Work Text:
Dark. That was all he was aware of when he woke up—cold, and dark, and something was deeply, deeply wrong.
He reached out blindly, looking for Ellie—but he wasn't in his bed, and he wasn't at home, and Christ but his head hurt.
"Shit," Pascoe coughed and struggled to sit upright. He sat still after that, partly because his head was killing him, but mostly because he couldn't see a fucking thing and had almost no clue which way was up or down.
"Shit," he whispered again and concentrated on taking deep breaths. He'd never much cared for dark, enclosed spaces. And why the hell was he in this dark anyway? Where the hell was he? A dungeon? No, nothing quite so Gothic, just a basement. A basement with no lights on and the distinct sounds of both dripping water and scurrying mice, granted, but still just a common or garden variety basement.
Madden. That was it; he and Dalziel had gone to Madden's house to talk with him about his daughter's murder. They'd found out something…something to do with his alibi. He'd lied. They'd been confronting him about it when somebody had come at Pascoe from behind—
Shit, where the hell was Dalziel?
"Superintendent?" Pascoe tried to call out into the dark, but his voice was hoarse and his throat choked. He coughed again and yelled, "Dalziel! Sir!"
For a long, cold minute that ticked over in silence, there was no reply. Just when Peter was about ready to start scrabbling about in blind panic, something shifted to his distant right, and he heard a drawn-out groan. "Shut your gob," Dalziel muttered. "Can't you tell there's people trying to die around here in peace?"
Pascoe took the opportunity afforded by the dark to slump forward in silent relief. "Not today they're not," he said grimly after a moment. He felt about gingerly, finally encountering the brick exterior wall. Using it as a support, he pulled himself into a standing position. "How do you feel?"
"Me? Bloody sodding dandy, that's how I feel. So great, I'd like to go and do a tap dance on Madden's head," the Fat Man growled. "'Ere, lad, what are you doing?"
"Ow," Pascoe said through gritted teeth and bent forward to rub his shin, which had just walked straight into something wooden and unyielding. "I'm trying to get closer to you, sir, which is unfortunately not very easy to do."
"What for? Share body warmth? You been spending too much time with Wieldy, Inspector."
"Ha bloody ha," said Peter. "Are you mobile?"
"In this dark? You've got to be joking!"
"Sir!" Pascoe closed his eyes and took another breath before he could say something he'd later regret. He didn't know if closing his eyes helped or not; he could still feel the cold, slimy dark pressing in all around him. Sod this. "What do you remember?"
"About before waking up down here, you mean? Madden kicking the shit out of me. Didn't know the bastard had it in him, honestly."
"Did you see his accomplice?"
Pascoe had a distinct memory of somebody clocking him on the back of the head, and then another entirely separate and distinct memory of being pitched down a stairwell, presumably the one that led into this basement.
"No," said Dalziel. "I was too busying having the shit kicked out of me. How're you feeling then, lad?"
"Fine." Pascoe tried very hard not to stumble too loudly right then, as his knees suddenly decided now would be a good time to give out on him. He pressed his hand hard against the brick wall next to him, and rubbed the back of his head with the other hand. "Just bloody dandy. I'll do a tap dance on Madden's balls when we get out of this."
Dalziel laughed, not quite his usual roar. "Now that sounds like a plan," he said, and Pascoe heard him shift position again, and then a rhythmic noise—oh, Christ, the Fat Man was scratching. "You any closer or what?"
"What, I think," Pascoe said, and then he paused to sniff the air. "Shit," he said. "Do you smell that, sir?"
He heard the superintendent breathe in a great whiff of air. "Well, fuck me sideways," he said after a moment. "Yon daft bastard's trying to set us on fire."
Peter swallowed. "Panic," he said, finally.
"And well he should. Once I get my hands on him, he won't be able to piss standing up, let alone set fire to anything. Can you get anywhere near a light switch or the stairs?"
"I don't know, sir," Pascoe said. "I can't see a thing—can you move at all?"
"No," Dalziel said after a moment. "Look, Pete, I think my leg's broken."
"Fuck," Pascoe breathed. He remained silent for a while, thinking hard about their various options. "Have you got your mobile? Mine seems to be lost."
"I left the stupid bloody thing in the car. But take heart, lad," the superintendent went on in one of his "bracing" tones of voice, which usually was capable of bracing up an entire brigade of newly-minted DCs about to go out on a drug bust, but just didn't have quite the same strength to it today. "Soon as Wieldy realizes where we've gone and that we haven't come back yet, he'll set every sergeant, constable, and dog on our tails."
"Depending on when Wieldy gets back to the station himself," Peter argued. "I have no idea how long he was going to be out; do you?" He stopped moving for a moment, his hand scraping along the exterior wall he was still using as his guide. "Christ, man, we're going to be fucking burned alive if we don't get out of this right away."
"Then I suggest you keep looking for that light switch, Inspector," Dalziel's voice was cold and far away, on the other side of the room—it seemed even further away—and had Pascoe really managed to walk that much around the perimeter of the basement? "And stop pissing about. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir." Pascoe let his forehead fall against the brick for a moment. "Sorry, sir. I think I might be a bit claustrophobic."
"Dad locked you in the closet where you were young, did he?" Dalziel still sounded unsympathetic. "This is no time to panic, lad."
"I'm not panicking," Pascoe felt compelled to defend himself, "I'm living in a fucking nightmare. There's a difference."
Dalziel snorted. "Keep moving," he suggested. "I'm not going to be any help."
"And what about when I do find the light switch, sir? Being able to see ourselves put on fire is not exactly going to help us out."
"Nay, lad, but it might at least give us some ideas about how we can get out of here," the Fat Man sounded almost gentle, and that just made Pascoe feel ashamed of himself.
"Yes, sir. I think I must be near the stairs—I've gone halfway round this basement—" Pascoe stumbled again and hit only air. "Shit!"
"Inspector? Peter!"
I didn't know you cared, Pascoe managed to stop himself from saying aloud, even if he was—despite himself—flattered at the sharp tone of concern in Dalziel's voice. "I'm okay," he said instead. "Bruised knee, I think. But the good news is, I found the stairs." He stood up and groped about blindly before finding what he was looking for. "And the switch."
"Let there be light," said Dalziel, and Pascoe turned to look at him.
"And there was light," he finished, walking over quickly to his superior and trying to hide his own concern. "You really did get the shit beat out of you, didn't you?"
"Watch it," Dalziel growled. His left eye was already swelling shut, his lower lip was split, and his leg definitely had the distinctive look of a break, judging by its awkward angle.
"Christ, sir, how are you still conscious?" Pascoe looked down at the Fat Man's mangled extremity in dismay.
"Through pure bloody force of will," Dalziel said. "Are you just going to stand there and admire me, or are you going to do what you're paid to do and investigate a way out of this place without running into the smoke?" They could hear the fire crackling upstairs now, and the smoke was starting to seep down the stairs.
"At this rate the smoke'll be so thick we still won't be able to see anything," Pascoe said before he could stop himself. He met Dalziel's glare. "Sorry, sir," he said, without attempting to sound particularly apologetic. He surveyed the room. "It looks like the only way out is up those stairs—I don't think either of us will fit through one of those windows," he pointed up to the narrow windows directly under the ceiling.
That was when they both heard the sirens in the distance. "The bad side to setting fire to your house," Pascoe said, grinning down at the Fat Man in relief, "is that eventually people notice."
"Yeah," said Dalziel, "and hopefully they've noticed quickly enough that we can get the fuck out of here. Here, break that window. It'll make it easier for 'em to hear us when we yell."
Pascoe privately thought that one of Dalziel's really good yells could be heard in China even when produced from a completely insulated, sound-proofed room, but he didn't feel a need to mention this thought aloud. He found an old cricket bat in a wooden box—probably the very bloody thing he'd first walked into—and threw it powerfully at the window a few feet down from where Dalziel sat. It shattered satisfyingly. The cold burst of air that came from outside was only slightly less damp than what was in the basement with them, but at least it was fresh, and Pascoe took a deep, grateful breath.
"Oi!" Dalziel immediately roared, and only through long exposure did Peter manage to avoid wincing. "Anyone up there hear me? We're trapped down 'ere!"
He kept yelling, and Pascoe added his own calls, and within a few minutes somebody was kneeling down in front of the window, face white against the darkness outside. "Superintendent Dalziel, Pete, is that you?"
"Wieldy." Pascoe went to stand under the window, grinning like a loon. "If you weren't up there and I down here, I think I'd kiss you."
"What would Ellie say?" Dalziel wondered aloud behind him. "You'd bloody well better have caught Madden before he made it out of Mid-Yorkshire, Sergeant."
"Yes, sir, along with his son Tony," Wield reported through the broken window. "The firemen are hosing the house down now, sir; I take it the air's still breathable down there?"
"The fire hasn't reached us yet," Pascoe interposed. "His son?"
"Keeping it in the family," Dalziel said from the floor. "Look, Wieldy, I've got a broken leg; you'd better—"
"Ambulance already on the way, sir," Wield said with his usual efficiency. "Should be here any moment now. I think they've got the fire out, sirs; if you'll just excuse me—"
He disappeared from view, leaving Dalziel and Pascoe to look at each other.
"Families are a fuck-up," Pascoe said after a moment.
"No arguments here, lad," replied the Fat Man. "Go and see what's taking them so long, would you?" In the dim overhead light, he looked pasty, and his breath was coming in shorter gasps. Peter took a step toward him, then stopped and turned toward the stairs.
"Yes, sir," he said.
He ran lightly up toward the door. Smoke was still seeping in, and Pascoe took off his blazer to try the handle. The door opened easily, letting in a blast of smoke with it; apparently the Madden men had counted on them remaining unconscious while being burned alive. Coughing and using the jacket as a shield, Pascoe stepped through the door and called out, "Over here!"
A half-hour later, it was all over. It took a while to get a stretchered Dalziel upstairs, and at the end of it Pascoe looked about as shaken and nauseous as the Fat Man, while Sergeant Wield just looked anxious.
"Oi!" Dalziel's bellow brought both subordinates up to the ambulance doors before they could shut. "I'm going to expect a full report first thing tomorrow morning, you got that?"
"But sir—" Pascoe started.
"In my bloody hospital room if that's what it takes! Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir," Wield said. "I'll drive the inspector home, sir, and I hope you feel better in the morning." He gently closed the doors before the Fat Man could say anything else, and they both stood and watched as the ambulance drove away.
"Alright, Pete?" the sergeant asked. Pascoe had refused anything more than bandaging for his head and an icepack for his sadly bruised knee; all he wanted to do now was collapse in bed for twelve hours.
"No," Pascoe replied honestly, "but I will be by the time we see Fat Andy tomorrow morning. C'mon, let's go home."