(CAUTION: post contains mature themes. nothing graphic, just unpleasant.)
Cael awoke from the first dreamless sleep he’d had in days when something nudged him – gentle but insistent – in the ribs. His eyes snapped open, and he jolted upright with a hoarse yelp. The blanket slipped from his shoulder – he almost looked beneath it, almost spoke, almost asked Skyler what she thought she was doing - before the silhouette in the cell’s door registered in his sleep-fogged brain. He let go of the blanket abruptly, swallowing hard.
Rezn*k.
The fog disappeared in a flash, cobwebs in an inferno, his heart pounding wildly in his chest and throat and ears. It hadn’t been a week. It hadn’t. Time might not seem to move normal in here, with no real point of reference, but there was no way his time could be up already.
…was there? He clenched his fists beneath the blanket, trying to breathe.
The captain just grinned. “Good morning, sunshine.” He took a step further in, leaning against the bars lazily. His teeth flashed, the only thing truly visible in the shadow of his face. “How’s life?”
Cael shook his head, trying to stem the fierce shiver that jolted through his bones, chilling him to his core. Skyler was leaning against him; she could probably already feel his heartbeat…he knew he could feel hers, small, delicate and fast in counterpoint to his, fluttering against his ribs. It made him feel…strange. Protective and warm and twice-fold terrified, all rolled into one.
“You know as well as I do,” he said softly, fighting to keep his voice calm, “I don’t have much of one anymore.” Thanks to you was left unspoken, but he had no doubt that Rezn*k heard it anyways. He always seemed to pick up on the things that Cael didn’t wish for him to hear.
“Nope, not really,” the captain returned, shifting against the bars. The torch’s flame hit a pocket of pitch, flaring higher; the golden glow caught in his eyes, turned them into a predator’s hungry stare. “And in a couple of days, you won’t even have that anymore.”
I know that, Cael thought, another tremor passing through him. So why are you here, now?
“I had the idea that maybe they ought to let me at you before then…” Rezn*k went on, taking a step away from the bars. There was an unhealthy tone in his voice that made Cael grind his teeth together, knowing right then where this was going. He couldn’t sit here. No matter what happened, he couldn’t. It was too close.
He patted Skyler’s knee under the blanket, then slipped out from beneath it, being careful to keep it bunched up and wrinkled, praying she’d understand. “You know how I feel about audiences," Reznik continued, "And…well. It’d be a deterrent, I think. More of a deterrent than just chopping you…” He sounded frustrated, and his words were slurring together, carelessly. “The Clergy didn’t agree.”
For once those pompous jackasses make a decision that doesn’t make them even larger hypocrites…amazing. Cael sidled as far from Rezn*k as his chains would allow, though he knew in the long run it wasn’t going to do a single bit of good.
Rezn*k’s next words came in a low purr. “At least, not to that idea…” He took another step closer, his shoulders blocking most of the torch’s light. Cael bit back the urge to whimper.
He can’t kill you. He’s not allowed. And whatever happens, it’s not anything you’ve not been through before. You can handle this. The thoughts didn’t help.
“I get your sorry ass tonight instead. Right now.” He stomped his foot down, hard, pinning the chain around Cael’s ankle to the floor. Cael fought down another whine, this time at the pain flaring beneath the bandage. “Don’t complain, and we’ll get this over with.”
Why? Why did it have to be now? Cael glanced past Rezn*k, squinting through the bars. There were others there, moving in the shadows. Of course. Couldn’t run the risk of me getting out, somehow, with him like… He shuddered, trying one last time to take one last step away. The chain jangled beneath Rezn*k’s heavy boot, but didn’t give an inch. He stopped pulling before he reopened his ankle's wounds and stood as still as he could, his legs quaking.
“N-n-n…” He had to stop and take a deep breath before he managed to finish the simple sentence, praying that giving in would be enough, “N-not the bed.”
Rezn*k cast a disdainful glance at the ramshackle door-turned-cot, and seemed to dismiss that as an acceptable surrender without a second thought. “I got splinters last time, anyways.”
So did I, Cael thought dully, trying (and not succeeding, not entirely) not to look at anything but the floor, but I didn’t whine…
He’d had other things to worry about.
Rezn*k lunged; catching Cael off guard, twisting him around and shoving him face-first into the wall so hard that his forehead smacked stone audibly. The blow left his vision swimming and spinning around the edges, and he bit down hard on his bottom lip to keep from crying out. He felt hands tugging at the remains of his clothes, felt ruined fabric fall from his shoulders, and still he only thought.
You’ll get out of this.
His eyes flickered closed when Rezn*k’s lips brushed his cheek. He bit down on his lip, harder than he had done to silence himself, hard enough to draw blood, and forced himself to imagine the lips gentler; as if, maybe, he pretended they were softer, pretended they were…
Well, her lips, maybe…maybe it would help ease the horror, siphon away some of the shame? He almost felt that it would; at the very least it would distract him, but no matter how he looked at it, it still felt like a betrayal.
I’m sorry, Skyler.
…the same with the hands trailing down his now bare (gods, how had that happened? When had that happened?) sides, brushing across his thigh to…
Do.not.think.
It was easier thought than done, with the captain’s full weight pressing him against cold stone, his hands and lips hellishly hot where they danced, where they touched and pinned, fingering the scars that Rezn*k himself had spread over his chest, his back, his sides. He tried to imagine the hands slender and quick and gentle, tried to imagine the body against his softer –
The fantasy dissolved in a flash of rough hands and bad breath. Rezn*k chuckled in his ear when he made an abortive attempt to writhe away from the invasive fingers; chuckled and bit there too.
“You should have said yes, Cael,” he purred when he let go, nuzzling the side of Cael’s neck. Cael felt a shudder that he didn’t even bother to hide lance down his back, followed by Rezn*k’s hand, lightning quick along the narrow gutter of his spine. It came to a rest on his hip, fingers tight against his hipbone. “I would have made a good master.”
Except now I’ve got Skyler, and I don’t have to die or be your slave… Cael thought, ignoring Rezn*k’s hand brushing up his arm, tracing over the sides of his neck, playing with the fine hairs at the base of his skull. I don’t have to…
Rezn*k’s voice went hard, abruptly, the hand sliding into his hair and tightening. “On your knees.”
Cael flinched, feeling the words vibrate through every sinew of his body. Rezn*k couldn’t…he’d just…damn it to all nine hells.
Please don’t try anything, Skyler. Please. It’s better than dying.
“Rezn*k… Lev… please.”
The hand in his hair yanked him down, shoved him on all fours in a jangle of chains that nearly drowned out his yelp of pain; the captain traced his hand down his jaw and beneath his chin, pulling his head back. His body had lost the coolness of the wall already, and now, with someone else’s fingers mapping his skin, it felt like he was on fire.
Please, please don’t hold this against me.
“The last time you called me Lev,” the captain snarled, the grip in his hair tightening, “You used me, remember? Stole my keys, ran away through that damn portal?” Almost got me removed from my position, could have got me executed - hidden messages practically dripped from the way he said the words.
Cael managed a strangled squawk of protest. “I used you?” The irony was enough to steal his breath away. “I think you’ve got that-” The rest of the sentence choked off when he remembered what he was doing, what they had planned. Anything, even this, was worth it if he got away. If they got away. His mouth snapped shut and he bowed his head, meekly, swallowing his reply past the lump in his throat.
Rezn*k let out a long sigh, tugging Cael’s hair back away from his face almost gently. “Good choice, Ricci,” he breathed, voice fond, like a father to his child. The tenderness sent a spike of revulsion through Cael’s stomach, stung frustrated tears to his eyes, but he blinked them away angrily. “Good choice.” He let go of Cael’s hair, sliding his hand, instead, over Cael’s mouth. The faint sounds of creaking leather and chiming steel, followed by the sounds of denim and linen shifting, painted an ugly picture in Cael’s mind; an explanation to why Rezn*k needed his other hand. He felt fever-hot skin against his own, the full length of his back, and Rezn*k whispered in his ear.
“At least try not to scream this time.”
Cael drew a shuddering breath against Reznik's sweaty palm, closed his eyes tightly, and obeyed.
You know how they say you can get used to anything?
They lie.
*
He crawled back to the cot what felt like hours later, after Rezn*k left; sore, humiliated and sick to his stomach. His limbs shook. He’d pulled what was left of his clothes – every time the captain came, the rags were less and less – on, and they clung to him, sticky with sweat. He’d thrown up, too, and the foul, sour taste still clung to the inside of his mouth.
There was warmth beneath the woolen blanket, and the promise of escape, and something that seemed safe, and good, and pure, despite what she might have claimed. He couldn’t seem to make himself move closer, so he curled on the edge of the cot instead, knees drawn almost to his chest, quivering from head to toe.
“S-so,” he stammered, quietly, his voice quavering as badly as his body, “Th-that's R-Rezn*k, he’s, uh. He’s the captain. He’s m-married, got four ch-children, but his wife…he. He hit one of the kids, and sh-she left him.”
Some men like to talk too much. Rezn*k was one such man. Every time he had come to Cael’s cell, Cael had learned something new: that the captain liked blondes, that his wife’s name was Cynthia, that he’d never forgotten an errand, a birthday, an anniversary. Sometimes, he said these things when he should have been otherwise occupied, hands painfully tight on Cael's shoulder. Other times, he waited until he was satiated, his breath warm and soft on the back of Cael’s neck as he spoke, gently, almost wistfully, about what he feared he was missing now.
Cael was never sure which, exactly, was worse. He only knew he did not want to think about it right now. He was supposed to be distracting himself, not dwelling on it.
“H-he’s a v-very frustrated man,” he found himself saying, voice low, “And fr-frustration works itself out in a v-variety of ways, an'...” He couldn’t look at her, or towards her, right now. Not with the dried tear-tracks and Rezn*k's taunting kiss still on his lips. "An' I d-don't even know what the hells I'm sayin' anymore."
At least the guards were back at their posts now.
See? There’s always a bright side, if you look hard enough.