bat winged man eating lion (mortale) wrote in warrantlogs, @ 2016-01-13 18:09:00 |
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Entry tags: | castor vance |
i told you not to come, my victim number one.
WHO: Castor & special guest
WHAT: The shadow comes calling.
WHEN: Sometime after this; during their bounty.
WHERE: Ganymede; Southern sector.
WARNINGS & NOTES: borderline triggery violence...? the participating B52 crew hears this go down!
The pursuit is breathless: hurried steps banging up the stairwell, not a second wasted to fire (bullets ricochet, unsafe, not unless the target is clear — he isn't, not with a flight and a half of distance between), and light explodes into the stairwell, blinding. Door to the roof. Nowhere to go but down. The odds of no shots being fired in desperation are slim; Castor's willing to take that chance, regardless. His hand curls tight around the grip; the other yanks at the handle, readying for the flash of sunlight and the opportunity to fire as necessary. The boot that meets with his chest throws him — literally. Beneath, the landing disappears, and he hits stair, railing, back slamming into the wall down below as both gun and earpiece clatter to the floor. The heavy shock is immediate, pain forgotten. He heaves, vision and concentration compromised, dazedly slaps a hand toward his gun, points up (bones and muscles protesting). "Now, isn't this interesting?" the gravelly voice at the top of the stairwell announces — new, not his target's, soul-achingly familiar. No, not familiar. Like a memory surfacing after years of burial, a hand coming up through the soil to freedom. Coiling, twisting up through his ribcage like a snake. And Castor doesn't need to see past the shadow to recognize the outline of his father's face, fifteen years older than he remembers. And his breath Samuel Drake smiles crookedly where he stands with hands tucked into tailored pockets, swathed almost entirely in shades of grey, his thinning blonde hair and beard grizzled with gray. There's a certain sharpness to his features now that isn't entirely credited to litheness: it's unkind and hardened. He takes the first step down, the light behind moving with him — Castor sees his target leaning against the door, doesn't care, doesn't notice with this blinding change of priorities — and the world around shudders before standing impossibly still. "Look at you, all grown up. The prodigal son. My firstborn," he begins conversationally, as if it hasn't been fifteen years, as if all of that baggage has been discarded, as if this prodigal son hadn't been the one to upheave everyone's life in the name of justice. To serve and protect where his father would not. "Little tall for a ghost, aren't you, Mark?" (And suddenly, he's not Castor Vance anymore: he's Markus Drake, fourteen and angry and desperately done with the person in front of him who let him down time and time again. Markus who once looked for approval from this man; Markus who had reveled in the feeling of his father's hand on his head, sturdy and assuring.) It takes all that's in Castor's power not to drop the gun in his lap, his body slowly, gradually shutting down. He forgets how to breathe, how to school his expression, how to defend himself against the man approaching him step by echoing step, all of his RAC training erased. His father could kill him. His father could leave him discarded in the stairwell, and he wouldn't be able to do anything to stop that but stare, hold up that weapon as if it could protect him. His finger doesn't fall on the trigger (even though he wishes with all of his strength that it will). Four stair steps away, his shadowed father pauses. Considers. "You know," casually, again, as he continues the descent, "you should say hello to your mother more often." The hold tightens, futilely — (Don't, stop) — "She's looking a little worse for wear these days, but you know that." Baiting words, intending to sting. Panic and nauseating fear slams into him, unforgiving, as the unmistakable whip of helicopter propellers approaches outside. Faint, but coming fast. "Sam, c'mon," the man at the door hisses, obviously hurried. "We know where he is; we'll find him again." Or, We've been watching you. (In his mind, interpreted as: Headquarters. The laugh that follows resounds, haunting. He doesn't pause on the ascent. "We'll see each other soon, kiddo. Sooner than you think." And at the door, said, none too quietly, "Give my son a souvenir, will you? Keep it clean." And with a look back: "He won't pull the trigger." Castor is met with the end of a gun barrel. Oh. The discharged bullet rips into his shoulder, not half an inch below his collarbone, and he doesn't register the pain as it ripples. Doesn't take notice of it never reaching the other side, of how it sits inside of him. How so strategically placed it is so as not to kill, only maim. Only cripple. Watches, helplessly, as his father disappears into the sunlight, the door heaving shut behind the two figures. Listens, numbly, to the chopper's loud blades. Waits for the blood to seep a little more, to find a sliver of passing clarity in that shock and grasp tight onto it — to move (with a crunch of his earpiece under a boot, forgotten). His knees buckle; his sight hasn't yet cleared. He moves. Against his better judgement he moves, through every jagged scream his muscles make, his cold and indifferent justice sticking in his throat, he moves with the intention to kill. (Not again. The door is swung open and he raises his arms; he sets his finger on the trigger and pulls. Again. And again. And again. The chopper has already pulled too far away, but two bullets connect and pierce through metal, and that is victory, for a moment. Again. Again. Desperately, determinedly, Castor bullies the trigger until his clip empties and then beyond that to hear it clickclickclickclick repeatedly, left to the image of the chopper coasting off into the grey sky beyond reach. He tries for breath. He tries for clarity, reason. Nothing comes — it won't come. First to hit the ground is his handgun. Next his knees, palms scraping on the gravel, sticky blood spat slow. And soon his back, that hot blood swiveling to pool below his Adam's apple. Alone on the roof with nothing but bullet casings, he watches the clouds pass by. |