Lionhearts ||Skephalo||

21

A/N: There is torture in this chapter. Please bear this in mind.

-

The laughter seems to help ease his pain in some areas, he notices faintly, as it finally peters out, a few minutes later after they gave up beating him into silence.

He recognizes the layout of the room they enter, the table, the bellows, and the bed of coals with the irons resting in them.
One suggests,

"Maybe we can just set coals on him instead of metal. Think it would work more?"

"I've never tried," the other shrugs, chaining the once again desperate human down to the table on his stomach, his back exposed.

Bad has never tried that either, but he's sure it won't be any better. If anything, he's sure it would be worse, and even though he had somehow healed the burns before, he wasn't confident in his ability to do it again.

He feels sick. He's going to throw up, he thinks for a second- but then he swallows, and presses his cheek to the metal beneath him. It's warm, as everything else in this place is, and yet it's comforting for some reason.

He closes his eyes, waiting in dread for them to do whatever they may.
Some of the things he can imagine them doing are worse than others, though. There's a tug on his waistband, and he tenses, but it's just drawing it down so there's more back exposed to burn.

He let out an inaudible sigh of relief. Being burned is better than being- used.
They're both horrible, but he can't imagine how he'd handle himself if that was to happen.

He pushes it violently out of his mind. That was an absolute worst-case scenario. Right now he needs to focus on the-

The brands.
He feels one press into his skin, being held longer than the ones before, his back arching forward into the metal bench, his mouth colliding against the metal, bashing his lip into it as he muffles his wail of pain.
It didn't get easier, the pain is still causing his body to shudder, hands twitching and broken half-phrases struggling out of his mouth.

He has a brief moment of respite as the iron is drawn back, and he heaves in a deep breath, the new pain renewing the tears in his eyes. The pulse of his heartbeat, so quick, like a little rabbit, matches the pulses of pain in his broken arm and the burn and his bruises, and a muffled sob escapes him.

Then the iron is back, on his side over his ribs now, and he's screaming, god, his vision is flickering again-
He thinks he might be losing consciousness for a second, but he's not, he WISHES he would lose consciousness.

Make it stop.

Another press into his skin, another weak scream torn from his throat. He loses count of how many they force upon his frail body, but eventually he fades into a stupor, mind locked away firmly behind the wall of sheer agony flooding his body. It was more than the ten he had the first time, or the fifteen the second. So many more.

He can't even remember what an aloe is this time, let alone think of how to heal himself.

The metal meets his skin once again, and he can't scream anymore, just weakly exhale as his vision fades mercifully to black, his thoughts just- stopping. Nothing more.
He's dragged back down the hall, back to his cell.

* * *

The guard from before, the one who holds the golden watch close to their chest as they watch Bad's body be dragged back to be thrown into the cell carelessly, steps up to do their shift. They wait, listening with baited breath, to see if Bad would even wake up.

They even peep into the cell a few times.

For now, his unconscious form is strewn across the floor, limp and his arm still bent slightly at an unnatural angle.
The guard takes a deep breath. Thoughts run through their mind.