Two Eyes Cenote [m] barley & salt

backdated to sept 13! <3

soto's condition was — compromised.

let him hurt.

he came alone. khusobek had not allowed himself to think of anything. nothing. ritual. mindless.

the glacial eyes came slowly to soft life as he stood beside the cell and watched @Soto inside, meeting those dulled eyes.

paw brought the rope to view.

no regalo this time, only the hard bite of two glowering golden eyes, one putrid with aqueous seepage. 

he stirs from his uncomfortable position on the floor, surveying the damage laid to khusobek’s skin. he’d endured unspeakable suffering in the hours since, yet observing his physical mark on the captain brought soto savage pleasure. 

he glances to the rope, and then back to his tormentor. his ailing body was unlikely to endure a second fight — but if death came for him today, he would see if he could barter with the gods for a package deal.

there was a quiet peace in khusobek. he could not reclaim what had been robbed; his muscles flexed slowly as he tried to control the burst of anger that came always with knowing this inability lived within him now.

the captain stooped closer, the thorns upon the rope rustling as he dragged it over the floor. "i will not kill you today."

his abused body cried out at the sharp movement that followed, khusobek grappling his heavy arms around the throat and the head of that hateful imprisoned creature.

he did not want to move. he has no choice. 

the rope drags across the cellar floor leaving gouges from its thorns. soto knows what it will do to his skin is far worse. 

he wonders what the captain thinks of him now. before he was prisoner — now he is monster. a sick satisfaction curls content around him, like a cat finding it’s perfect place in the sun. 

as the captain leapt for him he sinks downward, protecting both his wounded belly and his throat. agony is his cornerstone now, and he grunts as a new wave of it claims every part of him. 

but he will not make this easy.

it was allowed, this attempt to preserve self.

khusobek held his hard elbow against the back of that sodden head and began to wind the rope from ear to muzzle, crushing the man down, down;

for a moment it was almost;

and through his own nausea he murmured, "do you like this?" words changed by the vine of thorns and the way he meant to pull it tight, tight.

it goes against every instinct he has, the thread of vine wrapping around his windpipe. if he was just a little less injured —

he does not fear the host of torments awaiting him. but he does resent the bite of thorned noose to neck; it is the man’s deep voice that brings soto’s gaze to the ugly marks upon khusobek’s face. marks he’d put there, with immense delight. 

the torc pulls tight, eliciting a quiet gasp.  pain in all its illuminate rays threading out every part of him in colors too rich to paint.  if khusobek pulls any tighter, soto  might suspect this is foreplay to some delightfully erotic scene. 

papi, he exhales with a clack of chattering teeth as another bout of adrenaline beats through his blood. tirar más fuerte, papi. oh, he knows his agony has only just started. 

if only! his crushed ribs protest khusobek’s heavy movements, a constant reminder he cannot extend himself in waste.

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The participants have indicated the following reason(s) for this warning: suggestion of assault

his great weight set on the man's ribs, bearing him harshly into the ground; khusobek pressed down with all his might until those ribs dangerously bent as if they were the wooden planks of an old ship.

he wound the thorned rope tight; he pulled until the furrows brought blood leaping to the surface.

khusobek kept his teeth upon that tie; he grabbed soto's hips in a grim seize

it would be nothing to repay, the crocodile considered. Set had been accused of the same. he only had to see if he was able to bring such a thing, titillated despite himself by the breathy whisper of the bleeding thing which was only flesh in his grasp. only flesh. flesh easily snuffed.

this scene had played out once before; soto enduring each hit, biding his time as a sleeping volcano might. 

but now the fissures of pain threaten to crumble his stony resilience. he winces beneath every brutal blow khusobek aims towards him. this is a language soto is fluent in, and a mastery they both share.  

but it is the hefty pull of his hips towards the tormenter’s own that finally elicits emotion. a bloodied and bitter laugh hinging on rueful delight. his body is only a body;  flesh is flesh and meat is meat.

so what if the meat is spoiled? the stock had rotted years before this. 

go on, pulverize it. taste what he’s tasted. feel it shift around in you like oiled stones, this ancient tradition of consumption and ritualistic violence. everything in the world is built on cinderblocks of gristle; the foundation of society is the exploitation of bodies upon bodies; here is a flower to make your tea; here is raw hide to braid your satchel — where do you think our resources come? everything is taken and ground to pulp, to make a form more useful. we rape the earth to reap its resources. do we not think of our bodies as a resource?

do it. he is not afraid, and khusobek would not be doing anything he had not done himself. he thrusts his hip back in answer. 

hazlo. he grits through a torment of teeth.

 do it, so his nerves set on fire and the agony awakens the only part of him still living. the only fragment of his soul remaining that could ever feel an emotion more profound than love. 

do it, so he is made whole again and all the terrible things he’s done are struck from the slate tabulating his inhumanity. 

do it, so he and every part of him may live on in you forever, khusobek.

he knew he was able; he felt his flesh responding in sordid throb to the potential of further violence.

would it restore some part of him? did he care?

soto's grinding writhe did not even dissuade khusobek, who prodded forward in dangerous closeness; the man's mangled laugh beneath him quickened his pulse.

and then he relinquished the dirtied flanks, letting go the rope only to aim a stunning blow at the back of that terrible head, one he meant to render the man unconscious.

khusobek would not know for a long while what forced him to stop, only that soto's strangled sound of imminent ecstasy would reveberate on in his brain for weeks to come.

even he would not live on in himself.

he waits for that divine absolution; the violence that begets more violence and tells him see, this is all okay. all the horrible things you’ve done are just boilerplate; it is the natural order of things. subjugate. violate. other men indulge in them too. and he knows if khusobek metes out this violent injustice, he will be performing the very rites of barbarity that he feared his daughter should never experience; that he would be bringing to fruition the very thing he sought to protect her from. not in a dangerous stranger. not in an itinerant far from camp. but from the blood of her own father. 

soto does not get to experience such brutal indulgence. a blow comes for the back of his head and it is enough to send his brain colliding into skull-plate. 

he sinks, lights out. 

the danger in them both dimmed for now.