Hijack This Hurt
Characters: Kage shenghuanzhe, Raphael betterthanleo
Location: Unknown Deck
Date: Today
Rating: R for violence
Hijack This HurtKage smoked as he waited for Raphael to wake up. He'd gone through half a pack of cigarettes and they floated in half a bottle of Pepsi the First Mate had abandoned drinking in favour of a fresher, colder bottle ( Read more... )
Location: Unknown Deck
Date: Today
Rating: R for violence
Hijack This HurtKage smoked as he waited for Raphael to wake up. He'd gone through half a pack of cigarettes and they floated in half a bottle of Pepsi the First Mate had abandoned drinking in favour of a fresher, colder bottle ( Read more... )
There's that cliche that dying is the same as being born - "just backwards". Whatever shmuck thought of that should feel ashamed for supposing babies went through anything like what Raphael just did. Coming back to life after dying... what's that supposed to be? The existential equivalent of dividing by zero?
After several stunned gasps, his vision came back and he could hear and feel his limbs again, and finally, he realized it. He was alive. He was emotionally fried, completely confused, and the ghost of immense pain seemed to linger still in his nerves, but he was alive.
...where is he?
Panicking, he pulled on the chains binding him down.
No. What now.
"Hh-Wh-who's there?" he stammered, turning his head to try to see.
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There was a rustling as Kage adjusted the controls, and then a song began to play. Kage clapped with his fingers on the palm of his other hand, walking back around to where Raphael could see him. He squatted down before the turtle, hands hanging off the ends of his knees and gave Raphael a lopsided, friendly kinda smile.
"Music. You gotta set the tone with music," Kage chided him, reaching into a pocket of his loose jeans and withdrawing his gleaming, razor-edged balisong. He flicked it out, clicked it open over his knuckles and slowly ( ... )
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No, right now, there was only fear.
Raphael's eyes were lacking their usual red border, his bandanna now strewn somewhere randomly on the ship. Even in this low light, the fear that was consuming his thoughts would be as plain as day. He wordlessly watched Kage, acknowledged none of his words, and stared wide-eyed at the knife dangled in front of his face.
No. It wasn't over yet. They were going to do more. Kage was going to do more.
Without even thinking, Raphael's head disappears back into his shell defensively.
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Not that Raphael wouldn't have stuck his head back out instantly the second Kage touched the grinder to his shell. The noise. It was a terrible noise that went up his spine and into his skull and reverberated into his eardrums. And the - the feeling... vibrations. Like someone getting the top of their skull sawed off for brain surgery. It wasn't painful, but fuck, it was overwhelming.
"What the fuck!" He gasped. "What are you doing?! Fuck! Stop it! Fuck you!"
He still sounded terrified, but the anger is coming back into his voice as the lingering shock from his death fades and he's brought back to the uncertain situation at hand. Head turning, he looks back to glare up at him, emotion burning in his eyes.
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"You know why I ain't hurtin' you?" Kage asked, tone dead. He angled the grinder to start the sweep of the initial letter. The metal bit whined. "'Cause I can hurt y'worse with my words. What I'm gonna tell you. And see, y'can shut your eyes, but y'can't shut your ears. So you wanna hear, boy?"
Kage felt lazy, delicious, he felt satisfied with each passing moment because the panic and terror was plain in Raphael's eyes. The turtle didn't know what Kage was going to do, if he was going to cut him in half. Starve him to death. He didn't know what was happening and there was no way to escape.
This, Kage reflected, was a much better way of torturing than Raphael's clumsy, childish attempts.
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And now, Kage was probably gonna carve him up from the back or something. Having only arrived a few weeks ago and being pretty much completely uninformed, he didn't have any idea he was going to eventually return to the passenger decks at all, so at this point, he has nothing - no hope, no will to live, just cushioning regret on his shoulders like Atlas and wishing he could die.
He inhaled a lungful of air tinted with the smell of friction and forced words out of gritted teeth.
"G-Go fuck yourself," he said, managing to make it sound defiant.
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Freak. That's what had made Raphael snap earlier. Kage had picked it out instantly and used it to push him over the edge. Hadn't he? It had been intentional, right?
No, Raphael tells himself. His eyes are closed tight and he's trying his best to keep from crying out again. No. Don't blame others. Leo tried to tell me...
"Stop! Stop!" The thought was interrupted as he spat the words out. "I got it! I got it already!"
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Raphael couldn't see him, but he could feel when Kage shifted off his shell and came around so he could look Raphael in the eyes.
Kage's face was a cold mask, but a dark fire burned in his eyes and his voice was cold as frosted marble when he spoke.
"I don't even gotta hit you and you're broke," the First Mate said, and his lip curled ever so slightly. "You think y'can tie me up? Hurt me and get away with it? You think punchin' me a few time's torture?"
Kage's hand lashed out, but he pulled his punch so the fist hung a hair's breadth from Raphael's cheek.
"This is how you do it, stupid," Kage hissed, lip curled to show his canines. "You wanted t'be a badass? You wanted t'tangle with someone who's a lot fuckin' older, faster'n meaner? You got that wish. Now pay attention to that fuckin' sinkin' feeling in your chest, boy, 'cause it's gonna be with you forever when someone asks what that writin' on your shell means. Even if you lie and tell 'em it means somethin' nice, you'n me will know better ( ... )
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Kage's words - Raphael might as well have had more salt poured into his wounds all over again. Christ, even the whackjob that was carving into his shell had understood the situation better than he had. How could he have let this happen? What were his brothers going to do without him? What was... Leo going to say to them about it...? Say to Casey? Say to their father? Leo...
"Aughhh! Stop!" he screamed, writhing underneath him. "I s-said -- said I got it! What more d'you want?! Stop! For - agh - For fuck's sake!"
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This was a lesson to Raphael, Kage felt, and an important one. Kage had been on the receiving end of these kinds of lessons plenty of times before, and he knew precisely what Raphael was feeling. He didn't care.
He continued to carve the flowing, graceful script across the shell, occassionally going back over his work to make sure that it was all properly deep. To grind the letters out of the turtle's shell would pretty much require the shell to be ground all the way off. It was large enough, too, that it would be visible unless Raphael wore a cloak to cover himself.
Time passed as Kage worked in silence. He listened to Raphael's screams and his begging, but the First Mate didn't answer back. They were just noises to him, no different from the whining of the grinder.
Just the sound of something soft being ground down by someone much harder.
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