Chapter Text
Seven had a routine.
He’d wake up to a forceful nudge or an alarm blaring in time with the red light above his door. Over his time, Seven had learnt that the alarm meant to stand up to attention for Papa to come in so they could ‘talk’, and that the nudges meant he braced himself tense to be dragged out of his room, down the hall, and into one of the testing rooms.
Seven woke up to an alarm, and he groaned only a little before standing out of bed. The springs groaned at his moving weight, and Seven rubbed over his buzzed head with his eye still closed.
The door opened, then shut, and Seven knew Papa was inside. The alarm had stopped the second the door opened. As it always did on these type of mornings.
“Good morning, Seven.” Papa said, as he did on these mornings. Only then did Seven open his eyes.
“Papa.” Seven said. The white haired man grinned.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Papa asked, as he always did.
There was a routine. Papa followed it too. Seven had to, otherwise he was punished.
“Good.” Seven always answered the same. He knew not to complain. He used to, a long time ago. But he hadn’t in a while.
Papa paced for a moment, and Seven stared him down. As he always did. Seven had been told by Papa that he had magnificent eyes. He could go long periods of time without blinking, making him the perfect at catching peoples secrets. One time, Seven had been told to observe a lady. He was instructed to sit beside Papa in the stark white room whilst the older man asked her questions. Some were nicer questions than the others, but Seven had been told to watch; not speak. He was good at that. She had seemed nice enough, but Seven noticed she said the wrong things to the more… strange questions. Questions that called for one right answer, which she didn’t give.
Seven hadn’t seen her after she was forcefully escorted out of the room. Papa had turned to him and asked ‘Seven, what did you see?’ And the boy had replied with his limited vocabulary the stuff he knew would impress Papa.
‘She moved a ring on her… left hand a lot.’ He had to think for a second which side was which. He continued, ‘Her hair was done. She has stuff on her face. She…’ Seven but his lip, looking away and down for a moment. Papa pulled his chin up back to face him. ‘She wouldn’t be good here.’
Seven wasn’t dumb, he had only seen guards and Papa and ‘friends’ here his entire life. He knew that she would not have made a good candidate here.
Papa had smiled, and pat him on the cheek. ‘Good boy.” Seven’s nose had been tapped. ‘Off to bed, then.’
Seven’s eyes saw everything. Stuff nobody else saw. Seven blinked, and Papa was sat on the bed and guiding him to sit there too. Seven complied, sitting stiffly on the end.
“I want to teach you a word.” Papa said, and Seven couldn’t help but beam. He didn’t smile, but he definitely perked up. Papa noticed, and chuckled.
“It’s nothing special. But I knew it would make you happy.” The man fiddled with something in his pocket before revealing it. It was a folded bit of paper, and Seven watched eagerly as the man unfolded it.
He presented it to Seven, and the boy took it gingerly. He held the white paper between his fingers and stared down at the word on it. He took in a breath, and thought of each letter and their sounds.
“B…ba.” Seven struggled, getting frustrated with himself a little as he struggled. Papa stayed silent looming above him. “Bat…” No. the ‘th’ made a different sound. “Bath…” Seven looked hopefully up at Papa, eyes glimmering with hope as his lip quivered a little.
Seven didn’t like reading.
“Keep going.” Papa left him to struggle, and Seven was only a little mad at that.
Steve ducked his head down again and stared at the word. “Bath…” He choked a little, his nose tingling as the lights flickered. “Bath-tu…”
Papa looked around the room, staring at the flickering lights. He snapped his head to Seven, and the boy could feel the anger radiating off of him.
“Bath-tub.” Seven choked out, letting out a breath of release as he let go of his power. He flipped back a little and wiped his nose. He breathed heavy, and he watched Papa stare at him.
Papa snatched the paper away from him with a disapproving look. “Control yourself, Seven.”
Seven felt angry at the man. He didn’t ask to be made like this. He didn’t want to have no control.
Seven felt his anger bubble in his chest, but died it down quickly. He couldn’t be angry at Papa, that was never in the routine.
“I’m sorry.” Seven whispered, quiet as a mouse. Papa turned over his shoulder to look at him.
Seven was small, not so much in height but his arms had always been incredibly tiny. His ribs poked through his skin if he breathed in too much, and his legs weren’t exactly thick with mean so to speak. He must’ve looked pathetic, drowning in his sleeping gown with a limp body hanging on the bed.
Papa sighed and stepped closer to him, crouching down and stroking over his head. He moved Seven physically, so his head was less leaning on the wall and more on his pillow. Papa moved his legs too, putting him completely on the bed and giving himself enough room to sit by Seven’s skinny knees.
Papa placed a hand there.
“I wanted to introduce you to something. Something new and to help us find things. People.” Papa explained. Seven guessed that was what the ‘bath-tub’ was.
“I want to.” Seven whispered, and Papa gave a weak smile. “To see it.”
“You will. Later.” Papa pat his knee, and stood to leave. Seven tried not to tear up at his departure. “I will see you later.”
“Papa…” Seven tried calling for him, but he was gone and left alone.
Like he always was on these days, because there was a routine that had to be followed. Seven was left alone for a while - left to cry, left to get angry, left to mourn something he didn’t remember - until he was strong enough to walk around the room again.
<->
If he was strong enough to walk, the guards had figured out, then he was strong enough for testing.
After Seven had taken a few steps around his room, he was changed into a fresh gown before he was dragged down the hall into one of the testing rooms.
Seven never understood why he couldn’t have walked on his own. If he was moving from one room to another, and wasn’t with Papa to hold his hand, he was taken by the under-arms and dragged backwards. Seven distantly remembered a time when he struggled, but that time was no more. He simply let himself be dragged now. There was no use in fighting.
Seven was tested with wires stuck to his head with sticky tape. Seven wore a thinly-wired ‘cap’ of sorts alongside these wires, and was almost always sitting down during his testing. He used to have his wrists bound tight to the arms of the chair, but that was when he struggled. Seven didn’t struggle with the tests anymore.
Seven crushed cans. He broke light bulbs and lifted the table up into the air before dropping it again. He was instructed to find people with static playing as white-noise to help focus his concentration. He found two men and a woman separately today. He rolls their conversations aloud, so Papa and the ‘friends’ in white lab coats could hear what Seven did.
Each time he did something right, he was praised by Papa through the microphone in the top corner above the door. Seven smiled just a little each time.
Seven didn’t smile when he was instructed to kill a cat.
It hissed at him in its cage, placed precariously on the table in front of Seven. The white fluff ball had bared its teeth and rattled its caging the second it caught sight of Seven, like something was wrong with him inside that the cat could sense.
The cat made Seven uncomfortable. He hated it. He wanted it dead for offending him.
But, when he tried, the cat only yowled.
Seven had failed. Through his anger, he had failed. He had nobody to blame but himself.
When Seven failed a test, it disrupted the routine. He was thrown into a dark room for a long time and left there to cry. Seven hated it.
He looked up at Papa through the window ahead. He shook his head. No, please. And Papa looked incredibly disappointed. Seven had failed, they both knew. He deserved punishment.
Seven tried not to struggle as he was dragged by the arms once again, down the hall and past his bedroom and thrown into the dark room. Seven cowered into the corner and shivered in the dark.
He rocked on his heels and hit his head with his fists as the routine was disrupted. And it was all his fault.
<->
It took too long for Seven to be released again. He knew he deserved every second of the punishment for not being able to kill that damn cat, but that didn’t mean he enjoyed it.
Seven didn’t like the dark. They kept a light on for him at night when he was allowed to sleep in his bedroom.
The sliver of light that blinded Seven as Papa opened the door was enough for the boy to sob. More than he already had been.
“Papa…” He whispered, choking a little as he crawled towards the man. He hugged his legs, clawing at his black pants and trying not to stain them too much with his tears. “I’m sorry.”
A hand was placed atop his head, and then his head was pat. He was forced to stand by hands under his armpits pulling him to his feet. Papa didn’t struggle even as he lifted him.
Seven stared up at the man before him, who held him by the arms and looked him over. Papa gave a nod before Seven’s hand was in his and they were walking down the hall again.
Seven kept his gaze on the man as they turned. The routine was put back in place, and Seven was hungry enough for it to be dinner time now.
Seven ate quick, before he was reprimanded and told to slow down again by Papa. He did, but still ate quick. Papa, the entire time whilst Seven ate, stroked over his shaved hair.
“We’ll need to get your hair cut again.” Papa spoke only once during dinner, and with that comment came a wave of memories that consisted screams and pleads as his body - once strong - had been pinned down and assaulted with a razor.
Seven flinched, and Papa tutted.
Seven finished his food quick. It had been buttered bread and a cup of water. He was told to take his medication, under Papa’s watchful eye, before he was being guided into a new section of the lab by Papa’s hand gripping his tight.
“I will show you tor bathtub now, number Seven.” Papa said as they walked, not looking at the boy he guided. “They will be people there, people you haven’t met yet. But they are friends.”
“People?” Seven questioned, not quite liking the idea of more people. He didn’t want more people, he wanted to stay with Papa and only Papa.
“Yes, more people. Friends. You’ll do your best to be nice to them.” Papa said, making them turn a right down a corridor. At the end of it, tow guards loaded with arms stood outside a door. Papa pressed his keypad to open, and nodded to the two guards outside as they passed and entered.
“Nice.” Seven nodded, knowing to be good for Papa.
“Yes. You’ll be good.” Him and Papa entered the new area, and Seven flinched at the bustle of people around. They all stared at him upon entry, and Seven would have ran away if he wasn’t holding his Papa’s hand. Or if he hadn’t promised to be good for him.
Seven was put into a tank, submerged with water with a large helmet on his head, and left to find a certain man with a thick moustache that curled at the edges. Seven had relayed when he was saying through the microphones, and came back to the surface screaming in terror.
Seven had learnt was the bathtub was, and instantly hated it. The feeling of being wet and the weight of the helmet was too overstimulating. Having to find a man through his mind with no-knowledge of who he was or what he’d done was becoming too much for Seven.
He hated it. He hated it all. He hated Papa. He hated the guards. He hated the person he once was; the person Seven couldn’t remember.
Seven screamed when the helmet was off him. He screamed and exploded a doctors head with his mind before was he retrained. He was dragged out of the bathtub room kicking and screaming, with Papa nowhere in sight. He was probably disappointed. He was probably amazed.
Seven hated him.
Seven was thrown back into the dark room, the door locked behind him and the room encased with dark shadows that taunted Seven with past laughter and mean comments.
Seven screamed, and kicked at the walls. He pulled at his short hair and clawed at his arms until they bled. He tried to latch his mind onto something to destroy it. He flung himself at the wall to feel something. He struggled when he tried wrapping his fingers around his own neck to squeeze tight. He clawed at his own face and slapped his wrists all the while screaming a bloody murder.
Seven passed out with a sore throat.