Ansel stared at the pieces of wood and drywall that littered his hardwood floor as Lucio spoke. His words sounded thick and muffled, as if he were trying to speak to Ansel while the latter's head was underwater. "Consensual," he hissed back as Lucio wrapped his arm around the professor's waist. "I don't care if you told him that he could beat you with a fucking baseball bat. That doesn't mean he should, or that I'm going to tolerate it." Although his voice was heavy, dark, and angry, Ansel offered no resistance as Lucio started to take him away toward the bedroom. Ansel didn't blame Lucio in the slightest. Although he didn't agree with Lucio's choice of profession, he wouldn't have had the opportunity to fall for Lucio if he hadn't been for the young man's solicitation, so in some small way he was grateful for it. But Ansel couldn't accept this. Buckley had stopped himself short of permanently injuring his darling, but one day someone wouldn't. Lucio was fierce, but physically he was built finely, with a narrow waist and long, thin limbs. It wouldn't take much for someone to leave lasting scars. Prostitutes were killed all the time by angry johns. Ansel didn't want to wait and see who would be the one to go too far.<br/><br/>He deposited himself on the king size bed in the middle of the room, looking down at the Persian rug underneath his feet. "There's hydrogen peroxide and bandages underneath the sink," he said bluntly, pointing toward the master bathroom. He waited for Lucio to grab whatever he saw fit to clean up his hand and didn't speak until the younger man returned. "I won't kill him," the professor said plainly, as if that were seriously an option that was on the table and not just an unrealistic declaration made in a fit of anger. "But he isn't going to get away with this. I'm going to make sure he knows that what he did to you was despicable. He's going to feel every wound he inflicted upon you tenfold."<br/><br/>It didn't matter what Lucio told him in an attempt to calm him down. Although Ansel's chest was no longer heaving, although the instinctual growling and snarling had ceased, he was still deeply incensed. "You're mine, Lucio. You're everything to me, and for him to treat you like you're nothing more than just some punching bag is unacceptable. I don't care what you say, I don't care that you call yourself just a whore. You're not just a whore. You've never been just a whore. You're beautiful, sweet, intelligent, clever and manipulative in the best way. You make me feel complete. You fill up that dark, sinking hole that has been threatening to swallow me up my entire life and you make me want to live every single day just so I can see your face again.<br/><br/>"From the second you stepped into my classroom I wanted you. I've always fucking wanted you. And when I look into your eyes I know why. You're fucked up and you're broken like me, with shattered and jagged edges and parts that have been missing for years. But when we're together, we become more than the sum of our parts. I know you see it, too."<br/><br/>Everything was a haze, now. Ansel didn't even realize what he was saying at this point, everything was coming out of his mouth in a rapid, uncontrolled spill that tumbled from his lips and stained the floor at his feet. "You will never be just a whore to me, Lucio. And if you just let me keep you, I'll show you every single fucking day how wonderful you truly are."