#killemses

Lawrence locks the door behind them. She looks around the empty living room, opting to fall into one of the sofas. She shouldn't bother them until they're ready. Adam needs his rest. Lawrence is sitting at the kitchen table. Where he's got his laptop from, she has no idea. She spins around, resting her feet on the other arm of the sofa. It's hard beneath her. Even their most loved safehouse has its flaws. She fishes her phone from her pocket, turning it back on. She could do with some shitty mobile apps right now.

Time sticks in place, refusing to move. It's like she’s half asleep but instead she's wide awake, ignoring how much the phone screen stings her eyes. The seconds crawl by until it's been a full twenty-four hours, and she can pin it down to the quarter past. The smell of Lawrence's coffee drifts by. She's sitting up to make herself some when the stairs creak.

Lawrence holds his coffee up for James without looking away from his keyboard. James takes a long sip from the mug, leaving it on the table. He drops into in the gap Elyse left on the sofa. She sighs, falls backwards to be caught in his lap.

"He's okay," He tells her, the first words out of his mouth. He reaches for her hand and she notices the dried blood embedded beneath her nails. She takes his, ignoring the brown stains on it.

"So people keep telling me," Elyse murmurs, rolling her head back until she can feel the weight in her shoulders.

"Because it's true." He knocks her onto her back again. "This is part of the job. They didn't do anything too bad."

"Only broke an arm and a leg, yeah. Not bad." James squeezes her hand, knocks her cheek with it.

"He's fine. And he was asking after you." That, she sits up at, only kept seated by James's hand holding hers.

"Why didn't you say that part first!" She tries to look furious, but between the half fallen down hair, the bags that are probably under her eyes, and the paleness of her skin, she's not sure she's managing it. James's sad look tells the same story.

"You need to rest," He says. His voice has grown more serious, and she scowls. "Seriously. You look worse than Adam does." She doubts that.

"I want to see him," She states, staring James straight in the eyes. He sighs, shakes his head. Then he moves, allowing Elyse to stand up. She pulls her shirt straight as if it isn't stained with blood. James rests his hands on her shoulders.

"Come on," He says. He leans down to kiss her head, rubbing his cheek against her hair. "He might not be awake. But he's gonna say you look like shit too." Elyse laughs, a short puff of air out of her nose. She doesn't argue with him. Maybe she needs to change, but there's been no time. She wants this blood off her. She doesn't even know whose it is.

James takes them upstairs. The floorboards creak under their weight, in the same spots they always do. Adam's in the master bedroom, with the king size bed. He's awake when they enter, his face loose and the arm that isn't bound to his chest is held out as he talks. Matt's sat in a chair in the corner, phone in his hand.

"And then I-" Adam pauses, taking in the shadows blocking the doorway, "Elyse! 'Lyse!" She brightens upon seeing him, standing taller and rushing to the edge of the bed. Adam reaches his arm out, brushing it against Elyse's cheek. "You look like a mess."

James sits on the bed, "Told you so." She sticks her tongue out at him, hovering at the edge of the mattress. She looks over the dark bruises on his face, the ones that extend above the cast on his arm. No doubt there'll be more on his chest, hidden away by a loose fitting t-shirt.

"C'mere. There's lots of room." Adam reaches for her hand and tugs her forward.

Matt sighs, "Adam, you shouldn't-"

"I'm gonna," Adam replies. The tugging on Elyse's hand grows more persistent, until she crawls into bed beside him. There's enough room to fit by Adam without him moving. He tries anyway, wincing as he does. Elyse nudges his shoulder as lightly as she can.

"I'm fine. Don't hurt yourself." From her position, lying on her side, she can still see Adam's face. He's smiling at her, slightly lopsided, and all too honest. She reaches her arm across carefully, managing to rest it across Adam's waist.

"How are you feeling?" She asks, now she's comfortable. Adam shrugs. One of his fingers traces the corner of her lips.

"'M okay, just a bit drugged."

"Just a bit drugged," She repeats, as Adam taps her cheek. He nods, grinning wider. "You're so stupid, you know that?" Adam pouts, leaning forward until he can nudge into her.

"I get kidnapped, and this is what I get?" He's still joking along, but Elyse can't help her sharp breath.

"I was so worried," She murmurs, putting her hand on top of Adam's. He squashes her cheek again. Close to silent, Elyse picks up on Matt squeezing James's hand as he leaves the room, leaving Adam with her and James. She turns back to Adam, who watches her with big eyes.

"I'm okay, though. It'll heal." Elyse shuts her eyes, breathing out slowly. She tries not to think of all the nights James has lay awake. When he's woken screaming, or clutching wounds that have long healed, nightmares keeping them both from sleep. Or those nights he watches the house, watches her as if she’ll vanish. How can she pretend Adam will heal, just like that?

"She's barely slept," James tells him, lying on Adam's other side. He's on top of the covers, resting on his arms. Something pokes her cheek, and she opens her eyes to see Adam retract his arm. She squints her eyes in a lazy glare. Adam smiles back at her.

"You can sleep here," He decides. Elyse raises an eyebrow. "Right here. With me. You're not leaving 'til you sleep."

"I guess I can accept that." Elyse leans heavier into the pillow. She keeps her weight off Adam, until Adam rolls and she falls into the neat gap. His skin is warm. James shimmies down, finding his own space on the bed. She looks over Adam, at those blue eyes. "What time is it?"

"Late," James replies, "Not that it matters, with how little you've slept." She closes her eyes, resting her forehead by Adam's shoulder. "She really was worried." Adam laughs, a slight rasp to the sound. His lips press against her head and she smiles, kissing the sliver of exposed skin above his cast. 

"I'm here now," Adam says. And he is. Solid and warm beside her. With all his cuts and scrapes and broken bones. He's here. They still have him, and she tries to ignore the tears in her eyes.

"You're here now," She agrees. "Can we not do that again?"

"No promises," Adam tells her, and she knows he's right. They love the life they live. With all the dramatics and adrenaline. Maybe one day she'll be like the others. So… nonchalant about this side of things. Not today, though. Not tonight.

"I don't think we've got another kidnapping scheduled in for a few months," James adds. She shakes her head, too tired to laugh.

“Bagsy not me next time." Adam tries to raise his hand and James pulls it down just as fast. Both of them are smiling. She allows herself to close her eyes again, damp eyelashes rubbing against each other.

"I say one of the Fakes. They've had it too good for too long." There's no real venom in James's voice, only easy humour. Adam laughs.

Adam shrugs, says nothing. Elyse bumps their shoulders together, leaning into him when she’s done. Says, “Hey. You really shouldn’t be sorry. In fact, I think...” she looks at James, sees him nod at her, small smile on his face. “In fact, I know... that we have a crush on you, too, you big dummy.”

“Huh?” Adam turns to look at her. She smiles at him and he turns back to James, whose smile grows. “Are you pranking me?”

James shakes his head while Elyse punches his arm lightly. She says, “No, Adam. We aren’t.”

“I’m actually surprised you haven’t noticed,” James says softly. Adam’s eyes widen at this. He opens his mouth but no words come out. 

Elyse shakes her head, mostly in jest, “I told you we should’ve been more obvious about it!”

James snorts, “The only way we could’ve been more obvious was by climbing into his lap in public and just making out.”

“Ah yes, a step above from what we do in private,” Elyse jokes.

There’s a silence between them while they wait for Adam to collect him thoughts. Elyse exchanges a look with James, asking him Should we talk to him? which James replies to with a look of, Let him get there.

Adam does get there. He opens his mouth again, says, “Well. Fuck.” His surprised laugh makes Elyse laugh, makes James smile.

Elyse drops a hand onto Adam’s loosely clenched fist, runs her thumb down the knuckles. “C’mon, relax, Adam. You got us.”

“Yeah,” James says softly. He drops a hand onto Adam’s other fist. “You do.”

There’s no telling how long he was out for, but it must have been significant if the ache in his ass from the metal chair is any indication. He can feel the dried blood on his lips from where the punk scout had gotten in a solid hit, but the taste of blood is absent, so it was definitely an extended time lapse. His head is still fuzzy, his stomach churning and eyes burning even in the low warehouse lighting. His arms are bound and his wrists feel raw from the shitty rope as he wiggles to see if he can loosen the knots. The door must be behind him, because he hears a creak and some grinding, followed by a shout he’s too exhausted to bother understanding. It only takes moments for him to realize what the guy must have been saying, as the door squeals again to herald two sets of footsteps.

It’s not the first time he’s been tortured, and it probably won’t be the last, with his luck. He’s already in agony when they bring out the bucket of water. His arms and torso are a battlefield of fresh new wounds and old scars, black t-shirt in pieces on the floor. The leader of the two interrogators takes a long drag of his cigarette before stubbing it out in the bloody mess that he’s sure his forearm is underneath somewhere.

He straightens his suit and asks a question he must know Adam isn’t going to answer. When he gets no response - as if Adam could come up with a single coherent thought through the pain - the other man sits the water bucket in Adam’s lap and forces his head down until he’s taking a startled breath of water right into his lungs. His body tries to cough but that just gives him a mouthful of water that he tries desperately not to inhale. The man holds against his thrashing until his lungs are on fire and his vision goes spotty.

When he’s finally allowed air, he takes it in like a dying man, which, considering how much water he just coughed up, he kind of was. It’s a pretty rudimentary version of waterboarding, but definitely just as effective. More efficient. To the point.

They must be pretty well hidden if no one has come for him yet, far away or more likely in some dump his gang doesn’t know is an enemy safehouse. Smart, on this gang’s part, honestly. It’s bought them some time to actually get to the interrogation before they die. Which is unusual, because normally the guys don’t take more than a couple hours to bash their way into a hideout when one of their own is inside. But it’s totally fine, because they’re definitely coming, despite what this dickfuck in the suit is saying. His friends wouldn’t abandon him, right? Because they were friends, not just partners. Yeah, of course they’re coming. Lawrence and Bones are typing away at computers and the rest are suiting up, no, already suited up, because they are just waiting on a location, chomping at the bit to go save Adam because they care about him and love him and would protect him and are definitely going to save him. Yup, yes.

They take no notice of his burgeoning panic attack, shoving his head back under the surface of the water. This time he doesn’t hold, actually tears Adam’s head back out by the hair before dunking it again and again. It forces his breathing pattern to something abnormal, closer to hyperventilating that regular breathing. Ah, so they had noticed his panic attack. Nothing better for panic than not knowing when your next breath will come!

He tries to remember all the techniques for keeping calm, but he’s probably concussed and his head is fuzzy and his thoughts all jumbled, everything too much for him to comprehend and this motherfucker is still dunking his head like he’s a damn piece of laundry in the olden days. It’s almost a relief when his head is held underwater for longer, his neck and upper back twinging with pain after the rough treatment. His eyes burn no matter how hard he squeezes them shut against the water, his lungs feel heavy, his heart is hammering in his chest and ears. He might die here, he realizes.

His head is released, not torn from the water as it had been before, which is how he knows something is up. They’re not just going to go good cop on him for no reason. A smile breaks over his face as he hears a shitty high pitched imitation of a woman’s voice from the door. He’d recognize James anywhere.

Things should have gone batshit after that, guns-a-blazing and blows flying, but Elyse comes down from the ceiling behind Suit Guy and puts one into the back of his skull, followed quickly by one between Other Guy’s eyes. How she got through the ceiling without being noticed, Adam will never know, and he doesn’t particularly care to. James is already undoing his bonds, cheap twine splitting easily against his knife. Once he frees Adam’s legs, Adam throws the damn bucket of water onto the ground and kicks it with a fervent hatred he hasn’t felt since his teenage years. Maybe he promptly falls over because his head is still swimming, but the point is made.

“Hey,” he says, looking between the two, speech slurred and throat raw, “Can we go home now?” James laughs and Elyse smiles, shaking her head fondly as Matt peeks through the door to see Adam flat on his ass on the floor.

“Yeah buddy,” James says, “We can go home now.”

——

The drive home is objectively short, but it feels like a thousand years to Adam, battered and exhausted. Nothing sounds better than falling face-first onto his bed and sleeping forever. But instead Peake is wrapping his arms in old cloth until they can get to gauze and proper medical supplies, silent like he knows Adam’s head is still buzzing.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” is the only thing Matt says, murmured just after they walk into the penthouse and go their separate ways. Adam makes his way to the nearest bathroom, more than ready for a few painkillers to dull his headache and the agony of his arms and chest. James and Elyse come in to find him sorting through the pill bottles, trying to decide which will be most effective without thinning his blood too much. Some of the wounds are still bleeding sluggishly and he doesn’t want to make them worse.

“Hey buddy,” James greets him, grabbing a bottle of something Adam can’t quite remember but is pretty sure is oxy. He gives Adam one and says he can have another only if he really needs it. It’s good to have someone care like that, enough to bother taking his addictive personality into account.

Elyse hands him a small bathroom cup of water to help down the pill, getting to work on unwrapping Adam’s arms and torso. It sticks in a few places and Adam can’t help but hiss as a few wounds rip back open. Some need stitches, and James has a suture kit at the ready. He begins and Elyse switches between helping him and gently showering Adam’s face in kisses.

The maybe-oxy kicks in a handful of minutes later and Adam’s already tired brain is even more desperate for sleep. He thinks of curling up in James and Elyse’s bed, one of them on either side, and sleeping until his body is sore from it. Yeah, that sounds like a good plan. But James has decided to close up the majority of his injuries, so it’s taking forever and a day, suture kits being jammed into the little bathroom trash can one after another. They’re gonna need to order more at this rate. Usually, he would be grumpy about having to sit on the edge of the tub for so long, but he’s getting a kiss per stitch, so maybe it’s not so bad.

James finishes cleaning off the last wound and starts applying gauze, thank god. They may as well just wrap him up like a mummy at this point, chaining together so much gauze he’s practically wearing a really weird shirt. Could you imagine a gauze shirt? Sounds itchy and fragile. Hard to sew. He may be a little loopy, but he thinks it’s justified after literally everything that happened today.

“Can we go to sleep now?” he asks, leaning his forehead against James’s to look imploringly into those ocean-clear eyes. James laughs again like before, one of Adam’s favorite sounds, pressing their lips together slowly before agreeing. Elyse tosses the last suture pack into the trash, teaming up with James to help Adam up off his perch. They’re so gentle with him it’s practically unbearable. He can’t believe he ever doubted them.

The walk to their bedroom is short, Adam’s stumbling kept to a minimum with them under either shoulder. They lower him onto the bed first, James helping him pull up his legs so he can lay down right. He scoots over to his side of the bed, closing his eyes gratefully while he waits for them to get in too.

“Hey, move over,” Elyse says, nudging him carefully. He opens his eyes and tries not to show how delighted he is to be relegated to the middle; it’s the best place to be and he usually only gets it on bad days. Well, today has certainly been one hell of a bad day, he guesses. He moves over until he hits James, who wraps arms around him in a tight hug that might have hurt without painkillers in his system, while Elyse slides into bed and pulls the covers up over the three of them. Once James releases him, Elyse pulls him in, holding him just as tight.

“Sorry it took so long to find you,” she says, voice warbling from unshed tears. He just hugs her harder, placing a kiss on top of her head. When she finally lets him go, he kisses her soft and sweet until the tears subside.

“James, now you have to cry,” she says, to James’s laughter that may or may not be a little soggy, “I can’t be the only one.”

“Already there,” he sniffles, slinging an arm over a clear part of Adam’s torso, “But our baby boy is home.” Adam preens at the nickname, nuzzling his face into Elyse’s neck with a content sigh. This is where he belongs. Right here with the two of them, even sliced up and brain-bruised. Everything is tolerable, he can make it through anything, so long as he has this to come back to.

James kisses the nape of his neck and whispers more terms of endearment there, while Elyse talks reassurances against his lips and oops, he might be the one crying now. He wants to blame it on the concussion, wants to find some reason for it that isn’t just him being overwhelmed at their love, but he doesn’t have to with them. He doesn’t have to find excuses for his emotions anymore, not with James and Elyse. He’s allowed to cry and that just makes him cry more, because they’re so lovely and he doesn’t know what he did to deserve them.