Right as Rain

Participants:

bill_icon.gif danko_icon.gif felix_icon.gif

Scene Title Right as Rain
Synopsis Bill and Danko check in with Felix to make sure he's comfortable and settling in well before moving onto the subject of finding some sugar and spice and everything nice to improve his moral and keep him company.
Date August 30, 2009

Baker and Williams Warehouse 521-527, Chelsea


48 hours after he was jolted back to consciousness by a needle in his arm on a hospital bed damp with three years worth of insidious Midtown rot, Danko is still awake and still in his tuxedo. Most of it, anyway. The blood soaked jacket has been stripped away and disposed of, along with his tie, leaving him bearing some vague resemblance to a homeless bartender in a stiff-lined sable vest over a dress shirt that would be almost as black if not for the dust dried in across the shoulders and one side of the back from where he's been dragged around. His slacks still look pressed. His dress shoes are suffering. And somewhere in the last two days, he's made a point of finding time to shave with somebody else's razor.

When the door to Felix's temporary housing creaks open to allow him passage, he's blacked in around the eyes like a pissed off anole, all 5 foot fucking 7 of him tweaked rigid as an iron rail. The black leather holster he has slung over his shoulder was sized for someone taller and heavier than him, but it works well enough once he's wrested his second arm through the opposite loop and adjusted the sit of the .45 at his side, sleeves rolled to his elbows.

For all that he's been unfalteringly, even lazily on the ball every other time anyone has ever seen him, he looks decidedly off his game right now.

"Wake up."

Ivanov is not longer in his tux. He's been stripped out of it, down to blood-stained silk boxers. He's hooked up to a jerry-rigged IV, needle neatly butterflied into the back of his hand - it looks like something out of a 'Nam era field hospital. You take your surplus where you can get it, presumably. Probably only saline and nutrients, along with suppressants, to keep him from expiring entirely from blood loss and shock; he was in a genuine coma for a little while there, but this seems to be mere unconsciousness. He's cuffed behind, and that in turn is chained to a water pipe. He's as close as he can manage to a fetal curl on the cold concrete of the basement floor. The gunshot wounds in chest and thigh are bandaged, but those dressings could clearly use changing, and his face is multicolored, one eye blacked by Bill's pistolwhipping. The cuts to maim are also neatly doctored. HE doesn't look up or move, as Danko enters.

Not a request, in the event the anger hoarse in Danko's voice might've left any doubt. The smaller man snaps the gun out of its holster, levers off the safety and pulls the trigger all in the same viper strike movement that tears up a clod of cement a few inches from Felix's curl and skips off to slap itself into the back wall in the form of a ricochet, hissing as it goes.

There's the metallic clang of him coming awake all at once, and fishtailing against bonds and wounds, the spastic motion of a trapped animal yanking the chain against the pipe. It has him crying out in pain, and then lapsing into too-rapid, panting breaths, one good eye rolling to focus on Danko as he tries not to sink back into the welcoming dark. Focus. Where is this?

"Felix Ivanov, longtime agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, New York City Police Department liaison, recipient of the Congressional Gold Medal for outstanding acts of service to the United States of America and registered evolved." This is a really long way to say, 'good morning,' but is at least accompanied by the slither of Danko's gun back into its holster while he skims dead grey eyes over rank bandages and ribs rising and falling too fast around a ragged pant. "Are you gonna make this easy on me or are we gonna go have to go out and find a few of your friends to execute first?"

….English. He's speaking English. Do I even remember how? No. It comes out in slurred Russian. «What do you want?» He's gone tight and still again, resting the side of his face on the concrete, breath still ragged.

«I want you to answer my questions.» comes back simple as that, allowing for the clean swap to Russian with a lift of greyed out brows and a sliver of contempt through the ash and snow of Danko's eyes when they catch at what little yellow light there is to reflect in here. As before, his accent is flat, unfeeling American across syllables that deserve greater elegance and a more permissive tongue, digging deliberate disrespect into every hard-spoken word. «We've already established that you don't care what happens to you. That only leaves me so many options.»

He makes an odd little uneven noise that ends in a caught breath and a stifled whimper. Surely it isn't laughter. Not here, at the end of all things. «What questions?» He wonders, when he can speak again, closing his good eye. He's already fading out, it'd seem.

Oh no. Now is not naptime. If Danko has to be awake, so does Felix, and three near soundless tracks of scuffed shoe across concrete later, he's crouched down and there's a warm gun muzzle prying its way up under blood matted bandaging to get friendly with the raggedy puncture underneath. «I know you're tired, and I know you've had a really…really rough couple of nights, but I need you to focus…»

Fel's down in a fetal curl, wrists cuffed behind him, fastened to a copper water pipe that stretches up to the ceiling. He's been stripped out of that tux, left in nothing but bloodstained silk boxers. His face is a map of multicolored bruises, one eye swollen shut courtesy of Bill's belated pistolwhipping, and there are bandages on chest and thigh, to cover the bulletwounds. Smaller strips of bandage at ankle and knee demarcate were tendons were cut. There's a rather jury-rigged IV, its needle butterflied into one hand - presumably loaded with saline and suppressants. Hot metal on the wound on his chest has him gagging in pain, convulsing against the cuffs and straining the sloppily stitched cuts in his leg. The one blue eye rolls up, but comes back down to track on Danko, as he resumes that grayhound panting. I'm here.

"God, did you know they had hot pretzel stands less than three blocks away from here?" The voice comes along with a door being shouldered open. The accent of upstate New York is a peculiar one, almost like northern New England but without some of the curious drawl. Coming in to the twenty by twenty concrete cell is a slightly overweight, round-faced man with a receeding hairline and two steaming hot pretzels cradled in napkins in one hand, and a smoking hot plastic cup of melted cheese in the other.

"The little salt they put on these things," he's trying to play himself off as casual, but the limp Bill Dean exhibits is courtesy of a gunshot wound to the leg and field dressing on something that should have been handled at a hospital, "you know there's one thing I love about this fuckin' city, it's the food, don't you agree Felix?"

William Dean, the face Felix Ivanov recognizes from Old Lucy's, and the young crew-cut soldier-boy walking in plain clothes behind him carrying a birdcage with a sheet draped over it behind him is David, one of Bill's boys. "Danko," not Emile, that's a faggy name, "sorry about leaving you on baby sitting duty for so long. I picked you up a pretzel, come on you need your carbs." The salted pretzel is offered out in one hand, a smile too jolly to be honest spread across his bright red face.

Something inside the cage is squeaking.

Birds don't squeak.

"Better," commended in coffee breath and acid, Danko adjusts his grip on the gun enough to give it a hint of a twist, knuckles bearing down white against Felix's bloodied chest in time for his eyes to level themselves too sharp and too clear after Felix's remaining one. «Who was the woman with the tranquilizer gun? I want her name, and I want to know — » why the door is opening at his back.

Russian exchange cut off short, he twists away from his too-close lean into Felix's broken face to squint at Bill and company through the exterior light that accompanies their arrival. His slacks are still pressed and his vest is still fitted in severe lines across the dusty creases of the dress shirt beneath — all black and all too expensive to be wearing while poking live weapons into soon to be infected bullet wounds.

Rather than say hullo or acknowledge the highly improbable introduction of delicious salty pretzels into this situation at all, he lets his eyes fall onto the cage and squints as his semiautomatic sinks a little deeper into Felix's chest hole. "If you're planning on making a mess in here, you better've picked up a mop while you were out."

Here's hoping Bill has ammonia capsules in his pocket. Because the decidedly porcine squealing cuts off, punctuated by a wooden *thunk*. Fel's passed out, a limp bundle on the floor. Who knew metaphorical pigs could sound so like literal ones?

"Don't worry this is a self-cleaning solution." Bill notes with a rise of his brows, tearing off a big fluffy chunk of one pretzel and dipping it in the cheeze sauce. "I had a self-cleaning oven once…" he adds conversationally, rolling the pretzel piece around in the cheese before bringing it up closer to his mouth. "I really hope this works out better," and swallowing it down on one bite like a particularly voracious animal, making sure to obnoxiously lick and suck at his fingers afterwards.

Walking across the concrete floor, Bill looks up and down Felix, then over to Danko. "You're really devoted to your work, you know that? Aren't you glad you're here, around colleagues doing what you love without needing to worry about ridiculous things like imprisonment for life or silent executions?"

Waving behind himself to David, the cage is set down with a metal clang, and Bill walks over to Felix, one brow raised. "God look at him he's like a roughed up hooker on the fifth night of— I'm not sure where I was going with that one." Another bite of the pretzel, this time without a mouthful of molten hot cheeze. Wait, no, he's just slurping it from the cup— must be easier.

"So. Here's the thing," the red-faced man turns around to look back at Danko. "Ive got some folders out back for you, once you've gotten rest, to take a look at. You won't be any good to me dead from exhaustion any gooder than you'd be locked up in a fuckin' cage somewhere." His eyes flick over to David, toe of one shoe nudging at the side of Felix's head with a lack of response.

Bill sighs, looking back at the cage. "Is he actually tuckered out or is he just all pussied out about the whole will never walk again thing?"

At the thunk of Felix's head reintroducing itself to cool concrete, Danko twists around and knits his brow. There's a glob of congealed blood dribbling like jelly from the black of the barrel of the gun when he draws it back — a flick of his wrist spits it down onto the younger man's boxers before he pushes creakily to his feet.

Licking and sucking gets an automatic and not entirely appreciative doubletake, but again, he fails to dignify the force that is Bill with anything more concrete than passing disgust. Odds are he'd be better at keeping it off his face if he wasn't too strung out to think outside of direct lines and inside the box. Problem: Felix can't keep his goddamn eyes open. Solution!

"Butch! Bring the taser in." His voice rings hollow through the walls, and quick enough there are combat boots at the door, cattleprod in tow.

Still staring vacantly after the way Bill's…eating…Danko is a little slower on the uptake than he might like. Re: everything. He has to blink and look elsewhere, glassy eyes tracing the line of Butch's crew cut in passing before they find focus again on the cage. "Last time we spoke he made himself out to be one of those who doesn't care if he lives or dies. Noble sacrifice or chemical imbalance. Maybe both. He has a boyfriend we can pick up if we need to." There's a flash of wicked blue light — a whip and crackle of electricity and burning against Felix's bare thigh. Butch laughs, whoooieees, pokes him again.

Danko's already making slow progress for the door. "What's in the folders?"

Worst wakeup call in the history of ever. It's like one of those awful science experiments they used to do, back when Tesla and Edison were duking it out over who'd be the first to leash the power of lightning. The ones where they proved nerves worked by electricity, using a very unfortunate frog. It shocks him out of that fetal curl, makes his spine arc like a drawn bow, and leaves him limp as a rag on the floor. No more coherent, though - the glassiness in his one open eye doesn't bode well.

"Felix Ivanov has," he pauses to fold the rest of the pretzel into his mouth and wipe one finger through the plastic cup of cheese sauce before sucking it off, eyes downturned to the Federal Agent on the floor, "several psocyolohical issues, none of which a bullet to the head can't fix. But, chum, I'd like to try a far less inelegant solution." Bill just used inelegant, he's been reading his words of the day again. "But right now, he's much a limp stuff. I had this whole elaborate cage of rats and a bunsen burner thing I've been dying to try, because they say torture isn't viable!"

He read that on the internet.

Looking over his shoulder to David, Bill furrows his brows, then turns to look back at Danko. "I caught this dumb fuck in a bar one day talking to Whitney and Hunter. If I had to guess he's got a soft spot for pretty young things, maybe it's some sort've queer thing." Some sort've queer thing, right.

"Anyway," his shoulder rolls, watching Felix dance across the floor like an electrocuted sock puppet, "I'm thinking we capture some pretty little girl who happens to be a complete freak, and we put her under the cage of rats." One brow kicks up, "When she starts screaming, Ivanov starts squealing in a slightly more productive manner, an' we do some fact checkin."

There's a tap of two fat fingers to the side of Bill's head, brows raised. "Tha's called usin' the ol' melon. Now get this sack of shit up and make sure he doesn't get some kind of stupid infection before he's useful t'us. Speakin' of which, any one'a your boys a better medic than mine? I think this," he motions to his leg — clean pants, no signs of injury, but the limp is still there — "might be a tad swollen."

"Sure." Little girls in cages full of angry rats and — a bunsen burner fits in somehow. Why not? Danko pushes the less bloody of his hands up over the side of his sunken face, pads sinking themselves deep into the hollow of the eye socket on the same side while he gestures with the gun for Butch to leave it there.

"I'll see what we can turn up. Should be safer to move out tomorrow. As for that," the next tip of his gun is to Bill's gimpy leg, "If you're planning on staying the night here I can bring Ratched over in the morning. We've got a pretty good store of medical supplies shored up." Things tend to last a little longer when you go from twelve guys to nine in the course of a couple've months.

He sighs at something then — no telling what, but Butch is tromping out on his own steam and Danko's reholstering a weapon that isn't his with little care for the blood being smudged around the side of his vest in th process.

Respite. Hopefully. Fel's a crumpled heap, all improbable and uncomfortable angles still chained to the pipe, breath coming in a ragged whimper. Still awake, for some values of the word, if not all there.

"Right as rain then, knew I could count on you Danks." There's a waggle of Bill's brows as he says that, followed by the twitter-twerp of his cell phone going off, one greasy hand reaching down to pluck it off of his hip holster. "Dean Hyundai," he answers cheerily, letting out a soft fawning sound as he eases away from Danko. "Oh Josephine," his head cants to the side, walking with that empty plastic cup of cheese in one hand. "Oh, no no the seminar went wonderful, got to look at a bunch of new concept cars for next year, fantastic lot of garbage they all were, what with the greens and the hybrids and the bullshit. Anyway, David and I," he starts sauntering carelessly towards the door, "are goin'ta stay down here for a few more nights. I'm taking my vacation time, we're gonna see the sights, maybe take a tour'a the Statue of Liberty and all that nonsense."

There's a pause, a jerk of Bill's head uncomfortably. "Steve?" He hesitates, coughing into his hand, "Oh ah, Steve— yeah, Steve's not feelin' good at all to be honest. I think he's, you know, laying around somewhere." In a pool of his own blood from a gunshot wound to the head, but you know how these things are. "I'm sure he'll turn up somewhere. Yeah, yeah— I'm lookin' forward to your folks coming up for th' Holidays, oh I'll definitely be done here by then…"

Meandering out of the cell without a care in the world, Bill Dean proves the undeniable truth that a man can truly juggle his hobbies and his personal life if he's a go-getter.

"You shouldn't use that in here," muttered half-hearted in passing, Danko breaks away from Bill at the door to sweep off in the opposite direction, gun and all. Butch jives along at his heels like a lanky pup, cattleprod tipped easily off the side of his leg with every other step. Hopefully there's a spare cot at the end of wherever he's heading. He looks like he could use one.


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