He'd been sitting on his hands. Sitting on his goddamn hands "Hold it, Clarke," they'd told him as soon as he'd gotten the news. We don't know what we're up against. Isaac had shouting back that they damn well knew what they were up against, had slammed his fists down on the Director's table hard enough to splinter the edge.
"They've got him," Isaac had said, and raw fury blanched over his features, weathery eyes becoming more and more sharp and angry.
The first tape trickled in an unaddressed manilla envelope clean of fingerprints and motes of dust that might give them any clue as to where Jack is held.
That night, Isaac listens to it over and over again with a glass of whiskey held in his hand and one of Jack's sweaters draped over his lap. He can't talk, Isaac knows, doesn't hear a word from Jack as the questions come, a barrage of them. He's perfect, can't speak, can't release a single secret. What he can do is growl or rasp, but the abuse they've given to him hardly merits that.
A second tape. And then a third. They come in the same packaging and Isaac listens to each and every one of them until he knows them line for line and doesn't even need to flinch when he hears something painful snap, fingers or a jaw, the wet sound of breathing in blood through the mouth. It comes to the point where Isaac has had it, when a small envelope is slid beneath his door in the small home that they've grown used to sharing. It's inconspicuous and Isaac moves forward to grab at it and to open the door.
It's as if no one had been there.
He opens it in the threshold, tearing into it with callused fingers and seeing nothing but a polite square of paper and a neatly scrawled address.
We've found him. Take action. Quickly. X.
Taped to the back is a tooth, and it quietly reaffirms their suspicions that he's been moved from place to place. Isaac commits the address to memory, and flicks the paper onto the desk.
He is through with sitting on his hands waiting.
Isaac dresses hastily, an undershirt, a button down, Jack's sweater that he's been holding and clutching onto over the past two weeks. It smells old and of wool and it's itchy, but it's warm and the scent of smoke is apparent in the fibers of it, enough to feel like an embrace.
He holsters his guns quickly and dons a leather jacket on top of it--December cold can't touch him now as he storms out onto the street. It is a palpable sensation that radiates off of him as he slips into the dark car parked outside of their home that they keep when they aren't in transit, aren't traveling around the country or over seas. It's a dark Volvo, sweet and clean and shining and Isaac guns it, breaks the speed limit, cops be damned.
It isn't long until Isaac is under gunfire and doesn't care. He knifes, he guns, he breaks faces in gruesome ways. One man's eyes gush out from under his thumbs as he presses in sharply and hears him scream. Another, he eviscerates and dispatches quickly. The door they guard so heavily is a lone one in a corridor with groaning steps and flickering lights.
All that he does is lift up his foot and kick with force enough to break bone, to dent inches of metal, causing it to crack on its hinges and bringing automatic rifles to cock from inside. He can hear them and he's more than ready, face spattered in blood, some of it dripping into the weave of Jack's sweater against his torso, but he's close and he's never felt more alive.
no subject
"They've got him," Isaac had said, and raw fury blanched over his features, weathery eyes becoming more and more sharp and angry.
The first tape trickled in an unaddressed manilla envelope clean of fingerprints and motes of dust that might give them any clue as to where Jack is held.
That night, Isaac listens to it over and over again with a glass of whiskey held in his hand and one of Jack's sweaters draped over his lap. He can't talk, Isaac knows, doesn't hear a word from Jack as the questions come, a barrage of them. He's perfect, can't speak, can't release a single secret. What he can do is growl or rasp, but the abuse they've given to him hardly merits that.
A second tape. And then a third. They come in the same packaging and Isaac listens to each and every one of them until he knows them line for line and doesn't even need to flinch when he hears something painful snap, fingers or a jaw, the wet sound of breathing in blood through the mouth. It comes to the point where Isaac has had it, when a small envelope is slid beneath his door in the small home that they've grown used to sharing. It's inconspicuous and Isaac moves forward to grab at it and to open the door.
It's as if no one had been there.
He opens it in the threshold, tearing into it with callused fingers and seeing nothing but a polite square of paper and a neatly scrawled address.
We've found him. Take action.
Quickly. X.
Taped to the back is a tooth, and it quietly reaffirms their suspicions that he's been moved from place to place. Isaac commits the address to memory, and flicks the paper onto the desk.
He is through with sitting on his hands waiting.
Isaac dresses hastily, an undershirt, a button down, Jack's sweater that he's been holding and clutching onto over the past two weeks. It smells old and of wool and it's itchy, but it's warm and the scent of smoke is apparent in the fibers of it, enough to feel like an embrace.
He holsters his guns quickly and dons a leather jacket on top of it--December cold can't touch him now as he storms out onto the street. It is a palpable sensation that radiates off of him as he slips into the dark car parked outside of their home that they keep when they aren't in transit, aren't traveling around the country or over seas. It's a dark Volvo, sweet and clean and shining and Isaac guns it, breaks the speed limit, cops be damned.
It isn't long until Isaac is under gunfire and doesn't care. He knifes, he guns, he breaks faces in gruesome ways. One man's eyes gush out from under his thumbs as he presses in sharply and hears him scream. Another, he eviscerates and dispatches quickly. The door they guard so heavily is a lone one in a corridor with groaning steps and flickering lights.
All that he does is lift up his foot and kick with force enough to break bone, to dent inches of metal, causing it to crack on its hinges and bringing automatic rifles to cock from inside. He can hear them and he's more than ready, face spattered in blood, some of it dripping into the weave of Jack's sweater against his torso, but he's close and he's never felt more alive.