weathertop | darling it's better down where it's wetter

"Good," Jack says, "I'm out."

Of EVE, that is. He lifts his left hand to demonstrate, if Sinclair can see it from all the way up there; it's red and cracked but lacks the actual flames that make Incinerate useful.

What the splicer called him is going around in his head.

It was coincidence, he tells himself, it's gotta be coincidence, like with Sinclair -- but coincidence or not, hearing Fontaine's name everywhere is starting to knock him about. It's as if the man is still alive, laughing at him through other people's voices. Jack ever so kindly handed over the city to him, and he isn't leaving it easily.

The thought worries him now and then. Fontaine had the key, he had scientists, and Jack doesn't know how this shit works -- maybe he could've done something to the Vita Chambers, or...

...No, now he's starting to sound like the crazy guy in the freezers, the one who thought Jack was working for Fontaine.

You know, the guy who turned out to be right.

Fuck this. He's going to reload his gun.

Okay, one more knot and...voila, the greatest makeshift rope to ever see the light of. Uh. Reflections under the ocean.

He gives one of the banister columns a hefty kick to make sure it's not going anywhere and sets to tying the sheets around it. A few seconds later, he tosses the length of it down to Jack.

"Hope you learned how to climb back at the old Kansas fire department," he grins.

Hahaha yeah! The good old fire department! Where he worked! Haha, ha, ha...

Jack tugs on the world's greatest makeshift rope, and it seems to hold fine. Well then, he'll trust to Sinclair's knots. And if he kinda... grabs onto the thing like this, and if he clamps onto the bottom with his soles like this...

(going off vague memories of climbing rope in gym class, let's all laugh, more laughter, ha, ha, ha)

Okay good, he's got this, he's climbing and

then a knot slips and comes undone.

Jack's eyes go wide for a second, like those of a coyote who's just run off the edge of a cliff, and then he lets out his third and loudest unmanly yelp of the morning.

And gains his third and easily most painful butt bruise.

Sinclair learned how to tie knots at the same place Jack learned how to climb, isn't that funny?

We can laugh some more, if Jack's butt bruise isn't dampening his sense of humor.

"Whoa--" Sinclair says, wincing sympathetically. "...Sorry, sport. Thought I tied them a little tighter than that."

"Ow," says Jack, wincing descriptively.

No, he didn't need that tailbone, thanks for asking.

He starts to roll very stiffly onto his front, so it's evident that he hasn't broken his spine or anything so dramatic. But still, it was a jarring and painful shock. And furthermore ow.

Jack opts to grit his teeth and avoid making any more pained noises.

That's really the only reason he's not calling Sinclair a collection of names that would give his fake mother the vapors.

Come on now, you're young, walk it off.

"You gonna make it?" Sinclair asks, mostly joking but still slightly concerned. And a tad guilty. Just a little. But really, it must be that the sheets are too smooth, can't hold a knot. It's got nothing to do with Sinclair's knot-tying abilities. In case you were wondering.

Oh, for sure. Jack has absolute faith that that's the case. Doesn't blame you in the slightest, mister Sinclair.

"Now my back hurts," he complains, at some point during the painful journey to upright. Man, no splicers better come find him while his butt is this bruised.

...that wasn't an invitation, by the way.

Sinclair sighs audibly and brings back both creme cakes, tossing them down by Jack's feet.

"Maybe that'll help," he says.

It's not like he's above bribing Jack to quit guilting him.

Jack blinks at the cakes as they land on the tiles. (He's working his way back up to fast movement, shut up.)

Oh! A peace offering!

Since telekinesis is a no-go without EVE, he crouches down with a grunt to collect them. Roughly three seconds later there is absolutely no trace of creme cake existence.

Jack straightens with a bit more ease. That took care of the fall damage, if maybe not his injured pride.

"Better," he says informatively.

Okay mister Sinclair, you're off the hook for now. He rubs the small of his back to get out the rest of the ache.

"...What now?"

"Well tie it back," Sinclair says. Duh, that's the obvious choice. It was one faulty knot, the rest are solid as a 9 iron.

What, they are. He swears it.

Even from two storeys down, Jack is able to give Sinclair a very eloquent 'are you serious' kind of look.

"I don't want to break my back."

Exasperated sigh.

"Well what do you suggest then, I'm all out of ideas."

"Find a real rope."

He says it like it's obvious.

"There's nothing else up here, kid," he tells him, slightly frustrated. The sheets rope thing was a good idea, in theory. And it's annoying that they just went through all of that, again for nothing.

This is not a pattern Sinclair particularly likes.

Yeah well, a Laissez-faire city under the sea sounded like a great idea to someone or other, and look where that one ended up.

"Then I'll look down here."

He makes as if to move, but holds up, waiting for Sinclair's response.

"I'll just wait here then," he says, tone not entirely void of indignation.

They could have probably looked while they were still down there, that might have been a good plan. But then again, it's not as if plans have served them well so far. Everything's been a little hit-or-miss, no matter what they do. And it's aggravating, for someone who usually knows exactly what he's doing, and doesn't usually fail.

There's been a lot of failure so far. Too much. And he's sure it's not over yet.

Well maybe if you stop letting Jack make plans.

And here's the nod and vanishing act that I'm sure Sinclair has come to know and love.

Tata, papa!

And he's alone again, with every echoing drip of a leaky pipe and Jack's very distant footsteps.

At least there's no through-door upstairs, at least not one that's unlocked. He'll be mostly safe from splicers, as long as he doesn't make himself noticeable.

Sinclair leans back against the wall and slides to sit on the tile. When they get back to his apartment, he's going to take a very long, very hot bath, and then he's going to collapse on his mattress and go into a coma for as many hours as he possibly can.

Now there's a plan.

Jack hunts all around, and on a whim he heads for the Big Daddy with the vague idea that its suit might have something they can use. You know, if it hasn't been completely plundered in the hours since it died.

It's still there, unmoved and unmoving, defaced with rude graffiti by some splicer who probably wouldn't have the nerve to go near a living one. He fails to spot the body of the Sister. Unaccountably, he's glad that he does.

That relief lasts until he finds a finger over here, and a scrap of dress over there, and realises that he hasn't just failed to spot the body.

Well.

Well, it's not a surprise. It's not a surprise that the (other) splicers would've descended on her, it's not like she was even running away, let alone defended. Whatever. It's not like she was alive. Or even human. It's stupid to feel badly for something you stabbed through the stomach with icicles. He already put this out of his head like five seconds after the harvest, and rightly so.

Jesus, this is why he shouldn't backtrack.

For all his trouble, the Bouncer doesn't even have any ropes or cords. It's carrying mad cash -- maybe the splicers were too preoccupied with the Sister and her traces of ADAM to loot it -- but nothing that'll lift him two floors.

Jack sighs in annoyance and starts to traipse back to the staircase, taking the scenic route and restocking bullets and EVE with his newfound riches.

The malaise is back, a combination of hangover and worries and the constant setbacks they've been having. He sure hopes that Sinclair's had a more thorough rummage around.

Edited 2013-03-15 07:14 (UTC)

Jack sure is taking his time. Sinclair's not really used to sitting around idly when there's something that needs to be done, but he's not really sure what more he can do. He's already searched every drawer and cabinet and room, and...

Well not every room, he supposes, but that one was locked.

But it's just a doorknob, and at the risk of attracting unwanted attention, perhaps he can cure that door of its desire to keep them out.

Sinclair gets to his feet and wanders back into the reception area, drawing his gun as he approaches door number three. He stands back a ways to avoid potential door shrapnel, aims the gun and fires.

Splinters go flying, a good sign. But when he looks at the door, there's a hole through it but it appears to be just as locked as before. He approaches it, cursing under his breath, and shoves at it

and it gives. It's open. Jesus god, it worked.

He steps inside, grinning shamelessly at this wonderful accomplishment and sweet christ what is that smell?

The room is just as identical as the previous two except for the rotting corpse tied to the operating table.

Sinclair buries his nose in the crook of his elbow and walks up to the body, looking it over. It's missing most of its teeth, all of its fingers, and it appears to have been scalped. If Sinclair looks to his right, he'll find a tray full of bloody surgical tools lined up meticulously next to nine decaying digits. He's very sure he doesn't want to know what happened to the tenth.

Clearly the kind of surgery intended to save a life. You bet.

But for all of revolting brutality of the scene laid out before him, he got what he came here for. The body is tied to the operating table with a rope, bound again and again around its torso. Poor bastard wasn't going anywhere.

He works out where he can begin untying it and, once he's got that figured out, takes a deep breath to hold while he gets it undone. It requires a few breaks to step out and breathe before he comes back to it again, but a few minutes later it's over. Sinclair has acquired one rope with bonus blood stains. Now they're in business.

Jack brains a couple of splicers on the way back, but his heart isn't really in it.

Beside the ruined staircase, he frowns upwards, searching for his lovely assistant.

"Mister Sinclair?"

Hearing his name, Sinclair hurries back to the balcony with his grossly earned prize.

"Looks like I was mistaken," he says, dropping it on the floor and getting to work tying it around the banister.

"Great," says Jack, with just the slightest flavour of I-told-you-so.

Turns out this is just what he needs to bring his mood back up a notch. They're totally getting ahead after all!

Now he just needs to stop thinking about... everything, ha, what a time to start thinking about things. He could really do without these Fontaine name-drops if it's all the same to everyone. They should've put that on the adverts for ADAM: guaranteed to stop you caring that everyone you knew and loved might as well be dead! End creeping discomfort, or your money back!

Anyway.

He plays with the rope a bit while Sinclair ties it, checking for any obvious fraying. He's not hoping for another tumble. But as it turns out, the greatest danger might be slipping on all this... stuff, this kind of nasty covering that smells exactly like some of the older corpses he's plundered.

Dang, Sinclair, you didn't find this in a store-room, did you.

Well, Jack has smelled worse.

Looking down, Sinclair notices the face Jack makes at the rope. He found something solid for you to climb up and what, now it's not good enough? I see how it is.

"Hope you don't mind," he says, "I borrowed it from our friend up here. Not exactly the most, uh...hygienic fella."

It had to be a rope, after all.

"I've seen worse," he answers, repeating the sentiment of the narration honestly enough.

Once it's done being tied, he gives it the same experimental tug he gave the first one, then pulls a 'welp here we go' kind of face and hauls himself onto it.

His hands, as expected, slip a lot. But he's strong enough to make kinks in the rope for extra grip, tensing his arms and forcing each part he holds to be horizontal.

All things considered, he makes slow but reasonable progress.

He tries not to be too aware of the ground getting further and further away beneath him. Or the way the rope sways alarmingly with his movements. He's just climbin'. Yep. He's mostly lived through Rapture so far, a bit of climbin' isn't too risky. Nope.

Near the top, he loses his grip, tries to grab some rope that's a bit too slick with rotting people juice and slides. With an alarmed little noise, he clenches fists and feet and thighs around the rope and makes the mistake of looking down.

He stalls himself two feet further down, and looks up at Sinclair with the fairly undisguised look of a man whose fake-ass life just flashed before his eyes.

Please let that knot at the top be secure please oh please he will kill you if you make him fall again oh my god.

There aren't any incidents after that, but it's still with a certain amount of relief that Jack scrambles over the banister and onto solid ground. Jack leans his butt against the banister and stretches, quite deliberately not looking down again.

I mean it's not the first time he's done stupid acrobatics, but he does usually prefer to have his feet planted on the floor.

A quick triumphant grin is directed at Sinclair.

And it's worth mentioning that between the extended Bouncer search, and getting up close and personal with dead people rope, Jack smells pretty bad. Worse than the usual Rapture combo of unwashed dude and trashcan residue. His hands and clothes are entirely vile, encrusted with who knows what kinds of grime, not that this keeps him from a dedicated attempt to wipe off the one on the other.

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