A/N: This is legitimately the jellal-torture-scene: written version, so warning for torture, pain, and mind manipulation via Ultear.
the devil waits for your call
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There is a moment, between the shocks and the whips and the relentless all-consuming pain, a moment so still and soft and quiet that he basks in it like a starving man would in an oasis, drinks in the calm and peace as if he is dying. Even the absence of pain has a presence, if only as an antithesis to what it mirrors, and he holds fast to that moment, to those fleeting seconds where the pain has ended and his body has yet to feel anything, too numb to even ache.
But is merely a moment, and the pain always comes again.
Thrice now it has happened, and each time Jellal feels his heart sink like a stone in water, even as his back arches in a futile attempt to escape the pain and his throat aches from his shrieking. Just enough time, just enough thought to despair, before the pain sets in and his world is set alight once again.
This time is worse than the others. He suspects but cannot be sure, still he swears each session of torture is longer than the last. Or maybe it is that the lightning is more biting, their whips and batons hitting harder even as their laughter echoes around him like a bastardized lullaby.
Each time they begin again he prays it will end; each time he fears it will not.
Finally, after another eternity they pull away, and Jellal is left hanging limply from his restraints, with barely enough strength to keep breathing. His arms ache, stretched to the limit behind his back. His bones seem to grate with every movement, sending spasms of pain through his beaten body. Everything hurts—his head, his arms, his chest. It hurts to breathe. It hurts to move. It hurts to scream.
The guards are laughing. He can hear them, dimly, as if they are on the other side of a very long, very echoing tunnel, their voices distorted and rebounding through his skull.
His is briefly aware that they are speaking—words and syllables that should make sense but don't, because he is too tired and too injured to make sense of them. Then they stop speaking and his breath catches, body tensing in preparation for what he already knows will come.
There is always a moment. But it is only ever a moment.
If he had the strength left for it, he thinks he might've wept.
The whips crack down again, lashing his flayed and bloodied skin, and even though his throat feels swollen and hoarse, even though it hurts worse to scream, Jellal screams anyway.
He tries his best to escape their whips, twists as much as he can in the too-tight bindings, but the pillar is strong and study at his back and keeps him within range. The whip lashes his face and he cries out again, twisting, head thrashing back against the stone. Tears burn behind his eyes and sting when they seep into his wounds. The ropes bite into skin, and the blood running down his wrists is warm and slippery as it drips through his fingers.
He doesn't regret it. He can't, he won't, he refuses to regret it, even though it might be easier if he did. It was Erza here before him and look what they've done to her, done to both of them.
He thinks of Erza's missing eye and blank face and bloody, bruised, swollen body, so small and thin and limp, and he can't regret. He doesn't regret killing the soldiers, he doesn't regret taking her place—that was the plan, wasn't it? Hadn't that been his plan, to take her place?
He can't remember that part very well. It must have been, though. It must have…
A hand runs through his hair, gripping tight, yanking his head up from where it rests limply against his chest. Jellal cries out again. He hates them; he doesn't want them touching him with their hands stained with children's blood. He's the one covered in grime and blood and bile but they're the ones who are truly dirty, and everything in him shies away from them, recoiling in disgust.
The guard slams his head back against the stone and light dances in his vision. It hurts. Everything hurts. He's so tired.
"This is what you get," one says, smile unnaturally wide and eyes gleaming. "You're not leaving this place alive, you piece of shit. You're going to die here. We'll beat until you can't move and then we'll watch you bleed out. It'll be fun." His grimy fingers grip Jellal's chin. His breath stinks of overripe food. "Won't it be fun?"
Jellal doesn't answer. The guard shakes him.
"I said, won't it be fun?! Huh? Answer me, you little shit!"
He realizes, suddenly, as he looks into the man's beady, cruel little eyes, that this time will be different. This time there will be no reprieve, no moment of blessed stillness. His body might as well be on fire, and Jellal can barely see. How much worse will it feel, when the torture begins again? What is worth this? He can't quite remember why he's there. What he came here for. Didn't he come here for a reason...?
He stays silent, staring. Dead-eyed and too exhausted to talk even if his ruined throat would have allowed him to.
The guard hits him across the face, and Jellal, for a brief, wild moment—regrets.
Red burns across his vision. It's darker than the flames of their torches, and its presence is all-consuming and covering like a dark heavy cloud. It settles in his bones. It whispers in his ears. Everything hurts, and he can't remember why he's there or who he's there for.
A voice whispers, I can make the pain stop. I can make it so you never hurt again. I can show you true freedom.
And Jellal, broken and bleeding and regretting and so, so very tired—Jellal listens.
A/N: I wrote this about two years ago, forgot about it, finally cleaned it up and posted it. I don't remember anything about Fairy Tail, so I have no idea if this is completely accurate or not...
Any thoughts?