7 - Landing (Sad Oscar AU)

From the second the plane landed, there wasn’t a still moment. After the rough turbulence of the plane taxiing back onto solid ground, Oscar’s prison was handed off multiple times. Callous voices gave instructions in loud tones. The light filtering through his air holes flickered and shifted, but Oscar lost track of how many doors and windows he passed. All of his effort went to curling up in a corner of his box.

His stomach hurt. His ears felt like they were stuffed with cotton. His head was pounding.

He was very, very lost. Even coming down from way up in the sky didn’t change that.

Whoever held his box for the latest car ride hadn’t said a word. They tapped the top occasionally, drumming on his cage with fingers bigger than his body. Oscar’s eyes were already puffy and stinging from so many shed tears, but a few more leaked down his face anyway.

They were in a city. He could hear it. Other cars rumbled by his current transportation, honking or screeching tires. People called to each other, thunderous voices muffled outside the car.

When it came to a stop, Oscar braced for movement like so many times before. There was an explosion of city noise as the door opened, though it was farther away from the worst of it. An almost smoky smell reached him, but he didn’t pay it any mind. Soon, he knew, the box would open up. Those fingertips tapping on the lid would dive in to snatch him up. Another human to look him over.

Just like Noriko. Just like Mina. He had been nothing more than a possession in their hands, and it wouldn’t stop now.

More walking, and a door closed behind them to seal off the sound of the city. Oscar sniffled and wished he knew how to prepare. It never became less terrifying. Humans were huge and powerful, and always did what they wanted no matter how he struggled.

“Ah, you’re back,” a voice greeted. It was deeper, male-sounding, but also smooth. Oscar didn’t recognize the accent, but he recognized the tone. People like that came and went at his old motel home. This human was a salesman.

Oscar’s carrier grunted an affirmative. The box jostled and then fell still as they set it down. Oscar barely had time to realize it before the lid came off at last and a bright light flooded in.

After the light, a human hand followed.

It didn’t wrap around him. Instead, a finger and thumb snared the front of his shirt. Oscar gasped as he was yanked upwards, lifting high over a table so the two men could look him over.

The man who held him ignored his squirms and attempts to cling to his fingers. Instead, he grinned at his friend. “I love it when Noriko gets these little things all ready. Does half our work for us, she does.”

“And for the same low price,” the other remarked. Oscar squeezed his eyes shut and tried to cling tighter, but the man never noticed his distress.

He snickered instead. “Love it when the yanks find ‘em. Alright, this one’s looking like he’d get a high bid, so be bloody careful, yeah? Young ones always bring in more but not if they’re damaged..”

Damaged? Oscar opened his eyes in time for the pinch on his shirt to release. He choked on a yelp of terror, only for his fall to end as quickly as it began. He was back in the first human’s hand.

“Full processing?” the human asked, casually curling a thumb inward to prevent Oscar from sitting up or rolling over on his palm.

The salesman eyed Oscar for a moment. Oscar trembled under that gaze; it was just like Mina’s. Cold and calculating. The smirk didn’t reach his eyes. “Nah. We can hold off for now, just take him to get a mark. I’ve heard this one’s very well behaved already.”

Oscar trembled as the chilling words sank in, and then his captor’s hand curled closed over him. He pushed against the fingers in alarm, but they didn’t even slow. He found himself squashed in their grip, completely immobile, while they walked somewhere else. His arms were pinned awkwardly to his chest and his legs were almost crushed in that grip.

Despite having cried off and on for most of his harrowing flight, Oscar found more tears in him as he was carried along. A heavy, thudding pulse pounded all around him, and the human’s body heat created beads of sweat on his forehead. The man’s calluses were rough against his own skin, but Oscar couldn’t avoid them no matter how he struggled.

He was so tired.

By the time he saw light again, Oscar’s tears had stopped once more. The human opened his hand and let Oscar roll harshly onto a new surface, where he lay exhausted for an extra second. The metal was cool to the touch.

“Just a mark for this one,” the gruff human announced. That led Oscar to notice the other human in the room.

“Got it,” they said. It was a much meeker human, but they were no less terrifying. Oscar could only see their back so far as they fiddled with something opposite where he lay. He brushed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. Even curiosity was a foreign emotion now. All he knew was fear and resignation.

The room was fairly small, by human standards. Oscar sat on a metal workbench that took up most of one wall. The man who’d carried him in leaned against the frame of an archway leading out one way, a bored look on his face. Another archway led out directly across the room, a trek of several minutes for Oscar but barely two strides for a human.

He didn’t have his climbing hook or his bag, not since Noriko took it away. Oscar didn’t even entertain the notion of trying to climb down. He had nowhere to go.

There was a lamp illuminating where he sat, but Oscar frowned at the human who had his back turned, working away at something on another workbench. There was a faint orange glow over there.

When they turned, they held a long metal rod in one gloved hand. Oscar’s eyes widened and he tried to scoot backwards on the table as the other human’s eyes fell on him. It only took them a few steps to saunter over, smirking down at him.

“Lord, he’s a little one. He’ll barely fit,” they mused. The human’s free hand left their side and descended towards Oscar’s cowering form, and he squeaked in terror. The hand might have blocked the sight of the tool they held in their other hand, but it couldn’t erase the memory of the heat haze coming off of it.

“N-no, please!” Oscar begged, but a finger and thumb pinched around him. He pushed at them, but they turned him over as if he hadn’t moved at all. He squirmed and kicked the best he could, but he was no match.

The human had done this before. Their hand settled over him, their heavy thumb pressing his legs down into the cold metal table. Other fingertips pinned his upper arms down, and his elbows didn’t have a good angle to try and push them away. Oscar’s face was pressed into the table and he could only see the human out of the corner of his eye. A fingertip shoved the hem of his shirt up and the cold air chilled his back like a hundred little needles.

There was a movement of glowing red in the corner of his eye. Warmth replaced the cold.

And then agonizing heat and pain replaced everything. Oscar screamed.

His voice was thready and broken, and he swore his skin sizzled as that hot metal made contact. His mind, in a panic, could only focus on the pain and the contact of the metal on his skin. It didn’t even last a second, and yet he felt like several minutes went by before there was nothing touching him but the table beneath him.

“What the hell?” the gruff human said. Oscar didn’t even flinch. He lay there, suddenly more exhausted than he’d ever been in his life, with his head pounding and his back stinging in the open air.

“I … The rod cooled off,” the smaller human stammered. Their voice was muffled by the throb of pain in Oscar’s head and on his back. “Must … must not have heated it up enough.”

“Well, now his mark’ll be uneven unless you’re more careful, the gruff human warned. “We can just hope Carson don’t notice. Just take care of it.”

“Right,” the other human said.

Oscar could hear more metal clattering behind him. He wanted to push himself up and at least try to crawl to safety. Instead, his muscles did nothing but quiver after all the strain. He blinked a few tears away and they fell onto the table. Even hearing those footsteps cross back toward him couldn’t convince his body to run.

The hand returned, pinning him down like before. Oscar finally struggled, but he was even weaker than before. This time, when the radiant heat reached him, it was like it clawed right into the first burn before the red-hot metal actually touched him. His scream pitched upwards. It was too much.

Another eternity with that hot metal against his skin went by. Then, just as the human removed it and cool air swarmed over it, Oscar lost consciousness again.