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monaboyd Jun. 14th, 2004 10:19 am)
acroamatica.livejournal.com posting in monaboyd Jun. 14th, 2004 10:19 am)Title: 101 Things To Do In Zero Gravity
Status: WIP - Part 6/?
Author: Pip of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
acroamatica
Pairing: BB/DM
Rating: R
Summary: A wee little space opera in the classic style, with added Hobbity goodness. Obviously rather future AU - begins in June 2087, in fact, slightly before the events depicted in Sniper 470.
Content/Warning: Language, violence, major angst, blood, sweat and tears. Needles - Ven, the Safe Place is here.
Spoilers: Sniper 470 (note: You don't need to have seen it, but it helps.)
Disclaimer: If I told you I owned them, that this was all real, and that I was making loadsamoney writing about it, would you believe me? Because I would find that very entertaining. I don't own Sniper 470 or anything connected with it either.
Author's Notes: I love how 20 words on the plot outline turns into 3,500. But this one wasn't originally on the plot outline at all. Which means it'll take me a little longer to get to the end - how nice! But it also took me a little longer to write. Apologies. Bad hands (now better), depression (now beaten), and the full-scale excavation of my room (desk and floor now located) got in the way. And today I will go through and write up replies to all the lovely comments from Ch5, as it is disgraceful that I have not yet done that. Love you all.
Previous chapters: [1][2][3][4][5]
Chapter 6
He woke, not because he was rested, but because his hands were being stuck back into the restraints. His ankles had already been pinioned before he had reached awareness. The grey-haired man was leaning casually against the doorframe, inside the bars, and Billy's heart sank, because he knew. He knew what would come now.
He gauged his strength. There wasn't much. Almost certainly not enough. And the man -
Billy couldn't look at him. Couldn't stare him blithely in the eye the way he had done before, couldn't grin and tell him cordially to fuck off, though he would have liked to. The best he could hope to do now was to retreat far enough that they would not be able to reach him.
"Good morning, Mr. Boyd," said the interrogator, faint traces of good cheer clinging to his tone like veils to a harem girl. They, like the veils, were not meant to conceal so much as to accentuate what was below them - in this case, not warm, soft flesh, curving like gentle sand dunes and golden with desert sun, but a cold, calculating cruelty.
Billy didn't answer.
"Not so chipper today, are we?" The man smiled. "I hope you slept well. It wouldn't do for you to come away from this with a bad opinion of our hospitality."
Simple enough to assure, thought Billy venomously, if the plan is that I simply shan't come away from this at all. He didn't have much doubt of that.
The man had a couple of hypodermics in his hand now, and he held them up for Billy to see, lifting them as if measuring their weight. "So what would you prefer, to start the morning off on the right foot? Coffee? Tea? Truth serum?"
Billy turned his face away.
"Tsk," said the man reprovingly. "Such manners. Well, I'll have to make my best guess then, because I can't allow a guest to leave without sampling any of these things I've prepared just for you. Besides, we were to have a lovely little conversation over breakfast, and I was so looking forward to it."
I'll just bet you were, Billy thought.
"Here, try a little of this - no, no, I insist," said the man silkily, and brought up a hand, finding the same neck vein he had used the day before. Billy caught a glimpse of blue.
The feeling washed through him, the familiar tingle, and with downcast eyes, he waited to be touched again. Waited to be made even dirtier.
For a moment he thought of Dom, envisioned him bursting through the door, having somehow against all odds found him when even he didn't know where he was, envisioned him delivering a swift and accurate right cross that would drop the grey-haired man to the floor - or not, as there was no gravity, but something to that effect - and freeing Billy, taking him away to his little ship, making him lie down on the sleeping couch and with his gentle hands, removing Billy's torn, stained jumpsuit... and seeing the bruises, the blood, seeing how Billy had been shamed, and Dom would turn away, his lip curling in disgust, and tell Billy roughly to go have a shower, he was disgusting, and when Billy came out Dom would not speak to him.
Billy closed his eyes. Perhaps it was better not to think of Dom, after all.
There were fingers dancing over his wrists, the wrists that had been wrenched and chafed bloody, little fingerprints of pain dotting his skin where the interrogator had touched. Billy fought not to squirm away, knowing it would do no good anyway - how far could he get?
The interrogator took his right hand then, stretching it out along the length of his own palm, Billy's fingertips resting just above the heel of his hand. He stroked Billy's fingers gently.
"The hand of a gunner," he said softly. "The hand of Fate, for so many of our ships - do you ever think of that, at night? How these pretty hands deal death so carelessly? But then, death is pretty, sometimes." He stroked Billy's hand again. "As is pain."
The tip of the interrogator's finger seemed to unsheath a claw, like a cat's toe might do, and the next long, lingering stroke drew a fiery line in its path. Billy's eyes flew open, seeing the small, deadly sharp scalpel lying alongside the man's index, held in the sort of loose-but-sure grip an artist might use, seeing the blood well up along the very straight line he had drawn along Billy's hand.
The man glanced up, still smiling.
"Blood's rather pretty too, don't you think?" he said, still softly, always softly. "Such a lovely red. And on your skin - the creamy white and the red, and that green jumpsuit. I should like to paint you, just like this - or maybe, in a few minutes, when I've had time to create a little more contrast." He touched Billy's cheek, the same almost-unfelt slice biting in. "You do bleed beautifully, my dear Mr. Boyd."
Billy was torn between the urge to giggle madly and thank him and the urge to scream; with some effort, he suppressed both.
The interrogator began to outline just below his other cheekbone, parallelling the slice in his other cheek, already oozing. Then he undid the collar of Billy's jumpsuit, spreading it out to his shoulders, tracing with the scalpel over one collarbone, then the other.
Blood behaved oddly in zero gravity. It didn't trickle, in the fat crimson drops that it made in Earth gravity. It just welled, pulsing outwards slightly with his heartbeat, welled and kept welling all along the wounds until it coagulated, forming long, raised scabs, like rust-coloured earthworms winding over the cuts.
The man was tracing down the center of his chest, from the hollow of his throat to his navel, stopping to cross the line below each pair of ribs. The scalpel didn't hurt, exactly, as it whispered over his skin, just below the surface - it was like a tiny jet of air, precision-directed at the very point where the blade slipped beneath his unresisting skin. He doubted he'd even have felt it without the drug. He knew he was bleeding, because he could feel that, but it didn't hurt. That, in itself, made him more nervous than the careful artistry of the interrogator, still outlining the muscles of his lower abdomen as though he were a marble model, not living at all except for the bright blood that bloomed in the path of the knife. He'd been given the sensitising drug - something had to happen, something other than this slow, slightly-burning still-life treatment.
The interrogator had Billy's jumpsuit open to the crotch, his pants pushed down to cling loosely just below his protruding hipbones, as he continued to trace, his hands careful. Then he stood, fishing in the attache case for a cloth, and stroked the blood from each cut, smearing it artfully, though he barely touched Billy's skin. As he reached Billy's collarbones, he paused, freed each of Billy's arms in turn and pushed the sleeves of his jumpsuit down over and off his wrists. Thus bared past the waist, Billy didn't resist being put back into the restraints. He hadn't resisted anything so far, and none of it had threatened to drive him mad with pain. It was an interesting correlation.
Once he was secure again, the man finished what he had begun. The blood looked like some macabre war paint, its gently curving lines matching those of his own body. Each touch of the cloth was something else Billy had to fight against - it had felt rough, at the very first, but now it was dampened with his own blood, and that - that was something else. The feeling was indescribable, but so intense, and yes, it was the drug, but he had to bite hard (maybe not as hard as he thought he was biting) on his lower lip to keep still and silent.
He was grateful, at least, that he had not had the pleasure drug yet. He wasn't going to be tricked into enjoying this. Billy wasn't that much of a masochist, though he knew there were people who found blood sexy, and had a small dark suspicion that the man currently running that sweet little scalpel over each of his fingers was one of that kind.
The man wiped the blood from Billy's arms, then stood back to admire his work.
"Not bad," he murmured. "Not at all bad. I think we're ready to go on from here."
He did something with his hand, and the scalpel vanished - up his sleeve? Billy couldn't tell. Then he reached into the attache case. This time he came up with two prizes - another hypodermic full of the familiar blue stuff, and a small atomiser bottle, like the ones that Dom used for cologne.
"So," he said conversationally. "I doubt you appreciate my artistry very much. Or maybe you do - you didn't tell me to stop. But I don't think you mean to tell me to stop, do you?" He waited, watching Billy's face. "You may answer that."
Billy didn't.
"Ah well." The man sighed. "At any rate, there are some things I want to know, my dear sir. Just to be sure, however, that I make myself perfectly clear, I think you're going to need a little more of this." The needle went in, and came out again, and disappeared back into the attache case, as Billy waited, resigned, for the onset.
There was the rush, the full-body tingle, and he shivered convulsively. That pulled at his muscles, and suddenly he found that every muscle that had been sliced was screaming, shooting blinding pain straight to his head. He couldn't help giving a little whimper.
"Now you feel it." The man sounded pleased. Doubtless he was. Billy didn't look at him. Wouldn't give him the satisfaction of reading pain in his eyes.
"So," the man said lightly. "Will you talk to me today? I don't think you intend to, but I'm famous for changing people's minds." While he spoke, he had taken Billy's hand again, and now he raised the atomiser bottle and sprayed a fine mist over the webwork of cuts on Billy's hand.
For a moment it was only pleasantly cool. Then it reached the open wounds, the raw edges, and it burned, every nerve reacting, and he jerked his hand away quickly, too quickly, provoking the same reaction as before, and this time the whimper became a gasp, and the sharp breath triggered more pain as the cuts across his ribcage pulled open. Trying not to move, not to even breathe, he forced himself to wait it out, knowing that the more he gave in to the instinctive animal reactions of his body, the more it would hurt.
Finally, upper lip and forehead beaded with sweat, he beat it back. The burn faded enough that he could breathe, though he had to do it carefully.
"It's just medical alcohol in here," the man informed him, hefting the bottle. "Nothing special. A little disinfectant. I wouldn't want those lovely cuts to get infected. Would you like me to see to your other hand next? Or shall we stop and chat awhile?"
Billy squeezed his eyes shut and steadied his breathing, waiting for the hiss of the atomiser and the flames on the sensitive tissue. He wouldn't break his silence. Not for this.
And he almost succeeded - would have completely succeeded if the incisors gripping his lower lip hadn't gone right through the skin, causing him yet more pain and removing his means of keeping silent. He made a low sound, not quite a whimper, nor really a groan, nor really anything, except a noise he hadn't wanted to make.
"Is that so?" the man said, his voice and manner a parody of solicitousness. "Tell me more."
And the hiss came again, the light mist falling onto his ribs and abs, over the tracery of bright red lines and duller rusty smears there, and halfway through it his indrawn breath became a shriek, and then he didn't scream anymore because he couldn't get any more air, he couldn't move, he couldn't do anything except hang there in the restraints, his brain paralysed by pain, pain, pain, burning, burning, stop, please, fuck, please stop, pain, pain, pain, and that was all there was in the world for a very long time, years maybe, until it receded.
He became aware that his eyes were blurred with copious tears, because this was zero-g and they wouldn't fall no matter how many of them there were, and he hadn't meant to weep, even in that time of pain, hadn't meant to show any weakness, and it upset him more that he had lost his control without even knowing it, but he wouldn't cry, he wouldn't, because he knew how much it would hurt him to breathe in that rough way. It hurt enough already; there were spots at the edges of his vision and he felt quite light-headed.
He was dimly aware that the man was saying something. He forced himself to focus, just in case it was important.
The man had brought the blood-smeared cloth back out of the attache case and touched it gently to the tear-lenses that covered Billy's eyes. "Now, then," he was telling Billy gently. "Don't cry. We can stop this now, if you like. All you have to do is talk to me, and I have some lovely medications with me that will stop the pain altogether. You won't feel a thing."
No, I'm sure I won't feel a thing - dead people generally don't... and he clearly means to kill me, one way or another, Billy thought dully. He can't very well let me go free. So I'm dead already, really. If I don't talk, I will surely die - I can't take much more of this. I'll not be able to breathe anymore. But if I do talk, maybe... maybe it won't hurt so much.
But was it worth it? What would he have to betray in order to be allowed to die easily?
The ASDF, certainly. The interrogator would want tactical secrets, or at least, things that were secrets to the Coalition. Billy considered this, and found, to his shock, that he actually didn't mind that too much. The Coalition certainly had intelligence people - eventually they could find out on their own anything Billy could tell them. There wasn't much Billy knew that wasn't common knowledge.
Except one thing, which wasn't even really a fact, just a suspicion - but a suspicion that could cause a lot of trouble.
What if they asked him about Dom? What if they knew about Dom, what if Dom had slipped up somehow and they'd found out about him, and they'd captured Billy because they knew he'd know?
I can't, Billy told himself firmly, and the words had the ring of truth. I can't betray Dom. I would rather die. And then he told himself that saying that was a little silly, as he was going to die anyhow, but he knew he would die before speaking a word about Dom.
"Would you like to talk with me now?" The man tucked the cloth away, and folded his arms, looking suddenly remarkably sympathetic and avuncular. It made it easier for Billy to open his mouth at last and say the painful word.
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" The man gave him a quirky, encouraging half-smile. "Why only maybe?"
Billy swallowed. "What... what is it you want to know?"
The man's smile broadened. Billy thought again of crocodiles. "Well, first of all, I would be very interested to know how your long-range sensors find our convoys."
"They don't," Billy said, glad that in this case he really had nothing to tell. "Our information comes from ASDF Command."
"Ah, of course. And how do their sensors find us?"
"I don't know," Billy told the man honestly.
"Oh, come now." The man's eyes narrowed, though his smile did not change. "You can't expect me to believe that you just sit in your capsules all day without the slightest idea what's going on, waiting for information that you haven't the vaguest idea where it's come from."
"That's about the size of it," Billy said steadily. "They don't tell us. Why should they? We're only gunners."
"You're only gunners. You're only the ASDF's first line of defense against us, and they don't trust you enough to at least tell you what they're tracking, or how far they can see from Earth - or do they have arrays out in the Belt too?"
"I don't know," Billy said, hearing desperation in his own voice. "Honestly, I don't know. I suppose they could have - or not. I really can't tell you."
The man brought his hand up to Billy's jaw, stroking it gently. "I don't believe you, my dear man. You know the answers to my questions, and you're hiding them from me, and I don't like that very much."
"I'm not," Billy protested. "I swear I'm not. I really don't know. They don't tell us."
The hand that had lain quiescent along his jaw whipped back and struck him sharply across the cheek, the same cheek that the interrogator had slapped the day before. The half-closed cuts along the inside reopened, spilling blood into his mouth. His head and neck rocked sideways with the force of the blow, pulling his upper body, his lower body, arms, legs, in a chain reaction, and his nerves sang with blinding pain, and he screamed in counterpoint.
"Tell me," the interrogator was barking at him. "Tell me, murdering ASDF scum, tell me. I know you know."
"No, no," he whimpered, through a red haze and sobs that he could not stop, "no, please, I don't know, please, don't hurt me - please, no, I, no, I don't know!"
The man struck him again, this time with a closed fist rather than an open palm, higher up on his cheekbone. He greyed out for a moment, came back to himself, still pleading, sobbing, begging the interrogator to stop, please, please, because he didn't know, he truly didn't - and everything hurt so very much, and he couldn't breathe, really, and his head was spinning and aching and he seemed to be swallowing blood by the pint from his torn cheek, and the interrogator wasn't listening, wasn't hearing him, because there was the atomiser bottle again, and the cool mist on his chest, once, twice, on his arms, on his face, covering him from forehead to navel, from wrist to wrist, in a sheath of pure agony.
He knew he was convulsing, muscles spasming wildly as if he meant to tear himself free from his own body, which wasn't such a bad idea really, when he thought about it, and he didn't remember how long it had been since his last breath, and he couldn't see anything anymore, not the interrogator, not the cell, just black, and every muscle in his body suddenly clenched and his head whipped back and hit the hard metal panelling, and something made a dull sort of cracking noise, or maybe that was in his head, because he couldn't really hear either, his ears were ringing, and the ringing and the black were getting stronger and the pain was going away, which was nice, and then there wasn't any sound or sensation or anything anymore, and he understood at last what was happening, and it was all right, because he had known it would come, and he welcomed it now, welcomed it into himself as it welcomed him into itself, and let it take him.
And then there was a great silence, and a great stillness, and that was all.
Status: WIP - Part 6/?
Author: Pip of
acroamaticaPairing: BB/DM
Rating: R
Summary: A wee little space opera in the classic style, with added Hobbity goodness. Obviously rather future AU - begins in June 2087, in fact, slightly before the events depicted in Sniper 470.
Content/Warning: Language, violence, major angst, blood, sweat and tears. Needles - Ven, the Safe Place is here.
Spoilers: Sniper 470 (note: You don't need to have seen it, but it helps.)
Disclaimer: If I told you I owned them, that this was all real, and that I was making loadsamoney writing about it, would you believe me? Because I would find that very entertaining. I don't own Sniper 470 or anything connected with it either.
Author's Notes: I love how 20 words on the plot outline turns into 3,500. But this one wasn't originally on the plot outline at all. Which means it'll take me a little longer to get to the end - how nice! But it also took me a little longer to write. Apologies. Bad hands (now better), depression (now beaten), and the full-scale excavation of my room (desk and floor now located) got in the way. And today I will go through and write up replies to all the lovely comments from Ch5, as it is disgraceful that I have not yet done that. Love you all.
Previous chapters: [1][2][3][4][5]
Chapter 6
He woke, not because he was rested, but because his hands were being stuck back into the restraints. His ankles had already been pinioned before he had reached awareness. The grey-haired man was leaning casually against the doorframe, inside the bars, and Billy's heart sank, because he knew. He knew what would come now.
He gauged his strength. There wasn't much. Almost certainly not enough. And the man -
Billy couldn't look at him. Couldn't stare him blithely in the eye the way he had done before, couldn't grin and tell him cordially to fuck off, though he would have liked to. The best he could hope to do now was to retreat far enough that they would not be able to reach him.
"Good morning, Mr. Boyd," said the interrogator, faint traces of good cheer clinging to his tone like veils to a harem girl. They, like the veils, were not meant to conceal so much as to accentuate what was below them - in this case, not warm, soft flesh, curving like gentle sand dunes and golden with desert sun, but a cold, calculating cruelty.
Billy didn't answer.
"Not so chipper today, are we?" The man smiled. "I hope you slept well. It wouldn't do for you to come away from this with a bad opinion of our hospitality."
Simple enough to assure, thought Billy venomously, if the plan is that I simply shan't come away from this at all. He didn't have much doubt of that.
The man had a couple of hypodermics in his hand now, and he held them up for Billy to see, lifting them as if measuring their weight. "So what would you prefer, to start the morning off on the right foot? Coffee? Tea? Truth serum?"
Billy turned his face away.
"Tsk," said the man reprovingly. "Such manners. Well, I'll have to make my best guess then, because I can't allow a guest to leave without sampling any of these things I've prepared just for you. Besides, we were to have a lovely little conversation over breakfast, and I was so looking forward to it."
I'll just bet you were, Billy thought.
"Here, try a little of this - no, no, I insist," said the man silkily, and brought up a hand, finding the same neck vein he had used the day before. Billy caught a glimpse of blue.
The feeling washed through him, the familiar tingle, and with downcast eyes, he waited to be touched again. Waited to be made even dirtier.
For a moment he thought of Dom, envisioned him bursting through the door, having somehow against all odds found him when even he didn't know where he was, envisioned him delivering a swift and accurate right cross that would drop the grey-haired man to the floor - or not, as there was no gravity, but something to that effect - and freeing Billy, taking him away to his little ship, making him lie down on the sleeping couch and with his gentle hands, removing Billy's torn, stained jumpsuit... and seeing the bruises, the blood, seeing how Billy had been shamed, and Dom would turn away, his lip curling in disgust, and tell Billy roughly to go have a shower, he was disgusting, and when Billy came out Dom would not speak to him.
Billy closed his eyes. Perhaps it was better not to think of Dom, after all.
There were fingers dancing over his wrists, the wrists that had been wrenched and chafed bloody, little fingerprints of pain dotting his skin where the interrogator had touched. Billy fought not to squirm away, knowing it would do no good anyway - how far could he get?
The interrogator took his right hand then, stretching it out along the length of his own palm, Billy's fingertips resting just above the heel of his hand. He stroked Billy's fingers gently.
"The hand of a gunner," he said softly. "The hand of Fate, for so many of our ships - do you ever think of that, at night? How these pretty hands deal death so carelessly? But then, death is pretty, sometimes." He stroked Billy's hand again. "As is pain."
The tip of the interrogator's finger seemed to unsheath a claw, like a cat's toe might do, and the next long, lingering stroke drew a fiery line in its path. Billy's eyes flew open, seeing the small, deadly sharp scalpel lying alongside the man's index, held in the sort of loose-but-sure grip an artist might use, seeing the blood well up along the very straight line he had drawn along Billy's hand.
The man glanced up, still smiling.
"Blood's rather pretty too, don't you think?" he said, still softly, always softly. "Such a lovely red. And on your skin - the creamy white and the red, and that green jumpsuit. I should like to paint you, just like this - or maybe, in a few minutes, when I've had time to create a little more contrast." He touched Billy's cheek, the same almost-unfelt slice biting in. "You do bleed beautifully, my dear Mr. Boyd."
Billy was torn between the urge to giggle madly and thank him and the urge to scream; with some effort, he suppressed both.
The interrogator began to outline just below his other cheekbone, parallelling the slice in his other cheek, already oozing. Then he undid the collar of Billy's jumpsuit, spreading it out to his shoulders, tracing with the scalpel over one collarbone, then the other.
Blood behaved oddly in zero gravity. It didn't trickle, in the fat crimson drops that it made in Earth gravity. It just welled, pulsing outwards slightly with his heartbeat, welled and kept welling all along the wounds until it coagulated, forming long, raised scabs, like rust-coloured earthworms winding over the cuts.
The man was tracing down the center of his chest, from the hollow of his throat to his navel, stopping to cross the line below each pair of ribs. The scalpel didn't hurt, exactly, as it whispered over his skin, just below the surface - it was like a tiny jet of air, precision-directed at the very point where the blade slipped beneath his unresisting skin. He doubted he'd even have felt it without the drug. He knew he was bleeding, because he could feel that, but it didn't hurt. That, in itself, made him more nervous than the careful artistry of the interrogator, still outlining the muscles of his lower abdomen as though he were a marble model, not living at all except for the bright blood that bloomed in the path of the knife. He'd been given the sensitising drug - something had to happen, something other than this slow, slightly-burning still-life treatment.
The interrogator had Billy's jumpsuit open to the crotch, his pants pushed down to cling loosely just below his protruding hipbones, as he continued to trace, his hands careful. Then he stood, fishing in the attache case for a cloth, and stroked the blood from each cut, smearing it artfully, though he barely touched Billy's skin. As he reached Billy's collarbones, he paused, freed each of Billy's arms in turn and pushed the sleeves of his jumpsuit down over and off his wrists. Thus bared past the waist, Billy didn't resist being put back into the restraints. He hadn't resisted anything so far, and none of it had threatened to drive him mad with pain. It was an interesting correlation.
Once he was secure again, the man finished what he had begun. The blood looked like some macabre war paint, its gently curving lines matching those of his own body. Each touch of the cloth was something else Billy had to fight against - it had felt rough, at the very first, but now it was dampened with his own blood, and that - that was something else. The feeling was indescribable, but so intense, and yes, it was the drug, but he had to bite hard (maybe not as hard as he thought he was biting) on his lower lip to keep still and silent.
He was grateful, at least, that he had not had the pleasure drug yet. He wasn't going to be tricked into enjoying this. Billy wasn't that much of a masochist, though he knew there were people who found blood sexy, and had a small dark suspicion that the man currently running that sweet little scalpel over each of his fingers was one of that kind.
The man wiped the blood from Billy's arms, then stood back to admire his work.
"Not bad," he murmured. "Not at all bad. I think we're ready to go on from here."
He did something with his hand, and the scalpel vanished - up his sleeve? Billy couldn't tell. Then he reached into the attache case. This time he came up with two prizes - another hypodermic full of the familiar blue stuff, and a small atomiser bottle, like the ones that Dom used for cologne.
"So," he said conversationally. "I doubt you appreciate my artistry very much. Or maybe you do - you didn't tell me to stop. But I don't think you mean to tell me to stop, do you?" He waited, watching Billy's face. "You may answer that."
Billy didn't.
"Ah well." The man sighed. "At any rate, there are some things I want to know, my dear sir. Just to be sure, however, that I make myself perfectly clear, I think you're going to need a little more of this." The needle went in, and came out again, and disappeared back into the attache case, as Billy waited, resigned, for the onset.
There was the rush, the full-body tingle, and he shivered convulsively. That pulled at his muscles, and suddenly he found that every muscle that had been sliced was screaming, shooting blinding pain straight to his head. He couldn't help giving a little whimper.
"Now you feel it." The man sounded pleased. Doubtless he was. Billy didn't look at him. Wouldn't give him the satisfaction of reading pain in his eyes.
"So," the man said lightly. "Will you talk to me today? I don't think you intend to, but I'm famous for changing people's minds." While he spoke, he had taken Billy's hand again, and now he raised the atomiser bottle and sprayed a fine mist over the webwork of cuts on Billy's hand.
For a moment it was only pleasantly cool. Then it reached the open wounds, the raw edges, and it burned, every nerve reacting, and he jerked his hand away quickly, too quickly, provoking the same reaction as before, and this time the whimper became a gasp, and the sharp breath triggered more pain as the cuts across his ribcage pulled open. Trying not to move, not to even breathe, he forced himself to wait it out, knowing that the more he gave in to the instinctive animal reactions of his body, the more it would hurt.
Finally, upper lip and forehead beaded with sweat, he beat it back. The burn faded enough that he could breathe, though he had to do it carefully.
"It's just medical alcohol in here," the man informed him, hefting the bottle. "Nothing special. A little disinfectant. I wouldn't want those lovely cuts to get infected. Would you like me to see to your other hand next? Or shall we stop and chat awhile?"
Billy squeezed his eyes shut and steadied his breathing, waiting for the hiss of the atomiser and the flames on the sensitive tissue. He wouldn't break his silence. Not for this.
And he almost succeeded - would have completely succeeded if the incisors gripping his lower lip hadn't gone right through the skin, causing him yet more pain and removing his means of keeping silent. He made a low sound, not quite a whimper, nor really a groan, nor really anything, except a noise he hadn't wanted to make.
"Is that so?" the man said, his voice and manner a parody of solicitousness. "Tell me more."
And the hiss came again, the light mist falling onto his ribs and abs, over the tracery of bright red lines and duller rusty smears there, and halfway through it his indrawn breath became a shriek, and then he didn't scream anymore because he couldn't get any more air, he couldn't move, he couldn't do anything except hang there in the restraints, his brain paralysed by pain, pain, pain, burning, burning, stop, please, fuck, please stop, pain, pain, pain, and that was all there was in the world for a very long time, years maybe, until it receded.
He became aware that his eyes were blurred with copious tears, because this was zero-g and they wouldn't fall no matter how many of them there were, and he hadn't meant to weep, even in that time of pain, hadn't meant to show any weakness, and it upset him more that he had lost his control without even knowing it, but he wouldn't cry, he wouldn't, because he knew how much it would hurt him to breathe in that rough way. It hurt enough already; there were spots at the edges of his vision and he felt quite light-headed.
He was dimly aware that the man was saying something. He forced himself to focus, just in case it was important.
The man had brought the blood-smeared cloth back out of the attache case and touched it gently to the tear-lenses that covered Billy's eyes. "Now, then," he was telling Billy gently. "Don't cry. We can stop this now, if you like. All you have to do is talk to me, and I have some lovely medications with me that will stop the pain altogether. You won't feel a thing."
No, I'm sure I won't feel a thing - dead people generally don't... and he clearly means to kill me, one way or another, Billy thought dully. He can't very well let me go free. So I'm dead already, really. If I don't talk, I will surely die - I can't take much more of this. I'll not be able to breathe anymore. But if I do talk, maybe... maybe it won't hurt so much.
But was it worth it? What would he have to betray in order to be allowed to die easily?
The ASDF, certainly. The interrogator would want tactical secrets, or at least, things that were secrets to the Coalition. Billy considered this, and found, to his shock, that he actually didn't mind that too much. The Coalition certainly had intelligence people - eventually they could find out on their own anything Billy could tell them. There wasn't much Billy knew that wasn't common knowledge.
Except one thing, which wasn't even really a fact, just a suspicion - but a suspicion that could cause a lot of trouble.
What if they asked him about Dom? What if they knew about Dom, what if Dom had slipped up somehow and they'd found out about him, and they'd captured Billy because they knew he'd know?
I can't, Billy told himself firmly, and the words had the ring of truth. I can't betray Dom. I would rather die. And then he told himself that saying that was a little silly, as he was going to die anyhow, but he knew he would die before speaking a word about Dom.
"Would you like to talk with me now?" The man tucked the cloth away, and folded his arms, looking suddenly remarkably sympathetic and avuncular. It made it easier for Billy to open his mouth at last and say the painful word.
"Maybe."
"Maybe?" The man gave him a quirky, encouraging half-smile. "Why only maybe?"
Billy swallowed. "What... what is it you want to know?"
The man's smile broadened. Billy thought again of crocodiles. "Well, first of all, I would be very interested to know how your long-range sensors find our convoys."
"They don't," Billy said, glad that in this case he really had nothing to tell. "Our information comes from ASDF Command."
"Ah, of course. And how do their sensors find us?"
"I don't know," Billy told the man honestly.
"Oh, come now." The man's eyes narrowed, though his smile did not change. "You can't expect me to believe that you just sit in your capsules all day without the slightest idea what's going on, waiting for information that you haven't the vaguest idea where it's come from."
"That's about the size of it," Billy said steadily. "They don't tell us. Why should they? We're only gunners."
"You're only gunners. You're only the ASDF's first line of defense against us, and they don't trust you enough to at least tell you what they're tracking, or how far they can see from Earth - or do they have arrays out in the Belt too?"
"I don't know," Billy said, hearing desperation in his own voice. "Honestly, I don't know. I suppose they could have - or not. I really can't tell you."
The man brought his hand up to Billy's jaw, stroking it gently. "I don't believe you, my dear man. You know the answers to my questions, and you're hiding them from me, and I don't like that very much."
"I'm not," Billy protested. "I swear I'm not. I really don't know. They don't tell us."
The hand that had lain quiescent along his jaw whipped back and struck him sharply across the cheek, the same cheek that the interrogator had slapped the day before. The half-closed cuts along the inside reopened, spilling blood into his mouth. His head and neck rocked sideways with the force of the blow, pulling his upper body, his lower body, arms, legs, in a chain reaction, and his nerves sang with blinding pain, and he screamed in counterpoint.
"Tell me," the interrogator was barking at him. "Tell me, murdering ASDF scum, tell me. I know you know."
"No, no," he whimpered, through a red haze and sobs that he could not stop, "no, please, I don't know, please, don't hurt me - please, no, I, no, I don't know!"
The man struck him again, this time with a closed fist rather than an open palm, higher up on his cheekbone. He greyed out for a moment, came back to himself, still pleading, sobbing, begging the interrogator to stop, please, please, because he didn't know, he truly didn't - and everything hurt so very much, and he couldn't breathe, really, and his head was spinning and aching and he seemed to be swallowing blood by the pint from his torn cheek, and the interrogator wasn't listening, wasn't hearing him, because there was the atomiser bottle again, and the cool mist on his chest, once, twice, on his arms, on his face, covering him from forehead to navel, from wrist to wrist, in a sheath of pure agony.
He knew he was convulsing, muscles spasming wildly as if he meant to tear himself free from his own body, which wasn't such a bad idea really, when he thought about it, and he didn't remember how long it had been since his last breath, and he couldn't see anything anymore, not the interrogator, not the cell, just black, and every muscle in his body suddenly clenched and his head whipped back and hit the hard metal panelling, and something made a dull sort of cracking noise, or maybe that was in his head, because he couldn't really hear either, his ears were ringing, and the ringing and the black were getting stronger and the pain was going away, which was nice, and then there wasn't any sound or sensation or anything anymore, and he understood at last what was happening, and it was all right, because he had known it would come, and he welcomed it now, welcomed it into himself as it welcomed him into itself, and let it take him.
And then there was a great silence, and a great stillness, and that was all.
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Poor Billy! He's providing his own mental torture along with everything else.
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*weeps* more, please.
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DOM, get your ass in gear and find your Billy!! ::kicks him::
Nextchapternextchapternextnextnextnext!!!!!! :::is a whore for this story:::
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Uhm, yeah, I could go on and ON so I'll just condense everything running through my head and say this: I can't WAIT to see where you take the boys in future installments. Thank you for sharing this story with us. =)
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Dom, Dom, Dom...where are you? Must save Billy...and torture the interrogator while you're at it. This is just amazing! Oh, I am totally enthralled...
*waits impatiently*
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Holy Crap!! This might be a really good time for cavalry!Dom to make an appearance. Especially since I *really* want to see him put some of these techniques to use on this "artistic" Interrogator. (I'll admit that I *do* want to see the particular canvas described here though.)
This is seriously EVOL stuff. Talk about ultimate jeopardy/vulnerabilty for poor Bills. (He doesn't *know* anything you sick fuck.) And the visuals for bodily fluids in zero-g...incredibly chilling. *stops to take a deep breath*
Oh please just hurt us some more as soon as possible. *whines*
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Dom? Where the heck are you?
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Please save Billehhh!!!!!! *sobs* evil evil man leave Billy alooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnne. dammit.
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I love the veils and the blood and the tears, and I think I may be ill.
I feel I should remind you at this point, though, that no matter how pretty death is, Billy live is prettier.
Mer
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Ouch, ouch, OUCH!! Ooohhh, I'd like to beat that asshole senseless ('scuse my language). Better yet, I'd love to see Dom come in, "interrogate" him and drop kick him out an air lock! Dom will be coming soon, won't he??????
Your imagery(sp) is amazing..kinda disturbing, but really amazing. Totally hooked.
Erin
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I don't want this to be seen as any kind of reflection on your writing or the story or anything like that, because this is continuing to be a masterful manipulation of all my emotional strings and the detached part of my brain really admires your ability to do that.
The invested part of my brain, however, is knotted up and in great distress and making my stomach do flippy-flops.
WHERE ARE YOU DOM??? OMG.
*weeps and clings*
OMG, please please please update soon please please omg my poor heart cannot take it.
Uhm, thank you?
Yes, thank you. I mean it, really, I'm just a bit overwrought at the moment. So sorry.
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But, wee confession. I find the torture aspects to be quite interesting. It is intriguing how with the few different drugs, that evil bastard is able to cause a maximum of pain with so little actual damage.
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Reaction #1: Wow, you are a very good writer. I love how thoroughly you have envisioned and how well you have described the psychology of being tortured and the effects of zero-g.
Reaction #2: BILLY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!BIllybillyowowowowow Dom please find him!
Augh! *weeps*