Whole Lot of Nothing

As they walked, he clung to Caius, two thin arms clutching one of his. Tommy fawned until he was picked up, emitting a small eep! when Caius hauled him up over his shoulder. He got a fond pat to his butt for his troubles. 

Caius deposited his captive onto his squeaky twin bed, stepping back to watch Tommy in his muzzle try to nose through the blankets to find the wall or his pillow– anything to orient himself. 

"Find the edge of the bed, baby, I'll let you out.” 

Tommy clowned it up a bit, leaning too far off the bed and nearly going head over heels before Caius caught him, just like he knew he would. Cauis laughed merrily and pulled him back up, unlocking his muzzle and thumbing the lines it left on his face underneath. Tommy was laid gently on his front before Caius straddled him on the bed to unlock his cuffs. He took in a sharp gasp of pain when his arms fell back to his sides, the sudden release sending a ripple of agony through his shoulders.

Broad hands took those thin shoulders in their palms and began to squeeze and massage. Caius watched them work from some distance, his movements automatic. Sometimes he felt like he couldn’t take his hands off of him. Tommy grit his teeth through the initial burn, but the massage did help. As soon as he could start to unlock his body from the pain, he tried to accommodate Caius’s movements as best he could. 

It took a strong will to lock away the hatred in his heart long enough to enjoy this. A dreamer adept, Tommy depersonalized the hands working him, tried to amputate them from the pain and cruelty of his handler. It had been years since he had begun this meditation; to sever the moments of gentleness he was allowed from all the rest of the pain. The humiliation, the shame, the judgement, if he could all lock it away then he could bask in these moments of comfort. Then he could wring them dry of every drop of pleasure he could get when he could get it, a junkie desperate for a hit, because he needed to feel something good once in a while. 

Air, water, food, and happiness were all necessary to survive. Tommy had learned that a long time before he ended up down here. 

First he had been only able to enjoy these brief kindnesses for flashes, mere moments, before his shame and fear and disgust took back over and lingered long after. Then their holds on him lasted shorter, and shorter, as he managed to separate for longer, and longer. Separate all the bad so he could enjoy the good in those moments when he got them. Moments of separating begat seconds begat a minute begat more. 

Still the shame visited, a veil around his head for a while or two, but its impact was lessened by his constant craving for more. His deprivation was so profound that he only survived at a steep deficit of joy. It was an act of survival to feel happiness again, to have anything to break up the monotony of constant pain and humiliation. No matter what cruel, degrading, torturous part he had to play, the show always had to go on.

But for just a couple of minutes, he could have the pain rubbed from his shoulders, and he nearly wept from the relief. He closed his eyes and nuzzled his face against his covers, and he separated the relief from this moment in his mind with a surgical precision. He cut away Caius, the basement, the sting of his cigarette burns, the shame, the hate; he cut and cut and cut until he could arch back against those hands in pleasure. 

~

Caius had never internalized his catholic upbringing, and he wasn’t a religious man, but he felt something spiritual when he touched Tommy. He’d had moments before, with others who had submitted to him - moments where they felt so perfectly in sync that it moved him. With Tommy - oh, with Tommy it was different. When he touched Tommy, something in Tommy touched him back. 

He traced his hands down Tommy’s back, savoring that smooth and downy skin arching beneath his touch. He trailed his fingers up and down his sides, traced the carefully manicured tips of his nails in shallow scratches where he was most sensitive. It inspired soft, sweet cries, Tommy writhing beneath him. A lowly worm in motion; the squirm of a lover desperate. 

Five years later, and still…watching Tommy plead for mercy, the scent of fear before the torture started, the knowledge that he had this beautiful boy in his hands and he was ruining him - it still gave Caius butterflies. The thrill was intense and addictive – Tommy wasn’t the only one who depended on a product of their connection. 

But for Caius, well… it was so easy, sometimes he started to take it for granted, and began to neglect him. And why not? His lovely doll waited around for him all day and all night for whenever he wanted to play again. He kept up the maintenance, fixed him when he broke. But then they would connect again– really connect– and every time, it was electric. Tommy made him spiritual, because the way they synced up was divine. 

Caius leaned down, pressing his nose to the warm skin low on Tommy’s back and breathed him in. The tip of his tongue traced the shallow nile in the flesh over his spine, all the way up to the nape of his neck where he nuzzled him fondly. At the casting of breath on his shoulder, Tommy bit into his pillow, knowing before Caius did that he was about to sink his teeth into the tender meat there. He stiffened as Caius bit down, straightening suddenly in distress when it dug unexpectedly deep. He made low, guttural moans of pain into his pillow when Caius began to chew, testing the feel of his flesh in an indulgent act of savagery. When he finally pulled off, Tommy let out the softest moan, and blood began to well in the deepest troughs of the bite mark. 

Caius kissed over it softly, wondering if the pain was more intense for Tommy while he was blind. 

Wondering if pleasure could be, too.

He rose up from the bed feeling a renewed sense of purpose, sobered up and focused back on his business. 

Caius felt a hand gently touch his ass.

“Caius?”

Caius turned, amused. The dumb, aimless doe eyes staring back at him told him Tommy hadn’t meant any impropriety, but the idea of it tickled him. The thin and threadbare sheet provided for him was wrapped around him in a makeshift nest, slivers of skin exposed between the gaps of each coil. His outstretched hand, now assless, cautiously felt around until he caught Caius’s arm, tugging softly.

“Stay,” he whispered. “Please stay.”

Caius was frozen. He should go back to his boyfriend…but how could he abandon such an angel? Caius loved it when Tommy was needy like this.

Sam came down the stairs with an impatient puff and rolled to a halt at Tommy’s doorway.

“Cai, you good down here? I was just thinking that we…” He trailed off, taking in the sight of his boyfriend cradling their ward. There was a fierce, possessive look in his eyes that scared Sam. 

Yet, more than anything, he burned with envy that Caius looked at Tommy in that way, and not him.

“Check Tommy’s eyes,” Caius murmured, stroking raven strands of Tommy’s hair. Always touching, always doting on his pet.

Sam’s medical pack was still sitting on the bed from earlier. He dug in his bag for his penlight, bent over his bag to look inside, gave up, checked his pocket for his phone, found the actual penlight, sighed, and shined it into Tommy’s eyes. 

“Aaaaalright….hey buddy. This is God speaking. Go towards the light.”

Illuminated pupils closed into tiny little black pinpricks, the green of each iris verdant and glowing against the irritated pink of each sclera. No recognition crossed his face, his gaze still absent. 

“Tommy?” Sam prompted, waving the flashlight back and forth in front of his eyes. 

A new discomfort shadowed Tommy’s face. “What?...”

A long moment of silence passed between them.

“Sam.” Caius’s voice cut, sharp. “How long has it been.”

“It’s been- It’s only been a couple hours, it still has time to wear off,” Sam said, careful to keep his voice light. 

“If you have permanently blinded him without my permission-”

“I didn’t, he’s fine,” Sam insisted. Careful, he thought to himself. Thou doth protest too much. He smiled to try to reinforce his confident appearance. It sat awkwardly on his face, far too strained to appear serene. 

Caius, still cradling Tommy in his arms, looked at him coldly. 

“Get the fuck out of my house.”

Tommy nuzzled into Caius’s chest, and was rewarded with gentling touches, petting his hair and   stroking his skin. Sam glowered at him on his way out.

~

A cold feeling was infiltrating Tommy’s chest, like little rivulets of ice water were filling cracks in his new determination and freezing, the ice expanding inside to push those cracks open wider and wider. 

“Am I -” 

Caius didn’t even let him finish, rushing a broad hand to cover his mouth and stop him from speaking. 

“Don’t say it, I’m already going through enough as it is.” Caius sighed dramatically. It didn’t seem to occur to him that Tommy should feel anything other than sympathy for him. It was his property that might have been permanently blinded, after all. Tommy couldn’t possibly understand how hard that was. 

Tommy sought comfort in Caius’s arms like the last human on earth hugging a mannequin out of loneliness. Desperate; for sure. Insane; perhaps, but even the coldest semblance of human comfort was worth insanity when no other option was available. No matter what Caius and company did to him, nothing could change that Tommy was human. Tommy searched for humanity in turn in the soft fabric of Caius’s shirt against his face, cradled in his handler’s arms, locked away in the prison of his design.

Caius more often sought a different expression of humanity – under the snap of his cane, punishing Tommy for the sin of being so lovely in agony. As he held Tommy in his arms, lying on Tommy’s little bed as his bitemark clotted in his muse’s shoulder, he didn’t feel a humanity that he cared for. But in his own way, in his cold heart, he felt love. 

~

The light did return to Tommy’s eyes. Slowly at first, only a glimmer he thought he might have imagined, and then the world began to take shape. 

Sam held the penlight up to Tommy’s eyes and he flinched, immediately cursing himself. He’d promised himself he would resist the urge, but now that he’d done it he would just have to cover.

“Can you see anything?” Sam asked, and there was worry poorly disguised in his voice. Not for Tommy – but for the sake of the skin on his own ass. 

Tommy pointedly looked off in the distance over Sam’s shoulder, refusing to focus his eyes. He squinted.

“I uh…I think I might see….a little light? I’m not sure…” He roved his eyes around aimlessly, forcing himself not to meet Sam or Caius’s worried looks as he feigned continued blindness. 

“Which eye are you shining it into?” He kept his voice innocent, forlorn.

Tommy had to hold back a laugh when he saw Sam’s horrified I’m so fucked look matched with Caius’s you’re so fucked one. 

This might be even easier than he thought. 

“Sam…how long did you say it lasted?” he asked innocently.

Sam sighed, irritated. “It lasted six hours for me. But may-” He caught himself, righted it. Sat up a little straighter in the chair Caius usually sat in, pretended he had a grip on the situation. 

“Your dose was much higher. That’s all.”

“Oh God…I’m so stupid…” Tommy curled in on himself, hiding a secret smile behind his hands. He swallowed hard and licked his chapped lips, fixing his face. All he had to do was find the right mask and stick to it, just for a little longer. “I thought…I thought you had said a few hours, that you had checked after only…two...” He sniffled pathetically and kept his voice soft, scared. 

“‘N’ you were blind for, for six hours? Alone? Did…would eyedrops help? Or…” He let himself trail off. Sam didn’t answer, just rubbed his eyes. 

If Tommy really was blind, and neglected by his quack doctor like this, it would be hell, but it didn’t matter now. Truly, he wasn’t even having a conversation with Sam. Tommy was just plucking out those numbers again, picking over his doctor’s explanation piece by piece. He didn’t have to say anything further, didn’t even have to imply. All he needed to do was give Caius one last little push, and he could see the gears working in his head. Tommy’s work was done.

Caius’s face was drawn in thought, his eyes narrowed, his gaze somewhere distant. Tommy knew it would be – because Caius was playing a numbers game. 

Tommy shrank back against the wall before Caius even moved, like feeling a charge in the air a split second before lightning struck. Then Caius was on Sam, and they were both too caught up to notice. Sam was hauled out of the chair and slammed against the wall, hands closing around his throat. 

Caius looked so calm, so still. So deeply righteous in his anger was he that Tommy felt paralyzed as his witness. 

His voice was almost emotionless, but his words betrayed his anger. 

“You text me every thirty fucking seconds, when the fuck did you supposedly have this blinding spray home trial, huh? You just took one for the team like that, even though it didn’t get you high? How fucking noble of you, a real man for the advancement of science here.”

“Caius, let up,” Sam gasped, his voice strained and thin from the pressure on his throat. He let out a pained wheeze, and Tommy saw the tendons flex as Caius’s fist only tightened on him. 

“It’s been three days. You said a couple hours, then that number started getting bigger when it didn’t wear off. ‘Oh well maybe it was longer, maybe it was five, errr ten hours, it could be up to a day, oh well with that dosage it could easily be two. Now you’re trying to wind it back to six hours, but you haven’t gone without answering one of my texts or calls in that long since - how long? I would have known. You would have told me. Go ahead and explain that.”

Sam gasped for breath when Caius let go of him, clutching at his chest and his throat. Tommy forced his gaze very deliberately towards the floor. He couldn’t get caught looking at them now - Sam would jump at any opportunity to throw Caius’s wrath back at him. 

“I - I took it before, before bed,” Sam managed to croak out, still struggling to catch his breath. Caius slapped him across the face and he received it with a cry of pain alien to Tommy’s ears.

“IF that was true, then you would have NO FUCKING IDEA when your sight came back BECAUSE YOU WOULD HAVE BEEN ASLEEP! YOU FUCKING LIAR!!” Caius dragged him forwards by the front of his shirt before slamming him back against the wall. 

Tommy didn’t remember putting his hands to his ears, didn’t even register the pain of his palms mashing them into his skull. All he knew was that it wasn’t enough, because he still heard that sickening, meaty sound when Caius bounced his head off the concrete. 

Sam staggered one step before crumpling to the floor, clutching his head. Caius kicked him in the back, hard, and Tommy clapped his hands over his mouth.

No, no, no!!

His hackles were raised, everything in him screaming that he was in danger, because he knew what happened when Caius was like this. He had learned that lesson the hard way, over and over and over and over and over and over again and over the edge of the bed he went, onto the floor, under the bed, cover your mouth, wait for it to be over and over and over and over again…

Guilt burrowed sharp tines into his gut and began a slow and agonizing twist. In spite of everything Sam had done to him, Tommy knew all too well how terrible it was to be the object of Caius’s fury, and he felt bad for having inflicted it upon another to such a violent degree. 

No. Sam can leave. Sam could leave right now and put an end to all of it, all of this. No guilt. He gets a choice. He always had a choice.

He suddenly remembered Sam, the first time they met. An unkind memory, one he thought he’d lost long ago. Once he was certain he’d lose again in only a moment. Before he could try to push it away, it took him.

~

Sam’s face leering down at him, eclipsing the light over the operating room table. What they were even doing to him, then, he couldn’t remember, but he remembered - that smile. 

“Hello, Tommy!”

He remembered the feeling of - of endless tears streaming down the sides of his face, pooling in the shells of his ears as he laid bound to the table, terrified.

“You’ve got to help me, I don’t - I don’t know where I am, I don’t know what’s happening to me. Please, he’s hurting me, I’m not crazy,” he whispered, his voice hoarse and breaking on every word.

He felt hands in his hair, fingers combing the stray tears through, and he realized with horror that Caius was there, his hope for rescue dashed.

“Go on,” Caius had murmured, patient as if handler to a petulant child. “Keep begging.”

Sam’s smile had grown wider.

“Please,” Tommy rasped desperately. “You don’t have to do this. We could go. We could be free.” 

There was so much he wanted to say. He was so tired. He was in so much pain. Nothing more articulate came out.

Sam didn’t answer. Just raked his eyes over him like – meat. Just a…nice piece of meat. Caius stroked him possessively. Whatever he was to these people, he was not a human being. 

“I’m real.” Tommy whispered. He was fading out. Some terrible, terrible feeling told him that this was his last chance, and he was failing to say whatever he had to that would make them understand.

“Can’t you see I’m real?” he pleaded.

Sam frowned.

“Oh, Tommy. It’s all over.”

No. Thaatt wasn’t right. Thaat isssssnnn’t whhhaat hhe ssssssaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd---

Tommy was back under his bed again, sheets clutched in his hands, face buried in their folds. Familiar fingers combed through his hair, comforting him. 

“That’s right, it’s all over,” Caius cooed. “Just breathe.”

Only then did Tommy realize he was sobbing, hyperventilating into the fabric. He forced himself to slow, coughing a bit at first but then starting to manage more even, albeit laboured, breaths.

“Come here, little one.” Caius was surprisingly gentle as he coaxed him out from under the bed. When Tommy emerged, trembling as he crawled out on hands and knees, he was embraced.

It was rare for Caius to lower himself to even kneel on the floor, but now he sat with Tommy pulled into his lap, and nothing verbal passed between them other than Tommy’s panting, which slowed, finally calming.

Lips pressed to the top of his head. A hand cradled his face, and Tommy could smell the blood cooling on his knuckles. Peering over his shoulder, Sam was nowhere to be found. 

“I can’t wait for your sight to come back,” Caius sighed, but he sounded calm, resolute that it would happen. 

Oh Caius, Tommy thought, sitting atop a throne of the coils of his snake. 

I can’t wait to tear you apart. 

~

~

~

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