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Mick slowly stirs to an aching consciousness, in a dim room. He can only think of his sore neck, pulling a slacken head up like a dumbbell, the ropes firmly digging into his arms and keeping him in place. The air is a little warm but he's freezing under this fleece blanket. Going gone here and there. Dozing off and yawning, eyes blinking shut. Hold on, what,
Mick's eyes fly open. He's in his room, alright, but he's tied to his office chair. Hookline is in his room, looking out the open window. There are candles lit all around them, lending a warm glow. Below his face, he finds that a cup with a straw is bounded to the ropes.
"STERLING," he sputters, breaking the silence, trying to pull against the ropes that won't yield against his wrists and sleeves. "WHAT THE FUCK."
"I don't want you to panic," Sterling says, arms behind his back looking out the window into the night reverently. "Angel and Pat have it all under control."
"Have what? What's going on? What did you do?" Mick thinks fervently to how the past twelve hours have gone by, but the nap he had was too good— he can't think. "Sterling. You're a clown. Untie me right now."
"Let's take a vacation, Mick." Sterling turns slowly, pondering it seriously. "I'm thinking Indonesia. The beaches are to die for."
"Why a vacation? What is this?" Mick bursts out, frazzled— just like how he always is. "You had to tie me up in my- in my own house, for this? To ask me out on a vacation? What is going on?"
Sterling's face is completely impenetrable, yet betraying the slight fondness he always has for Mick. Mick finds him scary like that, the type of scary that makes you glad you're on his good side. "You've been too stressed recently, doctor," Sterling goes on to say, and he genuinely wants to choke him to death. "We're worried for you."
"You're worried for me? I have a few ideas on how you could fix that," Mick seethes out the bars of his teeth, hands wriggling behind his back to untie himself. "Maybe Cole could stop consuming his weight's worth of coffee PER DAY. Maybe Cassie could stop, you know, FIGHTING OTHER PEOPLE. Maybe you could even stop flying around at the front and smashing your head into brick ceilings."
"Done and done." Sterling produces his grapple from his belt, and walks over to plant it on Mick's lap. This is surprising— that grapple is his third hand. The thought of not holding it is like severing a limb. Mick's eyes trail up slowly, confused. Sterling's not following up, just grinning at him.
"What is this?"
"Let's relax, Mick."
"This isn't how you relax," he says, and suddenly his fingertips find the knot holding his hands tied. Mick begins picking at it. ".. Not that I'd expect you, of all people, to know how to do that."
"I guess I'm an open book like that, aren't I?" Sterling laughs easily— its always easier around Mick. "And by the way, don't untie yourself. There's a mirror behind you."
Mick deflates. He sighs heavily. "Of course," he says, a little annoyed with himself for thinking he could outsmart the spy. "Of course you thought of everything. I can never hide from you."
Sterling smiles a smile too sharp, teeth like glistening metal. "Affirmative."
At his wits' end (for now), the doctor bends his head to sip from the straw. The drink, still impeccably cold and refreshing, is mellow and flowery. Maybe it could all be a lot more worse than this.
"Aren't we relaxing right now?" Mick looks back up at Sterling, sitting on the counter, cheeks in his hands like the bastard he is, and always watching. He has big eyes that peek over his impenetrable sunglasses, drinking and digesting every tiny bit of information, ever. He's almost inhuman.
"I appreciate your concern for me," Mick says, a little thickly.
"Always, Doctor."
"You just didn't have to tie me up."
"I had to," Sterling says, frankly, like he can't possibly be blamed for something so obvious. Mick is going to choke him. "You're too nice for your own good. If i didn't, you'd run out of here and break your back two hundred more times for people who don't care about you."
Mick straightens up, eyes widening. Comfort falls away from his mind like sand as comprehends this.
"They do," the Doctor says, voice empty, thousands of memories of saving people flitting through his head. They thanked him, cried in his arms, and shone because of him. "Sterling— You wouldn't know this because you hardly ever think of other people. And it's not your job, sure— But it's mine. It's my job to save people."
Sterling shrugs, and he takes his sunglasses off to reveal his eyes, reveal where he's looking. He can't meet Mick's eyes. The room is a few degrees colder.
"... I can hardly fault you for that," Sterling says in the end, with an oddly quiet air of defeat. "I'm sure you find fulfillment in what you do. They live to see another day, they thank you, give you respect, look up to you but.. they don't care about you. If they did, they wouldn't make you stay behind with the stragglers and fight tooth and nail every day. They wouldn't make you give your life up for theirs. If they cared about you, you wouldn't have died at the back so, so many times- but you do. You go back for a million people and none of them go back for you when you need it."
The Doctor blinks, utterly flayed.
"But I do," Sterling says softly, to the air around them instead, like he wasn't really speaking to Mick anymore. In this second, he understands something very very important about what he's saying to him. "You know, in my perfect world.. You wouldn't be throwing yourself away like this, to- save people who die anyway. But you're too kind, aren't you? You're too caring, too selfless- you're too good."
Mick is half endeared by what Sterling thinks of him, and half bowled over, still trying to grasp what the fuck he's saying. So he gives his voice time for it to work again, for the words to burn themselves into the air.
"You sound like a monster," he trembles out, but swallowing to make his voice stronger. How could you say that to me, he thinks fervently. How can you tell me not to save people, to do everything I can with what I have and the skills I own? I WENT TO MED SCHOOL FOR THIS. But of course, Hookline thinks that. Typical pessimistic, unempathetic, brutally honest Sterling.
Nothing changes on Sterling's face when Mick calls him a monster. Maybe a light of recognition in his eyes. They blink and meets Mick's eyes.
"That just breaks my cold, dead heart," he says slowly, cheekily, and in agony. And he gets up. From his sleeve is produced a sleek knife, twirled in his fingers to glide through the rope holding the doctor. They fall off his sore arms, unspool like snakes draping down. Mick catches the cup of milk tea that Sterling oh so graciously got him, grabs the grapple he put in his lap. He immediately stands, but doesn't run off to find Sir Pat and Angel just yet. He wants to say something, but struggles to get the weight of it properly out his throat.
"Listen. I love you too," Mick says, putting the grapple into his hands. "But you'll never make me quit the backline."
"I know," Sterling says, his voice crackling with unsaid emotion. Yes, of course Mick would say that. Helpful to a fault, too selfless, too good. "I guess.. I'll never stop going back for you."
"I don't want you to worry about me."
"Then don't give me reason to worry."
"You know I can't promise you."
"I know nothing can ever be said for sure anyway," Sterling says, hooking the grapple back onto his belt and getting up from the counter. "So, where were we?"
"You don't have to come," Mick tries to say. Sterling just smiles, putting a hand on his shoulder to gently push him back and guide him out the room.
"Nice try."