Marvelous spent the first day testing his boundaries in the empty room. The reach of the chain was the first thing to try, and he quickly found that it was long enough to allow him access to the room's toilet facility. At first he felt relief that such a basic need would be taken into consideration, but then he quickly remembered that he was being kept chained up in the first place, and the gratitude slipped away.
The manacles were too strong to be forced open, he discovered next, and tight enough that he couldn't even dream to yank his hand out without breaking most of the bones there. Even then there was no guarantee that it would be enough, and Marvelous shelved that idea for a last-ditch effort at a later date. No need to injure himself that greatly if it wasn't going to help him escape. He eyed the first aid kit – which he'd already utilized to bandage up the raw skin on his wrist – and decided he didn't want to give Doc an excuse to take him to any sort of Zangyack infirmary.
At some point the door opened and a lone Goumin entered the room, looking as nervous as if Marvelous was actively holding a gun to his head. Although, Marvelous had to admit, there was no guarantee he hadn't done exactly that to this Goumin at some point in the past, so it was hard to blame him. The Goumin inched forward carefully, until he was just out of the chain's reach, and slid a tray the last few feet towards Marvelous. Then he left, just as anxiously as he had arrived.
The tray held quite few different things, but the one common trait was that they were all food. Marvelous' first instinct was to push the tray away, refuse any sort of handout the Zangyack might give him. But then his stomach growled loudly, echoing off the walls of the room, and Marvelous reached for the leg of meat at the edge of the tray. If they were going to kill him, after all, they'd had plenty other opportunities than to resort to poisoning his food.
When Doc finally returned, looking exhausted and half dead to the world, Marvelous was sure he had a plan. If he couldn't get free, that was one thing. He was willing to accept that he was, unfortunately, a prisoner. However, he didn't necessarily have to be a good prisoner about it.
He ignored all of Doc's questions - "Did they feed you? Was it enough? Did you find the bathroom? Do you need a pillow?" - and instead waited until the blond had dimmed the lights and slipped under the covers. He gave it five, ten minutes, until he could hear Doc's even breathing as he succumbed to sleep, and then launched the best plan he'd been able to cobble together.
He sang.
He sang horribly. There were few things Marvelous would admit to being bad at, but singing was one that he never really cared about, one way or another. He could sing loud, that much was for sure, and he knew a ridiculous number of lyrics. Some of them were space pirate shanties, others were folk songs from his homeworld, but all of them were songs he could sing on a whim. And repeatedly.
Don, however, didn't react quite the way he was hoping. He'd imagined Don would get up, scream at him to shut up, lose his temper, do something to break the image of the reluctant captor that he was working so hard to cultivate. Marvelous wanted to anger him, to take him to the breaking point, make him reveal the monster he absolutely had to be underneath the blond curls.
Instead, Don simply sat up in bed, slowly, and turned to watch Marvelous. For a little while he stayed there, listening to the songs, green eyes open and sparkling in the low light. But when Marvelous faltered and sang the same song twice, he watched as Don stood up and slowly walked over to just outside the chain's reach.
"Please stop," he asked quietly, his eyes sad. Marvelous ignored him and sang on.
The blond moved so fast Marvelous couldn't begin to expect it, and the next thing he knew his arms were locked behind him and Don's hand was clapped tightly across his mouth. He could feel Don's breath, hot against his neck, and he realized with a sinking heart that he hadn't been anywhere near properly prepared.
"I'll ask again." Don's voice was painful to listen to, and Marvelous instinctively turned his head as far away as he could manage. "Please stop."
The former captain shook his wrists, rattling his chains and trying to yell against Don's hand. It was too early to give up yet. He still had far too much to figure out.
There was a sigh, light and warm across his skin, and for a moment Marvelous couldn't help but go slack in the restraints. "Then we'll have to do this the hard way," Don finally replied, then removed his hand, and Marvelous' world went black.
The next day found Marvelous fastened almost directly to the wall, mouth covered with an ill-fitting gag. Don was already gone by the time he woke up, but the Goumin – or possibly another Goumin, they all looked the same to him – arrived to bring him food anyway. With Marvelous considerably less dangerous in his new position, the Goumin came all the way up to him and removed his gag to feed him by hand. The moment the gag was removed, Marvelous began spitting as many insults and threats as he could manage, only to be repaid with a sharp blow to the head. After the third such strike, Marvelous admitted defeat and allowed himself be fed before letting the Goumin gag him once more.
Hours passed and Marvelous kept looking towards the toilet, growing slowly more desperate to use the facility. But nobody arrived to give him the opportunity, and when Don finally returned – looking more disheveled and exhausted than Marvelous had ever seen him before – he was almost desperate enough to plead. If the gag hadn't been there, that is.
"It wasn't supposed to happen this way, you know," Don said eventually, perched on the edge of his bed with his shoes and armor half-removed. There was a lilt to his voice that puzzled Marvelous, something a little more odd than usual. "The plan was to lie low, make the regular reports, and that if the showdown ever happened we'd take them out easily." He pushed his fingers up into his hair, knocking the clips loose and scattering them across the floor. His ruffled hair struck Marvelous with a note of familiarity, something a little closer to the Doc he knew and loved.
"And then the crew never would have known," he continued quietly, eyes unfocused and staring at the distant wall. "You never would have known. Everything would have gone on like it had and none of...this would have happened." He paused for a long moment, obviously lost in thought, and Marvelous suddenly realized why Don was acting a bit off – the blond had obviously been drinking. Possibly heavily. And he wasn't entirely sure how capable Don was of holding his liquor in the first place.
Don laughed then, a hollow, ugly sound that turned what little was left in Marvelous' stomach. "I did what you told me to, Marvelous," he said suddenly, turning his empty eyes on Marvelous, still locked up against the wall. He stood up from the bed and walked over to sit next to his prisoner, back to the wall, eyes staring off towards the door. "I did what I could. This was all I could do, you know. They would have executed us otherwise. All of us."
Marvelous twisted his mouth into a frown, not entirely sure where the entire drunken soliloquy was heading. He knew full well that the Zangyack would have had the entire crew executed without a second thought, probably publicly, had they been given the chance. But even knowing that Doc's betrayal had saved their lives didn't help him reconcile the anger he had towards his former engineer. He yearned to bite back at him, goad him into a fight about who was right and who was wrong, but the gag stilled his tongue. Even whining wouldn't have done him any good, and he knew it.
"So I have a new plan. It's not a good plan, Marvelous, I know that." Don continued on, and Marvelous realized that although he was being spoken to, he wasn't being expected to respond. For some reason, he felt a lump in his throat at the thought that Don might be slowly losing his grasp on reality, but then he chalked it up to the alcohol – which he could smell now that Don was closer – and settled in for the long haul. "But it's the best I can think of."
Don leaned forward and wrapped his arms around his knees, hugging them tightly to his chest and sending another pang of familiarity stabbing at Marvelous' heart. "We'll lay low, you see. Play by the rules. I'll keep all of us alive -" His voice choked there, although Marvelous couldn't tell which part of the phrase had caused it. "- and when we get the chance, when the Earth is conquered and the Empire has moved on, we can go back. We can go back and grab the ultimate treasure, Marvelous."
The meaning of Don's words began to sink in to Marvelous' stubborn mind and he almost forgot to breathe for a moment. His eyes went wide and he turned his head as much as he could manage to stare dumbly at Don. "You get the treasure that way, and we get to live. And then we can go back to hunting treasure across the universe. Back to the way things were. To the way things used to be. The way things should be."
Marvelous swallowed heavily, the lack of moisture in his throat burning as he did so. He could see the logic behind Don's plan, but the soldier was forgetting that he'd betrayed the entire crew. No amount of promises or treasure could buy back the trust he'd sacrificed. The Doc he knew was smart enough to know that already. Doc wouldn't need it explained to him.
But this Don merely smiled to himself, a slightly-unhinged grin with empty eyes, and laid his head in the crook of Marvelous' shackled arm. Within moments he was asleep, and Marvelous wondered if he could hold his bladder for the rest of the night.
"They know."
Another day had passed and Don was pacing back and forth across the room, arms clasped tightly behind his back as he stalked the width over and over again. The unclipped waves bounced as he walked, with a little flip every time he turned on his heel to change direction. It was almost mesmerizing, Marvelous found, watching him so intently dedicated to his anxiety. Even if the anxiety itself felt sort of stupid.
"They know, Marvelous! They have to know!" Don's voice was harsh, excited, but kept at a volume low enough that it wouldn't travel outside the door and into the very public hallway. Despite the fact that Marvelous – and presumably, the rest of his crew – was very much a prisoner, it was becoming increasingly clear that their status as such was in some sort of precarious balance. A balance which, apparently, Don had taken on entirely as a responsibility.
The pacing paused for a moment as Don pushed his fingers up into his hair, knocking one of the clips free and sending it bouncing over to where Marvelous was still fastened to the wall. He watched it curiously, thinking back to when Doc would ruffle his own hair up in frustration, and wondered how much of that action was Don remembering Doc, or had just always been Don in the first place.
Marvelous was fairly uncomfortable with the fact that the line between Doc and Don was blurring so much in his head, and he wasn't sure how much of it was legitimate and how much could simply be chalked up to his current living conditions. At any rate, Don was almost hyperventilating with worry, and that was something Marvelous knew how to handle. That is, if he wasn't still gagged.
He waited until Don paused in his mutterings, then cleared his throat loudly once, then twice. It wasn't until after the second that Don looked over, eyes clouded with confusion, as if he'd almost forgotten that Marvelous was there. The former captain met his eyes, then nodded upward with as much meaning as he could muster. He saw the confusion wash over Don's face, followed by understanding, then the internal conflict of what the right choice was.
But it didn't take too long, and soon Don was at Marvelous' side, unfastening the gag and tucking it away in his uniform pocket.
"You understand, right?" Don said quietly, a little calmer now that he'd been just a moment before. If Marvelous had to guess, he'd say that his presence alone was enough to keep Don anchored to reality. "If they know, if they understand everything I've planned, then all this would be gone." He waved his hand vaguely, as if gesturing to Marvelous and the captive crew all at once. "I risked so much to keep us alive, to keep us together. I don't want it to have been a waste."
Marvelous moved his jaw experimentally for a moment before responding. His throat was a little dry, but not parched, and he was pretty sure he'd be able to speak without too much trouble. "What did you think was going to happen?" he asked, voice rasping but still audible. "You turned us over to the Zangyack. Did you expect them to be kind and merciful?"
Don was shaking his head fiercely before Marvelous even finished his second question. "Of course not. I didn't expect anything except my reward. And they granted it to me. But the problem lies in that the reward was based on a falsehood, Marvelous." His eyes slowly slid back into focus, and he tilted his head to look sideways at his former lover. "For you to be here, in this manner, there are certain assumptions that are being made. That I...indicated, during the audience. What puts all this at risk is the fact that it isn't true." For a moment their eyes met, then Don lowered his back to the floor. "At least, not anymore."
Silence fell, then was broken by Marvelous' disbelieving snort. "I'm not sleeping with you, Doc," he said as he turned his head away. Inwardly he kicked himself for still calling Don by his nickname, what had essentially been his pet name for the awkward engineer he'd fallen in love with. "You'll have to kill me first."
"I know." Don's voice came out as a whisper, his eyes still glued to the floor. "I know that, Marvelous. That's why..." His voice choked to a stop, and he shook his head to himself as he climbed to his feet.
Marvelous watched, still chained to the wall, as Don walked over to his bed and fell into it like the life had abandoned him. And he wondered, possibly for the first time, if it might actually have done just that.
When Don returned to the room the next night, his anxiety over being caught had been seemingly replaced with a concern of a different sort. "Forgive me, Marvelous," he said, nearly as soon as he'd closed the door.
The words took the former captain completely by surprise, and he found himself blinking several times to himself before he was able to look up at Don and ask, "Wait, what?"
Don shook his head and stalked over to the bed, where he sat down without once making eye contact with his prisoner. "They haven't found him yet. Apparently he was tipped off right before the announcement was made, and he went into hiding." He leaned forward, folding his hands together and resting his chin on them as he spoke. "They've searched all his typical coordinates – of course, he's too smart to go back to those. There's no record of a ship leaving orbit, so it's likely he's down on the surface. They're looking for him, of course, but it won't be as fast or easy as I'd wanted."
Thoughts and possibilities were swirling through Marvelous' head like a tornado, and he shut his eyes tightly to try and focus as he shook the maelstrom quiet. "I don't understand," he said as he opened his eyes again. "What – and who – are you talking about?"
Don turned to look at him then, confusion crossing his face as he worked out what Marvelous just asked. Then his eyes widened, and he pulled his gaze back towards the floor. "I...guess I didn't tell you, did I?" he said with a quiet chuckle. "One of my...requests was – is – a present for you." He paused noticeably in finding the right word to replace 'reward', something that aggravated Marvelous in its obliqueness. Possibly the worst part of his imprisonment was Don's near-constant insistence that it was in his best interest. Marvelous would much rather call a spade a spade, and a prisoner a prisoner. He just couldn't help but appreciate the honesty in owning up to one's own actions.
"A present for me," he said flatly, not even bothering to ask it as a question. "Why."
Again with the odd look. The more Marvelous saw it on Don's face, the more he wondered what was really going on behind those green eyes. "The one person who hurt you as much as I did," the blond finally replied, his voice nearly a whisper in the quiet room. "I ordered him dead."
For half a moment Marvelous had to think, had to wonder exactly who Don was talking about. Then it hit him in a rush of memory, framed in a dark moonlit night on a mountainside, and he couldn't keep himself from gasping the name. "Basco."
Don nodded grimly, shifting his hands from under his chin to clasped between his knees. "For you. I ordered him dead."
The words didn't make sense to Marvelous' ears. He could hear them just fine, and they theoretically made some sort of coherent sentence, but the meaning was lost on him as he ran through them over and over again. It took him nearly a minute of concentrating, while Don watched, until he finally understood what had just been said.
"You put out a bounty on Basco."
Don chewed his lip and tilted his head. "Not quite. We've sent out patrols to find him and bring him in. When he's in custody, there will be a public execution. You and I will both attend."
"That's crazy." The words spilled from his mouth before he could stop them, and Marvelous quietly prayed that he wasn't overstepping his boundaries. "Killing Basco isn't going to change my mind about you, Doc."
He watched as Don winced at the nickname, something he hadn't even realized he'd used. But he could see that it was bothering Don as much as it was bothering him, and he felt those blurred emotions smudge just a little bit further. "I know that," Don said softly, pulling his eyes back away from Marvelous. "But it doesn't change how I want him dead for how much he hurt you."
Silence fell for a moment, then two, and Marvelous found himself staring at Don. He wanted to look away, do anything but give Don the validation of having captured his earnest attention. But the thoughts swirling in his head were overpowering his self-control, and eventually he let his mouth open again and a few more words tumbled out. "Then what are you going to do about yourself? How much you've hurt me?"
The silence stayed for nearly a minute, and Marvelous watched as Don's shoulders slumped forward and his forehead touched heavily on his clasped hands. The green eyes fell shut, lightly at first, then squeezed tightly, and then he opened them and straightened himself back up. He tilted his head towards Marvelous, a sad smile playing across his lips.
"Maybe I'll just have to let you kill me, then."
Then he crawled under the covers and turned away towards the wall, and the conversation was over.
It was late, too late, by the time Don returned the next evening.
He opened the door, entered, took two steps into the room and stopped. When Marvelous got around to paying attention – after all, he wasn't about to look immediately interested in what Don had to say – all he saw was anxiety and fear painted across the soldier's face. It was enough to make him nauseous, which was unexpected in and of itself, and he floundered for something to say.
"Are you okay?" It was stupid of him to ask, and he knew it. What bothered him most was that he didn't know if he was asking in order to help Don feel better, or to calm his own nerves.
But Don just stood there, mouth spread thin, fingers digging into the flesh of his own palms. Eventually he couldn't take anymore and Marvelous looked away, staring at the blank floor instead of the heartrendingly pained face of his captor.
When he looked up next, Don had climbed into bed without a single word. Marvelous drifted off to an uneasy sleep, plagued with the unshakable feeling that something had gone horribly, terribly wrong.
Marvelous didn't have a good view of any sort of timekeeping device from his position at the wall. He'd been moved from the direct manacles to a pair of shackles with only a few feet of reach, and was still getting used to the limited freedom. But if he had to guess, he'd say it was a few hours before Don's regular return when the door opened and half a dozen Zangyack entered the room.
Five of them were regular Goumin, but the lone Sugoumin stood tall above them as one of the flunkies slipped back outside to watch the door. The Goumin muttered among themselves quietly, giving Marvelous quick glances while the Sugoumin strode forward. All in all, Marvelous realized with a sinking heart, it was very obvious that this was something far from Zangyack official.
"'Captain' Marvelous," the Sugoumin taunted as it squatted down to grab Marvelous by the chin. "Look at you. Bound and chained in the quarters of the weakest commander I've ever seen." The monstrous claws squeezed at his jaw, and Marvelous struggled to maintain a indifferent sneer. "Pathetic."
Everything that Don had been hinting at for the past week came rushing back to Marvelous, and he blinked as he tried to swallow back his sudden nausea. "Can't hack it, huh?" he ground out, his voice little more than a whisper with his throat held at such an odd angle. "I guess even lowlife losers have to feel big and important somehow."
The Sugoumin growled and tossed Marvelous to the side, chains rattling as they caught him in midair and brought him slamming down into the floor. "You shut your ugly human face," the monster hissed, before bringing his foot back and kicking him sharply in the ribs. "After all you've done, the fact that you're still alive and unbruised is an insult to all of the Zangyack Empire." The Goumin in the background tittered to themselves, obviously in agreement with their supervisor. "I'm here to fix that."
The remaining Goumin began to swarm around them, and while Marvelous found the wherewithal to send one of them flying against the far wall, the other four easily caught hold of each of his limbs and held him splayed out across the floor. He struggled and kicked, but the chains and the Goumin were too much for his weakened state. A week of minimal food and restrained movement had left his muscles far too weak, and all he could do was growl as he was held firmly in place.
Marvelous was ready to try and fight for his life, but as the Sugoumin knelt between his spread legs, he began to wonder if it was his life they were really after in the first place. The large blue and silver claws pressed down on his stomach, breaking the skin and drawing lines of blood as they dragged downwards to rip off his flimsy excuse for pants.
Now that he knew that they weren't after his life – at least, not immediately – a more rational part of his mind started to scream instructions while the rest of his body froze in place. He hated himself for not reacting, for staying still, for sitting there and watching as all this happened to him, and he didn't even hear the loud thud against the door as it opened.
The two Goumin holding his legs down peeled off first, darting towards the door with their maces held high. But Marvelous didn't have the best viewpoint, and he found his mind had already partially detached from the situation in the first place. It wasn't until both Goumin went flying against the wall, hitting the metal with a pair of sickening cracks, that his mind snapped back into the present reality.
The second two Goumin let go of his arms to pick up their maces and attack, which gave Marvelous the opportunity to grab onto the chains for support while bringing his legs up to wrap around the Sugoumin's neck. Once he hooked his ankles together, he squeezed as hard as he could and yanked the Sugoumin sideways, down to the floor, revealing the fight happening in the center of the room. He was too occupied to pay it much attention, but Marvelous still couldn't help but notice the flash of blonde hair as it whirled through the mace swings.
Marvelous kept his legs locked and squeezed around the Sugoumin's neck, fighting against the monster's struggles and wild flailing. What it had in large and deadly claws, it lacked in dexterity, and in its current predicament could do little more than swing blindly in Marvelous' direction. A few blows hit, but nothing too major, and he waited for just the right angle before twisting his hips as hard as he could. His efforts were rewarded with a cracking sound, and the Sugoumin stopped struggling.
As he gathered his breath and his thoughts, he watched as Don twisted out of the way of one mace's swing, just to duck around and loop his arm across the other flunkie's throat. He brought the Goumin down across his knee and another snap echoed through the room. The last Goumin standing raised his weapon for a moment, then took a look around the room and realized he was the only one of the original group left. He faltered, the mace trembling in his grip, and it was enough time for Don to land a solid kick across his head and send the Goumin spinning to the floor, where he twitched once before laying completely still.
The silence that hit the room was almost deafening. Marvelous stayed still for nearly a minute, still watching Don as the blond took long, heaving breaths to calm himself down. None of the bodies moved, as far as he could tell, not even to breathe, and Marvelous began the awkward act of untangling his legs and pushing the Sugoumin's lifeless form as far away as he could manage.
It was another moment or two before Don turned his head to look down at Marvelous, eyes unfocused and hair untamed from the fight. The he walked forward, nearly stumbling as he crumpled to his knees and placed his head across Marvelous' still-bleeding thighs.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, just as Marvelous was about to summon the strength to throw him off. "I tried...I wasn't fast enough...I'm so sorry, Marvelous." Then Don brought his hands up to clutch at Marvelous' hips and, inexplicably, dissolved into tears.
There had been little sleep the night before. Don eventually had to report in to his superiors, clean up the mess in his room, and do other likely official things that Marvelous wasn't about to pry into. And while Don was still a bundle of worried nerves, he couldn't help but get the feeling that Don's word had trumped the fact that six Zangyack had died in and outside his room that night.
The realization gave him chills.
For the first time since his capture, he spent the day thinking. Not just musing over his situation, or dreaming up escape plans, but actively picking apart everything about the past week. He thought back to his relationship with Doc, on the galleon, and how perfect everything had seemed. He remembered the betrayal, how Don had exchanged their freedom for their lives, without caring about how any of the rest of the crew felt about it.
And he thought about the night before. How his stubbornness had led to a situation that could have gotten them both killed. What might have – would very likely have – happened if Don hadn't managed to interrupt.
Marvelous hated to lose. His pride didn't allow for it. But worse than that, he hated not having his freedom. And while he had been sitting and dwelling on the freedom he'd lost, he'd forgotten about the little freedom he still had. The freedom that was his only because Don willed it to be so.
When Don returned that night, looking two shades worse than death, Marvelous had already made up his mind. He waited until Don had pulled off his shoes and unbuckled his belt, just before the blond went to sit down on the bed.
"Doc," he said, quietly but firmly. He lifted his eyes up to meet Don's and saw the surprise etched across his face. "Come here."
The blond hesitated, of course. He paused long enough to make Marvelous begin to wonder if this wasn't going to work after all. But then he stood and slowly made his way over to just outside the reach of Marvelous' short chain. He crouched down, placing his hands on his knees and looking up at his former captain with curious green eyes.
Marvelous licked his lower lip as he struggled to maintain eye contact. "No," he said softly, and held his arms open. "Here."
The pause was shorter this time, although no less meaningful. But just as surely as Marvelous had expected, Don inched closer and tentatively fell forward into Marvelous' arms. Ignoring the screaming inside his own head, Marvelous let his arms wrap protectively around the blond's shoulders, holding him as close as he could possibly manage.
For a moment Don's arms twitched, before wrapping themselves around Marvelous' waist as Don buried his head into the bare chest. "Oh, Marvelous," he whispered, and all the former captain could hear was the scared voice of his timid engineer.
"Shh. It's okay, Doc," he found himself saying as he stroked the barely-tamed curls. "I'm here."