I strongly recommend you go look at Saynomore's work on Y!Gallery, if you have an account over there. Because she is responsible for this. Except for the title, which I borrowed from Braveheart. -just that cool-
"It's really very simple, Mr. Hastings. Tell us where Miles is and we can put this whole nasty business behind us."
Shaun snorted in faint derision. You mean, you can kill me and free up your afternoon for golf.
He'd been sloppy, that's what it was. He'd been shopping for supplies, too busy fuming at Lucy treating him like a well-trained labrador that he hadn't noticed the warning signs, and now he was here, at the tender mercies of Warren Vidic, who seemed to have taken it as a personal affront the last time he escaped. Rather than being thrown in a cell somewhere, or left in the hands of qualified torture-monkeys, he found himself in a chair in Vidic's private office. It could almost have been an informal business meeting, were it not for the fact that his shirt had been mostly removed, and now dangled around his handcuffed wrists.
"What's this? No attempts to sweeten me?" he scoffed, his tone relaxed despite the faint nervous tremor in his limbs.
"I think we're a little above that," Vidic replied with a thin-lipped smile. It really wouldn't be hard to imagine him donning a Santa Claus outfit and handing out presents to the little children at the mall, were it not for the lack of anything remotely approaching kindness in his expression.
"Well, then let's stop pretending I'm going to be convinced by the whole 'vague, mild-mannered' act," he shot back, already tensing. "I'm not going to talk. And we both know what that means."
"Hard-ball already?" Vidic paced over to his desk, pulling open the top drawer. "Well, you certainly put on a brave front." He removed something, and Shaun blinked at it incredulously for a moment.
He keeps a horse-whip in his top drawer? What kind of... Ugh, I don't even want to go there.
"I'm flattered," he said with a brittle laugh. "But you're really not my type of man."
"Oh, we still have enough bravado to be cute, do we?" That thin smile returned, every bit as cold, but now, unbearably amused. "We'll see how long that lasts." His tone, mild and assured, told Shaun clearer than words that there was a lot worse than a horsewhip on the man's agenda. Things that would make the whip look like a bit of fun before the main event got started.
The first strike was unexpected, and cracked across his shoulder hard enough to draw a muffled curse.
"Do remember," Vidic spoke as calmly as if they were taking afternoon tea, "that you can call a halt to this whenever you like."
"I'll bear that in mind." The words were distorted past his gritted teeth. This was going to hurt, he was fully aware of that.
The next blow had a bit more sting in it. Not enough to break skin, just enough to drag another oath between his teeth.
"Jesus," he grunted.
"Too much already, Mr. Hastings?" Another blow, though the Templar's tone remained unchanged.
"Not hardly," Shaun hissed, his own voice showing the strain. "I was just wondering- " and another, "if you mean business, or if- " another, harder, and the blood started to roar in his ears, "-if you were just flirting with me."
He paid for that one. His big mouth always did seem to get him into trouble. Vidic stopped pulling his hits, his temper beginning to show in the crack of the whip over unprotected skin.
"Don't know if you knew-" He had to pause, to gasp in a shallow breath, before he could continue, "but your mother does this better than you."
That was the last straw, and he felt it with the next strike, the split of his skin like an overripe peach, and the hot trickle of his blood, cooling against even hotter flesh. Where he'd been given a breath between each hit, to let the old sting fade before the new came, now they rained down on him with a vicious abandon, until all he could hear was his own heartbeat, the sound of breath whistling between his teeth as he refused to unclench his jaw long enough to scream. Within moments, mercifully, he stopped registering everything but that.
When he finally came back to himself, reluctant mind registering aching body as its own and accepting the damage, Vidic was standing behind him, speaking again in the calm tone he'd started out with.
"Are you willing to talk now, Mr. Hastings?"
Temper tantrum must be over, then, he thought with sardonic amusement, though mercifully, his tongue held still. Probably because if he tried to talk now, he doubted it would be coherent. He bowed his head for a moment, less worried about preserving his cocky nonchalance than getting oxygen into his starved lungs before he passed out completely.
"I'm waiting..."
You'll be waiting a bloody long time, then, Shaun retorted inside his head, the roaring in his ears subdued to the point that where he could distinguish other noises, like the click of Vidic's heels as he paced, far off shouting, and even further, distance making it almost impossible to notice, an alarm. Suddenly, he laughed.
"Come now," Vidic drawled, his tone holding that kind of taut amusement that said he wasn't that far off 'losing his shit', as Becca would say, all over again. "Do share the joke."
"Desmond," Shaun all but cackled, craning his head to shoot the Templar the most derisive look he could manage. "You want to know where he is?"
"...Yes." The flat affirmative made his hysteria bubble up all over again.
"You really, honestly want to know?"
Vidic was in front of him in a flash, propping his chin up with the whip, his eyes flint-cold and dangerous. "My patience wears thin, Hastings. Where is he?"
"He's here," Shaun hissed back, mouth stretching into a feral grin. "He's coming for me. Or, for you, rather. For your head."
He was honestly, truly grateful the man had left his glasses on, because he would take another ten beatings just to watch the anger slowly fade from his face, replaced by the first hints of uncertainty. "He's here now, and you know you can't stop him. He's going to rip through here like a hurricane, and there won't be much left of you when he's done. Now, I'd say you have...maybe five minutes, maximum, before he gets to this room. Do you want to be here when he does?"
And there it was, the moment that made it all worth it: The moment of pure, unadulterated 'I'm fucked' fear written across the Templar bastard's face.
"Don't think this is over, Hastings," he hissed. Then, he ran.
It was closer to ten minutes before Desmond finally found him. Typical Miles, bloody late, as always, Shaun laughed to himself.
"There you are," he greeted him, tone casual, though his body felt like one massive ache, and he knew he looked a mess. He was glad his back was to the door, it spared him the look of horror on the young Assassin's face. "Be a dear and get me out of these, would you?"
"Holy shit, Shaun." He lifted the shirt around Shaun's wrists to get a look at the cuffs that bound them, and the Brit could feel the slight tremor in his fingers, smell the blood on his hands. He twisted his own hand, caught Desmond's, wrapping long fingers around it and squeezing gently, and the brunet dropped his head against Shaun's forearms, squeezing back as if his life depended on it. "I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice as unsteady as the rest of him. "I should have got here sooner, I-"
"Idiot," the Brit chided mildly, fingers tightening. "This is nothing. This was just Vidic playing around, a warm-up before the real torture started." He released him then, thumb brushing over his knuckles in parting. "You got here just in time."
"But your back-.. God, Shaun, he made a mess of you."
"These things happen, Desmond." The Brit took a slightly sterner tone with him. "It's an occupational hazard. Just worry about getting me out of these things so we can get the hell out of this hole."
"Right." He worked in silence for a minute, picking the lock presumably, since Shaun doubted Vidic had been kind enough to drop the key on his way out. When the cuffs finally clicked open, he gave a muted groan of relief, shifting his arms into a more natural position and rolling his shoulders to get the bloodflow going again, mindless of the way the movements stretched the damaged skin of his back.
"The girls are safe, I presume?" he asked, rising to his feet and turning to face his rescuer.
"Holy shit..." Desmond's eyes were wide and troubled, taking in the whip marks that cut across his chest as well as his back, and he looked down for a moment, focusing on pulling his shirt into order and buttoning it, hiding the worst of the damage from view. "The girls, Desmond. Are they safe?"
"Oh.. yeah, of course they are. They're relocating, you know, just in case Abstergo figured out our hideout from where they picked you up."
"Of course." He straightened his glasses and took an unsteady step forward. "Let's go."
"Steady." The Assassin looped an arm around his waist, the action putting pressure against a slice low on his back.
"Aa-"
"Sorry, sorry." He jumped back as if scalded, and Shaun sighed, closing the distance between them and draping his arm across broad shoulders. He knew he wasn't going to make it very far without support, pride be damned. "Stop apologising, you bloody twit," he grumbled.
"Sor- Uh..."
He snorted, then turned his head. "Desmond, look at me."
When brown eyes reluctantly met his, he leaned in and kissed him very softly, fingers of his free hand brushing over the curve of his jaw.
"Thank you," he murmured against his mouth, soft and completely sincere. "For coming."
Desmond smiled, nose nudging against his in a silly, affectionate gesture that warmed him to the core.
"Now, let's go home, shall we? You know how Lucy will fuss if we're late."
"Home," the Assassin chuckled, pulling away after another quick kiss. "I like the sound of that."