Chapter Text
He's been alone long enough for the wound on his back to heal, the last bit of the main scab having finally come off, the skin tender and sensitive underneath. Tommy wonders how much time has passed since this all began, it should've taken weeks for the cut on his back to heal. How many months does that mean he's been here? His sixteenth birthday has probably already came and went, it's weird not knowing how old you are.
It's been a long time since he felt like this, skin itchy with more than tackiness, feeling truly ready to burst. He's lost count of how long it must've been since he saw his captor last, his dreadful memories of this room all blending together until it feels like eons.
It's a sensory nightmare. Tommy never knew boredom could be used as a weapon. That urge to do something coming on so strong it makes you clench your fists, groaning thru clenched teeth. Tommy knows the killer is aware of the effects it causes him. He must, he saw Tommy pick up the imaginary teacup, he must be watching him, it's the only thing that makes sense other than one of them being psychic.
This punishment through isolation is worse than the others because this time is definitely much longer. And losing everything that was his, his fuzzy companions, has taken away the mental narration that's been keeping him sane. He hasn't been 'alone' for a good long time and he needed to have many voices in his head so he could block out the agony of this room. Now he's out of practice at it and something about this time feels like it might break him.
----
He agonizes for the man to come, not because he thinks it'd be any good for him, if he takes Tommy out of this room it would probably be quite gruesome, but just for the relief of his captor's presence. He feels so tired, like he's ready to shatter and just fall asleep forever.
He just wants things to be like they used to be, when the man was gentle with him even while he touched him. Physically it wasn't so bad, there was very little discomfort compared to what the man could do to him on a regular basis if he used even a fraction of the same violence towards Tommy as he does with the other people in this place.
Even when the killer was making him assist him to torture and kill Tommy couldn't help it, there was nothing he could do. The man directed his every move and could so easily have reconsidered and turned the weapons on Tommy. All the taboo and sadly unforgettable things he's shown the boy will forever ring like white noise in his mind. But at least then Tommy wasn't being twisted by the isolation that seems to crawl into his bones and make him want to scratch it out.
Tommy knows people in prison learn to forego human touch and interaction but this imprisonement is cruel in it's own way. After everything he's seen and been through, those other things don't frighten him as much anymore. After being held in the killer's formidable arms, being exposed to the man's intimacy, even if it was in his own murderous way. Absorbing the killer's actions from a perspective only his captor should've had, observing how he kills, how he makes them suffer, how he cuts on them like they're just canvas for his tools instead of individual people.
To be the object of a man like that's affection and sexual attention... It's not a position that has been merciful on Tommy. It's a heavier burden than dying, at least with dying it means nothing else can happen to you, all your agony and troubles are over. Dying quickly is a desirable fate when you're in hell and the torment is paralyzing in it's creative methods.
The man denies his victims his voice, his face and eyes, any way to predict what's coming next. Any type of word or clue as to what the killer could possibly want, any understanding about a person's motives or what they're like.
There seems to be nothing connecting his victims to each other, he kills everyone. It's not about who they are, they have no names. He dehumanizes them into objects, pieces in his neverending maze of death.
----
Tommy thinks about all the people he's seen murdered, every individual one. Including the people he himself has killed. He's pretty sure there were only three who died by his hand: the man he turned the nozzle for that poured caustic fluid down his throat. The guy from the big tank of water that he was forced to cut open and mutilate. And the person hanging upside down whom Tommy killed by cutting their throat. He's murdered three people. He's a murderer.
He thinks about the unrealistically horrible and colorful aesthetic of it all. Combined with confusion it has a way of seducing you into taking leave of your senses and letting it wash you away.
Even in the beginning the prisoners treated Tommy like he was on the killer's side. Not being allowed to have the other victims as sympathetic allies makes him feel like the killer is all Tommy has, the only one he can go to for help. He supposes the others weren't wrong to assume those things. His actions don't appear differently from the outside, he doesn't resist enough for them to trust him. He can't tell them this wasn't his choice, everything he has done was at the metaphorical and often literal point of a knife.
----
He's lying on his side with his chest pressed against the wall which is the maximum physical contact he can find in this room when he hears a noise from outside the door for the first time. It sounds like a dull thump and scratches dragging across the wall, like someone leaned heavily on it as they were going past.
Quickly standing only a few feet from the door Tommy jumps when the knob twists ineffectively a few times before another farther away thump sounds through the wall before it fades completely. He moves closer and cautiously looks through the peephole but despite waiting for several minutes he doesn't see or hear anything more. He missed his chance to see whoever it was.
He thinks maybe he should be more vigilant about looking through the eyehole if there's a chance of someone besides the masked man going by. Tommy can at least watch the building around him from a safe place. There's little else to do in his confinement and he supposes he must've forgotten about it to explain why he hadn't thought of doing so before.
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Tommy has laid and stood or leaned in every possible position in this room, even trying some uncomfortable ones just to change things up. He's laying on the bed with his back against the wall, arms wrapped all the way around himself with his hands on opposing shoulderblades.
The synthetic feeling of something behind him that's warm chases away the hyperawareness laying like a second skin raised just a millimeter above his own. He can feel it even if nothing is there, like his hair follicles are being triggered.
Speaking of hair, Tommy's has grown till it's brushing his shoulders. His hair has always grown pretty fast, he had really long hair when he was younger and actually managed to make it look good.
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Tommy often moves his hand absently over his skin to keep from being completely still. He's laying on his side with his hand on the highest point of his thigh. He brushes his fingers over the smooth skin then runs them further up to skim over the top curves of his hip bone. The sensitive skin of his forearm tickles his side as he brushes them further down the flat plain of his stomach.
There aren't many rough surfaces he can touch in this room without eventually hurting himself. He slides his hand lower, scratching and rubbing his digits roughly thru the thatch of dark, wiry pubic hair, feeling the length of it between his fingers.
He stops with the sudden realization of what he's doing and feeling exposed turns onto his back. But now he's feeling stretched out and even more vulnerable. It reminds him of his nudity, he forgets about it sometimes, what people would think about seeing him like this.
He flushes in shame at the idea of someone else actually coming in here and seeing him. With bright pink plastic encasing his genetalia, unable to explain his appearance or ask for help. Just some pathetic play toy of the killer's that no one trusts.
He can feel their eyes, even locked in this padded cell he never has complete privacy. He has felt the man's eyes on him, the door's peephole gone dark, noticing it missing later the only proof he was ever there.
He switches to aggressively running his hands over his stomach. He works them upwards till they reach his chest and collar, overstimulating his nerves, then reverses his path. He continues until his flesh feels raw before he lets himself relax and lie still on the floor, skin stinging.
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Tommy has really come to loath the metal mouth piece, even if he doesn't speak he'd still prefer his mouth free. Tonguing at the inside of his teeth he traces the firm ridges of the small pieces of metal and wire. It feels like they're not connected between each tooth and are bent to fit each one in particular.
He reaches up and traces the thin but firm ring around his head entering at the corners of his mouth to meet the front of his upper and lower canines. In front of his teeth there's a solid metal piece reaching all the way across and along his gums and that's what's attached to the wires. He isn't sure how his captor managed it without wrenching down on his jaw hard enough to cause it to ache.
Just for laughs he pulls on the front of the loop, wiggling it up and down finding it's not quite as immovable as he thought. It's far from loose but it will move the slightest bit in each direction. He takes his hands away guiltily, anxiety creeping up that the masked man will somehow find out he's been messing with it and punish him even more.
----
Thoughts getting away from him Tommy wonders very briefly what sex with his captor would be like. But then thinks how he got his arm broken for trying to touch the man of his own volition. It taught him that even if Tommy wanted to do it, it would be on the killer's schedule and Tommy would only experience what the man allowed him.
Tommy might die before he knows what it's like for the man to take him without restraint. Dying might be better, he doesn't imagine the coupling would be a pleasant experience for him. He might not even survive it, physically or emotionally.
But at the same time he laments that he's never going to leave this place, not alive, and won't ever get to have sex in the conventional sense. It's easier to admit to himself now that he's sexually mostly interested in men. He can't imagine going to a woman for the kind of contact he craves. Perhaps his captor picked up on that, maybe Tommy gives off a gay vibe.
He couldn't hope to understand what the man truly wants from him but something makes Tommy want to know, even if it's just on an instinctual level. He wants to be able to observe the man without being afraid of being murdered too, like a fly on the wall observes the room.
If he can never leave this place he'd rather spend his time outside this room rather than in it, no matter how that comes to pass. He has spent ninety percent of his time in here and he hates it. He doesn't exactly want the alternative but... he just can't take anymore.
He feels like he might explode, shaking with the intensity of it. It feels like he's been abandoned in a hole in the ground and when the helplessness fully sets in you need to fight and scream no matter that it doesn't help or save you.
He desperately needs something to happen, anything, and it builds to the point he's in a cold sweat and dizzy. He stumbles around the room feeling faint, the world spinning around him.
An itch starts growing and won't go away. A combination of frustration and desperation, similar to feeling sick to your stomach until you purge what's ailing you.
----
Tommy's freaking out again in full panic mode because what if the man doesn't plan to come back? Doesn't want him anymore and things will never be like they used to. What if the masked man has decided to forget about him for good? Having left Tommy in here to rot.
*Optional* One of the mummys in Egypt was rumoured to have been entombed alive, capable of surviving for years until he finally withered away.
He just wants to wake up, open his eyes in some shitty bed somewhere he doesn't even want to be. Anywhere else would be a relief from this nightmare.
Please, God. Just let it be over, it's all too much for him and he wants to scream and beg for help, futile as he knows it would be. But at least it's something the other prisoners get the opportunity to do. Tommy's suffering is one of silence and time, filled with cries of agony, none of which are his own.
Tommy has already had second chances, what if he already blew through his last one and he just hasn't noticed yet?
Deluded and neurotic he just wishes for someone to talk to him. To say out loud what's going on, what's happening. Tommy's enslaved here without a single human comfort, nor the face or even the voice of his attacker.
He doesn't know what to cry for anymore, so much has happened to him and it's getting hard to place the proper emotion for some his experiences. What he used to dread now soothes as he yearns for the killer's presence.
He wants it to end, he wants out. It's all so much that death would be better because at least it'd be restful and final, it's why he's always tired. He just wants it to stop, to shut it all away and pretend that it's over.
His hands are in his hair, hopeless look on his face as he wishes for help that won't ever come. The police won't ever find them here. He has no idea what the exterior of the building looks like and it's unmooring. Like they're nowhere, some impossible place.
He's having a panic attack, the worst one yet and he feels like he's gonna burst. It's too much, he wants to cry and scream and scratch and bite. He can barely breath, on his hands and knees, gasping through his nose and peeled back lips. It feels like his chest is being crushed, he's hot and cold like he wants to puke. Wheezing out high pitched, desperate noises, like a pitiful cornered thing.
Circling back to the thought that death would be preferable he does the unthinkable. He raises his hands to the front of the metal ring around his head and pulls, jerking it up and down. At first it stays firm but then it gives the slightest movement, grinding against teeth until he can shift it half a millimeter.
He gasps in a shaky breath as he knows he's breaking the rules but he can't stop. He needs it off, he needs it off more than life. He can't continue like this, even snapping and staring into space isn't enough. The itch would eventually come back until Tommy prays to die, begs for it.
He wrenches the metal side to side, it giving just a little, putting awkward pressure on a different part of his teeth. He jerks at it faster, all directions, his head following his jaw. He tries parting his teeth and they actually loosen just a tiny bit. It sets him in a frenzy, vocalizing as he rattles the metal about, voice going louder and fear forgotten in his desperation. He can feel the gritty powder of his teeth as they get scratched at by the metal.
He's unable to stop now that he's started, even if the killer were to come in suddenly and punish him. It's involuntary, like a reflex in a muscle that can't help but jerk, overriding his survival instincts like a sneeze.
He works at it for what feels like hours until he thinks he's halfway there. Teeth sore from strain they're not used to and the scraping against them. But he needs it off, even if it gets him killed he can't help himself. He has to, it's driving him like a compulsion instead a choice.
He pulls on the mouthpiece with single minded focus. It gets to the point where he's rolling around on the floor, wrenching on the wire and groaning aggressively, sounding like an animal. He's on a mission and he's going to get it off if he has to cut himself to do it, his gums on the sides of his cheeks have already been scratched raw.
Laying on the floor, skin moist with perspiration and jittery like he's going to be sick, he wrenching his head around by the wire foundation in his mouth. He doesn't care if the masked man were to come in right now and cut his throat, he's past the point of thinking rationally. He rolls from side to side, eyes swaying and blurry, he groans near constantly, needing the sound of his struggle.
And then he opens his teeth again and suddenly they slip free, but his next move shows he's not out of the woods yet. He opens his jaw wide to slip the wiring from behind his teeth forward but can't push it all the way out, the shape of the metal is sharp and too wide to pass his lips in its solid form. He's stuck with it between his teeth and lips.
He bends forward quickly and slams his hands on the padded floor, changing to fists and shouting. Sitting back, his hands return to his mouth but he uses his fingers to feel around where it rests when he pulls it forward. His lips need about another inch of give all around for it to come out.
His eyes water because he knows he doesn't have a choice and it's going to hurt. He doesn't care that it'll cut his face, only afraid of the pain, but he's so worked up and upset it doesn't matter so he opens wide and starts pulling.
It doesn't get far and he stops and licks the inside of his lips, having painfully split the center of the bottom one where it's chapped. He can taste blood as he keep trying, opening his mouth as wide as he can until his jaw aches, pulling despite the metal cutting into his cheeks and especially at the corners of his lips until they start to split too. He tries not to wiggle the metal despite the impatience urging him to do so, knowing it will only cut him uselessly.
Taking rests only to catch his breath, he must look like a fish with his lips extended from the metal behind them. It hurts so much, more of a stinging pain than the cut on his back, but he can't stop and he can't put it back so it has to come out.
He slumps, relieving the pressure, before trying again. He can taste the blood pooling underneath his tongue, he inhales a deep breath and pulls again, harder this time, unyielding, as the pain increases the closer it gets to coming out. He starts to exhale an ah sound, getting louder as he gains ground.
When he reaches the final little bit that's hooked on the sides of mouth he closes his eyes tight, tears falling before he gives a quick powerful jerk of hands forward letting out a cry. He feels his mouth open too far as the metal still needs space and suddenly it's out!
Tommy opens his eyes as he drops the cruel contraption on the floor, blood dripping to stain it fresh. He can taste it, can feel it on his chin as he touches his mouth, putting his fingers in and digging into the sharp edges of his teeth, pressing on his tongue.
He groans in relief with his mouth open, feeling stunted like a caveman as the words don't come to him, only grunts. The sides of his mouth are on fire, throbbing with heat. It hurts to close it completely so he doesn't, just lets his mouth hang open as he sits back against the wall.
He can feel blood or saliva on his chin and neck like he's been drooling, he touches it and sees red. He wipes at it, spreading more of it on his hands, looking at it as he spreads his slick fingers. The inside of his cheeks are shredded, the corners of his lips split open a half inch on either side although it feels like more.
On every exhale he breathes out a low rough sound just to hear his voice thru an open mouth, getting louder and rougher until he sounds like an beast growling threateningly. He leans forward on his hands, body shifting side to side directionlessly, new stains under his fingers. He gets a little louder as he stands and stumbles against the wall, leaning his shoulder against it and rocking with the same directionless shock.
His thoughts feel cloudy and below the surface where it's hard to reach them, his nails digging into the cushion of the walls making scritching sounds. He's shaky and his hearts pumping a mile a minute, adrenaline still coursing thru him. His eyes close as they start to burn as the tears come, his inner turmoil has reached its most disorganized as his lips twist in sobs, vocalizing loudly, unable to be silent again.
The man will be so mad when he sees what Tommy did, and he finally lets out the first scream, giving in, continueing one after another. He turns and hits the wall like he has so many times before, striking out like a child throwing a tantrum, voice increasing in volume.
He screams in every possible way, through every emotion making up for lost time, wailing and frantic and hopeless and despairing and pitiful. He gets louder as the sounds echo, his own voice free at last to express himself.
He screams for himself, he screams for all the people he's seen die, or killed. For all the blood that never seems to come off his skin, staining it the way it should be. A white, sterile pit with a bloody Tommy locked in forever to go mad and break from lack of socialization.
He screams wildly with his hands on his head, screams that would chill the souls in hell, until his voice cracks and breaks. The scream is what tips the line and once he's let it all out he feels the fight leave him. He cries for a long time before he passes out.
----
The Collector watches Tommy tear the wires out of his face, bleeding from his mouth afterwards. He came down to watch from the other side of the door. He's not angry but instead delighted. He's captivated watching Tommy mangle his face despite how it might lose him the killer's favor entirely. Blood flowing in order to break.
When Tommy starts screaming, sounds that would chill a man, it gets the Collector hard, pressing his erection against the door. He'll never forget that sound, even though he's recording everything.