Joe Hardy hates this plan (ihateyourplan) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-08-15 18:01:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | !complete, frank hardy, joe hardy |
Who: The Brothers Hardy
When: This Morning
Where: The brothers' apartment
What: There's a bomb in their kitchen, WTF
Rating/Warning: PG-13 for bombs, thinking of death and (Joe's) language
Status: Complete!
Joe awoke bathed and sweat, panting hard and with his bed sheets wrapped tightly around his legs. It took him a full minute of laying there on his back and staring at the ceiling for his mind to catch up with him.
Nothing in his career as a P.I. or in the Dreams he’d been having for the past three months had done anything to prepare him for what he’d witnessed in those Dreams the night before. It was as though someone somewhere had flipped some kind of switch and turned his Dreams from a romping exploration through detective noir from the 30’s, 40’s and 50’s to something much darker, more gritty and, Joe would admit, more terrifying. He’d been in danger before in his Dreams, but nothing - nothing - like this. Terrorists had never been after them before, had never planted a bomb inside his car, in the mall near their home. Had never targeted them. No one he had loved had ever died.
It was cruel. Over the last three months he had gotten used to the idea that Iola, young, vivacious and alive, could feature in his Dreams. As much as he felt the Dreams were some form of punishment for the choices he had made, he had looked forward to them just to see her again.
And now they had taken her away again. She was as dead in the Dreams as she was in reality. Now he truly would never see her again. Hear her voice. Feel her touch. They had won in the end, as the brothers usually did, but at what cost? Joe didn’t know how, but he knew nothing would be the same again.
Joe pressed the heels of his palms to his face and choked back the sob that came up from his chest. These Dreams - these memories - he hated them. But he had nowhere else to go and despite everything, Frank needed him here. Joe would never abandon his brother, the only person in the world who, despite Joe’s protests, still believed in him.
Frank. He had to check on Frank. The two of them didn’t necessarily Dream the same thing every night, but they had been close enough that Joe had a sinking feeling Frank had just Dreamed the same thing he had. He pulled on a pair of pajama pants and ventured out of his room. With determined purpose he made his way to Frank’s door, poised to knock when he heard something. A beeping noise. At first Joe thought maybe it was Frank’s morning alarm. An ear to the door told Joe that the beeping wasn’t coming from within Frank’s room and it was too muffled, too slow to be any kind of alarm.
Joe turned from the door and ventured through their apartment, searching for the source of the unfamiliar noise. His eyes finally settled on a box sitting on the kitchen table that had not been there the night before. The beeping was coming from inside. Blue eyes widened and Joe’s heart started to race. He didn’t dare touch it, not with images of exploding bombs still so fresh in his head. “Frank!”
Frank had been up long before the sun that morning, but he had not yet made it out of his room. The Dreams had returned with a vengeance, waking him up in a cold sweat and early enough that the day was still considered night. It was as if whatever deity or creature that caused the Dreams had heard his comment about missing their light-hearted adventures and had decided to make him regret every word. It was Murphy’s Law, but crueler in every sense. No one close to them had ever been murdered before.
Then there was Callie. Before, she had been almost a token character in the background, but this time she was smart, witty, stubborn - everything she was in real life and that had made him fall for her in the first place. ’I don’t know what it is with you. As soon as you’re in a dark place, you get romantic.’ The words lingered in his mind, if not as much as the other events that had taken place, but it had him reaching to turn on the bedside lamp faster than he had ever managed a karate chop. Another reminder of everything he had failed to see in real life.
Much as he had on the morning of the first Dream, Frank sat on the edge of his bed, facing the door. Putting Callie out of his mind, he focused on the real issue that had arrived with the newest form of the Dreams: Iola’s death. He wished he could make that “big brain” of his come up with some way to fix things, but he knew better. He was not sure what would be worse: finding out Joe had also Dreamed about Iola’s death, or being the one to have to tell Joe what was going to happen. Neither option appealed to him, but he did not even consider keeping quiet about the Dream.
When his alarm finally went off, Frank was so lost in his thoughts that the sudden sound made him jump. How long had he been sitting there? Shaking his head ruefully, he turned off the alarm. It was morning, but he was no closer to an answer than he had been when the Dream had woken him. Then again, perhaps he was still asleep. Frank could have sworn he could still hear the blasted thing beeping at him. Except it was different - distorted, slower - as if it were coming from the next room. He frowned at the alarm clock. What the hell was going on?
The pieces fell into place a heartbeat before he heard Joe calling him from the kitchen. Frank’s face was grim as he raced out of the bedroom. Before he was two steps into the main room he was already shouting. “Joe, get the plastic knives out of the drawer!” For once, his inability to cook was coming in handy since there was always an abundance of disposable cutlery in the apartment. How much time did they have left? In the Dream the bomb had been set to go off at eleven; Frank prayed this particular “gift” would have the same time limit. Without having to form and re-form the human pyramid, he would have plenty of time to take care of the detonator.
Bomb squad technicians approached live explosives dressed in padded suits and thick plexiglass visors. Frank held his breath and very carefully opened the box decked in naught but a worn pair of plaid pajama pants and a severe case of bedhead. A quick check of the top of the box revealed no trip wires. Still careful, Frank used the tips of his fingers to pry open the box. The bright red numbers of the timer greeted him and he paled. Forget hours, they barely had fifteen minutes left. Not nearly enough time to call for the bomb disposal unit or evacuate the apartment complex. Did the timer start the moment I woke up?
“Damn.” Frank whispered, taking a steadying breath. He studied the wires and did a few quick calculations. It was going to be close. Looking up, he searched the kitchen for something that might buy them a bit more time. Dark eyes lit up as he spotted just the thing. “Clear out the fridge. I’m going to try and scrape off as much of the plastique as I can.”
There are a few words you don’t want to hear uttered when dealing with a bomb. “Damn” was somewhere near the top of the list, just under “it's gonna blow”. Plastic knives in hand, Joe peered around his brother’s shoulder into the box. Fifteen minutes?! “Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?”
Without waiting for an answer or for Frank to tell him to clean out the fridge a second time, Joe thrust the plastic knives at Frank before turning his attention to the fridge. He flung the door open and started pulling out everything. Plastic containers containing left overs of the previous week were quickly cast aside along with bottles of soda, cans of beer, a jug of mostly-drunk milk, another jug of hardly-touched orange juice, a fresh tub of butter, bread, a carton of eggs and both the crisper and meat drawers.
The contents of their fridge now all over their kitchen floor without much thought of where things had been placed, Joe looked back at his brother. “This as clean as it’s gonna get.”
Frank took the knives with a quick word of thanks, setting all but two on the table beside him. He could hear Joe pulling things out of the fridge behind him, but his attention was entirely on the bomb in front of him. Very carefully he followed the wires, using the dull side of the knives to scrape each of the detonators out of the clay-like explosive.
Every now and then he would let his eyes flicker up to the timer, trying to judge if he needed to speed up the pace, and every time his hands moved a little bit faster. He dared not go too fast and risk the damn thing going off early. Just seven more...focus, Hardy! You can do this!
He did not dare look up at Joe, but he nodded to acknowledge him. “Good. Now get the hell out of here.” Unlike the dream, they were not locked up in a storage room and Joe was more than able to run out the door before the bomb went off. Frank was not sure if he would have the same, but it was better than nothing.
Joe backed up as far as the kitchen door, but he didn’t actually leave the apartment. His first instinct, of course, was to stay with his brother. He could not go through losing someone else he loved to a terrorist bomb. His heart was hammering so hard in his chest, he could literally hear and feel it in his ears, and his mind was racing too quickly for him to keep up. For a few agonizing moments all he could do was stand in the kitchen doorway and stare.
It was just like the mall in the Dreams. Joe’s breath was caught in his throat. There were people in the apartment building! Jesus Christ! He pointed an accusing finger at his brother, “don’t you fucking dare blow yourself up!” He ordered before dashing out of the apartment.
Once out in the hallway he glanced around. He didn’t have enough time to go door-to-door knocking. At this hour, he’d probably be ignored anyway, but he had to get his neighbors out of the building, just in case. His eyes fell on the fire alarm pull at the end of the hallway. Bingo! Joe raced to the alarm and broke the glass with his elbow. He then reached inside and yanked the switch as hard as he could.
His efforts were rewarded with a shrill bell and a whoop, whoop, whoop of the apartment building’s fire alarm system. And much to Joe’s relief, it wasn’t long after that the other residents quickly came out of their apartments in various states of dress looking both scared and confused. Joe breathed a sigh of relief when he saw them all quickly make beelines towards the stairs and exit the building.
At least now the only two casualties would be himself and his brother should this damn thing go off. If this ended up being some kind of Dream hoax, Joe was going to be pissed.
Frank barely kept himself from rolling his eyes. What was he supposed to say? Sure, Joe, I'll be sure not to blow up while trying to defuse a bomb using only the knowledge I somehow gained in a dream? Then again, that was as crazy as a bomb showing up on their kitchen table because of that same dream. He sighed, wondering what in the world had possessed him to chose this place out of all the jobs he could have found on the West Coast.
The shrill sound of the fire alarm jolted Frank upright. “Shit!” The abrupt movement had jerked the wires in his hand a bit too far and he barely managed to slip a fork between them in time. He froze, holding his breath until he was sure the bare wires were not going to accidentally touch. The fire alarm was a smart move. He had nearly forgotten that their building had one. Frank's relief was short-lived as the beeping started to speed up.
“Oh, good night!” Frank abandoned the hope that he would be able to nullify all the detonators and started pulling the clay away from the wires with his hands instead. When the timer dropped below twenty seconds he picked up what was left of the device and threw it into the fridge. The old fashioned handle had seemed quaint and annoying at first, but now Frank was glad for the extra catch as he sprinted for the door. He made it halfway there when the timer hit zero.
The explosion blew the doors off of the fridge. Literally. The larger of the two doors slammed into Frank's back, knocking him the rest of the way across the room and into the wall by the door. The freezer door barely missed taking off his head, leaving a large dent in the wall above him. Frank's ears were ringing as he slowly picked himself off of the floor. Shifting the broken doors, he managed to turn around so that he could sit with his back to the wall and survey the damage. The back of the fridge was still intact, if severely damaged. There were a few scorch marks on the counters next to where the doors had exploded, as well as a larger mark on the floor, leading like an arrow to where Frank was.
He was alive. He had managed to prevent a disaster and no one had died. Frank's body felt like it had gone seven rounds with a gorilla, but even through the ringing he could hear himself start to laugh with relief.
With the building now empty and the fire alarm screeching in his ears, Joe had been debating the merits of returning to the apartment or staying where he was. On the one hand, there wasn’t much he’d be able to do in the apartment. He hadn’t gained any magical bomb defusal powers from the Dreams and he’d be in the way. On the other hand, he wasn’t about to just abandon Frank, either.
The muffled sound of something going off in their apartment made up Joe’s mind for him. He raced back up the hall to his apartment and burst through the door, calling out for Frank in a voice that was half urgent and half panicked.
The sight that met him in the kitchen stopped him cold. His voice was lost and he was just mouthing the words “holy fuck” as his eyes followed the trail of destruction from the fridge to where his brother sat on the ground. Relief flooded through his body and he let out a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding on to.
“Come with me to California, Joe,” he muttered half sarcastically as he made his way over to Frank. “It’ll be good for you. You can start over and get your feet back under you.” He squatted down next to Frank with a grunt. He looked at his brother critically for a moment before asking “Are ya dead?”
Frank looked up at Joe, still grinning with relief. At least his laughter had died down; Joe would probably think he’d lost his marbles. “It'll take more than a measly Dream bomb to kill me.” Never mind that it had almost done just that. If his alarm clock had been set half an hour in the other direction, the entire apartment complex would have exploded while he had been sitting in his bed, lost in thought. What a way to go.
It was a few more moments before Frank figured he should at least try to stand. His legs felt steady enough, but his back was definitely not pleased with the move. He was going to be right sore in the morning. “Admit it, this place is definitely a lot more interesting than staying at Mom and Dad’s in Bayport.” Rolling his shoulders, he tested out the rest of his mobility. “Besides, you’d flip if you were still tuning up cars for the cubes at the country club while I was out here playing MacGyver.”
Something wet hit the corner of his eye and Frank raised a hand to his face, gingerly touching one of the many sharp points of pain on his head. The fingers came back red and he winced. Most of the would-be shrapnel had been removed from the appliance before the bomb had gone off, but there were pieces of plastic shelves strewn about as well. Sirens sounded in the distance, which hopefully meant at least one EMT headed his way. He guessed that he looked like he had gotten into a fight with a chimney and lost. “You know, nearly getting blown up would usually merit a day off of work, but I have this sinking feeling that’s not going to be the case for me. Think my editor will give me till noon if I promise to let the station have the exclusive?” Frank joked.
Joe’s heart was still thudding hard against his sternum. He reminded himself, despite the blood on Frank’s face, his brother was still in one piece. He tried not to think about what the alternative could have been had either one of them chosen to stay in their rooms for just a few more minutes. Frank’s quip hit him like a lead balloon. Nearly getting blown up… He almost had gotten blown up. Like Iola. Joe suppressed the shudder that threatened at his shoulders.
But here Frank was cracking wise instead and not in a million charred pieces all over the place. It took Joe a few moments before he realized he was gripping Frank’s arm tightly just above the elbow, as though if he let go he’d lose him in that same fiery blaze. It all came back to Joe at once. That Dream. That nightmare. His stomach twisted and flopped over at the thought of vainly trying to save his brother from that blast and failing, just as he had with Iola…
He tugged on Frank’s arm, pulling him from the kitchen and a few steps into the living room. “I don’t know the fuck you’re talking about,” he managed to get out in what he hoped was an annoyed grumble instead of a whimper of fear. His voice felt shaky in his throat and he despised the sound of it. “Country club cubes and their stupid cars would be leagues above this shit. At least I’d make more than you in tips alone.” Crack jokes and everything would be fine. He needed to focus this energy that was threatening to tear him apart. The sirens were practically outside and that seemed like the best option for the moment. “Think you can move to meet the emergency crew down stairs? Or should I bring them up here?”
“You can’t put a price on a good story.” The euphoria of surviving was slowly fading with the endorphins in Frank’s blood. It helped that there was not actually someone trying to kill them in real life, only in the Dreams. There was no plot to blow up a Presidential candidate at the mall, no secret group of Assassins ready to massacre a crowd to get at a single man. Here in the real world there was just Joe and Frank, mechanic and reporter, facing off dangerous things sent to them by supernatural means. If this were a mystery story like the Dreams, there would have been someone behind it all.
He was grateful for Joe’s hand as he stood, needing the help more than he wanted to admit in order to stay on his feet. Which is probably why it took him a moment longer than it should have to realize that Joe’s grip on his arm was harder than it needed to be. “I’m fine, Joe.” Frank’s voice had a hint of gentleness about it. Not too much, or Joe would probably take offense. He placed his free hand on Joe’s shoulder. “Lend me a hand and I’ll hobble down to meet them.”