(no subject)

[aut_nihil]

Pope doesn't go on as many missions as he once did. But he sees trouble brewing in the future, in the solo orders Carver was given, and he can't stomach staying behind when Carver might face the worst alone.

So he defies his own orders and he goes with Carver.

And things go sideways. They're outnumbered despite his best efforts and his warnings, and they're gathered up, hoods on their heads, arms tied behind their backs.

Carver's strong though. They're going to make it through this. He's going to get them through this.

Comments

[fortitudosalutis]

"Mhmm. C'mon, old man. On your feet."

The leader hauls Pope up. Brings him to the edge of the bed, right by Carver's face, and Carver jerks, breathing hard. The man on top of him is hard, no matter Pope's talk about limp dicks and not giving them a damn thing except mockery.

"Talk your boy through it," the leader suggests. "I got time to break him in real good. Give everybody a turn."

Carver hisses, jerking, and the man on his back shoves his face down into the mattress again, hard enough that he can't take a full breath.

[aut_nihil]

"We don't break," he tells Carver. "Fortitudo Salutis." They find God in the pain.

And there will be pain. A kind he didn't adequately prepare Carver for because how could he ask his men and women to do this to each other?

And that's on him. He'll own that. He'll get Carver through this.

"Focus on my voice, son."

[minuteofangle]

"Fortitudo salutis," Carver hisses, even as someone takes him by the hair again, mashing his cheek into the mattress so there's nowhere to look but right at Pope, no way to predict what's about to happen except for the inevitability of it all, and the cold, clammy hands forcing his legs apart. He watches Pope, who's more like his father than any blood relation, and tries to slow his breathing. To stop himself from flinching and just grit his teeth as an enemy grinds their dick against him and then forces their way inside.

It hurts. It feels like he's been split in half and he takes a shuddering breath, flinching when someone slaps him on the thigh.

"God, you're fucking tight," one of them grunts. "Relax. Tell him to relax, old man, or this won't be any fun at all."

[aut_nihil]

"We don't break," he says softly. "You are stronger than this. Stronger than anything these fuckoffs know to do. I've trained you for everything you need to survive."

Please stay strong, he thinks. Please let everything he's taught be enough.

"I'm right here."

[fortitudosalutis]

Carver's been fucked before. Bent over a bed and railed until he cried out, clamping a hand over his mouth to muffle the noise. He likes it, sometimes. Not always. He likes it with Riley, his sometimes man, and he's liked it a time or two with strangers he meets in bars and never exchanges more than passing moments with. It's good, a thrill, it settles him down.

This is something else. This is a wrenching, ugly pain different from any test that Pope's put him through. Carver tries to slow his breathing, to control himself, ride it like a wave and just go away, but he can't. He's watching Pope, twitching and biting back small sounds, trying to breathe when everything this fucker on top of him does knocks the air from his lungs. It hurts, but there's a curl of pleasure underneath it, with how he's being ground into the mattress and how the man gets an arm around him, hitching Carver's hips up for a better angle and that has him stiffen, eyes going wide in something close to panic because it feels good.

It feels good, and he doesn't want it to.

"Your boy's a stoic one," the leader observes. "But I bet we can work on that. How many do you think he take, old man?"

[aut_nihil]

"Not as many as I can," Pope snarls. He fixes his gaze on Carver. "You've got this, son. They can't break you. You're stronger than their whole pathetic army."

He'd take this pain for Carver if he could.

[fortitudosalutis]

"You're lucky we're just fucking him," the leader replies mildly. "There's all kinds of shit we could do to a handsome bitch like him. He's your favorite, isn't he?"

Carver shudders as he's fucked. His shoulders ache, his wrists throbbing. Pain is a teacher, the kindest and most generous of them all. Pain is a teacher and this a lesson and it will make him stronger for enduring it. The man hunches over him, making a guttural sound as he comes. Carver stiffens, closing his eyes as he's slapped on the ass. At the sounds he hears. The laughter and the filth.

Someone else lines up behind him. Trailing their fingers through the mess and then pressing inside as Carver tightens his jaw, trying not to move as he's fingered. But this one's different, laughing a little as he searches out the right angle. As he makes Carver jerk and twist under him, fighting pleasure instead of just wrenching pain. "Sir--" he hisses, unmoored.

"I bet he'd cry if we put a vibrator inside him," the leader muses. "We could keep him like that for hours. Think he'd still be stoic then?"

[aut_nihil]

"He won't break," Pope says with utter conviction. "You can try every weak ass trick you've got, he won't cry for you."

Carver won't. He won't. Pope trained him better. Did his damndest to teach Carver not to break and he sees his face right now, unbroken. He can't reach out to touch him but he wishes he could.

"You're doing it right, son," he tells Carver. "You're doing me proud."

[fortitudosalutis]

He won't, Pope promises, sounding so goddamn sure. He won't break. You're doing me proud.

Carver takes a shallow breath, grinding his cheek against the mattress. He tells himself it only hurts. That the body reacts to stimuli regardless of what the brain thinks and that's kind of interesting, scientifically. How all those data points converge.

But the enemy behind him keeps fingering him and another works a hand underneath him, touching his cock, and -

Carver twitches, closing his eyes tight. No, he thinks, but you don't say that during a test. You just take it. They make him come like that, twitching and hurting, a stranger's hand tight in his hair. Holding him down while Pope watches.

"Good boy," one of them coos, mocking, and then he's being mounted. Gasping as he's fucked through it, raw and overstimulated, and this time he can't help but thrash.

[aut_nihil]

"You think that breaks him! You're nothing to him!" Pope roars, watching all of this and fighting his own bonds. "You're less than a cheap whore to him! Think of every dirty face you've fucked, Carver, they're less than that."

[fortitudosalutis]

It's different this time. A raw edge, a blade scraped against his nerves. Too much. It's almost like drowning the first time, when the pain really sets in and the body starts to realize the danger. When you thrash and thrash and all you can do is suffer and choke. He's gasping now, eyes screwed shut, trying to listen to Pope's voice when all he wants to do is disappear. Too much, he thinks, too much. Pope's shouting now, saying things, trying to make the enemy small, but they're just fucking him. Holding him down, making him filthy.

Don't cry, Carver tells himself, don't you fucking cry, but he's gasping. Trying to muffle the noise against the mattress as the man behind him goes harder, jerking into him, calls him a slut and then comes with a strangled curse.

"Your boy looks good when he's fucked," the leader snickers. There's the sound of a belt clicking. "He's gonna remember me when we're done."

[aut_nihil]

"No he won't," Pope snarls. "The only voice he's thinking of is mine. Every cock you bring is just proof he's right."

He wants to reach out and his hands are bound behind his back.

"He doesn't know you, he only knows me."

[fortitudosalutis]

"I think we're gonna test that," the leader grunts, climbing into the bed and putting his hands on Carver's hips. Digging his nails in hard. "What'd you think, kid?"

Carver shudders. He can't hide it this time, the way he flinches when the leader presses inside him.

The leader grabs him by the hair again, hauling his head up. "Asked you, mhmmfuck, a question."

Carver twitches, sweating and overstimulated, overwhelmed. He swallows hard. "What?"

"Your CO says you only know him. Wanna test that, boy?" The leader bites him on the side of the neck and Carver stiffens, fighting back a groan. It hurts. Everything hurts now. "I'm gonna put your boss in a line with my boys, and they're all gonna get a turn on you. Shhh, don't flinch, you're doing so good. Good boy. Now, I'm gonna blindfold you, much as it hurts me, and we're gonna play a game. You tell me which of those fine motherfuckers was your boss, then you're done."

The leader laughs and lets go of his hair. Carver slumps down, unfocused, trying to meet Pope's eyes.

"Easy, right? But you try and talk to him, CO, you try and signal him, and I'll mess that pretty face of his up so bad everyone will know what a slut he is. Doubt he'll be your favorite then. What'd you say?"

[aut_nihil]

He'll probably be last in line anyway. They'll probably fuck Carver over and over and over before putting Pope in the line.

"He'll know," he says with a confidence he doesn't really feel. But Carver would have to know, wouldn't he? Who loves him and who doesn't?

[fortitudosalutis]

The leader laughs, jerking into Carver and slapping on the ass. That time, Carver barely reacts, just bits his lip and presses his cheek into the sheets. He barely fights as one of the others tears a strip of blanket from the bedding and forces it over his face. Sending the world dark.

Things blur. Someone eventually cuts the zipties on his hands, threatening him with a knife if he tries to get him, to fight, but there's already a man inside him, fucking him hard and bearing him down as the others bind Carver's hands in front of him. Better on your shoulders, they jeer. And that way they can force him to push himself up onto his forearms, take it different, deeper. He tries to count, to mark details about who fucks him and how, but it all blurs. If he focuses too hard on certain details, he starts to panic and they shush him, stroking his hair almost kindly, and that's worse.

He goes quiet after a while. Barely there. He doesn't react much at all when Pope's hands are untied, and he's forced onto the bed.

[aut_nihil]

Pope's hands are different. He wills them to be. He strokes Carver's sides and he holds his hips and he just wants his touch to be different.

If he speaks they punish them and he won't see Carver tortured for it so he says nothing. He just holds him and taps with his thumb Morse Code:

It's me

And then he pushes into him, this man he's trained to take anything.

[fortitudosalutis]

For a moment, there's just pressure. A distant sort of pain and an ache deep inside him as someone else takes him, hurts him, makes him small. He's filthy now, Carver thinks, disgusting and small, making small sounds and trying to hide his face against the mattress. He stinks like come and he's scared, deep down, that they're going to keep him like this. That it won't end.

They've made him come twice now. They made Pope watch.

There's someone else behind him now. Holding him. Something -

Morse code.

Carver's breath hitches. He almost sobs when Pope's inside him but he holds, he bows his head and takes a ragged breath, and if he shivers, he doesn't fight. He holds as still as he possibly can.

[aut_nihil]

He's witnessed both those times. They're not Carver's moments though; he couldn't help it. Pope knows this.

It's me he taps out again, and then, Good.

If he can impart nothing else it has to be his pride in Carver for not breaking.

Good.

He fucks him because he has to. There are no other options. He has to. So he does. Hard, and intent, so they can't call him out on going easy on Carver.

And it feels good and he hates that it does.

[fortitudosalutis]

He wonders, distantly, if Pope's ever slept with a man before. If he knows that Carver has. It's the sort of thing that'd matter over in Afghanistan, that might still matter now. Carver makes small sounds, biting at his hands, trying to muffle it.

There's less pain now. He's gone numb to it, maybe. But the pleasure still wrenches through him. Makes him gasp and spread his legs, trying to feel something other than stinging, distant pain. It does nothing for the way he feels disgusting for allowing it, for liking it.

Carver bites at his hands. He doesn't think he can come again, doesn't want to. But Pope's fucking him hard, making him shiver. It's impossible to feel nothing. To stop himself from pressing back into it, just a little. Just to make it easier.

[aut_nihil]

They could be discharged for this, even though it's forced. The fact Pope likes it means he should be thrown out on his ass but no one will convince him Carver deserves it.

He grunts as he fucks Carver, holding his hips hard, finally, finally coming inside him. Inside this man he's trained from the beginning. God help him.

[fortitudosalutis]

Oh, God. Carver's breath catches when he feels Pope come. He holds very still, barely breathing. He realizes he's afraid. That Pope is going to sneer, or hit him. Call him disgusting for responding, for not going away in his head and taking it stoically. Like it was nothing.

Carver bites at his hands, shivering. He's going into shock, he thinks. He's cold and everything hurts. He can barely lift his head up.

"Look at that pretty face," one of them coos, "all fucked out and tired."

[aut_nihil]

Pope pulls out and withdraws to where they can't accuse him of giving Carver hints about who just fucked him. "Shut the fuck up," he snarls.

He watches Carver, hopes he can hold on. Just a little longer.

[fortitudosalutis]

Someone laughs. They wait until Pope's got his pants done back up before pulling the blindfold off of Carver. He blinks several times, trying to clear his vision, but the world blurs. Everything hurts. He's been beaten before, but not like this.

Not like this.

The leader grabs him again, holding Carver by the hair. "Focus," he orders, and he slaps Carver hard. "Focus. That's better. Good boy. Now, which one was your CO? I hope you counted. You fuck it up and you're gonna beg for this by the time we're done with you."

"Last, mhmm, last one," Carver murmurs, eyes sliding closed. It gets him slapped again.

"What number was he?" the leader coos. "Hope you counted."

Carver swallows hard. He's not sure. He has to be sure. The leader's reaching for him again, squeezing his hip, and Carver flinches before he can think to hide it. "Nine!" he blurts out. "Nine..."

"Hmm." The leader's eyes narrow. Then he grins. "Shit, CO. You really did train your boys well."

[aut_nihil]

He's going to make them all scream before the end. He's going to make them all suffer.

He watches Carver and he feels sick but Carver answers plainly, clearly, he knew. He counted. He kept his head.

Good, Pope thinks, as fiercely as if his thoughts could be transmitted to Carver.

He says nothing to their captors. They won this round.

[fortitudosalutis]

"Poor slut," the leader muses, and lets go of Carver's hair. Laughs as Carver slumps, exhausted and hurting, and tries to just breathe. "We did go a little hard on you, didn't we?"

The leader motions to Pope, snapping his fingers. "Well, let's talk now. You can have him back when we're done."

Carver just closes his eyes. Too exhausted to do anything but drift. He doesn't think he'll be able to walk, if indeed any of these fuckers are serious about letting them live.