Rappaccini's Daughter: Very Small Things

[x-courier.livejournal.com]

Jake wakes up in excruciating pain, and realizes that awful things are being done to his stolen arm. He finally does something right and goes to Remy.



"FUCK!"

Jake was screaming before he was awake, drenched in the cold sweat that usually accompanied this nightmare. He'd been strapped down to a table, there had been a buzzsaw, and a stunning amount of pain radiating through his hand. Which, unlike the rest of the dream, wasn't going away as reality reasserted itself and the nightmare faded away.

He was up and out of bed almost immediately, running before he even knew what he was running from, stumbling out into the hallway without bothering to put on shoes or shirt. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck," he repeated, a word for each stair as he climbed to the third floor. He careened into a wall and came to a crashing halt, banging on the door in front of him before doubling over in pain.

It hadn't yet occurred to him that maybe pounding on the door of a known assassin in the middle of the night was an exceedingly bad idea.

"Dis had better be good." LeBeau muttered, getting up from his chair. Remy didn't sleep much. The chemical cocktail that the LOST BOYS program instilled in his blood tended to scrub away the toxic elements of fatigue, so the assassin only needed a couple of hours a night to feel fine. He was surrounded by paperwork, reading quickly and adding notes to some maps and overhead imagery he was working with for some element or another.

"What?" He opened the door, seeing Jake there in his sleep pants, shaking like a leaf in the wind. Gavin was never particularly tanned in his normal form, but now he was almost sheet white and trembling. "Jake?"

Jake tried to stand up straight as the door opened, but was instead hit with another wave of white-hot pain from his missing hand. He sucked in a sharp breath, doubling over again as his remaining hand flailed blindly for the arm that wasn't there, his fingers finally wrapping tightly around his empty shoulder.

"They're--doing--something," he forced out between gritted teeth, glancing up to give Remy a frightened look before he squeezed his eyes shut against the pain.

Remy grabbed the man by his good shoulder, and pulled him inside. He forced him down on the couch as Remy leaned over to his sideboard, and pulled out an extra glass. Jake might need real painkillers, but Remy couldn't see any damage and it was easier to try and settle him down. He poured a measure from the bottle of bourbon into each glass, and passed it over to Jake.

"Drink." He said, more like an order than a request. If there was one thing that booze was good for, it was settling people past shock.

Jake let go long enough to knock back the whiskey, then pushed the glass back towards Remy for more. He clutched his shoulder again, fingers kneading the skin compulsively even though it wasn't really helping anything. The pain was radiating up his phantom arm from his fingers, as though the fingers had been set on fire. He hadn't felt pain like this since his arm was taken, and even then he'd been able to clamp down on the pain long enough to heal the wound. This time, there wasn't anything he could heal. He doubled over again, nose almost to his knees, trying not to panic any more than he already was.

Remy refilled the glass, watching Jake's reactions carefully. The pain reactions weren't those of any kind of poisoning, or of a psychic attack. Obviously something to do with his powers, although he couldn't even guess what it might be.

Remy wasn't going to try and soothe the man. There was something that needed to be figured out before pretending to know what to say or do.

Jake straightened to take the glass, drinking the bourbon quickly, then bent over again. "They've been--doing things, for a couple of weeks," he gasped, forcing the words out between gritted teeth. "Annoying things, twitchy things, like--manipulation, electrocution." He pushed the glass back in Remy's direction again. "And I can--feel it."

"And dis is de first time you mention it?" Remy said, resisting the urge to smack the man. He was taking time to realise that an attack on him was possibly an attack on all of them, and the only way to be safe was to communicate anything that might be a danger.

"What was I--supposed to say?" he answered pathetically. "The crazy fucks who," he winced suddenly, "stole my arm, didn't just put it in a box?" Jake shrugged with his good shoulder. "This is the worst it's be--oh my god how do you people deal with this?" he cried out as a fresh wave of pain hit him.

Remy smacked him, hard. "Focus! Dammit, Jake, we need to figure out what de fuck dey are doing wit' it. Concentrate on de pain. Don't try to block it out. Focus on it and tell me what dey're doing."

Jake yelped and flinched away from the strike. He shot Remy a wounded look, although truth be told, the surprise and the pain from being hit actually distracted him from his arm long enough so that he could take a deep breath. He closed his eyes.

"It's the fingers," he said miserably. He shuddered as a peculiar sense of vertigo hit him, one he recognized. "I think they cut some of them off." He swallowed thickly. Dealing with a separated arm had given him enough of a headache; dealing with more parts separated from his arm was going to make him crazy. "Index. Ring. Maybe--" The fingers of his right hand twitched once, then stilled. "I think--that's it."

He took a deep, shuddery breath. "I need another drink."

Remy refilled his glass, topping it up highly while he considered the situation. Obviously, whomever took Jake's arm was now starting to carve it up, preparing to use it for something. Moira had offered a number of suggestions, and Remy considered sending something along to McCoy in Edinburgh, to cover his bases.

At least they had a name; New Son. It wouldn't be happening in a basement somewhere. Company labs or a hospital facility they had control of. "Drink up, and den stop by 'manda's when you done. She's got some tricks dat'll help you sleep wit'out knocking you out for a day or so. I need to make some phone calls."



Jake takes Remy's suggestion and goes to see Amanda.



The whiskey Remy'd poured into him was starting to kick in. It occurred to Jake as he stumbled down the hall that perhaps he'd been so preoccupied with the pain in his phantom hand that he hadn't managed to filter out any of the alcohol as it hit his system. Not that he was complaining, really, although it made navigation slightly more difficult.

The pain had subsided somewhat--he no longer felt that his arm was on fire. Instead it simply felt like a Rottweiler was gnawing on his hand. He let go of his empty shoulder long enough to knock on Amanda's door somewhat less frantically than he'd pounded on Remy's.

There was a delay, but not as long as he might have expected in the wee small hours, before the door opened and a bleary, sleep-tousled witch appeared at the door. She snapped fully awake, however, at the sight of Jake. Sans arm. Raising her eyebrows, she opened the door wider to let him in, waiting until he had done so before speaking. "What do you need?" No need to ask if he was all right - she could see he wasn't.

He made it to her couch and flopped down, curling up in one corner. "Remy said you might have something to help me sleep?" It came out sounding only slightly more pathetic than he'd hoped.

"Of course." She didn't remark on his distress just yet, simply grabbing the blanket draped over the back of the chair and draping it around him. "Chemical or natural? I don't do the potions any more, but Homily gave me some of her teas to bring back. Or I've got some sleeping pills - Sof got them for me 'cause I have trouble sleeping sometimes." Her voice had dropped into the soothing tone she'd often used for Manuel or Meggan when they were upset, calm and practical, but soft.

He shivered slightly--he hadn't realized he was cold until he had the blanket. "I don't know," he admitted. He pulled the blanket more tightly around himself, drawing his knees up to his chest. "Something that won't mess me up too badly tomorrow, I think. Although I don't know what I can make work. Do you have any painkillers?" Maybe he could make his brain ignore the pain, if he couldn't shut the nerves down.

Given the smell of whiskey as she bent over him to tuck the blanket in a little, she decided to try and avoid killing him with a drug cocktail. "Painkillers and a sleepy tea," she promised, laying her hand briefly against his cheek before heading to the kitchen to turn the kettle on. "Homily even has one that doesn't taste like something that died in the bottom of a fishpond." There was a bottle of prescription painkillers on the top of her fridge, leftover from her adventures in concussion in Poland, and she grabbed that and a glass of water, bringing them back to Jake. "Here," she offered, setting the glass on the table as she undid the childproof cap. "Take a couple of these, they should get through your metabolism, at least for a bit."

He tossed the pills back and followed with water, then looked up at her sheepishly. "I told Remy," he said quietly, as if there had been any question as to whether or not he would have mentioned his fingers being cut off.

"Good. He'll know what to do." Amanda's faith in Remy's abilities was unquestioning. She sat next to him on the couch, reaching for his hand with her own, her fingers warm and strong. "You want to crash here tonight? I make a good pillow, I'm told."

He flinched when her hand touched his, but then relented, allowing her to weave their fingers together. "I wouldn't want to make your boyfriend jealous," he said, trying to smile, but it came out as something of a wince instead.

She nodded at the flinch, but didn't let go. "Bah, Ange knows all about our torrid love affair," she replied in kind, allowing him the joke. "He won't mind. I promise not to go teleporting anywhere in the middle of the night?" A slight squeeze of his fingers. "Besides, sometimes it's best not to be alone, y'know?"

He squeezed back. "Yeah. I just...got good at it. Old habits, right?" He smirked tiredly. "And I'm pretty sure my sister would've told me to quit my whinging and get over it. Not exactly helpful."

"You're in pain, Jake. That's worth a bit of 'whinging'." The kettled started boiling and she leaned in to kiss his cheek briefly. "I'll go make that tea for you. It'll knock you out a good while and then in the morning we can work on finding these fuckers and making them pay for screwing with you, all right?"

Jake gave her a small, exhausted smile. "Sounds like a plan." The whiskey had definitely kicked in, he realized. Either that or the adrenaline was wearing off, or both. His arm had settled into a loud but steady throb.

When she returned, he took the tea she offered carefully, doing his best not to spill it. He took a tentative sip, then made a face. "Still tastes like pondwater." Still, he drank it down dutifully, then rested his head on Amanda's shoulder, trying to ignore all of the creeping fears that were threatening to overwhelm him.