Hooray for the next part! Still not mine but are you really surprised?

Part I

i.

His entire body is coiled, thrumming with adrenaline as he waits. (FBI work is an hour of waiting watching paperwork for every minute of action) Gravel has made the mistake of waiting too long between beatings and he is one big bruise but a bruise that can move. (alive is pain better than the alternative)

They've managed to fray binding ropes to the point where (we hope we hope we hope we hope) a burst of action should break them.

The voice keeps talking, low and soothing as his body struggles to contain the explosive rush. (always the hunter Ian slow and steady taking them down from a distance) A dark chuckle is bubbling in his throat because time has no meaning anymore and the fact that their chance is coming strikes him as unbearably amusing. (cracking breaking splitting flying apart under pressure like skin under their hands gaping chasm we all fall down)

Ian, still sprawled languidly against the wall, is peppered with bruises in various states of fading. Their vision is adapting to the perpetual dark (you look like an oversized pasty fly in night vision goggles Coop) and they can both recognise when food and water appear in a blinding flash of light that just as quickly fades into the interminable gloom.

He knows that he looks even worse than Ian, that his entire body is bruise and blood and slowly melting sanity. The voice tells him that untreated concussion, repeated sedation and malnutrition are what makes it hard for him to concentrate (Coop says it's ADHD just like him and that's why we work so well) but he knows that the dark stretching for ever on and on is to blame for that.

(monsters in the closet under the bed I need my baseball bat Dad so I can protect Charlie if they try and get us)

The voice is starting to sound tired and scared but still so calm compared to the rasp that leaves his throat when he tries to take his turn at reassuring, (it'll be okay Ian I can do this I can try and end this so we can go home) at leading, at doing it right.

He was good at that, he remembers dimly. Being in charge. He led people, he was a good leader. (Colby Liz Nikki David please don't think this was your fault) The memory, the purpose, is enough to still his trembling hands and ground him tentatively in reality.

ii.

He doesn't know how long it takes for their chance to come, but the whole world narrows to the single rectangle of light as the door opens and every cell in his body erupts.

The rope splits as he lunges for the door and Ian is right there with him. The tray clatters to the floor and his hands close around a wrist (if I hold just right and just tight enough I can break your bones just give me a reason) as the figure at the door reels backwards.

Their momentum pushes the startled man straight into the wall where he hits, groans, slumps. (go go go go) A gleaming pistol feels like a limb he forgot he once had and they make for the corridor.

(dead men running dead men armed dead men everywhere)

His arms quiver under the strain of holding the gun ready as the voice says his name, as long fingers wrap around his arm and pull him towards a door, as his brain seems to rattle around in his skull. A man ahead, barrel like a gaping maw of darkness pointed at Ian, falls as his throat collapses into undulating waves of red.

(get out get out get out must get out) Sanity comes crashing back with the sharp crack of the firing pin, the scent of gunpowder, the recoil. His legs firm beneath him, muscles screaming with the protest as feet pound a desperate staccato against the unforgiving floor.

The staccato is broken, interrupted, by a cry of pain that isn't part of anything they'd planned. A growl rumbles low in his throat as he skids to a halt and pivots. A feral smile has hands wrapped around Ian's forearm and jerks sharply in opposing directions.

Even over their panting, the crack of bone is audible and the strangled gasp of pain levels the pistol held in quivering fingers and a hoarse snarl demands that the smile stand down. (can't afford delay must hurry Ian) Disbelieving laughter is the only response and with an oddly quiet cracking sound, a neat hole decorates the smile's forehead as Ian wrenches free.

They bolt.

(run run run run)

iii.

A last desperate burst of speed (smell the air I think that might be the sun) isn't enough as an arm closes around his throat and his fingers contract around the trigger. The bullet skitters harmlessly around the corner, ricocheting out of sight like a shooting star as supernovas explode behind his eyes.

The voice is raised in fury, (if this is what space is like why didn't you tell me it hurt so bad Fleinhardt) desperate and relentless, railing against their failure as his legs buckle, tailbone impacting with the concrete floor and another supernova blossoming, breaking, burning along his ribs.

Everything blurs and is taken over by darkness as the crack of something striking flesh that might or might not be his morphs, the world nothing but silent tendrils of air against feverish skin.

Vertigo swallows him whole, sucking him into the maw of a ravenous black hole.

(sorry so sorry I'll do better next time I swear)


Our poor boys. I want to say that I'll make it better but I do try not to lie and I've proven to myself that I suck at happy endings. They tried though, and it won't be the last time they try either. Don and Ian aren't going to lay down and break or take this torture like lapdogs, which is something I think the people behind this didn't quite take as seriously as they should have.

Motivation and methods aside, I don't think they really considered just how determined the team and co would be to get them back and just how far Don and Ian are willing to go to prove them wrong. They'd rather die than give them that satisfaction.