[Part one here. TW: nonconsensual touching, creepiness, broken bones. There is no noncon in this. There’s a point where it may seem like that’s where we’re going, and it’s not.]
The deep-voiced man leaves first, the woman after. The other man, Harvey, seems to be staying the night.
Ellis is in the bathroom, brushing his teeth on his stool, while Harvey speaks to Master. It makes him a little curious, that they are speaking privately when Ellis is just pet, but he supposes it’s not a problem. He probably wouldn’t understand it anyway, like most of their conversation.
When he finishes, he goes to find his Master, and is surprised to find him waiting at the doorway. Before he can go to his knees, Master holds up a finger, and says, “You’re to spend the night in the guest room. Follow your rules and any orders you are given.”
Ellis nods, and Master pats his head once. “Give me your hand, darling.”
He offers it, and holds still while Master tapes a splint to his finger, secures it to its neighbour, and then kisses it gently. Ellis remembers to thank him before Master is sending him on his way with a rueful smile. He doesn’t understand, but that’s okay. Rule one. He’s doing the right thing by going.
Cradling his injured hand uncertainly in the crook of his elbow, he knocks on the door to the guest room, and waits until he hears, “Come in!”
Pushing the door open, he sees Harvey sitting on the double bed, a small bag on the nightstand. The lights are low, only a lamp at the bedside casting long shadows over the nice big room Master lends to his friends. Harvey, now wearing only a T-shirt and boxers, draws him over with a crooked finger. Ellis approaches, heart rising nervously in his throat, self-conscious at being alone with the stranger.
For the first time he gets a proper look at Master’s guest. Harvey has blond hair over strong features, glasses, and a muscular body. There’s a tattoo on his right bicep, but Ellis tries not to stare, so he can’t tell what it is.
“Come up here,” Harvey says, and Ellis’s stomach flips, but he gets up onto the bed, pulling his knees under him and waiting for his next order, eyes cast submissively downwards.
He listens closely as the man shifts nearer, feeling the eyes on him. When a hand enters his field of vision, he is careful not to flinch. Even when it slips under his collar and runs fingers over his marks, chafing them awake into painful itching, he does nothing but watch. Master touches him like this all the time. It’s not Master, but it’s close enough.
“Look at me,” the man murmurs, and Ellis raises his eyes. Harvey’s eyes are green and pale. His lip curls, and he says, “Tonight, I’m your master.”
Ellis’s nerves jangle anxiously at this assertion, and he has to suppress a shiver. Nobody else can be Master, that’s not – he can’t, what if he’s told to break his rules? He doesn’t know what to do, Master said to follow his rules and his orders, and his rules mean he has to do what Master says, but the rules don’t say anything about other people being Master. Only – only one person can be Master.
But Ellis can pretend. He’ll have to. This man expects it, and Master will be angry if he displeases the guest.
“How’s your hand?”
He takes a breath. He tries not to think about it. Listening to his body only makes it harder to be good, feeling the restlessness, hunger and pain. “It hurts,” he says, and sucks in an extra breath to add, “Master.”
The smile on Harvey’s face spreads wider, but the eyes behind his little glasses stay fixed on his face. “That’s very good,” he says. “You know how to treat a guest.”
Ellis nods slowly, though he’s not at all sure.
“You can get back on the floor now, little one. I want you to stand on one leg.”
Hesitantly, Ellis obeys. He wobbles for a moment, then another, unused to – any kind of physical effort. Not even used to being on his feet.
Harvey reclines on the bed, watching him with that intent stare, still smiling. “You’re so pretty,” he says, in his soft voice. “All that hair, pink lips, those cheekbones. Your eyes are divine.”
It’s not a question, but Ellis hedges a cautious, “Thank you, Master.”
Harvey meets his eyes again, and the smile is warm, and the eyes are cold, and Ellis shivers.
He notices. “You’re scared of me, I see?”
Ellis can’t nod, because he’ll wobble. He has to hold very, very still. His leg is already aching. “Yes, Master. I’m sorry, Master.”
The admission seems to draw Harvey forwards like a fish on a line. He rolls off the bed, standing and drawing closer, circling Ellis while the pet stands, trying to suppress the tremor in his knee.
“Don’t be sorry,” Harvey says, voice close from where he stands behind Ellis. Ellis flinches, sways, and Harvey’s hands catch his waist and straighten him up again, warm and heavy. The hands don’t leave again. Harvey moves closer, close enough that Ellis feels the closeness like a heat against his back. “I like that you’re scared.”
He has to stay up. Harvey is holding him until he can stay up. He has to – he tries to. Upright, one leg, like his temporary Master – temporary? – like this Master wants.
“That’s it,” comes the sweet whisper. The hands lift away from his sides, and Ellis wobbles, but stays standing. His ankle feels like it’s being slowly compressed, too much weight bearing down on it.
“Thank you, Master,” he whispers back, knowing he was helped and he should be polite.
“That’s my pleasure,” Harvey replies. He’s still so close. When his hand touches Ellis’s hair, over the back of his neck, the answering shiver prompts him to put his hand back on Ellis’s waist to steady him, and Ellis closes his eyes, surrendering himself to the contact. “Poor thing, you’re finding this so hard. Or do you just want me to hold you?”
It’s a leading question, Ellis thinks desperately, he knows what to do with those, he’s – this is so confusing, so hard, and Harvey is scary, and being scared only seems to encourage him, and Ellis doesn’t know what to do with this – this guest, so he just has to obey.
I must make no noise unless invited to by Master. And he’s been invited to make one noise, say one thing. “Please, Master,” he says, breathless, somehow, just from balancing, and being touched, and Master is holding him up, isn’t that kind of him? “Please hold me.”
Harvey makes a satisfied noise. The other hand comes to rest on his waist, and Ellis sighs gratefully at the help balancing. “Thank you, Master.”
Harvey smiles. “Look how good you’re being, little one. It’s a shame...”
Ellis’s eyes open and he frowns, perplexed by the contradiction.
“I’m going to hurt you anyway,” Harvey says. His hands sit a little heavier, thumbs brushing the marks through Ellis’s shirt. “It’s not a punishment. You’re perfect, and your fear, your pain, will be perfect too. I know you can do it.”
Ellis flounders for a response. He wants to ask, but he hasn’t been invited – he should be agreeing, or saying thank you, or – pleading to be hurt because that’s what Harvey wants and Harvey is Master and Ellis’s job is to reflect his Master so that Master is always right and Ellis is always feeling exactly how he should be and he should be – scared? Harvey wants him to be scared. Grateful, but scared.
The grip on him becomes a firm grab, and then Ellis is lurching across the room, and he lands on the floor with a breathless whimper, the impact shattering through his finger into a new level of pain.
Harvey is on him in the next moment, hauling him back up with apparent ease, setting him back on his feet. “One leg,” he reminds Ellis, and his voice is still so gentle.
Ellis pulls himself up with his legs under him again.
“One leg,” Harvey says impatiently. As soon as Ellis complies, the load-bearing ankle is kicked hard, stinging against the bone, and he’s on the floor, catching himself with his elbows in a desperate, jarring attempt to save his finger.
He feels like crying, now. This is new and different and he doesn’t like it. He’s a toy, isn’t he? He’s entertainment. He’s being – consumed, by those eyes, and those hands, and played with. His finger throbs loudly and Harvey keeps pulling him around and Ellis wants his rug, and his Master, and the dark room where he’s left alone for the night.
Harvey picks him up again. Sets him back on his one foot, on his throbbing ankle. “Good boy,” he says, a catching laugh in his paper-smooth tone. Then, the kick, the pain, the impact against the floor, again.
And again.
And again.
The kicks don’t get gentler, as Ellis struggles more and more to rest his weight on the abused joint. Soon he’s falling over of his own accord, thudding against the carpet with a voiceless whine. Harvey laughs and scoops him up, giving him a crushing great hug. “Keep going,” he tells Ellis, and puts him back down upright. Stand. Balance. Fall again.
Until Harvey kicks him and Ellis falls and he lands badly and there’s a snap, and the ache of his finger drowns in a scream of pain. His ankle.
He falls perfectly still, but for the great wracking breaths he heaves in, as a bright, constant pain sings through his body, turning his stomach and heightening his terror. It feels wrong, so wrong, and he’s so scared to move it in case that feeling becomes worse.
He isn’t given a choice. Harvey reaches down and lifts him, and Ellis can’t stop the moan of pain that escapes his mouth as he is set, for the tenth time, onto his feet.
“One leg,” Harvey says, and when Ellis tries to lift his broken ankle off the ground, hands land firmly on his waist. “No, no, sweetheart,” Harvey sings softly. “Not that leg.”
Ellis looks up into the taller man’s eyes, searching for mercy through the tears. He can’t mean it, surely. He can’t – it’s not possible.
Harvey meets his gaze, smiling. “Rule one.”
A cold pressure settles over Ellis’s skin, despite the way the pain is making him sweat. His voice emerges. “I must always obey Master.”
“Obey me, then.”
He shudders, but carefully lowers his foot. As slowly as he can, he ekes his weight onto it, feeling the way the break pushes and grinds with each shift. Lightning agony rockets up his leg and spreads through him as his body protests, and he pauses.
He screams airlessly, a second later, as Harvey’s bare heel punches into the ankle and he tumbles to the carpet.
“Good boy,” Harvey crows. “Such a good boy. Breathing so hard. I bet he’s barely hurt you, hmm? Even though he says you deserve it.”
Ellis’s eyelids flutter as the pain increases to a fever pitch, and the suggestion Harvey makes bridges the gap from terror to full panic. Master knows he deserves this. Master said he deserves this. He deserves, he needs, this is right, he should hurt and it’s good that he’s hurting.
Oh, oh – so this is a punishment. And rule – rule six?
“Thank you, Master,” he chokes out.
“What?”
“Thank you for punishing me.”
Harvey hums in annoyance, and kicks him, again, in the ankle, and Ellis’s vision whites out as the agony swallows him whole.
When he can breathe again, and blink colour back into his eyes, Harvey is crouched opposite him, on his heels. “Not a punishment,” he says, still, still smiling. “Just entertaining your guest.”
