Fic: I Don't Know How This Started, So I Won't Know When It's Done (Part 2)
And part 2...
Part 1
By the time the van finally stops, Finn has recovered from running into the door enough to sit up next to Kurt. The bald man has moved to the front of the van, and the boys are both leaning against the back, trying not to fall over each time it accelerates or turns.
The ponytailed man says, “Go get us a room.”
“Why do I have to?” the bald man asks.
“Because your picture isn’t all over the evening news,” the ponytailed man spits out, banging a fist against the steering wheel.
“We should just dump them already,” the bald man mutters, climbing out of the van.
“Yeah, that worked so well last time.”
It’s quiet while they wait for the bald man to come back. He waves a key in front of the window and says, “Already checked; nearest neighbors are three rooms down.”
The ponytailed man turns around and climbs into the back, reaching for Kurt’s ankle. He tries to move, but there’s nowhere to go in the back of the van.
“Hey!” Finn protests, as the man gets ahold of Kurt and drags him forward. He opens the side door and keeps pulling until he’s got Kurt outside and on his feet.
Finn tries to follow them outside, but the bald man is standing there with a gun. He points it at Finn, forcing him back into the van and slamming the door shut again. There’s a bang as Finn pounds against the door, trying to get out.
The ponytailed man answers back by slamming Kurt against the side of the van. He cries out, hitting at the arms gripping his firmly. The ponytailed man ignores his struggles and leans down to look Kurt in the eye as he says, “You really are more trouble than you’re worth, aren’t you? I thought you were dead.”
Kurt shivers, falling still as he stares back at the man.
The ponytailed man pulls back and shoves him toward the bald man. “Get him inside.”
The gun that the bald man is holding jabs into his back as Kurt is dragged toward the building and inside a room. The bald man forces him to sit down on one of beds and then steps back, looking at him for a minute. Then he pulls back a fist and swings it, hard, into Kurt’s cheek. Kurt falls backwards onto the bed.
“You should have just stayed fucking dead,” the bald man tells him.
The ponytailed man pushes Finn inside the room then, shoving him towards the bed that Kurt’s sitting on. Finn’s standing back up a second later, demanding to know where they are and what’s going on.
“It doesn’t matter where we are,” the ponytailed man tells him. “Sit down and shut up.”
Finn doesn’t sit down. “No. You can’t just-“
The bald man stalks over and pushes the gun into Finn’s shoulder, pushing him back. “We can do whatever we want, boy, and you’re going to start listening. Or I’ve got no problem decorating the walls in here with your brains.”
The ponytailed man has turned the television on and is flipping through the channels. “Shit,” he says. “Shit shit shit.”
“What?” the bald man asks.
“There were fucking cameras in that parking lot.” The ponytailed man gestures to the screen where a grainy, far away picture of Kurt and Finn being forced into the van is being shown.
The bald man stares at the screen, the hand holding the gun falling limply to his side. “What are we gonna do?”
The screen goes back to a newscaster, and now Kurt and Finn’s school pictures are in the corner, along with a partial license plate for the van.
The ponytailed man changes the channel. The same information is running in a ticker along the bottom of the screen. He throws the remote at the television and it bounces off with a clang. Then he spins around and practically jumps towards the other bed, hands going for Kurt’s neck. Kurt claws at him, trying to get away, and is vaguely aware of Finn trying to pull the man off of him.
The ponytailed man keep choking him until he starts seeing spots, until his struggles are barely that, and then he lets go. Kurt gasps, drawing in a deep breath that hurts. The ponytailed man pulls Kurt up and drags him across the room, tossing him onto the hard floor of the bathroom. Finn stumbles inside after him and the door slams shut. Finn tries to open it again, but there’s a thud as something is jammed against it.
Kurt’s still gasping, still trying to catch his breath. He curls into a ball on the floor, trying to remind himself to exhale as well.
Finn rubs his back tentatively, asking, “Are you okay?”
Kurt shakes his head no.
“Sorry,” Finn says. “That was a dumb question.”
Once Kurt’s caught his breath and examined the red marks on his throat in the mirror, they sit on the floor, backs against the wall and shoulders touching.
Finn asks, “Are those the same guys who kidnapped you before?”
“I don’t know,” Kurt says. Rasps, really; his voice is extremely hoarse.
“You still don’t remember?”
“No.” Kurt kind of wishes he did, right now. At least that way he’d know who these men were, what they wanted. He’d know what to expect from them.
*
The men are yelling at each other in the other room, but Kurt can’t make out what they’re saying. At least, for the moment, they seem to be mad at each other and not at them.
They’ve been in the bathroom for a long time. Finn’s restless and keeps moving around. He stretches his legs out, crosses them, stretches again. Then he stands up, pacing the small area as much as he can before sitting back down and starting over. He’s driving Kurt nuts.
After what seems like forever, and after the men in the other room have gotten quiet, Finn thinks he hears sirens outside. But Kurt doesn’t hear anything. “Maybe it’s the police,” Finn says hopefully. “They’ll do one of those hostage negations.”
“Negotiations,” Kurt corrects. He doesn’t mention that at this motel the police could be here for any number of reasons that don’t involve rescuing the two of them. He wants to hope too.
Finn nudges him and says, “See,” with a grin when the phone in the other room starts ringing. It rings and rings and rings and the men start yelling at each other again.
Finn decides he needs something to fight back with. He’s on his hands and knees, digging through the cabinets, while Kurt leans back against the tub and watches him. Finn sits up, brandishing a plunger.
Kurt raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think they’ll be scared of a plunger.”
“It’s kind of like a bat,” Finn argues, swinging it a bit.
The only other things in the bathroom are towels and Dixie cups, so the plunger is really their only option. They both get to their feet when there’s banging against the door-whatever was shoved against it is being moved. Finn raises the plunger over his head and swings it down, hard, as soon as the door opens, catching the bald man in the side of the head.
The bald man falls against the sink and Finn swings again, hitting him in the back. The ponytailed man is there as well, and he jumps at Finn, tackling him backwards into the bathroom. They fall on top of Kurt and all of four of them are a tangle of limbs, kicking and fighting, on the bathroom floor. Kurt crawls out from under them and starts trying to pull the ponytailed man off of Finn. The ponytailed man is on top of him and he’s got ahold of the plunger now, hitting Finn over the head with it. He swings an elbow back and hits Kurt in the stomach. Kurt trips over the lip of the bathtub and falls, flailing out to try and catch himself on the shower curtain but only succeeding in getting himself tangled up in it.
Kurt has just gotten back on his feet when the bald man appears in the doorway. Kurt hadn’t even noticed that he was missing. He’s got the gun again and the next moment seems to take forever even though Kurt knows that it doesn’t. Finn’s still on the floor fighting with the ponytailed man and the bald man is raising the gun, aiming at Kurt, and pulling the trigger.
Kurt jerks at the noise, more than anything. The noise echoes around the small, tile room for the longest time and then Kurt falls forward. The ponytailed man scrambles up, yelling. Kurt’s vaguely aware of Finn crouching over him, turning him over onto his back and saying, “oh god oh god oh god oh god,” but mostly he’s just aware of how much it hurts.
There’s a lot of noise. It’s really loud in the motel room now. Kurt turns his head to the side, and all he can see is the floor, dirt caked between the tiles, and the old wallpaper that’s wrinkled and peeling from years of humidity. And then it's the same bathroom, the same tile and the peeling wallpaper but it's different and he's been here before. He's had jamais vu for weeks now and this is the first time something has felt familiar.
Kurt closes his eyes.
*
Kurt doesn’t see it coming. He’s taking a shortcut back to the dorms after a late Warblers’ rehearsal; the path runs right next to the wooded edge of the park that butts up against Dalton’s property. There’s a fence, but it’s just a small, chain-link thing that most of the boys climb right over when they decide they’d rather go use the park’s basketball court. He’s by himself because he’s an idiot that forgot his bag, and he’d waved Blaine and Wes off when they’d offered to walk back with him.
It’s actually kind of nice to be by himself for once, with just a breeze rustling the branches of the trees along the path and the lamps casting long shadows. He’s always surrounded by other people here at school-even the showers are communal-and the house feels full of people when he goes home now. Home has gotten a bit better since they moved so he and Finn don’t have to share a room anymore. It’s nice to have a space to himself.
Anyway, he’s preoccupied, running through all the random things he still needs to get done that evening before he goes to bed and just not paying attention in general, so he doesn’t notice that he’s not alone until he is really not alone. He doesn’t notice the people walking behind him until they’re practically on top of him, and by then it’s too late. There’s an arm around his torso, trapping his arms against his sides, and another hand covering his mouth before he’s even opened it to scream.
Kurt’s lifted off his feet and he starts kicking immediately, flailing desperately. He manages to kick his assailant in the shin, hard, and they drop him back down, adjusting their hold. The hand over his mouth is covering his nose too and Kurt’s having a hard time breathing.
“A little help here,” the man holding him grunts out.
Which is when Kurt realizes that during his struggle against the man he’s been dragged off the path and over to the fence. He redoubles his efforts to twist out of the man’s hold, but the grip is unyielding. Kurt’s arms are immobilized to the elbow and while he’s pretty sure he’s kicked hard enough to turn the man’s legs purple by now, it doesn’t seem to be doing any good. He bites down on the hand over his mouth as hard as he can, tasting blood as he does.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” the man curses, yanking his hand away from Kurt’s mouth. Kurt draws in a breath to scream.
He doesn’t get much of a scream out before there’s a second man in front of him, who swings his hand forward, and then there’s just pain. Before he’s even surfaced out from under it enough to figure out what just happened the second man is resting the barrel of a gun against his forehead. “Shut up before I kill you right here.”
Kurt’s frozen. He can’t actually see the gun that well, but he can see the man’s blue eyes boring into his, unblinking. “Not another word, got it?” the man says.
The barrel of the gun presses against his forehead a bit harder. Kurt nods frantically.
They make him climb over the fence and then he’s being dragged through the park. He keeps hoping they’ll run into someone, anyone, but it’s late and dark and it’s still March, so the park is completely abandoned. Once they’re out of the trees he sees the car they’re headed towards. Oh no. No no no. If he gets in that car who knows where they’ll take him? He’s already too far away from help now.
One of the men opens the trunk of the car. Kurt starts pleading.
He gets clocked in the head with butt of the gun again and everything gets fuzzy. He’s vaguely aware of being lifted off his feet again, then the lid of the trunk is closing over the top of him and everything is pitch black.
*
It’s still dark when Kurt wakes up, but now it’s also hot and noisy. Incredibly noisy. He tries to turn over, but the trunk is too small and he’s curled up into an awkward position. There’s something poking him in the back and he tries to twist away from it. He’s sweating through the layers of his dress shirt and sweater and his tie feels like it’s choking him. He feels like he can’t breathe. There’s not enough oxygen in the trunk and what little is there is too hot and stale. His chest is tight and each breath is faster, shallower, and hurts more than the last.
He needs to calm down. He needs to stop panicking. But if ever there were a time to panic it’s when he’s been kidnapped by two strange men at gunpoint and stuffed into a trunk. Oh god. Breathe. Breathe. In and out. In. Out.
He’s so focused on trying to convince himself that there is enough air in the trunk, that he is not going to suffocate and die, that he doesn’t notice the changes in speed and direction that the car is making until they nearly stop moving. There’s a sharp turn that rolls him abruptly toward the back of the trunk, and then another in the opposite direction. Kurt has no way to brace himself and no way to tell when another turn is coming.
The car finally stops. He can both hear and feel the doors opening and closing, and then everything’s quiet. He stares at the top of the trunk, expecting it to open at any moment, bracing himself.
He needs to plan. When it opens, he’ll jump up and run. It doesn’t matter what direction he goes, as long as it’s away from the men with the gun. He doesn’t know where they’re stopped at, but maybe it’s near a highway or something-he’s pretty sure they were on the highway earlier-and he can just run and find the highway and then someone will stop and he can call the police and everything will be okay. He shifts around, trying to get into a position that will be the most effective for leaping from the trunk of a car. His right leg is pins and needles from the awkward position he’s been forced into, but he can probably still run. He has to run. He doesn’t have any other options.
Every muscle is tensed and his eyes are wide open, staring up into the pitch blackness as he waits. He doesn’t know when, or even how, he drifts off, but he must at some point because he wakes up when one of the men opens the trunk and reaches inside to haul him out. He’s not prepared anymore. He fell asleep and he doesn’t know how long he spent waiting for them to come back and now he’s disoriented. His leg is even more asleep now, it’s just that dead weight kind of asleep and his ankle turns under him when the man sets him on his feet.
He has the gun again and jabs it into Kurt’s side. “Let’s go,” he says, dragging Kurt across the lot.
They’re at a motel. Kurt doesn’t know what time it is, but the parking lot is empty and lit only by the neon ‘Vacancy’ sign and a streetlight at the other end of the lot, near the office. There are a few other cars, but most of them are parked down there.
Kurt has a feeling screaming isn’t going to do any good. There isn’t anyone around to hear him.
The other man opens the door to the motel room. Once they’re inside, Kurt is pushed into a chair. He stares at the door, but the other man is in the process of locking it. First the handle, then the chain.
It’s the first time Kurt’s gotten a good look at the men. The first one, the one who grabbed him at school and the one who pulled him out of trunk just now, is tall and thin, with dark blond hair slicked back into a ponytail. He sits down on the end of one of the beds, across from Kurt, watching him.
“What’s your name?” the ponytailed man asks.
Kurt doesn’t answer. He breathes in and out shakily, and tries to stop himself from trembling. His knuckles are white around the arms of the chair.
The second man, who’s tall and bald, steps away from the door and reaches out, smacking Kurt upside the head. “What’s your name?”
“Kurt,” he says, eyes darting between them.
The ponytailed man just stares at him for what feels like ages, then he smiles. “Kurt,” he repeats.
Kurt feels like he did in the trunk, like he can’t breathe. He can hear how shaky his next breath is.
The bald man leans over the dresser and twitches the curtain open to peek outside, then moves toward the door. “I’m starving. You want anything?”
The ponytailed man shakes his head and stays on the bed, never taking his eyes off Kurt.
Kurt looks around the room at anything but the man across from him. There’s a picture of a watercolor fall landscape on the wall above the bed. The red and orange colors clash with the green bedspread.
“Come here,” the ponytailed man says. Kurt makes eye contact with him for a moment, then glances at the door quickly. The bald man left the chain lock hanging open when he left. Kurt would only have to get the lock on the handle open to get out of the room, and then he’d be outside and he could run to the office. There must be someone in the office. There will be a phone in the office. He can call the police.
Kurt looks back at the ponytailed man. He’s still watching Kurt, still smiling, and it makes Kurt’s skin crawl. He doesn’t know where the gun went, but the man isn’t holding it anymore.
Kurt runs for the door. He’s fumbling with the handle, fingers that are shaky with adrenaline and fear trying to turn the lock, when the ponytailed man grabs him around the waist and hurls him away. Kurt yells as he hits the dresser hard and falls to the floor. He scrambles back to his feet, moving backwards, putting the dresser between him and the man.
It was a mistake. He’s backed himself into a corner now, the dresser on one side, a bed on the other, and a wall at his back. He keeps moving backwards anyway, until he can’t anymore. There’s nowhere to go.
He bangs against the wall behind him frantically, shouting for help.
“There’s no one there,” the man says.
He’s holding the gun again, but he’s not pointing it at Kurt. He wields it like a club, and hits Kurt in the side of the head again. Kurt falls against the wall and would’ve crumpled to the floor, but the man grabs his arm, holding him up, and hits him again. Kurt can feel the blood trickling down the side of his face. The room spins sickeningly as the man tosses him towards the bed. Kurt tries to get back up, but the man pushes him down again and starts pulling at his clothes. He pushes the gun up under Kurt’s chin when he tries to push the man away again.
“You’re almost more trouble than you’re worth, Kurt,” the man says. “You can either cooperate, or I can put this bullet through your brain. Do we understand each other?”
Kurt stares up at him. The man isn’t smiling at him anymore, but his expression still makes Kurt’s skin crawl. Kurt tries pleading again.
It doesn’t work this time, either.
Afterwards the man drags him into the bathroom and locks him inside. It’s probably a good thing he’s locked in the bathroom, because Kurt spends a long time hunched over the toilet, puking. Then he curls up on the floor and stares at the wall. There’s dirt caked in between the tiles and the one under his cheek is cracked. The wallpaper is peeling at the bottom, curling up away from where it meets the baseboard. He traces the pattern with his eyes. It’s some kind of swirl, lines looping together and never ending until they hit a new sheet of paper that doesn’t line up.
He lost track of time back when they first locked him in the trunk, so he doesn’t know how long it’s been before the other man comes back. He can hear the door in the other room slamming shut and muffled voices.
Maybe they’ll forget about him and leave him here in the bathroom if he’s quiet. Someone will come to clean the room eventually and find him, won’t they? He’ll be okay in the bathroom until someone finds him. He’s got a toilet and a shower and a sink with water to drink. There are even little cups on the counter.
That fantasy shatters as soon as the bathroom door opens. The bald man looms over him, raising an eyebrow when Kurt doesn’t try and move. Moving hurts.
The bald man leans down and grabs his arm, hauling him up. “Time to go, pretty boy.”
Kurt stumbles as soon as he’s on his feet. The man frowns, turning the faucet on and grabbing a towel, swiping at Kurt’s face roughly. Kurt jerks back and the man reaches for his chin to hold him in place. The white towel has streaks of blood on it when the man pulls it away, and Kurt glances at himself in the mirror, out of the corner of his eye. The gash on his head is hidden by his hair, but it’s matted with blood and his skin is still stained red.
The man must decide he’s cleaned up enough, because then he’s shrugging off his coat and forcing Kurt into it. It smells gross, like sweat, but the man buttons up the front of it before grabbing Kurt’s arm again and dragging him out of the bathroom. It’s only the man’s tight grip on his arm that’s keeping him upright as he’s pulled outside to the waiting car. The ponytailed man is sitting in the driver’s seat. This time Kurt is shoved into the backseat, instead of the trunk. The bald man slides in next to him.
It’s early, the sky is just starting to lighten in the east, and Kurt watches road signs as they drive. They’re not on the interstate, so it takes him awhile to figure out that the towns listed on the signs are in Illinois. He’s not even in Ohio anymore. He is two states away. Oh god.
*
They drive all day. The ponytailed man and the bald man swap places occasionally and listen to classic rock stations. When they stop for gas, the ponytailed man goes inside to get the key to the bathroom and then goes in with Kurt. There are other people at the gas station, but the ponytailed man is right there, his hand is on Kurt’s arm the whole time they’re there and Kurt can’t even swallow, much less speak. A woman pumping gas next to them looks over at Kurt and smiles slightly at him. Kurt stares back at her, wide eyed, until the ponytailed man forces him back inside the car.
They’re not driving through any cities, Kurt notices. There’s nothing but farm fields outside the window and tiny towns they have to slow down to drive through. He falls asleep again after they get to Missouri and when he wakes up the signs are for how many miles to Omaha.
The ponytailed man stretches in the front seat. “We’re gonna have to stop again,” he says.
There’s another motel, this one even cheaper and more deserted than the last. The curtains inside are heavy and gold and go all the way to floor. Kurt stares at them while the bald man lies on top of him.
They lock him in the bathroom again, but give him a pillow this time. Kurt curls up in the bathtub. It’s uncomfortable, but he can’t sleep anyway. One of the men is snoring loudly.
Kurt pulls the pillow up around his face, until he can barely breathe, and cries.
*
It’s still dark when they leave this time and Kurt’s pretty sure they’re in Nebraska now. When they finally turn off the highway, he’s expecting another motel. Instead, they drive through a town, past small houses and antique stores and a couple fast food places. The houses start getting further apart until finally they’re turning down a gravel road. Kurt clings to the edge of the seat, trying not to bounce around too much.
They’re going to kill him, Kurt thinks. They’re finally going to kill him. He’s being driven out to the middle of nowhere in Nebraska so that he can be murdered and no one will ever find his body except for cows. He hopes that’s all they’ll do.
The ponytailed man parks the car next to a big van and then pulls Kurt out of the backseat and up the steps to the door of a trailer. Kurt doesn’t get much of a chance to look around, but everything around them is dark anyway. There aren’t any lights, not even far off in the distance. Which must mean there aren’t any neighbors.
Kurt tries to find his voice. “Where are we?” he asks.
“Home,” the ponytailed man says, flicking on the light.
Home is a cluttered living room. There’s a big desk with a computer and a bunch of equipment on the other side of the room.
Kurt tries again. “We’re in Nebraska?” he asks. He’s pretty sure they’re in Nebraska, even though he’s never been there before and has no idea what Nebraska looks like. “Where in Nebraska?”
The ponytailed man squeezes his arm tightly and swings his other hand down, backhanding Kurt across the face. “It doesn’t really matter to you, does it? Stop talking.”
He starts dragging Kurt along behind him and digs a key out of his pocket to unlock a door at the end of the hallway. Kurt’s beginning to think that they aren’t going to kill him after all. They’re just going to keep him locked up here, forever. But now there’s no chance of a maid or someone at a gas station figuring it out and rescuing him. Now he’s in a trailer in the middle of nowhere with two psychopaths and if that isn’t every cliché from every horror movie ever he doesn’t know what is.
Once the door’s open the ponytailed man shoves Kurt inside. Kurt hasn’t even gotten back to his feet before the door slams closed and the locks clicks again. He rattles the handle anyway, and is answered with the bang of a fist being slammed against the wood. “Shut up!” the man yells.
Kurt lets go of the handle, stumbling away from the door. The room is so dark he’s seeing things, leftover patterns of light on his retinas. He reaches a hand out and tries to find a wall but hits something with his legs first and falls forward.
It turns out to be a mattress, and there’s already someone else sitting on it. Hands shove at Kurt and he yells, shoving back and striking out blindly. The person he landed on lets out an “oof” as Kurt connects a fist to what he thinks is their stomach. Then they shove him backwards and he hits the wall he was trying to find earlier with his head and another yell.
“Shut up,” whoever he’s fighting with hisses. “Fuck.”
There are footsteps in the hallway, and then the lock is rattling and the door’s swinging open. The ponytailed man is just a silhouette in the doorway, but the light spilling in from the hallway gives Kurt a look at the other person in the room.
It’s another teenage boy, and he’s in even worse shape than Kurt is (and Kurt’s been wearing the same blood-covered sweater and smelly coat for probably two days now, so that’s saying something).
The ponytailed man slams a fist against the wall, and both Kurt and the other boy startle at the noise. “What part of shut the fuck up don’t you two understand?”
Kurt stares back at him. The man seems to be waiting for an answer, but Kurt’s pretty sure anything he said would just result in the man hitting him again.
“Sorry,” the other boy says. “Sorry. We’re sorry.”
There’s a yell from somewhere else in the house, probably the bald man, and the ponytailed man says, “If I have to come tell you to shut up again you’re both gonna regret it,” before he slams the door shut again and plunges the room back into darkness. The lock rattles again and then he stomps back down the hallway. Kurt lets out the breath he was holding.
“What the hell did you scream for?” the boy asks. His voice is angry, but it’s no louder than a whisper. Kurt can’t see him anymore, but at least he knows where he is now. He crawls forward, feeling for the mattress this time, and sits down on it.
“I didn’t know you were there,” Kurt explains.
“Well, I am.”
“Sorry.” Kurt leans back against the wall, shifting a bit to try and sit comfortably. “What’s your name?” he asks.
The boy’s quiet for a minute, before he finally says, “Alex. Yours?”
“Kurt.” He closes his eyes for minute, hoping it will help them adjust to the darkness. He still can’t see his hand in front of his face when he opens them again. “What…” Kurt starts to ask, but then he realizes he’s not sure how to phrase the question. He wants to know what happened to Alex-if it’s the same as what happened to him, so that maybe he’ll know what’s going to happen next-but he also knows that he doesn’t want to tell anyone about what happened at the motels, so it’s not really fair to ask someone else. “Do you know where we are?” he asks instead.
“Disneyland,” Alex mutters. “It doesn’t matter, there’s no way out.”
“It’s a house. There’s a front door.”
“Good luck getting to it.”
*
The bald man is the one who opens the door next, and he fists a hand in Kurt’s hair to pull him to his feet. Kurt tilts his head back, trying to relieve the pressure on his scalp as the bald man walks him to the door and shoves him into the hallway. He waits, looking around and blinking in the light as the bald man locks the door again. Then there’s a hand on his back, pushing him towards another room.
It’s empty except for a bed against one wall and a tripod with a camera across from it. Kurt stares at the camera, his stomach clenching painfully. The ponytailed man is standing behind it, adjusting something. The bald man pushes Kurt down to sit on the bed.
He wants to ask what’s going on, but he also doesn’t to know. He wants to be somewhere else. He wants to be back in the dark room with Alex. He wants to be back in Ohio.
The ponytailed man looks at him over the top of the camera. “So Kurt, here’s how this works. We’re business men. We’re part of the entertainment industry.” He’s very matter of fact. He smiles at Kurt. “You just happen to be that entertainment.”
Kurt tries to swallow, and it feels like his throat is too small.
“This first time’ll be easy,” he promises.
It’s not.
*
He realizes later, when the bald man drags Alex out of the room for a while, that the walls of this place are paper thin and he can hear everything that’s happening the next room. Kurt curls up on the mattress, faces the wall, and presses his hands over his ears as hard as he can. He can hear his blood roaring in his ears with each heartbeat. Every breath he takes sounds impossibly loud.
He can’t see anything in the dark, so he starts counting. He gets to one hundred too fast and it’s too easy, he doesn’t have to think about it and his mind starts to wander so he switches to French. He has to concentrate to remember whether it’s vingt-et-un or just vingt-un. Vingt-et-un, he decides, remembering that the et isn’t dropped until you get to quarte-vingt-un and he isn’t there yet.
He was supposed to give a presentation in French on Monday, and he’s probably missed that by now. He thinks he has, anyway. He doesn’t know what day it is. It feels like it’s been weeks, months. It feels like he’s always been here, moving between this dark room with its dingy mattress and the brightly lit room next door with its big bed.
Alex shoves him to the side when he comes back and slumps against the other end of the mattress. Kurt moves his hands, but keeps counting, mouthing the words to himself. There’s nothing else to do. He can’t remember how to say ‘one thousand,’ and spends a minute panicking, trying to remember. He knows that he knows what it is. He just can’t remember.
He realizes he’s getting worked up over numbers and takes a deep breath. He can just use ‘thousand.’ It sounds weird mixed with the French words, but it doesn’t really matter since he’s the only one who can hear it.
*
There’s a pattern, kind of. It matches up with when the men bring them food-leftovers and junk food, but Kurt is never hungry anyway. One day they take Alex, and the next day they take Kurt. It might not really be a day, though. Kurt isn’t sure how much time passes in between. He tried asking once and got hit instead of getting an answer, so he doesn’t want to ask the men any more questions.
Alex always seems annoyed when Kurt tries to talk to him, but it’s just the two of them here and the only thing to do in the dark room is wait and sleep. Kurt can’t sleep so he tries to talk to Alex instead.
“Where are you from?” Kurt asks. They’re both lying on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling.
He can feel Alex shrug the shoulder that’s next to Kurt’s. “Does it matter?”
Of course, Kurt thinks. Why wouldn’t it matter? Where you’re from is where home is-this isn’t home, no matter what the ponytailed man says. It’s where your family is, the people who love you, care about you. The people who are looking for you. He’s sure his dad is looking for him
He just says, “Yes,” to Alex.
“Missouri. Misery,” Alex emphasizes, nudging Kurt’s arm. “I don’t think we’re there anymore and it sucked anyway. There’s nothing there but farms. And lakes.”
“It sucks here,” Kurt says. “I’m pretty sure we’re in Nebraska,” he adds.
Alex shrugs again. “What about you? Where’s home?”
“Ohio.”
“Hmm,” Alex says. He doesn’t ask anything else. Kurt tries to think of something else to talk about, not wanting to go back to staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about anything. He asks what happened before Kurt got here, when it was just Alex.
Alex rolls over to face him. “What makes you think it was just me?”
Kurt frowns. “No one else is here.”
“There was another kid here before you,” Alex says.
Kurt has to ask. “What happened to him?”
“He’s dead.”
Alex flops back down onto the mattress. Kurt stares at him. He can just barely see Alex in the dim light coming from the window that’s boarded over. “What happened?” he repeats.
“He pissed them off. Got himself killed.” Alex shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “He didn’t last very long.”
Kurt still trying to decide what to make of that when the bald man opens the door. It’s Kurt’s turn again.
Kurt hadn’t expected to see his Dalton sweater again after the ponytailed man took it the first time, but he comes into the room with it clenched in a fist and tosses it at Kurt. “Put this on.”
Kurt turns it over. The sweater’s been washed but it’s too fuzzy, like it’s been through a washing machine even though it’s supposed to be dry-cleaned. He looks up and the ponytailed man raises his eyebrows at him, a clear ‘what are you waiting for?’ expression. Kurt scrambles to pull the sweater over his head.
“Someone’s gonna recognize that logo,” the bald man points out.
“He’s not going to have it on long enough for anyone to go look up the logo on his sweater. All that matters is that he looks like a Catholic school boy right now.” The ponytailed man turns to smirk at Kurt and reaches out to smooth his bangs down. “Don’t you?”
Kurt stares at the floor and curls his hands into fists until his nails are biting into his palms painfully. He wonders what the other kid did to piss the men off enough to kill him.
The bald man snorts and turns the camera on. “Showtime,” he says.
*
Something changes, and Kurt’s not sure what it is. Everything’s been the same for so long-it’s been awful, but it’s been predictable-and now suddenly it’s not. The bald man drags Kurt out of the dark room twice in a row, breaking the pattern. When he gets back, Alex is pacing back and forth instead of just lying on the mattress like they usually do.
“What’s wrong?” Kurt asks.
“Nothing,” Alex says. “Shut up.”
Kurt pulls his knees towards his chest and rests his head against them, tucking himself into the corner and watching Alex pace. Alex is still agitated when the bald man comes back, hours later or minutes, and heads towards Kurt again, bending down to grab his arm and pull him up.
Alex runs across the room, ramming himself into the bald man and using his momentum to slam them both into the wall. Kurt is caught under them, trying to scramble out of the way as they fight with each other. They’re on the floor now, rolling around. Alex has the upper hand for a bit, adrenaline giving him strength and letting him get a few punches in before the bald man rolls them over, straddling Alex and wrapping his hands around his neck, slamming Alex’s head against the floor again and again and again.
Kurt presses himself back against the wall, trying to be invisible.
The ponytailed man appears in the doorway, staring inside. “What the hell?!” he demands.
“Little fucker just attacked me,” the bald man grunts out, swinging a fist towards Alex’s face.
Alex locks eyes with Kurt, mouthing something at him. The ponytailed man runs back down the hallway, and the bald man is saying something but Kurt can’t hear him, he’s watching Alex. Alex is still looking at Kurt, staring straight at him even as the bald man beats him and finally Kurt can see he’s saying, “Help.”
Kurt can’t help. Kurt can’t even help himself; what is he supposed to do for Alex? Alex brought it on himself. He shouldn’t have attacked the bald man. Why would he do that? The bald man wasn’t even there to take Alex into the other room, he was taking Kurt.
Alex groans as the bald man punches him in the stomach.
Kurt takes a deep breath and pushes himself away from the wall. He runs at the bald man and shoves, knocking him over, off of Alex and onto his side and Kurt starts hitting and kicking out blindly. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s gone crazy.
Maybe he’ll piss them off and they’ll finally kill him.
Alex is already back on his feet, but instead of helping he runs past Kurt and the bald man and out the door, down the hall. Kurt’s distracted by watching him, trying to figure out where he’s going and why he’s leaving Kurt behind and it gives the bald man the opportunity to slam Kurt back onto the floor. Now his hands are around Kurt’s neck, pressing down, choking him. Kurt claws at his hands but it doesn’t do any good and he can’t breathe.
There’s yelling in the other room now, and after slamming Kurt’s head against the floor hard enough to make him see spots, the bald man hauls him to his feet, dragging him into the hallway. One arm is still around Kurt’s neck and the other is wrapped around his chest but Kurt’s too dazed to move anyway.
They get to the living room just in time to see the ponytailed man pointing a gun at Alex. The noise seems to echo around the room, and Kurt jerks in the bald man’s hold, watching as Alex falls against the door and slides down to the floor.
There’s a streak of red blood on the door and there is already blood pooling around him. “Fuck,” the bald man says.
The ponytailed man walks over and turns Alex over onto his back. Alex is gasping up at the ceiling. The ponytailed man presses the gun against Alex’s forehead and pulls the trigger again.
*
They leave Kurt in the living room with Alex while they pack their stuff and drag it out to the two vehicles outside. Kurt huddles on the couch, staring at Alex and the growing stain on the carpet. When the ponytailed man comes toward him, he scrambles backwards over the end of the couch. The ponytailed man growls, stalking after him and twisting his arm as he pulls him along. Kurt trips and falls down the stairs, landing hard on the gravel at the bottom of the stairs. Something in his elbow pops painfully and he cries out, earning himself a kick from the ponytailed man and a “Shut up!”
Kurt clutches his arm to his chest as the ponytailed man shoves him into the backseat of the car again, and watches through the window as they carry the last of their stuff out to the van. They put Alex in the trunk of the car.
The ponytailed man takes off in the van, and the bald man climbs back into the front of the car. As he drives back down the gravel road, he grumbles about being stuck with clean-up duty. Kurt keeps looking out the back window, at the trunk.
They drive along back roads. Half of them are unpaved and when they finally stop they’re completely alone. They really are in the middle of nowhere, Kurt thinks. The ponytailed man and the van went a different direction and Kurt is alone with the bald man and Alex in a field at night.
The bald man makes Kurt help him get Alex out of the trunk and into the ditch. Then he turns back to Kurt, who watches him warily. Kurt doesn’t know what to expect anymore.
“This is a shame, kid,” the bald man says. “I kind of liked you.”
Kurt hesitates for a moment, then turns and runs.
He only gets as far as the front of the car before the bald man has snatched the back of the coat Kurt’s wearing, and swung him sideways into the car. Kurt’s head hits the hood with a bang that reverberates through his skull and then he’s on the ground, underneath the bald man for what feels like the millionth time but this time the man is hitting him too. Kurt squirms, twisting around and digging his nails into the gravel, trying to pull himself away. The man grabs his hips, pulling him back.
Kurt keeps kicking and hitting and biting. This is the last time and he is going to die and he is not going out without a fight. The bald man doesn’t have the gun, but he does have his fists. He slams Kurt against the car again and Kurt can’t see straight anymore. Everything is fuzzy and faded. He tries to crawl away again and only succeeds in getting his leg torn bloody against the gravel.
The bald man grabs his hair and slams his head into the ground again and everything goes away, finally.
*
Kurt’s drifting. He wakes up once, but everything is bright white and there’s just too much so he slips back into sleep.
When he wakes up for real, it’s still bright and there’s still too much of everything, but he can hear Dad talking. The sound keeps him awake, pulls him out from under the fog of sleep until he’s blinking his eyes open and squinting up at a white ceiling. Dad’s holding his hand, and Kurt squeezes back, trying to get his attention.
“Kurt?” Dad leans down over him, brushing a hand over his head. “You’re awake? Oh god, you’re awake.”
Dad squeezes Kurt’s hand back tightly. “Welcome back.” His smile is watery.
Kurt’s not sure where he went, but he tries to smile back anyway.
*
After doctors have rushed around and poked and prodded at him, Kurt’s finally left alone with Dad again.
“They caught both of those guys,” Dad says. It takes Kurt a minute to realize he means the men who kidnapped him.
“Oh,” he says.
“The police stormed in after they shot you.” He frowns, grumbling about how they couldn’t storm in before that. “You don’t have to worry about them anymore,” Dad continues. “Never again, okay?”
Kurt nods, staring down at the blanket. He spreads his hands over it, smoothing out the wrinkles over his lap. “I’m sorry,” he says.
Dad frowns. “For what? You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“Yes I-“ Kurt clenches his hands into fists until his nails dig into his palms. “I’m sorry I went with them. I didn’t want to,” he tries to explain. He reaches up, wiping at his nose and sniffling a bit.
“You… Kurt, I saw that tape. They grabbed you and forced you inside the van. You don’t have to apologize for anything.” Dad reaches over to take hold of Kurt’s fists in his hands, trying to get him to loosen them. “It’s alright,” he says.
“He had a gun,” Kurt continues, sniffling again. “And he said he was going to kill me if I didn’t do what he said so I did but then he killed Alex when he tried to run away and he made me help and then he tried to kill me anyway and-“
Kurt’s jumble of words is muffled against Dad’s shoulder as he starts crying. He doesn’t think he’s cried since that night spent huddled in the bathtub of the motel room but now he is sobbing. He can’t stop. There’s a stabbing pain in his stomach where he was shot but he doesn’t want to move. Dad’s arms are warm and solid and safe around him and Kurt just wants to sit here forever.
Dad rubs his back gently, shushing him. “It’s okay, you’re okay now. It’s over now.”
When Kurt finally can’t cry anymore and is just resting, his cheek pressed against Dad’s shoulder, Dad asks, “Do you remember what happened now?”
Kurt nods. He wishes he didn’t.
* * *
Notes: So, this fic happened. I still don't quite know how. I started writing it at about 6am on February 13th and finished it on the 28th. So, two weeks. 18 thousand words. I've never written so much before. It was interesting to write too, because it was essentially written backwards. I wrote almost all of the recovery first, and then went back and wrote the kidnapping, and then connected the two together.
And because this consumed all of my free time for two weeks, so did the playlist that went with it. (I almost always have playlists to go along with what I write.) I'm not sure anyone is actually interested in this, but I always think it's neat when other people post them, so here you go. Some of them probably make more sense than others.
1. Knife Going In - Tegan and Sara
I feel the knife going in, I'm feeling anxious.
Not enough to kill me, I thought it'd happen fast.
2. How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead
I'm not here, this isn't happening.
I'm not here, I'm not here.
3. Timebomb - Old 97s
I got a timebomb, in my mind Mom.
It's gonna go off, but I don't know when.
4. You Don't Know (Reprise) - Next To Normal
My mind is still a mess, and what’s left to be remembered well, it’s anybody’s guess.
‘Cause my past is like the weather it will come and it will go.
5. It's Warmer in the Basement - Cobra Starship
Open up your eyes I want to watch you cry.
Come on, come on, the camera's on.
6. Letters From the Sky - Civil Twilight
One day soon I'll hold you like the sun holds the moon,
And we will hear those planes overhead and we won't have to be scared.
7. Me and a Gun - Tori Amos
It's kind of funny things you think at times like these,
Like I haven't seen Barbados so I must get out of this.
8. Amnesia - Britney Spears
I forgot my name, I forgot my telephone number.
If he wanna see me, he don't even know it.
9. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics
Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas, everybody's looking for something.
10. Set the Fire to the Third Bar - Snow Patrol
I find the map and draw a straight line over rivers, farms, and state lines.
The distance from 'A' to where you'd be, it's only finger-lengths that I see
Download All
Part 1
By the time the van finally stops, Finn has recovered from running into the door enough to sit up next to Kurt. The bald man has moved to the front of the van, and the boys are both leaning against the back, trying not to fall over each time it accelerates or turns.
The ponytailed man says, “Go get us a room.”
“Why do I have to?” the bald man asks.
“Because your picture isn’t all over the evening news,” the ponytailed man spits out, banging a fist against the steering wheel.
“We should just dump them already,” the bald man mutters, climbing out of the van.
“Yeah, that worked so well last time.”
It’s quiet while they wait for the bald man to come back. He waves a key in front of the window and says, “Already checked; nearest neighbors are three rooms down.”
The ponytailed man turns around and climbs into the back, reaching for Kurt’s ankle. He tries to move, but there’s nowhere to go in the back of the van.
“Hey!” Finn protests, as the man gets ahold of Kurt and drags him forward. He opens the side door and keeps pulling until he’s got Kurt outside and on his feet.
Finn tries to follow them outside, but the bald man is standing there with a gun. He points it at Finn, forcing him back into the van and slamming the door shut again. There’s a bang as Finn pounds against the door, trying to get out.
The ponytailed man answers back by slamming Kurt against the side of the van. He cries out, hitting at the arms gripping his firmly. The ponytailed man ignores his struggles and leans down to look Kurt in the eye as he says, “You really are more trouble than you’re worth, aren’t you? I thought you were dead.”
Kurt shivers, falling still as he stares back at the man.
The ponytailed man pulls back and shoves him toward the bald man. “Get him inside.”
The gun that the bald man is holding jabs into his back as Kurt is dragged toward the building and inside a room. The bald man forces him to sit down on one of beds and then steps back, looking at him for a minute. Then he pulls back a fist and swings it, hard, into Kurt’s cheek. Kurt falls backwards onto the bed.
“You should have just stayed fucking dead,” the bald man tells him.
The ponytailed man pushes Finn inside the room then, shoving him towards the bed that Kurt’s sitting on. Finn’s standing back up a second later, demanding to know where they are and what’s going on.
“It doesn’t matter where we are,” the ponytailed man tells him. “Sit down and shut up.”
Finn doesn’t sit down. “No. You can’t just-“
The bald man stalks over and pushes the gun into Finn’s shoulder, pushing him back. “We can do whatever we want, boy, and you’re going to start listening. Or I’ve got no problem decorating the walls in here with your brains.”
The ponytailed man has turned the television on and is flipping through the channels. “Shit,” he says. “Shit shit shit.”
“What?” the bald man asks.
“There were fucking cameras in that parking lot.” The ponytailed man gestures to the screen where a grainy, far away picture of Kurt and Finn being forced into the van is being shown.
The bald man stares at the screen, the hand holding the gun falling limply to his side. “What are we gonna do?”
The screen goes back to a newscaster, and now Kurt and Finn’s school pictures are in the corner, along with a partial license plate for the van.
The ponytailed man changes the channel. The same information is running in a ticker along the bottom of the screen. He throws the remote at the television and it bounces off with a clang. Then he spins around and practically jumps towards the other bed, hands going for Kurt’s neck. Kurt claws at him, trying to get away, and is vaguely aware of Finn trying to pull the man off of him.
The ponytailed man keep choking him until he starts seeing spots, until his struggles are barely that, and then he lets go. Kurt gasps, drawing in a deep breath that hurts. The ponytailed man pulls Kurt up and drags him across the room, tossing him onto the hard floor of the bathroom. Finn stumbles inside after him and the door slams shut. Finn tries to open it again, but there’s a thud as something is jammed against it.
Kurt’s still gasping, still trying to catch his breath. He curls into a ball on the floor, trying to remind himself to exhale as well.
Finn rubs his back tentatively, asking, “Are you okay?”
Kurt shakes his head no.
“Sorry,” Finn says. “That was a dumb question.”
Once Kurt’s caught his breath and examined the red marks on his throat in the mirror, they sit on the floor, backs against the wall and shoulders touching.
Finn asks, “Are those the same guys who kidnapped you before?”
“I don’t know,” Kurt says. Rasps, really; his voice is extremely hoarse.
“You still don’t remember?”
“No.” Kurt kind of wishes he did, right now. At least that way he’d know who these men were, what they wanted. He’d know what to expect from them.
*
The men are yelling at each other in the other room, but Kurt can’t make out what they’re saying. At least, for the moment, they seem to be mad at each other and not at them.
They’ve been in the bathroom for a long time. Finn’s restless and keeps moving around. He stretches his legs out, crosses them, stretches again. Then he stands up, pacing the small area as much as he can before sitting back down and starting over. He’s driving Kurt nuts.
After what seems like forever, and after the men in the other room have gotten quiet, Finn thinks he hears sirens outside. But Kurt doesn’t hear anything. “Maybe it’s the police,” Finn says hopefully. “They’ll do one of those hostage negations.”
“Negotiations,” Kurt corrects. He doesn’t mention that at this motel the police could be here for any number of reasons that don’t involve rescuing the two of them. He wants to hope too.
Finn nudges him and says, “See,” with a grin when the phone in the other room starts ringing. It rings and rings and rings and the men start yelling at each other again.
Finn decides he needs something to fight back with. He’s on his hands and knees, digging through the cabinets, while Kurt leans back against the tub and watches him. Finn sits up, brandishing a plunger.
Kurt raises an eyebrow. “I don’t think they’ll be scared of a plunger.”
“It’s kind of like a bat,” Finn argues, swinging it a bit.
The only other things in the bathroom are towels and Dixie cups, so the plunger is really their only option. They both get to their feet when there’s banging against the door-whatever was shoved against it is being moved. Finn raises the plunger over his head and swings it down, hard, as soon as the door opens, catching the bald man in the side of the head.
The bald man falls against the sink and Finn swings again, hitting him in the back. The ponytailed man is there as well, and he jumps at Finn, tackling him backwards into the bathroom. They fall on top of Kurt and all of four of them are a tangle of limbs, kicking and fighting, on the bathroom floor. Kurt crawls out from under them and starts trying to pull the ponytailed man off of Finn. The ponytailed man is on top of him and he’s got ahold of the plunger now, hitting Finn over the head with it. He swings an elbow back and hits Kurt in the stomach. Kurt trips over the lip of the bathtub and falls, flailing out to try and catch himself on the shower curtain but only succeeding in getting himself tangled up in it.
Kurt has just gotten back on his feet when the bald man appears in the doorway. Kurt hadn’t even noticed that he was missing. He’s got the gun again and the next moment seems to take forever even though Kurt knows that it doesn’t. Finn’s still on the floor fighting with the ponytailed man and the bald man is raising the gun, aiming at Kurt, and pulling the trigger.
Kurt jerks at the noise, more than anything. The noise echoes around the small, tile room for the longest time and then Kurt falls forward. The ponytailed man scrambles up, yelling. Kurt’s vaguely aware of Finn crouching over him, turning him over onto his back and saying, “oh god oh god oh god oh god,” but mostly he’s just aware of how much it hurts.
There’s a lot of noise. It’s really loud in the motel room now. Kurt turns his head to the side, and all he can see is the floor, dirt caked between the tiles, and the old wallpaper that’s wrinkled and peeling from years of humidity. And then it's the same bathroom, the same tile and the peeling wallpaper but it's different and he's been here before. He's had jamais vu for weeks now and this is the first time something has felt familiar.
Kurt closes his eyes.
*
Kurt doesn’t see it coming. He’s taking a shortcut back to the dorms after a late Warblers’ rehearsal; the path runs right next to the wooded edge of the park that butts up against Dalton’s property. There’s a fence, but it’s just a small, chain-link thing that most of the boys climb right over when they decide they’d rather go use the park’s basketball court. He’s by himself because he’s an idiot that forgot his bag, and he’d waved Blaine and Wes off when they’d offered to walk back with him.
It’s actually kind of nice to be by himself for once, with just a breeze rustling the branches of the trees along the path and the lamps casting long shadows. He’s always surrounded by other people here at school-even the showers are communal-and the house feels full of people when he goes home now. Home has gotten a bit better since they moved so he and Finn don’t have to share a room anymore. It’s nice to have a space to himself.
Anyway, he’s preoccupied, running through all the random things he still needs to get done that evening before he goes to bed and just not paying attention in general, so he doesn’t notice that he’s not alone until he is really not alone. He doesn’t notice the people walking behind him until they’re practically on top of him, and by then it’s too late. There’s an arm around his torso, trapping his arms against his sides, and another hand covering his mouth before he’s even opened it to scream.
Kurt’s lifted off his feet and he starts kicking immediately, flailing desperately. He manages to kick his assailant in the shin, hard, and they drop him back down, adjusting their hold. The hand over his mouth is covering his nose too and Kurt’s having a hard time breathing.
“A little help here,” the man holding him grunts out.
Which is when Kurt realizes that during his struggle against the man he’s been dragged off the path and over to the fence. He redoubles his efforts to twist out of the man’s hold, but the grip is unyielding. Kurt’s arms are immobilized to the elbow and while he’s pretty sure he’s kicked hard enough to turn the man’s legs purple by now, it doesn’t seem to be doing any good. He bites down on the hand over his mouth as hard as he can, tasting blood as he does.
“Fuck fuck fuck,” the man curses, yanking his hand away from Kurt’s mouth. Kurt draws in a breath to scream.
He doesn’t get much of a scream out before there’s a second man in front of him, who swings his hand forward, and then there’s just pain. Before he’s even surfaced out from under it enough to figure out what just happened the second man is resting the barrel of a gun against his forehead. “Shut up before I kill you right here.”
Kurt’s frozen. He can’t actually see the gun that well, but he can see the man’s blue eyes boring into his, unblinking. “Not another word, got it?” the man says.
The barrel of the gun presses against his forehead a bit harder. Kurt nods frantically.
They make him climb over the fence and then he’s being dragged through the park. He keeps hoping they’ll run into someone, anyone, but it’s late and dark and it’s still March, so the park is completely abandoned. Once they’re out of the trees he sees the car they’re headed towards. Oh no. No no no. If he gets in that car who knows where they’ll take him? He’s already too far away from help now.
One of the men opens the trunk of the car. Kurt starts pleading.
He gets clocked in the head with butt of the gun again and everything gets fuzzy. He’s vaguely aware of being lifted off his feet again, then the lid of the trunk is closing over the top of him and everything is pitch black.
*
It’s still dark when Kurt wakes up, but now it’s also hot and noisy. Incredibly noisy. He tries to turn over, but the trunk is too small and he’s curled up into an awkward position. There’s something poking him in the back and he tries to twist away from it. He’s sweating through the layers of his dress shirt and sweater and his tie feels like it’s choking him. He feels like he can’t breathe. There’s not enough oxygen in the trunk and what little is there is too hot and stale. His chest is tight and each breath is faster, shallower, and hurts more than the last.
He needs to calm down. He needs to stop panicking. But if ever there were a time to panic it’s when he’s been kidnapped by two strange men at gunpoint and stuffed into a trunk. Oh god. Breathe. Breathe. In and out. In. Out.
He’s so focused on trying to convince himself that there is enough air in the trunk, that he is not going to suffocate and die, that he doesn’t notice the changes in speed and direction that the car is making until they nearly stop moving. There’s a sharp turn that rolls him abruptly toward the back of the trunk, and then another in the opposite direction. Kurt has no way to brace himself and no way to tell when another turn is coming.
The car finally stops. He can both hear and feel the doors opening and closing, and then everything’s quiet. He stares at the top of the trunk, expecting it to open at any moment, bracing himself.
He needs to plan. When it opens, he’ll jump up and run. It doesn’t matter what direction he goes, as long as it’s away from the men with the gun. He doesn’t know where they’re stopped at, but maybe it’s near a highway or something-he’s pretty sure they were on the highway earlier-and he can just run and find the highway and then someone will stop and he can call the police and everything will be okay. He shifts around, trying to get into a position that will be the most effective for leaping from the trunk of a car. His right leg is pins and needles from the awkward position he’s been forced into, but he can probably still run. He has to run. He doesn’t have any other options.
Every muscle is tensed and his eyes are wide open, staring up into the pitch blackness as he waits. He doesn’t know when, or even how, he drifts off, but he must at some point because he wakes up when one of the men opens the trunk and reaches inside to haul him out. He’s not prepared anymore. He fell asleep and he doesn’t know how long he spent waiting for them to come back and now he’s disoriented. His leg is even more asleep now, it’s just that dead weight kind of asleep and his ankle turns under him when the man sets him on his feet.
He has the gun again and jabs it into Kurt’s side. “Let’s go,” he says, dragging Kurt across the lot.
They’re at a motel. Kurt doesn’t know what time it is, but the parking lot is empty and lit only by the neon ‘Vacancy’ sign and a streetlight at the other end of the lot, near the office. There are a few other cars, but most of them are parked down there.
Kurt has a feeling screaming isn’t going to do any good. There isn’t anyone around to hear him.
The other man opens the door to the motel room. Once they’re inside, Kurt is pushed into a chair. He stares at the door, but the other man is in the process of locking it. First the handle, then the chain.
It’s the first time Kurt’s gotten a good look at the men. The first one, the one who grabbed him at school and the one who pulled him out of trunk just now, is tall and thin, with dark blond hair slicked back into a ponytail. He sits down on the end of one of the beds, across from Kurt, watching him.
“What’s your name?” the ponytailed man asks.
Kurt doesn’t answer. He breathes in and out shakily, and tries to stop himself from trembling. His knuckles are white around the arms of the chair.
The second man, who’s tall and bald, steps away from the door and reaches out, smacking Kurt upside the head. “What’s your name?”
“Kurt,” he says, eyes darting between them.
The ponytailed man just stares at him for what feels like ages, then he smiles. “Kurt,” he repeats.
Kurt feels like he did in the trunk, like he can’t breathe. He can hear how shaky his next breath is.
The bald man leans over the dresser and twitches the curtain open to peek outside, then moves toward the door. “I’m starving. You want anything?”
The ponytailed man shakes his head and stays on the bed, never taking his eyes off Kurt.
Kurt looks around the room at anything but the man across from him. There’s a picture of a watercolor fall landscape on the wall above the bed. The red and orange colors clash with the green bedspread.
“Come here,” the ponytailed man says. Kurt makes eye contact with him for a moment, then glances at the door quickly. The bald man left the chain lock hanging open when he left. Kurt would only have to get the lock on the handle open to get out of the room, and then he’d be outside and he could run to the office. There must be someone in the office. There will be a phone in the office. He can call the police.
Kurt looks back at the ponytailed man. He’s still watching Kurt, still smiling, and it makes Kurt’s skin crawl. He doesn’t know where the gun went, but the man isn’t holding it anymore.
Kurt runs for the door. He’s fumbling with the handle, fingers that are shaky with adrenaline and fear trying to turn the lock, when the ponytailed man grabs him around the waist and hurls him away. Kurt yells as he hits the dresser hard and falls to the floor. He scrambles back to his feet, moving backwards, putting the dresser between him and the man.
It was a mistake. He’s backed himself into a corner now, the dresser on one side, a bed on the other, and a wall at his back. He keeps moving backwards anyway, until he can’t anymore. There’s nowhere to go.
He bangs against the wall behind him frantically, shouting for help.
“There’s no one there,” the man says.
He’s holding the gun again, but he’s not pointing it at Kurt. He wields it like a club, and hits Kurt in the side of the head again. Kurt falls against the wall and would’ve crumpled to the floor, but the man grabs his arm, holding him up, and hits him again. Kurt can feel the blood trickling down the side of his face. The room spins sickeningly as the man tosses him towards the bed. Kurt tries to get back up, but the man pushes him down again and starts pulling at his clothes. He pushes the gun up under Kurt’s chin when he tries to push the man away again.
“You’re almost more trouble than you’re worth, Kurt,” the man says. “You can either cooperate, or I can put this bullet through your brain. Do we understand each other?”
Kurt stares up at him. The man isn’t smiling at him anymore, but his expression still makes Kurt’s skin crawl. Kurt tries pleading again.
It doesn’t work this time, either.
Afterwards the man drags him into the bathroom and locks him inside. It’s probably a good thing he’s locked in the bathroom, because Kurt spends a long time hunched over the toilet, puking. Then he curls up on the floor and stares at the wall. There’s dirt caked in between the tiles and the one under his cheek is cracked. The wallpaper is peeling at the bottom, curling up away from where it meets the baseboard. He traces the pattern with his eyes. It’s some kind of swirl, lines looping together and never ending until they hit a new sheet of paper that doesn’t line up.
He lost track of time back when they first locked him in the trunk, so he doesn’t know how long it’s been before the other man comes back. He can hear the door in the other room slamming shut and muffled voices.
Maybe they’ll forget about him and leave him here in the bathroom if he’s quiet. Someone will come to clean the room eventually and find him, won’t they? He’ll be okay in the bathroom until someone finds him. He’s got a toilet and a shower and a sink with water to drink. There are even little cups on the counter.
That fantasy shatters as soon as the bathroom door opens. The bald man looms over him, raising an eyebrow when Kurt doesn’t try and move. Moving hurts.
The bald man leans down and grabs his arm, hauling him up. “Time to go, pretty boy.”
Kurt stumbles as soon as he’s on his feet. The man frowns, turning the faucet on and grabbing a towel, swiping at Kurt’s face roughly. Kurt jerks back and the man reaches for his chin to hold him in place. The white towel has streaks of blood on it when the man pulls it away, and Kurt glances at himself in the mirror, out of the corner of his eye. The gash on his head is hidden by his hair, but it’s matted with blood and his skin is still stained red.
The man must decide he’s cleaned up enough, because then he’s shrugging off his coat and forcing Kurt into it. It smells gross, like sweat, but the man buttons up the front of it before grabbing Kurt’s arm again and dragging him out of the bathroom. It’s only the man’s tight grip on his arm that’s keeping him upright as he’s pulled outside to the waiting car. The ponytailed man is sitting in the driver’s seat. This time Kurt is shoved into the backseat, instead of the trunk. The bald man slides in next to him.
It’s early, the sky is just starting to lighten in the east, and Kurt watches road signs as they drive. They’re not on the interstate, so it takes him awhile to figure out that the towns listed on the signs are in Illinois. He’s not even in Ohio anymore. He is two states away. Oh god.
*
They drive all day. The ponytailed man and the bald man swap places occasionally and listen to classic rock stations. When they stop for gas, the ponytailed man goes inside to get the key to the bathroom and then goes in with Kurt. There are other people at the gas station, but the ponytailed man is right there, his hand is on Kurt’s arm the whole time they’re there and Kurt can’t even swallow, much less speak. A woman pumping gas next to them looks over at Kurt and smiles slightly at him. Kurt stares back at her, wide eyed, until the ponytailed man forces him back inside the car.
They’re not driving through any cities, Kurt notices. There’s nothing but farm fields outside the window and tiny towns they have to slow down to drive through. He falls asleep again after they get to Missouri and when he wakes up the signs are for how many miles to Omaha.
The ponytailed man stretches in the front seat. “We’re gonna have to stop again,” he says.
There’s another motel, this one even cheaper and more deserted than the last. The curtains inside are heavy and gold and go all the way to floor. Kurt stares at them while the bald man lies on top of him.
They lock him in the bathroom again, but give him a pillow this time. Kurt curls up in the bathtub. It’s uncomfortable, but he can’t sleep anyway. One of the men is snoring loudly.
Kurt pulls the pillow up around his face, until he can barely breathe, and cries.
*
It’s still dark when they leave this time and Kurt’s pretty sure they’re in Nebraska now. When they finally turn off the highway, he’s expecting another motel. Instead, they drive through a town, past small houses and antique stores and a couple fast food places. The houses start getting further apart until finally they’re turning down a gravel road. Kurt clings to the edge of the seat, trying not to bounce around too much.
They’re going to kill him, Kurt thinks. They’re finally going to kill him. He’s being driven out to the middle of nowhere in Nebraska so that he can be murdered and no one will ever find his body except for cows. He hopes that’s all they’ll do.
The ponytailed man parks the car next to a big van and then pulls Kurt out of the backseat and up the steps to the door of a trailer. Kurt doesn’t get much of a chance to look around, but everything around them is dark anyway. There aren’t any lights, not even far off in the distance. Which must mean there aren’t any neighbors.
Kurt tries to find his voice. “Where are we?” he asks.
“Home,” the ponytailed man says, flicking on the light.
Home is a cluttered living room. There’s a big desk with a computer and a bunch of equipment on the other side of the room.
Kurt tries again. “We’re in Nebraska?” he asks. He’s pretty sure they’re in Nebraska, even though he’s never been there before and has no idea what Nebraska looks like. “Where in Nebraska?”
The ponytailed man squeezes his arm tightly and swings his other hand down, backhanding Kurt across the face. “It doesn’t really matter to you, does it? Stop talking.”
He starts dragging Kurt along behind him and digs a key out of his pocket to unlock a door at the end of the hallway. Kurt’s beginning to think that they aren’t going to kill him after all. They’re just going to keep him locked up here, forever. But now there’s no chance of a maid or someone at a gas station figuring it out and rescuing him. Now he’s in a trailer in the middle of nowhere with two psychopaths and if that isn’t every cliché from every horror movie ever he doesn’t know what is.
Once the door’s open the ponytailed man shoves Kurt inside. Kurt hasn’t even gotten back to his feet before the door slams closed and the locks clicks again. He rattles the handle anyway, and is answered with the bang of a fist being slammed against the wood. “Shut up!” the man yells.
Kurt lets go of the handle, stumbling away from the door. The room is so dark he’s seeing things, leftover patterns of light on his retinas. He reaches a hand out and tries to find a wall but hits something with his legs first and falls forward.
It turns out to be a mattress, and there’s already someone else sitting on it. Hands shove at Kurt and he yells, shoving back and striking out blindly. The person he landed on lets out an “oof” as Kurt connects a fist to what he thinks is their stomach. Then they shove him backwards and he hits the wall he was trying to find earlier with his head and another yell.
“Shut up,” whoever he’s fighting with hisses. “Fuck.”
There are footsteps in the hallway, and then the lock is rattling and the door’s swinging open. The ponytailed man is just a silhouette in the doorway, but the light spilling in from the hallway gives Kurt a look at the other person in the room.
It’s another teenage boy, and he’s in even worse shape than Kurt is (and Kurt’s been wearing the same blood-covered sweater and smelly coat for probably two days now, so that’s saying something).
The ponytailed man slams a fist against the wall, and both Kurt and the other boy startle at the noise. “What part of shut the fuck up don’t you two understand?”
Kurt stares back at him. The man seems to be waiting for an answer, but Kurt’s pretty sure anything he said would just result in the man hitting him again.
“Sorry,” the other boy says. “Sorry. We’re sorry.”
There’s a yell from somewhere else in the house, probably the bald man, and the ponytailed man says, “If I have to come tell you to shut up again you’re both gonna regret it,” before he slams the door shut again and plunges the room back into darkness. The lock rattles again and then he stomps back down the hallway. Kurt lets out the breath he was holding.
“What the hell did you scream for?” the boy asks. His voice is angry, but it’s no louder than a whisper. Kurt can’t see him anymore, but at least he knows where he is now. He crawls forward, feeling for the mattress this time, and sits down on it.
“I didn’t know you were there,” Kurt explains.
“Well, I am.”
“Sorry.” Kurt leans back against the wall, shifting a bit to try and sit comfortably. “What’s your name?” he asks.
The boy’s quiet for a minute, before he finally says, “Alex. Yours?”
“Kurt.” He closes his eyes for minute, hoping it will help them adjust to the darkness. He still can’t see his hand in front of his face when he opens them again. “What…” Kurt starts to ask, but then he realizes he’s not sure how to phrase the question. He wants to know what happened to Alex-if it’s the same as what happened to him, so that maybe he’ll know what’s going to happen next-but he also knows that he doesn’t want to tell anyone about what happened at the motels, so it’s not really fair to ask someone else. “Do you know where we are?” he asks instead.
“Disneyland,” Alex mutters. “It doesn’t matter, there’s no way out.”
“It’s a house. There’s a front door.”
“Good luck getting to it.”
*
The bald man is the one who opens the door next, and he fists a hand in Kurt’s hair to pull him to his feet. Kurt tilts his head back, trying to relieve the pressure on his scalp as the bald man walks him to the door and shoves him into the hallway. He waits, looking around and blinking in the light as the bald man locks the door again. Then there’s a hand on his back, pushing him towards another room.
It’s empty except for a bed against one wall and a tripod with a camera across from it. Kurt stares at the camera, his stomach clenching painfully. The ponytailed man is standing behind it, adjusting something. The bald man pushes Kurt down to sit on the bed.
He wants to ask what’s going on, but he also doesn’t to know. He wants to be somewhere else. He wants to be back in the dark room with Alex. He wants to be back in Ohio.
The ponytailed man looks at him over the top of the camera. “So Kurt, here’s how this works. We’re business men. We’re part of the entertainment industry.” He’s very matter of fact. He smiles at Kurt. “You just happen to be that entertainment.”
Kurt tries to swallow, and it feels like his throat is too small.
“This first time’ll be easy,” he promises.
It’s not.
*
He realizes later, when the bald man drags Alex out of the room for a while, that the walls of this place are paper thin and he can hear everything that’s happening the next room. Kurt curls up on the mattress, faces the wall, and presses his hands over his ears as hard as he can. He can hear his blood roaring in his ears with each heartbeat. Every breath he takes sounds impossibly loud.
He can’t see anything in the dark, so he starts counting. He gets to one hundred too fast and it’s too easy, he doesn’t have to think about it and his mind starts to wander so he switches to French. He has to concentrate to remember whether it’s vingt-et-un or just vingt-un. Vingt-et-un, he decides, remembering that the et isn’t dropped until you get to quarte-vingt-un and he isn’t there yet.
He was supposed to give a presentation in French on Monday, and he’s probably missed that by now. He thinks he has, anyway. He doesn’t know what day it is. It feels like it’s been weeks, months. It feels like he’s always been here, moving between this dark room with its dingy mattress and the brightly lit room next door with its big bed.
Alex shoves him to the side when he comes back and slumps against the other end of the mattress. Kurt moves his hands, but keeps counting, mouthing the words to himself. There’s nothing else to do. He can’t remember how to say ‘one thousand,’ and spends a minute panicking, trying to remember. He knows that he knows what it is. He just can’t remember.
He realizes he’s getting worked up over numbers and takes a deep breath. He can just use ‘thousand.’ It sounds weird mixed with the French words, but it doesn’t really matter since he’s the only one who can hear it.
*
There’s a pattern, kind of. It matches up with when the men bring them food-leftovers and junk food, but Kurt is never hungry anyway. One day they take Alex, and the next day they take Kurt. It might not really be a day, though. Kurt isn’t sure how much time passes in between. He tried asking once and got hit instead of getting an answer, so he doesn’t want to ask the men any more questions.
Alex always seems annoyed when Kurt tries to talk to him, but it’s just the two of them here and the only thing to do in the dark room is wait and sleep. Kurt can’t sleep so he tries to talk to Alex instead.
“Where are you from?” Kurt asks. They’re both lying on the mattress, staring up at the ceiling.
He can feel Alex shrug the shoulder that’s next to Kurt’s. “Does it matter?”
Of course, Kurt thinks. Why wouldn’t it matter? Where you’re from is where home is-this isn’t home, no matter what the ponytailed man says. It’s where your family is, the people who love you, care about you. The people who are looking for you. He’s sure his dad is looking for him
He just says, “Yes,” to Alex.
“Missouri. Misery,” Alex emphasizes, nudging Kurt’s arm. “I don’t think we’re there anymore and it sucked anyway. There’s nothing there but farms. And lakes.”
“It sucks here,” Kurt says. “I’m pretty sure we’re in Nebraska,” he adds.
Alex shrugs again. “What about you? Where’s home?”
“Ohio.”
“Hmm,” Alex says. He doesn’t ask anything else. Kurt tries to think of something else to talk about, not wanting to go back to staring at the ceiling and trying not to think about anything. He asks what happened before Kurt got here, when it was just Alex.
Alex rolls over to face him. “What makes you think it was just me?”
Kurt frowns. “No one else is here.”
“There was another kid here before you,” Alex says.
Kurt has to ask. “What happened to him?”
“He’s dead.”
Alex flops back down onto the mattress. Kurt stares at him. He can just barely see Alex in the dim light coming from the window that’s boarded over. “What happened?” he repeats.
“He pissed them off. Got himself killed.” Alex shrugs, like it’s no big deal. “He didn’t last very long.”
Kurt still trying to decide what to make of that when the bald man opens the door. It’s Kurt’s turn again.
Kurt hadn’t expected to see his Dalton sweater again after the ponytailed man took it the first time, but he comes into the room with it clenched in a fist and tosses it at Kurt. “Put this on.”
Kurt turns it over. The sweater’s been washed but it’s too fuzzy, like it’s been through a washing machine even though it’s supposed to be dry-cleaned. He looks up and the ponytailed man raises his eyebrows at him, a clear ‘what are you waiting for?’ expression. Kurt scrambles to pull the sweater over his head.
“Someone’s gonna recognize that logo,” the bald man points out.
“He’s not going to have it on long enough for anyone to go look up the logo on his sweater. All that matters is that he looks like a Catholic school boy right now.” The ponytailed man turns to smirk at Kurt and reaches out to smooth his bangs down. “Don’t you?”
Kurt stares at the floor and curls his hands into fists until his nails are biting into his palms painfully. He wonders what the other kid did to piss the men off enough to kill him.
The bald man snorts and turns the camera on. “Showtime,” he says.
*
Something changes, and Kurt’s not sure what it is. Everything’s been the same for so long-it’s been awful, but it’s been predictable-and now suddenly it’s not. The bald man drags Kurt out of the dark room twice in a row, breaking the pattern. When he gets back, Alex is pacing back and forth instead of just lying on the mattress like they usually do.
“What’s wrong?” Kurt asks.
“Nothing,” Alex says. “Shut up.”
Kurt pulls his knees towards his chest and rests his head against them, tucking himself into the corner and watching Alex pace. Alex is still agitated when the bald man comes back, hours later or minutes, and heads towards Kurt again, bending down to grab his arm and pull him up.
Alex runs across the room, ramming himself into the bald man and using his momentum to slam them both into the wall. Kurt is caught under them, trying to scramble out of the way as they fight with each other. They’re on the floor now, rolling around. Alex has the upper hand for a bit, adrenaline giving him strength and letting him get a few punches in before the bald man rolls them over, straddling Alex and wrapping his hands around his neck, slamming Alex’s head against the floor again and again and again.
Kurt presses himself back against the wall, trying to be invisible.
The ponytailed man appears in the doorway, staring inside. “What the hell?!” he demands.
“Little fucker just attacked me,” the bald man grunts out, swinging a fist towards Alex’s face.
Alex locks eyes with Kurt, mouthing something at him. The ponytailed man runs back down the hallway, and the bald man is saying something but Kurt can’t hear him, he’s watching Alex. Alex is still looking at Kurt, staring straight at him even as the bald man beats him and finally Kurt can see he’s saying, “Help.”
Kurt can’t help. Kurt can’t even help himself; what is he supposed to do for Alex? Alex brought it on himself. He shouldn’t have attacked the bald man. Why would he do that? The bald man wasn’t even there to take Alex into the other room, he was taking Kurt.
Alex groans as the bald man punches him in the stomach.
Kurt takes a deep breath and pushes himself away from the wall. He runs at the bald man and shoves, knocking him over, off of Alex and onto his side and Kurt starts hitting and kicking out blindly. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s gone crazy.
Maybe he’ll piss them off and they’ll finally kill him.
Alex is already back on his feet, but instead of helping he runs past Kurt and the bald man and out the door, down the hall. Kurt’s distracted by watching him, trying to figure out where he’s going and why he’s leaving Kurt behind and it gives the bald man the opportunity to slam Kurt back onto the floor. Now his hands are around Kurt’s neck, pressing down, choking him. Kurt claws at his hands but it doesn’t do any good and he can’t breathe.
There’s yelling in the other room now, and after slamming Kurt’s head against the floor hard enough to make him see spots, the bald man hauls him to his feet, dragging him into the hallway. One arm is still around Kurt’s neck and the other is wrapped around his chest but Kurt’s too dazed to move anyway.
They get to the living room just in time to see the ponytailed man pointing a gun at Alex. The noise seems to echo around the room, and Kurt jerks in the bald man’s hold, watching as Alex falls against the door and slides down to the floor.
There’s a streak of red blood on the door and there is already blood pooling around him. “Fuck,” the bald man says.
The ponytailed man walks over and turns Alex over onto his back. Alex is gasping up at the ceiling. The ponytailed man presses the gun against Alex’s forehead and pulls the trigger again.
*
They leave Kurt in the living room with Alex while they pack their stuff and drag it out to the two vehicles outside. Kurt huddles on the couch, staring at Alex and the growing stain on the carpet. When the ponytailed man comes toward him, he scrambles backwards over the end of the couch. The ponytailed man growls, stalking after him and twisting his arm as he pulls him along. Kurt trips and falls down the stairs, landing hard on the gravel at the bottom of the stairs. Something in his elbow pops painfully and he cries out, earning himself a kick from the ponytailed man and a “Shut up!”
Kurt clutches his arm to his chest as the ponytailed man shoves him into the backseat of the car again, and watches through the window as they carry the last of their stuff out to the van. They put Alex in the trunk of the car.
The ponytailed man takes off in the van, and the bald man climbs back into the front of the car. As he drives back down the gravel road, he grumbles about being stuck with clean-up duty. Kurt keeps looking out the back window, at the trunk.
They drive along back roads. Half of them are unpaved and when they finally stop they’re completely alone. They really are in the middle of nowhere, Kurt thinks. The ponytailed man and the van went a different direction and Kurt is alone with the bald man and Alex in a field at night.
The bald man makes Kurt help him get Alex out of the trunk and into the ditch. Then he turns back to Kurt, who watches him warily. Kurt doesn’t know what to expect anymore.
“This is a shame, kid,” the bald man says. “I kind of liked you.”
Kurt hesitates for a moment, then turns and runs.
He only gets as far as the front of the car before the bald man has snatched the back of the coat Kurt’s wearing, and swung him sideways into the car. Kurt’s head hits the hood with a bang that reverberates through his skull and then he’s on the ground, underneath the bald man for what feels like the millionth time but this time the man is hitting him too. Kurt squirms, twisting around and digging his nails into the gravel, trying to pull himself away. The man grabs his hips, pulling him back.
Kurt keeps kicking and hitting and biting. This is the last time and he is going to die and he is not going out without a fight. The bald man doesn’t have the gun, but he does have his fists. He slams Kurt against the car again and Kurt can’t see straight anymore. Everything is fuzzy and faded. He tries to crawl away again and only succeeds in getting his leg torn bloody against the gravel.
The bald man grabs his hair and slams his head into the ground again and everything goes away, finally.
*
Kurt’s drifting. He wakes up once, but everything is bright white and there’s just too much so he slips back into sleep.
When he wakes up for real, it’s still bright and there’s still too much of everything, but he can hear Dad talking. The sound keeps him awake, pulls him out from under the fog of sleep until he’s blinking his eyes open and squinting up at a white ceiling. Dad’s holding his hand, and Kurt squeezes back, trying to get his attention.
“Kurt?” Dad leans down over him, brushing a hand over his head. “You’re awake? Oh god, you’re awake.”
Dad squeezes Kurt’s hand back tightly. “Welcome back.” His smile is watery.
Kurt’s not sure where he went, but he tries to smile back anyway.
*
After doctors have rushed around and poked and prodded at him, Kurt’s finally left alone with Dad again.
“They caught both of those guys,” Dad says. It takes Kurt a minute to realize he means the men who kidnapped him.
“Oh,” he says.
“The police stormed in after they shot you.” He frowns, grumbling about how they couldn’t storm in before that. “You don’t have to worry about them anymore,” Dad continues. “Never again, okay?”
Kurt nods, staring down at the blanket. He spreads his hands over it, smoothing out the wrinkles over his lap. “I’m sorry,” he says.
Dad frowns. “For what? You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“Yes I-“ Kurt clenches his hands into fists until his nails dig into his palms. “I’m sorry I went with them. I didn’t want to,” he tries to explain. He reaches up, wiping at his nose and sniffling a bit.
“You… Kurt, I saw that tape. They grabbed you and forced you inside the van. You don’t have to apologize for anything.” Dad reaches over to take hold of Kurt’s fists in his hands, trying to get him to loosen them. “It’s alright,” he says.
“He had a gun,” Kurt continues, sniffling again. “And he said he was going to kill me if I didn’t do what he said so I did but then he killed Alex when he tried to run away and he made me help and then he tried to kill me anyway and-“
Kurt’s jumble of words is muffled against Dad’s shoulder as he starts crying. He doesn’t think he’s cried since that night spent huddled in the bathtub of the motel room but now he is sobbing. He can’t stop. There’s a stabbing pain in his stomach where he was shot but he doesn’t want to move. Dad’s arms are warm and solid and safe around him and Kurt just wants to sit here forever.
Dad rubs his back gently, shushing him. “It’s okay, you’re okay now. It’s over now.”
When Kurt finally can’t cry anymore and is just resting, his cheek pressed against Dad’s shoulder, Dad asks, “Do you remember what happened now?”
Kurt nods. He wishes he didn’t.
* * *
Notes: So, this fic happened. I still don't quite know how. I started writing it at about 6am on February 13th and finished it on the 28th. So, two weeks. 18 thousand words. I've never written so much before. It was interesting to write too, because it was essentially written backwards. I wrote almost all of the recovery first, and then went back and wrote the kidnapping, and then connected the two together.
And because this consumed all of my free time for two weeks, so did the playlist that went with it. (I almost always have playlists to go along with what I write.) I'm not sure anyone is actually interested in this, but I always think it's neat when other people post them, so here you go. Some of them probably make more sense than others.
1. Knife Going In - Tegan and Sara
I feel the knife going in, I'm feeling anxious.
Not enough to kill me, I thought it'd happen fast.
2. How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead
I'm not here, this isn't happening.
I'm not here, I'm not here.
3. Timebomb - Old 97s
I got a timebomb, in my mind Mom.
It's gonna go off, but I don't know when.
4. You Don't Know (Reprise) - Next To Normal
My mind is still a mess, and what’s left to be remembered well, it’s anybody’s guess.
‘Cause my past is like the weather it will come and it will go.
5. It's Warmer in the Basement - Cobra Starship
Open up your eyes I want to watch you cry.
Come on, come on, the camera's on.
6. Letters From the Sky - Civil Twilight
One day soon I'll hold you like the sun holds the moon,
And we will hear those planes overhead and we won't have to be scared.
7. Me and a Gun - Tori Amos
It's kind of funny things you think at times like these,
Like I haven't seen Barbados so I must get out of this.
8. Amnesia - Britney Spears
I forgot my name, I forgot my telephone number.
If he wanna see me, he don't even know it.
9. Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This) - Eurythmics
Sweet dreams are made of this, who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas, everybody's looking for something.
10. Set the Fire to the Third Bar - Snow Patrol
I find the map and draw a straight line over rivers, farms, and state lines.
The distance from 'A' to where you'd be, it's only finger-lengths that I see
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