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 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.

Dane started to uncurl from his place on the cot. He moved to the edge and put his feet on the floor. But as he grabbed the edge and shifted to move his weight to his feet, he halted. He hadn't decided to get up. In fact, he'd been staunchly against it.

Eyes going wide, he threw himself back, knees drawn up to his chest in a display of sudden panic. But it wasn't all panic. Not really. Because realizing what the man was truly capable of sent a strange, illicit thrill through up under the suffocating blanket of fear. If he could easily nudge Dane into moving, what else could he do?!

Dane seemed to have realized what was going on, and it was making it easier for him to resist the mental 'suggestions'. Perhaps it was time for a show of real power. Dane needed to eat, after all.

Keeping his face pointed towards Dane, he whispered, "I said have a seat," His mind reached out towards Dane's, using more force this time and imposing his will on the other man. This time he was outright commanding Dane to sit across from him and start eating.

This time, no matter how much Dane tried to stop himself his body still moved. No, it wasn't just his body. It was more like suddenly the part of him that didn't want to do this was pushed aside and so he just decided it was best to do as he was told. Even as he fought against it, it was just easier that way.

He dropped sullenly into the chair opposite the rat king, his arms folded over his chest. "If you think you're getting anything outta me cause you can do that, you're wrong," he muttered, looking like a pouty teenager. All the while his mind was running circles with the possibilities. Some of them terrified if, others were fantasies that had lurked in the dark depths his mind, more were newly created possibilities. Others still were everything from the mundane to the horrific. All rapid fire, like someone rifling through files and flinging papers everywhere. Good, bad, indifferent, he was running through every possible option that was even theoretically possible.

The Rat King just idly ate more of his toaster waffle as Dane spoke, like he couldn't care less about what the other man was saying. He broke off another piece of his food to give Aristotle. Even as he ate, his mind was picking up Dane's thoughts. Interesting.

"If you don't eat, I'm just going to force you to," He stated, pushing the plate towards the other man. "I'm not about to have you starve on me." It wasn't out of concern for Dane's well being, but yet another way the Rat King wanted to assert his control.

"It would be easier on you if you simply stopped resisting me." He wasn't just talking about the food now.

Before Dane could say anything more, his stomach let out a loud, and rather audible growl. With a twist of distaste on his lips, he reached out and snatched a waffle from the plate. Was it really any different, though? Doing it under threat or under mental control. Either way he was being forced to.

He tore the waffle practically in half, making a show of chomping the large chunk down in the most immature way possible. His mouth smacking open, making a great deal of noise in the process. If he didn't have a choice, he was going to be as obnoxious as possible.

The Rat King frowned at the display. He knew that Dane was doing this on purpose, just to get on his nerves. "Must you eat like a dog as well?"

In contrast, Aristotle ate the rest of his food neatly and quickly, as if to convey the message that an actual rat had better table manners.

"I think you and I can be friends, Dane. Very good friends." Even this promise had a sinister edge to it.

Rolling his eyes, Dane swallowed the mouthful. He had a thought to eat mockingly like a rat, holding the waffle in both hands and frantically nibbling at it. But he had the feeling the rat king would find that more appealing than anything and the last thing he wanted to do was be appealing.

"If I wanted to eat like a dog, I'd be going after your little pal there." He really didn't want to think about what that tone meant. The last thing he wanted was more injections.

Somehow, the Rat King conveyed a scowl, even with covered eyes. He ate the last two bites of his breakfast. "Harm Aristotle at your own peril, human," He hissed. Out of all his rats, he was most protective of his little Aristotle.

"I know your thoughts. You long to feel wanted. You want to belong."