bakerstreet | taken from a prompt on rpanons

taken from a prompt on rpanons

TRAPPED TOGETHER
a fuck or die smut meme

You don't remember falling asleep, but now you're waking up, and it's nowhere familiar. The room is white from top to bottom, clean and sterile. There is no visible door or other means of escape. Fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling provide the only light.

The room is mostly empty, but not entirely. A large monitor sits recessed into the wall opposite you. A chest of drawers sits on the wall to your left, and a closet in the wall to your right. You are sitting on a large, white bed, and you are not alone. Do you know this person? Are they a friend, an enemy, a lover? Or are they a complete stranger, someone you've never met before in your life. There is a strange collar around their neck, and with a start, you realize you have one on around your throat as well. Try as you might, you cannot remove it.

Whatever the case, the person you are stuck with is awakening as well, but before you two have time to so much as introduce yourselves, the monitor comes to life, and text appears on the screen.

YOU'RE FINALLY AWAKE.
THE GAMES WILL NOW BEGIN.
DO AS YOU ARE TOLD AND YOU WILL LEAVE ALIVE.
ONCE WE'RE DONE WITH YOU, THAT IS.
IGNORE YOUR ORDERS AND DIE.
DO NOT ATTEMPT TO CHEAT. WE WILL KNOW.
AND PLEASE, TRY TO HAVE FUN.

The message remains for a minute, just to make sure you both have time to read it, before fading away. Moments later, your first orders appear. Ignore them, and your collars will begin to constrict until you comply. Finish, and new orders will eventually appear. Between the chest of drawers and the closet beside the bed, everything you need is provided to you to perform, including toys, tools, special medications of various effects, and even food and drink.

Is your collar getting tighter? Better get busy. Remember, they're watching.

HOW TO PLAY

Comment with your character information and preferences in the subject, as usual.
OOC communication is extremely important in this meme, the orders your characters are given are determined between the two of you. They can be tame, or they can be extreme. Plan out what you want to play ahead of time, or surprise each other, just get a feel for what each of you want! Leaving a kinks list and/or an example of what kind of orders you like in your comment is a terrific idea.
Keep on going as long as you please! If you really want, your characters can escape after a single smooch, or they can be going at it all day long.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

[ There are not enough question marks in the world for him. ]

If you say so... [ There are a few... other styles in there but Miyuki ignored them. He lets him take the thing without fuss, as he's trying to parse this underwear mystery anyway. So Alois is used to underwear having more to it — ah, is that why he wasn't wearing any? The boxers he has in hand now practically amount to the boy's shorts! But besides that, is there really a place that exists where men only wear underwear like that, where Alois has never heard of conventional styles that Miyuki takes for granted?

And does it matter. Well, at least it might clear up his other eccentricities...

Miyuki hasn't turned or left this time, his question easing out from being rhetorical: ]

Where are you from that they only wear long underwear?

[Alois goes around him to lift skirt, undo shorts to drop around his ankles, step free, and then get into boxers. Answering while he puts on the underwear.]

England. Where are you, that they wear things like this? [China or something, right? Maybe that's the difference.]

[ When he sees him move, Miyuki's a little surprised he didn't get an order to turn around instead. He stays where he is, shifting his weight a bit as he mulls it over... ]

Japan. I always thought they wore the same stuff as us over there.

[ And still thinks that. The other boy may live in England, but maybe it's some out-of-the-way, isolated place therein? Well, that's enough pondering over it for now — they're almost finished. He tips his head slightly back and to the side, without turning it. ]

You decent?

Yes. [Bending at knees to collect his shorts in order to set aside with his clothes from home. When he straightens, he blinks at him.]

Come to think of it, you're still in the drawers you came here in, too, aren't you? [He doesn't wait for an answer, since it's something Miyuki can decide for himself about changing, but he figures someone ought to mention it if the monitor not moving onto next instructions or releasing them has to do with underwear. He moves on ahead and out of the closet to give him privacy, and put his clothes in a corner or something, somewhere where they won't get lost with the mess of rejects.]

At least I'm wearing underwear. [ He huffs, sinking hands into his pockets as he follows after the other boy back into the room, thinking that he would just choose the same sort and color of underwear anyway. ]

Hopefully it's not picky enough to make me take the pants off and do everything back up again, just for that.

[ He'd like to move on, maybe get closer to their release if that is what awaits them. And once the two of them are fully in the room the screen indeed starts to change. See? It's fine —

DO NOT IGNORE YOUR ORDERS.
ASSIST THE OFFENDER BY TAKING OFF THE LAST ARTICLE OF HIS CLOTHING.
HE CANNOT HELP.
THEN CHOOSE SOMETHING NEW FROM WHAT IS PROVIDED.

... You've got to be kidding him — a thought that is barely formed before he's making a surprised noise. Not from being choked this time, however, but from something that feels and looks extremely odd. There is suddenly a strong, invisible pulling force working on the hands currently stuck in his pants. ] What— [ They seem to be drawn inward, Miyuki awkwardly wrestling them out of pockets before his wrists suddenly spring together, connecting right where those shackles are under his shirt cuffs.

Miyuki immediately starts struggling to pull them apart, to no avail, the abrupt lack of control over his own limbs bringing a minor rush of panic through his veins. He catches himself, though, and quiets his movements a bit as he consciously tries to calm down. ]

I can't— get them apart.

[ Magnets? — He mutters to himself. They had looked so similar to the collar it seemed like they were just part of a set. He didn't imagine they had a function like this. ]

[The brief dimming, then new glow of monitor light draws his eyes up, and of course, he frowns. But it's Miyuki's surprise that makes him start with his own looking over, taking a step or two toward him, but stopping in place, not knowing what to do, when he notices his personal struggle with his own wrists. Miyuki's panic, fleeting as it is, is his own, but observing alone is still frightening, and Alois' eyes sting a little, glued on the shackles now stuck together.

His worried expression doesn't lift until Miyuki says he's unable to get them apart. A last look up at the screen, before committing to the specified task.]

Miyuki, [all guilt, like he's done this somehow.] I'm sorry, I— I have to, or you might be stuck like that. [Or worse. History makes him want to ask Miyuki permission first, but they've already been ordered. Still he hesitates, trying to smother out the need to refuse before it's caught onto, and this time he's successful. It can be heard in the breath he lets before he slowly approaches.

His eyes, doubtful, flit to Miyuki's face in his unease one more time, and then he starts to undo his belt, trying to be deft as he works it out of the buckle enough to loosen it—slipping it totally out of loops would just hold them up, but he might be shivering a little. Whenever his gaze starts to climb, he forces it back to what he's doing, not daring enough to look the older boy in the eye again while he unfastens his pants, then eases zipper down.]

I'm... going to pull the trousers down, now, [he informs with quiet voice, an attempt to buffer any possible alarm at having them tugged down at all.]

[ He looks to the younger boy and though he sees and hears him, it's hard to pay attention above the distaste his body has of its new confines. He stands still watching Alois approach, but Miyuki's muscles are tense, wrists still subtly trying to pull free of each other. Even his legs are tense with the want to move away and gain distance for himself and this new sense of vulnerability he's saddled with, but they remain rooted to the spot.

Alois is right, and he knows he has to let him do this. He manages to school his expression and be able to look the boy in the face at first. ]

I know.

[ But it feels as though the short hair at the nape of his neck is on end, his heart set at a faster pace now. Miyuki bends his joined arms up to hold them against his chest, hands partly in front of his face as he turns it aside. Quieter, ]

It's my fault for not being careful.

[ Every movement of the boy's hands are felt, and Miyuki tells himself that this is nothing. That it could be worse. But the awkward way he has to hold himself stays as a constant reminder of his loss of movement. He tries to focus on getting the order complete, then, and falls into grasping for some sense of control back, ]

It'll be easier to take my shoes off first. Just let me lean on you and I can—

[ His offer to toe them off himself dies as he remembers the order, eyes flitting to the screen to confirm it — he can't help. What counts? Something so blatant, at least, is too dangerous to try; not being careful is what got him here. His mouth shuts in a frown, eyes narrowed. ]

... My balance is off like this and you might make me fall over trying to get them past my shoes.

[His fingers, prepared to work pants down, pull away before this happens, and Alois manages to look up at Miyuki himself after what he says.]

R- right. [It was nothing to swap shorts with boxers, even with heels, but he forgot to account for the shoes Miyuki is wearing now.] Um. Here, let me guide you to the bed so you can sit and I'll get your shoes off. [Leaning would be fine, but still may make him unsteady.]

Will that work?

Yeah, it's fine.

[ It's all just fine. Miyuki lets him lead, ignoring how incredibly awkward it is, before sitting back on the bed. He thinks to elevate his feet for him, so Alois doesn't have to bend or kneel on the floor. But the first thing he does is start scooting backward, unintentionally beginning to ruck his pants down with the friction, and stops.

Instead, he raises one leg to rest the side of an ankle on the opposite knee. ]

Here. [ Finally, his eyes look to Alois. ] This okay? I'll switch for you when this one's off.

[It's all right, of course, but he doesn't say anything else for now, not even a hum of confirmation. He clasps top and heel of shoe, and slips it free, letting it drop to the floor. He waits for Miyuki to switch to other knee, then does the same with the second shoe.]

Could you stand again so I can get them down?

Sure. [ He stands now and faces toward him, raising his hands similarly as before. The top of his pants already hangs unevenly off his hips, the black of his boxer-briefs peeking through.

It's all so... unfamiliar; having someone else undress him. This is what parents do for their children, probably, though he can't really remember his dad doing so. ]

[Undressing someone is, for the most part, something he's unused to himself. At seven, he had to learn to clothe a five-year-old, but he was seven and dressing his little brother and himself was an untidy, and often not completely correct endeavor. He's unbuckled trousers or nice shirts and jackets, in other, darker circumstances, but was rarely ever able to get far enough to pull the article off. For two years after he was eight, someone (or some someones) were forcing him into clothes, much like they forced him to eat, and only to keep the cold off him. He can't recall faces, everything is fuzzy from that time.

Claude's been dressing and undressing him since he was eleven, and even at eleven-year-old Alois' prickling that he can do it himself, insisted because that's how is for nobility. All of this, obviously, isn't worth explaining in the light of their situation now. If he had refused, saying he's not meant to undress someone like a common servant, he'd be strangled, or Miyuki.

He easily works the pants down to ankles, descending himself into a very quick, prim squat so as not to have to bend to get them there.]

Sit? [A gentle request.] I'll be able to get them all the way off then. I'll get new underwear, after.

[ His breath is caught and held in his throat a moment at the sudden amount of exposure. He'd just done the same thing pulling off his own pants earlier and thought nothing of it, but it's completely different when someone else is doing it for him. When he's been forced helpless.

Miyuki's looking off to some spot to the side, but Alois' downward movement yanks his gaze in. ]

Mm, good idea.

[ Getting the new underwear before taking his own off, that is. Thinking about it, he's grateful for the consideration. It makes him look at the other boy more soberly for a second...

Still, he's eager to take the opportunity to move away from him if only the smallest distance and if only for a moment. Sitting is a more awkward endeavor now, though it might not look too different from how one can carelessly plop onto a seat. He's not trying to do that, and there is that brief feeling of falling, connected arms twitching for the urge to separate and brace on something as he sits.

He squirms to situate himself, pausing before continuing as he bends his legs up onto the bed and tries not to show how much he hates it, tries not to think about how he looks, eyes avoiding Alois. ]

... Sorry you have to do this.

[ It shouldn't be like this. The younger boy... he shouldn't have to take care of him. All the suppressed irritation vibrates in the core of Miyuki's bones, even worse because he knows it's his own fault. ]

[The moment Alois realizes he's practically falling, his eyes drop to white shoes. An attempt to spare Miyuki from feeling anymore on display than he already must. He doesn't look up until the older boy speaks again, and he carefully lowers to knees (in a peculiar sense of habitual, but without thinking), tucking skirt in a smoothing motion over the tops of them, and behind his legs, since he'll be kneeling upon it and so as it keep it from bunching up. It's subconsciously ritualistic.

Less ritualistic, and as quick as he can make it, he tugs trousers free.]

It's particular, [he answers.] We became careless... [That's to say, he feels it's as much his fault, if not completely. As if he should have piped up, hey, what about our underpants? Pants set aside on the bed, just as neatly and dainty as he had descended, he rises again, taking as brief a note as he possibly can of Miyuki's current underwear with the intention of finding something similar. And then into the closet he goes to rummage in the drawers on Miyuki's side. He does actually manage to find a new pair of black boxer-briefs, and a moment later he returns, frowning, still looking guilty.]

How do you want to do this?

[ There's something weird about the boy's movements. They fit better with what he's wearing than what Miyuki knows he is — a thirteen-year-old boy. But that just goes along with the heels, with his reaction to Miyuki's failure of a joke. For whatever reason, the boy is familiar with wearing girls' clothing.

It's an odd observation, to be sure, but one he doesn't dwell on. More striking is the "We" Alois says, and it echoes in his absence. Miyuki is inclined to disagree, not seeing how it could have been the younger boy's fault at all. He even tried to remind him of his own underwear and Miyuki just brushed him off. Still, the sentiment makes him feel... less older, somehow.

Definitely better than the way being dressed like this makes him feel. He wants to say: with some maneuvering he can probably get his own underwear off himself, at least, and spare them both that. But he can't. ]

... Let's do it like the pants. [ They got through that without too much difficulty, and maybe equating it to that will somehow make the difference between stripping off pants and underwear disappear. ] I'll sit so you can get these off my feet, and stand so you can pull the new ones up.

[ Miyuki gets his feet on the floor, bending forward more than usual to stand up for him first. Mouth drawn in a line, he lifts his arms and looks aside again. But he watches the boy out the corner of his eye. ]

[It takes Alois what feels, and so must seem, considerably longer to make his legs move forward. There's a dark pressure on his chest, as he stands clutching the new underwear, and he stares for some time at the floor. He's spared from any harm, since at this point, it's more a matter of working up his nerve than outright refusal.

He's thinking things to himself like: It's just getting him dressed—but it isn't at all comparable to clothing a five-year-old. Miyuki is of masculine shape. Miyuki who was sickened by Alois touching him. A boy who's only other previous experience with intended touching caused blood to turn hotter. And despite this having been a healthy reaction, Alois' sense of self, his lack of experience with normal people, have left him hinged on that ability to warm someone. It is true that it should be a nonissue presently, but other than Father's initial distaste for him, the beating, and then the beatings when Alois stepped over lines for fun to make him furious, he hasn't experienced such blatant resentment. He won't see Miyuki again, and still he thinks, What's wrong with me? Am I not good enough? Is it because he can tell I'm ruined? Because I'm bad?

What if he accidentally bumps against him. And then there's the matter of how snugly boxer-briefs seem to sit. Surely he noticed to some degree when he stretched the band back before, but he hadn't really given it proper thought. It's receiving proper thought now when he'll have to take it all the way to ankles and off of feet. His stomach is beginning to ache when he thinks about how he doesn't want to touch, accidentally or not, someone who doesn't want to be touched: it is too painful, too close to home.

But perhaps he can stretch the band wide enough. He feels like he's moving lead to make that first step the few it'll take to reach the older boy. He drops new pair on the side of the bed, expression and eyes a mixture of nervous and blank, and if his movements appear slow it's because he's rigid. Fingers extend to let his thumbs take hold of the band, and he stops just before—]

I don't know if I can do it without touching your side, [he warns, in flimsy voice. His line of sight is glued to Miyuki's chest, but more as though he's looking, or trying to look, through him. Firmly attached, yet trying to detach all the same. He's having to fight himself harder with each passing moment to stay in this reality with him. He wants to abandon Miyuki and his own body and the monitor and go to some place unreachable by anyone else. He wants to hide.]

[ He watches and waits without a word to hurry the boy along. The reluctant delay is normal, expected, and apparently not enough to have tipped into outright refusal of their objective. Miyuki still feels that it's his fault the younger boy has to do this, anyway, and isn't about to fault him for his hesitance.

Even when he can feel that slightest pressure of fingers through fabric as surely as some iron grip, when he'd much rather the bandaid be ripped off than left hanging just before the moment he knows is coming, Miyuki does not push him.

But Alois' warning pulls him out of it. The boy may not be looking at him, but Miyuki had been watching him and now turns his head forward. Is that really what he's worrying about? Does he himself look so fragile... ? ]

... You say that like you're gonna burn me.

[ Though not a full smile, the small tug up of the corner of his mouth is slipped into his tone, encouraging. ]

C'mon, I can handle a little tickle.

[A breath is let, but no tension follows. He pinches band between thumbs and knuckles of pointers, once Miyuki's given the go ahead, and sure enough there's only the briefest brushing of thumbs against hips as he finally begins to pull the boxer-briefs down.

He can only get so far standing though. Partially, he freezes again, and there's a cautionary pressure to his throat, but the collar doesn't clench entirely for once he feels it, he adamantly thinks that he'll do it. From anxiously slow to anxiously quick, thoughtlessly, in a desperate need to end this for both of them, he drops hard onto his knees, tugging underwear along with him. They're at the older boy's ankles now, and quivering, eyes widened in the effort to stay focused anywhere but the intimate obvious, he stands just as abruptly.]

Sit, [a wisp.] S- sit, [an effort to be firmer, but is a squeak all that firm?]

[ Despite his words before, Miyuki feels those barest brushes of Alois' fingers searing tiny marks into his skin, leaving lingering warmth he's sure he could point out and map in his outwardly unblemished legs. Still, the other boy is moving too slow until he's stopping,, too close when Miyuki is like this, and he wonders if he has to intervene.

Though doesn't wonder long. Alois draws the underwear and himself down in one movement, and it all happens fast enough that Miyuki isn't breathing until the end. When they're both standing again, and he finally exhales as the younger boy says something.

He treats that command as though it were like a command at all, obligingly doing that sit-fall movement again but with less self-consciousness this time. He is too focused on the other boy for that. Though Miyuki doesn't say anything, he eyes him keenly, wondering what it is the other boy needs. Whether it'd be better to stay silent and let him give orders, to give them himself, or perhaps just make a joke.

And though he's preoccupied with this, still he feels his naked body and a reluctance to lift his legs for the younger boy. Miyuki settles on leaning his joined hands into the bed beside the thigh nearest Alois, bringing both bent legs up onto the edge of the mattress so one is on top of the other and his knees are both pointed vaguely toward the corner of the bed. A weird, feminine position he'd prefer not to have to keep his body in for too long, but one that is modest (for the other boy's sake) and leaves his feet, ankles, and underwear hanging off the side of the bed for Alois. He looks to him for confirmation that it's alright. ]

[Alois waits and watches, blinking at Miyuki's expression once he's settled, glimpsing at how he holds himself on the bed once more. He looks pitiful really, and it's almost a shame that they're in this dire circumstance, because if things were safe for them, Alois would just laugh at him. Maybe push him off the bed, dare him to get back up, and keep pushing him. That sort of playful, bullying whim doesn't come to find him, though. He only feels uneasily sympathetic.

He removes the dangling underwear, instantly dropping them to the floor, then reaches for the newer pair. An apologetic and partly cautioning glance is given to the older boy, and he begins to draw new pair up. Only a little up calves, not far, knowing they'll slip by the time he's standing again, but this is at least to get them started. He takes a step back to give him room.

And after a considering moment, having now seen him nearly collapse twice—] I could help lift you? [an offer and asking him both.]

[ His eyes drop from the other boy's pitying look to his hands slipping the underwear on. It's probably warranted, given what he knows he looks like, and his feelings of discomfort only helping that image along. Eager to move again and get dressed, Miyuki starts as soon as Alois gives him space, but pauses at the question with refusal on the tip of his tongue. He doesn't want any more reminder of how vulnerable he is right now, and yet... the younger boy isn't offering as a way to point this out but to help, genuinely. Or at least it seems so. ]

Thanks [ he means it, sincere rather than dismissive even as he turns the offer down, ], I think I got it.

[ Standing doesn't look as funny as sitting, the only difference being the more exaggerated way he leans forward initially. You don't notice the little things until they're gone. Like the balance and push that his arm muscles would have given in such a simple movement, that which his stomach and leg muscles have to compensate for to achieve the same. Just a small difference, but one that feels too big.

With feet firmly on the floor, he knows what comes next now. What makes him want to step away before letting someone that intimately close. It's only worse and more uncomfortable when he knows what he does about that someone. Is there any way to make it easier, for either of them? He doesn't see one. The one thing he can say for certain is that he's learned his lesson and so, that's what he tells the other boy. ]

I can't stop whatever that thing tells us to do from being weird, but I promise not to make another stupid mistake like that.

[ If they can avoid the worst of it coming down upon them, then he'll do everything he can to. He'll be more careful from now on — Miyuki lifts his eyes to Alois with this in mind, breaking the gravity with a quirk of his lips. ]

You be careful too, okay?

[There's sure to be no denying that the younger of the two first looks alarmed to hear this.

You be careful, too. What does this insinuate? He feels nervous, and doubtful, and distrustful in a similar way to whenever Hannah's entered the room. It's not her terrifying warmth, motherly and well-meaning and better than he deserves, but it's solicitous of his well-being. He evaporates in his own eyes, which don't quite look at Miyuki or small curve of his lips, outside of that initial, wary surprise.

He's sinking to the floor to carry on with their ordered task, and part way down it dawns on him that he didn't react as he ought to, and so, cast toward the floor, he gives Miyuki a belated, moth-at-a-lamp light of a smile. From here, pulling boxer-briefs up, he's like a small robot. He has to be, see, the truth is that Miyuki's terribly attractive.

The things they've done up until now are not the sort of things he thinks about on his own, he can't be bothered, but he'd claim, since he's ruined, when presented with someone sculpted this nicely, he's struck by annoying, sinful flickers. If their hands weren't being forced, if Miyuki hadn't already made his disinterest obvious, Alois would turn himself to bait and try to tempt and tempt him. He'd know how far down or up to make his eyelashes go, and would find every excuse to touch him, and sigh too much; all the miniature nuances that make men wonder about the falsely-innocent in a different way. He's already tried this, intending to feel on even ground with him, a hopeless effort to help them both make-believe, which is a sanctuary that makes the worst things bearable.

It's not as if he needs to do anymore outside of getting the boxer-briefs on, but he knows he'll have to touch him, and he knows Miyuki will feel like his stomach is eating itself. This kind of feeling makes him think of Trancy or any of the men he shared him with hovering above him. It makes him think of the time before Jim found Claude, and sat under the house, with the driest eyes, amid a collection of boys who wept on each other. Alois only has to get underwear on, and he knows just that amount of touching, even if it's quick, will put Miyuki closer to feeling like those other children (who, when the house came to be his own, he let free), to feeling like himself. And if all of this keeps up, Alois will ruin Miyuki, will send him back home to harbor the same kind of incurable self-loathing he himself does now.

A malfunctioning robot, might be a better way to put it. Since he does intend to carry it all out soullessly and without feeling, but this awareness haunts him, and he does get the boxer-briefs up to hips, but he's shaking badly, and it's such a simple thing: get him nicely tucked and situated. It's simple, but still his hands are clumsy, still he isn't sure what he's looking at, his own hands, or Claude on a spiderweb, or another boy weeping with a kind of anguish at one point he never thought himself capable of again. This is why coming onto people is safest. He gets to control everything that's happening, but this is different: having to avoid it, knowing he hates it, this closeness, knowing how an unwanted closeness kills a person forever.

It's over. The boxer-briefs are on. Somehow he's able to tell. He means to ask, if he thinks it wants him to help him get trousers back on, too, but he erupts into gasping sobs.]

I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

[ While admitting to mistakes is not something Miyuki does or has to do every day, nagging those he sees under his charge comes easily to him. Sometimes they need it, sometimes he finds out they don't. And either way, sometimes it's enough to annoy them and entertain Miyuki.

But there is no silent, deliberate ignoring of his words, as Furuya might have done. No loud biting back, like Sawamura. Not even grudging but mature acceptance, like the older Tanba might have fallen to, back when his resentment toward Miyuki still lingered. Near immediately, it's apparent he's said the wrong thing, and that weak smile he's given is too little, and far too late to hide it.

Miyuki is reminded again that though it feels like he knows too much about the younger boy, he hardly knows anything at all. Certainly not enough to see the complex system of wires going on underneath the surface. Alois is unlike any boy he knows back home, and must work by trial and error to find out how to control him when he needs to — and it seems he does need to.

When fingertips are brushing up his leg once more, they leave similar short trails as before, but their heat is dimmed, body desensitized. And attention diverted, besides, in dread. The empty, mechanical thing the other boy's become cannot hold what he is, and Miyuki sees his body trembling, ready to break.

He is allowed to take over from here, apparently, as the unstoppable pull between the wrist cuffs all at once dies, just as Alois finally bursts. Miyuki doesn't know what to do, again, and he can feel a mix of emotions bubbling up. Alarm, annoyance, sympathy. He told him it's not his fault, he knows this is terrible, and does the younger boy know, seeing him cry now tugs at something much higher than Miyuki's stomach?

He drops his newly separated hands heavy upon Alois' shoulders, shaking just once, before staring him down with punctuated words. ]

Why? What are you sorry for?

[ Do the apologies mean anything? ]

[He's rigid under the weight of Miyuki's hands, shoulders unrelentingly locked into place. Huffing little breaths amid the sobbing (yes, sobbing, it comes and comes) against knuckles to a hand tightly clutched by the other. As annoying as it is, as difficult as it must be to understand where it stems from, he seems incapable of ceasing a barrage of apologies for a minute or so longer. For sometime, he has difficulty getting a hold of himself long enough to elaborate, but, hiccuped and pushed out in his guilt-ridden breathlessness:]

I don't— I d-don't want to ruin you.

[The monitor has no interest in kindly waiting for the youngest of the two boys to get through his adamant self-blaming. Even before he manages to make it to this admission, it's already prepared additional instructions:

YOU'RE NEARLY FINISHED.
BUT DO BOXERS REALLY GO WITH A DRESS?
PICK SOMETHING MORE SUITABLE TO CONTINUE.]

[ His fingers curl into the other boy's shoulder slightly, and he almost gives up on gleaning anything substantial from him. Miyuki doesn't want to hear empty apologies with nothing behind them or in front of them, and if the younger boy can voice his meaning, then maybe Miyuki can assuage his worries.

Except he has no idea what to make of it when Alois tells him that. The implication is a shock; it's a similar thought that causes the disquiet when he's been urged toward the other boy in the way he has been. Alois is young, large eyes and fair features making him look so innocent. He shouldn't be made to do what he's not ready for, and Miyuki doesn't want to be the instrument used to inflict it upon him.

Though he's learned, Alois already has been made to do things before Miyuki ever touched him. Before anything in this room. It starts to form, then, as he thinks perhaps the other boy is referring to what the monitor's making him do. How Miyuki has been made to feel vulnerable and violated, and he wants to say it's not Alois' fault, a million times. He wants to think, too, that he's resilient enough not to be ruined by something like this.

But even if it isn't Alois' fault, Miyuki remembers how he felt upon waking up here. He'll remember it even if they manage to escape from this hell hole (when. when they escape), and with the relatively lighter orders they've been given since then, he knows their captor is fully capable of making things worse at any point. Maybe he will be ruined. The same way he realizes... Alois thinks he himself has been ruined.

His hands loosen and slide down to the sides of the younger boy's upper arms, holding him like that, focused solely on him with not even a blink spared for the monitor and its changing face. ]

I'd have to have a pretty sensitive ego for a little embarrassment to ruin me.

[ He sounds wry, but confident. That's the one thing you need to really sell what you're faking, you know, and he's had loads of practice at it. To the point where it's so easy to slip back into closing up, hiding the weakness and insecurity. ]

... I'm going to do what I have to, and so are you. Okay?

[ In less pretty terms, that's what being careful means for them. Miyuki stays for a long moment, but whether the younger boy will look at him and agree or not, he eventually leaves with a pat to his arm.

Alois doesn't need to worry about someone willing to do what he has to to survive, including what he already has done to him. Miyuki doesn't want him to. He learned back when he was a little runt how to ward that attention off and not let anyone see how it hurt. Mentally, he chastises himself for letting their captor get to him to such an extent, for even a moment letting the other boy see him bleed.

He goes for his pants and starts to tug them on while turned away, though ends up glancing too long at the monitor and happens to read it, scowling to himself where the other boy can't see. One thing on top of another... but he meant what he said. He'll do it, and delaying while not refusing doesn't seem to trigger the collar, luckily. He's reluctant to go ahead without giving Alois time to calm himself and meanwhile, Miyuki can straighten out his clothes as he ponders over how to go about it. ]

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