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Quinlan was out having a fun birthday with his partners. He couldn't believe how lucky he had been to have found them. They were perfect.
He met Obi-Wan and Fox in high school when he transferred in after some bullying, and when his grandparents thought he could use a change in scenery.
Obi-Wan and Fox were in different circles but he got to know them in the different classes he took, and somehow befriended both of them.
This led to them hanging out with him, and becoming friends themselves after realizing how much they had in common.
Years later, they all moved in together during college and never bothered moving out. Eventually they started calling each other their partners and that was that.
For Quinlan's thirtieth birthday, they went to a local amusement park.
At the end of the night, they managed to get on one last rollercoaster as the park closed.
In the dark, they left the park and laughed and talked as they headed for where they had parked the car. It wasn't near the entrance, as they didn't mind the walk, but they had arrived early enough to avoid being all the way at the edge of the parking lot.
Most of the parking lot was empty by the time they made it to the car. Probably because most families left long before close.
Quinlan spun and kissed Obi-Wan. "You're the best. Thank you!" Then he kissed Fox.
"Anything for the best partner in the world." Obi-Wan grinned. "We had a blast."
"Absolutely." Fox smiled and wrapped his arm around Quinlan.
Quinlan bounced around, talking a mile a minute about the day.
He stopped when he heard a baby crying. "Did you hear that?"
"Yeah, I did." Fox was already moving towards the sound. He checked behind the bushes, disappearing from sight.
The sound continued.
Quinlan went over there and found that the sound of crying was just a recording. He went to look around but someone appeared out of nowhere to press a rag against his face.
.
Quinlan woke up with a foul taste in his mouth. Then he realized that he couldn't move and his eyes flew open. He was sitting in a chair in an empty bedroom.
Fox was sitting opposite him, tied to a chair as well.
"Where's Obi-Wan?" Quinlan asked once he had assessed that Fox was okay.
"I don't think they took him... they just took us."
"O-oh..." Quinlan swallowed, looking around anxiously. "Can't believe we fell for that recording."
"We were tired, it was a long day. We had no reason to suspect this was going to happen."
"And why? Why us?"
The door opened.
Quinlan's eyes widened when he saw just who walked into the room.
The grandparents who hadn't raised him, who had actually disowned and ghosted him when he was four because they apparently didn't want to deal with his trauma of watching his parents die.
"Hello, grandson."
"What do you want?" Quinlan asked.
"Revenge."
"For what?"
"You were supposed to die with your parents."
Quinlan blinked, then he gasped. "You killed them!"
"Obviously. They left the family, they disobeyed us, and you should never have been born."
"What? What do you want from me?"
"You should die."
"Why wait until now, now that I'm thirty?"
"Your trust."
"...oh... You want me to give you all the money, don't you?"
"Of course we do! It's our money that your despicable mother used, and it should never have gone to you."
"Legally, it's all mine, so I'm not giving you a cent."
"Funny, you think you're in the position to bargain?"
Quinlan cried out when the bullet went into his leg. "Owie..." He stared at the wound as it started bleeding, disbelieving.
"You will say that you're giving us your entire trust on a recording and then you will release it to us."
Quinlan swallowed. "No."
"So you have chosen pain... for yourself and your... partner." The disgust was worse this time, glaring at Fox.
"What?" Quinlan gasped, looking at Fox just in time to see him get shot in the leg.
Fox grunted in pain and gave Quinlan a small smile.
Quinlan couldn't manage a smile in return, he was too horrified.
"Make the recording."
Quinlan shook his head, closing his eyes.
Fox cried out.
Quinlan flinched, squeezing his eyes shut.
A smack to the back of his head made his eyes water.
"You will watch, or it will get worse."
Quinlan opened his eyes reluctantly. He mouthed, "I'm sorry."
Fox gave him another reassuring smile.
They shot his other leg. Then they started on some other torture.
Quinlan watched, horrified.
Fox didn't make much noise, until they shot his knee twice in a row, then he screamed and the first tears appeared.
"No... stop," Quinlan whispered.
"Make the recording."
"I... I can't just give you the trust..." Quinlan whispered.
They shot Quinlan's other leg, then turned on Fox with a knife.
"No!" Quinlan struggled against the restraints.
"Make the recording, and then start making the arrangements."
Quinlan sniffled and nodded. Money wasn't worth Fox's life.
They released him from the restraints.
"What am I supposed to say?" Quinlan asked hoarsely as he dried his tears.
They told him.
Without looking at Fox, Quinlan repeated the words for the recording.
He had to do the recording a few times, with them adding a cut to Fox's arms and torso for every time Quinlan screwed up.
Quinlan knew his grandparents had to be crazy, but they kept surprising him with just how crazy they were, going to such lengths to get their money.
He should have given in right away. There were fail safes set up for a reason. He'd thought them silly when his good grandparents had set them up but he only changed them to suit him when he got older, never getting rid of them.
He never thought he'd have a reason to use them.
Quinlan dialed the number of the person in charge of his trust to start the process, answering all the questions, promising to come in as soon as he could but the process had to start now, when there was a pause for work to be done, Quinlan sang under his breath.
"Do or die, you'll never make me, because the world will never take my heart." At the looks his evil grandparents were giving him, he started humming, but knew his point had gotten across when there was a crash and a muffled curse.
"So sorry, I just spilled my water, I will have to call you back."
"Well, I guess you have all the information you need to get it moving... How long?"
"Shouldn't be more than twenty minutes."
"Alright."
They said their goodbyes and hung up.
Quinlan looked up at his grandparents.
"Good. Once we have the money, we'll kill you."
"What?" Quinlan gasped.
"You were never supposed to live, we only left you alone once we realized there was a trust for you. Once the money is all ours, we can finish what we started."
Quinlan swallowed and looked down.
That explained a lot. And somehow, it hurt worse knowing that his grandparents had never loved him. That they had killed his parents, their own daughter, and were still planning on killing him.
And he had dragged Fox in on this, and poor Obi-Wan probably had no idea what was going on.
His grandparents were insane if they thought leaving Obi-Wan behind would help them. They probably couldn't handle three people but still, Obi-Wan would surely have gone to the police, so Quinlan doing anything with his money would immediately be suspect, even without the fail safes and codes.
The time ticked by.
At fifteen minutes his grandfather looked out the window and cursed. "The police are here!"
Quinlan looked up.
His grandmother spun around and shot Fox.
"No!" Quinlan yelled.
She turned to him, raising the gun.
The police burst in and she never got the chance to kill Quinlan.
Quinlan was lost in a blur of paramedics and answering questions and so much until he finally woke up in the hospital after a surgery.
Obi-Wan was at his side, face swollen with tears.
"Fox?" Quinlan asked, but he knew the answer.
"He didn't make it."
Quinlan started sobbing. "I'm sorry, it should have been me, it should have been me, it should have been me."
Obi-Wan wrapped his arms around Quinlan. "It's okay, it shouldn't have been any of us." If anyone, it should have been Obi-Wan, Fox and Quinlan were always better at comforting each other than Obi-Wan was at comforting them, so if any of them had to die, it was best to be Obi-Wan. But Obi-Wan preferred the version where they all lived.
"No, you don't understand, Obi... I was supposed to die with my parents, they wanted me dead, but then after I was saved they learned about my trust and waited until I was old enough to access all of it to do this and they were going to kill me once they had the money, it was always me. You and Fox shouldn't have gotten caught up in this."
"Oh, Quin. I'm so sorry. Your own grandparents..."
Quinlan just cried, muttering over and over again that it should have been him.
All Obi-Wan could do was hold him, tears rolling down his cheeks.