Chapter Text
Chapter Three:
Ian learnt on the 23rd of November 2015 that nowhere was really safe. It was the following Monday, exactly a week since the inciting incident of the worst years of his life. He got to work early, intending to get a head start on their latest script. That, as it turned out, was a bad idea.
He remembers shutting his car door and double checking that it was locked, just as he did every morning. He placed his keys in his pocket and began the short walk across the crunchy gravel carpark. The sun was low in the sky, just beginning to rise, the sky a deep pink colour. Dave was waiting by the sliding glass doors of the building.
His stomach dropped as he tried to ignore him. He contemplated walking backwards, coming back later, maybe leaving altogether, but it was too late. He'd seen him. The boss' mouth once again spread into a mocking smirk as he stood, surrounded by the normality of modern life. He blocked the only way into the building. He was the only way into the building. Ian's heart was hammering in his chest, every fibre of his being telling him to run as far as he could.
He didn't listen.
He ducked his head down, forcing himself to look away. Maybe if he just pretended he wasn't there, he could get past. It was stupid to think, but there really weren't any other options. As he passed the doors, he felt a huff of hot breath by his ear, the grip of a hand on his arm. He tried not to flinch, but evidently failed.
"Ian! Great to see you, let's meet in my office!" His voice was loud, booming and inherently positive - he wanted everyone to hear him. He knew Ian couldn't say no if everyone heard him - you couldn't just refuse to go to a meeting with your boss. He'd thought it all through; he knew exactly what he was doing.
Ian pressed his fingernails into the palms of his hands, feeling them slice into his flesh. He wanted to shout - to push Dave backwards, to watch as he fell head-first through the open glass windows. He didn't. He just followed, head bent low, eyes watering silently.
Dave fit right in. He was all smiles and waves, the other admins at the office lapping it up, making small talk with him as he passed by each and every one of them. Nobody suspected a thing - why would they? Dave had everything set out exactly as he wanted it; he was clever like that.
After being paraded around the corridors of the Defy Media building, like some sort of prize cow or forbidden fruit, Ian found himself once again standing in Dave's office. The office. The very place he'd found himself every night at 3am, sweat pouring down his face as he gasped awake. It was exactly as he remembered it, from the yellowing of the paint on the wall, to the hard wood of the desk. Dave was locking the door again, and Ian wished he didn't already know just how hard that desk could be.
He heard the click of the lock, heard the brief but sharp hissing of a zip, heard a huff of air. He could feel breath on the back of his neck, his hairs standing up on end as Dave moved closer towards him, Ian still having not moved away. His mouth was hot against his skin, scalding even, burning straight through every level of dermis until his venom seeped deep into Ian's bloodstream.
His teeth were sharp, but his intentions were sharper still.
Dave held him so softly, pulling him low onto his comfy waiting chairs. He cuddled close to him, as one might their mother, and Ian wished that he could just pick up his sorry limbs and tell him to fuck off. He didn't. It's like he lost all sense of himself whenever Dave got to him, like he became but a glorified object of his desires - he couldn't remember where he ended and the scene began; everything was just dust, pain.
His jumper was pulled up and over his head, his body exposed to the harsh air. He felt Dave's fingers circling his nipples, felt him doing so much, his hands scrabbling across his sordid flesh. He kept his gaze fixed on the wall - maybe if he didn't see him, it would make it not real. Make it harder to see him in his nightmares and daydreams.
"You're so special." Dave's voice came out clear like china, his words dancing round Ian's head like horses on a carousel. He filled him full of affirmations, told him just how wonderful he was - how much he loved him, his body. "You're all mine." Ian felt physically sick, Dave was touching him in other places by that time, his body reacting against his will. He was his own worst enemy.
It didn't take long for them to be locked in the same position as before, only this time Ian found himself sunk deep into the settee, rather than thrown atop the desk. The softness beneath him only made the harshness more striking, the hurt more poignant. Dave was like a puppet master, controlling every inch of his psyche, and Ian wanted nothing more than to break the strings. His eyes rolled back into his head, his body betrayed him once more, and Dave sighed in unison.
Work didn't start for another half an hour.
Afterwards, Ian just sort of lay there.
He lay there as Dave dilly-dallied around him, arranging papers and typing out emails. He lay there, mind broken, ears ringing, as he stared at the walls. He wished his mind could be as empty as the peeling paint of the walls - wished his body could be as pure. The cushions were soft on his bare body, yet his skin still stung, as if each and every inch of the cozy cotton covers were laced with nettles.
Dave drew up behind him, clothes in one hand, a damp cloth in the other. He cleaned him up and dressed him, removing all of Ian's autonomy. He smiled and told him how beautiful he was, how much he wanted to lean in and kiss him, how much he wanted to bend him over and fuck him. Ian didn't know why he didn't - it's not like he'd excersised restraint before.
He was twenty minutes late to his shoot that morning. Anthony watched as he walked in, sighing and rolling his eyes. Ian hated disappointing him - hated that he couldn't possibly tell him that he'd actually been on time. Anthony wouldn't understand, nobody would understand. Ian was a man, and Dave was his boss - nobody would even believe him anyway.
The shoot was a mess. Ian kept stumbling over his lines, his mind wandering to places he wished it wouldn't, his voice cracking under the weight of everything.
"I must be coming down with a cold." He lied, without even being prompted by any of the crew around him.
Anthony just raised his eyebrows, humming in agreement. Ian doubted he even cared what his excuse was.
At lunchtime he sat alone, paperwork surrounding him on every side. He watched the Smosh Squad filming some sort of video - probably a vine - as they ate, Courtney practically throwing herself over Shayne as she giggled. They were all so small, with such bright futures ahead of them. Ian was scared out of his mind what would happen if Dave was to get his claws into one of them. He put his head back down, rereading the same sentence he'd been mulling over for the past twenty minutes.
He was so absorbed in just pretending to be normal, that he didn't even notice Courtney standing above him, until she opened her mouth to speak. "Hi Ian!" Her tone was light and airy, so innocent, a total 180 to the way Ian flinched at the sound. She was barely older than he'd been when Smosh posted their first video.
"Oh, hi Court," he tried to disguise his thumping heart as a joke, dramatically clutching at it and forcing a smile, "you made me jump!" He forced out a laugh, watching as Courtney beamed back at him, ever polite.
She held her phone out to him, pressing play on the latest vine she'd posted. Ian's eyes moved from the screen to her face and back again, surveying the gleaming excitment in her eyes. He realised in that moment that it didn't matter what was on the screen - Courtney just wanted approval from him - approval from Ian from Smosh, one of her idols. He grinned, "It looks great." His eyes found their way back down to his paperwork. Courtney didn't move.
Ian looked up again, noticing the way her light had dimmed slightly from before, her smile faltering. He'd never been good at reading people, nor their emotions, but it was plain as day to even him, that Courtney was disappointed with his answer. He took a breath before continuing, "I mean it Court, it was really funny!" He tried - he really did - to make his smile reach his eyes, his body working in overdrive to not fucking crush yet another person at this company's dreams.
Her smile bounced back up again, although not wide as before, "You mean it?"
"100%" He wasn't lying, even if he could barely remember the content of the video. If Courtney had made it, it was bound to be hilarious.
"Thanks." She was oblivious to the storm raging within him, and he intended to keep it that way.
The rest of the day passed in a blur of pain and dread. He felt as though he was trapped in some Truman Show-style life, where everyone secretly knew what happened behind Dave's office door. He was becoming increasingly paranoid - a feeling which only served to get worse as the week went on, and Dave's touches grew more and more frequent.
He found himself stuck between the act itself and his brain's nightmarish recreations at every waking hour, his heart skipping a beat and his skin crawling should he ever so much as hear the older man's footsteps. Not a moment went by where he didn't want to throw up, his stomach acid bubbling like a cauldron within. He avoided eye contact with everyone as he walked the corridors, as he tried his hardest to act in their sketches, terrified that they'd see right through him. That they'd know what had happened.
It was so hard to keep up a mask, so hard to pretend that everything was fine, that everything was more than fine. And yet, apparently he was doing a good enough job, for nobody noticed that there was anything up.