Almost Ash

Participants:

christian_icon.gif dantes_icon.gif minea_icon.gif teo_icon.gif

Scene Title Almost Ash
Synopsis Who you gonna call?
Date January 8, 2008

A Shitty Motel


It's a seedy discount motel. The kind of place willing to let you pay cash with no ID. And that's where Dantes has noted that he's holing up, rather than lead any sort of pursuer, human or not, to Minea's place. He's sprawled on the queen size bed, coughing and wheezing and pale as a ghost. He doesn't seem to be bleeding from any open wounds, but the piece of tissue he's holding to his mouth is scarlet-spotted. T he door is propped open just a hair, to keep the latch from striking home and locking out those coming to help. He's in a white shirt, black pants, the black overcoat thrown carelessly over the little rickety table by the window.

He'd been here for awhile actually, a good ten minutes since the call went out anyway. He knew Dantes was inside, and he knew the dude was jacked up but he wasnt about to get himself popped with some punk trap. Across the street, on the rooftop sat an old telecom shack like buildings used to require back in the 60s. Its not every day, Christian gets to use a telecom key afterall. From there he popped a singular panel loose, and let it swing by an upper edge.

Carefully, set to his right side sat a pair of 20rnd magazines, and there he took up shop. Parking his ass against a long empty telephone rack, as he lifted a boot to brace himself against the far wall. Then with a pair of pins and the drop of a captive bolt, he swung his Leonidas up to shoulder to let the crosshairs lazily hover over Dantes door. Even if it wasnt a trap, it was a 50/50 crapshoot there'd be a hit team coming. He was in a better position to play overwatch from here.

Unlike Christian, Minnie was playing the part of the dog. Fetch the fed. As opposed to Christian, Minnie looks like everything is normal. No gun out, no visible armor, Not evena special vehincle. Just the ISA woman, her big black SUV pulling into the lot once Christian gave the all clear from his position. She knew the room he was in and the car had thier combat medical kit if needed. The engine is left running, it can be played off as 'gee it's cold, and I'm not going to be here long, don't want the car to get cold,' and the brunette starts to make her way to the appointed room. She doesn't even look in Christian's direction. Just another normal inhabitant of the cheap hotel, coming in to sleep.

There's a man in the dingy hallway where there probably shouldn't be one. He's young, not yet thirty, a snarl of off-blond hair and blue eyes, clad in a jacket over a hoodie, both conspicuously empty of snow. It isn't readily in evidence how Teo got here. Between teleporters and a healthy public transit system, few things lie entirely outside the realm of possibility. "You know Chris?" He looks up at the woman entering. His eyes had been on the floor, a phone in his hand, passing for nobody; somebody waiting; a civilian. He is all of those things.

There's not much power on the optic mounted atop Chris's beloved Noveske, just three power but he can make out Dantes clear as day through the glass and he even has a decent angle with the door. He inhales slowly, holds and then slowly lets it leave him. He's sure theres a hit team, he's positively -certain- that its coming. Its anticipation, and a wanting for a far larger weapon that keeps him glued where he is.

Teo's presence raises her hackles. She's never met him before, doesn't even has his real name truth be told, just the call sign created by Christian and that Dantes calls him Teo. She'd assume it's him, but assumptions get you killed. "What's his last name?" Even as Dantes is calling out for the man, waiting to see the young man's reaction to the call. Her hand hasn't gone for her gun yet, not that the poor guy can see one. "Both of them"

Either the young man is colder than he ought to be, or it's hard for him. Either way, he doesn't particularly react to his name being called out by a man who seems, to all evidence, to be in the process of dying. "Powell," Teo answers, obediently. "Or Einliter, I'm not sure why he goes between two. Dantes, though he wasn't always.

"You're the partner," he identifies, after a moment. He isn't moving. He wants to. His hands are already curled, one into a fist and the other around the phone, or his impatience might have manifested itself that way. His back remains against the wall, his weight distributed perfectly across both feet. "My friend did the computer shit that's holding up your work on the system."

"Min, is that you?" Dantes's voice is fainter, now, more tentative. What're they doing out there?

Christian checks his watch, frowning some. Where the fuck was she, Minea had been too long. This was all just taking too long, curiously he peered at his cellphone set by said magazines. He was tempted to call, but then if it rang at the wrong moment he'd feel terrible. Why hadn't he just given her a radio?

"In the room" She relaxes, just a fraction. "Your Caravaggio. I'm going to need your help if he can't get up on his own." She's moving forward now. Christians out there and got her back. "Dahl. Minea." She doesn't offer him a hand tos hake. Not to offend him, she just needs both hand free. "Dantes." She calls out, easing into the room when she gets to the door and looking around before she gets to him. "Up and at em, if you can Dantes. Cats out of the bag so to speak, we need to get you safe" She heads for the bed, still keeping alert. "Fuck. You look like shit."

If Teo were a little less pathologically helpful, he would have said the same thing. Taller than Minea by more than a couple inches, he can see the older man from over her shoulder. The eyebrow that he had raised upon hearing that handle — Carawho? — is joined by the other. "Cazzo," is his contribution instead.

Promptly, he unzips his jacket and jerks it off his shoulders with a rough hand, before stepping over to close Edward up in it. "Where's Christian?" he asks the woman without looking at her.

"I don't know what he did to me. Or where Volken now is," Dantes admits, hobbling up to the door, having heaved himself up off the bed. "I've got a coat," he says, quietly, "But thanks."

On cue, ring-ring-ring would go Minea's phone. He had one hand on the rifle and the other to his phone, watching all of the fun through the telepresence offered with a 3 power optic. It was scary to admit, that being removed and from the immediate action felt so much more at home for him. Once a machine gunner, always a gunner it would seem.

"Where he has to be. Don't worry." The Blackberry is thumbed from her belt and answered with a glance to the caller ID, taking in Dantes's words she nods. "Got the kitty, Cravaggio's with us, heading out now." Though she waits for any other instructions from her partner. There's a motion for Teo to help Dantes like he's already doing. This is business-Minea. Dantes has seen it.

Privileged with the arrogance of being twenty-six, Teo ignores the older man's objection unless it turns into a physical protest. It's too warm in here; he isn't feeling much, anyway; Edward looks cold, absurdly enough. He isn't, however, about to hoist the man bodily off his feet or anything like that. Teo has their backs, and that's about it. "Hi, Chris," he tells the phone, a ghost of a smile for the man who can probably neither see nor hear it. "You people have somewhere to take him, or do you need a place?"

Dantes does look cold. Bloodless and gray, like he's half-way to being one of Kazimir's victims. And he's shivering to the point that his teeth rattle. Shock, no doubt. But he's upright, albeit unsteadily so.

"Take the staircase, theres an employee by the fire exit smoking a cigarette. He's got the door propped open with a brick, its almost right next to your car. Get moving." Click. Yes, ever helpful Chris at work!

"If you have a place, give me directions. I'll have a new place by tomorrow." The loft, even before they had set out to fetch Dantes was being abandoned, the necessary things gathered like her work and equipment, being packed up and someone was hunting a new place for them. She wasn't taking chances that somehow even though he was alive, it hadn't been compromised. She's walking out in front of them, a glance into the hallway. Not even a response, she shuts it off too, holstering the device and jerks her head in the direction of the appointed door, and the employee who will be smoking as Chris predicts. "Move fast, stop for no one. The SUV is outside the door, idling. I'll unlock the doors. If something happens Caravaggio, get him in the car and drive off. Take him to your safe place, if you have one." All spoken while she's walking ahead of them.

There's probably still molecules of Cameron on the shoes Teo wears in autumn. He remembers what it looks and smells like, can recognize that Dantes is closer to it than any living man ought to be. He's watching the older man sidelong, wondering even as he listens to Minea answer in words as minimalistically efficient as the motion of her wiery frame. "Brooklyn," he tells her back. He gives the address.

If Felix has enough of his head together, he'll recognize it: Flint Deckard had resided there, once, and he'd been shot a curb no more than a block away, grown up as a child little further away. He closes a hand on Felix's elbow, his grip firm but gentle and moves on signal.

It's good Teo's holding him. Because Dantes makes a soft noise, as if he'd protest, before his eyelids flutter…..and he simply collapses, a marionette with its strings cut.

"Fuck." Minea hears the difference between footsteps and something else and she's stepping back to take one side of the Fed. "Can you carry him?" Shit. He's worse than she thought. "Brooklyn. Fair enough."

"More than fair. The house was in use until your friend here fucked it all u— arroghe merda." Teo's mechanical grousing cuts short with a spat curse when Dantes goes slack on his feet. The older man's knees hit the ground a second before the younger manages to drop low enough to seize him by the trunk of his torso, managing to push his head under the hoop of the man's arm before struggling to drag them vertical again. More of a sloppily oblique angle, wobbling like drunkards, before a second stoop winds an arm around the back of Dantes' knees and hauls him up to rest heavily against Teo's center of balance.

No hands free, open space in unfamiliar territory, Feds everywhere. Fucking A.

Fortunately, he has a long history of hauling around the beaten corpuses of men whose senses have taken leave of them. Teo huffs, breathes in the clammy stink of something that isn't health off Edward's face. He glances over his shoulder, once, acknowledging Minea's request with a monosyllable of agreement, before turning his face out into the night where he knows Christian must be watching, somewhere. Lets this comfort him, before he lets the SUV nearing in the intermediate distance slide into focus, and steps into the dark.


l-arrow.png
January 8th: Say It Like You Mean It
r-arrow.png
January 8th: Unregular Women For An Unregular Bar
Unless otherwise stated, the content of this page is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License