Chapter Text
He had been pacing for Prime knows how long.
Minutes turned to hours, possibly to days , as they kept him in his own personal prison. White walls, grey floors, a tinted glass window door thing leading to the hall, a depressing slab of concrete he called a bed, a shitter. The room was only about 4 meters squared, but it was quickly becoming his least favorite meters in the entire verse.
Pacing kept his mind from unraveling.
Two sets of cuffs hung heavily off of him. One set at the wrists and another clasped tightly around the elbows, placed after he swung his wrists under his fragile body to give him the leverage he needed to break them, so long ago when he had first arrived. The second set made things harder, making it impossible to slip or break the metallic like bindings.
A large collar sat firmly around his neck, flush with the skin, with a large box set on the left side, the fingerprint controlled buckle on the other. The box set two large prongs deep within his skin, serving as a constant reminder of what would happen if he misbehaved.
The collar connected to a gag with a chain that swung with every step. He created a rhythm as he paced, Clunk-Tick-Clunk-Step-Repeat, and the consistent noises were the only thing keeping time tethered within his mind.
As he reached the door, Tommy slowed to a stop as he caught his reflection in the tinted glass, causing the almost constant sounds of his movements to quiet in his ears.
Time stopped as he really took in the person looking back.
Gagged, the straps digging into the sides of his face and matting into the dirty blond curls on his head, dried spit mixing with the dirt and blood already caked into the skin. The person staring back wasn’t him. Not with the cerulean blue eyes– eye turned dull along with everything else.
The right side of his face was a mess of crusted blood and scabs, a body trying so hard to heal itself without the proper resources to do so. The hole where his eye should be now completely lost in the mess. They, the dreamons, took it for their stupid fucking experiments, barely closing the wound and feeding him a single gapple before sending him back.
That was weeks ago.
It seemed to be healing well, all things considered, yet looking at it still made him wince. It wasn’t something daily applications of water via a dirty piece of his shirt could fix, it needed to be cleaned, covered, and rested.
Yet, every day, exactly 20 minutes after the lights brightened, two dumbfuck aliens would waltz into his room, controller to his collar raised and batons out, and drag him off.
Tommy’s eyes lost focus on the man in the reflection after a while, attention drifting to the other cells in the room. It had been weeks since he checked up on them, not caring enough to keep up with the new prisoners.
They would all die eventually, leaving him behind.
The cell directly across from him, the door staring almost directly into his from across the way, held some kind of bee creature, small and cowering in the far corner. Poor thing won’t make it very long.
Though muted by the doors between them, a constant buzzing could be heard. Tommy could only really relate it to that of a distress call, frightened and constant, similar to blind kitten looking for its mom.
They made eye contact at that moment, a silent conversation being had between them, before Tommy continued to pace.
Step-Clunk-Tick-Clunk-Step
The lights had come on just a few minutes ago, yet the oh-so-familiar sound of the outside doors unlocking was loud and clear. I must have stared a bit longer than I thought.
Tommy walked, ever so slowly with his limp, careful not to trip over his feet as he made his way to greet his captors. A growl, coming from deep within him, was the only thing he could muster with the plastic gag pressing down so firmly on his tongue.
They learned their lesson.
The first time, after the tranquilizers wore off, he didn’t have it. Slipped from his cuffs and free within the cell, the minute they opened that door, they learned.
Now they keep it on. Nearly tight enough to suffocate, it only comes off once a day for his slurry of food-adjacent substance and a bit of water, before being replaced. Everything else was administered through IV or a shot, and nothing was given if it wasn’t necessary.
He flared his nostrils and growled again, a routine of his every single time they entered his space, and the head of the team didn’t even bat an eye, simply grabbing the chain linked between the collar and the front of the gag and pulling him up.
Two other sets of unusually freezing hands grabbed the cuffs on his wrists, making sure he stayed suspended just above the ground. Guards surrounded the group as they made their way down the halls for the billionth time, and Tommy couldn’t help but laugh at them when they startled at any sudden movement he made.
As the one holding the chain, the leader, turned off their usual path, Tommy kicked the stupid fucking alien as hard as he could. A normal day, he could handle that, but they are not taking me back there.
A growl rang through the hall, followed by a sharp volt of electricity rushing through him. Everything hurt, but he could not go back.
–The man, if you could even call him that, turned off of their beaten path, swiping their scaly hand in front of the sensor before turning down the newly opened hallway. He was just getting used to their schedule, lights on, they come in, drag him to the testing area and force him to run or fight or kill, get dragged to the food area, back to room–
–Thick metallic straps, all up and down his arms and legs, gag taken off and replaced by more straps around his head, keeping him still–
–Pain, the worst pain in his life, followed by the pull only felt when drifting in and out of consciousness. Why, why me, why m–
He got a few good kicks on them before he was restrained again, a set (or multiple) of new cuffs tightened around his legs, preventing him from doing anything but squirm in their hold. As two of the guards from the outside grabbed his legs, fully suspending him up off of the ground and holding him in a coffin-like hold, Tommy decided to go limp.
If he was going, he was going to make it as difficult as possible.
Screaming, so hard his lungs burned and throat itched, yet no sound made it past the gag. The pure fear coursing through his veins threatened to make him pass out, his head forced to hang limp off of his shoulders as energy drained from his muscles.
As they strapped him in, Tommy sat numb, the metal of the table peaking through the tears in his clothes, freezing every centimeter it touched.
Numb, quiet, fading in and out of consciousness, Tommy watched as his brother faded into view.
“Tommy, you can’t go out like this. You’re stronger than this, I know it.” Techno hummed from above him, voice low and barely loud enough to cut through the warbles of the dreamons. “C’mon, get up.”
It was the tone the warrior used with him after they fought, after Techno knocked him down and bruised him. It was the tone that told him ‘ We are playing, Tommy, Let's clean you up’
“Are you really going to let them hurt you like this? Like a coward?”
The gag was being removed, followed by a scalpel dragging down from where his throat met his chin all the way down to the collar. Tommy bit the first motherfucking arm that came into reach. “I am NOT a coward!” He screamed, though the words came out garbled and hoarse, barely recognizable and Tommy watched as the stupid bitches rushed cover their ears.
A battle cry, mix of terror and pure desperation, followed by a laugh as the dreamons struggled to recover, struggled to keep him down. Every bone, every ounce of strength left in the fragile teen was being used to force the cuffs away from the table.
He’s done it before, but with the constant electricity thrumming through the collar secured around his neck, everything became much… easier?
The left cuff broke, and he used the free arm to make quick work off the other ones, breaking at the chain and leaving the cuff part tightly secured around him.
Frigid scaled hands grasped at him, trying to get the now furious human to sit back down, to be restrained again, but Tommy was not having any of it.
Blood trickled down his neck as he fought, adrenaline making it easy to grab the scalpel from the “doctor’s” loose grip. He made easy (or as easy as you could in the state that he was in) work of the few guards. They were more… fragile than people were, going down with a few quick stabs or a kick to the chest.
It became increasingly difficult to breathe, breaths coming out in short puffy wheezes rather than proper breaths, yet Tommy continued, opening the door and running into the hall.
Another set of guards runned around the corner, and Tommy took them down with (significantly less) ease, bringing them to the floor with the stolen equipment.
Panting, more like wheezing, Tommy rested against the wall. His head was swimming, a constant feeling of falling and tingling with the lack of oxygen. What would only be a couple of seconds turned longer, the rest allowing the adrenaline to finally release its hold upon his actions.
He fell to the ground, only a few paces from the guards and a meter or two away from the medbay’s door.
As darkness creeped into his vision, he could have
sworn
someone was standing, watching,
and they were slightly transparent.