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♡The Prelude...♡
“Is this because I called it “Jerk-Off” corporation? Because I swear I was just joking-!”
You were cut off abruptly as a needle pierced the skin of your neck and filled your system to the brim with sedative. The scientist who did it rolled their eyes and hauled you up onto the table, muttering to themself.
Dr. Easterman shook his head in disappointment as he watched you through his screen, “Only partially,” he said to your unconscious form. It was really a mix of your lackluster performance and the fact that he had noticed that the Prime Asset he was sending you to was, for lack of a better word, infatuated with you. It was always a shame to lose a reagent, but it was all in the name of science. In the name of Murkoff.
Easterman took a drag of his cigarette.
“Let the trial begin.”
♡-Sargent Leland Coyle-♡
“Let- let me go!” You sobbed, “I-I-I’m gonna call the pol-police!”
Restrained to the Judge’s bench, you thrashed every which way, occasionally choking yourself on the noose wrapped around your neck. Coyle stood in front of the entrance to the courtroom, gripping his baton so tightly his knuckles were turning white under his glove.
“Don’t you worry, sweet thing!” He called out, “I’m already here, and I ain’t gonna let no criminal scum touch a hair on your pretty little head!”
He turned his gaze to glare at the mannequin in blue, sitting so primly in her chair in the accused’s section, “And I ain’t gonna let that bitch walk again…”
♡-♡-♡
Coyle lifted you from the bench with an uncharacteristic tenderness. Your crying had quieted substantially, but your voice raised back to a sob when your broken ankle swayed limply.
The reagent had managed to get you once before Coyle had slammed them to the ground and crushed part of their skull with how hard he had thrust his baton at them, but he didn’t stop there. He had turned the electricity on so high and kept it in their head for so long that the entire courtroom was filled with the smell of burnt flesh by the time he was done.
Leland pressed his mouth into your scalp, no longer cloaked in burlap, but didn’t kiss. Instead, he breathed your scent in deeply, like an asthmatic with their inhaler. You shook in his arms and tried to ignore the throbbing in your ankle.
♡-Mother Gooseberry/Phyllis Futterman-♡
“I-I want my mama…” Your voice was low and thick with tears, “Want my mama, want my mama…”
Mother Gooseberry’s heart shattered into a thousand pieces at the sound of your abject misery. She pet your head through the burlap sack and leaned down, “Hush. Hush, hush, hush, my poor baby… Don’t fret, Mother’s here, Mother’s here…”
“Grandpa’s not gonna let any fucks put their filthy handses on you!”
“Gently, Daddy, gently…”
♡-♡-♡
Phyllis wiped the wax off your skin the best she could, humming and cooing every time you groaned in pain.
“There, there, sweetheart, I know it hurts. Mother’s going to get it all off of you…”
The air stunk of iron and sulfur, and the bag was still covering your head. Gooseberry had immediately devoted her attention to getting all of the wax off once the screams had stopped.
You didn’t really want the bag off soon, anyways. You didn’t want to see what had happened to the people you used to eat and arm wrestle and play chess with.
♡-Franco “Il Bambino” Barbi-♡
“Want my goggles back…” You murmured between whimpers and sniffles, “M’scared of the dark…”
Franco couldn’t quite make out what you were saying, but it didn’t bother him very much, because he had more urgent matters to take care of at that moment.
“Shh, y’don’t have to say nothing, baby. Come on, let’s get you comfortable.”
He wheeled you into the panic room, securing you at the end of the trail. He grabbed your cheek through the sack on your head, pulling you towards him and pressing a kiss to your other one through the scratchy fabric, soaked with your tears.
“You stay right here, and I’ll be right back, swear to god. Just gotta take care of these fuckin’ rats.”
♡-♡-♡
Pink water pooled around Franco’s dirty shoes as he gently held your chin up with one hand and a hose over your head with the other. You shivered as the cold water ran down your body and soaked your clothes, washing the blood from the tank away.
In contrast to your freezing, vulnerable form, Franco had a look of utter confidence and relief on his countenance.
“See, sweetness? Took care of those fuckin’ finks for you. Ain’t no fuckin’ scabs can take the money out of the pockets of hard-working folks like us.”
He tilted your head back and kissed you on the nose, humming to himself in contentment all the while.
♡-Otto and Arora Kress-♡
Your breathing was loud and labored under the cheap plastic of the mask as you weakly squirmed in your restraints.
“Don’t wanna die- I don’t wanna die!” Your voice was a quiet, pathetic wail, wet with the phlegm gathering in your throat.
“And so you won’t, darling!” Otto called out to you from across the fountain. Though Arora had already busied herself with fiddling with the “water” guns pointed at you, trying to find some way to make them malfunction, she muttered to herself, “None of those fucking mutts are going to touch you.”
♡-♡-♡
Otto’s heart ached for you as you whimpered in your fitful sleep. He could hear your legs shuffling in place under the sheets.
Arora was bent over, her face only a foot from yours as she spread a homemade salve over the parts where the acid had gotten you. The only reason you were able to fall asleep in the first place is because she had knocked you out with a sleeping gas the moment they managed to get you down from the fountain.
In a way, you were lucky. Not many people who came under their hands had the privilege of anesthesia.
When she was done, Arora let her wrinkled hand rest on your forehead for a moment before tapping Otto on the arm. He turned around to see your sleeping, blistered face, and leaned over you, pulling the blankets up to your chin.
“Tout ira bien,” he murmured, “Tout ira bien.”