The next time the man came in, he saw Pierce sitting up against a wall, keeping pressure on his wounds. He was taking care of himself since his buddy wasn't there to do it for him.
The man dragged him to the middle and force him to take a bottle of liquor, then blindfolded him, sitting him up then not touching him. Pierce flinched at each step he heard. The man was walking around him. Here and there he would reach out and touch, but it was just to poke or feel, not hurt. After a while, Pierce grew to like the touches, if only because they meant that the man wasn't still walking around him, and he wasn't exactly hurting him. The anticipation of pain was what was killing him. Once, the man didn't touch him for a long time, and Pierce moved to lift the blindfold. That was when the man pounced. He beat him while he lay blinded, which turned out to be far more terrifying than any other beating. He had no idea where the hits would come from, or where the man himself was.
The man left silently, and Pierce lay still all night, anticipating more pain. He never risked a peek.
In the morning, the man re-entered silently. He knelt by Pierce's head and ran a hand through his hair. The blindfolded man jerked and gasped, but he didn't move otherwise.
"Good," The man cooed. "I want you to be very well-behaved from now on." His lips brushed the blinded man's ear. "You're lucky to be alive. Your every breath is mine."
Pierce nodded frantically. The man stood and continued the previous day's routine. If Hawkeye ever moved as if to find out if he'd left, he was beaten. If he did anything, even miniscule, to catch the man's attention, he was beaten. Other than that, the man just… felt him. Prodded and pressed, trailed against his raw skin.
It was nerve-wracking.
When the man found him to be conditioned well enough in following cues and obeying at all times, he took off the blindfold. Pierce learned that it wasn't much different without it, now. He was always alert and ready to comply. He would be touched without warning, at his captor's will.
His mind even played tricks on him.
He heard what he thought was footsteps or breathing, but it was nothing. He felt phantom hands ghosting across his bruised skin in the dark.
Now, he was back to operating on the wounded. To earn food and water, even rest, he had to pay by taking punishments of many forms. The man was making him sorely sorry for ever acting against him, even to save his friend's life.
And it was all for nothing.
He was sure that BJ was dead.