Chapter Text
Despite Kurloz’s promises, as the weeks pass, Gamzee doesn’t show. You don’t hear a word from him and you can tell that the hope within the elder Makara has died as well.
Sometimes, when you’re lonely enough - scared and hopeless and wishing that you had never gotten out - you nestle against Kurloz on the couch and pretend.
He doesn’t say anything about it.
You don’t push it.
He isn’t Gamzee and it isn’t the same. You’re just thankful not to be alone.
You know that Gamzee would be pissed at you, using the freedom he won you just to mope around and sleep all day. What difference is that from the life you had been leading?
Sometimes you go out. It’s never for long. You’re too afraid of being caught and taken back to the ring.
You try to put your old life behind you.
But a single scrap of paper sends that all crashing down around you.
It was slipped under the door one night while you were asleep, and it’s there to greet you in the morning.
TO: KARKAT VANTAS
The angry purple letters stare you down from the doorway. You don’t want to open it. You don’t even want to touch it. But you have to.
Within it is only a website address and a smiling face in that same purple.
You type the url into your browser with your heart in your throat. You don’t know what you’re expecting to find, but when it prompts you for your name and accepts it with a cheerful ‘bing!’, the sight that greets you is something out of your most horrifying nightmares.
You don’t recognize him at first; it’s dark and he’s covered in red. But then a bright light turns on in the room and you can feel your insides sink.
He’s bound to a stretcher, legs and arms splayed out. His head is secured down and there’s a gag in his mouth. You can see fresh scratches and bruising on his dark flesh - everywhere. There’s nothing but the straps around his wrists, ankles, head and two over his torso to obstruct your view.
That’s when you see it. No. Him.
A monster of a man enters the picture and looks directly at the camera. Directly at you. You catch his eyes and you can tell that he’s staring right into your soul. The hair raises on the back of your neck and you can feel your skin getting goosebumps. You want to run - to get Kurloz - but you can’t. You’re frozen in your seat and as the seconds stretch into feeling like minutes, you feel yourself losing hope and power over the situation.
Much to your own mind’s dismay, you lean in closer to the computer screen.
"Don’t."
He can’t hear you.
"Please, stop!"
He still can’t hear you.
A smile spreads over lips that look oh so familiar - a cruel and sinister smile.
The figure turns his back to you and starts towards Gamzee. You jump up, almost out of your seat and grab the computer screen.
"No! Don’t touch him!"
Your eyes are welling now, panic in your voice.
He. Can’t. Hear. You.
The mottled purple bruises that cover your friend’s arms are a perfect fit to the other man’s fingers when Boss grabs him. It doesn’t take any stretch of the imagination to picture what’s been going on since you managed to get out.
"Guess what, boy?" His voice is deep and rough and even though he’s speaking into his son’s ear, you can hear him as clearly as if he were standing right beside you.
There’s no response from Gamzee and if it weren’t for the shallow rise and fall of his chest, you wouldn’t be sure he was even alive.
He grabs hard onto the younger Makara’s jaw and twists his head to face him. You can’t see Gamzee’s expression, but you can see the half healed brand on the side of his neck.
♑
His thumb forces its way into his son’s mouth alongside the gag and he yanks him to look at the camera. “Smile for your little whore friend…he’s watching.”
As those words echo through your speakers, you finally see some emotion from the lithe figure fastened to the table. He jerks, trying to pull from the larger man and you’re on your feet, holding on to the screen. You don’t know when the tears began to fall, but you’re looking around the room, as if there was a solution to your problem there.
A large hand undoes the restraints and Gamzee is hauled roughly to his feet, his legs not wanting to support his weight as he’s dropped onto the floor. His knees hit the ground hard and you flinch at the sight and the noise alike, but he doesn’t even blink.
"You remember the deal." Boss’ words aren’t a question. You can only imagine how long this has been going on. Was it immediate? Every day since you escaped? And that motherfucker probably knew something like this was going to happen.
"This isn’t what was supposed to happen,” You whisper at your computer screen desperately. You’re trying to bargain with a monster who can’t hear you.
Gamzee’s teeth are clenched hard against the ball that’s in his mouth and he looks like he’s got that spark of life back in his eyes, but he just hollowly nods his head instead.
"You know the drill."
Gamzee rubs at the restraint marks on his wrists and you flinch when you see just how raw the wounds really are. There’s old blood dried around his wrists - and his ankles too, you’re sure.
"You’re stalling." But it seems like his stubborn streak has paid off, because Boss unbuckles the gag with one hand and it drops to the concrete floor while Gamzee takes in a lungful of air like it’s been ages since he’s been able to breathe. "Let him hear you, then. See if I mother fuckin’ care."
Your friend doesn’t look at you - at the camera - when he lets his hand wander down his stomach and start stroking against his cock. He’s not even half hard, but since when has that ever stopped anyone in your line of ‘business’? Half the time when you were forced onto your stomach, you ended up getting off and that was good enough for them. Whether your mind had wanted it or not.
"Good boy." The words are a joke. "Show your mother fucking boyfriend how messed up you are. How much you like your own goddamn daddy.”
You can’t see Boss’ face, but you’ve been face to face with that lecherous leer too often to ever forget it.
"I don’t…—" His head is wrenched to the side by a massive hand grabbing his mess of hair, and whatever else Gamzee was going to say is cut off by gagging as Boss forces his son’s face against his groin.
"Don’t give a shit what you think, boy. Suck, or it’s goin’ in dry."
You can’t see it, but you can hear the wet noises as he obeys. You’re thankful for at least that much.
His father’s hand is tangled in his hair and you can hear Gamzee choke when he’s dragged forward, being used as little more than a toy. That’s all either of you were, though.
Gamzee doesn’t try to catch himself when he’s shoved backwards. He just lays on his back on the floor, sprawled there with his too long limbs all over the place. He’s like a puppet with his strings cut. That’s not Gamzee. He doesn’t look like that. He’s goofy and optimistic no matter what shit is going on with him. He’s your good side, goddammit!
"Spread ‘em."
No. No. You aren’t fucking watching this right now. He won’t do it. He’s better than that. Better than you even! He’s stupid but he’s still clever. He’s got to have a way out of this.
His eyes shut tight and he clenches his jaw when Boss moves over him and pulls a leg over his hip. You can tell that he’s trying to be quiet, but with the way he tenses and arches his back and bites his lower lip so hard it goes white, you know he hurts.
But he stays quiet. He doesn’t make a single noise while Boss fucks him against the concrete and grips him by the throat.
It doesn’t occur to you that maybe he isn’t making noise because he can’t.
You don’t realize what’s happening until his eyes are rolling back in his head and his mouth is opening and closing like a fish out of water and he’s clawing at Boss’ hand. The skin that you can see beneath the man’s hand is red and angry looking and now that you’re paying attention, you can see the pressure he’s putting onto Gamzee’s throat.
"Sh-Shit! Gamzee, you dumbass fucking clown, get him off of you!” You don’t care if you wake up Kurloz or the neighbors or anybody.
Boss lets up on him after a minute and Gamzee half sits up, making eye contact with the camera. With you. He smiles. Wide and content and exactly how he used to when you would grumble at him and try to tame his uncontrollable hair. But this time he lifts his hand and folds his middle two fingers against his palm while leaving the rest out.
You’ve seen that one before.
I love you.
There’s tears stinging your eyes and you’re mouthing the words back at him and with the way he grins, you can almost swear that he saw you. Your shaking fingertips press against the screen as if you can touch him and save him the same way that he managed to save you.
You don’t see it, but you hear the sickening crack of bone and when Boss gets off of him and stands up, Gamzee’s body is an unmoving heap on the stained floor. The smile is gone off his face and his eyes are open and vacant and —
You’re going to be sick.
This isn’t real.
The camera shuts off seconds before you scream and shove your computer onto the floor.
This didn’t just happen.
He isn’t. He’s not.
That can’t be the truth. You don’t want it to be. It should have been you instead.
You just want to trade places with him.
All you want is to hear his voice. To hear him reassure you again that it’ll be just motherfucking fine, bro.
But it isn’t gonna be fine.
It’s never going to be fucking okay ever again.