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Micah Castro Braden // Doctor Watson, I presume ([info]acatalyst) wrote in [info]bellumlogs,
@ 2010-05-20 12:26:00

Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Entry tags:cheshire cat, dr. watson, plot: riddles

Who: Micah and Rick (and any Group I-ites that might return)
What: Search and no-rescue
Where: The Lobby
When: After the doors opened for Group I
Warnings: If Will comes back, Micah might punch him again.

The doors had opened, and Micah had known immediately that something was wrong.

The Frog and the Cheater took off down one of the ghostly, empty halls, and Micah turned to look at the Cat. The man grinned too often, and Micah (who thankfully hadn't read Carroll) didn't understand exactly how the Cheshire Cat operated yet, but he knew there was something unhinged here.

He turned to the other man, and his gaze went sharp. "We should set something up down here, then, because people are going to wait for their loved ones all night in this damned lobby," he said. He knew, somehow, that they were the first out (just like he knew the others were not here.) "We need to verify first," he said, and he took off for the stairs. "And think of what we do if someone doesn't come out."

Someone, you see, meant Iris, and verify, meant check on Iris, ahora mismo, but he wasn't going to take the time to stop and explain that.

Dammit, the full moon was next week. As if any of them needed this shit right now.


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[info]takingsides
2010-05-20 05:00 pm UTC (link)
Rick was of two minds about the matter. On the one hand, he wasn't sure if he wanted to be around to deal with the fallout of everyone in the building dealing with whatever little confessions they had to make. Like Micah, Rick assumed that everyone else was going through the exact same thing they did. Most of them would be confessing dirty little secrets about stealing people's lunch money in fourth grade, but for some people that kind of thing was traumatic. Rick dealt with trauma a lot, and he wasn't interested in taking on more.

However, he felt a certain kinship with the building and its peculiarities, and though he didn't give a damn about most of the people within its walls, he now felt a bemused sense of I-in-Team in relation to Micah, Stefan and Will. Particularly Micah, since he screwed up more than the other ones. Rick seemed largely unconcerned and showed no great emotional discomfort when they were again in the lobby, and he met Micah's there's-something-seriously-wrong-with-you look with an innocuous smile. (He tried not to grin.)

Following him up the stairs without any difficulty, even taking two at a time with his newly acquired here-now-there feline grace, Rick said, "What kind of something do you want to set up? Beach towels? Therapy booths?" He wasn't joking, if his tone was any indication. "What and how are you going to verify?"

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[info]acatalyst
2010-05-20 05:20 pm UTC (link)
"Oh, great, you're a comedian," Micah said, but there wasn't any venom behind the words. That didn't mean he might not punch the man in order to make himself feel better (eventually), but right now he had other worries. He didn't actually acknowledge anything Rick said until he was at the door of 202, and he unlocked it and walked inside without any of his usual care not to give away the secrets of his life - after all, Rick already knew the main talking points. "Something that lists who has come out, at the fucking least."

He walked through the apartment, climbed out the window and onto the escape, then made his way to 206 in a climb and duck pattern he was completely accustomed to at this point.

He banged on Iris' windows, peered in past curtains, and he finally yanked off his shirt and wrapped his fist in it, before shoving that self-same fist through the glass of the apartment's main window.

He climbed inside past the wreckage, and he looked in every room and closet.

"Voy a matar a alguien," he said, and he might have meant it. Wherever Iris was, he hoped she had Eliot with her. Dammit.

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[info]takingsides
2010-05-20 06:22 pm UTC (link)
Rick followed along like a good cat, not appearing to devote much passion to the proceedings but interested enough to keep going. He looked around Micah's apartment, noted very little that really kept his attention, and then followed him out onto the fire escape. Now it was getting interesting. "This is breaking and entering," he said, unable to keep from grinning at the irony. Rick had done much worse--and so had Micah, apparently. Rick hadn't ever done crime in company before. It was almost fun.

All the lights were off in Iris' apartment. The doors and windows were locked from the inside. There was no evidence of her presence in the kitchen except her keys on the counter. In the bedroom, the sheets were mussed and the bag she never went without was on the floor next to the nighstand, along with a glass of water near-empty. A couple of the books she had mentioned to Ella on nightmares were under the bed. The closet was a tumultuous rainbow of cloth, the bathroom filled with her scent and the faint memory of steam, but the apartment was without occupation or life. Dead silent.

Rick was standing in Iris' living room, hands in his pockets and staring at all the blank walls, when Micah returned. Rick didn't speak Spanish, and he didn't bother pointing that out. Micah sounded pissed though. "What? You find something?" He looked around. "As if there's anything to find," he added, shaking his head at the impersonal living room.

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[info]acatalyst
2010-05-20 07:40 pm UTC (link)
Micah, who had seen the telltale bag, was not a happy little boy.

"I found her missing," he said, and he dragged his fingers through his hair in frustration. This damned building, it was just one thing after another. "You need to give us time to recover, you stupid, piece of shit, building," he said to the ceiling. Even in Cuba, in the midst of Very Dangerous Shit there was downtime. Bellum, it seemed, hadn't gotten the fucking memo about downtime.

He stormed back into the bedroom, and he grabbed the bag, not looking inside it. Whatever the hell she hid there, he didn't want anyone else finding it, but he didn't want to break her trust himself either. He grabbed one of the books that was sticking out from under the edge of the bed, and he stormed past Rick to the front door. "She's going to be encabronada about the window," he said, and that made him feel slightly better, because it meant he thought she was coming back.

He looked at Rick. "Aren't you worried about anyone?"

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[info]takingsides
2010-05-20 08:02 pm UTC (link)
Rick inadvertently looked at the ceiling when Micah did. He shouldn't think it was funny, but he did. He kept himself from commenting at the very last moment, and did a poor job of pretending he wasn't amused by the time Micah came back in.

When he saw the bag, however, he frowned for the first time. "Seeing if she is here is different than stealing her purse," he said, not replying about the window because he honestly didn't know what Micah had just said about it. New Yorkers had a way of glossing over bits of speech they didn't understand. It was the New York way; nobody spoke English.

"If they do what it says on the plaque, they'll be fine," Rick said, in the same even tone, green eyes faintly aglow as he pursued Micah to the door, still not certain if he was going to make a Deal about the thievery. "Unless they happen to get in a group of the ones that like to try and kill each other, and with a group of four that's not that likely."

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[info]acatalyst
2010-05-20 08:33 pm UTC (link)
"That isn't what I asked," Micah said, holding the door open and waiting for Rick to walk out of the apartment and into the hall. He didn't answer about Iris' bag, because he wasn't stealing it, and it didn't matter what Rick thoughts on the matter were.

He also didn't agree about the plaque and being fine. "You're jumping to conclusions without a full understanding of the facts of the case," he said. "We have theories, at best, but there is no reason to think everyone had the same task as us. We all had things worth reading out of a book, things we were ashamed of. We shouldn't just assume everyone else had the same thing. There's nothing to back up that theory."

"We know one thing for sure," he continued. "No one is here, and Iris was asleep when she disappeared, which means they were zapped somewhere. But that's all we know."

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[info]takingsides
2010-05-20 08:45 pm UTC (link)
"On that premise," he replied, grin faltering, "they could be anywhere at all, in any state, doing anything. I prefer my theory to yours." He thought of James, and didn't know why. He'd been avoiding her, trying to keep complications out of the bigger picture in his work, which only got more dangerous as time went on.

Rick didn't walk out of the apartment. He stood in the hall in the entrance to the kitchen and put his head to one side in a very slow, deliberate angling of his chin. "If the woman that lived here knew you had her purse, would she let you walk off with it?"

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[info]acatalyst
2010-05-21 12:08 am UTC (link)
"She would hit me over the head with it. Now come on. I'm just going to drop the damn thing in my apartment, since I broke her window," he said. He didn't intend to mention that-

No, he did intend to mention it.

"You do realize that you admitted to killing someone, and now you're concerned about me making off with Iris' purse?" he asked, incredulous.

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[info]takingsides
2010-05-21 12:12 am UTC (link)
"Maybe," Rick said, the green eyes eerie as he moved past, clearly deciding Iris did not need his protection, "the purse doesn't deserve being stolen like the man deserved to be dead." He was pleased with this turn of phrase, he'd worked it out in his head just like that. Funny how it used to bother him...

Vague in a cloud of cinnamon and stray morals, Rick strolled past and out into the lobby. "Hopefully she doesn't have anything else of value," he continued, as if the conversation had never strayed, "with her window like that."

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[info]acatalyst
2010-05-21 12:28 am UTC (link)
"I'll fix the damn window," Micah said, and he shoved the door to 206 open once he got to it. He tucked Iris' bag away, as promised, and he grabbed a jacket for her, in case she'd been in something sheer to sleep. He nodded toward the med kit by the door. "Grab that," he said, because who knew if everyone was going to get out of wherever the hell they were as safely as they did.

"The purse might have been a fucking dangerous villain," he said finally, because Rick was insane, and Micah was aware that the building was making him unhinged. "After this shit is done, I'm going somewhere warm, with a beach," he muttered.

"Girlfriend? Family?" Unconnected people, those were the ones Micah distrusted most of all. "Friends?"

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[info]takingsides
2010-05-21 03:58 pm UTC (link)
Rick picked up the kit by the handles with no argument, not even troubled by the heft of its weight. The cut of the suit was all straight lines, but he definitely didn't fill it out like a desk jockey. "Purses aren't villainous," he said, distractedly, vaguely offended by the idea.

Glancing back as he re-entered the hallway, he added, "Villains hang out on a lot of beaches."

Rick shook his head at the questions. Whenever anyone asked him if he had family, he said no. Whenever anyone asked him whether he had close friends, he said no. He certainly wasn't going to admit to having a girlfriend. "With this building, I'm finding that's a good thing."

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[info]acatalyst
2010-05-21 05:59 pm UTC (link)
Purses weren't villainous. Check. Neither was the gun Micah shoved into the back of his pants before leaving 202.

"Purses hang out at a lot of beaches," he replied, realizing that taking the direct, serious approach with Rick was probably going to get him nowhere. He didn't seem to answer questions, so much as he made comments that vaguely could be interpreted. He didn't trust Micah and his beach-favoring, purse stealing ways, and he wasn't going to admit to any close relations. Check.

"I don't think the building cares if you admit to relationships, as long as you have them, then I think that suffices," he replied, heading back out to the hall. He had a round of doors he wanted to check, and so he started up the stairs, assuming the Cat would follow. "Anyone you want to check on between here and the seventh?"

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[info]takingsides
2010-05-21 11:31 pm UTC (link)
Rick didn't say anything about the gun, but the green eyes were different now. Maybe Rick was unhinged, but he was no fool. Men with guns were very different from men without guns. Especially if they were men that kept guns in their apartments and in the small of their backs.

"I won't break into her place to find out," Rick said, looking up and then down. He didn't have any claim on James, and wouldn't pretend it so. It would have been good to know if she was alright, but he didn't think he could find that out right now, and do little about it if she was not.

"You think the building cares?" he echoed, raising the red eyebrows in exaggerated doubt. "You must be mad." He said it flat serious.

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[info]acatalyst
2010-05-22 01:24 am UTC (link)
Micah didn't think not breaking in was a particularly positive thing. If you were worried about someone, you checked on them, you tried to keep them safe. You didn't let something like a locked door or a closed window stop you.

He held his tongue, however, and continued up the stairs, stepping off on the seventh floor landing and banging his knuckles against the door of 706 impatiently. "I think the building is an hijo de puta," he said, "playing games with us like we're rats in a labyrinth."

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[info]takingsides
2010-05-22 05:44 pm UTC (link)
Rick didn't think of closed doors as quite the inhibition Micah thought he did. He did all kinds of things to get on the other side of the doors, the sides where interesting things were said and bad people hid to say them. But one thing he didn't do was break them.

Kit swinging at his side, Rick made the stairs behind Micah, and stood at the end of the hall while Micah banged on the door of 706. He hadn't been on the forums in a while--busy with life or death matters, you know--so he hadn't a clue who lived there. "More purse stealing?" he asked, rocking back and forth on his heels.

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[info]acatalyst
2010-05-22 06:30 pm UTC (link)
"Dammit," Micah cursed, giving the door one last bang and then turning toward 703, doing the same once he got to that door. "No, I only steal purses from the ones I want to sleep with," he said, a tone of sarcasm in the words. "Shit." Well, at least Iris could be with Eliot or Joanie, both of those thoughts were reassuring, and he clung to them tightly. Eliot would be the better option, of course, but Joanie was strong for a woman; Iris would be safe around her.

Another turn toward the stairs, and he stopped at the eighth floor next, heading for 802.

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[info]takingsides
2010-05-22 07:50 pm UTC (link)
"Selective," Rick observed, smoothly, not betraying his amusement. He wandered after him, making absent mental notes of the numbers so he could find out who they were... just in case the information ended up useful later.

"What exactly are you hoping for here?"

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[info]acatalyst
2010-05-22 09:29 pm UTC (link)
"Someone to open the door," Micah replied easily, heading for the stairs and the eighth floor, where he stopped in front of Cole's apartment and knocked. He didn't linger this time, not expecting an answer anymore.

His last stop was R1, where he banged louder and harder, knowing Daniel's penchant for ignoring everything in the universe.

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[info]takingsides
2010-05-23 05:10 am UTC (link)
Rick had never been up so high as R1. He waited at the top of the stairs while Micah railed on that particular door, and when there was (unsurprisingly) no reply, he turned and headed back down the stairs without waiting for Micah to accompany him. As he walked down the stairs (just out of sight and ahead) he was thinking about all the people in the building this man knew, and how oddly different that situation was from his--Rick sought no connections, emotional or otherwise.

Perhaps it was becoming safe enough to do so... as long as he didn't make it too public.

The med kit was waiting for Micah at the first floor landing--but Rick was nowhere in sight.

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[info]acatalyst
2010-05-23 05:16 am UTC (link)
Micah followed Rick all the way down without stopping, and then he hunkered down on the stairs with the medkit.

He waited.

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