The Man With The Gloves (mxmxmxm)

5. Hidden Pain, Dubious Gain

"Some old wounds never truly heal, and bleed again at the slightest word." (Georges R. R. Martin, A Game of Thrones)

This Akhenaton guy - yes, Fayez secretly nicknamed him Akhenaton-guy, because it made the guy look less intimidating. Plus, there was no way Fayez would call him Master Akhenaton, prefect or not. He had done nothing to deserve such a title.

This Akhenaton-guy was a real fuckin' sadist.

Since his threat from earlier, he had tested most of the new recruits, but Fayez was still waiting for his turn.

Don't get him wrong - he was still confident that he could do better than most of his team members. After all, he had been barely able to hide his amusement when some of the other new recruits had started crying and had begged to be released very shortly after Akhenaton had started testing them.

Some people really can't handle pain, Fayez thought, with a hint of contempt.

Yet, although he didn't doubt his own ability to endure mental suffering, this long wait was starting to get on his nerves, and he had a feeling that Akhenaton was perfectly aware of that. The asshole was doing it on purpose, mentally torturing one person after the other, while deliberatly ignoring Fayez.

He didn't know anything about Zephyr and Ashur, but they didn't look half as wicked as their third lover. How they could bear with Akhenaton enough to want to spend some quality time with him was beyond Fayez's understanding.

"Alright, newbie, this is it"

Feeling suddenly nervous with having Akhenaton standing so close to him, Fayez took a quick look at his surroundings, to find out that most of his fellows were lying on the ground, a pained expression on their exhausted faces. Even those who were still standing looked like they were on the verge of passing out.

"Is all of this really necessary?" Fayez couldn't help but ask, making the prefect frowns.

"Where do you think you are?" he snorted. "In a kindergarten? Those who are not well-prepared enough are twice as likely to die on their very first expedition outside of the castle's walls"

Now, it was Fayez's turn to frown. Dying? Some students could die during their time at the ISB? What kind of sick joke was that?

However, deep down Fayez didn't think that Akhenaton was joking.

Heck, the guy probably hadn't say one funny thing in his whole life. He looked like the kind of person who would even look bored at their own wedding.

But.... Dying ? Here? How? Why?

Clearly, Fayez still had a lot of things to learn about this place and so far, nothing lead him to believe that his future discoveries would be very pleasant.

"Oy! If you're done daydreaming, let's get this over with."

Fayez turned his attention to the scarred brunet standing in front of him. He knew he should be wary of the guy - and he obviously wasn't feeling so relaxed around him anyway - yet he had the feeling that 'Ake' wasn't cruel enough to kill him on his very first day at the ISB.

After all, he was a prefect, and prefects were supposed to be reasonable, right? Being reasonable didn't imply killing the students before they even had a chance to prove themselves useful.