Hello beautiful people,

There's love in my heart and endless hugs to give every time I remember how loyal and loving you all are for putting up with me and my inconsistent updating!

Enjoy,

Bree Z Claire

David lowered the light, twisting it around so the beam aimed right between the man's eyes. And he knew full well how hot it was –he'd designed it so there was a small, laser-like beam of heat made noticeable only when it hit someone dead on and had suffered multiple burns during the construction of said device—so he wasn't surprised when he saw the beads of sweat trickling down the man's temples within seconds. He circled around his prey tied down to a plastic chair with zip ties tearing into flesh of the wrists, making sure his shoes ghosted along the cement but made a definite, echoing click click every now and then.

There was a second body as well. If you could call it that. A figure lay crumpled in the corner of the room, limp and disfigured and broken, slumped lazily against the wall smeared with red. It didn't matter that the body laid next to the door; it wasn't as if it was going anywhere soon. Not with its tibia sprouting through the skin like a bamboo shoot of bone and blood.

David picked up his crowbar from the table and wiped it off.

"You're not doing yourself any favours, you know." David kicked the chair halfway up, tilting it so he could look into those green eyes. Despite the beads of sweat, the man remained cool, calm, and collected as if being beaten and tied to a chair was an everyday occurrence to him. David growled, "Now tell me what I want to know."

The bastard smirked, "Like I said before: I don't know anything." David let the chair fall, unsatisfied with the strangled grunt that came when the man fell back into the cement and most likely didn't break any bones by falling on his hands.

Damn.

He'd been at this for three days now, and wasn't three supposed to be the charm? Three days of questionings, torturing, and starvation. And still nothing. David scowled as he hung the crowbar on a nearby hook and resisted the urge to pace. He grabbed a picana from its place on the wall, flicking on a few switches on the control box. The device hummed to life.

Interrogations were hard, David thought for the fiftieth time. He never did have a knack for them the way Thad and Kurt did, nor did he have the twisted, playfulness in gore that Nick and Jeff possessed—imagine planting nanobombs throughout a human's body and setting them off one by one. Fireworks. That's what those two called it. But David had no such talents, so he was left to the crowbars and zip ties and brass knuckles—God did he hate brass knuckles.

David flipped the chair back up, making sure the man had the crumpled body in his line of sight, before circling back around.

"There're fifty goddamn states in this country. Nine million, eight hundred twenty-seven thousand square kilometers, and you decide to arrange one big game of hide and seek with one tiny microchip as the grand prize."

"'Thought it'd be fun," the man answer cockily.

"I'm sure," David scoffed. He lifted the picana gently, ghosting it over skin but not touching until his victim squirmed. The high voltage, low current little tool was painful enough, though with a little tweaking here and there even more wonders could be made. He smiled then, and, tilting his head to the side, asked ever so innocently with a sugar-sweet voice that would've made Kurt proud, "There are other ways to have fun, you know. Would you like me to show you?"

The man's green eyes didn't look so calm anymore as David raised the prod just under the man's jaw.

"David?"

David froze; the bronze tip of the tool mere inches from the man's sweating skin. His eyes seemed to split attention to both the door and the figure in front of him, and how that was possible David had no idea. But, he supposed, whenever it came to a certain factor, things were never quite as logical as they should be.

Shit.

He whipped his body around and felt instantaneous relief to see the door still closed. A glance behind him revealed his prisoner, though still tied down and sweaty, wearing a smirky meerkat face. The only thing keeping David from groaning in frustration was the fact that the victim seemed to be panting in relief. Said jailbird was currently gazing at him, leaned back as if the two of them were just relaxing in the living room upstairs and David was not about to introduce him with a world of pain or imagining what mess would result out of cracking his head open with a metal bar. David narrows his eyes, warning the man to keep silent as another knock sounded from behind the door.

"David?"

David bit his lip with a strangled, "Yes?" and because he knew Wes isn't stupid, he knew he'd said the wrong thing. Very rarely did David ever speak so curtly, especially to his beloved. Ever so slowly, over the passing months of living together in the same large mansion, he could see the change in Wes' eyes whenever David answered with a "Yes, love?" or "No, love" whenever they spoke and what's more is that he could see the slight softening in Wes' eyes when his beloved shyly hid the smile that threatened to blossom out.

David loved Wes more than anything, but right now…

"I'm making dinner," Wes asked slowly. "What do you want tonight?"

"Nothing. Just make –whatever."

"Nothing? David, are you okay in there? You always want something."

"I'm fine! Just—come back later!" David flailed, pointedly ignoring the snickering hostage behind him. He started thinking whether or not he remembered to lock the door, praying that the unmoving body was enough obstruction to block it from being opened. But because he knows Wes isn't stupid, and because he knows the universe lives to smite him, David knows he's just signed his own death warrant by means of hoping those things wouldn't happen. Wes opened the door.

Only to stop dead when he peered around to see what was keeping it from opening all the way.

"Oh," he breathed.

There were multiple reasons why David never showed Wes the negative stories of the estate. Starting from the wrong elevator or staircase in the house could lead to disastrous consequences and means to an early end if one wasn't careful of where they stepped. The labyrinth-like passageways were used to trap "guests" who had happened to break out of their respective rooms. Blaine, Thad, and David had spent years circling around, planting traps and gasses and darts and wires and various other pointy things, creating the underworld, and not many had the ability to tour the entirety of the grand estate and know exactly where there were going at all times. It was the reason why Nick and Jeff, for all their expertise with wiring, exploding gels, and brilliant bomb making, could never travel below the ground floor without help.

Thad, being the man of multiple blueprints –honestly. Blueprints littered the Harwood family archive from banks to the White house— designed each floor and even had his room planted dead center of all five negative stories. David had once asked why, regretting the answer the moment it left his lips. He made a mental note to never leave Wes and Thad alone because if anyone's sanity was ever to be questioned, it was Thad's.

The basement levels were dark and dreary and a slight misstep could still catch even David off guard if he wasn't alert enough. The rooms were either reserved for supplies –weapons, gasses, poison, hot air balloons—or hostages –there were still a few here and there leftover from Thad's last visit whose screams still filled the darkest of corners. So, frankly speaking, David would've like to never see Wes anywhere near the depths of the mansion, tip-toeing around, exposed in the dark to Lord knows what.

It was also cold. And David would've kick himself into eternity for letting his beloved catch a cold touring the hollow corridors.

"Wes," David hissed, completely flabbergasted. "What are you doing here?" How did you even get down here, was what he really wanted to ask.

"You told me there were more herbs in the pantry." His voice was sulking, as if caught between sarcasm and shock that there was a dead body not a foot away from him. Wes' eyebrows perked up into twin arches and, finally managing to turn away from the scene of cracked bones and bloodstains, turned to face David. "David, please tell me the pantry isn't in here."

David bit almost dropped the prod, feeling the heavy pull to run and envelope Wes into his arms and hug away all the puppy eyes and paled-face look and make everything all better. But he couldn't. Instead, he kissed the air with his words, "It's in the other basement, love. I can show you there if you need."

"No no, you're obviously busy doing…stuff." Wes closed the door an inch, causing a finger to be dragged along under the door where it had gotten caught. "I'll just make some sandwiches for tonight, yeah? Nothing too complicated."

"Sounds amazing," David beamed. His tummy was beginning to make the rumblies.

"It'll be a few minutes…" Wes seemed to find a good medium to look at, and began to gain footing by fixing his eyes somewhere between David's left ear lobe and the happy place in the back of his mind. David smiled, finding it funny how easily Wes could gut a fish yet fidget in the presence of a little blood and torture.

"I'll be up soon, then," David said softly, and Wes nodded, inching the door closed—

Someone cleared their throat too loudly, and Wes looked past David at the living body tied to the chair, sandy-blond hair coifed up and eyes shining an electric green despite his haggard face. David glared back at the figure who seemed to have had a sudden turn for the better.

"Could I get in on that, possibly? I'm starved."

Wes seemed lost for a moment, managing and quick "Um, yeah, okay. Sure," Before closing the door with an I-was-never-here click.

David brought up the prod, whipping the metal against the man's face. The glorified cattle prod was lethal enough as a baton, heavy in his hand but in a comforting way, and David knew to a T how much strength was needed to break a bone or dislodge a few teeth. He did neither with his strike, only just barely holding back because he did not like the way his prisoner was looking at his beloved. Not. One. Bit.

"You are not eating," he spoke distractedly, turning the dial on the control box here and there with agitated clicks because how dare this bastard ask Wes for food. Only David could ask Wes for food. Wes' food was heavenly, golden, and deliciously delicious and seasons with mouth-watering awesome sauce and David would sooner spend a day in the piranha lagoon than let some smug bastard anywhere near Wes' cuisine of perfection. Only angels were worthy of Wes' food – angels and evil masterminds, of course.

"You're going to kill me anyways."

David narrowed his eyes, raising the device in an en guard position. He kicked the chair over in a sudden haste, stomping down with his boot on the man's ribs and loving the gutted grunt and silent snapping of bone. He dangled the bronze point over his victim's eye, holding the handle loosely between his thumb and middle finger and let the buzz of electricity sing into the room. "You'll be wishing for death when I'm done with you."

David moved his other foot over the man's throat, keeping the squirming to a minimum.

"You think I'm going to tell you everything just because you give me a little shock?" The man spat out angrily, choking under the weight of David's heel.

"No, Sebastian," David sneered. He loosened his grip on the handle and let it slide. "I know you're going to tell me everything. But I'm afraid it's going to have to wait till after dinner."

He let it drop.

~ oOo ~

Wes was leaning against the kitchen island when David found him, palms pressed against the edge and breathing a little too deep for someone trying to look casual. He's scared, David thought as he stood by the door. The thought shook him a little and a small twirl of guilt coiled inside him.

He knew Wes was strong. He loved him for it; feared him for it. In ways David could never image, Wes was stronger than most people him credit for. Where the world would quiver and fall under David's hand, Wes would stand strong. There were times when David hated Wes for his strength, the stubborn set of his shoulders when he folded his arms in front of his chest looking every bit the impenetrable fortress David knew he could be. It was a trait rooted deep in Montgomery blood and Wes flourished in it.

But even Wes had his breaking point, and even with someone as solid and tightly woven as his beloved, David had seen this long coming. The kidnapping, the imprisonment, the attempt at escape failing miserably, all of it had just chipped the surface, working and eating away slowly until the final stone got taken away; seeing what he'd seen that night had pushed him over the edge. Now Wes was breaking before his eyes, and it was all David's fault.

"It's rude to stare," The Asian turned his head, startling David from his thoughts.

"I'm sorry."

A word. A simple, little, stupid word, overused to death in the world today to an extent beyond functionality. David loathed that word and how those who used it killed it every time they uttered it in vain. Growing up, he never apologized unless he truly regretted whatever he'd done, and he could count on his two hands how many times he'd used that word and he could count of one hand how many times he's really, truly, wholeheartedly meant it.

And boy did he mean it now.

David crossed the kitchen in three easy strides, wrapping his arms around a waist too thin for comfort –They'd gone out last week to a restaurant currently burnt down because Wes had been served raw chicken and spent the past week and a half in his own personal hell while David collected up all the flammable liquid and explosive everything he could find. The restaurant formerly known as BreadstiX was now currently known as a massive crater in the state of Ohio.

He dipped his head onto the shorter man's shoulder; he felt slightly less queasy when Wes relaxed under the pressure.

"Are you okay?"

"I know him," Wes bowed his head. David nuzzled closer. "'Met him at once of my father's company functions. He wasn't that bad at first, and of course I had to make nice because 'a foot in the door of the Smythe empire meant a foot in the door of the business world'," his voice went rough and haughty as he mimicked his father's voice, but David didn't laugh. "Half way through the night things started getting weird. He kept giving me drinks and sneaky us off to the balcony for private chats. I swear he tried to slip me something because he just kept pushing me to drink and drink. 'Tried to get me drunk or drugged or whatever before groping me under the table during my father's dinner speech," He laughed a little, bitter and short. David frowned.

"What did you do?"

"Stabbed him with my salad fork."

David sputtered to a laugh, burying himself into Wes' shoulder which was also shaking with laughter. "That's my boy."

They ate their sandwiches in peace, lounging amongst pillows, blankets, and tangled limbs in front of the wide screen. David looked over every so often, keeping an eye out for telltale signs that Wes really wasn't as okay as he said he was, but saw nothing but eased shoulders and warm brown eyes. He didn't even seem to care when David reached over to finish the second half of Wes' sub, stomach still easing into the idea of food.

David smiled.

Maybe Wes really was stronger than people gave him credit for –David included. Strength David could lean on and rely on, and definitely something they'd both need in the weeks to come. Strength they both definitely needed when, at the lovely hour of 4AM, the doorbell rung with the acoustic accompaniment of David's security alarm, distant bombs, and helicopter wings, signally the arrival of not one, not two or three or four, but five long-awaited guests.

Happy Halloween!