[RP] Alle warten auf das Licht, fürchtet euch fürchtet euch nicht…

[nowinprint]

On the fifth floor of an abandoned construction project, Dmitri Lang has been conscious for about fifteen minutes, now. The first seven of those minutes were spent throwing up – yeah, this is a concussion if she's ever felt one, and the fact that there's a crust of blood over most of her forehead makes her feel ever so much better about all of this – and the next five were spent cursing and spitting in an attempt to get the taste of stomach acid out of her mouth. Because Dmitri Lang is exactly that ladylike.

For the last three minutes, though, she's been taking in everything she can about this room, in exacting detail, including the layout and those there. The people cuffed up in it seem to show a distressing concentration of people she knows for one reason or another, and while she has quite the expansive social network, Chicago is a big city. Granted, there is one kid there she doesn't know except for having him smash her face into the floor, but if anything, he looks more beat-up than the rest of them.

And April is gone. She's pretty sure she saw April, last time she was conscious in here, unless it's just the concussion messing with her, and she's wondering if that might be better.

She groans. Fixes on Tosh first, because she's easier to get answers out of than the Doctor, then registers exactly how Tosh looks, now that she can see, again. "Oh, kitten, you all right?"

Comments

[thatsortofaman.livejournal.com]

The Doctor flinches a little, grimacing, as Thane punches Dmitri. Oh, what he wouldn't give now to have the magic words to just make her shut up, but it's Dmitri, and when does that ever actually happen?

Even knowing it probably won't get her to back down, he says slowly, "Dmitri..."

[john-thane.livejournal.com]

Thane flinches at the spit, but it's the usual defiance. The girl's got spunk. Good for her. It'll serve to highlight where she is now against where she'll be soon.

He takes her free shoulder, shoving her back against the wall. He really should et to cuffing that free hand, but it can wait.

"I broke all your little friends to submission in a session," he says. "Think you're going to last longer?"

[nowinprint]

Dmitri doesn't so much register her name. Oh, the number of times people have just tried to subtly hint that she should shut up now...

She starts laughing. It's not an especially pretty laugh, with her throat still raw from throwing up and her teeth still bloody, and it's not a terribly sensical laugh, and it fades out in a few seconds.

"Okay! Boy scout. I have concussions on top of my concussions right now thanks to you and your happy fuzzy domestic abuse partner. Hey there, by the way," she says, giving Hart a little wave. "Logical theories of cause and effect are looking a bit like chutes and ladders right now. ...you know, there was one version one of my pals back home brought me where all the chutes were snakes and the ladders – I don't even fucking know, but it's beside the point. I think I was going for a explanation where you were the snake, though."

She pauses, spits again, though toward the ground, this time.

"Long story short? I don't even know what I'm fucking saying, man, you expect me to do a thorough assessment of the situation and make predictions based on a heap of abstracts taller than the heap of shit you're spewing? Oh, and by the way. Doctor Defiance over there doesn't look too submissive, and as for the зайчикs, you couldn't have picked two sweeter kids if you tried. Beating them up so they don't hiss and spit like your angel friend is a bit like whipping a dog so it runs on four legs instead of two. One whole session? Let me say with utmost sarcasm that I'm scared, and I'm not sure how much of that sarcasm is the concussion talking and how much is pure old-fashioned organic Dmitri Lang."

She spits again, because she doesn't particularly want to swallow all this blood, and the floor's as good a place as any to put it.

[john-thane.livejournal.com]

Thane is beginning to wonder if this one just came crazy, concussions notwithstanding.

After a moment, he exhales. "You know, everyone likes to say they won't break," he says. "And if breaking were just a cerebral thing, it'd be true. It's not that hard to see a way around it. Make certain assumptions, certain dissociations – but no matter how much of an intellectual oyu are, Ms. Angel of Knowledge–"

He puts a hand out, resting it on Dmitri's chest just above her heart.

"Everything we do has a physical component or we'd all be floating consciousnesses by the time I come from. You say you're an Angel of Knowledge? Your blood's the wrong color, and it looks like your wings aren't doing shit or you right now." He knows the basics of angelic physiology, at least.

[nowinprint]

Dmitri scoffs. "But of a thing that happened when I came through the Rift, yeah. Got the same angelic brain, which is where it counts for, so don't you be getting any ideas about trying to break me through chess or something."

Not her most brilliant retort, but with a concussion, you kinda take what comes out.

Her wings are out, now that she notices them. They draw in, just a little, in defence. Though, really, what's she going to do with them? If she got out of this cuff she could jump out the hole in the wall, glide to the street, and totter unsteadily in the direction of Torchwood, but really...

"Angel of knowledge is as much a profession as a calling, toots, and I've got both, and sanction from the Board of the Sciences, which is more than I suspect you'd get even if there was a Crazy Psycho Board of the Fuckery."

[john-thane.livejournal.com]

Thane grins. He sidles forward, forcing her back toward the wall, noting the expression of revulsion on her face as she guesses – incorrectly – what's coming.

Then, quick as he can make it, his hands shoot behind her and grab the wings near the base, pulling and twisting down until he hears the double-snap of two bones breaking.

That's your identity. 'Angel of Knowledge.' And this is all the proof you have. What if I break that first? Still so cocky then?

[nowinprint]

Dmitri shrieks, falling halfway to the floor before Thane catches her by the neck, holding her up with one hand. She nearly blacks out at the shock, at the constant continued of dead weight dragging at white pain, and she can feel her pinions brushing at odd angles at the back of her calves. It's not the first time an angel has broken their wings, and they can heal right up if they're splinted well and soon, but she doesn't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Really, her mind's not even on the topic – it's too flooded with endorphins and screaming nocireceptors, and the way Thane is holding her isn't helping with that.

Really, it'd be nice just to black out, here. But then Thane is slapping her face, running quick fingers over her skull, triggering additional headaches as he coaxes bloodflow to her brain, as he holds her up above consciousness with both hands. She tempers the next yell into a stream of obscenities, not paying much attention to what it starts on or where it ends up.

[john-thane.livejournal.com]

Thane tilts his head, raising his eyebrows. "What? No snide remarks, no clever comebacks? Questions about other bits of the male anatomy?" He slaps he again, harder across the face this time, and lets her drop. "There comes a point when pain overwhelms the conscious mind. You're not there yet, but you can feel it on the horizon."

He steps around her, watches her try to get her breathing back under control. Broken bones aren't his favorite method – too brute, too easy – but, hey, for a quick and dirty fix...

"It's a matter of getting you to that point. That's elementary. The secret is to keep them there, or bring them back again and again – it's like a bone," he says, leaning down to run a hand over the breaks. "Break it enough and it doesn't heal right. Break it more than once and a weakness develops. See, when I decide to go for Sato again..."

[nowinprint]

Okay, the fucker broke his wings, and now he's gloating. And not just about the wings, but about what he's going to do to Tosh, and...

Well, fuck, he said it himself – some things, you did because they were damn gratifying, and she twists her neck when he touches her wing OW OW OW FUCKING OW and sinks her teeth into his forearms as hard as her jaw can clench.

Then yanks her head away, because the combination of teeth popping through skin, sudden pressure in her skull, and thane touching those fractures triggers a wave of nausea that leaves her bent over forward and retching.

[john-thane.livejournal.com]

Thane rips his arm back, tearing open the gash with a hiss. he gets his expression mostly under control as fast as he can, the bloody forearm pulled back.

"That," he snaps, "for an angel of knowledge, wasn't too bright. I'm going to heal this right up. You, on the other hand..."

[nowinprint]

Dmitri manages a look up at him, lips pulled back to reveal bloody teeth as she tries to tamp down the nausea and get the taste of Bastard out of her mouth. Her eyes are hard, the pain and dizziness and anger all twisted up inside them, and her head is ringing and she's not thinking very clearly in any case.

"You should wash that," she says distantly, because Dmitri default is to say whatever comes into her head, no matter how stupid it is. "...I have rabies."

She's expecting a flash of pain from the lie, though how that's going to manifest when her entire head is an echo chamber of hurt, she's not sure.

[john-thane.livejournal.com]

Thane snarls, and then, because he's rapidly approaching the point where he just wants to savage this little not-an-angel-anymore, pulls back his bloody arm and delivers a clout to the side of Dmitri's head hard enough to snap her head around and drive it back into the wall. And she goes limp.

And that brings Thane up short, because, fuck, he hadn't meant to knock her out again. He kneels, plating his knuckles on her teeth and registering the fact that she's still breathing, but....

His hand moves, patting her roughly on the cheek. "Hope it hurts just as much where you are now, darling," he says, and looks down at his forearm. Not healed yet. Goddamnit. Well, it'll get around to it. Not the first time someone's bit him, although recently – what seems recently, though everything has taken on a sort of distant edge – he's been smart enough not to let them.

He walks over to his bag, fishing out three pairs of cuffs, and walks back to her. Cuffs for the hands, cuffs for the wings, keep her spread-eagled with her wings pinioned up. She'll wake up eventually – the breathing's not right for a coma – and when she does, it won't be him with hands and fists, it'll be him with a full kit. And she won't enjoy that so much.

As soon as she's cuffed up, he turns on his heel and stalks out of the room. Once this kid is destroyed, and he means destroyed, she's going to be the first one to die. So how the rest of them like that.