#kaden asks

“Come on now, love, you know what you have to do. Just a little bit more.” Mathias’s voice slipped through their mind as he leaned over their shoulder once more, his chest pressing against their back. His mouth rested next to their ear, breath warming the side of their face as his hand rested against their arm, sliding down to their hand. The thick bandages had been replaced with thin layers of gauze, but the wounds still ached deeply with each movement. Rough scabs had healed to ragged pink scars, for the most part healed, but still painful. Kaden tensed under the touch, feeling their hands grow clammy as Mathias’s thumb brushed over the bandaging.

His hands were warm, but they might as well have been burning red as he pressed his fingers lightly into the wounds.

“That’s the third time you’ve dropped it,” He murmured, his other hand moving to their shoulder, before sliding down to rest just against their elbow. “You can do better than that, love. Perhaps I haven’t given you the right… motivation.” His nails began to dig into their skin and Kaden stiffened, a small sound dying against their tongue as they clenched their jaw.

“I’ll give you one more chance, darling, alright?” Mathias hummed, his grip loosening just as quickly as it had tightened, touch becoming ever so gentle as he picked up their right hand, guiding it to pick up the pencil. “Five more lines, then we can take a small break.”

Five more.

Kaden looked down at the paper in front of them, half covered in a messy scrawl. They had tried to stay along the lines, but with the motor function of a three year old, they could barely hold the pencil, much less write. Mathias didn’t seem to be caring much for quality, though, which they were grateful for. They had already written the same sentence fifteen times over on this sheet, thirty times the one before. To help them get better, Mathias said when he challenged them to the task. To help them heal, so they weren’t useless. The task had felt mundane at first, but now it was excruciating. Every letter sent sharp pains through their palm, little bolts of electricity down their fingers and up their arm, causing the muscles to contract and spasm.

With a deep breath, working up the will, Kaden shifted their hand away from his, and readjusted their grip on the pencil. Mathias smirked, but stayed quiet, resting his hand against the desk itself, still practically leaning over them.

Kaden wanted to snap at him to back up, that he was their main hindrance right now, only making this more difficult for them, but they were sure he already knew that. That’s why he was doing it, right?

With his breath creeping down the side of their neck, Kaden slowly began to write.

I will not run.

The page before had been “I will behave.”

The one yesterday was “I will not act out.”

Seemed kind of redundant, they thought. Didn’t “not acting out” fall under “behaving”? Kaden wasn’t stupid enough to voice the obvious flaw in the man’s orders, though. They would very much like to keep the remaining function in their hands.

This particular punishment seemed never ending. The branding, the torture, all of that after the first few days seemed acceptable. Well- not acceptable but—expected? Physical pain for misbehaving, or whatever Mathias wanted to call it. Defiance, stupidity, he had many names for their actions prior. This seemed stupid, though. Writing over and over rules, commandments he made them swear to never break. The same thing over and over, until they could no longer move their fingers.

I will not run.

Their hand was shaking worse with each letter. There was once a time where they wished they were ambidextrous, so they would be able to take most of the stress off the single hand, but their left hand seemed so much worse. They were barely able to twitch the fingers, though they didn’t like to think much about it, they prayed the damage was temporary.

I will not run.

God, how many more? Their eyes stung with exhaustion and pained tears, the words drifting free of the college bound rule. The stopped caring about neatness. If Mathias didn’t care, they didn’t. The letters grew to overlap old lines, falling into a deep slant, but Kaden wasn’t really looking at the paper. They blinked hard, not willing to let this man see them cry. Not over something as stupid and simple as writing lines.

I will not run.

Their letters now were barely comprehensible, indistinguishable from the next. They weren’t sure they were even writing the right ones any more, they just wanted to get it over with. One more. One more line, and a break. Mathias had said so, and Kaden liked to think he wouldn’t break his word. He was a liar, but for now they would pretend as if he could only tell the truth. They knew that if they even thought there could be more, they wouldn’t be able to finish. They would drop the pencil and accept whatever consequences, because at least then they’d have a new pain to distract themself from their burning hand.

Four more words.

Four.

Three.

Two.

One-

Kaden let out a shallow breath, squeezing their eyes shut for a moment as they tried to bring the tears back to bay. They were okay, it was over for now. It was over for now and they were okay. They did what he asked, what he demanded, and they were okay. He hadn’t stopped them. They set the pencil down, exhaling a shaky breath as they slowly flexed their fingers.

“Good job, sweetheart,” the man whispered in their ear, sending a disgusted chill creeping down Kaden’s spine. They could feel his lips, just barely brushing against their skin, so close and so.. wrong. Their hands burned, and they wanted nothing more than to shove him away, to push to their feet and yell for him to fuck off, but they were smarter than that. Instead, they stayed dead still, barely daring to breathe as he trailed his hand down from their elbow to their palm.

His hands were against theirs, holding them, working away at the inflamed nerves with gentle, smooth circles. Kaden winced, and his touch became lighter, so soft and caring and wrong. His touch was sickening, his voice dripping with a sweet, condescending tone as he pressed even closer to them. Kaden felt trapped, trapped within the cage his arms and chest formed around them, within their own body. They squirmed, a low whine building in the back of their throat that they suppressed before any noise could release. He just shushed them, shaking his head in a quiet warning.

“Calm down, darling,” Mathias murmured, the strong scent of his cologne flooding Kaden’s senses as he carefully worked away at the pained muscles, from their aching wrist to the center of their palm, to each finger, easing away the tension until the pain faded from a sharp ache to dull throbbing.

Kaden hated how they began to settle into the touch after a few moments. The breath that had been building in their chest released, and their posture relaxed, which made Mathias smirk softly.

“You see, love, things can be so nice when you just do what your told..”

——————————

I’m craving violence and defiance today hm

Kaden tried not to worry too much when they woke up by themself, rather than to the soft creak of their door opening. Their body aching too much to move, they stared ahead at the wall across from them, trying to reason through their delirious mind. Maybe he was in a meeting, or running late for whatever reason. He might have mentioned something about work, he talked about that to them a lot. They had been too tired to listen to most of what he had to say the day before. That was it, he was at a meeting. Sure. He’d be back in a little while, with food and maybe another blanket.

God, was it getting colder?

•••

Hours.

It had been hours.

With nothing to do but lay there and watch the thin rays of sun filter through a slit in the curtains, growing bright with the rise of day and falling dull with the sink of the sun. Their shoulders shook with dry coughs, each breath scratching against the inside of their throat. Their thoughts seemed a bit more coherent today, but their senses were dulled by the ache of their windpipe, consuming every semiconscious thought they could muster.

The cup on their nightstand was empty. It had taken them a while to work up the effort to reach and grab it, fueled by the thoughts of the water soothing the rasps, but their fingers had slipped and sent it tumbling to the floor. That didn’t matter much, though, the plastic was empty, bouncing harmlessly to the wood with a soft clink as the few scarce droplets soaked into the floor.

For a while they thought about getting up, dragging themself to the bathroom. Whether to get a drink or throw up, they weren’t sure. Probably both.

Hunger was an old friend by this point. They could almost find comfort in the cramping twists, the pangs of aches that would flip their stomach around, it was something they were so used to, yet had gone so long without feeling it seemed brand new.

At the very least, it helped distract them from the cold.

They barely had the energy to curl the blankets around themself more, another shoved wracking their body.

Then a terrible thought crossed their mind.

Had they messed up somehow? They couldn’t remember being purposefully ungrateful, they couldn’t remember doing anything wrong. Mathias had been being nice, he would have told them if they had messed up, right? No, they must have done something. He was leaving them, until they figured out how they messed up.

Mind cloudy with an unfocused haze, Kaden could only slip off the side of the bed, their knees nearly buckling the moment their feet touched the ground. They clutched the blanket around themself, dragging it behind them as they stumbled forwards half a step. They hd to get to the door, apologize. They would make something up, admit to false accusations, whatever it took. If he wanted to punish them, so be it, anything was better than that again. Anything. Any amount of torture or pain or humiliation, please, anything but that again-

They didn’t make it more than a few feet from the bed before their legs gave out from under them and they sank to the floor, their forehead pressing against the plush decorative carpet.

They had to get up.

They had to apologize…

But they were so tired… they’d rest for just a few minutes, a passing moment, then they’d go find the man. They’d bang on their door and beg until he had no choice but to come back, thank him for eternity upon his return. Yeah, they’d do that…

They curled their knees to the chest, pulling the blanket over their shivering body, and was quick to surrender to the aching hold of the fever-induced sleep.

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Another example of the shorter drabbles mode frequently kinda thing, if you’re interested feel free to drop an ask for some quick drabbles. (Read: please send some quick things to distract me from this fucking cold I can’t focus on anything longer than twenty minutes long pieces aren’t working)