‘Verse: Unlikely Salvation (@whump-sprite)
Timeline: The end of Jo’s stint as a trainee with the feds
Cowritten with @khalwrites, Jo is hers
---
Minhas
The witch’s head lolls. Blood drips from her lips. Riven backhands her casually to see if she’ll stir, but her head just tips to the side, then back to the centre.
“Are you in there, Amir?” he calls, sing-song. “Rise and shine, no sleeping on the job.”
When there’s still no sign of consciousness after a few more seconds, he sighs and unchains the prisoner from the wall, letting her flop to the floor. Maybe she’ll come round with her head at floor level. Ideally he needs to hold off another day or two before getting the healer back in, or Bright will be breathing down his neck again.
“Anyone home? Come on, wake up.”
He nudges a badly displaced fracture with his foot, then kicks harder. A low groan reveals that she’s starting to come round.
“Rise and shine, Amir,” he taunts, crouching down beside her to get a better look at her face. She’s well past being able to lash out. “Don’t you have some more clever words for me. Hey, look at me. Amir. Ami-ir?”
Her eyes are still unfocused. Even her scowl is slack, just a hint of a curl in her lip and some residual tension between her brows.
“Jo-lan-i?” Riven sings.
Her eyes find his face. She doesn’t hide her fear as well when she’s dazed like this. It’s almost cute.
“Can you hear me, Amir?”
No response.
“Jolani,” he calls again.
She makes a tiny sound somewhere between a whimper and a growl.
Interesting. A little suspicion stirs in his mind. Probably it’s nothing. But it won’t hurt to investigate.
“What’s your name, little bitch?” he sing-songs.
“... Jolani…” she mumbles. No back-chat. He likes her better like this.
“Uh huh,” he prompts, “Is that it?”
Dark eyes blink slowly at him. The more swollen one sticks closed.
“What’s your name?”
“Jolani,” she repeats. A hint of stubborn irritation is creeping into the confusion.
“Is it really?”
“... did you… forget… already?”
Riven puts a knee down hard on her back to make her convulse and cry out.
“What’s your name, bitch.”
“Jolani,” she snaps.
“What’s your name, Jolani?”
“Jolani,” she repeats, utterly confused.
“No, you stupid witch. Jolani what?”
She is silent, looking baffled, and Riven’s anticipation spikes.
“What’s your last name?”
“... Jolani?”
He pushes a thumb into a burn, not hard enough to make her whimper, but hard enough to make her face scrunch up.
“Have you forgotten?” he teases, gleeful. “That’s a funny thing to forget, your own last name. If I didn’t know better I’d think… maybe you made it up.”
“My name’s Jolani,” she insists.
“Jolani what?”
“Jolani Minhas,” she tells him.
Riven’s grin grows very wide. “There we go,” he purrs. “That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
For a few seconds she stays confused, frowning up at him like she doesn’t understand what she’s said. Then her eyes go absolutely huge. Riven laughs delightedly at her whimper of pure terror.
“Amir!” she blurts out. “Amir!”
“Too late, Minhas,” he crows. “I told you we’d get there, didn’t I. Shall we find out what else you’ve got to tell me, hm?”
“Amir,” she stammers, “My name is Amir.”
“That’s a lie, witch,” he grins. “And liars get burned.”
“I’m J-J-Jolani Amir...” There are tears streaming down her face now. Riven delights in the sight. He didn’t mind really, that she wasn’t telling him anything. It’s all the same to him. But the slip-up means she’s breaking.
There’s a spring in his step as he paces across the cell to the toolkit. His hand hovers over the blowtorch, then grabs the soldering iron instead. Harder to go overboard by mistake.
“You’re going to tell me everything, Minhas,” he gloats. “You know you are. It’s just a matter of how much fun I get to have between now and then.”
“G-go to hell,” she snarls, “go t-t-to hell. I’m not a --” pausing to take deep, sobbing breaths “-- not a goddamn spy.”
Riven laughs, kicking her idly.
The bitch groans, but finds the breath to repeat “My name is Amir.”
“Scream for me, Minhas.”
She tries not to. She gasps, groans, and chokes on her cries, but they get louder and louder as he works the hot iron across her whipped back. He knows she’d be screaming already if he hadn’t told her to. Her stubborn insistence on doing the opposite of whatever he says is hilarious.
“It’s -- Amir --!” she protests, over and over between yelps and sobs. “I’m -- Amir -- I’m n-n-not -- a traitor --!”
The cracking screams, when they come, are just icing on the cake.
“Amir --” she sobs “-- don’t want -- mhnhh! -- m-magic --”
“That’s three times in a row you’ve said that,” Riven teases. “You’re losing it, Minhas.”
She glares up at him, and tries weakly to spit blood from her split and swollen lips. “W-w-wo-n't break--” gasp “--bre-ak m-m-me.”
“I am breaking you,” Riven purrs contentedly. “Just look at you.”
She sobs harder, and he pauses just to watch.
“Gonna k-kill--” she stutters “--kill you.”
“Oh, I’m so scared.” Another jab with the soldering iron, digging it deep into her back.
She gasps for air, but she growls through the pain. “One -- one day. You. Will be.”
Riven laughs at her conviction. “You’re never getting out of here. Unless…” he grins.. “Who’s coming for you, little spy?”
“Not a spy,” she responds instantly.
It’s not useful, how she keeps falling back on the same handful of answers. But it sure is funny.
‘Verse: Unlikely Salvation (@whump-sprite)
Timeline: Ari is about 19 and in training as a federal agent
Cowritten with @khalwrites, Jo is hers
Two Shots 2/5
[1, 2, 3]
“We work undercover for the Resistance.”
Ari’s heart sinks as the words come out of Jo’s mouth. She thought Jo might have a good plan. But it’s not like she has any ideas of her own.
“Shut up,” she hisses, rolling with the first half-formed thought she has of how to back Jo up.
“Do you want to live or not?” Jo snaps back at her. Quicker off the mark than Ari as always. “What choice do we have?”
Ariadne glowers at her. Pain pools in her eyes as she deepens her frown.
“Yeah right,” scoffs the warlock with the gun -- what kind of weakass warlock needs a gun?
But the other one is listening.
“We work with the Resistance,” Jo keeps talking, “planning a jailbreak of some of the warlocks there.”
“Shut up, Jo,” Ari repeats. Where is Jo getting these ideas? All Ari can do is try to stick to the part she’s picked and hope it isn’t a stupid one.
“They’re coming soon, we need to be there to meet them or the plan goes to hell."
The guy holds Jo's gaze for a few seconds, then shakes his head with a bitter laugh.
"The 'Resistance'," he mocks, "are a bunch of weak-willed cowards. They'd never dare send someone 'undercover', let alone a coupla kids."
Jo looks to Ari for help, and Ari has nothing.
"I told you to shut up," she stalls, letting her frustration into her tone. Not the best plan you've ever had, Jo. "Who even are these assholes?"
"You're just trying to save your skin. If you're really Resistance, show us some magic."
"Do not," Ari cuts in, still pretending she doesn't want Jo to give up their 'secret', "Don't you fucking--"
But Jo is talking too, protesting "Not everyone in the Resistance has magic." And that's two different stories, and Ari's sure they're fucking this up, but she doesn't know what she could possibly say to fix it. Her head is killing her, pain spiking with every sound and every motion. She huffs in frustration and lets her gaze drop.
"The Resistance won’t be pleased if you hurt us,” Jo tries, calm and unfazed still, not a drop of fear or anger in her voice.
The warlocks scoff.
Jo has so much bravado. Ari’s heart aches. Jo is strong, she can be too.
“You don’t lose anything if you let us go,” she tells them sullenly.
Gun-man laughs again. “We lose plenty if we let a couple baby feds go. You’re a message to them. They better start watching their backs.”
Jo looks at Ari as if to ask Now what? and there’s something almost helpless in her eyes. Ariadne’s temper flares.
“Yeah,” she snaps, “real impressive, you grabbed a pair of untrained teenagers. Great message, real scary.”
“Why you little--”
Crack -- the sound of air tearing -- and Ari screeches as unexpected force hits her like a shot in the gut. She thinks she has been shot for a moment, but her whole body goes rigid with it like the worst cramp she’s ever had. As it fades, she realises the warlock used his fucking magic on her.
“-- you fucking asshole --” she spits “-- you wouldn’t be so--”
Another shock slams into her, and Ariadne yells again. She clamps down on the sound faster this time. Those fuckfaces don’t get to hear her scream.
She only barely gets a breath in before his hands are on her shoulders, and his power is ripping through her in waves of agony again.
There’s no getting used to it. It’s the most pain Ari has ever felt by a million miles and it won’t stop -- but fury is as loud in her splitting skull as the panic. She grits her teeth and holds her breath and her body convulses with the magic but she doesn’t scream, she doesn’t, she doesn’t -- she doesn’t --
She does.
The sound just spills out of her, and she has no more control over her throat than any of her other muscles. She chokes, and she yells, and she screams.
There are brief pauses so that she can gasp for air, but not long enough for her to curse the motherfucker out. His hands are on her shoulders, and Ari’s head knocks against his arms as she tosses it side to side. His arm is right there -- her teeth find flesh, and she bites down with the force of a panicking animal.
She doesn’t get to appreciate his reaction. She hears him yell, and then all she gets to experience is the fresh wave of agony that surges from his hands.
It goes until her vision is black and she thinks she is dying. She gets a single breath, and it happens again. And again. And again. And again.
Ari screams and screams and writhes and panics and there is nothing nothing nothing she can do.
