The lights were off once again and Alfred could hear Ivan shuffling around somewhere in the dark. "Are… Are you alright…?" He whispered and Alfred could hear him trying to cautiously approach the blonde.

"You hit me with a pipe! Do you think I'm fucking alright?!" He hissed back over his shoulder, wincing as accidentally moved the spot where he had been struck. Damn that man, he thought angrily as turned his head back so he was facing the wall again. He was still trying to wrap his head around the situation and the bruising pain in his side, the sore ache of his limbs, the continual darkness, and the chill that was slowly consuming him were not helping him stay focused. And the focus was something he needed if he was to get out of this cellar. Ivan was still shifting around quietly and Alfred figured it was time to try a new tactic.

"Hey, uh, your name is Ivan, right?" Alfred asked while twisting his head back around. He had seen this plenty of times before. Well, okay, he had seen this plenty of times before on tv, but it probably applied to real life too. First, you make friends with your captor, get all buddy-buddy with them by talking about normal things, then, when you earned their trust, you get them to let you do something by yourself and, BAM!, make it to the nearest highway dodging bullets, leap onto a moving truck and ride it into town. Simple.

"Yes, I'm Ivan." The large man replied with a spark of happiness.

"Heya Ivan, my name's Alfred and-"

"I know."

Alfred paused, feeling his eyebrows crinkle together in confusion. "You know?"

"Yes. Yao told me what your name was before we went and found you." He could hear Ivan reply and his former plan was suddenly giving way to his sudden desire to extract as much information as he could.

"Yao is…?"

"Yao is my owner, like how Kiku is yours."

Alfred scowled at that. "I'm not owned by anyone."

"No, you are. By Kiku." Ivan insisted and Alfred could hear him trying to edge closer once again.

Alfred growled in frustration, but now was not the time to lose his cool. He still needed to figure a way out of here. "Fine, skipping past that, what do you mean Yao told you my name? How did Yao know what my name was?"

Ivan was silent for a moment while he tried to recall. "Kiku told him."

Alfred just rolled his eyes. "Sill not answering the real question here. How did Kiku know?"

"When… when he chose you, I think." Alfred just sighed. Unlike what he had hoped he was, which was that he had just been at the wrong place at the wrong time, he was now figuring that they had probably been following him for days. Weeks even. If they knew what his name was, then it was possible they also knew where he lived, where his family lived, and that brought him to the startling conclusion that they had been waiting for him to go on his run that afternoon. Thinking through all of that suddenly brought another question to the front of his mind.

"Ivan…?" He started slowly, staring straight ahead at nothing, "How did I get here? I mean, I obviously didn't walk, so what happened?" Herein lay the confusion: Yao and Kiku looked tiny and although he would never say he was fat (he was perfectly average, thank you) he had to be far too heavy for either one or even the both of them to carry him far. Hopefully this meant they were still inside the local park or forest, or maybe just outside it. And if that was the case then as soon as the search parties were sent out they wouldn't have to go far before they'd question the two upstairs, see that there was something fishy with them so that they would get a warrant, break down the door and storm the place. He'd be back in time for classes on Monday.

However the next words out of Ivan's mouth put a swift end to that dream: "We drove." Now not only did he realize that they had used a car to transport him, this freakishly huge individual was probably present and he at least didn't look like he would have issues carrying another full-grown man.

"Drove where, Ivan? How far did we go?" He was desperately clinging to that last shard of hope that he was still somewhere near the college town he was studying in. It was better than the alternative. He could be in a different city; no, worse, he could be in another state or even country for all he knew. How long had he been asleep? Alfred had assumed it had only been a couple of hours but in all honesty it could have been a day or two.

Silence was a difficult thing to gauge in the darkness and the American wished for some light to make out what his companion was doing when it took longer for him to answer. "I was asleep…"

Alfred let out a long sigh, careful not to agitate his side anymore than he had to. How long would it take for anyone to realize he had gone missing? Unless… his mind spun as he tried to think of alternatives, maybe Matthew had put him on some sort of reality show where they tried to scare someone and videotaped the whole thing. Yeah, there could be cameras up everywhere, including night vision ones of course, and somewhere Mattie was watching the feed with popcorn and a tub of ice cream laughing and having a great time at how lame he looked. He wouldn't put it past his twin.

Note to self: if Matthew is not behind this, never suggest reality shows to him.

More noise brought him out of his musings and he suddenly realized that it was much nearer than it was before. The scuffling was coming from beside him and with a start he looked up to realize that the large shape that was Ivan was standing just above him. "Hey! What do you think you're doing?" He whispered up at the form, not completely sure what his intentions were. Ivan had hit him with a large metal pipe only an hour or so before.

Bracing for what might happen next, Alfred held his breath as the figure stooped closer and wrapped something around him. He blinked a few times, feeling the material rub against the exposed portions of his skin as Ivan took great care in trying to tuck the edges of a blanket beneath him. Alfred silently let the man complete his task without argument; he wasn't about to turn down a barrier to the cold, not when he was still in the loose-fitting shorts and old baggy t-shirt he had donned before left and they were not faring well against the damp earth floor of the cellar.

"Thanks." He muttered when Ivan finally finished, sat back and was still.

"I didn't want you to be cold." Was his reply and Alfred just sighed.

Several more minutes of silence while Alfred realized that his new found companion was not going to return to his side of the room and he had reached his limit of the awkwardness it was causing. "What did Kiku mean when he said he needed a new pet..?" Who knew why he was even asking this question, he was pretty sure he already knew the answer.

"He didn't like it here, so he tried to leave." Ivan answered sadly and as much as everyone said Alfred was an idiot, he could figure out the gist of what had happened to cause the sudden vacancy in this horror house.

The blonde gulped and tried to steady his breathing. "Look, I have a family that will miss me." He started, distinctly aware he was verging on begging now, but when plans A through F failed… "A brother and father and they won't just forget about me. They'll be looking for me. If you just untie me and let me go, I won't say anything." Fat chance of staying silent about this, but not that he was going to tell him that.

The man beside him shifted uneasily. "I can't." he whispered, "Your home is here now."

"How can you say that?!" Alfred spat out, barely able to keep his voice under control. "I have people who need me, and the biggest obstacle between me and the ability to walk out that door is you!"

"Shh!" Ivan tried to hush him by putting his hands over his mouth, "You are being too loud! You must learn to be quieter."

"Why? Because you'll hit me again?" Alfred threw his head around to get out from underneath Ivan's hands. All his wriggling was making his side ache but he was too riled up to let it hinder him much.

"Yes!" Ivan hissed back, trying to make the blonde stop moving. "But I don't want to have to hit my friends so-"

"Oh, trust me, we are not friends." Alfred growled out glaring at Ivan's outline. The other paused at the outburst before retracting his hands and getting up. "Fine." He whispered with a little more spite to his tone and Alfred listened to the sounds of the larger moving away and settling down again on the opposite side of the room, throwing the entire space into silence soon after. He stared in the general direction the other had gone a little longer, willing any unfound superpowers to appear and set the man on fire or at the very least just make have nightmares of being chased by a very large monster. When nothing happened to indicate either event he turned his head back and attempted to settle beneath the rough blanket that, gratefully, had been left behind. Now just to figure out another plan to escape.