'Wake up, roll up your sleeves—
There's a chain reaction in your heart,
Muscle memory
Remembering who you are.'

"Nine" ~ Sleeping At Last

It's quiet. Why is it so quiet here?

There's supposed to be noisy neighbours and fights and illegal fireworks and drunken singing.

"We just gotta stop for some gas, officer. You sit tight and don't let my friend here bite."

Ponytail laughs, a savage sound, at Tattoo's words.

Without sight, blindfolded, Spike's world comes down to the rattle of old tires and the feel of stiff, synthetic fabric under his fingertips. Ed's chest rising and falling.

Spike considers making a run for the gas station, now that they are stopped, but can't leave Ed here, not even to contact help.

Ponytail seems aware of this too, humming to himself. He clacks at the cellphone. Does that thing even have text…?

Focus, Spike.

Spike does, after they take off down the road. However, it only adds more questions.

The road becomes dirt, if the jostling and scraping branches are any indication. It's all Spike can do to keep himself sitting upright and Ed on his side. They're thrown back and forth, trees groaning at the press of the van on narrow paths.

The road remains dirt, uneven, but the tree sounds desist after a few hours.

They are replaced by…by a…horse?

A whinnying sound, an animal scolding their van as it passes. Farm country?

That doesn't seem right. Spike is a city boy through and through, has never pet a horse let alone ridden one.

Yet even he knows this clopping sound is too loud, too sharp, and too fast for a horse grazing in a field.

There's a jangling too, a metal sound.

It fades away, only for another one, an exact archetype of the last jangling-whinny-clopping, to take its place. The sounds happen over and over again during a two hour period, about fifteen incidents total. Some of the jangling is deep and squeaky. Some cheerful, like Santa's sleigh in a Christmas movie.

The blindfold is messing with you. That's all.

Spike tunes it out. When Tattoo and Ponytail strike up a hushed conversation, Spike ignores that too—along with good training and recon skills—to indulge himself, just a bit.

He places his forehead on Ed's chest, then twists so his ear is pressed tight. It's an awkward position, Ed on his side and Spike hunched over on his knees.

He nearly cries at the sound of air whooshing through Ed's lungs. How strong it is. Its synchronization with a deafening heartbeat, the sound of Ed, his friend and mentor. The one who can fix anything.

Except…except he can't fix it. That's down to Spike. He has to fix this, just like he fixes their equipment and tech all the time.

You can do this, Spike.

Spike frowns. Now that he's so close to Ed, something seems…off. The oxygen in Ed's lungs jangles, mutters.

Mutters?

"Darn key. If you'd replaced the locks, like I asked, maybe the metal wouldn't be warped."

"Sorry, highness."

"Watch it."

There's the noise. A horrible clanking that echoes until it's muted by wood.

Spike wrestles his eyes open in time to watch the metal door at the top of the stairs clang shut. A plastic plate of food and fresh water bottle sit on the top step.

Dreaming…he'd been dreaming.

Only it wasn't a dream. Spike rubs at his eyes and the memory of that awful van ride crystallizes again. He really had heard the sound of an animal.

Where are we?

Or where was Spike, anyway. Ed could be halfway around the world by now and Spike wouldn't know.

The moment sleep fully vanishes from Spike's system, his eyes widen.

Deep shame courses through every inch of his body, a hot faucet that refuses to turn off in bubbling, scalding waves. He looks down at a ball of nylon in his fist, the tied together shoelaces from his boots he'd meant to use on Tattoo.

You missed your shot, Scarlatti. Way to go.

What would Ed think of him now? Falling asleep before he can set a plan in motion?

If Spike doesn't do something, he'll never get to find out. It's up to Spike to save them now. With Ed's serious concussion, mobility will be an issue.

Spike is still mentally listing all the symptoms of a grade three concussion before the smell of food hits his nose and he remembers the plate.

Unfurling the bowstring-tight ball of his frame turns out to be harder than he imagined. His butt is numb. Pins and needles race along both legs, and his blood sugar is so low that he's dizzy enough to rival a Tasmanian devil.

Nope. Scratch that.

Standing is definitely harder.

He falls the first attempt, sliding back down thanks to his floppy boots. The second time, after toeing them off, is more successful. The floor is ice, even through his thick socks. He stuffs the shoelaces in his pocket.

Spike grips the railing in both hands, waits for the room to stop lurching. His knees knock together but after a moment his body calms. He ends up ascending the stairs in a crawl, on all fours.

For the first time he is very glad Ed isn't here with him. This is undignified enough.

Spike holds the bottle up to faint light streaming in through the window, much brighter than when he arrived. Daytime then?

It turns out to be unnecessary, as the seal is unbroken. Spike gulps it down in sporadic bursts. It's tough not to chug it all down, and he wars with his human instinct against sound training.

Once only a third is left, he stops. Who knows when they will feel benevolent enough to feed him again?

The food is a stale hunk of sorry bread and some baked beans. There are no utensils—and therefore no potential weapons—of any kind.

Spike doesn't care. He tips the whole plate back so he can scoop beans into his mouth with the bread. It's all old, most likely expired, food.

Energy, however, is more important than nutrition right now.

Belly full, Spike sets down the plate. He feels fine, so no drugs. Sitting on the top step, he eyes the window above him, the one he tried to break before he fell asleep.

No luck. It's the newest thing here, a Plexiglas pane of such thickness it would make the gun range proud.

There isn't a single outlet.

Spike wonders about that. About a building this size with no electrical sockets to speak of in a room very clearly designed for storing crates. No lightbulbs. Not even any wires.

He inspected the room for hours before falling asleep. Down to the last centimeter.

No batteries, no loose shards of wood from beams overhead. No leftover pieces of metal. No nails. Walls smooth. The 'latrine' bucket is all plastic.

Even the stairs are made using wooden screws. Spike's never seen anything like it.

"What are the facts?" Spike whispers to himself, in Greg's signature 'teacher' voice. "Stack 'em up."

There aren't very many, but what Spike does know is puzzling:

One. These men are working for someone else.

Two. They intend to keep him alive and stable, at least for now. The food proved that.

Three. He is far from Toronto, multiple hours' drive away. Somewhere with horses, apparently.

Four. It was a premeditated attack, if the poker players are to be believed. Someone faked a gun call—a good one—to grab them.

Five. They don't know Spike's real name, hadn't bothered to read it off his badge while dumping it.

They don't know my name. And isn't that an oddity? Hostile subjects tend to always want to know the cop's name. It gives them a feeling of control, a power trip.

Spike's most burning question, aside from Ed's location, is motive, but there's no time. Escape is more pressing.

Metal. He needs metal to form a lock pick.

Spike pats his pockets down again. Other than the shoelaces, all he has left is another gauze pad and a small roll of medical tape. Spike's hands freeze over his waist.

Or maybe not. My belt!

He quickly snakes it out of his pant loops. While the tab on the end is metal, thin and sturdy, getting it free is going to be the problem. He's working at the leather with his teeth when is occurs to him that maybe the tape is a better option.

It's an old trick, one he learned in middle school detention.

But it just might work.

After putting his belt back on, Spike tears off three individual strips from the roll. It's hardy tape, adhesive to the point it might make things more difficult, but Spike takes his chances. Each strip is no longer than his thumb and about as wide as two fingers together.

One strip he places beside the doorknob on the frame side. Half is securely stuck down, the other flutters in the room's ambient circulation.

The second strip he places over top of that one, to reinforce its strength.

The last strip is placed on the knob side, half stuck on and half floating free.

He's only just finished angling them precisely where he needs when voices sound on the other side of the door.

Spike pales.

The door is unlocked and thrown open. Spike springs out of the way, but his arm reaches out to flatten the two tape layers over the hole where the bolt will go. He doesn't have time to do the other one.

Tattoo sees him and scowls.

"Get back! What are you—"

Spike's nose wrinkles in a frightening imitation of Jules. He becomes a bull, charging red-visioned at his target.

Maybe there is no need for escape plans at all.

Spike launches all of his weight into the lunge. He's slight, wiry, but not short by any means.

He tackles Tattoo. They land in a heap on the floor of another storeroom, this one with a funny smell.

It's blinding, seeing full sunlight through a door down the hall after hours in a dim hole.

Spike's eyes water while he writhes, punching and struggling against arms trying to flip him onto his back.

It is this disadvantage that gets him.

He gets in a solid wallop to Tattoo's cheekbone.

Before Spike can follow that up with a head butt, a hand fists in the back of his sweater. He's bodily lifted up, a child caught brawling on the playground. That same hand throws him back down the stairs.

Spike cries out when his shoulder strikes the lip of the top step. He protects his head with his arms until he lands at the bottom, his skid on concrete abruptly ending when he hits the wall.

Above him, Tattoo and Ponytail swear up a storm, one poking at his impressive black eye, Ponytail sneering.

"Nice try," the blond says. "I'm impressed."

Then he throws down another water bottle. "No more food for you, though, I think. We've got to learn our lesson, hmm? One thing I will say—you're feistier than the others."

Spike waits until he's not panting, until the door closes. He lies there on his side, throbbing all over but miraculously not bleeding. He's going to be bruised to hell tomorrow, but it's worth it for the fact that the door…

Spike shimmies up the stairs, once he's sure they're gone.

Should have known Tattoo wasn't alone, Spike.

Even worse? The tape wasn't strong enough. If Spike squints just right, he can see that the deadbolt slid across the gap. It perforated the tape. Both pieces.

Spike sinks to his knees, breathing off kilter.

All that effort and planning, wasted.

Spike replays the words. Others. Others—he's not the first to be a victim of this. Fact number six he can add to his mental list.

Renewed with equal parts panic and possibility, Spike takes a chug of the water bottle and gets to work.

This is going to require a lot of tape.


AN: Welcome to 'Orion pretends to be MacGyver' hour! As someone who's learned how to pick locks, your average belt tab is useless. Alas. I have no idea if the tape trick would work but I have worked with medical tape a lot and that stuff is tough as nails.