Chapter 18: from burden to asset
Luke slowly emerged from his slumber. He had had such a weird dream. He was walking into the woods, then suddenly, two shadows swooped on him, engulfed him; he tried to struggle but the two shadows had him engulfed and smothered; his arms wouldn’t move, and he was falling in a deep, dark pit.
Luke awoke in a jolt. He opened his eyes but it was still pitch black.
“What a nightmare!” he thought as he tried to grab the sheets and roll over in his bed.
But his hand didn’t grab anything. Instead, they stayed blocked under the sheet… a particularly rough sheet…
A sudden surge of adrenaline woke up Luke for good. With a bit of nausea, he realized that he was not lying, as he thought, but sitting.
“What.. the… fuck?” he articulated. His mouth was dry.
“Ha, sleeping beauty finally ends his nap”, a mocking voice answered in his left.
Luke turned his head in direction of the voice, but everything remained black.
“I… I can’t see! Why can’t I see?”
“Relax, dude, it’s the purpose of a blindfold”.
That’s when Luke got full recollection of the events. The kidnapping, the chloroform, the straitjacket… that’s the rough thing blocking his arms in front of him. And indeed, as Luke tried to move his head, he felt a slight pressure over his eyes. Like a padded leather blindfold. His legs had been tied up, too… Luke couldn’t see the tight straps binding them, but he definitely felt them at his knees and ankles.
“What the fuck?” Luke asked his kidnapper. “What are you going to do to me?”
“Just relax”, a voice now coming from his right said. “For the start, we have some questions for you!”.
Luke recognized the voice of the second kidnapper. The one with long hair. He was sitting between them. Now that his senses were coming back - except sight - he could feel the faint vibrations of a car. He was probably being transported to their lair.
“So…” Sam said. “Judging by the ID card in your wallet, your name is Luke Porter, and you’re 22”
“Uh… yeah” Luke confirmed after a slight hesitation. Why denying the obvious?
“And so, Luke… apart from being too curious for your own good, what do you do for a living?”
“I’m… still a student”
“Nice. What do you study?”
“Art history”
Dean could’t refrain a sarcastic laughter.
“Oh, dude, among everything, you chose the most useless academic background. Even studying law is more useful”, he said as he winked to his brother.
Sam didn’t raise it. “Don’t pay attention to him, Luke. Now, what were you doing in this motel in the middle of nowhere. Surely, there was not much art to study there”.
Luke considered for a brief moment whether he should lie or tell the truth, but he couldn’t think of a convincing lie right now, still in shock and being pressured.
“So?” Sam asked again.
“I’m on vacation, I was supposed to meet a friend who owns a cabin in the appalachians. We used to go each summer”.
“And this friend is Nick, of course?”
Luke’s heart missed a beat.
“How… how do you know Nick?” he said as he started to wriggle in the straitjacket.
“Hey, relax…” Sam said as he passed his arm behind Luke’s neck, forcing him to stay still. “This guy just don’t stop calling you”.
“Yeah…” an idea arose in Luke’s mind. “He should worry about me, I should already be there”.
Sam and Dean looked at each other, worried.
“Look, dudes...” Luke added. “Maybe you should release me, so that I can reassure my friend and be on my way? I promise I won’t talk about you to anyone, I’ll invent something, I…”
“Oh, shut up”, Dean added. “We’ve almost arrived, we’ll see how the brothers wants to deal with it…”
“The brothers? What…?”
Sam glanced at his brother. “You talk too much, Dean!”
“What does that mean?” Luke added. “Where are takimmMMMPHPHMMHH”
His words turned garbled as he felt a large mass being pushed in his mouth.
“MMMMPPHHHH”
“And you talk too much too”, Sam added. “Enough chit-chat for now!”
“MMMPHH” Luke moaned as he felt a large rubber plug being pushed inside his mouth, far beyond his teeth, pinning his tongue down. He tried to spit it out using his jaws muscles, but it suddenly tightened; Luke felt two straps going over his cheeks and being buckled over the nape of his neck. At the same time, he felt a large leather panel smothered over his mouth and his lover face, crushing his lips.
“The same gag I saw on the kidnapped boy”, he realized.
“Mmmphphhh” he moaned again as he felt the buckle being latched in the buckle’s hole. He quickly understood how effective the gag was, as it greatly muffled his voice and of course prevented any intelligible speech.
After a few minutes, Luke had realized that the plug was stimulating his drool production. Thus, he had to constantly suck on the plug to swallow it. Like he was sucking on a pacifier or doing a… blowjob.
It was humiliating.
And he could do nothing about it. Luke wasn’t a fighter and he rather considered himself as a nice guy; but even if he wanted to fight, the straitjacket, the straps binding his legs and the blindfold made any attempt impossible.
Luke felt panic arise. He forced himself to take deep breaths and to focus his mind on something regular, like the vibration of the road. Dean’s wild driving wasn’t helping, though.
After a few minutes of silence, Luke heard the loud sound of the radio Dean had just turned on. Although he was not fan of metal, he was glad he did it; it gave him something to focus his mind on.
One hour later, Luke finally sensed the car stopping. He then heard someone talk to his captors, obviously outside of the car.
“Welcome back, brothers” the voice said. Luke identified it as a young man, friendly, perhaps his age. “Wait… he’s not the prophet you should deliver, is he?”
“Nope” Dean replied. “He’s in the trunk. Luke here is an… uninvited guest!”
“MMMPPPHH”, Luke “said”. “It’s no use”, he thought, “I won’t get help from him, he’s clearly with them”.
“Well… I was not briefed about him” the voice replied, now more hesitant.
“The Elders did not know, it just happened. Look, he’s tied up, blindfolded and gagged, so the rules are respected. Are you going to let us pass or what?”
“Brother Dean, I’m still not sure…”
“Look, Jeff, let me explain this some other way. We are on the field, taking the risks and doing the necessary job. You have been in the brotherhood for years now and your job is still to open and close a goddamn gate. So just do your job and let-us-through, and let my Elder dad deal with my guest”.
A short silence. “Fine”, the one named Jeff replied, clearly upset. “You’re right, it’s your problem after all”.
After a few seconds, Luke felt the engine start again. Dean drove more carefully though, as he was taking narrow curves.
“Dean”, Sam said, “you shouldn’t act like a complete dick with the brothers”
“What? Sam, this guy is a loser. Dave told me, he arrived in the Brotherhood with him but, unlike him, didn’t get any interesting job. He’s constantly switching between keeping the gate and doing stuff for the logistic division. He’s basically the Brotherhood’s janitor!”
“But still… Dean, we arrived here as an Elder’s son and we were assigned on the field very quickly, queue-jumping at the expense of many brothers. We may not have only friends here”
“As always, little bro, you worry too much about public relationships…”
Luke was still sitting between them, straitjacketed, blind and mute, not participating in this conversation. This conversation had just made his confusion deeper. Clearly, there was a whole organisation behind all of it, it wasn’t just two lunatic guys with psychiatric issues… Where was he being taken ?
After one minute, the car came to a halt. Luke felt his two captors leaving the compartment, and addressing an other guy outside.
“Hi Dave”, Sam said, “we had some troubles, sorry for the lateness”
“I know”, an voice unknown to Luke, “Dave” he assumed, answered. “Jeff called me from the gate. I was expecting you…”
Luke’s sound was brutally cut as the doors were slammed shut. All he heard was some muffled voices, sometimes louder; clearly, this conversation wasn’t going smooth. After a few moments, someone opened the trunk, and he could again hear some bribes:
“..... no, we kept him gagged at all time, as required...” Dean said
Then Luke heard a long muffled protests and some scratching noise; he understood that they must have seized the kidnapped boy and were taking him out of the trunk.
“Where is he going now?”
“The brothers of the mystic division will take care of him” the unknown voice - Dave - said. “But I’m not done with you, we still…”
The trunk was slammed shut again.But two minutes after, Luke felt the passenger door being opened and a pair of strong hands seized him and dragged him out of the car, still blindfolded. He was made to stand but couldn’t find his balance, as his legs were still firmly bound; but as he staggered, the hands were back on his arms just below the shoulders, holding him still.
“We had no choice; this guy just bumped into us and saw us with our attire and holding our target; we had to take him in order to protect the Brotherhood” Dean said.
“First, you should not have put yourself in a position where any of you could be seen; second, abducting someone who's not a defined target is not something acceptable” Dave replied.
“Oh, fuck the rules!” Dean just replied, clearly annoyed now.
“It’s not just that” Dave replied, raising his voice. “We don’t know where this guy is from. We didn’t do any study on him; someone may already have notified the authorities he’s missing and we didn’t built any story which could explain that, or set up any fake accident. Has he any relatives?”.
“MMMPPHHMMM” “said” Luke, nodding his head in the direction of the voice.
“Actually”, Sam said, more calmly, “we interrogated him. He was supposed to meet a friend in the mountains for a week vacation in the wild; we have his cellphone, thus we can easily locate this friend”.
“Great…” Dave mumbled, pinching his nose between the eyes as he thought about it. “Ok, the best move now is to try to convert… “Luke”, so he can go see his friend and convince him that everything’s normal in spite of this… delay. Thus, our tracks would be covered”.
“MMMMPPHHH” said Luke, confused. Go seeing Nick? He didn’t ask for more but… what’s this conversion stuff?
“Convert this guy?” Dean said, clearly skeptical. “He’s not valuable for the brotherhood, Dave, he’s just an art student guy. We have no guarantee the process will work anyway”
“The conversion was never a 100% success rate for anyone, but we have nothing to lose. And for the record, Dean… I was a student before being brought here”.
“Tch” said Dean. “Where’s my dad by the way? He’s the one supposed to make such decisions!”
“I’ll refer to Elder John of course, but he’s not in the Temple right now. And he put me in charge of supervising the acquisition teams - it means you”, he said, locking eyes with Dean. “So I have to make decisions, and that’s what I’m doing. Now move! We are losing time!”
“Ok, Dave, will do” said Sam, as he lowered Luke on a spare wheelchair near the car. After seating his captives, he took the strong tissue straps dangling from the chair, locking them tight over Luke’s waist and legs, thus ensuring he’ll remain seated. Luke grunted out of surprise, not expecting to be restrained more than he already was.
“Oh and give me his phone”, Dave said. “I’ll pass it to the brothers of the tech division, so we’ll gather every data about his contacts and build an actual plan to organize his… disappearance”
“MMMPPHHH!” Luke said, squirming in the straitjacket. “MMMPHH MNNOOO MMPNPPHH MMMPPHH”
“Calm down, Luke!” Dave said, almost friendly “I’m not talking about killing you. We don’t do that here. In fact, I’d like to welcome you as a brother. But from now on, your life will change…”
“There”, Dean threw at Dave Luke’s cellphone he had just recovered from the Impala’s dashboard. Dave caught it on the fly, displaying nice reflexes. “Go get it to the nerd brothers” Dean mockingly said.
“The “nerd brothers” are the one who are gonna fix your mess right now. You better remember it” Dave replied as he turned around and walked away, his cloak flapping behind him.
Luke felt the wheelchair moving. He was being taken away, but his state of confusion had just reached another level. Tech division? Mystic division? What were these? Clearly there’s some sort of organisation but… a part of his brain kept telling him this couldn’t be anything but an elaborate joke, and another part immediately objected that jokes don’t involve chloroform and straitjackets.
And then Luke surprised himself thinking: “maybe it’s not so bad after all… that guy Dave seemed more friendly and clearly, his own captors - especially Dean - are not that appreciated. And they mentioned me going back to Nick. Maybe that “conversion” thing is not that bad…”
As his mind tried to process all this stuff, he felt himself being dragged deeper and deeper. “This complex must be huge”, he thought.
“You’re quite lucky”, Dean suddenly said. “The Brotherhood said they recruited us because we’re the elite, and then they let an average guy like you try a conversion”.
“Shut up, Dean!” Sam said as he was pushing the wheelchair. “There’s no need to despise everyone just because they’re not trained hunters. Everyone’s here may be useful.” “Including our guest here”, he added to Luke
“Seriously, Sam”, Dean rolled his eyes, “did you hear how he was talking to us? Like he thinks himself better than us?”
“As a matter of fact”, Sam said, “he did beat us. Remember who captured us and brought you here?”
“Pure luck!” Dean said while shrugging. “Luck and chloroform!”
“Yeah, yeah…” replied Sam, almost amused.
Luke couldn’t believe what he had just heard. These guys had been captured too? Just like he was? This guy, Dave, also mentioned he had been a student before… were this guys just like… him?
“There! We’ve arrived!” Sam said after a few more minutes.
Luke felt the wheelchair came to a halt, then being spinned a quarter. His blindfold was then removed.
He was in a small, circular chamber with stone walls. As he detailed his surroundings, he noticed a TV screen hanging from the ceiling, directly in front of him. Then he saw Dean against the wall, turning his back to him, adjusting some device he couldn’t see.
“There. Shall we begin?” said Dean, looking at him.
As he approached, Luke tried to identify the object he was holding. It was a long hose, which was connected to a heavy pressurised container, likely containing gas. Luke realized that the other end was a breathing mask just as Dean smothered it over his nose and already gagged mouth.
“MMMPMMMMMM! MMMPPHHHH!!!” Luke screamed anew in his gag, struggling in his straitjacket and the wheelchair, but unable to stand up, let alone dislodging the mask as Sam was now strapping it behind his head.
“Relax, dude” Sam whispered in his ear. “We all went through it. It’s not as bad as it looks!”
As the last strap was buckled, sealing the gas mask over his face, the TV screen switched on, displaying a rotating spiral right in front of Luke’s eyes. At the same time, Luke felt a sweetish smell invading the mask. It was not chloroform, but the combination of the gas and the spiral clouded Luke’s mind. In his confuse state, he didn’t know how to resist this… or if he should resist at all.
“There!” Sam said. “You want to see your pal again? And join our family?”
YES! Luke realized he did want that. He slightly nodded and grunted, already in a dream-like state.
“Then watch the screen and listen…”
And Luke did listen.
*
Luke didn’t know how many time passed when Dean unbuckled the mask, then the panel gag.
“Well, it seems you did very well after all… brother! How do you feel?”
“I feel… great!”
And that was the truth. In spite of having been trapped in a straitjacket for hours now and having his mouth extra dry because of the gag, Luke was happy. During his transe, his mind had been infused with the values of the Brotherhood: duty, loyalty, the urge to stand together to face the upcoming supernatural threat… for once, he felt like he had found his place in this world.
And Nick! The promise to see Nick soon was shining in his spirit.
Suddenly, Dean’s lips pressed over his. Surprised but still driven by his enthusiasm, Luke returned the kiss. It was enjoyable, he thought, but Nick’s kiss would feel even better.
“That was the final part”, Dean said, withdrawing. “Welcome to the Brotherhood, novice Luke!”
“T...thanks, brother Dean”.
“Yes, congratulations!” said Sam, coming from behind, as Dean was starting to unwrap the straps binding Luke.
“Here are your boots, cloak and gloves”, Sam added. “You passed the test, you’re a fellow member now, no need for gags or straitjackets anymore. Put these on, I understood that we still have much work to do…”