#thread. ( elias & remy. ) ( ac. ) ( season one au. ) 006.

[rykerelias-archive]

TRANSFERRED FILE. ||  @cardshcrp Remy & Elias. VERSE: ac. ( season one au. ) 006.  post ice. THREAD: to be named.

It was chaos.  It was like coming undone, fingers digging into his head and pulling at the fraying edges, tearing him apart and splitting him open, spilling him into the void – into the blackness that swallowed him whole, and he was drowning in it, in fear and rage and despair, in grief and loss and anguish and ANGER —  his breath rattled in his chest, a gasping, desperate sound as he lurched sideways, jerked upwards, hands flung out to his sides, and up, as if to shield himself from the dark – from the light, from the impending blow – his heart surged, and raced in his chest, pounding, his throat thick and dry and tight, icy tendrils of fear coiled in his chest, fire blossoming in his head, in his thoughts.  Rage, and rage –

   Memories crashed, compounded, contracting, pulsing in his head, vying for purchase and priority.   Chains, and cuffs, at his wrist and his ankles, shuffled through the prison halls, as so many of those that he had put away –  pain, a flare of it, at his neck, when he’d struggled, when he’d raged, panicked, at the last moment, as they had tried to press him onto the slab – a slab, where they would pull him, drag his consciousness, kicking and screaming from his flesh –  Not the dark.   Not the prison ward –  Too white, too silvery, too PASSIVE –  His gaze spun, taking in the room, the contents, simple, practically bare.  No windows.  No doors.  CONSTRUCT.  

  His gaze shifted, eyes still wide, chest heaving with struggled breaths, finally latching on to the other occupant of the room.   It took a moment, to register, to find words and names to go with the face, the unmistakable, distinctive crimson eyes.   “—   the fuck –”   His words were rough, and coarse, fingers dragging through his hair, scraping down his thigh, struggling to find some focus, some center, fighting the burn of tears in his eyes as he stared at the Meth.   “Is happening?”  

           Oh, gee, HM. He’s really glad he’s leaning against the wall, ’cause WOWIE, Elias is thrashing a bunch. Maybe unsurprising, given what Remy had learned of the CIRCUMSTANCES of his imprisonment - though he didn’t exactly have the personal details, whatever had been happening before his detective friend had been put on ice wasn’t likely to have been pretty.

“EVENING, ELIAS.” He offers the other a smile, not bothering to peel himself off the wall - the more distance he gives him, the better, he thinks. “WHAT’S HAPPENING - UH, LET’S SEE. YOU GOT INTO A REAL PICKLE, DIDN’T YA?”

A hand goes up, his fingers curling back down to his palm with every item. “YOU’VE JUST BEEN FRAMED FOR MURDER. YOUR GIRLIE PISSED OFF BANCROFT - NICE, BY THE WAY, HE DESERVES A FEW KICKS BUT YOU SHOULDN’T BE GETTIN’ THE SHORT END OF THE STICK. YOU WERE PUT ON ICE. I STOLE YOU PERSONALLY - YOU’RE WELCOME - AND REPLACED YOU WITH AN ACTUAL MURDERER’S STACK WITH A FALSE IDENTITY ON IT, ’CAUSE LET’S BE HONEST,SOMEBODY IS MAKIN’ DAMN SURE YOUR TRIAL DOESN’T HAPPEN FOR AN ETERNITY AND THEY AIN’T GONNA KNOW. BY THE WAY, MY REAL BUSINESS IS STEALIN’ SHIT, AND I’M TELLIN’ YOU THIS BECAUSE I DON’T THINK YOU BLAB EASY, SODON’T TRY AND SELL ME.”

Folding his arms over his chest, he grins at Elias, easy and open. “I SPUN YOU UP T’SEE IF YOU WANNA BE AWAKE OR NOT TO FIGURE OUT YOUR MESS. IF YES, I ALSONABBED A DNA SAMPLE AND I CAN CLONE YOU, BUT YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO GO SYNTH FOR NOW. IF NO, I’LL ICE YOU AGAIN AND STORE YOU SAFELY UNTIL I CAN RETURN YOU TO WAIT FOR YOUR TRIAL. AND NO, BEFORE YOU ASK, THIS AIN’T T’GET A COP IN MY POCKET AND I DON’T EXPECT PAYBACK. I DON’T LIKE SEEIN’ GOOD PEOPLE GO DOWN, ESPECIALLY NOT IN THE NAME OF PANSY POLITICS. OTHER QUESTIONS, GO RIGHT AHEAD.”

   The LOOK that was cast in the Meth’s direction at his first few words might’ve been deadly, if looks could actually kill, a half snarl framing ivory teeth and canines still a little too long, a little too sharp for the consumers the human species had become.  “That much I figured out on my own BEFORE they shoved my ass in a hole,” he seethed, to the first of the marks that Remy’s fingers ticked down, but falling silent for the most part as his – apparently – THIEF – went down the list of ways in which Elias Ryker was extraordinarily FUCKED.   Honestly, what Remy LeBeau did to make his fortune was so far down on Ryker’s immediate list of priorities that he barely even registered the comments, filing bits and pieces of data away for future relevancy.  

    Stole –  him. His stack —  a momentary twist of an expression, almost disbelief, but then he was the living (as much as ever he guessed) proof right?  Stealing a stack, snatching a D.H.F. from prisoner storage was … in theory… as close to impossible as anything got.  But then.  Somehow, he wasn’t entirely surprised at much of anything right this exact minute.   “Not a cop –”  It was short, and terse, an ache in his chest and a sour taste in his throat at the words, his lips pressed tight, jaws clenched briefly.  “Not anymore, anyways.”  His tongue dragged over his teeth, moistened his lips, his breath steadying, slowly, his heartbeat forced slower, less sporadic as he fought his way to a center point.   “Bancroft – Ortega, what – what happened?  Is she –”  A twist in his chest again, a flood of memories, dancing in his mind’s eye, the memory that had played over and over in the days between his arrest and his being pulled.  

         ‘if you didn’t do this –’  If.   His eyes stung, violently, suddenly.  “Is she okay? What – what the fuck did Bancroft do?” God.  What did she do to Bancroft?  With her temper, barely controlled on the best of days, even with him there to be her counterweight –   “What politics.”

           “Calm down. I ain’t here t’fuck you over any more than you already been screwed.” This time he does step forward, comes to crouch in front of Elias, red eyes raking over him, slow and assessing. “Hey. Shh. Your girlfriend’s fine, promise - bit upset and such, but she’s fine.”

He offers the other a hand, a little awkward but entirely nonthreatening. “She ain’t been hurt. Bancroft came up with a shitty little guilt trip for ’er, but it ain’t gonna get her injured or nothin’. She ballsy, fussin’ at Miriam like a real spitfire. Let’s get you back in the real, huh? You’ll feel better in somethin’ like your own skin.”

Your skin, which is currently occupied by a complete wild card even by my standards.

“Politics, ’cause someone’s definitely playin’ Bancroft too. He’s comin’ up with shit that would never happen if he wasn’t being spoonfed. I dunno who yet. You comin’ out with me or nah, cher? We got a lot to talk about, but I ain’t givin’ you more to stress over unless you wanna stay out. If you wanna stay on ice, my schedule for the night’s gonna be tighter. Window t’sneak you back’s only so long.”

He barely held back a scoff at the Meth’s first comments, a half sneer pulling at the edges of his lip, his teeth bared briefly in a grimace.  It wasn’t so much that he doubted the truth of Remy’s words – he might have been the only Meth Elias had ever met whose word he might trust, but if the events of the last months had reminded him of anything, it was that nobody did anything for nothing and that everybody was out for themselves, one way or another.  He swallowed a breath, his hazel gaze coming to settle on Remy’s scarlet one for a long moment, forcing himself to concentrate on the words that were being offered, struggling to swallow the rage and impotence that caught and warred in his chest and in his head.   Kristin.   Kristin.  The look on her face --  His gaze cut away, his head ducking down as he struggled against the tears, a hand settling into Remy’s to pull himself upright, a heaving breath taken in and held for a long moment. 

Picking a fight with the oldest, richest, most powerful man in the known worlds.   Too little too late --  Guilt trip --  The words echoed, swallowed, held.  Too many questions.  Not enough time.  Or too much time.  Time.  “How long – how long have I been on ice?”  In the dark.  Drifting, thoughtless, weightless, drowning in the dark, in the emptiness.  His spine rippled with a shudder that he didn’t bother to try and repress.  “I’m not going back.”  Short. Blunt.  He was already out.  They’d already stripped him of his authority, his badge, tarnished what little reputation he hadn’t already ruined himself.   Somebody playing Bancroft?  That took guts, and balls, and power and influence – the kind of influence it took to tamper with Neo-C coding?  Maybe. “Not til this is settled, one way or the other.”