padraig is a little different now. (irishdragon) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-01-03 14:28:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | ! log, ! plot: kidnapping, mette skoglund, padraig flanagan |
WHO: Padraig Flanagan & Mette Skoglund.
WHAT: A reunion of sorts.
WHEN: January 3rd.
WHERE: The European cell.
WARNINGS: None.
STATUS: Completed.
She was like a marionette with its strings snipped when they finally brought her back, over a day later. Frogmarched down a nondescript hallway identical to the seemingly-dozens she’d already seen, Mette promptly lost her sense of direction and allowed herself to be led, limply, the mercenaries’ grips twisting her left and right and left and left through the compound. When she finally saw a hallway featuring a row of cubbyholes, she had just enough time to think Oh, that’s– before the door was drawn open, the girl flung in, the door closed. Clang. Mette sprawled on the cement floor, the wind driven out of her lungs. She simply lay there, arms curled around her head, focusing on the inhale and exhale while the hysteria bubbled up under her breath. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her breathing shallow and rattling. The girl seemed completely sapped of energy; she even forgot to scan the cell, instinctively expecting it to be as empty as it was when she left. Padraig hadn’t slept. At least he was pretty sure he hadn’t slept, but truth be told it wasn’t so easy to remember the finer details like that anymore. For as long as he could remember, he had been sitting at the back of the cell, his back against the wall, his eyes locked on the door. He’d played scenarios of rushing the door, of using Myra as a distraction, of overcoming the kidnappers. The door never opened though, and even if it had the guards would have expected him. Plus he was weak - sure, he’d been fed, but he hadn’t really been eating, he hadn’t been exercising, and he was mentally exhausted. When the door finally did open, Padraig flinched. He was slower to his feet than expected, he was slower to lurch forwards, and before anything was accomplished the door was slammed shut. Pad was stopped in his tracks when a girl was thrown in - a dark haired girl, a girl that had to be Mette. He watched as she fell to the ground and curl inwards. “Mette!” he shouted, that familiar panic once again rising in his throat. Crossing the room quickly, Padraig fell to his knees in front of Mette. This was his fault. They’d hurt her because he said no. He slowly reached out and put a hand on her shoulder. “Mette, I’m sorry,” he whispered, guilt rising within him. Maneuvering his body around her, Padraig pulled the dark haired Norwegian towards his chest. The sound of his voice jarred her out of her exhausted mental fog – the fugue she’d sunk into ever since they flicked the power button on the camera and stopped recording – and Mette stared up with frantic eyes. “Padraig!” she cried, hands clutching at his wrists, letting herself be levered upward and into his arms. Then: “Myra,” more like a wheeze, an instinctive noise wrenched out of her throat. “You’re alive.” She sounded stunned, tears brimming in her eyes. “You’re fucking alive. Oh, thank God. Thank fuck.” The profanities came rolling, her old familiar standby – and there was heady relief in her voice, skimming somewhere beneath the nauseating despair. At least they were still alive. At least there was that. “I didn’t think you’d come back,” she managed to say. Padraig couldn’t help it, he clutched Mette tightly even though he could feel at least two hairs in his mouth. That was the problem with birds’ hair - it always looked amazing until you got up close and personal, and then it tried to strangle you. Pad welcomed that feeling today, though. He honestly didn’t think Mette was coming back either. He hadn’t consciously thought about it, but all that he was feeling now was surprise. “I’m alive,” Padraig repeated. “And so are you.” But is anyone else? Pad left those words unsaid. There was a reason they had been returned and no one else had. “I didn’t want to do it, Mette. I didn’t think they’d hurt you though. I’m so sorry, you have no idea.” Mette, of course, would have no idea what Padraig was talking about. He was sure it was her scream that played over the speakers, so sure. He had played it over and over in his head all night. Mette was clinging to the material of his coveralls, fists knotted against his chest, and it took her a moment to absorb his words. “Do what?” she asked. It felt like she was talking through a mouthful of cotton, struggling to balance this sickening mixture of emotions. Happiness rubbed elbows with hope which dashed itself against cynicism and the practical, pragmatic voice which reminded her that they were still fucked. In fact, things had even gotten worse. (That emptiness deep inside her, that hollowed-out hole, the lingering soreness in the crook of her elbow and the small bandage that covered so much.) They were still prisoners. Padraig let his chin fall downwards to rest on the top of her head. “They had me burn a room. It was a nursery - like a babe’s room. It sort of smelt like what you’d expect a baby to smell like.” The smell just came back to Padraig. He hadn’t thought of that before. Had a baby lived there before? Was that baby now bedless? “There wasn’t a baby, though. I had to burn the the entire thing, though. Burned myself as well.” Padraig took a deep breath. He’d loosened his grip on Mette, but his arms were still around her. He wasn’t ready to let go just yet. “I heard you,” Pad finally got around to it. “I heard you scream. They told me they’d hurt you and Myra, but I didn’t believe it. I don’t understand what the point of it was.” His eyes were closed and he was replaying the entire event over and over in his mind. He couldn’t forget it, the sounds, the sights, or even the smell. “Maybe they recorded me,” she said softly, eyeing her index finger with almost clinical detachment. It was still raw and throbbing, covered in dried blood. She was careful to not bump or jostle it too much, lest it send another searing jab of pain rocketing up her arm. “It might have actually been my voice – I think I screamed when they took me? But I cannot remember.” It was all a haze in which Mette’s brain had shut down, terror flooding every part of her, rendering her a gibbering animal. A helpless one. “You had to burn a nursery,” Mette eventually said, repeating the words in case they made any more sense a second time around. “But there was not anything there?” Whatever Mette was saying didn’t make sense. Recorded her voice? Was she saying... Padraig hadn’t even considered that as a possibility. Why had he been so sure they were hurting Mette right then? He hadn’t seen her, he’d just heard a scream. In all possibility it could have been anyone screaming, possibly even a male, but Padraig had been so sure. Mette could have been safe. But if she was safe, where had she gone? “There wasn’t a baby, if that’s what you mean. There was a crib and toys and changing station, though. It was weird. Creepy, even.” Padraig was still too traumatized by the situation to consider what their motive was. For now it was just weird. Later he might realize it could have been filmed and used as evidence against him. Maybe. “What about you?” Pad asked, concern dripping off his voice. Something had happened, he could tell that much. She was tired and scared, and she felt even smaller than the last time he’d hugged her. “I was terrified when I got back and you weren’t here,” he admitted. She finally looked up, reluctantly meeting his eyes. There was something indefinably different about her: as if something in her spine had been snipped, causing her to slump where she sat curled up against him. More of her energy was gone and a hopelessness seeped into her voice like oil, like poison. Could he tell? Mette wondered, watching Padraig watch her. She felt unexpectedly naked. Even after a week without her powers, courtesy Myra, this sensation was so very, very different. “They carried me off a few hours after you,” she began, haltingly. “They took me to a... lab, it looked like. A medical lab. With something sort of like a dentist’s chair.” Pause. “But with restraints. They injected me. With something.” Mette’s voice cracked on the last syllable. Talking through it was beyond difficult – near-impossible – despite the fact that she’d run through it again and again in her head, trying to make sense of things. “They... they took my powers away, Padraig.” The more Mette talked, the less Padraig felt like he could breathe. Who would do something like that to her? How could anyone with a soul harm Mette? It didn’t make sense. None of this seemed to add up. Why take everyone away to lead her away? Why make Pad burn a baby’s room and take Mette’s power away? Wasn’t Padraig more of a threat? “That’s not possible,” he breathed, unable to keep the words inside. Ever since becoming a Vol it was such a huge part of his identity. He felt so much more comfortable with himself since attending IVI. He honestly didn’t think un-becoming a Vol was possible. Wasn’t it genetic or something? Could scientists have really changed Mette’s genes? Padraig’s fists instinctively curled into balls even though there were no enemies to be seen or heard. There was absolutely nothing Padraig could do for Mette. He wouldn’t apologize for this. He would do everything he could to fix it, but he refused to say he was sorry. How would he feel if he was in her situation? No words would make it right, he knew that. Even his distraction techniques wouldn’t be enough right now. What they needed was pint after pint after pint, but that wasn’t going to happen. How could he make this okay? The answer was he couldn’t. Pad gently reached and squeezed Mette’s hand. “You’re weak. Try and sleep.” There really wasn’t anything to say, was there. It still felt shaky and unreal, as if she were looking at the world through a concave fishbowl: blurred, slightly distorted, muffled and distanced from herself. It was all Myra’s effect; surely it would come back as soon as the Irish girl withdrew her field. And then everything would be back to normal. But she knew and knew and knew that that wasn’t it. “Okay,” Mette said. Her fingers tightened against Padraig’s, gripping as hard as she could, almost to the point of pain. “I don’t think I have slept at all. They kept monitoring me and I was so fucking terrified and pissed off, I couldn’t...” Her lips pursed and her voice quavered. Shaking her head, Mette reached for one of the threadbare pillows in the room, bundled it up in Pad’s lap, and instantly seemed to melt onto it: her body went limp, and she settled down with her head against his knee. (She’d fallen asleep like this in Marine’s lap. She tried not to remember.) However hard Mette wanted to grip, Padraig wouldn’t stop her. It wouldn’t hurt for long, and she had to be hurting so much worse. He wouldn’t ask any more questions either. She told him the skeleton of the story and that’s all he needed. If she was up to telling him more, he’d listen. He wouldn’t push her, though. His own situation was traumatic, and he understood keeping some of the details quiet. As Mette settled into his lap, Padraig let his head rest against the wall. One of his hands rested on her back, the other lightly played with a strand of hair that had fallen off the pillow. “I’ll stay awake,” he whispered, hardly loud enough for Mette to hear. He wasn’t staying up on ‘guard’, that had ended days ago, but he would watch over her. For a little bit, at least. Eventually he would probably fall asleep too. |