The Nightmare
Chapter Text
The dream is less frequent now—grows less frequent with every passing month—and the fact that it so quickly recedes into white noise of his subconscious, that it can become so easily subsumed by the memories of a life committed to violence, should alarm him. He knows this. He doesn't care.
It's always the same, the dream. It's the only one that affects him viscerally and physically, causing him to shudder in his sleep from the intense cold he feels in that liminal space. His fingers twitch, reacting to the hard dull pain that rolls through his palms as, in that space, he hits the concrete floor. His body is wet from the most recent session of near-drowning, of having his head and shoulders forced into a tin tub full of ice water until any ability for rational thought is overwhelmed by the screaming panic of his lizard-brain, and he comes an increment closer to breaking. Above and around him, amid the vapor from his breath, his captors watch with glee. This is their sport.
There are three of them. The tallest one laughs the most. He has close-set eyes, and usually wears a dullish expression that hints at cognitive delays likely due to childhood malnutrition. The other two are smaller and fatter—obviously coming from wealthier, more politically-connected families. One of them is an utter blank—just a shape in an elaborate uniform. The other has a lean, hyena's face, animated by unrestrained sadism.
He shakes in his sleep from the dreamed and remembered frigidity he feels after the ice bath. His face stings, and freezing water pours down his back, and around his bare chest. His breath hangs up on the shaking of his body, his lungs shocked by the sudden cold. As he kneels there, on the wet concrete, blinking the water droplets and ice crystals from his vision, they pour water over him and laugh as he cries out.
James Bond takes the opportunity to release his bladder and finds some small relief in the feeble warmth that spreads along his thighs. There's more excited conversation and laughter from his captors. They might have noticed he pissed himself or maybe it's just the usual taunts. He doesn't care. He has no dignity left to lose; he left it behind long ago. Dignity is a luxury, a comfort, and in this place those items can only be used against you, leveraged for control. Bond knew how it went—how the smallest promise of that desirous thing was dangled before you, and soon enough you'd betrayed yourself for something as trivial as a pillow or a blanket or a bit of meat.
In all this time, Bond has given them nothing. When he needs the torment to end, he gives them rubbish—unclassified details of old assignments mixed with lies, embellishments, and pure fantasy. Surely by now they know he's lying, but they continue anyway. Maybe because they think he'll shatter someday. Maybe because they have no other purpose.
And She presides over it all. Barely speaking, never deigning to touch him, never getting a drop of frigid water on her uniform, She is the goddess of this place. Shorter than all of them, She towers nonetheless. She is always impeccable-Her uniform crisp, Her hair perfectly drawn back in a sleek knot with nary a strand out of place. Her beauty is painful, a reminder that there are things other than suffering and misery in the world. His desire for Her is torment—maybe that's why they put Her here. It's impossible to look at Her and not think of the sexual conquests he'll never see again, as well as the ones he'll never have.
She snaps orders to the men—"Hold him!" or some variation on that order, he can still only understand fragments of Korean—and the tall one and the plain one crouch down and grab him by the arms. As if he could fight back. His motor skills are gone, robbed by the cold. He can barely move his fingers, let alone deliver an accurate, effective blow. Still, they hold him in an iron grip. The plain one's breath smells noxiously of fish and halitosis.
Bond looks at the ground, at the water-stained concrete beyond the vapor of his breath, even as She sinks into view. She kneels on one knee before him like a holy figure whose gaze he cannot bring himself to meet. He doesn't want to face that beauty. He doesn't want to feel desire.
Gloved fingers gently curl beneath his chin, soft as a lover's invitation, and he loses the struggle against lifting his head. Her face is all he sees. It is his entire world. Her skin is fair, marred by a shocking black beauty mark that sits atop one perfectly-sculpted cheekbone. Her wide-set eyes are deep, chestnut brown, and they hold no compassion or warmth. Full, red lips twist into a smile of pure cruelty. She lifts a gloved hand.
Between them, legs kicking uselessly at the air, dangles a large, black scorpion.