waiting for the day that she knew would surely come [ closed ]

[swatwithdragons]

WHO swatwithdragons and polarisation (yes, again)
WHAT a series of mini-logs set during the boys' bodyswap, all collected in one place to keep from clogging up the logs comm.
WHERE Anywhere you can imagine, but most likely the shelter or the hostel.
WHEN From the beginning of the bodyswap onward.
WARNINGS “APRIL 10th” may contain triggery topics, as it does focus on how

Comments

APRIL 12th

[polarisation]

In retrospect, Lance should have known something like this would happen. He'd known that Sirius was planning to speak to Jim and Givens, that it might all go wrong so his input was needed. And yet it still hadn't quite connected, hadn't quite made him realise that it would be Sefton who would get the call, Sefton who would have to handle it.

Sefton who would wonder why.

He sat back into the couch-cushions with a slow exhale after the call had ended, looking up at Sefton and not even remotely able to summon a reassuring smile.

[swatwithdragons]

Sefton stared at Lance; it wasn't an overly challenging stare, but one filled with questions and left-over stress. It may have been Lance's words all through the conversation, but it had been Sefton's (borrowed) voice. It was just as well that Lance had been feeding him things to say, since there was absolutely no way he would have been able to do that on his own. For a number of reasons.

When it looked like Lance was just going to sit there-waiting? Thinking of what to say? Hoping Sefton might give it up?-Sefton suddenly shook his head and said, "What was that? Secret police, Wataru?"

[polarisation]

Waiting. Just waiting for Sefton to speak, to ask his questions, so he knew where to begin. He wasn't going to hold anything back, just like he hadn't for Jim and Givens. Sefton had that right, after all this.

"Yes," Lance said simply. "The Magistrate commissioned a number of people to be involved in some secret policing methods. After both Bruce Wayne and Tim Drake left the city there was no one to take care of Little Gotham--it would have been absorbed by one of the other crime lords and the residents would have suffered for it. So I and some other members decided we'd take over and stabilise the area."

[swatwithdragons]

Sefton frowned at the mention of Bruce Wayne. Whereas most people had known him as Minister of Justice or, apparently, LaRue, Sefton only knew of the man because of one very simple reason: he had been pack. Sefton's own fault, the first person he'd ever bitten, and... it hadn't lasted very long before the man had 'died', then before he disappeared.

Now Lance had put himself in partially the same position. Irrational fear for what that meant for Lance began gnawing at his gut, but Sefton forced himself to try and focus around it. "So... you're a part-time-full time?-secret cop?"

[polarisation]

"As needed, I suppose," Lance admitted. "I stayed out of most of the day-to-day things. Mostly I helped people escape the attention of the crooks in the territory, or the crime lords outside of the territory, by hiding them."

There were plenty of people who needed it. Witnesses. Informants. People who just wanted out of the game, or into the relative safety Little Gotham offered among all the other crime lords' territories.

"We were involved in investigating the volcano, too. That's how I knew when it was going to erupt--Slate told us to get the word out discreetly. Guess one of his informants let him in on it."

[swatwithdragons]

"Slate," Sefton repeated, halfway toward a question. That name and one other had been thrown around during the conversation. It was the other name that he recognized, or figured he probably did, but Slate was apparently the more-important of the two. "He knew 'bout the volcano... 'n what it did?"

[polarisation]

"Slate was the previous Magistrate's right-hand man," Lance explained. "He oversaw the secret police, gave us our orders. He knew the volcano's eruption was going to do something, but not what." He grimaced, lifting a hand to run it through his hair. "He's not going to be happy when he finds out Sirius and I did this. You'll ... probably get a call."

[swatwithdragons]

"We'll get a call." There was no way Sefton would take it if Lance wasn't around to talk him through it. He simply didn't know enough or have any kind of experience with this sort of thing. Next, he asked, incredulous, "Nate?"

[polarisation]

"Nate," Lance said flatly, looking away. Nate, who refused to stop his other self, who then turned around and pulled this. No matter what Sirius said, Lance was sure it was something he'd said that had made Nate decide to take more direct action. "He had the administrative experience Sirius didn't. He volunteered."

[swatwithdragons]

"Nate," Sefton said again, slowly, processing. The one who had kidnapped him, humiliated him by forcing him to become a 'princess' until his 'prince' arrived. Maybe a huge jerk for that, but that was something entirely different from LaRue and the secret police. "What's he doing?"

[polarisation]

"He's killing people," Lance said flatly. "Taking justice into his own hands and snipering off people to make a point. I didn't take this job to justify murder, Sefton. Just take unconventional means to make the city safer."

[swatwithdragons]

Sefton sucked in a breath. He didn't need Lance's justification, he was confident Lance had the interest of the city in mind. He had enough evidence to have made that assumption on his own, anyway. Nate, on the other hand... "Make what point?"

[polarisation]

"That he can protect his own," Lance said simply, "that he's a threat, that he's willing to do what he must. That no one who disobeys him is safe."

It was working, perhaps, but that didn't make it any less wrong.

[swatwithdragons]

"So... you went to the police," Sefton said, looking thoughtful. Why hadn't they gone to their own boss first? Had they?

[polarisation]

"Slate was beginning to drop the ball," Lance answered flatly, "since the Magistrate died. And I never fully trusted him, nor agreed with cutting the police force out of the loop. The instant secrecy starts hindering instead of helping is the instant it needs to be let go. So we let it go."

[swatwithdragons]

"S' not really the secret police anymore," Sefton commented with a frown. This was still a little much to take in, and he still wasn't sure how much Lance was telling him. "But s' not the police, either." Not with the way Raylan and Kirk had reacted.