Return Ticket To Stockholm

have you read 'muffin' on here, i totally recommend it. As a matter of fact, I've even done fanart! >>> http://grmblfjx.deviantart.com/gallery/31473552

I really really really wanna take a look inside Brennans head. I wrote a Christmas oneshot with these guys, it's an AR and has nothing to do with the Stockholm storyline, but it's from Brennan's POV (and a lot more lighthearted than this one ;P ) so check it out, it's on my profile.

Sorry for the long wait- there were a number of reasons, such as being sick as fuck and Christmas and family and other assignments. In any case, here it is and I hope it's decent; I've read it too many times to still be able to tell.

 

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Your Memories Will Last A Lifetime

 

He'd kept the crooked print-out, carried it around in his pants' pocket and took it out every now and then to stare at it, like now. Three days on, it was beginning to sink in.





    The victim learns how to appease and please the captor, thus keeping him- or herself from being harmed. This tactic might also be used to manipulate the captor into being less of a threat, at least temporarily.

    When the victim begins to realize that the captor shows human characteristics just like anyone else, he or she will start to see the captor as less dangerous.





God, he'd done that, hadn't he? Had tried to find out where he needed to give in- what he needed to do to get Brennan to let him live a little longer, how to get the man to stop hurting him. And it had worked.



And he'd started to think the guy wasn't that bad.





    Individuals will most likely fall victim to Stockolm Syndrome under the following circumstances:

    

    -threat to one’s survival (perceived or real)

    -inability to escape (perceived or real)

    -a small kindness from the captor

    -victim’s isolation



    The likelihood increases if there is little or no physical harm done to the victim.

    



It was spot-on. And it meant that he might have turned out less confused, less helpless, if Brennan had been a sadistic rapist after all- if he'd turned out to be evil incarnate. But he wasn't, and Ryo didn't know what to think, and-  God, maybe the sheer fact that he didn't think of Brennan as evil incarnate was part of the problem. Or a symptom. Or-

...what a mess.



He sighed.





On the sill Blainn looked up from the old handheld video game, dressed up nice again in khakis and a brown sweater with an actual polo shirt under it, oddly at home in his preppy clothes.  "Wha's up?"



Waving the sheet of paper at the guy, Ryo sighed. "I... I think I might have that."



"...yeah."



"But, see..." he said after a while, "I am glad that he let me live and didn't cut pieces off me or anything."



"Glad, sure," the redhead said with a snort. "An' why not? I'm glad every time nobody cuts pieces off o' me. Hell," he put the game down, "if you wanna be grateful, go ahead. Thank God or somethin', wha'ever you believe in. Jus' don't give people awards for it."



"It's just so hard to think that, you know," Ryo said and heard the uncertainty in his own voice.  "He wanted to let me go the entire time, isn't that what he said? Is that true?"



"Yeah," Blainn conceded. "I s'pose it is."



"I just can't think of him as a monster when he could have done all sorts of things to me and didn't. He didn't even want to kill me."



"But he would have."



"Yeah, I know." He shook his head helplessly. "But... considering who he is... I can't seem to hold that against him. It's, like, it's what he does, you know? And he made an exception for me. And I know that's probably confused, but I can't help thinking it."



"Well... it's not wha' he does. He don't go around fillin' a daily quota, kind of thing." The redhead raised a hand to stop Ryo from interrupting. "No, I get it. I get it. An' you know, there's people where tha's not even wrong- if you're from the wrong side o' the tracks, like me, it's completely true. Or," he said and shot him a look, "if you're kidnapped or somethin', it makes sense, too. Helps you cope. But now you're neither, and you need to stop thinkin' like you are."



"How come when I think it it's bullshit, but when you think it about yourself it's completely reasonable?"



The guy's mocking little laugh was welcome, was familiar. Was safe ground.  "What makes you think I don't got it?"



"Do you?"



"No."



"But how do you-"



"Look." Blainn shifted to lean against the window pane.  "Down here, havin' the power to do somethin' is the same as havin' the right to. Tha' don't make it moral, y'know? I know there's a world out there tha's different, an' that tha's the right one. An' I wasn't lucky enough to be born into that one an' tha's a shitty lot." He shrugged. "The difference between you an' me is tha' you're tryin' to justify shit, an' I ain't. I know it's shit. I jus' can't change it."



Looking at the redhead, all tidy clothes and tamed hair and round eyes, Ryo found it hard to believe. The guy could easily pass for someone from the other world, the 'right one'. Surely lives weren't written in stone?



"There's got to be a way for you to get away from this."



"Dunno, man. I know too much, you know how it is..." Blainn grinned when Ryo looked away at that- "but no, seriously. Could I get away from the boss? Yeah, maybe. If I play it right, he might let me go. An' then what? I ain't gonna move up in the world, Rye; ain't gonna happen. Too much shit out there waitin' to catch up with me. Things I needa stay on top of so's they won't get on top o' me."



"But-"



"This is the best my life's ever been, Rye. I ain't secretly chompin' at the bits to get outta here."



"...I don't know." Somehow it was easier for him to see that Blainn had every reason to hate his life, than it was to see the same thing for himself. But the guy had it rough, no? Was it confused to see the worse thing as worse? "I still think you could.... I don't know, start over somewhere else. Just keep up the respectable act until it becomes true, you know? People will buy into it. I mean, you look good in those clothes and everything."



"Jeez, Rye, you hittin' on me?" The guy laughed his rasping, dirty laugh that Ryo had come to like even if, more often than not, it came at his expense. "I don't swing that way, I thought you knew."



"Oh, ha ha." He rolled his eyes.



Blainn's serious mood had done its usual vanishing trick and dissolved into thin air the second he could needle someone. "I'm hot stuff, man. Even the fags want me."



"Uh, look...." Ryo rested his head on the back of the couch and stared at the ceiling, because sometimes the ceiling was easier to talk to, especially for things like this. "...don't call me that."



"A faggot?"



"Yeah. It, um, it's offensive."



"Oy-" before Ryo even knew that Blainn was getting off the sill, the guy was behind the couch and pulling his head back by the hair, grinning at him, upside down. "-Look who's getting demanding."





Shit, shit, shit. He'd gone too far, drawn attention to himself again, the bad kind of attention; Blainn was decent enough but then again Ryo had never tried to criticize the guy and didn't know how well he'd take to it. And he was in no position to ask anything of them in the first place, was he? Hell, these people could choose to nickname him 'fairy' and he still wouldn't have room to complain. Blainn had said it just a couple of minutes ago- around here, the pecking order really mattered.





 "...sorry," he said and nearly choked on it.



"Ohhhh no you don't." Instead of relenting, Blainn pulled harder until Ryo thought the guy was going to save him a -much needed- haircut. "Lemme guess, uhhh... you need to watch yourself and not make these people angry who go aroun' an' kill people for less, like." Waving a finger in his face, the guy stopped Ryo from getting a word in. "Ah, ah, ah. Ain't done yet. You also don't have much room to ask favors, cuz they're helpin' you out already even though they don't have to, an' anyway if you piss 'em off you'll be sleepin' under a bridge. Or with the fishes." He paused. "How'd I do?"



"Is that so wrong?" And so obvious?



"Well, no. Might all be true if you were stuck with... other people, I guess. But see, I'm tryin' to put you back together so we can release you into the wild, like- I ain't gonna try and fuck you up more by hurtin' you for somethin' you say." Blainn stopped to consider this. "Unless you say, ooh, lookit my lil' police badge here."



"You are hurting me, actually," he grouched back.



"No I ain't." The guy grinned, but let go. "You don't know pain."





No, Ryo thought as he rubbed his smarting scalp, he probably didn't. Not by their standards. No broken bones, no ripped out fingernails, no cuts, no burns, no bruises. He didn't want to know, either, wanted to stay oblivious- and he'd been kidnapped and suspected of being planted, for a whole month, and had come out still not knowing pain. How the hell was it deluded to be grateful for that? Brennan had spared him, on the chance that the evidence was wrong. Surely...?





Moving around to face him Blainn leaned in, steadying himself with one hand against the back of the couch. "See, now, this is a good thing. You get demanding all you want." He grinned that gap-toothed grin of his. "An' if you say pretty please an' suck my dick, I'll think about it."











They had both dropped it after that, and eventually the guy took off, leaving Ryo to his thoughts. Looking at the wrinkled print-out, long since abandoned on the table, he wondered if it was strictly sane to have come back here. If he had this... this, then how was it helping to be dependent on these people? Blainn wanted him to hate Brennan not because he disagreed with what had happened, but on general principle. Because that was the healthy reaction, or something. But how was he supposed to develop anger at someone who was currently the only thing keeping him from being homeless?



At no point in the last three weeks had Brennan done anything to hint that he was expecting payback for letting Ryo stay. It was kind of hard to hate him for that... for just letting him be.



They all did. Left him alone. Maybe he only felt calmer because he didn't have to interact with anyone, maybe it was all going to come back the second he stepped out of here- but somehow he felt sure that it was more than that; that the peace he was finding for moments at a time was real. Nobody pressuring him. Nobody asking questions. Just peace.



And maybe they didn't care... no, that was the wrong word, they did care enough to give him a room and food and books- it was just that they seemed to lack any sort of curiosity. Even Blainn, who seemed content enough to come by and talk and bullshit on a regular basis, never asked any questions beyond the obvious.



It probably meant that he didn't matter: he made no difference, was eventually going to disappear from here without a trace; but even as it irked him that someone who had lived with him -or someone who had slept with him so often- could just be so completely indifferent, he knew it was a good thing. You were only safe as long as you didn't draw the wrong attention, and he had gone back to not drawing it. Not entirely, maybe, given that he was still here... but this was more than he'd once dared to hope for. Hell, they didn't even bother to close the door these days.





On impulse, Ryo got up and walked towards it. If they were leaving it open, there was no secret behind it, right? So he would be okay.





He stood in it, wasn't ready to go further but defensively proud of himself to have gotten this far at all, when he heard steps coming down the hall. He knew them, he realized, and couldn't say what exactly it was that made his stomach twist- these were Brennan's. Hard to pinpoint what was typical about the sound, but he was sure.



Coming around the corner, fiddling with his phone, the man looked normal -almost harmless- and Ryo couldn't help wondering what it would be like to meet and get to know him in a different setting, to think he was just another guy. To not fear him. It seemed nice... and impossible.



Just then, Brennan looked up and noticed him; smiled a little half-smile that made Ryo's mouth go dry even though it didn't reach the eyes, or maybe because it didn't reach the eyes- they were alert and piercing and looked at him in a way that made him feel naked in every sense of the word.



Even as his pulse sped up in alarm, he felt a weird thrill.





"Oh, hey," the guy said, putting his phone away. "I thought this might interest you: your doppelganger seems to have quit the assignment. He's gone."



"You sure he wasn't disappeared?" Look at that- you can actually talk in his presence. Does that make you more sane, or less?



"Yes, I'm sure. I would know." A tiny smirk made the words seem more harmless than they really were. "We still don't know who he actually is."



"Not me," he grouched. It made Brennan laugh, a soft and easy laugh that sounded genuinely amused, and Ryo was surprised to find a tiny smile on his own lips, too.



"...I know."





The man looked at him as he said it, looked him over, and even though Ryo's heart was beating out of his chest again under this close scrutiny, he didn't want it to end. Why did Brennan have to be so damn frightening? The non-descript young guy in the gas station had been an act, he didn't exist; the real person behind it was intimidating and scary even when he didn't mean to kill you. Even if he had never really meant to.





"You told me I was going to die."



"No. I didn't." He said it as a matter of fact, his voice calm and self-assured, and Ryo couldn't believe his ears.



"You said it was going to be easy- that I would never know!"



"Yes. As in, if it comes down to it and I have to kill you, you'll never know."



"That's... sort of not what you said," Ryo protested, but it came out weak- everything that had happened, everything he'd been told, had turned out to have another meaning afterwards. It shouldn't have come as a surprise that this was no different.



"Ah, well. The 'if' was silent."





He couldn't help laughing, then. What a mindfuck- what a thorough, glorious mindfuck it all had been and still was! And he had fallen for it, completely; had to have been the easiest mind to mess with they had ever seen- they were probably used to a different sort of people, hardened and jaded, and he had been like putty in comparison. He didn't blame himself for it- people from 'his world', as Blainn called it, weren't likely to be a match for men like Brennan.



Glancing up at light brown eyes -and looking away immediately-, Ryo found he couldn't blame him, either. The mindfuck had served a purpose, had been intended to save his life, if possible, and it was hard to hate anyone for that. Yes, it had been horrible- but did he really need to point that out? Brennan already knew, he had been the one to make sure of it.





Neither one moved, as such, but it seemed like every time one of them shifted they ended up half an inch closer together, until Ryo couldn't actually see his feet anymore and had to make do with Brennan's sweater instead. If he looked up now- if he turned his head- ...he couldn't. Thought about things he couldn't handle, wanted things he feared too much to allow. Instead he reached out and ran his hand over the guy's chest, gave himself something to look at as he traced the patterns of the sweater -softer this time-, had an excuse to keep his eyes trained downwards as he watched his fingers wander... and Brennan stood still and let him.



Slowly, eventually, Ryo made his way up to the collar- traced it for a moment while he worked up the nerve to move on and found skin under his fingers before he knew it, found the soft dip below the man's throat and then a collarbone and then a heartbeat, pulsing softly under his fingertips.



Human. Alive. Just a guy.



Brennan made no attempt to touch him in return, but did nothing to stop him, either- seemed comfortable with the thin, nervous fingers on his throat and the close proximity of their bodies, and Ryo thought he could probably get away with more if he tried. Did he want to? Hard to tell in the tangled mess of his mind, and he was relieved that the man seemed to leave that decision up to him.



When his fingers moved up and traced a jaw bone Brennan turned his head, and for one exhilarating, terrifying moment Ryo thought the man might kiss him.





"Oh, one more thing," the guy said, breaking the spell. "There will be people here later today who, I'm guessing, you won't want to meet... I'd advise you to stay in the room and keep the door shut."





Oh no no no. He wasn't going to do everything all over again- ...and maybe with a different outcome this time. Shit. He was going to keep the door shut alright, was going to sit behind the couch with his eyes shut, humming to himself, rather than risk seeing or hearing something he wasn't supposed to know. What if someone else opened the door? Maybe by accident? What if-



"...Lock it," he rasped, voice hoarse in sudden terror.



Brennan nodded calmly. "Can do."











He'd taken a shower -something he found easier to care about these days- and put on some sleep clothes afterwards, because all he really wanted to do was crawl into bed and pull the blanket over his head in an attempt to go deaf and blind to the world, wait it out or maybe even sleep.



Instead, Ryo was going nuts. The door was closed because he had shut it, but was it locked? He wanted, no, needed it to be, but of course he'd had to go take a shower and now he didn't know- hadn't heard the clicking sounds, couldn't say if they had come. Stupid. Forever stupid.



He thought about laying down anyway but knew it was no use, thought about watching TV but didn't feel like seeing hysterical reminders of Thanksgiving and Christmas shopping on every channel, and found himself standing in front of the door instead, staring at it. It seemed to taunt him with its silence, its indifference, its fundamental uncaring door-ness. Don't you know this is important, you stupid thing?



The intercom next to it had a red button- it had a white button, too, and that was the one Blainn had always pushed to get out, but it also had a red one with an 'i' on it. He didn't want out, wanted everything but out, so the white button wasn't an option.



He pressed the red one.







"Can I help you?" The voice coming from the speaker was distorted and impersonal, but real. That made him freeze up for a second- he hadn't thought this through, hadn't really expected anything to happen. What did he want?



"Who's there?" he asked, a little timidly.



"Security."



Right, of course. It wasn't going to be the help desk. "This is- uh. I'm..."



"Wearing sweat pants and a red t-shirt. I know who I'm talking to; I can see you."



Turning slowly, Ryo stared at the glossy half-sphere hanging from the ceiling like a boil. After a moment, he waved a little.



The answering sound might have been a snort or a little cough, it was hard to say. "That's cute," the man said and didn't sound particularly endeared. "So is there something you need?"



"Is this door locked?"



"Yes. It will be locked all day today for security reasons."



He stared at it. "Are you completely sure?"



"Yes. You're welcome to try it." The faceless voice sounded surprised now, hardly friendly but caught off-guard and more human for it.



"N- no. I don't think I will." What if the guy was wrong? What if there had been some sort of malfunction and it would just open and it would be the worst possible moment and-



He stepped away from it on impulse.



"...anything else?"



"No. I- No, that's all. Thank you."







It turned out that even knowing he was locked in wasn't good enough- locks could open. Security people could be wrong. People could accidentally witness things they weren't supposed to see and then be in a world of trouble and get hurt and potentially die and, shit, shit, he wasn't handling this well at all. And he didn't have the benzo anymore.



Ryo stepped into the bathroom and closed the door behind himself, feeling better with this extra layer of walls; sat on the bathmat, leaned against the wall and knew he wasn't going to leave this room until someone came to get him. There was a toilet and running water, he could stay in here for days, if he had to. Just sit here and look at the colors, faint in some places, seemingly stronger in shadowed spots- mixed where the beams crossed, but separate as blue and green elsewhere.



He liked the green. It was friendly and soothing and didn't harm anyone, green wasn't very dangerous, except maybe if you were lost in the jungle. He'd heard someone call it a "green hell", but although he could see how people could come to feel the same way about other colors, to him hell was white.



Hugging his knees, Ryo put his head down and played a game, trying to find something green from every area of life he could think of. Green food was easy. Green animals and dish detergent, too; brand logos took him a minute, tooth paste was even harder, and he finally dozed off while wondering if he'd ever actually seen a green piece of furniture anywhere.







He was brought to by a foot prodding his, which was alright because it didn't have a shoe on it but still not the cuddliest way to wake up.



"Get up, lazyass." Blainn was ragging on him again, but the fact that he was still dressed up, that he'd probably come straight here and hadn't even bothered to change first, put Ryo in a rather forgiving mood.



Still- "Lazy is sort of not what happened," he grumbled on general principle.



"Yeah? Seems to me you're bumming it rather a lot here recently." The redhead grinned as he made to leave the bathroom. "An' now I get back an' you're asleep in the middle of the day. Seems damn lazy to me."



"I did have a job, you know," Ryo grouched as he got up, feeling a little stiff, and followed the guy into the main room. "-before someone came and fucked with my head."



"Yeah, yeah, you'll have a job again. Find yourself a nice gas station or somethin'."



"Jeez. Yeah, my dream job."



"Was good enough the last three years, weren't it?!"



"That doesn't make it my dream," he said, falling on the couch and trying not to think about the fact that they knew everything about him. Everything that could be kept on file somewhere, anyway.



"Wha's your dream, then? Make the jump to barista?"



"For a while I thought I might go to school." He knew the guy was just giving him a hard time and probably didn't care, but since he had no smart-ass answer he figured he might as well give a real one. "Math or computer sciences or something- but I guess it wasn't in the cards for me, or in my bank account."



"Yeah." Instead of more needling, the response was surprisingly understanding. "Can't always have the life you want. Sucks."





Wasn't that the fucking truth? Instead of doing something he was interested in, he'd ended up selling gas and snacks to people, and by now he wasn't even able to do that. He was far from the life he'd used to imagine for himself, and getting further away. Hiding in the bathroom to deal with the panic. Jesus.





"Why's your door locked?" Blainn's voice was casual, but his eyes were suspicious.



"I asked him to. He said there'd be people here today and I want nothing to do with it."



"The boss? He was here?" When Ryo -his thoughts wandering back to the encounter- nodded distractedly, the redhead caught on immediately. "Did you do somethin' stupid?"





Had he? He hadn't actually done anything, nothing like what the guy probably thought, nothing even like last time. But then again, what he had done probably qualified as stupid by Blainn's standards, didn't it?



To Ryo's relief, the redhead shook his head in frustration, but didn't press the issue.





After a moment's silence, he seemed to have moved on, as he did. "I'ma go down for a smoke. Wanna come?"



"You said my door was still locked."



"Yeahhh I can make sure they're not in the area, like. Shouldn't be."



"No," Ryo said and tried to swallow the rising feeling of uneasiness, "no, I'm good. I'll come with you tomorrow."













He had the window cracked a bit although it was somewhat cold out, just because he could. Just to remind himself that he could. But there was no breeze, and he was halfway wrapped up in the curtain anyway to keep the sun out of his face as he read and didn't feel the cold very much, so he figured it didn't hurt.



Past the edge of the curtain he saw movement outside, the only thing in the whole world that seemed to be moving. It was Blainn, going for his smoke, and for a moment Ryo thought he saw the guy squint up to where he sat behind the curtain- but either the sun was reflecting off the window or he wasn't visible, in any case the copper hair lowered over the pack of smokes and didn't come up again.



Shifting to get more comfortable, Ryo tried and failed to return his attention to the book. It was no use, his thoughts kept drifting- not even to anything in particular, just generally drifting: to what his life had been before and what it was now, to his childhood, his teenage years. To his first crush even, in middle school- a girl, then, although looking back he realized how incredibly platonic that had been; he'd just thought she was really cool. He still thought that now. That scene with the snake in biology class, where everybody else-



More movement outside brought him back to the present. Brennan had appeared underneath his window, which was approximately where the door was -or one of the doors, anyway- and was walking a little ways towards Blainn, who in turn got up and went to meet the man halfway.



For lack of more important thoughts, and because he couldn't concentrate on the perils of life in Victorian England, Ryo watched them- saw them talk about something or other, although he couldn't hear, saw Blainn nod and grind out his cigarette, and watched them make their way back over to the door, marking an end to this limited entertainment. And that was alright, wasn't it? He liked the fact that this was the most lively scene he'd seen all day, and if he really needed noise and hectic antics he could always turn on the television.



But just as he was about to give the book another chance, the two men stopped, and he realized they were within earshot.





"...gotta stop doin' that," Blainn insisted. "I'm tryin' to get 'is head back on right, an' you ain't helpin'. No offense, boss, but you ain't."



Brennan was silent for a moment, seemed to weigh his response, although Ryo couldn't see his face. "Do you realize he's the reason I've not really been going near you, recently?"



"I figured," the redhead snapped as Ryo froze. "But, see- I know I ain't ever asked for it, an' I ain't askin' for it now, but the fact of the matter is tha' I can handle it, an' he can't. It fucks with 'is head, an' you needa stop that!"





Holy shit.





"...alright, alright." Even as he admitted defeat, the man didn't seem very defeated. "Are you going soft on me over this guy?"



"Yeah well maybe I am. Don't pretend that you-"



Blainn was cut off by something sharp but unintelligible that made him fall silent, and Brennan seemed to say something else, but they started walking again and Ryo couldn't hear.



Once they were gone he quietly closed the window in case one of them came up, in case someone might realize he had been witness to their conversation... but no one came, and he was left to his own thoughts again, whirling now instead of drifting.









Brennan never even came close to him after that, and Ryo didn't have the guts to force it.



 

 

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