Night's Omen

placeholder because it's super late

Most of the time, criminal activity happened and he was sent to investigate it.  That was how it was supposed to work, and up until this particular point in Jake's life, it had followed that pattern.  He was on his way home from a few drinks with some people from the station and thinking maybe he should have gone along with the taxi idea because he did not feel like the walk once he was a few blocks in, no matter how nice the night was.  He was just thinking how the last thing he wanted was to admit that to Charlotte when he took notice of a young woman walking quickly on the sidewalk across the street, her body language selling the anxiety he was feeling from her, which wasn't necessarily fear, but she was definitely on edge.  His own state of partial drunkenness didn't help in clarifying that, but other than catching sight of her and being curious, he had no reason to be overly concerned immediately.

As she passed a streetlight, her shadow huge as it followed her down the sidewalk and drawing his eyes once again, Jacob realized there was a larger form behind her, coming up fast.  There would have been no time to call out a warning to her even if he'd thought that it would have done anything.  The man shape lunged and grabbed her right as she was passing the alley, dragging her into it, and her scream was almost muffled by the hand closing over her mouth just a little too late.

"Shit," he hissed, knowing already that there was no way he could walk away from that, but also pretty damn sure either the girl or her attacker (or both) had seen him staring.  That would make his attempt to help harder if he was expected, but it wouldn't be the first shitty situation he walked into.  He was just less prepared for this one, no big deal.

He put in a quick call, identified himself and requested aid even as he crossed the street, and had the phone pocketed and his gun drawn before he reached the alley itself.  There were sounds within it, and he cringed at the light that he had to pass through before the dark alley, making him far more visible to anyone inside than they were to him - that was a problem.

He saw the woman first, her attention on the man who seemed to have been the same who grabbed her, as he passed a small packet of something to her, and the drinks must have fogged him up, because Jacob actually took a few seconds to figure out what the hell was going on with that.  Getting cracked in the side of the head by a guy he hadn't seen as his eyes adjusted from the streetlight to the darkness of the alley was his own damn fault for being so slow to see the obvious trap, and he twsted with the gun in time for another man he hadn't seen to slam his forearm with a...bat?  He didn't drop the gun, but he wasn't bringing it back up again in time to avoid another hit, and then he did drop it.  It was then that he realized that the woman hadn't ever felt afraid to him, and now she just seemed...excited.  There was an anxious thrill going through the group at large with the start of the violence, and Jake shuddered, trying to blink back the emotions that were not his and clear his head of the drink he'd had.  The pain helped with that, but getting hit in the head did not.

The woman was gone, having disappeared down the back end of the alley with her prize, desperation washing over him and then fading out.  A bribe, then.  He was so fucking stupid, she'd never been afraid, why hadn't he realized that she wasn't afraid?  He'd read her anxiety instead, but she'd just been on the edge of a withdrawal, so of course she was fucking anxious.

"McLaren, right?" the first man asked, watching without a move to join in as Jake threw his weight into a shoulder check against the guy with the bat, knocking him off balance just to take another shot from the first.  He hit the brick of the building wall, bleeding either from the impact with the wall or the punch (maybe both), and zeroed in on the knife that had just been drawn.  The Talker kept going while the Bat righted himself and the Knife looked for an opening.  "Our boss doesn't like you fucking around with his business, so consider yourself off the case.  Your pretty partner is next if she doesn't take the hint."

The Knife rushed him at about the same time the Bat swung his weapon, but Jake turned his body into the bat swing in an attempt to catch it in a place that wouldn't instantly debilitate him on impact, and put his focus more onto the guy who was trying to stab him.  He figured that being hospitalized or killed would be equally good for taking him 'off the case', and the latter was probably preferred, since this would look like a mugging gone wrong, even with his phone call.  He just had to hope the cavalry showed up quickly.

The Knife moved so damn fast that he wasn't sure how he avoided getting skewered, but the near miss wasn't actually a total miss - he'd need some stitches, but it didn't feel like it had hit anything important, even if it hurt like hell.  It sure as hell wasn't the gut wound that he'd nearly taken, though there would be more attempts in his very immediate future if he didn't figure something out, and the Bat was trying to knock him down or hold him still, whichever worked first.  Neither was in his best interests.

He was far too distracted by the adrenaline of his own struggle and the various excited sort of emotions running around the crowd in the alley to take notice of another feeling nearby, and his soon-to-be rescuers brought their own swirling emotions, particularly in the fact that the first guy to hit the scene, literally smashing into the Bat and practically smearing him into the brick wall, was probably even more pumped about the fight than Jake's attackers had been. 

There was another presence who was more calm and collected, which didn't draw a lot of attention to himself and actually seemed a little reluctant, but there were a few quick, sharp emotional spikes to reveal his presence before he actually appeared on scene.  He was less brutal in taking on the Knife, but only because Jake was comparing his performance to the smaller man who had struck first and with far more violence, not to mention the fact that he'd taken the bat up and turned on the Talker before the asshole really even had a chance to decide if he should run or not.  Spoiler alert: he should have run. because once that guy had that bat in hand and started swinging, the screams stopped before the sounds of impact did.  The surprise, fear and pain from all three of them had been instantaneous, but also cut short very suddenly as they were dropped.  Jake was honestly okay with that.

It happened really fast, which wasn't surprising because most fights happened fast and even Jake had only been struggling with the two armed attackers for about a minute, but these two were fast and effective. 

"Really?  I was expecting an actual fucking fight out of these shitbags," the smaller guy complained, and Jake groaned, pulling himself up off of the dirty alley ground to at least sit propped against the dirty brick wall. 

"Shit, well at least he's still alive," the bigger guy said, coming to kneel in front of him while his companion stayed where he was, watching warily with the bloodied bat rested on his shoulder.  "You okay, man?  I'll call an ambulance.  I'm Shaun, what's your name?"

He didn't know who this guy was, nor did he have any way of knowing what Shaun did for a living, but the guy was far too calm about the whole thing not to be something, and asking his name in case he passed out was pretty basic training.  "Jake McLaren, I'm a cop.  Someone's on the way."

"Shaun, we gotta jet.  We're gonna get fucking arrested, just leave him," Shaun's friend hissed, which made Jake actually blink through the blood on one eye to try getting a better look at him.  That one was a lot of emotions, most of them negative and all of them strong, enough that Jake sucked in a sharp breath, working to back off enough and focus more on Shaun.  He did not have the ability to deal with that on top of the rest of this.

He was trying to push himself up the wall to get to his feet, some instinct that he'd always had not to stay down, even if it was made harder by pressing on his side for the bleeding there.  He wasn't sure where on his face was bleeding, but he could feel the heat there, and the way Shaun looked at him definitely suggested that he looked about as bad as he felt.  Something about the other guy just made him feel like he really preferred to be standing, like any show of weakness that he could help might make him prey.  "Might wanna take it easy there, Ferrari, you're bleeding pretty bad."

"Nothing I haven't done before, I'll be fine.  You two just go, I appreciate the help and I'd rather not thank you by having you hang around for a thousand questions, okay?" he managed, getting the thought out pretty clear, even if his voice wasn't as steady as he'd have liked.  Shaun regarded him critically, like he was wondering if he was going to go down any second, but the other guy was more than happy to do as he'd been told.  Jake got the impression he didn't do what he was told often.

"Alright, well, it's been fun, always glad to help kick some ass.  Try not to die before your friends get here," he said, mood apparently improved after the burst of violence and with the promise of not having to talk to the cops, and as confusing as his internal emotional state was feeling currently, at least the good humor was a help.  "Let's go, dude."

"Listen, just...yell if something else happens before they get here," Shaun said, to an eyeroll from his younger companion, but Jake just nodded a few times, then leaned his head back against the wall that he was very obviously using to support himself.  Then, he waved them off, and just in time; they'd barely left the alley, the bat going with its new owner, when he heard sirens approaching. 

It was only when the red and blue lights were lighting up the whole street that he even considered relaxing, not that the idea lasted all that long.  The adrenaline that came with people hitting that particular scene - a cop beaten and bloodied with three thugs down stirred up some serious emotional responses - would at least keep him going awhile longer.  He was already surrounded by people by the time Charlotte hit the scene, Simon barely a step behind her and both of them obviously more sober than he'd been a few minutes ago.  He saw them scan the crowd briefly through a break in the bodies blocking his line of sight, both of them taking in the thugs that were being arrested even as they were loaded onto gurneys for a hospital trip and the blood in the alley that was lit up and being photographed.  Jake had argued to wait a few minutes longer while his attackers were taken care of, but most of that was because he really was in better shape than they were.  He hadn't expected Charlote to appear, but it made sense.  He'd have been pissed if something happened to her and he wasn't notified.

"Jake!  What the fuck happened?" she shouted, zeroing in on him.  "I only left you like ten minutes ago!"

"You do look like shit," Simon added appreciatively in support of Charlotte's outrage at having left him in mostly-new condition so recently, albeit a little drunk.

"Don't worry, I'm fine.  Just a few scratches," he said dismissively, and the EMT directly looking him over snorted loudly.

"That is not true, for the record.  You're going to need x-rays on your arm and ribs, pretty sure there are fractures in there, if not breaks.  Stitches on the headwounds, and while I do think you'd be in worse shape if the knife wound hit anything major, that still needs actual medical attention.  You're getting an ambulance ride, Detective."

Theroux whistled and Jake sighed, eyes dipping shut.  He was so damn tired, even if the burn of Char's fury tore at the drowsiness he felt.  He didn't have the energy for anymore violence or anger, but she very much did, and it was bleeding all over him.  "It was a set-up, don't be alone tonight, Char.  I'll tell you everything tomorrow."

"Fuck that, I'm coming with you," she asserted, already moving as the EMTs made to get him into the back of the ambulance and Simon nodded. 

"Give me a call if you need anything, I can drop by your place and grab it.  Either of you," he said, stepping back to give them all space and effectively denying Jake the one person in the area that wasn't dumping emotional static all over him.  If his head and the rest of him weren't already throbbing, he'd have thought that he had a migraine coming on just from input, but why not both?

It seemed like a 'both' kind of night, but hey, he hadn't been on the receiving end of Benji's bat, so he'd count it as a win.