TW: bruises, mentions of past noncon, mentions of past torture, conditioned whumpee, noncon drugging, creepy/intimate whumper, death wish
“Help!” A frail figure suddenly springs right in front of the car. The driver slams his foot on the brake pedal as hard as possible and the car stops with a sharp screech.
“H-help me! Please! I’ve been kidnapped, a psycho kept me in his basement and he was gonna- he was- please help me.” His chest moves aggressively as he pants and clenches the car window with his fingers. The young driver can see bruises all over his barely clothed body - marks on his neck and burns and scars all over his arms. “He hurts me…please.” He whimpers. His begging eyes fill with tears, so pitiful they could melt a stone’s heart.
Noah sighs as he unlocks the door for him, still in two minds. He glances at the empty road carpeted in snow and back to the damaged body of the stranger, and makes his final decision.
The boy opens the door and throws his skinny body in the passenger seat.
“Thank you, thank you so so much, I’m sorry.”
Noah hits the gas pedal and the car continues on the road before the tires get stuck in the snow.
“Um- my n-name’s Junior, sir.”
“Do you know anyone here that I can take you to, Junior?”
“Do you have their address?”
Junior recites an address to the kind stranger. It’s not very far from where they currently are outside town, but it’ll take a while with the snowstorm now starting to form.
A few minutes pass in silence, Noah gives him some time to calm down before he asks anything.
“What happened to you?” He asks hesitantly, not sure if he’s stepping too far. But then again, the boy asked him for help, he should at least get to know who he’s picked up from the side of the road.
The younger boy shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
“On my birthday, I went to this club, alone. I met a guy there, we hit it off immediately. I was drunk, and sad, so I jumped at the offer when he invited me back to his place. When we got there, he gave me some coffee to help me sober me up.” He takes a moment to think his story through. Noah keeps his eyes on the road.
“That was the last thing I remember from that night, next thing I knew my wrists and ankles were restrained and there was a gag in my mouth…and he- he- “
The tears he tried so hard to hold back flow down. His rescuer doesn’t really know how to react to this sudden emotional outburst.
“He raped me.” He blurts out.
“And he tortured me, every single day…I- I thought I was gonna die.”
Noah looks at him with worry but the boy is too lost in his bitter memories.
“And then I wished I would die. I begged him to let me die.” He covers his face with his hands and cries silently, all the emotions land on him at once.
Noah wants to comfort him with a hand on his shoulder, but he figures the last thing Junior wants right now is to be touched by another stranger.
“Here.” He offers him an unopened water bottle.
The boy looks away in embarrassment and gulps down the water like he hasn’t had any in days. Maybe he hasn’t…Noah couldn’t dream of what this poor guy went through.
They don’t exchange another word for the rest of the ride.
“Is that your friend’s house?“
The passenger looks up to check and simply nods. Noah expected a relieved or happy expression from him, but he looks blank. He reminds himself that he has no idea what he went through, he has no idea how he feels right now. He has no right to expect him to act a certain way.
Noah parks the car in front of the place, a spacious suburban two-story house with a well-groomed yard. The neighborhood looks too old, almost empty, except for the very few similar houses here and there, most of which are vacant as well.
The frigid wind hits them both and cold shivers crawl down their spines as they step out of the car. Junior is visibly shivering, too under-dressed for the weather, and his tears fall frozen on his cheeks.
They walk towards the entrance but before they can cross the yard the door opens and a tall black-haired figure steps out, wearing a formal white shirt and black trousers.
Junior runs to the man, like a lost golden retriever, and the taller man wraps his arms around his small body in a loving embrace.
“Oh, Junior…you stupid, stupid thing.” Noah hears. ‘That’s a weird term of endearment’ He thinks to himself, but who is he to judge. He wouldn’t know how to react if his kidnapped buddy stumbled upon his doorstep in that state.
Noah, being the socially awkward guy he is, steps away from the house and back to his car to give them some privacy and uses that as an excuse to smoke.
“The fucking storm-“ He curses as he struggles to turn his lighter on as the cold breeze keeps blowing the flame off.
“Here.” The man in the white shirt appears beside him out of the blue, holding out his own lighter and using his other hand as a shield against the wind. Noah didn’t even notice him walking this way.
“Oh…thanks!” He lights up the cigarette and sighs out a blow. It’ll be easier to process everything that just happened with smoke in his lungs and nicotine in his blood, he thinks.
“So you’re the one who rescued my Junior?”
The possessive term makes Noah’s eyes shoot him a questioning look. ‘My Junior? Are they…partners or something?’ For a moment he wonders what he would do if he were in his shoes - if he had a partner who got abducted, raped, and tortured and then rang his doorbell looking like that.
“Uh- I- I just picked him up from the side of the road…he was in pretty bad shape…” - he lowers his voice - “He told me about what happened to him…I honestly think he needs to see a doctor, or a therapist, or both.”
Noah could swear the man almost chuckles before he speaks in his concerned voice again.
“Oh! Of course. I’ll take good care of him. But I think it’s better to let him rest the night and talk about it tomorrow. I wouldn’t wanna overwhelm him.”
“I agree.” His hands, numb from the cold, tremble as he brings the cigarette up to his lips again.
“Where are my manners, I should invite you inside.”
“It’s fine. I gotta get going anyway.”
“At least let me offer you a cup of coffee, as a thank you for saving him. It’ll warm you up.”
No matter how weird this situation has already become, Noah would kill for a warm cup of coffee. His hands are so frozen he can’t even hold his car keys properly.
“I guess a cup of coffee couldn’t hurt anyone.” He stomps on his cigarette butt.
“Splendid.” The dark-haired man smiles.
As they enter the house he sees Junior curled up by the door, something about him is different and he can’t quite make out what. His expression is just...empty.
He also notices another weird thing as the host takes his coat, a shotgun right next to the coat hanger.
The other man notices his surprised look.
“That’s for runaways and strays. Animal Control Centers don’t care to pick them up since the neighborhood became so deserted, so I had to take matters into my own hands.” He explains with a grin.
“This way. Make yourself at home.” The taller man shows him to the living room and leaves for the kitchen himself.
The fireplace warms the spacious living room and his numb hands couldn’t be thankful enough as they defrost.
The boy he just rescued follows him along into the living room and they sit across from one another.
Noah’s eyes wander around the room - observing all the art pieces hanging, and the overall nostalgic theme of the room - and Junior’s stare timidly at the ground.
The silence gets too uneasy and Noah decides to break it with the only question occupying his mind.
The boy’s eyes jolt up at him, clearly startled by the question.
“I’m sorry, you don’t have to answer that.”
“No…uh- no, it’s okay. Yeah…No. It’s, um, it’s complicated. He’s the only one I’ve got.”
‘What kind of a no-answer answer was that?’ Noah thinks to himself, and thanks god the man walks in with the coffee right then, he had no idea how he was supposed to respond to that.
The look on Junior’s face shifts and his eyes move back to where they were before.
“There you go.” Noah holds the cup he’s handed.
“You guys won’t have any?”
“Junior doesn’t drink coffee. And I just had some before you arrived.”
His eyes flicker between the standing man and the smaller boy on the sofa, and the invisible tension he couldn’t find a reasonable explanation for. And then the bitter smell of coffee catches his attention. He sips cautiously at first, not to burn his mouth, and when he’s sure it’s a reasonable temperature, he gulps down the heavenly warm liquid.
The man takes a step back and rests his hand on Junior’s shoulder, to which he flinches.
“What were you two talking about?”
“H-he asked what the nature of our relationship was.”
He smiles creepily at the boy.
Noah parts his lips to say something but his tongue feels heavy, and so do his eyelids. Their voices melt into the background. He tries to hold onto the cup but his fingers lose their grip and the cup falls, spilling whatever was left in it on the parquet.
“…I’m sorry.” Junior looks up at him with tearful eyes, like he was just waiting for the right moment to say that. He sounds small…and ashamed. The creepy smirk on the man’s face and Junior’s remorseful expression are the last things Noah sees before his vision goes black.
