&&live life fearlessly

"Just.... Shit, I know I'm probably going to make your life harder here. I'm not a cop, I don't have any training, but just- just tell me what I can do to help you."

"I know that's not our favorite course of action, but if we try to plan without all the information, we'll just make it worse."

Instantly, his heart sank as eyes fell on Buck, and Dex quickly shook his head. "No, he's from a different station. He's nothing to do with that call." He tried his best to distract them, but he could already see one of the gunmen approaching Buck and reaching out to grab his arm, as Maddie shouted out towards him. The sight of her so scared for her little brother made Dex fight back more. "Please! Leave him alone!" He was cut off when he felt a blow to his stomach, causing him to keel over, and then another punch to the face, making his head spin.

Buck thought for a moment of trying to pull out of the grip the other man had on him but he knew better. Instead he was dragged over to be by Dex, watching as everyone else around him was kept from calling for help. He took a moment to make eye contact with Maddie, hoping that she got the message. Tell everyone he loved them, because he didn't know how this was going to end but he was going to go down fighting.

"It's the only thing I can think of... There's no other way we would both be here." Carlos' father sounded like a man in a position to make enemies, and he knew first hand how risky his own uncle's job could be. But that didn't give them a solution. "I guess the next question is what they want... I mean, is it just a ransom situation or..." He trailed off, not liking the other option. Revenge.

"If it's related to that warrant, I don't think it's going to be a ransom call." He didn't want to give the other false hope, but he didn't want to terrify them either. "The good news is we're both still alive right now, that means whatever they want they won't kill us for." The yet remained silent, heavy in the air.

"Get up." The order was firm, and Dex opened his mouth to question it but he wasn't able to say anything, instead feeling a hand grabbing the back of his shirt. "Get the fuck up. Any other English scum in this place?" At the question, Dex shook his head, and that was met with a rough sound of disgust from the gunman. He then felt himself being shoved into the arms of a second man while the first ordered the others to zip tie the rest of the hostages. "Don't want anyone getting any stupid ideas. Anyone calls for help, we'll know it and you'll be next."

And then he heard them talking, someone yelling about "118" and Buck couldn't help but react strongly to his own house. His entire body practically straightened as he realized it was a call that they had responded to. He could see Maddie looking at him, but he couldn't look at her, not when one of the men noticed his reaction. Putting it together pretty quick between Buck's reaction and his LAFD uniform that he was still wearing. "Luck seems to be on our side today." One of them says from a different part in the room, Buck suddenly feeling all eyes on him. "Seems we got one of the other heroes from the day right here with us." Buck tried to keep himself together, his head still pounding from the hit it already took. But something told him it was about to get worse for both of them.

"These are the ones that came in around that time..." he said, voice trembling slightly. Behind him, the man scanned over the list before pointing to one in particular based on the origin of the call. "Play that one." Eyes following to the recording, Dex's stomach sank when he saw his own ID next to the call and he wondered what he might have heard that day, but the headset was snatched from his hands so that the gunman could listen.

He could see the way Dex moved, the way that something was wrong. Of course there was a lot wrong, but this was worse. The headset was ripped from his friend's hands and he watched as the man slowly turned his attention from the call that was playing to Dex sitting in the chair. It didn't take long for Buck to put two and two together, to figure out that Dex was the one who took the call.

"I'm trying to watch a movie here, Parker, not play Trivial Pursuit. Actually, wait, that sounds fun though. Do you have Trivial Pursuit?"

"No Trivial Pursuit until you finish watching Star Wars with me. Then, and only then, will I allow you to kindly beat me in Trivial Pursuit."

"Yeah..." Ollie managed a weak scoff at the thought, appreciating the attempt at a light hearted comment from the other. He fell silent there, listening to what Carlos had to say about potential reasons for his kidnapping. It made sense that there would be a multitude of things leading to this, but it still didn't work for himself. "I'm... I'm just a teacher. I hardly have any enemies, except maybe parents who don't like me..." He paused for a second, before he backtracked. "Wait... You said your father is a Texas Ranger? I-I mean, it could be a long shot, but my uncle works for LAPD and he was in Texas about six months back. Something about a case that was connected to goings on down there..."

It was the only connection that made sense. Ollie was a teacher, Carlos was a cop. It wasn't like the two of them would have crossed paths any other way, or that they had both caused someone with this much power to feel the need to take matters into their own hands. Clearly whoever took them knew what they were doing, as far as Carlos could tell there wasn't going to be an easy way out. "I think I know the case you're talking about. My father didn't talk much about it, but I remember assisting the Texas Rangers with serving a warrant. Nothing came of the warrant but I know it was a big case."

"Really? You just had to say that in front of my smoothie?"

"Maybe it's important that your smoothie knows that Han shot first."

"Who has frail masculinity?"

"Nearly every man I work with. They all get up in arms when I point out something they've missed."

"You do know that not everyone will abandon you, Evan. Right?"

"Eddie's leaving, and he's not coming back. He's my best friend Cait. And he's acting like it's nothing."

"You're gonna pull up the calls from April twenty." The instruction was spoken quietly, as if the man didn't want anyone else to hear. "Around four in the afternoon."

He hated this, feeling like there was nothing he could do. And the truth was that he was out numbered, with a lot of people who could get hurt in the crossfire. Buck took a calming breath, trying to think about what Bobby would tell him to do. Bobby would tell him to just listen and keep his head down until the police got there. Problem was that he wasn't convinced anyone was going to figure out something was wrong until much later, when things got worse. He pulled against the hands on his shoulder, not even sure what his plan was. It didn't matter, not really when he felt the blow to his temple. Buck groaned for a moment, stumbling back as he fell back into the hands of the gunman. Dex was too far for him to help, but he knew that whatever they were making him do wasn't good. The voice behind him spoke, "You really don't know when to shut up, do you?"

Ollie's gaze dropped as he sat there, hearing the other young man speaking and wondering what had brought them both there. He knew for a fact that he wasn't involved in anything dangerous or risky, meaning that this would likely be to do with his family, but he knew nothing about the other. He seemed to know what he was talking about, seemed to be able to gauge some things from their limited information. "Oliver.... Ollie." he replied, looking over at Carlos. "Do you have any idea why you're here?"

"I'd say it's nice to meet you Ollie, but these aren't the circumstances I'd want to meet you under." The problem was that there could be a number of reasons that Carlos was here, but none of them seemed to make sense. At least not when he had never met this other man before. Obviously they must have something in common for the two of them to be taken, unless it was just the luck of the draw. "Unfortunately there could be a few different reasons I'm here. I'm a police officer but nothing I've worked on recently feels like it would lead to this. My father is a Texas Ranger, he could have pissed someone off."