Chapter Three #2
The relative peace of a nearly comfortable routine brought a feeling of control to Isaiah’s day, even if he technically had very little say in anything besides how fast he walked and whether he chose to engage in conversation with his pseudo-captor or not.
It made him brave—brave or reckless, perhaps. He was choosing to call it bravery.
“So, you won’t free us,” he continued, “But you have to want me enough to give up something in exchange.”
Hilker paused from organizing supplies. “Go on.”
“If you bring me a large, fluffy blanket, you can help me undo my gown.” From Isaiah’s side, that was barely giving anything up—Varsity had already undone the back of Isaiah’s gown dozens upon dozens of times—but perhaps Hilker wouldn’t see it that way.
If Isaiah was right about him, just the fact that he was being given something at all might spur him to accept.
Maybe he wasn’t right, though, if Hilker’s snort was anything to go by. “That’s hardly a tradeoff,” he grumbled, then looked pointedly at Isaiah. “You don’t even get cold.”
Oh. Huh. Did he think Isaiah was the one getting cheated here? “Blankets are good for more than warmth. They bring comfort. Beauty. Joy. All of which my cell is devastatingly lacking in, if you hadn’t noticed.”
“You can have one of my blankets!” Landon shouted.
“See. I have one taker already. Maybe you should throw in a pillow.”
“You have a pillow.” Hilker narrowed his eyes, but he set down the pre-packaged syringe in his hand and walked through the lab, vanishing into the side room that he and the security sometimes disappeared to for mid-shift breaks and during long runs of the lab equipment.
Isaiah was tempted to go peek inside, but then Hilker returned carrying a fuzzy, steel-grey blanket, so large it almost overflowed from his arms. The sight of it made Isaiah weak at the knees. He reached for it, a needy whimper escaping him.
Hilker pulled it back. He lifted an eyebrow. “Go sit. You can have it after.”
“Fuck you!” Landon cursed.
Without missing a beat, Hilker replied, “I prefer to be the one doing the fucking, if it’s all the same to him.”
Isaiah should have been expecting to be the butt of an innuendo—he’d been building his defense against Hilker’s heated glances all week—but despite his best efforts he felt a rush of heat roll through his cheeks and down his neck.
“I’m not letting him fuck me,” he reassured Landon, part of him needed to hear the words for himself.
This was just a simple trade, one in which he gave up something that had already been taken from him. He was just surviving one more day, was all. Just one more day.
Repeating that to himself, Isaiah held his chin high and walked past Hilker, not even dignifying the blanket with a second glance, despite how much he wanted to grab it and rub the soft rolls over his cheeks.
Hilker’s footsteps echoed away from him, followed by the swoosh of the blanket being dropped—probably inside Isaiah’s cell, though he still couldn’t bear giving up his dignity to check.
He listened as Hilker came up behind him, and ever so quietly held his breath for the first contact of the man’s fingers.
It came gently, like a graceful breeze, tucking between the strands and tugging one after another.
Slowly the wrapped fabric fell apart, the chilly lab air tickling Isaiah’s skin.
As it did, the brush of fingertips followed, three of them tracing down Isaiah’s spine.
Despite his held breath, he inhaled sharply.
“I didn’t say you could touch,” he tried to snap, but he worried it sounded more like a plea than a demand.
“Love...” Hilker gave a tug at the unbound strings, not enough that it hurt, but with a force that caught Isaiah off guard.
The pressure burned through him, jolting his heart rate up and tickling in his stomach.
“The whipping boy who trades away his favors is not exactly in a position to argue, now is he?”
The heat that already scorched inside Isaiah riled at that, roiling through his pelvis in a rather undignified way.
He swallowed, trying to focus on his breathing and not the sudden awareness of just how behind him Hilker was.
They were normal, natural reactions, he reminded himself.
Normal, for him. Natural, if it had been anyone else speaking to him in such an excruciatingly demeaning tone.
God damn.
God damn.
Isaiah raised his voice, his gaze on the stupid boxy thingamabob across the way, trying to spend half his attention thinking about the funny noises it made when it took pictures of his organs and not Hilker’s presence behind him. “Did you hear me tell him that he could touch?”
Landon hissed. “If that shit-eating, demonic, small-dicked bastard lays a fucking finger on you, I swear I’ll—”
“Relax,” Hilker cut them off. “I’ve already finished.” He turned Isaiah then, a hand on each hip—gratefully atop the fabric—and began tying the gown into place. “See?”
“Is he—”
“Yes, he’s really finished,” Isaiah said. “Thank you for the rescue, Your Highness!” It genuinely felt like one, the sudden shift in tone bringing Isaiah’s body temperature back to normal.
“Every time!” Landon shouted back. Not any time, but every time, they’d told him once, when he asked if they’d keep talking to him through his pain. And every time, they had.
Isaiah sat onto the table, and for the next few hours he managed to lose himself in the routine of the procedures, Hilker’s hands as professional as ever, even if his eyes still betrayed him.
Nothing hurt more than the cell sampling had, and he found himself tired and mildly anxious where terror and agony had once gripped him.
It was weird, even after a week of days like this.
Weirder still, he was pretty sure his body had begun to settle into it.
That made the thought of future discomfort amplified, as though Isaiah’s flesh had forgotten the holy silver just enough to no longer be certain whether any little prick or pinch might suddenly replicate it.
Nothing ever did.
At least he was grateful for that.
As Hilker finished his work, Isaiah sat up on his elbows and took another risk.
“Tell me what’s going on out there?” he asked. “Everything was such a mess when that bastard snagged me…”
Hilker placed the last of his samples into its holder and looked up, his brow smugly raised. “And why should I do that?”
Isaiah inhaled, then made himself roll his lower lip into his mouth, thinking of how he’d have done it if Justin had been watching, slow and calculated, leaving a little glistening patch on his rose-brown lips. “I don’t think I should have to spell that out for you.”
Hilker leaned forward and pressed his palms to the top of the table, moving just slow enough that Isaiah had time to scoot back his own legs so their skin didn’t touch. Hilker didn’t seem bothered by the withdrawal. “All right, then. Tell me, what will I get in return?”
“You answer the question, and then I’ll tell you what it was worth to me.”
“You tell me what it’s worth to you, and I’ll tell you what I want.”