|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2016 5:58 pm
BACKLOG PRP : Melany / Shiloh / Thorne. Quote: Thorne wakes up from drowning in a dark room rather unlike his own. It is sterile, aside from the bed in which he lays. There is nothing on the charcoal-painted walls. The floor is a deep, dark red wood, unsoftened by rugs or dust. The bed itself is some dark wood, a four-poster with a mossy green velvet coverlet. Beneath the coverlet, he is naked. In the corner of the room is a feminine figure standing straight and quiet in voluminous black robes. Her head is bowed, and most of her face concealed by a featureless black mask. In her hands is a broad-bottomed basket containing some kind of lustrous fabric. She is very still.
The first realization is this: his clothes are gone.
The second: he is being watched.
Thorne refuses to open his eyes right away, considers the dangers of his situation. He is not in Ashdown, in his bed, in any motel bed or on Aleksy’s couch, which means he must be somewhere in Other Ashdown still. But nowhere he knows, or wants to know. Still. There isn’t a point in pretending to sleep. If the game (whatever game this is) has begun, Thorne won’t idle.
Pushing himself up, Thorne lets the sheets fall dangerously low around his hips. Nudity doesn’t bother him. The person in the room does. His eyes turn towards his attendant, guarded. There is a part of him, instinctual, that wishes to hurt and run and run and run. But he won’t. Not yet.
Sliding from the bed, Thorne stands, testing his weight, the edge of his abilities. No fresh damages make themselves known, so Thorne moves forward. Towards the person.
“Now what?” He asks. A simple start to a complicated game.
Quote: She holds out the basket. The fabric within is neatly folded, soft and velvety, and proves to hold clothing: pants, a high collared shirt, a sleeveless jacket, soft low house boots. Her skin, where visible, is a warm blue, and touching her hands yields a feeling like touching a plasma ball: a buzzing warmth. She says nothing, but the command is obvious enough.
Thorne tilts his head, watches the woman, his eyes guarded and his mouth set in a thin line. He wants to say something - but then, he doesn’t realize what. The clothes are regarded with blatant distrust and - mild surprise. He knew all too little about Other Ashdown… but what was with this fantasy RPG bullshit gear? It looked like something out of a movie.
Still. Thorne dresses, feeling like putting on clothes is the wrong time to rebel. They all fit surprisingly well. He doesn’t want to ask why, or how, and only brushes a hand through his hair, looking back at the masked stranger.
“Alright. Do I fit in yet?” He asks, knowing more than likely he will not receive a response. “If I run, will you hunt me down?”
Quote: Her mouth opens in a strange, wide grin. Her teeth are black--not with decay but with paint--and she has no tongue. That explains the lack of talking, anyway. She lowers the basket, props it delicately against her hip, and gestures with her other hand for Thorne to follow. Opening the door, she sweeps out of the room and into a lavishly-appointed hallway. The walls are bare and whitewashed, but the floor is of the same wood as the room Thorne had woken up in. Plaster pillars arch up the walls, and on the velvety carpet their footsteps make no sound. Empty alcoves dot the hallway. Eventually she comes to a door and knocks politely, then steps aside.
Thorne wants to run. It is a thought wired into every vein, but he knows it’s a bad decision until there is a layout in his mind. A skeletal design of a plan that won’t leave him for dead. He doesn’t blanch at the womans lack of tongue or the blackened teeth - he swallows it down, all of it, the panic, the fear, everything, so that the only reaction is a whiplash flinch away before he shoulders the weight of fear and straightens back up.
Deciding not to bolt just yet, Thorne follows, and waits behind the woman, wondering at a name. He wonders who is behind the door but somehow - somehow, he thinks he knows.
And that sickens him to his core.
Quote: “Enter,” comes that low, earthy alto, and the woman opens the door before standing aside and gesturing for Thorne to enter the study beyond. It’s clearly a study: the floor is covered in plush rugs of muted colors, heavy dark furniture cleaves the space in two. Outside the great bay window there is fog, and rain, and no hint of sunlight. Behind the desk is the woman who had put her hand to Thorne’s face and drowned him. In the light, the mis-matching angles of her face are oddly arresting. Her dark hair is braided back at the nape of her neck, laced with jewels like drops of mist and traces of silver in her hair. “Stand there,” she says, pointing to the end of her desk: at her right hand, far from the window.
And of course, of course it is her.
Thorne is as awestruck and terrified by her as the first time he saw her. The first time she drowned him. But that doesn’t still his tongue or his adrenaline, the wicked creature in him that always bit the hand that fed and never learned its lesson. He enters the room and looks at her. For all he knows, she could slaughter him where he stood.
But mutinously, he says, “I thought I already told you that I am not your pet.” His voice is smooth and silken, mirroring hers. But it carries the weight of disobedience, and oh, oh he is in for hell now. Quote: The door shuts behind Thorne, and he is alone--truly alone--with the woman. She finishes writing whatever it is she’s writing and sets the pen aside. “You are my pet, Alexander,” she says. “Do as I say, or there shall be consequences.” She points to the previously-indicated place. “Stand here and be silent.”
Thorne has never been good at identifying when to sit down and shut up.
So he steps forward, to the place where Melany had indicated. But he doesn’t stop talking like he’s told. With his arms crossed, Thorne stares at Melany, not quite glaring. Yet. “Would you kill me?” He asks, because it is the morbid sort of curiosity and the constant swallowing of adrenaline that makes him more dangerous than one should be in a potential life-or-death debacle.
And then, in a brittle, throaty growl, “Who are you?”
Quote: Melany sighs. She shuts the book--a planner of some kind--and sets it aside. Then she rises from the chair, reaches across the table, and backhands Thorne across the face. “You will address me as ‘Mistress’ or ‘Milady’,” she says, “You will comport yourself with dignity and obedience, or you will be punished. I have been kind so far, but that can change in one human heartbeat, Alexander, and it shall if you don’t begin to follow my orders.”
Thorne had been brutalized since he was young. The slap was met without resistance, though something flashed, wild and inhumanly violent in his eyes before the blow. He looked back at Melany, slowly turning his head, his arms uncrossed where they’d been moments from reaching out in defense only to stop mid-way. His teeth are bared into a slight snarl. The brutality has brought something out in him, something dangerous and wild.
And it is not a good omen for anything to come.
“And what orders are those?” He asks. “To sit and grovel at your feet? Punish me, then, mistress. I told you, I’m not yours.”
Quote: Melany looks at him for a long moment, the unearthly shade of her eyes reflecting none of her thoughts at all. “You think of couriers racing to summon a rescue that will never come,” she says, very gently, in a voice that nonetheless drips with cool, impersonal malice. “Your lovers will never notice you’re gone. Neither will your friends. You’ve been replaced, Alexander, and all that is left for you is this. Is me.” She folds her hands before her, and thinks: every one of them has a price, every single one. She thinks that this one will not respond to pain, and she remembers all her servitors have told her, and she smiles. “What does your petty rebellion earn for you? Even should you escape, your life shall be a shambles when Corr is done with it. I shall do to you what I have done to Michael Mitchell, to Tatiana Spektora, to thousands of names you wouldn’t even recognize. I will ruin you.” She says, “I need not harm you, nor your pretty face.” She sits, spreading out her velvet skirts, and takes up her pen. “I have the boy. I have Shiloh. And should you continue to act out, not only shall I have him beaten until he screams for mercy, I will make you watch. “So stand there and be silent, dog.”
Thorne watches her, listening, and his expression is brittle and terrible, but every word from her mouth scratches at the surface of his shell of calm. There is a wild beast clawing through his chest, trying to reach the light, begging him to do something, anything, to escape. Because he’s tasted this situation before, this ruthless helplessness of being beneath the boot of someone else.
Thorne is violent in movement when she mentions Shiloh, his entire body flinching at the name, at the indication of violence, punishment. “I don’t believe you,” he snarls out, because it can’t be true - it cannot be true. Shiloh is not there. He is safe - has to be. Safe. He has to be -
Thorne says something that he will probably come to regret later. “Show him to me.”
It is the only way that this nightmare will become a reality. It is a demand born out of desperation, out of terror that broke the surface. Thorne looks at her, and says, “Show him to me, safe, and I’ll be your dog.” Quote: “You’ll simply have to trust me,” she says. “You will only see Shiloh when you have earned it. One way or another.” Melany smiles, the corners of her eyes crinkling. “Stand there and be silent.”
Thorne definitely doesn’t trust her. It’s like trusting a rattlesnake. Or a meat grinder your hand is stuck in with the off switch broken. It’s terrible either way. The snarl in his throat marks his violent rebellion against her, the way in which he is wired to refuse. But Shiloh - Shiloh.
Thorne stands silent, his expression wildly at odds with his statue-like nature. He forces himself to stomach the concept of obedience, if only for now. If only until he proves to himself Shiloh is there.
Or until he cannot stomach it any longer.
Quote: If Thorne is upset, Melany doesn’t acknowledge it. She sits in her beautiful dress and her fancy hairdo and does her work, tabulating data pulled from reams of information, as if Thorne is only a piece of furniture to her. He is that, at least for now, and as long as he is there and silent and waiting for her to have need of him, she doesn’t care how he feels. Eventually, there is another knock at the door, and she rises. “Stay,” she says to Thorne, and she sweeps out of the room. The door closes behind her. Thorne is quite alone, and there before him is the planner with its typewriter-neat handwriting.
Thorne watches Melany the way a dog might an owner - while planning to bite his or her heels off. This treatment isn’t new to him. Thorne has learned over the years how to react to being treated like a dog, like furniture, like something to be put into place over and over again. This does not scratch at him the way the mention of Shiloh does.
But when she leaves, he remembers himself and his place. Alone in a location that could help him - what, escape? Not without Shiloh. But standing still wouldn’t accomplish that either. Thorne moves, his body aching from the prolonged stillness. He steps out of place, looks around. The study is pristine and he doesn’t know how long Melany will take. He could be caught red-handed, but he has to do something. Anything. His fingers ghost over the edge of the desk and he looks down at the planner with typewriter-neat handwriting.
He doesn’t touch it. But he tries to discern information from the pages it’s opened to, the adrenaline pounding at him as he scours it and the desk for any sign, any clues to where he is, what he is wanted for, what they are wanted for -
And who the hell is Corr?
Quote: The planner is written in an archaic, but recognizable, form of English, with the substitution of the first s of every word replaced by an F. Despite the modern medium, the effect of the writing is of someone who has lived quite a long time--someone who grew up with this antiquated language--and is incongruously reluctant to change with the times. It lists names, many of them. Corr - Alexander Thorne. Beel - Shiloh Beaumont. Miia - Tatiana Spektora. The most recent, apparently, with the exception of Tatiana. There are dates beside them, fifty years into the future at most. The door opens, and Melany looks at him, expression cooler than the infinite vacuum of space. “Oh, Alexander,” she says. “You are so… disappointing.” She turns to the black-masked woman behind her. “Fetch the boy. Send a body to clear my carpets. I shan’t have them stained.”
Thorne memorizes these names and they terrify him. Corr, who is Corr? Who is Beel? He looks up when Melany arrives and his expression is like a wild dog that still doesn’t know not to bite. “You should have known,” he says back. And then he steps towards her, vibrant with violence. “What are you doing to us?”
Her order sends something violent and chilling up his spine.
He moves forward, bullet-fast, rippling with adrenaline. His words are a snarl. “Don’t touch him.”
Quote: “Stop where you are,” says Melany, and her voice is bright with authority. She cannot be ignored when she speaks in that tone and she knows it: she doesn’t move beyond speaking, and Thorne stops. All his momentum has burned out and she smiles, deadly cold. “That is beyond your purview. You shall act with courtesy and decorum, or you shall be made to act.” She steps aside so two masculine figures in black robes and black masks can move her carpets, rolling them up and putting them aside. “There are but two expectations from humans in my charge, and they are these: Exquisite beauty and absolute obedience.” Melany joins Thorne where he stands and bodily corrects his stance so he faces the floor. “This didn’t need to happen, Alexander,” she says. “I know you know how to behave. I can see it in your eyes. You want to obey, to have control taken from you. I can give that to you: there is freedom in submission.” She looks to Shiloh as the woman leads him in. “Strip off his coat,” says Melany.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2016 6:26 pm
Shiloh's scared. It takes a lot to admit that, but Shiloh is ******** terrified.
All he can focus on is the sounds his shoes make as he walks down the hallway. His outfit is white. It sparkles, it has ruffles, and he’s staring down at not his feet—but his arms. They’re bare. Bare and cold against the outside air, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, eyes smoothing over every single scar that mars his skin there. Every line; he’s counting them like he’s counting his steps. It’s got him shell shocked.
Suddenly his escort stops walking, and the door opens, and there’s her but there’s also Thorne. That scream that bubbled in his throat before he drowned—before he died—threatens to break free again. Instead he stares, wide eyed and terrified, because he feels completely ******** helpless and there isn’t anything he can ******** do.
‘Strip off his coat’ and Shiloh’s shaking his head, words finally breaking free as he spits and hisses like a cornered ******** animal, “Don’t TOUCH ME!”
Quote: No, no - no. Thorne wants to scream and fight, but Melany says the words and he is paralyzed. He cannot move, cannot speak, and she pushes him into place like doll gone still, all of its string cut and knotted. He looks down at her, hateful, his eyes full of violent intent, but she was him captured, cornered, and every word is listened to with obvious intent. He wants to ask why him, why him, if what Melany wants is exquisite beauty and absolute obedience, because of all the things Thorne might have once been good at, those weren’t them. And then Shiloh is there, and Thorne looks at him and every want in his body, every protective, animal urge, slaughters his desire to run or disobey. “Don’t,” he snaps again, looking at Melany, desperately, angrily, “I’ll - “ And the words crowd his throat. They taste like ash, like every fist he’d swallowed all those years ago. He looks at her and his eyes are begging, and the hate in them isn’t hate towards her anymore. “I’ll obey. Just don’t ******** touch him.”
Quote: “Get on your knees and beg,” says Melany. Not a command, not in the way she told him to stop where he was. “Plead with me to leave him be.” She spares Shiloh a glance. “Little lamb. You know why this is happening, don’t you? You dared try to strike me, and for that I took you away. Now your friend, your protector, he’s disobeyed me. Hurting him doesn’t make him bleed, but hurting you will.” She looks back to Thorne. “Disobedience must be punished, else the child will never learn.” To the masked woman, Melany says, “Take his coat. I won’t have the fabric torn.” The woman’s hands buzz with an uncomfortable energy as she reaches forward to strip Shiloh of his jacket.
With Melany coming towards him, all Shiloh can do is stare at Thorne. His eyes are pleading and lost and exhausted. He doesn’t know why this is all happening. He wants to go home. He wants to be back in Thorne’s apartment, smells of paint wafting around, Millie at his feet. He wants to be in Jamie’s room, watching his fish and lounging with him in his bed, talking about the little things. Hell, even his own house would be better than this. He could deal with his father, loud and roaring and terrible with his force, berating and hateful and at the very least expected.
Thorne’s pleading with this Melany, but he isn’t acting. Shiloh wants to be understanding, wants to come to terms with the why. There’s a more mature part of him that does, but instead he just feels sick as the masked women comes closer to him.
“I don’t give a DAMN.” He swears, hands shooting up to shake the masked women away. It’s obvious that he has to protect himself, because no one else is trying to save him, and the energy coming off of her hands sends bile rising in his throat. “DON’T. TOUCH ME.”
Quote: “You can stop this, Alexander,” Melany says, raising her voice for the first time over Shiloh’s shouts. “On your knees. Beg me to stop.”
Quote: Thorne hisses, the entire world around him narrowed down to Shiloh’s expression and Melany’s cool, cold words. He looks at the woman, and every question about Corr, about the world beyond this room, burns out of him because it doesn’t matter anymore. None of it matters anymore. Thorne’s knees hit the ground. He bows his head, palms pressed to the hardwood flooring. His entire body trembles in submission, and he chokes on the word that he hates so much, that he has been taught to hate by so many people. “Please,” he says, and his voice is pleading, desperate, edged in panic. “I’ll do anything you want. Just don’t touch him.” The hatred in him pins every inch of him with shame and self-loathing. He burns with disgust, but for Shiloh - for Shiloh. Anything, Thorne thinks, I would do anything. His shoulders quiver, and his body curls closer to the ground. “Anything.”
Quote: The masked attendant finally manages to remove the jacket from Shiloh’s shoulders, the confection of gossamer chiffon and crisp linen folded quickly in blunt-fingered hands. She tucks it into her arms and stands back against the wall, head bowed. “You beg so prettily, Alexander,” says Melany. “If only you had been so reasonable before.” She looks to the masculine attendants. “Begin,” she says. “If he looks away, kill the boy.” One of them steps forward and throws a punch, death-blue fist slamming into Shiloh’s stomach. Melany gestures to her attendant and leaves once more, the heather-violet of her skirts the last thing seen of her in the room.
Watching Thorne grovel hits Shiloh in the gut like a sucker punch.
It’s not normal. It’s almost inhuman. In every existence, thought and notion of Thorne, none of them matched this. Shiloh was sick. He already knew this before; Thorne wasn’t acting because he didn’t want to, but because he couldn’t. They were in the otherworld now. They could both be dead at the whim and call of the women in the long, flowing skirt.
He doesn’t break eye contact with Thorne as the masked women sheds his jacket. He stands there, eyes set in a place so far away, arms falling limp with a weak resignation that was completely unbefitting on the teen. The masculine attendant steps up, and Shiloh can only see his father there, and in some sick way it’s comforting because he knows he can live through this. He’s been in this place before. The scars lining his arms itched—burned. His chest was clenching with anticipation. He did not tear his eyes from Thorne’s. He didn’t know where else to look. He didn’t know what else to do.
The fist slams into his stomach—the actual sucker punch—and it immediately knocks the wind out of him. His knees slam to the ground, a terrible wheeze sputtering out of his lips as he struggled to catch himself, body tensed and braced for more even as his sides convulsed into gasps for air, the sounds coming out sporadic and frenzied. Shiloh wouldn’t apologize, because the women was gone. There was nothing to say here. Weakly, he tore his eyes from the view of the floor to look at Thorne again. Would he look away? Would Shiloh die here?
In between the spasms in his chest, he spit at the feet of the masculine attendant, hatred and venom bitter on his tongue.
Quote: The other attendants watch Thorne, blank masks--there aren’t even holes for eyes--turned his way. As the first attendant kicks Shiloh in the stomach, trying to get him on the ground, on his back, slow and methodical, both of them watch. They have seen this before, and it no longer affects them, if it ever did.
Quote: Thorne feels sick, sick to his stomach, sick down to the marrow, when Melany gives the order and walks out. He’d been here before, on the ground, begging, but never for the safety of someone else. You knew, a voice snarled in his head, you knew. This is your fault. You knew. And he wants to vomit, wants to retch. He is worthless, useless, and it is being proven to him, here and now. Melany had called him a dog and Thorne could only run from the truth so long before he was caught by it, like a mutt at the end of its chain. Thorne doesn’t look away. If he does, Shiloh dies. He holds the others gaze, and in it is every apology that won’t ever be enough. Every would be confession of sin that won’t put him closer to heaven. He has fought and for nothing. This is his fault, his fault, his fault. “No - Shiloh - “ They kick him, and Thorne surges forward violently towards the other. He is watching, watching - will they kill them both if he tries and intervenes? He moves as though he has any chance of stopping them - this - from happening. It’s futile, it’s stupid, they might both die for it, but Thorne does it anyways. Even knowing the other boot is about to drop.
The eye contact finally breaks, but only because there’s this crushing pressure slamming into his chest and he’s looking at the wall, wondering where Thorne’s eyes went, because Shiloh doesn’t ever remember blinking. Everything feels thinly veiled in a heavy haze. It’s hard to think here. He can register the pain in his abdomen if he thinks about it, but the sharpness is starting to dull like the light in his eyes. He’s been here before, he’s been here before—he keeps telling himself this over and over and over in his head like a mantra, but even his father was never this overt. His father was a demon, but these things were monsters.
He’s looking at the ceiling now, having been so carefully rolled onto his back. Shiloh wonders, in the brief moment of it all, if he should try to make peace with himself. Has Thorne looked away yet? Even if he doesn’t, will he die here anyway? Shiloh never was afraid of death, not in the sense that he should’ve been. If he died, he wouldn’t have to hurt like this. Thorne wouldn’t have to hurt like this.
Ah, but then his mind is wandering again. It’s wandering to people like Chris and Jamie and Ollie, people that he doesn’t feel like he can leave behind. They’re chains—all of them—keeping him in a fragile tether to the life that makes him so goddamn tired. Have they noticed that he’s missing yet? He comes to a conclusion then, and it’s petty and selfish and there’s nothing he can do about it now, but Shiloh wishes he’d never met any of them at all.
He vaguely registers it when Thorne moves, and despite the resistance on his tongue Shiloh says nothing. ‘Stop’, he thinks, ‘I can take it…’; but the words never make it out. He just watches, air stifled in his lungs as he tries to breathe.
Quote: The attendant tending to Shiloh places one booted foot on his throat, pressing down inexorably. This continues until Thorne breaks, until he tries to make it stop, and then the male attendants stand back. The motion is immediate, startling in its efficiency. It all, from the start of the beating to the end, takes maybe four minutes. After the male attendants leave, the woman steps forward to kneel on one side of Shiloh. Her attentions are brusque, but not unkind, as she eases her hands beneath his shoulders and lifts his head into her lap. There is a quiet sigh, an intimation of a voice that is beautiful even without a tongue to shape it, and an apology in the way she presses blued-flesh fingers to Shiloh’s ribs. Checking for damage. She looks at Thorne, face tilting his way.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2016 6:34 pm
Thorne stopped and watched as the attendants left.
There was nothing left but the pieces in the aftermath, a wreckage of everything he’d tried to protect. Shiloh, beaten black and blue. And Thorne - where Melany wanted him all along. His body shook, but he didn’t vomit or retch or collapse. He stopped inches from the two - the woman attendant and the boy. He felt every breath like a bullet. It should have been him. It should have been him. But Melany was smarter than that.
“Shiloh,” he said softly. The word was broken on his tongue, burning with shame and guilt and terror. Oh, the terror. “I’m sorry. This is all my ******** fault. I - “
But what good was sorry? His eyes turned to the attendant. She didn’t seem unkind, but he knew she couldn’t speak.
“What - “ he breathes, hoping she’ll show him a direction, give him something, anything, “What happens now?”
Quote:
Shiloh’s eyes try to close, but they can’t. They’re wide and full of this contradictory mix of peace and terror as the boot presses into his throat. It’s tolerable at first, but then he feels like he’s drowning again. He can feel his neck crushing under the force of the shoe, body trembling as he still struggles to regain his breath in the first place. In his mind is a battle of thoughts; Thorne’s letting him die; But Thorne can’t do anything; Hatred; Understanding.
The thoughts last even as Thorne’s moving, because Shiloh’s honestly already given up. There’s nothing he can do about it, and there’s nothing Shiloh can do about. A naive part of him hopes he’ll wake up, but the pain in his bones is real; too real.
By some miracle, the pressure on his neck is gone. Shiloh isn’t sure when it started, but he’s suddenly aware of the wetness on his cheeks.
He wants so badly to protest as his head is scooped into the lap of the lady. Instead, he winces when her fingers graze his ribs. Are they broken? Shiloh isn’t sure, because every part of him feels shattered. They’re bruised and blue beneath the jacket, he’s sure of that at least. His breaths are still coming in short, choppy gasps. His eyes finally slip shut, unable to do anything with the situation. He doesn’t want to look at the women’s mask. He doesn’t want to look at Thorne, because he can already hear the guilt in his voice and he doesn’t need to see it reflected on his face.
“T-Th—” he can’t get Thorne’s name out between the heaving of his chest. Stop; he just wants to beg him to stop. Instead his head just lolls against the women, face contorted in pain. He’s not dead—not yet—and yet, it feels like he’s watching himself die regardless.
Quote:
The woman continues on her routine, gently turning Shiloh’s head side-to-side to make sure nothing is broken. When she is sure no permanent harm has been done, she dabs the tears from Shiloh’s cheeks with the velvet edge of her sleeve. She hums a little tune, maybe meant to be comforting, as she holds up a hand to silence Thorne for a moment.
Then she points to Shiloh, and then to Thorne. Her meaning is clear, even without a face to read the intent from. Pick him up, she means.
Thorne walks over, forces himself to move. Bending, he picks Shiloh up because it is all he can do. This is all he can do. The boy feels like a ragdoll in his hands. For all his height and athleticism, Thorne was useless here, and he knows it. Beneath the shame and guilt and sorrow, however, burns another kindling flame.
“I’m sorry,” Thorne says again to Shiloh, but this time it carries a different tune. Something dark and hungry for violence beneath every burning pyre inside of him, fed on everything he ever thought he’d once been capable of. “I’m sorry for everything, Shiloh.” And he didn’t know whether he was apologizing for what had happened or what might happen in the future. Because he doesn’t know where they are, but one thing is for certain: there’s no escape here without collateral damage.
So they were beneath Melany’s boot now. And this was his fault.
She wanted a pet? She had one now.
Thorne had played Melany’s game wrong and now Shiloh was the one that had suffered for it. But he would learn. He would learn to play by her rules. But learning not to bite the hand that fed? Thorne tightened his grip on Shiloh.
Well. They’d see about that.
Quote:
The attendant supports Shiloh’s head until she can nudge Thorne into cradling him properly. She beckons: follow.
They cross through the hallways to the room in which Thorne had awakened. She opens a heretofore-unseen closet door and pulls out bandaging and pillows, and turns back the coverlet. With an imperious gesture, she indicates the bed. Put him there. She plucks at the breast of her robe, which could either be pulling fuzz from her own immaculate black robes or asking Thorne to help Shiloh get his shirt off.
She removes her mask. Beneath it, she is beautiful, even with the corpse-blue of her skin. She doesn’t look at Thorne as she begins to unwrap the roll of bandaging, her attention only for her work.
Quote:
It’s hard to tell what’s going on with his eyes shut like this, but Shiloh can’t bring himself to open them. He can feel himself being moved around and he hisses in pain, shoulders tensing as he’s transferred into Thorne’s arms. His eyes are slits when they finally crack open, but he can tell who it is and it makes them close again, notably comforted.
Or well, as comforted as he could be in this situation. At least it gave Shiloh a lot of time to think. His breathing finally settled and his mind started to wander. Why were they both here? Were the rest of his friends safe? Was Jamie here too, somewhere? The thought made him groan. The pain made him groan. He took a weak, shallow breath.
“T-Thorne…?” he tries again, finally managing his name out. They stopped. His eyes blearily opened again, but it was hard to crane his neck. His view was of the ceiling and the peripherals around it.
“This... ********’ sucks…” his voice was barely higher than a whisper, raspy and pained. He gave a scarcely cocksure grin before it broke into another contorted grimace. Every breath felt like a dagger in his lungs, and despite his efforts it made him cry out. He writhed weakly in Thorne’s arms, eyes squeezing closed once more.
Thorne follows the other woman down the hall, back to the room where this all began. Shiloh moves in his arms, weakly, and Thorne looks down, making sure not to hurt the other with his grip. It’s hard - where hadn’t they hit him? But Thorne tries anyways, until he is forced to relinquish him when the woman gestures to the bed and begins to uncoil the bandages. Thorne doesn’t trust Melany, not in the slightest. He doesn’t trust this woman either. But she seems… decent.
For now.
“Yeah,” Thorne says when Shiloh speaks. “I’m here.” He is swallowing everything down, swallowing all the panic and guilt and shame because if he lets it out right now it’s going to wreck whatever chance he has at surviving this place. At helping Shiloh survive this place.
He sits carefully at the edge of the bed, perched like a hound watching something to protect from danger. His eyes are slits, and he tucks himself up neatly, still like a statue and tense with the aftermath of adrenaline.
“It looks,” he says, his voice dry and burning, “Like we’ve been employed.”
Quote:
The woman carefully bandages Shiloh’s chest, pulling the wrappings tight, but not so tight as to cause pain. She looks to Thorne, and taps him sharply on the ribs. Her gaze--her eyes are a very human brown--leads to Shiloh’s wrapped chest. Careful of his ribs, she seems to be saying.
She rises, and goes to retrieve her mask. Once it is in place once more, she pats her own pale wrist with the pads of her fingers. You have time. She straightens her shoulders and takes up her post by the door, head bowed and silent.
Quote:
Shiloh protests in the form of pathetic whines when he’s stripped of his shirt and consequently bandaged. They aren’t tight and they don’t really hurt after the fact, which he is grateful for, but they still throb and ache and he doesn’t even want to think about sitting up or moving or godforbid walking.
Instead, he listens to Thorne and mulls over his words. He’s here and it should be a comfort—and it is to an extent—but he knows better than to get content. Even outside of Otherworld, Shiloh never really let his guard down, not all the way anyway. He looked to the ceiling, but it offered no advice, nor answers to his questions.
“Em...ployed?” the word sounded foreign on his tongue, for some reason. The notion felt even stranger as he considered the fact in his head. Employed by who? For what? Why?
“I don’t… get it…” his words are still coming out in short, shallow breaths. Anything deeper and it hurts him.
Shiloh doesn’t get it, and neither does Thorne.
There had been names in Melany’s notes, clues to the outside world. Corr, who was Corr? The woman had said that he would be forgotten. That no one would even realize he was gone. And why? But the questions in Thorne’s mind circle only a few times before he abandons them and nods at the woman in understanding, turning his eyes back to Shiloh.
His expression twists. There’s no comfort here. Both of them know that much. So he doesn’t pretend that he can give it.
“Wherever we are,” Thorne ventures, “I don’t think we’re getting out soon.”
He stands up and walks over to the head of the bed, crossing his arms, looking down at the other. His eyes are shadowed. There is something darker, dangerous in them.
“I’m sorry that this happened. That I let it. But - “ And the word catches and tears in his throat, violently. “I don’t think. That it is going to end soon. That she’ll stop.”
She doesn’t seem the type, Thorne thinks, viciously. But then, neither is he. And therein lies the problem.
Quote:
“What’re you talkin’ about…” Shiloh mumbles, throwing his arm over his head so his eyes are hidden in the crook of his elbow. It’s a painful motion, but he feels like an animal, cornered and caged and wanting to hide. It’s a disgusting feeling and it makes him hate himself.
“You didn’t do nothin’.” he says with a weak huff, pulling his arm back to inspect the damage, despite it being mostly done to his chest. He’s staring at the scars again, but as it is, they’re somehow the least of his worries. He chews his lip, letting his arm slowly drop onto the bed again.
He’s not sure what to say, if there’s anything to really say. They’re going to be here for a while, huh? Did that mean forever? He looks up and meets Thorne’s eyes, his own equally shadowed but by exhaustion rather than vehemence. Shiloh was a rebellious spitfire too, but he wouldn’t be as strong as Thorne. He’d already been beaten down and down and down in the real world. He’d already been chipped away at. How long would he last? Shiloh didn’t know. If he was already thinking about giving up, then it didn’t look good.
“What’s s’worse that could happen?” he murmured aloud. This was how he consoled himself. This was how he kept himself together. “We die? I ain’t afraid of dyin’...” and it’s a half hearted truth, but it’s been something he’s thought about countless times. If he hurt too bad, then he could always pull the plug. His eyes fell to the floor, away from Thorne’s.
Thorne waits out Shiloh’s retort, leaning against the side of the bed and watching, wondering. Shiloh asks what the the worst that can happen and the scary thing is that Thorne doesn’t know. He used to think dying was the worst thing that could happen, up until it was the only thing left. Now, trapped in a world full of magic and women with the ability to simply rip them from the world as it is, Thorne doesn’t know anymore. And that’s frightening. But it’s also strange. And -
Well.
At least dying is only a footnote now to the real dangers of this place.
“You should be,” Thorne says, but the words are hollow and breathless. Because he’s been there, in the same place as Shiloh. Beaten and stripped and chipped away at until he wasn’t afraid of much except for the next time the door opened and the next hand curled into a fist. His eyes lower and he hovers for a second before resting a knuckle against Shiloh’s shoulder, a bare touch. “I’d like to say that dying is the worst. But I think that - woman - is more creative than that.”
He pauses, rippling with unspoken violence, the edge of the dark thing that sleeps inside of him, made up of every black thought in his head. “I want to protect you, but I can’t.” The admittance is riddled with shame. Guilt. Thorne remembers watching them beat Shiloh and being helpless to stop it. And still he feels the feathery hiss and click of that rebellious thing inside of him turning, and knows that he is a danger to everyone here. Especially Shiloh.
“And I don’t think you can punch your way out of this one. And I don’t think that death is an option.”
It’s a morbid truth, it’s an ugly fact. Death doesn’t scare either of them. And maybe that’s the worst part.
Quote:
Shiloh doesn’t even noticed the touch until he feels the warmth on his shoulder. It’s light and gentle and drawn out. It’s not quick, he doesn’t see the movement enough to react to it, but it does well to quell him. It was rare that he was touched without the ill intent of harm, be it by himself or someone else entirely
And honestly, he had already figured what Thorne said. Death would be the easy way out. He had been floundering for the meaning, but Shiloh finally figures it out as he listens to Thorne speak. The reason why he’s so scared of Melany and not his father is because Melany is smart. She doesn’t have her mind numbed with alcohol, no. She plays mind games. She’s equal parts manipulation and savagery. She’s in control of this situation and they’re both rats in her cage.
He sighs. He sighs from exhaustion, hopelessness, fear, comfort… everything feels heavy on his chest and in his lungs and in his heart. “So what?”
He licks his lips, thinking for a moment. “We’re both ********? Them’s the breaks?” he gets a little riled, wheezing from the effort. Thorne had admitted that he couldn’t protect him. Shiloh knew better than to put that sort of trust into somebody. The admission didn’t hurt, because Shiloh always knew he had to be the one to cover his own back. He’d let Thorne in and Jamie in and Chris in to an extent, but he still kept them at an arms length. It was for reasons like this.
And part of him feels bad for piling such venom onto Thorne, but it’s hard and it’s unfair and Shiloh’s only eighteen. He’s struggling to keep calm, struggling to piece together this puzzle even though he’s missing half the pieces.
“We listen? Wait it out? We p-play her game?” his voice cracks, dry and raw. His head turns away from Thorne, staring at the wall as he ignores the ache in his body.
Thorne looks away as Shiloh speaks, because looking at him is a reminder that scratches at the shell he’s building over and over again against the memories. Everything that won’t help him survive in this hell-hole, beneath Melany’s boot. His mind reels with questions going nowhere, fake answers he could give Shiloh if he wanted to comfort the other. When they’d first met, he’d thought maybe he could help, in some small way. But Other Ashdown and Melany and a whole litany of problems had come and - and - <********, who was he kidding?
He looks back at the other and bows his head, hair falling over his eyes. “Well, that’s one inelegant way of putting it,” he retorts, his voice dry, clustered around the sharp edges of an incomplete mask of calm to still the storm inside of him. “I wouldn’t say we’re anything but. What else is new?”
Thorne shakes his head and laughs, and the sound is sick with misery. He pressed his palms to his eyes, slides his hands to his neck and bites down on the sound.
“What do you want to do?” Thorne asks, because he doesn’t know the answer to anything. He can’t say that they’ll play her game because he knows himself well enough to know he is not in control of his reactions. And he will get others hurt. He will get Shiloh hurt. He already has.
He looks at the boy and says, “I never learned not to bite the hand that fed.” The unspoken apology is there, but there’s no point in voicing it.
He knows it wouldn’t be accepted anyways. Because it was nothing. Nothing.
Quote:
‘What else is new?’ Shiloh legitimately laughs at that—quietly—followed by a cough and a strangled wince as he holds his ribs. It’s true though. His best friend is a rabbit? What else is new? He’s trapped in literal honest to god hell? What else is new?
It’s sickening how normal this is all becoming.
Shiloh honestly doesn’t know what to do. They could fight, but Thorne makes it sound hopeless. They could bend—pretend to bend?—but he doubts that they could actually outsmart her. His mind wanders and wanders in circles until it doubles back around to Thorne’s initial conclusion: there was going to be some collateral damage here. It didn’t matter what they did. The game was rigged from the start.
“I… don’t know.” he feels pathetic admitting it, but it’s the truth. “Do either’ve us actually have a say in the matter?”
“Y’know, I never really learned that either.” he agrees with vague sarcasm, thinking about his father again. It didn’t matter how many times he knocked him down; Shiloh always had a retort for him. “I guess it is just a waiting game… well, implyin’ we ever get to leave.”
That’s right. Would anyone actually come save them? How long was a long time?
“Dammit,” he feels so ******** hopeless. “We lose either way.” he says to the wall.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
