A/N Ugh, I hate how FFnet eats dash marks, and I really don't like using their horizontal lines, but this is an archive spot for me and not a make content pretty site, so whatevs, right? Content warning for psychological torture.
Deprivation
Being in a room when a flash bang went off was never a pleasant experience.
Waking up naked tended to evoke a wider range of responses in Harry.
This time wasn't one of the pleasanter ones.
"You're good."
"So are you."
He liked swimming. Water was a favored element of his, and being English really had nothing to do with it. He was impartial about rain, it was the ocean he loved. Especially at night, Harry would close his eyes and to his ears, the roar of the waves was the sound of the world breathing. Deep, rasping breaths from the giant he lived on.
He could taste saline. It wasn't the bitterness of the sea, not in the tank they had him in. Sensory deprivation.
As far as torture techniques went, it wasn't one he dealt with often. Not to this degree. Normally he was just locked in a featureless room.
Here, in the dark, in the not-ocean, he couldn't hear the world breathe.
He couldn't hear himself breathe.
"We can't find you. Anywhere. You know what that means?"
"Your people aren't that good?"
"It means I'm not going to piss off anyone important when I kill you."
"I wouldn't be so sure about that."
"So you do have friends. That's nice to know."
It was warm enough in the room that the lack of clothes wasn't bothersome. The ground wasn't even particularly hard. Then again, that wasn't the point of this room. The uneven shape of the walls could only distract his eye so long.
His eyelids clicked with every blink.
Every breath seemed to rattle his bones.
The beat of his heart echoed so loud in his ears it made him sick.
"I think you're a cautious man, which is why you aren't going to do anything foolish."
"Oh? Why is that?"
"No one lives to be your age in our business without the ability to think things through. You know when to listen."
Galahad was his mantra in the tank.
I am Galahad.
A knight so pure of heart that he alone was allowed audience with the Holy Grail, and granted the task of bringing it back to Arthur.
Harry Hart was Galahad.
I am Galahad.
"I don't even know your name."
"Nor I yours."
"Is that the correct way to start a partnership?"
"One non-entity to another, I would advise you to work with what you've got."
There was no mantra he could conceive of that would drown out the sounds of his own body.
He thought about screaming, but worried that if he opened his mouth his lungs would burst before he would ever be able to convince himself to stop.
"I've thought about it, and I'm afraid I have to decline."
"I thought you would say that."
I am Galahad.
I am Galahad.
I am Galahad.
It was laughable, really.
"How much longer are you going to keep this up?"
"How long do you think you've been here?"
He tried not to blink, and every failure sent a whip like crack! to his ears.
His heart beat on, growing faster with panic.
"Why go through all this trouble?"
"Why not just kill you? You can answer that one yourself."
I am Galahad.
I am Galahad.
I am-
I am-
I am-
"I've already declined."
"Yes, and I have no intention of making that offer again."
He tried screaming.
It didn't work.
"Please, madame."
"Madame? I quite like that. So polite. You're such a gentleman."
"Madame, please."
"Please what?"
Galahad had chosen his time of dying and ascended into heaven.
Could he be granted that same peace?
I am-
I am-
I am-
dieing.
"Please."
"And what would I get in return? Hm? What could you possibly offer me?"
They didn't bother taping his mouth.
His throat was so sore when he tried screaming again he only coughed.
Everything tasted of blood after.
"I expected more from you, which was too much, it seems."
"Please, please..."
"Stop saying that!"
He didn't realize he was crying until they pulled him out of the tank.
"You're boring when you're quiet, you know that?"
"I.."
"Come on, spit it out."
He laid on the floor with his ear on the ground, and his heartbeat rattled his eardrum with all the force of a battering ram.
He could not breathe deep enough to scream.
"Please kill me."
"That's almost worth hearing you say please. But what do I get if you're dead? Hm? What then?"
"My- my..."
"Oh, don't stop now. Your what?"
"My name."
Purgatory, that was what this might have been.
If it didn't feel so much like Hell.
"And who are you, exactly?"
"I'm.. I'm..."
"Forgotten already?"
There was a white light. Judgement didn't hurt, not like he thought it would.
Waking up naked wasn't anything new.
The blanket was.
"For God's sake Galahad, can you hear me?"
"I'm... I'm...?"
He cried so much his tears soaked the cotton of his pillow, and he could taste the saline on his cheeks.
The shrill beat of the heart monitor pounded against his ears.
I am dead.
I am.
I am.
I am.