Chapter 1: Scars and Silent Devotion
The floor was cold beneath Will’s knees. A hard, unyielding surface that bit into his skin through the thin material of his sleep pants. He kept his gaze lowered, fixed on the worn patch of carpet between Silas’s socked feet. From here, he could see the frayed edge of the Batman logo on one sock. The room was quiet, a sanctuary of hums and clicks compared to the echoing halls of the Foundation. The soft glow from a heating vent washed over the display case on the wall, making the honed edges of Silas’s knives gleam like promises.
Silas was sprawled in his desk chair, one leg bent, the other extended, his eyes on the ceiling. He’d been like that for ten minutes. Will knew because he’d counted the slow rotations of the fan blade above them. Sixty rotations per minute. Six hundred so far.
“You’re thinking loud,” Silas said, his voice a low gravel that filled the space between them.
“Sorry.” Will’s own voice was softer, barely a breath. He didn’t look up.
A sigh, then the creak of the chair. Silas shifted, his shadow falling over Will. Fingers, calloused and warm, slipped under Will’s chin, tilting his face up. Silas’s eyes were a stormy grey in the low light, scanning his face. “Where’d you go today?”
“Nowhere.”
“Bullshit. During the break-in with the new asset. The one with the defiance. Your eyes checked out.” Silas’s thumb traced the line of Will’s jaw. It wasn’t a gentle motion. It was assessment, ownership. “You saw something. In him.”
Will swallowed. He could lie. He was excellent at lying, at presenting the smooth, obedient surface he’d been molded into. But not to Silas. Never to Silas. “His hands,” Will whispered. “He kept curling them into fists. Even when the straps were tight. Like he was trying to keep something.”
Silas stared at him for a long moment, his expression unreadable. Then his hand dropped. He leaned back in his chair, the old springs groaning. “You shouldn’t notice things like that. It’s better if you don’t.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Silas’s question hung in the air. He reached over to the desk, picking up a small throwing knife, balancing it on his palm. The metal caught the light. “He’s not you, Will. He won’t… bend like you did. He’ll break. They always break.”
The words were a familiar fist around Will’s heart. Bend, not break. It was the Foundation’s mantra for the special ones, the ones with dual utilities. He had bent. He had molded. He was here, on his knees, belonging to the man who had helped break him. The silence stretched, thick and heavy.
Silas stood abruptly, the knife still in his hand. He paced a short path to the bed and back, a caged energy in his movements. “Stand up.”
Will obeyed, his joints protesting the sudden movement. He kept his body loose, receptive.
Silas closed the distance between them. He was taller, broader, his presence a physical weight. He didn’t touch Will, just looked him over, from his bare feet to his downcast eyes. “Take these off,” he said, flicking a finger at Will’s sleep pants.
Will hooked his thumbs into the waistband and pushed them down, stepping out of the pooled fabric. The air in the room was cool on his skin. He stood naked, waiting.
Silas’s gaze was clinical, yet heated. He reached out and ran the flat of the knife’s blade down Will’s sternum, not enough to cut, just enough to make the skin shiver. The cold steel traced over his ribs, the slight softness of his belly, lower. Will didn’t flinch. His breath evened out into the practiced, slow rhythm he’d been taught. Out. Empty.
“Mine,” Silas said, the word a quiet growl. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes.”
The knife tip came to rest, a insistent pressure just above Will’s pubic bone. “Say it.”
“I’m yours.” The words were automatic, a reflex as deep as breathing.
Silas tossed the knife onto the bed. It landed with a soft thud on the duvet. His hands replaced the metal, rough and demanding. They grasped Will’s hips, pulling him flush against Silas’s own body. Will could feel the hard line of Silas’s cock through his jeans, the heat of it. A familiar dread and longing twisted together in his gut.
“I need you blank,” Silas muttered, his mouth against Will’s temple. His breath was hot. “I need you empty. Just for a little while.”
Will nodded, his forehead resting against Silas’s shoulder. He knew what that meant. He let his mind go slack, retreating to the white noise place in the back of his skull. Silas’s hands were on the move, gripping, squeezing, claiming handfuls of his ass. A finger probed roughly between his cheeks, dry and insistent.
“Silas,” Will breathed out, a hint of a protest. It was part of the script.
“Shut up.” Silas spun him around, bending him over the foot of the bed. Will’s cheek pressed into the cool fabric of the duvet. His hands gripped the edge of the mattress. Behind him, he heard the quick rasp of a zipper, the rustle of clothing.
A blunt, slick pressure pressed against his hole. Silas had used the lube from the nightstand. A small mercy. He pushed in with a single, brutal thrust, sheathing himself to the hilt inside Will.
The burn was sharp, familiar. Will gasped, his knuckles whitening on the duvet. He pushed back against it, into it, his body accepting the invasion it had been trained for. Silas didn’t move for a moment, just leaned over him, his weight pressing Will down, his breath ragged in Will’s ear.
“That’s it,” Silas grunted. “Take it. Just take it.”
Then he started to move. Hard, deep, punishing strokes that rocked Will’s whole body forward on the bed. Each thrust was a punctuation mark, a period slamming down at the end of a sentence. Mine. Yours. Owned. Broken. Will’s mind, obedient, floated somewhere distant. He watched the sensation as if from far away: the slap of skin on skin, the groan of the bed frame, the animal sounds ripped from Silas’s throat.
“Fuck, you’re so tight,” Silas choked out, one hand tangling in Will’s dark hair, yanking his head back. “Even now. After all this time. You still feel new.”
Will made a sound, a wordless exhale that could have been agreement or pain. His own cock, trapped between his belly and the bed, was half-hard, a detached biological response. Pleasure wasn’t the point. Obliteration was.
Silas’s pace grew frantic, his hips pounding a chaotic, desperate rhythm. His other hand slid around Will’s waist, calloused fingers digging into the soft flesh there, holding him in place as he fucked him. The language dissolved into grunts, into hissed curses. “God… fuck… yes…”
Will closed his eyes. In the darkness behind his lids, he saw the new asset’s hands, clenched into futile fists. He held onto the image as Silas shuddered, as a hot, liquid warmth flooded his insides. Silas collapsed on top of him, his weight crushing, his face buried in the space between Will’s shoulder blades. They stayed like that, stuck together with sweat and come, breathing in ragged unison.
The silence that followed was different. The frantic energy had bled out, leaving something hollow and tired in its wake.
Slowly, Silas pulled out. Will winced at the sensation, the sudden, aching emptiness. He heard Silas moving behind him, zipping up, then the soft pad of feet to the bathroom. The click of the light switch, the sound of water running in the sink.
Will didn’t move. He stayed folded over the bed, his body used, his mind slowly drifting back from its blank retreat. The cold was starting to seep into his skin.
A warm, damp cloth touched the small of his back. Silas was cleaning him, his movements now methodical, almost gentle. He wiped Will’s thighs, his ass, the mess he’d made. It was a ritual. A possession in reverse.
When he was done, Silas dropped the cloth to the floor. He put a hand on Will’s hip and turned him over onto his back. Will looked up at him. Silas’s striking face was a mask of exhaustion, the guarded expression back in place, but his eyes… his eyes were shattered.
Without a word, Silas gathered Will into his arms, lifting him fully onto the bed, under the covers. He pulled Will against his chest, wrapping around him from behind, their bodies slotting together. His lips pressed against the nape of Will’s neck, not a kiss, but a firm, lasting pressure.
“I dream about the room where they first put us together,” Silas whispered into his skin, the words so quiet they were almost lost. “The concrete. The drain in the floor.”
Will’s breath caught. They never talked about that.
Silas’s arm tightened around his waist. “Go to sleep, Will.”
And Will did, staring at the silent, gleaming knives on the wall, feeling the steady beat of Silas’s heart against his back, a counter-rhythm to the memory of a drain in a concrete floor.
The ache was a deep, familiar throb when Will woke. Silas’s arm was still a heavy band across his chest, his breath warm and even against the back of Will’s neck. The room held the musky, intimate scent of sex and sleep. For a few blurred moments, in the grey predawn light seeping around the blinds, it was just warmth and weight and quiet. The knives on the wall were just shapes.
Then the comm on the nightstand buzzed, a harsh, digital rattle that shattered the stillness.
Silas jerked awake, his body tensing against Will’s. He reached over, his movement rough with sudden alertness, and slapped a hand on the device. The screen glowed with a single line of text.
Myers. Tarnor. Report to Overseer Brrough. Now.
No greeting. No explanation. Just a command.
Silas’s exhale was a low stream of air against Will’s skin. He didn’t move for a second, then he withdrew his arm, the warmth leaving instantly. The bed dipped as he got up.
They dressed in silence, the ritual of pulling on the standard-issue grey fatigues feeling like armoring up for a battle. Will’s body protested, the soreness from the night a stark reminder of his use. Silas moved with a stiff, mechanical efficiency, his face already settling into its usual guarded mask. He caught Will looking at him as he fastened his pants.
“Don’t,” Silas said, his voice rough from sleep. It wasn’t angry. It was a plea.
“Don’t what?”
“Think. Just… follow my lead.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, then turned and walked out of the room without another glance.
The halls of the Foundation were a study in sterile menace. White walls, polished floors that reflected the harsh fluorescent lights, the faint smell of antiseptic and recycled air. Their footsteps echoed, a synchronized tap-tap that marked their passage through the empty corridors. At this hour, only security drones hovered at junctions, their red lenses tracking them without comment.
Brrough’s office was on the upper administrative level. The door was a slab of dark, polished wood. Silas didn’t hesitate. He knocked once, sharp and precise.
“Enter.”
The voice from within was calm, melodic even. It was the most dangerous sound Will knew.
Overseer Norbert Brrough’s office was the opposite of the halls. Warmly lit, lined with books that looked real, a deep carpet that swallowed sound. He sat behind a vast oak desk, a man in his late fifties with carefully groomed silver hair and eyes the color of a winter sky. He was writing in a ledger, a gold pen moving smoothly in his hand. He did not look up.
“Sir,” Silas said, coming to a stop before the desk, shoulders back. Will mirrored his posture, a half-step behind and to the left.
Brrough finished his notation, capped the pen, and set it down. Only then did he lift his gaze. It passed over Will like a scanner assessing a piece of equipment, then settled on Silas. A smile touched his lips, thin and cold.
“Silas. Good of you to come so promptly.” His tone was paternal, almost approving.
“Of course, Overseer.”
Brrough leaned back in his leather chair, steepling his fingers. “The male from yesterday’s intake. Asset 774. His profile suggests high resistance. I’m assigning you primary breaking duties. I want his will catalogued, fractured, and remolded by the end of the month. Standard conditioning protocols, but escalate physical persuasion as you see fit.” He paused, his eyes sharpening. “You have a particular talent for that.”
“Understood,” Silas said, his voice flat.
“I know you do.” Brrough’s smile returned. He stood up, slowly, and walked around the desk. He stopped in front of Silas, close enough that Will could smell his cologne, something old and spice-scented. Brrough reached out and, with a startling gentleness, adjusted the collar of Silas’s fatigues.
“You’ve come so far from the gutter rat I pulled in,” Brrough murmured, his voice for them alone. “All that fire. All that beautiful, useless defiance. I’ve honed it. Given it purpose.” His hand came to rest on Silas’s shoulder, squeezing once. “You are my finest creation, Silas. My most effective tool.”
Silas was statue-still. Will could see the muscle in his jaw clench, once.
Brrough’s gaze flickered to Will, then back to Silas. The paternal tone vanished, replaced by something brittle and absolute. “But let’s not forget the hierarchy of things.” His fingers tightened on Silas’s shoulder, knuckles whitening. “You are my pet first and foremost. My assistant second. You belong to me. Every skill you have, every ounce of obedience you command from others—like this one here—flows from my authority. From my ownership.”
He released Silas’s shoulder and gave him a pat that was almost affectionate. The menace of the gesture was worse than a blow. “Your personal projects, your… attachments,” he said, glancing dismissively at Will, “are permitted at my leisure. Do not let your usefulness be clouded by sentiment. It would be a pity to have to remind you of your place more concretely.”
The air in the room turned to glass. Will held his breath. He saw the tremor, minute and furious, run through Silas’s frame before it was brutally suppressed.
“Yes, Overseer Brrough,” Silas said, the words perfectly even. “I understand perfectly.”
“Excellent.” Brrough turned and walked back to his desk, sitting down as if the conversation had been about the weather. “Dismissed. Begin with 774 after morning meal.”
Silas turned on his heel. Will followed. They walked out of the office, the heavy door clicking shut behind them with a sound of finality.
The walk back to their quarters was silent. The tap-tap of their footsteps sounded different now—hollow, like bones knocking together in a hollow space. When their door closed behind them, Silas didn’t move. He stood in the middle of their room, staring at the poster of Green Lantern without seeing it.
Will waited. His own heart was a frantic bird in his chest.
Silas turned. His stormy eyes were black with a fury so deep it had no outlet. He looked at Will, and for a second, Will saw it—the gutter rat, the defiance, the raw, screaming thing Brrough claimed to own.
Then it was gone, buried under layers of practiced control. Silas walked to the knife display. He took down a slim, bone-handled blade. He tested its edge against his thumb.
“He wants me to break 774,” Silas said, his voice quiet, conversational.
Will said nothing.
“The one with the hands.” Silas turned the knife over, watching the light slide along the steel. “The one you noticed.” He looked at Will. “He wants me to erase that. To make fists into open, accepting palms.”
He slid the knife back onto its mount with a soft click. The sound was like a period at the end of a sentence.
“Get ready for work,” Silas said, and his tone was no longer that of a lover, or even a companion. It was the voice of the Foundation. It was the voice of Brrough’s most effective tool. “We have a job to do.”
The mess hall was a cathedral of quiet chewing and clinking trays. Will sat across from Silas, pushing food around his plate. The eggs were a rubbery yellow. The silence between them was a solid thing, dense and cold. Silas ate mechanically, his eyes on the far wall.
A clatter of metal made Will flinch. Two orderlies marched a new asset between the long tables. 774. He was taller than Will had remembered, lanky, with sharp shoulders hunched forward. His hands were cuffed in front of him, but even restrained, the fingers were curled in, not quite fists, but ready.
Silas’s fork stopped halfway to his mouth. His eyes tracked the asset. There was no emotion in his face, just assessment.
“He’s scared,” Will said quietly, surprising himself.
Silas’s gaze cut to him. “Good,” he said, and resumed eating. “Fear is a door.”
Will looked down at his own hands, pale against the grey tray. His fingers lay flat.
The breaking room was white. Stark, bright, and sound-absorbent. A drain was set into the center of the floor. Will stood by the observation window, a one-way mirror into the room. His role was to log responses, to note the inflection points. He held a tablet, his fingers cold and stiff.
Silas entered the white room first. He’d changed into black tactical pants and a tight grey shirt. He looked larger in here, a predator in a sterile cage. A moment later, the orderlies brought 774 in. They removed the cuffs and left, the door sealing shut with a soft, definitive click.
774 blinked under the harsh lights. He looked at Silas, then at his own empty hands, then back at Silas.
“Your designation is 774,” Silas began, his voice calm, almost bored. “You will answer to it. You will respond to instructions given with it. You have no other name.”
“Fuck you,” 774 said. The words were a dry rasp, but they held heat.
Silas didn’t react. He simply walked a slow circle around the young man. “You are here because you have qualities the Foundation finds useful. Your compliance will determine your comfort. Your defiance will determine your pain.”
“I’m not complying with shit.”
Silas completed his circle, stopping in front of him. “Yes,” he said softly. “You are.”
The first blow was so fast Will almost missed it. Silas’s fist drove into 774’s solar plexus. It wasn’t a wild punch; it was precise, economical. The air left 774’s lungs in a whoosh, and he folded, hitting the floor on his knees, gasping.
Silas waited. He didn’t speak again until 774 had sucked in a few ragged breaths.
“Get up.”
774 struggled to his feet, his face pale. Hatred burned in his eyes.
“Good,” Silas said. He stepped closer, invading his space. “Now, Asset 774, you will kneel.”
“Go to hell.”
Silas’s hand shot out, grabbing 774 by the hair, yanking his head back. With his other hand, he struck him across the face. The crack echoed in the sterile room. “You are already in hell. I am just the demon assigned to you. Kneel.”
He shoved him downward. 774 resisted, his body rigid. Silas kicked his legs out from under him with a swift, brutal motion. 774 crashed to his knees on the hard floor.
Will’s thumb hovered over the tablet screen. He forced himself to tap. Defiance. Physical correction administered.
Silas knelt in front of him, their faces level. He was close enough to kiss him. “Your body is learning,” Silas whispered. “Your mind will follow. It always does.”
774 spat. A glob of saliva and blood landed on Silas’s cheek.
Silas didn’t wipe it away. A slow, cold smile spread across his face. It was the most terrifying expression Will had ever seen him make.
“Okay,” Silas said, standing up. He walked to a cabinet on the wall, opened it, and pulled out a leather strap, a short, rigid crop, and a bottle of clear lubricant. He laid them on a small metal table beside the drain.
He returned to 774, who was still kneeling, his chest heaving.
“Stand up. Remove your clothing.”
774 stared at the tools on the table. For the first time, a crack showed in his defiance. A flicker of real fear. He didn’t move.
Silas sighed, as if inconvenienced. He picked up the crop. He didn’t hit him with it. Instead, he used the tip to lift 774’s chin. “I can make you. It will be worse if I have to make you.”
Trembling now, 774 got to his feet. His fingers fumbled with the fastenings of the plain cotton scrubs. He peeled the shirt off, then pushed the pants down. He stood naked, shivering in the cold air of the room, trying to cover himself with his hands.
“Hands at your sides,” Silas commanded.
774 forced his hands down. Will could see the tremors running through his thighs.
Silas walked around him again, the crop trailing lightly over his skin. Over a nipple, down his flank, across the trembling muscles of his ass. “You see, 774, the Foundation isn’t interested in simple obedience. We require… surrender. A full relinquishment of your own will. We hollow you out,” he said, tapping the crop against the asset’s sternum, “so you can be filled with purpose.”
He stopped behind him. “Bend over. Touch your toes.”
774 hesitated.
Silas didn’t hesitate. The crop came down across the back of his thighs with a sharp, stinging crack. 774 cried out, a shocked, pained sound, and stumbled forward, catching himself on his hands.
“Not your hands,” Silas said calmly. “Bend from the waist. Ass up. Head down.”
Slowly, sobbing quietly now, 774 straightened his arms, lowering his upper body until his fingertips brushed his toes. His body was a trembling arc of pale skin.
Will’s stomach churned. He tapped on the tablet. Resistance continues. Escalation.
Silas picked up the bottle of lubricant. He squirted a generous amount onto his fingers. He didn’t bother warming it. With his free hand, he gripped 774’s hip, holding him firmly in place. “This is the physical covenant,” Silas said, his voice devoid of all inflection. “The body opens. The mind follows.”
He pressed his slick fingers against 774’s clenched hole. The asset jerked, a violent shudder wracking his frame. “No… please…”
“It’s not a request,” Silas said, and pushed one finger in, hard.
774 screamed. It was a raw, tearing sound that scraped against the soundproofed walls. His body fought the intrusion, muscles clamping down in a vice of panic.
Silas worked his finger in deeper, twisting it, a cruel, exploratory motion. “It hurts because you’re fighting it. Let go. Open for me.”
“Fuck you! Don’t—!” 774’s protests dissolved into wet, choking sobs.
Silas added a second finger, stretching him wider. 774’s knuckles were white on the floor, his entire body shaking with the effort to stay in position, to endure. Silas scissored his fingers, his face a mask of detached concentration. “You will be used. This is the first truth. Your body is not your own.”
He withdrew his fingers. 774 gasped in relief, but it was short-lived. Will heard the sound of a zipper. He saw Silas pulling his own cock out, stroking it to hardness with a few rough tugs, slicking it with more of the lubricant.
“You will be used by me,” Silas corrected, his voice a low murmur now.
He positioned himself. The broad, blunt head of his cock pressed against the loosened, violated entrance.
774 began to beg. “Please, no, please, I’ll do anything, don’t—”
Silas drove forward in one relentless, shearing thrust.
The scream was unlike any before. It was a sound of total, absolute rupture. 774’s body arched, then went rigid, his fingers scrabbling uselessly on the smooth floor. Silas buried himself to the hilt, his own jaw tight, his breath hissing through his teeth. He didn’t move, just let the asset feel the full, splitting occupation of his body.
“You are being broken,” Silas gritted out, his hands digging into the asset’s hips. “You are breaking right now. Feel it.”
Then he began to fuck him. It was not sex. It was demolition. Each thrust was a piston, hard and deep, aimed to annihilate. The slap of skin, the guttural sounds from Silas, the broken, intermittent wails from 774—it filled the white room. Will watched, his own body cold, his finger frozen above the tablet screen. He saw 774’s hands. They were splayed open now, palms flat against the floor, fingers spread wide. The fight was gone from them. They were just holding on.
Silas’s pace became frantic, animalistic. He was chasing something, his hips hammering forward, his grunts sharper, more desperate. “You… are… nothing… without… this…” he growled, each word punctuated by a brutal thrust.
With a final, wrenching snarl, Silas slammed deep and stilled. His body shuddered, his release pumping into the asset beneath him. He stayed there for a long moment, hunched over 774’s broken form, breathing raggedly.
When he pulled out, 774 collapsed onto his side, curling into a fetal position, silent tears cutting tracks through the sweat and spit on his face. He was shaking uncontrollably.
Silas tucked himself back into his pants, zipped up. He looked down at the wrecked young man on the floor. There was no triumph in his face. Only a hollow, finished exhaustion. He walked to the sink in the corner and washed his hands methodically.
He didn’t look at the observation window. He spoke to the room, his voice flat and drained. “Log it. Primary breaking protocol complete. Asset 774 is ready for conditioning.”
Will looked at the tablet. He typed with numb fingers. Defiance broken. Physical covenant enforced. Asset is prepared for next phase.
Silas left the white room without a backward glance. The orderlies would come to clean up the mess.
Will found him in the shower in their quarters. The water was scalding hot, steam fogging the tiles. Silas stood under the spray, head bowed, his hands braced against the wall. The knuckles of his right hand were raw and split.
Will didn’t speak. He stripped off his own clothes, the grey fabric feeling like a contaminated skin. He stepped into the shower behind Silas. The near-boiling water bit into his own skin. He pressed himself against Silas’s back, his forehead against Silas’s scarred shoulder blade.
For a long time, there was just the roar of the water. Then Silas’s body began to shake. It was a silent, violent trembling that vibrated through his entire frame. Will wrapped his arms around him, holding him together as the hot water sluiced over them, mixing with the things that could never be washed away.
Silas finally turned, his eyes red-rimmed and empty. He looked at Will, really looked at him, for the first time since they’d left Brrough’s office.
“His hands,” Silas whispered, the water drowning his words. “They were just like yours.”
He pulled Will into a crushing kiss. It tasted like salt and failure.