nick pierce is definitely (nottherobin) wrote in doorslogs, @ 2012-05-02 23:39:00 |
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Entry tags: | scarecrow, stephanie brown |
WHO Alexander and Nicholas Pierce.
WHAT Bro-times and a trip to the hospital.
WHEN Right after this.
WHERE Alex's apartment, then hospital.
WARNING Major injuries, but nothing real big.
It started with a phone call to Nicholas Pierce late one evening. This was unusual for two reasons. One, it was from Alexander Pierce, and two, it was at a late hour. Alex wasn’t one to ignore his brother, but he rarely called out of the blue, and give his job and the regular hours he kept, calls didn’t usually happen this late in the night. But still, it was his number on the caller ID and the hour was well after midnight when the phone went off. Nick, who was a bit of a night owl, barely heard the phone ring the first time. He never received any calls at this time of night, not unless it was of the drunken variety, and even then, that was a rare occasion. His headphones were plugged in, as he was in the middle of a very intense raid on World of Warcraft, and the flash of the screen only just caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He glanced at the caller ID, and seeing his brother’s name on the screen caused him to mute the headphones, pull off one side, and press the phone to his ear in haste. “Hello?” he answered immediately. Everything hurt. Alex was fairly sure that something could be named, and that something would hurt, even if he hadn’t heard of it before. Even calling his brother had hurt, and for a moment, there was no response to the sound of Nick’s voice on the other end of the cell signal. Finally, Alex let out a laugh, dark and short. “I’m interrupting something, aren’t I?” Because that voice was far too awake, and that meant Nick had been occupied doing something that Alex likely wouldn’t understand. They had their own interests, and very few of them were mutual. “Um, yeah, but it’s fine,” Nick said sheepishly. “Give me a second.” The phone line went quiet for a moment as he switched over to the headset again, letting his buddies online know that he needed to jump off, at least for a little bit. He promised to be back later, then exited out of the game. Returning the phone to his ear, he said, “Sorry ‘bout that. Working on...something.” He knew that Alex wasn’t very interested in his hobbies, so he chose not to elaborate. Late night calls hardly...well, called for chit-chat about him trying to level up his avatar. “What’s up, Alex?” When Nick came back on the line, it was in time to hear a soft noise from Alex, discomfort or something close to it, as he shifted where he still lay on the floor outside the study, where he had been left when the men exited his apartment as abruptly as they had come. “You don’t have a few moments to pop on by, do you? Now? Soon?” He didn’t want to talk about what happened over the phone, not out of shame, but out of a sense of privacy for that paranoid part of him that didn’t wholly trust the line. Last thing he needed was one of those guys eavesdropping, looking to see if he was calling the cops, which was not on his list of things to do that early morning. Nick rubbed his tired eyes; he had actually been planning on going to bed soon. There was actual work tomorrow, but that could wait. His brother was clearly not in the right sorts, that was certain. He perked up, at least, when he heard the noise and immediately switched to ‘concern brother’ mode. Something was wrong. Alex definitely would not call out of the blue if there wasn’t. “Of course,” Nick said in a clipped tone, nerves sneaking through his voice despite the effort to conceal them. “I can be there in twenty, tops. Do you need me to get anything?” Shoulder pressed to his cheek to keep the phone in place, Nick was already on the move, switching his sweatpants for jeans and tugging a sweater over his head. He grabbed his keys and beelined for the front door of his townhouse. “Are you hurt?” It was worry then that overcame his voice before he could help it. Of course Nick would be able to tell. Alex almost had to smile at the way his twin picked up on what was really wrong, and that that point, it would be stupid to try and deny a single thing. “Painkillers. You don’t happen to have anything stronger than that over the counter shit hanging around, do you?” Alex asked, his voice strained around the edges, his breath fast-paced and unsteady. “Just a bump. A scrape. A bruise.” Or twenty. He hadn’t moved much since the pair had left, for every shift made his vision white out from an arm that felt more than just broken; he had had broken bones in the past. This was worse than that and he’d be a liar to say that it didn’t frighten him at least a little. “Just... get her soon, please. Door’s unlocked. Probably broken, if I know a thing. So let yourself in, yes?” “Can’t say that I do,” Nick replied, trying to inject some humor into his voice and failing miserably. He was bad at this, at the thinking on his feet and not panicking. Alex was always the more put together, the more cool-minded, and this phone call alone was testament. Nick could not even imagine what he was going to do when he stepped into his brother’s apartment into a likely bad scene. He gave a worried sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose, as he walked out of the townhouse and to his car. “I’ll be there soon, Alex. If you’re really hurt, just...uh, stay put, yeah?” Alex was the doctor in the family, dammit. Nick had no clue what to do; he was a bit of a hermit, the last injury he’d gotten was a brutal case of carpal tunnel syndrome a couple of years back. “Twenty minutes, okay?” He started the car, and hung on the line for just a moment before clicking off the line to focus on not freaking out. Stephanie, who was far more forceful in Nick’s mind when he was tired, took charge then, making sure he did make it to the apartment across town. She almost always had the gift of thinking straight even in the most stressful times, and the disconnect she felt towards Alex made it even easier. From what she had seen, Alex would never be a favorite of hers, but Nick cared about him and damn if she didn’t care about Nick. As much of a sissy as he was. She guided him towards the quickest routes, avoiding traffic as much as she could, and when he parked within the complex, she reminded him of the first aid kit in the back of his seat. “Oh, right,” he mumbled, completely at a loss of what to do, and he grabbed the white box’s handle before rushing into his brother’s building. The door was unlocked, or most likely broken really, and Nick immediately pulled out his phone to dial the police. “Alex?” he called out in the doorway, phone in one hand and first aid kit in the other. He couldn’t know what he was walking into, but he suspected it was no good at all. Alex was alone, wouldn’t have called Nick if he hadn’t been, and the voice that called out came from near the study, to the back of the apartment. “Back here,” Alex called out, his voice carrying by sheer force of will and little else. He hadn’t moved from where he had been left, lying in the doorway to the study, his face a mass of bruises that were just starting to colour, his left arm laying at his side, obviously badly broken. Nearby, a bat lay on the ground, far enough away that grasping fingers could not manage to grab hold of it, not that he would have tried with the way his cell phone was clutched in one hand. The colour had drained from his face, leaving him pale, eyes shut against the world though the fact that he spoke was proof enough that he was conscious. He cracked one eye open, in time to see the cell phone that Nick had clasped in one hand. “Don’t call anyone. Not the police. Promise me,” he said firmly, head turned to the side so that he could look at his brother more fully. “Mean it.” Nick followed the voice, swallowing hard as he prepared himself for the scene inside. Thankfully, at least, no other visible damage had been made to Alex’s residence, but his brother was a completely different story. A concerned noise echoed from his throat, and it was all he could do not to faint right then and there. It was why he never thought of pursuing medicine like his brother; he hated the black and blues, the blood, the broken down. Robots were far easier to fix than people. He raised his phone to dial, but stopped abruptly at his brother’s request. “What?” Nick asked with the most incredulous tone, and the request caused Stephanie to perk up too. No cops? Something was really, really no good. “Okay,” he agreed, pocketing his phone slowly. “No cops, promise. But there’s no way we can just stay here. All I’ve got is this.” He shook the white box in front of his brother, his eyes all full of concern and desperation before he crouched down to be at Alex’s level. “Hospital, please?” It was almost funny the way the colour had drained from his brother’s face, and if he had been in the mood to laugh, he would have at that point. But as it was, he managed a weak smile, grateful that Nick hadn’t pushed the cop request. Calling the cops, making a report, he didn’t need to risk any further visits from these guys, and there was no telling where their ties led. He had his own ties, here and there, but nothing he felt comfortable pulling on right now. So no cop. But the request for the hospital... “I just didn’t want to deal with an ambulance. You’ll take me, right?” Alex let his phone go, the device toppling to the ground beside him, forgotten, as he struggled to push himself up on one elbow, the colour completely draining away from his face with that small movement. Nick, for his part, was blissfully unaware of his brother’s extracurricular activities and chalked all this up to a random robbery of some sorts. As he fretted over his brother, Steph was taking assessments of what he’d seen around him and cataloguing it as best she could in her mind. They could talk about all of this later, she reckoned, but it was good to get her own opinions formed without Nick’s influence, what little he had on her. Nick seemed sharper and more distracted at the same time, even as Alex paled. He fell to his knees then, grabbing his brother underneath his uninjured arm and throwing it over his shoulder. “Of course, I’ve got the car right outside. Can you walk at all?” He was hoping the answer was yes because Nick was anything but strong. Tinkering with lines of software or metals hardly built up arm muscle. In Alex’s head, Crane was decidedly quiet, and he couldn’t even begin to think what was going through the man’s head with as scattered as his own thoughts were. No, Alex was concentrating on not blacking out as Nick put an arm around him, helping him up to his own feet. For a brief moment, he had a thought that he was simply going to fall back down, but surprisingly, his legs held him. “They were kind enough to leave my legs alone,” Alex said, his smile broken around the edges as he did his best to tuck his broken arm against his own body in order to keep it from being jarred around. “I owe you for this,” Alex remarked as they made their way out of the apartment, grateful for the existence of an elevator because the thought of stairs made him want to quit everything right then and there. It wasn’t until he could rest against the wall of the elevator car that Alex spoke again. “Thanks. For- for coming. It means a lot right now, though I’m doing a shit job at displaying it.” Nick pressed the button to the bottom level multiple times, as if that would speed up the process at all. It wouldn’t, of course, but he was at a complete and total loss. What the heck was he supposed to do with his brother all bruised and bloodied up? “You don’t owe me a thing,” Nick replied quickly, turning back to look at Alex with a shaky smile. “It’d suck if you died.” Okay, that was the worst thing to say, and Nick ducked his head the rest of the ride down to the ground floor. “Uh, I mean...well, you know what I mean.” He was astonished by how articulate Alex could be, even after he’d gotten the crap beat out of him. Nick always turned into a stuttering mess. He lead Alex to the sedan parked a little haphazardly just outside the building and helped him into the back seat of the car where he could lounge a little comfortably. “We’ll be there soon, promise.” He paused, looking down at his brother for a moment, and rubbed the back of his neck. “Can I call ahead at least? Tell them you’re coming in? You’ve got connects there, I’m sure.” To look at the brothers, it was easy to tell they were cut from the same cloth, but there were so many moments when their absolute differences became impossible to ignore. This was one of those times, but what kind of life would it be if they were too alike? Settling into the back seat, Alex shifted so that he was resting with the weight off of his left side, giving a shake of his head at Nick’s question about the hospital. “Calling ahead isn’t going to get me ahead of anyone who should be treated first,” Alex responded. “It’s not life-threatening. Just get me there and I’ll be fine from there. Promise.” He let out a breath and settled against the seat, trying to place the voices against anyone he knew, but coming up short on all threads he traveled down. As soon as he found out who, there would be hell to pay. “Keep your ear to the ground, though. If you hear anyone gloating about some sort of attack. I don’t know who they were, but I have a feeling I can figure it out with a little work. And maybe some help from you, as well. If you want something to do, at least.” “Oh, okay,” Nick said, sounding slightly defeated. He just wanted, more than anything, to make sure that his brother would be okay. The reassurance that it wasn’t life-threatening worked, however, and Nick made it to the drivers seat and started the car without any more fuss. “I’ll keep a lookout, though I’m not sure where exactly a couple of thugs are going to brag about an attack. It’s certainly not going to show up on Reddit or 4Chan.” Nick knew Alex probably had no idea what either website was, just like his brother hardly knew what almost everything he got up to was. Fingers tightened on the steering wheel as he drove as fast as he could without breaking the speed limit. “I’ll help if you need me, too. We just need to focus on getting you better first, yeah?” He pulled into the ambulance bay of the hospital, the closest entrance to the emergency room possible, and parked in one of the employee spots. He would deal with the consequences of that later. What was most important was getting Alex the attention he needed. Rounding around the car to Alex’s favorable side, he opened the door again. “Still okay to walk?” “People say strange things when they don’t think others are paying attention,” Alex cautioned him as he closed his eyes in the backseat, just counting down the minutes until they arrived at the hospital. His head was throbbing something fierce, and the nausea he was feeling didn’t bode well for a lack of a concussion. But he didn’t want to say any of that to Nick and worry him more. He could tell, quite easily, how worried his twin was. Knuckles didn’t get that white gripping a steering wheel unless one was tense and worried. As the car pulled to a stop, Alex opened his eyes slowly, just aware enough to keep himself moving and out of the car, though it was clear how poor he felt by the lack of colour in his cheeks. “I can walk. At least until I get inside. Get going. You don’t need to stick around for the rest of this. You’ll be bored out of your mind, I assure you.” Alex managed a weak smile, reaching out to clap his brother on the shoulder, meeting his gaze steadily. Nick opened his mouth to argue, to insist that he stay with his brother the entire night, but he knew his twin too well to fight him, especially right now. Alex was fragile, and Nick, who usually bent to his will anyway, was particularly willing to do whatever his brother told him. “If you insist,” Nick said warily, resisting the urge to clap his brother back. He held out his arm for support just in case. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning, okay? Bring some stuff from your place that you need. I’m sure they’re not going to let you out right away.” He shot his brother a reassuring smile then. Alex had to be okay. He would be. “I do insist,” Alex assured him, and the arm that was offered was taken for support, and it was a testament to how poorly he felt with how much of his weight he let rest on that offered arm, even as someone from the hospital made their way towards them, another soon behind with a wheelchair. “I’ll give you a call when I know more, okay?” And then he was being pulled away, a whimpered hiss of pain escaping him as he settled into the chair, giving Nick a half-hearted wave. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do, Nicky,” Alex called to him before he was hauled off. |