The night sky is so bright that Alvin can't take his eyes from that radiant parade of stars that consequently caused this cursed weather. If it only wasn't today. Today when they put their colleague, their friend, into a literal fridge. From the ghostly plume that forms with his every exhale, he can declare tonight is the worse that Jay could pick, if he could pick it at all.
As if there wasn't enough of hurt on the world already.
With a sudden haste, he stops staring up and quickly enters Voight's house leaving out any knocks on the door. He calls out for Voight, not too loud, but loud enough to make his presence noticeable.
"Is Jay still down there?" he asks straightly when he spots Voight sitting in the kitchen, staring to his laptop.
Voight only looks up at him and then focuses his eyes back to the screen that shows the answer.
"Are you watching him all the time?"
"No." Hank admits with slight hint of guilt in his voice.
"How long is he inside?"
"Seven hours."
Alvin's eyes go a little wider in disbelief. He knew about this part, he only imagined it would be shorter. Seeing Jay's figure on the monitor forces him to close his eyes but he manages to reopen them. It really is happening.
Jay is momentarily caught in despair and makes several visible attempts to pull down the handcuffs, irritating his skin even more, he fails, as expected. But the pain helps him to get out of the drowsiness so he is sharply awakened for another few minutes of full-taking the dull chills.
"How's he doing? When's the last time you check up on him?"
"Seven hours ago."
"I'm going in," Alvin announces because that's what he is supposed to be here for and he just can't leave the kid alone any longer.
The temperature in the room is not as bad as outside but it is lower than Alvin would like. In years of his service he learned to deal with things he dislikes and his ignorance towards it is quite impressive. Truth is, that what he feels right now can't be described only by dislike. There's disgust too. And guilt. Not that one of those wasn't present in the years of his police expertise as a regular feeling, but this is happening now and it's going to last for a while. And he's going to watch it, he's going to help it. And a good person he respects, is in the middle of all that.
Jay breathes out Alvin's short name as soon as he enters, as if his personality meant salvation.
"Jay," Alvin calls softly, glad that the young man recognized him so quickly but unnerved by the tone his name comes to his ears. So pressing. With five long steps, he gets next to him, examining his condition.
"Are you good?" Is the less stupid question that comes up to his mind, so he questions it while taking in the blueish lips, pale color, clattering teeth and uneven shivers.
"I…t-think s-so."
Alvin reaches his hand up in attempt to ease the shivers with a touch on his shoulder, but as the cold skin connects with his warm palm, it elicits the opposite reaction and Jay is seized by line of violent tremors. He takes the hand off immediately, apologizing.
When it subsides, he seems more still than before, so maybe there was some success in Alvin's small gesture.
"What about your hands? Fingers? Can you feel them?" Alvin inspects, slowly extending his hand behind Jay's back, finding the top of his fingers, relieved they still appear in acceptable vital red shade.
Jay only nods closing his eyes, afraid that if he talks, he would be subdued by another uncontrollable shake. He can sense the warmth coming from Alvin's body and right now for him it's like for an abstinent smelling the scent of alcohol, which is not exactly helping, because he cannot have it.
"Jay?" Alvin demands a verbal answer, as he continues to hold his icy fingers, not believing it's alright.
"Yea…, hurts on touch but it's fine." He manages to say.
"Okay." Alvin steps back, divesting Jay of the only chance to get a small glimpse of warmth. He looks around the place to gather a courage to ask another question. "You think you can hold on a little longer?"
Jay successfully hides the genuine reaction on this, but doesn't answer straight away either. His wishes are far away from this room, but his wishes are not important right now. So he nods again. And this time, he manages to give Alvin also the verbal answer before he requests it.
Alvin nods back, almost disappointed and definitely not convinced, but he doesn't expect different answer. "I'll come back in a while. Okay?" He informs and disappears quickly.
Jay's hopes are him to stay by his side, if only to have someone who would keep him from falling asleep. But whatever, at least he doesn't have to dissipate his already low energy to hold down the shaking. And there, once he's alone, his unsteady breathing starts to emit frantic noises and when he tries to lower them, it doesn't seem to work. His frustration getting the worst of him, he viscerally wakes up the long-forgotten hatred towards Voight.
Alvin quickly strides to Voight with a straight thought - they have to warm up the kid right away. He catches his glance and seeing the worry in his friend's eyes, he only sighs. This will be hard for all three of them.
"An hour, top. Then we take him here to heat up," Alvin announces resolutely but with his soft and weary voice. Voight can nothing but concur.
This hour feels like five even before it's complete. For the man in the basement maybe even longer. They watch him through the webcam Voight set up into the room, taking their part on the anguish with the sight they receive, because it is not nice one.
They see him attempt to count the time again, but giving up too soon, they see him flex his hurting legs, they see him bend down a little as if it could protect his chest from the cold and improve the breathing, they see him exercise his fingers to prevent cryopathy. They can see his struggle between staying focused on the task and subduing to the frustration.
"I've seen enough," Voight shuts down the laptop exactly fifty minutes after Alvin gave his ultimatum. "I go for him, you – get it ready downstairs."
Alvin blinks several times to wipe off the picture of Jay and slowly gets up to follow Voight down to the basement.
The sound of opening the door is the best thing Jay hears during those never-ending fifty minutes. As he sees both of his captors, he tenses his muscles to moderate the shaking. It still continues but not so visibly.
"Glad to see me?"
Jay shoves out a sigh of smile through his nose not really amused by Voight's question. The reaction is more about the irony of being pissed at Voight and being glad to see him at the same moment. He would be much happier if he stopped staring at him and released him for at least a couple of minutes. To take a couple of warm breaths. Oh, that would be nice.
But Voight continues to just stand opposite to him and stare.
"How many hours did you count?"
Now, that's not nice. He should have known Voight will be interested in this answer.
"Not s-sure." He answers finally with the shortest reply he came up with, angry that he didn't manage to say it without a stutter.
"How many?" Voight repeats.
Let's take a guess. He got to about three hours with approximate counting, but didn't count not even the half of the time he's spend here. That would make six to eight hours. Knowing the time perception may be a lot exaggerated in his case, he decides to go for seven. However, he feels like it was double at least.
"Not bad estimate," Voight nods regardfully and again continues to stand and stare.
"What now?" Jay asks reluctantly and nervously, not expecting to get the correct answer. His whole body hurts and he won't be able to keep up with this conversation much longer.
Voight finally fishes a key out of his pocket and unlocks the cuffs. Jay's hands don't feel like his own when he starts to massage his tender wrists, unhappy to find he can't move with his fingers properly, not at all to clench them into a fist and when he yet tries, it burns like hell.
"Can you walk?"
He hears his boss ask and shakes his head in agreement. Maybe next time he should try it before answering, he thinks, when he stumbles and ends up in Voight's arms. "Sorry."
"Just take it easy…" Voight advices, not surprised much with Jay's annoyance.
Jay uses the wall rather than Voight's shoulder to steady himself and before making another step he breathes deeply. Putting his entire weigh on one of his legs causes extreme pain that feels like his feet are completely skinless.
He tests the steps couple times while being supported by the wall and is interrupted by Alvin giving him a long sleeve t-shirt.
"Thanks," he takes it slowly, but eager inside to put it on. It's warm and even it doesn't take the cold away it helps him with the shaking once it covers his whole torso.
"Let's go upstairs," Voight turns to the exit and Jay follows walking slowly and carefully, always with an exhale to deal with the pain easier, wondering how long it will take before they take him back here.
As they get closer to the stairwell, Jay notices a small black box with a lens on the wall and stops abruptly, face glowering.
"Is that a… You've been watching me all the time?!" He asks, anger in his voice clearly evident. It's a deep humiliation that causes it and Jay just cannot accept it. Then Voight looking at him with raised eyebrows makes it even worse. "Well?" he yells.
"Yes, Jay. This is a camera." Comes Voight's calm reaction.
"Couldn't you say that before?!"
"What difference would it make?" Calm again.
Jay doesn't understand why Voight can't see the betrayal in it. It would make a big difference to Jay but he will not share the details. It would only bring up more of the shame he feels. So he rather stays quiet and lets Voight think there's none.
Seeing Jay is barely standing, Voight decides to ignore this incident. "Come on." He ends the awkwardness and takes a route to the stairs.
Jay cautiously climbs couple of the stairs holding onto the wall, and when he's accustomed to the pain from walking up, he just can't let go of the anger. "I hope you enjoyed the show."
Voight stops and turns around to face down at him, the stairs giving him a height advantage. "What?"
"You heard me."
There's a silence for a short second like when you hit a pause during a movie where a building is about to blow up. Voight looks away to search for something that would help him to gather his peace again and not finding anything, he swings his right hand at him, connecting the fist with Jay's face. The power sends him off the stairs to the ground where he lands harshly.
Jay, not realizing he overstepped, throws a hurt look towards his boss and attempts to stand up. He fails immediately as he can't find enough strength to fight the pain. The punch was hard but right now the immense stinging in his hands and legs is the biggest problem, because it all feels like every bone in his every limb is broken.
And this all is preventing him to get up and he feels paralyzed.
Voight isn't finished with him. He comes to him fast and grabs him by the shoulder and the t-shirt, helping him to get on his feet coarsely.
"Get up."
Jay groans on that movement but manages to stay up even when he is thrown to the wall behind him and then pinned to it with Voight's strong hands.
"You think I enjoy it?"
Voight shouts and taken by the adrenalin he throws another punch at him aimed to the same spot as the first one. He never stops holding Jay with the other hand to keep him standing.
Jay quickly reacts and puts his left hand in front of his face to protect himself. He knows he can't take another.
"Hmm?" Voight pushes him against the wall again and Jay's afraid he lost his breath. "I hate every fucking second of it! If you think otherwise, then get the fuck out of here."
There's a silent pause again, only Jay's hard breathing disturbing it. Jay stares at him in dismay, not sure what to say to fix the situation. He doesn't want to quit. He wants to finish the job – that's the only thing not clouded by the hurt.
All he can do is to focus everything on making peace with the fact that his boss and his colleague will see him weak and desperate.
So, when regret forms on Jay's features, Voight lets him go, stepping away.
Alvin watches all this from distance, being invisible as always, but now visibly relieved he didn't have to intervene. When Jay says Voight's name, he holds his breath and hopes the kid won't make it worse with his angry mouth.
"I'm sorry." It's hushed and shaky, but it's still a sorry and it counts.
Big thanks to all reviewers for their kind words and ideas! I will probably use them somehow! When the torturer switches to Valdez I won't have to hold back, so defenitely when I get there! :) And I couldn't ignore the hit in the face and used it right away cause it kinda helped to solve some things between Jay and Hank. Sooo, I hope you enjoyed the show! :D