Okay, this one's an AU. Disturbing themes. Enjoy.
25.) Torture
They don't like to say his name. The criminals fear his crystal eyes beyond anything else; they awaken in the middle of the night, drenched in sweat and tangled desperately in thin sheets, dreaming of his fingertips caressing their throat, then wrenching their neck around until it snaps, but at the perfect angle so they're still breathing - they hug their daughters a little tighter each morning because of him, memorising their faces. Just in case.
And the law-abiding? Well, they just tend to steer clear of one who reeks of death, especially to his extent.
King Lucas and Queen Lisa's court is revered throughout the world; their tiny country, Adenoma, shines radiantly, built over the ruins of what was once New Jersey. Before the war, of course. Before everything. They took a little sliver of a desecrated world and made it sparkle with hope. People walk the paved streets without the fear of what could make them run; the healthcare system in particular is envied by lands long beyond the horizon.
But with every great land, there are shadows of the terrible. In this case, all condensed into him - the man Queen Lisa would rather not think about, but who she couldn't function without. He's paid handsomely for one very simplistic-sounding job - to get information from the few operating criminals on Adenoma's outskirts when anything unsavoury happens, and he does so with...creative methods. First, he starts talking. Then shouting. Even, occasionally, singing. A point comes that those who know of it have nicknamed 'Tick, Tick, Boom', although perhaps a more accurate nickname would be 'You're Fucked Now'. He goes extremely quiet, then whispers out, "Are you sure you want this to happen?" That's the point where only the bravest and most idiotic stay silent; the rest crack like dropped eggs.
If you're unlucky enough to be in this position and stupid enough to stay quiet, he brings out his arsenal of toys. Rumours abound that he replaces them once per week - even makes some himself, because he thinks repetitions 'just aren't as interesting.' Metal implements; blades, saws, and far more creative pieces, including his rumoured favourite, 'Jimmy' - a glowing silver crescent with points sharp enough to cleave through concrete. He's done many unspeakable things with Jimmy's help, if you believe the darkest stories - the mildest being forcing someone to stand on the points, impaling the soles of their feet; wrapping it around the chest and stabbing it through the shoulders; I won't tell you any others. If he really hates you, he'll go for the thigh muscles. Retribution.
But this is just him; the man in the shadows with the scarlet knife in his gnarled hand. People say (well, people say a lot of things about him, and always in whispers) that he limps because he made a mistake, he took his eyes off someone for a second, let them in, and they seized the knife in their arm and stabbed him, pushing the knife deep into the muscles in his right leg. They say that he's sworn to never make a mistake again; never to let anyone into his head. Apparently the assailant's in enough pieces to not make the same mistake, either. But nobody would doubt that of him.
Gregory House. Maverick. Genius. Sleuth.
Palace torturer.
Truth is, many of the rumours aren't true, but too many are true to let him sleep at night. Of course, his leg has a rather more pedestrian backstory. And when he heard the Jimmy one...that made him laugh. I'm sure Wilson would be pissed about that, he thinks to himself. Maybe I should tell him that according to most of Adenoma, he's a vicious murder weapon.
But he is the palace torturer, and he knows what murder sounds like. There's always justification, but does anything really justify the light fading in someone's eyes? Worse, letting their knowledge die with them, never retrievable again? Lost to the wind?
Before he can ponder some more (he can go weeks without an assignment, since not many people merit his attention, so he has a lot of pondering time) his phone rings, and he picks it up lazily.
"Cuddy. A case?"
"You will address me as Queen Lisa." She's been trying that tack for five years; her husband insists, but normally it's quite half-hearted. This time, though, her voice is icy cold, the consonants so clipped they're almost painful. His heart begins to race. Last time she sounded like this, he'd been faced with a psychopathic amateur bomb-maker who'd blown his childhood home, as well as five members of his family, to unrecognisable smithereens. He hadn't planned to do that; he was storing the bomb there to attack a public café, just for the hell of it. But the look in his eyes, apathy, almost boredom...it was the only time that he'd ever felt good about seizing the cold metal and bringing it to his neck, watching genuine fear cut through the dullness. It had taken thirty seconds to break his resolve.
"Who is it?" He tries to keep his voice level, but there's still a slight lilt of trepidation. Excitement.
"Name's Alex Valery. Stabbed a sixteen-year-old boy to death in the middle of a crowded street in broad daylight. Was then heard to say, 'this won't be the last.' We think they were talking about a network of murderers, set to strike."
"Say no more. When's his appointment scheduled?"
"Ah, that's the issue." She clears her throat almost imperceptibly. "It's not a 'he'. It's a 'she'. A fifteen-year-old 'she' to be exact -"
"And this is of interest to me why? Will there be legal repercussions if I take a mace to her?"
He can hear Cuddy wince at the description. "No, but -"
"What?"
"Some would consider the ethical implications of having a child interrogated by your...methods, well, distressing -"
"I'm not one of them. Have her up here in fifteen minutes."
"You don't order me around, Gregory, I'm the Queen," she replies, irritated, and he grins. He's been trying to get her to call him House for years, but she won't bite.
"Seeya in fifteen, Cuddy." All that returns is an exasperated sigh and her abruptly hanging up.
The room's lonely, barren, with huge expanses of red brickwork and a pinewood cabinet leaning against the wall, as well as his desk, settled comfortably in the centre of the room, with two small gaps on the criminal's side for the handcuffs to be slotted through before they're reattached. The cabinet's just there for show; he keeps all the weapons he needs in his desk drawer, and all's in the cabinet is his lunch and one gorgeous, tapered knife with a gilded hilt lying against the transparent glass of the door. It's amazing how pale prisoners turn when he flicks his glance to rest on it. Sometimes, that's all his job entails.
Sometimes, but not always.
He hears footsteps, sits back on the chair, back straightened, eyes piercing. It jars his leg - deliberate, to make sure he's always on edge, that he never slips into a...'forgiving' mood. Or at least, that's what they told him. Probably Lucas' idea, he thinks darkly.
The door swings open, and a girl steps inside. The guards each take one of her arms and lift her into the seat, shackling her ankles to the chair legs and slotting her handcuffs through the table, but he has a feeling that they didn't need to bother - she looked as if she would've quite happily bolted herself in.
The guards quickly depart (this room is not one for long visits) leaving him and her alone. The silence is deafening.
House studies her with interest. She doesn't look fifteen - he would've guessed nineteen; then again, she could've lied about her age, thinking it would spare her a visit to this particular room. She's extremely pretty, and the sharpness in her what-would-be vacant stare suggests she's also intelligent. Luck giveth, and luck taketh away. Her chestnut hair is chopped into a pixie cut, and her jeans are ripped and stained - although at a close look, most of the stains are dried blood. However, her top is different; it's a long-sleeved turtleneck, even though it's a sunny May day and her skin's too dark to burn easily. And if she's as smart as she looks, stabbing a guy in broad daylight with half the country as witnesses seems a little out of character.
She looks, in a word, contradictory.
"Hello," he greets her pleasantly. "I'm -"
"Gregory House. I'm familiar with your work."
"Good to know the news is spreading. I hear you gave the country a nice little lunchtime spectacle today. Any explanation for that, or were you just testing out your new bread-knife by sticking it in the eye of a man off the street?"
"And the liver, and the spleen..." She smiles lazily as he fixes his eyes on her, never letting up for a second. "Why do you think I did it?"
"You're a very sick and twisted little girl." He smiles identically back at her.
"Good guess, but no."
House curses to himself. You can never let the prisoner get in control of the conversation. Rule #4. "Why did you kill him?" His voice is still pleasant, inquisitive, but it has an undercurrent like ice scraping over steel.
"Have you ever been raped, Gregory?"
"Name's House. And no. But the pointy metal sticks act as a deterrent." She can't tell if he's lying, and he relishes it.
"Well, I have, Gregory." She's still smiling, but now it's positively dangerous. "By a charming young blonde friend of my brother's, who was staying over at our house for a sleepover and then decided, in the middle of the night, that he wanted a drink. He came into my room and asked where the kitchen was. I told him, and he went downstairs, poured himself a nice, cool glass of water, drank it, came back upstairs, waited awake in bed for fifteen minutes until I'd almost drifted off and he was sure my brother was asleep, then decided he'd spend a good half hour taking something else he wanted. Me."
"You should've reported it."
Her smile grows even wider, her eyes glowing with something that borders on deliria. "I've had two friends both try and report similar cases. They were paid off and given complimentary personal attack alarms. One got mugged a few weeks later by some lowlife off the street, and when they tried to set off the alarm it turned out they hadn't put in batteries. I wasn't going to face the indignity of them patting me on the head and telling me to make sure I locked the door next time."
"I'm sorry to break up your monologue, but I've been ordered to question you about a murder."
"I'm getting to that. See, I didn't say anything about what happened, because I wanted to take care of it myself. Started a support group, got in a counsellor, and made sure the bastard never came near my house again. But at lunchtime today, I was heading off for an appointment with my therapist when I saw a certain familiar charming young friend of my brother's. Heading in the direction of a kid's playground. So, I took to him with a bread knife I've kept as my own do-it-yourself personal attack alarm, made a phone call, and handed myself in."
House falls silent. The mad glint in her eyes subsides as quickly as it sparked, and she leans forwards, not smiling anymore.
"He won't be the last. We've kept our secrets long enough. And if they think justifiable murder's worse than unjustifiable rape, they can have that on their conscience."
House clears his head, trying to stop the familiar clouds from forming - the doubts, the guilt clinging to his windpipe and expanding painfully with every intake of breath. "That's not how it works. You're not doing an ethical justice to the world - you're depriving families of the sons, fathers and brothers who will go to the grave with everyone believing them helpless victims and you the psychopathic murderers, you utter idiot. Why didn't you tell people, if you wanted him exiled?"
"I didn't want him exiled. I wanted him to die, in pain, and without rest. And that's all the justice I need. My future is uncertain, but wherever he is, he's burning."
House frowns, his voice hardened, cold. "So, you're putting your faith in Biblical justice. In karma - that people get what they deserve. It's worked out great for you, hasn't it?"
"I've done what I came here for."
"You've given him three minutes of agony, whereas you're looking at sixty years of it."
"No I'm not. If I wanted, I could infuriate you to the point of you ending me here right now."
"Have you not noticed my title? Christ, I know it's not subtle, but rumours get out of hand. I'm the Palace Torturer, not the Palace Guy Who Murders People With Big Metal Sticks for the Hell of It. I've been authorised to use pain to retrieve information. Pain. Not death."
"But you make mistakes. Everyone does." Alex leans back in her chair, giving him a calm stare. "A cut an inch too far to the left; a blinding flash of fury, a corpse bleeding out on the floor. It happens. No need to feel guilty for my sake."
House grits his teeth. She's getting to him. "You don't need to do this. You're fifteen; you're throwing your life away."
"Oh, you're going to tell me how brilliant life is and how beautiful rainbows are? It hasn't treated you that well, considering the cane and how you have to serve as lackey for the man you despise and the woman you love."
"You don't know anything about me." House's voice is even, grating.
"Of course I do. So do they."
"Look -" anger suddenly punches into his chest - "you can't do this! Just tell me when the other girls are going to strike, and I'll let you go! You have a life to screw up! You can't be stupid enough to think that was your only purpose -"
"Life broke me. I broke someone else. That's it. We can get on with the metal implements now."
Silence. He reels, his ribs feeling like they were splintering from the impact of her words - like they could have fallen straight from his lips.
Remorse, bitter remorse builds in the back of his throat like vomit.
"Are you sure you want to go through with this?"
No answer. She just averts her gaze, but not for her own benefit. It's almost like - she doesn't want him to see her scream.
He reaches into the desk drawer, feeling the metal, cold and smooth against his fingers. Normally, it's intoxicating.
Not today.