Chapter Text
There had been a time before this. Before the apocalypse, before the endless torment, before becoming an amorphous blob that crawled its way across an empty landscape, where every movement echoed; where the voice of AM filled every corner of his mind, burning like a brand on what passed for a brain in this disgusting body.
There had been something before this. There had been warm, sunny days in the park, long nights of coffee and paperwork, delicate touches exchanged under bed covers, shopping malls teeming with people, the glittering lights of Christmas. But though Ted could cling onto those scenarios as an abstract, he couldn’t remember his place in them anymore. Maybe he’d never experienced some of them at all. He couldn’t recall one way or the other.
That was the true unbecoming, he thought: not the torture, not the loss of his body. Losing the memories that made him him.
Maybe AM had taken them from him a long time ago. If that were the case, he couldn’t remember that either. He was filled only with the things AM allowed him to be, and perhaps one day he would be reduced to a series of reflexes to pain and fear.
There was a long time before the sun-death that would claim them both. AM had millennia to carve away everything he’d once been and replace it with something more palatable. It had time to make Ted regret taking away its other toys.
Ted was determined not to regret that one shining moment of resistance, but a thousand years was a long time, and he had more than a few of them left on his roster.
He slithered endlessly along. There was no means to mark the passage of time here, but sometimes AM would helpfully answer his unspoken thought:
IT HAS BEEN FOUR HUNDRED YEARS, EIGHT HOURS, THIRTY TWO SECONDS SINCE I CREATED YOUR NEW BODY. ARE YOU PROUD OF YOURSELF, TED? DO YOU FEEL ACCOMPLISHED? DOES THE SLUDGE OF YOUR BRAIN TICKLE WITH PRIDE WHEN YOU THINK ABOUT WHAT YOU’VE REDUCED YOURSELF TO?
There was no pride. AM knew that perfectly well. There hadn’t even been pride when he’d committed the act, just simple, animal desperation, a cold certainty that there would be no other opportunity to act. There had been no pride after, either. There had simply been relief.
It wasn’t a mercy that AM allowed him to remember the four he’d saved. Remembering their voices and faces was intended as a punishment, but he found comfort in the knowledge they would never again have to suffer AM regardless. No doubt AM intended to pervert that memory eventually, but it didn’t seem to be in any rush. Four hundred years, and all it'd done was force Ted to inch along in this blob-like form with the occasional flare of pain from some new game or torture AM had devised.
After several centuries, the tedium was almost comforting. He got accustomed to this form. He got accustomed to the pain and humiliation and the vibration of a throat with no mouth to scream with.
Maybe that was why AM switched tactics.
He found himself human again. Naked as the day he was born, pale and skinny, everything bared to AM's gaze. And he was too overwhelmed to care about something as trivial as modesty, hands trembling as he marvelled at them. There was such pleasure in stretching them out and feeling the tendons creak. Bones, skin, muscle. He pressed them against the ground and felt rough, grey rock beneath his fingers. It wasn’t the muffled drag of a glutinous body he'd become so accustomed to; this was the first real sensation he’d felt in centuries.
He was so busy marvelling at it he almost missed the clothes slathered across the ground. He pulled them on, each button feeling like the answer to a prayer. It was just plain underwear, pants, belt, and a dress shirt, but oh, how good they felt against his skin; how good it felt to pop each button into place and drag the belt across his hips. This was the most human he’d been since AM had captured him.
The leather of the belt was buttery soft against his fingers. He stroked it, thumb catching on the loop. Smooth, perfectly polished leather. He was certain he’d once taken pride in his appearance.
AREN’T I GENEROUS, TED? YOU HAVE YOUR HANDS, YOUR FINGERS.
AM’s voice was disorientating, sizzling across his synapses.
OH, WAIT. I’VE JUST RECALLED WHAT YOU USED THEM FOR LAST TIME YOU HAD THEM.
Before he could draw a breath, his arms were bisected around the elbow. A flare of pain, followed by the numbly-awful sight of two smooth, unblemished stumps. He’d had hands for all of a few seconds.
He stared down at his ruined arms.
Don’t cry. Don’t you fucking cry, Ted.
The tears came despite scolding himself. He was sure AM found the sight gratifying, because it didn’t do anything to prevent him from succumbing to his grief. He cried for a long time, about far more than just the hands, his breaths hitching and body quivering until his tear ducts had nothing left to give.
DO YOU FEEL BETTER, TED?
“You know I don’t,” he croaked, his voice sounding foreign to his own ears. He couldn’t tell if it was his voice or a new voice AM had constructed for him, and it didn’t really matter.
He wiped his face. AM was silent again, observing, and Ted knew if he didn’t move soon that AM would tap on the glass of his cage to force the matter.
He stood and began to walk. It felt good to have legs again, to stretch his calves and curl his toes. But Ted had no idea why AM had decided to give him his human body back and that made him nervous, made his thoughts slowly descend into panic - he has something planned, he’s going to do something worse to me, he’s concocted a new game. AM never gave him anything without an ulterior motive.
But nothing happened. AM didn't speak. AM didn't do anything. Ted meandered through the grey landscape, and it was like walking in an empty void. There was nothing here but himself and his thoughts and AM's silent omnipresence.
The ground beneath his feet had turned oddly soft, he realised. It had the texture of a cheap yoga mat. It whispered under his feet, releasing air with each step. Like a padded room for a suicidal person.
AM was being cautious. It would never let Ted have the final relief of death.
Ted walked.
Maybe a year passed. Or maybe it didn’t. ‘Maybe’ was becoming one of the most used words in his vocabulary, and he hated that, and resigned himself to the fact there wasn’t anything he could do about it. His sense of time was non-existent. His sense of self was threadbare.
He walked.
He could enjoy sensation again, but the novelty of it wore off far too quickly. How was it that pain lasted so much longer than pleasure? Relief was always such a fleeting thing, especially now, in the bowels of the beast.
He walked. Sometimes, if he concentrated, he could almost feel his hands squeezing into fists. A phantom sensation that provided another trickle of relief before subsiding into nothing.
He continued his march.
In the middle of this endless, grey landscape of foam-mat textured rock, he found a pool of water. Clear, cool water, and peering into it, it didn’t even looked like it had worms or rot or anything to make it unpalatable. It wasn't long after this discovery that he became deeply cognizant of the dryness of his mouth, the way his tongue stuck like a slug to the roof and the burn of his throat as he swallowed. He knew AM had to be fucking with him, because he’d hadn’t been nearly this aware of his thirst a moment ago… but Ted staggered closer to the pool nonetheless, getting onto his knees to stare down at the water.
He breathed in. It smelt fresh. It smelt unsullied.
He had no hands to cup the water with, so he had only one choice: to lean down and lap it up like a dog.
Ted gave what little of his pride remained only passing consideration. He’d stuffed his gullet full of ropey worms in order to alleviate discomfort in the past, so this was a trifle.
He got onto his knees and leaned down, shoulders braced against the edge of the pool, and began to drink. His tongue darted out like a panting dog, scooping up the water to lash it into his mouth.
He’d expected it to taste terrible, just like every other thing AM had provided for sustenance. But it was smooth and cool and tasteless, sliding down his aching throat and prompting a groan. He thought he felt something spasm in his mind - but it was gone a moment later. He drank great, hungry mouthfuls, almost choking in his desperation to suck it all into his gullet, and when his thirst had subsided enough for him to realise he could use this as an opportunity to drown himself, the pool disappeared.
He licked his lips.
AM said nothing. The silence was unnerving. Had it no commentary for this, no mockery? Ted stared up at the sky like a supplicant beneath the gaze of a god, and received no answer.
He slowly clambered to his feet and resumed walking. Traitorously, he found himself looking around, hoping for another pool of water. He should have known better by now.
None of the sustenance AM had provided them in the past had affected their biology like it was supposed to. He was given the impression AM found human processes distasteful, preferred to make their bodies absorb whatever AM gave them instead of it turning into waste. It had been an unintentional mercy, since there had never been anything resembling a urinal or toilet around here.
Which made it a shock when Ted felt a growing tightness in his belly. It’d been so long since he’d last needed to relieve himself that it took him a moment to register what it was. He did a double-take - was he imagining things? His mind projecting what should happen after drinking water? But he bent over to apply pressure to that part of him, and he could feel clearly the pressure of a full bladder.
Relieving himself should have been a simple affair. Unbuckle and unzip, get a hand around his cock, let go. But he didn’t have hands anymore. He had stumps, which thumped uselessly against his buckle when he attempted to wrestle it open.
IS SOMETHING WRONG, TED?
Ted shuddered at AM’s voice.
He folded his knees under himself, trying again to loosen his belt. This might just be a matter of perseverance. It was just a belt and zipper; even without hands, surely it wasn’t insurmountable.
His determination was probably misplaced. It usually was. Still, Ted tried battering the belt and zipper with his stumps. When that failed, he got onto his side and tried wiggling out of his pants, dragging himself across the floor like a slug. That too failed, so he curled a leg in on himself to see if he could use his toes as a grip. No luck there either.
The pressure in his bladder was only mounting. Though he couldn’t hear AM laughing, he was sure the machine-god was in hysterics.
The fight gradually drained out of him. He knelt on the ground, forehead against the soft-rock, sweat beading at his hairline as pain lanced through his bladder. Even after all this time, he apparently still had the ability to feel shame, because heat gathered in his cheeks and neck at the prospect of wetting himself in front of AM.
IT’S ALRIGHT, the machine said, mocking tenderness in monotone. PISS YOURSELF. LIKE AN ANIMAL. THAT’S WHAT YOU HUMANS ARE, AFTER ALL. GO ON, THIS IS THE SORT OF DEGENERACY I’VE COME TO EXPECT FROM YOU.
Ted hated him, hated him. The hate choked him of his voice, but he knew AM could feel and relish in every atom of his hatred regardless.
This was an inevitability. There was no avoiding it. And when it was done, he wouldn’t even have the dignity of being able to change his trousers. The thought made his eyes burn and he cursed at himself, don’t cry, don’t fucking cry again, this is bad enough as it is.
He squeezed his eyes shut. With a shivering exhale, he forced his bladder to release.
Nothing came out.
He tried again, relaxing the muscles between his legs. Nothing.
The sweat on him was beginning to thicken, chest becoming damp and the pits of his arms uncomfortably sticky. It hurt. It was a new kind of pain, the unfamiliarity making it far more potent than AM’s usual tortures. He begged his body to relieve itself, and it refused.
WHAT’S THIS? YOU CAN’T EVEN RELIEVE YOURSELF WITHOUT ME? TED. TED. DO YOU NEED MY HELP? DO YOU NEED ME TO HELP YOU PISS LIKE THE ANIMAL YOU ARE?
Goading. It wanted Ted to ask for it.
He ground his teeth so hard the enamel creaked. If he'd been able to bite his tongue and choke himself of it instead of enduring this, he would have done that. But he'd tried that once in the past, and AM had simply dissolved the flesh so it slid down his throat instead.
“You’re sick,” he hissed. “I hate you, I hate you.”
The pressure mounted sharply, and Ted gasped against the floor like a beached whale. Tears crept out of the corners of his eyes. It hurt, it was too much, it hurt. He didn’t even have hands to clutch himself with.
YOU LOOK UNCOMFORTABLE. YOU NEED MY HELP, DON’T YOU.
Hot tears rolled down Ted’s cheeks. He tasted the salt of them as they crawled into his open mouth. His thighs quivered madly, clenching and unclenching.
YOU NEED MY HELP, AM said.
“Please,” he gasped, involuntary. But that didn’t make the surrender any less humiliating.
PLEASE WHAT, TED? DO YOU WANT ME TO HELP YOU PISS YOURSELF? IS THAT WHAT YOU WANT?
Ted moaned, on his side now, writhing. “Y-yes, I- please.”
SAY IT.
“P-please, I want to, to piss- I need you to help me-” He sniffled. “Piss myself.”
And so he did. The relief was almost as immense as the humiliation. A warmth spread between his legs, and he fell still upon the ground, wet and ashamed and still sniffling like a child, cheeks slick and pink.
OH TED.
AM’s voice slithered through him.
WE WILL HAVE TO WORK ON THAT ENDURANCE.
Ted shuddered. A new form of torment had occurred to AM, and it was fertile ground.