#time day

Castys stopped in his tracks, eyes wide, because Daniel would, he fucking would, this wasn’t an empty threat, he was going in that hole, going to have dirt thrown on top of him and be left alone in the dark for far too long. Stonefaced, Daniel just pulled harder, throwing Castys down into the unnecessarily deep hole. He landed hard on his side, the muzzle stifling his cry of pain. He quickly squirmed onto his back and tried to sit up, but Daniel hit him on the head with a shovel, causing pain to erupt in his forehead as he fell back onto the dirt, the clang of the metal colliding with his skull ringing in his ears. Before he’d collected himself enough to try again, a huge fucking rock landed on his chest, definitely cracking a few of his ribs. He glared up at Daniel, cursing into the muzzle as he struggled to breathe, but his captor simply began shoveling, dumping dirt right onto Castys’s face.

His eyes filled with the sting of dirt, Castys risked a glance at Wren, who quickly looked away and began shoveling, though he was much less aggressive than Daniel and also not actively trying to dump it on his face, which was greatly appreciated. Of course, he’d appreciate not being buried more, but sometimes you had to take what you could get. Which, in this place, wasn’t a lot. 

He quickly learned it was for the best just to keep his stupid eyes shut, finding it impossible to blink out the dirt that was already in them, resigning himself to a whole lot of uncomfortable stingy eyeball time. Pretty much all of this was uncomfortable, anyway, so he could switch up the focus to keep it fresh. Let’s see, there was the throbbing in his shoulder from landing on it, the itch of the ropes around his wrists, the sharp pain of his cracked ribs, the raging agony in his head from being hit with a shovel, the burn of his lungs as he lost access to fresh air, the ache in his jaw from having to wear a muzzle for so long, but, hey, at least it was keeping dirt out of his mouth and nose, so there was that. 

The weight pressing down on him had been growing heavier and heavier, the sound of shoveling getting quieter and quieter, and it suddenly awoke some kind of desperation in him, they were getting farther away from him, leaving him behind in the cold darkness, and he couldn’t try to keep still anymore, squirming as much as he could in the tight cocoon of earth, eyelids twitching, fingers curling, packing dirt under his fingernails, splintered chest heaving under the weight of the rock and the earth above him, his breaths coming out as whines, pleas, screams, don’t leave me down here, you can’t, please, please, but soon enough he ran out of air, left gasping weakly, only the sound of shovels scraping above him, getting fainter, fainter, fainter, and until there was nothing, nothing but the sound of his own pathetic wheezing, and that was dwindling too, sinking further into blackness, until finally…silence. 

No, no, there wasn’t silence. There was anything but silence when he woke up again. His own breathing aside, there was some sort of cracking noise, a faint rustling, scratching, popping, some other sound he didn’t quite know how to describe. He shuddered as much as he was able, the dirt pressing in on him from all sides making it nearly impossible to move at all. S-so…this was it, huh? This was his new reality for the time being. Still, he wouldn’t let it break him. That bastard Daniel seemed to want nothing more than to control every hair on Castys’s head, quite literally since he’d cut Castys’s hair short with that freaky buzzing tool of his, and controlling him completely was the last thing Castys would ever let anyone do. 

Well, okay, he played along sometimes, but not because he actually wanted to follow people’s orders or whatever, he either did it in pursuit of greater comedy or because he was just biding his time. Inside, he was always the same, perfectly himself, and that was something he’d never let anyone take away from him. Which, maybe now was a good time to reflect on what heinous in-character actions had gotten Danny so mad at him in the first place. Like, he was usually annoyed with Castys for just existing (which begs the question: why the hell was he so set on owning Castys, then?), but this time, well…

Really, it was simply because Castys had dared to wear a cat ear headband on Daniel and Wren’s precious date night. But, what, was he really going to wear that stupid fancy waiter outfit with its stupid suspenders and stupid too-tight bow tie and not do anything to make it more bearable? He supposed he also messed up the names of the dishes, but how the hell was he supposed to know anything about Mediaterrian cuisine? He’d never even heard of that country, let alone what everyone ate over there. So if that part wasn’t his fault, then he really was just being punished for wearing cat ears and “ruining the romantic atmosphere”. Since when were cat people not allowed to be romantic and serious, huh? Wren had seemed to have a great time, smiling and laughing more than usual, so clearly Daniel’s racist-ness against cat people was the issue, not Castys. Though it did make him wonder, why did Dannimus own cat ears in the first place…?

Was that the kind of reflecting he was supposed to do? Probably not, but it passed the time, and oh my god he had so much time. Really, he was surprised he’d been able to keep that chain of thought for so long since he’d suffocated and died like three times during it. Or maybe four, he wasn’t really counting, because why bother. Okay maybe it would help him keep track of how long he’d been down here, just so he’d know. But…that really wouldn’t do him any good, would it? It wouldn’t get him out faster, wouldn’t make the pain in his eyes and lungs and wrists go away, wouldn’t save him from the blackness and the noises and the crushing weight of the earth above him.

He shuddered, trying to take another useless breath. The air had gone stale long ago, leaving him with the barest moments of full clarity before a pounding headache set in, before his breaths grew rapid, hot air pushing out the edges of the muzzle, far too warm when everything else was far too cold, his fingers and toes tingling, numb, and he could hardly shiver, too tightly wrapped in the cool earth, time cycling through the same monotonous moments of agony, dragging him unwillingly along with it, losing his grip, falling, falling, and yet staying so completely still.

There was a light pattering above, too faint to be footsteps, and it wasn’t until Castys felt an ever deeper coldness seeping into him that he realized it was rain. How long had it been since he’d been buried? He didn’t remember there being a single cloud in the sky when he’d been thrown into this hole, so…he didn’t know. He didn’t know how long it had been, how long he’d been stuck down here, in the cold and the dark and the unending pain, and he didn’t know how much longer he still had to go, how much more of this he could take. Some of the water on his face was warm, now, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it, there wasn’t anything he could do at all, and that wasn’t fair, none of it was, but all he could do was wait.

He wasn’t sure how long the rain went on for, just that he was thoroughly soaked by the time the pattering stopped, but even then the water around him dried up so slowly that for a while he wasn’t even sure it was going to dry up at all. That, at least, was some indication that time was passing at all, that he wasn’t just dying and waking in the same moment over and over again. Not that there was any kind of magic here, no way for Daniel to actually put him in a time loop, not that he was sure it was even possible back home. Here it was all just strange machines powered by electricity, which was a type of magic, anyway, so that sort of made sense to him.

Castys was jerked out of the changeless void he’d settled in by something new, something small, something hot, contrasting the bone-deep chill that’d been surrounding him for what felt like ages, and from the way it was moving, it felt…alive. He squirmed as much as he was able to, trying to get it off, but it just kept going, creeping along up the skin of his arm, leaving blistering heat in its wake. A whine sounded in his throat as it crawled under the sleeve of his shirt, and as his consciousness faded once again, all he could do was hope it would be gone when he woke up.

It was not gone, sitting somewhere on his chest now, unmoving, its heat burning his skin more and more with every passing moment, hot enough that he was certain it was going to blister. Not that it mattered, really, since he would probably die dozens more times at the very least before they dug him up. 

If they dug him up.

No, no they had to, they would, Daniel wouldn’t just leave him down here forever, he liked tormenting him too much, right? A-and even then, Berkeley and Wren wouldn’t let him do that, they couldn’t, he was going to get out, he was going to see both of them again, he was, he had to. 

The little spot of flame on his chest was crawling around again, and as much as it hurt, he was almost grateful for it now, a factor of unpredictable change among the constancy of the suffocating darkness and his familiar deaths. The way it moved, how it hurt wherever it went, that was time, proof of every minute that passed by, that things really were moving along, as tortuously as they went. Still, he couldn’t help but be unsettled by it, by some weird unknown burning thing crawling around on him. Not that other things hadn’t been crawling around on him this whole time, because that seemed very likely, but because this one was impossible to ignore or write off as dirt shifting around him or tingling numbness.

    When it left him, though, quietly throbbing burns the only evidence that it had happened at all, he wished it would come back. Soon enough he died and the burns were gone and he was still there, still stuck, with no way to tell if that had even happened at all. He was so used to the pain and the cold now that he didn’t even notice them anymore, so nothing was changing, he was just lost in the dark again with no way to tell if he was getting any closer to getting out of this hell. 

    After…he didn’t know how long, that wasn’t something he could know anymore, just that it happened after the burning thing, if that had happened at all, there were noises, louder than the usual ones he had grown used to, above him, scraping, and it took him a moment to register what they were, what they meant, but once he realized it, he felt the first spark of happiness he’d felt in…hours? Days? Weeks? No, it didn’t matter now, all that mattered was that it was over, he was getting out he didn’t even care what was waiting for him out there because he was-

    The tip of the shovel plunged into his stomach, just as he got enough air to scream.

Whumpee's wrists were locked in metal handcuffs, chaining them to the ceiling. Their feet were inches from the floor, their ankles bound by rope. A blindfold covered their eyes and ear plugs blocked their hearing. A muzzle blocked them from speaking. They hung from the ceiling, waiting for the punishment to begin.

They didn't know what Whumper had in store for them, but they wanted it, whatever it was.

Whumper hadn't been down in what felt like hours. No food, no water. No touching Whumpee, talking to them, insulting them or telling them it would be okay...

Whumpee missed it.

The anticipation was the worst part. Whumpee's mind raced with thoughts of what Whumper was going to do to them. They had broken a rule, after all. And Whumper hated when they broke rules. They could burn them, whip them, electrocute them, cane them...

But they deserved it. They deserved all of it.

Whumpee tried to get their mind off of the punishment as they waited. They counted the seconds. They counted until they reached a full hour. What is taking so long? They hung for a few more minutes before their stomach began to grumble and their throat ran dry.

How desperately they wanted to touch the floor, hear Whumper's voice, feel something over than the hot blood running down their wrists from their struggling. But it never came.

Soon, they began to tire of waiting for the time to pass. They tried to keep their eyes open- Whumper will be mad if I fall asleep without permission. But they couldn't. They welcomed sleep. Maybe in their dreams they would be able to see something other than black.

---

Whumpee woke up to a gentle touch on their face. They had no idea how long it had been since they were first hung from the ceiling, but they knew it was too long. But it was over now.

One of the ear plugs were removed. They could hear breathing. Someone was there with them. They weren't alone.

They could feel the cool breath on their ear. They could hear it, too. They could hear.

"You almost took your punishment so well, darling," came the threatening whisper. Whumper's back. They're going to make me good. "It's a shame you fell asleep without permission, isn't it? I think you've earned yourself another punishment."

Whumpee cocked their head.

"Oh, you don't understand?" Whumper continued. "The waiting was the punishment. And you failed. You know how long you lasted? Thirty-four hours. Just fourteen more and you would have earned yourself a little break."

That was the punishment. The waiting, the anticipation, the isolation, the longing for Whumper's touch to return...

And they had failed. They fell asleep without permission. They hadn't taken their punishment properly. But even the thirty-four hours they had managed to stay awake were enough to drive them into madness.

"Since you're so well-rested," Whumper began, "I think you can take another twenty-four hours of this, hm?'

No. Not again. Whumpee knew it was wrong, but they didn't want to be away from Whumper for another minute. They'd rather have one of their past punishments, like drowning or a beating. But Whumper was always right.