Victor Brannigan (sciomachy) wrote in nevermore_logs, @ 2017-09-16 16:31:00 |
|
|||
Current mood: | indescribable |
Entry tags: | jess van der berg, victor brannigan |
Who: Victor Brannigan, Jess van der Berg, open to demons after
What: Torment
When: Friday afternoon
Where: The...dungeony lair thing.
Warnings/Notes: Torture. Also I didn't expect there to be so much wank talk but character say what they say.
"Thank you," JJ said softly, as the watched the shaking, shuddering form on the other side of the room with worry. Victor hadn't stopped quaking since the last round of waterboarding, and he honestly didn't know if he ever would. JJ had thrown him the blanket so at least he could try to keep his soaking body warm in the dank little room. It helped, if only infinitesimally.
"Mm," Victor said back, unable to get the tremor out of his voice, even when he was mono-syllabic. Not that he blamed JJ for any of this, but forming words right now seemed like an impossible feat. He might as well decide to go climb Mt Kilimanjaro.
"I don't know what to do, I wish I could help you," JJ wailed then. Joshua had done his job well and the chains that held them both made touching impossible. He had been expertly crafty with almost everything. When Victor had to choose which of them would eat, it was always some shitty canned soup, served in a bowl so they couldn't share it between themselves. Water was always in a glass and not a bottle, though at least they had stopped making him choose who would drink. They seemed to realise it had been long enough now that if the both of them didn't have water, one of them would die. And while Victor didn't think it sounded like a terrible option any more, letting them die didn't seem to be Joshua's MO.
"'snot you," Victor managed to get out, after an extreme amount of effort. He had lost track of how many times now he had truly believed himself to be drowning. How many times he had lost consciousness, only to be shocked awake. They had burned his skin and several fingers on his left hand were broken, thanks to Lupe's thumbscrews. She had tightened them ever so slowly, reminding Victor that he could stop it at any moment if only he tell them to do it to JJ.
He never did.
But if he was honest with himself, he was pretty sure he couldn't last that much longer. Eventually he was going to beg for them to stop, that he couldn't take it, and when they reminded him of what that meant for JJ, he wasn't going to be able to care. And honestly that was tormenting him almost as much as everything else.
Why did he have so much drive in him to remain a good man? Why did he have to care so much if JJ experienced pain? Why did he have to take so much anguish on himself because his goddamn self-image demanded he remain protective and good?
If he broke, could he ever forgive himself?
Did he honestly care any more?
When he felt like he was drowning, sometimes he didn't think he did.
"Talk to me?" he begged then, needing to remember why he was doing this. Needing a distracting almost as much.
JJ, who hadn't been touched once by the demons, and who had been on the receiving end of most of the food they had been offered, was much more up to the task of talking. "Of course," she said soothingly. "So my daughter keeps kicking. I'm so scared for her, but she's already so strong."
That made Victor smile a little, at least as much as he could manage. He was letting demons break his body to keep the life of an unborn baby safe. That wasn't nothing.
"And she really seems to like the cream of chicken soup, so I think she's going to have the palette of an 80-year-old, but that's okay. She gets all excited and dancey every time they-" Victor moaned a little at that, unconsciously, and JJ chewed on her lip. "Oops, I'm a shithead."
"No," he informed her. "Not a shithead. Just thinking. 'd give my right nut for what they serve in a retirement home." For some reason words came a little easier when he was talking about food.
Food.
"Those reconstituted fruit cups?" she asked, one eyebrow arched.
Finally, Victor turned his head to look at her and he let out one, mostly mirthless chuckle. "'d lick it dry."
"Okay well, you're super gross," she said, to try to lighten the mood instead of letting them languish more than they were.
"Yeah," he seemed to admit. "'n that tapioca."
"Oh my god, so okay my older brother once told me never to eat the tapicoa pudding at my all girl's school because he said the boys from the campus next door always wanked into it. Like they somehow thought, because they went to an all boys school, that wanking into pudding and having girls eat it was like having sex. Turns out it was all lies and they were just being assholes, but I still can't eat tapioca."
"'d still eat it right now," he said, and then he snorted a little.
"Well, I am definitely telling Kat that when we get out of this shit. And then everyone else we know."
"Suppose I can handle that," Victor allowed. "You need the blanket back?"
"You keep it for now," she assured him. "You're still all wet. You should take the soup next time too." She was hungry, sure, but she wasn't 'willing to eat sperm tapicoa' hungry.
"Baby." It was the only argument Victor really had against that, and he figured she would only need one word.
"Yeah, I know. Look it's okay. I'm alright for now and you're- Please just eat the soup? After everything you're doing for us- I don't know how to thank you. I don't think I can."
Victor wished he could tell her she didn't need to feel guilty or worry about thanking him, but he was honestly too exhausted to put it into words. He could tell her later, if they ever got out of here. He understood, at least most of the time, that this was being done to both of them. JJ had the same amount of choice in it he did. "Soup 'd be nice."
"Maybe you'll get lucky and Joshua will wank in it for you."
At that, Victor actually laughed a little. "Fuck hope not."
"I honestly don't think he could ever be that creative, so you're probably safe. You want me to keep talking? Maybe you should try to sleep?"
"Keep talking," Victor requested. "'f you can. Might sleep anyway. But I like it."
"Then I will," she promised him. "Next I shall tell you the amazing tale of how Lena Rainmayr and JJ van der Berg sneaked back stage at a drag show."
Victor let his eyes fall closed as she spoke, barely even listening to the words after a while, because just the fact that he could hear her voice and she was there and okay...that made his suffering worth it.