vestigechat | inaugural tdm of unspecified duration.

Entry tags:

!tdm

inaugural tdm of unspecified duration.

				
				VESTIGE TEST DRIVE MEME

WHAT IS THIS?

Vestige

The Box

invite-only

horror jamjar

Good Quality Suffering™️

ongoing

no official start date

literally nothing but this TDM

all powers intact

items

Intro + Friending

EDIT 5/20:

DISCORD SERVER

 PROMPT 1 ► just your ordinary cabin in the woods 

⬛ARRIVAL + GENERAL PROMPT

 PROMPT 2 ► who's up for some fighty-fight, kids??

⬛MONSTER HORROR.

packed

A child's drawing, of what appears to be... shit, what even is that? Is it a bat? Is it some kind of... reptile? We just don't know. (result! warnings for gore/violence.)
A light-blue paper face mask, the sort used in hospitals for patients who have a cold. Maybe you guys should've brought masks too. It sure would keep all this dust the hell out of your nose... ( result! warning for body horror! )
A buzzsaw blade, dusty but intact. ( result! warnings for gore/violence. )
A music box, covered in faded yellow flowers. I wonder what music it plays? ( result! warnings for gore/violence and Alarming Children. )
A funeral urn. But... It seems that someone glued it shut around the edges? I guess that's one way to make sure nobody spills grandma. ( result! )

 PROMPT 3 ► congratulations, you fucked up

⬛SURVIVAL HORROR.

easy

smoke

here

 PROMPT 4 ► "escape"? never heard of her.

⬛PSYCHOLOGICAL HORROR.

try

The first time your character ventures into the fog, they're just turned around and sent back to the cabin.
The second time, they hallucinate things that they don't want to hear. Something they fear, something that hurts them, something that stresses them the fuck out. Maybe a character's worst fear is wildcats and they hear one growling just out of sight in the mist. Maybe instead they hear a loved one crying for help back in the direction from which they've come, drawing them back to the cabin. Or maybe they hear the voice of someone they admire berating their cowardice or stupidity or something, for running away from the cabin in the first place. The goal is to psych them out and send them running back to the place where the action is happening.
The third time, it's the same but full-blown visual or even physical hallucinations. Basically anything that might lure, scare, emotionally wound, etc. them into going back to the vicinity of the cabin.

 THE LOOP ► a note on replayability

left unbothered

sunrise

burnt

fall unconscious

reawaken in a perfectly undamaged cabin

CODE BY TESSISAMESS (patreon)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ It’s not until there’s a hand on his arm that Mace’s gaze clears, focuses properly on the man in front of him. He'd heard the soft laugh and if he wasn't so concerned, he might've made the joke about Fight Club himself, or at least quipped that Ian was thinking it. But with what's on his mind, he can't quite muster it.

Ian’s a civilian; it’s not even worry on Mace’s part that his partner in crime doesn’t know how to fight, it’s the fact that he shouldn’t have to, shouldn’t be near the line of fire in the first place. Pure and simple, the buck stops with the guy who’s had combat training, and if something happens, if something goes wrong ...

Then it passes, driven away by the steadfast, serious conviction he hears in that voice, sees in Ian’s eyes.

Yeah, he believes it, and it’s with a small, real smile that Mace says: ]

I’ll be counting on it.

[ Before reaching out to clap his hand onto Ian’s shoulder, following it up with a firm squeeze to show he means it, too. Because he will be, he has to be. They can’t go into this unless they both trust the other guy to work to the best of his ability — although that doesn’t mean Mace won’t still be doing what he can to direct the flow of fighting toward himself as much as possible.

After that, the minutes seem to tick by like seconds; Ian works his magic, Mace makes a nail bat. Mace gets all the doors out of the way while Ian rigs up the fishing line, connecting the wiring so that lethal electricity is at their fingertips with a flip of any of the switches upstairs. Well, lethal enough for humans, anyway. ]

You know what would suck?

[ Called over his shoulder as puts the finishing touches on the flooring in front of the fireplace in the living room — a liberal coating of WD40. It’s also at the head of the stairs leading up to the bedroom and all along the railing. Mace wipes his palms on his thighs and gets to his feet, walking back over to where Ian is. ]

Imagine that we’re doing all this, and then it turns out that it’s fuckin’ ghosts or something.

[ Nice to be on the same page. Not that he's enjoying his staycation here in creepy murder cabin, he's at least got the perspective to know that there are far worse people he could've been stranded with. He can't know if the people who took them are aware of their trade, if they're braced for what happens when you put two people like them together in a problem situation, if this whole thing is gonna backfire, but...

Could be worse. Silver lining.

Which isn't to say he isn't stressed or scared shitless. He very much is, it's a low underlying burning beneath his surface level calm. Good under pressure, but the pressure's mounting every time they finish a piece of their puzzle. Like they're racing a clock, and any minute something might burst in.

In any case, the wires are set, the nets are up, there are nails in a log and electricity rigged into anything he could manage. There's some very, very Home Alone WD40, and there's even a trick step that Ian's marked with the charcoal that'll fall through completely if any weight's put on it. They've taken turns plowing down the stairs and skipping it until it's almost natural.

Now here they stand in the center of their hard work, and Ian offers out a bottle of water - dumped out from the fridge and replaced with his own, just in case. Can't imagine why they would bother drugging them, but better safe than sorry.

He breathes out slow. ]

Then I hope pissing yourself is a ghost deterrent.

[ Frankly, because how the fuck do you fight a ghost? ]

I guess we should make it a general rule that whatever comes through those doors... aim for the head.

[ Right? That's how you kill... pretty much anything. Normal doctor, zombies, murderers, werewolves? What in the hell are they even talking about anymore?

He shakes his head. ]

You ready?

[ The closer they get to crunch time, the calmer Mace ends up feeling. It's the knowledge that he’s in this mess with somebody as capable as Ian, it’s the fact that they’re actually prepared as well as anybody can be under the circumstances. Better, even, thanks to Ian’s superpower, which part of Mace still really hasn’t gotten over. He’s compartmentalized most of the shock and curiosity for later on, if they get a later on.

More than anything else, though, it’s that he has a strange reaction to adrenaline. Panic isn’t an option so all those racing hormones in his bloodstream only serve to heighten his senses, which in turn gives him a sense of assurance. He’s at peak performance. The odds are as good as they’re gonna get.

He takes the bottle with a grin that’s more teeth than humour, downing almost all the contents in a single, extended swig. ]

I dunno man, I’ve heard some pretty weird folklore. You’d be surprised at the kinda shit people say can stop a ghost.

[ Not that he believes in them, but he’s learned the hard way, now, that it doesn’t really matter what you believe in. But aiming for the head is pretty much their best shot regardless of whatever’s headed their way, so when Ian suggests that, Mace points the emptied bottle at him with an approving nod. ]

Let’s McCallister these fuckers.

[ The traps they’ve got set up span an entire vista of casualties — blunt force trauma, electrocution, and a missing stair that’ll send any possible hostiles straight to the goddamn basement hard enough to break their leg and, hopefully, their neck. Kevin would be proud.

Mace cracks his knuckles and rolls his shoulders and then picks up the bat, looking over at Ian and assessing. He looks calm enough, he sounds ready, he ain't sweating; if he's nervous or afraid, it's nowhere that Mace can see it, which is good. Mind over matter. ]

One of us goes down and sets off their supposed trigger with the mask, the other guy waits for the homeowners committee at the front door.

[ A pause, and he jabs a thumb at himself, saying, ] It's me, I'm the other guy.

[ Moments like these, Ian wishes he read more goddamn folklore. He'd love to be able to whip out a couple of different things like that guy in the Mummy and stumble onto something that accidentally saved his ass from a ghost. In the meantime, though, they've got knives and electricity and that's about it.

Shit.

They're yin and yang here, with Mace becoming slowly more resolute and Ian churning a little under the surface. He's managing, the freaking out will come after when he has time to process. After the adrenaline and, more importantly, after he's alone.

Let's McCallister these fucks.

Might just be the most inspirational thing he's ever heard. That sentiment's plastered on his face, and it's the only thing that keeps him from protesting the designation of trigger-man.

Here goes nothing. He takes the steps, skips the trick stair.

Knife in his right hand. Left hovering over the mask.

A sharp breath out. It might seem like stalling, just a little, when he yells up the stairs: ]

Get ready!

[ Barely a falter, just a tiny bit of uncertainty, mostly resolute.

Sharp breath in. Sharp breath out. Another... sharp breath in, a little bit of a bounce to gear himself up and-- he snatches it up. Once it's in his hand he goes dead silent, listening for anything. Any single goddamn noise. Any feeling of prickling in the dark. Any indicator that he's not alone in this basement.

He chances a glance down at the mask. Nothing. No writing, no words, no blood, no nothing.

Tentatively, he hedges toward the foot of the stairs to call up. ]

Anything?

[ Mace catches a flicker of something in Ian’s eyes before resoluteness covers it, something that might’ve been a protest, and he’d been prepared to have to argue the fact that it makes a lot more sense for him to be the one to welcome their captors, that it was best for Ian to be their ground control operations.

But it doesn’t come; instead, Ian goes down the stairs, just like they practiced, and Mace waits patiently for his signal. It takes a little while, but soon enough he hears him yell, and to Mace’s ears it sounds only clear and determined. It helps readiness flood his own system, gets him impossibly more alert. I’m not gonna hesitate, Ian had said, in more or less the same tone.

It’s showtime.

Except for a long, excruciating minute, absolutely nothing happens. He can hear his own breathing loud in his ears, hears Ian’s voice from the foot of the basement stairs calling out a tentative follow-up, and he’s just about to reply with a negative when something goes crunch outside the front door and every hair on Mace’s body stands up.

Like a bell tolling in a church tower comes the knock knock knock. Three sharp, ringing taps that somehow seem to echo throughout the entire cabin from the front door, which shouldn’t be possible. This isn’t a thin, cardboard-walled apartment in fuckin’ downtown Detroit, this is thick logs forming a structure that’s well-insulated by carpets and furniture, with a basement made out of bricks.

A horrible feeling of dread starts forming in the pit of Mace’s stomach, something he doesn’t recognize and — not recognizing it — actively hates. Knocks shouldn’t be able to elicit this. They aren’t really two kids stuck at home, braving an invasion from grown men three times their size, they are the grown men in this equation.

Get it together, Mace, he thinks angrily, and is just about to take the strides needed to cover the distance between himself and the door when it suddenly wrenches open, and —

What the — ]

Son of a bitch.

[ It’s not quite a yell but it’s loud and shocked, and despite Mace’s best efforts, the dread he’d been starting to feel filters into his voice. Shit. Not good, he can’t show fear, he can’t let Ian catch the fear in his voice, and with that thought in the forefront of his mind, he starts fucking swinging like this is the major leagues and his last name is Robinson.

There’s a sickening sound of meat meeting nailed wood, which checks out, because the white-coats — four of them right out the gate, two at his twelve o’clock, one at his three, fuck where did the third one go, fuck — might be human-shaped but they sure as hell look raw and red under their masks. Eyes stitched shut, and it doesn’t matter how hard he hits them, it’s like they don’t even fucking feel it.

No screams of pain. No change in their energy, something relentless and placid in a way that’s completely terrifying. The only sound is Mace cursing as he knocks one right into the pile of firewood in the corner and starts doing his best to bash the asshole's head in. ]

[ He's got one foot on the stairs when the knocks come. He shouldn't be able to hear it as clearly as he does, he knows that - the insulation, the sheer density in the masonry surrounding him. It shouldn't be possible, and yet he can practically feel it reverberating through the wood beneath his shoe.

Suddenly, ghost doesn't seem so far-fetched.

He should've been moving during those seconds, he realizes in hindsight. Could've taken them and been right behind Mace by the time they burst through, but his knees had locked and he'd frozen in place trying to comprehend the surreality of it.

It's that son of a bitch that snaps him back into frantic action, knife in hand, left hand on banister, only just enough presence of mind to skip his own stair rather than fall through it.

When he makes it to the top, he falters again for just one second.

It's on his lips, it's in his breath, it's louder than he would've ever intended but it's completely beyond a conscious choice: ]

What the fuck--

[ They don't have eyes. Three o'clock doc does not spin so much as kindly and politely turn around toward him, head tipping in either acknowledgement or scrutiny. Kind of hard to tell when they don't have fucking eyes. In either case, it peels away from the group and toward Ian's direction.

Words fall out of his mouth so quick and so loud they might take a little longer to decipher. ]

Backup, backup, backup-

[ Directed at Mace, because of the net. Can't be under it when it drops, and he wants to drop it now. ]

[ You’d think the fact that their sockets are empty and the lids sewn shut would bother Mace more, or the skinless, bloody flesh of their hands and the small bits of it peeking out from behind their masks.

Yet what’s actually starting to get to him, even through the first few moments of harried pummelling, is the fact that they’re not registering any sort of pain. Their motor functions are as adept and strong as any normal human being's, and he catches the glint of steel in the hand of one of ‘em, which means they have a deliberation of purpose — they’re here to hurt.

But all of the above requires grey matter in their skull and a functioning spinal cord, which in turn ought to mean they fucking feel it when he uses the nailbat like a meat mallet to their head.

Nothing. Just a mess of bone and viscera underneath the business end of the log, no urgency in the rest of the body as it stops moving. He rears back when he hears Ian’s voice behind him, panting and turning around quickly. Between the legs of his other twelve o’clock friend, he catches sight of the third making tracks toward Ian at the mouth of the basement, and his stomach drops. ]

Get back!

[ Backup, backup, back— and Mace registers it as a call for actual backup at first, lurches upward like something’s yanking him up on a string, and —

String. Of course, the wire rigging the net right above his goddamn head, that’s what Ian’s talking about, and Mace throws himself back out of the line of fire within the next second, slamming the zombie doctor behind him into the ground. Not waiting to see if the net over the front door comes down, he just rolls off of the thing underneath him and onto his feet, lunging at three o’clock to pull him into a headlock and away from Ian.

Grappling with one of these fuckers is an exercise in futility, and Mace is realizing his mistake very quickly. Choking out isn't an option, isn't working at all, and when he finally manages to snap its neck, it keeps on going anyway, its head pointed the wrong way around and its body seemingly unaffected.

Fixated on that, he doesn’t notice the fourth, missing doctor looming up right behind them. More accurately, looming up close beside Ian, peering around the kitchen wall next to the basement door as if he’s about to politely inquire if they’re interested in a cup of tea. Or it'd look that way if it weren’t for the scalpel in his red, nailless fingers. ]

Edited 2020-05-21 09:38 (UTC)

[ As soon as Mace slams his new buddy into the ground, Ian makes a quick calculation on whether or not he's clear. It's a matter of inches, he thinks, he thinks, but he's gotten pretty good at eyeballing distance and fit. He takes the gamble, flares out, slams his knife into the supporting wire so hard it digs into the wooden wall underneath it.

The net falls. The switch was already flipped on. Nails and wire hit skin, and two of the docs beneath it crumple. As it turns out, while they may not feel pain their brain still operates on the same fundamental level as other living creatures - electrical impulses sent down the spinal cord to the body. Inundated with volts so overwhelming they can't stand up, it seems like they might have a win. Temporary, maybe, but it's working.

He doesn't take too much time to dwell. Too busy wrapping both hands around the handle of his knife, trying to jerk it out of the wall again - too busy to notice the fourth doc professionally diverting his attention around the doorway on the opposite side of his knife.

He doesn't aim to kill. He could've, it's an absolute fact - in two or three seconds he could've plunged that thing into Ian's neck and ripped it back out again, severing carotid arteries and making field-medical based survival odds incredibly unlikely.

He aims instead for a cluster of nerves beneath Ian's left shoulder, and the pain acts as a near-instant paralytic to his entire fucking arm. He bites out a sharp FUCK-- a pitch or two higher than his speaking voice, left arm going limp, right arm reaching back blindly on instinct for the wound.

He at least has the foresight to duck back down the steps before a second item can impale him - a needle, long, syringe filled with something he can't identify at first glance. Something about that is entirely more horrifying than the scalpel or their eyes. Something about it disturbs Ian on a visceral level, the thought of them injecting something into his fucking body, needle piercing veins, chemicals flooding through, what the fuck it might be.

He could hazard a guess, but he doesn't want to. Instead, he clumsily takes the stairs two at a time. Can't hold onto the rails so his heel hits the last step and sends him stumbling nearly to his knees. He recovers with his right hand scraping on basement floor, but he can't get upright again before his primary care physician starts to descend the stairs.

Please, please-

The step collapses under his weight, a spray of splinters and detritus and dust exploding around him. ]

Yeah, motherfucker--

[ Snapped out, and then he's hauling his ass up the stairs again to help Mace.

Except that he doesn't know they're pain intolerant, that broken arms mean nothing, that they'll keep on pushing, and so he isn't expecting the needle to shoot up into his calf as he passes overhead.

Oh, fuck. ]

[ The thing about having your head twisted back-to-front is that it does kind of a number on the coordination. Even for murderous, zombified PhDs, which means that it’s a lot less difficult for Mace to get the drop on this particular guy. The nailbat is still some ways away, but — thanks to Ian — he’s got a brand spanking new dagger on hand, and it turns out that beheading one of these freaks does pretty much the same thing as bashing their brains in.

Of course, slicing through a throat is one thing and thoroughly severing it off is another, so it takes just a little longer than Mace had figured. He’s got their new family doctor pinned to the ground, one hand fisted in his stupid white cap to wrench his head back, the other sawing through sinew and spine — when he hears it.

From the direction of the basement: Ian’s voice raised in both pitch and volume, and more concerning than either of those, in sharp pain. Mace's hand falters, his first instinct being to turn around and get visual confirmation on what’s going on behind him, if Ian’s okay or not —

But he can’t, if he turns around now and leaves the job half-done, and this bastard just gets back up again — ]

Fucking fuck.

[ It’s not even clear if the anger in his voice is directed toward the thing underneath him, or himself. But the burst of furious energy does the trick, and he hacks away the last bit of meat and bone, twisting the head off completely and throwing it pell-mell to the side, not bothering to see where it lands.

Something crashes hard down below.

He’s on his feet and turning around in the next moment, his grip on the knife slippery with blood and gore, and a deep, copper smell firmly entrenched in his nostrils. Thinks he can practically taste it at the back of his throat, which is disgusting, made all the worse by the stench of frying flesh as the two near the front door writhe in small, jerky movements underneath their electric blanket.

It worked, their trap worked, but he doesn’t have even the split-second to spare to feel any sort of triumph about it, sprinting toward the basement steps, reaching the open door just in time to see — ]

No!

[ — a rotting, scarlet hand emerge from the jagged mouth of the trick stair, and stab a syringe right into Ian’s leg, emptying the plunger into him before it disappears back into the dark. ]

Motherfuck — Ian, grab onto me, c’mon —

[ Bitten out words as he hooks his elbows beneath Ian’s underarms and hauls him up, adrenaline making it so that Mace doesn’t even feel the guy’s weight as he practically lifts him out of the basement. They’ve gotta get somewhere safe, they’ve gotta regroup, but the whole house is open to not just them but any further assailants that decide to waltz in through the front door, and Mace is cursing with every breath as he helps Ian into the kitchen, past the living room and straight into the dining area.

Sets him down on one of the chairs by the table and without preamble, leans down to roll up his pant leg, the beginnings of panic starting to bubble up underneath his previously focused mindset. ]

I'm gonna see how bad he got you, okay? You holding up, buddy?

[ For one stupid, stupid second he thinks maybe whatever was in the syringe didn't work. He makes it up that top step and a quarter of an inch out the door just fine. Breathing's fine, nothing burns, nothing hurts aside from his goddamn left shoulder still, he's fine.

And then almost immediately his limbs quit working. It's absolutely phenomenal timing on Mace's part, swear to god it is, because he's free-falling for less than a second before a shoulder drives up into his armpit to keep him from breaking his nose on the floor.

There's a sharp grit to his teeth, bared and clenched and white, not through pain but through effort. He's trying his absolute goddamndest to grapple unwieldy limbs into submission, to drag his boneless legs forward and push off to help at all, but they've got all the durability of wet spaghetti.

Doesn't notice until he's seated that they made it as far as they did. He leans over heavily, elbow cracking onto the table on accident. He barely acknowledges it. He's too busy dipping down to paw at his thighs, to knead any semblance of feeling into them. ]

I think it was a paralytic- fuck, I can't feel shit, I can't move 'em.

[ Not really, not in any real capacity. He knows they're not dead, not gone for good, but it doesn't matter - they may as well be if those things show up in the next twelve seconds or twelve minutes.

He sounds resigned at the end, even to his own ears. His voice knows quicker than he does what this means.

Fuck, fuck.

Okay, though. Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay - he's just gotta keep his mind up at the surface and not let the bigger picture sink in. Stay present in the moment and not think, just-

Urgently get it out before the real fear sets in and he loses his courage. ]

You can't carry me out of here and fight them off at the same time, man, you gotta go. The door's down, there's one under the steps but I think he's gonna get up, those two under the net-

[ He doesn't even have his fucking knife thanks to the one that got him in the shoulder.

A sharp breath merges with the first syllable of his words, hissed and watery: ]

You gotta get the fuck outta here.

[ A paralytic. Why would a doctor paralyze someone? It’s not even a question that needs to be fully asked, and the back of Mace’s mind is suddenly filled with images of whirring drills, scalpels, tweezers shining under cold white light.

Horrible as the images are, they both increase the splintering of his calm, and turn up the heat under his motivation and focus. All of a sudden, he understands the hospital mask, understands why doctors, and the way they looked — skinned but alive, their eyes removed, the unrelenting, terrifying tranquility with which they’d advanced upon the two of them.

Looks like it’s an experiment after all. Well, these are two mice they aren’t splicing that easily, and Mace’s face sets grimly into stone despite the rising panic churning in his gut at the sight of the entrance wound to Ian’s calf. It's small but swollen, the skin around it hot, and he prays like hell it's just a paralytic and not something worse.

A glance upward confirms bared teeth, a barely held together composure because he knows Ian’s putting together the meaning of it same as he just did. Mace notes, too, the way Ian’s voice goes slightly atremble on the exhale outward, would be able to sense the resignation all over him even if he hadn’t heard it in his words. Essentially go on without me, as if that was ever even in the vicinity of the table let alone on it.

And hell, but Mace knows it's sound, on the surface of it. The argument. Which way the odds are stacked and the wind is blowing. But. There’s some stuff, he’d said earlier, that becomes a part of you whether you want it to or not, and this is it.

He might not be military, but he's a soldier at heart before he’s an engineer, and you never leave a man behind. Let alone a civilian. Let alone the guy relying on you, Jesus. ]

We are both …

[ As he leans over to grab a bottle of water from the small stockpile under the table in front of him, where they’d also left their roughshod attempt at a first aid kit — clean scraps of cloth, cotton, tape, some matches and a pair of scissors. He wipes his bloody hands on his shirt as best as he can before washing off the needle cut with a splash of water, pressing a piece of cotton to the area right afterward and taping it down. ]

Gonna get the fuck outta here.

[ Or neither of us are, he doesn’t say, because he’s going to make sure Ian gets out even if he doesn’t. And while Mace keeps his voice fairly even as he speaks, wanting to reassure and keep the atmosphere as stable as possible under the circumstances, he can’t keep the intensity out of voice or his gaze when he looks up again. ]

So don’t ever say that to me again, Teach.

[ “Ever” being, of course, extremely optimistic, depending on how the rest of this goes down. But it’s the thought that counts, Mace thinks, looking back over his shoulder, his mind racing. Two under the net, one under the steps — Mace knows he can’t outrun them with Ian alongside him, so their best bet is to keep him here in the dining room while Mace eliminates the hostiles one by one.

The more immediate threat is the one in the basement, but if the others somehow escape in the meantime … ]

Here.

[ Quieter, pressing the hilt of the knife he’d left on the floorboards into Ian’s right palm, locking eyes with him, something going soft in his expression. Puts the water bottle in reach of his left hand on the table. He can absolutely appreciate the courage it took to say what Ian’d just said, the balls-out integrity needed to tell the other guy to save himself at one’s own expense. It's admirable, even if it is stupid. Maybe because it's stupid. ]

You wanna be brave and dumb at the same time? Use this to do it — but only if any more of those fuckers come this way. I'm gonna go take out the one in the basement, and then I'm comin' right back, you hear me?

[ A last squeeze to Ian's shoulder, and then Mace is rising to his feet and turning around in a fluid movement, heading to the living room with the intent to grab his nailbat first. ]

Edited 2020-05-22 08:54 (UTC)

[ When he was younger - twelve or thirteen - he used to read a lot of comic books. Lots of science fiction, fantasy novels. In them there was always the risk of the protagonist being taken and dissected for their powers. Being the only one he knew with it, he carried that paranoia with him all the way up until his mid twenties or so. It became a distant memory as he aged, passed thirty and almost to thirty five now, less and less likely that he'd ever get caught by anyone with any intention to do anything with him.

Suddenly that concern doesn't seem so far away. He can't say whether or not they knew about him before they took him, doesn't make sense that they'd let him wake up rather than slicing open his wrist or his chest cavity from the get-go, but either way the concept is fucking him up right now.

When it comes to heart attack symptoms, aside from the well-known chest pain, shortness of breath, and left arm tingling there's also a slightly less well-known and slightly more dramatic sounding symptom. It's called the feeling of impending doom. It doesn't refer to anxiety, paranoia, or depression - it's legitimately its own feeling, a physical sensation that sweeps coldly out from the chest and drops your stomach through the floor. It twists up your bladder and it grabs your lungs into a vice, and it's a staggering wash over your mind.

It hits him now, finally. That sensation, the crippling fear, the full brunt of reality.

Don't ever say that again, teach- ]

Don't worry, I won't, that's all I had in me--

[ His voice has risen up an octave. Feels like it's on 1.5x speed, falling out of his mouth in a quick and panicked flurry. ]

Fuck I really don't wanna die here, I really don't wanna die-

[ It's more to himself now than it is Mace. It's the kind of panic attack that makes words seem distant, allows them out without any filter, the mind too wired and frantic to assert any kind of control over speech.

He's not a soldier.

He's not an astronaut.

He's a fucking teacher. The extent of his bravery got consumed after a singular attempt to do the right thing, and now he's fucking scared. It rims his eyes and stutters his breathing until he can't get enough air, but he at least has the capacity to nod jerkily at Mace's plan. Take the one out in the basement, come right back, yeah, yeah, okay, okay, okay, okay.

He grips the knife so tight his knuckles go white. Hisses out through his teeth. Pulls in a sucking breath, and manages eye contact long enough to assert again yes, go, go do it, you have to. He'll manage.

They're under the net, right? It's fine. It's fine.

Mace goes.

Ten or fifteen seconds pass like a god damn eternity, stretching out in any direction. Hyper-vigilant and surreal, everything too bright and too sharp, like a moment of lucidity while being otherwise shit-faced drunk. There's a soft click, too gentle to startle him. At first, he feels nothing about it - until he realizes three or four seconds later what it means.

The absolute dead silence that follows it.

No humming. No humming, no humming, meaning not even the refrigerator. No light bulbs, no background noise of electricity in the cabin. It's shut off.

It feels like they must've been waiting for his mind to wrap around that, because as soon as it does two surgeons step through the doorway with calm intention. It takes him until their hands are on him before he can break out of his shock long enough to allow a yell to shred his throat.

To his credit, he does manage to stab the knife clean through one eye and into the brain meat of one of the doctors.

It just doesn't do anything. ]

[ It’s like being inside a goddamn pressure cooker. Normally, that’s when Mace is at his peak, performing to the very limit of his abilities. Always been that way, always able to keep his head held up no matter how high the water rose, air in his lungs and his thoughts working in perfect mechanical sync to solve whatever problem was laid out in front of him.

But he’s never been in a pressure cooker quite like this. The mission, those last few hazy moments that he thinks he can barely remember — even then, there’d been something to hold onto, something to work toward, the enormity of that goal overshadowing everything else in existence. Right now, though. Right now the objective is both within reach and just out of his grasp, and the uncertainty of it is like a canker, a shrapnel of doubt that would start working its way in deep were it not for one other thing.

He’d heard the fear in Ian’s voice loud and clear, cracking open beneath the surface of his words, glistening in his eyes, and strangely enough that’s what’s keeping Mace centered, grounded. He hadn’t stopped to reassure him any further because they didn’t have the time, but when he picks up the bat, that's what he’s thinking of. White knuckles, staccato breathing, that's all I had in me.

It's still on his mind as he hurries past the two sons of bitches underneath the electrical netting, pausing just long enough to ascertain that they won’t be going anywhere anytime soon — writhing intermittently, the steam still rising from their rotten bodies — before making a beeline for the basement door.

Maybe not the smartest thing; he ought to plan his way in, think it through, but that’d mean wasting precious seconds they absolutely do not have. And anyway, that’s not the modus operandi of these fucks, is it? No hiding around in dark corners, no traps set for their experiments — just a bloody-minded focus to drug them up and cut them down.

Well, guess fucking what, doc. Mace can focus too. ]

Knock knock.

[ A snarl, and it’s maybe a little petty, but he’s all the way pissed as he thunders down the last few steps of the basement, his eyes already adjusted to the dim lighting through sheer anger. Which is lucky as hell, because while Mace hasn’t walked into an ambush, the doctor is very much in and entirely prepared.

A scalpel cuts across his forearm, barely missing the tendon at his wrist, and oh I see, Mace thinks, lunging out of the way. Bio-mechanical cutting, rendering motor functions useless. Right. Not gonna get the chance because this asshole's not gonna get close enough for it, and there’s a whistling noise as the nailbat arcs through the air and slams the doctor’s head into the nearest concrete wall. Then again, and again, and it’s so much easier to do this here than it had been upstairs against the hardwood flooring.

Panting with exertion, Mace draws back, the nailbat dropping to the floor with a satisfying squelch. He gets to feel a savage sort of good for about five seconds, before there’s a soft, echoing click and the lights go out completely, plunging the basement into total darkness and the cabin into complete silence.

No.

No. The netting. The electricity. The open fucking path straight to the dining room where —

I really don’t wanna die here, I really don’t wanna —

From somewhere above, a strangled yell cuts through the quiet like a knife. ]

Ian!

[ Loud enough that his lips vibrate with it, already pounding right back up the stairs, past the now-empty net at the front door, sprinting through the kitchen and living area.

An engineering prof, and Mace had left him alone and terrified with two bum legs and a knife. Promised him things he had no guarantee he could deliver, told him to be brave and stupid, and Mace rounds the last corner to the dining room with mounting dread in his heart, and a sense of horrible urgency he hadn’t felt even when he’d first headed to the basement.

It’s not unfounded. ]

Get the fuck off of him!

[ He’d dropped the bat downstairs, but it doesn’t matter. Mace can use his bare hands for this one, pulls off one of the two that are bending over Ian’s prone body lain across the dining room table, and flings it bodily through the doorway behind them. ]

[ Seconds can be a long time or a short time depending on your perspective - and that's quite a literal statement, too. He knows in that basic-information way many people know that adrenaline can slow down a person's perception of the passage of time. Likewise, music has been known to speed up that perception. Right now, for Ian, the world moves in excruciatingly slow motion. The film reel wound down to half speed at best, with two sets of arms gracelessly and efficiently peeling him from a chair.

He was a wild youth. He was a runner, a flighty and flailing long-limbed kid. He'd revert to that now in a heartbeat on instinct. If he could, those legs would be kicking up so high he'd be near-impossible to hang onto.

Now, they only dangle limply and drag uncomfortably against the dirty hardwood floor. Toes scraping, knees bending to accommodate, until they gently arrange him onto his back on the table. The flurry of words that pour out of him range from incomprehensible to clearly enunciated, from rage to terror, a litany of No, no- no, nonono, you motherfucker, don't fucking touch me, oh god please- in a nonsensical slaw.

There is no trace of empathy or hesitance as the head surgeon takes up place on one side, his attending on the other driving a scalpel down into the juncture of his arm so he can't move it without debilitating pain coursing through him. The other arm is easy enough to hold down, leaving only his head and one shoulder spastically trying to rip itself up off the table.

They cut through his shirt in one neat line. Press the scalpel blade gracefully between his ribs and drive it in, bisecting in a singular movement like steel through butter. Like nothing, without a trace of resistance. It's almost pretty, the way red blooms up and starts to spill out.

The paralytic does nothing to numb sensation. He can feel it. He can feel it all just fine, and the sheer fucking terror nearly blacks him out of consciousness entirely. That'd be a mercy. He doesn't quite make it. It's just a stutter in his vision, in his mind, a skipping record in his head interrupted by Mace peeling Left Doc away before he can dip his fingers into the soft cavity he'd been opening up like a flower.

The second he's off, Ian's rolling haphazardly and without a single iota of grace off the table, which turns onto its side under the movement.

Panicked instinct has him army-crawling toward a dropped scalpel, which he picks up just in time for the second doc - looming overhead. He knows better now than to stab and let go. Blind fury, pure survival drives him to ram the thing into its eyes over and over and over and over, heedless of the weight that it brings down as it slumps, peeling over to half cover it with his own body so he can keep driving the blade a dozen, two dozen more times.

Long after it's dead. Long after it's down, though it takes him too many seconds to realize that. ]

[ The lights are out, which means the doctor — skidding past the living room threshold and into the kitchen — trips over a wire that does nothing in the way of electrocution. But it gives Mace an idea even as he moves forward at a run, full-on furious all over again instead of adread; it’s in his hands in the next few seconds, coiled around his fists at either side, and he gets his opponent by its neck before it can fully stand up.

Of course, strangulation's not gonna work here, and the wire's more of a two-man saw in Mace’s hands than it is a garrotte. It’s simpler than he would’ve figured, because the fuckin’ thing is still more interested in stabbing him instead of freeing itself from the brutal back-and-forth of a wire against the raw flesh of its throat.

A scalpel cut gets him in the upper thigh, and worse is the grip of a skinned, fleshy hand in his hair — this, Mace thinks as he grunts in pain, is why he shaves it off whenever he can — but soon enough his weapon of choice does the trick.

A spray of blood splatters against the couch, followed by another, and by the time Mace is finished and the head’s all but sawn away, the wire’s dug bloody welts into his own palms. The rush of adrenaline in his system makes it so that he doesn’t feel a thing as he books it back to the dining room, just in time to see Ian crouched over an unmoving corpse, stabbing it repeatedly. Uncontrollably.

Relief floods him to see which way the pendulum’s swung, that he hadn’t been too late, but it’s short-lived. He takes a few steps forward, calling Ian by name a couple times, but it doesn’t seem to register. Finally, he raises his voice, not a shout so much as a loud, placating call: ]

Buddy, you gotta stop —

[ God, he can’t even blame the guy. But what he’s doing right now is at a detriment to himself, and Mace grabs his free hand on the next upswing so that Ian doesn’t accidentally hurt himself, or Mace for that matter. His other hand comes up underneath Ian’s other arm, going across his bare chest and scooping him back to the dining table as gently as possible.

Steers him into the chair he’d left him in and — ]

Jesus fuck.

[ They’d cut him right open. Like they were gonna do a fucking vivisection on him on the spot, and the true horror of it all washes over Mace like a bucket of ice, each piece carefully starting to shred away at the composure he’s been holding onto for so long. He’ll have to hold onto it a little longer because fucking focus here, Mace, and one bloodied hand cups the side of Ian’s face, tilting it to the side so Mace can search his gaze for some sort of lucidity, see where he’s at. ]

Ian, talk to me. Look at me, c'mon. I’ve got you, huh?

[ Maybe dimly, distantly, subconsciously he did register the voice behind him. Knows immediately who it is grabbing him by the hand, it's just that he'd been beyond the ability to comprehend words. Speech and screaming, what's meant for him and what was meant for them, it all became background noise. Sensory overload. Too much to process while still surviving.

He doesn't fight Mace for his arm back. Doesn't try and wrest control of the scalpel. He's stopped easily, his fingers flex open snap-quick like a burn. Like he's being chastised.

He's light headed. Feels dizzy and sick to his stomach when the sharp rippling of pain cascades through his abdomen, doesn't even realize it's because he's being picked up. It's more like watching a movie, when the camera spins around or flips upside down but you're sitting still on your couch watching it happen. It's that, at first, until the sensation catches up and swells a tide of seasick in his gut.

That's why it takes him so long to make eye contact. Why he only manages it a second before teetering precariously forward, hair flopping into his face, hanging limp and soaked with blood. ]

Yeah- yeah-

[ He breathes, shaky nod, body slumping. I'm here, I'm here. Present, lucid, sober - ish. Mostly. Enough to know he's fucked, enough to know he's compromised.

A numb hand presses itself to his chest, open wound, staining his palm. ]

I'm- bleeding a shitload, too much, you gotta--

[ Stop it, before it gets dangerous. Won't take long at this rate. ]

[ A wavering second of eye-contact, and then Ian's tipping forward shakily, long black hair tumbling into his face as his body goes more or less limp. Would be slumped down if it weren't for Mace holding him seated, and he knows he's got to get him on his back, have his weight supported by something while he does what first aid he can. ]

Okay, buddy, stay with me.

[ There's too much blood behind the hand Ian's got against his chest, and Mace is as gentle as he can be, lifting him up to lay him back on the table. A part of him regrets the fact that it's gotta be this table all over again, the same place those fuckers had had him not ten minutes ago, but going to the couch would take too long, forget one of the bedrooms.

No, he'll have to do it here. First thing, sterilize his own hands as well as possible — soap and hot water sting as he rapidly scrubs his hands in the kitchen sink, the pain registering for the first time. He brings a pot of warm water back with him, uses it to wash the wound carefully.

There's so much blood, fuck. ]

Could use some tequila right now, huh. You said you'd make me margaritas after this, I'm holding you to that.

[ Aimless chatter as he works, meant to soothe and distract as he dresses the long cut carved down Ian's abdomen with a strip of cotton from their stash, making sure it covers it and then some. Tapes it down on three sides, leaving the fourth open for any air to escape, pads the top with cotton and then repeats the dressing process one more time.

The last few stretches of fabric, he ties together to make one long strip that he then wraps around Ian's torso, gently lifting him up to get underneath his back. Makes a knot at the end furthest away from the wound before slowly rolling him over so that he's on his wounded side, putting pressure on it that way.

Field triage is something he only knows the basics of. Enough to save a life, or at least keep it saved until an actual medic can arrive on the scene. It occurs to him that what he's done might still not be enough, and the first real fear he's felt all night slowly trickles into him as he focuses his attention back on Ian's face, his own pale as he takes stock. Checking for signs of any distended veins in his throat, any sign of cyanosis in his lips or fingers or neck. ]

[ He doesn't give a shit about the table. He wasn't on it long enough for the association to form in the first place, but even if it had he's a little too precariously in and out of his full mind to connect the dots. As long as Mace doesn't slap on a blue mask or pick up a scalpel while he's hovering over Ian, they'll be alright.

Provided, of course, he lives.

He's fucking freezing. It feels like winter in here, it feels like drafts of cold against his exposed chest. Feels like he should be shivering, and a part of his mind thinks it might be dangerous that he isn't. Shivering, he thinks, is an automatic reflex by the body to generate heat. If the body isn't doing that, something might be shutting down, or--

God, he can't remember. Head hurts. Might throw up. Focus.

His chest rises and falls beneath Mace's working hands, a little too quick for comfort. He keeps trying to peel his head up to look and losing the fight about half way to vertigo.

There's an angry, anguished snarl that escapes his lips when he hits wound-side down. That's automatic too, and if you give him three more seconds he'll put together why it's gotta be that way. Chest to table, head turned to the side, one lock of hair sticking to his cheek.

Delirious.

Mace is over him checking him closely, looking at him closely, personal attention, right in his face, touching his lips.

Surface level brain knows why.

I'm here, I'm here, I'm here.

He reaches out to furl a hand tightly in Mace's shirt to stop him, to muster up what strength he can and slur out a declarative: ]

You should fucking. Play baseball.

[ What he means is: good job with that makeshift bat. ]

[ A hand sluggishly reaches out, grabs him by the front of his shirt, and Mace's eyes dart to Ian's, anxious and alert. They're still hidden by his hair, but he doesn't need eye contact to understand what Ian says next, another ripple of relief going through him.

An exhale that might have been a chuckle in another life. ]

The great American pastime.

[ It comes out like a soft agreement, instead of the usual deadpan comment that Mace would've had on hand. There isn't any blue tinge to Ian's lips or fingertips, thank fuck, but that had still been too much blood. He'll need warming up, and while there's still pressure being put on the wound, Mace is not about to disturb it.

Can't take him to the bedroom just yet, but he can bring the blankets over here, well-furnished murder cabin that it is. In the meantime, he'll have to provide what warmth he can — he carefully disentangles Ian's hand from his shirt before yanking it off over his head. The outside is bloodied but the inside, especially from the back, is better. He lays it over Ian's bared torso with a quiet: ]

I'll be back, all right?

[ Before heading off swiftly to the bedrooms. On his way there, he turns the stove in the kitchen on full-blast, sparing not even a half-glance to the decapitated medical professional on the floor.

Returns in a little less than three minutes with the blankets stripped off the beds, rolled up tight under one arm. Underneath the other, as many pillows as he could grab, and he slides one underneath Ian's head. The others, he uses as a sort of insulation, tucks them against Ian's chest and at his back before draping both the blankets over on top. ]

Still with me, Teach?

[ Back to leaning over him, this time needing to brush the hair out of his eyes so he can get a proper look, concern still tightly wound in his stomach like a ball. ]

Edited 2020-05-23 07:45 (UTC)

[ I'll be back alright, and that's the first real resistance Ian seems to put up. It's a blurry and mumbled, no, no- because the last time he said that Ian wound up getting his fucking stomach flapped open. On top of that, if he's gonna die here on this goddamn table he doesn't wanna do it alone.

He loses track of time. Might've slipped into something sleep-like at the two minute mark, or maybe he's just hallucinating; blood-loss drifting. Hard to say now that the adrenaline's wearing off, the exhaustion's kicking in, fear's being replaced by a dense feeling of numbness.

Absurdly, he thinks about those videos of the kids who get their wisdom teeth cut out. Their asshole parents video them on the ride home while they say dumb shit, while they drift in and out of drug-induced haze, nonsensical and dramatic. He's thinking about looking like that, like it even compares to being slit open from chest to belly button by whatever the fuck those things had been.

One hand moves to drag itself along the surface of the table, right up until he can press the heel of his hand against his eyes. ]

Look- man- everything I say from ten minutes ago until, like, tomorrow is... a mulligan, okay?

[ Accidentally smearing blood along his own eyebrows, his own forehead. He speaks slow and low and deliberate, effort to the words like he's drunk but he's trying his best to pass as sober. ]

God I hope this scar looks hot and not gross later. I also... really hope there's a fucking later. Fuck cabins. Fuck doctors. Imagine going to a hospital after that.

[ Drowsy, pained, looking completely out of it because the poor guy’s going into fucking shock right now — but Ian’s gaze still has some level of consciousness to it, and the pupils are dilated evenly, following movement properly right before one shaky hand comes up to press against an eye.

Thank fuck again. No concussion, nothing that indicates he’s not all there, his words coherent even if they are slow and soft, and Mace draws back with another quiet breath out of his nose, allowing himself to feel a small bit of hope. Ease off the building concern in his chest just a tad, because if it gets too heavy it’ll start to get the best of him, and neither of them can afford that.

But there’s an exhaustion there that’s still a big cause for worry. He’s holding it together incredibly well for a guy who nearly got operated on while awake, and then bled out this much, no medicine to alleviate the pain and a paralytic fucking up his system. Mace can’t help wondering what the hell they're gonna do if Ian passes out right now without anything in his stomach to hold him down, give him energy and warmth from the inside.

No, he’s gotta keep Ian awake a little longer and get him something to eat, and Mace reaches out to place a careful hand on the shoulder closest to him, squeezing down bracingly as he kneels down on the floor next to the table. ]

All scars are hot. [ It’s meant as levity but it comes out matter-of-fact, Mace settling down on the floor with his legs stretching out in front of him, leaning against the table leg.

Ian’s right, though. God. Fuck hospitals, fuck doctors, and fuck the scalpels they rode in on. ]

Besides, this one’s gonna be pretty badass. You could probably get a date out of it.

[ The levity comes easier this time, trying to reassure Ian that there will be a later, and Mace tilts his head back until he’s staring straight up. It’s only a few inches away from Ian’s forehead at the edge of the table, and he blinks back the tiredness from his own eyes, thinking not yet, over and over again. Still the corpses to get rid of. Still the front door to seal and bar. Still gotta keep his partner awake, the partner he'd told you're gonna be fine, only for the guy to get his abdomen carved up like a turkey. ]

I'll wingman you. Not too many teachers out there who can say they fuckin’ stabbed a demon doctor to death.

[ And there's an audible note of approval in his voice now, even as he feels a creeping sense of guilt and upset rise up within him, like the fog outside the cabin. Maybe he can get a mulligan too. A pause, and then he adds, ]

Though I'm sorry you had to.

[ If he'd been intent to close his eyes, that intention wavers with the hand on his shoulder. They go at least back up to half-lidded, cracked so he can see Mace's shape on the floor, where he winds up close to the place Ian's head rests atop the wooden surface.

They're both exhausted. He knows this; he can feel it in every bit of himself and he can see it on Mace even despite the fact that he's got a pounding in his head and cotton in his ears. He's always been the type of drunk to remain cognizant right up until he physically couldn't anymore, done enough recreational drugs to know how to cling to the realest shade of awareness when otherwise compromised.

He knows they both need to rest. He knows it's gonna be hard to get off this table, but he also knows he doesn't want to feel so fucking exposed. The door's off. They're in an open room. If four more of those things come in they're just dead, flat out - Ian because he's useless, Mace because Mace won't leave Ian to be useless.

Fuck, but he just wants to sleep. ]

Already got a date.

[ He answers, matter of fact. Muted and dry. ]

We're doing tequila. Rather die of alcohol poisoning anyway.

[ Than this. Rather than giving them the satisfaction. Rather than dying in fear and pain.

How many times do you gotta put out if someone saves your life? A little more than paying for dinner and drinks the first time, no doubt.

But he's thinking again - really and properly, mind drifting back to the actual status of their situation. The practicality of it. Survival, at least in the short term. He swallows thickly, spit tacky, throat feeling dry. ]

I-

[ A false start, voice just air, so he tries again and manages to force actual vocalization into it. ]

I need to help you... put the door on. Reinforce it. Think we should hole up in a fucking bedroom behind another door for a few hours. I can't do that if... this is just gonna split open and start bleeding again.

[ And even if it's not working to put the doors up, if they have to run or to fight again with his wound just being the way it is he won't make it ten more minutes.

Lowly, tiredly: ]

Stitch or cauterize.

[ The only two real solutions they have. ]

[ He closes his eyes for a second, a faint smile snaking onto his face at that. Doesn’t show up in his voice, though, Mace keeping to their brand of dry and quiet as he agrees, ]

I’ll do shots off your scar. Third base.

[ Or maybe that’s the stitches he’s gonna have to put into Ian — he can handle that, but cauterizing, that’s a little above his pay grade. The smile fades at the thought of it, and at how weak and goddamn drained Ian’s voice sounds — sapped of all energy, like it’s taking everything out of him just to verbalize.

And the guy wants to get up and reinforce doors. ]

You need to do exactly one thing and that’s — [ Fucking live, but that’s a stone’s throw away from the implication that he might not, and hell no. Mace isn’t putting that shit into the Universe. Not that he’s superstitious on any level at all, but some things are better left unthought as well as unsaid. ]

Stay put, and maybe get something in you before you pass out, if you really feel like doing me a solid.

[ There’s enough food in the kitchen that they’ll be good for that, he can unplug the damn fridge and take it with them to whichever room they decide to barricade themselves in. Mace shifts up and forward, craning his head around to try and get eyes on Ian so he can stress the importance of what he's saying, his voice going firm and losing all traces of fatigue. ]

I mean it. You just got sliced open like Thanksgiving dinner, your body's in shock and it needs to heal. It can’t do that if you start running around on fumes, even after stitches or —

[ Cauterizing might need to be on the table after all, if Ian can’t muster up the energy to manifest a needle and surgical thread. They already have everything on hand for that, as much as the thought of it bothers Mace. ]

We'll hole up in one of the bedrooms, but if you so much as try to stand up, I’m gonna tie you right back down.

[ Whatever’s needed to be done, he can do it on his own. That’s the least he can do after Ian almost got killed on his watch. ]

[ His stomach hurts. Rather, the gaping wound over his stomach hurts. It's a radiating pain that doesn't dwindle or die, just pulses new hurt every heartbeat. Breathing out sucks. Breathing in sucks ten times worse. It isn't going away any time soon, and they might not have time to wait for that.

He pulls a face at Thanksgiving, can't help but see himself tressed like a fucking turkey. He'll grant that shock is a real and literal risk, though. Thinks that's the word he was looking for when he realized he wasn't shivering. He's gonna need sugar to stave that off. Gonna need food to restore red blood cells. Gonna need sleep to get through whatever's happening to his body right now. All of that's what he needs, what he wants is to get the fuck out of here. Barring that, he wants to slap iron walls up to keep anything else from getting in. He wants to lay down in a bed.

Compare both 'want' and 'need' to what he can actually do for himself, though... He tops off at laying on this fucking table. Realistically speaking, it'd take almost more than he can pull off to roll onto his back. It'd probably split him open to use his core and try to stand on his own.

Jesus fuck, he's even more useless than he was at the start.

A long, frustrated breath escapes him.

Stow it away. Keep a level head. ]

Thank you.

[ He manages finally, cracking his eyes back open to shoot Mace an earnest, steady look. ]

I'm pretty sure you saved my fucking life, like, six times in the last hour. You could've booked it. You still could, so. Thanks.

[ And of course, Ian’s thanking him. Earnest and sincere like it’s not Mace’s fuck-up that’s landed him with a life-threatening injury.

Mace catches that look, holds it for a few lingering seconds, and it’s on the tip of his tongue to say something more cavalier like let’s see how you feel tomorrow morning, pal because the pain’s probably gonna be worse then. But … ]

I couldn't have done half this shit without you. And don’t thank a fish for swimming.

[ Simple and unvarnished, as though describing the colour of the sky. What he means by that is, this is what I’ve trained for. That booking it wasn’t an option he was inherently capable of, let alone actually doing it. Even if Ian hadn’t been somebody he’d taken to almost immediately, solid ground forming between them right from the get-go, it would’ve been on Mace to do his damn job.

And he hadn’t even done that right, the proof of it a long, jagged gash down Ian’s stomach.

The longer he mulls over it, the more he can feel himself start to stray toward something a little too close to catastrophizing for comfort — or at least, what counts for catastrophizing to James Mace — and he knows there’s only one way to stall that. Focus on what he can do, prioritize it, and then get it cracking like a bad back.

The thought brings him a fresh burst of energy, channeling his simmering agitation and worry into fuel. First things first — dress his palms with the remaining cotton and fabric like a boxing wrap. Second, get Ian to relative safety in one of the bedrooms, which he belatedly realizes he ought to have done at the onset. Fucking hell. ]

I’m gonna lift you up, okay? Don’t strain anything, don’t push yourself. On the count of, one, two —

[ It can’t be a fireman’s carry and Ian’s in no condition to get to his feet and stay that way even half-supported by Mace, so he takes the simplest route forward and carefully slides an arm underneath the very top of Ian’s torso, across his back. The other goes under the dip of his knees and locks into place.

A grunted out three, and then Mace is lifting him up, blankets and all. The pillows, though, those he leaves behind to pick up later. He’s lucky Ian’s a fit guy. ]

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