Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/11507835.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      DRAMAtical_Murder_-_All_Media_Types, DRAMAtical_Murder_(Visual_Novel)
  Relationship:
      Trip/Virus_(DRAMAtical_Murder)
  Character:
      Trip_(DRAMAtical_Murder), Virus_(DRAMAtical_Murder)
  Additional Tags:
      long_fic, Unresolved_Sexual_Tension, Slow_Burn_Relationship, Yakuza,
      Medical_Abuse, Childhood_Sexual_Abuse, Drugs, Violence, Other_tags_to_be
      added
  Stats:
      Published: 2017-07-16 Updated: 2017-10-03 Chapters: 3/? Words: 11648
****** the best years of our lives ******
by PikaCheeka
Summary
     Virus & Trip learn to navigate the world beyond the institute,
     separated for two years before reuniting to slowly take control over
     the Midorijima underworld.
     It isn't an easy journey, and their power over their own lives can be
     deceiving as they learn that adjusting to life outside of a cage
     means more than simply walking away from it.
Notes
     I admit I was fanfic-emotionally-drained from writing "the history
     that produced them" and it's taken me some time to write postable
     work again (I have tons of self-indulgent scraps though! Like...30
     doctor x Virus drabbles lmao oops BUT I can post them if anyone is
     interested, I guess). I've been working on the beginnings of a long
     ViTri fic chronicling their adjustment to the real world after being
     at the institute for so long. I'm not quite sure where it will go,
     but it's been enjoyable to write so far. I wanted to have a decent
     chunk of it written before posting the first chapter, and I've
     roughly finished a few of them. So here is the first! I will probably
     update roughly every 2 weeks, though I will continue to write other
     fics so it might not quite work out that way.
     Each chapter will have a Virus section and a Trip section (at least
     until they reunite).
***** Chapter 1 *****
 
Virus
The apartment is too big. That’s the first thing he notices. It’s too open, too
spacious. He’s used to a cage, though at least the apartment carries the same
weight of sterility as the institute, he supposes. Impersonal. Empty. Cold.
Surroundings he can melt into. He’s surprised to find it has two bedrooms, one
of which has been turned into an office, a kitchen he can’t imagine using, a
lounge area, and a full bath complete with a sizeable hot tub. It’s more space
than he can comprehend, more than he is comfortable with, used to a shared bunk
or a cot in a room with a dozen other kids.
When he opens the closet, he finds it is already filled with clothing. Nothing
exciting – a suit, a couple of shirts, an extra pair of dress pants – but
different enough from what he is used to, to be alarming. Formal clothing to
complement the pants and cardigan they’d given him at the same time they’d
taken his collar off. He absently glances at the note he’d found on the table
again, describing exactly what he can expect to find here. Clothing in his
size, though of course he’d be expected to buy more with his own money, a
stipend of which would be in his new bank account. Enough food in the kitchen
for a week. A new Coil and a laptop and instructions on how to use some of the
household appliances. A map of Platinum Jail and of Oval Tower itself, though
nothing of the Old District, as if he were expected to remember what he’d left
nine years ago. And of course, his expected schedule for the next several days,
complete with 36 hours of adjusting allowed before he had to look presentable
and pretend to care about anything.
He methodically tears the paper to pieces as he stares out the window at the
artificial sky. He’s used to a cage.
-
Takahashi is pleasant, harried and strung out simmering just below the surface.
It’s the first thing Virus notices about him – how simple it would be to push
his buttons, to unhinge him, to play with him. The younger man has always liked
people like that, and he finds himself at ease with him. He can’t be much older
than him, only twenty-three or twenty-four, shorter, almost certain to be a
little soft in the belly behind that desk, and clearly feeling inadequate in
some way around him. Endearing, Virus thinks, and the more he smiles at him,
the more Takahashi sweats.
"Your primary job is to watch Sei. You know who he is, already.”
Oh I know. I was only told a thousand times how superior a human he was to the
rest of us, how we were cut apart and rebuilt to withstand his powers, how we
live for him.An uncomfortable moment passes before he realizes Takahashi is
waiting for some acknowledgment. “Yes, I know of him.”
If the older man notices the bite to his words, he doesn’t react. “He doesn't
need 24/7 assistance, fortunately, as he's an invalid and rarely leaves his
quarters. You need to be there for his public appearances and when he uses
Usui. That amounts to maybe eighteen hours a week of mandatory assignments.
Spend another ten or so hours giving him some company. Buying him things,
talking to him, watching TV with him. He can't do much so he could use some
friendship."
"Enthralling.” Hopefully you haven’t been buying him things until now, because
if you bought that suit for me, it fits horribly.But he’s polite as he examines
his nails. “Why was I physically trained to be a bodyguard then?"
"You're going to be his bodyguard, so you're going to keep working out, because
you have to look good on camera and make everyone who sees you think that Sei
is important enough to require a bodyguard."
"And he's not."
"Not yet," he sighs. "There isn't much threat here in Platinum Jail anyway. But
we need to give off that appearance."
It's too much information, too bitter. He's trying to impress me. Virus bites
back the grin. "I feel like you're telling me more than you should. So indulge
me. How much will I be getting paid here?"
Takahashi glances at Virus, a brief flickering of his eyes beneath the glasses
before looking down at the paperwork again. He folds his hands, sighs, drums
his foot on the ground. "Do you want...the packaged story or the truth?"
"The truth. Though why are you telling me?" But he knows already. Because
Takahashi isn’t so much older than him, a social climber easily intimidated by
the smell of new money or a pretty face. He's someone who thinks he's seen
hardship, but quails at the sight of someone who has clearly experienced it,
someone who feels important working for Toue, but gets nervous when he thinks
too deeply about what his boss is actually doing. He's read my files, Virus
realizes with a jolt. This better not be pity. I won't have that.
He shrugs and slides a paper across the desk to him. "The truth is that the
bulk of your paycheck is going into paying for your apartment here in Oval
Tower. You'll end up with about 30% of this figure after taxes, insurance, and
the housing cut. He assumes...you're going to be earning money through your
Yakuza connection, which he said he's set up. They will pay you as an honorary
member."
"Why would they pay me for that?" Thirty percent. He wonders if Toue considers
the surgeries done on him as a child as a favor to be collected on.
"For the honor of having one of Toue's prime models in their midst?" But he
doesn't sound convinced as he clears his throat and passes him a few more forms
to sign. "You'll also be expected to eventually establish a Rhyme team..."
"I don't even play Rhyme."
He blinks, and Virus notices absently how long his eyelashes are. He's sort of
cute. Could be, if he did something with that hair and got some new glasses.
"What. I thought..."
"He told you he only collects kids who are good at Rhyme, didn't he? A lie.
I've never played." He glances at his nails again, feigning disinterest while
storing away every word. He’s played this game before, but he never expected it
to be this easy, this entertaining, in the real world. The institute had been
so isolated, it was easy to pit everyone against one another, to sow seeds of
distrust and confusion, and it had even grown boring after a time.
"That doesn't matter, I guess. You just need to lead a team of ghosts. They'll
be under our control. You just have to keep everyone in order, but that's far
down the road. Right now we just wait for the game to gain ground, give it a
few years. You'll have a partner eventually, and once that happens, then we can
start moving. Just keep it in mind." He's babbling, nervous, and Virus watches
his fingers with amusement.
"My partner's going to be Trip, right? 07734? He's the only one I'll work
with." There’s a lot there he wants to ask – a team of ghosts – but the words
spill out of him.
Takahashi runs something through his computer, eager to change the topic of
conversation. "There is a note on his file that he's a possibility, but he
hasn't had the eye surgery yet. If it's a success with him and he finishes the
training even half as well as you did, then... But he's not even quite twelve
now. I'm not sure Toue would want to wait that long... There are other names on
this list. It's hard to say this early. You were the oldest to get this far."
More babbling, more shifting eyes as he realizes that he has only been turned
towards another forbidden topic.
Because he knows Virus knows this knows well, images of bodies in the basement
incinerator flashing through his mind. "Can’t he get out earlier? And can I see
the list?"
He bites his lip as he deliberates, and Virus smiles his most gentle smile at
him. Takahashi breaks within seconds - it's not pity, after all - and sighs as
he swivels the screen to face him. "There's only four right now. One is in
recovery from the surgery and the other three have yet to go. 
Virus keeps smiling as he looks at the list, memorizes the other three numbers,
and stores them away deep in his mind. Three of them won't be able to make it.
It's that simple. Because he's going to finally start getting what he wants,
now that he has left those white walls and the grasping hands that dominated so
much of his life.
The older man, barely more than a boy, Virus thinks to himself, clearly knows
he has gone too far, has broken his boundaries, because he abruptly switches
the screen off and stands up. “Is everything going well with your apartment?
Find everything okay? I’m happy to help you with the transition process in any
way possible…”
“It’s fine.” But it isn’t fine. It’s too big; he doesn’t want to go back to it.
The only change he’s made was to buy a new bed, a four-poster with curtains
that he can pretend is a cage, though he had ordered it with funds he didn’t
realize wouldn’t be replaced very easily. “I don’t really know what to do with
my time though… I’m not used to this kind of liberty.”
Takahashi frowns then, glances at his hands and shrugs helplessly, and Virus
knows then that his awkwardness is not feigned in the least. He isn’t adept at
this life. He’s new to it. He’s not even from around here with that accent, an
accent not unlike Trip’s. Kansai. A small city kid working for the richest man
in the country. Only knows how to work, how to push papers and take orders and
boss the people below him around, can only comprehend a life where he is
useful, but only useful to certain individuals, and because of that he has
doubtless crushed everyone around him to come out on top. People like that
don’t know how to do anything outside of their job. They are their job.
And so Virus grins at him then. “I know you’re busy, but what do the slackers
around here do for fun?”
When Takahashi straightens up, unconsciously fixes his tie, and smiles broadly,
Virus resists the urge to reach up and touch his teeth. One won over.
-
Get used to the sights. Visit a club or two. Have fun. That's what he was told
to do, and it's what he does, albeit fun is questionable.
Because the club is hell. A thousand gyrating bodies, the air reeking of sweat
and the floor sticky with spilled alcohol, music so loud he can feel it
pounding behind his eyes, lights pulsating from every direction. Not even his
worst drugged nightmares could reflect this sort of chaos, but he manages to
maneuver it. He’s been through far more than most his age, he knows, and he can
figure this out.
At least he knows about drugs, having been pumped full of so many for so much
of his life, having read so many medical texts, having a borderline addiction
to morphine and an alarming knowledge of cocaine, of ecstasy, of a dozen street
drugs ranging from Devil’s Balls to Selia. And he knows about alcohol, though
that is something no other child at the institute knows about, because no one
else was ever brought to the head doctor’s home and given coffee and alcohol.
And he knows the truth of people, that they are nothing but selfishness and
lust under a veneer of good intentions, a veneer that doesn’t even exist under
these strobe lights, which he finds himself thankful for.
But he doesn’t know about women. He touches a girl for the first time, one of
those ethereal beings kept in a separate building but for a handful of doctors
and nurses who were so buttoned up, who avoided his eyes because they knew what
happened to him, knew what showed up on exams that couldn’t be explained by
anything else, who preferred keeping their jobs over saving him, and therefore
couldn’t bring themselves to acknowledge his existence. She approaches him at
the bar, rubs her body against his and winks at him and he follows her to the
dance floor, slips his hands up her shirt and strokes her tits as she vibrates
against him, strung out on any one of a dozen drugs circulating the room. He
thinks about taking it further, about luring her away, but there will be time
enough for that. He’s free now.
For forty-seven minutes. Because when the man who approaches him after the
third girl slowly but firmly takes his upper arm and guides him towards the
back of the club where the restrooms are, he doesn't resist. He knows what will
be expected of him, what has always been expected of him, and it's easier to
just do it and hope he can use it as leverage later than it is to resist. When
the stall door closes behind them and he feels the slightest pressure on his
shoulder, he immediately drops to his knees and reaches for the man's belt.
It's easy, a task he's performed hundreds of times as he takes the dick in his
mouth and swirls his tongue over his head. Foul, unwashed, nothing like the
doctors he is used to, but he swallows back his disgust and keeps going. Get it
over with, wear him out and maybe he won't want to do anything else. And the
man crows and jeers him on, pulls his hair and forces him to swallow it down
when he comes. When it's over, he unexpectedly pushes Virus back, puts himself
away and pulls his wallet out. A thousand yen bill waves in Virus' face.
"Huh," he wipes his mouth and stares at him.
"Isn't this what you want?"
He doesn't answer. Now he's staring at the money, confused. This isn't what
he's used to, because what he's used to is doing this for free, doing this just
because someone wants him to. But he also knows intuitively that the bill being
waved in his face isn’t enough. "Dunno."
"You're too cute to do this for free," the man sighs and drops it on the floor
in front of him before stalking off.
He looks at the bill for a long moment. And then he rinses his mouth in the
sink as he shoves the money in his pocket and walks out the door. He knows what
he wants then, because while there is time, there isn’t time enough to forget.
It isn’t hard to find a girl willing to take his hand and follow him out of the
club, follow him to a seedy three-hour hotel he’d noticed on the walk over. He
isn’t even sure if she’s one of the women he’d touched earlier, but he supposes
it doesn’t matter.
 
Trip
The descent is sharp, violent, brutal, excruciating, a rift he feels down to
the marrow, splitting every bone in his body and poisoning his blood. He always
knew they would have to part ways, knew that the other boy was six years and
two months and nine days older than him, which meant he would get out that much
earlier, which meant they would have to spend that much time apart. But none of
that means he must accept it.
He also knows that he must be useful, that he needs to prove his worth so that
they will continue to consider him a success, a potential partner for Virus
when he gets out. But that is difficult when his grounding light is ripped away
from him, when all that was keeping him stable is no longer a whisper in his
ear and a hand on his shoulder when the worst of the fear and the rage hits
him.
All that keeps him from entirely breaking is the memory of him, a new awareness
that he's developed in the weeks since Virus had left. Because he now
fantasizes about him more than he cares to admit, fantasizes about doing things
to him.
“How are you feeling today?”
He’s jerked out of his thoughts then. It’s absurd that they only send him to a
psychotherapist now, when he is fully aware that he should have been seeing one
for the last six years. It’s as if they don’t think he knows what this is all
about, that it’s just another experiment. They hardly care about him, are only
curious as to how this wrenching apart has affected him. And so he only stares
at with baleful eyes and refuses to speak.
“Still silent, I see.”
It's been weeks since he said a word, but it doesn't seem to make a difference.
The doctors here seem at a loss with him, which at once amuses and alarms him.
A part of him fears that if he doesn't behave, if he doesn't speak and play the
good child, he won't receive the eye surgery, he won't be released, he won’t
ever see him again. But he can't seem to do a thing. When he opens his mouth
only silence comes forth, a raw pain emanating from deep inside of him,
emanating from that absence.  
And as if the man in front of him knows what he’s thinking, he smiles sadly at
him, and something about the way he glances at his notes, flips a page on the
clipboard and makes a tut-tutting sound, the sound one makes when disposing of
a dead cockroach, spurs Trip forward into doing something he hasn’t done yet in
these sessions.
He signs, a jerky, rapid motion he hasn’t bothered with since he left. Even if
this is just an experiment, even if they are only fucking with him as they
always have been, he has to pretend. He’s never liked pretending. Mourning.
The doctor looks startled for the barest of moments, but he conceals it quickly
enough, and Trip is silently relieved that he understands him, that he didn’t
read it as some twitch. A defect. But his relief is short-lived as the man with
the clipboard asks, “Over…?”
Trip scowls again then, a curl of his lip that he knows reveals enough of his
canines to make nearly every other patient here back up. He knows exactly what.
He just wants me to say it. Acknowledgment is the first step of acceptance and
all that shit.He signs a quick, you know.
“E-31337? He isn’t dead.”
Near enough.He doesn’t like admitting this, but that sound of disapproval had
struck a chord deep in his marrow. He needs to cooperate, if only enough to
keep them from discarding him. Corpses in the basement furnace. Virus’ thin
fingers curling around his as he points and whispers, calmly explains why they
are there.
“You are very attached to him. Almost as if…”
I’m a dog who found his master. But he signs nothing. This hesitancy in the
doctor is meant to be manipulative, but it comes across as weak, and he finds
himself loathing the man more than ever.
And then, “He can call you, if he wants to.”
Yea like my mum could. But he’s alarmed at this. Can he really call? Why hasn’t
he? But even as the thought crosses his mind, he dismisses it. Virus wouldn’t
call. He isn’t that kind of person. Even if they needed each other, which they
of course don’t, Virus wouldn’t notice. There was a viciousness to his
emotional detachment, a drive that Trip at once absorbed the meaning of but
could not articulate.
“You don’t even know who your mother is.”
Trip grinds his teeth. He can’t believe he’s having this conversation, that
this grown man is acting like a child. He doesn’t remember his mum, but he
isn’t sure remember could ever be the right word. Can anyone remember being
squeezed out of a birth canal? Memory requires a consciousness, and he doubts
he’d even drawn breath for the first time before she was gone. He says all this
now, with his hands, sure he is mis-signing occasionally, as he and Virus had
their own language, and unsure if what rudimentary skills he’s learned even
offers this capacity of thought, but he must be getting some point across,
because now the doctor is staring at him with an intensity none of them had
ever graced him with before.
“It was always a bit of a mystery why he spent so much time with you, but
now...” he trails off.
Trip bites back a grin then. He knows then, that he’s won another day. He’d
given enough, just enough, not to play their game the way Virus could, but to
keep them interested in him. Keep him on the list. Give them just enough now
and then so that they can’t throw him out. Prove to them that he has indeed
been a worthy investment and not just because of him. Though it is all because
of him, because Trip knows that he’d be dead without him, that he’d have
succumbed to the violence within himself and forced the doctors to dispose of
him before he was even ten. Virus, and the possibility of seeing him again, of
being with him again, is enough to make him endure. Still, he signs a
sarcastic, Smart tests failed you, huh?
“You never behaved enough for them to work.”
There’s nothing he can say to this truth, so Trip performs a universal symbol
that leaves no room for misinterpretation. He gives him the finger.
 
- chapter 1 end -
***** Chapter 2 *****
Chapter Summary
     Virus ascends while Trip descends as both begin down a path of no
     return.
Chapter Notes
     Here is the second chapter! Thank you, all, for waiting. This one
     features a new first-meeting between Virus & mentor-san when he joins
     the Yakuza (different from Thursday Night), and a disastrous
     encounter at the facility for Trip.
     I will be traveling for the next month, but I will still definitely
     be posting fic from time to time until I get home! I will probably
     start putting up some of the Virus gangbang self-indulgence because I
     got an anon request for it and might as well.
Virus
The ascent is gradual, violent, brutal, exhilarating, a rise he feels down to
the marrow, enforcing every bone in his body and poisoning his blood. He knows
that power suits him, that his skills of manipulation and seduction,
backstabbing and blank expressions, can make him useful, wanted, needed, until
he is the one pulling all the strings. He’d almost attained that back at the
institute, almost, though he still had to give up much for it, not that what he
gave up means anything any longer. And now he stands before the Fukuhonbuchi of
the Midorijima Yakuza.
“On your knees,” one of the men standing behind him snaps.
He startles, blinks in confusion for a moment before he remembers the etiquette
lessons he’d been forced to take and drops to his knees, prepared to bow or
prostrate himself if necessary. It doesn’t matter how humiliating it is, he
figures, if it will get him what he wants.
“What do you want?”
"You're supposed to take me in." Nobody looks impressed, not the strangely
intimidating man sitting in front of him in a half-buttoned shirt and cowboy
boots and more rings than Virus had ever seen on a human, not the bored woman
playing with a lighter beside him who was clearly a mistress of sorts, not any
of the flunkies flanking the back of the room and trying not to laugh. It
infuriates Virus, he finds, but there's nothing he can do. He's so far out of
his territory at this point, so he just has to bite back his rage and continue
to smile and do what he's told. So he clears his throat and flashes his teeth.
"Toue surely informed you of me, hm?"
There's a long and uncomfortable moment before the man finally speaks. "Listen,
kid. In order to operate on this island as openly as we do, we already give
Toue" - he says the word like it's a swear - "Fifteen percent of what we pull
in from various activities. He grants us limited and undocumented access to the
airport and the ferry and.... that's about it, isn't it? We get to siphon off
some funds from all the rich fucks he invites here, but we ain't allowed into
Platinum Jail so we can only get so much. No reason to trust him. The last
batch of police who signed on for this island aren't as cheaply paid off as
they used to be, so he isn't vetting them like he is supposed to. We know you
ain't a spy because he has no reason for that. He seems to think he's doing us
a favor by passing along one of his toys that we'll have to pay for no reason.
He only needs you to steal from us and we don't need you either. Why should we
take on a fucking goombah because he said so?"
"Goombah?" Virus blinks. It's the only part of this conversation he can grasp
onto, because the rest of it is nothing like what he'd heard back in Oval
Tower, though given what Takahashi had told him about his paycheck, it’s hardly
surprising. Toue and reality apparently do not get along very well.
"You're white," he spits. "With that damn black on black suit you look like a
wop. Don't care what you are though, you’re white."
"Half white."
He leans forward then and sighs, folds his hands. "Let's get something straight
here, kid. You're not in your little training facility for stuck up shits
anymore. You're not top of the class anymore. You're not even in Platinum Jail
anymore. You got no protection out here, because frankly, Toue doesn't uphold
his end of the bargain enough for us to be careful with his goods, and if you
run into an accident out here... you get the picture. So." He raises one a
finger. "First step to us liking you. Stop being smart."
"It wasn't..." and he shuts his mouth.
"Good. Fast learner," and with that he sits back and pulls a cigarillo out of
his pocket. "What were you going to say now?"
Virus hesitates, unsure if this is a trap, but in the end he supposes it's
better to answer a question than to assume, lest he look paranoid. He puts on
his best submissive voice, his hurt voice. "It wasn't a training facility for
stuck up shits. I don't know what you hear out here but that isn't it."
"So what is it? Half-wop."
He weighs his options a moment, fights the urge to ask for a smoke while he
considers. The man has a wedding ring buried under all the others, as does the
woman sitting next to him looking supremely disinterested. Not a mistress
perhaps, but a wife. Even if they don't have kids, they probably know people
who do; they're old enough to be his parents, after all. Telling the truth can
work to his advantage here, make him more valuable, instill more distrust and
disgust in Toue. He can see the rift, and knows if he plays his cards right he
can be the wedge that drives them apart, brings the downfall of Toue. They
don't need a spy. Yet.
"It's a facility for human experimentation. He takes poor kids, kids off the
street, children of whores and drug addicts and desperate single moms. And he
has doctors play with us." He can see now that the cigarello is held,
forgotten, in his hand, see the smoking spiraling from the growing column of
ash, and he pushes on. "Test new drugs on us. New kinds of brain surgery. Gene
splicing. Bioengineering. I'm only the top student because I'm one of the few
who survived."
"And how did you survive?"
He doesn’t think this warrants an answer, and anyway silence is likely to be
more effective. He drops his gaze.
It doesn't take the man before him long to understand. "Jesus."
He risks a glance at the woman then, who hasn't moved, hasn't reacted. It isn't
what he expects. Cold bitch. But the man is emotional, the man can be swayed,
and he realizes then it's because the man likes him. "So I can be useful."
"Cut the shit. I don't need that." But there is a flicker in his eyes that
Virus catches and knows well as the man abruptly changes the subject. "What
else can you do?" 
Or not. Apparently he can't fuck his way through this situation. "I can help
you corner the market in experimental drugs. I have access to things, can get
in and out of Platinum Jail easily to establish a demand, and I have
experience. I know what to do." He stops again, considers. Trip. "And I know
someone who can be useful to you in a few years. As a cleaner."
"Someone in there? We don't have a shortage of people willing to do that."
"He'd do anything without even blinking." He doesn't add that he's currently
twelve years old.
"Huh." But he isn't interested. "You'd shape up nice, I think. Speak any other
languages? For business?" He snarls the last word.
"English. Mandarin. Russian." He shrugs then, stating them flatly, as if a
list, as if there might be more that he knows a little of but can't be bothered
to add them.
He whistles softly. "They make you learn all that at that place?" He can't name
it, the institute. He's disgusted, and Virus bites back a grin as he responds.
"No. I knew English already but pretended I didn't. Russian I learned on my
own. They offered rudimentary Mandarin and Korean..." Another shrug.
With that he begins smoking again, shaking off the ashes and blowing smoke out
through his nose before nodding. "Huh. So you like going behind Toue's back
then, eh?"
Virus shifts his weight from one foot to the other, eager to please but
unwilling to admit lack of loyalty. It can backfire just as easily as it can
benefit.
He doesn't have to wait long though, because after a moment the man sighs and
waves his hand, "Fine. That was unfair. Let's go back to the drugs. I got some
questions."
The interrogation, because as far as Virus is concerned, that's what it is,
lasts far too long. He finds that as smooth as he speaks, he's terrified of
screwing up, because this is a connection he wants with every fiber of his
being. This isn't about doing what Toue wants. It's doing what he wants, and he
wants to succeed here, wants to be useful, wants an alternative in his life
that isn't so wrapped up in his time behind the white walls. And so he says
what he has to, making promises he isn't certain he knows how he can keep, but
ones he is determined to follow through with regardless. After all, he has
connections. At some point the woman leans forward, taps her husband's knee in
what is clearly impatience, but he doesn't seem to pay attention as he rattles
off another half dozen questions. And Virus keeps up, but he feels his energy
draining as he does. He isn't used to this, isn't used to people picking apart
his mind, demanding he answer questions in rapid-fire succession. He's smart -
he knows he is - but this is nothing that he's ever experienced before. He's
used to his body being valuable, not his mind, and he's used to the same group
of people. This fast-talking, slang-using, openly aggressive older man in an
outrageous outfit is nothing like the cultured, smooth doctors he is used to.
He was told he was good with people though. He can handle this, he tells
himself, as he feels his palms begin to sweat.
And then, abruptly, he asks, "You got a piece?"
"A what?" He startles at the question, as unexpected and out of place as it is.
"Can't believe you're a bodyguard without a gun. The fuck is Toue doing." He
groans loudly.
A gun. He shifts his weight again as he considers. Drive the wedge in deeper,
tell them Toue downplays the connection, whines about money. Everyone hates a
rich man with money problems. "I asked him if I needed one, but he said it
wasn't necessary, said they were too expensive and hard to come by, even with
the law being relaxed for citizens who make a certain amount."
"They're only hard to come by if you don't try. He has one, I'm sure of it.
Ain't expensive either." More smoke through his nose. "How much is your
salary?"
And Virus tells him, adding quickly that his apartment in Oval Tower is paid
for, as if he thinks that's enough, as if it makes up for what has happened to
him, as if he's grateful for what Toue so graciously gave him. It's a sizeable
amount, but not for life in Platinum Jail, where a bottle of water can cost
1200 yen.  Virus had learned that the hard way, learned that the sample
shopping and restaurant experiences they had run at the institute reflected
mainland Japan prices and availability.
"Disgusting. An apartment he already has just so he can watch you all the time
and a pittance." But he isn't looking at Virus now; he's looking down,
considering. And then finally he sighs again as he stamps out his light in the
ashtray in front of him. "We still do a lot of work without them but they do
make life neater. Someone will have to teach you how to shoot, too. That ain't
going to be me."
And Virus knows then that he's in.
-
She grabs him by the doorway, surprisingly strong for a woman as she holds him
against the wall and presses a business card into his hand.
"Go here at the appointed time. I'll cover the costs. You look like a used car
salesman in that baggy suit."
He glances at it. A tailor. Here in the Old District, of course. "I..." I'm
only eighteen. I'm still growing. There's no point though.
She stares at him disapprovingly. "Get one that's fitted. Buy another when it
gets too small. If you want to bat your eyes at married men who may or may not
be into boys, you better show off that waist and ass." She abruptly slaps him.
"And keep this babyfat. Your face is cute not but if you get any more chiseled
you're going to have a tough time. Tone your body but stay pretty."
He's too stunned to respond, to move, to even blink. He's had such limited
experience with women, only a handful of the doctors and nurses at the facility
being female, and only a few girls at the club, and none like this. None who
looked at him with anything but pity or vacancy in their eyes.
But she is apparently used to this level of confusion and horror, because she
softens then, smiles and smooths his hair down. "And next time, you bow to me."
"Oh." It all falls into place then. The cold and distant gaze. The hand on the
older man's knee. The way he seemed to defer to her. "You're...?"
She exhales softly in what might be a laugh, might be a derisive snort, a sound
that reminds Virus of Trip. He never expected a woman who looked so cultured,
so sophisticated, to have that kind of edge to her, and he catches himself
wondering what Trip will act like in ten years as she taps his chin and winks
at him. "You thought my husband was in charge? You're cute."
-
When Virus finally staggers into his apartment, he feels nothing but
exhaustion. It's only then when he realizes there are dirty dishes on the
table, that he hasn't done laundry in nine days because they changed the
washing machine in the apartment building and he can't make sense of its
twenty-seven buttons, that there's nothing to eat, and that he has to show up
for work tomorrow and report to Takahashi everything that happened. Not
everything, he decides, not that he'd promised to siphon off some of Toue's
medical supplies, and not the gun. He hadn't realized how draining that entire
experience was until he steps into the bathroom and finds his fingers shaking
as he struggles with his tie.
When he’s finished, he closes the curtains to his bed and collapses onto the
pillows. He needs something, anything familiar, and this isn't enough. The
darkness around him, the small enclosed space. He can't replicate the past,
mimick the world he has spent the last nine years in. But there is one thing he
can do, and as he shuts his eyes he breathes heavily through his nose and
decides.
 
Trip
He's only twelve, almost thirteen now, but he knows he's big for his age, tall,
muscular, dangerous, not as big as he will be in five years, ten years if he
survives that long and stays fit. It’s a pity Virus couldn’t see him like this,
pity that he hit his growth spurt within a month of the older boy leaving, and
a pity that the first time his hand came away sticky after touching himself,
there was only an empty space that no longer even smelled of him on the cot
beside him. The need has been building, burning his insides to nothing because
he doesn’t even have a photo. But it doesn’t matter, he tells himself, because
he will survive and when he gets out of this hellhole Virus will be waiting for
him.
He watches the nurse calmly open the drawer, grab a square of gauze, an alcohol
wipe, a bandaid – he’d always found the bandaids ironic – and place everything
on the table beside him before lifting the syringe, tapping it once, and
smiling broadly at him. Why do they always smile? It bothers him, and he
automatically shifts his weight on the exam table.
“This one won’t hurt a bit. Just another vaccine.”
And he lets her get close, lets her wipe his arm with the alcohol swab before
abruptly jerking his arm to the side and out. He catches her wrist with ease
and grabs the syringe from her with his spare hand. He’s bigger than her,
stronger than her, and it takes but a moment to leap off the table, twist her
arm back and slam her against the wall as he throws the syringe back onto the
tray.
“Mm, what if I’m sick of this shit?” His voice is low, gruff, unused. He can’t
remember the last time he’s said a full sentence, and it surprises him that he
can remember how to use his tongue.
He briefly considers stabbing her with the needle, but any effect it would have
would not be immediate, and therefore not entertaining to watch. He’d rather
have something more gratifying now, because unlike Virus, he’d never been
particularly patient, and so he shoves her harder up against the wall, pries
her legs apart and presses his knees to the wall between hers. It’s
surprisingly easy, natural even, and for the briefest of moments he wonders why
he hasn’t done this sooner.
He acts on instinct, carrying out what he thinks about nightly, when he curls
his fingers around his dick and recalls Virus’ scent, his smile, his tapered
fingers, his pale legs and long eyelashes and the dark blonde pubic hair and
below that he’d let Trip touch a few times. Twice in the shower room and once,
one perfect moment, when they lay in bed together and Virus had let Trip
explore his body, when Virus had shuddered and gasped and bucked into his
hands. And then Virus had – it’s too much to think about, that memory, the
moment when Trip always stops. He realizes then that rarely has he ever
considered a woman when he jerked off, that he is momentarily surprised when he
wraps his arms around her and grabs her breasts. It doesn’t matter though. I’ll
still get what I want as long as I don’t look at her.
She makes no effort to fight him off, as if she knows it’s useless. His
reputation is well-known at the institute, after all, and everyone knows that
he’s liable to break bones with his fists and tear muscle with his teeth. With
Virus gone, all other kids by now cower before him, regardless of his age, and
most of the nurses and doctors aren’t much better. He isn’t sure if this
irritates him, all this meekness around him. Weakness has always been something
he despised, one of the many reasons why Virus is so appealing. A survivor,
enduring, adapting, ever shifting and fluid, his primary constant being
tenacity and a will to live, to come out on top. It’s why when the older boy
had asked him one day what English word his name should be, he’d promptly
replied Virus,a name that he had kept, and a name-giving that he had
reciprocated. The thought pushes him to act further, to pull her shirt up,
shove his hand down the waistband of her nursing scrubs to touch her as she
sobs.
And then he realizes. He's not hard anymore. And he's swearing, hissing, the
anger beginning to seep into the edges of his eyesight. Because it isn't good
enough. She isn't pretty. She isn't blonde. She isn't him. So he steps back a
pace and he hits her, not hard, just enough to shut her up. "Stop cryin'. I
ain't gonna do it."
She sniffs, and he resists the urge to hit her again, harder this time, before
she unexpectedly asks. "Why?"
"Ugly bitch," he says simply. He understands then, as he stares her down, that
the kind of women he likes are those at once like and unlike Virus. Older,
mixed race, even blonde, but soft, curvy. They have to be similar enough for
his fantasies to work, but different enough that he can distance himself, and
he knows then that all other men will be unacceptable for him. It’s a startling
realization, offputting even, because even as he’d begun to fantasize about the
older boy in new ways, it’d never fully occurred to him what it meant.
Before he leaves, he picks up the syringe and studies it a moment. Just a
vaccine. Whatever it is, it might be useful, and he sticks it in his arm and
compresses the plunger. It’s what he would have done.
 
 
***** Chapter 3 *****
Chapter Summary
     They just want something they can expect.
Chapter Notes
     This chapter took an unexpectedly long time to revise and edit,
     primarily because of the first half (Virus). Doctor x Virus has been
     my guilty pleasure for a while, and I felt very weird posting any of
     it (the scene here is very toned down from what it was originally,
     but this chapter is darker than the others, content-wise). I also
     decided to play with some minor worldbuilding. So! Apologies for
     taking so long with this one, but it's finally done! The next one
     should be much easier.
Virus
 
"What do you want?" The doctor stands in the doorway to his condominium, arms
braced against the frame as if unwilling to let anyone see in.
The antagonism is unexpected, and Virus narrows his eyes for a moment. Maybe he
remarried. Maybe he’s living with someone again. Maybe I’m breaking the rules
right now. But it doesn’t matter, he decides. "I want morphine."
He grabs his wrist and pulls his arm out, pushes the sleeve of his jacket up to
the elbow. He runs his finger slowly over the track marks on his arm, remnants
of street drugs that were never as good as the real thing, makes eye contact to
indicate his disapproval. But he clearly isn't surprised. "You know what I will
want if you come in."
He tosses his head, shakes the wet hair from under his glasses. "It's fine."
"It didn't seem fine at your checkup last month." The checkup. When Virus had
blindly, foolishly, shown up to his first medical appointment upon being freed
and believed that he was untouchable. When he’d quickly learned that some
things never change, that in the presence of doctors he was always a child,
always an object to be abused and assaulted.
"I wasn't expecting it. Now I am." He hesitates. There’s no point in lying to
him. “It’s too much out there.”
“Too bad you can't have your little friend with you.”
He doesn’t want to think about Trip, not now. He only pushes past him, into the
living area he knows all too well. Still a bachelor pad, he notices with
satisfaction. He isn’t sure what he would have done had he remarried. So he
strips off his clothes as he walks to the bedroom, his pants, his coat, because
he knows what is expected of him and he doesn’t wish to grant this man any
ceremony. At least there is no collar anymore. But he will stop at the shirt.
The older man grabs his arm for the second time that night as he pushes him
down onto the bed, starts to pull his sleeve up again. “What are you using,
then, if you had to come to me for this?”
He shrugs again, but there is something like guilt on his face as he gently
pushes the doctor's hand away.  Fear of being reprimanded. Behaving like a
child again. He wishes he didn’t act like this. He also wishes he would stop
bringing this up. It’s bad enough he’s here for drugs as it is. “Street stuff.
Mostly synthetic. You know how hard it is to get any morphine derivatives out
there now, thanks to the US’ little incineration campaign a while back. And the
pharmaceutical industry buying up whatever’s left.” He adds this as an
afterthought and wonders absently what Toue’s corner in the market is. The
opiate epidemic had reached catastrophic levels in the ‘20s, prompting the
United States to take the drug war to a new level. The cartels to the south
were finally forced into submission, the fields in the Middle East and the
Balkans decimated, not only by violence but by laws changing enough to make it
less valuable to their primary clientele. And if the United States didn’t need
a drug anymore, that meant nobody else was going to get it, because why bother
producing if the largest and richest customer base was gone? Now all that was
left was sold to the medical industry, so heavily regulated only questionable
facilities like Toue’s institute ever got enough to abuse. He doesn’t know why
he adds, “I’m not addicted. Just now and then.”
"It must be expensive.” He pauses. “Are you a whore?"
"No,” he snaps. Not that he hasn’t considered it. He hasn’t been fucked by
anyone but this man himself since he’d gotten out. Sex with women was easier,
to say nothing of novel, and even topping men was something different.
Interesting. Maybe someday bottoming will be fun, but not now, not before he
learns how to properly forget. A skill he’s already adept in, but some things
are harder to bury than others.
"Really?" he is clearly taken aback by this, and Virus quietly despises him for
assuming. “Your clothing looks expensive.”
“You know part of my job is to infiltrate the Yakuza, right? Just because I was
forced to wear sweatpants for nine years doesn’t mean I can’t buy and wear
whatever I want out here.”
The doctor places a hand over his face, and the cruelty in his gentleness makes
Virus flinch, draw back.
"You’re here because you want a routine that's familiar, is that it? You spent
nine years in the institute - the world changed a lot in that time. And now
you're suddenly alone, on your own, expected to work and negotiate society,
expected to be a bodyguard and a public face of a business and a gangster on
top of everything. I'd told Toue it was a bad idea, told him the apartment play
we give subjects once they turn sixteen is not enough, that you'd need a more
gradual transition."
He opens and closes his mouth once, at a loss for words. This is not what he
wants to talk about.
“We can talk later about that though. Just lay back and relax. You came here on
your own volition, remember.”
No shit. But he doesn’t say it. Instead he thinks about Stockholm syndrome and
traumatic bonding, even battered wife syndrome, disorders he’d read about in
books left lying around the institute’s library, things that might be useful
later in life, things he'd always wondered if he could turn on others, but
things he’d always adamantly denied when it came to himself. He wishes, again,
that the doctor would stop reminding him who initiated this. But it never gets
any further than that, because suddenly there is the cold of lubricant on his
ass and fingers and something unexpectedly silicone and he’s hissing and
gasping. It has been too long. He isn’t used to this anymore.
And the doctor lays across his chest, props himself up on his elbow and grins
at him. "You have to come from just your ass. I'm not going to touch you or
thrust it in and out, and it'll be hard for you to get any leverage if I lie on
you like this. Have to just use your ass muscles, hm? It won't be easy."
“This is stupid,” he gasps, curling his toes and bracing his feet, testing the
weight on his torso as he tries to lift himself. No use. The position is
perfect. The sadism isn’t entirely unexpected – this is someone who assaulted a
nine-year-old and then sold him to anyone who walked by – but the creativity
is. He wonders absently if there is another child now, another subject at the
institute that he’s been playing with, if this is something he’s already done
before. Unlikely, if he’s still interested in me at this age. I’m even taller
than him now. But he has to know. Has to make sure it isn’t Trip. “Have you…”
He cuts him off. "What if I press this?" he asks as he raises the remote
control.
God. He hadn’t even noticed, too distracted by the no-longer-familiar sensation
of having something inside of him. “Don’t. I’m not ready.”
"Ah. I wonder.." He parts his lips and raises his eyebrows, looks him dead in
the eye and watches the expression on his face turn to horror, as he presses
it.
He bites back the scream as he throws his head back and chews his lower lip
bloody. It’s too much too soon, but not enough. He knows this immediately, even
with vibrations pressing against his sensitive area, and he’s already shaking
with frustration. Why did I come here? Why can’t he just fuck me normally and
be done with it? Because you came here on your own, you idiot.
"Virus," he whispers. "Virus..." He wishes the doctor would call him by his
number; he’d always wished this, because the name Virus is of his other life,
which the older man knows and uses as a means to torment him now. He grits his
teeth and struggles to do what is asked of him, tries to move his hips to get a
better angle, but it’s impossible, and his frustration grows, arousal coming in
waves but ebbing before he can build on them. "Take my hand," he curls his
fingers towards him. "Come on, take my hand."
Virus hesitates only a moment before clutching his hand with a fierceness that
belays his desperation. Somehow being able to tighten his grip on something
more than blankets is grounding, and he’s able to keep going for some time,
digging his nails into him and gaining small satisfaction in drawing
blood.He’ll have fun explaining that at work tomorrow. He lasts seventeen
minutes before he breaks, before he gasps out a desperate “I can’t come. Take
it out, please…I can’t…” and curses the tears he feels down the sides of his
face.  
“Yes, you can. You need to do it yourself.”
It’s impossible. Virus struggles to arch his back, but the doctor lies across
his chest, distributing his weight just so to prevent him from getting any
leverage. His voice is soft, at once admonishing and encouraging, the same
voice he always used, in both sex and surgery, as if they were the same to him.
 “Do you want me to turn it up a notch?”
“No!” His voice cracks as he says it, and as he realizes this he tries to find
the command in his voice again before adding, “Take it out.” There’d come a
point, back then, when he’d started bossing the adults in his life around, and
as long as he still bent over for them, he was able to get his way.
The doctor sighs and shakes his head. “You really haven’t done it in all this
time… You used to come like this so easily. You’ll adjust again over time.” In
it is the implicit assumption that Virus will be back.
His energy is flagging at twenty minutes, his whole body shaking violently from
the exertion, soaked in sweat as he chokes back the noises he still doesn’t
want to make. A small satisfaction, because it can be a long night, and the
doctor isn’t going to make it easy for him. He won’t move, won’t touch him,
ensuring that the only stimulation he has is the vibrator up his ass and
thrumming against his prostate so that he can only orgasm if he keeps clenching
just right, and will otherwise hover on the edge in agony. He can only writhe,
clutching the doctor’s hand in a vice grip as he struggles, face streaked in
tears and saliva. At twenty-three minutes he tries to fake an orgasm, which
causes the older man to laugh because he knows his facial expressions all too
well by now, and at twenty-nine minutes he finally considers giving up
entirely.But the morphine…
At thirty-three minutes, he climaxes, biting back a cry as he convulses and
lets it overtake him for what feels like an eternity. Only then does the doctor
touch him, stroke his face and kiss him and murmur that he’s going to fuck him
before he’ll let him have a shot of the drug he so desperately needs.
-
"Virus," he whispers then.
The name again. He scarcely responds, unwilling to acknowledge him any more
than he has to right now. I’ve done enough.
"Do you want to hear a story about Trip?"
It isn’t what he expects. He hesitates, torn between needing to know, and not
wanting to hear it when being fucked by the man he hates most in the world,
especially after that last incident. It was too much, too embarrassing, and
he’s uncertain if he wants to hear him sullying his name. But it might be
something bad. He might be dead. An unexpected wave of nausea overtakes him
then, the violence of it so startling that his erection falters in the man’s
hand.
"I'm not stopping until you come again so you might want to hear this."
"Fine," he whispers hoarsely, throat raw from earlier. He should know I
couldn’t climax if anything happened to him. It can’t be bad. And then a second
fear seeping into his brain at the thought of having to come again, because
he'd hoped he could just lie here, let the older man have his way and be done
with it. Even after all these years, he feels the orgasms dragged out of him by
this man degrade him, humiliate him. He isn't sure if he regrets coming here,
at least until he hears him speak again.
"He assaulted a nurse a few days ago. All but raped her."
Oh. Well then. He finally reacts, ignoring the flood of relief. He instead
thinks of Trip’s wolfish grin, his lone dimple, his long lashes and cruel eyes,
the width of his biceps even at eleven, when he’d last seen him. It’s only as
expected, though earlier than Virus imagined, and this pleases him. "Tell me,"
he breathes.
And he does, a whisper against the back of his neck as he begins telling him
the details and Virus moans, shudders. He can feel the doctor grin spread
across his skin, just above the tattoo on his neck, because he's doing exactly
what is expected of him, but as arousal begins to flood his senses, he can no
longer bring himself to care.
-
Despite everything, he lingers for a few days, spending his nights in bed
cursing himself and spending his days aimlessly wandering the apartment, eating
the older man’s food and nosing through his closets while he goes to the
institute and cuts more children up. The food is good and the drugs are good,
and it’s nice to not have to worry about running a household for a few days, he
reasons. It isn’t the first time, either. Though he’s never told Trip, never
told anyone, he has been pulled from the institute for up to forty-eight hours
at a time, only once a year at best, but the change of scenery was always worth
what he put up with in exchange. It used to surprise him, how the doctor would
just leave him there when younger, would trust him enough to not destroy or
steal anything, but now it only surprises him that he doesn’t destroy or steal
anything. Though now he does something he’d never done before. He swipes the
keycard he’d slipped from the older man’s pocket this morning when being
roughed up in the kitchen against the lock on the office door. And he plays
with his computer.
He’d learned basic hacking skills as a child, with the computers in the
institute’s lab, and the doctor had calmly told him his passwords some time
ago. I alternate between these nine. Information Virus had stored away for two
years, uncertain why he was made privy. He wonders absently if they are still
the ones he uses. He can easily bypass the lock that three failed passwords
would cause, so it’s little work to go down the list. The eighth password. What
an idiot. Though he knows that this was probably always expected of him.
He’s memorized the other numbers, the other three children on the list with
Trip who might be candidates, and it isn’t difficult to dig up their files. He
isn’t sure what, if anything, he will do with this information, but he likes
having it. It makes this trip almost worth it, he thinks, as he roots through
his desk for a thumb drive to steal. Sending the information to himself would
be too risky, and it’s easy enough to track what comes out of a printer. As
he’s copying and moving the files, he allows the cursor to waver over the
folder with Trip’s number on it, but in the end he can’t bring himself to look.
Some boundaries are never meant to be crossed.
When he casually mentions, finally, that he is leaving, that he can’t ignore
his work any longer, the doctor grabs his legs and pushes him down onto the
couch. And Virus lets him, turns his face away and glares at the wall and
wonders how long the morphine supply he’d been given will last, how carefully
he can portion it out before having to come back. When it’s over, the doctor
places a slip of paper on his chest as Virus gasps for air.
“Call this number if you want.”
It’s a long time before he can speak. “Yours?”
“No." 
“Then whose?”
He shrugs and walks from the room, leaving Virus to wipe himself down and find
his pants before leaving. He despises himself for knowing he will be back, but
he’d be damned if he bothers to call.
 
Trip
 
He only lets them do things to him because he knows Virus went through it,
because he knows the only way he can truly be like Virus is if he experiences
everything he has. Last night in the shower room, his last night with vision,
he’d slowly run his hand over his tailbone, up his backbone as far as he could
reach. Two at the base of his spine, one halfway up his back, a fourth on the
back of his neck. Metal nodes that only the doctors can open to stick tubes in.
He doesn't understand what they are for, never bothered to ask. All that
matters is that Virus had survived all of this years ago, that they had done
this to Trip only two months before Virus left, and the older boy had gently
run his mouth over them, murmuring that they'd have matching scars now. It's
the only reason Trip endures.
It’s the only reason he allows them to cut his eyes out.
It’s thoughts of Virus that keep him going as he shudders through six weeks of
a morphine haze. Morphine, what was once a readily available street drug
several decades earlier, now exceedingly rare, horrifically expensive, with
hospitals having a chokehold on the limited supply. He knows there is a story
there, but whenever Virus had read the news to him he’d been so distracted by
his voice he barely ever caught the words. It’s the first time they have ever
given it to him for longer than a day or two, and he suspects it’s as much to
keep him under control as it is to keep the pain down. They’d never cared much
about him being in pain, after all. He’s one of the stronger ones. He should
build up a resistance to pain. Forget him though, he’s a nightmare. A brute.
Save it for the ones who need it.
The ones like Virus. I think they give you too much, he’d once said. I need
more than anyone else. Why? Because. Come on…why? The extra experiments you get
sometimes? And Virus had looked him dead in the eye for a moment. Stop asking,
okay? Please. It was the only time he’d ever said please to him, in the six
years they’d been together at the institute, so Trip had stopped asking.
There isn't much to do, as he lies there for six weeks. Six weeks seems
questionably long; he had thought that when Virus had the surgery, and he still
thinks it now.
Virus. Virus who took the surgery poorly, who had been clearly terrified. Virus
who had grown up nearly blind, who spent six years bumping into everything,
unable to see faces, and the thought of losing his vision for good was
unbearable to him. He'd admitted all of this, some of those days when Trip was
allowed to sit with him. And he'd spend all his time just staring at those long
white fingers, which more often than not would touch his own hand. Trip had
always been afraid to respond, to actually hold hands with him. He never told
him how similar they were, how he had also spent six years unable to see faces.
Except instead of glasses, he saw Virus. We are the same. In more ways than
they can ever comprehend.
He remembers what he’d thought when he’d first laid eyes on him. Like me, he’s
like me. It wasn’t just external, wasn’t just the fact that E-31337 was the
only other non-Japanese person he could ever remember seeing. No – it was more
than that, an invisible vein between them. He had known immediately that he
would follow the boy in front of him to the ends of the earth, that he was
wholly devoted the moment their eyes met. Virus was beautiful, but more than
that, he was vicious, tenacious, remorseless, clever and cunning, and Trip knew
he would do anything for him. A dog that found its master.
His mind wanders during this time, though time and again it returns to Virus.
The only reason he endures.
Losing his eyesight for so long isn't as horrible as he'd expected it to be.
Perhaps because, unlike Virus, the rest of his senses are honed enough for him
to understand what's going on around him. And it's calmer now. He no longer has
to take in so much of the world. The sensory deprivation tank they had once
plunged him into once a week had been divine, but that was a privilege he lost
after assaulting the nurse. Somehow they'd decided that preventing him any way
of calming down was the solution to his violence. The irony is not lost on him.
He's far more aware, more intelligent, than they give him credit for. Because
he's slow to react. He's selectively mute. He's belligerent. He's violent. He
doesn't participate. He'd be useless, disposable, were he not a success in
every surgery, every drug test, every experiment. Just as Virus had been an
ongoing failure, but he'd been so intelligent, so charming and charismatic, so
clever and helpful, that he was indispensable.
6:00 Wake up. Shower.
7:00 Eat. Vitals check.
7:30 to 11:30 Classes. Various bullshit that changed from day to day.
11:30 Break.
12:00 Lunch. 
12:30 Various tests. Sometimes surgery for the unlucky ones
15:00 Training. Sometimes in Rhyme. Sometimes in hacking. Sometimes in the gym.
17:30 Break.
18:00 Dinner. Vitals check.
18:30 Last class of the day.
21:00 Free hour. Or therapy of some sort for the fucked up ones. Like me.
22:00 Bedtime. Hours of restless twitching.
1:00 When Virus showed up. Sleep.
Because he always slept best with Virus there, his warmth, his sharp knees and
elbows, the space between his shoulder blades, his breathing, his heartbeat. He
misses all of that now, more than he'd ever missed it in the years and a half
they have been apart. Virus had climbed into his cot first, a fact that all of
the doctors missed, a fact that the boys never discussed. All Trip knows is
that one night, after nearly a month of following Virus around, the older boy
slipped under the covers of his cot and told him that he was sick of him
kicking and moaning in his sleep, that he was keeping him awake, that maybe if
he slept here the nightmares would stop. I don’t have nightmares, he’d replied
indignantly, but he’d been overwhelmed by the closeness of him, that perfection
that he’d doggedly stalked for so many days now, who had next covered his mouth
with a hand, a hand that smelled and felt so good that Trip nearly grabbed him,
and whispered, Don’t lie to me. And that was it. The older boy had woken up
early and gone back to his own bed before roll call, and after a few nights of
this, Trip started going to him. It had been nearly another month before Virus
grabbed his arm one morning, told him he didn’t have to leave, because the
doctor, a specific doctor, had given his approval for them to be together in
nights. Trip had difficulty believing that, because that doctor in particular
was brutally cruel, a stickler for the rules, unforgiving of the fact that they
were, indeed, only children, but he’d accepted it all, because Virus lying was
incomprehensible to him.
He also thinks of the folder inside of his mattress. Paper files seem absurd to
him in this day and age, and yet they exist here at the institute. Fifty years
ago, people worried about paper trails. Now paper is safer, easier to destroy
than evidence on computers. So the pretty things about the children are on the
computer. And the less pleasant things, the things that might induce human
rights boards to step in, are all on paper. Easily burned in the basement
incinerator, just like the children who failed. Virus’ folder. He’d only looked
at one page before slamming it shut, shoving it into the slit in his mattress
that he’d managed to cut open with a ground-down and sharpened toothbrush. It
was too much, too unbearable, and he’d decided that if he still had sight when
the bandages came off, he would read it then. Maybe. He didn’t know how much he
wanted to know. Some boundaries are never meant to be crossed; he’d realized
that when he’d looked at that one page, seen just a few words before slamming
it shut again. He thinks of his warmth in the bed beside him. He doesn’t really
care if he never sees the folder again.
Apart from that, as he adjusts to a world of darkness, he realizes he isn’t
afraid of losing the world around him permanently. Despite pretending to be
nearly deaf, his hearing is acute, so much so that he is sometimes paralyzed
when people speak to him, so grating, so horrifically loud, are the voices. His
skin is more sensitive than it should be, making him acutely aware of even the
subtle shift of air when someone enters a room. His sense of smell is better
than most humans, though Virus had often told him that he apparently couldn’t
ever smell himself. He doesn’t even care much about his sight, except for one
thing.
He only fears losing his eyesight because he fears never seeing Virus again.
When they finally take the bandages off he stares in the mirror for a long
time. His eyelashes are long, longer than most women’s; he’d been worried that
they wouldn’t survive the surgery, that they’d be damaged somehow, that Virus
would be disappointed when he saw them. Because Virus likes them, Virus who
once pushed him against the wall and licked his eyelids, ran fingers over his
lashes. These are so pretty, you know. There were people before him, girls who
laughed and touched his face, but the first six years of his life, the ones
before Virus, are nothing but a haze now, images slipping here and there
through his consciousness. But it’s the color that pleases him far more than
the eyelashes.
Blue.
He smiles for the first time since Virus left. He ignores the doctors behind
him exchanging glances, writing something down, and he touches the mirror. Blue
blue blue. He is a success. He will get out of here someday. He will see him
again. And he laughs.
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