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“You know, Neil and I have been kidnapped before. We're old hats at this.” Charlie’s voice echoes off the walls of… whatever building they're in. Their hands are all bound in front of them, too well to get out of the rope.
Neil can’t see all of them clearly, just Todd on his left and Knox on his right.
“Really? Why?” Todd’s the only one who hasn't heard Charlie’s highly exaggerated version of the story. If Neil didn’t have a headache building–either a remnant of his attempt or a welcome gift from whoever took them–he’d be more willing to play along.
“We were at the park, playing, and then there were bags over our heads and we were dragged into a moving vehicle.”
Neil sighs. “We were eight, it lasted all of two hours. Charlie annoyed them into letting us go, I think.”
“Neil! Don't ruin my fun!”
“Yeah, I can see that.” Todd smiles at him, and Neil smiles back, besotted. Charlie immediately starts making fake gagging noises further down the row, but Knox, Pitts, Meeks, and Cameron are more mature about it.
“I don't think being annoying is going to work this time. We haven't seen anyone yet.” Cameron says. He's been distant from them all, more so than usual, since Neil came back to school. Neil meant to talk to him about it today–it's fine if Cameron wants out, but he can't go telling anyone what they're doing.
“Since you're all feeling so talkative,” The door slams open, rattling on its hinges. “Then one of you must be speaking at all times unless you want one of these in your head.”
He fires off a single bullet, and they all flinch at the sound. Neil allows himself one moment to stare off into space before he pays attention again.
“You won't be able to see them, but you do have a nice big audience.”
“I'll be here, too.” Another man says, and he might be grinning under his ski mask. “Hmmm… you.”
He aims his gun at Todd’s head as the first man leaves. Todd doesn't just pale, he goes grey, and Neil’s afraid he's going to pass out and none of them will be able to help him.
If he passes out, they’ll kill him. Neil can’t reach out and shake him, or even get close enough to offer a shoulder to lean on.
“Well? I don't hear any talking.” Their guard waves the gun, and Neil flinches with Todd.
“It was a dark and stormy night.” Charlie starts, trying his best to sound normal. To their ‘audience’, he might. “And I had forgotten my coat.”
Charlie, thank god, can talk about nothing forever if he's given the chance.
He doesn't know how long Charlie speaks for, but it’s long enough for the man who stayed to get bored, apparently. Todd is still pale, but Neil doesn’t think he’s going to pass out anymore.
Charlie pauses, longer than he has before, and Knox jumps in right where he left off.
It doesn't matter.
“I'll pick who speaks next,” The man says, lowly.
He eyes them all for a minute. Todd is shaking next to him. He's so terrified of reading aloud even in front of them sometimes that Neil doesn't know what he'll do if he's picked.
The gun shifts to Neil.
All he can do is stare down the barrel and breathe.
It's a pistol. The same type as his father's, now removed from the house. His temple throbs with the reminder of the mark it left on him.
It almost makes him laugh. A couple months after he tried to kill himself, someone with the same type of pistol might do the job for him.
“It's your turn to speak, so entertain me.”
Neil can do that. He doesn't have the whole of A Midsummer Night's Dream memorized word-for-word, but he knows his parts. He's heard and read the rest so many times that he'll be able to fumble his way through it.
“Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour draws apace…”
He read for Theseus at the audition and a few times in rehearsal when they were just messing around. His lines, at least, will be easy.
Neil doesn't look away from the gun, but he lets his voice shift in timber and volume, lets the characters sweep him away as Puck did on stage.
Near the middle of act three, the door opens again. Neil can’t hear what the men whisper to each other before the door closes again.
He doesn’t stop reciting. His throat is sore, his voice rougher than it was when he started.
The gun doesn't waver where it's trained on his forehead. He can’t look away from it, can’t close his eyes for longer than it takes to blink. His temple is pulsing in time with his heartbeat, a reminder that his headache is only going to get worse.
He keeps going–on stage, it was about two and a half hours, with the fifteen-minute intermission. Neil doesn't have an intermission, though.
He's also not speaking at the pace he was on stage, going more slowly to drag it out a little and give him time to think about the parts he's unsure of.
Their guard doesn’t interrupt or move at all. Knox and Todd shift beside him, occasionally, but Neil doesn’t let himself move.
“So, good night unto you all. Give me your hands, if we be friends, and Robin shall restore amends.” He finishes, a little breathless from the exertion of talking for so long, from the memory of the elation he’d felt before his father had made him leave the theatre.
Todd knocks their shoulders together, somehow, and on his other side, Pitts starts talking about the radio he and Meeks made.
He doesn’t get very far before the man slides his gun into a holster on his belt.
Neil relaxes, shoulders and back aching from the tension he’s been carrying in them, when it’s put away.
“Apparently you've impressed someone.” His voice drips with disdain. “You'll all be blindfolded. Don't try to attack me and don't try to run.”
Neil tries to look the others in the eyes before the blindfolds go on, but he doesn't quite manage it.
Neil doesn't bother trying to count his steps as they're walked… somewhere. It's hard enough trying to stay upright. It’s hard enough not to fall to the ground and beg for something to make his head stop hurting.
Eventually, they come close to an open door.
Neil can only tell because it's much colder than the rest of their walk.
has been.
“You can’t just let them leave!” Someone yells.
“Audience was impressed. They’re free to go.”
But no one unties them, and their blindfolds aren’t removed. It sounds like they’re talking, but Neil can’t make out any of the words.
A gun goes off, and Neil stops breathing.
His head–he’s not entirely convinced he has a body beyond it, because he can’t feel anything else.
He can’t see, can’t hear, can’t think past the pain in his head and there are hands on him–
Neil doesn’t remember anything after that.
He wakes up in the hospital for the second time in two months. His friends are all sleeping in chairs, as close to his bed as they can be. Neil takes a moment to look them all over, to make sure the gunshot he remembers hearing–was it real, or was it a trick of his memory?–didn’t hit any of them. Charlie and Pitts have a black eye each, and Charlie’s hands are both wrapped up. Knox’s left arm is in a sling. Meeks has crutches next to his chair and one leg propped up on Pitts’ lap. On the hand Cameron has on his bed, he can see bruised knuckles. Todd’s got bruising on his face, though lighter than Charlie’s and Pitts’, and some around his wrists, too.
They all have that, actually.
Neil’s head doesn’t hurt, for once. His wrists and left ankle are aching, but it’s less pain than he’s been in for… well, for a month.
Charlie’s always had a sense for when Neil wakes up; even when they were kids, he’d be awake within minutes if Neil so much as stirred. It’s the same now.
“Hey, man.” Charlie leans in as close as he can get with everyone else in the way. “Don’t try to speak, your voice was getting rough there by the end. That gunshot–it scared the shit out of all of us, but you… I don’t think I’ve seen you freeze like that before. I got my blindfold off when they started arguing.”
Neil should have thought of that.
“It was wild. I don’t even know half of what happened. You were, like, sobbing to yourself and then you passed out and I think that freaked them out. You went down face-first, so your hands took the worst of it. I punched a couple more people, got hit back.” He looks a little too happy about it. “Pitts took an elbow to the face while we were grabbing you. I don’t know what Meeks did, but he broke his ankle somehow. Cameron punched someone.”
Neil raises his eyebrows–he can do that, it doesn’t hurt right now–and Charlie gets the memo that he’s too excited about that.
Even if Neil does wish he could have seen it, too. “Knox dislocated his wrist getting out of the rope. Todd caught a hit in there somehow, but he’s fine. None of us have concussions or anything.”
Neil gestures down to his ankle.
“So, about that…the gunshot was because they were fighting for the gun, and it went off. Only got your ankle, went clean through.”
Neil nods again. That does explain his ankle hurting… but it should hurt more, shouldn’t it?
“There was a ransom sent out,” Charlie goes on, “but it wasn’t to our parents or anyone, it was to like a bunch of bored old rich people who would decide which of us deserved to leave depending on how well we entertained them. You were so good that someone decided to let all of us out at once, instead of waiting any longer.”
“I wanted to tell him the story.” Knox nudges Charlie to the side. “We should get a doctor, right? Since he’s awake?”
Charlie shrugs. “If a doctor comes in, we’ll have to leave.”
“So we’re waking everyone else up first.”
It doesn’t take long–Neil even helps by poking Todd and Cameron, the only ones he can reach without getting out of bed.
“He’s so out of it.” He hears Todd mutter, but when Neil looks at him, he’s smiling.
“He’s gonna be for a while.” Meeks says. “But better his ankle than dead.”
“You’re just glad you’re not the only one on crutches.” That’s Pitts. Cameron doesn’t say anything, still just hovering around them all.
“Did you tell him anything?”
“Yeah, why not?”
“He’s not gonna remember, he’s on so many pain meds.”
“He’ll remember.”
Neil grabs at Todd’s hand on the bed, so close to his yet so far away.
“Not here, Neil, okay?”
“I’ll get the doctor.” Cameron offers, rushing off before anyone can say anything else.
Neil’s nearly asleep by the time the doctor comes back and everyone is kicked out.
Neil’s not sure how they did it, because he’s the only one who needed to be in the hospital for longer than a day, but they all go back to Welton on the same day. He and Meeks are still on crutches, but Knox has been downgraded to a brace. Todd’s face is free of bruising, unlike Charlie’s and Pitts’. Cameron’s taken to wearing fingerless gloves indoors–it is cold, after all–so Neil doesn’t know how he’s healed up.
Keating is the first one to greet them when they arrive. “Hello, boys. Mr. Meeks, Mr. Perry, you’ve been temporarily moved to a first floor room to avoid having to use those crutches on the stairs more than you need to. The rest of you are supposed to maintain your original room assignments.” He winks at them, like he knows it’s not happening.
“You’ll receive your make-up work shortly, and you’re expected to attend classes as normal. What you tell the other students is your choice.”
“As long as we don’t let Charlie decide what we’re saying, I think we’ll be okay.”
“I don’t embellish that much.”
“You do, Charlie.” Knox messes with his hair. “Can we see Neil and Meeks’ room?”
It’s an older classroom–Neil can’t remember why they stopped using it–but it’s furnished like all of the dorm rooms, with full beds instead of twins.
He already misses sharing with Todd.
“How long do you think we can get away with sleeping here instead of our dorms?” Charlie asks, grinning. “Not fair that you get bigger beds.”
“Not that long, Char, you have to deal with bedchecks by Hagan.”
“We can manage those. Somehow.”
“I’m going to bed.” Neil says. He doesn’t have anything to unpack, and using his crutches is draining. “Todd, come on, they know anyway.”
“Cameron, we’re roommates, why don’t we do that?” Charlie complains as Neil and Todd settle into Neil’s bed, a pillow under Neil’s ankle to help stabilize it a little as they sleep.
“We tolerate each other, Charlie.” Neil can hear the eye roll in Cameron’s tone.
“Let them sleep, it’s kind of cute.” Pitts whispers–at least he’s trying to be quiet.
Neil doesn’t fall asleep right away, not even with Todd breathing evenly pressed against his side, instead listening to the others as their relaxed voices blend into meaningless noise and fade away.