we will drag you from where you are to where you belong [closed]

[postictal]

[tw: some brutality and beating, later some panic and flashbacking to hospitalization]

Keep your head down, stay off the radar, just act like the normal person you aren't, and everything will be fine.

That was the general idea.

Was.

But then, he should've expected something like this. When you come home from work and the door's not been open a minute before a couple ominously stone-faced guys come striding in, it generally throws up a few warning flags. And when opening your mouth to ask um sorry, but what the hell incites one of them to bring you down in a hard tackle that sends your cheek stinging against the carpet and your knees scraping along the ground, pure fight-or-flight impulse kicks in. Fight and flight, actually, and Tim manages to crack one of them a solid right hook across the jaw that leaves a darkening bruise before they wrestle him into submission. Maybe if he wasn't him right now - fuck.

In the end, there isn't much he can do against two guys who look to have something like six inches on him, and a few minutes of hopeless thrashing and several well-placed kicks to his ribs later, it's pretty much a lost cause. The apartment interior's a wreck; Tim definitely heard something shatter on his way to the ground, and he feels the distant, bizarre urge the apologize to Jay for being responsible for fucking things up yet again. He's sorry, Jay, really he is. He didn't mean to this time, honestly.

And that's when one of the guys sinks a fist into his stomach, and Tim loses track of things for a little while as his entire respiratory system promptly goes to shit.

He wakes in a little square room of concrete walls and windowless gloom.

Fuck. Fuck no. He lurches to his feet, all dizziness and nausea, and pounds at the door that looks more solid than any locked hospital door fuck, and he screams let him out and is anyone there? and please I need help please until his voice rasps into hoarseness and his vocal chords feel wet, as if they're torn and bleeding. His fists sting from banging against the door, its impassively hollow tone drumming against his ears. His jacket's gone. His medication. They fucking took it off him, they took everything, they took him away, and if there's anything he can do to help his situation, it's think and be calm and be compliant and be cooperative and not panic right now, which he isn't, who would even think that?

Because he's not a scared little kid anymore. He's not, he swears he's not. There's nothing tall and specter-like in the room with him, and he's not curled in the corner with his knees drawn up and his arms wrapped around them and he's not huddled like he's eight years old again, because he's not the lost little boy crammed into a hospital room with a plethora of confusing and contradictory symptoms. He's not.

It's just a dream, and any moment he's going to wake up.

Comments

[deadeyedchild]

Jay leads him quietly across the street, taking a fairly random route to put a few blocks between them and the park, before finally picking a hotel at random. He fishes out his own wallet in case they need to split the cost. The concierge is way too polite, neither he nor Tim are equipped for it, and what must they look like, two miserable looking boys getting a room together in the middle of the day. Well whatever, he doesn't care. Can't afford to care.

Finally they're in the room, quiet and isolated at last; he slips the do-not-disturb sign on the door and latches it shut.

He takes a moment to just lean his forehead against the door, breathing, trying to pull himself together. Then he turns around.

"You okay?" he murmurs.

[postictal]

It's bitingly familiar, those tired motions, and he's ready to weather the raised-eyebrow stares and sidelong looks of the hotel staff that never come. Right, he remembers dully. Rift weirdness probably makes them used to all sorts of bizarre shit. At least that works in their favor. There's nothing notable about either of them. Not even luggage.

As soon as he gets in he starts rinsing his hands in the bathroom sink. The red over his knuckles and palms has scabbed over by now, but they still feel dirty. Unclean.

But he's always felt unclean, so maybe there's not much point.

"Yeah," he says, flipping off the sink. The lack of any aural buffer in the hiss of running water leaves the room drenched in uncertain silence. He inches out of the bathroom to one of the beds, sinking onto it with a low noise of discomfort. His knees feel like a mess, probably worse off than his hands. He hasn't dared look yet. It's an old feeling - what got fucked up while he was 'out'. The thought of reliving that now makes something in his chest constrict.

[deadeyedchild]

Jay stands there for a moment before settling down on the other bed, sitting opposite, his elbows braced on his knees and his head dropping into his hands. The bandage Seth put on his arm has started to come off in all the mayhem, and he reaches out to smooth it over, running his fingers up and down it, a little nervous tic.

"I'm sorry," he says again, tired and destitute. He laces his fingers together under his chin and looks away, scared to look at Tim as he says, "It was my fault."

[postictal]

Everything sharpens. He fixes Jay with a suspicious look beneath lowered brows. Jay doesn't simply shoulder the blame for things, he knows how the guy's head fucking works, at least when it isn't being hijacked by that thing that pulls at the corners of their eyes. Did he sell Tim out? Well, fuck, wouldn't be the first time, that fucking -

It takes him an uncomfortably long time to realize, no, that wouldn't make sense. Why would he? And why bother getting Tim out if that were the case?

"What do you mean?" he asks, drawing the words out slowly, warily.

[deadeyedchild]

He buries his face under his hands, pressing bony fingers against his eyes.

"I had a camera," he says, muffled through his palms. "The day we went there and met that - those fucking cats. I made a camera out of the lint in your pocket, it was recording, I was just bored, I didn't know it would... I didn't mean to..."

He doesn't want to open that up again. He keeps his face hidden, feeling his skin burn, feeling the really deep bite of shame, it was always so easy to just blame his shit on other people, wasn't it? This fucking hurts and he hates it.

"I dropped it," he says, his voice hoarse. "And I thought it would... I mean it was like microscopic I didn't think anyone would - but when I got regular sized again, I guess..."

He rubs his hands roughly over his face and looks away again, staring hard at the wall, his hands folded together so hard his knuckles are white. "I'm sorry," he whispers again, as if that even matters, as if that will change anything. He's fucked up so much now, what possible reason does Tim have to keep putting up with him.

[postictal]

It's fucking ridiculous, that this is what their lives are like. Somehow it went from late night abductions to miniaturized cameras made out of lint, and there's no way to streamline the transition.

Jay was dead.

And then he wasn't.

I'm sorry, Jay's snapped out roughly before, prickly and guarded and not the least bit sincere, to which Tim snorted, bitter and contemptuous, paradoxically both understanding the reasoning and refusing to accept it.

And now Jay's admitting this, straightforward. Cutting right through the layers of his typical bullshit. The memory kicked up isn't a good one - Tim's arms fold over his chest in that automatic reflex, pulling deeper into himself like he did when Jay launched question after question at him, knowing he couldn't lie, traitorously digging up the lies Tim told to protect whoever was left. He hadn't even sounded accusatory. That had been the worst thing, besides the fact that he'd gone ahead and done it at all.

"Wouldn't have changed anything," Tim says dully, staring numbly at the wall. "There was a guy, um." He scrubs a hand through his hair, guilty at the recollection. He'd said way too much, more than he did usually - but then again, he hadn't really been in his right mind. "In a dream, the one with the trees and shit. He figured it out. Said I should've told someone I was staying with the Rebels. So I thought, y'know." He shrugs tiredly. "He went ahead and told 'em."

It's cheap. It's the worst kind of willful ignorance, casually disregarding everything because it's just - easier to tear into Jay when he's defensive, that scrappy little asshole with his camera and his self-righteous indignation. But this is just - too different. Too weird and open and sincere.

Jesus. As if he could get pissed about that.

[deadeyedchild]

Jay looks up slowly, finally looks at Tim. He's just - shrugging it off. Not acting pissed at him, not bitter or angry like he should be, just... like it doesn't even make a difference.

For a moment he just doesn't say anything, not sure what to do. Is Tim letting him off the hook here or what? Should he try to argue no, it was my fault, you should be mad at me? How does he even proceed here?

"Oh," he finally says, stupidly. "I mean, yeah, I guess, but..."

But would they have abducted you for that? Locked you up, treated you like an animal, like something dangerous?

He huffs out a breath. Tim isn't fooling either of them with that, but if he doesn't want to get into it, who is Jay to force the issue. "Seems like it's about time someone took them down," he says. "If this is how they deal with squatters. Kinda overkill."

Really, really weak fucking joke, but hey, he's trying, okay.

[postictal]

What the fuck would compel anyone to take someone's obviously important medication? For what, safekeeping? Study? That's not - what's the word - humane. And Tim's definitely earned the right to bitch about his captivity as much as he goddamn well pleases, thanks.

He offers a one-shouldered shrug, one hand curling around the opposite elbow. He doesn't just wanna brush it off but - fuck, what does he even say? Thank Jay for owning up to his shit for once? It's not like Tim ever got gold stars or applause for acting like human beings are expected to act. Or if he just shuffles past it, no big deal, maybe that's the reward in and of itself. Congratulations on your newly acquired sense of empathy, Jay, don't fuck it up and maybe this time Tim won't yell at you.

God. No wonder he never had friends in high school.

But whatever, he can shift the subject to something they're both a little comfortable - a little less uncomfortable, maybe - talking about. It's something they're really gonna have to talk about, like it or not. Mostly not.

"Maybe they had the right idea," he answers darkly. With his medication gone now, it's only a matter of time. They both know it.

[deadeyedchild]

Jay's expression hardens, slipping from bewilderment to indignation. "No," he blurts. "What are you - no. Nobody's locking you up, Tim, jesus."

He still feels sick when he thinks about Entry 66. He can't even imagine, doesn't want to, wants to avoid thinking about it as much as he can, Tim curled up in the corner losing his absolute shit drowning in that fucked up childhood, trapped in those little rooms.

And all Jay could say about it was you're not like Alex, at least not entirely.

"Look, if you - if that happens, then we'll deal with it," he says. "Somehow. But you don't deserve that."

He feels weird, strangely exposed, speaking so vehemently about this. He draws a breath and shrinks a little, curling inward. "We'll figure something out," he murmurs.

[postictal]

"Yeah?" The amount of effort it takes to keep his voice from rising in pitch and volume and outrage is damn near impossible, and he doesn't quite manage it. Sheer incredulity still skews the word too high, too sharp, the you've got to be joking more than implicit.

"It was in our heads." They both know, even if they never really talked about it. "It was in our dreams. We both saw it, in the trees. You know what that means." Because if that's not confirmation, then Tim doesn't know what is. He'd lied to push them ahead in the moment - and it's what he does, and it's what they say about roads to hell being paved with good intentions, what totheark always said, LIAR LIAR LIAR. He's not gonna be okay, he's never gonna be okay, and insisting otherwise is the same pointless, optimistic bullshit the doctors fed him his entire goddamned life.

We'll find a way out of this, Tim.

Normal life's just around the corner, Tim.

Just hang in there, Tim. Hang in there, because everything's gonna be fine.

He got so good at distinguishing the right tone of voice for a lie. All the little signs and twitches and darting of eyes. And they kept insisting, and there came that point, he's not exactly sure when - that he just stopped believing it.

[deadeyedchild]

"So what?" he says, head snapping up, vehemence flowing right back because it's better than this. "It's always been that way. Alex tried to fix everything and he couldn't, I tried to fix everything and I just made it fucking worse. You're the only one that made it, Tim!"

Other than Jessica.

Let's not talk about that.

"You stood up to it, you saved my fucking life that night." Has he ever acknowledged that? Ever thanked him? Probably not. "You did all of that without being locked up like some kind of freak so just - yeah, they took your pills and it's still there but that doesn't change anything, it doesn't mean you should just give up."

Jay never gives up.

Not ever.

He goes until it kills him. That's fine. That's probably what he deserves. Asking for it, charging headfirst into so much bullshit. Tim was always the one who deserved to fucking make it, he feels like he's seeing that clearly for the first time.

[postictal]

And just like that, it's easier to slide back. To flare up, incensed, teeth gritted against the fierce sense of optimism Jay's so stupidly good at.

It's just weird that this time, bizarrely, the argument is in Tim's favor, spat out like the angriest compliment he's ever received.

"We have no idea what it's capable of here," he insists from under lowered brows. "The Rift might make it stronger. The Rift might make it worse. You might be okay risking it - I'm not." A muscle in his cheek twitches as he unclenches and reclenches his jaw, glaring. "And it's my body that thing uses to wreak havoc wherever it feels like it."

Does that justify him, at all, to apply any kind of unilateral reasoning to it? It's his body, sure - but once that thing steps inside, that question kinda goes up the air.

Maybe he would be better off, they both would, if he left that little freak in Jay's hands whenever he? it? takes over.

[deadeyedchild]

"So far this hasn't affected anyone but us," he argues, looking straight back at Tim now, no longer ducking and avoiding eye contact. "It's only been in our fucking dreams, like always, dreams are different here but other than that..."

All right, fine, so this isn't really helpful. He lets out a frustrated grunt and rakes a hand through his hair.

"I went in and got you out because I had to," he says. "It was my fault and I'm not gonna let anyone - I fucked up, Tim, okay, I know that, I fucked up so much, but I'm not - I'm not leaving you again, okay? That's all I have, I can't do anything else, I can't fix this."

Oh god.

His hands are shaking.

Because he's never said that before, never admitted it really, he can't fix this, it's broken, he's broken, they're broken, and they cannot be fixed.

Alex was right, he wasn't making anything better, he made it all worse, and he never saw that until now. He had to die and be brought back to life somewhere else to see it.

"I don't know what's gonna happen and there might be nothing we can do," he says, his voice losing its edge and dropping into a sort of pathetic wobble. "But I wasn't gonna leave you there and... and I'm not gonna let anyone..."

Yeah, yeah, what are you gonna do, useless little fuck. It was Daine who kept you from the same fate, who got you in, and Seth who unlocked the door. All you did was lead Tim out again. Run without leaving him. That, at least, is a first.

"You're all I have," he says finally, and it comes out really small and stupid and pathetic, and he drops his head down into his hands, fingers tangling into his hair. "And I feel like if I make anymore mistakes I - I can't afford to, and I can't afford to lose you because without you I'm dead. We've seen that. That's what happens. I need you, Tim."

Jesus Christ.

He feels like he's gonna cry. He better not.

This is so stupid. He wants to just disappear. Right into the earth.

"I don't know what else to say," he whispers right before his voice gives out altogether.

[postictal]

It's nothing new, sure. They never addressed it but - it was always there, like the very tall elephant in the room. They were the only two people they knew who would get it, to some extent. Jay might not have grown up with the damn thing hanging over him, but he knew, he knew what it was like having that sliver of madness nestled behind every dream and breath and closed eye. That had always been a thing. And Tim had gotten that, however reluctantly, and sure, he'd avoided the subject whenever they could and talked circles around it and never really addressed it direct - but he got it.

They were the only two people in the world who might understand what the other is going through, always, perpetually, daily.

Except Alex. And Brian. And fuck lot of good either of them are doing now, huh. They're dead, Tim.

Because you fucking killed them. In cold blood.

So now he's shackled to Jay, more or less. They're not left with a whole lotta choice, really, since starting over is a doomed prospect and running away will only take them as far as the island limits. They're stuck here, together.

The air in this stupid little hotel room is too hot and too thick and too heavy, like everything Jay's spilling out got tangled up in it, saturating every breath with a dense significance he doesn't want to look at.

"Cute," he says dully. Something twists in his chest to say it. It's cruel. It's - well no shit Jay never breaks out this kind of sincerity if this is the only way Tim has to cope with it. He can't ignore this, he can't - do anything but force it roughly aside. Downplay whatever he has to acknowledge and disregard the rest. "Doesn't change anything. Whatever I do to keep that - thing from getting loose is my business."

[deadeyedchild]

Cute.

Okay well he probably deserved that.

He doesn't look up again, appropriately scorned, like well you opened up and this is what you got, which is why you don't ever open up.

"I know," he mumbles, looking at the floor, hands braced loosely on the edge of the bed.

What more can he say? There's nothing, really. Nothing left. He sits there, shoulders slumped, curled over like a kicked fucking puppy, and he doesn't want to just sit there feeling sorry for himself, he can't stand that. He could kick off his shoes and go to sleep, he's suddenly so tired that kind of sounds great, but that would look so petulant.

Instead he rubs one hand over his face, like trying to brush it all away. Yeah, good luck with that.

"You hungry?" he says softly, fairly toneless. "Let's order something."

[postictal]

He doesn't even wanna look at Jay. He doesn't wanna think about what he might see there - disgust, or contempt, or the kind of defeated, crumpled look to him, like the one he got the night Tim tore into him in that parking lot, snarling about how he knew about it, and he never said a thing. Jay's sort of sadness is the opposite to Tim's, the howling, outraged veneer that lashes out at everything to stitch together what's broken inside. Jay's silence simply takes on a new weight, his shoulders a little lower, his shape a little more shrunken, he's eyes a shade more downcast.

He doesn't need to see it to know it's what's happening.

"Sure," Tim says tonelessly, looking fixedly at the wall. "They didn't really feed me in there."

[deadeyedchild]

Jay fumbles with his phone, happy for something to distract himself with, looking for a place nearby. "Pizza?" he suggests dully. "There's a place a few blocks away that'll deliver. Cheap." And hey look they have an online order option. That's a relief. He starts automatically punching in an order. He remembers what Tim eats. It's not like they've never had to do this before.

[postictal]

"Yeah." He shrugs lifelessly. "Sure."

Just like old times. Hotel rooms, aggressively not talking about their problems, cheap dinner. Though the lack of gas station food is a plus.

And just as easily, it's like nothing's changed.

[stronglikebear]

They're working on it, Yuri tells himself. The more he pesters the people going through ROMAC's records, the longer it's going to take them to finish going through the things. He's antsy, though, and not because of next week's full moon. He searched that building from top to bottom, or near enough to, and his little brother wasn't anywhere. He knew he should have acted on his own months ago even if it meant going in as a prisoner just in the hope that they'd put him in a cell near Erik's, and now it's too late. Now Erik has vanished into thin air again just when the downfall of ROMAC should have reunited them.

He spends much the day trying and failing to pound out a few hundred words of lifestyle article before finally giving up. He'll just head to the kitchen, he decides, and get something to eat, and then he'll maybe just...check in. Not pester, but check in. They have to have found something.

Almost as soon as he steps out of his room, though, Yuri can sense that there's something wrong. The sounds are faint at first from the hall outside his door, but as he makes his way closer to the offices and labs at the heart of the base he can hear -- crashing? Shouting. Screaming. Yuri breaks into a run, faltering when a fellow rebel comes haring past the other way and clips his shoulder as she goes by. "What's --?" he starts to ask, but she's already off around the corner, leaving him standing alone as something continues to thump and crash nearby. Palms sweaty, Yuri gulps and edges closer to the source of the noise, pressing himself against the wall and shuffling near enough to peek around the door frame.

[wildmage_daine]

The labs are on the larger side, with vaulted brick ceilings high enough to accommodate her biggest shape. So that's what Daine has taken. Granted, as a tyrannosaur, the room feels rather cramped... and if she was trying not to smash everything in sight, she'd have her work cut out for her. As it is, it's perfect. There is much to be done, and the quicker she does it, the better.

She makes a quarter turn, her tail sweeping computers and other equipment to the floor and smacking into the florescent lights suspended from the ceiling. Support cables snap; some bulbs crash down, others dangle and sway, casting wild shadows against the walls. Rumbling in fierce satisfaction, Daine shoves her snout into a storage closet and brings down the interior shelves and all their contents.

[stronglikebear]

That's...

THAT'S A T-REX. Yuri lets out a stifled yelp and stumbles backward, primal fear taking over and blotting out all rational observation. He scuttles back the way he came, hyperventilating and staring back at the doorway with huge eyes. Once it's out of sight it's hard to believe he actually saw it...even as he expects it to come charging out --

There's no way it could have fit through that door. He remains standing where he is, shaking like a leaf. There's no way it could have fit through the door. Did it just appear in there? Holy fucking shit, the Rift made a t-rex appear in the base. In the lab. He hopes, he really hopes there was no one in there.

It's still crashing alone. "Oh god, oh god," he mutters. "Oh, god."

Daine. Daine can talk to animals. It's an animal. He digs his phone out of his pocket, but his whole arm is shaking so bad he can barely hold onto it and it takes him so long, so long to pull up her number. "Come on!" he hisses into the phone as it dials, eyes still fixed on the doorway down the hall.

[wildmage_daine]

If Daine's phone rings somewhere, she doesn't hear it. The Badger's claw is the only thing that comes with her when she changes - whatever magic allows that little trick seems to have held up - and it's not as if dinosaurs have pockets. It might occur to her later to try and retrieve the device, but for now, she has other things to worry about.

Meanwhile, rats are beginning to teem up from the lower tunnels, streaming out of the nooks and crannies they usually frequent and flowing along the walls in a furry, brown tide. They might not be on the best terms with her, but they know a good deal when they hear one: help her ruin this place for the two-leggers who occupy it, and they can keep it for themselves. She can even promise the cats and dogs and other hunting creatures will leave the place be, at least for a time. Many of the rodents are already heading for the kitchens; the rest seek out papers they can tear or cords they can nibble.

This lab seems pretty well done for. Satisfied with her work, Daine shrinks down into buffalo shape - small enough to get back out through the door, but bulky enough to make trouble for anyone who tries to stop her from moving on. She shoulders her way out through the door with a grunt and a huff, then lumbers purposefully down the hall towards the next doorway.

[stronglikebear]

Yuri keeps creeping slowly back down the hall the way he came, eyes fixed on the door as he presses the phone way too hard against his ear. He slips backwards into a doorway, looking around wildly like he expects another t-rex to come up behind him (somehow), and stands there looking around the corner, torn between the impulse to run and the impulse to do something, even if it's just to stand there and stop anyone else going in. The phone rings out once, goes to voicemail, and he viciously stabs the button to hang up before trying again.

It can't reach him. It can't reach him, it's too big. He repeats that mantra to himself over and over as the phone rings out a second time -- where is she, is he going to have to find an animal to ask?! -- and then leaps what feels like several feet in the air, involuntarily flinging his phone, as something touches his leg. He whirls, expecting -- he doesn't know what he's expecting -- but finding rats. Not a rat, a stream of rats scuttling by, some pausing to glance up at him with an utter lack of fear that makes his stomach drop. "Daine?" he asks in a shaky voice, but if she's among them, she doesn't answer, and rats, there was something she'd told him about rats --

From his new vantage point in the middle of the hall, where he landed, he sees the start of a huge, dark shape emerging from the wrecked lab. He stumbles back toward his doorway, feet landing among scurrying rodents, but not before he sees that it's coming his way and that it's --

It's a bison. "Daine?!" he breathes again in shock, and then louder, either in a valiant effort to get her attention and get answers or in the stupidest reaction to a wild bison he could have concocted, "Daine!"

[wildmage_daine]

She huffs again, startled by the sound of someone calling out her name. Not Aziraphale, not Peeta. Not the harsh, clipped tone of someone seconds away from shooting at her. Her eyesight isn't very good in this shape, but her hearing and smell are well enough.

Yuri.

He shouldn't still be here.

Daine continues forward at a steady pace, pausing a good body-length away from him. Then she jerks her head, sharp and deliberate, back toward the exit. He needs to leave.

[stronglikebear]

It occurs to Yuri as the bison approaches that this might not be Daine. Animals have appeared and disappeared for no apparent reason before, and it's not impossible that this might be a real bison. He takes an unsteady step back as the animal approaches, thankfully stopping short but nowhere near short enough for his comfort.

It seems to be trying to tell him something. Yuri swallows thickly and steels himself. "Daine, if that's you, can you nod?" he pleads. "Because I really hope it's you."