Companion piece to Fascination

thrall

The guards threw Keith into the cell and it was only because Hunk had been standing in the doorway, intending to rush their Doom captors, that Keith didn't hit the cold stone floor. As it was, Hunk grunted from the impact and had to take a few steps back, and their rash plan for escape was scrapped in their sudden concern over Keith, who didn't even try to steady himself but just slid down to the floor, heavy and limp and unresponsive, still bleeding here and there from shallow cuts along his back and chest. He smelled foul, of sickness and a strange, alien musk that made Pidge gag and Lance frown in horrible recognition.

"Keith, what--" Hunk began, reaching out in concern when Keith just lay just lay where he fell, his eyes closed and his body shaking, drawing in on himself as if gathering up the shattered remnants of himself. Hunk stared blankly at the white liquid that stained the corner of Keith's mouth and clung to the back of his thighs.

"I'm fine," Keith rasped, though this was a blatant lie. He struggled to push himself up, but his arms gave way and he fell back down; his collar clinked against the floor.

"Sven, your coat. Take it off." Lance, who had grown up on the streets of one of the Outer World colonies and knew all the dark, dirty secrets of the world, was already pulling his own shirt off and tearing long strips from it. "Pidge, the water."

Pidge started, pulled from his horrified contemplation of Keith's nakedness. He grabbed the makeshift container they'd used to catch the water that seeped out of the walls and dampened their cell and brought it to Lance, who dipped the uneven strips of cloth and carefully washed away all of Keith's stains, whispering low words that were meant only for Keith's ears. When Keith was clean, Lance wrapped him in Sven's long coat, hiding some of his shame beneath the expanse of black cloth, and then wrapped his own jacket around Keith's still shaking shoulders. He knelt besides Keith, still speaking, but not touching. Keith nodded every so often; or tried to nod as much as the collar around his neck would let him. Slowly he began to stop trembling, to let Lance touch him--lightly, ghostingly at first--and then embrace him, cradling him like a small child.

But no matter what was said, Keith's eyes remained full of shame and fear.

Pidge, who was still just a kid that had been raised in government Think Tanks and kept sheltered from the darkness of the Universe, didn't understand why Keith had fear in his eyes, now. He'd come back to them in worse shape than this, after all -- come back body ripped open and coughing up blood and he'd never looked afraid. But as Pidge stared at the bloody rags that had been Lance's shirt and thought about the way there had been blood mixed in with the thick, white liquid, he began to have an inkling of what had happened today.

He stared at Keith and wondered if he would have been half as brave.

It became a routine, after that.

The guards would take Keith away and then bring him back, covered in his blood and Zarkon's spunk--sometimes it would just be on his legs, leaking out of him; other times it would be in his hair or dripping off his chin--and Lance would clean him up and nobody would say a word.

Sometimes they would hear the guards raping Keith outside their cell.

"We've got to get out of here," Hunk growled in Bastard English after they had thrown Keith back into their cell yet again, bleeding and shivering and staring at nothing with empty eyes. "He's dying in here." He paced from the heavy cell door to the heavy boulders stacked haphazardly at the opposite side and back again.

"We could try overpowering the guards again," Sven said.

Hunk shot a quick look at Keith -- twitching and crying in troubled sleep, head resting in Lance's lap -- and shook his head. "Too risky."

"Besides, they'd probably just send more guards in using the cameras." Pidge gestured surreptitiously at the ceiling.

"Well we can't just stay here." Lance kept his voice low and soothing as he stroked Keith's hair. Keith flinched away from the touch and Lance let his hand drop to his side. "He can't take much more of this."

"I think." Pidge stopped and cleared his throat. "I think I've got an idea." He nodded at the rubble. "I'm pretty sure that there's a drain under there. If we get enough boulders clear, we could probably escape down it." He cleared his throat again. "I. I'm sure I can disable the cameras. But it'd have to be when we're sure that Zarkon isn't watching."

"You mean when he's..." Sven trailed off and looked over at Keith.

"Yeah."

"If there's no other way--"

"Line up." The hollow bang of a fist on the cell door and snarled command from a guard halted their conversation. Lance gently, reluctantly, shook Keith awake.

"Ah," Keith grunted. He blinked, slowly, as he moved from one nightmare to another, and when reality set in he sighed, a little.

"Keith--" Lance bit his lip, took a deep breath. He stalled, not wanting to ask this of Keith, not wanting to beg him to draw out Zarkon's torture, to push himself beyond all his limits. "Keith, we've got a plan."

Keith looked sharply at him as he stripped out of his borrowed clothes, eyes more alive than they'd been in days. "You need me to keep Zarkon busy," he said, voice flat. Lance swallowed, nodded slightly, even though Keith kept his gaze on the ground. "Don't worry. I'll get us out of here. No matter what."

Lance nodded, again, and as soon as the iron door closed on their cell, he turned to Pidge. "Do it," he growled.

Pidge nodded, as curtly as Lance, and looked up at the cameras. "I need a boost."

"Sven--"

But Sven was already moving. He formed a stirrup out of his hands and Pidge scrambled up, climbed onto Sven's shoulders. He braced himself against the wall, slid off his headband; the sound of the jack's cord made as it unwound from its tight coil was comforting in its familiarity. The camera was hidden deep inside a crack and it took some doing before Pidge could find the access port. He felt the hole, ran through a mental inventory of the adaptors he had, selected one, stuck it into the access port. It wasn't a perfect fit, but it made contact, so Pidge plugged the feeder into his glasses' port, and watched the world shift into one of directories and information.

Finally. Something he could understand.

Pidge smiled, tightly, and began to manipulate the system. It was so easy to find the right memory cluster, to trick the camera into playing back the images from yesterday. It was easy, too, to use this small up link to hack into the main database, flip through the files, search for blueprints or timetables or something. Anything. Pidge didn't expect miracles, didn't expect a detailed map with little notes saying that the guards changed at this time and walked this beat and if they stood here, they wouldn't be seen. He just wanted something that would help them after they got out of this cell, anything that would keep them from being captured again.

In black-white world of the network, a cluster suddenly glowed blue.

Pidge nudged the cluster. The real-time vid unfolded before his eyes and he didn't recognize what he was seeing -- when he did, he jerked away, the startled exclamation catching in his throat. Sven caught him as he began to fall, and Pidge had to shake his head, swallow gasping lungfulls of musty air before he could pull himself out of the world of data and secrets, before he could banish the vision of blood and pain and remind himself that he had a job to do.

"Pidge?"

"One hour." Pidge carefully removed all the wires, concentrated on keeping his hands still, in the normalcy of this mundane act. "That's as long as I can give you."

Lance opened his mouth, then closed it. Some things shouldn't be asked, and some things shouldn't be answered, and Lance was smart enough to recognize those things when they appeared. "Come on," he said instead. "We haven't got much time."

And it was a new routine, a new habit of shifting rocks and biting back curses and every day Pidge tried to stay away from the live feeds from Zarkon's private chambers. But concern -- or was it just sick curiosity, the inquisitive mind that had made him such a darling of the Think Tank cataloging this new information, storing it for some further use? -- always made him activate that node and catch the beginnings of his Captain's shame. One hour every day, and Pidge had lost track of how many days had actually passed because they blurred together in everything but the ways Zarkon drew out more blood and more pain from Keith. Endless days, always one aching breath closer to freedom, and Pidge knew that was the only thing keeping everybody going. Hope that grew stronger every day until, abruptly, the guards stopped pulling Keith away.

One day passed.

Another.

Another, and even though he was glad that Keith's body actually had a chance to heal, Pidge still chaffed with the waiting. A day, maybe two, that was all they needed and then the last of the rocks would be off the drain and they'd be out of here.

"What's he planning?" Keith growled, as he paced, back and forth. Sven's jacket hung off of him like a scarecrow's and he pushed the sleeves up in irritation. The deep yellow bruises on his arms stood out in sharp relief against his pale skin. "Why'd he stop?"

"Take it easy." Lance reached out even though Keith was pacing like a feral animal that was half-mad from pain and fear and imprisonment. He kept his voice calm, soothing. "You need to rest."

"Fuck that." Keith shrugged the hand away. "What I need is to get you out of here." He spun on his heel, paced the length of their cell once more, the fingers of one hand drawing blood from the wrist of the other. "I promised you," he muttered, low and crazed. "I promised that I'd get you out of here."

"We'll find another way." It was Hunk's turn to try and soothe this time, but Keith shrugged off those words just as easily as he'd shrugged off Lance's outstretched hand. "Keith."

"What went wrong?" More mumbling and Pidge had to strain to hear the words. "Why'd he stop..."

Pidge tried not to shudder and returned his attention to cleaning his glasses. He still had them off when the guards opened the door without even the customary banging, and he looked up at them, seeing only darkness blurred.

"You," one of the said. "And bring him too."

Pidge put on his glasses, and he had barely enough time to wonder who else had been taken when cold, rough hands grabbed his arms and pulled him off his feet.

"Wait!" he cried out, even as Keith's snarled "leave him alone" and the cacophony of Sven and Hunk and Lance trying to push their way past the guards and their pain-sticks drowned out his plea. He was aware, vaguely, of Keith bucking and fighting, of the agonized grunts as Hunk was beaten down to the ground, of the smell of blood, of his own fear. All he could think about, though, was the cameras and how if he wasn't here, they'd still be running, they'd still be recording and then whatever hell he was headed to would be meaningless. So, in the confusion, he stooped and grabbed a couple of the smaller rocks and threw them, hard as he could, at the cameras.

The tinkle of glass breaking, the protesting of delicate machinery protesting against this mistreatment, was barely audible above the din.

Pidge smiled, inwardly and grimly. He only hoped that the others had noticed the noise too.

Pidge lay on the cold metal bunk of the scout ship and marveled at the wonder that was the human brain. His entire body ached -- actually burned in uncomfortable places -- and he couldn't remember what had happened to cause this pain. Oh, true, he knew, intellectually, that Zarkon had raped him. But try as hard as he might -- and he wasn't trying very hard, truth be told -- he couldn't dredge up the memories of that act, the physical sensations. Everything had been compartmentalized, bound up into a neat little package, and pushed down so deep into his subconscious that Pidge doubted he'd ever be able to retrieve them until they festered and forced their way up into his awareness.

Not that he minded, right now.

"Keen intellect to the rescue," he muttered to himself. He closed his eyes, and in the blackness nothing happened. It was rather disconcerting to go from the memory of the feeling of Zarkon's claws ripping down his chest to the sight of Sven cinching a bandage tight around his wounded body, the broken cities of Doom spiraling further and further away as their little ship fought its way free of the atmosphere.

A soft cough caught his attention and Pidge opened his eyes and turned slightly. He'd been expecting Hunk, coming back to check up on him, and when he saw Keith standing in the door he was surprised.

"Captain," he said and he tried to sit up. A flash of memory caught him -- of Keith fighting, naked and wild, eyes void of all sanity, bleeding and gurgling around the gag in his mouth -- and Pidge closed his eyes against it.

"Pidge." Keith sat down, gingerly, and Pidge couldn't help but feel relief that at least Keith was wearing proper clothing. "Pidge, I'm sorry." He sounded as broken as he looked, and the sudden epiphany that Keith had come to him for absolution shocked him.

"It's all right. It's part of the job." And Pidge couldn't say anything more than that, say anything other than truth and lies layered together. Because as much as he hurt, as terrible as things must have been, Pidge still reckoned that he got of light, comparatively speaking. Physical wounds healed, and he'd be far, far away from Zarkon by the time he remembered anything that had happened. Far away and in the hands of his friends, which would make all the difference.

"I'm sorry," Keith said again.

Pidge looked into Keith's empty eyes and nodded. "Me too."

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