Brother, My Tormenter [Vaughan/Arthur]

[Arthur W. Kirkland]

☒ Vaughan Rees ✐ 657 ✉ got inspired uvu MADE BY MEULK OF GS

It wasn’t long after having been caught and brought back into the Underground that the vast majority of administration opted for solitary confinement for the mutant who had attempted escape in the past (once before, to their knowledge.) He also wasn’t exactly known for being the most compliant of purchases on the auctioning block, which had also earned him the punishment of solitary confinement. It was probably added pleasure to the Underground staff that his kneecaps had been destroyed, added penalty for his grave offenses, no doubt. After having been toted into the specialised cell, Arthur was tossed onto the cot while they added the multitude of restraints, as if a mutant who couldn’t walk really had any chance of escaping from solitary confinement. Unlike the other times he’d been here, he didn’t resist. The sooner they made themselves feel safer with the restraints, the quicker they would leave him alone. As much as Arthur refused to acknowledge the fact, it was a steady conditioning. At the moment, his thoughts were too plagued by recent events to care what they might do to him. He wanted to know what they were going to do to Mihai; the depth of the trouble that he potentially was in at the moment. And it was all on his account—that’s what made this entire affair all the more bitter. As often as Arthur attempted to tell the guards that had handled him on the way back to the Underground that he had attacked Mihai, and was attempting to force him to give him aid, his words likely fell on deaf ears. Who listened to mutants? Their words were useless dribble. And so, eventually, Arthur fell silent, keeping his turbulent thoughts to himself, and trying to endure the immense pain left behind from shattered bone and torn muscle and skin. After they’d finished with their restraints, they did a botched job of covering the open wounds with bandages, probably trying to protect the cheap mattress on the cot from being soaked with his blood. A bucket was placed next to the cot where he’d already retched a couple times, so they wouldn’t have to clean the floors later. They didn’t say a word to him, leaving the room and locking it. The window at the top of the door was his only window outside this cell, and it mostly consisted of a guard occasionally peeking in to see that the currently disabled mutant was properly chained to the cot. Arthur only heard from the occasional words being passed between guards that they were looking for a healer. The only one that could fix his damaged knees was a mutant healer, though she wouldn’t be back from her contract until tomorrow morning. They seemed half annoyed, but perhaps also half amused that he would be enduring the pain just that much longer. He paid very little attention to them, only curled up as best as he could, a clammy sweat forming over his pasty brow. The pain had grown unbearably, but he wasn’t going to say a word about it. And despite his stubbornness to not allow it to show, he looked about as lively as a slug on its last leg. The blood at soaked through the piss poor bandages and was staining the cot mattress red, but he didn’t move. Arthur was curled up on his side with his arms tight across his torso, staring blankly ahead at the concrete wall. He was hot to the touch, but he felt cold, a sheen of perspiration over his skin. The hair over his forehead was starting to grow sticky from it, but he allowed his thoughts to drift, disassociating from the throb in his legs, the burn in his throat as he tried to keep from retching again. There was nothing left to retch. There was nothing else he could do. Nothing left to think. Nothing left to feel.