Lawson was eagerly trying to wrap things up at the shop, wanting to get home to Flora. His wife had been in a much more fragile state recently, physically and mentally.
The doctor had told them that their baby wouldn't be due for another few weeks still, however, Flora had blimped in size and was increasingly uncomfortable. Lawson had come home three times that week just to find his wife either crying or yelling over the most mundane things. Between her discomfort and her emotional flux, Lawson was more eager than ever to be with her and take care of her.
And today was no exception.
When he'd left for work, she couldn't even bring herself to get out of bed to see him off, complaining of back pains. He offered to call in, but she insisted she'd be fine and, when he got off work, she'd have his favorite dinner waiting for him. He tried to insist she rest, he almost disregarded her insistence and called in, but that was before Flora proceeded to swat at him and yell at him until he was out the door.
But still, all day, Lawson had worried about his wife and felt bad for her, so, he decided that he'd wrap up work quickly so he could stop for flowers and her favorite candy on his way home.
He was nearly out the door when he heard his phone ringing.
"Dammnit..." He uttered to himself as he fumbled for his phone. He hoped this wasn't a customer, or worse, something gang related. He answered without looking at the ID. "Fitz speaking."
---
This is it...I'm fucking dying...
As Griffith lay in a crumpled heap on the pavement, his impending death and it's implications was all he could think about. He could only think about how miserable it was to apparently be dying, how much absolute agony he was in. And even then, whenever he could stop thinking about the prolonged pain, all he could think about was his brothers and what his death would mean for them.
Who would take care of Dixon in his place? Who'd pick him up from school? Who'd help him with school projects?
Oh man, and what about Lawson? As much as he and Lawson fought, Griffith couldn't even comprehend how devastated Lawson would be. Not to mention Lawson's baby girl on the way... fuck... he'd never get to hold his niece.
Tears welled up in his eyes as the thoughts of his family passed and as he thought of Harper.
Oh, Harper...
He didn't even get to tell her he loved her today. Would she know?
Fuck... fuck...
Who would hold her hand, kiss her lips, whisper 'I love you's into her ear? Who would love her, take care of her if not him.
Sure, Darcy could...oh God... Darcy.
Griffith let out a particularly achy wheeze as he hazily remembered Darcy's abduction.
"D-Darce...Darcy..." He groaned.
While there was no one immediately there to hear his groans, moreover, anyone to hear his thoughts, eventually the "scene" was stumbled upon by a passerby, who promptly called for an ambulance and attempted to tend to Griffith.
"Sir! Sir! What happened!" The man who'd found him asked.
Griffith looked up, blinking at the man, before using his good hand to feebly pat at his pocket where his phone was.
"H-Harper...Harper H-Hunt...I need...call...call..." He managed before his vision blurred and went to black.
I need to call to tell her about Darce.
As soon as the man realized he wouldn't be getting much of a response from Griffith, he decided to go through his phone to call this Harper while waiting for the ambulance. Hopefully, Griffith would have someone at the hospital waiting for him.
---
Unbeknownst to Griffith's rescuer, and Griffith himself even, there was someone waiting for him at the hospital in a roundabout away.
"Oooooh, Dixie, mierda, Dixon...this hurts...this hu-hurts." Flora wailed as she lay in her hospital bed, holding her belly, legs propped up as a doctor checked her out.
Dixon stared from his perch at her bedside, absolutely mortified.
"Well, well, if it isn't my favorite man." Kasper greeted through the phone. "Still at work, Fitzy boy? And before you even try, I wouldn't hang up on me if I was you. I've got someone very very precious here."
-x-
Harper was pacing at this point. Griffith should've been here by now, shouldn't he? He would've called if he had to do something or if something had happened, wouldn't he?
She sighed and grabbed her phone, dialing Griffith's number and calling just as, unknowingly, the man was looking for her number in Griffith's phone.
Lawson made a face and pulled the phone from his ear to look at the screen. It was an unlisted number but it sounded like...
"Kasper?" He asked as he put the phone back in it's place. He let out a scoff. "What's this about? Who do you have there? Your mom?"
---
Just as the man found Harper's number, none other than Harper herself was placing a call. The man clicked answer and held the phone to one ear, raising a hand over the other to block out the sudden sounds of the approaching sirens.
"Hello? Is this Harper Hunt?" He answered, practically yelling over the sirens as the ambulance came to a screeching halt nearby.
Kasper gave a slight chuckle, spinning the knife again. "Ah, no. But I do have your little brother, Dixon, right? And I do know that your other brother, Griffith? is bleeding out on the road somewhere. Too bad, isn't it?" he said and moved the phone so Lawson could hear, who he thought was Dixon, screaming in pain as he was dragged in by his legs by some other goons.
-x-
Harper flinched and looked at her phone for a very short moment, wondering if she was hearing right before putting it back to her ear. "Uh.. yes... who is this? Where's Griffith? Why is there sirens?" she asked, chest tightening with sudden anxiety and panic. "Is he okay?"
Lawson's stomach instantly knotted and he drew in a panicked breath.
"D-Dixon? What did you do to him? Wuh...what did you do to Griffith? What did you do to him!" Lawson tried not to let out a worrisome wail as he spoke, although, his voice lacked all command an authority it usually carried, as well as ferocity.
His voice was just the shell of fear.
---
"Listen, it looks like there was an accident with a motorcycle, I'm guessing it's his." The man got up from his crouched position and stepped back as two EMTs rushed over to begin their work on Griffith.
One of them checked for Griffith's heartbeat immediately and nodded that it was still beating and he wasn't apparently in any dire straights at the moment. While there was a steady amount of blood oozing from Griff's back and his skull, it didn't appear that he'd lost a life-threatening amount. In fact, after a hasty assessment, the EMTs determined that the most sustained damage was probably any broken bones endured (they'd have to have him looked at at the hospital) and the effects of his head wound. At that point, they made quick work of getting him onto the stretcher, strapping him down, communicating to the man on the phone with Harper they'd be taking him to the Medical Center downtown.
"You said his name was Griffith, right? He looks pretty dinged up, but, I mean, I know I'm not a doctor, but I don't think he's in immediate danger." The man watched as they loaded up Griff into the back of their ambulance. He followed after them. "Listen, they're going to take him to the Medical Center." He said, turning when he heard the sirens from a police cruiser pulling up. "I have to go, the police probably want a report, but I'll leave his phone with the EMT staff."
"It's a damn shame that boy drives- or well.. drove, a motorcycle." Kasper laughed. "Lawson... you remember that warehouse, just outside the south side of town? You know the place. It's got history." He said through his teeth then.
-x-
"I..I.. thank you." Harper sputtered and went to quickly hang up and go see if a co-worker could give her a ride to the medical center. She was really regretting not being able to drive and she had no idea if Dixon or anyone else knew and for the first time she wished she could call Lawson.
"K-Kasper, I don't know what you think you know o-or...just...please, listen, just don't do anything to Dixie. He doesn't have anything to do with this. Please, I'm fucking begging you." Lawson said, his voice pleading as he spoke.
---
The man did as he said he would, giving the phone to one of the medics, who promptly put it into a plastic bag along with a wallet and a set of keys recovered from Griffith's pocket while the other medic was apparently ensuring that Griffith was receiving oxygen via a bag-valve mask.
Meanwhile, Griffith himself, had briefly came to, eyes unfocused as he tried to assess what was going on.
"I...Darcy...Darcy..." He muttered before his eyes fluttered shut once again.
---
The only other pregnant person Dixon had ever known was his mother, and even then, her pregnancy was so long ago and Dixon was little enough he had little-to-no involvement in it.
Moreover, he CERTAINLY didn't have involvement in the actual birthing process.
"Is it supposed to happen this fast? I really don't think it's supposed to happen this fast." Dixon sputtered as Flora held on tight to his hand while she was checked on once again by her doctor.
The doctor informed both the frantic teenager and the wailing mother-to-be that it was almost time for delivery and they both needed to buck up.
Kasper gave a loud proper laugh at that and walked over to "Dixon", who had his ankles and wrists tied to a pipe along the bottom of the wall so he couldn't run or fight back, grabbing the leg that was obviously broken and gripping onto it, digging in his fingers and drawing another strangled pained screech. "An eye for an eye, Fitz." he said before going to hang up.
-x-
Harper managed to get a ride from her boss to the medical center, trying to hold up her stoic attitude and not show the pure anxiety and worry she felt in her chest, binding up tightly.
"Fuck, no, no, no!" Lawson yelled into the phone before Kasper had hung up, cutting the sound of his "brother's" screaming short. His eyes remained wide and his chest heaved with an anxious breath as he listened to the empty sound on the phone. "D-Dixie? Dixon!" Lawson practically gave a frantic wail as he dropped his phone onto the floor, reaching up to scratch both of his hands through his hair. He paced anxiously for a moment before remembering Kasper had said they were at the warehouse.
The fucking warehouse.
He scrambled to find his keys and proceeded to run for the door once he'd found them. The door was left hanging wide open as he ran to his car parked in the back alley.
---
While Griff had definitely seen better days, after reaching the hospital and doing a thorough assessment, it was determined that, ultimately, he'd suffered "only" a few broken and fractured ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a great amount of epidermal trauma on his back and shoulders, and a minor (well, compared to what it could have been) concussion.
The doctors in the emergency room did what they could as far as cleaning, stitching, and resetting things, before putting him in a recovery room where he currently rested in the face of great discomfort.
Kasper tossed his phone back on the table before going to head back over to "Dixon" and to take off the helmet. "Oi, Ripley, get my brass knuckles from the table." he said, undoing the strap and going to pull it off of "Dixon" sharply.
Darcy took a sharp gasp when the helmet came off, taking his glasses with them. They clanked sharply on the ground, cracking one of the lens' as Kasper took a step back to look.
"Kasper! Ka-k-kasper please, it's me, it's Darcy!" Darcy sputtered quickly and struggled with the rope, looking up at him and blinking tears from his eyes.
"...Darcy?"
-x-
Harper shook terribly as her boss drove her there, flying out of the truck with a quick thank you as he parked before running into the hospital entrance and straight to the front desk.
Lawson's knuckles turned white as he clutched tightly to the steering wheel on the drive over to the warehouse.
This was all his fault. Dixon was in trouble and Griffith could be...
"FUCK!" He wailed, slamming a hand down on the horn as he fought back panicked tears.
---
Ripley had the most excited grin on his face as he went to grab the brass knuckles, however, the excitement waned when he turned around as Kasper yanked off the boy's helmet, revealing...
"That's not a fuckin' FITZ." He said.
---
The woman working at the counter blinked, looking up at Harper.
"Are you looking for a Griffith Fitz?" She asked, brow cocked.
"Darcy, the fuck are you doing here?" Kasper asked in confusion and almost went to go untie the boy and then paused and turned to look to the man who retrieved him. "You got him from GRIFFITH FITZ bike, right?" he asked, remembering... Darcy had been disappearing and sneaking around an awful lot.
As had Harper. But surely Harper hadn't been with the Fitz, she HATED them just as much as Kasper did. Darcy, on the other hand...
"Yeah, there's no doubt in my mind that the other guy was Griffith. I also recognized that piece of shit motorcycle he's always riding through town on." The man nodded.
---
The woman nodded before looking to her computer, typing a few things in.
"I've got a Fitz in recovery, room 178, just down the hall." The woman explained.
Kasper turned to look at Darcy, eyes turning cold. "So I was right to suspect you were fuckin' around with the Fitz, huh, Darcy?"
"Ka-Kasper.." Darcy cried, trembling as he tried to see him, trying to figure out what to do. He had to get free, had to get out of here and warn people.
"Give me the knuckles, Ripley." Kasper said, staring at Darcy.
-x-
"Can.. can I see him?" Harper asked, voice still shaking but somehow managing to bottle it up for the most part as she looked at the woman.
Ripley stared, confused for a moment, before a sickening, giddy excitement took over. Of course he wanted Lawson to suffer, but he would show up in due time and they'd work him over then. BUt now it was time for the pregame show.
He handed the knuckles over to Kasper and stepped back to watch the show.
---
The woman noted how anxious and worried Harper appeared to be, moreover, noting the trembling in her voice and she looked around before discretely handing Harper a visitor's pass.
"I'm not supposed to let anyone in who isn't immediate family, but...I can tell you're worried, so, just be careful, okay?" She said in a hushed tone.
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