So I’ve been having an Awful Time ™ recently and been just crummy in general - but fortunately for you today I spent like several hours fantasizing about various self-destructive nasty situations as a form of catharsis so I’m like in 100% therapeutic writing mode. Here you go nonnie. >:3c - <3 Hex
Honestly, someone else would have been easier. Hell most anyone else would have been easier. But the Soldier doesn’t seem to like easy. Easy’s boring. It’s predictable; spook a sheep and it panics, running headfirst into the ocean if it has to, no second thought. As much as he’s been trying to hammer the idea of routine obedience into your head, you get the sick feeling the man enjoys hunting you down every time you get loose.
“You don’t seem to wanna learn.”
Your arm’s twisted up further behind your back, hard enough you can feel the strain on the socket, pain screaming all the way up your arm and out your mouth as you try to remember to breathe - short, sharp, fast little gasps. In your nose, out through your teeth. Keep it together. Don’t let him break you. He won’t break you.
The knee on your back presses down harder, and this time there’s a distinct ‘pop’ that steals all the air out of your lungs. He simply grunts, letting go to watch your arm flop uselessly back to the dirt he has you pinned in - the same dirt that’s in your mouth, mixed with the blood you’ve been trying to spit out since he smashed your face into earth.
“Fuck you-”
Fingers knot in your hair, and your head is jerked upwards without finesse, throat bared to the cold night air, bobbing as you swallow mud and the taste of metal; a raspy laugh forced out as you lick the grit from your teeth. You don’t fight when you’re rolled, powerful thighs straddled over your chest, knees pressed down on your arms - even the one lying limp. He’s watching you with those steely blue eyes, a look on his face almost like someone chiding a disobedient pet.
“Still haven’t learned any respect.”
You grin at him with red teeth.
“Fuck you, sir.”
It’s almost worth the broken nose.
——–
You wake up in the same room as always. The only change is the metal bars now crisscrossing the window. He’d let you have the view out of what might have been a sort of kindness - confident you wouldn’t be able to squeeze through the small space. He’d underestimated your desperation to get the fuck out of there. The abrasions on your shoulders at the least were a testament to that.
“You’re awake. Good.”
There isn’t much you can do to respond to the voice coming from behind you, other than jerking your head over your still-aching shoulder. He seems to have run out of patience for your snark. Your tongue pushes against the cotton material laying thick on your tongue, held in place by the heavy duty tape that you know is gonna hurt like a bitch when it’s removed.
He comes into view, and you’re really starting to regret your impudence because he’s looking down at the remote in his hands and smiling. He never smiles. Not once since you’ve been here. The closest he’d come was the one time you’d leaned into him after a particularly exhausting scuffle; only to smash your forehead into that scarred mouth.
You sit up in the chair, suddenly aware of the two cold points pressing up against your throat - thick leather holding it in place, ringing round your neck and strapped tight. Your left wrist jerks against the clamp uselessly. Each step he takes towards you only cements the dread seeping into the pit of your gut until it’s stone heavy and roiling against your insides. You do your best to force down the bile. Choking on your own vomit is not the way you intend to go.
“I’m not gonna lie. It was fun for awhile.” The way he strokes his hand over your hair is almost loving. A sharp contrast to the way he prods your swollen shoulder, the groan you admit swallowed up by your gag. “You’re smart. Strong. A real stubborn little shit.”
He adjusts something behind your head and the points dig deeper into the flesh of your neck.
“Remind me of myself when I first joined up. Guess it’s why I like you so much.”
Dry lips press against your forehead. When the tape comes off some of the skin of your lips goes with it. He shushes your screaming, fingers squeezing hard against your jaw until he can pull the cotton cloth out from behind your teeth, pink drool following it. It’s deposited neatly in the trash. Nothing out of place.
“I won’t stop.”
It would have probably been more impressive if your voice wasn’t so thoroughly ruined; barely a whisper of breath passing between your lips, raw from the tape.
“I won’t. I hate-”
Your muscles seize with the shock - just a second long pulse, low intensity - but it’s enough to hurt, to choke the words in your mouth and render you spluttering nonsense as your head lolls to the side, spinning. You can feel your heart hammering in your chest. That hand smooths through your hair again.
“You’ll learn, pup.” He kneels so he can lock his gaze on yours. You grit your teeth and stare at the ceiling instead. The clicking of his tongue is grating. “Think it’s time I broke you in properly.”
———
It starts with the sleep deprivation. That, at least, you’re familiar with. It’s disorienting, and the exhaustion combined with the routine shocks that wake you leave you with a near constant headache behind your eyes. You catch snatches of sleep here and there but it’s not nearly enough. He only lets you properly rest when you’re lying with him - conditioning you to his presence - but you know well enough. You fake sleep one night and bite him when his hold on you goes slack. You don’t sleep more than an hour at a time after that.
The restraints are added after the third time you try snapping at him. Ties that leave you hunched forward, legs locked in place and forcing you to stand on muscles already weak from lack of decent sleep. He changes it up now and again when you act out. The worst is when he pops your shoulder back in place only to force you to stand with your arms above your head for several hours while he ‘runs errands’.
It’s draining. Saps your energy and leaves you too tired to do more than weakly struggle, spitting insults with less and less fire to them when he takes you in his arms at night; when he takes you in his bed, gentle like he’s trying to soothe a wild animal.
Remember that you hate him.
A mantra you repeat over and over and over in your head, letting it seep into your aching bones every day and every night (though you can’t tell which is which anymore). You continue to fight as best as your beaten body can manage, the satisfaction at his mounting frustration a small victory between the back of his hand and the blood on your face.
You almost convince yourself it will work if you hold out long enough. But-
“Every man breaks, eventually.”
A promise, whispered smooth into your ear. You swallow the blood in your mouth.
“Just need to find the right hammer.”
———
It’s a new remote. Bigger, with more than one button, and a dial that goes from a deceptively friendly looking green to an angry red. His fingers skim over it and the face he’s making could fool you into thinking he’s in love with the device moreso than he is you.
“Funny how many things they leave out of RTI.”
The dial clicks up one line, but nothing happens. You breathe out slow through your nose. He presses the button.
The shocks before, you could deal with. An unpleasant jolt at most, breaking you out of your sleep, silencing your snappy retorts, stilling you long enough for him to pin you. This? This is worse. When your muscles seize there’s pain exploding through every inch - and it lasts longer than before. Then the shock stops as sudden as it starts, leaving your head reeling, bile in your throat, fingers twitching and numb. His fingers turn your face to him, and you have neither the resolve nor the physical cohesion to resist.
“Better.”
He wipes the spit from around your mouth and for once you’re reduced to a whimper. For the second time in your sad existence here, you see him smile.
“The faster you learn pup, the less I’ll have to use this.”
The kiss tastes like ash.
“It’s like I said. Every man breaks.” Mouth on your neck, tracing the line of the collar. A hand moving down your chest. “And I think I just found the right hammer.”
