Chapter Text
He had known that this meeting would be a disaster- he had told everyone, at length, that this was going to be a disaster- but he had to admit he hadn't expected it to be this bad.
I was expecting the meeting to bomb, not be bombed.
That this was his first thought while lying battered and bleeding in the wreckage of the meeting after an explosion went off just proved he had been through far too much lately.
His arms were wrenched behind his back and he was pulled up from the ground and the wreckage of the chairs and table. He had the miserable experience of throwing up, and the small consolation that it was onto his captor... unfortunately, that meant the man backhanded him. He had a bare moment to look around before a hood was dropped over his head...
For Mycroft Holmes, that one glance was enough.
About half of the attendees had died in the blast or shortly after. The survivors were all wounded to varying degrees. His own injuries did not seem life-threatening, although he had a head injury... It was likely that he would have died if he had been in his assigned seat, and not waiting after insisting on a cup of tea, not coffee…
I always told people that tea could save lives, he thought and tried to nod firmly, which was a mistake as the room spun even under a hood. He threw up again, which was appalling, especially since it was inside the hood.
Somewhere in there he passed out, luckily still forced upright or he would have choked. He woke up when they moved him out of the vehicle... The hood was pulled off his head, thankfully, by someone who cursed at him for making a mess…
"Ah yes, how uncivil of me to not die neatly in your bomb blast," He knew better than to provoke them, but somehow it just came out.
He was thrown into a room with other surviving prisoners. Being unable to recover his balance in time, all he could do was roll as he fell, landing on his shoulder instead of with his head into the concrete.
Time... passed. His internal clock came back online slowly, so he wasn't certain how much time had passed while he was unconscious, but he doubted it was too long. Various prisoners soiled themselves…
Eventually, he did too.
Someone came in, hauled them around and took photos of them, and went out…
After an hour or so, men came back in and dragged out about half of them. Shortly after he heard shots, and screaming. From what he could tell the remaining prisoners were the most 'valuable' as far as intelligence assets…
Which... was a problem, because these people seemed to know that Mycroft Holmes was among that number.
+++
Before too long, people’s scent blockers and neutralizers began to fade or fail: a meeting as important as the one he had been attending meant that most of the attendees were bathed in the stuff. After all, having to deal with a prickly Alpha across the table from you during global negotiations was… never a pleasant situation. Even the Betas- of which they were majority- took their pill and sprayed themselves down, muffling their already softer scents entirely.
His sense of time had been distorted in the blast and the time that followed, but blockers only worked for so long… though with this much increased stress, even a Beta can blow through the half-life of a blocker in record time…
It did not take very long for the room to smell. Oh, it had already stunk: dried blood decorated those who were wounded or those who’d been hit by splatter. The scent of explosives and ash and smoke had sunk into their clothing, their hair, and dust from drywall and concrete laid across their skin, giving many of them an almost ghostly pallor. A few had gotten their faces wiped clean for photos, but they were dirty, unwashed, injured… Soon enough the room stank with the smell of urine and soon after that, the ripe rank of fear and anxiety was wafting from every person in the room.
The Alphas- of which there were two, from opposing organisations- quite easily overpowered the rest of them in their stench. Anxiety, pain, irritation, anger… It was enough to be nearly nauseating to his sensitive nose and he tried to breathe through his mouth… though, that only made him more parched as time went on.
A silent prayer was sent up, thanking his own top of the line blockers, and he focused on keeping his head clear and heart rate steady: adding his own panicked scent into the mix would be disastrous… Even more so than this situation already is.
His head ached something horrible, whether a migraine from the stress and the ever-present lights and smells or as a result from the concussive blast, he wasn’t sure…
But eventually his eyes could no longer be held open and he slept, exhausted, against a wall.
Mycroft Holmes woke up with a start when the metal door to their holding cell was slammed open and men filtered in, grabbing and pulling out other survivors: he was blessedly not grabbed, but those who were? Well, some struggled, but most were simply dragged…
One of the Alphas was grabbed, and he snarled fiercely… and simply got an injection stabbed into him before the man went limp.
No shots came, however, and that… was decidedly worse as facts quickly fell into place. The only reason any group would attack such a large gathering like this and not kill everyone immediately?
We’re being sold.
The plus side, Mycroft tried to remind himself, was that being sold also meant a good chance that his own people would find out. Of course that could mean being rescued, ransomed, or... well, targeted airstrikes to prevent anyone else from getting him. Mind you, that was likely true of the other people as well...
After turning the odds over in his mind he decided that he very, very much preferred the targeted airstrike option- regardless of who sent it- to being sold.
...after a while- estimated to be just shy of an hour, my internal clock is still a bit off- someone came in with water and forced everyone to drink. Mycroft drank it because his mouth and throat were very very dry, and they could easily drug them by any means, so why not?
He managed to do something like sleep again- it wasn't very restful but it was better than not sleeping- until the door slammed open again, and then... then it was his turn to be dragged out...
Alone.