Rex had taken him to this place once, saying oh-so-sweetly that if he was going to act like a child, he could treat him like one.

Tavi had been horrified by the sight of it all. It had been like a kink warehouse from hell. Straps, halters, reins, collars, leashes, cages, bags of Happy Human Food — which declared that it provided balanced meals for formerly two-legged pets… Those had been bad enough.

But his twin had ushered him past the pet gear, or whatever they called it, into something that had haunted his dreams. He’d woken up in a sweat more than once, his cock hard, and he’d been ashamed of the way a certain section had stuck in his head.

This section.

He stood there, staring, unsure of whether he could actually carry out what was going on in his mind — what Rex had threatened to do. When Nyla had switched the mark, had she tainted him with Rex’s fucked-up desires, too?

No.

He knew better. He knew this was—

“Do you need help, sir?” a smiling young woman asked him, stepping away from where she was refilling a display of — oh god — adult diapers.

Panic and paranoia raced through him in equal measure. Tavi was sure he was going to be caught. He twitched, trying not to touch the place the mark had been and draw attention to his inner arm… but then, what would he draw attention to? A smooth expanse of skin, free of ink for the first time since the earliest days of the Takeover.

“I, um…” He blushed, not sure how to even start to ask for what he wanted. What would he even need? He felt the weight of Rex’s wallet in his back pocket — where the money that would be paying for his twin’s own degradation was.

Sippy cups. Or something. And… something.

He didn’t know what exactly he was there for, only that he had to take care of Rex if he was going to get that part of the lesson right.

“First time?” the saleswoman asked, her voice warm and welcoming.

She sounded… Well, she sounded like a daycare teacher. He couldn’t tell if she was a witch, a werewolf, or a vampire, but she wasn’t marked, so he doubted she was human.

He jerked his head in a nod, his eyes finding her name tag. Samantha.

“We have a starter package,” Samantha offered. “For our littles. The furniture is next-day delivery, but there’s plenty you can take home today.”

Tavi wanted to ask how much it would cost, but it didn’t matter. It would be coming out of Rex’s account, which was replenished monthly by their parents. Heaven forbid the darling baby of the family — Tavi choked back a laugh — actually had to work. He was too spoiled, too pampered, and the irony of the situation was almost overwhelming.

It felt… perfect, really.

“Yes,” he said awkwardly before repeating the word more firmly. “Yes. What does it come with?”

 

An hour later, and a few hundred dollars poorer, he kicked the front door of the house closed behind him. He set down the bags, overwhelmed by the sheer number of items he’d gotten. He didn’t even know what to do with most of them… but he’d learn.

First things first.

He touched the bottle of pills, wondering how it could look so innocuous on the coffee table in the living room. It was the same type of bottle that medicine always came in, orange and white, but this one didn’t have a name or a label. It might as well have been headache medicine, but if Nyla said it did more…

He had to trust her.

Death would be a mercy, love.

Tavi shivered.

He didn’t need to think about his sister’s words, not when he had to figure out everything in front of him. He eyed the first bag like it was a snake about to bite him, then snatched it up and dumped the contents on top of the long, smooth glass table.

He could start out slow, or he could start at full tilt.

He picked up the pacifier gag then closed his eyes. This was real. He was really going to do this. He dragged his teeth along his bottom lip, and it seemed even more immediate as his fingertips traced over the design, over the bulbous part, then the mock-ribbon material that would go around the head and keep it in…

In his brother’s mouth.

Fuck, he was sick. There was something seriously wrong with him.

He’d known there had been something seriously wrong with him when Rex had kissed him for the first time. He’d kissed back, when he’d been yearning for the love, the attention, back before he’d realized he was constructing his own cage.

Well, the doors had opened, and he’d shoved Rex inside what had been his own prison. Now he just had to follow through.

Tavi set the gag down, his heart pounding as he reached for one of the bottles. It was bigger than a normal bottle might be, the nipple harder and the opening wider. Bite-resistant, it said, so the poor little wouldn’t risk chewing it off and choking.

Sippy cups were too adult for a beginner. New babies needed to be properly raised, and that meant starting with bottles. He hadn’t meant to get all of this, but the saleswoman had been good at her job, and she’d managed to persuade him that he needed to have everything in the starter kit on hand even if he never used it.

The way she’d looked at him had told him plenty. Her bright smile had been so knowing. It wasn’t a waste of money. He’d use it, even if he couldn’t fathom it right then.

His hands shook as he unpackaged the first of them — as he took the first real step and acknowledged that he was actually doing this — and he dug around in the other bag until he found the supplements he was supposed to add to milk.

Real milk, Samantha had told him seriously, and not the fat-free kind. His baby boy would need the calories, even though the powders and everything else were supposed to keep said baby boy healthy on the liquid diet.

Right. They had real milk. He clutched the bottle of pills Nyla had given him in one hand and put the bottle into the bag with the other… food things.

His cock was painfully hard, and shame coursed through him as he thought about how it would feel to watch his brother helplessly suck on the nipple of the bottle. Even if he wouldn’t do it willingly, it would be easy enough to squeeze and send a stream down Rex’s throat.

But he’d give in, eventually.

Just like Tavi always had.

There was only so long you could resist someone else’s absolute control before giving in, after all, and Rex wasn’t immune to falling. If anything, the spoiled twin would be more susceptible to it.

He traipsed into the kitchen, running through the mental checklist then. First things first. He grabbed the milk from the fridge, a little intimidated by how much there was to remember. He could only imagine how real parents felt, but then…

He guessed he’d have an idea soon enough. Being completely responsible for a person’s well-being would teach him that.

He left the milk on the counter and washed the bottle out. He vaguely remembered something about boiling it or the nipples to sanitize them, but he was too anxious to take the time to do it. He washed it all as thoroughly as he could, even using the brand-new bottle brush, then started gingerly poking through what he had bought.

It was all clear enough: cut the pill in half, grind it into dust, put that in the bottle. Add a scoop of powder. Put in a few drops of the cloudy liquid. Pour in milk, shake vigorously, and prepare to feed his twin brother.

This was so fucked up.

His body should not have been reacting like it was.

His mouth was dry, and he eyed the milk container before pouring himself a glass — unaltered, of course; the things he’d bought terrified him even as they excited him — and draining it. He wasn’t going to risk trying Rex’s, but he half-hoped it tasted as chalky as the stuff his twin had once forced down his throat when he’d tried a hunger strike.

Vicious, petty, but his thoughts — and his cock — didn’t seem to care.

This shouldn’t have been arousing, but he couldn’t get away from his body’s responses.

His mind started to get caught up in all the dangers though, all the possibilities, and he forced himself back into the moment. First, he had to feed Rex. From there, he could take the other steps in the orientation packet.

Did enough people do this to humans for all of this to be necessary?

It solidified his resolve. Rex had known all about this. He’d taken him to the kink warehouse of hell to show him this.

Rex just… hadn’t expected to be the one on the receiving end.

Tavi grabbed the bottle, his breath quickening. The image of Rex’s lips around the nipple of the bottle, looking like his own but at the same time, so very different, had him squirming a little. Not that he expected to see the tranquil adult baby advertised on the front of those products, but he couldn’t help but picture it.

The fact that it was his own face he was seeing, or rather, the reflection of it, should’ve dissuaded him.

It didn’t.

He unlocked the door to the room that had always been meant to be his, the idea of an adult-sized crib against one of the stark walls and the changing table nearby… It didn’t seem possible for this to seem anything but disturbing.

The door opened quietly, without a single creak, and Tavi silently made his way over to the bed. His eyes adjusted to the lack of light, and he watched his brother — who did look peaceful for now, lying on the bed asleep. The makeshift gag didn’t look too comfortable, and Tavi would have to replace that with the one his twin was going to be getting very well acquainted with.

Tavi would replace the ropes with the softer restraints he’d grabbed from Rex’s stash, but with the drug he’d added to the… formula, it was going to be difficult for Rex to put up much of a fight.

For him, it would be easy. It was going to be easy. He had it all planned out.

Tavi set the bottle down on the nightstand a few feet away and went to his brother, lightly smoothing back his hair from his face. He was beautiful.

It felt particularly narcissistic to think, especially considering he was essentially looking at his own face, but Rex wasn’t just a mirror image, wasn’t a clone. He was a different person entirely.

Rex began to stir, and Tavi braced himself. He went back to the door, turning the light on before returning his gaze to his brother. Those familiar dark eyes were alight with fury, with that disbelief still blazing right alongside it. He tried to speak, but the sock Tavi had pushed into his brother’s mouth and tied around his head didn’t let anything but muffled noises out.

Tavi shook his head. “Don’t,” he cautioned. He took a deep breath. “I know you’re confused.”

The look from Rex made it clear that confusion wasn’t the word he was going for, but it felt amazing to throw his brother’s words back in his face.

“That’s what you tell me,” he continued, offering a half-smile, “when you do something new that I don’t like. That I’m confused.”

Recognition dawned in those eyes, and Rex went still. It was like it was finally starting to sink in, though his brother wouldn’t accept it nearly that quickly. He was only coming to terms with the fact that this was really happening.

“I’m going to take the gag off now,” Tavi said gently. “And I know you’re going to want to scream and yell at me.”

His brother might as well have shouted duh.

“But I’m not changing my mind.” He hadn’t understood until that moment just how much conviction he had… and it probably had something to do with the hard cock in his pants, so unwelcome but at the same time, impossible to ignore. “So if you start screaming, I’m going to leave the room.”

He still had over ten hours before Rex’s magic could return. He could afford to make that point, and the house had been made for captivity — for Tavi’s captivity, really. It had been a gift from their parents to their good son, who had selflessly agreed to make sure to keep his human twin under control. He’d never really let himself think about the extended implications of the soundproof, windowless room that was meant to be his, but he did now.

Tavi wanted to be able to say that Rex had never used it before, but it would be a lie. Days of isolation, of begging, of trying so fucking hard to convince his brother that he didn’t need to be locked away…

And those things would’ve been nothing compared to what Rex would’ve done to him for trying to run away. Tavi very well could’ve been the one in the bed, with a bottle in Rex’s hand — and that thought was enough to make his cock stop responding. No, he was done with being taken care of. No matter what his brother might’ve treated him like, he wasn’t a child simply because he didn’t have magic. He was human, not… well, not a baby.

He wished he knew why it turned him on so much to be the one in control. It had to be the novelty. He’d only endured Rex’s soft kisses. If he’d gotten erect, it had been because he needed the affection…

Where else was he going to get it?

Rex made another sound, jerking against the ropes.

“Stop,” Tavi said, his voice firm — but not unkind, like the brochure had said.

Fuck, this was worse than when they’d gotten a puppy when they were twelve, and he’d tried to follow the instructions while Rex had gone on and trained the damn creature without even looking at it.

Rex pulled again, as though just because he could, but then he lay still.

Right. The gag.

He didn’t want to get bitten, so he gingerly untied the gag from around the side. He wasn’t going to reach into Rex’s mouth to pull out the sock, but he grabbed one of the edges and tugged. Rex let it go.

Tavi eyed him. Rex’s mouth had to be dry. It couldn’t be that difficult to get him to—

“Octavian! Let me go right the fuck now!” his brother demanded. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Mom and Dad aren’t going to let me keep you after this!”

Keep him. Like he was the dog he’d just been thinking about and not a person.

He let out a bitter laugh. “Thanks for making this easy, Rex,” he remarked, sarcasm dripping from his voice — though truthfully, he was a little grateful for it because it helped him retain his resolve.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Rex asked, as indignant as someone could be when he was tied down to a plain bed, stripped of his usual dignity.

Tavi ignored him. “I brought you dinner,” he said abruptly, grabbing the bottle off the nightstand.

Rex blinked once, twice, then turned his incredulous gaze onto Tavi. “Like hell am I going to drink out of a baby bottle!”

Tavi had expected that. How could he not? This was going to take time, but he had that in droves. It wasn’t like Rex had a job that would miss him, and family dinners… He’d worry about those when it was time. For now, he just had to focus on making sure his twin stayed magicless and, for the time being at least, drugged.

“Your mouth must be dry,” Tavi coaxed, his voice softening. He wasn’t going to make baby noises, even though a part of him wanted to, but he was gentle.

Rex gave him a withering look, but he pressed his lips together firmly.

“You really are acting like a child,” Tavi remarked. “So this pretty much suits you.”

“I—” The second — predictably — Rex opened his mouth to bitch, Tavi shoved the nipple of the bottle into his mouth.

“You should’ve seen that coming,” Tavi said, and a shiver ran through him as he cupped his brother’s cheek and firmly held him still.

Rex tried to spit out the bottle, but there wasn’t much he could do to deter Tavi.

“Shh,” Tavi soothed, something strange and warm running through him as he held Rex’s face in place. “Suck. It’ll make you feel better. I promise.”

Rex stared up at him, trying to talk around it, and Tavi sighed before squeezing it.

A stream of milk went down his brother’s throat, and Rex had to swallow it or risk choking. Tavi hated doing it this way, but there weren’t many options if he was going to keep his twin subdued and under control.

Some of it bubbled up around the corners of Rex’s mouth, but Tavi was relentless, making sure he got as much of the milk into his twin’s stomach as possible — as much of the drugs into him as possible.

He ended up smearing milk all over Rex’s face before the end, but his brother’s body slowly went lax as the drugs hit his system. Tavi breathed out a sigh of relief when he coaxed Rex into drinking the last third of the bottle, grabbing the edge of the sheet and carefully wiping his twin’s face.

Baby wipes. He had baby wipes. He hadn’t thought he’d need them, but this was messier than he’d expected. All of this was different than he’d expected, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to do this.

Rex’s eyes drifted closed when only a gulp or two was left of the milk, and Tavi didn’t try to wake him to finish. It would have to be enough for now. Unable to stop himself, he leaned down, kissing his brother’s forehead.

Despite everything, he didn’t really want to hurt Rex. That wasn’t what this was about.

This was about revenge, but it was also about teaching his twin a lesson.

The problem was, Tavi wasn’t even sure if he could teach it… or what would happen if he did.