Peanut Butter Week (Metal)
Author: Casey
Story: Nothing is Ever Easy universe, During NIEE
Challenges: Peanut Butter 6 (metal) & Papaya 25 (the last word)
Toppings & Extras: Hot Fudge, Sprinkles, Gummy Bunnies (August card: coma), Malt (Egg from Nina: "Don't pretend to be dead: it's bad manners and it won't work!" --DI Lewis, Lewis., BTS Challenge: Jez : can we fix it? yes we can)
Word Count: 1,045
Rating: PG (language)
Summary: Rees doesn’t think a simple apology will quite cut it.
Notes: This is Mal’s uncle. He is something of a jerk. Short version of events: Jez & Jay are in prison and Rees is the colonel in charge of interrogating them. The boy = David. Rees doesn’t figure he’s a factor enough to need to remember his name. I am jumping all over the timeline with these.
Rees approached the cell with some trepidation. Jasmine’s scream still echoed in his head from when Trils and Ju had been a bit…overzealous in what they thought was their defense of him and the siblings. He paused just outside, not immediately noticed. The boy sat scrunched back in one corner, watching the other three members of the cell through wide eyes. Jay and Stella crouched next to Jez, who lay on the ground, out cold but looking perfectly fine if he ignored the pallor in her face, especially stark beside the dark, vivid bruises.
The boy spotted him first. “Stella,” he said in all but a whisper.
His sister looked up and then nudged Jay in the side. The moment the man spotted him, he was on his feet. “Aren’t you going to do something?” Jay demanded.
“There’s no reason, she just fainted,” Rees said, again trying to convince himself that she looked fine, just a little pale but considering the beating she’d taken, that wasn’t unreasonable.
“Just fainted?” he asked in a far too calm and steady voice. Rees took an involuntary step back, making sure he was out of reach. “Is that why Stella can’t wake her up? Because she just fainted? For all I know she could be in a gods be damned coma, you asshole,” Jay yelled, the control vanishing in a flash.
“Breaking an arm isn’t going to result in a coma. It’s probably just dislocated. Easily fixed.”
“Yeah, well, it’s two arms so fix them, damn it!”
“I didn’t mean for her arms to be injured,” he said, sounding unfortunately defensive. He sought a more appropriate tone. “She’ll be fine. Once she’s back up and moving, I’ll have someone come in and set them.”
“Or you could have someone set them now,” Stella put in quietly.
Normally, Rees would have paid more attention and been curious about this defense but he right now he didn’t dare take his eyes off Jay. “I told you already. She just fainted.”
“She did not faint,” Jay roared, causing the boy to jump. “Gods’ Breath, she’s in shock.”
“Right, which means it’s nothing to worry about. Give her a bit of time and she’ll be right as rain.”
“It might be if your gods be damned brutish sidekicks hadn’t just used her as a punching bag on top of the bruises she already had. She might have internal bleeding!”
Rees let out a short laugh, although he felt a qualm of nerves, or maybe guilt. They hadn’t hit her that hard or in any of the sensitive spots where you could potentially do more damage than you thought. They couldn’t have, he told himself firmly. “Stop overdramatizing, Jay.”
“Overdramatizing?? Why you…” Jay launched in a decidedly impressive string of insults and curses, half of which Rees had never heard before.
When he finally seemed to run out of new ones, Rees pinned him with his best hard stare. “She will be fine given a little time. I will come check on her tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Jay snarled before crouching back down at Stella’s side, dismissing Rees from his presence. Rees knew he should take offense, and did a bit, but decided now wasn’t the time to fight it. Jay was far too volatile to deal with at that moment.
He checked on her periodically, starting to get honestly worried when she didn’t seem to wake up. Maybe she was in a coma. He had to admit he was taking the cowardly way out and mostly checking when her cellmates were asleep, especially after he lost his concentration for a moment, trying to get a good look at Jasmine.
In the split second he took his focus away from Jay, the man reached out through the bars, grabbed the front of Rees’ shirt and slammed him into the bars. Luckily, Trils had been with him and quickly and painfully detached Jay’s hands from his shirt as soon as Rees had hit the bars a second time. Either way, he decided it was best not to take chances.
This time, however, he wanted to talk to Jay, so he went during the day and got greeted with, “You bastard, it’s been two days, do something, damn you!”
Rees snorted. “You’d kill me if I even touched the door.” He still had bruises from the day before.
“Yeah, well, that’s because you don’t do anything. If you were coming to be useful rather than just stare some more, I’d make an allowance.”
“Sure, that would remain only until I got within your reach.”
“You’re just chickening out now. I’m not going to kill you.”
“Then what exactly were you trying to do when I stepped up to the door last time?” Rees asked, making sure to sound as smug as possible, as if he wasn’t in pain. He doubted it fooled anyway present, but it made him feel better.
“Kill you,” Jay said with a smirk. “You weren’t trying to be useful, so I took my opportunity and slammed you into the bars. It was really satisfying, let me tell you.”
Rees was not at all amused by the comment or smile. “You call her Jez and yet I thought her name was Jasmine.”
Jay all but groaned, rolling his eyes. “Oh, come off it, you bastard.” That one hurt, Rees was very proud of his family. If he was being silently honest, Sorin was the bastard in this situation. “This isn’t about any stupid interrogation right now. You’ll have plenty of time to do that later, but not if you let Jez die. Want to know why?”
Rees raised an eyebrow, faking polite curiosity.
“I will kill you. I don’t care how I do it and it really doesn’t need to be pretty, but I’ll figure out a way.”
Despite the situation, Rees found himself taking the threat quite seriously. For another couple of minutes, the two stared each other down soundlessly. “She’s not going to die,” Rees said and then held up a hand for silence, “but I want to get on with our chats, so I will get the doctor here later this afternoon. Your part of the deal is that you behave yourself while we get her out, understood?”
“Understood.”
Story: Nothing is Ever Easy universe, During NIEE
Challenges: Peanut Butter 6 (metal) & Papaya 25 (the last word)
Toppings & Extras: Hot Fudge, Sprinkles, Gummy Bunnies (August card: coma), Malt (Egg from Nina: "Don't pretend to be dead: it's bad manners and it won't work!" --DI Lewis, Lewis., BTS Challenge: Jez : can we fix it? yes we can)
Word Count: 1,045
Rating: PG (language)
Summary: Rees doesn’t think a simple apology will quite cut it.
Notes: This is Mal’s uncle. He is something of a jerk. Short version of events: Jez & Jay are in prison and Rees is the colonel in charge of interrogating them. The boy = David. Rees doesn’t figure he’s a factor enough to need to remember his name. I am jumping all over the timeline with these.
Rees approached the cell with some trepidation. Jasmine’s scream still echoed in his head from when Trils and Ju had been a bit…overzealous in what they thought was their defense of him and the siblings. He paused just outside, not immediately noticed. The boy sat scrunched back in one corner, watching the other three members of the cell through wide eyes. Jay and Stella crouched next to Jez, who lay on the ground, out cold but looking perfectly fine if he ignored the pallor in her face, especially stark beside the dark, vivid bruises.
The boy spotted him first. “Stella,” he said in all but a whisper.
His sister looked up and then nudged Jay in the side. The moment the man spotted him, he was on his feet. “Aren’t you going to do something?” Jay demanded.
“There’s no reason, she just fainted,” Rees said, again trying to convince himself that she looked fine, just a little pale but considering the beating she’d taken, that wasn’t unreasonable.
“Just fainted?” he asked in a far too calm and steady voice. Rees took an involuntary step back, making sure he was out of reach. “Is that why Stella can’t wake her up? Because she just fainted? For all I know she could be in a gods be damned coma, you asshole,” Jay yelled, the control vanishing in a flash.
“Breaking an arm isn’t going to result in a coma. It’s probably just dislocated. Easily fixed.”
“Yeah, well, it’s two arms so fix them, damn it!”
“I didn’t mean for her arms to be injured,” he said, sounding unfortunately defensive. He sought a more appropriate tone. “She’ll be fine. Once she’s back up and moving, I’ll have someone come in and set them.”
“Or you could have someone set them now,” Stella put in quietly.
Normally, Rees would have paid more attention and been curious about this defense but he right now he didn’t dare take his eyes off Jay. “I told you already. She just fainted.”
“She did not faint,” Jay roared, causing the boy to jump. “Gods’ Breath, she’s in shock.”
“Right, which means it’s nothing to worry about. Give her a bit of time and she’ll be right as rain.”
“It might be if your gods be damned brutish sidekicks hadn’t just used her as a punching bag on top of the bruises she already had. She might have internal bleeding!”
Rees let out a short laugh, although he felt a qualm of nerves, or maybe guilt. They hadn’t hit her that hard or in any of the sensitive spots where you could potentially do more damage than you thought. They couldn’t have, he told himself firmly. “Stop overdramatizing, Jay.”
“Overdramatizing?? Why you…” Jay launched in a decidedly impressive string of insults and curses, half of which Rees had never heard before.
When he finally seemed to run out of new ones, Rees pinned him with his best hard stare. “She will be fine given a little time. I will come check on her tomorrow.”
“Yeah, you do that,” Jay snarled before crouching back down at Stella’s side, dismissing Rees from his presence. Rees knew he should take offense, and did a bit, but decided now wasn’t the time to fight it. Jay was far too volatile to deal with at that moment.
He checked on her periodically, starting to get honestly worried when she didn’t seem to wake up. Maybe she was in a coma. He had to admit he was taking the cowardly way out and mostly checking when her cellmates were asleep, especially after he lost his concentration for a moment, trying to get a good look at Jasmine.
In the split second he took his focus away from Jay, the man reached out through the bars, grabbed the front of Rees’ shirt and slammed him into the bars. Luckily, Trils had been with him and quickly and painfully detached Jay’s hands from his shirt as soon as Rees had hit the bars a second time. Either way, he decided it was best not to take chances.
This time, however, he wanted to talk to Jay, so he went during the day and got greeted with, “You bastard, it’s been two days, do something, damn you!”
Rees snorted. “You’d kill me if I even touched the door.” He still had bruises from the day before.
“Yeah, well, that’s because you don’t do anything. If you were coming to be useful rather than just stare some more, I’d make an allowance.”
“Sure, that would remain only until I got within your reach.”
“You’re just chickening out now. I’m not going to kill you.”
“Then what exactly were you trying to do when I stepped up to the door last time?” Rees asked, making sure to sound as smug as possible, as if he wasn’t in pain. He doubted it fooled anyway present, but it made him feel better.
“Kill you,” Jay said with a smirk. “You weren’t trying to be useful, so I took my opportunity and slammed you into the bars. It was really satisfying, let me tell you.”
Rees was not at all amused by the comment or smile. “You call her Jez and yet I thought her name was Jasmine.”
Jay all but groaned, rolling his eyes. “Oh, come off it, you bastard.” That one hurt, Rees was very proud of his family. If he was being silently honest, Sorin was the bastard in this situation. “This isn’t about any stupid interrogation right now. You’ll have plenty of time to do that later, but not if you let Jez die. Want to know why?”
Rees raised an eyebrow, faking polite curiosity.
“I will kill you. I don’t care how I do it and it really doesn’t need to be pretty, but I’ll figure out a way.”
Despite the situation, Rees found himself taking the threat quite seriously. For another couple of minutes, the two stared each other down soundlessly. “She’s not going to die,” Rees said and then held up a hand for silence, “but I want to get on with our chats, so I will get the doctor here later this afternoon. Your part of the deal is that you behave yourself while we get her out, understood?”
“Understood.”