Karl watched with a smirk as Ethan thrashed in his bonds, trying to kick, to wiggle, or to free his arms from the tight bonds that kept them in front of him. But the chains were tight, and the chair was bolted heavily down to the floor.

Karl grinned widely as he looked over his handiwork. “Getting cozy, Ethan?”

“This is sick, Karl,” Ethan snapped as he jerked in the chair again. He sneered at the camera, his sandy hair mussed and falling in his face. He was naked to the waist– Karl had stripped him before locking him down, and there were already beads of sweat forming on his chest.

“Really? Cause I’m having fun with it.” Karl swaggered over to him and grabbed him by the hair with his gloved hand, pulling Ethan’s head up to face him. “I hope you’re ready, Ethan. I broke these out of the dungeon just for you.”

He raised a hand and a small iron device of interlocking bars floated over from where it had been placed on a shelf. Karl let it hover in front of Ethan’s gaze for a moment. He had taken his time with it earlier, polishing the rust off of it until it shined.

Ethan stared at it, his brow wrinkling. “What the hell is that?”

“That,” Karl said, letting the device fall into the palm of his hand, “is a thumb screw. Never seen one before? You might have been picturing something that screws into your thumb, but it’s actually more like a vise. The screw part is how you tighten it.”

“That’s.. fucking medieval,” Ethan choked out. “I can’t believe you’re really going to do this.”

Karl grabbed Ethan’s hands and held his thumbs still while he guided the device over them with his electrostatic mastery. “Ready to give up then?”

“Fuck you,” Ethan hissed as the cold metal sandwiched his digits. “I can take anything you can dish out.”

“Hold on to that confidence, Ethan, it looks good on you.”

Privately, Ethan was not feeling quite as confident as he had bragged. The cold metal seemed to sting his thumbs, priming him for the pain that was certain to be just around the corner. A part of him was already ready to beg to be released. A normal man, he was certain, would be crippled by this thing for life.

Thankfully, he wasn’t a normal man, because the idea of giving up in the face of Heisenberg’s smug, lascivious smirk was too much for his pride to bear.

He gritted his teeth. “well? Are you going to make me wait all night?”

“Patience, Ethan, patience,” Karl purred, stepping slightly away from him, and lighting his foul smelling cigar. He puffed on it, and blew the smoke in Ethan’s face.

The smoke tickled his nose and throat, and Ethan coughed, glaring up at Heisenberg.

“Part of the art of torture is savoring the moment, you know,” Heisenberg smirked. “Like a good cigar.”

“Fuck you,” Ethan spat back. Unfortunately there was no getting around the truth of what Karl said. Every moment that passed the tension knotted more severely inside him, unable to stop himself from wondering how bad it would be. How far Heisenberg would go.

Whatever was left of Ethan’s heart was pounding in his chest.

Heisenberg put a hand on Ethan’s cheek and leered at him. “Maybe later.”

Ethan snapped his teeth and vainly tried to bite the man’s fingers.

Karl just patted his cheek. “Let’s get started, eh?”

Ethan was about to protest as he watched the screw turn, and he felt a sudden pressure of his thumbs being squeezed. It wasn’t much more than someone holding his hand too tightly. But the threat was there, and Ethan started to feel nauseous.

“How’s that?” Karl grinned at him, puffing on his cigar again. “Nice and cozy, isn’t it? Bet you can take that no sweat, tough guy like you.”

Ethan grimaced, feeling the pressure against his thumbs. If nothing else it was going to start cutting off his circulation.

“You think you’re so funny, don’t you, Heisenberg?” Ethan growled.

“Yeah, kid, I’m a laugh riot.” He smirked and waved his hand.

The thumbscrew tightened..

Now there was pain.

Not intense pain, but certainly present. A taste of what was surely to come, an aching throb of the sensitive flesh being squeezed too tight around delicate bones.

“Fuck you,” Ethan blurted out again.

Heisenberg laughed and waved his hand again. Another crank.

The screw tightened, and Ethan felt the tears start to well in his eyes.

“Well, look at that,” Karl whistled. He wiped a tear from the edge of Ethan’s eye with the tip of a gloved finger. “not so inhuman after all.”

It hurt.

It hurt and Heisenberg was getting off on it.

Ethan didn’t notice the screw move that time until he felt it. The pain suddenly turned to agony and the tears spilled down his cheeks. He grit his teeth, but a little whimper escaped from his lips anyway.

“Oh I like that,” Heisenberg purred, trailing his fingers down Ethan’s wet cheek to his chin, which he tugged up slightly. “Do it again.”

Ethan took deep, hissed breaths and struggled in his bonds for a moment, but that only made the pain in his thumbs worse.

He held back any other sound.

“I said do it again.”

The screw tightened, and Ethan let out a strangled noise that was almost a scream. He couldn’t describe the pain, there was no room in his mind to do so. Was it worse than having his hand cut off? Was it worse than the hooks through his palms? He didn’t even know. It was different.

Heisenberg cupped Ethan’s face again, and the touch of his cool glove was almost soothing, though it couldn’t distract from the pain.

“It’s beautiful, Ethan. That expression on your face right now,” Karl cooed, leaning in close. “I could let it go on forever.”

“You sick bastard.”

Ethan felt like it would go on forever, floating through a sea of white hot pain. His thumbs didn’t exist now, they were just points of hot light that sent fire down his arms and into his brain.

Sweat was dripping down his chest, and down his forehead where it mixed with the tears on his cheeks, rolling down to his chin and over Heisenberg’s gloves.

He took deep breaths– as deep as he dared, because pain pulsed through his body with every heartbeat. It’s only pain, he told himself. It’s only pain.

He heard himself whimpering again.

Just when he was starting to think that Heisenberg would let it go on like that forever, running his hands over Ethan while he suffered and cried in the vise’s terrible grip, Heisenberg spoke again.

“But all good things must end.”

there was a snapping noise.T

Someone was screaming.

Ethan realized distantly that it was him screaming, and his body was seizing and jerking in the chair he was so tightly bound to.

That was when the pain of it hit his conscious mind, and he felt the edges of his vision start to white out.

Heisenberg had tightened the screw so tight that the bones in both his thumbs had snapped simultaneously.

Ethan was howling and sobbing, and he couldn’t even feel the heat of the sticky tears on his face over the hot pain of his newly broken bones.

Karl leered over him, and Ethan could hear him make a shuddering noise that might have been a shiver of enjoyment.

“Very nice,” he purred, stroking Ethan’s wet cheek. “Very nice. Let’s get those set so they heal right, eh? wouldn’t want you walking around with backwards thumbs or something. That’d be a damn shame.”

Ethan huffed a nauseous breath that was almost a laugh, his chest heaving. “you think– you think you’re so fucking funny, Karl.”

He grinned, and loosened the thumbscrews so that they were holding Ethan’s broken digits gently but firmly in place.

“Yeah. And which one of us is laughing right now, huh, Ethan?”

Karl carefully undid all the bindings keeping Ethan to the chair, and scooped him up as he slumped forward, Ethan’s sweat smearing against Karl’s favorite ratty old coat.

Ethan managed a pained laugh as Karl leaned in to smell him as he held him. “You sick old fuck. You really enjoyed that, didn’t you?”

“You have no idea,” Karl grinned, carrying him like a child over to the soft medical cot in the other corner of the room.

Ethan did have some idea, body held against him, he could feel how keyed up Heisenberg was.

“Anyway,” Karl continued. “You’re a sick fuck too. You agreed to it. Didn’t even wuss out half way through.”

“Don’t fucking forget it, bastard,” Ethan said woozily. “I won the bet.”

“You sure as hell did. Big, brave Ethan. Man takes his licking and keeps kicking.” Karl set him gently down on the cot, laying him out on his side with his still-bound arms and thumbs carefully out in front of him.

“Damn right,” Ethan breathed. “Only, I’m not feeling so much like kicking right now. Is that okay?”

Karl laughed one of his deep belly laughs, grabbing bandages, herbs, and other medical supplies. “Yeah yeah, Ethan, take a rest. We both know you’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”

“Sure, but it still hurts now.”

“Poor baby,” Karl grinned. He slipped the device off of one of Ethan’s thumbs, and started to carefully treat the wounds he’d inflicted.