(If you write this, tag me I want to read it. I think it is a pretty brilliant whump prompt, I would keep it for myself, but I’m sure I’ll never write it myself. ) —————— Box Boy Universe. Box Boy bought buy a tattoo parlor, or maybe just an independent artist. For the tattoo artist to practice on. ——————— I’ma tag some of my favorite whump writers… @wildfaewhump@ashintheairlikesnow@spookyboywhump@deluxewhump
content warnings: torture, non-consensual body modification (scarification), branding mention.
Martin Viklund-Reid is, in all things, a craftsman. An opinionated one to boot. The artist’s eye is lauded as paramount but it kneels to two things, in his practice—first, a steady hand. Things such as these were an act of translation, figment into form, and as such a clear voice was crucial. A smooth, gently curling line? His forgeries of jealousy.
The second is simple patience.
“Good, love,” Martin murmurs. “Easy.” Pausing to take note of the quiet yet rapid breaths, he presses one hand to the middle of his boy’s back.
He thought he had prepared him enough, introducing each step bit by bit—the workroom, the restraints, the long and close physical contact, gradually increasing the time spent in tolerance of each. Had hoped a sedative wasn’t necessary, because it would just make things harder to monitor. There were certain positionings here that were necessary to minimise cramping for Lev, or waking up with a sore back tomorrow himself. More abstract, here he wanted the annealing that only pain, shared and savoured pain, could bring.
But the setup, he had to admit, was intimidating. And Lev had started breaking down as soon as he’d entered the room.
The ceiling is white. Cyril thinks, with a dim sort of hatred, that they would happily kill to never see a white ceiling again.
“Hey.”
When they complete the monumental task of turning their head, Cyril finds both Esme and Armani in attendance, Esme in a chair right beside the bed, and Armani on the small couch - more of a bench, really - under the window. They’re both in the same clothes they were at dinner, scuffed and dirty finery now rumpled and wearing the look and smell of both the attack and too many hours without a shower or sleep since.
Their mouth opens and closes.
“Hospital,” Esme fills in. “You had surgery to repair the bullet hole in your leg and remove the one embedded in your arm.”
“Did they f-…” they glance at Armani. “Were you hurt?” they ask instead. “Either of you?”
“Bruises and scrapes, nothing more,” Esme says.
“You took the brunt of it,” Armani stands and comes over to the bed to take Cyril’s hand in his own. “We both owe you our lives, my b- ah, damn. What am I supposed to call you?”
“Just Cyril is fine.” Their tongue sticks a little to the roof of their mouth, gummy and too thick for the space it’s allowed. “Not boy, or man, or he.”
They can’t tell what he’s thinking. Armani considers them for a moment, and Cyril feels very small. Their fingers feel like ice next to the warmth of his grip on their hand.
“Just Cyril,” Armani concedes. “You saved Esme’s life, and mine. I won’t forget that.” He sets their hand down. “I have to go deal with the fallout of the attack, but I wanted to be here when you woke. Rest and heal. When you’re well, I have something I want to talk to you about.”
The jacket sits oddly against their shoulders. Rich seamwork and heavy, fine-spun material feel like the memory of a dream more than a piece of their past. Cyril does up the buttons on their cuffs, pulls their arms across their chest, then circles them, feeling the pull of the fabric across their back and around their arms. With a sigh, they rotate their wrist and undo the cuff-links. It will slow them if they need to move quickly. Not by much, but even a half-second can carry the weight of a life kept or lost.
The thought jars against the slide of the smooth fabric of their dress shirt on their skin, rips a hole in the thick, weighty pall of their old life settling over them. They would never have considered movement over attire when they were alive.
Alive, yes – they were alive, years ago, and they stand here and breathe and think and hurt now but will they ever truly be as alive as they were the first time they put on this suit? Esme did up their cuffs that time, warm, blunt fingers caressing their wrist as he laughed about something inconsequential. It rings against the shell of their memory, golden-edged and bright, a spray of seafoam captured in the curl of an empty home that once protected something which no longer fits.
