Where have you been?

What you've been through

A soft knock was heard before the bedroom door opened and James came in.
'Is everything okay?' He asked worriedly.
Adam didn't reply. He couldn't. He was hyperventilating too much to be able to speak.
'It's okay. I'm here. I'm here with you. Try to calm down okay.' James said, trying to be comforting. He sat down on the side of the bed next to Adam and wrapped his arms around his boyfriend. Adam immediately pulled James closer and hugged him tightly, sobbing against the blonde's chest, shivering and still hyperventilating.
'Try to calm down. Stop thinking about whatever you're thinking and try to focus on me. Try to focus on my voice. Try to follow my breathing. Inhale... exhale... inhale.... exhale...'
Adam tried to follow, but he didn't seem to be able to control it. Instead he decided to put all his focus on James's voice. After a couple minutes of focusing on his boyfriend, Adam started to calm down. He was still shivering and crying slightly, but he stopped hyperventilating.
'Are... are you okay?' James asked. Adam shook his head, his face still buried in the blonde's chest.
'I understand if it's too much, but... can you tell me what's wrong?' James asked.
'It's him...' Adam replied, his voice cracking.
'Who are you talking about?' James asked as he started stroking Adam's hair, hoping it would be comforting.
'Docter Diabolus.'
'The guy that's gonna talk on Maaz's university? What does he have to do with anything?'
Adam pulled away from his boyfriend and stared James deep in the eyes, his look making a shiver go through the blonde.
'James... he's the one leading the group that kidnapped me...'
James stayed silent. He stared at Adam while his brain tried to register what the dark haired boy had just said.
'What?' He whispered confused.
'Doctor Diabolus...' Adam took a deep breath, having a hard time not spiraling down into another panic attack.
'Doctor Diabolus leads a team that kidnapped about 25 people to use for their experiments. That's why Maaz said his methods are vague. He doesn't want to protect them, he wants to protect himself from the law...' Adam started shaking even more. Saying these things out loud, thinking back of it, it was all too much. The memories scared him. The memories hurt him. Tears started to roll down his cheeks again as he tried so desperately to stay calm, not fully succeeding.
James stared at him. The blonde didn't know what to do. He saw Adam starting to panick again, but his mind was so busy trying to process the information, he couldn't think of a way to comfort the other boy. Experiments? Adam had been used for experiments? No wonder he acted so strange when he came back? What kind of experiments? What did this sick bastards do to him?
'I'm gonna tell the police.' James stated.
'Please do... I'm not sure, but the others might still be there...' Adam replied, his voice shaking.
'Why didn't you say anything sooner?' James asked, wrapping his arms around his boyfriend again.
'I... I didn't know how... it's so scary, so painful to think back to... I can barely tell you know...'
'If you can tell me more about what they did to you, I can tell the police. That way you don't have to talk to other about it.'
Adam nodded, but didn't say anything.
'What were the experiments about?' James asked. Adam stared the blonde straight in the eyes, his look almost scaring James.
'It was a research about people's reaction when the ones they care about in pain...' he said, his voice sounding terrified.

Adam stared at the mirror. He wondered why they needed a one sided window if there were already cameras watching him from every corner. It had been three days since he arrived and he hadn't seen the scientists since that first day. They had said something about experiments, but nothing had really happened yet. By now Adam had tried everything he could think of to get out, but nothing worked. He had even tried smashing the one sided window, but he couldn't break it and every time he got to aggressive or wild, they'd shock him. He tried getting the wristband off, but to no avail. He stopped trying to break stuff, because those shocks were no joke. At first he thought it would be worth it if he got out, but he soon realized he didn't have a way out. He sighed as he stared at his own reflection. His hair was greasy and messy and he seemed tired. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice behind him call out his name. Adam's face lit up in happiness as he turned around and saw him.
'JAMES!' He exclaimed happily, but his smile soon faded. The blonde was standing in the middle of the room, but he wasn't smiling. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and he fell onto the floor with a scream of pain. That's when Adam saw it. The blonde's left leg was in an unnatural position that clearly indicated it was broken.
'JAMES!' Adam called out again, but this time not in happiness. He ran up to the blonde boy and held him in his arms.
'Are you okay, James? What happened?' He asked worriedly, immediately forgetting everything else around him.
'It hurts... It hurts...' James sobbed as he softly pulled on Adam's hoodie.
'You need a doctor! Frick, there is no doctor here! How did you get in? We need to get you out! I can carry you!' Adam said panicky. He tried to pick James up, but the blonde screamed in pain, making Adam immediately let go of him again.
'Frick, frick, frick, what do I do?' Adam muttered to himself as he carefully tried to hold the blonde, letting him cry against his chest.
'Help me, please... it hurts so much...' James cried.
'Uh, y-you need a cast... or a splint... or something... something to support your leg...' Adam said, trying to stay calm, even though every part of his being was panicking. He looked around the room and ran to his bed, tearing off  the blanket and running back to the blonde.
'It might not do a lot, but if I wrap it around your leg tightly, it'll give support and that's the best I can do for now. This might hurt for just a second...' Adam said before he carefully took the blonde's leg, and pulled it out of the unnatural position it was in. James screamed in pain, almost making Adam's heart break. His eyes started to tear up as he carefully started wrapping the blanket around James's leg as tight as he could. Every time he lifted the leg from the ground, he got a little scream from the blonde and even if it was on the floor, he still got some whimpers.
'It's okay, you're gonna be okay...' Adam kept repeating, also trying to reassure himself.
'I'm done... does it feel better?' Adam asked.
'A little...' James whimpered.
'Okay, I'm gonna try to carry you and then we can seek a real doctor. How did you get in? We can probably get out the same way.' Adam said as he got up and stared at the door. There was no reply.
'James?' Adam asked before turning around and seeing the room empty, his blanket loosely laying on the floor in the same spot James had been just a couple seconds ago.
'James! JAMES! Where are you?' Adam called out. There was no reply. Where did he go? What the hell was going on here?

'Wait, what?' James asked.
'They wanted our reactions to the hurt of our loved ones.' Adam muttered, clenching his eyes shut to try and stop himself from getting another panic attack. He had to say it. It was the only way to get justice. He just had to tell James and then it was over.
'How did they do that?' James asked slightly confused.
'I don't know for sure, but... you were there, James. Most of the time it was you, but the others showed up too. Family and friends. I know you weren't actually there. Even when they had me locked up I, eventually, knew you couldn't be there. They could somehow... make us hallucinate or something. It was terrifying. By the end of it I didn't know what was real and what wasn't.' Only now did Adam realize tears had started escaping his eyes again as he buried his face in the blonde's chest, James's shirt already being a little damp from the earlier tears.
James was speechless. Now it all seemed to make so much sense. All of Adam's weird behavior, the distrust, all of it made sense now. But another part of him was also horrified at what the boy he loved so much had gone through. For over two month he'd been going through that mental torture. No wonder he wasn't doing good when he got out of there. James looked down at the beautiful, broken boy that was crying in his chest.
'It's over now, Adam... It's all over... I'm here and I'm gonna go to the police. The police is gonna arrest this guy and then everything will forever be over. I'm here for you and I will never let anyone hurt you ever again.'