Do or Die
A/N: This idea came to me a couple weeks ago and was planned to be a fairly short story, I had 2 chapters done and figured there'd be one more after that, unfortunately while preparing the first chapter to publish, I accidentally deleted the entire second chapter. I hate holding people up between chapters but I hope everybody can be patient with me on this one as I try to rewrite the material I lost.
After last shift when everybody clocked out and went their separate ways and headed home, Matt Casey and Kelly Severide became an item in the news when what should've been a routine trip to the bank instead became a hostage situation which got the police involved. When the story broke on the news, everyone from 51 raced down to the street by the bank and gathered around with the rest of the bystanders, waiting for news of how their lieutenants were doing. So far there hadn't been any word about any specific hostages, it was a waiting game that lasted for several hours, through several telephone discussions between the cops and the criminals inside. The leader of the gang that hit the bank actually made few demands, he wasn't too interested in letting the people go, but within time apparently was willing to let the bank employees and most of the customers go. The two firemen remained inside the bank and were the remaining bargaining chip. After that contact became nil, the police snipers were positioned and waiting for an opportunity to hit, the SWAT team was raring to head inside at a moment's notice. For a long time, nobody knew what was going on inside the bank, every minute that passed felt like an eternity.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, an unexpected noise could be heard from inside the building, it sounded like somebody screaming in pain. The SWAT team tossed in a stun grenade and after it went off, they stormed the building. Everybody was on edge anxiously waiting to see who was going to come out, and how. A few minutes later, the men of 51 were all able to breathe when they saw Casey and Severide walking out of the bank. They both looked like they'd been roughed up some, they had some cuts and bruises, their clothes were disheveled and bloody in places, but they were able to walk out on their own. They walked several feet apart from one another but stepped almost in time as they made their way down the large steps in front of the building and made their way over to the paramedics, almost like they were sleepwalking, just spontaneously moving without paying any real attention to where they were going.
Everybody from 51 made their way over to the Ambo and barraged the two lieutenants with questions about what happened, were they alright? Neither would really answer, though their wounds largely seemed superficial, EMS wanted to take them to Med to make sure, both agreed and allowed themselves to be loaded up in separate Ambos. Once they were en route to the hospital, the rest of the firefighters heard the police saying that somebody had beat the hell out of the leader of the holdup gang, he was sprawled out on the floor and still conscious but unable to move much on his own and not currently able to talk. The first responders took this as a win for their side and headed to the hospital to check on Casey and Severide.
Kelly had had to get a couple stitches for a cut on his forehead, other than that they were able to get discharged right away. Neither had been too willing to talk about what had happened and in as few words as possible both made it clear they just wanted to go home. Everybody agreed to back off, figuring the lieutenants would be their normal selves after they regrouped and had some time to rest and recover.
Two days later they were back on shift, and if everyone was expecting things to be back to normal, they were sorely disappointed when both lieutenants walked up the apparatus floor and went their separate ways without a word. Nobody could put their finger on it but something about both men seemed off, it wasn't even just the way they were acting, they looked different, almost ashen in complexion, like all the blood had been drained from them since everybody had last seen them two days ago.
The whole shift, neither lieutenant spoke to their own men about what happened, and neither of them would speak to each other either, they never even got within proximity of one another. At one point, Casey ordered Cruz to serve as messenger and relay a message to Severide at the Squad table about one of their irons missing from the rig. Severide curtly gave Cruz another message to relay to Casey to feel free to inspect the Squad compartments himself if he thought they had any of Truck's tools. Cruz didn't get it, and neither did anybody else, but everybody had enough experience from the two lieutenants' previous bouts of not talking to one another, to not ask questions, don't get in the way, don't interfere, and don't take sides. It made for a very awkward shift. And things weren't any better three days later on the next shift. If anything, if possible, it was only worse. The lack of communication was the same, but now both men almost looked gray, it was unnerving to the men they worked with, and they'd seen everything imaginable in this line of work, so it especially had to be horrifying to the people they rescued on calls.
It was Casey's turn to cook that day, everybody but Severide ate, he didn't just sit out lunch, he shut himself in his quarters during the meal and didn't come out until the bells went off.
The night passed with, thank God, very few calls, and no in-house incidences. Come the morning, Casey was getting changed back into his regular clothes when he heard somebody rapping on the door frame. He looked up from tying his boots and saw Capp.
"Hey Casey, the chief wants to see you in his office."
Casey blinked. "About what?"
Capp merely shrugged.
Whatever it was, he knew it wouldn't be good. He tried to brace himself for whatever it was, but nothing could prepare him for entering Boden's office, closing the door behind him, and only then seeing Kelly sitting in one of the chairs in front of Boden's desk.
At Boden's less than subtle insistence, Casey sat down in the other chair, neither lieutenant would look at each other, or at the chief.
Boden looked at both of them and said, "I don't know what's going on here..." he stopped, and whatever he had planned to say took the back seat as he told them both, "The two of you were in a horrible situation last week, nobody knows what you went through, nobody can imagine what you went through...but it's obvious whatever it is, has left both of you with unresolved issues, and whatever they are, is starting to interfere with your ability to do your jobs. I think it would be best to take you two off of next shift...maybe the one after it too." They just barely made actual eye contact with him at this announcement, but they didn't look at each other, and neither said a word. That told Boden all he needed to know. "This is very serious, while the two of you are off-shift you may want to consider getting some professional help. If you two come back here in the same condition you're in now, I can't use either one of you, it would jeopardize this whole firehouse." He looked at them one by one, and concluded, "That's it...dismissed."
Kelly all but jumped out of his seat, Casey hung back a few seconds so he wouldn't collide with Kelly on the way out. Without a word the two lieutenants headed for their separate vehicles and each went their own way.
Kelly opened his apartment door and was mildly surprised to see Casey standing on the other side.
The blonde man looked at him, but didn't make full eye contact, as he asked, "Can I come in?"
"Uh...yeah." It was the first thing Kelly had said to him all week, he moved the door back, "come on in."
Casey was dreading having this conversation, but he knew it'd be better to just come on over than try calling or sending a text, there was no way to do this except face to face.
Kelly shut the door behind him and without another word, sat down on the couch, leaving Casey to pace and turn in the middle of the living room. Matt finally seated himself on the edge of the coffee table so he was facing Severide, and told him, "Kelly...Boden's right...this not talking to each other...this isn't us."
"There's nothing to talk about," Kelly bluntly replied, and didn't feel a need to elaborate.
Casey self consciously folded his arms tight against his chest and told his best friend, "Kelly, we need to talk about this."
"No we don't," Kelly cut him off. Now he was looking Casey dead in the eyes, and said firmly, "I could go the rest of my life without talking about what happened there."
Casey would've laughed if there was any humor in the situation as he asked the other man, "At this rate, how long do you think that'll be?"
Kelly just seemed to draw into himself, as if he didn't have the interest or the energy to deal with this.
Casey didn't really blame him, he also felt he could've gone his whole life without having to have this conversation. He didn't even know where to start. He hadn't been able to think of anything for the past week except what had happened in the bank.
"You don't have to do this," Casey told the apparent leader of the holdup gang as they held their arms high over their heads, "you can just let everybody here go, just keep us."
"He's right," Kelly agreed, "we're with the CFD, first responders will get you a lot further than civilians."
They'd already been there a couple of hours and the more time passed, the more they both got a bad feeling what would happen if they couldn't get the innocent bystanders out of there. They themselves had already had the crap knocked out of him, they'd been pistol whipped, hit in the back of the head hard enough they could hardly see, knocked to the floor, Kelly had part of his forehead busted open and it was bleeding. He ignored it the best he could, their priority was getting everyone else out of here, after that, they could figure out a plan.
They didn't know the names of anybody who'd come in and held up the bank. The guy who seemed to be in charge was a tall man in his late 30s with short dark hair, and a cold pair of sociopathic eyes, and a cold sociopathic mouth if any such thing existed, the only time it ever smiled was when something bad was about to happen. He delighted in seeing his guys beat the hell out of the two firefighters, who somehow managed to get up again and all but dared them to keep it coming.
He looked at the two firemen and seemed to seriously be considering the idea, for the first time since this whole thing started. Then, that unnerving grin appeared on his face again, and neither said anything, but they knew whatever was about to happen was going to be bad.
The man practically chuckled as he commented, "That might actually be a good idea."
The two lieutenants just barely glanced at one another, hoping they were making some leeway.
He didn't get on the phone and tell the hostage negotiator they were sending people out, the two firemen knew deep in the pit of their stomachs that there was a chance some of them might get shot on the way out, mistaken for the robbers, but it was a chance that had to be taken.
Once everybody else was let go, things went from bad to worse. Casey was hit in the back of the neck and knocked on the floor, forced to watch as Kelly was forced on his knees, gagged and had his hands tied together in front of him. He was knocked flat on the floor and just barely managed to roll over on his back, staring up into the face of the man who was taking an immense amount of pleasure in watching their suffering.
"Always so interesting to see what two people are willing to do for the sake of staying alive," he commented.
A chill ran through both men's spines as they realized this so called attempted 'robbery' must've just been a smokescreen for something far worse, an excuse to take random people prisoner and conduct some kind of experiments on them. It sounded too bizarre to be true, and yet in all the time they'd been in the bank, no attempt had been made to take the money, no one had even gone near the vault, so it had to be true, but how?
Casey felt the boot on his neck suddenly disappear, he couldn't get to his feet so he crawled over to Kelly, who looked too beaten to even be mad about what was happening to them, he looked like most of the fight had already left him.
"Kelly..."
The Squad lieutenant futilely tried to speak through his gag but nothing coherent got out.
Casey felt another boot very close to his neck, he couldn't bring himself to raise his head but he lifted his eyes to look up, and saw the man hovering over them. The guy looked like he was 10 feet tall from Casey's current perspective. It didn't help when he crouched down to get a better look at Casey, and very smugly grabbed Matt's jaw with one hand and ran his rough callused fingers up and down and across the flesh surrounding his mouth. He was saying something about how willing people would be to stay alive in any dire situation, which Casey was only half listening to, right up until the point the man pulled out his gun and forced the muzzle of it into Casey's mouth. The smell and taste of gun oil made him want to puke but he restrained himself, he felt a ball of acid rolling in his stomach, most of it was fear, of the unknown, of what was to come, but damned if he was going to let that be obvious. He did his best not to react at all as the metal poked the inside of one cheek, then slowly moved over and poked the other one. Then just as quickly, it was removed from his mouth, Casey fought the urge to gag on the taste.
"I'm going to give you a choice," the man said slowly, methodically, letting Casey know there was no real 'choice' in any of this. "I wonder what price you might put on keeping yourself alive?" he asked rhetorically as he fingered his gun.
The man's voice was subtly commanding now as he told Matt, "Here's what's going to happen, you have two options." He slowly turned his attention towards the other man laying on the floor with his hands tied together in front of his chest, and he said with only enough emotion to imply it was a simple decision, "If you rape your friend here, you both live." His eyes got a hard glint to them as he raised his gun again and placed the muzzle of it against the side of Casey's head, and added, "Or if you refuse...I kill you."