applesaucedream | [closed] When all turns out to be unjust, then I'll turn back and help you out

He looks even worse up close. Pale and fragile from months of rough treatment, looking at Daniel guardedly, but he sees the flicker of recognition just beneath. The betrayal.

Daniel forces himself to continue meeting Seth's eyes even if they're hollow and sunken and dismal, straining to communicate I'm here to help without words. He thinks he sees the barest flicker of hope cross Seth's expression but it fades before he can be sure.

He's walking on very, very thin ice. He doesn't know how to tell him and be subtle about it.

"I regret your situation." God, it sounds so flat and stony and horrible when he has to put it that way, lifeless and without admitting responsibility. "And I regret the circumstances that placed you in it." Indirectly blaming Seth for something beyond his control, how nice and considerate of him, but he can't arouse suspicion and he can't make himself obvious.

No, god no he can't do this. Not if Seth still has a modicum of hope that he can escape.

"I think it would be beneficial," he continues, the words have to be calculated and patient and without inflection and he hates it, "if we worked to change it."

All the while Daniel keeps looking at him, facing away from the door and hoping no one but Seth can see his expression, how much he is trying to non-verbally convey that he is going to get him out of here. He is going to at the very least try.

Seth can feel himself harden against Daniel's words, and it becomes very difficult to look at him.

It also becomes very quickly apparent that Daniel doesn't have much power to help him. Nor can he be a friend to him. Strictly professional and distant. Seth feels bitter and angry, because that's much easier, less painful than hoping against hope, than opening himself up to someone who might be able to help.

He smirks, sardonically and without any humour, and reaches out a hand towards Daniel. "Wanna be on fire?"

Then he scoffs and drops the hand, pushing himself backwards on the bed to lean against the wall, legs pulled up and resting his arms on his knees. Not looking at Daniel.

He has to bite back the automatic apology because Seth just radiates weary, practiced hostility, either not picking up on the signals Daniel's desperately trying to send or not caring enough to interpret them. He's not sure which is worse.

No, yes he is.

The latter. Definitely.

I'm sorry, he wants to mouth wordlessly but there's no way to know if anyone will see. He hates this. He loathes this.

Seth's offer of the hand and the caustic remark that follows is somehow worse than anything Daniel had to watch him endure in the other room. This is - this is intentional. This is aware.

How does he alert Seth to any of it? How does he - no, don't turn to look over one shoulder and check if anyone's watching because that's the surest way to raise suspicions and doom them both. He can't act on any of the instincts for compassion, understanding, whatever else he'd ordinarily utilize here. He can't afford to be anything but distant.

"It might change sooner than you think," he says again, and shit that could just as easily be taken as a subtle threat. No, no no no no that's not what he means. "It could be beneficial." No, god that sounds even worse, like he's alluding to some warped form of bribery for comfort or something.

"I can help you." But in context of what he's just said it still sounds like a warning. No, fuck, Daniel's just not very good at this at all, is he?

Seth looks up. If it had been anyone else, it definitely would've sounded ominous. But there's something about the familiar badly-hidden awkwardness at saying the wrong thing. Seth licks his lips a bit, considering.

"What makes you think I want your help?" he answers coldly, then suddenly gets to his feet, squaring his shoulders, clenching and unclenching his fists. Rather than come at Daniel though, he starts pacing the length of the room.

"I've had enough promises about 'beneficial' changes, ta very much," he continues loudly, not looking at Daniel. "And you can take your regret and shove it."

Definitely the wrong thing to say. Daniel doesn't mean to flinch when Seth rises but he does, a horrible reflexive motion mirroring the other man's thoroughly unfriendly disposition. It doesn't help that Seth won't even look at him, just prowls the room while violently discharging his pent-up aggression at the only person present to listen.

It's also rapidly becoming more obvious that however ragged a condition Seth might be in physically, it's probably nothing like the graveyard his mental state must be by now. There's anxiety, animosity, barely contained frustration in each movement, and it's all aimed directly at Daniel.

Daniel, who wants to help but has no idea how, who can only stand there with restless hands and useless sympathy, stripped of his words and his compassion and his fucking pointless understanding, the only weapons he can wield with any accuracy.

"Consider that this might not be a conventional offer," he says, a little too quickly and tersely and desperately and trying not to let any of it leak through.

This is tortuous to watch. And Daniel is so close to just saying fuck it to all of it and -

He can't.

Edited 2014-10-19 00:49 (UTC)

Seth shoots Daniel a warning glare at his words, Seth's own back to the camera now.

"Just--" Seth gestures jerkily, and turns to the wall next to the door, then kicks it out of frustration, breathing heavily. He presses his hands against the wall and leans his head against it wearily for a moment. Then he turns and leans against the wall in the corner, sinking to the floor.

"Just leave me alone," he says clearly, voice rough, but now it's his turn for the words not to match the expression, aggression giving way to desperation, only hoping Daniel won't be too surprised and give him away. He glances pointedly upwards at the camera in the corner above him. This is the only place in the room where they can't properly see him.

Easy enough to fake a tantrum - not like he doesn't actually feel all those things. Hands close to his chest, he gestures carefully for Daniel to come closer, to pretend to check on Seth.

Seeing him actually lash out is even worse than the bottled-down rage from before, but then Seth draws himself into the corner and his expression opens and he looks up at the camera and -

Oh.

Oh.

Daniel tracks the line of Seth's gaze partway but doesn't dare look back at it. He's trusting Seth's reasoning and knowledge of the place here, so he moves toward him with all the righteous authority and purpose of someone about to engage in forcefully corrective behavior. He drops into a slow crouch in front of him, lifting his eyes to stare back at Seth in bare and skittish relief but he's not sure he can vocalize just now. His breaths are shallow, heart thudding in the shock of realization.

His lungs don't feel muzzled in cotton any longer and the room temperature isn't as oppressively glacial and he can actually breathe without the tearing in his throat because he knows now, he's done it, he's gotten through, Seth knows and none of what he said before matters, none of it.

"I'm sorry." Daniel mouths it silently, as diminished and surreptitious as he can. That doesn't even begin to cover what he needs to communicate to Seth right now and it's not even a suitable starting point, but - fuck, it's something. And it's not the arctic distance and detachment he's been forced to display so far. At least.

Edited 2014-10-19 01:40 (UTC)

Seth tenses up when Daniel comes at him, and shit fuck he's made a mistake, he's fucked up. It was just a trick to make Seth reveal what weaknesses he's discovered in their system, and now he's going to pay, at a former friend's hand.

But then when Daniel crouches, there is just no way to fake the look on his face, and Seth breathes a shaking sigh of relief. It's amazing, to see a friendly, kind face.

He wants to reach out and grab Daniel, just hold onto him for a little bit, some physicality to reassure himself, but he resists. He's not sure just how much is hidden from the camera here. Instead he rubs at his knuckles, hands trembling a little.

"They can't hear us if we whisper," he answers in a low hiss. "Especially after I shouted."

It's almost worse seeing him now, with none of the empty defiance or hostility, just Seth and his tremoring, palpable terror and anxiety and panic. There's no reservation here, no barriers or avoidance or fronts for anyone's benefit, just naked dread and paranoia.

And relief. That's the important thing.

"I'm sorry," Daniel can say it aloud, whispered and horrified. "God, I - I'm gonna try and get you out, I promise, I, I don't even know how I - god, I'm so sorry."

He has to fight to keep it at a whisper, but even if his voice breaks by the second apology the volume never peaks. There is no way to transcribe all of it into words, even a linguist can recognize the limitations of human speech, and there wouldn't be enough time regardless. Going on like this in a futile attempt to console him verbally won't help, so he falls silent and reaches out with a discreet hand to grasp at one of Seth's, masking the motion as he shifts his weight from his heels to the balls of his feet. He just - needs for Seth to have tactility that isn't forced power transferals or blunt force trauma or whatever else he's been subjected to here.

Seth swallows at the apology, and his eyes are stinging. It's so good to find out that someone is trying to help him, but he also hates for Daniel to see him like this, and how upsetting it is for him, and paradoxically he wants to comfort Daniel.

He grabs onto Daniel's hand tightly, pressing it to his chest, as if he wants to keep it there, and he smiles weakly.

"Books," he says, whispered voice wavering. "If you lend me books, you can put messages in them."

He'll even behave, so they won't take them away as punishment. And so they'll think it's Daniel's doing that he's behaving too, so they will trust Daniel more. He knows they can't pull off a conversation like this more than once, maybe twice. Perhaps Daniel can find some other way for them to talk, but at least they'll still have a way to communicate until then.

Daniel nods fractionally, understanding. They have no time for extended discussion here but that doesn't mean they don't have a plan. As much as two sentences, one of which was a single word, can be defined as a "plan," anyhow. But it's something, and they can work with that.

The strength of Seth's grip just works to further augment Daniel's resolve. He returns the smile, pained and fleeting, and briefly increases the pressure of his fingers around Seth's hand.

"I'll get you out," he hisses, ironclad conviction punched into each syllable, the final word closed off with the satisfying snap of teeth as he rises, pulls roughly out of Seth's grasp to move away, all the while keeping his back to the camera.

"I'm sure there's something we can do," he says icily, clearly, acting for the camera, "to get your full cooperation. Without any of this."

He bites his lip briefly - he probably overplayed that - but hastily rearranges his expression into something more detached.

Even with the assurance that Daniel will get him out, it still hurts to have him pull away and speak to him so coldly, and Seth wipes at the sudden wetness on his face with his sleeve.

"Yeah," he answers, not bothering to hide how upset he sounds. It works in his favour. "I'm sure we'll be great friends," he says sarcastically. It's remarkably easy to slip right back into the guarded, hostile demeanor he's used to.

Edited 2014-10-19 05:03 (UTC)

It's a week and a half (he can keep track of the days but he realizes with a sickening twist in his gut that Seth has no such luxury) before Daniel can negotiate for Seth to get more books in his cell, employing the emotional sorts of arguments about how if one treats prisoners with humanity they will respond in kind. He's even able to get a message into one of them, something poorly hidden (he is not a cryptographer), by underlining certain letters.

He gets to deliver them by hand - another courtesy extracted through moral debate with a side of strategy after he explained that if he could form a bond with J-19, it might make him more receptive. Not complete bullshit according to most criminal psychologists, but Daniel doubts that sort of thing would work on Seth in actuality.

He spends the entire time expecting something to go wrong at every turn.

But the guard lets him into Seth's cell without a fuss so Daniel can stand awkwardly holding a very short stack of books, one thumb rubbing absently at the cover of the topmost one.

"Morning," says Daniel, glancing down at the books in hand and back up at Seth. "I brought you these. To, um, improve conditions."

It seems to both take forever and no time at all before he gets to see Daniel again. It's not as bad now he's got that little glimmer of hope. Something to look forward to, even if he doesn't know when the time he's waiting for will come. But he can focus on it, he can remind himself when things get bad, and he can keep his head down and do as he's told, even when it's horrible. And less acting out means less punishment.

He sits up quickly when the door opens, and he has restrain himself not to show the happiness and relief at seeing Daniel again.

"Is it morning?" he asks, doing his best to sound detached and unconcerned.

"Technically." His tone is light but not friendly as he moves to carefully put the books on top of those already present. "It's a quarter to noon."

Daniel has to work to keep his steps unhurried as he moves away, back to the door and hands in pockets. He's supposed to be the person in power here, and it takes an astronomical effort to keep everything from body language to facial expression as dispassionate and controlled as everyone else here.

"Have you given any thought," he asks after an indecisive pause, "to the possible advantages of your full cooperation?" Is he getting better at this? Should he be worried that he's getting better at this? Should he be worried that he's been able to play this part for so long?

It wouldn't matter, in any case; right now he's primarily worried about Seth.

Funny how time seems to lose all meaning when you can't see the sun and they always leave the light on.

He glances down at the books, taking a deep breath to keep his hands steady as he reaches to pick them up, under the guise of simply checking out which titles he's gotten. Not overly interesting, but he'll read them anyway - even if he weren't expecting secret messages.

"To be fair," he answers slowly. "I can't say I've been uncooperative lately. Soo..." Still treading the line between sarcastic bastard and willing subject. Well, alright, he still leans more towards sarcastic bastard, but it's still true that he's cooperated.

"I'm happy to hear that."

Daniel doesn't look at him directly but stays focused on a more distant point, specifically the section of gray wall just beyond Seth's left shoulder. He's afraid of what he might inadvertently communicate to Seth's captors if he meets the other man's eyes and can't tamp down the automatic emotional response quickly enough. He has to stay detached. He has to stay detached.

He has to stay detached.

"I think you should start weighing your options. You've been here for a while." Like Seth needs reminding. But he needs to work in his point - "There's no reading between the lines here."

Daniel's composure slips as he says it, barely. He folds and his eyes dart to lock with Seth's and then back again, but the words are dull and patient and spoken without inflection, the model of obedience. And the mother of all subtle signals. All right, so it was a poor job, but it doesn't matter if Daniel got the message across.

"Right..." he answers slowly. It's hard to miss the meaning of the words, when he's focusing so completely on Daniel. He gives a small nod, his grip tightening a little on the books. He can tell Daniel is just playing a part here, same as him, but it's still uncomfortable.

"I will. ...I am," he answers, intentionally letting the hostility drop for the moment. As an admission that he's going to cooperate. Even if there's nothing he'd like to do less. But if he makes it seem like Daniel is making progress with him in the way the rebels want him to, then surely Daniel will have more leeway.

Seth wonders how Daniel got here. Did he only join to get Seth out and it's all for his benefit, or does Daniel really think they're going good works? Is Seth just the exception, or is Daniel trying to improve things for all of them, whoever else is locked up in here? When Daniel says he'll get him out, what does he mean by that? Free to go anywhere in Manhattan perhaps, as long as Seth still works for them, like it used to be? Or will he be able to leave for good?

He looks down at the books, unable to look at Daniel anymore, his chest tightening.

"Well, you did work for us before." Us, right, Daniel has to lump himself in with the faceless organization keeping Seth here against his will. An uncomfortable self-depersonalization he'll have to live with. He has to respond to Seth's lack of aggression logically and push that agenda he hates.

"Do you think you could get to the point where you'd be willing to do so again?" He's going to have to maneuver his way to the point very slowly. Progress in general will be achingly glacial if it's going to be in any way believable to the outside parties, and Daniel will have to play his cards with extreme care. If he can just bargain for Seth to get more personal freedom, get it to the point where they feel they can trust him again, even slightly, everything he's had to do will be worth it.

In the long run. In the short term, he'll have to settle for hating himself, and hating them for doing this to Seth at all.

Seth swallows, fiddling with the topmost book, not opening it, just running his thumbs over it nervously. He wonders if he should wait to say anything until he's read them. For all he knows, Daniel might have a fully fleshed out plan that involves Seth not cooperating. But then it's hardly unthinkable Seth could change his mind on just how helpful he wants to be. He's done it often enough before.

"You're new here, aren't ya?" he asks, not a hundred percent sure where he's going with this yet. "You weren't here when they brought me in, right?" He glances up for just a moment. He has trouble looking at Daniel when he's like this, and he doesn't want to cause him to break his cover.

"You know, I was happy working here. I didn't mean to hurt anyone," he says bitterly, clenching his jaw. The latter is true, the former, not quite. But it's what he wants them to think. And by now at the very least, Daniel will have heard the charges against him, and Seth needs Daniel to know that he really meant no harm.

"Only they didn't believe me. Thought I was gonna do something bad, so they locked me up. Don' exactly make someone likely to want to cooperate, does it?" he continues.

The implication of course being, yes, he might actually be willing to work for them again, because the reason he stopped had nothing to do with not wanting to work. It was just a reaction to the way he was treated. And, well, they haven't exactly been falling over themselves to give him a choice in the matter.

Seth seems to catch on to where Daniel's been trying to guide the conversation, what he's been mentally preparing himself to hear for the entire week-or-so, but it's still not easy to take in. And it's an incomplete explanation, but he already has access to one side of the story. He just needs the other.

"I think you'll find we're trying to keep an open mind here," he begins patiently, "though a good starting point for both parties would be forgiveness."

Daniel lingers a little too long on that final word, not for any tactical purpose but for purely selfish reasons. He locks eyes with Seth for a second but quickly finds a section of floor to be infinitely more interesting.

"And if we can work out the point where things started to go wrong," he continues, verging on thinly-veiled double meanings, "we might be able to prevent it from happening again."

That, paired with the message left in the book, should be enough. Theoretically. Definitely. The message - assuming the way Daniel hid it makes any sense to Seth at all - asks for limited information on his attempts to get out of here. Daniel just needs to know how they failed so he can circumvent those same mistakes.

Seth lets out a breath when Daniel mentions forgiveness, his shoulders slumping a little. Good. Okay.

He frowns a little at Daniel's next words, not entirely sure how it applies from the rebels' point of view. Which must mean Daniel's trying to inject meaning into that as well. Seth is practically sitting here memorising every word.

"Sounds good," he answers quietly.

"I'm working to change your accommodations," he says a shade too quickly in an effort to not make everything he says sound suspicious and multilayered. And that's not strictly speaking a lie - Daniel is working to change Seth's accommodations, just not to a nicer cell so much as someplace far away from the base and everyone in it.

"You'll only get a transfer if you continue to be agreeable." In other words, sit tight and don't draw negative attention, but that much is fairly obvious, so it all just sounds redundant at this point. Daniel's reluctant to leave as he has no idea when they'll be able to communicate again.

Seth nods silently. Keep his head down, he knows.

He doesn't want Daniel to leave, but he also can't really do or say any of the things he wants to, so he bites his lip. He's been doing this for months, he knows how to keep out of trouble when he wants to. And while the hope gives him strength, it also makes every minute feel like an eternity.

He closes off with a brusque nod, then turns and knocks for the guard to let him out before he can change his mind.

Stare at the door. Stare at the door. Stare at the door.

Stare at the door and don't turn around.

Stare at the door until it opens and walk out again, shaking hands buried in pockets to muffle the anxiety, and Daniel can't stop wetting his lips nervously as the door clangs shut behind him, terrified that someone will call attention to him, convinced that someone's suspected something.

But everything remains dismal and gray and silent, and no one accuses him.

Daniel hopes Seth can arrange a way to respond and that he can get back to him quicker than before and that the thousands of things that could go wrong don't, and he should not have redirected his worry to Murphy's Law because now it's in full effect, it's been invoked, he's certain of it.

Breathe. Everything's been going fine - as fine as things can go anyway, their circumstances considered. Seth will respond. The message is simple, a patchwork of underlined letters that spell out quite clearly:

"escape attempt

what went wrong?

I'll fix it"

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