Curate, connect, and discover
Oh my god I am so obsessed with ‘A Man of His Word’ could you please continue it if you have time? Thank you sooo much i love your writing so much.
Happy to! Thanks for the kind words, hope you enjoy :)
Pt. 1
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A Face with Two Hands (A Man of His Word pt. 2)
Cw: childhood parental loss, interrogation + previous warnings
“11:59,” the clock read.
It was digital, so no ticking could be heard from where it was reinforced into the wall. Civilian was just as silent where they stood in the center of the utterly empty room.
Around them, cold gray walls closed in, broken only by a thick metal door. It was painfully cliche as far as cells go, appropriate for a cold-hearted villain to stash away all their problems and inconveniences.
Like Civilian.
The quiet was peaceful, for a moment.
Silence, however, tends to beg to be broken, and Civilian’s mind was more than happy to oblige the whims of the stale air around them.
As easy as breath filled their lungs, the voices of their Mom and Dad flooded their head.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Midnight,” they had promised, with eyes full of love. “You should be asleep by then.”
But Civilian wasn’t.
Instead, they were camped out in the kitchen, nest of blankets keeping them separate from the hard laminate floor. They refused to give in to the sleep that pulled relentlessly at their eyelids, gaze stubbornly locked on the little green numbers that glowed above the oven and spelled out broken promises.
They clutched a small stuffed panda in their arms, waiting for the familiar sound of the garage door opening. Their eyes watered as they rested their head against the wooden table leg.
With each minute that ticked by, Civilian’s heart dropped a little lower.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Looking at the clock now, Civilian couldn’t help but feel the same sense of dread.
They shook off the memory, coming back into the present with a disorienting blink.
It was three hours till the next switch check in. As far as Civilian could tell, Villain wouldn’t be back until then.
Plenty of time to take inventory.
Physically, Civilian had little more than the clothes on their back.
The cuts Villain had inflected still laid open and untreated. Clearly, he didn’t plan on them living long enough for infection to become a problem.
They tried to tear strips out of their jacket in hopes of maybe tying some fabric around their wound but quickly deemed the weave too thick. Out of necessity, they moved onto the thinner cotton of their T-shirt, tearing off the hem with a degree of difficulty and gripping it with their teeth to tie as tightly as they could manage.
They really did miss having Friend’s extra hands and muscles around.
Mentally, they were about at the same level, except there was no shirt bandage that would stop the echoing in their mind.
Prisoner.
The word sat like cold iron wrapped around their heart, the weight like a death and betrayal all in one.
Civilian didn’t know how they could ever forget a feeling like that.
They were painfully aware that there was nothing but an awkwardly blurted secret and three days of planning keeping an old friend from spilling their blood across the unforgiving concrete of what they could only assume to be some kind of basement.
They took a deep breath and glanced at the clock again.
Well, two days now.
Unexpectedly, a sharp wave of anger crashed over them. Did their friendship truly mean nothing? They were so, incredibly, irrevocably stupid! Now they were probably going to die, stuck in this stupid place he brought them to (because of course he had a place-!)
The door opened with no warning, the loud clicking and snapping of the lock sending a sudden jolt through their heart and taking several more years off their life.
The man that entered seemed nothing but cold and distant.
He wasted no time stepping towards them, and in turn Civilian wasted no time falling flat on their ass trying to back away from him.
“What was your plan?” He questioned without preamble, freezing his movements and allowing Civilian a precious second to think.
Unfortunately, even with the immediate threat paused, they still lacked the clear-headedness to answer.
What was Villain talking about? He was the one with a plan to take down Hero. Civilian just needed to help work out one little kink-
“What?” They asked the stone-faced villain.
“After ten seconds.”
Oh, that plan.
“Hope for the best?” They squeaked.
Civilian’s attempt at a self-loathing chuckle ended in nothing but a weak cough.
Once upon a time, Friend would have laughed heartily with them, bent over, one hand holding his stomach. Villain did no such thing. Eyes that could never have belonged to Friend cut them a dangerous glare.
“Okay, then. We’ll start with the harder questions,” he spoke level, but Civilian knew a dangerous tone when they heard one. Slowly, they started crawling back, but it didn’t matter.
Villain descended and Civilian shrunk with the knowledge that his hands were not empty.
“How the fuck did you figure out who I am?”
As much as Civilian tried to ignore it, the way he spit the pronoun stung.
Civilian was not unfamiliar with pain, nor were they unfamiliar with those close to them inflicting it upon them. What they felt now, however, was a level far beyond anything they had felt before.
They supposed he, of all people, would be an expert in inflicting pain.
In a matter of seconds, Civilian was sure they didn’t have nearly enough shirt left to bandage everything. Their tongue loosened with the stinging. They had no question this was intended by the man holding the sharpened knife.
“Die,” they blurted as a result, in that oh-so elegant manner that Villain had a habit of bringing out in them.
“Excuse me?” Villain challenged, eyebrows raised and hand poised to continue cutting.
“My plan,” Civilian grit hard through their teeth, “was to die.” They clarified, rolling over to groan. “I made peace with it.”
Villain considered them for a moment, rising to his full height and staring down at them with a confusing mix of condescension and possibly pity. Or perhaps he was just smug. Civilian certainly didn’t trust their ability to read him anymore.
He tilted his head slowly, only adding to Civilian’s confusion as he smirked.
“Did you make peace with this?”
To that, Civilian said nothing.
His face evened out again, and Civilian recognized the masked anger, familiar as the taste of blood, as he reached down. Villain pulled them up by the collar, wrestling their arms roughly behind their back as he leaned over their shoulder.
“That was not your best plan,” he whispered, before pulling them out the door.