My House Now

He wasn't entirely sure how he'd felt when he'd been kidnapped – mainly because a metal pipe coming into contact with the back of one's head at an ungodly speed tends to impair feelings and limit thoughts to pain or blissful unconsciousness. However, had he been in full possession of all his mental faculties, he imagined that he would have been surprised. After all, it wasn't like anyone even noticed him, normally, let alone had enough of an interest in him to kidnap him.

When he'd woken up in a tiny, damp, furniture-less room, with a locked door and bars on the windows, he'd felt two things; cold and pain. As consciousness had slowly returned, along with the power of coherent thought, they coalesced into the single, primal emotion of fear. He knew what had happened. He knew where he was. And, most importantly, he knew what was going to happen. So he'd shivered and cried and crawled into the corner furthest from the door and waited, eyes closed against the pain in his head.

When his captor had finally arrived, he'd felt anger. Anger at the childlike happiness on his face, anger at his power, anger at his sheer arrogance. His captor had merely smiled at him, waiting for him to make the first move.

"You'll regret this. My brother will find me."
"Da. Maybe. But, how long will it take him to notice you are missing? One month, two… he does not notice you normally, he will not notice if you are gone for a little while. And by then, I will have had my fun and I can give you back. It all works out, da? Everyone is happy."

He'd realised with a sick, sinking sensation that it was the truth. His brother wouldn't notice. No one would. Even if they did, he wasn't entirely sure they'd care.
"Well, then," he'd said, with more bravado than he'd felt, "I'll just have to get out by myself."
His captor had chuckled at that. "Really? Well, I will have fun watching you try." And then he'd left.

He'd finally been let out – a few hours later? A few days? His sense of time warped and stretched in the empty room, with nothing other than his own heartbeat to measure the passing seconds. A small, nervous person (one of the Baltics, he assumed, he was ashamed to say he didn't know them well enough to tell the difference between them) led him silently down the twisting hallways. He didn't feel relief. If anything, his sense of dread increased.

He'd been forced to his knees on a faded purple carpet in a huge, grand room. The walls were wood panelled up to around shoulder height, and higher up they were covered in richly patterned wallpaper. There was a fireplace set into one wall, roaring with flame but doing nothing against the cold. A blue vase of wilted daffodils stood on the mantelpiece.

"Well, little Matvey, are you enjoying your stay so far?" His captor had shoed the relieved Baltic out of the room, and had advanced on him slowly. Scrutinising him.
"Fuck you," he'd snapped, the tremor in his voice giving lie to his defiance.
"Oh, maybe you will, later. But for now, I was going to start with something a bit more… gentle. You like hide and seek, da?"

His eyes had darted between his captor's insane purple eyes and the pipe dangling loosely from one hand, and he'd just swallowed, refusing to play along with whatever sick game he was trying to start. His captor had smiles, reaching out to run a hand through his soft, white-blonde hair, one finger tracing the path of that long, wild curl of hair and making him shiver involuntarily.

"Good," his captor had said, though he'd not answered. "So, you will hide now, da? And I will come and find you. It will be fun!" A pause. "I hope you hide very well, little one." He chuckled again, and the sound made the kneeling man's blood run cold. "I will count to three, and then I will come and get you, da?"

"One."

Anger, frustration, humiliation, fear, adrenaline; the emotions flared wildly through him, sending his heart racing and making his mouth dry. He'd not run, because what was the point? The house offered no protection against the pipe and what it promised, and it was surrounded by miles and miles of freezing wasteland, which offered only a slow death. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

"Two."

Anger and frustration overwhelmed the others, flooding through his veins, making him feel lightheaded. Why was it always him? Why should he be the one to be ignored, to put up with everything, to be abused, to pick up everyone else's mess? He'd growled at the though, baring his teeth defiantly, scowling up at his captor. His emotions had coalesced into a bright, gleaming, furious shard of insanity that glittered like diamond and sliced through his mind, clearing it and leaving one mad, brilliant thought. Fight back.

"Three."

He'd exploded upwards with an animal snarl, slamming into his captor with enough force and speed and surprise to knock them both over, rolling and biting and scratching and kicking on the polished floor. They'd both been laughing.

And then, instead of finding rough fabric or soft flesh, his hand had met cold metal. He'd closed his fingers around it, wrenched it out of its owner's grasp and staggered to his feet, raising the pipe above his head. His captor had stopped laughing then but he'd a continued – a high, thin, insane giggle.

The pipe had flashed red and gold in the firelight as he'd brought it down again and again, over and over and over; until the screams and curses had turned to damp, ragged whimpers and the red was no longer light but shimmering pearls of crimson, splattered across the walls and floors and both their clothes. He'd stared down at the limp form of his tormentor, breathing hard and licking the drops of blood from his lips. Grinning.

He'd bent down, pulling the scarf off and wrapping it around his own neck. It had been warm with body heat and stained with blood; it had fitted snugly, as if it were made for him. After a last smirk at the bloody heap at his feet – the evidence of his victory, his prize – he'd walked to the center of the room, his room, and surveyed his domain. The pipe had swung absently in his grip, dripping more blood onto the purple rug.

My house now. Well, then. Who next?