who would prepare for peace take up the sword

Dewdrop lies prone and shirtless on Rain’s bed.

They’ve done this before, something similar at least. In theory that puts Rain at a disadvantage in terms of tension and suspense, but he has a plan. The plan has led to a shopping list, and then to a curated mise en place.

The needles come in a cardboard box, each individually wrapped in a paper-and-plastic sterilization envelope. They have a translucent frosted cap, and are two inches long, plus a pastel-colored plastic hub at the end that adds another half inch or so. He’s counted out the appropriate number of them, peeled open their envelopes and placed them, still capped, in a small tray. So far, this is all similar to last time.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with what they did last time. The pentagram design was indeed cute. Dew didn’t suffer much and came out of it feeling satisfied and very brave. It was a good experience, and it’s time for something different.

And so these needles are larger — large, just in general. The length is the same, but the diameter is greater by an amount that is very clear even just visually, based on its proportions, even without the smaller size for comparison. And Rain knows without that comparison too, based on numbers in bare-bones HTML tables, millimeters, gauges, a buffet of options for his consideration.

They’ll be doing a different design as well. Two symmetrical lines of purple ink stretch down Dew’s back, starting just below his shoulder blades and ending near the crest of his pelvis. Each line is crossed by twelve evenly spaced marks, about an inch apart, contralateral sides aligned. It looks like a ladder with the rungs cut out.

And the finishing touch is tucked away for now, out of sight. It’s important that Dew doesn’t see any of this, at least not anything he hasn’t seen before. The cardboard box is fine, as is the gentian violet marker, even the capped needles are ambiguous enough, but the entire plan hinges on the element of surprise, or at the very least a form of duplicitousness.

Honestly, Rain isn’t sure if he's going to get the reaction he wants. He’s treading a fine line and extrapolating from minimal data, at least in terms of this particular activity. But, on the other hand, he knows Dew well. He knows his motivations, what gets under his skin.

He places the tray on the bed next to Dew’s right side and picks up one capped needle. “Ready?”

“Yeah.” Dew looks up at him, or tries to, craning his neck.

“Head down.”

He puts his head back down on his folded arms.

Rain pulls the cap off the needle and discards it onto the bed. The sleek stainless steel underneath glints in the light. Its bevel is knife-sharp, narrowing to a perfect point. And it’s hollow. The ones he used last time were thin enough to register as a solid object, visually equivalent to a pin, hollow only in technicality. This one is so clearly a tube, a cylinder with an inside and an outside, cut on a diagonal.

This first needle will go through the mark nearest to Dew’s shoulder blade. With his left hand, Rain pinches a fingerful of skin just below that dash of purple ink, only enough to create some topography to pierce through. He brings the tip of the needle to the point where the short marking crosses the longer line going down his entire back. The needle aims straight toward Dew’s spine, perpendicular to it.

Rain presses it into his skin a little slower than strictly necessary, but not so much as to be suspicious, feigning precision. In actuality, he hasn’t even marked a specific exit point. The design from last time required far more focus than this one. All he’s doing this time is dragging out the sensation.

As the point of the needle pops out the other side of his skin, he can feel Dew’s breath hitch, a little step out of phase from his previous breathing rhythm that displaces the surface of his back. He pretends not to notice. He doesn’t acknowledge it in any way.

Then he takes the next needle and uncaps it. He pinches up some skin below the second mark, aligns the needle, and presses it in with the same faux-carefulness.

Dew makes a tiny noise in his throat, no louder than a whisper.

The third piercing elicits no response at all. The surprise has worn off, overtaken by whatever the next phase is — endurance, flow. A precedent has been set in terms of sensation, and Dew must have a sense of the scope of the piece, having felt the marker on his skin. It remains to be seen what he thinks about that.

After Rain pinches below the fourth mark, he pauses, experimentally, letting anticipation build on purpose, the point of the needle hovering close enough that the heat of his hand radiates to Dew’s skin. In turn, he can feel Dew’s back begin to tense under his fingers.

His reaction feels like the click of pins in a lock; now Rain just has to push the door open.

“You’re scared,” he says.

“No,” Dew responds, as if it were a question.

Rain closes the gap between the point of the needle and his tented skin.

Dew twitches when it makes contact. He’s so sensitive like this. It’s not his default mode of operation; he tends to have a high pain tolerance, but it’s built, Rain has always suspected, on a very specific type of mental fortitude, and pride. If that foundation is destabilized the whole castle is liable to come crumbling down. That’s the hope, anyway.

Rain pushes the needle through again, picks up another, uncaps it, continues chipping away.

With piercing number seven, Dew groans quietly, ambiguously. It could be pleasure or pain.

“Don’t be dramatic.”

“I’m not,” he snaps.

Rain uncaps another needle. It’s working; he hit a nerve.

Piercing number ten elicits a groan tinged with anger, maybe frustration. Eleven is accompanied by a similar sound, only more subdued. For the final one on this side he goes slow, really takes his time, and Dew rewards him with what can only be described as a moan.

Rain steps back to look at his work. Twelve needles are now woven through the skin of Dew’s back, dipping under the surface and re-emerging a little more than a finger’s breadth away. They’re relatively parallel and spaced evenly enough. The exit points could be more orderly — he really should have marked them, but it doesn’t matter. The most important part is for the plastic hubs to follow a straight line, and they do.

Dew lifts his head, movements stiff and cautious in the way one might be in the midst of a costume fitting, caged by a tailor’s pins.

“No,” Rain says.

Dew lowers his head, brow to forearm.

In another scene, he would tell Dew that they’re halfway done, that he’s doing so well, that he’s so strong. Instead, he picks up the tray of needles and walks to the other side of the bed in silence.

Dew flinches when, as Rain tosses it back down, the tray brushes the side of his ribcage. Its contents click together with every movement, first when it touches the sheets and then again, immediately, quieter, when Dew jostles it.

Rain takes a needle from the shrinking pile and uncaps it. Aligning it with the marking actually does require more precision this time, to adjust to the new angle.

Dew hisses as the needle slowly digs in.

Rain tuts. “You weren’t complaining this much last time we did this.”

“It’s different.”

“Really? You think the placement changes it that much?” He taps on the hub of the most recently inserted needle. The downward pressure lifts the opposite end of it like a lever.

“You’re doing something different. It hurts way more.”

“Me? What am I doing?”

“I don’t know!”

“Because I’m not doing anything different.”

“You’re going slower.”

A small smile seeps over Rain’s face. “I see.” He can change that.

He takes the next needle and flicks the cap off with little regard for where it ends up. He pinches at the next purple mark and presses it through the tented skin with force.

Dew makes a startled little grunt at the impact.

Once again, there’s a fine line to tread. Rain takes another needle without delay, careful not to come off as hurried. No, he’s efficient, mechanical, inevitable. The cap falls onto the floor with the hollow clatter of cheap plastic on hardwood.

He wastes no time in pinching up his skin again, and putting the needle through.

Dew makes a choked noise in his throat. At the other end of the bed, his foot flexes.

Rain takes the next needle.

When he pinches his skin again, Dew calls out, “Wait—”

Rain suppresses the urge to actually pause. Dew doesn’t usually say things like that in-scene. It’s not his style. He would much prefer to be stoic than to struggle or resist.

He has suspected for a while now — he doesn’t know, he’s never asked, but he’s pretty sure, based on observation — that the mental fortitude that powers Dew’s pain tolerance is closely tied to his masochistic sense of pleasure. Of course there’s also pleasure directly derived from pain, like a physical sensory transmutation, but it’s secondary. The primary pleasure is more mental. It comes from endurance, self-praise, almost self-sadism, in a way.

He’s not denying that pleasure, no. It’s more like he’s delaying it. And maybe he’s enabling him to feel something new. He really ought to get out of his head more often.

Dew’s arms wrap around himself as much as he can in this position, one hand sliding up to the opposite shoulder. His yelp in response to the next piercing is muffled.

With the next piercing, approaching his waist, he wriggles his legs enough that his entire torso shifts.

Rain puts one hand on his hip. “Hold fucking still, you’re just making it worse for yourself.”

He doesn’t move with the next piercing. His muscles are tense under Rain’s hands, under his fingers as he pinches again, pierces again. He yelps, barely audible through his arms and what seems to be an attempt to swallow his own voice.

“I can hear you, you know.” His derisive tone is so forced he worries it might not even come across. He’s delighted to hear those sounds, what little of them he can at this point.

Another pinch, another piercing.

Now his shoulders begin shaking as he buries quiet sobs in his arms.

It hits Rain’s body like an shock down his spine, electric potential pooling in the deepest part of his core. It’s beyond what he could have ever hoped for. He bites his lip and wills himself to focus on maintaining the pace. There are three piercings left. He so badly wants to tell him that everything will be okay, that he’s almost done and doing so well, so brave; it’s an instinct he can’t fully override even though it’s antithetical to his current goal.

“Breathe,” he says, simply.

Dew does breathe, immediately, one shaky inhale and exhale, obedient.

“We’re going to finish this.”

He doesn’t respond. He takes another breath, in and out like a despondent sigh.

Rain takes another needle, and the number remaining in the tray goes from three to two. He doesn’t feel the need to push him any further than this — he already gave him everything he wanted and more — but he does intend to continue the piece unless he formally taps out.

So for the last three piercings, he doesn’t go particularly fast or slow. He does his best to be calm and efficient, professional. He doesn’t comment on Dew’s pained groans, nor does Dew seem to suppress them, not any more than is consequent to having one’s face completely hidden away.

In a sense, this is the state he was trying to achieve with this entire exercise. Dew has let go of his pride. Even though it’s a success in that way, it feels like a shame, if he dares to call it that, for only a fraction of the scene to be spent here. He doesn’t want to be ungrateful, not at all. It’s just something to think about for the future, for next time.

The final component lies at the bottom of the tray, once buried beneath twenty-four needles and now the only thing left. It’s a long piece of black satin ribbon, three-eighths of an inch in width, according to the package, with a fine scalloped detail along the edges reminiscent of lace. Both ends are cut in a dovetail, a little chevron-shaped notch like one might find on a fancy bow on a gift.

Traditionally this type of piece is done with actual jewelry, rings to thread the ribbon through, but the idea of spending extra time and effort for that didn’t seem compatible with his objective. It would go beyond both his skill level and his patience level. The mental image of the tiny silver ball of a captive bead ring falling to the floor and rolling away was enough to rule out the option entirely.

Instead, Rain loops the ribbon around the cone-shaped plastic hubs at the end of the needles. He starts by placing the middle of the ribbon at the top of Dew’s back, between his shoulder blades. Then he tucks one side of the ribbon under the hub of the first needle on the left, then the opposite side under the first on the right. He crosses the ends of the ribbon in the middle of Dew’s back and gives both sides a gentle pull. The ribbon slides under the hubs until it’s almost taut.

Dew squirms at the sensation, a little tensing of his shoulders and arch of his back. It doesn’t seem like it’s hurting him, more that he didn’t expect it, or just doesn’t know what’s going on.

“Hold still.” Rain loops the loose ends around the second pair of needles and crosses them again.

Dew sniffles. He squeezes his upper arm with his opposite hand.

Rain continues weaving the ribbon between the needles, carefully tautening the ends and crossing the same way each time, right over left, until he reaches the last pair. The remaining length is a bit more than he expected, but that’s fine, and better than it being too short. He folds and loops the ribbon around itself to form a sizable and floppy bow.

While it would certainly look more polished with real jewelry, more complete, it would lose some of its allure. The needles are obscured by the crisscrosses of ribbon but their presence adds an appealing rawness. It’s also feminine in a way that Dew would probably not choose for himself, but that suits him so well — the big bow below his small waist is breathtaking.

“I wish you could see how you look like this,” he says. “So pretty.”

“I want to look.” He starts to push himself off the bed, stiff and cautious.

“Not yet.”

Dew goes still.

He can’t see himself directly, anyway, at least not as he is now, stretched out horizontal, with the slightest arch in his back near his shoulders to lift his head. Rain opens his phone camera and captures a few angles — of Dew lying on the bed, of the piece itself, the whole scene. He opens the gallery and flips through, back and forth a few times, and eventually selects the first picture he took, one directly from his point of view, standing beside the bed. He brings the phone down so Dew can see the screen.

Dew looks at it in silence. His eyes widen, just by a fraction.

“So pretty,” Rain repeats.

“I want to see it in the mirror.”

“Of course.” He’s happy to oblige.

Dew once again tries to push himself up from the sheets, and, again, moves awkwardly, understandably afraid to bend his torso very much. His hand trembles as he lifts it, then places it back down, in a shuffling crab-like crawl to the edge of the bed.

Rain takes his hand so he can stand up slowly on wobbly legs. He stops him from making a beeline to the mirror, and makes him just stand there for a second, cautious of the adrenaline rollercoaster he’s now stepping off of. He remembers what happened last time, and cognizant that this time everything was much more intense.

The dresser across the small room, only a few steps away, is covered in Rain’s assortment of supplies — the box of needles, the marker, rubbing alcohol, a red plastic sharps container. The roll of ribbon is carefully stowed in the top drawer. He leads Dew to the full-length mirror next to it and, hands on his hips, spins him around so he’s facing away from it. The two loose ends of the bow flutter in four places, everything duplicated.

Dew turns his head and looks all the way behind him, until his chin brushes the top of his shoulder.

Rain thought the way he looked stretched out on the bed would be the highlight of this whole experience, but he was so wrong. The slightest twist of his torso now as Dew cranes his neck emphasizes the narrowness of his waist, the curve of his ribs. He looks elegant. Suddenly his work feels inadequate, like he’s not doing him justice. The needles could be placed more evenly, the ribbon pulled tighter. He could have wiped away parts of the purple lines that still cross his skin beneath it all.

Dew narrows his eyes at his reflection. “These are different needles.”

Rain smiles. “Now that you mention it…”

“Are you serious?”

“Maybe.”

“They’re a bigger gauge.”

“They are.”

He takes a small step backwards toward the mirror and turns his head a little further.

Rain takes a needle from the cardboard box and peels the packaging open, then plucks it out and pops the cap off. He holds it up for Dew to look at. “Here.”

Dew stares at it blankly, processing. He turns and looks at the box, and the writing on it. Then he looks over his shoulder at his reflection again.

“You were amazing,” Rain says, and he means it. He doesn’t have to play a role anymore, or construct a scenario, or tease out a specific response.

Dew’s eyes snap up to meet his through the mirror. His brows are slightly furrowed, just a little bit pinched together. It’s confusion, disbelief. They say, that’s not what you told me before.

“Really,” he insists.

Dew hums dismissively, terse and sharp. His gaze goes distant. He brings his head back around until he’s staring through the bottom right leg of the bedframe.