Leoben knows what falling entrails sound like. (ex_notnice309) wrote in an_ill_wind, @ 2009-08-19 00:56:00 |
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For how dramatic a kidnapping and subsequent hostage situation was often made out to be, Leoben was finding the entire thing rather tedious and mundane. After the initial brief beating, he'd been left alone in the basement, hands tied tightly behind his back. And though he was somewhat sore, it was entirely ignorable. The basement - he could only assume that's where he was, as all basements seemed to carry a very distinctive odour and general lack of charm - was drab and uninteresting and he had, for the last couple of hours (for surely it had to have been hours by now) occupied himself with the comforting and constant roll of numbers. Numbers were what he was best at, after all. And so, square roots sequence, and then cube roots, and here he was now, worrying idly over the twenty-second number in the Fibonacci sequence. 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233, 377, 610, 987, 1597, 2584, 4181, 6765... "Ten thousand, nine hundred and forty-six," he murmured aloud. The room was warded for sound, and so Ben did not hear the two pairs of feet marching down the stairs outside of the door. But nevertheless, the door did open and for the moment, he put his numbers out of his mind. Well, this would certainly be interesting. Or perhaps not. Dorcas did not want to be here. She didn't want to be in this damn house, the safehouse for the group she no longer considered herself a part of. She didn't want to be in this country, with its war and fucked up Death Eater controlled Ministry. And she didn't want to be in this basement, coming face to face with the man who had made the last five months of her life a living hell. But she needed to. Confronting her demons or some such thing. As Fabian escorted her down into the basement, she didn't say a word. Her wand was clenched tightly in her hand and she was, quite frankly, terrified. Terrified and furious and desperate for vengeance all in one cacophonous, overwhelming mix of emotions. For all of her bravado, for all of her claims that she wanted nothing more than to kill the Death Eater bastards who were destroying their country, there was something very different about the reality that was now before her. Oh, she still wanted to kill Leoben Yaxley. More than anything, she wanted to kill him, but wanting and being able suddenly seemed like two very separate things. "Okay," she finally said once she was standing in front of Yaxley. her comment was not to him but to Fabian and she gave a slight nod as well, without taking her eyes from the Death Eater. God, he still looked so much like the boy she had known in school. It was unnerving and for the moment, all she could do was stare. Fabian nodded, glanced idly between the two and then closed the door with a not-really ominous snick. For all the fights and bitching the Order did, when it came right down to it, maybe he just liked Dorcas more. He was going to let her do whatever she liked. And keep anyone else from coming down here. Leoben's eyes flicked between his captors and then fixed on the face of Dorcas Meadowes. Somehow, he did not find that he was entirely surprised. It was quite personal between them, wasn't it? He refrained from saying anything, honestly far more interested in what she had to say to them instead. Of course, this only confirmed his suspicion that Rabastan had told them who had been behind the initial attack and likely everything since. Typically weak of him, Ben thought idly. And still, the expression on his face carefully neutral... and just the slightest bit curious. Dorcas didn't really think she had much of anything to actually say to Leoben. She could scream at him just as well through the journals as she could in person, really. That didn't seem satisfying. Screaming at him wouldn't make him suffer. Screaming at him wouldn't make him pay for what he'd done to her. She raised her wand, trying desperately to keep her hand from shaking, but as she opened her mouth to curse him (and really, she didn't have the slightest idea what to do to him - torturing someone wasn't exactly something she'd ever done before) it was a question that came out instead. "Why?" she asked. It was a ridiculous question, but she didn't care. She wanted to understand what could possibly possess someone to do such horrible things to another person. Not that any answer Leoben gave was likely to be satisfying. "Why would you- Why not just kill me?" Leoben glanced at the tip of her wand, unflinching at the implication of what having a wand pointed at your face meant. Dying in the service of his Lord did not scare him. It was the only way to die really. He gave a vague roll of his eyes at her question. How typical that she would want a reason. "I believe I tried, some time ago," he answered. "Had you had the decency to simply die, I believe we both would have been saved quite a lot of trouble." No, definitely not remotely satisfying. Although it did at least manage to focus her anger a little better and she let out a cry of frustration as she shot an incendio at Leoben's chest. It wasn't even half of what she wanted to do to him, but it was at least something she knew she could do. Since ripping out his entrails and feeding him to a werewolf wasn't really in her range of capabilities. Unfortunately. And with her spell came the screaming after all. "You fucking bastard! You're going to rot in hell you twisted, sick fucker. How can you- What the fuck is wrong with you? People don't just do that shite. People don't send brains in the post and- and-" But really there weren't any words, or at least none that Dorcas could find for what she wanted to say to him. Instead, her words were cut off by another frustrated sound as she shot a second incendio, this time straight for his balls. Oh, shouting, how entirely original and effective. Leoben remained impassive against the volume of her voice, entirely disinterested in anything she had to say until he caught a flash of fire. That was decidedly less boring and he couldn't help the cry of pain and surprise that came from his throat as the fire burnt through his shirt and cooked at his skin. The unmistakable smell of seared flesh invaded his olfactory and he wrinkled his nose, a look of immediate distaste crossing his face. It was only made worse by the next blast. Ben doubled over as much as his bounds would allow, feeling immediately sick. A ball of pain low in his abdomen exploded and stayed, insistent and hot. He only had time to be thankful that Evangeline was already pregnant. A low whine escaped his throat as he struggled with the nausea, eye shut tight in both pain and his immediate, reactionary struggle to stay in control of himself. God, how did people do this shite? As much as Dorcas loathed Leoben Yaxley, as much as she wanted to see him suffer, she too was left feeling somewhat nauseated by all of this. It was just the smell of burning flesh, she told herself (and really, it was disgusting). Nothing at all to do with the way he was whining and obviously in pain. Not at all. But the twisting, unpleasant feeling in her stomach wasn't enough to stop her. She needed to do this. She just needed to get past her lingering reservations and- She needed to get angry. Angrier? Who the hell knew any more. She closed her eyes, trying to block out the mental image and sounds of Leoben suffering, instead focusing on all he had done to her. Trying to kill her, twice, almost killing Sirius, the body parts in the post, the months of drinking herself into a stupor, the months stuck in bed, the nightmares that still came when she slept without a potion, the full moon... He deserved this. When she opened her eyes and looked at Leoben again, her hand was still shaking, but this time it was not out of nerves but anger. She sent a conjunctivitis curse at him to blind him, followed by a blast of half frozen water and ice and a gouging hex to his stomach. She still did not know what she was doing when it came to torturing him, but she had at least dealt with her reservations. For now. Her fingers curled around the bottle of veritaserum that she had tucked into her pocket and she pulled it out, her gaze shifting between the bottle and Leoben. For this part she wished Ed was there, but if she was going to kill him, she needed to get what answers she could out of him first. Leoben had only barely started to think through the pain between his legs when the Conjunctivitis hex hit him full in the face. Pain exploded behind his eyes and reflexively he shut them tight, squeezing tears out from the acute infection. And again, a shock to his nerves. The extreme contrast between being burnt and then nearly frozen was worse than anything and Leoben was left shivering. He clenched his jaw against making another sound, refusing to give her further satisfaction by voicing his discomfort. And even still, in the back of his head, he was well aware of her inexperience. This was messy. There was no finesse, none at all. It was abundantly clear to him that she had no idea what she was doing, and he took some degree of comfort in that. If Leoben knew just how little satisfaction Dorcas found in his cries of pain, he might relent after all. Instead he was actually making this easier for her. Except for the part where she needed to figure out how to make him open his mouth and down the veritaserum. Hmmm. Well that was going to be a challenge, especially since she didn't want to put her fingers anywhere near his mouth and she didn't really think she was strong enough to pry his jaw open anyway. She racked her brain, trying to think of some spell and then something she had read in one of Dig's books came to mind. She just hoped it would work. Moving closer to him with the bottle in hand, she cast a suffocation hex on him and held the eyedropper over his mouth, waiting for him to try and gasp for breath so she could pour the truth serum straight into his throat. Once again she was left with the feeling that there was something... wrong about this, but she pushed those thoughts aside as best as she could, instead focusing on the task at hand. They needed answers. She needed revenge. It was as simple as that. It had to be. Leoben's lungs clamped closed, the oxygen stolen from them as his throat constricted, further diminishing a chance for a breath. It was entirely reflexive to open his mouth. Before he could think, there was potion down his throat and ingested and there was nothing to be done about it. No. He struggled away as much as he could in a chair that was stuck to the floor, pulling his head away. The curse lifted and he took gulps of air, glaring angrily up at her through red and slightly swollen eyes. It was a violation that he wouldn't allow, not for the Cause or the Dark Lord. And so, there was no decision to be made, really. Leoben shoved his tongue into the side of his mouth, between his teeth... and then clamped his teeth down as hard as he could. Pain exploded in his mouth, blood flooding between his teeth as he bit through the muscle. His nerves screamed as he bit down again, severing an inch and a half of bloody tongue from the rest of his body. There. Dorcas really felt as if she ought to get some credit for getting the veritaserum down Leoben's throat and then standing in front of him, not flinching from his angry glare, as much as she may have wanted to. Now she felt some measure of satisfaction from all of this. She opened her mouth, about to ask her first question when blood appeared on his lips. What the fuck? She stepped back reflexively, her eyes widening in shock and confusion as she kept her wand pointed at him. Had he just... WHAT THE FUCK? No, he couldn't have... "Who burnt down the Bones house?" she asked hesitantly, afraid that she was not going to get an answer to her question but confirmation of her suspicions of just how utterly fucked up this man was. Leoben only had one proper answer. Even as the potion worked on his brain, forcing an answer out, he spat the severed part of his tongue out at her feet, along with a mouthful of blood. A brief, unintelligible sound came from his lips, but nothing that could be recognised as a word. Mission accomplished, so far as Ben was concerned. If there was any question as to the fact that Dorcas was not exactly cut out for this, it was quickly laid to rest by her reaction to a severed tongue being spat at her feet. She screamed. She screamed and scampered back even further, wanting to get the hell away from this sick, sick fucker. Her expression was one of disgust and disbelief all mixed up in one as she looked from the tongue to Leoben and then back to the tongue. "WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?" she shrieked. "You... You...bit off your TONGUE. Who the fuck does that?" And then anger set in. As disgusting as it was, it was a reminder of just how twisted he was. And he was besting her again. Here he was, tied to a chair in the basement of an Order safehouse with no escape, no wand and nothing to defend himself and still he managed to defeat her. No. No, he was not going to win. Not again. She slowly lifted her wand, her hand shaking as she tried to summon every last bit of anger and resolve that she possessed. "Avada Kedavra," she said, her voice suddenly soft as she uttered the words of the killing curse for the first time in her life and green light exploded from her wand. Another, unarticulated sound. Of course. He quite suddenly have anything to articulate with. Leoben felt a rush of satisfaction. Even through all the pain and the blood and shivers that wracked at his body, he had rendered himself effectively useless to interrogation. And again, a shaking wand in his face. Leoben hardly knew what to expect at this point. Not the spell that fell from her lips certainly. Green filled his vision, enveloped his world. When he opened his eyes, nothing had changed. Nothing except for a dribble of blood from his nose. And from there, he couldn't help but laugh. It hurt him to do so, but it came, hollow and dead-sounding the room. Oh, how he wanted his tongue back, if only to tease. Dorcas had closed her eyes the minute the curse had left her wand, unable to bring herself to actually watch Leoben die. And then laughter. Laughter that was not her own. Her eyes flew open and she stared at the very much alive Death Eater, a horrible, aching feeling settling into her chest. It was not guilt. It probably should have been. She had just cast an unforgivable curse for God's sake. But no, the feeling was one of failure. If she could not manage to kill him, if she could not summon the hatred necessary to manage the killing curse on Leoben Yaxley, how the fuck was she supposed to do it to anyone else? What good was she? A desperate cry of frustration tore from Dorcas's throat as she hurled her wand to the floor - it was apparently useless to her - and instead launched her tiny frame at Leoben, her hands balled into fists as she sought to beat the ever living shite out of him, pummelling wildly at his face, his chest, his arms. There was no rhyme or reason to her violence, just a near-feral desire to hurt him. The chair tipped over and Ben's head cracked against the concrete of the floor, putting an abrupt end to his laughter. At least for the moment. Fists against his face and chest and though they hurt, it wasn't so much the force of impact so much as it was the pressure against open wounds and burns. His hands were stuck painfully between the chair and the ground, and oddly, that was the most acute pressure, despite this animalistic attack. With a grunt of effort, he threw his weight to the side, hoping to spill her off of him. It put all of the weight of himself and the chair on his arm and it hurt. But at this point, he was content to find as many ways to toy with her as possible. To throw her off and make it as difficult for her as he could. Dorcas was too small to keep her place on top of Leoben as he used his weight to push her off and she went rolling off onto the ground beside him. But she would not be so easily deterred, not with such fury coursing through her veins. Scrambling across the floor, she launched herself at him yet again, fists swinging through the air, unwilling to stop until... until... something. She didn't really know what she wanted or expected but until she found it, she wouldn't, couldn't stop. Leoben let out a low grunt of pain and irritation as she again, threw herself at him. A persistent one she was, he decided with some degree of exasperation. And again, he threw his weight the other way to toss her off. It was quickly turning into some sick game of trying to stay on a temperamental broomstick, he thought, which caused another burst of laughter, followed quickly by a cough of blood. Eventually, he supposed, she would simply tire herself out. Contrary to popular belief, Dorcas actually was capable of learning from her actions. To some degree anyway. And so when Leoben managed to throw her off of him yet again, this time she moved to her feet. Not because she was calmed or satisfied or done, but so she could use her feet instead of her hands, kicking at Leoben's side over and over again. Which was all entirely less than comfortable by Leoben's standards. The wind rushed out of him as her foot connected solidly with his ribcage. He squirmed in his chair in an effort to avoid some of the less aimed kicks, though it was of little use. He was bound and pinned, a precarious and painful position to begin with, and nowhere to actually go as her assault continued. He was no longer laughing. Dorcas showed no signs of relenting as she took out all of her aggressions, all the months of pent up anger and hatred and frustration, onto Leoben's ribs. If she couldn't use magic to kill him, maybe she could just kick him to death. She was certainly doing her best to try. And then a sudden wave of exhaustion swept over her and she staggered back under the weight of it. She couldn't do it. By magic or physical violence, she just did not have the strength. She glared at Leoben for a long moment, her eyes filled with loathing as she remained perfectly still. And then suddenly she was moving again, this time not for him, but for her wand. Snatching the length of wood up from the ground, she stormed out of the room without giving him another look. |