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The thing about his powers is this: he’s been blessed (cursed) with the innate ability to always be aware of exactly when and where he is in time and space.
So he is excruciatingly aware of how much time he’s spent in this place, down the millisecond.
Five twitches. His trembling hands have been balled into fists. His chest expands with every labored breath he takes.
Thirty-six hours.
That’s how long it’s been.
The flesh around his wrists has become chafed and raw, courtesy to the leather restraints keeping each limb secured. Identical restraints are belted around each of his ankles and his neck.
The one around his neck is especially tight, almost throttling him. It does more than any of the others to hamper his movements. They aren’t taking any chances.
It’s almost funny how scared they are of him even now when he hasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of fighting back, but he’s always known they were cowards.
This doesn’t surprise him in the slightest.
He should have known there was no chance they were letting him go. He was the best they had to offer.
Persuasion as they call it, but he can think of any number of more fitting terms.
Coercion. Re-education. Brainwashing.
Torture.
He’s been tortured before. The moment the Handler pulled him from the apocalypse, she had him on that slab, where he’d been subjected to invasive, unethical, and experimental procedures all geared towards turning him into the perfect machine for murder.
He can take torture. It will take more than this to break him.
It’s not hubris if it’s the truth.
He knows because they’ve tried before and he’s always managed to hold on.
The frustration is evident on their faces, in their voices, in the rough way they handle him as each session brings them no closer to success.
It would have been gratifying if he weren’t so frightened for his family. They haven’t brought them up and Five hasn’t asked about them, he’d never ask about them. Not here. Not when it could only give them more ideas.
He knows for sure that if they were dead or imprisoned it would have already been flaunted in his face. The Handler knows he would do anything for them. If she had them, he would know. If she’d killed them, he would know.
The fact that it hasn’t means they’ve managed to remain safe and out of reach. It doesn’t mean his mind is at ease.
He knows his family too well to trust them to keep themselves out of danger for long. They’re a pack of stupid, self-sacrificing idiots.
They’ll come for him, even if the odds are stacked against them, and that’s what scares him. They could die. They could die and it means everything he’s ever done for them, everything he’s sacrificed, will all be for nothing.
He can’t let that happen and yet, at the same time, he’s helpless to stop it.
The best thing he can think of is that they don’t know how to save him. They’re not familiar enough with the Commission to stage any sort of rescue attempt.
Or so he thinks.
“... better not have… I swear…”
He must be going insane because that voice doesn’t belong here. That voice can’t be here. Not only does Five not want him here, but he doesn’t have access. There’s no possible way for him to be here.
Five doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t look, because if he looks… If he looks and he finds nothing, that will be the moment where he breaks. More than he has already because if he’s imagining his brother then something in his mind has already splintered.
“Five?”
Please, he thinks. A tear slides down his face before he can prevent it. Please just leave. He doesn’t care if it’s a trick or a hallucination. He needs whatever is pretending to be his brother to leave him be.
“Five, please. Look at me.” Something touches the collar around his neck and Five jerks away as much as he can, which isn’t much. He’s held fast like a dog on a leash.
“Those sick fucks.” Diego curses violently, letting go of the collar and grabbing Five by the shoulders and holding him still. “Five. Five. Stop. You’re going to hurt yourself if you keep fighting this, man. Help me get this off of him, Lila.”
There’s someone on his other side now. “Five… Five! We’re trying to help you, you idiot. You’re only making this harder on yourself.”
The collar is digging into the tender flesh of his throat, choking him. He’ll kill himself if he keeps this up.
Exhausted, Five flops back on the table, chest heaving. “Go away,” he whispers. He doesn’t have the strength to deal with this. He can take anything else they throw at him, but not this. “You shouldn’t be here. I told you…”
“Yeah? And when have any of us actually listened to you?” There’s dry humor in his brother’s tone. The collar falls away from his throat.
“You’re safe. I promise. Five, look at me. Please. ” Maybe it’s the way his voice breaks on that final word that has him complying, but Five peels his eyes open with effort.
The world around him swims before a pair of faces come into focus.
“Diego?” His breath hitches and his voice rattles treasonously.
He’s here. The idiot’s really here.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m here.” Diego touches his face, smooths his hair back away from his forehead. “I’m sorry it took so long to find you, but there were… complications.” He glances to the right.
“I’m here too, you little shithead.” Five’s eyes shift, following Diego's gaze and finding Lila, who looks surprisingly relieved to see him.
“You…” He can’t wrap his head around why she would come to save him. She hates him and rightfully so.
Lila seems to know exactly what he’s thinking because she says, “Couldn’t exactly leave Diego to figure this out alone.” She steps to his side and works on undoing the restraints around his wrists.
Diego does the same for his ankles. “Before you ask,” he says, “the others are all safe. We were able to buy ourselves a little bit of time so, I know this sucks, but we’re going to have to make this fast.”
That explains why no alarms have been blaring. He’ll have to ask Diego how he managed it because… that’s actually impressive.
Once Five is free, he steps to the side, sliding his arm around his shoulder and hauling him off the table.
Five grits his teeth when his knees buckle and it’s only Diego’s tight grip around his waist that keeps him from crashing to the floor. His fingers scrabble at Diego’s polo shirt and even this small amount of exertion has him panting.
His ordeal has taken far more out of him than he’d expected.
It’s humiliating.
“Easy,” Diego says softly. “I’ve got you.”
The crazy thing is, Five believes him.