— CASUAL TORTURE
season three — episode six

CHAPTER SIX

(tw! vomiting)

"WHO DO YOU WORK for?" The man in front of Oliver — who seemed to be the 'higher-up' — asked, his hands behind his back as he looked at Oliver with dark eyes. Oliver didn't flinch under his gaze. Instead, he looked right back at him with the same look. "I work for the bookstore in the mall." He said. He was a bit anxious, but he could fool people because of how confident he seemed at that moment.

"Who. Do. You. Work. For?" His Russian accent was thick and just a bit menacing. Oliver scoffed, shaking his head in disbelief. "The bookstore." He repeated. His voice remained unwavering, but he looked up when the man who had dragged him in here approached him, grabbing a handful of his hair and forcing Oliver to look at the man. "I'll ask you one last time."

"My answers gonna be the same." After he said that, he felt a sharp pain in not only his scalp but right between his ribs. He groaned and doubled over, almost gasping for air because of how strong the punch was. Not even a second later, he felt something warm dripping down the side of his hair. He had scratched his scalp. "Fuck. I fucking told you that I work for the bookstore you fucking bastard." Oliver really wished he could learn how to shut his mouth.

Another punch, except this one just barely missed the right side of his ribcage. "Shit. . ." He muttered, feeling a little bit of blood pooling in his mouth. "Let me ask you one more time." Oliver laughed, tears lining the bottom of his eyes, blurring his vision.

"Who do you work for." Oliver looked up at him, squinting a bit when some of the blood on the side of his face reached his eyebrow. "The bookstore. My ID badge is right here. I'm a teenager. You think I want to plot something evil against you?" He laughed a bit more at how ridiculous this situation was. He couldn't believe he had ended up like this in the middle of summer while waiting for college acceptance letters.

"You must be smart. You know Russian, correct?" Oliver stayed silent, only staring straight at him. "Isn't that right?" The man asked him, except this time in Russian. "What are you trying to do with that machine? Kill everyone? Because that's what will happen if you keep using it." Oliver told him, his American accent was there, but they knew what he was saying.

"And how do you know that?" The man asked him, a sly smirk on his face. Oliver wanted to knock him in the head and knock him out. "I know more than you think." The man's smile fell and he looked at him with the same dark eyes as before. He walked forward and nodded at the guard beside Oliver, who still had a handful of his hair. Oliver was shocked that he wasn't bald at that point. Another punch landed directly on his ribs this time. "And how did you get in, huh? Your friend doesn't seem as smart as you." He already knew he was referring to Steve, and he felt a fire burning inside him. He knew he had probably asked Steve the same question, so he tried to figure out what Steve might've said to that. He could only hope that he understood Steve enough because that seemed to be his only hope.

"My friend's package didn't come. He asked us if we wanted to help him go look for it. I agreed. When we got into the room, it was just an elevator." The man looked at him, an eyebrow raised. Oliver got hopeful. It seemed like he had heard the same thing before. "The elevator started falling, and we ended up here; where you bastards started beating the shit out of us." The man kept his hands behind his back, where they had been since the interaction had started. The man chuckled dryly, looking at his little friend once more.

Before he could process what was going on, the guard hit him in the head with the side of his gun, knocking Oliver out. He was only unconscious for a few seconds but was too dazed to move his body at that point. They had grabbed ahold of him by his underarm and started to drag him down the hallway -- which seemed to go on for a painfully long time. After a while of Oliver having no free will whatsoever, the guards reached an identical metal door. "Oh, my god." He heard the familiar voice of Robin say and he couldn't help but feel a little hopeful. "Oliver. . ." Oliver could ever so slightly see the blurry outline of two people tied to a chair, but they were also on the floor. The man who had been commanding the guard to beat the ever-living shit out of Olvier chuckled.

"Where were you two going?" He clicked his tongue and nodded his head over to them. Two guards lifted the two of them up, bringing another chair to them. They practically threw Oliver into the chair, tying him to the other two within the span of a minute. Oliver didn't even have enough strength to try and fight back. The commander knelt down and looked at Steve, who was bloodied and bruised. "Try telling the truth this time, yes? It will make your visit with Dr. Zharkov less painful. For you and your little friend over here." He reached behind Steve and smoothed Oliver's hair down. "Don't touch him."

The commander backed up and the Doctor took his place, holding a gun-like object in his hands, blue liquid coursing through it. "Wait a second. Wait. Hold on. Okay! Wait, wait, wait. What is that thing?" Oliver looked up a bit, watching as the man looked at Steve with a small smile on his face. "It will help you talk." He grabbed a fistful of Steve's hair and tilted his head, placing the gun-like syringe on his neck. He injected it into his neck and Oliver already knew it was a type of drug. He heard Steve scream and screwed his eyes shut, breathing heavily. When they were done with Steve, they just moved down the line, injecting each of them with the drug. After traumatizing the teenagers once more, they waltzed out of there like they did nothing.

It only took a couple of seconds for it to start working. "Honestly, I don't really feel anything." Oliver couldn't help but agree, his mind was cloudy and he didn't even feel the pain in his ribs anymore. "Do you?" Oliver was starting to get a bit tired. "I mean, I -- I feel normal," Robin told Steve after he asked her how she was feeling, knowing that Oliver didn't like that question. "Yeah, I feel -- I feel fine."

Oliver stayed silent, knowing that they had done something to them. It was something strong, too, because Oliver felt absolutely nothing. He felt like he was just staring straight ahead at nothing. His mind was clear. It was a bit scary. He heard Robin and Steve laughing and couldn't help but laugh a little too. "Morons. They messed up the drug." Steve laughed, looking down at his lap, causing Robin to look up since she was leaning her head on Steve's. "They messed it up."

"They definitely didn't mess up the drug." Oliver laughed, his shoulders shaking ever-so-slightly. A buzzer sounded and Oliver came face-to-face with the commander and Dr. Zharkov. Oliver watched the doctor's every movement, swallowing when he saw the man pull out many different tools that are definitely not used by other doctors. "Would now be a good time to tell you that I don't like doctors?" Robin said and Oliver nudged her just a bit.

"Let's try this again, yes?" Steve only hummed as the commander stared right at him. "Who do you work for?" Oliver could only let out a small sigh when he heard those words. "Scoops," Steve said between laughs, and Robin giggled along with him. "Scoops Ahoy."

"Let's try with you, then." The commander moved and stood directly in front of Oliver, who craned his neck back to look at him. He looked funny. Oliver smiled a bit at how oddly shaped his head was but quickly composed himself. "Who do you work for?" Oliver could tell that he was asking him and only him. He must think he was some sort of mastermind. The thought alone was enough to make Oliver laugh a little. "I work at the bookstore. I already told you, didn't I? You're not very bright." The commander looked at him with a straight face, obviously not finding this as amusing as Oliver. "I see. And how did you find us?"

"You don't listen to a word I say, huh? Steve and Robin's package didn't come, so we went to go investigate. We ended up in that elevator and now we're here." Steve nodded along with him, head leaning against his. "Yeah. We found you totally by accident." Oliver wished Steve would shut up.

"More lies." The commander told the doctor and Oliver scoffed, shaking his head. "We're not lying, you bastard." The doctor smirked at his snarkiness, lifting up a tool. Pliers. "What is that shiny little toy? Steve asked, watching as the doctor approached him with it, figuring that he could break more easily than the snarky blonde tied up with him. "Where are you going with that, doc? Robin questioned.

"Whoa, whoa, hey, hey. Wait! No! Wait! Wait!" Oliver struggled in the binds as he watched as the doctor lifted one of Steve's fingers, grabbing ahold of his fingernail with the pliers. "There was a code! There was a code! We heard a code!" Robin shouted, trying to keep her friend from going through too much pain.

"Code. What code?" The commander asked Robin, walking over to stand in front of her now. "The week is long. The silver cat feeds when blue meets yellow in the west." Robin recited like it was nothing at this point after having heard it and said it so many times. "Blah, blah, blah. You broadcast that stupid spy shit all over town, and we picked it up on our Cerebro and we cracked it in a day thanks to that genius over there." Oliver wanted to die.

"You think you're so smart, but a couple of kids who scoop ice cream for a living, and the manager of a bookstore, cracked your code in a day, and now, people know you're here." That seemed to really get the man's attention and Oliver elbowed her, getting her to shut up. "Who knows we're here, little bitch?"

"Uh, well, Dustin knows." Oliver elbowed Steve so hard that he was shocked with himself for a second. "Steve shut the fuck up." Oliver seethed. Steve somehow didn't seem to get the memo thanks to his drugged-out pea-brain. "Yeah, Dustin Henderson, he knows," Robin called out his name, dragging it out in annoyance.

"Dustin Henderson." The commander walked over to Steve once more, knowing that he was the least aware of what was going on thanks to the drug. "It is your small, curly-haired friend?" Steve nodded. "Oh, curly-haired. Great hair. Small. Kind of like a 'fro. Yeah." Oliver sighed and closed his eyes, looking down.

"Where is he?" The commander actually seemed a bit worried at this point. He could only think the worst in that situation, which is the government finding out about their secret base. "He's long gone, you big asshole. And he's probably calling Hopper, and Hopper's calling the US calvary." Oliver was getting more and more pissed as he started to name more names and pull things out of his ass. "They're gonna come in here, commando-style, guns a-blazin', and kick your sorry asses back to Russia. You're gonna be two pieces of toast."

Even though Oliver was annoyed with Steve, he couldn't help but laugh because of the drug. At this point, the man didn't believe him any more thanks to his interesting dictionary. "Is that so?" Oliver turned to look at him, his cheek pressing up against Steve's hair. "Yeah." Steve slurred and Oliver laughed a little.

The commander started to laugh along with them, thinking all of it was bullshit. In an almost comedic way, an alarm started blaring. Everyone stopped laughing and turned to face the direction of the sound. Steve turned to look at the commander once more and pressed his tongue against his cheek, a smug grin growing on his face.

Everyone but the doctor left the room -- to 'keep watch of them' according to the commander. Oliver could hear the darker undertone of his voice and knew that he wanted the doctor to keep trying to get things out of them. Not even five minutes after the men left, the door to Oliver's left was slammed open, and Dustin rushed out with a weapon in his hand. He ran forward and pushed the weapon right into him, electrocuting him. The doctor fell to the ground and Oliver wasn't even worried about whether he was dead or alive. "Hey, Henderson! That's crazy, I was just talking about you." Dustin got to work on untying them, working as quickly as he could. "Get ready to run." He told them, but Oliver knew he wasn't going to have much luck with two of them, maybe even all three of them.

With the binds finally off of them, Oliver got up, his vision blurring as he stumbled onto his feet. He didn't really know what was going on as he followed Erica and Dustin to a random cart in the middle of a long hallway. Dustin wasted no time blasting out of there, Steve holding onto the sides of the cart for his dear life. "Jesus, slow down!" Oliver grabbed ahold of Steve's knee to steady himself, his head spinning as a smile grew on his face.

"Yeah, what is this, like, the Indy 500?" Oliver laughed a little, eyes drooping. "It's the Indy 300." Steve corrected, Oliver laughed even more at the fact that Steve was trying to correct her even though he was wrong. "No, dingus, It's 500!" Robin shouted at him, mad at him.

"It's 300!" Oliver kept his hand on Steve's knee, even though he didn't need to steady himself anymore. "Let's say a million." Oliver snickered and nodded. "I say that's a great idea." The three of them started laughing loudly and fell backward, Oliver holding his stomach since it was hurting from how much he was laughing. Suddenly, the car came to an abrupt stop, causing Oliver to hit his head on the side. "Ow." He muttered. The door to the car was opened and Oliver was looking directly at Dustin.

"Come on. We gotta go, now." Oliver started to push himself up, hearing the urgency in his voice. "Come on! Get out!" Erica urged as Dustin reached forward and grabbed Steve's arm, yanking him out of the car, Robin following after a moment later. Oliver was grabbed by his forearm and dragged into the elevator once more, leaning against some of the boxes in there. He watched as Dustin walked over to the control panel and swiped a card, pushed a button.

Steve and Robin stayed near a wheeled platform. Steve got the bright idea to stand on it and started to struggle when the elevator took off upward. He thought it was hilarious though because he stayed on it and tried to balance himself. "Hey! You look like you're surfing!" Robin pointed out and Oliver smiled when he saw Steve start to pretend he was surfing. "I'm a natural! Check it out" Robin pulled the platform back and laughed as Steve fell to the floor. "Wipeout!"

Dustin got down to the ground and placed a hand on Steve's forehead. "He' burning up." Steve, being the toddler of a man that he is, retorted with a middle-school insult. "You're burning up." Dustin placed his hands near Steve's eye and forced it open. "His pupils are super dilated." Erica proposed an idea that Oliver wasn't listening to, he was too busy trying to get Steve to let go of his shoelaces. "Steve, are you drugged?"

"How many times, Dad? I don't do drugs. It's only marijuana" Oliver laughed but knelt down -- being the most aware of what was wrong with them and what was happening. "They definitely did something to us, that's for sure." He said through small laughs. "Are you gonna die on us?" Steve reached forward and smacked Dustin's nose gently. "Boop."

"We all die, my strange little child friend. It's just a matter of how. . . and when." Dustin stared at Robin in silence before shaking his head, turning to look at Steve once more. "They're gonna be looking for us up there, so I need you to tell me where you parked your car." Steve obviously didn't get the urgency of the situation.

"Oh, can we make a pit stop at the food court?" Steve asked, leaning his head against Oliver's calf. "I would kill for a hotdog on a stick," Robin emphasized how much she wanted one. "Ooh." Steve hummed in delight. "All right. Yeah, food. Yes, you can have as much food as you want, but only if you tell me where your car is parked." Oliver laughed a little at how Dustin sounded like a parent. "Uh-oh." Dustin looked at Steve with furrowed eyebrows. "The cars off the board. They took the keys. The Russians, they took the keys. Like, forever ago. That's a bummer, right?"

After just a few more minutes, the elevator stopped and the door slid open. Oliver gasped when he saw the outside, immediately getting onto his feet. "Whoa." The air felt nice on his skin. he didn't know he could miss being outside so much. He walked with Erica and Dustin, trying to keep up with them as much as he could in his drugged state. The gate in front of them opened and two men with guns yelled at them. "Shit! Come on!" The men started to yell at them in Russian as Dustin and Erica shoved them in the other direction. Dustin opened a set of doors and urged them in, shutting the door behind him quickly.

      "Come on, go! Go!" Oliver grabbed ahold of Steve's hand since Steve seemed to be the most fucked up in that moment and started to pull him along with him. Oliver heard Steve laughing behind him, as well as Robin who couldn't stop giggling. He also heard the sound of heavy footsteps behind them. Although they were quite a bit ahead of them, they could easily catch up with them. "Where are we going?" Erica asked the question that everyone was wondering. Dustin looked at her briefly. "Just trust me."

      He ran up to a door and pushed it open, checking for anything outside that could cause this to go even more downhill. "All clear." He walked out and the drugged teenagers + Erica followed after him, the three of them stumbling over their feet. Dustin quickly turned into the first open showing room he saw and they followed him like lost puppies. The movie got louder the closer they got to the projector. There just so happened to be three seats in the front row, and Dustin sat the three drugged teenagers in them. "No, no, no! These seats are too close!" Steve complained but took a seat anyways, glaring at Robin when she tried to take the seat next to him. "Dude, these seats blow."

      "Then don't watch the movie." Dustin told Steve like it was the most obvious solution in the world. Oliver squinted his eyes at the somewhat warped colors on the projector in front of him, sitting down in the seat next to Steve. "We wanna watch it." Robin told Dustin — who was starting to get annoyed with their behavior. "Then watch it!" Someone behind them leaned forward and shushed them, only to be shushed right back by all three of them. "Sorry." Dustin apologized in a whisper. "Whatever you do don't. . . go. . . anywhere." Dustin instructed them.

      "Damn. Okay. Whatever you say, dad." Steve and Robin snickered at Oliver's words as he turned his attention the the movie. Dustin sighed, not used to Oliver being the idiot. He was used to him being in control of situations and honestly being a bit scary. He shook his head and started to walk away, Erica following behind him.

Oliver didn't know what was going on. One minute he was watching Back to the Future, the next he was being dragged out of the theatre by Steve and Robin — who insisted they were thirsty — and now he was puking his guts up in a public bathroom with Steve and Robin in the stalls on either side of him. He hadn't eaten anything all day so by the end of what felt like an excruciating hour — even if it was only a minute or two — his mouth and nose were burning. He was shivering when he wiped his mouth, but not because he was cold. "The ceiling stopped spinning for me. Is it still spinning for you?" He heard Robin ask the two of them.

      "Holy shit. No." Oliver slowly looked up at the ceiling, the weak lights blinding him slightly. "You think we puked it all up?" Oliver laughed a little bit at that, bringing his knees to his chest. "Maybe. Ask me something. Interrogate me." She said the last bit in a Russian accent and Oliver shook his head, a small smile on his face. "Okay. Interrogate you. Sure."

      "Well, uh. When was the last time you, uh, peed your pants?" Robin wasted no time answering his question. "Today." Oliver laughed a little and let his legs fall to the ground, the cold floor seeping through the fabric of his jeans ever so slightly. "What?" Steve asked with a kick in his voice. "When the Russian doctor took out the bone saw." Valid. Oliver thought. "Oh, my god." Steve laughed. Oliver could just imagine the stupid grin on his face as he laughed at Robin. "It was just a little bit, though."

      "Yeah, it's definitely still in her system." He heard Robin laughing from beside him and couldn't help but smile. "All right, my turn." Oliver let himself close his eyes, leaning his head up against the stall wall, taking in a deep breath. "Have you. . . ever been in love?" Oliver already knew the answer to that question. Steve had definitely been in love before. He had seen it with his own eyes. "Yeah. Nancy Wheeler. First semester, senior year." Steve imitated a gunshot and chuckled a bit.

      "Oh, my god. She's such a priss." Steve hummed a little in acknowledgment of her words. "Turns out, not really." Oliver could agree with that. She was actually pretty sweet. He enjoyed hanging out with her whenever she asked him to. "Are you still in love with Nancy?" Oliver felt himself peel one of his eyes open as he turned in the direction of Steve's voice. He couldn't help but feel. . . eager to hear his answer. "No." Oliver let out a silent breath, letting his head fall back once more as Robin continued to ask Steve some questions. "Why not?"

"I think it's because I found someone a bit better for me. It's crazy. Ever since Dustin got home he's been saying, 'You know, you gotta find your Suzie. You gotta find your Suzie.'" Oliver smiled a bit at that. That sounded like the Dustin he knew. Always all up in Steve's business. "Wait, who's Suzie?" Robin questioned.

"It's some girl from camp, I guess his girlfriend. To be honest with you, I'm not 100% sure she's even real." Oliver wouldn't kick Steve because they were separated by a wall so he settled with just scolding him. "Don't do Dustin like that. For all we know he could be telling the truth." His voice was a bit hoarse and Steve caught himself fawning over it. "But that's not— that's not really the point. That doesn't matter. The point is, this person, I feel like is better for me." Oliver couldn't help but feel a bit saddened by his words.

"They showed up for me when I needed it. They're funny and smart. So smart that it's crazy." He stopped talking and neither Robin nor Oliver said anything. Robin was busy trying to figure out who it was — although she kind of already had an idea — and Oliver was practically sulking. "You guys alright? You haven't said anything in a while." Oliver tapped on the side of the metal wall to let him know that he was alright and Steve seemed to catch on. He saw hands appear from the underside of the stall and Steve slid underneath it, sitting in front of Oliver. A moment later, Robin was sitting on the other side of the stall, the three of them just sitting in silence. But it was a comfortable silence.

"You alright Robin?" Oliver asked when he saw the girl practically having a crisis. Robin looked up at him and nodded slowly. She really wanted to tell them. She felt as though she could trust them with her life after everything that had already happened. "Just thinking. . ."

Steve and Oliver turned to look at each other. They could both tell that she wanted to say something. She noticed how they looked at each other and side, clearing her throat as she ran a hand through her hair. "I used to really hate you, you know, Steve?" Oliver laughed a little bit, placing a hand on Steve's shoulder to comfort him from the harsh words. "I used to think that you were the worst person in the whole world. With your perfect hair and perfect status." Oliver stopped laughing for a moment and raised an eyebrow.

"I was jealous of you," Robin admitted and Steve looked right at her. "Jealous? What for?" Oliver removed his hand from Steve's shoulder and interlaced his fingers before setting them on his lap. "You just always seemed to be so perfect. Everything you did everyone loved. Especially Tammy Thompson." Oh. Oliver thought. "She wouldn't stop staring at you. I wanted her to look at me." Oliver knew what she was implying and smiled at her in hopes of comforting her. "But. . . she couldn't pull her eyes away from you and your stupid hair. And I didn't understand, because you would get bagel crumbs all over the floor. And you asked dumb questions." The definitely checks out. "And you were a douchebag. And — And you didn't even like her and. . . I would go home. . . and just scream into my pillow."

"But Tammy Thompson's a girl," Steve said, not quite understanding what she was saying. It was quite amusing considering. . .

Oliver nudged him, letting him know that was the point. "Steve. . ." Robin trailed off, looking at him with a scared glance. "Oh," Steve said once he finally understood. "Oh." Robin copied, fully expecting that reaction from the boy in front of her. However, she didn't expect to see Oliver smiling and giving her a subtle thumbs-up. "I mean, yeah. Tammy Thompson, you know, she's cute and all, but. . . I mean, she's a total dud." Robin looked at him with widened eyes and shook her head. Oliver laughed a little at the two of them. "She is not." Robin defended,
looking at Steve with furrowed eyebrows.

"Yes, she is. She wants to be, like, a singer. She wants to move to, like, Nashville and shit." Oliver smiled about how quickly Steve tried to joke around with Robin to make sure she knows that there was nothing wrong with how she felt. "She has dreams." Robin defended once more, not wanting Steve to bash the girl she had been crushing on for years — even though she knew it was true. "She can't even hold a tune. She's practically tone-deaf. Have you heard her?" Robin looked at him with a sarcastic smile and Oliver laughed a little bit when he started to sing out of tune. "She does not sound like that."

Oliver raised his hand. "I can attest that she does sound like that. Sorry, Robin." Steve nodded along and patted Oliver's knee. "Thank you, Ollie. She sounds exactly like that. That's a great impersonation of her." Robin shook her head, denying it once more. "You sound like a Muppet."

"She sounds like a muppet!" Robin laughed at that, finally starting to agree with Steve on this. "She sounds like a Muppet giving birth." Oliver furrowed his eyebrows and turned to look at Steve with a confused glance. How had he even come up with that? The three of them started laughing at that, all the nervousness fading away. "And if you could hold me tight." Steve started singing while imitating Kermit.

"We'll be holding on forever." The three of them sang in unison, all of them off-key. "Exactly," Steve said when Robin had joined in. "I know!" She laughed, leaning forward a bit as she continued to laugh. Suddenly, the door was slammed open and the three of them turned, coming face-to-face with Dustin and Erica, both of them looking pissed. "Okay. What the hell?" It went silent before they started laughing again, Steve falling onto Oliver's side while covering his mouth while Robin smacked her knee.

"Get up. We've got to go." Oliver was starting to get sick of all this walking around and running. He groaned but allowed himself to be pulled up by Steve anyway. "Great," Oliver mumbled.

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