Greetings, lovelies! sorry for the delay, I've been emotionally wrecked all week by Iron Man 3 :P (I fangirl over him so hard...) But more to come at the end, I just wanted to give you a heads up that the end might be a little hard to understand because the grammar is obviously not right, but that's on purpose. Let the whumping begin!

CHAPTER FIVE

A stumbling Steve is ushered by an entourage of half a dozen heavily armed guards back to his cell. The door is opened, and Steve is thrown inside. The door is closed and locked before he hits the ground.

Steve hits the cold floor hard. He sits up, his heart beating faster than it ever had before in his life. Was that the fear and dread and panic Steve felt creeping its way into his mind, or was that the symptoms of the venom already kicking in?

He told himself not to panic, taking slow, deep breaths. All of the pain from before was forgotten now. It was still there, but Steve refused to acknowledge it. He had more important things to think about now.

Keep a clear head, Steve told himself. He scrambled backwards to sit against the wall, still taking determined deep breaths. Steve closed his eyes for a moment, willing his body to calm down. There was nothing he could do now but wait.

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It was nine days since Steve vanished. Danny knew Wo Fat was behind it. Unfortunately, Five-0 had been chasing Wo Fat around for three years and they still hadn't managed to capture him, so Danny was kind of at a loss. He would pull out all of the stops hunting this bastard down, but he couldn't help the nagging feeling in the back of his mind that was telling him it wouldn't do any good.

He was on his way to meet Catherine for lunch. He knew that she was going through just as much pain and stress as he was, if not more.

He pulled up at the restaurant three minutes past noon, and Catherine was already sitting at a table, looking quite frankly terrible. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, and her skin was pale and sickly. Still, she offered him a half-hearted smile as he sat down, but it really came off as more of a grimace.

"Any luck?" Danny asked, not bothering with formalities.

"I've got every state in America and every country I could persuade looking out for this guy. I've called in favors, collected on IOUs, everything I can possibly think of that has the slightest possibility of helping us find Steve," Catherine said, her voice breaking ever so slightly at Steve's name.

"Thank you so much, Catherine. For everything. I know how hard this must be for you, and you've been such a help…"

"Don't be ridiculous, Danny. I'd be pulling out all the stops to the find Steve and Wo Fat regardless of whether or not you asked for my help. I just wish that there was more that I could do…" Catherine said, her expression hard.

"Actually," Danny said, "there is something I've been wanting to talk to you about. I was wondering if you'd be willing to be hired on as a temporary consultant for this case. We could really use the extra pair of hands."

Catherine bit her lip, nodding slowly. "My commanding officer has been bugging me to take some personal days, so I think I could probably get away with it…"

There was a pause in which nobody spoke. An unsaid, mutual camaraderie had suddenly formed between them out of their joint determination to get Steve back.

"We have to find him, Danny," she whispered after a moment.

Danny sighed. "I know. Believe me, I know."

"I know what happened in North Korea. I know I wasn't there, and Steve doesn't like to talk about it, but I've done my research, and I know what Wo Fat did to him. And back then Wo Fat wasn't even sure if Steve knew Shelbourne's identity or not, and he only had Steve for three days. This time Wo Fat knows Shelbourne is Steve's mother, and he knows Steve knows where she is. He's had him for nine days," Catherine finally made eye contact with Danny, and Danny could see unshed tears in her eyes.

"I'm scared, Danny."

Danny sighed. "Yeah, me too."

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It started with pins and needles. He first felt it in his feet, and then his fingers, and then it started creeping up his arms, spreading…

The pins and needles gradually became more intense, until Steve's body literally began to tremble from the furious intensity of the sensation. Still, Steve kept a clear head, because this pain… it was nothing, really. He knew there was more coming.

And then the pins turned into fire. It started off like glowing embers on a dying campfire. At first Steve wasn't really aware of it, until the warmth got hotter, and then there were flames licking up through his body, and suddenly he was hot, too hot, and it was everywhere and it was burning and he was sweating and everything was happening so fast and it freaking burned and Jesus Christ he felt like his insides were melting.

And he was gasping, taking in raspy breaths, and when had he fallen over? Because his face was pressed up against the ground but was it really the ground because he remember the ground being cold, but now it was hot, so hot, and everything burned.

Steve groped around the floor, his eyes squeezed shut, looking for something he could hold onto. Just something he could grasp, squeeze, just give him something he could hold onto for support.

He gritted his teeth, refusing to make any other sound besides his rapid, slightly pained breathing. He was glad no one could see him like this; so weak, so defenseless, so vulnerable.

He told himself he could ride this pain out, just hold on a little longer, it would subside… but it didn't subside. It got worse.

It was completely sudden, not gradual like the burning. One second Steve was trying to distract himself from the burning in his body, telling himself just a little bit longer, and then out of nowhere, it was like his nerves were being dipped in acid.

He couldn't help it – he yelled out in shock, and strangled cry of pain.

It was like when you get hand sanitizer on a cut, only infinity times worse. Every sensory neuron in Steve's body was electrified, burning, sizzling…

Literally, the only thing Steve knew was pain. Everything that gave Steve a sense of touch felt like it had exploded into acid and was spreading to every inch of his body. There was nothing but pain. Every other sense was nonexistent; he couldn't see, he couldn't hear… it was all just pure, unrelenting pain.

Every wave of pain racked his body with an intense, unremitting force Steve had never experienced before. Nothing he had felt before was even remotely like this; it was like a whole new sense had been activated in his body, and was hell-bent on ripping Steve apart. The pain was impossible to get used to – every wave hurt worse than the one before it.

The excruciating pain was taking over every part of his brain – it was like he had been swallowed by it; consumed. He didn't know where he was, who he was, what he had done to deserve this.

Time had no meaning, because this pain was not going away, it was unrelenting, it wouldn't be finished until it had killed him.

Steve was unaware of the way he was thrashing on the ground, heaving, twitching. He was unaware of the fact that he was screaming, crying out in words that were sometimes clear, sometimes completely unintelligible, or sometimes just plain screams of pain.

But eventually, hours later, as the pain died down ever so slightly, Steve would become aware of somebody in the distance screaming. He would think that somebody else was there, that he was not alone in his hell, and that they were being tortured too. An hour after that Steve would notice how sore and raw his throat was, and realize in fact that he was the one screaming.

The pain wouldn't completely subside until a day later. 24 whole hours of excruciating, hellish, barbaric pain. When it was finally over, Steve would pass out in pure exhaustion, as the toxin had mercilessly kept him conscious the entire time. Steve would stay passed out for two whole days before waking up, empty and broken.

But that hadn't happened yet, and Stave was still in only the first stages of the toxin's brutal symptoms. When the pain finally did come to an end, right before passing out, Steve remembered having one clear thought – praying to God, if by some crazy chance He was out there, watching, that Danny would find him, because he didn't know how much longer he could last.

A/N: sheesh, i'm beginning to feel a bit like a psychopath... but it's so much fun! mwhahaha... yeah. sooo umm I going to try to finish this before season 3 ends, but I'm not sure... k can I just rant about something? I'm getting really irritated by the producers of this show. like, I mean obviously it's not the highest quality of shows, but they totally cheapen everything about the show with these stupid gueststars that they use to try to gain viewers. Like last weeks episode made me so mad because it was so. stupid. They caught Wo-Fat, which is kind of a big deal, right? but the whole episode is ruined by this stupid reporter chick. grrrr...

ANYWAY reviews make me happy. you should review. DOITDOITDOIT.