standsonhigh | Open Post for S&M!verse

The order was clear enough and so Barty followed it to the letter. Knocking Regulus out and taking him to the basement, letting him sit on the floor and chaining him to the pipes, much the way he had been not all that long ago. He also provided the chair the Master had asked for and ordered the house elf to bring the tea, like a good host.

He wasn't sitting himself, though. He just stood, waiting, watching Regulus and counting the minutes until he woke up. Couldn't be much longer now.

The first thing Regulus became aware of was the pounding pain in his head. A little bit like a terrible hangover, but the pain was sharper and felt wrong... and he didn't ever drink enough to pass out. A tongue loosened by alcohol was far too dangerous for a man in his position.

He groaned and moved his arms trying to rub his face. The movement was cut off by a weight around his wrists, accompanied by a metallic clinking sound.

Regulus was instantly awake and alert. His eyes flew open, taking in his all too familiar surroundings, the feel of metal around his wrists, the...

His eyes narrowed at Barty. "A stunning spell would have sufficed."

"Oh, who uses spells these days? So last year," the Master called out in complaint. He had only recently come down to take a seat, sipping the tea he'd been made. It tasted awful, someone in the kitchen didn't get the right balance of milk in tea. Too much and it was basically hot milk. How was that hard to understand?

With an annoyed sigh, he set his tea aside and turned to Barty, gesturing to the tea. "Get a new elf in the kitchen, I don't like the one we have."

Or, you know, better yet. Maybe train a wizard. Maybe Mister Regulus 'I have a fantastic name everyone should love' Black would be able to make some tea? It's more worth while that taking nonsense about magic or whatever it was they'd done before Voldemort had been killed.

"Oh, where are my manners?" the Master laughed brightly, turning to their captive and holding up his cup. "Fancy some tea, Regulus?

"Sufficed, sure. But this way was much more satisfying." There was something to be said for a hands on approach. He folded his arms and turned to the Master, nodding at his instruction. "I'll do that."

House elves weren't exactly difficult to come by when one was in the Master's position of power. He arched an eyebrow at the offer of tea and then, wisely, took a step out of the way. Just in case.

The Master. Here. Merlin. Regulus' heart plummeted, he had been so caught up with his own situation that he hadn't noticed him right away. He blinked several times in an attempt to clear both his gaze and his mind, but the pounding remained, making it so terribly hard to think straight.

Was the Master actually having tea all nice and proper like an English gentleman, right here in the dungeon? It ought to have been a hallucination, but he had learned already that nothing was impossible with the Master.

He shook his head, a gesture he instantly regretted when bile rose up in his throat. "Tea?" he asked blankly.

No. No. This had to be a joke. Some horrible nightmare. He hadn't done anything to warrant this, had he? Regulus tried to run through the events of previous days to discover his misstep, but his mind still wouldn't work properly. All he knew for sure was that he was doomed. The Master had spared Barty's life for some reason, but he wasn't his favorite pet. No, he would be lucky if he didn't end up liquified. Or maybe he would be lucky if he were. There were many worse deaths to be suffered.

He sighed. "What am I to die for?"

"Die?" the Master asked with a dark smile. "It's just tea."

Talk about an over-reaction. Though he had good reason to be scared, this was not a good sign. People who came here usually came here to be tortured to insanity, very few got the luxury of death. That was always too merciful for his little band of evil wizards. They had to be taught that death was not something to be so dismissive of.

"No one dies here, we just take those who could require a little helping hand in understand their Master better. I feel like communication is faulty and so I do my best to make myself more clear to people," the Master reasoned with an entirely calm tone. "That's what I did with Barty and it worked great. Didn't it?"

"Worked excellently, Master." Barty actually did mean it, even if the wording made it sound sarcastic. He was quite happy with his current role. He was also quite happy to be in the position to see Regulus slowly panicking. It was quite entertaining. There weren't many things he enjoyed as much as suddenly being in a favoured position above all the others, even though his family was nowhere near as important, even though his father had been the enemy.

The Master had brought on some good chances, ultimately. Barty, for one, appreciated them. "Try and stay polite, Regulus. Don't make me hit you again."

Have the same done to him that had been done to Barty? He would rather die. That, Regulus surmised bitterly, was the point. He couldn't help his gaze wandering back to Crouch. He had always been unhinged, but to see him so eager to serve someone who wasn't even a proper pureblood wizard... No, he didn't want it to "work" like it had worked with Barty Crouch.

"I have no intention of being impolite, Crouch," he ground out, the 'unlike you' unsaid but easy to read between the lines. "I have been told my manners are excellent."

Pick a fight with your torturers? Probably not the smartest idea he'd ever had, he realized. A bit too late, of course, that realization, and that nearly had him laughing hysterically, which wasn't the smartest of ideas, either.

"It hardly matters what I say, does it." Head bowed, he peered at the Master. "It won't make a difference." He had seen the results of his handiwork more than once. If only he could figure out what he had done wrong, then there might be a chance of pleading for forgiveness or framing someone else.

"He's such a defeatest," the Master pointed out with a grim expression. He didn't like that, all those assumptions and swift judgements. He had given up before anyone had even hit him. With a loud and annoyed noise, he gestured at Barty to pretty much do whatever he wanted, his hand waving him towards Regulus.

"Someone clearly won't be happy till he's been proved right. So go on then, do whatever you like. Really, whatever. And then we'll see how long it takes for him to have a more sunny positive outlook."

Who knows, he might beg for difference soon enough? For change and freedom

Barty shrugged and knelt down next to Regulus, one hand against the wall on either side of his face as he caught his eyes, his voice low. Low enough to be intimate, but not low enough to not be heard by the Master.

"It will be bad, Regulus. But trust me, it can always, always get worse." He lowered one hand, all of a sudden pressing it down between Regulus' legs. Leaning forward he whispered into his ear, their cheeks brushing against each other. "In ways you can't even imagine."

Sunny positive outlook. Yes, that was what had him give a high-pitched shriek the moment Barty's hand so unexpectedly ended up between his legs. "Merlin!" he yelled and wrapped his hands around the chains to give himself some leverage to scramble backwards. He barely managed a few inches before his back hit the stone wall.

He had been determined to suffer the inevitable with dignity, but he had been prepared for pain. He shook his head rapidly, never mind the nausea.

His eyes, wide and frantic, searched out the Master. "Master! This is not... Please, this is hardly..." What had he said? Give him what he had been expecting? "This isn't what I expected and I'm not," he swallowed hard, "I'm not defeatist, just..." Please call the lunatic lapdog off. Please. "I never disobeyed you!"

Huh, that was fast. Barty was such a good boy, he knew how to scare the hell out of all these Death Eaters. With a grin on his face, he set his tea aside and climbed out of his chair, moving closer to Barty so he could get a good look at their latest victim. "You think I'm not a very good leader, don't you? That my cause is spotty and conflicting with yours and that I'm bad at magic. Not really leader material, is it?"

He didn't know that this was exactly what Regulus thought but most thought it so he naturally assumed. Because he'd seen it, in the hallway, that look in his eyes. The pinched look. He didn't want the Master. And that was going to have to be changed.

"You almost very nearly sneered at me when I asked you if you had a wand. And it only got worse from there," the Master remarked, having clearly taken note of a lot of the little things. He'd spend thousands of years reading people, he could see dismay when it was there. "I thought that was very rude. But don't worry, Barty was rude once and I made him better. He knows exactly how to fix others."

Barty moved to the side, sitting down next to Regulus and casually patting his thigh, but no longer between him and the Master. He knew the Master liked to talk, so it was a good thing he'd gotten Regulus to seem more receptive.

"You know, Master, Regulus comes from a very old, very rich family. Sole heir, these days." He shrugged. "No one told him yet that blood doesn't matter anymore, unless you're bleeding out."

He curled his fingers in, mostly just to make sure Regulus couldn't forget the presence of his hand, and fell back into silence. This was fun to watch.

He grit his teeth and the muscles in his leg twitched. If only he could slap away the offensive hand. Break it, maybe. Yes, breaking it sounded good. He had never developed a taste for torture, no matter how hard he tried, but Barty might yet change his mind.

"Blood matters, you..." He cut himself off just before he could call him a blood traitor. He closed his eyes, forcing himself to inhale. Exhale. Store the panic at the back of his mind so he could think again, for as little time he had left with his wits about him. Which would be worse? To be reduced to a blubbering fool or a blood traitor?

It was Barty who didn't matter. A mere slave, just as they all were slaves, but that didn't mean you have to rejoice in it. There was such a thing as pride. He tilted his head back, only feeling a mere twinge of resentment that he had to look up at the Master towering over him. There was no challenge in his grey eyes, but pride oh yes, pride there was, mixed and diluted by fear but impossible to miss. "I don't think you're a bad leader," he said frankly, "you are great, powerful... and cruel." His lips twitched into a bitter smile at that. "But blood doesn't matter to you. I debased myself to serve a goal greater than me or my family. Now I remain a slave, but for no greater goal." His fingers curled around the chains once more as his body tensed in preparation for the punishment that was bound to follow. He clenched his teeth to hold back the pleas threatening to bubble up in him. He had never been good at heroic defiance. "And yet I serve. I serve you." Why was it never enough?

The Master couldn't help it, he didn't mean to be cruel-- well, no, he really did, but it wasn't always intentional. And the rather mocking laughter that burst out wasn't his fault, Regulus just shouldn't of said such stupid things. Clearly some humans just didn't grasp how little their blood matters. Or their name or their title or whatever else they clung to. The only thing that mattered was their cause and who they were serving. And if they didn't like either, they had to have the balls to say it. And if they died, oh well, that's what pride did.

The Master had died for his causes more than once.

The laughter calmed down and the Master shook his head in disbelief, moving in closer to crouch down in front of this silly little human. Time for a little story. "Did you know, in the 45th century, that blood is a high trading product. People who feed off blood or just happen to find it a turn on will go around blackmarket space stations and buy it. The highest priced blood are for those who was considered pure and the lowest is for common or 'dirty' blood. Guess where humans always fall? Because, lets be honest here, years of evolution and fucking each other and everything else that moves like rampant animals mean that no one is pure these days, especially not you."

Humans were diluted and wrong, they were basically just mutant apes. Mutant apes with so many diseases and cancers. Not like Time Lords, who were basically made out of a perfect system so no one was born sick, ill or weak. Looming was genetic perfection really.

"Blood doesn't matter unless you're drinking it or fucking in it like a strange pervert," Which was actually a big thing in the 47th century... lesson learmned there, never agree to a blood orgy. It was quite the sight. "And yours doesn't matter. The fact that you think your blood holds any sway is why you're here. You could be as loyal as Barty but I just hate delusion. It's embarrassing to watch! You wizards and your flawed prejudices need crushing."

Open Post for S&M!verse

Some time after Christmas, Potter-verse

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject