exsiliumlogs | ( c l o s e d ) i must go on standing

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( c l o s e d ) i must go on standing

Date & Time: November 22, late afternoon.
Location: Around, in an conveniently empty and secluded street.
Characters: Elena Fisher and Talbot.
Summary: In a few words? Bad life choices and their terrible consequences. Kids don't frustrate your Tablots inadvertently, it's bad for your health.
Warnings: Violence, possibly other uncool things?!? such as douche drugs and mind control. Will update when needed.

It goes against everything Chloe has told her, everything she promised not to do, but she simply had to get out. To walk, to search. It'd been too long without a single word and honestly Elena is starting to get worried, maybe too worried. But it is more than just that, she ignores it but she knows some part of her is out here due to sheer stubbornness.

Either way she did what she wanted to do, she walked, she searched, she asked as many people as she could but she came up empty. She spent hours upon hours looking for anything at all, each slim lead only walking her straight into another wall. For all intents and purposes Nate disappeared. Most of her day searching and she ends up in en empty street with little more than a headache, hand pressing to her forehead in hopes of keeping it at bay.

She thinks about calling someone, about calling all of them to let them know but she doesn't reaching for her tablet tucked neatly away in her pocket. No, she sighs dropping her hand from her face, better to do it in person.

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The ideal time to strike at Nathan Drake has come and gone, but the slippery bastard has vanished from even Talbot's eagle-sighted watch. When Ms. Fisher sets out on a fruitless hunt of her own, he's her shadow every step of the way, hoping that somehow it's all a ruse to keep him off the trail. But Talbot's confidence in Drake hasn't quite clambered high enough to lend credence to the idea.

His patience, however, has been put through its paces; he's through with this game. And the instant Drake's wife centers herself in a quiet enough side street, he appears there before her just as she drops her hand from her face.

"I urge you not to run," he murmurs.

She regrets it the moment she drops her hand and his voice enter her ears. Good job Elena, you've managed to get yourself into the very trouble that you promised you wouldn't get yourself in.

She doesn't run, she knows better than that (has he been trailing her the entire time?), but her eyes glance around regardless and her fingers twitch. Could she reach her gun fast enough?

"What do you want?"

"First," Talbot says, and he lifts the rifle from his side, bracing the stock against his hip and leveling the business end directly at her midsection, "I'd like you to disarm yourself." Though clearly foolish enough to move alone right under her enemy's nose, the woman is not stupid; she will be armed.

"Take your time, Ms. Fisher. No sudden movements. These are even less pleasant at close range." He produces one of the dart syringes between the fingers of his free hand as a demonstration and then banishes it again with a wave.

Elena grits her teeth, narrowing her eyes into a even glare. She's not stupid, even if she were to try something now it would be to little avail. He's got her in his neck, so to speak, she was doomed the moment she turned into this street.

"Whatever you're planning isn't going to work." Not that she knows what he is planning, it could be nothing but at the same time it could be something decidedly unpleasant. Slowly she pulls her gun from it's holster, holding it out a distance in front of herself before bending down to drop it on the ground.

Disarmed she straightens up again.

"There."

He doesn't take his eyes from her face when she moves to drop the gun, and so he relies on the sound of its hitting the ground before proceeding.

"Good girl. Now, you're going to take one step back. And then you're going to tell me where I can find Nathan Drake." If she does know, Talbot doesn't expect her to tell him. But he's a fair man. He'll give her that chance before he resorts to a more interesting measure.

One step back.

"Sorry to disappoint, but I have no idea where he is right now." He's right in that, even if she did know she wouldn't tell him, but she doesn't and she's being as truthful as she can be with a rifle aimed at her midsection.

"Even if I did, do you really think I'd tell you?" Pointless question, but hey as long as he's talking she can try and figure out some way to get out of this mess, regardless of how hopeless that seems right now.

"No. Of course not." It's all for the best, anyway. With that obligatory moment of decency out of the way, Talbot is ready to make some use of the thing his enemy finds most precious.

He matches her step back and catches Elena's gun behind his heel once he's standing over it, sliding it well beyond her reach behind him. But Talbot doesn't stop there, dropping the nose of his rifle. Then he's on her in a flash, jabbing the dart in his fist into the side of her neck.

She watches her gun slide across the ground, out of reach, and her stomach sinks eyes widening a fraction in what very well may be fear.

"No─" Elena tries to back away, to get out of his reach but it doesn't work, he's too fast and is on her too quickly for her to react. The dart pieces flesh and she panics, remember clearly what this tiny thing did to Nate, hands trying to push him away as she stumbles back herself.

"Oh god, no."

As soon as he's certain she's taken full delivery of the drug, he withdraws the needle from Elena's neck and falls back a few paces with the feeble force of her shove. The toxin should take hold quickly, but he's content to give her a moment to reel--to let the cold truth of what he's done to her sink in.

Her instincts scream at her to flee, but it is too late, it's far too late, her vision blurs and chest tightens, it feels as if the very air in her lungs has been torn right out of her. She stumbles back again, trying desperately to flee blindly.

The world, for all intents in purposes, spins and melts together. She can no longer tell Talbot from the street, the sun from the ground. God she has to get out, she must get out of here but she can't.

She has no control, no sense of how to escape. She's trapped.

Talbot slips the spent dart into his pocket and then fetches Ms. Fisher's gun, which he tucks through his empty shoulder holster. Not until she's good and disoriented does he turn on his heel and gently approach his prey.

"Elena." His voice doesn't rise above a whisper. "Elena, I'm here for you. Just...listen to my voice. Everything will be alright."

Something in her struggles, screams at her to fight against the voice ─ yet she doesn't, she can't. His voice is almost soothing, everything will be alright and all she has to do is listen.

"I─" She swallows hard looking at him but not actually seeing him, everything she sees is twisted and warped, blurred and melted, she can't ever tell if she is standing anymore.

Once within an arm's reach of her, he puts a hand on Elena's shoulder.

"I'm right here with you. You're okay." Talbot touches her face, slides a finger under her chin and lifts it until she's looking him in the eye. "We're going to go for a little walk. You can rest once we're there; you'll feel much, much better."

He's here, it's alright, she's okay... right? Yes, yes, she is okay why wouldn't she be okay? There is nothing wrong, everything is okay, everything will be okay.

She inhales sharply, focusing on the voice instead of the face she can't properly see. It is just a walk, nothing to be worried about, she needs the fresh air anyway everything that is going on ─ it's just making her head spin.

"Alright, alright." She nods, forcing out a tight smile (as the fading voice of her instincts scream run).

"Good. Here, let me help you." He turns and slips an arm around her, his palm a guiding pressure at her back. "We'll get you inside and comfortable quickly."

It isn't at all unusual to see transports walking armed through the streets, and so he makes no effort to conceal his rifle as they move briskly from one quiet alley to another until they reach the very edge of town. Here, he pushes her through the door of an abandoned building and throws it shut behind them.

The touch doesn't register properly, nor does it when he begins guiding her along through the streets. She can only tell they are moving by the change in colors, blurs fading from grey to white to ─

The sound surprises so she stumbles forward once inside losing her balance, hands the only thing stopping her from falling face first into the floor. Not even a second later she flinches back almost instantly; like the floor burned her, or bit her.

Elena gets to her feet again quickly, rubbing her shaky hands on her jeans, looking around the room disoriented.

"What is this place?" Safety? No, not safety... can't be safety.

Talbot sets his rifle against the door.

"Don't you worry; you're in a safe place. I'll take care of you." The words are gentler than anyone who's ever met him is likely to give Talbot credit for, even as he steps up and takes her roughly by the arm, dragging her to a chair he's set up in the center of the room.

The air's stale in here--poorly ventilated. Echoes of home in the Underground.

"Sit." He tears his hand loose. "Make yourself comfortable. We're going to be here for a while."

She doesn't fight him, honestly she is in no shape too even if she could, so she does little more than make a pained noise (a wordless complaint) as he takes her by the arm and drags her to the chair.

His voice tells her she's safe, she believes him but at the same she doesn't feel safe. It clashes with the haze in her mind, everything that tells her it is okay.

Regardless she sits (no other choice) and her stomach twists uncomfortably.

He pivots away from her, folding his arms loosely behind his back as he takes two paces back toward the entrance to the room.

"I'm only going to ask you once more, because I know you're going to tell me the truth." Talbot turns his chin to his shoulder, just enough to catch that pretty blonde head in the corner of his eye.

"Where is Nathan Drake?"

"I don't know, I don't ─ I looked everywhere but I couldn't find him. He's gone. Nate's gone." Words come out unbidden, truthful, unlikely to please Talbot in any way. She was telling the truth to begin with, even if he didn't believe her.

He'd allowed for the possibility she'd been telling the truth. The search had felt genuine enough when he observed her this afternoon.

Nevertheless, it's not an answer he wants to hear, and his composure is broken by a bristling tension in his shoulders, a gritting of his teeth she can't possibly pick up on in her state.

"Everything you hear in this room today--everything you feel is going to be a reward for your cooperation." Eventually Talbot approaches Elena again, moves a hand to her shoulder and leans in close. "You will enjoy it, and when we're finished, you're going to beg for more."

She doesn't pick it up, as far as she is concerned he is still as composed as he was when he first approached her.

If her mind wasn't so cluttered, if it wasn't so ensnared by the drug, this would be the moment she'd run or try too. The moment she'd fight tooth and nail to get free of this and him.

Yet she doesn't, she can't, she simply sits there and swallows hard, while his words twisting her very view of everything before her.

He probes into the clouded mess behind Elena Fisher's eyes with a cool, vicious gaze.

"Good," he says, satisfied his words have sunk in. "You've lost your husband. If he's hiding, he hasn't told you where he is. Doesn't he trust you, Elena? What do you mean to him, really?"

All the while, Talbot's reaching for his buckle, flicking it open and yanking the belt free of his slacks.

"He's not hiding, he's ─" The words get caught in her throat, the world tilting on itself. Nate wouldn't... he wouldn't. But he already has, twice. Perhaps not hidden from her, not completely, but left her behind.

The second time they argued, she can remember it even in the clouded mess that is her head, she can remember it clearly. They argued, they yelled, and Nate stormed out leaving Elena behind in the painfully silent room.

What does she mean to him? He left her behind again.

Evidently he's struck a nerve. Good. Superficial wounds will be enough to draw Drake out, he suspects, but scrapes and bruises aren't going to deliver the satisfaction that hollow place in his heart craves. They took a vital piece of it that day in Ubar, and they'll all suffer for it.

Talbot doubles the belt over in his fist and then draws the cool leather down the side of Elena's neck, grazing her jaw.

"I think we're looking at a productive evening, you and I."

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( c l o s e d ) i must go on standing

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