already dead or bleeding
(read on ao3 or under the cut!) characters/tags: Elphaba Thropp/Fiyero Tigelaar, Torture, Blood and Injury, Non-Consensual Body Modification, Angst, Whump, Temporary Character Death, Violence, POV Fiyero Tigelaar, Canon Compliant
Summary:
Fiyero, where are you?! Already dead or bleeding?- - Fiyero in the cornfield; of torture and transformation. By the time Elphaba reads her spell, he's already been left for dead.
“Take him out to the field there!! Put him on those poles until he tells us where the Witch went!”
--
The Gale Force dragged Fiyero through the cornfield, his boots carving trenches behind him as if the earth itself were trying to hold him back. Sharp grasses whipped across his face. The world was spinning in streaks—emerald and gold uniforms, green and yellow corn, the azure sky blurred overhead, too bright, too open.
Some distance away, they forced him onto his knees again, facing the new captain of the guard. Hands dug into his arms and shoulders, gripping him hard enough to bruise.
Around him, disgust, scorn, and hatred lined the faces that glared down at him. Familiar faces, his former comrades… yes, but he wouldn’t dignify them with names even in his thoughts. Not anymore.
The captain crouched to face Fiyero eye-to-eye. He sneered at him, his lip curling with contempt. “Where is the Witch? Where did she go?!”
Fear stuttered in Fiyero’s chest, but he held his head high, and glared back. “You’ll never find her.”
The captain's face twisted into a snarl, fingers curling into a fist.
A punch to Fiyero's jaw snapped his head to the side. Pain rang through his skull, bright and sharp. He wouldn’t scream, he wouldn’t. But he couldn’t help the ragged gasps that escaped him.
Blood began gushing into his mouth and he gagged on the hot iron.
Lurline help him.
“Traitor!” a soldier to the left of him snarled, “You had everything! How could you betray Miss Glinda for that disgusting Wicked Witch?!”
Fiyero turned towards the voice and spat blood onto his boots.
A cry of fury rose from the circle.
A fist smashed into his eye, swelling it shut almost instantly. Another punch, delivered in quick succession, landed hard against his cheekbone.
The soldier’s taunts crescendoed.
“Not so pretty anymore!”
“Witch lover!”
"Whore!"
“Does it hurt your highness?"
Fiyero broke his hand free to take a swing at the captain, only to fall as a soldier behind him kicked him down. A knee smashed into his face, sending him sprawling onto the ground, new blood spurting from his nose, now surely broken.
Below him he could feel the cornfield’s soil mingling with the blood dripping down his face, wet against his skin.
In that moment, Fiyero wished he could sink into the dirt, away from the faces that promised terrible terrible pain. There would be no mercy.
With that thought, pure frenzied desperation erupted inside his chest. If he didn’t run now—if he didn’t at least try—there would be no chance later.
In one swift movement Fiyero pushed himself upward lunging towards the gap in the wall of soldiers. But before he could take a proper step, a boot slammed into his ankle, once, twice, CRACK-
The pain was blinding. Fiyero’s scream caught in his throat, guttural and raw, echoing across the cornfield. He fell backwards landing hard on his back.
A cruel laugh. “Now he can’t run!”
Another boot smashed down onto his chest, punching the air out of him in an instant. He could feel his ribs give way, cracking against the blow. Fiyero choked as his shattered bones expanded and contracted, pressing against his lungs. His heart pounded, the beats irregular and loud, sending spasms through his body.
“Put him up on the poles!”
Rough hands hauled Fiyero into an upright position. His ruined ankle instantly buckled under his weight, white-hot bursts shooting up his leg so violently his vision fractured into black spots. He staggered sideways, nearly toppling the soldiers pulling him forward.
Above, a scarecrow post towered over them, a tall cross structure embedded with rusted nails, the wood stained with old rot and bits of straw. It seemed like a Munchkin farmer had recently pulled off a scarecrow.
Nausea surged through him. “No!” He pulled against the hands that dragged him towards the post. “Stop!!”
A hard kick to the stomach sent bile swelling up his throat and he retched, vomit splattering down the front of his undershirt and uniform. The acrid stench choked him, warm and sour, and Fiyero gagged anew, the smell clinging to the sweat and blood coating his skin.
The laughter from the soldiers was sharp, harsh and barking. A hot mix of fury and humiliation burned in his chest, tight and suffocating.
Two soldiers forced his arms against the crossbeam, while others wrapped ropes around his wrists and legs, pulling tight until his muscles trembled under the strain. More ropes coiled around his torso and waist, binding him upright against the post. The final yank of the ropes sent Fiyero's chest backwards, impaling his back onto a nails jutting out from the wood.
A ragged moan tore from his throat. His chest heaved as he struggled to take in air.
The captain stepped forward and Fiyero felt a chill of fear run through him at the crazed expression on his face, the twisted delight in his eyes.
“Last chance,” the captain said, voice deceptively smooth. “Where did the Witch go? You could still survive this.”
Fiyero swayed helplessly against his restraints, his grip on consciousness faltering as the black spots blinked in and out of his vision. “I won’t tell you,” he managed, voice cracking, scraped and raw. He couldn't give her up.
The captain’s face twisted into a smile, “Have it your way, Witch-lover.” He unsheathed his sword.
Fiyero couldn't help it. “Don’t!” his voice sounded alien to his ears, a strangled guttural cry. The blade glinted in the bright sun, wickedly sharp.
The captain swung his sword in lazy arcs, “Do you think the Witch will still want her toy after we carve you up? What else do you have going for you?”
Fiyero shuddered. He knew it was a taunt, but the thought was so painful it left him breathless—the idea that Elphaba would be disgusted, turned away from him.
She loves me, it doesn’t matter, he argued.
But then he laughed, a crazed, hysterical shriek. What was he thinking? He was going to die.
There was no escaping this, Fiyero knew it in his bones the moment he yelled at Elphaba to flee. He was going to die today, now- so what did it matter what he looked like anymore?
But she was safe. It was worth it. It was.
“He’s delirious!” a soldier yelled.
Another shout. “Shut him up!”
Fiyero’s laughter melted into a scream as the captain’s sword tore through his cheek, spraying wet blood outward in a red arc.
The soldiers descended.
Steel cleaved through his skin, then withdrew, silver blades slick with red, before striking again into his thigh, his knee, his hips, his face, across his stomach.
A horrible screech pierced the air, and Fiyero could hardly believe that it came from him. The unearthly wail clawed its way out from his throat, his ruined voice screaming, crying, sobbing, begging for mercy. There was no room for shame anymore, not with this kind of suffering.
He thrashed, tried to pull away, but he could only spasm against the nails and ropes, every movement sent agony racing across his body like lightning. Rivers of warm blood gushed out of gaping wounds as he was cut open again and again. Fiyero felt a sickening looseness inside him, like his organs were sliding out of place.
His screamed pleas were swallowed by the onslaught of vicious taunts, growing louder and more frenzied by the second. The cacophony had reached a fever pitch.
“You can scream all you want!”
“No one’s coming for you!”
“How dare you!”
"You're wicked!"
“Die, traitor!”
"Kill him!"
Then: “Light him up!”
A red flare streaked at the edge of his vision - what is that?!!- before it descended down down down, in a swift arc towards his shoulder.
It BURNED.
Burned flesh. Burned hair. Burned clothes and he still couldn’t move, couldn’t flee, couldn’t fight. And it hurt oh it HURT!
“ELPHABA!” he screamed. “HELP ME!”
Through the excruciating pain, the laughter of the soldiers assaulted his ears.
A gunshot rang out, then another, and he couldn't even tell if they shot into his mutilated body - could he even register more pain? Had he reached the absolute limit a human body could take?
“Leave him! He's dead!”
“He won't be shrieking for long!”
“Good riddance!”
Fiyero could barely hear the jeers anymore, and he long stopped being able to recognize their voices. His entire world was awash with pain. Time lost meaning-dissolving into an endless, suffocating blur of agony.
Then, all at once, the pain began to recede. Numbness swept over him.
And Fiyero, beaten and barely conscious, felt the first flicker of relief—terrifying and beautiful. Death was merciful.
He could have wept.
Let me die, he begged, please, let it be over.
His vision flickered—black, light, black again—and he didn't know if his eyes were open or closed anymore.
His own words from the previous night drifted across his shattered mind:..we are going to be together, always.
Fiyero drew in a final gasping breath, and it shook like a rattle, down his burned throat, into his punctured lungs, across his mangled ribs, and back out again.
Elphaba, I am so sorry.
It was over.
He desperately cast his thoughts to her. A good memory, he pleaded, please, something good.
Her face, illuminated by candlelight, eyes soft and bright.
Her hands on his cheeks, warm and steady.
Her lips brushing his.
Her laugh, her smile, the smell of her hair.
Her whisper: “..as long as you’re mine.”
The pleasure of the memory swirled around him. For a heartbeat, he was once again suspended in her warmth, her touch- smoothing over the pain of reality.
Numbness spread through his body, and soon Fiyero felt nothing at all.
–
A fragment of his consciousness twitched to life. Faintly, he heard a voice, far away, but growing louder:
“Eleka nahmen nahmen ah tum ah tum eleka nahmen!”
