FIC: Past Today 4/5
Dec. 27th, 2014 05:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dollarformynameThe power has been cut, and the office would be just as dark as the rest of the building if not for the floor-to-ceiling panel of windows directly opposite the door. The blinds are shut because Ben’s not a total idiot, but streetlamps and spotlights filter through enough for an Ordinary to see comfortably. There are a few more bodies in here, not all of them in uniform this time, but the clean kills definitely stopped in the hall. Blood is pooled in the carpet, sprayed across desktops and dripping down the paint.
Alec feels his eyebrows rise high, wondering what changed as Ben took cover in this room. Could be that he finally bothered to grab a weapon off one of his victims. Could be because somebody looked at him cross-eyed. Alec doesn’t pretend to know how his twin’s mind works.
Ben’s attention is fixed on the wall—more specifically, the line of trembling office workers-cum-hostages crouched down against the wall. The back of his head and a small part of his profile is visible from where Alec is standing, backlit by the glow from outside. He looks every bit the maniac, waving a gun around when one of the hostages whimpers too loudly, twitching irritably and muttering to himself.
Alec’s stealthy, of course he is, he was raised on stealth, but he’s still a little disappointed that Ben hasn’t yet noticed the breach.
He announces himself with a sharp knock on the open door. "Is this a private party or can anyone join?"
A few of the hostages gasp, and Ben's head snaps up, face a bruised mess from their earlier disagreement. "Alec," he says, body locking up tight. "What are you doing here?"
Alec can't help but smirk. Ben sounds so put out, a little betrayed but like he knows he's going to forgive Alec anyway and isn't that just the most annoying thing.
"I think the better question is: what are you doing here?" He looks around again, awed at the shitstorm Ben's managed to get himself caught in. Crazy or not, it's not easy for a transgenic to screw themselves over so thoroughly. Unless, of course, they're actually trying to screw themselves over. "This your idea of climbing the clocktower with a sniper rifle or what?"
"No," Ben says quickly. "I wasn't. I just." He shrugs, a jerky, defeated flailing of his hands and, like a petulant child, says, "They started it."
Alec cocks a brow.
"I wasn’t done talking to you," Ben begins, and goes on to confirm Alec’s suspicions that he’d come after him when he fled the tunnel, ran straight into a busy intersection and almost got run down by a minivan, which led to a group of pedestrians recognizing him and letting out a war cry before chasing him across town. It didn’t take long for the cops to catch on, and, running low on steam and recalling the basement here is one of those that leads back underground, Ben finally risked ducking into this building.
Only to be immediately assaulted by overzealous security guards armed with stun batons.
"I couldn’t," Ben says, faltering. He doesn’t look contrite, he looks furious, and Alec frowns. "The shock. I don’t like that. I had to make them stop."
Alec nods in understanding. Manticore was fond of their tasers and stun guns, and he knows all too well the utter helplessness that comes with a million volts of electricity coursing through his body and lighting all his senses up with white-hot pain.
"They were stupid, at least," Ben goes on, still sounding unrepentant, which is a far cry from the guy who was pleading with him mere hours ago to help him be a better person. "They didn’t know I would recover so fast. Got lazy and started patting each other on the back. The cops came, and then I—"
He waves his gun around to indicate the bodies, completely ignoring how his sudden movements are making his hostages whine and scoot away. Alec bypassed the lobby on his way up, but he can imagine what kind of massacre Ben left down there when he struck back.
"I couldn’t think. I just reacted. Next thing I knew there were cops everywhere and people screaming and they were blocking the way down so I had to go up. And now I have a headache," he finishes, rubbing at his temple like that last thing is the worst part.
"Well," Alec says. "That all sounds very traumatizing but I hope you haven’t totally cracked yet because it’s about to get a lot worse."
"What do you mean?"
Alec shrugs. "The hostages are a good stalling tactic but it won’t hold out for long. White loves his body counts. He’s probably having an orgasm right now, but the more innocent corpses he can blame on us evil freaks, the better."
Ben stares at him blankly, and it hits Alec that his twin’s never had the displeasure of meeting the sadistic bastard.
"He’s a bad guy," Alec explains.
"Like me?" Ben asks, and Alec frowns.
"No. Trust me, he’s way more psychotic than you could ever hope to be. There are snakes."
"Oh." Confusion is plain on Ben’s face but he doesn’t ask. "So he wants us all dead," he says instead. "Why is he still alive?"
It’s an honest question. Whatever else Ben is, he’s a trained assassin first and foremost, and Alec can see how it makes zero sense to him that someone who poses such a huge threat is still breathing. Alec is both weirdly charmed and disconcerted that the idea of a non-transgenic eluding them this long hasn’t even occurred to Ben. He misses having that kind of blissful ignorance.
"Long story," Alec says, moving on. "We can talk about Ames White and the many ways he should die later. We need to get some kind of plan together here."
"The basement," Ben repeats, low, so the hostages don’t overhear him. "If we can get down there we can lose everyone, easy. There’s more than just old subway tunnels. There are tunnels people forgot about even before the Pulse."
"How is it you know them so well? I haven’t been here that long, so you can’t have been here long enough to discover and map out a bunch of secret passageways."
"I was here before."
"Old hunting grounds?" Alec guesses, and Ben’s mouth twists up as he looks away.
Alec slumps against the door frame a little, more than tired, more than annoyed that he kinda wants to apologize for that remark.
One of the hostages—a balding man with a crooked tie—seems to sense some kind of opportunity now that Alec’s here to distract Ben, and chooses that moment to surge up and lunge at him with a stapler.
Alarmed, Alec hobbles across the room as fast as his stupid, malfunctioning body will allow. Barely makes it in time to knock the guy on his ass while knocking Ben’s wrist away with his bad arm. Ben’s gun fires uselessly at the ceiling as Alec bites back a cry, clutching at his shoulder.
"What the hell, Alec?" shouts Ben, pushing him away.
"What did I just say about body counts?" Alec manages, stumbling back and still keeping his shoulder in a tight grip in case his arm decides to fall off. Fuck.
He glares at the bald guy, who pales, immediately drops the stapler and shrinks back toward the wall.
"You're hurt," Ben realizes, voice matter of fact but he actually does look a little concerned.
"I'm fine."
Ben nods, taking Alec's word for it or maybe just too uncertain of where they stand with each other to push it. But when Alec starts limping around in search of a new wall to hold him up, too slowly and hissing through his teeth, it takes him about five seconds to reconsider.
"You’re not," Ben says firmly, pulling a chair over and pushing Alec down into it. "Don’t move."
Alec wants to protest but that would lead to standing again to prove his point, and it all seems like so much effort.
Ben disappears into the hallway. Alec hears him rummaging recklessly through another office before he returns with a first aid kit in hand. When he kneels in front of Alec and pulls out an Ace bandage and a pair of tweezers, Alec barely refrains from scoffing.
"There’s no way I’m letting you dig around my insides with that."
Ben glances up briefly, unconcerned. "Your shoulder’s probably started healing already. Longer you wait, the more it’s gonna suck."
Alec’s gaze slides pointedly back over to the huddle of civilians, most of them trying to make themselves vanish into the wall, a few of them glaring hatefully at him and undoubtedly picturing his slow, painful demise. Last thing he needs is to show any more weakness, or traumatize them further with all the screaming he’s inevitably in for. "It can wait."
"Fine." Ben forages through the desk behind Alec and comes up with a pair of scissors, cutting up the leg of Alec’s soaked jeans without bothering to ask. He wrinkles his nose up, pulling his hand back to glare at it suspiciously. "Do I wanna know why you smell like pee?"
Alec feels his face go hot. "I don’t wanna talk about it."
Ben grunts a little in disgust, wiping his hand off on the carpet, then stands. "Take those off," he says as he starts divesting one of the dead guards of his pants.
Alec thinks of complaining about Ben’s total disregard for the dead man’s dignity, but he kinda doubts the guy deserves much dignity and it’d take too much explaining for Ben to understand his reasons, anyway. Besides, he really does stink and it’s not like the guy needs them anymore.
He starts unbuckling his belt.
"Here, let me," Ben offers, helping to tug Alec’s ruined pants down his legs and then tightly bandaging his knee.
Once he’s in drier, cleaner pants, Ben grabs the edge of Alec’s shirt and yanks it up sideways, freeing his good arm.
"Little warning would be nice," Alec grouches, wriggling to help him get it over his head.
"If I warn you, you’ll just argue with me. I’ve picked up a few things about you by now."
Alec winces as Ben works the shirt off his injured shoulder, dried blood making the cloth stick to the wound. "I guess stalking is handy that way," he says through grit teeth.
Ben ignores the comment, tosses the shirt to the floor and cleans off as much blood as he can with a bottle of water and some disinfectant before wrapping it all up with another bandage.
Alec squirms uncomfortably as Ben examines his handiwork, mostly by poking at him. He smacks Ben’s hand away. "You think we can escape now or is playing doctor so much fun you wanna stay here and wait for your very own bullethole to stick your fingers in?"
"I still haven’t heard anything resembling an actual plan for getting downstairs," Ben points out, straightening up. "If you’ve thought of something, I’m all ears."
"What, is killing your way down there not good enough anymore?"
"We can do it that way," Ben says carefully, edging along the wall to peek out the window. "But the risk is pretty high. Especially with you hurt. I only killed my way up here in the first place because I didn’t have a choice."
"There’s always a choice," Alec argues, but given all he’s been through today, it lacks feeling. "You see anything?"
"Yeah," says Ben. "I see a SWAT truck pulling in."
"Shit."
"We can take them," Ben says, watching Alec like he might fall apart as he stands to come and join him.
"Maybe," says Alec, thinking fast. He wants to smack himself as soon as an idea forms, because he should’ve thought of it so much earlier. Being around Ben this much in one day has played all kinds of merry hell on his brain. "He’ll clear the building."
"What?"
"White. He’ll clear the cops out of the building. He’s always careful about anyone who might have a conscience seeing too much and living to tell the tale, and it’s not like he can just execute the entire police force when he’s done in here. They’ll guard the exits, yeah, but they’ll be outside."
"So we take out SWAT and run like hell?"
"Yes—wait, no. No, we should go now. Before they come up. They’ll have cleared it by now."
"You sure about that?"
"No." Alec kinda wants to stomp his foot. They could still make a run for it and see how far they can get, but choosing their own battleground promises better odds than being caught by surprise in a narrow corridor with no viable escape routes. "Dammit."
"It’s not that big a deal, is it? More cops to kill but—"
"They won’t be cops, haven’t you been listening? White will send his people. He’ll send Familiars."
Ben's brow furrows in frustration. "I don’t know what that means."
"It means it won’t be easy," Alec explains, glancing around. His gaze settles on the hostages again as he says, "They’re freaks just like us. Except not. Because they want to exterminate everyone who isn’t them," barely pausing for breath before making an executive decision.
"You and you." Alec inclines his chin at a woman in a pencil skirt sitting at the edge of the group, and a man wearing thick glasses towards the middle. They seem to holding it together better than the rest, flinching only a little when he singles them out. "I want each of you to take a group," he tells them before anyone can start freaking out too much. "I want you to leave now, as quickly and quietly as you can. Stay low, don’t draw attention to yourselves. You see anyone in a SWAT vest, you hide from them. They aren’t your friends in here. Once you’re out, feel free to throw yourselves at the nearest police officer you find. But not until then."
He lets that sink in before repeating the most important part, "SWAT: bad, Chicago PD: good, understand?"
He steps back a little as the hostages begin to rise, finally grasping that he’s serious about letting them go, but he’s still close enough to keep them fidgeting anxiously in place. He stares pointedly, waiting for one of them to figure out the question’s not rhetorical.
Jerkily, the woman nods.
"I’m not expecting you to trust me," Alec adds, "I know you don’t, but a little extra caution never hurt, right?"
Another nod, though this one’s a little slower.
Still not totally satisfied but figuring he’s done as much as he can in the time they have, Alec jerks his head at the door. "Go."
And they do, fumbling and tripping over each other, the complete opposite of stealth as everyone ignores any organizational attempts by Alec’s appointed group leaders, and hurls themselves at the exit. Alec sighs—he really doesn’t know why he keeps trying—but his hopes are lifted a little when the guy in glasses speaks up firmly in the hallway, working to inject calm and little more order.
Letting out a slow breath, Alec resigns himself to the fight, much as it pisses him off to have to face White’s muscleheads in his condition. He feels even more stupidly vulnerable without a shirt but there’s no time to fix that.
He turns back to Ben, who’s watching him dispassionately, appearing almost bored.
"They're strong," Alec says, checking his ammo, and Ben perks up at the official tone of his voice. "Stronger than us. But we're faster. They don't feel pain so don't rely on that to slow them down."
He starts collecting more of the dead’s discarded weapons. Wonders briefly if he should barricade the doors that connect to other offices but decides having multiple exits is more important than multiple breaches.
"Don't let them draw you into a fistfight if you can help it. They hate us and they're twisted as hell, so they prefer beating us to death over shooting. They'll use guns as a last resort which is why we need to shoot first. Go for legs, arms, wherever you can aim that isn't covered in bulletproof armor. Disable them as much as you can before getting close."
"It's not like I'm new at this," Ben sneers.
"Yeah, you kind of are," Alec snaps. "They're not helpless normals you can chase through the woods."
Ben looks like he wants to say something particularly scathing in reply, but outside, the crowd lets out a cheer that cannot mean anything good, and his attention is officially diverted.
"How about you do the shooting," he says, not so much a suggestion as an order, at which Alec makes a face. Ben follows it up by shoving Alec across the room and then trying to push him up onto the ledge near the ceiling. "Disabling for the disabled. There's your perch."
"I'm not freakin’ disabled," says Alec, resisting. "I can fight."
"Maybe. But I'd rather you didn't."
Alec stops, eyeing Ben skeptically. This Ben is not the Ben he’s been dealing with all day. He’s much bossier, for one thing, less fragile-seeming and entirely too excited at the prospect of a new killing challenge. He considers asking if Manticore accidentally gave him a split personality with all that carving they did, but thinks better of it. There’s something off here. Alec files it away and resolves to pay closer attention.
"I'm glad you think you're in charge, considering you're the one who got us into this mess."
"Which is exactly why I should be the one to get us out," Ben says.
When Alec still refuses to budge, Ben gives him a dark look.
Then he kicks him.
Pain floods Alec's leg and he folds faster than a house of cards in a windstorm. "Fuck!" he gasps, grabbing his knee. Ben moves closer and Alec's gun is up before he can blink. "Touch me again and I will shoot you in the face."
Ben rolls his eyes and backs off, hands up in surrender. "Was just gonna help you up, but have it your way. You're no good to me crying on the floor." He points at the ledge again. "At least from up there you can back me up."
Before Alec can protest any more, heavily-armored shadows appear behind the blinds, climbing the side of the building like a cliff face.
Ben flicks a look across the room, eyes widening a little. He turns back to Alec. His scowl hardens. Alec returns the scowl but, out of time, ultimately gives in and scrambles up to the ledge. He consoles himself with the thought that he can jump back down and prove Ben wrong as soon as he realizes how screwed he is trying to take on Familiars by himself. Though, really, it'd serve Ben right for Alec to just sit up here and watch him die horribly.
The slightest whisper of sound from the hallway, and Alec whips his head around. He brings his guns up, glancing over quickly to make sure Ben is ready.
Can’t hold onto his resentment when he notices how close Ben has gotten to the windows.
"Hey, maybe you shouldn’t—"
Ignoring him, Ben walks across the room towards one of the desks. Cocks his head at it. Then he leans down and shoves.
The desk goes crashing through the centermost panes, a handful of Familiars knocked backwards in a shower of tangled blinds and broken glass. Some of the ropes snap, their riders plummeting back to the street. The ones whose ropes are intact are stuck dangling and grasping for a new hold on the building.
Alec spends a split-second jealously wondering why he didn't think of that, and then he shoots the first Familiar to make it inside, forcing the man back a few steps. He shoots him again and again, forcing him back even further until he runs out of floor and stumbles out into thin air, dropping to join his friends below.
The others come pouring in, twenty or so of them, some through the windows and some through the office door behind them. There’s a noticeable air of surprise when they see they’re dealing with two transgenics instead of just one but it doesn’t trip them up at all. They advance without hesitation.
Alec focuses on taking out extremities and keeping one eye on his twin for inevitable failure.
Easier said than done.
He’s allowed mere seconds to watch Ben launch himself into motion before a pair of Familiars notice Alec monopolizing the only high ground there is. They charge. Alec shoots. The bullets slam into their vests and tear through thighs and biceps but they don’t stop.
Pulling his legs up, Alec keeps shooting. He kicks out when they reach for him, his boot glancing off a helmet and knocking it askew. He kicks at that one again, harder. The helmet jolts and blood gushes from the Familiar’s nose.
"Mutant filth," the Familiar spits, locking a hand around Alec’s ankle. He twists like he expects it to come popping right off. Alec feels a sharp twinge of warning; his ankle telling him that it just might do that.
Alec grunts and kicks out with his bad leg, adrenaline masking the pain a little. He squeezes his trigger and plants a bullet in the Familiar’s forehead. Swings a gun around just as the other Familiar climbs up onto a chair.
Before he can fire off another shot, a knife plants itself behind the guy's ear, sticking out of the small gap between his helmet and collar. The Familiar falls, lifeless. Alec looks back at Ben, who's already moving on to the next pair of unlucky snake-worshippers stupid enough to get in his way, shooting both of their throats out.
He seems to have taken Alec's tip about speed to heart, blurring all over the room and barely stopping between kills. It goes on like that for long seconds, and Alec doesn't know why he's surprised. All this time calling Ben all kinds of crazy in his head and it should've occurred to him before now to notice how successful he's been at it. There is a method to his madness—reasoning and motivation all twisted up, sure, but that doesn't affect how precisely lethal his execution is.
Distracted with a new threat trying to climb up toward him, Alec doesn’t shout a warning in time when Ben makes the mistake of barreling straight at a Familiar who has obviously been laying in wait for that exact thing.
The Familiar sidesteps at the last minute, arm darting out. His forearm catches Ben in the neck and Ben’s momentum betrays him, snapping his head and then the rest of him backwards.
Alec has already abandoned his perch by the time Ben lands flat on his back, breath punched out of him. Ben tries to get back up but wavers, gasping to get air into his abused throat. He sprawls sideways and rolls out of Alec’s path just as Alec plows into the Familiar full-force.
They go rollicking away from Ben and straight into the nearest wall. Luckily, it’s not Alec’s head that takes the hit, but their limbs are tangled together and he’s stuck wrestling around with the Familiar, trying to get free.
Alec feels a hand claw at his hair. His head is wrenched backwards. The tendons in his neck strain and his eyes can’t find anything but the ceiling. The Familiar scrabbles for a better angle, a surer grip, and all it’ll take is one quick twist for Alec to be out of the fight. He swallows hard and gropes around desperately, finds the edge of the Familiar’s visor and smacks it open. Grits his teeth as he blindly brings his gun around and pulls the trigger.
The hand goes slack and Alec slumps in relief.
It’s short-lived.
He doesn’t need to turn and check on Ben; the sudden explosion of gunfire is a clear sign he’s recovered. But there’s too much of it. Ben can’t possibly be getting that many shots off at once.
Alec dives for the floor and yanks the Familiar’s body over him like a blanket when the wall behind him is suddenly punched full of bulletholes. The body jerks as it absorbs the hits meant for him and Alec tries not to feel smothered under its weight. Hopes Ben found cover before the Familiars decided it was time to actually bring guns to the gunfight.
As soon as the bombardment dies down, Alec shoves the body aside and springs to his feet.
The back of his head erupts with pain and before he knows what’s happening he’s on the floor again. The toe of a boot collides with his cheek. Blood bursts across his tongue, white agony temporarily stealing his vision. Another kick, this one to his temple, and the sounds around him go wobbly. He wants to believe the little noise he can make out is part of a distant struggle, that it means Ben is still in this thing, but he doesn’t get to find out. He’s too disoriented to react before another hand is on him, prying his weapons away and dragging him out into the hallway by his hair.
"What is with you fuckers and hair-pulling?" Alec snarls, dazedly writhing and kicking.
His vision reassembles itself enough to see the jackass grinning down at him in savage glee. "Ames has really been looking forward to getting reacquainted," the Familiar says. "Didn’t think we’d be lucky enough to bring you to him alive."
"Yeah, great." Alec bares his teeth. His heart flutters wildly in his chest. "I think I should change first, though," he grunts, struggles some more. The guy’s grip is really very solid. "Not sure this is the right outfit for meeting sadistic cult leaders. I should at least put on a shirt."
The Familiar’s fingers tighten in his hair, jerking his head roughly and smacking it into the wall as they turn a corner.
Alec squeezes his eyes shut against the vicious spike of agony and slurs out, "Maybe something in snakeskin."
That earns him another violent jolt, made even worse as he lands on the stairs and the Familiar continues to drag him relentlessly onward.
The murmur of activity from outside grows louder, and the office they’ve left behind seems disturbingly silent in comparison. Alec twists and claws at the Familiar’s arm, scoring bloody grooves into the skin. The guy doesn’t even blink and it’s possible that Alec is maybe beginning to panic a little bit. Ben may not be his favorite person but not knowing if he’s okay freaks him out almost as much as coming face to face with Ames White again.
Fucking White.
Fuck that.
Alec kicks up his struggles, contorting himself into crazy positions and finally managing to get his ankle hooked around the Familiar’s shin. The Familiar stumbles a little but doesn’t spill down the stairs like Alec hoped. He doesn’t let go, either. He catches himself on the railing and drives his boot into Alec’s lower back. Alec bites down on the scream that tries to tear out of him. The Familiar does it again and Alec feels sure one more hit will paralyze him but he doesn’t stop fighting. He takes a cue from all the whackjobs he’s had surrounding him all day and goes berserk, thrashing and twisting and lashing out wildly at any body part he can reach. He’d rather be beaten to death than see the end of this staircase.
"You little mongrel," the Familiar squawks, trying to keep his hold on Alec and dance out of his whirlwind-like path at the same time. He seems to have caught onto Alec’s plans of self-destruction because he’s not retaliating. "You might as well save it. There’s nothing—"
An animalistic howl from above pierces through their little skirmish. A blur goes sailing past them, down the steps, the thunder of boots close behind, and Ben’s voice calls back, "Incoming!"
Heart soaring, Alec curls himself into a tight ball just before a fresh storm of bullets is unleashed. The Familiar’s grip on him disappears. He hears the thump of the body hitting the stairs, taken down in a hail of friendly fire. Feet stampede right past him, completely ignoring the vulnerable enemy in their midst.
Ben must have really pissed them off, Alec thinks, and then he gets with the program and lunges up to snap the neck of a straggler. His head swims and he has to grab onto the railing to keep from tumbling down the steps.
There’s a gun down there.
Alec plucks the weapon from the dead Familiar’s belt and smoothly reinserts himself into the action.
He takes careful aim from where he stands, opting for precision over speed, and fires into the smaller but more lethal gaps in their SWAT uniforms. Not all of them are wearing their helmets anymore, so that’s easy enough, and before they get over their outrage at Ben enough to pay attention to Alec again, they’re mostly too late.
There aren’t many Familiars left. Ben is taking on four of them at once on the landing below but Alec can see he’s starting to flag.
He’s proven right when one Familiar lands a kick to Ben’s chest that flips him over the railing and out of sight.
"Hey!"
They whirl around to come at him but Alec’s not interested in letting them get close enough to cause his sorely abused body any more problems. He opens fire.
Runs out of ammo after the third man goes down.
"Crap," Alec whines a little, and throws himself down the stairs to meet the remaining Familiar head-on.
They both land in a chaotic heap. Alec scrambles away and thrusts his legs out, catching the Familiar’s head between his ankles. He twists sharply. The Familiar goes limp.
For a minute, there is nothing but blissful, beautiful silence.
Now seems like an excellent time to collapse and never move again. Except he hasn’t seen Ben since he took a nosedive and he should probably check into that.
"Ben?" Alec calls out, shakily pulling himself up and limping down the steps.
"I’m fine," moans Ben from somewhere down below. It sounds pretty far down, actually. Alec’s not sure he wants to keep going. "You get ‘em?"
"All dead," Alec reports. He wonders if sliding down the railing is a really terrible or only mildly bad idea. "Are you fine fine, or reporting-to-a-soulless superior fine?"
"I’m good."
He doesn’t sound remotely good. Alec sighs and continues to hobble. This is not the daring and speedy escape he had in mind when he first got here.
When he makes it all the way down to the bottom, where the staircase lets out directly into the center of the lobby and a colorful strobe of lights is flashing through the frosted glass doors that lead out into the mob, he finds Ben splayed there on the linoleum like a starfish, making no move to get up.
"Told you not to get close," Alec says, breathless, and kneels down awkwardly to assess the damage.
Ben’s lip curls up in an unamused snarl. His eyes flutter shut, like just looking at things requires way too much energy, face tense and lined with misery.
Alec feels a prickle of unwelcome concern. "Can you move?"
"Probably," mutters Ben. He cracks an eye open. "Don’t want to, though."
Alec smirks. "Too bad. I didn’t come all this way to watch you take a nap." He nudges Ben’s shoulder. "Come on, get up."
Scrunching his face, Ben does get up. He moves gingerly, sucking in quick breaths, and Alec guesses that his ribs did not fare well under that hit he took. Alec’s not in the best condition to take his weight, but that doesn’t stop him from hooking one of Ben’s arms around his shoulders to help him along.
"Look at it this way," he says as they shuffle along like a couple of old men. "We’re closer to the basement than we were twenty minutes ago. It’s like a shortcut."
"Anyone ever tell you you talk too much?" Ben growls a little, and Alec huffs out a laugh.
"Never."
Static.
It’s a sound Alec has seriously come to loathe.
A voice that is entirely too recognizable for Alec’s peace of mind crackles from the stairway over their heads, asking for a status report. Of course.
"What’s wrong?" asks Ben, eyeing him in concern as Alec stands frozen to the spot.
"There’s no way we’re gonna get up there in time to respond to that radio call, is there?"
"Not likely."
"How far is the basement?"
Ben glances ahead and his mouth thins out as he seems to realize their predicament. "Not close," he admits because, stairs or no stairs, the building isn’t exactly small. "How long do you think before they send in reinforcements?"
The crashing of glass from what seems like every floor in the building answers that question.
"You’ve got to be fucking kidding me," Alec groans. Eyes darting around, he lets go of Ben because they’re both going to have to stand on their own to get through this.
If they were both in better shape, they might make it downstairs before the new wave caught up. Even then, the Familiars would discover Ben’s little escape hatch before he and Alec could cover their trail. Then they’d be stuck in an underground maze that Alec doesn’t know very well with Familiars hot on their heels, and it’s just not an ideal scenario.
"Fuck. I’m out of ammo and I don’t see any weapons laying around down here, do you?"
Ben makes a face at the empty lobby. "They must’ve cleared out the bodies."
"No shit," Alec mutters. They are so screwed. "Goddammit."
"It’s fine," says Ben, and if Alec didn’t know any better he’d say his twin sounds excited again, that same note in his voice as before.
He actually doesn’t know any better.
"Fuck your fine," Alec growls, rage boiling up. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Ben’s face slackens in total innocence. It’s too much innocence, really. "What do you mean?"
Alec narrows his eyes at the panic barely masked behind that expression. He opens his mouth to tell Ben exactly what he means, to pry whatever secret he’s keeping out of him if it takes all night.
And then he’s rudely reminded that he doesn’t have all night.
A bullet slams into Alec’s thigh, just above his swollen knee. His legs fold and his ass hits the floor. The pain doesn’t register right away and so he sits there, stunned and unable to believe that just happened.
"I got shot again," he mumbles, just to say it out loud.
More gunfire rains down from above. Alec looks up. Familiars are leaning over the railing on the third floor, automatic weapons aimed straight at them.
Ben dives to avoid being hit. He does a weird little flip across Alec’s lap, grabbing onto him as he goes. Next thing Alec knows they’re sprawled under the cover of the staircase and Ben barely pauses long enough to let Alec get his bearings before he’s seizing his arm and tugging.
"Get up," Ben orders. Alec stares at him. "Now." Ben tugs again, jarring his injured shoulder and wow, okay, mother of fuck, there’s the pain.
Alec struggles back to his feet, swaying a little. Ben presses into him to keep him steady and hauls Alec alongside himself, down through a hallway and away from the rapidly descending footsteps. Alec suspects they aren’t going fast enough.
"I hate this freaking day," he says.
Ben shoots him a pitying look, and somehow that’s the thing to snap him out of it.
He pushes at Ben. "I can walk."
"You really can’t."
He pulls away. Grabs onto Ben again when that proves slightly disastrous. "Yeah, okay."
"Here." Ben slides a knife into his palm and Alec closes his fingers around it gratefully.
That gratefulness disappears in the next second when Ben shoves him into a janitor's closet and says, "Stay," before slamming the door in his face.
Propped against a shelf full of cleaning supplies, Alec blinks. He tries to open the door but it’s jammed or blocked somehow from the outside.
"What. The. Fuck," he says to no one.
At full strength, Alec could bust out of here, no problem, but clearly, he’s nowhere near full strength, so he mostly gets to fume silently as he listens to the rowdy brawl breaking out in the hallway. If they survive this, he is going to kick Ben’s ass so hard.
It’s embarrassing, how long it takes him to notice there’s a little square window in the middle of the door, that he can see and not just hear, and then he realizes he might be suffering a minor case of blood loss. It’s so dark in here, or maybe his vision is on the fritz again, who knows, but he manages to scrounge up some cleaning cloths and ties them together. Tying them around his leg is a little more difficult, and he blinks back tears as he pulls them tight.
"Jesus," he breathes out when that’s all over with.
The gunshots startle him so badly he swears he almost has a heart attack.
They really shouldn’t, he’s been dealing with the sounds forever, but somehow he hadn’t noticed the lack of them until they came back. He straightens as best he can, balancing on one leg and pressing his face against the glass to see outside.
He sees the Familiars first, of course. They’re worse than cockroaches, just goddamn everywhere. They aren’t trussed up in full SWAT gear, Alec notes, but it’s about the only good news there is because they are armed to the teeth and obviously aren’t as hesitant as the first bunch to use weapons.
Dread creeps up on him, gaining momentum the longer he goes without spotting Ben. But then, yep. There he is, holding up a bloodied bulletproof vest like a shield as he charges recklessly into the barrage.
Alec loses sight of him again, but he can hear the sounds of utter destruction going on and deals with his imagination running wild until there’s something else to look at.
The next time he sees Ben, he’s holding a pistol in each hand. His back slams against the door and Alec gets his hopes up, waiting for Ben to get over this weird overprotective crap, let him out and arm him up properly. Ben’s shoulders flatten against the glass as he raises both barrels. Shots are fired. Ben drops. Ben jumps back up. Ben disappears again.
Alec huffs.
The blasts that follow are relentless, and Alec’s not surprised. There’s a transgenic backed into a corner with a gun and little to no armor protecting his attackers, who outnumber him by a pretty staggering amount. "Take no prisoners" is pretty much the name of the game here.
After what seems like forever, the gunfire tapers off. Alec decides it’s because everyone’s running low on ammo and not because of any other reason that he refuses to accept when he’s trapped in a tiny space with only a knife and a dirty mop to defend himself with.
He lets out the breath he was holding when a shape blurs by the window. It blurs back the other way and he can just make out Ben, who is visibly losing whatever gumption he was using to keep his own pain at bay. He’s bleeding.
Alec thumps irritably at the door but Ben doesn’t acknowledge it. "Getting shot is my thing," he says anyway, like he can scold Ben into not doing that again. There’s going to be no one left to patch them up if they’re both plugged full of lead.
Familiars pour in from both sides and swarm around Ben like hornets. Alec pounds harder on the door, which turns out to be a bad idea. Dizziness smacks into him like a tidal wave. He clings to the doorknob for dear life. It’s hot in here, his heart is racing, and he might actually throw up.
He wants out now.
"Open this fucking door!" he shouts uselessly.
Ben can’t open the fucking door. Ben is very busy trying not to die, the dumbass. Alec didn’t go through all the trouble of infiltrating this shithole to suffocate in a goddamn closet.
His mild hysteria subsides a little when Ben manages to break free of the attack circle. He’s not down for the count yet, and so Alec watches avidly, urging Ben to victory through sheer force of will. At the same time, something else niggles at him, and he thinks that since he’s stuck here he might as well take advantage of the opportunity he’s been afforded.
Ben’s a lot more protective of his exposed underbelly this time around, hunched over and angling his body to keep himself small. What he’s lost in fluidity, however, he makes up for in bloody brutality.
When one overly confident asshole gets right up in Ben’s face to sneer at him as they grapple with each other, Ben promptly stabs him in the eye. When he gets caught in another Familiar’s hold, arms pinned at his sides, Ben doesn’t miss a beat as he lunges at the guy’s jugular with his teeth. He wields a knife like an extension of himself, drives the blade deep into vulnerable flesh and paints the walls in arterial spray but, despite his ferocity, Ben doesn’t seem as pissed as Alec had expected.
At first glance his expression is all business, no real emotion except maybe some eagerness to complete the mission for the sake of expediency. It's not until Alec focuses a little harder that he knows that's a lie.
There's no hesitation. No inner struggle or crisis of conscious about whether or not he's making the right calls. Mouth smeared bright red and quirked up ever so slightly at one corner, Ben's eyes are blazing with the thrill of it, with the surety of purpose. Like he knows without a doubt he was made to be this and he's enjoying every second.
And that right there is when Alec figures it out.
He's been fucking played.
NEXT
Alec feels his eyebrows rise high, wondering what changed as Ben took cover in this room. Could be that he finally bothered to grab a weapon off one of his victims. Could be because somebody looked at him cross-eyed. Alec doesn’t pretend to know how his twin’s mind works.
Ben’s attention is fixed on the wall—more specifically, the line of trembling office workers-cum-hostages crouched down against the wall. The back of his head and a small part of his profile is visible from where Alec is standing, backlit by the glow from outside. He looks every bit the maniac, waving a gun around when one of the hostages whimpers too loudly, twitching irritably and muttering to himself.
Alec’s stealthy, of course he is, he was raised on stealth, but he’s still a little disappointed that Ben hasn’t yet noticed the breach.
He announces himself with a sharp knock on the open door. "Is this a private party or can anyone join?"
A few of the hostages gasp, and Ben's head snaps up, face a bruised mess from their earlier disagreement. "Alec," he says, body locking up tight. "What are you doing here?"
Alec can't help but smirk. Ben sounds so put out, a little betrayed but like he knows he's going to forgive Alec anyway and isn't that just the most annoying thing.
"I think the better question is: what are you doing here?" He looks around again, awed at the shitstorm Ben's managed to get himself caught in. Crazy or not, it's not easy for a transgenic to screw themselves over so thoroughly. Unless, of course, they're actually trying to screw themselves over. "This your idea of climbing the clocktower with a sniper rifle or what?"
"No," Ben says quickly. "I wasn't. I just." He shrugs, a jerky, defeated flailing of his hands and, like a petulant child, says, "They started it."
Alec cocks a brow.
"I wasn’t done talking to you," Ben begins, and goes on to confirm Alec’s suspicions that he’d come after him when he fled the tunnel, ran straight into a busy intersection and almost got run down by a minivan, which led to a group of pedestrians recognizing him and letting out a war cry before chasing him across town. It didn’t take long for the cops to catch on, and, running low on steam and recalling the basement here is one of those that leads back underground, Ben finally risked ducking into this building.
Only to be immediately assaulted by overzealous security guards armed with stun batons.
"I couldn’t," Ben says, faltering. He doesn’t look contrite, he looks furious, and Alec frowns. "The shock. I don’t like that. I had to make them stop."
Alec nods in understanding. Manticore was fond of their tasers and stun guns, and he knows all too well the utter helplessness that comes with a million volts of electricity coursing through his body and lighting all his senses up with white-hot pain.
"They were stupid, at least," Ben goes on, still sounding unrepentant, which is a far cry from the guy who was pleading with him mere hours ago to help him be a better person. "They didn’t know I would recover so fast. Got lazy and started patting each other on the back. The cops came, and then I—"
He waves his gun around to indicate the bodies, completely ignoring how his sudden movements are making his hostages whine and scoot away. Alec bypassed the lobby on his way up, but he can imagine what kind of massacre Ben left down there when he struck back.
"I couldn’t think. I just reacted. Next thing I knew there were cops everywhere and people screaming and they were blocking the way down so I had to go up. And now I have a headache," he finishes, rubbing at his temple like that last thing is the worst part.
"Well," Alec says. "That all sounds very traumatizing but I hope you haven’t totally cracked yet because it’s about to get a lot worse."
"What do you mean?"
Alec shrugs. "The hostages are a good stalling tactic but it won’t hold out for long. White loves his body counts. He’s probably having an orgasm right now, but the more innocent corpses he can blame on us evil freaks, the better."
Ben stares at him blankly, and it hits Alec that his twin’s never had the displeasure of meeting the sadistic bastard.
"He’s a bad guy," Alec explains.
"Like me?" Ben asks, and Alec frowns.
"No. Trust me, he’s way more psychotic than you could ever hope to be. There are snakes."
"Oh." Confusion is plain on Ben’s face but he doesn’t ask. "So he wants us all dead," he says instead. "Why is he still alive?"
It’s an honest question. Whatever else Ben is, he’s a trained assassin first and foremost, and Alec can see how it makes zero sense to him that someone who poses such a huge threat is still breathing. Alec is both weirdly charmed and disconcerted that the idea of a non-transgenic eluding them this long hasn’t even occurred to Ben. He misses having that kind of blissful ignorance.
"Long story," Alec says, moving on. "We can talk about Ames White and the many ways he should die later. We need to get some kind of plan together here."
"The basement," Ben repeats, low, so the hostages don’t overhear him. "If we can get down there we can lose everyone, easy. There’s more than just old subway tunnels. There are tunnels people forgot about even before the Pulse."
"How is it you know them so well? I haven’t been here that long, so you can’t have been here long enough to discover and map out a bunch of secret passageways."
"I was here before."
"Old hunting grounds?" Alec guesses, and Ben’s mouth twists up as he looks away.
Alec slumps against the door frame a little, more than tired, more than annoyed that he kinda wants to apologize for that remark.
One of the hostages—a balding man with a crooked tie—seems to sense some kind of opportunity now that Alec’s here to distract Ben, and chooses that moment to surge up and lunge at him with a stapler.
Alarmed, Alec hobbles across the room as fast as his stupid, malfunctioning body will allow. Barely makes it in time to knock the guy on his ass while knocking Ben’s wrist away with his bad arm. Ben’s gun fires uselessly at the ceiling as Alec bites back a cry, clutching at his shoulder.
"What the hell, Alec?" shouts Ben, pushing him away.
"What did I just say about body counts?" Alec manages, stumbling back and still keeping his shoulder in a tight grip in case his arm decides to fall off. Fuck.
He glares at the bald guy, who pales, immediately drops the stapler and shrinks back toward the wall.
"You're hurt," Ben realizes, voice matter of fact but he actually does look a little concerned.
"I'm fine."
Ben nods, taking Alec's word for it or maybe just too uncertain of where they stand with each other to push it. But when Alec starts limping around in search of a new wall to hold him up, too slowly and hissing through his teeth, it takes him about five seconds to reconsider.
"You’re not," Ben says firmly, pulling a chair over and pushing Alec down into it. "Don’t move."
Alec wants to protest but that would lead to standing again to prove his point, and it all seems like so much effort.
Ben disappears into the hallway. Alec hears him rummaging recklessly through another office before he returns with a first aid kit in hand. When he kneels in front of Alec and pulls out an Ace bandage and a pair of tweezers, Alec barely refrains from scoffing.
"There’s no way I’m letting you dig around my insides with that."
Ben glances up briefly, unconcerned. "Your shoulder’s probably started healing already. Longer you wait, the more it’s gonna suck."
Alec’s gaze slides pointedly back over to the huddle of civilians, most of them trying to make themselves vanish into the wall, a few of them glaring hatefully at him and undoubtedly picturing his slow, painful demise. Last thing he needs is to show any more weakness, or traumatize them further with all the screaming he’s inevitably in for. "It can wait."
"Fine." Ben forages through the desk behind Alec and comes up with a pair of scissors, cutting up the leg of Alec’s soaked jeans without bothering to ask. He wrinkles his nose up, pulling his hand back to glare at it suspiciously. "Do I wanna know why you smell like pee?"
Alec feels his face go hot. "I don’t wanna talk about it."
Ben grunts a little in disgust, wiping his hand off on the carpet, then stands. "Take those off," he says as he starts divesting one of the dead guards of his pants.
Alec thinks of complaining about Ben’s total disregard for the dead man’s dignity, but he kinda doubts the guy deserves much dignity and it’d take too much explaining for Ben to understand his reasons, anyway. Besides, he really does stink and it’s not like the guy needs them anymore.
He starts unbuckling his belt.
"Here, let me," Ben offers, helping to tug Alec’s ruined pants down his legs and then tightly bandaging his knee.
Once he’s in drier, cleaner pants, Ben grabs the edge of Alec’s shirt and yanks it up sideways, freeing his good arm.
"Little warning would be nice," Alec grouches, wriggling to help him get it over his head.
"If I warn you, you’ll just argue with me. I’ve picked up a few things about you by now."
Alec winces as Ben works the shirt off his injured shoulder, dried blood making the cloth stick to the wound. "I guess stalking is handy that way," he says through grit teeth.
Ben ignores the comment, tosses the shirt to the floor and cleans off as much blood as he can with a bottle of water and some disinfectant before wrapping it all up with another bandage.
Alec squirms uncomfortably as Ben examines his handiwork, mostly by poking at him. He smacks Ben’s hand away. "You think we can escape now or is playing doctor so much fun you wanna stay here and wait for your very own bullethole to stick your fingers in?"
"I still haven’t heard anything resembling an actual plan for getting downstairs," Ben points out, straightening up. "If you’ve thought of something, I’m all ears."
"What, is killing your way down there not good enough anymore?"
"We can do it that way," Ben says carefully, edging along the wall to peek out the window. "But the risk is pretty high. Especially with you hurt. I only killed my way up here in the first place because I didn’t have a choice."
"There’s always a choice," Alec argues, but given all he’s been through today, it lacks feeling. "You see anything?"
"Yeah," says Ben. "I see a SWAT truck pulling in."
"Shit."
"We can take them," Ben says, watching Alec like he might fall apart as he stands to come and join him.
"Maybe," says Alec, thinking fast. He wants to smack himself as soon as an idea forms, because he should’ve thought of it so much earlier. Being around Ben this much in one day has played all kinds of merry hell on his brain. "He’ll clear the building."
"What?"
"White. He’ll clear the cops out of the building. He’s always careful about anyone who might have a conscience seeing too much and living to tell the tale, and it’s not like he can just execute the entire police force when he’s done in here. They’ll guard the exits, yeah, but they’ll be outside."
"So we take out SWAT and run like hell?"
"Yes—wait, no. No, we should go now. Before they come up. They’ll have cleared it by now."
"You sure about that?"
"No." Alec kinda wants to stomp his foot. They could still make a run for it and see how far they can get, but choosing their own battleground promises better odds than being caught by surprise in a narrow corridor with no viable escape routes. "Dammit."
"It’s not that big a deal, is it? More cops to kill but—"
"They won’t be cops, haven’t you been listening? White will send his people. He’ll send Familiars."
Ben's brow furrows in frustration. "I don’t know what that means."
"It means it won’t be easy," Alec explains, glancing around. His gaze settles on the hostages again as he says, "They’re freaks just like us. Except not. Because they want to exterminate everyone who isn’t them," barely pausing for breath before making an executive decision.
"You and you." Alec inclines his chin at a woman in a pencil skirt sitting at the edge of the group, and a man wearing thick glasses towards the middle. They seem to holding it together better than the rest, flinching only a little when he singles them out. "I want each of you to take a group," he tells them before anyone can start freaking out too much. "I want you to leave now, as quickly and quietly as you can. Stay low, don’t draw attention to yourselves. You see anyone in a SWAT vest, you hide from them. They aren’t your friends in here. Once you’re out, feel free to throw yourselves at the nearest police officer you find. But not until then."
He lets that sink in before repeating the most important part, "SWAT: bad, Chicago PD: good, understand?"
He steps back a little as the hostages begin to rise, finally grasping that he’s serious about letting them go, but he’s still close enough to keep them fidgeting anxiously in place. He stares pointedly, waiting for one of them to figure out the question’s not rhetorical.
Jerkily, the woman nods.
"I’m not expecting you to trust me," Alec adds, "I know you don’t, but a little extra caution never hurt, right?"
Another nod, though this one’s a little slower.
Still not totally satisfied but figuring he’s done as much as he can in the time they have, Alec jerks his head at the door. "Go."
And they do, fumbling and tripping over each other, the complete opposite of stealth as everyone ignores any organizational attempts by Alec’s appointed group leaders, and hurls themselves at the exit. Alec sighs—he really doesn’t know why he keeps trying—but his hopes are lifted a little when the guy in glasses speaks up firmly in the hallway, working to inject calm and little more order.
Letting out a slow breath, Alec resigns himself to the fight, much as it pisses him off to have to face White’s muscleheads in his condition. He feels even more stupidly vulnerable without a shirt but there’s no time to fix that.
He turns back to Ben, who’s watching him dispassionately, appearing almost bored.
"They're strong," Alec says, checking his ammo, and Ben perks up at the official tone of his voice. "Stronger than us. But we're faster. They don't feel pain so don't rely on that to slow them down."
He starts collecting more of the dead’s discarded weapons. Wonders briefly if he should barricade the doors that connect to other offices but decides having multiple exits is more important than multiple breaches.
"Don't let them draw you into a fistfight if you can help it. They hate us and they're twisted as hell, so they prefer beating us to death over shooting. They'll use guns as a last resort which is why we need to shoot first. Go for legs, arms, wherever you can aim that isn't covered in bulletproof armor. Disable them as much as you can before getting close."
"It's not like I'm new at this," Ben sneers.
"Yeah, you kind of are," Alec snaps. "They're not helpless normals you can chase through the woods."
Ben looks like he wants to say something particularly scathing in reply, but outside, the crowd lets out a cheer that cannot mean anything good, and his attention is officially diverted.
"How about you do the shooting," he says, not so much a suggestion as an order, at which Alec makes a face. Ben follows it up by shoving Alec across the room and then trying to push him up onto the ledge near the ceiling. "Disabling for the disabled. There's your perch."
"I'm not freakin’ disabled," says Alec, resisting. "I can fight."
"Maybe. But I'd rather you didn't."
Alec stops, eyeing Ben skeptically. This Ben is not the Ben he’s been dealing with all day. He’s much bossier, for one thing, less fragile-seeming and entirely too excited at the prospect of a new killing challenge. He considers asking if Manticore accidentally gave him a split personality with all that carving they did, but thinks better of it. There’s something off here. Alec files it away and resolves to pay closer attention.
"I'm glad you think you're in charge, considering you're the one who got us into this mess."
"Which is exactly why I should be the one to get us out," Ben says.
When Alec still refuses to budge, Ben gives him a dark look.
Then he kicks him.
Pain floods Alec's leg and he folds faster than a house of cards in a windstorm. "Fuck!" he gasps, grabbing his knee. Ben moves closer and Alec's gun is up before he can blink. "Touch me again and I will shoot you in the face."
Ben rolls his eyes and backs off, hands up in surrender. "Was just gonna help you up, but have it your way. You're no good to me crying on the floor." He points at the ledge again. "At least from up there you can back me up."
Before Alec can protest any more, heavily-armored shadows appear behind the blinds, climbing the side of the building like a cliff face.
Ben flicks a look across the room, eyes widening a little. He turns back to Alec. His scowl hardens. Alec returns the scowl but, out of time, ultimately gives in and scrambles up to the ledge. He consoles himself with the thought that he can jump back down and prove Ben wrong as soon as he realizes how screwed he is trying to take on Familiars by himself. Though, really, it'd serve Ben right for Alec to just sit up here and watch him die horribly.
The slightest whisper of sound from the hallway, and Alec whips his head around. He brings his guns up, glancing over quickly to make sure Ben is ready.
Can’t hold onto his resentment when he notices how close Ben has gotten to the windows.
"Hey, maybe you shouldn’t—"
Ignoring him, Ben walks across the room towards one of the desks. Cocks his head at it. Then he leans down and shoves.
The desk goes crashing through the centermost panes, a handful of Familiars knocked backwards in a shower of tangled blinds and broken glass. Some of the ropes snap, their riders plummeting back to the street. The ones whose ropes are intact are stuck dangling and grasping for a new hold on the building.
Alec spends a split-second jealously wondering why he didn't think of that, and then he shoots the first Familiar to make it inside, forcing the man back a few steps. He shoots him again and again, forcing him back even further until he runs out of floor and stumbles out into thin air, dropping to join his friends below.
The others come pouring in, twenty or so of them, some through the windows and some through the office door behind them. There’s a noticeable air of surprise when they see they’re dealing with two transgenics instead of just one but it doesn’t trip them up at all. They advance without hesitation.
Alec focuses on taking out extremities and keeping one eye on his twin for inevitable failure.
Easier said than done.
He’s allowed mere seconds to watch Ben launch himself into motion before a pair of Familiars notice Alec monopolizing the only high ground there is. They charge. Alec shoots. The bullets slam into their vests and tear through thighs and biceps but they don’t stop.
Pulling his legs up, Alec keeps shooting. He kicks out when they reach for him, his boot glancing off a helmet and knocking it askew. He kicks at that one again, harder. The helmet jolts and blood gushes from the Familiar’s nose.
"Mutant filth," the Familiar spits, locking a hand around Alec’s ankle. He twists like he expects it to come popping right off. Alec feels a sharp twinge of warning; his ankle telling him that it just might do that.
Alec grunts and kicks out with his bad leg, adrenaline masking the pain a little. He squeezes his trigger and plants a bullet in the Familiar’s forehead. Swings a gun around just as the other Familiar climbs up onto a chair.
Before he can fire off another shot, a knife plants itself behind the guy's ear, sticking out of the small gap between his helmet and collar. The Familiar falls, lifeless. Alec looks back at Ben, who's already moving on to the next pair of unlucky snake-worshippers stupid enough to get in his way, shooting both of their throats out.
He seems to have taken Alec's tip about speed to heart, blurring all over the room and barely stopping between kills. It goes on like that for long seconds, and Alec doesn't know why he's surprised. All this time calling Ben all kinds of crazy in his head and it should've occurred to him before now to notice how successful he's been at it. There is a method to his madness—reasoning and motivation all twisted up, sure, but that doesn't affect how precisely lethal his execution is.
Distracted with a new threat trying to climb up toward him, Alec doesn’t shout a warning in time when Ben makes the mistake of barreling straight at a Familiar who has obviously been laying in wait for that exact thing.
The Familiar sidesteps at the last minute, arm darting out. His forearm catches Ben in the neck and Ben’s momentum betrays him, snapping his head and then the rest of him backwards.
Alec has already abandoned his perch by the time Ben lands flat on his back, breath punched out of him. Ben tries to get back up but wavers, gasping to get air into his abused throat. He sprawls sideways and rolls out of Alec’s path just as Alec plows into the Familiar full-force.
They go rollicking away from Ben and straight into the nearest wall. Luckily, it’s not Alec’s head that takes the hit, but their limbs are tangled together and he’s stuck wrestling around with the Familiar, trying to get free.
Alec feels a hand claw at his hair. His head is wrenched backwards. The tendons in his neck strain and his eyes can’t find anything but the ceiling. The Familiar scrabbles for a better angle, a surer grip, and all it’ll take is one quick twist for Alec to be out of the fight. He swallows hard and gropes around desperately, finds the edge of the Familiar’s visor and smacks it open. Grits his teeth as he blindly brings his gun around and pulls the trigger.
The hand goes slack and Alec slumps in relief.
It’s short-lived.
He doesn’t need to turn and check on Ben; the sudden explosion of gunfire is a clear sign he’s recovered. But there’s too much of it. Ben can’t possibly be getting that many shots off at once.
Alec dives for the floor and yanks the Familiar’s body over him like a blanket when the wall behind him is suddenly punched full of bulletholes. The body jerks as it absorbs the hits meant for him and Alec tries not to feel smothered under its weight. Hopes Ben found cover before the Familiars decided it was time to actually bring guns to the gunfight.
As soon as the bombardment dies down, Alec shoves the body aside and springs to his feet.
The back of his head erupts with pain and before he knows what’s happening he’s on the floor again. The toe of a boot collides with his cheek. Blood bursts across his tongue, white agony temporarily stealing his vision. Another kick, this one to his temple, and the sounds around him go wobbly. He wants to believe the little noise he can make out is part of a distant struggle, that it means Ben is still in this thing, but he doesn’t get to find out. He’s too disoriented to react before another hand is on him, prying his weapons away and dragging him out into the hallway by his hair.
"What is with you fuckers and hair-pulling?" Alec snarls, dazedly writhing and kicking.
His vision reassembles itself enough to see the jackass grinning down at him in savage glee. "Ames has really been looking forward to getting reacquainted," the Familiar says. "Didn’t think we’d be lucky enough to bring you to him alive."
"Yeah, great." Alec bares his teeth. His heart flutters wildly in his chest. "I think I should change first, though," he grunts, struggles some more. The guy’s grip is really very solid. "Not sure this is the right outfit for meeting sadistic cult leaders. I should at least put on a shirt."
The Familiar’s fingers tighten in his hair, jerking his head roughly and smacking it into the wall as they turn a corner.
Alec squeezes his eyes shut against the vicious spike of agony and slurs out, "Maybe something in snakeskin."
That earns him another violent jolt, made even worse as he lands on the stairs and the Familiar continues to drag him relentlessly onward.
The murmur of activity from outside grows louder, and the office they’ve left behind seems disturbingly silent in comparison. Alec twists and claws at the Familiar’s arm, scoring bloody grooves into the skin. The guy doesn’t even blink and it’s possible that Alec is maybe beginning to panic a little bit. Ben may not be his favorite person but not knowing if he’s okay freaks him out almost as much as coming face to face with Ames White again.
Fucking White.
Fuck that.
Alec kicks up his struggles, contorting himself into crazy positions and finally managing to get his ankle hooked around the Familiar’s shin. The Familiar stumbles a little but doesn’t spill down the stairs like Alec hoped. He doesn’t let go, either. He catches himself on the railing and drives his boot into Alec’s lower back. Alec bites down on the scream that tries to tear out of him. The Familiar does it again and Alec feels sure one more hit will paralyze him but he doesn’t stop fighting. He takes a cue from all the whackjobs he’s had surrounding him all day and goes berserk, thrashing and twisting and lashing out wildly at any body part he can reach. He’d rather be beaten to death than see the end of this staircase.
"You little mongrel," the Familiar squawks, trying to keep his hold on Alec and dance out of his whirlwind-like path at the same time. He seems to have caught onto Alec’s plans of self-destruction because he’s not retaliating. "You might as well save it. There’s nothing—"
An animalistic howl from above pierces through their little skirmish. A blur goes sailing past them, down the steps, the thunder of boots close behind, and Ben’s voice calls back, "Incoming!"
Heart soaring, Alec curls himself into a tight ball just before a fresh storm of bullets is unleashed. The Familiar’s grip on him disappears. He hears the thump of the body hitting the stairs, taken down in a hail of friendly fire. Feet stampede right past him, completely ignoring the vulnerable enemy in their midst.
Ben must have really pissed them off, Alec thinks, and then he gets with the program and lunges up to snap the neck of a straggler. His head swims and he has to grab onto the railing to keep from tumbling down the steps.
There’s a gun down there.
Alec plucks the weapon from the dead Familiar’s belt and smoothly reinserts himself into the action.
He takes careful aim from where he stands, opting for precision over speed, and fires into the smaller but more lethal gaps in their SWAT uniforms. Not all of them are wearing their helmets anymore, so that’s easy enough, and before they get over their outrage at Ben enough to pay attention to Alec again, they’re mostly too late.
There aren’t many Familiars left. Ben is taking on four of them at once on the landing below but Alec can see he’s starting to flag.
He’s proven right when one Familiar lands a kick to Ben’s chest that flips him over the railing and out of sight.
"Hey!"
They whirl around to come at him but Alec’s not interested in letting them get close enough to cause his sorely abused body any more problems. He opens fire.
Runs out of ammo after the third man goes down.
"Crap," Alec whines a little, and throws himself down the stairs to meet the remaining Familiar head-on.
They both land in a chaotic heap. Alec scrambles away and thrusts his legs out, catching the Familiar’s head between his ankles. He twists sharply. The Familiar goes limp.
For a minute, there is nothing but blissful, beautiful silence.
Now seems like an excellent time to collapse and never move again. Except he hasn’t seen Ben since he took a nosedive and he should probably check into that.
"Ben?" Alec calls out, shakily pulling himself up and limping down the steps.
"I’m fine," moans Ben from somewhere down below. It sounds pretty far down, actually. Alec’s not sure he wants to keep going. "You get ‘em?"
"All dead," Alec reports. He wonders if sliding down the railing is a really terrible or only mildly bad idea. "Are you fine fine, or reporting-to-a-soulless superior fine?"
"I’m good."
He doesn’t sound remotely good. Alec sighs and continues to hobble. This is not the daring and speedy escape he had in mind when he first got here.
When he makes it all the way down to the bottom, where the staircase lets out directly into the center of the lobby and a colorful strobe of lights is flashing through the frosted glass doors that lead out into the mob, he finds Ben splayed there on the linoleum like a starfish, making no move to get up.
"Told you not to get close," Alec says, breathless, and kneels down awkwardly to assess the damage.
Ben’s lip curls up in an unamused snarl. His eyes flutter shut, like just looking at things requires way too much energy, face tense and lined with misery.
Alec feels a prickle of unwelcome concern. "Can you move?"
"Probably," mutters Ben. He cracks an eye open. "Don’t want to, though."
Alec smirks. "Too bad. I didn’t come all this way to watch you take a nap." He nudges Ben’s shoulder. "Come on, get up."
Scrunching his face, Ben does get up. He moves gingerly, sucking in quick breaths, and Alec guesses that his ribs did not fare well under that hit he took. Alec’s not in the best condition to take his weight, but that doesn’t stop him from hooking one of Ben’s arms around his shoulders to help him along.
"Look at it this way," he says as they shuffle along like a couple of old men. "We’re closer to the basement than we were twenty minutes ago. It’s like a shortcut."
"Anyone ever tell you you talk too much?" Ben growls a little, and Alec huffs out a laugh.
"Never."
Static.
It’s a sound Alec has seriously come to loathe.
A voice that is entirely too recognizable for Alec’s peace of mind crackles from the stairway over their heads, asking for a status report. Of course.
"What’s wrong?" asks Ben, eyeing him in concern as Alec stands frozen to the spot.
"There’s no way we’re gonna get up there in time to respond to that radio call, is there?"
"Not likely."
"How far is the basement?"
Ben glances ahead and his mouth thins out as he seems to realize their predicament. "Not close," he admits because, stairs or no stairs, the building isn’t exactly small. "How long do you think before they send in reinforcements?"
The crashing of glass from what seems like every floor in the building answers that question.
"You’ve got to be fucking kidding me," Alec groans. Eyes darting around, he lets go of Ben because they’re both going to have to stand on their own to get through this.
If they were both in better shape, they might make it downstairs before the new wave caught up. Even then, the Familiars would discover Ben’s little escape hatch before he and Alec could cover their trail. Then they’d be stuck in an underground maze that Alec doesn’t know very well with Familiars hot on their heels, and it’s just not an ideal scenario.
"Fuck. I’m out of ammo and I don’t see any weapons laying around down here, do you?"
Ben makes a face at the empty lobby. "They must’ve cleared out the bodies."
"No shit," Alec mutters. They are so screwed. "Goddammit."
"It’s fine," says Ben, and if Alec didn’t know any better he’d say his twin sounds excited again, that same note in his voice as before.
He actually doesn’t know any better.
"Fuck your fine," Alec growls, rage boiling up. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Ben’s face slackens in total innocence. It’s too much innocence, really. "What do you mean?"
Alec narrows his eyes at the panic barely masked behind that expression. He opens his mouth to tell Ben exactly what he means, to pry whatever secret he’s keeping out of him if it takes all night.
And then he’s rudely reminded that he doesn’t have all night.
A bullet slams into Alec’s thigh, just above his swollen knee. His legs fold and his ass hits the floor. The pain doesn’t register right away and so he sits there, stunned and unable to believe that just happened.
"I got shot again," he mumbles, just to say it out loud.
More gunfire rains down from above. Alec looks up. Familiars are leaning over the railing on the third floor, automatic weapons aimed straight at them.
Ben dives to avoid being hit. He does a weird little flip across Alec’s lap, grabbing onto him as he goes. Next thing Alec knows they’re sprawled under the cover of the staircase and Ben barely pauses long enough to let Alec get his bearings before he’s seizing his arm and tugging.
"Get up," Ben orders. Alec stares at him. "Now." Ben tugs again, jarring his injured shoulder and wow, okay, mother of fuck, there’s the pain.
Alec struggles back to his feet, swaying a little. Ben presses into him to keep him steady and hauls Alec alongside himself, down through a hallway and away from the rapidly descending footsteps. Alec suspects they aren’t going fast enough.
"I hate this freaking day," he says.
Ben shoots him a pitying look, and somehow that’s the thing to snap him out of it.
He pushes at Ben. "I can walk."
"You really can’t."
He pulls away. Grabs onto Ben again when that proves slightly disastrous. "Yeah, okay."
"Here." Ben slides a knife into his palm and Alec closes his fingers around it gratefully.
That gratefulness disappears in the next second when Ben shoves him into a janitor's closet and says, "Stay," before slamming the door in his face.
Propped against a shelf full of cleaning supplies, Alec blinks. He tries to open the door but it’s jammed or blocked somehow from the outside.
"What. The. Fuck," he says to no one.
At full strength, Alec could bust out of here, no problem, but clearly, he’s nowhere near full strength, so he mostly gets to fume silently as he listens to the rowdy brawl breaking out in the hallway. If they survive this, he is going to kick Ben’s ass so hard.
It’s embarrassing, how long it takes him to notice there’s a little square window in the middle of the door, that he can see and not just hear, and then he realizes he might be suffering a minor case of blood loss. It’s so dark in here, or maybe his vision is on the fritz again, who knows, but he manages to scrounge up some cleaning cloths and ties them together. Tying them around his leg is a little more difficult, and he blinks back tears as he pulls them tight.
"Jesus," he breathes out when that’s all over with.
The gunshots startle him so badly he swears he almost has a heart attack.
They really shouldn’t, he’s been dealing with the sounds forever, but somehow he hadn’t noticed the lack of them until they came back. He straightens as best he can, balancing on one leg and pressing his face against the glass to see outside.
He sees the Familiars first, of course. They’re worse than cockroaches, just goddamn everywhere. They aren’t trussed up in full SWAT gear, Alec notes, but it’s about the only good news there is because they are armed to the teeth and obviously aren’t as hesitant as the first bunch to use weapons.
Dread creeps up on him, gaining momentum the longer he goes without spotting Ben. But then, yep. There he is, holding up a bloodied bulletproof vest like a shield as he charges recklessly into the barrage.
Alec loses sight of him again, but he can hear the sounds of utter destruction going on and deals with his imagination running wild until there’s something else to look at.
The next time he sees Ben, he’s holding a pistol in each hand. His back slams against the door and Alec gets his hopes up, waiting for Ben to get over this weird overprotective crap, let him out and arm him up properly. Ben’s shoulders flatten against the glass as he raises both barrels. Shots are fired. Ben drops. Ben jumps back up. Ben disappears again.
Alec huffs.
The blasts that follow are relentless, and Alec’s not surprised. There’s a transgenic backed into a corner with a gun and little to no armor protecting his attackers, who outnumber him by a pretty staggering amount. "Take no prisoners" is pretty much the name of the game here.
After what seems like forever, the gunfire tapers off. Alec decides it’s because everyone’s running low on ammo and not because of any other reason that he refuses to accept when he’s trapped in a tiny space with only a knife and a dirty mop to defend himself with.
He lets out the breath he was holding when a shape blurs by the window. It blurs back the other way and he can just make out Ben, who is visibly losing whatever gumption he was using to keep his own pain at bay. He’s bleeding.
Alec thumps irritably at the door but Ben doesn’t acknowledge it. "Getting shot is my thing," he says anyway, like he can scold Ben into not doing that again. There’s going to be no one left to patch them up if they’re both plugged full of lead.
Familiars pour in from both sides and swarm around Ben like hornets. Alec pounds harder on the door, which turns out to be a bad idea. Dizziness smacks into him like a tidal wave. He clings to the doorknob for dear life. It’s hot in here, his heart is racing, and he might actually throw up.
He wants out now.
"Open this fucking door!" he shouts uselessly.
Ben can’t open the fucking door. Ben is very busy trying not to die, the dumbass. Alec didn’t go through all the trouble of infiltrating this shithole to suffocate in a goddamn closet.
His mild hysteria subsides a little when Ben manages to break free of the attack circle. He’s not down for the count yet, and so Alec watches avidly, urging Ben to victory through sheer force of will. At the same time, something else niggles at him, and he thinks that since he’s stuck here he might as well take advantage of the opportunity he’s been afforded.
Ben’s a lot more protective of his exposed underbelly this time around, hunched over and angling his body to keep himself small. What he’s lost in fluidity, however, he makes up for in bloody brutality.
When one overly confident asshole gets right up in Ben’s face to sneer at him as they grapple with each other, Ben promptly stabs him in the eye. When he gets caught in another Familiar’s hold, arms pinned at his sides, Ben doesn’t miss a beat as he lunges at the guy’s jugular with his teeth. He wields a knife like an extension of himself, drives the blade deep into vulnerable flesh and paints the walls in arterial spray but, despite his ferocity, Ben doesn’t seem as pissed as Alec had expected.
At first glance his expression is all business, no real emotion except maybe some eagerness to complete the mission for the sake of expediency. It's not until Alec focuses a little harder that he knows that's a lie.
There's no hesitation. No inner struggle or crisis of conscious about whether or not he's making the right calls. Mouth smeared bright red and quirked up ever so slightly at one corner, Ben's eyes are blazing with the thrill of it, with the surety of purpose. Like he knows without a doubt he was made to be this and he's enjoying every second.
And that right there is when Alec figures it out.
He's been fucking played.
