Chapter Text
The car hummed beneath him, Ilya was slumped in the backseat, carefully stealing glances at the outside world, he cannot remember how long it has been since he was allowed to go out without being blindfolded and thrown carelessly into the trunk. The buildings soon became sparse and trees blurred together, taking him deeper and deeper into what seemed like a forest. Something cold and familiar coiled in Ilya's stomach.
The woods. They were taking him to the woods. His breath fogged the window, and he drew his knees tighter to his chest, the old terror waking up despite having gone through this many, many times. In the city, in that basement, at least, there was occasionally that thin illusion of civilisation. The woods swallowed screams. It wasn’t like anyone ever did, but no one would hear him out here.
‘Ilya, we’ll be arriving soon at your host’s home, okay? Just so you know.’ The woman in the front seat said with a warm smile on her face, startling Ilya out of his trance.
She’d introduced herself as Laura a few days ago when Ilya was transferred to the organisation. Laura told him names, case managers, a new host, about safety, but he stopped listening after a few words. Words were soft things, and soft things burned.
Oh, how Ilya used to burn, bright and hot and furious, angry at how the world thought so little of him just because of that stupid designation, angry how all those years of training as a hockey player meant nothing to them. But years have passed, his Masters smothered him day after day, year after year, until the only thing left of that fire was a hollow little pile of cold ash that didn't have the strength and bravery to spark even once more.
If he had been younger and fairly new to the trade, he’d perhaps dare to think that the kindness and softness was his to receive. But now, Ilya knew better than to trust her gentle words and warm smile, knew better than to eat the meals he’d been provided with at the ‘centre’, and knew better than to believe that he, a useless, good-for-nothing whore could ever deserve to be saved.
In the past few months that blended into a blur, Ilya slowly came to realise that less and less clients were assigned to him. At first, he had been relieved, less clients meant that he had more time to lick his wounds in peace, but he soon understood that he was no longer favoured because of his growing age. He was what, twenty five already? It has been eight years since he presented, then. He must have become too scarred, too worn out with use and too loose of a hole for them to fuck.
Ilya’s master was furious that Ilya no longer appealed to clients, and it soon came to the point where Ilya was no longer assigned a room, but chained in the basement solely for the purpose of stress relief. Ilya tried, he really did, he tried covering up his scars and brands with makeup, he offered himself up to every client and begged them to use the implements that hurted him the most.
But of course, he should have learnt long ago that he would never be good enough, having been passed from Master to Master. Nothing he did could ever please his superiors, and waiting for him was a fate worse than death.
His masters had once warned him of sending him to a training facility, where he would become merely a vessel for others’ fury and lust. As much as he despised his situation, his stupid biology still craved approval from Doms. He begged and begged his Master not to throw him away just yet, for a chance to prove that, although he was lesser than the dirt beneath his Dom’s shoe, he was still worthy to be kept as stress relief than being forgotten and cast away.
That was why he was quite in fact shocked when Laura had informed him that Canada’s most famous hockey player, Shane Hollander, was willing to take him in, instead of picking a younger, prettier and worthier Sub to tend to his every need. He had no idea why a fucked out, whore of a Sub nearing the end of his usefulness would appeal to this famous and powerful and rich Dom, perhaps what Hollander saw in him was how utterly broken he was, how effortless it was to mold Ilya into whatever he desired and how Ilya was desperate to prove his worth. It would be bad then, if Hollander already knows what Ilya is good for, how little he is worth, there will be no scrap of mercy, not a bit of lenience for him.
Hollander. The name landed like a heavy stone in his stomach. Master. How dare he think of addressing his owner by his first name. But names meant nothing to Ilya, it made no difference, the ones who called themselves "Sir" and "Daddy" and "Master" all tasted the same in the dark, like leather and salty sweat and the metal tang of blood on his tongue.
Ilya looked out the window, the woods pressed against the van windows on either side, dark and dense and hungry, and Ilya imagined his new master’s house waiting at the end of this road like a mouth. He would walk inside. He would kneel if Shane told him to kneel. He would strip if Shane told him to strip. He would say thank you afterward because that was what good dolls did and maybe, if he was very, very good, Shane would only use him until he bled and then leave him alone in a room with a locked door instead of throwing him to the facility. Perhaps, he might even earn a hug, like Sveta and Alexei used to hug him when he was young..
No. No.
Those memories belonged to Ilya Rozanov, the bright and strong hockey player with a great future ahead of him, but not the shell of a man he has become.
Pathetic, whispered a voice that sounded like his own, years ago, before the fire went out. You're planning how to be hurt less instead of how to escape.
Ilya crushed the voice between his teeth. Escape? Escape for what? Escape was a fairy tale for people who still had names like Sveta and Alexei to believe in. And where would he go? He had no one. He had nothing. He only had his body, and his body wasn’t worth anything anymore.
The car slowed. Gravel crunched beneath the tires. Through the window, Ilya caught his first glimpse of the house, a massive cottage with warm light spilling from floor-to-ceiling windows. A flowerpot on the front porch like something from a dream he'd forgotten he'd ever had. It looked so safe and welcoming like every trap he ever walked into with hope still beating in his chest, back when hope was still a thing he could afford.
He looked away. He wouldn't make that mistake again.
Obey, he told himself one last time, as the car’s door opened and the chilly Canadian air rushed in to meet him. Be good. Be small. Be nothing Master can't use.
And maybe..
No. There was no maybe. There was only a Master. And the cottage. And the long, patient work of disappearing into whatever Master Hollander wanted him to be.