Chapter Text
The fork ran along the veins of the cement.
After a brief stop at the hole that looks like a turnip, the cutlery travelled beyond the hairline fracture, finally porting at the Mouse’s House. The mouse hadn’t made its appearance lately, but if Frank was patient enough, he could maybe catch the little vermin dusting off the crumbs of yesterday’s dinner. Frank usually ate with little grace for this exact purpose. The mouse was proof that there was still life beyond the walls. At least, that was what Frank thought–until the mouse made a recent retreat from the frontlines. It had been days since he last saw it.
Frank scraped away at his latest etching on the empty walls, interrupted by a hollow knock on the metal door. It was that time already.
The way the sound echoed around the sound-absorbing cement walls was a testament to Sylvia’s insistence to be as menacing as possible. The door was thick, the kind of thick that said stay out, that the world ended here. The medic pushed it open with one finger, just to remind Frank of the power she had over him. Frank quickly winged the fork under the bed, hoping the sound wouldn’t carry as loud as the nurse’s harrowing entrance.
“Ohhh, such a pity!” She sang. “It’s you.”
The corners of her mouth lifted in a temporary grin. Red lips, again. She rolled her eye and hoisted the trolley in equal dramaticism. Despite her captivating beauty, she was missing the tender love and care treatment typically expected from a medical professional. She was also missing an eyeball. At least, that’s what the rumours say. The eyepatch gave it away, too.
Frank’s knees cracked as he pushed himself up.
“Could say the same for you, Doctor.”
He’d also heard through the grapevine that, for the poor sods on the floor below, medication was shoved through an impersonal letterbox without exchange. This knee-cracking participant had the luxury of a one-to-one visitation from the prettiest, meanest woman in the metropolis. He watched as she laid out two delicate little cups, and one cruel looking, hefty syringe. Everything here was bigger and scarier than back home. Heavy doors, giant needles…
“Staring at it won’t make it go away, Iero.” The brunette watched an imperceptible bubble rise from the glass cylinder, and a tiny drop of liquid spurted out.
“First time?” Frank folded his arms. Behind her was her glamorous assistant, the quiet nurse in training, Mr. Rule. He usually laughed at his jokes–covertly.
“It’s meant to do that.” She barked.
“Uh-huh.”
“Iero, you know if you want to get better, you have to unfold your arms. For us.” She batted her lashes and added insult to injury with a cute pout. “For me, too. Your participant number, please.”
Participant. It sounded ridiculous. They were prisoners. Sylvia’s voice was still tempting, but Frank knew her games. Speak softly and seductively, and everyone in the MOAT will happily open their veins for the temptress. Frank was a little more resistant than the others. Though he wasn’t sure why.
“Uh–I don’t have one.” He smirked.
She winced, and the cold blue steel of her eye dared him to unleash another one of his quips. On the other side of her face was a dark void. A black eyepatch cut through the symmetry of her striking face. A rare beauty, like a dazzling chimera.
“It’s written right there. On your shirt.”
The medic nodded towards Frank’s number, stitched crudely onto the pale blue pyjamas they had the nerve to call ‘uniforms.’ He didn’t look down. With a shrug, the man exhaled.
“I don’t know. I can’t read Keposhka.”
She laughed in a chirpy crescendo. “Oh, silly! You know the numbers are the same.” With the syringe in her gloved hand, she maintained her composure. They would do this tango almost every week, when it was Injection Day. The other professionals were not so lucky. On Reconsolidation Day, Frank’s banter was ill received.
Sylvia tilted her chin up. Low light cascaded over her high cheekbones, but her face remained soft. Frank was rigid as a board, but he knew the fight would end the same way it always did.
“Iero. State your prisoner number, sweetheart.” She stood up, and the medical tray rattled. The medic seemingly grew an inch taller every time Frank saw her. Like a wisp, she floated around the table, to stand smiling over the stiff man. She scanned the room to land on the gap in the wall where the mouse would make its entrance. “Or perhaps… we’ll call the exterminator.”
Her voice wrapped around Frank, and his witty comebacks dissolved with the pill that was being placed on his tongue. He tried to say the numbers but, in the distance, the assistant shook his head. He’d already written it down. Next on the agenda, Frank begrudgingly rolled up his sleeve. The rubber band snapped and pinched his bicep. Sylvia’s leather gloved fingers probed the vein, and then hugged his wrist with a torturous slowness. With feelings of remorse and thoughts of his little mouse friend meeting the fangs of an attack dog, Frank took a deep breath.
“Very good, my plum. This will only hurt a bit.”
She first took a vial of blood, which was apparently used to measure the success of the program on a cellular level. Then, she'd give a dose of mystery medicine to help assist in Frank's 'recovery.' The plunger drove into the cylinder, forcing said ‘medicine’ into Frank’s bloodstream. A cold spread filled his arm and his chest palpitated. The wooziness quickly subsided, and he flashed a smile at the pretty medic. He was sick, for sure: sick with boredom. The day's excitement was almost over, and the dance would end too soon. Sylvia watched him swallow the last pill to complete his treatment, then waved goodbye sweetly as her assistant pulled open the heavy door.
"Great job, Iero. Mr. Rule will take your vitals again after Consolidation, so eat well and sleep well!"
Behind her, the assistant, Mr. Rule, managed a reluctant smile.
With a thud, the door shut and sealed off the highlight of Frank’s week. Sylvia waggled her leather-clad fingers through the window in the door, then trotted off with Mr. Rule in tow. They were quite the pair. The silent Mr. Rule was also captivating, in his own way: handsome, spritely, but not as talkative.
Frank wondered who they’d be helping next. Or, helping. The lie was probably as egregious as the truth. But at least the lie was accessible. The truth stayed hidden somewhere within the sprawling concrete and metal maze of the MOAT. Frank then heard his neighbour welcome in the medical parade. A tall, built mechanic from his quarter, Frank had taken a liking to him during intake. Toro was his name. He always opened the door for Sylvia, with a smile and without hesitation. Frank could only mimic Toro’s courage through the thin, rattling shield of his own stupid rebuttals.
As he rolled down his sleeve, Frank hissed. The bruise from last week was glaringly green, but only he could make note of its alarming hue. His skin was littered with tattoos, every inch a story. Or a mistake. Or a wish. He’d had them for so long, he could easily differentiate what was ink and what was a bruise.
The officials at the MOAT, however, did not take kindly to his ‘pretty skin stickers.’ Or, at least, that’s what The Warden called them. Frank had managed to go a few days without thinking of The Warden. There was something about the injection day that made him particularly contemplative.
Sylvia could send a chill down your spine and a throb in your groin in equal measure.
The Warden, however, didn’t have the benefit of being a beautiful caretaker.
The Warden–who Frank had only met once–was awkward and strange. Yet still powerful. In their flashy crimson suit and hanging head, The Warden somehow had the ability to pacify an entire room of harlots, thieves and nutcases without any of the poise or charm of the medic team. In the shadow of The Dictator, he was laughable in his ability to pose a genuine threat, but the way they turned their nose down at you… it was enough to have some kissing his boots. They would strut around at random hours, trailing their baton on the doors for fun.
Frank wasn’t privy to The Warden’s job role of keeping the so-called peace, but his name had the power to maneuver everyone into obedience. ‘The Warden insists,’ and ‘The Warden requested it,’ were the kinds of powerful sentences that were alien to Frank from his life back in the entertainment quarter. There was little hierarchy back home, amongst family and friends. The circus of The Dictator’s latest movement or outrageous policy was usually filtered down by the time it reached the low underbelly of Draag.
Therefore, a Warden with a baton didn’t scare him. And Frank Iero didn’t spin on his heels so easily for a stranger in a flashy uniform.
There was little else to do in Frank’s room most of the day, except to ponder these hierarchies. He conjured images of how The Warden got their suit so red, or how Sylvia lost her eye. He waited for the mouse to squeeze through the gap in the wall, and riled himself up thinking about his sacrifice that led him to the MOAT.
As the ‘medicine’ placated the man, he fell onto his mattress and looked at his pathetic excuse for a window. He sifted his hand through the sliver of daylight. It didn’t feel warm. In fact, he barely felt anything at all. Perhaps this is how they were fixing him. Complimentary Conditioning was meant to help him and his family–it was for the ‘good of the people.’ Frank just wanted to do good. He never thought doing good would feel this bad.
His eyes grew heavy, and a bell tolled in the distance. Frank’s thoughts of flashy red suits and blue steel eyes all melded into an amorphous grey blob. The thoughts lost boundary and time stretched infinitesimally, and the medicine took Frank from his cold room to an equally dead space, falling into something resembling sleep.
-
Frank woke sharply. It felt like years had passed, but the low light from the window suggested otherwise. Frank shifted, then remembered, in his haze, that it wasn’t sunlight. Floodlights. Giant, sweltering floodlights that covered the Ministry day and night. That’s why he couldn’t feel anything earlier. He was growing forgetful lately.
Frank rubbed his eyes, realising that he'd been dreaming.
Loose, brunette curls cascaded around the freckled shoulders of a woman. Her eyes crinkled as she’d been smiling at him. Frank was studying the constellations on the mystery woman’s skin when he darted awake inside the padded cell. It was embarrassing to say the least, as this hadn’t happened in years, even without all the mystery substances floating in his bloodstream. Furthermore, the woman was much younger than him. She had blue steel eyes. Sylvia.
To add to the confusion, Frank looked down to see a tent pitching in his pyjama pants.
His face grew red hot as he looked around. Under the scratchy, thin blanket, Frank tried to retreat back into his forbidden visions.
He pressed his brows together to try and think of someone else, something else, as he strained for a release. Eyes fixed to the door for emergency recall, he wrapped his fingers around his member. The Medics. The Administrator. The Warden. He couldn’t recall any faces from his quarter, all he could think of was high ranking ministry officials. The memory was fading. He thought of Toro and his burly muscles and warm smile. Frank grappled for something to help his release as he lost track of his sentry duties, closing his eyes and holding back moans to picture something that would bring him to the edge, and out of the cold room. He remembered the gloves tightly wound around his wrist from earlier that day. Frank bit his lip to prevent it from hanging wide open; a bad habit when he was possessed by pleasure. With rushed, forced strokes, Frank spread his knees slightly, and the blanket slipped from its already risky placement. In that moment, like an untimely summer storm, a familiar echo had Frank grasping desperately for the covers.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
The sound grew closer, and so did Frank. Fuck, he just needed a few more minutes. He thought of Sylvia underneath her extravagant garbs. It wasn’t enough. He couldn’t remember a body looked. He thought of the burlesque dancers and mimes and street performers, wrestling to remember the shape and smell and touch of skin and a warm welcome.
Clang. Clang. Clang.
He could hear footsteps now. A jangling of keys. Was it a Peacekeeper? No. The clanging... a baton hitting the side of the doors could only mean one person.
Frank turned to the side, and the sparks began to build. Sylvia’s tight fingers around Frank’s wrist was his only salvation, that memory like a needle pressing on the forefront of his hazy mind. The way his arm went numb, the way his heart pulsed inside her grip… Frank felt a damp spot on his uniform and cursed under his breath. With every stroke he heard the commotion outside draw nearer, but he couldn’t seek release. It was like someone had turned everything down, like his receptors were jammed and all his senses rounded and dulled like a blunt knife. Useless and despondent, Frank felt a twinge in his wrist as he tried to use force over dexterity.
Clang.
“It’s a nice night for it, boys!”
The Warden’s growling voice reverberated around the halls.
Clang.
Shit. They were making the rounds, now of all times. Frank heard Toro respond from across the hall, loud and clear, in that sweet voice that always kept everyone grounded.
“Evenin’ Captain! What brings you here?”
The voices hushed for a moment, and Frank, who’d frozen like a startled rabbit, returned to the task at hand. The throbbing in his groin was ignored too long. He’d fallen out of rhythm. Toro’s voice boomed. It was yellow in colour.
Frank squeezed his legs together and bucked forward. He was so close, but so far. As long as he stayed covert, The Warden had no chance of suspecting a thing. He always had his head down, anyway. It’s not like Frank was any interest to him. Their voices picked up again, and it appeared they were having a conversation.
“...I was a cellist. Can you believe that, Captain? Everyone laughed at me for it!”
Last week, Toro was a mechanic. Frank scoffed at the bold proclamation. Either Toro was trying to get into good books, or he was lying. He never mentioned the cello to Frank. Or, perhaps he’d forgotten…
“Hm. I can. Yeah. And if I brought you a cello, would you play for me?”
“Yes sir!”
“Yeah... That’s great. Don't call me sir.” The Warden paused, his voice quietening. There was nothing domineering about the way they spoke, or the topic at hand, but Toro was still diligently acting with the utmost respect and obedience. It made Frank sick.
"Yes, Captain!"
The exchange was over, and Frank sluggishly returned to his struggle. Their conversation was not helping the problem downstairs, but at least some sensory input could help Frank picture how people used to look, how they used to feel. Toro's yellow voice helped Frank stay warm, but The Warden's cold correction was little aid in Frank's mission to stay in an erotic headspace. He was in the clear, for a moment, but then the captain's boots squeaked on the floor, and he spoke again.
“Actually, Toro–did you know Nurse Golds can play cello, too?”
“And Iero can play guitar, si-I mean, Captain!”
At the mention of his name in the yellow-tinged voice of his sweet neighbour, Frank’s rapid urgency had tripled. There was little he could do, now that he’d apparently been purged of his ability to cum, but he wasn’t a quitter.
As the hall fell into silence and the conversation tapered out, he assumed the coast was clear again. After a shallow pause, Frank's ears picked up… nothing. He slowly rolled over, his hand still grasping down below, ready to try again.
Suddenly, his eyes opened to blinding light. Frank threw up a hand, and pulled blankets to his chest. A shadow flitted away from the door's small window, taking the bright light with it. Shit. He rolled over fast, heart slamming, the kind of terrified beats per minute that could kill his little mouse friend. He prayed that he wasn’t seen. It could have been one of the overheads malfunctioning. The Warden had no interest in snooping, he just liked to make his presence known.
At least, that’s the lie Frank told himself.
More lies to keep him sane in the building for the insane. The tattooed man released his iron grip on his aching dick and pulled the covers over his head. In the damp darkness, he couldn’t even muster the feelings of disappointment. Numb, he listened out for more footsteps and the baton on his door. Nothing. Just more nothing. The urgency that plagued him moments ago had dissipated, and all he had left to do was press on his bruise to feel something.
-
Frank was carving the walls again.
The fork scraped into the sides of the mouse’s door, no bigger than his thumb. When he first saw the little mouse, he watched it squeeze and struggle through the gap, and something in him broke a little. Even a mouse deserves to enter with its head held high.
The tiny cabinet TV in the hallway was torturing Frank with afternoon reruns of Quizzo. He watched as a poor, unsuspecting housewife struggled to name the differences between a freshwater fish and saltwater fish. Frank scrambled for the answer, himself and subsequently drew a blank before the transmission was interrupted. A black eye graced the screen. A public service announcement. Another speech. Another typical day. Back home, it was courtesy to turn off the tubes when the Grand Immortal Dictator’s useless PSA’s were on. It was this very action that initially got Frank put on some sort of list.
Frank’s fork scratched into the cement as he rested his head on the padded part of the room. Half padded and half cement made no sense. “If I wanted give myself a head injury, it wouldn’t be so fucking difficult,” Frank had previously admitted, after his Consolidation session.
“And do you plan on doing that?” The Inquisitor had asked with a smug smirk. That guy was really living up to his name.
“Not at all. Do you know how hard it is to get blood out of this?”
Frank’s jokes were jotted down as an unwanted attribute, and marked as something to ‘work on’ in regards to his ‘recovery.’ It sounded just like the kind of thing his friends would say back home, whenever he plagued them all with a terrible series of puns.
His weekly sessions with The Inquisitor did not offer the same excitement as Sylvia’s visits. Frank sat in that dark, empty room with nothing but a bright light and a series of images being blasted into his retinas. The Inquisitor always appeared after Reconsolidation, and Frank’s mind wasn’t sharp enough to always jest his way out of the targeted line of questioning. He sometimes felt like the woman answering questions about fish on Quizzo: he would stumble, stutter, and eventually decide that he’s not even sure if there is a difference between freshwater and saltwater fish. The Inquisitor didn’t let up, and asked him the same question, and Frank did the same spiel: he said he’s not sure, he doesn’t know, or he doesn’t remember.
“Lies.”
The Warden had made his presence known, once again. But this time, it was unannounced. Random. The Inquisitor, in all black, stood immediately to attention as flashy red-uniform walked in baton-first.
This was the first time Frank met The Warden.
The Warden had barged in there, as if on their way to lunch, just to stand at the back of the room and heckle The Inquisitor.
"He's lying." The Warden repeated as they leaned against the doorframe.
Frank’s eyes had widened in response to this person that everyone seemed to cower and coddle. He had a hunch, and their hair was slicked back, looking oily and damp. Frank couldn’t make out too many details, but he’d expected someone a bit older. The eyes were hidden in the darkness, but their voice commanded every atom in the room, with its deliberate cadence. They didn’t look at Frank–standing at the back of the room, The Warden instead looked down to inspect the polish of his boots.
"But, Captain–I"
“Gus, he's a carny. The worst of them all.”
Their voice bounced around in the pin-drop stillness of the air. The Inquisitor, now sat again, shuffled in his chair as it creaked under the weight. Frank scoffed. The Warden was right–Frank was trying to play dumb. And it usually worked. But he took offense to the use of the word 'carny.' He preferred the term 'entertainer.'
“That man is lying."
The red-uniformed captain pointed in Frank's direction. Frank caught the brief glint in his eye, before they looked back down at their boots. "Increase parameters.” The Warden flicked a stone from the leather sole. They were impossibly shiny, but when all you do is walk around concrete all day long, it was unsurprising. The flashy high ranking official had probably never known hard labour like Frank had. His hands were probably soft and fleshy, their boots had probably never seen a stone from beyond the cosy walls of the MOAT. Still, this person was intuitive. But Frank refused to stand at attention for the officer. Mainly because he was strapped down to the chair.
“Do better,” were The Warden’s last words before he slinked off, leaving The Inquisitor more agitated than before.
Frank didn’t get it. Sure, The Warden made him feel anxious. But he’d never show it. Frank wondered if they were all pretending to be scared.
Back in the Consolidation unit, the lying man was still carving the mouse-house. As he unwillingly tuned in to the useless Public Service Announcement, he found himself singing along to the national anthem. Frank quickly ceased his participation in the door construction, instead letting the spirit of patriotism flood through the halls. His neighbour was singing loudly next door.
“Sounds great, Toro!” Frank yelled. And he was telling the truth. It really did.
The patient held up his fork to the thin window. He scanned it for imperfections. It was still working well as a primitive tool, but the edges were slowly becoming bent and skewed. He inspected it closer, then lightly traced the tips of the metal around the edges of his tattoos. A faded bow and arrow. To the slow rhythm of the glorious Draag National Anthem, Frank then pressed the fork into the pad of his palm. And pressed. And pressed. Not even a pinch. It was a sensation equal to dishwater.
“Iero!!”
The door flung open. Frank quickly sheathed the fork into the sleeve of his undershirt.
“Woah, woah–what’s up? You can’t–not during the anthem, dude!”
A small crowd formed outside the patient’s door. The Administrator, Mr. Rule (who looked particularly sympathetic) and a bunch of uniform-clad, stern looking Peacekeepers. Mr. Rule gave a shy shrug, and Frank protested as the officers dragged him from the floor to shackle him. The heavy restraints weighed a ton, and Frank’s wrist was sore from last night’s mistake.
“We have clearance to act accordingly, even during the anthem, Iero. But you don’t.”
The Administrator spoke with a patronizing tone, like a corporate shill instead of a psychotherapeutic professional. His pinstripe suit and tiny moustache reminded Frank of the cabaret cross-dressers from the entertainment district. The officers then dragged him by the arms to haul him out of the room.
“Ow–! Well, how the fuck are you? Whatever happened to hello?”
Frank’s eyes adjusted to the bright hallways and the buzzing of the cabinet TVs and overhead lamps on every corner. He reluctantly obliged, but with two Peacekeepers and one Frank, he had little choice.
“Explicit language will not land well with The Warden, Iero. As per protocol, we’re ensuring maximum safety to yourself and others.”
“The Warden–? What?”
Frank’s slight panic was emphasized by Toro’s worrying gaze as he watched his neighbour get ferried out of the Consolidation Unit. But this was their reality: their mundane routine could be upended at any moment. Frank had seen his friends taken to the elevator and never return. They could suddenly throw you into a 36-hour Consolidation Session if they wanted. A random inspection. A random injection. They were never truly safe, even in the confines of unending routine.
"See ya, Frankie!" Toro's voice rang out as the crew shuffled into the elevator. Frank's burly mechanic neighbour had the last laugh, and The Administrator rolled his eyes. Mr. Rule pulled the lever. With a hard swallow, fighting the familiar spin in his stomach, Frank shuffled among the huddle of officials. Elevators had never agreed with him. He caught the medic assistant's eye standing beside him and offered a naive, uncertain smile.
“Is this what they pay you for?" Frank whispered, as he looked up to Mr. Rule. Everyone was always taller than him. "Writing on a clipboard and pulling levers?”
The elevator rattled and they all stood in silence. Not even Rule wanted to indulge in Frank’s banter. Suddenly…up. They were going up. They never went up. The floor lights blinked on their count: 8... 9... 10... 11... Frank’s stomach turned as he adjusted his stance. He braced for whatever waited. It had to be better than the room. Better than the half-cement, half-cushion walls, and the same episode of Quizzo bleeding into his dreams. People like him never won.
On Level 13, the elevator doors shifted open with a ding.
Everything looked different. Bright, but not clinical. Sleek, but not bare-bones. Frank followed the entourage through a marble hallway, and they dropped off one by one, until it was just him, The Administrator, and a door. Frank’s Keposhka wasn’t up to scratch–it looked quite different to what he grew up reading–but he could make it out:
'Cpt. Way.'
The Warden.
“Did I do something?”
The Administrator shushed the prisoner, and knocked on the door. The sound was nothing like the hollow metallic clanging of his cell when Sylvia arrived with her big syringes. It was soft and assuming, much like the voice that appeared from the other side.
“Come in.”
The Administrator opened the door and gestured Frank inside.
Frank stepped over the line into a new world. The Administrator bowed his head and whispered that he’ll ‘be waiting.’ The door shut, and Frank was yet again sealed in a room. But it wasn’t him, a bed, and a mouse. It wasn’t him and the beautiful chimera. It was an ornate, trinket-laden office with a wide wooden desk, tall bookcases and things that shimmered and moved of their own accord all around him. Little automata and ticking clocks and scientific looking… thingamajigs, all sat around a flashy red uniform and a hanging head. He was writing with an engraved fountain pen, hand to his forehead. It was gloved like Sylvia’s, which made little sense for the simple task of writing.
Frank ogled the office. He’d seen luxury back home, but more in the form of cabaret feathers and velvet theatre curtains. His humble dwelling with hand-me-down school chairs and shipping crates as bookshelves seemed comical compared to the personal office of the red uniform. There was no reason for one person to have all this. They can’t be that important.
“Our Grand Immortal Dictator’s is bigger.”
The Warden spoke as if he was reading Frank’s mind, but the ogling inmate probably wasn’t doing the best poker face at the shock of their disparate lives.
“Um–yeah. Wait, you mean, his… office, right?” Frank’s shackles jangled as he quipped.
The pen-wielding red suit sighed.
“Hm. Jokes. Humour. Bioavailable... protein synthesis…” The Warden continued writing.
“Wait, you sound like–Are you from Draag?”
The Warden slapped his pen down onto the important-looking piece of paper. They hadn’t even looked up once–head hanging, as always. The piece of paper must have been keeping him busy. Frank’s appearance was probably a nuisance to the red uniform. With another sigh, they lifted their head from the gloved hand.
“I’m from the same place you are, carny. I took a different path.” The Warden finally lifted his head, and their eyes met.
At first, the captain looked a little bewildered. With a small face scrunch, they warped into confusion. And finally, with a raise of their brow, the important paper beckoned his attention once again.
The Warden looked different in daylight.
Frank then suddenly remembered what daylight looks like. He was surrounded by it. Real daylight. Not synthesized UV floodlights, visible only through a gap in the wall. The Warden’s office must be situated right at the top of the MOAT. Tall, thin rows of windows sat either side of the sprawling room, and the daylight flooded in. It was overcast, but it was still bright and unforgiving.
The city looked tiny, but the city… the city was in full view. Frank had only seen the city from the very bottom. He was always looking up. Never down.
The Warden shuffled a few papers, stood up, and sealed an envelope with hot wax. Hovering the seal over a faint flame from a match–the same brand they used back home–Frank gulped and watched it drip onto the parchment. The Warden’s gloves reflected with the same specularity as Sylvia’s. But The Warden did not possess the same sensuality, and he certainly did not want to indulge in the same kind of dance that Frank and Sylvia partook in on a weekly basis. The red-suited captain seemed stern and stoic, much like the rest of the entourage that displaced Frank from his peaceful wall-wittling.
“Do you know why you’re here, Frank?”
The patient winced. Only Toro called him Frank.
“Not–No. Not really. Is this ‘cause of the… the mouse?”
As he spoke, Frank leaned over to look at a deer head on the wall. A strand of hair fell into his eye, and with a painful struggle, he bent over to try and remove it with his useless hands. The Warden stared, leaning with one hand on the desk, and simply watched. Frank expected nothing less from him. With a curse, Frank was about to give up–he’d just suffer in silence for now–when the fork fell from his sleeve onto the fancy oriental rug. It bounced with a dull thud.
The Warden’s eyes locked onto it. Frank did the same.
“I–I don’t know–that’s not–We had lunch, y’know, and…” Frank stuttered, conjuring his best lie.
The Warden then looked back up to Frank, face unchanged, but the mood in the office shifted. A noxious, tense storm cloud filled the space between the mahogany desk and gold-trim windows. The overcast day outside seemed to grow a little darker.
Heat flooded Frank’s face as he buried his fear. Thoughts drifted to the little mouse, to Sylvia’s talk of an exterminator. The captain's stare crawled all over him, waiting for his excuse. Or for a flinch. Frank gave him a shrug instead. His cuffed hands spread wide as his fake grin, and as far as the cuffs would allow, chains clinking. The jester rose:
“Uhh... Oops?”
The Warden didn’t crack.
Bracing himself for a lecture, or a caning, or for Sylvia to come rushing in with more needles, Frank stood rigid again. He tried to churn out the charm and began to explain the story about the mouse house, but stumbled over his words. He blamed the medication for the lack of eloquence, and wondered why he was even bothering. The man in the red suit does not care about me, Frank thought. He probably doesn't care about anyone but himself.
“So, yeah–I just, I like animals… you know? Back home, they’re not really a pest, right? They’re good luck. Which is why–”
The Warden bent down and picked up the fork. Fine particles of dust fell and the Captain flicked it, watching the dust fly off and into his spotless domain.
Frank inhaled. The fork was now pulling the annoying hair from Frank’s eye. The Warden, who was getting up close and personal with the fork-smuggler, wielded it more like their fountain pen than a weapon, but it still posed a threat. Frank tried to keep his cool, and continued.
“...Which is why I gotta, um, keep it around. I don’t touch it, I swear–I’m just helping it, y’know. We’re not bumpkins…”
Cold prongs reached Frank’s lips. The Warden was inches away from his face. They were stooping down, their usual hunch exaggerated to reach Frank’s level. Frank immediately took the hint, and despite his dulled senses, he could feel every ridge of metal on his skin. He cleared his throat as he felt The Warden’s breath on his face.
“‘It.’ You keep calling the mouse ‘it’. Why?”
The captain's voice was barely above a whisper. Frank gulped.
The fork left his lips, and the red-uniformed captain prodded Frank’s neck with it, tilting his jaw up, to which Frank obliged. The prongs sat in the doughy flesh beneath his chin, and the metal stayed there for a while, a silent threat that no joke or quip could protect him from. Frank opened his mouth to push back, but the words wouldn't come out. This wasn't Sylvia, there was no rhythm to play, no familiar cruelty to dance around. Just the red uniform, the baton at one hip, the cane on the other, and an eerie glare. No comfort. No crack to slip through.
Frank’s usual confidence, built from years in the abrasive and unforgiving entertainment district, unraveled underneath the prongs of his own damn fork being pressed into his jugular. The excitement was undeserved, yet he was relishing it. He wanted to savour the moment–the daylight, the city view, the mahogany desk. It was also the closest he’d ever been to a real deer.
“You’re a strange case, Frank. Different."
The Warden snapped Frank out of his thoughts. He moved the fork down, lightly dragging it so as not to scrape the skin, but pull flesh nonetheless. The Warden concentrated, and Frank wanted to spit in his face, and tell the creep to back off. He froze instead, but little twitches fell through the gaps as the cutlery’s touches sent shivers down his spine.
“You’re not reacting well. To the program.”
The fork slipped under the second button of Frank’s shirt. Captain Way pulled with a severe force and the button pinged off. Frank was politely rigid, but he dreamed of throwing a punch and sealing the Warden in their own hot wax.
“But… you’re reacting.”
The Warden’s eyes wandered down Frank’s shirt as the fork pried apart the fabric to reveal more skin.
“Your skin stickers…”
Frank swallowed, and finally a voice raised from out of his throat.
“No offence, uh, Captain, but is–is this part of the program?”
The Captain trailed the fork down Frank’s chest, slipping it underneath his pale blue shirt. They peered inside.
“All over…”
Their voice was soft and gentle and putrid. He’d become so accustomed to being violated by the charming medical team, but never in his wildest dreams did he want the highest rank official, with their hoof boots and noisy baton, to be poking around his vulnerable body.
“I didn’t realise you had so many. In the dark, you looked like everyone else…”
The taller person in higher command grabbed Frank’s shackles, lifting up the sleeves with their fork. Frank’s mouse-house tool was being thoroughly misused.
“Yeah, well, that’s ‘cause you only come out in the dark. I’d never guess your office is one giant tanning booth.”
The Warden gestured to Frank to open his palms. Frank obliged. He wanted to kick himself for it.
“You talk back to me so easily, like I’m another one of your cronies.”
The fork followed the lines in Frank’s palms, like how Frank would follow the lines in the wall. The Warden’s eyes widened slightly, and their mouth fell open.
“You were military?”
Frank’s mind went blank. There was no clever rebuttal. He wanted to focus on the sensation of the fork pressing into his parachute tattoo. One that had been so difficult to stick, and the needle had gone over his sensitive palm more than a dozen times. Frank’s mind searched for anyone but The Warden. Anyone but them…
“Uh–no. No. Actually, my Great Uncle…”
The red-suited Captain Way leaned in, grabbing Frank’s hand with their own. Their hands were cold, pressure unforgiving. Frank was finding it more difficult to picture someone else when all he could see was a red uniform, stupid slicked back hair and a pointy, nosey nose.
With a matter of fact tone, The Warden decided to verbally eviscerate the nervous wreck.
“So, with the hand you’ve chosen to commemorate your Great Uncle… is the hand you touch yourself with?”
Frank’s stomach dropped. The Warden grabbed his other hand.
“...Or was it with this one?”
The silence was deafening. The higher-ranking person just looked at Frank, waiting for an answer. His eyes were a similar shade to Frank's, but a different hue. But they were entire worlds apart.
Fighting the urge to push The Warden over and light a match, Frank just resorted to his usual polite rapport. The excuse couldn’t come quick enough, and Frank's legs started to turn to jelly as the embarrassment took hold. What he did last night was no longer a natural thing, or an obvious and direct result of sheer boredom. It was a shameful mistake, a direct act of disobedience and failure to comply with the Program. He felt the pressure of an entire board of high ranking officials gripping him tighter than he gripped himself.
“Well? Did it work?”
A ridiculous question. Imposing and intrusive. Frank didn't care that this was The Warden–no one should be asking that. Not even the medical team. How was this relevant? Why was he even here? Frank could only muster one answer. And it wasn’t a lie. Or a joke.
“…No.”
A gloved hand gripped Frank’s shoulder. The Warden wasn’t done looking down on the smaller man. But the tone had shifted again, perking up slightly with the same latitude as the corners of the captain’s mouth. They could smile. Sort of.
Then the smile crept into a grin. The lines on their forehead multiplied as they raised their brows. The grin turned into a laugh. A shrieking, high pitched cackle, orders of magnitude larger than any he’d heard on the Consolidation Unit. And he was surrounded by nutcases.
The Warden’s head dropped as he laughed to the floor. As it died down, Frank couldn’t find the funny, himself. He scrambled for humour in every situation, but in this one, the joke was on him.
“What an interesting side effect, Frank! You are different! You’re special.”
The Warden stood up and regained composure, pushing back the hair that was already slick with his head, and straightened their uniform. With an exhale, they swung their leg and pivoted to face away from Frank. With hands behind their back, they started pacing around the giant office. Frank watched them make a full circle, spinning the globe on their way around. He dusted the bookshelf on his way past, and eventually settled to stand on the other side of Frank. It was menacing. Frank wondered when his weekly excitement would finally come to a close. He was getting far too comfortable with being uncomfortable. It didn’t help when The Warden started dragging the fork up and down Frank’s arms again, sending unwelcome shivers crawling up and down his skin.
“The Complimentary Reconditioning Program was tried and tested on so many people. People like you and I. So I wonder why you… of all people?”
“I-I’m sorry. For… Yeah. It was weird. I didn’t know you were…”
The Warden looked at the door, then back to Frank.
“And you must NEVER, do that again. It’s in violation of MOAT code, and in violation of your treatment!!” His voice was raised, causing the disobedient fork-smuggler to flinch.
Frank frowned, cocking his head when he noticed the captain shuffle forward to tuck the fork back into the undershirt of Frank’s sleeve. He gave a wink as he continued to yell with a contrasting smirk.
“Three strikes, and we will have you sent for Reset. Do you understand me, Iero?!”
The captain squeezed Frank on the shoulder before forcing him to turn the other way.
“Come on, say ‘yes Captain’.” He whispered. Frank noticed their inflection was almost a mirror to the accents he heard back home. It was like they could have been neighbours. Or family. Frank shuddered at the thought.
“Uh, y-yes Captain!”
Their hand slid down and reached the smaller man’s lower back as he pushed him forward towards the door. The hand was too close for comfort, and Frank tried to outpace The Warden, but it didn’t work. With a final whisper, the red-suited official quietly gave Frank the go ahead.
“Go on, Stickers. I wanna hear more about your side effects. But keep your hands inside the ride at all times, alright? ”
“Aren’t–aren’t you like, meant to punish m–”
“Shut up.”
The Warden snapped their fingers. The door opened. The officials exchanged nods, and Frank was back in the care of The Administator.
Frank ducked his head out and did the walk of shame along the plush red carpet to the elevator. The Administrator pulled the lever, and the elevator descended. Frank sniffed and looked down at his palms. He felt dirty, his depravity had been pried wide open for the captain to see. It’s not like he even did this often. He just needed to feel something.
With each floor came a ding and with it, another member of the entourage. Why they needed four people to shepherd a five-foot-nothing back to his cage was beyond Frank. Mr. Rule gave a little smile as he stepped inside, and took over the lever duty.
“Back on the grind, huh?”
The nurse’s presence had bolstered Frank’s return to confidence. The familiar white getup calmed him, as opposed to the alarming, dangerous red of the captain’s flashy uniform. Mr. Rule nodded and the rest of the ride went smoothly. Frank tried to wave goodbye to the nurse as he left to enter the hallway of the Consolidation Unit. He really wondered what they were paying him, if it was even in currency at all.
The officers released his shackles and shoved Frank back inside his room, displaying a typical gratuitous use of force, despite the fact that Frank had the best behaviour out of everyone in the MOAT.
As the entourage left Frank to his devices, The Administrator glared at him, his tiny moustache and even tinier eyes twitching.
“Failure to engage with the program. Indecent acts. Resisting medical. Unauthorized use of MOAT property. Iero, you are lucky The Warden didn’t throw you into a burning blimp.”
Frank scoffed at the list of his misdeeds. They were as vague as they were fabricated. Mostly. He expected The Administrator to list off another series of tasks that Frank had to undertake to get back in the good books, but instead the little man just… stood there. Glaring at the fork-smuggler.
“Strange.”
Frank quipped at the man in the pinstripe suit muttering under his breath. “What? Something on my face?”
“No,” The Administrator looked Frank up and down. “The Warden does not like to be disturbed. Not in the slightest. It’s hard work, running the Program.”
Frank slumped into his bed and massaged his wrists. “Yeah. So?”
“Usually, the door is always shut. This time… he left it open. And he watched you walking your sorry self all the way to the elevator...”
The Administrator tutted, as if jealous of Frank’s special treatment from the red suit.
“...And the captain never does that.”
The door slammed shut with a hefty click.
-
Kshh. Kshh. Kshh. Kshh. Kshh.
It had been thirteen days since the mouse had shown itself. Frank was beginning to think his generous redecorating was not well received by the rodent. A harrowing thought crossed Frank’s mind: perhaps the mouse was no more. Perhaps she did meet the heel of a boot, or the maw of one of the attack dogs that surrounded the perimeter.
A pile of sad crumbs slowly built up in the corner, left untouched, uneaten. He would soon be found out if it continued. The Warden did not take kindly to untidiness. Mr. Rule suggested that it almost looked like Frank was on hunger strike.
“What, for a mouse-sized pile of leftovers?”
Sylvia snapped the rubber band and put pressure on the injection site. She frowned.
“Iero, he’s right. We may have to report it.” Her pouty baby-voice was an unwelcome guest on this particular day.
Frank was wearier than usual: he was growing tiresome of The Warden’s 'random inspections.' His sleep was already disturbed, endogenically, even without the red-suit flicking on the lights and waving their baton at stupid hours in the morning. Frank complained about to Sylvia, but she lit up, instead of offering her sympathies.
“Oh, how I’d love to be visited by The Warden! That uniform, that hair...” Frank hissed as she dabbed his skin with cold alcohol, her typical precision turning sloppy at the distracting thoughts of MOAT's principle.
“Ow–! Jeeze, stop gushing, Doctor. Trust me, it's not what you want. Look! They got me a fucking… that!”
Frank snapped his arm away from the haphazard medic, pointing at an object on the floor next to his bed.
A silver dog bowl. Unremarkable. Empty. Save for the engraving of Frank’s name on the rim. It was humiliating.
“I was beginning to wonder…” Mr. Rule mumbled from behind his clipboard.
One early morning, before even the birds had risen, The Warden creaked open the door of Frank’s cell and shoved in the dog bowl through the gap. As Frank roused from his sleep, they pushed it inwards with their shiny boot.
“Good morning, Stickers. Medical told me you're dehydrated.”
It featured the fresh engraving and a foofy red bow. In his dreary state, Frank assumed he was dreaming. Ten days later, the bowl still remained. Ever present, material in the real world. He wondered when the collar and leash would come next.
Sylvia tidied up her station. She continued to pout, but sourly. Jealous. “And what did you do to deserve such punishment, Iero?” Her tools clattered on the trolley as she began to back out of his room, Rule holding the door as always.
“Nothing!” Frank protested as he massaged his vein. “I mean–Maybe… Something. But, here’s the thing… I kid you not, I think he actually likes me.”
“Likes you?”
Sylvia threw her head back with full ferocity, her red lips opening to signal her teeth to the sky as her sing-songy laugh escaped. It pierced Frank’s sensitive ears. Mr. Rule also looked down, holding back a rare laugh. The two of them made a mockery of Frank. The medication flooded his system, thus slowing his reaction, but he was flummoxed. He thought he could trust his beloved medical team to believe him.
“The Warden does not like anyone, Iero." Sylvia bragged. "The Warden likes their gold nibbed pens, the smell of ink and the taste of coffee. But anyone here?”
Mr. Rule butted in. “And definitely not Program participants…”
Participants. Why were they still keeping up this act?
The two shuffled out of the doorway, still letting out small giggles in turns. Sylvia pouted her lips out again, making a sorry face at her patient.
“Oh, cheer up, my plum! We’ll see you next week.”
With a wave through the window, and the usual waggling of gloved fingers, Sylvia shouted from the hallway to ‘eat well and sleep well,’ leaving Frank alone again in his sealed room. The highlight of his week hadn’t gone so smoothly.
It was some time after the medic team left that the fork-smuggler felt well enough to do anything. Frank was leaning against his heavy door, straining his neck to catch the corner of the TV set suspended on the corner of the wall out in the hallway. A documentary was playing. Something about Gubrik carp. Toro was singing next door, a nursery rhyme that half put him to sleep. Frank joined in wearily as his eyes unfixed from the screen and unfocused. He was exhausted. His daydreams began to merge with recent memories.
Consolidation. He’d completed 12 hours of it the day prior. During the post-session Evaluation, Frank wasn’t his chipper self. After half a day of unrelenting bright lights beaming directly into his retinas, with all manner of sounds filling his ears tight jacket cocooned him so tightly, he thought he might lose an arm–who would be chipper? The Inquisitor checked in with Frank, gauging his current progress and mental capacity to move him onto…
“Retrograde Reprogramming. It’s the next phase.”
Frank let his head roll down. It was all so dull. Phase this. Program that. Treatment this. Consolidate that. Some of the amnesic patients sounded like they were living the dream right now.
“Iero. Iero. Are you there?”
“Yeah.” Frank snapped up, and gave an affirming face twitch. “Yeah. Retro gators. Gotcha.”
The Inquisitor tutted. He looked–and acted–similar to The Administrator. Perhaps the MOAT was a family business. Perhaps the staff had been re-programmed to all act in a quiescent hive mind.
“Iero, what do I have next to me on the table?”
He guessed it was the MOAT’s version of ' How many fingers am I holding up? '
“It’s a glass of…” Frank’s neck fell again. He hissed. His aching bones were not made for straitjackets. “A glass of…Warden.”
Something was jotted down on Frank’s files, and the psychologist dressed in all-black shook his head. Frank’s white straitjacket sat stark against the backdrop of the dark Consolidation room. Everything was monotone. Even his skin looked grey. Then, a flash of red pierced his periphery.
The heel of their boots hit the ground sharply. They’d never moved so quickly. From behind The Inquisitor, the red-suited captain threw their hand down on paperwork. The Inquisitor was startled, and sharply removed himself from his chair, clumsy like a newborn deer.
“S-sir!”
“Do not move him to Retrograde yet. He’s not ready.”
“Sir?”
The hand on The Inquisitor’s shoulder was enough to make the stubborn psychologist melt into a more agreeable state. Captain Way whispered something into his ear, and the Inquisitor nodded. He pushed Frank’s file to the middle of the table, and walked out of the room, door shutting with an echoing click. With other MOAT officials, Frank’s safety radically declined in relation to how many of them were there when The Warden was also hovering over Frank’s program activities. Now it was just the two of them. Alone. Once again, sealed in a room together. The captain had been treating Frank mostly pleasantly, apart from the constant reference to Frank looking like a ‘bloodhound’, and calling him ‘Stickers,’ and barging into his cell at 3am to demand a game of cards. Again, the captain posed little threat, but Frank was uneasy.
He simply did not like them.
He played nice in return, but Frank did not trust the flashy red-uniformed, baton wielding excuse for a high-ranking official.
Frank had learned over the past two weeks that The Warden was a malicious diva. They were a sore loser, and if Frank did not respond in a certain way to the captain’s little ‘gifts’ (a small stool to sit on, a new fork, a comb), they would whine about it. And in the same breath, they’d threaten to put Frank back in the General Ward with the rejects. Then, within a matter of seconds, he’d go back to complaining about a silver-plated pen that he'd lost somewhere on the grounds. Frank really did not like him.
The Captain moved the lamp. He twisted it around from Frank’s face, to above it, to below it, turning it around to their own face.
“Agh–fuck. That’s so bright.”
Idiot, Frank thought.
If it was anyone else, Frank would have chuckled. But it was The Warden. The last person in the building Frank wanted to see, but the person he saw too often lately. It was sinister. The Warden had been through everything Frank had been through. The blinding light in their eyes, they’d so soon forgotten about…
The lamp was eventually set, slightly illuminating Frank’s left side, but not penetrating his vision. The Warden turned from a red silhouette to a material figure. Frank was used to being the shortest person in most situations, typically, but The Warden’s stature was more frightening in the dark room than it was back in their roomy office. Frank obediently sat in silence, no quips or comebacks in the chamber, and he waited for The Warden to make a loose threat, or complain about their lost pen.
Instead, he took the non-missing pen out from their top pocket, and started writing on Frank’s file. As they leaned over the table, Frank eyed up the cane that was stashed in their extravagant, thick leather belt around their waist. His heart skipped a beat.
“Does the gold help you write better?” Frank slurred. He was still recovering from Consolidation, but he also wanted to send the message that he was not in a social mood.
The Warden tutted. “You should learn to address your superiors properly. Or do you wanna end up in my office again?”
Frank craned his neck to try and see what The Warden was writing. Impossible scribbles. Not cursive, like Frank’s own writing. And it was in Keposhka. The restrained patient automatically slipped back into his familiar suit of armour: sarcasm.
“Oh, no way. Why would I ever want to see the view of the city and the zeppelins, while I read Soyev Poetry and play chess with none of the pieces missing. Ugh.”
The Warden barely reacted, nose still in the paperwork.
“You think I’m playing chess up there?”
“No. Not really. I imagine you’re doing what…”
“What I’m doing now, yeah. So stop talking, and let me do it.”
Their accent was really sending Frank through a loop. It was just like home. The Warden underlined something, scrawled some more, and crossed out something else. Frank assumed it was more lists: failure to comply, shitty attitude, parasocial relationship with a mouse specter… They closed the file and tucked the pen back into their pocket.
Frank then watched as the menace put their hand on the cane.
“Ah. So you came here to hit me.”
The captain clutched it for a second, and Frank tried to hide his discomfort. He bit the inside of his mouth, awaiting some sort of corporal punishment for being a smartass. It wouldn’t be the first time he got into trouble for his big mouth.
The Warden gripped the cane tighter. Their face silently scanned Frank's for his reaction. The gloved fingers worked their way down the leather tool. The Warden’s other hand pulled the belt taut, and the cane was slowly unsheathed. Frank’s eyes darted up and down, and the sluggishness from his torturous Consolidation session evaporated in place of adrenaline. Maybe The Warden’s behaviour was gearing up to this moment. Maybe they were prepping Frank, building a faux rapport, letting the trust build so he could abuse it. So he could make Frank taste the bitter end of a boot and the sharp end of a cane. Or the blunt head of a baton: maybe this is where the real reconditioning began.
Frank closed his eyes and braced for impact.
A light touch caressed his cheek. Then, his hair. It was moved from his eyes. It had grown long. Something pressed into one side of his leg. Then the other. It should have felt warm, but Frank couldn’t feel too much these days. Or maybe it wasn’t a person currently straddling him…
Frank opened his eyes to check.
The Warden had their legs either side of Frank’s, pressing them together. They ran the cane over the palm of their hand, looking down on it. The light cast soft shadows on the captain’s face. Frank never noticed it before, but their lashes were long and delicate. The rim of their mouth protruded more than he’d realised, too. It was only in certain lights that Frank got to see The Warden’s true self. In Frank’s cell, he only met a red-suited nuisance who liked prowl around in the dark.
“I’m interested to learn about your strange side effects, Frank.”
“My–my what?”
With his arms wrapped inside himself, there was little Frank could do. The Warden hooked the cane through the metal loop of the restraints. It didn’t look like a modern crop: it was old. Pre-war. The handle was perfectly moulded to the captain’s hand. There was an embellishment, but Frank couldn’t make it out.
“My what, Captain.”
Then, the Warden pulled.
Frank lunged forward, his throat pulled tight, forcing him to look up. The Warden was smiling down at him. It wasn’t an ideal situation. In fact, Frank would prefer to look at a bright light for another 12 hours than be in this position. Yet, somehow, he found himself relishing in the excitement. The break in monotony. No one ever talks about how disastrously boring it is in the MOAT. To watch Quizzo on repeat and having conversations with ghostly mice and watch the floodlights change from bright white to evening amber. The Warden’s intrusions were not welcomed, on the surface, but deep down–Frank needed this special treatment.
“What’s wrong with sir–”
The Warden pulled again, tugging harder. Frank’s face was plunged into The Warden’s red military coat. It was woolen. Scratchy. It smelled like starch.
“I never asked to be called sir. Don’t call me that.”
“O-okay… Captain…”
Frank realised he was dangerously close to the captain’s crotch. It wasn’t the first time he’d been in a place like this, but usually it was mutual.
“It’s interesting, Frank. I want to know why you can still…you have a special ability, y'know." The Warden slurred their words slightly. "And you’re still able to feel something. You’re able to get excited…”
“Uh-huh.” Frank nodded into the Warden’s groin, and they pushed him back, unlooping the cane from Frank’s restraints.
“...Like you are right now.”
Frank slowly looked down.
He swallowed a lump in his throat and felt his face grow hot as his eyes laid upon the worst sin of them all, happening between his pants.
“Beholden to lust but stuck like a river that never drains. That’s Soyev, right?” The Warden sneered, bearing their little fangs.
Frank wanted to die. A burning blimp sounded like a better afternoon than this. He wanted to hurl. He tried to think of other things to dispel the downstairs situation, but it wasn't working.
The Warden danced the cane around Frank’s midriff before it made a few brief stops at Frank’s thighs. They smiled and raised their brows at every tiny reaction from the restrained participant. Between his thighs was evidence of Frank’s… special ability. Is this what made him special? Underneath all of this, The Warden was a disgusting pervert. Under the guise of science and curiosity, the captain just wanted to know why Frank could get a stiffy and they couldn’t? Was it uncommon on the program?
“Hey, I just–uh, I don’t know why it’s..." Frank stuttered, "It-it’s probably the medicine…”
The Warden stroked the sinful accident, lightly brushing it with the end of their cane. Frank breathed in sharply, and instinctively looked into the bright lamp to the side of him. There were no answers in there, but at least it could take him away from this moment. Hopefully it would make him forget.
“Hm. Interesting. You complain about it all week. But put in an uneasy situation… you want to be Consolidated.” The Warden stepped back, the cane left with them.
They sheathed the cane back onto their hip, and pushed loose hair back. “When I’m in an uneasy situation I just… drink coffee. And sit in my office.”
Frank tried to cross his legs to hide his shame, but The Warden kicked his boot onto the edge of the seat, right between Frank’s thighs, rendering him unable to do so. The boots were dazzingly polished. The restrained man's heart palpitated.
“You mean you come down to our floor and rattle our cages while we’re sleeping?”
The Warden inspected their gloves. The way they spread their fingers was nothing like Frank had seen on any officer. It was almost… feminine.
“No, Frank. It gets dull sitting around in that office all day.”
Frank scoffed. How could they be bored? Sitting around in the ornate office with more books than Frank had in his lifetime, with a view of the zeppelins, with the privilege of owning a pen rather than using a fork to scribe onto a cement wall…
Bored? “That makes two of us.” Frank spat, hoping to make his disappointment very apparent..
“...So, Frank, you resort to doing that, in the middle of the night? To quench your boredom?” The captain asked, leaning over Frank, with their hands on the back of his chair. They had a habit of doing that–of getting down to Frank’s level.
Frank shifted. He felt sparks in his lower half but he tried with all his might to let the feeling settle down, so he could go back to being grey in colour, instead of looking like a Lehpka tomato.
“Y-yeah. I guess. I mean… yeah.”
The Warden nodded, looking Frank up and down, slowly and deliberately. Their eyes shimmered, reflecting the bright lamp. Their lashes followed their movements as they scanned Frank from head to toe. Frank was about to tell him to quit it, but the captain spoke first.
“That makes two of us.”
-