just walk beside me and be my friend.
They are contacted, and asked to testify. It's a whole big deal, and they are politely informed the entire world is watching.
Gavin, Michael and Jeremy have a discussion beforehand, hugged close together in one bed like when they were kids, and they come to an agreement. Be gentle. Despite everything it's how they've chosen to live so far and they all decide that they don't plan to stop.
*
Gavin talks about Geoff. When they first brought them all in, he explains, they also gave them all numbers. Then he shows his own wrist, tattooed with three-zero-four, and the whole court starts murmuring, unsettled.
They brought them in and lined them up, he tells everyone, in a room that would in a saner world be a normal classroom. They all get on their knees when the man with the gun tells them to.
"I'll take it from here," Geoff says, a bit sharp, and Gavin thinks that might be a very bad sign.
He changes his mind when Geoff makes every other adult leave, and then shuts the door and slumps against it, shutting his eyes like someone trying not to cry.
"You can all get up," he says quietly, keeping a careful distance, "you can all get up, sweethearts. It's not okay, I know, but just for now we've got ninety minutes and I won't do a thing."
Gavin moves first, impulsive by nature, and walks over to Geoff and asks for a hug.
Geoff seems frankly terrified, but he hugs him careful.
It ends up in a kind of scrambled mess, as every kid in the room tries to be held close and Geoff tries to make sure he hugs tight to each one, sliding down against the desk and trying to hold as many kids as he can.
"You deserve better," he tells all of them. "I'm so sorry. That's the lesson for today. Now we gotta write something in those notebooks, so go write anything you want. I'll make sure you all pass."
*
Michael talks about Jack. She'd come a couple of times, tried to get in but couldn't. She'd done a lot more than that, he adds, campaigning publicly and privately for transparency with regard to what was going on.
It cost her. People in charge don't like it when you try to mess with the way things are. It cost her, her job, her income, and when the news caught on, her privacy.
"So there's this feeling," he says bluntly. "When someone cares enough to give a fuck. And she gave us that."
"She didn't even have any stake in it, she never worked for them, but she still went and gave us that."
Jack is in court for this session, and when he says it he looks right at her. She's a bit teary-eyed, but as cameras focus on her she's as strong as they always knew her to be.
"So thanks. And, you know, fuck the other guys."
People laugh like they might relate. Michael thinks that's powerful, in something like this.
*
Jeremy talks about Ryan.
"Did he ever hurt you?" The prosecutor asks, almost smug about it.
Jeremy thinks about it, the number of times he was knocked to the ground for an infraction by Ryan, who loomed over him fierce enough that no one else thought to come over and join in or do worse. They all had tasers and Ryan never used his once.
"I'm not going to say sorry," Ryan says later, when they're alone. "Even though I am, but I'm not going to say it because we both know the game, yeah?"
Jeremy is going to be twelve next week, but yeah, he knows the game. "Thank you," he says sincerely.
"Jesus christ, never thank me," Ryan says. "Don't ever do that. You deserve better."
It seems to be a recurring theme.
"I always knew he hurt me just enough to make sure no one else hurt me more," Jeremy says calmly. It's not the expected answer, and the court looks confused. Ryan, in attendance, just looks like he might cry.
They had tracers, little blinking metal things at their ankles. Ryan is the one to take them each aside, separately and ask them for a date.
If they are going to run, he needs to turn them off on the right day.
The day they flee, that's the day they place their trust in Ryan.
"Why would you believe him?" the judge asks.
"Well, he turned them off, so we were right," Jeremy says. "Also Gavin reads minds so that's a thing."
*
Proceedings are stopped halfway through by their lawyer.
"You don't wish to talk about what was done to you?" the man says, carefully measured and knowing their answer but having agreed beforehand to ask the question.
They had hugged close together in one bed like when they were kids, and come to an agreement. Gavin gets to say it.
"You've got the records," he says, firm and fearless, "the registration forms and medical records and every fucking note they made when they - they called it necessary discipline. You've got it written down, and the rest will probably tell you stories that make you wish you stayed home for the day." Then he smiles. "But we wanted to talk about the people that helped, so everyone who didn't knows what they could have been."
Gentle, but not too forgiving. They'll hold that line as long as they have kids in their care, but also to show they've chosen who it is they will take in if it happens that it's wanted. They make the invitation by ensuring the cameras see them when the trial ends, hugging Geoff and Jack and Ryan, in front of the whole world.