boxofmisfits | (no subject)

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The Rat King didn't normally deal with the world above. He usually lived in the sewers, with his rats. The rats were his friends, and he understood them on a level that no other could. He saw through their eyes, and they were his spy network for the sewers and the city.

But even he had to admit that the world above had its advantages.

He didn't know how the man called Osiris had found out about him. Nor did he understand why the man had gotten in contact with the Rat King, of all people. One of his rats had returned with a note tied to his leg. The note referred to him by his old name, Dr. Victor Falco, and it spoke of wanting to meet up. The Rat King had sent a note back saying they would meet on his terms, away from any prying eyes. A go-between had been used, with the messenger putting his boss' offer on the table: a promise to give the Rat King his own private facility where he could conduct his experiments without interference, that would have plenty of room for his rats. All the Rat King had to do was get someone out of Osiris' hair. The Rat King had taken the offer.

The abandoned laboratory had been given to him first thing. Now he just had to keep up his end of the bargain for the other half of his "payment". The Rat King watched through the eyes of the rats he had scattered about the area, to keep watch for his target.

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The Rat King was sensing a wave of fear and absolute terror. He was most certainly sure none of this was from his rats, for they weren't afraid of him. They saw him as their king.

Then a series of images came to him, jumbled up, but one stood out in particular. He saw a hot brand and blinding pain as it was pressed to skin. The Rat King hadn't thought his serum would work this well.

Approaching Dane, he went around to the back of him and held him still with one hand, while the other pulled his shirt collar to the side to look for a branding scar.

Pulling the shirt collar as far as it would allow showed the top edge of the angry burn scar. It extended six inches lower, over his right shoulder blade, a vague snake curved into the shame of an S. But Dane twisted out under the man's grasp. There was strong shame associated with that scar. Deep fear that haunted his very nightmares.

"Keep your hands off me!" he cried, trying to get away from the man, but he just ended up falling to his knees as his arm got twisted with the handcuff, not able to go very far with the Rat King so close at his back.

The sight of that scar vindicated the Rat King's theory about whose thoughts he'd been reading. Well, he hadn't meant to do that. Perhaps it was a miscalculation with the formula, or it was because the Rat King was already selectively telepathic. Either way, he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

He felt the shame, and the other negative emotions that came with the scar. Fascinating.

The Rat King reached over and finally undid the handcuff attached to Dane's wrist, so he could move freely. There was no way he could escape anyway. "You and I have both had our trials by fire, it seems. Mine was simply more... extensive."

The moment the cuff came loose, Dane scrambled away. He didn't even fully stand up, practically diving away from the man. He twisted around at the words, calling backwards onto his backside. But that didn't stop his attempt to put as much distance as possible between him and the Rat King. He kicked and shoved, until he slid himself right to the wall.

"You're crazy!" he yelled. But his mind was already ticking away on the possibilities. The injection. The suddenly talking like he'd been spying for months. No. It couldn't. Anyone with telepathic powers was strictly monitored, weren't they? They had to register. Let the whole neighborhood know. Suddenly he closed his eyes, tight, fists pressed to his forehead. There were supposed to be methods. Ways to focus to shut people out. But this power wasn't exactly coming at him from the outside.

The Rat King put his hands to his temples again, focusing on Dane as he approached the other man. This was getting interesting. He hadn't seen the inside of a human mind since his early experiments, back when he still went by the name Victor Falco. But Dane wasn't a normal human, that much he could sense.

Long-fingered hands went to the bandages at his face and removed them, showing that underneath lay a pair of sunken, red eyes. Those eyes focused on Dane.

His next words weren't said aloud, but sent directly into Dane's mind. He was mostly testing the waters, to see how extensive this new link was.

Open your mind to me...

No no no no! Hearing those words in his head, he drew up his knees, as if a physical shield could protect him. He uncurled his fists, so he could cover his face with his hands. Harder and harder he tried the techniques he'd been taught when he was a teenager. Envisioning walls and other barriers, mental blocks to keep intruders out. He'd never been able to do it then, and that was in very controlled situations.

It dragged up whole new feelings of dread. The idea of letting someone get close to him, get to know him had been bad enough. This went beyond that. And it was the one situation he wanted the other person to get as far away from him as possible.

Dane had heard him, the Rat King was sure of it. Even if Dane hadn't had a physical reaction to it, the Rat King had felt that he'd been heard. This opened up all manner of possibilities.

Kneeling before Dane, the Rat King took his wrist in hand for the umpteenth time that night, to keep him in place. Time for another test. Using his free hand, the Rat King reached around and unclicked the collar, letting it slip free from his neck for now. He was prepared to put it right back on at a moment's notice.

He sent out a little psychic push, ordering him to turn fully human again. It wasn't full control over his mind, and more just influencing him to do something.

Edited 2017-11-23 07:51 (UTC)

Trying to keep his face hidden, Dane tried to yank his arm free, his skin still crawling at the man's touch. But the moment the collar slid free, his head jerked up. He instantly reached for his power, intent on turning fully into a coyote and finally doing something about getting out of there. But in doing so, it was like his hand slipped. A sudden idea popping into his head telling him to go human instead. And before he could stop himself, his ears returned to normal and his tail vanished.

"GET OUT OF MY HEAD!" He shouted, frantically trying to make his transformation go the other way. All the while he was trying to flood his thoughts with as much nonsense as possible. Song lyrics, obnoxious sounds, numbers. Anything impersonal that could protect him.

The Rat King easily tuned out the white noise Dane was obviously sending him. The collar was immediately back around Dane's neck and clicked into place. He leaned in closer to Dane, practically breathing on him now. "Soon, you won't need that, because you'll come around. I'm sure of it."

He sat on the balls of his feet, looking at Dane intently with sightless eyes, seeing him through Aristotle. "It would be easier if you let me in. I want to know more about this transformation power you possess."

Immediately Dane started clawing at the collar. That brief touch of his power, snatched away so fast, had left him more frantic than before. He felt around the claps, trying to undo it. But Osiris, in all of his devious ways, had designed it so it wouldn't come undone for the the person wearing it.

He tried to glare at the man, but those freaky eyes made him feel more freaked out than the touch of his skin. "Never!" He howled. Since noise wasn't working, he shifted tactics. He tried to think of everything he could think of that a rat would hate. Traps. Cats. Hawks. Vicious dogs. All doing what they did best to small, furry rodents.

The Rat King frowned when he felt Dane start to resist him. "Come now, you and I aren't so different."

He probed Dane's mind, shifting through the images he was thinking about to dissuade the Rat King from going further in. Aha! There was a little spark of something.

"Your powers were a gift," He stated. "A gift of birth. But for a time, you knew nothing but humanity, before these powers manifested. I was human once, you know. Now I have surpassed my humanity." Thin fingers reached up to lightly stroke his fingernails against Dane's cheek. Not scratching, but a sort of pseudo-caress. The touch was gentle, but with an edge of a threat to it.

And still that mere touch made Dane react as if he HAD been scratched. He flailed like mad, trying to get away from that touch.

"We're nothing alike!" He yelled, trying to kick the man while also trying to scramble away. "I'm STILL human! I just turn into things!" He was passed keeping that a secret. "I don't have a creepy obsession with VERMIN!"

The Rat King was able to tilt himself backwards and avoid that kick. He turned himself onto his side and stood up, looking down at Dane. "I told you before, you cannot get away. Even if you do somehow manage to escape, no matter where you run, I will find you."

He wanted to probe that mind some more, find out what else was inside Dane's head. At this rate he would have to wait until Dane was asleep. He had set up a sleeping area for the other man. Well, it was more like a cell, really.

For as cowardly as Dane could be, he wasn't one to give in easily. He'd fight until he was too exhausted to go on. It came from the way he lived his life. Once something was expected of him, he could never do that thing because then people would expect him to meet their expectations. It gave him good practice for not giving in. He'd sulk, he'd rage, he'd fight, he'd yell. He'd belt out irritating children's songs until he was hoarse. Anything to keep the Rat King from getting to him.

But he was human. And time came where his energy started to run out. His efforts started to wane and he was finding it harder to focus.

Sensing that moment of fatigue, the Rat King reached down to grip Dane's arm and pull him to his feet. "You need rest." It wasn't said out of any real concern for Dane's health, but rather because he didn't want his new pet collapsing from sleep exhaustion. He'd had a long day, after all.

Tugging Dane along, the Rat King took him out of the lab and down a hallway. They stopped in front of what was once an office, but had been converted into a spartan living area. There was just a card table and a cot there now. "Enjoy your new home."

With that, the Rat King shoved Dane inside the room and locked the door. He would have to sleep sometime.

"Like hell I do!" Dane cried as he was seized. He tried to dig his heels into the floor, but his shoes had little in the way of traction and he had little in the way of strength. It wasn't long before he found himself shoved into the small room. He twisted around in an attempt to bolt out of there, but the door was slammed in his face.

He spent a good hour screaming and yelling, kicking at the door and trying to pry it open. But soon after, his energy started to fail him again. he sagged onto the cot, determined to at least stay awake out of sheer protest. But fear and fighting was draining, and that terror could not keep him awake forever. Before long he was dozing off. Not a deep sleep, but slipping deeper by the moment, still propped up against the wall.

The Rat King turned on his heel once Dane was locked away, leaving a pair of rats to guard the door. When those rats got tired, they would rotate with another pair. They were efficient like that, under the guidance of their king.

His own room was right down the hall, also a converted office. Like Dane's room, the only furnishings were a cot and a card table. The Rat King sat on the edge of the cot, keeping his mind open to Dane and listening to his screams. He would quite down eventually. Sure enough, the Rat King heard him quiet after an hour.

Rather than lay down, the Rat King reached out to Dane's sleeping mind again. He was asleep, alright. He felt it. The Rat King could keep Dane asleep, if he wished. He sent out his mind towards his captive, speaking to him within his mind.

Why fight it? Your employer didn't want you, but I don't intend to discard you like he did.

Asleep, there was no conscious mind to fight the intrusion. He was an empty book. He also couldn't reply. At least not directly. The whisper in his mind seemed to try to rouse him, he stirred and protested, but remained asleep.

By way of reply, there were images. Notions. Ideas. A flood of terrible things Osiris had done to him, that he'd seen Osiris do. He didn't want his employer either, and had been trying to get away. But not like this. He had others who wanted him. Crawford. Jackie. There was an avalanche of the three of them. Together or in pairs. This was his family. He'd do anything for them. He was taking care of them. But under all of those good feelings were the bad. Feeling inadequate, discarded, dismissed. Nightmares where he stopped being able to do so much, and they just forgot about him.

Interesting reaction. The Rat King hadn't tried this with a human mind, so he hand't know what to expect. Rats were intelligent, but their minds were different from a human's.

The Rat King sifted through all the images he read from Dane's mind. The bad things, the good things, the insecurities, and the memories. He looked through it all, and it gave him ideas. He could use most of this.

But there was also the memories of his friends and his devotion to them. Those interested the Rat King. Such lovely thoughts they were. Even when he'd gone by the name Victor Falco, nobody had felt that way towards him. He'd never actively wanted it, be it in a familial way like Dane felt towards those friends, or in a romantic way. But the Rat King found himself focusing on those feelings, along with the other myriad of thoughts.

He would have to sleep soon, but he sent a final wave of telepathy for the night: Mine...

The next morning, he rapped on Dane's door with his knuckles and loudly said, "You can either eat breakfast with me or in there."

Edited 2017-11-25 07:25 (UTC)

That "mine" trickled down through Dane's subconscious like rain water through soil. It seeped into everything, deeper and deeper as he slept. It wouldn't have gone very far, except that it touched on a few unexpected things, amplifying and ringing through him. There were certain...desires he had. Some perverse, some not. But they all centered on being owned. It was the same as being treated like a pet. Being loved and accepted was not something that he could handle well. It was conditional. It could be taken away. But ownership? That was different. In a way, he actually wanted it. So that one idea reached far deeper than anything else.

So when he finally woke up, the fight didn't immediately return to him. Not even when he remembered where he was. There was a feeling he couldn't quite comprehend in the place where his terror had been. He was still afraid, but it was...less.

"With you--" The first reason he stopped was that he'd been about to call the man by name, but realized he didn't have it. No, that wasn't it. There'd been a title that came to mind, not a name. He shook it off. Why was he so willing to sit down and eat with the guy holding him captive. "No! In here!" This didn't make sense.

"As you wish," The Rat King sneered. It belatedly occurred to him that he hadn't given Dane his name yet. They'd been so wrapped up in their little game that it had skipped his mind. Well, that would be corrected shortly.

The door opened and the Rat King entered with a plate of toaster waffles stacked up. Not exactly fancy cooking. The Rat King had some money stored in a not-exactly-legal fund from back when he'd been human, and he had asked for a small allowance for groceries from Osiris as part of the payment package. He ordered his groceries online and had them delivered, of course.

The Rat King set the plate down on the card table and drew two chairs up, across from one another. Obviously he was purposefully misinterpreting Dane's words as 'with you, in here'. "By the way, you may call me The Rat King."

He recoiled slightly as the man came in the room, still not accustomed to that face of his. He watched, warily, as if expecting some sort of attack. He should have refused the food. Even if his stomach was already growling from having missed dinner. But then the man started to settle down at the table and a whole new worry took it's place. He didn't want to be in the room with this guy.

"That's not a name!" he squawked, but without some of his previous ferocity. "I might as well call you 'my liege'." He rolled his eyes. He still wasn't leaving the cot.

"You may call me that, if you wish," The Rat King still had the white rat on his shoulder, and he had reapplied the bandages since last night.

Sitting down at the table, the Rat King took one of the waffles and broke off a little piece to give to Aristotle. The white rat took it in his paws and started nibbling at it. The Rat King waved his hand at the other end of the table, "Please, have a seat." There was an unspoken threat of 'don't make me force you' in his voice.

Sneering at the response about the name, Dane just settled back on the cot, his knees pulled to his chest. The collar sat around his neck like some sort of lead weight. He wanted out. Sort of. His thoughts were all jumbled up, making him feel like maybe staying here wasn't the worst thing. But he still didn't want to. Not with the Rat King.

He just glared at the invitation, hearing that threat. He was daring the man to use force. Challenging him to prove his power. But Dane wasn't entirely sure what way he actually wanted it to go. If Rat King wasn't able to use mental force, than it wasn't so scary. But if he was...then anything Dane was made to do wouldn't be his fault, right? There was a strange sort of allure in that. It was terrifying, the same way a free fall before pulling a parachute was terrifying. He felt his heart hammering in his chest, trying to tell himself how horrible it would be.

Oh, Dane wanted to play it like that, did he? The Rat King was glad to oblige.

Taking a bite out of a waffle and just chewing it idly while he and Aristotle stared at Dane, he sent out a mental wave towards the other man. It was another little psychic push. Not quite full control over his mind, though the Rat King was willing to do so if it came to that, but just mentally 'talking him' into getting up and sitting across from him.