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not-a-space-alien · 2 years

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Magnanimous Moonrise Chapter 5M

Story masterpost

I HAVE A THREE DAY WEEKEND OKAY!!! I Can waste a little time writing, as a treat.

Here is the corresponding chapter in the complementary story.

Content/Content warnings for this chapter: Nonconsensual bondage/restraint/being trapped, gag/muzzle, “it” as a dehumanizing pronoun, transphobia, whump of a transmasculine character, forced nudity/stripping, sexual assault. Please heed the warnings on this chapter. This is a rough one. Reader discretion is advised.

The coffin fell down the stairs when they moved him to the basement. It didn’t matter whether or not it was an accident; it hurt all the same.

“Oops,” said the voice of the man above him, the man that Valen now hated unconditionally.

“All right, Nicky, how about you slow down a bit.” It was Ari who said it.

“Of course. Sorry.”

You’re not sorry at all. You piece of shit.

Nick came into his field of view as the man leaned down and dragged the coffin away from the stairs. Valen craned his head to see where they were going.

Oh. It was an unfinished basement turned into a workspace of some sort. Bare concrete floors, cinderblock walls, a variety of tools that could be for DIY projects or metalwork…The thing that really raised his hackles was the sheer amount of chains in the room. The first one that caught his eye was the one hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room, but he gradually spotted more and more, mounted in various positions.

I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.

“Okay, before we do anything else, I wanted to get your thoughts on all this stuff.” Valen craned his head to see Lex putting a cardboard box on the workbench. It appeared to be various things from his house. He furrowed his brows.

“Hmm?” said Nick. “What is that?”

“Stuff we collected from his house. He had a lot of blood in the fridge, but we didn’t find any signs of violence or any human captives.”

Because there weren’t any! THERE WERE NEVER ANY!

“Oh?” Valen’s vision was blocked as all three humans crowded around the box, backs towards him.

Valen let his head loll as the humans chatted amongst themselves, commenting on the various things they’d collected from his house, musing about what they could be for, arguing with each other.

Hot tears of frustration pooled in his eyes. It would be so simple, so easy to explain himself if he weren’t muzzled. But the only thing he could use to convey his innocence, his voice, was also his most destructive weapon and therefore had to be kept locked down tight.

Please, please, please, please. I know you have no reason to, but give me a chance. Please.

His ears pricked up as he heard the humans discussing what sounded like they were trying to figure out a safe way to talk with him–he heard snatches like pencil and paper, and tuned back into their conversation. Just in time to hear Nick say:

“No! Absolutely not! Vampires can use persuasion through any mode of communication! Even writing! It kicks in as soon as the victim understands the message imbued in what the vampire was communicating. So long as there’s a shared language, it’ll work. Some can even do it with nothing but eye contact!”

Some could, yeah. Valen had never managed to figure out anything besides the standard vocal commands–he’d tried to avoid using persuasion whenever he could. It was an atrocious violation of human rights. Lord knew he'd been trying eye contact persuasion more than he ever had in the past few hours, though, but to no success. He just did not have that ability inside of him.

Lex made eye contact with him. That was, in his opinion, a little stupid given the topic of conversation, but he forced as much pleading into his eyes as he could.

“O-okay then,” said Lex, turning away.

No! Come back! Look at me!

They went back to examining Valen’s belongings. A bottle of blood, which Nick held up to the light and swirled around. Valen didn’t dare get his hopes up too high that Nick would be smart enough–or suspicious enough–to figure out that it wasn’t real blood.

After all, Valen had been trying to make it as similar to real blood as possible.

“Looks like blood to me.”

“...Right, but is there, I don’t know, some tests you could do on it?”

“To…?”

“To see if it’s actually blood?”

“What else would it be?”

“I don’t know!”

Let me tell you what it is! For fuck’s sake! He tried screaming, but he could only get his mouth open so far. He chewed on the bit.

“The mushrooms are the weirdest part to me,” said Ari. “I can’t imagine what he was doing with them.”

“I don’t know if this is a fruitful avenue of investigation,” said Nick. “When I asked you to bring me back a vampire, I wanted it to do experiments on, not…whatever this is.”

“Can’t you at least try a little bit?” said Lex. “There’s something unusual going on here.”

Lex. Lex was the closest to figuring it out. Please, Lex, please.

Nick sighed and put down the bottle. “All right. If you really want to know.” He tapped his chin. “Well, a large volume of blood, with no human victims in sight…The simplest explanation would be it was harvested elsewhere and brought with him. Having access to this much blood this fast, I would guess that this vampire is affiliated with the blood harvesting facilities, and was granted this large portion to feed him as he came deep into human territory to do something.”

No! No! Holy fuck, they were looking at all his research and coming to the exact wrong conclusion. With some chagrin, he realized that even if they could read his handwriting, it probably wouldn't be obvious what any of his notebooks actually meant. They were too granular. The pages all held notes like Today I tested chemical compound #156 but it was unsuccessful as the iron content was too low. He hadn't thought it would be necessary to write "RESEARCH NOTES FOR MAKING ARTIFICIAL BLOOD" on the top of every page.

He desperately pulled at the restraints, hoping against all logic that maybe on this try he would be able to free himself. He couldn’t just lie there and listen to this. Alarm bells blared in his head. This was getting worse for him, quickly, which he hadn’t thought was possible.

He howled and struggled as all three ignored him, talking with each other in low voices. Nick was turning over a mushroom in his hand. Ari fruitlessly examined Valen’s notes. Lex flicked at an empty beaker.

“Here it is–Ah, this is illuminating.” Nick had a book open. “This mushroom species only grows in warm climates, which means it couldn’t grow in vampire territory. Hence he must have come here to collect it.”

Yes. Yes, that one’s true. You’re getting closer. Please.

“But what could he use it for?”

Nick held the book out. “Well, this mushroom species apparently produces a potent tranquilizing poison.”

It also has a freakishly high iron content, and might mimic the taste of hemoglobin… Vampires are immune to the poison part. That’s just a coincidence.

“If we assume this vampire is affiliated with the blood farms, then we can guess that maybe he’s here on a sponsored trip to research more effective ways to hunt down humans. His notes support that–there’s a lot of drawings of chemical compounds, and notes on combining things in different ratios. Perhaps it was to develop a tranquilizer that would be easier to use than hunting down humans manually.”

Valen was so stunned for a moment that he just lay still. That was…the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. Why would vampires need tranquilizers? Most of them could stop a human in its tracks with a single word. We don’t need to make it easier!

He started growling now. He had to do something. Don’t you fucking dare. You have no idea what you’re talking about. You dumb fuck. You think you’re so smart.

To his horror, Lex and Ari seemed to follow this train of thought. Lex looked…disappointed. “Oh…”

Ari took Lex’s hand. “Come on, Lex, we kind of knew he must be here for something no good.”

“Right, but…I dunno, I guess I thought maybe…”

Nick snapped the book shut. “Well, I will let you know if I discover anything else, but I think for now this is the most likely explanation.”

Holy shit. No, no, no, this couldn’t be happening. They thought he was with the vampires who hunted humans down and dragged them back to be drained and killed. Oh God, they’d assume he was the worst kind of vampire if they believed that. Most vampires were at least a little bit squeamish about where their food came from, but the ones who captured humans to bring back for a horrible death were some of the most sadistic fucks he’d ever met. It took a special kind of person to do that job, and anyone with a heart dropped out quickly.

They sometimes played with their food before turning their captures in. Some humans arrived at the blood processing facilities already half-dead. He’d seen it firsthand.

He tried to control his breathing. The humans were talking again, but he couldn’t hear them over his crashing heartbeat. Terror overwhelmed him. If they thought he was that–

“I don’t need help!” Ari was part way up the stairs for some reason. He watched as she exited the basement, leaving Valen alone with Lex and Nick.

Lex. Lex, please. For God’s sake. Please please, you have to realize.

Nick turned back to the coffin with a terrifying smile on his face. “Well, now we can, perhaps, get on with it.”

Not you! Fuck! Get away from me!

Lex approached him. Lex, please, for God’s sake. You have to figure it out. “Okay…Well, I guess I count as a second person here, so it’s not against the rules to open the coffin. What exactly are you going to do?”

“Well I need to document everything I do, so we should start with photographing its condition when it arrived.” He gestured to the chunky camera on the workbench.

“O-okay. Um, what are you going to do–to–that will affect his condition?”

“Well, the first thing I wanted to try out was to establish the optimum percentage of silver for an alloy to be and still be effective for vampire hunting. We’ve been using pure silver, and we go through a lot of it. If, say, 50% silver is just as effective, we could be much more efficient.”

“....Okay?”

Lex! For God’s sake! He’s saying he’s going to burn me with silver over and over again, to see which one works best! Doesn’t that sound fucked up to you? Don’t you think you should put a stop to this? Don’t you think you should UNMUZZLE ME RIGHT NOW FOR GOD’S SAKE?

Nick was in his face as he knelt down, unlocking the coffin.

Valen expected to feel some sense of relief when the coffin opened, to not be locked in so tightly, but instead, the opposite happened. Now there was no barrier between him and Nick, and that was terrifying. He thrashed, once again knowing it was futile, but needing to do something.

Nick stood at the foot of the coffin like a sleep paralysis demon. “Go ahead, get it all out of your system.”

Valen fell back, limp, chest heaving.

Valen’s eyes followed Nick as he pulled out a pole from his workbench, one with a noose on the end, the kind used to handle a struggling animal while keeping it at a distance. As though Valen were an aggressive dog. He would be offended, but he had a bad feeling the humiliation was only going to keep getting worse.

Valen had no way to avoid the clasp being slipped onto his neck, but he tried, jerking his head away. The wire cinched closed. “Feisty, aren’t you. Lex, will you please undo the restraints.”

Lex removed the chains from his chest, then strained to remove the chain keeping his shackled ankles secured to the coffin, keeping her face well out of kicking range.

Nick lifted the pole. The cord around his neck choked him, of course, because he wasn’t in any position to support his own weight until he’d gotten his footing once upright. His chest heaved in relieved breaths once his weight was on his feet and not on his neck. He was pretty sure this was not the intended use for such a device–of course, it was usually used on quadrupedal creatures.

“Now, Lex, we’re going to use those chains in the center of the room, if you’ll please attach them to its arms when I get it over there.”

Valen groaned, because he could immediately see where this was going. He hissed and spat as fiercely as he could as Nick used the pole to guide him to the center of the room. He clumsily stumbled over his shackled ankles as Nick pulled him faster than he could walk, falling to his knees in the center of the room.

Lex came over and gently took his wrists, pulling the chain down to attach it.

“No, no, in the front if you please, so we can have his arms above his head.”

Lex froze. “Er, how do you want me to do that?”

“Unshackle the wrists and move them to the front.”

Go ahead and try it. See what happens.

Lex gave him a frightened look. “Er… I don’t think I can do that without him being able to claw me.”

“You’re the one who managed to capture him in the first place. I’m sure you can figure something out.”

“Okay…Um…”

Valen watched her with burning eyes, curious as to what she would try.

She reached a hand out towards his face, gently stroking his cheek. “Shh. It’s all right.”

Well. That wasn’t what he’d expected. It was pathetic, but he found himself comforted by the touch, letting himself lean into it slightly.

“Listen…I know that this…isn’t fun for you. But I think you know fighting back isn’t going to do anything, yeah?”

He couldn’t look her in the eye. The emotions swirling inside him were too complicated. All at once he was thinking How fucking dare you and Please help me and Please keep touching me and Don’t fucking touch me and Why are you doing this? and I don’t deserve better than this.

“It’s gonna be all right,” she soothed. “Easy, now, shh, shh.”

He knew it wasn’t true, it couldn’t be true, but he let himself get lost in the fantasy for a moment, that it would be all right in the end. His only movement was to shake as she unlocked him and maneuvered him into the desired position, re-locking him and securing him to the chain.

“Brilliant!” said Nick.

Brilliant. It was brilliant, in a way, the way she’d just expertly manipulated him into being docile. It was a heartless trick on him, and he knew it would work if she did it again.

“There we go,” she said, her voice sweet, her voice poisonously sickly sweet. “See, it’s not so bad.”

Maybe if she said it enough, Valen would believe it. It’s not so bad.

It abruptly got worse as the chain around his wrists lifted off the ground, up to the ceiling, stretching him up, up onto the balls of his feet. Vulnerable, unable to curl in on himself any longer.

Nick stepped into his field of view. “There. Now, we can–”

Valen’s explosive hatred came back instantly, and he made use of the new weapon the humans hadn’t realized they’d given him: he used the chain in the ceiling to lift his weight, fists tight in the chain, and mule-kicked Nick dead-center.

He felt just a smidgeon of pride and control over the situation now, even as Lex caught his feet to stop his movement. “All right, what did we just talk about?”

She brought his feet down and attached them to a mount on the floor, which secured the shackles to the ground and limited his range of movement. Valen trembled, knowing he’d probably just made things worse, but he didn’t care. It was worth it. Nick hacked and put a hand to his chest, trying to recover from the surprise attack.

“Ah, yes,” he said, clearing his throat. “This is why–why it’s important to–to have two people to handle it, I suppose.”

“Right…”

He clucked his tongue, now examining the blood on Valen’s forehead. “You’ve already been damaged.” He got out a soft cloth and dabbed Valen’s face. Valen tried to jerk away; even when he was trying to be gentle, Nick prompted disgust and fear that made Valen recoil.

“Now, now, we’ll have time for that later. Right now…” He removed an enormous pair of scissors from his workbench.

Ah. Now we’re starting, I guess. A thrill of terror coursed through Valen, and he thrashed again. Where are those going? What are you going to do with those? Was he going to clip Valen’s teeth? Cut off his nails? Something worse?

“Stay still,” Nick hissed, moving out of sight. “Before I start punishing you for doing so.”

Valen’s eyes fell to the furnace and the molten silver next to it, imagination now running wild with all the possibilities that punishing could entail. It was enough to make him fall still.

He felt the touch of cold metal on his back, and he almost jumped. But it wasn’t cutting his skin, only his shirt.

Wait–it was cutting his shirt? Nick was undressing him?

No no no no no NO NO NO. This was too much, having his clothes peeled off by a sneering man telling him to behave. Oh no, oh no, oh no, they were going to see, they were going see him. He froze up, knees locked, learned helplessness kicking in, hoping against hope it would just stop.

“Is this–Is that really necessary?” said Lex, with some obvious discomfort.

Valen felt the scissors snip his sleeves off. “What did you think I meant by photograph his condition? I can’t very well do that when he’s all covered up.”

Stop touching me! Get away from me! Fuck you! Stop it!

Lex looked conflicted. Lex, please, you know this is wrong, please, please stop him.

Valen felt his dissected shirt fall to the floor, exposing his chest, naked except for his binder. No no no, he wept, fresh humiliation and vulnerability welling up. They’re going to see, they’re going to see and it’s going to get so much worse after they see, somehow they’ll make it worse–

“Hm?” said Nick.

“Uh?” said Lex.

Valen sobbed as he felt the scissor again, snipping off his precious binder, the one he’d had to fight so hard to sneak past the people in the house who told him he couldn’t wear one. Please just leave it on, please please please just leave it on, I’ll do anything you want if you just leave it on.

The binder broke and slid off, thumping softly to the floor, leaving him unequivocally exposed, unable to even curl up and shield himself with his arms.

“Well, well, well!” said Nick. “It seems this vampire you’ve brought me is actually a vampiress.”

Fuck you! He’d never wished more than he did right now that he could get top surgery. But his healing factor meant that they would just grow back. He could never escape this, this chest he had never consented to have and which seemed to belong to everybody except him, which everybody saw instead of seeing him. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you–

“I…I didn’t know vampires could be transgender,” said Lex, which was less rage-inducing, but still concerning. Why…why wouldn’t they be able to be transgender? What did Lex think about vampires that she hadn’t considered that possibility?

Nick scoffed. “Don’t be absurd. I’m sure vampires have no use for such nonsense.”

Valen watched as Lex withdrew Valen’s stolen wallet from her pocket, opening it, presumably re-examining his ID card. She looked back up, face furrowed, scrutinizing him. Then her face softened with pity.

His attention was yanked away as he felt Nick’s hands on his pants, unbuttoning them and undoing the zipper.

What the FUCK, what the fuck what the fuck– He tried to back away, to get as far away as possible. It was too much, too much, too much.

“Come on,” said Lex. “You can’t be serious. What could you possibly need that for?”

“I already told you,” Nick snapped. “I need a nude photograph for comparisons later. I’m positive vampires have no concept of nudity being shameful, so stow your antiquated sensibilities.”

Come on, Lex, you know this isn’t right. Stop him, stop him, don’t let him. He felt himself flushing, face heating up. These two strangers, who didn’t even see him as a full person, thinking him incapable of base emotions like embarrassment, were going to see his entirely uncovered body, laid bare before their harsh, judging, non-understanding eyes for their own purposes.

His pants came down, revealing his underwear. Valen shook with helplessness and fear, trying to control his warbled crying. Nick pinched his boxers in both hands and pulled them down, all the way down, around his feet, leaving him completely exposed from the tips of his fingers all the way down to his shackled ankles.

Lex looked away, face twisted in a grimace. Stop him, please please please stop him, please don’t let him–

Nick kept his eyes fully on Valen’s quivering, vulnerable form. Valen’s terrified gaze watched his hands, expecting them to come over and start fondling him at any moment.

But no. He was granted at least this one mercy for now, that Nick was done touching him. The human walked over to his workbench and picked up his camera, opening to make sure it had film inside before coming over and starting to snap photos. Adding more eyes to violate his privacy, his humanity, so his humiliation was potentially unending, so pictures could be shown to anyone and everyone forever after.

He thought of his husband somehow finding the pictures. The thought made him sick to his stomach.

Lex was looking at him again, staring, taking him in, clearly making some sort of judgment. What are you thinking? There were more clicks of the camera shutter in the background. Lex?

Valen’s keen hearing picked up the sound of Ari’s medical boot thumping back towards them far before the humans did. Then he heard her voice: “The fuck? I interrupt your boudoir photography session?”

At least Ari recognized the absurdity of the situation. Ari, please, you know this isn’t right.

But Ari was looking at Valen with newly renewed hatred on her face. Fuck. FUCK. What happened upstairs?

“It’s strictly for research purposes,” said Nick’s voice behind him.

Sure, I’m sure you’ll be spending a lot of time researching how erect these photos can make your dick. You’re all the same.

“Well when you’re done researching, I managed to get ahold of Patrick.”

Shit, who’s Patrick? They must have mentioned it earlier, but he’d been in and out of paying attention, anxiety overwhelming his attention span.

Lex seemed happy about the news, though. “Oh? Okay! What did you find out?”

Something good, I hope. “Patrick told me we need to let him go right now.”

Ari sighed as she came downstairs, leaning on the railing. “Yeah, nothing about this guy in particular, but he recognized the family name Kithrara. They’re the ones who own and operate the blood farms.”

No. No. They’d looked up his surname. He hadn’t been able to change his last name yet, just because they weren’t actually divorced, because the entire Kithrara family refused to acknowledge that they were basically divorced already on every level except legal and were still doing everything in their power to try and strongarm Valen into coming back.

Even now, long after he’d escaped them, the Kithrara family somehow managed to continue ruining his life.

Valen had never behaved properly–neither as a vampire, nor as a woman. His parents had thought it would fix his “attitude” by marrying him to the oldest son of the Kithrara family–the nasty fucks of a family who owned and operated the blood farms.

It’ll toughen you up, they’d said. It’ll show you how the world really works. You’re in for a rude awakening.

You need a reality check, they’d said. And besides, the Kithrara family is eager to find a bride for him, since you know they’re desperate for an heir. He thinks you’re pretty. He is handsome and powerful. You could do a lot worse. This might be your only chance to marry into nobility.

He had no way to communicate that he hated the blood farms as much as they did, the disgust and anger he felt towards the Kithrara family. They had no way to know. They just knew he was one of them.

“Oh,” said Lex, her voice heavy.

No! Lex, please! Tears streamed down his cheeks, dripping off the muzzle. This was the final nail in his coffin. This was all they needed to confirm their off-base speculation from earlier. They had no reason to be suspicious, to go against all evidence and conclude he was trustworthy, no reason at all to assume he was anything other than the worst among his kind, the worst monster among a monstrous race.

And if they thought that…who knew what they would do to him.

“Do whatever you want to him, then,” Lex said, her voice flat and emotionless. “I don’t care.”

Valen’s terrified gaze swung to Lex, in Ari’s arms, both of them looking disappointed and betrayed.

Please. I’m not a murderer. I’m like you. I’m a friend. Please. I cried when my cat died.

Nick stepped into his field of view, blocking the view of the two women. “There you have it, then. Asked and answered. No need to trouble your conscience over it.” He was smiling, too wide, too happy about this. “Thank you, Lex and Ari, for your service.”

Valen thrashed and cried. It was all he could do.

“Right…” said Ari. “Just hurry up and finish what you’re doing so we can leave.”

Don’t leave me here with him.

Lex came over to the cardboard box of things she’d taken from the house, a haunted look in her eyes. She uncorked the bottle of blood and poured it down the sink.

***

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