Chapter Text
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be eager to repeat this situation so soon,” Reddington said with that maddening cheerfulness Ressler was more and more coming to utterly hate. “Put pressure on this. No, harder, you’re bleeding quite badly and we don’t want to leave a trail. That collapse will slow them down, but not for long. Are you going to throw up? I’m rather fond of these shoes, and if you could possibly direct any involuntary regurgigatory responses to the side I’d be very much obliged.”
Ressler said nothing, and swallowed both the bile and the groans rising in his throat while he pushed one hand hard against the side of his belly and twisted the other one in Reddington’s silk and cotton blend shirt. The man’s right arm was hard around his back, Reddington’s hand pressed over Ressler’s on the shot wound just left above his hip. His left hand grasped Ressler’s left wrist, pulling him along and propping him up on Red’s shoulder. Ressler, half a head taller, was draped over the older man as if coming back drunk from a night out binging. He wished to god he’d wake up in a few hours, with nothing but a hangover as a reminder.
An involuntary sound of pain escaped him, and once he’d made that one sound, it became almost impossible to keep silent.
God, it hurt. He was amazed by how badly it hurt. After his leg, after surviving that, he’d thought any other pain would be irrelevant, just a pale echo of that overwhelming, all-invading agony—but no. The memory of his leg did nothing to cull the tearing pain of his belly, and having to walk with a bullet in the gut did not improve matters. At least when he’d been bleeding out in the box, he’d been able to lie down still. Now…
“Come on, Donald,” Reddington chided, tightening his grip on his hand and jolting him back to full consciousness with the resulting spike of agony, “stay with me, now. Trust me, you don’t want to rest yet, not with Jorge on our tail.”
I wasn’t resting, Ressler thought mutinously. As a matter of fact, they were moving quite fast, with Reddington dragging him along and he himself trying to keep the pace as best as he could. But even as he thought so, Reddington picked up speed, and every protest he might consider voicing was drowned out in another wave of pain. It rushed through his belly and lower body, then flooded out, leaving his skin prickling and wet. He was sweating so much Reddington’s expensive shirt was soaked through where he was in contact with Ressler—somehow, that made him feel just a tiny tiny bit better.
Hell no, it didn’t.
He swallowed, licked the salt from his lips.
“I must compliment you on your deodorant,” Reddington said, and to his immense satisfaction Ressler noticed a slight unevenness of breath. Spry as the older man was, it was a relief to know that hauling a fully grown and mostly limp man along tired even him out.
“Yeah?” he gasped, more to show he was still capable of speech than because he was interested in conversation.
“Oh, definitely. I was in a similar situation a couple of years ago. An associate of mine got shot by…well, another associate, who’d decided our partnership was a hollow lie and resented that realization.” The tunnel they were walking through opened up into several passageways. Ressler expected Reddington to steer them into the first possible option, but to his surprise they passed three sideways before they took a left turn. “Poor Maxwell was a good deal smaller than you,” Reddington went on as he tightened his grip on Ressler’s left wrist, positioning his shoulder more securely in the agent’s armpit, “but his personal hygiene left something to be desired, which, in the end, was a much heavier burden to me.”
“Glad to be…of service.”
Reddington uttered a somewhat breathless chuckle. “Why, you do have a sense of humour. I never expected. Perhaps, when this is all over, we should share a bottle of Domaine Serene Pinot Noir on a little terrace in the French Quarter, have a bit of a friendly chat.”
“Can’t wait,” was what Ressler intended to say, but what came out was something in between a moan and a whimper, and thankfully Red kept quiet then, concentrating on propelling them forward.
Ressler had no clue how long they moved through the maze of tunnels, but at one point they halted, and he gratefully sank against a jutting piece of rock as Red eased away from him. The mine’s lights danced in front of his eyes, almost blinding him despite their dimness. He remembered seeing everything in stark colours, when he’d been shot before; now it was as if all he could see was grey tones.
“How are your extremities?”
Oh strange echo. He opened eyes he hadn’t been aware closing, surprised not to find himself in a glass cell. “Cold, but still functional.”
“Good. Your life depends on your ability to walk.” He reached over and started unbuttoning Ressler’s shirt. “It is my solemn intention to get the both of us out of this mess, especially after what you did for me, but I can’t carry you, and I can’t let you fall into their hands alive.”
The words should have chilled Ressler, but as he found himself agreeing, he didn’t bother trying to act scandalized. “They’re not interested in me,” he returned, and shivered as Red carefully peeled off his shirt from his shoulders and the cool air hit his damp skin.
“Perhaps not,” Red said, “but they are interested in me, and if they find out you’re FBI, they’ll torture you so cruelly you’d give them Director Cooper’s mother’s cat’s date of birth if they were to ask you for it.” He smiled brightly, as if this was a worthy achievement. “I only have the one gun, and I’m sorry, but I’m not going to leave it with you and continue my way unarmed. I need you to let go for a second so I can get this sleeve off of you…good.” He shook out the garment, critically assessing the patches of blood and sweat, then clicked his tongue and quickly rolled up the body of it until it formed a flat sausage suspended by the two long sleeves. “Move your hand.”
Ressler released the hand he’d held clamped tightly against his abdomen, grunted, pushed it back hard, then made himself relax so Red could tie the shirt around the wound as a make-shift bandage. The sleeveless undershirt he was wearing was red from hem to chest, and right before Reddington covered up the hole he could see him push something that was bulging out back inside, which resulted in another thin stream of blood, widening the stain on his pants and making it creep down to his knee.
“How bad…how bad is it?” He couldn’t help sounding about six years old.
“That entirely depends on what got hit and how quickly we can get you onto the operating table,” Reddington said with that same, matter-of-fact optimism he remembered from the glass box. He didn’t seem overly concerned by the bulging thing. He tightly wound the sleeves of the shirt around the agent’s waist, knotting them on top of the wound for extra pressure, then took Ressler’s hand and placed it back on top of the knot. When he looked up, his face was mild, but his eyes were quite serious. “The bullet’s still inside of you. No exit wound. You can still walk, and that’s good, but you’ve lost a considerable amount of blood, and that’s bad. I’m not sure how badly your intestines are torn, or what other organs were damaged.” He placed his bloody fingers against the vein in Ressler’s neck, squinting at his watch as he took his pulse. Pursed his lips. “All considering, you’re not doing too badly, but we still have a long way to go. It will not be pleasant. Are you still carrying those painkillers of yours with you? If so, now would be the time to take a pill.”
How do you know? Ressler thought. It was four months after he’d been shot in the leg, and he had no real reason to have any painkillers on him anymore. Apart from that one instance, two and a half months ago, when he’d ended up driving all the way back from Johnstown and found out he’d run out of Lorcet. The following hours of throbbing, sweat-inducing pain not at all driven back by the over-the-counter painkillers he’d bought instead had made him cautious, and he had made sure to carry at least two or three of the pills in his wallet ever since, even if he never needed them again. In time he’d even forgotten he had them, noticing them only when he put small change into his coin pocket. But how could Reddington know that? He controlled his impulse to ask, though, and merely said, “Wallet. Back pocket.”
Red reached behind him, into his pants, and fished out the wallet. Their tinfoil cover was slightly rumpled in places, but the two pills were still whole. “Here you go,” Reddington said, dropping one of them in Ressler’s palm before folding the wallet closed and replacing it in the agent’s pocket. “Who knew what providence it was to get shot and receiving the required medication in advance, huh?” He checked his watch again, fiddling with the buttons on the side of it. “We need to go. Are you ready?”
Ressler nodded. The pill stuck, bitter, to his palate, dissolving slowly with every lick of his dry tongue. He’d tried to swallow it dry, but it made him gag helplessly. Reddington pulled him to his feet. “Lean on me. Let me know if you start to lose feeling in your hands and feet—although I think you’ll be ok for some time yet.”
Ressler nodded again, closing his eyes against the sweat that the agony of standing up had flushed out of his skin. One foot in front of the other, left right, left right. The Lorcet would kick in quickly—at least he hoped so. He let Reddington lead the way.
*
The irony, Reddington considered with some cynical appreciation, was that this was not even a Blacklist case. He truly had not expected to run into any kind of trouble on this trip—and that showed that even he still had things to learn in this world.
The man he and Ressler had come to see while Lizzie and Dembe played their part in Piedras Negras, was supposed to have been trustworthy. Or at least not homicidal. Perhaps it had been their contact, Luis Monta, now deceased, who’d fucked up. Perhaps Jorge Flores Diaz had found out Ressler wasn’t who he claimed to be, or perhaps, god forbid, Red himself had simply mistaken the nature of their alliance. Perhaps Jorge was smarter than Reddington had calculated him to be, or maybe he was significantly less intelligent. Even as he was dragging the stumbling, increasingly heavier FBI agent towards the north-west exit of the mine, his mind was racing to try and find out what exactly had gone wrong, and why.
Especially the ‘why’ was bugging him. Jorge was nothing more than a messenger, a pawn to lure a bishop to the wrong square in order to make a queen choose the wrong path. Jorge was basically insignificant, just a useful merc to know when he was in Mexico, nothing more. Reddington had about a hundred of these pawns scattered all over the world, and the only times they’d ever caused him trouble was when they grew too influential, wanted more power. Jorge Flores Diaz had all the power he could possibly get in this armpit of the world, and he’d never shown any inclination of wanting to broaden his horizons. So why had he betrayed the man he had, so far, shown so much gratitude for enabling him to get to this position?
A better offer? Possible, but not likely. Who’d take the trouble coming all the way out here to seduce a man like Jorge?
He checked his watch. They were still moving westwards. Good. He halted his step for a moment, Ssh!-ing Ressler as the man groaned out a question. No sound of footsteps, no sound at all apart from the younger man’s gasping breath and his own, calmer, respiration.
“They haven’t found us yet,” he concluded, satisfied, then started as the younger man’s weight seemed to intensify all of a sudden. “No, no, no, Donald, now is not the time. Come on, stay with me. One step in front of the other. That’s it. Keep moving. It shouldn’t take long much longer.”
“Longer before what?” Ressler mumbled. He sounded groggy, and his face shone an unhealthy pale in the spare light, but at least he was carrying most of his own weight again.
“Before we get to the exit of the mine.”
“Yeah? You know…you know this place?”
“Well, know, know…” Red managed a half-shrug beneath the younger man’s shoulder. “I didn’t manage to memorize the place, if that’s what you’re implying. But I do know this mine has several exits, the least likely being the one we’re heading for.”
“Least…likely?”
“Least likely to choose to use, from our point of view,” he clarified. He changed his grip on the other man’s waist, used his other hand to reposition the gun he’d snatched from Luis Monta’s limp fingers in the waistband of his pants. For once he was happy not to be wearing slacks; the belt on his chinos kept the gun from sliding down his back.
“Huh. And what…are you planning to do…once we reach that…that unlikely exit?”
“Trick them, of course,” said Reddington with a smirk.
***
Either the Lorcet had kicked in, or else his body had gotten used to the pain in his gut, because even though his steps still faltered and he needed Reddington’s support, Ressler found it a little easier to move. The pain had eased so that it no longer took up his whole world—only about, say, 90%. He no longer had to repeat right, left, right, left to himself; his legs moved on their own accord. The remaining 10% had become aware of the itch of sweat on his face and the chill of the air on his slick bare arms, and of the discomfort of his parched throat.
Sometimes, Reddington spoke. Occasionally, Ressler understood what he was saying and tried to respond in an intelligent fashion; sometimes he only became aware the other man had been speaking when the last echoes of his voice reached his ears before the silence returned. One in a while a shiver started at the base of his spine, and if that happened he grit his teeth and tried not to cry out at the waves of pain that brought about.
Probably shock, he thought, as he looked down his own blood-stained lower body and watched his feet go forward, forward, forward. It was 98 degrees in the sun—that thermometer on the wall of that candy shop—must be close to 92 in here. Shouldn’t be cold, so it’s shock. That’s ok, he said I was doing fine, considering. Last time anyone put their hand on my neck like that, it was Mom, and I was eight. He huffed out a laugh, biting his lip the moment it was out. Laughing hurt. Reddington turned his face towards him, but he shook his head. Nothing he cared to share with that maniac, thanks.
And to think that Keen saw him as an ally. Oh, she said that she didn’t trust him, that she hated him, and he was convinced that some part of her resented Reddington for manipulating her, but in the end she’d put aside her distrust and take his word for gospel. Saw him as a daddy-figure, no doubt. He wondered if she’d already asked him if he were her biological father—wondered if she’d had taken a blood sample, like he, Ressler, had done, and had run a DNA test, like he had done as well. No match. No relative. So what was she to him, then? Sometimes he thought Keen was yet another trap, a…a kind of anti-mole, if that made sense. After all, who was she? Smart and pretty, yes, and quite sweet, really, but horribly naïve—whoever applied for adoption working at the fucking post office? Hadn’t she noticed that a normal family life was the last thing one could hope for?
Reddington was talking again. He only caught the last part of the sentence: “…close to the exit, now. How are you holding up?”
“’ll Manage,” he croaked, annoyed at the distraction. He could, as long as he didn’t think about his innards bulging out of his body. Left, right. Left, right. He thought about Audrey. She’d become a distraction as well, in the end. Wasn’t that a terrible thing? She was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he’d…it wasn’t as if he hadn’t known that, but it just hadn’t been as important as catching Reddington. And now she was back, and they were carefully seeing each other again, which was good, it was so good to be with her—but all this time he kept seeing the question in her eyes. ‘Am I more important now? More important than him?’ and whenever he noticed that question, he had to look away, because no, she wasn’t, even though Reddington was RIGHT HERE, he was using the man as a fucking CRUTCH, he still hadn’t been caught, and Ressler still wanted to be the one to bring him down.
“Guess I’m a little obsessive, that way,” he rasped aloud, and cried out as Reddington tightened his grip on his side again, shocking him awake like the most painful alarm in the world.
“Stay with me, Donald. Not far now, and I need you conscious and alert.”
“I’m awake, God, please, I’m awake!”
They walked on, and he desperately tried to focus on something besides the pain—hate, perhaps? but the halting cadence of their stumbling steps reminded him of the sound of combat boots running through hallways, and that made him think of Audrey’s heels on the floor of their favourite restaurant…
Focus. Focus, damn it!
“I’m sorry.”
It took a few seconds before he realized Reddington had just apologized. “What?”
“I’m sorry I hurt you, just now. I’m afraid I’ll have to do it several times more, today, if we both want to survive, but nevertheless, I take no pleasure in it, and I am sorry.”
Ressler focused wide eyes on what he could see of Reddington’s face, which happened to be his right ear. God, he’s going to do something else excruciatingly painful to save my life. Humans were not able to remember pain, he knew, but he did recall the unbelievable agony of the man cutting into his mangled leg to reach the damaged artery, and despite himself he leaned away a little. No! And that hurt so much he doubled up and listed, and would have fallen if Reddington hadn’t hauled him closer and shoved his hip against Ressler’s to prop him up.
“Easy, Agent Ressler,” he said softly, and soothingly kneaded the young man’s wrist between his fingers. “With a bit of luck, all will turn out well.” This time he used his forearm rather than his hand to urge Ressler forwards. “We’re almost at the exit.”
“So you…keep saying.”
“But this time I mean it. Look there.” He gestured with his chin, and indeed, only a few yards ahead the tunnel was getting lighter. A few steps more and the leds on the ceiling stopped. Not much further on, Red detected an empty box, apparently used as an improvised seat one day, judging by the cigarette butts scattered around its base. He helped Ressler sit down on top of it and took another moment to check the bandage—stained, but not yet soaked through—and pull it a little tighter before pressing the back of his hand against Ressler’s cheek. It was an oddly affectionate gesture, even if the man was probably just checking his temperature, and for some reason it brought tears to his eyes. The next moment, though, the warmth left his face, and when he opened his eyes, he was relieved to find them no longer brimming.
Red regarded him stoically for a few seconds, I probably look about as terrible as I’m feeling, then nodded to himself and squatted down in front of him, so Ressler could look him in the face without having to lift his head.
“Listen to me. The reason I took us to this tunnel is that it opens up to the quarry, and Jorge would never expect us to try and escape this way because there’s nowhere to go from there. He’ll focus on combing through the tunnels and position his men at the other entrances. However, he’ll definitely have all exits covered, so I’m convinced he’ll have someone guarding this one, too. Now, I am going to find out exactly how bad the situation is, and I may need you to join me in some hurry. Are you up to that?”
I don’t know. Am I? His immediate answer to that question was ‘hell, no.’, but at the same time, he knew that wasn’t an option. Come what may come, he would do what he had to do, or…well, collapse and then die by Reddington.
“Yes.”
Again that blank stare. Then Red’s mouth widened in a small but genuine smile. “Good man. Wait for my signal.” And he disappeared into the lightening hallway.
Ressler sat on the box, both arms would tightly around his abdomen, and tried both to stay conscious and to figure out what on earth had possessed him to jump in front of Reddington and take that bullet instead of him.