Sean Patrick Callahan (ex_pog_mo_th408) wrote in the_colony, @ 2010-08-15 18:54:00 |
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Entry tags: | ^ week 19, michael callahan |
Week 19 - Sunday
Characters: Quinn Halstead, Mike Callahan
Location: a slaver camp somewhere along the Idaho/Oregon border
Summary: bedtime stories, aka escape plans
Rating: PG-13 (language, mention of violence)
The room was dark, only a thin line of light bleeding out from the half-open doorway. Human chattel weren’t worth wasting candles or lamps or the gasoline for generator power on. Mike estimated that it wasn’t that late, but once the sun went down in the new, shit version of America, things pretty much came to a halt.
He listened for sounds from outside in the corridor, straining to catch the voices of his captors, some tidbit of information to focus on, even something as trivial as what tomorrow’s work might be. Something to occupy his mind, to pretend to care about. A casual conversation might contain a hint that could lead to an escape, after all... Nothing. Mike found it hard to really care. After so many weeks, his will to resist had worn down. Escape, a small voice inside his head whispered, was damn near impossible. The slaves were well-guarded, all the time. Not that any of them would get far, even if a guard did become lax; the heavy shackles around each man’s leg would see to that.
Mike shifted his position on the floor, stretching, trying to get comfortable. There was a faint clink of metal, the familiar sound of the chain connecting him to Quinn. It tugged at his ankle, the sensation as familiar as the noise, annoying but no longer painful. Flesh chafed raw had given way to scar tissue. At the other end of the short tether, Quinn shifted in turn, murmuring a barely-audible protest. The same monotonous tableau was repeated all over the room, pairs of men settling down for the night, trying to sleep. There was little in the way of talk, most of the slaves too tired or too dispirited to do any more than lie where they’d hunkered down after being led into the sleeping area.
Sleep. He ought to sleep. Mike shifted again, crossing his arms behind his head, a makeshift pillow. Jesus, he was bored. He wanted something to do. A shower, a fucking snack. Jesus. He wanted to get laid-- No. Put that thought out of his mind. Thinking about Meg was never a good idea, and never at night, with the long, dark hours stretching out ahead of him. Another change of position, rolling onto his side, bringing his knees up, deliberately tugging the chain between himself and Quinn. Mike smiled at the mutter of protest from his partner.
“Quinn.” A pause. Mike repeated the whispered summons.
“Quinn! Goddammit, Quinn. You awake?”
Was he awake? Of course he was awake. Who wouldn’t be, after that!? He had been on the brink of sleep, mind you, perhaps an inch or so away, when the great lummox next to him had decided to do half the freakin’ oaky kokey whilst trying to get to sleep. Quinn was positioned awkwardly on his stomach, arms folded beneath his head with one stretching up, fingers hanging above the cold, hard ground, trying to at least pretend he was comfortable. His clothes were pulled sideways, taut around his waist, and his trousers were hiked up one ankle, and he was just all around pissed off, really. Uncomfortable didn’t even begin to describe it, but - like every other night - he had spent at least ten minutes shifting and moving and twisting and turning and trying to get somewhat comfortable before Mike had cussed at him to “lay the fuck still already”, and he had just sulkily settled for where he was laying at that moment and attempted to shift a bit more afterward. You would think after weeks of sleeping on the ground you’d get used to it... but no. He honestly didn’t think he would get used to it, either.
“Well, even if I wasn’t before, I bloody am now...” he grumbled back, not bothering to lift his head from his arm as he spoke, leaving the words muffled against fabric. He squeezed his eyes shut, as if trying to regain some semblance of that dozy, edge-of-sleep sensation he had felt before, but it was gone. Damn it. Rolling onto his side, deciding that the other man addressing him was a good excuse to readjust his position, Quinn squinted over at Mike’s rough shape in the darkness.
“Is there a good reason you woke me up, or did you just feel like being an arse?”
He was grumpy. He was tired. He was hungry. His clothes were dirty, and they were sticking to his skin a little, and every time they did he wanted to rip them off and scream. And if he had to choke down just one more meal of... well, whatever the hell it was that they decided to feed them, none of which was overly appetizing to him...
“Can’t sleep,” Mike murmured back into the darkness. That was a good reason, wasn’t it? Besides, Quinn never fell asleep before at least an hour of thrashing and flailing and whining.
“You know what your problem is? You think too much,” Mike pointed out helpfully, turning onto his back and from there, curling onto his other side, facing the man. He did make some effort not to jostle his chain-gang buddy too much. Not that the Brit would notice, probably.
“You lie there and think about how you’re itchy and you’re smelly and the floor is hard and... Jesus, I don’t even know. You need to learn to just ignore it. Focus on what’s important. You’re still alive, right?” It was a pep talk that Mike himself needed to hear.
Quinn scoffed though, had he been less drowsy and grumpy, he actually would’ve appreciated the pep talk, and would’ve been grateful for it. He’d learned over time - as you tended to, when you were chained to someone for, well, just about everything that you did - that Mike wasn’t actually such a bad guy, despite being an annoying git at times.
Of course, that was if he had been less drowsy and grumpy, which he wasn’t, and so he allowed an eye-roll to follow the scoff as he replied. “Actually, Paddy, I wasn’t thinking about anything. Except... you know that really warm, fuzzy feeling you get when you’re really, really close to sleeping? I was sort of thinking about that.”
He was awake now. It would be at least another hour or two before he managed to settle down again. Shifting himself, he sat up, crossing his legs without much care for the chain. He wasn’t deliberately annoying when it came to the link between them, he just didn’t always think. “So, that kept you up, did it? Thinking about how I think too much?” His hair was greasy and itched, and he lifted a hand to madly scratch at it, brushing it away from his ears and forehead.
Mike sprawled onto his back. It was that or stare at Quinn’s bony knee jutting up in the darkness.
“I was thinking about things,” he retorted, deliberately and annoyingly vague. “Things you wouldn’t understand,” he went on after a moment, warming to the subject, which, unknown to Quinn, had just switched to one of Mike’s favorites: the superiority of all things American.
“Things like cold beer and driving on the right side of the road, and toothpaste,” he murmured with relish. Hey, Quinn had asked for it, calling him Paddy.
“And fat kids eating their Happy Meals?” Quinn shot back, inwardly pleased at his speed with that response, and he actually had to smile a bit in the darkness. His fingers were pulling at the torn knee of his jeans, tugging the frayed fibers and enjoying the feel of them against the pads of his fingers. It was somewhat soothing, in a world of discomfort.
Mike snorted, a stifled laugh of genuine amusement. Good one, he thought to himself. There was no denying his skinny nemesis had a sharp wit.
“You know, I don’t think I could ever drink beer out of a bottle,” Quinn mused, almost changing the subject but not quite, though most of the spite was suddenly gone from his voice. “Cold or not. It would just taste nasty... not that beer tastes all that good anyway, but out of a bottle? That’s just so wrong.” There were a lot of things he didn’t get about Americans, and their odd drinking habits were one of them. Barely any drinks on tap? What was that all about!?
“Beer’s an acquired taste; I thought it was nasty, too. When I was twelve,” Mike added, sly, though like Quinn there wasn’t much malice in his tone.
“There’s no difference in flavor between beer from the tap and beer from a bottle,” Mike couldn’t resist arguing. Jesus, the floor was hard. Some nights he didn’t mind it, but tonight it emphasized every ache in his body. He scooted his feet towards his butt, raising his knees. There. Better. For maybe the next five minutes.
“From a can, sure, I get that, but not from a bottle. Glass doesn’t impart any different taste.” Thus saith Mike Callahan, beer expert. “Jesus, what I wouldn’t give for a beer. Bottle, can, fuckin’ cardboard box,” he crooned, imagining the taste on his tongue. Mike lowered his voice, a precaution he always took when talking about escape, though no guard had ever paid the slightest attention. Complacent bastards.
“When we get out of here, we’ll loot a liquor store.”
The tiniest of smiles quirked at the corner of Quinn’s lips. He had to admit, he liked Mike’s talks that started with, ‘when we get out of here, we’ll...’. They kept him somewhat sane. He was an optimist, and he knew that he would eventually get out of this mess, but it was hard to keep your head above the water so to speak sometimes.
“I think I’d rather have a shower...” he said, voice a little quieter as he scratched at his hair again. God, it itched. Everything did. The chain was shifting every now and then against his ankle, but he was somewhat used to it by now. To begin with, it had driven him absolutely crazy. At least, unlike Mike, he didn’t have anyone to miss back home. Wherever ‘home’ was by now. He had spied the thin gold wedding band on Mike’s left finger within ten minutes of meeting him. Though now that they were alone, and it was catching the softest glint of light that snuck into the otherwise dim room, holding his attention, there was nothing to really interrupt his thought pattern and his urge to ask.
“So, I take it you don’t know where your wife is?” he asked, plain and blunt without meaning to be. To him, it was just an honest, inquisitive question.
A shower... Mike sternly resisted the urge to scratch at his own head. Or armpits, or crotch. Yeah, everything itched. Following his own advice, he ignored it all, letting a smile turn up the corners of his mouth. Beer, decent food, a shower, a mattress. It was old, familiar ground, well-trodden during their nighttime chats. Torment to imagine the things they’d once taken for granted, but oddly comforting all the same. Why was that? Misery loves company or some such shit? He was starting to feel that fuzzy,drowsy sensation that preceded sleep.
And then Quinn brought up a new topic, one that Mike had thought was taboo. Goddamn Limey bastard sure knew how to wake a man right up, didn’t he? Weeks of living in excruciatingly close proximity had made Mike familiar with the younger man’s quirks; he knew Quinn hadn’t meant to be hurtful, not this time.
It hurt just the same.
“I know exactly where she is. I’m just hanging out here with you because it’s so much fun,” he snapped, still keeping his voice quiet through force of habit. Mike stifled a sigh.
“No, dumbass, she’s not missing; she’s dead.” The annoyance had gone out of his tone, leaving resignation. Meg probably was dead. Better to think of her that way than to imagine her out there somewhere, starving or hurt or-- Jesus.
“You know, I woke you up to distract me from stuff,” Mike griped, “not remind me of how much my life sucks.” He chuckled, finding dark humor in his predicament in spite of himself.
“... Oh.” Quinn nodded, no apparent sympathy in his voice, though he did force his expression into as much of a mask of pain as possible despite the oddly chipper tone to his words “Sorry about that.”
“Well, maybe being dead is better than this anyway, right?” he continued on, as if having no sense when to leave well enough alone. Had David Attinborough been narrating this moment like a Discovery Channel documentary, he would probably be saying something along the lines of, ‘and here, you seen the Quinn Halstead performing a trick very unique to his species - he will attempt to cram his entire foot into his mouth’. “I don’t really know much of what’s out there, but I mean, if she hasn’t found another group like this one, she could be starving or lost or cold... sometimes I wonder if we’d be better off being dead ourselves, you know?”
“You goddamn Limey bast--” Mike sputtered in a harsh whisper. “Taking that ‘old stiff upper lip’ shit to-- You’re not-- Oh, my sweet Jesus,” he concluded. Quinn’s verdict that Meghan was better off dead, rendered in that chirpy tone, had left him temporarily, well, not speechless--it took a hell of a lot to halt the flow of words from Mike Callahan’s mouth--but definitely incoherent. Good thing he hadn’t been looking for sympathy or tact, or... But hell, that was just Quinn, wasn’t it? Mike snorted again, indulging in a moment of near-silent laughter.
“I ought to punch you in the face,” he offered conversationally, stretching across the short margin of space between them to poke an index finger at Quinn’s knee.
“Right,” poke “in,” poke “the face.” Come to think of it, the way Quinn hated to be touched, this method of harassment was probably nearly as painful as an actual punch. The threat had been an idle one but now Mike grinned and jabbed at Quinn’s leg a couple more times for good measure.
It wasn’t that the poking hurt, per se, but it certainly did irritate him. The short, sharp touch was one of the most annoying things Quinn could imagine, besides a softer touch or his clothing being itchy or pulled or wrinkled awkwardly against his skin. His knee jerked reflexively against each poke, before he finally pulled away to avoid the last assault, rubbing compulsively at the spot Mike had been poking with his palm.
“Don’t be an arse,” he muttered, itching at his hair again with his free hand. He must’ve looked a mess, awkwardly rubbing and scratching at just about every part of his body that was annoying him at that moment in time, but he was naturally oblivious to whatever impression he might be giving out to those around him. Besides, it was dark.
“So, let me guess... you woke me up to distract you and now you’re going to fall asleep and leave me awake like this?”
That had been the plan, though when Quinn put it like that Mike was forced to look beyond his own misery and face the fact that, yeah, he was being a bit of an ass.
“Lay down and lay the fuck still. You can’t fall asleep sitting there twitching like that,” he ordered. Mike lay back, abandoning his torture technique. His voice dropped to a bare whisper, a soothing lull, repeating phrases he’d said so many times they’d become a mantra.
“Get some sleep. You have to stay alert tomorrow, Quinn. Tomorrow might be our chance. We have to be ready. Believe you me, when that chance comes, I’m gone, and ready or not, I’m dragging your sorry ass with me. Maybe not tomorrow, maybe not the next day, but one of these days, we’re going to get the hell out of here.”
Quinn just nodded automatically in response. It was the same pep talk Mike gave him every... single... night, and the chance never came. Quinn was an optimist, and he didn’t believe that he would be enslaved here forever, but Mike’s little speech just had this nasty tendency to get a little... bland after hearing it every night for... how long had they been here? Months? Still, he took it with a grain of salt and nodded, sliding his butt down whilst propping himself up with his elbows as he tried to find a comfortable position to lay in. He had about three minutes to shift around before Mike would hiss at him again to lay still, so he had to make the most of it.
Although it was a pleasant thing to think about, the two of them escaping off into the horizon, it did brook some nasty memories for the younger man. The last person Quinn had had to listen to talking about his plans to escape had met the business-end of a rifle after his second attempt, when he proved himself too risky to keep around. Quinn knew all of this, because he had been chained to him throughout the entire escapade, right up until his body went cold on the ground not three feet from him. It was hard to focus all of your energy and enthusiasm on escaping with a memory like that, but Quinn knew he wouldn’t be here forever, and he knew that, at some point, the time would come. He just hoped that Mike would be as sensible as he was about when to attempt it.
“I know, mate,” he responded simply, muffled into his sleeve again as he attempted to find a comfortable position to lay in on his stomach, using his arms as a pillow. He closed his eyes and tried to focus on his breathing, rather than the feel of his sticky, dirty clothing against his skin, or the hard ground underneath him. Within minutes, Mike was snoring beside him, and Quinn settled down for the inevitable hour or two of tossing and turning that would come before he too would reach the same state of being. If he was lucky tonight, he would dream about real food again.