FIC: Past Today 3/5
Dec. 27th, 2014 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dollarformynameHe should've kidnapped her.
Alec realizes now that that's where he went wrong. Listening to Max like she knew what the right thing was, because the right thing was all she ever tried to do when he knew her, was a mistake. If he'd just knocked her upside the head and hogtied her, stuffed her in the trunk and hightailed it to the middle of nowhere so she could safely throw her hissy fit until he made her see what was good for her, none of this would have happened.
After spending the rest of the the night skulking around the city, a few near-misses that involved running for his life, gunfights in crowded areas, more grand theft auto and a higher-speed chase, Alec is beginning to really appreciate the merits of extreme measures. When he sees the Mercedes idling next to a fancy bar that's just closed down for the night, he suddenly understands that kidnapping was the answer to all of his problems all along, clearly.
"Shut up," he grates out, eyes skittering around the dark side street for witnesses while, with a pistol in each hand, he encourages the driver to sit tight and the woman to exit the passenger seat, slowly and quietly. She's not really getting that last part, whimpering and sobbing into her hands. "Listen, lady, if you just do what I freakin' tell you, we won't have any problems. Shutting the hell up is an important part of that."
The rain's back and the wind is icy and brutal. Alec's hungry again (had to ditch his supplies in his getaway), exhausted and sick of thinking about shit he hasn't thought about in years, and his shoulder is on fire from where he took a bullet a couple hours ago. He's lucky it's the only hit he took, that he hasn't bled out yet, but that kind of crap luck's not going to hold out much longer and he's definitely not in the mood for any woe-is-me blubbering from the privileged assholes of Ordinary society.
The woman manages to press her gloved hands tighter to her face, muffling the noise some. Alec guides her around the back of the car when the driver (her husband, judging from the murder in the guy's eyes) pops the trunk. She immediately gets hysterical again, so Alec shoves her in impatiently and slams it shut. Walks around to the driver's side.
"This is how it's going to play out," he tells the husband, who's bundled up in his high-dollar coat and scarf, the Mercedes’ heater blasting so high it's drowning out the softly playing radio and making his face all red. Maybe some of that color is Alec's doing, but he's not really inclined to care right now. "You're headed out of the city on business, I don't care what kind, just make something up. We're gonna cruise through the checkpoints nice and easy, and if anyone comes poking around the trunk, your wife dies. I'm not gonna negotiate with anyone. Doesn't matter if I'm caught right after, won't make it any better or worse for me to kill her. I can probably manage a bullet for you, too, before they get me. Understand?"
The husband's face goes near-purple, but he nods.
"We're gonna be real cozy back there," Alec adds. "Human shield and all that, so heat scanners won't improve anyone's aim much."
"I got it," the guy bites out. "How far do I have to go before you fuck off?"
"Just get me through Checkpoint K and out past the train tracks. Pull over and honk when we're there—do not get out and try to open the trunk yourself; I might get trigger-happy. When the trunk opens, count to one hundred. After that, you're free and clear."
"How do I know you won't just kill us both?"
Alec stares hard at the guy. He's got no intention of killing either of them, but he can't let them know that. This is the part where he's supposed to say something reassuring like, I'm not a monster. I just want to live and you assholes are hellbent against letting me, so this is the kinda shit I've gotta do. It's what Max would say (probably with less cussing and more attitude), but Max is gone and Alec is here. That stuff never gets through, anyway, and he's still bleeding all over the street, so he just says, "Use your common sense and figure out your chances. Cooperate and maybe live, or don't cooperate and definitely die."
With that, Alec goes to fold himself in the trunk alongside his hostage.
Falters when he catches the urgent soundtrack of breaking news on the car’s radio. The voice of an overexcited newscaster quickly follows; something about another transgenic run-in with the police, and Alec works very hard not to care.
He resumes walking, almost makes it to the trunk when he hears the one thing that, a few minutes ago, would’ve had him swearing up and down that it’d only make him run away faster. Instead, it stops him cold.
"—police have finally caught up to the transgenic who was reported robbing a convenience store early this morning—"
"Turn that up," he demands, scaring the driver half out of his seat when he appears at the window again.
The guy scowls hard but does what he’s told.
"—Mike joins me live by phone now."
"We’re standing in front of the building where the fugitive has taken cover. There’s an unknown number of hostages inside, and we’ve been told that at least twelve people are dead. The entire roadway is filled with spectators and emergency response crews—you can probably hear the chaos. People are shouting and holding up anti-transgenic signs. The police have put up barricades to try and keep the crowd out of harm's way. They don’t know if the fugitive is armed—if he has a gun—but the police are proceeding with extreme caution."
"There’ve been reports that the FBI is there. Can you confirm that?"
"The FBI showed up less than an hour ago and it appears they’re now officially in charge."
A new voice chimes in, sounding farther away, "You need to move back. Get out of the street."
"The police are warning people to clear the street." Mike says. "They’re putting up more barricades. We're going to have to move, give us a second."
"Okay, Mike, let me know when you get settled. Once again, listeners, the transgenic who was caught on camera robbing a convenience store this morning is now trapped in an office building downtown, surrounded by police."
"Crap," Alec says, gritting his teeth as the newscaster rambles on about Alec’s rooftop chase earlier, and a bunch of blah-bitty-blah that basically translates to how it serves him right for being a pain in the ass.
It shouldn’t matter. Alec really, really wants it to not matter. Except.
Ben would probably still be playing cards with himself in his underground hideaway if Alec had stayed put. Probably tried to follow him out and then got himself caught. Alec tries to tell himself it’s not his fault his twin is a dumbass, though. Tries to tell himself the blame lies with Ben, all the way. Even if Alec technically started this whole mess, it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been so … thrown. Ben's not just bad luck, he's a plague of catastrophe, spreading his special brand of FUBAR far and wide and grinning that goddamn lunatic grin the whole way. Alec never had any trouble going shopping, for fuck's sake, before that cursed bastard showed up.
Besides, Alec would have to be the biggest idiot on the planet to try infiltrating a mob of bloodthirsty law enforcement sitting smack in the middle of even more bloodthirsty citizens. Especially when "FBI" is doubtlessly code for "Ames White and his wacky genocidal cult buddies."
Right. So, whatever. Alec has scored his ticket out of here and it’s time to punch it.
He bites his lip.
Grudgingly, Alec turns back to the driver. "Alright, change of plans."
He explains to new route they’re going to take, tries to soften the blow of the whole thing by saying that one checkpoint between them and their new destination is better than the four checkpoints between them and the city limits, but the driver doesn’t look any happier about it.
"You’re crazy," seems to be his wholehearted opinion on the matter.
Alec smirks tiredly. "You should see the other guy."
Head spinning with a new kind of anxiety, he manages to make it to the trunk without changing his mind again, and hopes like hell that the warmth and blood loss won't tug him into unconsciousness before he's ready.
What seemed brilliant a few minutes ago is starting to look less so, but it's too late to back out now.
-:-
So, okay. Definitely not the best plan he's ever had.
It's not a short drive to the checkpoint, what with all the traffic jams the city-wide search is causing, and the car is jarring his bad shoulder so much he's on the verge of honest-to-god tears. The woman he's blanketing himself with is shaking and crying a snotty mess all over his neck and face, and, icing on the sucktastic-cake, she pissed all over herself—and him—about five minutes into the ride. Alec is annoyed and ashamed of himself, and also annoyed.
Ben is the epitome of what people believe of transgenics, as a whole, the one who actually deserves to be put down like the wrongheaded animal he is. Alec doesn't know what he’s thinking, putting himself through all this. Saving Ben won't help anyone.
So maybe that's what it is. Maybe the not helping is what appeals to Alec, big fuck you to the city and all the backwards-thinking metropolises like it. Or maybe it’s just that if anyone’s going to be killing Ben, it’s Alec. He earned that privilege first and it’s his to keep.
Maybe he's a little more unhinged than he thought.
When the car finally slows, Alec clenches his teeth and presses the muzzle of his gun to the woman's temple. Her breath hitches once, but she goes quiet. He tries to channel some reassurance through the grip on her elbow, but she only stiffens like she might pee again, so he gives that up pretty quickly.
The car stops, and a man's voice filters back: a cop.
Alec's relieved to note the driver's voice stays steady and confident when he replies, even manages to get a few laughs out of the cop as they go through the usual questions: Where are you headed? Did you leave your vehicle unattended at any time between here and home? Et cetera, et cetera.
It's all going smoothly until the cop says, "Please unlock the back doors and pop the trunk, sir," and Alec's head goes white with panic.
The driver stammers a little, then regains enough of himself to feign a little of that rich-man's entitled indignation. "What the hell for?"
"Standard procedure," the cop says, and Alec is so stupid. Alec is fucked six ways from Sunday and so incredibly stupid. Of course it's standard procedure when there are monsters on the loose, fuck.
The woman on top of him starts shaking and crying again, inconsolable in the face of her imminent doom, and Alec can't say, "I'm not going to shoot you, shut up," because then she'd probably start screaming. But he's not going to shoot her, that much hasn't changed, even if he's certainly going to die in the next few seconds, even if he's so extraordinarily furious with her and everything she stands for.
Goddamn people, Alec thinks, pushing the lady to the side so he can squirm closer to the back. She keeps sobbing, muttering stuff about her children's weddings and her husband's retirement and all the other things she wants to live for, all accusing, like he has single-handedly ushered in the apocalypse, and Alec is starting to lose his temper a little bit. He hasn't lost his temper in a long time. Has been through more feelings today than in the past five years combined.
"I just wanted some fucking chips so my stomach would stop fucking eating itself. How does that cost me my fucking life?" he mutters angrily as he pries at the carpeting underneath, like maybe he can burrow his way out, or something. Christ, he doesn't even know what the hell he's doing anymore. His shoulder screams at him from where he's laying on it to get a better angle; he's going to black out in a minute, which is probably the best way to face his execution, anyway. "You think I wanna be here? You think hiding in a trunk with a bullet in my shoulder and marinating in your bodily fluids is fun for me? You think I wouldn't rather be holed up in some abandoned shack living like the goddamn animal you seem to think I am? Because I totally would. I'd love and romance the chance for a dumpster-dinner, if it meant you people would leave me the fuck alone and stop trying to slaughter me for fucking breathing."
And once he gets going, there's no stopping. He's desperately tearing up his fingers trying to dig his way through carpet and steel, a trapped animal trying to scrabble its way out of a corner, no matter how fruitless or self-destructive, and the flood gates are wide open.
"I didn't ask to be whipped up in a test tube, and I sure as hell didn't ask for some crazy X5 with a peace-love-and-understanding agenda to burn my house down, lady. Fucking whacked, every single one us, for going along with that shit. 'Cause of course we were gonna be able to make love and not war with the people vicious enough to manufacture a bunch of babies for the sole purpose of turning them into killing machines, makes perfect sense, right? Totally silly to think you'd blow us all sky-high for having minds of our own.
Your country's all about having the biggest, baddest weapons and racking up the highest body count, and you act like we're the worst thing that ever happened to you. Like we just materialized out of the ether and it wasn't you assholes who thought us up in the first place. You people blew up my home, killed my friends, and now you're hunting us down, one by one. Yeah, we're the monsters, but you wanna know something? If we were as bloodthirsty as you made us out to be, this whole country would be drowning in its own blood right now, because we're professionals, lady. We're really fucking amazing at neutralizing the enemy, that's what you made us to be. But no one's drowning, and we're the ones in hiding, so what does that tell you, huh? What the fuck does that tell you?"
Alec doesn't notice exactly when the woman stops blubbering, or that he's kind of started to, just keeps up his goodbye, cruel world speechifying, while willing the lightheadedness into full-on unconciousness already. He doesn't really know when he went from criticizing Max's ghost, to having her possess him and take over his mouth, either. He just wants to go home, even if he doesn't know where that is anymore, and that comes pouring out against his will, too, goddamn it.
He nearly jumps out of his skin when a gloved hand clamps over his mouth, rolls onto his back and finds the woman staring down at him with wide eyes, or at least in his general direction. Takes him a minute to remember she can't see in the dark.
She pulls her hand away and shushes him, still staring into nothing with rabid curiosity, like she's trying to get a better look at something alien, but Alec doesn't get it. He's confused, and he wasn't done talking, apparently. "I'm not gonna kill you, even though you're about to feed me to the hounds with a smile on your face." he says. "I was never gonna—what the hell is going on?"
The car lurches forward and the trunk lid stays firmly shut.
"You were getting a bit hysterical," the woman tells him, like she's never fallen victim to such a thing in her life. "Loud."
"What?"
"Would've wasted all my husband's hard, bribing efforts if you'd gone on much longer," she clarifies, and pats him on the head like she wasn't terrified he'd bite her face off a few minutes ago.
"What? I don't—what?" Looks like all his words have gone away, except that one.
She smiles at him, a little uncertain, and pats at his good shoulder. "You didn't think he was going to let them come back here and get me killed, did you? He's very convincing; you couldn’t have picked a better hostage, honestly."
Oh. Okay, then. So Alec's plan was awesome the whole time and he just vomited up all those last words for nothing.
Awkward.
-:-
With his wife is safely back up front and Alec stumbling up onto the curb, the Mercedes’ driver can’t peel away from the street corner fast enough.
Mind sluggish, Alec stands there for a little while, rain pelting his face and blurring his vision as he scans rooftops and rifles through his memory for the layout of this neighborhood. A couple blocks over, he can hear police shouting into bullhorns, not quite drowned out by the crowd. Traffic cruises by and splashes him with mud and more water, and it occurs to him after a minute or so that he should probably not be hanging out in plain sight like this.
He has to stop and let a wave of dizziness pass before he gets very far. He should really get this freaking bullet out of his shoulder soon.
"Okay," Alec breathes out when it’s time to stop and reassess. He peeks around the corner of an apartment building across the street from the building he wants, heart skipping a couple of beats when he catches sight of the wall. That’s the only way to describe it. Authorities, news crews, civilians and all their vehicles and accessories are packed in so tight it’s like a living, breathing structure of its own.
"Avoid news cameras," he mutters aloud, psyching himself up for mission impossible. "Get past the pitchfork mob. Resist waving hi to the FBI. Rescue the possibly armed whackjob who may or may not be holding a grudge. Don’t get shot again. Easy as pie."
Briefly, he entertains the idea of luring a cop or ambulance worker over and trying to sneak through the crowd in a stolen uniform, but they used that ruse to escape Jam Pony way back when and White is, unfortunately, not a really idiotic archnemesis who’s likely to fall for the same trick twice.
He looks up and discards the idea of another roof. He’s definitely not up for anymore acrobatics tonight.
"Down under it is, then," Alec decides, spotting a storm drain.
He doesn’t climb down so much as fall into the hole semi-gracefully, but he makes it without breaking anything so he’ll count that as a win.
Stumbling his way underneath the pandemonium and finding the building’s parking garage is easy enough, but he stalls under the grate that leads back up when he hears authoritative voices barking orders back and forth. He hadn’t been able to see much through the swarm of people, so he wasn’t aware that the cops have already started securing the lower levels.
Which means Ben is up high.
Low on options, Alec lets the sweep to pass him by, biding his time until one of the men finally declares the section clear. The majority of officers move on but a couple of guys are posted right on top of him, eyes alert for incoming. They aren’t looking for incoming from down here, though, the morons, and so Alec climbs up out of the ground, quietly and so, so carefully. Before either of them can sound an alarm, Alec punches one out and wraps his arms around the other’s neck, guiding him silently to the pavement as he passes out.
Scoping out the scene from his improved vantage point, he discovers there’s a support beam blocking the line of sight between him and the cops guarding the entrance. He loots the unconscious men for more weapons and slinks away to locate the nearest stairwell.
It’s not until he’s standing in front of the steps that he remembers this building is really very tall. With a lot of floors.
And a lot of stairs.
Fucking Ben, Alec thinks on a long exhale, and starts to climb.
-:-
On the second floor, Alec gets into a scuffle with another two-man patrol and takes a tumble back down to the first floor somewhere in the middle of it, badly twisting his knee.
"Fuck," he spits, and kicks the unconscious cop who pushed him for good measure. That sends another agonizing jolt through his leg, and he has to stand there taking short, quick breaths until it subsides again.
Putting weight on it doesn’t go much better, and recovering the lost ground takes twice as long as it had the first time.
His relief is pure and overwhelming when he hits the eighth floor and barely misses tripping over the body sprawled across the landing. Going all the way to the top might have killed him, and he really didn’t want to have to go out so ridiculously after all this.
The security guard’s neck is broken, head twisted backwards and one foot stuck in the stairwell’s door, holding it open enough for Alec to see another body in the hallway beyond it. When he makes it into the hallway proper, he has to take a moment to marvel at what he finds.
There are bodies all over the place. Aside from the two he had to step over, it seems they’d all been coming from the direction of the elevators and a more central staircase. Looks like Ben was dropping his pursuers left and right as he went, limbs and necks all wrong-angled, most of the outstretched hands clutching or reaching toward a variety of weapons. Yet not a drop of blood has been spilled. Every one of them is in a uniform of some kind—police or the building’s private security—and Alec feels a little embarrassed for them.
Mess with a tiger and someone’s bound to get mauled, he thinks, almost unwillingly, then hastily chases it down with a healthy dose of guilt and resentment.
"I said shut up."
Ben.
Cocking his head, Alec picks up on more voices a little ways down. The fearful murmurs of the captives are to be expected, but Ben’s is the clearest, a kind of emotionless resignation there that Alec would like to pretend doesn’t bother him.
He follows the noise and the trail of corpses until he runs into a closed door.
Last chance to turn back, and so he stares at it for far too long. Really needs to push aside the reckless mindset this day has inflicted on him and think very, very hard about what he’s getting himself into here.
Alec's a specialized soldier with a high IQ and primal instincts. Ben's a wild animal with opposable thumbs and tactical training.
There's no way this will end well.
Alec goes in.
NEXT
Alec realizes now that that's where he went wrong. Listening to Max like she knew what the right thing was, because the right thing was all she ever tried to do when he knew her, was a mistake. If he'd just knocked her upside the head and hogtied her, stuffed her in the trunk and hightailed it to the middle of nowhere so she could safely throw her hissy fit until he made her see what was good for her, none of this would have happened.
After spending the rest of the the night skulking around the city, a few near-misses that involved running for his life, gunfights in crowded areas, more grand theft auto and a higher-speed chase, Alec is beginning to really appreciate the merits of extreme measures. When he sees the Mercedes idling next to a fancy bar that's just closed down for the night, he suddenly understands that kidnapping was the answer to all of his problems all along, clearly.
"Shut up," he grates out, eyes skittering around the dark side street for witnesses while, with a pistol in each hand, he encourages the driver to sit tight and the woman to exit the passenger seat, slowly and quietly. She's not really getting that last part, whimpering and sobbing into her hands. "Listen, lady, if you just do what I freakin' tell you, we won't have any problems. Shutting the hell up is an important part of that."
The rain's back and the wind is icy and brutal. Alec's hungry again (had to ditch his supplies in his getaway), exhausted and sick of thinking about shit he hasn't thought about in years, and his shoulder is on fire from where he took a bullet a couple hours ago. He's lucky it's the only hit he took, that he hasn't bled out yet, but that kind of crap luck's not going to hold out much longer and he's definitely not in the mood for any woe-is-me blubbering from the privileged assholes of Ordinary society.
The woman manages to press her gloved hands tighter to her face, muffling the noise some. Alec guides her around the back of the car when the driver (her husband, judging from the murder in the guy's eyes) pops the trunk. She immediately gets hysterical again, so Alec shoves her in impatiently and slams it shut. Walks around to the driver's side.
"This is how it's going to play out," he tells the husband, who's bundled up in his high-dollar coat and scarf, the Mercedes’ heater blasting so high it's drowning out the softly playing radio and making his face all red. Maybe some of that color is Alec's doing, but he's not really inclined to care right now. "You're headed out of the city on business, I don't care what kind, just make something up. We're gonna cruise through the checkpoints nice and easy, and if anyone comes poking around the trunk, your wife dies. I'm not gonna negotiate with anyone. Doesn't matter if I'm caught right after, won't make it any better or worse for me to kill her. I can probably manage a bullet for you, too, before they get me. Understand?"
The husband's face goes near-purple, but he nods.
"We're gonna be real cozy back there," Alec adds. "Human shield and all that, so heat scanners won't improve anyone's aim much."
"I got it," the guy bites out. "How far do I have to go before you fuck off?"
"Just get me through Checkpoint K and out past the train tracks. Pull over and honk when we're there—do not get out and try to open the trunk yourself; I might get trigger-happy. When the trunk opens, count to one hundred. After that, you're free and clear."
"How do I know you won't just kill us both?"
Alec stares hard at the guy. He's got no intention of killing either of them, but he can't let them know that. This is the part where he's supposed to say something reassuring like, I'm not a monster. I just want to live and you assholes are hellbent against letting me, so this is the kinda shit I've gotta do. It's what Max would say (probably with less cussing and more attitude), but Max is gone and Alec is here. That stuff never gets through, anyway, and he's still bleeding all over the street, so he just says, "Use your common sense and figure out your chances. Cooperate and maybe live, or don't cooperate and definitely die."
With that, Alec goes to fold himself in the trunk alongside his hostage.
Falters when he catches the urgent soundtrack of breaking news on the car’s radio. The voice of an overexcited newscaster quickly follows; something about another transgenic run-in with the police, and Alec works very hard not to care.
He resumes walking, almost makes it to the trunk when he hears the one thing that, a few minutes ago, would’ve had him swearing up and down that it’d only make him run away faster. Instead, it stops him cold.
"—police have finally caught up to the transgenic who was reported robbing a convenience store early this morning—"
"Turn that up," he demands, scaring the driver half out of his seat when he appears at the window again.
The guy scowls hard but does what he’s told.
"—Mike joins me live by phone now."
"We’re standing in front of the building where the fugitive has taken cover. There’s an unknown number of hostages inside, and we’ve been told that at least twelve people are dead. The entire roadway is filled with spectators and emergency response crews—you can probably hear the chaos. People are shouting and holding up anti-transgenic signs. The police have put up barricades to try and keep the crowd out of harm's way. They don’t know if the fugitive is armed—if he has a gun—but the police are proceeding with extreme caution."
"There’ve been reports that the FBI is there. Can you confirm that?"
"The FBI showed up less than an hour ago and it appears they’re now officially in charge."
A new voice chimes in, sounding farther away, "You need to move back. Get out of the street."
"The police are warning people to clear the street." Mike says. "They’re putting up more barricades. We're going to have to move, give us a second."
"Okay, Mike, let me know when you get settled. Once again, listeners, the transgenic who was caught on camera robbing a convenience store this morning is now trapped in an office building downtown, surrounded by police."
"Crap," Alec says, gritting his teeth as the newscaster rambles on about Alec’s rooftop chase earlier, and a bunch of blah-bitty-blah that basically translates to how it serves him right for being a pain in the ass.
It shouldn’t matter. Alec really, really wants it to not matter. Except.
Ben would probably still be playing cards with himself in his underground hideaway if Alec had stayed put. Probably tried to follow him out and then got himself caught. Alec tries to tell himself it’s not his fault his twin is a dumbass, though. Tries to tell himself the blame lies with Ben, all the way. Even if Alec technically started this whole mess, it wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t been so … thrown. Ben's not just bad luck, he's a plague of catastrophe, spreading his special brand of FUBAR far and wide and grinning that goddamn lunatic grin the whole way. Alec never had any trouble going shopping, for fuck's sake, before that cursed bastard showed up.
Besides, Alec would have to be the biggest idiot on the planet to try infiltrating a mob of bloodthirsty law enforcement sitting smack in the middle of even more bloodthirsty citizens. Especially when "FBI" is doubtlessly code for "Ames White and his wacky genocidal cult buddies."
Right. So, whatever. Alec has scored his ticket out of here and it’s time to punch it.
He bites his lip.
Grudgingly, Alec turns back to the driver. "Alright, change of plans."
He explains to new route they’re going to take, tries to soften the blow of the whole thing by saying that one checkpoint between them and their new destination is better than the four checkpoints between them and the city limits, but the driver doesn’t look any happier about it.
"You’re crazy," seems to be his wholehearted opinion on the matter.
Alec smirks tiredly. "You should see the other guy."
Head spinning with a new kind of anxiety, he manages to make it to the trunk without changing his mind again, and hopes like hell that the warmth and blood loss won't tug him into unconsciousness before he's ready.
What seemed brilliant a few minutes ago is starting to look less so, but it's too late to back out now.
-:-
So, okay. Definitely not the best plan he's ever had.
It's not a short drive to the checkpoint, what with all the traffic jams the city-wide search is causing, and the car is jarring his bad shoulder so much he's on the verge of honest-to-god tears. The woman he's blanketing himself with is shaking and crying a snotty mess all over his neck and face, and, icing on the sucktastic-cake, she pissed all over herself—and him—about five minutes into the ride. Alec is annoyed and ashamed of himself, and also annoyed.
Ben is the epitome of what people believe of transgenics, as a whole, the one who actually deserves to be put down like the wrongheaded animal he is. Alec doesn't know what he’s thinking, putting himself through all this. Saving Ben won't help anyone.
So maybe that's what it is. Maybe the not helping is what appeals to Alec, big fuck you to the city and all the backwards-thinking metropolises like it. Or maybe it’s just that if anyone’s going to be killing Ben, it’s Alec. He earned that privilege first and it’s his to keep.
Maybe he's a little more unhinged than he thought.
When the car finally slows, Alec clenches his teeth and presses the muzzle of his gun to the woman's temple. Her breath hitches once, but she goes quiet. He tries to channel some reassurance through the grip on her elbow, but she only stiffens like she might pee again, so he gives that up pretty quickly.
The car stops, and a man's voice filters back: a cop.
Alec's relieved to note the driver's voice stays steady and confident when he replies, even manages to get a few laughs out of the cop as they go through the usual questions: Where are you headed? Did you leave your vehicle unattended at any time between here and home? Et cetera, et cetera.
It's all going smoothly until the cop says, "Please unlock the back doors and pop the trunk, sir," and Alec's head goes white with panic.
The driver stammers a little, then regains enough of himself to feign a little of that rich-man's entitled indignation. "What the hell for?"
"Standard procedure," the cop says, and Alec is so stupid. Alec is fucked six ways from Sunday and so incredibly stupid. Of course it's standard procedure when there are monsters on the loose, fuck.
The woman on top of him starts shaking and crying again, inconsolable in the face of her imminent doom, and Alec can't say, "I'm not going to shoot you, shut up," because then she'd probably start screaming. But he's not going to shoot her, that much hasn't changed, even if he's certainly going to die in the next few seconds, even if he's so extraordinarily furious with her and everything she stands for.
Goddamn people, Alec thinks, pushing the lady to the side so he can squirm closer to the back. She keeps sobbing, muttering stuff about her children's weddings and her husband's retirement and all the other things she wants to live for, all accusing, like he has single-handedly ushered in the apocalypse, and Alec is starting to lose his temper a little bit. He hasn't lost his temper in a long time. Has been through more feelings today than in the past five years combined.
"I just wanted some fucking chips so my stomach would stop fucking eating itself. How does that cost me my fucking life?" he mutters angrily as he pries at the carpeting underneath, like maybe he can burrow his way out, or something. Christ, he doesn't even know what the hell he's doing anymore. His shoulder screams at him from where he's laying on it to get a better angle; he's going to black out in a minute, which is probably the best way to face his execution, anyway. "You think I wanna be here? You think hiding in a trunk with a bullet in my shoulder and marinating in your bodily fluids is fun for me? You think I wouldn't rather be holed up in some abandoned shack living like the goddamn animal you seem to think I am? Because I totally would. I'd love and romance the chance for a dumpster-dinner, if it meant you people would leave me the fuck alone and stop trying to slaughter me for fucking breathing."
And once he gets going, there's no stopping. He's desperately tearing up his fingers trying to dig his way through carpet and steel, a trapped animal trying to scrabble its way out of a corner, no matter how fruitless or self-destructive, and the flood gates are wide open.
"I didn't ask to be whipped up in a test tube, and I sure as hell didn't ask for some crazy X5 with a peace-love-and-understanding agenda to burn my house down, lady. Fucking whacked, every single one us, for going along with that shit. 'Cause of course we were gonna be able to make love and not war with the people vicious enough to manufacture a bunch of babies for the sole purpose of turning them into killing machines, makes perfect sense, right? Totally silly to think you'd blow us all sky-high for having minds of our own.
Your country's all about having the biggest, baddest weapons and racking up the highest body count, and you act like we're the worst thing that ever happened to you. Like we just materialized out of the ether and it wasn't you assholes who thought us up in the first place. You people blew up my home, killed my friends, and now you're hunting us down, one by one. Yeah, we're the monsters, but you wanna know something? If we were as bloodthirsty as you made us out to be, this whole country would be drowning in its own blood right now, because we're professionals, lady. We're really fucking amazing at neutralizing the enemy, that's what you made us to be. But no one's drowning, and we're the ones in hiding, so what does that tell you, huh? What the fuck does that tell you?"
Alec doesn't notice exactly when the woman stops blubbering, or that he's kind of started to, just keeps up his goodbye, cruel world speechifying, while willing the lightheadedness into full-on unconciousness already. He doesn't really know when he went from criticizing Max's ghost, to having her possess him and take over his mouth, either. He just wants to go home, even if he doesn't know where that is anymore, and that comes pouring out against his will, too, goddamn it.
He nearly jumps out of his skin when a gloved hand clamps over his mouth, rolls onto his back and finds the woman staring down at him with wide eyes, or at least in his general direction. Takes him a minute to remember she can't see in the dark.
She pulls her hand away and shushes him, still staring into nothing with rabid curiosity, like she's trying to get a better look at something alien, but Alec doesn't get it. He's confused, and he wasn't done talking, apparently. "I'm not gonna kill you, even though you're about to feed me to the hounds with a smile on your face." he says. "I was never gonna—what the hell is going on?"
The car lurches forward and the trunk lid stays firmly shut.
"You were getting a bit hysterical," the woman tells him, like she's never fallen victim to such a thing in her life. "Loud."
"What?"
"Would've wasted all my husband's hard, bribing efforts if you'd gone on much longer," she clarifies, and pats him on the head like she wasn't terrified he'd bite her face off a few minutes ago.
"What? I don't—what?" Looks like all his words have gone away, except that one.
She smiles at him, a little uncertain, and pats at his good shoulder. "You didn't think he was going to let them come back here and get me killed, did you? He's very convincing; you couldn’t have picked a better hostage, honestly."
Oh. Okay, then. So Alec's plan was awesome the whole time and he just vomited up all those last words for nothing.
Awkward.
-:-
With his wife is safely back up front and Alec stumbling up onto the curb, the Mercedes’ driver can’t peel away from the street corner fast enough.
Mind sluggish, Alec stands there for a little while, rain pelting his face and blurring his vision as he scans rooftops and rifles through his memory for the layout of this neighborhood. A couple blocks over, he can hear police shouting into bullhorns, not quite drowned out by the crowd. Traffic cruises by and splashes him with mud and more water, and it occurs to him after a minute or so that he should probably not be hanging out in plain sight like this.
He has to stop and let a wave of dizziness pass before he gets very far. He should really get this freaking bullet out of his shoulder soon.
"Okay," Alec breathes out when it’s time to stop and reassess. He peeks around the corner of an apartment building across the street from the building he wants, heart skipping a couple of beats when he catches sight of the wall. That’s the only way to describe it. Authorities, news crews, civilians and all their vehicles and accessories are packed in so tight it’s like a living, breathing structure of its own.
"Avoid news cameras," he mutters aloud, psyching himself up for mission impossible. "Get past the pitchfork mob. Resist waving hi to the FBI. Rescue the possibly armed whackjob who may or may not be holding a grudge. Don’t get shot again. Easy as pie."
Briefly, he entertains the idea of luring a cop or ambulance worker over and trying to sneak through the crowd in a stolen uniform, but they used that ruse to escape Jam Pony way back when and White is, unfortunately, not a really idiotic archnemesis who’s likely to fall for the same trick twice.
He looks up and discards the idea of another roof. He’s definitely not up for anymore acrobatics tonight.
"Down under it is, then," Alec decides, spotting a storm drain.
He doesn’t climb down so much as fall into the hole semi-gracefully, but he makes it without breaking anything so he’ll count that as a win.
Stumbling his way underneath the pandemonium and finding the building’s parking garage is easy enough, but he stalls under the grate that leads back up when he hears authoritative voices barking orders back and forth. He hadn’t been able to see much through the swarm of people, so he wasn’t aware that the cops have already started securing the lower levels.
Which means Ben is up high.
Low on options, Alec lets the sweep to pass him by, biding his time until one of the men finally declares the section clear. The majority of officers move on but a couple of guys are posted right on top of him, eyes alert for incoming. They aren’t looking for incoming from down here, though, the morons, and so Alec climbs up out of the ground, quietly and so, so carefully. Before either of them can sound an alarm, Alec punches one out and wraps his arms around the other’s neck, guiding him silently to the pavement as he passes out.
Scoping out the scene from his improved vantage point, he discovers there’s a support beam blocking the line of sight between him and the cops guarding the entrance. He loots the unconscious men for more weapons and slinks away to locate the nearest stairwell.
It’s not until he’s standing in front of the steps that he remembers this building is really very tall. With a lot of floors.
And a lot of stairs.
Fucking Ben, Alec thinks on a long exhale, and starts to climb.
-:-
On the second floor, Alec gets into a scuffle with another two-man patrol and takes a tumble back down to the first floor somewhere in the middle of it, badly twisting his knee.
"Fuck," he spits, and kicks the unconscious cop who pushed him for good measure. That sends another agonizing jolt through his leg, and he has to stand there taking short, quick breaths until it subsides again.
Putting weight on it doesn’t go much better, and recovering the lost ground takes twice as long as it had the first time.
His relief is pure and overwhelming when he hits the eighth floor and barely misses tripping over the body sprawled across the landing. Going all the way to the top might have killed him, and he really didn’t want to have to go out so ridiculously after all this.
The security guard’s neck is broken, head twisted backwards and one foot stuck in the stairwell’s door, holding it open enough for Alec to see another body in the hallway beyond it. When he makes it into the hallway proper, he has to take a moment to marvel at what he finds.
There are bodies all over the place. Aside from the two he had to step over, it seems they’d all been coming from the direction of the elevators and a more central staircase. Looks like Ben was dropping his pursuers left and right as he went, limbs and necks all wrong-angled, most of the outstretched hands clutching or reaching toward a variety of weapons. Yet not a drop of blood has been spilled. Every one of them is in a uniform of some kind—police or the building’s private security—and Alec feels a little embarrassed for them.
Mess with a tiger and someone’s bound to get mauled, he thinks, almost unwillingly, then hastily chases it down with a healthy dose of guilt and resentment.
"I said shut up."
Ben.
Cocking his head, Alec picks up on more voices a little ways down. The fearful murmurs of the captives are to be expected, but Ben’s is the clearest, a kind of emotionless resignation there that Alec would like to pretend doesn’t bother him.
He follows the noise and the trail of corpses until he runs into a closed door.
Last chance to turn back, and so he stares at it for far too long. Really needs to push aside the reckless mindset this day has inflicted on him and think very, very hard about what he’s getting himself into here.
Alec's a specialized soldier with a high IQ and primal instincts. Ben's a wild animal with opposable thumbs and tactical training.
There's no way this will end well.
Alec goes in.
