When the first began rooting around the room, tearing the place apart, the man had tried to argue with him. He had been keeping an eye on the other, feeling distinctly uneasy (and still smarting from the fall) that he was outnumbered. In the past, everything that had happened... he had felt scared, but he'd been relatively able to keep it together. He had thought that the psychotic stalker following him was 'totheark', and had assumed that it was one person (aside from the man in the suit) who was making his life hellish.
Now there were two of them, and he didn't know what to think.
Actually, that was a lie... he hadn't known what to think for months now. This was just the straw that broke the camel's back.
Now he had found his mouth taped shut in addition to this arms, and he was backed into a corner, and he was watching these mask-wearing psycho tear up the last bastion of safety (what a relative word) that he really had. The man closed his eyes and tried to take a deep breath. He shuddered, a cough struggling for release and finding none. He felt like this couldn't be happening.
The other turned the camcorder from the first towards the man. He tilted his head faintly, watching the man suffering. This was more familiar territory.
Squatting next to the victim, keeping the camcorder fixed on the first, the other waited for their quarry to open his eyes again. The both of them recoiled just a little -- the man on seeing a mask so close to his face, the other on the sudden movement in general.
"Mmmph," the man pleaded, and the other shook his head shortly and violently. The man shuddered again, obviously in great discomfort.
The other rested the camcorder on his knee and made a hushing noise, staring pointedly at the man. After a few flinching moments -- the first was angry, erratic in whatever he was searching for -- the man nodded. He looked a lot like a kicked puppy by this point.
The other tentatively reached out between them, watching with an almost paranoid sense of intensity for any sudden moves. Or subtle moves, for that matter. His fingers found the edge of one of the pieces of tape on the man's mouth and he tugged on it. Rrrip.
"Shit," the man hissed, turning his head and attempting to rub his sore lips on the sleeve of his t-shirt. The other flapped his hand, the tape still stuck to his fingers, and eventually plastered the stubble-laden strip to the wall. He was waiting for the man to make a move, to try to bowl him over, or something. He willed the man to be still... and it seemed that he was.
"Who are you?" the man whispered, eyes going back and forth between the other and the first.
The other shook his head. No, no names.
"Come on," the man pleaded, licking his lips to wet them, and grimacing momentarily over the piece still in place. "Alex?" his brows were drawn together, his expression one of badly scraped together hope. The other remained impassive, simply stared at him. Flicked his attention back to the first, who had slammed shut a drawer and was going through another. Turned back to the man. The tape was still rolling.
"Come on," the man tried again, holding up his taped together arms. The other shook his head faintly. "It's me," he tried, "J--" but was cut off when the first slipped over and grabbed him by the shirt.
"Where are they?!" the first hissed, messily hauling the man up, allowing him to use the wall to make it easier on himself.
"Where's what?" the man asked, looking distraught by the sudden intrusion.
The first gestured to the now upended room. "They're not where you usually keep them!"
The man's eyes widened. Usually keep what? How did this person know where he kept anything, let alone anything specific? "H... Hey!" He tried to pull back as the first began patting him down, but there was nowhere to pull back to. "Hey, cut it out!" He cursed, trying to edge away as the first dug around in his pockets. "Fuck off!"
"Shut up!" the first replied, hand emerging victorious with a key ring. He flicked through those available, found the one he was looking for. Glared at the other, who was still watching, who felt a wave of nausea rise up alongside the faint-headedness. The first made a gesture with his finger over the black lips of his mask and the other recognized it immediately: 'put the tape back on.'
The other nodded and went for the roll, while the first eyed the man, who in turn was frantically searching for options that didn't involve doing what these people said.
It wasn't his vision. The light in the room was flickering. Everything was flickering. The other picked up the pack that the first had dropped, turned back to the first and passed it over even as he brought the roll out. Hurriedly, he ripped a piece of tape off and pressed it against the man's mouth without regard for the way that the man strained away, or the brief shout he gave. "No!" became a muffled noise.
The two visibly relaxed, but only for a moment. The light on the nightstand flickered and went out. The other glanced into the viewfinder of the camcorder and shook his head, heart racing. A tear, nothing immediately troublesome to most people.
"We're going," the first assured, and grabbed the man by his bound wrists. "Go!" he barked, dragging their protesting victim along behind him.
The other kept one eye on the viewscreen as they hurried out of the man's room, and out of his house. He kept the other on the two of them as the first pushed the man against the back door of his car and bungled the car key into the driver-side lock.
The screen wavered up for a moment, over the roof of the car as the other helped to stuff the man into the cluttered back seat of the car, and he missed the exceedingly tall, slim shape that was briefly caught on crackling film, that simply stood under the lamp post across the road. When he reached over for the camcorder again, the figure was gone.
"Get in," the first told the other, even as he was slamming the driver-side door closed.
"Where are we going?" the other asked, feeling his heart skip a beat. He hadn't brought his medication with him. He'd thought they'd be back in a couple of hours at the most -- the first did not like leaving the house, after all. But what if they weren't returning?
"Mmmphhm!" the man added, tearing his gaze away from the road to stare at the two masked men hijacking his car.
The first muttered something under his breath that neither of the other two could quite make out. Somehow that didn't make the other feel all that much better.