LOG | DAY 003 - 006

[lonelynotforsaken]

WHO: Martin Blackwood, Jet Link, Kokichi Ouma, and Lalo Salamanca
WHAT: Jet arrives to save Kokichi from a drone and discovered a severely dehydrated Martin and unconscious teen. Later, Lalo arrives with a cooler of water and food.
WHEN: Day 003-006
WHERE: VII.C.25 and the surrounding areas
WARNINGS: extreme physical distress, unsanitary conditions, potential character death
NOTES: None

Based on the search by Jet on Day 003 and everyone's later searches on Day 004-006.

Comments

Morning 003

[lonelynotforsaken]

The door opens again. The drone is carrying... something. It's so hard to focus, but Martin thinks it might be a body. Jon? Is it Jon?

He tries to say something, but his throat is so dry. He manages a croak of sorts, but the drone tosses whoever it is into another cell, and Martin can't physically summon the ability to focus well enough to understand how to respond to that. He passes out again.

Another sound catches his attention at some point after that. It's not one of the drones, but the sound of... footsteps? Ones that have a limp to them. His voice is little more than a whisper when he speaks. "Water...?" He should be more polite, greet them, do more than lay here like a useless lump and beg, but his mind is consumed by that one thought.

[metalicarus]

The rasp of a voice could almost be written off as a figment of his tired mind, but it sounds like it comes from one of the bodies in the cells and it has Jet pausing in the middle of the room. Every part of him is tense and ready to react the second these drones so much as stir, but if they were sensitive to sound, he'd already have been found out.

"Hey." His voice isn't unkind, just a little terse. "Just a second, gonna see if these doors open." He turns to the computer nearby, it's screen only reading out Password on the screen. Well...fuck. What he wouldn't give for Francoise and her ability to decrypt and hack anything.

Jet spares a second to look around the station for some sort of cable and, finding one, spares another to plug it into the port hidden just under his hairline. There's no dizzying rush of information, no readout behind his eyes or even the worst case of a virus taking advantage and feeding through to him. At least not more than the one that might be corrupting his systems. It's a relief as much as it's entirely, frustratingly, disappointing.

With a muttered curse, Jet pulls the plug, wraps it, and stuffs it into his jacket pocket with the bone he'd found the other day before moving to the cell.

"Hey, man...can you move a bit closer for me? These bars are tight, I'll only be able to reach so far." And how was he going to get this water to him when his receptacles were bigger than his own hands? Drip-feed, maybe. "What's your name?" He's pretty sure he heard it, but it's a good way to get him to focus for now.

[lonelynotforsaken]

Martin's brough the mattress to the bars, at least. He tries to shift closer to the stranger, pressing his face into the bars. They feel cooler, at least. His breathing is harsh and quick and his features are flushed like he's been running. No sweat adorns his brow, and he's stripped down to nothing but his boxes and an undershirt. His glasses are lying on the mattress near his head, and Jet will be able to see one of Martin's hands is wrapped in a flannel shirt. He's clutching a rusty metal shiv and the small pile of rusty flecks near his hand point to a final escape attempt. Just outside the bars are an antique knife and a lockpick, things he's managed to push through.

"Martin. Please."

[metalicarus]

Jet's eyes dart from items to man and the lack of sweat on his brow mixed with the apparent feverishness. Not for the first time in the last two days, he wishes the read-outs at the corners of his vision showed anything but empty information. A proper diagnosis of everything wrong would be way more helpful, instead all he's got is military training 101.

"Alright, Martin. You're gonna be fine. Here, it's the best we've got right now." Jet fishes out what water he's got and dips his curled fingers in to bring them through the bars, his knuckles catching in the space between them, but it was enough, he presses them to Martin's lips to get the water into his mouth. It wasn't much more than a wash of liquid, but he repeated the movement until it was at least a swallow. Inelegant, but effective enough to keep at it, talking as he does. "My name's Jet. I know you're thirsty, but we gotta take it slow or you'll get sicker and I'm gonna need your help getting you out of here."

[lonelynotforsaken]

Martin catches maybe half of the other man's words in the haze, but what he does understand is moisture. He might look back on this with shame, at just how undignified it is to suck on a complete stranger's fingers like they've been covered in the ambrosia of the gods, but here he is. He makes a helpless sound when the fingers disappear and don't come back again with more water, clawing weakly at the bars. It's the first time he's found it in himself to really move in a while, though. To have any semblance of something like hope.

"Drones," he finally says in a cracked voice when he manages to pull himself out of his own head. "Break them." Because he suspects his rescuer is going to become a fellow prisoner very quickly, otherwise.

Night 003

[trialbyliar]

Kokichi wakes up feeling less than great. The grogginess of whatever he'd been drugged with lingers. Everything is sore, whether from being grabbed and tossed around by the drone or from his initial "fall" from the tree. He remembers a spark of pain when he'd landed, despite his best efforts to drop safely, and an attempt to wiggle his feet confirms that the left one is definitely a little sprained.

He's pretty sure he was dreaming while he was out too, and that's never fun. The memory of a slab of metal hanging over him, the sickening anticipation of waiting for it to lower...

But he's not dead. That's something, at least.

Sluggishly, he lifts his head to look around. An unfamiliar building, cell doors with metal bars, but he's not locked up. There's silver lining number two. And distantly, through the haze of drugs still wearing off, he can hear voices. Jet and Martin. Hey, look at that, his gamble apparently paid off and the guy's not dead. Hurray. Kokichi gives himself an internal pat on the back still laying on the floor, because that's about as much as he can manage right now. But hey, he's not alone, so he pushes through the dredges of the anesthetic and speaks up to announce his waking.

"Ow."

[metalicarus]

The water he had is all but gone and Ben's supposed to be on his way with more...leaving them with little else to do but wait. Outside the cells, mind, just in case the doors came down again. It had taken a bit to clear out a corner and move the mattress out Martin had been using so rest on, then help the guy himself over there too, but it was better than ending up trapped again.

The voice from the other cell pulls Jet up short from whatever he'd been saying and he starts the slow process of getting back on his feet. He's sore, what real muscles exist in his body aching from the electricity, but it's the knee and the sway in his vision that makes the going rough.

"You alright, kid?"

[trialbyliar]

Kokichi's eyes flick over to his company, quickly taking in the details. Jet doesn't seem to be in the best shape, but he's functional at least. Kokichi wonders how far it'd been from where he got nabbed to the cell, how long Jet had had to chase after it.

Points in the guy's favor, though. Kokichi trusts no one blindly, but it seems unlikely that Jet would be involved with whoever's responsible for the drones if he went so far to rescue people from them. Their friend the cop is notably absent, too. All of it gets filed away to muse on more once his head feels less foggy.

Giving a hollow laugh, Kokichi pushes himself up into a sitting position on shaky arms.

"Oh, totally," he says, bright and dry. "I love getting drugged and kidnapped!"

[metalicarus]

He makes his way over, a little too proud to use the wall as a support when he doesn't have to, at least until he stops at the still-open door.

"Yeah? The cloud in your head's probably pretty bad, but the sorta metal-flavor in your mouth's probably best part, right?" He'd been drugged and kidnapped more than once in his life, it probably wasn't too different, right? "I'd offer you some water, but we're out. Ben's on his way to us with more." He steels himself and moves just inside the cell to hold a hand out for Kokichi to take. "Come on, sooner you're out of here, the better. No telling when these doors will close again."

[trialbyliar]

"Wow, you know a lot about drugs! That's toootally not suspicious at all!"

Despite that comment, though, Kokichi sounds as cheery as ever – a little tired, maybe, but injecting plenty of pep into his voice – and he doesn't hesitate to make use of that hand. He tries to disguise the state of his ankle for the time being, doing his best to hide the limp as he exits the cell. Last thing he needs is fussy adults making him take it easy while there's important shit here to investigate.

So he wanders straight over to the computer terminal, leaning heavily on the table for support. He fishes his walkie-talkie out and sets it down to let the messages he'd missed start to play.

"Hey, hey, did you manage to figure out this password?" he asks, poking at the screen.

[lonelynotforsaken]

It's a while later, after Kokichi's spoken with Jet, and the angries drone ever finally stops buzzing, that Martin will offer his own greeting to the boy. He's lying on the mattress Jet had dragged out of the cell and still incredibly feverish and unwell, but he wants to make some sort of effort.

Without his glasses on, he sees Kokichi's form as a small, dark-haired blur in the dimness. But that's fine. He doesn't need those right now. "You got caught?" His voice is raspy.

[trialbyliar]

Kokichi's sitting against a wall by this point, going through more of the messages he'd missed on the walkie-talkie while giving his ankle a rest for a bit. He glances over to the man as he's addressed. Martin looks rough, but at least he's alive. Thank fuck for that. None of this was in vain.

Not that Kokichi's looking for any appreciation. He's happy to let Jet take all the credit as the hero here.

"Nah, I totally wanted to get electrocuted and drugged!" He doesn't even bother with the peppy act just for one moment, affected sarcasm dripping from every word as he rolls his eyes. "Obviously I got caught."

[lonelynotforsaken]

Martin doesn't respond to the sarcasm. That's very easy to let roll off his shoulders when his boyfriend used to be the king of sneering remarks. It's especially easy right now when he can't summon the will to care. "How? I thought... people were hiding?" His ability to gauge time is also all over the map. "When did you get here? I... I saw it come in... sometime?"

[trialbyliar]

Kokichu sighs heavily, dropping his head back against the wall.

"We were hiding, buuut...whoops, I slipped! So the drone spotted me and I got snatched right up." He shrugs. "Dunno how long I was out, though. You'll have to ask Mr. Jet about that."

Morning 005 thru Morning 006

[salamanca]

MORNING 005
A) "Whooooo!"

Even sick, mildly injured and exhausted, Lalo is still Lalo, i.e. loud for no reason. His face is flushed and the bags under his eyes say he's exhausted, but he seems a lot more chipper than his state when Jet and Kokichi saw him last despite that. He reaches up a hand to wipe swear off of his brow exaggerated with the back of his hand as he comes through the door, dragging the cooler full of spring water behind him. The lid is on, but it's possible to hear the water sloshing inside.

That's not all, though! There's food too, resting gently atop of the cooler. Mostly, several bunches of grapes, but there's an assortment of other things too.

He'll start handing out fish jerky to anybody who wants one, and maybe even offering them to somebody who doesn't. "Eat up, boys. You need the protein."

B) A few hours later, Lalo is sitting at the computer, intently focused as he looks at the list of callsigns on his device and enters them, one by one, into the "password" screen. His energy is quieter, more subdued, compared to earlier when he first got in. He feels or maybe hears the approach, or maybe simply the stirring, or even just the gaze, of someone from somewhere near him and addresses them softly without looking up. "Hey," he says. "How you holdin' up?"

NIGHT 005
Well, this is a bust! Lalo explores the third and final cell, and as he does, he frowns with disappointment, mostly just to himself. "Hey," he tells out to whoever is closest. "C'mere. I need a second pair of eyes on this."

MORNING 006
Time to go! Lalo will pat the person he's talking to on both shoulders at the same time (if it's Martin or Jet) or ruffle their hair gently (if it's Kokichi). He looks slightly sad, but resolute.

"Hey. I should be going now. I can't be a burden on you all any longer. Thanks for taking me in."

Morning 005 B

[lonelynotforsaken]

Martin has been largely stationary and quiet apart from some harsh breathing since Lalo's arrival. Apart from lifting himself off his mattress to drink a few mouthfuls of water every quarter hour or so, he's just been half-conscious and horizontal. He's feeling less like he's at death's door, but it's still only a few steps away.

Still, he does come back enough to push himself to a sitting position and grab his glasses so that he can look around at what's been happening. He sees the man he vaguely clocked earlier. It's the man calling himself Ben. Right.

"I've had better weeks," Martin's voice is a rasp. "Thank you for the water. You're... Ben, right?"

[salamanca]

"Si," Lalo says gently. "I'm Ben." The sandpapery hoarseness of Martin's voice is enough to make even Lalo alnost wince from just the sound of it. Dios mio. The guy across sitting in the cell across from him, peering at him, sounds beyond just "rough".

Lalo studies Martin for a moment, then glances back at the computer, still flashing the word "Password" at him and nothing else. He's gone through the entire list of callsigns on his device, including his own, and nothing. He can't think of anything else. With a fluid, animated motion he pushes himself off up from the desk and goes over to Martin.

What would a genuinely nice person say in a situation like this?

Lalo leans into his feelings of awkwardness while he thinks. Fortunately, he doesn't have to think for long. "Nice to finally meet you in person. I wish it was under better circumstances." That part, at least, it is true! Lalo likes meeting new people, but this isn't anyone's idea of an ideal first meeting.

"Can I get you anything?"

[lonelynotforsaken]

'Water' is the thing that comes to mind, but he's not ready for that, yet. He does take another look around, though. "I should... probably eat something. If there's anything. Not-not much, please." He doesn't know how his body is going to take food at the moment, and he'd rather not start throwing up.

"S-sorry. You don't actually have to. I'll get up in a little bit." He'll at least attempt to crawl the short distance to the food at some point. "Just, um... dizzy. I'll get better. Thanks to you and the others. I-I don't know how to repay you."

[salamanca]

Martin is a pretty decently-sized guy, Lalo realizes, now that he's actually able to get a good look at him. It's kind of funny; Lalo had pictured him shorter and smaller, based only on his missives over the network, but in person, Lalo can't help thinking that Martin could really learn to kick some ass if he wanted to.

Not in his current condition, though. Lalo allows Martin to babble for a bit, before raising his hands up, as if shushing a child. "Ah, ah, ah. Please." He keeps smiling that same faint, gentle smile. "Stay where you are. Allow me. You can repay me by sitting still. We've got plenty of food." Plenty of grapes, anyway, but there are a few other things too. Lalo will grab a small handful of grapes and go to sit down beside Martin, to hand them over.

"Here. Try these. Eat slooooowly." He holds one finger up, gesturing, as if lecturing a child. "Tell you what, you keep those down, I'll let you try the fish jerky. I made it myself!" It's not malicious, though (this time). Lalo is just used to telling people what to do, and to the point it's second nature to him.

Of course, making any kind of conversation is also second nature to him, so he keeps going. "So, I gotta know! What do you think? Do I look like what you were expecting?"

Morning 006

[metalicarus]

Jet clasps Ben's arm back, but lets go again after a beat. There's a small smile to his expression despite the other man's words, something grateful.

"That kinda shit is what gets you killed. Just look out for yourself. Just cause one person says they came back doesn't mean it's a sure thing every time or in every circumstance. You've got a good head when you keep it."

[salamanca]

"Ah, stop it! You're gonna make me blush."

True to his words, when he draws his hands away from Jet's shoulders, he uses one to fan his slightly more pink-toned face. Having that kind of gratitude turned on him, absent of any fear or expectation, is rare, and although he feels no guilt for his deception, Lalo doesn't entirely know what to do with having that kind of thankfulness aimed even at his fake persona, or how to act in response to it.

He coughs. "I'll be as careful as I can. But I just... I can't trust myself not to put you all in danger. Not anymore. Not after what happened. With the kid, I..."

Lalo stops himself mid-sentence. His eyes dart briefly to Jet's injured knee, then back to Jet's face. "I could try to brace it up for you. If you want. Before I go." A shrug.

[metalicarus]

What he perceives as his own inability to handle a genuine compliment now mirrored in Ben doesn't even get a blink. He gets that.

What he wants to ask about and dig into a little more is that reaction of his. He and cops rarely got along, but that was some real green or fake-ass reaction and he still can't tell what...or why. The thought to chase that particular thread, though, vanishes a moment as Ben suggests to do something about Jet's knee. He takes a step back without thinking, gaze dropping as his expression immediately shutters to something more distant.

"Thanks, but I think the hemp's strong enough for now. I'll look for something better once we head out of here."

Jet gives a half shrug. "If you run across someone else out there who can keep up with you, might think about taking them along. I get the lone wolf deal better than you might think, but there's safety in numbers too."

Night 005

[trialbyliar]

Ben had probably meant for one of the adults to come over, given this crew's whole insistence on babying the sole kid. But the closest person is Kokichi, and he's the one that pops up at Ben's side, leaning around him to peer at...whatever it is.

"Hmmm? What's up?" His tone is lighthearted enough, but there's something just a little less genuinely cheery about it. Maybe he's just still tired and aching all over. Or maybe he's losing patience for Ben's good guy act and that patronizing edge is starting to slip in. Who knows?

cw: violent thoughts mention

[salamanca]

Hey, it's not like searching an empty cell is especially dangerous, and Lalo needs all the help he can get. "You see anything in here? Anything unusual?"

Lalo's gaze is intent as he glances all around the small room first before finally fixing his gaze on his pint-sized companion. He's noticed the shift in how Kokichi speaks to him, how it's different from the interactions with their other two cellmates. But it's hard to feel truly patronized by someone when you know you could snap their little chicken neck with one hand and leave them dead on the ground in the blink of an eye.

Not that he'd do such a thing! Anyway, he's got waaaay more pressing concerns. If Kokichi's demeanor has changed, Lalo's notably hasn't, not does it falter in the face of Kokichi's condescension. Lalo presses on cheerfully.

He's ransacked the entire barren cell as much as it's possible to ransack something that doesn't have much of anything in it to begin with. But he's cut open the mattress and taken the lid off the toilet tank and run his fingers in every crevice and all he's found to show for his efforts is a broken earring hook.

"I haven't found much, but hey! You're low to the ground! Maybe you'll spot something I can't."

The truth is, though, there doesn't seem to be much to spot!

"How's your ankle, by the way? Could see if I could make a splint for you..." It's a genuine offer! Neck-snapping assessments aside.

[trialbyliar]

"Ohh, I get it. Your old man knees can't handle getting down that low, huh?"

Kokichi flashes him a grin, innocent but with just a bit of a jab in it, but he ducks inside the cell to poke around, waving Ben off.

"But nah, I'm good! I'm totally indestructible, y'know! It'd take waaaay more than something like that to hurt me." Even as he says it, though, his foot catches on a stray rock and the brave face crumbles with a wince. "...Ok, that was a lie. Owie."