Rhink One Shots

(Don't) Find Me | (Part 3)

It has been a week. More or less, Link wasn't sure about that. He lost the track of time after the third nigh, deciding that it didn't matter. It would only make him even more self-conscious about the situation he was in. Being locked inside the room was enough of a torture and he haven't yet arrived to the point of drawing small sticks on the walls.
It wasn't Rhett who locked him though. Link had made de decision to start the silent protest. He didn't talk to Rhett - nor the walls, for that matter -, no matter how hard the other tried to get a word from him. It worried Lincoln a bit, not talking at all. His throat didn't hurt anymore but he feared to lose his voice from not saying a word. So, sometimes, silently enough to not be heard outside the four walls of the room, the dark haired would mumble a song, or count until a hundred, or some other small exercise, just to calm himself down from the little anxious feeling that his voice would be gone. Or he would forget how to pronounce words. As stupid as it sounded.
He wondered if such made him seem like a crazy person. He wasn't going crazy. Just extremely bored and annoyed. Surely everyone at this point noticed he was missing and had the best team to search for him. After all, he was quite a big deal in the company. They needed him to progress. So yeah, someone would definitely find him soon. Lincoln just had to survive through this and in some days there would be police breaking through the door and rescuing him, and Rhett would get what he deserved. At least Link liked to imagine that. Being present in the court when the blond guy would be sentenced to stay in prison for the rest of his days. Hopefully. Who knows, maybe Lincoln wasn't the first one. That thought made him sick...
The dark haired turned on the bed as he heard the other walk out of the apartment. He wondered if Rhett had a work where to go or he just left for a walk and to buy groceries. Maybe he didn't leave at all and just pretended to do so to see if Link left his room. Anyways, it didn't work.
Lincoln was determined to stay here for as long as he had to. Though one time he slightly opened the door and peeked outside. When the curiosity took the best of him and he wanted to see if Rhett actually left. The apartment was washed in silence, but he didn't risk it.
The bottles he had stolen from the kitchen the night he had woken up here, started to pile up at the corner of the room. Link gave them disgusting looks, not believing he was actually doing that. His dignity was surely slipping out of him. But again, he didn't want to risk it and leave to the toilet, even if it was just for a few seconds. Rhett would definitely hear him, and who knows what would happen if Link appeared in front of him again.
The clothes started to stink and the dark haired was disgusted with his own self. Even though the closet inside the room was filled with different kinds of clothes, he didn't even think twice about wearing them. He wouldn't put on himself something that had been on Rhett. It smelled like him, which made the other even more determined to not even open the closet. Never. He was going to survive through this with no other help. He could do it!
At least it was something easy to think about, but the dark haired understood the execution of it was going to be harder than he pictured in his head. Every single day, at least twice per day, Rhett would knock on the door and warn Link he had brought food. Neal though that after at least three days the blond man would give up on him, but that didn't happen. He continued to bring the meals and leave them by the door.
Link rolled his eyes at the persistence of the other, but as the time passed, his stomach would make more and more noise. And there was another slip up from the dark haired when he opened the door to grab the glass of water. He was sure Rhett would be there, waiting for him to get out and grab him at the first opportunity. But that didn't happened. The hallway was silent. The tray with the food was placed on the floor right in front of the door. It had some noodles, bread with butter, a glass of water, and something more Link couldn't really decipher.
It was tempting. The smell made Link's stomach protest even harder, but still the dark haired resisted and just took the glass of water, closing the door right after it. That single glass of water lasted more than Neal was expecting, which for him was something good, but by the end of the week, he felt too weak to even take a step.
The constant migraine didn't bother him anymore, as it persisted in staying. He slept longer, but as the strength vanished day by day, Lincoln understood he couldn't stay here for any longer, or he would at minimum, black out.
"Why is he torturing me like this?". Though the answer to that was quite obvious. "You're torturing yourself." his subconscious reminded him, making Link roll eyes at himself. What if the food Rhett brought to him was poisoned? What if that was a trap for him to come out and Rhett would do to him something worse? Surely he didn't do this by simply being nice. Right?
But Lincoln met his limit. There was no way he could stay in that room for even longer. He needed to eat. He needed a proper toilet. He needed a shower to recover at least a bit of his dignity. The beard he had grown also needed a cut as it made his face uncomfortably itchy. Well now you're just asking for too much, Link thought to himself as his head started to make this list of basic necessities that needed to be taken care of. Let's go slowly. First: food.
One morning the dark haired woke up with the sound of the front door closing. He rubbed his eyes and tried to stay in silence to hear if Rhett had left or just came back. After some seconds, frozen, without even breathing, Link understood the other guy had left. This was a perfect opportunity to sneak out and make some food.
He got up, having to secure himself to the headboard of the bed while he recovered his balance. He felt light headed, not sure if it was because of the lack of food or the little time he spent without breathing.
Carefully, he turned the key and then opened the door. Silently, as if Rhett could hear him from wherever he was. Firstly, Link opened it just a bit, enough for one of his eyes to observe if it was safe to walk out. Nothing. So, gradually, he opened more the door, letting his head slip into the space and observe the rest of the hallway. Dark. Empty. Perfect.
The dark haired let out a breath and took a first step outside, only to nearly cause himself a heart attack when his foot stumbled on something and made a noise. It wasn't too loud, but still managed to make the man with the glasses put a hand on his chest, feeling his heart wanting to jump out and his breathing intensifying.
Link froze in the position he was, leaning on the frame of the door while almost his entire weight was concentrated on his left leg, his right foot slightly in the air but soaked in a warm liquid. He waited for something to happen. Someone to appear. Maybe an alarm to go off. Again, pure silence. Good. This definitely proved he was alone.
Then finally, the man with the glasses looked down. A red tray was at his feet, now completely covered in milk. He knocked out the glass that was on it. The food seemed to be safe. Two pieces of bread with jam and a cinnamon roll. And now spilled milk. Rhett surely knew how to eat. Obviously not the most healthy option, but Link almost dribbled himself with such delicious stuff in front of him. No.
Before doing anything else, he took off the soaked sock, throwing it near to the bottles of shame. He was glad no milk spilled out of the tray, sparing him from wasting time to clean that up from the carpet.
So, carefully, the dark haired picked it up and made his way to the kitchen. He placed the object on the counter next to the sink and after putting the plates away, emptied the milk into the sink, leaving the trey there too. As much as he hated himself for being so careful with the stuff that a guy who kidnapped him had, leaving that mess there would mess with him even more. Though, just as an "act of rebellion", Lincoln didn't wash the tray. It should be enough to show Rhett he still didn't care nor touched the food. He should get the message.
After getting rid of the mess, Link looked around the empty room. Not much seemed to change, though he wasn't familiar enough with the space to tell if something actually changed. He didn't care to memorize it either. He didn't care at all.
As he opened the fridge, a lot of colorful packages came into his vision. It was well organized and pretty filled up. The only thing Link could recognize was the vegetables and the eggs, the rest of it being completely unfamiliar to the dark haired man. He obviously didn't know the language, even less the writing. Some of his new coworkers actually tried to teach him some hiragana – something close to what English people called "alphabet" – but the dark haired didn't catch half of it. It was too much to memorize. Though he promised to those nice guys that he wouldn't give up on learning it, back in his mind knowing he'd forget everything by the time he was back home. Which was something that made him feel bad as the people were so nice and polite, genuinely trying to teach him and help him with getting used to the culture. So he genuinely made an effort, from that, recognizing some of the symbols on the packages, obviously not enough to figure out what was inside them.
Another noise escaping from his stomach made Link come back to reality. He wasn't that great of a cook, and the foreign for him food didn't make the task any easier. So, he decided to just grab the eggs and closed the fridge.
Clearly, just eggs wouldn't be enough, so the dark haired decided to investigate the shelves above the kitchen counters. A small smile appeared on his face as he found some pasta at the first attempt of looking for it. He grabbed one of the bags and closed the small door.
He cooked the pasta, impatiently begging in his head for it to hurry up. But meanwhile it wasn't ready, the dark haired decided to quickly go to the bathroom.
Link passed through the door to Rhett's bedroom. He slowed down a bit, observing it carefully. But he didn't dare trying to open it. Again, who knew what could happen if he even got close to it.
As he walked into the small blue room, the cold tiled floor made him shiver when his bare foot touched it. So Link slowed down the process, trying to block the cold uncomfortable feeling while he walked further.
When Lincoln saw himself in the mirror, he took a step back as if he had seen a monster in the reflection. Though it was close. His beard has grown, his face got thinner, there were bags under his eyes, the lack of moisturize was easily seen. Hell, how did he let himself get to this state? Link felt dirty. He was dirty.