surface_level | (no subject)

"Look at me."

He stops in front of Leif, looking down at him. There is still nothing there. He is empty, when he does this, and it is one of the reasons he was once highly in demand. Small though he is, malnourished, sharp in the wrong places, he seems to feel nothing, which implies that he will never stop.

He looks up and sees that, and a part of him shrinks away, worried that this was the wrong choice, that he's made a grave mistake. But another part is consumed with the conviction that he's wrong, that he's the mistake, and that this is the only way to banish the wrongness and the broken-ness and whatever it is that keeps driving people away from him.

He lifts a hand and touches Leif's cheek. "Shh," he says softly, his lips barely moving.

He then quickly brings his hand up and backhands him across the jaw.

Oddly, it's the gentle touch that makes him flinch. The slap just gets a soft, sharp exhalation, hardly enough to be called a gasp. His cheek is throbbing, easily-bruised skin already taking on a reddish hue.

But he stays on his knees, bandaged hands curling into fists on his thighs.

"Better."

He admires, and then does it again, harder.

He's developing a bit of a squint in that eye, a permanent sort of flinch, cheekbone throbbing -- he didn't even know cheekbones could throb. It's getting a bit tricky to regular his breathing so he doesn't hasp or yelp or -- god forbid -- cry.

Lucas hits him one more time, with enough force behind it to send Leif back onto the ground. Once he's fallen, Lucas straddles his body and covers his mouth with one hand, dropping down to one knee beside Leif's hip. He watches Leif's eyes as he takes the sharp nail of one finger, digs in through his shirt, down underneath his ribs, and then pulls toward the ceiling hard as if trying break the rib he has hooked up through his skin. It will not break him, but it will feel as if it is about to.

He makes the first sound -- a soft sort of grunt -- when he sprawls on his back. It doesn't take much force, really. He's absolutely tiny, and he's not putting up any sort of a fight. He does arch his back and follow the finger in an instinctive measure meant to try and prevent anything breaking, shutting his eyes tightly and whining softly behind Lucas's hand.

Lucas murmurs something in Russian, too soft to make out, and continues to pull up beyond the extent that Leif can arch.

"Sharp. Hot. Or blunt." He slides his hand off Leif's mouth. "Speak."

Leif isn't even listening, really, not until the hand moves, and he shudders a little, convulsively, before whispering-- "No knives."

His lips thin and twist briefly. It removes some of his favorite possibilities.

"There are sharp things that are not knives," he leans closer to whisper-hiss.

Leif lifts his chin a little, eyes opening. They're pain-stricken and more or less terrified, but his voice is even.

"I know."

There is a moment where he looks human. He hasn't worked in a very long time and, despite Leif considering him strange or cold, he feels more for Leif in these moments than he has for most people he has met in his life. Lucas covers it as best he can and seems to consider, standing up again and towering over him.

"Remove your shirt," he says finally. "And roll. Onto your stomach."

He looks anxious at that, swallowing convulsively a couple times, before lifting the shirt he's wearing over his head. He's skinny and bony underneath, exceptionally pale -- but most noticeably, there's an Ace bandage wrapped repeatedly around his right shoulder and upper arm, covering it.

At this he is markedly impassive - he does not want to break his mask again. Lucas does not look at him with desire, either. He meant what he said about this not involving that. He waits silently for Leif to roll, one eyebrow lifted.

He'll pause a moment, then gesture at the bandage. "Do you want this off?"

"No. Turn over."

He obeys, then, without another word, propping himself up on his elbows.

Lucas then swiftly, without leaving Leif too long to react to the sound of metal clinking, undoes his belt. His pants are form-fitting enough to stay up without it and he kneels down again to loop the leather over Leif's head and around his neck. He shoves his head down toward the ground after and then loops the end through the buckle, feeding it through until it's tight and he moves one knee to between Leif's shoulder blades.

As an experiment, he then tilts his head and watches as he pulls the end of the leather still in his hand. With his knee holding Leif down, the belt simply tightens until it starts to choke.

He swallows convulsively against the choking of the leather, one hand going up automatically to claw at it, a piercing sort of strangled whine escaping him. But he keeps his lips pressed together and his eyes shut tightly.

Satisfied, he loosens his grip and the belt again gives Leif room to breathe. As he lets him recover from the shock, Lucas reaches into his pocket and draws out his lighter. He flicks it and it ignites and he waits, letting it burn.

"It is not weakness," he says softly. "To scream. It is release. You will feel this by the time we are finished."

He's shuddering a little now, breathing in short, raspy bursts, like he isn't quite sure how long it'll last, or if he should relax secure in the guarantee of oxygen. The tiny flame of the lighter catches his eye, and he gives it an apprehensive sort of look, shoulders automatically hunching together, protectively. He doesn't give any sort of answer to Lucas's comment.

"When you do... I will know that you have received what you came for."

Lucas digs his knee in as if in reminder that he shouldn't try to leave. After a moment longer, he blows out the flame, yanks the belt tight again, and then digs the burning hot metal at the top of his lighter into the cluster of nerves at the small of Leif's back.

Having expected to be burned with the flame itself, the feeling of scorching hot metal jabbing into his back gets a strangled sort of squealing yelp from Leif, that he immediately cuts off, clamping his lips together and shuddering violently, but silently.

"Let go."

The belt creaks as he pulls the leather tighter and begins to grind the metal into the skin he's burned, deliberately twisting it back and forth.