Micah Castro Braden // Doctor Watson, I presume (acatalyst) wrote in bellumlogs, @ 2010-04-15 14:51:00 |
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Entry tags: | dr. watson, irene adler |
Who: Iris and Micah
What: Plot thickening; bullets flying and arguing.
Where: A gun range--really--and the trip to and from.
When: Immediately after this.
Warnings: None.
Notes: To be continued.
PART II
By the time he was in his apartment and sliding on a well-worn leather holster with a Ruger nestled inside around his waist, he had let his thoughts go where they would. He changed into a white undershirt and he slipped on a jacket, and he was in the lobby by 3:25, wondering if pistol butt to the head would knock some sense into Eliot.
Iris hadn't taken long at all. The tracker she left under her bed, even her purse she had put on the counter after removing a few essentials she could keep in her jean pockets. Her hair was wet, and whatever make-up she wore was spare and natural, as if her skin had enough underneath it that she could glow forth with her personality if she truly wished it, and otherwise it was paint that got in her way. She wore a more subdued green than she was wont to, and it made her eyes strangely cool, a hint at what she could change about her appearance if she chose. The jacket was longer and brown, second-hand if the wear and buttons were any hint. She knew immediately that he had a weapon--it was something about the way a man held himself, a certain confidence they didn't have without it unless they were used to it. It was one of the reasons cops were so easy to spot; it was how they distributed their weight. She didn't care for it, and she refused to hide it. "It is almost four in the morning, I hope you realize," she said, peevishly.
He watched her come down the stairs, and he didn't hide the perusal. It was interesting, her reaction to the gun, or what he perceived as dislike of it, given her comments. It was strange because it wasn't the sort of reaction he'd expect from someone he knew had been involved in some sort of criminal activity. Interesting, and definitely worth thinking on. "Is it?" he asked with a chuckle, motioning East, toward the nearby range. "I wouldn't have guessed, seeing as you told me it was three just a short while ago," he said, clearly joking, a warm glint in his hazel eyes as he opened the lobby door for her and waited for her turn the direction he had indicated. "Is it that I have a weapon that you don't approve of, or don't you approve of them in general?" he asked. "And does Eliot not shoot?" he asked the last as if he would be very disappointed, but his gaze when he looked over at her indicated nothing but amusement at the prospect.
She went through the door, wondering at this new trust that she had not had before. She was going out, without telling anyone where she was going because she didn't know herself, with someone who she did not know as thoroughly as she should if she was going to follow him--him--blindly out into the night. What in the hell was she doing?! "I don't like how men act when they have deadly weapons," she said, in a conversational voice. "It is a skill like any other, one I do not like because of what it does to the mind." She looked up at him, eyes so strange and green. "If you're not careful." She refused to talk about Eliot, and didn't rise to the jab.
Impressive, he thought, when she didn't take the bait. Eliot always took the bait. "What does it do the mind?" he asked as they walked, even though he knew very well that it gave the holder of the weapon power, just as he knew that some people couldn't be trusted with power. Life, he knew, wasn't like the stories about superheroes. Power almost always corrupted absolutely eventually, it was only the individual's breaking point that was different. He knew all that, but he asked her anyway. He liked listened to how her mind worked, and he enjoyed the sound of her voice in the dark, and he was the last person who would hurt her, gun or no.
Iris was in this now. She was outside when she did not plan to be, when she should conserve her energy for other things, where it might be dangerous to deviate from a routine that was exhausting, mind-numbing, but at least safe. Micah was not safe, though he thought to keep her that way, and Eliot was the absolute opposite of safe. She thought she wanted safe. Did she not want safe?
She stopped walking, not quickly, but prominently enough that he too would stop. She reached out for his elbow, and pulled it a little to one side, over the gun, exaggerating his stance. "See here. You walk different because it's here. You are more upright here--" she put her palm against his shoulder on the same side. "Your stride is different when you move. You are different." Her palms went cold, in that abrupt way they did sometimes when she least expected it. She pulled back.
"That's perception, Iris," he said, and when his muscles jumped beneath her palm the reaction wasn't one born of fear or trepidation. "I can take a person down without the gun, and I know it. I have size and strength over almost everyone, and I know it." It was confidence in his voice, yes, but not vanity. "I don't need the gun for what you're pointing out," he assured her, and it was clear he believed his words. "And if something kills me, it's because it's doing it sneakily, without honor, and that would kill me before I ever got the gun out of the holster."
She stared at him a moment. "Then maybe you are like that always, and you hide it better." She lifted one shoulder, moved back a little more. It was not Micah's vanity that concerned her. His ego was harmless, and never bothered her. "Guns make men feel powerful. No gun has ever made me feel safe." She did not like that she was saying so much. Exhaustion was like drink, and loosened her tongue.
"Guns make men feel powerful, and when weak men feel powerful they do terrible things," he admitted. "Other people owning guns, it shouldn't make you feel safe, mamita," he cautioned. "Me owning a gun, now that should make you feel safe," he said, and he didn't move, despite the fact that she did. He stood his ground, and he kept his gaze clear on hers.
"Why?" Her voice did not rise with the inquiry, but remained flat, disbelieving.
"Because I don't need the gun to feel powerful, so I'm not dangerous just because I have one," he said. It was simple logic, and he gave her a smile at the end of the statement. Harmless, as always.
Now she smiled, but there was nothing warm in it. "Then I should feel no safer when you have it." She turned and started walking again, forcing him to follow or call her back.
He laughed softly to himself. Impossible woman, the thought with a shake of his head, even as he followed. She didn't intimidate him, and he didn't mind if she led, because in his mind, he was always leading to a certain extent. She was going to his shooting range, where he'd directed her, and if she felt stronger in going ahead, he wasn't going to argue with her about it. "But you should feel safe around me in general, Iris," he called out to her, staying a few feet behind her as she navigated the sidewalk and all its dangers.
"You keep hanging on that," Iris said, without any of her previous irritation. It was cold and she settled her shoulders deeper into her coat. "Why is it so important?" She didn't much like him behind her, and she realized she couldn't win such placement battles. Better to pretend not to notice then.
He walked up beside her slowly, almost as if he didn't even realize he was closing the gap between them, his own hands shoved into the pocket of his jeans. Harmless, yet again. "Because eventually you'll believe me," he said, looking over at her. "That's important to me."
She didn't reply to that. What was she supposed to say? 'Don't hold your breath'? Eventually she drifted back six inches, and let him lead off to wherever his gun range was, and though she could not anticipate the experience, she did want to get out of the cold, and she found Micah interesting enough that to know more about him would not be so bad a thing.
The gun range was closed, of course, but the night guard that opened the place up for authorities was where he always was, watching TV behind the desk, safely protected by bullet-proof glass. Micah didn't have to flash the new badge he'd just received, the one that was tucked under his shirt, around his neck, because the man knew him. He shot him a grin, slipped him a fifty, and they were in. He led Iris to his favorite stall, the one at the far end, and he handed her a set of sound canceling headphones, and then slipped on a pair for himself. His gun was already loaded, and he pushed the button to refresh the shooting sheet, and then he took off the jacket he was wearing and tossed it lightly at Iris with a dimpled grin, fully expecting her to let it fall to the ground.
He was absolutely right. She was adjusting her earphones as she stepped neatly to one side, making a show of turning her head to watch it collapse in a heap down on the ground inches from her right shoe. "Hm," she said, though she knew neither could hear. Then she smiled at him. She was not here to be his coat rack, and they both knew it. She wasn't going to step on his jacket, though, so at least there was that. Iris folded her arms, jacket still firmly in place, and looked past him at the outline of the man on the paper. She wondered how much he would let his guard down after this. Exertion did that. Endorphins.
He went through the steps of checking the gun before firing it for the first time, then he spread his legs and he emptied an entire cartridge into the sheet. His first shots were a little right, a habit he'd never quite broken when he first lined up, but all the others were dead-on, mortal wounds. He pushed the button to refresh the paper, and he laid the gun on the stand in front of him as he watched the destroyed, painted man on white come to him. He took the sheet in his hands, and he looked at it carefully, examining exactly what part of the heart was hit with each bullet, what hemisphere of the brain, and once he was done, he teed up another sheet, this time keeping the wounds intentionally non-mortal in nature; shoulder, side, ear. He was sweating, even in the early morning cold, and his shoulders were taut, muscles tense, as he repeated the process with the paper again.
Iris watched without seeing. The sound of gunfire didn't particularly bother her, though she had been shot at before, it wasn't something that rang in her dreams or echoed in her heart. True conflict was something Iris tried to avoid in every aspect of her life and career. The whole point was to not get hurt. She was more impressed by Micah's second round of fire than his first. It told her something about him that she had not known before. American law enforcement was taught to shoot to kill, multiple wounds to the chest, usually, since they did not shoot unless they needed to. She wondered at Micah's training, which was a bundle of contradictions as he was.
Micah wasn't a practicing physician, but he'd done all the basic medical coursework required for further study in his specialty, and he'd seen enough death to appreciate life in a way most people didn't. He was taught by soldiers fighting against their fellow countrymen, soldiers who wanted freedom, not death, and injuring without killing was a large part of his training. That, in conjunction with parents who were, for lack of a better word, good, meant that Micah was raised with a fairly strict moral code, and that he learned to fight with the same moral code in place. Thou shalt not kill were more than words on paper in the household he grew up in. He looked over his shoulder at her. "¿Quieres?" he mouthed, expecting her to say no, but interested enough in her defensive skills that he risked the question and the expected rejection.
It took her a moment to realize that he was speaking Spanish, which was not her native tongue and not so surface that she could readily match lip service to it. Interestingly, Iris could read lips, but only in English, and not as well as she really would have liked. Her skill was in tongues, and though lip-reading fascinated her, it was as difficult for her as it would be for anyone else. She understood what he offered once she got there though, and solidly shook her head. She didn't want to shoot anyone or anything. She could, if she had to, and she was not so rusty as to need the practice--not in front of Micah, who had enough on her already. As long as nobody asked her to pick off someone using a human shield, she felt... not confident, but sufficient. She looked past him again at the sheet. Military, perhaps. A certain kind of military, not the kind they put on the front lines; they shot to kill too. She would never have pegged Micah as military, not in a million years. Not... perhaps intelligence? The cool green eyes flicked up to him. No intelligence man would tangle with her. Too risky. Retired? "Where did you learn to do that?"
"Hunting," he mouthed at her, sending the paper back one last time and calling out the locations he was aiming for before shooting, specific medical terms in Spanish, then seeing how pinpoint accurate he could be, which turned out to be very accurate. He slipped the headphones off, and he slipped another cartridge in the gun, securing the safety before putting it back in the holster and turning to look at her. "Anytime you shoot something, you're hunting, aren't you? Unless you're pulling out a gun in self-defense. I didn't learn how to shoot to defend myself," he admitted. He glanced toward the entrance of the range, a sound reaching his still-ringing ears. Whatever it was, it made him uneasy, and he rested his hand on the weapon but didn't pull it. "Vamos," he said, the word deadly serious. It was obvious in his gaze that he was worried about something, and he didn't look back at her as he told her to stay behind him. He grabbed the jacket from the floor as he passed it, and he didn't move his hand.
Iris could only absorb this new information in silence. She didn't hear what he had heard because she was slower to remove the headphones, but she looked where he did as he spoke. She didn't want to get caught here either, and it didn't really matter by whom. She did as she was told, almost entirely silent, without her usual swish of skirts to mark her movement. She didn't say anything either. Questions could wait. Again, she wondered why she had come.
The man that was speaking to the guard was darker than Micah, shorter, and he looked Cuban (if you knew what to look for), where Micah didn't look Cuban (again, if you knew what to look for). Micah put a hand back, letting Iris know not to move any further, his gaze catching the glint of polished silver at the man's thigh. He watched a moment longer, then a moment longer still, taking in the man, the fact that he hadn't killed the guard, and he took a step forward, hand stopping Iris from following. He just wanted to get close enough to hear dialect, but he didn't want her risking it.
Iris had worked in a team before, and working in a team meant you had to trust the people around you to do their jobs. That element of trust meant that Iris had worked in a team when she was either extremely young, both physically and in her career, or with a very select few of people. She knew what Micah wanted her to do when he stepped forward, and when she did not it was a conscious choice, one she acknowledged might very well be incredibly stupid. Instead of pressing forward against his hand, she ghosted up next to his other side, shadowing him while staying near enough to block the range lights from displaying her features clearly. She too wanted to know what this man was doing here, and one of the ways she might find that out was with the same tactic Micah was using--though he was blocking a good look, so she didn't realize he was Cuban.
She was out of range and close enough for him to guard if need be, so Micah didn't protest her movement. He could hear the man from here, the inflections of his words clearly Pinar del Rio, tobacco country and farms, unlike Micah's own Matanzas inflections; an unlikely person to be associated with the government. If anything, the man was a messenger. Micah listened a moment longer, and then he watched while the man handed the guard a piece of paper and left. He wasn't under an delusions that the man wouldn't be waiting for them outside, but he wanted that paper. "Quedate aqui," he told Iris, and he walked to the guard. His certainty that the man wasn't going to kill him was about 95%, but that didn't mean he wouldn't use Iris as a bargaining chip if he saw her.
Iris didn't know yet what was going on, but she most certainly wanted to find out. She wanted to remain whole and alive slightly more, however, and as a criminal Iris was more cautious than the average. She didn't stay where she was supposed to stay, but she let Micah move off toward the guard with the kind of stride that indicated a purpose that was just beyond her understanding. She moved so she could stay within hearing distance, and she assessed the guard in a way she had not during her initial cursory examination upon arrival. Age, weight, clothing, stains on his shirt, the set of his hair, the movement of his mouth, the way he held himself--these things would tell her his habits, details that would make up the whole when she had enough pieces. Iris wanted to know what was on that paper too. If the idiot man did not get himself shot.
The idiot man wasn't going to get shot. That was clear to him as soon as he reached for the paper the guard slid to him. He read it, his expression unreadable, and he looked over his shoulder and out the door, where the Cuban man nodded at him before disappearing into the lightening sky. He pulled a silver, engraved lighter out of the pocket of his jeans, and he burnt the paper, and from where Iris was standing a crest was just visible on the lighter, even if it was too far away to be identifiable. Then, he motioned her forward and walked to the door, holding it open for her once he verified the man was nowhere in sight.
Iris said nothing until she was all the way through the entryway inches from him, so that distinct aroma of hers made it through the sting of the gunsmoke and the close air of the range. "Interesante," she said. And moved out past him into the night.
The lighter was safely in his pocket when he followed her out into the dark, letting her stay ahead if she wanted, making it easier for him to keep her safely in his sights for the walk back.
She didn't forge ahead, not this time. She paused at the corner and matched his long pace with two steps of her own. She didn't say anything for a block or two, watching him scan the horizon, and said, "Are you going to tell me what that was about?" The doctor was involved in some very ugly things. For the first time that night, she wasn't thinking about Watson.
He looked over at her. "Iris, there are some things you're better not snooping around in," he said honestly, no hint of joking in his eyes as he looked at her. Yes, he was in deep, but he was in New York because it was safer here, because there was less of chance of him being noticed. He could only assume his revalida trip to Miami the month before had caught someone's attention; he shouldn't have risked it, but he had. It was the same sort of recklessness that had gotten his family killed, and his jaw tightened as he walked, fingers curled into fists at his sides.
"I'm not snooping, not yet. Right now I'm just asking you." She lifted her hands, which were pale and white in the deep night around them, and slid them into her pockets to hide them from the cold. Pulling her elbows in, she looked straight ahead along their path, offering him the best privacy he could have while in her presence. "Wouldn't you rather talk about it?" Being chased made the hair stand on end on the back of your neck, and no one liked that feeling. No one.
"I wouldn't," he said honestly, because talking meant drawing her into something that he wasn't willing to draw anyone into. He already had blood on his hands, the blood of people he loved, and he'd be damned if he was going to add Iris to the body count just because he felt a compelling need to be around the woman. "How pointless is it to ask you to pretend it never happened, that you never saw or heard anything?" he asked, hoping against hope that she would agree.
"Pointless," she said. "I don't forget things, believe me, I've tried. Even if you asked me to, I couldn't. I can't even promise not to find out. It is how I am." She lifted her shoulders, and then her eyes, but only to smile at him. "You understand. If you don't want to talk about it, you don't have to." She had most of the pieces already. The details were beyond her, but with the outline of facts in place, those she could fill in. The endeavor might pose some difficulties, however. Especially when people like Micah walked around with flawless English and crack shots when they weren't in lab coats.
He stopped, stepped in front of her and closed his hands around her upper arms, not hiding his strength at all, but the grip still gentle enough not to bruise. "I understand that you're going to pursue this like a dog on a scent, Iris, because I would do the same damn thing. And I want you not to," he said, his gaze intense and honest; he meant this. He wasn't playing, it wasn't a game, and that was evidenced in every muscle in his body just then.
She appreciated that this was not a threat, but it was harder to convince her body of that. It was strange, having that sense of dislocation with herself, a new thing she experienced relatively recently, and she hated it. She tensed up and tried not to pull back even as she pulled back. "There's information and there's information. I'm not going to rip apart your life, Micah. I don't care what's in it. Please let me go." It was all in one long breath.
He did, as soon as she asked, but he held her gaze. "I know your body doesn't understand that I'm not going to hurt you yet, but I'm not," he said, his shoulders still tense, taut from before, but his hazel eyes exceptionally clear. He held out one hand for her, waiting to see if she took it, the sun starting to rise behind him and obstructing his features from her view clearly. He was tired, and he was worried, and it was all there in his body, even without being able to see his face well.
She looked away. It probably hurt him that she didn't take what was offered, but no, she couldn't care, not just then. She dug her hands a little deeper into the coat and squinted off into the sun. "I won't look into it," she said. How odd; she wouldn't look, like Eliot wasn't looking... how odd they were all becoming. "But I know already, nearly. Perhaps I'll know more after I sleep."
"It's safer if you don't know, don't look, don't wonder," he told her. "This isn't white-collar, Iris," he said, just shy of telling her this was guerrilla warfare and there were no rules. He ran the knuckles of the hand she rejected under her chin a moment, and then he turned and resumed the remainder of the walk to Bellum Letale in silence, checking on her as they walked, not hiding it. He didn't care if she knew he wanted her to be safe, not today anyway. He was too tired to worry about showing weakness and vulnerability, and he wanted nothing more to lose himself in someone's soft arms.
Instead, he held the door open for her once they reached the building, and he said nothing.