His body is still moving when he wakes up, and he whimpers before he’s entirely conscious, squeezing his eyes shut as though to deny it. His knees are pushed up, and the hands that grip his hips are hurting him, and someone is still shoving into him. His stomach is cramping, and the faint motions he can feel from the baby inside him feel more frantic. 

A gasping, trembling sob leave him. “S-stop.” He whimpers. 

“Awake?” A hand strokes through his hair, and a thumb parts his lip. “Screaming is so unbecoming.”

“You’re tearing me apart.” He whispers. “Please. S-stop. It. It hurts.” 

The hand keeps running through his hair, and he hates himself for leaning into it, letting himself be touched. 

“It only hurts when you misbehave.” Gabriel tells him gently. “I can stop him at any moment.” 

But nothing would stop Gabriel. He whimpered, feeling the thumb push into the bruised tissue of his mouth. 

“Please, Uncle.” He’s ashamed of himself, he hurts and he can feel how sticky he is everywhere. If it’s cum or blood, he doesn’t want to look.

It hurts. It hurts. 

There’s a snap, and the weight above him vanishes with a pop – cold brushing over his legs as he’s exposed. 

“Do you need to be talking to people at photo-shoots?” His uncle asks, conversational. 

He shakes his head. “No, I’m sorry.” He whispers, unable to move from his position on the bed. His stomach aches, but he can’t move his hands to check the damage. 

He hadn’t been told not to do it, but he should have guessed. He should have known better than to let himself be engaged in public. 

That wasn’t what he was for. 

He had forgotten the rules. 

“Oh.” A soft voice whispers. 

“Go wait in my study, Duusu.”

“But-Oh….” The Kwami’s voice is soft. 

“Go.” 
“Hm. You’ve made a mess.” Gabriel says, thoughtful. “I suppose I should clean you up.” 

He doesn’t want to move, doesn’t want to be moved, but he locks his jaw as he’s scooped up and hopes that none of his organs get left behind. 

The cold water is shocking to his overheated body, and he gasps when it hits his face – coughs when he breathes some of it in, and then turns his head up to drink, swallowing big mouthfuls until the inside of his mouth no longer feels tacky and gross. 

He tries to stifle a whine as Gabriel scrubs between his legs, because he doesn’t have the strength to do it himself.  

“If I put you in the tub can you stay out of trouble while I call Rosa to change the sheets?” Gabriel asks. 

He nods, shivering, but the water is starting to heat up slowly. It will be tolerable soon. 

He lets the spray of it hit him until he can move his hand, checking his body. The baby inside him twists one more time. “It’s ok. You’re ok.” He mutters to it – to himself? - rubbing his hand over it. He feels...bruised. 

Everywhere, honestly. He doesn’t know how long the assault went on after he passed out. His head hurts, and he wonders how quickly Gabriel took the hand away from his mouth. 

There’s tearing, there’s blood. But the blood is sluggish.

So either he’s bled himself out and is about to lose consciousness from blood loss or he’s only torn superficially. 

The thought makes him laugh, he doesn’t know why. He gets himself moving enough to squeeze soap into his hand and wash his hair, still giggling softly to himself. 

He can’t die here, he decides. Gabriel won’t let him. It’s in his power to keep him here until he decides he’s done with him, and dying would ruin his plans. 

It’s impossible to tell with the water in his face if he’s crying, but he’s still laughing softly when Gabriel comes back some time later, long enough that the blood has stopped as his abnormal healing catches up with it. Long enough that there’s no soap in his hair and his hands are pressing lightly against his thighs, measuring the size difference between his hands and his uncle’s. 

“What are you doing?” 

He looks up at his uncle, feeling much younger than he should. The soft, breathless laughter that escapes him somehow makes Gabriel’s face contort. “Sorry, uncle.” 

“Why are you laughing?”

“Your hands are so big.” He explains, though he doesn’t actually know why it’s funny. “It makes two of mine.” 

He feels so small. It makes him giggle more. 

His uncle turns off the water and catches his chin, turning it so he can look at his eyes. 

Felix blinks several times when a light is shown into them, and then giggles more because – well, it’s funny, isn’t it? His uncle is trying to figure out what is wrong with him after….after. 

He doesn’t want to think about it. There are bruises on his thighs and hips in the shape of his uncle’s hands, and his body feels….feels.

“Oh. I forgot the word.” He says, and covers his mouth for another laugh. “What’s the word for when your organs are outside your body?” 

Gabriel looked at him oddly. “Felix.”

“Yes, uncle?” 

“What game are you playing?” Gabriel asks him sternly. 

“I-” He’s not playing a game. Except...they are, aren’t they? The game that Uncle is playing with Paris, and the game that he is playing with Felix. “You never told me what it was called.” He says quietly, trying to stifle another giggle. 

“What what is called, Felix?”

“The game. The one where you dress me like auntie and…” Maybe it’s a snort, maybe it’s a laugh, maybe it’s a barely aborted sob. He’s not sure what to call the sound he makes. “I don’t know what it’s called.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Gabriel looks disturbed. 

“I don’t know. But you’ll change me and it won’t matter.” That makes him giggle harder, arms around his chest because laughing hurts. But he can’t make himself stop. 


“Get up. You need to dry off.” Gabriel orders, still looking disturbed. 

He tries, he does, but his legs aren’t made of legs right now, they’re made of something else. Something not strong enough to support him and he ends up sitting back down, giggling again because he fell in the bathtub and isn’t that ridiculous?

He’s...he’s fifteen..or maybe he’s sixteen. He knows how to get out of the bathtub. He’s been doing it his entire life. 

The laughter hurts, and even though Uncle doesn’t like it when he makes other noises, he doesn’t seem to like this noise either. 

He can’t breathe enough for an apology, falling in the bathtub is too funny. Uncle has to pick him up and wrap him in a towel and carry him out of the bathroom. 

He doesn’t want to go back to the bed, with the crisp white comforter and the white sheets. “I’ll get the blanket wet!” He protests. 

Gabriel sighs and carries him over to the window seat. “Stay there.” 

“I can’t walk.” He tells him, giggling again. “I can’t walk. I’m broken.”

Gabriel looks at him oddly, again, and leaves the room.

He left a blanket on the window seat – this morning? Yesterday? It has a knotted fringe, and it’s a soft pink that he thinks he might detest. But it’s not white, it’s not sterile like the towel or the blankets or the artfully arranged pillows. He should put on clothes. 

But he’s not allowed to have clothes for sleeping, so he just wraps the blanket around himself. 

And it’s funny, and it hurts, and there are bruises everywhere. But he and the pink blanket. They’re ok. The pink blanket doesn’t want to hurt him. 

He’s asleep before Gabriel returns, and for once the man doesn’t try to move him.

*~* 

“There’s a perfectly good bed, and one of them sleeps in the office and one of them sleeps on the window. I swear.” Rosa’s mutter is clearly not meant for him as she comes through. “Come change the sheets in the middle of the night, Rosa. Warm my dinner up, Rosa.” 

He lifts his head to peer at her, but she doesn’t look at him, straightening things up and shuffling away his clothes from yesterday. 

There’s a tray on the small side table. 

His head hurts and he still feels a little floaty – like his head might come away from his body entirely. 

“Evisceration.” He mutters to himself, massaging his forehead. 

Rosa gasps and flees the room. 

He sits up slowly, keeping the blanket around his shoulders, not entirely sure what to make of...last night. It all feels...very disconnected. 

He’s limping a little as he makes his way over to the table, checking the pot. It’s just *** water, and she’s left him teabags – offensive, but he’s too grateful to be able to pour a cup and start tea brewing to really complain about the method of service. 

Not that Rosa really intended to be serving him. 

He nurses the cup carefully, curled up in the window seat, eyes half closed for a few hours before he realizes that Gabriel isn’t coming.

He doesn’t know how to feel about that.

He makes himself another cup of tea, eats a slice of cold toast, and pulls the dressing gown over himself. 

He doesn’t look at the bruising, and feels a little relief at the baby’s small good morning kicks not causing any pain. 

“I didn’t want to be there either, you can take it up with management.” He informs them.

But he puts his hand on his stomach the way that always seems to quiet the kicking down, and the baby subsides. He likes to imagine that he can feel them under his hand, when the idea of there being something inside him like this doesn’t make his skin want to crawl off his body and hide somewhere. 

He’s not alone. That’s probably not how he is meant to feel about a fetus, but the fetus’ only crime is being inside him through no fault of its own. Felix had also been forced on his mother, and she loved him anyway. 

So he had to forgive the fetus too. 

“You have to let me know if something is wrong in there. I don’t know anything about this. I took the wrong classes in high school about childbirth. How long are you going to stay in there? Are we close to eviction day or do you still have some time to throw wild parties?” 

Nothing from the fetus, but he didn’t really expect anything. Not having a response to his ramblings was almost as nice as being able to ramble.

He should let his mind completely shut down more often. 

He leans his cheek against the window, watching Adrien leave with a sort of vague disinterest. 

Then Gabriel leaves, with Nathalie. She must have another appointment. 

“That means it’s you and me, Rosa. I wonder if you’ll remember to feed me lunch?” 

He found his bag in the closet, along with neat line of Gabriel’s suits. 

He considered them for a moment, thinking about putting something on. His choices are the few outfits – all meant for a woman with his particular shape – and Gabriel’s shirts.

But the idea of wearing Gabriel’s clothes makes his skin crawl.