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hold-him-down · 1 year ago

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Occam’s Razor

TW: medical torture, med whump, needles, drugs, noncon drugging, restraining, clinical setting, bone whump, spine whump, institutionalized slavery, whumper pov somewhere in there, etc.

Notes: it’s the future if you have questions you’re welcome to ask but I might not have answers (but I probably do for most of them?). This is 2 months into contract, sandwiched between this and this. It has no business being over 3k words but it is and I’m not one to argue with my word count so you get ‘em all. This has been in the works since the very beginning as a little med whump piece, and now ya have it.

✥ ✥ ✥

If Luke’s white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel is any indication, the calm exterior is not entirely indicative of his headspace. Leo regards him, only slightly comforted by the fact that, for the first time in so many years, someone will be waiting for him on the other side.

On the other side of what, it’s unclear. The director of one of the sites called Luke earlier in the week and said he needed to bring Leo in.

Luke pressed for information, and only after his lawyer got involved were they given any details. Something about his bone marrow being a likely match to a finance mogul’s teenage son, and they were invoking line seventy-six in the contract. No permanent harm would come to Leo, and the contract could be extended to the extent of his recovery time.

He was in the room when Luke found out. He couldn’t hear the conversation, but he froze, watching Luke’s face go from red with anger to ghost white, and then Luke excused himself to his office, and Leo forced himself to take a bite of his dinner.

His hands shook, but that wasn’t new to him.

Luke did what he does best, which was make every threat he could, shout about some outdated laws that didn’t apply to workers, call in another high profile attorney to read through the contract, lose sleep, and eventually, have a serious conversation with him about the absence of any legal legs to stand on.

That day had been the first time Leo had seen Luke cry. Leo didn’t cry, though. He nodded, he said it was okay, and, in a particularly courageous moment, he asked if Luke thought it would hurt. Stupid question, and he knew that the moment the words hit his tongue. Of course it would hurt.

Luke promised then that he’d make sure it didn’t. And Leo smiled, nodded, and changed the subject. Because, at least he suspected, that Luke really didn’t know. But maybe, he convinced himself, maybe Luke could work a miracle.

✥ ✥ ✥

They let Luke come back with him, after a lengthy discussion that consisted mostly of thinly veiled threats. Leo keeps his eyes on the floor. He doesn’t think he’s had this specific procedure done before, but he knows it can’t be worse than some of the other things that have been done to him in the name of making wealthy men’s lives easier.

He made a mistake last night, though, and looked up the procedure on his phone. While he wasn’t certain exactly what he was looking for, he stumbled across more than a few resources for workers’ rights regarding medical ‘donation’, and a range of possibilities for what those procedures looked like.

None of them looked good.

He carried his phone into the living room and showed Luke; another mistake. Luke, solemnly, read it over.

“It won’t be like that,” Luke said, but his expression was tight.

“Are you sure?” Leo asked then, his third mistake.

Luke’s eyes rose from the phone to meet his. “I swear to you, Leo. I will do everything in my power to make sure you’re taken care of.”

And then, just as Leo was about to go back to bed, to try to get at least a few hours of sleep, he turned back. “Do you think–” he started, swallowing, his eyes digging into an invisible spot on the floor. He had learned, over the course of the last several years, that he was entitled to no support, no resources, no favors. But, if the last eight weeks had taught him anything, it was that Luke was, at least on some level, willing to help him. He took a breath. It was despiration that made him ask the question: “Do you think they’d let another doctor do the procedure? Maybe your brother, or you–”

Luke took a sharp breath and shook his head and Leo’s shoulders dropped, his arms wrapping around his belly, dread winding itself deeply inside of him. “I tried,” Luke said, and Leo nodded.

“Leo, you have to know I tried. They wouldn’t budge.” Luke stood, crossing the room, and Leo nodded again.

“It’s okay,” Leo said. It was a silly thing to request, and it didn’t matter if Luke tried or not. He had survived worse, and he would survive this.

He didn’t sleep, though.

Now, he pulls off his clothes and is changed into a hospital gown. Luke is outside of the room talking with the doctor. They are in a medical wing of one of the private sites, and Leo does all the things he’s supposed to do. He stands on the scale, he answers the questions, he submits to whatever they want him to submit to.

By the time Luke returns, with a woman in her forties with kind eyes that almost– almost– convince him he can get through this, Leo has an IV in his arm, a pillow to his chest, and a warm kind of zinging running through him. It feels weird, and he doesn’t like it, but if it helps him get through the next couple hours, he can accept it.

“How are you feeling?” the woman, who’s name tag reads Dr. Jennifer Benson, M.D., but who Leo will not address by name unless he’s told to, asks. She is flanked by two handlers, and Luke, looking pale but offering the warmest smile he can. Leo tries to approximate one in return, but knows it doesn’t land.

“I’m okay,” Leo says.

Distantly, he hears Luke talking to one of the handlers and he smiles. He knows he’s at least a little bit loopy, so he’s definitely been given something that will do something, and he hopes it’s good. He feels less anxious, at least.

“Edison Black assured me I could stay for the procedure,” Luke says, all official. He sounds like the Luke on the news, in a suit, yelling about rights and freedoms and America. He squints and scans the room slowly to find his Luke, in his sweater and jeans and yelling about local anesthetics. Leo’s finding it difficult to split his focus on the words they’re saying, on the feeling of the handler moving next to him, on the ringing in his ears.

Sometimes, if he asks, they let him close his eyes until the worst is over. If they allow Luke to stay, he won’t ask. And he won’t cry out when it hurts. And tomorrow can be a normal day.

Through the buzzing in his ears he hears the doctor, full of sympathy that he knows will dissolve once Luke leaves, saying, “Unfortunately, that isn’t possible. We will keep him safe. It’s a simple procedure, very low risk, he’ll be done within an hour.”

None of these words comfort him, but he finds Luke’s eyes across the room and tries to smile again. It’s going to be fine. He’s been through worse, and he’ll go through this, and then it’ll be over and he will go back to Luke’s house and sleep.

Luke makes his way over to him and kneels down, and Leo works to maintain focus. “They won’t let me stay,” he whispers. Leo nods.

“It’s okay,” he says. His eyes hold Luke’s, his expression conveying something that he thinks is reasonably close to I’ll be alright. He must have missed the mark, though, because Luke stands abruptly, and starts fighting with them again.

Leo wants to tell him to stop, that it’s pointless, that it’s futile, that it’s a waste of his effort and that he will, one way or another, make it out okay.

He opens his mouth to say it but the security guard comes in, and they shuffle Luke toward the door.

“I’ll be right in the waiting room,” Luke calls to him.

He swallows back the anxiety, and he tries to say, “It’s okay,” again, but nothing comes out.

“They said they’ll give you an anesthetic, Leo. It won’t hurt, okay?” Luke breaks past the guard and pushes toward him. As the handlers approach him, Luke snaps, “Just give me a second,” his tone sharp. At some signal that Leo can’t see, they back off.

“I’ll be in the waiting room, okay?” His eyes shut as Luke grips into the back of his neck, the pressure a familiar presence that does, if nothing else, offer some semblance of comfort.

“I promise, I will be right outside, and they’ve assured me they’ll make sure you’re taken care of.” A half-hearted smile.

“It won’t hurt.” A nod.

Leo isn’t sure if Luke believes his own words, but as the guard ushers him toward the door, the look that Luke casts on the room, on the doctor, and finally, on Leo, makes him think maybe he doesn’t.

And then he’s gone, and almost immediately, Leo feels his hands start to shake.

✥ ✥ ✥ [here’s the cut scene from what would land right here]

He is on his side, his body curled around a pillow, when the first of the needles goes into his spine. He flinches, but stills under the glare of the handlers. They watch him with a familiar hunger, not for pleasure, but for violence. Tears sting at his eyes, but the thoughts of disappointing them, of what they might do if they think he’s unlearned all the years of training, keep them from falling. Instead, he digs his fingers into the pillow while they take what they want from him. He isn’t even sure what it was.

He’s not naive enough to believe that’s it; they’d have let Luke stay for that. He knows without a doubt that it would be in vain, but still, he itches to ask them what’s going to happen next, if just so he can mentally prepare himself.

He doesn’t, though. He’s given a paper cup of water and his shaking hands give him away, but no one pays attention to that.

“Alright, Leo,” the doctor says, from somewhere behind him. Suddenly, her hand is on his shoulder, the handler takes the cup and the pillow, and a chill runs through Leo’s body. She guides him onto his stomach and he complies, the loss of the pillow in his grip an immediate empty presence that makes the room even colder.

“Easy,” the doctor says, and he mutters an apology and adjusts his body to the closest thing to comfort he can find.

She gives him a quick run-down of what’s going to happen. It’ll hurt, she tells him, but it’s very important that he stays very still. If he tries to get up, if he tries to fight, the pain will be significantly worse. This needle is quite a bit bigger than the last, and if nothing else, he needs to hold still. A hospital stay is the last thing he wants, she tells him, and if he needed any convincing, that would have done it.

“You’ve been given muscle relaxers and a mild sedative to help take the edge off the pain,” she says, gloved hands manipulating him to adjust his positioning. He does.

She waits for his response, and he isn’t sure what’s expected of him, so he says softly, “Thank you.”

He hears her intake of breath and feels the cool air hit his skin as the blanket is removed. He grips the sides of the table as they get him ready for what he knows now, without a question, is going to be bad. One of the handlers pats the top of his hand and he peeks up at them. They nod, a kind of I’m-right-here-if-this-goes-bad gesture that is too vague for Leo to know if it’s meant to be comforting or threatening.

It turns out he doesn’t need to decide, because a moment later, he feels the familiar sting of a needle and gasps, and almost instantly, he realizes that it’s going to be so much worse–

The needle cuts into his bone and he howls on instinct, his fingers clutching almost painfully into metal, but he doesn’t feel that. He doesn’t feel anything beyond the needle making its way slowly into his bone. He only knows he’s screaming because of the rawness of his throat, from the vague ‘shhing’ coming from somewhere beyond his reach. He wails, grasping harder still onto the sides of the table, pressing his face into the pillow, muffling the sounds as much as he can. Luke can’t hear this, he thinks distantly, he can’t know, and so he tries–

His body jerks, and he tries to still himself but he’s on fire, an unbearable kind of pain that he can’t count through and he can’t think through. From next to him, one of the handlers pries his fingers off of the table, and the feeling of unyielding metal is replaced by warm skin and he knows someone is petting his hair and someone is holding his hand and maybe, somewhere lower, someone is holding him still against the table, but he can’t process anything beyond the pain.

✥ ✥ ✥

For a split second, they make eye contact. Handler Michael Lowell instantly realizes that he might not have the stomach for this job anymore; the boy has him in a bone-crushing death-grip, and all he can do is stare at him as the doctor pushes the needle the rest of the way in, and the screaming chokes off. Leo muffles his own cries against the thin pillow beneath his head. Beads of sweat drip down his neck, skin patched in red, veins and muscles straining against the intensity of his suffering.

“I know,” the doctor says, drawing the plunger up. It’s a slow process, and Michael isn’t positive if they’re intentionally torturing this kid or if it’s incidental. Sixteen years on the job and he’s seen a lot of shit, but as the doctor says, “Almost done,” he struggles to parse out what’s what.

Leo convulses on the table. Guttural sounds claw their way out from somewhere deep inside of him and honestly, you’d think they were fucking killing him, and it was entirely possible that they were.

“I know,” the doctor coos almost; it doesn’t help. His grip doesn’t let up, his shaking doesn’t let up, and his body’s taking on a kind of clammy-cold situation that doesn’t seem like it’s a good sign. Michael assumes the doc is aware of all three of these things, but none of them seem to be alarming to her.

It’s only a matter of minutes, but it feels like fucking hours. His free hand is on Leo’s neck, half-restraining, half-comforting. He’s gone soft in his age.

He can feel Leo trying to lift himself up, trying to pull his arm back to get it under him, but he keeps him pinned, and tells him, more gently than he’s used to, “Uh-uh. Hold still.”

If he were at one of the training sites, they’d just knock him out. He isn’t sure why they didn’t, but it probably has something to do with something. He’s not asking and no one’s telling him.

“Almost there,” the doctor says again, and then, without fucking fanfare, she pulls the needle out, and she’s pressing a bandage into the spot where the needle was, which immediately turns red. Michael looks away.

Almost instantly, though, Leo starts gagging, and this time, Michael lets him pull his hand free. He wedges it under him, leveraging his head and chest off the table. Leo retches in between cries, but with the worst over, his body’s losing steam. His breaths are ragged, the tension in his muscles begins to let up and Michael wonders if he’ll pass out. He hopes he does, and then berates himself for going soft again.

That’s when the shaking starts. Michael takes a washcloth, wiping first his face, then his neck and the parts of his chest that are visible, the spots of the table he has access to. The doc puts something into the IV, all the while Leo trying to catch his breath, tremors rolling through every inch of him. His weight has dropped back to the table, and he presses his forehead into his arm. His sobs are lighter now, his breaths deeper, but still patchy as hell.

“All done,” the doc says, like it was easy peasy. Michael’s certain Leo doesn’t hear her. And then, to Michael, she says, “Make sure he’s cleaned up and completely calm before you let Mr. Bennett see him. Try to get him to drink something when he’s ready.” Michael is pretty fucking sure being a nurse isn’t in his actual job description, and he doesn’t know exactly how to get Leo calm and clean in the next seven fucking minutes before his shift ends, but that’s someone else’s problem. He’s been traumatized enough for one day.

The doc bandages Leo’s back, then pulls off her gloves, giving Leo’s shoulder a squeeze as she leaves. It’s condescending as hell, but he thinks maybe Leo’s on someone’s bad side to begin with, because he’s no doctor, but that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Michael makes eye contact with the other handler, who’s been equally silent up until now, and gets to work.

✥ ✥ ✥

Luke is ushered back into the exam room two hours after he left. The handler walks him as far as the door, tells him to take his time, and to let them know if anything is needed. He shakes his head and bee-lines to Leo’s bedside.

Leo is curled up under a thin blanket; his skin’s pale, but he looks alright. The IV has been removed, there’s a cup of water on the tray table beside him.

“Hey, buddy,” Luke says, by way of greeting. Slowly, Leo’s eyes open to meet his, and he smiles, the sad tell-tale smile that exudes exhaustion and sadness and anxiety. He looks him over; nothing overtly ringing any alarm bells, but he doesn’t trust these people.

“I’m going to get you out of here,” Luke whispers. Leo’s eyes are red but focused, and he moves to sit up as soon as Luke says the words. “Keep resting for a minute,” Luke says, but Leo pushes up anyway. “I need to go talk to the doctor, and then we’ll be out, okay?”

He waits for Leo to respond, searching his eyes for signs of clarity or understanding or acknowledgement. Just when he thinks he won’t get anything, that maybe the drugs haven’t worn off completely, Leo whispers, “Please don’t l-leave me.” And then, a moment later, he adds, “Please don’t leave me here alone.”

Luke swallows painfully and kneels next to him.

“No one’s going to touch you, buddy,” he whispers. “I need to get the discharge papers signed, and then we can go, okay?”

“Can I come with you?” Leo says then, looking up at him. Luke’s breath catches. Leo’s voice is hoarse, and as he sits, he winces. Luke looks around the exam room, empty now except for the two of them, cleared of all evidence of what happened. He feels rage bubbling up inside him, but he tries to talk himself down. They need to get out of here.

“Can you walk?” Luke asks, and Leo nods. He stands, slowly, and they make their way to the reception desk, where Leo finds a chair by the door.

Luke is ushered into a small room off to the side and Leo, once again alone, pulls his legs up and wraps his arms around them. He buries his face between his knees. Luke will be back for him. Luke will be quick. Luke knows he’s upset, and won’t make this long.

After a few minutes, Leo hears shouting, his eyes snapping up to the door that Luke disappeared behind. The receptionist exchanges a look with him and smiles, shaking her head. Leo’s gaze once more shifts to the window. He can see Luke’s car, and he wishes Luke trusted him enough to leave him the keys so he could wait outside. He feels the receptionist staring at him, and he turns away. Luke will be done soon, and he can go back to his bedroom and his books and his lion and he can crawl under the blankets and sleep, and when he wakes up, he will feel better.

He daydreams about it while he waits, and eventually, the door opens, and a stony-faced Luke emerges quickly.

✥ ✥ ✥

“Are you ready?” Luke asks, injecting the most casual-calm into his voice that he possibly can. Behind him, he hears the doctor close the door. In the window, he can see her reflection, arms crossed over her chest, leaning casually against the reception desk.

As they make their way to the door, in an act designed purely to spite him, the doctor calls to Leo, “Be good, Leo,” and Luke freezes, itching for violence but ever aware of at what cost that would come. Instead, he turns to her. He commits her face, her name, her voice, to his memory, so he can fuck up her life later.

He doesn’t know how he’ll do it, but when it comes time to try the guilty for crimes against humanity, her name will be among the top on his list.

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#little light med whump to end your work week #med whump #spinal tap #forced bodily fluid donation #sure #that's a tag now #bone marrow stuff #needles #medical setting #questionably accurate med whump #noncon drugging #bodily restrained #institutionalized slavery #tada

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