A/N: Next to Bode, Duncan Locke is the sweetest, fluffiest cinnamon roll in the Locke & Key 'verse, and he deserves absolutely all the happiness he can be given. This means, of course, that I have to abuse him endlessly.

Warnings for non-explicit rape, violence, homophobia, suicidal ideation, possession, minor body horror, and extremely unwilling semi-incest due to possession - all pretty canon, Dodge is one sick bastard. The aftereffects and recovery process will also be shown.

The ending of Locke & Key was spectacular, don't get me wrong, but it left open several things that I would've liked to have seen addressed. So here's my what-if, chancing a look at what might have happened if Tyler turned the alpha key just a little too early, if Jackie had been a little bit faster, if the Lockes were a little bit less lucky. Duncan has a starring role, but this is an ensemble piece, and you can look forward to plenty of antics from the full Locke family - just as soon as they get this demon infestation sorted out...

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"Let go of me, you fucking retard! What are you doing?"

"Making you go away."

Rufus was only steps from the wellhouse, the Not-Bode thing struggling in his arms, when Jackie knocked him off his feet, a blur of feathers and mocking laughter and well-toned muscle. The angel key, Duncan thought, and a heartbeat later, couldn't remember why. It was over before he could reach them, the angel-demon-girl pinning the boy while Not-Bode stepped away, laughing, high and merciless.

"Sorry, mate," Scot gasped, the metal beginning to blossom from his chest in grotesque spikes. "Couldn't...couldn't hold 'er...couldn't see 'her..."

"NO!" Tyler bellowed, lunging for what had once been his little brother, but Brinker emerged with the shadow crown, and Duncan felt the shadows catch hold of him as tightly as the drowning wave of despair, both pulling him down.

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It had been eleven days since prom night, joking with his nephew, rebuilding the Charger, battling shadows. For Duncan Locke, it had been eleven days spent in the mouth of hell.

"I'll have him working the forge until he drops dead of starvation," Not-Bode had planned, and Dunk wished to any god that might still be listening that he had kept his word. What the demon child had come up with instead was worse.

Kinsey and Jamal had emerged from the Drowning Cave possessed by the Children of Leng, shoved through the door in all the confusion. Tyler and Nina had had the contents of their heads emptied into tightly sealed jars, their memories screaming as they were locked away, and a piece of the demon's will inserted into their skulls instead. The two of them shambled around the grounds now with the rest of the high schoolers, blank-eyed, doing whatever Not-Bode or any of the other demon hybrids wanted of them. Fetching and carrying. Slowly rebuilding the fire-ravaged mansion. Licking the boots of anyone who thought it funny to ask. Lying back and getting fucked, staring blankly at the ash-grey sky. Duncan still envied their fate.

It was evening. All day, his only memories had been of metalworking, with some thing compelling him to follow the steps he'd learned and the commands Not-Bode had given, twitching his muscles into cramping spasms whenever he tried, faintly, to resist. He knew, disinterestedly, that the memories he'd been allowed to retain, of hours in the forge and foundry, had emotions connected to them, were in some way a part of a larger him. In the absence of any other framework to place them in though, he could get nothing from them but the knowledge of how to carve molds and melt and cast iron, with the dark, alien thing in his head forcing him to use that knowledge any way Not-Bode wished, puppeting him along, moving his wasted body any way it pleased.

Then the sun disappeared below the horizon, and Ty, blank-eyed, brain-cleaned Ty, had returned with the head key and removed even those memories, leaving him motionless and empty as a drum.

Duncan felt, distantly, a cool breeze touch the inside of his skull. A moment later, his head felt full to bursting, pounding with thirst and migraine as his memories were emptied back into his head all at once. All the pain, exhaustion, hunger, parching thirst, aching grief he hadn't felt all day snapped back into place at once, as he finally, finally regained full control of his body. He groaned, eyes rolling back, and only the manacles tethering him to the forge kept him from collapsing.

"Kill me," he rasped, when he could finally breathe again.

"Don't tempt me," the Not-Bode snarled. "One stinking key every other day. Only five new keys and one lock since I chained you to this stinking foundry. Not. Fucking. Good enough. At this rate it'll be weeks before I have the power to leave this fucking island and take over the rest of this stupid planet."

"So kill me," Dunk rasped again, shutting his eyes against the dim light. "If I'm so totally useless, why keep me?"

"Who said you were totally useless?" Not-Bode's voice held a hint of laughter now, and Duncan tensed, his wasted muscles shaking. That was never, never a good thing. "You can't earn your keep by making the keys as fast as I want them, you earn your keep some other way, and you know how much my family likes fucking humans, especially a pretty little fag like you. Oops," he laughed, silvery child's voice glittering with malice. "I mean, you know how much your family likes fucking pretty little fags like you. Oh, Kinsey!" he called, voice brimming with false cheer. "Jamal! Tasha! The evening's festivities are about to begin!"

Duncan kept his eyes clenched shut as he felt unnaturally strong hands close around his ankles, dragging him face-down across the filthy gravel of the foundry until the shackles connecting his wrists to the forge were pulled taut, collar tight around his throat. Mocking comments began as more hands pulled his ratty brown pants down his legs and forced his ankles wide apart, and he wished he could close his ears as well. Bad enough that the demons loved the pleasures of the flesh, feasting and fucking, and the idea of consent was irrelevant enough to be laughable. Bad enough without hearing the abuse and moans of pleasure from Kinsey's mouth too, from his precious niece, who was no longer in control of her own body. Only of his. Fingers, forcing him open, digging into his skin hard enough to leave bruises, and he bit his lip, trying not to scream.

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Hours later, Not-Bode's new family had tired of their usual games of 'rape the human, hurt the human,' and left Duncan to curl up by the forge, fetters clinking. They'd dragged him here and chained him here the night everything had gone wrong, and he hadn't moved since. Every daybreak, they sent one of their zombies, usually Ty, to open up his head and dump its contents into a jar, replacing him with the few handpicked memories of metalsmithing and a piece of Not-Bode's will to keep him in check, leaving him a spectator in his own body as a the hellish parasite puppeteered him around, carving and casting the keys to begin their world domination. Not-Bode never let him near whispering iron unless he was completely under the demon's control, fearing what keys he might make if he was allowed to work freely. They needed his skill at metalworking, but couldn't risk him acting against them.

Not-Bode had certainly intended to keep him working the forge until he collapsed...but that had turned out to be just two and a half days in, with only two new keys made. The demon had underestimated just how quickly human bodies broke down without water or sleep, so, reluctantly, he'd begun working Duncan only during the day.

Every evening, they dumped his memories back into his head, just in time to play. They hadn't the first few nights, but Not-Bode had quickly decided that if Dunk wasn't going to be useful at night, he wanted a more responsive toy. The zombie-like slaves they kept around were good for quick orgasms, but Not-Bode was a sadist, and he liked hearing Duncan scream as they burned him and sliced him and fucked him.

The demon remembered Duncan from childhood, had developed a particularly awful, brutalizing interest in him that he only faintly understood. His head fascinated Not-Bode; the fact that he thought in color, that even as an adult he could recognize magic, even if he didn't remember it. Although that was changing. One of the very few good things, Duncan reflected wryly, about having his head pried open day after day was that it had torn down the barriers erected when he turned eighteen. It was impossible to destroy memories by magic, so the Riffel Rule had screened them, but that screen had been ripped to shreds around the third or fourth time zombie-Ty had used an ice cream scooper to pull out the last of his memories, prior to another day of toiling over the forge.

They hadn't given him any water today, he realized, stretching his legs out to try and find a position that didn't hurt. Or food. Not that it was worth looking forward to, what they gave him was usually barely edible, and stank of urine or putrefaction or worse, but he hoped they hadn't forgotten Rufus too.

The kid, Ellie's son, was stuck chest-deep in one of the flooded caves, mocked and occasionally thrown scraps of trash by the demons, but at the very least, the creatures had decided he wasn't pretty enough to be worth fucking, not when there were so many other, shinier toys around. Duncan shuddered. Small mercies. The kid had been spared that, at least.

Sleep was useless, he finally decided miserably. Everything hurt, from the soles of his bare feet to his scalp, aching from the demons yanking on his hair. Not-Bode had opened several deep gashes in his back a few days ago, angry at the delay in a key he wanted, and any way Duncan tried to sleep, he was either going to hurt his flayed back or his bruised ribs. His best bet was probably just to huddle up by the warm brick belly of the foundry furnace; the night air was rapidly cooling, and, dressed in only the bloodstained pants he'd been wearing on prom night, it was his only real chance at staying warm.

There was a soft noise, a rustling of gravel pebbles sliding over each other, and Duncan instantly tensed, eyes scanning the grayscape of the barn foundry that had been his refuge and was now his nightmare. Usually, when the demon hybrids were tired of him, they left him alone for the night. Usually. It was always possible that one of them had decided they wanted a second or third round...

Instead he saw two tiny figures, as tall as his hand, scrambling across the gravel. They looked like the boy, Zack, the one Kinsey had been dating, who had killed Ellie Whedon. Duncan watched them warily. Where the hell had they come from...?

"Found you," one of them panted, coming to a rest by his bare feet. "Finally."

"Do I...know you?" Dunk asked cautiously. And then, as the pieces clicked... "Are you my memories?"

"Yeah. Your memories of Lucas Caravaggio," one of them told him, sibilant and thin. "Dodge. The boy the demon lived in before Bode. He was your brother's friend, and he pulled us out of your head to stop you from putting the pieces together. He was the one that scared Brian."

"How did you find me again?" Duncan murmured, careful to keep his voice low. He knew, better than most, that it was impossible to destroy memories or ideas by using the head key, but as small and helpless as they were, how had they escaped?

"He flushed us," the other memory piped in. "Right into the ocean. We just had to follow the coast back to you. Memories want to get back to their thinker."

Duncan paused, taking this in, and considering his next move. He'd just been handed a couple of pawns in an impossible, over-matched chess game, the only pieces he had left to play, and he'd better be cautious in deciding where to put them. If they returned to his head, he'd have new information, but they'd just be emptied out again at daybreak, and much good that would do him. While they were still out of his head though, he could send them somewhere else, somewhere they could be useful. They might be memories of Lucas, but they were his memories of Lucas, steeped in his feelings and ideas and views, and they'd carry this conversation with them too now, along with anything else he chose to tell him. Where he could he send them, that they might have a chance?

Kinsey wasn't an option. Her body was inhabited by a demon, sending her memories would do nothing but give the demon more information. Bode was clearly out. That left Brian, and Tyler and Nina, who were still human, but had had their heads scraped as clean as emptied trashcans.

Any fleeting thoughts of sending the memories to Brian were quickly scrapped. Duncan's only consolation in all of this was that his boyfriend was safe in Provincetown, away from this desolation. Even if the memories could make it back, he wouldn't draw Brian into this for anything, not if there was a chance of keeping him safe.

Nina, he considered briefly...but she was an adult, and would have a hard time recognizing magic, or taking action when faced with it. And then something else caught his memory.

Tyler, asking to be taught metal casting. Ty, pliers in his hand, bent over something at the forge while the shadows attacked. His nephew, Duncan thought dawningly, knew more about this than he had let on. Well, time to see if his memory could be jogged. Dunk was reluctant to trust anyone now - the memory of Not-Bode, hissing atrocities in that sweet seven-year-old voice, lurked just behind his eyelids - but Ty was the best of his very limited options, shackled as he was to the forge.

"Go to Tyler," he murmured to the memories, keeping his eyes fixed on the barn door. "He's had all of his memories removed, and that...thing...dressed as Bode put a little piece of himself in there, to keep him in line. Avoid that thing, tie it up or something if you can, and try to wake Tyler up. Tell him everything you can, and see if you can find any of his memories around the grounds, the Not-Bode put 'em in a jar somewhere."

The two tiny figures, slightly larger now with the new information they carried, nodded, and hurried towards the wooden door, fleet and silent as mice. Duncan watched them go, his green eyes solemn.

A week and a half, and this was the best chance he'd had, the only ray of hope he'd seen so far. It was a lot to lay on the shoulders of two hazy memories and his brainwashed nephew, but he couldn't see any alternative. If there was anyone who stood a chance of being able to do something, it was probably Tyler.

And if he was wrong about his nephew, Duncan thought grimly, curling up as best he could on the filthy gravel, if he couldn't trust even Ty and lost this chance and spent the rest of his limited life as a punching bag by night and a blank-eyed puppet by day...well, he'd figure something out. Looping the chain attached to his collar around the foundry equipment and leaning forward until it cut off his air...rubbing the iron cuffs back and forth until they ripped open his wrists...hell, sticking his head in the next crucible of molten iron. There were always options, if you were desperate enough.