W/N: We got fic! The Tower is complete. This will be posted in ten chapters and features Don and Charlie (in alternating POV's) and a couple of recurring OC. In this adventure, the brothers find themselves in the hands of an enemy—subjected to a form of ill treatment they never would have imagined—and fighting to keep up their spirits in light of an unbelievable demand for Charlie from one of their captors.

Dare I say…enjoy?

ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

The Tower

Chapter One: Prisoners

---1---

Charlie slept and Don guarded him, watched the door, listening for footsteps. Things were quiet for now. He turned to the old man in plaid who sat next to him on the floor, asked him how he'd come to be a prisoner in his own home.

The aged gentleman—named Fitzgerald after his uncle, he said—poked at an apple, scooping out a spoiled spot with a fingernail, and told Don he first wanted to know who this nutty fruitcake Reylott was, why he'd locked them up. He pointed to Charlie, asked why they'd hurt the young man.

Charlie mumbled and rolled to his side. Don leaned near, but couldn't make out what he'd said. He reached over the mattress—which was down on the floor—and picked up the sport jacket he'd laid over Charlie earlier, replacing it on his shoulders. Charlie's okay, just working off the sedative. It'll be my turn again next, he thought, how could I have been so wrong? He stood, braving the soreness in his body from head to foot, and tried the door, found it locked solid like he had the previous hundred times. Going to the window, he opened the hinged panes, leaned into the 10-inch brownstone ledge, grabbed the iron bars and pulled. "Were these always here?"

Fitzy bit into the rotten apple. "No. Your friend Rey must've installed those. Maybe he's expecting burglars."

"Or the police," he said. "Funny. We call him Rey, too. But I think 'Satan' would fit him better." In the distance, mountains soared into tumbling thunderclouds gathering over the desert. "I thought he was dead. I screwed up. I told Charlie…" Don's mind trailed off. Below the tower, a car had driven up to the front entrance and parked beneath a long-dead tree. He took the old man's arm, helped him up so he could take a look. "They have a visitor."

"Good," Fitzy said. "It'll keep their minds off us."

"I doubt it."

Charlie stirred. With eyes closed, he crossed an arm over his chest, felt his shoulder.

Fitzy spit out a seed. "Your brother's feeling that needle."

"Yeah, poor guy." Don tried not to think about what they'd done to him, massaging his own back lightly. "Stings."

"So who's this Devil-Man?"

"Armen Reylott." He loitered by the window, observing. "I used to work with him."

"FBI?" Fitzy said, and lowered himself to the floor, below the window.

"Yeah…long time ago. But he got it on his brain that I'd lost his job for him, spent years stewing about it, building a grudge, then, about a year ago, he lost the rest of his sanity and followed me and Charlie into the woods and ambushed us. He burned down our cabin, chased us through the woods—nearly took us out with sniper fire. It was a game for him, a hunt, but we won. Unfortunately it ended with a shocker. Charlie had to shoot him in the chest to stop him, but he got away. All these months, I was sure he was ant-meat in the forest somewhere." He knelt near the mattress. "That's what I kept telling Charlie."

"Evil. How'd they get you here?"

"The hard way. We'd been to dinner at one of our usuals, little Italian hole-in-the-wall. I don't think it really mattered, the neighborhood—run down, you know, not the safest place at night. Rey probably would've found us even if we'd been in the newest part of town. We were headed back to my car, by an alley—walked past it lots of times. I was on the phone with the office, not paying attention, and Charlie fell behind. Least I thought so. Something felt wrong before I knew it. Instinct. From the corner of my eye I realized he wasn't there and when I turned, bam! Got hit with something." Don rubbed his head; there was a sizable bump at the back. "Don't remember anything after. Woke up in the room downstairs, with Charlie tied out on a table, half conscious."

"He wanted you to see what he was doing to your brother, didn't he? Bastard."

"Yeah. It's our luck Sick Satan's having power problems…" he said, "or we'd have more to worry about." He brushed Charlie's hair from his temple. The light had waned and it was getting difficult to see the bruises on his face. "I don't know where these came from. I think he fought them, when I was blacked out."

Fitzy patted Charlie's shoe a couple of times then finished his apple, core and all. "This isn't my house anymore. Sold the land, everything on it. I'm an architect—well, was when I was young—renovated and remodeled it myself."

"Come on, you're not so old," Don said. Fitzy's salt and pepper hair reminded him of his father's. By now, Alan would be frantic with worry, making phone calls. "Just because you don't go to work everyday…"

"You know, when my wife was alive I didn't care much about being a husband. Only thing I cared about was my work, my buildings. Now that's she's gone, all I want is to be a husband, don't care so much about being an architect."

Don said, "Our father's a widower, too."

"Then he and I will have tons to talk about."

"I think he'll like that." Don turned Charlie's head, found a scrape on his chin as if he'd fallen. "This is a cool house, like a castle—well, could be cool under different circumstances."

"It was owned by a movie star in the 30's. We added features to play out the theme. The masonry, shape of the windows. There's even a parapet over us, crenellations on the roof. Not a real castle, just a credible facsimile. I sold the property after Anne died. It's structurally unsound anyway, since the earthquake in '97. Rain's been doing the rest, crooked foundation. It should've been razed by now." Fitzy continued, told how he'd taken a clipping from his wife's cherished roses when he'd moved out, but the plant had died. The day before, he'd driven out to collect another clipping from the unoccupied house's overgrown garden—and found it occupied. "They grabbed me and tossed me up here. Didn't say nothing why."

"Now you know why. Wrong place…"

"Wrong time. Nice to meet you, Agent Eppes."

"Same here." Don felt a hand on his knee and grabbed it, wrapped his fingers round it tightly. Charlie had woken up.

---2---

Charlie's shoulder blade hurt—and his lip. One eye felt scratchy beneath the lid and his elbow throbbed. Don asked how he was and he tried to sit up, unsteady. Don began to fill him in, talking too fast, too crazy. What? We're where? Who? Who? No. Not after all we've been through.

And it'd been less than twenty-four hours. Charlie could barely see the walls and Don warned him they'd be in complete blackness soon. He went onto explain that Reylott and his tattooing cronies had lost their electrical power, and, because of this favorable glitch in Rey's scheme, both he and Charlie had been spared from receiving the full treatment in one sitting. As long as their generator was inoperative, Reylott wouldn't be able to run his machine.

"What're you talking about?" Charlie said. He pulled his shirt collar aside, realized he'd misplaced his jacket somewhere and wore only his button-down—unbuttoned—and his T-shirt. Stretching to see, he made out a section of an outline on his shoulder blade, drawn in black ink. It stung, was tender. "Oh my God."

Don showed Charlie his own shoulder, said Reylott had possibly begun with him but hadn't completed it—perhaps changing his mind about something. Reylott had boasted that the Eppes brothers would always remember him, because they'd bear his personal mark of ownership engraved permanently on their backs. And, if they tried to erase the tattoos with the latest in laser technology, there would always be a creepy, ugly scar, exactly like the one they'd branded on his chest.

Charlie's hands were shaking. "He showed you his gunshot wound."

"I'm sorry," Don said. "I was sure he was dead."

Fitzy spoke from the shadows. "Don't blame yourself, Agent Don."

Startled, Charlie spun round as though a fly had buzzed him. He hadn't known there was anysone else in the room.

"This is Fitzgerald," Don said, and he let the old man repeat his part of the story. In the last rays of light, they discussed their predicament, guessing their captors would be sleeping and speculating what rooms they might be in according to Fitzy's recollection of the house.

In addition to Reylott, Don told Charlie he'd grappled with three other men: One he'd nicknamed Blue because he wore a muscle shirt with "The Blues" printed across the front in girly-glitter; and the second he called "Lipman" because his lips were so thin that Chap Stick would be useless. The third man seemed the most dangerous because he looked as though he could carry a planet on his shoulders—so Don had dubbed him "Atlas".

Charlie noticed broken skin and blood near his brother's ear and related that he remembered very little but did recall dinner and the initial part of their return walk to the car. His phone had rung and he'd slowed down behind Don, speaking to what he figured was a wrong number, insisting the female caller wanted a different Eppes, when he'd been snatched boldly into the littered alleyway. Next thing he knew, his feet left the ground, lifted by many hands, and a cloth was pressed in his face. His head thumped a layer of carpet while a sickly-sweet odor overpowered him. A blanket was thrown over his body; everything went dark. He struggled, pushed down, heart pounding, terrified. A ringing erupted in his ears, numbness crept into his limbs and soon there was nothing until the long table…the room with the tall pointed windows, stony walls and…

"I couldn't move," he said.

Near him, Don's voice emanated from the dimness. "Don't think about it."

"You were there."

"I think Fitzy's asleep. He's snoring."

Charlie lay down next to Don. He wasn't worried about the old man at the moment. "I saw you."

"You did?" Don said. "You were pretty groggy. They kept putting that stuff in your face."

"And you were yelling. They hit you." He thought about the table, the sweet scent under his nose. "What stuff?"

"I don't know exactly. My guess, chloroform by the smell. It's bad stuff." Don cleared his throat, changed the subject. "Their generator's probably out of fuel."

"How bad?"

Don shrugged it off. "Forget it."

Charlie insisted he explain.

"Okay. It's like any strong chemical, Ingested, inhaled, absorbed by your skin. Too much can kill you. Some people are allergic, get sick."

"That's weird."

"There's side effects. Fever's one." He paused, put a palm on Charlie's forehead. "Feel warm?"

He nudged the palm away. "I'm fine. Just tired." They stared at the ceiling and Charlie drew equations with a finger in midair, training his mind on something other than fear. "Damn it," he said, rolling towards Don. "Reylott's not done with us yet. Why?"

"I'm getting us out of here, Charlie. We have to act, and fast."

"Did he say what he's going to do with us? He wouldn't pursue this mania if he was going to kill us, right?"

"Right," Don said. "We're alive for a reason."

The room had blackened and stars loomed outside their window, over the house—the Orion constellation. They tried to sleep, thinking they wouldn't be able to fight back without rest, but couldn't rest. Instead, they sketched out scenarios, hushed, facing one another. If there were three of them and three of us, and if Fitzy had recalled the layout of the house correctly, the right direction to go for help, they might attempt to overpower them—yet a lot depended on how many men showed up to fetch them next time.

Charlie didn't feel hopeful. It was difficult to be hopeful in the dark. He did, however, know he could count on friends and family, who'd be searching for them. Everyone would be on the case, working tirelessly. If they didn't manage to escape, it was up to all three of them to hold out long enough to be found and rescued.

Don yawned, touched Charlie's forearm. "Try to sleep. I'm here."

"I will." Charlie said, reaching back. "You, too."

---3---

A light flickered in the cracks of the door and footsteps plowed up the stairs. The brothers lifted their heads, got up quickly and retreated to the opposite wall beside Fitzy, who remained seated, rubbing his eyes. Don reassured them, told them to stay calm, and follow his lead. Since Reylott wanted Don and Charlie each to see what would be done to the other, it was certain they'd take both brothers and leave Fitzy behind in the chamber. In this case, if they got away, Don promised Fitzy they would return for him with a virtual army. Fitzy said he could help, began to remind them about the house's hidden passages—when Reylott's people burst in.

Blue entered first, Lipman behind him. It was Lipman who did the binding, Blue who did the marking, and Atlas who held you still, often with a fist.

They had little time to react. While Blue stood guard with his hand on the doorknob, Lipman produced a handgun and Atlas charged in, seized Charlie by the arm. Don realized they were outnumbered and protested, told him to let his brother go, when Reylott stormed in and headed straight for Don, smacked him across the cheek and ordered him to shut up and do as he was told.

Charlie tried to pull away. "What do you want with us?"

"Want?" Reylott moved in, vis-à-vis Charlie. "You stupid boy. I thought you were smart. I'd like you dead most, but I won't let you die, I'd rather have you live. It's so much more fun that way. I need something to do, don't I? My life's ruined. No thanks to you, I survived."

Don swiped his lip, tasted blood. "You brought it on yourself," he shouted.

Reylott turned to him, fist in the air, and Don lunged, intent on toppling him. But before he could get to Rey, Blue and Lipman advanced and took him by the elbows, kept him back. From the corner, Fitzy yelled, "Leave him be," and Charlie echoed the plea as Atlas hauled him out the door.

Reylott's face was ruddy and tanned. A bit of loosened dust from the ceiling had sprinkled onto his head and he seemed to be on the verge of exploding into a fit. Don knew what was imminent and he scrunched away, anticipating the blow. The fist landed crisply on his jaw and he collapsed to the floor, knocked into a stupor.

-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o