Hey hey! Here's part one of my Faces of Whumpmas Past for @auroragehenna's Whumper Adam. Enjoy!
The night before is a blur. Adam opens his eyes languidly, mouth still dry from the whiskey last night. His head splits from the bright lights winking at him across the room.
He recognizes her silhouette first: Ruby, a skinny brat he picked off the streets six weeks ago. Cold snap was coming on and she didn't have a homeless pack to square with.
He knows she pegged him right from the start but it was either being locked in a basement with food, water, and a mattress or freezing to death on the concrete. Of course she'd weaseled her way out of there a week in, but he had number locks where it mattered.
He'd locked her downstairs last night. Couldn't have her interrupting his Christmas bash. Thirty people in the house and he didn't need weird questions asking if she was his new girlfriend and why he hadn't said anything about her.
She must have been pissed as hell to worm her way out of a hogtie and two sets of handcuffs. Maybe she enjoyed the challenge. Or maybe he'd been too drunk when he tied her up.
Doesn't matter now, anyway.
"Hey, uh, there's leftovers in the...fridge," he grunts, shifting himself upright in his chair. His head rings with sharp pains, as if being hit on both ends with a hammer.
"I know," her thin voices echoes heavily in his head, like they're both underwater. "I ate them."
"...Good girl."
"I'm not your girl." Her voice is a little clearer now. Maybe the hangover is wearing off faster than he thought.
"There's perks there if you change your mind," he grunts, laughing. The whiskey bottle sits half empty on the side table. He decides to reach for it.
His hand doesn't follow the thought. Before Adam fully processes this, Ruby sits down in his lap, one arm around his shoulder, both legs propped over the armrest.
"No, Mr. Adam, there'll be perks if you change your mind."
Something catches the gleam of the Christmas tree's light before Adam feels a cold and dangerously sharp pressure against his neck.
This little bitch, he chuckles to himself. "Put the knife down, Ruby."
"Why?" she asks, glaring at him. "You're gonna tie me up? Again?"
He smells the blood more than feels the nick she gives him. He doesn't panic but she's crossed a boundary he has to punish her for.
When he intends to throw her off, his wrists chafe each other instead. He only then notices the searing ache in his shoulders. Like a tension wound too tight.
Is he--?
Adam pushes a glance over his right shoulder. He can't see so much as feel that his wrists and elbows are tied together.
"Turns out tying up the elbows, too, makes escape harder," Ruby says flatly, letting the tip of the knife drag along his adam's apple. "Not that you cared to test that. I'm smaller than you and you're lazy."
"Okay..." Adam grunts, pressing his eyelids together to squeeze out the last of his hangover, "You want me to treat you like a big girl, you gotta stop throwing tantrums like this."
"You're bad at keeping me down."
"Am I?" he throws it back at her, smiling even as a trickle of red marks his neck, "I've been out cold for hours and your pretty little mind couldn't crack the number codes."
She frowns, tossing her long hair to the side. "You don't know that."
"Oh yeah, I do. You think this little tantrum is because you had to give me one last goodbye before you left?" he leans closer until their foreheads almost touch, "If I knew how special I was to you, I--"
Ruby stabbed the knife into the chair post, just left of his head. The heavy sound shook him. He lifted his head back, but didn't quite pull away.
He couldn't let her see she startled him. His bound hands flexed as his mind scoured for a plan B if things got too gnarly.
She lifted her eyes, her gaze broken by her disturbed hair.
"I hate you...I hate you so bad," she says, voice so steady, he can feel the tremors in her chest. "I just--what's it going to take for you to--" she runs her hand through her hair, pausing to clench it on top of her head, "--to get out of my head..."
