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Ethan Winters wakes, confused and disoriented, and it says too much about the day he's been having that his first thought is not, what? but more along the lines of, fuck, what now?
It's the pain that drags him back to consciousness. Specifically, the sharp sting of a needle being withdrawn from his arm. Less specifically, the sting stretches into a dull ache, extending upwards from his shoulders to a constriction around his wrists, and it takes him a moment to separate one sensation from the other, to put it together that these two sources of discomfort probably aren't one and the same.
There's also the persistent headache he's been nursing since waking up in the snow beside an overturned truck; the familiar throb of torn flesh under the bandages of his injured hand—but who's keeping track? It's all so much background noise at this point. It says far too much about the day he's having that this isn't even the second time he's woken up like this. Might not even be the third.
But once those newer pains have had a chance to settle into the background noise of wherever the hell he's woken up this time, there's attention to spare on the actual noise: someone nearby is talking. Not to Ethan, at least—and that's probably for the best, because he's in no state to carry a conversation just yet.
"...log, initial examination of..." The voice trails off into a significant pause. "Well. That's what we're here to figure out, aren't we?"
The voice has Ethan's teeth on edge before he's even put a name to it. He opens his eyes—slowly, just in case pretending to be unconscious a little longer is still an option.
"Subject is American, male, early thirties, apparently human..."
His eyes gradually focus on the unmistakable figure of so-called-Lord Heisenberg, back turned to his captive, glibly narrating into some kind of record player. The shock of recognition makes Ethan flinch, violently—which is very much a mistake. His arms and legs refuse to flinch properly, and Ethan is just in the process of putting together that the reason his shoulders ache like that is because he's hanging suspended from the ceiling by his wrists, before the rest of his short-term memory comes back online with all the grace of a punch to the gut.
Fuck. Heisenberg. The factory. Mile after mile of steel corridors and twisted machinery out of some sort of steampunk horror story, patrolled by reanimated cyborg abominations and the booming voice of their megalomaniacal creator.
"...despite exposure to the offshoot megamycete from Louisiana, just over two and half years ago. Subject displays no visible mutations or more overt manifestations..."
Fuck. Fuck. Ethan knows what's coming next. He's seen the bodies laid out on medical gurneys, the documents speculating about the need for live subjects—he's heard this maniac's last fucking medical log. Now Heisenberg's caught him, and he's going to wake up tomorrow with drills welded to the remains of his arms or a fucking propeller for a face, and that's when Ethan does something he's resorted to only a couple of times so far today: he panics.
It's not the most effective strategy he might have come up with, under the circumstances. No amount of wild thrashing finds any give in his restraints. His arms won't move, his legs won't move—this fucker has him cuffed at the ankles too—and attempts to scream produce only a dull whine around the gag in his mouth.
At the table, Heisenberg pauses his narration, as if irked by all this new background noise fouling up his recording. There's a faint sigh, the click of a button on the machine, and then Ethan watches him raise a finger.
He's briefly aware of the restraints at his wrists being suddenly yanked upwards before the pain goes incandescent.
Ethan screams. At least, he thinks he does. God knows what actually comes out of him around the gag, but it sure fucking feels like a scream, every muscle between his wrists and his ankles shrieking in pain. Suspended in the moment, a small infinity goes by where he doesn't know whether the agony has stopped or if he's just overloaded so many nerves that his body has just given up on reporting pain to him at all. His vision whites out, shapeless blobs of colour swimming in front of his eyes like something from a broken kaleidoscope. But it comes to him eventually that it's stopped—the rush of endorphins and adrenaline leaving him giddy, floating in space. There's a strange pressure, wrapped around his chest, under his armpits, taking his weight—Ethan slumps into it, bonelessly—a hand rubbing loose circles in the small of his back... what?
Easy there, Winters. Can't have you doing yourself another injury—we've got enough of those to look at already, don't you think?
Now behave, or this is going to get a lot more unpleasant for both of us.
The pressure withdraws, leaving Ethan hanging again, blinking blobs out of his vision to reveal the vague shape of Heisenberg returning to his desk again. There's a faint click as the recording resumes.
Okay, panicking is officially a bust. Now what?
"As I was saying... subject has shown himself to be one mouthy son of a bitch, willing to do some truly fucked up things to himself in order to escape..."
Ethan takes a deep breath, and makes the executive decision not to think about whatever just happened with the—right, not thinking about it. He looks up, carefully flexing his fingers, trying to make out what sort of restraints Heisenberg has him in, squinting through the factory's middling illumination. The light reflects dully off wide steel cuffs, apparently moulded to Ethan's wrists. Possibly some sort of leather inner layer to keep them snug? Fuck, this was not covered in Chris' two-month introductory military training course—something Ethan's starting to feel was a major oversight. No ripping his hands out of these bastards. What is it professional escape artists do with these things? Is it even possible to learn how to dislocate your own thumbs under pressure?
"Which is why," Heisenberg goes on, pointedly, "it's been necessary to fit this subject with special restraints for his own safety."
Fuck you very much, thinks Ethan, though he's uncomfortably close to admitting the mad bastard might just have a point.
"Nevertheless, subject appears to be in good physical health..." There's another pause. Ethan looks down in time to catch Heisenberg in the middle of giving him a slow once-over, down and up again, all the way to his outstretched arms, "...not counting the recent loss of two fingers from his left hand. Presumably within the last 24 hours, but no footage has been recovered."
The reference to 'footage' settles over Ethan uncomfortably—and not just because the very idea of being caught on camera losing two fingers down a lycan's throat makes his stomach lurch. Heisenberg's dropped enough hints that he's been watching him; he doesn't have to rub it in—but, fuck it, why not add 'how to spot and disable hidden cameras some voyeuristic freak is using to record you getting hurt' to the list of things that obviously should have been covered by Chris' training course. Ethan's got a good mind to complain, next time he sees the guy. Well, after he's done emptying a clip or two into the bastard's head, anyway.
God, he never used to be a violent person. He wishes he could remember what that was like.
While he's at it, why not also wish he could stop getting captured by creeps who are so in love with the sound of their own voices, just for a change?
"The purpose of today's examination," declares Heisenberg, unfazed by Ethan's silent judgement, "is to determine just what Ethan Winters has been hiding from us," He looks over to his prisoner, and Ethan is disarmed to find himself looking Heisenberg right in the eye as he finishes, "Just how human he really is."
That brings Ethan up short. What the fuck? Where's this coming from? God, he should've known Heisenberg would be one of those mad scientist-types that Chris and his buddies are always on about: so convinced shambling mutant bioweapons are the future of warfare they can hardly conceive of how much can be achieved by an ordinary human being with a functioning brain, ten fingers, and reasonable access to high-calibre firearms. Fuck, Ethan's pretty good evidence of what can be done with just eight fingers, and a brain that never completely left the Baker's basement. You don't need mutant superpowers, just that basic human ability to use tools.
But remembering the Bakers—however briefly—churns up something that all the righteous indignation in his stomach can't completely bury. Because Heisenberg knows about the Bakers, somehow. Enough to put together that conspiracy board, and drop hints about how Ethan's been through worse back in America. Has he convinced himself Ethan's some mould-empowered freak like them? That...
Well, he's wrong, but maybe he can be forgiven for wondering. Maybe.
Facing the man down with the looming threat of becoming his latest science project, Ethan isn't really in the mood to be charitable. God, even the thought of being mistaken for one of Eveline's puppets—the memory of watching Jack Baker stick the gun in his own mouth and blow out the side of his skull, of Lucas pulling off his own fingernails to prove some twisted point, Marguerite, twisted and spider-like—to say nothing of that thing that screamed at him in Jack's voice, or his recurring nightmares of sinking that axe into Mia's neck... Ethan's not one of those twisted freaks, he's not-
"Let's start with some x-rays, shall we?" says Heisenberg, turning his attention to the illuminated wall behind him—already decorated with a macabre collection of skeletal photography. Ethan stares; is that him? When did Heisenberg make these? How long was he unconscious for?
"No sign of cadou implantation," Heisenberg notes, "though that never was the M.O. of the E-series, was it? However, we do have an impressive array of bone fractures, far exceeding anything referenced in the subject's reports—some of them apparently still healing. I'm looking at evidence of bone regrowth at the back of the skull, three different vertebrae, at least five ribs..."
Ethan stares blankly at the x-rays as Heisenberg's litany goes on. His arms, in several places; his legs, apparently more fracture than bone. Is that even him up there? Parts of it have been helpfully circled—weird chinks and swellings over the white of the bone, but what does any of it mean? He's not a doctor—it's all noise to him. Why in hell would Heisenberg be making him out like some PSA about the dangers of not wearing your seatbelt?
(Ethan wasn't wearing a seatbelt in the van Chris' buddies loaded him into after dragging him out of his house. He's not sure it even had seatbelts. He'd woken up next to a man's body in the snow; he must've got damn lucky to walk away from the crash—even if he hasn't shaken the headache since. It was almost dawn by the time he woke up; he must have been unconscious for hours...)
No-one could live through the kind of damage Heisenberg's outlining, could they? God, for all he knows, the fucker's making all this shit up just to mess with him. Seriously, it's probably not even his skeleton up on the wall. (It's missing two fingers, but what does that prove?)
"But I think that's enough foreplay," Heisenberg concludes. "High time we got our hands on the man himself." His grin as he turns back to Ethan promises terrible things.
Ethan gives his restraints one last, frantic tug, indulging the mad hope that maybe this time he'll find some slack—but to no avail. To his mortification, the gag doesn't completely suppress the whimper that bubbles up through his throat.
"We'll start our examination with the one we can verify from first-hand experience. Stab-wound to the lower abdomen, made approximately 12 hours ago; square-edged steel implement of... hm..." Heisenberg pauses and raises a hand, catching a roughly-cut metal bar as it flies across the room on command. The lower portion is stained with a horrible red-brown discolouration that Ethan's seen more than his share of around the village today, and there's something horribly familiar about it that makes his stomach clench. God fucking damnit, Heisenberg kept that thing?
"Let's say about half an inch wide; penetration of at least two inches deep," Heisenberg decides, examining the implement with an appraising eye.
Ethan sucks in a sharp breath as Heisenberg steps towards him. Leather-clad fingers arrive on his stomach, startling against his skin—and somehow, it's only now, with this bastard actively feeling him up, that it dawns on Ethan that he's not just hanging here bound and gagged, oh no—he's also lacking the protection of any clothes. Oh fuck, has this madman even left him the minimal modesty of underwear? The air against Ethan's ass suggests that one's a 'no.'
Unbothered by his prisoner's latest crisis, Heisenberg's fingers drag across the mark he'd left on Ethan's stomach at their first meeting. A lit pen torch rises into view, hovering, pointed towards Ethan's stomach as Heisenberg kneels down in front of him for a closer look. He 'hms' again, and Ethan feels the horrible, cold edge of the metal bar being pressed against his skin, right below its original stab wound. Oh god, please don't let him be about to...
"Yep, that looks like a match," Heisenberg decides, and the bar is gone—tossed casually away—and Ethan can (almost) breathe again. It's a fairly brief reprieve before he's treated to the sight of Heisenberg loosening one of his gloves with his teeth, peeling it off and discarding it somewhere out of view—and then the pad of a bare thumb lands on his stomach, sliding slowly downwards over the scar that's so captured Heisenberg's attention.
Struggling to breathe around the gag, Ethan feels suddenly giddy. He has absolutely no idea what's going on.
"Now this has healed nicely," Heisenberg observes. His gloved hand slides around Ethan's midsection, running over his back. "No exit wound—as expected—but the entry wound has the appearance of a well-healed scar. You know, if I wasn't looking for it, I might not have noticed it at all." Ethan isn't sure what he's trying to prove. The injury had hurt, but it hadn't been that bad. It wouldn't have closed up so fast otherwise.
"Now what have we here..." Heisenberg's attention drifts upwards, to a series of small indentations scattered across Ethan's upper chest. Gloved fingers glide over his ribs, finding and counting the marks by touch.
"Three... four... five." Heisenberg maps his fingertips to the indentations, though even with his hand spread to its fullest extent, he can reach only four of them. "Well. I take it my sister didn't give up without a fight." Louder, he states, "Evidence of five-point impalement by narrow stabbing implements on subject's upper chest. This one must be at least... hm, let's say nine hours old."
Nine hours, thinks Ethan, fuzzily. Was it only that long ago he came tumbling from the heights of Castle Dimitrescu, the dying body of its mutated mistress in freefall beside him? The memory of her claws plunging into his chest in the chapel bursts back into his head, like something from a half-forgotten nightmare—but it all feels like days ago. Like half a lifetime.
Here and now, Heisenberg and his fingertips circle Ethan's chest, the floating torch following. "Oh, this time we do have exit wounds!" Two fingers trace a curving path down his back, finding a series of sensitive patches of distorted flesh—Ethan twitches at the touch. "An even wider vertical spread, extending from below the ribs to just beneath the subject's collarbone. Left lung must have been punctured in at least four places. And I think we can explain at least a couple of those broken ribs, too."
Ethan shivers. It's suddenly very hard to breathe. Lung punctures? Exit wounds? That's insane—she'd only winded him, the claws hadn't gone that deep. Heisenberg must've found some random abrasions on his back (god knows there must be enough of those scattered over Ethan's body by this point) and seen what he wanted to see.
"That about wraps it up for the torso," concludes Heisenberg, unbothered by anything Ethan might think about his medical expertise. Finishing his circuit of Ethan's body, his leather-clad hand comes back to rest beside Ethan's naval, not far from that first scar that had so enraptured him. "Let's see what we can find lower down." The hand shifts southwards.
Ethan's stomach does a somersault. Oh no, oh no no no, this fucker had better not be about to...
It's almost a letdown when Heisenberg detours left to follow the flat of Ethan's thigh instead, trailing slowly down his leg to find the next point of interest.
"Another puncture wound, just over the left knee," Heisenberg reports. "Hard to say how old this one is." His other, gloveless hand comes to bear as he probes the shape of the wound with his thumb, before wrapping around the inside of Ethan's thigh, feeling around to the back of his knee. "Oh, and another exit wound!" Heisenberg twists around for a better look, tracing the edges of the injury—still sensitive enough to make Ethan hiss and twitch, all these hours later.
"An arrow wound, if I'm any judge," Heisenberg guesses, which Ethan grudgingly has to admit is right on the money (even if he does let the potential 'arrow to the knee' joke go completely to waste, which offends Ethan more than he can rightly explain). "Classic lycan trick for slowing down their prey—though I imagine they'd have needed a few more arrows to slow this one down. Lucky these lycans weren't experimenting with flaming arrows or barbed tips today."
Okay, Ethan allows, maybe this bastard has picked up a thing or two while sewing all those corpses back together. But Heisenberg's far from done with Ethan's legs—something lower still has caught his attention.
"We've also got what looks like a stab wound to subject's outer left calf." Heisenberg's bare left hand encircles Ethan's ankle, gliding slowly up his leg, shockingly warm in the cold air of the factory. "No exit wound... oh, but will you look at this..." The heat of Heisenberg's hand transfers to Ethan's other leg. "Another stab wound, same or similar implement, inside the right calf this time. I've seen this pattern before—looks like my dear nieces got their claws into Mr. Winters as well! Inserted and dragged by the blade. It really is a miracle he's walking at all."
Heisenberg rubs his hand loosely over Ethan's calf, but he's certainly not soothing an old wound. "Still on the right calf: an impressive set of tooth marks. Could be a lycan, but he'd have to be a big bastard to leave... hmm."
Resigned as Ethan's become to his manhandling, Heisenberg hits something that makes him flinch in pain. Unsympathetic, Heisenberg prods the same spot again—though at least a little more gently. "What do we have here?"
Heisenberg raises his hand, prompting a faint tinkle of metal on metal from some obscure corner of the lab. Out of the corner of his eye, Ethan sees him catch something out of the air before returning his attention to his prisoner's leg. The pain blooms anew, and Ethan hears himself whimper as something comes loose...
He opens his eyes to find Heisenberg examining a bloodied tooth, held in a pair of tweezers. Jesus Christ, was that in his leg? It still stings, but a vague source of discomfort he's been pointedly ignoring for hours now has just taken on a whole new meaning.
"Turns out this one wasn't dirt on the x-ray after all," says Heisenberg, turning his prize this way and that in the light. "Looks to me like our prisoner had a run in with a varcolac."
Oh, thinks Ethan, vaguely, is that what they're called? Lord knows, when a monster with teeth like that is gnawing on your leg, you don't stop to get its name.
Heisenberg deposits both tooth and tweezers into a floating tray, which obediently drifts away again. He begins another slow circuit of his prisoner's hanging form, making Ethan's skin prickle under his gaze.
"No other obvious external damage on the lower body," he says, "so that brings us to the one we've all been waiting for: the hands."
Ethan's fingers twitch involuntarily. Haven't his poor hands been through enough today?
Not according to Heisenberg. Ethan briefly entertains the hope that at least this means he's going to be let down from his restraints, but no—Heisenberg merely summons a metal chair, places it on the floor to Ethan's left and steps up onto it, leaving Ethan level with his midsection. Ethan makes a half-hearted attempt to flip him the bird while he's up there, but the sorry state of that hand makes it difficult.
But Heisenberg doesn't seem to have reached his hand just yet, gloved fingers instead closing over his elbow, twisting Ethan's arm slightly towards the light. "Evidence of multiple defensive injuries on subject's forearms, relatively faint for the most part. That jacket must have been doing him some good." Ethan's arm stings as Heisenberg's fingers slide roughly over a series of grazes—some of those are still pretty fresh, though he barely remembers where they came from.
The grip drags steadily up his arm to the restraint fitted around his wrist, fingers tracing thoughtfully around its lower edge. It's only when he switches hands, running bare fingers over the same path, that it dawns on Ethan that his next point of interest is actually in a ring of skin just below the cuff.
"Now this is interesting. Subject's medical reports from Louisiana note the traumatic severing of the left wrist, haphazardly repaired with staples. Subject's x-rays back that up. But not only has the subject miraculously regained full use of the limb, looking at it now, I can barely find the scar."
The torch comes back to aid a close inspection as Heisenberg fingers the soft skin on the underside of Ethan's wrist, seeking evidence of the distorted line of scar tissue that Ethan still finds himself running his fingers over, once in a while—a telling nervous habit. Not even his regular schedule of horrifying nightmares about the incident have made it any easier to believe it all really happened; his rational brain has tried to reason those memories down to something more plausible time and again (she can't have cut all the way through, it just bled so badly your mind exaggerated it, or, you can't have been carrying your own severed hand, it was just scored around the outside). But whatever really happened, the scar's there to remind him that it wasn't all just a bad dream. It's weird, having someone else feeling that spot. Mia usually can't bear to go near it. (Mia never used to be able to... god, no, don't even think about that.)
"Hmm, yes—it's there," Heisenberg reports, "but very fine. This has healed remarkably well. Or perhaps not so remarkable, given that the ability to coapt severed limbs was one of the earliest signs associated with E-series mould infection."
Ethan squeezes his eyes shut. Yeah, it was too much to hope Heisenberg hadn't got his filthy hands on that little document. He should've known this was coming. It's not a surprise. Really, it's not.
They'd tested him for infection, of course, after Chris and his team descended on the wreckage (hopefully for a bunch of infections he doesn't even know about, considering how much time Ethan spent dragging open wounds through foetid swamp water and rusted shipwrecks). Ethan never saw the results, but they gave him the serum anyway—just as 'a precaution.' Mia and Zoe too—proper serums, made by actual lab-trained professionals, rather than years-old components salvaged from leaky storage and mushed together over an old camp stove.
Ethan doesn't like to think about the fact that he was infected, whether anyone told him or not. That the Eveline he'd seen running around the old house was seldom really there—didn't even look like the little girl he'd seen when she was—and that nothing a chainsaw can do to an arm can be fixed with a few staples. But he's fine now. They'd checked him out and given him a clean bill of health; they'd never have let him leave otherwise.
"Of course," Heisenberg goes on, loosening his grip and sliding it up over the restraint, "at later stages, subject should be able to regenerate severed body parts altogether. Fingers, for example," and here it is, he's finally come to Ethan's mutilated hand. "So it's telling that our subject has lost the last two fingers on his left hand—recently, given the state of the bandages."
He grips Ethan's left hand in his own, a strange echo of how he'd held Ethan's other hand before dropping him into the pit: Ethan, once again, declines to hold him back.
"Then again, even the E-series' regenerative powers can be overloaded. Too many deaths in too short a time, and injuries of a less life-threatening nature may not trigger the same aggressive reparative response. So perhaps the real question should be: what else had our subject been through before this happened?"
Ethan swallows thickly around the taste of bile in the back of his throat. Too many deaths: god, he's seen his share of death today. He'd lost those fingers only moments after waking up surrounded by cooling bodies, piled up like some sort of improvised lycan meat store—the only living thing left in there without razor-sharp teeth and a taste for human flesh. But he doesn't think Heisenberg's talking about the kind of death that only seems to happen to other people. Everything around him dies, and only Ethan stays on his feet—kept going by nothing short of raw necessity.
He can, unfortunately, vouch for the bit about the mould getting overloaded. Kill Jack Baker enough times, and eventually he'll stay down. Whatever's left of him, anyway. But it's not like Heisenberg is really looking for confirmation. Hard to pay much attention to anything the man is saying while he's actively tugging at the bloody bandage wrapped around Ethan's mangled hand—those few layers of fabric the only protection left.
"Either way," says Heisenberg, "I think it'll be instructive to see just how well this one has healed." The bandage, much like the rest of Ethan, is a filthy mess, and not about to give up without a fight. There's a faint sound of exasperation from Heisenberg, another distant metallic noise, and then Ethan's two surviving fingers are being bent slightly backwards as scissors dig between the fabric and his palm. Two loud metallic snips, and the dressing gives way, loose pieces fluttering to the floor. Ethan can't see what's happening up there, but impulse is still there to look away as he feels the last of the wrapping pulled free of the layer of dried blood adhering it to his skin.
He's startled by the feeling of a damp cloth moving over his hand, cleaning off the worst of the accumulated gore. Heisenberg makes a noise of surprised appreciation. "Well, will you look at this..."
A finger traces the new wounded edge of his hand, and Ethan squeaks—it's sensitive as fuck, but...
"New skin," Heisenberg muses. "You'd think this wound closed years ago."
Ethan whimpers; he can't see his hand and he can't begin to process what he's feeling. There's still something horrific in feeling Heisenberg touching the place where his fingers used to be, but what used to be an open wound feels like... he can feel skin there. How is Heisenberg making him think there's skin there?
"Fingers are still missing," Heisenberg goes on, still idly caressing the stubs of Ethan's knuckles, "but who knows? With a little more time for our subject to recharge, re-opening this wound might yield some interesting results." He laughs aloud as Ethan flinches, then pats him on the back of his hand in what barely passes for a conciliatory gesture.
Something else seems to catch Heisenberg's eye. "While we're here, we've also got an interesting little scar suggesting subject's hand has been partially bisected. My sister again, I take it—strung you up on those hooks of hers, hm?" Heisenberg traces the line with his thumb and forefinger. Strange, but after everything else he's been through today, Ethan had almost forgotten it was there at all.
Heisenberg reaches for his other hand, next—Ethan feels it as a brief pressure against his wrist—but it's a little too far away. A beat goes by, as the man presumably ponders the logistics of having to move his chair, followed by a clank and a hum as something solid and metallic comes flying from some corner of the room. It stops in mid-air, hovering, and so close to Ethan's knees there's a moment where he's sure it's going to hit him. Casual as anyone who hasn't just broken several important laws of physics, Heisenberg steps from the chair to his new hovering platform, transferring his full attention to Ethan's other hand.
"Yep, matching scar on this side." Just one finger this time, tracing the line up between Ethan's own fingers and down his palm, but Heisenberg's distracted again already: Ethan actually feels the cuff distort to shift lower down his arm as Heisenberg examines his wrist with new interest. "Slight discolouration of exposed skin on the hand, not present further up the arm. I'd call it sunburn, but the colour's off. Could be a chemical burn, perhaps?"
If it wasn't for the gag, Ethan might have told him to try stomach acid, raining down from Moreau's toxic belches as his victim limped for cover, frantically trying to defend his face...
"And what's this?" Again, Heisenberg wraps his fingers around one of Ethan's wrists. "Another circular scar around the right wrist, to match the one on the left. How very fashionable! Someone cut off this hand too, did they?"
The line where Lady Dimitrescu had sliced through Ethan's wrist is still sensitive enough that Ethan has to bite down the urge to flinch away.
"We'll have to hope he's not getting any urges to make his fingers match too," says Heisenberg, laughing, and that's the last straw—Ethan twitches hard enough to send the chains above him rattling. It's not even about fear, or pain, this time—it's the urge to get his hands around this bastard's throat and ask how he'd like to try losing a hand or two of his own, if he's finding Ethan's suffering so interesting.
Fuck it, he gets it, alright? His body heals faster than it's supposed to. Wounds close up over missing fingers, severed limbs adhere back on—the mould left its mark on him. He met Sherry Birkin once, back in the States—she runs a fucking support group for people who've been through stuff like they have—weird shit like this happens. He doesn't like it, he doesn't accept it—it's not a gift. It doesn't mean he's still infected—it doesn't make him one of those monsters. And the sooner this is over, the sooner he can go back to not having to think about it again.
"We'll leave the external examination there for now," Heisenberg tells his record as he steps back to the chair, then to the floor. The floating platform clatters unceremoniously back to the ground behind him. By the desk, he pauses, apparently thinking.
"Samples already taken for further analysis include blood, saliva, skin cells... hm, what have we missed...?" and Ethan is still wondering when the hell he got saliva, or whether he's got some big idea to stick the gag under a microscope at some point when he hears, "...Ah, of course: semen."
Ethan's eyes snap back to Heisenberg like he's been stung. The grin on the bastard's face promises that he's not kidding. Oh no, fuck no, Ethan thinks, helplessly. Surely there has to be a line somewhere. Surely.
The fact Heisenberg's already turning the chair around, placing it so that he can straddle it backwards in easy arm's reach, says otherwise. Ethan watches him set a small jar down on the floor beside him, like some shallow fiction that there's anything scientific about what he's about to do. He looks up at Ethan with a predatory smile.
"Relax," Heisenberg tells him, his leather-clad hand starting its assault on the inside of Ethan's knee, giving it a gentle squeeze. "You're in good hands."
Ethan only wishes that statement was less literal. He can't watch this, whatever Heisenberg's planning to do to him. That one's pretty literal too: he'd have a job craning his head down far enough to make out the slow circles Heisenberg's rubbing into the inside of his thigh. Is this his idea of foreplay?
Dangerous thought. This has been nothing but foreplay since Ethan woke up, a reality that's becoming increasingly hard to ignore. Well, good luck to the bastard if he thinks he's what Ethan needs to be able to get it up under these fucked-up circumstances. Being hung up like a slab of meat and roundly threatened and humiliated has never been Ethan's thing.
That said, this may not be a great time to admit that leather... kind of might be. Not while Heisenberg's taking his sweet time feeling up the inside of Ethan's thigh, or running a gloved thumb through the crease of his hip. It's around the point where Heisenberg starts getting close—carding through Ethan's pubic hair in a leisurely sort of way, like he's forgotten what he's even looking for in there—that it starts to really dawn on Ethan just how much trouble he might be in.
Heisenberg's no small man, and he has the hands to match it: they'd almost fully circled Ethan's wrists and ankles. They feel even bigger, wrapping around the base of Ethan's dick. The leather drags over the soft skin with an unfamiliar friction, unhurried, like they have all the time in the world. Heisenberg takes to mapping the shape of his member like it's every bit as significant as any of those tell-tale scars; like it might be hiding its own tells, to be found only by careful examination.
"Subject is a natural blond," Heisenberg tells his recording. "Circumcised." A finger and thumb circle the head with cool interest. "And evidently a grower."
Ethan whimpers faintly; wonders with slight mortification if the recording will be sensitive enough to pick it up. A moment ago, he'd thought there was no way this bastard was getting anything out of him. Now, he's quietly starting to wish Heisenberg would get on with it a little faster. Oh fuck, oh fuck fuck fuck...
Ethan's never had the kind of body that impressed anyone. He'd lost weight during his military training stint, more than he'd built any serious muscle. Mia was always obviously so far out of his league he'd spent the first year of their relationship wondering what the catch was going to be (well, he found that out, didn't he?) But by now, they've been together so many years (they had been together so many years...) that it's all just comfortable. Familiar. No surprises. She likes his body; nothing they'd been through had changed that. And he'd liked hers: watching her regain a little healthy weight after her three-year ordeal was over, the colony of butterflies which had moved into his own stomach as Mia's belly swelled, as Rose grew inside her. Ethan left the worst of his insecurities behind in his twenties, but his own body is boring in comparison.
No-one's ever treated it like it deserved a fraction of the attention Heisenberg's lavished on it tonight, even for all the wrong reasons.
Heisenberg settles into stroking him with a slow, steady pace, tighter on the upstroke and loose on the way back—not much like anything Ethan would ever do for himself, but it's working, oh god, is it working. Eye contact is unthinkable at this point; Ethan can hardly bear to open his eyes at all, but he can feel himself being watched—studied for his reaction to every minute variation in angle or pressure. With so much of his weight still suspended by his arms, Ethan feels like just about his whole body is erect, curved back on itself under tension. He can hear himself breathing around the gag, more laboured by the minute. It only worsens when Heisenberg's other hand goes to work on his balls.
"Subject is... hm, feels like about half an inch lower in the right sack," Heisenberg decides, rolling one and then the other lightly between his fingers, his bare hand still startlingly warm on Ethan's skin.
If Ethan wasn't gagged, he might be laughing hysterically at this point. Fuck, Heis, why not get out the ruler, get an exact measurement for the records? The same man who'd stabbed Ethan with a length of steel this morning currently has him by the balls—one good yank away from ensuring Rose will always remain an only child—and all Ethan can think is that if this stops now, he's going to lose his mind.
Heisenberg doesn't stop—or at least, he goes right on stroking Ethan's cock at the same pace, even as his other hand moves on behind Ethan's balls. A thumb strokes lightly over his taint, before digging in with firmer pressure over a spot that Ethan's always generally known was there—just not so much what sort of noises he'd make, groaning around a gag, when someone with all of Heisenberg's first-hand experience with bodies got their fingers on it.
Heisenberg laughs, somewhere around Ethan's navel, and oh shut up, shut up you bastard, shut up and do that some more before Ethan has to start thinking again. The slow drag of leather up and down his engorged cock has become nothing short of maddening.
And then there are fingers gently probing the crack of Ethan's ass, exploring the puckered skin around his hole in a thoughtful sort of way. "Hmm..." Heisenberg makes an interested noise.
Ethan swallows thickly, feeling his throat work around a tightness in his gullet. He's not so sheltered he doesn't have some idea where this is going—but then again, a moment ago he was genuinely worried this sick freak was about to make him come while recording some twisted speculation about how fast Ethan's body could regrow a testicle, or whatever, so who knows what... and then Hand #2 leaves him altogether, suddenly enough that Ethan makes the mistake of looking down.
He's greeted by the sight of Heisenberg sucking his own fingers, a display that becomes only more obscene when he catches Ethan's eye. Ethan quickly looks away. Well, fuck.
His punishment for his cowardice is a sharp upward twist in the hand on his dick, tightening almost painfully. It's a warning and he knows it, but he bucks into it, shamelessly—it's almost exactly what he needs. A few more of those and Ethan thinks that could be it for him—and that's so distracting that he's not the least bit prepared when Heisenberg's other hand comes back, warm and slick with saliva, pressing two fingers into his body with almost no preamble at all.
Ethan gasps around the gag; an ugly, startled sound that got crudely tangled with a snort somewhere on its way in or out. Heisenberg's fingers aren't small—they stretch and burn, but there's no mistaking that he knows what he's doing. The pulse of pleasure as he drives them into just the right spot inside is a raw, primal thing; there's no mystery left to Ethan why people do this. Invasive and horrifically personal as it's so, so good—goddamn, how does Heisenberg suddenly know Ethan's body better than he does himself?
Trapped between Heisenberg's hands, Ethan feels his hips twitch back and forth, trying to find a counterpoint to a rhythm that isn't there. Especially not when Heisenberg stills the hand on his cock, presumably to better examine Ethan's reactions to the fingers prodding around his ass. He's been quiet now for long enough that it takes a moment to identify what's missing.
"Subject is about six inches, fully erect." Heisenberg's voice rings out, like he's read Ethan's mind. Ethan wants to laugh: not just because of the absurdity of it all, but because he's pretty sure Heisenberg's being generous with that estimate. (Then again, he can't even remember the last time he was this hard...)
"Girth..." Heisenberg's hand curls appreciatively back around Ethan's cock. "Let's just say: pleasing."
Trying to laugh while gagged isn't a fun time. It mostly just leaves him short of breath—not much helped when Heisenberg thrusts his fingers forward, finally, finally developing something like a rhythm—one that Ethan feels all the way up his spine. With a spreading slick of pre-come easing the motion of the leather over his cock, with Heisenberg's fingers digging deep into parts of his body even Ethan barely knew, he's learning more about himself today than even Heisenberg could imagine. But goddamnit, if this bastard starts on some kind of spiel about the stretch in his ring of muscle or the health of his prostate, Ethan is going to clench those fucking fingers right off—he doesn't even care if that's possible, Heisenberg's the one telling him he has an impossible fucking body, so he can fucking well deal with the consequences.
Really, Ethan's doing a pretty damn good job not-thinking about just how close he is when something shifts on his face, and he's suddenly gulping in his first, blissful mouthful of empty air since waking up. Somewhere in all his gasping and twisting, he must have managed to work the gag loose—it's just hanging from the back of his neck now, startling in its absence.
Yet the only thing that crosses Ethan's mind in that moment is a strange, new fear: oh fuck, he can't let Heisenberg notice, can't make any sound that might clue him in, or he'll stop to put the damn gag back in, and Ethan can't deal with that.
He looks down, needing to know if he's been seen, only to find Heisenberg is looking right back up at him, a grin on his face that says he knows all too well what Ethan's thinking. Caught by the eye contact, Ethan is trapped there: nothing in the world could have made him look away.
"Come on, Ethan," purrs Heisenberg, still smirking. "Show me what you're made of."
And so help him, Ethan does. He comes so hard he thinks he pulls a shoulder, and doesn't even care. It seems to go on for ages. The whole world whites out around him, and for a long moment he just floats there, blissfully numb, adrift from any sense of what's holding him up anymore.
He comes back to himself at last, blinking spots away from the sight of Heisenberg wiping a strange, black substance off his glove into a jar. Confused and strung out, it's a sight that makes no sense to Ethan. What is that stuff, where did it...?
With a sinking feeling, he looks down at his body. His stomach drops like a meteor.
The streaks on his chest are pretty unmistakable in pattern, but what should be white fluid is black. Black, and with just a trace of a familiar smell.
Oh god. Oh god, no, oh fuck, it can't be, that can't be, this has to be some kind of trick...
He's still staring blankly down at himself as Heisenberg walks away to shut off his recording and deposit his latest sample with the others. Ethan barely notices when the restraints holding his arms are released, dropping him to the floor on his knees.
How long has he been like this? Ever since Dulvey? How had he not known? But then, the thing about being in a years-long relationship with a not-very-adventurous woman is that a guy can go kind of a while without actually seeing any of this stuff. It's almost a point of pride. But that's not an answer—how infected does a man have to be for this to happen to him?
It hits Ethan all in a rush that he was never the only living thing in that lycan pit at all: he'd been dead down there. He died in the car crash too, didn't he? How many times has he died today?
We matter! You matter! You just won't... The memory of Mia's voice rings in his ears. God, she'd tried to tell him, to get him to face this, but all he could do was fling accusations and talk around it—talk every bit of that horrifying ordeal to death except the one thing that really mattered.
The memory of the twisted, blackened, foetus-creature that had come crawling down the corridors of Beneviento's basement bursts back into Ethan's mind, unbidden. Is this what it meant, what his subconscious was trying to tell him all along? Oh god, Rose. Was he like this when he and Mia... fuck, he must have been.
Is Rose any more human than Ethan is? Oh god, what has he done?
Ethan's face is in his hands when Heisenberg's shadow falls over him again.
"You really had no idea, did you?" Heisenberg only sounds a little bit mocking. By his standards, it's practically gentle.
Ethan looks up, because he's going to have to, eventually. He's surprised to find himself looking at a glass of water, being proffered in his direction. Working on automatic, he reaches for it with a shaking hand. There's still a part of him that just wants to throw it back in the bastard's face, but it's a pretty small part at this point, and it doesn't have voting rights. The water's lukewarm, with an oily aftertaste, but Ethan needs it right now like he's rarely needed water in his life.
A damp cloth moves lightly over his skin as Heisenberg does him the favour of wiping away the evidence of just how human Ethan isn't, anymore. Ethan just lets it happen. The task of drinking without choking takes just about all the concentration he has.
"Jesus," he manages, once the glass is empty, "Was all this really necessary? You could've just bought me a drink, goddamnit." He gives a weak laugh, uncomfortably aware of something hysterical lodged under the croak of his throat.
"Well I did try, Ethan." Even when not smirking, there's something too much like a smirk worn deep into the lines of Heisenberg's face. "You weren't having it."
Ethan opens his mouth to protest, but is stuck on the awkward possibility Heisenberg might almost have a point there. Almost.
Resigned, Ethan gives him back the glass. Doesn't even throw it at him, which about qualifies as a 'thank you'. He hopes Heisenberg appreciates it.
A beat goes by, leaving Ethan with his thoughts as Heisenberg takes the glass and sets it on the desk before coming back again.
"Alright, Ethan," he booms, sounding more purposeful again, "I think it's about time you and I had another talk about why you need my help." He holds out a hand.
Looking up at him from the floor, Ethan is struck with another round of déjà vu. Heisenberg and that outstretched hand were almost the last thing he'd seen before dropping through the hole in the floor, back on the first level of the factory. He'd purposefully let go of Heisenberg's hand then, mostly just to make a point.
Fingers still shaking, he takes it now, and lets Heisenberg pull him to his feet.