reanbeanmachine | This has spoilers for tocs 2 end game

[This is not the mercy he was looking for. Not at all. Touch is torture, but Crow doesn't have the strength to do more than try, weakly, to wriggle away from it. He can't, though. Moving away from one hand presses him against another, which feels amazing, and he's crying hysterically again in moments. He needs this so badly but he hates it just as much.

Being afraid, feeling violated, those feelings are definitely there, but they're second to sheer physical suffering. He's aware enough not to claw or bite, lest it makes things worse, but he's not really thinking about humiliation. He's just reacting to sensation, the assault on his nerves that's all mixed up and confusing and overwhelming any scraps of sanity he can find in himself.

He can't beg with his mouth full but the urge is still there. The problem is, this particular torture has him unsure whether to beg for it to stop or beg for more.]

[It helps, sort of. It at least relieves pressure, feeds the need Crow is suffering. It doesn't quite help enough, but it's good in a physical way normal sex never could be, good in an artificial and enhanced way, but empty of anything but malice.

He's passed around like this for a few hours, at some point electric shocks are introduced into it again, some number of hours later.]

[He does, ultimately, end up begging for more. He also does actually pass out, more than once, if only for a few seconds. It's incredibly good but that's too much, too. And when he starts to regain awareness knowing it's good just makes him even more miserable. He's going to remember it -- some of it fuzzily, but he knows very well what happened and how he caved.

When they're done he feels like so much gutter slime. He's beyond exhausted, beyond traumatized, and even when the drugs wear off he can hardly move, just because his whole body is so completely worn out. He has no voice left to whine -- he lost that an hour or two ago -- but even if he had one he wouldn't be complaining. He feels too awful. Too humiliated, and hurt, and scared, and vulnerable. He's finding himself so utterly terrified of more that he's just making himself as small and unobtrusive as possible. As if by staying down, keeping his face hidden in his arms on the floor and only breathing as shallowly as he can, he'll avoid further harm. As if he isn't entirely aware that this whole sick situation was designed specifically for him, and that these people want nothing more than to hurt him as much as possible.

He wants to be rescued right now. It's a pathetic thought that he's cursing himself for. Crow is strong. He does things on his own. He doesn't need Rean, or Vita, or anyone, to get where he wants to go. Normally, anyway. Right now being alone feels hopeless and horrible, and as much as he wants to stand by himself he knows he can't. He's stuck. So he really wants to see them, with such intensity that he almost starts to cry again. He doesn't, though. If nothing else he's determined to control any tiny bit of himself that he can. He couldn't not react before, he can't stop these people from doing what they want to him, so he's fiercely determined to grab onto any little scrap of agency left.

That's basically just the whole not crying thing though. The rest is out of his hands.]

[He's left to wallow in his misery and gross filth for a while, and then more hands drag him up and strip his bandages, he's hosed down, though not so roughly his wounds will open, dried and wrapped in blanket. Clothes would require unshackling him, and it's not like he needs the dignity of being covered, just given enough warmth to keep from getting sick.

He's left with cold soup and water in a wooden bowl and cup, no spoon, and once again he gets to spend some time alone on his chains to recover from the events of the day.]

[The blanket and food feel nothing but insulting. He doesn't want to be taken care of by people who're going to undo it all tomorrow. He wants to throw it all away, but he doesn't actually want to die. He wants to believe that with all their stubbornness and power, his friends will find him. Rean will burst in with Class VII behind him, or Vita will pop out of nowhere, or if he's lucky someone will bomb the whole building-- Okay yeah he'd be fine with dying as long as these fuckers go with him.

None of that has happened yet though, so he grudgingly downs the soup and water and huddles under the blanket. On the bright side, he's so exhausted it's not too hard to sleep. In fact he's out the instant he lets himself relax a little.]

[He's woken at some point, no windows make time hard to track. But the men are back, and he's being pulled up and out of his cage.]

Do you feel more repentant today, criminal?

[It makes him feel pathetic, but he hangs on to the blanket even when he's pulled on. He's still sore and worn, so his legs are wobbly and he'd really just rather go back to sleep.]

Do I look it?

[It'd be wiser to just agree, but being agreeable didn't help yesterday. They weren't any less cruel, so why should he debase himself even more? Unfortunately he can't really look cool when he's clinging to a blanket and his voice is a tired rasp.]

I see mercy is wasted on you.

[That's fine. Crow is even left with his blanket for now as the man arranges things on a table.]

You will not be given a second chance to repent today.

Mercy my ass. "Repenting" didn't get me shit from you yesterday.

[He's paying close attention to the table. Exhaustion isn't at all going to stop him from trying to be difficult. If there's anything he can reach... Hell, he's considering using his shackles to throttle someone.]

You were treated quite gently. But if you require comparison, that's fine as well.

[There are whips and syringes, more strange orbments in various forms. The man nods to his helpers and they approach Crow, to pull the blanket off and force him to his knees.]

[He doesnt resist being pushed down. He tries to make it look like he's resisting a little though. The goal is to get the men holding him to underestimate him a little, so he has a better chance of fighting what's coming. He knows he can't win but he does want to hit back on his way down.]

[He's being held firmly but maybe not too firmly. In any case the main guy is approaching with... Tape? Which he's going to use to tape Crow's eyes open.]

[Tape. Not something he can fight back with, but definitely something concerning. He lets it happen though, leaning away just a bit for token resistance.]

[It doesn't do enough to keep him from getting his eyelids taped to keep them from closing, and the man steps back to inspect that Crow can't blink before retrieving a needle and returning to jab that into the white of Crow's left eye, injecting it with a liquid that seems to burn but not with the pleasure of yesterday.

The pain seems to seep straight into his brain from his eye, as the needle is pulled out and the man's thumb brushes over Crow's exposed eye like a caress.]

If I understand this drug correctly it will stimulate all your senses. Not as an aphrodisiac, simply an enhancement of everything you perceive. Light. The air on your skin. Noise. Pain. Pleasure too, if you happen to feel any.

[See the idea was to break free and grab the syringe. He tries, too. Screw that, he'd rather make this guy suffer too, even if it means worse punishment later.

Win or lose tho he wants the tape off first, so he's going for it as soon as he can get his hands free.]

[He struggles just in time to grab for the needle and uh, break it off in his own eye. The men by him get him back under control quickly, startled by his outburst, and the man in charge raises his eyebrow as he leans close to examine the damage.]

I can't promise you won't lose that eye.

[Well, he tried. He kind of regrets it, but not enough to not plan on doing it again later. If he can just turn it on them once he'll feel less useless.

He can't say he isn't really frightened to lose an eye. But if he does it'll have happened because he fought back, so it'll be worth it. The pain is worth it. So is spitting in the man's face.]

You'll lose worse if you're not real careful, bastard.

I can't say I don't prefer this of you, criminal.

[It's nice to see Crow isn't so broken there isn't more fight to break out of him. For now he just nods to the men restraining Crow and they haul his arms up and back, restricting him further.]

Now, for today...

[The torture is gradual ramping up flogging followed by more electroshocks with another intermission in drowning. The drug does, as promised, enhance ever sensation about tenfold.]

[There would be a lot more screaming if his voice wasn't totally shot from all the screaming yesterday. As it is there's plenty of struggling and writhing and crying, but he also won't stop cursing and being generally rude. As long as he can think, he's feisty. It's only when there's too much to think through that he cracks. But even then, as soon as he comes to his senses he's up again. Crow is really a difficult person to break.

He kind of hates that he hopes they take care of that eye. It'll be a worthy loss but he'll have a harder time killing everyone in this room without depth perception.]

[His eye does get treated at least, with the rest of his injuries. No one is too concerned with making sure it stays in top condition, but it would be inconvenient if it got infected.

Torture starts to take on patterns. Never really predictable but a certain amount of repeat. Days where Crow is forced to take three or five times the normal dose of that pleasure drug alternate with days where he isn't drugged at all, usually, though once they keep him strung out on a cocktail of drugs for a week. Some days he's asked to repent and some he isn't even spoken to at all, simply acted upon.

They start playing back the recordings of his worse moments for him at night; the times he begs or cries are displayed for him to go to sleep to, played in sequence and looped.]

[The odd thing is the recordings help, in a way. They're awful, and he's more than ashamed of himself, but seeing and hearing it over and over and over starts to make it background noise. It stops cutting so sharply.

Or maybe it's just that it's all been going on for so long that everything has blurred into a haze of pain and misery and exhaustion. No one thing hurts worse than another anymore. Begging means nothing. Crying means nothing. Struggling means nothing. Nothing he does changes anything, and none of it can hurt him any more than it already has.

After long enough he's gone a little dead inside. He's reacting to physical sensation, but emotionally he's down to two modes: dull disinterest and absolute fury. Sometimes he just stares at nothing, blankly allowing them to do whatever they want until pain or pleasure forces a reaction. Other times he screams and curses and fights like a feral cat, so angry he's past sassing and into psychotic violence. He absolutely has hurt someone by now, at least once. They can't keep him perfectly restrained at every moment and he's reached the point where self-preservation is not even on the list of considerations. Pain, too, is losing meaning. He isn't bothered by it until it's overwhelming, so there's none of a normal person's injury avoidance in the way he lashes out.

It's not that he doesn't feel other things deep down. It's just that the soft part of him has retreated so far in self-defense that those emotions aren't registering on a surface level. Reach down far enough and he's lonely and terrified, hurt and frustrated and sad and doubting himself. He's starting to wonder if he really does deserve even this kind of punishment. But those things are being thoroughly buried, so all his captors see in his eyes is emptiness, occasionally interrupted by a primal kind of rage.]

[It's a month, maybe two, before the intelligence division ferrets Crow's whereabouts out and then then RMP and Class VII arrive.

He can only hear the battle a little distantly, and then before anyone can stop Rean, Rean's entering the room and stopping with a gasp before marching to Crow's side, using the key he got off one of the people outside to unlock the cage Crow's in while Claire gives orders for the equipment in the room to be confiscated.]

Crow.

[He can hear fighting, and he zeroes in on it, but he doesn't let himself get his hopes up. He's stopped hoping already. It hurt. So when the door opens he goes on the defensive, backing himself into a corner and curling up.

Seeing Rean doesn't help. It just abruptly brings all the shame he'd buried back to the surface, and with that he's just... angry. Logically he knows there's nothing to be mad at Rean for, but he's not thinking logically. There's just a lot of unreasonably bitter thoughts -- why is Rean even here now? Where was he when Crow was calling for him? How dare he look at him with sympathy, like Crow's not totally strong and together and fine -- it just makes him feel not okay.

Crow's not going to be eagerly falling into Rean's arms, at least not while he's shocked and on edge. In fact he's straight-up avoiding him, even if Rean's just trying to get him free of all the restraints. It's not the best look on him -- battered and bruised and covered in scratches and welts, he's visibly lost weight and he's visibly not all there. He doesn't have anything sensible to say so he just says nothing.]

[It's been a tough month and some change. While Erebonia has been settling back into normal Rean has been trying to find Crow, desperate with worry and frustration at the lack of any progress for weeks, only to hear alarming news yesterday. He came, the whole class did, with Angelica and George and Towa outside, as soon as they could, and yet he knows it's not soon enough, and there's no excuse for that. Looking at Crow now, it takes every ounce of his own willpower not to lose control of the anger in himself, to keep calm and not tear back outside and rip through the men upstairs.

There's a glint of bright red in his eyes all the same, yet his voice stays measured as he follows Crow and reaches to undo his restraints regardless of Crow's wariness.]

I'm sorry I'm late.

[He really doesn't want to be seen like this. It's stupid, but he's furious just that Rean is being kind. That of course he's not alone and now all of Crow's friends are going to see him a mess. It's not fair on Rean but nothing in the last six weeksish has been fair on Crow so he doesn't give a shit. (He does actually, he's just decided not to.)]

Go away.

[Not the nicest thing to say to your rescuer but he's actually panicking at the very idea of how humiliating this could all be, and it's hard to direct that emotion. Rean is there and it's the thought of Rean pitying him, of Class VII seeing those tapes, that's making Crow upset, so it's Rean he's lashing out at. He looks every bit the hissing feral kitten just pulled out of a storm drain.]

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