Albert Heinrich (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
silberfuchs) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
thecapitol2016-02-06 08:23 pm
silberfuchs) wrote in thecapitol2016-02-06 08:23 pm
Entry tags:
[Open] He says, it's mine to give, but it's yours to choose
Who| Albert and Jet, Albert and Sigma, Albert and YOU
What| After having to shoot his husband out of the sky during the last District mission, Albert's been captured.
Where| Detainment Center. Visiting room, cafeteria, etc.
When| After the D8/D9 liberations
Warnings/Notes| Violence, suicidal topics, past body horror, forced drug abuse, body horror, probably other horrible things.
1. Arriving (Closed; for Jet)
He didn't resist.
Not when Punchy brought him into the enemy camp with a wavering gun and Albert's hands on his head knowing that a bullet of such small caliber, even at that close range, would just glance off of his metal body. Knowing that Punchy wouldn't shoot him, that he wouldn't go through Punchy to get away either, no matter how easy it would be.
Not when the Peacekeepers, an ironic use of the words, put the butts of their rifles to his face and back anyway as soon as they'd moved him to where he could be secured, where they could make sure he wasn't loaded, wasn't a bomb about to go off. He didn't feel it, not matter how he went down.
Not when the powers went off and he felt all those bruises, felt his skin taut on his cheek bones shiny and purple and tender to the touch. He doesn't touch it. He lets it be, a visible statement to how he must look inside.
He doesn't struggle, doesn't run, doesn't fight despite a myriad of opportunities. He barely even reacts until he's been put in his cell, the forcefield a barrier of static between himself and his captors. And even then it's one simple sentence.
"Show me Jet Link."
It's a threat despite its simple delivery, and it still somehow carries weight despite the energy barrier between anything Albert could do and those who wouldn't survive if he did it.
2. Settling
It's surprising how much prison and the military have in common as far as regimentation. There's a schedule for everything, rigid and unyielding. It would almost be a comfort in the irony of how similar it is to Thirteen's overly structured environment if it didn't also bring Albert memories of Black Ghost, of occupied Mocawa, of a lack of every autonomy that makes Thirteen bearable and keeps Albert grounded instead of adrift in memories he's sought for decades to repress.
Get up. Push ups until the force fields go down he couldn't do push ups at first, not when they'd kept his legs and arm for testing. Impossible to do push ups with only one extremity, shower not as cold as on Ghost Island, he thinks. He couldn't feel temperature right in those days, food, forced reeducation violence for its own sake, or for fear's sake. It's easier to detach from than being picked apart piece by piece, to know you died on the table at least twice but that didn't stop them and you're still here, still here with little else to focus on than the agony inside and a voice in the vent.
But there's no voice in the vent. There's no vent, and the voice is...
Gone.
No. He refuses to believe that. Jet's still there, and Albert will find him and bring him back and they'll turn this around just as they did with Black Ghost. Just as they did on Mocawa. Just as Jet was able to reassemble Albert into a functional human being, Albert will do the same for his husband. That's the first step.
And it starts with him playing along. Tired grunts and stiff movements, no complaints as he's taken out and paraded through the day from one meaningless event to the next with as much resistance as a windless sea. But embers burn in the back of his psyche and there's something truly unsettling in the way he complies, the same reaction to a soft word as a barked order, as a shove. It's all the same for now.
It may not be later.
004 doesn't forget voices. Doesn't forget faces.
004 can wait a very.
Very.
Long.
Time.
--
It's only been a week, but Albert's rarely seen in any company when there's down time, either the cafeteria or in the exercise yard. He exudes an aura of nothing. Void, cold and uninviting but a little sad as he does nothing more interesting than eat his food or stand against a wall. He barely says a word, but looks, watches, and sees.
Sometimes, he'll offer a hand with a task, wordless but there at the right time to steady someone before a fall, or catch something as its dropped. Sometimes, he'll stare too long at someone, perhaps deciding if further association is wise, or maybe willing them to come at least partially fill that void that surrounds him for lack of ability to overtly invite. Sometimes this is someone he knows, sometimes it isn't.
As time wears on, he looks at the ground more than people, looks at his shoes more than faces, trying to focus on something known only to himself. Or so he might think. It's obvious how sickness of the heart wears on a person, even one as old and experienced as Albert Heinrich.
3. Tinkering (Closed; for Sigma)
It's not long before they come for Albert too.
There are no drugs involved for him because they're not needed; direct control isn't necessary when they have what they know is dearest to Albert's heart under a proverbial gun, ready to have the trigger pulled the second he misbehaves. So he goes quietly, under guard, to the facility's infirmary.
He's not sure why, he feels fine, but instead of a doctor they bring in someone who's clearly an engineer, small precision tools and a work apron instead of sanitary whites and needles. For Albert, it's just as bad anyway. He's tense the entire time, even if he lets the man at his arms and legs without complaint, poking and prodding with the same manner as one would go at a leaky sink. He's not a person here, even less so than the cog he was in Thirteen. Here he's barely even an appliance.
Albert attempts to distract himself as the man whistles through his teeth thinly and tunelessly, the cyborg's eyes wandering to whoever else may be in this part of the facility. He doesn't recognize most, but one individual catches his eye, someone who before he was taken to Thirteen, Albert would have readily shot on sight given half the chance.
Sigma Klim.
Now, the German's eyes meet the other cyborg's and plead silently and faintly for a moment, an intervention despite Sigma's clear need for repair himself. And maybe that would be a good distraction, a way to get this man to leave Albert alone, repair Sigma, and then leave, letting the two old men if not talk, then at least breathe without a third unknown hanging over their heads so directly.
What| After having to shoot his husband out of the sky during the last District mission, Albert's been captured.
Where| Detainment Center. Visiting room, cafeteria, etc.
When| After the D8/D9 liberations
Warnings/Notes| Violence, suicidal topics, past body horror, forced drug abuse, body horror, probably other horrible things.
1. Arriving (Closed; for Jet)
He didn't resist.
Not when Punchy brought him into the enemy camp with a wavering gun and Albert's hands on his head knowing that a bullet of such small caliber, even at that close range, would just glance off of his metal body. Knowing that Punchy wouldn't shoot him, that he wouldn't go through Punchy to get away either, no matter how easy it would be.
Not when the Peacekeepers, an ironic use of the words, put the butts of their rifles to his face and back anyway as soon as they'd moved him to where he could be secured, where they could make sure he wasn't loaded, wasn't a bomb about to go off. He didn't feel it, not matter how he went down.
Not when the powers went off and he felt all those bruises, felt his skin taut on his cheek bones shiny and purple and tender to the touch. He doesn't touch it. He lets it be, a visible statement to how he must look inside.
He doesn't struggle, doesn't run, doesn't fight despite a myriad of opportunities. He barely even reacts until he's been put in his cell, the forcefield a barrier of static between himself and his captors. And even then it's one simple sentence.
"Show me Jet Link."
It's a threat despite its simple delivery, and it still somehow carries weight despite the energy barrier between anything Albert could do and those who wouldn't survive if he did it.
2. Settling
It's surprising how much prison and the military have in common as far as regimentation. There's a schedule for everything, rigid and unyielding. It would almost be a comfort in the irony of how similar it is to Thirteen's overly structured environment if it didn't also bring Albert memories of Black Ghost, of occupied Mocawa, of a lack of every autonomy that makes Thirteen bearable and keeps Albert grounded instead of adrift in memories he's sought for decades to repress.
Get up. Push ups until the force fields go down he couldn't do push ups at first, not when they'd kept his legs and arm for testing. Impossible to do push ups with only one extremity, shower not as cold as on Ghost Island, he thinks. He couldn't feel temperature right in those days, food, forced reeducation violence for its own sake, or for fear's sake. It's easier to detach from than being picked apart piece by piece, to know you died on the table at least twice but that didn't stop them and you're still here, still here with little else to focus on than the agony inside and a voice in the vent.
But there's no voice in the vent. There's no vent, and the voice is...
Gone.
No. He refuses to believe that. Jet's still there, and Albert will find him and bring him back and they'll turn this around just as they did with Black Ghost. Just as they did on Mocawa. Just as Jet was able to reassemble Albert into a functional human being, Albert will do the same for his husband. That's the first step.
And it starts with him playing along. Tired grunts and stiff movements, no complaints as he's taken out and paraded through the day from one meaningless event to the next with as much resistance as a windless sea. But embers burn in the back of his psyche and there's something truly unsettling in the way he complies, the same reaction to a soft word as a barked order, as a shove. It's all the same for now.
It may not be later.
004 doesn't forget voices. Doesn't forget faces.
004 can wait a very.
Very.
Long.
Time.
--
It's only been a week, but Albert's rarely seen in any company when there's down time, either the cafeteria or in the exercise yard. He exudes an aura of nothing. Void, cold and uninviting but a little sad as he does nothing more interesting than eat his food or stand against a wall. He barely says a word, but looks, watches, and sees.
Sometimes, he'll offer a hand with a task, wordless but there at the right time to steady someone before a fall, or catch something as its dropped. Sometimes, he'll stare too long at someone, perhaps deciding if further association is wise, or maybe willing them to come at least partially fill that void that surrounds him for lack of ability to overtly invite. Sometimes this is someone he knows, sometimes it isn't.
As time wears on, he looks at the ground more than people, looks at his shoes more than faces, trying to focus on something known only to himself. Or so he might think. It's obvious how sickness of the heart wears on a person, even one as old and experienced as Albert Heinrich.
3. Tinkering (Closed; for Sigma)
It's not long before they come for Albert too.
There are no drugs involved for him because they're not needed; direct control isn't necessary when they have what they know is dearest to Albert's heart under a proverbial gun, ready to have the trigger pulled the second he misbehaves. So he goes quietly, under guard, to the facility's infirmary.
He's not sure why, he feels fine, but instead of a doctor they bring in someone who's clearly an engineer, small precision tools and a work apron instead of sanitary whites and needles. For Albert, it's just as bad anyway. He's tense the entire time, even if he lets the man at his arms and legs without complaint, poking and prodding with the same manner as one would go at a leaky sink. He's not a person here, even less so than the cog he was in Thirteen. Here he's barely even an appliance.
Albert attempts to distract himself as the man whistles through his teeth thinly and tunelessly, the cyborg's eyes wandering to whoever else may be in this part of the facility. He doesn't recognize most, but one individual catches his eye, someone who before he was taken to Thirteen, Albert would have readily shot on sight given half the chance.
Sigma Klim.
Now, the German's eyes meet the other cyborg's and plead silently and faintly for a moment, an intervention despite Sigma's clear need for repair himself. And maybe that would be a good distraction, a way to get this man to leave Albert alone, repair Sigma, and then leave, letting the two old men if not talk, then at least breathe without a third unknown hanging over their heads so directly.
no subject
He won't, either. He was trying so hard back in Thirteen; he truly hadn't meant to get captured, despite what others may think considering his past actions in what he's done for Jet. Blown himself up - twice - traded himself into the jaws of Hell just to see Jet free. But he hadn't done this intentionally despite part of him wishing he had. But now he's here and now that he knows what's become of his husband, that they've been toying with the love of his life, he won't leave until he can take Jet away from here.
Maybe they should have run when they'd had the chance. Started that little farm in the middle of nowhere.
"What did they do?" He doesn't want to know, but with Jet lucid and eyes focused, it may be his only time to find out, and that information is imparative to his finding a way out for them both.
no subject
"I remember doctors, scientists, bright lights." The Capitol emblem emblazoned on their collars. Like a cold snap, reality crashes into momentary focus. The Capitol, he was there and Albert hadn't been, but now he was in danger, threatened, when he'd been safe.
Jet pressed Albert back into the wall, this time his ire wasn't misdirected. "You lying bastard, you promised! You swore you'd changed, you weren't going to do this again. How dare you get yourself caught, you fucking jerk!"
no subject
And then the words catch up to him and he's angry too, hurt, and it takes him a moment to swallow the urge to bark back, to yell that as much as he'd wanted to leave immediately and mount a poorly thought out rescue out of emotional need, he hadn't. He'd waited. He'd been careful for all he hated it, and it takes all of his self control to remind himself that Jet has no way of knowing unless he tells him now.
"I appreciate that you think me so skilled that the only way I could have come here was intentionally, but no." He removes Jet's hands then, gently but firm in a way that puts finality in his words. He doesn't let go of Jet's hands even when they're off his collar, though. "I was captured in the battle at District 9. I-"
His heart drums in his chest for a moment, choking him into silence at the memory of the missile leaving his knee, at watching it connect, at watching Jet spiral down out of the sky in smoke and the sound of the resulting crash into the ground below. At the memory of the heap he'd made of his husband. Twice, now. Twice he'd killed Jet and while the circumstances surrounding each make him wonder if he would have made the same choice had he the chance to go back, they'll still be two marks on his soul he'll never shake.
"I shot you down." His voice breaks, even as hushed as it is, and he can't bring himself to meet Jet's eyes. "Damnit, Jet, you weren't yourself. You didn't recognize me and you were ramming into buildings and so I..."
I shot you down. It echoes, even though he doesn't repeat it.
no subject
Confusion colored his expression as Albert finally worked the words off his lips. The break in the other man's voice tore at Jet's heart and he wanted to fix it, even if that was impossible. He kept his hands in Albert's and didn't try to pull away from the hold.
"I don't remember that." He'd been running into buildings? And Albert had felt the need to shoot him down? He wouldn't have done that if he felt there was no other option. "I couldn't have survived that..." That didn't add up either, how could he not remember dying or hurting people or anything at all from this fight? "How did you get caught?"
no subject
"When I went to examine yo-... the crash site, Punchy was there. I wasn't about to murder him in cold blood when I'd already..." He lets out a labored breath and draws in another, trying to master himself and mostly succeeding. "I went with him. That's how I ended up here."
He'd carried Jet's limp body in, too heavy for a human but too light with his own cybernetics active. He's honestly surprised he managed to remember the weight with how hollow he'd felt at the time, devoid of everything save for the singular knowledge that he didn't want to hurt anyone else just then. No one but Snow, but Punchy didn't deserve it.
no subject
Partners.
Partners no matter who or what tried to pull them apart. His mind was slipping in and out of reality, in and out of the present even and that was hurting Albert too, just like this memory was. What was happening to them, what was going on that all of this was threatening to rip at their seams?
Jet hesitated, then crossed the room as well to sit beside the older man. He was important to Jet. His partner, his family, the person keeping him sane...now the person worth finding sanity for again. If only this static weren't so thick.
His hand hovered as though he was unsure how forward he could be. He wanted to do something intimate, lean their foreheads together, but was that normal or something his mind had come up with? He remembered...he remembered them being brothers, teammates, captives, he remembered his love and lust for the man beside him and he could remember it returned to him, but what if he'd made it up as something he simply wanted. He couldn't be sure and he couldn't make the words to ask come out.
His hand found Albert's shoulder, an easy enough gesture, gentle but not too close. "Sorry I jumped down your throat. We'll...It'll.." He grit his teeth, eyes darting down from Albert's face as he considered his words. These sentiments trying to form felt right but sounded wrong. They'd get through it? It'd be okay? Considering where they were now, the subject at hand, how could any of that sound convincing? It wasn't.
"I'm sorry." He felt like he should be, he had things to apologize for, didn't he always with how often he screwed up? He just didn't always say it, so maybe now he should in the face of losing everything else to say.
no subject
Jet sits next to him, leaving a gap, and Albert hesitates to bridge it at first. He's used to having the blond be the one to ignore personal space, to remain uncaring or even defiant of the things that would cause problems for them concerning intimacy. But what he's used to can't be the thing Albert falls back on, not when Jet's mind is scrambled. He doesn't have what they have in there in the right order, doesn't have it to inform his actions or thoughts. The hand on his shoulder is a start, but Albert knows he will have to be the one to bridge the gaps in earnest.
So he does. He shifts so he can lean over, not quite facing his husband but pressing their temples together in the ghost of an old gesture, a quiet press between them that shows he wants to be close, that he forgives all slights and will heal all ills if just given the chance. "I'm here, now, however it happened. I'm with you."
no subject
"I am glad for that." That much he knew and could promise. "Things are calmer now...'cause of you." He bit back anything else that seemed to rush forward to say, things more personal or more intimate, things worse (better?) than what he'd just admitted. All he knew was that, while Albert shouldn't be here, Jet didn't think he had the strength to send him away if given the choice.
He hesitantly turned his head, pausing as his thoughts raced and doubts ran even faster, but he slammed them down into stubborn silence as he followed what felt right. His face turned and he pressed their lips together into a small kiss that turned desperate and needy in the span of seconds. But just as quickly as he'd initiated it, he broke it off again, those doubts breaking free with a vengeance.
"Sorry. I-" don't know if I'm allowed to do that or if it's just something I wanted for so long. Please don't have fucked things up-
no subject
He can't stand Jet feeling guilty for showing affection and while he's normally the stoic one, hardly the one to initiate most of the time (not always - Albert may be quieter but he feels no less fiercely), he knows he'll need to show and tell on his own now.
"It quiets the ghosts, I know." He puts his head back where he had it before, temples together with quiet breathing and words between them. "You did the same for me so many times. I know how it feels."
"Let me help you, Sparrow. I'll put the pieces in order again." He smiles, just a little, rueful but still somehow gentle. "You know how I like to keep things tidy."
no subject
It sends a jolt through him that makes his pulse quicken and his hand comes up to Albert's shoulder to grip it tightly. This was right. Them, Albert so close, his breath warm against Jet's skin. A gentle touch, a gentle kiss, movements of bodies pressed to each other, sometimes gentle and sometimes less so, Albert was right. Brother, teammate, partner...lover. Loved.
Jet nodded a little, his voice quiet but strong for the confidence of this touch. this was right, it granted him a starting point. Anything involving him and Albert as more might be real and that helped sort out the things in his head that said the opposite. "Okay."
no subject
He says nothing else, just holds Jet in shape long enough that he prays his husband will remember it permanently with some time. And even if he doesn't, even if they use this as a foundation to build upon again, they can do that too.
Jet is still Jet. Still Albert's Jet, whatever form that takes.