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During your briefing to join the 141, you learned just what that was. Vampires. Not Twilight teen romance vampires, mind you, but the kind that’s just as likely to save an ally as to rip their throat out if they have a bad day. They needed a reminder of their humanity and that came in the package of little old you. Warm and human and so fragile.

Price looks at you as a tool- a way to realign his men with the good in the world, to jog their memories of what it was like to be so breakable. You don’t notice the way he looks at you at the end of a mission, the way he catalogues each and every injury on your body. Making sure you’re okay and not broken. Asset protection, he joked around his cigar when asked. “Can’t have the human go back in pieces, we might be next, love.”

Gaz seems uncertain about having you on the task force. He treats you well and is the one with the steadiest hands and most sated appetite when it comes to patching you up, but he looks at you as if thinking of a ghost, eyes lingering on bandages as if to make sure you don’t burn up and extinguish like a dying star.

Soap, to his credit, is utterly excited. Although his appetite is hard to keep in check sometimes, he adores having you around. He teaches you all the neat tips and tricks about vampires-compulsions, what it was like to be Ghost’s fledgling, things that can protect you and injure them. He’s trying to make you comfortable and feel at home simultaneously, always eager to soother over tensions.

Ghost is the scary one. How wouldn’t he be, huge and looming with those bloodred eyes and that skull mask staring you down without a word? You can feel the weight of his gaze on you every time you enter a room, thick and overbearing and begging for you to make a mistake that he can rectify by killing you. Even in your sleep, you can feel those eyes.

You don’t notice that he slips into the shadows of your room each and every night, eyes focused on ensuring you’re breathing. Making sure you stay tucked safe and sound into your bed, alive and warm and all too human. Or that he and Gaz take turns playing nightguard, memories of a long-lost loved one still haunting their minds. They won’t lose this one.

Nobody’s certain just how Graves and his Shadows got to you. You were never at Los Almas, spared from the situation entirely. There should’ve been no way for you to interact with the rival coven and the patch on your vest combined with the necklace around your throat marked you as coven 141 property and off-limits.

All the same, the room stinks of the American coven of vampires, the stench of a heavy compulsion laid by Graves rolling over you as you thrash and scream against the ropes keeping you tied down.

The look in your eyes is near-feral, hazed with the faint orange of Graves’s effect on you. The coven head himself somehow got around each and every protection laid on, in, and around you and mind-controlled you within an inch of your life. Your mission? Gather information, report back, and kill as many 141 men as possible.

You very nearly succeeded as well. Gaz is still patching up the hole in Soap’s chest from where you attempted to stake the Scot in his bed, still warm and sleepy from the night you’d spent together prior. He doesn’t have the heart to be upset with you, even as he curses and bitches at Gaz. No, Johnny is furious with whatever and whoever slipped up enough to put you in this situation in the first place.

When unable to obey a compulsion, the compulsed party goes insane, for lack of better phrasing. From the second that haze settles over you, the assigned task becomes your primary mission in life. It’s hard to complete a suicide mission when strapped to a chair.

Price works on freeing you of the compulsion while Ghost tracks down whatever information you may have already leaked to Shadow Company. It’s delicate work since without the ability to eliminate Graves, which would release you, John has to put you under a separate and stronger compulsion to undermine the first.

“Shhhh,” He tries to soothe your screaming, both hands holding onto your sweaty cheeks to keep you still while he works. “I know. I know, love, I know. It hurts, but you’re doing so well. So well, just listen, yeah?”

The pitch hits a new level as he lays your mind thicker and thicker with his own will overtop the Shadows’. Your body is rebelling, trembling and arching against the chair they tied you to.

Everything is screaming to kill, to obey Phillip’s order even while Price’s compulsion wraps around and tries to strangle it to nothingness. A gentle croon telling you to surrender your previous mission and sleep. Just sleep.

“Steamin’ Jesus,” Soap curses to Gaz, looking over with worry and a pale face. “The lungs on that bird are going tae explode my head.”

You’re slowly giving into John’s influence, the sweet smells of black tea and cigar smoke soothing and washing away the foreign influence over you. It’s easier to give into John, to surrender yourself to the ancient vampire you trust with your life. “Sorry. I’m s… I’m sorry…”

“Nobody’s mad at you, love,” Price promises as he brushes sweaty hair from your face. “We’re mad at ourselves for not protecting you. They should have never been able to compel you.”

John would never admit it- not to you, not in court, maybe not even to his own men, but he’d compelled you ages ago. Nothing sinister, of course, but he’d placed what was supposed to be a barrier of protection against non-141 vampires in your mind. The only ones who were supposed to get in were them.

However Graves got around it is worrying and disconcerting. It spells less than savoury things ahead, for you and for the covens as a whole.

Graves’s influence finally snaps with a pained scream for you, entire body tensing and arching against your bonds before immediately passing out. John was successful in easing you into rest.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Price has to steady himself on the arm of your chair for just a moment, nauseous and dizzy from the amount of effort this took. He wouldn’t say he’s out of practice in the art of mind control, but it is certainly no longer one of his main skills. Compulsion does not hold up in court, as it stands.

“Are they going to be okay, Cap?” Gaz looks away from where Soap is bandaged and resting against the wall. The Sergeants are trying to hide their concern, but it’s a useless endeavour. He can see the shine of worry even from here- one their faces and on Ghost’s as the Lieutenant steps back in, nodding that he did indeed stop the flow of information.

During your briefing to join the 141, you learned just what that was. Vampires. Not Twilight teen romance vampires, mind you, but the kind that’s just as likely to save an ally as to rip their throat out if they have a bad day. They needed a reminder of their humanity and that came in the package of little old you. Warm and human and so fragile.

Price looks at you as a tool- a way to realign his men with the good in the world, to jog their memories of what it was like to be so breakable. You don’t notice the way he looks at you at the end of a mission, the way he catalogues each and every injury on your body. Making sure you’re okay and not broken. Asset protection, he joked around his cigar when asked. “Can’t have the human go back in pieces, we might be next, love.”

Gaz seems uncertain about having you on the task force. He treats you well and is the one with the steadiest hands and most sated appetite when it comes to patching you up, but he looks at you as if thinking of a ghost, eyes lingering on bandages as if to make sure you don’t burn up and extinguish like a dying star.

Soap, to his credit, is utterly excited. Although his appetite is hard to keep in check sometimes, he adores having you around. He teaches you all the neat tips and tricks about vampires-compulsions, what it was like to be Ghost’s fledgling, things that can protect you and injure them. He’s trying to make you comfortable and feel at home simultaneously, always eager to soother over tensions.

Ghost is the scary one. How wouldn’t he be, huge and looming with those bloodred eyes and that skull mask staring you down without a word? You can feel the weight of his gaze on you every time you enter a room, thick and overbearing and begging for you to make a mistake that he can rectify by killing you. Even in your sleep, you can feel those eyes.

You don’t notice that he slips into the shadows of your room each and every night, eyes focused on ensuring you’re breathing. Making sure you stay tucked safe and sound into your bed, alive and warm and all too human. Or that he and Gaz take turns playing nightguard, memories of a long-lost loved one still haunting their minds. They won’t lose this one.

Nobody’s certain just how Graves and his Shadows got to you. You were never at Los Almas, spared from the situation entirely. There should’ve been no way for you to interact with the rival coven and the patch on your vest combined with the necklace around your throat marked you as coven 141 property and off-limits.

All the same, the room stinks of the American coven of vampires, the stench of a heavy compulsion laid by Graves rolling over you as you thrash and scream against the ropes keeping you tied down.

The look in your eyes is near-feral, hazed with the faint orange of Graves’s effect on you. The coven head himself somehow got around each and every protection laid on, in, and around you and mind-controlled you within an inch of your life. Your mission? Gather information, report back, and kill as many 141 men as possible.

You very nearly succeeded as well. Gaz is still patching up the hole in Soap’s chest from where you attempted to stake the Scot in his bed, still warm and sleepy from the night you’d spent together prior. He doesn’t have the heart to be upset with you, even as he curses and bitches at Gaz. No, Johnny is furious with whatever and whoever slipped up enough to put you in this situation in the first place.

When unable to obey a compulsion, the compulsed party goes insane, for lack of better phrasing. From the second that haze settles over you, the assigned task becomes your primary mission in life. It’s hard to complete a suicide mission when strapped to a chair.

Price works on freeing you of the compulsion while Ghost tracks down whatever information you may have already leaked to Shadow Company. It’s delicate work since without the ability to eliminate Graves, which would release you, John has to put you under a separate and stronger compulsion to undermine the first.

“Shhhh,” He tries to soothe your screaming, both hands holding onto your sweaty cheeks to keep you still while he works. “I know. I know, love, I know. It hurts, but you’re doing so well. So well, just listen, yeah?”

The pitch hits a new level as he lays your mind thicker and thicker with his own will overtop the Shadows’. Your body is rebelling, trembling and arching against the chair they tied you to.

Everything is screaming to kill, to obey Phillip’s order even while Price’s compulsion wraps around and tries to strangle it to nothingness. A gentle croon telling you to surrender your previous mission and sleep. Just sleep.

“Steamin’ Jesus,” Soap curses to Gaz, looking over with worry and a pale face. “The lungs on that bird are going tae explode my head.”

You’re slowly giving into John’s influence, the sweet smells of black tea and cigar smoke soothing and washing away the foreign influence over you. It’s easier to give into John, to surrender yourself to the ancient vampire you trust with your life. “Sorry. I’m s… I’m sorry…”

“Nobody’s mad at you, love,” Price promises as he brushes sweaty hair from your face. “We’re mad at ourselves for not protecting you. They should have never been able to compel you.”

John would never admit it- not to you, not in court, maybe not even to his own men, but he’d compelled you ages ago. Nothing sinister, of course, but he’d placed what was supposed to be a barrier of protection against non-141 vampires in your mind. The only ones who were supposed to get in were them.

However Graves got around it is worrying and disconcerting. It spells less than savoury things ahead, for you and for the covens as a whole.

Graves’s influence finally snaps with a pained scream for you, entire body tensing and arching against your bonds before immediately passing out. John was successful in easing you into rest.

“Fuckin’ hell,” Price has to steady himself on the arm of your chair for just a moment, nauseous and dizzy from the amount of effort this took. He wouldn’t say he’s out of practice in the art of mind control, but it is certainly no longer one of his main skills. Compulsion does not hold up in court, as it stands.

“Are they going to be okay, Cap?” Gaz looks away from where Soap is bandaged and resting against the wall. The Sergeants are trying to hide their concern, but it’s a useless endeavour. He can see the shine of worry even from here- one their faces and on Ghost’s as the Lieutenant steps back in, nodding that he did indeed stop the flow of information.

John long gave up the art of switching names and identities, of bouncing continents every few decades. There’s no hiding from technology in this day and age and he knows he’s not the only vampire aligned within the military. He has friends that assure him he gets to keep his job for however long he wants it, friends in high places. Very high places.

He turns Ghost first.

There was no intention behind the decision, just pure instinct and desperation. An ambush went wrong, and Ghost was fatally injured, blood pouring for every possible orifice. The smell of Simon bleeding out in front of him made John nearly feral, holding himself back from finishing Ghost off with restraint built up over hundreds of years of war. John’s wrist was pressed to Simon’s mouth and feeding him his blood before he even thought over his actions.

He is no stranger to the loss of war, but something prevented him from losing these men. They’re the closest thing John’s had to family in millennia and he can’t watch them die, not so early.

Gaz and Soap follow the superior officers into the immortal life shortly later of their own volition and the ‘unkillable’ nature of the soldiers earns them the prestigious title of military urban legend. Whispered about by rookies and criminals alike, around bottles of cheap whiskey and warm bonfires.

The coven operates well for several decades before you show up. Assigned by the brass partially to remind the vampires of human mortality and partially to keep an eye on the not-quite-men. To ensure they aren’t mass-slaughtering people or committing war crimes. The usual.

What Price wasn’t expecting was just how staunchly human you are. Your blood smells sweeter, thunders through your veins with the strength of a hundred stallions. Blushes beautifully in your cheeks as your eyes twinkle with each joke you crack to Soap.

You’re so human, it kills him. And eventually, it kills you, too.

It’s an oversight on his part, a simple mistake on a mission that leaves you in a pool of gore and fighting for your life. Nobody saw the incoming grenade and by the time Price screamed your name, it was already too late. You were hit and severely.

“Cap, I don’t think they’re gonna make it,” Gaz mutters to Price as he fights to stop the bleeding, a fight in vain against gravity and biology. You’re bleeding out at a dizzying pace. Ghost had to drag a hysterical, bloodthirsty Soap out of sight and let him loose on the enemies so he wouldn’t worsen your situation.

You’ve become the beacon of light for all the 141 men and seeing it slowly being snuffed out while simultaneously being driven by the urge to feed would destroy Soap if he hurt even a hair on your head.

“No, they’ll make it,” Price disagrees with a gruff shake of his head, trying to soothe you with quiet coos and brushing hair from your blood-stained face as you slowly get worse. “They’ll make it, they have to.”

“C-Cap,” You gasp and continue to hemorrhage, trembling hands grasping for his vest. “T-Turn me. Turn me. I’m not-” You let out a rattling cough that stains your lips a deep red. “I’m not goin’ t’make it other- otherwise. Please. I don’t- I don’t want to die.”

Tears shine in your eyes, reminding Price of this eerily similar situation when he turned Simon. His soldiers bleeding out and dying under his touch, under his command. But where Ghost begged for death, was content to sink into its cold clutches forevermore… you’re scrambling to hold on to every scrap of life you can get. “Oh sweetheart.”

“Please,” You beg again, eyes so wide. Terrified and desperate, relying entirely on your Captain to drag you back to the world. “Ple-please. I don’t- I don’t want to die.”

“Shhh,” Price soothes, ignoring the burning in his throat that mimics the soft cries coming from Gaz as he works on injuries he knows he can’t patch up. “Shh, love. Shh. Focus on breathing, it’s okay. You’ll be okay, pet.”

And John caves. He slides his sleeve up and drops his glove to bare the flesh of his wrist. Wills his fangs to drop and tears the delicate skin open to press to your mouth. Him and Gaz watch as you cling to his wrist and gulp greedily, listening to Soap’s rampage in the distance.

Except it doesn’t work.

Minutes later, there’s no change in your condition. No darkening of your irises to a blood red, no healing of wounds and screaming as the fire of transition licks through your destroyed body. Just him, Kyle, and your life steadily flowing out into the dirt.

Blood spurts from your mouth and sprays your face, a distinctly childlike whimper that has tears pouring from John’s cheeks as he tries to keep you calm. His thumbs, shaking minutely, wipe the blood from your eyes. You’re too close to death to notice, too busy slowly bleeding out. “Hush, love, hush. I know. I know.”

“It di- didn’t work, did it?” You ask, bloodstained chin quivering as your body squirms and twitches. Your eyes beg for equal parts truth and lie. “I’m d- I’m dying.”

“Hush,” He shifts his spot on the ground and pulls your body into his lap, cradling you like you’re the most precious thing he’s seen in centuries as he fights his own sobs and Kyle cries openly. “Sh, it’s working. It’s working, just give it time. Give it… give it time.”

You both know it’s a lie but neither of you are willing to admit that your death is a fingerbreadth away. “I c- I can’t fe-feel the pain anymo-ore,” you admit with a ragged sob, your grip on his vest loosening against your will. You’re turning hysterical and he can’t stand to see you spend the last few moments you’ll ever experience breaking down. “I can’t- I can’t-”

The words trying to slip out with the little blood left in your body is silenced by John’s trembling lips slotting over yours, quieting your cries and fighting to give you some little good to go out on. There were feelings slowly developing over the course of your time with the 141, but nothing ever acted on. Price long learned the lesson of falling in love with humans.

Your whimpers quiet, both pairs of trembling lips moving soft and slow, lingering in the one and only kiss they’ll ever share. He should be half on his way to bloodlust by now, but the only thing he can taste is your tears. Your warmth abandoning you in your time of need.

When the kiss breaks, you’re visibly stiller, skin paling and reactions delayed. It won’t be long now if the dazed glaze in your eyes is anything to go on. “Th- that was-”

Price gives a little nod, brushing tears and any speck of dust away from your face, trying to soak up the last wisps of your energy. “God pet, how are we supposed to do this without you?” His voice wavers, the grief threatening to crush him in a way no army or bullet or plague could ever manage. “How am I?”

You seem out of it, hands barely holding onto him anymore. You’re turning cool under his touch, and he hates it. God, he hates it so much he can barely live. He wants to rampage the entire world, raze it down to a fiery hell for hurting something so sweet and pure as you. “You didn’t deserve any of this, my love. You didn’t deserve it.”

“Did I do g-good?” You choke out, dying lungs beginning to rattle. “Was I good?”

“No baby,” He shakes his head. “No, sweetheart, you were the best. You were the best of all of us.”

The last words you ever utter are “I love you” before he hears your heart take its final beat and never continue, frozen in blissful silence forever and always. John lets out a near inhuman wail, drawing Gaz to start sobbing in ernest as he cradles your limp body to his chest.

“I didn’t to say it back,” Price sobs, burying his face in your hair to press kiss after kiss to the soft, bloody texture. “I love you. I love you, I love you, I love you.”

Hopefully you can feel it wherever you are, the love that he and Kyle and Johnny and Simon feel for you, felt for you, will forever feel. Their precious ball of sunshine, the little star all their own. He wishes to a God he doesn’t believe that you’re somewhere safe and warm, peaceful and protected. Nestled in the night sky and watching over them.

Another drop of water hits your spine from the faucet placed above you, it's cold as it runs down your bare skin. It feels like ice. Hitting the same spot over and over and over...

Drip...

Not even able to take a deep breath, you release a strained cry, it can hardly leave you, not that you hadn't cried enough already. You could feel the dried blood, tears and snot still on your face and a testament to your torment. You haven't been able to get the metallic taste of your blood of of your mouth since you got in here.

You breathe slowly, trying to relieve the pain in your chest. Body positioned downwards, chest pressed down to your knees, a leather buckle holds you down and over a metal stool. Wrists torn open by old shackles and stretched upwards to connect to the steel pipe in the middle of the room.

The stress position had been Johnny's idea, putting you in it to begin with. The bastard...

Kyle had been in and out to collaborate with Price on the interrogation, he didn't have the heart to do you any harm like his Captain. But, that didn't stop him from stomaching your screams as he turned the handle up, piercing cold crashing down atop you, it beats down on your back, by the time it's done your shaking, and your skin a bruising purple hue. It goes on like that for hours, even as you beg. He reads you the files again.

Price would then take the baton from the corner of the room, the side of your face already swollen from the last strike, you were seeing red out of your left eye and soon you wouldn't be able to see out of it if the swelling continued.

"Please..." you shivered, miserably.

"Over in a jiff, love, but i need somethin' from you, you know that." Was his reply, he tapped the baton against the metal below you, the reverb makes you jump each time, leaving you to stare at it as you watched his boots walk around you.

"Cap'n, It's not...It's not--me..." you tried, breathless. "I'd never.."

The steel baton came down on your shoulder, first. There was an immediate response from your constricted muscles, limbs that had all tensed up at once despite their numbness. Pulling at the shackles that kept you in place, the hit shocks you, nearly silencing you completely, it hurts, then it burns. Mouth open in a silent scream, you squeeze your eyes shut in an effort to block out the pain that crawled through your shoulder. "It's not me!"

You've been suffering from hypothermia for a few days since then. Your shoulder crushed right out of place or just plain broken, you weren't sure. It's not like you could feel much of your arms in this position.

It hurt. Not just the painful strain that this position was currently putting on your muscles, but everything else...

Of course, you've handled torture alike this before. Captured and tortured by enemies, ransomed for pay and fought tooth and nail to live, then found your way from that hell...only for the men who you'd kill for, to do the same thing to you with no remorse.

In the quiet of the empty room, you sobbed in agony. Squeezing your fists, but you couldn't even feel them, as far as you knew your fingers could only twitch in response to your demand.

You weren't sure what you were doing here.

Well, you knew. There was a mole, all evidence pointing to you, whatever it was had completely stunted their mission earlier in the week, left them hiding in a safe house for days until they were picked up by evac. Apparently, you'd leaked mission details to some hostiles over seas, you weren't sure which ones, they were hoping you could tell them. You had absolutely nothing, lost.

Of course, they didn't believe you. Although you expected to have at least a sliver of trust, someone to speak up against these claims and believe you...

It must've been too much to ask.

It came out of nowhere, at first you had been in bed with Simon, your fucking Fiancé, then that meeting with Price, then just...they'd cornered you in that room. Knocked you out without even an explanation, woke you up strapped down, confused, stripped of your uniform and feral as you demanded answers. Nobody listened to you.

That first night you thought you were gonna die. The second night you thought you had. The third night you were just convinced this was your hell.

You were soaked to the bone, and unable to stop shivering. The only sound you could hear was your own chattering teeth in this never-ending void of darkness.

It was so fucking dark in here, your eyes darting around to every corner, hoping for even a measly crack of light that your eyes could adjust to. Every sound, scratch, scrape or click made you jump, you couldn't see shit in here, so just about everything made you hyper aware. You couldn't help your anxiety as the sound of the faucet, the constant drops against your spine, the jingle of your shackles and the whimpers that echoed against the walls as you struggled to comfortably breathe. Maybe it was the thought of a mouse crawling up the stool and along your skin, or someone in here just staring at you in the corner, or the door finally opening for Price to start slicing into you demanding answers you didn't have.

You were on the cusp of losing your mind. If you hadn't already.

But it's been a few hours since then...

Maybe even a few days...

It could even have been a week.

You weren't too sure.

Simon had been the last one in here. He'd pulled the strap loose around your neck, hauling you up to an upright position by your jaw, eliciting a whimper from your lips. Able to breathe a bit easier, your lungs finally decompressing and you gulp down air greedily, "Simon..." this had been the first time you'd seen him since. He wears his balaclava, he is Ghost, not your Simon Riley.

As your bloodshot, swollen eyes raise to look into his cold ones, so unfeeling. You hadn't even realized you were so hopeful for his trust in you until then, looking at you like you were absolutely nothing to him, the same look he always had before pulling the trigger. "Simon, please, stop this..." your words slurred by your shivering, exhausted. "You know me...please."

Your tears slide over the leather of his gloved hands, while he holds tight to your face and cuts your pleads short with a painful squeeze. "Shut up," he says. His eyes are blank, but his voice is low and seething. "Shut the fuck up!" Simon harshly grits out to you, jostling you harshly. You squeeze your eyes shut, weeping miserably, throat closing up to your agony.

He had to know that you would've never done this to him. He should've known that. Given you the benefit of the doubt at least. You'd have never done this to him...

"I'm sorr-" you try, he squeezes harder to silence you swiftly, and snatches a tiny bowl off the tray he'd brought in. Raising your jaw a bit higher, he pours down a chunky broth into your mouth, letting it all just fall down to your throat. It's disgusting. He doesn't ease up for even a second as you toss and turn your head to breathe.

"Don't say a fucking word," he seethes, his hand enveloping your neck and keeping your head raised upward. "As if I should believe you..."

He then takes the next cup to do the same, your eyes bloodshot wide and you jerk away from him as you choke, unable to stomach anything, but he doesn't let you. This time you inhale accidentally, blocking your airway, eyes watering as you writhe for oxygen, your shackles clang violently as you attempt to retaliate, the first fight you've put up in days. His grip doesn't let up, even as you struggle and start to vomit up whatever he decided to shove down your throat.

When he finally lets go, you curve over and heave up whatever's left in your mouth, hyperventilating as you empty your guts on the floor. Hacking up whatever you can, it hurts, your throat burning from the sobs that leave you in between coughs. "If you love me, if you--ever had--" you spat at him. You'd given him everything, every part of yourself, nearly given him your life in the battlefield, and yet...it wasn't enough. "You would fucking believe me!" your voice cracks with the effort it takes to scream at him, to curse him to hell.

"My trust? That's what you want," Hollow eyes stare back at you, his attention flickering around to the uncomfortable shift of your shoulders in those cuffs. Your swollen left eye that had been hit so hard, the white of it had filled with blood. The black and blue littering your sides and your spine, the loss of color in your skin from the stress position and the cold that had you uncontrollably shivering. "You've had it before. You must've sold that to them too."

Your head drops to the stool again, releasing a heavy breath. "It wasn't worth much, if it was so easy to lose..."

Usually it's not very easy to set Simon off, you've known him always to be quite mellow, besides the barely concealed rage he had settled in his chest since you've known him. But, today, you were an exception.

Fisting a hand in your hair, Simon yanks at it, pulling you upwards for your to face him. His other hand coming up to wrap around your throat before your tortured scream can even manifest. In that moment, it feels as if he'd snapped your spine in half, having not used the muscles to stretch that area in over a week. Your shackled wrists shifting in the cruel position.

His eyes are wild and rageful, the balaclava that covers him twists just the same, his grip very telling to his violence as he squeezes down any chance at air or even a sentence. "Easy to lose..." he repeats, spitting in your face as he strangles you. "Easy t'lose your life! If you don't tell me the fucking truth," he pulls out the knife you'd seen him slit so many throats with before, you hear the familiar sound of it first then its cold steel pressing into the side of your ribs. "I'm gonna carve out your heart, and I'll take it real slow, let you feel every little thing I do to you in here," he shakes you harshly as a startled cry escapes you, your tears are burning hot against your cheeks. "You don't get to cry. Or whine. Or beg!"

"Stop--" you try to squirm away from him, to get as far away as possible, from this place, from this moment.

"Just tell me the truth," Simon's face twisted in agony, for just a second, his thumb drags along your jaw, meaningfully. "You'd be doing us both a favor..."

As his vast hand finally loosed around your neck just enough to hold you up, awaiting the bitter truth. Simon's knife catches on the protrusion of your ribs, nicking the skin, drawing blood on purpose. You stare up at the ceiling, the flickering old lights, the dripping faucet that's tormented your already fragile state for weeks now. "The truth..." you spoke, hoarsely. "You've all shown me...it doesn't matter to you. If it ever... Believe what you want--" you close your eyes, you're exhausted. Sleep had evaded you for days. "You and your truth and this team, you can all go to hell."

And finally he lets you go, letting your fall forwards, unable to find the relief of a cold floor but back to the strenuous position you'd been placed in. "AH!" nearly popping your shoulders out of place, or maybe they had, you bite down on your tongue, shaking in silence.

If you could see Simon's face, you could've relished in the uncertainty flickering in his eyes, the sudden doubt that led his knife back in its holder and his nails to bite into the flesh of his palms. He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing leaves him, instead he stands there.

You can't say a thing to him now, everything that's happened was just a little reminder that whatever you said, whatever you did, it didn't matter. Their minds had already been made. You really would die here.

Simon stands there a little longer, he doesn't say anything, you're not sure if he stays there to watch your suffering a little longer or to wait to say another heart-wrenching thing. Maybe he's just there to wait for you to die. But, he just watches as you wretch and cry in a ball atop that stool.

He leaves not long after, he didn't bother to strap you down this time. He left the old light on, but it must've been older than you thought.

The single bulb fizzled out completely hours ago. Not unless one of them decided to cut the silence and turn on the light to start another 'questioning', so suddenly being able to see more than darkness wasn't anything to be excited about.

They'd leave you in the dark until then, to await the next moment any of them would grace you with their presence.

To be honest, you'd imagined you'd be stronger than this. But, there was nothing to hold onto, so what did strength matter?

It was too late anyway.

They'd broken you days ago.

---

The truth had come out, two days later.

"Oh god..."

"Oh my fucking God," Simon rushed down the corridor, Price tailing right behind him. "Oh my God!" his normal monotone voice now a mess of fear and panic, breathing harsher, on the cusp of hyperventilating with every stride as he ran faster than he ever had in his life.

Finally getting to the interrogation wing of the department, he bangs his fist on the plexiglass of those silently monitoring the rooms, "Open the fucking door!" he's buzzed in before he can pull on the handle another time.

Rushing down the hall to the now green lit room, lights flickering to life with every step closer down the hall of empty rooms. He nearly rips the door off its hinges as he bursts inside, the lights of the your tiny prison don't come to life as they should. Light spilling into the cell, to hit your limp figure first.

He doesn't deserve to say your name. "(Y/n)," Simon rushes over, to his knees instantly. A puddle of vomit, water and spoiled broth soaks through his uniform.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry," he sobs out his mistakes, unhooking your chains and cutting through your buckles as fast as he could. "Oh my god, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" he catches his fiancé as you collapse, turning over and off the stool, your legs having lost all sense of feeling. You fall into his arms, catching you carefully. "Price!" he cries out, desperately.

"They're on the way!" Your captain assures, he sees the medical team rushing down the hallway, a stretcher, a box of medical supplies. Christ.

You're freezing to the touch, your skin a hue of blue, not to mention the bruises, the cuts and the swollen areas throughout your face and spine. You suddenly inhale, sharply, coughing terribly. You're sick, breathing shakily, "Simon...?" you breathe, confused. You can't see. Your eyes swollen shut from your torture at their hands.

"It's me, it's me," Simon assured, although he knew it probably brought you no comfort. He snatches the blanket offered up by Price, your captain a mess of himself, holding himself together at the doorway, nails biting into the steel.

As Simon wraps you in the first glimpse of warmth you've had in days, you ease up a bit, fingers twitching upwards to pull the threads closer around yourself. "It wasn't..." you shiver, Simon listens intently as he rises with you in his arms, running off to meet the medical team halfway. "It wasn't me..." you gasp out. "It wasn't..."

Simon can't say a thing as he hears your tormented voice stutter in fear of him, lips pressed tight together, heart sinking and as the nurses take your body, he collapses to his knees.

Part 2