Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Louis had no way to gauge exactly how long he’d been there other than the gnawing hunger in his stomach and the strain in his muscles when he felt himself being pulled by the back of his collar. His arms still restrained tightly behind his back left him no way to get it away from his throat as he was pulled, cutting his airway.

He struggled as much as he could in his restraints, could feel the reverberation of himself yelling against the bit in his mouth.

And then he was dropped back onto the floor, sputtering and gasping in a breath as quickly as he could.

“Good morning,” A gruff voice said, cutting through the silence. He hadn’t slept. Or maybe he had. He couldn’t be sure. He felt far from rested. “Walk, or I will drag you again.”

He was given his vision back just as he clamored to his feet, walking excruciatingly slow with the chain holding his ankles close together.

He was walked down yet another long corridor and led through a series of door after door, each one only leaving him less certain he would be able to retrace his steps, given the chance.

Through the final door was a massive, dark storage room.  

His heart sunk as he looked around, eyes wide in the dimly lit room.

He noticed two things all at once.

The first, dozens of people were tied up in different positions. Against walls, kneeling, forced to stand. There were whimpers and sounds of labored breathing, shuffling feet. Barely any of them looked up at the sound of their footsteps as they walked past.

The second, almost none of them looked like he did.

He could see a few men and a few women in the same holdings, but the rest of them were… different. One girl’s skin was a shade of lavender, and her skin looked to be made of snake scales. She had holes where her nose should be, and no hair at the top of her head.

Another person looked to be at least ten feet tall, bent at the waist and tied with a dozen different restraints.

There were dozens of them, and so many looked so different.

Louis felt a kind of panicked numbness settle into his body, his chest tight.

He had no idea where he was. He wondered if any of the people – creatures – knew where they were, too. Any thought of getting out felt suddenly impossible. He wondered if every other person here thought the same – had grand plans of escape and being the one to get away.

His arms were strung high above his head with a chain, pulling him almost to his tiptoes. He groaned, pain immediately spreading through his shoulders.

“I hope you’re comfortable,” The handler said with a laugh. “Someone will be in to collect you… eventually.”

So, he watched, and he waited.

He watched one by one as others in the room were guided out. Some fought, others seemed resigned to it. Both had the same outcome. The crying sounds only stopped when he and a few others were the last ones in the room.

He’d counted at least fifty that had been taken out of the room.

A tall, red-haired woman approached him not long after he was the last one remaining in the storage room. She had paper white skin and glowing blue freckles across her face that matched the neon blue of her eyes.

She held up a bottle of water to his mouth and he eyed it suspiciously. His mouth hurt from thirst. He allowed her to pour it past his lips and exhaled with relief.

She tightened the chains on his ankles and undid the chains on his arms, letting them fall down and allowing him to fall off of his tiptoes. He rolled his shoulders as relief flooded through him.

“Walk.”

He blanched. He’d watched the others struggle. None of it had worked.

He walked.

She walked him out a different door, through more hallways that all looked exactly the same.

He was led into a large hall that had stalls set up along the sides. Each stall was numbered, and as they walked, each appeared to have one of the people from the storage room trussed up in varying levels of restraint.

Some of them seemed barely tied at all, but still sat willingly.

One looked to be restrained entirely in a vacuum-like bag, just outlining the shape of her body.

Louis tensed and felt himself stall, nearly tripping with the short steps he could make.

The woman caught him before he could fall, but pushed him forward. She moved him into his own stall, and the panic set in. He squirmed and pushed back, flailed out and elbowed the woman as he took tiny steps backwards.

She seemed entirely unaffected and pushed him forward towards a platform in the middle of the stall, raised about a foot above the floor.

He toppled to the ground of the platform when his bound ankles made contact, landing on his shoulder and just shy of hitting his face. He panted harshly as he clenched his fists, anger boiling inside of him. Panic, anger, fear. He couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was, but it fueled him.

He squirmed again, rolling off of the platform and onto his knees.

He almost moved himself to stand when a deafening, shrill reeee sounded in his ears. He cried out, squeezing his eyes shut as a blinding pain bloomed in his head.

He put his hands over his ears but the sound didn’t lessen at all. If anything, it got louder, more relentless, unending.

He could feel his limbs being moved, but he was powerless to stop it. The gag was removed. “Please – please –“ A different bit was pushed between his teeth, leaving enough room for him to make some sound but not enough to speak clearly.

The sound stopped and he went limp.

“Stop resisting. I will not stop it next time I have to redirect you.”

The woman moved his arms and legs as she wished. She forced his hips up from the ground into a presenting position, sending a shiver through him.

“For your sake, I hope you sell today,” She said with a scowl. “I don’t like the difficult ones, but some of the handlers love to make a stubborn slave cry.”

Louis balked.

Sold.

Slave.

He should have figured out that’s where this was going. And yet, hearing it said out loud, made him feel sick.

Two chains attached to his collar clip him to the ground, keeping him from raising his head more than a few inches or from being able to move from side to side. He bent just enough to look at the rest of the way he’d been tied, pulling at his arms and legs and groaning when they wouldn’t move against the restraints.

Two leather cuffs are wrapped around his upper thighs and attached with another chain to the cuffs around his ankles. It kept him forced in a half squat, his thighs already straining to hold himself up with no way to support his weight. Another chain connected his ankles to the cuffs around his wrists. He could move them just enough to roll his shoulders slightly, but not enough to get his hands flat on the ground.

Last, he felt a third chain pulling his legs apart, leaving him entirely exposed.

“Almost done,” She sing songed, and Louis grimaced. She stepped around behind him past where Louis could see and tightened the chains on his ankles just slightly, spreading him further open, then sprayed something cold over his hole. “There we go. Can’t have any damaged goods, now can we?”

She laughed, but Louis didn’t quite understand the joke.

He rested his head against the ground and attempted to look behind him, just enough to see another metal arm extend from the wall just behind him, with a large black dildo attached on the end of it. It It inched in slowly towards him as Louis tried to pull against the chains, tried to move out of the way, until it pressed against his entrance.

He tried to pull away from it, strained against the restraints, but it didn’t stop.

It pressed inside of him, unrelenting.

He panted through the bit in his mouth as he felt himself skewered on the machine, filled more than he though he ever had been. The stretch burned, but not nearly as much as he thought it should have. More of a barely there ache that he would have expected than pain.

The spray must have done something to him, but he didn’t want to think about that.

By the time it stopped, he could feel his cock stir with half interest. He rested his forehead against the cold ground beneath him and took a deep breath. He clenched around it, exhaling and wiggling to find some comfort.

He could hear others being moved around him. Out of the corner of his eye he could see bodies being dragged and chained ankles walking across the floor.

It went on for what felt like ages. The waiting, he thought, almost felt like the worst part. The anticipation of what was coming – of not knowing what was happening.

And then he could hear others and he quickly realized the waiting was not the worst of it. He was afraid.

For the first time, he let himself feel the terror. He’d masked it as anger, as confusion, as coming up with ways he could get away. But he was afraid, and he knew it.  

He could hear the words being spoken around him. A mixture of languages he didn’t understand and voices too far away to make out what they were saying. He breathed in, thought of himself being anywhere except there. Tried to focus on something other than the present.

Then, he was forced back into the moment, unable to think of anything other than exactly where he was.

The machine roared to life with vibrations. He whined against the gag, legs shaking. He could feel sweat forming at his hair line, on his back. He trembled, whimpering, droll running freely down his chin.

Then, it stopped.

He exhaled, cheeks and chest blazing with heat.

He watched as feet walked up to him, stopped, and walked away. It helped him ignore the burning in his thighs and the lingering hardness the machine wouldn’t let flag. Each time it would bring him to the brink, so close to falling over the edge, only to stop and leave him desperate and frustrated.

He felt a hand in his hair and he reeled back, startled. “Aren’t you a pretty little thing?” He grit his teeth against the bit in his mouth. All he could see was a large pair of black leather shoes before the man walked behind him.

He made a strangled whine as the machine inside of him roared back to life.

He forced himself still, swallowed back any reaction.

He didn’t want to give this man a show.

Another pair of shoes joined the first. High heels. The same woman from earlier.

“Please feel free to touch. You can’t fuck him before he’s bought, but that seems to be taken care of already, anyway.”

The two of them shared a laugh, and Louis felt himself losing the battle as the vibrations inside of him increased. He felt himself grinding his hips uselessly into nothing. Desperate.

Then, a hand under him, wrapping around his dick.

It breaks his resolve and he whines.

“He reacts beautifully.”

The vibrations stopped. Louis panted. Footsteps receded, and he was left alone with his thoughts once again.

No one else touched him, and the vibrations didn’t return. He breathed heavily and willed himself down from the edge, allowing his thoughts to drift.

Slowly, he thought he might unravel.

He felt heavy, buried under stones. The adrenaline had left his body, and all that remained was emptiness and panic.

Time passed, somehow.

He counted to one hundred as many times as he could, forcing himself to restart any time he drifted too far or lost count.

He wasn’t sure how many times he made it.                

He floated there for a long while, between awareness and nothingness, and it was peaceful.

Then, the world around him went dark and quiet. He noticed the quietness, first. A sudden mute that stifled the world around him. Where voices and excited conversations, sobs and fearful whimpers had been only moments ago, there was complete silence. He only noticed the darkness when he opened his eyes and found nothing greeted him.

He could hear his heart beating in his chest, a fast rhythm in his ears reminded him he’s alive.

He swallowed and felt hands unfastening the chains holding him to the floor.

He collapsed, muscles tight from being held in the same position for so long.

Then he felt himself lifted bridal style, folded nearly in half as he was placed back down. He felt around himself, feeling the thin metal bars around him. A cage. He shifted, feeling each edge around him only to find the same metal bars on each edge except the bottom where a smooth layer of metal allowed him to sit without the bars digging into him.

He had to twist to fit in the cage, back hunched and legs drawn up to his chest. He wrapped his arms around his legs, drawing them to his chest. A barely there comfort, but it helped.

Exhaustion hit him all at once.

Hunger gnawed at his stomach.

Pain radiated through his head.

He wanted to go home. Wanted all of this to go away. He imagined himself back home in his bed, surrounded by warmth and soft pillows. In the complete darkness and eerie silence, he could almost believe it.

With nothing else to keep himself grounded, he drifted.

---

Louis woke much differently than he slept. He still couldn’t stretch his limbs out, but it was larger. Enough for him to roll enough and find some comfort against the hard ground. He had some semblance of his vision back. There was more than the darkness, but all he could see were shapes and lights. A bright, white light cut through the thin bars of his cage and the low sound of voices from the hallway roused him fully.

 He twisted, attempting to sit up but whacking his head against the top of the cage.

The pit in his stomach deepened as the dread set in all over again. This was real, not an unfortunate nightmare.

He wasn’t bound in the same chains, only the metal cuffs that seemed permanently fastened around his wrists and ankles – and the ever-present gag in his mouth. He forced a deep breath through his nose and wiped at the spit that accumulated at the side of his mouth with a bare hand.

And he waited.

The pain seeped through his body from his shoulders, his neck, his thighs. The position he’d crammed himself into felt like the most comfortable he could find, but his muscled still screamed with the unnatural position.

As he sat curled into a ball, he tried to take inventory of the things he knew as true. Somehow, he’d been taken. Then, he’d been sold. By who – or to who – he was unsure. He had no idea where he was, or how he’d gotten there. And he had no idea how he was going to get himself out of this.

A whoosh, a door sliding open. Heavy footsteps followed, stopping just in front of him. He took a steadying breath, willing himself to be ready to run.

“You’re awake,” A familiar voice said, kneeling outside of the couch to look at him. “Good morning.” He had an accent Louis didn’t recognize. A sweet lull with sharp vowels that Louis couldn’t place.

Louis didn’t make a noise, didn’t so much as look up at the man in front of him. A part of him hoped that maybe he could disappear, that maybe he would –

His cage was knocked over on its side, sending him falling with it, hitting his head on the top and his shoulders on the sides. He yelled through his gag and exhaled sharply, heart suddenly pounding. “Do not ignore me, pet.” Louis squeezed his hands into fists. Gagged and unable to speak, he had no way to acknowledge the man. “Look at me.”

He looked up blinking against the haze over his eyes as if it would give him his vision back.

“There you are. Aren’t you pretty.”

Louis wanted to scream.

He could see the man’s shape move, then the cage door opened – sideways.

“Come here, pet.”

He cringed at the name, but the appeal of being out of the cage felt stronger than fighting. Being out of the cage felt a step closer to getting away.

Louis moved slowly shuffling forward and crawling over the bars against his knees. He ducked to avoid hitting his head on the way out, still blinking to get his vision back to no avail. As soon as he was out of the box he moved to stand, limbs still shaky.

A cold hand pressed against his shoulder, pushing him back. A shock came through his collar next and he bit hard into the gag in his mouth, whimpering. “I did not say to stand.” He stayed on his hands and knees, breathing hard as his muscles twitched from aftershock. “This will be your first lesson. You will not do anything unless given permission to do so.”

Louis swallowed. The dread came back.

Another shock ripped through his body and Louis toppled to the ground, breath heaving.

“Not a very fast learner, are you, pet?” Louis whimpered. “Do not ignore me. When I say something, you acknowledge it.” Louis nodded from the ground, eyes squeezed shut. “I was worried we’d have to start from the basics. Did they teach you anything before you were brought to me?”

He hesitated and shook his head.

“Stand up.” Louis slowly moved to stand, knees cracking and thighs shaking as he did. His feet went numb as weight was put on them for the first time in such a long period. “Go to the bed. Hands and knees.”

He could make out what looked like the shape of a bed in the corner of the room. But, he hesitated.

He shook his head.

He took a step back, shaking, tensing and waiting for the shock to come.

Instead, his legs were knocked out from under him and he fell to the ground. Before he could register that, a hot, slicing pain came down on the back of his thigh. He gasped, and pulled himself forward, away from the pain.

“Aw, pet wants to go on a walk.” Another hit. He cried out again and crawled another pace away. When the third hit came, he curled himself up on the ground, hands going back to cover the backs of his thighs from the hits. They weren’t wet with blood like he thought they would be, but he could feel the heat of the bruises. “No, no. You wanted to walk. Walk.”

Louis trembled. A hit came down on the small of his back instead of his thighs and he felt tears in his eyes. He crawled again. With each crawling step, he was struck again and again. Faint darkness started to fuzz at the corner of his vision.

“Have you learned your lesson?”

Louis bit his tongue, choking out on a gasp as the cane hit against his thighs again and he collapsed.

“Es!” He screamed through the gag, shaking his head yes quickly, desperate for the pain to stop.

“Look at me.”

Louis didn’t hesitate, eyes – even still half blinded – desperately looking up.

“That’s it, little one. I think you’re learning.” Something about how unconcerned the man’s voice sounded made Louis’ heart sink. How little the searing pain he felt seemed to affect him. “Now. Go to the bed, or we will restart.”

He crawled to the bed, climbing onto it as quickly as his sore limbs would allow.

He could feel the helplessness building in his chest as he felt the man come behind him. Entirely exposed and unable to do anything except let it happen.

“This body is mind to use. Mine to hurt. Mine to play with. Mine to take care of.” Louis shuttered. “I take care of my possessions.”

His face flamed. He couldn’t keep up. It all felt like it was going too fast.

Hands rubbed over his sore skin.

He felt something cool poured over his thighs and back. He exhaled deeply, letting his head hang forward between his shoulders.

He jumped as he felt what almost seemed like a thin paint brush across his skin. In a way, it almost felt nice. Gentle.

When he brushed it over his dick, he jumped. It felt wet and cool, almost soothing. He exhaled softly, mind struggling to keep up with the contrast of pain and softness.

“Take a deep breath, Pet.” It felt like a warning. Louis tensed and took a deep breath. The man blew over the cool liquid over his body and it changed, turning from soothing cold to burning. Like hot wax he couldn’t get away from his skin.

He whimpered desperately. “M’ghs,” He whimpered through the gag. Please.

He reached down to get whatever was on his skin away, unable to think of anything except the burning.

His wrists were grabbed in one big hand.

He felt his hands being grabbed and thick leather slipped over them, then tightened, forcing his hands into balled fists within mitts. He felt like a caged animal, feral and desperate with no idea what else he could expect. And yet, it seemed that’s all he was, in that moment.

“Stay still. Just like this.”

Hands massaged his back and shoulders, then pushed down just between his shoulder blades until he was face down on the bed. He grit his teeth as the realization hit him. Fully exposed and vulnerable, all he could do was wait. He knew what happened next. He knew what he’d been bought for. But, it didn’t make the sting of reality hurt any less.

“Don’t touch.” Louis felt his cheeks burn hot with embarrassment.

The burning sensation faded, and he exhaled shakily.

“This is a permanent cock ring. You know what that is? ”Louis nodded once. He want to scream, but he kept himself quiet. “The difference is that this one will constrict only when you’re just about to come.” He clenched his fists inside of the mitts, a different kind of dread sinking in his stomach. “When I want to play with you, that’s for me. You don’t need to come from that, do you?” He hesitated, but knew an answer was expected.

Louis shook his head no, despite the tightness in his chest.

Hands fanned out as thumbs pulled his cheeks apart. A finger brushed over his hole and Louis felt his heart hammering.  

A second finger joined, and it stayed like that for a moment. Almost an exploratory type of movement that Louis found himself relaxing into, body going lax. It was almost easy to forget his role, if he imagined himself somewhere else. The pleasure under his skin a stark contrast to the pain everywhere else.

He jumped, moaning through the gag as the fingers put pressure against his prostate.

The pads of his fingers stayed there, rubbing in small circles, alternating slow rubbing with quick taps that had Louis’ heart hammering in his chest.

Then, there was pain. A sharp, almost hot slap of something hitting his balls. He jolted, breathing hard and fast through his nose as his heart sped up. The first strike was a surprise, enough that he didn’t have time to register the pain. The second hurt. He cried out, attempting to pull himself away from the pain.

He felt another hard, biting hit just as the fingers inside of him brushed over his prostate again and he groaned, mind spinning. “Now you didn’t think you’d earned anything nice, with your behavior earlier, did you? And now you can’t even follow simple directions. Tsk.”

Tears sprung to his eyes, then, and he blinked them away aggressively. His mind couldn’t keep up, the impossible balance between burning pain and pleasure. He whimpered as another sharp strike hit him. “Stay still.”

He whined as he stilled, keeping himself from squirming, nails biting into his palms.

He jerked as he was given another strike. Compared to the hits on his thighs from earlier, they weren’t that hard, but given the choice – Louis would choose anything over this.

He was struck again. He felt wetness on his cheeks as he realized he was sobbing.

His jaw ached from how hard he bit down on his gag. “Five more. Count them for me.”

The noises he made sounded vaguely like numbers. His owner didn’t seem to care that they were unintelligible. He seemed to care that Louis was conscious, aware of the pain.

The strikes stung, each somehow worse than the last.

Smack.

Smack.

The last hit came and Louis could do little more than tremble.

“Good. And you’re still half hard. How sweet.”

His owner took his fingers away and readjusted him, hands hiking his ass back up in the air. He had nothing left in him to resist. His ass, thighs, balls, back – everything ached. The thought of doing anything but complying made him feel sick with fear.

He felt the mans cock line up with his entrance and took a breath. Louis gasped as he bottomed out. There wasn’t as much of an ache as he expected, and he’d never been so grateful.

He wasted no time with starting a pace of slow, long strokes, burying himself all the way with each thrust. Louis felt little breathes pushed out of him with each push, letting his eyes shut. He squirmed just slightly, allowing himself to get even the slightest bit of stimulation. The pain in his body so overwhelming he wanted to chase that pleasure again.

He nearly went limp as he was fucked so hard he saw stars. The man – his owner– pounded into his prostate all over again. The cock ring tightened around him a moment later, fizzling any arousal out of him faster than he could keep up with it.

The grip tightened on his hips and he thrust in once more before tipping over the edge. Louis shuttered, feeling the way he was truly claimed. It set in heavily over him.  

He slumped further into the bed, legs shaking as they held his weight.

He wasn’t sure he could move, even if he wanted to. His entire body ached. His head hurt. He wanted nothing more than a glass of water and to sleep.

His owner pulled out of him and pressed something large and cold inside of him in his place – a plug. Louis made a sound of protest. He stayed in place. The idea of being punished again for moving without being told to sat heavy in his mind. He closed his eyes and focused on the sounds behind him. There was movement that sounded slightly farther away, then there were hands on his back again.

“I’ll take this off, if you can behave.” He felt a hand on his face, against the ball gag in his mouth. Louis bit down, jaw sore, and nodded quickly. “Let me unlock this for you.”

Louis heard the jangling of keys on a chain, and then the sound of them being thrown across the room and landing on the floor.

“Oh no, it seems I dropped my keys. Why don’t you bring them back to me?” Louis turned to look where he thought the sound had come from and his vision went from blurred to black in an instant. He whimpered and looked towards the direction of the man. He pet his hair and said nothing else.

It was an entirely impossible task. He hadn’t even had the chance to see the layout of the room, how big it was or where things were. “You have twenty minutes.”

Louis felt tears in his eyes as he crawled across the room, hands trembling as he tried to feel through the leather of the mitts for the keys. His fingers ached as he put his weight on balled fists, feeling around blindly in front of him as he crawled.

He could feel the plug shifting inside of him. Enough that it was distracting, rubbing against his prostate again and again with each crawling movement he made.

Breathing heavily through his nose, he crawled around the room, tracing the outline of the walls and feeling around with his mitted hands as best as he could.

He tried to count the number of walls he felt himself rubbing against. But, he lost count. He had no way to know if he was crawling aimlessly in circles or if he had made any progress at all. The panic felt overwhelming.

Bump.

He knocked his head against a hard surface and groaned with the pain.

A rush of relief passed over him as he felt the keys under him and heard them jingle as he moved them.

He pushed them slowly across the room with a mitted hand, listening to the way they slid with each push.

He was turned around, and it took him longer than he would have liked to find where his owner sat, only finding him when he rammed head first into his legs. He pushed the keys away from him and towards the man and garbled an unintelligible acknowledgement. Here you go.

Then, there was the sound of the keys being slid hard across the floor.

“Oh, you must have lost it. Should have kept it closer to you.” Louis’ stomach dropped and a feral kind of desperation filled him in a sudden and all consuming wave. He sobbed. “Good thing you still have ten minutes.” He paused, and seconds passed. His breaths were short and fast. He felt wetness on his hot cheeks and anger burning hot inside of him. “Unless you don’t want it off. It would make a lovely permanent addition.”

He shook his head and crawled in the direction he thought he heard the keys slide.

It felt harder the second time. In his mind, it felt impossible to know where he’d searched the first time and where he needed to search now. He crawled back in circles, searching, searching, searching –

Finally.

He pushed the keys across the floor with his nose, never breaking contact with it. He felt his shoulder brush against the man’s leg and returned to his kneeling position, looking up at him desperately. He had no way of knowing he was looking in the right direction, but he had to try. He was willing to try anything.

It felt like hours had passed. His back was sore from his rounded crawl, his wrists ached from holding his weight. His balls throbbed. The lashes on his back and thighs were hot with pain.

“Stay still.” Louis nodded quickly. He removed the gag from Louis’ mouth and he exhaled softly. The ache was becoming familiar and it unnerved him.  “Now you say thank you, sir.”

Louis swallowed and grit his teeth. “Thank you, Sir.”

His vision came back to a sharp clarity for the first time in what felt like forever. He blinked, and looked at the ground beneath him.

The keys hadn’t moved from under him.

The ones he’d been finding to unlock the gag.

He bristled, feeling his stomach twist all over again. He forced a deep breath and calmed himself down.

Then, he looked up at his owner. His eyes were a piercingly bright green, almost glowing, with golden pupils in the middle. His skin was a pale white, with barely noticeable pattern of scaled along his neck. His ears were pointed at the top, highlighted by the short cut of brown hair on his head.

He wore a pressed black uniform with golden breads and six stripes on his shoulders.

In his hand, he held a bottle of water. Louis looked at the bottle and back up, a silent plea.

His owner pet his fingers through his hair again. “Ask nicely.”

“Sir—” His throat felt raw from his screaming and the lack of use. “Can I please have some water?”

His owner brought the bottle to his mouth and poured the water past his lips. Louis let out a moan of relief.

Louis’ stomach groaned with hunger. He took a deep breath and willed the feeling away, but it did little more than make him feel more nauseous. He had no way of knowing how much time had passed – how many days had passed since he last ate. He felt weak, tired. Exactly how he imagined they wanted.

His owner didn’t comment on the noise. “I’m going to teach you some commands, pet. And then you may eat.” Louis looked at him and nodded again. “Verbal responses when you’re not gagged, unless told otherwise.”

Louis swallowed. “Yes, sir.”

“Listen closely. I expect you to know these.” Louis parroted his understanding. “First, kneel. Keep your back straight. Head up, eyes down.” Louis shifted to his knees, letting his weight fall back on his thighs. He winced at the burning heat on his upper thighs, but he pushed through. He straightened his back and rested his hands on his thighs. Then, trained his eyes on the ground in front of him. “This is position one. You will be in this position often.” A pause. “You do not speak in this position, regardless of if you are gagged or not, unless you’ve been directly spoken to. You do not move in this position. Keep still and quiet.”

Louis stayed silent. It felt like a test he didn’t know the answer to.

“Good pet. Now, look at me. Keep your eyes on me.” He looked up, meeting the same, hypnotic green eyes. “This is position two. Here you may respond verbally when appropriate, but you may not speak freely. This is for waiting for further instructions.”  

“Yes, sir,” Louis said again. The tips of his ears felt red with embarrassments. All of it felt like too much, too fast.  

“Now, go on the bed. On your knees and elbows.” Louis crawled over as fast as his sore muscles would allow him and climbed onto the bed. The soft material felt so welcoming, like he could collapse into it if not told otherwise. He presented himself, feeling the plug shifting inside of him again. “You’re familiar with this one.” Louis’ face flamed. “If there’s no bed in the room and you’re told to get into third position, you’ll do so on the floor.”

His owner adjusted the plug inside of him and Louis let out a long sigh.

“Now, stand up,” Harry said, eyes looking over Louis’ flushed red skin. “Spread your legs, shoulder width apart.” Louis moved without thinking. He felt himself twitch from aftershock. “Now bend over, put your hands on your knees.” He could feel Harry moving behind him. His hands grazed his back and down to his thighs. “Make sure you feel steady. Keep your knees bent enough so you won’t fall or pass out. This is position four.”

The positions blended together as his owner continued to go through them, but Louis kept a mental note as best as he could to keep track of them in his mind.

Position five was to stand still and invisible. Wait to be told where to go.

Position six was kneeling between his owner’s legs and keep his cock in his mouth.

The last position, position seven, was to relax at his owner’s feet. “Now relax. You may kneel, or sit on the ground comfortably. When you are in this position, you may speak as long as it is appropriate. I will still punish you if you speak out of line.” Louis exhaled deeply, his body aching from hours of perfect posture as he leaned forward, resting his head against his Harry’s leg. One of Harry’s hands played with his hair, fingers stringing through it softly. He let his eyes fall shut, exhaustion from the day amplified. “This is position seven. You will earn this position in time. When you show me you can behave, and that you deserve comfort. Why do you have to earn that, pet?”

Louis remembered what one of the handlers had said. Everything is a privilege. “Because… comfort is a privilege.”

“Decided by who?”

“By you.”  

“Correct. Good.” The man hummed contently. “You’ve done well at fixing your behavior with just some minor adjustments.” Louis bristled at the thought of his adjustments being minor. He couldn’t imaging himself taking much more. “Because I’m quite aware of how humans are, you may ask me two questions. I suggest not wasting them.”

Louis blinked. A million questions flooded his mind all at once. He took inventory of what he wanted to ask, mind reeling.

“Who are you?”

“Titles and names do not translate directly to English. The closest comparison would be Commander and my name in English, Harry Styles.” There was a smile on his owner – Harry’s – face that Louis couldn’t read. “Commendable to ask about me for your first question. That’s not happened before.” Louis clenched his fists at the idea of before. He grit his teeth as the thought of what happened to the people from before flooded his mind.

A knock rapped against the door just before it slid open with another whoosh. A woman entered wearing a uniform similar to Harry’s but in gray. She greeted him in a language Louis didn’t recognize, then set a tray on the desk. She left as fast as she came, bowing her head with respect. “You can ask your second question another time.” Harry moved to the desk and sat down.

Louis stayed still. He knew not to move without being told.

“Come here. Position two.” Louis’ eyes felt heavy, his body felt weak. Crawling made his knees ache. He kneeled, back straight and looking up at Harry.  

Harry had a piece of meat between his fingers and held it down in front of Louis’ mouth. His stomach twisted from hunger that he had somehow ignored until that moment. He had nothing left in him to protest.

He ate his meal from Harry’s fingertips, letting his mind drift away as much as he could.

He slouched just slightly, eyes falling shut, before he caught himself and forced his back straight again. Harry didn’t turn to look at him, writing on the tablet in front of him.

He counted his breaths to keep from falling asleep, in and out, trying to keep from blinking.

He was startled out of his half sleep by Harry’s voice. “Now, position one. You will stay there until I go to bed.”

Louis’ lip wobbled as he looked to the ground and brought his hands to rest on his thighs. He looked at the ground at his covered hands. He flexed his fingers inside of the mitts, but could do little more than make a less tight fist.

So, he knelt, and he waited.

The waiting, he feared, would break him before anything else.

The ache in his balls faded and the burn of his thighs shifted to a radiating ache. It felt like hours of sitting, waiting, listening to the sound of writing and typing and then the chair pushed away from the desk. Harry stood, but Louis kept his eyes fixed to the ground.

“Come here.”

Just beside Harry’s bed was a circular dog bed.

He crawled into it without protest and sunk into the soft fabric. Harry clipped a chain to his collar, then to rings on his mitts. The chain was long enough that he could move enough to find a comfortable position, but it left him unable to leave the bed.

“Good night, pet.”