Impractical Jokers: You Can't Escape

Chapter 4 - Reawakened

Days turn into months and the time begins to slip by you. By the end of everything, you're feeling hopelessly complacent. Brian hasn't let his guard down once and you're stuck thinking he never will. Perhaps you've met your match after all; perhaps you were never meant to escape.

Perhaps you were meant to be with him.

It's then that the depression sinks in. It's tiredness as you go throughout your days, wrists aching maddeningly as the rope buries into your skin and rubs it raw; it's going through the motions until your head hits the pillow in search of slumber; it's actually obeying Brian, not because you want to get away, but because you're too tired to do anything but. It's a scary thought, giving in to the sensation of belonging to somebody else - and the more months that go by, the more you begin to accept it.

And Brian... Brian was anything but displeased with this development come the beginning. He sees himself in you, one of the main reasons he'd been drawn to you like a moth to a flame in the first place: you know when you've been beaten, outmatched, and so long as he displays that persona to you, one in which you cannot beat, he has you under his thumb.

However... your unmotivated mood is beginning to tick him off. He'd fallen for your spark, your spunk, your fire, and to see you reduced to leaning against him half-heartedly while he read a comic book or petted his cats was slowly beginning to make him seethe. He began to dislike you. He wanted the old [Y/N] back.

"[Y/N]," he says firmly, walking into the room and watching as you tilt your head up to look at him. Defeated. And God, it makes him resent you. God damn it, you should be happy, should be pleased he's doing all of this for you. Looking after you, keeping you safe, not letting anybody harm you, keeping the outside world away so that it can never hurt you again... and what do you do? You sit there and mope. His blood boils thickly at the thought. "...what're you doing?"

"Waiting for you." The answer is immediate, dull. To the side, he notes the untouched food (though you've tried to make it look as if you've eaten parts of it, really, how stupid do you think he is?) and it makes him simmer. Lower lip is caught between his teeth and he bites down hard enough to draw blood. "...I did eat."

The lie fills him with rage, but Brian swallows it down and, with a wry amount of skepticism, replies: "I can see that."

You lying whore, you haven't touched shit I've made for you.

You look up at him pitifully, blankly, resting your cheek against your palm as you draw your knees to your chest. Repeating: "I did eat."

"So you said."

"I did."

"..."

For a tense minute or so, nothing is said and the tension is so thick it would put a diamond-cutter to shame. Can't you see how angry you're making him? Do you even understand how much he wants to hurt you right now, even if it's only to beat you so that you cling to him and beg him not to do it again? Just for some fucking feeling from you.

You shift, as if you don't comprehend the screaming behind his silence - and perhaps, at this time, you don't - and pick up the plate with difficulty, balancing it precariously on your bound wrists. "Brian--"

He loses his temper there and then.

"I fucking HEARD YOU!" the man shouts, leaning forwards and knocking the plate out of your hands with such force that your wrists jerk inwards. Clenched teeth signal your pain and it's the lack of a cry or a scream that has him stalking towards you and grabbing a fistful of hair. "What the fuck do I have to do to get you to act normally, huh? Tell me, [Y/N], because I'm sick to fucking death of you blanking me out-- you can't blank me out, [Y/N]!"