A Right Pain in the Neck

as requested by theoriginalbloodcountess

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He was sure Atlas was here. The man to end this, or start something even more horrible. “Please…” He begged meekly, lip trembling as he struggled to get the words past his fat bruised lips and sore jaw. “…. I don’t… know anything…”

He tensed, shaking like a leaf in a tree with a hard breeze. Her fingers grazing over the bruises and making him hiss in pain. He could hear her voice very subtly . It sounded too high to be a mans and the confusion was clear on his face.

Who was this?

“Don’t lie. You are Mr. Ryan’s PA. Ya know everythin’ we could wanna know.”

Her eyes glanced carefully toward the door. The men were leaving. Good. If she had to start hitting Archer just to keep them from being suspicious the red head would never forgive herself. Or them for that matter. Atlas. That bastard idiot. As if she hadn’t spoken to Archer White months ago. If he’d had anything useful to say they’d already know it. What did the ‘man of the people’ think she did all day? Wait by the door for him to decide to return?

Green orbs still on the door, ears open for any sound, Moira pressed her lips to Archer’s neck softly. Carefully. Avoiding the blood. Red stains of a different nature left by the soft kiss. 

“I ain’t gonna let them get away wit’ Archer. But you’re gonna have t’ hold on.”

Atlas, for all his promises, all his ambition, all the things he could have been or used to be... he was the one who deserved to be tied to a chair and beaten. He’d scarified a lot more than a few lives to this cause. And his ‘wife’ had reached the end of her rope. She didn’t care anymore.

Archer’s head was ringing at that last hit. The force of the pistol butt against his ear made his whole body lurch forward, unable to fling too far forward with being tied down to the chair. He could feel something warm and wet now rolling down his neck and by the way everything sounded very muffled he was sure it was a ruptured ear drum. All he could make out was laughing noises, or he assumed by the vibrations. He couldn’t see anything due to the blindfold against his eyes.

What happened before all this? He was walking home, walking home from the bathysphere or to the bathysphere when the men showed up. It only took a few hard hits for Archer to black out, and then he woke up stripped to his underwear and tied to a chair. A bucket of ice cold water dumped over his head to wake him, then they got rowdy.

They were Atlas’ men, or so they claimed. Cheering and yawning on about how good Archer would be for them. How much their boss wanted to see him. His begs and pleads only seemed to amuse them more and with that last hit, Archer was now silent.

His heart was racing and he was shivering from the cold. They could kill him, but that would be no fun he was sure.

It was that lack of communication that lead to the red head beginning to make random stops by the secret headquarters. Had she been informed than when she entered the back most room and saw Archer tied to the chair she might have been prepared for the sight. The blood down the neck. The bruises already starting to form on his pale skin. Instead she gasped softly. A reaction that never occurred.

Moira O’Hara was accustomed to seeing men and women both in varied states of torture. But never her friends. Possibly her only friend. The only person in Rapture who really knew who she was and who she was associated with and still spoke with her. She could not leave him like this. She also couldn’t explain to anyone why she couldn’t. Friends with the enemy.

“I’m gonna talk t’ him. ‘Fore ya morons beat th’ memory outta him.” A man opened his mouth to speak and was met with a glare simultaneously cold as ice and burning hot. The expression frigid. The fire behind the green eyes burning strong.

Moira didn’t wait for her order to be obeyed. They WOULD obey. Or she’d find her husband and god help any man, or woman for that matter, who crossed Atlas these days. She wouldn’t be able to signal Archer that he was safe now. Not yet. But her lacquered nails across his bruises was less a punishment than he’d had up until now.