Time enough for love (lumity AU)

A tortured past

Stevan POV
I hear the tortured screams of my cousin on the other side of the door that fills me with dread. "Nick!" I call out, but there's no way he can hear me over his own yells. "We have to get out of here." I say in frustration. But then I look at Viney and Jerbo. They're exhausted, malnourished and dehydrated. I can't ask these two to overextend themselves to get out of here, even if they had enough magic left inside them (which I highly doubt) they wouldn't survive a confrontation with Alador in this state.

I had done everything I could since getting thrown in here but with nothing to work with and a mostly drained bile sack myself I had only been able to limit the pain and make the two comfortable.

I approach the two of them who I had laid on the bed to monitor their condition. They were both breathing heavily and Viney seemed to be running a fever. The amount of stress she had been through as well as the extremely emotional events had taken their toll, Viney was experiencing a psychogenic fever.

"What wrong with Viney?" Jerbo croaked. The boy wasn't looking well himself. He was as pale as a cloud, his eyes bloodshot yet he still was concerned over his friend.

"She's experiencing a stress induced fever." I answer. I go to the edge of the bed and tear a section of the bedding of and fold it. I draw a spell circle and the section of bedding grows cold and I gently place it on Viney's forehead. Her breathing slows a little as her pained face relaxes a little. "I'm doing everything I can but there's only so much I can do to help her from here." I say to Jerbo.

Another round of Nick's screams echo through the mansion and I grit my teeth. I want to help my cousin, to help Viney, to help Amity. That's why I became a doctor, to help people. But here I am trapped in a room, barely able to help a girl with a fever and not able to do anything to aid the people who really need me, who are only in this mess because I was too scared to do the right thing and stand up to the Blights in the first place.

I hadn't realised my hands were clenched into fists until I felt a soft but reassuring hand place itself on mine. I open my eyes to see a weak looking Viney staring back at me. "Don't blame yourself doc." She says wearily. "You're doing everything you can and that's what matters."

I let out a small chuckle. "Thanks kid but you should save your strength." She gives a small nod and falls back asleep.

Nick POV
Another agonised scream escaped me as Alador unloaded another blast of magic into me. I wasn't sure why he didn't just kill me. I'd like to think that our shared past made killing me to hard for him. However, the more likely scenario is he just had some pent up aggression to let out.

This wasn't the first time I've been tortured, in fact it had happened a few times but two times in particular always stuck out in my mind.

Flashback
I felt another hard fist collide with my face. Looking towards the ground I spat some blood onto the ground and looked back at my attacker. I suppose 2 years in the military is a decent amount of time to not get captured but that streak came to an end about 2 months ago.

My captures had placed me on a very cold chair, which I found very rude, and had tied my hands behind said chair in a very uncomfortable rope. Honestly this whole situation was highly inconvenient.

"So you gonna give us what we want now you cocky shit." My attacker said with a grunt. I looked up at him, he was a tall, dark skinned man with numerous scars and a thick black beard.

"If what you want is another sarcastic quip then I can provide but if not then I'm afraid you're out of luck." I responded with a smirk. Thanks to the rigorous torture resistant training provided to me by Belos there was pretty much nothing these assholes could do to me that would get me to talk.