Whumptober No.4 - Taken Hostage
TW: Guns, off-screen assumed character death, sexist character, smoking
Taglist: @whumpers-inc
There is a surprising (and hand-cramping) amount of paperwork that goes into working at a call center, even one as unconventional as 1-877-WHMP-NOW. An annoying, several hour, several stack amount. Bianca will never forgive whoever it was in HR or accounting (the only two departments who actually seem masochistic enough to enjoy bureaucracy) that suggested all these extra reports and encounter summaries and redundancy measures.
In the same way you tune out the world while enjoying a nature walk and only begin paying attention again when your unconscious mind notices something dangerously wrong, Bianca pauses in her muttered curses to the paperwork gods and listens.
“Why of course she’s in today,” Fran says in a tight tone. “I’ll just transfer you right to your personal whump-passionate care coordinator, Dom.”
Not Dom. Not that irritating, overly stuffed up crock of shit again. Dom had run through almost the entire call center, leaving Bianca the only person who had yet to swear to walk if they were forced to deal with the self-impressed asshole. Jerking her head up, Bianca stares Fran down, like a deer willing a semi-truck to change paths. She shakes her head, desperately miming cutting across her throat with a rushed flail.
Their gazes lock. Fran continues to dial, even as they watch Bianca’s distressed pantomime with all the impassive finality of a monarch’s sentence.
“Don’t you dare, Fran,” Bianca hisses. “I swear by all that is good and holy if you transfer him--”
Her line rings, and she answers it with a chipper grin that doesn’t touch her glare one bit. “Well hey, sugar!” If looks could kill, Bianca would be in a whole other line of work right now as she tosses an eraser at Fran’s head. “What can I do for you today, hun?”
Well, she can already tell this isn’t going to be a pleasant call, not if the sirens are any indication.
“Brianna,” Dom cries, “I’m too handsome for jail!”
Bianca mouths to Fran, “I’ll kill you,” even as they duck their head and pretend to be oh-so invested in their latest call report. She tosses another eraser and this one hits the mark, bouncing off the back of their skull.
“Hello! Brianna! I need you to put down the Covergirl or your nail file and do your job, sweetheart.”
Rolling her eyes, she returns her attention to Dom. “I’m awful sorry. What did you say your emergency was?”
“Thank you for the urgency,” he spits.
Bianca waits for him to elaborate. The sirens on his end of the line continue blaring, the voluming growing as they grow closer.
“Did the line cut out, sugar?” she prompts, carefully sterilizing her tone with a thick layer of honey.
“I tried to rob this small town little podunk town store and took this girl--” Dom lets out a short cry of pain and kicks at something. He corrects himself, ”This bitch. And someone had the nerve to call the cops on me!”
At the sound of gunfire- too close to the gun to be from any policeman, Bianca raises a single brow in silent question of his intelligence. In her humble, professional opinion wasting ammo on puerile displays and a lead tantrum is useless, but again, she’s just a professional. She only graduated at the top of her class and has years, if not decades, on Dom in terms of experience.
Of course, Bianca says none of that.
“Have you taken the girl hostage, Dom?”
“Yes! Jeez, do I have to spell everything out for you people?”
“It’s very helpful when our clients are clear and precise, Dom,” Bianca returns, an almost feral edge to the too wide portions of her smile. “Have you read our informational brochure, ‘So You Want to Take a Hostage’? Or perused our FAQs for whumpers?”
“Why should I?”
A year ago maybe Bianca might have been surprised. Now she’s just glad Dom can’t see the various mocking faces and mouthed insults she indulges in due to such a response. That doesn’t mitigate the desire she feels to bash her head against her desk until her mental faculties match Dom’s. Instead, she parrots, “No. Why should you.”
“So, what do I do?” Dom asks, impatience clear in his tone. “How do I get out of this?”
“Well, Dom, could I speak with your hostage for a hot sec?”
Completely ignoring her question, Dom muses aloud, “What if I just went out there with my guns and just started shooting. There’s only one car out there. I can take out some backwater donut cop.”
She loves her job. She loves her job. She. Loves. Her. Job. She may be a masochist.
“That course of action might not work well, sugar,” Bianca says carefully.
“Why not?”
Just as she’s about to answer, said aforementioned cop starts in with the megaphones and the offers for surrender. Quickly, she traces the call while Dom yells back about assholes and what he deserves and specifically what the cop deserves, involving his megaphone and uncomfortable places.
That ‘podunk’ little town is more of a small city, and even if there is only one cop currently there, there are bound to be more en route, and rapidly at that.
“Are you listening to me, sweetheart?” Dom demands. “There’s only one of him and I’ve got two guns. It’s fool proof.”
Oh, it’s something to do with fools alright. “So, to clarify, you’ve got a gun in each hand?”
“I just said that, honey, put your listening ears on and try to keep up.”
Over her ten plus years working with the call center, Bianca has heard plenty of stupid shit in her time but trying to go out dual wielding guns is… a new one. She quickly shoots Fran a short text reading, You SO owe me, Franny.
“What about your hostage? How are you going to keep control over her? Is she bound?” Bianca tries to reason with Dom, the apparent Blade wannabe, even if it’s futile.
“I’ll bring her with and put the gun to her head. Easy.”
Easy. Yes, so easy. Fran returns her text. ‘You’re the absolute goddess of dealing with BS I am not worthy.’
“Dom, could you be a dear and let me speak with her, please? Thank you sugar.”
“God what is it with women always needing to yap yap yap?” Dom complains as he rips the gag out of the hostage’s mouth.
“FUCK YOU!” She howls immediately. “I’ll bite your fingers off, you small dicked piece of shit!”
So, Bianca had admittedly harbored suspicions that the ‘girl’ was actually a grown woman, considering Dom’s typical behavior, but this certainly confirms that. A wistful sigh builds as Bianca listens to the hostage chew Dom out and insult his manhood and intelligence.
‘Damn straight. I expect pumpkin spice brownies and a latte on my desk tomorrow morning.’
‘It’s June.’
“It’s DOM.’
‘Pumpkin spice brownies gotcha.’
A solid, but wet crack jerks Bianca’s attention back to the matter at hand. The hostage is eerily quiet. Waiting for a response from either Dom or the hostage, she picks at the dry skin on her lips and taps her foot.
“Oh shit,” Dom whispers.
Screwing her eyes shut as if that will change what his answer is, Bianca asks, “Dom?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you just pistol whip your hostage?”
“Yeah.”
Nope, this is officially the stupidest, most asinine, bass-ackwards call from a client she’s ever had to suffer through. Clearly having overheard, Fran twists around to get a better vantage point to watch as Bianca places her head in her hands and fights back a scream of frustration.
Collecting herself, Bianca chirps, “I’m sorry, sugar, but you really ought to have read our guide. The first rule of a hostage situation is to keep your hostage alive as leverage. Now, as it stands, you’re a murderer surrounded by... “ She counts up each little blip. “Four cop cars and another two on the way. You have to understand, honey, that it goes against policy to stay involved.”
“What? No! You can’t do this you bitch!”
Bianca grins, sharp and vicious. “Oh, Dom, I can, and I will.” With that, and Dom still shouting injustice, she hangs up.
“I’ve wanted to do that for forever,” she breezily admits to Fran.
They match her smile inch for inch, and then some. “Bee, you’re my hero. I’m throwing in maple walnut fudge pancakes just for that.”
“Of course we’ll have IT burn the connection and remote into Dom’s phone before the incident gets too close to home, blah blah blah, and we’ll look into whether that lady remembers anything after the whole gun to the head thing,” she dismisses, “but for now, I need a smoke break or twenty. Toodles!”