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Chewtoy Ariadne and Interrogator Riven MacLauren belong to @just-horrible-things.

If Alex wasn’t suffering, screaming, somewhere down here, Taryn Morgen would consider herself lucky.  

Riven MacLauren wasn’t supposed to still be here. After hours. The graveyard shift, guards nearly asleep at the door, not looking too carefully as Taryn-in-a-blonde-wig drove the van straight into Site 17 with Ross curled up in the trunk, while the body of the van’s previous operator was in a ditch somewhere off the interstate. There was no hesitation, killing for Alex.

There is no hesitation, killing now. Invisible, crouched behind the barely-cracked door of the interrogation room, she and Ross watch  MacLauren doing what MacLauren does best. There’s a prisoner chained to the wall, knees long-since buckled to throw the weight of her broken body into her wrenched shoulders, combat boots hovering in a pool of her own blood. Odd. They put a prisoner in combat boots.

You done yet, Ariadne? taunts MacLauren. Learned your lesson?

Yes - sir - please - - ‘ll be good -

Unfortunate, really, that the last words the sadist hears will be such music to his ears.

Taryn snaps his neck with a flick of her wrist, and he crumples, dead.

She throws her hand over the mouth of the prisoner, then. Shh, shh. It’s over. He’s gone. Just tell me. Please. Where is Alex Morgen?

The prisoner - Ariadne - gazes at the nowhere where Taryn’s voice was coming from in absolute terror.

Please. I won’t hurt you. I’m a friend. Please. Alex Morgen. Where is he.

She swallows, voice hoarse from screaming. Block three - room - fifteen -

Take her back to the van, Ross. I’ll go for Alex.

~

She knew it was only a matter of time before he got sick of her, before the thin line separating her and them was erased, but it didn’t stop her from begging for mercy from Riven, from the world, from the walls that were her world. Please, no, please, not yet. 

The lash slices over her bruised ribs, licked the spot that might have been broken - definitely was broken - and she lets out a choked-out scream as her knees buckle below her, sending her spinning in her cuffs, yanking tendons out of place in shoulders that had been wrenched behind her for hours as she awaited Riven’s return.

The next lash catches her around the ankles, and she howls.

How was she going to work after this?

Please let her work after this. Please, anything but a real prisoner.

You done yet, Ariadne? Learned your lesson?

A chance. A chance to prove herself. Yes - sir - please - - ‘ll be good -

The next lash, the next taunt, never comes. Her tormenter collapses, a puppet with cut strings, and all at once an invisible hand holds her mouth, and she didn’t think she could feel fear anymore of anything worse than Riven but one thing you know, working in Seventeen, is it can always, always get worse.

She answers the question, about Alex Morgen, the high-profile prisoner Riven’s been having her work over the last few days. She doesn’t hesitate. Her loyalty is only to whatever and whoever controls the degree of her agony at that moment, and Riven is now replaced by an invisible hand.

An invisible hand that clutches her around the broken ribs - they grate against each other, she gasps for air, and the dark blotches that have been dancing at the edge of her vision have mercy on her, and she loses consciousness as the warlock pulls her limp form from the shackles.

~

Fix life-threatening injuries only, for everyone, Taryn says to the healers, and it hurts her to say that when one of the victims is Alex, but there are two healers and seven victims and Taryn knows, very well, how that ratio goes. Barnett is the type of leader who would demand priority for his brother. Taryn is not.

It would be different, if she were a healer. She’d give Alex and only Alex everything she had until she drowned in her own blood. Because how many times would he do that, had he done that, for all of them?

He’s barely aware of her as she picks up one of his cold hands - uninjured, the mark of a healer with some capacity left for obedience. Those hands are potentially valuable to the feds rather than hazardous. They’re cold, from his magic subconsciously trying to heal his own internal bleeding. They’re the only part of him not covered in blood and bruises, at least of the parts she can see. She’s scared to look under Alex’s shirt. Every one of his exhales has a soft, desperate nh-hn behind it.

Taryn starts Alex’s IV herself, snakes a needle into one of the spiderlike veins in that left hand she’s holding, pushes morphine and hangs fluids. Watches for his breathing to even out and lose that gasping hitch at the end. Thinks about how Riven MacLauren died too quickly.

She realizes she’s being watched, by the prisoner in the next bed over, with bloodshot eyes that look too afraid to blink and quickly avert themselves once Taryn tries to meet their gaze.

Hello, Ariadne, she says, trying to channel reassurance and calm.  You’re safe now. I’m Taryn Morgen. Welcome to the Resistance. 

Beautiful words to hear, for most people pulled from Site 17. But if anything, Ariadne only looks more terrified.

P-please - she stutters out. Please, nh, m-mercy -

Yeah, Taryn says, exhausted. Yes, mercy. Of course. 

is Anders going to go have a drink while he tries not to think about how much that kid is hurting, and how he and so many others look up to Anders and get hurt and die for him??

is he even going to be able to get up off his knees without excruciating pain??

inquiring minds want to know

Yeah, yeah, I have a bit left, Alex will say, although of course, he’s used every bit of energy he intended to use already. But what’s a couple more burst blood vessels in comparison to this kid’s pain?

He’ll offer Anders his arm to get up, which Anders will accept, since he’s really not sure how getting up on his own is going to go. But they’re both careful to make sure Anders touches Alex on the sleeve, not his bare skin. If Anders and Alex touched hands, Anders would feel the unnatural chill of Alex’s skin and insist you have nothing left, go lie down.

And Alex’s magic would sense the bone-deep throbbing where Anders’ knee made contact with the stone floor.

As it is, Alex will heal the kid, until spots dance at the corner of his vision and he’s fighting to swallow air into his lungs.

Of course, you and I know he’d never do that.

So instead, Anders is kneeling on the floor (ignoring his bad knee) next to a young Resistance fighter’s bedside. You can see the mottled purple of a broken cheekbone, the trickle of blood at the corner of his lip, but the real injuries are below the stained sheet covering his limbs.

Did I… do good, sir? he rasps to Anders.

Yeah, yeah, you did great, says Anders, because it doesn’t seem right to explain right now that he’s not a sir, and in some ways, of course, he sort of is.

The young man’s eyes flutter closed for a moment in relief at Anders’ approval, then his lips contort in pain.

therefore maybe a little pain is worth it

therefore you should cause him more pain

thank you for reading my essay

wait what, people remember these fools?

I’m just sprooing into the void

but what has the resistance led to, other than pain, on both sides? so many warlocks who have killed and died and suffered for the ideals Anders promotes, and yet Barnett is as powerful as ever.

Anders could be sitting on his porch right now, not a wanted man, not a warlock, free from pain, free from ever having watched anyone die for him.

(please beat Anders in the knee)

(please beat Anders in the knee)

how dare you SPROO at me!

Sage has suffered greatly since I wrote that. Good news, she’s mastered her healing powers. Bad news, she was forced to use them for the feds.

Part 1 | Part 2

Barnett for President. Strength and Experience. Taking back our country from magical crime, starting Day One.

He wins in a landslide. Sage doesn’t vote for him. Maybe her self-hatred can’t go quite that far. Maybe she sees it in his eyes, the spark that reminds her of Casca. The willingness to say anything, do anything, take any side, for power. 

Mira doesn’t vote for him, either. She is pro-warlock rights, she declares. Would she still be, Sage wonders, if she knew how often a woman who could burn her alive with a thought was sitting next to her in class, laughing in her apartment, zipping up the backs of her dresses?

The raids do start on Day One, but they’re quiet at first.

Quiet, until the warlocks fight back.

A state of emergency is declared on day thirty-seven. It’s all anyone talks about. Is this the beginning of the end, for average citizens terrified of supernatural attackers, or has Barnett started something he won’t be able to end? 

The police come to Sage’s door on day forty-nine.

“Sage McKenna. We’re simply here as a formality, as you’re a registered magic user. We know you’ve been fully cooperative with government efforts against organized crime in the past.”

I only ever named names you already knew.

She tells them she hasn’t had any contact with subversives, she doesn’t use her magic, of course, she will let them know if any violent entities try to get in contact with her, of course.

She’d like to tell them Damian Casca, get Damian Casca, but even if they believed her, well, they’ll never get Damian. He is absolute power.

They tell her things are going to be changing around here.

She doesn’t realize until they’ve left she’s been holding her breath the whole time.

~

“Get up, Daniel Peyroux. Hold your damn blood in your body and get up.”

It’s pain like he’s never known, he’s dying, he must be, how could he get up.

Casca stands over him, smiling. Offers a hand.

“Losing is part of the game. Until you don’t. Until you’re me. Get back up. Try again.”

The world swims around Daniel. Damian - he calls into the void. But his mentor is not there. This is no training exercise. This is a gunshot wound, right below the ribs, and Barnett’s new anti-magic police force will not be giving him a hand up to try again.

He murmurs a quick spell to hold the blood in his body, to prevent it from leaving a trail, and vanishes.

~

On day sixty, there is a thud against Sage’s door, and she looks out the peephole to find a man utterly drenched in his own blood.

A life on the run has aged him beyond his years, and his pale complexion is twisted in a rictus of agony as he struggles to press down on some grievous wound in his abdomen, but she recognizes him immediately.

“Danny, what the hell?”

And then she’s dragging him inside, as much to hide him as to help him. There’s a streak of blood on her door. A mark. Mark of the witch.

“Sorry -” he wheezes - “been shot, didn’t know where else to go - “

“Okay, let’s - come on, into the bathroom, we’ll get you cleaned up - how did you know where I live?’

“Nghhh - Casca -”

“Motherfucker.” Sage pulls back his hands and blood pulses from his abdomen. It’s through and through, exit wound on the back side. At least she won't have to deal with deciding whether to get the bullet out, or not, but the bleeding - she shoves towels against it and blood rapidly soaks the cream-colored linens as the color drains from Daniel's face. “Danny, you need a hospital.”

“Can’t - ‘m a wanted man -“

“Well then you need Casca’s healers.”

“Don’t know - where they are - got separated - please, Lyla -”

“That’s not my name anymore. Okay, I’m going to have to put a lot of pressure, it’ll hurt.”

“‘Kay,” he says, as she plants both hands on his abdomen and leans her whole weight into the wound, but that doesn’t stop him from writhing under her hands, moaning obscenities into the tile of her bathtub, grabbing onto her shirt with bloodstained fingers to hold on for dear life.

The fight goes out of him, after a few minutes like that, silent tears mingling with sweat under half-lidded eyes, shuddery desperate gasps. Suddenly, a gasp cuts off in a strangled cry. His eyes open in panic, his mouth pants for air, but it’s not there. “Can’t - breathe -“ he rasps.

“Punctured lung,” Sage mutters, “I have to call 911, Danny -"

He shakes his head as emphatically as a dying man can.

 And all at once, she feels his pain.

Not literally. It is more that she knows it, understands it. The agony of suffocation streams up her arms, every inch of Daniel's body cries out to her for relief, for oxygen - and as she feels the desperation, her magic flies from her fingers, it knits lungs together, she feels ribs mend, feels the sliced artery come together under her fingers, and Daniel breathes, gasps, the color comes back to his face.

The wound is still there. But it’s no longer deadly.

“You’re - you’re a healer -” There's shock in his eyes, and hers.

“No - no I’m not -“

“You just - you’re - there’s only a few in the world - healers with other powers.”

“I - I - don’t know what I did - and I don’t know how to do it again -”

"Th-thank you, anyway -" Daniel makes a halfhearted effort to push himself up, and slumps back to the ground.

“Stay. Stay until you’re better. I’m going to - just - clean the blood off my door.”