Chapter Text
↳ ❥ Location: Prison in Snezhnaya
The sound of water dripping in the distance resonated in the air around you. It seemed to be dawn since the light was pouring in from your pathetic excuse of a cell window. It wasn’t too bright but also not too dark, so you were able to make out the unfamiliar surroundings around you. All you had in your cell was a wooden bed covered in splinters with a thin blanket that might as well be used as a piece of paper.
You felt tears start to fill your eyes, blurring your vision. Silently crying in your cell, you started to think of how your life was before you got placed in such an awful predicament. Here you were, sitting pathetically in some random cell in a random location. No one was around - the air around you was so deathly silent you could hear a pin drop if one were to fall.
No one knew you existed because your father worked very hard to keep you off of the grid. You were his sacred “Little Dove.” He loved you unconditionally, doing whatever it took to provide and care for you. You were all he had left as a reminder of his late wife. Your mother was a wonderful woman; not only was she known as the Godfather’s doting wife, but she was a badass who partook in the business. You looked up to her so much, but one of your father’s enemies saw the opportunity to take revenge on him. Your mother died years ago and your father never recovered from the death. As a result of her murder, he hid you from the world because he never wanted the last of his family to be taken from him.
Unfortunately, he slipped up a little when he was visited by one of the Harbingers. The two of them shared a drink at a table, discussing how he made a grave mistake by killing one the Harbinger's favorite subordinates. You were eavesdropping from the staircase, listening carefully to their conversation. You originally wanted to ask your father a question, but you were intrigued by the conversation about “tremendous betrayal.” Unbeknownst to you, the Harbinger noticed a small picture of your family portrait - a father, a mother, and a daughter.
The original goal was to kill your father but death was an easy way out of punishment. Instead, the Harbingers made an extravagant plan to kidnap his secret daughter. The plan took weeks to map out, but eventually, they figured out your guard’s rotations and made the attack in the middle of the night. Originally asleep comfortably in your soft, silk sheets, you were awakened by the sounds of broken glass and someone running towards your helpless form. A piercing scream was the last thing you heard before everything went black.
Now you have been in this prison cell in nothing but your sheer nightgown that you wore to bed for a week now. Your hands and ankles were clasped together with silver heavy handcuffs. Your skin was starting to turn into a bruised shade from how tight the cuffs were against your soft skin. It was cold and damp in the cell. Your cries were the only thing that could be heard.
“She’s been here for a week now. The Harbingers don’t understand how much of a bitch she is.”
“Her resistance is annoying. So many other guards have been punched, kicked, bitten, scratched, and you name it by her.”
“She’s been starving for a few days now so she should be weak. We had to handcuff her hands and feet because of how much she kept swatting at us.”
Two guards were chatting while they made their way to your cell. The two men stood in front of the rusted prison bars while they stared at you with mocking expressions. They started to whisper things about you to each other. Your teary eyes glared at the two men who were making jokes about you.
“Get away from me,” you demanded. At home, you were used to having whatever you wanted at the tip of your fingers. You seem to have forgotten your power doesn’t apply here.
“Aw, does the Godfather’s daughter want to be released?” one guard snickered.
“Oh right away Your Majesty,” the other jabbed.
One of the guards took keys out of his pocket and started to unlock the cell. The other man took out a long, sharp spear and pointed it at you. “No funny business girl. We have to bring you to the 2nd Harbinger today.”
You’d be damned if you were going to be kept captive here. You pretended to obey at first, waiting for the guards to open the door so you could try to get away at the right moment. You might be the gorgeous and delicate-seeming daughter of the Don, but you could hold out for yourself a little. The man put the keys back on his hip and walked over to you, grabbing you by the arm to make you stand up. He lowered down to unlock the cuffs around your ankles so that you could walk alongside him. You winced from the pressure he was holding you with, but you remained calm regardless. He led you to the door while the other stared at you with hawk eyes, the spear pointing directly at you and ready to stab into your delicate skin.
Once you made it out of the cell, the two guards got distracted with locking the door back up. You reared your foot forward and kicked it back as hard as you could toward his groin, causing the man to yell out in pain and let you go. Quickly, you sprinted down the cold, stone floors of the prison. You had absolutely no idea where you were going, but you were determined to get out of there.
The guards yelled for you and started to follow suit. Your bare feet ached a little from the uneven cobblestone sizes that your bare feet were pounding against. Adrenaline rushed through your veins while you ran as fast as you could. You made a few correct turns out of pure luck, now seeing the staircase out of here. You smiled to yourself while you ran quickly towards the staircase, feeling like you rescued yourself.
You seemed to have thought too soon since a large figure walked down the stairs. It was a tall man with blue hair and a golden mask covering his eyes. He noticed you running in his direction, but you realized he was there a bit too late. Your body smacked right into his, his arms immediately moving to enclose you. Squirming in his grasp and trying to break free, you began to yell.
“Let me go!” you cried out. His grip was far too strong for you to fight with bound hands.
“A fighter, hm?” the blue-haired man chuckled.
“S-Sir! We’re so sorry. We didn’t think she’d-”
“You two will be dealt with accordingly. For now, I will move her myself,” the blue-haired man interrupted.
He reached for something in his pocket that you last minute realized was a syringe with a blue liquid in it. It was too late for you to react before you realized there was a needle shoved into the skin of your neck. You gasped at the sharp pain from both being stabbed and the liquid injecting into you. A sudden rush of sleepiness washed over you, causing you to fall limp into the man’s arms while everything turned black again.
·。ﾟ ˚₊‧꒰ა ⊱╠ ♛ ╣ ⊰ ໒꒱ ‧₊˚ ·。ﾟ
↳ ❥ Location: The Doctor’s Lab
It’s been months since you were transported to your new cell. You completely lost the exact count of how long you’ve been in this torturous place. The cell here was much cleaner than your previous one; the floors were made from cold, gray graphite while the walls were bare, smooth concrete. The bed was a slight upgrade from your previous one. Instead of pointy, jagged wood with a thin excuse of a blanket, it was a metal bed with a singular pillow. Your new gown was short and almost pathetically see-through.
You were now in the care of someone called The Doctor. The name people referred to him as made you want to scoff, but you began to learn quickly your hot-tempered attitude was doing you more harm than good. You never wanted to go down without a fight, that was a promise you made to your mother so long ago. However, you were in a situation where fighting was getting you stabbed with more needles and cut all over the place. He liked to do “fun experiments” whenever you were “disobeying” him.
You didn’t know what he was going to do today, but you were absolutely terrified. He sat at a desk on the other side of the prison bars separating you two, scribbling away on a piece of paper that had an outlined sketch of your body. He took it upon himself to draw silhouettes of your body, mapping out the areas that he experimented on. There was a checklist on the side of the paper noting all of the experiments he was doing.
The Doctor did so many awful things to your body that you couldn’t keep track of what he was doing. Every experiment involved inflicting so much pain onto you that you’d cry and beg him to stop. Your body was littered with cuts, bruises, and other wounds from him slicing your skin, poking you with needles, and inflicting other damages onto your delicate body. Every time he did something, there was a small recording device that you assumed he was using to record your horrific noises. He was sending audio tapes to your father so that he could hear how much pain you were in.
“My Pet,” The Doctor hummed in a sinister, sweet voice. “Today we’ll be testing your pain tolerance. I want to see how much pain you can endure before you beg me to stop. I’m doing this to mostly test the sensitivity of your nerves.” He had done a lot of tests concerning your stamina, strength, and intelligence. The last experiment involved making you endure so many harsh, awful hits to your body from guards who found joy in smacking you with a variety of objects such as whips, poles, or whatever they had. Surely that tested your pain tolerance?
The Doctor stood up and walked over to your cell with a small smile on his lips. He stared at your quivering form that was sitting on the bed in a shivering ball. Your throat was sore from screaming, your eyes were throbbing from crying, and your body ached from the other experiments he did on you today. You looked up at him with tears starting to form in your eyes. You wanted to so badly beg "no more" but you knew better than to reject him.
“No protests?” The Doctor asked with amusement coating his voice.
You remained silent. Your eyes stared at him with an empty look that could send shivers throughout anyone’s body. What happened to the smiling, sassy girl you were before you came here? It was as if she were trapped deep inside you, locked away because she was getting you punished for merely trying to defend yourself.
“Ah. Seems like the tests have worked. Perhaps we won’t use the electrical cords today,” The Doctor smiled. The goal of his tests was not only to test out your body in weird infatuation, but it was also to knock you out of your feisty personality. It is only natural that as the daughter of a powerful man and a mother who conditioned you to want to be like her that you’d have such a personality. However, The Doctor took it upon himself to beat the personality out of you until you were no more than a husk of your former self.
“As a reward, I’ll make your food hot this time. I’m sure you’re tired of eating cold soup and stale bread,” The Doctor chuckled. “I’ll return shortly.”
Once The Doctor’s footsteps were inaudible to you, your restraint broke and tears began to flow down your cheeks. You buried your face into your knees, tears starting to drop onto the already pitiful excuse for a gown. Your sobs were quiet in case he were to come back sooner than expected. You couldn’t take this anymore - you were going insane. If Hell were a place on Earth, this would be it. The way that The Doctor had no remorse for what he did to your body, listening to your screams and cries as if they were lullabies, made you sick to your stomach. You lost quite a bit of weight since he’d starve you sometimes to see how long you could make it out without food.
How the fuck do I get out of this? You thought to yourself. There was a light in you that was telling you to fight - get the hell out of here and save yourself because no one was coming for you. However, you were starting to lose hope and becoming a victim of your treatment. Your former personality wasn’t going to help you get out of here, but fitting into the mold The Doctor wanted you to be was. It made you sick to your stomach to obey his orders since he made you withstand so much physical and emotional trauma, but you had to survive somehow. I’ll get out of this… I just don’t know how yet.
You wiped your tears on your arms when you heard footsteps approaching you. This time it sounded like there were multiple people rather than one. You knew The Doctor’s footsteps all too well but they were accompanied by a new sound. Assuming it was another lousy guard, you let out a sigh through your nose and looked up at the prison bars with teary eyes.
“She’s been behaving much better after my tests. It was a struggle at first but now she understands her situation,” The Doctor hummed.
“I see…”
Two tall figures stood in front of your cell and stared at you. You felt yourself starting to shrink at their gazes and wanting to hide from shame and embarrassment. Look at you - the Don’s daughter sitting in a cell locked up and abused. Oh how his enemies would make such a laughing stock out of you.
“Pet, you have a visitor today,” The Doctor stated. He handed the man next to him your silver food tray that had a bowl of warm soup and a piece of bread that wasn’t stale for once. “Enjoy feeding her. Make sure to not undo any of her restraints. Although she’s obeying I don’t know if she’s doing it for her benefit or because she’s finally changing.”
The man nodded and watched as The Doctor unlocked your cell. He held the door open for the man who walked in with your food tray. The Doctor shut the door and locked it back up, leaving you in a cell with this stranger. “Once I’m done treating her she will be in better condition for you. Pet, do act on your best behavior. Your future caretaker is going to spend some time getting to know you. Refer to him as Master Tartaglia.”
Although you were confused by his words, you didn’t have it in you to argue. The Doctor chuckled and walked away, his footsteps finally becoming inaudible at some point. There was a tall, orange-haired man standing in front of you wearing a red coat with black tufts of fur coming out on the sides. He stared at you with an unamused look, his blue eyes looking at your pathetic figure.
He remained silent, walking towards you and sitting on the bed to start feeding you. Basically by instinct, you turned your body to face him on the bed, your legs now crisscrossed on the bed and your hands gently on your lap. He looked into your eyes - they looked so dull and broken. He could see the hints of red on the sclera of your eyes, indicating to him that you cried not too long ago. He had to admit, you looked so pitiful like this.
He dipped the metal spoon into the warm broth and brought it to your dry lips. You opened your mouth and drank the warm liquid. It tasted so much better when there was actual effort put into your food. Swallowing the warm liquid, you started to feel a little better since you were being fed food that was actually good. The man noticed the slight change in your expression while you drank the soup he kept bringing to your lips.
“The Doctor doesn’t give you warm soup, does he?” the man asked in a gentle voice.
You stayed silent for a moment since you were a little too afraid to speak the truth. You avoided eye contact, your eyes only looking at the bowl and spoon in his lap. You nodded as an answer, your mouth only opening to drink the warm liquid from the spoon.
He was upset that you still wouldn’t look him in the eyes despite that he was feeding you. Deep down you worried that he was going to treat you exactly like how The Doctor did. You falsely believed The Doctor was gentle based on how he would talk to you, but you quickly learned he loved hurting you.
“Will you tell me your name?” Childe asked. He noticed that your soup was almost empty.
You remained silent for a moment before finally speaking, your eyes never looking at him. “Y/n,” you answered in a monotone voice. How long has it been since you last spoke your name? The Doctor referred to you as “Pet” since he didn’t care to know your name. The only words you said nowadays were “stop,” “please,” or “that hurts.”
“Y/n. What a pretty name,” Childe hummed.
You felt your body stiffen at the compliment. The only compliments you received were from The Doctor whenever he was inflicting pain on you. The scary flashbacks of his voice saying “good job,” “louder,” or “let me hear more” came into your mind. They were words that would make your skin crawl and make you feel numb all over. “Thank you.”
Childe had heard stories about how when you were first brought here you gave everyone hell. He liked the idea of having a prisoner who had some fight in them, but you were the opposite of that now. You were sitting here like a husk - avoiding eye contact and speaking short sentences. There was no sass in your voice or any thrill in your eyes. Childe felt slight envy towards Dottore for being the one to take that from you.
“What will you do to me, Master Tartaglia?” you asked in a quiet voice.
He raised a brow at your question. Finally, you were starting to speak. He looked down at you, seeing that you were still avoiding eye contact with him. He lifted your chin up gently with one of his hands. The dull, tired look in your eyes was now more clear to him. You had slight bags under your pretty (color) eyes, your cheeks were slightly bruised, and you looked so pouty.
“What do you think I’ll do to you?”,” he asked with a small gentle grin on his face.
Your eyes looked away after his question. His grin dropped when he realized that might have been a triggering comment to you. Childe wasn’t keen on being close to Dottore. If there was one thing both he and Arlecchino agreed on, it was that Dottore made them extremely uncomfortable. Dottore never talked about his experiments, but the screams echoing from his lab told everyone that whatever he was doing was awful.
“I apologize. What an inappropriate question to ask,” Childe muttered.
He… apologized? Your eyes moved back towards the man holding your chin. That was the first time you’ve heard someone apologize to you in so long. The others treated you horribly, telling you that this is your own fault for being born into a shitty family to justify their harm. You felt tears start to come into your eyes, your vision becoming slightly blurry while you battled your tears.
Childe frowned seeing you on the brink of tears. He cupped your cheeks with both of his hands, his thumbs wiping away your tears gently. Why was he being so nice to you? What were his true intentions? “Don’t worry, y/n. You’ll be in better care with me.”
Her Majesty had several meetings with the Harbingers to discuss what to do with you. Some suggested that they murder you and send your father pieces of your body slowly, but others argued that killing you would be another easy ticket out of the punishment. In the meantime, The Doctor continued experimenting on you to beat you into an obedient cocoon of your former self. An agreement was finally made - you would be in the care of the 11th Harbinger. A letter was sent to your father:
“Until we deem that you've learned your lesson for trying to cross us, your daughter will be cared for by one of the Harbingers. He’s a man who loves playing with new "toys," so he is free to do whatever he desires with her. You’ll start receiving gifts from him shortly once his treatment begins. We hope you’ve been enjoying the audio tapes graciously supplied by our loving Doctor. Do not fret, she’s being taken care of properly. Let these gifts of ours serve as reminders you’ve challenged the wrong people.” - The Harbingers
You were extremely weary of his words. Did he really mean that? Was it another lie to make you feel a false sense of security? Sure, his mannerisms were rather nice to you now, but would that change?
Childe could tell you weren’t buying his words. The Doctor must have conditioned you to think that words were meaningless and you couldn’t trust anything that he said. He chuckled quietly and smiled at you. “Call me Master Childe instead since I prefer that name over Tartaglia. Don’t tell anyone I said that though.”
You raised an eyebrow at him. Finally, some sort of emotion on your face. Confusion - you felt confused by him. He kept smiling at you with his soft, blue eyes staring at you gently. This was the first emotion you felt in so long. All you ever felt was fear in The Doctor’s care.
“Will you hurt me?” you asked quietly. The tremble in your voice was telling me that you were genuinely scared of him.
He didn’t want to lie to you. He was expected to inflict some sort of pain on you so that he could send “reminders” to your father. However, something deep down in him was making him regret agreeing to this, but being with him was better than your current condition. You looked so helpless and sad; your face was cold in his palms. He removed his hands from your face and held the soft bread towards your lips. “I only wish to give you better care than The Doctor.” That wasn’t a complete lie anyway.
Not entirely reassured by his words, you remained silent and bit into the soft bread. It felt so much better to eat food that wasn’t cold or hard. Your eyes looked away from him, looking back down at his hands that were feeding you. Once you were done eating, he grabbed the white napkin off the tray to wipe your lips off gently.
“You’ll take care of me?” you asked in a quiet voice.
Childe looked at you with a soft expression. It seemed like a little bit of light returned back to your eyes whenever you asked him that question. It made him eager to see how much he could make your broken expressions light up.
“I am now, aren’t I?” Childe hummed.
Although you still cautioned his words, part of you hoped that he’d stay true to his word. The Doctor returned and motioned for Childe to come to him. He got up and left your cell with your empty food tray. The two of them walked away, whispering quietly about you while you leaned against the bed stiffly to take a nap. Sleeping was your only escape from the hell hole you lived in.
“How did it go?” Dottore asked.
“I’m looking forward to my present,” Childe replied with a grin.
Oh, how he couldn’t wait to have you in his arms. You’d be in his care now - free for him to do whatever he so desired.