Chapter Text
“I'm sorry.”
Bright, tired blue eyes of his companion open slowly and stare at him calmly as the other man shifts his body into a semi upright position next to the wall of their cell.
“I know, it is something that you have said many times during our stay here. Given what our current situation is though and how we got here, I don't think that we have any other choice, but to comply with their demands. Or at least you don't.”
Frowning he nodded slightly knowing that much was at least true as he moved his left hand towards his upper right arm, gently fingering one of the older harm scars that lined the skin of his arm knowing that the other man was correct. They had been abducted four weeks ago by what he would guess were members of a possibly hostile alien species from a distant galaxy – their roughly accented attempts to speak Standard English was proof of that when they had started making threatening noises at the both of them. Though mostly more so at his companion than at him for some reason. He wasn't sure that anyone would coming to rescue them.
Or at least they wouldn't be keen on rescuing him, if such attempts were even made.
At least not after his apparent break in all manner of protocols and loss of honor that he like the rest of his people and comrades had been taught to follow that had resulted with him being ordered into taking a leave of disgrace from all of his duties. All for things that he didn't remember doing at the time of the events despite the large amounts of evidence that had been levied against him in the courts.
The worst part was that even his chosen life-mate had left him, saying that as much as she loved him that she couldn't be with him anymore. He knows the real reason, the one that she hadn't been able to bring herself to say. That she didn't want to be contaminated by him and lose her own place in the eyes of their society, like he had.
The news of his dishonor and leave of disgrace from his duties had gotten around the city and the surrounding posts faster than his feet could ever move as they carried him back to his home. His mate wouldn't be happy with him, but he was sure that even with this on him now that she would stay with him. That this was an obstacle they could overcome together.
He enters the spacious domicile, noting that things are either missing or not in their usual places and heads towards the sleeping rooms as noises from it catch his attention, and comes to stop in the doorway. His mate looks up from the bags that she is standing by on their bed and freezes with surprise at the site of him.
She is leaving him.
A calm mask slides over her surprise and she turns her attention back to the bags in front of her, folding her clothes and neatly packing them into the bags.
“Where are you going?”
“To stay with some friends of my family. You don't know them.”
He moves away from the doorway and moves into the center of the room, taking position of sorrowful placation towards her.
“Please don't leave me. I'm certain that we could get through this obstacle together. We -”
She stops her task for the moment, but doesn't move towards him either rather staying by the bed. Her grey eyes seem to pity him.
“I'm sorry, but there is no “we” anymore. No more “us” anymore. I love you truly, but I can't stay here anymore. I don't want to be with you anymore.”
The words sting and break his heart as she returns to the task of finishing the packing of her bags.
“I... I understand.”
He stares at the floor of what is now his room, but he isn't sure how longer he would be keeping the domicile. He knows that eventually he will lose this home of 10 decades and the memories associated with it as the full weight of his loss comes crashing down and leaves him with nothing.
He will be no one.
One of the Forgotten in the eyes of his people.
The clasps of her bags click shut and he closes his eyes, not wanting to watch her leave him as well. To watch her walk out of his life forever. She stops by him, her skirts swaying with the motion.
“I love you. But don't come looking for me.”
As if he would have the resources for mounting such a search for her or anyone else.
“As you wish.”
She sighs then and he thinks that she might say something more instead of saying something more, she moves past him towards the door of the sleeping room and then towards the door of their domicile, closing it behind her. Only when he can't hear her anymore, does he let himself collapse to the floor and weep.
The keen eyes of the other man follow the path that his fingers make over the old scars on his right arm and then up towards his face, catching his eyes.
“If we survive this and someone rescues us from this place, I'd like to know the story behind those marks of yours. And also hear about you of course.”
Sighing he looks away, towards the door listening to the sounds beyond it and shakes his head softly. Their captors would be coming to visit them soon and undo the injury care that he tried to do for the other man.
“There's no story to them. I'm no one important. Not anymore at least. If there is a rescue, then I think that you would be the only one truly rescued from here. This is a fitting place for someone like me to die in.”
He turns back slightly at the sound of shocked incredulity in his companion's voice and nods once as his eyes track over the sluggishly bleeding cuts, a curtesy of their captors.
“Surely someone -”
“No. There is no one who will care to worry for my worthless hide. Rank is important where I'm from and without that you become nothing. One of the Forgotten. Outcast, dead in their eyes. You, I'm sure will have a chance at least.”
The man snarls as he tries to stand up on weakened legs with the help of the wall and fails in his attempt.
“I won't leave you here to possibly die here alone. I won't let any rescuer if they do come here abandon you to these creatures.”
He snorts unbelieving at the words as he turns away to stare at the door again, quietly wondering how a person who didn't know him or about what he had done, could become so protective of him in the four weeks that they had been held as abducted prisoners by their current captors.
“You may not be given a choice in the matter.”
The other man starts to say something, but the door of their cell opens stopping any words from coming out of his mouth and two of their captors stride into the room as the door closes behind them, their faces calm with four glinting eyes. Numbly he looks down at their hands to see what they have brought with them now and notes that in one strange shaped hand is a some kind of blaster gun while in another hand is something resembling a whip with sharpened ends.
They offer both items to him and he blinks slowly.
“What do you choose?”
It is the same ploy as the last few times they were visited in their little cell, he is given a choice to hurt his companion with a different weapon set each time. If he takes too long to make a decision, then it is made for him and the other man is soundly beaten in front of him with whatever weapon they choose to use. They are far more brutal than he had ever been during his entire career, each time destroying what little comfort he had been able to give the other man when tending to his injuries.
Not this time.
His hand apparently on autopilot reaches for the offered whip and he hears a rattling gasp behind him at the move. In front of him alien eyes gleam with smug amusement and he squeezes his eyes shut.
“I'm sorry.”
He turns to face the man, who had turned away from him to present his back while his arms have moved to protect his neck as well as his head and cracks the whip, its sharpened ends arc through the air towards his back.
The first strike meets the skin of its intended target.