John woke up from the light engulfing the room through the window that was too high for them to reach. He had tried to look at the skies through it the night before, searching for the right angle to see the stars, but hadn't been able to actually see them. Light pollution, he suspected, or the window was just to dirty for the little dots to be visible. It was not like he could check.

He carefully manoeuvred himself of the small matrass, making sure the little redheaded boy next to him wouldn't wake, and pulled the blankets up so the kid would be warm and comfortable.

John reached for the backpack, containing their only possessions in this small room, and took out a pen. He moved into another position and pulled down his boxers a bit so he could add another small stripe on his thigh, next to the two that were already there: Day three. Then he checked his other thigh if the message was still there. He added some more ink to make sure it would stay visible.

We love you Daddy, Scotty, Virgie and Allie. And Grandma.

He hadn't told Gordon what the message really meant. He had said it was like a tattoo and Gordon had thought it was cool. He didn't need to know what the words really meant. It was only a precaution anyway. They would be home in no time.

John wasn't meant to be here, but he didn't mind. He didn't know what had come over him when he had jumped into the man's car, back at the park, but he knew he would do it again. He had known he couldn't take on a fully-grown man on his own. Scott might have tried, but would have lost and then thrown to the side and been forced to watch the kidnapper get away with his younger brother. John, with his fast-working mind, had tried something a little different. When he had recovered form the shock of seeing a stranger lifting his sleeping little brother in the back of a van -Gordon hadn't been sleeping at first but John knew criminals could make that happen- he had chosen for another sort of approach. Help had been to far away to reach Gordon in time, so screaming would only cause the man to hurry. John had taken off in a sprint and did what no other boy would ever do: He literally jumped into a kidnappers car.

He had entangled himself with Gordon before the kidnapper had been over his initial surprise. And only then, he had started to scream.

This had given the kidnapper several options. He could dump both boys and get away, get caught trying to separate them or drive off with the both of them. He had chosen the latter, but John had known he would. It had been quite a stupid move on his part, but at least now Gordon wouldn't be alone when he woke up. After all Gordon had never been abducted before.

But John had been.

He didn't remember much of those few days. Most of the time he had been intertwined with Scott. They'd been six and eight at the time. The kidnappers, there had been two: a man and his wife, had tried to separate them once, but it hadn't worked out very well. There had been crying, screaming and fighting. John had done most of the crying and Scott most of the fighting. Luckily, instead of resorting to real violence, the couple had found that as long as the two were together, they would cooperate rather well.

There had no been no real trauma to the two boys after rescue and they were cleared very quickly as a case of very resilient kids. What their parents, as well as the professionals, didn't notice however was that the boys hadn't left each other's presence ever since the kidnapping. But the brothers had always been close and their mother had been to busy with the youngest to notice that the boys now even went to the toilet and bathroom together instead of on their own. They had shared a room since Virgil was born, so sleeping had never been a problem, but one never left the room before the other was awake. When she did notice she interpreted it as play, because Virgil too was often concluded.

It hadn't been until two weeks later, when they went back to school, that the problem was discovered. The boys had been very anxious about that, but not for the reasons they parents thought. Their mother had dropped them off at the gate and waited for them to get inside before she went home. She'd just arrived back when she got a call.

John had not gone to his own classroom, but instead now sat next to Scott in his and simply refused to leave. Luckily the teachers had been informed of the situation and didn't try to force him. Their mother had arrived to try to talk the boy out of it. It was only then they had discovered Scott was just as bad (John had just simply lost the coin toss about whose classroom they would go to) and how deep this all went.

The professionals had come in and concluded the boys had developed a fear of separation, but that it wasn't really linked to the kidnapping as they had thought at first. The kidnapping had been the cause, but attempted separation didn't trigger any bad memories from the kidnapping, just a feeling of anxiety. The school was afraid the boys would develop a backlog, so they had allowed John, who was known to be an easy student (unlike Scott at times), to remain in Scott's class and work on his subjects form there. Scott's class had soon taken to "their" little brother, especially as John appeared to love arithmetic and started following the instruction of the teacher and took some heat of the other children by answering the questions asked. He also sometimes added questions that made the teachers falter and therefore the other children laugh.

The teachers now had another problem however, because since then the boy no longer had a backlog, but was instead ahead of his year, causing his teacher to having to collect extra work for him so the blond was still being challenged when the "class-sharing" had been over. Scott's class hadn't liked seeing John go and kept saying 'hi' to him whenever they met him in the corridor. One year later it had come in extremely handy as some kids started bulling John behind Scott's back, and suddenly found themselves up against the entire 4th grade.

Another thing John remembered was that the room they had been locked in back then had been more luxurious, as they had been kept in a house. John suspected that this time, he was in a warehouse. The concrete walls were bare and it seemed nobody had ever taken the effort to paint them. Last time they'd been rescued by the police easily, because the kidnapper had been some old employee from their father and had left behind many clues. Nobody had ever told him that, but John had researched the event on the computer a few years later. His father hadn't been happy when he found out. Neither was Scott. They'd tried to have him forget about the matter, because they were afraid it would affect him badly, but John hadn't been badly affected. He felt just the same as he had before, maybe even better since he now understood. This new person however, seemed to have thing planned out a little better. And that scared him.

The kidnapper had made it very clear to the boy when they arrived that he wasn't supposed to be there. He had tried dragging the boy out of the van and John had struggled to stay with Gordon. This had not earned him any points. He had already received some bad bruises before he had finally gotten through to the man. If he could stay with Gordon, he would behave. But the man hadn't understood himself. He'd had to tell him. That wasn't how it went last time.

That was when they'd ended up in the room. Alone. John had tried to wake Gordon up but it hadn't worked. Gordon hadn't woken until the next morning, which John had dubbed Day 1. As expected, he had been terrified. It had taken John some time to calm him down. John didn't remember panicking this badly when he was eight, but soon found that Gordon couldn't recall seeing his kidnapper. He only remembered something being pushed to his mouth and being very afraid. The boy had absolutely no idea what was going on. Last time Scott and John had been in pushed into a van and had stayed awake for over ten minutes before the kidnappers had given them a water bottle. Scott had made John sip from it first, not knowing it was apparently spiked, and John didn't remember much more after that. The next moment he could recall was when he had woken up in the room with Scott asleep on the bunk bed above him.

The man had shown his masked face again that day. He had made his way into the room and sat down on a chair in the corner. John had pushed Gordon behind him on the matrass and tried to talk to the man. Opposite to the kidnappers from last time this man did talk to them. But what he said had only scared John. He had taken great pleasure in informing how the entire police force was searching for them and how their family was terribly afraid. John had wondered how they felt. Last time Virgil had been very annoyed. He had been very mad at his brothers for "hiding". Luckily he had forgiven them almost immediately after his brothers had "come out". Virgil wasn't one to hold grudges, not for long anyway. But then he had been a six year old oblivious to what was going on. Now he was nine and probably just as afraid for their fates as his father and older brother would be, but Alan might have a similar reaction.

It was shortly after his gloating that the man had tried to take Gordon away. At that point, John had flipped. He had screamed and fought and yelled and acted out until the man had let go of his brother and had instead dragged John out of the room. Gordon had been shut in and had started yelling and banging on the door, but John had stopped struggling as soon as Gordon was out of the man's reach. Taping a ransom video had been easy. Because of course, just like last time, it had been about ransom. He had had to speak to a recorder pretending it was his father. Only this time he had become really scared.

After he'd added an extra piece, telling his father Gordon would be okay because he would be taking care of him, the man had hit him. Without warning. It hadn't taken John long to figure out it hadn't been because of adding his own personal message to the recording, but just to hurt him. It had been all to scare his father.

John tried not to think about it too much, but he was very glad he had been able to prevent the man form taking his little brother instead. Back at the cellar he had had to comfort Gordon for a long time to get him to calm down. Luckily the man didn't return that day. Not even to bring food.

Day 2 had been pretty safe. The man had only turned up in the morning. Giving them some dry bread and refilling their water bottles. Then he had left again, but not before telling them the tape had been delivered and it was now depending on their father whether they had to make any others. He had returned that evening with some fast food for both of them. It had been cold already, but had tasted great, mostly because they had been really hungry at the time. Despite that, John had taken to storing the small, well sealed plastic wrappers with salad and a little desert in the backpack. In case the man would forget to feed them the next day.

The little boy on the matrass stirred and started moving his hands around. When he couldn't find the comforting presence of his brother, he shot up in panic.

John was at his side in no time, pulling his younger brother close, like Scott had done to him al those years ago. "Ssssh, Gordy, I'm right here. You're fine."

After a while Gordon nodded and John let go. He noticed the pen in his brothers hand. "Can I have a cool tattoo too?" He whispered.

John couldn't help but smile. "What kind of tattoo do you want then?"

"The same as you." Gordon's voice seemed to sound exited. A lump formed in John's throat, but he did as he was asked and copied the message on his own thigh upon Gordon's. A double message wouldn't hurt, he reasoned. After all, it was all just in case…

During the tattoo-ing, as they called it, Gordon tried to grab the pen out of his older brothers hands as he wanted to write it himself. He only hadn't counted on the fact he couldn't read, nor write, yet. However, after John was finally was finished, the wiggling of his younger brother made it very hard to work, it did give John an idea on how to pass the day. They were being shut in a room with only John's backpack, of which the content didn't include any toys, but only books that where to difficult for Gordon to enjoy. But there were also notebooks, which he used to write down his remarks about the textbooks.

The notebooks were where he was after. Carefully he ripped out the filled pages and put them in the respective books. Gordon looked on with interest as John put a notebook and pencil in front of him.

"How far are you with writing in school?" He asked. Gordon immediately began talking about the letters he had learned already and the ones he still found difficult. They ended up spending the entire morning learning the letters of the alphabet. When John found Gordon was getting bored with the letters, he gave him words like "fish" and "sea" to practice, while reading some fiction himself.

When the kidnapper hadn't turned up by noon, they ate the leftover salads and deserts from the previous day, while playing tic-tac-toe. Gordon was getting bored learning and ended up playing with two badly drawn paper fish in a corner.

John's mind had come up with another idea, as he cleared a notebook of his own and started writing about everything that had happened in the last few days. However since he was afraid what the man might do if he found John writing a dairy of sorts, he wrote it in code. He only hoped Scott and Virgil would remember how to crack it if things went wrong and it was ever found.

When the evening broke, John was starting to get worried. The man still hadn't returned yet and they were getting hungry. He had made Gordon and himself ready for bed. It wasn't that late yet, but in a short time they would lose the daylight from the window.

It was almost dark when the man returned, but this time he had brought food that was actually still warm. He sat in the chair in the corner staring as the children ate, while John kept an eye on him in return. Somehow he felt threatened. Even more so than before.

This feeling turned out not to be ungrounded, because when the boys were finished the man made a leap for Gordon. He caught the young boy by the arm and jostled him towards him. John leapt into action immediately, leashing out at the man and jumping on his back when that didn't work.

The second action caused the man to lighten his grip on Gordon, enabling the redhead to break free and run for the other side of the room. John, however, was still there when the man lost his temper. The beating was harsh, but not as painful as the moment before that when the man threw him off his back and he landed on the ground, with only his arm to break his fall. He could only curl himself up in a ball, shielding his arm the best possible, and deal with everything the man threw at him –which where mostly kicks- while trying to block out Gordon's screams.

When the man left him alone he tried to get to his feet, but found this more difficult as everything hurt and he found he could not use his arm any longer without experiencing a lot of pain. He got to his knees, only to find the man had a hold of Gordon again. Using what felt like the last of his strength he moved to attach himself at the kidnappers legs.

The man shook his leg as soon as he felt John's presence, causing John to scream out when his arm shifted. Gordon had started crying now.

"Stop…" John panted. "Wait… Let… me… come…"

"I only need the little one on tape." The man sneered. "You can stay here just fine."

"Please…" John continued, struggling with every word. "We'll behave…"

"I said I only need him." The man repeated, giving his leg another shake.

John tried to ignore the pain. "If we're together… and you don't hurt Gordon… I'll behave… Not just now… but… always… I promise…"

The kidnapper now seriously seemed to consider the offer.

"Just two rules…" He pushed. "Gordon's not alone with you… and you don't hurt him… Then I'll do as you say… and he listens to me…" He knew he left a major loophole there, but he really needed to persuade the man to take him up on the offer.

That didn't mean he was actually relieved as the kidnapper did so.