#tucker fun and josiah angst will hopefully see the light on day soon also

[whumpiary]

content warning: noncon/dubcon vibes, intimate whumper, sensory deprivation

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Cassius’ knees have long since gone numb, kneeling in the center of the bedroom like this. His shoulders are shaking from holding his hands so tensely behind himself, his spine aches from keeping himself upright. His thighs had been cramping, earlier. Whether they’ve stopped now or he’s just stopped feeling it, he can’t really be sure.

He could rest. If he wanted. Sit back on his calves instead of kneeling up. But… that wasn't the agreement.

“Would you like to kneel or be strung up?”

He hasn’t seen it, but he’d bet another hour on the floor here that the ribbon he holds between his fingers matches the one around his eyes. Red silk. Or satin maybe. To be honest, he doesn’t know the difference. Shiny and slippery and soft. He rubs it between his thumb and forefinger, little circles over and over, as he holds it taught, the change of grain in the fabric oddly soothing and the one solid thing he has left to hold on to.

“Would you like me to tie your wrists together or would you like to hold the ribbon in place?”

It’s freezing in here. He keeps shaking. Bone-deep cold. He’d assumed, maybe stupidly, that the fire would be left going while Christopher was gone. That the heating in the room would stay on. That the fucking window was going to stay closed. Maybe it would’ve if he’d chosen differently.

“Naked for an hour, or clothed for two?”

There’s a part of him that’s glad for the noise cancelling headphones. For one thing, at least, his ears are still warm. Which is more than he can say for any other part of him. For another, the white noise isn’t as bad as he’d expected. He loathes the blindfold usually. Hates that he can’t see anything, can’t track anything, every noise a could-be-threat that he can’t help but stay hyper vigilant to. The static is a relief in comparison, a neutral wash that fades everything out to grey. Well, almost everything. 

“Shame we can’t take away that last little sense of yours, isn’t it?”

There’s only a small part of him that’s startled by Christopher’s return. The rest has been waiting for him patiently the whole time, tiny shreds of sensory information filtering through the grey wash of the cold and the dark and the static. The vibrating creak through a floorboard shifting. The deepening of shadow behind the blindfold. And louder, brighter, more vibrant than all of it, the thrum, thrum, thrum of all the things Christopher wants. Fucking ravenous. Cass has never understood how one person could be so hungry all the time and not starve.

I’ll be what you want, I’ll be what you need.

Let me feed you, let me feed you, let me feed you. 

He feels himself readjust, spine straightening automatically much to the protest of the muscles in his back. His breath picks up, sitting high in his chest. His nostrils glare, blindfold A shiver runs over his skin, sets it on fire, reminds each cell to wake up. Spike of adrenaline preparing him to run from the tiger that he can’t see. As though he could run now, on the long-numb legs. 

Christopher doesn't touch him at first. Cassius feels himself bristling with the need for it. 

The first thing that happens is a light bump of the headphones that makes him flinch in fright. Then a pause. Then they’re lifted away and the deafening cacophony of roomtone and the rest of the world floods his ears and makes him gasp, nearly in pain with it. He can’t tell if everything’s louder without the static or just horribly, horribly silent but his whole body sways with the dizzy nausea it sets through him. 

He whimpers. Christopher shushes him gently. He tries to tilt his cheek into a nonexistent hand, desperate for the reality of touch. 

“Did you move, darling boy?”

It takes him a minute to remember to respond, to shake his head. But when he does, he does so with fervour. 

No, he didn’t move. He was good today. Wasn’t he good today? Please.

“Did he move?”

A question over his head, to the back of the room, to someone Cassius hadn’t been given the privilege of knowing was there. He nearly turns his head to look. He catches himself a few millimetres to the right and stills, clenching his jaw.

He was good today. Wasn’t he good today?

There must be an answer in the affirmative Cassius doesn’t hear because Christopher’s fingers press into the soft patch of skin just under his jaw and tilt his head up. He’s kissed tenderly, deeply, softly, violently. He doesn’t drop the ribbon.

He can imagine Christopher’s smile against his lips, his glittering eyes.

“I’m so proud of you”

He wishes the praise didn’t make his heart sing. Wishes, too, that it wasn’t just his heart the words set alight.

Christopher’s hand pushes back lazily through his hair and he tries not to lean into it but he does all the same. The man’s fingers trail down along his neck, across his shoulders. The touch is like a prayer. Like he’s being prayed to. Like he’s something holy.

Venerated. Sacrosanct. Divine.

“You know one of my friends has his boy do this for hours and hours on end. Usually with a gag of some description…” The man’s fingers brush against Cassius’ lips and he parts them just a little, jaw soft and slack. Christopher presses his fingers past his boy’s teeth, pressing down on his tongue. Pushing in further. “It’s quite the sight.” 

Cassius opens his mouth wider. Relaxes his tongue. Sucks. He can hear the soft gasp of Christopher’s breath, the tug of his lust. What he wants. What he restrains from. The man’s fingers press further in. 

“His boy doesn’t need incentive, though,” Christopher continues, voice thick with desire. “He’ll wait and wait like a good boy with nothing but the promise that it’ll be over soon. Isn’t that lovely?”

Are you going to be good for me today? Are you going to earn it?

Cass wonders if his lips have gone purple in the cold or if they’re still the plump pink Christopher adores so much. When he was a kid his lips were always going purple. Cass used to secretly like the look of it. 

"You’ve been so good for me today, haven’t you? Indulging me like this,” Christopher says. He runs his fingers through Cassius’ hair, back and back until they’re tangled loosely at the back of his skull, ready to tug and pull and push as he pleases. He’s been good. He’s been good. Please, he’s been so good.

It’s the retreating of Christopher’s fingers, rather than the pressing in, that threaten to make Cass gag. He nearly does. Nearly. He doesn’t. 

“M’sorry,” he says, pressing forward into the hand at his cheek. The word comes from nowhere, falling from his lips unbidden. His head feels full of the static that left. “Sorry, I’m so sorry”

Christopher hums in his throat, thumb running across Cassius’ cheek to catch a tear that’s slid down past the blindfold. “What are you sorry for, my love?”

He shakes his head and turns his face until he can press it into the man’s palm. He holds back a useless whine. His body shakes with a voiceless sob instead.

What the fuck? What the fuck, what the fuck? Why was he being like this? He wasn’t even hurt today. 

Please, for the love of God. Wasn’t he good?

“Oh, darling, you’ve gotten yourself all worked up for nothing, haven’t you?”

He whines, cries, sobs. “Please.”

“Please what?”

Tell me I’m good.

“Please ju-” he gags on nothing and his breath hitches. Even behind the blindfold, he screws his eyes shut. He wants the static back. “Help me.”

Christopher hums and cards fingers through Cassus’ hair again, settles a warm palm on his cheek. “Of course,” he says. “Always.”

Bullshit. Still, Cass accepts the kiss that’s laid to his lips like it’s his last chance for air before drowning. Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. 

Christopher tilts Cassius’ head up with two fingers under his jaw, both still slick with spit. “Now, would you like to see Henri now or-"

“Tomorrow,” Cass says, all but cries out. He can’t say why he feels so desperate. “Please. Tomorrow.”

“Are you sure, darling?” the man asks, lips like hot coals against the curve of his shoulder. “That wasn’t what you wanted earlier.”

“Please, don’t. I don’t want to see him. Please, I don’t want him to see me like thi-”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” his voice is so careful and soft. Like a whisper. His fingers skirt the blindfold and don’t lift it. “Tomorrow, then.”

Don’t touch me, don’t look at me, don’t come near me. 

“What do you need, my love?”

Stay with me, hold me, don’t leave. 

“You,” he says, unbidden, unprompted, unburdened right now of the shame that comes with admitting it. “Please. For fuck’s sake. I need you.”

Christopher hums again, the self satisfaction so thick in his voice it’s practically dripping.

I hate you, I hate you, I hate you.

“Come on, darling boy, let’s get you to bed.” 

I love you, I love you, please love me too.

“For what it’s worth, I think you look divine.”