Work Text:
"Yeah bro, I wanna believe you," Alfred's tone was disarmingly light. "But you gotta work with me here."
The room was dark, a cellar in some midwestern state surrounded on all sides by so much grain Gilbert was fair convinced the bread basket of the world was located in podunk North America. His wrists were strapped to the arms of a reinforced lawn chair ("Adirondack!" Alfred had explained as though that meant a damn thing to him) with metal thread intended for fixing fences and chicken coops. It wound up his arms from wrist to bicep, criss-crossing over his chest and trailing down to pin his legs in the same manner. It dug into the flesh. There were places where it cut through when Gilbert struggled too hard, letting blood pour out until he got dizzy enough to sit still.
"I told you already, Al. I'm my own man, my own Nation, I want what I've got," it was a waste of breath explaining himself to this lunatic. Hell, it was a waste half the time explaining it to anyone else, neither his brother nor Ivan's little pets believed he was happy with his lot. Feliks had looked him in the eye once, holding a blatant stasi listening device up with a hand on his hip, and scoffed at Gilbert’s unimpressed shrug. He opened his mouth to try anyway and nearly bit his tongue at how hard Al smacked him.
Alfred sighed. "Man, you're a pain in the ass," he flexed his fingers, as if it had hurt him in the slightest. "Tell me what techniques that communist is using on you and I'll let you go, it's so easy, man. You really gotta stop protecting guys like that."
Something like despair crawled down Gilbert's throat alongside a trickle of blood. He swallowed to clear it, but felt his breathing pick up. Surely he could not be this close to panic, it had to be claustrophobia or something. "I'm not being brainwashed. I'm not being fucking held anywhere against my will except here!"
"Aank! Wrong answer," Alfred took out a knife and started tapping it along Gilbert’s skin where he could; his hands, his forearms where the sleeves were rolled up, and then his throat, up to his temple. "Bet he's got some sort of chip in here-"
"Al-"
"You'll come back, I just gotta find the right spot and shatter the fuckin' thing," Alfred stuck his tongue out and shut one eye tight in concentration, feeling for something hard beneath his captive's skin.
Gilbert leaned away quickly and fought with renewed energy against the wires holding him, ripping up his flesh and screaming. Two strong hands forced him to straighten up, and when their eyes caught, Gilbert started babbling. "It's not him, it's the humans. They just wear you down, tell you what's real, right? Just locked me up and told me what to say and think until it made sense. They kept me down there, Al, you know how it gets to you. I was just making it through."
Not a word of that was true, not for him anyway. But he could let it be true tonight if it meant Alfred wouldn't shishkebab his God damned head with a tactical knife. Alfred considered him with wide eyes, then pulled away to rub his jaw in thought. "Yeah… but you know, that means you gotta be deprogrammed if we're gonna get your head back on straight."
"De… program," Gilbert echoed, face screwing up into an incredulous, exhausted grin. Sweat drenched his face and glued his undershirt to his body, soaking through to the uniform above. "Eheh… hehe, Al, man, I don't need any of that. You think I give a fuck about how the economy runs?"
Ivan would be looking for him. He will, at the very least, be apoplectic when he finds out what Alfred has done. He'll find out. If Gilbert’s lucky, someone did bug his uniform or his shoes or follow him when he got yanked, and someone's government would throw a fit. He just had to wait until then. Ivan would come get him, bring him home, feed him some heinous Russian fare and give him a bump of coke and a slap on the wrist for getting kidnapped. Gilbert's mouth wobbled as he thought about it, stuck there in some shitty basement or warehouse or wherever the hell Alfred had dragged him.
"Aw man, c'mon you're safe now," Alfred clasped his shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile. "Everything's alright now, your hero is here!"
"Thanks Al, I thought I was a goner for sure," his reply came out weak, bitter longing weighing him down.
"Yeah, now, about the deprogramming," Alfred walked around behind him and changed up his hands to squeeze both of Gilbert's shoulders. Gil continued to grind his teeth into an unconvincing grin, the corners of his mouth twitching while he fought not to flinch. "You get that capitalism is like, the only way to be free and stable ever, right?"
"... Yeah," he didn't care. He did not care, the closest he ever came to caring was when he was a junker, and even then his focus was on maintaining a bare minimum to meet his needs between conscriptions. "Obviously. Right."
There was a heavy sigh behind him. "My guy, you are just not into this like I need you to be. How am I supposed to convince Ronny Ray you're one of the good guys if you aren't super hyped to get out of that Godless, communist shithole?"
"Oohhoho shit, you got church on the other side, right?" He craned his neck to see Alfred above him, flexing his numbing fingers. "You're protestant right? I haven't heard a good hymn in so long, you'll take me to see one of your uh, jumbo churches, right? You put those shits on T.V.?"
"Megachurch, and hey! Yeah, there we go, first normal thing you've said all day," Al grinned at him and shook him by the shoulders, which made every loop of wire dig in harshly until he stopped. "See, I knew you were still in there. Now just lemme call my boss to see if he actually wants me to bring you over, you may have to sit tight 'til I can bring him around. Oh don't worry! Him and I are great buddies, promise, you just get comfy."
Alfred slapped his shoulders a few times, then strode away as the cold fear in Gilbert’s gut spread. Eventually, Ivan would notice his absence. Eventually. But God knew it wouldn't be in time to save him from Billy Graham.