shoves her down against the floor, hooking up to the end of her queue with a practiced movement as she bucks against the ground on her front. Arms pinned under her chest, his hand trailing down to the mound of her ass, the touch drags across his own nerves through a grainy mind mirror. Her thoughts grating against him, dull roars of distant thunder, stuffed into an artificial box that she slams her fists against. Slammed shut inside a body-sized casket, she can't stop him from running his fingers down the crack of her ass, her tail thwacking weakly against his wrist.

It's like sticking his tongue in an electric socket, sitting in her mind like this. Fiery, sour, wound tight and gathering in his groin. And fucking hell, she's so damn tense, the resistance against a single finger shoved to the hilt inside her is exhilarating, but to get smacked with how her cunt takes it, how her pussy tastes each wriggle, each crook, each nudge— it's like nothing else.

He leans over her, knees either side of her thighs, shins hooked over the back of her calves to keep her caged in, her legs spread, one hand on the back of her neck ensures her face stays pinned to the floor, his cheek aching alongside hers. Her shoulder blades work below him, straining as if she's a bird trying to flap its wings, an arm reaching, nails scraping metal with chalkboard screeches.

Spider throwing a tantrum in the background is the symphony to this performance. He's all bark, no bite, a good dog for Daddy— he does what he's told even if he doesn't act like it.

"I bet you thought you'd lose it to lover boy over there," he presses, rolling his fingers over Augustine's clitcock until she tumbles into a haze of pleasure shooting from the core of her cunt to her scalp. Until she's bucking her hips back onto his hand and screeching somewhere far away in her skull; something along the lines of, this isn't happening, this isn't happening, but it is— it is, and he nips at the back of her neck to remind her, slick sounds of her pussy taking what he has to offer fill the room alongside her hitched squeaks.

"You thought it'd be all soft, right?" He pants, dick pressing against the inseam of his cargos, pressing against her ass and he feels her try to skitter away, feels her jaw crack open in a silent shout, a scream that putters out into a gurgle. He works his fingers in and out of her faster, dragging down against those ridges in the direction of her belly button.

"Maybe in that clearing spinning around your head. Shit, god," he groans and she echoes it, her head shaking vigorously. Nose weeping snot, eyes spilling tears. "Something sappy, romantic, maybe you'd be the one to ride him while you're still small enough not to crush his ass. Yeah, sweetheart, am I close?"

And she's close. She's fucking close. She's teetering at the edge and rocking herself against the floor. Humping it to mirror the way he's grinding down, forcing her clit to brush the floor like a filthy, uncouth animal, and she's no different than him really. That heat crunching in her gut, her mind's eye fractalizing with the brush of golden hair against her back, the hand gouging into her neck spun into one that's smaller, paler, she's a dirty old bat if it really is Grace Augustine's Ghost kicking around up there.

"You're close." He dips his head lower, panting against the side of her skull. "Come on, I know, I know, it's alright, babygirl, you're alright—" he praises, warm with honey, pressing a kiss to her temple the way he knows Sully does. "You're so fucking close, c'mon, c'mon..."

Huffing against her scalp he feels her stomach flip, twist, plummet, his fingers forcing their way down to the hilt even as she clenches her teeth so hard his jaw aches with the ricochet.

"C'mon, baby, just like Daddy taught you."

He manages to grind out each word with a thrust of his hand, fucking into her with vicious squelchs, scorching hooks scraped up her spine.

He forces her to see him as Sully, as Father. For the cell to be one of those fucking huts he got a good look in before burning them all down. For the cell to be a homely living room with a worn, creaky couch and cracking, faded paint, the flickering light of a holoscreen. He tells her it's alright, that he's got her, that she doesn't have to hold it all in—

And she cries out, babbling, "no, don't— Daddy, don't, d—" a hiccup, a sob, an acidic bubble in his chest. "I'm sorry, I'm s… I'm sorry! I'm—"

She screams. Orgasm slamming into her like the crack-thud of a gunshot. He forces her to writhe against the floor beneath him, just like she drove him to do on that upturned ship hull. With his palm forced against the back of her skull, his fingers getting milked by her cunt, he keeps her there through every second of it.

Something in her cracks, loud, ear piercing, as she comes down with ragged pants, her mouth held slack. She stays staring off to the side. And he knows she's never gonna scrub Sully being the one to make her come out of her pretty little head. Not the doubt of it all at least. Even now, she's blinking, trying to make sense of the weight on her back, the words ringing in her ears, of praise, encouragement, of Dad saying she'll be fine as he held her down, pressed her into the floor, the couch, the bed, the carpet, the—

'Get out of my head,' scratches against his brain. 'Get out of my headgetoutofmyheadgetoutofmyheadgetoutofmyheadgetoutgetoutgetoutgetoutget—"

"Get out!" She yowls, surging up, cracking the back of her skull against his nose. Her mind sinking its comet-cold fangs into his psyche's throat, threatening to rip him apart. Her tail thwacks against his chest like a whip as she scrabbles out from underneath him.

Blood splashes over his lips. Smacks the floor. His ears ring as the bond cuts, as he spits, coughs. And she slips, stumbles, runs to bumfucking nowhere. Fucking cunt. Fucking—

"Kiri!" Spider screeches in the background. Voice hoarse, shattering when her name spills out again. "Kiri!"

"You little fucking cunt!" Jake spits, red splattering as he lunges. Red cracking, red chomping his veins, red lines raked down Augustine's body as he catches her, pins her. Shoulders, skull, spine thwacked against the ground, her dumbstruck look peering up at him.

You burn witches. That's what you're supposed to fucking do, and maybe he's screaming that in her face because there's a ring in his ears, an ache up his throat, raw, scorching coals spit right at her shaking pupils.

And he has half a mind to stick his dick in her right now, snap her hips, break her pelvis, split her in half, but there's enough restraint for him to slap a hand over her pussy instead, grind the heel of his wrist against her, hard, rough, palming her until she keens. She shoves at his chest, squirms on her back, begs him all over again with a newfound, breathless desperation— they're gonna do this lesson as many times as it takes. Again and again and again and again and again.

He watches her eyes roll to the left, her back arch until her belly brushes against him. He thinks of all those sex fantasies priests would live out. About naked little girls turned into fuel for a pyre. They used to think the devil's pact meant getting fucked by him, others thought the devil's kiss was rimming the big guy down under. They'd search for a witch's mark, looking for some teat the devil sucked on somewhere up in their pubescent cunts, those freaky, kinky fucking bastards. Dirty old men ripping off bodices and shucking down white frilly panties.

Shit, she looks like she's gonna pass out.

He pats roughly at her cheek, grabs her chin. Forcing her to look right at him, his thumb hooked in her bottom lip. It's just about instinct when he snarls.

"Stay awake, slut."

Tears gather thick on her lashes.

He doesn't even have to do that tsaheylu shit this time. He can see it in her eyes. That if Sully ever does some communal bonding with his daughter post-exodus, it'll be right there. This moment. Her daddy's face above her, her hips rocking against his hand, her knees spread. Slick coating his palm as she whines, and whines, and whines, fuck, she's louder than Spider when she gets going.

He'd let her go just to know that. He'd piss Ardmore off, go right over her head, hell, he'd chew his jerking hand off in penance if it meant Augustine got to escape. Just to know Sully will fucking suffer. Just to know if she ever tries squirming her way into anyone's mind, he'll be there grinning in the background.

He will never let her go.

And that's her daddy's fault. Curbed by the Minos of her false father's hand, Jake Sully trapped them all here in this exact instant, he drove him to do this. That's on him.

Golden sticker star praise lights up his world when he looks towards the colonel. Lips twitching with a grin, teeth bloody from a kill. The colonel's eyes settle warmly on him, a smirk quirking those lips as he tilts his head, keeping Spider in place as the kid jerks a few pitiful times to try and get to Augustine.

("That was a bold move," the colonel will say much later, when they're laid out in the comforts of their quarters, their bed just shy of cramped, Spider between them balled up into the fetal position, his face pressed into his dad's chest as Jake's fingers idly play with the kid's curls.

"What?" He'll ask, soft with a smile as his eyes flicker to the bite marks on the colonel's forearm draped over Spider's back. Glittering crescents in the dark, smeared with ointment, perfectly fit to Spider's blunt tooth imprints.

"You know exactly what, Corporal. Don't play coy or I'm makin' you scrub down with a steel wool sponge this time."

"Christ—" is what he'll snort, shoving at the colonel's shoulder. Fumbling, still shaky from earlier. "She didn't give me fucking cooties."

But the Colonel'll sit there. Staring. Eyes flashing yellow in the dark.

"Jake."

"Sir…"

"Just get some damn shut eye.")

In this moment, in another cracked voice state of ecstacy, her head thrown back and her limbs smacking the floor, he's forever just another dad fucking another daughter.

It's all on fucking Sully– he thinks, punctuated with the last few tugs of his fingers over her swollen clit.

Fuck him and his half-breeds. If he'd just been a good soldier, if he'd just stayed in line, if he hadn't chased blue pussy, he wouldn't have to do this.

His thumb pushes against the underside of her cocklet, pushing it down against her skin until she jolts violently. Crying out, telling him to stop with a rasp, please stop, hardly more than a whisper, then breaking into nothings. Then nothing.

Fuck him.

Fuck …

Licking his lips, out of breath, he sits back on his haunches. Hand lingering on the inside of Augustine's thigh. The muscles twitch under him, but she doesn't roll from off her back. She doesn't even shut her legs. She just swallows roughly, blinks, and stares up at the ceiling with her fingers curled into fists at her side.

Her tiny prick jumps a little when her stomach clenches. Slick trails down her ass framing the twitch of her cunt.

He should make Spider do this. Wind him up. Watch him go. He knows the kid wants it. Dick hard as steel by now with all that listening, all that watching. All that screaming and caterwauling gone silent. Because normally Spider loves shutting his eyes, turning his head away; he loves playing pretend— like shit doesn't turn him on.

But Spider's openly gaping, mouth slack, struggling against the colonel's grip on both shoulders, a barely there thing with two big blue thumbs drawing circles into his collarbones. Spider claws at the colonel's hands and leaves little red marks in his wake. But with his pupils that blown, his frame hunched, Jake knows exactly what Spider's thinking.

That every word Jake ever lapped into his ear, it was real— every threat, every fantasy that was so much more than him just saying what he would do in excruciating detail, with sounds and hand motions and dragging his finger down Spider's body. It's funny how much Spider sees the best in a person despite being proven wrong; that's how Sully got him. That's how he got him all wrapped around his finger, confused, running around out in the jungle without a single safety net. Without some strong arms and some firm hands to swing him up off his feet and keep him alive in this blue cat hell.

"Colonel." Jake gestures with a nod of his head down towards Augustine. Hand pushing her leg out further. She doesn't move. Doesn't make a peep. And that's good. She's catching on.

Now it's someone else's turn.

The colonel shoves Spider forward, the kid stumbles over his feet, dragging his heels with squeaks against the floor.

Pulling a face, nose crinkled, the colonel's gaze flickers over Augustine's limp form. But he passes Spider over nonetheless, silent exchange shared between them with just a few moments of eye contact. Enough for Jake to say, Trust Me, I Got This. A dopey grin on his face to drive it home, face crinkled at the corners with how wide he forces it. And the colonel huffs in return, rolls his eyes, at the same time Spider flinches.

Jake grabs Spider around the waist before he can try to wiggle out of this. And he swiftly sets him to straddle over Augustine's hips, Spider bending his legs, sitting down like a well practiced doll with his hands on her ribs. Unmoving, back muscles twitching, head tucked so low all Jake sees is the very back of Spider's skull. Hair slipping over his shoulders in a gold cascade and Augustine's tail twitches once, before remaining motionless.

Thankfully, he doesn't have to tell the colonel to move towards Augustine's head, grab her wrists, and pin them over her head. Wrenched hard enough to make the sockets pop. No, they've done this, him with Spider's wrists twisting in his grip, the colonel the one to kneel between Spider's legs. Something the colonel's never gonna stoop to here, what with the way he's gripping Augustine's wrist with the sort of air of someone dipping their toes into the sludge of a septic tank. He almost wants to call him a big baby for it, watch him get pissed, feel the way he'll whoop his ass for calling him out on his shit.

But with the colonel's ears pricked, his pupils wide, shoulders heaving, they gotta get this show on the road before the colonel forgoes the apéritif and fucks his son right over the room's table. It'll fuck up Augustine, sure; throw her off, get her pissed and weak, but it won't be the same, she's already seen all that, gleaned a taste from swirling her tongue in the tall glass of his brain. She needs to truly and absolutely fucking feel it. She needs to have it drilled into her with an ice pick lobotomy in the form of his dick.

The colonel will do anything to make sure this goes to plan. Even gripping this witch's wrists, risking his head because that collar could always be for show and she could suddenly figure out how to bypass it. Fry 'til they're good and dead. The colonel will do anything to ensure that his baby boy doesn't get hurt. That both his boys see this through.

And that's the damn, hard truth.

Spider stays motionless. Barely breathing. Right there in front of him, peppered in scratches, bruises, faded indigo stripes.

Sometimes Jake has to admit that he doesn't like how small Spider is, but other times— ones like these, he's glad he's bite sized. Slotted right in front of him like they're riding an ikran and Augustine's hips are the saddle.

Her bent legs framing his back as she finally tries to shut them at the knees, tail curled up against Spider's spine. The world shifting on its axis at the sight, the colonel snarling a warning to the both of them. Something that shakes the world, quakes through them. And they're waiting so patiently for Jake to join in.

It's a picture perfect moment, truly. One a camera couldn't even do justice in capturing. Spider's ass and her cunt, and how when he fucks that tight, wet hole he dreams about Spider having a blue cunny like that.

Jake closes back in, shuffling forward, bumping his knees against the backs of Augustine's thighs, slipping them under hers. Undoing his belt, his pants. Dick slicked and free, bead of pre dripping off the end.

Spider's head whips around like he hasn't caught on yet, like Jake's not smearing Augustine's slick on Spider's waist as he steadies him when he tries to rear up, scramble off.

"Where're you going, tiger?" He chuckles, planting him right back down.

"Don't…" Spider breaths against the side of his face, lips ghosting over his jaw when Jake reaches past him, leans over him. And he's sure to reassure Spider with a squeeze to his hipbone, a chuckle as he feels Spider smooth a hand down the inside of his thigh. Trying to whore his way out of it.

"Calm down. Relax, alright?" He flashes his teeth, tail snaking a line through the air. "She's been nothing but enjoying herself, baby. You don't wanna see her hurt, see her screaming 'cause you made me fuck her too rough, yeah?"

Spider tenses, curving away from him. Pushing himself down against Augustine in doing so. She screws her eyes shut. It's just about perfect.

He snags Augustine's snap dragon queue and it doesn't take much for him to get Spider to connect them, engrained sort of instinct trained into him, the pink tendrils wrap around each other and Jake gets a rush to the head finer than any line of cocaine. It must take a half a second for Spider to register what he's done because he tries to break the bond and Jake has to remind him his place with fangs slotted against the back of his neck. Colonel snapping an echoed order as well; don't touch it, boy. It's for your own damn good.

Their queues stay draped over Spider's shoulder, the hairs tickling his back.

And Augustine's floating down there in some sunken place at the pit of her brainstem. Something with rippling green grass, chirping animals, the gentle kiss of the wind. It's poetry, it is, he could just about weep at the romanticism—

She doesn't get to run away that easy.

Jake grabs under her knees, forcing her legs up and open. Her heart spikes, knocking against the steadier pound of his own. She tries to kick and squirm, uncoordinated, sloppy, she's not going anywhere, but the last dredges of fight in her zing through him in a landslide. Thrumming hard cock as the paddle of a pinball machine and her cunt's the ten thousand point slot at the top. Glowing neon, a blinding blue.

Spider mutters stop under his breath. Stop, stop, stop, like he can't get enough of how the word sounds. It rolls through Augustine's cranium like a marble over cracked glass. Bumpy, jagged. Flinching at each one.

Then it's okay, it's okay, I'm sorry, I'm sorry— Spider caves, curls his chest in, smaller and smaller and he can feel his palms hot against Augustine's belly, the outline of his dick to match. Now that's more like, but he'll need more than a mumbled apology and a hard-on for what he pulled.

He feels the colonel's fingers curl tighter around Augustine's wrist, her bones creaking under the force. He sees the colonel's honey eyes swim in her vision as she tilts her head back to look at him. The colonel doesn't even glance down at her. He stares straight ahead, nostrils flared and stuck on Spider. Stuck on Jake. Flickering between. Gouging his thumbs into Augustine's median nerves until Jake's fingers go numb.

Quick work now, move it the hell along. He gets the message, smells the colonel's sharpening arousal, his acidic impatience he'd never voice out loud. The strain of the colonel's dick inside of his cargos.

Jake bends down, chest flush to Spider's spine, chin brushing the top of his head, nuzzling. Scenting him like a big cat with a warning rumble, a growl low in his chest.

He grabs his own cock. He says, "you never stop thinking about your first, right?"

And Spider shudders, shakes his head. Augustine's pulse roars faster until it's humming in Jake's dick.

He fucks into her in one go, past every bit of resistance, through the merry-go-round around of pain, pleasure, pain, pleasure, bottoming out sword into gash and cockhead pressed crudely up against cervix. Enough to make her skitter, kick, scrape her heels and tug against the colonel's hold. Rush of air out of her lungs like a drop kicked puppy.

It hurts, she bleeds, and he's never felt something this sweet.

Tracing his mouth behind Spider's ear, teeth grazing the shell of it, wanting to lap the sounds from Spider's mouth, but he can't quite reach him right now. He doesn't want to, not when each one is a gut punch for Augustine, a clench of her cunt around him to the point of breathtaking. Beyond that. Tighter than anything he's fucked inawhile.

Augustine wide and gaping and her lips jump in a snarl. She slacks into a gasp when Jake gnaws on Spider's ear, tastes the heat, the blood, pleasure so slick and thick and tantalizing it makes him roll his hips, harder, faster. A chuffed moan rushes out of him that's echoed by Augustine like the echo of a gunshot down a tunnel, dopplering.

It's too easy for Jake to slip his hand under Spider's loincloth and jerk him off in time with each thrust, too easy for him to snap his teeth next to Spider's ear, tell him to put his hands around Augustine's throat, tell him to choke her, and he does. Perfect fucking boy, with sobs wracking through his ribs, rattling against Jake's sternum as he presses Spider down, closer, sandwiching him against Augustine until he feels Spider start to hump against her stomach. All on his damn own without a word from anyone, such a needy thing.

"You like when Daddy fucks you—" he pants against the both of them. Everything blending, teetering over an ocean of red. "You like that shit?"

And Augustine tosses her head, gouges her heels in imaginary trenches through the metal of the floor. Both of his hands grip her sides now, fucking into her with a brutality he can never get with Spider's fragility.

His arms cage Spider in like this. Sweat drips down the flat of his nose, across his parted lips, matching Augustine's dazed, open mouthed gawking as she stares up at the ceiling. The lights dancing against the backs of his eyes, shifting up and down, up and down like fluorescent ghosts hung above her reflected onto him.

When her shaking gaze slants across his face and he sees the bright red dribbling down his own nose, he thinks maybe it's a new trickle of blood, maybe he doesn't give a shit. Her eyes sink further, stuck on Spider, his pink mouth, his pink lips, his gasps, his moans, his shaking and both their world's spin, her vision fuzzing out as her pussy hugs him like a sleeve.

Spider's cum splatters her chest. His dick twitches in Jake's hand. White splash of jizz to put a slasher to shame, all the way up to Augustine's chin, dribbling over Jake's thumb.

The prettiest damn sight he'll ever see in this short lifetime.

Gold kissing gold in their combined gaze, their shaking frames, Augustine stares Jake right in the eye— she mouths it, tastes it, knows it as he sinks his cock inside her one last time.

They're never gonna see Dad again.

They're never getting back to him.

And he tips right over the edge alongside Augustine. World crashing to a truly blissful black for the first time since he's been alive and kicking, whimpering out one final,

"Daddy…"

And then finally, finally fucking collapsing.