/Whelp its that time of the year again where I go though my WIP folders and pick what ones I want to keep and what ones to trash. This one actually had the first chapter mostly done so I decided to keep it and finish chapter two. Was a bit unsure about posting it but like..I havent posted in anything in ages so. Yah. Happy New Year y'all! The count down to s4 is on!
Warnings: tight space, brain washing, vagueness, feeding tubes
Hobart was not the person that Charlie thought was going to be pulling off a successful kidnapping. Okay that may be an understatement, but the sentiment remains. Hobart, as A) A policeman, and B) not even a particularly good one. He'd always thought he could beat the man in a fight, but now he didn't know. It occurs to him that he may never know again.
Hobart, from what he can understand, has been keeping him in some kind of cupboard. There's clothes above his head, which brush frustratingly on his hair, and shoes on a rack to his left. He's counted the shoes a dozen times over trying to provide some kind of stimulation to himself. There's five pairs of shoes, and one pair of boots.
The closest is about two and a bit Charlie's (For want of a better metric, naturally) wide, with no space for him to really move. The only even vaguely comfortable way for him to sit was too pull his knees up to his chin and rest his head on them. Every muscle just felt permanently taught and coiled. Much to his horror, he realized he was looking forward to when Hobart decided to show up because it meant stretching and moving.
And it meant a chance to escape.
Which hadn't happened yet, but he was sure that it would. He knew Hobart. Knew that he made mistakes, knew he was sloppy. He might be bored but he wasn't an idiot. He tilted his head back as far as he could, and then stops himself from rocking backwards and forwards. He knows that it's just a self comfort mechanism, that his body is struggling to adjust. That is fine. He just finds concerning that he does it without even realizing it. He stills his body, and tightens his grip around his knees. The downstairs door just opened.
He's back.
…
"You need to eat, Charlie." Hobart said, gently prodding the spoon at his lips. His lips remained tightly closed as Hobart sighed. "Do you think that I enjoy hurting you?" He asked, trying to peel Charlie's lips back from his teeth with rough fingers. He sighed, and sat back on his feet for a moment, before pinching his nose. He expected Charlie to open his mouth but he retorted by breathing between his teeth. Hobart sighed again, and stood. "Alright." He murmured, and got to his feet. He returns with a hammer looking device, and proceeded to break Charlie's foot.
He screams as loudly as he can. Hobart leaves him alone after that.
…
He has to be hallucinating, that's the only explanation that he has for the noises that he can hear. He's not sure exactly what he's hearing but he knows that it's not real. It can't be. He hears Blake's footsteps outside his little prison. He's lived with Blake for months, he knew the sound of his footsteps. He knew where he walked and he can hear it. He has to be coming, he has to be here to save him.
He hears Blake talking to Hobart and he throws his whole weight against the door, once. Twice. Nothing. It's locked. He's now lying against the wall, unable to bother to pull himself up. Blake talks to Hobart, and he hears Hobart tell Blake that a hat box must have fallen down. He tries to yell, tries to scream. The door opens, he falls into Blake's suited arms, and takes deep breaths of his slightly clinical smell, hands clutching spastically at him. Blake carries him to the bed and holds him until he falls asleep, knowing that he's safe.
…
He wakes up and he realizes that he's still in the cupboard. Blake's feet are gone and so are his warm arms. He tightens his arms tightly around his legs and gazes down at his broken foot. Hobart had done himself a disservice by breaking it because it gave Charlie a way to measure the passing time. It's been over a week or so because the bones have knitted together. Poorly, of course. He'd had no way to splint it or fix it up, and it had been too painful for him to touch. He stared at his now ruined foot with a soft sigh. Maybe Hobart was right. Maybe Blake really wasn't looking for him. He slowly uncurled his arms from his cramping legs and gently ran his fingers over the tube that was still in his nose. Despite his pleading to Hoabrt that he would eat, the man just said that he need to be taught a lesson.
His throat hurts fairly constantly now, and he assumes that's from him never having the water for him to wash down the back of his throat. He also notes, rather sadly, that he's slowly losing weight. It's not enough to be bad for his health quite yet, but if he doesn't stop losing weight soon then it might be. He sighs again, and wraps his arms back around his knees and then tilts his chin onto his knees and lets out a long sigh.
…
Hobart drags him out again that night, and tosses him onto the bed. He tries to sit up, but struggles to move. Hobart just sighs again and pushes him back down. "Blake's rented out your room." Hobart informs him, "Your replacement moved in. I'm fairly sure Blake likes him more then you." He smiles, "But it's fine, I suppose. Lawson gave him your desk, I asked if we were waiting on you, but he said that it doesn't matter." He shrugged. His eyes water. "I mean imagine that. I've got you right here, and no one's even looking for you. I'm the only one questioning your leaving." He scoffed. "Funny." He sighed. "Anyway." He said, leaving the room, and returning with a glass of water. "Are you going to behave enough to use your mouth?"
He nods frantically. Hobart sighs grimly. "I don't think you are. I heard you throwing yourself against the cupboard last night." he said. "So I think that for the time being, you'll have to keep the nose tube in." He murmured, before pressing the cup of water against his lips. "Drink." Hobart said, softly, and allowed him to take a sip of water. Charlie does, but it does little to help his throat. Hobart leaves him there on the bed for a while, and goes to do something else. Charlie relishes in the feeling of being able to stretch. He debates, for a little while, getting up and running, but Hobart closed the door and Charlie would put money on it being locked.
He lay still and quiet on the bed, watching out the window at the sun as it came down. Hobart came in, collected him, and put him back in the cupboard. He tilted his head back, and looked up at the police shirts hanging above his head. He stares at them until his eyes close and his head hangs back uselessly.
…
It's been a long time since Hobart was last here. His legs hurt worse then they ever had before, the muscles tightened and released at indeterminable intervals, which makes it all but impossible for him to get any sleep. His arms hurt as well, his fingers have gone white from his tight grip around his knees. He pressed his forehead against his legs, unsure of really what to do. Up until now he'd been so sure that Blake was coming for him, so sure that this was only temporary. But his foot was from what he could tell, fully healed and Hobart has told him time and time again not to worry because Blake was happier without him.
And for a second, just one single moment, he believes it. He's never been so disgusted with the fact that he's not even disgusted by himself, for thinking like that.
…
He's not sure how long it is before Hobart pulls him out of the cupboard again. He deposits Charlie on the bed, and unhooks the tube from behind the back of his ear. Charlie does not put up a fight because he wants the tube out of his nose quite badly.
Hobart sits him up against the bed end, and puts a warm, damp wash cloth on one of his aching legs. Charlie continues to be largely unresponsive, unable to come up with anything very useful to say. Hobart doesn't much like it when he talks anyway, he thought, as he turned his eyes to gaze out the window at the world he had no way to see.
"You know, if you were better behaved, I could take you out there." Hobart informed him quietly, and gently stroked Charlie's hair away from his face, the gel long since having been sweated out. Hobart stares at him thoughtfully, before saying "I think you need a bath." Charlie's eyes widen fearfully, and he pulls his legs away from Hobart towards his body.
"No." He whispered, voice gritty and harsh from disuse. Hobart stands back, and gives him a look of surprise.
" Fine. No bath." he said, with a shrug, before unhooking Charlie, and throwing the man over his shoulder.
Charlie tried to fight back, for the first time in weeks, kicking his aching muscles and yelling at the top of his lungs. Hobart threw him roughly into the bathtub, and turned on the shower head, dousing him in icy cold water. He coughed furiously, trying to sit up, to no avail. Hobart just kept one hand on his chest, holding him under the freezing spray. He yelled until he stared to choke on the water and hack furiously.
Hobart holds him in the freezing spray until he stops fighting back. He then pulled him from the bathtub and dragged him into the cupboard dumped him there, before taking out a shirt for the next day, and leaving him there shivering in his wet police shirt and pants. He leans into the cupboard, and then proceeded to remove his shirt, yelling at him and pulling his arms from his shirt and then his legs from his pants. He left Charlie alone, sitting in the wardrobe in his singlet and underwear.
…
Hobart does not let him out of the cupboard for a long time after that. It must be days and days. He gets fed enough, but his clothes aren't returned and he's not allowed out other then the aloted times where Hobart carried him to the bathroom, gave him maybe five minutes, and then returned him to the cupboard. Hobart's visits are few and far between and he gets the feeling that he won't be let out any time soon. He cries fitfully, swapping between sobbing in agony as his muscles contracted and released, and sobbing in sadness at the fact that no one had come to rescue him yet.
He never thought he'd be desperate to see Hobart again. But he could swear that he's feeling relief at the sight of seeing the man when the cupboard opened again that night. He pulls Charlie out and dropped him onto the floor. His legs ache. He aches. Hobart sighed softly, and put him up on the bed. "I have to punish you now." Hobart sighed quietly. "You know I don't like that, but you can't just act like that." He commented, and left Charlie there, unable to move for several minutes before returning with the hammer and examining his healed foot for several moments, and then breaking three of his toes. "And I can't take the tube out either." He sighs, "But I will swap nostril I think." He commented, taking Charlie and putting him up on the bed, and then proceeding to remove the tube from his nose slowly.
Charlie looked almost sick as it emerged from his nose, and then as Hobart put it in the bin. The horror continues as Hobart inserts a new tube into his other nostril. He had known that feeding tubes were only temporary but he hadn't expected it to continue for over a month at least by now. His throat hurts. He wants to go home.
Hobart leaves him on the bed, and leaves him there until he comes back in, changed into his pajamas, and tucked Charlie under the covers. Charlie watches him for the longest time as Hobart proceeded to go to sleep. He lies there all night, watching him sleep, trying to figure out what he should do. He could get up and leave, but then Hobart might know and he seriously has no desire to invoke the man's ire. What if he just got up, and had a look around? What if he got to a phone? He could call Blake to come and get him. But he can't force his body to do as it's asked, too afraid of Hobart to even really try.
He's disgusted with himself, honestly. He tells himself that there is no way that Blake would have given in this easily.
…
He keeps Charlie out for the whole day, and he's grateful. He gives him a warm bath that releases his muscles and washes his hair kindly. They shave, he even does Charlie's hair neatly. Charlie cries that night when he goes back into the closet.
But this jag is much shorter, the next morning, Hobart removes him and helps him to stand on his limping feet, and takes him back out into the kitchen. Charlie stares at the kitchen with confused eyes. Hobart leads him to the stove. "I assume you can cook?" Charlie nods slowly. Hobart makes a hand gesture that seems to say that he should go bout cooking. So he does.
He makes an omelet with ham and cheese in it, and presents it to Hobart, who hasn't moved in a great while as Charlie struggled his way around the kitchen. He seems to consider what ever he was trying to achieve done because he invites Charlie to sit, and unhooks the tube from behind his ear. He doesn't have much occasion to move, and allows Hobart to does as he pleases.
He figures out that something must have changed however when he begins to feel sleepy, and assumes that it was something in the food. A little part of him hopes that it's going to kill him.
…
A part of him is worried, but not as much as it used to be. He's realized that Hobart must be right, Blake isn't coming for him, because he's been watching the days since Hobart started to give him a few more freedoms, and he works out that he's been here for almost eight months and there's been no sign of anyone coming to save him.
So he does what he'd been too scared of before, he gives in. Not gives up, persay, because he will still find his freedom some day, but for now, he just decides maybe its best to do as Hobart says, he thinks, as if he has a choice.
His time spent in the cupboard is becoming shorter as Hobart realized that Charlie's hope was slowly eroding. He spends more time performing whatever tasks Hobart asked of him. Cook this. Clean that. Whatever it was, Charlie did it. Hobart seems more bearable every evening when he decides it's time to take Charlie out from his hiding place, where he is currently. He absently wonders if it's at all possible for a person to have Stockholm Syndrome, but for a place. Not that he knows an awful lot about Stockholm Syndrome, but he supposes that he is attached to the cupboard. Logically, he knows that it's just because he knows being in the cupboard gives him a reprieve from Hobart, but he still wonders.
Briefly, of course. He's so bored and uncomfortable in the wardrobe that he finds his mind cant stay on one subject for very long, but he tells himself that it's fine, it's all fine, that Hobart will let him out when he returns from work, he'll stretch his legs and back and everything was going to fine once Hobart was back.
…
There is not much occasion for thinking anymore. When he'd first been brought to Hobart's place, all he'd had had been been his thoughts, but now, there is no real reason for him to bother thinking. Hobart has made it very clear that he's not going to be leaving this house alive. He doesn't act out much any more either. There's no point to it, why would there be? From what he understands, there is no one looking for him, not one single person.
After all, it's been over a year (He's stopped counting, there's no point) And if someone was going to save him, it would have happened by now he is sure of it. But he doesn't think about it now. He doesn't think about anything if he can help it. Hobart wanted him to be a mindless drone then fine. He'll be a mindless drone. He'd do whatever it took to avoid invoking Hobart's ire.
He moves his face to his chin, and closes his eyes, he thinks of nothing but his aching muscles, he stars to rock back and forwards, the movement is familiar and comforting. Even If he'd initially been disturbed by his bodies attempt at stimulation, now, it hardly even registers as unusual.
…
He is in the cupboard when it happens. He is being punished for an incomplete task that he really didn't have enough time to finish anyway. But he is fine being punished because he will do better next time. Hobart often simply puts him in the cupboard for nothing. It's not unusual for him.
Hobart is speaking to someone outside, but that is not anything new. It barely registers with him. His legs ache so he thinks about that instead. He rubs the tight muscle with the palm of his hand. It does little to help, but it's all he has. When the pain is too much, he starts to rock back and forwards. It offers him a little comfort and a gives his muscles a chance to work. Even if he very badly wants to move around he knows better then to try and risk it. There is no where for him to go, anyway.
Then, while he rocks, he hears feet outside his little prison, and he perks up suddenly, because it must be Hobart, and if it's Hobart then it means he's being let out. But it's not Hobart at all. He's too short to be Hobart, too warm, to concerned. Charlie's tries to make his way back into the cupboard away from him because if he leaves then Hobart is going to hurt him. Hobart is going to break his fingers or his foot or lock him in here for days.
But the man does not seem to care, he leans in and wraps Charlie up tight in his arms saying words that he can't compute into his shoulder as he is lifted. He glances around for Hobart only to be unable to see him. His legs hurt.
…