[fanfiction] 'til your body is numb
365 Gay Sharks
Day 236, Word Count: 1022
Theme: August; The Dog Days are Over (Apocalypse)
This post is part of the 365 Gay Sharks project. If you would like to learn more about this project, click here to read more about it. :D
Fandom/Pairings: Never Let Me Go; Kathy/Tommy/Ruth
Rating: R
Pre-Notes: Prostitution /sex work for
kink_bingo on this card because a long time ago we were putting bed in titles and stuff and someone came up with "Never Let Me Bed," which I said was a movie about prostitutes that break free of their horrible life oh wait I got that plot confused with what I wish Never Let Me Go was. So, Never Let Me Go prostitution au!
Disclaimer: I am actually incapable of writing something that sad.
Summary: Hailsham.
It's where Tommy, Ruth, and I grew up-a cheap, run-down whorehouse tucked into an alleyway of the red light district-and where we eventually escaped from.
'til your body is numb
Hailsham.
It's where Tommy, Ruth, and I grew up-a cheap, run-down whorehouse tucked into an alleyway of the red light district-and where we eventually escaped from. The fact that I can say that at all is reason enough to celebrate, but there really isn't much time to do that at all. Tommy, Ruth, and I are constantly on the run now, fugitives escaped from the harsh and unrelenting system we were born into.
I don't remember much about when we were younger, although I do remember that Tommy was always being picked on. He didn't have many friends besides Ruth and I, which I suppose had a lot to do with the fact that he was different from everyone else, special. We were a tight-knit group back then and remained a tight-knit group throughout our childhoods until we were first auctioned off.
The three of us weren't cultivated to serve in the same way that some of the other children were. No, we were selected for what they called "a higher task." No one ever told us exactly what that task was, but we soon found out. On her eighteenth birthday, Ruth was woken very early in the morning and whisked away. Tommy and I did not see her for the rest of the day, and she did not return when night fell. We worried, but our caretaker quieted us and told us that Ruth was fine and she would join us again the next day.
When Ruth came back, she told us what had happened when she was away in hushed tones. She said they had dolled her up, dressed her in one of the fancy dresses the older girls sometimes wore, and then trotted her out onto a stage. People bid on her and when she was sold, she was taken to a room where she waited until the highest bidder entered. He was allowed to do whatever he liked to her for the rest of the day, so long as it didn't leave any marks. Ruth wouldn't tell us what he did to her, but Tommy and I could both tell that she was traumatized by it.
After that, though, Tommy and I no longer looked forward to our own eighteenth birthdays. They still came, though, Tommy first and then me, in turn. After that it was days off the roster of available merchandise and days on the roster. Days on meant waking up when the sun rose to get ready, and days off meant trying to ease the aches in your very bones. Once we were all eighteen, the three of us worked on rotation. Two of us were always to be available and one was allowed to rest, which made it difficult to communicate where it had once been so easy. Little things like that never stopped us, though, because all we really had was each other.
Everyone finds their own way to deal with their situation, and ours was little notes left to whoever wasn't on roster. I don't think anyone thought much of it at the time, and our caretaker certainly never stopped us from doing it. Maybe they thought the notes were harmless, maybe they recognized it as the only thing that kept us going-I don't really know, and I no longer care, because that's behind us now. It's only important to this story because those notes were how we planned our escape.
The problem with leaving clever people together and letting them grow up with each other is that you give them the means to communicate in ways that cannot be understood. Tommy, Ruth and I had our own ways of communicating. It was a secret language of sorts that Tommy came up with and we had been using it for a long time when it suddenly become our only means of communication and our only chance of getting away from Hailsham and all of the horrors we lived through there.
I don't mean to say that every person who ever bid on us was a bad person, or even that this people were bad to begin with. It's just hard to articulate the ways in which we were violated, and I'm not sure I want to in the first place. The time I spent as merchandise as Hailsham was a dark time where I only rose in the mornings because I knew without a doubt that something horrible would happen if I did not and I went to bed at night only to dream of a land filled with monsters. I still dream of those monsters sometimes, and it's on nights like those that Tommy will hold me close and weave tales of a different life.
When she's awake, Ruth with help, and and we'll pretend, if only for a moment, that we aren't hiding from the people that want to put us right back into Hailsham. Ruth is positive that they won't find us, and I have absolute faith in her, because she's the one who planned most of our escape. Someone who bid on her once asked why she didn't leave, why she didn't go and carve out a new life for herself. He told her of a network of people that helped runaways like us stay safe, if only we could find them. Until that day, it had never occurred to us that we might be able to escape and might be able to be free, just as it has probably never occurred to you.
It isn't perfect once you're free, but if you're reading this then you already know that nothing is perfect and to expect perfection is foolishness. You already know that if you want anything, you are going to have to fight for it. What you might not know is that it's okay to dream. It's okay to think about what being free would be like, of how it feels to not clock in every night and out every morning. It's okay to dream about that better life and, if you feel strong enough, try to attain it.
We'll be waiting for you when you do.
This entry originally posted here. Original entry currently has
comments. :D
Day 236, Word Count: 1022
Theme: August; The Dog Days are Over (Apocalypse)
This post is part of the 365 Gay Sharks project. If you would like to learn more about this project, click here to read more about it. :D
Fandom/Pairings: Never Let Me Go; Kathy/Tommy/Ruth
Rating: R
Pre-Notes: Prostitution /sex work for
kink_bingo on this card because a long time ago we were putting bed in titles and stuff and someone came up with "Never Let Me Bed," which I said was a movie about prostitutes that break free of their horrible life oh wait I got that plot confused with what I wish Never Let Me Go was. So, Never Let Me Go prostitution au!
Disclaimer: I am actually incapable of writing something that sad.
Summary: Hailsham.
It's where Tommy, Ruth, and I grew up-a cheap, run-down whorehouse tucked into an alleyway of the red light district-and where we eventually escaped from.
'til your body is numb
Hailsham.
It's where Tommy, Ruth, and I grew up-a cheap, run-down whorehouse tucked into an alleyway of the red light district-and where we eventually escaped from. The fact that I can say that at all is reason enough to celebrate, but there really isn't much time to do that at all. Tommy, Ruth, and I are constantly on the run now, fugitives escaped from the harsh and unrelenting system we were born into.
I don't remember much about when we were younger, although I do remember that Tommy was always being picked on. He didn't have many friends besides Ruth and I, which I suppose had a lot to do with the fact that he was different from everyone else, special. We were a tight-knit group back then and remained a tight-knit group throughout our childhoods until we were first auctioned off.
The three of us weren't cultivated to serve in the same way that some of the other children were. No, we were selected for what they called "a higher task." No one ever told us exactly what that task was, but we soon found out. On her eighteenth birthday, Ruth was woken very early in the morning and whisked away. Tommy and I did not see her for the rest of the day, and she did not return when night fell. We worried, but our caretaker quieted us and told us that Ruth was fine and she would join us again the next day.
When Ruth came back, she told us what had happened when she was away in hushed tones. She said they had dolled her up, dressed her in one of the fancy dresses the older girls sometimes wore, and then trotted her out onto a stage. People bid on her and when she was sold, she was taken to a room where she waited until the highest bidder entered. He was allowed to do whatever he liked to her for the rest of the day, so long as it didn't leave any marks. Ruth wouldn't tell us what he did to her, but Tommy and I could both tell that she was traumatized by it.
After that, though, Tommy and I no longer looked forward to our own eighteenth birthdays. They still came, though, Tommy first and then me, in turn. After that it was days off the roster of available merchandise and days on the roster. Days on meant waking up when the sun rose to get ready, and days off meant trying to ease the aches in your very bones. Once we were all eighteen, the three of us worked on rotation. Two of us were always to be available and one was allowed to rest, which made it difficult to communicate where it had once been so easy. Little things like that never stopped us, though, because all we really had was each other.
Everyone finds their own way to deal with their situation, and ours was little notes left to whoever wasn't on roster. I don't think anyone thought much of it at the time, and our caretaker certainly never stopped us from doing it. Maybe they thought the notes were harmless, maybe they recognized it as the only thing that kept us going-I don't really know, and I no longer care, because that's behind us now. It's only important to this story because those notes were how we planned our escape.
The problem with leaving clever people together and letting them grow up with each other is that you give them the means to communicate in ways that cannot be understood. Tommy, Ruth and I had our own ways of communicating. It was a secret language of sorts that Tommy came up with and we had been using it for a long time when it suddenly become our only means of communication and our only chance of getting away from Hailsham and all of the horrors we lived through there.
I don't mean to say that every person who ever bid on us was a bad person, or even that this people were bad to begin with. It's just hard to articulate the ways in which we were violated, and I'm not sure I want to in the first place. The time I spent as merchandise as Hailsham was a dark time where I only rose in the mornings because I knew without a doubt that something horrible would happen if I did not and I went to bed at night only to dream of a land filled with monsters. I still dream of those monsters sometimes, and it's on nights like those that Tommy will hold me close and weave tales of a different life.
When she's awake, Ruth with help, and and we'll pretend, if only for a moment, that we aren't hiding from the people that want to put us right back into Hailsham. Ruth is positive that they won't find us, and I have absolute faith in her, because she's the one who planned most of our escape. Someone who bid on her once asked why she didn't leave, why she didn't go and carve out a new life for herself. He told her of a network of people that helped runaways like us stay safe, if only we could find them. Until that day, it had never occurred to us that we might be able to escape and might be able to be free, just as it has probably never occurred to you.
It isn't perfect once you're free, but if you're reading this then you already know that nothing is perfect and to expect perfection is foolishness. You already know that if you want anything, you are going to have to fight for it. What you might not know is that it's okay to dream. It's okay to think about what being free would be like, of how it feels to not clock in every night and out every morning. It's okay to dream about that better life and, if you feel strong enough, try to attain it.
We'll be waiting for you when you do.
This entry originally posted here. Original entry currently has
comments. :D