Author's Note: I should never say "this is a one shot" because it always comes back to bite me, and it winds up being like 10 or more chapters. I blame it on this fandom being so awesome and encouraging. And of course, the epic angst factor of this show that promised me fun magic tricks and instead opened a can of Daddy Issues and Whump. Spoiler's for 1x07, "Sacrifice 99 to Fool One".


"NO, CAM!" Jonathan shouted, pounding on the door as his brother pulled off the mask, an apologetic smile on his face as the air continued to be sucked out of the room with high powered fans.

Don't you dare smile at this

"Cameron!"

His brother's smile faded, and through the nuke proof glass he could see the way he started to gasp for air that wasn't there, stumbling slightly before falling backwards, eyes rolling back and collapsing on the floor less than three feet away, but with an ocean between them.

"CAMERON! CAM! CAM!"

If Kay had just let him shoot the bitch in the first place, they wouldn't be here. Cameron wouldn't be here, because no matter what he told Kay, yes, he knew what he was thinking when he aimed at the Mystery Woman as she fled into the harbor.

He was thinking he can't be tried for the same murder twice.

He was thinking that without their boss, whatever operation she was running would fall into controlled chaos – she was unlikely the type to share info.

He was thinking that Cameron Black, Master of Deception, would have more than enough opportunity to escape if the Mystery Woman wasn't around to enforce whatever threat she held over him that kept him there.

He lied because if he'd told her all that – it would sound suspiciously like premeditated murder.

Because it was.

"Get the manager to use the override!" Jonathan demanded, whirling abruptly to the still unconscious guards.

One of them had to have a radio, or this would be the worst auction house security in the universe.

He dove for the closest one, yanking him over onto his back, already fumbling at the waist for the walkie.

His mind didn't blank in a panic, it did the opposite – a million different thoughts at a million miles an hour flashed through his head. What was the standard radio channel for emergencies? Did it matter? Were the radios screwed with to as part of the Woman's plan? The vault wasn't designed for murder, it had to be able to be shut off. Was Cam going to die? The human brain could barely survive five minutes without oxygen, how much time had elapsed already?

"RESET THE ALARM!" Jonathan shouted into the radio. "NOW!"

To turn off security systems, override code must be entered or an entire system reset.

"Who the hell is this - ?" came the reply and before Jonathan's temper could get the best of him and he smashed the radio, Agent Daniels yanked it out of his hand.

"This is FBI Special Agent Kay Daniels, reset the alarm, now, we need the vault door to open, one of our guys is still inside, and unless you want to be charged with the death of a federal agent, you'll do it now."

Jonathan staggered back to his feet, back to the door just as the alarm silenced, the blaring siren almost deafening in its absence.

Come on, comeon, come on….

He could see through the window that the quick, rapid rise and fall of Cameron's chest had stopped. The door still hadn't unlocked, the air still hadn't been returned to the vault, and his brother was dying less than three feet away from him and he could do nothing.

Unbidden and unwanted memories of every time he'd ever had to stand behind the curtain when something had gone wrong on stage came flooding in.

His dad had to hire someone to stand next to him during shows, keeping him from bolting out of his hiding place when he would hear the gasps of horror from the other stage hands who knew that wasn't part of the show.

No one touched him now, but he felt hands restraining him all the same.

There was a click.

And Jonathan's hand was on the handle and wrenching it open before Kay could tell him they'd unlocked the door, yanking it open so fast he almost hit Dina in the face.

"Cam, don't do this to me, don't do this to me, don't you dare…"

It wouldn't be the first time he'd done CPR on his unresponsive brother, but somehow, right now, this was worse than all the times before.

He skidded to his knees beside his brother, whose lips were turning blue.

Clear airway, head tilt, chin liftpinchnosetworescuebreaths-

"Wake up!"

He didn't care that he sounded borderline hysterical, because he was. If Cameron died, right here, right now, then he wasn't going back to prison.

He was going to become what everyone already thought he was.

A cold blooded murderer.

And without Agent Daniels threatening to shoot him in the back, he would have nothing stopping him.

And every reason to pull the trigger.

Chest compressions, tothetuneofstayingalive -

He felt one of Cam's ribs give way under the force of the compressions, but broken ribs were the least of his concerns.

"GET UP, CAM. GET UP, GET UP, GETUP!"

Just as he was about to do another round of rescue breaths, his brother jerked to life underneath his less than gentle hands, coughing and gasping and sucking in much needed air, his eyes flying open to reveal at least one of them had broken blood vessels as he rolled to the side, curling in on himself.

But he was alive. He was alive, hewasalive

"Ow," Cameron rasped, one hand going to his ribs. "Did you have to do it so hard?"

And with that, Jonathan grabbed him by his jacket and yanked him upright, unmindful of the broken rib he'd just caused because he needed his brother more than he needed to be gentle.

Cameron felt like he couldn't breathe again under the fierce embrace of Jonathan, and he still hadn't stopped coughing, which was more painful than the hug, but he didn't let go. He was dimly aware of the fact that the last thing he'd seen before passing out was his brother's terrified face as he pounded on the glass. He'd wanted to apologize, for not being able to get Johnny out of jail. For the way they grew up, each only having half a life. For even mentioning his name to the police when he'd been shown the damning evidence of the accident.

All he could offer was an apologetic smile, because he wouldn't be able to say any of that. And because while he was sorry for a lot of things, being the one on the wrong side of the door wasn't one of them.

And now, unexpectedly alive and for the first time in over a year, he and Johnny were on the outside, and the first thought he had was to grab his brother and run without looking back.

As soon as he had the energy to stand.

He could feel his brother shaking underneath his hands, even as he tried to tell him that he was fine, and he was okay.

"Hey, I'm fine, Johnny," he promised, rubbing his brother's back and tried not to think about how bad it must've been this time. Jonathan hadn't had a bad break down for years, since the time he'd almost drowned in a botched Houdini rendition. "I'm okay."

Johnny's hands dug painfully into his back in warning. No, you aren't.

"Cameron, – " Kay's voice broke in, and Cameron looked up to see the entirety of the team standing just outside the door. Dina looked like she'd been in the middle of crying, and Jordan looked a whiter shade of pale, and he didn't miss the murderous look on Gunter's face.

Huh. Maybe it had been that bad…

When Kay moved to take a step into the vault, Cameron put up his hand in warning.

Give us a minute…please?

Kay looked like she wanted to argue, but she pressed her lips into a thin line, taking a step back.

Thank you, he mouthed.

Johnny didn't need an audience, and frankly, neither did he. But at least he could tune out the others, whereas Johnny couldn't. Never could, really. It was part of the reason why their dad insisted Cameron be the one on stage.

Johnny was smart. Brilliant. Almost terrifyingly so. But the same thing that allowed him to make leaps and jumps in logic, to see patterns in chaos and find order where there was none, drove him to easy distraction. Too many lights, too many people, too many moving parts and things that could go wrong, did go wrong, would go wrong, every conversation in earshot worming their way into his focus until it became just noise.

He'd been misdiagnosed for years with ADHD or being somewhere on the spectrum. Traveling the world made it hard to get the same doctor to see him, and with Sebastian Black's paranoia that someone would realize that Jonathan wasn't Cameron, facts may have been omitted, and certain tests refused. It wasn't until Gunter showed up that they had a proper name for it. Less of a condition, more of a personality quirk, Gunter called it Low Latent Inhibition.

And it had the habit of making Johnny's life a living hell in already bad situations.

"You're okay," he whispered in his brother's ear.

Johnny's head pressed closer to his and he could feel his brother fist his fingers in his jack as he clutched him tighter.

"Stop thinking," he said, keeping his voice low and hopefully soothing. The bout of coughing had made it raspy, and it hurt to talk, but he didn't care. "You're right here, I'm right here, and we're fine."

Jonathan didn't say a word, and Cameron could feel him holding his breath, hitching slightly every time he tried to let it out slowly as he tried to keep his composure. A lifetime of bottling everything in was a hard habit to break.

Cameron looked up again, finding Dina in the crowd and meeting her gaze. He gave a subtle jerk of his chin, and she immediately understood.

Quietly, she tapped Mike's arm and whispered in his ear, and Cameron saw him nod. In less than two minutes, they'd backed the rest of the group away far enough they were out of sight, just around the corner.

"Johnny," he said, a little louder than he had been. "Look at me."

Jonathan didn't move. Cameron gave him a reassuring squeeze.

"Come on, Johnny. Deep breaths and look at me."

Now was what Cameron needed his brother to focus on. Not the infinite what ifs that he could imagine just as easily as he saw the reality. He cautiously knocked his head against his brother's, to shake him out of his spiraling thoughts.

"Jonathan."

"What if I wasn't here?" Jonathan suddenly blurted out, head jerking up to finally meet his brother's gaze. "What if the door didn't open? What if it had been too long, what if it didn't work, what if –" and suddenly he wasn't trying to hold his breath, he was trying to catch his breath as his chest heaved even as his throat constricted in the familiar early signs of a panic attack. Somehow, Johnny's always seemed worse. Maybe because Jonathan was always so cool and collected and reserved, that the very idea that his body would betray him was something he thought he should be able to avoid. And then the more he tried to make himself stop, the worse it got, because all those what ifs were like a cascade effect.

"Hey, hey, hey, no, don't do that Johnny, that's not what happened, alright?" Cameron soothed, trying to get his brother to focus. "I'm fine. We're fine."

"But…you…weren't," Jonathan gasped. "You weren't and it was worse because this time I didn't have to hide and I still couldn't get to you."

Cameron imagined if the roles were reversed. If he was the one on the outside watching his brother die and unable to help.

He doubted he even would've had enough thought to remember how CPR went. Or that vaults weren't meant to be coffins, and as long as someone reset the codes, it would default the system and open the door.

"Well, when you say it like that…" Cameron made a half attempt at humor, and if anything, it just made Jonathan more upset instead of less.

"Why is it so fucking hard for you to care about yourself even half as much as you care about anyone else?"

Cameron shrugged, offering a smile to hide the grimace as his broken ribs shifted with the movement. "Because," he said, "I have you to do it."


Author's Note: I struggled a bit at the end. There were like three alternate versions, but I think I like this one the best. I was discussing with heyystiles on Tumblr that I think Jonathan has something called LLI/Low Latent Inhibition (which is a really interesting but really frustrating way to experience the world). If you want to know more about it: lowlatentinhibition dot org. I reeally want this episode to be an excuse not to send Jonathan back to prison, because I want to see them as a human cinnamon roll and a Sherlock Holmes. Read and review if you like! They keep me motivated!