Rock Bottom Part 4: A Moneymakers AU

This series is based on the moneymakers series by @coldresolve! You can find part 1 of the AU series here. The last part of this chapter was inspired by this drawing by him and this post.

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Renee couldn’t help but feel that he was getting a taste of his own medicine. 

He hung from the low basement ceiling by his wrists, feet barely touching the floor, and watched as Corbin tied a bandana around his face, flicked on a bright spotlight that burned in Renee’s eyes, and positioned the camera. 

“Welcome back, my friends,” he said brightly, as if he was introducing a travel vlog rather than a snuff film. 

“As you can see today, we have a new… guest joining us today. It’s time to find out his niche.” 

He strode to the laptop, and in minutes, offers started rolling in. The desk was close enough that Renee could just barely make out the chat— and its placement was too precise to be unintentional. 

Four thousand bucks if Corbin will drug him up. Two thousand to whip him. One thousand for a good, old fashioned, brass-knuckled beating. Ten thousand to cut off a finger. 

His head spun, and he gasped for breath, barely realizing his breathing had become so shallow. He’d been hyperventilating, much to the amusement of whichever creeps were watching the stream. Probably the same ones who watched Conrad’s. 

It’d been different. It’d been for the money, the rush, the power, the outlet. Corbin just enjoyed watching people suffer. 

As if Renee never had. 

Corbin grinned at him, turned to the camera to give it a wink, then addressed Renee once more.

“You know what? I’m just gonna give it a few minutes before we get started. Let the audience get their offers in, and I’ll pick a few favorites.” 

The chat was rolling. 

WYV3RN: if that’s the case, fuck him right here for 20. takev it or leave it. 

no_pain_no_gain: We haven’t gotten a vivisection in a while ;))) how much to see his guts? 

[redacted]: It’s his first time, let’s ease him into it with a whipping. I’ll up the offer to 2.5k.  

user_029473: Boring… but maybe if it’s wrapped in barbed wire? Five thousand. 

W3VYRN: at least strip him. five hundred.

user_638745: Nothing wrong with the classics. Waterboard him for 10. 

If Corbin did everything they asked at once, Renee wouldn’t last for more than a day. Maybe that’s why so many of the bloodstained cells were empty. 

Corbin sidled up to Renee and leaned into his laptop, an arm wrapping around his waist as he scrolled throug h the suggestions. 

“A barbed wire whipping? Can’t say that’s completely original, but it sounds like fun. And I’ve been in need of a new whipping boy. As for you, Wyvern, get your head out of the gutter.” 

Renee couldn’t help but sag in relief at Corbin’s denial of the most perverted request, although he knew he wasn’t in the clear yet. If Corbin was anything like him, he’d do anything if it had the right price tag. 

He turned to Renee without hesitation, pulling a black butterfly knife out of his pocket and flipping it open. 

“Do you want to hear what happened to my last one?” He said it as plainly as if the two were discussing the weather at a tea party. 

The basement grew silent, and Renee realized he actually wanted a response. 

“Not really,” he muttered, praying no one would recognize his voice from his own streams. He took in a shaky breath and forced his lips into an utterly fake half-grin that looked a lot more like a grimace. 

“Surprise me.” 

If there was anything he’d learned from Conrad, Renee knew a terrified, sobbing victim was much more fun than anything else. And he refused to give Corbin anything— reactions, views, money. Not if he could help it. 

Corbin whistled, sliding the tip of the blade under Renee’s shirt and splitting the fabric with one smooth, practiced motion. 

“Looks like someone’s excited to get started, hm?” 

Shit. If there was anything he knew about his own audience, the kinds of people who watched red rooms were creeps in ways more than one. He had to make himself human. Undaunted. But not masochistic. 

“Not remotely,” he snapped, trying not to shiver as cold air hit his bare skin. His hands shook for a cigarette, hard enough to rattle the chains around his wrists. Now it looked like he was trembling in hopeless panic. God, why hadn’t he tried to get one from Corbin before fucking it up and trying to attack him?  

“I just want to get it over with.” 

Corbin laughed. “Now that, I’m afraid, we can’t arrange. See, a private benefactor reached out to me shortly after you posted your… advertisement. And he’s offering me a generous sum if I run this session until you pass out. Although… I’ve thought of some ways to make it a bit more interesting. You could call them rewards, I suppose. If you behave, make yourself likable. That’s up to you.” 

He grabbed the handle of a whip and tugged it so the leather slithered ominously down from the rack to the floor, then dug around a drawer until he produced a length of barbed wire. 

“Feel free to queue up some more suggestions while I get this ready, I’m hoping to need plenty of them.” 

Renee squinted to read the chat, but Corbin spun the laptop to the side so he was now oblivious to the devious suggestions of the bloodthirsty audience. 

He talked aimlessly to the camera as he wrapped the whip, clearly one to love the sound of his own voice. 

“So, considering it’s a bit of a special today, I was thinking after we get a good variety of methods tested out, I’ll hold a group vote on what his… specialty should be. Although considering his infamy on certain sides of the dark web, I’m not going to do anything too permanent. No cutting stuff off, doing what we did to poor Finn, anything like that. Wouldn’t wanna risk a mob of angry fans showing up to rip me apart, y’know? Sorry to disappoint, yeah, yeah. But that’s why we have the others. If we severely maimed them all, it wouldn’t be as fun when we did, would it?” 

He finished off the wire with a couple solid twists, then cracked the whip once in the air, testing its suppleness with the newly added restriction. 

“What do we think? Looks good? Should we make him count?” 

He turned to scroll in the chat, and what he found must have been good enough, because he stepped a few feet behind Renee and flashed a grin at the camera. 

“In that case, let’s get started. Crowd wants you to count, and I’ll tell you what— make it to thirty without messing up, and I’ll give you something from my stash. You’re addicted to cocaine, if I’m not mistaken? Just make it to twenty, and I’ll give you enough to take the edge off the withdrawal, how’s that sound? If you’re good enough, maybe I’ll make it Ren” 

Renee’s eyebrows raised ever so slightly at the mention of the drug, the mere hope that his lethargy might be relieved, and he nodded solemnly. He had to make it. There was no other option. 

“Perfect,” Corbin responded giddily. 

The crack of leather whistling through the air was the only warning he received for the first lash. The razors of the wire tattered a hot, furious stripe across his back, and Renee choked on the cry that forced itself from his lips. 

“One—” he gasped desperately. 

“Hmm…” Corbin murmured. “I’ll cut you some slack on the first one, but you’d better be louder than that from now on.” 

Crack. 

The force of the blow knocked the wind out of him, and he doubled over, tears springing from his eyes at the intensity of the pain ripping through him. 

“Aah— uh— two!” He barely managed to force the word out as he struggled to draw breath, rivulets of blood already beginning to run over his skin. 

Crack. 

The whip crossed the two previous lashes, blades tearing the other wounds deeper and cutting whatever untouched skin was left by his shoulderblades.  

“THREE!” He practically screeched it through the blinding agony that consumed him. 

By eight, his throat was raw from screaming, his face stained with tears as his blood began to run all the way to the cold cement floor. His back throbbed beyond belief, and he hung limp in the chains, unable to even stand through the agony. . 

His vision went white at twelve, as the strike wrapped the whip around his side, carving over his stomach. His scream turned into a broken sob, all thoughts of numbers retreating from his mind. There was only room for more pain. 

The space filled with Corbin’s gleeful laughter, and to Renee’s relief, the sound of the whip’s handle clattering to the floor. 

“Looks like he made it just past ten. Poor thing… I’ll have you know that my last whipping boy could take fifty of those without flinching by the time I was through with him.” 

Renee’s chest shook with sobs, both of relief and agony. He glanced at the floor and nausea clenched his gut to see so much of the concrete slick with his own blood. 

“P-probably ‘cause you destroyed the nerves by the third time you tried it,” he bit out, fury winning out over sense. 

Yet Corbin only grinned. “Looks like the pain put a little fight in ya. And it seemsyou’re quite the crowd pleaser. A 20k contribution without a request, just for how pretty you are when you cry— I’ll meet you halfway. Two birds with one stone, if you will.”

Renee’s sobs nearly returned with renewed vigor just from the relief that he might get what he do desperately needed. 

Corbin turned back to his supplies until he found a bag of the white powder Renee had been hoping for. 

“How about this? We do two birds with one stone. A viewer asked to see you all cut up, and you’ve earned your fix. I’ve heard this works from the Internet, and you’re giving me the excuse to test it out.” Corbin gave a devious wink to the camera and pulled out his balisong once again. He flipped it between his fingers for a moment before circling Renee, looking for the best place to cut. 

He settled on his collarbone, and pressed the cold steel against the skin so dangerously close to Renee’s neck. 

“For science, tell me how it goes.” 

And with that, he drew a sharp line of pain right above Renee’s collarbone. Renee barely gasped, he was used to knives, and the pain was far less vicious than that of the whip. 

Corbin observed his reaction intently as he opened the bag of cocaine, shaking the tiniest bit over the cut. It stung as it met the wound, but the effects were nearly instant. Energy flooded Renee in mere seconds, and the world was as it should have been. It was enough to make him forget the bloody, twisted mass of flesh that used to be the skin of his back. 

But the feeling faded just as quickly, sending him crashing back to reality. Back to pain. 

He shuddered, tugging against the chains. 

“Please…” he whispered. 

He hated himself for it. He truly did. But this was a time when need surcompassed pride. 

“Just a little more…”

But of course, Corbin only flashed that wicked grin at him in return. 

“If you want more, you’ll have to earn it.” 

Small Comforts

A Month Of Whump Mafia Madness: Rite of passage/Initiation.

@iaminamoodymoodtoday, @wildfaewhump, @ishouldblogmore, @lektric-whump, @that-one-thespian, @raigash, @suspicious-whumping-egg

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Bennett Kennedy was a traitor.

He sat at the desk in his little room, a white-walled, thin-carpeted square broken only by the locked door and the small, thickly-barred window. He was below ground, as best he could tell through the clouded glass, in a converted basement. He was delivered a tray of food each day good enough for three meals, and there was even an en suite with drinkable water in the tap. It was obvious that he wasn’t the first to live here. The bathroom had scratches in the doorframe from someone keeping count of the days. The mattress had a dip in the centre. In the middle of a sleepless night, it was like he could feel the ghosts of previous abductees breathing in the same air.

Most of his nights were sleepless now.

The desk was had recently been sanded down. It was obvious by the fresh, unblemished grain of the wood. Perhaps the person in here before him had left a message he wasn’t allowed to read.

On the desk was a stack of plain paper, and two wax crayons. It would have been funny, if it wasn’t obviously done to make sure he had nothing sharp to use as a weapon. Not that Bennett was stupid enough to try and stab Alfonse Dechart’s guards with a ballpoint pen, but there was no accounting for desperation.

Each day, he sat at the desk with the Crayola Black Stars in his hand and wrote as much as he could think of about work. They weren’t selective. On the first day he wrote about the layout of the headquarters. By the sixth day he was writing about what everyone ate for lunch and where they went if they wanted coffee.

All of it was treated the same. The more he wrote, the better things got.

Keep reading

One Rule For All

A Count The Days scene. Leads directly on from here. Content warning for death mentions and a generally shitty state of mind.

—

We stop back off in the office. The handcuffs are taken off but the soldiers still hold me with hands on their weapons. She takes my fingerprints, and a photo of me up against the yellow wall, still covered in blood and tears. I am yelled at to stay still by the soldiers a few times and I realise I’m swaying back and forth on my feet, wringing my hands and running them through my hair over and over and over. I stand with my hands clasped behind my back, almost to attention.

“Why is there blood all over your mouth?” she asks. “Is that yours?”

“No, it’s not mine.” I say simply. She gives me a cup of water from the cooler in the corner of the dingy office to rinse my mouth out with. I swill the water around and spit it into the paper cup and it comes out crimson. I leave it on the corner of the desk and she tells me to sit down, open my mouth and tilt my head back a little so she can take a DNA sample, swab in hand. She does and the taste of the sterile swab makes my head hurt a litte more. She puts that into a bag and seals it up, filling in the orange evidence label. I peer over, looking for her name. “Captain Losna,” I say. 

“Don’t even try with the charm, Haveter, I know you.” She puts the pen she was writing with back over her lapel. “You’re going in that isolation cell, just like your regulations tell me, I don’t care what you say to me. Threaten me and I will have my men chain you kneeling.”

I hold up my hands. “Listen-”

“I’m not interested,” she says, and grabs me by the shoulder to steer me out of the windowless office. “I’m just not interested.”

We go past the cell I was in before. I glance back at her. “I feel that you’re rather… frustrated with me,” I say to her.

“Frustrated ain’t it, Haveter. Disgusted, appauled, yeah.” We stop. She unlocks a heavy iron door and pulls it open, showing me into the darkness like I’m being shown a hotel room. “You’ve made my job a hundred times harder with that damned initiative. And you preaching to us about being harsh on criminals. Showing them tough love, teaching them the harshest lessons in the harshest ways and here you are. No better.”

The walls are high, and bare stained concrete. There’s a single window way out of my reach, cracked glass behind a rusty iron grate, and I take a single step into the room and have to stop. I look back at her. “It’s not like that,” I begin apologetically, my calmness beginning to fray into distress again. “It’s not-”

“It is. That’s the problem with you. It’s one rule for you, another for the rest of us.” She puts a hand on the door. “And I’m telling you, that ends here.”

She slams the door shut and locks it. I hear footsteps retreat and then I’m left in the damp half-light, staring at the wall, arms crossed. I sit down, leaning against the wall below the window. Oh, fuck, Haveter, I think, and I try to lie down and realise I can’t. There’s no room.

What have I done? What have I fucking gone and done?

I put my head in my hands and pinch the bridge of my nose with a groan, trying to soothe my aching head. I can’t do this. Not on my own. Not alone in the dark.

I want someone to fucking pity me, to make this all go away, make it stop because it’s not fair, is it? It’s not fair. I need to be distracted, I need to be distracted, I don’t want to think-

I don’t want to think about it.

I swallow back tears with a quiet whimper. My throat burns. I’m so, so cold. I screw my damp eyes shut. I don’t want to think about it but I find myself imagining the bang of the gavel sentencing me to a civilian’s death, them ripping my rank patches off, then another vague image of them putting the noose around my neck and before I can go further with an imagination made vivid by exhaustion and stress, I smack myself in the head. “No, no, no, no!” I yell into the darkness. “No!”

I don’t want to think about it.

It’s not fair, it’s just not fair. How can any of this be fair? It’s not my fault, how could it be, how could it possibly be? How could I of all people be going to have to stand trial, have to have my head shaved, to wear a blue and grey prisoner’s uniform, to be chained and jeered at and dragged around for everyone to see? How could it be me? How could it be me, here, my chest tight and heavy with aching fucking shame-

I smack myself in the head again, interrupting the chain of thought that just seems to run and run and run. “No, no, no, I won’t, I won’t,” I tell myself. “Stop it, Haskell, stop.”

I stare into the darkness, face twisting into a tearful mess. I can’t breathe. I gather my knees to my chest and try to soothe myself by holding myself in a hug, head to my knees. I wish this would all stop. I don’t deserve this. Never mind the train of thought about what’s to come tugging at the back of my head. Never mind that. I don’t want to think about that. I just keep holding myself tightly, rocking back and forth, telling myself I don’t deserve this, it’s okay, I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this. It’s not like that. It’s not. It’s different. I’m different to the people I built my career on wearing down under the heel of the State. I’m different. I have to be, I can’t be the same, can I? I’m not the same, am I?

I don’t know. I don’t fucking know and I don’t want to think about it. Any time I think about it my chest feels like it’s being crushed in am invisible grip, and I feel sick beyond belief. Right to the bone. To the fucking bone.

Hidden

Thinking about a character putting their uniform on over their aching body, forced to report for duty after being hurt. The way they wince as the fabric covers up the cuts and lashes. The way they button up their collar to the very top to hide the bruises round their throat. The way their thick gloves hide their darkened, bloodied fingernails. Their pain is not a secret, but they must hide it nonetheless.

Whump Prompt #290

Force them into humiliating garb and tell them it suits them

(This doesn’t have to be nsfw. You can put them in the enemies’ uniform, dress them as a slave/servant. Are they a race, like fae, that look down on humans? Dress them as a human)

The enemy uniform thing just speaks to me for some reason. Imagine them being a captured spy or officer and being given the uniform of the enemy forces who captured them.

If they want to eat or drink or sleep on a real bed, they’ll wear it, and it had better be perfect. Deviations from the uniform code are punished–severely–and at first that’s the only way they learn. They try not to react, but after so many beatings, they find themselves cringing on the floor from every blow, begging to know what they did wrong, they’ll fix it, please!

It kills the last bit of their dignity to ask the guard for advice on how to present, how to salute, how to fit their uniform. And having to follow his advice.

But the last shred of their pride holds on for a while. After all, it’s just a uniform, right?

Finally, they’re sure they’ve gotten it perfect, all pressed and smooth, the fit is exactly to regulation, the ribbons–more mockery, as they’re all signifiers of a soldier who killed the whumpee’s own troops–all bright and straightened and gleaming. They present themselves for inspection, standing tall, saluting perfectly just like they’ve been taught… only to be presented with a mirror, and a startlingly bright camera flash. Staring back at them just before the camera goes off is an enemy operative, pride for the whumper’s forces shining in their eyes. The overseer uses the enemy equivalent of their rank to congratulate them on a job well done.

When the food they earned is delivered later, they throw it away in disgust.

Burning/whipping the whumpees feet and then making them walk