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spookyboywhump · 2 years

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THIS IS MY SECOND TIME TRYING TO POST THIS I SWEAR TO GOD IT BETTER FUCKING WORK

I also don’t know why I called this a drabble when it is. 3,193 words

Cathal (mentioned) belongs to @fairieboywhump :3c

CW: Past whump, recorded whump, Zander feels like he’s being watched

***

He wasn’t looking for it at the time he found it. He’d been going through the records and evidence they had from the main facility, the one most pets were bought through, the one he’d been held in for some time. He didn’t really know what he was looking for though, he knew Cathal wasn’t bought the way he was, he didn’t know if he’d ever been in that place to begin with, but he was desperate, and he was checking everything he could. They had records of most of the pets who had been brought through there, and saved countless hours of footage from the various security cameras around the building, even if there was something to find he didn’t know if he’d even be able to.

He didn’t realize just how much had been saved, nor did he realize just how far back he’d gone until he came across a familiar face- his own. His breath hitched in his throat, staring at the thumbnail of one of the videos, only marked with the date and a set of numbers after it. He recognized it as being from the inside of his cell, he didn’t remember seeing a camera while he was in there, but his memory of that time was fuzzy at best anyway. A part of him knew he shouldn’t have done it, just because he had access to it didn’t mean he had to look, but he couldn’t help it, he opened the video up and he pressed play.

He kept the volume off completely- it bothered him to know the security camera even picked up whatever noises he made in that room. He didn’t need it, seeing it was bad enough, watching himself anxiously pace back and forth in his cell, the footage was better quality than he expected, he kept rubbing his arms anxiously. Even as he paced, he was limping slightly, this must’ve been a few days into that week he’d spent there. Sometimes he couldn’t believe it had only been a week, it had felt much longer back then.

He looked absolutely horrible, bruised and beaten up, blood still on his face. He couldn’t ignore just how young he looked, he was only eighteen back then, he’d just graduated high school, and shortly after he was… there. At the time it hadn’t felt real at all, it felt like a horrible nightmare. The fact he’d been deprived of sleep the entire time really didn’t help that, but it took far too long for it to set in that he wasn’t escaping, not easily anyway.

After a few moments of him pacing, the cell door opened, and he immediately tried to make a run for it. He didn’t make it far at all before he collapsed and a few of the trainers entered the room, watching him convulse on the floor. He was glad he chose not to listen to it. After a while they always had to send more than one person, they let him endure that torment before he finally went lax on the floor, the shock must’ve stopped, and that was when they grabbed him and hauled him out of the room.

For a moment he stared numbly at the now empty cell. He didn’t know how to feel about what he’d soon, all he knew was that he felt nauseous. He finally closed the video out, vaguely aware of how much of his body just felt numb. He knew he should’ve left it at that, he was wasting time that could’ve been spent on Cathal or literally any other case, but he kept looking anyway. It wasn’t hard to find another one, the one he opened next was from the same day, and he realized that it must’ve been from right after the first one. He recognized this room too, they called it a training room, they had every weapon or restraint they could’ve needed.

He was muzzled as soon as he was brought in there, and then his wrists were restrained behind his back. He still didn’t understand the point of this “training”, in fact he still thought this was just a game to them, they clearly enjoyed it. He didn’t need the volume up, he remembered the way they laughed, they mocked him and called him a bad dog. It made him feel sicker, and this time he couldn’t finish the video, he closed the window in the middle of the beating he’d endured back then. It hurt him that there was nothing he could do, he just wanted to step in and protect his younger self from those monsters, but he was powerless then and he was powerless now.

“Zander?” He jumped at the sound of his name, looking up to see Eli standing at the side of his desk, looking concerned. He hadn’t been there when Zander showed up that morning, but he’d always been arriving early and leaving late these days. It was close to noon by now, and though he had tried to put himself together, Zander could see how pale he was, his red eyes and the dark circles beneath them. He knew it must’ve been a rough night but he couldn’t bring himself to comment on it. “Are you alright? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“I’m fine.” He said numbly, and Eli tried to get a look at his screen.

“Did you find something?” He asked.

“No, no, nothing important anyway.” He said dismissively, quickly closing out the records he had open. He wasn’t getting anywhere anyway, just ruining his own day. Eli looked skeptical, but he didn’t question him further, which allowed Zander to relax somewhat. He decided that for now he would try to put it out of his mind, there were far more important things to focus on after all.

***

He wanted to go straight home after work, and he’d audibly groaned when he’d gotten the phone call from Cain, but he still agreed to meet up with him. It probably wasn’t a good time to be alone anyway, and while Cain was not his first option for company, he was willing to take what he could get.

It was never his intention to make a habit of spending time with Cain. At first it was purely for work reasons, it was often easier to meet with him either at his regular job or at his new place, he was often in too much pain or too exhausted to make it to Azure after his own day, and Zander could understand that, though he wouldn’t say their issues were to the same extent. At some point though, their conversations become a lot more casual, sometimes they’d talk about the past but not always, and he could hardly believe it but at times, he simply felt a sense of comfortable familiarity around Cain. He didn’t tell anyone about how often they spoke though, he knew Eli would be bothered by it and he didn’t know how to explain it to his moms, it was something better off kept to himself.

After everything, Cain had simply refused to go back to living at his old estate. It all still belonged to him, but he’d only gone back once to retrieve what was left of his belongings, and in no time he had a new place lined up, an apartment in the city that was much nicer than anything Zander ever could’ve afforded, even with the decent paycheck he made. It was still quite a bit of a downsize from his old home, and Cain had said he didn’t need all that room anymore, he never needed it to begin with. He seemed to really like his new home though, he didn’t have to worry about stairs, he had a balcony with a nice view, and he seemed to be doing better. Honestly, Zander was happy for him.

He’d only been there for a little while when Cain seemed to notice something was wrong with him. He’d been trying to ignore how uncomfortable he still was after what he’d found, but it was hard not to think about it, just how much time he’d spent being recorded when he didn’t even know it.

“Are… you alright…?” He finally asked awkwardly, changing the subject completely. It was like this behavior was foreign to him, like he was still learning how to… not be himself. At least, not be the him that Zander remembered him as. They were sitting facing each other, a coffee table between the two of them. It still felt weird to Zander to be on his level, the first time he’d come over he’d almost instinctively sat on the floor. He could only tell that Cain noticed by the brief look of horror that flashed on his face.

“I’m fine.” He said quickly.

“You just seem a little on edge, did something happen?” He asked. Zander hesitated, he didn’t know why he felt compelled to tell him, but somehow it felt easier than explaining it to anyone else.

“I… while I was at work, I found some videos…” He said slowly, and Cain raised his eyebrows, waiting for him to continue. “They were from back when I was first taken, um, before I was given to you… they have all sorts of stuff they took from that facility and I just… came across it, I wasn’t even looking for it…” He said. Cain seemed equally uncomfortable now, even though this was part of his captivity that he really had nothing to do with.

“I’m… sorry… That sounds awful.” He said quietly.

“It fucking is. I didn’t- I didn’t know I was being recorded that whole time, I mean, I guess I should have but… I can’t stop feeling like I’m being watched.” He said, watching Cain for his reaction. He looked guilty, Zander had seen that look often enough by now but it was still strange.

“I’m sorry-”

“It wasn’t your fault, you didn’t even know back then.” He told him, and Cain sighed, taking his glasses off and pinching the bridge of his nose.

“No, I- I’m sorry, fuck…”

“What…?” He asked slowly. This didn’t sit well with him, he could tell Cain felt bad about something.

“I should’ve told you sooner, I’m sorry, I just, I didn’t know how to.” He sighed.

“So you knew?” He asked, his eyebrows raised.

“About the training? No. But, in your cell, there had been a camera- you wouldn’t have been able to see it, my father made sure of it, but it was there.” He said. Zander felt like he’d been punched in the stomach. The first realization was bad enough for him but this was far, far worse.

”Are you fucking kidding me?” It was taking all his self control to not jump up and start yelling at him, he hadn’t been this angry at Cain in a while. “You were able to fucking watch me that entire time?!”

“No, no, not the whole time.” He said quickly. “I rarely even used it, and once my father died I had it taken out, so it only covered about a year that you were there.”

“Only?!” He snapped. “That’s still a fucking year of my life you have saved somewhere! A year of my life where I had no fucking privacy and you didn’t even have the decency to tell me?!”

“I thought you wouldn’t want to know…” Cain said hesitantly, unable to make himself look at Zander. “I- I knew how terrible it was, he watched me too and I wished I’d never found out so- so I thought it might only upset you…”

“You didn’t think to fucking ask me?!” He finally got up, pretending he didn’t notice how Cain flinched back, but he didn’t go near him, pacing anxiously back and forth, like a caged animal. “I am upset, but I would’ve been a lot less upset if you had given me some kind of heads up?! I was in there for a year and I didn’t know I- I thought I was alone! I didn’t think anyone could see or- or hear me in there!” He said, angrily raking a hand through his hair, getting more and more upset thinking about the way he behaved, the things he did when he was alone. It’s not like there was much to do in there, but he still thought it was the one place where he wasn’t being constantly supervised.

“I’m sorry…” Cain said again, quieter this time.

“Do you still have it?” He asked him.

“Huh?”

“Do you still have the recordings?” He asked. “Did you keep any of that shit?”

“I did, but, I never looked at it, I swear.” He insisted. “It was just left over from when my father died, I think it’s all on a flashdrive I threw into my desk.” He said. He seemed to know what Zander was thinking, because he quickly added, “You can go look if you want. I don’t know why you’d want it but, it’s probably still in there.”

Zander immediately stormed out of the room, back to the spare bedroom Cain used as an office when he worked from home. He dug around in the drawers of his desk for a moment before he finally found it, it wasn’t marked or labeled, but it was the only one he found, if he really wanted to he would put it into his computer at home to check to be sure. There was something else in that drawer though, a folder simply labeled SR-290. The same code had been on the end of the video of him in his cell. He took both the flashdrive and the folder, returning to the room where Cain was still sitting. He looked anxious, like he was still worried Zander would attack, but he already decided not to, he was already telling himself to remain calm.

“I fucking found it.” He said bluntly. “And this too.” He said, tossing the folder down on the table between them, sitting back down. Cain was staring at the folder, he’d put his glasses back on by now and he could tell that he recognized exactly what it was.

“You can look if you’d like. I don’t think you want to.” He shrugged. Zander didn’t know why but he did want to, he just hated not knowing. For seven years his life belonged to somebody else, everything was controlled by somebody else, he probably never would’ve had access to everything if he’d never gotten free. Now that he was in control once again, he wanted to know *everything* that had been kept from him.

He flipped the folder open, finding the papers from when he’d first been taken. There was a photo of him clipped in there, a school picture. He hated to look at it, hated how happy he looked there. Just like the footage he’d seen earlier, it didn’t look like him anymore, it looked like somebody else, a younger boy he failed to protect, another person he couldn’t keep safe. He looked over the notes they took on him and his training, and he almost felt a sense of pride at how hard it had been for them, the things they deemed successful were things he did out of necessity, to avoid another beating, while there were several things they noted they simply couldn’t train him to do. There were even more things that weren’t attempted or that just weren’t ordered for him, and he considered himself lucky, just looking at the list of services offered made him feel horrible for the other pets who had endured them.

He turned to the next page and found handwritten notes, these ones were dated. They weren’t all that often, months, even years apart, notes on his more serious injuries, a brief note on what Vanessa had done to him, a note to keep those painkillers out of his reach, even one involving Wren and how close they had gotten.

“I just thought it was a good place to keep track of things…” Cain said slowly, and Zander supposed he couldn’t argue with that.

“You know if I wanted to take you to court for everything, I would have all of this proof right here in your own handwriting, right?”

“Do you want to do that?” He asked.

“No.” He always felt stupid for that, but to him it was just easier. He didn’t want to have to tell other people, strangers, about what had happened to him, they had all agreed that Cain would be of more use to them if he were free, and they also knew he wasn’t actually a threat to anyone anymore. The best way for him to pay for what he’d done was to quite literally pay for it, and he had been trying to make things better in any way he could. A part of Zander knew that even if he did want to turn him in, even with all the evidence they had, Cain could easily get out of it if he wanted to, he still had good connections and more money than one person could ever need. There really was no point in even trying.

“Listen, I’m really sorry about all this…” He started, but Zander just shook his head.

“I know, that’s enough.” He told him. He’d calmed down now that he knew exactly where everything was, though he was still deeply unhappy about all of it. “Can I keep this too?” He asked.

“If you want to.” Cain shrugged. “I don’t have any use for it anymore.” He said, and Zander closed the folder, feeling relieved to have that in his possession too. Just knowing he finally had some control over it made him feel a lot more relaxed, he believed Cain when he said he never looked at any of the camera footage, but he still didn’t like that he kept it. He wished he’d thrown it out along with the camera, whenever he took that out.

He left Cain’s place not long after that, whatever he’d gone over for originally completely forgotten. He went back to his own apartment, but for once he wasn’t relieved to be home safe and alone, he didn’t feel safe. That feeling of being watched never left him, he knew it was nonsense, there was no reason to fear it anymore, but it hadn’t even occurred to him to fear it during the times he was being watched. He left his file on his desk and briefly considered checking the flashdrive, but he decided that he’d had more than enough for one day, he would give it a quick look sometime later to make sure it was the right one, and then he’d get rid of it for good because he didn’t know how much longer he could keep himself together knowing an entire year of his life had been recorded and saved.

He went to bed late that night but he didn’t sleep, still unable to shake that horrible feeling that somebody somewhere was still watching him.

#my writing #my oc's #wren #zander #cain #fairieboywhump’s oc’s #cathal #past whump #recorded whump #zander is. not too happy :)#PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE POST

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