Trigger Warnings for this chapter: Violence, torture, abuse. Heavy chapter with mentions and descriptions of all of these, please be aware of this before reading.
And thank you for sticking with this story, and with me, if you have, I know it's been a while.

Chapter 4

In The Confines of Fear

Fear.

Panic.

Terror.

Pain.

It all came back to fear.

Fear of panic. Fear of terror. Fear of pain.

Hot and cold all at once. The red hot pulse that fired first. Tearing through nerves. The cold dread that gathered in the pit of the stomach and spread like a chill frost. Slowly and deliberately, creeping into the lungs, snatching every breath and trapping it in the chest. Causing a blind struggle for air, gasping and panting and struggling, making it almost impossible to breathe.

It found its way into every heart. Corrupted every mind. Twisted every soul. The doubt hissed in vulnerable ears whenever a human being is left alone. The darkness that breeds easily in someone's soul from birth. Crushing and consuming. Manipulative and dangerous. Crippling and destructive. Fear.

He knew fear.

He had known fear every day of his life. An ever-present, overbearing shadow that had appeared over his shoulder in childhood and had stubbornly dogged each footstep since. He had kept waiting to grow out of it. To get over it. To get out from under it. But fear seemed to have taken a great liking to him. Whatever he did. He could never shake it. He'd had to come to terms with it and learn to deal with it as best he could.

It came to him in many forms and acted in different ways from motivator to manipulator. It could take him and force him into being a hero for an hour or twist him and make him into a monster he barely recognised.

In darker moments it reached out to him as a friend of sorts, a tentative ally when he had nothing else. Something so painfully familiar that he could reach out and connect with it and use it to remind himself of who he was.

He was nothing without fear. No-one was. It made us human. It reminded us of what it meant to be human. What it was to be alive. That intensity. That fire. That consumed us. And threatened to destroy us or burn us out. With the beautiful irony that in the moment we didn't care. In the moment we just wanted to live. It forced us to face why we wanted to. It divulged hidden desires and priorities. It left no room for thought. Only instinct. Only action. Only survival.

He knew that too.

And so when someone had told him that. He had clung to it. With a fervour of believing that his fear showed him why he wanted to be alive. Not why he wished to be dead to escape it. He had clung to it then but now the words left a bitter taste in his mouth.

Because he had learned to control it. To force it to an advantage. A motivator. Something to make him do something, make him help, make him want again. But the panic that was twisting in his gut was anything but controlled. And whoever had taken him knew that. And that terrified him more than anything else had the power to.

"This time let me help you."

The firm pressure of her fingers curling, almost protectively, around his wrist; stopping him from reaching for the thing that she could see was destroying him, even if she didn't know why.

Her tone was flat and blunt and brokered no arguments. Yet there had been a certain warmth to it. A sincerity. A genuine desire to help him. An almost tender want to reassure and to soothe. And he had let her. He had withdrawn. He had admitted that he couldn't do this. That he needed help. He needed her to help him.

Showing something like weakness. Vulnerability. The confession to her and to himself that he was not infallible, he was no invincible.

"Let me help you."

Her words filled him again as she padded into hotel corridor and glanced up at him. Her eyes silent, repeating those words, her look causing them to echo in the air between them. Wordlessly making the same offer to him. Acknowledging that he needed it. He still needed it.

But it was her next motion that drew him to her, dispelling the hesitation that had been trickling into his system. The faint flickering of her eyes. Glancing back towards the room. That split second doubt in herself that she had not been clear enough. The revelation that was tied up in that of her wanting and needing him to help her as much as she saw he needed her to help him.

She covered the slip in a heartbeat. Pushing the door open and smoothly disappearing into the room. The definition of composure and control restored to her. But it had been enough. Enough for him to see. Enough for him to know. She was not pitying him. She was not dreaming of putting him back together in a night. She was hurting. And she could see that he was too. And she needed help and she wanted to help. And in some ways hoped that they might be the same thing.

He slid his key card back into his pocket and walked slowly back up the corridor, slipping inside and closing the door behind him with a soft click.

Her back was to him. Two glasses on the counter. She had known he would come. She turned before she poured out the drink to see if that bothered him. He was still walking slowly towards her. It didn't. She knew her team. She knew him. She knew people. He accepted that.

She nodded firmly and poured a generous splash of whiskey into both glasses, shoving his towards him without looking at him. He caught the glass in his hand and lifted it, wetting his lips with the dark liquid, studying her over the rim of his glass.

She poured herself a few carefully judged fingers and threw them back, wincing at the bitter sting that kicked the back of her throat as she did so. She poured herself another generous measure. He made to quietly suggest she slow down but she only turned to him, glass held lightly in her hand watching him, clearly waiting for him to speak.

"So what?" he growled faintly, trying to keep his tone casual then wondering why he was bothering, glancing down into the glass, tilting his wrist and making the dark liquid swirl angrily, watching it instead of her as he demanded defensively, "Is this the part where we have a few drinks? We bond? I share all of my dark secrets with you? And we have our little moment?" He knew it wasn't. Knew that had never been her intention. But he wanted to get a reaction from her. He should have known better.

She said nothing, watching him steadily, waiting once more. "Why did you bring me in here, May?" he asked, his words almost compulsively filling the silence, "You want me to talk is that it?"

She let the air slowly run from her lungs as she considered him for a moment, letting some of the nervous anger that had just burned through him cool a little, raising the glass to her lips again then thinking better of it, lowering it once more and saying evenly, "Firstly, I didn't 'bring' you in here. I left the door open. You came in."

He hissed in irritation and snarled roughly, "Call it whatever you want, May, I still want to know why."

She thought about this for a moment before asking steadily, "Why did you come in?"

"Don't try and answer a question by asking another one." He snarled tautly.

"Why, Ward?" she pressed, seemingly unfazed as his temper flared again, her voice softened slightly as she asked, something like uncertainty creeping into her voice, "Do you want to talk?" He turned away from her without answering. She persisted. "Do you want me to talk?" Still nothing. "Do you want to drink?" His fingers flexed around the glass in his hand but his lips didn't move to offer up an answer for her. She paused a moment before asking pointedly, "Do you want to leave?"

"No." He said, this suggestion finally stinging him into an answer, speaking at least, a little too quickly. "No." He said again, his voice softer, his words somehow firmer for that, "No I don't want to leave."

"Then don't." She told him simply. "Talk. Drink. Whatever you want. Stay." She hesitated, the tip of her finger running delicately around the rim of the glass in her other hand, before telling him quietly, "I don't have a hidden agenda here, Ward. I'm not trying to play therapist or psychologist I just...I didn't think you'd want to be alone tonight." She murmured softly, a strange edge creeping into her voice as she had gone on.

"Yeah?" he demanded, his defences suddenly flaring again, his eyes narrowed, an anger that did not entirely belong to him pulsing through his veins without warning or invitation.

"Yeah." She answered, her voice dropping as his rose, becoming calmer the more aggressive he became, settling him in turn.

"And what makes you think that, May?" he snapped, not entirely able to control himself as fully as she had, traces of hostility still filtering into his tone.

She took a long time in answering and when she did the sincerity in her tone and the candidness of her words made him pause for a moment as she told him calmly, "Because I don't want to be alone tonight."

He paused, startled by her honesty, considering his response.

"And you think I'm like you?" he asked, his tone, like his expression, hard for her to judge.

"In some ways." She told him carefully.

"In some ways..." He repeated slowly to give himself time to think.

She waited. Quiet once more. Knowing that that was one aspect of her personality he seemed to value. Where others complained that her stoic silences made them feel vulnerable, exposed and uncomfortable, he appeared to like the opportunities they afforded him for breathing space. There was no pressure to speak or be spoken to. It was simple, easy, almost.

After a long time, that she had begun to fill by sipping at her drink once more, he nodded, making a clear decision and draining his glass to finalise it.

She waited to see what he would do next. He set his glass on the counter once more and steadily grabbed the bottle, smoothly refilling his own before turning to top up hers. She nodded to him, understanding passing between them as he took a seat.

For a long time they simply sat in a rare, companionable silence that would have made most uncomfortable but that suited them and their moment. They fed off of body language and tiny behavioural ticks they had been trained to notice and reacted to on instinct, gradually moving closer to each other as time went on, perching on the end of the bed together, nothing but the bottle and their own habits of loneliness separating them.

They wordlessly refilled the other's glasses. Trusting them to limit their alcohol intake more than they would have trusted themselves.

The silence endured. As they had. Until he broke it, his voice cracked from quiet and harsh draughts of the brutal whiskey,

"How?"

She took another rhythmic sip of her drink, not looking at him, knowing he had more to say than that and giving him the room to say it.

"You told me before," he began in a tone that prompted another, premature gulp of the bitter alcohol held between her hands, "That you could, you could deal with what that staff showed you, what it put you through because you saw it every day..." he hesitated, his hands trembling at the thought, "How?" he repeated hoarsely.

His question surprised her, though perhaps it shouldn't have. And it took her a moment longer to consider it. She had been expecting 'why' or 'what' but how...How suited him more she thought.

He wasn't interested in prying information from her. In dragging up bitter old memories and upsetting her. He wanted control. He wanted her to tell him how to control herself. How to feel nothing. Maybe that's what he thought of her too. Like they all thought of her. Had he come to her for a numbing agent? And not...Not what? What had she expected? She shook her head. He was in pain. And he wanted her to help him. And she wanted to help him. That was all.

She shifted uncomfortably then said softly, staring down into her drink rather than up at him, "Because it reminds me." She told him quietly, "It reminds me of the things that people are capable of doing to each other when they're angry or upset or scared...What kind of monsters we become when we lose control." She hesitated, taking a slow, shaky breath before admitting softly, "It's not something I ever intend to let myself forget."

She trailed off, hoping he wouldn't press her for more, already feeling that she had said too much. He said nothing. And after a while, she raised her head and glanced up at him. He nodded quietly, reassuringly to her, then tentatively slid his hand over hers. She let her eyes meet his and then nodded in return, allowing her fingers to softly squeeze his hand, accepting his touch, welcoming it almost.

"What do you see?" she asked him quietly, feeling him tense beneath her, "What do you see that you're so afraid of seeing every day?"

Soft like silk. Smooth and lilting. With the faintest hint of an accent even his trained ears could not place. The voice that had been murmuring to them in the darkness for what seemed like hours now continued to swell around them. That voice that he had mistrusted from the first hiss that had slithered from the hidden tongue of whoever owned it. That voice that made shivers trickle through his body; that made him want to run; that made him want to dive for cover, for shelter, that made him want to hide again, was still filling the air around them.

"It's a curious thing, isn't it? Fear. It's a disease. A disease of the mind that we are all born with. Every human being on the planet suffers from fear. It is incurable. Unavoidable. Inescapable. You know fear. Better than most. You know fear instinctively. Don't you?"

She was already bloodied. Bruised. Broken. He could see. Beaten, just enough, so they thought. Softened. The protective shell around a vulnerable nerve picked away. Exposed. Defenceless.

"Fear is unique. A virus, then. Like our fingerprints. Our DNA. Woven in to the very fabric of our being, the intimate fibres that make us who we are. Singular. Personal. No two people share exactly the same fears or express them in the same way, or feel them in the same way. But they are there. And they are linked through our ability to be cruel. Our ability to manipulate others through those fears that haunt them. Because if you can make someone fear, Agent Ward. To their very core. Then that is power. That is control. There is nothing you cannot make them do for you..."

"Leave him." He snarls .

"But-" A weak protest. That will earn him nothing he knows, but something compels him to try.

"Leave him." The hiss. The snarl. The fury that flickers behind those eyes at the idea of disobedience, of a loss of control. The hands curling into warning fists. "You know what will happen if you don't." The threat. Thinly veiled. Awfully controlled. His voice flat. His eyes dancing. Daring him to disobey. Knowing he could not.

"Grant! Grant, help me! Help me! Grant, please!" the terrified sobs coming from so far away yet feeling sharp and almost painful in his ears, in his soul.

"He...He's scared." He ventured again. His eyes closing a second later, cursing his own stupidity. Of course he was scared. That was the point.

"So are you." He was reminded cruelly. Casually. With an ease that came with practice and triumph. Assured success before the games had even properly begun. "That's why you'll do as I tell you."

"Grant? Grant! Please. Please..." The pleading continued. And he wanted to tell him to be quiet. That it would end badly for them both if he did not. But he said nothing.

"Leave him." The repeated command. Eyes flashing. Teeth bared in a vicious, triumphant snarl.

"You're a fighter. You understand the value of knowing and exploding an opponent's weakness." The soft, lilting voice was bleeding over the harsh, cracking hiss that belonged to his brother. That belonged to a different time. A different person. And yet had seemed so real in that moment. "You know the value of finding that pressure point that cannot be tolerated."

He watched them bind her hands over her head to a lean metal frame. She resisted. She was punished. He looked away, wincing.

Weakness.

A pressure point they didn't have to push very hard.

Quiet, satisfied smiles ringing in the silence that graced his mind for a second.

"Fear is an excellent pressure point so I have found. Would you like to know why?" The tone implied that his feelings on the subject were entirely irrelevant to the course of this monologue, "You are familiar with torture in your line of work." A chill descended into him. "How could you fail to be?" He closed his eyes, ice freezing in his bones til they burned and his nerves were sure that they would never revel in the warmth of her touch again, "Torture gets you what you want. Acceptance. Information...Pleasure."

"Do you remember now?" the scream ripped through him. Fuelled with fire and rage and cracking as a loss of control infused each syllable.

His body shaking, tensing, every muscle drawn taut like a curled fist. Bracing. Anticipating. Comforted almost as the expectation of pain was rewarded. It flashed through him. Hot and sharp. With a faint, almost bittersweet tinge. His brain, so intent on processing the feeling that it almost missed the point; his next words,

"I like it. I'm doing you a favour by not putting you through it. Do you remember that? Do you?"

Tensed muscles. Brace. Anticipation once more. Soft, dangerous footsteps receding.

Calm. Relief. Breathe.

"What I want is in your head. And your head alone. So isn't that where I should go to get it? Psychological torture s so much more effective, so much more elegant than physical. Wouldn't you say? No. Then I shall tell you why. Pain." His voice wrapped around that world and cradled it like a child, like it was precious and dear to him. "The object of torture, whatever its end, is pain. And pain begins in the mind. It spreads from there. Like poison it spreads. To the body; to the heart; to the soul. But it begins, it all begins in the mind. In your mind. In your weakness. In your fear."

He was watching her. Still watching her. As they wanted. As they had to. Because even if she couldn't see him. Even if she didn't know he was there. Closing his eyes felt like abandoning her. And he couldn't do that.

He watched as someone slid a blade beneath her shirt and slit it clean open at the spine. She hissed as the cool metal pressed against her skin, but whoever was preparing her took care not to split it. She was breathing hard. Trying to control herself. She was scared. She wouldn't look at any of them. He knew she was scared.

He tugged sharply against his restraints for the first time. His eyes boring into hers. Willing her to turn to him. To look at him. To know that he was there for her. To look in his eyes and know that he would do anything to help her, to free her, to make her safe.

Her eyes met his.

Full of fire and warmth and fight.

He nodded to her once.

She nodded back in return.

Then howled as she was struck across the back, the bare skin that had just been freed screaming in protest.

He was crying her name. Willing those eyes to look at him again, to see him again. But her head was bowed. Her hair covering her face. Her eyes closed tight against him.

And so he closed his too.

He could hear her panting, trying to breathe through her pain and so he glanced towards her, her eyes open once more, hooded and dark. Resigned. Almost calm.

He was tense. Panicked. His entire body shaking violently. Trying to will the situation into fiction while every fibre of his terrified being screamed that it was real.

He mouthed 'I'm sorry' to her in Chinese, hoping that she would catch it and their captors would not.

He was lucky.

As much as anyone in this situation could be.

She shook her head slowly, almost imperceptibly, but she knew he would see, her eyes closing for a moment, seizing his attention when they snapped open again and found him once more as she mouthed back, 'It's OK.'

"It's OK, Ward." Her voice was as gentle as she could make it; calming, soothing almost.

Her eyes were large and tender and close. She was so close to him. Closer than she had ever been; closer than anyone had been to him in a long time now. The part of himself that he had locked down, that he had ignored for so long, that part of his past that he had viciously tried to cut out of himself, like a cancerous tumour in his soul, was swelling in him once more and she was getting so dangerously close to it.

Something she seemed to sense. But she refused to shy away from him as so many had, as he had begged so many to do. She stayed, fixed so firmly in place that he wondered whether she would ever leave his side again. And then wondered if he would mind if she didn't.

He should have expected it, he supposed. Loyalty bordering on reckless stubbornness seemed to be inherent in Melinda May's DNA. She would not leave. Whatever happened .She would not leave him tonight, he knew that. Unless he asked her to. And he couldn't. So she would stay.

Abandonment was not in her nature. No matter how lost her cause seemed to be. She couldn't leave it. She couldn't fail it. A fierce protective instinct over those she cared about warmed the blood in her veins that those who never knew her claimed was shot with ice.

And she had chosen to care for him.

For whatever reason, she had chosen to care. And so now her eyes were full of fire for him; tempered only by the haunted reminders of the darkness that still twisted her soul.

She hesitated. Not sure what she could do, not sure what she should do. They had steadily and silently worked their way through a lot of the whiskey before he had begun to speak. Deliberately. Carefully. Weighing every syllable on his tongue, considering it before saying anything.

His speech hesitant and broken, furthered only by the patient silence she offered him. Asking her what she had seen. Not waiting for the answer he knew he would never get, stumbling on and telling her that it was supposed to be the worst things that had ever happened to a person that were summoned by the staff, that it was. The worst thing. The worst thing that had ever happened to him.

And he had fallen silent then. Hopelessly so. And she had felt compelled to fill it for the first time that night, and had told him as sincerely as she could that it was OK. Not that it was OK, or that what he felt was OK or that he was OK. None of them were true. But it was OK to talk. It was OK to talk to her. It was OK to trust her.

He had not responded. And why should he have? Her words had been blank and empty, despite their intention or the warmth she had tried to fill them with. They were only words, after all. And she knew only too well what the weight of words were when a person was in pain. Scared. Angry. Feeling, so intense that it not only filled a person but expanded them; they became more than they could take or hold; feeling that threatened to consume or to destroy; the feeling that she could see behind his eyes, however hard he tried to hide it, would not controlled by words.

She was losing him. She could fell that, and urgency spurred her on to desperation which was overcome against her will by instinct and impulse and she reached out and tenderly placed her hand over his.

He tensed at the contact and she panicked suddenly afraid that she had done the wrong thing. She almost pulled away but he turned to look at her, the emotion in his eyes somehow quietened by her touch. Her eyes meeting his helped.

It gave him something else to connect to, someone else. He let himself relax a little, breathing once more, allowing her fingers to gently lace together with his, holding his hand, offering him what little support she could in that small touch.

He turned to her again and she nodded quietly repeating her words but this time in Chinese, "It's OK."

The change of language pulled him further back to her, forcing his brain to work at translating the simple phrase and replying in kind, distracting him for a moment, "OK."

It was simple. As simple as it could be, but she acknowledged the gravity of it nonetheless. A moment later it seemed to strike him as well. He turned away, his lungs suddenly seeming to reject the air he was attempting to breathe, but while he slipped from her again, sudden panic taking hold, his hand remained in hers, stubbornly refusing to let her go while he struggled with himself.

Finally, he spluttered to her, "My brother."

Once he had gotten those words out he seemed a little better. She gently led him to the edge of the bed and sat down with him, settling him beside her, "My brother." He repeated, his voice softer and calmer, for more in control, "I had two. One older. One younger. The younger, he, he was harmless. Quiet. Shy. Gentle. Good...He was a good boy. My older brother was...He used to scare the Hell out of me; at of both of us, I..." his voice had dropped, becoming hoarse and brittle. She tightened her hand around his, encouraging him to go on. "He used to, used to beat the crap out of us, and that's if he was in a good mood otherwise...Otherwise." he broke off, swallowing hard and shaking his head, his jaw working, trying to clear the pressure of the emotion that was pulsing through him. "he was cruel, my brother," he whispered shakily, "He liked hurting people. The only thing he liked more was seeing them get hurt. Making...Making other...He...He never really liked getting his hands dirty. If he could avoid it. He, he preferred sitting back, pulling strings, manipulating others. That was..." he turned to her, catching a look in her eye and shaking his head violently, choking, "I, I never wanted to, May, you have to, you have to understand that, I never wanted to, but he, I was scared." He admitted finally, his voice cracking on the last word, his voice shaking with the effort it was taking to keep it controlled as he repeated hoarsely, "I was scared. And if, I, if I ever said no, he hurt him worse, he hurt both of us worse and I...I knew what he was doing was wrong. I knew I hated him for it. I, I knew I wanted to protect my little brother but I didn't...I couldn't...I didn't know how, I, I failed, it was my-"

"No." She broke in, her voice sharp and firm, silencing him and softening, "No" she repeated more gently, squeezing his hand, her eyes quiet and concerned as she struggled to reach out to him, "You were just a kid." She managed to murmur finally, "You were just a kid, Grant. In an impossible situation. That you should never have been put in to. It wasn't your fault."

He shook his head, pulling away from her for the first time and choking hollowly, "Do you know how many times I've heard those words?" he breathed, his voice low and strained, his body taut and trembling, pushed as close to breaking point as she had ever seen him. His eyes were dark and tortured when he turned to look at her once more before hissing, "How many times I've heard them in my own voice. Telling myself that over and over and over again trying to make it true, and do you know that good it did?" He turned away from her again, his eyes closing, his mouth clumping shut, unable to finish.

She paused, watching him sway on the spot for a moment before leaving the relative safety of the counter and moving into the open room again. Standing directly in front of him. She paused again to see if he would push her aside and when he did not, she reached up and gently placed her hands on his cheeks, tilting his head down to her.

He allowed her touch and did not pull away but nor did he open his eyes or move closer to her. He simply stood. Trapped, held in place by his guilt and his pain and his fear.

"Look at me." She murmured tenderly, her hands as warm as her tone as she softly repeated, "Look at me, Grant." The use of his name worked and his eyes tentatively opened to find hers steadily holding his gaze; flooded with words she could never find but that he somehow understood for her, "It's time you started believing them." She murmured softly.

"Why?" he demanded in a broken mutter.

She stared at him for a moment, confusion flickering across her face before murmuring, "Because they're true." She told him quietly, "You know it." She went on, "but you're upset and guilty and frustrated and you need someone to blame. You blame your brother. But you need someone to take it out on as well and you can't take it out on him so you take it out on yourself. And that's not helping anyone."

"I just, I don't, May..." he tried helplessly.

"Self-destructing is no way to get on in this world." She told him, a strange edge creeping into her voice, an understanding shifting in her dark eyes as she went on, "Breathing with the sole purpose of destroying yourself in every breath is no way to live."

"It's the only way I know how to." He told her softly.

"So let me help you." She breathed, "Please, Grant. Let me help. Please...Please.."

"Please!"

He was screaming.

He didn't know when he had started, or if he wanted to stop but he was screaming.

"Please." He choked again, straining against his bonds, desperate to get to her, his eyes fixed on her, his throat raw already. "Please." He whispered pleadingly, noting to the pause, the silence, the interruption to the flat rhythm of the whip crashing down over her back and her muffled cries, a hesitation, a chance.

His breath caught in his throat, choking him, his eyes found hers again as her lips soundlessly moved to mouth his name, shaking her head, not wanting him to be hurt for defying them, not wanting him to hurt anymore than he already was, knowing the exact source of the agony behind his eyes and desperately biting her tongue for that reason.

"Please stop." He murmured to them. Faceless. Nameless. Captors. Torturers. Monsters.

It didn't matter to him who they were now. It only mattered that they listened. That they stopped.

The moment balanced on a knife edge; suspended on a fraying string above calm and calamity; no-one moved; no-one spoke; no-one seemed to breathe or exist at all.

Until the whip fell once more.

And she screamed.

And felt herself being dragged away from his howl of anguish and deeper into herself, into a place where none of them could touch her, where she couldn't think or feel or hurt or hear; where she could only drown in darkness and something like peace as she slipped out of consciousness.