Coming Home // Sidemen AU (Minizerk)

The Blame Game

He woke up alone in a cold room.

He regained consciousness slowly and in stages, and the first thing he noticed was that he felt sick, a churning nausea deep inside his stomach, a fuzzing dizziness at the back of his head and the sensation of something dry and sticky coating his forehead and cheek. For a while he was groggy, drifting in and out of it, not quite aware of his reality, but presently he became aware he was lying on a hard surface, something cold and rough against one cheek. His arms hurt.

Slowly he forced his eyes open and then, as the sudden realisation of where he was and who he was with came flooding back to him, a jolt of panic ripped through him, snapping him awake.

'Oh God. Oh fuck. Fucking hell. I'm in so much shit. I'm in so much shit.'

He tried to sit up only to nearly overbalance as he realised his hands were still tied tightly behind his back. With a bit of manoeuvring he got himself upright and stared frantically around. His head pounded as his eyes darted about, reminding him also of the head wound he had sustained earlier.

How many days had it been now? The last thing he remember was having his blindfold ripped off him and coming face to face with his captor. He shuddered at the thought of Mr Anderson's face leering down at him, cold and emotionless before breaking out into a sickening smile. "It's alright now Josh," he'd told him. "We can be together now." Those horrifying words had him lurching, his vision darkening in the corners until everything was black again.

Now looking around he could see he was in a basement of some sort. Empty apart from the chains binding his hands and a dusty old bucket in the corner. Aside from that there was nothing, just a concrete floor and crumbling brick walls. A single naked light swinging slightly on a few exposed wires and flickering now and then, as if was threatening to blow out any second. The motion of the light was only making him feel even more nauseous.

Fuck. He was already breathing too fast, could feel his heart rate picking up and 'fuck, fuck okay I have no idea where I am-'

Panic rose up but he squashed it down. 'Come on, come on, idiot - calm down - just breathe' - it took him a few moments, closing his eyes and forcing himself to take deep breaths, holding them a few seconds before letting them out. He'd been doing well for a long time now and he kept that at the forefront of his mind. 'You're okay. You're not too badly injured. Work this out.'

How could he have been stupid enough to let himself be taken like this? This last thing he remembered before, was walking through the park. That must have been where Mr Anderson had jumped him, a sudden and firm grip on his arm and then a sharp pain, the blood on the side of his head enough of a clue to tell him why everything was blank after that. Shit, the fucker must've followed him from Simon's house. Surely it couldn't have been purely by chance?

He still felt vaguely sick and there was an artificial grogginess clouding his mind. More than anything he was in shock. Sure, he'd known his geography teacher was not a good man, for fuck's sake he'd played on that, but he thought, for all the numerous ways that guy was clearly messed up, that he was harmless. He thought he'd had everything in control. But now look where it had got him. Stuck in some basement, in some strange place with no idea of how to get out or if anyone was coming for him.

'And I've got no one to blame but myself. I made this mess. This is all my fault.'

The fear hit then, cold and unpleasant in his gut, but he kept himself calm, shuffling back against the wall and pulling his knees up so he could sit more comfortably. And as sick as it sounded he felt a glimmer of relief. Thank God it had been him and not one of the other lads. Thank God he hadn't got them mixed up in this as well.