Stolen
Notes: Alan has been taken by Druitt. It is partly Eric's fault. Follows on from the bit where Eric confronts his boss about taking his daughter. She lets him know she knows about Alan. Eric freaks out. This happens.
Badly-hinted-at rape involved.
May 18
That Mafia snake knew that he knew Alan.
Alan couldn't stay here any longer; not just for his own safety, but for Marina's as well. Eric won't take chances with either of them, even if the pretty redhead that snuck into his window like a naughty version of Father Christmas told him that Alan could take care of himself. Alan needs to be not here, quickly.
"You need to go home," Eric tries the nice approach first. "Back to England."
"Nothing for me there except paperwork," Alan murmurs, and his nose wrinkles adorably, "even my boss is here rather than there."
"You need to go, now," Eric insists, and when Alan lifts a dark-haired head from the pages of a book, Eric adds, "now. Pack your bags, and leave. I don't want to see you around here for a while."
"What's gotten i-"
"Do it," Eric orders curtly, and leaves the room before Alan's wounded look can get to him.
May 19
By the morning, the spy is gone.
Not even a goodbye.
It's for the best, yes, for the best.
Eric's never been more lonely.
May 19
Alan wishes he can understand the Mafioso just a little bit, just enough to make sense of all the things that Eric does that never seem to make any sense. They were getting better - Eric had even kissed him once or twice, on the cheek, on the lips, and now he was ordering him back to England.
Well, bollocks to that. Alan didn't take orders from anyone but his partner.
With a screech of tarmac on tires, Alan swung the car around on the abandoned motorway, and shot back towards New York - but he never made it to New York.
May 20
This is not New York, this is not Eric's flat, this isn't Grell's penthouse, it's not William's hovel with a bathroom. This is a dark room, with a single window just out of his sight line that spills in enough light to show the dust, and the patch of sunny floor on the ground is covered in some kind of dark red carpet. Alan's head throbs.
Car-crash, his mind tells him, and brings back the memories in shutter footage: the car, the heat, the radio blasting a new, hip young star, and then another car from somewhere, ramming him towards an abandoned industrial sight, with thick concrete walls. And, he must've crashed because his body is in agony. He can taste blood in his mouth.
Darkness, everywhere.
Grell will come get him soon. Grell always does, they're partners, buddies, pals, friends. Always.
"Poor little bird."
And Alan goes still, and stiff, ignoring the twitch of pulled muscles and hairline-fractured bones, and his eyes veer from one shadow to the next, and all the useless knick-knacks that got banished here; a chest of drawers, a pile of stuffed animals, a fridge stocked entirely with empty jars, and his entire body shakes, but he's trying so hard not to let that show. Rule one: never show fear.
Grell will come get him, and then Druitt can be dealt with.
To Alan's horror and revulsion, a hand creeps around his neck, and it's recognizeable, all the rings that bite his skin are familiar, and the soft and ghostly voice sounds again, directly against his ear, now. "Your wing's all broken, little bird," it says, and a long, skeletal finger probes his right arm.
Alan's eyes must have rolled over in the back of his head because everything is darker than dark, and his arm must be on fire, and it hurts it hurts it hur-
May 25
After what seems like days, he wakes up again, in the same little dark room. Someone has brought down a bed, and food, but Alan ignores the latter and leaps off the former, to be brought up short by the chain around his neck. He falls back against the mattress, and struggles, tearing his nails to bloody shreds on the hard metal.
Druitt sits opposite the spy, legs crossed and lavishly nude, "tsk, tsk, little bird," the madman chides. The smile is like shrapnel. "Tsk, tsk. Naughty little bird - it's useless to fight. You know you want me. You'd have died out there, little bird, if I hadn't gotten to you before those brutes did. Now, is that any way to repay someone's kindness?"
Alan longs for something snappy and hard, but his throat is raw and hurt, and words would make it bleed. He closes his eyes, thinks 'I'm not here'.
The lip of a cup is pressed between his own lips, and someone's hand fondly caressing the hair away from his forehead, cleaning the caked on grime from sand and exhaust and dust with such gentleness. If the touch were spider like, if it hurt, it would be easier. If the water was poisoned, it would be easier - but he knows Druitt, and he knows what he's like, and it's not going to be easier.
The water's so cold, it burns. Scientific anomaly; the oxymoronic use of a word to imply that the excess has an opposite effect on a neutral surface.
Alan wishes his brain would shut up.
Druitt takes the glass away. "I'm talking to you," Alan is reminded, in a polite tone that's growing petulant - like Marina, when she thinks Eric is ignoring her, his voice gets sulky and upset, only Marina just needs to sniff and Eric will crouch down and pick her up and kiss her little face.
"Want to go," Alan complains tiredly, "dunno anythin'. Lemme go."
Druitt's hands touch his hips, lightly, and then his face is full of pillow and feathers and mattress, and those nails crab-crawl across his back, and the sick, slippery feeling that slides up his oesophagus makes him gag, Druitt makes him gag, oh, God, his fingers are everywhere. Touching. Feeling. Claiming.
No.
Alan rears back, once, twice, but the chain never lets him get far enough to nut the bastard in the nose. Druitt laughs.
"Fight all you want," he says, and retreats.
May-June-July
The days have weeks between them.
Druitt is kind. He bandages his broken arm, and wipes clean the grime from his face; and then he turns right around, and he uses tweezers on his nails, a solvent on open wounds. Cigarette love-bites and knife-frayed nerves and the bandage on his arm is dove-white, and Druitt's long fingers are gentle and soft.
No, no. He's mixing things, he's making mistakes. Enemies and friends never inhabit the same person, it's not a case of demonic possession.
Druitt is, at the core, a madman.
The little moments of kindness are a masquerade mask. Beneath it, there is a monster, not an angel.
Alan resolves not to mix anymore, and glares at the floor, ignores Druitt's voice.
"You're terribly stubborn for a man without a country," Druitt is saying, "and your trust in your friends is charming, but if they were looking for you - if they are as good as you say - then they'd have found you by now."
Alan stays silent because the man has a point, and turns his head away from the chocolate-dipped cherry Druitt is trying to feed him.
Druitt's eyes flash. "They've left you here," he whispers, and his voice is laced with spirited malevolance, "or perhaps you don't want to escape, perhaps you want to stay here, with me, to let me make you feel everything your partner does not..."
Fingers glance over his thigh, fiddling intimately with a button, a zipper. Alan wants to laugh. It all comes down to the pants, always, for ever. It's sort of amusing. The medicine is making his head spin, he doesn't need a man to make his head spin. Druitt's too late.
"You should let me, little bird," Druitt continues, and kindly lifts a hand to Alan's cheek, brushes a soft thumb over three cat-scratches and a purpling bruise, "I am talented. I could make you feel good."
"Do I have a choice?" Alan asks, and the slash of sarcasm in his words startles even him. Solemned, Alan blinks hair out of his eyes, and watches Druitt's gaze watch him. "... huh. Never knew that was a torture tactic, too."
His head is wrenched to one side; the blow to the jaw leaves blood in his mouth, and Druitt doesn't seem to have moved. The Mafioso grins, and scrapes the nails of one hand over the rest.
"Such a disrespectful little brat," Druitt says, cheerfully, "won't make any friends."
Night, Forever
And then Druitt comes down to see him at night, and business is no longer business, respect is no longer respect. By the spider-thin threads of moonlight, and the square white box on the ground, Druitt sees enough to find him in the dark.
He holds a hand over his mouth, and pulls the chain when Alan fights, until the red welts and cigarette love bites bleed and blacken.
Preperation, nails on his insides, scrabbling, spiders crawling would have been preferrable; but, but, it's not exactly rough. Grell's rougher, when they're in a hurry, this isn't rough. It's very gentle. It's very patient.
Druitt's lips on his back kiss away the darker, older bruises, brush over all the thready scars.
Alan buries his face into his pillow and muffles a shriek of rage. This isn't fair! This isn't fair, this isn't fair, he won't get to him with kindness - he'll never betray his friends for kindness.
"It doesn't matter what you do to me, I won't break."
First meeting, three years back, with a rat digging gleeful little paws into an opened cut on his finger. Alan remembers everything to the last detail. He's never forgotten. He didn't break then.
He might break now.
Badly-hinted-at rape involved.
May 18
That Mafia snake knew that he knew Alan.
Alan couldn't stay here any longer; not just for his own safety, but for Marina's as well. Eric won't take chances with either of them, even if the pretty redhead that snuck into his window like a naughty version of Father Christmas told him that Alan could take care of himself. Alan needs to be not here, quickly.
"You need to go home," Eric tries the nice approach first. "Back to England."
"Nothing for me there except paperwork," Alan murmurs, and his nose wrinkles adorably, "even my boss is here rather than there."
"You need to go, now," Eric insists, and when Alan lifts a dark-haired head from the pages of a book, Eric adds, "now. Pack your bags, and leave. I don't want to see you around here for a while."
"What's gotten i-"
"Do it," Eric orders curtly, and leaves the room before Alan's wounded look can get to him.
May 19
By the morning, the spy is gone.
Not even a goodbye.
It's for the best, yes, for the best.
Eric's never been more lonely.
May 19
Alan wishes he can understand the Mafioso just a little bit, just enough to make sense of all the things that Eric does that never seem to make any sense. They were getting better - Eric had even kissed him once or twice, on the cheek, on the lips, and now he was ordering him back to England.
Well, bollocks to that. Alan didn't take orders from anyone but his partner.
With a screech of tarmac on tires, Alan swung the car around on the abandoned motorway, and shot back towards New York - but he never made it to New York.
May 20
This is not New York, this is not Eric's flat, this isn't Grell's penthouse, it's not William's hovel with a bathroom. This is a dark room, with a single window just out of his sight line that spills in enough light to show the dust, and the patch of sunny floor on the ground is covered in some kind of dark red carpet. Alan's head throbs.
Car-crash, his mind tells him, and brings back the memories in shutter footage: the car, the heat, the radio blasting a new, hip young star, and then another car from somewhere, ramming him towards an abandoned industrial sight, with thick concrete walls. And, he must've crashed because his body is in agony. He can taste blood in his mouth.
Darkness, everywhere.
Grell will come get him soon. Grell always does, they're partners, buddies, pals, friends. Always.
"Poor little bird."
And Alan goes still, and stiff, ignoring the twitch of pulled muscles and hairline-fractured bones, and his eyes veer from one shadow to the next, and all the useless knick-knacks that got banished here; a chest of drawers, a pile of stuffed animals, a fridge stocked entirely with empty jars, and his entire body shakes, but he's trying so hard not to let that show. Rule one: never show fear.
Grell will come get him, and then Druitt can be dealt with.
To Alan's horror and revulsion, a hand creeps around his neck, and it's recognizeable, all the rings that bite his skin are familiar, and the soft and ghostly voice sounds again, directly against his ear, now. "Your wing's all broken, little bird," it says, and a long, skeletal finger probes his right arm.
Alan's eyes must have rolled over in the back of his head because everything is darker than dark, and his arm must be on fire, and it hurts it hurts it hur-
May 25
After what seems like days, he wakes up again, in the same little dark room. Someone has brought down a bed, and food, but Alan ignores the latter and leaps off the former, to be brought up short by the chain around his neck. He falls back against the mattress, and struggles, tearing his nails to bloody shreds on the hard metal.
Druitt sits opposite the spy, legs crossed and lavishly nude, "tsk, tsk, little bird," the madman chides. The smile is like shrapnel. "Tsk, tsk. Naughty little bird - it's useless to fight. You know you want me. You'd have died out there, little bird, if I hadn't gotten to you before those brutes did. Now, is that any way to repay someone's kindness?"
Alan longs for something snappy and hard, but his throat is raw and hurt, and words would make it bleed. He closes his eyes, thinks 'I'm not here'.
The lip of a cup is pressed between his own lips, and someone's hand fondly caressing the hair away from his forehead, cleaning the caked on grime from sand and exhaust and dust with such gentleness. If the touch were spider like, if it hurt, it would be easier. If the water was poisoned, it would be easier - but he knows Druitt, and he knows what he's like, and it's not going to be easier.
The water's so cold, it burns. Scientific anomaly; the oxymoronic use of a word to imply that the excess has an opposite effect on a neutral surface.
Alan wishes his brain would shut up.
Druitt takes the glass away. "I'm talking to you," Alan is reminded, in a polite tone that's growing petulant - like Marina, when she thinks Eric is ignoring her, his voice gets sulky and upset, only Marina just needs to sniff and Eric will crouch down and pick her up and kiss her little face.
"Want to go," Alan complains tiredly, "dunno anythin'. Lemme go."
Druitt's hands touch his hips, lightly, and then his face is full of pillow and feathers and mattress, and those nails crab-crawl across his back, and the sick, slippery feeling that slides up his oesophagus makes him gag, Druitt makes him gag, oh, God, his fingers are everywhere. Touching. Feeling. Claiming.
No.
Alan rears back, once, twice, but the chain never lets him get far enough to nut the bastard in the nose. Druitt laughs.
"Fight all you want," he says, and retreats.
May-June-July
The days have weeks between them.
Druitt is kind. He bandages his broken arm, and wipes clean the grime from his face; and then he turns right around, and he uses tweezers on his nails, a solvent on open wounds. Cigarette love-bites and knife-frayed nerves and the bandage on his arm is dove-white, and Druitt's long fingers are gentle and soft.
No, no. He's mixing things, he's making mistakes. Enemies and friends never inhabit the same person, it's not a case of demonic possession.
Druitt is, at the core, a madman.
The little moments of kindness are a masquerade mask. Beneath it, there is a monster, not an angel.
Alan resolves not to mix anymore, and glares at the floor, ignores Druitt's voice.
"You're terribly stubborn for a man without a country," Druitt is saying, "and your trust in your friends is charming, but if they were looking for you - if they are as good as you say - then they'd have found you by now."
Alan stays silent because the man has a point, and turns his head away from the chocolate-dipped cherry Druitt is trying to feed him.
Druitt's eyes flash. "They've left you here," he whispers, and his voice is laced with spirited malevolance, "or perhaps you don't want to escape, perhaps you want to stay here, with me, to let me make you feel everything your partner does not..."
Fingers glance over his thigh, fiddling intimately with a button, a zipper. Alan wants to laugh. It all comes down to the pants, always, for ever. It's sort of amusing. The medicine is making his head spin, he doesn't need a man to make his head spin. Druitt's too late.
"You should let me, little bird," Druitt continues, and kindly lifts a hand to Alan's cheek, brushes a soft thumb over three cat-scratches and a purpling bruise, "I am talented. I could make you feel good."
"Do I have a choice?" Alan asks, and the slash of sarcasm in his words startles even him. Solemned, Alan blinks hair out of his eyes, and watches Druitt's gaze watch him. "... huh. Never knew that was a torture tactic, too."
His head is wrenched to one side; the blow to the jaw leaves blood in his mouth, and Druitt doesn't seem to have moved. The Mafioso grins, and scrapes the nails of one hand over the rest.
"Such a disrespectful little brat," Druitt says, cheerfully, "won't make any friends."
Night, Forever
And then Druitt comes down to see him at night, and business is no longer business, respect is no longer respect. By the spider-thin threads of moonlight, and the square white box on the ground, Druitt sees enough to find him in the dark.
He holds a hand over his mouth, and pulls the chain when Alan fights, until the red welts and cigarette love bites bleed and blacken.
Preperation, nails on his insides, scrabbling, spiders crawling would have been preferrable; but, but, it's not exactly rough. Grell's rougher, when they're in a hurry, this isn't rough. It's very gentle. It's very patient.
Druitt's lips on his back kiss away the darker, older bruises, brush over all the thready scars.
Alan buries his face into his pillow and muffles a shriek of rage. This isn't fair! This isn't fair, this isn't fair, he won't get to him with kindness - he'll never betray his friends for kindness.
"It doesn't matter what you do to me, I won't break."
First meeting, three years back, with a rat digging gleeful little paws into an opened cut on his finger. Alan remembers everything to the last detail. He's never forgotten. He didn't break then.
He might break now.