come_sailaway | [Closed] I see an angel, I see the devil

Entry tags:

[Closed] I see an angel, I see the devil

Who: Crichton, Wayne, Valdis, Cassandra
What: Time to give Harvey the old exorcism (take two)
When: during the excursion, ship-side
Where: Starting in Sand Dollars ending... wherever it ends
Warnings: Violence, forced capture/binding, mind control, general disturbing imagery, and profanity

Wayne and Valdis have come up with a plan to try and take care of this Harvey problem once and for all. Will it work?

---

The text from Wayne seems innocent enough. They've done coffee dates plenty of times before, so Crichton has no reason to suspect anything is amiss. Wayne probably just wants to make sure he's doing alright while half the ship is off on a suicide mission. He shoots back a quick message to say he's on his way up to the cafe, and off he trots. Thankfully, for everyone involved, today is one of those days where he's opted to leave his pulse pistol at home; sometimes, in his more sober moments, he still has trouble looking at it, though he still wears the holster out of habit.

He arrives at the cafe and looks around. "Wayne? You here yet?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

And that was precisely why Wayne hit him up for coffee. It's something they do often, Crichton has no reason to expect that something is going to happen to him outside of the normal ship-borne chaos. It'll give him a good starting point to see where his friend's head is at before he goes ahead with the plan.

When Crichton arrives at the coffee shop for the usual hangout, Wayne is perched on the end of one of the tables with a cup of coffee already in hand and a weird new set of gloves that match the color scheme of the pattern of the shirt he's wearing over his rashguard.

"Hey," he calls with an even smile, and puts down the phone that he'd just sent off a hes here to Valdis from. "How's kicks?" he asks, waiting for Crichton to start answering before putting his fingers up, and twisting them in a Gesture that conjures half a dozen Hypno-sigils, accompanied by a gentle guitar pluck. With Crichton paying attention, it would mean getting hit with the full brunt. At least Wayne would be right there to catch him in the event that he dropped like a sack of potatoes.

"Sorry, Commander...I'll make it up to you later, I promise."

The text comes through and Valdis heads that direction, stepping into a shadow to preserve soul energy. She hopes this works, that Crichton still wants help, that he will be able to help her. A chilled breath of darkness bushes her skin as she pictures the café and soon the warm scent of coffee hits her as she steps out of a shadow in the corner, just in time to see Wayne use his powers to try to put Crichton to sleep.

"Hey." He turns and smiles at his friend, hallway through lifting his arm to wave back. "Oh, you know, it's goin--" An overwhelming sleepiness hits him like he just got stuck with a tranq dart. Confusion flashes in his expression for a millisecond, and then his eyes roll back in his head and his knees fold under. He's going down exactly like a sack of potatoes.

Wayne catches him, but it's a near thing, and he hauls Crichton up with a grunt of effort. He looks around to see if anyone else witnessed that, hoping that it wouldn't be anyone that would think that he's done something terrible to the man. When he catches sight of Valdis, he nods her over. This needed to happen quickly if it was to happen at all.

"As far as I can tell we have like fifteen minutes tops," he says quietly, adjusting his arms around Crichton's middle to keep him up off the floor. He could probably carry the man on his back, but there wasn't really time to finagle that just now.

He goes down fast and she's over just as quickly. Fifteen minutes is not much time, they may have to do this here. Crichton is around six inches taller than her, but that's nothing, it just makes it awkward.

"I can carry him."

She scoops up his legs and takes his full weight into her arms. Crichton is lucky he's asleep or he'd probably be pretty embarrassed. He's not hard to carry, but his deadweight is going to be hard to balance, even with her strength and agility.

"Or...how far are we going?"

Fifteen minutes. Maybe they should just do it here.

Crichton is heavy, but between the two of them, they would be able to move him somewhere out of sight of anyone that might intervene. He thinks, at least. They don't have a lot of options when they're on a time limit.

"If I have to I can put him back out, but my reserves are gonna be low if I have to do it multiple times. I have juice but it's not bottomless."

Wayne is careful to keep his arms secure around Crichton's upper body to keep him off the ground and, between the two of them, they can at least beat a path toward the cabins. None of theirs are only occupied by themselves though, so it's not the most ideal option.

"Cabins are out, maybe the spa? That's a trip though and I don't wanna have to try and put him back out before we get there. Buffet's got more open space and easy access to fuel."

Doing it here would probably suck immensely, but their options truly are limited.

The thing about wearing boots designed for a rogue, especially if you tend to naturally walk like a rogue, is that your footfalls are very close to silent.

Which means that Wayne and Valdis don't have much warning on rounding the corner before they nearly collide with --

"Oh, I beg your -- pardon ..."

-- Cassandra, who is now staring at them in deep misgiving.

"What's happened?"

So distracted by Wayne trying to help her carry Crichton and how incredibly awkward the whole thing is, Valdis doesn't notice Cassandra until right before she appears. She almost drops Crichton's legs when they almost bump into her. This looks bad, but...it's not like she has a bad reputation.

"Harvey."

Hopefully the one word will be enough and Cassandra actually knows what they are talking about.

While Valdis nearly drops Crichton, Wayne's hold on the man tightens, immediately looking like he's been caught shoplifting. He's never met Cassandra before, so he doesn't know exactly how to explain, until Valdis speaks up.

Cassandra knows about Harvey? At least enough that just the name is all that's necessary?

"We're trying to fix this," he adds lamely.

It's enough, to judge by the way her eyes widen and sharpen. And by the way she hisses a single expletive, low and precise: "Shit."

A beat, as she takes in Wayne's addition, and then nods to him sharply. "Good. Can I help? Is there anything --?"

Valdis looks between Wayne and Cassandra. It seems like they haven't met, but now is not the time for introductions.

"We have limited time before this spell wears off. We need a safe and secure place so I can....try to separate Harvey from Crichton."

She's not sure if Harvey will be dangerous or not, he hasn't made any friends, but he hasn't been violent. Crichton seems to think he is capable of it though.

"It might not be pretty."

He nods back at Cassandra. "I can re-do it but that requires having my hands free. Doing this somewhere safe and quiet where he can't potentially wake up with Harvey up front and out for blood is what I wanna aim for. I know I'm asking a lot but if you can help or like, find us a place for this that we can get to fast, it's a good start."

He could explain more if she asked later, but right now, the clock is ticking.

"Cabins," she says, "or the brig, would be my first recommendations for someplace secure. I can restrain him, if he wakes and is hostile. Or ... in advance of his waking, if you think that would be advisable."

"If we can get Crichton that would be ideal."

There's no time for sentiment.

"The brig won't work. I need to be able to touch him if I want to detangle Harvey from Crichton's soul."

She wants to talk to him, wants to get his consent, but instinct tells her she needs to be ruthless and cold, because she is dealing with someone ruthless and cold. She needs to pick up the pieces of her old life and merge them with her new one.

"Cabins are fine, but we need access to one where we will not be disturbed."

"The guy mimics Crichton but if you guys are better at telling the difference before he drops the act that'd be ideal." He's still kicking himself for not immediately catching on the last time he'd met Harvey "in person", so to speak.

He's right there with Valdis, he really wishes they could have just talked this through with Crichton, and in all honesty he had tried at one point, only giving enough information that he couldn't be countered when the time came since Harvey couldn't scrape it off of Crichton's brain to use to his own advantage. He feels terrible to have lured his friend here under the guise of a normal outing. When this is done, if things don't go horribly, he'd have to try and make it up to him. If he hasn't destroyed Crichton's trust completely.

"I could probably tell Bastion that they need to leave the cabin so we can use mine," he offers. It's the least that he can do, considering that he's the one that hatched this to begin with. "They're really nice and don't ask a lot of questions, so I think as long as nothing gets badly damaged it should be safe enough. And it's familiar so if he wakes up he's somewhere he recognizes."

Cassandra nods briskly. "Let's try there, then. If he wakes and pretends to be Crichton ... then let's address him as though we believe it, but we're going to keep him immobilized for his own safety."

She glances from Wayne to Valdis, to see if they object to that tactic.

"Both of those ideas work for me."

The clock is ticking though. They will have to hurry.

"It might be easier if I carry him alone. We can move faster if we aren't tripping over each other."

Wayne nods and hikes Crichton's unconscious body up a little bit higher, then nods over to one of the tables to briefly put Crichton down, and let Valdis take him for herself. He instead leads the way toward the elevator that would get them back up to the cabins. As long as they weren't stopped along the way to have to explain to anyone else, it shouldn't take too long, but they would still have so little time left to actually bind him so that he didn't potentially hurt himself or one of them.

After a message is shot off to Bastion so that they know that he would be needing the cabin to himself for a bit very soon, he stands back, first giving Valdis space in the elevator, then leading the way toward cabin 144 to hold open the door and let the rest of them through. In the interim, he puts a hand up, a graphically crunched juice box first appearing, then scrunching down and disappearing. He wants to be ready for whatever comes next.

It's fairly bright in the cabin hen they arrive, the window shades open to let the sunlight in, and the main bed is neatly made, looking as if nobody ever slept in it, while the pull-out from the couch is unmade, with a stack of books in one corner and, on many flat surfaces, there's a wide assortment of cat-shaped tchochkes, gathered around one stocky little yellow clay figurine that looks more like Wayne himself, if he were re-imagined as a cat. A trio of them sit on the bedside table, a little astronaut, an elegant figure in crystal, and a little spooked fella looking as if they'd been deliberately placed there.

"Here, careful..." He has his hands out to help get Crichton arranged there on the couch bed, fretting a bit but knowing he should probably stay back.

Cassandra is thoroughly prepared to take the lead in explaining, but they don't run into anyone. Just as well.

The appearance and crunching down of the juice box startles her a little, but it also seems to have so little to do with what's going on that she can wait and ask about it later. Likewise the many, many cat figures, though she can't help admiring the little crystal one.

"Pardon me," she says to the yellow man in an undertone, as Valdis lays Crichton down on the couch, "I don't think we've met properly. I'm Cassandra."

Valdis quietly and awkwardly carries the much taller man through the halls and into Wayne's room. Thank goodness they don't run into anyone else, because she's not stopping to explain while also balancing her friend's deadweight. Though she is unsettled by the juicebox's appearance and subsequent disappearance, she's too busy counting in her head how much time they have left.

It's only about three or four minutes.

Valdis carefully sets Crichton down on the sofa with Wayne's help.

"I'm sorry, we don't have a whole lot of time for introductions."

She can sense something stirring, but Crichton seems very much still asleep at this moment.

He's still boneless as Valdis lays him down but, as they look, his face will twitch and a soft groan rumbles in the back of his throat. He is, in fact, getting closer to waking.

When Cassandra approaches him, he looks appropriately sheepish, his arms falling to his side with his fingers lightly fidgeting with the bottom hem of his shirt.

"Wayne," he replies quietly, glancing from Cassandra and the groaning Crichton back to her. From up close he looks tired, a little dull, but he's trying to be polite. "Sorry, this is probably the lamest way to meet someone around here."

Wayne takes a seat beside where Crichton is settled, his thumbs rubbing across his forefingers as he prepares to put the man back under if it looks like he's about to retaliate for being essentially kidnapped. He hates this...

"I've had worse," she answers quietly, rueful and only a touch dry.

Her hand goes to her belt as Crichton stirs, her eyes fixed on him.

Definitely not the worst first impression Cassandra has likely experienced. But when Crichton groans, all her attention is immediately on him, wondering which of the two entities will wake up.

"Crichton?"

His eyes scrunch together, and more indistinct sounds grumble in his throat. Then his foot twitches. Next, a hand. Unconsciously, it's like he's struggling his way up to the surface of a cold lake with sandbags tied to his ankles. By the time he breaks his way into consciousness, he feels winded.

Eyes open, he turns his head in groggy surprise to see he's in Wayne's room, surrounded by his friends. "What...happened?"

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject