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Chapter Text

Jakob stared at the man in front of him distrustfully. He didn't like the people in this new country any more than he liked the ones in the old. The man just smiled, reaching out and ruffling his hair.

Jakob crossed his arms and tried to duck away, reaching up to smooth his hair down, and the man laughed slightly, saying something he didn't understand. He turned, and when Jakob didn't follow he grabbed his arm and pulled him along. The boy realised he was lost, completely. He had known it was hopeless before, when his parents had called the men for help, when he'd been taken away in the middle of the night. But he'd still thought they'd come back for him. That was why he kept running away, breaking out of the building, squeezing through windows in the dead of night.

Now he was here, surrounded by people he couldn't understand, and desperately afraid. He was put in a room, and curled up on the bed, waiting for someone to talk to him in a language he knew.

Water appeared, the next morning, but no food. The man arrived, and stood there, watching him.
"Go on little bird, show me what you can do." The man said, although at the time Jakob didn't recognise that. The man had snorted, and muttered something else - Jakob had recognised the word 'shit' at least, and 'fuck' was close enough to 'ficken' that he could get the meaning.

He again found himself being dragged through the corridors by the strange man. There were pictures on several of the doors he passed, symbols he didn't understand.
"Sprechen Sie Deutsch?" he asked softly, and the man didn't respond.

They turned another corner in the labyrinth, and he saw another boy walking along beside an older man. The boy was about his age, maybe a year or two younger - somewhere between thirteen and ten. He smiled, but the older man ushered his charge away. Vogel flinched, realising as he looked at the boy that he was hungry.

The man escorting him called out, and an argument broke out, the other boy hiding behind his guardian. But that guardian lost the fight, and the boy was pushed forwards, to stand nervously in front of him.
"You can eat little bird," the man told Jakob, and he stared at him. The man snorted and shook his head.
"Idiot. Verschlingen."

Devour.

The hunger that had been aching within him poured out, and he allowed himself to feast. The boy cried out, falling backwards, and after a few seconds the man he was with struck him in the face, throwing his concentration and meaning he stopped what he was doing. The man laughed, and the adults were talking again as the other boy stared at him with distrustful eyes.

His man opened a door which had a picture that looked like three stickmen overlying each other to form a triangle.
"Boys," the man called out, and Jakob saw that there were other adults in there. They looked half-starved, eyes wild and angry, and one of them, a blond man stepped forwards.

Jakob felt a cold piece of metal press into the side of his head.
"Easy boys," the man said, then pushed Jakob forwards. "This little fly away bird here's a freak just like you. Have fun, try not to make too much of a mess. Fed him up for you."
With that, the door slammed, and Jakob realised he was alone with the adults.

The blond man knelt in front of him.
"Hey there boy, I'm Martin, you're one of us now."
"Spreche... spreche sie..." Jakob began, but he knew it was hopeless. He could follow the very basics, but that was all.

"Aw Fuck." Martin muttered, then reached for him. "He called you bird?"
"Bird?" Jakob echoed, and one of the other men flapped his arms, making cawing noises. Jakob laughed a little. "Vogel?"

Martin nodded.
"You ... you'll get there kid, we'll teach yer. So I'm Martin, that idiot there's Cross, and that one's Gripps."
Jakob nodded, and swallowed, wanting to cry. Martin paused, then pulled him into a gentle embrace.
"You wanna go home?" He asked, his voice slow and careful.
Jakob shook his head. He knew there was nowhere for him to go now.
"What's your name?" Martin asked, and Jakob swallowed.

"Jakob-" He paused before he said his surname. His parents had sold him to the men who wanted to run tests, and Cross's impression of a bird had made him smile in the first time for a long while. "Jakob Vogel."
"Vogel it is," Martin agreed. "And don't you worry yourself boy, you're safe now." He turned to the other two. "If Priest thinks he can take Vogel back, he's gonna have a fight on his hands, you hear me boys?"

The men whooped and hollered in response, and Vogel thought perhaps he should have been afraid. But he smiled and shouted as well.

Chapter Text

The boy curled up in on himself, drawing his knees to his chest and trying to fight back tears. He missed home, he missed his mom and his dad and being helpful. But he missed the sky most of all, missed feeling the breeze ruffle his hair and getting the feeling he was where he meant to be.

He didn't get that feeling now. Instead he got the feeling he was in the wrong place, and he'd made the universe angry. He could feel tears making their way down his face, and he didn't know how to stop them, just clung to his own shoulders tighter, rocking a little. He'd only wanted to help, and the universe was punishing him for it. He'd just wanted to get some dogs back to their owners, and now here he was.

The cuts on his arms were healing at least, where they'd taken samples, but his head still hurt from the buzz of the lights and the shocks he had been given. He took a deep breath when he heard footsteps approach the door. He hoped it wasn't... anyone that it would be. It wouldn't be his parents, not any more. The monster might open it, or... there were a lot of options, and none of them were good. He pulled at the fabric of his jumpsuit, an itchy ugly grey which made him want to cry more, as the handle depressed and the lock clicked.

The door opened, and for a moment he thought he saw a woman, before he blinked and a girl his own age stood in the doorway. She had dark hair and blue eyes, and hugged her arms around herself. She wasn't tall enough to reach the door handle.
"Hello?" she asked, tilting her head to one side. "You look sad,"
"I am," Svlad admitted, sliding over slightly on the bed. She hesitated and then crept over, walking on tip toes. "Aren't you… how did you get here?"
"I can do things like that," she answered simply, and Svlad felt a pain in his chest as she understood. She was like him. Not really, but closer to him than to normal people.

"What's your name?" he asked as kindly as she could. Looking at her closer she was a little younger than him, and her eyes were a paler blue than he'd thought. She curled up against his side, nuzzling into his chest there. He ran his fingers through her hair.
"They call me Project Lamia."
"Lamia isn't your name, did you have a name before?"
"Before?" she queried, and Svlad found that the hair he was brushing was down to her hips.
"My name's Svlad," he told her quietly, not wanting to risk being overheard. "You can have a nice name, a person name."
"I'm not a person," she murmured, and he pulled her closer for a moment.
"You're a person to me."

"I'm in the next room over," she told him, and he was sure she was younger now, her eyes wide and innocent. "I thought I could hear you crying."
"I... just miss people, that's all," he admitted, staring at the girl. He'd thought she was his age, but looking closer she couldn't have been older than five or six. Her hair was curling slightly.

"You're not on your own," she told him. "You've got me."
"Yeah," Svlad agreed.
"Did they hurt you?"
"Mister Priest broke my hand..." Svlad admitted, pointing to the discoloured finger. She paused and cuddled him tightly, her arms wrapping around his waist as her head rested on his chest.
"He's mean," she said softly. "I don't like him."
"I don't like him either," he agreed. "He is mean." He whispered those words, afraid of being heard. The girl frowned for a moment, and then her face twisted, transforming into a face like Mister Priest's, if Mister Priest had been drawn by a child - everything was there, but not quite right.
"I'm Mister Priest," she said with a giggle. "And I'm here to be mean and ruin everyone's fun and stop anyone having any friends because I smell bad!"

Svlad found himself smiling at that, embracing her again as her face returned to its own features.
"Are you feeling better?"
"A little," he agreed, cuddling her again. "You should go, they'll be angry if they catch you."

She shrugged a little, pointing up at the camera in the corner of the room.
"They must know I'm here."

Svlad felt a little sick at that, but couldn't argue with the logic. He just held her, and they talked in whispers until the guards came in, Mister Priest leading them. He grabbed the girl by the throat, injecting her with something and heaving away an unconscious girl that was the same age as Svlad.
"I'll deal with you later."

Svlad curled up tighter at that threat, his face pressed into his knees. It hid his slight smile as he thought of what she had said - he was still terrified, but he wasn't completely alone any more.

Chapter Text

Time passed, and Project Icarus grew. He was taller than the Colonel now, though he remained weedy, thin and not simply because he struggled to eat the food that he was presented with. He was turning into an adult still trapped within a cell, and there was no hope in his heart that he would leave.

Project Icarus grew, and Project Lamia did not. Her attitude and outlook remained childlike, hopeful even in the midst of the hell that they found themselves in. She chose to spend most of her time as something not human, and Svlad couldn't blame her for that. If he could hide the way she did, he would have done it. When she was human-sized, she was normally the same adult form she had first used to open the door, but she was still a little child at heart, cuddling up against him whenever she could. Some days he'd come back from a particularly stressful set of experiments to find a teddy bear perched on his pillow, and he would hold her tight until the guards came to take it away.

She always tried to make Svlad laugh, even if she wasn't talking, and some days she tried to hide with him (her record was when she made it nearly a week before it was noticed that Icarus had a bracelet around his wrist). Svlad tried to help her too, telling her things he remembered from outside, of a world he had been cut away from.

She lay on the bed beside him, her hand holding his. She was in her adult form, and Svlad was vaguely aware that he should feel something, finding himself so close to her, but his mind didn't work that way. Instead, he was comforted by her presence, whispering to her - the guards would find her. They always would. But she'd sneaked into his room earlier that evening, just after testing had finished, her face damp with tears. He just cuddled her.

When she had calmed, he squeezed her hand softly.
"What upset you?"
"They... they think they've found a way to keep me in my room," she whispered, and suddenly the fact Riggins hadn't disturbed them yet made sense, leaving Svlad feeling sickened. They were going to take Lamia away.

"I won't forget you," he promised, and she nodded, whimpering a little beneath her breath. She shouldn't be trapped here. He just hoped they wouldn't make her stay a person.
"Tell me a story?" she asked, and Svlad nodded. He'd told her all the ones he could remember from a lifetime ago, children's books with characters that faded from his thoughts, but which seemed to hold her captivated still. She was hypnotised by stories he made up, pieced together like a jigsaw with pieces from different boxes jumbled together.

"Which story?"
"Do you have a story about anyone like me?" she asked, and there was a hint of desperation in her voice. He thought, quickly, wanting to help.
"One," he agreed. "There was a little girl called Mona, who had a normal mum and dad, and who wanted to be a vampire. So she borrowed the curtains, and she wished really hard," that bit wasn't in the story, but Lamia had said once that was how she changed shape, "and she became one. And then she went about solving mysteries with her friend, who was a detective called Svl-" he paused, then thought about the secret he'd been keeping inside. He didn't want to be Svlad Cjelli any more, didn't want to be Project Icarus. He dropped his voice even quieter. "Her friend was a detective called Dirk, and they saved the town dozens of times-"
As he spoke, Lamia changed, becoming smaller and cuddling up against his side. He held her close, rubbing her shoulders. When he'd finished making up a story, he looked at her and she managed a smile.

"When we met, you asked me what my name was-" she began, and he nodded. She took a deep breath, her eyes closing for a moment.
"I think I want it to be Mona, like the story."
"That's okay," he agreed. "I want my name to be Dirk like the story too."

She grew again, an adult that lay beside him.
"We'll get out one day won't we?"
"We will," he lied. "And then we can solve mysteries together."
She nodded and yawned, curling up in his arms. He soon fell asleep.

He was woken before the alarms went off by Riggins walking in with three armed guards.
"You've had long enough. Project Lamia, it's time to go."

Svlad opened his mouth to protest, and stopped as he realised his friend was already crying. He didn't want her last sight of him to be him getting shocked for standing up to the guards. He made himself smile, and Mona smiled back, the tears running down her face.

Chapter Text

Martin had felt bad about it.

He wouldn't say. He wouldn't ever say, because that couldn't be who he was. Not in this world, not in the situation they had become trapped in. The simple fact was, it was him or them. And he wasn't going to let his boys starve.

He'd known that the boy was just that - a boy, young for his age even, the pampered pet of Blackwing's leader. And that... that had brought with it a sense of terror that was unusual. Most of the victims that were thrown at them were adults, yes, but they were adults accustomed to horrors, scraped out of the prisons where no one would miss them. This boy was afraid.

After weeks of hunger, seeing the eyes of his friends grow hollow, they were given a meal. And he ate. They all did. He hadn't known, at first, what the boy was. But he had been relieved when the child collapsed back, exhausted but still breathing.

He was a freak, like them. The gas had filled the room, and he had gone weak. He had seen the door open, but was too drugged to move, and the boy was carried away.

That meal had seen them through another few days, and when the boy returned, Martin fed more easily. He wasn't killing him after all. Just he and his gang taking what they needed from someone who wouldn't be missed.

Those meals had stopped after a while, with a return to the standard fare of prisoners. He wondered whether the boy's master had found out why his little pet was afraid, wondered if the boy had nightmares.

He couldn't remember what it would be like to have someone who not only cared that you were afraid, but had the power to do something about it.

***

When Vogel arrived, Martin knew he had to get the four of them out. Vogel was young, and he was frightened, still driven by a sense of right and wrong that had been ripped away from the others, that had been tortured from them with well-meaning smiles and promises that what was happening was necessary. Martin loved his boys, would do anything for them, but he refused to let the light in Vogel's eyes dull the way it had for Cross and Gripps. He had managed to persuade the madman to let them have another bite of their favourite meal, encouraging Vogel once more to feed - he was smaller. He needed the energy more than the rest of them.

At night, he could hear a child's cries echoing in the pipes. He held his own boys close, and didn't let himself listen. He couldn't listen any more, not when it was save him or save them.

***

The girl was different. She was something unusual, in a way that the boy hadn't been. She had walked to the door, and left it open, and had picked up a doorjam and thrown it at the containers that released the gas.

The containers hadn't emptied. They were able to escape. She walked out without looking back, the blank look on her face implying that she didn't know what it was that she had done. But they were free.

They had celebrated by letting the place burn, taking every weapon that they had to whatever they saw, smashing glass and bending metal and rejoicing in the fact that those who held them for so long didn't seem to know how to force them back.

Before they left, they tracked down the boy's cell, smashing open the door and eating their fill. Then Martin told Gripps to carry the boy - not to take him with them, not when they would be able to find him with his scent. But to take him outside of this place.

The boy was still unconscious when they left him under a tree, with some food that they had stolen. They had wanted to put distance between them and he was just slowing them down.

***

Meals were grabbed when they could. Hospitals sometimes had people they had given up on, or those who were close enough to death. They learned to feed in short bursts, not killing but taking what they needed and moving on. And whenever they found they were close enough, they'd feed on that boy. He was tasty, that initial fear not receding even as it became a routine. Martin knew his family didn't have time to remain afraid. They were monsters, Blackwing had made them that, and they accepted it. Reveled in it. It was all that they had.

As monsters, they were able to continue, to outrun those who would harm them. They found their own enjoyment, spreading destruction, and time passed. Their encounters with the boy grew less frequent, as he began to travel further afield and the four of them found their own rhythm, places that they could hide from those that would hunt them down. The van was their shelter.

They could sleep there, switching out throughout the night to keep from getting tired, and cover more ground. Things were good. The four of them were were in a routine of their own making, managing to get through day by day by taking what they wanted. Things had been alright. And then, the boy had gone and got himself a friend.

***

Following the boy and his new friend had led them to Drummer. She had been interesting, at first, and that had been reason enough to follow. That was what they did, explore whatever was intriguing and find out what they were doing. Not like the boy - they weren't there to solve any mysteries or help people. This was about having fun.

And Drummer had been fun. She had her attack, and they had stopped it. Martin had made sure they got her home, and he didn't think he could remember a time they had been able to help.

Then she had come up and challenged them, and they had decided to keep her. Not like the boy, but like Vogel. Like Cross, or Gripps, or maybe like Martin. She was one of them. The boy was less important when they could take care of her, and he became more fun to follow because of what happened after. Because he led them to interesting things.

Drummer had helped them destroy an army of men. Apparently, it had helped the boy and Drummer's brother, and Martin had been pleased about that, but really he had simply enjoyed the chance for a proper hunt, a proper fight. Too often they had to stick to the shadows, knowing that acting at the wrong time or making a mistake could bring the full force of Blackwing down on them. Faced with an army, there was no point in subtlety.

***

It had been a shortlived victory. But Martin remembered the sight of Vogel and Drummer in the field, jumping around, utterly carefree. Things had been good.

The knowledge that Blackwing wouldn't hesitate to say if they captured them, use them as some kind of reward, or want to experiment on what Drummer was to them, was a comfort. Not one he could share with Cross and Gripps, not when he knew that they were being watched every second. But one that he could hide inside, to try and reassure him even as the hunger grew once more, beginning to take over all he was.

Vogel and the Drummer were free.

***

Drummer had pulled them through into her new world, and then she had needed saving. After all this time, the boy had punched Martin, and Martin had found it... funny, more than anything. After two decades of cringing and whining, he was willing to fight back, even if only for a few seconds before he returned to form - so long, and still the pampered pet with nothing to offer the world.

Until he had changed. Until he took control, and got them into the city - and got Drummer and her brother out. Until he had let them fight, going into Blackwing alone to fix things. Until he had brought them back.

Martin had been almost surprised that the boy feared Blackwing - he had never seemed hurt when there. But then, there was more than one kind of hurt. He could remember how he had felt when he had been taken from those that were his, when Drummer and Vogel had been being hunted, when he could hear Cross or Gripps screaming from hunger and frustration and need for support he couldn't provide.

Possibly there was something there.

Regardless, when Drummer wanted to see the boy, and see her brother, he was happy enough to take her there. He watched from a distance as she embraced both of them.

The boy didn't smell afraid anymore. Two decades where the scent of his terror was almost intoxicating, and now there was a peace instead. Martin didn't mind. He had Drummer now. They had Drummer now, and Drummer had them, and everything was right.

Wherever they went, they went together.