Two Sides to every story

I just wanted to write some fun, whacky dialogue between two people and. I wrote this? That's all I have to for myself say at this point lol. Torture isn't fun for anyone, let the game commence

Tagging: @lonesome--hunter @t2otime --in case you're still interested, no worries if you aren't!

Content: Torture, restraints, food deprivation/scarcity

A quick rapping of knuckles on the door raised Whumpee’s sagging head with a jerk. They lifted bleary eyes as Whumper opened the metal door and took the offered object.

“Ooh, nice. Excellent,” Whumper said, swiftly closing the door on a servant who had brought a tray with the midday meal.

Whumpee sank back against the chair and sighed as they closed their eyes, with their wrists and ankles chained down they wouldn’t be enjoying their meal anytime soon. The sounds of furious chewing had them blinking in confusion again, looking up to find Whumper stuffing their face with the meagre rations.

“Hey,” they croaked.

Whumper shrugged. “You snooze you loose.”

“I wasn’t!” They waved one hand weakly, indicating their lack of mobility. “That was mine.”

“Well you know what they say about eating and torture,” Whumper said around a mouthful. “Don’t uhh, don’t eat thirty mintues before or you’ll… drown.”

“You’re thinking of swimming.”

“Mmm, I wish.”

Whumper messily cleaned out the tray, licking the remnants from their fingers. Whumpee cocked their head and winced as sweat rolled into their eyes. They flicked it away in irritation. “Don’t they feed you, out there?”

“That’s classified.” Whumper shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, and sniffed—it would almost come over as disdainful if they didn’t look a little… guilty?

“That’s a no, then.”

“It’s none of your business. If I choose to eat your food that’s just, well, torture I guess.”

The tray clattered onto a table littered with even less inviting metallic instruments and Whumpee winced. They were so sore, bruised and cut and tired and they knew there would only be worse to come.

“Can’t we be done? For today?”

“Do I have what I want yet?” Whumper crossed their arms and leaned back.

“Well no, but you never do.”

“And therein lies the problem. Look, I don’t want to be here anymore than you do—”

Whumpee raised their eyebrows.

“No really, I promise, this isn’t fun for either of us. So if you could just, I don’t know, go ahead and give in already? That would make my day. My week, probably my month.”

Whumpee laughed and it startled both of them. When the sudden burst petered out they twisted uncomfortably in the bindings. “Why didn’t you say so? Oh I’m so sorry to inconvenience you. If I’d only known you were having a terrible time, you poor poor thing, is it weally hard to be the big meanie weenie?”

Whumper lowered their head, working their jaw. “Gagging you is so fucking tempting sometimes.”

“Go ahead, it’ll give my throat a rest from screaming,” they spat back. Irritation had grown into a spiked ugly thing. How dare Whumper sit there and say they hated being here? After all they’d done? “What do I have to look forward to if I give you what I want anyway? It’s not like I’d suddenly be treated like a prince.”

“You’d get out of this room for one thing,” Whumper shot back, looking up sharply. “A proper bed. Some medical care. A chance not to spend your entire miserable life locked away like this.”

Whumpee narrowed their eyes, several things dropping into place one by one. “So I’d just be miserable somewhere else. Turned into someone like you?”

Whumper shrugged again, lips twitching. “If you’re not going to take me seriously.”

“I’m very serious.”

“And so. Am. I. So, are you going to talk?” They picked up a scalpel and a pair of pliers and flipped both deftly into the palm of their hands. Hands that… weren’t shaking like they had been all morning. Hands that looked steadier, nourished for once, perhaps.

“I guess not,” Whumpee said, around a throat suddenly gone tight.

“Then I guess we’re not done. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Hey, I don’t have anywhere else to be,” they said, trying for nonchalance even as they leaned as far away from the instruments as they could get.

“Neither do I, and that’s your whole problem.”

It wasn’t long before their screams filled the room again, echoing off the bare stone and up through the grated window to the barren courtyard above. And all the while the scent of the food that had been so unfairly eaten grew fainter and fainter, but they noticed through the pain that Whumper’s hands were warmer than they had been in days.

It dawned on them that surviving this was really only the beginning of a life they hadn’t even scratched the surface of. It began, excruciatingly, to sink in that holding out and giving in were two sides of the very same coin—and their possible future loomed large over them. Bearing its teeth and swearing, covered in their own blood, reflecting their own fears back like a mirror and emanating the stench of failure and hot bread on its breath like a taunt of all the horrors yet to come.