Alternate Universe - Yes (Part 1?)
Well, I couldn't really not write this after this post and the Simspiration I just did... Enjoy *innocent*
Also: Bad language. Because, you know, betrayal and potential death does that to you. And then there's just Seth. *sigh*
~~~~~~~~~~
Rodney climbed the numerous steps to the main building and auditorium at Simfield University, going over the speech in his head, while Seth followed casually, looking bored.
"I would have thought you'd enjoy being back on your old university campus," he stated.
Seth looked up and shrugged, "That was a long time ago. And it's not like we're here for fun."
"True. But then about half the population here is girls aged eighteen to twenty-two..." he pointed out with a raised eyebrow.
"Hm. So it is," Seth realised while his smile grew.
"Yeah, so you can stop complaining. No idea how you even graduated from the place. I assume you did?" Rodney asked, looking him up and down.
Seth narrowed his eyes at him but with a smirk, "I got a 4.0 actually. Summa cum Laude."
"Wow. They must have low standards. What subject?"
"Philosophy." His smile was gone.
Rodney laughed, "No wonder then."
Rodney knew Seth was probably glaring at the back of his head and he'd probably continue to be moody for a while, but it didn't matter - he knew today was a good day as he reached the top of the steps, bathed in warm sunlight on the beautiful sunny day.
And look what else there was! "Juan Harris," he smirked while the zombie glared at him.
"I'm not sticking around for long. I have better things to do than watch you show off," Juan responded flatly.
"Plenty of criminals to avoid stopping?" Seth asked him.
"Mmm," Juan confirmed, rolling his eyes.
"Anyway," Rodney interjected (it was weird when those two talked without arguing, what with how Seth had killed Juan and all...) "do what you want; you're basically superfluous anyway."
"What does that make him then?" Juan asked, nodding towards Seth.
Rodney looked Seth up and down again, while Seth raised an eyebrow at him. "An audience I suppose. And a potential bodyguard," he reasoned.
"You think he'd save your life when he's taken so many other people's?" Juan asked sceptically while Seth looked innocent.
"Seth can't let me die; I'm the only one who'll help him out. If I die, you'd at least put him in jail, wouldn't you?"
"That is probably the best place for him," Juan agreed. "But I doubt he'd take a bullet for you if it might kill him, so maybe you should get a better bodyguard."
"Nobody credibly wants me dead Harris, I'm not going to get paranoid about it just because you say so," Rodney smirked. Harris was so easy to deal with.
"Fine. I'm off then. I'd wish you good luck, but I really hope you fail in more ways than one," Juan said lazily as he walked away.
"What a nice man," Seth commented with a smirk.
"His bitterness makes me happy more than words can say," Rodney said with a contented sigh. "Anyway, let's go."
They found the person sent to greet him and followed the young and bright-smiling student to the backstage area of the auditorium, where she left them to wait with some refreshments. Rodney grabbed some coffee while Seth went to open and stand by a large window that looked out onto the greener areas of campus.
"This is a nice building," Rodney mused. "Note to self: don't increase the university budget."
"You have an interesting approach to politics," Seth noted.
"You have an interesting approach to the value of a human life," Rodney shrugged. "What does it matter?"
"Did you ever consider doing the job properly?" Seth continued.
"Did you ever consider not killing people? I suppose you'll tell me you don't do that anymore - well one day I might retire too, but nowhere near yet."
"Hm," was all Seth responded with, turning to look out the window.
Rodney didn't care if Seth was morally judging him - as if he could judge anyone - or sulking; he was still in a good mood and Seth always got over it eventually. He'd meet some attractive, starstruck, young girls and he'd be annoyingly chirpy once more. Heck, he could probably say that out loud.
"So what, you're sulking with me because of what I said before?"
Seth looked at him out of the corner of his eye over his shoulder and what looked like a smirk on his face, but he didn't say anything, just shook his head and looked out the window again. That was unusually non-confrontational. Suspiciously so, even.
Suddenly Seth's body language changed, "What's going on down there?" he asked, still looking out the window, but Rodney couldn't see what he was looking at from behind him and across the room.
He walked forward a bit and the next thing he knew something hit him in the chest. Something painful. Stuck on the spot, he put his hands up to the spot where it had hit and felt an increasing wet and warm patch through his jacket and shirt. Seth had fallen to his knees and Rodney could see a red patch spreading on his back. He'd been shot through Seth. They'd been shot. Shit.
Now on his knees too, he couldn't breathe properly - he didn't think the bullet had quite hit his heart, but it was very close and must have hit his left lung. And it really, really hurt. Oh god, he was going to die. He didn't want to die. Not now. He fell sideways. They had to do something. Seth had been shot too, but through his lower abdomen - he could still shout loud enough, surely.
"Seth. Seth," he gasped out.
Seth managed to push himself around to face him, where Rodney could see a huge dark patch on Seth's black shirt where he'd been bleeding from his left abdomen. But he was still more upright than Rodney was, not hurt as bad. The bullet was still inside Rodney's chest somewhere.
He had to hurry, he was losing his voice by seconds. "Seth, get help!"
Seth stared down at him blankly for a second before a dark smile spread across his face and he brought a gun with a silencer out from the floor behind him before chucking it out the window and into the man-made lake below. "You assume waaay too much, Jalowitz. I've taken your king; I was never retired, just dormant; and you don't own me."
Rodney wasn't sure if he was numb out of shock, anger, or his injuries, or all three, but he was. "You bastard. You f---ing bastard," he managed to choke out.
"Life's a bitch, now die," Seth laughed weakly, falling backwards slightly to lean against the side of the open window. "We're all better off without you anyway."
No. No f---ing way. I am not going to be killed by a traitorous f---ing Seth Jayapalan. It's not going to end this way. I am going to f---ing kill him. But the room seemed to be getting darker and his thoughts less clear. He struggled to keep his eyes open and focused, while Seth watched in curiosity while he stifled his own bleeding. Stay alive. You have to stay alive. You're going to make him pay. And the rest of them. There's bound to be a them, he won't be working alone... Just stay alive...
~~~~~~~~~~
Seth slowly regained consciousness, but his eyelids were too heavy to open yet. He could hear voices in the distance. Men and women. He couldn't hear what they were saying. His side and stomach hurt. Quite a lot actually. What could he remember...? A gun. Shot - he shot himself and Jalowitz. He noticed the feeling of something stuck in his arm - an IV. He was in hospital. Awesome.
He blinked his eyes open and slowly regained proper sight, only to be greeted by Juan Harris, his sister Sara, ex-wife Noelle and Jenna Lum. They didn't look happy.
"If you're here to arrest me, I'm going to be pissed," he croaked out before reaching for a glass of water on the bedside table. "How long have I been unconscious for?"
"A couple of days," Juan replied.
"So what's everyone so bothered about? Disappointed I've pulled through?" he joked.
"Yes," Noelle glared, "but no."
"Rodney's still alive," Juan stated.
Seth's jaw dropped slightly and he frowned, "Is he awake?"
"No, he's in a worse condition than you are," he explained. "Coma."
"Chances of recovery?" he asked hopefully.
"Apparently pretty good," Juan sighed.
"Damn."
"That needn't be too bad though," Jenna said cautiously. "Since you were shot through him, he might not know and-"
"He knows," Seth said grimly.
"How much does he know?" Juan said, unimpressed.
"He knows I did it, he knows it was fully intentional. Well, he does if he doesn't have brain damage or something. Probably not worth the risking it on the off-chance he might not remember," Seth mused.
"What are you going to do about it?" Sara asked, arms crossed.
"Me? I don't know if you've noticed, dear sister, but I have a bullet hole right through my abdomen," he tried to sit up properly to demonstrate and winced at the intense pain. "I don't believe you've ever been shot, but let me tell you: it's very painful. While I expect I probably could still take out a man in a coma, I'm not exactly capable of making a fast or inconspicuous escape afterwards."
"Well then you're screwed, aren't you?" Sara continued.
"Again: me? Yeah, I guess so, but just because he isn't certain that you guys are behind this too, it doesn't mean he's not going to come after you too. If he knows there are people out there willing to kill him, he's going to be a hell of a lot worse; whatever he's blackmailing or threatening you with, I wouldn't be surprised if it came out or happened. Someone has to kill him." Seth observed his bandages with interest, "Should I still be bleeding like this?"
Juan ignored the last question and turned to the women. "He can't be allowed to pass what he's been threatening me with. And I think he might if he recovers."
"We wouldn't have this problem if somebody had done it right in the first place," Noelle glared at Seth.
"Well I'm sorry, maybe if I'd trusted you lot to keep me out of jail, I might have been able to just go up to him and shoot him through the head at point-blank range. As it was, I had to cover my back by shooting myself in the front. And seriously, nobody going to get me a doctor for the bleeding?"
"So what do we do now?" Jenna asked.
"You. Kill. Him!" Seth enunciated exasperatedly.
"We didn't sign up for that," Juan said reluctantly on all of their behalves.
"Well tough shit," he laughed at them incredulously. "You've made a bad situation worse - just end the situation altogether!"
"How?" he asked uncomfortably. "The chances of anyone getting away with it..."
"Sara or Noelle - or both -"
"Why us?" Sara demanded.
"How old are you again?" Seth asked patronisingly. "Look at you both - how much longer do you expect to live? Harris is right - you may not get away with this, but, by the look of you two, you could be dead before you even get tried, never mind sent to jail. Harris could live forever as a zombie, and Lum hasn't even gone grey yet. Least waste of life." Sara and Noelle both frowned angrily at him, but didn't respond. "Plus there's the motive there; the ex-mayor and/or ex-head-of-police trying to kill the current mayor - possibly because you were forced out of office before you wanted to be because Jalowitz is a manipulative bastard, or because he's ruining your precious town, and there's plenty of statistics to back that up if you know where to find them. We can work off of that action, you just have to do it first."
Sara and Noelle looked at each other. "How?" Sara asked.
"Well I haven't seen the room he's in, but there's plenty of option. Is he on life support?"
"I think so," Juan answered.
"So you could mess with that, you could mess with giving him the wrong medication or anything like that. You could... set it up like the ceiling's caved in on top of him - though that would take time we might not have... Hell, you could just run in there screaming and stab him through the chest, the whole nine yards," he laughed slightly. "The important thing is that he dies. Do it."
"Murder someone..." Noelle muttered. "I have kids and grandchildren-"
"No, you have a kid, singular, and no grandkids at all - Karen and Laura aren't yours - plus they all have one murderer for a relative, why not add another? They'll deal," Seth smirked.
"I'm not certain they will," Noelle frowned.
"You're all complicit in attempted murder anyway-" Seth began.
"I'll do it," Sara sighed angrily. "If I'd known it was going to end with me in jail either way, I never would have given in in the first place."
"Sucks to be you," Seth smiled brightly.
"You'd better have my back on this, little brother," she glared.
Seth saluted her. "Respect!"
"Never send a man to do a woman's job..." she muttered as she left. Noelle, Juan and Jenna watched her leave anxiously.
"So, who fancies a game of Scrabble?" Seth asked happily. They turned as one to glare at him with disgust.
Also: Bad language. Because, you know, betrayal and potential death does that to you. And then there's just Seth. *sigh*
~~~~~~~~~~
Rodney climbed the numerous steps to the main building and auditorium at Simfield University, going over the speech in his head, while Seth followed casually, looking bored.
"I would have thought you'd enjoy being back on your old university campus," he stated.
Seth looked up and shrugged, "That was a long time ago. And it's not like we're here for fun."
"True. But then about half the population here is girls aged eighteen to twenty-two..." he pointed out with a raised eyebrow.
"Hm. So it is," Seth realised while his smile grew.
"Yeah, so you can stop complaining. No idea how you even graduated from the place. I assume you did?" Rodney asked, looking him up and down.
Seth narrowed his eyes at him but with a smirk, "I got a 4.0 actually. Summa cum Laude."
"Wow. They must have low standards. What subject?"
"Philosophy." His smile was gone.
Rodney laughed, "No wonder then."
Rodney knew Seth was probably glaring at the back of his head and he'd probably continue to be moody for a while, but it didn't matter - he knew today was a good day as he reached the top of the steps, bathed in warm sunlight on the beautiful sunny day.
And look what else there was! "Juan Harris," he smirked while the zombie glared at him.
"I'm not sticking around for long. I have better things to do than watch you show off," Juan responded flatly.
"Plenty of criminals to avoid stopping?" Seth asked him.
"Mmm," Juan confirmed, rolling his eyes.
"Anyway," Rodney interjected (it was weird when those two talked without arguing, what with how Seth had killed Juan and all...) "do what you want; you're basically superfluous anyway."
"What does that make him then?" Juan asked, nodding towards Seth.
Rodney looked Seth up and down again, while Seth raised an eyebrow at him. "An audience I suppose. And a potential bodyguard," he reasoned.
"You think he'd save your life when he's taken so many other people's?" Juan asked sceptically while Seth looked innocent.
"Seth can't let me die; I'm the only one who'll help him out. If I die, you'd at least put him in jail, wouldn't you?"
"That is probably the best place for him," Juan agreed. "But I doubt he'd take a bullet for you if it might kill him, so maybe you should get a better bodyguard."
"Nobody credibly wants me dead Harris, I'm not going to get paranoid about it just because you say so," Rodney smirked. Harris was so easy to deal with.
"Fine. I'm off then. I'd wish you good luck, but I really hope you fail in more ways than one," Juan said lazily as he walked away.
"What a nice man," Seth commented with a smirk.
"His bitterness makes me happy more than words can say," Rodney said with a contented sigh. "Anyway, let's go."
They found the person sent to greet him and followed the young and bright-smiling student to the backstage area of the auditorium, where she left them to wait with some refreshments. Rodney grabbed some coffee while Seth went to open and stand by a large window that looked out onto the greener areas of campus.
"This is a nice building," Rodney mused. "Note to self: don't increase the university budget."
"You have an interesting approach to politics," Seth noted.
"You have an interesting approach to the value of a human life," Rodney shrugged. "What does it matter?"
"Did you ever consider doing the job properly?" Seth continued.
"Did you ever consider not killing people? I suppose you'll tell me you don't do that anymore - well one day I might retire too, but nowhere near yet."
"Hm," was all Seth responded with, turning to look out the window.
Rodney didn't care if Seth was morally judging him - as if he could judge anyone - or sulking; he was still in a good mood and Seth always got over it eventually. He'd meet some attractive, starstruck, young girls and he'd be annoyingly chirpy once more. Heck, he could probably say that out loud.
"So what, you're sulking with me because of what I said before?"
Seth looked at him out of the corner of his eye over his shoulder and what looked like a smirk on his face, but he didn't say anything, just shook his head and looked out the window again. That was unusually non-confrontational. Suspiciously so, even.
Suddenly Seth's body language changed, "What's going on down there?" he asked, still looking out the window, but Rodney couldn't see what he was looking at from behind him and across the room.
He walked forward a bit and the next thing he knew something hit him in the chest. Something painful. Stuck on the spot, he put his hands up to the spot where it had hit and felt an increasing wet and warm patch through his jacket and shirt. Seth had fallen to his knees and Rodney could see a red patch spreading on his back. He'd been shot through Seth. They'd been shot. Shit.
Now on his knees too, he couldn't breathe properly - he didn't think the bullet had quite hit his heart, but it was very close and must have hit his left lung. And it really, really hurt. Oh god, he was going to die. He didn't want to die. Not now. He fell sideways. They had to do something. Seth had been shot too, but through his lower abdomen - he could still shout loud enough, surely.
"Seth. Seth," he gasped out.
Seth managed to push himself around to face him, where Rodney could see a huge dark patch on Seth's black shirt where he'd been bleeding from his left abdomen. But he was still more upright than Rodney was, not hurt as bad. The bullet was still inside Rodney's chest somewhere.
He had to hurry, he was losing his voice by seconds. "Seth, get help!"
Seth stared down at him blankly for a second before a dark smile spread across his face and he brought a gun with a silencer out from the floor behind him before chucking it out the window and into the man-made lake below. "You assume waaay too much, Jalowitz. I've taken your king; I was never retired, just dormant; and you don't own me."
Rodney wasn't sure if he was numb out of shock, anger, or his injuries, or all three, but he was. "You bastard. You f---ing bastard," he managed to choke out.
"Life's a bitch, now die," Seth laughed weakly, falling backwards slightly to lean against the side of the open window. "We're all better off without you anyway."
No. No f---ing way. I am not going to be killed by a traitorous f---ing Seth Jayapalan. It's not going to end this way. I am going to f---ing kill him. But the room seemed to be getting darker and his thoughts less clear. He struggled to keep his eyes open and focused, while Seth watched in curiosity while he stifled his own bleeding. Stay alive. You have to stay alive. You're going to make him pay. And the rest of them. There's bound to be a them, he won't be working alone... Just stay alive...
~~~~~~~~~~
Seth slowly regained consciousness, but his eyelids were too heavy to open yet. He could hear voices in the distance. Men and women. He couldn't hear what they were saying. His side and stomach hurt. Quite a lot actually. What could he remember...? A gun. Shot - he shot himself and Jalowitz. He noticed the feeling of something stuck in his arm - an IV. He was in hospital. Awesome.
He blinked his eyes open and slowly regained proper sight, only to be greeted by Juan Harris, his sister Sara, ex-wife Noelle and Jenna Lum. They didn't look happy.
"If you're here to arrest me, I'm going to be pissed," he croaked out before reaching for a glass of water on the bedside table. "How long have I been unconscious for?"
"A couple of days," Juan replied.
"So what's everyone so bothered about? Disappointed I've pulled through?" he joked.
"Yes," Noelle glared, "but no."
"Rodney's still alive," Juan stated.
Seth's jaw dropped slightly and he frowned, "Is he awake?"
"No, he's in a worse condition than you are," he explained. "Coma."
"Chances of recovery?" he asked hopefully.
"Apparently pretty good," Juan sighed.
"Damn."
"That needn't be too bad though," Jenna said cautiously. "Since you were shot through him, he might not know and-"
"He knows," Seth said grimly.
"How much does he know?" Juan said, unimpressed.
"He knows I did it, he knows it was fully intentional. Well, he does if he doesn't have brain damage or something. Probably not worth the risking it on the off-chance he might not remember," Seth mused.
"What are you going to do about it?" Sara asked, arms crossed.
"Me? I don't know if you've noticed, dear sister, but I have a bullet hole right through my abdomen," he tried to sit up properly to demonstrate and winced at the intense pain. "I don't believe you've ever been shot, but let me tell you: it's very painful. While I expect I probably could still take out a man in a coma, I'm not exactly capable of making a fast or inconspicuous escape afterwards."
"Well then you're screwed, aren't you?" Sara continued.
"Again: me? Yeah, I guess so, but just because he isn't certain that you guys are behind this too, it doesn't mean he's not going to come after you too. If he knows there are people out there willing to kill him, he's going to be a hell of a lot worse; whatever he's blackmailing or threatening you with, I wouldn't be surprised if it came out or happened. Someone has to kill him." Seth observed his bandages with interest, "Should I still be bleeding like this?"
Juan ignored the last question and turned to the women. "He can't be allowed to pass what he's been threatening me with. And I think he might if he recovers."
"We wouldn't have this problem if somebody had done it right in the first place," Noelle glared at Seth.
"Well I'm sorry, maybe if I'd trusted you lot to keep me out of jail, I might have been able to just go up to him and shoot him through the head at point-blank range. As it was, I had to cover my back by shooting myself in the front. And seriously, nobody going to get me a doctor for the bleeding?"
"So what do we do now?" Jenna asked.
"You. Kill. Him!" Seth enunciated exasperatedly.
"We didn't sign up for that," Juan said reluctantly on all of their behalves.
"Well tough shit," he laughed at them incredulously. "You've made a bad situation worse - just end the situation altogether!"
"How?" he asked uncomfortably. "The chances of anyone getting away with it..."
"Sara or Noelle - or both -"
"Why us?" Sara demanded.
"How old are you again?" Seth asked patronisingly. "Look at you both - how much longer do you expect to live? Harris is right - you may not get away with this, but, by the look of you two, you could be dead before you even get tried, never mind sent to jail. Harris could live forever as a zombie, and Lum hasn't even gone grey yet. Least waste of life." Sara and Noelle both frowned angrily at him, but didn't respond. "Plus there's the motive there; the ex-mayor and/or ex-head-of-police trying to kill the current mayor - possibly because you were forced out of office before you wanted to be because Jalowitz is a manipulative bastard, or because he's ruining your precious town, and there's plenty of statistics to back that up if you know where to find them. We can work off of that action, you just have to do it first."
Sara and Noelle looked at each other. "How?" Sara asked.
"Well I haven't seen the room he's in, but there's plenty of option. Is he on life support?"
"I think so," Juan answered.
"So you could mess with that, you could mess with giving him the wrong medication or anything like that. You could... set it up like the ceiling's caved in on top of him - though that would take time we might not have... Hell, you could just run in there screaming and stab him through the chest, the whole nine yards," he laughed slightly. "The important thing is that he dies. Do it."
"Murder someone..." Noelle muttered. "I have kids and grandchildren-"
"No, you have a kid, singular, and no grandkids at all - Karen and Laura aren't yours - plus they all have one murderer for a relative, why not add another? They'll deal," Seth smirked.
"I'm not certain they will," Noelle frowned.
"You're all complicit in attempted murder anyway-" Seth began.
"I'll do it," Sara sighed angrily. "If I'd known it was going to end with me in jail either way, I never would have given in in the first place."
"Sucks to be you," Seth smiled brightly.
"You'd better have my back on this, little brother," she glared.
Seth saluted her. "Respect!"
"Never send a man to do a woman's job..." she muttered as she left. Noelle, Juan and Jenna watched her leave anxiously.
"So, who fancies a game of Scrabble?" Seth asked happily. They turned as one to glare at him with disgust.