Sitcom AU

[keenly]

TESSA SULLIVAN

Texty text about background, career, hopes and dreams.

QUOTES, SONG LYRICS, WITTY THINGS, OR WHATEVER GO HERE

I WILL NEVER KNOW THE WAY IT FEELS TO BE JUST ANYONE

BENEDICT ARTEMIZIO

Texty text about background, career, hopes and dreams.

COLIN ANJU KEANE

Nursing student, future registered nurse. From Toronto, grew up in foster care etc etc will flesh this out

IT SEEMS THE VOICES IN MY HEAD I SELDOM GET TO CHOOSE

QUOTES, SONG LYRICS, WITTY THINGS, OR WHATEVER GO HERE

ALEX AGIAD

Texty text about background, career, hopes and dreams.

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[altusimperius]

Setting down his mug so he can embrace Colin properly, Bene leans forward and rests his chin on his boyfriend's shoulder.

"...but..." He purses his lips, thinking on it.

"...but I can't. I can't just break from them." He pulls away and straightens again, but continues to lean against Colin and picks up his mug again to take a sip.
One might argue that he does need everything in his life to be fancy.

[keenly]

Colin watches him with sympathy in his eyes. He's never pressured Bene to come out to his parents, though it has hurt a great deal to have to pretend in front of them. Coming out, like dropping out of college, would be effectively breaking with them. And they are two absolutely vile people, harmful to Bene in ways he doesn't seem to acknowledge, but they are still his parents. Colin picks up his mug and blows gently over the surface of the cocoa.

"What would happen if you did?" he asks quietly. "Besides us losing certain things, I mean. What would they do?"

[altusimperius]

It's unthinkable. Benedict actively shudders when asked, and has to steady his mug to keep it from spilling over.
"I mean... probably... well, stop paying the rent, like I said. Force me to come home again, so they can control how I spend my time. Not... let me see or talk to anyone they don't want."
His eyes raise to meet Colin's: that means him, it means Tessa, and anyone else he's met outside his sheltered home.

"They did it once, when I almost failed out of boarding school." His mouth pulls to one side in embarrassment.
"I was sixteen then. I don't think it'd be any different now. They'd find a way to make me do it, like, legally."

[keenly]

"You were a minor back then," Colin reminds him. "There's no legal way for them to force you to do anything anymore. That would be called slavery, and it's frowned upon."

[altusimperius]

"...maybe not legally then." Bene doesn't even smile, as it seems he isn't joking. His mother has a long and storied history of manipulating the people around her to her own ends, and at least, in his adulthood, he has come to recognize how easily she does it to him.

"I don't know. I just can't stand up to her." He pinches the bridge of his nose. "Like... I can't. I've tried so many times. I'm just..."

A sigh of defeat as he lowers his hand, gazing into the middle distance.

"...I'm just not smart enough. She runs circles around me."

[keenly]

"You're smart enough," Colin assures him, slipping an arm around his waist. "But you're never going to win a confrontation because she's never going to see anyone's side but her own. She doesn't benefit from seeing your side of things. So maybe the key is to just...not even try that. Don't invite debate. This is your life, and she has no right to it."

[altusimperius]

The phone buzzes again under the blankets, and Benedict glumly watches them vibrate as he gently rests his head against Colin's.
"She's going to show up here," he says, his voice low with dull inevitability. "...and the alternative is-- well--"

Is it wrong to admit it?

"...not having... anything. And I'd hate that. I don't know how. I know you do, but I don't... want you to, again. It's not like I can support either of us on my own." He frowns into his mug. What would he even do, sell drugs?

[keenly]

"Once I graduate, I'll be able to support us," Colin muses. "I mean we won't be the Gateses anytime soon, but it would give you time to figure out some kind of employment. And none of that is imminent. We have time. You have time. If the next thing that needs to happen is getting your grades back up, we can focus on that, and that would give you more time to prepare for the future."

[altusimperius]

A deep breath, and, having at least been prevented from a descent into the deeper pit of self-loathing, a resulting sigh.
Benedict hates his studies, couldn't care less about his grades, and has only made it this far out of fear for the ramifications of failure. This is a conversation he and Colin have had multiple times, but the only real solution seems to be to keep pressing agonizingly forward, scraping by towards a degree until he can finally...

...be grandfathered into a career in politics that he'll also hate with people who run circles around him just like his mother, marry some unfortunate heiress just to please everyone, and spend the rest of his pointless, interminable life drunk and bored and sloppy like his father.

"Let's..." he says absently, his eyes distant again, "...let's just fuck or something."
Getting high is always a possibility too.

[keenly]

"I know exactly what you need," Colin says, leaning in to claim a quick kiss. "Something that'll make you feel relaxed and in control, ironically enough. I got a present for you and it's in the bedroom."

He pats Bene's knee and gets up to drag him to the bedroom.

[altusimperius]

Thank god Colin's not pressing the subject.

Predictably, there being presents involved immediately piques Bene's interest, and he quickly drains the rest of his hot cocoa-- which is still too hot, so it burns his tongue, which he whines about (good-naturedly) as he's dragged to the bedroom.

[keenly]

Colin closes the door behind them and opens a drawer to withdraw a pair of handcuffs. They are lined with a zebra print and trimmed with neon pink fur. Keeping a straight face with all his might, he waits for a reaction.

[altusimperius]

It's a tragedy in three acts.

Act I: still excited, Bene enters the room and looks at what Colin pulled out of the drawer.
Act II: processing, a look of total bewilderment not unlike the dogs watching their owners disappear from behind falling blankets.
Act III: acknowledgment of betrayal.

The look on his face says it all.

[keenly]

The gig is up. Colin snorts his way into laughter, setting the cuffs aside.

"Now I know what else I can threaten you with besides essay-writing," he says jovially before producing another set of padded cuffs--sleek, black, studded leather, both comfortable and elegant. "Your real gift."

[altusimperius]

It takes a moment for Bene to ease out of the prickly stance he's taken, tossing his head like a very fancy but flustered horse as he cuts his eyes to the Real Gift. It's obviously much better, and the slight flushing of his cheeks indicates that it's having its intended effect, but his dignity was briefly at stake in an utterly intolerable way and he isn't ready to trust again so easily.

"...can I see?" he asks, in his Very Serious Business voice, which he usually only affects when the goal is to minimize how much Tessa will laugh at him (it hasn't worked yet).

[keenly]

Colin smiles and passes them over.

"Don't take too long. I'm going to undress you in a moment and make you forget everything outside this room." He considers for a second. "Actually, you're forbidden from mentioning anything that's happened outside this room, on pain of me stopping until next session. ...Except what you're being punished for."

[altusimperius]

That kind of talk coming from Colin is surprising in the best possible way, and Bene flushes a little deeper as he looks up to meet his eyes, still giving the cuffs a feel. They're nice, classy, and don't make him want to die.

"...what's that?" he asks, with a pleasant, slightly aghast curiosity; he can't think of anything he's done especially wrong (at least that would be sexy), but is open to suggestion.

[keenly]

Colin has to dig for a second. He'd started talking while still fishing for something to punish him for.

"I mean, it started outside this room. When I told you I had a present for you. Now you have your present, and you didn't say thank you. Do you not want me to use those on you?"

[altusimperius]

A little smile creeps onto Bene's face as Colin visibly flounders, and he waits patiently for him to catch up.

"No, I like them," he says with a little smirk, helping things along, "I just assumed I deserve them."

[keenly]

Colin has to consider this for a second. He doesn't want to wreck the scene before it starts, but he also doesn't want to deny that Benedict deserves anything. In his eyes, Benedict deserves everything.

"It's not about what you deserve," he ends on. "It's about what I deserve. A please and a thank you, at least."

He snatches the cuffs from Benedict's hands and sets them aside. "And I'll use them on you when it pleases me." He moves in to roll Bene's shirt up over his head and toss it to the floor.

[altusimperius]

A key factor in this particular dynamic, as Bene has learned, is that Colin can't feel like he is at all cruel or unjust in the things he does, or it's over before it began. Which means... some wheedling is permissible, but not good-faith arguments, anything that might cause actual guilt in the midst of what is overtly a game.

He, personally, does nonetheless feel a little guilt, and this seems like a perfectly good opportunity to handle some of it.

"You can't tell me what to do," he says loftily, having ducked his head slightly to help Colin pull off his shirt.

[keenly]

That gives Colin the opening he needs. A little smile crosses his face just before he's shoving Benedict against the wall and bringing his face close.

"I think you'll find that I can," he purrs. Now that he's back on track, the power rush begins. "I think you'll find yourself completely at my mercy and begging me as you fall apart."

He undoes the front of Bene's jeans and slips his hand inside to stroke him through his underwear. "I gave you a choice. I gave you a chance to be good for me, and you weren't. Now you had best please me, because now it's my choice as to which set of handcuffs I chain you to the bed with."

[altusimperius]

This level of intensity is unexpected from Colin, and Benedict is genuinely shocked when he suddenly finds himself in the wall, nearly nose-to-nose with his generally docile-to-a-fault boyfriend.
He's quickly reassured, however, by the hand down his pants.
"Oh no," he says with a genuine hitch in his breath from the moment Colin grips him, "I'll be good."

[keenly]

Hearing that hitch in Bene's breath, that moment of uncertainty as a trickle of fear thrills through him, makes Colin think he could get used to this. They have a safe-word. If that thrill becomes discomfort, Bene can use it.

"Will you?" The drag of his hand becomes heavier. He leans in to murmur in his ear. "Will you beg my forgiveness?"

[altusimperius]

Unable to help himself, Bene bucks his hips toward Colin's hand, his head falling back against the wall with a little moan. He nods.