Work Text:
Sandy didn’t question when Pieter had said it would be best for him to also get brain surgery after his having more or less lost himself. Even with Henry King Jr. fixing Sandy’s mind, Pieter had insisted on giving Sandy brain scans. He had found what he identified as a “pebble” near the movement centre. Pieter’s supposition was that, seeing as Sandy was a being of sand and silicate now, the pebble was likely similar to a tumor and just like a tumor would have to be removed. Pieter had explained awake craniotomy to Sandy step by step as well as why it was the best course of action.
Sandy hadn’t questioned him, only complaining about needing to stay in the medical wing for so long after the surgery. Pieter had clipped Sandy’s hair short for the surgery, dressed him in a hospital gown and put him under anesthesia while he cut Sandy’s skull open.
Sandy hadn’t thought to ask why Pieter had no assistant.
Sandy felt groggy as he slowly woke– like waking from the kind of deep sleep he hadn’t experienced since Wes died. He did not experience any pain.
“Sand?” Pieter said. “Respond if you are awake.”
“I’m up, doc,” Sandy said, surprised to find himself able to speak clearly.
He couldn’t tell where Pieter was looking behind his glasses. He felt like he was being appraised. Pieter hummed at him in approval and laid his hand on Sandy’s chest.
“I’m going to start by showing you some cards with images on them. Just tell me what is in the images. I need to test your recognition.”
It was simple at first. Pieter would flash him a card with something like a cow or a vegetable on it and Sandy would respond. Next Pieter showed pictures of some of their JSA colleagues, asking him to name both them and their superhero persona. All the while, Pieter ran small electrical currents around the pebble in Sandy’s brain. This test too Sandy was able to pass with flying colors.
Next, Pieter held up a card depicting a pair of bare breasts. Sandy hesitated, looking from the card and the image on it that looked like it was cut from a porn magazine to Pieter’s impassive face.
“Sandy?” Pieter prompted, running the current through a slightly different spot. “How about now? What's on the card?”
Pieter was acting as though this was all normal and that Sandy’s hesitation had to have been a result of the current. Sandy looked at the card again, then at Pieter. His stomach felt low and uncertain in an annoying way that Sandy disliked identifying.
“Breasts,” Sandy said, finally looking up at Pieter as he spoke. Pieter remained impassive.
He did not turn his face down to look at Sandy but moved his hand, stroking Sandy’s shorn hair right by where part of his skull was missing. “Good boy.”
That sent a shiver even further through Sandy, a chill of both unease and arousal that had Sandy begin to plump up under his hospital gown. He had no underwear on. If he got harder Pieter would surely notice.
Pieter kept his hand on Sandy’s head as he held another card up. This one was slightly blurrier, like it was one Pieter took himself. It depicted a man’s ass, anus on display and balls hanging below. Sandy bit his lip, reaching down to tug on his hospital gown. He was certainly showing now. He wondered if maybe the picture was someone they knew.
“Um. Ass.” Sandy said, feeling crass.
Pieter’s fingers wandered into the crater of Sandy’s head and very lightly stroked the exposed brain tissue there. “Good. Good boy.”
Sandy’s whole body shuddered. His cock twitched, standing at full attention. Another stroke and Sandy froze with Pieter’s fingers on that spot. There was a rush of fear inside of him. It reminded him almost of being in the Velvet Cage, which he didn’t expect to find arousing. His hospital gown had a clear tent, raising it off his thighs. Pieter did not show Sandy another image when he took his hand off him. Instead, Pieter pushed the hospital gown up so Sandy’s cock was exposed.
Sandy wasn’t sure if Pieter was looking at him but he hoped he was. Sandy was of average size, or at least what he had always assumed it to be. He was uncut but hard enough that the head of his cock was exposed. Pieter’s hand was still on Sandy’s hip for a long moment as he spoke.
“I’d like you to sit up,” Pieter explained professionally. “Then I would like you to masturbate as you would normally while I run the current. This will be so I can track your movement center.”
Sandy wasn’t an idiot. He knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell this could be regular procedure. He could call the surgery off, and tell everyone just what Pieter was doing. With his powers, Sandy could probably even close up the hole in his skull himself. By the tiny tremble of Pieter’s fingers against Sandy’s hip, Sandy could guess that Pieter knew he knew. Instead, Sandy let his thigh fall open further to expose himself to Pieter as he sat up.
“Just as I normally would, right?” He asked so softly, watching for any indication of bulge under the front panel of Pieter’s costume.
Pieter had to swallow before answering. “That’s right.”
Normally, Sandy didn’t touch himself with a dry hand so he licked his palm, watching as Pieter retreated to the machine that controlled the currents. Normally, Sandy didn’t masturbate much at all so he took himself in his hand and tried to remember what he did like. He did like knowing Pieter was watching him. He liked thinking that the slow, languid pace of his hand stroking his cock was affecting Pieter. He really, really liked the small feelings of tingling the pulses were causing in his thigh.
Sandy’s cock was soon leaking precum as he rolled his foreskin up and down his shaft, head tilted towards pieter to watch himself be watched. He had worked into a lazy rhythm when the arm he had been using to masturbate himself shuttered and Sandy, just for a moment until Pieter adjusted the current, struggled to move it.
“Well,” Pieter said, addressing Sandy for the first time since he had taken his cock in his hand. “We know not to touch that nerve.”
Sandy felt the full control of his arm come back and tensed it as he squeezed his cock, stomach tightening as a new dribble of precum flowed down the side of his cock from the momentary loss of bodily control. The tingling sensation started to be focussed in the same arm, pressure building in Sandy’s chest. The loss of control shouldn’t have thrilled him as it did, it should have made him panic, made him feel like he was back under the gasses in the Velvet Cage.
And it had. That was the immediate sense memory Sandy had gotten, but despite that the experience was arousing. Why had the fear jolted his system so and why was the release of that fear, that coming to control again getting him right to the edge of another kind of release.
Sandy’s breath shuddered in his chest as he watched Pieter and the almost disinterest he was showing to the actions Sandy was taking. He couldn’t help himself. He squeezed his cock, speeding up his movements. He didn’t bother to hold back the small moaning pants. After all, Pieter had told him to masturbate as he normally did. Sandy, the few times that he did indulge in pleasuring himself, had no reason to hold back his sounds.
He kept watching Pieter watch him, gratified so see that his small sounds drew Pieter’s attention. Sandy smiled slightly at the proof of Pieter’s interest. He leaned his head back, letting his eyelids get heavy as he felt the build up, the knowledge that he was about to come. Sandy’s orgasm came out of him in short bursts, thigh shaking like Pieter was still running the current through his brain. Maybe he was. The ropes of semen splurted across the medical gown he wore. The relief of letting himself come had Sandy curling his toes, having to consciously keep his body from slumping out of a stiff shape like kinetic sand out of the confines of its mold.
Pieter must have turned the machine that ran the currents off because he came out from behind his bench, a wet wipe in his nitrile-gloved hand. He was professional when he used his other hand to push Sandy back to laying down. Pieter was just as professional when he used the wet wipe to clean the cum off of the sensitive, softening head of Sandy’s cock.
He was professional despite the bulge underneath the front panel of his costume.
“What now?” Sandy asked, leaning back on his elbows so that he could watch Pieter clean him. This image would be going right into his memory for the next time he masturbated. It was over too soon, Sandy’s penis falling from Pieter’s hand and the wet wipe being disposed of.
Pieter turned his back to Sandy as he answered him, getting something from his tray of tools just past Sandy’s head. “I have the data I need. Now I'm going to put you back to sleep so I can operate.”
And he placed the mask for the anesthesia over Sandy’s face. There was a smell like artificial peach over permanent marker when Sandy breathed in and kept breathing it in. Meanwhile, unprofessionally, Pieter’s hand ran through Sandy’s hair, right near the open part of his skull.
“All you need to do now is be a good boy and breathe.”
Sandy felt his senses and body grow heavy, his post-orgasm relaxation aiding the anesthesia. He was about to open his mouth and say something but his eyes fell closed and then he was out.
Pieter laid Sandy’s head gently back on the operation table. He allowed himself one deep, controlled breath of arousal as he picked up his scalpel. Then the operation began.