by T. J. Hamel
Just a little farther.
Just a little farther.
“Car-ter,” sir singsongs. “Where are you?”
“I’m coming!” Carter tries to yell, but his throat is too raw. All that comes out of him is a strangled cry that tastes metallic on his tongue.
Then he bursts forward into the light.
Sir is there, standing in his low-slung sweatpants and faded shirt, looking tousled and relaxed and so fucking sexy. He smiles at Carter, offering a hand. Happiness blooms in Carter’s chest as he takes it.
They’re standing in a field. There are daffodils as far as the eye can see. It’s all blue sky and green grass and yellow flowers.
The air is fresh.
The wind is the perfect cool temperature as it kisses his warm skin.
He’s not hungry.
He’s not thirsty.
Everything is perfect.
Everything is safe.
Something moves in the daffodils, bright yellow rippling. Carter doesn’t approach with caution. He just smiles and goes forward. Hopeful. Naïve. This place is too pure for something bad to happen. He’s not afraid.
There’s a body in the daffodils.
Naked.
Bloody.
Carter stands there for a moment, trying to figure out what he’s seeing. Trying to make sense of it.
“Casey?”
“Carter!” Casey sobs, trying to look at him. Something is happening to him. Something… not right. As Carter stands there watching, Casey’s body begins to bruise and break. The marks bloom angry on his flesh. A rainbow of pain.
But no one is touching him.
“C-Carter… help me.”
“I can’t – I – there’s no-” Carter gasps for air, feeling a spin of panic. “Who’s hurting you, Case? Who is it? How do I help?”
Carter sobs as he watches more injuries bloom on his friend’s body. In desperation, he throws himself over Casey, trying to cover him, to protect him from whoever is attacking him. “Stop! Leave him alone!”
This can’t be happening.
This can’t be happening.
Carter has to save him! He failed the first time, but he can do it now. He can fix this. He can save Casey. He can. He knows it.
He just – he doesn’t know how.
“Stop it!” Carter begs as Casey’s body continues jerking beneath him. “Don’t hurt him! Stop hurting him! Hurt me!”
Casey looks at Carter, his eyes fading, going lifeless. A tear runs down his cheek. It’s bloody. “You left me, Carter. Why did you do that? Why’d you leave me?”
“I’m sorry!” Carter sobs, clinging to Casey harder. “I’m so sorry!”
Something comes around Carter’s waist. An arm. Heavy. Secure. Too strong. He’s pulled away from Casey, sir whispering things like, “Shhh,” and, “You’re alright, sweetheart,” and, “Just breathe for me,” as he drags Carter away from his dying friend. Carter tries to reach out for Casey, fingertips brushing the silky soft petals of the daffodils.
“Casey!”
“You chose me,” sir whispers. “Remember?”
“But – but I – I – but-”
Sir puts him on his feet. He takes Carter’s face in his hands. The smile he offers Carter is so damn soft. Genuine. Loving. He runs a thumb along the curve of Carter’s cheek, eyes looking at Carter like he’s never seen something so beautiful. “Stay with me, sweetheart. Please. Don’t think about him. Be mine. Just mine. All mine.”
Carter opens his mouth to argue, to beg, but sir is no longer in front of him. He whips around, heart pounding as he prays the man didn’t leave him too.
He finds sir standing over Casey. He has his arm outstretched, a closed fist hovering in the air above Casey’s body. When Carter takes a step towards them, sir lifts his head. He grins at Carter. Then he opens his hand and pours daffodil petals over Casey’s body. They cover him completely, filling his mouth, choking him, burying him alive.
“Casey!”
Carter dives for his friend, needing to help him, needing to fucking save him, but sir grabs him around the waist and keeps him out of reach. Carter keeps reaching, keeps trying, but every time he pulls back his hands, they’re covered in blood-stained daffodils. “Sir, help him, please!”
He looks at sir as he begs, but sir just stares at Casey in boredom. When Carter looks back, he sees that Casey isn’t alone anymore. Elliot is there now. He’s kneeling beside Casey in the grass, his own body a rainbow of pain. His eyes are dead, his expression blank.
Elliot looks up at Carter, his voice monotone as he says, “He’ll be okay.”
“No!” Carter screams. “He’s dying, Elliot. Help him. He’s fucking dying!”
“It’ll be okay.”
“Elliot!”
“It’ll be okay,” the boy says again. Then he grins, a wicked, twisted thing that looks wrong and foreign among the dead features of his body. Daffodil petals begin pouring from his mouth. “It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay, it’ll be okay.”
“He’s dying!” Carter sobs. “They’re both dying!”
“It’s okay,” sir whispers, holding him close, rocking him back and forth. “It’s okay, now. You’re okay. I’m right here.”
“I’m so sorry!” Carter sobs.
He sobs in frustration. In grief. In guilt.
He sobs for Casey. For Elliot.
He screams for them. Begs for them.
For himself.
Carter blinks, and he’s no longer in the field of daffodils.
He’s with sir in the dungeon, tied down to something he can’t see, and he’s begging sir to stop, stop, please, god, stop.
Sir just swings the toy in his hand again, hitting Carter with it. A flogger. A flogger whose leather trusses have been replaced with razor sharp daffodils.
Oh god, they fucking hurt when they hit him. Each strike draws blood.
Carter shrieks. Sobs. Begs.
“You fucking asked for this,” sir reminds him. “You picked me over your own friends. You let those boys fucking die because you wanted this!”
“No!” Carter shakes his head rapidly. That’s not what he wanted. That’s not what he wanted. “Stop, please, stop!”
“Do you want to go back? Should I put you in the dark again?”
Carter just sobs.
Sir laughs.
He keeps beating Carter. He beats him over and over. He beats him until he’s bled everything out, his veins no longer pouring red liquid. Instead, Carter is bleeding daffodil petals.
Hazy with pain, Carter lolls his head to the side. His tear-filled eyes catch sight of a man behind sir. He’s standing a foot or so behind sir, but to the side, so his view isn’t disrupted. He’s wearing his high school football jersey and faded jeans, a worn-out blue baseball cap backwards on his head. When he sees Carter looking at him, he just lifts his chin in acknowledgement. His face remains impassive.
“Maison?” Carter gasps. “Maison, help me!”
“It’s okay, baby brother. Just be good for him.”
Sir hits Carter again.
Again.
Again.
The petals are pouring down his body in rivulets now, leaving black goo in their wake. “Maison! Please, please, please, oh god, please help me! Fucking help me!”
“You’re not behaving, Carter,” Maison chides. “Behave!”
“W-what? No. I – Maison, please. Please help me!”
Maison sighs heavily. Then, “Just hit him harder, Roarke. He obviously needs to learn.”
Carter slumps in his restraints, his breath rushing from his lungs in a sob. “Why won’t you save me?”
“Why the fuck would I?” Maison grunts in disgust. “You’re a fucking cock slut, baby brother. You’re useless. Pathetic. Why would I want you anymore? Why would I ever want a brother like you?”
“M-Maison?” Carter gasps, positive he’s misunderstanding.
“You like this. You want him.” Maison sneers. “You’ve let them ruin
you.”
“No!” Carter shakes his head furiously, desperate for Maison to believe him. “I don’t like him. I don’t. I promise.”
“Don’t lie, baby brother.”
“All he does is lie,” Casey tells Maison, suddenly standing beside his brother now, still covered in daffodils, his eyes creepily blank. “He fell in love with that sick bastard. Can’t you see it? Watch. You can tell.”
“I don’t love him!”
“Shhh, sweetheart,” sir whispers, stroking his tear-soaked cheek. The flogger is gone. The petals. The blood. The pain. “Open up for sir. Be good for me.”
Carter exhales in relief, sagging back against whatever it is he’s tied to. His eyes fall closed as sir presses his cock into him. It feels good. So damn good.
“That’s it, sweetheart.” Sir presses kisses to his shoulder. His throat. His lips. He pants against Carter’s mouth. “Christ, you take my cock so well, sweetheart. You’re so fucking perfect for me.”
Oh god.
Oh god, they’re right. Maison. Casey. Elliot. They’re right.
Carter likes this.
He’s fucked up.
Ruined.
Disgusting and pathetic.
“Sir,” Carter sobs, shaking his head. “Sir, please, I don’t know what to do…”
“You’re doing it,” sir coos. “Don’t you see? All you have to do is please me. Be good for me. Just let everything go, let it all go, and be good for me. It’s that easy, sweetheart. Nothing else for you to worry about. No reason to be upset. Just be mine. Please be mine.”
Carter nods. He wants that. He wants to be sir’s.
Sir shifts over Carter, and they’re suddenly in sir’s bedroom. Harry Potter’s voice is in the background. He’s talking about the sex trade. About Stockholm Syndrome. About abuse victims and PTSD. Snape is arguing with him. He’s saying people sometimes love people they shouldn’t, but that doesn’t make their love wrong.
“Sir…”
“Shhh. Just trust me. Let go and trust me, sweetheart. It’ll be okay.”
“It’ll be okay,” Elliot echoes, now hovering strangely in the air above them, eyes white like Casey’s had been in the dungeon.
Casey is beside him. He’s a second echo. “It’ll be okay.”
Then Maison, standing there staring at Carter in betrayal and disgust. “It’ll be okay.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“It’ll be okay.”
“It’ll be okay,” sir gasps, pushing Carter’s legs harder against his chest, fucking into him faster, each movement steady and sexy and pushing Carter closer to an orgasm. “It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay, it’ll be okay.”
Casey is fading. Elliot too.
Maison already left.
“Casey!” Carter sobs. “Elliot! Stay here, stay with me!”
“You chose him,” Casey says in betrayal.
“You left us,” Elliot adds.
Carter tries to escape sir, needing to get to his friends. Needing to find his brother. But sir holds him too close, too tight, not letting him go.
“I don’t know what to do!” Carter sobs, sagging into the mattress in defeat. “I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do!”
“Shhh, sweetheart,” sir whispers, holding him close, fucking into him nice and slow. “Shhh. You don’t have to do anything. You’re okay. I have you now.”
Carter tries to get away. Tries to fight sir. He thrashes and swings and kicks. “Casey! Elliot!” he screams as he fights, wanting the boys to see that he’s trying to get to them. He’s trying to help them. They just have to hold on a little longer.
But Elliot is dead, limp in Casey’s arms, and Casey is wavering on his feet, eyes falling shut.
“Casey! Casey!”
Sir holds Carter too close, his arms sandwiched almost painfully between his chest and sir’s. “Stop it! You’re going to hurt yourself, sweetheart.”
“Casey!” Carter sobs, throwing his head back in grief as he gives into sir’s hold. “Casey, I’m so sorry!”
He doesn’t see it, but he hears it when Casey dies. The final gasp. The muffled sound of petals hitting the floor. The heavy thump of a body following.
“I’m sorry,” Carter cries. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”
◆◆◆
“Shhh, sweetheart,” Nathan whispers again, relieved that the boy has at least stopped fighting him now. When he had first woken, Carter had been in the middle of punching and kicking at the air, screaming for someone named Casey. Someone named Elliot. He was sobbing. Pleading. “I don’t know what to do!” he kept saying, thrashing his head back and forth in pure agony. “I don’t know what to do!”
While Nathan had fought to get Carter under control, the boy had continued yelling, mostly just for Casey then. He was desperate to get to Casey, it seemed. It took forever before he finally gave up and went limp in Nathan’s arms, but now he’s finally calmed down, reduced to nothing but softly cried apologies.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry-” the boy continues whispering, his body trembling from the exertion of his fight with Nathan, as well as the overwhelming emotions he’s clearly experiencing. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry-”
“Shhh,” Nathan repeats. “Hush, now. Sir has you. You’re okay. You’re okay, sweetheart.”
“I’m sorry,” Carter whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
“Sweetheart.” Nathan shifts Carter in his arms, gently shaking him to try and pull him from the nightmare. This needs to end now. The boy has suffered in his own mind long enough. “Sweetheart, wake up now. Come back to sir. Wake up.”
Carter buries his face in Nathan’s neck and sobs harder, still apologizing.
And then…
Then he says something else.
Something that stops Nathan dead in his tracks.
“I’m sorry I picked him, Casey. I’m sorry I picked sir over you…”
Nathan is still trying to process what the fuck that could possibly mean when the boy finally goes quiet, his breathing evening out, his crying coming to an end. He relaxes into Nathan’s hold as he begins to sleep peacefully.
It takes everything in Nathan to keep from waking Carter up. He wants to demand Carter tell him what the dream was about. He wants to know who Casey is. Who Elliot is. He wants to know what the fuck Carter meant when he apologized for picking Nathan over Casey. But all of that is selfish. It’s none of his business. He’s taken enough from Carter. He doesn’t need to invade the privacy of his dreams, too. And he sure as hell doesn’t need to steal whatever peaceful sleep he manages to get.
Nathan carefully rolls Carter onto his back, settling the boy among the pillows, putting his moose in his hand, and pulling the blankets up to tuck him in. He presses a soft kiss to his forehead, whispering an apology.
Unable to stand another minute in the room, Nathan shoves out of bed and grabs a random shirt from his dresser before leaving. He doesn’t care that he gets a ton of strange looks from his men. He doesn’t care that even a few house slaves double-take at him. He doesn’t care that he’s fucking bare foot in sweatpants and a cotton t-shirt walking through a house he usually never sets foot in except when he’s in one of Nathan’s suits of armor. All he cares about is the bottle of whiskey he knows is in a drawer in his office, and he wants it.
He makes it there without incident, heading to the compound’s gym next. He’s already taking swigs of the alcohol as he walks. Each one burns away some of the ache in his chest that’s developed ever since he first set eyes on Carter Beckett.
Two of his men are in the gym when he enters, one spotting the other as they lift weights. Both pause when they see him, holding perfectly still, staring at him like he’s an anomaly. Nathan usually works out early in the morning every day, at least before Carter was here, and it was made clear that he doesn’t like working out with others, so everyone always avoided the gym at that time of day. Now these men clearly don’
t know what to do with the fact that Nathan is suddenly here in the afternoon.
Nathan takes another gulp of whiskey, raising an eyebrow at the idiots. “Well? Get the fuck out.”
They scramble, nearly tripping to get away from him fast enough.
After setting the speaker system to a playlist full of music angry enough to match his own raging emotions, Nathan sets his bottle down on the sparring mat beside a heavy bag. He should wrap his hands, but he won’t. He deserves the pain of the leather scraping his knuckles raw and the throb of his knuckles hitting the bag of sand. Nathan needs to bruise and bleed, just like Carter.
He pounds his fists into the bag over and over, trying to escape Carter. Trying to escape the feelings he’s developing for the sweet boy, to escape the overwhelming amount of Travis Carter always manages to coax out of him no matter how hard Nathan tries to stay in control.
But the boy haunts him.
I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.
I’m sorry.
I’m sorry I picked him, Casey.
I’m sorry I picked sir over you…
Nathan doesn’t even realize the music has been turned low until he stops to take a swig of whiskey. He turns, expecting to find some idiot he can take his anger out on. Turns out it’s worse.
Benny.
“I don’t want to talk,” he growls.
“Too bad.” Benny crosses his arms and frowns at him. He reminds Nathan of an angry old man. Nathan snorts at the thought, almost asking Benny if he’s in trouble for walking on his lawn. Benny arches an eyebrow at him. “What’s so funny?”
Nathan laughs harder, shaking his head. “My fucking life.”
Benny frowns. “Nate-”
“Have you ever seen Harry Potter?”
Clearly confused, it takes Benny a moment to respond.
Nathan uses the opportunity to drink more whiskey.
Finally, carefully, Benny says, “I’ve read the books.”
“Of course you have, you fucking book nerd.” Nathan snorts. Then he frowns at his bottle. “I should get Carter the books.”
“Nathan!” Benny growls, walking forward quickly until they’re just inches away from each other.
Eyes wide, Nathan leans towards his friend and dramatically whispers, “Benny!”