Work Text:
Childe spits blood at the ground, before weakly raising his head to face his captor with a bloody grin. ‘I’m not telling you.’
‘Your choice.’
Another blade swiftly impales Childe’s hand, effectively pinning it onto the wall behind him. A jolt of pain screams through his nerves as rivulets of blood start to drip down his wrist, begging for him to give up, but he doesn’t let his grin falter.
‘You will regret it if you don’t comply.’
A knife slices off another of Childe’s digits. How many does he have left? He can’t remember anymore.
It’s been going on for hours.
But every time he gets close to the merciful tide of death, a healer gets brought in to make sure doesn’t die from the bloodloss.
‘Kill me.’ Childe spits out, a drop of blood sliding down his forehead into his eyes, blinding him for a second before he blinks it away.
Why’s there bl-
Ah, right.
They’d repeatedly banged his head into the wall until he’d fainted.
And then, they brought him back to consciousness again by ripping out his fingernails, one hand at a time.
‘Death would be too good for you.’ He can see a grim smile start to form under the grotesque mask. ‘Harbinger, who do you think suffered by your escape from my prison?’ The captor punctuates their question with a dagger twisting into his guts, and Childe does all he can not to let out a bloodcurdling scream to echo throughout the Golden House.
Still, he smiles back with as much menace as he can.
‘My family is safe.’ He grits out, the metallic taste in his mouth starting to get overwhelming. ‘Their protection is guaranteed by Dottore himself.’
‘Foolish boy.’ The captor roughly yanks Childe’s bloodied hair back, forcing him to look up at them again. ‘Who said I tortured your pathetic family?’
Shock numbs his pain for a second, but it does not bring relief.
It brings a pain ten thousand times worse.
No.
No.
Childe tries to say something, anything, but the mixture of blood and bile rising in his throat chokes him into silence again.
The captor gently runs a thumb down the side of his bruised face, almost mockingly. ‘You know, she let out the sweetest screams when I broke her bones, one by one.’
‘You’re lying,’ He croaks out, desperate to angle his face away from their touch. ‘You haven’t hurt her.’
The captor retaliates by gripping his jaw hard, digging their fingers into his tender bruises.
Pain explodes inside his nerves again, but he doesn’t care anymore.
‘Do you want to know what she begged for before I cut off one of her arms?’ They ask, glee evident in their triumphant tone.
Childe doesn’t answer.
Rather, he’s too numb to answer.
They’re lying.
They’re lying.
She’s still safe, she’s alive.
She’s alright, living in blissful ignorance in their little cottage, deep in the Snezhnayan woods.
She has no idea what’s going on here.
Their grip on his face slackens, and they withdraw their hands to themselves. ‘She begged for me not to hurt you, though she knew you were the reason I was after her.’
Childe goes limp.
‘You should’ve seen the blood on the floor of your house,’ They say offhandedly. ‘Really, I was surprised she could even bleed that much. What made it better was the pieces of organs scattered around. It gave your furniture a nice tint, you know?’
‘I’ll tell you where the Tsaritsa’s gnoses are.’ He says suddenly. ‘I just need to see her. I swear I’ll tell you.’
‘That wasn’t too hard now, was it?’ They say brightly, reaching into their pocket and tossing to him a dull, lifeless thing.
It falls onto his lap with a heavy thud.
What is-
Oh.
It’s a grey vision, the symbol of its element barely visible in the dim light.
There is dried blood splattered on its surface.
He jerks his head up to look at his captor. ‘It’s grey,’ He utters, his hoarse voice lifeless.
They shrug. ‘Didn’t you believe me?’
‘It’s not hers-’ He stops to cough up some more blood. Some of it gets on the vision, dyeing it a more vivid shade of red. ‘Her vision should be glowing.’
A gloved hand gently caresses the side of his jaw. ‘You poor thing,’ They murmur. ‘What do you think happens to visions of people who die? Surely you know, right?’
Childe goes numb, his mind unable to wrap around the implications of what his captor is implying. He stares at the grey vision, the reality of the situation slowly settling in.
‘Oh, one more thing.'
Childe barely has the energy to look up, but he does anyway.
'She asked me to tell you that she loves you.’