Best Victim / Worst Punishment
Title: The Best Victim; The Worst Punishment
Pairing: Adam/Thompson, cameo by Bob Bishop
Rating: NC-17. Or X, because this is definitely harder-core than most of my stuff I usually mark as NC-17.
Summary: This is a two-chapter story set in the mid-eighties, while Adam Monroe is a prisoner of the Company. He’s been held for nearly a decade at this point and he’s gone a little crazy around the edges. Thompson has been with the Company for five or six years now, being one of their earliest recruits. He’s about 30 years old here. This is set in the Shattered Salvation AU, but you need know nothing of that series to understand this.
Warnings: All kinds of warnings - and I mean it. This is not for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached. We have graphic rape, torture, death and snuff!sex here. There’s sadism, but it’s pretty impersonal and selfish. There would be masochism, but the victim doesn’t enjoy it. One of the characters here is determinedly evil. The other is just desperate. It’s a bad combination.
Thompson trailed along after Bob Bishop while the other man showed him around Primatech Research in Hartsdale. Bob would be leaving in a few days with his wife and another couple for a vacation in Peru. Sightseeing was the reason Bishop was giving for his trip, but Eric didn't believe it for a second. It didn't matter much to the agent because whatever the story, it put Thompson in charge of the containment portion of the Company's most extensive facility. Right now he was getting 'the tour' and they were entering a self-contained, sealed section of level 3.
He'd seen it before, of course, but never with the express purpose of being in charge of the place and responsible for the containment of the people incarcerated here. They stopped outside one of the two cells in this special ward. Bob said, "This is our most important subject. I assume you've heard of him?" He smiled thinly, amusement sparking in his eyes along with something else less friendly.
Thompson looked in at the lean blond man sitting on the bed. He was staring off at the opposite wall, not bothering to look at his visitors. He had the feeling the man was aware of their presence though - very aware. He merely did not deign to look at them. Eric smiled slowly. This could only be one person. "So that's him?"
Bob nodded and then giggled for no apparent reason.
Eric raised a brow at him, but Bob didn't explain. He'd been erratic of late, which was probably the reason for the 'vacation.' The senior agent looked back in the cell. "He's the one who made it all possible - the whole Company - the one who started it all."
"He still makes it possible," Bob said.
Eric looked back at the director and nodded slowly. "He's the source of the resurrection serum? The man who can't be killed?"
Bob giggled again and seemed to struggle with himself. He coughed and got out, "Yes. Watch out for him; he bites."
"He bites?" Eric eyed Bob intently, but the older man only waggled his brows suggestively.
After an awkward pause, the director said, "We've had him for nearly ten years." Bishop tittered nervously. "The policy is that he's to be kept in complete isolation - no contact of any kind. Deliver meals and fresh clothing; take trays and soiled clothes - that's all. You should even limit viewing like what we're doing to a need-only basis." He paused, then added, "He is never to be out of this cell. Do you understand that? Never." His voice turned angry and harsh at the end.
Thompson narrowed his eyes at the other man. "Of course."
Bob smiled unctuously and waved back the way they had come, for there was nothing else to see in this ward. "Good. Then let's move on."
Eric sent a lingering glance back in the room at the handsome prisoner. He wondered how Bob knew he was a biter if they never went in his cell.
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A week later, he had been in charge for a few days, getting familiar with the schedule, the guards and the issues. All of the inmates they were holding had been there for a month or more and most for more than a year. As a result, they were fairly settled into their routine and there were few problems. There were case files he could read to understand the histories on each inmate, with one exception: Adam Monroe. His file was a collection of uninteresting trivia and redacted log entries. He'd been here for nearly a decade and he had the thinnest file. The only thing in it of interest was a detailed protocol on how to subdue him in order to draw his blood. Apparently he was not cooperative with the process.
Thompson carried lunch down separately after the guards took around the rest of the meals. The disruption in routine had caught Adam's attention as Thompson thought it would. Walking into his cell like he owned it cemented it. Eric set the food tray down on the table and pulled the single chair out, sinking into it in a relaxed manner. He looked over at the blond man and smiled slowly.
Adam looked at his lunch sitting in front of Eric and recognized the challenge. He snorted softly. "You think quite a lot of yourself, don't you?"
Thompson licked his lips and leaned forward, picking up the plastic spoon. Adam stood up in a single, fluid motion. For several seconds, neither man moved further, then Eric leaned back slightly and lowered the utensil. Adam walked to the back of his cell as far away as he could get. He paced back and forth. He'd been told about Thompson's arrival and he'd seen him on the tour, but he hadn't expected a personal visit. He hadn't had a personal visit in a very long time.
It had taken him most of a year to get one of the guards to tell him the barest details of life beyond his cell. He didn't care about what happened out there - not really. It had been an immense relief just to have his existence and his humanity acknowledged by someone. He'd never realized how much that sort of thing was necessary for a man's sanity. And now not only was it being acknowledged, but he had a man in his cell with him, talking…
Thompson said, "There's not much in your file, Adam. Makes me wonder. Makes me wonder if you'd even starve, were I to quit feeding you." He reached forward with the spoon and stirred it through the sauce of the main dish.
Adam stopped pacing immediately and looked at him with narrowed eyes. It wasn't so much that his dignity rebelled at the idea of Eric eating his food, but clearly the man had issued a challenge and wanted it answered. He was playing at something here, trying to prove a point. "I wouldn't, but you're not taking anything that's mine without a fight." He was across the length of the cell. Eric tilted his head a fraction and smirked, lifting the spoon towards his mouth. Adam rushed across the room far faster than he'd expected - faster than he'd even thought possible, for someone who didn't have enhanced speed.
Thompson threw himself backwards out of the chair as Monroe landed on top of him and rolled, twisting his hands into Eric's shirt and yanking. He took both their momentum and slammed Thompson into the concrete wall, spinning on his back and kicking the other man (hard, but not too hard) in the sternum only a second later. Eric struggled to get a breath as Adam came for him again, this time jerking him to his feet and slamming Thompson's head against the metal door with a carefully calculated degree of force. Before Eric could recover, Adam had his arm twisted behind his back and was knocking his feet back from the wall, shoving his upper body against it.
He stood between his legs and leaned up against him as Eric finally got oxygen and blinked the stars out of his vision. It had all happened so fast… Adam leaned up close to his ear and said quietly, "Now, you either came here to make a deal, or to play a game. Which is it?"
"There is no deal!" he snarled.
He felt Adam's grip relax slightly, but not enough. "Oh? So it's a game, is it? I like games. Is this the one where I get to play the cruel prison warden who tortures his helpless prisoner?" His grip tightened again and he ground himself slowly against Thompson, hardly moving his body other than to selectively press against him. The fingers of his other hand ghosted across his side. Eric froze for a moment, then fought back as hard as he could. He had no leverage, though, and Adam ratcheted up the pressure on his arm until something popped with a white-hot surge of pain.
"Ah!" he cried out and paused in trying to get free. It wasn't doing him any good, anyway. The little man was far stronger than he looked.
Adam said, "Look what you did to yourself, mate. It's dislocated for sure now." He breathed more softly, offering what he'd been told Eric wanted, luring him in, "I think maybe the prisoner has been held for years without the most basic of human contact. Maybe he would do just about anything for that. Maybe he'd even let the warden beat him." Four guards pounded down the corridor. Adam didn't look. He leaned forward and said, "Maybe next time we'll switch roles, eh mate?"
He released him suddenly and backed quickly to the other side of the cell, lacing his fingers behind his head as he went. Eric jerked himself onto his feet and wheeled to face him as the guards triggered the door. He stepped away from it, rubbing his elbow and snapping it back into socket with a grimace. Adam went to his knees at the other end of the room and crossed his ankles, bending over slightly. The door eased open and the guards remained outside as if reluctant to enter, even to save their supervisor. Eric huffed and walked out, letting it slam shut behind him.
Later, watching the film of the attack, Eric realized that although he'd felt Adam's body against his own clearly, there was nothing to reveal any special motion on the security footage. The man's face was always turned away from the camera and his voice so quiet it didn't pick up on the audio. The fingers that had caressed him briefly were on the opposite side of Monroe's body from the camera. It looked like they'd had a confrontation over the food - there was nothing on film that implicated either of them in anything more. That, more than anything else, made Eric think Adam might actually play along. The only thing he wondered about was how Adam had realized what he was up to so quickly.
Eric Thompson walked into the cell as assertively as before, his conduct giving no sign that he'd been handily defeated the last time he'd entered. Adam was again sitting on his bed, this time with one knee drawn up, this fingers laced around his shin. He waited until Thompson was to him before turning his head languidly to look up at the other man. Thompson raised his chin, the hint of a sneer on his face. Something shifted in Adam's features - they relaxed somehow and he looked open, accepting, and ready. He was waiting.
Thompson hit him across the face as hard as he could and it knocked the smaller man over, breaking his nose and smashing his mouth. Another man would have lost a tooth or two. He started to lift himself up, but Eric was a little quicker, grabbing him by his short hair and pulling him the rest of the way. Adam's throat worked and he stiffened, but he didn't fight back. His eyes shifted up to Thompson's face.
Eric narrowed his eyes and peered at Monroe, looking at where he'd hit him. There was a spot of blood under his nose and a red mark on his upper lip and the side of his mouth. It faded to nothingness while he watched. There was no bruise, no split lip, no other bleeding. He could hit him as much as he wanted and there wouldn't be a mark on him when he was done. Something must have shown on Eric's features because Adam's expression flickered for a moment. He could heal, but he didn't like being hurt. He knew he was going to be.
Thompson pushed him away and straightened, walking off a little. He looked at the gash on his knuckle where he'd torn his hand hitting Adam in the face. He was hurt worse from hitting him than his victim was. He rubbed his thumb across the spot speculatively and turned around. "How did you know about me?"
Adam leaned back, flowing into motion from where he'd remained still after Eric had released him. He didn't really answer, saying, "People are weak. But you've broken enough of them to know that."
Eric waited a beat, then decided he might as well move things along. He stepped forward, fist balled, and Adam said conversationally, "You shouldn't hit me in the face. You'll hurt yourself."
It stopped him. Later he'd think about why Adam was concerned about Eric being hurt. He asked again, "How did you know about me?"
With Thompson looming over him, Adam defied him again and didn't really answer. "People are social creatures. You can't lock them up for years and pretend they're not there, turn away from them, refuse to talk to them and expect them to stay sane."
Thompson slapped him across the face, whipping the blond head to the side. Adam went on like it hadn't happened, just a convenient pause in his statement. "It's worse than being alone. I've been alone. I can do alone. And I can do this, but it affects a person, you see?"
"Yeah, I see," Eric grunted, and grabbed Adam by the throat, jerking him up and away from the bed. He slammed him against the concrete wall, then yanked him back a few inches and slammed the man's head against the hard surface where it rang with a hollow sound. He was gratified to see Monroe's calm expression slacken and his eyes dull as unconsciousness took him for a few seconds. He kneed him in the groin and punched him in the gut before he recovered, following it by yanking up his chin with one hand and punching him in the throat with the knuckles of his other hand.
Adam choked on a crushed windpipe as he regained consciousness and woke to pain flaring across his body. He was thrown roughly over the end of the bed and the thin excuse for trousers they issued around here was pulled down, exposing him. There was a moment of hesitation as Thompson spat on his hand and wet himself, not for Adam's benefit, but so he could shove inside him faster, without friction slowing him so much. He grabbed the blond man's slim hips and thrust into him, having to lean down and press against him to do it, given the bed's height.
He pumped vigorously against the other man until he was entirely sheathed in him, then paused. Adam wasn't resisting him, struggling or fighting at all. He just lay there and took it. Thompson lay across Adam's back, the legs of both men off the bed. It wasn't the most comfortable of positions, especially for the bottom, but he wasn't complaining. Monroe's throat had healed - all of his injuries had. Even the torn flesh of his anus had knit between thrusts until he'd finally relaxed and expanded enough to take Eric without tearing.
Adam turned his head a little, glancing back at the break in the assault. Eric had reached down and was doing something with his pants, which he still wore for the most part, though they'd fallen around his thighs. The clothing shifted and turned and a moment later his woven leather belt came into the smaller man's sight. He turned his face away and rolled his eyes. He knew what was coming and just like everything else, he let it happen. He hoped it would be worth it, later, or next time, or the time after that. He could be afford to be patient.
Thompson looped it around his neck and slipped the end through the buckle, tightening it into a choke chain. Adam reached up a hand and slipped his fingers between the belt and his skin. "Mate?" he asked questioningly. "Is this how it has to be?" He knew what the other man meant to do and it fit with everything he'd heard about him, but the Englishman wasn't very happy about it. If there was a way to talk him out of it, he would. The first time wasn't a good time to make demands though, or even requests, given how insecure he judged his attacker to be.
Eric answered him by starting to rock back and forth against him. He shifted them both more fully onto the bed, riding over Adam, lodged deeply inside him. Adam turned his head back face down against the bed and shut his eyes. No answer meant yes, this was how it had to be. He tried to reconcile himself to it. Thompson growled at him, "Get your hands away from the belt."
Monroe complied and Eric jerked it tighter, strangling the smaller man. Adam winced against it, still able to breathe, but barely. After several more thrusts, Thompson yanked the belt again and his victim could barely rattle out a hoarse wheezing for air, but he didn't resist in any way. Eric applied both hands, pulling on the end until Adam couldn't breathe at all and then using the other hand to jam the tongue of the buckle into the weave of the leather so it wouldn't release the stranglehold. It cut into the smaller man's skin and crushed his windpipe. Adam gritted his teeth. His vision was blurring.
The only advantage to this was the rising euphoria of asphyxiation, intensified by Thompson's movements. Now that his hands were free again, the agent thrust into him energetically, shoving into his body with abandon. For a little while, Adam retained consciousness, his ability fighting against the lack of oxygen and keeping him aware far longer than humanly possible. He was still conscious when the muscle spasms began. They were involuntary and he resisted them as long as he could because for one, it actually did feel incredible to be fucked like this and for two, he didn't want to hurt his attacker.
It wasn't a surprise to Eric. If anything, he was surprised it had taken as long as it had for the end to arrive. He'd begun to wonder if Adam would die at all, or if perhaps he didn't need air to live. When the man began to convulse, he held him down with the weight of his body, grabbing the bed frame with one hand and holding the strap around Adam's neck with the other. He planted his feet and continued to push back and forth within him, pinning him, riding him as the convulsions quickly passed into trembling and finally stopped altogether as his heart stuttered and restarted, stuttered and restarted, time after time.
The sensation of Adam's ability trying to jump start his body ran through Eric like electricity. He was so turned on by the thought that he'd literally fucked the man to death that it put him right over. He held the smaller man's life in his hand, in the form of the leather strap around his throat. If he released that, he would live again. Until he did though, Monroe could only exist in limbo, with Thompson's cock swollen and hard within him and no relief for his victim's unconscious struggles. He spilled into Adam's nearly dead, almost living corpse and bowed over him, groaning loudly.
He panted against the other man's perfect, unblemished back, exposed where his shirt had ridden up his body and was now bunched under his arms. A drop of saliva fell from his mouth onto him. Adam shivered and twitched as he tried to live again. It made a delicious aftershock. Thompson pulled himself in and out a few times as he softened. Adam's ass was slack and unresisting, like the rest of him right now. Eric wondered how many times the body would make the attempt before giving up - if ever. Eric wouldn't survive if he actually killed him for good. He slid out and sat on the bed, looking at the man. His face was swollen and discolored, eyes staring in death. Eric had seen death hundreds of times. This was what it looked like, all right.
He swallowed and took hold of his pants so they wouldn't fall down. He walked over to the sink and cleaned himself up. When he was satisfied with himself, he walked back over and finally released the belt, sliding it free from where it had cut into Adam's neck. He threaded it back through his pants as he watched the man's color return within seconds. Moments after that, he started breathing again - first with a slow, shallow intake and then suddenly with a huge gasp like he'd been drowning. He convulsed again and Thompson was hit sharply across the thigh. He backed away.
Adam blinked and looked around unsteadily, focusing on Eric within a few seconds. He reached down and pulled up his pants with a strange presence of mind. Thompson saw that he'd stained them with cum at some point during their romp. The agent wondered if the man had enjoyed the assault that much, or if it was an involuntary side effect of the strangulation. Monroe's expression gave no clue. He sat up on the bed and sorted himself out, rubbing his neck, then his face.
The blond man looked up at Thompson and gave him a pained smile. "Fancy a spot of rape, do you?"
"You let me do it," Eric said evenly.
"Did I have a choice? I thought that was how the game was played."
"Fight me next time." Thompson turned and walked out, resetting the door once he was outside so it would lock again.
So there'll be a next time, eh? I guess you liked the performance. Adam lay back against the bed and shut his eyes, feeling a strange gratitude for the interaction, sick as it had been. He'd accepted that he was crazy for the time being. The prolonged deprivation of human contact was much like suffocation. He knew that once he could get enough, he'd be normal again, sane, but until then he was struggling for it, flailing almost involuntarily as he fought to gain a place in the social construct - any place other than the solitary confinement imposed on him for so long. It was a pity that his first meaningful contact in over three years had to be with a sadistic psycho.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A week passed and there was no 'next time' within it. Such a short time period should have meant nothing. Adam was restless though. He paced and instead of his usual marathon bouts of exercise, he was anxious and fitful, burning off nervous energy. He became agitated as the days passed from the first week into the second. In the second week he stopped masturbating. He was frustrated in more ways than one. His pacing turned into more strenuous ways to relieve his tension.
He exercised every day, for hours, but it wasn't paced and even like he usually did to while away the hours and days and weeks and months and even years he'd spent maddeningly alone in this cell. No, it was frantic, like he had been in the first few years, when he still half-expected something to happen in the next day or week or year that would end his incarceration. So he sweated, he pushed himself, he worked until he collapsed against the floor. By the end each night, he didn't know why he was doing it. He'd known when he started at the beginning of day sixteen, just like the days before, but like those, by the end when he fell exhausted on the concrete and didn't rise, he couldn't remember why he was pushing himself. That was exactly what he'd been trying to achieve.
Of course that was when the door finally opened.
Eric Thompson stepped into the room and paused to set the door so it wouldn't lock him in. There were three guards in the facility he'd worked with before and one whom he thought he could trust with what he was doing. He hadn't told that one everything though, only enough to ensure security. Three times now he'd gotten away with abusing prisoners slated for termination. The first time he didn't think anyone knew about. The second, he'd been sure he was known - he was caught in the act, after all - but nothing was done. So he did it a third time, brazenly, and again nothing had happened.
Then he'd been promoted to temporary facility manager here, where the Company's most valuable asset was kept. He was sure it wasn't a punishment for his behavior. In fact, he'd gotten the clear message they didn't care as long as he confined his attentions to people they were going to kill anyway.
He'd watched Adam almost ceaselessly since his last time in this cell, watching how the lack of contact ate at the other man. Thompson had stewed silently over what Monroe had told him. They weren't chance words. The man was smart. He was fast and he was strong. He was also clearly in good shape, Eric had realized as he watched the immortal perform feats of human endurance beyond any and every normal human in existence. Maybe Bruce Lee could have given him a run for his money.
Thompson realized Monroe really had just "let him" rape him before. At the time Eric hadn't thought about it much, except that Adam wasn't fighting it. He'd chalked it up to a fear of him not coming back or an uncertainty that Thompson would restrict his food or put him on a gruel diet (that had been tried before as a punishment for not cooperating with blood donations - it didn't work).
Thompson didn't want a consenting partner. At the same time, as he watched the security footage showing Adam whipping through his Nth set of a hundred push-ups or crunches or whatever resistance exercise he was doing at the moment, the agent remembered how hard and firm the muscles had been in the body he held beneath him. He remembered how easily Adam had defeated him the first time he'd entered his cell.
Eric thought a great deal of his own martial prowess. He was one of the best in the world. He knew enough to know when he was bettered. This man had more than 300 years on him of training and practical experience, plus an ability that let him push through pain and recover from injury within seconds. He didn't think he could take Adam without some level of consent. That bothered him a lot, as it ruined the encounter for him, sucking all the joy out of the total domination. Thinking this over had delayed him a lot, enough that he saw the pattern of increasing tension and instability threatening to boil over in the Englishman.
Thompson walked over to him. Adam looked up from the floor, drenched in sweat and so tired that his body was still trembling, his muscles in protest from the strain he'd subjected them to. Eric bent down and slapped a handcuff over one wrist.
"What… what are you doing?"
Eric drug him to his feet and over to the wall. This would be impossible if Adam didn't go along with the first stage, but he'd been hoping the man wouldn't be at the top of his game after driving himself non-stop for over twelve hours. It looked like Thompson's judgment was correct. He snapped the other end of the cuffs into an eyebolt set in the wall for the purpose and slapped another set of handcuffs on the blond's free arm. At that, the man pulled back and Eric felt the strength in that arm, even exhausted as he must be.
But he wasn't really exhausted… not anymore, and becoming less so with every second. Realization flooded through the agent and he abruptly smashed Adam in the nose, stunning him. It was enough time to snap the other end of the cuff into a second eyebolt a few feet away. Then he danced back and none too slow as one of Monroe's feet missed him by inches. He'd almost forgotten how fast a regenerator might recover from something as trivial as exertion. He'd seen it time after time through the day as Adam exercised; stopping for breaks no more than a minute long before throwing himself back into his regimen.
Eric waited, smiling smugly as Adam's head cleared, his face healed and the fatigue left his muscles for good. The man yanked on his bonds once, then turned his head to look back at his captor. Thompson had cuffed him facing the blank wall to eyebolts about four feet apart. The handcuffs gave him about five inches to play with on either hand. It wasn't much to work with. Adam would need to work on the man then, not the equipment.
The handsome man smiled back at the agent. "I thought you said you wanted me to fight you?"
"I haven't changed my mind." He didn't come any closer, just standing where he was and watching.
Adam faced the wall and put his hands flat on it, moving his body closer to it. This was going to be an awfully unfair fight - but that was probably the point. He heard a clink of metal and glanced over. Thompson had tossed the keys to the cuffs over next to the door. He loosened his shirt and slipped out of his shoes. His socks followed. He stretched a little. Adam tensed. He'd hoped things wouldn't go straight to sex, not right away. Even some taunting and monologuing would be better than that.
"You know," the blond man offered, "we could always try talking. There are things I kno-" Eric lunged. Monroe kicked. Thompson expected it and deflected the leg. Adam expected that, or adjusted quickly, grabbing the chain of the cuffs and using that to support himself as he twisted his body and swept with the other leg. He knocked the agent's legs out from under him and Thompson kicked blindly at Adam from the floor, connecting with his heel as he tried to bring it back around. It threw Adam off balance and gave Eric time to scramble back, out of range.
"Good, good," the agent muttered. "You're fast."
Adam eyed him. He still didn't want to hurt him, because a hurt man wouldn't come back. He didn't know how much Thompson might have to explain to others of his injuries, of the blank spaces in his cell camera footage. A few bruises were easily excused, but a broken bone or worse was not. Eric feinted at him. Monroe detected the ruse and didn't react, still watching him. "How far do I take this, mate?" he asked uncertainly.
"No limits. If you get past me, you get out."
Adam raised his brows at how stupid that was. He had to be lying. The small man looked at the door, hope lighting a fire in his breast. It also distracted him. Eric was on him immediately, managing to surge past the sweet range where the restrained man could strike at him most effectively and close to where he had virtually no defenses. He didn't have enough slack to use his elbows. He slammed back with his head but Eric had expected that too. Thompson was one of the Company's best hand-to-hand fighters. It was part of what intrigued him so much with Adam. It was rare he came across someone who could best him easily.
He grabbed the back of Adam's head and tried to smash him into the wall. He didn't succeed much, because Adam shoved off the wall, back far enough that his head barely connected. Thompson ducked to the side and hit him over and over in the kidneys and the small of the back. Monroe stomped on his insole and Eric kneed him in the groin. He grabbed his head again and this time the other man's face hit the wall with a satisfying crunch.
It was probably only a few seconds later when Adam awoke, but it was long enough that Thompson had the prisoner's pants down and his body flat against the wall. He was working at entering him. The Englishman started to fight again, but Eric told him, "Stop it," and began to plunge into him. Adam grunted against the pain and burn. He didn't know the rules of working with this man who was taking him. He didn't know if 'stop it' meant to really stop or if he should keep fighting as directed before.
Obviously, the man wanted to fuck him. Adam wanted him to come back in future. The more contacts he could get, the greater the chance he'd be able to get out (he'd given up on getting any meaningful social contact out of the agent). The path to getting what he wanted seemed to include letting himself be fucked. He put his cheek against the rough concrete and allowed the violation.
Eric took forever, long enough that Adam began to wonder if he had performance issues. It would certainly go along with his insecurity and his preference for partners who didn't have much to say about the coupling. Or, rather, didn't get much of a chance to speak. When he'd finally spent himself, he pulled out and slapped Adam on the ass. "Bitch," he commented with open disgust and walked off to the sink to wash up.
Monroe looked at the wall and gritted his teeth. He was starting to think that perhaps this wasn't worth it. I think I'd rather be alone and insane. He jerked on the handcuffs, making the metal bite into his flesh. It didn't do any good, but it made him feel better. He tugged on the cuffs more gently, looking at what he'd need to do, which bones he'd need to break, to slip them. There'd been no point while Eric was on him, but the other man was busy washing himself off at the moment. A quick yank with all his strength was what it took - first one arm, then the other.
Thompson didn't know what he heard or perhaps saw out of the corner of his eye, but there was something that warned him. He threw himself to the side as Adam crashed into the space he'd occupied only a fraction of a second before. If he'd moved sooner, Monroe could have stopped. Later and he wouldn't have been out of the way. Adam slammed himself awkwardly into the metal sink.
By the time he recovered, Eric had his hands on the smaller man and tried to acquaint his face more firmly with the sink. It didn't work. Adam got a hand in front of himself and blocked it, then stomped downward and to the side where he knew Thompson's leg had to be. The knee joint snapped and Eric knew he was in trouble. So did Adam. He'd gotten carried away, heady with the idea that maybe, just maybe, Thompson hadn't lied and if he got past him, he could get out. He hesitated. If Thompson had lied, then it was necessary not to rough him up too much - but that boat might have already sailed, depending on how forgiving the man was. He didn't seem very forgiving.
Eric shifted his weight to his good leg and with one hand still on Adam's collar from his earlier attempt to bash his head into the sink, he punched the other man in the sternum hard enough to knock the breath from him. He yanked him closer and followed with an uppercut.
Adam tried to twist away from him. Distance would handicap Eric and give the blond man time to think of his next move. Thompson still had a death grip on his shirt, which for some perverse reason was not tearing. The shoddy fabric had never shown such stubborn resistance before. The agent yanked him off balance and they both fell. Thompson's disadvantage from his leg wasn't neutralized, but it was greatly diminished.
For a moment, all Adam tried to do was get away while doing as little harm to Thompson as possible. He didn't think he could salvage the situation, but there was a slender chance and he didn't want to make it no chance at all. His goal in the struggle made it harder for him and although Adam was masterful at combat, Eric was no slouch. He got his hands on Monroe's throat and for a moment the smaller man didn't bother to shake him off. That was a mistake, as the other man dug his fingers under his jaw and into his carotid artery, blocking blood flow to his brain instead of trying to cut off his air. Eric hung on with everything he had. In Adam's last flickering moment of consciousness, he decided he needed to get serious with this.
He woke up to the sensation of Thompson trying to bash his brains out against the floor. The world was spinning, everything hurt and he felt nauseous from multiple concussions in various stages of healing. But for a second, while he paused for breath and to shift his grip, Eric wasn't aware his victim had regained consciousness. Adam punched straight up from the floor and into the agent's face as he leaned over him again. It broke his nose across the bridge and Thompson lurched away from him.
Adam staggered up, the back of his head wet from blood. It flashed through his mind that he'd let this man fuck him twice, even submitted to being killed, and this was the reward he got from it. He didn't feel rewarded enough yet, but he was going to. It would have gone down so much better if he'd gotten so much as a single kind word - any recognition at all that he was a human being and not a piece of meat to be brutalized and penetrated. Bishop had been better than this. He wondered if the Company was intentionally recruiting bastards these days. He lunged at Thompson.
A few minutes later, Adam tried the door. To his wonder and delight, it was unlocked. A silly, enormous grin plastered itself across his face. He hurried down the hall to the inner door. It was locked. The smile vanished. He wasn't really surprised, but even a small chance had been a chance. He put his head against the door silently. There was only one way out of this section and this was it. He knew that very well. He tried the door again. It was still locked. He'd already searched Thompson. He didn't have a key, which meant he had to have a confederate among the guards. That wasn't surprising either, since it was how the guard Monroe had talked with had gotten his information about Thompson's practices. Adam looked up at the security camera that covered the door. Unlike the one in his cell, this one was on. He punched the door hard enough to break several bones in his hand and snarled. The guards would be here in two minutes, tops. It didn't give him much time.
They shot him to death. It was standard protocol if he was violent and they had ample evidence of that, even though he just put his arms up and stood there for the hail of bullets. Eric was bent over Adam's bed, hands cuffed to the wall behind it, his pants discarded and his ass bleeding. So was his mouth, his nose and one eye that was gouged out and hung down his cheek. He was disoriented and unable to respond coherently. His breath gurgled and caught like his lungs were slowly filling with blood. His knee was dislocated and who knew what other injuries he had. Dr. Zimmerman, who came in after the room was secure, took one good look at Thompson and went to Adam's side with his equipment. As he bent to draw the restorative blood he would need to repair Eric, he told the guard, "Shoot him if he so much as twitches."
It seemed wrong to Eric that he was back at work without a hitch in little over an hour. He watched the screen showing Adam's cell. The man was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall much as he had been doing when Eric first saw him, but now his room was decorated with dark smears of blood, most of it Eric's, and his shirt was tattered and stained with his own blood.
The agent didn't know if he'd been sexually assaulted or if the Englishman had merely staged it. He didn't remember being hurt, just as he didn't remember being revived. He recalled Adam jumping at him, grabbing his head… he supposed he was concussed. Everything after that point was gone until he woke up in Dr. Zimmerman's infirmary. He'd looked at the time stamps and he didn't think Adam had had enough time… not unless he was really quick about it.
But if he didn't have enough time, then it meant he'd staged it. The only good reason Eric could think of for Adam to make it look like he'd assaulted him was to cover the reason for Thompson's presence in the cell in the first place - if he was hurt humiliatingly enough, then it wouldn't be spoken of, might not be reported, and thus never questioned. It had to be bad enough to erase any ideas of consent and severe enough for Zimmerman to heal him immediately, without calling for authorization first. There were a few other possible reasons, but they didn't fit with the surprisingly calculating mind he'd found the Englishman to possess. It also meant that even after what had happened, Adam still held hope that Eric would come back.
Thompson stroked his chin between forefinger and thumb, watching the blond man. He spent the next half hour considering various punishments and tortures he could inflict on him for his insubordination, for the escape attempt, for the humiliation. He'd already inflicted pain and suffering on the man without evoking so much as a flinch. He'd already raped him and murdered him and Adam had bowed to it with equanimity. He had no privileges Eric could take away, because he had none to start with - things like lighting, clothing, temperature and the like were within Thompson's ability to manipulate, but it wouldn't last and they'd been tried before.
In the end he settled on the thing he gauged would hurt Adam Monroe the most. He would do nothing - he would leave the immortal man entirely alone. It was the only thing he'd seen that had induced a stress reaction from him, the only thing that had worked him up and upset him. It was the punishment Adam had suffered all else trying to avoid. The next day he caught the guard who had talked to Adam, the one who had worked with Eric before and who had been watching the door while Thompson had his fun. He made sure he'd never talk to Monroe again. The punishment was then complete.
Pairing: Adam/Thompson, cameo by Bob Bishop
Rating: NC-17. Or X, because this is definitely harder-core than most of my stuff I usually mark as NC-17.
Summary: This is a two-chapter story set in the mid-eighties, while Adam Monroe is a prisoner of the Company. He’s been held for nearly a decade at this point and he’s gone a little crazy around the edges. Thompson has been with the Company for five or six years now, being one of their earliest recruits. He’s about 30 years old here. This is set in the Shattered Salvation AU, but you need know nothing of that series to understand this.
Warnings: All kinds of warnings - and I mean it. This is not for the faint-hearted or weak-stomached. We have graphic rape, torture, death and snuff!sex here. There’s sadism, but it’s pretty impersonal and selfish. There would be masochism, but the victim doesn’t enjoy it. One of the characters here is determinedly evil. The other is just desperate. It’s a bad combination.
Thompson trailed along after Bob Bishop while the other man showed him around Primatech Research in Hartsdale. Bob would be leaving in a few days with his wife and another couple for a vacation in Peru. Sightseeing was the reason Bishop was giving for his trip, but Eric didn't believe it for a second. It didn't matter much to the agent because whatever the story, it put Thompson in charge of the containment portion of the Company's most extensive facility. Right now he was getting 'the tour' and they were entering a self-contained, sealed section of level 3.
He'd seen it before, of course, but never with the express purpose of being in charge of the place and responsible for the containment of the people incarcerated here. They stopped outside one of the two cells in this special ward. Bob said, "This is our most important subject. I assume you've heard of him?" He smiled thinly, amusement sparking in his eyes along with something else less friendly.
Thompson looked in at the lean blond man sitting on the bed. He was staring off at the opposite wall, not bothering to look at his visitors. He had the feeling the man was aware of their presence though - very aware. He merely did not deign to look at them. Eric smiled slowly. This could only be one person. "So that's him?"
Bob nodded and then giggled for no apparent reason.
Eric raised a brow at him, but Bob didn't explain. He'd been erratic of late, which was probably the reason for the 'vacation.' The senior agent looked back in the cell. "He's the one who made it all possible - the whole Company - the one who started it all."
"He still makes it possible," Bob said.
Eric looked back at the director and nodded slowly. "He's the source of the resurrection serum? The man who can't be killed?"
Bob giggled again and seemed to struggle with himself. He coughed and got out, "Yes. Watch out for him; he bites."
"He bites?" Eric eyed Bob intently, but the older man only waggled his brows suggestively.
After an awkward pause, the director said, "We've had him for nearly ten years." Bishop tittered nervously. "The policy is that he's to be kept in complete isolation - no contact of any kind. Deliver meals and fresh clothing; take trays and soiled clothes - that's all. You should even limit viewing like what we're doing to a need-only basis." He paused, then added, "He is never to be out of this cell. Do you understand that? Never." His voice turned angry and harsh at the end.
Thompson narrowed his eyes at the other man. "Of course."
Bob smiled unctuously and waved back the way they had come, for there was nothing else to see in this ward. "Good. Then let's move on."
Eric sent a lingering glance back in the room at the handsome prisoner. He wondered how Bob knew he was a biter if they never went in his cell.
---------
A week later, he had been in charge for a few days, getting familiar with the schedule, the guards and the issues. All of the inmates they were holding had been there for a month or more and most for more than a year. As a result, they were fairly settled into their routine and there were few problems. There were case files he could read to understand the histories on each inmate, with one exception: Adam Monroe. His file was a collection of uninteresting trivia and redacted log entries. He'd been here for nearly a decade and he had the thinnest file. The only thing in it of interest was a detailed protocol on how to subdue him in order to draw his blood. Apparently he was not cooperative with the process.
Thompson carried lunch down separately after the guards took around the rest of the meals. The disruption in routine had caught Adam's attention as Thompson thought it would. Walking into his cell like he owned it cemented it. Eric set the food tray down on the table and pulled the single chair out, sinking into it in a relaxed manner. He looked over at the blond man and smiled slowly.
Adam looked at his lunch sitting in front of Eric and recognized the challenge. He snorted softly. "You think quite a lot of yourself, don't you?"
Thompson licked his lips and leaned forward, picking up the plastic spoon. Adam stood up in a single, fluid motion. For several seconds, neither man moved further, then Eric leaned back slightly and lowered the utensil. Adam walked to the back of his cell as far away as he could get. He paced back and forth. He'd been told about Thompson's arrival and he'd seen him on the tour, but he hadn't expected a personal visit. He hadn't had a personal visit in a very long time.
It had taken him most of a year to get one of the guards to tell him the barest details of life beyond his cell. He didn't care about what happened out there - not really. It had been an immense relief just to have his existence and his humanity acknowledged by someone. He'd never realized how much that sort of thing was necessary for a man's sanity. And now not only was it being acknowledged, but he had a man in his cell with him, talking…
Thompson said, "There's not much in your file, Adam. Makes me wonder. Makes me wonder if you'd even starve, were I to quit feeding you." He reached forward with the spoon and stirred it through the sauce of the main dish.
Adam stopped pacing immediately and looked at him with narrowed eyes. It wasn't so much that his dignity rebelled at the idea of Eric eating his food, but clearly the man had issued a challenge and wanted it answered. He was playing at something here, trying to prove a point. "I wouldn't, but you're not taking anything that's mine without a fight." He was across the length of the cell. Eric tilted his head a fraction and smirked, lifting the spoon towards his mouth. Adam rushed across the room far faster than he'd expected - faster than he'd even thought possible, for someone who didn't have enhanced speed.
Thompson threw himself backwards out of the chair as Monroe landed on top of him and rolled, twisting his hands into Eric's shirt and yanking. He took both their momentum and slammed Thompson into the concrete wall, spinning on his back and kicking the other man (hard, but not too hard) in the sternum only a second later. Eric struggled to get a breath as Adam came for him again, this time jerking him to his feet and slamming Thompson's head against the metal door with a carefully calculated degree of force. Before Eric could recover, Adam had his arm twisted behind his back and was knocking his feet back from the wall, shoving his upper body against it.
He stood between his legs and leaned up against him as Eric finally got oxygen and blinked the stars out of his vision. It had all happened so fast… Adam leaned up close to his ear and said quietly, "Now, you either came here to make a deal, or to play a game. Which is it?"
"There is no deal!" he snarled.
He felt Adam's grip relax slightly, but not enough. "Oh? So it's a game, is it? I like games. Is this the one where I get to play the cruel prison warden who tortures his helpless prisoner?" His grip tightened again and he ground himself slowly against Thompson, hardly moving his body other than to selectively press against him. The fingers of his other hand ghosted across his side. Eric froze for a moment, then fought back as hard as he could. He had no leverage, though, and Adam ratcheted up the pressure on his arm until something popped with a white-hot surge of pain.
"Ah!" he cried out and paused in trying to get free. It wasn't doing him any good, anyway. The little man was far stronger than he looked.
Adam said, "Look what you did to yourself, mate. It's dislocated for sure now." He breathed more softly, offering what he'd been told Eric wanted, luring him in, "I think maybe the prisoner has been held for years without the most basic of human contact. Maybe he would do just about anything for that. Maybe he'd even let the warden beat him." Four guards pounded down the corridor. Adam didn't look. He leaned forward and said, "Maybe next time we'll switch roles, eh mate?"
He released him suddenly and backed quickly to the other side of the cell, lacing his fingers behind his head as he went. Eric jerked himself onto his feet and wheeled to face him as the guards triggered the door. He stepped away from it, rubbing his elbow and snapping it back into socket with a grimace. Adam went to his knees at the other end of the room and crossed his ankles, bending over slightly. The door eased open and the guards remained outside as if reluctant to enter, even to save their supervisor. Eric huffed and walked out, letting it slam shut behind him.
Later, watching the film of the attack, Eric realized that although he'd felt Adam's body against his own clearly, there was nothing to reveal any special motion on the security footage. The man's face was always turned away from the camera and his voice so quiet it didn't pick up on the audio. The fingers that had caressed him briefly were on the opposite side of Monroe's body from the camera. It looked like they'd had a confrontation over the food - there was nothing on film that implicated either of them in anything more. That, more than anything else, made Eric think Adam might actually play along. The only thing he wondered about was how Adam had realized what he was up to so quickly.
Eric Thompson walked into the cell as assertively as before, his conduct giving no sign that he'd been handily defeated the last time he'd entered. Adam was again sitting on his bed, this time with one knee drawn up, this fingers laced around his shin. He waited until Thompson was to him before turning his head languidly to look up at the other man. Thompson raised his chin, the hint of a sneer on his face. Something shifted in Adam's features - they relaxed somehow and he looked open, accepting, and ready. He was waiting.
Thompson hit him across the face as hard as he could and it knocked the smaller man over, breaking his nose and smashing his mouth. Another man would have lost a tooth or two. He started to lift himself up, but Eric was a little quicker, grabbing him by his short hair and pulling him the rest of the way. Adam's throat worked and he stiffened, but he didn't fight back. His eyes shifted up to Thompson's face.
Eric narrowed his eyes and peered at Monroe, looking at where he'd hit him. There was a spot of blood under his nose and a red mark on his upper lip and the side of his mouth. It faded to nothingness while he watched. There was no bruise, no split lip, no other bleeding. He could hit him as much as he wanted and there wouldn't be a mark on him when he was done. Something must have shown on Eric's features because Adam's expression flickered for a moment. He could heal, but he didn't like being hurt. He knew he was going to be.
Thompson pushed him away and straightened, walking off a little. He looked at the gash on his knuckle where he'd torn his hand hitting Adam in the face. He was hurt worse from hitting him than his victim was. He rubbed his thumb across the spot speculatively and turned around. "How did you know about me?"
Adam leaned back, flowing into motion from where he'd remained still after Eric had released him. He didn't really answer, saying, "People are weak. But you've broken enough of them to know that."
Eric waited a beat, then decided he might as well move things along. He stepped forward, fist balled, and Adam said conversationally, "You shouldn't hit me in the face. You'll hurt yourself."
It stopped him. Later he'd think about why Adam was concerned about Eric being hurt. He asked again, "How did you know about me?"
With Thompson looming over him, Adam defied him again and didn't really answer. "People are social creatures. You can't lock them up for years and pretend they're not there, turn away from them, refuse to talk to them and expect them to stay sane."
Thompson slapped him across the face, whipping the blond head to the side. Adam went on like it hadn't happened, just a convenient pause in his statement. "It's worse than being alone. I've been alone. I can do alone. And I can do this, but it affects a person, you see?"
"Yeah, I see," Eric grunted, and grabbed Adam by the throat, jerking him up and away from the bed. He slammed him against the concrete wall, then yanked him back a few inches and slammed the man's head against the hard surface where it rang with a hollow sound. He was gratified to see Monroe's calm expression slacken and his eyes dull as unconsciousness took him for a few seconds. He kneed him in the groin and punched him in the gut before he recovered, following it by yanking up his chin with one hand and punching him in the throat with the knuckles of his other hand.
Adam choked on a crushed windpipe as he regained consciousness and woke to pain flaring across his body. He was thrown roughly over the end of the bed and the thin excuse for trousers they issued around here was pulled down, exposing him. There was a moment of hesitation as Thompson spat on his hand and wet himself, not for Adam's benefit, but so he could shove inside him faster, without friction slowing him so much. He grabbed the blond man's slim hips and thrust into him, having to lean down and press against him to do it, given the bed's height.
He pumped vigorously against the other man until he was entirely sheathed in him, then paused. Adam wasn't resisting him, struggling or fighting at all. He just lay there and took it. Thompson lay across Adam's back, the legs of both men off the bed. It wasn't the most comfortable of positions, especially for the bottom, but he wasn't complaining. Monroe's throat had healed - all of his injuries had. Even the torn flesh of his anus had knit between thrusts until he'd finally relaxed and expanded enough to take Eric without tearing.
Adam turned his head a little, glancing back at the break in the assault. Eric had reached down and was doing something with his pants, which he still wore for the most part, though they'd fallen around his thighs. The clothing shifted and turned and a moment later his woven leather belt came into the smaller man's sight. He turned his face away and rolled his eyes. He knew what was coming and just like everything else, he let it happen. He hoped it would be worth it, later, or next time, or the time after that. He could be afford to be patient.
Thompson looped it around his neck and slipped the end through the buckle, tightening it into a choke chain. Adam reached up a hand and slipped his fingers between the belt and his skin. "Mate?" he asked questioningly. "Is this how it has to be?" He knew what the other man meant to do and it fit with everything he'd heard about him, but the Englishman wasn't very happy about it. If there was a way to talk him out of it, he would. The first time wasn't a good time to make demands though, or even requests, given how insecure he judged his attacker to be.
Eric answered him by starting to rock back and forth against him. He shifted them both more fully onto the bed, riding over Adam, lodged deeply inside him. Adam turned his head back face down against the bed and shut his eyes. No answer meant yes, this was how it had to be. He tried to reconcile himself to it. Thompson growled at him, "Get your hands away from the belt."
Monroe complied and Eric jerked it tighter, strangling the smaller man. Adam winced against it, still able to breathe, but barely. After several more thrusts, Thompson yanked the belt again and his victim could barely rattle out a hoarse wheezing for air, but he didn't resist in any way. Eric applied both hands, pulling on the end until Adam couldn't breathe at all and then using the other hand to jam the tongue of the buckle into the weave of the leather so it wouldn't release the stranglehold. It cut into the smaller man's skin and crushed his windpipe. Adam gritted his teeth. His vision was blurring.
The only advantage to this was the rising euphoria of asphyxiation, intensified by Thompson's movements. Now that his hands were free again, the agent thrust into him energetically, shoving into his body with abandon. For a little while, Adam retained consciousness, his ability fighting against the lack of oxygen and keeping him aware far longer than humanly possible. He was still conscious when the muscle spasms began. They were involuntary and he resisted them as long as he could because for one, it actually did feel incredible to be fucked like this and for two, he didn't want to hurt his attacker.
It wasn't a surprise to Eric. If anything, he was surprised it had taken as long as it had for the end to arrive. He'd begun to wonder if Adam would die at all, or if perhaps he didn't need air to live. When the man began to convulse, he held him down with the weight of his body, grabbing the bed frame with one hand and holding the strap around Adam's neck with the other. He planted his feet and continued to push back and forth within him, pinning him, riding him as the convulsions quickly passed into trembling and finally stopped altogether as his heart stuttered and restarted, stuttered and restarted, time after time.
The sensation of Adam's ability trying to jump start his body ran through Eric like electricity. He was so turned on by the thought that he'd literally fucked the man to death that it put him right over. He held the smaller man's life in his hand, in the form of the leather strap around his throat. If he released that, he would live again. Until he did though, Monroe could only exist in limbo, with Thompson's cock swollen and hard within him and no relief for his victim's unconscious struggles. He spilled into Adam's nearly dead, almost living corpse and bowed over him, groaning loudly.
He panted against the other man's perfect, unblemished back, exposed where his shirt had ridden up his body and was now bunched under his arms. A drop of saliva fell from his mouth onto him. Adam shivered and twitched as he tried to live again. It made a delicious aftershock. Thompson pulled himself in and out a few times as he softened. Adam's ass was slack and unresisting, like the rest of him right now. Eric wondered how many times the body would make the attempt before giving up - if ever. Eric wouldn't survive if he actually killed him for good. He slid out and sat on the bed, looking at the man. His face was swollen and discolored, eyes staring in death. Eric had seen death hundreds of times. This was what it looked like, all right.
He swallowed and took hold of his pants so they wouldn't fall down. He walked over to the sink and cleaned himself up. When he was satisfied with himself, he walked back over and finally released the belt, sliding it free from where it had cut into Adam's neck. He threaded it back through his pants as he watched the man's color return within seconds. Moments after that, he started breathing again - first with a slow, shallow intake and then suddenly with a huge gasp like he'd been drowning. He convulsed again and Thompson was hit sharply across the thigh. He backed away.
Adam blinked and looked around unsteadily, focusing on Eric within a few seconds. He reached down and pulled up his pants with a strange presence of mind. Thompson saw that he'd stained them with cum at some point during their romp. The agent wondered if the man had enjoyed the assault that much, or if it was an involuntary side effect of the strangulation. Monroe's expression gave no clue. He sat up on the bed and sorted himself out, rubbing his neck, then his face.
The blond man looked up at Thompson and gave him a pained smile. "Fancy a spot of rape, do you?"
"You let me do it," Eric said evenly.
"Did I have a choice? I thought that was how the game was played."
"Fight me next time." Thompson turned and walked out, resetting the door once he was outside so it would lock again.
So there'll be a next time, eh? I guess you liked the performance. Adam lay back against the bed and shut his eyes, feeling a strange gratitude for the interaction, sick as it had been. He'd accepted that he was crazy for the time being. The prolonged deprivation of human contact was much like suffocation. He knew that once he could get enough, he'd be normal again, sane, but until then he was struggling for it, flailing almost involuntarily as he fought to gain a place in the social construct - any place other than the solitary confinement imposed on him for so long. It was a pity that his first meaningful contact in over three years had to be with a sadistic psycho.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
A week passed and there was no 'next time' within it. Such a short time period should have meant nothing. Adam was restless though. He paced and instead of his usual marathon bouts of exercise, he was anxious and fitful, burning off nervous energy. He became agitated as the days passed from the first week into the second. In the second week he stopped masturbating. He was frustrated in more ways than one. His pacing turned into more strenuous ways to relieve his tension.
He exercised every day, for hours, but it wasn't paced and even like he usually did to while away the hours and days and weeks and months and even years he'd spent maddeningly alone in this cell. No, it was frantic, like he had been in the first few years, when he still half-expected something to happen in the next day or week or year that would end his incarceration. So he sweated, he pushed himself, he worked until he collapsed against the floor. By the end each night, he didn't know why he was doing it. He'd known when he started at the beginning of day sixteen, just like the days before, but like those, by the end when he fell exhausted on the concrete and didn't rise, he couldn't remember why he was pushing himself. That was exactly what he'd been trying to achieve.
Of course that was when the door finally opened.
Eric Thompson stepped into the room and paused to set the door so it wouldn't lock him in. There were three guards in the facility he'd worked with before and one whom he thought he could trust with what he was doing. He hadn't told that one everything though, only enough to ensure security. Three times now he'd gotten away with abusing prisoners slated for termination. The first time he didn't think anyone knew about. The second, he'd been sure he was known - he was caught in the act, after all - but nothing was done. So he did it a third time, brazenly, and again nothing had happened.
Then he'd been promoted to temporary facility manager here, where the Company's most valuable asset was kept. He was sure it wasn't a punishment for his behavior. In fact, he'd gotten the clear message they didn't care as long as he confined his attentions to people they were going to kill anyway.
He'd watched Adam almost ceaselessly since his last time in this cell, watching how the lack of contact ate at the other man. Thompson had stewed silently over what Monroe had told him. They weren't chance words. The man was smart. He was fast and he was strong. He was also clearly in good shape, Eric had realized as he watched the immortal perform feats of human endurance beyond any and every normal human in existence. Maybe Bruce Lee could have given him a run for his money.
Thompson realized Monroe really had just "let him" rape him before. At the time Eric hadn't thought about it much, except that Adam wasn't fighting it. He'd chalked it up to a fear of him not coming back or an uncertainty that Thompson would restrict his food or put him on a gruel diet (that had been tried before as a punishment for not cooperating with blood donations - it didn't work).
Thompson didn't want a consenting partner. At the same time, as he watched the security footage showing Adam whipping through his Nth set of a hundred push-ups or crunches or whatever resistance exercise he was doing at the moment, the agent remembered how hard and firm the muscles had been in the body he held beneath him. He remembered how easily Adam had defeated him the first time he'd entered his cell.
Eric thought a great deal of his own martial prowess. He was one of the best in the world. He knew enough to know when he was bettered. This man had more than 300 years on him of training and practical experience, plus an ability that let him push through pain and recover from injury within seconds. He didn't think he could take Adam without some level of consent. That bothered him a lot, as it ruined the encounter for him, sucking all the joy out of the total domination. Thinking this over had delayed him a lot, enough that he saw the pattern of increasing tension and instability threatening to boil over in the Englishman.
Thompson walked over to him. Adam looked up from the floor, drenched in sweat and so tired that his body was still trembling, his muscles in protest from the strain he'd subjected them to. Eric bent down and slapped a handcuff over one wrist.
"What… what are you doing?"
Eric drug him to his feet and over to the wall. This would be impossible if Adam didn't go along with the first stage, but he'd been hoping the man wouldn't be at the top of his game after driving himself non-stop for over twelve hours. It looked like Thompson's judgment was correct. He snapped the other end of the cuffs into an eyebolt set in the wall for the purpose and slapped another set of handcuffs on the blond's free arm. At that, the man pulled back and Eric felt the strength in that arm, even exhausted as he must be.
But he wasn't really exhausted… not anymore, and becoming less so with every second. Realization flooded through the agent and he abruptly smashed Adam in the nose, stunning him. It was enough time to snap the other end of the cuff into a second eyebolt a few feet away. Then he danced back and none too slow as one of Monroe's feet missed him by inches. He'd almost forgotten how fast a regenerator might recover from something as trivial as exertion. He'd seen it time after time through the day as Adam exercised; stopping for breaks no more than a minute long before throwing himself back into his regimen.
Eric waited, smiling smugly as Adam's head cleared, his face healed and the fatigue left his muscles for good. The man yanked on his bonds once, then turned his head to look back at his captor. Thompson had cuffed him facing the blank wall to eyebolts about four feet apart. The handcuffs gave him about five inches to play with on either hand. It wasn't much to work with. Adam would need to work on the man then, not the equipment.
The handsome man smiled back at the agent. "I thought you said you wanted me to fight you?"
"I haven't changed my mind." He didn't come any closer, just standing where he was and watching.
Adam faced the wall and put his hands flat on it, moving his body closer to it. This was going to be an awfully unfair fight - but that was probably the point. He heard a clink of metal and glanced over. Thompson had tossed the keys to the cuffs over next to the door. He loosened his shirt and slipped out of his shoes. His socks followed. He stretched a little. Adam tensed. He'd hoped things wouldn't go straight to sex, not right away. Even some taunting and monologuing would be better than that.
"You know," the blond man offered, "we could always try talking. There are things I kno-" Eric lunged. Monroe kicked. Thompson expected it and deflected the leg. Adam expected that, or adjusted quickly, grabbing the chain of the cuffs and using that to support himself as he twisted his body and swept with the other leg. He knocked the agent's legs out from under him and Thompson kicked blindly at Adam from the floor, connecting with his heel as he tried to bring it back around. It threw Adam off balance and gave Eric time to scramble back, out of range.
"Good, good," the agent muttered. "You're fast."
Adam eyed him. He still didn't want to hurt him, because a hurt man wouldn't come back. He didn't know how much Thompson might have to explain to others of his injuries, of the blank spaces in his cell camera footage. A few bruises were easily excused, but a broken bone or worse was not. Eric feinted at him. Monroe detected the ruse and didn't react, still watching him. "How far do I take this, mate?" he asked uncertainly.
"No limits. If you get past me, you get out."
Adam raised his brows at how stupid that was. He had to be lying. The small man looked at the door, hope lighting a fire in his breast. It also distracted him. Eric was on him immediately, managing to surge past the sweet range where the restrained man could strike at him most effectively and close to where he had virtually no defenses. He didn't have enough slack to use his elbows. He slammed back with his head but Eric had expected that too. Thompson was one of the Company's best hand-to-hand fighters. It was part of what intrigued him so much with Adam. It was rare he came across someone who could best him easily.
He grabbed the back of Adam's head and tried to smash him into the wall. He didn't succeed much, because Adam shoved off the wall, back far enough that his head barely connected. Thompson ducked to the side and hit him over and over in the kidneys and the small of the back. Monroe stomped on his insole and Eric kneed him in the groin. He grabbed his head again and this time the other man's face hit the wall with a satisfying crunch.
It was probably only a few seconds later when Adam awoke, but it was long enough that Thompson had the prisoner's pants down and his body flat against the wall. He was working at entering him. The Englishman started to fight again, but Eric told him, "Stop it," and began to plunge into him. Adam grunted against the pain and burn. He didn't know the rules of working with this man who was taking him. He didn't know if 'stop it' meant to really stop or if he should keep fighting as directed before.
Obviously, the man wanted to fuck him. Adam wanted him to come back in future. The more contacts he could get, the greater the chance he'd be able to get out (he'd given up on getting any meaningful social contact out of the agent). The path to getting what he wanted seemed to include letting himself be fucked. He put his cheek against the rough concrete and allowed the violation.
Eric took forever, long enough that Adam began to wonder if he had performance issues. It would certainly go along with his insecurity and his preference for partners who didn't have much to say about the coupling. Or, rather, didn't get much of a chance to speak. When he'd finally spent himself, he pulled out and slapped Adam on the ass. "Bitch," he commented with open disgust and walked off to the sink to wash up.
Monroe looked at the wall and gritted his teeth. He was starting to think that perhaps this wasn't worth it. I think I'd rather be alone and insane. He jerked on the handcuffs, making the metal bite into his flesh. It didn't do any good, but it made him feel better. He tugged on the cuffs more gently, looking at what he'd need to do, which bones he'd need to break, to slip them. There'd been no point while Eric was on him, but the other man was busy washing himself off at the moment. A quick yank with all his strength was what it took - first one arm, then the other.
Thompson didn't know what he heard or perhaps saw out of the corner of his eye, but there was something that warned him. He threw himself to the side as Adam crashed into the space he'd occupied only a fraction of a second before. If he'd moved sooner, Monroe could have stopped. Later and he wouldn't have been out of the way. Adam slammed himself awkwardly into the metal sink.
By the time he recovered, Eric had his hands on the smaller man and tried to acquaint his face more firmly with the sink. It didn't work. Adam got a hand in front of himself and blocked it, then stomped downward and to the side where he knew Thompson's leg had to be. The knee joint snapped and Eric knew he was in trouble. So did Adam. He'd gotten carried away, heady with the idea that maybe, just maybe, Thompson hadn't lied and if he got past him, he could get out. He hesitated. If Thompson had lied, then it was necessary not to rough him up too much - but that boat might have already sailed, depending on how forgiving the man was. He didn't seem very forgiving.
Eric shifted his weight to his good leg and with one hand still on Adam's collar from his earlier attempt to bash his head into the sink, he punched the other man in the sternum hard enough to knock the breath from him. He yanked him closer and followed with an uppercut.
Adam tried to twist away from him. Distance would handicap Eric and give the blond man time to think of his next move. Thompson still had a death grip on his shirt, which for some perverse reason was not tearing. The shoddy fabric had never shown such stubborn resistance before. The agent yanked him off balance and they both fell. Thompson's disadvantage from his leg wasn't neutralized, but it was greatly diminished.
For a moment, all Adam tried to do was get away while doing as little harm to Thompson as possible. He didn't think he could salvage the situation, but there was a slender chance and he didn't want to make it no chance at all. His goal in the struggle made it harder for him and although Adam was masterful at combat, Eric was no slouch. He got his hands on Monroe's throat and for a moment the smaller man didn't bother to shake him off. That was a mistake, as the other man dug his fingers under his jaw and into his carotid artery, blocking blood flow to his brain instead of trying to cut off his air. Eric hung on with everything he had. In Adam's last flickering moment of consciousness, he decided he needed to get serious with this.
He woke up to the sensation of Thompson trying to bash his brains out against the floor. The world was spinning, everything hurt and he felt nauseous from multiple concussions in various stages of healing. But for a second, while he paused for breath and to shift his grip, Eric wasn't aware his victim had regained consciousness. Adam punched straight up from the floor and into the agent's face as he leaned over him again. It broke his nose across the bridge and Thompson lurched away from him.
Adam staggered up, the back of his head wet from blood. It flashed through his mind that he'd let this man fuck him twice, even submitted to being killed, and this was the reward he got from it. He didn't feel rewarded enough yet, but he was going to. It would have gone down so much better if he'd gotten so much as a single kind word - any recognition at all that he was a human being and not a piece of meat to be brutalized and penetrated. Bishop had been better than this. He wondered if the Company was intentionally recruiting bastards these days. He lunged at Thompson.
A few minutes later, Adam tried the door. To his wonder and delight, it was unlocked. A silly, enormous grin plastered itself across his face. He hurried down the hall to the inner door. It was locked. The smile vanished. He wasn't really surprised, but even a small chance had been a chance. He put his head against the door silently. There was only one way out of this section and this was it. He knew that very well. He tried the door again. It was still locked. He'd already searched Thompson. He didn't have a key, which meant he had to have a confederate among the guards. That wasn't surprising either, since it was how the guard Monroe had talked with had gotten his information about Thompson's practices. Adam looked up at the security camera that covered the door. Unlike the one in his cell, this one was on. He punched the door hard enough to break several bones in his hand and snarled. The guards would be here in two minutes, tops. It didn't give him much time.
They shot him to death. It was standard protocol if he was violent and they had ample evidence of that, even though he just put his arms up and stood there for the hail of bullets. Eric was bent over Adam's bed, hands cuffed to the wall behind it, his pants discarded and his ass bleeding. So was his mouth, his nose and one eye that was gouged out and hung down his cheek. He was disoriented and unable to respond coherently. His breath gurgled and caught like his lungs were slowly filling with blood. His knee was dislocated and who knew what other injuries he had. Dr. Zimmerman, who came in after the room was secure, took one good look at Thompson and went to Adam's side with his equipment. As he bent to draw the restorative blood he would need to repair Eric, he told the guard, "Shoot him if he so much as twitches."
It seemed wrong to Eric that he was back at work without a hitch in little over an hour. He watched the screen showing Adam's cell. The man was sitting on his bed, staring at the wall much as he had been doing when Eric first saw him, but now his room was decorated with dark smears of blood, most of it Eric's, and his shirt was tattered and stained with his own blood.
The agent didn't know if he'd been sexually assaulted or if the Englishman had merely staged it. He didn't remember being hurt, just as he didn't remember being revived. He recalled Adam jumping at him, grabbing his head… he supposed he was concussed. Everything after that point was gone until he woke up in Dr. Zimmerman's infirmary. He'd looked at the time stamps and he didn't think Adam had had enough time… not unless he was really quick about it.
But if he didn't have enough time, then it meant he'd staged it. The only good reason Eric could think of for Adam to make it look like he'd assaulted him was to cover the reason for Thompson's presence in the cell in the first place - if he was hurt humiliatingly enough, then it wouldn't be spoken of, might not be reported, and thus never questioned. It had to be bad enough to erase any ideas of consent and severe enough for Zimmerman to heal him immediately, without calling for authorization first. There were a few other possible reasons, but they didn't fit with the surprisingly calculating mind he'd found the Englishman to possess. It also meant that even after what had happened, Adam still held hope that Eric would come back.
Thompson stroked his chin between forefinger and thumb, watching the blond man. He spent the next half hour considering various punishments and tortures he could inflict on him for his insubordination, for the escape attempt, for the humiliation. He'd already inflicted pain and suffering on the man without evoking so much as a flinch. He'd already raped him and murdered him and Adam had bowed to it with equanimity. He had no privileges Eric could take away, because he had none to start with - things like lighting, clothing, temperature and the like were within Thompson's ability to manipulate, but it wouldn't last and they'd been tried before.
In the end he settled on the thing he gauged would hurt Adam Monroe the most. He would do nothing - he would leave the immortal man entirely alone. It was the only thing he'd seen that had induced a stress reaction from him, the only thing that had worked him up and upset him. It was the punishment Adam had suffered all else trying to avoid. The next day he caught the guard who had talked to Adam, the one who had worked with Eric before and who had been watching the door while Thompson had his fun. He made sure he'd never talk to Monroe again. The punishment was then complete.