Prologue
Relapse
by Pari
The cold, metallic walls fo the nearly pitch black cell surrounding Tom Paris reverberated with the hum of the ship's engines that were so close to the brigs where he and his fellow captives were being held. The dark was illuminated only by the blood red glow of the forcefields marking the entrances to the cells lining the brig's corridors. Acrid smoke of some kind filled Tom's lungs, though his mind - dazed with pain and exhaustion - could not focus on any one point of thought long enough for Tom to deduce where the smoke might be coming from. However, the scent seemed familiar. There was definately something burning. Flesh. It was the scent of burning flesh. Dear gods, were they burning someone alive? Vaguely, Tom was aware that he was just regaining consciousness, though from what or from how long a period of unconsciousness Tom could not recall. He felt blind in the darkness, his eyes sore from straining to see what horrors accompanied him in his ightless cell, and almost sealed shut with the blood that had run across his face to dry. His blood? Someone else's? Both? Tom's mind tried to focus on a memory, a thought, but the effort to do so only increased the throbbing in his temples, the inability of his mind to focus. He tried to squeeze his eyes shut, to will away the pain, then thought to himself that he didn't really know if they had been open in the first place, the dark horrors in his mind had so begun to meld with the dark horrors that awaited him in his waking state. He wasn't certain of anything anymore. Could he see? Could he move? His limbs felt leaden when he remembered to pay them some attention. Was he restrained? Paralyzed? Fear lept in Tom's heart, but could not find root to cause him panic. Everything was so unreal -wrapped in a gauze of weariness and suffering. Was he drugged? Yes, he was starting to remember something. He knew he'd ben drugged...sometime. Several times? He remembered a syring...and the resulting pain.
Again the effort of recollection took its toll on Tom, and the pain stabbed through his head with a sharpness that carried on throughout his brocken body. The blood rushing to his head following his wince of pain deafened his ears for a moment to the hum of the ship's engines and the endless screams of his fellow captives. It also prevented him from hearing the slight hiss of the forcefield at the door of the cell being disconnected and reapplied, or the sound of the somehow soft footfalls of the large, booted feet that walked over to the place where Tom lay on the filthy cell's floor. He didn't hear the other prisoners as they scurried away from the man, moaning with anticipation and fear. But then the moment passed, and somehow Tom sensed rather than realized the officer's presence beside him. He opened his eyes to the darkness of the cell, and the blindingly bright light of the strobe the guard held in his hand. Suddenly, Tom's tortured mind was very alert. He could not see the man standing over him, but he did not need to - he knew what he would see.
Cardassian bastard. Tom willed the curse to meet his lips, but they would not pass, his effort at speech resulting only in his spitting a mixture of saliva and blood onto the officer's boots. Tom knew if he could he would smile - his unintended action seeming much more befitting his emotions than whatever vile curse he might have uttered had he had the strength to do so. The Cardassian only stared down at Tom as he watched him gain his bearings, but at this movement he stooped to grab the defiant young man. He garbled something to him Cardassian, a mixture of admiration and loathing, and though Tom did not speak the language he knew its meaning, having heard it often enough - he would pay for his bravado, as he always did. That he was suicidal for even offering it. But Tom knew they would not kill him. If only he were so lucky.
As the guard's two companions joined him, and his hand closed around Tom's shoulder, Tom tried to rebell, to move, fight, anything. But his body refused to comply as he wished. He writhed in the grip of his tormentors, but his movements were too weak to truly pose any threat of escape, and the guards did not respond. As they drug Tom to an intended destination he no longer bothered giving his wandering attention, his lolling head caught the sight of his own body in the light provided by the swaying strobes strapped to each guard's belt. His clothes were torn, bloodstained; wherever an undamaged patch of skin remained it was bruised or lasserated. A nasty gash spanned the length of his right side. Everywhere else he was burned. Burnt flesh - the scent he had detected earlier. The smell of burning flesh was of his own. Tom felt the nausea wrack his body ineffectually, as he had not eaten for as long a time as he could remember and there was nothing left to vomit. His body was so numbed with pain it could not even manage a dry wretch. He heard the sounds of the engines and the prisoners receding as his captors neared their destination; he saw the dim lighting coming from the strobe fixed above the chair where they would torture him; he heard the low Cardassian discussion being held in the shadows. However, as he watched the chair looming closer and closer, his thoughts became focused only on that, and on his growing fear, his need to escape. He fought his exhaustion, his pain, his body to fight. Only when his gaurds released him, and were fastening his restraints - when he saw the nearby "doctor" with his syringe - did the fear inside Tom overcome his body's condition. He raged against the restraints with a power he thought no longer esixted within him. The doctor, surely in spite of himself, stoic Cardassian that he was, Tom thought snidely, flinched backwards into the darkness beyond the glow of the strobe, but quickly reappeared again. Tom glared up at the hated, Cardassian's visage, teeth baring, not yet ceasing to struggle, not being able to resist staring at the needle in the man's hand. He heard the Cardassian voices, saw the doctor turn to respond then turn back to Tom. "So you still have some fight left in you, hmm Admiral's son?" This name was the only they used in reference to Tom, and he had truly begun to hate it. "I must say, you surprise me. Perhaps you are much more Paris than your peers have given you credit." Tom's response to that was meant to be a short laugh, but coming through his cracked lips the sound seemed more like a growl. "Yes, definitely a Paris," the doctor drolled. Tom glared at his captor, but finally, chest heaving, his struggles had ceased. Peripherally, he saw the needle draw closer. He tried not to cringe.
The syringe grew closer to his skin. Closer. He knew the doctor was watching him thoughtfully, waiting for a reaction. Tom tried to tear his eyes from the sight of the ever-nearing needle, but could not. How long will this continue? How long can I endure? He questioned, but the answer was a simple one. Untill you can't. Tom wanted to rage; wanted to scream "I don't know what you want me to know!" But the argument was one he had grown tired of pressing, and he would not give them the satisfaction of thinking he was trying to beg his way out of their torture. Admiral's son...definately a Paris. The words floated through Tom's head in the seemingly endless moments of the syringe's descent upon his skin.
"But even a Paris," the doctor continued, "Especially a disgraced one must realize the futility of such stubborness." The needle paused against Tom's wrist, and it was then that Tom reacted. Not to the needle, or the fear it induced in him - or the doctor and his words, but to the thought that shone clearly behind them; the doctor's unflinching certainty that he would submit; that he would fail. And for that moment Tom needed to defy that. His entire life he'd struggled with the knowledge that everyone around him believed he could not fail - that he, like all the Parises before him, including his father, were incapable of failure. And then there was Caldik Prime, where one mistake and a haunting lie proved them all wrong. And then suddenly failure was all that Tom Paris was capable of. He'd done plenty to prove that right. But right now Tom was suddenly very tired of living up to other people's expectations - or, rather, down to them. He could not escape, he could not fight, but he could still defy. He looked up into the doctor's face...and spit at him.
The doctor did not look shocked, only mildly surprised, and the slightest bit impressed. He smiled as the needle pierced Tom's skin...and the screams that followed were deafening.