3. Manhandled/Forced to Knees/Held at Gunpoint
("Warrior" from Angel)
Three days was sufficient time.
For the investigating officers to find the discarded weapon used in the attack on Arthur and Merlin at the park bridge – ballistics match to a handful of other crimes, but no prints. For the Feds Gwaine was working with to arrest the fat man Merlin called Fagin – and half the tenants of the big brick house – but not find Merlin's missing friend Candy.
For half Arthur's scrapes to fade to new skin, the other half to scab over. For his muscle-ache to ease, and the bruises to show nasty. For him to begin to feel at ease with and appreciate their host, and for Merlin to get restive.
"Knock, knock," Gwen's voice said, from the open doorway to the men's locker room at the precinct. "Can I come in?"
Arthur was half-dressed, himself, standing between his open locker and the communal wooden bench behind. He glanced around – steam and soap-smell and other male voices from the shower area, but no one's modesty would be compromised by his female partner's presence.
"Yeah, come on in," he said, turning away from the door to claim his long-sleeve navy t-shirt with the PD logo from the bench.
"I get the captain switching up our shift – break up the routine – make it harder for Jeff's crew to mess with us," Gwen said. "But these hours are killing – geez, Arthur. Wait."
His arms were in his sleeves, the rest of his shirt just over his head, when her hand caught up the material at the nape of his neck. He craned to look over his shoulder, confused; his partner in her purple canvas jacket was studying the remaining scrapes and bruises on his back, leaning sideways and frowning.
"I look like Merlin, now," he said, not really trying to stop the grin. "Ain't I pretty?"
"Fishing for compliments doesn't suit you," she returned dryly. "Hm. Now I know why you've been riding tense and walking stiff the past three tours."
He faced forward again and dared, "Yeah, it goes all the way down, looking like that. There's one bruise on my tailbone –"
Gwen made a raspberry sound. "I'll take your word for that."
In spite of her sarcastic words, her fingers were gentle – so gentle on his bare skin that he couldn't help a shiver. Partners was an exceedingly close relationship, it couldn't help being, but this was… new. They were willing to risk their lives for each other, every day, but this sort of casually-intimate touch… He tried to hold still so she wouldn't notice his reaction – but he knew she noticed when she paused, though she didn't immediately retreat. He held his breath and did not look back to see what expression was on her face.
And a moment later she said lightly, "You ticklish, Penn?"
"Absolutely not," he said, more ready than she was, maybe, to turn it into a joke. "Your hands are cold."
She snorted, and pulled his shirt carefully down over his back and belt. "So how's it been going at Lancelot's? After the first day, I forgot to ask."
"It's all right," he admitted, straddling the bench to put on his shoes. Lancelot was unfailingly courteous and incredibly patient as a host – it seemed he never forgot their unusual and unsettled circumstances, needing temporary quarters, and cut both of them plenty of slack, even when Arthur did not want to be cut any slack. But he'd been more than a bit surprised to realize the shy, startled, half-embarrassed act was not an act.
"Merlin's doing okay, otherwise?" Gwen asked. She hadn't seen him since the aftermath of the park incident.
"Going a little stir-crazy," Arthur allowed. "He hadn't got a job like me, or a–" he paused, wondering if it would be better to leave that sentence unfinished.
But Gwen noticed, and pursued. "Or a what?"
"Or a girlfriend. Like Lancelot." He fiddled with the gun in the holster strapped to his left shin – a constant, since the park - watching her but trying not to seem like it.
But her expression held only interest. "Oh, really? Anyone I know?"
"Monica? From the lab?"
"Oh, good, I like her."
Arthur kept his reaction internal – a bit surprised she wasn't more put-out, and yet relieved, at the same time. His generosity toward his host increased a bit. "He's been talking to Merlin about that GED program at the civic center."
She made a face. "That place is a dump."
"It needs to be leveled," he agreed, "and rebuilt. But if a kid is determined enough…"
"Merlin has determination in spades, seems to me." Arthur grunted, and Gwen smiled, slapping her knees lightly, before pushing to her feet. "Enjoy what's left of your night, I'll see you tomorrow?"
"Yeah…" His phone rang, but he waited to meet her last smile over her shoulder, before answering as the door swung shut. "Arthur Penn."
"Arthur, it's Lancelot."
"Yeah, what's up?" Arthur leaned to reach for his shoulder-bag.
"Is Merlin with you?"
His heart skipped a beat, involuntarily. "No. Why, what happened?"
"I had that date tonight, right?" The shy lab tech sounded genuinely distressed. "He knew he was supposed to stay here, said he'd probably watch tv or something – but I just got in, and he's gone."
"His stuff?" Arthur said immediately.
"No, that's all here."
"What else, did he say anything else?" Arthur slung his bag over his shoulder, heading for the exit – the room, the floor, the building, paying no attention to fellow officers with a comment or a good-night. He didn't see Gwen at all.
"No. I mean, he said something about a sugar fix, but I assumed he'd just go to the corner store for something."
The night was black and windy, though a bit muggy rather than chill. He jogged to his car, and threw his bag into the passenger seat. "What did he say, exactly, Lancelot."
A moment of silence for thought. "Something like… maybe I'll go see about some candy. I said, you've got a sweet tooth? And he laughed."
Arthur's internal litany of swear words spilled out. "Damn, damn, damn that kid! No, it was a person he was going to find, Candy. A hooker – she knew the gang that shot at us, that killed Gaius, no one's seen her for a few days."
"Gosh, Arthur, I'm sorry." Quiet, and desperate.
No, it's not your fault. I should've –
"Is there anything I can do?"
Arthur started his car, pulled out of the lot to drive one-handed, phone at his ear. "Well, I hope he'd be smarter than to go back to the house – though Fagin's in custody – maybe he knows where she picks up her customers? Wait – today's Wednesday, isn't it?"
"Yeah – Wednesday."
"He might've gone to the place he always goes on a Wednesday." Arthur named the motor shop, and its location. "Could you go by there, see if he's anywhere in the neighborhood?"
"Um… not immediately? I have… I have Monica here with me, I can't just..."
Arthur cursed again. Internally. "Could you call Gwaine then, see if he can scout that neighborhood? And–" his phone buzzed an incoming message – "call me if Merlin shows up at your place!"
He ended the call in the middle of Lancelot's agreement and keyed for the message, glancing from screen to road and back again. It was he number of the new phone they'd gotten for Merlin last week when he'd agreed to stay and testify against Gaius' murderers.
Meet me at Johns Motors, in the back. Asap.
Arthur breathed a sigh of relief. He was going to cuss the kid a blue streak for leaving Lancelot's – the whole point of a safe house was that you stay safely in the house. But, no harm done, he supposed, and wondered if Merlin had found out anything about Candy. He'd be lying to say he wasn't a bit worried about her, too.
No lights on at Johns. But it was already an hour later than when he'd watched Merlin slip through the fence-hole, last week – only a week? – so, no surprise there. Arthur rolled his car down past the shop, turned in the one-way street facing the park.
Same deep shadows, same dirty-orange light. But the alley was deserted.
Arthur twisted to look out the rear window – no one. No movement. He turned back around, expecting to see Merlin step out… wondering if he ought to hit the horn.
Nothing.
Maybe Merlin wanted to tell him he'd changed his mind about the whole case. Except, then he would have taken all of his things from Lancelot's, with him when he left. Maybe he'd found Candy like he'd found Rosie, dead in another alley, another bedroom…
Arthur turned the key in the ignition to kill the engine, and listened for a moment to the wind outside the vehicle, the whisper-moan of a long-dead spirit.
Still, nothing moved.
Well, what else was he to do but drive away? Sit and wait, or get out – standing, pacing, searching, hollering, whatever – and wait. He reached for his jacket and stood up out of the car, slamming the door before shrugging into a minimal defense against the seasonal cool.
The wind picked up, uncanny in the deserted alley, more like a voice than ever. Or – voices. A scrape, like metal along concrete, or like a banging dumpster lid – Arthur alerted to the noise. Inside the back lot of the motor-shop, he thought, and started toward the loose corner of fencing. Maybe that foreman had stayed to wait with Merlin for Arthur to come, or…
"Merlin! Hey – Merlin?" he shouted.
"Ar-"
A grunt – a moan, or was it the wind? But he was sure he hadn't imagined the almost-response. "Hey – where are you?"
"No! Ar-" A hiss of whispers, another scraping noise, someone in a coughing fit. Then Merlin again, "No!"
Intuitively, Arthur understood the boy wasn't alone – or even okay. He came to the fence, reaching to his back pocket for his phone – whoever was with Merlin had heard him call out and knew he was there, so he didn't have much time – bending to retrieve his personal back-up firearm from beneath his jeans'-leg.
Without warning, he was shoved face-first into the fence by a single hard point just to the left of his backbone, just lower than his shoulder-blade – just on a bruise, as it happened. His spine arched and he put up his hands automatically to catch himself as the chain-link clanged in protest against the vertical posts. Muscles tensed in readiness before mind registered the definition of that hard point as the barrel of a handgun.
Dammit all to hell. He hadn't heard, even noticed, someone else in the alley.
Fools rush in, he thought bitterly.
"Keep yer hands where I can see 'em, bud," a sneering voice said in his ear. "Flinch, and I fire."
The thing was, Arthur completely believed him. He held still, but his internal cursing took a turn for the truly profane; he wondered bitterly whether they'd picked Merlin up in the vicinity of the brick house, or where.
"Lace your fingers on the back of your head, and don't let go," he was told. Then, fast and rough, the off-hand searched him through his clothes – found the pistol at his left ankle. And took it. The man raised his voice, "Jefe, I got 'im!"
Despair plucked at Arthur's courage, but he took a deep, steadying breath.
"Good – bring him in!"
Arthur obeyed the rude insistent nudge of the gun at his back, but slowly.
His training made him ready for anything – anything but passive capitulation, or the admittance, even to himself, that it would do no good. But also wary of provoking the violence he feared might be inevitable, at this point. If it was just him… but it wasn't. He couldn't fight for his life until he was sure it wouldn't endanger Merlin. Death was threatened, but not imminent. He'd wait for a better opportunity, with actual odds of success. He needed to know how many there were, and where they were, if they were armed, what they'd done with Merlin…
He had no doubt these men would kill them both – had brought them here for it, in fact – but… he wasn't dead yet. And he could hope for Gwaine – who ate, slept, and bathed with his extra pistol. He wouldn't show up unarmed.
Arthur only hoped it would be soon. He could play along til then. Because he couldn't leave Merlin – as citizen, as comrade – behind.
Squatting down, he shuffled forward awkwardly, the sharp edges of the loose sheet of fencing scratching at his clothes, his upraised elbow helping to shield his face. The man behind him had a handful of his shirt and jacket at the side of his collar as he struggle through also. The eye of the gun nestled cozily up to any number of vitals – heart, spine, lungs – and Arthur dared nothing, in case the trigger was pulled on accident.
"Walk forward," the man behind him ordered tersely, once they'd straightened up.
Arthur obeyed again. Perhaps if he was an action hero, he'd spin and disarm his opponent, fell him with a single punch and no one the wiser. Then he'd single-handedly surround his enemy – all conveniently dumb as a box of rocks – and employ some fantastically-risky but brilliant charade while the bad guys shot at shadows and not at their hostage…
A single low streetlight illuminated the back lot, clogged with derelict vehicles. As they rounded the back of an old delivery van Arthur stopped short, heart in his throat.
Merlin was crumpled on the ground, three men standing over him, a fourth a few paces further into the shadows. As Arthur watched, the street kid scrabbled a few inches up off the broken concrete – and one of the men gave him a vicious, full-strength kick in the ribs.
The boy dropped to his side, gasping and retching, obviously disoriented but still trying to drag his body away from further punishment. Another leaned down to grab a handful of his black hair, twisting the boy's already-bloodied face around to meet his fist.
Merlin dropped. Movements now minimal, and heartbreakingly ineffective, and his head didn't lift.
Oh, it was so wrong.
Arthur had seen boxing matches as part of the force's training regimen; he'd even watched footage of street-fights and prison riots. He'd interviewed victims of assault, he'd seen evidence photos, he'd even seen a body or two on the ME's slab; he knew it was possible to be beaten to death. But he'd never witnessed this sort of sadistically one-sided violence. They were enjoying it, and by the look of the street kid, they'd been at it awhile already. Arthur's helplessness to do anything but watch was almost overwhelmingly nauseating.
All that, in the space of an indrawn breath, fast and brutal, and Arthur felt an edge of sharp panic at his throat as he yelled, "Stop it! Dammit, leave him alone!"
The man behind him wrenched against his reactive leap forward, as the other three turned to him, one putting his boot on Merlin's shoulder to hold him down – firmly, by the grunt forced from the boy's body. They were wearing gloves, but nothing to cover their faces, and somehow that frightened Arthur more than anything else. Two carried handguns casually ready at their sides, pointed negligently at the ground – but that was still far too close to Merlin.
Delay, Arthur thought, fatalistically calm. Gwaine would come, and see the car – they'd hear his bike, and be able to scream a warning… or some damn thing. Hope, even illogically.
"Officer Penn, we've been waiting for you to join us." Arthur recognized the voice even without his captor's shouted identification, oily so-respectful-it-was-rude, before the speaker stepped forward, Merlin's new phone in the gloved hand.
Oh, it had been so easy Arthur was shamed. At least the retired detective Gaius had been smart enough to know what he was getting into. Over the bridge railing, for that boy…
Arthur enunciated deliberately, "Jeff."
He was prodded forward. Each step slow – delay – he looked for an opportunity, a distraction that would not simply be go down fighting – and take Merlin with him… and then what. Too many of them, he could never get hold of a weapon, get enough rounds off in time. Someone would point at Merlin, and discharge.
"You're going to die tonight," Jeff informed him, almost gleefully. "But if you mind your manners, we'll let Merlin live."
That illogical hope leaped up inside him like a bird with a broken wing. Not giving up, not just yet – though he did try to keep it from showing.
The man at his back yanked him to a halt four feet from Jeff; Merlin sprawled just to the side. Not entirely unconscious, but so far from lucid as to be oblivious to his surroundings. And in pain, Arthur could tell – it was in the clawed tension in the boy's long artistic fingers, the way his lean body kept trying to curl up on itself, though too weakly to accomplish that defensive position.
"Why should I believe you?" Arthur said. His pulse was fast, but steady – so they were going to negotiate? He could deal with that – he could delay with that.
"It don't matter none to me if you believe or not," Jeff said mockingly. "You'll be dead either way, so you'll never know. And there's nothing you can do about that."
He could fight. And die faster. And maybe, having just seen Merlin killed first. No, he preferred it the other way around, he decided. Slim to none was still a chance.
"Is that what you told Gaius?" Arthur stalled.
"Ha! Hear that, boys, we got the right one," Jeff said to the others. "What is it about this slop that brings the pigs running eager, huh? Get him up." He pointed his handgun at Arthur. "Get him down."
The man behind him kicked at the backs of his knees. Arthur tried to be passive-aggressive about resisting, but one of the others, a tall bullet-headed man with empty hands and bulging eyes that said mean-stupid, came to help. Together they twisted his arms and clamped on the pressure points in Arthur's neck and shoulder muscles. As he cringed involuntarily away from that bright sharp stupid pain, they bore him down to his knees on the pavement. Both arms strained to the breaking point behind his back and his legs trapped – with the gun to his temple it was useless, but he couldn't help an occasional jerking struggle.
Cold with helpless rage – and no small amount of fear, as time and fate rolled inexorably onward, and none of it within his control - he watched the other two, weapons now stowed, haul Merlin roughly upward, taking even less notice of his token and instinctive resistance than they'd taken of Arthur's.
They dragged the boy to a position facing Arthur, almost knee to knee, then had to hold him more-or-less upright; Merlin's body sagged earthward, his head bobbing unsteadily. His face was swollen already in places and blood-streaked – Arthur hoped rather irrationally that the actual injury was small; head wounds did always bleed so much, maybe it looked worse than it was.
"Merlin," Arthur said urgently, with some idea that this whole doomed situation would somehow go better if his friend was with him.
Those blue eyes, dark in the darkness, found Arthur and focused, and the slender body began to writhe for breath and freedom in earnest, like a fish on a hook. Every inhalation was a gasp of pain Merlin made no attempt to hide. Arthur felt the echo of each one in the nerves of his chest, leaning forward as if he could offer consolation or surcease by his proximity.
Made worse by the realization that his fearless friend was terrified, just to see him there with the others.
The man on Merlin's left scooped one arm under Merlin's, all the way up to take a handful of black hair in that hand. Then pressed his opposite forearm over the boy's throat, tight up under his chin, kneeling over the lanky scrabbling legs to maintain control over Merlin's body with a horribly secure headlock.
Still Merlin struggled, and it killed Arthur to stay still, knowing anything else wouldn't do any good. Delay.
"Calm down, you're going to be okay," he tried to soothe him, calm the panic that thrashed through the boy. Arthur tried his own captor's grip again, just on principle, but it held.
Merlin gurgled something desperate-sounding; that massive forearm wasn't going to let him speak. They were going to end up strangling him right in front of Arthur.
"Hey, Merlin," Arthur tried again.
Jeff said, "Get that gun in his hand."
The fourth, a man remarkable only for his lack of height, went for Merlin's right arm – flailing suddenly wild as the boy tried to buck and twist, grunting weakly. Shorty had his elbow, his wrist, fought to force Merlin's fingers around the grip of Arthur's own back-up piece. And he knew, by now.
Gaius had gone over the bridge rail, making everyone believe his death a suicide. They'd tried to kill Arthur and Merlin at his apartment in an explosion by starting a gas-leak.
They would kill Arthur, and make it look like Merlin had done it.
Maybe even shove a nasty street-drug mix into the kid's bloodstream. If authorities caught him and tested him, after this was over, and he came up hot – and maybe even couldn't remember clearly himself, what had happened, everyone else would believe that the street kid had shot the cop who was trying to help him. No matter what Gwen thought, or Gwaine. And his father surely would believe the worst, and blaming Merlin, push for the harshest penalty.
Merlin knew, too. He was totally focused on his captive right hand, still struggling with everything he had not to cooperate, but it was clear that he was losing. His fingers were secured – damning prints – the first jammed inside the trigger guard. Shorty's hand wrapped Merlin's to keep it in place.
To make sure that the trigger was pulled.
The barrel swung around toward Arthur's chest, both men nearly enveloping Merlin with their bodies to make it happen.
Arthur yanked against the two restraining him hard enough to snap something in one arm, with a distant pain like the flick of a rubber-band – no such luck. They held him too tightly; they were too strong.
Gwaine, where the hell are you?
Delay.
"Merlin, look at me," Arthur said, feeling laughably calm. They'll let me say my last words, won't they? Give me a minute… "Look at me. I forgive you. Okay? You remember that."
Merlin whimpered, still in full-body revolt, though it was weak and ineffective and restrained. Tears made tracks in the blood on his face.
"Get your GED, and paint your masterpiece," Arthur emphasized. "You don't blame yourself, understand?"
The tip of the barrel pushed into his sternum, as his two captors pushed him forward to meet it, bruising him with the continued struggle for control of the weapon, then twitched a bit left. His heart pounded like a cross-country sprint, trying to escape the inevitable destruction, centimeters away.
Merlin abruptly calmed, taking heaving breaths through flared nostrils. His eyes flicked from the gun to Arthur's eyes, and held, anguished. His body stilled, and that was okay with Arthur – if Merlin wasn't fighting anymore, they might keep their promise to let him live. At least.
Arthur said, with a sloppy sideways grin, "If you see Gwen, tell her–"
Sheer blue horror. He saw the shot anticipated in Merlin's eyes, before it actually happened.
Still it seemed to him that the boy gave an almighty jerk at the last possible second – having lulled Shorty just enough by brief but evident surrender–
Then white-hot light exploded through the center of Arthur's body.
…
There was nothing. For a moment, or an eternity.
…
Then there was everything, and all at once.
All sensation focused on the ragged hole torn through his body, tearing through his body again and again with every beat of a damaged heart, flesh and muscle and blood vessel shredded, liquefied.
Distantly he remembered how, in the movie The Quick and the Dead, sunlight had shown through bullet holes, making a bright spot in the actor's shadow on the dusty street. Silly.
All was shadow… all was light.
So bright, so damned bright - you can burn yourself on a light bulb - stuck right in his chest and blazing a thousand watts. And he couldn't see. He smelled motor oil, and blood. Felt the grind of pebbles and glass below his knees on the broken pavement.
Someone was gasping his name, great gulps of agony.
Men mumbled with voices mocking, dispassionately departing, but he couldn't hear clearly through the ringing blasted eternally through his ears. Hands released his arms to heavy dead weight swinging at his sides.
The hands had released him, but he felt others, and relaxed into their hold as the light began to dim, the throbbing to fade. He thought of his father's hands, tossing him up in the air when he was small… so small… giggling in sheer delight. And his father was grinning.
Toss him lightly up, float him slowly down.
"Arthur," someone sobbed. His body rocked, rested back down. Someone was babbling nonsense – "Johns Motors, yes near the east side of the park, the back alley. Arthur Penn, he's a cop, he's been shot in the chest – there's blood everywhere but he's still breathing… what? No, I don't think so. Oh, hurry, please… Arthur?"
There were no stars tonight. Cloudy and windy, chance of rain… where did the homeless go when it rained?
He could see a dim green streetlight making a halo in Merlin's disheveled black hair. Then the boy was leaning stiff-armed on his chest and he couldn't breathe and the pain was trapped in that hole like a wild thing, growling and snarling and snapping and digging to get out. He tried to push Merlin away, and only managed a feeble twitch. The air roared through the echoed humming of death in his ears.
"Help me, dammit!" Merlin screamed suddenly into the night. "Gwaine, they're gone! I need you here! There's a hole in the fence, further along-"
The cold of the concrete was creeping upward, through Arthur's clothes, through his skin. Almost, it calmed the pain. He saw sparks, and maybe because he couldn't breathe. Maybe it was because he was breathing so fast and so shallow he was going to pass out.
Or maybe this was his introduction to the afterlife.
"Arthur? Arthur! Stay with me! Please, oh… don't leave me, dammit! Not you too! Come on, fight!"
He couldn't see Merlin's face clearly, not with the streetlight behind him. Though he heard the anger and tears quite clearly.
Heat spun out from his chest like a supernova… then winked out.