A Fiesty Burn (Knox)

Knox slammed the door with the force of a goddamn landslide.

"Fuck!"

It tore out of him like a shot, bouncing off the steel walls. His lungs burned with it. He kicked the edge of the bunk hard enough to make the whole frame shudder.

Aaron didn’t even flinch.

He was sprawled across his bed, one hand on his phone, the other casually scratching his chest. Looked like he hadn’t moved in hours.

"What the hell happened to you? You look like someone just shoved a pipe up your ass."

"Victor," Knox spat, pacing like a caged animal.

Aaron snorted. "Ah. So pipe confirmed."

Knox ignored him. His fists clenched. Jaw grinding. His whole body was shaking like a live wire of contempt.

"I want to put his face through a concrete wall."

"I wanna burn his skin off every inch of his body. God, do I hope he stops breathing in his sleep. Fucking cold-hearted piece of sh—"

"Stop talking," Aaron said sharply.

Knox kept pacing, seething.

"That son of a bitch doesn’t give a fuck about us. He rerouted the entire ship to Greece just because he wanted to get his dick wet. And he didn’t tell anyone."

The words tore out of him raw, but they weren’t enough. Knox paced, then suddenly slammed his fist into the locker so hard it left a dent. He hissed as pain shot up his knuckles, split skin, blooming blood.

Aaron raised an unimpressed brow. "Brilliant. Hurt yourself more. That’ll teach him."

Knox didn’t answer. Just stood there, breathing hard, staring at his bleeding hand like it had betrayed him.

Aaron sighed, threw his blanket off, and stood. "Come here before you get blood on the sheets. Sit down."

Knox didn’t move. His chest heaved. Aaron grabbed the first aid kit and gave him a pointed look. "You’re going to need your face intact the next time Victor slams it into the mat, yeah?"

Reluctantly, Knox sat. The adrenaline was wearing off, and with it came the sting, every split, scrape, and bruise from training flaring up like open wounds.

Aaron stood in front of him with the cotton balls. "Fucking idiot," he muttered, but the touch was practised. Precise. Just not gentle.

Aaron dabbed the cuts on Knox’s face with white cotton balls dripping with burning chemicals that were seeping into the slits like ant bites.

Knox winced as he glared up into Aaron's face with confined rage that was constricting his chest into orchids. Aaron's disposition was calm compared to his anger-ridden brain. Knox was failing to be aloof at this point.

His fists were clenched on his legs. He was trying to bear the pain from Aaron's not-too-careful nursing while battling the revolting, violent impulse to get up, walk to Victor's room, and turn it upside down with him in it.

Aaron dabbed the cotton into his bottom lip, pressing in with force. Knox's nose wrinkled in anguish. It pissed him off that he had to suffer this vicious cycle of simulation training for pity's sake.

He was tired of getting his ass beaten into submission every fucking Tuesday of the week. He knew he had no choice, but he was begging for just one day, one day where he could hand Victor's ass to him on a silver platter.

"You're just a broken record, mate. I've heard you wish every heinous thing on Victor for three years. Dreams are meant for sleeping because they'll never come through," Aaron chuckled when he eased up to turn to the first aid kit.

"A man can dream whatever the fuck he wants," Knox answered. His eyes narrowed at his roommate, whose eyes landed on his with pure amusement at his plight evident in them. His ginger curls were messy from having to leave his bed to tend to the wounds Victor had rained on his precious face.

Aaron licked his lips, grinned, then reached out and gripped Knox's chin, pressing his thumbs into his cheeks so his lips pouted. Knox aimed a sharp glare his way.

"I bet he's dreaming of Sandra, aka you, doing the filthiest things you could imagine to him right now."

Aaron turned his face to the right, then placed a Band-Aid directly on the cut above his eyebrow and blew on it.

"Fuck, fuck, ow, why did you blow on it?" Knox groaned, trying to shrug his head out of Aaron's grip, but the hold got firmer. His fingertips sank into Knox's cheeks.

"My mother usually does when I had a boo-boo from getting my kneecaps smashed by a big bad bully," Aaron quipped in a baby voice as he snapped Knox's face back towards him.

"Oh, shut the fuck up," Knox threw with spite. He was already keyed up from this morning. The tsunami of bottled-up testosterone in his head was rushing all over the place.

Aaron smiled at him, pulling his head up so his chin pointed into the air.

"You gotta stop being like this. He made you lieutenant of this team for a reason."

"You mean to mock me?"

Aaron dabbed another white cotton ball on his chin.

"Or he saw something in you that you can't see."

"He saw me as nothing but a scrawny kid trying to make it in this lonely fucked up world and decided to be another part of that agony."

"Or he cares about his team," Aaron argued, looking Knox dead in the eyes with a smirk. He was doing this on purpose, riling Knox up just for fun. Aaron was another dumb, sly, cunning asshole.

"That son of a bitch doesn't give a fuck about us. Look how easy it was for him to turn the ship to Greece because he wanted to get his dick wet."

A ding went off from his phone that was up near his pillow, where he left it after he stormed into the room, threw his gear down and texted Victor, the cause of all his pain at that moment—to tell him to go fuck himself, but as Sandra.

It was like telling the man himself because, in reality, he could never utter the word "fuck" to that man's face unless he found a way to breathe underwater.

"Speak of the devil and he'll fucking appear."

Aaron snickered then eased up as Knox took out his phone. The dings went off two more times in succession. Knox's eyebrows creased as he swiped down to the bastard's messages. Aaron leaned over, peering shamelessly at the screen with a grin on his face.

Victor: Have you ever thought of voicing these concerns to your boss?
Victor: Sometimes, a little talk can go a long way.
Sandra: The man is a brick wall, completely insensitive and thrives on being a dictator. Talking to him will surely make me lose my job, don't you think?
Victor: No, it might make your job a little easier if you talk to your boss. I'm sure he isn't that unreasonable.
Sandra: He's the literal example of unreasonable. He's violent and insipid. The man lives in a bubble of "fuck all of you" every time. He doesn't smile. He doesn't say one kind word or even crack a fucking joke. The morale of our team is the fucking lowest because of that bastard! He doesn't even try to be nice to people he's stuck with for hours on end, because in his mind! We are beneath him.
Victor: You're very passionate about your boss.
Sandra: It's not passion, Victor. It's disgust.
Victor: This seems more like disguised dissatisfaction with your boss's leadership style. Confronting him is the only way to reach a place where you're not troubled by this.

Knox's face screwed up into one of apprehension. Aaron snorted next to him. They turned to look at each other and then chuckled. 

It was funny that the very man himself thought approaching him and voicing their "concerns" for his leadership would lead to anything good. Knox knew for a fact if he ever opened his mouth about Victor's shitty personality, hell would be waiting for him on the other side of that daring attempt at mutiny.

"Even over the phone to a total goddamn stranger, he tries to control the situation as if he knows anything."

Aaron dropped next to him on the bed. A sigh escaped his lips.

"The dare wasn't supposed to be about morality, Knox. The dare was to get the man to think you want to get dirty with him under the sheets. So do you want my advice?"

Knox stopped his typing mid-way to turn to look down at the snake next to him. Knox knew if bullshit ever came out of the man's mouth, he was going to kick him straight off the bed and give him some bruises of his own.

Aaron got away with too much on this ship, holding too many secrets and leeway to fuck around with people's lives, albeit Knox placed himself right into the manipulative freak's hands, but that meant nothing.

"Mate, you need to feed into his delusions that he's helping you. Do you know what a man loves to feel like? He likes to feel needed."

"I'm a man, Aaron, and that's fucking bullshit," Knox spat out. He was ready to throw the phone at the man's face.

"Hey, bro, stop thinking like a man because on that phone, you're Sandra, a woman," Aaron chuckled. He placed his hands behind his head and breathed out. He stared right into Knox's face with amusement filtering through every twitch of his lips.

"You need to believe you want to suck his dick and also take it the moment he's off this ship."

"I don't really want to do that shit, Aaron. This is for show."

Aaron shot up.

"And that's why it's not working—because you don't believe it."

"What the actual fuck are you saying?" Knox hissed. He leaned away from Aaron, who was suddenly too close to his face with too much enthusiasm.

"You need to want to suck cock, Knox," Aaron smirked. "You're gonna need to live it to believe it."