Red Hot Chili Peppers - Even You Brutus?

Fever-fueled dreams trapped him, muffled his screams, barred him from waking.

He was in his old barracks. They were all joking, but tomorrow they would march out. He knew all of their faces so well, and he knew how they would die. The words died in his throat as he tried to tell them...

He looked down at his boots, and when he looked up his fellows were gone, replaced by rough men in Italian uniforms. They smiled at him, walking forward, and he couldn't back away. Hands reached for him, tore at his clothes, forced him back on the bunk. He couldn't stop them, couldn't scream...

The lights flickered out, and when they came back on, the room had changed. He was home. He was lying in his old bed, listening to footsteps come up the stairs, but still he couldn't move. They grew closer, closer still... His pulse picked up pace, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he waited, stock-still, unable to move. Closer, closer... How many steps were there? The footsteps were deafening now, shaking the room, and still he couldn't do anything but wait. Wait for the hand to touch him...

Someone touched his shoulder, and he bolted up like a coiled spring, hand lashing out to grab the wrist of whoever was touching him, all of his currently-meager strength in the grip. His body was trembling, eyes wild, heart pounding.

Lorna stilled as he grabbed her, looking down at him with furrowed eyebrows. "I'm just here checking on you, Moran. Then you were having a nightmare. Thought it might be a mercy to wake you up," she said quietly, gently pulling her hand back until he let go. "Lie back down, please. You're fucked up enough, and I'm the one who has to keep updating Jim on your status."

He relaxed slowly as he recognized her, and then just as slowly did as she asked, catching his breath for a moment. He was under a pile of blankets, which had been thrown askew at his up-burst. He adjusted them carefully with his good arm. He ran a hand over the fresh bandages on his chest, displeased and uncertain, before returning mostly-lucid eyes to Harrison. "What happened?"

"You passed out on the street during a casing and a civilian found you. You were at a public hospital," she shrugged, still standing by the side of his bed. She couldn't sit down these days unless she had a cigarette or a glass of liquor. She was too tense, otherwise. "You have blood poisoning. Next time I ask you to let the nurses tend to you, listen to me, will you?"

He tensed a little at that, but nodded slightly. His stupid mistake. One he was sure he was going to pay for. "Yes," he said quietly.

She nodded a little, eyes wandering off him to the wall. "You won't have it as bad as I did, I don't think," she said, voice devoid of emotion. "Your transgression wasn't nearly as bad as mine."

He watched her quietly for a moment. "You shouldn't have taken the brunt of that," he finally said, after looking around the room. "Wasn't your failure. It was mine."

She smirked, humorlessly, and shrugged. "Wasn't your orders. It was mine. Either way, Jim's already beaten you. The punishment for this won't be nearly as bad." She hoped.

Orders I had the right to, and should have, ignored. But he didn't say that. He just nodded slightly, eyeing her quietly. "You're as bad as I am."

She looked back down at him, raising her eyebrows a little. "In what way?"

His own eyes were quiet as he studied her face. The dark circles under the eyes, the dull expression, the tense hunch of her shoulders. "When was the last time you really slept?"

She laughed, turning away from him, and her voice broke, her hand going to grab the back of the chair by his bed. "I haven't really slept since before we were captured, Moran. And now the nightmares are worse, and I have to face him every fucking day. There's nothing I can do except drink until it puts me to sleep."

He closed his eyes, taking a slow breath, his lungs still struggling. Eventually he opened his eyes, focusing on the far wall. "They still call it Shell Shock, in the ranks," he said after a while. "The pencil pushers somewhere changed it to 'Combat Stress Reaction', but that's a load of bullshit. It isn't stress. It's shock. It's physical, it's visceral. It's the bloody sucking chest wound of mental shit. And it's gonna bite you as fast as this bit me if you don't take care of it."

She turned back around to look at him, her face no longer emotionless. "What the fuck am I supposed to do about this, Moran? It was bad when we just got out - but I could have handled it. Now?" She scoffed, choking back tears, and turned to the wall by her side, and punched it hard enough that there was an audible crack. She withdrew her hand, watched the little droplets of blood roll down the white plaster. "Now I have to relive all of it every time he says my name. Every time he asks me if I'm giving him thecold shoulder. And I can't do anything about it."

He winced just slightly at the punch, trying to decide if the sound had been the wall, or her hand. "I don't know," he admitted quietly. "But it can't be... this . If I can help you, I will."

She finally sank down into the chair, looking listlessly at the bloody hand in her lap. It hurt. She'd probably fractured something, not to mention split her skin open. "You can't help. You can't guarantee that he won't do it again if he thinks we're getting too close," she snorted, lifting her good hand to wipe her eyes, try to clean up any evidence of crying before it escaped. "I'm his bloody property, and he told me not to forget it again. I'm armed all the time, because if he tries to put his hands on me again..." she shook, her head, looking away. "I'll kill one of us before I let it happen again. He abused his power over me to the fullest extent, and that's where my loyalty ends."

His eyes tightened just a little. As Jim's bodyguard, and hers after that, that wasn't a statement he could take lightly. Up until now, it hadn't been his business. Now it very much was. "I'll find a solution," he said quietly. "But it'd be best if we don't discuss it further, for both of your sakes."

"Yes, I agree," she muttered. It wasn't guaranteed he would remember this - his fever was still a problem - but if she didn't have to defend herself, she hoped he remembered.

He fell silent for a while, and as the distraction left, the various aches and pains made themselves known. He took a slow breath. " Christ I feel like shit..."

She looked back at him, eyes tightening a little. "I'm sorry. You probably haven't been given any painkillers in a while. I can go get the nurse, if you'd like."

He shrugged a little, taking a slow breath as his chest protested. "How bad is it?"

"You were very close to death," she snorted. "Blood poisoning is not a joke. Not to mention it slowed down the healing of everything else, because your body was too busy trying to rid itself of the infection. It's no surprise you hurt."

"Oh, good," he sighed, with just a touch of sarcasm. He reached up to trace his fingers over the bandages, and shifted just enough to get further under the blankets. He was still cold. "Sorry."

She raised her eyebrows slightly. "For what?"

He sighed, shifting again slightly and wincing, uncomfortable in his current position but unable to think of one that would be better. " This... " he muttered. "You told me to let them treat me, I didn't, and I almost died in a gutter. I know when I'm wrong."

She smirked a little, shrugging. "No need to apologize. I think the experience of almost dying is penance enough."

He sighed, closing his eyes and nodding a little. "If I feel like this for much longer I'll agree with you. Doubt Jim will, but oh well..."

She sighed, the smile sliding off her face at the mention of Jim. "There's no telling what he'll think."

He saw her face crumble, and immediately felt bad. "My problem. Not yours."

She shook her head. "No. Everything to do with Jim is my problem. Not much he does doesn't affect me in some form or fashion."

He sighed. "Well, I'll do my best to keep it from affecting you. You don't need more shit."

She chuckled dryly, putting her hand on the arm of the chair, so it wouldn't drip on her. "Yeah, tell me about it."

He glanced at her again, and sighed. "Get someone to look at that."

She looked down at her bloody hand and sighed, nodding a little, and stood. "Yeah, I will. You want me to send in one of the nurses with some pain medication?"

"Please," he said softly, closing his eyes and taking a slow breath.

"Alright. I'll send one in. Rest up, try to get some sleep," she murmured, and then walked out, closing the door softly behind her.

He watched her go, and closed his eyes, intent on sleeping. His mind, however, had different ideas, turning over the situation between Lorna and Jim, looking for solutions.

Lorna sent in a nurse to give Moran painkillers, and let another (hovering anxiously) nurse take her off to check her hand. The doctor was fairly certain she'd cracked a knuckle, and wanted to do x-rays, but she waved him off, and he reluctantly only cleaned, bandaged, and gave her a brace for her hand. Then she went back to her apartment, a bottle of her own painkillers in her free hand.

Jim drummed his fingers absently on the desk, the rhythm of some opera he'd heard years ago, wandering his mental halls absently as he waited for Harrison to show up. He'd been amusing himself the last day or so by telling her to come up 'whenever she was free', and imagining the frustrated uncertainty as she weighed tasks versus whatever he might need her for.

Eventually, she found a free moment in the evening, and went to his office, dreading it the whole time. She knocked on the door with her left hand. She didn't know if he'd heard about her other hand yet, and she desperately hoped he wouldn't comment. Her patience was stretched thin as it was.

He called her through, and looked up as she came in, eyes flicking to the brace. He had, in fact, heard about it. It amused him. Punching a wall was rather unlike his second.

"I need a team to go into Buckingham Palace tomorrow, Harrison," he said casually. "What condition is the boy in?"

She stopped in front of his desk in her newly-familiar pose, looking at the wall above him rather than him. "He's still in the infirmary, sir," she said, "He's still feverish, but he's improving. I wouldn't recommend him for field work. Maybe Johnson, or Kelly."

He waved his hand dismissively. "Too delicate an operation. Too confidential. You'll go, and so will I. Pity about the hand, perhaps a muff. Something classy, it is black tie, after all." He leaned back, looking at her. "Do have Johnson case the joint, though, seeing as Moran doesn't seem to have gotten around to it.

She didn't react, but her throat closed up at the idea of going on a mission with Jim. A space where she'd have to pretend they were together, that she was fine with being touched by him, that she enjoyed it. "Yes, sir. When is the event?"

"Seven o'clock tomorrow night. We should be on time. My contact will be looking to avoid me." He leaned back in his chair. "I'll have the briefing sent to your quarters."

She nodded. She needed to send Johnson immediately, then. "Will that be all, sir?"

He considered her for a moment. Considered making her stand there while he worked, with no particular reason other than he wanted her to. But he was also aware of the fragile mental state she was currently in, and decided not to shatter it until his bodyguard had recovered. "Tell Moran that the longer he takes to recover, the more annoyed I will be. Dismissed."

She nodded and then turned and made a swift exit, the back of her neck prickling. As soon as she reached the nearest telephone, she sent Johnson on his way to Buckingham and phoned the infirmary, to pass on Jim's message.

At precisely six-fifteen the following night, Jim met Harrison in the garage, and climbed into the back of the waiting Rolls. He waited until Harrison was in, then signaled the driver to take off, returning his attention to the bowtie around his neck. "Tie this for me, darling, would you?" he asked, flashing her a grin.

She cleared her throat and leaned over to do it without speaking, the task made more difficult both by her injury and the way her hands were shaking, but she managed to get it done in record time and quickly returned to her side of the seat. She'd dressed in a black dress which hugged her figure for the occasion, with matching black gloves that had necessitated her removing the brace for the night. She would just need to be careful, with only the bandages on underneath to support her.

They took the ride in silence, as he didn't fancy dying in the back of a car. They pulled up to a street not far from the palace, and the car stopped, the two climbing out. Johnson had found a suitable blind spot in security near a hedge that they would be leveraging to make their entrance. Jim offered Lorna his arm, still smiling. "Shall we?" He just barely held back 'love' from the end of the sentence, the temptation to use the trigger word massive, but he kept it pocketed for later that evening, if he needed it.

She took his arm with a convincing smile, putting on the mask she would need to get through this night in one piece. "It'll be a delight," she smiled, giving a little wave over her shoulder at Johnson. "Mind the car, please. It's possibly worth more than you are."

"Quite definitely worth more than he is," he sighed, smirking as they walked down the street toward their entrance point.

It was slightly less dignified an entrance than he was used to, but he hadn't been able to pull the right strings to get a ticket to this particular event on such short notice without raising a few brows, and raised brows were not in his interest in this venture. So they slid through the gap in the hedges and joined the milling crowd as if they had been there all along.

She had never relished the job of scanning a crowd for another face as much as she did now. Looking for the Greek ambassador was positively riveting, and she basked in every second of it, studiously ignoring that one of her arms and an entire side of her body was touching someone else. But there was only so long she could look fruitlessly and say nothing. "I'm not seeing him, sir," she said quietly, tapping her gloved finger delicately against the champagne glass in her hand. Her broken hand (her right one) was in Jim's grasp, and she was unhappily trusting him not to twist it the wrong way.

"Mmmm... Unfortunately, I tend to agree." He stroked his thumb over her hand, just barely circumventing her bad knuckle. "Perhaps in one of the antechambers."

"I have no doubts that you know this place better than I do. I know the way out, not where Lord Moran makes his tea," she muttered, just barely keeping herself from twitching as he got too close for comfort to the painful spot. "Thanks for informing me of that, by the way," she added dryly, though it was clear she was being sarcastic.

"I would have told you if it became pertinent," he said with a shrug, heading toward the closest doorway and peering through, before moving on to look through the next one.

"He was a new employee, who was apparently also assigned as my bodyguard," she snorted, looking normal for the both of them so no one would look too closely at Jim's slightly odd behavior as they checked a few more doorways.

"How does his father's political standing affect any of that?" he asked casually, looking in on another room before turning down a small hallway.

She grit her teeth a little. "There are dozens of reasons, the least of which is my accidentally bringing him on a mission that involves his father. You would never allow yourself to be uninformed on one of your employees, Jim. I'm your second. If you get fucked up I have to keep things running while you recover. I can't do that unless you place a little faith into me," she muttered, though her face stayed pleasant. She wanted to backhand him more than anything, right now.

"I have complete faith in you, Harrison," he soothed, the amused notes in his voice ambiguous. "However I think it would be rather dull, not to mention a waste of time, to spend hours giving you all the boring little details of every employee. I tell you what you need to know. It's as simple as that."

"I'm not asking for every employee, Jim, I'm asking about the man who protects your life, and, oh, surprise, MINE," she hissed, not mollified by his attempt to delegitimize her argument.

"And now you know," he said casually, shrugging as they wandered down a hall away from the crowd, still searching. "I don't see why you're so furious, love..."

Her stomach flipped, and she fell silent as her face paled, suddenly nauseous. It took everything in her power not to yank out of his grasp.

He smirked just slightly as she stiffened and fell silent, pleased with the effect. It was exactly as he'd hoped.

Time seemed to drag on excruciatingly slowly after that, and she didn't know how much actually passed, just that she was desperate to be alone, to get away from him, to be able to feel her emotions in peace without fearing what he might say or do about them.

They were in a small portico of sorts when it happened. Air raid sirens went off, but before they could even consider moving, the world shattered.

He came to- he wasn't sure how long later- to darkness, and dust on his tongue. He shifted a little, and grit his teeth as his head hit a sharp corner of some kind. He swore quietly, shifting his hands and feeling around before trying to sit up, but he was in a small enough space that that proved difficult.

"Feck."

Lorna had woken up before Jim, a few feet away in the cramped space, and had only brushed off a few loose pebbles before she remained very still, eyes above her in the darkness, ears straining every time the rubble shifted. For right now, it seemed their pocket was relatively stable, but she didn't fancy trying to jostle for more room and getting them both crushed in the process. She shifted as she heard Jim swear. With her eyes beginning to adjust, she could just make out his shape. "You're alive, then."

"Glad to hear you so thrilled," he shot back sarcastically, his own eyes beginning to adjust as he strained to see their surroundings. "What's your condition?"

"A superficial head wound, some light scrapes, possibly a fracture in my right arm, like that needs to be worse," she muttered, shaking her head. "Caught rubble on it instead of my head. I imagine I might be of much less use to you if I hadn't."

"Mmm..." he agreed distractedly, tuning her out once she had answered his question, his attention returning to the vague shapes of rubble he was starting to pick out. "Are you free to move, or pinned?"

"Free, sort of. I can move a little, but there's not much room to do that in," she sighed, grimacing as she heard rubble shift overhead."

He nodded a little. "I'm in much the same situation. Although..." He shifted a bit again, and frowned. "My ankle may be trapped. Not pinned, per say... but I can't seem to extricate it from whatever is hooked 'round my leg." He sighed. "This is a bit of a mess."

She snorted. "Yeah," she muttered. This was like some kind of nightmare. Trapped, alone, with Jim Moriarty. She closed her eyes. Rescue could not come soon enough.

He took stock of his own injuries- mild abrasions, most, he believed, though there was an uncomfortable numb sensation on his left thigh, and a warm stickiness when his hand came away. "Johnson should piece together the issue, and bring assistance."

"Yeah, he fucking better," she muttered blackly, resting her head back against.. the wall? It might as well been the wall. She fell silent, hoping he would follow suit.

He smirked a little. "What, not looking forward to my company?" he prodded, chuckling quietly. There was nothing he could do about the situation, may as well enjoy it.

"No, absolutely not," she snapped, eyes opening in the dark. She was stressed, and hurt, and trapped like a fucking rat. Like hell she was going to grovel.

He laughed at that. "Christ, Harrison. You used to be more fun."

"Oh, I'm sorry ," she snarled, a blinding surge of sheer anger hit her, and she drew back one leg and then kicked, hitting something fleshy with significant force. "Little Jim wants to keep playing? Then he shouldn't have broken his TOYS," she hissed, slamming her foot into him to enunciate each stressed word. " FUCK you, Jim. You're a fucking animal. I trusted you, you piece of shit! And now I walk into your office armed so I can slit my own FUCKING throat if you try to even touch me again."

He tensed slightly as her foot connected with his hip, and remained silent as she continued to kick him, separating himself from the pain it caused. He waited until she paused for breath, and spoke softly. "Been bottling that up, have we? Do stop flailing about before this whole rubbish pile comes down on us. Darling Sebby would be very disappointed."

Good," she snapped, "I hope we both get fucking crushed in here. It's better than having to deal with you for the rest of my fucking life. Maybe Sebby would even fuckingmourn. God knows you wouldn't."

He was surprised by that, and it took him a moment to process. He'd been playing, yes. But he wasn't aware that he'd pushed her to the point where death was a better option.

He was better at this than even he'd thought. He rarely underestimated himself these days. It was a pleasant surprise. Still, it presented a rather sticky situation. Harrison was useful. He didn't want her to off herself over a little game.

He sighed. "Is this because we fucked?"

She snarled at that, and kicked him again, harder. " WE didn't fuck, Jim," she seethed through her clenched jaw. " You fucked, and I had the absolute fucking privilege of taking it. Do you really think that we fucked? I was two conscious days away from daily sexual assault by bloody fucking Italians, and then I get home, and, oh, welcome back Lorna, but I'm pissed at you so I'm going to cut you open at one of the most painful places, and then I'm going to make you associate me with your rapists, isn't that delightful?" She laughed, mockingly, almost manically. "Are you not getting this? This isn't a fucking game, you colossal fuckwit. You destroyed my loyalty to you. It's gone. Before, I would have taken a bullet for you. Now, I would rather manually shove one into one of your pretty brown eyes."

That brought him up just a bit short, torn between fury and confusion. He decided to combine the two. "If you kick me again, when we get out of here I will have your leg removed and replace one of my desk legs with it," he snarled. "What sort of loyalty is that, that flees at the first sign of trouble? I trusted you, too, Harrison. I trusted you to know that you were worth more than the goddamned meat shield, and to not get your emotions tied up in your fecking decision making. Instead I almost lose an employee I've put years of my life and my money into shaping, all over some boy who's been working for us for less than six months." He took a breath, then, and when he spoke, his voice was softer. "So yes. You got punished. Yes. It was meant to hurt . Because you were a fucking imbecile!"

" Two years, Jim!" she shouted, furious. " TWO. It would not have been a fucking goddamn tragedy for you if I had died - and it wasn't because of my FUCKING EMOTIONS.THAT was our way out, James! I can't operate a fucking machine gun, nor do I possess the strength to combat the people carrying those guns! I'm deadly against oneopponent, MAYBE two, but above that? I need decent weaponry, clothes, and the bloody element of surprise. I had none of them, Jim. Would you have rather I let Moran die and attempt to escape by myself, only to get gunned down the first time I try to hit one with my malnourished punch? Jim- Jesus-" she thunked her head back against the wall, her voice breaking, tears spilling over her eyes. "Earlier, you claimed to have faith in me, but for fuck's sake, what's the point in lying to my face? I did what I had to.Was I sympathetic for Moran? Yes. But we both know I am, at my heart, a deeply selfish person. I didn't do it for him. And as for my loyalty? James, I can take punishment. I have done it before, and it never shook me. This isn't the first sign of trouble. You have put me through the ringer, and you bloody well know no one else has survived. But that?" she shook her head, closing her eyes in the dark, fiercely grateful he couldn't see the sheer volume of tears rolling down her cheeks. "Jim, you can't do that. I can forgive everything else, but not that. You don't want to lose an employee you've invested in? Don't psychologically damage them to the point of suicide. I need to have someline you're willing to respect. If you won't accept that, I'm putting in my resignation. Put a bullet in me as soon as we're out of here."

He was quiet for a long time after that. He could hear her sniffling, but tuned it out, closing his eyes and replaying the last few weeks, watching for details, for clues, evaluating his actions and hers with the data he had, making his judgement.

It was almost a half hour later that he spoke again. "It is possible," he said levelly, "That I may have not had all of the information when I made my decision. Given the information I have acquired since then... It is possible that I would not have made the same choice."

She didn't know what to say about that, so she said nothing, just sitting there in the dark and letting herself feel the betrayal and the hurt and the helplessness that she had been stuffing down into a tight little box and trying to function around. She'd always enjoyed her work. She didn't have to do it. She could have easily lived off her parents' good wishes, or gone to school and been a nurse or a teacher or a shop owner. But her father had introduced her to the life, and his blood ran strong in her. She got her looks and her bloodlust from him.

That didn't mean that the job was easy. Long jobs were always draining, and having to fuck her way into places wasn't always fun. Armetti had introduced her to the concept of real Bosses, and how messy it could get. He'd asked for her hand in marriage, and she had said yes, and maybe even believed that she would do it, for a minute. But then she got pregnant, and she saw what kind of man he really was.

He'd known that for her work she had to fuck other people, and accepted that easily. When she'd told him, he had only pulled her into a hug and pressed a kiss to her hair. And then every man she'd slept with in the past six months who wasn't already dead was put six feet under, and the men employed by Armetti who flirted with her lost seemingly random body parts. Never once did he direct this anger at her, but she'd come in on the tail end of one of the punishments, had seen the look in his eyes. Afterwards, he was never the same. The jobs got dirtier. The real nail in the coffin had been his sister's death. Valerie. She and Lorna had been close, even though Valerie was at least four years her junior. Just a girl, still. Vince's revenge paid them back in kind.

And that had been the nail in the coffin between the two of them. Lorna would do almost anything, but killing children... Not even doing it in Valerie's name, especially in her name... It wasn't right. He'd forced her to kill children, and he hadn't respected the line she'd drawn.

The wedding was three months after she'd given birth, and would have been closer if it hadn't happened so prematurely. Vincent hadn't been saddened when she came home one night and was neither pregnant nor carrying a baby. It wasn't his, what did he care? Two weeks before the wedding, she told him she was going back to London, and that she wasn't going back. He'd grabbed her arm, demanding, begging that she stay. Her things were already on their way across the ocean . She needed him to let her go. So she told him the truth, that the baby had been his.

She met Jim soon after she returned to England. He was unpredictable, but she preferred that. Armetti had been steady, but hiding turmoil under the surface. With Jim, it was all on the table. She could trust in that kind of chaos. She needed to keep trusting in that kind of chaos. Because beneath the surface, Jim had a bottom line, and it was as strong as steel.

He let the silence reign between them, unperturbed. The ball was in her court now. It was only because she was valuable to him that he had even paused to consider his actions. If she expected more than that, she was a madwoman, and he'd accept her resignation.

Eventually it dawned on her that maybe he was expecting a response from her, and she scrambled for something to say. "Just..." She sighed, trailing off briefly. "Just don't do it again, and... Give me time. Before you... Want company again. If something happens in the future where that's the punishment you're going to give me, I rather you put a bullet in me instead, sir. I'll put it in writing, if you want. Otherwise... We're good, I guess."

He nodded just a little, eyes shifting to her form in the darkness. "I suppose that is a fairly reasonable request," he said after a moment. "Writing will not be necessary. I will give you the time you requested to recover. But my patience is not infinite. Do whatever you need to do to recover quickly."

She nodded to herself. There was something resembling relief in her chest. "Thank you. And understood."

He nodded, letting the subject drop. He had absolutely no interest in discussing this further. "Johnson is taking his sweet fucking time."

She snorted, vaguely amused. "Well, he's got several tons of rubble to carefully sift through. Hate for him to accidentally crush us."

He made a disgruntled harumph , and shifted again, gritting his teeth slightly in annoyance. "Glad to hear your opinion reversing on that," he muttered. His left leg was cold, and still a bit numb. He disliked not being able to see it. He hadn't bothered learning trauma medicine. That was something he would certainly be reading up on once they got out of here.

She fell silent, closing her eyes and deciding that she may as well try to rest. They were not going to get themselves out of this one, so they had to wait for rescue.

He, too, fell silent, drumming his fingers absently on the rock.

Falling In Reverse - Loser