Starcrossed || Twenty-Eight

"What the..." Kaye pulled herself out of the water, wrapping her towel around her. She exchanged concerned looks with Elise.

Their fears were multiplied into the range of disbelief when they walked up to the mouth of the cave and witnessed Jared pinning Sean to the cave floor with one hand, a needle-thin screwdriver in the other hand, aimed for his neck.

"Jared, get off him!" Kaye shrieked. She tried to get him up, but Jared shrugged her away. "Krivnex, you know we were only kidding about the trying to kill each other thing!?"

"I'm not killing him, I'm saving his life!" Jared shot back.

Sean twisted and squirmed as much as he could beneath the constricting weight of Jared's hand while Kaye and Elise watched in shock. He'd been struggling nonstop since the man had pried him away from the wall to pin him down, and his sore body protested mightily. But he still wouldn't give Jared a clear shot at the collar.

"D-don't mess with it!" he pleaded. "Even with the signal blocked it'll still go off if you tamper with it." Sean wished he could reach the case on his belt where his glove was stored, but Jared had made sure his arms were a healthy distance away from any of his tools. The human shivered, his mind's eye replaying some of his similar experiences:  held down, unable to do anything about it, and scared.

Elise watched Sean struggle in vain for a few seconds, empathy overwhelming her. She patted Kaye's hand beneath her to get the other woman's attention. "Kaye, put me down," she requested softly. Elise quickly got her feet on the ground and walked towards where Jared had Sean trapped. Back at the stream, she had only had time to pull her dress over her head, the very same one that Jared had gotten for her. Her hair still dripped water from the stream, and her bare feet could feel the quiver in the cave floor from every minor shift Jared made.

Whatever was going on, Jared would only risk stabbing a hole in Sean's neck while the frightened human continued to struggle. Elise put a hand on one of the giant fingers holding the screwdriver and caught Jared's eye. Silently she asked him to relent, if only for a few seconds, so she could find out what was going on. Though Jared looked eager to carry out whatever task he'd decided upon, Elise was thankful that he paused in trying to get the screwdriver to Sean's strange metal collar.

Elise delicately got to her knees next to where Sean lay, and he looked at her with wide eyes full of... guilt? "Sean, what's going on? What's he saving your life from?"

"He's not," Sean answered quickly, still trying to drag himself out from underneath the giant hand. "This collar will blow my goddamn head off." He looked past the horrified woman to look at Jared again. "Look, Jared, you guys can pack up and leave right now and head in the opposite direction. Just leave me here and everyone gets to keep their heads where they belong."

"Sean, why do you have this thing on you? Did the scientists...?" She looked up at Jared, confusion and concern in her eyes. Why had he come and called them back so urgently?

He could feel Sean's arms gaining some traction, so Jared increased the pressure pinning him down. He didn't think it was much, but it must have felt exponentially more to the human; Sean stopped struggling immediately and his jaw clenched in a silent grimace. Jared broke the staring contest between them to see Elise looking up searchingly at him. He squared his jaw.

"He never broke out of prison." Jared told them. "He's Ambron's puppet. She's using him to lure us into her turf... And this thing-" he jerked his chin at the collar. "-is going to kill him if we don't get it off him."

Elise stood and backed off from Sean as soon as she heard Jared's explanation. Her own heart beat a fearful rhythm now. How close had Sean brought them to Ambron's clutches? She only barely resisted turning to look outside the cave, where she now knew their enemy could lie around any corner.

He didn't have a choice, she thought, suddenly mortified all over again at the lengths Ambron was willing to go. The Secretary had forced someone into a death trap and then sent him out to betray a member of his own kind. She looked at Sean with a furrowed brow, a little anger surfacing despite knowing that he wasn't strictly a willing participant. She recognized that look on his face, and sighed quietly.

Kaye came back over from the edge of the cave, now wearing stretchy metallic pants and pulling a white tank top over her head. She stared agape at what she could see of Sean peeking out from under Jared's hand. It was hard to picture him as a threat when the man looked so scared. As startling as the information was, she didn't doubt it for a second. Kaye looked like she wanted to tell Jared not to squish Sean, but she bit her tongue.

"Now, if you would cooperate, we could try to actually defuse this." Jared said to Sean. "You really think you're gonna get a better deal from Ambron?"

Sean gritted his teeth and groaned, unable to take a full breath thanks to the increased pressure on his torso. He considered Jared's question for a long time before casting his gaze away. "No," he forced out. "I don't."

He still wasn't even a little convinced that this would work. But, lying there completely helpless for the millionth time, Sean felt tired. He tried to relax, but that was pretty hard when a giant was squashing him into a cold stone floor. He was either about to be freed from his long imprisonment, or have his head blown off. He tried to pretend he was choosing to take the risk.

Elise pursed her lips, unable to stay angry at her fellow human seeing the look on his face. She sat down nearby, mindful to keep out of Jared's way, and addressed Sean quietly. "You're going to be okay. Jared is really good at this kind of thing." She glanced up at Jared, very hopeful that she was right, and smiled encouragingly.

Jared pulled the hand holding the screwdriver away to wipe his forehead. In the midst of the shakiness that threatened to wrack his body from the mounting life or death situation, a new calm washed over him. It was a similar serenity that came right before he knifed the monstrous Rikonda, or when he knocked out the technician that had spotted Elise. He had faced death and capture before and come out clean. This wasn't the end of the line.

His hands became steady as a surgeon's. He could do this. He had to do this.

"I can see a clear line down the front, Sean." Jared said. "I'm just going to pry it open enough to see the wiring.”

When Sean met his eyes for a quick nod, Jared began. He leaned down close over his hand, careful to rest his weight on his knees instead of the hand on top of Sean. If the situation wasn't so dire, this would have been a really weird position. Still was, but having Sean's life on the line kept either man from voicing discomfort. He would have removed the hand from on top of Sean, but he couldn’t risk any nervous squirms.

The tip of the needle-thin screwdriver scratched against the brushed metal collar. Jared moved it left and right fractions of an inch until the tip wedged itself into a thin crevice down the front. Jared pulled, and the tip slipped out of the shallow indent, sliding across the metal for a split second.  It was easy to feel the human’s breathing halt for an instant.

"It's okay. You're fine." He assured Sean.

It was a careful, patient procedure to wiggle the tip in enough to gain traction but not enough to damage the sensitive interior. Jared angled his hand again and gave a tentative pull. The metal groaned faintly as it was pried looser around its frame. Revealed inside was an intricate river of wires. They were clearly made by a Tessiran, but if he had expected them to be cleanly color coded and easily deciphered he had another thing coming.

The wires were barely distinguishable from one another, the tiny bands of color too small for his eyes to perceive.

"Elise." He called. "I can't make out the colors... Do you see a blue wire in there?"

Sean tried to keep still. Having Jared as close as he was, still pinning him to the floor, made it difficult. He could feel the giant man's heartbeat through the hand still holding him down, contrasting with his own rapid pulse. As Jared worked away at the deadly device on his throat, the human tried to keep his breathing in check. Sean had snuck his way past countless things that should have been scarier than this. It wasn't like Jared was leveling a gun at him, after all. A shiver raced up and down his spine, but Sean kept his head as still as he could.

It was just his luck that this time, there was no avoiding the reality of the situation. Every time the screwdriver scraped across the metal, he winced and anticipated his own violent end. But, by some miracle, it didn't happen. Even when Jared spoke aloud in his unfathomable voice, Sean's mind was abuzz with the fact that somehow, he was still alive. He swallowed thickly as he saw motion in the corner of his eye, attempting to ignore the massive pair of eyes that fixed so intently on what could still very easily kill him.

Elise cautiously approached, crawling on hands and knees towards her fellow human. Jared was so close that she almost brushed his face, but she kept her focus on the ring of metal and wires currently wrapped around Sean's neck. She met her fellow human's eyes in a very brief glance before steadily observing the intricate tangle of wires that Jared had uncovered.

The fact that such an intricately deadly device existed almost threw her for a loop again. This is so cruel, she thought, before carefully looking over the mess of wires and pointing to one of them. "Here," she indicated, trying to be as clear as she could about which wire. She tried to lean back out of the way, and make sure that Jared's eyes could focus on the small blue line. Elise could see up close just how afraid Sean was as he dragged in shallow breaths.

Please tell me she pointed out the right one, Sean thought fervently. Being unable to see how close his lifeline was to his own gruesome death made everything worse, if that was possible. His entire body felt hollow. The only thing he had room for was musings of how painful it would be if this failed. Perhaps it would be quick enough to be painless. Somehow, with Ambron involved, Sean doubted it.

Elise could see that Sean was trying very hard. After everything she had gone through herself, she couldn't imagine how scary it would be to go it alone. Sean had never had someone to help him before, and now he was forcing himself to believe that Jared could free him. "You're doing great, Sean," she muttered, staying nearby in case Jared needed any more assistance. The dark grey eyes met hers for just a second, but Elise could see gratitude among the fear.

Kaye sat to the side, every muscle tensed yet barely daring to breathe. Jared nodded at Elise, confirming that he saw it. With tunnel vision on the net of cords, he needled the tip of the screwdriver under the tiny blue-striped wire. He took care to make sure absolutely nothing else was disturbed as he made his move. He held it there for a moment, painfully aware of how everything was about to change in the blink of an eye. Either he was right about the scientists adhering to standard wire color coding procedure; or, they had diverged on their own and he was about to kill Sean.

Jared's heart hammered hard, the palm pinning Sean down becoming clammy with anxiety.

With a flick of his wrist, Jared snapped the wire. The collar reacted immediately. A prick sized bulb on the side he hadn't noticed before lit orange from the inside. A steady beeping began, ticking away seconds.

BEEP, BEEP, BEEP

Kaye gasped, covering both hands over her mouth to muffle the choked noise of horror. Jared's eyes went wide, briefly apologizing a thousand times in a terrified connected gaze with Sean.  Sean gazed back, unable to even tremble as the beeping overwhelmed all of his senses.

I’m going to die.