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Clint groaned as his head began to thud painfully with every heartbeat. His arms were suspended above his head at the wrists, and fuck his head hurt. Air whistled audibly and a current of breeze as well as salt air whistled through...wherever the fuck he was.
He wasn't alone - just registering these pieces of sensory information told Clint that there was at least somebody behind him and somebody in front of him, heartbeats and body heat and that nearly-subliminal electric humming that told you somebody was nearby without opening your eyes.
"I'd kill for a drink," the guy in front of him drawled, voice cracking with pain and fatigue.
Clint snorted, appreciating the joke. It might not be too bad if he was locked up with somebody funny. He opened his eyes (no use in keeping them closed at this point) to see just a crack of light down near the bridge of his nose. A quick shift of his feet told Clint that nobody had bothered to chain his feet to the ground (stupid, on their part), and a quick bunching and releasing of his abdominal muscles told him that the chain that held his arms up would support him fine.
One small swing for momentum, and Clint kipped his legs up and above his head, heaving with what felt like every muscle in his body until he was upside down and could loop one ankle into the slack in the chain at the top of the rope. The blindfold fluttered to the floor and Clint got a better angle on things.
"Oak Father's embrace," a different, deeper male voice breathed, heat and desire plain in the voice.
Clint shuddered involuntarily and focused on the task at hand. With the twist of a fingernail in the lock and Clint's lifetime of experience, he was out of the cuffs in a trice.
He held onto the chain at the top so he wouldn't fall onto his back, and twisted again and lowered himself down to land on his bare feet on the metal flooring, wanting the stealth of a silent landing instead of announcing he was free like a jump would do.
Clint had been cuffed between two men, both stripped to the waist as he was, but they couldn't have been more different from one another.
One was small, slim, pale, with light brown eyes that seemed to flash crimson in the watery light from the single lightbulb overhead and the dappled sunlight through pinhole spots in the metal walls. The other was massive, with tanned skin, shoulder length hair, and frankly obscene pectoral muscles.
The bigger one was visibly looking Clint up and down in a way that made Clint very uncomfortable (he had to have been the deeper voice), so Clint looked at the smaller man instead. His eyes were wide with surprise as Clint looked at him, and although he looked Clint up and down as well, one eyebrow slightly raised, it was a different kind of appraisal than the feeling Clint got from the bigger man.
Still, Clint didn't like being locked up down here with two people looking him over, even if they'd all been locked up together. "You know how you got here?"
The pale man smirked at him. "'Come to the Gate,'" he said, his voice playful, like he was reading a tourist brochure. "'Enjoy the food, the bustling metropolis, and be abducted.'" Despite the light tone, Clint saw consternation in the twitch of the man's lips and the way he no longer made eye contact with Clint or the big guy.
Clint shifted closer, under the pretense of giving the pale guy a once-over as well. "What's your name?" Clint breathed, glancing up at the pale guy's wrists to see if they were bound the same way Clint's had been. "He with you or them?"
The smaller man sucked in a surprised breath at Clint's proximity, turning his head away as Clint approached. "Astarion." He flinched as Clint reached down to grab his discarded cuffs, fiddling with them until he got the ratchet open. "Halsin looks worse than he is. Just a big, stupid teddy bear, really." Astarion's words were dry and sarcastic again, his voice pitched more loudly.
The bigger man, Halsin, snorted. "That's the nicest thing you’ve ever said about me," he rumbled, his tone warmer now than it had been.
Clint was reaching up to use the handcuff teeth to get Astarion's cuffs open when there was the distinctive creak of heavy boots on metal flooring just outside their cell.
Clint moved quickly, getting the cuffs clicked around his wrists and hopping back onto the hook just as the door opened. He still had some of the same momentum from the jump, but the aristo asshole who came in the door, flanked by four absolutely enormous guards, didn't seem to care, whistling with approval as he looked each prisoner up and down.
"Raphael," Halsin growled from behind Clint, his voice low and dangerous. Any warmth or friendliness that had been in his voice was completely gone.
"If only the bounty on each of you weren't so high..." Raphael said with a sigh, glancing first at Clint with a click of his tongue and then up and down Halsin’s muscled torso before sauntering right up to Astarion and licking his cheek, chuckling richly under his breath as Astarion flinched.
Halsin growled again, and Clint winced involuntarily - Halsin was rapidly sounding more like an animal than a man. Pale green light flared from Halsin, flaring at the corner of Clint’s eye, but nothing else happened. Halsin muttered a curse that Clint didn't understand.
Clint was distracted by Raphael, who was keeping up a low, obscene commentary about Astarion’s hair, his cheekbones, his lips, his clavicles, even as he touched and preened and tsk’ed with a casualness that made the hair stand up on the back of Clint’s neck.
Astarion had gone stock-still as Raphael touched him, no longer even flinching as Raphael kept at it.
Clint gritted his teeth, and might have been able to keep his trap shut and wait for a better moment, but the asshole in charge kept talking as he manhandled Astarion.
"Last time I saw you like this, Cazador invited us over to play, and didn't you look pretty , spread out for us..." He grabbed Astarion's chin and forced the pale man to look at him, then clicked his tongue. "I much prefer having you to myself ."
Clint's stomach churned, and in a flash of white-hot fury, he lost the battle to keep a hold on his temper. "Could you please just kill me now? If you can't keep it in your pants I'm gonna fuckin'-"
Clint was watching Raphael, but he didn't see the signal the boss musta given to two of the guards, one of whom strode over and punched Clint in the stomach without any warning.
Clint heaved, his body wanting to retch, but his muscle memory took over before he could consider if it was a good idea.
He heaved his hips backwards, gaining momentum and distance away from the guy that had hit him, and drove his knee into that guy's chin. Kneecap and leg muscles beat neck tendons and muscles every time. That guy went down as if Clint had hit him with a hammer.
Clint had to take a moment to kip up, to get his cuffed hands off the hook, and in that moment two more guys were on him, one with a baton, the other with a knife.
Clint tried to dodge backwards away from that knife, but his back hit a metal wall and his head followed a split-second later, whiting out his vision. He got cut in the face, but at least not across the throat, and then Halsin stuck his leg out, and that light green light flared again, and that guy seemingly knocked himself out.
Clint charged at the guy with the baton, ducking under the swing of the weapon and slamming the guy into the further wall of the cell, and some instinct told him to duck again, and the fourth guard's baton cracked the third across the face. The third guard dropped like a stone.
Clint helped the fourth guard along, grabbing the back of the guy's neck with his cuffed head and slamming the guy's forehead into his raised knee.
Raphael was clapping slowly, grinning a lazy, cruel smile at Clint as Clint turned to face him, chest heaving, but Raphael didn't seem afraid. He was standing on Astarion's other side, near the door. "Well done, Hawkeye. I see that reports of your talents were not exaggerated." He patted Astarion's hip. "This is going to be an even more profitable auction than I thought, hm pet?"
Astarion flinched, and when Clint looked at him, he saw that the man had somehow gone even paler, circles under his eyes standing out like dark purple bruises, his eyes looking completely red in the light. He was hyperventilating, breathing rapidly and tensing and relaxing his arm and shoulder muscles.
Clint spat on the ground in disgust, not knowing what was going on here, but not liking what he was seeing. He grabbed a baton from one of the guards on the ground. "Don't touch him," he heard himself growl. Not the witty banter he'd choose for himself, but it was what came out of his mouth as he took in Astarion’s abject terror.
Raphael cackled , seemingly delighted, and reached down to run his finger along the metal floor. "Have a taste, it's all you'll be getting for a while. Or would you rather go back to rats?" He offered the finger to Astarion, and Clint saw that there was a smear of blood there, his blood, he realized, tonguing the cut in his cheek he'd gotten at some point.
Astarion flinched, and then obediently sucked the blood off before returning his gaze to the floor. He ignored Raphael’s obscene moan, but Clint could not.
Clint threw the baton at Raphael with all his might and aim, but Astarion moved into the way first, putting his chest between the baton and Raphael, not even flinching as it struck him, point first, in the shoulder. "Do not let Master or his friends come to harm," Astarion said blankly, eyes still on the floor.
Raphael hummed with pleasure, his hands coming up to trail across Astarion’s back and shoulders.
"Oh sark this," Halsin growled, but before Clint would wonder what language that was an ear-splitting woman's scream drew everyone's attention.
Clint'd recognize Nat's con-artist scream anywhere, but he didn't recognize the following voice, a deeper woman's voice practically howling in fury.
It was Raphael's turn to growl in anger at the interruption, but even as he turned away from Astarion and reached for the door, it practically exploded open under the force of a kick from a massive woman with reddish-brown skin, two thick braids of reddish-black hair atop her head, and a snarling curse.
A slim, pale figure in a black and purple priest robes was behind the snarling woman, and Natasha was behind them both.
Raphael was talking fast, trying to reason with the massive, snarling woman. "Karlach, Karlach, think this through. I can help with your Zariel prob-" was all Clint heard before there was a huge, thudding blow.
Clint was too busy grabbing the cuffs and helping Astarion down to care much about what Raphael said or what Karlach was doing to him. "I got you buddy," Clint said, easing Astarion onto the floor as another glowing green light pulsed from Halsin and more guards thudded down the hall just outside their cell, towards all of them, including Natasha.
Natasha could take a dozen or so guys, easy, by herself and half drowned. Bright green light plused again, and then shone from Halsin like he was the sun as he freed himself from his cuffs and left the cell. The fight with Karlach and Raphael had also moved into the hallway, and the noise of the fighting was tremendous.
With Karlach and Halsin there as well, Clint suspected they’d be able to take on an entire army. He focused on his pale cellmate, who was shaking violently, ice cold to the touch, and muttering something.
Astarion was shaking so hard he couldn't stand up on his own, so Clint sank to the ground with him, propping him up against the wall, not wanting to touch the poor guy any more than necessary. He was still muttering, but Clint couldn't make out what it was from his polite distance away.
Clint cursed his shit hearing and the fracas happening in the hallway as Halsin let out a guttural roar that shook the metal walls. He leaned closer.
Astarion's hands gripped Clint's wrists in a grip like an icy metal vice. "Please," he begged, voice breaking. "Please, I'll be good, I need a drink. Please, no more rats."
Clint recalled the blood on Raphael's finger, the comment about rats. His stomach clenched.
Everyone had heard rumors of traffickers scooping people up, turning them into zombies that ate blood and were strong, tough, obeyed any command and lived forever .
Clint had never heard of a zombie who could survive the dappled sunlight coming in through their metal box, but Astarion was in far too sorry a state for Clint much to care.
"I don't wanna be a zombie," Clint said, holding out his left arm, his bow arm. He wouldn’t risk anything happening to the arm he used to draw his bow. On the bow arm, though, he cared more about the dexterity in his fingers. He didn't realize how bad his voice was shaking, though, until Astarion flinched and looked up at him.
"I won't turn you," Astarion said, meeting Clint's gaze. He seemed to be waiting for something.
Astarion’s eyes weren't just catching the light oddly, they were crimson, Clint realized, his thoughts spinning nonsensically, but he kept his arm out.
He wasn't gonna tell his whole sob story to a guy he'd just met, but Raphael had said plenty, and Astarion's reactions had said the rest. Clint knew what it was like, to be treated like a powerful man's plaything.
Clint suddenly realized that Astarion waited for permission to bite him, and something warm spread across his face and down his chest. He nodded. "Go ahead. I'm sure I taste fuckin' amazing."
Astarion snorted, a tiny smile quirking at the corner of his mouth before he bent over Clint's elbow.
Clint winced at the twin stabbing pains in his arm, but was distracted by the massive tattoo, no, it was a series of scars across Astarion's back.
They had been carved with a knife, and looked to be some kind of satanic ritual or some shit. He gritted his teeth and promised to put a bullet in Raphael's skull if Karlach, Halsin, and Nat hadn't already done so.
Clint was just realizing that he was feeling dizzy, light-headed, black and white spots popping at the corners of his vision, when the priest was there, talking quietly into Astarion's ear and drawing him away from Clint's arm.
Clint pulled his arm back and elevated, holding his arm automatically to stop the blood flow as he watched the priest.
Astarion seemed to calm visibly in her presence, his shoulders dropping and his muscles easing.
Clint glanced at his arm, looking away as the priest and Astarion muttered to one another, not wanting to intrude on their private moment. His arm wasn’t bleeding, not even like he’d gotten an IV removed, much less like the two little knife-stabs Astarion’s fangs had felt like.
The stories were wrong, Clint realized with a start. Vampire slaves, not zombies. Clint’s sense of reality was shifting, twisting around him, or maybe it was just the blood loss.
"Thank you," the priest said. She had skin nearly as pale as Astarion's, pale hair, and slightly pointed ears, but her eyes were chocolate brown and kind.
Clint chuckled as he levered himself to his feet, bracing himself on the wall for balance. "Seems I should be thankin' you."
The raised voices in the hallway sounded like Halsin and Karlach, and they seemed to be taunting Raphael, which was a-okay with Clint. "Hey, did you happen-" he began, turning to ask the priest about Nat, when the small redhead herself appeared beside him.
"Do that to you too?" Natasha asked, nodding at Astarion's back as the priest led Astarion out of the cell.
Clint shook his head. "Some dickhead named Cazador."
Natasha hissed involuntarily, displeasure and recognition flicking across her features before she smothered the rest of the micro-expressions.
She very deliberately didn’t help him into the hallway, and Clint appreciated her careful hovering all the same. He felt sick, after listening to all the shit Raphael had said and done, and the implications of all the other things that had happened to Astarion.
Clint grimaced. He and Nat made a good team, all things considered, 'cause they knew what it was like to be turned into a weapon. Looks like they had something in common with Astarion, too. Something to investigate, a name to put on the list, maybe.
As if summoned by Clint's thoughts, Astarion turned back, the priest pausing with him, to glance at them both.
Clint could read nothing on his pale face, and then he and the priest were pulled into conversation with Karlach and Halsin, presumably over Raphael's fate.
"Aw, you made a friend." Nat's voice was low and filled with the dry sense of humor even the Russians had never been able to beat out of her.
Clint frowned down at her. Unlike the rest of them, she wore a too-big one-piece navy outfit, like a pilot's jumpsuit, rolled up at the ankles and wrists, and a pair of rugged combat boots.
Instead of answering, Nat led him past Astarion and his friends as the priest intoned something or other to Raphael, who sat huddled in a bloody heap on the ground and shrugged, speaking only with noncommittal sounds.
Raphael had one hand down on the ground to brace himself, and Clint's reflexes were fast enough that he slammed his bare heel down, hard, right in the middle of the back of Raphael's hand.
The crack of bones breaking was very satisfying.
Raphael howled, the air flashing hot and red around him for a split-second as his other hand (and some ephemeral
thing
) lashed out towards Clint, but Clint danced away, grinning and feeling smug as he heard a rich, genuine laugh from his 'new' friend from behind them. Time to get the hell outta dodge.