Title: Impossibility under oath of Incredulity
Author: Meg a.k.a. Shinigamideathgirl
Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue.
Summary: Sometimes it's just too much to ask to be a normal cop.
Author's Notes: Well I think we're kind of officially in the plot. Hooray! Lots of swearing in this chapter, so be-warned. And lots of characters you love to hate reappearing from the series. Oh and unintentionally, Jim's split personally reminds me of the chick from heroes. Unintentional! It was! It was!
The radio is playing two songs:
Three days grace – Now or Never
Adventurers – Broken Land
Read and Review please.
Chapter: Three
In this time are we loving? Or do we sit here wondering, why this world isn't turning around. It's now or never.
Jim jerked the radio noise down, almost pulling the knob right off the car stereo startling his already nervous passenger. Focusing pale blue eyes on the road he savoured the silence for a few seconds, the nervous fidgeting beside him increased, it wouldn't be long before inane prattle replaced anxious.
"So uh… your boss? …Thinks you're …a… a… um eccentric?" Euphemisms, why didn't the kid just say whatever the heck was flittering around in his pretty head Jim thought savagely, he was angry for the fact he didn't really feel angry, he should be. He deserved to be angry.
"I think you're a lying neo-witchdoctor hippy punk. I'm not holding it against you. Or shall we dissect your personal life?" Jim retorted no way was he talking about his mental stability with a complete stranger, he didn't need to give any more leverage to this kid.
"Yes you are." Sandburg answered smartly, pointedly not looking Jim's way. Jim took the time to study his profile before swapping him for the road again.
"What?"
"You are holding it against me!" Jim switched his glance back to Sandburg, amusement stored in crinkled eyes and apple cheeks. Blue met blue. Jim swerved dangerously, he decided to keep his eyes on the road.
"Just. Back off." The venom which was supposed to poison his words got lost in transit, at least the growl got through.
"You do bad cop so well." Sandburg said mockingly but without heat, a compliment that sounded more like an insult in good faith. It was really, really hard to hate this guy.
"You chose to come with me." Jim huffed realizing somehow this argument had just turned into something else, how did that happen? A two way participation that Jim was pretty rusty at, in effect a few years worth of accumulated rust.
"Is that what you're going to say when you rip me a new arsehole? That I asked for it?"
"…yes." Jim couldn't help the corners of his mouth lifting, whether it was a joke or not was arguable.
"So there's a human inside there somewhere huh?" Playful punch landed on his shoulder while a laugh escaped the curly haired anthropologist in the passenger seat. Jim didn't flinch, another of his many long forgotten firsts.
Jim eased the radio back on and they drove in comfortable silence.
This boy had learned to fail. In times like these to cry seems so absurd. His own life's crisis pales in the shadow of this truly dying world…
"What makes you so sure its still here?" Jim finally asked, his truck was conveniently parked by some construction scrap metal, out of plain sight, although not hard to find if anyone was actually looking. Sandburg wobbled over to Jim, crutches struggling to maintain balance on the wooden planks adorning the wharf, the sea close by splashing onto the rocky outcrop underneath the stilted boards. The moon watched them suspiciously as Jim trudged in a transect looking for possible drug containers… for something.
"Your boss, Simon? Doesn't know that you're out here does he?" Sandburg sighed, "Should you really be out here without backup?" He was following slowly after Jim, performing random acts of aerobics, balancing on his crutches, legs suspended. He was going to fall on his ass of he kept that up and Jim was not so inclined to help.
"I can take care of myself chief. So, what the heck are we meant to be looking for?"
"Uh, I don't know…"
"You better not be bullshitting me kid or I'll haul your ass in for wasting police time and obstructing a police investigation and-" Jim jerked his head up his hearing flaring, breathing, elevated pulse, shifting of metallic, leather, thundered from in front of him. He saw nothing but panels of corrugated steel, flecks of rust peeling the ridges and darkening the dull metal.
"I get it, I get it, chill out." Undaunted voice echoed too loudly in the suddenly noisy and too silent wharf.
Two steps had Jim at arms reach of Blair.
A second too late he realized as the tell-tale click of the hammer being released.
"Fuc-" Pain blazed across his shoulders as blue eyes widened in shock. Jim's world dimmed as Sandburg rushed forward crutches thrown carelessly.
Finding himself in an unknown at an unknown time for a reasonably unknown reason was starting to become a bad running gag. This time wasn't as lucky as the last, pain ripped through his back like someone had decided to cleave his spinal cord out with bare fingers and stuff it all back in, disregarding any sense of order and the concrete above and below was no sunshine and lollipops.
"Fuck." Jim stated finishing his unfinished sentence.
"Unfortunately for you, I agree." Deep baritone, nothing particularly noteworthy.
"Well, apart from the fact that I'm deeply disturbed that someone was possibly watching me sleep, cut to the chase." Jim twisted his head to the side, his neck protesting at the few inches it required. He wriggled his toes to make sure he wasn't suffering spinal injuries, then fingers and felt at least some relief.
The man leaning against the concrete wall looked in his thirties with dirt blond hair parted at the center framing a noncommittal face, all things considered quite a normal looking face. Jim sighed, it would just be so much easier if the bad guys could at least make the effort to look it.
"Sandburg one of yours? Or you a drone too?" The man on the wall actually slipped a smile on his face, bent down a little allowing Jim to stop craning his head so far.
"Ahh, well, well." He sounded like a child with a new toy and that brought some caution to Jim. "I just knew I made the right choice in you Mr. Ellison! Smart and if I'm correct, which… I am. A very powerful weapon." Answering nothing, nudging more questions.
"What did the kid do to me? Who the heck are you?" Anger had risen unbidden and Jim flexed his muscles too see how much give he was getting from his body.
"Well, you do seem to have an impatient streak," a sigh of one so much aggrieved "I was hoping you would just back off, take that time off your supervisor suggested, maybe play with my Blair for a while until you actually got a handle on the thing."
Jim was on his feet before he could consciously even twitch, body straining but moving nonetheless, instinctively. Overtaken.
Balls of his feet propelling him forward, hand snaking outward, fingers tense and a few seconds later eye to eye with the blond, hands clasped around his neck, the nub of a revolver pressing against his stomach. Panting furiously, sweat sliding determinedly down his face, he could strangle him to death but chances were he wouldn't finish with a bullet leaking his already depleted strength, not that he wasn't tempted to try, sheer determination would allow him to kill the bastard, living afterwards may be a problem though. Pain arched through his back resolutely, racing down every nerve and back again, the threat hanging thickly above them.
He let go regretfully, smiling, stepped back, determined not to sway on his feet, ignoring all the pain, not really feeling it anymore…no, not Jim.
The man across from him had paled somewhat though dungeon light was hardly the best to examine with, and a dungeon was exactly what the place reminded James of. Concrete everything, bars and even a leaking roof somewhere.
"Well, you seem to recover nicely. I'm sure in any other circumstance I'd be dead by now. Covert ops training and all Jim.
"James. Jim's taking a break right now." He straightened up, rolled his shoulders and leisurely stretched. He could hear the man's heart beating steadily if a little fast, eyes wide hands steady though, he wasn't going to able to overpower this man so easily but he'd make sure when he got the chance, to paint the walls red, Jim would get a kick out of that, or go mad. "So, black ops? Military? Government, nah, you'd be too psychotic for them to control."
"James, well, you seem reasonable enough." Uncertainty flashed across his face, James grinned, he'd thrown his captor for a loop.
"Oh don't look at me like that, I'm not the one kidnapping police officers. So what's the plan? World domination? Kidnapping children for afternoon supper? No? Assassinate the president Mr. Lee Brackett?"
Eyebrows arched high on his forehead; he raised the gun a little higher, finger pressing a little harder.
"You got guys upstairs talking boy-o." James pointed unnecessarily to the roof.
"Ahh. Looks like you've got those senses under control. I didn't think you could use them at will yet. From what my little spy's been telling me."
"Oh don't worry about that, Blair's been more honest to you than to poor Jimmy. He can't control squat, or he just won't try. Oooh well, well. You have the sunrise patriots working with you too? Now this is getting bigger and bigger. Mr. Ex-military."
Brackett's unoccupied hand fumbled at his hip for a moment before pulling out a radio. "Shut the fuck up. Everyone in this fucking building. Say another word and Kincaid will blow out your damn brains."
"Your blood pressure's rising. I hear that isn't terribly good for your health."
"You're an unpredictable one."
"I'm just lonely."
"I'll give you a present for all your hard work and hopefully future cooperation." He backed out of the cell quickly, gun trained on Jim and James couldn't find any openings. "Don't break it." The cell was locked up and his captor strode away, his footfalls echoing behind him.
James backed up and stayed standing, veins stressing his neck and arms, he endured for a few minutes before his knees buckled and left him on a heap on the unforgiving floor, pain racing and throbbing with his heartbeat. Conscious beating conscious. Jim rubbed his eyes as tremors shook his body. Jim felt behind with his arm trying to locate the reason for it, he came up blank. At least it wasn't a bullet wound or anything like that; just whatever it was they had shot him with was bloody painful and mark-less it seemed. At least the place was dry.
He was in control. He was in control. He was in control. He was in control. He was in control. He was in control. He was in deep shit.
It took only a few minutes after that for two set of echoing footfalls to progressively get louder. He was coming back, with someone…no… with…
"Well, here you go. I am, after all, a man of my word."
"Yeah I got a word for it…" Jim muttered as Sandburg walked in, fully cooperative not coerced in any manner than Jim could perceive. Jim growled and glared for all he was worth he would have smirked in satisfaction when the kid flinched but he was too busy being pissed off. Pissed off at this situation, pissed off at himself whichever one he wasn't too sure. Pissed off that the whole world was going to hell, or just his world. Not that he could really blame the kid, he had known right from the start he was lying, knew this whole case was wrong… or right… or whatever, that there was something really wrong with himself and he walked in stupid, blind, deaf and dumb all at the same time.
And now it had all just gone to who knows where, go straight there and do not pass go. He sighed, Blair had yet to do anything, he was staring at the floor and well, really his other self was… just gone? He had been right there a few minutes ago and now not even a teasing sign at the edge of his conscious. They must have drugged him, poisoned him and experimented on him! Something to explain this, he didn't really remember much of Peru, maybe it all a damn conspiracy.
"What the hell is going on? Truth, and don't think I won't know when you're lying and trust me. Right now, right here, you do not want to piss me off more than I already am."
"I was, am sort of a graduate student at Rainier University, I wasn't lying about that. I'm writing my PhD in Anthropology-"
"I don't want to know about your damn life Sandburg! What the hell is going on here, right now." His fingers clenching at the even ground, nails scraping away at the dusty ground, he didn't notice them break under pressure.
"Dammit Jim! Just listen, its all connected." Blair had begun pacing, hands digging into his wild mane of curly hair, pushing it all back off his face and looking the worse off for it, they now stood out in all directions. Jim surged to his feet, a little unsteadily but exceedingly determined and grabbed a fistful on the youth's shirt and dragged him forward, the pain was starting to recede, at least it wasn't permanent.
"You want to know what else will connect with you in the next second if I don't get some answers?" His fist clenched hard, shook with emotion. Placating hands rested on his shoulders, Blair just moved forward and rested his head on Jim's chest. Jim grunted more out of surprise than anything else, goddamnit, just screw it all to hell. "What did you do to me? Why the hell can't I get angry with you? What the heck is wrong with me?"
"Please, please Jim. It won't make any sense if I start at the end. Just please listen to me."
Jim dropped his hand, uncurled his fist and sent them both down onto the floor.
