Captured- 10- Breath
This is a series. Start with Part 1 here.
TW: for Religious abuse, emetophobia (vomit mention, brief), discussion of gore, asphyxiation, Non-Con Touch (Could be read as somewhat sexual, just to TW), breath control, creepy whumper, victim blaming
He woke on the rough, thin mattress in his cell, unsure of the time. He was still bound in darkness by the blindfold, his hands back to being linked in front of him. He reached up and dragged it off. He wasn’t going to wear it unless they were around to make him. How long had he slept? He looked up at the window to a dim purple light in that fragment of sky he could see. Was it dusk or dawn outside? The same day or a new one? What did he last recall-
Then memory and the echoes of pain came rushing back to him, and he scrambled on all fours to the lidded bucket in the corner in time to be sick into it. He’d been chained to a rack, answering questions while that bastard tore him apart, he’d felt his bones pull away from eachoth- He turned back to the bucket again but it was just heaving, nothing left to bring up.
He spit a few times to clear the taste from his mouth, wishing uselessly for water, touching his face and neck. Yes, they were still crusted with dried blood, and streaks of it were around his wrists and ankles, but the wounds there had been healed along with his broken joints. Like the last time he’d recieved magical healing, a memory of pain seemed to remain, deep and aching, but the skin and bone were whole, barely marked. Once he’d been put back together like this, they could destroy him again and again. He felt cold with a chill that went beyond the autumn air in his stone cell.
He gathered a musty, thick wool blanket around himself. He couldn’t think like that. He’d survived too much to make that mistake. He couldn’t look ahead to what might await. Once you give in, you give up. You call him Sir? his mind taunted him. That was to survive, he told himself. You do whatever you have to. To survive. I always survive. I will live through this, and get out. In time. He looked up at the tiny square window, barely the size of a man’s handspan. Was the sky getting darker? He didn’t know. He remembered falling unconscious, and he had vague impressions of sliding in and out of greyness, further pain, of voices, laughter, hands on his ruined limbs, flashes of ice that must have been Conroy’s terrible healing power, and then nothing.
He collapsed against the rough mattress that formed his bed, looking at the rush mat on the floor, and the rust colored stains marking it. How much blood could he shed in his time here? Did Conroy plan to keep him indefinitely to torment? Would he be killed if Conroy felt he truly would not break? Would he be killed if he did? Stop, stop thinking of it. Despair was death.
He huddled in the blankets, trying to gather warmth to himself. This cell was always cold enough to hurt his hands and feet. He supposed they’d given him the cheap felt boots so he didn’t lose any toes to something as mundane as the winter. The tiny unbarred window was unglazed and let in whatever icy chill was outside, though the air that came in when the door was opened always seemed to be warmer, because of that forge nearby, he supposed. But he could make it bearable, if not comfortable, by snugging down under the provided blankets.
The door abruptly opened, and Conroy entered with a bucket and a ladle, a small stool, and a bundle of cloth. He dropped the things in front of Harrow’s bed. “Get up on your knees, warlock. And who told you to remove that blindfold?”
Harrow dragged his protesting body up off the mattress to kneel. “No one, Sir.”
“Ah you remember your lessons after all. Good. You keep that up. No, not sitting on your heels, you get up on your knees like a proper penitent. I’ll bet they ache, don’t they?” Conroy watched Harrow’s struggles and smiled.
They did ache terribly. Putting any weight on them made them feel like one large bruise each, and Harrow tried not to remember the feeling of them being wrenched apart.
Conroy sat himself down on the stool, putting their faces level, and picked up the blindfold. “You will leave this on until you’re told to take it off, Harrow. You understand?”
Harrow ground his teeth. “Yes, Sir.”
“And don’t glare at me like that. I could be putting out your eyes, it’s only a blindfold. Don’t make me rethink my small mercies, Harrow. I always have my knife with me, and this session can change whenever I want it to.” He noticed the way the captive inhaled abruptly, the brief flicker in the obstinate black eyes. “You remember the knife, too. Good. Our lessons in respect can continue then. No need to go back to the knife unless you defy me.” He leaned forward with the blindfold.
Harrow knelt there as his tormentor tied the blindfold back over his face, those hated hands tugging the edges, adjusting the fit to be snug.
Then there was a rustling sound, the man was moving around him, and Conroy’s voice said, “I’m going to unlock your arms now and join them behind you again. I like you better that way. If you make any move to defy me while I do this, I will take you to the rack again. Do you understand, Harrow? Let me hear you say it.”
“I understand.. Sir.” It would have been so easy, thought Harrow as his arms were handled, his shackles unlocked, to move once they were free, to rise up and attack the bastard, rip out his smug tongue- but the threat of the rack held him still, and he resented his traitor body for being so damn eager to obey that voice. His hands were joined behind him and his shoulders throbbed.
Powerful hands gripped each shoulder firmly from behind. “Very good, Harrow. I’ll bet these are just aching.” He gave them a squeeze, pushing against the abused joints, and heard Harrow gasp, watched the muscles of his back twitch. “Ah, no dropping down, I did tell you how I want you to kneel. You want to obey me, Harrow. Now, before we begin.”
Harrow knew the words would be said, knew they were coming, and what he would say again in answer.
“Will you make your confession to me and embrace Arost?”
“I will not.”
“Very well.” Conroy stood.
Then there were more sounds of chains being unlocked, moved, and the collar at Harrow’s neck was pulling his head upward. He had to lift his chin slightly to keep his airway open. The chain of his collar was dragging directly upward now, probably fasted to the low ceiling above. His knees were taking all his weight directly and he tried not to whimper.
“There,” said Conroy, stepping back to regard his work. “The humble penitent, kneeling before Arost. But you aren’t humble, are you. See, that’s your trouble, Harrow.”
A hand cupped his filthy cheek gently, the other stroking through his hair, and he fought not to shudder.
“You are far too prideful and stubborn, or I wouldn’t be forced to hurt you like this.”
He was in the dark, left to only hear and feel. Hands explored his jawline, and a thumb brushed his mouth, traced his lips. He wrenched his face away, and one of those hands dug a thumb into his shoulder joint again cruelly. He couldn’t stifle his outcry. “Aahh!”
“Easy there, Harrow, don’t pull away from me when I came to help you.” Conroy took an iron grip on his raised jaw, there was the sound of water, and a soft cloth was washing the dried blood from Harrow’s nose and mouth. Then the grip was moved to his hair so his jaw could be washed clean. He tried to struggle but Conroy was strong. “Always making life difficult for yourself, aren’t you, Harrow?”
Splashing, a rinsing of the cloth, and then it was back against the streaks of dried blood on his neck, his collarbones. The tension on his neck kept him bolt upright, and he breathed through the pain radiating up from his knees.
“You’ve worked out by now that if you slump at all, you’ll be strangled,” said Conroy coversationally. “You have to stay upright. I just put your knees back together- I wonder if they can take the strain? Or will they just… come apart again after long enough? It will be interesting to watch. I might stay just to see you fight to breathe.”
The cloth washed his shoulders, then smoothed gently over his chest, circling the brand as a warm hand spread between his shoulders for support.
“There. Doesn’t that feel better?”
“Not when you keep touching me. Sir,” Harrow growled.
“Oh, that.” The washing cloth practically caressed across Harrow’s chest, fortunately coming between Conroy’s hand and the brand mark there. “It’s hardly a matter of attraction, you understand, it’s all about the effect. I’ll show you.”
By the sound he’d moved behind Harrow. One hand closed about his neck while two hot fingers traced a tortuous line across Harrow’s abdomen just above the waist of his trousers, from one bared hip to the other, slowly, slowly.
Harrow groaned through clenched teeth, shuddering. “S- stop that!”
“What was that?” said Conroy’s voice by his ear, with a threat hanging in it.
“Don’t do that, Sir,” Harrow gasped.
“You do not get to tell me what I can or cannot do with you, Harrow,” Conroy hissed, kneeling right up behind his prisoner and dragging him close, back to chest, to speak low in his ear. “You have no choices here except to submit, Harrow. Submit to the will of Arost or be tormented.” To drive his point home, the touches traced just around the outside of the brand over Harrow’s racing heart while the other hand roved his tensed body. “Understand, Harrow, that there is no part of you that is yours to keep, nothing I cannot take from you. Until you give yourself to Arost this body is mine and I will break it, Harrow. Every breath you yet breathe is the mercy of Arost.”
Harrow shuddered, making involuntary small jerks trying to escape from hands on his skin, the heat of humiliation rising to his face. “Nn…”
Conroy’s hand pressed flat against his stomach. “Now. Inhale for me. Go on, I’m waiting to feel you obey me.” The other hand was still hovering, fingers spread, over the brand marking Harrow as a warlock belonging to Asmodeus. “I don’t have to show you again what will happen if I touch this mark. Now inhale.”
Harrow pulled a deep breath in.
“Good. Hold it,” murmured Conroy in his ear.
Harrow tried, against his will, to do as ordered. Mind games, of course. He’d used them himself, more than once. They were so simple it was laughable- until someone was doing it to you. He needed to exhale, to let out the stale air in his lungs that was turning to poisons, to breathe- “Nn…” He couldn’t stop the small sound of desperation escaping.
“Ah not yet. I didn’t say exhale yet, Harrow. You breathe when I tell you to,” murmured the low voice in his ear. He was pulled close against the other man’s body, could feel him breathing freely, his chest moving, his exhale over skin. Eveything was darkness and those awful hands and that voice, and his own lungs burning.
“Now- exhale.”
Harow let out a spluttering gasp, panting for air, and then felt a sharp stab of pain flash into his heart and he jerked against his captor’s hold with a cry.
“Now, I didn’t say you could do all that inhaling. I gave your brand just a light touch as punishment because you didn’t obey me, Harrow. Now let’s try again. Inhale.”
“You can shove it wh- AUGH!!”
“Amother little touch, just to remind you. I can do more. Now inhale.”
Harrow breathed in, the hand on his stomach moving with his breath.
“Hold it.” Conroy waited until the body against his begain to tremble again. “Exhale. Good. Now wait.”
Harrow felt shame burn his face again but he obeyed.
“Inhale. And hold it.” Again, the wait was kept long enough to start becoming pain. “Exhale.”
Harrow let himself focus on the commands, on getting enough air in.
“Inhale. And hold it.”
He felt the hands holding him, pinning him close to his tormentor, and knew humiliation.
“Exhale.”
He could only comply.
“Inhale, and hold it, there.”
To be held with the threat of torture at his heart, and obey that voice by his ear, to wait for permission to breathe, to live…
“Exhale.”
The blindfold over his eyes darkened as it became damp.
Conroy continued this for a while, waiting to feel his prisoner relax against him, feel him sink into the rhymth of unthinking obedience, feel his will dissolving. “There. See how easy it is? All you have to do is submit, Harrow.” He let go of the man and got to his feet, leaving him kneeling there. “You may breathe freely now.”
Harrow wavered, catching his balance without support behind him, and knelt there panting, his head lifted against the upward pull of the collar. He had begun this visit feeling tired, but controlling his breathing that way had exhausted his last remaining strength. Now he wanted to crumple to the ground, to just lie down and rest. Proper rest, not unconsciousness brought on by pain. When was the last time he’d actually slept instead of blacking out? He wasn’t sure…
“Now we will play one more simple game, Harrow. Even you can manage this one. You will kneel there, which I imagine hurts quite a lot already, and when you are ready to ask me to release you- You will beg.”
Harrow shook his head mutely.
“Oh, I think you will. Everyone does, in the end. You can’t kneel bolt upright for very much longer, you’re too tired- and every time you slip down you’ll be hanged.” He dragged his footstool away to where he could sit on it with his back to the wall. “I’ll wait,” he told Harrow. “I’ve got all day. But you don’t.”
Continues Here, Part 11
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