Archive of Our Own ^beta

Nicolò has always thought the brothel was the most disgusting place on Earth, not just because of the things that took place there, but also because it looked so tacky it bordered on ridiculous. And Džeko’s room might be the tackiest one, with the baroque-style furniture and velvet upholstery, combined with a Persian rug and golden tassels on the curtains. It almost makes him want to laugh every time he’s there, except there’s never anything to laugh about.

Džeko is drunk, which is never good, because it makes him lose his temper easily. But tonight, he’s too drunk, so drunk that he thinks he wants to fuck Nicolò, except he can’t, but of course it’s not his fault, nor the fault of the bottle of rakija he had drunk, it’s Nicolò’s fault. It always is.

“What do I even have you for?” Džeko snaps.

Nicolò looks up at him. He’s been kneeling on the Persian rug for maybe an hour or more, his jaw hurts from trying to make Džeko hard, but of course it’s his fault Džeko is so damn smashed he can’t even get it up.

“Useless piece of trash!” Džeko slurs and hits him in the face. “I should have sold you like that friend of yours!”

Nicolò sucks in a breath. Usually nothing Džeko says in his drunken state can get to him, but this feels like an extra kick in the ribs that Džeko hasn’t physically delivered yet.

“I kept you because unlike him, you were at least somewhat pretty and could satisfy a guy,” Džeko continues and grabs the back of Nicolò’s shirt to pull him back up, only to hit him again. Nicolò feels his lip has started to bleed, but the pain just doesn’t register anymore. “Well, apparently not. So why should I keep you, right?”

Nicolò doesn’t answer, because Džeko obviously doesn’t want an answer, he just curls up on the ground and tries to protect his head from the kicks and blows as much as he can. Every bone in his body wants to get up and fight back, because he knows he could, he probably could kill Džeko right now, in his state it wouldn’t be that hard, but then he would never know. He would never find out. So he doesn’t. He doesn’t try to save himself, for Alessandro’s sake, just the way Alessandro once didn’t try to save himself for his.

He can still see the day he first met Alessandro in his mind like it was yesterday. He should probably try to forget it, and he would, for his own sake, if it wasn’t for Alessandro.

When they throw him in that room, the first thing he notices is the lack of windows. The second is the peeling plaster on the walls. Only the third is the mattress in the corner of the room and the blanket on it, and the fact that the blanket is moving. He creeps closer and with his heart beating in his throat, he pulls it down.

Under the blanket he finds another boy, probably younger than him, with disheveled hair and eyes red from crying. He looks up at Nicolò, a flicker of hope briefly illuminating his tear-streaked face.

"Hey," Nicolò says softly, trying to keep his voice steady despite the fear gnawing at him. "I’m Nicolò. What’s your name?"

The boy sniffles and wipes his nose on the sleeve of his worn-out sweater. "Alessandro," he mumbles. "They took me... I don’t know why. I was just... walking home."

Nicolò sits beside him. "I was walking home too," he says, trying to piece together the events that led him here. "Do you know how long you’ve been here?"

Alessandro shakes his head. "I can’t tell—there’s no light, and they only bring food sometimes. I lost track of time. I think... a couple of days?"

Nicolò’s heart sinks at the boy’s words. “It’s going to be okay,” he says, hoping to sound more confident than he feels. “We’ll get out of here.”

Alessandro’s eyes flicker with a tiny spark of hope. “How?”

Nicolò glances around the room, his mind racing. The door is heavy, reinforced metal with a small hatch at eye level. There’s no obvious way out, but he refuses to give in to despair. “We’ll find a way. We just need to be ready.”

As the hours pass, Nicolò learns more about Alessandro. He learns he’s from a small town, and came here to study, he definitely doesn’t have anything to do with any criminals that might want to settle scores with him. Not like Nicolò himself does, but they could always mistake him for someone else… but what are the odds they would mistake both of them for someone else? Neither of them has rich parents either, so ransom is also out of question.

“How many of them have you seen so far?” Nicolò asks.

He doesn’t know why he’s acting like he has his shit together and like he can take out no matter how many guys, but pretending that he does makes him less scared, and it’s apparently working on Alessandro as well, so why not lie to both of them some more.

“I don’t know… three, I think,” Alessandro says in a small voice. “But there’s this one, I think they call him Hakan, I think he’s like… their boss or something. He’s… scary. He says weird things.”

“How weird?”

“Like… that he hopes I will make him at least some money. I think… he was angry with the others when he said it. I don’t know what he meant.”

Nicolò can’t say that he knows either, but he feels chills going down his spine, because whatever it means, it’s not good, and maybe deep inside, he’s starting to get an idea. He decides not to tell Alessandro. He’s scared enough without knowing, anyway.

Instead, he tries to keep Alessandro's spirits up, telling stories and making plans for what they will do once they escape. He speaks with a confidence he doesn’t entirely feel, but it is enough to keep Alessandro from breaking down completely. They huddle together for warmth during the cold nights, and whisper promises to each other.

One night, as they lie on the mattress, listening to the distant sounds of their captors moving around, Nicolò's mind races. He already knows they come in to deliver food and check on them at irregular intervals, but there is always a moment when the door is slightly ajar before they come in, and there’s always just one of them.

“Ale,” he whispers. “I have a plan.”

Alessandro sniffles and turns to him. “What plan?”

"We need to be ready to move when they open that door," Nicolò says. Alessandro looks at him with wide eyes. "We’ll hit them hard and run for it. If we hit the door hard enough when they open it, we might knock them off balance. Then we run. Got it? It’s our best chance."

Alessandro's eyes fill with fear, but he nods. "What if it doesn’t work?"

Nicolò squeezes his shoulder. "It has to. We can’t stay here forever."

They wait, the seconds stretching into what feels like hours. Nicolò keeps a firm grip on Alessandro’s hand, feeling the boy’s fingers tremble slightly. Finally, they hear footsteps approaching, the sound of a key turning in the lock.

Nicolò’s pulse quickens. “Listen,” he whispers urgently. “When the door opens, we’ll slam in it as hard as we can. Okay?”

Alessandro nods, but there are tears in his eyes.

“Ready?” Nicolò breathes, tensing as the doorknob begins to turn.

“Ready,” Alessandro whispers back.

As the door creaks open, Nicolò gives Alessandro’s hand a final, reassuring squeeze before they both hurl themselves at it with all their might. The door crashes into the person standing on the other side, eliciting a grunt of surprise and pain.

"Run!" Nicolò shouts, grabbing Alessandro's hand and pulling him through the doorway. They sprint down a narrow corridor, their footsteps echoing in the confined space. Behind them, they can hear shouts of alarm and the sound of pursuit, but Nicolò doesn’t dare look back.

He turns a corner and slams into something.

Someone.

Hakan.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Hakan growls, sounding more annoyed than surprised, and he aims a gun at Nicolò’s head.

Alessandro freezes behind him, like the gun is aimed at him. That’s when Nicolò realizes it. Hakan is alone. He can’t control them both, unless he wants to kill them, and he quite obviously doesn’t.

“Run,” he breathes out. “Ale, run!”

Alessandro shakes his head desperately, looking at him with wide eyes.

“Go!” Nicolò shouts desperately, but he knows Hakan has already figured out the situation, and knows he doesn’t need to overpower them both, because if he keeps Nicolò under control, the leash just extends to Alessandro.

Alessandro's eyes widen in terror, but he shakes his head vehemently. "No, I won't leave you!"

Hakan's lips curl into a cruel smile. “Touching,” he says, keeping the gun pressed to Nicolò’s head. “Get down.” 

Nicolò gets on his knees and then lies down on the ground. When he turns his head, he can see Hakan push Alessandro forward. Then he throws a pair of handcuffs on him. “Cuff him.”

Alessandro catches the handcuffs, his hands trembling. “I can’t...”

Hakan steps closer, his gun unwavering. “Do it, or I’ll shoot him. Now.”

Tears well up in Alessandro’s eyes as he looks at Nicolò, his hands shaking so hard the cuffs jingle.

Nicolò takes a sharp breath. "Do it, Alessandro. It's okay."

Reluctantly, Alessandro steps forward. Tears stream down his face as he clasps them around Nicolò's wrists, the cold metal biting into Nicolò's skin. Hakan watches with a satisfied smirk.

"Good boy," he sneers. He pulls Nicolò up and shoves him forward, pushing him back toward the path they came from. "Move. Both of you."

Nicolò’s mind races as they walk down the dim corridors, trying to think of another way out, but the reality of their situation feels crushing. Hakan opens the door and pushes Nicolò inside. Alessandro stumbles in after him, looking defeated.

Hakan's gaze sweeps over them with a mixture of anger and satisfaction. "You thought you were clever, didn't you? I guess I should teach you how to behave, but luckily from tomorrow, it will be someone else’s problem,” Hakan growls, bangs the door shut and locks it with a harsh clank, the sound echoing ominously.

Nicolò struggles to sit up, the handcuffs digging into his wrists. Alessandro drops to his knees beside him, hands shaking as he reaches out to help, sobbing uncontrollably.

"I’m sorry," Alessandro chokes out. "I couldn’t leave you. I just couldn’t."

Nicolò scoots closer, putting his head on Alessandro’s shoulder, because he can’t even hug him now. "I know," he whispers, his own voice thick with fear. “It’s okay. We’ll find another way. We have to."

He can still hear his own voice saying those words when his consciousness comes back to the room he’s currently in, no less terrifying than the one from his memory. He moves carefully. Džeko is sprawled on the bed now, apparently either exhausted by beating him, or just way too dizzy from all the alcohol to stay on his feet.

“Where is he?” he whispers, licking the blood off his lips. “Who did you sell him to? Where is he?”

He doesn’t know where the courage to ask has come from, possibly it’s because he feels like he’s dying, so he has nothing to lose, or because Džeko is quite possibly already too out of it to even hear him.

The room is deafeningly quiet, save for their breathing that is unnaturally loud. Then a sound comes, and it takes a moment for Nicolò to realise it’s Džeko laughing.

“Where, I don’t really give a fuck,” he says. “That dumb idiot thought he got a bargain… I bet he didn’t come back to return him just because he didn’t have a receipt. And he’s a judge, so he should know he’d need one to get his money back, right? Fucking tax magistrate or whatever the fuck… the boy would never make me any money, but now I don’t need to pay taxes thanks to him… I honestly hope he lasts for some time, or my tax holiday is over… or maybe I’ll just replace him with you…”

Nicolò listens while holding his breath, like he fears a single sound could stop Džeko’s drunken rambling and he would never find out then. He waits for a while to make sure there’s nothing more, but Džeko falls silent and then starts snoring.

Nicolò wants to crawl back to his room, but when he moves, the pain is so blinding he feels like he’s going to pass out, and he’s scared that if he does, he’ll forget everything he’s just heard, so he just curls up on the floor and repeats it over and over again until he’s sure it’s carved in his memory.

Only then he allows himself to cry himself to sleep.