The first time he’d awakened in the Cave, Sam fought.

He slammed his body against every wall he could, tugged at his chains until his skin was scraped away and his head was woozy with blood. He had really fought and struggled against being trapped.

Later, when he realized he couldn’t break the chains or get away, he’d screamed. He’d screamed himself hoarse, when he was alone or when he was being sliced open. He thought someone might hear them; no one had.

He tried every escape plan he could think of. He and Edward would kick and beat against anyone they could get near. It never really mattered.

He couldn’t get out. He never was strong enough to break the chains or loud enough to be heard by someone who cared to hear. He wasn’t going to be able to get out of the place he was held by himself.

Sam called it the Cave because even if it was a dungeon, a bedroom, a garage, it didn’t matter. He was trapped in its dark depths as thoroughly as he would be if he had been tossed down a mountain.

Sometimes he wished he would’ve been.

When fighting and screaming didn’t work, Sam tried waiting.

He waited for the American military to find him. He waited for someone, a new, better SEAL Taskforce to be sent to find them. After all, their commanding officers knew their last locations and it wasn’t like anyone had been able to report back.

So Sam knew it was only a matter of time before he and Edward were found and extracted.

And, luckily, time was all that Sam had any more. Minutes and days and months, all stretched out together and pressed back to back. It was endless and daunting and Sam vowed every day to stick it out.

He would be rescued one of these days.

He just didn’t know when.

Sam swallowed greedily at the water offered him. It was a half empty jar that Edward had left in the middle of their resting spots. They were never given much, but if they rationed it correctly between them, both men knew they could survive.

They had to survive.

Sam was going to make damned sure they survived.

The morning felt heavy. Maybe it was the afternoon or evening or the night. Sam was having a harder and harder time each day pinpointing how much time had passed since he last slept. It felt like no time at all had passed since the last time he’d had a glass of water, something offered to them only twice a day. But the way his body ached suggested hours had passed since he’d last been beaten.

He looked over to Edward. The man sat in the same position he always curled himself into. He looked the same every day, if a little thinner. But then again, Sam always thought he looked a little thinner.

“Morning, Ed.” Sam cleared his throat twice before repeating his greeting to make it coherent enough to understand. God, he was thirsty. He’d already drank all his water.

Time passed quickly in the Cave, at least. He was still barely awake when the door creaked open and a man came in.

This man was different from the usual. Sam was used to different people, but all roughly the same. Bearded and suntanned, angry eyes and knives between their fingers. And almost always accompanied by Sam’s favorite, the Picasso-faced man.

This man, though, came in alone.

The door wasn’t shut immediately, but instead kept open. Its large mouth let in more light than Sam had seen since the day he'd been captured and he winced away from it, scurrying a bit into the shadows where his eyes didn’t hurt so much.

The man didn’t seem to care or notice. He stepped through the threshold easily.

His suit looked more expensive than anything Sam had ever owned. Pinstriped blue and cut thinly against his body, it wasn't the attire of a torturer. Even his skin seemed cleaner, richer. There was a fullness to his face that suggested he could eat whenever he pleased; his beard was thick and neatly trimmed. His shoes shined.

This man meant something.

This man was dangerous.

Sam could handle pain. What he couldn’t handle, strapped to a wall he hadn’t been able to break free from when he was at his strongest, were surprises.

Surprises were dangerous. Surprises, Sam had learned, would get you killed.

The man spoke loudly in a language Sam couldn’t quite understand. He gestured with his hands and looked between Edward and Sam, appraising them. When he stopped, there was shouting from outside the door in the same language. The man cut them off with a quick word and then sighed.

“My apologies,” the rich man said in accented English. He placed his hands in front of him, as if he was trying to charm a spooked horse. He wore thin white gloves. “They are quite—how would you call it? Rude, perhaps. Or barbaric.”

Sam’s whole body flushed with adrenaline at being spoken to. He hadn’t been spoken to in such a normal, cordial manner in so long. His fight or flight instinct begged to be taken seriously.

Pushing against the wall for support, Sam struggled to stand up. Getting himself in an upright position, he glared at the man.

His shoulders heaved a little from the effort, but he still kept the fury on his face and willed his voice to come out strong and true. “I would use fucking pathetic myself.”

The man’s eyes widened and, startling Sam again, he laughed. His hands clasped together in delight.

“Oh, of course. You must be Samuel.”

Sam froze.

No one had known who he was. No one had called him by his name. Not even Edward, who did know him, had bothered to call him anything.

It felt warm and horrifying. Sam accidentally took a step backwards.

The rich man smiled. “Oh, no need for that. I’m not here to hurt you. My friends have done a great job with that already.”

He turned to Edward, frowning a little and clasping his hands behind his back. “You must be Edward,” the man clicked his tongue, closing the distance between them. “What a pity. Such a disappointment.” He reached out, hand barely touching Edward’s head, when Sam jerked on the chains.

“Don’t touch him!”

Surprisingly, the man stopped. He turned back to Sam and grinned even more widely.

“But you, Samuel. Fully living up to my expectations.”

“Who are you?”

His smile sharpened, lengthening. Sam held himself as steady as his shaking legs would let him.

“Someone you’ll get to know very well, I think. For now, you may call me El.”

El.

El.

Sam ran the name through his memories, piles of case files and briefing meetings. This man wasn’t someone new or unimportant; this El, whoever he was, mattered. And now, apparently, he was going to matter to Sam.

Ed looked at Sam sharply. It was the first time that Ed had ever voluntarily engaged with Sam. He knew something about this El.

It was going to have to wait.

“Not really looking for new friends,” Sam said.

El shrugged. “Neither am I.”

El stepped into the room and stopped a hair’s breadth away from Sam.

Sam knew his chains. He knew he could reach out, grab him, maybe even kill him— there’d be at least half a dozen guys in here in a second, ready to shoot him. And that was if El hadn’t brought in his own protection detail, which Sam sincerely doubted. But still, he could probably still do it. He could probably get his arms, or better yet, the chains around El’s neck and yank just right, killing him in one swift move. He'd die, too, but he would be able to kill this man that Sam knew in his gut was a hell of a lot worse than he looked.

But Sam would die doing that. He had promises to keep.

Sam let his arms relax and the chains dropped.

“I’ve been reading about you,” El said, running his fingers through his beard. “Samuel Carlisle. Good name. Brave little soldier.”

Sam swallowed the urge to reply. He needed to stop adding fuel to the fire if he wasn’t willing to burn.

“Your file was very easy to find. Almost too easy—sometimes a man enjoys a challenge. You understand. You’ve been a part of many missions over these past years.” El took one step back, cocking his head as if contemplating something serious. “Tell me, Samuel. How does it feel to know you got your whole team killed?”

Agony flared in his gut. He tasted fire on his tongue. Regret thick as blood tugged at his every nerve.

Sam closed his eyes. God damn. God damn.

He opened his eyes again.

“Ooh, you’re done playing. Well, we’ll see.” El leaned closer, tapping a finger to his lip. “Okay, answer me this one, then. How does it feel to know you’ll never see your precious family again?”

Sam’s heart slammed into his chest. He pictured the faces of his family to help soothe his rattling chest. He wouldn't provoke. He would hold on. Because El was wrong. He would see them again.

“Will you miss your father the most, or perhaps it will be your brother? Little Tommy?”

El grabbed the back of Sam’s head, fingers curling into an angry fist to hold tightly to Sam’s hair. It stung and tears welled in the back of his eyes.

“Or maybe it’s sweet little Wesley that you’ll miss the most. The man that you love.”

Wesley.

His file wouldn’t have included anything about Wesley.

Sam jerked against the chains, panic crawling up his throat and spitting out of his mouth in angry, bitter curses.

“Fuck you, fuck you, you coward piece of shit! I’ll—”

The slap rendered Sam speechless. El shook his hand, a disdainful expression on his pinched faced.

“What a foul creature you are,” El said. He shook his head and turned his back to Sam. Sam fought against the chains with a ferocity he hadn’t had in a long, long time.

His wrists began bleeding immediately. He didn’t stop.

Sam didn’t know who this El was or how he knew so much about him. Where had he gotten his information? Wes and Tommy’s name in his mouth sent shivers up and down Sam’s spine. Did he know about Johnny? Or Sara? Did he have plans for them, the way he did for Sam?

Sam wasn’t going to sit around here and wait to find out.

He would kill El before he ever got the chance to touch his family.

El laughed and patted Edward on the head. The older man didn’t even flinch.

“I’ll be back. Don’t you worry about that,” El said, smiling. The door slammed shut behind him after he stepped across the barrier. The light was ripped from the room and Sam screamed louder than he ever had before.

Bright, vibrating panic swam through his veins. His throat closed and opened rapidly, his pulse fast and awake. Behind his eyes, a headache knocked. He felt his own body so clearly, so fully—for the first time since the fight that led them to this hell, Sam felt clear.

For the first time, he was thinking clearly.

He was wrong before.

It didn’t fucking matter if he kept his promises, if he got out of here alive, if he ever made it back to Poplar and his family. None of that fucking mattered.

All that mattered was stopping El from going anywhere near his brother; to keep him far, far away from Tommy and Wesley, to keep him from ever saying their names again. He’d sooner cut out El’s tongue than hear him say their names ever again.

He was going to get out of his chains and escape. And he was going to kill El. He was going to kill Picasso-face and all his cronies. He would burn the whole goddamn city down.

He was going to protect his family if it was the last thing he did.

* * *

Years later, when Sam was safe and happy and sitting in his own house on his bed, he’d barely think about his time held captive. He would have bad days, of course— everyone had bad days and his bad days just happened to include visceral memories about being horrifically tortured. Everyone suffered sometimes; Sam would feel like he didn’t suffer that much more often than anyone.

So years later, Sam wouldn’t spend days wrapped in his own head, fighting against remembered villains he’d already conquered. He’d just— be happy. Be safe. He’d just be.

But it wasn’t years later yet. It was still very much the time where to not think about fighting against the villains would result in him never getting that happy ending. To forget fully for even one minute would result in him just ending.

So while Edward sat against the opposite wall, his body curled in a protective circle around itself, Sam thought about it. He thought about the punches and the slices and the way the man with the knife would lead with his right side, the way the guy who came to relieve him most often favored his left hand and winced, bouncing his knee, if he was standing for too long.

He spent the nights cataloging the way El breathed. The way his slaps were poignantly painful in a way few other things were. The glint in his eyes when he said something that Sam couldn’t help but flinch from.

Sam thought about it, every moment of every day, and he planned.

He was getting the fuck out of Dodge. No matter what.

And he was taking El down. Sam didn’t care if he went down with him.

He didn’t expect it to be easy; and he didn’t hope that he’d survive it or that he’d win the war. But he’d win the battle and that was all he needed.

He just needed to protect his family.

“Samuel.” El sauntered into the room with the same sort of bravado he’d worn the first time. Every time he came in, it was with a smile on his face and a glint in his eyes reminiscent of the glint of light on the blade of a knife. It was dangerous. He was dangerous.

Sam snarled back.

El laughed, as he usually did, and Sam swallowed back the urge to do it now, to fight now, to die killing that man right now. It was almost time— had to be. He was running out of time because a man like El didn’t wait.

But today wasn’t right yet. His plan was barely half-baked. He needed something a little more substantial. This was a one shot kind of deal. He couldn’t afford to waste it, even if he wanted to most days.

The pain hit him as it always did, like a wave threatening to drown him.

He had almost drowned once, when he was a kid. His dad and kid brother were there. His lungs had felt full for months afterwards and he’d wake up, completely dry and gasping for air.

It felt like that most days here. Like he couldn’t open his mouth or he’d swallow yards of icy salt water.

So Sam clamped his mouth shut, felt the burning of sea water in his eyes, and focused on the lighthouse in the distance. For him, it was the image of Wesley in his head. Wes’s hazel eyes were as bright as any lighthouse could be, as captivating and as easy to follow in the dark. Bright eyes. Sam loved his bright, bright eyes.

He pictured the man he loved, holding his name in his throat like a prayer every time, and the pain dug a little deeper.

At the beginning, he’d held on to his promise to see Wes again. To go home to him. He’d held onto the way Wes would smile, laugh and kiss him and kiss him. He wanted that so badly he was willing to endure anything.

Now it was different. Now, he pictured Wes sleeping, safe and warm in his own bed. Wes watching a really good television show or reading a book he loved; Wes bent over the hood of his truck, looking into the engine as he pinpointed an issue. He imagined him living.

Because Sam wasn’t going to be able to go home to him. But he was going to make sure Wes kept on living.

When El finally let up, Sam sank to the floor. His knees were bloody and his legs felt like pulverized jello. Today had been rougher than ever before; El had been crueler and happier. It was as if his pleasure in Sam’s pain had tripled in the night.

Sam closed his eyes and fought back nausea as he heard El approach Edward. This was always the hardest; hearing another suffer and being so unable to stop it.

But not much longer.

Sam would have to act quickly. He was out of time.

With that decided, Sam listened to the torture and planned his attack. He had one hit so it had to be a good one. Each whimper that Edward let out was another plot point in Sam’s attack for El. Tomorrow, when the man came, he would do it. He would either stop El or he would die. His best case scenario was probably both.

After Edward fell asleep and his cries quieted, Sam laid on the hard ground and stared at the wall. It was dark, almost black, and he could barely make out anything in the room between the darkness and the swelling of his eyes. His ribs hurt when he breathed.

He wrote his last letter to Wes, his fingertip drawing the symbols on the wall and his mind murmuring to himself as he said goodbye to someone who would never hear it.

Wes,

I’m sorry. I made you a promise so long ago. I’ve made a lot of promises in my life; a promise to my family, to my country, to myself. I’ve promised to be strong and to protect others and to be a good man. I’ve tried so hard to keep these promises, to be a man of my word.

But the promise I made to you that night—the promise to come home to you, to be yours. The unspoken promise to love you—I’ve never meant a promise as much as I meant that. I’ve never wanted anything as much as I wanted that.

I’ve never loved someone as much as I love you.

But the only thing more important than coming home to you is making sure you’re okay. I hope you know that. I hope one day, you know that I never meant to hurt you.

The beginning of our story was so wonderful, I fell in love with an ending I’ll never get to read.

Tell Tommy I love him. Make sure my nephew knows I wanted to be there for him. Make sure you all know I wanted to be more for you all.

I love you.

Your Protector,

Sam

* * *

The morning started like every other.

He blinked awake, heaviness pressing against his skull. He was dazed but too alert all at once, raring to fight and dizzy as hell. Every morning felt like that.

By the time he’d managed to roll over onto his knees and use the wall to help himself into a standing position, he wanted to throw up.

He had to fight today.

He didn’t know if yesterday’s beating was making him ill or the reality that today was the day that did it.

Either way, he emptied his stomach in the corner and retreated as far away from the mess as he could.

Edward didn’t move much; he shot the younger man a long look before nodding, closing his eyes, and resting his head on the wall.

Sam so badly wanted to confide in Edward, to tell him his plan and get his feedback. To warn him about what he was going to do and to apologize for going back on his promise to get him out of there alive. He wanted to, god, he wanted to save Edward. But he couldn’t save Edward and kill El.

And he had to kill El.

Sam leaned against the wall, crossing his arms, and waited.

By the time the door was slowly pushed open, Sam could feel the fight in his veins.

El stepped through and smiled.

Sam smiled back.

El took a half step forward in surprise, his eyes lighting up. Joyful was the only way Sam could think to describe the small monster. He was joyful to see Sam’s reaction.

“Oh, Samuel,” he breathed. “I’m so pleased to see you’re enjoying yourself.”

“Hardly,” Sam said. He felt a rush of adrenaline, enabling him to fight back, even just with his tone and words. He felt a thousand times heavier, a thousand times stronger. “But I’d like to.”

El surged forward, hand on his chin as he tapped his lips and hummed. “Whatever do you mean?”

“I think you’re weak.”

El backhanded him hard enough that Sam had to swallow down a bucket of stars to continue.

“You’re weak,” he repeated, making sure to catch the man’s eyes. “Because you can only fight me while I’m tied back. If I could hit you back, you’d never get a shot in.”

El’s smile widened, but it seemed sharper than anything else in the room. “You clever boy, trying to trick me into letting you go.”

Sam had prepared for this. He rolled his eyes. “Maybe, maybe not. If you really were stronger than me, though, it wouldn’t matter if it was a trick or not.”

“I won’t be mocked, boy.”

“Oh, no?” Sam dipped his head a little lower, looking El up and down. “Funny since I’m pretty sure I’m mocking you right now.”

El pushed him against the wall, a knife at his throat.

Sam didn’t swallow; his Adam’s apple would have nicked the knife.

“You think that you are a big man? You think that you are capable of winning against me? I will kill you, you child.”

Sam couldn’t reply. He raised an eyebrow and lifted his lips in a mock of a smile.

El growled and pushed him back farther into the wall, holstering his knife.

“Answer me.”

Sam cleared his throat. Though his pulse was pounding in his neck and Edward was staring at him with wide eyes and a horrified expression, Sam kept his voice as even as he could.

“I know that you can kill me. I just know that I could kill you faster.”

El nodded. His pleasured look returned. “You will die for your hubris, boy.”

He unlocked the chains. Sam nearly fell with them when they dropped from his wrists and clattered onto the ground.

Briefly, Sam remembered when he taught Tom how to drive. The boy had crashed into an old fence on the outskirts of town and they had to rebuild it so that the farmer wouldn’t tell their dad. Sam had been so mad.

Sam would give anything to be mad at his brother again.

El took a step forward and Sam threw his whole weight against the man.

El stumbled but didn’t fall. Sam dropped low and swiped his leg against El’s ankles, knocking him off balance. His muscles ached from moving in a way he hadn’t been able to in God only knew how long.

El rolled over, punching him hard on the side of his head. A move like that would have knocked him on his ass a few months ago; now, though, the pain was a familiar, sharp friend that he’d gotten use to breathing through. He closed his eyes so the stars he was seeing wouldn’t blind him and he wildly reached until he got his hands around the collar of El’s shirt. Then, with as much strength as he could muster, he head butted the man.

While El was groaning, Sam got on top of him and straddled his waist. He used one hand to tightly clasp around El’s neck while the other grabbed all the weapons he could find, throwing them towards Edward. The man made a startled sound of surprise but Sam trusted him to, at the very least, not give them to El.

El started fighting back against Sam, clawing at his hand around his neck and reaching for Sam’s face.

Briefly, Sam let go of El’s neck and watched with satisfaction as the man instinctively grabbed at his own throat as he struggled to breathe.

Sam punched him twice before El kneed him, using the hard knock to roll Sam off of him. He reached for his knife, making a disgruntled sound when he realized Sam had peeled them off of him without him realizing.

“I’ll kill you,” he vowed.

Sam smirked. “Better try harder.”

El came at him, full force, fists swinging.

He had been on plenty of missions, dozens of bar fights, plus a few randoms scrapes on the side of the road. He’d been fighting most of his life and only in the past ten years had his fights become government sanctioned. He knew how to fight dirty, how to pull hair and make eyes bleed. He was willing to use weapons or hands or spit. He was highly trained, highly determined, and had years of experience.

El might have been a torturer, a monster, someone with knives and a pleasure at seeing blood. But Sam had a family. He had a reason to fight.

He dodged a swinging punch and ducked his head, throwing El off balance by grabbing him from beneath the arm and swinging him into the wall. He hissed when El punched him hard and low in the gut, stumbling backwards and grabbing at the area. El took advantage of Sam’s surprise and knocked him down, climbing on top of him and hitting him hard and fast in the face and throat.

The fight lasted days. Or maybe just minutes.

Sam had never fought harder and he’d never felt weaker; the weeks of standing and taking hit after hit but being unable to do anything else had made his muscles soften and his body shrink. He didn’t have the endurance he was used to, didn’t have the fight in his muscles the same way he did in his heart and head.

Sam wanted to fight better than he was but he was already fighting his very best.

He elbowed El as hard as he could in the face, spinning around to hit him again with the other elbow in the nose. El cursed and stepped back, hands going to cover the rushing blood. Sam grabbed him by the shoulders and pushed him down, throwing his knee up to meet El’s face. Then he slammed him against the wall, punching and punching until the man wasn’t putting up much of a fight and he was breathing as heavily as Sam already was.

The sound of bullets, familiar to Sam, shocked him.

He could hear them raining down around him, the harsh ripples breaking through the heavy walls and bodies slamming onto the floor with a speed that said they hadn’t gone on purpose. He could hear them and practically feel them; could feel the weight of them in his skin or the vibrations of them leaving his gun.

He could hear and feel them, but Sam couldn’t really understand them.

Each hit that El delivered felt like it was from a hammer. He was dizzy and nauseous and bleeding and tired and a little cold and—

The sound of bullets were getting closer.

Sam slammed El against the wall and tried to tighten his hands around the man’s throat. El broke the hold after barely a minute and lowered his shoulder, slamming into him.

“Don’t shoot, don’t shoot, don’t shoot, don’t shoot, don’t shoot.”

The words were meaningless. Guns kept firing over and over again and Sam faintly could hear someone plead to stop, to not shoot, but the words were drowned out by the firing.

Sam couldn’t think about that now. He had to kill El.

He had to fight.

Everything in Sam ached. His bones, muscles, veins, blood— everything in him and about him was so close to dying that it was screaming, crying out to rest. He could feel his heart stutter and speed in a rhythm he didn’t understand.

El stopped fighting. Sam stopped fighting. Sam couldn’t hear the sound of guns any more.

Warmth spread across his abdomen. He felt covered in it, this new warm coat spreading across his body. Sam laid his hand in it and when he pulled back, his hand was wet and dripping red.

Blood. He was bleeding.

There was blood everywhere.

Sam slid to the ground; El went with him.

They were both coated in blood. Sam couldn’t figure out from which one of them it was coming.

Against the cool wall, Sam realized El had stopped fighting back.

Turning the blood red man, Sam wound his hands around El’s throat. The man gurgled, hands weakly pulling at Sam’s. Sam barely had the strength to keep his fingers tight, but El didn’t have the strength to stop him.

Sam was probably bleeding out. Maybe he’d been shot. He didn’t know for sure.

All he really knew was that he was going to die here. His body was shutting down, desperate to quit, and his vision was starting to blacken out. He was going to die.

But El was going to die, too.

Sam was going to kill the man who threatened his brother, who toyed with the name of Sam’s love.

When El stopped twitching, stopped fighting at all, and Sam could see no breath coming from the man, he let him go. His body slumped against the floor, lifeless.

Sam covered his wound with his hands, giving into the unconsciousness that promised rest.

Sam had protected his family. Dying seemed like a fine price to pay for that.