"Grind" by Alice in Chains, from Alice in Chains

The water from the tap drips in an irregular rhythm as the metal sink slowly fills, the echo drowning out the ragged sound of one man's breathing, and the pained almost-silence of another.

It has been days - Hart has not counted. He sits in the chair, his back stiff, eyes searching out a place just slightly above the dark shape of Krycek's head, above the bloodstains on the dirty white wall. He does not want to see. He can't force himself to look. "You don't expect pity, do you?" Hart's voice is exhausted. "How long do you think you can hold out?"

Krycek doesn't respond. He is conscious, more or less, and his stare is as vacant as that of his tormentor's. Hart wonders, idly, what kinds of hallucinations pass before those sunken eyes. He wonders if Krycek's world is more or less painful than his own.

The smell is terrible, compounded by the pervasive ammonia of the laboratory. Hart can block out the sight, the slumped, broken body, a crimson stain on a white shirt, turning brown as it dries. But the scent creeps into the pores of his skin - if he were to leave this place, to scrub himself with soap and water, he imagines it would still cling to him, the odor of infection and death trailing him like a shadow.

"What makes you think I remember anything...after this...?" The young man's hand, carved out with red tracks of blood, gestures feebly, almost of its own bidding.

"Oh, I know you do. You're not that far gone."

Krycek laughs - it turns quickly into a cough. "Fuck you."

"It can all end now, Alex." He wants to believe it. Perhaps it comes out in his voice.

"I tell you where Samantha Mulder is, and I go free? I get to walk out of here, alive, and all is forgiven?" Hart can feel Krycek's stare burning in his direction, evaluating him, judging him. "I'm not that far gone."

"We'll find her eventually, you know."

"I know. So why hasten her death?"

Hart leans forward. "Does he mean that much to you, Alex?"

Krycek summons up the last of his strength to spit a gob of bloody saliva in Hart's direction. It misses, but the sentiment is there. Resistance is a matter of principle with the younger man - perhaps his only principle. Under other circumstances, Hart would have respected that, but he is tired now, tired and impatient and old.

He reaches for the power drill beneath the chair. It comes to life with something between a buzz and a roar.

"Creative," Krycek mutters, even as the tool approaches his eye. "You plan these things out, Jason?"

"Where is she?"

"In a safe place."

The sound of flesh on flesh, as Hart slaps out a final warning. He is almost shocked by the sensation of something human beneath his palm - he had imagined Krycek's skin as something dead and rotten, the details of beard stubble, fever, these are unexpected reminders that his victim is something alive. Someone. Hart shudders.

"Do you remember the first person you killed?" Krycek asks quietly.

Hart does not answer, and so Krycek goes on, "How old were you? Was it hard to pull the trigger? Did you get him right away, or did it take a few tries...did he have to beg for his life?"

It is only a brief tap, the slightest pressure on the drill, and the young man's cheekbone snaps - shatters - blood and bone splattering Hart's own face. He drops the tool abruptly, cursing his weakness. Krycek tries to clutch his ruined cheek with his useless hand, and Hart tells himself that it's only another job. That anything can be justified, if one tries hard enough.

"If you cut out my tongue, I won't be able to give you any information." It takes Hart a few moments to process the words, garbled through a mouthful of blood.

"Where is she?"

"...Can't stop it Jason and I don't give you any points for trying..." He coughs again, splinters of bone visible through a wash of red. Abruptly, inconveniently, his eyes roll up in their sockets and he collapses against the wall.

Hart stands, shaky, supporting himself with chair as he rises. He is intensely aware of the throb of his pulse, blood pushing through every vein, congealing behind his eyes and his quivering, weakening heart.

Marita is asleep when he finds her, but she stirs as he enters the room. "Did you get anything out of him?" she asks, half-interested.

"He passed out."

"Oh." She accepts his kiss, but it is a confirmation, rather than an absolution. He is covered in Krycek's blood. "Will these little hands never be clean?" she whispers.

"He'll wake up, soon enough." Hart stumbles towards the bathroom, towards the pills that will sedate his demons - at least for now. "When he does, see what you can find out."

Marita slips out of the room. Perhaps her tactics will be more effective than Hart's. He can only hope so.

He swallows the pills with stale water, turned salty with the remnants of blood.

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