3,746 words. Original series: In Resonance (formerly Liliholm and Page)
[Masterpost]
Content Warning | offscreen torture of a Black whumpee for the sake of hurting a white one, hero/villain whump, cyberpunk setting, panic attack, chronic pain, drunkenness, gore, decomposition, robotic spider, emeto (semi-graphic)
For the "send Henry anything for his birthday" ask game:
@brutal-nemesis That hit like a gut punch. Not Wes 😭😭
Eight months in the making, this ended up becoming a full IR chapter. We're not beating the “this man couldn't possibly be a terrifying supervillain” allegations yet, but the blood trail he leaves on his way to recover Wes will be a different story completely.
Tag List | @ink-and-salt @just-a-whumping-racoon-with-wifi @whumpsical @redwingedwhump
After three unsuccessful attempts at getting the key into the lock, Henry couldn't help but giggle at himself. "You know," he said, his Russian accent uncharacteristically thick, "you can help me any time."
"Oh, I'm aware," said Europa through the hidden intercom above the door. "But I'm having too much fun watching."
The world was calmly spinning. He swayed a little, resting his forehead against the door, and squinted at the keyhole. After a few more attempts, it finally caught up to him that his coordination was trashed because he was trying to use his prosthetic. "Devil," he muttered, switching hands.
When he finally got the door open and stumbled inside, the comforting black of his apartment was there to greet him. Light glittered through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the glow of the surrounding high rises twinkling from the cold.
He never got tired of that view.
Europa dialed up the lights, slowly bathing the space in warmth. "I've just let the ladies know you made it home safe."
"Thanks, Eurie. You really... you really..." He fumbled a few times trying to toe off his shoes, using the wall for balance. He dropped his bag of gifts, and wriggled out of his coat. "You take such good care'v me. You know this? I feel I don'... don't tell you often enough."
She chuckled, her light tracing the ceiling above him. "Only an average of every 8.481 days. Or 2.133, if we're counting the times you say it without using the words 'adore', 'love' or 'best'."
"Still doesn't... doesn't feel like... 'nough." He paused for a moment, letting a dizzy spell subside. "Damn. Can you believe it has been... twenty-three years, now?"
"I can." Her voice went sweeter, "You were so small. Like a twig made of meat. You still had acne, too. It was so cute."
Henry couldn't help but laugh. "You miss it more than you— more than I..." Wow, he was drunk. He'd forgotten what this was like. He promptly lost his train of thought, and waved a hand, giving up. "You ready for watching memory?"
"I've already got it queued." Before he could walk away, "Don't forget to put the cake in the fridge. You've got a package waiting, too."
He murmured thanks, swaying around to dig around in the delivery slot. After a moment's hesitation, he quietly asked, "New messages?"
"...No, I'm afraid not."
It was only minutes from midnight. If there weren't any by now, then there weren't going to be. Henry did his best not to let the thorn of disappointment burrow any deeper—it was the first time in three years that the day had been missed. It wasn't the end of the world.
Besides, he knew the ER got busy this close to the holidays. There was every chance his invitation just hadn't been seen.
He finished putting things away, succeeding in not knocking anything over in the process (win!), and took the box with him to the living room as Eurie lowered the projector. The box wasn't very big, and felt like it was mostly filled with packing. Another gift?
He exposed one of his prosthetic's claws, and cut a smooth, wavering line through the tape. Even three... god, was it really only three? margaritas in, he was still all too aware of how poorly an uncoordinated, nerveless metal arm and a glass coffee table might mix. So he fumbled through his prosthetic's unlock sequence, disengaging it from the port.
The moment it disconnected, his phantom pain doubled, agony rushing over him in one great wave. For a moment, all his other senses vanished beneath the onslaught of humming nerves. Electric twinges raced all through his shoulder and up the side of his neck. He took a few steady breaths, in... and out... before the all-consuming roar faded slowly back into the shapes and colors of his apartment.
He set his arm aside and spent a few moments massaging at the twitching muscle of his stump, willing the constant drone of pins and needles back down into something more ignorable.
When he could finally breathe properly again, he gave Eurie a little smile. "Happy birthday, Circuits."
"Happy birthday, Genrikh," she said. "Ready?"
"Ready."
Above him, the lights and movement of the old home video—Eurie's first memory—began to play across the screen.
Darkness peeled away in strips, light flooding in a piece at a time. The first shadow to take form came in the shape of fingers, movement, the rasp-shuffle of tearing wrapping paper.
A face came into view. Ma's. Soft, round, already smiling so hard her cheeks eclipsed her eyes. This was years before the first of the sunspots that now dappled her face would appear, back when her hair was still short. She wore her favorite dress, watercolor-dappled in pinks and blues that had always reminded him of her hydrangeas.
Adoration radiated from her like sunlight. Warm, glowing, unreserved. Just seeing it was enough to make him ache.
Eurie's facial recognition software danced across the screen in threads of faint, teal light, outlining Ma's features. She flickered through her small database until she found a match.
>> Identifier: Ekaterina Ivanovna Litvinova
>> Alias: Katya
>> Status: Authorized User
Watery words, too dulled by wrapping paper to make out clearly. The camera shifted as more was torn away, tilting and jostling before settling again.
Another woman came into focus beside her. Eurie didn't have to consult facial recognition; she was the only person she'd seen with her own eyes before today.
>> Identifier: Nadezhda Prokhina Litvinova
>> Alias: Nadya
>> Status: Programmer, Primary Editor
Mum sat perfectly still, her hands folded in her lap. Austere features, structured clothes, prematurely-greying hair gathered into a tight ponytail. Although her face was impassive, Henry would have known that look anywhere; she was nervous.
He wouldn't learn until far later that she'd spent the better part of three years building Europa for him. His eighteenth birthday was a milestone that he and his mothers hadn't been sure he'd reach—this had been her way of promising herself that he would.
He had her crow's feet now. Ma's grey.
Glancing her way, Ma reached over to hold her hand, rubbing soothing circles over her knuckles. The pinpoint of Eurie's software tracked the movement, while the last strips of paper were cleaned from her camera.
"Oh, wow..."
The boy on the screen seemed so far away. Pitch black eyes. Thick glasses. He was wearing his hair in a combed-back style he had stolen from a 1940's newspaper clipping, which was only reluctantly cooperating with his attempts at shaping it. Two thick sweaters were layered one over the other, though they still weren't quite enough to keep the bony body beneath them warm.
Everything about him seemed unfinished, like a bird that had grown too large before losing its baby feathers. It wasn't just the years that spanned between them. Frail, trembly, soft and hopeful and warm—that boy had been dead for so long that the grief had almost become bittersweet.
Almost.
Henry began unpacking the gift box as he watched the screen. The gangly, weak-limbed teenager reached out to pick Eurie up, cradling her as though she were made of glass.
“It's beautiful…”
He could still remember what she'd felt like in his hands. Her neural core had only been the size of a basketball back then, an excavated icosidodecahedron—how on earth can I remember that phrase right now?—that had weighed nearly more than he could lift.
He remembered how unexpectedly cold she felt to the touch. The cooling systems that protected her quantum chips had made his fingers stick to the metal. The alternating facets of sleek gunmetal-black and glowing teal were nearly featureless, save for an array of ports, and a single, glassy black camera lens.
His voice was hushed, as if he couldn't believe what he was holding. "This is really for me?"
"It is. You said you liked Ganymede’s ability to form habits and personality—so I took it one step further,” Mum said. “Everything this one learns from you will shape what it grows into.”
He looked at Eurie with such awe. Not as if she were a new piece of technology, but as though he'd just been handed a newborn.
“Happy birthday, Genrikh,” Mum said softly.
Ma rested her chin on his shoulder, giving him a squeeze. "What will you name it?"
Henry's fingers met something cold and soft.
Confused, he glanced down at the contents of the gift box.
He froze.
The pinks and blues of the screen danced off dark skin. Streaks of serum and blood had dried where they'd smeared across the bubble wrap. Henry stopped breathing.
"Henry, look! This is the best part—" His internal heart monitor pinged her warning system. A pause, then the film abruptly stopped. "...Henry?"
The world spun in horrible, crashing waves. Darkness encroached on the edges of his vision.
Her voice filtered through like a distant echo, "What is it?"
Blood rushed in his ears. The only word he could get out was, "Lights."
The lamps around them dialed up.
"Oh, god..."
Flesh lay withered where the raw end of a severed finger had been exposed to air for too long. Worse, somehow so much worse, was the three-by-three square of human skin that Henry's fingers had found first.
The sight was even worse than he'd imagined. He couldn't take his eyes off the freckles sprayed across its surface. He knew, with a certainty that filled his lungs with lead—it had come from Wesley's upper back.
"Don't touch anything," Eurie said. "Set what's in your hand back into the box, dry side down."
Henry obeyed, too shocked to do anything but. There was a thump and a crash from the coat closet, a palm-sized spider droid squirming free of his coat pocket and out underneath the door. Sharp metal legs scuttled across the tile, then up the leg of his pants and onto the table.
"He's..."
"I know."
"Eurie, he's—"
"I know," she said, softer. "I'm going to find everything I can."
Eurie's droid began scanning every centimeter of his hand. Needle-like claws probed at his fingers, turning them gently this way and that. Once every inch had been inspected, finding nothing, she turned to the box.
Henry didn't feel himself stand. All he could sense was the afterimage of too-soft skin. The shift of gravity. The off-rhythm drumbeat of his heart pounding in his ears.
His stomach hit the counter, and vomit spattered into the sink. His body seized, retching violently, taking away all ability to breathe.
Wesley.
Wesley. Wesley. Wesley. Someone had captured him. Someone had—another torrent of loud, blinding nausea—someone had taken Wesley.
Who could have found him? Who could have done this?
How long had he been missing?
Henry's thoughts spun around him like the sucking depths of a whirlpool. He tried to remember the last time they'd spoken, the last time he'd seen him face-to-face. His memories were a blur, fuzzy and dulled as the rest of him.
Over and over, the same sickening blow: Wesley. Wesley. Wesley.
He was in trouble.
He was hurt.
Someone had done this to him.
His phantom limb tried to dig non-existent talons into the metal of the sink. Steel and stone would have been crushed to pieces if his prosthetic was still attached.
He knew he shouldn't have let himself be incapacitated. The one night he thought— the one night he— DAMN IT. Useless, useless! Think, Henry!
Henry's breaths came bared through his teeth. "How... long?"
"I'm reviewing street cameras from outside his apartment now."
He began to wipe his mouth on his arm. It was only then that he realized his hand was still smeared with yellowy-red serum. The smell of rot hit him like a physical blow.
Nausea clamped around his throat all over again. He pitched forward with a dry heave, stomach wrenching over and over until all he could feel was pain.
When it finally slowed, he fumbled the faucet on and began to scour the blood from his fingers. He was shaking all over.
He had committed so much violence, so much harm. But for as iron-steady a stomach as he'd grown, apparently all it took to reduce him to a shivering, vomiting mess was feeling the inside of a friend's skin.
"Thirteen days. That's the last time he was seen leaving his apartment."
"Gone where?"
"Cameras lose him at the edge of the city. He was heading out east, into the farmland."
He must have been going on patrol. He never switched into Deimos' suit where there was the chance of cameras seeing—he always disappeared into the silent ocean of cornfields and gravel roads, far from the eyes of the city. He would have headed back in the long way around.
Henry didn't know where Wes stashed Deimos' motorcycle. Not even Europa could follow his trail out that far. Wesley went to extreme lengths to keep his identity secret, but there was no arguing that it worked.
"Something... something must have seen him, elsewhere in city that night. Street cameras? Gait recognition? Systems-security?"
"Searching." The room flooded with blue light as Eurie turned on the massive holo-projector at the center of the room. She flickered through video recordings faster than he could see, casting flashes like lightning strikes across the inside of the room. "There were no reported break-ins. Either he didn't get where he was going, or he didn't make it out."
She didn't need to remind him—there were billions of surveillance feeds in their quadrant of the city alone. With no idea where he'd reentered city limits, scouring through all of them was going to take time.
Time Wes didn't have.
Think, Henry, think! "The box?" he asked. He turned for the wall of bookshelves on the opposite side of the living room, skimming one hand along the wall for balance. He jammed his thumb to the hidden fingerprint sensor, not waiting for the hidden compartment to finish opening before reaching inside for his armor.
"Sent under a bogus name and return address. No cameras near the mail dropbox it was deposited at."
"No note?"
"None."
"Fingerprints?"
"None. There are plenty of latex particles. They were clearly wearing multiple layers of gloves—I can't even find plastic prints in the soft tissue."
Henry cursed. He dropped to the floor, trying to shove his leg into the lower half of his armor. His dress slacks kept catching on the inside of the shell, the fact that he first needed to change into his skin-tight liner forgotten entirely.
He could still smell the rot. The blood.
He couldn't get the image out of his mind. Wesley bleeding, in pain, in shock. The finger that lay just feet away would never be successfully reattached—it crashed into Henry, over and over, just how permanent this was.
Wes had lost part of himself, just like he had.
Where was he, this very moment? Henry could picture the answer with chilling clarity. He'd be backed into the corner of whatever prison they were keeping him in. Hand curled tight against his chest. Jaw clenched. Breathing tight, sounds of pain stifled, as if letting it out would spread blood in the water.
Wesley always kept his wounds held close.
He was hurt. He was alone. He had to get him out of there. He had to.
"—Henry. Henry."
The present rushed in again. He was barely halfway into his armor, the edges of the plates refusing to cooperate with one another. Everything felt cramped and wrong, but he didn't have the bandwidth to figure out why. He looked up at her nearest camera. "You found something?"
"You're in no state to go anywhere tonight."
"I do not care. I have to— have to—" He fell over, struggling to wrestle on his boot with only one hand. "I search on foot. I go to his house."
"Henry, you're not thinking clearly. You can't be out in Praetorian's armor like this."
"He's out there alone, Eurie!"
"I know," she said, voice softer. "But we need a plan."
"There is no time!"
"—Listen to me. They sent this here. They have our address. They will be watching us. We need to know where we're going before we show our hand, or they will move faster than we can reach him."
It went like a lance through his heart. He knew she was right. But the thought of staying here, doing nothing, made his throat go tight. He'd already left Wes waiting for weeks. How many more pieces would they cut off of him if he waited one more night?
"I'm going," he said. He snapped the last closures on his chest shut, and wavered to his feet. It took him two tries to pick up his helmet, but that didn't stop him from heading straight for the foyer.
The door audibly bolted shut.
His hand froze just inches from the handle. He tried to open it anyway, rattling it against its locks. It wouldn't budge.
"Europa, open the door."
In her automated voice, "Access denied."
"Eurie!"
"I'm not letting you leave. You can barely stay on your feet. You'll only get yourself hurt."
"I will not just sit, like— like useless—"
"Wesley can't afford recklessness. I need you here to help me with the search. I need your mind on this, to see the things I miss. By morning when you're sober, we will know where to start."
That wasn't good enough. It wasn't—
The thought came quietly, mercilessly: Would they even have until morning? Wes was the most talented escape artist this city had ever seen. Every moment his captors left him alive was a moment they risked him slipping free.
How long would they risk it? How long before the math won out? Another wave of sickly vertigo crashed over him. His balance wavered, and he reached out to brace himself against the wall—only for his hand to pass straight through it.
He hit stump-first. An arc of lightning shot through his body, pain turning the world to white.
Pain, pain, pain. Strobing. Consuming. All else vanished, driven out of him along with the air from his lungs.
The only thing that remained was the blood-soaked survival instinct not to scream. Praetorian didn't feel pain. Praetorian didn't show his wounds. Consciousness began to fade, and still he bit his tongue and let out nothing but a single, long whine.
A private eternity passed before darkness began to fizzle in again.
He found himself on the ground, crumpled against the door, gasping for breath. His entire body curled around the white-hot roar of his arm, his chest and cheek echoing with dull afterimages of impact.
His prosthetic was still on the other side of the room.
Europa's voice faded in, "Henry? ...Henry?!" Her spider droid was right beside him, tittering restlessly back and forth. Her forelegs were raised toward him, but she didn't close the distance—she knew he couldn't stand to be touched when the pain was this intense, even if it clearly took all her restraint not to.
The waves of agony had already brought tears to his eyes. As soon as the first of them fell, something inside him crumbled.
His breath snagged. His throat closed off. He clapped his hand to his mouth, but he couldn't stop a sob from bursting out of him. By then it was too late—all the composure he was clawing for shattered.
"I can't- lose another- good person, Eurie. I c- I c-an't lose him."
The room was spinning around him. He folded his head between his knees, gripping the back of his hair so tight it felt like something might tear. The pain didn't stop. The self-soothing scruff barely even registered.
He was still so drunk. Terror and guilt and fury could do nothing to sober him. It felt like his dulled mind was betraying Wes all over again.
Thirteen days Wes had been gone, and Henry hadn't even realized he was missing. He'd been so self-absorbed with the new year that weeks, vital weeks, had slipped past unseen. While he'd celebrated with friends, the person who trusted him—in spite of all he knew that he was—had been mutilated.
Why hadn't he gone looking for him? Why hadn't he seen this coming?
"We won't let that happen. I'm already recalibrating the next several weeks of our timeline. Once we figure out how to divert the Plan—"
"I don't care about—!" He cut himself off, hearing the lie as it was about to come out of his mouth. Even here, even in the silence of his home, he couldn't bring himself to say even a word that might tempt the golden thread to snap. He couldn't.
He squeezed his hand around nothing, gripping and letting go again and again. Quieter, "I don't care."
Europa's legs rested carefully against his shin guard. "Henry, listen to me: we are not going to leave him there." Lightning flashes continued to blanket the room like a coming storm, glinting off her carapace. "If he has any idea what was sent to us, then he knows we are coming."
A fresh wave of tears answered her. Clarity mixed with an overpowering anger that felt dangerously like love.
She said, "Hell will freeze over before Wes gives up. He'll be buying us as much time as he can. We will find him. And when we learn who did this to him..."
Every clamoring thought inside of him stilled. In eerie unison, they whispered, "...we are going to tear them apart."
This isn't a particularly whumpy post, but this is what this question made me think of:
telepathy, but make it more abstract
Telepathy, but make it abstract. Make it overwhelming. Make other people's thoughts so foreign to the telepath's brain that everything is incomprehensible.
The way I see it, we all have vastly different ways of thinking, and speaking out loud is the filter through which it becomes halfway intelligible to other people. Maybe you think in images, but another person has aphantasia and can't imagine images at all. Or the person whose thoughts you're hearing is neurodivergent and notices things that you have never even thought about, like the noise that the light bulbs are making.
We are all sentenced to solitary confinement in our own bodies for life. Now imagine trying to understand another person's lived experience when you're thrust into it without any warning.
Here's the next chapter! It's been a while, but I'm glad to be writing a bit more. This is the aftermath of Jeremy's last session from the past few chapters. Chapter 20. Masterlist.
CW: Aftermath of torture, nudity, blood, exhaustion, aftermath of noncon elements, electrocution, bruises, prisoner whumpee, brainwashing.
- - -
Prisoner 326 was deposited less than gracefully onto the floor of his cell by Handler Barrett. The man retrieved a clean pair of shorts and a tshirt from the supply closet and set them on the prisoner’s cot. 326 had earned them.
“Come on now, we need to get you cleaned up. To the shower, 326.”
326 let out a breath as he pulled himself up onto his arms. He was fully ready to collapse into the floor and pass out into delightful unconsciousness, but this wasn’t over yet. He scanned over his naked body- eyeing the filth and sweat and blood that scattered across him.
He knew he couldn’t walk- his handler had basically dragged him here, his legs shaking too much to hold up his weight. His vision was blurry as well, his eyes darting in and out of focus.
So 326 resorted to crawling across the floor, dragging himself as gracefully as he could, wincing with every movement, collapsing a few times until he finally felt the cold tile, the metal drain underneath him of the shower.
He let himself collapse again, staring at his blurred reflection in the shower drain.
Handler Barrett turned on the shower, letting it crash over the man’s body below and stepped away for a few moments so the water could rinse off the filth on the surface.
When the Handler returned he had his sleeves rolled up to the elbow, and a rag in one hand, and a plain bar of soap in the other.
Jeremy’s eyes scanned across the bar of soap, then up to his handler’s face.
“It’s not protocol, I know, but you’ve earned it.”
326 let out a sigh as the handler wet the rag and began to lather up the sponge.
“Th-thank you s-s-sir-” Jeremy tried to make the words as clear as possible, but there was a subtle shake to his jaw, a tremor that he couldn’t deny.
“Here-” he held the items out to 326, and he took them in shaking fingers.
Jeremy began to lather up his chest, feeling the cold of the soap against his hand, when it slipped out of his fingers and slid to the drain below. The prisoner cursed under his breath and reached for it again but he couldn’t stop shaking long enough to get a good grip on it.
“Stop- just-” Handler Barrett scooped up the soap and gripped the top of 326’s arm. “Sit up, come on.” He helped the prisoner sit, his back facing the man and began lathering up the soap across his back and shoulders. 326 winced as it passed across the bruises and welts from an earlier beating, and bit back a groan as the Handler began to scrub some blood out from the deeper welts.
“Hold out your arm.” He ordered.
Jeremy did as he was told, and let the man scrub him, the rag passing over the crook of his arm where the ropes had rubbed his skin completely raw. Handler Barrett finished the other arm and then tilted his chin up with the back of his hand, turning the rag to his face.
Dried blood had crusted around his mouth and Barrett was as quick and efficient as needed in scrubbing it off.
326 breathed out a sigh as his face was washed, it almost- it almost felt nice as the man swiped the rag across his cheek, moving it around to his chin.
The feeling left as soon as it came as the rag fell with a plop onto the wet tile. Handler Barrett turned the prisoner around, his back pressed against the farthest wall, and began to wash his legs.
Jeremy hung his head forward as he was washed, the water hitting across the back of his neck, his hair falling limply around his face.
He glanced up briefly as the Handler paused, and realized where the man was looking. 326 scanned in between his legs, seeing the blood caked between his thighs, other fluids that had made their way onto him… Their eyes met and Barrett glanced away quickly.
“Clean yourself off and then rinse fully. Give me the soap once your done.”
Barrett plopped the soap and the rag into 326’s lap and then stood up, sliding the shower curtain over and stepping back into the small cell.
“Yes- yes sir.” 326 mumbled, his mouth heavy and slow.
Jeremy felt between his legs with his hand, wincing as the sore skin flared up. He choked back a sob as he cleaned himself off best he could with the water, before reaching for the soap. It slipped out of his hands again and he knew he couldn’t hold onto it long enough to thoroughly wash himself of all the filth. So he resorted to lathering up his hands as best he could, feeling the bubbles between his fingers, and with a shaky hand began to clean himself from all the blood and filth. He soon needed to grab the rag, but even being as gentle as he could he had to bite back a cry as he attempted to scrub himself off.
When he was finished he collapsed back against the wall, letting the water run down his chest. He ran his fingers through his hair and then brought his hands in front of his face.
He was shaking- the tremble in his hands was unmistakable, but from what, he couldn’t tell. The dehydration? Lack of food? Or all the shocks from the gag- the electricity…
Shit, what if this was permanent?
His body wracked with shivers as a rush of cold water splashed over his face. The shower was enough to pull him out of his thoughts and remember his Handler was standing just a few feet away. He couldn’t take too much time.
He placed a palm against the cold wall, trying desperately to rise to his feet. He managed to get a knee underneath him, his other foot placed firmly on the ground. 326 tried to stand but all the lather and suds from the soap made the tile to slick, and he crashed right back down with a thud at any attempt to stand.
Jeremy heard Handler Barrett curse under his breath and within a few moments the shower curtain was pulled away and 326 saw the man standing there, arms folded across his chest. The man shook his head and gripped the prisoner at the top of his arm, dragging him up to his feet. He helped him step out of the shower and then deposited him onto the bed, where 326 sat, head hung low on his chest.
A cup of water was placed in his hands and he trembled as he raised it to his lips. He took a small sip, and winced as he swallowed, his throat raw from screaming. Eventually the water began to soothe the aches and he pulled the empty cup away, the remains of his last sip trickling down his chin.
Handler Barrett took the cup away and 326 was left staring at his trembling hands.
“326-”
They were shaking so much… there were bruises across his wrists, his skin dotted with scars…
“326 look at me.” Barrett ordered.
The prisoner brought his eyes up- his face contorted in a look of- of fear, the Handler realized.
Handler Barrett paused for a moment, taking in the prisoner’s face. This prisoner, who was just a boy when he was first taken. Who was so defiant, so angry at the world, who now looked up at his Handler with the most fear he’d ever seen written on his face.
It had been nearly six years, that boy was a full man now. But in this moment, staring up at his handler with shaking hands, why did he look so young?
“326, what are your rules?” Handler Barrett ordered.
326 blinked, his programming taking over as his brain repeated what had been beaten into him.
“I do- do not have a, a name-” he paused, trying to push past the tremor in his jaw. “My numb-b-ber is 3-326.” He swallowed, his mouth dry, and took a breath. “I will only speak when- when spoken too- I will not ask f-f-for anything- my- my body is- is not m-m-my own.” He breathed out the last few words as the effort of speaking them became too much to handle. But Handler Barrett nodded, he was correct. 326 closed his eyes tight as his brain washed over with pain- it was so fuzzy- like a piece of paper, crumpled tight into a ball, unable to read the writing on it.
“Good. Do not forget them, understand?” Handler Barrett asked.
326 was back to staring at his hands, it took a moment after Barrett spoke for it to register, and 326 glanced up at him.
“Y-yes sir.”
“326, I need you to understand. You must never forget your rules. Now, they are planning on doing a 24 hour session. 24 full hours each, of sensory deprivation, and the overstimulation.”
Prisoner 326 flinched back against his cot as the words registered, his eyes shooting up to his handler. 326’s palms gripped the top of his thighs, digging into his skin as he tried to grasp some sense of control.
“Listen to me. I am under the impression that a full 48 hours won’t elicit any other effect than it has already had.” Handler Barrett clarified as 326 furrowed his brow in confusion. “It’s unnecessary. At least from my perspective. It is your job to make them agree. What do you suppose that entails 326?”
“Re-rememb-ber my rules, sir.”
Handler Barrett nodded. “And what else, 326?”
Jeremy closed his eyes, hearing the words that echoed through the speakers, over and over again, engraving them into his brain. Obedience equals safety.
“Obey.” He said.
“Correct. Under absolutely no circumstances are you to lash out, disobey, or even hesitate with a command.”
“Y-yes s-sir. Yes sir.”
“Good.” Handler Barrett turned away from the prisoner, moving to grab the clothes he had set on the cot earlier. “You did well today 326.”
326 was about to utter a feeble thank you, when the door to his cell burst open, and three unfamiliar figures stepped into the room.
(prompts) whumper who has the power to erase their whumpee's mind
contains: superpowered whump(er), team whump, lying, threats, caretaker x whumpee, pet whump, emotional whump, manipulation, intimate whumper (kind of?)
- "you don't want to forget about your family, right? your team? your darling caretaker? then you'll give me what I want."
- whumper erases all of whumpee's good memories of caretaker/their team and convinces them that they rescued them from evil and that they're safer with them
- or better yet, whumper convinces whumpee that their torture-inflicted wounds and scars were the result of "that evil, abusive caretaker"
- whumpee who had their memories of caretaker erased and falling in love with caretaker all over again after they're rescued
- or whumpee never remembers who caretaker is, they just see this wonderfully kind yet strange person who can't stop crying because "you don't remember me anymore"
- whumpee who doesn't know which memories are real and which are lies that whumper told them
- a whumpee who forgot how to be human, but there's this nice person called whumper who offers to make them into their "little pet", and even though acting like this seems strange for some reason, they do it because whumper is everything to them
- "do you remember caretaker?" "...who...?" "exactly. keep this up, and you'll forget leader, too."
Content Warning | horror, gore, whumper- turned-whumpee, a borderline-immortal whumpee described as a dead body, aftermath of an explosion, head injury, seizures, casual misogyny, excessive foul language. DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT.
Author’s Note | It’s finally here! The very first solo Luca and Garcia chapter in the series. I do have one detail for you before you read (one that will be worked more organically into other L&P chapters in the future): With Luca’s healing, be it on themself or on others, every single moment of the pain it would take to heal on its own still has to be felt. All those weeks and months of pain get compacted down into a matter of seconds. And if it was something that should never have been able to heal in the first place? Well. Why don’t you watch. :)
It had been longer than it should.
Garcia had his head buried in his hands, his knee tapping nervously. It had been almost two full minutes, and the shredded remains of the body next to him hadn't moved. Glassy blue eyes stared up at nothing, blood smeared across pale skin. Half of their lower jaw was missing entirely, what was left of their ribcage torn open like stuffing from a doll. Their head sat at an angle that was intensely wrong, and he knew even without touching that it was because the back of their skull was little more than pudding.
No twitching fingers. No tears brimming in those empty eyes.
Nothing.
He stood up and started to pace. Aimless circles around the perimeter of the room, round and round the black-red pool of blood clotting on the floor. He saw nothing of what was in front of him, only thought of where to place his feet.
Three minutes.
Their arm looked like it had too many joints, now. A patchwork of wrong angles and open fractures, peppered with torn flecks around the shoulder. There was barely any skin left. Barely any muscle, either. Garcia couldn't bring himself to even look at their hand. The finger stuff had always made him queasy.
For a moment, he thought he saw movement. But when he looked again all it had been was the draft catching on a lock of their hair.
Four minutes.
Fuck. Fuck. Come on, Luca.
He sat down on the crate again, raking his hands back through his hair.
Five minutes. Six.
He'd never once seen their healing take more than thirty seconds to begin. Usually it came even sooner than that, whether they started off conscious or not. But this? He'd never seen them hurt like this.
They might not be coming back from it at all.
There. A sound like the crinkling of cellophane, something wet just barely beginning to shift. He watched as their head began, in almost unimaginably small increments, to turn toward him.
There was still nothing at all behind their eyes.
A flood of icy adrenaline locked his limbs in place. He stared, paralyzed. It was only after a few more moments that he recognized the movement for what it was.
Their skull was beginning to piece itself back together.
He let out a breath of relief, watched as those vacant pupils slowly constricted down to pinpricks. Then Luca's entire body arced off the floor.
Their body went into flailing convulsions as neurons began to weave back together, eyes open wide. The bones in their ribcage shifted and cracked back into place. Their diaphragm was visible beneath the spongy remains of their lungs, hiccuping in some desperate attempt to pull air through a windpipe that wasn't there. The hinge of their jaw was moving soundlessly. And all the while the mushy back of their head rattled against the floor, uncontrollably battered by their seizures.
Garcia didn't touch them. He knew they wouldn't forgive him if he did.
After five seconds those attempts at breathing became a rhythmic wheeze of air through their throat. Ten seconds, and the sound became a rattle. Fifteen seconds, and Garcia finally recognized the spasming of their diaphragm for what it had been since it began.
Luca was screaming.
He turned his face away. Counted his breaths. The sound filled every inch of the room, echoing until it was deafening. It drowned out even the snapping of bone, pitchy and sharp and raw.
The convulsions gave way to active thrashing as their body healed. They writhed and twisted like a snake with its head cut, clawing at their own wounds in mindless agony.
The screams didn't falter. They just became slowly more and more recognizable, until there was no mistaking whose voice was behind them.
He had never heard them like this. There was no describing the selfish amount of relief he felt when the last of their skin finished stitching together, and the screams rose to a fever pitch. Then they suddenly died off into breathless, wheezing sobs.
Luca's back was turned to him. They collapsed into a heap of limbs, every inch of them soaked red.
Thirty seconds passed. A minute. It was some time before they managed to get themself back under control. They tried, shakily, to push themself up onto their elbows. Then to their knees.
They swallowed several times before they managed to get the remaining scraps of their voice to work. "...what got me?"
"Pill bomb. Looked like they'd set it into the door frame, just above the handle."
"Fuck." They had their head in their hands, as though staving off a horrific headache. Their voice was raspy and thin. "Did they get away?"
"Molinaro went after them."
"Alone?"
Garcia didn't answer. There hadn't been enough of Luca left to move, and someone had needed to stay to watch over their body.
"...Fuck."
They tried to push themself up onto their feet, arm shaking where it was braced against the wall.
"Hey, what are you doing? You know you can't be up yet—"
"We're going after him."
"No, you're sitting your ass back down before you—"
"Garcia!" They turned on him, their eyes as cold as their voice, "I'm hunting them down whether you come along or not. Where is my gun?"
Garcia sighed. There really was no winning with this little shit.
"Fine. You know what? Here," he pulled it out of his back pocket, and handed it over.
The safety was on, and there was already a round in the chamber. They confirmed both, then shoved it into their waistband. Their dark shirt was completely in tatters, holding on only around one wrist and in the scraps of fabric still tucked into their trousers.
They looked down at themself, and made a face that was half self-consciousness and half distaste. The only place on their body that wasn't covered in blood was the upper half of their face, and what little of their near-white hair hadn't been plastered down with gore. It made their expressions all the more haunting.
They looked back to him and held out their hand, "Give me your shirt."
No, Garcia wasn't surprised. He could already see them fighting back the urge to wrap their arms around themself, the bristling antsiness written all through their body would only get worse as the seconds passed.
"Give me your shirt."
"You are such a demanding little priss, you know that?" But he turned around and started taking off his jacket. "If I'd wanted to get nagged at like this I would have gotten married rather than becoming a mercenary." He pulled his t-shirt off over his head, and tossed it to them before putting his jacket back on. He kept his eyes averted while they changed.
"Does Molinaro still have his tracker?"
"He'd better." Garcia dug his phone out of his pocket, and pulled up the app on his screen. Luca joined him a moment later, tying the shirt in at the waist.
It looked utterly ridiculous on them. Garcia was a 5XL, and he'd be surprised if they were even an XS. It made them look like a child in a parent's nightgown.
...albeit a very gorey one.
"There. Three blocks north, one block east," he said. They both watched the blue blinking dot for a moment. It wasn't moving.
That... wasn't a good sign. They needed to go, now.
"We'll take the subground, we're too conspicuous to walk up top."
"No kidding." He grabbed his own gun.
Ten minutes later they were at the base of the new building, far below the tracks of the Mag-Link that rushed overhead. Down here the sidewalks were wide and abandoned, nothing to see them but trash and the occasional tramp. The few people they passed took one look at Luca, and immediately found reasons to leave. They weren't far from the shipyard, and the warehouses like this one mostly stood abandoned.
"There," Garcia said quietly. Thirty feet ahead, one of the metal doors stood slightly ajar on its hinges. Luca followed his gaze, and pulled out their gun.
Despite the horrific consequences they'd just faced, they didn't hesitate before being the first one through.
Inside the warehouse was vast, lit from far overhead by panes of yellowed, broken glass windows. Dirt covered every inch of the cement floor, piles of broken equipment and empty beer bottles heaped around the edges. The place smelled like old pipes and piss.
Luca nodded down to a smear of blood on the floor. Part of a boot print, another smear, another print. Both of them followed it, keeping their eyes moving about the dim space. The trail lead up a wide, metal-grate staircase to the loft level, half of the steps bent and warped with wear.
Garcia gave them a dubious look. He was a very big man, and nothing about those steps looked stable. Even if they didn't collapse, if the metal shifted wrong then everybody in this building would hear it.
They rolled their eyes, but gave the steps an assessing once-over. They set their foot on the first level, slowly. No sound. Their weight shifted up onto it. Still no sound. They kept their gun close, and moved smoothly up the next few levels before pausing to glance back at him.
Well that's great for you, Luca, but I weigh three hundred and thirty pounds more than your puny ass, his face said.
That's your problem.
They continued upward without him. Garcia gave an irritated little sigh. But his boot settled on the first step right above the brace, and he carefully followed after.
There were voices from up ahead. Too faint at first to distinguish, but as they grew closer he began to make them out. The first one was unfamiliar, wet and nasally. They were speaking quickly, a frantic edge to their voice.
The second one, notably calmer and steadier, was familiar. Luca heard it too—he saw it in the way their shoulders lowered just the smallest bit.
Garcia whistled loudly. Both voices stopped.
Molinaro called back to him, "What took you so long?"
They ascended the last of the steps, and were greeted with a welcome sight. Two dead bodies on the floor, and Leon standing over a third mark with his gun pointed at their head.
The man was kneeling with his back to the rusted railing, both hands cuffed around the pole behind his back. His nose was broken, blood pouring down his chest. When his eyes settled on Luca, he went paler than a ghost.
"You—no! I saw....I saw you—" The captive shrank in on himself as Luca stalked forward. Molinaro lowered his gun.
Their voice was vicious, "If you wanted me dead, you should have tried harder."
The toe of their shoe smashed into the man's windpipe, snapping his head back into the railing with a BANG. His mouth fell open into a silent gasp, eyes wide as he tried to draw in air. The noises his collapsed trachea made through those attempted inhales were like music to Garcia's ears. All the while, those wide, horrified eyes stared at Luca as they knelt down in front of him. Their thumb dug savagely into the indent in his throat until their nail drew blood, cutting off what little remained of his air.
(prompts) whumpee has a special power that gets exploited
contains: superpowered whump(ee), torture, slavery mention, trafficking, a bit of pet whump, huge self-loathing from whumpee, bad caretaker, recovery (process)
whumper kidnaps them specifically for their power and:
- becomes mother gothel to them (coddles them into using their power for them, cares only about their power and nothing else (they can be hurt however much whumper wants, as long as they can still use them), gaslights the shit out of them so they don't try to escape)
- tortures them into using it to the brink of exhaustion / death (they are basically whumper's slave until they are rescued)
- sells / loans them to different people in exchange for money
- makes them into their pet (a bit like the first one, but they make whumpee love them and make them love using their powers for them. they don't even have to torture them to get them to use it, they can do it on demand)
and when whumpee is rescued, they:
- believe that their power is all they are good for
- can't stand using their power anymore because of how much whumper made them use it or because using it is now tied with the memory of whumper
- start to hate themselves ("if i didn't have this power / if i were normal, i would have never had to get kidnapped / hurt, and caretaker / my team would have never had to bother themselves rescuing me)
- refuse any situation in which they have to use their powers (even if it's absolutely necessary)
^bad caretaker would reinforce their belief of 1 and force them to use their power, saying "i don't give a fuck if you don't want to. you use it, or i'll hurt you way more than whumper ever did if you didn't do it." (essentially they're just whumper 2: electric boogaloo)
good caretaker comforts them by:
- telling them that they have other redeeming qualities and focusing on those, making their power an afterthought, and then slowly bringing their power back into the picture
- praising them whenever they use their power so that using it makes them think of caretaker's lovely words, not whumper
- telling them that their power's a special part of them that makes them who they are - the person they love and cherish, and trading it away would mean trading them away (in response to whumpee hating themselves)
- "it's a part of you." "but i don't want it to be a part of me..." "...well...there's nothing we can do about that. i'm sorry. but think back on all the times you used it for good, and all the times you liked using it. maybe you can't think of any moments right now, and that's okay. but i know that they're there, and i'm gonna help you find them, and i'm gonna help you make more. whumper broke you, but i'll fix you. you're gonna hate me. but what else can i do when there's nothing anyone can do to remove it? it's going to be okay, whumpee. i'll fix this. i'll fix you."
(prompts) when whumpee is mind-controlled / possessed by whumper
cw: team whump, possession, mind control, angst, death, rescue (kinda but in a different sense)
- when whumper possesses them / controls them and makes them fight caretaker / leader / teammate, and caretaker / leader / teammate realizes that whumpee is far stronger than they expected
- caretaker / leader / teammate refusing to fight whumpee and desperately yelling out to them to try to get them to snap out of it
- eventually they have no choice but to hurt whumpee to protect themselves and they look so horrifed when they see what they did to whumpee out of sheer necessity
- whumper leaving whumpee's body / letting go of the mind control the second before whumpee is hit and whumpee is terrified when they see themselves about to be hit (and by caretaker / leader / teammate, no less)
- the post-fight angst when caretaker / leader / teammate is trying to tell whumpee what was really going on and that they didn't want to hurt them 🥺
- or another situation where whumpee is conscious and knows what whumper is using their body to do, but they have no way to stop them and they can only watch what whumper is forcing their body to do
- or caretaker / leader / teammate is a dense motherfucker and doesn't catch on to the fact that whumpee is mind-controlled / possessed, they just think whumpee has become a massive asshole (and whumper takes advantage of this by making everyone hate whumpee as much as they can)
- whumper commenting on whumpee's body when they're being possessed ("you're so small" "your hair is so annoying" "you're so weak")
- when whumper possesses them / controls them and makes them fight caretaker / leader / teammate, and whumper realizes that whumpee is just as weak as they expected so they leave whumpee's body / let go of the mind control
- but when they do so, whumpee is in a very dangerous place and so caretaker has to jump forward to save them
- maybe they're too late and whumpee was already dead the second whumper left their body (they fall to their death, etc without whumper to support them)
- maybe they both end up dying
- maybe caretaker saves them and gets them to safety, and protects them while the others fight (and if whumpee isn't unconscious, they tell them what happened)
one of my favorite tropes, so much angst potential
Here's the next installment. This story takes place in the same world as my Carrot Top series. The masterlist for this one is here.
CW: Manhandling, beatings, multiple whumpees, muzzle, stress positions, brief knife/blood mention, forced to watch, also some comfort/angst.
- - -
“Please- no more- just- just leave me alone.” Jeremy gasped.
The footsteps padded into the room, but they were soft- not heavy boots ready to break ribs or stomp fingers.
“Look at me-”
Jeremy nearly sobbed in relief as the old man knelt in front of him. He gripped the boy’s face, gentle fingers brushing his nose, inspecting his neck, his jaw- running fingers through his hair.
“You’re alright. Anything broken?”
Jeremy shook his head. “I don- don’t think so. Maybe a rib or two?”
Lee nodded. He moved fingers down the boy’s side, prodding gently as the boy hissed. “I think they’re just bruised. Don’t worry, you’ll learn the difference. Are you breathing alright?”
The boy nodded. “Just hurts like hell.” He choked back tears as the man helped him to sitting.
“Come on, you’ll feel better lying down.” The old man helped the boy pull his tanktop back over his head, and then helped him move slowly to his cot on the side of the room.
Jeremy collapsed gratefully on the cot. Lee sat next to him, not saying a word as the boy fell, his head falling into the man’s lap.
“I don’t- I don’t know what I did-” Jeremy whispered. “I- I tried to do- to do what he wanted- he just-”
“It’s- it’s alright.” The man stated, trying to relieve the tension in his own body as this kid trembled next to him. It had been so long since he’d had a new roommate. They’d come and gone through the years, but they’d all been transferred. They were familiar with how things worked already but this kid- he- he was so scared. It almost reminded him of himself years ago. Too many years ago.
“It just- I don’t want to be hurt anymore. I’m tired of hurting.”
Jeremy was crying. His tears fell down to the cot as he curled in on himself, shaking and trembling in a mixture of fear and pain. Lee had seen this too many times.
The punishments, the brainwashing or procedures or whatever, that was all justified. But it was a power play.
Guards and handlers doing whatever they wanted in the name of discipline. Taking things too far- too many accidents, or little slip ups that were always the prisoner's fault. Never being accountable for what happened, and they were always the ones who suffered for it.
But there was nothing they could do.
- - -
“Move it twelve. Come on, is it nap time or something? Get back to work!”
The old man winced as he was kicked, and struggled to get to his feet. Apparently it wasn’t fast enough as he was grabbed by the throat and wrenched upwards.
He knew enough not to fight. But his instincts kicked in and he gripped the handler’s wrists, trying to find some air.
“Come on! You don’t get a break unless everyone else does. What makes you think you’re special?”
Prisoner twelve shook his head as he was thrown to the ground.
“I’m sorry sir.” He repeated the phrase that had been drilled into him for the past few decades of his life. All he needed was a second to catch his breath. He had only been transferred to the gardens for a few weeks now.
For a naturebender, it was the best option. You knew you were lucky if you were put to work there. It meant your skills weren’t special enough for the experiments, but you weren’t deemed useless just yet. And for an older naturebender like 12- who was too old and useless for the experiments anyways- he knew this was his last resort before he was disposed of.
But still- for a man of his age- after being beaten and broken for years- it was backbreaking work. He had taken a second to sit down- his legs unable to hold his weight for much longer. But the few moments of breath weren’t worth his punishment.
“Position one- now.”
The man moved to sit on his knees, letting his head hang on his chest.
He had been in this situation too often for him to know begging would get him nowhere.
The handler picked up a large branch that had fallen nearby, and crashed it down against the prisoner’s back. Number twelve bit back a cry, clenching his teeth hard as another blow came down.
With the next strike he keeled forward behind a groan, letting the pain take it’s course through his body with the next blow- and the next- and the next.
Finally the handler realized his fun was over. There was no reaction- no begging or crying, and he threw the branch to the ground with a huff.
"Get back to work."
“Y-yes sir.” Twelve answered at the command.
He bit back a cry of pain as he rose to his feet- continuing on with his work, clenching his teeth as he staggered.
When he was finally led back to his cell, he wasn’t shocked to see the boy in a heap on the floor. He was saddened, but this wasn’t an unfamiliar sight.
Lee winced as he leaned against the wall, the boy’s head resting on his lap. They were both too bruised and beaten for anything else, so the two of them fell asleep, exactly as they were.
- - -
Prisoner 326 had not been a compliant prisoner.
The test results had come back, with the discovery that he was a nature bender.
However, the kid had refused to participate willingly in any experiments, tests, or evaluations concerning his powers. While some hesitation was usually normal, straight up refusal was rare. After all, you can’t force someone to use their powers, so the past two months had been filled with useless attempts, endless punishments, and nights full of pain and anguish for 326.
It became a sort of routine for Jeremy and the old man. Lee would come back from his day of work, exhausted, sometimes battered and beaten, to find the kid bruised, or bloody, lying in a heap on the floor. He’d clean them up, tend to any injuries, and they’d fall asleep for the night, oftentime with the younger boy resting his head on the older man’s lap.
Lee had never had the chance to find a partner. He was taken around the boy’s age, after all, and had spent the rest of his life in this facility. So he imagined Jeremy as the son he never had- some sort of paternal instinct coming over him as he watched over the kid, holding him as he cried, or spoon feeding him when he was too battered to do so himself. It pained him to see the kid in constant pain.
Lee wanted to tell the kid to just give up.
Convince him to just give them what they wanted and do as he was told. But some part of him inside hoped the kid would keep fighting. That he wouldn’t lose that stubbornness or defiance, when Lee himself had given up all his dignity so long ago.
It had been a particularly rough day.
Handler Barrett had been fuming because of something. He had taken the opportunity to lash out at Jeremy. The poor kid was littered in cuts and lashes- and to make matters worse, he had used the electric baton- angering all the cuts until they were red and swollen.
Poor Jeremy had broken into sobs as soon as the handler had left. His muscles were spasming, arms and legs throbbing with pain, and he was so exhausted. He was still sobbing when Lee finally came back.
He had held the boy, and fed him dinner, slowly trying to get more energy and strength back into him. Once Jeremy didn’t have any energy to even sip at some water, Lee had taken him in his arms.
They sat in a heap on the floor as he sobbed, his body shaking.
Hours later Handler Barrett had charged into the room.
Jeremy burst awake from where he had fallen asleep, and he began to tremble once more.
“What is going on here!” The man shouted. He pulled Lee away from the boy, grabbing him by the throat and hauling him to his feet. “Do you think this is allowed?”
Instantly the old man reverted to his training. The years of ingrained responses and replies becoming second nature.
“No sir. I’m sorry sir.” He tried to choke out breath as his feet began to leave the floor.
“You’re allowed to clean him up, help with his injuries, per my instruction. Anything else, is not allowed. Do you understand!” The man was screaming in prisoner twelve’s face.
“Yes sir!” He replied as he strangled for breath.
“Good. Now stay on your cot. I’ve got to deal with this situation.”
“Yes sir.” Lee scrambled back against the wall, gripping his throat as he was released to the floor. He hung his head low as Jeremy was grabbed and dragged to the opposite side of the room.
“N-no- no please, sir- please-”
“Quiet. Not a sound.”
Jeremy choked back a sob as his body was manhandled over to the wall. He fell in a heap as the man retrieved a few items from the cabinet.
“Position two. Now.”
Jeremy’s body shook as he pulled himself up to his knees, his wrists behind his back.
“I- I’m sorry sir- please-”
“I said not a sound!” Jeremy flinched as Handler Barrett yelled, a hand coming towards his face. But it wasn’t a slap. Instead the man grabbed his chin, forcing his lips open as something was shoved behind his teeth. Leather encircled his face, buckling behind his head and Jeremy soon found he couldn’t open or close his mouth.
Tears and fury built up inside of him as he realized he’d been muzzled.
“Well, two months of this and I’m surprised I haven’t used it yet.” The handler chuckled as Jeremy’s face grew red. “It suits you.”
The man pulled Jeremy’s wrists from behind his back and cuffed them together above his head, forcing him against the wall. The boy squirmed as he tried to find a comfortable position, one that didn’t put so much strain on his wrists and shoulders.
One ankle was grabbed and locked into a cuff that was attached to the end of a metal rod. The other was locked in on the other side, forcing his ankles apart, and his knees spread wide.
Jeremy winced as his body was manhandled into position, his feet flush against the wall, legs apart, his hands arching high above his head to keep him a painful angle against the wall.
Finally, a chain wrapped around his neck- two- three times, before it locked into the wall behind him.
Handler Barrett stood back, looking at the boy.
His chest rose and fell in a panicked rhythm, the cuts and burns from earlier still visible against his skin.
Jeremy squirmed in a panic as he found himself unable to move.
His legs spread apart by the bar between his ankles, wrists pressed flush against the wall above his head, and his neck chained in place. Any movement to alleviate the strain on his spine caused the chains to cinch tighter against his throat. There was no way he could adjust himself to be any sort of comfortable. Already his muscles had started to burn from the strain of being forced in the position.
He closed his eyes tight- trying to find some sort of focus.
They shot open once more as he heard the sound of cracking bone.
Lee had been pulled from the cot onto the floor. A fist, struck right into his ribs, followed by a thick boot.
The man gasped- eyes growing wide as he was struck over and over again.
“Look at him!” Handler Barrett yelled. He grabbed the old man by what little hair he had left, forcing him on his knees. “This is your fault kid.”
Jeremy met the man’s eyes. They were distant- staring off numbly into space.
Lee had learned to shut off everything he knew. To separate his body from his mind- and go somewhere else. Anywhere else- as his body was beaten and tormented over the years. Decades of constant torture let him learn how to let the pain take it’s toll. Let it do what it will throughout the body, take it’s time, and bring yourself somewhere else.
Jeremy tugged against the chains at the sight of the man. He yanked at his wrists until they were raw and throbbing- blood beginning to seep down his arms. He cried and screamed through the muzzle as the man was brutally beaten in front of him.
When Handler Barrett was finished, he approached the boy slowly from where he was across the room. He wiped away some blood from his knuckles, flexing the fingers in his hand. That same hand gripped the boy tightly under the chin, tears leaking from his eyes.
“You understand that this was your fault. You chose to misbehave.” He waved a hand to the old man, coughing and shaking on the ground. “This, was all your fault. You don’t speak unless spoken to. You don’t ask for anything. And you don’t do a single thing, unless ordered to directly.” Jeremy’s eyes stayed on the old man- waiting for some sign of semblance that he was okay. The handler forced his face back towards him, blocking his view of his cellmate.
“Do you understand me!” He yelled.
Jeremy could feel spit flying onto his face. But it was already littered with so much tears and sweat, that it made no difference.
The boy nodded slowly, unable to say a word with the heavy bit in his mouth- the leather encircling his face.
The man patted the side of his cheek before giving it a harsh slap, sending Jeremy’s head wrenching to the side.
“That’s a good boy.”
Jeremy gasped as the chains cinched around his neck. He pressed himself further against the wall to try and find some relief.
Handler Barrett gave the old man one last kick to the side as he walked out of the room.
“No you two sit there and think about what you’ve done, hmm?”
The door was shut, and they were left alone.
Drenched in pain, fear, concern- completely unable to move.
Tag List: @imagination1reality0 @morning-star-whump @deltaxxk @whumpcereal @his-unspoken-words
