Steve had almost thought maybe that it would be it. That he’d conquered the thing that had taken Bloom out, and now things would get better. The day hadn’t been spent in anticipatory dread, he’d been so relieved to have beaten -
But it doesn’t get easier.
The Doctor seems to take delight in forcing him through test after test - holding enemas for hours until he’s taking short, ragged, breaths just to breath around the swollen ache. Filling his bladder with saline, until even that comes to ache day by day. Forcing him to hold his breath under water for as long as he can - berating him for his short times until Steve is begging to be given another chance to near-drown himself with stubbornness. Scalpel applied to inside of his mouth, little metallic lines in his mouth that heal faster than anything else.
When something new isn’t being introduced as a test, older tests are repeated to check their validity. The rod - the sound as the Doctor informs him - comes back every other day, it feels. Every time, the Doctor gives him a sound with a wider diameter. His cock feels permanently stretched, his piss stream too wide. His rectum seems to be pried open in some way every night.
On the sixth day, the Doctor cuts neat lines into his side with a scalpel. He cuts into the flesh above Steve’s left shoulder blade and slips a metal plate in. He sews it back up with a couple stitches. The piece of metal drives against Steve’s muscle with every movement. Steve almost doesn’t ask, too afraid he’ll be sent off like Bloom, but he has to -
“Just to check on the rejection rate of your body,” the Doctor assures him.
The pain of the plate drives Steve on through every Hellish test Philips gives them. Through every logic puzzle in a room of tired, anxious recruits, it sits there as his silent companion. He feels the swollen edge of it when he tries to sleep, the puffy line of the stitches.
It keeps him sane when the Doctor is telling him he’s a mockery of the study, that he’s a worthless subject. Keeps him from crying when the Doctor lines small clamps up and down his limbs, at his nipples, down the center of his scrotum.
On the ninth day Steve is told he is the candidate. The Doctor only gives him a swift check up that night - yanking him back and forth, examining his orifices again, checking on the plate in his shoulder and splitting open the stitches to remove the plate.
Steve could crow from victory. He could sleep for a week.
He had proved himself an excellent God damned subject.
Fill: Doctor Webb, or: Snake (Oil) in the Grass (4/6)
Steve had almost thought maybe that it would be it. That he’d conquered the thing that had taken Bloom out, and now things would get better. The day hadn’t been spent in anticipatory dread, he’d been so relieved to have beaten -
But it doesn’t get easier.
The Doctor seems to take delight in forcing him through test after test - holding enemas for hours until he’s taking short, ragged, breaths just to breath around the swollen ache. Filling his bladder with saline, until even that comes to ache day by day. Forcing him to hold his breath under water for as long as he can - berating him for his short times until Steve is begging to be given another chance to near-drown himself with stubbornness. Scalpel applied to inside of his mouth, little metallic lines in his mouth that heal faster than anything else.
When something new isn’t being introduced as a test, older tests are repeated to check their validity. The rod - the sound as the Doctor informs him - comes back every other day, it feels. Every time, the Doctor gives him a sound with a wider diameter. His cock feels permanently stretched, his piss stream too wide. His rectum seems to be pried open in some way every night.
On the sixth day, the Doctor cuts neat lines into his side with a scalpel. He cuts into the flesh above Steve’s left shoulder blade and slips a metal plate in. He sews it back up with a couple stitches. The piece of metal drives against Steve’s muscle with every movement. Steve almost doesn’t ask, too afraid he’ll be sent off like Bloom, but he has to -
“Just to check on the rejection rate of your body,” the Doctor assures him.
The pain of the plate drives Steve on through every Hellish test Philips gives them. Through every logic puzzle in a room of tired, anxious recruits, it sits there as his silent companion. He feels the swollen edge of it when he tries to sleep, the puffy line of the stitches.
It keeps him sane when the Doctor is telling him he’s a mockery of the study, that he’s a worthless subject. Keeps him from crying when the Doctor lines small clamps up and down his limbs, at his nipples, down the center of his scrotum.
On the ninth day Steve is told he is the candidate. The Doctor only gives him a swift check up that night - yanking him back and forth, examining his orifices again, checking on the plate in his shoulder and splitting open the stitches to remove the plate.
Steve could crow from victory. He could sleep for a week.
He had proved himself an excellent God damned subject.
-