Work Text:
It all starts with those sounds. The click-click of metal before the sound of your screams, before the slick sound of blood spurting and pooling at your feet, and before your mind goes off to a world of its own- almost shutting down but not quite, never completely, because there’s still the burning feeling of pain (so much, so much) all over your skin, in your fingers and in your toes when he snaps the pliers around the joints of your hands and feet.
It starts with the dull slap of leather against cold tiles, of footsteps heavy on the ground and in your ears when he starts talking about what he wants to do with you. It starts when the noise in your ears fades just after the click of metal against metal, starts when the static replaces his voice in your head and everything becomes either a stark white or a dull black.
It starts when you feel yourself shutting down, your senses trying to white-out your thoughts and your feelings before your heart can go tachycardic in its beating at the sound of the pliers clicking ominously in his hand.
It starts with a click.
The sound of leather, then,
Click. Click.
You jerk when you hear it. You’re quivering even before he can reach you, mind already shutting down and going away- to a safe place, to your make-believe haven- just before he can start talking. Your thoughts are blank, void of true feeling, and everything is white noise inside your head when he starts clipping off your fingers
one.
By.
One.
You’re crying while you subtract sevens for him.
“Nine-hundred fifty-one...”
Crack.
Sobbing, voice reaching a pitch that’s almost a scream, “Nine-hundred forty-four..!”
He laughs when he breaks another finger. Click. Crack.
Everything is white. Even when you close your eyes, even when you try to shut everything out, even when Rize starts whispering in your ear, everything is blindingly white.
“You lie so well to yourself,” she says in a giggle while you sob, her delicate fingers feeling like death on your shoulders when another finger is broken off. “You’re becoming better at this, Kaneki-kun.”
Click.
You quiver.
Crack.
“N-nine…nine-hundred thirty-seven,” you cry out, a sick feeling rising from your stomach up to your throat, making it hard to breath until you swallow back the bile clogging your throat.
Click.
You’re shaking now. You’re a bloodied mess, and you try not to laugh at the pull of insanity reaching from your heart up to your mind because it would be so easy, so easy to let your mind go and succumb to blissful numbness. You could escape your mind even if you couldn’t escape this punishment; you could pretend that none of this was real, your body only a vessel for your weary soul, and nothing would hurt.
But he won’t let that happen.
“Nine-hundred thirty!” you scream, voice going hoarse and quiet before rising to a shriek when he quickly snips off your biggest toe, his laughter ringing in your ears and overlapping with the sound of your choked-off sobs.
Click-click.
You scream again when he breaks off another toe. Vaguely, you can feel the sticky mess of blood dripping from your hands and feet, the flow of your tears nigh endless as he gives you a moment to breathe through the torture. Fear clouds your mind and clutches at your chest, drawing the air out of your lungs when you realize that he’s waiting for you to heal again.
Click.
You’re crying out before he can even snap anything off, calling for help, calling for mother, and he laughs like there is no greater amusement than your squirming form, as though your bloodied limbs and tear-streaked face are not as grotesque as they are entertaining.
You choke out a cry of help again, desperately wishing for someone to save you, even when you know that it’s futile.
Rize laughs as she settles at your side. She doesn't care- never has, not even thinking it as something entertaining as she does think it as something to pass the time. Something to blink her eyes at as though it were a normal scene, as if you weren't being slowly killed by the man standing in front of you.
Again, he holds up his blood-stained pliers, grin wide and feral as you watch him with wide eyes and a trembling mouth.
Click.
You scream, and everything becomes red.