FIC: Giving Way [Blackadder Goes Forth]
TITLE: Giving Way
FANDOM: Blackadder (Blackadder Goes Forth, to be precise)
CHARACTERS: George, a German commander, and two goons. Mentions of Melchett.
PROMPT: #022. Enemies
WORD COUNT: 1,718
RATING: R for violence
SUMMARY: George's thoughts drift to happier times when he's being interrogated by his German captors.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I started this before my claim was accepted at fanfic100. To be honest, I thought it turned out rather well, but I could probably come up with another story that could fit the prompt for when I'm accepted. Blah. Thanks to edna_blackadder and amazonqueenkate for their words of encouragement.
On second thought, this will count as my first entry. I'm such a cheater-pants.
***
If there was one thing that bloody well bothered him about this whole torture business, it was how much the jerry doing the torturing was smiling.
"Good morning, Lieutenant," the sharp, clean voice greeted him without any accent.
George tried to lift his head, but it pounded horribly. There was something sticky under his cheek. His uniform was in tatters -- the General was going to be rather miffed when he got back.
He pried one eye open, the glaring light from the lamp overhead forcing him to squeeze it shut again.
"Steh ihn auf," The voice snapped, and then there were hands on him. When they grabbed his left arm, George cried out.
"Open your eyes, Lieutenant." The voice changed again, and a gloved hand rasped along his stubbled jaw.
George tried his best, but it bloody well hurt. His arm was screaming bloody murder, and it felt like his nose had been wrenched in two directions at once. Glancing around, he could see that two men that rather resembled brick walls were on either side of him, holding him up by his arms, just under the shoulders in front of the jerry who he assumed was the commanding officer.
"Ah, very good. I like looking into the eyes of my prisoners."
George licked his lips, tasting a coppery, metallic kind of taste, and absently found himself wondering what jerries used to scrub their floors with.
"It is a shame that you resisted so much," the jerry drawled, turning his face left and then right. "In this light, you look almost... lovely."
George tried to twist his chin out of the jerry's grasp, but his headache woke up and reminded him that he'd gotten his head bashed on a few hours earlier. "You'll never take me alive."
The jerry sneered at him. "You fail to grasp that we already have. You, alone out in no-man's land, unable to scurry back to your little hole in time... We have you now, and we intend to keep you."
The gloved hand gripping his jaw slid up his cheek in a slow, harsh caress. And the smile on his face rather reminded George of a snake. If snakes could smile, of course.
"You will tell us what you know, Lieutenant," he murmured.
George gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the pain in his arm, and his nose. "You'll never get anything out of me."
"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" The jerry whispered quickly, the snake metaphor returning. He stepped back, and slowly circled George and the two burly men holding him up. "You have no hope. All alone, captured, in need of--" Quick as a flash, something grabbed the place where George's arm had been broken.
George cried out.
"--Medical attention."
George heard the voice behind him now.
"Speak, and you will be well tended by my physicians. Fed, bathed, clothed." The voice got suddenly closer to his right ear. "Treated as someone of your social standing should be treated."
George shivered. He had rather thought the Cap had been joking when he'd once said that something had made his skin crawl, but the puff of breath made his spine feel all twisty in a rather unpleasant way.
"N-Never," George stuttered, immediately hating himself for showing weakness. "My friends will find me. They'll jolly well get me out of this mess."
The jerry walked around the large bloke to George's right, and beamed cheerfully at George. "Why would they? There have been no rescue attempts. My men have not intercepted any radio dispatches calling for you to be rescued." He moved in close, too close. "Why would they bother for a single lieutenant?"
George suddenly remembered facing down Captain Darling... the General. Both of them telling him that it was a waste of resources and manpower. That only a superman could save the Cap and Baldrick. Now that the positions were reversed, he hoped that the Captain would make it in time.
"They will." George clamped his sticky lips tightly together, ignoring what he was now beginning to guess was the taste of his own blood. "I know they will."
"And it is that kind of youthful optimism that will keep the British from ever winning this war," the jerry replied calmly.
"We'll crush you, you-you sausage-eating swine!" George barked at him. He wasn't sure where the idea came from, but he spat a good glob of red-tinted spit on the jerry's cheek too.
The jerry's broad smile shrank down to a tiny little smirk. A black glove reached up and wiped away the spit as if it were nothing more than a fly.
His fist suddenly landed into George's gut, causing him to double over.
The jerry stood straight, as if he'd just shook George's hand. "I believe that the good lieutenant requires more... persuasion."
George wasn't sure if he'd seen it or imagined it, but there were ugly smirks, knuckles cracking.
"Brech seine Finger," the jerry murmured quietly.
George blinked. "Beg pardon?"
"Alle?" One man asked, sounding almost too happy to do whatever it was the jerry ordered him to do.
The jerry coolly raised an eyebrow at George. "Ja."
"Now, wait a moment!" George bleated.
The two men chuckled. "Ja wohl, mein Herr!" they answered in unison.
The jerry nodded and leaned indolently against a wall, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his vest pocket and tapping one out.
George had no idea what they'd just said, but it couldn't have been good. "Now, wait a moment, chaps, surely we can--"
One of the men struck him across the face, hard, catching his much-abused nose. The other one, oddly enough, grabbed his hand.
"Du brechst sein links, ich breche sein rechts," The one that hadn't struck him said.
"Ja. Dieses sollten ihn schließen," the other one grunted.
Before George could struggle, they'd pinned him to the floor face-first, a thick shin laying hard against the backs of his shoulders. When he tried to lift his head, they pinned it down to his left and dragged his broken arm away from his body at a right angle. When he screamed, the one pinning him cuffed the back of his head.
The man who'd yanked his arm from his body kept it in a sure grip, pinning it to the grimy floor, first with a tight grip on George's wrist, and then with a light touch of his boot.
In a single burst of clarity, George realized what they'd been ordered to do. His eyes widened. He opened his mouth to say something, do something. Possibly scream.
"You know what they are going to do to you, don't you, Lieutenant?" The jerry asked smugly.
He laughed as he pushed off from the wall lightly and made his way over to George. "They are going to break each and every one of your fingers, one at a time, until you tell me what I want to know."
"You..."
The jerry shook his head. "Ah ah ah, Lieutenant. I allowed you one harsh word against me because you were in pain, but you shan't get two."
"Shan't" wasn't a word Jerries were supposed to use. It was a word of the British gentry, people like his mother and father who sipped tea in dress coats and formal wear. Not this blond-haired, blue-eyed... monstrosity of a man.
George gritted his teeth, his head swimming, his nose a throbbing area on his face, his arm screaming. "I'll never tell you," he said simply, with surprising dignity. He rather liked to think that his father would be dashed proud of him.
The first, his left pinky, went with a tiny crack under the large jerry's boot. He gritted his teeth hard enough to make his head hurt more, but he didn't make a sound.
The boot pressed down on the ring finger, pressing, then crushing, then more...
George gasped, squeezing his eyes tight.
It was by the fourth when he found himself thinking of something else, trying to be anywhere but there. Maybe back at the bunker with Captain Blackadder and Baldrick, or even back home.
But, no...
Even as his thumb was taken firmly between two hands and snapped like a dashed difficult wishbone, he was somewhere else entirely...
The regimental ball a few months back.
He had been wearing that rather smashing dress he'd worn to the first show, and the general in a flattering waistcoat with all his pins and medals clean as a whistle. He'd been so dashed polite -- pulling out George's chair, opening doors for him, offering his arm when they walked together.
General Melchett... Anthony. He'd said to call him Anthony.
It was his ruddy fingers getting broken, after all, so he jolly well thought he was allowed to call the general that in his head. Melchett had given his permission, after all.
His right arm had been yanked out from its futile clench up against his side, extended fully and pinned down by a very large boot.
They'd had a splendid evening, talking about all sorts of things: the war, marriage, proposed changes to the LBW rule. The long gazes, the way that, even if it felt dashed odd, George had felt... safe in Anthony's arms. Protected.
Crack went his pinky.
"Chipmunk," Anthony had said in an unguarded moment, his face half-hidden by shadow, the brown eyes looking at him as if he were the most precious thing alive. "I love you."
One, two, and then his right ring finger was useless.
He realized now that he should've felt dashed uncomfortable at that moment, especially when Anthony had closed in, a breath separating their lips from... well, he bally well wasn't sure exactly what, but he'd had an idea that it was bloody well important.
And the thing of it was... he'd felt excited.
More pressure, and his middle finger was done for. No more two-finger salutes for Harry Hun. Not if he wanted them to be at all straight, at any rate. The pain shrieked in his head like his Great Aunt Tiddy did when she had found George had smashed her china cabinet quite by accident.
When he closed his eyes, his last thought was of those brown eyes looking at him. Beckoning to him. Calling him home.
END
FANDOM: Blackadder (Blackadder Goes Forth, to be precise)
CHARACTERS: George, a German commander, and two goons. Mentions of Melchett.
PROMPT: #022. Enemies
WORD COUNT: 1,718
RATING: R for violence
SUMMARY: George's thoughts drift to happier times when he's being interrogated by his German captors.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I started this before my claim was accepted at fanfic100. To be honest, I thought it turned out rather well, but I could probably come up with another story that could fit the prompt for when I'm accepted. Blah. Thanks to edna_blackadder and amazonqueenkate for their words of encouragement.
On second thought, this will count as my first entry. I'm such a cheater-pants.
***
If there was one thing that bloody well bothered him about this whole torture business, it was how much the jerry doing the torturing was smiling.
"Good morning, Lieutenant," the sharp, clean voice greeted him without any accent.
George tried to lift his head, but it pounded horribly. There was something sticky under his cheek. His uniform was in tatters -- the General was going to be rather miffed when he got back.
He pried one eye open, the glaring light from the lamp overhead forcing him to squeeze it shut again.
"Steh ihn auf," The voice snapped, and then there were hands on him. When they grabbed his left arm, George cried out.
"Open your eyes, Lieutenant." The voice changed again, and a gloved hand rasped along his stubbled jaw.
George tried his best, but it bloody well hurt. His arm was screaming bloody murder, and it felt like his nose had been wrenched in two directions at once. Glancing around, he could see that two men that rather resembled brick walls were on either side of him, holding him up by his arms, just under the shoulders in front of the jerry who he assumed was the commanding officer.
"Ah, very good. I like looking into the eyes of my prisoners."
George licked his lips, tasting a coppery, metallic kind of taste, and absently found himself wondering what jerries used to scrub their floors with.
"It is a shame that you resisted so much," the jerry drawled, turning his face left and then right. "In this light, you look almost... lovely."
George tried to twist his chin out of the jerry's grasp, but his headache woke up and reminded him that he'd gotten his head bashed on a few hours earlier. "You'll never take me alive."
The jerry sneered at him. "You fail to grasp that we already have. You, alone out in no-man's land, unable to scurry back to your little hole in time... We have you now, and we intend to keep you."
The gloved hand gripping his jaw slid up his cheek in a slow, harsh caress. And the smile on his face rather reminded George of a snake. If snakes could smile, of course.
"You will tell us what you know, Lieutenant," he murmured.
George gritted his teeth, trying to ignore the pain in his arm, and his nose. "You'll never get anything out of me."
"You'd like to think that, wouldn't you?" The jerry whispered quickly, the snake metaphor returning. He stepped back, and slowly circled George and the two burly men holding him up. "You have no hope. All alone, captured, in need of--" Quick as a flash, something grabbed the place where George's arm had been broken.
George cried out.
"--Medical attention."
George heard the voice behind him now.
"Speak, and you will be well tended by my physicians. Fed, bathed, clothed." The voice got suddenly closer to his right ear. "Treated as someone of your social standing should be treated."
George shivered. He had rather thought the Cap had been joking when he'd once said that something had made his skin crawl, but the puff of breath made his spine feel all twisty in a rather unpleasant way.
"N-Never," George stuttered, immediately hating himself for showing weakness. "My friends will find me. They'll jolly well get me out of this mess."
The jerry walked around the large bloke to George's right, and beamed cheerfully at George. "Why would they? There have been no rescue attempts. My men have not intercepted any radio dispatches calling for you to be rescued." He moved in close, too close. "Why would they bother for a single lieutenant?"
George suddenly remembered facing down Captain Darling... the General. Both of them telling him that it was a waste of resources and manpower. That only a superman could save the Cap and Baldrick. Now that the positions were reversed, he hoped that the Captain would make it in time.
"They will." George clamped his sticky lips tightly together, ignoring what he was now beginning to guess was the taste of his own blood. "I know they will."
"And it is that kind of youthful optimism that will keep the British from ever winning this war," the jerry replied calmly.
"We'll crush you, you-you sausage-eating swine!" George barked at him. He wasn't sure where the idea came from, but he spat a good glob of red-tinted spit on the jerry's cheek too.
The jerry's broad smile shrank down to a tiny little smirk. A black glove reached up and wiped away the spit as if it were nothing more than a fly.
His fist suddenly landed into George's gut, causing him to double over.
The jerry stood straight, as if he'd just shook George's hand. "I believe that the good lieutenant requires more... persuasion."
George wasn't sure if he'd seen it or imagined it, but there were ugly smirks, knuckles cracking.
"Brech seine Finger," the jerry murmured quietly.
George blinked. "Beg pardon?"
"Alle?" One man asked, sounding almost too happy to do whatever it was the jerry ordered him to do.
The jerry coolly raised an eyebrow at George. "Ja."
"Now, wait a moment!" George bleated.
The two men chuckled. "Ja wohl, mein Herr!" they answered in unison.
The jerry nodded and leaned indolently against a wall, pulling a pack of cigarettes from his vest pocket and tapping one out.
George had no idea what they'd just said, but it couldn't have been good. "Now, wait a moment, chaps, surely we can--"
One of the men struck him across the face, hard, catching his much-abused nose. The other one, oddly enough, grabbed his hand.
"Du brechst sein links, ich breche sein rechts," The one that hadn't struck him said.
"Ja. Dieses sollten ihn schließen," the other one grunted.
Before George could struggle, they'd pinned him to the floor face-first, a thick shin laying hard against the backs of his shoulders. When he tried to lift his head, they pinned it down to his left and dragged his broken arm away from his body at a right angle. When he screamed, the one pinning him cuffed the back of his head.
The man who'd yanked his arm from his body kept it in a sure grip, pinning it to the grimy floor, first with a tight grip on George's wrist, and then with a light touch of his boot.
In a single burst of clarity, George realized what they'd been ordered to do. His eyes widened. He opened his mouth to say something, do something. Possibly scream.
"You know what they are going to do to you, don't you, Lieutenant?" The jerry asked smugly.
He laughed as he pushed off from the wall lightly and made his way over to George. "They are going to break each and every one of your fingers, one at a time, until you tell me what I want to know."
"You..."
The jerry shook his head. "Ah ah ah, Lieutenant. I allowed you one harsh word against me because you were in pain, but you shan't get two."
"Shan't" wasn't a word Jerries were supposed to use. It was a word of the British gentry, people like his mother and father who sipped tea in dress coats and formal wear. Not this blond-haired, blue-eyed... monstrosity of a man.
George gritted his teeth, his head swimming, his nose a throbbing area on his face, his arm screaming. "I'll never tell you," he said simply, with surprising dignity. He rather liked to think that his father would be dashed proud of him.
The first, his left pinky, went with a tiny crack under the large jerry's boot. He gritted his teeth hard enough to make his head hurt more, but he didn't make a sound.
The boot pressed down on the ring finger, pressing, then crushing, then more...
George gasped, squeezing his eyes tight.
It was by the fourth when he found himself thinking of something else, trying to be anywhere but there. Maybe back at the bunker with Captain Blackadder and Baldrick, or even back home.
But, no...
Even as his thumb was taken firmly between two hands and snapped like a dashed difficult wishbone, he was somewhere else entirely...
The regimental ball a few months back.
He had been wearing that rather smashing dress he'd worn to the first show, and the general in a flattering waistcoat with all his pins and medals clean as a whistle. He'd been so dashed polite -- pulling out George's chair, opening doors for him, offering his arm when they walked together.
General Melchett... Anthony. He'd said to call him Anthony.
It was his ruddy fingers getting broken, after all, so he jolly well thought he was allowed to call the general that in his head. Melchett had given his permission, after all.
His right arm had been yanked out from its futile clench up against his side, extended fully and pinned down by a very large boot.
They'd had a splendid evening, talking about all sorts of things: the war, marriage, proposed changes to the LBW rule. The long gazes, the way that, even if it felt dashed odd, George had felt... safe in Anthony's arms. Protected.
Crack went his pinky.
"Chipmunk," Anthony had said in an unguarded moment, his face half-hidden by shadow, the brown eyes looking at him as if he were the most precious thing alive. "I love you."
One, two, and then his right ring finger was useless.
He realized now that he should've felt dashed uncomfortable at that moment, especially when Anthony had closed in, a breath separating their lips from... well, he bally well wasn't sure exactly what, but he'd had an idea that it was bloody well important.
And the thing of it was... he'd felt excited.
More pressure, and his middle finger was done for. No more two-finger salutes for Harry Hun. Not if he wanted them to be at all straight, at any rate. The pain shrieked in his head like his Great Aunt Tiddy did when she had found George had smashed her china cabinet quite by accident.
When he closed his eyes, his last thought was of those brown eyes looking at him. Beckoning to him. Calling him home.
END