A/N: First off, thanks again for the reviews and private messages! I'm so glad that the humor of the stoy is working. :D Secondly... ::fans self:: This chapter got a little away from me and um nearly pushed for an M rating. Be warned! It may not be as funny as the others, as it's dealing with an interrogation scene. I did my best, though! I hope you like it. :)
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Please don't sue. This is purely for fun.
I was having the most amazing dream.
And no, before you ask, it wasn't a dirty dream. It wasn't even a dream about having an unlimited shopping spree at my favorite gaming store. Although, now that I think about it, that would be a dirty dream for me. Gaming isn't the cheapest hobby in the known galaxy, and there are literally hundreds of books that I'm dying to get my hands on. Star Wars books being chief among them, of course, but that didn't mean I was opposed to a little 'fandom infidelity' with the occasional Pathfinder or Warhammer book. What can I say, sometimes even the most devoted of fans wants a little variety.
But no, tasty as that one seemed, that wasn't my delicious dream d'jour of the night. In this one I was chasing tiny little chibi Prajis around a forest, gleefully squashing them into dust with my giant classic black Converse hightops, the ones with the big white skulls on the tongues. I'd added little pink bows to the tops of those skulls and bright neon yellow and fuchsia shoelaces to add a punch of girlie screw-you to the can of whup-ass I was opening. Nothing like getting your butt handed to you by eye-wrenching pink-bowed skull feet. I'd have loved to see how he would have justified that to his superiors!
I reveled in my mass destruction, tossing out little wannabe karate sounds. Like I knew the first thing about martial arts, but the sound effects made me feel all shades of mighty. To be honest, I felt a little like Gargamel chasing smurfs, complete with the nasty nasally laugh. Instead of mushrooms, the little Praji houses were miniature Death Stars which spewed more chibi Prajis like psycho ants when I kicked one over. There was a whole village worth of the jizzbags, too, so I got to make like a giant blonde Godzilla on unsuspecting Tokyo. All stompity-stomp-STOMP!
That oughta teach him for kidnapping me, and starving me, and uh, being a hosebeast jizzbag! There was a longer list of crimes somewhere in my brain, but at the moment I couldn't think of it. Which should have been the first sign that something was off-base. I was having too much fun Dance-Dance-Revolutioning my way through cathartic revenge though to notice.
That was until a ton of the little buttmunches got together and produced a giant rubber band slingshot. They hurtled a rock at my face (seriously, a rock! Who does that?) and it struck me square in the jugular. The pain that rocketed through my body from that direct hit was mind-blowing. Which should have been my second heads-up that something was really wrong. There'd never been a case of someone being struck in the side of the neck and feeling it all the way down to their toenails. Those two parts of the body weren't even related! I reeled, throwing my Godzilla arms around wildly and tilting my head back to roar—
—only to not be able to open my mouth at all. My eyes opened wide instead, and oh man, I wished that they'd stayed closed.
I was staring up into Praji's million dollar baby blues, and once more his face was close enough to mine to kiss. That didn't happen, of course, as he had a hand clamped down over my mouth. Which was probably a good thing, because I was screaming at the moment. Literally screaming at the top of my lungs. Like seriously not being finished with the first scream but having to stop anyway and draw in breath to let out a second one. There was something in my mouth beneath his hand, something that felt like a bite guard from the way it was clamped over my upper and lower teeth. Some other part of it was extended into my mouth, depressing my tongue.
Probably so I didn't swallow it, or clench my jaw so hard that I broke my teeth. How thoughtful of the asshats to think of that. Guess we all needed to look pretty while being tortured to death.
I couldn't give my usual commentary out loud given that my mouth was occupied. But it was more than that. I was hurting all over, so much so that my heels drummed against the steel plate I was laying on, my hands jerking against the manacles that held my arms down at my sides. The rest of me would have been attempting that lovely imitation of a fish out of water, save for the fact that Praji was literally leaning against me, the weight of him holding me down. He even had a hand twisted up in my hair, holding my head steady.
And hovering at my side, thrumming like a maniacal hummingbird, was that black 8-ball they called an interrogator droid. Extending from it was a probe, a long silvery needle at its tip. And that tip was buried into my jugular, pumping liquid agony into my veins. No amount of struggling could stop it, no amount of pleading in my eyes had any effect whatsoever on Commander Jizzbag-Stoneface-Buttmunch-Die-in-A-Freaking-Fire-I-LOATHE-YOU Praji! That thick viscous substance continued to roll through my system and I swore I could feel it make its slow progression through my limbs, turning my skin into its own cage, preventing the sweet release of digging that pain out of me.
I stared into his eyes as long as I could, pleading with all my might to make the pain stop. It even continued after I felt that needle eject from my skin.
"Almost done," Jizzbag whispered as if trying to soothe a child. "Almost done."
Almost done? You mean there was MORE to come after the injection, after this pain? I didn't want to know the answer to that, but like with most everything in the past two or so days, nobody cared what I wanted. My eyes rolled up into the back of my head and I guess I started to convulse. I suddenly understood the need for restraining me this drastically. Guess this was the last part of that 'almost done.'
I don't remember much of it. Hard to remember anything when your body's electrical impulses started to kick into overdrive thanks to some outside chemical assistance.
I just know that when it was over, I understood how Wesley from the Princess Bride felt after two years of his life had been sucked away. I think I made the same whimpering cry, too. I won't tell you not to judge. I wasn't ashamed of my willingness to plead for mercy or cry. Nobody deserved to feel this much pain, not for anything in the world.
The whatever it was he put into my mouth was gone when my vision righted itself, and Praji was no longer leaning over me. He was seated beside me on the torture device/shelf/metal piece of hell. And, as if I hadn't suffered enough, he made with the thumbing back of my eyelids and the pen light routine again. I didn't have enough control over my own body to try to flinch away.
"Prisoner in cell block 1138, cell number 2188, has successfully survived the first dose of Robisardic serum," he was saying, the droid dutifully recording his casual words. "Pupillary responses on target for the dosage. Round one of questioning will begin momentarily."
He passed his palm over a sensor on the droid and a compartment popped open. Instinctively I tried to twist away, to put as much distance between myself and whatever he was reaching for. After all the pain I'd endured, after the horror staring at that interrogation droid, I honestly expected him to pull out the giant buzz saw from the Robot Chicken intro and be all gung-ho with the cutting. I certainly felt like that fowl strapped out on the table, ready for experimentation and rebuilding.
He withdrew a simple silver bracelet, which he clasped around his own left wrist, and what looked like a curved flexible piece of black metal. "Placing medical monitor now."
Remember how I said I tried to twist away before? Yeah, I tried that whole maneuver again as he reached for my face. I think I managed to roll my eyes wildly. That was about it. But it was enough to make him pause. He took off the glove on his right hand and gently cupped my chin, making me look at him.
"This isn't going to hurt you," he said gently, waving the black thingy in front of my eyes. "In fact, this will help you. What it does is measures your life signs, your neural activity. It will help me ensure that you live through this. Now hold still, please."
Like I had a choice! My limbs felt like I had been swimming in battery acid for the past hour, every muscle in my body giving tiny spasms randomly. He tilted my head to the side, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the bracelet on his wrist flash blue. That flash seemed to coincide with the minute that monitoring device attached itself over my right temple, arcing gracefully until it stopped halfway above my eyebrow.
So that's how the gag and the compress worked! Not that it mattered much now, but I'd spent the first four hours of my imprisonment trying to remove that stupid gag. Praji had had no trouble just slapping it on and off my mouth at leisure. But once it was attached to my face, it was like it melded there. Like a freaking alien facehugger, I swear. I'd have had better luck ripping off my lower jaw than removing the thing without that bracelet apparently.
The monitor gave a tiny hum as it activated, and then fell silent. He turned my head back, bringing my eyes to his. "See? No pain there. Now tell me, what is your name?"
That was the big question? Not, where are the plans? Not, how the hell did you end up on Tantive IV? Just… what is your name?
He wouldn't let me turn my head and look away, so I closed my eyes and my mouth. Truth be told, I was probably going to start bawling if I cracked my lips. Good reason to stay silent? Yeah. Not the most noble, but it was what it was.
"You are going to have to answer me," he said just as gently as before, tracing the pad of his thumb across my compressed lips. "The more you answer, the less you will hurt. You have my word on that."
Against my better judgment, I made with the juvenile sign language. How's that for passive resistance!
He sighed. "Recording off."
The humming of the interrogation ball when silent, and I braced myself for the lancing pain that would come when he snapped my middle finger. What I didn't expect was to feel his hand slide down the arm with the offending finger attached to it, his touch delicate like a lover's caress. It shocked me more than the prospect of fresh pain, especially when his fingers laced with mine and suddenly that arm was free. He lifted it slowly up and over my head, affixing it to the metal plate with a flash of that bracelet and a slight metallic click. And then he repeated it with my other arm.
It hurt. Oh man that simple motion hurt. My muscles did not want to cooperate with any movement. The gasps that left my throat were ragged, raw. Days now without water had left it parched, and the screaming from before had torn it plenty. But some of the pain had vanished in that simple movement, like motion had temporarily fought off the effects of the drug he'd given me.
Our ending position had him leaning against me again, his hands holding mine, his drowning eyes hovering inches above my own. Leia had warned me about this, about falling into him. Over and over my brain screamed that I should look away. My eyes got as far as his mouth before a cracked-up plan solidified in my thoughts. Rapport be damned. If I was going to die in this crappy little room with this crappy drug frying my limited brain cells, I was going to do it my way. I screwed up as much energy as I could and lifted my head off the shelf.
"I'm still not going to tell you my name," I whispered hotly… and then kissed him.
His surprise was instant and complete, his head jerking back from mine. But he was breathing hard all of a sudden, just as hard as I was. And those icy blue eyes were thawing, something warm moving in their depths. Oh goodie, I'd guessed correctly! It wasn't just me that had liked the feel of our bodies touching. He'd used every opportunity to touch me since the moment he'd had me scraped off the deck of the Tantive IV. And heaven help me, I'd encouraged it.
We had something in common, he and I, and it wasn't the prisoner/torturer thing.
It was good old fashioned lust, and in the wake of not scrumping like bunnies at every opportunity, we'd just been bitchy angry tweens to each other. Like that Bella chick from those Twilight movies (go team Jacob!). Except, you know, hotter and, uh, real. And he didn't sparkle in the light, thank god. The first Star Wars character that I saw sparkling like a disco ball, save for Jedi ghosts, was going to find a Death Star shoved up his ass. That is it, end of list.
"… don't normally do this."
Oh, crap. He was talking, and that meant I should probably be paying attention. Somewhere in my mental rambling, he'd shifted my legs apart and he was kneeling between them. His belt with all its silver utility boxes was already on the floor, his black uniform tunic open, the undershirt beneath that also open.
And color me a kid at Christmas, he had a scar!
A long jagged unbelievably hot one just above his heart that looked like someone had tried to knife him to death. I couldn't blame his attacker for that. Hell, I still wanted to knife him to death. Just because I was licking my lips, imagining the way that scar would feel under my tongue, didn't mean I liked him.
He was still Commander Jizzbag Stoneface Buttmunch. My lust for his body had nothing to do with his personality, or lack thereof I should say. But the weight of him as he leaned down and kissed me, the taste of him as his tongue found its way past my lips, was lighting me up faster than the drugs. In fact, the endorphins released in my brain were brandishing their broadswords-of-nookie-defense and hacking through the mind-numbing pain drugs. The more I focused on him, the more I was able to move.
Heh. Leia had told me that a comforting thought would save me. I highly doubt that this was what she had in mind. But any port in a storm, right? I had to wonder if she was faring half so well right now, and then promptly double-tapped that thought in the back of its perverted head. Vader was in charge of her torture session, for crying out loud! I so did not want an imagination full of daddy/daughter… on that slab… robotic… just no. No no no no no no!
It was bad enough that she was eventually going to French her brother. Ewwwww! I was tempted to ask Praji to start up the Magic 8-Ball again and fill my head with brain bleach this time.
Thankfully, he was just as skilled at pleasure as he was at pain. The kiss deepened, his hands pulling my t-shirt free of my jeans, and all coherent thought vanished.
And yes, the arrogant dilhole was right about something else: he was absolutely full of fun.
I was aware of two things as I tugged my Converse sneakers back onto my feet (the low top bright red ones, not my beloved skull-and-bow beauties). Yeah, I had a shoe fetish, but only when it came to Converse. Sue me. Anyway, the first thing being that I felt fantastic, if a bit sore from our, shall we say, less than gentle energetic activities. I was hungry as all get out, but still feeling pretty spiffy. The second thing being that I had been wrong about us.
My eyes kept tracing his shoulders as he set his uniform to rights, watching with fascination as that black fabric fit him like a glove, accentuating what I had just recently marked with teeth and nails. My palms tingled with the remembered feel of his muscled arms as I—
"Dammit," I muttered with feeling. "We were wrong."
He glanced over his shoulder, latching his belt back into place. "Were we?"
"Yeah. I thought this would get all the tension out of the way between us. That way you could go back to being the evil overlord Imp-dick and I could go back to hating you right and proper."
He turned around, folding his arms over his chest. Those eyes were back to the icy calm blue business I knew and loathed so well. Devil eyes, I now called them. Temptation, and not the good kind, made flesh. And his kisses tasted like treason. Like hot buttery rum-filled treachery. Hot buttery rum-filled treachery that I could nom by the spoonful. Hot-buttery rum-filled treachery that I could spend hours upon hours running my tongue-
"Dammit," I swore again, banishing that particular mental image with a pout. "I still want you. And I can tell you still want me, too."
It was true. What was supposed to have banished the lust so we could see plainly had only succeeded in removing the anger, leaving us both clearheaded. Able to view each other as we really were. I had no idea what he saw in me. What did I see when I looked at him? I saw a man that was arrogant, conceded, biased, racist, sexist, sexy, passionate, protective, gorgeous, determined, sexy, unflappable, sexy, gorgeous… What, do I have to draw you a road map? The guy was pure man-candy for some lucky Imperial-loyalist girl.
But as Elphaba would have said, I'm not that girl.
Nevermind the fact that we came from two completely different realities, (if this wasn't just all some weird hallucination I was having, or if I wasn't feverdreaming this from a coma (which was my current theory on why this was happening, by the way. Somehow I'd been in a massive car accident and I was waiting for a brain transplant or something)) what I saw ahead of us was two people completely sexually compatible (OMFG the man had WICKED skillz!), but were staring at each other across the giant rift in the galaxy caused by the Galactic Civil War. He was a staunch believer in what he was doing, and I couldn't get behind a government that would sanction the destruction of an entire planet.
"So, what now? You gonna use that against me?" I shot into the silence, my body beginning to tremble. "Brag to your buddies that you scored with Derpy Hooves the Turncoat Looser during her first real interrogation?"
Those eyes narrowed a moment, and he crossed over to me quickly, pulling me to my feet. For a second there I worried that I'd finally pushed him too far, that he was going to follow through with that promise to do worse than gag me if I pissed him off again. One arm around my waist, he tipped my head to the side. Staring, I realized, at the medical scanner still attached to my face. "Now, you are going to answer some questions before the Robisardic kicks back in."
My mouth opened in a tiny "O." Probably for the phrase "Oh screw me sideways!"
"Shhhh!" Praji hushed me quickly. "I'm going to turn the droid back on. But before I do that I want you to know something. I'm not the type to… normally lend myself to my prisoner, if you understand my meaning. This was a first for me. There's something about you, about the way you speak and act, that isn't normal. I don't believe you are a Rebel, but I know you know more than you let on. So please, answer the questions. I'll do what I can for you, but you have to give me something in return."
Part of my mind screamed that this was a ruse, that this was the rapport moment Leia had warned me against. I really should just keep my dumb mouth shut. But I had to trust him, at least for this instant, what with my legs starting to give out and the trembling in my body growing worse. Pain was starting to eek into my joints, a remembered warning of what was about to come back as the endorphin rush from our bumping uglies waned.
"Ask."
The tender way he held me changed, the hand that had held my face with near affection now fisted in my hair, cruelly yanking my face up to his.
"Droid on," he ordered, all frosty Commander Jizzbag Dilhole Buttmuch again. "Now, for the record, what is your name?"
"Mary Vasquez," I breathed, rattled by that abrupt shift in him.
"What is your homeworld?"
Shit. That was a question I hadn't counted on. Like they would accept the word "Earth" as a legit planet. I racked my brain swiftly, calling to mind what I knew of Praji. He was an aristocratic douchebag from a family that was the equivalent of the intergalactic Hilton clan. Save that they were bankers instead of hotel magnets. And , you know, he wasn't a braindead blonde with a tiny teacup dog. Which, now that I think about it, would have been funny to see actually...
The hand in my hair shook my head viciously. "I asked you a question. What is your homeworld? I will not ask you again."
Pay attention, in other words. Riiiiiight. Umm, lessee… he hated Inner and Outer Rim Worlds with a passion, thinking that the populace was too common and beneath the notice of the proud egocentric Core Worlds. Part and parcel of the Praji Family arrogance. So, what was a world that was a Core World but not one that would be glaringly obviously not mine? I blinked rapidly, trying to recall that one place Han and Lando had played Sabbac in Heir to the Empire…
"Abregado-Rae," I managed out. Close to Earth-ish as I was probably going to find. Third rock from its sun, a mishmash of cultures. Kinda rough-and-tumble in places. It worked.
"Good," he nodded, the pressure on my hair letting up a bit. "Are you a rebel?"
"No."
"How did you come to be on board the Tantive IV if you aren't a rebel?"
"I… hitchhiked." It was the truth, in a roundabout way. It wasn't like I volunteered or paid for passage. I was just suddenly there. Wasn't that the definition of hitchhiked?
"Transmissions were received by that ship. Do you know anything about them?"
Oh, boy… I knew ALL about them. But I wasn't able to stand on my own power anymore, quiet whimpers leaving my lips when I wasn't answering his questions. The Robitussin or whatever it was was back with a vengeance. I had to be quick and close to the truth before I was helpless and spilling the WHOLE truth.
"Y-yes," I managed. "Bria Th-theran sent them. I didn't know wh-what they were. Bria w-was a f-friend. Dro-droid rece-received them so they weren't in the co-computer. That's all I know, I swear!"
"And how did you know my name?"
"Bria," I wailed, hands fisting onto his tunic. Oh, mercy me, my insides were on fire! Was it really so bad that I was throwing a dead rebel hero under the bus? I mean, she had to be dead by now, right, considering she was the one that transmitted the Death Star plans from that one hidden planet? "Bria h-had a c-crush on you. B-back when her boyfriend was in the Academy."
Total utter bullshit. But I was desperate now, close to cracking. And I had sandwiched that line of dreck between two slices of truth. Hopefully it was enough to make him believe when he checked out my story.
"Really," he said stonily. "And who was this boyfriend?"
"H-han Solo."
That part had been true. Bria and Han had been a couple, at least as far as the books went on. But that ended when he'd joined the academy. I could only hope that Praji had been on Carida at the time Han had, otherwise he'd quickly smell what I was shoveling at him.
"Good," he said again. "I believe you, for now. Recording off."
I sagged, full blown sobbing in his arms.
He carried me to the metal plate. "This will take the edge off," he said, and I felt the sting of a second injection. "I can't do more until I've verified your story. I'm sorry."
The pain wasn't going away, but it was no longer affecting me. I pushed myself up into a sitting position, feeling… nothing… really. That scared me. "The pain's still there," I muttered dazedly as he secured the binders back on my wrists. "You didn't dull it. You just made it so I couldn't feel it anymore."
He grimaced. "I said there wasn't anything more I could do right now."
"Let me guess. Most prisoners are just thrilled not to feel the pain anymore. They don't care that whatever you've given them is still wreaking havoc on their bodies," I pinned him with a stare, brushing tears off my face with the back of my hand. "That's such a douchy thing to do, Nadonnis."
"Douchy?" Praji shook his head, smirking as he gathered up the rest of his torture stuff, plugging it back into the droid. "I really don't understand half the things you say, Mary. One day you'll have to explain them to me."
Yeah, like that would happen. "You make it sound like I have a future to look forward to."
"You do," he said sharply, staring at me crossly. Gee, only together for what, an hour, and we were already having our first fight. "If you answer his questions as clearly as you answered mine, you'll survive."
"His?"
Praji grimaced again, and I got the feeling he wasn't supposed to have said anything. "You're already slated for level two, Mary."
My mouth fell open. "Under whose bloody authority?!"
"Grand Admiral Thrawn."
I almost blacked out again.
