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Chapter Text

Finney Blake first met Robin Arellano on a bleak, miserable day in November. 

In some sadistic sense, it was almost poetic that they'd meet again on such a day. 

If Finney pushed through the static pounding his skull, he could recall the memory, stored deep in the recesses of his mind. If he managed past the way his limbs felt detached from his body in the sense that they wouldn't fucking listen to him, he could remember the way that Robin had sidled up to him with all the confidence a bloody-knuckled eight year-old could muster, and asked to be his friend. 

At the time, Finney had been weaving a blade of grass between his fingers, ankles hooked together as he worked against gravity on the swingset. The sound of bark shifting caused his gaze to rise from his hands, an unfamiliar face twisted into a grin as he made his way towards the boy on the swing. 

North Denver was a populous city - until you reached their neighbourhood. Run-down and seedy, Berkeley wasn't a section of the city you entered willingly unless you were passing through to get to the next town over. So when Buzz spread the news of a family purchasing the long-abandoned house neighbouring his own, moving from Mexico of all places, it was the talk of the town for weeks. 

Finney, despite having zero friends aside from his sister - he wasn't going to sugar-coat it, he was sitting alone on a swingset, for Christ's sake - had been privy to the rumours about the new boy that shot up like weeds upon his arrival. He'd heard tales of a psychopath, a boy with malicious tendencies that shot down birds with his convict uncle for fun. Rachel swore up and down that she'd seen the boy digging a hole in the forest, presumably for disposal of a body he previously used in a satanic ritual.

So forgive Finney if his eight year-old mind was malleable and susceptible to propaganda. He'd avoided any subject on the matter out of fear - which wasn't exactly hard. He just needed to ask Gwen to talk about something else, not without attaining an eye-roll. 

Unconsciously, Finney had built a persona for the new boy in his own mind. He hadn't yet come into conversation with the boy, - let alone seen him - the entirely self-induced identity he'd given the new boy steering him clear of anywhere Finney might encounter him.

He was expecting a boy twice his size, with a malevolent grin that pulled back his lips to reveal razor sharp teeth. 

So imagine his surprise when quite literally the shortest boy Finney had ever seen in his life swaggered up to his side, taking the neighbouring swing - not without difficulty. 

A bandana wrapped around his forehead, the new boy had hair just long enough to be considered shaggy, providing evidence that he was attempting to grow it out. Combine this with the most unthreatening face that rivalled even Gwen's, and Finney was thrown completely off-track. For a second, he vaguely wondered whether this was even the same 'satanic' new boy he'd been hearing about.

"Hey, dude. What's happenin'?" 

The boy's feet weren't even close to touching the ground. 

"Are you the new kid?" Finney asked, some of his worry dispelled.

"Yeah, I'm the new kid. I'm Robin. Robin Arellano." 

"Robin's a cool name." Finney hadn't heard it used to refer to anyone other than girls, so he supposed that added to the novelty of it. Besides, Buzz and his friends would've been on it like bloodhounds, so someone had to appreciate it. 

"I'm Finney Blake."

"I'm gonna call you Finn," Robin decided.

"I'm gonna call you.. Robin." Finney had been attempting to scramble for a nickname, but 'Rob' sounded lame, and he wasn't near quick-thinking enough to come up with anything better. He finished his statement lamely, embarrassment welling up to a thick syrup in his brain, preventing his thoughts from running away from his fumble of a social situation. 

However, Robin laughed, hastily grabbing the chains of the swing to prevent himself from wiping out on the playground floor. 

Finney, in all his relief that he hadn't just tarnished his reputation in front of seemingly the only person in North Denver that didn't know how much of a loser he was, barely even noticed the ichor staining Robin's knuckles. But he zeroed in on the blood, spilling from split skin and running down his fingers. 

Pushing past all of his self-insured safety measures, Finney gaped, asking much too loudly.

"Dude, what happened to your hands?"

Robin blinked, confirming that his knuckles were, in fact, bleeding - as though it was that much of an afterthought to him. 

"Some kid called me a beaner," the boy shrugged, swiping some of the blood off with his thumb. He couldn't hide his wince.

"And your first instinct was to absolutely brain him?"

"..yes?"

Squinting to hide his bafflement at the fact Robin's infliction sounded almost confused, like he couldn't understand why that wouldn't be your immediate response, Finney slid off the swing. He heard Robin make a vague noise of protest, though it stilled to silence as he watched the boy move to his bag, propped up against the swing supports. 

"You just.. carry those everywhere?" Robin scrunched his nose as Finney returned with disinfectant and a handful of bandages.

"Doesn't hurt to be prepared. Or would you rather go explain to the nurse why your knuckles are bleeding?" Finney stopped short in front of Robin's swing, furrowing his brows in a way that he hoped came across as stern rather than amused. 

Judging by the new boy's surprised snort, he didn't succeed.

Though Robin eventually relented, holding out his hands in an act of surrender. 

He hissed when Finney poured the disinfectant over his split skin, the liquid seeping into the wounds and searing his nerves. Finney hummed in sympathy, before parting his lips to speak.

"What's it like in Mexico?"

Robin jumped to attention, any sense of pain forgotten as he narrowly avoided swinging his fists straight into Finney's nose. 

The pair walked home together that day - Finney watched as Buzz and his friends eyed the bandages on Robin's fists warily, slinking away where they would normally wait for Finney after school. 

It was a moment in time ingrained in his memory, a recollection that he retrieved to the surface whenever he was particularly rough.

Though it seemed Finney would need to repeat the memory a thousand times over to combat how utterly incorrigible he felt.

Any word in the English language was insufficient in describing his emotions to the extent of which he felt. Not even the time where he'd wiped out against a concrete wall during a fight with Matty - suffering a concussion that left him reeling for days on end - came anywhere close to the daggers currently grating at his skull. 

Combined with the nausea steadily rising in his throat and the sudden realisation that he had no fucking clue where he was, he simply wanted to keel over and decompose like his body clearly wanted him to. 

With momentous effort, Finney pushed himself upright, wincing as the gritty fabric beneath him rasped at his skinned palms.

He forced down bile at the sight of the room around him.

It was a set-up. Obviously, it had been a set-up - how could he have been so stupid? There was a serial child kidnapper - and rumoured killer - running rampant through Berkeley, and Finney had just gone and trusted the deranged man in a black van with tinted windows, for fuck's sake. Incredibly intelligent move on his behalf.

Trying and failing to regain his vision, Finney tensed as he came to a realisation.

His kidnapper was surely the man who'd taken Robin - and if Robin goddamn Arellano couldn't fight back against him, Finney was fucked. They might as well start digging his grave already.

Gwen better amp up his eulogy, he thought miserably. He can't go out looking like that much of a loser. 

"Hey, Finn."

His headache suddenly seemed insignificant in the grand scheme of things. 

Hardly daring to believe it, Finney turned his head, distantly wondering if his mind just couldn't handle the stress and decided to resort to insanity. 

"What's happenin'?"

Robin Arellano, sitting against the wall to his left. 

Chapter Text

Finney was across the room in half a second, wrapping his arms around Robin in a death grip - the boy let out a noise of indignant surprise.

"You bastard, I thought you were dead," Finney hissed, voice quavering.

"Yeah, yeah, quit crying," Robin huffed, though he couldn't hide the tremble in his hands as he reached to return the embrace. "Might as well be."

That ominous - and entirely unnecessary, may he add, no need to scare him more - inclusion was what prompted Finney to release Robin from his half-embrace, half-headlock. 

The room was disgusting, to put it lightly. 

Dirty stone walls embedded with exposed light fixtures, rust biting at the panelling. The bed he'd woken up on gave the impression that it hadn't been washed since invention, one ragged sheet providing a meagre semblance of sterility. 

Mounted on the wall above the bed was a simple black telephone, seeming so ordinary and yet so out of place in their prison.

"..where are we?" Finney managed.

"I would say hell, but hell's probably better than this."

"Robin, can you just.." 

"What?"

"You've been missing for a week. You've been in some- some random dude's basement, apparently. Is this- can you not take this seriously?"

"It's not like this was a choice, Finn." Robin sounded vaguely amused. "It fucking sucks down here. All this dude knows how to cook is eggs."

Finney stared in disbelief as Robin continued.

"Not even, like, toast or something? I get you might be on a budget here, but Christ, dude, the only thing I've eaten in, like, the last week is eggs. I'd actually kill for anything else-"

"Robin."

"Right, okay, yeah. Uh, I got kidnapped.." Robin kissed his teeth. "The dude's weird. He hasn't actually.. done anything, though."

"So he's just.. kept you down here?" 

"Yeah. And you, now, too, I guess."

"Why has he kept you so long, then?" Finney pushed himself onto his feet, moving to the other side of the basement in an attempt to conceal the sudden panic welling behind his ribs. "I mean, if this guy took the other kids, then the dates don't add up. Or they shouldn't. Everything happened in- in quick succession, right?" 

"Hey, Finn?"

"Billy Showalter was just over a month before Vance Hopper, which would mean that if he was killed, it would've been pretty quick, because you can't dispose of a dead body and look for another victim immediately, you'd have to wait, right?" 

"Finn. Finney."

"And Vance wasn't long before Bruce Yamada, and Bruce wasn't long before you, but then-"

"Finn, can you listen to me for a second?"

Finney's heart bludgeoned his ribcage as he turned back, and Robin must've spotted his fear, his expression morphing into something as close to sympathy as he could get.

"You're rambling. I know, it's-"

"I'm rambling, of course I'm fucking rambling, Robin, we're going to die. We're stuck in a basement that smells like piss under a house that most likely belongs to a fucking psychopath with a weird hobby of murdering children, so God forbid-"

His hysteria-driven rant was interrupted by a shrill ring - Finney's hands instinctively clamped over his ears, face scrunching in trepidation and fear. Within seconds of the noise, Robin was halfway across the room, positioning himself in front of Finney, fists raised towards the door.

Though it stayed stationary.

"You hear that too, right?" Finney whispered.

Clearly fighting his hardest to bite back a sarcastic remark, Robin nodded, murmuring affirmation.

Finney barely registered his movements, drawn as though in a trance to the phone mounted on the wall. He was received by static as he held the receiver tentatively to his ear, mumbling an unsure greeting.

"It doesn't work."

Repulsion rolled up Finney's spine at the unfamiliar voice - judging by Robin's sharp hiss of disgust, he didn't feel dissimilar. 

"Not since I was a kid."

His fingers curled tight around the receiver as he turned, knuckles pushing taut against his skin. Robin's stance was tenser than he'd ever seen it, hackles raised in the direction of the figure in the doorframe. 

The man was tall, taller than Finney recalled - though he hadn't exactly had time to study prior to being gassed and shoved in a van. An ivory mask with a malicious grin and aquiline horns obscured his face, greasy, blanching hair overhanging the edges. 

"Hang it up," the Grabber said, head tipping to the side in a jerky motion.

Neither Finney nor Robin moved. 

The Grabber exhaled, a mad chuckle bubbling in his throat.

"Everything's all fucked up," he mocked, grin evident in the uplift of his tone. "I know you two are scared.. want to go home. I'll take you home. Soon. But for now.. I've got to be upstairs for a while. Something came up."

"What?" Finney asked quietly.

"Nevermind, what," the Grabber growled, any trace of entertainment stolen by sudden anger.

"Someone saw something, didn't they?" Robin said. "The police catch up to your janky-ass van yet?"

"It's not the police."

Falling for the obvious bait, the Grabber's posture grew impossibly taut, hands curled into tight fists. Finney hurriedly spoke up, discerning the way Robin seemed more than willing to provoke their captor further.

"If you let us go, we won't say anything," he started, cringing at his desperate tone. "You can blindfold us and drop us on the side of the road, we swear-"

His pleas were interrupted by yet another demented titter, the Grabber raising a finger in Robin's direction.

"You might not," the man said. "But he will."

Neither boy was given the chance to respond before the Grabber stepped backwards into the doorframe, the wave of his fingers a silent dismissal as he pulled the door shut. Audibly sliding the lock into place, it took a mere two seconds for the lights to power down, plunging them in relative darkness. Moonlight painted the centre strip of the room silver, provisioned by the lone window cutting high into the left wall that Finney had failed to notice. Rusted grates barred their visible chance of escape, and Finney turned to Robin helplessly.

"You haven't tried the window?"

"Finn, I'm flattered that you have so much faith in me, but.. look at me. You're physically looking downwards."

"Being short doesn't have anything to do with it," Finney tried half-heartedly, knowing his words were futile. "You won all those fights at school, and it wasn't an issue then."

"That's cause it works out at school. Knees are closer to the groin."

Robin let himself fall backwards, a small grunt pushing from his chest as he landed on the mattress.

"The guy's insane, Finney."

If Robin's abnormally quiet voice wasn't enough to unsettle him, the use of his full name was. 

"I got that, yeah." Finney lowered himself onto the edge of the mattress, exhaling shakily. "So he really hasn't.. done anything? You've just been down here?"

"Isn't doing much to honour my ancestors, either. Probably be the same colour as you if I get out of here."

The uncertain conjunction was not lost on Finney - if, not when. 

"I think they'd forgive you."

The room delved into silence, and any hope that Finney once held of being able to call for help was dashed - noise bled into the walls, muffling any outside movement in such a manner that it wasn't a question as to whether the basement was sound-proofed. 

Robin had been surviving down here - he had been kidnapped, for fuck's sake. The boy whose faint breathing seemed immeasurably loud in the dead air had been in this room for a *week,* separated from his family and torn away from his life. Finney had been worrying about a math test two days ago, and Robin had been surrounded by stagnant air in a basement that reeked of slaughter and iron. 

"They took Leo in for holding."

Finney's sudden dismissal of the silence led Robin to lift his head from the mattress.

"Why?" He asked, staring at his friend's rigid figure, positioned on the edge of the bed.

"Thought he did it," Finney replied tersely. "Apparently he was seen near the site."

"Shit, that was my fault." A sudden wave of honey-thick guilt coursed through Robin's chest, and he lowered his head slowly. "I met up with him. At the gas station, before.."

The rest of his sentence went unsaid. 

Even to Finney's ordinarily uncoordinated mindset, - if only when it came to Robin, because even since they were kids, he could never get a read on the boy to save his life - it was evident that Robin didn't particularly care about what happened to himself. 

His blasé attitude towards his own capture partnered with his immediate protective stance when the Grabber first entered only solidified his belief. Chancing a glimpse, Finney tipped his head over his shoulder - the patent guilt twisting Robin's expression was the nail in the coffin. 

The Grabber could lock him in the basement a thousand times over, as long as he left the others alone.

Finney didn't know why he was surprised - it was how he had always been. Robin had never been afraid to take as many hits for Finney as he could, made light in the face of expulsion and bloodied knuckles. And Finney had always been there to clean him up - the bandages and antiseptic were as second nature to pack in the morning as his schoolbooks.

Leo Alvarez was alike Robin in that sense. He had arrived to Berkeley two years prior with a sharp tongue and fists that often found themselves cut on the teeth of bigoted antagonisers. Robin had been dead-set on becoming his friend since the second Matt stumbled into homeroom missing a tooth, courtesy of Leo, and he succeeded - Finney hitching onto the ride of 'friendship status' by association.

However, Berkeley never once held the same admiration for Leo that Robin and Finney had. It seemed every man and his dog harboured some searing hatred for the boy - he had once been jailed and on the road to an exorcism for speaking in unfamiliar tongues that his neighbour had christened 'the language of the Devil.' 

Which had then turned out to be Portuguese.

Poorly-veiled racism aside, Berkeley was bound to take any opportunity they could get their xenophobic hands on to put Leo away - and they had, by the sound of things. 

Being seen at the scene of a crime wasn't a good look for anyone, Brazilian or not.

Finney had been stewing somewhat bitterly in this revelation when the phone rang.

By instinct, forgetting where they were and who he was, he reached for the receiver, ignoring Robin's quiet claim of futility. 

He was greeted by interference - which was more than Finney had bargained for, eyes fixed on the frayed wires splaying out of the ripped cord.

Vaguely mulling over the merits of static electricity and whether it could generate an auditory response, he reached upwards to hook the receiver back onto the wall.

"Don't hang up."

Chapter Text

Finney went rigid.

Robin was on his feet in seconds, eyes wide and set on the phone that was no longer spitting just static, but instead quaky breathing.

"Who is this?" Finney managed after a period of dazed stillness.

"..I don't remember my name." 

"Why not?"

The silence of the room seemed even more encompassing - the caller was all there was to hear.

"It's the first thing you lose."

Something was scratching at Finney's brain, an irritating sense of inconceivable recognition. This wasn't the first time he'd heard this voice, he was sure of it - but where?

"First thing you lose when?" Finney asked.

The voice chuckled darkly. "You know when."

Robin watched through his own fear-tinted gaze as Finney's expression shifted, his mouth moving before his eyes.

"Bruce? Bruce Yamada?"

The call was silent, a hiss of static replacing the dial tone before he spoke once more, his voice a mere breath.

"Yeah.. Bruce. I'm Bruce. Your arm is mint. You almost had me."

The phrase held no relevance to Robin, but judging by the sudden horror contorting Finney's face, it wasn't an empty statement.

"Did the phone ring for you?" He whispered, fingers curled tight around the receiver.

"It rang.. but none of us heard it. The Grabber can hear it too, but he doesn't want to believe it."

"Why are you calling?"

"..your arm is mint. You almost had me."

Bruce's words were repeated with an air of sorrow, as though it were the only thing tangible enough for him to reply. 

"Finney?"

"Yeah, Bruce?"

"There's a dirt section of the floor in the hallway where the tile is loose."

Finney murmured confused affirmation, as though he was unsure as to why it was relevant. The tile wasn't news to Robin.

"Dig down underneath the foundation. I tried, but there wasn't enough time for me to dig up enough through the side."

"Will we have enough time?"

The only reply was the discernable tick of the line cutting.

Finney wasted no time in moving over to the aforementioned hallway, crouching and beginning to check the tiles with palpable uncertainty. After several seconds, he turned back to Robin - who had been frozen still since Bruce initially spoke.

"You gonna help, or just.."

Robin mulled over the notion for several seconds, before deciding fuck it - the Grabber hadn't held up his end of the deal anyways. He strode up beside Finney, zeroing in on the very tile that had been at the forefront of his mind for the better part of four days, hooking his fingers underneath it and tugging.

"How did you know?" Finney's expression scrunched in confusion, hands paused in an absent reach for another tile.

He probably could've done a better job at hiding it.

"Lucky guess," Robin said instead.

Evidently deciding to focus in on the task at hand - which Robin would be eternally grateful for - Finney took hold of the loose tile, boring it into the dirt and beginning to use it as a makeshift shovel. 

"The phone rang before," Robin mentioned, lowering himself to the floor beside Finney and scooping out loose dirt with his palms. "It just.. no one ever spoke. I stopped answering after a while."

"Maybe I'm special."

Robin exhaled a laugh, three-quarters breath. 

"Yeah. Maybe."

Their job continued in silence - it didn't particularly seem like an appropriate time to fill the air with background chatter - until it became clear that Finney was struggling to continue, the lingering effects of the drug tiring his system.

"Dude. If you're tired, just say that." Robin rested his weight on his heels, shooting Finney a look. 

"I'm not tired," Finney mumbled. His movements were sluggish as he moved to scoop more dirt from the now sizeable pit - fumbling against Robin's grip as the boy caught his wrists between one hand. 

"Yes, you are. Go sleep, I'll keep digging." He jerked his chin in the direction of the mattress. 

"I'm not tired," Finney repeated, though he was no longer fighting Robin's hold.

"I will drag you to the bed myself if I have to. What use are you gonna be if you're dead tired, Finn? Go. To. Sleep."

With the enthusiasm of a child on the last day of vacation, Finney eased his wrists from Robin's grip and moved to the bed. He slumped instantaneously, the tension easing out of his body the second he hit the mattress. 

Robin tsked, allowing himself the liberty of looking for just a few seconds. Finney had always had a boyish face - often twisted into vibrant expressions in contrast. Though when he slept, it was a different story. Any unease or stress permanently etched into his features was smoothed out, replaced with the placid stillness of sleep. There was no energy left for him to scrunch his nose ever-so-slightly in the way that he knew made him look older, nor deliberately narrow his eyes in an attempt to lose their similarity to that of a doe. It was simply him, just Finney - his face as it was sculpted by whatever god you believe in.

Not that Robin noticed. He wouldn't, because that would be embarrassing.

Prying his gaze off Finney, Robin made to conceal their attempt - balancing the loose tile back over the hollow, and rolling out a spare rug collected from the left hallway over top for good measure. He considered the merits of sleeping on the mattress beside Finney, though quickly came to the conclusion that he wasn't particularly fond of the idea of waking the boy in order for space. 

The floor wasn't comfortable in the slightest, Robin soon found. 

The thought of disrupting Finney's sleep was even less so.

Resigning himself to a night of poor rest and a morning of severe back pain, Robin closed his eyes and willed himself to fall asleep.

Finney woke to raised voices, a practise so standard he barely registered their perpetrators. 

His eyes pulled open blearily at the realisation that the younger voice was not Gwen's defensive cries, but instead Robin's rapid-fire Spanish. 

His gaze latched onto the unfinished ceiling above him, and the memory of where he was slammed into him like a freight train.

Finney lifted his head, attempting to fight past whatever sluggishness had settled beneath his skin and made a weighted home for itself. The Grabber stood still in the doorframe, his only movement the slow drum of his fingers against the handle. Robin - even from his stilted viewpoint - he could tell was seething. The boy was borderline screaming, a healthy mixture of English and Spanish and whatever irate noises he deemed appropriate.

"-had a fucking deal, you hijo de puta, and you-"

Even behind the satanic mask, Finney could feel the Grabber's eyes on himself.

"It wasn't my original plan, I'll admit," the man mused. 

Robin fell silent, following the Grabber's gaze towards the now-wakeful boy on the mattress.

"Do you know what was fun, Robin? When you fought back. When you had some personality - some nerve. Keeping some.. some docile kid alive in my basement wasn't fun. But this.."

His wicked grin seeped audibly into his voice, eyes crinkling in sadistic pleasure behind the slits in his mask.

"This is fun."

The Grabber tossed forward a newspaper, diverting their attention in order to step backwards out of the basement. The lights flicked off after the lock slid into the place, but the boys were too abstracted in their task of unfolding the paper to truly notice.

In bold, the headline read;

'13 YEAR-OLD ROBIN ARELLANO DEAD AFTER WEEK OF DISAPPEARANCE.'

Chapter Text

The air grew considerably tense as both boys skimmed the article, recounting a body found in the river that appeared to fit Robin's descriptors. A subheading announced Finney's own absence, though it went mostly unnoticed in comparison.

"You said you had a deal with him," Finney said quietly, eyes fixed on the picture that they'd chosen to commemorate Robin's honour. It was one the boy had always hated - one of the few photos that existed of him in which he wasn't wearing his bandana. 

"It's not what you think."

"How can it not be?"

"You think I wanted this, Finney?"

Robin took the newspaper with him as he sharply pushed himself upright, raking a tensed hand through his hair. A biting laugh escaped his throat, his hand crushing the rolled-up paper - particularly the section containing his photo, gap-toothed and grinning.

In any other situation, Finney would've laughed.

Staring at the dates just visible beneath Robin's vice grip, his assumed lifespan printed in black and white for the world to see, it wasn't humorous. 

"You seriously think I'd team up with this psycho?" Robin snarled, beginning to pace. Finney had never liked the look of anger on his friend, - true, unrestrained anger - though in the past, it had typically been directed towards others.

But facing Robin's ire made him want to do nothing more than shrink into himself. He could see why his friend's mere presence made his enemies slink away into the shadows.

Perhaps he should've backed down. Apologised in true Finney Blake fashion, always the pacifist.

Though looking back, maybe it was better he hadn't.

"What else could it be, Robin? What kind of a fucking deal could you possibly-"

"I did it for both of us, Finney!" 

"What? What did you do?"

It had been an instinctive outburst, a knee-jerk reaction to an unspoken question. But the words settled into the air, layered atop Robin's heavy breathing, widening the metaphorical gap between them even further.

"What did you do?" Finney repeated quietly.

Robin stood frozen, his back facing Finney as his grip on the newspaper grew tenser. 

"I told him.. I wouldn't fight back if he agreed not to take you. Or anyone else."

Finney had always been an adamant believer in the concept of humanitarian good. That even though some people may not show as much compassion as others, there was always at least a portion of morality inside them, however small. The sentiment had been a flame in the dark for Finney, something he repeated whenever the bullies became particularly cruel. Whenever he got too loud in the house, whenever his father wielded his belt like a weapon. There was always a reason.

There was always a reason.

Though focusing on Robin's still form at the opposite end of their prison cell, Finney couldn't possibly think of a logical reason behind his friend's words. The initial thought that it was some sort of twisted joke was slowly souring, replaced by a bone-deep horror.

The phone rang.

Words were trapped behind Finney's teeth - he wanted to scream, to grab Robin by the shoulders and shake some sense into him, to tell him exactly how self-sacrificing and utterly stupid he was. Though he seemed to be rooted to the ground, watching numbly as Robin moved to grab the receiver.

Finney observed the short conversation Robin held through a blurry gaze, motionless as his friend hung up the phone in the middle of the other line's sentence. 

"There's a rope," he mumbled almost to himself, steps uncertain as he made his way to their pit. 

Robin felt blindly along the wall, searching for the crevice that 'Paperboy' had been so adamant on him finding. He dropped to his knees, fumbling around the separation until his fingers identified an opening. A hiss of triumph fell unbidden from his lips when the frayed end of a rope came into contact with his hand, tugging out the length with little concern for the rug he upturned in the process.

It was skinny, he determined as he felt its weight between his hands - probably not even a rope at all. But it would do. It would have to. 

Robin had been so tunnel-visioned on their latest potential chance of escape that he had barely noticed the absence of Finney's anxious breathing behind him, stumbling to a pause at the sight of his friend.

Finney stood still, face contorted into a painful blend of emotions that Robin wasn't eager to dissect. His eyes were focused on the newspaper at his feet - Robin had dropped it in his haste to escape their conversation and get to the phone. It had unfurled, both his own and Finney's pictures splayed out in black and white for the world to see. 

He hated that photo. Hated it. From a time where it didn't seem like the world was kicking him on his every fall, shining eyes not yet weighed with exhaustion. Knuckles not yet bloodied with the punishment of every cruel word spat by those who didn't know any better. 

A photo that made Robin stare at his seven year-old self, sitting on his father's lap and grinning gap-toothed at the camera, and seethe with misplaced jealousy. 

It was stupid, he knew, to feel bitter whilst looking upon a simpler time in his life. He couldn't change his past, let alone go back to it.

But everything had gone to shit directly after this photo was taken, so let him have this.

Robin's gaze lifted, fell on Finney's expression - still twisted in distress. 

...

They could deal with semantics and emotions later. The heavy weigh only sinking further in his chest didn't change the fact that a sadistic psychopath still roamed upstairs.

"Help me with this," Robin said. 

Finney tore his gaze from the paper at his feet. His friend had maintained a good poker face since they were nine - it just rarely worked on him.

There were cracks in Robin's expression, small tells that someone who had known him for less than five years wouldn't be able to pick out. The slight strain to his eyes, the tenseness to his shoulders. The way his hands curled around the length of the rope just a touch too tight. The unnerving motionlessness to his frame - Robin always shifted, unless he was focusing too hard on appearing 'normal.'

He was breaking. Probably had already, by the look of things. 

Finney murmured wordless confirmation, moving forward to stand at Robin's side.

It took them several tries to hook the rope through the grate - Robin relented after five minutes, begrudgingly accepting Finney's offer for a leg up. 

"Pull on three." He wound his section of the rope around his palm, not unlike the manner in which he would poorly bandage his own bloodied knuckles. "One, two, three."

Despite its rusted appearance, the grate was evidently unwilling to fall without a fight. Finney pulled downwards on his end of the rope, Robin tugging closer to the grate in an attempt to force it out of its plot. Nevertheless, it refused to budge. 

"Do you think you could climb it?" 

Hesitating for less than a second, Robin took Finney's words to heart, hoisting himself as far up the rope as he could on limited ground. He barely managed to snake his hand through the break, feet scrabbling for purchase against the wall as he was reduced to one supporting arm. Robin's fingers brushed the hook of the latch, years of disuse visibly rusting the metal. If he could snag it under his hand, and yank upwards, it would surely snap. He just needed to reach a little further..

A choked cry forced itself past Robin's lips as his back hit the ground, the grate clattering somewhere against the dirt to his left. 

Pain shot in sparks up his spine, any remaining breath expelled from his lungs. He distantly registered Finney calling his name, though it was barely audible through the static burning his ears. 

"Get me on your shoulders," Robin managed, pushing through the way his vocal cords seemed to be tying themselves into a fucking bow. 

"What? Robin, you-"

"If I can snap off the latch, I might be able to crawl through."

The volume of his voice was weak, barely a wheeze, though his tone was unyielding. Despite Finney's patent reluctance, he positioned himself below the window, face scrunched into apprehension.

Once Robin managed past the spikes of pain rolling through his body, he pushed himself upwards, absentmindedly asking permission before hauling himself onto Finney's shoulders - not without difficulty. Steadying his hands on the ledge of the window, he reached forward, tugging roughly at the latch. 

It didn't budge.

Robin registered himself making a noise of despair, his movements becoming more and more desperate as he jolted the rusted metal. Underneath him, Finney began to voice his discomfort - but the words fell on deaf ears. He yanked upwards, towards himself, down. They were so close, and he would be damned if he let them both stay in this fucking basement for any longer. 

But the latch wouldn't move. 

Tears burned Robin's eyes as he slammed his fists against the window, every emotion he'd been repressing for the past week shattering through his barricades - revealing how paper-thin they'd been all along. 

The only warning he received was a panicked cry of his name before Finney's weight buckled beneath him, sending them both crashing to the ground once more. 

Robin's vision was blurred by tears and rage as he stared down at his bloodied knuckles, reminiscent of how they'd often find themselves split against the teeth of bullies. 

He'd always felt so powerful then. A rush of energy rippling through him at seeing his unkind peers reduced to nothing more than a snivelling, bruised mess at his feet. 

He didn't feel powerful now.

Finney pushed himself into a sitting position, groaning at the groundshock spiking through his back. It took momentous effort to even summon the will to move - he didn't want to let Robin down. His friend was probably already on his feet. He always was.

A choked whimper to his left made him rethink that statement.

Finney blinked blearily over at the silhouette of his friend, still curled in the fetal position from his fall atop the dirt. His shoulders were shaking, marred fists lifted unsteadily in front of his face, and-

He was crying.

Robin was crying.

That couldn't be right. Robin never cried. This was Robin Arellano they were talking about, the toughest kid in Berkeley. Finney had seen him break his wrist in real time, watched him brush it off with nothing more than a few quips. He'd screamed, sure. But he never cried. 

Though staring at the trembling figure to his left, he couldn't be so sure. 

"Robin..?" 

Finney's voice was too quiet in the oppressive air of the basement, just barely audible over Robin's stifled cries. He moved slowly, like his friend was a wild animal that would spook at even the slightest motion. 

"Robin, it's.." Finney reached over, cautiously placing his hand atop Robin's shoulder - didn't press down, didn't hover. 

In all honesty, he didn't know what to do. Five years of knowing Robin, and it had always been the former comforting him - he was completely thrown off track at the reverse. Finney couldn't recall once a time where he consoled Robin, if you didn't count bandaging his wounds. 

But Robin merely choked out a whimper, like it wouldn't make a difference whether Finney hugged him or ignored him entirely.

"I want- to go home," he sobbed. 

When Finney saw his tells before, he didn't expect this to be the outcome.

"Robin.." Finney started, putting just a little more pressure on his friend's shoulder.

Robin shot upwards, and an unauthorised spark of fear froze Finney into place. Though rather than arms lunging for his throat, they encircled his shoulders. Suddenly, Robin was half on his lap, sobbing into his neck.

"Robin, we're gonna get out of here," Finney murmured, thanking god for his relatively fast reaction time. He lifted his arms, draping them loosely around his friend's trembling frame.

Robin's only response was further cries.

"We're gonna get out."

Chapter Text

"We're gonna get out."

Robin buried his face further into Finney's shoulder, tears streaking the collar of his shirt - though he supposed that was the least of his concerns. Rocking back and forth like he vaguely remembered his own mother doing, Finney tightened his hold on Robin, trying to convey through touch that he was okay.

God, he already loathed this basement after less than a day - he couldn't begin to comprehend how Robin must've felt after a week. Let alone knowing any attempt at escape was futile, if he wanted to uphold his end of the deal and keep his friend safe.

Not like that worked out, anyways.

Finney slid his hand to cradle the back of Robin's skull, guiding his head further into the crook of his shoulder. They stayed like that for a while - until the lights flickered on.

Robin didn't have the time to scramble away before the door creaked open, the Grabber looking vaguely lost at their initial absence. His head tipped to the side, gaze following the grate before catching onto the boys huddled beneath the window. Behind the mask, his eyes creased at the corners - evidence of his lips quirking upwards into a mocking grin.

"Someone hurt themselves?" He asked, voice dripping with hardly concealed amusement.

Finney didn't dignify his question with a response, hoping that his expression conveyed all the seething hatred he held towards the man in the doorway. Robin must've felt his tension, attempting to shift out of his friend's hold - which only tightened in return. He stilled. 

"You know, it's funny," the Grabber mused. "Out of everyone, you two were the only ones to try the window. Must've thought it was too obvious.. or a trick."

The Grabber strolled idly towards them, the open door a haven behind him. Though the knife clutched in his hand glinted in the light like a beacon - not raised, simply there. A silent warning. 

His sneer was evident as he leaned down, rapping the blunt of the blade against Robin's bloodied knuckles.

"And it was. Sealed it myself.. you're not getting out that easy. Not with just a few punches. What happened to our deal, little birdie?" 

Robin's grip was painful on Finney's sides. He refused to flinch. 

The Grabber chuckled lightly as he ambled back to the door, drumming his free hand against its length.

"I guess someone didn't uphold their end of the deal.. oh, well. Maybe I'll have to punish you for that.." He exhaled, as though their entirely one-sided conversation was a strain on his energy. "There was a boy in the papers.. got taken in. You seem like you would get along. I could add him to my.. little collection down here. And over there."

The Grabber tittered at his own inside joke with a punchline neither of the boys followed, slipping through the door. It was left ajar for long enough that Finney assumed he was returning - until the lights flicked off.

He held his breath, hardly daring to believe it - even Robin contained his sobs for the moment - though the sound of boots ascending the stairs was unmistakable. 

They sat in silence for several moments, waiting for the other shoe to drop. For the Grabber to run back downstairs, taunt them over their hopeful expressions and slide the lock shut slowly, if only to salt the wound. 

Though minutes passed, and his absence only stretched further.

The air hung thick with tension as Robin crept towards the door with the grace of a hare, fingers stretching for the handle.

The phone rang.

Instantly after picking it up, Finney was forced to hold the receiver as far as he could from his ear, lest he go deaf from the sudden screech of voices from the other line.

He identified at least two, yelling atop each other with the ire of stray cats fighting for territory. Crackling through the phone, the boys didn't seem to particularly prioritise grabbing the other line's attention, as the previous calls had. Finney and Robin met each other's eyes, the former still holding the receiver far from his ear.

"-sten, assholes, here's what you're gonna do-"

"Don't listen to him, you're going to die!"

"And you'd rather stay down and hide like little pussies?"

The other line delved back into screaming.

"Okay, okay, guys, I can't fucking hear either of you," Finney snapped into the receiver - quietening the voices, if only momentarily.

"It's a trap," the higher voice cut in instantly, earning an irritated scoff from the other. "The Grabber's waiting upstairs, with a belt. He'll beat you until you're unconscious, because he never said you could leave-"

"If you're a fucking pussy, he does," the other voice growled. "You're gonna go up there, and you're gonna beat the cunt into the ground-"

"Two hundred pounds of psychopathic muscle waiting for them, Vance!" The higher voice sounded hysterical. 

"Why did I have to get stuck with such a fucking fairy, huh? Look, you want to get out of there? Stop cock-guzzling, get the fuck up there, and do something about it! Give that motherfucker exactly what he deserves."

Finney's eyes flicked to Robin, mouth half-formed around words of disagreement - faltering at the borderline manic spark behind the other's eyes.

"That's.. not a bad idea," he mused.

The higher voice screamed warning - the foul-mouthed boy simply cackled.

"You're not serious."

"Think about it," Robin said, striding up to Finney with what appeared to be the first shred of hope he'd seen from the boy in the past day. "Two against one, and all he has is a belt. We-"

Ignoring the indignant screech from the boy on the other line, Finney cut over Robin's words, voice unable to steady itself in order to contain the utter horror dripping from his tongue. 

"Robin, you're joking. I know you're good at fighting, but going up to try beat him is a death sentence. These guys couldn't beat him." Finney held up the receiver to make a point - the string of colourful words spat from the phone in return was enough to spark pause in his friend.

"Griffin Stagg went missing two years ago," he continued. "He's been doing this for years, Robin, it's not like he's an amateur-"

"..Griffin?"

The name echoed quietly from the phone - softly, reverently. Both voices were silent, the sound of breathing meshing with the static that came with a call.

"Griffin Stagg," Finney said. "Is that you?"

"Yeah, that's.. that's me. I'm Griffin."

"Big deal, you remembered your fucking name," the other muttered, though even he was unable to hide the gruff sentiment to his words.

Silence filled the basement, Finney meeting Robin's eyes. His friend was no longer poised for battle at the door - but an air of defiance still lingered, evident in the manner in which his hands unconsciously twitched for the handle.

"Alright, whatever. Take the pussy way out, it's your funeral." The foul-mouthed boy spat bitterly through the phone.

"What about the fridge?" Griffin's voice still held a tint of elation, uplifted from his remembrance. 

"Oh, fuck off-"

"You'd rather be bitter about the fact that you died than help people who might not have to?"

The sudden bite from Griffin shocked the other boy into silence, the only sound from the line being that of heavy breathing. Robin and Finney shared slightly uncomfortable looks, as though the forms of those on the other line were tangible and fighting directly beside them.

"Okay, listen up, you-"

"No, you listen up, asshole. These guys have a chance to live, and if you don't stop being a pussy and tell them what to do with the fridge, I will find a way to resurrect myself so I can piss on your grave. I will piss on your father's grave, Vance, I'm not joking."

Finney's jaw was still on the floor when a begrudgingly impressed chuckle echoed from the other line, rather than the irate roar he'd expected.

"Jesus, maybe I'm not stuck with a damn fairy. Alright, fine. Listen up, fuckwits, cause I ain't gonna repeat myself, alright? In the hall by the shitter, there's an outlet. Dig above it - not below, not next to, not through, above. I see any of you assholes smashing straight at the fucking outlet, I'm smashing your fucking skull in, yeah?"

"And that gets through to.. a fridge?" Robin deadpanned, moving to stand beside Finney.

"Fucking smart cunt, huh? How'd you figure that one out, Sherlock?"

"You know, you're still an asshole, even after death."

"What do we do-"

Finney's words were interrupted by the sharp click of the line cutting, both boys watching as the hook pulled itself downwards. 

"Shouldn't even be surprised, at this point," Finney muttered, hanging up the receiver with more impertinence than was necessary. 

"Finn, dude, that's a.. solid wall."

Robin's voice drifted over from the hallway, dragging Finney's attention to what was indeed a solid wall.

"He's not trying to fuck with us, right?" Robin rapped his knuckles against the wall, visibly disappointed at the absence of an echo.

"Look at that, though," Finney replied. He moved over to Robin's side, tapping the wall above the outlet, then the wall to their right. "Bricks are different colours." 

At Robin's blank stare, he continued.

"If Vance actually broke through like he said, then the Grabber would've needed to replace the wall, right? So-"

"The bricks are different colours because they're newer," Robin finished.

"Exactly," Finney grinned. 

Robin's answering smile soon faded as he turned to the wall, reminded once more of what it was - a wall, surprisingly enough. Somewhat dubiously, he lifted his fists, preparing himself for yet another set of bloody knuckles to add to his collection.

"We- Robin, what the fuck are you doing?"

As though caught committing a crime, Robin spun on his heel to face Finney, hiding the offending weapons - his fists - behind his back.

"We need to get through, right?" He asked weakly.

"And you were gonna do it with your fists?" Finney's expression was contorted in astonished horror.

Somewhere, he could almost hear Vance cackle.

"You got any better ideas?" Robin spat, pointedly ignoring the embarrassed heat creeping up his neck.

"Yeah, loads, dude," Finney responded, floored. 

Robin watched in stupefied confusion as Finney moved over to the toilet mounted on the opposite wall, prying at the lid of the tank. It was only when his friend managed to tear it off and approached the outlet with the air of an armed solider that he understood.

The first crash was dangerously loud. 

Cracks spiderwebbed through the bricks from the point of collision, rubble spitting from the wall. Finney breathed heavily, gaze instinctively flicking back to the door as he steadied the lid in his hands. 

It took several minutes - they alternated who swung, the other watching the gap in the doorway for movement. Robin couldn't handle the eerie silence from upstairs, - he swore he saw the door open a fraction at least five times, - eventually walking over to press his back against it, pushing it closed.

Ironically enough. 

When Finney managed to pull enough rubble to his feet to create a passage for himself, Robin identified the slight tunnel-esque sheen over his eyes that only appeared when he really, really focused on something. He'd seen it many a time whilst innocently glancing over during a written test, or when his friend was lining up to pitch during a game. Finney zeroed in entirely on his main goal, anything slightly irrelevant shoved aside as though a burden. 

Currently, his main goal was apparently hoisting his entire thirteen year-old body through a crumbling breach in a brick wall - which he had barely taken a glance at before completely sending it, mind you. 

Robin didn't move from his post at the door, despite Finney's clear struggle. If his friend wanted to get through, then by God, he was going to get through, laws of physics be damned. 

And he did. Because Robin was beginning to think his entire life was a cosmic joke orchestrated by whatever God was up there, and Finney was just an angel sent to fuck with him. Honestly, the past week would make a lot more sense if that was the case.

Finney shoved himself through the tight space, a gasp trapped behind his teeth at the sudden cold in his new environment. Giving himself a moment to mentally eye-roll - it was a fridge, why was he surprised - he eased his body forward, very nearly throwing himself back through the gap as he landed on meat.

(It was a fridge. Why was he still surprised.)

Upon further inspection, it didn't appear to be human - though he wouldn't put it past the Grabber.

Finney had never been particularly fond of tight spaces, always opting out of hide-and-seek with Gwen as a child - merely because he never held the same borderline obsessive hunger for victory she did. It was almost alarming, the places she'd tuck herself into to win. He'd found her curled in the cabinet under the sink once at six years old, about two inches of breathing room between her lungs and the pipes.

Pulling her out, Finney had thought to himself that he'd never voluntarily put himself in such a space.

And look where he was now. Army-crawling through the shelf of a fridge, smelling like raw meat, with nothing much left to lose.

Except Robin. 

That singular thought steeled his resolve enough to push forward, shouldering directly into the door of the fridge. 

Finney didn't know what he'd been expecting. A heroic scene like the movies, where he'd burst out and escape alongside Robin. The Grabber would get exactly what was coming to him, and they would all live happily ever after.

But as the rose-tinted dream faded away, he was still exactly where he started. Sitting on meat, in the confined space of the fridge, in a child murderer's basement. Now with an aching shoulder to boot.

He tried again. Nothing. 

Desperation fuelling his every move, Finney began to repeatedly shove his entire weight against the door, as though that would suddenly break through whatever fucking security system the Grabber had out there. Of course it wouldn't just be open - if Vance Hopper had broken through once before, there was no shot in hell the bastard wouldn't barricade every single fucking thing around the outskirts of the room. He snorted deliriously at the thought of a chair padlocked to the wall. 

A small voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Robin warned him that slamming himself against the door wasn't going to do anything for their escape, just bruise himself. 

He responded with a particularly forceful push.

"Finn, what the hell's going on in there?"

Finney nearly snarled, tears casting a blurry sheen over his vision - whether from the pain or despair, he didn't know. One more shove would seal their fate. Maybe he'd breached it just enough, maybe the locks on the other side were at their limit.

Nothing.

Finney landed on the floor after pulling himself out, not bothering to haul himself up or act like he had his shit together. He didn't. Everything was fucked, and they were going to die. The Grabber would see their little escape route, and shove matching knives straight through their guts as a reward for not escaping. Or axes, or fucking chainsaws, or whatever the hell he used. It didn't change the fact that they were dead. 

Finney said as such, and the miserable expression that crossed Robin's face was the epitome of everything currently brewing under his own skin. 

He just couldn't believe he was ever foolish enough to believe they had a chance.

Wallowing in unabashed self-pity - he was about to die alongside his best friend, let him grieve a little - Finney watched from his sprawled position on the floor as Robin hauled himself through the breach, with significantly less trouble than Finney himself. If he wasn't trapped in the basement of a serial killer with an unknown - but decidedly brief - period of time left to live, he would've made a quip about Robin's height. 

His silence said more about the hopelessness of their situation than words ever could.

The phone rang.

And yet the thought of moving barely crossed his mind. 

If Griffin was back to scream at him about the belt, if Bruce had rang to inform him using vague riddles of a loose something, it was the last fucking thing he wanted to hear. God forbid Vance picked up the phone - Finney's last moments on earth would be spent finding a way to kill someone who was already dead.

It rang out, the only sound left to fill the thick silence being Robin's attempts to break through the freezer door, and his own surprisingly steady breathing.

It rang again.

Finney thought to move, purely out of irritation. To slam the receiver back down on the hook. He wasn't interested in whatever they had to say, whatever shred of hope they had to give before it crumbled and slipped like sand between his fingers. Just like the rope, just like the tile. Just like the fucking fridge.

The phone kept ringing.

He counted the usual six rings, echoing over Robin's increasingly aggressive tries at the fridge. Though it continued - and maybe it was his imagination, but it seemed to grow louder with each ring.

He let it mount to fourteen before shoving himself upwards and striding across the room - less picking up the phone, more getting dangerously close to breaking it.

"Whatever it is, I don't want to hear it, alright? Whatever bullshit you've got-"

"The Grabber's asleep."

Griffin's small, haunted voice shot and buried any anger brewing beneath Finney's skin.

He distantly remembered his rage from before, his determination to not let any false hope contaminate the inevitable. How it would only make the end more painful. He knew what he should do - tell Griffin to go fuck himself, and hang up.

Instead, Finney heard himself say, "How do we get out?"

Fucking optimism. 

Griffin wasted no time in informing him of the bike lock barricading their most likely chance of escape, the key scratched into the wall with the spur of a bottle cap. Unfortunately, ghostly memories only stretched so far - and Griffin didn't seem so confident anymore. Not like he had been when arguing with Vance. 

He was jittery, repeating words as though he never remembered saying them in the first place. Finney had to gently remind the boy several times that repeating an ominous phrase about his lack of time wasn't exactly fucking helpful, when all he really wanted to do was grab him by his ghostly little shoulders and shake the shit out of him. 

His last, exceedingly insightful words?

"You don't. Have. Much. Time."

The line cut short as Robin hauled himself out of the breach, visibly injured and looking even more despondent than Finney had ever seen him. 

His lips parted, half-formed around a sorrowful apology - though confusion overpowered his guilt as Finney frantically pawed at the wall, eyes manic. 

"Uh.. dude?" 

"23317," Finney breathed. "23317- wait, is that- is that 23, 31, 7? Or 23, 3, 17?"

"Finn, what the hell are you doing?" Robin cringed at how dejected he himself sounded.

"Griffin's bike lock. The phone, it- he's asleep."

Robin blinked slowly. 

"He's asleep. The Grabber's asleep, he was waiting upstairs for us to come. Griffin's bike lock is on the door, and this is the code." Finney blindly hit the string of carved numbers with the heel of his palm - which Robin mentally facepalmed himself over, having passed off the code as mere scratches.

"But you don't know the order?" Robin asked. 

"He didn't say," Finney forced through grit teeth, patently restraining a string of inventive phrases that would've left even Vance speechless. "Just keep saying we don't have much time."

"And we probably don't, Finn. Listen, even if we don't get out, I'm not dying in here, alright? Let that cabrón clean the blood off his floor, it's the least he deserves."

Steeling his own resolve, Finney nodded firmly, walking to the door with significantly more confidence than he currently felt.

Fist curled around the handle, he spoke, feeling the weight of Robin's presence behind him.

"..hey, Robin?"

"Yeah, Finn?"

"If I don't make it out of here, kill him for me."

"You're gonna make it out, Finn. You've gotten further in a day than I have in a week."

"I'm not a fighter like you, Robin." Finney was unashamedly stalling, tightening his grip on the door handle.

"You've always been a fighter, Finn. That's what we have in common. You were always afraid to throw a punch, but you always knew how to take one. And you always got back up. That's why you're gonna make it out. You were always supposed to."

Finney didn't know what he would do if he turned to meet Robin's eye. Prior to everything, he could always pride himself on knowing Robin's tells, even without reading his expression. The way his voice dipped, his pacing, his tone - he always knew what his friend was feeling.

But now, Robin was blank. Maybe it was the fear clouding his own senses, maybe his friend was doing it intentionally. Maybe it was something else entirely.

Whatever it was, Finney was afraid of it. 

One thing after another. The Grabber, then Robin. 

For one fleeting moment, he couldn't decipher which he was more afraid of.

So he made the choice.

Finney steeled himself, and pulled open the door.