Participants:
| Scene Title | My Game, My Rules |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Azrael pays a visit to a hostage. |
| Date | Aug 24, 2009 |
A warehouse somewhere
Darkness. Cold. The fans — if they're fans and not air conditioners — are blowing right on her. She is so far beyond tired. Pain. The drugs are keeping her from being able to use her ability — it requires more focus than she has. The only things she knows are the ones right here and now. The deafening blast of Mack the Knife in the speakers… God, how she'd love to mute that fucking song. She hates it. The prongs of the shock collar dig into her neck as she tries to shift her weight from one butt cheek to the other on the cement floor. Even as she does it, the ones around her wrists cut her once more, sending a trickle of blood down her arm. Somewhere in the back of her head, Elisabeth knows that her body must be streaked red. And other disgusting colors where she's sitting in another puddle of her own waste. Her head is restrained to the pole behind her and she slumps a little trying to take the pressure off her tailbone without giving herself yet another gouge. Teo's voice, if it was even real, has been silent since she woke this time.
It's not particularly hard to get in to see Elisabeth when you can inpersonate one of those who have already gone in and had some fun. But when the door opens and then closes, the man who enters simply does not carry himself like any of the members of Humanis First do, even if he managed to get past the others while behaving just as boldly arrogant as them. The sight he sees is the same one that displeased him so when he first witnessed the area not too long ago, and if it weren't for what he holds in his hands, he'd be clenching his fists in pure hatred.
The soon to be ex-Humanis First member walks up closer to Elisabeth, close enough to get past the barrier that the deafening music poses to verbal communication, but it's only when he crouches down that he actually speaks. "I'm truly sorry about this. I should have kept a better eye on you." The smell of chicken soup wafts up to Elisabeth's nose as Azrael holds a large mug of it.
The music drowns out the sound of his approach. Usually they come slamming in, shutting the music off. The blindfold keeps her from seeing the approach, and frankly…. she's drowsy and exhausted anyway. She can feel her kidneys protest every time she pees. And she has no shame — she just lets it go whenever she has to by now. Privacy, modesty, decorum… they are things of the past. They have no place here. She's almost sure she has a broken rib; that sensation is hard to forget. Her skin is blossoming every color under the sun already. The voice, so close to her, makes her literally scream and cringe away in automatic response — except that her scream is almost soundless because her throat is already raw and shredded from earlier treatment and the attempt to cringe backward is thwarted by the modified shock collars. At least they don't SHOCK her… they just rip her skin even deeper as she moves. She immediately goes still, trembling and just waiting for a blow. Food has been a lure before… she hasn't had anything in ….. well, unbeknownst to her, it's been two days.
Azrael grits his teeth as he observes Elisabeth's reaction. Hoping to calm her, he places a warm hand on her face to gently stroke it the way a lover might. "Shhh. I haven't figured out all of these restraints, but I think moving is ill-advised." And up comes a spoonful of soup, which he touches against her lips. "I promise it's not poisoned, Detective Harrison. I want you out of here alive. Poor Detective O'Shea will be inconsolable to have lost you so, and let's not forget Agent Shelby." Yes, he refers to the man as 'Agent,' hoping that even as tired and distraught as Elisabeth's mind is, it will figure out who is talking to her without him having to say it.
Elisabeth's reaction to the touch on her face is unmitigated terror. The crazy man (Doug) does that every time he comes in; right before he causes her excruciating pain again. Her breathing hitches and she flinches, any second expecting him to hurt her. She takes the bite of soup only because she she has to. She expects him to… she doesn't know… maybe throw it on her and burn her with it? And she chokes on it. The conditioning is going quite well, as he can see. Her every focus is on making the pain not happen (though it's a futile effort). The words don't even register… not for long minutes. And when they do, she goes very very still. "A… Azrael, right?" She struggles to speak, her voice ruined at the moment. "Oh good," she whispers. "As if this day isn't horrible enough, now I get to deal with you too."
And up comes another spoonful. "It's not like I've intentionally let you rot here. Had I been aware sooner, I assure you, you would no longer be captive." Azrael leans closer, the spoon going back into the mug. "Believe me when I say, whoever runs this shit hole will soon be having words with me. And, you know how those typically end." The more he becomes aware of the conditioning, the angrier Azrael gets. There's another gentle stroke to her face. "Come now, eat. You need more strength. Try not to choke this time." The spoon comes back up to Elisabeth's lips.
How bizarre is it that Elisabeth is less afraid of a raving serial killer than she is of 'Doug' and his friend with no name? She opens her mouth this time and manages to swallow the warm, soothing liquid. "Why?" she rasps at him. There are a whole lot of 'whys' she could be asking about, though in her own mind the only 'why' that matters is why the hell he'd bother to do this.
Perhaps because that raving serial killer has offered the only comfort she's had in two days? It's only after Liz has taken several more spoonfuls and after he touches the mug's rim to her lip so she can take larger gulps that he breaks the verbal silence. "Do you really want to know? I think it's more important that I make you as comfortable as possible without troubling you with why."
Forcing herself to swallow the sustenance slowly so as not to regurgitate it right back at him, Elisabeth finally turns — or at least attempts to turn — her head from the mug. "Comfort's overrated. In half an hour or so, they'll come back in and start again," she says in a husky voice. Not bitter, merely… at this point? Defeated. "And I'll probably puke that soup all over their boots. Not that I care so much anymore." She doesn't even care at this point that she's naked or that she's sitting in a puddle of her own urine. "So ultimately… if you're not here to kill all those motherfuckers and you're not here to actually get me out…. may as well get to the heart of the other thing. The 'why'. Why the fuck are you here? And what's your game? C'mon…. entertain me with your 'I'm an Evil Villain' monologue? It'll give me something better to hear than this racket." She almost sounds cajoling.
And when Elisabeth turns from the mug, Azrael rises and begins to finish the soup, himself. It does belong to the body he's inhabiting, after all. "I'm more a villain of brevity. In reality, you waste time with words, you end up a corpse." There is a short pause as he devours more soup. "Not that such poses a problem to me." Once the mug is empty, he sets it on the ground and comes up real close, his nose almost touching Elisabeth's face, "My game, my rules. I point out the rules only when they're broken and I break people who change them. That includes making any changes to the players." Of which Liz is one. "This would be considered a change in players." He whispers the last words, as though he's letting her in on an important secret.
Azrael touches the forehead of his body against Elisabeth's own and says to her, "You're broken Liz. I can't have that."
When he gets that close to her, Elisabeth visibly flinches back. But she rallies some. "Fuck you," she rasps right into his face. "They haven't gotten shit out of me. And they're not going to." She buries any uncertainty she herself might be feeling behind the facade. "You want to do something useful? Go ahead. Go find the bastard who runs this place. Have a ball, you sonuvabitch. Because when I'm dead, it'll definitely make me smile from heaven to watch that fucker burn."
"But you're going to. I can already see the effect all of this has had on you. And believe me when I say, I've had far more experience … interrogating people than any of the degenerates here. I know a hopeless case when I see one, and you're not it." Azrael begins to walk towards the door only after placing a kiss upon Elisabeth's forehead. "If by some miracle you survive all of this, I promise to keep a better eye on you. And I very much intend to have words with the gentleman in charge." He pauses at the door and looks toward her. "I will impress upon him the consequences of this course of action."
Not a hopeless case? God, Elisabeth wishes she were so sure of that. Even as she feels the ruptured whatever it is in her abdomen move as she shifts. "You do realize that makes me not one lick better, right? You are one creepy bastard." She weary and now hopeless. He's not going to do anything to help, is he? Maybe she'll just take comfort in the idea that she's sicced him on Danko. She'd pay good money for a front-row view of that. She bites her lower lip, realizing she's not above begging. She's not above anything right now. "You could… tell them where to find me. My friends. Shelby…." she offers desperately.
Though it cannot be seen due to the blindfold, Azrael stops and turns around. "Yes, I could," he says. He tosses the spoon up into the air and catches it. Idle hands and all. "There are a great many things I could do. But we'll just see how it plays out." Over the music, it's impossible to hear Azrael exit, leaving behind only uncertainty.