Journey

Tarot - The Moon


Like Ice

Daniel still had nightmares. Not often, not nearly as often as he had before John had come back, in the days immediately following the city's salvation, when he had been alone, his life without direction. And far less often than he'd had during the city's years of darkness, during his slavery to The Strangers, when he'd experienced so much pain at their hands that even now, looking back, he wasn't quite sure which of them were real and which of them were nightmares, reliving their tortures again and again in his dreams.

When he and John had ventured underneath the city, into the crumbling ruins of the Stranger's former domain to search for any other surviving monsters, it had chilled him more than he let on. Even with John by his side, even with his light and warmth, it had been far too easy to remember everything that had happened, remember what they'd done to break him, control him. To remember the pain of their knives, the chemical burns on his skin, the toxic fumes that had scorched his lungs. The horrible metal frame they had closed him into after they'd broken his leg. The frame that held him upright all the time against his will, mobile only by dragging himself very slowly with his good leg, the metal biting into his hips, his armpits, his broken limb dragging painfully, the bone finally knitting, but badly, giving him his limp. He couldn't remember why they'd broken it. The why never mattered to them, though.

Sometimes he'd thought that the real experiment was not the city at all, but him.

In the beginning, they'd just beat him. When they recruited him they beat him until somehow he'd agreed to what they wanted, as horrible as it was. He couldn't remember the details, not now. Perhaps he'd thought that if he gave the appearance of complacence, that he could somehow stop them from the inside. And indeed, he had faint memories of making things very difficult for them at first, making intentional mistakes to set them back, invalidated countless experiments. Or disappearing into the city, hiding, delaying precious time lines, ruining deadlines, making them waste efforts on finding him, punishing him. They'd hated it. Sometimes he hoped they'd kill him, but it seemed that they could manipulate the state of his living body as well as they could the dead ones they inhabited. They'd broken his fingers, once, by mistake. "Most inconvenient," Book had said, pulling the bones back into place, painfully, and then his hand was engulfed in extreme heat, and was whole again, like nothing had happened. Maybe that was when they'd broken his leg. And maybe watching him in that cage had made them slowly aware of the power of humiliation.

The next time he'd disobeyed, Mister Hand had tried another tactic. It was almost always Hand that carried out his punishment. It seemed he was more aptly named than some of the others. And while some of them appeared almost entirely without personality, some even timid around him, he had quickly come to realize that regardless of their communal memory, Hand was of the part of them that had no problems being assertive. Aggressive. Cruel.

They'd found him in the city, Hand and the ones that he'd began to think of in a moment of dark humour as Hand’s posse. Quick and Wall and that horrible one in the body of a little boy. Sleep. He never used the irritating honorifics when he though of the strangers in his mind. What was the point? They were all Mister so-and-so, regardless of the gender of the dead body the inhabited. The Posse had drug him back underground, to the centre of the city, where the clock ran, where they all gathered nightly to Tune. He hadn't struggled. They would just beat him bloody, then probably put him back in the cage, force him to work. He was accustomed to it. If he'd known what was coming, he would have fought tooth and nail to get away.

That was the dream that came back, time after time. The dream that haunted and tortured him, the dream that even the comfort of John's embrace couldn't protect him from that night.

Hand throwing him up against the wheel in the middle of the room, the leather straps snaking around his wrists and ankles to bind him, over his forehead, pulling him immobile on the device. But they don't intend to inject him again, not this time, and the wheel stays upright. They are talking, the air filled with that horrible clicking sound, and Hand speaks real words. "The Doctor still resists our efforts. It is most.... inconvenient. We propose a new course of action to bring him into line."

Book's voice, ancient, sounding almost bored. “We will leave the Doctor's punishment in your capable hands, Mister Hand."

First comes the knife. The spring loaded blade they all carried, razor sharp. Hand used it often, seemed almost fascinated by the way it slipped so effortlessly through his skin, the blood it drew. This time is different, though, his movements quick, formulated, slicing though his coat, vest, shirt, through his belt and slacks, with little to no regard as to whether or not he is cut. He cries out at the cold shocks of pain, gasping with his ruined lungs. But slowly he realizes that this is different than normal, that Hand isn't focused so much on cutting him.

He's cutting his clothes off.

Fingers tangle in the tatters of cloth, ripping it away. He gasps as the cold air hits his skin, cold terror forming a vice around his stomach, not knowing what they had planned. They'd half stripped him when they'd burnt him, but this was different, this was....

Cold metal moving behind him suddenly, making him gasp, a rod snaking down from the top of the wheel, down his back, down his ass. And for a moment, his mind can't process what Hand is doing, can't process the pain as the metal kinks, moves, almost alive, and penetrates him, thickening inside him painfully. The penetration forces his crippled body higher, his weight just barely balanced on the toes of his shoes as he fights to keep it from moving deeper, as the sudden shock of pain and humiliation forces a shuddering cry from his mouth, harsh and helpless.

"Come, Doctor." Hand's voice, like a snake. "You used to like this, before we met you. Don't you remember?"

He doesn't remember. He can't remember anything but darkness, pain. Them. He feels the heat of Hand's Tuning in his body, controlling its functions. Forcing a rush of blood to his groin, to his....

And somehow his mind forms a rough understanding of what Hand means to do, and his defiance turns to terror, cold and sharp. "Don't...!"

The edge of the blade against his cheek, the point just under his ruined eye. Just barely breaking skin as Hand draws it down. The frozen tip of the blade traces down his chest, over the shiny, mottled scarring from where they'd burned him, over old wounds. And then the flat of the blade whispers slowly up the underside of his cock, painfully hard under Hand's control.

"Please," he gasps, still unable to make himself open his eyes, his half-mutilated eyelids a last, desperate block against the reality of this. "Please! I won't -- misbehave, I'll -- do whatever you -- want -- Please don't - -!"

The air fills again with their clicks, reminding him horribly that he is surrounded, that they are all watching him here, watching him like this. But Hand speaks. "Yes, you will behave. You will do everything we say, without these convenient little mistakes you have been making. Without these little games of hide and seek. Because if you do not..."

His voice stops, and for a moment he doesn't move. The tiny corner of Daniel's mind that is still a psychiatrist registers that Hand has learned the power of threats, and shudders.

And then there is ice, burning cold on his cock, and he realizes that it is the Stranger's hand, curling around him, no softer or warmer than a vice. And Mister Hand slowly starts to stroke him.

"If you do not," Hand speaks, voice entirely calm, which is somehow more terrifying, "We will do this to you again."

His damaged lungs heave in terror, gasping for breath as he tries to jerk away from the touch instinctively, but he only succeeds in pushing that horrible steel deeper inside him, it only results in more pain. Thighs ache from supporting his weight on his toes, arms drawn tight against the frame of the wheel, but the worst thing is Hand's fingers, rasping, keeping hold of him no matter how much he tries to writhe. Cold and hard and dead, like marble, like ice. Moving almost mechanically despite the sobs that break from his throat between breathless gasps.

This is far worse than the beatings, worse than the lick of Hand's knife. Being displayed here in front of all of them, his own body being used against him. Humiliation that burns through him, breaks him. "Please," he begs, despite himself. "Please -- stop -- please....."

But Hand doesn't stop, doesn't speak, and Daniel's body behaves as it is programmed to, despite his breathless sobs, despite his begging, pleas for mercy that go unheeded. And it is worse than the humiliation of being displayed and abused like this that his nerves register and react to the touch, shudders of electricity that travel up into the pleasure center of his brain. Centuries of evolution telling the cells in his body that this is desirable, that this feels good, even as his rational mind rejects it, begging, sobbing, gasping for breath.

And eventually his conscious thought stops, unable to continue to process the horror, and he stops begging, and the only sound is his gasping, sobbing breath, and Hand's fingers on his cock, punishing him. His damaged lungs can't pull in enough air, as much as his body struggles to do so. Somehow this makes the pleasure more intense, his mind swimming in a sea of lightheaded blackness as the overwhelming shocks of pleasure build, hard and fast, his heart thudding painfully fast in his ears. Building, cresting, breaking in a shower of horrible, overwhelming sensation that shudders through him. And his mind finally protects him, protects him too late, taking his consciousness, plunging him into darkness.