Vegas and Pete: the series

Old Habits

POV Vegas

The sun was out, there was a gentle breeze in the air, and my kitchen smelled like I'd made something delicious. But most of all I knew that Pete was going to be happy when I showed him this food. I can't cook, but I can follow directions and while the internet is not my friend at the moment, I don't think the main family is going to find me by some recipe searches.

I move about the kitchen with a smile that doesn't seem to leave me. Ever since I'd woken up next to Pete, his body cuddled up into mine, I'd had no reason to stop. Why should I? I was happy, and I was going to make Pete happy when he saw this meal. My little foodie.

I complete the meal with pretty garnishes and then pick up the plate and head back toward Pete's room.

"What the hell are you doing?!" My father's angry voice booms behind me and my smile drops as if it had never existed in the first place. I turn toward my father and he stares at me with such anger and disbelief. He eyes the meal in my hand and then meets my gaze, condemning me for what I've made. As if it was an affront for me to be eating at all.

He surges forward and knocks the plate right out of my hand and it hits the ground with a loud clatter, I stare down at the floor at the now soiled food. "The main family is about to cut my head off?!" My father yells.

"What do you want me to do, Pa?" I shout back at him, my voice adopting a pleading child-like tone that I can't seem to stop. I was blacklisted stuck out here on this lake, there was nothing I could do.

"You're just as stupid as your mother! You shouldn't be my son!" The venom of his words eats away at me and it takes a hard grit of my teeth to keep myself from tearing up. He sneers his revulsion at me and then turns to stalk out of the house.

From somewhere inside me a voice demands to be heard and I talk back to him. "And you think I wanted to be your son?" Sometimes I wished that my mother had simply run away with me and Macau.

My father stops and then takes two steps back toward me without turning around. "What did you just say?" His voice is deadly and one that I know accompanies pain. He spins quickly and hits me harshly across my face, the gold ring he wears colliding with my cheek hard enough to chip the bone.

Then he huffs and stalks out of the house, and I'm left standing there, my face aching, my vision blurred, head ringing, and the scent of my now destroyed meal still hanging in the air.

POV Pete

I had woken up alone, but Vegas hung around me like a shroud I couldn't shake. I could smell him on the sheets, feel him on my skin, taste him on my tongue.

My eyes moved to the chains that hung beside the bed. I had held those and let Vegas do what he wanted to me, and I'd liked it. It felt like it meant more than the act itself. It had been more. I feel the imprint on me and I know that last night will stay with me. Vegas had given me something that no one else would ever be able to come close to. And it wasn't just that.

I had been the one to start it.

Vegas may have pulled me in with his heated caress and silky words, but he'd backed off at the last moment, and I'd grabbed him. I had wanted him, desired him. Hell I can still feel him on me as I trace my hand over the fabric of my shirt. His breath, his lips, his hands, everything and nothing, all of it, all of him.

I hated it.

I hated myself for doing it.

"I don't like it." I say harshly to myself, but even that rings hollow in my ears. I've never been a great liar. I turn my eyes to look again at the chains hanging beside me, and I want nothing more than to tear them down and hide them so I never have to see them again. Evidence of what I'd done and what I'd felt.

I'd let Vegas have sex with me. No, this was my fault. I had wanted to have sex with Vegas. I had wanted it enough that I had been the one to reach for him, kiss him. He'd ordered me to hold those chains and tie up my body, but at no point had I resisted him. At no point had I wanted to.

I remember how he looked bathed in those iridescent colors, and I want to blame something, alcohol, or drugs, but none were present. Stockholm syndrome then, Vegas manipulating me, anything. Anything to avoid the truth.

I slap myself hard across the face. "Then why didn't I say no."

Vegas had given me the opportunity, hell he would have let me leave the property if I hadn't followed him back to the room. But I couldn't do it. I pull my hands into fists looking at the strip of metal once again placed on my wrist. My fingernails dig into my palm. This was my doing. I had no one here to blame anymore except myself.

I'm near tears by the time Vegas enters the room. His eyes are stormy, warring between that utter void, blistering anger, and the calm he was so desperately trying to cling to.