A/N: I'm in the mood for a little Whumptober!
Prompt #2: Bloody Hands
He was the last to be dragged from the cell, and drag him they did. He had fought them and caught an unlucky blow to the head that brought him to his knees. His head swam and bright light bloomed behind his eyes. They hauled him up by the arms and pulled him forward and his feet wouldn't work properly.
It wasn't far to interrogation room.
They dropped him into the iron chair bolted to the center of the room and shackled his wrists and ankles to the arms and legs. Stripped to his shirt and breeches, the chair was tacky beneath him. His fingers instinctively curled around the arm rest to find something sticky there too. He was confused for a moment and then of course - blood. He was after all, not the first of them to be questioned, but the last.
He thought about his comrades and wondered whose blood it was. Which of them had dug so fiercely into the arm of the chair their fingers had bled? He couldn't follow the course of thought though because in front of him a man was speaking. He shifted his gaze up in a blur but the images refused to stay still. He focused on listening, his eyes latching on to the man's sharp white teeth clicking in his mouth.
"It is very simple," the man was saying, "Tell me where the troop is garrisoned and you will walk out of this room. We will find them eventually," the man added, "There is no shame to spare yourself punishment as you cannot prevent the inevitable."
"Go to Hell," was the only response Athos could come up with.
"You are not the first Musketeer to say that today," the teeth aligned into a brutal smile.
White Teeth shifted out of his line of vision to be replaced by another figure. Taller, rounder - a man the size of Porthos. But Athos's vision would not hold and instead he focused on the man's hands.
Large, beefy, bloody hands. Thick fingers flexed as the man drew closer. Athos could see the red stains that still painted the man's flesh, the dried blood crusting his fingernails. Blood spattered up his bare forearms leaving long red steaks where he perhaps he had wiped away some of the mess. But his work was not done for the day. There was one more Musketeer to brutalize and it was not worth the effort to wash off the gore of the others before starting on this one.
Athos braced himself in the chair as the bloody hands curled into fists.
"The troop location,"White Teeth asked from somewhere behind him.
The bloody hands didn't give him time to answer. Athos tracked his fists as the first one slammed into his gut, knocking the wind from him and dropping his head to his chest. Athos sputtered for air as his head was yanked up by the hair. He blinked his eyes into focus in time to see a bloody fist flying toward his face.
The blow took him to the side of the head and Athos's ears rang and his vision whited out. He didn't see the next blow which slammed into the other side, rattling his teeth and sending a shooting pain into his head like a knife into his brain.
He woke up to a bucket of water in his face. He must have passed out. As the water dripped from his face and hair, Athos could feel the sting of an open cut above his right eye and the throbbing pain as the flesh swelled. Athos blinked the water from his eyes trying to find something to focus on. The bloody hands were rubbing together, as if Athos's hard head had caused some pain of its own.
"Go easier Frederico," White Teeth said from behind him, "Their commander is the most delicate it seems." Athos smirked. They probably shouldn't have slammed him in the head on the way in here if they intended to beat information out of him.
"The troop location," White Teeth said again, stepping into his line of vision.
"No," Athos ground out between clenched teeth.
White Teeth's smile was predatory as he moved away again. The beefy man approached again, this time an object clenched in his bloody hands. One hand caught up his fingers and the other slipped the iron over his hand. Athos tried desperately to pull away but the cuff around his wrists had him virtually immobilized. The pain was impressive as the thumb screws pressed into his bones and the spikes in the screws drilled through his fingernail. Athos howled. Focused as he was on the pain of his right hand he hardly noticed the left one being manipulated in a similar fashion until a loud bang and a searing pain wrenched his eyes to the other hand as he screamed. The bloody hands had driven a nail through his upturned palm. Red blood flowed freely pooling in his palm before sliding through his fingers. Now he knew where the blood on the arms of the chair came from.
Athos struggled to steady his breathing, to swallow the agony throbbing from his brutalized hands. He watched the dripping blood and could only think in horror that it was Aramis whose blood mingled with his on this chair. The thought of their marksman and medic with ruined and crippled hands broke a choked sob from Athos's throat.
Behind him White Teeth gave a low and mirthless laugh.
They didn't touch him for a few minutes. They let him gather himself in his agony and gave him time to take in the destruction they had already inflicted on his body in such a short time. Any good interrogator knew the fear of the next blow was the oil that loosened the tongue.
"The troop location," White Teeth whispered in his ear. Athos had stopped screaming, stopped making any sound at all. He clamped down on his jaw and pressed his lips together. He knew he could not prevent himself from screaming in pain, but he would not give them the satisfaction of another word. He knew his brothers in arms must not have either, otherwise they would not be here now questioning him. For their sake and their sacrifice, Athos would not speak.
And sacrifice it must have been. Aramis with ruined and broken hands, if he was dead it would be a mercy to living life as a cripple. Athos was not a praying man but he asked Aramis's god to watch over him as the bloody hands of his torturer came back into view.
One hand was balled into a fist and bands of iron ringed the fingers making a ridge across the knuckles. Athos could not help but think of Porthos's blood on the rings and the force it would take to break Porthos's jaw. A broken jaw was almost certain death as a man would starve with no use of his mouth. How many blows did Porthos suffer under these bloody hands until his bones finally shattered? Athos did not have long to think on it as the fleshy fist slammed not into his head, but his knee.
Shackled as he was to the chair Athos arched his back and twisted his body but there was no avoiding the rain of blows. The pain was excruciating and Athos screamed until his throat was raw. Finally it stopped and Athos slumped forward, panting heavily and sweat pouring down his face and stinging the cut above his eye. Torture was exhausting and his body was giving out.
Athos was finding it hard to think much beyond the pain now. He held on to images of his friends in his mind. The three who had gone before him strapped as he was in the brutal chair. The bloody hands that abused them as they abused him now. If he could have his sword but for just one minute he would sever those bloody hands from their owner. No man should inflict to any other the tortures he and his brothers in arms had been subjected to.
"The troops," White Teeth hissed. Athos pressed his lips together and raised his head. Again, he could not speak, but his every thought was defiance. He knew White Teeth would see it in his eyes. If he provoked them enough, they would finish him. They already demonstrated they were overzealous, desperate perhaps to know. They feared the regiment, they were outnumbered and outgunned. Their only recourse of escape was to know which direction to flee.
But they didn't know, would never know, was that it was all in vain. Athos and his men had been a scouting party, not the couriers they had pretended to be. Treville was already here even if it was too late to save Athos and his friends. Athos would die with the satisfaction of knowing the death of their torturer was all but assured.
The bloody hands came back into view. The iron rings gone but the fist curled tightly. There was little preamble when the next blow fell. It was a hard strike and Athos felt a sharp pain along with the sickening crack that was likely his nose breaking. Blood rushed into his mouth and down his face. He felt it tickle his chest as it dripped off his beard.
The bloody hands now ran dark with red as they slammed again and again into Athos's face. Athos stopped crying out, stopped breathing, stopped thinking. He felt a strange numbness over take him and the only thought he could hold on to was D'Artagnan, his face bloodied beyond recognition and left to carrion in the ditch beyond the castle walls. D'Artagnan's blood was mingled with his own on those bloody hands. As was that of Porthos and Aramis. The four of them, brothers. It seemed fitting somehow that their end would come bathed in each other's blood.
The blows stopped. White Teeth had him by the collar, was shaking him, but Athos had nothing left and could not speak if he wanted to. It was more than he could bear but he had not talked, his brothers had not either. They went to their deaths honorable men and true Musketeers. Athos felt his lips curl into a smile even as he sank into darkness.
There was no transition to waking there was just pain blossoming around him and the definitive awareness that he was not dead. Voices murmured and someone was lifting up his head. Something cool and wet was pressed against his brow even as a tremendous pressure released from his hand. It throbbed still, but the absence of the thumbscrews was a relief. Athos cracked open his eyes, light blinded and blurry as his vision was he could make out shapes around him, knew the voices. He blinked trying to focus his eyes and felt something clench in his chest as bloody fingers came into view. But they didn't hurt him, instead they gently took him by the back of the neck and the damp cloth dabbed at his face again.
"Athos, are you with us?" Aramis. It was Aramis's hands that had him now. Athos forced his eyes open further to meet the marksman's worried gaze. He couldn't speak but their eyes met and Aramis gave him a smile. "You had us a little worried."
He let Aramis continue to wipe his bloodied face while someone else wrapped his damaged hand. It hurt but it was not the same as when he had been tortured.
"Drink this," Aramis brought a cup to his lips and Athos swallowed some bitter ale. Made bitter by laudanum he guessed. He was not going to complain. Everything hurt and getting him out of this chair would hurt even more. He thought back to his damaged hand and glanced down, relieved to see the nail had already been pulled from his palm and the hand was bandaged. They had been here a while then.
"You're alright?" Athos asked between swollen lips. He needed to know.
"Battered but not yet broken," Aramis murmured quietly as if he did not yet want fate to know he had slipped again from the clutches of an impossible situation.
"The others?" Athos had to know.
"Whole. Mending," Aramis said, "The got overzealous with D'Artagnan and knocked him out cold before they could do much else. Porthos was so stubborn they broke a rib but you know him, can take a punch like no one else. They didn't account for how hard a head he has." Just someone released the shackle holding his left ankle to the chair and Athos's leg slipped free of the cuff, sending excruciating pain throbbing throughout his ruined knee. He cried out and shifted forward, but Aramis caught him by the shoulders and pressed him back in the chair, shushing him.
"The bone is not shattered, I already checked," Aramis reassured him. "You will not be walking for a while yet though."
"You?" Athos said past the pain, catching up one Aramis's bloody and bandaged hand in one of his own.
"The blood on them is mostly yours," Aramis said, understanding Athos's gesture, "My finger nails will grow back."
"I'll kill him," Athos meant it.
"No need, mon ami," Aramis carefully lowered Athos's hand to his chest and covered it with his own, "Treville has done it for you. They're all dead."
"Good," Athos breathed. He felt his eyes drooping closed, a lethargy taking over his body.
"Just rest," Aramis was saying as he pulled a blanket over him, "We'll get you home." Athos felt Aramis's hand grip his shoulder, then more hands found his back, his legs, his arms. Athos felt himself being lifted from the chair. A peace settled over him as he drifted to sleep lifted by the many hands of the Musketeers.