@lingeringscars: you're a coward.
when amanda suddenly finds something interesting enough to pump the brakes on your impromptu lobotomy, dread isn't up there in the top five emotions you should feel pounding against your ribs. he'd seen the look in her eye that exact moment she'd decided he'd outlived his usefulness, but he hadn't been able to stop bargaining either. "please, please, please, don't do this! please, i can help you, there are other black boxes you need me to decrypt! i'm the engineer!" but those, despite the many times harper has made the case his skillset is invaluable, could be replaced - and any value he'd had had been destroyed right along with his hand.
not that amanda had been ever really been that impressed to begin with (she had sonya. he saw her as they'd drug him in. the weird, strangely sharp pang of sympathy he'd felt at the fear in her eyes hurt nearly as much as the kick in the ribs that shortly followed). he was here because of nikita. his value was nikita. he wouldn't give up nikita (and harper, and bellamy, and michael, who could never be far enough away to escape division's reach.)
yet, she still seemed optimistic enough - or simply desperate enough - to slow down enough to give birkhoff the chance to retreat back into his most basic nature for warmth. "you used to be such a selfish creature. now you've mutated into something entirely different." desperate is not a word he'd often use to describe amanda, but there was something heated and urgent about the press of her knee into the side of his thigh as she'd leaned inward with the needle, using her own weight as leverage for force and proximity.
only amanda would wax poetic about torture as an art form. a science. a very, very exact science. "what is it about nikki, anyway?" she'd inquired as she'd pushed the needle in deeper, and he hadn't had the clarity of mind to do anything except beg her to stop, not even think about how weirdly violating the nickname felt rolling off her tongue. "why are you so taken with her?"
harper would find that validating, probably. a supervillain for the books poking at him being in love with nikki. she was so damn sure he was in love with nikki.
"i mean, you must know michael is first in line. she could never see you that way. unless... it's not her. unless... it's not her at all." all he'd managed was gasp of pain and surprise as the needle came to a halt inside him, duct tape wrinkling as he fought every naturally occurring instinct not to move as his body shook with little care for whatever common sense he could scrape together about do's and don't's for when a giant needle is approaching your brain, but amanda had apparently taken it as confirmation. "it isn't, is it? at least, not any more. it's the newbie. the recruit. harper."
she smiled at her name, as if the realization was as delicious as a t-bone steak. even more when birkhoff let out a terrified gasp of a whimper, heart battering so hard against his ribs it felt like it would give out. her hands pulled the probe back toward her with little regard for the moans and coughing that took place once she successfully removed it and turned it to the side, temporarily fascinated by something else entirely. her now free hands went to his shoulders almost as if she sought to comfort him, expression an uncomfortable picture of fond amusement. "oh, birkhoff. you can't be serious. you make it out into the great big world and have every opportunity to leave it all behind and you let yourself get infatuated with yet another woman who will never love you."
"i always knew you were a soft fool, but i underestimated you."
her hands slid down his arms slowly, pityingly, only tightening as he involuntarily jerked from her grip, much as he could with the abysmal amount of leeway. all it earned him was a painful cough as he rammed toward duct tape fastened across his neck to keep him in place, and apparently a god awful, "oh, sweetheart," that had the same impression as a truly terrible mixture of vodka and redbull: immediately revolting enough to know he absolutely never, ever wanted experience it more than once.
she, however, grinned like a kid in a candy store, delighted by the profanity that followed. "at least you and nikita found a camaraderie when she was here. but harper... she's only ever seen the worst of you. the foul-breathed, mean instructor breathing down her neck, the very man who wiped her away from existence. i mean, i personally find it disturbing you'd even consider it. you can't tell me there isn't something truly unnerving about that imbalance of power."
she didn't seem to mind rolling in the irony of that when he choked out a weak, "oh, shut up you bitch," and she'd responded with a painful slap across the face. "you have to know she'll only ever think of you as the coward who would do anything to preserve his own life. you can't really believe she'll ever see you as anyone other than the monster who put a kill chip in her head." the tears that had begun to flow only drew her in once more, her hand reaching toward his burning cheek as if to wipe the moisture but instead forcing his chin back toward her, making him wince as the tape pulled at his skin with the movement.
it tightened around his throat as she leaned in closer still, letting her elbow dig into his chest for a sickening: "i should have used it." the temporary menacing look faded into laughter as he thrashed with all his might, the restraint on his ankle just loose enough for him to ram the bone into the surrounding titanium cuff with a horrible clang. the holler of pain that resulted, unlike the bitter taste of redbull with the kick of gasoline, wasn't enough to keep him from trying it twice, as if it could somehow reach her. "stop the theatrics. we both know you're a coward through and through. you can cover it up in the name of love all you want, but you know that person is still in there."
"oh, get some new material," birkhoff groaned as she slowly pulled back, composure perfect as ever as she slid her hands down his arms, halting at the restraints. "i'll make you a deal. i don't want your little recruit. tell me where nikita is, and i'll let her go. you two can slip off to oblivion, and no one has to get hurt. now, she'll still despise you, but you'll prefer it to the alternative."
not even when the needle had sat deep in his nasal cavity had he felt that sharp sting of fear. "which is what." he didn't mean to ask, even with such venom. didn't mean to give her the satisfaction. and yet.
"i have my men bring her back to division, and i find a way to get that little chip of hers back online. then it all gets very simple after that."
though perhaps not as simple as provoking a reaction from birkhoff, a string of threats and screaming from a chest heaving up and down violently, "you bitch! i'll kill you. i'll kill you. you'll never find her. i'm not telling you anything, you might as well go ahead and stick that skewer back up in my head, 'cause it's the closest to her you're ever gonna get." amanda must have found it kind of pathetically simple and easy, too, because she let her hands cover his - almost as if to be reassuring - with a deceivingly gentle, "oh, seymour."
"don't worry. i'm not without mercy. we were family once, after all," which he'd gag at, if not for the general state of things, and nearly does anyway. "i won't make you watch." and then she lets her perfectly manicured finger nails claw into his hands with no further delay, digging in deeper at the blood-curdling scream that results from the further assault to his smashed hand.
and once again, he ceases to be of any interest. barely has time to register amanda pulling in the machine once more, not even when the cart it sits on rolls into his chair causing another painful jolt. he only half recognizes her knee returning, this time painfully sat on top of him, letting him bear the brunt of her weight as she shifts forward - mind consumed by the needle once again pushing, pushing, pushing into his sphenoid sinus without any further delay, just seconds from reaching his skull when a door opens, pulling her focus.
he doesn't realize until after that if nikita's bargaining call had come any later, he would've been a goner - that in some perverse way, harper had saved his life (maybe that should be surprising, but of course it isn't). had amanda not been so keen to discuss her, the birkhoff they would have found wouldn't have been very birkhoff at all. maybe he should feel worse about wasting that, about not letting the redbull and vodka incident teach him anything about vodka and pills, but mostly some desperate part of him that can't stop remembering amanda or the sensation of water burning his lungs is hoping she'll save him again.
"happy. my savior," he tries to tease when she answers the phone, but it sounds all wrong, almost like a gasp for air underwater, which he feels like he is, the way he can't catch his balance, keeps almost falling - made his hand start bleeding again actually falling and trying to catch himself out of instinct.
"can you. can you talk for a minute." he does an alarmingly convincing job of not sounding horribly desperate - almost sounds a little like he's laughing, which.. he is, a little, but only because he reached for the railing on the side of the stair case and saw his hand curl around it just for it to close in on a handful of air as he takes a step down, losing his balance and almost falling face first as he reaches for it again. he manages to catch it this time and almost drops the phone as he leans out over the railing. what do they say, don't look down? he chuckles a little as he looks down at the floor below, stomach twisting uncomfortably as he sluggishly registers the danger of a potential drop. "ooof." it's good advice. yeah. good advice.
he has the good sense to sink into a crouch, even one that makes his knee ache a little - or would, if he could feel it, or much of anything. as it is, he only barely feels the sting of his hand as the blood begins to dampen his poor excuse of a bandage. "you.. you. uh busy?"
of course she is, in enemy territory - but his head is too dizzy to think about that. he looks down and he sees amanda's hammer crushing his hand. he looks up and sees a flash of lightning through a sheen of dark, angry water. he tries to refocus on something else, anything else, and ends up looking at his shoes, sluggishly and clumsily pulling at the laces before trying to retie them.
bunny ears are a bitch to do one handed, though, and he just ends up with a mess to trip over later. at the sound of her voice, though, he manages to get a solid fix on the brightness her eyes take on when she's happy, the little wrinkle of concentration between her brows when she's focused or stubborn or both.
yeah, she saves him all the time.
