Why didn’t you say yes? Dougie’s expression demanded, his mouth open slightly, his face sweaty, too. He looked so hurt, so betrayed. At last, he squeezed his eyes shut—sending two more tears streaking down his cheeks—and turned his head away.
That’s it, Dougie. That’s it. Give up on me. I’m not worth it. Give in.
“Good answer, son. I knew you were a good boy. So here’s what I think. I think your brother has learned his lesson about lying, but I don’t think he quite gets why being queer is wrong, why trying to seduce his own family is so wrong. What do you say, should I teach him?”
God, he wants me complicit. Not just a mute observer. He wants me to help.
Dougie turned back to him, just briefly, too afraid to shake his head but the No was there in his eyes. Begging. Hopeful. Even after all that, still so certain Mat would fight for him.
Mat swallowed hard—it was that or puke all over the guy’s shoes—and ripped his gaze away. Back to the man. “Yes, sir.” His voice was so flat he sounded dead. Hopefully the man wouldn’t mind; he couldn’t do any better than this. “You’re his father. If you don’t teach him, who will?”
“Yes. Very good. You’re right. But you have a lesson to learn too, don’t you? So I want you to watch very carefully. I’ll show you both how wrong it is to be gay. How filthy. How awful. And you’ll never doubt your sexuality again. Would you like that?”
“Yes, Dad,” Mat said as Dougie moaned “No,” hurting too much—or maybe just too upset—to play along anymore.
“Do you know how fags have sex, Douglas?”
“No,” Dougie moaned again. Somehow, Mat didn’t think it was in answer to the man’s question.
“Up their asses. Like this.” He leaned forward, using an elbow to pin Dougie to the bed, and shoved three fingers of the opposite hand into Dougie’s ass.
Dougie buried his face in the mattress and screamed.
It was muffled by the blankets, but Mat knew what he was shouting.
Mat.
He was shouting Mat’s name.
Still begging for Mat’s help.
“And that’s just my fingers, boy. But don’t you think you’re fooling me, acting like that hurts. Don’t you think I don’t know what a little fag slut you are? I bet you’ve had a dozen cocks up this loose fag hole of yours. And maybe you’re perverted enough to like it, but your brother’s not beyond saving, boy. And you know what, neither are you. You just need the right lesson.” He pulled his fingers from Dougie’s ass, pointed at Mathias. “Son, go get me your bat.”
“My what?”
“Your baseball bat, Mathias. You always leave it leaning against the end of the bed, even though I tell you to put it away in the garage. You never listen. Or maybe you do, and your slutty little brother brings it up here at night to fuck himself with. Either way, it’s coming in handy now. Go on, be a good boy and fetch it for your father.”
No, God no. Even Mat couldn’t take something like that, and he’d been fucking for years. Dougie had been a virgin before all this. He couldn’t possibly—
“If I have to go get it, boy, I will beat you both with it, do you understand me? And then I will use it to teach your little fag brother a real lesson.”
Mat swallowed down the urge to vomit again as he levered to his feet, looked around the bed—everywhere but at Dougie, don’t look at Dougie—and spotted the bat, thankfully on the near side, where he didn’t have to walk past Dougie to get it.
He walked over, picked it up. An old wooden slugger, smooth, heavy. Huge. He squeezed the grip in both hands, flashed vividly on an image of beating this sick fucker’s skull in—how long would they have before Nikolai’s goons broke in? How long for him to hug Dougie and kiss him and apologize and apologize and apologize, even though it would never be enough?
And then what?
Even this had to be better than the serum. Nikolai would take care of him. Nikolai had no reason to lie. Dougie hadn’t been hurt when he’d come in here. Not a mark on him. Wouldn’t have gotten any of the marks he had now if Nikolai hadn’t felt the need to resort to this to drive a wedge between them. If Dougie didn’t idolize and love Mat so much.
This was all Mat’s fault. He was responsible for this pain. And there was only one way to end it.
He handed over the bat.
Mat wouldn’t look at Dougie—was he really that disgusted with him? That disappointed and angry?—but Dougie couldn’t stop staring at Mat. He watched, through a film of tears he wished desperately he knew how to stop, as Mat fetched the bat for Dougie’s tormentor like some obedient dog. They’d done something to him, they had to have. Something unspeakable, something Dougie couldn’t even fathom—and he’d learned how to fathom an awful fucking lot lately. That was the only explanation for Mat’s behavior. For his . . . his indifference. His coldness. If not learned helplessness, how else could he sit by and watch a man torture Dougie in a room with no guards and no cameras and not help him?
Or maybe . . . maybe he’d been drugged. Yeah. That made sense. Some kind of dissociative or hypnotic, something to make him numb and susceptible.
Mat had always protected him. Always. Even when he’d been in the wrong. He’d protected Dougie, then given him shit for it later. But he’d always stood up for him.
Not tonight, though.
Dougie pressed his face to the mattress. He was on his own tonight. Maybe . . . maybe even after tonight. He had to take care of himself.
He could do this. This was . . . this was why Nikolai had been training his ass. To prepare him for this exact thing. He just had to relax. Not fight it. Put on a show for this guy—he wanted to see Dougie beg and cry, so he’d beg and cry. He swallowed. Felt the blunt end of the bat slide up the back of his thigh.
Nikolai had prepared him for this. In some sick way, Nikolai was the one protecting him now.
“Lube, Mathias.”
Ohthankgod.
“What?” Yes, Mat did sound drugged. Dazed. Slow. Like he wasn’t quite all here. Dougie held on to that. Needed to believe it.
“Don’t pretend like you don’t keep a tube of it in your second dresser drawer. I’m your father, Mathias. I know these things.”
“Yes, Dad.” Dougie heard a sound that was unmistakably Mat getting up from his knees and shuffling in the direction of the little end table that had been set just so by the bed. The drawer opening and closing.
“Thank you, son.”
“Stop calling him that,” Dougie whimpered before he could stop himself. “Just stop it. Stop making us play along with your sick game. Just . . . if you’re going to rape me, just do it. But don’t . . . don’t make him . . .”
“You think this is a game, son?”
The bat cracked into the back of Dougie’s thighs, a thick, heavy thud that sank deep, so much worse than the belt. He screamed, reached down to clutch at his legs, the cramping muscles, but the man wedged a knee in his back again and pinned him down.
“Is that what you tell yourself? How you make it okay to seduce him? You tell yourself he’s not your brother?” He hit him again, crippling and loud, and for a minute Dougie could’ve sworn the fucker had broken his leg. And Mat . . . just stood there. The whole time. Doing nothing.
That hurt more than the fucking bat.
“You still think it’s a game?”
It took him a while to answer. The pain was so bad he could barely think. But maybe it was better that way, better not to have to think about Mat standing there doing nothing while some fucker beat him bloody and then raped him with a baseball bat. “N-no, sir,” he said, and then forced himself to add, “Dad,” though it made him sick, perverted those precious memories of the real thing, rare and sacred—what little remained of them, young as he’d been. Felt like a second death, somehow. As much a death as he felt at the sight of Mat standing by like a well-trained slave, broken, watching impassively as Dougie suffered.
God help him, he was so alone.
Except for Nikolai. Nikola
i, who hadn’t wanted to send him here, but who’d prepared him for it anyway. Who’d made sure it wouldn’t hurt him quite so much when the time came. Who’d helped him, in his own fucked-up way. Who’d held him when he’d cried. Who’d promised to love him. Who never looked away from Dougie’s suffering like it wasn’t happening.
The man brought Dougie’s wandering mind back sharply with a slap to his much-abused ass, and Dougie lurched and shouted beneath the man’s knee. Fingers parted his cheeks. Cold lube drizzled down his crack. Lots of it. One small kindness, at least. Or maybe Nikolai just wouldn’t abide the man tearing him. Yeah, probably that.
Which meant, again, that it was Nikolai protecting him.
And you refused him.
The hard roundness of the bat’s wide end touched his hole. At least three times as fat as the hilt on the other side was, much bigger than anything Nikolai had tried to prepare him with and oh God this was going to split him in half, rip him to shreds, he couldn’t he couldn’t—
“You gonna scream nice and loud for your brother to hear?”
The man didn’t wait for an answer.
Just shoved it in.
Dougie screamed.
White hot pain blanked out all thought. When he resurfaced, it was to his own screams. Screams in his head too: Nikolai didn’t prepare me for this nothing could prepare me for this it’s so much bigger than anything else and he’s tearing me I’m fucking tearing and Mat is just fucking standing there watching like this is some kind of fucking movie and it’s too big how is it going in is he going to put it all the way to the handle is that even possible—
Another shove, another scream. Something hot and wet ran down Dougie’s perineum, the back of his balls—bleeding oh Jesus Christ I’m bleeding he’s torn me fucking open it hurts it hurts make him stop God please Mat help me help me help me—
“Your brother’s a good boy, Douglas.” Shove. “He’s not”—shove—“going”—shove— “to help you.” Another shove, and over the blinding burning agony in his ass, he felt his gut cramp, screamed again, sobbed into the blankets, tried to escape but couldn’t move, couldn’t move at all and everything hurt so much and he was dying, he was sure of it, there was no way he could live through this much pain and the man was fucking rearranging his internal organs with a fucking baseball bat and he was bleeding, he was bleeding—
“Mr. Thompson, what are you doing to my boy?”
The bat jerked out of Dougie’s ass with a twist and a squelch and another white-hot blast of pain. The knee lifted from his back.
“I thought for the next five hours he was—”
The sound of a fist hitting a face. The baseball bat hit the floor.
Dougie was on fire, but not even the agony could tamp his relief at the knowledge that Mat was finally making a move, finally saving him—
No. Not Mat. Mat was still leaning against the dresser, watching Nikolai shake out his hand. Nikolai’s reddened knuckles. Nikolai had punched his own client. For me.
“You were borrowing him, which I allowed you to do out of the goodness of my heart and the generosity afforded me by my very privileged position. A position I have earned. A position I will now use to deny you any access to him again. You may not buy him. Not if that is how you plan to treat him.”
Dougie’s breath left his lungs in a hard, shuddery huff, settling the churning in his chest. He’d forgotten . . . Forgotten Nikolai had planned to sell him to this monster. Planned to let this man take him and Mat and do this to them all the time. But Nikolai wasn’t letting it happen. He was saving them from this terrible fate, and if Dougie hadn’t hurt so unbelievably much he would’ve fallen to his knees, sobbed all over Nikolai’s feet instead of this hateful bed and let him know how thankful he was. Shown him his gratitude, like Nikolai had wanted, like Nikolai deserved. Give him no reason to ever, ever, ever try to sell him again and every reason he possibly could to keep him. Let him know he’d try so hard now to be what Nikolai wanted him to be.
Because Mat wasn’t going to save him anymore, and he couldn’t save himself, and there was no one else to worry about them or look for them and if someone was going to rescue them, they’d have done it already. Nobody loved him at all anymore, no one but Nikolai, and so what if it was fucked-up love as long as it was love, was kindness, if Nikolai would protect him and care for him and not let anyone hurt him anymore.
A touch on his shoulders, and he cringed, whimpered, but it was just Nikolai, Nikolai with a blanket and stroking fingers and soothing words, Nikolai gathering him gently in his arms and cradling him to his chest, Nikolai carrying him out of this hellish place and back to his room, Nikolai laying him carefully on his belly on his bed and promising he’d be right back, he’d make him feel better, he wouldn’t leave him. Nikolai asking for forgiveness, apologizing for what that monster had done, even though Dougie knew it was true when Nikolai gently chided that it never would’ve happened if Dougie had just listened to him. Dougie promised never to do it again, to try his best to be good, always good, and this time when Nikolai kissed him it was right on the lips, chaste and paternal and loving and safe, and when Nikolai called him my good boy and gave him one last hug before stepping away to run him a bath, it didn’t feel dirty or wrong or scary at all.
It felt perfectly right.
Mat’s eyes drifted open. Tepid, pink-tinged bathwater lapped at his ears, cocooning him from any other sound, any other reality. He shivered. Cold. Not just cold. Frozen down to his bones, his organs. His head. Better that than remembering, though. Than feeling. Than thinking of Dougie.
He stretched out a leg, teeth clenched against the pain of moving, and pulled out the stopper with his toe. Watched blood and cum and spit and piss and water swirl down the drain. Snagged the towel off the toilet lid with two bruised fingers. Covered himself with it and curled up tight. He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here. Who’d run the bath or left the towel. Roger, maybe. Couldn’t even begin to contemplate getting up. Maybe not ever again.
What was the fucking point, anyway? He’d only get knocked down again. And it hurt worse and worse every fucking time. And there was nothing to get up for now, not with Dougie gone, with Dougie—
Mat choked down a sob and clutched the towel closer, playing over that nightmare scene in his head. The belt. The baseball bat. The blood. That awful hope in Dougie’s eyes snuffed out, extinguished with his faith, his trust. Gone forever. Dougie would never, ever forgive him.
What he’d broken between them could never be fixed. And he’d been punished for it, hadn’t he. God or fate or fuck-all knew, but what he’d done was wrong and someone up there had been watching and they’d let . . . He squeezed his eyes closed, sucked in a breath that set every inch of bone and skin and muscle in his back and chest screaming. They’d let that monster loose on him, let him . . . let him . . .
Don’t think about it. Just don’t.
Hard not to, though, when his body was so insistently reminding him of the punishment it’d taken. That he’d let it take. He’d sat there and done nothing, not fought back, not even resisted while that man had—
Because he’d deserved it, hadn’t he. Because fighting back meant hurting Dougie even more, maybe even meant killing him.
Because you couldn’t have won and you knew it. Not even Nikolai’s version of winning, not with that man. He’d wanted nothing but Mat’s pain, and not the kind Mat could even begin to fake.
Not that he’d had to once Nikolai had carried Dougie from the room and locked Mat and that monster in there alone together.
Another violent shiver ripped a moan from Mat’s throat. He curled up tighter. The porcelain of the tub was hard and chilly against his battered body, half brutally cruel, half icy relief. He couldn’t have moved if he’d wanted to, though. Best he could manage was to roll onto one hip, take some pressure off his ass and ribs and back, where the baseball bat and the buckle of that fucker’s belt had done the most damage.
His eyes drifted closed
again—his body craved sleep, needed sleep—but he lurched them open with a shout when he saw that fucking bat in the darkness, stained rust-red with Dougie’s blood, hurting Dougie in ways a bat should never be used and Dougie screaming for him, screaming as he watched and did nothing and then it was his turn next and he didn’t get off so easy, no Nikolai charging in to save his day, just him and the bat and that monster and all the time in the fucking world—
A hand touched his shoulder. His entire body jerked, but he was too weak to fight back. It was just Nikolai, anyway. Standing over him, bent at the waist. Hand on his shoulder. Gentle.
“What are you doing, Mathias?” Was that concern in his voice?
“Taking a bath.”
“There’s no water.”
“It got cold.” He hugged himself, suddenly unable to look Nikolai in the eye despite the rebellion in his words.
Silence, for a while. Awkward, horrible silence, and Mat just wished Nikolai would go away, just go away and let him suffer in peace.
“You did very well, Mathias. I came to thank you.”
Thank him? Mat turned his head, met Nikolai’s gaze and glared. It was all he could manage right now, and Jesus, he wished he could stop fucking shaking, but it’d have to be enough. Probably for the best. Were he any stronger, he’d have fucking decked the fucker. Consequences. “I was good,” he said. Practically begged, and he hated the way he sounded like a whining child, felt like one too, but he couldn’t help it. “I did exactly what you asked! Why did you—” He had to stop, swallow. He was so close to bursting into tears it was downright humiliating. “I played my part, didn’t I? Why did you let that man—” hurt me so much “—do those . . . those things to me? What did I do wrong?”
“You did nothing wrong. You played your part very, very well, Mathias. But . . .” Nikolai sighed. “The man you met tonight really is a valuable associate of mine. I had to give him something in trade for letting me play the savior for your brother. Your body for your brother’s, Mathias. Aren’t you glad you played such a crucial role in saving Douglas from more pain?”
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