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Ace chuckles. "We all call Jake that when he gets bossy and overprotective. He makes sure Trav and the rest of us take care of ourselves. We all appreciate it, but it's bro code that we give him shit anyway."
"Is that a kink of his? Daddy kink?”
“Uh.” Ace’s smile fades, his gaze falling to the side. “I plead the fifth on that one.”
Carter doesn’t push the subject. Between the fact that Jake – when he was Benny - used to call Carter ‘little one’, has proven time and time again that he’s a caregiver to his core, and now that Ace is pleading the fifth instead of easily saying no, he has his answer anyway. An answer he fully intends to share with Casey. Let’s see Jake keep himself away from Casey once he throws out a nice, tempting, “Please Daddy?” next time he’s pushing for more.
Since Travis is sleeping at the moment, there isn’t much for Carter to see. It helps to know he’s okay, at least. Plus… Carter’s starting to realize as relief settles in that he wasn’t at all prepared to watch the man he loves perform torture. He should probably leave before Travis wakes up and gets back to it.
“Maybe I should just go to bed,” Carter mumbles. “This was a bad idea.”
“Can I ask what you were hoping to get out of it?” Ace asks, finally looking back at him.
“I… don’t know.” Carter laughs humorlessly. God, he’s fucking exhausted. “I guess that’s the problem. I don’t know, but I wanted to know. Now I think maybe not knowing is better.”
Ace tilts his chin to acknowledge his words. Then he sits back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “What exactly did you want to know?”
“Is he-” Carter swallows, his eyes finding the video feed on the center screen. He knows without a doubt that the man is Quinton. “Is Travis torturing him?”
“He’s… getting the necessary information to find Elliot.”
“With torture.”
“With physical and psychological incentives.”
Carter rolls his eyes. “Are you unable to say the word torture?”
“I am unable to use a word I’ve used for the likes of Quinton and Miller and - perhaps closest to home for you - Mica when referring to something Travis Kenton is doing. That man is a hero. He’s not a torturer, even if he’d say he is when asked. He’s a motherfucking hero.”
“Yeah,” Carter whispers, fully agreeing. Especially the part where his self-deprecating boyfriend would absolutely call himself a torturer, and any other name he could come up with to make himself feel like shit. “You’re right.”
“And whatever label we put on it, you don’t need to watch it happen.”
“I - yeah. I know. Just… don’t let that idiot get hurt or anything, okay?”
Ace chuckles. “We’re all watching out for him, I promise.”
“Good.” Carter considers taking a final look at the screen showing Quinton again, but then he realizes he doesn’t need to. Whatever is going on with that man, Travis has it handled. “Good night, Ace.”
“Night, kid.”
Carter smiles softly, turning away from the man and all of his crazy computers.
That’s when he sees it - a huge corkboard with pictures tacked to it. Dozens of pictures, all overlapping, with sticky notes attached to them. It’s a mess.
At first, he doesn’t understand, but then he gets closer and recognizes one. Jonathan Queen. The gardener.
“W-what are these?” he asks, his throat tight. “The other loose ends? Like Elliot?”
“No.” Ace pushes out of his chair and comes to stand beside him. He’s grinning wide. “These are all of the survivors we’ve recovered so far from Travis’s personal files. We only have 11 still out there.” Ace turns to point at a board that’s on the opposite side of the room. It has photos all over it too, though no sticky notes. “Those are the others we’ve recovered that weren’t directly tied to Travis, but were still able to be saved due to connections Travis made when building the case.”
“That’s…” Carter releases a shaky breath, feeling a little dizzy. “It’s just - it’s so many.”
“Fuck yeah it is.”
Carter’s eyes burn with tears he knows he has no hope of fighting. “Where are they now?”
“Most are still in other safehouses. There’s a huge compound we use for massive amounts of survivors like this. Plus a few smaller safehouses like this one scattered about. Some decided to go home, though. Or to start new lives.”
