Chained To A Sink - Chapter 2

He's stopped struggling a while ago now. He knows he was never actually going to get away like that anyway and at some point it has even stopped working against the unwanted thoughts and feelings, no longer keeping them at bay. His wrist is sore and aching, with a few drops of blood running down from where the metal of the cuff cut into his skin, but Hunter doesn't care. In fact, he barely feels it anymore.

No, right now, as he's just sitting on the cold bathroom tiles, leaning with his back against the wall, his thoughts are focused on only one thing: He's trying to figure out what he's going to say to her the next time they meet; assuming, of course, he's ever going to see her again.

There are a few very colourful expletives on his mind as he's thinking about her, but those don't really seem to be enough to convey just what exactly he's feeling about his ex at the moment.

I take it all back. All the 'don't die out there's! 'Cause I'd been better off if she had died out—

He meant every word of that – still does – and he wants to say it again, to her face this time. To make sure she understands just how much he despises her after what she did, after how she played him – again. Although, he's not really sure if she would even care.

Hell, he's not even sure if Bobbi is actually capable of that emotion.

However, trying to cope with getting betrayed by the two people closest to him isn't the most infuriating thing for Hunter right now. It's that, even though he really wishes Bobbi would rot in hell, there's also that tiny part of him – that hopelessly stupid part of him to be more exact – that thinks (or at least hopes) that Bobbi, his Bobbi, wouldn't have played him like this without a really good reason. That despite her many secrets, deep down she is a good person, and that whatever is going on right now isn't as bad as it appears to be.

Only this time he ignores that part of him, because he's not going to forgive her for any of this. Not again. He's done with that, too, with listening to Bobbi's explanations and excuses, while at the same time she keeps treating him like nothing more than just another pawn in one of her many games.

I don't know where the angles end.

With you!

Hunter lets out a humourless chuckle in the silence of his prison as he remembers that particular little exchange after Bobbi's interrogation of Bakshi had ended with the man in the infirmary. He shakes his head at the memory of how easily he fell for her lies once again. He is amazed, really, how Bobbi is able to say things like that while managing to keep a straight face.

He actually saw through her that day, called her out on her ulterior motives when interrogating their prisoner and even began to suspect the secret plan she had in motion. And yet, Bobbi once again managed to deflect him with her arguments, her assertions and ultimately by jumping into bed with him again. Or rather into the van, in this case.

Hunter sighs as he realises that he never stood a chance against Bobbi in any of this. She really is the perfect spy, willing to do whatever it takes to fulfil her mission. Even him.

He's pretty sure she loved him once and he knows he always will – not that that's going to stop him from killing her if he ever gets the chance – but he can't help but wonder, if there's even a part of her that still thinks of him like that. A part of her to which these last few weeks they have spent together were more than just a means to an end, a way to distract him from finding out the truth.

He wants to believe it. He really does.

Even now he wants to cling to that last fragment of hope that's telling him that maybe he is the exception. The one person who ever got far enough under Agent Bobbi Morse's skin to make it impossible for her not to feel something – anything – as her game plays out and she's betraying him.

In the end, however, he knows that that is just another of her lies. One that he has actually started to tell himself now.

As Hunter looks over at the chain holding him, slightly turning his still sore neck in the process, he realises that there is no point in trying to make excuses any longer; not for Bobbi or Mack and certainly not for him.

Maybe Bobbi has loved him once, he will never be able to be sure of that, but he knows for a fact that she doesn't love him anymore, no matter how much he would like to convince himself otherwise. Because if she did, he wouldn't be in this situation.

Hunter is fully aware he's not an expert on love by any standards, but he's sure that if Bobbi's feelings for him were actually genuine, she would have already come to free him, kicking Mack's ass in the process for ever attacking him, no matter what secret the two are hiding this time.

No, Hunter doesn't ask himself anymore if Bobbi loves him, because she didn't come for him and he knows she never will and that's all the answer he needs.

When he wakes up later to the sound of a helicopter outside, just as Mack comes into the room with a bag he pulls over his head, Hunter is feeling surprisingly composed. The anger and hurt over his friends' betrayal is now buried underneath a thick layer of professionalism, spite and pure stubbornness. If Bobbi and Mack can forget about their personal relationship this easily, then so can he, or at least that is what he has convinced himself of.

From this moment on, they are no longer his ex-wife and his best friend who betrayed him, they are the enemy, and somehow this makes the situation a lot easier, bearable even. Because an enemy is something Hunter actually knows how to deal with.