Will Stutely (sly_stutely) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2020-06-23 14:49:00 |
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Entry tags: | guy of gisborne, robin hood, will stutely |
WHO Will Stutely, Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
WHEN A few days after this
WHERE Brooklyn, an abandoned dockside warehouse
WHAT Robin mounts a rescue
WARNINGS Violence, references to torture
The last time Bill's captor had left him, he'd secured the cuffs to a railing above head height. It was low enough, just, that if he stood perfectly straight against the wall with his arms fully extended, the chain still held a little slack in it. But the moment his shoulder slumped or his knees weakened - the moment he gave in to the pull of exhaustion - he'd feel the raw bite of the metal around his wrist and fresh pain would lance down his arms and back, jerking him back into wakefulness. His captor remained a terrifying enigma, nameless, vicious, utterly impossible to predict. He'd disappeared without another word that first night, leaving Bill cuffed to a pylon and yelling obscenities to his retreating back. He hadn't returned until long after the sun had risen and begun another descent, long after Bill had shouted himself hoarse and discarded as hopeless every one of his desperate escape plans. That visit, Bill had made the mistake of asking through cracked lips for a drink. His captor had paused, seemed to actually consider the request for a couple of breaths. Then he'd smiled nastily. Next thing Bill knew, a cloth bag was being pulled taut over his head, his shoulders were pinned, and he was drowning in an ice-cold flood of water. Bill had not asked about food. The questions were always the same. Which one was he? What was his name, his real name? What did he know about Robin Hood, about the old country, about the others? Mad, incomprehensible questions. Every answer he gave was the wrong one, and every wrong answer earned him another beating, another dousing in water. As the days had blurred into each other, he'd felt himself growing delirious. Green curled at the edges of his vision. Sometimes he imagined coarse rope, rather than metal cuffs, gnawing into his wrists. Sometimes the rope was looped around his neck. And once, once his captor had seemed to loom over him clad in the most bizarre Halloween costume, a hooded thing of horse hide, with ears and mane sprouting from the crown. A laugh had bubbled out of him unbidden at the sight of it, and earned him another broken finger and a couple of cracked ribs. And that jittering, buzzing sensation at the base of his skull, the one he'd tried for weeks to drown out with drink and schemes and action, now it thrummed through him with a persistent, urgent rhythm. In these moments, in the silence between his captor's visits, Bill realised there was a melody to it. If he strained his mind toward it sometimes, he could almost make out the words. His lips moved with the effort and unthinkingly he began to mumble along. "Tidings of... tidings... no, wait... hey down derry derry FUCK--!" His foot slipped, the cuffs bit deep, and the melody slipped away from him in the wash of pain. "Fuck," he hissed. |