Stuck With Me: A Cad Bane Novel

Chapter 6

A/N: im not dead... i think (it's been too long yall im so sorry)

Warnings: ptsd from being a sex slave, non consensual touching and prostitution (the worst of it is in italics if you want to skip it), swearing, i'm so sorry yall i promise it will get better (i think the worst of this is over)

Word count: 1230

The man laughs as he looms over you - too big, too close, too drunk. Almost imperceptibly, you shrink away, attempting to hide the fear in your eyes, but you know your terror is showing when he smiles cruelly and lifts a hand up to touch you. Swallowing down your cry of horror, you beg your body not to flinch, because you know he's the type which will punish you for it. Instead, you freeze in position, half cowering before him, and try to take steadying breaths, try to calm yourself down as he takes another looming step closer, closer, closer.

Now he's near enough that you can smell the alcohol on his breath. You resist the urge to squeeze your eyes shut and curl into a ball on the floor, instead hiding your pounding heart and painting on a smile. You know he can see the fear in your eyes. You know he doesn't care. He doesn't care about your feelings, your health, you. He just cares that he can use your body right now, and you won't scream bloody murder because it's your 'job' to give into men like him, to let them violate you and do whatever the fuck they want with you.

Holding your breath to keep in a sob, you force yourself to stroke a hand down the slope of his shoulder, too aware of the blaster at his side. No one - no one important, anyway - would bat an eyelid if he killed you if he found you unsatisfactory. And the drunk ones are always the most trigger happy.

He leers at you, and you force yourself to swallow down a whimper. Maybe tomorrow, you'll wake up and they'll all be gone. Or maybe you won't wake up at all. You're not sure you'd mind that. You begin to like the idea, want for it, as the man's lips latch onto your neck, one hand pressing you deep into the wall, the other beginning to undo his belt, and you wish for it all to stop as he yanks off the little clothes you wear. You pray for death.

Trembling, you wrench yourself awake, hands formed into claws to try to beat the man back, your terrified gasps filling the air before they abruptly shut off. You're used to nightmares, and you're used to keeping dead silent when you wake up from them, because all attention is unwanted. Stuffing your knuckles into your mouth, you squeeze your eyes shut and begin to rock, but the bed creaks under you, and you freeze. The blanket is bunched around you, and you kick it off, unable to remind yourself that it's just a ragged bit of cloth, not the groping hands of the clients. Forcing your breaths to slow, you wipe the tears that have slipped down your cheeks and peer around in the darkness for the blanket. You don't want to trip over it when you get out of bed -

Bed? What, you don't have a bed, you sleep on the floor on the rough, worn mats with all the other girls -

But not any more, you remember. No, tonight, it's your turn on the bed, on the glorious, lumpy mattress, and somewhere across the room, Cad fucking Bane, the terrifying, infamous bounty hunter, lies, wrapped in a blanket, maybe asleep, maybe not, on the floor. Oh, Maker, why is he on the floor? You should be on the floor, you're the slave. Sort of. But no, no, here you sit, in a bed, desperately hoping that you didn't wake him with your sudden gasp for air as you woke, desperately hoping your flung off blanket has not landed on Bane. You're pretty sure you actually start praying subconsciously as you timidly pat along the floor with the lightest of fingertips, just in case Cad Bane is lying closer to you than you thought.

Okay, you think as you feel for the blanket. So the nightmares are back. They only went for a few days, to be fair. Probably because fear leads to exhaustion and exhaustion means sleep deep enough that nightmares won't occur. You sigh. At least you had a tiny break from them. You had sort of hoped that they'd go away since Gavinc Russ is gone.

Eventually, you feel the scrape of rough wool on your fingertips by the bottom of the bed. Achingly slowly, you pick the blanket up and pull it towards you, hoping that the rustle of the stiff, roughly woven fabric won't wake the Duros across the small room. Finally, you manage to get the blanket fully onto the bed, slightly rumpled near your feet, but you don't dare lean over to adjust it in case the bed creaks again.

Choking down a sigh of relief, you ease yourself onto your back and pull the blanket up to your chin. It smells like Cad, that strange, pleasant, musky scent. Settling down on the lumpy mattress, you shut your eyes, and immediately, the man's leering face flashes before you. Flinching back, you abruptly turn on the bed, and the creak the rusty mattress springs emit shatters the still air.

Well, not quite still. Now, with you absolutely silent, your breath held, your body frozen and your eyes wide, you can hear the sound of the bounty hunter's breathing to your left. It's soft and soothing and steady, like how you'd imagine waves lapping at the shores of Tatooine before the oceans dried up, leaving behind the Dune Sea. Despite your years of practice of knowing whether someone's asleep or awake by their breathing, you can't quite tell with Cad Bane, but you settle down on the bed again, the sound of air entering and leaving his lungs washing over you.

You're pretty sure it should scare you. Didn't the presence of men always used to scare you in the past, because with men came the need for slaves like you? But you also have a creeping feeling that if he wanted to touch you or hurt you, he'd have done it by now. Maybe if someone tried to steal you, he wouldn't stop them, but his reputation stretches around him like the near impenetrable forcefield of a droideka, and you doubt that anyone would dare infiltrate Cad Bane's ship for a slave like you. Not when there are more than a few brothels available which could provide the exact service that you do, and although the idea doesn't exactly fill you with joy, you're glad that the people there are getting paid more credits than you ever got.

So, for maybe the first time that you can remember, the presence of a man does not fill you with dread. Instead, it fills you with a sense of peace, of protection, even if it's temporary, because it feels like the safest you've been in a long time. For now is better than never. For now is always better than never.

Slowly, so the bed doesn't creak, you roll over to turn your face towards the sound of Cad Bane's breathing, and lie there for a blissful moment, just listening to it, like the tide lapping at the fine shingle on the shore. You let your eyes drift shut, and now, no one waits for you behind their lids apart from sweet sleep, ready to bear you away.