sic infit

[madimpossibledreamer]

Happy St. Patrick's if you celebrate it and if not I hope you have a great day anyway!

Main Points:
Buffy/Blake's 7 (Place in the Universe)
Chapter Summary: Servalan and Travis haul their captive Blake to a convenient spot to torture and interrogate him.
Word Count: 1087
Rating: Teen

 

Mostly I was just desperate not to tarnish what little legacy I’d had left. I’d already done it once, acted against my will, and in the aftermath no matter how much I tried to rationalize, I could never quite manage to trust myself again. It’s a wonder anyone else did.

        Everyone breaks, in the end. It’s an unfortunate truth that almost all of them knew. They’d mostly known about that from outer worlds, where the grip of the Federation was not so tight, where they could on occasion be sloppy enough to leave their captives alive or with unaltered minds. That’s not to say it’s a uniform exercise, of course. The question is largely a matter of when, affected by a number of factors—the skill of the interrogator, how patient they are, what tools they have at their disposal, how stubborn their captive, how familiar their captive is with the techniques used. Which, Blake thinks with a bleak sense of humor, means that he’s got an advantage, when it comes to this sort of thing. He’s becoming quite the connoisseur.
        During their forced march, Blake has the time to think about all of that. Unpleasant, and, really, counterproductive, since anticipation is a key ingredient in actually making the torture effective. He tries briefly to inject some levity into the proceedings. “Not trying to kill me on sight? A novel approach for you, isn’t it, Travis?”
        “We’ll get there, Blake.” It’s not a hasty snarl, which is...well, it’s not the best of signs. A Travis who has let his anger get the better of him is prone to making mistakes. When he’s feeling a little more confident and self-assured, he’s harder to provoke into giving Blake something he could possibly use.
        “You have matters to settle before your death, Blake,” Servalan agrees gently.
        He could lightly mention the Liberator, but he has to try to hold on to his defiance as long as he can, while he still has it. “Like destroying the Federation? I agree.”
        Travis shifts—good, he’s always been good at getting under the man’s skin—but Servalan just smiles. “Very amusing. However, I’m sure you’d rather talk about this in a more...comfortable atmosphere.” The rather uncomfortable aspect is that he’s fairly sure she means it. That she’s not at all intimidated because she believes those to be utterly empty words. And, of course, he can nearly guarantee that when she says ‘comfortable’, she doesn’t mean for him.
        “I’m touched by the gesture,” he tells her, matching her smile and very carefully not flinching when she pats his arm gently, mockery more in the gesture in the first place than in the manner she does so.
        He’s once again left to his thoughts, uncomfortable as they are. His thoughts, and the knowledge of his impending torture. They all knew that everyone breaks, and yet can’t help but feel the guilt anyway. Oh, every person opposing the Federation privately would like to think that they could last longer than anyone else, their conviction and strength of will enough to keep comrades and friends safe, but it is in no way a guarantee and never has been. Exact specifics are hard to come by, particularly since, in such situations, it would hardly be in the Federation’s best interest to tell them how they compared when imagining that they were the weakest link, it was they who had failed every single person they held dear, was surely a quicker way to break a defiant spirit than allowing them even a small victory.
        Just as they turn a corner, one of their army runs up, panicked. “Oh dear,” he remarks mildly, privately extremely cheered by the evidence that the Federation did not and would never get all of their own way. Travis cuffs him hard enough he stumbles. One of many bruises to come, in all probability.
        “The base was attacked!” he reports, and that’s even more encouraging. Cally, perhaps, or the locals just as fond of freedom as he was, himself.
        “Then why aren’t you defending it?” Travis snarls—good, there’s an opening. Unfortunately, with Servalan here, it’s a lot harder to take advantage than on other occasions.
        “I’m sure he’ll make up for his failure.” Servalan’s gentle touch on Travis’ arm is just as mocking. The or he’ll be destroyed is so heavily implied as to not need voicing.
        “How?” the mutoid-adjacent man whispers.
        She smiles, a perfect mockery of a beneficent ruler offering a stay of execution. “By using your initiative. Offering us an alternative, for instance.”
        Unfortunately, that suggestion seems to be more viable than Blake would have hoped, because the—the vampire—perks up roughly immediately. “Spike took over an old factory, and he might be interested in a bit of fun. And then there’s always Brandon’s sewers.”
        “The factory will do,” Servalan responds with dignity, clearly not relishing the thought of her perfect white dress mixing with the latter. It’s not the choice Blake would have made—he’d think sewers, however uncomfortable, would probably make for easier defence from whatever force has taken the base and might take further offence to Servalan and Travis’ continued presence in the city, but on the other hand she doesn’t strike him as the kind of commander who would make a tactical mistake for the preservation of her wardrobe, however impressive. Perhaps it’s the possibility of further reinforcements for herself—though he’d also be surprised if she was the sort to rely heavily on potential allies whose loyalty had yet to be ascertained. Or, more likely, it’s probably easier to escape a factory than it would be to escape sewers; he can understand the impulse to not trap herself in a confined space she doesn’t know well enough to navigate like a caged rodent, in favor of a slightly less defencible location with numerous ways to slip away quietly.
        He briefly contemplates not pointing out the flaw in the plan before deciding that Travis and Servalan are intelligent enough to have noticed themselves, so it will just count as further needling, rather than giving them any sort of advantage. “You’re assuming a warm welcome.” He smiles sunnily at them, raising his cuffed wrists slightly to indicate that should they find it not as pleasant as they expect, he’s going to make it as difficult as he can for them.
        “At least we can take care of one problem, here or now,” Travis snarls, lunging. Pain flares over where he’s been cracked over the skull. Darkness follows.