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

Current Location: Rebel apartments, Rebel Base
Current Music: September 9th, 2013

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

[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.

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Daine stays visibly alert during the walk to the clinic, head high and ears pricked. It's more for Jay's benefit than anything else, as she's relying more on the surrounding People than her own senses to make sure they aren't being hunted. Folk don't look twice at them, or acknowledge them at all except to move aside to avoid encroaching on a strange, large dog's personal space. She glances up at him a few times per block, making sure he's keeping up and trying to look reassuring. So long as they're surrounded by strangers, encouraging looks is about all she can offer him on that front.

She's never actually been inside the clinic before. It's never been needful; there are healers at the base, and she's never suffered worse than cuts and bruises. But she's learned its location - seemed foolish not to - and she steers Jay there easily enough. She presses the handicapped entry panel with her paw and steps inside, nose prickling at the antiseptic smell of the place.

Jay manages a faint, bemused smile when Daine opens the door for him, like she's a service dog or something, and he follows her in, looking around in mild discomfort. He hasn't had occasion to be here yet, and that suits him fine - he doesn't have Tim's myriad reasons to fear hospitals (or maybe it's not fear, maybe just resigned familiarity, but how would he know, he never asked), but he still doesn't feel entirely comfortable in them. Especially not after the last couple times he visited one. So to speak.

"Um," he says, not sure what to do. Trying to look nonchalant as he talks to a dog. "I guess you need to change, right?" He glances around for a bathroom - there's a couple single stall ones in the corner. "Here." He steps over and pushes open the door to the men's room, setting her bag gingerly inside and holding it open for her. "I'll, um - I'll find someone to talk to about my arm."

He can do this. It'll be fine.

He steps away and regards the reception desk with vague displeasure. He doesn't want to try to explain this to anyone. And all the receptionists are occupied with other people. He doesn't have time for this, he needs to get in and out as quickly as possible. They need to find Tim. Why did he even agree to come here? He should have pushed the issue. They should have gone to the Base.

He sees a man stepping out from the door beside the desk, where the patients actually go in, and he makes an executive decision.

"Hey, um, excuse me," he says, approaching the man with a staunch lack of regard for whether he's going on a break or if he's even a doctor or what. "I, um, my arm is - I need some help." He rolls up his sleeve with a wince to reveal his arm, which is streaked in blood - the cuts aren't that bad but it's been sort of bleeding for a while now - and that should communicate mild urgency, at least.

Seth hasn't been by the clinic much since Daniel di- disappeared. He's been avoiding people altogether, really. It's not like he's very good company these days anyway. Though when they called him in for a power-related thing, he didn't really feel like he could say no.

Still, he tried to get it over with as quickly as possible, and is now on his way out to go home and soak in misery for the rest of the day, if the rest of the week has been anything to go by.

He's stopped from doing so however, by a shorter, awkward-looking man approaching him on the way out. He looks down at the proffered arm, frowning down at it for a moment, before glancing back at the reception desk. He's in half a mind to simply point him towards the bathroom and tell him to wrap up in paper towels and sit down to wait for someone to become available.

Then he sighs and nods. Stuff has been really busy around here since what happened at Romac, and this looks to be well within his abilities to handle, so he can't quite justify not helping. "Yeah alright. Come on, I'll patch you up," he says, he says, jerking his head for Jay to follow so they can find a free room.

It's not the ladies' room, but it's only for one person and the door locks, so it hardly matters. Once Daine's alone, she quickly shifts back and dresses. A quick mental check with her friends tells her the two-leggers who attacked Jay are still on the move, so she shoulders her bag and steps out to find Jay.

He takes some tracking - he must have found someone to take him back quicker than Daine had anticipated. Well, she's not just going to wait out here - not when Jay's got folk after him. This might be neutral ground, but she doesn't trust two-leggers like the ones she'd fought off to respect that. So she heads back into the clinic proper. No one tries to stop her, which is all the more reason to find Jay quickly. They'll just let anyone wander through.

Fortunately, he doesn't take all that long to find. She reshapes her ears and follows the sound of his voice, and hears both him and Seth in one of the rooms off the main hallway. She raps the door lightly, more a warning than a request. "It's Daine," she says before pushing the door open and slipping inside. "How's your arm?"

"Thanks," murmurs Jay, following Seth and hoping Daine will just be able to find them. She does, naturally, while Seth is still inspecting his wounds.

"Um, it's okay, I think," he says, glancing at Seth. Should he try to come up with an explanation for who she is? Maybe he'll just assume a friend. That's the truth anyway. "Look, we need to get moving, I... just the quickest patch job you can, really," he says awkwardly to the guy.

Seth leads the guy into a room, making sure he's human and that there's no fancy physiological weirdness that'll affect how Seth needs to patch him up. But it all seems pretty standard, Jay could've just as easily gone into a regular clinic, though of course they have longer waiting times, and worry about identification and payment and all that.

He's just finished cleaning the arm and the wound, when someone else enters the room. He blinks unexpectedly at Daine, then at Jay, who's obviously who she's there for, not Seth.

"Yeah, sure," he answers the guy, fetching what he needs. The apparently urgency and Daine being invovled makes him curious what this is about. "What's up, Daine?" he asks with a frown, as he starts patching Jay up - couple of butterfly stitches where the wound's widest, then a bandage should do.

At least it's Seth doing the patching-up. Daine knows him well enough, and isn't too concerned about trying to talk round him as if he's not even here. "Someone's taken our friend," she says bluntly, "and they would've snatched up Jay, too, if he hadn't called me. They--" she cuts herself off abruptly, her gaze going distant for a few moments.

One of the men is still on the move, but the other's gone to ground, two of the crows tell her. He didn't use the main entrance to the rebel base, but that's hardly the only one, and Daine knows several of them. She scowls darkly and blinks her eyes back into focus, looking at Jay.

"One of 'em just went to the base."

Oh, they - they know each other. Well that simplifies things, maybe. Jay glances with mild suspicion at Seth, then back to Daine, watching in confusion as she stares into the distance like she's remembering something. When she speaks again he blinks, realizing she must be in communication with the animals, they're giving her telepathic recon, god damn but she's a good ally to have.

"I told you, they're Rebels," he says, deciding fuck it, this is too urgent not to skirt around it in front of Seth. "I recognized one of them. They took Tim, I know they did. And I know why, too, it's-"

Nope, nope. Should not have said that. Fuck. Now he's gonna have to explain that.

Can't. Won't. Not gonna betray Tim, not again, never fucking again.

"It's my fault," he says again, softly. It's all he can say. "We have to help him, before it's too late."

He can only imagine what they might do to Tim if they're so damn curious about his alternate persona that they'd abduct him over it - and he doesn't want to imagine. He sets his jaw and casts his eyes down to the floor.

It's very difficult to Seth to continue doing the patching up when they drop this kind of heavy information on him. A rescue mission from the Rebel base? Kind of a tall order, even if it wasn't planned in a rush, which this sounds like it is.

"How exactly are you planning on doing that?" he asks, sceptical and a little worried on their behalf, refocusing on the wrapping of bandages. He doesn't question why they would take this Tim person. If Daine plans to rescue him, then he probably deserves rescuing.

"They'll probably have taken him to an interrogation room, or a holding cell," he says, not sure if he's trying to talk them out of it or just giving advice. "If he's got powers they're worried about, they might even have taken him to a high security room. All that stuff's on the lower levels, and ya can't just waltz in there."

Daine stands very still, her eyes unfocused, feeling hot and cold by turns. She'd trusted them. She'd brought folk in - they wouldn't even know who Jay was if she hadn't found him, and maybe ROMAC wouldn't have been any better to him, but they might not have been any worse, either. And if she hadn't brought them Jay, they wouldn't have known about Tim.

Tim is in a cage because of her.

She barely hears what Jay's saying. It's far off, it doesn't matter, it's nothing she doesn't already know. But Seth's talking as if he knows where they imprison folk, and she tilts her head a little towards him, her gaze still boring into the middle distance. "You know where they'd have him?" Her voice sounds a little odd, almost as far-off and distant as Jay's. Oh, well. That's not important, either. The only important things are getting Tim out of whatever cage they've put him in, and making sure they never cage anyone else again. Ever.

Jay, too, is very fucking interested in hearing what Seth has to say on this. He looks up at the guy with a suspicious frown, suddenly wanting to pull away, managing not to. "How do you know that?" he asks, his voice taking on a hard edge. "Are you with them?"

If he is, Jay would be pretty well fucked, wouldn't he - but Daine's here, and it's hard to worry when Daine is around.

Seth gives a light snort in reply to Jay's question - the fact he isn't is kind of the point of having an unaffiliated clinic, after all. "Well, I was, almost a year ago," he answers, not to bothered by the hostility - as he himself shares it.

"But then they decided to lock me up, so that kinda put an end to our friendship," he explains, glancing at Daine. He remembers the first time he'd met her and found out she was with the rebels, he'd warned her against trusting them. This was kind of what he meant. He can't even really be surprised that it's happened.

As if they have time for anyone's life story. Daine feels a sharp stab of impatience, and forces herself to take a slow, deep breath. Then, she turns to look at Seth directly. It seems that might be needful.

"You know the layout," she repeats, with just a bit more emphasis. "Yes or no?"

Well, then. That's different. Jay lifts his chin with a gesture of acceptance, then glances at Daine. He has to appreciate her curtness; she means business, that means they're gonna be taking action now.

He looks back at Seth, awaiting his answer.

"I do," he answers, sitting back a little, looking at Daine. He's never seen her like this - not that he actually knows her that well at all. He just hadn't pegged her for someone who would... well, take matters into her own hands like this - at least not when the matters are this huge.

"You got a plan?" he asks, refocusing on Jay's arm, finishing it up. He offers him a painkiller too - if he intends to use that arm for a rescue mission, then distracting pain isn't ideal.

It had been different in Carthak. She'd had to wait for it to arrive, that solid, certain knowledge of what she had to do. Now, it's so obvious it's almost tiresome. She taught the Emperor a lesson, and she'll teach the Rebels one, too. That's what she does, it seems. Fine.

"I'm going to take the place apart," she says, vaguely pleased at how reasonable she sounds. No need to worry; everything's under control. "You can help, if you want. Elsewise, I'll just do it on my own." She lifts a hand, catches herself before she can start nibbling her thumbnail, and instead taps a fingertip against her chin. "It'd be best if I knew where the cages were going in."

Jay nods his thanks and takes the painkiller, swallowing it dry, a trick he sort of had to pick up from Tim. "I'm going with you," he says immediately. There's just no question. He won't be much help, he knows that, but he has to be there. He just has to.

Seth only hesitates for a moment. "Me too," he says decisively.

It's something he's been thinking about for months. Sometimes fleetingly, vaguely, just a non-specific desire to get revenge, to free Manhattan of that place and make sure neither he nor anyone else ends up in the same situation again. Then sometimes not so vaguely, which led to an awful lot of information-gathering and planning. But in the end, the risk had always seemed too great - he'd had too much to lose.

He doesn't feel like that now. From the sound of it, he's not going to talk Daine out of this. And he can help. He can do what he's wanted to for so long. And if it all goes disastrously wrong, well... That's that.

"All the cells are on lower levels. The main floor's mostly living space, offices, storage. Stuff everyone's got access to," he rattles off. "There's dozens of people locked up down there, if not more. If you're rescuing your friend, you should let them all out. It'll create a distraction, too."

It's probably obvious that this isn't the first time Seth's considered this.

Daine nods, slow and thoughtful. She doesn't think they'll be needing more of a distraction than the one she'll be providing... but the more confusion they can sow, the better.

"Is there a way straight into the lower levels, without passing through the main floor?" That would be best. They could get in and get folk out without going through all the innocents who are just living there. They'll have time to get out before Daine takes on the rest of it.

Someone else will have to handle the evacuation, she realizes with a frown. All three of them are probably marked for capture. It's not as if they'll have to guess who the tiger defending Jay could have been. She pulls out her phone and fires off a text to Peeta, and after a moment's consideration, another to Aziraphale. Hopefully he won't try to stop them, not if he knows what the Rebels have been doing.

Jay stands back on his feet, a little shaky but no worse for wear. "Let's go," he says before Seth can answer. "We can talk on the move." He heads out, expecting them to follow, hands stuffed in his pockets. He feels pretty calm, not as calm as Daine maybe, but it's not like this is out of his element. He made a lifetime of doing dumb shit that was way over his head, and this time he has backup, competent backup. And this time there's no thing watching him from around the corner, and no masked folks running around and screwing things up. Everything feels strangely solid and clear. He knows what he's gonna do and he's gonna fuckin do it, end of story.

He doesn't even think about documenting it.

Seth follows, though he pauses on the way out to tell one of the clinic workers to call in more help. He doesn't say why, of course, even if many of them would help. He doesn't want to inadvertently tip anyone at the rebel base off. The fewer people in the know, the better. That's how he's always planned it - a surgical strike.

"There's two options," he answers, once he's rejoined the other two. "There's some stairs going down there not too far from the main entrance, but obviously there's more people there. Or there's a side entrance I think'll work. Locked, but I can get past that. It's barely used, but we'll have to enter from the train tunnels rather than the station."

Aziraphale gets back to her quickly, and she reads the texts as they walk. Good - he's going to help, and he's not asking questions or trying to talk her out of it. That makes things easier.

"Side entrance," she says. "Folk will want to use the main entrance to leave." And once it becomes clear that they're just on the lower level, there won't be so many guards up above to muck up an evacuation - which they might, elsewise. It won't be obvious just how much of a ruction she's planning on causing - not right off, anyway.

She looks at Seth, then Jay. "We open the cages and get the prisoners out. Then I'm going up."

"Okay," says Jay with a quick nod. "I don't have any, like... tactical... whatever, I don't want to get in the way." He looks at Seth. "You just get me to Tim and I'll get him out."

He doesn't like the idea of just leaving the hard part to Daine and this new guy, but on the other hand, Daine is frighteningly serious right now, and he's got a pretty good feeling she can handle herself. This is her business, and Seth's, more than his. He didn't really mean this to turn into a big thing, but if that's what they want to do then so be it. As long as he can get in, get Tim, and get out, he can leave the rest in their more capable hands and paws.

Seth nods in agreement at the plan, leading the way towards the underground and the appropriate train. It'll take almost half an hour to get to the appropriate entrance, and Seth expects a rather tense train ride. But at least they'll have a little time to hash out the most important details, and for Seth to inform them of the layout.

"What are you gonna do once you're up?" he asks, glancing over at Daine. He doesn't really know the extent of her powers, so some sort of fore-warning would be nice. He's got a few other things in mind besides letting people escape. He'll need to know the easiest way to incorporate that.

Daine pockets her phone and frowns, small and pensive. She wishes she had a bone army to work with, but the tunnels would be too cramped for most of them, anyway. There's no Graveyard Hag to help her - if 'help' was even the right word for it. She doesn't have any of the things she had in Carthak.

But as they descend into the underground and a familiar, whispering itch brushes against her mind, she thinks: well, I still have the rats.

Table that for the moment. She looks back up at Seth. "I s'pose I can't actually tear the place down." That might collapse the ground above, and the city's too busy for that, too many folk would get hurt. "But I'll smash up as much as I can. Expensive things. Records. Enough so they won't be able to put themselves back together in any kind of hurry."

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