ne plus ultra

[madimpossibledreamer]

Main Points:
Buffy/Blake's 7 (Place in the Universe)
Chapter Summary: The interrogation begins.
Word Count: 1100
Rating: Teen
Warnings: Note that that means, for this chapter, that the torture has begun; not in-depth, but still, viewer discretion advised.

 

In the end, though, those are all excuses. Yes, there were reasons, good ones, but I didn’t do any of the work because I hadn’t wished to admit any of that to myself. I wanted to die, but on my own terms, in a way I’d be remembered fondly, in a way that would be of use to my fellows fighting evil.

        When Blake wakes, he isn’t too surprised by what awaits. He’d expected a concussion, and the foggy vision and difficulty concentrating along with the throbbing pain rather confirm his amateur diagnosis. Perhaps even more disturbingly, Travis is humming, some tune that he can’t quite identify, though it’s possible he just has no clue with the pounding of his head. He is chained to the floor at Servalan’s feet, with one around his neck, another around each limb, and so on. They’re possibly running a risk, since it’s not exactly the most secure, but he suspects she couldn’t resist the symbolism.
        Well. He thought he wouldn’t encounter any surprises, but her first question is one he hadn’t expected in the slightest. “Why were you so certain we wouldn’t have a warm welcome?”
        He actually laughs at them. That had been just him trying to get a rise out of them. It appears he’d actually been right. “Just a hunch.”
        Without warning Travis stomps down on his fingers with one heavily booted foot, putting most of his weight into it, and he barely swallows the scream.
        “I think you understand how this game is played, Blake,” Travis bends down to whisper in his ear, standing up again when Blake throws his head back. He hadn’t quite managed to break the nose, it feels like, and the sudden action has him suddenly feeling very queasy, but it had been worth it, he tells himself, provided he’d at minimum managed to give the man a nosebleed. He stills suddenly when he feels the booted foot move oh-so-casually to his spine. “We could always find out how much pressure is needed to permanently disable you.”
        Any doubts about the costume explanation promptly disappear, because this isn’t Travis. Oh, he undoubtedly believes himself to be, and the similarity is uncanny, but not perfect. He might even be convincing himself that any crudeness to his torture technique is down to the locally available resources, but he’s wrong about that. And, Blake realizes grimly, some thought might have been put into the choice of costume. Because while this Travis is not accustomed to the sorts of torture techniques the Federation or the real Travis would have mastery over, he is extremely familiar with more primitive techniques, the kind that involve more crude physical methods, rather than directly meddling with the mind or sending shocks to the system. Blake has unfortunately, for himself and Travis, if not Avon, Cally, or any of the innocents (or roughly innocents) they were trying to protect, grown accustomed to these methods as well, which lends him, if not invincibility, some resistance to the whole affair. And he can, he must, give them something, non-answers for as long as he can, to convince his battered brain that he is cooperating, somehow.
        Breathe, Blake reminds himself. “Somehow, I have the feeling that ‘permanent’ in your hands means rather less.”
        “But we could leave you to die slowly and painfully—or we could put you out of your misery.” Servalan is absolutely doing her best to sound reasonable and gentle. “We know you’ve had contact with the vampire Spike. He has been less than cooperative about his bargain with you even with our hostage, but perhaps you’re in a more sharing mood.”
        Oh, hell, that’s a quandary. He doesn’t wish to give them anything at all, and he suspects that some if not all vampires are predators not to be trusted, given the implication that Buffy’s usual duties involved slaying them, but on the other hand this Spike was innocent of this, at least. And if he’s enough of a sentient being to care about the safety of a hostage… “You want to hear about my allies on this planet, and you’ll keep hurting me until I give the answer you’re seeking.” He allows himself a little of the petulance in his voice. “Which is very unfortunate for me, as I haven’t got any. I could lie and tell you what you want to hear, but it won’t help you.” Technically, not entirely true, though not formalized, either—Willow might technically count as an ally, though she had been rather evasive about being able to float through matter, and Giles—well, he seemed like the type to be trying to do the right thing, if one who would keep allies in the dark (and yes, he realizes he might on occasion resemble that particular remark).
        Travis lifts his boot, and Blake braces himself, but the boot doesn’t come down. Servalan’s held one gloved hand up, and it is agony to try to crane his head back to look. “Say we believe you. You’re being very careful about your words. You know something about our situation we don’t.”
        He’s honestly rather surprised she’s going with this line of questioning, rather than focus on the Liberator. Then again, she’s probably correctly identified that this is the more pressing of the two matters, because it applies to her situation presently, rather than in the future.
        “I’m rather in the dark about that myself,” he tells her, because that’s also true—he only knows a little, and even that is not enough to give her contact with the Federation or the Liberator, which are in all probability in another dimension.
        He can’t keep in the scream this time as Travis stomps on his spine—lightly, but the pain instantly radiates up to his throbbing skull—and then follows that up with the fleshy hand curling into Blake’s curls and smashing it into the floor. Unfortunately Travis was rather more successful about breaking his nose—he can feel the blood flowing freely, dripping onto the floor. Which his face falls into the second Travis lets go. The shocks to his system after the concussion are not doing him any favors, and his neck hurts too much to bother to try to look, anymore.
        “Be reasonable, Blake,” Servalan tells him. If he could catch his breath, he would point out this is an impossibility, according to Avon, but instead he sinks into the all-too-familiar haze of pain as they continue to ask questions he cannot possibly answer or won’t, if he can help it. Not for a good long while.