During the time that he had been held captive by Vaas, Jason had come to understand what he liked to see from Jason and how easily Jason could get what he wanted if he played along with it. And he didn't want much, really, all he wanted was to be able to hear from Riley. To know that his brother was safe and sound, maybe even that he was happy, that would mean the world to him.

Then, a small but insistent part of him had to wonder if any of them were even alive – if he had just been conned into obeying, and Riley and all of his friends had been sold off or killed already. Either way, he had to know and he knew that he was going to have to work for it. Because he was not in a position where he had any sort of power or tools worth negotiating. His safety and security were largely dependent upon whether or not he was willing to lay on his back and debase himself for his daily bread.

And he had come to realize that Vaas liked it – really, really liked it – when he seemed to be interested in doing it with him. So here he was, straddling Vaas' hips as he drunkenly kissed him, ground his body down against the other man's as he tried his best to seduce his captor, his tormentor, the man that had shot his brother in cold blood. He lowered himself down on the ground, sitting down on the cool ground, in between the pirate king's spread legs and it was only then that he started to tremble in anticipation of what he was going to do.

He let out a shaky breath, psyching himself up for the act, as he took Vaas' dick out. He felt the pirate lord's fingers running through his hair in a near comforting manner, as Jason took Vaas' dick in his hand and coaxed it to an erection. He closes his eyes and presses his lips to the base of his shaft.

He's good at this, he knows that much, he's been given glowing compliments and praises after praises from his various partners. He knew what he liked and he liked to know that he was making the people that he slept with happy with him. He had always liked that a lot.

He kept one hand on Vaas' thigh to keep himself steady and upright, he used his other hand to gently roll Vaas' balls between his fingers. He heard Vaas groan above and smiled to himself, both because he knew that the better he made Vaas feel, the more likely he was to get what he wanted. And because he was more than just a little proud of the fact that he had already elicited a response out of him.

Jason wrapped his lips around the head of the pirate's cock, mindful that he kept his tongue flat against his bottom lip as he hollowed out his cheeks and slowly took each inch of Vaas' dick with a practiced sort of skill to it. Vaas leaned back and let Jason have as much control as he needed to get him off.

Soon enough, Jason lost himself to the motions of it and closed his eyes. He kept them closed until he felt the slightly painful sensation of Vaas' fingers tightening in his hair as he pushed his head down, practically forcing Jason to deep-throat him, as he came. He kept his hand rooted at the back of Jason's neck, squeezing his throat a little, and only let go when he was completely sure that he had swallowed every drop of his come.

When he was let go, his body drooped and he slumped against Vaas' body tiredly. At the very least Vaas seemed to be happy with his… performance. His fingers ran through Jason's hair appreciatively as he swallowed down the last of the pirate lord's cum. Jason smiled up at him, hoping that what he had done had worked out for him.

When Vaas grabbed him by the hair, pulling him upwards until he was at eye level with the pirate, he shuddered in shock. He began to prepare himself for the worst, expecting at least some violence from the pirate. "Now what do you want?" Vaas asked him, his gaze was frighteningly intense as he bore into Jason.

Jason swallowed, eyes downcast as he realized that he had been caught red-handed. This wouldn't end well for him, he thought. Vaas didn't seem like someone that liked to be deceived or lied to. "I…" He struggled to speak, struggled to say a word in his own defense, but he came up with nothing. His mouth dried up and his tongue became heavy like it was stuck to the roof of his mouth.

"Do you think I'm fucking stupid?" Vaas asked him in a voice so deadly quiet that it sent a chill down Jason's spine. Jason didn't say a word in reply, couldn't bring himself to say a word and that only pissed Vaas off even more. "HEY! What did I tell you about ignoring me? Hm?" He smacked Jason's cheek, hard enough to sting. "You got a good poker face, Snow White, you do. But I know all of your little fucking tells. Do. Not. Try. To. Fuck. With. Me. Again."

"Okay, okay, okay! Shit, just let me go…" Jason babbled nervously, trying – and failing – to edge away from him and the ironclad grip that he had on his hair. It was only when Vaas let him go – and he had edged out of arm's reach for the pirate – that he told him that all he wanted to do was know how his brother was doing. What he really wanted was to be able to hear his voice, really know what his day to day life was like – but he doubted that he would get as much as that.

Vaas kissed him one more time, biting down on his lower lip hard enough to draw blood as he drew back before he handed him what looked like a burner phone. "You want to talk to him? Fine, go on and give him a call." He said, "And no more lying." He adds with warning present in his voice. "You got ten minutes. We're going out today."

Jason nods frantically in agreement as Vaas leaves the room, giving him a bit of privacy – though he really didn't have to, as Jason was in no place to just tell him to leave – as he frantically dialed his families home number into the shitty little burner phone that Vaas handed to him.

213-312-5023. The number came to him instantly – muscle memory taking over him as he punched the number in. He dials it three times, 213-312-5023, 213-312-5023, 213-312-5023 until finally, someone picks up the phone. Riley grumbled out a tired sounding greeting, followed by a briskly spoken question of who it was on the other line.

"It's me, I mean, it's Jason." He blurted out, excited to hear his brothers' voice for the first time in what felt like forever. "I, I finally… I didn't have any access to a phone."

"You're alive?" He asked, sounding like he was dumbfounded by the revelation of that. "They told us that you were fine but-" he sighed in a world-weary sort of way, "but we didn't believe it, of course. Why would we? We all thought that you were dead."

Jason felt the urge to apologize for some reason, even though he had no control over anything that had happened to them in at least months. "Well, I'm not dead. So there's that." He said in a forcefully chipper tone of voice, "Not yet, at least…" He added, speaking lowly, under his breath.

He had hoped that Riley wouldn't have caught what he said, but he hadn't spoken lowly enough. "Hey, don't talk like that." He chided Jason before his tone lightened somewhat and he suggested calling their mother over – she had been so sure that both Jason and Grant had died on the island together, just like the rest of them had been so sure that Jason had been killed by Vaas.

"No, don't, please don't!" He snaps, before he can stop himself from saying it. "I… I mean I don't want her to hear me, mom she's… it's better if she just thinks I'm dead." His tone of voice is low sounding, defeated and it shows Riley just how much being in captivity has affected him already.

"That's pretty fucking dark, Jay," Riley tells him, and though he doesn't say anything back to that he agrees. It is dark. It is depressing. And it's the best that he can do. Jason changed the subject from himself almost immediately – he didn't want to have to talk about himself if he could help it – and rapidly asked the younger what had been going on in his life.

Never before had Jason been so interested in all the inane comings and goings of Riley's life, so the younger brother had been shocked enough that he told Jason everything that he could in the short amount of time that they had to speak. He told Jason about the good things – like how Liza's acting career had been flourishing, how Daisy had been going into training as a therapist, how he had finally been psychologically cleared to fly again.

They talked about the bad things as well – how Keith had assaulted someone that he would have sworn was Buck, how Oliver's parents had checked him into rehab. Jason didn't talk about his own experiences – he couldn't, he refused to – so he was happy to hear about how everyone else had been doing, how so much had happened in the few months since they had gotten home to California.

Everything was so different, with so little time being passed – sometimes he would think about how he would cope if he was ever allowed to go home to his family. He didn't think he would be able to keep up with them. For better or worse, all of them had – or were at least on their way to – bouncing back.

Jason didn't think he could, and by the time that Vaas snapped at him to get off the phone, he was almost glad that he was forced to be here with the pirates and slavers. At least when he was here, he didn't feel like he had to fight his own instincts to keep up with them – to try to be normal.


Jason hadn't yet had the opportunity to see Hoyt's compound before he had been taken in by the pirates and forced over to their side. He was not all that surprised to find that Hoyt's territory was far more developed than Vaas' territory was. Of course, it was. It was meant to cater to Hoyt Volker and all of the private military that he had hired to keep all of his "business operations" safe – not just outcast natives and the drugged up pirates that were in Vaas' employ.

Vaas kept a protective arm around him as the two of them walked through the compound. Vaas kept an arm around Jason the entire time, holding him close to his side. He didn't seem entirely comfortable here, he eyed the privateers warily, as if he suspected them of doing something unsavory to them – to their credit, they seemed to have a detached sort of respect (or fear, more likely) for Vaas and they wouldn't just run at Jason if they knew what was good for them.

Soon, they were standing in front of Hoyt, who seemed pleased enough to see them. Jason kept quiet as the other two men spoke casually to one another about their illegal practices. The drug running, the human trafficking, the kidnapping – all of that seemed, to them, like it was a perfectly normal way of making money. If Jason wasn't so used to it, it might have made him feel sick.

Thankfully, his existence was almost wholly ignored. To them, he was little more than furniture right now – less than human and only to be acknowledged when he was needed. He closed his eyes and let himself believe that he did not exist.

That none of this was real, that it was all a horribly vivid dream with too many twists and turns, that he would wake up in his apartment any moment now and he would call Grant and tell him all about it, how real it felt and how scared he had been. Grant would think that he was being stupid but he would comfort him anyway because that's just the type of person that he is. Was.

Jason was pulled out of his thoughts when he heard Hoyt said the word, "-Hostages." in a cheerful sort of way. And then he couldn't ignore them, his brain just wouldn't let him. He perked up in attention as they spoke on, "At least thirty of them, if you can believe it. It's lucky that they did too, profits have been stagnating, but they always do in the winter months. I'll need you to go down there, of course, and take care of them." He demanded, "As soon as possible."

And by that, he meant "Now." in no uncertain terms. Vaas doubted that all of them would be worthy of sale, but he would have a lot of fun killing the ones that were rejected. Bringing Jason along would definitely be useful as well, he needed to get over his distaste for killing and harming – in the American's eyes at least – innocent people.

Thrilled by the thought of it, Vaas grinned in a predatory sort of way at Jason and the American realized what hostages on the beach meant for him. Jason's fingers were ghosting over his mouth like he was trying to stop himself from vomiting at the thought of going down there with Vaas. His distaste for the situation was so obvious that Hoyt decided to take the opportunity to have a moment alone with the American and see what he was really made of.

The slaver made a mockery of a sympathetic sound, "Looks like he's feeling a little sick." He said, his tone almost mocking. "Don't worry, I'll watch your boy here." He assured Vaas, looking at Jason in a way that made him feel as though nothing good was going to happen to him if he was left with the human trafficker alone. For a moment, he wondered if he should just offer himself up to go with Vaas after all, but he couldn't find the voice or the will to speak up about it.

So he stayed quiet while Vaas looked over at him with an indiscernible expression on his face. If he was anyone else, Jason might have thought that he was worried. About him. He wasn't going to even think about allowing his mind to go there – he could let himself believe a lot of things to make this whole fucked up situation that he was in a livable one.

He could focus on the fact that Vaas was attractive and the sex wasn't as hard for him as it could have been, he could ignore that Vaas and Hoyt had been the driving force behind ruining his life as he had known it, he could even find security in the fact that Vaas was not just going to kill him, now that he had Jason in his clutches.

But he couldn't – and wouldn't – delude himself into thinking that the pirate gave a damn about him. He wasn't that far gone. Not yet. Vaas squeezes his shoulder and reminds him to be good before he was out the door, leaving him and Hoyt alone.

If given the choice to spend the rest of his days locked in a room with either Vaas or Hoyt, Jason would choose Vaas every time, within a heartbeat. If only because he knew how to deal with Vaas and the familiarity of him made being around him feel much less dangerous because he at least had a general idea of what Vaas wanted, what he liked and what would get him punished. He had very little experience with Hoyt – the only thing that he really knew about him was that he was incredibly sadistic and he really liked acquiring vast amounts of money.

He's not comfortable with being around him without Vaas hovering over his shoulder, and he doesn't like to look him in the eye for long periods of time, or at all, so he keeps his head down and his eyes downcast, to avoid any prolonged eye contact. "Take a seat." Hoyt directed him, gesturing toward one of the chairs in front of him. Jason obeyed him quickly enough as he was already so accustomed to mindlessly following orders. He sat stiffly and took to staring at his hands as he wrung them nervously in his lap. He had successfully avoided eye contact with Hoyt until the slaver forced Jason to look at him. "You're so quiet these days, Jason." He purred, "Did Vaas already fuck the will out of you? You were so fiery before. Or have you started liking it when he fucks you, already?"

Jason let out a calming breath, putting forth effort not to respond to the jab. It was fine, he thought, he could deal with a bit of twisted slut shaming and victim blaming. He could deal with this. "It always happens, eventually, they always forget who they were before and become solely dependent on their masters." The slaver commented in a wistful sort of way, "That's fine, breaking them and putting them back together is the most entertaining part. I just didn't expect you to be so complacent-"

What was he supposed to do, Jason thought bitterly, Act out and risk the painful deaths of every person that he had ever cared about?

"Especially seeing how Vaas shot your older brother in front of you." Jason went cold at that, he had been doing so much to forget all of the things that Vaas and his group had done to him. "Do you think of him bleeding out in front of you while you're on your back?"

Jason glared at him, "Fuck you." He snarled through his teeth, "If I didn't think that my brother would end up getting killed, I would have sliced your throat months ago." He had no idea what to expect from Hoyt after he said that, but it sure as hell was not the pleased grin spread across his face as if Jason had just given him exactly what he wanted. He sunk down in his chair and emotionally prepared himself for the physical and mental distress that he was no doubt going to be put under in the next few moments.

"There you are." The slaver said like he had been waiting for Jason to lash out at him since he had come in here. "I thought Vaas might have already broken you." He clicked his tongue in a mockery of disappointment, "That would have been a shame. But! Since you seem to be doing just fine, how about you and I play a game, hmm?"

The American let out a world-weary sigh, "What kind of game?" Jason asked, more for the other mans' benefit than for his own. Hoyt responded to that pleasantly and asked him how good he was at poker and he tried his best to undersell his skill, so that Hoyt would be less interested in playing with him – which only led to being smacked hard in the mouth, hard enough that he could taste blood and the whole bottom of his face stung from the impact of it. "I'm pretty damn good." He finally admitted.

"Excellent. That's just what I like to hear." Hoyt said, before calling someone and telling them to 'bring the group of runaways in' and in moments a group of terrified looking would-be slaves were dragged into the room, sobbing and pleading for their lives. Jason felt pity for them – it was hard not to, he had been in the exact position that they had been in before. And he hadn't fared much better either.

"Now this is a group that tried to run off, cut into my profits and killed a few of my privateers." Hoyt's tone didn't seem angry, but Jason didn't buy that for one second, underneath a thin veneer of calm he could tell that he was fuming. "So you, and I, are going to make sure that they learn their lesson."

Jason didn't want to do this, but he feared that he had no choice. "You want me to kill them?" He asked in a miserable and defeated sort of way. When he had been out on Rook, it wasn't so much the killing that he had enjoyed as the fact that he had survived each encounter. He risked his life with every slice of his machete and pull of his pistol and he came out a winner. A warrior.

But this? These people were broken down, chained up and defeated. It felt wrong having to kill them. It made him feel like he was doing something terrible and wrong, something that made him feel sick and dirty and low inside. And he hadn't even started it. His emotions would only get more intense as the night continued on.

"I take it that you don't want to hurt them." Hoyt inferred, "That's fine. Well, they have to die, of course, I would be an idiot if I let them live, but…if you beat me at a hand of cards, at the end of the hand you can kill them as painlessly as you like since you are such a humanitarian these days."

"And if you win?" Jason questioned, wary of the man's intentions.

"If I win, you help me torture them for as long as I want, in whatever way that I want," Hoyt spoke about it like this was an incredibly fair deal. Jason swallowed and nodded, getting himself comfortable as Hoyt dealt the both of them out their cards.

Jason was dealt an incredibly good first hand – but that didn't matter much, he had come to realize that winning at poker had more to do with how well you could cheat and lie through your teeth. Standing off against someone like Hoyt, he figured that he was evenly matched. They played five games, one for each person tied up in the room, and Jason won the first four. Jason shot the ones he was able to kill in the head, right between the eyes so that they were dead before the felt anything.

He had believed that he was doing good, but his luck began to slip at the last game. His hand was shit and he could just tell that Hoyt had something amazing by the way that he was looking at him.

"Straight flush." He said, presenting the cards in front of Jason's face mockingly. "I doubt you have anything better than that." Jason grimly showed his own cards – three of a kind. Not bad, but not a royal flush. He knew what he had to do.

"Let's just get this over with." He said, fully intent on emotionally blocking out everything that he did to the poor man in front of him. Hoyt made him break every bone in his victim's body, pull out all of his teeth and cut him deep in several places before he allowed Jason to kill him. By that point, he had been begging for it.

The bodies of the men that had been forced to play Hoyt's deadly game with Jason were littered around the room – bleeding and decomposing all over the floor in real time. He felt sick, knowing that he would have been forced to kill innocent people either way and there had been no avoiding it.

Jason suddenly felt like the air was too thick for him to breath and he got up, making his way towards the exit before Hoyt grabbed him by the throat and asked him where the hell he thought that he was going to go. The American had no answer for that and went limp in Hoyt's arms, giving up any sort of struggle that he may have had. He didn't even do much squirming when the slaver presented an old fashioned bottle in front of him and told him that this was his prize for winning.

Hoyt forced the bottle in between his lips, pushing it forward until it was almost touching the back of his throat. Then he forced his head back so that the bittersweet, medicinal tasting liquid was pooling in his mouth. Jason had no idea what the older man was trying to force him to drink, but he didn't think that it would bode well for him to swallow it. So he didn't. He allowed the liquid to pool in his mouth impotently and he forced himself to breathe only through his nose. Eventually, the slaver tired of Jason's stubborn disobedience and rubbed at Jason's throat, forcing him to swallow down the rest of the liquid.

Hoyt let him go then and Jason suddenly felt like holding up the weight of his own body was too much for him to handle. His knees buckled and in moments, he had collapsed onto the ground. His brain went into total fight or flight mode, and for once in his life maybe even for the first time, he chose flight.

He crawled away from the man on his belly, the drugs in his system made it incredibly difficult to get away. He didn't get more than a few feet away before he was being dragged by the hair, up to his feet and back to the bloody poker table that they had just been sitting at.

"You can fuck 'em, boys. But be gentle…"

The memory of those words hit him like a ton of bricks as he felt himself being pushed down with a firm, ring-clad hand until his stomach was pressed flush against the splintery wood of the makeshift poker table. Somehow, he doubted that Hoyt could even spell the word, 'gentle.'

He grasped at the shoddy table to keep himself still as he felt Hoyt strip his lower body, quickly and carelessly prep him before he was fucking into him. Hoyt used him like he was little more than a sex toy, not saying a word to him or trying to bring Jason any sort of pleasure from the act – unwanted or not. Jason had no idea if he should be grateful or not, all he could do was close his eyes and wait for him to finish.

He could at least take solace in the fact that the drugs he had been forced to take made ignoring everything that he felt incredibly easy. He felt warmth pooling in his insides and moments later, the slaver pulled out of him. Jason tried to get himself as far away from as possible.

He only managed to get a few feet away, in the corner of the room. Jason curled up on the ground, refusing to move until Hoyt snapped at him to get up – they had another game to play and he was not done with Jason just yet. Jason sat up on shaky legs, barely coherent enough to hold his head up let alone make his way back to the poker table. He managed to make his way to the table, walking with about as much grace as a baby deer as he did so, half dressed and dirty looking from the hard fucking that he had just taken. "I… I'll deal." He offered, speaking quietly.

He tries to ignore the glib and shark-like look on Hoyt's face as he deals out the cards. He tries even harder to ignore the feeling of resentment building up inside of him. Resentment for Vaas, for Hoyt, but most of all resentment for himself. He was helpless – he could not do much else other than passively take the abuse that the two men had to dish out for him.

By the time that Vaas returned and took him home, the new horror of his situation had set in so clearly for him – that Vaas may have been a monster, a demon but he was nothing compared to Hoyt. That Vaas at least seemed to care enough about him that he didn't almost die for his sexual gratification and that he felt so much less like he was a disposable 'thing' when he was in the pirates hands – that Jason had clung to him like a child as he was dragged back off to Vaas' personal island.