For the love of all that is good in the world please read the warnings. If anything in there makes you uncomfortable then, and I can not possibly stress this enough, don't read it! This fic is going to be very intense and I do NOT want anyone to get uncomfortable. Please make sure you know what you're getting into.
TRIGGER WARNINGS: pet whump, dehumanization, creepy/intimate whumper, non-sexual nudity (partial, most of the time), emotional and psychological abuse, brainwashing, stockholm syndrome, and kidnapping.
The above warnings are in general for this fic. Anything that comes up later will be mentioned before the chapter, always. Do not read if any of that will bother you. You have been warned. In other words: DEAD DOVE. DO NOT EAT.
Anyway, now that we've got that out of the way. Enjoy the story!
Cole woke up feeling... strange. He could feel his body moving, being rocked up and down, almost. Everything was numb.
He fought to open his eyes. They were so heavy, and it was almost nice to just sit here, wherever he was, and let the rocking feeling drag him back to sleep.
Almost.
He blinked slowly, even the dark sky too bright for him. It felt like daytime, he thought, but everything was a stormy grey.
There was a canopy of trees up above, snow falling through and coating the ground.
If he could feel his body, he would probably be shivering.
His head was against something solid and kind of fabricy and - oh, was he being carried? That explained the weird rocking, it was whoever was holding him, just walking. What had happened, anyway?
"Wha's going on?" He mumbled, his words slurred and slippery. Whoever was carrying him didn't respond.
This time, Cole was certain he had shivered. He wasn't dressed properly for the weather whatsoever, and shit he was cold.
Had he gotten injured in a fight? No, he couldn't remember fighting. Actually, he couldn't remember much of anything. He remembered the ninja all splitting up for the day to search for information about... what had they been working on, again?
That was it. Nothing past that. How had he ended up here?
"Put me down," he slurred, but once again, whoever was carrying him didn't respond.
For the first few minutes, he allowed himself to believe that it was one of his friends who was carrying him, perhaps because he'd been wounded somehow?
Something felt funny around his hands.
He stared.
His wrists were handcuffed. Handcuffs, he reasoned to himself in his clouded mind, were not a very good sign.
Wait... he knew he needed to just nudge together the pieces, but he honestly just wanted to go back to sleep and worry about it when he woke up. He was so tired... and confused... and handcuffed, that seemed important.
Wait, this sounded kind of like a kidnapping.
Oh shit.
"Let me go," he said, but his mouth was full of cotton, his limbs were made of lead.
Whoever was carrying him chuckled. Like, an actual chuckle. Why did bad guys always chuckle?
The trees disappeared, and the sky was vast and open and wide, and fuck, now there was a lot more snow.
Whoever was carrying him set him down, ever so gentle. In the snow. Where it was literally freezing.
It was so cold he almost didn't care. He was pretty sure that was bad.
Cole struggled to stand, or at least sit up, but he was stuck on his back, staring up at the gray sky, and for the first time he really sympathized with turtles. Maybe VSCO girls had it right.
He flopped his head side to side, at first to get the hair out of his eyes, and then in a poor attempt to look at his surroundings. His eyes first fell on his kidnapper.
Something about him seemed... familiar. Cole couldn't put his finger on it. He decided if it was really that important, he would remember what it was.
His captor seemed relatively young — maybe in his late twenties? He wasn't sure.
He was wearing a dark coat and a beanie, his hair peaking out. He was Asian, with dark hair and eyes to match. He was almost attractive — though he would probably be more attractive if he wasn't a kidnapper. You know, setting the bar high.
He was just... staring at him. Not saying anything, not moving, just staring down at him with a creepy grin.
Uncomfortable, Cole flopped his head to the other side to see what else was around him. From what he could tell, he was in a clearing, trees on all sides. In the clearing was what appeared to be a little house. Nothing too magnificent, in fact, it almost looked cozy.
Towards the edge of the clearing was an odd wooden pole with a little piece at the top that jutted out horizontally, and then a piece at the end of that, shorter than the horizontal one, that went up vertically. It looked like it would be good for hanging things. But what would you even hang with a thing like that?
His captor sat down beside him, brushing the hair away from Cole's face. It was much too intimate for a kidnapper, and Cole found himself wishing he could move away.
"Morning, pet," he murmured, stroking Cole's hair with a fondness that left Cole feeling even more uncomfortable.
He shook his head away, but his captor just followed him.
"We have a lot of work to do," he said, and something about the way he said it filled Cole with dread.
He picked Cole up again with a level of care that was really starting to freak him out. What the hell did this guy even want with him? How had he kidnapped him, anyway? He looked completely ordinary. Completely ordinary people generally didn't kidnap ninja.
It wasn't until his handcuffs were hooked from the stupid wooden pole that he realized what it was good for hanging, which, as it turned out, was people. His feet were just barely off the ground, and if he pointed his toes then he could just touch the top of the snow.
"You're gonna be so pretty," his captor said, touching his cheek with some sort of twisted, condescending fondness. He was taller than Cole, but not by much. He was just the right height to be about even with him while Cole was being suspended.
"Lemme down..." Cole slurred, weakly kicking his legs. Of course, it hardly did anything, and he was left feeling much like a fish caught on a hook.
"You're adorable," his captor grinned, petting his hair. "Now, be a good boy and stay here." With that, he turned on his heal and went straight inside the house.
The world was quiet, like someone had muted it with a TV remote. The only sound Cole could really hear was his own heart pounding. No birds chirped and no wind whistled, and he almost found himself wanting his captor to come back, if only to fill the silence with something.
Still, since he was alone, it was probably the right moment for a daring escape. Which would probably be a lot easier if he could feel his legs.
He swung himself on the pole, attempting to use the momentum to edge closer to the end of the horizontal piece. He forgot, unfortunately, about the stupid little vertical piece at the end. Perfect for keeping a victim from escaping. Dammit.
Still, ninja never quit, and so he tried to get his feet to touch the ground so he could lift the chain on the handcuffs over it... or something.
Which, as all things were, was easier said than done.
Feeling was very slowly returning to him. Stupidly, the most prominent thing he could feel was the strain on his arms. It wasn't terrible yet, he'd certainly willingly dangled for longer (he was a ninja, for the first master's sake), but it was different when he wasn't holding himself up. The handcuffs bit into his skin awfully like this.
His captor came back out, holding a large box. Distantly, with his head full of fuzz, Cole wondered what was in it.
He didn't have to wait long to find out.
His captor pulled a pocket knife from it. Oh man, if he was going to be stabbed, couldn't it at least be while he wasn't dangling? That just sounded cruel.
The blade was brought to his neck. Cole clenched his teeth, having resigned himself to the pain that was to come, but then his captor spoke.
"Hold still now, pet, we wouldn't want to make a mess."
And then the knife was slicing through his shirt. And he was no genius, but he was pretty sure that was different than being stabbed.
Fuck, shit, other curse words, damn this was colder than anything he'd ever felt. The cold hit him so hard his vision went white. He couldn't feel anything, his mind and his body were detached from each other, he was going to freeze to death.
Something wrapping around his neck brought Cole back. He couldn't tell what it was, especially not with his eyes squeezed shut like it would keep the cold out. But it was odd, and scratchy, and kind of felt like the tinsel he'd helped put up around the monastery the other day.
Wait...
He opened his eyes, but kept them squinted.
"What are you doing?" Cole slurred, jerking his neck in a pathetic attempt to get it off. His captor just laughed, continuing to wrap the tinsel around him.
It was tied right, almost digging into his skin. It was looped and knotted and when one string of it was gone, another was pulled from the box and began where the last ended.
The strain on his arms only increased.
Why?
What the hell did this guy have to gain from — from dressing him like a Christmas tree?
"You're doing so well, you're gonna look so pretty for me," his captor murmured against his ear.
Cole shuddered. This guy was fucking psychotic. He'd lost his mind — or maybe he'd never had a mind to lose in the first place.
When the tinsel was gone, out of the box came Christmas lights. It wasn't hard to figure out what would be done with them.
The lights were wrapped around him even tighter than the tinsel was, each knot accompanied by a sadistic bit of praise from his captor. "So pretty," his captor would say, "you're so, so pretty, pet..."
The worst part was that Cole couldn't do anything about it. His body refused to obey him, the most he could do was flop his legs back and forth, which, needless to say, accomplished nothing.
"Why are you doing this?" He asked, his words barely finding their way out of his mouth.
His captor shrugged. "Symbolism."
"Huh?"
"Why get yourself a few meaningless presents when you could get yourself something even better than the whole tree? Something you know you'll actually enjoy, that you've been wanting for such a very long time."
He didn't like that he was apparently what this guy "wanted".
His captor ran a hand through Cole's messy hair. Cole wanted so desperately to tell the guy to fuck off or kick him in the groin, but somehow, he didn't think it would accomplish much.
He was so cold and he couldn't access his powers — were the handcuffs vengestone, or was it whatever was slowing down his brain and turning it to mush?
He was shivering so hard that his entire body was practically spasming.
"Almost done, pet, just a minute longer."
"Don' call me that," he mumbled.
His captor stopped. He gripped Cole's chin harshly, eyes narrowed.
"I will call you whatever I want, pet," he said, jerking Cole's head up. "You're mine now."
What the fuck what the fuck what the fu—
The lights were finished off and out of the box came a star shaped tree topper.
What the hell was wrong with this guy?
The topper was placed on top of the pole.
"There we are," he captor said, like he wasn't committing the weirdest, most uncomfortable act of torture Cole had ever been put through. "Look at you... tied up all pretty for me like a Christmas tree... what would your little friends say?"
They would help him. They would save him. They wouldn't think it was his fault.
"They'd think it was pathetic. They'd think you're pathetic."
No they wouldn't.
"But I, pet, I would never think so low of you. I know what you can be. I can help you become that. Become perfect."
Cole glared at him.
"You weren't meant to be a ninja, no. A good ninja would never let himself be so vulnerable."
His friends would understand. They would...
"Hell, a good ninja would never let himself get captured like this in the first place. A good ninja wouldn't let his guard down."
He couldn't even remember what had happened. Was it his fault this was happening?
"You're a waste of a ninja. I doubt your so-called friends even plan to waste their time looking."
He was wrong. He was wrong. His friends cared about him.
He knew this man was crazy, was trying to get inside his head. But his thoughts betrayed him, and he couldn't stop himself from spiraling into truly considering the idea. Of course his friends cared, but... they had forgotten him when he was a ghost. They had let him get captured before without even telling him the plan. They had left him, all alone, to die, in that cold, dark, horrible cloud —
"Oh, you're so pretty when you cry."
Shit! It had only been a few minutes and he was already succumbing to this guy's twisted words. The ninja wouldn't give up on him, they were family.
"Don't you worry, pet. They may not have cared, but I do. You're mine." As if to reiterate his point, his captor traced his fingers down Cole's face delicately.
Cole tried to shake him off, but it got him nowhere.
"So pretty," his captor hummed, going back to the box and pulling out a camera.
"I'll have you all trained up in no time. Just you wait."
Tears were pushing at the back of his eyes again and he couldn't find the energy to repress them. His face was burning as he cried, whether from shame or lack of oxygen he didn't know. Maybe both.
He hated the way this man talked to him. He hated being practically naked, tied up, powerless.
"Now smile for the camera, pet."