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whumpingcrow · 2 years

Text

Fixed - Gio in retraining

Cw: bbu whump and everything adjacent to that, institutionallized slavery, dehumanization, behavior modification, migraine whump, memory loss, discussion of torture methods, whipping, shock collar whump, gagging mention, blood/bruises, noncon mention (vague), whumpee with a very messed up headspace, suicidal ideation (pretty vague), conditioned whumpee, humiliation whump, food mention, noncon mention (fade to black) (let me know if I missed anything!)

There is a tiny square window in the upper left corner of the concrete cell, a pale yellow light squeezes through and washes out the gray of the wall in the spot it touches. The boy has been staring at it for so long that a sharp aching is blossoming behind his eyes. He knows it doesn’t lead to the outside world, the light coming in never ceases or dims or changes color, but still he tries to imagine that it’s sunlight. As long as he doesn’t think about how he’s just pretending, it almost makes him feel a little better.

The bruises on his knees have long gone numb, it’s probably been a few hours since one of the trainers came in and gave him his position and told him not to move until he got back. He didn’t argue and he didn’t complain (he can’t remember if he used to do either of those things when he first got to this place, he tries now to imagine the taste of defiance on his tongue and it is painfully missing, so maybe he never had it in the first place.), and hours later, when the pain has escalated and morphed into something so intense he can’t even understand it anymore, he still doesn’t even move. There isn’t a shift of his weight to try and ease the pain, no pitiful attempts to discreetly stretch out his taut muscles. He knows by now that whatever pain he’s feeling right now is nothing compared to what will be done to him if he disobeys. He acknowledged right from the beginning of this…was this a punishment? He can’t even remember that much, by now, but at the very start of it he realized there was mercy in it. Kneeling on the hard floor and bruising to the bone was the nicest thing he’d been made to do in so long, so of course he was going to do it well. He could only imagine what they might do to him if he messed up something as lenient as this. So for hours, or days, or weeks, he lost his sense of time forever ago, he stays still, he pretends it isn’t hurting so bad, he pretends the synthetic sunlight isn’t giving him a migraine, he doesn’t think, he is good, he is so tired, he can hardly work up the energy to inhale, he doesn’t know how he’s still upright, but he is good, and he is quiet. Through his delirious pain, he finds himself thinking that his last owner would be proud.

The door is loud when it’s unlocked. He’s always been thankful for that, for the small warning it provides. It’s a metallic, technical noise, with lots of clicking and shifting of overly complicated mechanics, and it takes a few seconds before the door can fully slide open. It’s almost funny that the people training him think he needs that intense of a security system to keep him in here; he’s been doing ridiculously obedient things like kneeling for hours on end for what feels like a lifetime now, and they think, without this lock, that he might just get up and walk out.

But maybe he wouldn’t walk, maybe he’d try sprinting. Until his legs give out, or until someone catches up to him and tackles him and then they would have to drag him kicking and screaming back to this room-

He knows how blank and stupid his gaze is when he looks up at the two figures in the doorway, everyone around here is always reminding him of that whenever they get the chance. It must be even worse this time around, he’s been staring at the fake sun for so long the people in the doorway are blotchy with black and purple shadows floating around his vision, and he can guess how idiotic he looks trying to blink his vision clear and search for a way around them so he can see their faces.

“I can’t fuckin’ believe it.” The voice bounces off the bare concrete walls, everything has seemed so much louder in this room since they took the cot out. “Eight fuckin’ hours. God damn unbelievable.”

“I told you.” This voice he recognizes, it’s the same one that told him to kneel and stay put, once or twice before it’s told him to put his hands against the wall and keep them there while he was dealt gruesome lashes to his exposed back (never enough to bleed, they only make him bleed if it won’t leave a scar). He knows the voice comes with a pair of reddish brown eyes and slightly darker slicked back hair. He doesn’t know his name, or any of the trainers' names. That’s the only thing they have in common: they’re nameless to each other.

Their shoes scuff against the floor as they enter the room, just enough to close the door behind them. The lock whirs back again, and now he is trapped in here with them. He realizes all at once how sporadic and pained his breathing sounds, he tries his best to steady it so they don’t make it into another punishment.

There’s a soft, baffled chuckle from one of them, he isn’t quite sure who. Then, the first voice speaks again, a little softer than the first time. “No, no, I believed you about the no noise thing but-”

“Not a peep.” The trainer interrupts proudly.

“Right. But I mean, no tears at all? He didn’t cry the whole time?”

His heart sinks at the remark, he wasn’t supposed to cry, was he? He’d always been punished harshly for it, no one here had ever wanted him to cry. He searches through his memory for the exact words the trainer used after he was in position.

“Stay here. Don’t move, don’t make a fucking sound.”

It had been echoing around in his head since he first heard it, but he wondered if it distorted with time and pain and maybe originally the point was for him to cry. He has to focus all of his energy into keeping the panic out of his face, in the process he feels his hands twitch at his sides, just the tiniest bit, not enough for either of them to notice.

“I know. This new system is a dream, I’m telling you. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a recall respond this well.”

He allows himself to exhale the most miniscule breath of relief. He had responded well. So well, in fact, that the trainer had brought someone else along with him to gloat. The boy would have smiled, if he didn’t know for a fact that it would get him beat. So he instead continues to blink at the two blurry, blotched out people standing across the room.

“Imagine how much we could save if we implicated this training with the new intakes-”

“You know that’s not an option,” the other voice cuts off the trainer, “it’s too…you know this is for recalls only. If we used it right out of the gate it could get us shut down.”

The trainer scoffs wryly, the boy feels instantly afraid at how unhinged of a sound it is. Surely, he will take the heat for this going bad, he will be there for the trainer to let his anger out on when the other person leaves, he will allow himself to be berated to make the trainer feel better, and he no longer feels any conflict about it. It is his purpose, he understands now, to hurt for others. Whether it be as a stress reliever or a punching bag or a sex toy, as long as he is in pain at the hands of others, he is doing what he was made for. He should feel honored.

He feels scared.

“I don’t think you’re getting it,” the trainer starts, his shoes are making their way across the concrete toward the boy, they stop a few feet away from him, “you were here when he was sent back. You witnessed right along with me the state he was in. And now…”

The boy can make out some of his trainer's features now, the splotches burnt into his retina are slowly fading away, and he is even more scared when he finds anger in the face of the man above him. He doesn’t react, though, he looks back down at the floor, making sure to breathe through his nose and keep his spine straight.

“Stand up. Come here.”

The command comes as a surprise to both the boy and the man standing near the door still, but only one of them reacts outwardly. The man is shaking his head, laughing to himself in disbelief. The boy screams inside of his head, and then he tries to stand up.

Everything from the middle of his spine to the tips of his toes lights up with pain the second he moves, he only gets one foot solidly under him before collapsing right to his knees again. His face burns with embarrassment, his hands shake in fear, but he doesn’t let out even a whine. When he looks up to see what his trainer is making of the pathetic attempt, he finds dissatisfaction, and his heart breaks. He used to question this, at the beginning, why did it make him so sad to displease these people that were torturing him? Now, though, he swallows the heartbreak fully, lets it overtake him, because pleasing others is what he was made for, and if he can’t do that then he doesn’t deserve to even live. So he tries standing again. It proves even more pointless than the first time, his already bruised knees hitting the solid ground hurts so bad he goes numb everywhere else. His breathing picks up, he’s now a mess of hitched and quick breaths through his flared nostrils. Still, he makes no sound.

The trainer is getting fed up with him, the boy can tell by the way he shifts his weight and crosses his arms over his chest. It’s the same thing he did before he put the shock collar on the boy and showed him what it was like to really not be able to hold back his screams, and before he threw him face first into the wall and held him there to make him watch as the others took away his cot. He dreads what will happen when the other man leaves, he dreads even more that the man might not leave and he will have to receive punishment from two of them. More than any of that, he’s just embarrassed. His trainer had been so proud of the progress he’d made, proud enough to show it off, and now the boy was ruining all of it just because he couldn’t make himself stand up.

So he tries again.

And again he fails.

He wants to cry, more than anything, and he has for the last eight hours, but he just can’t. Not when he knows that crying will only earn him the shiny, much too sharp gag that he’s been in more times than he can count. For a second he wonders if having that cut into his cheeks and tongue for a few hours would be better or worse than this humiliating test, but realizes that he doesn’t get to pick and choose his punishments, why does he think he deserves that luxury?

He tries again.

This time, he gets a little further, and there’s a moment where he’s standing on shaking, useless legs, and he’s proud of himself. He attempts a step toward his trainer, and then he’s right back where he started, on his knees, biting back tears, swallowing back pleas, wondering how to get out of this and then wondering how he could dare to think such a thing.

The next time his knees hit the ground, he isn’t able to stop the soft, barely audible gasp he lets out, and then he’s shaking even more at the idea of them using it against him. He sets his jaw, he tries to level his ever-quickening breathing, he tries to stand up again. This should be easy, he can’t process why he isn’t able to make the three or four steps it would take to be in front of his trainer, and he feels so stupid, so ashamed. He throws a nervous glance at the man standing at the door, who is watching on with an indecipherable frown. Is he disappointed in the boy for not being able to complete this simple task? Is he going to order more cruel “exercises” to make him better?

He forces himself to get his feet under him, he stands slowly, he doesn’t permit himself to wince when he wants to. His whole body jolts involuntarily at the pain taking a step causes, and right when he thinks he might be able to do it, his legs are giving way beneath him and he’s sinking to the cold, hard floor with a thud. This time it hurts so much he gets nauseous, and he presses his palms into the cool floor to try and ground himself.

“Alright, I think you’ve proven your point-” the man at the door begins, the boy looks up at him with the smallest amount of gratitude written into his face. He’s panting now, and he’s pale and jittery all over, and still he’s managed to keep the tears from his eyes and any sounds of discomfort from his throat.

“No, I haven’t. You’re missing my point entirely, actually.” The trainer looks down his nose at the mess in front of him, the boy could curl up and die right there at how unhappy he looks. “I’ve given him an order, and he’s going to do it. You’ll see.”

The boy swallows, he looks at the little square of light on the wall again. He hopes that soon, they might tell him that he’s finally trained well enough to leave and he can see real sunlight again. He stands. He sways. He falls. He stands. He staggers forwards. He falls. He stands. He holds his breath. He thinks he might pass out. He falls. He reminds himself that crying will get him into trouble. He takes a shuttering breath. He stands. He wants to feel the sun on his skin. He takes a step. He wants to breath in air that isn’t dense with his own tortured cries. He falls. He reminds himself that making noise is what got him sent back in the first place. He stays silent. He stands. He wants to sleep on something soft. He takes a step. He’s so tired of waking up covered in bruises and trying to figure out if they’re from the trainers or where his bones meet the concrete he sleeps on. He takes a step. He has to get out of here. He takes a step. He has to get out of here, it doesn’t matter where they send him as long as it isn’t here. He takes a step. He wonders what he did in his old life to deserve this. He takes a step. He knows that if it made him end up here, it must have been something horrible. He takes a step. He is glad he doesn’t remember.

“There’s no fucking way…” the man at the door mutters. The boy is uneasy at how much he’s cussing, too often he’s been on the receiving end of most of that foul language, and the actions that come along with them are never pleasant.

In between his soft gasps of pain held at bay, the boy whispers out a tiny “I’m sorry, sir,” and he leaves it at that. Because he can’t will himself to look up at his trainer, he misses the smile he’s wearing, and it startles him when he laughs.

“You hear that?” He announces. “The dumb fuck is apologizing to me.” Then he turns back to the boy, takes his face in his hand. His touch is somewhere between caring and demeaning. The boy leans into it like he’s been searching for warmth his entire life. When he speaks again, it’s quietly, just to the boy. “You did good. That was exactly what I needed from you. Well done.”

All of the pain from the last few hours seems to melt away at that. The boy cracks a tired grin, he pushes further into the hand against his cheek. When he first got here, he was humiliated at any form of praise, it only made him push back against the training more. Now, it feels like it’s what he lives for. He would do anything for it, because being touched gently and being told that he was giving up his humanity, his freedom, so perfectly was far better than the pointless struggle and agony of trying to keep it.

When the trainer steps away from him, he barely stops himself from falling right to the floor again, and he stays swaying in his spot as the other two continue their conversation. He’s hardly listening now, too focused on staying upright, but he hears his trainer saying something about how much money they could save if they used this so-called “new system” right at the beginning. Distantly, the boy feels a heavy guilt, like it’s all his fault that others may be treated the same way he has. He thinks about all the times he’d lay there praying for death to show him mercy while he hugged his own bloody and bruised body, and he thinks about the shock collar, and he thinks about the migraines, and he thinks about the little square of fake sunlight that never moves, and when he imagines anyone else going through that, it makes him sick to his stomach. He may have deserved it, but no one else does, and if the trainers start using those methods on others, it would be all his fault. He only feels that distantly, though, because he can hear his trainer saying something about a reward, now, and it’s been so long since he was given anything but punishment that he can’t focus on thinking about anything other than the trainer making his way back to him. The other man is gone, the boy wonders how he didn’t notice the loud sound of the door opening and closing when he left.

“How do you think you did?” The trainer checks. His voice has a slight condescending tone, but when does it not?

“I…I am sorry it took me so long, sir.”

The trainer hums in agreement. He’s touching the boy again, his hands trailing over the nape of his neck and grabbing onto his shoulders. “You didn’t make any noise.”

“I am to be seen and not heard. Sir.” He recites it well, despite his shaking voice and his wavering breathing. He can’t ever keep himself composed when historically cruel hands are suddenly nice with him.

“Good. That’s good. You didn’t cry either.”

“No, sir, I have no reason to cry.” He wants to cry every second of every single day. From the time he opens his eyes to the time he closes them he is holding back tears. Sometimes he wakes up and catches himself crying at something in his sleep. He thinks he would die if anyone ever caught him.

“Those bruises on your knees look painful. It must’ve hurt a lot, to do all of that just now.” There’s no pity in his voice, it is very clearly a test, and it’s one that the boy knows how to pass.

“My pain means nothing, sir.” The pain is making him lose his mind. He would do anything to make it stop, if only he knew how.

The trainer steps closer. The boy tries not to tense up in his grip, he tries not to flinch away from him when he leans in so they’re breathing in each other's air.

“I’m very proud of you.” He mumbles.

“Oh,” the boy breathes, his cheeks grow scarlett and he looks away from the trainer completely, “th…thank you, sir.”

“Are you hungry?”

He pauses, is this still a test? And then he looks back up at the trainer. “If you…if you wanted to feed me I would be so, so grateful, sir, but I would never ask-”

“Wow,” the trainer laughs, “this is incredible. I almost can’t believe…when you first came here, you probably don’t remember, you bit me so hard I bled. I still have a scar.” He pulls a hand away from the boy to pull down the collar of his shirt and sure enough, there’s a faded outline of teeth where his shoulder meets his neck. As soon as he’s sure the boy saw it, he lets go of his shirt and returns his hand to the boy’s slim shoulder.

All of the blood drains from the boy's face, he shakes his head to himself, like he’s scolding himself for it. He doesn’t remember, like the trainer said, and he also can’t imagine himself doing something like that. He is horrified that he was once in a place where he would hurt a trainer, not to mention disgusted in himself, and it shows in every inch of his trembling, wiry frame. “I am so sorry, sir-”

“No, you don’t understand, pet,” the trainer is leaning even closer, his mouth is against the shell of the boy's ear when he speaks again, “I fixed you. I tore you to pieces and then I rebuilt you from scratch and I made you perfect.”

There’s a brief moment where the boy is speechless. He’s still trying to reel himself in from the spiraling self-hatred and guilt that he hurt someone so bad, especially a trainer, and he’s trying to figure out what was happening to him that would make him lash out and bite someone in the first place, and he’s trying to understand why the trainers phrasing of “fixing” him makes him feel so sad. But then, after he really thinks about it, he’s happy. The trainer fixed him, he is perfect, he said, which means he doesn’t need any more training, right? It means he should be able to leave now, and maybe be somewhere with real sunshine and night and day.

“Thank you, sir.” He rushes out. “Thank you for fixing me.”

The trainer smiles against his skin, and then his hands migrate to the boy’s hair, he’s neither gentle nor aggressive when he grabs fistfulls of it, but rather something in the middle. “I’m going to get you a nice, hot, proper meal. I’ll even bring you to the dining hall, that’s your reward. You were so good for me today.”

“Oh, thank you-”

“I just need you to do one last thing for me, ok?”

The boy nods instantly. “Of course, anything, sir.”

“Good boy.” The trainer pulls off of him, looks him up and down with a smile. “Get back on your knees.”

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