The first thing Ruaan noticed about Blackmere Correctional was the smell.
Bleach. Metal. Something underneath both that he couldn't name and didn't want to.
He was still in his dressing robe.
Ivory silk, monogrammed at the chest, tied loosely at the waist because he hadn't had the chance to change before they'd dragged him out of his own home like he was some common criminal. Which, fine, technically — but still. The officers processing him at the entrance had looked at him like he'd arrived from another planet. One of them had actually opened his mouth to say something.
Ruaan had given him a look that shut it very quickly.
Small victories.
His wrists were still cuffed in front of him. His lawyer had promised paperwork was being handled. His lawyer had also said that forty minutes ago, so Ruaan had quietly decided his lawyer was useless and filed that information away for later.
The holding room they put him in smelled worse than the entrance.
Three officers stood around him, one of them already snapping on a latex glove with the kind of enthusiasm Ruaan found personally offensive.
"Arms out," the officer said. He was young and barely older than Ruaan. He had a small stain on his collar that Ruaan clocked immediately.
"Is that coffee?" Ruaan asked pleasantly. "On your collar. You might want to—"
"Arms. Out."
Ruaan sighed deeply and lifted his cuffed hands. "Fine. But for the record, I find this entire situation deeply undignified."
The officer reached forward to start searching but he never made contact.
The door opened.
It didn't slam. It didn't bang dramatically. It swung open with quiet, deliberate control — and that somehow made it worse. The three officers in the room shifted immediately. Ruaan watched it happen in real time, the way their spines straightened, the way the young one with the coffee stain actually took a half-step back without seeming to realise he'd done it.
Ruaan turned.
The man standing in the doorway was tall. Not just tall — built like someone had constructed him specifically to take up space and make other people aware of how little they took up in comparison. Broad shoulders filled the dark officer's uniform without effort, sleeves rolled to the forearm, collar sharp. His jaw was cut hard, dark stubble across it, and his eyes — a cold, pale grey, almost silver — swept the room once and landed on Ruaan. It felt less like looking and more like 'cataloguing.'
He was, objectively, unreasonably attractive.
Ruaan hated that he noticed.
The man said nothing. He simply walked to the table at the side of the room, pulled a fresh pair of latex gloves from the box, and snapped them on one finger at a time with unhurried precision.
"I'll take over," he said.
His voice was low. Even. The kind of voice that didn't need volume because it had never needed to repeat itself.
The three officers exchanged a glance. Coffee Stain practically evaporated. Within thirty seconds, the room was empty except for Ruaan and the man with the silver eyes and the gloves.
Ruaan looked at the closed door and looked back.
"Right," he said. "So. Popularity contest, you'd win."
The man didn't react. He moved closer, circling slightly.
"Any drugs on your person?" he asked.
Ruaan blinked. "What? No—"
"Any weapons."
"I'm in a dressing robe—"
"Contraband of any kind."
Ruaan opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again. "Who 'are' you?"
The man looked at him for a moment. Something moved behind those pale eyes quickly and then it was gone.
"Harolin Crowe," he said simply. "Officer in charge."
He offered nothing else. No rank elaboration. No title. No explanation for why three grown officers had rearranged their entire nervous systems the moment he walked in. Just a name, delivered like it was all the information anyone needed.
Ruaan filed it away. 'Harolin Crowe.'
"Ruaan Calder," Ruaan replied, because he had manners even in handcuffs. "Though I assume you already know that."
Crowe didn't confirm or deny it. He stopped in front of Ruaan, close enough that Ruaan had to make a conscious decision not to step back, and said, "Strip."
Ruaan stared at him.
"...I'm sorry?"
"Standard search procedure. Remove the robe."
"Absolutely not."
Crowe's expression didn't change. Not even slightly. "It wasn't a question."
"I don't care what it was." Ruaan pulled himself to his full height, which was respectable, and lifted his cuffed hands between them like a small barrier of principle. "I am gay, yes, but that does not mean I allow 'anyone' to—"
"You allow what the law permits me to do," Crowe said, quietly. "And right now, the law permits quite a lot."
"I want my lawyer—"
He didn't finish the sentence.
Crowe moved 'efficiently' with one large hand closing around Ruaan's shoulder and turning him, pressing him firmly against the cold grey wall before Ruaan's brain had fully processed what was happening. The cuffs clinked against the surface. The silk robe offered absolutely no protection from the chill of the wall or the sudden, overwhelming proximity of Harolin Crowe standing directly behind him.
"Hey—" Ruaan started.
"Quiet."
The search began.
It was thorough. That was the word for it — clinical and thorough, Crowe's gloved hands moving with the brisk efficiency of someone who had done this a thousand times. Shoulders. Arms. Sides. Ruaan kept his jaw locked, kept his expression neutral against the wall, kept his breathing even because he was Ruaan Calder and he did not react.
He was fine.
He was completely fine.
Until he wasn't.
Crowe's hands moved lower, patting down his hips, his outer thighs. Ruaan held his breath, focusing on the texture of the wall under his cheek. Then Crowe's grip shifted, one large hand spreading over the curve of Ruaan's ass, fingers splaying possessively through the thin silk. Ruaan's breath hitched. He tried to shift away, but the hand tightened, holding him in place.
"Don't move," Crowe murmured, his voice a low vibration against Ruaan's ear.
Ruaan squeezed his eyes shut as Crowe's other hand moved between his legs from behind, the latex-covered fingers pressing firmly against his perineum through the silk. A jolt of something hot and unwelcome shot through him. He bit his lip hard.
Then Crowe's fingers moved lower, pressing against the tight furl of his entrance through the fabric. Ruaan's whole body went rigid.
"No—" he started, but the protest died in his throat as Crowe's finger pressed harder, circling deliberately.
"Standard cavity check," Crowe said, his tone utterly flat. "Stop moving."
Before Ruaan could process the command, he felt a slick pressure against him—Crowe had used a dollop of clear gel from a small packet Ruaan hadn't even seen him open. The coldness of it made him gasp, but it was nothing compared to what came next.
With a single, deliberate thrust, Crowe pushed a thick, gloved finger inside him.
Ruaan cried out, a sharp, choked sound that echoed in the sterile room. The intrusion was sudden, invasive, and shockingly intimate. The finger worked its way in to the knuckle, stretching him in a way that was equal parts violation and, to his utter horror, arousal.
Crowe's finger was unyielding, moving in a slow, circular motion, scissoring slightly to open him up. The burn of the stretch was intense, but beneath it was a deep, shameful pulse of heat.
"Breathe," Crowe instructed, his own breathing perfectly even, his body a solid, immovable wall behind Ruaan.
Ruaan tried, but his lungs felt tight. The finger withdrew almost completely, then pushed back in, deeper this time, curling slightly. It brushed against a spot inside him that made his legs tremble violently. A traitorous moan tried to escape his clenched teeth. He felt his body betraying him, softening around the intrusion, welcoming it.
Crowe worked his finger in and out with a slow, relentless rhythm that was anything but clinical. It felt calculated, personal. Each thrust was a reminder of his complete vulnerability. Ruaan's forehead pressed hard against the cold wall, his knuckles white where he gripped his cuffed hands. He could feel his own cock hardening against the silk of his robe, a humiliating testament to the unwanted stimulation.
After what felt like an eternity, Crowe withdrew his finger with a soft, wet sound. Ruaan sagged against the wall, trembling, his face burning with a mixture of shame, anger, and residual, humiliating pleasure.
Crowe stepped back. Ruaan heard the snap of the gloves being removed. He turned around slowly, using the wall more than he would ever admit, and looked at the man standing across from him with an expression he hoped communicated the full depth of his outrage.
Crowe tossed the gloves into the bin without looking.
"You're clean," he said.
Ruaan stared at him from the floor, back against the wall, legs doing something humiliating and traitorous. "How 'dare' you—"
Crowe had already moved to the door. He knocked twice. It opened immediately — Coffee Stain reappearing with the speed of someone who had been waiting anxiously on the other side.
"He's clean," Crowe said, not looking back at Ruaan. "Take him to cell 109."
The officer's face shifted. "109, sir? That's — that's the lowest rank block."
"I know."
"He's — I mean, with the other inmates there, they'll—"
Crowe turned his head just slightly. The officer stopped talking.
"109," Crowe repeated.
A pause. "Yes, sir."
Ruaan pushed himself upright, ignoring the state of his legs through sheer willpower and generational stubbornness. "I don't know what 109 means," he said, voice sharp, "but I want it on record that I am 'deeply' opposed to whatever you're—"
Crowe finally looked at him again.
Those pale eyes settled on Ruaan's face with a cold weight. And for the first time since he'd walked through the door of Blackmere Correctional, Harolin Crowe smiled.
It was not a kind smile. Definitely not.
"Your life here," he said quietly, "will be exactly as miserable as the one you made for someone else."
He walked out.
The door clicked shut behind him.
Ruaan stood in the empty room with in his silk robe which was slightly askew, legs still making their own shameful choices, and stared at the space where Harolin Crowe had just been.
The cold feeling that settled in his stomach had nothing to do with the wall.
'I'm absolutely, completely fucked.'