chapter 9 (full chapter) 𖦹

yay, a full chapter!! personally this one is my fav of the ones I've written so far but I'll leave that up to personal judgement. This is set in November of 1993, so a few months after the original kidnapping. The frequent physical violence gradually subsided, and they've settled into some horrible sort of routine. Iosif now seeks almost nothing but closeness and survival, while Alastair is extremely uncomfortable with Iosif seeming to fear him less, and at the same time craves violence. Hence, the decisions he makes here. enjoy!

CW: implied Stockhold Syndrome, kidnapping, drugging, descriptive violence (not extreme but not pleasant either), threats of violence

Alastair settles on the couch, the dim lights casting shadows around the room. At first the passing of time had been blurry, but now little things—the shadows getting longer more quickly, the lights being on more often, the blankets that presented themselves on the couch—had made Iosif realise autumn had passed and left way for its more biting successor.

Alastair pulls the blanket around himself and picks up a book, action Iosif has grown accustomed to witnessing. He follows like a puppy, as always. He crawls up next to the other man and rests his head on Alastair's chest, listening to his breathing, the reassuring reminder that there's a human in that hollow rib cage.

He bites and scratches the tips of his fingers quietly, a habit developed steadily. They'd grown gnarled and scarred, they were always on the brink of bleeding.

Alastair had noticed a couple of weeks after it had started, of course he had. Iosif knew when a small roll of bandages had appeared on the bedside table beside “his” side of the bed. He hadn't taken it; who knows what could have lurked behind the simple gesture? A few days later Alastair had given up without mentioning it, and the roll of bandages was removed.

His attention is snapped back to the present moment when he notices Alastair shift a little, as if restless. His heart immediately starts to pick up, though he doesn't move.

He waits, alert and with bated breath.

Slowly he lets himself relax again, as Alastair doesn't move. Except then he does, and this time Iosif's heart really does race, he feels it in his throat. He glances up at Alastair and feels a dull surge of dread when he catches the other staring at him.

He opens his mouth to speak, but before he's able to, Alastair sits up and puts the book down—no bookmark, as always; Iosif had learnt Alastair memorises the page he's up to. 

Iosif's gaze follows the book for a moment, then snaps back up to Alastair. He's taking the coat off his hanger, putting it on. His spindly hand hovers over the pack of cigarettes sitting on the usual cabinet before deciding against it, and now Iosif knows something is definitely wrong, because this means the man isn't just going out for a breath of fresh air, he has a purpose, and that could go many ways, not so many of them good—

Alastair opens the door.

Iosif opens his mouth and regrets it.

“Where are you going?” he blurts out.

Alastair's stare is icy like it hadn't been for a while. Iosif withers like a trampled flower in response.

“Out. You may go to sleep whenever you wish.” Don't wait for me, I'll be back late.

Iosif hesitates but nods a little. “Oka-”

The door is shut without waiting for an answer.

The house is awfully quiet. Not that it was ever loud with Alastair around, the man despised noise almost as much as he did people. But it always felt quieter when he wasn't there. Empty of his dreadful presence.

Iosif curls back up onto the couch, where Alastair had been sitting, and wraps himself in the blanket. He runs a hand absently over the spine of Alastair’s book, tracing the pretty ridges in the leather binding. He glances up at the clock before remembering it's frozen. It happened a while ago, to all the clocks in the house, suspiciously; Alastair hadn't fixed them, Iosif hadn't questioned it. Perhaps Alastair didn't want to bother Iosif with a futile concept like time. Iosif doesn't mind so much.

He lets the faint warmth of the couch and the blanket lull him to sleep, making up for the absence of the soft ticking of the clocks by imagining it. He also imagines Alastair's voice. The latter isn't intentional.

It doesn't take long for him to wake back up, having grown unused to sleeping for long. He pulls the blanket closer around himself, trying to hold onto the soft comfort of the drowsiness, but it slips away from him eventually. He sits up a little, looking around. The house is in the same condition it was in when he left it in favour of unconsciousness. Alastair still isn't back. He decides to take a look at Alastair’s book—surely he wouldn't notice. He opens it to a random page. It’s in a language he doesn’t understand, he dimly thinks it might be French. He sets the book back down and sheds the blanket before standing back up, wandering across the dim living room, across the even dimmer hallway, and to the kitchen. He walks around the table once, twice, aimlessly. He leans on it for a moment, looking around the kitchen for a spark of interest. It doesn't grace him.

He walks out and up the stairs, without bothering to turn the light on—his eyes stay away from the flight of stairs that leads downward, he doesn't want to think of that—and up into the bathroom. Here he doesn't wander aimlessly; with Alastair, he never likes being watched, analysed. Ergo, he tries not to stare at the other man, or ask too much, or do too much. And especially, he avoids acknowledging what Alastair does to him. That gives Alastair power, he hates when Alastair feels that way. Alastair has been hurting him less recently, and the last thing Iosif wants to do is draw the man's attention to the temptation of sinking his claws into vulnerable flesh.

But Alastair isn't here.

Iosif stands in front of the mirror and stares. For the first time in however long he's been stuck within these walls, he stares.

He clamps his hand over his mouth and gags. The nausea doesn't pass. He stumbles to the toilet and barely manages to bend over it before emptying the contents of his stomach until he's dry heaving because he's barely eaten, there isn't enough in him to compensate for the disgust at his image.

He stays bent over the bowl, breathing shallowly. Sweat clamps his hair to the back of his neck, his throat feels tight. He shakily stands back up and makes his way back to the mirror. Each step feels leaden.

He works the courage to look in the glass back up.

He lets his eyes trail across the least repulsive changes, first; his hair has grown a little longer and looks duller, the curls no longer frame his face as nicely. 

Then he lets his eyes rake across the rest. He almost gags again. The left side of his face is disfigured by the scars he'd almost let himself forget about. The skin looks raw, it looks like it's been pulled taut over his muscles. And his eye—he knew it was no longer functional, after all he hadn't been able to see out of it even after he'd taken off the bandages… but this. Where it should have rested in his socket is nothing but an odd, scarred cavity, with skin pulled across it. Numb, as Alastair had pointed out.

Iosif reaches up and, with a shaking hand, runs his fingers over the scar, over where his eye should be. It feels so wrong under his fingertips, he can't stand the way his skin doesn't feel like it's attached to the muscles beneath. He pulls away, not wanting to make himself ill again.

His thoughts suddenly well up with the overwhelming desire to cover himself, his entire body, hide the way he's so thin his skin looks stretched over his bones, hide the way his face looks like a caricature of a nightmare. He opens the cabinets above the sink and searches almost frantically for the roll of bandages Alastair had left him for his hands. Just as his hand closes around it, he hears the familiar sound of the key in the lock of the front door, and his heart drops.

He lets go of the roll of bandages as if it had burnt him and barely closes the cabinet before rushing out of the bathroom and to the stairs, in time to hear the door close.

He stops. He feels like his heart does too.

Alastair isn't alone.

There's a man slung over his shoulder, shorter than Alastair. More human looking. The man's feet drag across the ground; he's unconscious.

Iosif feels like every nerve in his body is screaming at him to run away. Not from Alastair, but from the man. It's been so long—or at least it feels like it has—since Iosif has spoken to someone. Anyone at all, other than Alastair. He doesn't know what to do.

He walks down the stairs with unsteady steps, meanwhile Alastair had propped the unconscious man on a cabinet beside the entrance to hang up his coat. The man looks like a sad doll.

“... Alastair?” Iosif tries quietly, his chest thrumming with dread.

Alastair ignores him and picks the man back up, this time carrying him the way he'd carry a child. The knot in his stomach starts kneading into something akin to jealousy, but that stops abruptly when he sees Alastair heading for the other staircase. Down.

“Alastair?” he tries again, a little more urgently. He feels like clawing his own throat out.

Alastair finally stops for a moment.

“If you have not eaten yet, I will dine with you in a moment.”

He doesn't acknowledge the body in his arms.

Iosif stays silent as Alastair disappears into the basement. He stands still for a few moments, shell shocked. He sits down at the top of the stairs, dangling his legs a little. Waiting. Trying not to think. Except the task proves more difficult than expected, and anxiety and guilt gnaw at his insides. He bites the ends of his fingers, wincing when his teeth abrade the raw skin, but continuing.

It quickly becomes too much to bear. He would be fine with waiting for Alastair forever, he thinks, but there was another person. Someone else, maybe alive.

He slowly walks down the stairs, wishing he actually were the shadow he so often envisions himself as, and could avoid producing noise.

The man is tied to a chair, his head hangs limp on his chest, his hair curtaining his eyes. Iosif's eyes dart around the dim room and find Alastair perched by a cabinet, sorting through something. Alastair's eyes land on Iosif for a second, but he doesn't say anything. He turns back to whatever was busying him.

So that means Iosif is allowed to watch.

He sits at the bottom of the stairs, staring at the man. He's quite slight, but his cheeks and neck, all the visible parts of his body, look healthier than Iosif's. Fuller. His hair is wavy, it frames his face nicely. It's a soft, greyish brown.

At this point Alastair walks back to the man and kneels in front of him, so he can look at the man's face. He's holding a scalpel. He leans forward and rests his head in the man's lap for a few moments, almost with fascination, tranquillity. It was so gut-wrenchingly strange to see Alastair’s adoration for the morbose from an outside perspective.

Alastair stands back up and runs a hand through the man's hair, standing much closer than what would be considered innocent. He pulls the man's head up, so he can observe it. The man's head lifts and lolls to the side. Alastair uses his other hand to hold the man's face and keep him straight, the flat of the scalpel’s blade pressing into his cheek. Iosif's stomach lurches.

The man's eyes are barely open, but they're bleary and hazy. He doesn't respond to Alastair’s gentle-but-cold touch. His mouth hangs open a little.

Iosif finds his thoughts racing. This is odd. Alastair enjoyed torture, Iosif knew that as much as he didn't like to dwell on it. But he also remembers the first few days at the house with horrible clarity. And he knows he wasn't drugged. And he knows that Alastair wants to break the minds of his sorry dolls, not just the bodies. It isn't torture for the sake of torture.

He watches as Alastair drags the blade across the man's face, eliciting quiet moans from him, making him weakly squirm against his restraints. Why didn't Alastair want to hear the screaming? The pleading? All the little things only a man trained to see could spot?

Alastair's blade traces the left side of the man's face; down his forehead, onto the side of his nose—avoiding his eye, thank God, Iosif doesn't think he would have been able to stomach that— then across his cheek, and beside his mouth. Rivulets of blood decorate the man's face, catching in his brows and lashes, spilling onto his lips. Alastair watches with rapt attention before pressing those cadaveric fingers into the wound, tracing it harshly. The man flinches and instinctively tries to pull away, even through his haze. Alastair keeps the hand firmly in his hair and holds the weak soul still.

He lets go of him. Iosif finds himself letting out a quiet sigh of relief. Alastair retrieves a small medicine bottle from the cabinet before returning to the man. Iosif's stomach sinks when the victim's face is no longer obscured by Alastair’s figure for a moment. His hand covers the scars on his face, not wanting to let the man see—though he’s probably too far out of it to make the connection anyway; the cut on his face traces the outline of Iosif's disfigurements. The man himself resembles Iosif.

Iosif turns away, burying his face in his arms. He doesn't want to leave, but he can't bear to see.

He hears Alastair’s voice, quiet, almost a murmur.

“Open your mouth, there, that will make the pain go away… good.”

Then he hears footsteps coming towards him. A hand on his arm, firm. Come on.

He pulls himself back to his feet and follows Alastair back up the stairs without looking back at the man. Again, like a dog, he trails after him. His eyes stay glued to the steps beneath him, only sometimes straying to Alastair. Despite the anxiety churning in his gut, he can't bring himself to long for anything other than Alastair's arms, shielding him from the nightmare of his own making. Both that, and answers, a small more intact part of his mind screams.

“Alastair?” he tries once more, and once more is met with silence as he follows Alastair into the kitchen. This time, though, Iosif feels he has the man's attention. “Why did… why did you bring him here?”

“For the same reason you are here.”

Iosif pushes away all the implications that holds.

“But he… you drugged him…?” Iosif prompts softly.

Alastair turns to him fully, leaning back against the countertop.

“Your point?” The tone is dangerously final.

Iosif takes a tentative step forward, perhaps to appeal to the recent closeness they had developed in hopes of calm, or perhaps with the want to end the conversation in favour of more comfortable silence. Either way, he stops with ice in his gut when Alastair's gaze hardens at the movement.

Iosif opens and closes his mouth soundlessly, searching for words. Alastair watches silently. Harsh.

“You didn't drug me, when you… when you first brought me here. I mean, you did, but only to actually bring me, not once I was here…” Iosif attempts to explain. He realised it sounded so stupid now that he said it out loud, so childish. Whatever thought there was behind the notion withers away.

“I never said he and you were the same,” Alastair replies in a clipped tone.

“No, I know, but—” He cuts off and cowers when Alastair suddenly steps closer, immediately choking out quiet apologies for anything and everything.

Alastair doesn't do anything. He simply walks to the other side of the kitchen, looking through a cupboard for bowls. Iosif forces out a breath in relief. He trails after Alastair after a moment, reaching a trembling hand out to his arm.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers. “I'm sorry, it's none of my business. I won't ask about it.” Silence. His voice grows even quieter. “Can we please act like I never asked?”

Alastair doesn't reply as he stands and sets two bowls on the table, opposite each other. He doesn't reply as he gets cutlery and glasses. He doesn't reply as he pours lukewarm broth into both bowls. He doesn't reply as he puts the pot back on the countertop, nor as he sits down.

“Sit,” he finally says in that hideous, flat monotone.

Iosif pulls out the chair to comply, wincing at the noise. He brings his fingers to his mouth, biting at the marred tips. Alastair stares at that. Iosif can't quite bring himself to feel humiliated enough to stop.

“Eat,” Alastair invites, with a small gesture to Iosif's bowl.

The other nods a little, bringing a shaky spoonful to his mouth. The broth is of a sickly warmth. The flavor falls flat. Iosif's throat feels knotted, his stomach the same, his hands trembling and clammy.

“I'm not very hungry,” he whispers without looking up at Alastair, putting his spoon down. The soft noise it makes when Iosif sets it on the table feels like pots clanging in his mind.

“You should eat.”

That, at least, didn't sound as harsh as the rest. Iosif wishes he had a way to let Alastair know that he was thankful for the crumb of care. He settles on inflicting upon himself a moment of eye contact, trying to give Alastair a softer look. He shakes his head a bit. He couldn't possibly force the tepid liquid down his throat without feeling sick.

“Very well.”

Alastair stands again, putting both bowls on the counter. He hadn't even touched his own, he'd simply set it in front of himself, in a mimic to what a human would do. Iosif briefly mourns the beating heart and breathing lungs he'd felt in Alastair's ribcage.

“You should eat too,” he blurts out.

Alastair doesn't falter in his movements, simply glancing at Iosif.

“I am not very hungry,” he repeats back.

Iosif turns his eyes away again. That was the end of that.

Alastair sits back down, across from Iosif on the empty table. He stares for a moment in silence, making Iosif feel naked. That was alright, he'd gotten used to not belonging to himself.

“Tell me your thoughts,” Alastair says, still staring. Iosif feels himself deflate. Routine, yes. But he really didn't feel like having to weigh what to say and what to keep. Much, much too tired. He may as well appease Alastair.

“I'm tired. I don't understand why you've brought the man. I… think I wish you hadn't. I'm not ready for change. It frightens me.”

A beat of silence.

“That is all?”

Iosif nods a little. “Yes,” he croaks. “I think so.”

“Very well,” Alastair says, standing again. “If you grow hungry, the broth is there. I'll be on the balcony.”

Iosif doesn't bother to try to put thoughts together, he stands and follows Alastair automatically, head hung, walking a step behind him as always. He reaches out a hand, still trembling, gently grasping a couple of Alastair's fingers. Alastair doesn't shake his hand away, but doesn't return the gesture either. Iosif feels terribly alone, his insides cleaved empty like they hadn't for a while. They walk through the hallway, to the bedroom. Or rather, Alastair walks, Iosif is his shadow. Lights don't get turned on, there's no need for anything to be seen.

Once in the room, Iosif knows better than to try holding Alastair's hand. He lets go, standing beside the doorway silently. Alastair reaches for his cigarettes and lighter and opens the balcony door, letting a gush of cold night air in. Iosif walks quietly to the door and sits on the floor, beside it. As close to Alastair as he could stay without stepping outside. He hears the familiar flick of Alastair's lighter, catches a glimpse of first the plume of smoke.

He takes a deep breath and rests his head on his knees, trying for the life of him to gather his mind into something coherent. He isn't able to; there's too much, too violent and too messy. All it creates in his mind is a thick fog, one he has to sift through every time he wishes to draw out a proper thought.

He sits by the door, shivering in the winter chill and wilfully thoughtless. He waits as Alastair smokes one cigarette, then the flick of the lighter as he smokes another, and two more still. Wilfully thoughtless, he decides not to dwell on the man's actions. On how there's painfully clearly something he's missing.

Eventually Alastair steps back inside and closes the door. The cigarettes and lighter are set back in their usual place, Alastair leaves the room for a moment. Iosif sits on the edge of the bed, waiting like a wind-up doll without charge.

Animate again when Alastair returns, he watches as the man lifts the covers and gets into bed. He doesn't pick a book up off the bedside table. Iosif follows suit, watching tersely.

The room stays dark, silence falls.

Iosif wishes he had the courage to say a simple “good night”. He does not. In its stead, he reaches for Alastair hesitantly, trying to rest his head close to the man's shoulder.

Alastair turns away. Iosif feels his eyes well up with tears which he tries to choke down. He doesn't understand. He feels lost, alone, and utterly exhausted. What happened today? Had he done something without realising? He'd gotten better at existing with Alastair, hadn't he?

Longing, thick and heavy, pools in his chest. He reaches out again, silently, this time for Alastair's hand.

Alastair grasps it for a moment, only to squeeze it harshly enough to draw a sharp breath from Iosif, then let go.

Iosif shifts away, as always a kicked dog, tears spilling silently down his face. He curls up on himself as tightly as he could, trying to lull himself to sleep; alone in the dark, for all it was worth.

He doesn't dream, for once. Maybe at least his mind took pity on him.