Alfred: hey, um. i know you won't see this. but if you ever do i just want you to know that i'm sorry i lied to you. i had to to protect my job. all my feelings were real though. i didn't lie to u about that.

Traitor.

Alfred sniffled and deleted everything he had typed. Talking to Ivan would have been easier than messing with all this writing mumbo-jumbo, but talking wasn't exactly an option at the moment. Ivan was probably asleep in a police cell across the city right now. And Alfred was huddled in a blanket fort in his living room, alone at two in the morning, and trying not to cry.

Manipulator.

Matthew had taken him home after the incident at the station, and they had talked for a long while about what to do. Matt had repeatedly apologized, even at Alfred's behest that he should be the one apologizing, and then they had talked some more about other things related to Alfred and Ivan. Alfred had almost cried then. Later, Matthew had informed that a search crew had found Ivan's phone, but still not the laptop.

Hacker.

The women—Ivan's sisters—had been released after they had found a translator and represented themselves innocently in their interview. The last Alfred had heard, they were getting a hotel and a lawyer. Alfred didn't want to have to testify in court. Like Toris had said—there would be outrage everywhere.

Spy.

It suddenly hit Alfred that, now that Ivan's phone was in custody, it would be searched. If Ivan hadn't deleted the texts between them, then anyone who looked would see just how close he and Ivan had been. All the heart emojis, the late-night FaceTiming sessions, the good mornings and goodnights. So it didn't matter now if Alfred texted Ivan anything. In frustration, he groaned and chucked his phone against the wall outside the blanket fort.

Criminal.

A snap, crackling and popping noise.

"Shit!" Alfred exploded out of the fort, running over to where his phone now sat on the ground. The screen was shattered. He tried to turn it on and only got a blank jumble of light. "Shit!"

Felon.

Angry tears rushed down his face. He hadn't meant to do it. He hadn't meant to do any of it.

Ivan cried and he cried and he cried and he cried, and when he got done crying, he squeezed the damned holding cell pillow for seven minutes. He had never felt this stressed and helpless in his life. Someone had given him meals—turkey and cheese sandwiches and chocolate milk—and tried to interrogate him again, but he ate nothing and said nothing the entire day. They had given him a soft T-shirt and pants to change into from his pajamas; Ivan had looked to the camera in the corner and became shy. Alfred hadn't come back. His sisters hadn't come back. Now the cell was dark, and Ivan had no idea what time it was.

If Alfred had lied about his job, what else had he lied about? Ivan shivered just imagining it. Surely their whole relationship hadn't been fake…? Alfred had shared a lot with him in just a couple of weeks. But FBI officers were known to be ruthless, and to do anything to catch their prey—or at least that's what Ivan had gleaned from movies and the criminal-half of his life. Maybe "Alfred" didn't even exist. Maybe he was just an actor and had simply molded out the perfect character for Ivan to like.

But Ivan was not to be discredited. He had kept his identity as a hacker locked away tight. While Alfred had slipped up a couple of times now that Ivan thought back on it, Ivan was sure he hadn't. Maybe he had shown a weakness or two, but there was no way Alfred had known about his secret equipment. Obviously, if the emails from the circle hadn't been enough to lead him on, the FBI had found Ivan out through his little escapade at the Natural History museum. But he had seen Alfred before that, and Alfred had lied to him before that.

The only conclusion was that the FBI had somehow been tracking Ivan for a long time, probably just sitting on their asses waiting for him to make a mistake. And a mistake, he had made, indeed. He shivered again, wishing the blanket was thicker or the bed was softer. Or—maybe it would be better to die of hypothermia right now than to face what lay ahead. Ivan had a feeling he was going to have to start getting used to jail cells.

It had seemed so real between Alfred and he. It had just seemed so real. Ivan had never been with anyone like Alfred before. He should have just found a way to defect from the hacker group, somehow, and let the dream never end.

Ivan began to tear up again. He felt annoyed with himself now more than anything that he was being such a baby. He had known it would be tough going into this whole thing, and Alfred hadn't been wrong about that, so he should have just sucked it up and been strong while he still could.

Ivan cried himself to sleep.

He didn't have much of a nightmare as he had had the night before—just visions of his sisters and Alfred flashing through his mind. They were good visions, too: Alfred in sunglasses under the Washington Monument the first day they had met, Natalya ogling a jellyfish, Yekaterina sticking her arm into the basin next to the Jefferson Memorial. Alfred, kissing his cheek. His sisters snuggled close to him, fast asleep on the couch after watching hours of their favorite childhood movies. In his dream, Ivan subconsciously thanked his subconscious for letting him have these memories when he needed them the most.

"Ivan Braginsky!"

He stirred awake, moaning into his pillow. For a second he forgot where he was, and when the realization dawned he moaned again. The room was pitch-black save for a thin rectangle of light coming from the open door on the other side of the bars. A small frame stood there in contre-jour. "Ivan Braginsky!" it whispered again. Ivan could guess the unidentified young man had been calling his name for a while.

"Who are you?" Ivan responded first in Russian, and then repeated himself in English, but the person was already waving his hands.

"No time to explain!" he hissed, moving forward. He extracted something from behind his back and began fiddling with the lock on the cell. Ivan perked up. "We need to move quickly!"

"What's going on?" Ivan didn't move, his hand clutching the bedsheet. "It's nighttime! Are you a police officer? What is this?"

The lock sprang and the young man threw open the door. "No, I'm from SAVE THE WHALES. And this is a jailbreak."

Ivan's stomach dropped. "What."

"Come, quickly!" The small intruder didn't touch Ivan, but got close enough to beckon him. Then he began backing out. Ivan tensed.

"What happens if I come with you?" Do I want to do this? He wanted answers before he broke the law again, but the guy was already walking out the door.

"I can promise you safety, security, and an explanation," he called back to Ivan. His face became visible in the light of the hall as he checked both ways, and Ivan realized he recognized him vaguely. He wasn't wearing a promotional T-shirt and carrying an armload of fliers, but the apprehension in his eyes and the curl of his light brown hair was enough to give away that their paths had crossed before, only days ago. He whispered, "I—I know who you really are, and what you've done."

He had known Ivan's name. Ivan gulped. "Tell me your name first."

"You can call me Raivis," he said. "Now, come on. Let's hurry!"

Ivan shook the stars from his head, prayed a little, stood up, and went with him.

They power-walked down the hall. The station seemed empty, the lights dimmed and not a cop in sight. Ivan only looked at the cameras through his periphery; if this was a real jailbreak they would have to have already been taken care of, but he was still frightened. He tried to walk as silently and as swiftly as Raivis, hoping to everything that he hadn't made the wrong decision.

They emerged into the night, and Raivis closed the back door behind them. A van was waiting outside, the SAVE THE WHALES logo painted across its flank. The dusk lights, the cool breeze and the insect noises were, admittedly, a delight to Ivan. He was ushered into the back of the vehicle, and Raivis soon followed suit, motioning to the driver. Just like that, they were off.

"How is this happening?" Ivan whispered, fumbling with his seatbelt. "I thought SAVE THE WHALES was a peaceful group."

Raivis's face was lit in strobe as they passed streetlights outside. He nodded, then shook his head, jittery. He kept the conversation in Russian. "They—They are. But...certain members agree to favors when I ask. I guess I'm respected with them, you see? Well...they don't know who you are. They think you're just my friend." He nodded subtly towards the driver, who glanced back at them.

"Just droppin' off at your place, right?" the woman asked in regular American English.

"Yes," Raivis responded. "Thanks so much."

Ivan was starting to feel panicked. He didn't know this person. He didn't know what he wanted, or who he was really affiliated with—yet Raivis seemed to know all about him. Why had he agreed to this? If he were caught now...he didn't even want to think about the repercussions. "Then who are you really?" He forced himself to look brave. "Tell me now or I will stop this car."

Raivis's eyes went wide. "No, wait, please! When we get there it will all make sense. I swear I'm on your side, Mr. Braginsky!"

Ivan considered if squeezing the kid would make him spit it all out in a clearer fashion, but then decided better of it. "How do you know who I am?"

The rescuer gulped. "From...online. I know about your...skills. Please don't hurt me or try to stop the car, sir! We rescued you because we need you!"

Ivan was about to ask who was "we," but then he gasped. "'Online'...you mean you are a hacker, too. You are from the circle."

One, two seconds of fear passed. And then Raivis tentatively nodded.

Ivan's blood ran cold. That didn't make him feel any safer. "Where are you taking me?"

"To the others," Raivis all but whimpered. "Like I said, we can explain everything."

Ivan sat back, blowing out a breath containing all his misgivings. He wished for his scarf; it had been taken from him when he had changed. He wasn't sure how to feel about these sudden proclamations. So many secrets. The hacker circle was here now, and had taken matters into their own hands by busting Ivan out of jail and driving him via SAVE THE WHALES cover to their headquarters? There was definitely a grand scheme behind this. What did they really want? This was spoopy.

Several minutes later, the party made it to their destination: an apartment complex on the seedy side of town. Ivan looked up at it with disdain as Ravis led him inside. Maybe Raivis was lying, and had ulterior motives bringing him here. Ivan clenched his hands into fists and prepared himself for what was to come.

They ended up on the fifth floor, in front of a locked door which Raivis amended with a key, and then they were in. Ivan braced himself, ready to see heavily-armed soldiers in suits, panels of futuristic-looking computers and machines, or maybe even an FBI agent. He was confused when he saw what appeared to be a normal kitchen/living room space, complete with a TV playing a late-night soap opera and pizza cooling on the counter.

"You're back." Someone popped their head up over the couch. "Oh, shit. You brought the big boy."

"Hi," squeaked out Raivis, locking the door behind them. "Meet Ivan."

Ivan subconsciously shifted his shoulders, trying to cover the scars on his neck and get a good look at the new people at the same time. The previous speaker who had dubbed him "big boy" swung their legs over the side of the couch and plodded over cautiously, glaring at Ivan with suspicious green eyes. They wore a sort of light pink robe and had a messy bob of short blond hair. They paused a few paces in front of Ivan and gave him the up-and-down.

Ivan stiffened and asked Raivis, "Who is she?"

The robe-wearing person looked assaulted. "Uh, do I look like…?"

Raivis gulped and tried for a smile. "Ivan, this is Felicks. He helps supply us with equipment. Ask him for anything, and he has connections all over that can get it. He is the ruler of the market, and the reason you own your laptop and cable."

Illegal equipment, then. He narrowed his eyes back at Felicks as Felicks continued glaring, already not vibing with his general energy. But instead of breaking out into a fight, Felicks eventually began to go red in the face and looked away, retreating into himself. "Well, it is easy to let the weapons and the money do the talking."

Felicks then eyed the pizza, whipped out a knife from a hidden pocket, and sliced himself another piece. Instead of being impressed or scared, Ivan looked at the pizza and was only reminded of how he had skipped eating yesterday and was therefore absolutely famished.

"Could I have some?" he asked meekly. It smelled so good, and it didn't look like the kind of pizza that came from a box...

"Sure!" Raivis perked back up, taking Felicks's knife and going to work. "Lovino just made this! He is another person you need to meet. Lovino Vargas. Is he here now?"

Felicks dripped tomato on his robe. "Yeah, but he is asleep. I don't want to wake the bitch. Angry when tired, but I guess he is angry at something, like, all the time." He pointed to a cozy chair in front of the TV.

Ivan then noticed the other figure sitting hidden in the shadows. "Lovino" was a dark-haired, short and good-looking young man, wearing only underwear as he dozed.

"He looks familiar," Ivan mumbled. "I think maybe I have bought vegetables from him a couple of times."

"No, that was probably his younger brother," explained Raivis, handing over the pizza slice. "Feliciano is...well...I do not think you will meet him any time soon. He is kind of undercover right now; it's a sort of complicated situation but I can explain later if you really want to know or maybe Lovino can but I wouldn't ask him now because he might stab you. Basically, they are both hired from the Italian Mafia to work with us."

Ivan bit into the pizza. It was the most heavenly thing he had tasted in a long time, mafia or no. "Oh," was all he uttered.

Raivis smiled a little, calming down just a smidge. "Good, right? Amazing. I mean—if you don't like it it's fine, that's your opinion, but I know I for one am glad we all live together. That's my opinion!"

"And you mix a mother-ass good drink for a teenager!" Felicks called.

Raivis blushed. He...did look no older than eighteen. They all looked pretty young—Ivan's age, give or take a few years. In the midst of a sensational pizza daze, he wondered how in the world these people came to be who they were. So far they seemed like a mixed bunch. "Is this all of you?" Ivan inquired.

"You have not met our true tech mastermind yet," Raivis answered, but after him and Feliciano, I guess this is pretty much us! We are not all hackers, but this is our little circle."

Ivan almost dropped the pizza. "Five people?" Less than that if they weren't all hackers? Less than five people had been controlling his life ever since he had plunged into the dark web and accumulated endless debt, a time that seemed like centuries ago?

"Well, really six, if you, like, want to count…" Felicks trailed off at Ivan's gaping mouth. "Never mind. Creepy Russian."

"How about we let you meet Eduard?" Raivis suggested before Ivan could be dragged out of the slightly-less-stressed-than-before mood the delicious pizza had put him in. "Everything with tech and computers...that is all him. Eduard Von Bock. He's great at it, if you consider hacking great, but I guess we have to. His room is down the hall."

The hall was tiny and only had three rooms branching off of it, plus a bathroom. The entire apartment, it seemed, was undecorated, and in many places Ivan spotted cardboard boxes filled with random items, like the group had bought this place on a whim and had wanted to save completely moving in for another day. In fact, after seeing enough evidence Ivan decided it was safe to assume the exact thing had occurred. He paused when he heard some noises coming from behind one of the closed doors that sounded like human snoring.

"Who is here?" he asked, stopping. The door had five different bolts on it.

"...More of Lovino's business," Raivis said. "Come on, Eduard is right this way."

They came to the end of the hall and Raivis knocked in a swift pattern before opening the door.

Inside, the only light came from the three computer screens at the desk and numerous glowing bulbs on accompanying electronic boxes. A slim, blond man in a dress shirt and pajama pants spun around in a wheely chair when they entered, his hands folded. His expression was complacent, but Ivan couldn't see beyond the glare of his glasses. He nodded once. "We've been waiting for you, Mr. Braginsky. I am so glad you could make it."

Ivan frowned. He was growing tired of this. "Please just tell me what you want already or I will smash all your silly little computers and leave."

Eduard's shoulders jumped and he gave a shaky nervous laugh. "Cutting right to the chase, I see! Okay. Um, sit down please. Unfortunately I have some bad news… Er, Raivis, does he already know who I am?"

Raivis nodded.

"Does he know we are the circle? And the others?"

Raivis nodded.

"And about Mr. Jones…?"

Ivan cut in. "You know Alfred? I knew it! You are just like him!"

Eduard laughed again. His voice got higher every time Ivan spoke, and he fidgeted more. "Oh, boy. You are not wrong...but. See...how do I break it to you? Um. We are spies. You are a spy with us. Mr. Jones is not with us, but…he is also a spy."

Ivan crossed his arms, growling. "Explain."

Eduard crossed his legs, uncrossed them, and then looked at Raivis. His glasses brighted Ivan again. He began. "Mr. Braginsky, I am not from here, just like you. None of the people in this apartment are from Washington, but we all came to Washington for a very specific reason. We might be hackers and dealers and criminals, but we found out not long ago that there are bad people here doing worse than us...in higher places."

"The US government, per se," Raivis squeaked out.

Ivan breathed slowly. "Continue."

Eduard did. "We formed this task force because we—and who knows how many others—were and are being targeted through illegal, immoral means. Here is what we have learned. A few years ago, the FBI added two new top secret divisions, nicknamed the gray and black divisions. They work closely together, spying on suspected criminals like us. While the gray division is made up of field agents who go undercover and hunt down targets, the black division is made up of hackers just like you, except the way they spy is different."

Raivis's eyes were lit up in a passion. "Personal technology."

"Everyone has a cell phone. What a better database to reach billions?" Eduard's voice had dropped to a grim low.

"The black division of the FBI spies on their targets through their cell phones?" Ivan questioned. Then, in surprise, he let out a laugh. "But that meme is dead!"

Silence in the control room.

Slowly, the gravity of the situation dawned on Ivan as the excitement died down and the hackers blinked away from his gaze. They were right. It was a horrible breach of privacy, and made even worse that a government organization was doing it. But even when it had been a meme, Ivan had never really felt bothered or disgusted. With so many people in the world and so much technology, a part of Ivan had laughed it off along with his account followers, assuming that there would just always be some mystery out there he would never understand. (He wondered faintly what his account would come to in his absence.) And even when Ivan had started talking to his phone, when things had gotten too real—

Ivan swallowed a lump. He had forgotten, hadn't he. He had let the meme get the best of him. He never forgot.

"Mr. Jones is also a spy, you said," he stated bluntly at the sorrowful faces of two international criminals he had known for less than two hours, but, now that shit had hit the fan, he felt he should at least listen to, because there wasn't really anyone else he could trust anymore in his life. "So Alfred is FBI. And if I am right and the FBI has been tracking me for a long time, they have been tracking me this way. So, Alfred…"

The words died on his lips as he heaved out a shudder. He finally leaned against the wall and curled into himself, not wanting to finish his sentence or believe it, but Eduard and Raivis looked too solemn for them to deny what they all knew. Goosebumps washed over him, and after a few seconds, he let out a little sob. So Alfred really was just as horrible as the back of Ivan's mind had wanted to believe he wasn't. Alfred had known his name. Alfred had spoken Russian to him. Alfred had watched him through his phone, probably texting him nice things at the same exact time. Alfred, Alfred, Alfred.

Ivan barked out another laugh. Mr. Jones was Mr. FBI.

"I will destroy him," he uttered.

"Bring him to justice," Eduard cautiously corrected, beginning to do his annoying little jittering thing again, "with, um, our help. Your backup already has a foothold on the FBI, and so does the Mafia. We know that in two days the FBI will tear your apartment from top to bottom, so we need to be sure that laptop you have is long gone. And then we plan to infiltrate the Bureau itself, just like what you did before but on a much larger scale, and find their outlines so we have more evidence to take them down. No one deserves to have this done to them."

Ivan was hardly listening above the roar in his ears. He had been bashful to change clothes in prison, but Alfred had been watching and listening to him do everything for months? He had talked to himself about how much he liked Alfred, and Alfred had shown up to their date—wait, would Alfred have even shown up if he hadn't known first how Ivan felt about him? Was their relationship that screwed that Ivan now had to doubt if his fake boyfriend had been a faking himself?

In his head Ivan was flipping tables, angry and confused in three dimensions. He tried to tell himself that it didn't matter if Alfred had been his boyfriend or not, because in reality Alfred had been just as much of a criminal as Ivan.

And Alfred, to talk about "doing something bad." Alfred was the one who deserved to be locked up in prison right now, not Ivan.

But Ivan wasn't in prison anymore, was he.

Worries about his future faded away, and he looked back up to Eduard and Raivis, who had been waiting for his response. His thoughts condensed down into a singularity, and he knew what he had to do. "I want to help you."

"We were hoping you'd say that," Eduard nodded slowly, putting his hands back together. "And we want to help you, too. Consider your debt absolved. You can live here with us, and soon we'll get you a fresh new laptop. If things go right, your name will be cleared."

"We will work together to make sure the FBI is exposed for doing this," chipped in Raivis, looking confident. "And then it'll be all over for them."

Ivan felt no joy at hearing his debts were gone and he had a place to stay, however. He felt no safer than he had when the cops had been persuading him to speak in the interview room. He barely processed Raivis eventually leading him out, showing him the bathroom and the spare bedroom and wishing him a good night's rest because he would need it. Ivan was too concentrated on trying to erase Alfred's beautiful, peaceful, happy face from his mind.

Alfred had kept his head down at work and spoken to no one, just answered when Arthur called. Arthur made no snide comments about what he saw when he searched Ivan's old phone; just kept raising and lowering his eyebrows, jotting things down, posing another question. Alfred kept waiting for the Chief to say "You can leave your badge on my desk," but it never came. Maybe that said something, or maybe Alfred was just paranoid again, as well as crushed inside.

He was allowed to leave to get his phone fixed so the Chief could search it next. Alfred popped by Starbucks first, since it was still that horrible hour of Friday morning where people disposed of bodies in crime shows, and he had probably gotten less than four hours of sleep the night before.

The feeling of wanting to talk to Ivan got worse and worse as Alfred walked along the sidewalk, sipping his 32-ounce, passing maintenance workers and politicians and diplomats and regular people who were all oblivious to what was going on around them and inside Alfred's head. The more he thought about Ivan, the more frustrated he became. He walked into to the phone store with another headache.

There had to be some way to just drop Ivan a note. One he didn't have to see, but one he might see someday in the future. Now that they were over, Alfred knew he shouldn't have to say anything, and didn't even know what to say, but completely breaking all connection between them and shipping Ivan to jail or Russia didn't feel like good closure. And he couldn't explain his feelings for Ivan in front of a court.

Not that he had feelings for Ivan anymore. No, he certainly didn't. He couldn't. Just like before—he couldn't.

"So it's stopped? Just like that?" the phone store employee woman scoffed. "Easily fixed. Are your apps or accounts in order—like, have you tried logging in from a different source yet?"

The meme account. Alfred could message Ivan through the meme account.

He perked up. "Uh, no, yeah, I mean, sorry." The meme account! He downed his Starbucks.

His phone was fixed in less than thirty minutes. On his walk back to headquarters, the first text he received was from Matthew.

Good morning. I don't really know how to convey this properly, but I just got to the station, and we don't know where Ivan Braginsky is. Please come quickly, I've already alerted the FBI. We think he broke out sometime early this morning. He could be anywhere now.

the sweet escape - gwen

Haha sorry if this chapter is shitty I've been so incredibly busy that every time I tried to write I would get interrupted and my mood would shift a lil, but just so you know I would have had this done last week if it were possible. I'm here until the end.

So, here it comes! What, you ask? Art, of course! If you haven't seen the wondrous beauty derevosky creates on tumblr derevoskymusor or via my account rebels-advocate, you haven't seen nothin'. Her art from last chapter in the reveal scene is phenomenal, as always, and I have it set as the background on my phone, which in retrospect maybe wasn't the best idea because now every time I go to do something I get a little shocked and then emotional, but I'm living, you know?

Oh yeah lol and I made a cover