#safehouse raid

CW: Creepy whumper, noncon touching (nonsexual), sleep deprivation, referenced electric shock

Takes place during Jake's Interrogation during the Safehouse Raid, after this piece

The metal table is cool against his cheek, and Jake drifts, dazed. He's too tired to even begin to open his eyes, in too much pain to sleep.

His shoulders throb from having his hands zip-tied behind him for... hours? Days? The blood has dried and crusted on the opaque plastic, he can feel it sometimes flaking off when he shifts around trying to find some way, any way to sit that is more comfortable.

There isn't one.

Everly left, said he wanted to try a diner down the road. Or something. He said something, anyway - words break apart in Jake's mind and rearrange themselves in new, unrecognizable shapes.

A shoe scrapes the concrete floor behind him and he flinches, two seconds too late.

"Fucking pathetic," Everly whispers, and Jake doesn't know if he's really here, already back, or if he's just seeing things. "I've had trainees half your size fight longer than you can. You're going to give him up to me, you know."

The handler's fingers run through Jake's sweaty dirty hair, scratch into his scalp, send new shivers down his spine. He tries to push himself back up, but there's a hand against his neck forcing his head to stay down, pressed against the table.

"You won't last. You'll tell us where he is, and we'll go pick him up. Poor thing's probably confused, and scared, huh?"

Jake's eyes close even more tightly, heat building behind them through the dryness that comes with dehydration, exhaustion.

Chris has to stay right where he is, in Nat's house. He has to listen to what Jake told him before...

He has to listen.

Everly's thumb rubs little circles along the thin skin just behind Jake's ear, sending nausea spiraling outward from the contact, making Jake shake with disgust. He's too exhausted to fight back, too tired and worn and hurting too much to do anything but hold still and take it.

And still, it's nothing compared to what the rescues have survived. Nothing compared to the hell they'll face if they're recaptured.

"We'll get him. You'll break, and we'll get him, and I'll make absolutely sure you get to watch us put the collar back on that pretty little neck..."

I'll die first. He tries to say it but he's so fucking tired. He can't remember how to move his lips to form the words.

"Make you watch more than that, if I can get Renford to sign off on it. What do you think, huh? Want to see why your little runaway's worth all this fuss to find him again? See what he can do?"

Rage builds but it's fractured, buried. He can't pull it together enough. He can't pull away from Everly's hands. He can't do anything but keep his eyes closed and try desperately not to picture the horrors Everly slowly, gleefully begins to describe to him, what they'll do to Chris when they find him, how they'll hurt him, how it will be Jake's fault for not being able to keep him safe.

He tries to keep his breathing calm as Everly pets him, slow and languid, they've got all day to treat him like this. All day and all night, to talk and talk and talk.

And elsewhere, please God, Chris is still safely hiding in the safehouse, or made it through the tunnel to someone who can help. Please, please God, Jake thinks, mildly surprised to find himself praying. Please keep him safe.

Everly's voice drones on, and his hand moves rhythmically through Jake's hair. The feeling stops being sickening, at some point - Jake has no adrenaline left. Instead, it's... almost soothing. Lulling him towards a thin, fragile doze.

He's drifting again.

Wait for me, Jake thinks, bleary. He can barely form the thought. Wait for me, Chris. I haven't left you.

I'm coming back to you.

I promise you ill draw art of the other heisters but man i love my boy so much

“Let’s take all the money out of the safe for some reason guys.”

CW: Referenced institutional brutality, referenced pet whump, derogatory language towards an abuse survivor

"Hey, what's-"

"Shut up, slut. Just fucking listen to me."

"Jenna?" Kauri's blood goes cold where he stands on a street corner. "Why, why are you-"

"I'm relaying a message. Nine told me to call for Yoder. Stay the fuck away from your shelter, got it?"

Kauri's heart stops beating and his fingers are as cold as his nerves, blood, brain, with a sudden lurch of fearful recognition.

Even Nat doesn't want me now.

Behind him, a crowd of people leaves a bar, laughing, girls with long legs in high heels and sneakers and boots, guys wearing t-shirts and jackets and one guy, inexplicably, in a vest that looks more formal than anything anyone else has on. They are laughing so loud he can barely hear the voice on the other end of the phone.

"Listening." His lips barely move. "Did I do something wrong-"

"Probably, but this isn't about you. Yoder activated Distress. Nine is on his way to pick up anyone who made it to the tunnel, she says three-"

"That's the rest of them," Kauri whispers. "Antoni, Chris, Leila."

"Great. So you stay away until you hear otherwise, got it? House was raided. If you go back there, you'll get picked up."

"Why-... Why do you care?"

She snorts into the phone. "I don't. But Nine asked me to warn you. Don't try any other shelters, Kauri Grant. Yoder may house Romantics but everyone else already knows about you."

"But Chris is a Romantic."

"Ugh. Well, he can't stay either."

"He's a kid, Jenna, you can't just-"

She's already hung up the phone.

Kauri takes a shallow breath, and then a deeper one. He slips the phone back into his pocket.

Then he heads back into the bar and orders another drink, sets his sights on a guy sitting alone, and it's time to do what he does best.

He could go to the park, but...

Kauri's heart pounds in panic even as he smiles, flirty and sweet, and catches the guy's eye.

Just the tiniest of drabbles because the image was in my mind. 

CW: Trauma response, references to institutional violence, scarring, guilt/self-loathing thoughts, not much here to warn for but if you see something that needs tagged that I didn’t mention let me know

Tagging Chris’s crew: @burtlederp , @finder-of-rings , @endless-whump , @whumpfigure , @stxckfxck , @slaintetowhump , @astrobly , @newandfiguringitout  , @doveotions and @oofowouchies and @orphceus  for Antoni  (it wouldn’t let me tag your other blog but you requested to be added!)

Takes place simultaneously to the Safehouse Raid, so you’ll want to read the first piece of that series to have context for this

The darkness around them is total, with a soft weight like velvet against Antoni’s skin, pressing from all sides, as he and Leila make their way with bare feet moving soundless against the slightly damp stone. 

Who made this tunnel, nobody seems to know, exactly. Nat told them it was here when she bought the house, used to be used to people in the 70′s to do the same thing that Antoni and Leila are doing now.

How many people have crept through this space, holding hands like he and Leila are, gripped tight with cold fingers and clammy palms, unwilling to let go? How many? A handful? Two dozen? A hundred?

The silence is so deep that their breathing seems to echo off the walls. Even adjusted to the dark he can’t see Leila, only feel her leading the way. She is the one who keeps them moving, because Antoni would go back, if she let go. So she never lets him go.

“Chris is still back there,” He whispers, and the sound is like a shout muffled, a cry swallowed by the stone.

There’s a dripping sound, somewhere, ahead or behind he can’t tell. Water condensing in the coolness and running down to the ground. He can feel the damp under his feet as he walks, slippery. Never run in the tunnel, Nat told them when they did their safety drills. Walk quickly, but don’t run.

“I know,” Leila replies, and her voice is flat and featureless. He can’t see her but he knows, anyway, what he could see if there was any light - her short black hair chopped close to her chin, the pale of her skin, the way her eyes would be narrowed and her jaw set in her determined stubbornness. “He didn’t move fast enough.”

Antoni is silent, as they move like specters under the houses of Nat’s neighbors, under streets, a faint rumble of cars above their heads. This tunnel was here before the city came out this far and the houses and lives lived above them came after it.

What was there, in the time when they made this, to run from? Antoni doesn’t know. Maybe he never knew, or maybe it’s part of what he lost when they took his mind and wiped it clean, started over.

“They will hurt him,” Antoni tries again, and her hand only tightens its grip.

“I know,” She says again.

“He must be so frightened, Leila-”

“Antoni.” Her voice is sharp. It cuts through the velvet dark like the flash of light off a knife. “Stop it.”

Antoni feels his composure cracking, the sudden flare of a thousand burns under his clothes. One more sin he can’t atone for, one more betrayal he cannot fix, one more one more one more one more-

“I can’t just leave him there-”

Leila’s hand rips from his and just as suddenly her palms are pressed to either side of his face, pulling his head down close to hers, until their foreheads are touching. He still can’t see her, nothing but the faintest glimmer of her eyes. He wonders if they are as full of tears as his. 

“If they take him, there’s nothing we can do,” Leila says, voice fierce and hoarse, thick with rage and grief. “If you were there, they’d take you, too, send you back, we’d lose you. Sometimes-...” She was quiet, and he could hear her breathing, harsh exhales, deep inhales. “Sometimes you lose people, Ant. That’s just how it is.”

“I-I... I can’t accept that. Not for him-... he’s so young, he needs us so much, and what he’ll... what he’ll be sent back to, Leila, you haven’t seen his nightmares-”

“I have nightmares, too! So do you! So do all of us!”

“Not... not like this, not like his, you do not hear what he says in his sleep-”

“Then fucking go back if you want to! Go on! Get caught and go back to your owner but I am never going back to mine! I don’t care who I lose, I don’t care who might have to get left!” Leila loses her careful control, her voice rises to a wail, bouncing back at them off the stone, and Antoni flinches away from the sudden volume. 

“Leila-”

“We have to get to the bus stop. We have to. Nine will be waiting for us, Nat said, she promised. And Chris is a good hider, maybe he’ll... maybe he’ll be okay. Jake is there, right? Jake would-... would do anything for him.”

“If they take him back, Jake would not go with him, Leila, but if I were there I could... I could go, and we could be together until we were r-refurbished- I could help him know he would not be alone when they erase him-”

Her hand presses to his mouth, forces him to stop speaking, as she gasps in a breath. “Don’t ever say that, Ant, don’t you dare! He won’t get wiped!”

“You know they’ll wipe him, Leila! If they take us back, we get erased again!”

“It’s-... it’s a numbers game,” Leila whispers, repeating something they’ve all heard Nat saying before, murmuring to herself, a reminder every time there’s some news story about someone so happy to reclaim a stray pet, another safe place or shelter lost... “It’s a numbers game. One going back is better than two Maximize the good, minimize the bad. Now come the fuck on.”

She drops her hand and grabs him by the arm, dragging him forward with her down the tunnel, walking now with a determined speed and no attempt to stay silent.

“L-Leila-”

“Listen to me.” She doesn’t stop walking and her nails dig into his arm through his shirt, unknowingly pressing sharp edges into burn scars, lighting them up all over again. “I am going to get you to Nine. We are going to keep walking, here where we’re safe, and if Chris gets put back then I’m sorry, but I can’t help him now, I can only help you.”

“He’ll be so scared-”

“So are we! We’re scared, too!” She jerks his arm and Antoni stumbles forwards. There’s a hint of a slightly lighter enveloping black, maybe even a gray - they might be getting closer to the end of the tunnel, to where they can come up in a small city maintenance shed using a loose few boards in the floor and find the bus stop where Nine should already be idling in his car, waiting and waiting for them, hoping they moved faster than the men and women who pursue them.

“Without us-”

“Jake will hide him,” Leila says firmly. “He knows all the dark places, and Chris knows as well as any of us that he’s only safe in the dark.”

“What?”

She sighs. “Antoni, I don’t think they ever meant to, but... they taught us that the dark is the safest place for us. It's in the light that we die. It’s in the light they can take us and wipe us clean and rebuild. If Jake can get Chris into a dark place, he’ll know not to leave it.”

“And if he can’t? If he cannot get him to the dark places to hide?”

Another pause. It draws and draws and draws and now Antoni can definitely begin to see the outline of Leila ahead of him, the slightest hint of light at the end of the tunnel awaiting them. The air smells cleaner, fresher now. They’re getting closer. 

He hasn’t heard anyone behind them. They haven’t found the secret door, or they don’t know what it is, or maybe... or maybe they’re just even quieter than the two rescues and someone will reach out and grab him at any moment, and he’ll hear a low soft voice with an English accent whisper in his ear, hello, love, aren’t you happy to see me?

“Then Chris goes back to the light,” Leila says, and her voice is hard. Uncaring, even as Antoni can hear the lie. “And we don’t. He’s gone and we’re not and that’s all there is to it.”

Nine is waiting for them in a nondescript beige-gray-nothing-color four-door at the bus stop, just like Nat promised. Leila slides into the front seat and Antoni collapses across the back, his chest a twisting mass of guilt that curls inside him, heavy as stone, weighing him down as he curls up on his side. 

“I thought there would be three of you,” Nine says, glancing over his shoulder in the direction they’d come from. “Yoder said to expect three.”

“Only two,” Leila answers, crossing her arms across her chest and sitting back against the seat. “The other one didn’t make it.”

The other one.

“Already, we stop using his name?” Antoni closes his eyes against the rush of guilt and tears.

Chris is going to be gone, again, all the identity he’d built stolen, erased back to factory standards. And it will be Antoni who left him to the death that comes with going back to the white walls, white lights, white floor. 

Nine clears his throat. “Are you... are you sure I shouldn’t wait a few more minutes, just in case-”

“Don’t wait.” Leila doesn’t look back at Antoni, and she doesn’t look back the way they came. Leila never looks back at all. “The third one isn’t coming. Just drive. Jake will do what he can.”

Antoni has never felt so small, so mean, so... worthless. “I-I could have-”

“No, you couldn’t. You’d just get thrown back in there, too. Better two saved than two refurbished.”

“I’m... I’m sorry,” Nine says softly as he pulls away. “I know what it means to lose someone.” 

Do you, Antoni wonders. Do you even have  fucking clue?

If Chris did make it into the tunnel, he’d only come out to nothing and no one waiting to help him, because... because Antoni is a coward.

Because Antoni ran and didn’t stay.

Because he saved himself and left someone else to suffer.

Again.

“I will go back tomorrow,” He whispers. “I am going. You cannot stop me.”

“He’ll be gone.” Leila keeps her eyes on the road ahead, but he can see the set of her jaw, the curve of it. Stubbornness, determination. Strength Antoni could never hope to possess. “You know he won’t be there. They’ll take him. You can go back if you want, but Chris won’t be there.”

“I do not care. I will go back for him, even-... even if there is no him to find.”

She snorts. “Have it your way.”

Then, a pause, and she says, a little more softly. “I’m... I’m sorry, Antoni. I know I’m... I know-... I could be softer, but-”

“Not everyone is made for soft,” Antoni murmurs, and though he can’t see her answering hint of a smile, he can feel it. 

“If I think about it I’ll lose my fucking mind,” She says, softly. “I have to focus on who I can save, and not who I can’t. You know?”

He can understand. Even if he still feels like as much the monster as any of the ones who had been knocking the door off the hinges when he and Leila stopped waiting and ran. 

Silence, other than the low hum of the radio, public news station reporting a story about some kind of law passed about taxes. 

After the awkward, tense silence has dragged on and on and on, Nine clears his throat again.

“Hey, uh... what’s your name?”

“Antoni.” Coward. Piece of shit. Ashtray. Whatever you want it to be.

“Great. Yeah, okay. Uh... look. I’ll drive you back here tomorrow. You can take the tunnel back in to check and see if the, uh, the third one is in the house still. Okay?”

Antoni swallows and nods, curling into himself. His skin is on fire, he can feel every burn all at once, lit up like tiny suns digging deeper and deeper beneath the layers, searching for nerves and bone and muscle and vein to damage and destroy.

“"It’s not a problem.”

“But-”

“It’s not a problem,” Nine repeats, making a left, calming checking his mirrors, driving with absolute caution borne from a need to never ever have his fake ID checked. “You can go back and see if your guy is still there, yeah? Did you have to leave, like... your partner, your-.. your, uh... your bonded? Or-”

“He is not my bonded,” Antoni says, softly. “I will go back for him anyway.”

Manhandled, terrified, shoved down into a chair and told to shut up. Jake getting pissed at his mistreatment, arguing with everyone. One of the cops sneering, "What are you, his fucking boyfriend?" And Jake snaps, "No, he's my goddamn brother, leave him alone."

And Chris is scared and worried and still, still it feels so warm and good to have Jake call him the thing he wants so badly to be called.