A/N: A big thank you goes out to Linzi for the beta, and to SheppyD for inspiring the fic in the first place. Contains spoilers for Common Ground, and minor spoilers for Phantoms. Also contains torture scenes, so if you want fluffy!fic, please don't continue. If you like loads of angst, read on... Concrit welcome. :D
Chapter 2
John came to sluggishly, blinking heavy eyelids as he adjusted to the dim lighting. His head throbbed mercilessly, and it took his fuddled brain a moment to clue him in as to why. Memories of the battle crashed in on him, along with the awareness that he was no longer in the yard of the weapons complex. The scent of musty air informed him he was inside, and he found the hard, cold surface of stone greeting his back. He sat up anxiously, only to be slammed down again, as restraints at his arms and legs forcibly prohibited the movement. He tested the restraints cautiously, hopefully probing for a weakness. After a few minutes, he gave the stiff leather cuffs a few hard jerks out of frustration and settled back impatiently.
He cast his eyes around the room. The drab grey stone walls were not very inspiring to begin with, and the dank, foetid air condensed and rolled down the thick surface, giving the walls the appearance of weeping. There were no windows; the sole source of light was a dim wall lamp, which flickered as though even the light did not want to touch this miserable room and its damned occupant.
A high-pitched screech of tortured metal made him look towards the rusted iron door, straining his neck in an effort to see. The brief flame of hope that flared at its opening was quashed as two strangers entered the cell. John studied them, trying to discover any edge he could use to get the hell out of his current predicament. They both wore dark breeches, and linen tunics that only held only a dim memory of the white they had originally been. Leather boots crunched on the dirty, rush covered floor. John noted their appearance in a glance, then promptly dismissed it as his attention focused on the long swords attached to the hip of each man. His fingers twitched involuntarily as a vision of himself armed with one of those swords slicing through the bonds that held him in thrall passed fleetingly through his mind.
The smaller man entered first. He was short and lithe, and would have been attractive if not for his greasy, unwashed appearance. He pushed his lank, brown hair out of his eyes before gesturing imperiously to the second man. His companion was a burly redheaded man, easily as tall as John, but a lot beefier. John sized him up; immediately pegging this one as the more threatening of the two.
The tall man dropped a large, vintage looking machine of some type down close to the prisoner. John stared curiously at the object; which appeared to consist of little more than a copper casing on a wooden stand. Several black insulated wires with little knobbly pads on the end strayed out of the back and dangled forlornly to the ground. The only other thing John could see on the machine was a small switch on the top. It looked laughably primitive, but John felt a cold sense of foreboding as his gaze returned to the pads at the end of the wires. His premonition flowered into fear as the redheaded man sliced his shirt open with a knife and started placing the pads onto his chest.
"Umm, I don't suppose that's a new massage therapy that you want to try out, is it?" His flippant comment was met with a communicative silence. No free massage then. He bit his lower lip in consternation. The silent guard finished his task with disconcerting efficiency and stepped back behind the machine, nodding to his companion. The greasy haired man stepped forward impassively.
"You will answer our questions." The clipped words were a demand, not a request.
"Like hell I will." John interjected. He decided he may as well get that out into the open. The slim man didn't look like he had much in the way of intelligence, so John thought it was best to clear up any misunderstandings straight away. The other man smiled slightly; a jaded, sardonic smile that barely registered on his face and wasn't reflected in his eyes.
"You will answer our questions. You will not do this immediately; you will experience a great deal of pain." His small smile in response to John's comment widened into a frightening grin that lit up his eyes with a shockingly insane inner fire. "I am looking forward to finding out how long it takes me to break you." John made a quick mental adjustment. The brawny man was not his biggest problem. This small, greasy young man in front of him with the manic glint of cold, rational insanity was by far the biggest threat. The young man looked up at his companion and nodded once.
John writhed in his restraints as the electricity coursed through his body and danced over his nerves. Fire flowered in his chest and burned into his muscles, which tightened and convulsed painfully as the force of the voltage ripped through him. John gritted his teeth and felt the salty taste of blood in his mouth. Agony danced across his skin; his hands clenched and his nails bit into his palms. The stench of burnt hair coiled into his nostrils, up through his sinuses and down his throat, where it lodged and threatened to make him gag.
As suddenly as it started, the pain ceased, leaving John quivering weakly in relief. The blond man's face came into view as he leaned in close over John.
"You will answer our questions." He repeated. John had never wanted anything so dearly as to fulfil the sudden desire to run from the look of insatiable hunger he saw burning in those eyes.
"Who are you?" The man's voice was silken with anticipation.
"Name's Bond. James Bond. Who the hell are you?" John had a moment to feel pleased that his voice didn't waver before the searing pain exploded into his senses again. Waves of white heat wound through his synapses, triggering a cascade of pain that made his feet beat a rapid staccato on the against the stone. Lightening caressed his teeth and shot up into his brain where it blossomed into a myriad of colours; each hue laden with sensation. A groan escaped him as he clenched his jaw, muscles taunt and twitching along the bone in time to the volts coursing through his body. Again the agony ceased with blessed suddenness; John lay there with his eyes closed feeling his muscles spasm through the aftershock. There was a moment of silence before the voice flowed through the darkness, thick and dripping with a god-forsaken pleasure that did nothing but trigger tiny trills of fear in John's heart.
"Who are you?" John clenched his muscles and brought his hands down hard, jerking at the leather cuffs in fear-fuelled anger. Again. And again. He heaved at the strips of hide with a strength borne of adrenaline and pure rage. His captor watched him without emotion. Only when John slumped back against the rock bench did he move. He took one step forward, bringing him right up against the prisoner's slab, and casually reached out a finger and slid it sensuously through the blood that was slowly dripping down John's arm. Staring directly into John's eyes, he languidly drew his hand up to his mouth and sucked the blood from his finger. The chilling smile returned, fed by the appalled look on his victim's face.
"Who are you?" He whispered.
"Screw you!" John had meant that to sound cockily defiant; he was a bit disappointed at the force with which it came out. His captor nodded genially to the red-headed guard, who flipped the switch on the machine once more.
John rode his third wave of lightning. His back arched as his body bowed up and his shoulders and heels dug painfully into the stone. His nerves blazed as the excruciating pain smashed unimpeded through his system. His body was weak and his strength ebbed from the previous sessions. The third time was the charm. His willpower failed under the onslaught as electricity shattered his defences and rode rough-shod through his battered mind. He screamed; an anguished, tortured sound that ripped his throat as it exploded outwards. The pain suddenly cut off once more, and John's muscles went limp involuntarily. He lay there, sucking in harsh, ragged lungfuls of air.
"Who are you?" A touch of steel in the voice this time. He felt like he had a stone in his chest; it was hard to breathe.
"Sheppard." His chest hurt and the word scraped painfully at his throat, so that it was scarcely audible by the time it passed his lips. He heard the mocking laughter envelop him and hold him like a lover. John felt a strange wetness on his cheeks. In the brief respite his name bought him, he tried to figure out who scared him more at that moment - his captor or himself.
"Good. Very good." John ground his teeth at the malicious satisfaction that laced the voice. He refused to look and see the same satisfaction etched cruelly on the man's face. John inhaled; a slow, calming breath, mercifully painless. He hadn't given up much – just a name. What's in a name? Name, rank, serial number. Hell, he'd only given up one of the three permissables. Still had two to go. He shored up the breach in his willpower, anticipating the next question. His own name was harmless, the next name would not be.
"Where are you from?" He was still too shaken from the last round to form an answer, so he lay in silence waiting for the pain. It came. It came from the stone beneath him. It came from the air around him. It came from the very molecules within him. There was no way that much pain could have emanated from four little electrodes attached to his skin. It pressed down from the outside and pushed up from the inside, leaving him taut and stretched and burning in the middle. The pressure rose and the currents of pain imploded in starbursts. His head flew back and he screamed again. It was easier to scream this time, to give voice to the agony, to let it loose so this scarring of his soul was revealed to the world. His voice died away as the electricity feeding it was severed, but the pain lingered. His entire body was supercharged and muscles continued to twitch as his nerves continued to fire in short, rapid bursts of searing heat.
"Where are you from?" This time the voice was richer; deeper, and more velvety. It was eager and laced with an emotion John couldn't identify. He turned his head the necessary two inches, swallowing the gasp of pain that small motion triggered. He looked into the face of his interrogator and saw it was flushed with desire. John shuddered and felt his mind silently shriek with appalled horror. John had thought the man's satisfaction had been from his success. The avaricious eyes boring into him clearly told him the man expected him not to answer. John closed his eyes on the madness in front of him and tasted bitter bile in the back of his throat. He swallowed it down just as the pain embraced him.
Too much! The agony was everywhere, inescapable. It wrapped him up in a black cacoon and cut through him like razors, shredding him. He felt his body lifted and slammed back down against the stone, only to be violently thrown sideways. The restraints held him on to the stone slab but they didn't hold him motionless as the force of the electricity raged through weakened muscles and tore away the last vestiges of his strength. He felt wetness on his skin at his ankles and wrists, and knew the skin was torn and bleeding. He knew he should feel it, but the sting of ruptured skin was lost in the overwhelming torment. The smell of burnt hair that had assaulted his nostrils earlier was replaced with it the sticky sweet smell of charred flesh.
When the guard flipped the switch again, John was too far gone to realise it. Muscles contracted, taunt and rigid. His body tried to curl in upon itself, but the leather straps anchoring him to the stone prevented that action. His body went into spasms and was wracked with wave upon wave of convulsions. He tried to scream again, but all that came out of his throat was a raspy whimper.
"Where are you from?" God, he hated that voice. Words weren't supposed to have weight and shape and form. They weren't supposed to slide sinuously into your pain dazed consciousness and wrap serpentine around your mind. He couldn't give it an answer. He wanted to, dear God he wanted to answer all the voice's questions and make them stop, let them kill him, let it end! But a kernel of stubbornness at the core of his being held fast to names and faces that were dearer to him than anything he could have ever imagined before Atlantis. He tried to tell his tormentor that; was surprised to hear the words falter and morph into a weak, high pitched laugh. He was still whole enough to recoil at the fear and hysteria he heard in that strangled sound.
John felt a clammy had run through his sweat drenched hair. The touch was light; a caress. The gesture coming from anyone else would have been comforting, soothing. But coming from the man who had just tortured him it generated nothing but roiling waves of disgust. He tried to pull away but his body was still beyond his control. The gentle hand continued to pet him while the seizure slowly subsided.
"Hush. It's okay. I don't want to kill you." The words filtered through the pain-filled haze and confusion set in. He hadn't got the words out, had he? He fought harder for clarity. No, he hadn't spoken. He turned unfocused eyes towards the man and saw not kindness, but cruelty.
"Yes," the interrogator nodded. "We have a long way to go yet, you and I." John lay silently, bound hand and foot, feeling the fading tremors from the seizure continue to quiver through his limbs. A sense of loathing filled him; thick, black, ugly hate. He let it show in his face, let the eyes looking down at him see. He received nothing more than a gentle smile, disconcertingly paired with that fevered stare. Then the eyes moved away and John stared at the ceiling, exhausted, and tried to pull his mind back into some semblance of normality.
He heard the screech of the door as it opened, and was distantly aware of another beefy guard joining the bastard who had operated the machine of John's torture. He watched as the new guard, this one dark haired with paler skin, walked to the head of the stone slab. Watched with detached calm as he raised a rough cloth to John's face and pressed the wet, pungent material firmly down, gripping John tightly by the hair to limit his resistance. He fought a silent, suffocating battle not to inhale, then felt himself slide into a welcome darkness.