No.1 Let's hang out sometime

Prompts: #1 hanging #21 hypothermia

Fandom: Cormoran Strike

Stop staring at me.

Strike gave the carcass hanging next to him a hateful look. Dangling from a chain on a meat hook, just like the detective, the dead pig's empty eye sockets were on one level with Strike's eyes, and he gave an involuntary shudder. Kicking his legs, he rotated away from the grim sight - only to be met by a likewise eviscerated gaze on the other side. This pig, its slashed throat gaping, seemed to be grinning at him.

I'm starting to hallucinate, Strike called himself to order. The fucking cold.

At least the sub-zero temperatures in the butcher's shop had eventually numbed the pain in his wrists. In fact, he could no longer feel his hands or the blood trickling down his forearms into the sleeves of his coat. The chain had bitten into his skin, and his efforts at freeing himself had only made things worse. When he looked up, his hands were two puffy and bluish appendages that seemed to have nothing to do with him anymore.

He could still feel his shoulders, though. Both joints felt as if they were about to pop, muscles and tendons screaming, and a burning sensation was fanning across his ribcage. Breathing was becoming increasingly difficult, as the relentless pull on his chest muscles widened his ribcage, rendering each inhalation more shallow than the former. Dazedly, Strike wondered what would happen first: dislocation or suffocation. At least the latter would be painless.

"Fuckin' hell," he swore feebly.

Below him, on the tiled floor, the cracked screen of his mobile phone lit up as it vibrated with an incoming call. Chin on his chest, he could make out the caller ID.

Robin.

He'd lost count how many times she'd already tried to reach him, and he'd run out of ideas of how to try and get down from this bloody meat hook and answer her call. Straddling the carcass closest to him to hoist himself up and off the hook hadn't worked due to his false right foot. Without the benefit of a full calf muscle, he just couldn't dig the artificial heel into the meat deep enough to create leverage. And although his disability had resulted in solid upper body strength, he was too heavy to swing himself up and slip the chain off the hook.

Shouting for help would have been useless. The butcher's shop had been closed for the night, pitted into darkness safe for a few security lights when they'd strung him up and left him to die. Bitterly, Strike's gaze slid to the industrial grinder on the other side of the room. Disposing of his corpse would not be a problem once he'd frozen into a six-foot-four popsicle.

Below him, the phone was buzzing again, and, once more, Robin's call went to voicemail after thirty seconds of ringing. His partner knew something was wrong. Otherwise, she wouldn't keep ringing him.

Call Wardle, he sent her a telepathic message across London. Get him to locate my phone by GPS.

Once again, he cursed himself for turning off the search function for his mobile in the settings. He kept it deactivated for security reasons, of course, not wanting to risk getting followed or giving his position away to anyone who had an interest in him. Robin would've been smart enough to log into his account and ping his GPS. But he'd cut that safety rope.

Stupid.

Groaning, he pulled himself upward a little to draw a deeper breath. His arms shook with the effort, and when he dropped down again, unable to hold himself up for longer than a few seconds, something in his shoulder gave with a sharp snap. He yowled, eyes watering from the pain.

"Ahh, shit, Christ!" He cursed, his breath billowing in a white cloud. The pain was bad, zinging through his arm and upper back, somehow even more pronounced by the cold. He clenched his teeth and tried to breathe through it, to let his good arm take more of his weight, but he'd run out of strength, and he couldn't draw enough of the icy air into his lungs to fuel his stiff muscles. In spite of himself, he felt a few tears spill down his cheeks, hot on his cold skin.

Come on, Robin, he pleaded. Come on!

He could imagine her in a patrol car with Wardle, shouting at the policeman to drive faster, her Yorkshire accent thick with urgency, her face pink and bright eyes flashing as she kept dialing his number. She would still be wearing the workout clothes she'd had on this morning to follow Fitbit, as she'd dubbed the mark of their current case: skin-tight black leggings and a matching top that hugged her curves in just the right places, and a baseball hat to cover her memorable hair, tied back in a ponytail. The smell of her hair - he remembered it, would never forget after he'd buried his nose in it at her wedding.

Roses.

As the pain seemed to settle at a level he could manage - if he stayed still, hanging limply from his hook - he noticed that his fear was lessening. It wasn't a good sign. Exhaustion was turning into sleepiness, and he had stopped shivering at some point. The grey shapes of the machinery and the cutting tables around him seemed to blur further in the darkness.

Oxygen deprivation? Hypothermia? Probably both.

Strike blinked and forced himself to stay awake. He wasn't ready to give in yet. Not while there was still a chance that he could hug her again. Inhale that scent. And, this time, not let her go.

Silver spots were beginning to flicker in the dusk. Pixels, dancing in the cold like fireflies. Strike's head swam as he sucked in another breath. His shoulder answered with a stab that traveled all the way to his sternum. His heart gave a sudden jolt before returning to its slowing throb. The room began to slowly spin around him. Strike felt his eyelids grow heavy and the cold air crystallize in his nostrils.

Breathe. Stay… awake…

He did. For another few minutes, another hour - who knew? But the pain eventually gave way to unexpected warmth. A comfortable coziness lured him in and embraced him, and all of a sudden he thought that this was easy… letting go… and his eyes slid closed…

Roses.

Disinfectant.

The smell was almost overpowering when he woke, and flashbacks cascaded through his mind as he blinked his eyes open, heart racing.

Afghanistan. Helmand. The Viking.

Roses.

"Hey."

Robin sat by his bed, hair glinting red-gold in the neon lights of what had to be a hospital room. The sight anchored him immediately.

"Hey," he croaked back, gathering his bearings while bloody memories faded back into the desert they had sprung from.

"How are you feeling?" Robin gave him a soft smile.

"I don't know," he said hoarsely, looking down at himself and shifting to gauge the condition he was in. "Have I lost any more parts?"

"Fortunately, you haven't." Robin's smile was a bit shaky. "But it was a close call."

She pointed at his hands. Both wrists were bandaged, and his fingers were swollen and had a bluish tint. When he tried to curl them into fists, they felt stiff, and pain flared up in his right shoulder.

"Oh, you shouldn't do that," Robin said apologetically as Strike, hissing, clutched his right arm and the sling it was settled in. "You tore a few things in your shoulder, and they couldn't do the surgery yet. They wanted to wait until your body temperature had returned to normal."

Strike gritted his teeth. "Fantastic."

Now that Robin mentioned it, he noticed the steady warmth emanating from a heating blanket they'd stuck underneath him and some sort of probe taped to his chest, apparently relaying his thawing status to a monitor next to the bed. From the number he could make out, he was still a little below par. Which might explain the chill he felt crawling through his limbs.

"Who… who got me out of there?" Strike asked. He didn't have any memory of a rescue.

Robin's eyes turned serious. "Wardle and I did. Traced your phone and got there just in time. You… you were barely breathing when we found you. And you were so cold, I thought…" She trailed off, shuddering at the memory, and Cormoran felt his heart clench.

"Cormoran," she said quietly, "would you do me a favour?"

Of course he would. Anything.

"What?"

"Would you turn your bloody phone search app on?!"

Strike blinked, swimming in sudden warmth and a bit of pain and feeling grateful and like a guilty bastard at the same time.

"Yeah," he replied softly and held Robin's furious, watery gaze. "Yeah. I will."