Bitch Devourer Ch. 02

Author's Note: First actual hardcore story! It is still sad tho, as is my wont. If you like it for more than just the smuttiness (tho pls enjoy it for that, esp my trans girlies) I've got a little sequel/spin-off called Blood Sugar you can find on Cohost via my profile. Unlikely to end up here, it is just the sad lol.

CW: drug & alcohol addiction, captivity, mention of violent death.

---

Kell Kinroth, Callsign: Bitch Devourer, scrunched the rolled-up papers -- produced from bio-engineered colony crop too contaminated by munitions for human consumption -- with a precious relief, finally bearing the verdant stamp of 'Approved.'

They pushed the code-cylinder into the door with a flourish -- it was a security measure they didn't need anymore, which had taken hours for Kell to impress on the Tribunal.

Or months -- if Kell counted the many days other than that final hearing today.

Would the ex-Yeoman still be The Cavalier now? Or, maybe, just another pilot -- keeping to Kell's demilance while the militia found their trust in her, while she found it in herself.

And she could get back in her fucking Cavalry and they could finally go -- together.

The door slid open. Niamh was lying there, fallen from their bed.

And Kell knew it wouldn't be today.

They placed the papers at the door, and knelt down to unwrap the chain twisting messily around her neck. It's lengthened, generously, and only there when they're not. But it's still there -- precluding an escape she doesn't want to make again.

"Aren't you going to take me -- Sir?" she slurs, with nowhere else to go.

Kell picks up the empty bottle -- rice wine looted from abandoned villages, seeping into the sheets she's brought to the floor. It's where I belong, she might say, stinking with it. And when she doesn't get the response she wants, she adds with a vicious lick-- "Bitch."

---

It'd been easy to justify -- the personal touch. Niamh's loyalty was dependent on Kell, they never denied that. But she was trying, listening intently to the resocialist theories of their up-gunned book club, she just did her best with ears squeezed between Kell's thighs.

And now there were engineers spilling from the Torastan's equipment support deck, the landed carrier that shadowed the base, fawning over her Heirloom like courtly ladies.

("She's got a gun -- behind you," Niamh indicated, wariness dulled by a comedown.)

("Yep, cos I didn't want to be the one holding it, Empire." Kell clutched her hand and brought it to a panel. "Shiv just wants ya to key the ident, then she can test. It'll help -- I promise.")

They were all desperate to see the newly-repaired Vibrocannon -- that'd once nearly processed Kell into paste inside their own cockpit -- now in Third Revolutionary service.

---

Kell had been saving it for a special moment -- for now, really -- but it's all gone.

And she is gone too. To the one place she can still go.

And it is -- guiltily -- a familiar sight.

"Hey, Empire -- back up on the bed, okay?"

Before Kell can even take her hand, she's done it herself. "Yes -- Sir." It is too fast.

She bruises her wrist on the flat-pack frame, her hand tearing open to drop a canister into Kell's hands. It is not from the infirmary -- it is Empire, from her One-Shot.

(Because there isn't a synthetic replacer for stabiliser; not one that is less affecting, nor one safer. There's just more fucking moll -- a bit less each time, till there's none.)

"Livestock tried to runaway again -- don't you want to fuck it, back into its place, Sir?"

Niamh is supposed to be at 10mg now. Kell turns the canister over. It is 50mg. But they have to confirm it -- how much was left. "Sheep. Bleat for me," they command.

"Maaaa--" Niamh would hate this and she doesn't. She obeys, she laughs -- choking on sobs and spittle. "Look, Sir! See how it wants it, even if it hurts, even if it can't think."

"Makin' ya sheep-bleat is one thing." And I'm gonna make it your callsign, trust me. "But I don't wanna mess with ya right now -- it's not fun, Empire."

Kell was still realising, the less she was Empire, the more she was just the scared, abandoned Yeoman that needed to know someone wanted her. But Kell wasn't messing with their enemy anymore, but with their friend. Or, something worse than that now.

They coaxed her to lie down -- for now they just needed her to stop -- unlocking the ankle cuff to toss it aside. "We can talk when you're better, ya know?"

Fear tracked across her vision and, unsure about her own unfettering, pushed herself back up while frustrating Kell's attempts to wordlessly keep her there. "No, I--"

"Empire," snapped Kell, trying to get her to stop without forcing her. "Why do you want it?"

She bunched a pillow in her hands. "B-because you're here and that means I'm safe. And then you're not and every time the door opens--"

It's her nightmare, the one she's had a dozen times, dancing now across dilated retinas. She doesn't know what it means to leave, to go, except to-- "I'm dragged in front of a wall, and those lovely subcommanders of yours blast my brains out for a propaganda film. Because I'm not useful to them, not like they want me to be. Like I can be, for you."

"Hey -- you're not going anywhere. We're not--"

They sighed, gear-shifting their expectations for today.

Kell needed it, they both did. And Niamh pulled in closer -- guided by Kell's hands -- till she was firmly, warmly cradled. "I know a way in which you can be very useful."

One last time wouldn't hurt -- but only a little. "You do, you do?" she chirped.

Kell had lied to her, over and over now -- it was fun to see her like this, admitting her secret desires through gritted teeth and spinning eyes. But Kell knew now -- why they liked it; it was victory, not control. They liked Niamh choosing to rely on them. Need them.

(Maybe that's what made Kell feel useful.)

So right now they needed her to ride it out, because addiction suppressant was useless for this, and another antagonist -- at this dose -- would serve only to violently exhume her guts.

That's if the wine wasn't going to do that on its own.

"Being ever so pretty," they responded at last, pulling her shorts away and grasping at her, finding an overclocked, overheated hard-point -- desperate for its mounting.

But all Kell could fit was a finger and thumb, pulling back and forth slowly, squeezing gently whenever they reached top. "And making such pretty noises for me."

"Maaaa," she bleated again -- turning her fluffy, ginger curls into Kell and chewing at balled knuckles, before then reaching out, anxiously, for the little kisses Kell dishes out like a love-fed Autocannon, before another misfiring attempt to soothe her.

"Ya know the worst that woulda happened?" they asked. She knows -- and Kell knows it won't fix her problem. "Ya sit in the POW camp while Blackford finishes collapsing in on himself, and we send ya home."

For a modest fee, missing the Heirloom that is your heart -- Kell does not add.

Niamh bucked into their grasp, desperate to feel the joystick twiddled more and faster. So Kell held them tighter, well-briefed otherwise that such misappropriated equipment will take hours to operate correctly -- if they let it.

Though Niamh would let it happen, she offered her-entire-self every time -- begged to swear loyalty with her ass. But Kell kept pushing it back.

How did you break someone to be a partner, not a subject?

Because Kell never learned how to fix things -- certainly not people. They didn't make armaments for that. So, for now, Kell insisted only on her pleasure and maybe, at most, helping them, rarely -- sheltering her in wetted trenches.

"You don't need to be useful," they cooed.

"Nooo-- I do. Please let me keep it -- Sir." Niamh couldn't believe them, not now. "Then you'd know I'd follow your orders, and you could trust me, and maybe then you could--"

She hadn't ever lived without being useful -- didn't know what it meant.

Niamh stirred, the pleasing dullness in her head, a blossom of cold, terrified honesty, ejected as she fucking exploded -- dumping hot, white shrapnel all over, then writhing indignantly in her own mess. "--fuck, then maybe you could keep me."

"Empire-- the Tribunal approved you. You're not-- hey!"

They leant back, running a hand over her hot-blooded cheeks, while she was already trying to run away again. Where ya gonna go?

"Empire--"

"No! No Empire!" she shrieked -- before falling away, in shock, desperate to diminish herself. "I'm not-- I don't want to be Empire anymore."

Kell could see the phosphate-flash in her eyes, followed then by the smouldering wreck of another self-debasing idea she'd devised. "Let me speak to them, my family -- I'll abdicate. And they'll hate me, and never want see me again, and--"

She wouldn't stop.

Kell knew it wouldn't be today.

So they gave up, and got up, and left her stranded for a moment -- shivering, and still muttering -- before re-engaging with a warm, damp towel. Replaced then, after clean-up, with the soft, little shark she clung to when Kell was gone.

(Their militia always brought toys -- at least one crate -- for lost kids and now especially pathetic defectors. Kell had to be careful not to mention that all ninety-nine of its fellows had been scorched by back-mounted mortar bypassing the point-defence.)

(Niamh already felt guilty about the little she knew she'd done, with 40 tons of Heirloom steel. Kell didn't need her to realise she was responsible for 18 kilos of scorched stuffie, especially after letting her hoard the 190 grams of slight-singed lone-survivor.)

She held it close -- so close Kell worried she'd tear it apart. And Kell held her close, and worried the same.

And she wouldn't stop, but Kell just let her ride it out.

---

When Kell rebooted, Niamh hadn't retreated. She was exactly where they'd left her.

Dozen Hells did they give this bitch an ankle chain for?

They rose slowly, laying her down beside them, carefully entwining their fingers before snatching the toy from her hands, waking her with a wretched fright.

"What're you-- give him-- give Filib back!" she groaned, octaves kneeling lower than she did.

"Oh -- he has a name now? Guess this one is gonna hurt."

Kell didn't torment her -- they didn't. So Niamh didn't know to brace for whatever mean trick this would be. "W-what do you mean, hurt?"

"Sponsor Kell Kinroth, for the Defector Niamh Gilios, issuing a disciplinary action," they purred, clearly swept up in the idea. "Infraction; usage of withheld contraband -- namely, combat stabilisers smuggled from the Defector's Cavalry."

Niamh held her tongue, posted it between her teeth, unsure as to whether it was best to flick words of anger or apologia.

"Response; withdrawal of Defector-issued comfort unit for three weeks."

"What!? Nooo-- Kell! You can't be serious. I thought-- didn't you say I got approved?" She got up on her knees, hands clutched a shark-toy-sized distance from her breast. "I didn't fucking imagine that, okay. I don't have a sponsor anymore, right?"

"Only when you sign the papers."

Kell turned to the door -- permanently thumbing away the security lock.

"And ya still got me for probation, so I gotta take it seriously don't I?"

Niamh's head rolled and jittered like malfunctioning point-defence, but Kell couldn't see it.

"I'll bring him back early -- if you're good," they teased, as it opened.

"Please--"

"--Kell."

Niamh edged off the bed -- hesitant towards the spectre of the ankle chain -- and clutched at Kell's arm, bracing the shivers in her hands.

"I-I don't want to be left alone -- when you're gone."

Kell could've slipped their grasp, been callous about it and would've months ago, but--

"Shit, I wasn't really gonna-- sorry Em-- Niamh."

They pivoted back to face her, stepped in a smidgen to let the door close and picked up the appeal papers to press them into her hands. "Revision; withdrawal for 10 minutes."

They pantomimed out one of Filib's fins for her to fleetingly hold on to her.

"Ya know, while I go fetch more suppressant from the infirmary, and you sign the papers. Just rememberin' -- I pick your callsign."

Niamh let go, rolling her eyes and unfurling the document -- only a little bothered she wouldn't get to try killing this one again.

"Yes -- Sir."