Chapter Text
One minute, Joffrey Baratheon was sucking down a tequila sunrise on his father’s yacht, contemplating shoving his girlfriend overboard. He just wanted to see if she’d look as sexy as she thought she was while trying not to drown. The next minute he woke up bound, gagged and blindfolded inside a box. He had no idea where he was, how he got there, or how he was going to get out of the situation he found himself in. Flailing around and trying to yell only made his head hurt worse. Rubbing his shoulder against the side of his blindfold did nothing to dislodge it. The damn thing was on too tight. Probably contributing to his pounding headache.
He’d been coached on kidnappings from a young age. Warned about people who were after a ransom for the heir to the Lannister fortune—his future inheritance from his mother’s side of the family.
Joffrey was valuable, after all. Important.
Which only made his rage boil more rapidly. All he could do was wait. Wait and fucking seethe. And remind himself the best course of action was to be a good captive and try to figure out what his captors wanted. To assure them, if they’d even listen, that their demands would be met as quickly as possible.
My parents will hear about this. And after they get me back, I’ll have them pay for these fucks to be brought to me so I can show them exactly how much they fucked up. Let them think they got away with it! Then…
He soothed himself with violent thoughts of all the ways he’d torture his captors. They’d never be heard from again. Maybe he’d even film it. Have someone else carry out his commands. Be the one in control from behind the metaphorical curtain. If it turned out nicely enough, maybe he could even sell it through the same illicit channels he’d acquired similar recordings.
But when he was finally taken out of the box, no one spoke save to give him sharp verbal instructions. The change in sound and movement, the sudden jostling, told him the box was being carried somewhere. It wasn’t air tight of course. The air inside was stale with his own sweat, but breathable. Once removed and put on unsteady feet, he was forced to endure the indignity of having someone stand over him while he was nudged against a toilet and told he had ten minutes to “do his business” as if he were a toddler.
Rough, masculine hands removed his gag, pulling the tongue shaped plug from between his teeth to provide him with a few mouthfuls of water. He drank from the plastic bottle gratefully.
Eager to play the good captive and get this shit over with, he tilted his face up toward his captor.
“Whatever you want, my parents will—”
A hand cracked across his cheek with enough sudden force to turn his head. Joffrey winced, shoulder lifting ineffectually in response to the stinging slap. His lip curled in abject incredulity.
“How dare—”
Another hard slap left his ear ringing and tears stinging his eyes under the padded blindfold.
With the gag replaced while his jaw hung slack, it was time to be folded back into the box.
By the fourth time he was manhandled into the open—this time allowed a half a sandwich that tasted both incredible and like it came off a gas station floor—he was so thoroughly disoriented he couldn’t tell how long he’d spent inside the box or out of it. But he did know they’d been carrying the box into ground floor hotel rooms. No elevators. No stairs. The sounds and movement and intermittent words he could pick out provided enough context clues. Probably some roach motel full of STIs and bed bugs. I’m better off in the fucking box.
Another leg of travel and Joffrey was roused from a boredom induced nap by the vehicle’s doors slamming shut. Then he heard the back hatch wheeze open. Felt the box being hefted out, carried by two men as usual.
“It’s never going to work,” one man said.
“Wanna put money on it?” another replied.
“Yeah, sure.” It sounded like a verbal shrug. “I say he never breaks.”
“That’s not sporting.” The second guy scoffed. “How about six months, six hundred?”
“Hm. Yeah. Deal.”
The second one chuckled. “He’s gonna fold like a house of cards.”
*
A man entered the room Joffrey had been placed in. With the blindfold mercifully removed, he had been able to take stock of the fact that he seemed to be in a sex dungeon. A very well ordered and clinically clean one with mostly medieval decor. He’d been marched down some stairs, a brief flight, and kept sightless until he’d been tethered to a pink barber’s chair with leather cuffs at his wrists and ankles. The gag, however, remained.
For a long time, the man only looked at him or went around the room as if in thought, hands behind his back. Pale skin, close cropped hair that used to be black but had grayed into his late middle age, stubbled beard, piercing pale gray eyes, and a bored expression made the fucker intensely bland. He could’ve been anyone. And Joffrey understood the sick gravity of the fact that he’d been allowed to see his captor’s face.
Finally—after Joffrey had gently tested the security of his restraints when the man wasn’t looking—his captor returned to stand before him.
“I’d like to disabuse you of the notion that you’ll be returning to your previous life,” the man said in a low, soft voice. Measured and somehow gentle yet stern. “Your family has paid me to take you off their hands. Permanently.”
Joffrey tried to scoff around the gag. Shook his head as he scowled. That’s impossible! My mother would never allow it. My father… No, he wouldn’t either, the drunken idiot. He was stupid and useless, but he wasn’t like that. He loved his children. Spoiled them. Didn’t do much else since Joffrey’s early childhood, but he’d never…
Would he?
…Grandfather, on the other hand. And he can be so persuasive.
Fuck.
Maybe it’s not impossible. What the fuck.
No, it’s…
When Joffrey’s expression relaxed to one of mild confusion, the man continued.
“If you run, you’ll only be brought back to me. If you fight, you will be punished. And if you’re genuinely as terrible and unwilling to heel as the tabloids and your family have led me to believe, I’ll sell you to the highest bidder.” The man paused again, one brow arched slightly. With no reaction from Joffrey, he continued. “Do we have an understanding?”
Joffrey took in a deep breath through his nose and nodded. Playing along. Not sure if he believed what his captor was saying.
“I’m going to remove your gag. And when I do, I want you to treat it as a privilege. You will address me and anyone else you encounter with respect—if you even know what that means—or else the gag will return. Nod if you understand.”
Joffrey nodded again, faster this time.
“An eager pup. Good.”
Joffrey’s eyes narrowed, skin crawling unpleasantly. But he didn’t do more than shrink back into the seat, licking his lips and swallowing profusely after the man’s cool fingers relieved him of the gag. His cheeks tingled where the straps had run across them for what felt like days. And he worked his jaw to try to ease some of the ache in it.
He had so many questions, but doubted he'd be met with the truth. So he eyed the man warily, quiet, not trusting his own tongue. The situation felt too charged. Too precarious. Too disadvantageous for Joffrey.
“Good,” the man said after an uncomfortably long silence. “You can be quiet.”
Joffrey pressed his lips together in irritation but held back the scathing comments burbling in his brain. He’d find an opportunity and this fucker would get what was coming to him. He just had to practice patience. Like his mother was always imploring him to.
“You will refer to me as master or sir and my wife as mistress or miss,” the man continued, as if discussing the weather.
“Is this some kind of—” Joffrey clamped his mouth shut, wincing at himself, eyes rolling as he struggled to not blurt out the rest of his thought.
The man stared at Joffrey with placid expectation.
Joffrey swallowed and averted his gaze.
“It’s quite simple. This is your life now. My wife and I will take excellent care of you. In return, you’ll behave in the ways we indicate.” The man paused, but Joffrey refused to respond to his terms. “If the arrangement is disagreeable, I will have no qualms about handing you over to another master, as I said. Now, my wife wants you bathed and properly dressed before she returns home from visiting her mother this afternoon. Are you going to cooperate with me? Or do I need to have my men carry out her wishes?”
“Are you going to wash me like a child?” Joffrey’s lip curled in disgust at the implication, his tone spiked with the venom he’d been withholding for what felt like days. “I’m a grown man. I can—”
“You’re a dog,” the man said, so simple and calm that it cut through Joffrey’s vitriol.
Just like Grandfather. But worse. Almost emotionless. He really doesn’t care.
“I’m a valuable human asset,” Joffrey growled, fists tightening.
The man nodded and inhaled a resolute breath before turning away and moving for the door on the longer wall. “I’ll get my men.”
Joffrey thought of how the lackeys had slapped him around. Shoved him. Yanked him. Bet against him. One creepy stranger seeing him naked was more than enough. And maybe his wife wasn’t going to be some absolutely abhorrent crone. He could play nice and find out. See if he could set some boundaries while learning more of the house’s layout.
“Wait,” he called out as the man’s hand reached for the doorknob. “Sir. Please. Not them.”
The man turned, a small smile on his thin lips.
*
“I will trust you to be a good boy until you give me a reason not to,” the man had said before releasing Joffrey from the chair, then walking him out of the basement and to an upper floor master suite. The house was nice. Money. Not unlike the luxury Joffrey was accustomed to, though much more understated. He’d taken the place in as the taller, older man had walked him ahead of himself with a disturbingly light hand on his shoulder.
When they arrived in the large bathroom, the man locked the door and gestured toward the impressively sized red garden tub. It was already filled with hot lavender scented water, a little steam emanating from its surface.
“You can undress yourself or…”
Joffrey turned his back to the man and began to strip down to his gaudy designer boxer briefs. He slowed when he lifted each of his lanky legs to peel off his socks. They’d taken his designer sneakers as soon as they’d let him out of the box.
“Keep going,” the man said, no tonal indication of urgency. His words were enough sinister encouragement.
It’s like a locker room or a sauna. Or a nude beach. It’s fine.
But it didn’t feel fine as Joffrey slid his underwear down over his slim hips. He hurried to take off the last shred of external dignity, not wanting to give the creep a show. His hands moved to cover himself reflexively. Normally he didn’t care. So what if he didn’t possess the most impressive dick. This time, though… Everything was different here. Held against his will. With a man whose name he didn’t know who had some kind of sex or torture dungeon in his basement.
It’s probably both. Has to be both.
He hesitated. Thought about challenging the man verbally to see what he could get away with. But the looming threat of being treated far worse by more hands stayed his tongue.
One creep was better than several creeps.
“Get in.”
The command was delivered in the same soft voice. Impossible for Joffrey to read into. Terrifying because of that fact. It’s not the time to rebel yet. The door wouldn’t be difficult to unlock, but it would take too much time. And there’s nothing useful on the counters. He must have put away anything remotely dangerous.
Lacking any other course of action, Joffrey stepped into the tub and sank down, knees poking up out of the heated water, shivering from the sudden temperature difference.
He turned a wary eye over his shoulder. “I can take care of myself. I’m cooperating.”
“You’re seeking every opportunity for a planned future escape,” the man said simply as he perched on the edge of the tub and handed him a pink washcloth. He didn’t look away. Didn’t pretend to offer privacy in any amount. Just kept staring at Joffrey with those bored but intimidating pale eyes.
“You’re too close. You don’t have to watch,” Joffrey insisted as he reached for a rather generic looking yet masculine bottle of body wash. “I promise not to steal anything.”
“I want to observe you,” he replied. “Pretend I’m not here if it makes you feel better.”
“Pervert,” Joffrey muttered bitterly.
A firm hand gripped his short blond hair and jerked him sideways, shoving his head under the water. Joffrey’s ass slid on the smooth tub basin. He lost his balance and flailed, water rushing up his nose and burning his sinuses. He spluttered as his head was yanked back up and released. Coughing and slipping and splashing to the far side of the tub, he wiped the water from his face as best he could and glared at his captor, arms stretched wide along the tub’s rim for support.
The old creep stared back at him, expression blank.
“What the fuck?” Joffrey bit the words out and coughed some more, eyes and nose stinging, narrow chest heaving.
“While I’m not ashamed to be a pervert, you used the term as a pejorative. You disrespected me. You ignored the first rule I gave you.”
“So you tried to drown me?” Joffrey spat into the water.
“I merely frightened you.” A hint of a smirk lifted the corner of the man’s lips. He gestured to the washcloth at the bottom of the tub. “Go on then.”
The only words that sprang to mind were further insults, so Joffrey glared instead as he soaped up the plush washcloth and started scrubbing his arms and torso. He needed to shave, too, but doubted he’d be allowed a razor. The thought rankled. His grandfather had tried in the past to impose rules on him. To box him in. Joffrey had found loopholes to exploit immediately, but…
Maybe this is the punishment for not playing by the rules?
Would his grandfather really dare?
Yes.
And he had the means at his disposal to do what he liked with Joffrey. Especially following his tirade about Joffrey’s behavior towards women at frat parties and how much of a problem it was becoming. Not for the young women in question, of course. No, Tywin Lannister didn’t give a rat’s ass about them any more than Joffrey did. He was only worried about how it was affecting the family.
“Public perception is everything,” he was fond of saying. Over and over and over in different ways.
“The perception is that I’m adept at getting women to fall all over me,” Joffrey had countered with a scoff.
“The perception is that you’re a sexual predator,” Tywin had said with barely contained ire. Joffrey thought if he squinted he might see the flames dancing behind his pupils. “Three times now I’ve had to pay too many people to take down videos from social media, to make police reports disappear. And more. More than you realize.”
“It’s just a little fun, Grandfather.”
“Find a less expensive hobby.”
Only he hadn’t. And one girl he’d really taken a shine to—he’d toyed with her, flirted and teased and dangled compliments and a few gifts that she kept gobbling up—had thought what she’d remembered about their nights together in his dorm room had meant something. The dumb bitch had kept following him around, apologizing tearfully about her drinking habits. He’d strung her along for a while until he grew bored, then found a brunette who had more confidence and less obvious gold digging tendencies.
That was when Sansa Stark’s older brother tried to get involved, crowing at Joffrey about his sister’s honor or something. The bitch had given the asshole Joffrey’s number, even, which had led to more problems.
And now his problems had landed him naked, in a bathtub, washing himself under the watchful eye of some lecherous old fuck.
There was no way to maintain dignity as Joffrey scrubbed his skin. He was lightly tanned from his Spring Break beach trip, despite it having been cut short.
Did Margaery even care I’d been kidnapped?
Probably not. He wouldn’t if he were in her shoes. Other than to lament an opportunity lost. Of course, he had a younger brother. She’d only need to wait a few months and the little pansy would be legal. Ready for her money grubbing fingers to pluck.
It was at least nicer to think of her pretty smile than the cold, unfeeling gaze of the man sat patiently on the edge of the tub in his unassuming pink polo shirt and black slacks. Just another dad from some local country club.
Probably one of Grandfather's golfing buddies. For fuck’s sakes.
“Like what you see?” Joffrey groused, a frown etched on his face.
The man gave a halfhearted shrug. “You’re pretty enough.”
“Pretty?” Joffrey sneered and tossed the sodden washcloth back in the water. It plopped with a wet thwap against the water’s surface before sinking. Old fag.
“That’s a nice tattoo you have,” the man said, ignoring Joffrey’s indignance to gesture to the snarling lion wearing a bejeweled crown on his upper arm. The lion had been done in blackwork but the crown and smattering of artistic faux brushstrokes around it were in full golds and reds. “I’m surprised you don’t have more, given your family’s means and your fine taste in artists.”
Joffrey looked at his arm, confused by the sudden very normal compliment. “I had some vague ideas, but… it’s a commitment. I want to be sure.”
“The pain didn’t bother you?”
“No. Of course not. It’s just a tattoo,” Joffrey said quickly, sharply. He’d never admit it had been the most godawful experience of his life. That he’d cried from the pain. That he’d only sat for the entire session because he was too afraid he wouldn’t be able to handle a second one, but he sure as hell wasn’t walking around with an unfinished billboard of weakness on his arm.
“How many hours did it take?” The man stared at him, his face and posture giving nothing away.
“Are you looking for a referral?” Joffrey shook his head, face screwed up with irritation. He was so done with this shit already. This weird sense of normalcy in the middle of a situation that was beyond fucked up. It was creepier than being kept in a box for days. “Because I’m not sending you anywhere near them.”
The man watched him again, expression colder somehow, as if a tiny shift in the set of his eyes and mouth had changed everything. A glacial shift from calm to ready to strike.
Joffrey swallowed and shifted back against the tub wall again.
With a deep sigh, the man stood and picked up a thick red towel from a tall rack against the wall. When he held it out, wordless, Joffrey noted an embroidered black ‘B’ near the bottom edge of the fabric. He took the towel and got out of the tub, drying off while trying to keep himself as obscured as possible from the creep’s unwavering gaze.
As soon as Joffrey was dry enough, the man provided an electric razor from the cabinet beneath the twin sinks and ordered him to shave his face. Thankfully, he let him keep the towel around his hips. And even gave him a comb, a fresh toothbrush and toothpaste, and a stick of deodorant.
“This is the weirdest spa I’ve ever been to,” Joffrey said under his breath with a huff of dark amusement after he’d finished freshening up. He eyed the man in the mirror, then turned when he couldn’t stand the intensity of those pale eyes any longer. The man held out a small black fabric square and Joffrey let it unfold in his hands. “Are you joking?”
The man arched a brow.
Joffrey held up the tiniest pair of shorts he’d ever seen. At least the fabric was soft, silky under his fingertips. “Is this women’s underwear?”
“No.” The man watched Joffrey hesitate further. “Do I need to put them on you?”
Awkwardly, Joffrey put as much distance as he could between the two of them, then turned his back, ditched his towel in a heap on the floor, and stepped into the shorts. They fit perfectly, the waistband not too snug and not too loose. The little legs of the garment had slits up each side. It was like something a dancer at a sex club would wear while gyrating obscenely in a cage or on a pole.
“If these are meant to be running shorts, they’re a joke,” he grumbled, adjusting himself so he didn’t feel like his balls were about to fall out.
“Come.” The man patted the side of his thigh as he unlocked and opened the bathroom door. “Back downstairs.”
Joffrey scowled, but bit back his denial of being a dog by clenching his teeth. It would get him nowhere. And in spite of his willfulness, he couldn’t deny his captor was actually treating him rather well for a prisoner.
*
“Please, no!” Joffrey begged, crumpling to his knees on the floor of the basement room. The Dreadfort, according to the little sign hung on the outside of the door. “I’ll shut up! I promise!”
The man held up the gag, cold eyes pinning Joffrey in place as much as fear.
“It’s not necessary for you to be silent. Only respectful. But you couldn’t even manage that for the span of a bath.”
The moment he leaned down, gag at the ready, Joffrey launched himself at the man’s leg, clinging to it and burying his face alongside it to keep his head away while showing some kind of deference. To show he wasn’t trying to flee to a corner. Or that damned dog crate he felt sure was meant to be his bed. Or worse.
Play along. Be a good prisoner. Bide your time. It’s not difficult.
“I’m sorry, sir,” Joffrey blurted out, eye scrunched shut. “It won’t happen again.”
He felt something brush his hair and flinched, gripping the man’s leg tighter. But the touch wasn’t harsh, wasn’t fingers gripping or pulling or shoving. It was gentle but firm. Fingers carding through his short locks, almost massaging his scalp in a way his mother used to do when he was small. His shoulders relaxed, his breathing calmed, until he realized how long his captor had been petting him and he tensed again at the indignity.
“A good boy gets rewarded,” the man said and gave Joffrey’s head a few gentle, degrading pats.
Joffrey peered up at him, his face pinched in a frustrated sneer that was impossible for him to fight. The fucker was smiling down at him. A warm, subtle expression that Joffrey immediately hated. “What else does a good boy do? …Sir?”
“He gets to enjoy the company of my beautiful wife.” The man folded the gag’s straps around itself and tucked it into his back pocket.
“…That’s it?” Joffrey glanced around at the obvious sex dungeon, then shot him another skeptical look.
The man smirked. “When I can trust you enough, you can fully enjoy my company too.”
Joffrey opened his mouth to say something. To spit out a slur. To tell him never. But he let out a shuddering breath instead, recognizing the painful reality of where he was.
Clinging to his captor’s leg. Begging for kindness on the floor. Trapped with wealthy criminals who seemed to have no scruples when it came to human lives. Least of all one they’d been paid to take control of.
I’ll sell you to the highest bidder.
It wasn’t an idle threat. Joffrey recognized that even though he didn’t want to. He knew too well the kind of hidden power men like his grandfather held. Men like this. Men like himself in the future—or he’d hoped so, anyway. But regardless of his own expectations, it was always better to deal with the devil you knew than one you didn’t. Another similar man might have raped him already and been done with it.
Instead he’d been treated with a modicum of dignity. At least the sort afforded a dog.
His eyes watered and he ducked his head again, closing them as shame and dread overwhelmed him. Bide your time. Bide your time and do what they want. Then you’ll find an opportunity. No one would bat an eye at you killing them to escape. Not after all this. You just have to wait for the right moment.
A cheerful text tone chimed on the man’s phone.
“Your mistress is on her way home. She’ll have presents for you.” The man stroked Joffrey’s hair again, then took a step back, pulling his leg free from the grip on it. “Come. Let’s go upstairs and wait for her. She’ll be so pleased to meet you at last.”
Joffrey reluctantly began to rise to his feet.
“Down,” the man said, voice still soft but undeniably commanding.
“But—”
“How many dogs do you know that walk on two legs?”
Jaw working, Joffrey exhaled a deep angry breath and sank to all fours.