Chapter Ten
Sawyer
The mattress that Sawyer had slept on that night, and many other nights, wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as it looked.
In fact, he was happy there was even one down there.
When he first started on his never ending bitch duty, Milo hadn’t really thought about what Sawyer was going to do at night.
At first, he was pretty sure his uncle expected him to stay up all night every night, watching whoever they had captive at that time.
Sawyer had to (gently) remind him that was impossible and that night, the old mattress was put in the basement.
Compared to whoever was strapped in the chair, it was truly the life of luxury.
Sawyer woke up early in the morning and stretched out with a soft groan.
His hands ran through his hair before he rubbed at his eyes, trying to get used to the brightness that assaulted him.
The light that he left on was always a rude awakening.
Sitting up, he glanced over towards Andi and from the soft rise and fall of his chest, he was gathering he was asleep.
Good. As quietly as he could, he walked up the stairs and unlocked the door so he could get ready for the day.
The first thing he did was swing by his room to grab a change of clothes.
He never wore anything fancy. Jeans, t-shirt and a zip up hoodie was his go to.
Sawyer made sure to grab socks, underwear and his shampoo and body wash before he headed towards the showers.
In their bunker, they had a communal shower, which wasn’t necessarily his favorite but it got the job done.
Luckily for him, most everyone was still asleep so he was able to have a moment of peace while he showered.
He couldn’t take nearly as long as he wanted since he had to get back downstairs, but it was still nice.
The warm water rushed over his body, working out the kinks in his neck that he had earned from sleeping without a pillow.
The shower was quick, but still satisfying.
Sawyer turned off the water and grabbed a towel from the rack so he could quickly dry himself off then threw his clothes on for the day.
As he exited the showers, he tossed the towel into the dirty linen pile then went towards the toilet.
Sawyer brushed his teeth, took a piss and washed his hands and officially felt ready for the day.
The long, long day that was ahead of him.
Before he headed back downstairs, he opened up the refrigerator in the meal area and grabbed out a bottle of water and a bunch of grapes because they were easily accessible.
Hearing someone enter the room, the hairs on his neck stood up and he quickly closed the fridge, seeing Tank.
Sawyer tucked the water bottle into his arm, hoping Tank wouldn’t say anything about it.
Water typically wasn’t something they were keen on letting their captives have after only a night.
“You thirsty?” Tank asked as Sawyer walked by him, pouring himself a cup of coffee.
“He needs something to drink.”
“Does he?”
“Yes. If you want him to answer your questions, he needs to be alive. He probably hasn’t had anything to drink in over twenty four hours.”
Tank didn’t say anything. He just hummed which prompted Sawyer to keep going and head back down the stairs, locking the door behind him.
He definitely forgot to be quiet about his footsteps and when he reached the ground floor, he saw Andi staring directly at him.
“Sorry,” Sawyer said. “I didn’t mean to wake you. ”
Andi cleared his throat and shrugged his shoulders. “Wouldn’t say I was sleeping well. Kind of uncomfortable.”
That was fair. Handcuffed and tied to a chair wasn’t the best sleeping position.
“I brought you some water. We’re going to ration it out though.
” Sawyer twisted off the top and brought it to the man’s lips.
It was easy to see how dry they were. He was clearly in need of the water.
He gently poured the water into his mouth and watched Andi drink it down like it was the nectar of the gods.
To him, at that moment, it probably was.
He was certain that he could have drunk that whole bottle in one go, but Sawyer pulled it back and put the lid back on, throwing it over towards the bed.
Taking the stem of the grapes out from between his pinky and ring finger, he fed the man grapes one by one.
He couldn’t help but notice the look of amusement on Andi’s face and Sawyer understood why.
It was rather comical when you thought about it.
Had they been in a different situation, feeding someone grapes could be oddly sensual.
Their situation was anything but that. Instead of commenting on that, which Sawyer was thinking he was when he opened his mouth, Andi spoke up about something else. “What’s with the butterfly?”
“Hm?”
“The butterfly on your hand.”
Sawyer’s gaze drifted down towards his hand for a moment then looked back to Andi. “It’s a monarch.”
He smirked. “Okay. What’s with the monarch?”
“Monarchs mean a lot of different things.”
“What’s it mean to you?”
Sawyer should have expected that question, yet it still caught him off guard.
Out of all the people he had taken care of over the years, no one had really taken the time to attempt to talk to him.
In fact, they all fucking hated him and they should.
Andi should. The fact that he didn’t seem to was really quite perplexing.
He popped the last grape into the man’s mouth and shrugged. “Hope, I guess.”
“For what?”
He couldn’t help but frown a bit. “For things to get better.”
Another soft smirk hit Andi’s lips. “Same.”
Sawyer just shook his head. It was really quite something that the man was able to still find a morsel of comedy in the situation he was in. Perhaps it would be the thing that kept him sane. Who knows.
He tossed the stem of the grapes over towards the bathroom area before he reached out and pulled up Andi’s shirt so he could check on his wounds.
The bleeding seemed to have stopped on them, which was good.
He pulled the gauze off each of them one by one and he couldn’t help but frown a bit at the sight of the deepest one.
It looked agitated, to say the least. But he supposed it made sense after what Milo had done to it. “Does this hurt?”
Andi shrugged. “They all do.”
He supposed that was a valid response. “This one in particular,” he pointed at it. “Does it hurt worse than the others?”
“I’m going to be honest with you, I can’t tell. My whole body hurts.”
Sawyer sighed and nodded. “Okay.”
“Why do you care so much?”
“I told you, they want you alive.”
“Yes. They do. Why do you?”
The real answer was that he didn’t want to see another person die by the hands of his uncle and his cronies.
He had seen it too many times and he hated that he could never do anything to help them besides the bare minimum.
And there was a true possibility that Andi was going to suffer the same fate.
But Sawyer was desperately hoping that he would tell them what they wanted so that they would let him go.
Probably.
Maybe.
Okay. It was unlikely. But maybe Sawyer could convince Milo.
He didn’t ask his uncle for much and if Andi told them what he knew, they didn’t have to kill him.
They could just make him promise he’d stay quiet about everyone at the bunker and he could be on his way.
Sawyer just couldn’t stand any more blood on his hands.
Even if Sawyer wasn’t the one who was actually killing them or hurting them, he let it happen.
Every time. He wanted things to be different.
But he couldn’t tell Andi that.
It felt like too much.
So Sawyer just shrugged while he dropped his shirt back down.
The rest of the morning and well into the afternoon was pretty quiet between them.
Even as Sawyer helped Andi with the bathroom situation.
But it wasn’t an uncomfortable quiet, necessarily.
They just didn’t have much to say, apparently.
However, he did notice that Andi looked in every other direction but his when it came to the bathroom. It made him chuckle.
Several hours of silence passed by before Andi spoke up randomly. “This has to be boring for you.”
“It’s fine.”
“Is it?”
Sawyer shrugged as he kept his eyes staring blankly at the floor. “Fine enough,” he sighed, “Rather be down here than doing anything else, honestly.”
“Why?”
“You like to pry.”
“I do.”
“That’s a bad quality to have when you’re tied to a chair at the mercy of your captors.”
“I know,” Andi said, “But humor me anyway.”
Sawyer smirked. He could tell the truth that he didn’t quite care for the normal jobs that they did there.
Granted, he had never done any of them, but he heard the others talking about them.
They didn’t sound quite up his alley. It was a lot of killing and bloodshed.
Neither of those things interested him. “It’s easier,” he said simply, turning his eyes towards the other.
Andi huffed. “Easier. Guess that makes sense…” He watched his blue eyes shift around before their gaze met for the time in quite a while. Sawyer was pretty sure he saw he saw his cheeks flush a bit before Andi quickly looked away. Their conversation lulled once again, like it usually did.
Another few hours passed before the door to the basement opened up again. Sawyer flashed Andi a look of sorrow as he stood up from his seat on the mattress, tucking his hands behind his back as he watched his uncle step into the room.