#trigger tw chained

@whumpay2022 Day Eighteen: Trope: Verbal Salt In The Wound / “I’m just trying to help.” / Coughing Up Blood

@drileyf asks for Scott

I aim to oblige.

Trope:Sometimes, inquiring after someone’s health can be the nastiest thing you can do under the circumstances.

Here, an insulter does their best to get under someone’s skin by mentioning, asking or joking about an injury suffered by the victim in the past; the more traumatic the injury, the better. A not uncommon variant of this involves the insulter asking about the wound in a faux-concerned tone of voice, usually in the form of “how’s the (insert wounded organ here)?” though numerous permutations of it exist across fiction and reality.

For good measure, it’s also very common for this kind of insult to be used by the individual who inflicted the injury in the first place, though it can be used by anyone aware of the damage and eager to rub salt into it.

Warnings: Implied Torture, Coughing up blood, Psychological tormenting. Chained.

‘And how are we doing today, Mr Tracy?’

Scott flinches violently.

He still can’t hide the flinch when well-meaning people call him that at Tracy Industries or when he has to talk to the Media.

But when HE says it, it makes the pain that much worse. Scott tries to hide how badly it affects him, but he can’t.

The flinch does him no good, body screaming at the movement just as his brain does at the words. With his arms chained above his head the flinch causes the chains to rattle which in turn causes him to spin slightly, and for the next few moments Scott’s trying to get his breathing back under the control he’d only just mastered.

He stares at his captor, wishing his looks could kill but knowing that with one eye swollen shut the look is wasted.

‘What, no answer for me today, Mr Tracy? How very rude. What would your parents say?’

The words are like that coarse sea salt Gordon sometimes likes, callously rubbed into the wounds of his dead parents. Parents that are dead because of this man and his hatred.

Scott doesn’t have the energy to give the scathing comeback he would like. Instead, he coughs a little and spits at the man in front of him, hoping that it’s good enough to hit his target.

The spittle comes out more blood than saliva but hits his target, and the Hood steps back, removing a handkerchief from a pocket and wiping it off.

But he is smiling as he steps forward, still mindful of the reach of those long legs.

‘Feeling feisty today then, Mr Tracy.’

The Hood slowly walks around him, inspecting his flesh to see the harm already wrought there, and no doubt deciding what more he could do. Scott hates when the man is behind him, every nerve fibre on edge until the man steps back into view.

A judicial fist to the side and Scott is coughing, flecks of blood flying from his mouth. The more he coughs the more blood appears until Scott heaves and spits out a good mouthful of the red stuff. The Hood looks unimpressed.

‘Give me what I want, Scott Tracy, and this can all go away.’

‘I’d rather die than give you that.’

‘I can arrange that quite easily enough.’

‘Go on then.’

Scott’s voice is barely there, but the defiance is very clear. His captor sighs.

‘I’m just trying to help you, Scott. We both know you don’t have it in you to run both International Rescue and Tracy Industries, let alone care for your brothers.’

He takes a step closer, reaching up and grabbing Scott’s jaw and squeezing his cheeks hard. That’s going to add a few more bruises, but the man’s anger is clear.

‘Give me the Thunderbirds!’

‘Never!’

‘Last chance, Mr Tracy.’

But any reply Scott has is lost to an eruption of sound.