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ashintheairlikesnow · 4 years

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I Won’t Lie: Handler Todd/ 435689

The results from last night’s Livewrite! PLEASE heed content warnings, this one is intense.

CWs: Whump involving a minor (character is 16), beating, broken bone, referenced noncon (in the form of gross jokes + internal thought, nothing happens), degrading/dehumanizing language, Box Boy setting. Briefly referenced forcd malnourishment/starvation. Captor bonding / emotional manipulation

“I didn’t fucking do anything wrong!” The boy stumbled forward through the open door, nearly tripping on his own feet and just barely caught himself, his arms out for balance. As soon as he’d come to a stop he spun around, hands curled into fists at his side, glaring up at the handler.

He didn’t know this one’s name. If they weren’t your primary and didn’t take a special interest, you never learned their names.

“You sure as fuck did,” The handler snapped back at him, and there was victory just in getting a handler to lose his temper, but the boy’s heart was pounding fast with fear, too. Not enough fear to make him back down - not yet. “You stole. Even outside that’s a fuckin’ crime, ‘689.”

The boy’s eyes narrowed and he drew himself up to his full height, wishing he was taller. Wishing that doing this didn’t make him feel ridiculous next to the handler, when he barely came up to the guy’s shoulders. “I. Didn’t. Steal.”

“On top of that,” The handler continued, like the boy hadn’t even spoken, “you gave that stolen food to a trainee currently being disciplined. He was going without for a reason, you stupid little shit, did you even think to ask?”

“It doesn’t matter! He was fucking hungry!” The boy all but screamed the words - they’d had this argument over and over all the way from the cafeteria, where he’d been caught, to the training room he’d been thrown into.

“You’re all fucking hungry,” The handler sneered, then sighed, rubbing at his temples with his fingertips as he took the boy in. “That’s the whole point. So you’re up to two infractions - stealing food and giving stolen food to a disciplined trainee. Hence… here.” He gestured around, and the boy swallowed, hard, refusing to give him the satisfaction of looking anywhere but right into his stupid blocky blotchy face.

He’d never been in one of these training rooms - he was for cleaning, whenever someone wanted him, and they didn’t train for that here. This was a training room for the Romantics, and he didn’t have to look around to know that.

If he kept his face set in anger like this - kept his eyes narrowed and his back straight and his legs a little apart so his bare feet were flat on the cold tile floor - he felt stronger than he really was, and he didn’t have to think about how worried he was that the handler had brought him here for more than the usual kind of punishment.

It wasn’t supposed to happen to the ones like him.

A lot of things weren’t supposed to happen here. A lot of things still did.

“I didn’t steal,” He said, one more time, and pitched his voice as low as it would go. “I don’t steal. I didn’t, and I don’t, and you have to stop saying I’m lying when I’m not!”

“Where’d you get it, then, huh? The granola bar you gave that smartass little shit when you took his fucking muzzle off. Where’d you get it?”

The boy backed up as the handler moved forward, eyes flicking back and forth to try and look without looking. Behind him, he knew, there was a padded table with buckled restraints that lined every single side - he’d seen that when he was pushed through the door. He knew there were cabinets, and a table along the wall, and some chairs or something.

Maybe he could grab the chair?

His eyes went towards the little metal folding chair closest to him, but then the handler moved forward fast, almost bolting forwards, and the boy stumbled away and to the side, safe for the moment - but farther from the only weapon he’d seen.

“Someone gave it to me,” He said, moving backwards still. He felt so fucking small, with the handlers… he was small. He was younger than everyone else he’d ever seen that he could remember, all sharp elbows and knees, and there were other trainees who fought back but none of them ever fought long enough to matter.

He wanted to fight enough for it to matter to someone, even if it was just… taking off somebody’s muzzle when no one was looking and giving him something to eat. It hadn’t felt wrong, even though they kept saying it was, and he knew the handlers were always right, but…

“A handler gave it to me,” He said, finally, making his voice as firm as he could with his heart still beating in his throat. “He gave it to me and told me to, to save it for when I needed it. And I needed it for the, um, the other trainee.”

“Im-fucking-possible,” The handler replied, but he came to a stop, and the boy let out a breath of relief, as he managed to put a little more distance between them. “There’s no way that’s true. And trust me, you do not want to blame one of us for your mistakes, 689.”

“I’m, I’m not!” With the distance between them, the boy could breathe again, and he took one more step back, and then another, trying to calm himself down. “I’m not lying, you can, you can ask!”

“Fine, then, I’ll ask. Sit your ass down.” When the boy didn’t move, the handler sighed again, like the boy was the problem here, and pointed down towards the floor like a man giving orders to a dog. When the boy still didn’t move, the irritation and annoyance written across the handler’s face darkened even more.

“I said sit the fuck down. In the chair or on the mat, I don’t care, but your ass sits on something in less than ten seconds or I’ll make it hurt bad enough that you can’t.”

The boy had a single breath of rebellious thought - well that would defeat the purpose of the fucking order, wouldn’t it? - before fear won and he dropped to the ground on the thick padded mat on the floor, pulling his knees in close to himself, staring up at the handler. “Yes, handler,” he muttered, picking at the thin fabric of his black trainee shorts, looking up through his eyelashes with his chin down, dark brown hair falling over his face, so he could watch the man move without it being obvious.

“Good boy,” The handler snapped without feeling, and pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket, eyeing it while still trying to keep his vision on the boy, as though he might sprout wings and fly away… as though he could do anything here but be where and what they wanted. “The handler who you claim gave it to you. What’s his name? Is it your primary?” He scrolled through something, eyes rapidly moving back and forth as he read. “Says your primary is…”

“Todd gave it to me,” The boy said quickly. His primary was someone else - he didn’t want him here, no matter what. Not now. Maybe the boy would get lucky and the primary wouldn’t even know until he came back tomorrow. “Handler Todd did. He, he gives me food sometimes.”

“Todd?” The handler looked up, surprised. “Fucking Todd? Shit, he would, too. That guy’s got some creepy thing about you underagers. Yeah, okay… let’s see. Maybe Todd gets in the shit and not you tonight.”

“W-wait-” The boy’s eyes widened. “Wait, he’d get in trouble?”

He hadn’t thought about that. He didn’t even know handlers could get in trouble. They did anything they wanted, they could do anything they wanted to anyone at all. He hadn’t thought about how… Todd was at work. He could get punished, too.

Guilt hit him, like a blow to the back, and the boy slumped forwards, putting his hands over his face. Oh no. I’ll get Todd in trouble because I gave it to someone else instead of eating it.

“What, you think we’re supposed to fuck up your specially designed nutrient-rich blah blah bullshit diets? No, if he’s giving you special shit on the side, he’ll get written up for it. I mean, not that he doesn’t, right?” The handler grinned at him, briefly, and the boy wrinkled his nose in disgust. “I mean, there’s got to be a reason he’s so obsessed with you, right?”

He’s just nice. Not like you.

The boy turned his face away, staring down at the bright red mat, redder than anything he’d ever seen before. Then again, all of what he saw was mostly variations on white. Except for when he was bleeding.

The handler spoke into his phone, low and soft, words that didn’t quite carry across the room. While he talked, the boy continued to stare at the mat, letting his eyes - and his mind - go slowly unfocused. He still felt guilt welling up like tears and had to keep swallowing it down - if he got Todd in trouble, he’d feel terrible. He should have thought of a lie before he gave the granola bar away, or just… maybe if he’d just admitted to stealing it, they wouldn’t even have asked from who…

Finally, the handler stuck his phone back in his pocket and glanced over. “All right, he’s on his way. Lucky for your dumb ass he’s working tonight.”

Was it night? The boy looked up, puzzled, eyebrows furrowing. But he’d just had breakfast. How was it night? Or… had that been dinner… but he’d only woken up a couple of hours ago… He tried to cut off the train of thought when he caught the handler’s stupid fucking grin back on his face.

“If he vouches for you, you’re off the hook. Back in your room, I’ll get you there myself, no harm no foul. Yeah?”

The boy just stared, curling himself up a little tighter.

“If he doesn’t, and you’re a filthy little liar giving stolen food to bad pets, then you’ll be disciplined for that. Now I know you get the easy stuff mostly-”

If this is easy, what’s it like if it’s not?

“-but you’ll get real discipline if you fuck up on my shift. So you best hope your little story checks out. Just sit tight and wait for him to get here.” The handler smirked and then went back to the door, leaving the boy alone in the room.

He looked around once the handler was gone and no longer the center of his entire field of vision. There was a little fridge in the corner, and a small counter and sink, and he stared at that, feeling his own stomach gnaw hollow inside him. There was a rush of saliva to his mouth at the idea that there might be food in that fridge - he’d skipped his own meal to have time to sneak the bar to the muzzled boy, and the shakes never kept you full long enough.

He couldn’t, though. He’d been ordered to sit, and he’d already messed up too much today. But… his eyes kept drifting, over to the fridge - and then snap back to the door. Over to the fridge - back to the door.

If he’d just eaten the stupid bar when Todd gave it to him, he’d be full right now and nobody would be in trouble. As it was, he’d tried to be nice, and all he’d done was get the muzzled boy, himself, and probably Handler Todd all disciplined.

“God damn it,” He muttered, lower than a whisper even, and kicked at the stupid red mat he was sitting on.

Why couldn’t he stop trying to do stuff like this? It only ever got him in trouble, sticking up for other people, and Todd was always telling him to stop sticking his neck out or it’d get cut off, but he just… couldn’t.

They kept telling him, when they disciplined him, that he must like being hurt, since he kept fucking up, and the boy was starting to wonder if fuck up, get hurt was all he was good for. Well, that and scrubbing the stupid fucking floors.

At least he had Todd. At least there was somebody nice here.

He had just about talked himself into looking into the fridge when he heard voices and footsteps and was so, so glad he’d been good and stayed on the mat.

If you’d gotten up when you first thought about it, you could have seen what was in there and eaten by now.

The boy ignored the voice and waited, listening to the soft beeping as a passcode was entered on the other side, then the familiar ssshhhh-click of the door unlocking, the way every single door in this entire place unlocked as far as he could tell. When the handler came back in, the boy was sitting in the exact same spot on the mat where he’d been left, looking up politely, his face schooled into a sort of obedient remorse.

He was getting better at lying, except for when they caught him at things outright.

Behind the handler was Todd, right on his heels, an expression of uncomfortable concern on his face that the boy couldn’t quite read.

“All right, here we go,” The handler said, closing the door. “Look. 435689 here was caught giving granola bar to another trainee today.”

“He was?” Todd’s eyes widened with surprise, and he looked over at the boy, taking in his appearance, then looking back. “He doesn’t look like he’s been disciplined yet-”

“He hasn’t.”

“Well, if I could step in and take care of that problem…”

The boy felt his heart leap, just a little, and leaned forwards, resting his weight on his hands on the floor. Todd’s punishments were always easy to handle, nothing that even hurt, just things like scrubbing extra floors or standing in one place with his nose to the wall for a really long time. Come on come on come on-

“Nope, you’re part of the problem, according to him.”

“I’m what?” Todd’s expression changed - a nervous look was there, now, and the boy’s initial burst of hope faded, just a little. “How am I part of the problem, Jenkins?”

“He says you’re the one who gave it to him. That you gave him contraband with your own hand. That true, Todd? You’ll get pulled up to the Director for that kind of bullshit.”

Todd was quiet, but he looked away from the boy, then, and met the other handler’s eyes. “That’s hardly worth bothering Renford about-”

“Bullshit it’s not. Look, I get that you like to, like, get in there and treat ‘em like people now and then. I don’t question your process. But when you start fucking up their meal pattern, you fuck up the cognitive changes, too.”

“Yeah, I know, Jenkins, I went to orientation the same as you did.”

“So you know how essential the nutrient disruptions are to the process. If you’re handing out food to the underagers, you’re screwing up everything we’re trying to do to them.”

The boy watched the conversation like a man watching a terrifying tennis match, brown eyes moving quickly back and forth from one to the next. He understood almost nothing they were saying - words like cognitive and nutrient disruption didn’t mean anything, they were just sounds made by tongues and teeth. But he understood that Todd might be in trouble, and being in trouble meant that he’d have to speak to Director Renford.

The boy’s throat nearly closed up at the thought.

He’d met the Director face-to-face one time, when he’d hit a handler with a closed-up nutrient shake bottle so hard he’d given the guy a black eye. He never, ever wanted to see her ever, ever again.

The idea of Todd having to talk to her was almost worse somehow. The boy’s whole life was here, Todd had somewhere to go home to and he didn’t. He shouldn’t have to be scared of the Director, like the boy was. He shouldn’t have to be in trouble.

“So did you give him the bar or not?” Jenkins asked, looking half-bored with the argument by now.

Todd barely hesitated.

“No. I came to see him in his room yesterday. He was upset, and I-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know what you did,” Jenkins gave an exaggerated wink, and while the boy stared down at the floor with his face turning red, Todd’s jaw only set into a line.

“Yes,” Todd said evenly. “And he must have taken it out of my clothes when I wasn’t paying attention.” He looked over at the boy, and sighed. “You try to be fucking nice to them, and this is what you get.”

The boy let out a breath, all at once.

It was good, for Todd not to get in trouble because the boy hadn’t been careful enough. It was good that Todd would be okay. Todd had done a good thing to make sure that he wouldn’t be disciplined with the Director and he could still come see the boy and the other ones like him, be nice to them when nobody else was.

So… why did it hurt, that he didn’t just admit that the boy had told the truth?

Relief fought with a sharp kind of sadness he couldn’t really give a name to, and the boy swallowed it back, forced it down inside of himself where he always had to force his anger. He couldn’t quite make the heat that burned in his eyes go away, he had to choose one thing or the other, and so he let the tears build.

They only made him look guiltier, anyway.

“I’m sorry, H-Handler Todd,” he said, letting the sniffle come through in his voice.

“Yeah, you should be,” Todd said, with a cold, firm voice he had never used before. “I don’t have to stick my neck out like I do, ‘689, come on…” He sighed, and looked back at Jenkins. “Look, I can handle the discipline on this one, Jenkins. He tried to point fingers at me, let me be the one to show him not to do that again.”

Jenkins rolled his eyes. “Sure, if the lying was it, but it’s not. He also took another trainee’s muzzle off to give him the contraband. So that’s, what, three infractions? All at once? I don’t trust you to do enough to make it stick. You’re soft on ‘em all, anyway. Come on, grab your baton.”

The boy’s eyes dropped to the black batons all the handlers wore at their belts, with the little button that took the pain of the blow and added the shocks that were a thousand times worse.

He had to remember how to breathe, staring at them - the air was stuck somewhere between his lungs and his throat, little bubbles of panic resting just behind his collarbone threatening to simply stay there and suffocate him.

Why had he been so stupid? Todd had trusted him, given him that granola bar to eat because he cared, because he thought the boy would eat it himself, and he’d, everything he’d done ever since had been so stupid.

“Yeah, okay,” Todd said, pulling the black baton off his hip. “Come on, 435689, up you go. Hands on the table, back to us.”

“How many, you think?” Jenkins asked, the two of them watching the boy push himself to his feet on knees that wanted badly to buckle and send him back to the floor. If he fell, though, it’d get worse - they’d add more to the count, or they’d do something that hurt even more. “Jesus, he’s skinny.”

“Yeah, he is,” Todd said, smacking the baton into the palm of his free hand, watching the boy flinch. His mouth was a thin line, and the boy looked up. He was sure he could see real worry for him there, real concern. That Todd wasn’t really mad at him.

There wasn’t anyone else - Todd was all he had. If he was mad because the boy had done the wrong thing… but no. No, he was sure if he looked close enough, that Todd wasn’t really upset. Maybe he’d keep coming to the boy’s room and showing him pictures, being something in his day that wasn’t training and drugs and broken, dozing sleep.

The boy padded silently across the tile floor - each step felt more like walking on ice than the last - and finally came to a stop in front of them. He tried to search Todd’s eyes for more of… of something. Anything more reassuring than just the little bit of hope he had that what he was reading was being upset for him and not at him.

“Twenty-one,” Todd said, and his eyes were cold “Turn around, 689. Palms on the padding. Three sets of seven.”

The padding had a little bit of give under his hands, and he leaned forward. He knew what they wanted him to look like, for this, and he fixed his eyes on a spot on the wall. Just plain white nothing, and he took in a deep breath and held it as long as he could. Had to find the place where his thoughts could go away, and he could just get through this and to the next pain, and the next.

His thin shoulders were hunched up near his chin, he swam in the white V-neck T-shirt because there weren’t any made for someone as short and skinny as he was.

“That sounds good,” Jenkins said, still grinning, but it had widened - he was going to enjoy this, in a way Todd clearly wasn’t. “Seven for each infraction. He looks like he’ll crack after ten, so that sounds good to me.”

Todd cleared his throat, swinging the baton a little, warming up his arm. The boy tried not to notice it in the corner of his eye. “You count, got it, 689?”

“Yes, Handler,” The boy said, keeping his eyes on the wall. Pure white. Nothing but white, and if he tried not to blink he could let it bleed into his brain and take over his thoughts. Nothing but white.

He had made a mistake, taking the gift Todd had given him and giving it to someone else. He’d been… kind of mean, to ever want Todd to take responsibility for it and get in trouble instead. He’d been the one to do all the wrong things, and they punished you, then. He knew that.

But he was still fighting back a twist of betrayal inside of him, a part that had hoped Todd would admit that the granola bar really had come from him. He was still fighting a tiny little voice that said if he cared about you, he wouldn’t have lied to make himself look better.

Todd was all he had. The only one who cared. He couldn’t listen to the voice that said he didn’t, because if that was true… there wasn’t any end to that thought, only fear. Only the white walls and white floors and white light and nothing else.

“He counts,” Jenkins said thoughtfully. “He counts, and he says ‘I won’t give food to punished pets’ for the first seven.”

Todd, who the boy couldn’t see any longer, made some kind of noncommittal noise.

“Then for the second, he says, ‘I won’t remove protective gear from dangerous pets.’”

Another soft hmm.

“Then for the third, he says, ‘I won’t point fingers at handlers’. Or ‘I won’t lie’. Which do you like better?”

Todd paused, and the boy tried to keep breathing, taking in the calmest breaths he could. They kept shaking, every inhale felt thin, every exhale shuddered out of him all at once, forced out by squeezing lungs.

Back, or legs, this time? Back or legs? They switch it up, they think it’s funny - maybe both. Back or legs?

“For the third set, I vote, uh… the, uh, second one.”

I didn’t fucking lie. The anger leaps up in him, burns right past the fear and the boy’s mouth opens to protest again before he snaps it shut, dropping his head straight onto the table to keep himself in control, breathing hard through his nose. I didn’t lie, I didn’t lie, you gave it to me and I didn’t lie…

No. He couldn’t be mad at Todd. He was just trying to be safe, to not get in trouble, to not end up in front of her. It was all an act, just a show for the other handler. It was fine, it was okay if Todd lied a little and pretended the boy had lied, it was fine because if it was fine, that meant Todd would still come back to see him tomorrow.

“Great. I’ll take first and second round. I know you’ve got some kind of weird hardon for this kid, I’ll only make you do one set.” There was a kind of thump, a really light soft sound, and the boy realized that Jenkins was patting Todd on the back. Sympathizing. “It’s always hard to discipline your faves, right? I’ve got this cute little-”

“Please stop,” Todd said, tightly. “Let’s just get this done.”

“Man, you never want to talk trainees with the rest of us. Whatever. Brace up, ‘689.”

There was a pause, just long enough for the boy to steady himself and press his forehead and his palms as hard into the surface of the table as he could, and then he felt the black baton connect with the middle of his back in a sudden burst of pain.

He grunted, having to gasp for air at first, lifting one hand and smacking it back down into the table in an attempt to have some control, and then said, “One! I won’t give food to punished pets!”

“Good boy. Next up.”

The next blow was higher up, near his shoulder blades. The third, on his thighs instead, buckling his knees and forcing him to scramble back up onto his feet to avoid the fourth hitting his head instead of his upper back, just barely getting back into position in time. Each blow hit harder, his voice was thinner and smaller.

The flat space in his mind was close, if he just held on a little longer he could find it, slip away behind the wide-eyed, blank-faced stare they all learned sooner or later. But they hurt him too much, too often - it took more and more for him to feel pain that didn’t feel normal, now.

Handler Jenkins was worse, on the second round. The blows were harder, stronger, layered over the places he had hit before. The boy’s initial grunts turned to cries of pain, and he was all but draped over the table, struggling to keep his legs under him, scared of what would happen if he fell on the floor.

But still, he counted.

“Th-thirteen… w-won’t… remove protective gear from, from dangerous pets…”

Shouldn’t have helped. Shouldn’t have stuck my neck out for someone. Why can’t I just stop doing that? Why can’t I stop getting in trouble for other people? Why am I the one who fucks up and gets hurt, over and over?

“One more, and then it’s on you,” Handler Jenkins said from behind him. “Straighten yourself, trainee, you look like a Romantic after a long day. Get your fucking spine straight.”

The boy pushed himself back up, legs trembling, pressing the soles of his feet as deeply into the cold, unforgiving tile as he could. He braced the palms of his hands against the edge of the table, and a low whine of pain was all the sound he made as he stood up straight, as tall as he could get.

The final hit from Handler Jenkins hit him so hard on his thighs that it knocked him forwards, slamming his stomach into the edge of the table as his knees finally gave up and crashed him to the floor.

He crumbled more than he fell, every exhale a pained whine, scrabbling at the side of the table with his hands, trying desperately to pull back up.

“Hit him any harder than that and you’ll break a fucking bone,” Todd said. His voice was thin, and strained. A hint of paternal affection ran through, the boy thought, not that he knew what having a dad was like.

He’s worried about me. He still cares about me. Get back up, you stupid pet, get back up. The boy struggled, but his feet seemed to slip and slide along the tile, he couldn’t seem to find purchase.

“If I did, maybe he’d really learn his lesson. I didn’t hear you counting, trainee.”

“Fourteen,” the boy whispered. His attempts to pull himself back up weren’t really working, all he felt was an awful, sickening pain that throbbed with his heartbeat from his lower thighs up through his shoulder blades. “Won’t… gear. Won’t… take the muzzle off… again.”

“That’s not quite right, but… yeah, okay, you can have that one.” Jenkins laughed, the sound grated along the boy’s jangling nerves and he choked off a sob, tried to shove it down where the anger and hurt lived already. “Your turn, Todd. Finish ‘im off.”

There was a long silence, and then footsteps, and the boy’s arm was roughly grabbed. He yelped as he was dragged back up to his feet. “Gotta stand up or it doesn’t count, trainee,” Handler Jenkins drawled, shoving him forward so he rested with his elbows on the table, bent over it at the waist.

He sagged, nearly falling again, and Jenkins slapped him in the center of his back with the flat of his hand. “I said stand up.”

He’d held it back until then, but the boy finally screamed at the impact that lit up the welts, crashed even more pain through nerves that had been certain they’d already taken as much as they could.

“He can’t stand up on his own,” Todd snapped. “You hit too hard, jackass. Let him take a break.”

“No fuckin’ way, I got shit to do today. I’m not changing my schedule for him.” Jenkins shoved the boy’s elbow to the side, buckling it into the restraint closest to it, tightly enough that the boy might have cared if he wasn’t already just eyes and a brain and agony anyway.

One arm buckled in and then the other, and when he stepped away the boy’s legs weren’t holding him up any longer - the leather biting hard into his forearms was, cutting and digging, pressing deeply in. It hurt and after a second his fingertips started to buzz, bloodflow struggling to push through the constriction.

The boy stared dazedly down, tears running down his face and dripping clear as glass onto the table, and thought, I’ll have bruises there tomorrow. A semi-hysterical laugh threatened, somewhere deep in his throat. And everywhere else, too.

More silence, and then Todd said, in a low voice, “Remember to count, trainee.”

“And remember to say you won’t lie,” Jenkins added.

There was an exhalation - Todd sighed, maybe. The boy couldn’t see, didn’t know. He’d closed his eyes by then, forehead back to rest on the cool of the tabletop. He was boneless and hurting and broken.

Why did I try to be nice when it just hurts all the time?

The first blow from Todd wasn’t half as hard as Jenkins hit, but that didn’t really matter anymore, because he was hitting places that already hurt and lighting them up again. The boy jerked forward, whimpering at the impact against the back of one hip.

“Fifteen, I… I w-won’t…”

I didn’t lie, I didn’t, I told the truth, why are you making me say that I lied about you?

“... I won’t lie,” he finished, slumped. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t lied, it didn’t.

“Good boy,” Todd said softly.

The boy wondered if Jenkins could hear the relief the same way he could. Todd hadn’t known if he would say it until then. I can lie for you. I can tell lies for you, just please come back to see me again.

The next one, and the next. He said it over and over, I won’t lie, I won’t lie, even though he hadn’t, but by the fifth hit the boy felt like he had. He felt guilty. He’d been so fucking stupid.

Would anyone else here have gotten in trouble for him? Nobody else but Todd cared.

He started to really cry, then, pools of tears across the table beneath him, making his face wet when he pushed his cheek down into it and tried, desperately tried, to find the white space on the wall.

He’d almost gotten Todd in so much trouble, and he had gotten himself in trouble, and none of this was worth it.

“Six… won’t lie,” He groaned, pulling heedlessly and uselessly at the restraints just to do something - his body wanted so badly to escape, to at least try. His hands felt numb now, weirdly cold, and he stared at them wondering if they were turning red or if the red was all in his mind.

“Whoops, somebody’s about to drop out,” Jenkins said, voice drifting close and then far away in the boy’s awareness, laced with thick amusement. “Fucker forgot how to count.”

“He’s fine, Jenkins. He’s still got the right number for this set, I’ll count it.”

“Too fucking soft on him, Todd. Make him do it again.”

“No.”

“Don’t let him get away with being a lazy shit and miscounting, make him do it again.”

The boy wondered if handlers ever used their black sticks on each other. Handler fight, he thought, and let out a horrible half-conscious giggle. It shook his body enough to make him whimper again.

“I say he’s fine. Final blow. You got it in you, kiddo?”

There was a pause. Then Jenkins laughed, incredulously. “You fuckin’ call him kiddo?”

The boy’s heart warmed, under the layers of everything terrible there was this. He could hold onto that kiddo, could get his hands around that while everything else hurt too badly to think about. Kiddo made him sure. Kiddo meant Todd wasn’t mad, that he was definitely coming back.

“No, I just-...”

“I can do it,” The boy interrupted, groaning a little louder this time, trying to get Handler Jenkins’s attention on him, not on Todd. “I c’n, can take… two more. Fucked it uh, up. Can take two more.”

“Yeah, okay, kiddo,” Jenkins said, drawing the word out, making it mocking and awful where it always felt wonderful coming from Todd. “Guess I can do the last two for you, sport. That sound good to you, dude? Two more blows and then you’re done, old buddy, old pal?”

“Jesus, fuck off, Jenkins.”

“You call him your son, too? When the rest of us aren’t around? Are you that kind of fucked up? Call ‘im your son when you bend him over-”

“I said fuck off, Jenkins!”

He never touches me like that, he’s not like the rest of you, he’s better, he’s better than all of you, he’s better and he cares about me.

“Jeez, just teasing. If you do call him that shit, though, you should probably seek some kind of therapy for that, that’s pretty fucked up.”

The boy didn’t hear Todd’s answer, because the baton hit his back again harder than ever, and the boy’s awareness was nothing but black dots in his eyes and pain.

“T-t-twenty! I w-won’t… won’t… lie…”

Barely enough hesitation to breathe and then the next one hit, as hard as Jenkins could possibly swing, connecting with a sound like thunder through the boy’s body right along his right side. He felt something in his ribs crack and screamed - or tried to.

All that came out was a horrible thin wail.

Every breath hurt, shallow gasps all he could do, and he could barely whisper his final count.

“Twenty-one. W-won’t… lie… pl-please, please be d-done… please, ‘m sorry, so s-s-sorry…”

“Jesus Christ, you broke something,” Todd said, sounding stricken. “Jesus fucking-... why did you do that? Now he’ll have to go to the clinic, we’re gonna have to explain this, I’m not even his primary, Jenkins!”

“Yeah, well. Whoops. My hand must’ve slipped. He’ll know better than to lie now, won’t he? You want to get him to the nurse, or me?”

“I’ll do it,” Todd said, heavily. “I got this. Get out of here and go train your own fuckin’ boys.”

“Yeah, well.” Jenkins raised his voice. “Hope you learned your lesson, kiddo!” Footsteps, the door opened and then closed again. The boy didn’t move, sprawled over the table like someone’s discarded doll.

Should’ve just been like everyone else and not helped.

He heard the scrape of a footfall nearby and flinched, then cried out in pain as his right side right like he was on fire with pain, sharper and brighter and hotter than all the other aches combined.

“Sssshhhh,” Todd soothed. “Just me, kiddo. Just me.”

“... ‘m sorry,” The boy whispered, forcing his head to turn so he could look at Todd through bleary eyes. “Sorry, didn’t… g-get you in trouble. I’m sorry…”

“I know you are, buddy. Okay, I’m gonna have to call someone from medical, I think if I pick you up I’ll just make it worse. We’ll get you a gurney. You took your discipline really well. I’m really proud of you.” A hand carded through his hair, brushed against his forehead, cool and dry when the boy was pouring sweat and felt like everything that didn’t hurt from the blows was on fire.

He closed his eyes and moaned, a little, at how nice it felt to not be hit anymore, pushed his head into the hand that ruffled his hair. He could be a good pet, he could. He’d fucked up again today but he could be good, and not get hurt so much… he could.

“I’ll get you some help in the clinic. Just give me a couple of minutes, okay?”

“Sorry I was, was bad,” The boy rasped.

Todd’s hand paused, then petted through his hair one more time, lingered there. He slid his hand around to cup the side of the boy’s face, brushing tear tracks with his thumb.

“Don’t worry about it,” Todd said, softly “You were just trying to help that other boy. But what did we talk about, buddy?”

The boy took shallow breaths, stabbing pain in his right side with every motion. “N-not… not stick m’neck out an’... more.”

“Right. I don’t want you to get hurt, kiddo. You get why I had to pretend, right? So that I wouldn’t get fucked over and I could still come see you?” Todd’s fingers scratched lightly just behind his ear, and the boy whined, softly. He knew it was an animal kind of sound, but he couldn’t stop himself. “You get it, right?”

There was a hint of uncertainty in Todd’s voice.

Guilt, maybe?

But what did Todd have to feel guilty for?

“I… I do,” The boy managed, fingers twitching. When Todd reached out to take his hand, he couldn’t really feel it. “Get it. ‘M sorry you had… had to lie… because of me.”

“It’s okay.” Todd leaned down and kissed his sweaty hair and the boy felt whole new tears, relief and gratitude and something very much like love. “It’s okay, kiddo.”

“It… it is?”

“Yeah. You’re still a good boy.”

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