There's someone touching him, shaking his shoulder. Go away, he wants to protest, but he can't get his throat to make the words.
“Father?” this is soft, barely a whisper in his ear, pleading.
He's curled up on the floor on his side. His throat feels raw. His knees. His back. His... well. His everything, really. Muscles strained and wrenched to the point of uselessness, the skin of his back broken in so many places that the whole of it is on fire beneath his shirt. He is the very definition of wretched.
He cracks one weary eye open. Connor. His son. His... liability. He's kneeling at Haytham's side. The boy's eyes are tense, his face brittle and hard, shoulders drawn bow-string tight. Is he paler than before? Hard to tell, in this dim light.
“It is time for you to eat,” he says, his voice carefully even. He has Haytham's standard calculatedly grim meal with him.
They're in their cell. It's dark. He doesn't remember how he got there. At some point during his beating his body and mind must have decided that he had had enough, and had shut him down to spare him further agony. Haytham looks past Connor; there's the silhouette of a guard standing on the other side of the bars, arms crossed over his chest, waiting.
He's not hungry. Food is the absolute last thing on his mind. He wants to lie on the ground and melt into the floor, never moving again. As always, though, people have other plans for him. Haytham gets an arm underneath himself and tries to push himself up, but his trembling limbs won't cooperate.
“Here, let me help.”
Connor sets down the tray of food. He grasps Haytham under the arm to pull him upright. He puts a hand on Haytham's back to steady him, but Haytham flinches away with a strangled cry. Connor releases him as though burned, holds his hand out to the light to see that the palm is wet with the blood that's seeped through the thin fabric of his shirt. Connor curses in Mohawk, turns his face to the guard.
“He needs bandages.”
“Ain't you heard, half-breed? There's a war goin' on. None to spare on the likes of him—”
“He also needs alcohol.”
“Ha! Don't we all?”
“He is bleeding! His wounds need to be cleaned!” Connor barks impatiently.
“His Highness' bitch needs to be eatin' his dinner. Doctor's orders.”
They know. They know he hasn't been eating the herbs—No, he corrects himself, they suspect. If they knew for a certainty that he was off his diet, they would have separated Haytham and Connor (and perhaps separated Connor's neck from his head) and then forced the stuff down his throat. Washington would have never allowed Haytham anywhere near his... his person if he had known for a certainty that Haytham was lucid. It does mean, however, that if this ruse is to continue, Haytham is going to have to be far more convincing. Which means he's going to have to keep letting... He shudders. God, he can't do this...
“Do you think your king will care what the man ate after he has dropped dead of corruption?”
The guard laughs, tries to make it sound dismissive but there's an edge of nervousness to it. “He dies, then it'll be your head on a pike decoratin' the armory.”
“If there is space for one head, there will be space for two.”
The guard doesn't have a retort for that. He shifts from foot to foot. “He eats. Then I'll see what I can do about the rest.”
“Very well,” says Connor grudgingly. “Eat, Haytham.” He picks up the tray, holding it out for Haytham's perusal. The boy gives the witch-doctor's greens a significant look.
Haytham takes a hand full with trembling fingers and puts it in his mouth. Chews. Tastes bitter, pungent. Swallows. Grimaces at the pain in his throat. The two other men watch him in tense silence as he finishes the herbs and starts in on the gray sludge that is probably meant to be stew.
Apparently the guard is satisfied, because he stalks off down the hall, muttering. Connor waits until the footsteps die away and then grabs the waste bucket, sets it in front of Haytham.
“Get rid of it.”
He's not sure he wants to, thinks perhaps he would be better off drugged, insensate and oblivious the next time Washington... but the look on Connor's face is hard, lips compressed into a thin line. There is an intensity in the boy's eyes that's disturbing, the threat implicit—do as he says, or he'll do it himself. So, Haytham sticks what's left of his fingers down his throat and brings the greens back up. He hopes that whomever is forced to clean up after them doesn't examine the contents of the bucket too carefully.
“I could hear you, earlier,” Connor says quietly as Haytham wipes bile from his lips with the back of his fist. Half of Boston probably heard him, if the rawness of his throat is any indication. “I thought... It sounded like you were being slaughtered. I thought... I did not expect to see you again.”
“Used the Apple,” Haytham croaks, throat burning, before taking the aphrodisiac-laced tea, hoping to wash down the disgusting taste in his mouth. He half expected Connor to give him that familiarly irritating look of befuddlement, but the boy stares at him levelly.
“You resisted him.” Well, yes, of course he did. Otherwise this conversation would be even more one sided. “Why? What made you say no?”
Haytham doesn't answer. He doesn't quite know himself. He shifts, wincing at the pain that shoots up his backside. The boy is damnably persistent, though. Connor's eyes glitter in the torchlight.
“This morning, you were ready to to die, you said there was no hope. Why did you not give in, then?”
Because of you, he should say. Because I couldn't abandon you. Again.
“Because I'm a goddamned fool,” he says instead, voice cracking.
They hear boots, more than one pair. Connor gets to his feet. Haytham does his best to eat as quickly as possible, but trying to consume the hard, flaky bread feels like he's swallowing knives. The guard appears in short order, accompanied by two others.
“I found some blankets. Old, but they're clean,” the original guard says, gruff. He quickly pushes the bundle of rags through the bars and yanks his hand back as quickly as he can, just in case Connor has a mind to seize him through the bars.
Unexpectedly, he then pulls a pistol from his belt; Connor draws back, wary. One of the other men brandishes his musket, the hallway just wide enough front to back for him to aim without leaning on the opposite wall.
“Back of the cell, face against the wall. You try anything smart, you and your friend's gonna have more than a few cuts and a sore arse to worry about,” he growls. “Hands up.”
Connor is slow to comply. Haytham can see the wheels turning in his head; Connor's wondering if he's fast enough to wrench one of the guns away if one of the men gets too close. He does as he's told, though, watching the guard over his shoulder. Haytham doesn't fail to notice that the men are not watching him at all, obviously not anticipating any trouble from the man sitting on the floor. And why would they? He's not Templar Grandmaster Haytham Kenway; he's just some sad, broken thing that eats and shits and bends over for anyone that cares to take him. A danger to no one.
The third man, the youngest of the three, hastily unlocks the barred door. It swings forward into the cell about a foot and a half. He drops a steaming wooden bucket with a rope handle, tips it a little in his haste, splashing water on the floor. It's followed shortly by another gourd cup, this one larger than the one that had contained Haytham's tea. He slams the door, rams the lock home and backs away as quick as he can. Connor turns, staring at the items.
“That's strong whiskey, monkey. You drink any of it, you'll regret it,” the first guard growls.
“I...” Connor hesitates, Haytham can see him struggle between lashing out at the man for the racial slur, or praising him for the favor. He decides on the latter. “Thank you. This will—”
“Just make sure he don't die,” the guard snaps and he and his companions depart.
Haytham reaches for the whiskey—he wishes there was a barrel of it and not this meager cup, wishes there was enough to drown in—but Connor is faster, stepping between his father and the alcohol.
“We need to take off your shirt.”
Rather than trusting him to do it, Connor steps in and pulls at the fabric. Haytham gasps. Some of the cuts have dried to the shirt. When Connor gingerly pulls the shirt over Haytham's head, it feels like he's taking his skin with him.
He watches Connor's eyes, assessing the boy as he evaluates Haytham. He looks troubled, but not horrified. Just your standard, run-of-the-mill flogging, then. Connor's eyes linger on the savage bite near his iron collar and the boy flushes, although with anger or embarrassment, Haytham cannot quite discern. Connor tells him to go to the pallet. Haytham doesn't even bother to try to stand up. He crawls the short distance and then flops down on his stomach with a groan. Connor follows him with the bucket, rags, and alcohol.
Connor's not the worst doctor he's ever had. For all his prodigious strength, Haytham's surprised that his son's touch is so gentle. He opts to carefully soak the blood and dirt from Haytham's back, rather than scrub. It still hurts. No amount of codling will prevent that, but the pain could be worse. His son dabs the wounds with the alcohol and Haytham does his best not to flinch. After the wounds are serialized, his son tears the old blankets into long gray strips and lays them delicately over the cuts. Connor says he'll have to wrap him in more bandages to hold them in place when he's done.
“I have a doctor acquaintance,” he says as if reading his father's mind. “He taught me how to treat wounds. Whiskey is not what I would have picked, but it will serve.”
Haytham should be grateful. Grateful that Connor cares enough about him that he's willing to speak out on his behalf, grateful that he's taking such care with his father's body. After everything they've been though, Haytham should be appreciative that the boy even cares whether he lives or dies. He's not, though. The boy's touch just further reminds him how completely and utterly helpless he is, at the mercy of everyone around him. Even though there's nothing even remotely sexual about it, the boy's touch reminds him of Washington, of Hickey, about what they had done to him and why it had made the boy's attentiveness necessary. His skin crawls and even though the water that cleanses his body is warm and soothing, he shudders all the same.
As Connor works his way down, Haytham's anxiety increases. The boy's hands falter at his father's lower back. The bruises at his hips are a livid purple against his pale skin, dark enough to make out the marks of individual fingers.
His son's voice is hesitant, soft. “Do you need me to clean... down there, again?”
God. Oh, God. The first part of that phrase is awful enough, but it's that small word at the end that disturbs him the most. 'Again.' Meaning, this is not the first time Connor's cleaned him up. He buries his face in the stinking mattress, mortified. His throat constricts, eyes and nose feeling hot. He will not weep. He will not. It's bad enough that the boy has seen what Washington does to him, witnessed it first hand, even worse that he's become accustomed to tending to him, afterward. At least he will spare himself the embarrassment and shame of the boy seeing him cry.
“No,” he croaks into the mattress.
Connor has him sit up. He kneels in front of Haytham, taking longer strips of fabric and winding them around his father's body in silence. He hates Washington. Hates Hickey. Church. Lee. Most of all, he hates himself. Hates his weakness, his inability to do anything other than let himself be violated over and over. He's not even human anymore. Just a thing. An object of pity. He wants to sleep, perhaps have a few hours of respite where he dreams of something pleasant—or better, dreams of nothing at all.
FILL ---------8 of ? -------Enthralled
There's someone touching him, shaking his shoulder. Go away, he wants to protest, but he can't get his throat to make the words.
“Father?” this is soft, barely a whisper in his ear, pleading.
He's curled up on the floor on his side. His throat feels raw. His knees. His back. His... well. His everything, really. Muscles strained and wrenched to the point of uselessness, the skin of his back broken in so many places that the whole of it is on fire beneath his shirt. He is the very definition of wretched.
He cracks one weary eye open. Connor. His son. His... liability. He's kneeling at Haytham's side. The boy's eyes are tense, his face brittle and hard, shoulders drawn bow-string tight. Is he paler than before? Hard to tell, in this dim light.
“It is time for you to eat,” he says, his voice carefully even. He has Haytham's standard calculatedly grim meal with him.
They're in their cell. It's dark. He doesn't remember how he got there. At some point during his beating his body and mind must have decided that he had had enough, and had shut him down to spare him further agony. Haytham looks past Connor; there's the silhouette of a guard standing on the other side of the bars, arms crossed over his chest, waiting.
He's not hungry. Food is the absolute last thing on his mind. He wants to lie on the ground and melt into the floor, never moving again. As always, though, people have other plans for him. Haytham gets an arm underneath himself and tries to push himself up, but his trembling limbs won't cooperate.
“Here, let me help.”
Connor sets down the tray of food. He grasps Haytham under the arm to pull him upright. He puts a hand on Haytham's back to steady him, but Haytham flinches away with a strangled cry. Connor releases him as though burned, holds his hand out to the light to see that the palm is wet with the blood that's seeped through the thin fabric of his shirt. Connor curses in Mohawk, turns his face to the guard.
“He needs bandages.”
“Ain't you heard, half-breed? There's a war goin' on. None to spare on the likes of him—”
“He also needs alcohol.”
“Ha! Don't we all?”
“He is bleeding! His wounds need to be cleaned!” Connor barks impatiently.
“His Highness' bitch needs to be eatin' his dinner. Doctor's orders.”
They know. They know he hasn't been eating the herbs—No, he corrects himself, they suspect. If they knew for a certainty that he was off his diet, they would have separated Haytham and Connor (and perhaps separated Connor's neck from his head) and then forced the stuff down his throat. Washington would have never allowed Haytham anywhere near his... his person if he had known for a certainty that Haytham was lucid. It does mean, however, that if this ruse is to continue, Haytham is going to have to be far more convincing. Which means he's going to have to keep letting... He shudders. God, he can't do this...
“Do you think your king will care what the man ate after he has dropped dead of corruption?”
The guard laughs, tries to make it sound dismissive but there's an edge of nervousness to it. “He dies, then it'll be your head on a pike decoratin' the armory.”
“If there is space for one head, there will be space for two.”
The guard doesn't have a retort for that. He shifts from foot to foot. “He eats. Then I'll see what I can do about the rest.”
“Very well,” says Connor grudgingly. “Eat, Haytham.” He picks up the tray, holding it out for Haytham's perusal. The boy gives the witch-doctor's greens a significant look.
Haytham takes a hand full with trembling fingers and puts it in his mouth. Chews. Tastes bitter, pungent. Swallows. Grimaces at the pain in his throat. The two other men watch him in tense silence as he finishes the herbs and starts in on the gray sludge that is probably meant to be stew.
Apparently the guard is satisfied, because he stalks off down the hall, muttering. Connor waits until the footsteps die away and then grabs the waste bucket, sets it in front of Haytham.
“Get rid of it.”
He's not sure he wants to, thinks perhaps he would be better off drugged, insensate and oblivious the next time Washington... but the look on Connor's face is hard, lips compressed into a thin line. There is an intensity in the boy's eyes that's disturbing, the threat implicit—do as he says, or he'll do it himself. So, Haytham sticks what's left of his fingers down his throat and brings the greens back up. He hopes that whomever is forced to clean up after them doesn't examine the contents of the bucket too carefully.
“I could hear you, earlier,” Connor says quietly as Haytham wipes bile from his lips with the back of his fist. Half of Boston probably heard him, if the rawness of his throat is any indication. “I thought... It sounded like you were being slaughtered. I thought... I did not expect to see you again.”
“Used the Apple,” Haytham croaks, throat burning, before taking the aphrodisiac-laced tea, hoping to wash down the disgusting taste in his mouth. He half expected Connor to give him that familiarly irritating look of befuddlement, but the boy stares at him levelly.
“You resisted him.” Well, yes, of course he did. Otherwise this conversation would be even more one sided. “Why? What made you say no?”
Haytham doesn't answer. He doesn't quite know himself. He shifts, wincing at the pain that shoots up his backside. The boy is damnably persistent, though. Connor's eyes glitter in the torchlight.
“This morning, you were ready to to die, you said there was no hope. Why did you not give in, then?”
Because of you, he should say. Because I couldn't abandon you. Again.
“Because I'm a goddamned fool,” he says instead, voice cracking.
They hear boots, more than one pair. Connor gets to his feet. Haytham does his best to eat as quickly as possible, but trying to consume the hard, flaky bread feels like he's swallowing knives. The guard appears in short order, accompanied by two others.
“I found some blankets. Old, but they're clean,” the original guard says, gruff. He quickly pushes the bundle of rags through the bars and yanks his hand back as quickly as he can, just in case Connor has a mind to seize him through the bars.
Unexpectedly, he then pulls a pistol from his belt; Connor draws back, wary. One of the other men brandishes his musket, the hallway just wide enough front to back for him to aim without leaning on the opposite wall.
“Back of the cell, face against the wall. You try anything smart, you and your friend's gonna have more than a few cuts and a sore arse to worry about,” he growls. “Hands up.”
Connor is slow to comply. Haytham can see the wheels turning in his head; Connor's wondering if he's fast enough to wrench one of the guns away if one of the men gets too close. He does as he's told, though, watching the guard over his shoulder. Haytham doesn't fail to notice that the men are not watching him at all, obviously not anticipating any trouble from the man sitting on the floor. And why would they? He's not Templar Grandmaster Haytham Kenway; he's just some sad, broken thing that eats and shits and bends over for anyone that cares to take him. A danger to no one.
The third man, the youngest of the three, hastily unlocks the barred door. It swings forward into the cell about a foot and a half. He drops a steaming wooden bucket with a rope handle, tips it a little in his haste, splashing water on the floor. It's followed shortly by another gourd cup, this one larger than the one that had contained Haytham's tea. He slams the door, rams the lock home and backs away as quick as he can. Connor turns, staring at the items.
“That's strong whiskey, monkey. You drink any of it, you'll regret it,” the first guard growls.
“I...” Connor hesitates, Haytham can see him struggle between lashing out at the man for the racial slur, or praising him for the favor. He decides on the latter. “Thank you. This will—”
“Just make sure he don't die,” the guard snaps and he and his companions depart.
Haytham reaches for the whiskey—he wishes there was a barrel of it and not this meager cup, wishes there was enough to drown in—but Connor is faster, stepping between his father and the alcohol.
“We need to take off your shirt.”
Rather than trusting him to do it, Connor steps in and pulls at the fabric. Haytham gasps. Some of the cuts have dried to the shirt. When Connor gingerly pulls the shirt over Haytham's head, it feels like he's taking his skin with him.
He watches Connor's eyes, assessing the boy as he evaluates Haytham. He looks troubled, but not horrified. Just your standard, run-of-the-mill flogging, then. Connor's eyes linger on the savage bite near his iron collar and the boy flushes, although with anger or embarrassment, Haytham cannot quite discern. Connor tells him to go to the pallet. Haytham doesn't even bother to try to stand up. He crawls the short distance and then flops down on his stomach with a groan. Connor follows him with the bucket, rags, and alcohol.
Connor's not the worst doctor he's ever had. For all his prodigious strength, Haytham's surprised that his son's touch is so gentle. He opts to carefully soak the blood and dirt from Haytham's back, rather than scrub. It still hurts. No amount of codling will prevent that, but the pain could be worse. His son dabs the wounds with the alcohol and Haytham does his best not to flinch. After the wounds are serialized, his son tears the old blankets into long gray strips and lays them delicately over the cuts. Connor says he'll have to wrap him in more bandages to hold them in place when he's done.
“I have a doctor acquaintance,” he says as if reading his father's mind. “He taught me how to treat wounds. Whiskey is not what I would have picked, but it will serve.”
Haytham should be grateful. Grateful that Connor cares enough about him that he's willing to speak out on his behalf, grateful that he's taking such care with his father's body. After everything they've been though, Haytham should be appreciative that the boy even cares whether he lives or dies. He's not, though. The boy's touch just further reminds him how completely and utterly helpless he is, at the mercy of everyone around him. Even though there's nothing even remotely sexual about it, the boy's touch reminds him of Washington, of Hickey, about what they had done to him and why it had made the boy's attentiveness necessary. His skin crawls and even though the water that cleanses his body is warm and soothing, he shudders all the same.
As Connor works his way down, Haytham's anxiety increases. The boy's hands falter at his father's lower back. The bruises at his hips are a livid purple against his pale skin, dark enough to make out the marks of individual fingers.
His son's voice is hesitant, soft. “Do you need me to clean... down there, again?”
God. Oh, God. The first part of that phrase is awful enough, but it's that small word at the end that disturbs him the most. 'Again.' Meaning, this is not the first time Connor's cleaned him up. He buries his face in the stinking mattress, mortified. His throat constricts, eyes and nose feeling hot. He will not weep. He will not. It's bad enough that the boy has seen what Washington does to him, witnessed it first hand, even worse that he's become accustomed to tending to him, afterward. At least he will spare himself the embarrassment and shame of the boy seeing him cry.
“No,” he croaks into the mattress.
Connor has him sit up. He kneels in front of Haytham, taking longer strips of fabric and winding them around his father's body in silence. He hates Washington. Hates Hickey. Church. Lee. Most of all, he hates himself. Hates his weakness, his inability to do anything other than let himself be violated over and over. He's not even human anymore. Just a thing. An object of pity. He wants to sleep, perhaps have a few hours of respite where he dreams of something pleasant—or better, dreams of nothing at all.