damien harrington, human x-ray machine (seesthrough) wrote in invol_rpg, @ 2013-04-26 21:08:00 |
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Entry tags: | ! narrative, damien harrington |
WHO: Damien Harrington
WHAT: Damien goes for a walk in Sydney, in search of something familiar in a strange city
WHEN: Afternoon, Friday 26th April
WHERE: Sydney, Australia
WARNINGS: None
NOTES: Also includes a couple of text messages that were sent that afternoon to Marty, Hailey & Savannah!
Perhaps it was stupid, wanting to go out on his own, but after spending the morning with Savannah and Ethan he’d had the idea. Somewhere around lunch it had taken hold, and after a quiet word with a couple of handlers he’d managed to get confirmation that he’d be okay. He was skipping the trip to the cinema, just to have a walk in the city. Damien smiled at one of the handlers as he walked. They must have hit the jackpot; previously kidnapped vol, no offensive powers to speak of, wants to wander off away from the group. Savannah’s parting kiss had been followed by a frown at one of them. No, not just a frown. It was a look that said her feelings only too plainly. Don’t let him out of your sight if you value your life. But Damien had no intentions of them losing him. He’d first looked up the place months ago, when he’d been naive and stupid and thought that getting out of the IVI compound was a possibility. He was so used to roaming free around the city that the concept had been a little lost on him. It felt as though it were longer than a year, but it had been less. He’d looked up a few of the cities in Australia, with the stupid hope that he’d get a chance to go. It was awful, really, wanting a piece of home in a strange country. A quick Google search using the hotel internet and Damien had the place written down on a scrap of paper. The internet was full of great things, including where in Australia you could watch a hockey game. The handlers probably didn’t quite know what to make of his whim. Why, on his free afternoon, did this kid want to go to a bar? A fairly empty one, too, as it was only just past four in the afternoon. They had two and a half hours before the movie ended and he’d want to meet up with his girlfriend again. It was a mystery no more when they went inside, and Damien could’ve sworn he saw one of them struggling to suppress an eyeroll. “You’re early,” the bartender told him as he sat down at the bar, making sure he had a good view of the screen. Flanked by handlers, it must have been a strange sight. But they didn’t question it, except for pausing to peer at him as though they recognised him. “First game, checked your schedule. Four-thirty it starts, yeah?” Damien glanced at the handlers. “Can I get a coke?” “You new round here?” The bartender’s stare was long, calculating. He was new, and Damien was aware that they knew that much. They seemed to recognise his face, but hadn’t said anything about it. A few other early arrivals entered and starting chatting amongst themselves, most of them too tactful to say anything about Damien and his companions. A few of the accents were Canadian, though Damien noticed changes in them. Slight differences, he assumed that it depended on how much time they’d spent in Australia. He volunteered very little information about himself. He was called Damien, from Vancouver. He found the place online. He went to school in Australia. It was, he tried to assure himself, almost true. Every so often, when there was a break for adverts in the game, he’d pick up his phone and send a couple of texts. It stopped people from asking him too many questions. TO: MARTY - hey man. found that place i told you i found online all those months ago. right by the harbor. replay of canucks v ducks just started. handlers look pissed. wish you could join Someone a few seats away from him had an iPad out, and he was getting a few more looks. Engrossed in the game, however, he barely noticed until he heard a whisper that was too loud. He was one of the Vols. You know, the ones on the news! He froze, but kept his eyes trained on the screen until the next advert break when he went to text once more. Ducking his head, he wrote quickly and hoped that the adverts would be over soon. TO: SAVANNAH - hope you’re enjoying the movie. hope your phone’s not on as lilja will murder you. i’m behaving. love you He’d been there almost an hour and a half, quietly minding his own business, when someone finally asked him. By then he’d slowly become aware of the odd whispers. The game was awful - he’d texted Marty to warn him so - but it was good enough to keep himself distracted from whatever was happening. The woman with the iPad finally sighed loudly, and poked him in the shoulder. She’d been tapping furiously at it for a while, and had obviously found what she was looking for. “Is this you?” she asked. Damien couldn’t tell if she was curious, interested or worried. The photo that he’d been presented, however, wasn’t what he’d been expecting. Maybe something from news coverage of the Philippines or the prison break the day before. Instead, it was a photo he hadn’t seen in over a year. Damien in the picture had the same scruffy hair, and he was smiling. It was a snap his mom had taken that spring. He frowned, not knowing why that photo was on the internet or on the website of a local paper from back home. Was it a recent article? Until he saw the headline above it, from a local paper. He wasn’t the only Vol from British Columbia. He was far from the most recognisable, too, a dubious honour that probably belonged to Harlow. He saw the word “KIDNAPPED” in the headline and his chest felt a little tight as he looked at it. Jaw clenched, he nodded slowly. The curious - or was it interested or worried - look on the woman’s face gave way to something that Damien hadn’t seen from a stranger yet in Sydney. People were excited about the vols, offering them entrance to fancy clubs. The hotel staff had done everything possible to make them comfortable. But this woman only seemed to have an awkward kind of sympathy. “Tough break,” the man next to her was the first to speak. Damien shrugged. Even though he felt good after the restful night, sprawled out and sleeping peacefully in a hotel bed, he was still a little tired. He wasn’t sure how, or why. “It’s alright now,” he assured them with a half-smile, before turning the rest of his attention to the game. Finally, after months of saying those words to people, it was no longer so much of a lie. |