Frathouse Boxboy: Armwrestle
from an ask about the same topic. Z2 is made to armwrestle despite his recently injured shoulder. Dom comes in and isnt happy about it.
content warning for nonconsensual arm wrestling? injured shoulder, hurting an existing injury, some demeaning language among boys to feminize each other.
****
It’s just the guys tonight— the brothers. Z2’s grateful for that after last weekend. Some of them are in the living room playing video games, but he got pulled from a comfortable spot on the floor at their feet, yanked up by the collar and shoved into the kitchen.
“Make us some food, bitchboy.”
Luckily, nothing the guys ever have him make is terribly complicated. He can make rice, noodles, instant mac n cheese, frozen burriots and pop tarts satisfactorily.
Today it’s pizza bites. He turns on the oven, arranges the frozen squares on a tray. They’ve started arm wrestling at the kitchen table after someone boasted about beating everyone at a party, quiet rounds at first that are carefully moderated.
“Move your elbow. Square it up, guys, he’s off-center.”
When the oven is preheated, or nearly, he slides in the bites and winds the timer on the stove. Burning the food could be either easily forgiven or totally disastrous, depending on their mood.
He tries to quietly make his way back into the living room, where things are very low key right now, but one of them grabs his arm and swings him close.
“Who’s got this one, R2-Z2? Me or Paul?”
“Oh. Uhm…” The boy who grabbed him, Michael, is fit and fairly tall, with eyes that Z always thought looked playful and kind. But his grip on Z’s wrist is tight. Paul is shorter than Michael but broader, always bragging about his bench or his deadlift when he gets back from the school gym.
“Who’s gonna win, him or me?”
“I don’t…”
“C’maaaan, Z2. You’re not rootin’ for me, man?” Paul spreads his arms, and Z hopes he’s just kidding around.
“Alright, well, watch and learn.” Michael puts his elbow on the table to square up with Paul and the boys lean in, clasping hands. Tyler leans over the top of them, checking their form.
“Aaaaand, go.”
Their arms flex and tense, veins in their wrists and biceps bulging. Paul makes a face, but Michael’s strategy seems to be to keep his neutral, maybe to intimidate his opponent.
Z2 doesn’t like this. He wants the timer to go off so they’ll let him plate their food and maybe leave after.
Finally, after a wobbling struggle Paul’s arm gives and Michael slams their fists down in his favor. The noise makes Z jump. Michael leans toward him. “Fortune favors the bold.”
“Loser goes against Z2.” Tyler says.
Z’s stomach turns to a knot.
“Oh yeah.” Paul scoffs. “That’ll be the day.”
“What if he beats you?”
“Are you fuckin scared, Pauly?”
“Shut up. No. Siddown, Z2.”
Michael gets up and pulls Z into his empty chair. “ ‘Bows on the table.”
“No,” Z protests. “I… Paul will win. I know. It’s okay, we don’t have to—”
Tyler grabs Z’s right arm and slams his elbow on the table. “Celebrity round!” He calls. “Z2-D2 versus Pauly.” He raps his fingers on the edge of the table like a drumroll. Paul rolls his eyes, sets his elbow down and holds his hand open. Z looks around at them, imploring, hoping to find an understanding or sympathetic pair of eyes.
“Please..last weekend I…” He avoids looking at Tyler. “I hurt my shoulder. It’s not… it’s not good, still.”
“Looks good to me.” Michael says, clapping him on the back. “Go easy on Paul though. He’s our delicate little flower.”
Paul mouths fuck you at Michael, takes Z’s hand. Tyler inspects their form, shifts Z’s elbow an inch to the right.
“Aaaaand, go.”
Paul simply flexes and Z’s bicep hurts, traveling right up to his shoulder in a sharp, grinding sort of pain. He whines, trying to apply at least a little pressure against Paul’s hand so it won’t look like he isn’t playing along.
“Oh, c’mon, man.” Paul grins. “I know you got more in you.” He doubles down and Z gasps at the flare of pain in his shoulder, deep inside where Dom had popped it back into socket. He goes slack in the face of the pain and Paul slams his arm backwards, knuckles into the table. He cries out, the rotation too much for his healing shoulder.
Paul lets him go and he cradles it gingerly, terrified it’s going to pop out of place again. He hasn’t forgotten the pain, it’s fresh and bright in his memory.
“Aww, maybe next time bruh.” Michael claps his bad shoulder and he bites his cheek so he doesn’t sob.
“My turn.” Tyler says, pushing Paul off his chair and taking his place. He plops his elbow in the middle of the table, hand held up straight. “C’mon, Zelilah. Round two.”
Z shakes his head. “Tyler. My… my shoulder. Please.”
Tyler mimics him with a high pitched whine. “My m-m-my shoulderrrr….C’mon. Elbow on the table.”
Tyler makes him go twice because he said he wasn’t even trying. Which was true, because putting in effort causes an alarmingly sharp pain across his chest, into his collarbone. He feels clammy, can’t tell if the chilly sweat on his hand is Tyler’s or his own.
“Please.” He looks around at Paul and Michael. “Guys.”
“The fuck is this?”
Z2 wants to jump from his seat and run when he hear Dominic’s voice, to hide behind him like a scared little kid.
“Hey Dom.” Michael says, leaning up against the counter. “Z2 said he could beat all of us armwrestling, so.”
“Are y’all making him armwrestle with you?”
Dom and Z make eye contact and Z purses his lips, dips his head to the side. Help.
“Yeah. He’s not doing so hot.” Tyler grins.
“Well, try me instead.” Dom says casually, a hint of ice beneath.
Tyler puts up his hands, and Z thinks next to Dom Tyler looks skinny, like he’s got golf balls for biceps. “Ahhh, you know what, I think we’re done here.”
Dom taps Z on his good shoulder and Z slides out of the chair. Dom pulls it back with a screech on the linoleum and takes a seat.
“Nah, come on.” He puts his elbow on the table. “Y’all are right. Sounds like a good time, Tyler.”
Michael and Paul seem amused, and Tyler glances at their faces and at Z before relenting. He takes Dom’s hand, readjusting himself in his seat so he can put the most power into his right arm. Michael tells them when, and Dom’s arm barely moves as Tyler’s flexes and struggles.
“See,” Paul laughs. “Tyler, this is why you shouldn’t say no when we invite you to the gym.”
Tyler’s eyes flash at Paul, annoyed. “Shut the fuck up. Are you trying, man? I can’t tell if you’re fucking with me or-”
Slam.
Z jumps. Tyler cries out as his arm twists and his knuckles hit the table hard. He retracts his arm with a sour look. “Fuck, man.”
“What about you two?” Dom turns to Michael and Paul. “Feel like picking on someone your own size?”
Paul puts up his hands. He’s a braggart and an idiot, but he doesn’t want to go against their resident star football player, not when he seems so seriously annoyed. “Nah bro. You got it, man. Forfeit.”
Michael still looks smug, but he too shows his hands in surrender. “I’m good.”
“Great.” Dom stands from the table, sliding the chair back noisily again. “So next time you feel like doing some shit like this, you can just remember that anything you do to him.” He points at Z. “I’m gonna do to you. Make sense?’
Michael’s eyes flash from Z back to Dominic. “Alright, man. We were just having some fun with him.”
“Do you think he was having fun?”
“Nobody hurt him.” Paul says gravely, eyes widening. “For real, Dom. Didn’t mean anything by it.”
“If his shoulder is alright you got nothing to worry about.” Dom mutters, steering Z2 out of the kitchen. Z remembers the pizza bites, tugs Dom’s sleeve to tell him.
“They can take their own pizza bites out of the goddam oven.” Dom says, but kind of gently in a way that Z knows he’s not cursing at him.
He takes Zee to the living room, sits him on the sofa. “Did they hurt your shoulder?”
It aches, but he doesn’t think it’s messed up again. “It… it’s okay.”
Dom looks skeptical. “May I touch it?”
“Mhm.”
None of the boys playing games give them so much as a glance as Dom holds Z’s wrist, facing it up and then down, taking his elbow in his large, capable hands and gently bringing it out to the side, up like a wing.
“Okay?”
Z tries not to grimace. “Y-yeah…”
Dom raises an eyebrow. “Are you lying?”
Z laughs nervously. “It… it hurts but… not like before.”
Dom presses his fingers to Z’s chest, the other hand on his shoulder blade. He pushes back and forth gently. Z2 tries to be stoic, but the sharp pain he’d felt when they’d armwrestled comes back when Dom moves his shoulder backward. He cries out briefly, bites his lip. Several heads swivel his way and quickly back to the TV screen.
Dom eases off. “Alright. Sorry. I’m sorry, Zee. You need some ice and some Advil. Wait here.”
Z2 watches the boy’s video game screen while he waits, and Dom comes back with an ice pack and two little orange pills on a plate, along with five pizza bites and a 2-liter of ginger-ale under his arm.
“And your fair share of their grub.” He says, setting the plate in Z’s lap and holding the ice pack to his shoulder.
AND THIS IS WHY I <3 DOM