Rules

Seven :

Keith was handed a pen and paper. His hands were trembling and the pen shook in his hands. He placed down the pad of paper onto the table in front of him. The cold, metal surface brushed against his fingers. He shivered, a jerking movement running from his neck, down his spine, and all the way down his back. Hunk was in front of him and eyeing Keith suspiciously.

"You good, dude?" He questioned as he kneaded a vibrant blue dough in between his fingers. Keith swallowed the saliva gathering in his mouth and settling at the tip of his tongue. Keith gave the yellow paladin a mute nod. He desperately tried to steady his hands.

Hunk looked unconvinced, but dropped it as he saw Keith's eyes darken.

"Okay, now that you have a pen and paper, will you help me write down the ingredients for this... alien monkey bread?" He asked Keith gently. He had observed over the last few times Keith went partially mute that Keith didn't like noise. Or at least not loud noises. He also couldn't handle fast movements towards his body, especially his neck or thighs. Hunk didn't like to think of why his thighs were a taboo area, the mind melding had done enough of filling his mind with terrible things about Keith's childhood.

If you could even call it a childhood, a small voice in the back of Hunk's mind sneered.

Giving Keith a task to work on is good. Let's him focus on things that he could partially control.

Keith clicked the pen once, exposing the tip to the air. The pen was filled heavily with red ink. The clear plastic revealing a thin tube caked in the crimson ink. Springs flashing and pressing against small pieces inside the pen as it clicked to life.

Keith pressed the tip of the pen to the paper and let the ink spread for a minute. A small, red dot began his writing process. As Hunk continued to knead the dough, Keith wrote down words on the paper. His handwriting was small, but surprisingly elegant. His 'R's looked close to cursive writing, and his 'M's were a bit slanted. The ends of his letters curling at the end of each word.

The side of his writing hand smudged the ink. Spreading red over his hands and staining his pale skin. His letters were mostly dry by the time his hand slipped and rubbed against the paper, so all the words were followed by small red shadows. But there was no real damage to the words. Their red letters clear as day, despite their bloody shadows.

Hunk moved the dough to a circular pan and washed off his hands. Wiping them off with a towel, he glanced over at Keith's writing. Without reading it, he commented; "Keith, Dude, that's a lot of writing. Dang, I didn't need you to go into that much detail!" Hunk chuckled.

Keith remained silent and started on a new line. This was his third page filled with his words. Red ink was pungent in the air, the red deepening as Keith's hand's side started to callous. Skin rising and blistering gently as his hand moved from side to side. His pen-ship becoming sloppier, more desperate.

Hunk walked closer to him and put the towel he was using on the table. He glanced at Keith's first page, beginning to read it.

•Rule one: don't speak
•Rule two: bad boys don't eat
•Rule three: don't cry
•Rule four: take your lashings without screaming
•Rule five: One scream equals eight lashings
•Rule six: you're worthless
•Rule seven: no shouting
•Rule eight: don't talk back
•Rule nine: no stealing from better people
•Rule ten: no GPA under 4.3

The list seemed endless. Hunk licked his lips and scanned the list. The first ten were the tamest of the entirety of the rules. They seemed to get worse as the numbers got larger. Keith was on his fifth page. Hunk paled as he saw some rules placed on the list underlined.

•Rule Eighty-Seven: Papa is boss. Disobey him and punishment will vary
•Rule sixteen: the babysitter can touch you anywhere. Don't cry out.
•Rule Twenty: you'll never be loved by anyone but Papa. He's the only one who will care for bad boys.
•Rule seventy: always forgive Papa. His drinks mix with his meds, your pain is not his fault. Just yours.
•Rule thirty-four: disobey rule number sixty-seven and get eighteen lashes, two fucks, two days without food, four days without water
•Rule Sixty-seven: don't tell. Don't tell. Don't tell. Don't tell.

Hunk dropped the paper when reading it. His eyes flooded with tears and he looked at Keith's hands. They were stained with red ink and the pen had no more ink left. Keith has tears pouring down his cheeks and his hands were still shaking. The writing had stopped, and there was one more rule printed on the paper. It was isolated from the others, the paper blank except for the one rule.

Hunk stared at the pages he had wrote. Keith has written over seven pages front and back.

•Rule number two hundred and seventeen: you're never going to be free. Never. Free. Never. Free. Never. Free

The phrase "Never. Free." followed the rule for a few more lines. The handwriting becoming more erratic as the phrase continued. It was barely legible by the time Keith had finished copying them.

"Keith, can I have these papers? I, um, think you should go lay down."

Hunks excuse was weak but Keith got up from his chair. He still wasn't talking to Hunk. Hunk gathered up the papers with his hands and tried to look remotely satisfied with Keith's "work." He tried to ignore the sense of terror installed in him as rules littered the pages.

He noticed the last rule was darker than the rest. Significantly darker.

"Keith, did you–?" But Keith was already gone.

The pen was empty, but the liquid on the table confirmed Hunk's theory.

Rule two hundred seventeen was written in Keith's blood.