This was written for the angst_bingo hiatus challenge on livejournal, using the prompts: trapped, captivity, jealousy and hatred.
There is implied slash and implied possible character deaths in this fic; just so that you know.
Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, I just write challenge entries the day the challenge closes.
Into the dark.
Looking back he knows that they should have trusted Matt, right from the start.
How had they been meant to know though, about all the hell that was about to unfold on them, when Mike first played them that garbled voicemail Matt had left on his phone.
It had been strange, a voice that only twelve of them recognised-and even then for some of them it was only vaguely recognised- telling them that they were all in great danger, that people were coming after them for some reason and they had to run; had to hide.
To be honest most of them thought it was some kind of prank; only Mike and Jesse believed it was real. The shouting match that followed was just bizarre, mainly because Mike almost never raised his voice and Jesse was practically begging them to trust that following Matt's warning was the only option they had.
He hadn't really known what to think. Mike had always seemed so level-headed and not exactly prone to making rash decisions for no apparent reason, but at the same time it felt a little extreme to just drop everything and go into hiding on the word of someone he'd never even seen a picture of, let alone met. Kurt had scoffed and said that it was ridiculous and that had been good enough for him to end up siding with everyone else and not buying in to Matt's warning.
In the end Mike, Jesse and Sam were the only ones to take Matt's words to heart and disappear. Mike and Jesse believing Matt, and Sam trusting so completely in Mike that he was willing to follow him into hiding; all on the word of the guy he replaced in Glee club.
He wishes that he had been able to believe blindly in Mike and Matt like that; maybe then everything would have been ok.
It was only a matter of days after Mike, Jesse and Sam had left before everything Matt had warned them about started to come to pass.
It started when Tina vanished. At first they thought that maybe she had decided to go after Mike, but it soon became clear that that wasn't the case.
It was confirmed when Mercedes was taken. Toby from the Jazz ensemble had seen it happen and had called Artie to warn him, told him that the police had been there and hadn't done a thing.
That made it all real. That proved that Matt had been right and they had all been idiots to ignore him.
After warning Toby to stay safe they finally heeded Matt's words and went on the run.
Such a large group though –because for some reason it had seemed like a good idea for all thirteen of then to stay together- would never last long. There were too many of them and getting caught was becoming more of an inevitability than a possibility with each hour that passed.
They actually lasted two days, even managing to get out of Lima, before the people that were after them finally caught up with them. They tried to evade them, of course they did, but that's where it all fell apart.
They had been chased down a system of alleyways that was so clichéd action film that it had almost become laughable, when they had hit an intersection with three choices open to them: left, right or straight ahead. It was here that they made the decision that was to be their downfall.
It was at this point that they finally decided to split up. The old 'split up and confuse the bad guys' trope; the one that hardly ever worked in the movies.
Artie, Puck, Santana, Brittany and Lauren chose to go right; Finn, Rachel, Nick, Jeff, Kurt and himself had chosen to go left; only Karofsky and Quinn had chosen to go straight on.
If they had just stuck together and gone straight on with Quinn and Karofsky then they would have escaped, they would have been let go; or at least that's what the disembodied voice over the speakers mocks them with every morning.
Both the left and right turns had led straight to dead-ends, leaving them completely trapped. Inevitability became certainty as they had all been subdued and captured by whomever the hell was actually after them; all this time and he still has no idea who they have been taken by, or why.
He'd thought that being on the run from faceless, nameless foes was the worst thing, or maybe even watching his friends having to go through all of this with him; but none of that compared to the hell that was really about to unfold.
The hell of being locked up day after day, just waiting...waiting for the guards to come in and take another one of them away; never bringing them back.
One by one people were being taken away and they had no idea where they were being taken, or what was being done to them or whether any of their friends were even still alive; or whether being taken meant being taken to your death.
They don't fight back anymore. They did at first, they all fought and screamed and attacked when the guards came to take any of them but they were swiftly taught that all that did was make things even worse; the sound of Lauren's screams were enough to destroy what little fight any of them still had in them.
When the guards come to take someone away now they just look away; not even able to bear seeing another person they care about one last time.
There are only four of them left now: just him, Puck, Nick and Jeff.
Puck hasn't torn his gaze away from the floor since Lauren was taken and he knows that if anyone was looking at him that the same look of defeat and devastation had been mirrored on his own face ever since Kurt had been taken away.
Nick and Jeff still have each other though. Sitting together, Nick's arm wrapped around Jeff's shoulders, like he's still trying to shield Jeff from what's happening, still attempting to protect him from the rest of the world; he hates them for it.
Part of him hopes that one of them will be taken next so that they will know exactly how it feels to have the person that means the most to them ripped away from them, to feel the helplessness that the rest of them have had to go through, because why the hell should they be allowed to cling on to each other when the rest of them have had their entire world's destroyed.
He knows that's just the jealousy though, same as all those wishes that Quinn and Karofsky and Mike and Jesse and Sam would get caught too so that they would be made to suffer with them, instead of being out there somewhere, free and maybe even happy.
He hates himself for those thoughts. He hates wishing that his best friends were hurting as much as he was. He hates the way sometimes he even hates Kurt for being taken before he was, for leaving him here to feel all the pain of living without him when for Kurt all the pain was most likely all over.
He hates the fact that there is nothing he can do except wait for it to be his turn to be taken; he hates the way that he actually hopes it will be him next, so that all of this will be all over.
There's not going to be a happy ending to his story. Even if by some incredible miracle Quinn, Karofsky, Mike, Matt, Jesse and Sam find out where they are and try to launch some kind of rescue attempt they will only end up rescuing Nick and Jeff; he knows for a fact that he and Puck won't be leaving this place. One way or another they are both going to die here and he can't help but hate the way he's so at peace with that thought.
It will all be over soon.
Nothing will be alright but at least it will be over.