Here there be whump

Frathouse Boxboy: Dominic invites Cecelia to come home with him for a weekend, and they bring Z2 along. This is just a segment of their roadtrip together.

content warning: box boy usual stuff, past trauma and memory loss/repression, slight carsickness, crude and sexual remarks and insinuation. food mention, they stop to eat.

****

Zee can remember things, the way one remembers when one was very small, or things from a dream, cobwebbed and gauzy. Sometimes, when he smokes with Cam late at night in Cam’s bed and not in a horrifyingly loud or crowded room, he thinks he can piece little things together from before. Things that don’t hurt to remember if he doesn’t look directly at them, things he can let accumulate like moisture on glass. The morning wipes it clean with his dreams.

This is like that. He can remember the way long car rides feel, though the specifics of who was in the car, where he was going— that all has to stay blurry, behind a screen. He stretches out in the backseat like Cissy suggested, until he gets carsick and has to sit up and lean forward, look out the front window at the highway as it comes toward them like a mirage out of thin air. 

“You okay baby?” Cissy puts her smooth hand on his cheek. “You’re pale.”

He leans into her touch. He didn’t want to interrupt them. They’d been talking about Cissy’s jobs, things she’d done in Boston and stories about clients she’s worked for. She does housework, like he does. Except she gets paid for it. And she goes home at night. She’d been talking about one employer, someone named Max, when Z had sat up and inadvertently distracted her. 

Dominic’s eyes meet his in the rearview mirror. “Tell me if you’re gonna be sick. I’ll pull over.”

He shakes his head. “No. M’okay.” 

Cissy reaches by her feet into the cooler they filled with a bag of gas-station ice that morning, pulling out a ginger-ale. “Best thing for it.” She tells him. He unscrews the cap, careful of the fizz. The bubbles are cold, refreshing. His stomach feels better almost instantly. 

“Thank you.” He says, laying his forehead against her bare shoulder. She’s dressed optimistically for early May, in a halter top and short flowered skirt, sandals with little heels. She kisses his hair. Z wondered at first if he should leave Cissy alone, if accepting her freely-given affection would make Dominic sour on him. But it doesn’t. Dominic, if he notices, only gets this look on his face like he doesn’t mind at all. 

“If you need to sit up front, so you don’t get carsick…” Cissy trails off, implying that she’ll hop in back. 

“No,” Z hurries. “No, I like it back here.” 

Truth is he doesn’t want to come between them in any way, to make either of them resent him or question this easy bond they have. He’s happy to trail along a few feet behind, to sit in the backseat and watch them exchange glances and smiles, to laugh over a song on the radio that Dom sings along to, exaggerating his accent. He’s happy to watch them twine their fingers together over the middle console, Dom’s large hand and Cissy’s smaller one. It makes him feel safe, somehow. Like something could eventually tether him to them, to one family or person. Wasn’t that what he was for? 

The grass gets greener as they travel south on I-95, the trees less bare and the air sweeter. They stop for diner food and he says he isn’t hungry until Dom raises an eyebrow at him so he knows to change his answer.

He tells the waitress he wants the club sandwich. Asking someone to bring him something— to be so presumptive makes his forehead break out in a sweat until she walks away. 

He can’t remember how he answered her question fries or onion rings until the fries arrive and he puts a pool of ketchup on the side. Dom covers his in ketchup like splatter art, and Z wonders if that’s the correct way to do it and if the way he did it was a memory, something learned or just plain wrong. He gets so worried about remembering, waiting for the stab of pain to split his head like an axe that Cissy gets concerned, nudges Dom’s knee with hers under the table. 

Dominic reaches across the booth to hold Z’s hand, in front of anyone who might glance over and look. He doesn’t seem to care, just like he never does at the house.

“It’s okay.” He says confidently, tossing a fry into his mouth with his free hand. He gives Z’s a gentle squeeze. “You’re with us. Everything’s cool, man. Promise. Eat up.”

He finds he can relax his jaw enough to slide a fry, ketchupless, between his lips. He’s managed five of them when someone in the booth behind Cissy and Dom turns around, their friend peering curiously too. 

“Hey.” The guy taps Dom on the shoulder. He looks like he might’ve spent the morning doing construction work, or farm work. His friend tries not to laugh behind him. “Is that what I think it is?” 

Cissy stiffens but doesn’t turn to look at the intruding stranger. She gives Z a tight-lipped smile. Dominic finishes chewing, pointedly takes a sip of his drink before he turns. “Excuse me?”

“That. That one sitting right there. He’s one of them mail-order sex toys, aint he?”

Z recognizes the veiled excitement on the guy’s face, his friend’s glee. Some of the guys were like that with him. Some of the people who come to the house for a party and see him act that way, too. Like he’s a zoo animal, a misfire of a pop culture phenomenon they’ve heard of and want to see, to touch, to put on their story. 

Dom raises his eyebrows, nods thoughtfully. “See… what I don’t understand is …what in the hell made you think you ought to turn yourself around and tap somebody on the shoulder while they’re tryna have a meal? Huh?”

“Dom…” Cissy tucks her blonde bob behind her ear, smiling, as if she can placate everything, everything’s fine.

The guy with his elbows resting on the shared back of their booths grins, eyes sliding from Z to Cissy. “She in on it? Is that your thing? I mean normally I aint one to share but I guess… it’d be something like watching two chicks go at it, right? Well. Sorta.”

Cissy glances at Z almost apologetically, as if she’s not being talked about so crudely, too. Dom sighs, sliding out of the booth. He curls his finger at the guy in an invitation. “Outside. I’m not doing this in here. C’mon. Get up.”

Cissy’s mouth opens like she’s going to protest but doesn’t, eyes darting between Dominic and the guys in the other booth. The friend with the giggles loses his sense of humor, looking Dom up and down and rethinking this whole thing. Their waitress has stopped to watch from behind the counter. Two white-haired men having coffee have turned to look over their shoulders. 

Z can’t tell if the guy is itching for a fight or just wanted a bad reaction. He seems to think it over for a moment, smiling broadly. “Ah. C’mon man.” He spreads his hands. “It was just a… a honest question.”

“You can ask me again,” Dom points out to the cracked pavement of the parking lot, to a dumpster with a wooden fence around it. “Outside.”

“Drop it, man. He apologized.” The friend says, pressed safely into the back of the booth. 

“Did he? Funny. I didn’t hear it.”

Z is reminded of the time Dominic caught Tyler and Michael arm wrestling with him. The quick backtracking, the refusal to take Dom up on a fight. 

“Babe…” Cissy whispers. She bites her lip. Z knows that look all too well. Drop it. Please.

“I’m sorry for gettin’ in your business, man.” The guy laughs nervously, tilts an imaginary cap at Cissy. “Sorry, missy.”

Cissy ignores him, laces her hands together on the table, looking straight ahead instead. Dominic shakes his head, but sits back down. The onlookers slowly turn back to their coffee. 

“We can get boxes.” Cissy whispers. 

Dominic takes a deliberately large bite of his meal, shakes his head. They sit in silence until he’s finished chewing. His voice isnt hushed at all. “We’re not going anywhere on account of a couple of jackasses. We’re finishing our meal in peace. Zee?”

Z’s heart picks up painfully, even though he knows Dominic isn’t angry with him, but rather on his behalf, and Cissy’s. He nods at Z’s untouched food and he takes the hint, picking the toothpick out of a triangle of sandwich and taking a bite. 

The waitress brings the other booth their check, glancing at the back of Dom’s head like he might jump up again at any moment. They fish cash out of their wallets and leave it on the table, shuffle out without glancing at any of them. 

Cissy exhales, her rigid posture relaxing. “I thought you were gonna get in a genu-ine parking-lot fight.” She hisses. “With some….some hillbillies. And get arrested and taken to the county jail and leave me and Zee in the middle of nowhere.” She punches Dom ineffectually in the arm. He laughs, sips his drink. Even Z has to hide a smirk.  

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

Frathouse Boxboy/Max Series Crossover: Dominic & Cecelia

Dominic is dating Cecelia. Here, she meets Z2 for the first time. Content warning for the typical violence and conditioning in both universes. Alcohol mention, a group picking on one person, bit of blood.

Z2 had flatly refused to drink the mixture of liquor and spit in the king’s cup. It was almost 40 ounces, and he knew from experience if he even lived after chugging it he’d be puking his guts out until late sometime tomorrow. 

They’d held him in front of the dart board as punishment for the refusal and Cam had made a few lazy throws from the sofa until he finally put his arm into it, getting one to stick. The guys hollered and whooped, excited at the sight of blood as a pack of dogs.

That’s when Z2 tore his arm from Tyler’s grip and ran.

Tyler chased him up the stairs, grabbed him by the ankle so he fell hard and bit his tongue.

 "Let him go, Tyler.“ Cam called him off. "He’s being a pussy tonight anyway.”

It was that last thing that started him crying. That and his bitten tongue, and his slowly oozing pinprick of a wound and finally, his wounded pride, a stinging sense of betrayal.

He shouldn’t have any pride. He shouldn’t. He didn’t used to, he was good, and the little flame of anger in his belly like a pilot light absolutely terrifies him. 

Dom was out, and Alex was gone too. But Dom’s door was unlocked, and he knew Dom would tell him it’s okay to climb in his bed. He held Dom’s pillow for the faint scent of him, giving into sniffles of self pity in the dark and falling asleep in the fetal position.

He wakes when the door swings open fast, letting in the sound of hushed laughter. The light flicks on. He almost relaxes when he sees Dom’s familiar shape but then he sees there’s a girl behind him, coming into the room with him. She’s got to be a foot shorter than Dominic, even in kitten heels. Z scrambles up and freezes, clutching the pillow to his chest. Their gazes fall on him and they both pause. 

“Zee?" 

He feels a wave of dread. Dom was probably bringing this girl home in hopes of sleeping with her, not of finding Z sleeping in his bed like Goldilocks. 

"I’m sorry.” Z blurts. “I was… I came here because I didn’t…I didn’t know where to go. I’m sorry Dom. I'll…”

Move, idiot.

He starts to pick his way off the bed but Dom just closes the door, tosses his keys and wallet on his dresser. “It’s okay man. You’re good.”

Z2 pauses at the edge of the bed, giving him I’m sorry eyes. He always screws everything up somehow. He never means to screw things up for anyone, least of all people who are good to him.

“Cecelia…” Dom says, touching the girls elbow and gesturing between she and Z. “This is Zee. Zee, Cecelia.”

“Cissy.” The girl amends, winking at Z.

“Zee is, uhm. Okay. So, my fraternity brothers all got together and decided it would be a riot if they…aah.” Dom rubs the back of his neck. “If they got themselves a Boxboy.”

Z2 flinches. He’s never heard Dominic say that word before. He swallows under his collar, tight and restrictive.

“Oh.” Cecelia mouths. She’s got red lipstick and a short blonde bob. Zee thinks she looks different than the sorority girls somehow. Maybe he just hasn’t seen them dolled up before. 

Her eyes soften on him. “For the whole Fraternity? You poor thing.”

He can’t help his woozy heart from skittering at such gentle words. She sets her purse on Dom’s floor. 

“Dominic, is he bleeding? Are you bleedin, babydoll?”

Z looks down at his arm where the dart had bitten in like a hornet sting. It’s just a tiny trickle. 

He’s wide eyed on the bed as they come and sit on either side of him. Dominic has the first aid things from when Z’s legs were split open in his bedside drawer still. Cissy takes the gauze from him wordlessly. Dom watches her, surprised as she dabs at Z’s arm, holds the gauze against the wound to stop the bleeding. 

“Everything okay?” Dom asks him knowingly. 

Z2 nods. "Just the one.“

"What did this, honey?”

Z2 looks from the stranger girl to Dom. Dom gives him an encouraging nod. 

“A dart.”

Cissy’s eyebrows knit. Her eyes are so kind and so concerned. Her cheeks are shimmery pink. “A… dart?”

“I wouldn’t drink the cup. The king’s cup.” He explains lamely, shrugging.

Dominic huffs in irritation on Z’s other side. “I told them to cut that shit out.”

Cissy touches Z2’s hair gently, lays her cool hand against his cheek. He can’t help but lean into the touch. Dom’s here, he’s safe. Her touch feels so new and yet somehow familiar, motherly and soft.

She leans to look at Dom. “He can stay in here with us. Right, Dominic?”

 Dom looks a little surprised at her again. “Yeah.” He tells her. Tells them both. “Of course." 

Frathouse Boxboy: The Owner’s Manual/Fight

cw for implied dubcon, implied previous noncon, conditioning, physical violence.

Alex and Dominic seem to be his keepers when they get back from Spring Break. Z feels spoiled. First, from lounging around all break and then by getting passed exclusively between the two guys in the house who are consistently nice to him. 

Keep reading

FratHouse BoxBoy: Whipping Boy

Z2 used as a whipping boy for pledges being drilled during Hell Week. Tyler goes too far and Dominic is Not Happy About It. As witnessed by new pledge Stephen.

Stephen feels like a prisoner of war, and Hell Week is full of enthusiastic jailers. Last night the pledges had been told to strip and face the basement wall. He’d pressed his forehead to the damp concrete while the brothers screamed obscene insults and smashed bottles next to the pledges faces. 

He reminded himself that this was all for show, it wasn’t real… and before he knew it he’d be in the same Fraternity his big brother had been in, and they could all laugh about it. 

The second night starts off stranger. Four of them have been assigned a “whipping boy”, some poor fuck who looks like he hasn’t slept in a week. He’s wearing a leather collar around his neck, which raises eyebrows, but it’s the look in his eyes that makes Stephen glance twice. There’s something truly wrong, and not just the annoyed humiliation he sees in the eyes of other pledges. 

“Quiz time, gentlemen.” Tyler waves a thin wooden cane like a conductor’s wand. “All punishment is deferred to our resident BoxBoy here, Z2. Anything you fuck up?” He slaps the cane in the palm of his hand. “He will feel the repercussions of.”

Ah. A BoxBoy. He’s their live-in prisoner. 

“What does he think of that?” One of the bolder pledges asks. 

Tyler sighs, whacks the BoxBoy unexpectedly between his shoulder blades with the cane so he stiffens, eyebrows knitting in worry and pain. “Speaking out of turn. One strike.”

This feels different than anything the brothers have done to them as pledges, Stephen thinks. This boy looks truly terrified. 

 It devolves from there. Tyler makes the boy take his shirt off, and then his pants so he’s standing there in socks and underwear, looking miserable. The number of times he is hit with the cane goes up every time one of them gets a question wrong, sneezes, looks at Tyler the wrong way. Anything is an excuse. Each thwack to the BoxBoy makes the pledges wince, as if it’s them being hit. 

Soon the boy is holding himself about the shoulders and trembling, skin bright red in the spots Tyler has hit most frequently. Stephen can’t believe he hasn’t cried out yet. Hell, he’s pretty sure he would’ve hollered out by now, embarrassed himself by begging it to stop.

“When was the Chapter founded?” Tyler points the cane at one of the pledges.

  1962, idiot.Get it right and give this kid a break. 

“19…uhhhh. 62!”

Thank God.

“I know it was 1962, dipshit. When exactly?”

“Uhm…” 

Z2 glances up at them hopefully, praying they give Tyler the right answer. Stephen wants to take his own shirt off his back and go give it to him.

“September?”

Stephen groans. May. May 23, 1962. 

“You guys really don’t give a fuck about little Z2 here, huh?” Tyler asks. He grabs the boy by his hair and yanks his head back. Z2 tenses like he’s fully expecting Tyler to hit him in the face. “Doesn’t he look like he’s had enough of your wrong fuckin’ answers?”

“You’re the one beating him, asshole.” Stephen grumbles. Immediately, he regrets it. Tyler marches Z2 to the wall, shoving him against it. 

He holds the back of the boy’s collar with one hand and hits the back of his legs with the cane, pulling back as hard as he can, putting his whole body into it so they rain down over his naked calves, the backs of his thighs, his backside. This time the boy screams. The sound wrenches Stephen’s gut, makes him queasy.

He almost rushes forward to help, but something stops him. For a long time, when he is alone with his thoughts he will return to that moment and remember how he did nothing, how all four of them did nothing. For what? For status? For a couple of Greek letters on their shirts?

Again and again he beats him, biting his lip in exertion and concentration. Their BoxBoy screams in fear and pain, legs shaking and knees nearly buckling. 

Everyone in the room has stopped what they are doing, people have come in from the kitchen and upstairs to investigate the source of such anguished screams. 

Blood is dripping out of split welts by the time Tyler pauses and turns back to his pledges, a little out of breath. Already the marks are rising like wasp stings, turning purple. Someone pushes through the gawking onlookers. It’s Dominic, one of the seniors. Stephen recognizes Dominic from watching college football. He stares a moment, feeling a bit like he’s gawking at a minor celebrity.

“What the fuck did you do?”

Dominic grabs Tyler by the shirt and shoves him, pushes him again when he stumbles so he falls onto the floor. Stephen’s adrenaline spikes, ready for the fight to break out.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?!” 

Tyler is shocked, a little scared. “Dom, I… I was doing the thing where we use him as…as—”

“Z2. C’mon. C’mere.” He eyes the angy welts on the boy’s shaking legs, shoots Tyler a venomous look. 

Z2 flinches when Dom tries to touch him. Those haunted eyes are even further away now, hazy with pain, his breath coming short and shallow. Dom tries again, and Z swipes blindly at him, trying to fight him off. "Zee. Look at me. Hey…it’s me, man, it’s Dominic.*

“No!” Z2 gasps hoarsely before dissolving into sobs. “Nonono,” He fights with a surprising reserve of strength but Dom grabs his arms and forces them to his side easily, spins him around and hugs him tightly from behind. He sobs incoherently in the other boy’s arms, shaking all over.

“Shhh,” Dominic hushes in his ear. “Shhh. Okay. Okay, Zee. It’s done. No more hitting.”

Brothers and pledges alike look on in silence as the boy slowly stops struggling, taking big, shuddering gasps, face wet with tears. Dom holds him tight, whispering something in his ear that Stephen doesn’t catch. 

The pledge to Stephens right leans closer. “Yo… this is fucked.”

Dominic lets go of their BoxBoy slowly, careful that he doesn’t start his panicked thrashing again. He spins him around and holds his face, thumbing at his tears. “All done.” He reassures. “You did good. C’mon, Z. C’mon.” 

He looks out at their blank faces and raises his voice. “The fuck you looking at? Huh? Useless, all of y'all.“

Stephen drops his eyes as Dom leads their BoxBoy past them, limping and shivering. 

"Alex!” Dominic calls, knocking on his bedroom door. “Al!”

Z2’s feeling woozy from climbing the stairs. Dom practically carried him, but his heart is pounding and he can feel it pushing more wam blood from the cuts on his legs.

“Dom…”

“Is he home this weekend? On Hell week?” Dominic pulls his phone out of his pocket, holds it to his ear. “Pick up, asshole.”

“Dom…” Z2 holds his stomach and doubles over, heaving onto the carpet. He thinks for a moment Dominic is angry when he curses. He feels a hand on his back.

“Shit. It’s okay.”

“Msorry…” Z apologizes for the mess, looking woefully at the carpet. Luckily it’s mostly water and stomach bile. But he will be the one cleaning it up.

“It’s okay. Listen. Al isn’t home. C'mon. I was just trying for some backup but it’s okay, I can take care of you. C'mon Zee. Can you stand?”

Z2s vision tunnels and he staggers. Dom catches him, lifting him up in a way that stretches his cuts horribly and he tries to scream but can only make a strangled noise of despair and the world tilts and darkens.

holyyyy shit :O Z2,,,, honey,,,, omg