reanbeanmachine | This has spoilers for tocs 2 end game

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.]

Not a chance.

[He's getting the shackles off first, no matter how difficult Crow is being, and next is the collar before he shrugs off his coat and holds it out to Crow. He'll make sure they get real clothes for him fast, but for now this much is necessary to help Crow get some dignity back.

Hell Claire's already on ordering clothes brought in, he's pretty sure, but he's only keeping half an ear on the woman behind him, his whole attention really focused on the man in front of him.]

Not without you, anyway.

[He'll take the coat at least, though he's looking at Rean like he's expecting him to hit him and ready to hit back. It's dumb. He's tucking himself into the coat and breathing in Rean's scent, but he's also glaring at him like it's his fault Crow's in here.]

I don't need you. And if you don't get all those people out of here I'm going to kill them.

[He doesn't take his eyes off Crow but he does raise his voice.]

Claire, could we have some privacy? Just leave clothes inside the door.

[There's an affirmative and the room empties almost instantly on Claire's command. The door will only open again for someone to set clothes inside in a few minutes but otherwise it's just Rean and Crow.]

Okay. It's just us.

You too.

[He wants Rean's eyes off him stat. It feels like he's being stared through, and that's a vulnerability he doesn't like.]

I can wait outside if you want.

[But going out the door is the furthest he's willing to go, and only that much because there's literally no other exit to this room, not even an air duct to crawl through.]

Fine.

[Not fine but if it gives him some space he'll take it. He needs to destroy any recordings that haven't been taken away yet, for one.]

Just go.

[There's a lot he wants to say and do, like hug Crow, but he nods and steps back, giving Crow room as he heads out the door. He crosses his arms and leans against the wall by the door to wait. Unfortunately for Crow the RMP is real efficient so plenty of the recordings are already gone, but there's still some things he can smash, and clothes to put on. And an empty room of trauma to wreck all he wants before he has to go out and face Rean waiting for him.]

[Oh he's absolutely going to wreck it. Once Rean is gone he very calmly gets dressed, then picks up something hefty and just starts smashing. He doesn't give a single fuck if the RMP considers this evidence. Anything left in this room is going to be left in tiny pieces, even if it means giving himself more cuts and scrapes punching and stepping on things.

So there's a lot of breaking things noises. And also a lot of yelling because he has a lot of steam to blow off. He's not saying anything worth listening to he's just cursing and screaming and generally being a disaster.]

[Claire looks unhappy but she doesn't say anything. Rean just bows his head and listens, fists clenched, waiting out whatever Crow needs to do in there. He really doesn't know everything but the glimpse he had is bad enough, and being stuck here, in the hallway, while the RMP finish processing the arrests and the evidence and Crow vents and Rean has nothing to do but feel useless is pretty draining. But all he can do is wait, and talk quietly to Claire when she walks over.

On his insistence they'll give Crow to Class VII instead of arresting him. As long as Rean or a member of Class VII is with him 24/7.]

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