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The buckle tinked faintly as Khoa let the restraint drop, tight against Bruce’s wrist. Bruce’s eyes were intent on his movements, because Bruce was a man who held onto every scrap of control he could with the grasping fingers of the child he’d been when control had been torn from him. Khoa smiled at him, small and challenging. Bruce smirked back.
Khoa wasn’t sure whether he hoped more that he’d break or that he wouldn’t. They’d been traveling together for nearly a year now, and the training to resist this particular technique was one they’d decided to undertake together rather than worrying about a mentor. Both of them knew how to do it.
“How long did you say you could hold your breath again?” he asked, not that he’d forgotten. The white terry cloth of the thin towel was soft as he picked it up.
“Fifteen minutes,” Bruce said evenly. “It’s not a particularly effective waterboarding countermeasure.”
“You’ll try it anyway.” Khoa folded the towel in half.
“So will you.”
“Maybe,” he allowed, resting the towel over Bruce’s face, hiding the stubble he’d been developing. With some reluctance, he covered his eyes-- he could always uncover them later. Taking sight from Bruce meant that he’d have to rely on fewer senses.
The jug of water rested next to the spigot in the old shower room they’d co opted, with Bruce propped on an inclined table they’d cobbled together with plywood and other supplies from the construction site nearby.
Bruce was consciously keeping his body relaxed on the board. Minutely, his right hand twitched, but otherwise he maintained slow and steady breaths through the towel. Khoa waited a full minute before moving again, just watching Bruce maintain the iron control he was working so hard to perfect.
Finally, he leaned forward, pouring just enough water on the towel to wet it. Bruce’s profile became visible through the fabric, his strong nose and jutting chin, his brow, likely still smooth and unbothered. He hadn’t even let his breath hitch at the feeling.
Khoa’s smile widened.
Holding the jug about thirty-five centimeters above Bruce’s face, Khoa started slowly. The water came down in a clear, narrow stream, bubbles glugging faintly up against the plastic. It splattered against the towel, dampening it enough that he could see Bruce’s face outlined clearly. White fabric had been a good choice.
They’d agreed on twenty seconds. Khoa’s count was slow and easy as he raked his eyes up and down Bruce’s body. He’d stopped breathing, like they’d agreed he would. No twitching yet. He’d locked down.
At fourteen seconds, Bruce’s right foot kicked up against the belt restraining him. His body tensed for the next two seconds, like he was furious with himself for showing anything. Khoa kept going. The twenty seconds ended, and he pulled the cloth off of Bruce’s mouth and nose. They were reddened from the cold water.
Bruce’s puffy lips parted wide as he gasped. They made a near perfect ‘o’. One breath, two breaths, three breaths, four--
Khoa yanked the towel back down in the middle of Bruce’s fourth, savoring the way his head jerked back as if in denial. They weren’t training for kind treatment, after all.
The next twenty seconds passed in a steady, languid flow. Bruce’s body was starting to try to fight back, even as Bruce’s mind clearly sought to dominate it. He tugged against the belts holding down his wrists around ten seconds this time, before slamming his hands back down in fists, clearly trying to hold still.
Khoa could feel his own cock beginning to harden in his trousers.
This time, when he pulled the towel from Bruce’s face, Bruce spluttered, spitting water up. It leaked from his nose. His face was still flushed. Again, his mouth gaped open. He sucked in another three breaths, frantic as if he knew Khoa wanted to interrupt him.
Khoa did.
He patted the towel after lowering it again. Because he wanted Bruce to break before did, he did not palm his own developing erection.
Wet, strained breathing was still coming from beneath the cloth as Khoa tipped the jug again. Bruce choked, tried to gag. The muscles in his neck jumped.
Five seconds in and Bruce tried to toss his head to the side again. Khoa tutted and seized Bruce’s chin through the towel, forcing him to straighten his head.
Ten seconds in and Bruce was actually kicking now, the table shaking beneath him. Khoa licked his lips in anticipation. He shook the jug, moving the stream to Bruce’s nose and then back down to his mouth. Another choked noise filtered through the cloth.
Fifteen seconds and Bruce was trying to shake his head back and forth. Digging his fingers in more tightly, Khoa could feel Bruce’s perfect jawbone underneath. It was working futilely to resist.
With all the joy of a child unwrapping a present, Khoa pulled the towel all the way off this time, from the grip on his chin up. Bruce’s lips had gone pale, skin an almost ghostly white under the dark stubble. His nose was sallow, dripping mucus and water. Last revealed were his eyes, limpid, red-limmed, and pupils dilated so that Khoa could hardly see that deep blue color.
“Please,” Bruce whispered, coughing. He looked up at Khoa, but it didn’t seem like he was seeing him.
A bolt of arousal shot through Khoa. He felt like he might collapse with it. He knew his expression had shifted, own eyes wide and mouth scraping wider in something savage.
The jug needed refilling.
When Khoa turned away from Bruce, still coughing and spluttering helplessly, he did it to refill the jug. And to get himself under control. The knife’s edge of want he was balancing on cut at his feet, sending his pulse faster and bloody feeling seeping out of him.
The water cut on, and Khoa heard the belts rattle as Bruce struggled against the sound . How would Khoa feel when his turn came? At that thought, he snuck his hand down and did rub at himself, just once, through his loose cotton pants. The knife bled him a little more. He turned the water off.
“Anton. Please,” Bruce said again, voice hoarse. Khoa turned to face him, appreciating the fight Bruce was losing against himself. The towel rested just to the right of his head, crumpled in a wet mess. His dark hair tangled in it, dripping excess water rapidly against the cement floor.
“Why are you begging? We said we would keep going regardless. Ten minutes.”
Khoa relished the way Bruce garbled out a protest as soon as he said keep going . He loomed over him, shaking the jug. The water sloshed inside, and Bruce’s eyes went to it, magnetized.
Loathe to part with the sight, Khoa made a decision.
“We’ll go without the towel this time. How’s that?”
He didn’t bother to wait for Bruce’s response, seizing him again and tilting the jug again. And, yes, this had been the right choice. Bruce’s face scrunched tight at the feeling, brows drawing together, lips pursing.
With some stamina regained during their short break, Bruce lasted eight seconds before trying to fight again. It was easier to hold onto him without the towel. Khoa could hear the table creaking and the belts jingling as Bruce fought, but he only had eyes for Bruce’s gasping mouth.
Helplessly, Bruce had opened his mouth again, choking and gasping. Aspirating water, probably. His body was fighting for air against this small stream of water, even though he could hold his breath for a quarter of an hour under a sea of it.
The twenty seconds flew past. Khoa missed them as he stopped, letting Bruce breathe again.
Brain numbed and foolish from the torture, Bruce begged again:
“Anton, I know I said. We said ten minutes, but--” he gasped, “Please. Please.”
“How about just two more?” Khoa offered, since this was their first time. And because if he went too hard, Bruce might not agree to waterboard him, when his turn came around. If he reneged on that, Khoa wasn’t sure he could forgive him. He wasn’t sure Bruce would forgive him for stopping. Or for not stopping.
“N-- Okay, Please. Hurry.” Some logic was operating underneath those teary eyes, then. Bruce’s teeth gritted together as Khoa doused his face this time, clenched tight.
Khoa wanted, his own body tense enough to snap. His heartbeats were loud in his ears, and he had to force himself to listen past them to Bruce’s gurgling as his body gave in again. His hair was thoroughly wet, now, like ink against the plywood.
When Bruce’s lips moved, Khoa could see they were turning blue underneath the water. He didn’t touch them, though his thumb twitched the slightest fraction towards them from where he held Bruce in place.
Bruce gulped in his three-and-a-half breaths when Khoa pulled the jug back up. His eyes were darting from Khoa’s face to the jug, and Khoa could see the hope there, the determination to last through just this last time. It made Khoa want to keep going forever. It made him want to feed Bruce his cock. It made him--
He poured again, focused. Determined, he took in Bruce’s face this last time. His eyelids showed the way his eyes were still rolling beneath, thin membranes of skin incapable of concealing them. The planes of his forehead and cheekbones jutted harshly upwards, skin pale enough that Bruce could be carved from marble if it weren’t for the way he still shook under Khoa’s hand.
Twenty seconds came.
Khoa watched them go. He kept pouring.
Twenty-one. Twenty-two.
Bruce clearly wasn’t sure at first whether his internal count had been off. He probably thought that he’d allowed his perception of time to be distorted by pain.
Twenty-three. Twenty-four.
Bruce renewed his struggles, frantic eyes snapping open in disbelief. It was impossible to tell whether he was crying underneath the water.
Twenty-five. Twenty-six.
Khoa’s dance on the knife grew sloppier. The blade wobbled beneath him.
Twenty-seven. Twenty-eight.
Bruce gagged loudly, spluttering, choking-- Drowning. His chest was moving in half-breaths, aspirating water and trying desperately to expel it.
Twenty-nine. Thirty.
Khoa threw the jug backwards, barely aware of the dull thunk as it hit the wall and bounced off to land on the floor. Bruce coughed, turned his head. Khoa helped him, fingers still on his chin. Feebly, Bruce’s open mouth vomited water.
One hand now free, Khoa’s hand flew to his cock. He shoved it beneath the loose waistband of his pants, seizing himself and rapidly jacking himself off.
Bruce didn’t seem to realize what was happening, spit and mucus and water thick as they left his mouth and nose. The flush was rapidly returning to his face as his body tried to recover. His red cheeks, nose, and mouth were stark against the almost skeletal pallor the rest of his face had. A strand of dark hair fell into his face, landing over one closed eye.
If Khoa were a nicer man, he would have undone the restraints so Bruce could take care of himself. As he was, he ran his hand, a bizarrely untouched contrast against the wreckage of Bruce’s body, up-- over the line of Bruce’s jaw, grazing his cheekbone, tucking the hair back up into the messy rest.
Bruce’s eyes fluttered open. Dazed, he looked at Khoa’s rapidly moving hand stripping his cock. A few seconds passed, Khoa almost flinching at the careless weight of his gaze. Then Bruce’s body seized, and Bruce’s wide eyes slashed up to meet Khoa’s.
He tripped in the dance, falling onto his knife.
With his own breathing rapid, Khoa curled forward in fractions of centimeters, body fighting his control as he came. He felt his cock throb with each pulse of come-- and, with something that was both thoughtless and deliberate running through his mind, he aimed at Bruce’s still decimated face.
The first spatter of white on that reddened skin was enough to send Khoa into what felt almost like a second orgasm.
“Bruce,” he said, punched out and short. His cock spurted three more times, two landing on Bruce’s cheeks, the last managing to cross his gasping mouth. Khoa panted, rubbing himself still. He ran his thumb over Bruce’s cheek again, cupping at him. Bruce stared at him. Khoa stared back.
Water dripped loudly from Bruce’s saturated hair against the concrete. Each drop took five heartbeats. Slow, now.
Drip…… Drip…… Drip.