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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Between his stipend and Tim's job they're technically making enough money to survive, but technicality sort of goes out the window on Manhattan prices, jesus h how do people live like this? It's almost enough to make him miss home. Almost.

Not much to go back to, and nothing he wants to remember. But lower rents.

Either way he's been toying with being an adult and getting a real job. Not that he has marketable skills. Not that he's worked since college, so, so long ago. This is the third time he's gone to a place to inquire about the window's "now hiring" sign and ended up bolting. How the hell is that even gonna go. 'Hi, does your business need someone to stand here awkwardly and point a camera at the floor and occasionally at people? I am your man.' Hey, he can use Tim as a reference!

That's almost funny enough that he laughs.

Almost.

He returns to the Rebel apartments, trudging, mopey, carrying a cheap six-pack he's realized he's going to have to drink on his own, Tim can't drink with the meds, so great, Tim will so appreciate that. Stupid piece of shit, forgetting something so basic. He rides the elevator up staring glumly at his warped reflection, steps out into the hallway, up to his door, drawing his keys from his pocket and thinking about very carefully nothing-

The door is open.

"Tim?" This is not something Tim would do.

He sets the beer gingerly on the carpeted hallway floor and gives the door a tentative push. It swings open slowly. "Tim..."

His stomach drops. Everything is torn up, in violent disarray. The rug rumpled, table kicked, blood ont he floor blood on the floor, not much but enough, something from a bloody nose maybe.

There's someone else there standing in the corner, he sees the suit and startles so badly he jerks back past the threshold straight across the hall to the opposite wall, a tall figure in a suit staring, staring, no, okay, this one has a face, he has eyes and hair and features, he's a clean six feet, not - not-

The man is stepping toward him slowly, holding a hand out placatingly, like approaching a rabid dog. He's holding a camera. Jay's camera.

It takes him only a moment.

He remembers this guy now, he realizes, one of the Rebel recruiters he talked to before getting his place, and he remembers the camera too even though it looks just like all the others (now strewn across the floor), it was less than a centimeter long at the time but Jay got bigger and it got bigger and they found it and heard everything, saw everything, everything he forced Tim to say-

"Jay," the man is saying. "Don't be alarmed. I'll explain."

Jay twitches violently, taking a step to the left, still pressed against the wall - the man halts, not wanting to give him a reason to run.

"Where's Tim," says Jay. His voice is shaking, but it's low, insistent. He sounds like someone. Alex. Pinning Brian in his sad little cabin, demanding, where are they, where are Jay and Tim. Like Brian this guy isn't answering. "Tell me!"

"Please come inside, Jay," says the man. "Let's not make a scene."

No, let's. He pulls his hand into a fist, keys between his fingers. "What did you do with him?!"

The man pitches forward, makes a grab at him, and Jay evades him narrowly and bolts, throwing himself down the hall, into the stairwell, down, down. He can hear shoes hitting the steps above him, closing on him. Jay's good at running. He's run from worse.

He bursts into the main lobby, out of breath, heart hammering, but he still hurls himself into the street and skids down the sidewalk. To the park. Get to the park.

Everything always leads back to the park.

The man's too close now, Jay can feel fingers brushing his hoodie, he unzips it frantically and wriggles out of it, he's off the path but there's people close, if he can just get-

Someone else jumps him, another man, not in a suit, some kind of undercover fuck, wraps an arm around his throat and brings him to a crashing, strangled halt.

"No!" he snarls, twisting and struggling as the other one catches up. "Where's Tim, what did you do to Tim?! Let me go!"

Hand over his mouth, he bites it and kicks someone in the shin, slashes his fist across someone's face and the keys bite into it; there's an enraged yell and then he's thrown to the ground. Weight comes down on him, winding him, holding him down. There's no one near, they're too well tucked between the trees. Pressed into the dirt and the grass, he sees a big black bird, a crow, staring at him with one eye, and for a fevered moment he thinks Zero.

"Daine," he chokes out. "Daine, tell, find Daine, help me, please-!"

An elbow jams into his back and he breaks off with a breathless grunt, but the bird has taken flight. Please, oh god, please let it have understood, and let her be nearby.

Crows are clever, and the Manhattan flocks are cleverer than most. They know Jay's face as well as they know the faces of Daine's other friends and acquaintances, and they know 'find' and 'help.' And even without a wildmage's influence, they'd know an unfair fight when they saw one.

Daine, as it happens, is on the wing not so far away - not by falcon standards, anyhow. She can only make out snatches of the struggle through the thick summer canopy, but she knows Jay's outnumbered. Mithros knows why two men felt the need to jump him in broad daylight, but that doesn't matter. Jay is her friend, and he's harmless in a way few from her realm could afford to be. It's not right.

Well, if they want to fight so badly, they can take it up with her.

The muffled sounds of the fight are pierced by a feral shriek as Daine plunges through the canopy and strikes like a lightning bolt, raking her talons over the scalp of the two-legger on top of Jay. She's small, but she's built up enough momentum to knock the man back some, and the sheer surprise of it all has him rolling aside and lifting his arms to shield his head.

That just leaves the other, some man in a suit who looks like he ought to be working in a fancy skyscraper and not scuffling in the underbrush. Is he with ROMAC? Are they trying to pull themselves back together? She didn't make a great mess of their tower for that.

He lunges, not at her, but at Jay - she's on the ground, wings splayed, probably looking more like a mad bird than a real threat. His mistake. She blooms into tiger shape, trusting her coat to keep her hidden from any two-leggers on the nearest paths, and pounces on the man, knocking him away from Jay and into a tree. His head strikes the trunk a bit harder than she'd meant it to, and he slumps to the ground with a groan. Daine cringes, then turns it into a snarl as she rounds on the first man, prowling between him and Jay. Above them, a gathering flock of crows crowd along the branches and stare down at the scene, jeering at the two-legger in their harsh voices.

This is what you get when you meddle with her Pack.

They've got Jay's hands behind his back, wrestling to cuff him, maybe, by the time something happens overhead, a shriek and a horrible tearing sound, and the man on top of him is suddenly off, swearing a blue streak, leaving Jay to scramble frantically to freedom. Suit's coming for him, but there's a bird in the way, there's-

-there's a tiger-

Oh god, she came, it worked. Thank fuck. Thank fuck.

Jay sprawls back, staring up at this immense predator protecting him, overwhelmed by the noise of crows, drawing attention from people around them, Daine can't sustain this shape for long but she won't need to. They're fucking off. Undercover bolts one way, Suit another, struggling to get up off the ground but propelling himself pretty well away from the tiger.

Jay sits where he is for a few moments, breathing hard, trying to find his voice.

"Daine," he says hoarsely. "Daine, they've got Tim."

Daine's more disgusted than surprised when the men decide they don't like these new odds and retreat. Cowards, both of them. Follow them, she tells the flock above her. Tell me where they end up hiding. The birds rise in a great, noisy flock, a few peeling off to keep an eye on Jay's attackers, and the rest just making a ruction, distracting any other folk from the scene below.

Not that there's much of a scene. She's not a tiger, obviously. That'd be fair ridiculous, a tiger in Central Park. She's just a dog, has been all along, and maybe she's a rather big dog and looks a bit more wolfish than most, but some dogs are like that. Look at the way her tail's wagging as she checks over her master. Maybe he took a tumble, or maybe they were just playing, but it's clear enough that there's nothing much to see, here.

Daine props her head beneath Jay's arm, their bodies blocking her face from view as she shifts her mouth enough for speech. "Who's 'they'?" she asks, soft and urgent. "Are you hurt?"

He rests his arm on her awkwardly, trying to appear natural, vaguely startled to hear her talking like this.

"Uh, um," he stammers."Rebels. They took him, my apartment was all messed up and they were waiting for me and - I - I'm fine, I just-"

Well, sort of fine. He's kinda scraped up. Actually his arm is bleeding pretty bad, now that he pushes his sleeve up.

"We," he pauses to breathe, uneven and shallow, "we have to help him. We have to find him." He looks up at her, into her bright wolf eyes. "It's my fault."

The Rebels? Daine huffs out a startled breath. That doesn't make sense. She considers herself a decent judge of folk, and never got the sense that the Rebels worked that way. Besides, neither Tim nor Jay strike her as being so dangerous or troublesome that they'd need to be brought in at all, let alone so violently. What could they have possibly done to deserve such treatment from anyone?

Maybe he's mistaken, or confused. She'll know more when her friends get back to her. For the moment, the most important thing is getting Jay someplace safe and getting his arm seen to. The clinic ought to work for both; she's heard it's neutral territory, much like Wilmot's. Whether any unscrupulous sorts would respect that is another matter entirely, but at least it's someplace they ought to be safe.

"We'll get my bag," she decides. "It's close. Then we can go to the clinic and figure out how to reach him."

"Okay," he says shakily, getting to his feet and hanging onto his arm. "Okay."

He follows her closely, looking over his shoulder with a constancy that is too easy and too reflexive. It's been a long time, or has it, but it's so easy to think there is something there, there is always something there and he doesn't have a camera, and what is he without that?

He could make one. Doesn't have much on hand. Not gonna turn his keys again, lost his jacket a ways back. Whatever. He'll be okay. Daine will take care of him. He always needs someone to do that doesn't he, even when he never fucking realized - did he ever thank Tim? Ever?

"Thank you," he blurts awkwardly, like oh right that. "For coming. And, uh..." He waves his good arm around them in a vague gesture at the trees. "Your friends, too."

Daine lets her mouth lapse back into wolf shape as she leads the way to her bag. It's not even so far as the TARDIS, today; the thick summer foliage means she can stash it in any tree she chooses without a two-legger spotting it (though if anyone did see it and attempt to retrieve it, any nearby wildlife would soon make them regret it). At the moment, she has it in the same tree Cleverpaws sleeps in. An apologetic mental nudge is enough to wake the raccoon, and as they approach the tree, the bag thuds to the ground.

She glances up at Jay when he thanks her, then gives her tail a slow wag. "You're Pack," she says simply. Then, she tilts her head to indicate her bag. "Take it. I'll change back once we reach the clinic." It's quicker that way, and if they're attacked again, she doesn't want to have to worry about shifting out of her clothes or leaving them behind.

After a moment's consideration, she shifts into a less noticeable wolfhound shape. She's still reassuringly large, and she plans on sticking close enough to Jay that folk will just assume she's leashed, but that trick won't work if she looks wolfish enough to get stares. She wags her tail again encouragingly, then starts toward the path, keeping pace with Jay in what ought to look like as neat a heel as anyone could ask for.

He's... pack? Like wolf pack? Is that like family to her? She's saying of course she came for him because he's her friend.

That... that might be the nicest thing anyone's ever said to him.

He feels a huge, unbearable swell of mixed emotions, warmth toward her, confusion and alarm and a kneejerk urge to push as far away as he can because he's not worth it, he's really really not, and he knows what Tim would say, if she gets too close they'll just be putting her in danger, but... but if she hadn't saved him then they wouldn't be able to save Tim, and maybe they'd both die in there.

And this is exactly what Tim was pissed about, or part of it. Tim did everything he could to protect everyone and Jay always made it worse, and he never protected Tim, never. And if he had it wouldn't have been because he was 'Pack.'

He feels like he's gonna cry and he doesn't remember feeling that since he was a kid.

He picks up Daine's bag mutely and follows her, close enough to look like he's walking her, taking small comfort in her wagging. Instinct is to pet her, but that would probably be immensely rude. Good thing he only has one good arm.

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."

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

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