Thanks for all the lovely reviews - you guys are ace:)
Cranking up the whumpage levels in this chapter - it's a wee bit evil and violent so don't say you weren't warned!
There wasn't much point in trying to hide what he had been doing; the blood stained sheets were something of a giveaway. So Sheppard opted to brazen it out. He let himself relax back onto the mattress, breathing slowly and carefully as he eased off the pressure on the wrist restraint, biting down on a grunt of pain as raw flesh scraped against stiff leather. His voice was a lot calmer than he felt as he lifted his head from the pillow to address his visitor.
"You know, the hospitality in this place sucks."
The man who stood in the doorway smiled briefly at that but didn't bother to reply. John took the opportunity to study his captor as the man moved into the room, leaving the door open behind him for another two men to follow him into the small room. It was beginning to feel pretty darn crowded in here. The man in charge - his demeanour alone made that quite clear – was tall and slim, his manner confident as he strode over to the bed, looming over John as he looked him over, his eyes lingering on the bloody sheets. The man's face was relaxed, pleasant even, but Sheppard noticed that the eyes were sharp and cold.. and they didn't miss a detail. John was busy taking note of a few details of his own and he didn't like what they were telling him. The sharp-eyed man was dressed in what was pretty clearly a doctor's uniform, somewhat stylised perhaps to John's earth-biased eyes but definitely doctor's clothes, right down to the white coat. His two friends were muscle, pure and simple, broad-chested and wearing something reminiscent of orderlies' uniforms. Sheppard was liking this situation less and less. He decided to name the lackeys Dastardly and Muttley. The sharp-eyed man looked like a... Pete. Yeah, definitely a Pete.
Pete's smile seemed to display genuine amusement as he lifted his gaze from Sheppard's bloodied wrists.
"Colonel Sheppard," the man's voice was genial, his lips curved into a warm smile as he regarded Sheppard amiably, "what could you hope to achieve by this?"
Well, that answered one of Sheppard's questions. They knew who he was. That meant they'd targeted him deliberately. Not a good sign.
Pete's smile only widened as he reached for the bloodied restraint on Sheppard's right wrist. "You've made quite the mess and have caused yourself pointless pain and injury." His voice was calm, eminently reasonable, as he tugged hard on the buckle, pulling the thick strap tighter around Sheppard's wrist. The stiff leather dug painfully into Sheppard's damaged flesh, the strap pinching tight around his wrist, removing any slack he had managed to work into it. Pete's cold eyes took in every detail of Sheppard's involuntary grunt of pain, the way his muscles tensed and jerked with it, and he leant forward over the bed to fix Sheppard's strained, mutinous gaze with his own cold one. The smile had vanished now, all humour gone from the voice. "Don't be in such a hurry to leave us, Colonel Sheppard."
Pete leant back abruptly, the smile back in place as he looked down at the seething Colonel. Sheppard fumed, hating being at a disadvantage like this; he was pretty much helpless with his arms pinned like this and felt hemmed in by the three men looming over his bed. Beneath the hot, angry pain in his right wrist, John was aware of a growing tingling in his fingers, a slight sensation of numbness. The wrist strap had been pulled tight enough to restrict the blood flow to his hand.
"We went to quite some trouble to have you brought here, Colonel. I'd hate for you to leave before we've had a chance to... talk."
The minute hesitation, almost certainly deliberate, gave Sheppard a good indication of how things were going to go from here. He pushed down on the instinctive fear of what was to come and forced a casual tone into his voice.
"I usually like to know the names of people I.. talk with." Two could play at that game.
"Oh, we'll get to the introductions in time, John. D'you mind if I call you John?" This guy was far too pleased with himself; he was starting to really piss John off. He decided he was through playing games.
"What the hell do you want from me?" He ground out, letting anger colour his words.
The smile stayed in place but it took on a harder edge. They were getting down to business now. "Information, John. Information." Still maintaining his casual composure, Pete turned away from the bed, speaking over his shoulder as he strolled across the room, his posture relaxed, as though they were just discussing the weather or what they had watched on TV recently.
"We have some.. friends – trading partners, you might say – and they are very interested in you, John. The information you give us will be very... valuable in our trade negotiations." He turned back to Sheppard and his smile had become smug. Sheppard took careful note of that. Over-confidence was a flaw, one he might be able to use to his advantage.
He didn't bother to hide the scorn in his voice. "Sorry to disappoint you but I'm not feeling real talkative right now. You'll have to find something else to trade to the Genii."
The slight tightening of that smug smile told Sheppard he'd scored a hit but there was a gleam in those cold eyes that John really didn't like the look of. Pete nodded to one of his goons – the one John had named Muttley – and the man left the room. Sheppard found he couldn't help tensing up as Pete moved back to stand by the bed, gazing down at John with a malicious tilt to his smile.
"Oh, I think you'll feel more talkative than you might think, John. We can be very.. persuasive."
The door was pushed closed with an audible click as Muttley re-entered the room carrying a small metal tray with a cloth draped over it. The situation was rapidly going south and Sheppard found he really did not want to know what was under that cloth. He jerked impotently at the restraints, heedless of the burn of pain in his wrists, as Pete accepted the tray from Muttley, discarding the cloth to reveal a syringe, already filled with a clear liquid. John grimaced, unable to tear his eyes from the loaded hypodermic. Whatever was in that syringe, it was a better than fair bet that it wasn't going to be any fun for John.
Sheppard was starting to reconsider the name he'd picked for Pete. Maybe Dr Mengele would be better.
The ubiquitous smile was firmly in place as Pete held the syringe casually, handing the tray off to Muttley. "Are you sure you won't reconsider, John? I'm told the side-effects of this little concoction can be.. unpleasant."
It was clear to Sheppard that Pete enjoyed his work just a little too much. He ignored the thinly veiled threat, tensing himself in readiness as the three of them crowded round the bed, his gaze moving from one to the other, calculating distance and options. Their overconfidence had led them to make one mistake, not a big one but enough to at least give him a chance. Sheppard might not have the use of his hands but they'd neglected to restrain his legs. And John Sheppard had no intention of letting them pump him full of their freaky drugs – not without a fight.
Mengele Pete held the syringe upright, using both hands as he carefully depressed the plunger enough to squirt a little fluid from the needle. Taking advantage of the momentary distraction, John took his chance. Gritting his teeth against the pain in his wrists, he pulled hard against the restraints, using the leverage to lift his legs up from the mattress in a swift movement that took the three of them by surprise. Before anyone had a chance to react, a well-placed kick slammed into Pete's hands, knocking the syringe from his grasp, quickly followed by a heel to his face which knocked the man staggering. Dastardly and Muttley were slow to react, hired for their muscles rather than their brains it would appear, and by the time Muttley had dropped the tray to reach for Sheppard, he had wrapped his legs around the man's throat, twisting him off-balance and pulling him half over the rail of the bed. His squirming body blocked his companion's effort to grab John and gave Sheppard time to finish his motion, jerking his legs sharply as he put pressure on the man's windpipe. There was a sickening crack and Muttley's body went limp.
Dastardly roared his displeasure as Sheppard unwound his legs to let the body slide to the floor, raising an arm to block John's kick as he lunged forward, managing to wrap his meaty hands around Sheppard's throat. He squeezed hard, cutting off John's air, and Sheppard pulled hard at the restraints, lifting his hips off the mattress as he swung his legs up over his head, scrabbling to get a purchase around Dastardly's throat, or even just a foot under his chin, anything to push the man backward, break his grip. Sheppard was gasping for air, his vision beginning to gray out at the edges, when he felt the stranglehold loosen and was vaguely aware of Mengele Pete's furious voice.
"Let go of him, you fool! We need him alive!"
He sucked in a rasping, painful breath as Dastardly released his grip on his throat, stars dancing momentarily before his eyes. He kicked out instinctively, and was pleased to hear a yelp as the blow connected.
"Grab his legs!" Pete's voice wasn't quite so calm and smug now.
He fought violently against the hands that grabbed at his ankles, kicking out as hard as he could, keeping his legs moving so they couldn't get a firm grip. He was fighting a losing battle now though, two against one. The element of surprise was gone and Sheppard was tiring. Eventually they had him pinned down, all three of them breathing heavily, panting with exertion, Dastardly and Pete each holding on to an ankle with both hands, their fingers digging in cruelly as they leaned heavily onto his legs. Sheppard continued to struggle, his wrists burning as he pulled on the restraints, arching his back up from the bed, but it was futile and he knew it.
Pete seemed to know the moment when Sheppard gave up the fight, releasing his grip on John's ankle once Dastardly had moved one hand across, a snarl on the lackey's face as he leaned his not-inconsiderable weight forward, pushing down heavily on both Sheppard's ankles. John added the new sensation to his growing list of aches and pains. He could hear Pete coughing harshly and turned his head on the pillow to see the doctor, if you could call him that, bending over beside the bed. When he straightened up the syringe was in his hand, his face flushed and angry, the smug smile nowhere in evidence. Blood dripped from his nose and his eyes glittered with a fury that showed at last the true nature behind the amiable mask.
He stalked over to the bed, hatred on his face, and lashed out, the blow snapping John's head to the side. John's head swam dizzily for a moment and he grimaced, tasting blood on his lip. Dizzy or not, he still struggled when he felt hands pull down the waistband of the scrubs pants over his hip but, with his hands and ankles now pinned, there was nowhere for him to go. Menegle Pete's hand pressed his hip to the mattress, holding him in place, and the sting of the needle was sharp as he stabbed the syringe into the muscle of Sheppard's upper thigh, pushing the plunger down with a snarl of triumph.
The puncture site burned and, for a moment, John thought it was just a reaction to the force of the injection, then he found himself gasping for breath as the burning pain quickly intensified, spreading out through the muscle mass of his thigh, making his leg tremble involuntary.
Pete was still breathing heavily as he leaned over the bed, his face twisted into a malicious sneer. Blood still ran freely from his nose, dripping onto the white sheets as he pushed his face up close to Sheppard's.
"You'll pay for your defiance!" he snarled, a nasty smile creeping onto his face. "This drug is painful when given intravenously – intra-muscular injection intensifies both the effects and the duration. You will have plenty of time to regret your actions!"
Sheppard stared helplessly up at his captor, finding it had to breathe as the fiery pain spread progressively outwards, burning along his nerve strands, setting his muscles to spasming. His hands flexed and clenched helplessly as pain flooded throughout his entire body, sharp and hot and intense. He clenched his teeth, a low moan escaping him.
The lackey had let go of his legs now – it didn't matter. He was helpless, paralysed by pain. He shivered and trembled on the infirmary bed, his captors standing over him, watching in satisfaction as he shook in agony. He couldn't think, couldn't focus on anything but the pain, was only vaguely aware of Pete leaning in close to him again, his words whispered in John's ear.
"In time, John Sheppard, you will tell us everything we want to know."
Sheppard screamed.
TBC...