A Exorcist!Red AU. Written for m0rkl over on tumblr, and WhyPie on AO3.
Warning: Graphic descriptions of pain and other sicknesses, along with suicidal thoughts and contemplation. Heresy. Lots of cursing.
Depravation
Red wishes they would have waited. For his death or his innocence to save him first, he didn't care, but fuck he would've begged on his hands and knees and sang alleluia alleuia if it would have let him simply be in peace.
But, God is not nearly so kind nor is he prone to granting prayers, and so when Red wakes up in so much pain even the Devil would sympathize, all he can think is that Leverrier is back. The only time Red is in so much pain is when Leverrier has cast his eye upon him.
Red makes for excellent study material, given how quickly his body heals, how sturdy he is, and how alone he is. No one will mourn his disappearance or death, except for a select few already chained and manipulated by the Order as it is.
But, this experiment doesn't feel right. Something is horribly wrong, he can feel it in the very marrow of bones screeching in horrible agony, and he thinks this is what being burned alive is like, what being struck by the very lightning cast down by storms must be. He can't even think, can't even register the moments between sleep and waking because he is knocked so deeply into his subconscious by pain that there is only a blistering never ending wave of terror and torment
I want to die, he begs. Please, just let me die.
God doesn't answer this prayer either.
By the time they stabilize his body and he can actually think beyond the enduring agony, he knows so much time has passed. He can feel it in how languid his bones and muscle are, how his body sags and curves into the bed beneath him, and how when he opens his mouth and sucks in air, there is a horrible disgusting taste of disuse.
What have they done to him?
He finally wakes from physical agony to a pain of another kind, and his horror grows so extreme that between the persistent spasms of pain and his mental torment he chokes on his own panicking breath and they put him under once again.
He lingers between pain and sleep for so long, it finally occurs to him that the reason God has abandoned him is not out of malice or apathy but because he's finally fallen to hell and the Devil has him ensnared in his fiery grip.
That is almost preferable, Red thinks, than to actually waking up to Leverrier's face over him.
The first words he speaks are full of hatred so vile it breaks his heart a little.
"What did you do?" He cries, voice feeble and soft and weak.
Leverrier is smiling - in what Red assumes is meant to be mollifying - and pats the back of Red's right hand. Red sobs, begging his body to flinch away from the touch as it sends bolts of lightning up his arm, but too weak to do it himself.
"We saved you," Leverrier breathes, eyes alight with the most childish delight Red has seen on him yet. To Leverrier, Red is a curiosity, a bet, a gamble made where the only stakes are Leverrier's boredom. "We have made you stronger."
Red gathers what little saliva he has in his mouth and with glee spits into Leverrier's face. Disgusted, the man rears back, hurriedly tugging his handkerchief from its pocket to wipe away the mess. "No matter what we do for you - train you, raise you, educate you - you will always remain true to what you are, won't you?" His drawl is so sarcastic it almost makes Red want to laugh, if his chest weren't already heaving with horror.
"What did you do?" Red demands, lips trembling with the effort it takes to hold down his screams as another wave of pain rips through him. Fuck, what the hell is wrong with his body? He can't even twist his neck to survey any part of him.
Leverrier has moved away and back to the foot of the bed, where a low table rests against the metal bars there. He lifts a hand mirror and brings it to Red's side, angling the glass to better reflect Red's face.
He throws up at what he sees, too weak to even turn his head aside, and he begins to cry and tremble as his own warm bile dribbles and drips from the corners of his lips, down his chin and neck, and to pool like a gentle touch around his neck and hair.
God, God, please.
For once, just kill me.
Leverrier leaves him after that, calling frantically for the doctor. That doesn't really shock Red or bother him - in fact, he finds life much more pleasant when Leverrier is disgusted by him - but what makes his heart stutter and his breath catch is when before he leaves Leverrier takes his handkerchief and begins to wipe away the vomit collecting on his chin.
Red swipes his tongue along his teeth and in his mouth, collecting all the left-over spit, and then hurls that at Leverrier, too, until the man finally leaves him be.
Fuck him and fuck his pity.
Yet, when the doctor comes along with a few more attendants, and he's so weak they all have to make an effort to lift him, Red begins to think that perhaps, for once, he has finally hit rock bottom.
Maybe he deserves their pity, just as he deserved their hate and ridicule. Some kind of poetic justice, or some shit like that.
He's sweating so much from the pain and he's covered in so much filth, no one really notices the tears that drip to mingle with the blood slowly seeping from his mouth.
He's a mess. The Order has fucked him over so bad there's no going back from this. He can't tell exactly what they did, but he can feel how wrong it is, can feel the very disgust others have for him in himself. All of his nerves are alive and skittering like ants across his skin, dragging their pincers and slicing his flesh into thin rivulets so that he has to glance down occasionally to reassure himself he's still in one piece.
It's a moot effort, since he's damned to live not only by the very hand of God bred inside him, but by the powers that be in the Vatican.
The nurse cradling him leads him to an attached bathroom, and Red finally notices that this room is not part of the hospital ward in headquarters, but rather somewhere entirely different and so foreign there's no way of him recognizing it.
He feels the last of his dignity shred when the nurse - male, thankfully - lowers him in to a large bath tub and begins to undress him. He talks all the while, soothing and low and very carefully, as though Red would break at the softest of consonants.
Red doesn't listen, slowly succumbing to the pain creeping back over him once more. It suddenly occurs to him that they must have pumped his body with opiates. He feels his stomach turn again, but there's nothing left to give, and Red think his heart is crumbling into ash as he's lean into the side of the tub, head lolling ugly and dangerously, too weak to even hold himself up at that.
He keeps his eyes closed as the nurse carefully washes him, and ignores the tender touches that pass through his hair and down his cheeks, wiping away the tears that don't seem to touch.
It's too late for kindness in his life.
When Red has healed enough to sleep lighter than the death his body puts him in to avoid the pain, it is of bright blue skies and pink flowers. It's peaceful, sweet, and he thinks this is what his heart desires. To be alone in an endless field of blushing flora with the most surreal of skies cascading over him.
He also dreams of the same unending pain that plagues him in his waking hours, so when he wakes one day to a blond stranger quietly reading beside him, it takes him far too long to recognize him.
He says something, lips forming letters and a word he doesn't remember a moment later, and it's only when the stranger looks up and frowns that he realizes it's Link.
"You're finally awake, Red," Link says with a soft sigh, closing his book and setting in on an end table. He leans forward in his seat slightly, and his right arm jerks with an immediately aborted action that takes Red a second to realize was meant to touch him. He's glad Link didn't touch him.
In his stupor here, the only ones who touch him are the doctor and that male nurse, who comes every day to knead his muscles and comb his hair. He's the only person who's willing to treat Red's body the way it needs to be if he ever intends to live a life outside of this room as an invalid, but with every touch Red's heart breaks a little more. He can't say why.
He doesn't answer Link, instead turning his gaze just enough to touch upon the book he was reading. Red doesn't recognize the language the title is in, but Link is too busy staring at him to indulge him.
"Has anyone told you what's happened?" Link asks, and Red keeps staring at the strange words, trying to make sense of the illegible.
Link takes a deep breath, and Red's heart seizes in sudden, inexplicable, fear. No, he doesn't want to hear this. Please, he doesn't want to know!
Terror holds him tight and keeps an iron clad grip on his lungs, and he's not breathing when Link finally tells him.
"You were drafted into the Third Exorcist program, descended from the Second Exorcists'. Central has implanted an akuma into your body to keep you alive."
No, Red thinks with mounting horror. No, he prays, pleading for Link to be lying. Don't tell me this!
Link's calls for the doctor grow more and more distant as his vision grows dimmer, and he idly realizes that he's having another panic attack. He vaguely registers gentle hands carding through his hair, and someone talking to him. He has only enough presence of mind to turn his face and meet the stricken gaze of the male nurse kind enough to consider him human, and he begins to cry as he mourns his lost humanity, and the naivety he once held to ever consider having it before.
God has made it abundantly clear that he is not in His favor.
A/N: Not a very happy work, and probably won't get much better from here.
Written based off the premise of Exorcist!Red falling into a coma due to injuries from the Level 4 attack on headquarters, and Leverrier signing him up for the Third Exorcist program when he shows no signs of awakening.