Illyana and Pyro: Yorkland, Day 5
Nov. 27th, 2018 11:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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ax_mainPyro's luck has been terrible enough to land him in a cage, and Illyana comes to try and spring him out. Warning for character death.
Pyro tugged his coat a little closer to himself, trying to take up as little room in the cage as he could, to better conserve warmth. All the buttons on his coat had popped off last night, when he'd taken it off. What were the odds? But that was the kind of week he'd been having, for the past couple of days.
The kind of terrible luck that had landed him here, in one of the thieves' cages hanging in mid-air above the stocks. He'd taken his turn in those for a few hours that morning, but he'd been replaced by another thief, one he didn't know from the Brotherhood.
He prodded cautiously at the smarting bruise on his cheek, trying to ascertain whether the bone underneath was broken. What the fuck did he know about that shit? It fucking hurt, was all he knew. It was just his luck, being caught thieving from a guard's house. He couldn't have known that the guard in question would come home early from her shift, or that she'd bring friends, or spot his lookout (who had managed to escape, the little shit - good for him, really).
And obviously, Pyro was bound in enchanted manacles, to stop him from melting the lock off of this fucking cage, or even just keep himself warm. He leaned his head back with a sigh, the movement a little faster than he meant it to be, and banged his head painfully against the steel bars. "Fuck!"
What deity had he angered, and how? Because he would make it up to them, if only they got him out of this fix before anyone got fancy ideas about hanging him.
From her hiding spot in the shadows of the building across the street, Illyana chewed at her lip and watched as Pyro bashed his head against the back of the cage. Maybe she'd taken this too far? What had seemed justifiable earlier in the week seemed to have snowballed, and she realized what the hag had meant when she'd said the curse wouldn't get him killed unless he lived a particularly dangerous life.
It hadn't occurred to het at the time that a professional thief probably fell into that category.
While she debated what she should do, a pair of guards emerged from the adjacent guardhouse and headed for the cage. Fighting an urge to slink back further into the shadows, she instead crept closer so she could hear what they had to say.
"Hey, fuckface!" one of them called out to Pyro. "You're going to sentencing in an hour. You say your prayers to whatever deity you think might listen to the likes of you, we hear the judge is in a real pissy mood!"
"And I'll tell him all about how you tried to burn my face off," the second one added, rubbing his hand over his beardless jaw.
"You looked better with your beard on fire," Pyro retorted with a sneer.
The beardless one shifted his spear around to poke at Pyro with the blunt edge through the bars, hard and repeatedly. "Shut your mouth!"
"Fuck you!" Pyro shouted back, trying to escape the spear and grab a hold of its end, while he was at it.
Sentencing. Illyana settled back against the wall, her eyes wide and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Sentencing wasn't good. Sentencing that quickly was pretty much unheard of, and couldn't possibly mean anything good. She watched without really seeing as the guard continued to poke at him with his spear, trying to decide what to do. On the one hand, Pyro'd been an ass. On the other - they were both Guild, both Brotherhood, and no mater how big an ass he'd been, she couldn't leave him to the guards.
That decided, Illyana waited until the guards left, then looked around to make sure no one was watching before darting across the road. "Do you have lockpicks?" she hissed. Granted, she wasn't good with them, but she couldn't think of anything else to try.
Pyro stared at her when she ran up to below his cage. What the hell was she doing here? But he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he shifted in the cage to get closer to her. "Yeah, that's why I've been sitting on my ass, letting them poke at me. Because they left my lock picks with me." He was in a mood, yeah. Getting arrested would do that to a guy, never mind the run of bad luck he'd had.
No, she'd been right - he was an asshole. "Yeah well, seeing as your hands are shackled together, I thought maybe you couldn't use them. Sorry. Have fun with your sentencing." She turned to leave.
"Hey, wait up!" Pyro called out immediately. In his desire to get her to wait, he shifted towards her, set the cage swinging, and lost his balance, banging his head against the bars again (and setting the cage swinging even worse). "Fuck my life!"
With her back towards Pyro, Illyana winced. There was that guilt again. Schooling her expression into something less revealing, she turned back towards him. "I'll see if I can find someone who has some, ok?"
"Okay," he agreed immediately, with a nod, swinging with the cage. He curled the fingers of both hands around the bars. "Hurry, okay?" he added, probably looking more vulnerable than he would have liked, but fuck if it didn't call for it. The way his luck was going, he didn't want to get to the sentencing.
Illyana nodded, and took off running. And gave herself a mental kick for noticing that she kind of liked Pyro better when he wasn't all cocky. It was just too bad it took facing death to bring it out.
Pyro watched her go as the cage settled down, then very cautiously sat back down inside it. She'd better hurry.
She hurried, but luck wasn't on her side, and she had to run nearly all the way to the Guild house before finding someone willing to lend her their lockpicks - which slipped from her fingers a few minutes later and fell into a puddle in the road. Retrieving them, she discovered that the puddle had its origins not from rain but from someone's horse, and with distaste she dried them (and her hands) off with the only thing available - her outermost tunic. She still had them with her, though, when she got back to the cage, and breathlessly tried to hand them up to Pyro. "Here."
Pyro got his fingers through the bars at the bottom of the cage, as far as he could. Their tips brushed the edge of the leather roll, but he couldn't grab it. "Fuck! Just. Find something to stand on or something."
"Right." Easier said than done, though. Illyana looked around for something moveable, sturdy, and not to high to climb up on, and had nearly given up when her eyes fell on a bucket someone had left just outside the door of the guard house. "This is a horrible idea," she muttered as she walked over as casually as she could manage, grabbed hold of the handle, and carried it back. She'd no sooner upended it and climbed up on it than she heard a shout.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing!" She spun to see who it was, and caught sight of the guards emerging from the house just as the bucket toppled, dumping her in a ceremonious heap on the ground just beneath the cage. "I just-" she began, just as the lockpicks fell out of her hand.
The guards ran over, looked down at the roll of lock picks, which had conveniently opened as it fell, then back at her. "You were just helping your little friend," one of them finished for her, even as he reached to grab her by the arm.
"Guess there'll be two of you to take to the judge," the second one added, as he moved to lower Pyro's cage. "You can join your friend, in the meantime."
"He's not my friend," Illyana protested weakly, trying to tug her arm out of his grip without any notable success.
"Try and run, give us a reason to make your face look like his," the guard told her, shaking her a little.
"Don't you fucking move, either," the other one told Pyro, as he moved to unlock his cage.
The second it was done, Pyro kicked at the door with both feet, sending it flying open into the guard, who lost his footing and fell. Pyro was out the next second, and he ran headfirst at the other one, hoping to get him to let go of Yana.
That was the plan, anyway, except his foot slipped on the roll of lock picks and he ended up falling to the ground. That gave the other guard enough time to get to his feet, and kick him in the ribs a few times for good measure, to punctuate his words. "I. Told. You. Not to move!"
"Leave him alone!" Illyana yanked her arm free of the guard who'd had hold of it and levelling a kick of her own at the guard who was attacking Pyro. The guard who'd had hold of her grabbed hold of her arm once again, spun her towards him, and threw a punch that connected with her jaw and sent her head snapping backwards.
"One more move from either of you, and you're not going to have to worry about sentencing," he snapped as he shoved her into the open door of the cage.
One last kick, and the guard spat on Pyro. "That'll teach ya!" He grabbed him and shoved him after Yana, slamming and locking the door behind him. "Don't get too cozy," he told them, as they raised the cage again. "We'll be back in thirty."
Still dazed and with her jaw throbbing, Illyana pulled her legs in as close as she could, to take up as little space as possible, and dropped her head onto her knees. Thirty. Not even enough time for Nico to even realize she was gone.
Pyro coughed a couple of times, spat out a little blood, then shifted in the cage to grip the bars again, and shout after the guards. "Hey! Come back! She didn't do shit, it was all me!"
Of course, they ignored him, and he sagged back in the cage, sitting and folding his legs up to give her space.
Illyana remained curled up, her arms around her knees, taking up as little space as possible. This wasn't at all what she'd wanted. Not just her having been caught - knowing Pyro was paying for being an ass should have made her feel better .
She didn't feel better. At all.
Finally, after a few long minutes, she said, very quietly, "It wasn't all you."
"There's no sense you being in here too," Pyro replied, a frown seeming to have permanently settled on his brow. "Who'd you get the picks from?"
"Mort," she replied, naming one of the Brotherhood thieves she knew, a little. "I told him to stay away, though."
Pyro looked incredulous, then, but elected not to start arguing about how stupid that had been. "Did you tell him why, at least?" He hoped Mort didn't listen to her. And why would he, anyway? But he was weird about girls, so who the fuck knew.
"Yes and no." Illyana pulled her head up to look at him, her expression awkward. "He knows you got caught. It's all over the market."
"They'll be around, then," Pyro said. He had to believe that. Right? There was no way this was the way it was going to end.
He just hoped they'd be around in time.
"I hope so." Illyana grimaced. Maybe she shouldn't hope so, considering that whoever showed up might get sucked into the curse too, but she didn't think things would go any better if they got dragged in for sentencing instead. "Maybe we shouldn't wait for that, though."
"You got a plan?" Pyro asked with raised eyebrows. "Because everything I try turns to shit lately."
Illyana managed, barely, not to wince, and instead looked around for something that might give her some ideas for a plan. Nothing on the ground, nothing...she looked up at the top of the cage, and above it. Forehead furrowing, she eyed the hook the cage was hanging from. "Y'know...if we made the cage swing, maybe it'd come off the hook?"
"Or I'd finally manage to knock myself unconscious," Pyro muttered, since that seemed more likely. It didn't mean he wasn't going to try it. He would try anything, at this stage.
He managed to get to his feet in the cage (although that meant bowing his back), and shifted over to Yana's side, gripping the bars there and bracing his feet farther out towards the other side. "Let's try this."
"Okay." She got to her feet as well, braced herself similarly, and smiled as the cage obligingly leaned to that side. "So, we just shift back and forth?"
"Keep shifting our weight," Pyro confirmed, holding tight to the bars as he pushed his weight back and forth. "Come on."
Biting at her lip, Illyana obliged, and soon they had the cage swinging back and forth, higher and higher, with a moment of weightlessness at the apex of each swing. Until finally, with a high pitched shriek of metal against metal, the cage detached from the hook.
Unfortunately, Illyana realized as it flew threw the air towards the building across the street, she hadn't really given any thought as to where it would go. Or how it would land.
Pyro tried to roll up into a ball, cushion the blow of the fall as much as possible, but to no avail. The fall jostled him out of position, and he cried out as pain irradiated his shoulder.
But when he opened his eyes, he saw that the cage door had been busted open, and he ignored the pain that throbbed in his shoulder to crawl out of the cage. Tears welled up in his eyes with how much it fucking hurt, each time he moved his arm, but one thing had gone right, and he wasn't going to let the opportunity to escape pass him by.
"Come on!" he encouraged Yana through gritted teeth, even as the guards burst out onto the square, shouting for them to stop.
So, of course, they turned tail and ran, each step jostling his shoulder something fierce.
Much to her surprise, Illyana had jarringly but not especially painfully, and was already climbing to her feet when Pyro told her to run. She took off after him, and soon took the lead with jerk of her arm, weaving her way through the narrow alleys and unexpected turns. She might not be able to pick locks, but she was in her element on the streets, and knew hiding places the guards had never found. "This way," she told him, dropping suddenly down on all fours and slipping through the barely visible crack in the wall someone had erected at the end of a blind alley.
Pyro had done his best to keep up, but each running step spiked a lance of agony through his shoulder, and he paused to catch his breath as she wiggled through. On all fours. Sure. He could do this. Easy. He gritted his teeth, then dropped to his knees before leaning forward, putting his weight on his good hand only. Of course, with his hands manacled together, it was only partly successful, but it still kept the worst of the pain at bay.
The tilted way he tried to slip through did mean his coat got stuck on something on the side of the crack, and he cursed as he tried to force it free, so he wouldn't remain stuck with his ass hanging out when the guards caught up.
"Here, I've got it," Illyana whispered as she turned to see what the problem was. She reached back and tugged his coat free of the wood, wincing as she heard the fabric rip. "Damn, sorry."
Pyro hurried inside as soon as he was free. "Who cares," he muttered, clearly in pain, as he tried to cradle his injured arm to himself, as much as the manacles would allow. "Thanks."
"No problem." Illyana frowned, her forehead furrowing. "What's wrong with your arm?"
"My shoulder's fucked," he answered. His heart was beating so hard, still - from the pain, the chase, the fact that the guards might still find them.
She winced, then chewed at her lip. "You want me to see if I can put it back in?" she asked. "We should be safe here for a while."
"So you say," Pyro retorted in a mutter. He didn't trust his luck, recently. He eyed her curiously, and tilted his head to indicate his bad shoulder. "Do you know anything about how to do that?"
"I've done it - well, once," she admitted. "But I remember how. Besides, I'm pretty much the only option you've got, unless there's someone you know who I can find, fast. Once it has time to swell, it'll be harder."
"Fine," he agreed, turning to present her better access to his shoulder. "Give it a go."
"Okay." Illyana resumed chewing her lip as she moved towards him, and took his upper arm in one hand and lower in the other. She took a deep breath, sent out a prayer to whichever of the gods was the patron of people who made really stupid decisions when pissed off, and gave it a sharp jerk.
Pyro tried to brace himself as well as he could, and still let her do what she needed with his arm, which was no small task, given the fact that he was still manacled. He was focused on that when she jerked his arm, and utterly unprepared for the overwhelming surge of pain that startled a shout out of him.
But then... it was better. Still sore, but less immediately painful.
"...thanks," he said, in a breath. Fuck him for shouting, though. Way to be discreet. "Let's head back to the Brotherhood."
"You need a sling or something for that first," she pointed out, then pulled back and (somewhat grudgingly) tugged her outermost tunic over her head. She debated whether or not to rip it, decided she really didn't trust herself to rip it in any way that left it useful, and instead sort of rolled it up. "Turn around so I can put it on, huh?"
"We're gonna have to work on your definition of 'need'," Pyro muttered, but turned around as she asked. What he needed was to get somewhere safe - and so did she.
"My definition's just fine. If you don't support it, it's going to hurt more and slow you down," Illyana pointed out practically as she tied the makeshift sling in place. "Or you'll try to use it and just dislocate it all over again."
"This week is so fucking fired," Pyro grumbled, after sighing. "Seriously. It can pack the fuck up and go home, now."
"Yeah, not sure I can do anything about that," Illyana replied honestly enough. Presumably the hag could, but she wasn't sure how she'd get him to go there with her. "Anything else need bandaging, while we're still out of sight?"
"Nothing that can't wait until we're safe," Pyro replied, because like hell he wanted to spend more time out in the open than absolutely necessary. He'd only feel safe once he was back home. He looked around. "Where are we, anyway?"
"In the space between a couple of alleys." Illyana smiled faintly. "A year or so ago, the guard had this brainstorm that thieves were using the alleys to get away from them. Huge shock, huh? So they boarded some of them off so you could only get so far." She shrugged. "Someone screwed up and boarded this one up twice. We've been using it as a bolt hole ever since."
"Morons," Pyro commented, clearly meaning the guards. He tested his sling by pulling on it slightly, winced at the lance of pain, and nodded. "Okay, let's go." She should probably go first, given his lack of easy mobility. "Let's get to the nearest sewers."
They might run into awful stuff down there, but he'd be way less conspicuous with his arm in a sling and his hands still obviously manacled. There was no way they could reach the Brotherhood out in the open.
Illyana wrinkled her nose, but nodded. Much though she hated the sewers as a travel route, she had to admit that in this case, it was probably the safest way to go.
...or, given the curse, it could result in Pyro slipping in someone's shit and drowning. "Maybe we should stick to the streets?" she proposed. "I mean, you're going to have a miserable time getting down there like that. Whereas I can practically get us all the way to the Yorkwood without us being seen."
"How?" Pyro asked doubtfully. "Because I can't climb shit either." Usually, sneaking around would've been fine, but the state he was in, and the luck he'd been having... Though maybe it had turned, given the fact that they'd escaped, dislocated shoulder or not. It was about time. He was due some amazing fucking luck.
Yeah, that made it harder, didn't it? Illyana made a face. "Maybe we should just get to somewhere you can stay while I go get someone who can get those off?" she suggested, then paused as a thought occurred to her. "Or, yknow, actually head to the Yorkwood. See if the Hag could do something."
"Why the fuck would we do that?" Pyro asked. "Sewers will do fine. I just gotta get down there." And then there was a straight access to their underground headquarters. It was the least risky plan, sewer creatures notwithstanding.
"And you're going to do that, how?" Illyana countered. "With one arm in a sling, your hands locked together, and a c-" She caught herself just in time and finished with "conk on the head? Plus whatever else? You'd be safer here than falling and drowning in someone's shit."
"I can't fucking stay here, okay?" he shot back, only keeping his voice relatively quiet through some definite effort. The thought of waiting here, helplessly, made him want to burn the whole neighborhood down. Not, of course, that he could right now. "I'd rather die by sewers than let those fuckers hang me."
"Yeah, trying to completely avoid the part with you dying," she pointed out irritably. Damn, but he was stubborn. For a moment, she debated just leaving him to the curse, but felt her chest seize up at the thought. Right, he was an asshole, but he didn't deserve to die. She just needed to keep reminding herself of that. "But fine. There's a sewer entrance on the next block." After a moment's consideration, she tugged her outer tunic out from under her belt. Loose, it fell nearly to her knees, and with her hat off and her hair loose down her back...
It wasn't much, as changes of appearance went, but it was hopefully something. She dropped down on all fours and crawled through the opposite hole in the fence from where they'd entered. No one in sight yet. Maybe their luck was turning.
Pyro was not looking forward to crawling back out of there, but he did it anyway, grimacing through it without letting a sound escape. Once he was up on his feet in the street, he shifted his arm in the sling so it would be more use covering up the cuffs than supporting his arm. Remaining free trumped taking care of his shoulder, by far. They fell in stride, heading for that entrance she knew, and he kept his head down, forcing himself to keep his gait even, when every fiber of his being was telling him to run, get out of sight, the sooner the better.
It was nerve racking, making their way through the streets and just waiting for something to go wrong. Grated, it always was, but this time the stakes were a whole lot higher. Normally, she worried about time in the cage, maybe losing a hand. This time, given the curse...Illyana glanced sidelong at Pyro, swallowed hard, and turned her attention back to looking inconspicuous as they rounded the corner.
The entrance to the sewers was in sight when Pyro caught sight of a guard's uniform. He ducked his head and hurried along, then winced when he heard a loud, "Hey! You there!"
"Forget that entrance!" he told Yana. "Run!"
And he ran the fuck away from her, because there was no use in both of them getting caught. Of course, a nearby dog ran straight into his legs and Pyro tripped over it, falling on his bad shoulder. From the lance of pain that pushed a cry out of him, he figured he'd just popped it again.
Yana had started to run when she realized what Pyro was doing, and turned back just in time to see him crash into the pavement. "You idiot!" she shouted at him as she ran over to help him up. She was just reaching out to him as one of the guards grabbed her from behind and pulled her backwards. "Not this time, brat. You've got an appointment with the judge that you're already late for."
* * *
After their hearing, it was back into another cage for Pyro and Yana. He was shivering from the cold, at this stage, and the lancing, smarting pain in his shoulder, since no one had seen fit to heal him. What would be the point, when at dusk... "Bet you wish I'd never noticed you now," he whispered, trying to curl up as much as he could to conserve warmth.
"Bet you wish you didn't, too," Illyana countered. She shifted a little and curled in against him, both for comfort (for him? for her? both?) and warmth, but kept her eyes focused on the bottom of the cage. This couldn't be happening. Granted, it sounded like she was just going to have a lengthy stay in jail (and really, Nico'd have her out in no time, she wasn't worried), but Pyro...
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "This wasn't supposed to happen."
Well, here she was, making no sense again. Why would he wish he hadn't? He'd gotten a good evening out of it. She'd gotten a jail sentence. But Pyro felt too tired, too disconnected from his own feelings, to bother arguing about it. "No shit," he simply answered her last words. But she was blaming herself, and that wasn't right. Even in his current state, he knew that. "You know it's not your fault, right?"
Illyana didn't say anything at first. She could let it go there. He'd never know, and it wasn't like it mattered now, right? Except...he kind of had a right to know, didn't he? Considering. She shook her head. "No, it is. My fault, I mean." She looked up at him, her expression tortured. "The crappy week you've had? I did that."
Pyro eyed her with a confused frown. "What?"
"I went to the hag in the woods and had her curse you so you'd have a really bad week?" Illyana explained, shrinking back. "I didn't think anything like this would happen, though."
"You..." Pyro blinked several times, trying to make sense of that. "Why?"
Illyana shrugged and let her eyes fall back to the floor of the cage. "I liked you," she said in a whisper.
"So you had me cursed?" Just like that, the disconnect was gone, and Pyro was all anger. The runes on his handcuffs glowed red as his fire struggled to come out - in vain. "They're going to fucking hang me!"
"I didn't mean for that to happen!" Illyana retorted, turning to glare at him despite suspiciously bright eyes. "It was just supposed to be a lousy week, ok? That was fair - even the hag thought so. I figured you'd fall on your face in the mud, or have your pants fall off in the middle of the street, or...stuff like that. Not this."
This made no more sense to Pyro the more she spoke, and his temper wasn't going away, fueled by his pain and his despair. "I'd say that'll teach me to show someone a good time, but guess what, it won't! Because I'll be fucking dead!"
That was about as much as she could handle, and Illyana buried her face in her hands and started crying. Because there as maybe more to her reasoning than that, but in the end? He was right.
"Fucking perfect," Pyro muttered after staring at her crying for a second. He shifted to the other end of the cage. Not that there was a lot of room for him to get away from her, but he'd give it his best anyway. What the everlasting fuck? Tears welled up in his eyes at the thought of what was going to happen, and whose fault it was. He swallowed them back, then thought better of it and turned towards the guard house, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Hey! Get me out of here! I'm not staying in here with this psycho! I'm ready to die!"
Of course, no answer came. What would the guards care?
That was enough to get Yana to lookup at him, one dirty hand swiping the tears from her eyes. "You really are an asshole, John Allerdyce," she pointed out. Not that he should die for it. But at least she'd been right about that.
"Hey! You fuckers!" Pyro kept calling out. He frowned as her words caught up with him, and how the fuck did she even know his full name? He never used it. He turned back to her. "Have you been stalking me?"
"What?" she demanded, though her face warmed a little. Because no, she hadn't been stalking, but she'd definitely been paying attention when people talked about him. "No. If I'd been stalking you, I'd have known you were an asshole."
"Better an asshole than a crazy bitch," Pyro retorted. Besides, Pyro could've told her that for free. Shit, he really did wish he'd never noticed her now. "Hey, you bastards!" he called out towards the guards again. "Get me out of here!"
"In a hurry to swing?" one of the guards laughed as he came over and started to unlock the cage. "It's your lucky day, asswipe. Seems the judge wants to watch you dangle before he heads for home."
Still stung by the crazy bitch comment, Illyana started to shift out of the way, then paused. "It wasn't him. It was me," she asserted. "I got the hag in the woods to curse him so everyone would automatically blame him for anything that went wrong today. The only thing he actually did was be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"The only thing I actually did was give you a good time," Pyro retorted snidely.
"Aw, your girlfriend gives a shit," the guard mocked them both, and grabbed Pyro by one arm to pull him out of the cage.
Pyro gritted his teeth against the jar to his shoulder, but of course, managed to twist his ankle as he landed on the ground. He cried out in pain, but what did it matter? He would be dead in minutes. He spat at the ground under the swinging cage that was being locked again, with Yana still inside. "Loviatar's blessing upon you." Pyro's tone left no doubt that by saying blessing, he was hoping to call forth the curse of the goddess of pain.
The guard slapped him on the back of the head. "She's trying to save your ass, you ungrateful little prick."
"Just fucking hang me already," Pyro retorted.
"You're better off without him," the guard told Yana, even as he shoved Pyro along towards the gallows.
Yana nodded before dropping her eyes down to the floor once more. She'd figured that out already. She kept her eyes downcast, wishing it was as easy to close her ears to the sound of the crowd jeering as they dragged him to the gallows, or the cheers that made it clear that the sentence had been carried out. Given how much it hurt to hear? She didn't have any doubt Loviatar'd heard his prayer.
Pyro tugged his coat a little closer to himself, trying to take up as little room in the cage as he could, to better conserve warmth. All the buttons on his coat had popped off last night, when he'd taken it off. What were the odds? But that was the kind of week he'd been having, for the past couple of days.
The kind of terrible luck that had landed him here, in one of the thieves' cages hanging in mid-air above the stocks. He'd taken his turn in those for a few hours that morning, but he'd been replaced by another thief, one he didn't know from the Brotherhood.
He prodded cautiously at the smarting bruise on his cheek, trying to ascertain whether the bone underneath was broken. What the fuck did he know about that shit? It fucking hurt, was all he knew. It was just his luck, being caught thieving from a guard's house. He couldn't have known that the guard in question would come home early from her shift, or that she'd bring friends, or spot his lookout (who had managed to escape, the little shit - good for him, really).
And obviously, Pyro was bound in enchanted manacles, to stop him from melting the lock off of this fucking cage, or even just keep himself warm. He leaned his head back with a sigh, the movement a little faster than he meant it to be, and banged his head painfully against the steel bars. "Fuck!"
What deity had he angered, and how? Because he would make it up to them, if only they got him out of this fix before anyone got fancy ideas about hanging him.
From her hiding spot in the shadows of the building across the street, Illyana chewed at her lip and watched as Pyro bashed his head against the back of the cage. Maybe she'd taken this too far? What had seemed justifiable earlier in the week seemed to have snowballed, and she realized what the hag had meant when she'd said the curse wouldn't get him killed unless he lived a particularly dangerous life.
It hadn't occurred to het at the time that a professional thief probably fell into that category.
While she debated what she should do, a pair of guards emerged from the adjacent guardhouse and headed for the cage. Fighting an urge to slink back further into the shadows, she instead crept closer so she could hear what they had to say.
"Hey, fuckface!" one of them called out to Pyro. "You're going to sentencing in an hour. You say your prayers to whatever deity you think might listen to the likes of you, we hear the judge is in a real pissy mood!"
"And I'll tell him all about how you tried to burn my face off," the second one added, rubbing his hand over his beardless jaw.
"You looked better with your beard on fire," Pyro retorted with a sneer.
The beardless one shifted his spear around to poke at Pyro with the blunt edge through the bars, hard and repeatedly. "Shut your mouth!"
"Fuck you!" Pyro shouted back, trying to escape the spear and grab a hold of its end, while he was at it.
Sentencing. Illyana settled back against the wall, her eyes wide and a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach. Sentencing wasn't good. Sentencing that quickly was pretty much unheard of, and couldn't possibly mean anything good. She watched without really seeing as the guard continued to poke at him with his spear, trying to decide what to do. On the one hand, Pyro'd been an ass. On the other - they were both Guild, both Brotherhood, and no mater how big an ass he'd been, she couldn't leave him to the guards.
That decided, Illyana waited until the guards left, then looked around to make sure no one was watching before darting across the road. "Do you have lockpicks?" she hissed. Granted, she wasn't good with them, but she couldn't think of anything else to try.
Pyro stared at her when she ran up to below his cage. What the hell was she doing here? But he wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth, and he shifted in the cage to get closer to her. "Yeah, that's why I've been sitting on my ass, letting them poke at me. Because they left my lock picks with me." He was in a mood, yeah. Getting arrested would do that to a guy, never mind the run of bad luck he'd had.
No, she'd been right - he was an asshole. "Yeah well, seeing as your hands are shackled together, I thought maybe you couldn't use them. Sorry. Have fun with your sentencing." She turned to leave.
"Hey, wait up!" Pyro called out immediately. In his desire to get her to wait, he shifted towards her, set the cage swinging, and lost his balance, banging his head against the bars again (and setting the cage swinging even worse). "Fuck my life!"
With her back towards Pyro, Illyana winced. There was that guilt again. Schooling her expression into something less revealing, she turned back towards him. "I'll see if I can find someone who has some, ok?"
"Okay," he agreed immediately, with a nod, swinging with the cage. He curled the fingers of both hands around the bars. "Hurry, okay?" he added, probably looking more vulnerable than he would have liked, but fuck if it didn't call for it. The way his luck was going, he didn't want to get to the sentencing.
Illyana nodded, and took off running. And gave herself a mental kick for noticing that she kind of liked Pyro better when he wasn't all cocky. It was just too bad it took facing death to bring it out.
Pyro watched her go as the cage settled down, then very cautiously sat back down inside it. She'd better hurry.
She hurried, but luck wasn't on her side, and she had to run nearly all the way to the Guild house before finding someone willing to lend her their lockpicks - which slipped from her fingers a few minutes later and fell into a puddle in the road. Retrieving them, she discovered that the puddle had its origins not from rain but from someone's horse, and with distaste she dried them (and her hands) off with the only thing available - her outermost tunic. She still had them with her, though, when she got back to the cage, and breathlessly tried to hand them up to Pyro. "Here."
Pyro got his fingers through the bars at the bottom of the cage, as far as he could. Their tips brushed the edge of the leather roll, but he couldn't grab it. "Fuck! Just. Find something to stand on or something."
"Right." Easier said than done, though. Illyana looked around for something moveable, sturdy, and not to high to climb up on, and had nearly given up when her eyes fell on a bucket someone had left just outside the door of the guard house. "This is a horrible idea," she muttered as she walked over as casually as she could manage, grabbed hold of the handle, and carried it back. She'd no sooner upended it and climbed up on it than she heard a shout.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing!" She spun to see who it was, and caught sight of the guards emerging from the house just as the bucket toppled, dumping her in a ceremonious heap on the ground just beneath the cage. "I just-" she began, just as the lockpicks fell out of her hand.
The guards ran over, looked down at the roll of lock picks, which had conveniently opened as it fell, then back at her. "You were just helping your little friend," one of them finished for her, even as he reached to grab her by the arm.
"Guess there'll be two of you to take to the judge," the second one added, as he moved to lower Pyro's cage. "You can join your friend, in the meantime."
"He's not my friend," Illyana protested weakly, trying to tug her arm out of his grip without any notable success.
"Try and run, give us a reason to make your face look like his," the guard told her, shaking her a little.
"Don't you fucking move, either," the other one told Pyro, as he moved to unlock his cage.
The second it was done, Pyro kicked at the door with both feet, sending it flying open into the guard, who lost his footing and fell. Pyro was out the next second, and he ran headfirst at the other one, hoping to get him to let go of Yana.
That was the plan, anyway, except his foot slipped on the roll of lock picks and he ended up falling to the ground. That gave the other guard enough time to get to his feet, and kick him in the ribs a few times for good measure, to punctuate his words. "I. Told. You. Not to move!"
"Leave him alone!" Illyana yanked her arm free of the guard who'd had hold of it and levelling a kick of her own at the guard who was attacking Pyro. The guard who'd had hold of her grabbed hold of her arm once again, spun her towards him, and threw a punch that connected with her jaw and sent her head snapping backwards.
"One more move from either of you, and you're not going to have to worry about sentencing," he snapped as he shoved her into the open door of the cage.
One last kick, and the guard spat on Pyro. "That'll teach ya!" He grabbed him and shoved him after Yana, slamming and locking the door behind him. "Don't get too cozy," he told them, as they raised the cage again. "We'll be back in thirty."
Still dazed and with her jaw throbbing, Illyana pulled her legs in as close as she could, to take up as little space as possible, and dropped her head onto her knees. Thirty. Not even enough time for Nico to even realize she was gone.
Pyro coughed a couple of times, spat out a little blood, then shifted in the cage to grip the bars again, and shout after the guards. "Hey! Come back! She didn't do shit, it was all me!"
Of course, they ignored him, and he sagged back in the cage, sitting and folding his legs up to give her space.
Illyana remained curled up, her arms around her knees, taking up as little space as possible. This wasn't at all what she'd wanted. Not just her having been caught - knowing Pyro was paying for being an ass should have made her feel better .
She didn't feel better. At all.
Finally, after a few long minutes, she said, very quietly, "It wasn't all you."
"There's no sense you being in here too," Pyro replied, a frown seeming to have permanently settled on his brow. "Who'd you get the picks from?"
"Mort," she replied, naming one of the Brotherhood thieves she knew, a little. "I told him to stay away, though."
Pyro looked incredulous, then, but elected not to start arguing about how stupid that had been. "Did you tell him why, at least?" He hoped Mort didn't listen to her. And why would he, anyway? But he was weird about girls, so who the fuck knew.
"Yes and no." Illyana pulled her head up to look at him, her expression awkward. "He knows you got caught. It's all over the market."
"They'll be around, then," Pyro said. He had to believe that. Right? There was no way this was the way it was going to end.
He just hoped they'd be around in time.
"I hope so." Illyana grimaced. Maybe she shouldn't hope so, considering that whoever showed up might get sucked into the curse too, but she didn't think things would go any better if they got dragged in for sentencing instead. "Maybe we shouldn't wait for that, though."
"You got a plan?" Pyro asked with raised eyebrows. "Because everything I try turns to shit lately."
Illyana managed, barely, not to wince, and instead looked around for something that might give her some ideas for a plan. Nothing on the ground, nothing...she looked up at the top of the cage, and above it. Forehead furrowing, she eyed the hook the cage was hanging from. "Y'know...if we made the cage swing, maybe it'd come off the hook?"
"Or I'd finally manage to knock myself unconscious," Pyro muttered, since that seemed more likely. It didn't mean he wasn't going to try it. He would try anything, at this stage.
He managed to get to his feet in the cage (although that meant bowing his back), and shifted over to Yana's side, gripping the bars there and bracing his feet farther out towards the other side. "Let's try this."
"Okay." She got to her feet as well, braced herself similarly, and smiled as the cage obligingly leaned to that side. "So, we just shift back and forth?"
"Keep shifting our weight," Pyro confirmed, holding tight to the bars as he pushed his weight back and forth. "Come on."
Biting at her lip, Illyana obliged, and soon they had the cage swinging back and forth, higher and higher, with a moment of weightlessness at the apex of each swing. Until finally, with a high pitched shriek of metal against metal, the cage detached from the hook.
Unfortunately, Illyana realized as it flew threw the air towards the building across the street, she hadn't really given any thought as to where it would go. Or how it would land.
Pyro tried to roll up into a ball, cushion the blow of the fall as much as possible, but to no avail. The fall jostled him out of position, and he cried out as pain irradiated his shoulder.
But when he opened his eyes, he saw that the cage door had been busted open, and he ignored the pain that throbbed in his shoulder to crawl out of the cage. Tears welled up in his eyes with how much it fucking hurt, each time he moved his arm, but one thing had gone right, and he wasn't going to let the opportunity to escape pass him by.
"Come on!" he encouraged Yana through gritted teeth, even as the guards burst out onto the square, shouting for them to stop.
So, of course, they turned tail and ran, each step jostling his shoulder something fierce.
Much to her surprise, Illyana had jarringly but not especially painfully, and was already climbing to her feet when Pyro told her to run. She took off after him, and soon took the lead with jerk of her arm, weaving her way through the narrow alleys and unexpected turns. She might not be able to pick locks, but she was in her element on the streets, and knew hiding places the guards had never found. "This way," she told him, dropping suddenly down on all fours and slipping through the barely visible crack in the wall someone had erected at the end of a blind alley.
Pyro had done his best to keep up, but each running step spiked a lance of agony through his shoulder, and he paused to catch his breath as she wiggled through. On all fours. Sure. He could do this. Easy. He gritted his teeth, then dropped to his knees before leaning forward, putting his weight on his good hand only. Of course, with his hands manacled together, it was only partly successful, but it still kept the worst of the pain at bay.
The tilted way he tried to slip through did mean his coat got stuck on something on the side of the crack, and he cursed as he tried to force it free, so he wouldn't remain stuck with his ass hanging out when the guards caught up.
"Here, I've got it," Illyana whispered as she turned to see what the problem was. She reached back and tugged his coat free of the wood, wincing as she heard the fabric rip. "Damn, sorry."
Pyro hurried inside as soon as he was free. "Who cares," he muttered, clearly in pain, as he tried to cradle his injured arm to himself, as much as the manacles would allow. "Thanks."
"No problem." Illyana frowned, her forehead furrowing. "What's wrong with your arm?"
"My shoulder's fucked," he answered. His heart was beating so hard, still - from the pain, the chase, the fact that the guards might still find them.
She winced, then chewed at her lip. "You want me to see if I can put it back in?" she asked. "We should be safe here for a while."
"So you say," Pyro retorted in a mutter. He didn't trust his luck, recently. He eyed her curiously, and tilted his head to indicate his bad shoulder. "Do you know anything about how to do that?"
"I've done it - well, once," she admitted. "But I remember how. Besides, I'm pretty much the only option you've got, unless there's someone you know who I can find, fast. Once it has time to swell, it'll be harder."
"Fine," he agreed, turning to present her better access to his shoulder. "Give it a go."
"Okay." Illyana resumed chewing her lip as she moved towards him, and took his upper arm in one hand and lower in the other. She took a deep breath, sent out a prayer to whichever of the gods was the patron of people who made really stupid decisions when pissed off, and gave it a sharp jerk.
Pyro tried to brace himself as well as he could, and still let her do what she needed with his arm, which was no small task, given the fact that he was still manacled. He was focused on that when she jerked his arm, and utterly unprepared for the overwhelming surge of pain that startled a shout out of him.
But then... it was better. Still sore, but less immediately painful.
"...thanks," he said, in a breath. Fuck him for shouting, though. Way to be discreet. "Let's head back to the Brotherhood."
"You need a sling or something for that first," she pointed out, then pulled back and (somewhat grudgingly) tugged her outermost tunic over her head. She debated whether or not to rip it, decided she really didn't trust herself to rip it in any way that left it useful, and instead sort of rolled it up. "Turn around so I can put it on, huh?"
"We're gonna have to work on your definition of 'need'," Pyro muttered, but turned around as she asked. What he needed was to get somewhere safe - and so did she.
"My definition's just fine. If you don't support it, it's going to hurt more and slow you down," Illyana pointed out practically as she tied the makeshift sling in place. "Or you'll try to use it and just dislocate it all over again."
"This week is so fucking fired," Pyro grumbled, after sighing. "Seriously. It can pack the fuck up and go home, now."
"Yeah, not sure I can do anything about that," Illyana replied honestly enough. Presumably the hag could, but she wasn't sure how she'd get him to go there with her. "Anything else need bandaging, while we're still out of sight?"
"Nothing that can't wait until we're safe," Pyro replied, because like hell he wanted to spend more time out in the open than absolutely necessary. He'd only feel safe once he was back home. He looked around. "Where are we, anyway?"
"In the space between a couple of alleys." Illyana smiled faintly. "A year or so ago, the guard had this brainstorm that thieves were using the alleys to get away from them. Huge shock, huh? So they boarded some of them off so you could only get so far." She shrugged. "Someone screwed up and boarded this one up twice. We've been using it as a bolt hole ever since."
"Morons," Pyro commented, clearly meaning the guards. He tested his sling by pulling on it slightly, winced at the lance of pain, and nodded. "Okay, let's go." She should probably go first, given his lack of easy mobility. "Let's get to the nearest sewers."
They might run into awful stuff down there, but he'd be way less conspicuous with his arm in a sling and his hands still obviously manacled. There was no way they could reach the Brotherhood out in the open.
Illyana wrinkled her nose, but nodded. Much though she hated the sewers as a travel route, she had to admit that in this case, it was probably the safest way to go.
...or, given the curse, it could result in Pyro slipping in someone's shit and drowning. "Maybe we should stick to the streets?" she proposed. "I mean, you're going to have a miserable time getting down there like that. Whereas I can practically get us all the way to the Yorkwood without us being seen."
"How?" Pyro asked doubtfully. "Because I can't climb shit either." Usually, sneaking around would've been fine, but the state he was in, and the luck he'd been having... Though maybe it had turned, given the fact that they'd escaped, dislocated shoulder or not. It was about time. He was due some amazing fucking luck.
Yeah, that made it harder, didn't it? Illyana made a face. "Maybe we should just get to somewhere you can stay while I go get someone who can get those off?" she suggested, then paused as a thought occurred to her. "Or, yknow, actually head to the Yorkwood. See if the Hag could do something."
"Why the fuck would we do that?" Pyro asked. "Sewers will do fine. I just gotta get down there." And then there was a straight access to their underground headquarters. It was the least risky plan, sewer creatures notwithstanding.
"And you're going to do that, how?" Illyana countered. "With one arm in a sling, your hands locked together, and a c-" She caught herself just in time and finished with "conk on the head? Plus whatever else? You'd be safer here than falling and drowning in someone's shit."
"I can't fucking stay here, okay?" he shot back, only keeping his voice relatively quiet through some definite effort. The thought of waiting here, helplessly, made him want to burn the whole neighborhood down. Not, of course, that he could right now. "I'd rather die by sewers than let those fuckers hang me."
"Yeah, trying to completely avoid the part with you dying," she pointed out irritably. Damn, but he was stubborn. For a moment, she debated just leaving him to the curse, but felt her chest seize up at the thought. Right, he was an asshole, but he didn't deserve to die. She just needed to keep reminding herself of that. "But fine. There's a sewer entrance on the next block." After a moment's consideration, she tugged her outer tunic out from under her belt. Loose, it fell nearly to her knees, and with her hat off and her hair loose down her back...
It wasn't much, as changes of appearance went, but it was hopefully something. She dropped down on all fours and crawled through the opposite hole in the fence from where they'd entered. No one in sight yet. Maybe their luck was turning.
Pyro was not looking forward to crawling back out of there, but he did it anyway, grimacing through it without letting a sound escape. Once he was up on his feet in the street, he shifted his arm in the sling so it would be more use covering up the cuffs than supporting his arm. Remaining free trumped taking care of his shoulder, by far. They fell in stride, heading for that entrance she knew, and he kept his head down, forcing himself to keep his gait even, when every fiber of his being was telling him to run, get out of sight, the sooner the better.
It was nerve racking, making their way through the streets and just waiting for something to go wrong. Grated, it always was, but this time the stakes were a whole lot higher. Normally, she worried about time in the cage, maybe losing a hand. This time, given the curse...Illyana glanced sidelong at Pyro, swallowed hard, and turned her attention back to looking inconspicuous as they rounded the corner.
The entrance to the sewers was in sight when Pyro caught sight of a guard's uniform. He ducked his head and hurried along, then winced when he heard a loud, "Hey! You there!"
"Forget that entrance!" he told Yana. "Run!"
And he ran the fuck away from her, because there was no use in both of them getting caught. Of course, a nearby dog ran straight into his legs and Pyro tripped over it, falling on his bad shoulder. From the lance of pain that pushed a cry out of him, he figured he'd just popped it again.
Yana had started to run when she realized what Pyro was doing, and turned back just in time to see him crash into the pavement. "You idiot!" she shouted at him as she ran over to help him up. She was just reaching out to him as one of the guards grabbed her from behind and pulled her backwards. "Not this time, brat. You've got an appointment with the judge that you're already late for."
After their hearing, it was back into another cage for Pyro and Yana. He was shivering from the cold, at this stage, and the lancing, smarting pain in his shoulder, since no one had seen fit to heal him. What would be the point, when at dusk... "Bet you wish I'd never noticed you now," he whispered, trying to curl up as much as he could to conserve warmth.
"Bet you wish you didn't, too," Illyana countered. She shifted a little and curled in against him, both for comfort (for him? for her? both?) and warmth, but kept her eyes focused on the bottom of the cage. This couldn't be happening. Granted, it sounded like she was just going to have a lengthy stay in jail (and really, Nico'd have her out in no time, she wasn't worried), but Pyro...
"I'm sorry," she whispered. "This wasn't supposed to happen."
Well, here she was, making no sense again. Why would he wish he hadn't? He'd gotten a good evening out of it. She'd gotten a jail sentence. But Pyro felt too tired, too disconnected from his own feelings, to bother arguing about it. "No shit," he simply answered her last words. But she was blaming herself, and that wasn't right. Even in his current state, he knew that. "You know it's not your fault, right?"
Illyana didn't say anything at first. She could let it go there. He'd never know, and it wasn't like it mattered now, right? Except...he kind of had a right to know, didn't he? Considering. She shook her head. "No, it is. My fault, I mean." She looked up at him, her expression tortured. "The crappy week you've had? I did that."
Pyro eyed her with a confused frown. "What?"
"I went to the hag in the woods and had her curse you so you'd have a really bad week?" Illyana explained, shrinking back. "I didn't think anything like this would happen, though."
"You..." Pyro blinked several times, trying to make sense of that. "Why?"
Illyana shrugged and let her eyes fall back to the floor of the cage. "I liked you," she said in a whisper.
"So you had me cursed?" Just like that, the disconnect was gone, and Pyro was all anger. The runes on his handcuffs glowed red as his fire struggled to come out - in vain. "They're going to fucking hang me!"
"I didn't mean for that to happen!" Illyana retorted, turning to glare at him despite suspiciously bright eyes. "It was just supposed to be a lousy week, ok? That was fair - even the hag thought so. I figured you'd fall on your face in the mud, or have your pants fall off in the middle of the street, or...stuff like that. Not this."
This made no more sense to Pyro the more she spoke, and his temper wasn't going away, fueled by his pain and his despair. "I'd say that'll teach me to show someone a good time, but guess what, it won't! Because I'll be fucking dead!"
That was about as much as she could handle, and Illyana buried her face in her hands and started crying. Because there as maybe more to her reasoning than that, but in the end? He was right.
"Fucking perfect," Pyro muttered after staring at her crying for a second. He shifted to the other end of the cage. Not that there was a lot of room for him to get away from her, but he'd give it his best anyway. What the everlasting fuck? Tears welled up in his eyes at the thought of what was going to happen, and whose fault it was. He swallowed them back, then thought better of it and turned towards the guard house, shouting at the top of his lungs. "Hey! Get me out of here! I'm not staying in here with this psycho! I'm ready to die!"
Of course, no answer came. What would the guards care?
That was enough to get Yana to lookup at him, one dirty hand swiping the tears from her eyes. "You really are an asshole, John Allerdyce," she pointed out. Not that he should die for it. But at least she'd been right about that.
"Hey! You fuckers!" Pyro kept calling out. He frowned as her words caught up with him, and how the fuck did she even know his full name? He never used it. He turned back to her. "Have you been stalking me?"
"What?" she demanded, though her face warmed a little. Because no, she hadn't been stalking, but she'd definitely been paying attention when people talked about him. "No. If I'd been stalking you, I'd have known you were an asshole."
"Better an asshole than a crazy bitch," Pyro retorted. Besides, Pyro could've told her that for free. Shit, he really did wish he'd never noticed her now. "Hey, you bastards!" he called out towards the guards again. "Get me out of here!"
"In a hurry to swing?" one of the guards laughed as he came over and started to unlock the cage. "It's your lucky day, asswipe. Seems the judge wants to watch you dangle before he heads for home."
Still stung by the crazy bitch comment, Illyana started to shift out of the way, then paused. "It wasn't him. It was me," she asserted. "I got the hag in the woods to curse him so everyone would automatically blame him for anything that went wrong today. The only thing he actually did was be in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"The only thing I actually did was give you a good time," Pyro retorted snidely.
"Aw, your girlfriend gives a shit," the guard mocked them both, and grabbed Pyro by one arm to pull him out of the cage.
Pyro gritted his teeth against the jar to his shoulder, but of course, managed to twist his ankle as he landed on the ground. He cried out in pain, but what did it matter? He would be dead in minutes. He spat at the ground under the swinging cage that was being locked again, with Yana still inside. "Loviatar's blessing upon you." Pyro's tone left no doubt that by saying blessing, he was hoping to call forth the curse of the goddess of pain.
The guard slapped him on the back of the head. "She's trying to save your ass, you ungrateful little prick."
"Just fucking hang me already," Pyro retorted.
"You're better off without him," the guard told Yana, even as he shoved Pyro along towards the gallows.
Yana nodded before dropping her eyes down to the floor once more. She'd figured that out already. She kept her eyes downcast, wishing it was as easy to close her ears to the sound of the crowd jeering as they dragged him to the gallows, or the cheers that made it clear that the sentence had been carried out. Given how much it hurt to hear? She didn't have any doubt Loviatar'd heard his prayer.
