Chapter Text
Pain. He couldn't make it stop, couldn't hide
from it, release it, breathe through it. His
muscles clenched with this need, this unbearable
heat.
He walked, nameless, bloody, lost, forgotten
within the shattered singing of his own mind,
slowly wandering down the damp alleys, looking for
something he'd lost.
If he could only remember what that was.
Another bright bolt of pain ricocheted in his head
and he dropped to his knees in the filth. Breath
hitching in his chest, he crawled towards the
shadows cast by bleak, gray buildings, avoiding
the light. He curled into the wall of a building,
wrapping the warm cloak he wore around him, trying
to displace the shivers within him.
He slept, or at least he dreamed; he dreamed of
gardens and home and peace and clean water and oh,
he could remember being clean and dry and warm and
safe and a time when there was no pain.
Somewhere, once upon a time, when there was food
and he could eat and a bed and blue eyes. Someone
had blue eyes that smiled, someone who would have
looked for him if he was lost and he was lost and
so tired and hurting and the pain never went away,
never let him breathe, nevernevernever...
"If you don't stop hitting your head on that wall,
Beauty, they're gonna lock you up."
What? What was that? Did someone...
"Jessup's Upturned Nose, you're a sight, Beauty.
Let me see your face."
He turned his face to the wall, away from the
light; he couldn't stand the light.
"Too much sun for you, eh? That's pretty normal.
Not to worry. I can fix you up, make it stop
hurting."
He looked up into the shadowed face with flashing
white teeth. That face was laughing, but hadn't
it said no pain?
"Yes, Beauty. No more pain. I can make it stop.
Give me your hand for a second." He raised his
hand and felt it grasped by cold, bony fingers.
"Good boy."
He felt a sharp pain and then a falling. He sank
into a warm brightness where there was no pain,
nothing but fierce wonder and joy.
"Yes, Beauty, so much better. Let me help you
up. Come on with me. I'll fix you up. I'll keep
the pain away."
He stood and followed, leaving the cloak in a
puddle behind him.
*****
The whip sliced, fast and deep and he moaned
beneath it, hips rocking in a crude parody of
sex. The thin leather straps encircling his
wrists were more to remind him of his position
than to bind him. The scent of blood was in the
air and he could hear the cries of pain and
pleasure filling the smoky space around him.
He had forgotten how to differentiate which were
his.
The figure behind him was skilled, living up to
the challenge that had been thrown.
Beauty had stood, swaying to the blaring music,
poured into latex, face and shoulder-length hair
streaked with glitter, his eyes lined in black,
nipples rouged. The tall man had walked up to
him, kissed him roughly, deeply. Beauty had been
relaxed, unresponsive, a hint of challenge in his
pose.
The man pulled back and his eyes fell to the
collar fastened around Beauty's neck. "Whose
collar do you wear?"
"My own." Beauty's voice was ice; he felt it form
icicles on his lips.
There was a slow blink of mottled brown eyes.
"You belong to no one? How odd."
"I belong to myself."
The man laughed sharply, throwing back thick
auburn hair, which shone in the violet lights
illuminating the room. "What's your name, boy?"
"Beauty."
"Oh, you're a vain one, Beauty. I'd like to get
my hands on you, play with you, make you cry.
Unfortunately, I don't have the time or the
patience to train a child."
"I look like a child?"
The man's eyebrows arched, challengingly. Beauty
was struck suddenly by the motion. He'd seen it
so many times, on a thinner face, blue eyes...
Beauty sneered and turned away with a shrug. "I
want someone who doesn't need to be coddled. I'm
not looking to get my ass paddled red so you can
hold me and make me feel better."
When the hard hands had dug themselves into his
hair, yanking him off balance, Beauty had felt
himself grow hard.
When he came, body jerking in unwilling passion,
back and thighs bleeding, hard cock buried in his
ass, Beauty closed his eyes and saw bright blue.
*****
"Here Beauty, at least let me put this cream on
you first. It'll keep it from hurting so bad."
Tryl heard the sharp laugh and sighed, holding the
metal rod between his fingers. The small ball on
either end caught the light as the young Dwond
cleaned it with an antiseptic. He gathered up his
other tools, his razor and needles and clamps.
"Are you sure, Beauty? Getting a piercing's gonna
feel different than you're used to and, well,"
Tryl motioned to the young man's genitals, "that's
not exactly an ear."
The dead stone eyes looked at him. That face was
marble, body molded from steel.
Beauty lounged before him on the dull metal table,
naked and relaxed. Tryl admired the months of
work that had gone into the whipcord thin frame,
torso covered in an amalgamation of subdued colors
and shadows. The leaping red flames burst from
the reddish curls between his legs, muting into
swirls of blues and green that graced the muscled
chest. As the design reached his shoulders, the
colors lost their saturation, becoming pale ghost
images, a reaching out for the unattainable.
Once, when they had first met, Beauty had shown
him a dance, a beautiful series of steps that had
wept with loss and sadness. Then Beauty had asked
Tryl if he thought he could recreate that on a
body.
Tryl had thought of the haunting image that Beauty
made when he danced, the steady movements that
reached beyond the cold tiles he stood upon. He
was overwhelmed by the keening sorrow held back by
thin layers of skin.
Tryl had said yes.
When Tryl had met Beauty, there was a hint of
youth in his eyes. Now the blond man had come and
asked for more. For more pain, more decoration.
His eyes were empty and old.
"Come on, Tryl. I'm no fragile virgin. Do your
worst." Beauty smiled at the Dwond, lying back
and spreading his legs wide.
Tryl settled between them and pulled out a long
needle and began his work.
*****
He could hold his breath a really long time. He
felt his brain bubbling between his ears, felt the
hum of instinctual panic as it tightened his
balls, making his heart thrum.
Fuck, it felt good.
The pair of hard hands holding the mask over his
face let up with a jerk. The young humanoid
glared in frustration. "Damn it to the edge of
heaven, Beauty, what is your fucking problem?
Breathe it in. It's not like it hurts. It's not
even like I'm forcing you..."
The still-water eyes just stared, their colors
dulled by the moldy, torn vinyl Beauty rested on,
boring through the young man until he started to
shake.
"I paid you to hold the mask until I finished the
tank."
"But, Beauty...you're taking forever; you haven't
even started with the gas." The boy's voice was
high and reedy with the gas that bled throughout
the room.
"Maybe next time you'll be smarter, my young
friend. Maybe next time you'll charge by the
hour. Now. The mask."
Beauty felt the mask seal around his mouth and
nose, cutting off his breath, his line with the
air. He floated along, feeling an odd euphoria,
knowing he hadn't even started the drug yet.
The races were tomorrow and Beauty wanted this,
needed the release this time with an angry
desperation he couldn't comprehend.
Something was coming.
Something was coming and it hurt his head and he
couldn't focus on the race and he needed to win
tomorrow, needed the credits, needed the freedom,
needed...
A face appeared before his glazed eyes, familiar
and ruddy. His pants were opened, lowered roughly
and discarded as the boy kept the mask tight over
his face.
Thick fingers pushed into his anus, slick and
hot. Beauty fought not to gasp, to not lift
himself off the table.
The hard fingers worked him, stretching,
stroking. The burn was bright and Beauty's hips
rocked, driving himself deeper onto those digits.
His cock was hard, leaving a little pool of
wetness on his stomach.
"See, with this one, you have to distract him.
Keep him off balance; keep his feet up off the
floor and his asshole spread."
"But, he's still holding his breath..."
"Watch, youngling."
Beauty felt a warm body stretch out above him,
tongue flicking once at his ear. "You're mine.
You belong to me and I'm not sharing you."
Beauty's eyes widened as the cock slammed into him
and his breath escaped him sharply.
"I'm not sharing you with your drugs."
A thrust.
"I'm not sharing you with your pain."
Another thrust, deep and shocking.
"I'm not sharing you with your regrets."
Thrust.
"I'm not sharing you with the one who came looking
for you today, either. Jinn, he said. Your old
master, was he?"
A deep lunge and that name and he gasped, breathed
in the drug and he was flying, disappearing into a
time before, a world before the hurting.
But not before him.
Not before that name.
Jinn.
Jinn.