Who: Cuthbert, Cesare, Georgia What: Getting in trouble for trying to help. Where: Leaving the police station When: After Cuthbert tries to help Valen escape from the hospital Warnings: References to violence
Cuthbert Allgood's emotions had just about run the full course over the past few hours and finally settled on bored. Prison cells were boring. That was it. The lawmen had told him that if he let them call someone in to collect him, then he could go - and wasn't that evidence that they knew he hadn't done anything wrong to begin with? He'd been reluctant to involve Cesare, but only briefly so. Cesare would understand that Cuthbert had only been doing what he had to. He'd told them to make the call.
He'd very nearly succeeded, too. The directions to the section of the hospital where Valen was being held were sound, and he'd managed to hold off his shock at the deterioration in the man's condition since he'd arrived in town long enough to whisk him off down the corridor in a wheeled chair before anyone made it far enough to investigate the beeping alarms. That was what came of playing lookout a while first, seeing when the so-called physicians and their associates were at the furthest distance.
From then, it had only been a question of following the maze of corridors, from the map he'd committed to memory, at a steady pace despite the urge to race, and keeping in mind the story for if he was challenged. Valen was his elder brother, who'd taken so terrible ill he couldn't even go for a walk outside, and Cuthbert, dutifully visiting, meant to push his chair about the gardens so that he might enjoy what might prove to be the last of the year's true sunshine. He'd done well. He'd even navigated the elevator-box and gotten them down from the heights. They would have made it out, surely they would have, if not for one man who recognized Valen's face and didn't believe Cuthbert's story for a second.
If the man hadn't lunged towards Valen as he had, meaning to wrest the chair from Cuthbert's grasp, Bert wouldn't have had to shoot at him with his slingshot. He wasn't letting any of those people near Valen again, so he wasn't, and while he'd prefer to avoid direct conflict? He'd protect Valen as he had to. If the torturers were there, and no doubt Valen could point out the ones, then Bert would see justice done as he could. For the others? He'd do enough that they got out of his way. This fellow he caught in the arm. It was measured, precise - he'd even had the consideration to avoid the bone, which the metal balls he used for ammunition might have shattered. It made him howl in pain right enough, though, and Cuthbert had quickened his pace, pushed Valen on.
They still might have made it out if not for his delaying with the lawmen. It was a pair of them that confronted Cuthbert next, and they hadn't believed his story either. Nor had they listened to the truth, that Valen was held there against his will and subjected to a slow and cruel poison. He'd even tried making demands - he was representative of the Affiliation and Valen was in his service and under his protection and he'd leave with him at once. At home, that would have been heeded unless a local lawman wanted to risk major diplomatic incident, and sure enough, few of them ever did. Here, though, it only served to make things worse.
They had tried to grab at Valen too. Cuthbert had taken aim and fired his slingshot towards them, too, but it had been very obviously a warning shot. If he'd meant to hit one of them, he'd have done it. If he'd meant to kill one of them, he knew the precise spots on the body where a single direct hit would suffice, he'd have done that too. He hadn't. It had been a warning, and not even with a gun. They should have understood it, understood then who he was. And then he'd swerved about them, called to Valen to hold tightly, and ran.
He wasn't sure how many of them it had actually taken to stop him, in the end. They'd been there by the door, the very shining exit itself, and he'd cursed at them that they were on the wrong side of things, and fought them, and where had that gotten him but dragged off to their car with metal cuffs about his wrists? They'd torn him away from Valen, whom he'd gotten so close to freedom, and taken him far away. It wasn't, he'd had to tell himself, the very worst of outcomes. They hadn't shot him. They hadn't handed him over to be strapped down and poisoned as Valen was - but all that told him was that they were more ignorant than corrupt.
That knowledge had kept him from fear, though, and its twin companions of stupidity and panic that might follow not long after. Cuthbert had been calm. He'd spoken with them. He reckoned they didn't understand the half of it, but he'd made no accusations, kept his talk light and inconsequential. They thought they were doing the right thing, after all, and it wouldn't do him a bit of good to put up another hopeless fight against them. He could choose his battles. And so he'd convinced them he meant no more harm, and they'd released him from his bonds and put him in that little cell instead and then called for Cesare.
Who Cuthbert supposed was now here, as he was being led out again, blinking in adjustment to the brighter lights. High-watt bulbs, it figured. He supposed he made a strange sight: he'd dressed to blend in, like a boy from this time, borrowed an oversized black hooded sweatshirt and left off his usual fashion. Cuthbert was confident still, though, he wasn't about to stare at the ground as if in shame. Next time his plan would be better. He'd account for the lawmen as he hadn't before. Opposition such as he'd faced only made him all the more certain that something was terribly wrong here.