Chapter Text
Toby stares longingly at the tiny bunk bed he’s been assigned. It’s narrow enough that he probably won’t be able to sit up without hitting his head and the mattress is just a thin sheet of foam but he imagines it must feel heavenly.
“Places!”
Toby flinches at the loud voice, almost dropping the uniform bundled in his hands, and quickly stands to attention at the foot of his assigned bed.
“Now, everyone, listen up!” a man bellows in the suddenly deathly quiet room. He’s wearing a crumpled beige shirt with an employee card clipped to the breast pocket and it’s not hard for Toby to figure out he must be the overseer.
“Assignments for today. Numbers 72, 105, 145 and 188 to 190—group 1. Numbers…”
Toby looks around in panic as people start to quietly shuffle around the room as the man continues to shout out numbers in rapid-fire speed.
“What’s my number?” he whispers quietly to one of the other slaves standing by a nearby bunk but he just gives him a blank stare. Only a minute later everyone’s huddled in groups by the wall and Toby’s the only left standing by his bed, his heart skipping as the overseer levels him with an annoyed glare.
“I—um, I don’t have a number, sir, I just arrived—” Toby speaks up nervously, keeping his eyes glued to the ugly linoleum floor as the man comes closer. Before he can even stammer the words out, the man’s heavy hand backhands him across the cheek, hard enough to make stars explode behind his eyes.
“I did not ask you a question,” he says matter-of-factly. “Now where’s your uniform, boy?”
Toby holds out his shaky hands, still clutching the washed-out brown uniform. The overseer grabs it impatiently from his hands and unfolds it, pointing to the large numbers embroidered on the breast pocket.
“Now stop wasting my time by being stupid. Group three.”
Toby hangs his head, his cheeks burning from the slap and with embarrassment, and quickly slicks past the man in the direction he points out. Great. He’s been here less than an hour and already managed to get on the overseer’s bad side.
They’re led in their small groups to the parking lot and then hoarded into vans. As they take off, Toby takes a moment to observe his fellow passengers. All of them look older – four women, definitely past forty, maybe nearing their fifties, and a man, thin and grey, a hollow, tired look on his face. Being freshly thirty, Toby feels weirdly out place.
“Do you know where we’re going?” Toby interrupts the silence, filled with nothing but the humming of the engine.
One of the women gives him a look that makes him again feel like an idiot. Right. Stupid question. He doesn’t imagine anyone tells anything to the slaves here.
“So how long have you been here?” he tries again. He hasn’t talked to another slave in years and he’s dying for a bit of conversation to distract him.
“Shut up and let us enjoy a moment of peace, would you?” the man snaps and Toby flinches.
“Sorry,” he mutters but no one pays him any attention anymore. They’re all staring listlessly out of the window or close their eyes, trying to catch up on some sleep.
Toby turns his attention out of the window too, feeling completely overwhelmed. Tears start to burn in his eyes but he quickly swallows them. He can’t break already. Not when his first shift hasn’t even started yet.
Twenty minutes later they’re dropped downtown in front of a high-rise building made of nothing but steel and glass. The lift takes them to the 54th floor where a security guy’s already waiting for them. He assigns everyone a part of the floor with exact instruction on what to clean, gives out everyone a cart with supplies and sends them off.
Toby shuffles painstakingly to his assigned end of the corridor and takes the mop. His muscles, weak and stiff from the days of not being able to move properly, feel like jelly and he’s winded from simply keeping himself upright. The fact that he hasn’t head a proper meal in days is not helping either and his head is pounding in sync with his heartbeat.
Two hours in it starts to set in just how enormous the offices are and how long everything’s taking. He straightens up, stretching his back, and wipes his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. One of the women walks past with her bucket of dirty water, and Toby gives her a tightlipped smile.
“You need to work faster,” she whispers, looking around herself warily.
“What?” Toby asks nervously, his heart skipping.
“You’re not gonna finish in time if you don’t pick up the pace. You do not want to not finish,” she mutters and then is off.
Toby gets back to work, forcing his sore body to go faster, the fear and self-preservation instinct the only things driving him forward. It’s hard though, with all his old injuries making themselves known with more vigor than usual and the three fingers on his right hand that got broken last year and never healed properly making all that harder to grip the mop.
After another four hours of non-stop cleaning, Toby feels like he might pass out, shaky and light-headed, the last reserves of strength quickly depleting.
“Is there going to be a break?” he asks quietly the next time he sees the same woman pass by. Again she gives him the look like he’s an utter idiot and Toby wants to cry.
“Go drink some water from the tap. Do not pass out.”
Thanks, I’ll try, Toby thinks bitterly but he does head to the bathroom and drinks as much as he can stomach, splashing some cold water on his face as well.
The rest of the shift passes in a blur. Toby works on complete autopilot, with tunnel vision on the last room in the hallway. He needs to finish, that’s all he knows and all he cares about, ignoring the cramps in his muscles and his aching back.
He’s done with the last room two minutes before the end of their shift and as soon as he throws the rug in the bucket, he collapses to the floor, panting.
“Pour out the dirty water and put the supplies away. Then go wait by the lift. Hurry.” The woman peeks in, interrupting his short-lived respite. As much as he doesn’t want to move, ever again, he’s still grateful to her for showing him the ropes and not letting him fuck up on his first day.
On their way home, Toby doesn’t feel like talking anymore. He wears the same exhausted expression as everyone else and passes out almost as soon as his ass hits the seat.
Way too soon they reach the housing facility again. It’s a small, grey building at the outskirts of the town, looking more like a storage unit than anything else. Or maybe a prison with the high, barbed-wire fence surrounding it.
Once everyone’s out of the car, Toby joins the line and shuffles back inside. They’re herded straight to a large bathroom with ten showerheads lining each wall. Toby’s so grateful to be able to wash off the sweat of the day he doesn’t ever care about the utter lack of privacy, with other slaves washing practically inches away from him and the guard watching them like a hawk.
Once they’re clean, as clean as you can get in the three minutes they each got under the spray, anyway, everyone changes into ill-fitting black scrubs, and they slowly move into another room, a dingy hall with a two long wooden tables in the middle.
A dining room, Toby realizes and he could cry with relief, his stomach again cramping painfully. Carefully watching others so as not to fuck up, he grabs a bowl and joins a line to a window by the far wall. When it’s finally his turn, he holds out his bowl, ignoring the heavy feeling of disappointment at the pit of his stomach at the sight of the meagre portion of a thin, nasty looking gruel.
Still, he takes it to the table and eats it all, too hungry to feel ashamed for licking every last drop from bowl. It’s not like he’s the only one doing that, anyway.
Some of the slaves get up then and start collecting the bowls and washing them in the sink by the wall. Poor fuckers, Toby thinks, selfishly happy to be able to sit for a bit longer. Are they doing the dishes as a punishment or do they rotate who does which chore? He makes a mental note to ask later.
After that there’s another line for the bathroom. Everyone gets to use the toilet and brush their teeth and then it’s straight to their tiny, coffin-like bunks.
In the darkness, on the hard, uncomfortable bed, everything comes crashing back to him, breaking through the numbness. Utter despair, more intense than he has felt in ages, wraps around his heart.
So that was it, then, wasn’t it? He really has been discarded. Not even worth bringing to the auction anymore. He knew master wanted to get rid of him, that he was nearing the end of his usefulness for him, but there still was that stupid hope.
It was the same hope he’s had ever since his first auction when he was seventeen. He’d been desperate to get out of the shithole he grew up in. He still remembers it vividly—the days leading up to his first auction, he’d spend long hours daydreaming about a handsome master with wide shoulders and perfectly chiseled jaw, how they’d lock eyes in the crowd and he’d then take him home, to live a life of precious pet, enjoying all the luxuries of a rich life, being spoilt by a kind master who would never beat him again.
He was so stupid back then. And of course no one comes to small-town auctions to look for a pet. Or maybe he just wasn’t pretty enough. Be it as it may, he got sold to the local scrape yard on that day and things only got worse from there. As the years went by, his dreams got a little more realistic. He still hoped for a home, for a place to call his own. It didn’t need to be a mansion, just a place where’d be allowed to stay inside when it was freezing cold and where he wouldn’t go hungry for days at times. He didn’t dream of prince Charming anymore, all he hoped for was someone who wouldn’t beat him too much.
And even at thirty he still thought he had chance. Surely, there had to be people looking for a domestic slave. Or maybe for a companion at a discounted price—he was damaged, after all. As long he got auctioned, he could still dream, could hold on to that sliver of hope…
But no. Clearly master has decided he’s not worth the hassle and just sold him off for a quick buck to an agency. Toby can see the life ahead of him clearly. All there is now for him is work—eat—sleep, rinse and repeat for the next god knows how many years until his body finally gives up. Noone ever leaves these places. They wear the slaves down for profit and then just buy more cheap ones when the old ones are too weak to work.
How long before he turns into this dead-eyed shell of a person like the others, with the highlight of his day being the peace and quiet on the way to work? The thought chills him to the bone and this time he doesn’t try to fight the tears. Curling into a ball, he stifles his sobs into his pillow.
“Keep it down, would you?” someone grumbles from the next bunk. “Trying to sleep here.”
Pulling the scratchy blanket over his head, he continues to cry softly until he’s too exhausted to keep it up and finally falls asleep.