Chapter Text
Tyler’s heart is thumping so loudly in his chest he can feel it reverberate through his entire body. He’s holding himself so still that the simple thump thump thump of his heart is swaying him on his knees. He feels panicky, nervous. His adrenaline is zipping through his veins and he debates for the millionth time calling it quits. He could do that, shout his safeword. End this whole thing before it even begins.
He’s still not entirely sure why he’s even here in the first place. Just that he’s been on edge, stressed and tired of making decisions and he knew here he wouldn’t have to. Here he could let go, hand the reins over to someone else for a change, let his mind go blissfully numb. Quiet.
It’s a phenomenally bad idea. Jenna has told him so and she’s almost always right. She knew what he’d gone through with Gavin. The hell he’d suffered for the two and a half years they’d been together. And to anybody on the outside looking in he could see how his current predicament would look. Reckless. Destructive. Self sabotaging. He’s a survivor crawling right back into the fire. He understands how it all looks.
He’s an idiot for being here.
Tyler can’t stop shivering, whether from the cold or the fear, and yes, it’s fear he feels. He knows that. It’s burning through his body like an electric current, lighting his skin aflame with an icy fire that leaves him trembling and jittery.
But as afraid as he is to be here he’s almost more afraid to get his safeword out to the emptiness of the room. He knows they can hear him, he’s almost positive they’d listen and stop it all at once. But he’s come this far, he should at least give it a try. And besides, Tyler remembers, that’s why he’s come here, isn’t it? The safeword, the safety net of a controlled environment, the fucking papers and forms he’d signed before they led him into this room. He’s safe here. This isn’t going to be anything like him and Gavin, he can say no this time.
He knows they have to listen. He’s sure of it. Mostly.
There’s doubt, of course there’s doubt, and it doesn’t stop him from being scared shitless. It doesn’t stop his body from reacting this way, shivering like a leaf in a heavy windstorm.
He hears the door click open and sees the lights flick on from around the blindfold tied snug around his head. Somehow, his hammering heartbeat ramps up even further, crawling up his throat like a wild thing intent on escaping. He swallows it down with a little difficulty, knowing if he can’t get it under control he’s going to have a panic attack. And wouldn’t that be embarrassing? Falling to pieces in front of this Dom just because he walked in the room.
He’s suddenly so grateful for the blindfold. It had been his idea to wear it in the first place as he couldn’t bear the thought of watching somebody look at him this way. He didn’t want to see their eyes, see what they saw in him; their disgust, their hunger, their anger, whatever it might be. He also can’t stand seeing himself this way anymore. Naked, exposed, vulnerable. It’s all so much easier to do in the dark, to hide himself away from the visuals of what’s going to happen. He wants to distance himself from his own body, to crawl into the back of his mind where it’s safe and dark and quiet and just let himself shut up and feel.
“Stand up.” A gruff voice above him says and Tyler jolts at the sudden sound after kneeling in the silence for the past ten minutes or so.
He does quickly and lets his hands fall limply at his sides where he tries and fails to control their shaking.
“Nervous?” The Dom’s deep voice asks him and Tyler lets out a shaky little laugh that he can’t help before nodding.
“That’s normal.” The Dom continues and Tyler feels more than hears the man move forward into his space and then there’s gentle fingertips on Tyler’s cheekbone and he just about jumps out of his skin at the contact before he can feel his face grow hot in embarrassment.
“Sorry.” He mutters and the fingers resume touching him, the Dom’s- his Dom’s warm breath ghosts across his face in a quiet laugh.
Fingers turn to palms and his Dom is cupping his face then smoothing down his jaw, his neck, landing on his shoulders and steadying him as he whispers, “Beautiful.”
Tyler feels himself blush, the simple word drawing tingles up his spine.
“It’s clients like you that make my job so damn enjoyable.” His Dom chuckles and Tyler swallows, his heart still beating like a jackhammer except now there’s a new kind of nervousness cycling through his veins. He feels the need to please, to do well by his Dom. Expectations are apparently already high. His Dom likes what he sees, sure, but that doesn’t mean he’s going to do anything right, he certainly doesn’t have a great track record of it. Gavin used to call him beautiful too, once upon a time, before he came to see who Tyler really was.
He prays he can make it right this time, that he won’t fuck up along the way like he did with Gavin, that he can stay beautiful in his Dom’s eyes.
Perhaps this was what Jenna meant by a phenomenally bad idea. He’s not supposed to be thinking about Gavin anymore. This whole thing is supposed to help him move on , move past what they’d done and here he is making direct comparisons-
But God does it feel good to hear someone call him nice names again, even if he knows it will never stick.
He feels his Dom step back and away before he says, “You know your safeword?”
Tyler nods, his fingers flex in and out of loose fists, “Trench.” He doesn’t want to have to use it, he’s terrified at the idea of having to use it.
“Good.” His Dom says and just that simple praise, simple acknowledgement that what Tyler did was correct has him feeling tingly all over again, “I may ask from time to time colors. You know how color words work?”
Tyler nods. He does, it was what he and Gavin had used. Tried to use.
His Dom goes on to explain anyway, “Green means everything is going well and you would like to continue. Yellow means you’re unsure if you like what we’re doing, you say it and I will stop to give you a moment, decide if you’d like to continue or do something else instead. Red means I stop, completely. You don’t like what we’re doing and the scene ends. Your safeword works the same as red.”
Tyler nods again, hearing it all laid out that way it makes sense, makes him feel a tiny bit better. Maybe he’ll test them out, maybe he’ll say yellow, find out what really happens. Or maybe he’ll just keep it to himself, he can handle whatever’s thrown at him.
“Okay, you ready to get started?”
Again, Tyler nods.
“What’s your color?” His Dom asks and Tyler swallows.
“Green.”
“Green, what?” A shiver runs through his limbs at the authoritative tone.
“Green, sir.”
“Good boy.”
The words unfurl something heady and nervous in Tyler’s belly and he prays that he will be good, that he’ll be enough, that he won’t fuck up too soon. The familiar need to please rushes through him and brings with it feelings of cold fear and adrenaline.
Warm hands land on his hips and Tyler jumps again at the contact, his heart bouncing through him like a pinball.
“Jumpy.” His Dom says and he feels the hands spread over his body again. Calloused fingers glide over his abdomen then up his chest and then he feels his Dom coming to stand behind him. Whispers of fabric and the heat beneath brush against the bare skin of his back as his Dom’s hands splay on either side of his spine and run themselves down to the curve of his backside.
“Beautiful.” His Dom murmurs again before giving Tyler a light smack on one of his cheeks. He flinches at the surprise of it.
Then his arms are being pulled behind his back and held there in one hand while his Dom reaches for something. Tyler hears the click of metal before he feels his wrists being encased in leather and the snick of his bonds being snapped closed and tightened at the small of his back.
His Dom leaves his side then, “Kneel.” he says easily enough and Tyler does, perhaps too quickly. Grateful for the carpet as his knees thump loudly on the floor, his racing heartbeat still thrumming through his veins on high alert.
He waits, nerves raw and on edge for what comes next. The room is quiet and all Tyler can hear is his breathing, shallow and ragged, his quickening pulse and a steady rush of white noise that seems to grow louder the longer he kneels.
Then he hears the soft noise of his Dom clearing his throat before a hand gently touches his neck and it keeps Tyler from jumping like he has at every other touch.
More leather is brushing his skin, wrapping around his neck and he realizes it’s a collar as his Dom fastens the buckle at his throat.
“Color, Tyler?” His name on his Dom’s lips shocks him more than the color check in for a moment. Of course the man would know his name, it was on all those damn forms he’d signed.
“Green, sir.” He spits out, not letting himself think if he actually is green or not but saying what he knows his Dom wants to hear.
Then his jaw is being cupped and lifted and he has no choice but to tilt his head back as soft lips meet his. A small noise of surprise leaves his nose before he can help it and he tries to reciprocate the kiss clumsily.
It’s over before he knows it, warm and chaste, no tongue just lips and Tyler doesn’t know what to think of that. He definitely hadn’t been expecting it but had he expected a kiss it wouldn’t have been that .
He has no more time to think about it though as his Dom commands, “Stand up, get on the bed.”
“Yessir,” Tyler automatically replies and struggles to stand without toppling over before he feels a guiding hand at his back, pushing in the direction of the bed he’d seen when he first arrived. He remembers it being no bigger than a queen, at the back of the room and heavily draped in black and steel gray sheets, fluffy red pillows that matched the carpets.
Tyler feels his shuffling knees hit the bed and turns so he can sit down and scoot backwards rather than land in an undignified heap on his face.
As he wiggles back onto the firm mattress he feels his body trembling again, shaking like he might fall apart at the seams. On the bed it’s real, as if it wasn’t before, it feels real in the way it was with Gavin. Beds are made for fucking, for sex, for naked writhing bodies and screams and white knuckles. Beds are where his fear runs hot and fast, clinging to his every cell and burrowing like a cancer. Tyler pulls his legs up to shield his chest and suddenly he wants out of the cuffs at his back, he wants to shield his face too. The collar feels too tight, choking him and he wants that off as well. Even the blindfold, his safety net, he wants to rip it off so he can see where his Dom is, so he can steel himself for what’s coming.
A fine sheen of sweat begins to break out along his forehead, along his chest, despite the fact that he’s trembling from an icy chill that’s crawling all over his skin, standing his hairs on edge. He feels the bed dip beside him and a noise crawls out of his throat, keening and scared sounding and he coughs to try and hide it.
He feels his Dom freeze on the bed, the movement no longer shifting and he asks, “Color?”
“Sorry,” Tyler says and it’s shaky, so he swallows, tries again, “Sorry, Green, sir.”
There’s silence after he says it and Tyler waits for his Dom to keep clambering up on the bed, to get closer, for his hands to reach out and grip Tyler’s ankles, to pull-
“Tyler.” His Dom says and it sounds like a warning. It sounds like Gavin all of a sudden, disappointed in him, becoming angry with him.
He braces himself for something. Pain. But it never comes.
Instead, the weight of his Dom leaves the bed, the mattress springing back up beneath him and his voice now further away, his Dom asks again, “Color?”
Tyler’s chest is tight, his throat is tight. It feels like something is squeezing the muscles of his throat so he can’t get any words past and then hot tears are slicing down his cheeks and he feels so, so embarrassed. He’s crying , he’s fucking crying in front of this man because why? Because he’s sitting on a bed? Is this not what he came here for? Is this not what he expected ?
His thoughts are screaming at him, riding the train of white noise that’s abruptly taking over in his head and he can’t think , he can’t think and he can’t- he can’t breathe, the collar, it’s too tight, he’s suffocating. He tries to rip his arms out of the cuffs but instead the leather and metal just scrapes across the skin of his back and he thinks he’s going to die here. He’s going to drown right here on this bed, naked and chained up like a goddamned whore.
Suddenly he feels the collar come off, the sweet relief of cool air licks at his sweaty throat and then his hands are being pulled free and he brings them up to block his face and clutch at his hair. Lastly, a sheet is draped over his body and Tyler clings to it with one hand, feeling safer, safer, less exposed to the room.
“Breathe, Tyler,” Someone is saying, “One… two… three…” he hears the person breathing heavily in exaggeration and tries to follow, his breaths shuddering in and out of him like he’s exhaling shards of glass.
Eventually, the static in his ears recede, the white noise behind his eyelids, in his head, goes with it. Until finally he feels his warm breath bouncing back into his face, steady and even in the small cocoon he’s made of his arms and legs and the sheet, where he hides his face.
He’s sticky with sweat and the blindfold is still secure over his eyes.
“Do you want it off?” the deep voice of the Dom asks and Tyler realizes he’s got one of his own fingers hooked beneath it. He doesn’t though, he folds his hand back under the sheet and into his lap, shaking his head.
“What happened there?” The Dom asks and Tyler is shocked to hear uncertainty in the other man’s voice, a nervous tremor that was never there before.
“I’m sorry, I-” he croaks, his throat ragged like he’d been screaming. Had he? “The- the bed. I- I wasn’t- I’m not ready-”
“Tyler.” The Dom says and it’s that tone again, that chastising, warning tone that Tyler can’t stand to hear, “Did you think we were going to have sex?”
And Tyler frowns beneath the blindfold, beneath the cocoon of his arm and the sheet because, of course he did.
“You didn’t ask for sex.” the Dom says, that uneasiness back in his voice, “On the form that laid out what you wanted to do in this scene today. You checked no for sex. No sex, no penetration, no oral, no canes or flogs or whips…” He trails off and Tyler feels so stupid all of a sudden.
He remembers now, filling out that form and feeling guilty for saying no to almost everything that had been listed there. All he’d wanted was to give his control away, to be restrained and unable to move, unable to think but nothing more.
“What…” Tyler feels fuzzy, jittery and cold in the aftermath of his panic attack. He struggles to make sense of the before, of the events that led up to it, “What were you-”
“I was just gonna cuddle you.” the Dom says and Tyler feels a shaky laugh bubble out of his chest at that. He hears the smile in the Dom’s voice as he continues, “You said no to just about everything. I was just going to hold you.”
Tyler laughs again, his breath ragged and wet, “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t apologize.” He hears the Dom walk away, come back with something he plops on the bed beside Tyler. “Your clothes.” He explains quietly.
It had been Tyler’s decision to take everything off, to put the blindfold on. He feels so stupid. Stupid and ashamed and kind of exhausted. He shakes his head in the direction of the clothes, sitting up a little straighter and letting the bedsheet pool down to his waist, “No, I don’t want… Can we- Can we continue? Like this?” He asks hopefully. Now that he knows, that he remembers, no sex.
It’s quiet for a long while before the Dom sighs, “We can. If you’re sure.”
Tyler nods and he hears the slide of his clothes on the sheets as they’re moved out of the way again.
“And you don’t want the blindfold off?”
Tyler swallows, feeling his panic drain away from him, “No, sir.”
The bed dips again and this time he feels composed, ready for what’s to come. His Dom shifts around until Tyler can feel him lying just next to him, not even his clothes touching Tyler’s skin, not even his heat radiating through.
“Green, sir.” Tyler whispers, “ Please , I-” he stops, swallowing the begging words down, feeling the shame that they bring.
Thankfully, his Dom scoots closer and drapes his arms around Tyler, his clothed chest warm at Tyler’s back. He notes that they don’t get any closer, that there’s a gap between his sheet covered butt and his Dom’s clothed crotch. He’s very much okay with that.
He lets himself be held and tries to shut up all the noise in his head, all the degrading, damaging thoughts. He feels his Dom’s forehead come to rest on the back of his neck, their hair tickling and his Dom’s warm breath puffing gently in the space between them.
At some point, the voices settle, the noise quiets, and Tyler falls asleep feeling warm, held and almost safe.