20. 10/10 Interrogation
Angst, past trauma, past captivity, referenced military setting, referenced torture, referenced murder, fictional politics
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“Sargent Harrison Gomez. Translator and technician for TF-42, deployed from Carson City, Nevada Tuesday June 3rd, 2003.” The words were practically a script, slurred between bloodied teeth between screams from broken bones. A prayer, a litany against surrender. But he wasn’t there anymore - there was no surrender to fear here. Wherever here was. Harrison paused as the Deputy scribbled down the information in his notebook. “Can I ask a - a dumb question?”
“Sure.” Thomas looked up, still parsing the words he had transcribed.
“Where - where am I? Where’s - I know this is Cedar Creek or - or something - but…”
“You’re in Cedar Hills, Idaho. Southwest corner of the state - just north of the Nevada line.” His eyes scanned over his notepad, brow furrowed. Harrison interrupted whatever thoughts were churning behind those dark eyes.
“Okay - okay. Okay. Dumb question number - number two - what’s today date?”
“February 29th, 2004. Leap year and all.”
8 months.
He had spent the last 8 months buried beneath the same soil he was sworn to protect. He had spent the last 8 months bleeding and starving and bearing witness to horrific human rights abuses on that soil.
8 months.
It felt longer - it felt wrong that years, or decades hadn’t passed. It felt wrong that more than a few days or weeks had been lost to pain and fear and grief. Had they been declared MIA? KIA? He was supposed to see his mother for Christmas that year - his niece Mel was so excited to show grandma her new knitting skills.
8 months.
He missed the new Lord of the Rings movie.
He wanted to laugh and cry and scream.
“Okay.” Harrison nodded, voice flat and expression blank. Laughing and crying and screaming didn’t help in the bunker, and it wouldn’t help now. He was lucky this small town cop hadn’t shot him on sight - a haggard, blood covered man of color half hysterical with panic and dehydration.
“You don’t seem okay with that…are you sure you’re - ”
“No, but it won’t change time and space if I was.” Harrison shrugged, shaking his head as if it would help clear the desire to scream until his lungs gave out. “Sorry, just - just wanted to get myself oriented. What were you going to ask next?”
“Sure, sure…” Thomas wasn’t convinced but the suspicion in his eyes was drowned by gentle curiosity. “You’re Sargent Harrison Gomez, and he is..?” The deputy nodded his head toward the door they had taken Wolf through.
“Wolf.” Harrison swallowed the half formed sentences on his tongue. He tortured me, my squadmates - killed my CO with a rabid dog and made us watch. He was tortured in ways I can’t imagine surviving. He got thrown into the same dark hole as me when we were left for dead. He got us out of the Box. He saved me from a fate worse than death. He took a bullet for me. I hate him and I can’t at the same time. “Just - I only know him as the Wolf.”
“He’s not one of your squadmates?” It was an honest question, Thomas’ brow pinched in thought. Harrison strangled the flare of offense in his gut - how dare he put the Wolf on the same level of comradeship as Elias and Merrick and Orson and Thatch and Clement -
“No. No, he - he was just in the shithole as us.” They had been there for 8 months. How long had the Wolf been down there? Was his real name on one of the dog tags weighing heavy in Harrison’s pocket?
“Oh. You two seemed…well acquainted.”
“Between getting shot at together and talking to him for however long to keep him awake until…until he stopped talking…well, we aren’t friends, but he’s not some random stranger.”
It was odd to consider. He knew more about his torturer than he knew about Thomas, or Dan, or Merrill. (Not that he knew much.)
“Is there anything identifying you know about him? Outside of his name, of course.”
“German. I think he’s German - he - he spoke German when he was…scared.” Harrison swallowed thickly, forcing down the memory of the Box and the Dark and the smell as the Wolf begged him not to touch him. “His Arabic is good. Accent was always just a little off - makes more sense after hearing him in his mother tongue.”
“Why was he speaking in Arabic?” Harrison opened his mouth, and then closed it. Thomas’ body language shifted, a tension gathering in his jaw. “Son, we won’t hurt you boys, but if you know something that could save lives - ”
“They weren’t terrorists.” Harrison bit the inside of his cheek, swallowing back the spark of anger in his chest. He thought they had been. He thought for so long he was under a different continent’s sand. “They were American.”
“Are you sure?”
“I - I’m not crazy.”
“Didn’t say you were.”
“Don’t.” Harrison felt a cruel laugh bubble in his throat. “Don’t you fucking dare - I’ve spent the last fucking 8 months thinking I was watching terrorists torture and - and murder my squadmates only to crawl out and find I’m not a day’s travel from home.” The laugh hiccuped into a sob. “If they’re terrorists and - and they somehow got set up out here then this damn country is fucked. They’ve got enough men and firepower there to wipe out this town overnight.”
“You’ve been through a lot.” What a polite way to call him insane. But he didn’t have the energy to flinch away from Thomas’ gentle, steady hand as he rubbed Harrison’s shoulder. “How about we talk once you’ve rested up a bit? I’ll…keep an eye out for anything suspicious.”
“The hard drive…” His voice was hoarse, throat strangling his words. “The - there’s a duffel in the truck. We grabbed anything we could - I, there’s a hard drive.” Thomas’ eyes flicked away, guilt in his voice.
“We don’t have any computers in town. County library has a few…”
Of course this hick town wouldn’t have a single computer between them. Harrison’s sobs turned to gasping sighs.
“I’m sorry. I’m - I’m not lying. I wish - maybe - 8 fucking months.”
He was too tired to cry anymore today.
AU Masterpost / Previous / Next
(An AU of my Freelancers series)
Taglist: @i-eat-worlds
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don’t pretend (to know the damage done)
relationship: Jason Grace/Nico di Angelo
word count: 2587
summary: Nico practices his makeup skills on Jason. Jason realizes there's a lot he'll put himself through for Nico's sake.
“You were right,” Jason mumbles, his eyelid trembling in an attempt to hold it shut, but not too shut, like he was instructed.
“About which part.” Nico readjusts the way that he’s holding Jason’s face hostage, shifting more on his knees. Jason can only kind-of see the look on Nico’s face, something that’s distinctly negative, his eyebrows sloped down tight together, knit by little creases in Nico’s forehead, the way his mouth is pressed into a firm thin line of concentration, eyes hyper-focused on Jason’s eyelashes as if each individual one has offended him in a new and unexpected way.
“This is definitely more uncomfortable than shaving my legs.”
Nico huffs out laughter that doesn’t show at all on his face, eerily. Jason closes his other eye.
He’s pretty sure makeup just isn’t his thing, not in the way that it is for Nico. It feels less like he’s getting made pretty and more like he’s being dressed up for play time, the same way he puts on stupid, shitty Halloween costume dresses when he babysits Estelle. His eyelids feel heavy and sticky with product, and he can’t really help the wriggling, urgent feeling like Nico’s going to find something horrific and gross in his skin, looking at him up close like this.
(continue reading on AO3)
@thinkingjasico HERE IT IS I'M FINALLY POSTING IT part 2 of makeup fic!!!! sorry it took so damn long
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