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“I’m… fine…” he murmured through the stiffness of his jaw. He was fine. The drugs they had him on made sure of that. He’d done a lot of crying and begging in the beginning, but once the drugs started, he hadn’t been able to muster the will to care. “Please let me go,” he added, for the sake of it. The smiling doctor ignored him.

She cupped his cheek in her hand. It was warm, and he wanted to cry when she pulled it away, but he couldn’t do that either. “Excellent. We just have a few tests to run this morning, all right? And then we’ll be right back to making you beautiful.”

He would have blinked against the sudden flash of a penlight in his eyes, but of course he couldn’t. “Pupillary response normal. The resin ought to have cured enough to be scored and restore range of motion. Is that the color you would prefer? I will be unable to alter it later.” The silver-haired doctor was speaking now. Elian didn’t like them. They were always the one who hurt him. They put in the port in the back of his neck that delivered the drugs and God knew what else. They did the injections that felt like they were tearing his veins to shreds. They weren’t kind either. It didn’t seem like they wanted to be there at all. They were always cold with him, and addressed him like an object.

“It’s gorgeous. I don’t want to change it, do I, Elly? Aren’t your eyes the prettiest things ever?” He’d learned by now that she didn’t want a response to those questions. He remained silent until she continued speaking. “How are we with everything else? It’s an injection day, isn’t it?”

The silver-haired doctor nodded. “I will conduct the elasticity tests, and if all goes well, we can do an injection this morning and install the rigging in the afternoon.” Rigging? What was that? After nine weeks, he still had no idea what they were doing to him.

The smiling doctor squealed with delight from her position outside of Elian’s field of view. “Hear that, Elly? You’re almost complete! Just a few more steps and you’ll be perfect. When can I do the painting, Rowan? I think I’ve found the perfect shades.”

Rowan was what the smiling doctor called the silver-haired doctor. They didn’t seem to like it very much. Their face would always crease into more of a frown for a few minutes after she did it. “If his body does not reject the implants, then he should be ready to paint and lacquer the following week, after the last injection. And then I can wash my hands of this whole thing,” they added under their breath. The smiling doctor ignored this, too.

“Delightful! Run your tests, and I’ll check in on his nutrition.” Right. Something must have been keeping him going. They hadn’t fed him in at least a month. His jaw couldn’t open wide enough. The smiling doctor made clicking sounds at a computer that Elian guessed showed some kind of information on him, and the silver-haired doctor began the test.

They did this test every day, and it was the only time their hands on him were gentle. They pressed into every portion of his skin and muscle, cold, gloved fingers making him shiver less and less as whatever transformation they were working in him progressed. He didn’t like how it felt. As his flesh compressed under the doctor’s hands, he could feel each individual muscle fiber sliding and straining against the next. The surface of his skin felt oily, tugging at the rubber gloves when they moved across it. He felt like he was made of plastic. Or fiberglass. Fragile strands that shredded him as they snapped and scraped across each other. It was miserable.

“Skin surface is showing precipitated resin,” the silver-haired doctor commented, deep in thought.

The smiling doctor came into Elian’s view for the first time. Still smiling, but smaller and with concern on her face. “Is that good or bad? I don’t want delays, Rowan.”

They frowned again. “Neutral. I may alter the serum delivery ratio if his body is rejecting excess material. The animal testing showed no adverse effect to the timeline.” So they’d tested this stuff. He supposed that made sense. The thought of an animal going through this made him sick. “Even if it would affect it, a delay is more acceptable than experiment failure, is it not? You specially selected this subject. Surely you would not like to have to find another.”

Elian barely remembered his capture, didn’t know when the smiling doctor had set her sights on him. He’d made himself a picnic in the park, maybe, and fallen asleep in the sun. It didn’t matter. He’d woken up here. They’d had the decency to bring his wheelchair along. Not that he’d used it in weeks. Or moved under his own power at all.

“He’s not a subject. He’s a sculpture.” She put her (also gloved) hands on either side of his face, and though he could no longer see her, he could hear the doting grin in her voice. “And of course I don’t want to replace him. He’s nearly perfect already, aren’t you, Elly?” No response needed. He remained still.

The silver-haired doctor’s mood was only getting worse. “Helvete. Just get the seven-deviled infusion over with.”

Oh, no. This was always the worst part of the week. Elian had learned to mark the time passing by when the silver-haired doctor would bring the thick syringes made of metal and glass and connect them to the IV ports on his right arm and left foot (the silver-haired doctor had been annoyed that he didn’t have a left arm to put a needle in). They’d been left in since the second week, when the needles started bending on the way into his skin. He hadn’t wanted to think about what that meant, then. He still didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to know what he was becoming. (The smiling doctor had hinted at it. A… sculpture?)

The syringes were filled with a clear, off-yellow liquid that flowed like glue. The silver-haired doctor would screw them into the ports and flip a switch that Elian guessed heated whatever was inside so that it flowed better. It definitely felt hot when it went into him. It burned and it cut and it seared and it sliced. He felt every millimeter of condensed, vitreous agony as it crawled through his veins until it faded into a more general ache at the elbow and knee. He couldn’t cry, but he did emit a keening wail that increased in pitch and volume as the plungers went down.

The smiling doctor always pet his hair during this, whispering soft encouragement and running her fingers in soothing circles on his scalp. It was the only thing that made the experience even vaguely bearable. How could she be so kind to him and so cruel all at once? She seemed to love him, in her own way, even if that manifested as whatever sick experiment she was running. The silver-haired doctor hummed some vaguely unsettling tune that he didn’t know, and he got the idea it was more for their own amusement or to cover up the sound of his cries than for any benevolent purpose.

“He’s sweating resin, Rowan,” the smiling doctor noted a few minutes in.

“Yes, I noticed. I have already slowed the infusion rate.” More of this? Elian didn’t think he could bear it. “Odd, really. None of the prior testing showed this issue…”

The smiling doctor’s hand tightened in Elian’s hair for a moment before relaxing and giving him an apologetic stroke. “Surely he’s not rejecting the serum?” Her tone made it sound as if someone would lose an eye if that were true.

The silver-haired doctor gave a considering hum. “No… I do not believe that to be the case. When we place the rigging in a few hours, I shall do a core sample, and that should explain a few items. We may have merely supersaturated his tissues, and the rest of the hardening process will need to be completed externally.”

Elian didn’t understand most of those words, but none of them sounded good. Part of him was disappointed at the idea that he might fail whatever experiment they were doing on him. Why did he want to succeed at this horrible change? Was it the way the smiling doctor looked down at him while the infusions ripped through him, soothing and gentle and with something akin to love? She seemed to see some sort of purpose in him, to have specially picked him out as perfect for whatever this was. He… didn’t want to disappoint her. Not while she was so kind.

The pain faded, settling into his bones and leaving a heavy fatigue in its wake. That was normal. Once the fluid wasn’t pushing its way into his body anymore, he was always worn out. The smiling doctor was the one to flick the penlight in his eyes this time. “Pupillary response normal, still, though I think he’ll be going to sleep soon. Isn’t that right, Elly? Tired, are we?”

He was. His eyelids would be fluttering if they could close at all. “It will be just as well to sedate him,” the silver-haired doctor said. “Brady will be here soon, and I will need to cure this resin before the installation.”

“Better for him to sleep until that’s finished, I agree. Just a little bit of diazepam for you, dearie, that’s the ticket.”

“You will want propofol and most likely ketamine after the fact.”

“Don’t tell me how to do my job, Rowan. Just finish your injections.” She never did stop smiling, even when she was annoyed.

Elian felt his consciousness sliding away from him gradually, and didn’t bother fighting it. There was no point in fighting any of this, really.

---

When Elian woke, it was to white-hot agony. Like someone had put a metal rod into a fire and poked him with it all over. His upper arm, his wrist, his thighs, his calves. Even his hips had circular patches of burning pain. He made a mewling sound in his dry throat. What had he done to deserve this?

“Elly? Shit. Rowan, he’s waking up—”

“Ahead of you. Adding ten ccs of—”

“Wait! Hold on.” Elian recognized this voice. The engineer. He was American, while the silver-haired doctor was probably British (though some of their pronunciations threw that into doubt), and the smiling doctor seemed to be Spanish. Elian had only seen him twice, both times to measure his arms and legs. “I’m testing something. Need him awake and aware.”

The silver-haired doctor made a disapproving sound in their chest. “Very well, but finish quickly. If his nervous system goes into shock, I will have to take drastic measures to correct it.”

“No delays, Warren, you’d damn well better do this right…” She didn’t sound like she was smiling now.

“Patience, Doctor Salazar. Isn’t that what Doctor Fairbank is always saying?” he shot back with a grunt, and whatever he did made Elian feel as if he were being ripped apart. His arm and legs moved of their own accord, as if hauled upward by some force, amplifying the pain in each of the points he’d identified earlier tenfold and sending his joints into a spiderweb of fractured agony. His vision was blurred, whether by tears or something else, he didn’t know, and he couldn’t tell what was going on. He wailed through his locked jaw, abjectly miserable.

“It will do you well to keep my words from your mouth,” the silver-haired doctor snapped. “Are you mad? Let the bone ossify around the grafts before you add load! You will break him in half!” They injected something into his neck port that lessened the pain, but only a little.

The engineer scoffed. “Live a little, doctor! If the grafts ossify and then the metal snaps, you’ll be blaming me, and it’ll be a hell of a delay. Might even ruin it.” Elian’s limbs lowered back to the table and he could have sobbed with relief. “I’m done, anyway, you can put him out, if you want.”

The smiling doctor carded her fingers through Elian’s hair encouragingly. “Easy, sweetheart, just a little more.” Then, in a much less soothing tone, “Where are those drugs, Rowan? Why do I even have you here?”

“You are trying my patience, Salazar. Anesthesiology is not exactly facile. Would you rather I left you to do it yourself?” Despite their words, cool liquid flooded Elian’s neck port, leaving behind a tingling sensation. A dense fog settled gradually over his senses, and whatever the smiling doctor retorted with was muffled as he slipped into unconsciousness.

---

The cycle continued after that. Waking up, elasticity tests, drifting in limbo as his pain waxed and waned. He didn’t even have the energy to be terrified when the silver-haired doctor used a drill bit to score the resin and carefully machine his eyes back into working order. The movement was as smooth and painless as he remembered it being, so really, it must have been all right. They even gave him a new arm at one point and he barely noticed. It wasn’t as if he could move either of them on his own.

Today was more of the same. He became aware of sound before his eyes opened, the smiling and silver-haired doctors’ familiar voices discussing something. Elian inhaled deeply, almost involuntarily, before blinking his eyes open under the harsh exam table lights. The silver-haired doctor was mixing something in a large basin, and Elian could identify the acrid smell of paint thinner, though it was hard to pick out over the ever-present chemical sweetness of his own resin-skin.

“Your ‘muse’ is awake,” they commented sardonically, only barely looking up. They were never pleased to see him.

The smiling doctor’s hands were in his hair again. “Good morning, Elly! We’ve got very exciting work to do today! The last step in making you truly beautiful!” He leaned into her hand, his scalp the only remaining portion of his skin that could still feel properly. Making him “truly beautiful”? He couldn’t understand what she meant by that. All he could feel was that she was destroying his body for her own purpose. And still, somehow, she loved him. He couldn’t hate her for that.

The silver-haired doctor sighed. “Are you ready? The varnish is properly mixed. I will apply it when you are satisfied with the appearance.”

The smiling doctor gave Elian’s hair a final pat and withdrew. “Yes, I feel inspired. This will be my best work yet, I think. It’s the least I can do for such an incredible canvas. He’s been so good to us, hasn’t he?”

“He is not violent. That is a welcome change. Otherwise, he is perfectly ordinary, if not borderline defective, and I cannot comprehend your obsession with him.” Elian couldn’t either, though he bristled at the idea that he was defective. He’d been perfectly fine the way he was before anyone had interfered. “Regardless, my purpose here is not to understand your motivations, it is to ensure the procedure is carried out properly. Do your ‘art’ and I will do mine.” They seemed in an even worse mood than usual.

The smiling doctor was a brunette woman in her early forties, with dark eyes that crinkled when she smiled (which was most of the time). Elian didn’t see her as often as she was present. She had a tendency to stand behind him, just out of his eyeline, though he was very familiar with her voice and her touch. This time, she stood in front of him, looping her back-length hair into a messy bun and rolling up the sleeves of her lab coat. It wasn’t her usual one: this one was already flecked with paint and stained with watercolor, and looked to be much older than any of the others he’d seen her in over the weeks he’d been here. She seemed more comfortable in it.

The tray she rolled next to the exam table held no surgical tools. Instead, carefully mixed cups of paint and a stack of palettes occupied the space. “Rowan, the music, please,” she murmured, gaze already distant, appraising Elian with the critical eye of a sculptor choosing which slivers of stone to remove from a block of marble. Her smile had faded, giving way to a look of intense concentration as she mixed her first set of colors. The silver-haired doctor dropped the needle on a record player in the corner and then vanished from Elian’s eyeline as soft strains of violin music filtered through the room.

“Good. I think we’ll be productive today.” The smiling doctor collected pigment on her brush and began to paint.

It was watching a master at work. In other circumstances, Elian would have been awestruck to watch the way she assembled color out of pigment, building light colors onto dark bases in each section of his skin until it replicated the original tone. She moved like a virtuoso, weaving seemingly random patches of hue into a tapestry so realistic he almost didn’t notice how hauntingly flawless it was. As it was, it made his stomach twist in odd ways to watch every one of his scars (of which there were many), marks (also numerous), and blemishes (few) melt away into painted smoothness. She was “making him beautiful,” whatever that meant.

He didn’t like how long the silver-haired doctor had remained out of sight. That was never a good sign for him, and even if he couldn’t hear them talking or laughing to themselves, it didn’t mean he was safe from whatever they were doing next. Elian tried tilting his head up to see if he could catch sight of them again, his atrophied muscles protesting even the slight movement.

“Ah-ah, Elly, hold still, dearie.” The smiling doctor was painting Elian’s chest, and caught him by the chin to bring it back to its original position. “I’ll change the angle when I want it changed and not before. Art takes time.”

The silver-haired doctor knew what he was after. “I am here, preparing for the next stage. You need not look for me. I will neither be relocating nor constructing new torments for you.” He had been worried about that, but he wasn’t exactly sure he trusted them.

“Hush, Rowan. The sound of your voice makes it difficult for me to focus.” The silver-haired doctor said something in a language Elian didn’t understand, though it sounded mocking, and was silent.

This made Elian a bit bolder, though. While the doctor took a moment to clean her brush, he looked up at her and asked, “Please, doctor, can’t I know what’s happening to me?” Both of them liked being called doctor. He’d learned that early.

She hummed softly, considering, then chuckled, “I’ve already told you, love. We’re making you beautiful. You were quite lovely before, of course. I just thought I could make a few small improvements.”

This didn’t seem like an improvement. He was in even more daily pain than he’d been before and he couldn’t even eat on his own. He wanted to be back at home, in his room with his own comforts instead of the smiling doctor’s hollow reassurance. She wasn’t a person who took kindly to being disagreed with though, her interactions with the other two had told him that much, and she didn’t seem likely to give him a better answer. She liked playing coy, teasing him. He lapsed into silence.

It was almost meditative, the faraway feeling of the doctor’s brush as she painted over his skin. The music transported him to an alternate reality in which he wasn’t being tortured for his utility in some sort of modern art piece. He could have fallen asleep if it weren’t for the almost-ticklish sensation of his freckles being filled in with a detailing brush. Telling time was impossible here. He had no way of knowing how many hours the doctors worked, he only knew how often they gave him his nutrition supplement, which seemed to be twice a day if the injections really were weekly. It could have been one hour or ten that the smiling doctor spent on her work.

Focusing on the words the two doctors were speaking to each other was difficult through the haze of soothing fatigue. He caught things like “sedate him” and “for the best” and “breathe the fumes,” which didn’t exactly sound good, but then another burst of liquid came through his neck port, and he found himself caring very little. He caught a glimpse of the silver-haired doctor wearing a gas mask and assembling some sort of spraying device.

“Easy, there, Elly. Just go right to sleep while we protect your skin, all right?” The smiling doctor pet his hair again before withdrawing. Elian was able to identify only the smallest fraction of a second of searing agony being sprayed over his arm before the sea of unconsciousness closed over his head.

---

He was surprised that they’d put him in his wheelchair today. He hadn’t seen it since the first week he’d been here, after the first round of injections, when the silver-haired doctor had declared his skin too fragile for him to be allowed to move freely. Elian hadn’t seen them since the last coat of material went onto his skin. He guessed their part in it all must be finished.

The smiling doctor had wheeled him down a set of hallways he hadn’t seen before and into multiple elevators until he was questioning how impossibly large the building must be. These people must have so many resources, if they could afford a base this size and kidnap him in broad daylight, not to mention all the equipment. How many others might they be keeping here? Not worth thinking about.

Now, she’d brought him into what looked like a dressing room and was comparing several satin fabrics to his new skin tone. “Want to set off your eyes…” she murmured to herself, along with other similar musings. In Elian’s opinion, pink was his best color, but the smiling doctor seemed to dislike how his already-pink hair contrasted with the soft rose of the fabric she had, and finally chose to dress him in azure instead. His limbs were articulated again, which made moving much smoother and less painful than it had been at certain points, and the smiling doctor manipulated Elian’s body to dress him fairly easily. He thought he could probably stand and dress on his own if he really tried, but she was a perfectionist and insisted on doing most things herself, anyway. What good would standing do him? It wasn’t as if he had the faintest idea where the exit was.

“There! I think that does it. Have a look, Elly, darling. See what you think.” That was odd. She’d never asked him what he thought about anything before.

The smiling doctor rolled a large, floor-length mirror in front of Elian’s chair, and he saw himself in his entirety for the first time since being brought to the lab. He recognized the face in the mirror as his own, but… altered. His usually pale skin was nearly luminous, highlighted on the cheeks and nose to emphasize the glossy sheen of the varnish. He’d known he must have been covered with the stuff — the silver-haired doctor hadn’t spared a square inch of him from the sprayer — but he hadn’t realized how artificial it made him look. His eyelids were solid pieces that raised and lowered themselves as the doctor tilted his head for him, and they opened much wider than usual, giving him an air of perpetual innocence. He was smiling, and a pang of dissonance ripped through him when he realized he couldn’t even feel it. It had been ages since he could feel his face. There was a plastic fitting over his teeth, preventing airflow and his mouth drying out. He would have thought she’d fix the gap between the front ones, but she must have found it charming. She’d rearranged the pattern of his freckles.

His arms perfectly matched on both sides, including the ring finger on his right hand he hadn’t noticed had been replaced. Articulated like doll’s limbs, with full range of motion, and those strange metal rings the engineer had installed on the day Elian had woken up during the procedure. The doctor had put him in a tutu, far from his first, with his hair arranged into a neat bun and tied with a ribbon in the same pastel blue as his clothes. He’d never danced ballet, though this ensemble was reminiscent of what he’d been wearing that day in the park. Was that why she’d taken him?

“Well?” she asked, bending to put his feet into pointe shoes, her ribbon technique showing she had experience doing so. His left ankle wasn’t articulated at all, but rigid, fixed in a pointed position, and the corresponding knee had several positions it could be locked into rather than a full range of motion like the other.

“I-” It came out more clearly than he expected. There seemed to be some kind of microphone set up that projected his voice past the veneers. “I don’t… understand…” It was still difficult to form consonants with his jaw and lips stuck fast.

“You were nearly perfect when I found you. All you needed was a few minor adjustments to be flawless. Some color correction here, a functional repair there. The smallest detail makes the work, after all. Wouldn’t you agree you’re much improved?”

Disagreeing with her didn’t seem like a safe thing to do, but how could he agree that being turned into a china-doll mockery of himself was an improvement? The image in front of Elian wasn’t truly of him at all, it was more of a sculpture vaguely modeled after him. The smiling doctor seemed enamored with it, though, and she played with his hair and beamed with delight while they looked in the mirror together. “Thank you, doctor. I’m perfect now.” The words made him sick to his stomach.

Another indulgent smile. “I’m so glad you feel that way. Now, the final step.”

She pushed his chair again, more long hallways and turns, until she finally brought him to a stop at the center of a stage in a small theater. The engineer was here, too, tinkering with some equipment. “Doctor Salazar. Everything ready?”

“Everything. Can I trust you not to damage him or will I have to monitor you? I’d hate to have to adjust the decorations again.”

The engineer shrugged. “If that stuff Doctor Fairbank put in him works right, there probably isn’t anything I could do to damage him. I’ll be alright.”

Her smile tightened. “He’s art, not equipment. Treat him as such.”

“Yeah. Right. Will do.” Elian was beginning to think he’d rather have the silver-haired doctor.

The engineer spent several minutes connecting carabiners to the ring-like shapes screwed into Elian’s bones. That horrible shattering sensation came back again whenever the cables took up the weight of his limbs and lifted them even slightly into the air, and by the time the engineer declared all of his testing complete, Elian felt as if he’d run a marathon. The pain alone was exhausting, and he’d been seated the whole time. That didn’t last long, though.

The engineer gave a signal to someone Elian couldn’t see, and all at once, the cables hauled him up out of his chair and into a standing position, balanced on the point of his fused leg. It felt precarious, and he swayed dangerously, but the metal ropes held him in place. The engineer wheeled Elian’s chair offstage, and he mentally reached out, insecure without it. He breathed heavily through his nose, anxiety fluttering in his chest. Was this the end goal of it all?

The curtain went up, the lights flared to life, and Elian squinted out at the empty chairs, save one, where the smiling doctor seemed nearly manic with excitement as she took her seat. Music arose from nowhere, the charmingly off-key notes of a music box, and the rigging pulled his limbs up and into the motions of a dance he wasn’t familiar with, rotating him delicately around his central axis and extending and retracting his leg to the rhythm. His muscles felt tense and stiff after weeks of disuse. Each smooth-yet-awkward movement was utter agony, and thick resin tears torturously gathered in his glazed eyes. He thought he could hear the crackling scrape of vitreous muscle all the way in his teeth. He wanted to scream, but the sound choked and died in his chest.

Elian looked out at Doctor Salazar, alone in the audience, the rictus grin lacquered onto his face. What was he looking for, some hollow comfort? Some sign that his life was not now utterly meaningless? Are you happy now? Am I what you wanted? Despair pooled in his gut as he watched the affection die in her eyes, along with the smile on her face.

The room was cold. Hunter could hear the way the water dripped from the ceiling. 

Drip. Drip. Drip. Drip. 

Why was it always him that got the short end of the stick? He was always the one left behind. Well, he did deserve it didn’t he? With all the colors of irritation that followed them whenever he was around. Maybe he got too much again, left people with the sour taste in their mouths. He was told to wait by the door, be a lookout. He only saw the bright flash of orange a second too late before rose petals of pain blossomed from behind him. Then darkness. 

Now he was here. Somewhere dark and cold with a goddamn leaky pipe. One that he was unfortunately handcuffed too. What was this? Some kind of shitty warehouse basement? Like the ones on tv. The ones where people get kidnapped and there’s always a way out. Hunter needed their luck. Movie protagonist luck was probably the best luck someone could have.. Or the worst. Yeah nevermind, maybe he didn’t want that type of luck following him around. His own was bad enough as is.

Drip, drip, drip. 

There was a sound of a door opening, creaking slowly. It grated against Hunter's ears as he looked back at the small glow of warm light that came from the staircase. A basement then? Is that where he was? The man walked down the steps and flicked on the lights. He was surrounded by a bright red glow. A walking stop light. Danger. Hunter smiled at him. 

“Did you know that your pipes are leaking?” 

“What?” asked the man, raising a brow at him. The bottom half of his face was covered by a bandana. Grey colored with a pattern. There was a flash of yellow in the aura. He didn’t know what that was. 

“You have a leaky pipe. Annoyed the shit outta me.” 

The yellow flash stayed steady as the man chuckled, shaking his head slightly. He took a few steps toward Hunter, crouching to his level on the ground. Heading tilting to the right. Studying him. The soft red glow that surrounded him only got brighter, burning into Hunter's eyes. Right above his brow. 

“Yeah. Been meaning to fix that. Never got around to it. Busy I guess,” his tone was casual as he reached toward Hunter’s handcuffs. “I’m gonna uncuff one of your hands. Try anything and I’ll break your arm, you hear?”

Hunter scoffed but nodded as the man unlocked one cuff. Then he let Hunter move his hands from around the pole he was handcuffed around, moving his wrists and shoulders. Orange sparks coming from the joints. The man cuffed his hands in front of him, grabbing him by the shoulder and hauling him upward by the shoulder. The red glow got softer, less angry, less dangerous. Hunter felt himself inhale. The man made eye contact with him. 

Now Hunter had never been the king of smart decisions. He was in trouble constantly. Bored, elusive, desperate for something to take his mind off the thoughts that plagued him at times. But this had to be one of his dumbest decisions he ever made. Especially as he beared down and slammed his shoulder into the guy's chest. Knocking him backward for a few steps. That red flash came back in an instant as Hunter started to turn the other way. 

One, two… three steps around the table in the middle of the basement before Hunter's scalp was on fire. Orange dandelions exploded in front of his eyes as he was yanked backward by a hand in his hair. No no no. He screamed out for a second as his balance failed him and his head was slammed into the table. More sparks across his vision as he groaned. 

“Fucking.. Little shit..” the man growled, trapping him with his own weight pressed on top of Hunter's back, making it hard to breathe. 

“Get off me! Fucker. Asshole. You bi–” Hunter screamed again as his head was slammed into the table a second time. His vision went black for a moment. The world flipped around and he couldn’t lift his head. The world was spinning and if he kept his eyes closed it felt like he was being lifted. Hunter groaned as his body moved. Handcuffs unclinking and reclinking. God, everything was swimming in orange. 

“You look better when you can’t even lift your head. I warned you man,” his captor mused. Moving his arm off the table, letting it hang off by the elbow. Hunter finally found it in himself to open his eyes. Swirls of orange and black all around himself. The red of the man dressed in black bright and pulsating. His temple was wet, probably with blood. Something inside him screamed at him to fucking move. Get up, fight, do something. 

He tried to push himself up, get his chest off the table, but he couldn’t move. He twisted his head to see the rope that held him down. Tying his waist to the underside of the table. His legs were tied together and to the underside of the table too. Did he pass out? When did this guy tie him up? Black cracks started to form in his vision, surrounding his arm that hung limply off the table. Hunter moved it slightly, and a hand wrapped around his arm, just above the elbow. 

“I warned you what i’d do if you tried anything, remember? Say it.”

“You.. You said you’d break my arm.” 

“Oh so you were listening, that’s good.” 

The grip on his arm tightened and black cracks made their way up his arm, crawling up to his neck, making it hard to breathe. 

“Wait! Wait wait–” he lifted his head, struggling as the other hand came down just beneath his elbow. Oh god, oh god, oh god. “COME ON MAN, JUST WAIT.” 

The pressure built up slowly at first, before there was a horrifying snap. The world exploded into a firework of orange, black, yellow and red. Then his vision went black for another moment. 

A second of peace. Of forgetting that he was in someone's shitty basement, with a concussion and a broken arm. Forgetting that he was just left here and that no one was coming to get him. Hunter had a moment of peace. Of perfect, inky stillness. All good things must end right? All good things must end. 

His eyes opened and he was met with a stark contrast of white and red. Shattered bone sticking out of his skin and blood dripping down slowly. He couldn’t feel his fingers. That was a bad sign right? Meant the nerves were damaged or something? Orange flowers danced around the oddly angled arm, making his head pound. His eyes burned with tears. 

God he couldn’t cry now. If he cried now, he’d look stupid. 

“Shut up,” said the man, dragging a chair to sit next to the dangling arm. Grabbed just above the break on the part that was still on the table. “You’re whining and whimpering isn’t going to save you. In fact, it’s been long enough. I doubt anyone’s gonna save you.” 

Hunter whined, lifting his head, gathering salvia in his mouth. Then he spat on the man. Glob landing on his cheek. Just above the bandanna that covered his mouth. His eyes hardened, and the red pulsated again. 

“Fuck you.” 

The man laughed, actually laughed. Short and melodious as he wiped the spit off his cheek. Then he squeezed his arm, blood flowing more freely as he did. Hunter bit back a scream, his other hand curled in a fist. That was not his smartest decision. 

“How many layers of skin do you think it’ll take for me to get down to your bones? Ten? Fifteen? Wonder if I’ll hit an artery on my way down.” 

Bandanna Man took a knife from his back pocket and held it to the part of Hunter’s arm that dangled freely. Bone moving as the arm moved against his will. The pain burned into his shoulder, up his neck, and made his face heat up. A sob escaped him before he could even stop it as Bandanna held it straight, skin catching on bone, and brought the knife to the skin. 

“No.. N..no please… Please..” 

“No use begging, why don’t you just keep count yeah?” he said casually as he slowly and carefully cut away the first layer of skin. 

It was pink for the first layer. Red for the second, red for the third. Oh there was so much red. Blood pouring down his arm and steadily making its way to the floor. Sometimes, if Hunter focused more on the colors, rather than the burning, white hot pain, he could almost ignore it. Almost. His throat was raw from screaming and the deep ache settled in his chest. One that he recognized as hopelessness. It sat heavy on his body, squeezing all the air out of him. Making the room spin and the walls turn into grey nothingness. 

Muscles split down the middle, blue veins carefully being ignored. Yellow fat moved to the side. 

“Sixteen..” Bandanna said, voice coming back into focus as he leaned in close to Hunter's face. Tilting his head. “You still with me Harbor?”

Harbor, Harbor, Harbor. Hunter squeezed his eyes shut. He never told this guy his name. He never even got the chance. 

“Harrrborrrr,” Bandanna sang, gently tapping Hunter’s temple with the butt of the knife. “I need you awake. If you don’t open your eyes, I’ll just take them out.” Hunter's stomach lurched as he forced himself to open his eyes. The world was spinning still and it took a moment to focus on Bandanna's face. 

“There you are, your team is on their way you know. Got the location about an hour ago. We’re almost done. If you manage to live, I think they’ll be impressed,” the man said nonchalantly as another slice of tissue was taken from his arm. They rolled back elegantly toward his wrist. Ribbons. It reminded him of using scissors on a piece of ribbon. Scraping it on the material and then it rolled and curled up. That was his skin. Layers upon layers of curled up ribbon. “I’m impressed. I think we’ll make it to twenty, before we reach the bone. Really incredible,” the Bandanna man sounded far away, distant. 

Drip, drip, drip. Splash. 

Leaky pipe, blood dripping down his arm, onto the floor. Hunter was painfully aware of the sound. The sound of the knife cutting away at skin was awful too. The smooth shlick of it peeling back and the sound of Hunter's quiet sob mixed together. Orange, red, black and grey fireworks were everywhere.

 Finally, white bone appeared in his vision. Hunter was being fully held up by the ropes now. Body weight on his hips, but the ache was just a distant echo compared to the fire on his arm. Bandanna laughed and it echoed. Gently he stroked the bone, caressing it like it was something to treasure. 

“You did well Harbor.” 

Then he let the arm drop down again. Let it dangle there. Gravity pulling the weight of all the skin, muscle and fat down to rip down the rest of the way. Making him scream and his vision went white. The sound of tearing skin and the way it all hit the floor was the last thing he heard before his vision went black again. 

He was going to die here. 

Echoes of a past life surrounded him. Purple, blue, green colors blurring together in a mess above his head. Hands gently touching his head, his shoulders, holding down his legs. His vision cleared for a moment and he was greeted with a familiar, pained smile. 

“Don’t worry Harbor, we got you, we got you. You’re going home.” 

Home. If he was going to go home. He should really remember whatshisfaces name. Barney? Bacon? No.. something else. Benji. His name was Benji. 

A gentle hand wiped the blood from his forehead. Oh he really was going to go home now wasn’t he? His arm was fucked, his head was scrambled eggs but they actually came for him. They came for him and.. Maybe he wasn’t supposed to be left behind after all. He let the thought settle in.