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⊱ 1 ⊰
A drop of water hits him in the nose.
Hugo winces, opening his eyes to a blur of dingy grey. He’s laying on his back on the ground. Dampness is sinking through his clothes, skin cold and stiff and the bad kind of wet that smells like ugly winters.
His sweater and jacket are gone, leaving him in a thin tee shirt and jeans that don’t do a damn thing to ward off the cold. He sits upright and grits his teeth against a hiss of pain as his limbs try to lock up in refusal.
Everything is blurry when he tries to get a good look at the room he’s in. His glasses are gone with the rest of his clothes. He can’t see shit, other than a mass of colors and the bars right in front of his face.
Bars, like a cage. Like a cell. They’re almost painfully cold to the touch and don’t so much as creak when he puts his full weight into pushing at them. He’s in a cage like a dog, in a blurry grey room with no light other than a rectangle of orange coming from somewhere near the ceiling.
“What the hell?” he mutters to no one, because he’s alone. He doesn’t remember how he got here or what he was doing before. There’s a dull ache at the back of his head, blending in nicely with the frozen-stiffness of his bare arms and fingers. That’s what he gets for wearing fingerless gloves in January .
Another waterdrop slips from the ceiling and lands between his bent legs. He scoots away from it, rubbing his icy nose with an offended sniffle.
As if summoned, there’s a creak of hinges somewhere in the room. The darkness is flooded by a bright, yellowish light, and footsteps come down what Hugo can only assume are a set of wooden stairs, if the whine they make under weight is any indication.
A man comes up to the bars of Hugo’s cage. He’s tall, burly and broad-shouldered with a truly severe set of eyebrows that Hugo can see when he comes close enough. The man kneels and sets a plate just outside of Hugo’s cage.
He doesn’t say anything to Hugo. He straightens and immediately turns to leave. Hugo stiffens in belated alarm.
“Hey, wait!” The man doesn’t glance back, even when Hugo pushes off the floor to grip the bars of the cage. “Hello? Can you just wait a second–”
He’s ignored. The man disappears through the doorway, leaving in a swoop of yellow light and then Hugo is sitting in darkness again.
He sighs, letting his forehead fall against the bars of the cage.
He looks down at the plate by his feet. There’s a sandwich on it. Hugo can see lettuce and tomato from where he’s standing, and a neat line of sliced cucumbers next to it. He turns away from the plate, even if his stomach protests with a sharp stab of hunger.
They’re probably trying to poison him. Who keeps a person in a cage and then feeds them good food? If they’re sticking him in here like a kennel, they may as well give him a dog bowl to eat out of.
He paces the width of the cage and settles against the back wall, sliding down uncomfortably until he’s sitting with his hands resting on his bent knees. He isn’t afraid yet. This isn’t the worst situation he’s been in, or the worst place he’s ever slept.
He watches where the man had disappeared, and waits.
⊱ 2 ⊰
The next time the door opens, Hugo has been fighting sleep. He’s already fallen asleep—or more likely, been knocked out—once in this hellhole and he isn’t keen to repeat the mistake.
He blinks against the sudden burst of light. The same man from before comes down the steps, holding a fuzzy mass that Hugo assumes through vision that’s worth half a damn is another plate.
The man sets it down beside the one Hugo hasn’t touched and wordlessly gathers the first.
Again, he turns to leave immediately. Hugo quickly jumps to his feet and sends the plate skidding across the floor with a shove. The glass scrapes across the floor with an unpleasant shriek.
The man stops on the steps.
He doesn’t turn around, but his head angles to the side, listening.
“I want my glasses,” Hugo demands. “And my clothes. It’s freezing down here.”
The man does turn then. He regards Hugo with a raised eyebrow, as if wondering at his audacity.
Hugo has been in a handful of life-or-death situations before. He refuses to die blind and freezing his ass off after everything else he’s survived.
After a moment, the man stops staring at Hugo to look pointedly at the plate by Hugo’s cell. “Eat,” he says gruffly. Then, he’s gone again.
Hugo sighs.
“What does he even care if I eat?” he grumbles, leaning down to inspect what the man brought. It’s another sandwich, the exact same as yesterday. “Keeping me alive to kill me slowly in this deep freezer?”
His arms are numb down to the fingertips with cold. He runs his hands up and down the length of them, trying to coax warmth back into his skin. A sandwich would be an impractical way to poison someone, he muses, staring with narrowed eyes at the bricks in the wall.
He doesn’t move the sandwich or the neat little cucumber slices from their plate.
⊱ 3 ⊰
Most of his time spent in the cell is done walking.
He’s already scoped out as much of the room as he can from his cage and without his glasses. There’s a blur of shapes along the wall across from him that might be a stack of crates, the kind they keep on farms, and a radiator.
The more he looks at his cage, the more he notices it’s like a prison cell. There’s a small cot with a plain blanket on it, thin and worn but soft, and his feet hang over the edges of the frame if he stretches out on it; a meager little bathroom set-up in the corner that has a bar of soap on the sink, like he’s going to be worried about keeping his hands clean down here; and a platform built into the wall that looks like it might be a desk.
He’s already tried standing on it to see through the window near the ceiling, but it’s pointless when he doesn’t have his glasses.
Hugo has no idea how much time has passed, other than he noticed the sun set and rise at least once since he’s been here. He paces the length of it, back and forth and back and forth like an escape will jump out at him if he treads a footpath into the ground. He’s mumbling under his breath; whatever he can think of, mostly to hear something other than the drip of water from ceiling to floor.
“Do you always talk this much?” comes from behind him, almost startling him out of his skin.
He can make out a figure standing by the stairs. It isn’t the man from before, between the softer voice and the fact that their silhouette isn’t that of a grizzly bear. “You here to keep me company?”
A quiet snort. “You were s’posed to eat.”
“Wasn’t hungry.”
His stomach turns sharply, as if to punish him for lying his ass off. Hugo hears the quiet shuffle of shoes against the floor and then they examine the untouched plate at the front of his cell. “Well,” they say, slowly and deliberately, “I’m not meant to give you these if you don’t eat. But if you’re not hungry –”
Something catches in the light from the window. Hugo’s spine stiffens as he recognizes the vague shape of his glasses held out in their hand.
He stalks over to the front of the cell, pressing against the bars. “Those are mine –”
They don’t move away, even as Hugo comes dangerously close to someone who could have very well been the one to knock him out and kidnap him. This close, Hugo can make out his face. Almost half of it is covered by unruly black bangs, enough that Hugo briefly wonders how the hell he can see, but blue eyes are squinted in a glare. Despite this, the first thing that catches Hugo’s attention is the thick brush of freckles over his nose.
His hand tightens around the glasses, pulling them back in case Hugo gets any stupid ideas. “I’m not meant to give you these if you don’t eat,” he repeats, and it’s now that Hugo registers the thick Southern accent, more noticeable through the layer of irritation Hugo can hear in his voice. “I’ll come back when you’re hungry.”
“I’ll eat,” Hugo snaps. Freckles isn’t the only one that’s annoyed. “Stay. I won’t take long.”
He ends up sitting on the cot, plate balanced on his lap as he quickly eats the sandwich in a way Donella would smack him upside the head for. The bread is tough and dry around the edges from being left out for hours, but otherwise it’s pretty damn good. If all poisoned food tasted like this, he wouldn’t mind, he thinks.
Freckles watches him with a distinct air of boredom. He’s sitting on the bottom step, knees pulled up to rest his elbows on as he plays with Hugo’s glasses. Hugo has been side-eyeing him to make sure he doesn’t break them.
He sets the plate back on the floor with a clatter and turns expectantly to the stairs. “Well?”
Freckles pushes to his feet and holds a bottle of water through the bars of the cage. When Hugo doesn’t take it, it crinkles as Freckles’s fingers tighten, eyebrows raised expectantly.
“You said eat.”
“Most people would be grateful for it.”
“You bring a lot of people down here?” Freckles doesn’t answer. “How do I know you didn’t put something in it?”
“Cap ain’t broken.”
“It’s easy to reseal.”
Hugo hears an exasperated whisper of oh my god before Freckles jerkily twists open the water bottle, takes an annoyed, pointed sip, and then thrusts it out for Hugo to take. “ There . There’s nothing in that bottle but water, so drink .”
“What’s it to you if I do or not?” Hugo says, but he listens. He drains the damned bottle under Freckles’s watchful eye. It’s aggravating and a little demeaning, like being instructed to finish his dinner before he can leave the table. Just to be a dick, he crunches the water bottle into a ball and tosses it at Freckles’s feet.
Freckles ignores it. He turns back to grab Hugo’s glasses from the stairs. He’s barely held them through the bars before Hugo takes them with an indignant glare.
His hand immediately retracts, like the thought of touching Hugo displeases him just as much. He grabs the plate from the floor and starts back up the stairs.
Now that Hugo can actually see , it becomes apparent that where he’s being kept isn’t as horrible as he’s expecting. It’s clearly a basement or cellar of some kind but it’s been kept clean, clear of dirt buildup and spiderwebs and dead leaves, no rust in the sink of his cell or dust on the cot. There are a few framed posters on the wall and a mounted deer head in the corner. Its empty eyes are staring right at Hugo as he glances around the room.
He turns away with a grimace.
Light floods the room as Freckles opens the door to leave. Hugo realizes something. “Hey! What about my clothes?”
Freckles pauses halfway through the door. He turns to look at Hugo, and the light from the doorway illuminates the stripe of blue cutting through the black of his bangs. “One day at a time,” he says, whatever the hell that means, and the door closes, taking the light with it.
Hugo groans and lets his head fall against the bars.
⊱ 4 ⊰
They’re trying to kill him. Slowly and painfully.
Hugo’s teeth are chattering so hard his jaw is starting to ache. He’s huddled up on the cot, sitting with the pillow bunched in his lap and the blanket pulled around him, desperately trying to keep the bubble of warmth. His breaths come out in clouds of white.
It was raining overnight. The cellar is well kept but the storm has made the leak in the roof even worse, water dripping through like a leaky faucet instead of the occasional drop. The steady plip, plip, plip has been driving Hugo insane when he isn’t too preoccupied trying not to shiver so violently his teeth crack.
Eventually, the door opens again, and again it’s Freckles. He doesn’t pay Hugo any mind as he comes down the steps, moving quickly and with the carefulness of someone who knows exactly which steps creak, this time holding a plate with a bowl on it. Steam is rising from the bowl, and Hugo has to stamp down the urge to sit up in interest.
Freckles is staring at the leak in the ceiling with eyebrows furrowed as he sets the plate down by Hugo’s cell. He doesn’t say a word to Hugo, briefly peering into the cell to get a good look at the leak before going back to the stairs. He’s thinking so loudly that Hugo can practically hear it.
Maybe that’s why when Hugo interrupts the silence with a quick, “Wait–” he visibly startles, foot slipping on the bottom step. It comes out sharp and a little too loud for the small, mostly empty cellar, and Hugo winces in something that feels a little like guilt when Freckles turns to give him a wide-eyed look, hand gripping the rail next to the stairs.
His other hand is somewhere behind him, body tensed, before he seems to realize Hugo isn’t about to attack him and his shoulders relax a fraction. The other hand reappears, coming up to hold the rail. Hugo wonders where it went.
“...Sorry,” Hugo says awkwardly, because what else does he say? Apologies for scaring you, since I am obviously so threatening on the wrong side of these bars and frozen half to death? “Sorry. You guys have my jacket, right?”
Freckles nods silently. Now that he’s not on the defense, his face is impassive. Despite his unreadable expression, Hugo notices how sharp his eyes are.
“Am I gonna be allowed that back anytime soon? Kinda trying not to contract frostbite, here.”
Freckles is quiet for a moment. Then, “Are you that cold?”
Hugo huffs a laugh, somewhere between amused and a little incredulous. “Aren’t you ? It’s about twenty degrees below fuck-this-shit, freckles, I’m honestly surprised you willingly come down here.”
He doesn’t mean to call him the nickname, but he’s been using it in his head so often it’s an easy slip of the tongue. Freckles’s nose scrunches in a way that reminds him vaguely of a peeved rabbit before he’s coming up to the bars. “Come here.”
“I’d really rather not.”
“Come here .”
Hugo huffs and reluctantly sets the blanket aside to stand in front of Freckles. Hugo isn’t sure what he’s expecting, but the back of a hand pressing quickly against his forehead isn’t anywhere on his list of guesses. Freckles’s hand is freezing , maybe even worse than Hugo’s, but he’s gentle as he moves it to Hugo’s cheek. Hugo can’t help but wince at the touch of icy fingers.
“Baby,” Freckles says with no small amount of insult. Hugo laughs despite himself.
“You’re touching me with your cold ass hands when I’m already almost a popsicle. Have a little mercy, will you?”
Freckles takes his hand away and steps away from the bars. He looks Hugo up and down appraisingly, searching for something, before pulling off his own jacket. Hugo stares as he holds it through the bars for Hugo to take. It’s oversized on him, which means there’s a good chance it’ll fit Hugo, but that doesn’t help Hugo understand why .
He shakes it impatiently when Hugo doesn’t move. “What, now you want to be cold?”
That gets Hugo to move. He grabs it, holding it to his chest. Despite the cold of Freckles’s hands, Hugo can feel the remnants of body heat left in the jacket. “No,” he says slowly, knows his face is just as confused as his tone, “but aren’t you ?”
Freckles shrugs. He turns away from the cell again, making his way up the stairs on the tips of his toes. Hugo wonders why he always walks like he doesn’t want to be heard.
When he’s at the top, he pauses to lean over the rail, head tilting so Hugo can see him properly. The rail doesn’t look that stable, definitely not enough to hold as much weight as Freckles is putting on it, but he doesn’t seem to care.
“I can’t feel it much,” he says. Hugo blinks. His own head tilts subconsciously to match the way Freckles is looking at him.
“Feel what?”
“The cold. I can’t feel it much.” He lifts up a hand, wiggling his fingers. “Numb. So keep the jacket, for now. So you don’t become a popsicle .”
The last bit is said in a mocking imitation of his voice. A laugh startles out of Hugo, but before he can say anything else Freckles is gone. Hugo looks down at the jacket in his hands, feels the material in his fingers.
It’s better than nothing, all things considered.
⊱ 5 ⊰
Hugo gets sick.
Of course he does, because what were they expecting to happen? He knew from the first sniffle that he was doomed to a cold at best , possible death by pneumonia at worst. The night Freckles gives him the jacket he feels a tiny bit better, falling asleep on the too-small cot with another layer of warmth, but by morning his head feels like cotton and he can’t breathe through his nose at all.
The next few days pass by in a sickness-warped blur.
He has occasional bouts of clarity; once with a flashlight shining in his face, calloused fingers holding his eyelid open as he weakly tries to turn his face away, a stern set of eyebrows frowning down at him as a familiar voice filters in from somewhere farther in the room; a pinching sensation in his arm, followed by the blanket being pulled over it; curling into a ball underneath the jacket and realizing he can’t feel the biting cold against his arms and legs anymore.
He wakes, fully, completely, for the first time to the sound of voices. One is low and deep, even but hesitant, while the other is sharp and annoyed even if spoken quietly.
“I told you I needed the coats. What’s the point if he just dies?”
“ I told you to only get as close as you needed to leave the plates. How did you know the catch is sick? You told me before he was even sniffling.”
Hugo blinks blearily up at the ceiling. The catch? Are they talking about him?
An angry huff. “I checked, because he was shivering something fierce, and he was . Mama said–”
“ Checked ? Varian, what did you do?”
There’s a pause. The silence is heavy. “I checked his head and his cheeks, like mama does.”
“You aren’t meant to be touching him–”
“I’m not meant to be giving him the coats, either, but he clearly needs them.”
“Now I know–”
“Mama said if they die of natural causes we can’t use them.”
“I wasn't going to let him die.”
“He could’ve. He might’ve.”
“He didn’t.”
“Because I helped,” the softer voice says stubbornly. Hugo hears a gruff laugh, then a shuffle of movement. He finally turns his head to see the man from before and Freckles—Varian, then?—standing off to the side of his cell. The man is ruffling Varian’s hair, affectionately combing it back from his face as Varian huffs and pushes at his arm.
“Go on, get back to your chores. Do them properly. You’ve been overfeeding Ruddiger and he’s getting fat.”
“He’s getting fat because he gets into the trash,” Varian grumbles. He starts back up the steps anyway, carrying a bag over his shoulder that Hugo doesn’t recognize.
The sound of footsteps comes closer to Hugo’s cell. He quickly shuts his eyes and relaxes his body, feigning sleep now that it’s just him and the man left in the room.
There’s a creak of metal and the sound of a lock turning. Hugo stays still, keeps his breathing deep and even, listening for any sign of movement. Finally, there’s a heavy sigh from outside of his cell.
“You are a lot more trouble than you’re worth, boy,” that low voice says. Then footsteps line the staircase, and the man is gone.
⊱ 6 ⊰
“Y’know, you guys never asked if I’m allergic to anything.”
Varian looks up from the textbook in his lap. It’s one on organic chemistry, the spine and edges worn from years of use. Varian said he borrowed it from a library years ago and never returned it, so now it’s his. He’s not enrolled in any classes—the nearest community college is too far to be worth the trip, he’d said, but Hugo noticed the note of disappointment in his voice—but he likes reading about it anyway.
Ever since Hugo got sick, Varian has taken to coming down to the cellar more often. It took him a bit to actually talk to Hugo instead of just holing up in the corner with a book or a notepad, keeping an eye on him but otherwise pretending he didn’t exist.
He’s easily lured with questions about chemistry, Hugo learns, when the first time Varian acknowledges him beyond a sparse sentence or two is when Hugo asks him why he keeps bringing textbooks down to read.
It’s interesting , Varian said, almost defensively, like he’s used to that question being asked with an undertone of judgment. There’s so much about the world you’ll never find out if you don’t go looking for it. You’ve never wanted to look?
Now, Varian is looking at him with an eyebrow arched. “Are you?”
“Peanuts.”
“No you’re not.”
Hugo can’t help the amused smile that tugs at his lips. “How are you gonna tell me what I’m allergic to, freckles?”
“Because there’s peanuts in the bread you’ve been eating, and if you were allergic you would’ve puffed up like a chipmunk by now.”
“What would you do if I did?” Varian looks at him, eyebrows furrowed. “Had an allergic reaction, I mean. I don’t suppose you guys have an epipen on standby.”
Varian holds his gaze and doesn’t answer, but Hugo can read what he isn’t saying from the look on his face. You don’t want the answer to that .
He still doesn’t know what he’s down here for. He has a feeling Varian would tell him if he asked, but like his question before, he isn’t sure if that’s an answer he really wants.
They treat him well for the most part. According to Varian, they hooked up a space heater to the radiator while Hugo was sick, which is why he’s no longer freezing to death. Three meals a day, his sweater and jacket back, aspirin set beside a plate when he offhandedly complained about his head pounding.
They’re hospitable for kidnappers , but it puts Hugo ill at ease. He can’t think of a good reason they would keep him alive this long. There’s not a lot of movies that have a happy ending when they’re being treated like a glorified pet.
He figured by now they would have done something —threaten him, try to send someone he knows a letter for ransom, maybe put him to work on the damn farm if he’s just going to sit here and stare at the wall for hours on end. The lack of danger almost makes him feel worse than if they had a gun to his head.
Varian is still watching him. He can practically feel sharp eyes cataloguing everything that passes over his face.
Hugo shifts uncomfortably and changes the subject. “Is that guy your dad?”
Varian’s attention shifts back to the textbook in his lap. He doesn’t answer for a moment; the silence stretches on long enough that Hugo assumes he’s being ignored. “He is, yeah.”
“Where’s your mom?”
He remembers (even though it’s foggy and all mashed together from the fever clouding his head) Varian mentioning his mom, the night they were arguing outside Hugo’s cell while they thought he was asleep. He’s been careful not to say anything that would give away that he’d been awake, making sure to still call Varian freckles even though he knows his name now.
Varian doesn’t seem to care about the nickname, but he also doesn’t seem to care about half the things that Hugo says to him.
Varian gives him a look. “Where’s your mom?”
Probably passed out on the couch with a beer bottle in her hand, no idea that he’s even been gone, Hugo thinks bitterly.
He doesn’t say that. He leans his back against the bars of the cell. “Does she know that you come down here?”
“I’m not s’posed to get too close.”
Hugo turns his head enough to look at Varian, sitting across from the cell on a cushion he must have brought from the house and not even ten feet away from where Hugo is sprawled out by the bars. “How close is too close?”
Varian shuts the textbook with a sigh. “Close enough for you to ask me stupid questions,” he says, pushing to his feet with the textbook under his arm. Him leaving early just means Hugo is going to be left with nothing but silence and his own thoughts for a few hours more than usual, but it’s worth it for the way Varian’s nose scrunches in annoyance when he sees Hugo smirking at him.
He still comes over to take the empty plate from the ground. At least he’s generous enough not to starve Hugo for being annoying.
“Would you mind leaving the book?” he asks when Varian kneels to grab the plate. “There’s not a whole lot to do down here, you know.”
“You wanna read about organic chemistry?” Varian asks dubiously.
“I’m willing to read about anything at this point, freckles.”
Varian stares at him for a moment, lip pursed while he visibly weighs the pros and cons of lending Hugo a textbook he clearly loves, before gingerly slipping it through the bars. He waits until Hugo takes it to wrap a hand in the collar of his jacket and tug him forward. “You do anything to that book, I’ll gut you.”
Something tells Hugo the threat isn’t empty. “Yep, got it.”
Varian gets about halfway back up the stairs before he stops again. Hugo looks at him curiously, idly feeling the rough edges of the pages between his fingertips. Varian meets his gaze for all of half a second before swiftly turning back around and stomping up the rest of the stairs, disappearing through the door. Hugo blinks.
The sound of the door opening again less than an hour later pulls Hugo out of his thoughts. He’s moved from the floor of the cell back to his cot with the textbook open over his lap, flipping through Benzene and Aromaticity .
Varian comes back down the steps, quick and quiet as a mouse. There’s a small stack of books in his hands that he sets down carefully in front of Hugo’s cell.
“You came out here on a bike, right?” Varian asks
The textbook snaps shut with a thump as Hugo jumps to his feet. “My motorcycle? How do you know about that?”
Varian makes an impatient noise. “Daddy found it. You didn’t hide it any way worth a damn. Do you like that kinda stuff?”
“What did you guys do with her?”
“ Do you like that kinda stuff? ”
Hugo huffs angrily. “Like– what? Motorcycles? Cars ? What does that question even mean?”
Varian picks up one of the books and presses it, cover first, against the bars so Hugo can see it. Hugo reluctantly looks down to read the cover; it’s an old engineering book, thick and worn just like Varian’s chemistry textbook.
“This another stolen library book?”
“Do you want it, or not?”
“... Yeah.”
He does —he doesn’t mind chemistry, but he’s always been more of a biological chemistry kind of person, and engineering is kind of his thing —but that’s not the real reason why he’s agreeing. He waits until Varian goes to hand him the book through the bars and grabs his wrist, abruptly pulling him forward and against the cell door before he can get his bearings. The book hits the floor at Hugo’s feet.
“Where is my motorcycle?”
If Hugo thought Varian’s gaze was sharp before, now it’s cutting . He tugs fruitlessly on his wrist, fixing Hugo with a look like he wants nothing more than to see him six feet in the ground. “Let go.”
“Answer my question.”
In the corner of his eye, Hugo notices Varian’s free hand disappear behind him, just like it had when Hugo startled him before.
Something glints in the light from the window; metal gleaming under dying sunlight.
A hunter’s knife, Hugo sees now, curled in Varian’s hand where it has likely been tucked into his pocket or maybe his belt.
Right. Farmer boy, someone whose dad or maybe both of his parents is clearly a hunter, if the deer mounted on the wall is of any indication, someone whose family kidnapped Hugo and has been keeping him in a cellar for god knows how long. Of course he has something to protect himself.
Varian yanks his wrist out of Hugo’s grip.
Neither of them say anything. Varian is still glaring daggers at him even as he folds his knife closed. He’s still tense like stabbing Hugo isn’t completely off the table.
Finally, he nudges the stack of books close enough for Hugo to reach them with the toe of his boots. Hugo has a feeling the only reason he didn't kick them at him is because he cares about hurting the books . “We didn’t do nothing to your bike. Other than move it, ‘cause you left it out in the rain like a dumbass.”
“I wasn’t expecting to be gone this long,” Hugo says dryly.
Varian ignores him. He’s already leaving back up the stairs. When Hugo glances curiously at the books he left, he realizes it’s a small assortment of different genres. He recognizes the title of a cheesy romance book on one of the spines.
Hugo sighs and lets his forehead fall against the bars.
“Your mom won’t mind you bringing these down to me?” he calls. He doesn’t know why he’s bothering, or why he feels a twinge of guilt for his reaction, like he’s not the one still behind bars in somebody’s basement. The urge to lighten the tension in the room is as ridiculous as his kidnapper’s son bringing him textbooks to read because he’s bored.
“She doesn’t care what I bring you,” Varian says casually, still walking up the steps, “you’ll die anyway.”
Light bursts into the room and then fades just as quickly as Varian leaves. Hugo stares blankly into the darkness.
There’s his answer.
⊱ 7 ⊰
Varian doesn’t come down to the cellar for the rest of the night, or the next day. Hugo isn’t surprised—being threatened doesn’t exactly do wonders for gaining someone’s trust—but it does give him time to think without being under watch.
His father is the one to bring in Hugo’s meals in his absence. The man looks at Hugo a little longer than usual as he sets the plates down but otherwise doesn’t pay him any mind. Hugo wonders if Varian told him what happened.
During the afternoon on the next day, Hugo waits until his lunch is brought in so he knows no one will be back down to the cellar for a while, and decides to give the window another try.
He steps onto the platform attached to the wall and uses an uneven brick in the wall to hoist himself up. He has to grip a pipe sticking out from the corner to make sure he doesn’t fall sideways, barely remembering to bite down on a yelp when his fingers slip on the damp metal, and peers over the windowsill.
The window is overlooking a field. Hugo can see the beginnings of the rows of corn he saw before, far off to the side and nearly out of view, but the field is entirely new to him. The cellar must be far from the house. He doesn’t recognize the patches of dandelions and dying grass spread out from the window to the treeline he can see in the distance.
Those might be the woods he came through, where he left his motorcycle under a cluster of fallen branches.
It doesn’t give him much, other than a possible escape route if he can get out of here . Varian said they moved his motorcycle anyway; he’ll have to figure out where they’re keeping it. Maybe in the barn he remembers seeing before everything went black, or by the old red pick-up that was parked in a dirt lot near the house.
Wind whistles against the windowpane, and then Hugo hears the sound of a dog barking and sprinting through the grass. He ducks down, keeping his head low in case he’s easily visible from the window.
A deer bolts into view from the left, running like hell for the treeline in the distance.
Hugo only has eyes on it for a few seconds before it stumbles with a jerk and collapses sideways into the grass.
The dog he heard immediately trots up to it, running in a tight circle around the deer’s limp body, turning to bark excitedly at something Hugo can’t see. Varian comes into sight from the same way the deer had. He’s holding a bow, a quiver full of arrows slung over his shoulder, but the bowstring is empty. Hugo is guessing that’s what happened to the deer.
His father follows after, bending down to throw the deer over his shoulder like it’s a sack of potatoes. Hugo makes a face at the sight of blood immediately seeping into the fabric of his shirt.
He says something that Varian nods at and then continues across the field, leaving Hugo’s field of vision with the deer. Hugo watches Varian lift two fingers to his mouth in a whistle. The dog trailing after him spins, knocking into his hip in its excitement, and then the trees in the distance shake violently as a white blur shoves past them and sprints into the field.
It’s another dog, followed by another and then what looks like– a racoon? Hugo squints, leaning as close to the window as he can without falling off his perch, but his vision isn’t betraying him. The pair of dogs are closely tailed by a round raccoon with a bushy, fluffy tail, and Hugo watches in faint amusement as it overtakes them and barrels into Varian to climb up his legs and perch on his shoulder.
Varian quickly steps to the side before the dogs can follow suit and tackle him down. The raccoon stays securely in place even as Varian dances away from the dogs’ trying to jump on him.
“Rowe!” Varian scolds the white dog. “Drop that! No squirrels in the house!”
Rowe obediently opens his jaws and lets the thing he’s holding—which Hugo had mistakenly assumed was some kind of toy —fall to the grass.
The other two take off in a chase in the direction Varian’s father left, and Rowe glances back at Varian before planting his feet and barking. Varian is still standing in the field, seemingly scanning the area in search of something with the bow still held in his hands. He waves a dismissive hand at Rowe when he barks again. “Go on, get in the house.”
Rowe disappears after them. Hugo forgets where he is, balancing precariously on a protruding brick and a pipe to look through a tiny window, until Varian turns to glance at the area surrounding the cellar and Hugo nearly falls on his ass ducking away from it.
He stays there, hunched down awkwardly with one foot on the platform and the other on the brick, and waits. He counts two minutes under his breath, not moving a muscle instead of just jumping down like someone with common sense would, and slowly pulls himself back up.
When he peeks over the windowsill, Varian is looking at him.
Hugo winces in surprise, body tensing on reflex to duck back down, but there’s no way he can play it off. Not with Varian staring directly at him with an unimpressed look on his face.
He grins and gives as much of a wave as he can without losing his grip. Varian rolls his eyes and turns back to whatever it is he was looking for.
Not long after, he leaves in the same direction the dogs and his father had gone. The house, if Hugo had to take a guess. He files that information away for later and jumps down from the window, stretching his back when it aches at how long he spent in that ridiculous position.
⊱ 8 ⊰
“How do you live here? It’s like a horror movie house.”
Varian snorts. “This is a cellar. Of course it’s bland.”
“Is the actual house any better?”
“Mm. No, it’s haunted.” He’s clearly joking, said on a lilt between humor and insult like an inside joke with the house. Hugo makes a show of considering this.
“Is it?”
“Do you believe in that?”
“What, ghosts?”
Varian doesn’t answer him, looking off to the side as he thinks. “It is,” he decides. Hugo raises an eyebrow. “The house is a ghost.”
Hugo laughs under his breath. “How do you figure?”
“That’s what happens when people die in them,” Varian says, like it’s obvious.
“Have a lot of people died here?”
It felt stupid, at first, to ask Varian questions like that. Like bringing it up would remind Varian of the position he’s in, remind him that he could kill Hugo if he wanted to. There was a false sense of security in pretending that Varian coming down to switch out the plates and talk about the books he’s reading are the only thing Hugo has to worry about.
He hasn’t been sleeping much lately. Every day that passes feels like it’s one closer to wherever this ends. He still has no idea what they’re planning on doing with him.
He tried asking that once, but Varian just looked at him in the way Hugo has come to learn means it’s a question he’s not supposed to answer.
Varian’s voice brings him out of his thoughts. “Not too many to count.”
Hugo hums like that information doesn’t make his stomach turn. “You’ve counted them, then?”
Varian shifts to bring his boot closer to the bars of the cell, twisting his foot to show scratches in the side of the leather by the heel. Hugo counts twelve tallies carved into the boot in a messy line. The tally on the far right looks newer.
He shouldn’t ask, but he does anyway. “Is that one for me?”
Varian nods.
“You’re pretty sold that I’m gonna die here, huh?”
“That’s what happens.” Varian sits back on his feet, pulling the chemistry textbook into his lap. He flips through the pages mindlessly, running his thumb over the cover. “People die here. In the house.”
“People die in the house,” Hugo repeats. “Will you?”
“Will I?”
“Die in the house.”
Varian shakes his head. He looks past Hugo, to the little window by the ceiling. He nods in its direction. “The woods out there. Not the ones where your bike was but farther. It’s quiet, other than the animals and the trees. Birds and things.”
“Raccoons?” Hugo offers. Varian doesn’t smile, but it’s a close thing.
“Yeah, raccoons.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be open to showing me those woods.”
Varian’s lip quirks with faint amusement, in a morbid sort of way. “I could,” he says softly, knowingly. “I could take you and you can run. You’re not the first to try and run– but daddy will catch you. He does every time. I’ll probably be the one to shoot you down, though. I have better aim than he does. Right” —he leans forward, tapping a fingertip between Hugo’s eyebrows— “here. Or maybe you’re fast, you look like a good runner. Maybe in the back of your neck instead.”
He moves his hand down to flick Hugo in the nose, making him hiss in surprise. “Is that why you insist on talking t’me? You want an arrow in your neck?”
Varian grumbles a quiet hey! when Hugo flicks him right back before he can move away. “Is it really so hard to believe I just enjoy your darling company?”
[finish]
“Someone in your family smokes, right?”
Varian’s eyebrows furrow. “How’d you know?”
“I can smell it when you come down sometimes. Cigarette smoke is strong.”
“You smoke?”
Sometimes, rarely. Sometimes on his worst days and sometimes on his best. “Yeah. Think you could bring me one?”
Varian hesitates, chewing on his lip. “Those things’ll kill you,” he says. It sounds like he’s parroting someone else’s words.
Hugo stretches out on the cot, nearly sending one of the books to the floor where he has it precariously set on the edge of the mattress. Varian gives him a dirty look as Hugo quickly grabs it from the edge. “Seems like a lot of things are raring to kill me out here,” Hugo says offhandedly, putting the book safely in the stack against the wall. There’s more now, because Hugo reads fast (especially when he has literally nothing else to do) and Varian seems to have taken enough of a liking to him to let him read his books.
Surprisingly, the comment gets a smile out of Varian. It’s small and gone almost as quickly as it came, but Hugo notices it anyway.
⊱ 9 ⊰
Varian brings a cigarette the next time Hugo sees him. Just one, tucked into his coat pocket when he tiptoes down the steps like he always does, like something is listening even when they’re alone, and comes to sit cross-legged in front of the bars.
It’s too dark for Hugo to read this time of evening, so he was doing his second favorite pastime: trying to find a way out of this cage. When the door creaks open Hugo all but throws himself away from the window. His skin is still dirty and bloodied from trying to pry it open with his fingers.
He doesn’t have enough time to look natural; Varian eyes him when he sees Hugo standing awkwardly in the middle of the cell, hands tucked into the pockets of his jacket, but doesn’t comment on it. He holds the cigarette out for Hugo to take like he can’t wait to get his hands off it. “Here’s your cancer stick. We only have Marlboros.”
Hugo sits on the floor across from Varian, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. His knees brush Varian’s through the bars when he moves to take the cigarette. “I like Marlboros.”
“You got a favorite?”
“Ever had Camels?”
“I’ve never had any ,” Varian says, giving him a look. “There are better ways to rot from the inside out.”
Hugo huffs a laugh. “They ain’t too bad. You wanna know my favorite? The Turkish royals. They taste kinda like vanilla.”
The look on Varian’s face tells Hugo he doesn’t believe him even a little. Hugo watches in amusement as he looks down at the cigarette in Hugo’s hand, nose wrinkling like he’s trying to imagine something so visibly unappealing tasting like vanilla.
“That’s just a red,” he says once he’s finished glaring at Hugo’s cigarette. “Nothing special. The flavored ones are for city folk like you.” He fishes an Altoids container from the depths of his coat. There’s a handful of matches in it, alongside a ring and what looks like a miniature lockpick. He strikes the match and holds it out, cupping his free hand around it so the breeze whistling through the gaps in the wood doesn’t blow it out. “Hurry up before I change my mind, city boy.”
Hugo has to fight a grin around the cigarette in his mouth, holding it carefully between his teeth as Varian lights it. “How’d you know I’m from the city?”
“You don’t talk like people ‘round here.” Hugo grimaces as Varian puts out the match by popping it into his mouth the way most people would eat a lollipop.
“Didn’t that burn?”
Varian shrugs, putting the match back in his Altoids container. “A little.” He sticks his tongue out at Hugo, showing the red mark where he put out the match. “It’ll heal up in a couple days. You gonna smoke the cigarette I risked my neck to bring you?”
A thin cloud of smoke fills the cell. Hugo makes sure to point it away from Varian, because Donella raised him somewhat right. Varian’s nose scrunches in distaste at the smell, but he watches Hugo blow clouds toward the ceiling with an air of interest.
Hugo blows his next breath through the corner of his mouth so he can offer the cigarette to Varian. “You want to try?”
Varian immediately shakes his head, looking at it like it’s going to bite him. “Those things’ll kill you,” he says again, like a broken record, “and mama will smell it on me. She’d have my head if she knew.”
“You’re gonna smell like smoke anyway, because you’re sitting here with me,” Hugo points out. “Unless you somehow take a shower before coming anywhere near her.”
Varian squints at the cigarette Hugo is still holding out. Hugo takes another drag and, to illustrate his point, lets the next exhale of smoke flow through his nose instead. It curls in faint wisps around the bars and settles at Varian’s feet. Varian squints harder.
“Fine,” he says finally, holding out his hand, “give me the damn thing.”
Hugo smiles crookedly at him and turns the cigarette to offer it to Varian. Instead of taking it from his hand, Varian reaches up to pull his hand closer and takes a quick, light drag without moving the cigarette from Hugo’s fingers. His hand is cold where it brushes the skin of Hugo’s fingers not covered by his gloves.
Immediately, he makes a disgusted face and turns to practically spit out the puff of smoke, coughing into the crook of his elbow. “ Eugh ,” he says, somewhere between revulsion and offense, “that’s nasty . How the hell do y’all do that on purpose?”
The almost affronted way Varian is glaring at the cigarette makes Hugo snort. He brings it back to take another drag, and this time, despite how Donella may have raised him, blows it directly into Varian’s face. Varian makes a choking noise that sounds similar to a cat spitting and kicks Hugo through the bars of the cell.
“ Asshole ,” he hisses. Hugo doesn’t have time to pull the cigarette out of Varian’s reach before he’s snagging it from Hugo’s hand and moving away from the cell, glaring balefully at him. He looks down at it for a moment, still glaring, and then takes another drag.
It goes about as well as the first. “ Hey ,” Hugo says, laughing, “can I have that back now? Thieving wasn’t part of our deal.”
“We didn’t have a deal,” Varian says in a very pissed off tone. He comes over to crouch in front of Hugo, looking at him like he’s debating choking Hugo out instead. He’s close enough that Hugo could take the cigarette if he wanted to, but getting on his nerves is more entertaining. “This is gross . You’re gross for liking it. You probably reeked all the time before we found you.”
Found is an interesting term to use. He grins up at Varian, delighting in the way it seems to irritate him even more. “Most people don’t smoke ‘em for the taste, freckles.”
Varian grumbles something under his breath and takes another quick drag from the cigarette. He seems to enjoy it about as much as the last two; Hugo isn’t sure what he’s trying to prove by tormenting himself, but the way he’s clearly trying to act unaffected is amusing. Hugo swears he sees Varian’s eye twitch as he holds the smoke in and leans forward to irritably put the cigarette back in Hugo’s mouth instead of his hand.
It nearly falls because Hugo is still laughing. He quickly catches it between his teeth and moves it to the corner of his mouth so he can speak. “You alright there?”
“Fuck off,” Varian says in a choked hiss of smoke. He blows what he can into Hugo’s face, but unfortunately for him Hugo is immune to it from Donella.
Hugo finishes the cigarette halfway and then stubs it out against the floor between his knees. By the time he’s done Varian has gone to sit on the bottom step of the cellar, stubbornly staying out of the clouds of smoke. He watches Hugo put out the cigarette but doesn’t come back to his seat on the floor.
The room gets quiet.
There’s a tension in the air, something Varian isn’t saying as he looks at him. Maybe something along the lines of the questions Hugo asks that Varian can’t answer. Hugo watches him right back, searching his face for any clue of what he might be thinking.
But there’s nothing. Varian has one hell of a poker face, aside from the way he tends to look at Hugo like he’s seeing right through him.
Hugo rolls the half of the cigarette in his fingers, and asks, “What are your parents going to do with me?”
It isn’t the first time he’s asked Varian that question. All the times before have been met with that quiet, unwavering look, giving him nothing but somehow saying everything at the same time. It’s like Varian has stitches on the inside of his mouth only when Hugo asks a question that’s actually important .
This time, Varian looks away. He pushes to his feet and turns toward the stairs, and this is somehow worse than the silent looks.
“Freckles,” Hugo tries again, climbing to his feet and wrapping his hands around the bars. Varian turns to look at him warily over his shoulder. “Please, tell me.”
Hugo can see Varian think about it. Sees his hand tighten around the railing of the stairs, sees the way he chews on his lower lip like he does when he’s on edge. He can see the way he tenses, turning the slightest bit toward Hugo like he’s going to say something–
And then his shoulders sag. He turns away from Hugo again, and Hugo resists the urge to shake the bars in front of him out of frustration.
“You should sleep,” Varian says quietly. Once again impassive. “Sleep for a while. You need it.”
He’s gone after that, taking both the tension and the ease Hugo felt with him. The cellar still smells like cigarette smoke.
Hugo sighs heavily and lets go of the bars.
⊱ 10 ⊰
Hugo is rudely awoken by a flashlight shining directly into his face.
He makes a disgruntled noise, throwing a hand up to block his eyes from the burn. Going from being unconscious to being woken by the rays of the sun has a way of disorienting a man. He pats around blindly for his glasses, fingers closing around them just as the flashlight finally moves to illuminate the sink across the cell instead of Hugo’s corneas.
“You wake up quick,” a voice muses from the dark. Hugo blinks.
“Freckles?”
There’s a hum of acknowledgement, then the flashlight flips to rest on Varian instead. “Lucky for you. What if I was tryin’ to kill you?”
“Kind of felt like that was exactly what was happening,” Hugo grumbles. He sits upright in the cot, blinking rapidly to adjust his vision to the darkness of the room. There isn’t any other light aside from the flashlight; not even the overhead light Varian always turns on when he comes down to bring Hugo dinner. “What time s’it?”
“Late. Sorry to interrupt your beauty sleep.”
“Why the hell are you down here in the middle of the night?”
A familiar chime of metal robs all the oxygen from Hugo’s lungs. He watches in disbelief as Varian lifts Hugo’s keyring and jingles it under the flashlight.
“What, don’t want these?”
Hugo is stunned into silence for a moment. Then, “What the hell?”
Varian shrugs, like Hugo had asked him an actual question. “Hurry up. Before I change my mind.”
It takes Hugo a few seconds to register what Varian means, through the slowly descending post-sleep fog in his brain and the pure confusion of Varian– breaking him out? Is that what’s happening?
Varian’s patience wanes when Hugo stares at him without moving. He shines the flashlight back in Hugo’s face, making him hiss. “What part of hurry up ain’t clicking, four eyes?”
“Fucking hell,” Hugo grumbles, rubbing his eyes. “I’m getting up, put down the damn flashlight.”
“ Hurry .”
“ Hurrying ,” Hugo snaps back.
He’s out of the cot and standing by Varian in front of the cell door before Varian can complain again. Varian appraises him, squinting like he’s looking for something, before nodding toward the door that opens down into the cellar. As soon as they start moving he lifts a finger to his lips, giving Hugo a warning look.
Be quiet.
He doesn’t have to tell Hugo twice. They climb up the stairs to get out of the cellar, and Hugo is a little thrown aback when they come into another room instead of outside. He almost opens his mouth to quip the hell do you need such a deep cellar for before he remembers, one, he knows exactly what they need such a deep cellar for, and two , he needs to shut the hell up.
So shut the hell up he does.
Varian reaches back to grab his wrist when they make their way outside. It’s almost completely pitch black, even the sky dark and bare of stars, and Hugo can’t help but be a little grateful for Varian’s hand on his arm as Varian guides them through the field with a learned familiarity.
The keys rattle softly in his jacket with each step. Hugo winces every time.
There’s only one light on in the house when they quietly slip by it. Hugo half expects to see Varian’s father watching them from the window like some creepy figure out of his nightmares.
Speaking of.
“Your dad doesn’t know you’re doing this, does he?” Hugo says, voice barely above a whisper. Varian stiffens at the sound of his voice anyway. Or maybe it’s what Hugo asked him that makes the line of his shoulders abruptly go rigid.
“...No,” Varian says after a moment of heavy silence. He wordlessly drags Hugo around a spot in the grass without sparing it more than a glance. Hugo tries not to trip when he sees a bear trap laying hidden in the grass where he’d almost walked. “No he don’t, so hurry up and walk.”
“Is he asleep?”
“Somethin’ like that.”
“Would’ve thought he’d be one of those types to sleep lightly. Considering, y’know.”
That gets a small laugh out of Varian, barely more than a huff of breath. Still, it’s something. “He is. Can’t open a door across the house without him hearin’ it even dead asleep.”
Hugo frowns. “Do I need to worry about getting shot right now?”
“Nah,” Varian says, and his tone is so casual Hugo almost thinks he’s misheard what Varian says after, “I put somethin’ in his whiskey. He’s sleeping real good right ‘bout now.”
“You…” Hugo says slowly, because he has no idea how to say this without possibly setting off Varian short-fused temper. “Drugged your dad, then?”
“Somethin’ like that,” Varian repeats. Hugo sees him glance back as they walk, gauging whatever reaction is on Hugo’s face. Hugo immediately smooths out whatever it is; he’s not about to piss Varian off again when he’s so close to getting the hell out of here.
The air is still heavy with tension. Hugo doesn’t know how to say “y’know, I wasn’t judging you for drugging your father to save my life, if anything that’s probably the nicest thing someone has ever done for me” so instead, he doesn’t say anything.
The silence might be making it worse. Varian is gnawing on his lip again, footsteps growing heavy with frustration as he practically marches Hugo through the grass. The crunch of grass underneath his feet sounds deafening to Hugo in the quiet of the night.
“What else was I meant to do?” Varian says suddenly, jerking around to face Hugo. It’s only Hugo’s quick reflexives that keep him from smacking right into Varian and knocking them both on their asses. “I don’t– I couldn’t have gotten you out any other way. I wouldn’t have even made it out the front door. I didn’t–”
He’s struggling for words, shoulders hiking around his ears with frustration, and it’s then that Hugo notices he sounds guilty .
A soft oh comes out of Hugo’s mouth before he can bite it back. Thankfully Varian doesn’t seem to hear it, glaring at the ground as he mumbles under his breath too quickly and quietly for Hugo to catch. Hugo stares at him without moving, at a loss for how to handle this in a way that won’t end disastrously. He’s good with people but– not like this . Not when he isn’t swindling some poor asshole on Donella’s whim or keeping angry ‘clients’ from biting his head off.
He’s not sure what to do when he actually kind of gives a shit about the person on the other side, and he’s not sure what the fuck to do with the information that he apparently cares about what Varian thinks of him.
Lovely. He needs more friends.
Varian visibly startles when Hugo grabs his shoulder. Hugo is equally as startled that he grabbed Varian’s shoulder.
His mouth opens and closes. Varian’s voice has trailed off, looking up at Hugo in a mix of confusion and the wariness that seems to follow the other boy around like a second shadow, and the first thing out of Hugo’s mouth is, “I get it.”
In an effort to avoid coming off harsh he accidentally overshoots, and his voice comes out in an awkward, flat sort of monotone, but it’s better than nothing. Varian blinks at him, brow furrowing in confusion. “I– what?”
“I get it,” Hugo repeats, firmer this time. “I’ve… I don’t know, I’ve done shit I’m not proud of for the sake of something I thought was worth it. It’s not like you gave him enough to kill him, yeah?” Varian nods hesitantly. “See? He’ll be fine. Don’t sweat it.”
He looks at Hugo for a moment, quiet. He’s still chewing on his lip. Hugo is surprised he hasn’t drawn blood yet.
Then, he blows out a breath. “Yeah,” he says quietly, turning back to face the way they were heading. “C’mon, let’s go.”
Hugo is certain he’s not meant to hear the next part– he almost doesn’t, between the sound of grass under their shoes and how quiet Varian’s voice is, but as Varian starts walking again Hugo hears a soft mutter of something that’s worth it and has to force a small smile from spreading across his face.
The silence while they walk this time is lighter, not weighted down with things neither of them are willing to say out loud. Hugo can’t see for shit in the dark of the fields; he’s used to working at night, making his way through tiny alleys and across rooftops with nothing more than instinct and muscle memory to get him by, but the darkness of the farm is almost unnatural. It feels like something else entirely, like a sentient thing. The kind of feeling people get in horror movies before something jumps out of the shadows and drags them to their imminent death.
Hugo shudders. They’re supposed to be as silent as possible right now, but they’re a good ways away from the house and Hugo’s gut is twisting just fumbling around in the darkness.
“Aren’t the bear traps dangerous for your dogs?” Hugo asks, carefully keeping his voice low. Varian looks at him over his shoulder, but Hugo can’t see the look on his face now that they’re far away from the light of the house.
“They know where all the animal traps and stuff are, so they don’t get hurt.” A branch breaks under Hugo’s foot, making him flinch. He can practically hear Varian’s eye roll as he reaches back to grab Hugo by the arm again to lead him through the dark. “They’re trained well.”
So are you, apparently , Hugo doesn’t say, because he values his head. Still, the way Varian navigates the nearly pitch-black farm without hesitating or stumbling feels something like how the dogs were trained. He seems to know exactly where he’s going, even if there’s no way he can possibly see well enough to be so certain even if his eyes have adjusted to the dark.
Hugo knows what it feels like to be trained, almost like an animal. Taught what to do and when to do it and every command he’ll ever need to know to do it correctly. And that’s how he knows that Varian does too. Hugo almost feels like he’s looking at a reflection of himself, and it’s enough to make him shove down any other questions he might have.
They come up to the towering shadow of a barn and silo. Hugo hears Varian shuffle for something in his pockets, and then flame flickers to life between them. A lighter is held out in his hand.
“Are you capable of holdin’ this without droppin’ it or letting it go out?” he asks. Hugo snorts, thinking he’s joking, but Varian holds his gaze and doesn’t move. Hugo makes an offended face back at him.
“What, seriously?”
“It’s a yes or no question. Pretty simple.”
“Yes, I can hold the lighter. What am I, a toddler?”
Varian looks like he’s considering this. Hugo holds out an impatient hand for the lighter. “Pass it over, jackass.”
The insult is a slip of the tongue, Hugo forgetting to watch what he says with the small pocket of normalcy between them, but Varian doesn’t seem to mind. Hugo sees him fighting back an amused smirk as he goes up to the barn and pulls open the latch over the doors. His shoulders are still tense, and Hugo can practically feel the anxiety radiating off him, but it’s better than how he was ten minutes ago.
A puff of dust and dirt fans out as the doors creak open. Varian waves him over.
The second Hugo sees inside he can tell they don’t use the barn often. The only thing he can see amidst haystacks and clutters of farming tools are more broken down vehicles, some missing entire components of their frames and others he could probably get started if Varian left him unsupervised for a good ten minutes.
Varian disappears somewhere can’t see for long enough that Hugo very thoroughly considers doing exactly that. Right as Hugo is shuffling over to one of the cars, Varian comes back into view so suddenly that Hugo jumps.
“Okay,” Varian says, sounding like he’s a breath away from either throwing up or having an anxiety attack, “I cleared it. I need your help movin’ it, because the damn thing is heavy and I only cleared the path enough to get it through. Get over here, and don’t set the hay on fire.”
Against his better judgement because a dark corner in a dusty barn is creepy as fuck , Hugo follows Varian into the shadows. There’s a gap between the tallest part of the haystacks and the wall, cluttered with things Hugo can’t make out in the light from the flame other than a tarp or the brush of something wooden against his shoulder. Briefly, Hugo is thankful Varian is with him—there’s no way he would have found this on his own, and sure as shit not in the dark.
His breath nearly whooshes out of him in pure relief as he spots Olivia parked neatly at the end of the cluttered path. There’s another tarp hanging off a wood beam only a few feet away; if Hugo had to guess, that’s what Varian’s father has been hiding his motorcycle with. The amount of dust and dirt Hugo can feel going into his lungs tells him he’s going to spend the next week cleaning Olivia’s every nook and cranny.
After he gets out of here. Right, survive the life or death situation first.
He hands Varian the lighter and rolls Olivia out into the open while Varian makes sure they don’t hit the tall wooden beams or anything in the path. Hugo is reluctant to let go of Olivia’s handlebars after days of wondering if he’d ever feel the cool metal under his fingertips again, but Varian starts looking visibly ill when Hugo stalls in front of the barn so Hugo follows him and rolls the motorcycle out of sight from the house. Hugo keeps a hand resting on the seat after he props up the kickstand, like if he lets go it’ll disappear from right in front of him.
A sharp jingle makes him wince. Varian is holding Hugo’s keys out to him, not looking anywhere near his face. Hugo takes them.
“Thank you,” he tries awkwardly and immediately hates how it comes out. Like he’s thanking Varian for holding a door open for him instead of for saving his life, no matter how much of a hand he might have had in kidnapping him in the first place. “I, uh. Yeah. Thanks.”
Somehow, that one comes out more sincere. Varian just nods, stubbornly looking somewhere into the corn fields, before he must feel Hugo’s eyes on him and hesitantly glances over to meet his gaze.
For a moment, they stare at each other in a silence so heavy Hugo can almost feel it in the air.
Hugo is the first to look away. “Are you gonna–” He glances back at the house behind them, where he knows Varian’s father is asleep because Varian drugged him and Varian’s mother is presumably doing god knows what because Hugo doesn’t know a damn thing about her. He looks at Varian, who looks a lot less like someone Hugo should be wary of when there aren't bars between them, and more like someone he might pass on the street.
It feels out of place. Hugo knows Varian likes chemistry and has one hell of an aim when it comes to a bow and apparently cares enough to spare his life when there isn’t anything he could possibly be gaining from this, other than trouble.
Hugo bites the inside of his cheek and straightens his shoulders. “Are you gonna be… y’know. Okay?”
Varian blinks back at him, brow furrowing in confusion. Hugo pointedly looks at the house, somehow so far away and all too close at the same time. His mouth forms a surprised little ‘o’ when he realizes what Hugo is implying.
“Oh. Yeah. They don’t…” Varian trails off. He glances around them, before shaking his head, stuffing his hands into his pockets. “You should go. You’ll be alright once you get past Baker. They don’t care enough to go past there. Going t’the police is kinda–” Varian shrugs jerkily, not meeting Hugo’s eyes once again. “Doesn’t do much ‘round here.”
Hugo recognizes Baker Street as one of the first quaint little street signs he passed on his way in. It’s not too far, but far enough that Hugo is going to be on edge until he gets past it. He doesn’t dwell on what Varian could mean by it doesn’t do much around here .
As soon as Hugo gets out of this nightmare town, he’s never coming back again.
Varian walks with him as he rolls Olivia closer to the path between the fields, well-trodden by feet and tire marks. Varian is fidgeting with Hugo’s helmet as Hugo climbs onto the motorcycle. It gets pushed into his hands before Hugo can ask for it, and then Varian takes several wide steps away to give Hugo plenty of room, like he’s afraid Hugo is going to mow him down. Despite everything, Hugo bites back a snort.
“Don’t you think about comin’ back,” Varian says suddenly as Hugo pulls on his helmet. Hugo flips the visor up so he can hear Varian a bit better, even if still muffled. He can see Varian giving him a serious look under the low lighting of the moon. “For nothin’ , I mean it. You wouldn’t be the first to bring cops sniffin’ ‘round here and it’ll end the same way for you that it did for all of the others.” He takes another step back, as if that’ll make Hugo leave faster. “Go home, Hugo.”
He turns and goes to walk back to the house, and a prickle of panic races through Hugo’s chest for a reason he doesn’t know.
“ Wait- ” comes out of his mouth before he can clamp his teeth down against it.
They both flinch when the sound echoes through the dark fields. Varian whips around to look at him like he’s lost his mind. Hugo is kind of wondering the same thing.
“It’s Varian, right?” he says instead. He can see the emotions pass through Varian’s face faster than Hugo can keep up with. Finally, Varian settles on something that looks annoyed , of all things.
“...Uh-huh,” he says finally, squinting at Hugo. “When’d you find that out?”
Normally that’s not something Hugo would admit, because he’s a fan of making people uncomfortable when they realize the things they try to keep hidden are actually insanely easy to uncover, but he doesn’t feel the need to do that here. Besides, there really is no point when this is the last time he’s going to see Varian. “The night I was sick. I heard you and your dad talking.”
Varian makes a tsk noise. “Figures. I told him he was being too loud.”
Hugo huffs a laugh under his breath. “Yeah, a bit.” He can see the corner of Varian’s lips curl into a lopsided smile. It’s the second time he’s seen him smile , Hugo thinks distantly. “Varian.”
“Hugo.” There’s amusement in Varian’s voice when he says it. The smile drops almost as soon as it came. Varian nods to the road. “Don’t go gettin’ kidnapped again, yeah?”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Hugo mutters before he can think better of it. His voice is quiet but somehow Varian still seems to hear him. He tilts his head, regarding Hugo with something between amused and incredulous.
“Gettin’ kidnapped and held in a cellar?”
Hugo’s cheeks are burning. He’s thankful that there’s no way Varian can see it in the dark. “I liked the. The textbooks,” Hugo tries. Varian’s eyebrows shoot up.
“The textbooks. Do you want ‘em, then?”
“ No ,” Hugo says in exasperation, because he can tell Varian is fucking with him. “The person reading them, okay? It wasn’t so bad.”
Varian’s whole demeanor seems to soften at that. Hugo sees his shoulders rise as he takes a deep inhale, staring at the ground with his lip caught between his teeth like Hugo has seen him do so many times now, and then he nods. “It wasn’t so bad,” he agrees quietly.
There’s nothing else for either of them to say. Hugo flips down his visor, getting comfortable as he settles into the seat, keys in the ignition. The task of turning them seems daunting, like the noise will bring both of Varian’s parents running to shoot him down and put him back in the cell. His hands tighten around the bars so sharply his gloves squeak against the metal.
When he looks up, maybe to say an actual goodbye, maybe just to see if Varian is still there, he barely manages to throw a hand out to catch a small shape before it smacks into the face of his helmet. When he looks down, Varian’s lighter is in his hand.
Hugo looks back up at him, head tilting in a wordless question. Varian is shoving his hands into his pockets, and Hugo can just barely make out the metallic sound of the mint tin Varian keeps his matches in. Hugo briefly wonders why Varian keeps matches on him if he has a lighter.
“Keep it,” Varian says, instead of anything close to an answer. “I don’t smoke, anyways.”
“Then what did you need it for?”
Varian taps his own ear. “Can’t hear you through that thing.”
Hugo laughs into the helmet, shaking his head. He pointedly slips the lighter into his jacket pocket where Varian can see it. Varian doesn’t smile, but it’s a close thing.
“Bye bye, city boy,” Varian calls, barely louder than a whisper.
Hugo throws him a two-finger salute and peels out of the farm.
—
The time it takes for Hugo to make it out of the dingy small town feels like hours. It can’t be more than twenty minutes, especially since he’s definitely speeding so he can stop feeling like he’s got the hounds of hell on his ass, but his heart rate doesn’t slow until he darts past the welcome sign that’s so age-worn and smudged that Hugo couldn’t make out the name of the town with a gun to his head.
Varian’s lighter is a heavy weight in his pocket. In reality it’s barely there, light enough that Hugo subconsciously reaches down to feel for it and make sure it’s still there a few times, but it’s as if it’s burning a hole through the fabric every time he thinks about it.
His grip tightens around the handlebars as he leans forward, putting his weight onto the soothing, cool metal of his bike like the feeling will erase the thoughts from his mind. Taking a drive usually helps clear his thoughts, but it’s been a while since he’s been running from something while doing it.
Cool morning air whips against the exposed skin of his neck. Hugo has no clue what time it is, but tinges of orange and yellow are spreading steadily across the horizon, coloring the starless night sky with the early hours of morning. He wonders if Varian woke up specifically to free Hugo, or if he slept at all tonight.
“Fucking hell,” Hugo mutters under his breath, shaking his head to clear the thought away. Adrenaline is fading from his system, exhaustion filling in the gaps. His body is on autopilot turning down roads he barely recognizes, letting muscle memory take him home.
He thinks about the street name he saw when he turned that first corner. The street that he now knows Varian’s house is on; the street that Varian will be at if Hugo were to go back. Why would Hugo want to go back?
It’s the stupidest thing he could possibly do. Even Varian had told him off the idea, though bringing the police along with him isn’t what’s on Hugo’s mind.
Again, Hugo’s hand trails down to feel for the outline of the lighter in his pocket. It’s still there, just like it has been every time he checked.
Hugo’s hand twists on the accelerator and Olivia speeds through the soft light of approaching dawn, Varian’s street name spinning through his mind like a broken record.