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When D’Avin asked how he met Dutch John told him she caught him trying to steal her ship and let his brother draw assumptions. When Dav immediately started talking about Lucy John knew he’d taken the bait and was all too happy to let the truth stay in the dark. Dav didn’t care then and, brother or not, the man had been gone for too long for John to show him old wounds (not healed, never healed).
---
What he said to D’Avin wasn’t really a lie; it just left a chunk out of the story. He was, in truth, trying to steal Dutch’s ship. What wasn’t said was that at the time she was still Khlyen’s Little Bird. For some unknown reason she took him to the man (monster) alive. Khlyen was impressed and amused and there’s no worse a way to be seen. A decade or two younger and he might have ended up like Dutch, a child killing without understanding and once they did they were in too deep to get out.
As it was John was kept as...entertainment. The room (prison) he’s held in was basic and grander than anywhere he’s been in his life. At first he was grateful for the hot water in the overly extravagant bathroom and the comfort of the soft bed with silk sheets after the long days of being chained in a cargo hold (years later he’d loosen the binds on Simon’s harness because he knew exactly how uncomfortable they were). Soon he hated every inch as it’s on that same bed he’s pushed down and forced open and in that same bathroom he scrubbed his skin red trying to remove the feel of Khlyen from his body.
---
John fought each time Khlyen led him to the bed. It was at first resistance, a way to show he won’t simply give Khlyen what he wanted. Then John had started to lose hope of rescue or escape; it had been too long (one day was too long and it had been a month at least) and he couldn’t find the energy for a fight he knew he’d lose. (“It’s not that you’re bad,” Khlyen told him once, wiping away tears of pain and fury as John nursed his newly broken wrist, “I’m just better.”) Khlyen found other ways to amuse himself and next time John fought for no reason other than it being less painful than the alternative.
---
Khlyen occasionally gave him gifts. John was hesitant to touch them, didn’t want to accept anything from the man, but there was nothing but the bed and the bathroom that he has access to and left alone with his thoughts he would have gone insane. So he accepted the presents (he didn’t thank the man, that’s where he drew the line).
Most were some sort of broken mechanical toy and some tools he could use to fix them. John got a spark of hope that he could make some form of signal but Khlyen was careful not to give him anything with that type of parts and would take them away soon after they were repaired, leaving him with only a few at a time. Even so he threw himself into the distraction; getting lost in the cogs and wires until he almost forgot where he was.
His favourite was an old music box. It was a simple thing, far less complex than some of the other gifts. Less than an hour of fiddling and John had it working; the ballerina would spin on a turntable for four minutes as a soft lullaby played (he tried to make it play longer but the cogs couldn’t handle it). He removed the front panel and could see each and every component. He would spend hours watching the mechanism slave away just to make a little doll pirouette.
He tried to hide his favouritism from Khlyen but the fact that the box was never taken away proved he wasn’t as subtle as he wished.
---
Fighting before sex was foreplay to Khlyen; at any other time it was punished. Harshly. Each time Khlyen quickly beat him down and he was dragged by the hair to a different room. It was equally lavish as his cell but any awe that could be found was quashed by discomfort at the weapons and torture devices adorning the walls.
With technology any injury could be quickly healed and John was never left with a single scar but he was often left strung up and bleeding for a day or two. A sensor in the cuffs monitored his heart rate and would shock him if he fell asleep or became too relaxed.
---
John held on to the hope that D'Avin would save him. He hadn’t been able to contact his brother for almost a year before Dutch caught him but the hope persisted. It became a mantra he would play in his head when reality got too much. 'Dav will come, Dav will come.' He would whisper it to himself when he was alone, when he worked on the toys and when that wasn't enough he did it when he thought Khlyen was asleep, so quiet he could barely hear his own voice.
Khlyen was very good at faking sleep.
“Your brother isn’t coming for you.”
“You don’t know him.”
“I know he dropped off the map long before you came here. You couldn’t contact him and he wouldn’t contact you. He has no idea where you are.”
“You’re lying.”
“Poor pet, he doesn’t even know you’re missing.”
John's reaction earned him fifteen lashes and half a day strung up. He was hesitant to call pity the reason Khlyen went easy on him.
---
I t was in the torture room that Dutch, or Yala as she was then, found him. John had attacked Khlyen with a screwdriver, aiming for the eyes (he’d managed to make a scratch on his cheek which would have been more satisfying if the man hadn’t just smiled proudly in response).
It was clear what she wanted when she asked about stealing ships so he made sure to be vague with his answers. When she became frustrated enough to storm out he made his proposal.
“Get me in one and I’ll get us both out.”
“I don’t need your help.”
“No, but you need my silence. I suspect it will be a lot harder to run if Khlyen knows you plan to.”
“And you think he’ll believe you over me?” she scoffed.
“You know, no one ever comes to visit me here. I get very lonely. It’s almost as if they’ve been told to stay out.”
“You’ve been here ten months; I’ve been here my whole life.” Her dodge told him he was right to think she wasn’t supposed to be there. He grinned.
“That’s a very pretty dress, very unique. It looks beautiful on you. Wouldn’t it be weird if I could describe it in perfect detail?”
She looked down at the vibrant material and detailed embroidery and scowled.
“Well, shit.”
“So, about getting out of here?”
---
They push the ship to its limits then dump it on a back water mining planet. Dutch left him while he stripped off identifiable markings and serial numbers and returned with the pass codes for a new ship, Lucy (he didn’t ask how or if she paid for them; another thing he didn’t quite lie to D’avin about.) and they got moving again.
John couldn’t explain why he stayed or why Ditch didn’t leave him. The only reason he could think of was that they were both afraid of being alone but neither would admit it. It was a rocky relationship at first, both of them so broken and trying to piece themselves together at the same time as help the other but they worked through it and soon enough they were inseparable.
They drifted planet to planet before ending up in the Quad where the R.A.C. offered them protection, papers, and funds in return for service and Dutch and John became Killjoys. Six years later and Dutch still refused kill warrants despite her level and no one mentioned the state rapists tend to be in when John delivered them (Killjoys rarely had good pasts, it’s safer not to ask.)
Those who knew them assumed Dutch and John’s years with the R.A.C. were their complete history together; the pair never told of the time before. They never even spoke about it to each other.
---
Suddenly Dav was back in his life, intruding on what John had made his and as much as he wanted to be happy for his brother it grated on his nerves. Dav’s instatement at a higher level reminded Johnny of his limitations, of how there were situations that would make him tense and nights he would jolt awake expecting to see Khlyen lying next to him (Dutch and John knew Pawter would cut a deal for Dav; they both did the same as six years ago neither could have passed a legitimate psych evaluation. Well, maybe Dutch if she lied convincingly enough.)
Adding to that Dutch seemed to be pulling away and putting up walls he hadn’t seen since their escape. His talk with her before he got his new ear cleared the air a bit and John started to feel like things were slipping back into place.
The feeling lasted right up until he walked into his room to find a familiar music box, the ballerina spinning to the tune.
“Hello again pet.”