#haskell haveter

[jaws-and-canines]

They’re Laughing At Me

A Count The Days story. Set right after Scarring, Like an Artist. Following a week of sensory deprivation, Haskell finds himself weakened and overwhelmed, and at the hands of Officer Munroe. Contains alcohol, shoulder dislocation, beating including around the head, teeth gore, mentions of sensory deprivation.

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Part of me wants to go back under. If it wasn’t for my mind eating at me, I’d welcome the silence. Everything is far, far too loud for me as Munroe lets himself into the room. I’m still where Iverson left me, bleeding through the trousers I put back on with numb fingers. Munroe squats down to get at my level, and laughs as I flinch. He takes his penlight from his key chain and turns it on, shining it in my face with a nasty laugh.

“Please don't do that,” I mumble, holding my hands up to shield the light. Munroe takes the penlight and flicks it over my face again. I hiss, shrinking back.

He laughs, stands up, and turns the overhead lights on. “Ouch!” I cry, my eyes starting to stream. “Turn them off!”

“Shut up,” he says, and kicks me in between my legs. 

I curl up, foetal on the floor. “Wasn’t it enough?” I say to him, from where I’m lying on the floor. “Wasn’t the… darkness enough?” I spit the word darkness with as much disgust as I can muster. A week of sensory deprivation, smothered by my own thoughts. My sluggish brain can’t put together a way to describe it yet.

“No,” he says. “Sit the fuck up.”

I press a palm to the floor, and try to sit up, a hand still on my thigh where the edge of the heel of his boot re-opened the cuts and I can feel fresh blood starting to well up again. I manage to get myself up to a sitting position with a grunt.

I’m weakened and I know it. This is going to be bad. This is going to be really bad, I realise. I put a hand to my face as I stand up slowly, and feel that my cheeks are damp. I’m already dazed, I’m already weak, and I’m already fucking tearful.

Much to my detriment, Munroe notices too.

"Stop crying," he yells. "Stop fucking crying! Crocodile tears," he yells in my face. I start to bawl. "You want something to cry about? I'll give you something!" he snarls. I find myself being thrown to his men like a sack of potatoes. In this state, active resistance is beyond me, I know that. No matter how much I try to go limp to passively resist them, they hold me up. A seemingly endless sea of black uniforms and blue shirts. There’s only three or four but I’m dizzy and dehydrated. They blur into one singular mass. 

Munroe pulls my hands back behind my head as I squirm uselessly, and knots them together with blue nylon rope. The position is already a little uncomfortable, pulling at old scars, but I know what comes next.

The rope gets thrown over one of the hooks on the ceiling and the other end is passed to Fives. Munroe stands in front of me, arms folded. "No, no, no," I plead with him, shaking my head. "You'll ruin my shoulders, please."

“I don’t care,” he says, and gestures to Fives. Fives plants his feet- and he pulls.

I’m pulled off my feet with a pained gasp that turns into a screech of pain. 

Fives takes a step back, and the nylon rope is tied off, quivering with my instinctual struggles to try to find purchase that’s just not there anymore, trying desperately to relieve the weight on my shoulders. “It hurts, it hurts, it hurts,” I cry.

Munroe shrugs. "Cry about it, Haveter. Cry those salty crocodile tears.” He takes out his knife from where it’s sheathed next to his holster and bends down, grabbing me by the ankle. “The Major specifically asked me to do this to you. So don’t you think for a moment I’m the bad guy here. I’m not.”

He cuts me across the back of the heel, slipping his knife into the cut and pulling down. Tearing a small strip of skin on the sole of my foot off, leaving a red and raw ragged mess beneath. “Oh, God,” I moan, shaking. I try to kick him with my free leg, but the effort means tensing up my shoulders. There’s a sharp crack from my right shoulder and I daren’t push them further. “Please, no, no.”

The knife goes in again. This time he cuts a huge strip off, peeling it away like paring skin from an apple. Keeps on going until most of the bottom of my foot is a bloody mess. I screw up my face.

I cry out as he grabs for my other ankle to do the same to my other foot. I feel my blood drying sticky as I slip in and out of the moment, gasping quietly to myself.

He steps in front of me. “Look at it, yeah?” He holds the knife up in front of my face, slick with my own blood. “I’m not the bad guy here.”

I kick him in the stomach with as much strength as I can muster.

Munroe steps back, shock on his face, but my small victory comes at a huge price. As I swing back from the momentum, my shoulder quite unceremoniously pops out of its socket. I feel it go. Munroe responds to the kick with a vicious slap a moment after my shoulder slips out.

I just howl, screwing my face up, hot tears spilling down my cheeks, shuddering with my shoulder out of its socket. "Oh, God, please!" I howl at Munroe. "My shoulder, my shoulder, my shoulder!"

“What?” he asks, incredulously.

I can’t put two words together. I just scream, still swaying from the momentum of the kick.

He shrugs. “You did that to yourself.”

I wail and wail, coughing and spluttering, gasping in pain as my shoulder burns. It fucking burns. He just wipes his knife on my shirt and puts it away. “Cut him down, Fives, come on,” he mutters.

Fives steps over, unsheathes his knife, and simply cuts a single loop of rope. My hands come apart, and I fall to the floor with a thud and another wail of pain. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, tell Jack I’m sorry,” I sob, seeing Munroe draw his baton. I try to crawl away from him, on my hands and knees. Every little movement hurts something, either my shoulder, which I feel clicking around, or my feet, which sting like all hell. “Please…” I mumble. “Please, I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t listen. I go further back. “Tell Jacob I’m sorry,” I sob. “Tell him I didn’t mean it.”

“He’s fucking dead,” says Munroe, right before he brings the baton down across my fingers. And then they all descend. Fives and the other two, batons in hand, all at once. 

The first hit glances into my head. Then the second. “No, no! You’re going to kill me!” I scream, but it’s not like any of the officers are listening. They’re going for the jaw, because of course they are. From the left, a smack with a baton. Something shatters in my mouth and I spit blood down my front. I retch, and spit out another load of blood along with the tip of one of my teeth. The shard of enamel is bitter and hard.

From the right this time. He goes for the ribs, a kick with hobnailed boots. It slams me into the wall, and he follows up with a kick between my shoulders. I gasp as the nerves in my back seize. I can’t breathe, I realise, staring in fear at the scuffed-up wall. He kicks me again in the back, again, again. 

Munroe plants his foot on my head. I cry out as the treads of his boot scrape my bruised cheek. “Please!” I sob. “Stop!” 

“Shut up,” he says, and swings a kick into my stomach. I curl up into a ball, sobbing, gasping, curled around the bitter ache in my chest. Like a child, sprawled on the tarmac of the playground. I start coughing again. 

I roll back onto my back, coughing and spluttering as my lungs fight against me. I turn onto my side and start hacking up the blood I’ve inhaled. More shards of enamel fall out of my mouth. Fuck, they’ve broken one of my teeth. They’re going to fucking kill me. They’re going to kill me.

Oh, God, they’re going to kill me.

Munroe kicks me in the face. “This is what you fucking get, Haskell!” 

I howl. The words just aren’t there. He does it again. My whole jaw shifts. Again, one last time.

“Woah, woah!” says Fives, and drags Munroe off me. I’m spared. I catch my breath with a gasp, rolling away to the other side of the concrete room and trying to get up. My mouth is full of blood. It’s literally dribbling down my chin.

This time when I start retching, crawling around on my hands and knees, it’s not just enamel and blood I bring up. It’s teeth. Into the palm of my hand.

Teeth. 

I stare at them in my hand. Teeth. Multiple.

Someone swings another baton hit at me. I slam backwards into the doorframe, cracking my head on the metal, but I don’t react. Dead weight, I slump down to the floor, staring into space.

Teeth.

They knocked out my fucking teeth.

Munroe grabs me by the back of the shirt. “You need to learn some goddamn humility,” he hisses. It continues. And now they avoid my head. Now they avoid it. 

A kick to my back, a baton to my hip. I just lie there, on my side, staring at the mess on the floor. My teeth. Every single jolt makes me inhale, with the horrendous realisation that part of my mouth is a mess of emptiness, torn flesh and broken enamel.

By the time Munroe orders his men to stop, I’m crying. Silently. Just lying there, on my side, tears rolling down my face. Not a sound.

He grabs me by the jaw. It hurts so much I just sob and I can’t pull away. “Did that hurt? Did that hurt?”

I nod, slowly, whimpering as he presses his fingers against my jaw.

“I bet you’re fucking hungry and thirsty and tired as well. I’m not fucking done with you.”

“Please,” I croak. “You’re going to kill me.” The words come out messy, blood pooling in my mouth from the missing teeth.

“Do you want something to drink?” he asks. It’s not a nice question, not really.

I look at him, dazed.

“Do you fucking want something to drink?” he snarls, gripping my jaw even tighter. I nod, eyes wide.

“Hold him,” says Munroe. “Down on the floor.” I’m already on the floor. They take an arm each. 

Munroe kneels on my legs, sitting astride me, fumbling with a bottle. It occurs to me a moment too late, as the smell of alcohol hits me, that he didn’t mean water. “Before you start-” he begins.

“Hey- hey- no-” I slur, spitting blood down my chin as I try to get the words out past missing teeth. “No!”  

But he advances anyways. “Before you start, this wasn’t my idea either,” he says, and with a hand on the back of my head, forces the lip of the bottle into my mouth, and tips the bottle. “So you can thank Iverson for this.”

The alcohol burns. The glass bottle comes away from my lips, and Munroe just presses a hand over my mouth and pinches my nose. I can feel it ripping away at the gaping mess they left when they knocked out my teeth. 

I scream, arching my back, twisting one way and the other, trying to spit it out. But the hand on my mouth is firm, and I choke it down before I run out of air. Only then does he let me breathe. 

Only for a moment. I see it coming. “No, no-” The bottle meets my lips again. I try to fight it, slamming my head against the floor in the process, but the alcohol swills into my mouth. Again, the hand, and I scream and I cry through Munroe’s palm as the alcohol sears my fucking mouth raw until I manage to swallow it.  

“Please, not again,” I croak as the hand comes away from my mouth. “Please. I’ll drown.”

“Not a bad way to go,” says Munroe.

The bottle meets my lips once again. I try to go with it this time, drinking as much as I can, swallowing it even as it burns and I can feel my stomach roll with nausea, tears streaming down bruised and grazed cheeks.

The alcohol smothers me like the darkness’ unkind sister. I find myself under their knives once again. I don’t really have the wherewithal to put together what’s going on- passed from one set of hands to another, from one cruel-edged knife to another, as I stumble around in my afraid stupor, trying to stay on my feet. 

I stare at my own blood on my hands, on my feet, my bloody footprints across the floor. My teeth are on the floor. And then it’s onto the next pair of hands, who takes it upon himself to pull off my clothes and inspect my back. Perhaps he re-opens old wounds, or he makes his own new ones. I don’t know. I don’t remember.

The same happens with my trousers. I flail around on the floor as they try to pin me down to look at my thighs, bruised and bleeding from a fresh whipping. I wail and cry for someone to come and save me.

Nobody will. They’re laughing at me.

Out comes the saltwater. I knew I was never going to get away without it. 

Munroe takes a particularly unkind view to me at this point, soaking a rough rag in it, and scouring my back down with it. Then my front, then my neck and face, all the while as I writhe and make incoherent pleas for him to leave me alone, my mouth full of blood and inflammation, and me, drunk out of my mind on whatever coarse alcohol they poured down my throat. And then, the final act of cruelty. I find myself staring at my own reflection- such that it barely is, I don’t recognise him- in a bowl of saltwater so thickly brined there’s a skin on top of salt.

And then I’m plunged under. Held down with a hand on the back of my head. I choke on it, because of course I do, too drunk to understand not to breathe in. They bring me back up to kneeling with saltwater streaming from my nose and mouth, tinged with blood, reddened eyes, and coughing so hard I can barely breathe. It stings. My eyes stream, my mouth bleeds, but all I can do is just lie there. 

No way out, no way to get away, I just shut down, retreating deep into myself, exhausted and in pain.  Munroe squats down to look me in the black eyes. “The fuck are you mumbling about?” “I... I want...” I struggle to put two words together. “I want ‘t go home... I want... I want my mother,” I sniffle. “But... she doesn’t want me!” 

Munroe laughs in my face as I bawl weakly into the concrete.

They discard me on the floor after that. They leave, and they’re laughing still.

They’re laughing.

[jaws-and-canines]

Somehow, the gentle touches and muttered praises of the Special, careful slice after delicate cut, made him weep more than agony alone ever could.

[Image ID: Iverson, with dark messy hair, bloodied leather gloves and white shirt, and Haskell, sitting down, shirtless and bruised on the throat and arms. Iverson is stood over him, using a yellow-handled scalpel to make cuts on his chest. Haskell stares to one side, limp, clearly exhausted, whilst Iverson looks directly at the reader with a smile. ID end.]

[jaws-and-canines]

One Friday Night

A Count The Days story. Contains canon-typical violence, from Iverson’s POV.

---

It’s Friday. I can allow myself a little indulgence. Beside me I have a white cloth I’m using to clean as I work, and a glass of red wine.  

The wine is not the indulgence here. I usually drink after my evening meal. The indulgence is my little swan, my little pet project, and the way he whimpers under my knife, zip tied to the leg of my desk, occasionally muttering a particularly uncharitable comment towards me or hissing in overblown pain. Haskell is generally considered a risk. But he’s not a risk to me, not like this. Despite the precautions his lengthy records would suggest I take, I know him better.

I know I’m flaunting my power in the face of regulations somewhat, but I know I can get away with it. Who's going to stop me? Scott, maybe, if he wasn’t too scared. But he is, I muse, and wipe my bloodied knife clean. Haskell sighs a sigh of relief as I stop for the moment.

On a normal person, I prefer to work on the back. On him, however, there is nowhere on the back left to work. Craters and valleys and peaks of tight scarring and dips that dull and shine the skin. There is nothing more you can do to scar tissue save for cutting it off, stripping it like paint. That is not something you do to someone you want to keep alive. That is something to do to someone you are setting up to die slowly and painfully from an infection. Besides, I want those scars to stay right where they are. They’re important, they teach a lesson. They’re beautiful. They continue to hurt him each and every day. That in itself is beautiful.

In lieu of the back being free, then, I work on the back of his thigh. There’s blood soaking into the edge of his boxers, the only item of clothing he has on, staining the stitching. It was easier to convince him to strip than it would have been to bear the complaints had I gotten the rest of the clothing dirty. Just light cuts, as close together as I can get them. I’ve had a little too much wine to be doing anything particularly complex. I’m being nice.

He seems unaware that I’m being kind. He twists like an eel thrashing on the deck of a trawler, whining a complaint at me. “Stop that, stop that, stop!” he whines, as if he thinks it would make a difference. His voice breaks as I keep on with what I’m doing, feathering gentle cut after gentle cut. We both know, we both know in certainty, that I won’t listen to him.

I’m not inclined to. Especially not if he insists on whining and making demands like that. He is a man and he can plead like a man if he wants me to listen. 

“I can’t feel my hands,” he mumbles. I ignore him. He’s not in enough pain to be talking like that. He’s just being ridiculous.

The zip ties cut into the fleshy part of his palm, just below his thumb as he pulls against them. Not out of a desire to escape but by virtue of how he is positioned, lying down, face down, arms out almost straight above his head. He pulls against the zip ties to try to get comfortable against the pressure on his shoulders. 

“I can’t feel my hands!” he snaps again. I realise I’m going to have to agknowledge it.

I have one gloved hand- disposable, of course, I try to avoid having to wash my leather gloves- and one ungloved. It’s a particularly cold day so the scars on my knuckles and on the pads of my fingers are particularly angry. The blade of the knife reflects the odd glimpse of my scars as I wipe it down with the cloth. “You can’t feel your hands?” I ask, and lean over to pinch him in the middle of one of his nail beds. He jolts away, a white mark coming up on his nail. I tut. “Yes you can. Don’t lie to me.”

“I have pins and needles in my hands, then,” he says to me, disdainful. “It’s barely a difference!” The whine comes back into his voice, petulant, impolite.

“Don’t talk to me like that.” I keep a finger on the top edge of my knife, keeping the blade perfectly parallel to his skin, and split it as easily as I could split an overripe fruit, the red flesh parting in two beneath a steel blade, deep crimson juices spilling out over the rind. The two are not too different- on the verge of rottenness, but still capable of being sweet. 

“Sorry,” he says, almost under his breath. His voice breaks as he swallows sharply. “Please loosen my hands.” A moment of hesitation passes before I pick up my knife again and slip it into the side of the zip tie, working it just a degree looser, before returning to my work. He doesn’t thank me.

I slice another fine cut up his thigh. He jerks away with a hiss through his teeth that turns into a whine. I think that’s part of what endears him to me.  With the next cut he twitches again. The man who had an eye cut out with a smile on his face, the man who dragged himself for miles to return home, packing his own empty eye socket with boiled gauze to try to dampen a raging infection. That very same man shudders as I rest the knife on his skin, and whimpers as I pull the knife through his flesh again.

I shush him, running my ungloved hand through his hair. “You’re doing just fine,” I say quietly. “No need for the dramatics.” That’s all it is. A pointless little show in the hopes of garnering pity. 

I put the knife down and take a sip from the wine glass, licking it from my lips, watching the blood well up as he just lies there, resting his head on his arm. “I’m not being dramatic,” he mutters. “You’re just hurting me.” He can take so much worse than this, and he knows that I know that. When I push him past the dramatics, he toughens up, slipping into anger, and then into determination to hold out, and then all the way into the delirium of agony. 

When I pick up the knife again, I cut a little too deep. Not entirely accidentally. The flash of white I see under the skin makes me pull away and wipe my knife on the white cloth I have next to me. “Ouch, that stings!” he exclaims.

“Oh, shush,” I say. I stop, and look at the blood welling up to cover the whiteness of the fat I’ve exposed. 

I take a sip from my wine glass with my ungloved hand. He twists around, watching me intently as I drink. Again I catch a glimpse of the fatty layer that I’ve cut down to as the skin twists with his motion. 

His eyes settle on the glass. “You want a little?” I ask, offering up the wine glass to him.

His eyes brighten a little right before the cynicism reappears. “No,” he snaps. “You can’t make me okay with this by… buying me off.” He is, in fact, very easy to negotiate with. All it takes is a give to whatever you take. He’d fight and scream and kick all the way to the bitter end if he didn’t think he was getting something out of this- and right now, on a behavioural contract, locked up for twenty-three hours, seven days a week, he’s getting company and a distraction all rolled up into one package for the price of a little pain. 

“Don’t be crude, I don’t engage in bribery.” I smile at him. He knows I’m not being entirely truthful but neither is he. I take a sip. He watches me again. “It’s a very good bottle,” I say to him, turning the label around to show it to him. Blue eyes flick over the label. Blue is an overstatement, really. Pavement grey is more apt. I watch him read the label, left to right, from one side to another. His right eye doesn’t track with the left, following a marginally smaller arc. 

“Don’t deny yourself the good things in life. You’ll get yourself nowhere.” I offer the wine glass up to him again. 

The sharp undertone of sarcasm comes back with a vengeance. “It’s a little difficult to hold a glass with no free hands.”

“I’ll help you,” I say to him, swilling the wine around in the glass. People say wine looks like blood. They’re wrong- it’s a couple shades darker, just minutely, and much less viscous. “Just imagine this is one of those Friday lunchtimes, hm?”

He crumples a little. I see it on his face, the way his eyebrows curve in, an almost-wince with tears shining in his eyes. He swallows, and nods, turning himself onto his side with a wince. “Fine,” he says hoarsely. And then, hastily, adds the second phrase, forcing the vulnerability out of his voice. “But only so you’ll stop bothering me about it.”

I put a hand on the back of his head, and put the glass to his lips. He takes the first sip of his own accord and I tip the glass back as he drinks. I watch as the red wine stains his lips, as the tears in his eyes break free and drip down his cheeks, at the way he struggles to trust me, pushing against my hand on the back of his head, panting for air through his nose between gulps.

“Oh, darling,” I say to him, and let him down the whole glass. He looks almost defeated when I put the empty glass back at my side, and rests his head on the floor. The wine stains chewed lips. I lean over with the cloth I’ve been using to wipe his blood on and wipe the corner of his mouth. There are salt-stains tracing down to tears beaded on the angle of his jaw. I drift the cloth up, and turning it over to find a clean spot, I wipe his tears, one side, and then the other, tracing down his scar. “It’s so tough, isn’t it? It’s so hard.”

I echo the same phrase occasionally. Sometimes, out of his mind with the help of chemicals or in the depths of agony, he’ll start pleading with me- I want to go home, I just want to go home, I want to go home- and I adore it when I have to break his heart every time by reminding him what he’s done. 

This time, sober and still with it, he just grimaces at me with wine on his teeth, and turns away to lie back down on the floor. I pick up my knife, wipe down the bloodied skin with the white cloth so I can see what I am doing, and start again.

[jaws-and-canines]

To Count To Sixty

A Count The Days Story. Haskell Haveter recieves sixty lashes as part of the sentence he recieved for the murder of Jacob Kay. Content warning for blood, physical institutional abuse (?), minor tongue trauma and minor religion mentions.

---

If I’m honest, I could take guilt. Guilt I was raised with, hell, it’s the fucking basis of Catholicism if I’m going to be brutally honest. I was raised to look guilt in the eye and tell it no thank you, I will repent. Shame I was not. Shame is the thing that will eat a man up without him ever showing it. That’ll make him keep his eyes to the floor and his head down and his cheeks burning with just how fucking wretched he knows he is. I can’t seem to even make myself look up to meet the eyes gathered in Nation Square. Not the Major waiting with the whip, not Nelson, not Angelo, not Davies with that quiet disgusted pity all over his face.

Nelson tugs at the collar of my shirt. “Haveter,” he mutters. “Get that off, Major Elliott is waiting.”

I look up, coming out of my stupor of self-pity. That’s what it is, really, just plain old self pity. “Sorry,” I mumble, and fumble with the buttons, shrugging it off. It’s a briskly cold day today. I put a hand on my shoulder for a moment, pressing my hand against my back, knowing that it’s never going to be the same unbroken skin again. I will forever be marked by this. I close my eyes for a moment, sniff, and steel myself. I hand Nelson the blue Northwall shirt, and this time, when I see Elliott with that bronze-inlaid handled whip, I stare him directly in the fucking eye. Do your fucking worst, I think as if he can hear. Do your worst.

I hold out my wrists for Nelson to tie me. The sisal is damn rough, and I know it’s going to give me rope burn- that’s the point. You can’t hide something on your hands so easily. Everyone will see, and everyone will know and that’s the point of this all. That’s the point of the television cameras I am trying to ignore. Nelson and Angelo between them stand me between the two posts and tie my arms to the metal loops between them. The strain on my shoulders isn’t quite uncomfortable but I have a nasty feeling it might well get that way. Angelo chains my ankles together and hooks that chain over a metal loop laid between the cobbles. In fact, all of this can be taken down and stored, so the square is sometimes empty. Nobody ever goes in here anyways, because even if all the chains and metal and wood aren’t here, there’s always a heaviness in the air. People swear it’s haunted. Angelo takes off my shoes. I wince a little because the cobbles are fucking freezing, but I say nothing. There’s no point.

I glance behind me, watch the ceremonial part of this all. Elliott offers Davies the whip, stooping down on one knee and holding it up. Davies turns his back on Elliott and on me. Elliott turns to Nelson, and the same action is repeated. He steps towards the crowd of officers, and then his Commanding Officer steps forwards and orders him, quite loudly, to do justice where justice is due. I turn back to the ground in front of me, staring at the cobbles, and wait.

Just wait. And there it is, like a red-hot spear of pain across my shoulders. I wince, swallow back the tears that have sprung to my eyes, and feel it fade and sting in the cold air. I can feel my own blood welling up, and it’s hot against my cold skin. And then the second. Another painful pause. The next lands with a resounding crack in the otherwise silent square. It stings, making my cheeks burn, but it's not bad, not yet.

Fourth, cracking along the opposite direction to the others. It starts to sting quite a lot then, the cold tugging along the weal I can feel blossoming on my back. A fifth falls, and by now, I know it's bruising and bleeding. My back feels hot and I can feel my own blood drying on the bare skin. I scrunch my eyes shut.

Another pause. God, he knows what he's doing. Patient enough to wait- a sixth, I clench my fists, then regret that as it pulls the wounds on my back open a little and the cold air rushes in. Seven, an ungodly long stretch of time, eight. I screw my eyes shut and try to will the tears that are brimming away. Hurry up. I wish he’d just hurry up. My back is fucking burning.

Nine. It smacks up over my shoulders and leaves a deep and dribbling cut like paint on paper, dripping down my front. Ten. This time I jerk against the ropes around my wrists, inhaling sharply. Eleven, a pause with blood dribbling down my back, that’s all I can fucking feel, my blood, my back, my burning back and it hurts, it hurts so much, twelve, and this time the first of the open wounds is crossed by a fresh one, the two spears of bright-hot fire crossing each other and somehow intensifying in the middle. I stare at the floor, mouth agape, trying to resist the urge to gasp in pain.

Thirteen, pause, fourteen. I shake my head, clenching my jaw, biting my tongue. Each lash knocks the breath out of me anew and I'm dripping blood and sweat down my back, trembling. Fifteen, pause, sixteen and it just gets worse. My hair is stuck to my face with a feverish sheen of sweat.

The tears start to drip down my face even though I'm doing everything I can to hold them back. I’m not crying. My eyes are watering from the incomprehensible agony he is turning my back into. Seventeen splits a fresh wound across my back, raking up across my shoulders, and I'm back to silently gasping and trembling. I lose count, just reeling between each blow. Each time, a pause between the last lash and the next, each time, a crack that echoes through the silent square, followed by me jerking forwards, throwing my weight against the ropes, the chains at my feet rattling with each twitch. They'll stop at thirty and wash my back down. I just have to get there and it’ll be okay.

I’ll be okay, I think, and then another blow rains down on my tender back. I grunt audibly this time, letting my head roll back. There’s ringing in my ears, nothing makes sense, nothing makes sense anymore and I just don’t understand and I feel the next one hit, my head snaps back, an explosion of metal in my mouth, it burns, it burns, it burns, like a white phosphorus light and I burn and I just don’t understand-

I’m woken up by water splashing on my face. I open my eyes to find the technician I’ve seen before, whose name utterly escapes me standing over me, looking at me with detached concern in his eyes. “It’s okay,” he says to Elliott, speaking over my head as I’m slumped against the ropes holding me up. My whole body burns hot and cold but my back is beyond agony. “Just the pain.”

I try to make some snarky comment about pain but all that comes out of my mouth is a groan and a dribble of blood. I’ve bitten my tongue and that’s why I can taste metal. Oh, how embarrasing. The technician stoops down to the tin bucket of water beside him with a hand on his knee and takes a little in the tin dish that’s floating in it. “Here,” he says, and holds the dish to my chapped and bloody lips, letting me drink. It’s cold. It’s good.

“How many?” I say hoarsely, as he puts the dish back in the bucket.

“Twenty-five. We stopped because you passed out.”

I shake my head sadly, and go back to staring at the cobblestones. I try to count the last five. One, and I inhale sharply. Two, a shudder, letting the blood in my mouth drip down my chin, three, I take with a slump forwards, four, clench my jaw, and five rains down and I gasp a sigh of relief.

And then it’s over. For now.

Except it’s not because when they throw the other bucket of freezing cold water over my back, it stings. One the initial shock of the cold wears off, I feel it, abruptly and it builds. It stings and then it burns and I realise, I realise it’s saltwater. Someone rubs it in with a heavy gloved hand I can barely feel through the burning agony on my back into the gashes and I hiss through my teeth. My stomach turns as the burning and stinging builds.

They leave me there for a few minutes, shivering and dripping bloody saltwater down my back, trousers, into the cobbles at my feet. The ground is so cold that my feet are numb and my leg bones ache.

And then it starts again. The first blow almost startles me, and then I realise just how much worse it is.

It’s worse this time, now that the nerves in my back have calmed down a little, and everything is angry and irritated by the saltwater, it’s a hundred times worse.  A few more blows, I lose count, a pained whimper tears out of my bleeding mouth. It's loud enough to be audible, and just as I feel the disdain in the air, another stroke lands and tears another gouge out of ruined flesh. 

This time, I just scream. Out loud, throwing my head back, a hoarse, reedy cry of sheer desperation. Another, and I howl again, gasping for air that just won't come in the freezing morning frost. Another. I slump forwards, limp, sobbing, coughing up broken pleas. Another. Please, please, please, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Another fucking blow right across my back, and I scream again, into the cobblestones that simply reflect my hoarse cries back at me. Please, I hear myself begging, barely audible, please. The whip cracks across my shoulders again, and this time, I scream the plea. "Oh, God, stop!" I howl. He doesn't. There’s a mumur of cruel laughter from around me. Again, again, and I start to cry like a child, rocking back and forth with each stroke, arching my back against the crack of the whip on angry, inflamed flesh. It just keeps fucking going and I barely feel human anymore, just some fucking mess of blood and pain, living from stroke to stroke that each time makes me quiver and shake. I half sob and half scream my through my tears. And then then three fall in quick sucession, one, two, three. I screw up my face, waiting for the next, but that never comes. I hear them dismiss Elliott, and dismiss the soliders behind me.

"Oh, God, oh, God, oh my God," I sob, an almost animal moan. There are people around me all of a sudden and I’m unchained, untied, someone presses a coat onto me, pressing it against my ruined back- oh God, I realise, it’s my uniform coat. It’s mine with all the patches torn off. I bleed onto it. They take me by the arms and I take one step, two steps, towards Nation House again, three, and then I just crumple, legs giving way, smacking down onto the cobbles. I hear my head smacking into the ground and then I’m gone again, unconcious in a pile of bloody clothes and pale clammy skin on the floor. The news cameras keep rolling. They were always rolling. They never stopped.

[jaws-and-canines]

I Am Not Death

A Count The Days Story. Bad Things Happen (To All Kinds Of People)- prompt: water torture. Content warning for nail trauma, whumper perspective, iverson is a creepy fuck, water torture and death mentions.

---

I like it when they cry. And this one cries just how I like it. Face red and blotchy, mouth open, gasping, tears and snot dripping down his face. Pathetic. Beautiful. All mine to hurt and ruin. I give his chin a little squeeze. "Come on now, smile," I say to him. Running my thumb along his trembling bottom lip, I push the corner of his mouth up into a smile.

Haskell, his name is. That’s somewhat irrelevant, all that really matters is he is mine. He killed someone. Slipped out of the Provost's grasp after someone tried to kill him in return. Doesn't seem to want to go back of his own accord. And we can't have that. The Division decides when people get killed, dissappear, escape. When they're free and when they aren't.

And now, the Division, through my hands, decide when this disgusting little man screams for what he's done.

I apply pressure to the raw nailbed I've just created, his left index finger, with a pair of pliers and a little screaming. He whines as I press my weight down. I do that just to enjoy the way he squirms and sits there with eyes full of tears that drip down his face. Most of his left hand is a bloody mess right now and there's only his thumbnail left for me to pull out.

No matter how much he tries to resist it, he cries eventually. So far I've only managed to make him cry tears of pain by gently taking the pain past his tolerance and holding it there. I would like to see him cry from fear and the anticipation of my work alone, and I will, one day soon.

"You're going to run out of nails," he says with a weak laugh between whimpers of pain as I press down into the nailbeds, savouring the way blood wells up onto my leather gloves. "Then you’ll have nothing to pull out. Then you're stuck, aren't you?"

"That's where you're mistaken," I say, and put the pliers on the edge of his thumbnail. "For one, I can take things slowly. For two, I'm never stuck." And with that, I pull, working the nail from side to side, watching with a smile as he winces and bites his lip, trying not to scream, leaning towards his hand as I work. Eventually the nail comes free, bloody at the end, and I drop it onto the table with the others and wipe the tears from his face with a gentle stroke. "There, that wasn’t that bad, was it?"

"No, it wasn’t," he agrees with a smug, breathless laugh. "Do better. You fuck."

That, in the Division, is colloquially considered to be an invitation to enjoy oneself. Not the expected response, but sometimes, it’s more fun that way. If I had free reign now would be when I would start pulling teeth. Nothing to maim beyond repair or scar beyond treatment, I was told, so it has to be reasonably clean. Reasonably. 

This is how I end up in the bathroom, running a bath, dragging him and the chair he's tied to into the bathroom and locking the door. I cut him free from the chair and grab him by the collar. I'm stronger than him. Taller. Faster and not worn down by constantly having to flee. I just pick him up like a fish on a line and dump him in the bath, my hand on his throat. I get in after him, standing astride him, the water lapping at the tops of my boots. I kneel, pressing my weight down onto his chest. He gasps as he slips under. I can change clothes after this. He can't. He'll just have to wear his damp clothes tomorrow and shiver them dry.

That is assuming I don't accidentally drown him. Accidentally in the loosest term possible. Last time someone did this to him he asked for some soap. They made him eat it. He doesn’t ask this time. Just presses his palms against the side of the bath to try to keep himself upright, laughing nervously. I can see the fear in his eye- the real one- and I love it. Contrasted against the plastic one, it's obvious just how terrified he is despite the smile that's trembling across his face.

I really, really love it. Makes my heart beat a little faster, my senses a little sharper, the anticipation of it all pulling me into this crystalline moment.

This. This is what I live for. This is my job. These moments that I find such a pleasure are their terrible nightmares and that is my job. I am not Death. I am what comes before. And through my hands works the Division, works justice and agony and pain and relief and every variety of emotion out there. Ours to play with. To use for the greater good. Except we are not the good here.

We are the necessary.

Through me, the Division works. And here I am kneeling, on a murderer’s chest in a cold bath, him soaked to the skin, the hand that I so carefully ruined leaching blood into the water, droplets of reddened water beaded on his face, almost manic terror in his eyes. Heart beating hard, and I can feel that in my fingertips in the arteries on his snow-pale neck, the water lapping just against the base of his jaw. I have him. He is mine alone until the Division decides otherwise. Until my mission to cause this man pain and suffering ends and I am assigned the next deviant to work my art upon. Maybe I get to kill him. Maybe they have bigger plans for him. He is mine until then.

But he is ours until he dies. And if he remembers to breathe when I let him, coughs up whatever water he inhales when I let him and holds his breath when I push him under, that might not be tonight.

"Try to relax," I say to him, and force him under. He slams his hands against the side of the bath, leaving a bloody streak on the left side, tossing and turning, hair twisting and flowing, and I watch his face contort and twitch, silvery bubbles streaming from his mouth and nose, his pulse racing under my fingertips. His body arches beneath me, terrified strength trying to push his way to the surface, to where he can breathe again, to throw me off. I wait until the struggling starts to slow and then I slip my hand around the back of his head and pull him up, cradling him over my shoulder as he gasps and hacks up dirty bathwater behind me. He's warm against my coat, shivering, and I pat him on the back, encouraging him to take a deep breath and cough it all up for me, there's a good boy- an exclamation of indignance between gasping coughs from over my shoulder- and oh how I hope, how I hope they'll let me kill him. 

How utterly sublime that would be. Just the simple pleasure of taking a deviant out of this world in a meaningful and beautiful way. I might not be Death. But I am a very good friend of his.

[jaws-and-canines]

With Disgrace

A Count The Days story. As part of his sentence from the Court Martial for Conduct Unbecoming, and prior to being tried as a civilian for the murder of Jacob Kay, Haskell is formally expelled from the Department. Contains mentions of death.

---

Here I am, in uniform, for the last time, being escorted down the corridor to the one event I would give anything to skim over in my fall from grace. Anything else- save if I were to hang, I suppose, and the thought makes my face twitch- would be more bearable.

The Rangers are there to take me out- two of them, uniformed, sharp sabres glinting under the fluorescents. I squint at their uniforms until I work out they’re both Warrant Officers. That’s a deliberate snide on Davies’ behalf, rubbing in that I no longer hold the authority I used to, and they both seem to know it. As it stands, I was the head of the Chairman-General’s Corps. There is nobody there who I was subordinate to, so they default to the unit I was in prior to that, the Rangers.

There’s Nelson coming up behind me and the two Prison Service officers either side of me. Nelson is carrying my sword under his on his hip. I thought, somehow, that this would be more momentous than this. It’s not. 

Davies is waiting just at the end of the corridor, where the windows, high and small, are open, and I can hear the wind howling in. Through a heavy iron-bar gate and an equally imposing door, there is Nation Square. There is the parade of the Chairman-General’s Corps assembled, waiting for us, waiting for me. Waiting to see my shame laid out for them and my status and honour ripped from me and thrown to the wolves for the sake of justice. It’s not justice. I did fuck all to deserve this.

Prison, yes. I can understand that. I don’t agree, I don’t- but I can understand how the idea of retributive justice makes people happy, and even though it seems unfair to punish me for an accident of all things, a man did die. Jacob did die. There has to be something to balance the scales. If only to soothe hurt feelings. This enforced shame, this humiliation, however, I can’t reconcile in my head just yet. It doesn’t seem fair to me. I didn’t fucking mean to kill him. It just happened.

“Sort your face out, Haveter, and sort your collar out,” says Davies, gesturing to me as we walk closer to him. I stop, and try to force the look of disdain, of put-upon suffering off my face. Davies carries on. “Why is the top button undone? You should know fucking better.”

“It makes me feel like I’m choking,” I say simply. I’m sure the undertone is evident- if there’s one thing Davies could do, it’s pattern recognition. I’m sure he pieced together the undone top buttons and looser ties that all began the day when it was made clear to me that being hanged was a distinct possibility- and I could no longer tolerate something touching my throat.

He tuts and gestures for me to do it up regardless. He doesn’t care, and he’s right. but I thought I might get away with it given they’re just going to rip all of this apart anyways. But, no. I button up the uniform right to the top- ignoring the slight edge of panic that seeps into my head- and straighten out the pins on the edges of my collar. 

It’ll all be gone soon. It pains me. It utterly pains me. I straighten out the coat and button it up, and by instinct feel, checking my sword is the right way around- it’s not there, I have to remind myself, and flex my hand to try to hide the movement I made. I realise I’m shaking and clench my fist to hide that as well.

Nelson wordlessly passes my sword over to Davies. Davies hooks it behind his. I look at it, a little forlorn. I know it’s like me- fate already sealed, blunted for the Court Martial, and now filed so it will snap when it is broken. Our fates are both decided now- blunted, to be broken in the name of justice. The irony is not lost on me.

“Let’s not prolong this,” says Davies, and then the keys rattling and scraping in the locks set my teeth on edge, more than I already am. Then I’m pressed outside by the two escorting officers, one on each side of me- had I lingered on the threshold, I am sure it would have turned from a gentle but stern push to a drag.

Through the courtyard of death and bloodshed. Out into the parade ground of the more psychological sort of suffering- in front of the eyes of the assembled Corps. My heart twinges. Thankfully, for now, I don’t have to see their faces as I’m led towards the front of the parade, my back to them.

Davies stands in front of me, warming up his hands by rubbing them together before reading off the sentence from a piece of official letterhead paper I didn’t even notice he was carrying. “Haskell Irvin Haveter, by a unanimous guilty verdict of a lawfully assembled Court Martial of the Department of State Affairs, you are hereby to be Displaced with Disgrace from our ranks,” he says to me.

I say nothing. It’s not my place to speak. The escorting officers have swords for a reason- if I say a word, I will be struck by one of them across the back of my legs. From training, and other misadventures, I know a sabre to the calf really fucking hurts. I’d rather not add injury to insult. I’d rather not have the Corps at my back see that happen to me.

Davies chooses, as the commanding officer has the right to in the Displacement proceedings, to take a moment to address me. I knew he probably would, and I wish he would not. “I would be lying if I said I wasn’t disappointed in you. You had potential, Haskell. You had real potential. And I’m sorry it’s going to go to waste now, I really am.”

Dead face, I tell myself. No expressions. Nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. I can’t let any of this show. “You’ve got a long road ahead of yourself now, Haskell. This isn’t the end, not really. It’s not going to be easy but you’re going to make something of yourself despite all this. It may not be as much as it could have once been. But something is better than nothing, if you’re going to be sensible,” he says, and nods towards Nation House. “They’ll tear you apart in there if you aren’t sensible.” The brief image of me being torn to shreds surfaces in my mind, and then back again, as I look at Davies with dead eyes. “I don’t want to see you hanged for this. Because then that really will be the end for you.”

He puts his hand out towards my uniform. I do not flinch. The corps patches come first. He uses the edge of his wedding ring to get the first stitch to break. Then they come easily. His expression is something halfway between anger and uncomfortable pity. The gold stitching on the scales of Justice, the white of the feather pens crossed at her feet- into the rain between the cobblestones. The filthy water seeps in. No longer gold, no longer white. Just meaningless fabric at my feet.

He takes my medals in one hand, and tears them from my chest. I keep looking at him- face as still as I can make it, as if I’m not even here. Long ago, I was paraded in front of my fellow comrades-in-arms with a missing eye and flayed skin, as some sick sort of warning. I suppose now is no different- all the people out here, if they do what I’ve done, they will become like me. Wretched. That same blank expression did not break then and it will not break now.

Even as he casts my medals to the floor and rips off my awards patches like it is nothing, even as I hear stitches snap and give way and my coat tear and with it my honour and pride. The Wounded ribbon catches in the wind. A deep sort of crimson-purple. It turns over once, twice, and then flutters away. I touch my hand to the bottom of my scar, almost as if that too might be blown away by the wind, and then have to remind myself to keep my hands at my sides.

He stops with a hand on my shoulder and I can feel that almost imperceptible trembling in my core through his touch- and then he rips off my epaulettes. Quickly. One, two, gone. I realise I have been holding my breath and inhale shakily through my nose, keeping that dead expression.

Davies knows that beneath the porcelain face I am falling apart. I am crumbling. He decides to try to soothe things, but as he always did, he drives the knife in to the hilt in the process. “You were a good man. I still maintain you can be one again,” he says to me. I almost shatter entirely. I don’t.

My face just twitches.

He takes my sword from the loop on his belt, holding it flat-side-up to me so that I can see the seals on it, I can see my name engraved onto it. “By my authority, Haskell Irvin Haveter, I declare you Displaced, stripped of all honour and accolade, for your actions of conduct unbecoming.” 

He brings the sword up, one hand on the hilt, the other on the blade-end. He brings it down, a forceful arc. Not slow in reality, but slow in my mind with the sense that this is it; this is the end of it all.

I close my eyes as my reputation, my life’s pride and work, every achievement I ever made, shatters into three pieces over my head and falls to the ground with a clatter, broken. One moment it’s there, over my head, the next there’s shattered pieces of it on the ground.

Dead eyes, dead face, that’s all I let myself think. I can’t let this show. I can’t let this show.

I’m turned to face the parade with a hand under each of my arms. Dead eyes, dead face, dead man. That’s all I am. The coat is pulled from me. I close my eyes again as the jacket is taken from me as well, and I’m left to shiver in a white shirt that could be a civilian’s if you didn’t look twice, and green khaki trousers that do nothing to stop the wind from cutting into my skin. 

A hand- I don’t look to see who, because that would let the tears welling up in my eyes spill out- comes along with a field knife and cuts the tiny red tabs at the corner of my shirt collar. The last indication on my clothing that could be remotely mistaken for showing status. They roll up my sleeves. The barely scabbed-over cut from the ceremony of the court martial along my arm smarts in the cold air. 

My achievements, my life’s work, my sacrifice and my pain are all scattered in little pieces of metal and brightly-coloured fabric all over the cobbles. I’m left with nothing but an oozing cut across my arm, a creased white shirt and the aura of a migraine playing across the right edge of my field of vision. The bitter wind carries on screaming across the parade ground. As it always has, as it always will.

And then comes the walk. Through the ranks of soldiers stood out on parade and back towards Nation house. Hands on swords- mine broken and abandoned behind me- and hands on my arms, preventing me from making a break for it. As if I would. As if that would be at all well advised. As if I’m not practically leaden at this point. But still, the porcelain face serves me well.

For once, for once in my life, I wish they’d hood me. As much of a humiliation it is to be led somewhere as a cowering figure with a black canvas hood over your head, this is worse- to have to fix your gaze on nothing in particular as the wind tries to claw tears from your eyes- to have to walk over your own achievements on your way back into the courthouse where you have been tried, and you have been found guilty, and you will once again be judged.

We pass between the wrought-iron and limestone fencing that separates the parade ground from the miserable courtyard where the blood that the law demands is spilt has stained the concrete of the cobbles a few shades darker. Many die here- whether stood before the firing squad or on their knees with a round to the back of their head. I will not be of that number.

The only thing that awaits me, disgraced as I am now, in the realms of state-sanctioned death is the hangman.  The number that I could still well be a part of here is the cohort who are deemed to need a physical reminder of what they have done carved into their fucking back with a flogging. And they are brutal enough, that whilst better than death, the difference is only marginal in my mind.

I can’t help but stare at the chips of ricochets - or echoes of bullets that found their targets and tore right through- taken out of the wall at the far side of the courtyard. That little reminder seeps through- I am dead eyes, dead face, and, perhaps most importantly, if I don’t play my cards right, a dead fucking man. There are two dead if you count Jacob. Again, that little involuntary twitch of my face, the only expression I’ve let slip through my mask all through this. I put my hand to my face briefly to try to smooth it out. The migraine aura remains, shimmering a white-yellow at the edge of my visual field.

Two dead men. One on the corner of a hearth, broken skull- another soon to be before the judge, soon to be before the hangman, soon to be before the noose. I am, still, dead eyes, dead face, and a dead fucking man.

[jaws-and-canines]

[Image ID: A blonde, caucasian man in a white shirt in the style of a religious icon, one bloodstained hand up in the gesture of peace, a gold-on-purple halo entwined with a running noose behind his head. There is a notable scar around his right eye, the top end of it hidden beneath a fringe, the bottom end towards his mouth. He has a fine beard and mustache. His expression is pained, tears down his face, and two trails of fresh blood drip from his nose. End ID.]

[jaws-and-canines]

It Was An Accident

A Count The Days story. Comes directly before Foresight. Content warning for death, mild gore and abusive language.

---

I'm halfway through my second bottle of whiskey when keys scrape in the front door. I grab for my gun and click the safety off, pointing it at the door. "Go away," I yell. "I'm armed and it's loaded!"

"Put it down, then," says Ayla through the front door. I put a hand over my face and scream, but drop the pistol. She opens the door and looks down at me. "Jesus Christ, Haskell. They were worried about you, your colleagues, what with Kay going missing and you running away like that. I thought you might be struggling but not this bad," she says, and stoops down to pick up the gun, setting it on the hall table, before she spots the empty bottles. "Jesus Christ, what's going on? Is this a PTSD thing? Are you having a breakdown? Haskell, answer me!"

"There's nothing wrong. Go away." I pick up the half full and go to take a swig. She leans over and snatches it from my hand.

"Where's your coat? I'm taking you to the hospital," she says, and moves towards the front room. "Is it in here?"

"No!" I howl.

She startles. "What the hell, Haskell?"

"Don't go in the front room," I plead with her.

"What's in there?" she asks, and pushes the door from ajar to open. 

He's still there. In a slick of dried blood, limply across the hearth, the exposed white matter starting to brown at the edges. I'm sure the corpse smells, but I opened the windows and it's cold today.

Ayla rushes to check his pulse. It's long since stopped. "Oh my God. Jacob. Oh my God. Haskell… Did you do this? Oh my God, did you do this?"

I lick my lips and nod. "You have to help me hide the body," I say, getting to my feet. The world seems to sway beneath me. I look at Kay again, everything so stark in the daylight, and run a hand over my face, smoothing out my beard. "Please, Ayla, they'll hang me for this."

"You want me to do what?" she asks, pinching the bridge of her nose. 

"You have to help me, I'm really in trouble here, I'm not asking much," I say, taking a step towards her. "Just… help me hide the body, and then this will all go away." I get down on one knee. "Look, I'm begging you, I'm actually begging you here. Please, we just have to get it into the Thames, I'll sand down the floor, I'll bleach it, I even got the stuff for it." I clasp my hands, getting down on my other knee. "Is this what you want? The mighty Chairman-General at your mercy because you wouldn't fucking help him out of the goodness of your heart? Your cold, withered heart? Have mercy upon me, it's all I'm asking, just for you to not needlessly condemn me-"

She slaps me. Hard. I yelp, and she slaps me again on the other cheek. She takes a breath. "You are asking me to be an accessory to murder. A capital crime."

"It's not… it's not like that," I say, standing up, and almost falling over. "It's only… it's me who'll get hanged here, not you, and it wasn't murder, it was an accident. I swear… I swear to you." I nearly fall over trying to step backwards. "You can save me here! You can save my life! Please."

She grabs me by the arm, crumpling my shirt, and sits me down on the stairs. Picks up my gun from where she left it on the table in the hallway. "You are drunk and you are tired. There is a dead body in the living room. I'm not dealing with this on my own. I'm calling the police."

I grab her by the wrist. "But they're Civil Authority, they'll need a Provost to arrest me, Ayla, isn’t it just easier to help me here? Come on now. Please. What more do you want, help me!"

She levels my gun at my knee. "Don’t you dare. Sit down."

“Ayla-” I groan, reaching out a hand, but I sit down at the bottom of the stairs. She walks past me into the kitchen to use the landline.

I hear her dial, feel my bottom lip tremble like I’m about to burst into tears again, and try to lean past the bannister to see.

“This is Doctor-Captain Ayla Patel. I’m afraid I think I’ve walked in on a murder scene. My ex-husband, I can’t positively identify the victim. I am safe.”

I sit at the bottom of the stairs, pressing my palms against my head, groaning.

“Yes, he’s a Serviceman. Department. General. General Haskell Haveter.”

I just keep groaning, louder and louder, just trying to block it all out, rocking back and forth. “Oh, God, Oh, God, Oh, God,” I groan, still holding my head.

She comes back and stands by the door, my silver-plate gun still in her hand, watching and waiting.

“Why did you do that?” I say to her. “Why did you have to do that? You could have helped me and now they're going to kill me! Because of you! You're the murderer here, not me!"

“It’s the law, Haskell, I’m sorry, but it’s how it has to be.” She gestures to the front room with my pistol. “This? This is as far as I go. Then it’s my duty to the State and the safety of everyone else over any feelings I have for you.”

“Feelings?" I laugh bitterly. "I’m a fucking homosexual and I married you to keep up appearances,” I snap. “Feelings don’t mean shit. There never were any! You’re just stitching me up here like the petty little woman you always were!”

“Yes, Haskell, I know, you told me on our wedding night. Stood there sipping whiskey whilst I bawled my eyes out. I am doing my job.” She stares out into the middle distance, shaking her head, drawing her shawl around her shoulders. “If it was anyone else they would do the same thing.”

“They wouldn’t,” I say, wringing my hands. “They wouldn’t. They would understand and they'd help me."

“Nobody is going to help you get away with murder.”

“It’s not like that!” I scream at her, standing up, slamming my hand on the wall. “It’s not! Anyone else would help me!"

She levels the gun at me and clicks off the safety. I throw up my hands, appalled, sitting back down. “Oh my God, you think I'm some sort of monster?” I breathe, palms up, reaching towards her.

“I think you’re sick,” she says. “I think you’re unwell. That opinion hasn't changed before and after I found the body."

I laugh, baring my teeth, and point at her. “You think I’m an evil monster, that’s the truth. That’s the truth!”

She shushes me with a gentle sweep of her hand, that same motion she used to use to quiet me after a stressful day at work. My heart twinges. “I don’t believe in inherent evil. I think you’re really, really unwell and I know you have the capacity to be violent towards me and considering you have seemingly just killed a man, I am not going to give you the opportunity to further fuck up your life.”

“Ayla, I would never hurt you, please don’t think that. I'm not sick, please, just trust me!" I say.

“Trust, Haveter. It’s fragile and you’ve broken it and it’s very hard to get back-”

“No!” I cry. “I’m sorry, please don’t say that my mother used to say that and I-”

“-you have just killed someone.” She interrupts me again, talking over me. “I’m sorry but I will say what I say. I am not your mother.” I just shrink back into myself, head down, elbows on my knees. I can distantly hear sirens.

“It’s not like that,” I say, weakly, right before there’s banging on the door. I nearly jump out of my skin.

"Department, open up," comes the yelling. I shake my head as Ayla backs up with the pistol still aimed at me and unlocks the door.

The two soldiers, one man and one woman, walk in. They have no patches on their coats. Just the insignia. They're from the Special Division. Jesus Christ. “Doctor Patel, there are two Civils outside,” says the woman. “They’ll take you home.”

Ayla looks at me, shakes her head, then hurries out of the house.

The two female Civils stand a little back from them, out on the garden path, and I watch one of them sling an arm over Ayla's shoulder as she starts to sob and they try to comfort her. They lead her away from me, away from my house. She has no reason to cry, not really. It's not fucking fair. This is her fault, I should be the one getting the sympathy here. And yet I'm left with the two Specials.

There's no such sympathy from them. It's not fair, but there isn't. There was never going to be.

"Stand up." The man takes a step towards me. "Get up."

I stand up, a hand on the bannister to steady myself.

"Do you understand how serious this is?" he says.

I run my hands through my hair with a groan, looking tearfully towards the front room.

"Do you understand how serious this is?" he yells.

I feel my bottom lip tremble again. God no, don’t cry, not in front of the Division, they will eat you alive. "It was an accident," I say weakly.

"That body is not fresh. If it was an accident, why hide it?"

"I didn’t want to get into trouble," I say quietly, swallowing with a lump in my throat.

"Look where that fucking got you," he says.

“I’m sorry but it was an accident and I didn’t want people to think-”

“Shut up!” he bellows. I cower back down and sit down. He keys his radio, turning his back to me. “Control, it’s the team dispatched to Talley street, Division, correct. We’re going to need an ambulance here. Confirm the report called in, there’s been a death. There’s been a murder and we have the suspect here with us now.” He looks at me. I look pitifully back at him. “He won’t be an issue, no need to send backup on that count. Just a Provost officer. Thanks, over.”

He walks back over to me. “Why’d you do it?” he asks.

I panic. “I-I- I didn’t.”

“Oh, don’t be fucking ridiculous,” he roars, slamming a hand on the bannister. I cower back again, pressing myself against the wall. “Of course you did, you were complaining it was an accident earlier! Do the brave and sensible thing and admit to it, won’t you?”

“I just… I just…” I begin and sniff back tears. “It was an accident. It was.” 

He grabs me by the collar and drags me into the front room. “Show me what you did. Show me.” 

I step around the blood, putting my hands close to Kay’s face, shuddering, looking at those glassy eyes. “Just like this,” I say, repeating the motion of bringing Kay’s head down on the hearth, punctuated with a little sob at the end of it. I stand up, and somehow there’s blood on my hands again. I wipe my hands on my trousers as he grabs me again and sits me down on the stairs. "You killed him," he says, stooping down so we're eye to eye. "You murdered him. Say it. Say it to me."

"I didn't," I say weakly, my eyes full of tears, my voice quivering. "I didn’t. It was an accident."

[jaws-and-canines]

Regret

“It was never my grief to feel, but I felt it all the same. As much as I tried to push it away, rationalise it as a just punishment, I couldn’t help but feel a sort of grief for the life they took away from me- and then always, I would have to remind myself of the selfishness of that self-pity. It is not my grief to feel.”

[Image ID: Haskell Haveter, praying the rosary. He is wearing a blue and yellow Escape List uniform, jumper rolled up to his elbow. His hands are interlinked, holding the rosary, and the scars from the accident are visible on his arms and face. He is looking into the middle-distance with an expression of quiet pain. End ID.]

[jaws-and-canines]

Press Conference

A Count The Days story. Content warning for death mentions.

---

“At three forty am this morning, the Antiterror Division was called to the scene of a road traffic accident following a report of shots fired. A Northwall Battalion prisoner transport van was spotted on the edge of the road, having rolled after being hit by a silver pickup truck. The driver and passenger of the vehicle were armed but the augmented soldier accompanying the transport had neutralised the threat prior to the arrival of Antiterror.” 

Nelson licks his lips. They’re starting to bleed. “However, the prisoner assigned to the transport could not be found at the scene or in the immediate area around the scene. We are treating this incident as an escape, and the prisoner is now a fugitive of the law.”

He gestures to the projector behind him. “We have identified the prisoner as Haskell I. Haveter, who was being taken to a custody hearing in Nation House.” 

The screen behind him is simple, a ‘Have You Seen This Man?’ poster, Haveter’s blonde-fringed face front and centre, a slight smug smile, the photo on his Department ID card, the tip line beneath it, and a warning in bolded red not to approach or attempt to detain him, just to call the number. 

“The amount of blood found at the scene, inside the transfer van itself, leads us to believe that Haveter is seriously injured. In addition he was recently flogged, as you may know, those wounds haven't healed yet, and therefore he needs medical attention and he needs it now.” Nelson rubs his eyes. He’s exhausted. So fucking tired. “Hence we’ve brought in Search And Rescue to help with the manhunt. We need to find this man, for both his own safety and yours.”

He looks up and stares into the camera in front of him. “If you see this man, call us. If you are asked to help by this man, call us. If you know the whereabouts of this man, call us. There’s a dedicated number, or if you can’t remember that, triple zero, ask for that number there and they’ll put you through. Do not approach him, or interact with him. Although he is hurt he may still be very dangerous.”

 He hesitates. “If you are this man, I have one thing to say to you. We as professionals have a duty to minimise your suffering. Even if you don’t care about your own life, I can only imagine the amount of pain you are in right now. Emotional and physical. Please let us help you. Hand yourself in.”

Nelson pauses, casting his gaze over the journalists, looking for questions. Fucking journalists. Fucking journalists. Fuck them all. He takes a deep breath.

“Maira Abel. What made this a terrorist incident?”

“Hi, Ms Abel. Thanks for your question. Haveter, due to his previous position as Chairman-General and… history, is a known target for terrorism. He represents to a lot of these groups a figurehead for things they disagree with, most often the measures the Department takes to maintain law and order and stability here in the State. The driver and passenger as well as the truck used to hit the van were all identified by the Antiterrors as belonging to the group Reclaim England, an anti-arms terrorist group. Anything else?”

“No, thank you, Major.”

She sits down.

Nelson picks out another journalist.

“Daniel Cunnigham. Why was the augmented soldier unable to secure the prisoner before he escaped? That’s what this is, right? An escape?”

“We are treating this incident as an escape because a prisoner who is supposed to be in custody is not in custody. That’s right.” He takes a deep breath. And he lies.

He lies. “I can assure you, the augmented soldier attempted to secure the prisoner again but was unable to. They don’t try. They do or they fail.”

He picks another journalist.

“How dangerous is Haveter, exactly? Do we need to be worried?”

“He’s charged with capital murder and a total of three separate formal assault complaints which we’re looking into as part of the case to dishonourably displace him from the Department.” Nelson shrugs. “If we thought he would come in peacefully, we wouldn’t be heading this, Search And Rescue would be. As it stands this is still a Department operation. People should be aware that he is potentially dangerous, but should also be aware that we are on standby to intervene.”

Another question.

Ms Abel again. Nelson tries to recall what paper she’s from and can’t. He has a headache, the dull squeeze at the back of his head making his eyes water whenever he looks up from the papers on the lectern. Cecil’s going to kill him what with the amount of overtime he’s doing to sort this whole thing out.

“What’s with the compassionate spin on things when he’s committed a capital crime-”

Prick.

Nelson finds himself interrupting her.

“The ‘compassionate spin on things’ is exactly as I said earlier. We as professionals have a duty to minimise unnecessary suffering. Ever wonder why we don’t burn people at the stake anymore?” He gestures for her to take a seat. “When we lay out in law a sentence, that is the sentence. Nothing more. If it’s life in prison, it’s life in prison. If it's being flogged,  we make sure the whip is clean. We treat them after, we clean the wounds, we administer pain relief. We don’t just leave people to suffer.”

Nelson points to the screen behind him with a flat palm. “Miss Abel, this man's sentence is his sentence and that is that. That is what the law demands he serve, not a long and drawn out agony where he’ll inevitably bleed out on the side of the road or if he manages to patch himself up, freeze or starve out in a field somewhere which is exactly what I am trying to prevent here!”

He realises he forgot to breathe in the last half of that sentence and pauses to inhale and reorient himself, clasping his hands again. “We owe offenders compassion. Put that in your headline, won’t you?” Some of the journalists put their hands down. Nelson looks across the room. “Is there anything else? No?” He picks up his papers. “Then I think we’re done here.”

He needs a smoke, he realises as he walks out. He slams the door to the conference room. God fucking damn the press, the thinks, feeling down his coat for his cigarettes and lighter. He finds neither. "Fuck me," he mutters. "What a day."

"Sir?" asks Angelo quizzically, stood outside the room. He's a little bruised up but doesn't seem to be bothered. "Is everything okay?"

"I just saved your hide, Morrow," says Nelson quietly, slapping a ten pound note into Angelo's hand. "So do me a favour and run down to the store. Get me a pack and a lighter. And try not to let any prisoners out on the way there just because you fancy them, like you did with Haveter, aye?" He claps Angelo on the shoulder.

"Sir, I don’t follow," says Morrow, scratching his head, a look of total confusion on his face. "I don't understand what you're implying."

"Sure you do." Nelson laughs bitterly. "Shoo, before I change my mind." He watches Angelo leave, an amused smile on his face.

[jaws-and-canines]

AU: The Casino

A Count The Days AU where Angelo is the one to recapture Haskell. This is a scene that at the moment doesn’t really fit anywhere but I’ve always wanted to write it, so here we are. Content warning for being followed, choking and death mentions.

---

I am, as most of the Rangers are, trained to spot if we’re being tailed. And I am. I definitely am. I spotted the same black coat three, four times, I doubled back, spotted it again. It’s pouring outside, I’m soaked, my hair slick to my skull and plastered to my face, my beard damp and my suit wet through. Most people have ducked into the casino as well, shaking off umbrellas, putting down hoods and trying to warm up so it’s a good place to hide and try to mark out whoever’s following me.

In through the revolving doors comes the man in the black leather coat again. Dog tags dangling down his front, hip holster, black hoodie with the hood up, fingerless gloves, a metal dual-filter mask loosely around his neck. I pause, frown, and face one of the slot machines by the door, looking at his reflection in the glossy front of it. He takes down his hood and with a clench of my chest, I recognise the face. Angelo. Damp grey hair, chewing bubblegum. He blows a bubble and bursts it, still looking around. I try to walk down the center of the atrium, in the path either side of the blackjack tables each on a raised dias. It’s a good place to lose him because I’m not very tall and it’ll be hard to see me over the tables.

He doesn’t seem to lose me. I speed up, take a left between two tables and push my way into the crowd milling by the bar. The bar is one of the new ones, staffed by a shiny red robot that someone’s put a bow tie on, and I duck behind one of the serving robots and glance behind me. There he is, standing there, arms at his sides, ready to pounce. Just walking towards me.

“Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck,” I breathe, and turn out of the bar and into a row of brightly flashing and loudly chiming slot machines again. I glance behind me as I speed up, almost running now, in time to see Angelo clear the bar and stride towards me. Even if I ran at this point, he could run faster. His face abruptly changes to cheerful and welcoming. “Hey man, I haven’t seen you in a while!” he says with a smile, holding his arms wide. 

“I don’t know you,” I say hurriedly, and keep trying to walk. It takes a few strides for him to catch up with me and he draws me into a hug. “Funny, huh? I haven’t seen you in so long, I’m so glad to see you.” 

I find myself pressed against him, held in his iron grip. “Angelo, let me go, Angelo, I’ll scream,” I hiss. “I’ll scream.”

“And if you do that I’ll throw you down on your stomach and arrest you like that. Trust me, this is nicer.” He slips his hand off my shoulder. “Please don’t fight me, just relax,” he says.

“Angelo, what are you doing? Stop!” I hiss. He slips his free hand to my neck and holds me tight to his chest so my head is buried in his coat with the other. "I don't have a sedative with me," he says. "This is going to be unpleasant but I promise I won't kill you."

Before I can question him on that, he presses his fingers against either side of my throat. I gasp, feeling the heat rise straight to my face, feeling my head start to pound and my knees go weak. I collapse onto him and he holds me up, still hugging me tightly. I smack my fists weakly against his back as the pounding in my head just gets worse and worse and worse. My weak struggles have no effect. He just holds me in a hug with one hand and carries on choking me with the other and he's far too strong for me to break free. Especially not now. "I'm sorry," he says quietly, rubbing me between my shoulders as I feel myself start to slip out of the world. "I'm really sorry." I tremble a little, my vision going dark, my ears ringing, and then I'm gone.

I wake up with a thumping headache, slumped on Angelo's shoulder. I groan, and blink away the dark spots in my eyes. I try to sit up and find that my hands are cuffed to the railings I'm leaning against. Angelo just rubs my shoulder as I try to pull free, growling. I glance behind me and realise we're up on a gantry above the casino floor and it's milling with Department soldiers up here. Angelo points to a sniper across the way from us. "See," he says. "They wanted to just shoot you from up here. Hope you'd survive, no big loss if you didn't. But I said no. I'm not going to let them hurt you."

I look at him and shake my head. "What the fuck do you think will happen to me now?" I lick my lips. "What do you think, Angelo? They'll hang me, that's what. Either that or I'll spend the rest of my miserable days in chains. Because of you."

He looks at me blankly. Like he doesn't understand my anguish. He doesn’t, that's the truth. He can't. "I tried to help," he says, pained. "I saved your life, was that not the right thing?"

I say nothing.

[jaws-and-canines]

[Image ID: Haskell Haveter, in the style of a courtroom sketch, pale, blonde-haired with a scar from his forehead to his cheek on the right side of his face. He is dressed in a grey T-shirt against a pale brown background. His facial expression is that of quiet worry The drawing appears very washed out, as if it is done by watercolours. End ID.] - View the image at full size for better quality.

Due to restrictions on court reporting in the State, where a hearing is not ceremonially public, courtroom artists are used. Under the principles of Open Justice, anyone is welcome to sit in on a criminal case, unless it is pertinent to national security. Courtroom artists attend as visitors, and are not afforded any extra priveliges because of their roles. They must be extremely skilled in memorising scenes and appearances, as whilst they can take notes, drawing whilst the court is in session is forbidden. There are very few courtroom artists in the State, and they are consulted during high-profile cases.

(Fun fact: in modern-day England, across the entire country there are only three current courtroom artists, and they are all women.)

[jaws-and-canines]

Shortbread

A Count The Days story. Content warning for dehumanisation and withholding food.

---

Iverson sees me slumped over agsinst the chains and laughs like the wind brushing through reeds. "You must be in quite a bit of pain," he says, and kneels down in front of me, smoothing his hand over my strained shoulders, brushing his fingertips over my trembling muscles. "You must be so, so lonely as well." He slips his hand down to my neck, brushes away my shirt and starts rubbing at the aching muscles under my collarbone. I gasp as the cramp in my chest shifts under his fingertips.

"Is that good?" he asks, running his hands up my arms, again smoothing out the aches and burning cramp to quiet pained whimpers from me, followed by momentary relief. "Yes, yes," I breathe. He stops. Then the pins and needles come rushing back in. I groan.

"Either you can come out of here and have a hot drink and some painkillers and something to eat, or, you can stay in here until your shoulders slip out of their sockets." He smiles, ruffling my hair. "All you have to do is kneel by my feet when you have it. It's not that hard, is it? It's easier than this."

Last time he asked I said no. He gave me my medication, and left me here, chained with my hands above my head, scars screaming pain down my back. I don’t want to do that again. Stupid, stupid way to waste my energy.I nod tearfully. "I'll do it, I'll do it."

He undoes my hands and I crumple limply, holding my burning shoulders with a groan. Iverson puts a hand under my arm and helps me to shaking feet. I clench my jaw as he helps me out into the corridor, face covered with a sickly sheen of sweat. I blink at the sunlight streaming through the windows as Iverson takes me into his office and pats the floor beside his desk. "Just there," he says, still holding onto my arm to help me down. I kneel. My knees crack. "There," he says, and from the desk takes a glass of water and two white tablets. I hold up my shaking hands to take the glass and he just shakes his head. "You’ll drop it. Open your mouth," he says, and I do. He puts the painkillers on my tongue and holds the glass to my mouth, letting me drink and swallow the tablets.

He sits down at his desk and gets out his work. A ream of paperwork, which he fills in with biro. I close my eyes, resting my shaking hands on my knees, feeling the painkillers dull the pain like washing chalk from stone. I almost fall asleep but Iverson taps me on the shoulder, offering me a piece of shortbread from the plate on his desk. I reach up my trembling hands for it and he tuts. "From my hand," he says simply.

"I don't want to do that," I say to him, hoping he'll pity me.

He doesn't. He puts it back on the plate. "Then you don't get it." He goes back to his work. I curse myself back and forth, angry at both me and him, ruminating over how the shortbread could make me feel more human. I'm cold and shaking and hungry and I didn’t have to do what I did. It doesn't fucking matter if I eat from his hand if I just eat.

Eventually he offers it to me again. This time, I take it. It's good, sweet and buttery and it's worth making a fool of myself for. Some things are, I think, as he ruffles my hair in approval.

[jaws-and-canines]

Weekend Leave

A Count The Days story. Thought I’d write a bit of every day life for Haskell. Enjoy the hilariously dysfunctional but still slightly wholesome relationship between him and Ayla. Content warning for not actually eye gore, just discussion of a missing eye, vomiting, verbal abuse and a shitty relationship.

---

I am breaking so many promises tonight. I feel like I ought to be ashamed, but I’m not. I take a sip from the plastic cup of beer I’ve left on the bar counter and turn back to the makeshift fighting ring.

“Rematch,” says the guy who I just beat to the floor, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “I want a rematch.” I draw my hands up into a fighting stance. “Come at me then,” I say, spitting blood onto the floor.

No fighting and no drinking, Ayla said to me. But when it’s a group of soldiers and beer and a night off-duty in London, both of those things are bound to happen. It’s not my fault.

The crowd that’s forming the edges of the ring cheers raucously, the yells echoing in my ears as my opponent squares up. He throws a punch. I dodge under his arm, elbow him in the back with a bang. He goes to turn, so I grab his shoulder and throw him over my feet. He hits the wooden floor.

The count starts. One. Two, three, four. Five. Six- and he pulls himself to his feet. He swings another punch. This time he lands it, smacking me in the right eye. Good job it’s not fucking real, but my head snaps back and I feel my teeth snap into each other. My jaw aches. He goes to follow up with a strike to my nose, but I strike first, a jumping knee into his face, hands on the back of his neck, driving his head into my knee as I jump.

He grunts. But he goes down like a sack of bricks. And the count starts again. This time it finishes.

The crowd cheers. Someone claps me on the back. “Dude, that was awesome!” he says. 

I wipe my nose on the back of my hand and look at the blood on my knuckles. It’s not the victory I like. It’s the fight itself. I spend a little more time drinking and make my way through another cup and a half of cheap beer.

Another hand on my shoulder. “One more,” says the guy, covered in dirt from the floor.

“Are you sure?” I say. Oh, dear. I’m going to regret the beer now. But I’m not one to turn down a fight.

“Sure,” he says, and we’re shoved back into the centre of the ring. The referee, a man in a red shirt who I recognise as a DSA contractor, counts us in.

I see the first punch coming towards me. Whether it’s the alcohol or the tiredness or the exertion, I don’t manage to block it in time. He hits me in the eye again and I go spiralling back and slam into the floor. The count slips by with me lying on my back, staring at the crystals on the pub’s chandelier.

Someone buys me another drink as a consolation prize. I don’t remember if I drink it or not.

--- I'm woken by the bed shifting as Ayla gets up. I groan, clutching my head, and then nausea hits like a truck. "Oh God," I whimper, retch so hard I feel my ribs ache and throw off the bedsheets to run to the toilet. I start to cry as I'm slumped on the floor of the bathroom, leaning on the toilet. Ayla steps over me to brush her teeth. "Don't be ridiculous," she says, as I am sick again with a groan, spitting bitter bile into the toilet. "You're just hungover. It's not the end of the world." "I don't remember what happened," I say hoarsely. "I'm sure you don't," she says and starts brushing out her hair. "I had to go and get you. Some of the officers from the Chairman-General’s Corps scraped you off the floor after getting punched in the face and having quite a lot to drink." “I… I was off-duty, it’s fine,” I say without much conviction, and put my head in my hands. My thumb brushes against my eye. It turns over in my head that my prosthetic is missing. "Ayla, where's my eye?" I groan, rubbing my head. "Where's the prosthetic, Ayla?" I say, raising my voice.

"You've clearly been in a fight, you've got a black eye so you'll just have to wear an eye patch." She pins her hair up into a tight bun.

“You’re just punishing me, aren’t you! I’m allowed to fight! I don't want to wear an eyepatch!" I yell, smacking my hand on the floor. "Where is it, Ayla?"

"You have a black eye, Haskell, your eyelid is swollen so I took it out."

"You don't just do that!" I snap, glaring up at her. "You don't just get to take my eye out, it's not yours! Where is it?"

"Ask me when you're calm." "I'll kill you, Ayla!" "And if you did, they'd have you in front of a firing squad for it. Calm down. Then I'll help you." I lurch to my feet and start knocking things off the sink, searching for it. "Ayla please, I feel like shit."

She starts putting on her makeup.

"Ayla, I'm sorry."

Nothing.

"I'm sorry!" I snap. "But you don't just get to take my eye out, it's not okay!" "You don't get to threaten to kill me," she says, putting on her lipstick. "I'm sorry, I really didn't mean it," I say, standing up, leaning on the wall next to her. "Whether you mean it or not, you don't ever say it. You're still drunk." "I'm not-" "No, you are. It's in the bathroom on a sterile pad. It was right in front of you. Don't put it in, you'll make the swelling worse, just take some painkillers, have a glass of water and go back to bed."

"I'm sorry."

"We talked about you not drinking. You're supposed to be sober." "I'm not an alcoholic-" "No, Haskell, you're a violent drunk. I love you despite all this, I really do, but I'm not dealing with that.” “Why do you insist on this couple make-believe?” I mumble. “Stop changing the subject.” I groan. ”Sorry.” “What if something happens at work… an accident or something and they invoke post-incident drug and alcohol testing?" "PIDAT? I'd be…" "You'd be in serious trouble if a PIDAT sample came back showing you were drunk, just the same as I would be, wouldn't you?"

I swallow. "Yeah," I say hoarsely. "So go and have a drink of water, take some painkillers and go back to bed," she says, straightening up the pins on her shirt.

"Alright, Captain," I say with a tired chuckle, saluting her weakly with an open hand, three fingers to my head. She tuts and brushes my hand from my head. "Poor form. I would expect better from a General," she says, a smile crossing her face as she sorts out her collar. "Go to bed." "Maybe we just do it properly in the Department," I say. "Maybe we're too busy saving lives in the SMT to worry about saluting each other. We're healthcare professionals,  after all," she says, draping a hand over my shoulders and rubbing between my shoulder blades. "Go back to bed, come on."

She leads me over to the bed and sits me down. "I'll get you the water and the painkillers." I look at her. "But-" "No," she says, filling up a glass from the sink and handing me a blister packet of painkillers. "You're going to sleep it off."

I take the painkillers and drink the rest of the water. Ayla puts the pillows underneath me and tucks the blankets up. "There," she says. "You don't have to… Ayla, I can do that," I mumble. "Shh," she says, and kisses me on the jaw. "I'll be back before you leave for work but if you're still like this you're calling in sick." "But-”

"No, Haskell," she says. "Doctor's orders."

I'm asleep again before she's even out of the door. --- I’m woken up again by Ayla going to bed. I have a thumping headache. I'm tempted to say I deserve it, but it hurts like hell.

And I don't really think I deserve that.

She sits down on the edge of the mattress to take off her shirt. I tease the pins out of her long black hair and let it tumble down over her shoulders. “Good morning,” I say to her, rubbing my unbruised eye, holding my head.

“If you get that drunk again I’m referring you to a sober scheme,” she says, taking off her makeup with a wipe from her bedside table.

“I’m sorry about last night.” I pick up the painkillers from the floor where I left them. “Some of the guys wanted to go out… so it turned into fighting and I just… didn’t know when to stop.”

“I’m not kidding about the sober scheme, Haskell.” She sets her alarm. The beep makes my head throb.

“Alright,” I say, checking the time. “I’ve got to go.” I kiss her on the neck as I roll over to get up. “Sleep well.”

“Mhm.”

I grab my suit from where it’s hanging on the doorframe and get changed.

In a box in the medicine cabinet, I keep all my supplies for my eye. I pick a black eyepatch out and the bottle of sterile saline which I drip onto a cotton pad and wipe down my eyelid and the scarring at the bottom of my eye with a wince.

“You better not be putting that eye back in,” mumbles Ayla.

“I’m not, I promise,” I say, tilting my head back to clean the corner of my eye, where the scarring turns into a gouge at the very lip of the bottom of the eyelid. “Ah,” I say as I do so. It’s an expression of discomfort but there’s no pain behind it.

I turn the bedside light out as I leave, doing up my cufflinks, and go out into the kitchen. I get myself a glass of water, take some painkillers, drop the rest of the packet into my bag and lock up behind me, shrugging on my coat. I get on the bus holding my head.

A child and his mother, her on the phone, his eyes pinned on me. He stares at me as I lean against the window of the bus, one hand on my satchel strap, trying to rub the tension out of my face with my free hand. The child starts to cry, wailing for his mother. She picks him up and cradles him over her back to soothe him.

I fucking hate children.

[jaws-and-canines]

Do Your Worst

A Count The Days story/excerpt from All With A Heartbeat Is Not Human. Content warning for VERY strong themes of torture, eye gore and choking. I really really mean it.

---

Mercy holds up his cards. 

"You have an awful poker face," I say to him.

"Good job we're playing blackjack," he says. "Hold."

Thomas turns his hand over. Twenty-one.

"God damn it," says Mercy. "I had 19."

"Captain Haveter," says one of the bluecoats, appearing behind us. "There is someone here for you."

"Door's open, isn’t it?" I say.

"Outside, please."

"Deal me out this round," I say to Thomas, and hand him my cards as I stand up.

Out in the corridor, there are two men, one short and blonde with a starchy shirt and cold sores at the corner of his mouth from the winter chill, the other tall and hawkish who leans languidly on the wall. The bluecoat puts a hand on my shoulder. "Is this the one, sir?"

"That's the one," he says, and turns to me. "I am Atticus Raines, this is my assistant, Desmond."

"Is this a social visit?" I ask, standing with my hands clasped behind my back.

"Unfortunately not," he says, and gestures down the corridor. "This way, please."

"Sure," I say, and follow Desmond down the corridor.

The building was a school at one point, the displays still peeling on the walls, posters still up about hand hygiene and counter terrorism action. I look at the frosted windows as I pass- every window in the building has been frosted, presumably when the building stopped being a school and started being the camp, so there's no way of knowing where we are in the Republic. Even if you managed to escape you'd be lost.

I don't speak Esperanto either, which is the Euro language these days- though I know this particular camp is under a majority German unit. Even if I don't speak it, I know that the hurried conversations they have are in German to keep their contents from us.

They take me into a reasonably sized breeze-block room with a single forlorn metal chair in the middle of it and a few trays of equipment on a scuffed desk by the door. The bright white morning light streams in through a high window, and I raise an eyebrow, turning to Atticus. "What is this?" I ask, but I figure I already know the answer to that.

"Sit down, Captain," he says.

"Please?" I say mockingly, again raising an eyebrow. 

"Sit down… please," says Atticus, resting his hand on his holster that punctuates even if he's asking nicely, he isn't really.

I sit down. Desmond takes my hands and handcuffs me to the chair. I twist around to watch as he does so. "Going to torture me, then, are we?" I say. "That's a quaint way to land yourself an appointment with a War Crimes Commission when this war is over, isn’t it?"

Desmond looks at Atticus for approval. Atticus beckons him over again, talking to me as he does. "You and I both know we’re not going to see this war end for a very long time."

"Stalemates are stalemates," I say, shrugging. "War doesn't end overnight."

"It doesn't have to be that way. You want to see this war end? You can help me. Who is your Commanding Officer and where is he?"

"I'm a fucking soldier,  I'm not a peace protestor. You stupid man," I say. "You stupid, stupid man."

"Mm," he says, and backhands me across the face. I exclaim, more shock than pain, and taste blood. I lick my lips and find he's split the chapped skin of my bottom lip which is bleeding into my mouth.

"Who is your Commanding Officer and where is he?"

I just laugh.

This goes back and forth a few times, backhand, laugh, backhand, laugh, until his expression sours.

"Tell me who and where your CO is," he snarls.

I laugh again, chuckling to myself. He's so frustrated the veins in his forehead are standing out. He looks fit to have an aneurysm.

Good. I enjoy the frustration on his face.

He kicks me in the stomach. The chair smacks back onto the ground. I'm winded, gasping for breath, choking on nothing in particular as he drives his boots into my stomach, once, twice, three times without a word.

I take a shuddering gasp of air as he eases off, curling my shoulders inwards as best as I can to protect my aching stomach. Desmond picks the chair back up with a grunt of exertion, and I'm back to facing Atticus, dazed. A bloodied smile breaking across my face all the same.

"Who and where?" he asks, giving my cheek a little squeeze.

I savour the taste of blood on my tongue, then lick my lips. 

There's a pause. He waits, expectant, head tilted to one side, waiting for me to tell him what he wants to hear.

No fucking chance.

"Captain Haveter, Haskell, 4451261," I say, baring my bloody teeth at him.

He punches me in the face. I hear my nose crunch and snap and I jerk forwards  with a gasp as two bright red streams of blood start to trickle down my face.

He steps back, cradling his hand. I let my head roll back. "You can't keep that up," I say with blood dripping out of my nose as I breathe. 

"Want to bet on that, Captain?"

"Sure." My voice is nasally and I am breathless, my nose blocked with blood and swelling. I'll have to set it, I realise, but a little asymmetry to someone's face is rather attractive. No loss. "You'll break a finger before you break me. You hit me with the wrong part of your hand. Like the stupid knuckle-dragger that you are-"

He punches me again, grinding the bones in my already broken nose together. I take the hit with a pained grunt, slumping to one side, sniffing blood and snot back as I straighten back up.

"Who and where?" 

I chuckle again, frail and tired but still there. A bubble of my blood bursts on my lips and a fresh trickle of blood slips from my nose as I do. "Haveter, Haskell, 445-"

This time, he knocks me out.

I come to with ringing in my ears, still slumped in the chair. Atticus is standing over me, nursing a split knuckle. I smile, keeping my head down.

"Are you a sniper?" he asks, and there's danger in his voice. "Are you?"

"I'm a better sniper than you are interrogator," I say, licking the blood off my chin. He lifts my head up with two fingers under my chin.

"You killed a lot of my friends," he says.

"Sorry, Atticus, I guess I'm just a good shot-" I begin with a smile. I'm cut off with  a choking wheeze when he takes me by the throat and squeezes. I tense up, clenching my fists and jaw as I fight the urge to gasp for air, my shoulders shuddering.

"They died because of you, you bastard," he snarls.

I tilt my head back and gasp. "I'm a good shot, don't worry," I manage to choke out, before Atticus tightens his grip again. I grit my teeth and lean in, feeling my consciousness start to slip as I twitch and tremble, chest heaving. I keep my gaze fixed on Atticus, and a few moments before I slip away, he lets go.

I splutter and gasp, and then I laugh breathlessly. "Touch a nerve, did I?" I say, staring at the ceiling as I take a few deep breaths.

Atticus grabs me again and I think for a moment he's going to choke me again, but he just turns my face to one side. He picks up a scalpel, the blade catching the morning light.

He points it at Desmond, then abruptly draws it along the corner of my eye. I hiss through my teeth, slamming my head back with an outraged shriek.

"There, there," he says, rubbing my cheek with his free hand. "Did that hit a nerve?"

"Not particularly," I laugh. "I hit more of your friends than you hit my nerves."

He does it again, nicking the skin right at the edge of my eye, holding my head down. I thrash once more, pinned down by his weight. 

He is precise in his cuts, and almost gentle with the blade. He makes three or four hairline-thin cuts around my eye, and each time, I hiss through my teeth, still trying to smile.

"Do your worst," I snarl, blinking away the blood that's dripping down my eyelashes. "I am what I am and I do what I do for the good of the State and I am not going to compromise that for a moment of relief from your pathetic attempt at torture. Do your fucking worst."

"Oh, I will," he says quietly, giving my cheek another little squeeze.

He goes in again, a hand on my brow, holding me down. 

I do the only thing I can.

I spit at him.

With an indignant tut, Atticus smacks me across the face. I taste blood and spit at him again. My blood stains his shirt.

"Animal," he says, and grabs me by the jaw. "Desmond, Desmond, help me here. Help me," he says, crushing my jaw in his grip. I growl at him.

He holds out a hand. Desmond takes an iodine-soaked pad from a dish on the trolley, and Atticus drips it onto my cheek. "Desmond, hold him," he says, and Desmond grabs me from behind, hands under my jaw. I feel like he's about to pull my head off. Atticus lets me go and starts wiping my cheek down, the tiny little cuts on my eye smarting as he does so. I lick my lips.

"Get the fuck on with it," I say.

"Close your eye," he snaps. He wipes my eyelid as it flutters shut. Iodine drips into it and I feel it burn.

My eye is stinging and streaming from the iodine. Desmond holds me down as I try to strain away, laughing maniacally at the idiocy of it all.

Atticus changes the blade on the scalpel, pressing his finger to the blade. "Here, like I showed you," he says, and hands it to Desmond.

The two swap places and Desmond leans in, putting blade to skin. He tries to work it under my eyelid, gently back and forth.

And then he slips, quite unceremoniously, snapping the blade off, deep into my cheek, a score from above my eye in the eyebrow, across my eyelid, to the peak of the bone below with a spear of white pain emanating from the shard of metal in my face. I scream, clutching the arms of the chair so hard I feel my knuckles crack. 

Atticus scolds Desmond in angry German, and leans over to work the metal out of my cheek. I scream again through gritted teeth as Atticus tugs the blade down my face and pulls it free, leaving a chunk torn from my face, a gash that runs almost down to my mouth, dripping blood.

Once I catch my breath, I turn to Atticus. "Looks like he still needs a few more lessons," I mumble. "Not an easy target to miss."

"Shut up before I knock your teeth out," says Atticus, and picks up a new blade, snapping at Desmond in German again.

He puts it in the corner of my eye, which starts to water. I do my best not to look at the point of the scalpel as he starts to cut.

In truth it doesn't really hurt. I think that part of my brain has shut down. Blood starts to pour down my cheek as he digs deeper, and the tears turn into a wave of blood and water. 

I want to pass out, die, anything, just anything but feel the scalpel cutting through delicate sinew, a feeling so inherently wrong I want to throw up. Something gives way deep in my skull. Atticus puts his finger into my eye socket and gives the eye a little pull. The last thread of muscle gives way, and then my vision blurs to an incomprehensible mess. “Desmond, pass me the scissors.”

And with one little snip, he cuts the optic nerve, and pulls it out of my skull with a feeling of thread unspooling. I try to bite back an anguished moan and fail. 

Fine. An expression of pain but that's all they'll fucking get.

Atticus snaps at Desmond in German once more, and the hapless assistant steps in, packs a wad of surgical dressing into my eye socket. He holds it there, two fingers against the bone.

“I’m going to throw up,” I say weakly. Desmomd takes his fingers out of my skull. I do, bending double, spitting bile at Atticus' feet with a heaving retch. I sniff and sit up.

I… hope those aren't new shoes." I laugh, a smile breaking across my throbbing face. My head is consumed with the sort of pain that feels deep purple, and my God, it itches beyond belief in the back of my eye socket.

Atticus turns around, my eye in his hand. “You’re lucky I'm not allowed to blind you.  But I can do this."

He smiles. And then he drops my eye on the floor, and for a moment I am staring into my own gaze, right before he brings his heel down on it, and crushes it into the concrete.

I frown, briefly, pulling the corners of my mouth down with a twitch. Then I straighten out my expression, and tilting my head so I can see him on my left side, I look at Atticus. I have the halo of a migraine from the horrific pain in my head but I'm not going to let that show.

He looks at me, and tuts. "We're done here," he says, and Desmond packs my eye socket with gauze and smooths a plaster over what little remains of unruined skin to hold it in place. 

I am unchained and I stand, dizzied, rubbing my forehead. My balance is sickeningly off. 

The bluecoat takes me back to the hall where the others are. He keeps a hand on my shoulder as if he is worried I will trip and fall.

I sit back down at the table. Mercy looks at me, horrified, but hides his expression in his hand of cards.

"Deal me back in, Thomas," I say, and clasp my trembling hands on the table.

Nobody mentions the broken nose. And nobody mentions the eye, or lack thereof, even as the blood soaks through the gauze and plaster and dribbles down my cheek.

I win the next few rounds.

[jaws-and-canines]

The Days Between

A Count The Days story. Content warning for passive suicidality, death mentions and a general shitty state of mind.

---

Haskell doesn’t know how many days it's been. He knows how many days he has spent in the courtroom- two so far - but it’s the time in between he loses count of. His is a big case. It’s a potentially capital case and there’s a lot to be heard. So there’s days he spends in the courtrooms, and there’s days like this that he spends in the holding cells.

And those are the ones he has lost count of.

Occasionally the holding wing gets so crowded they have to put two or three other people in with the rest of the people in isolation. They don't put people in with him, ever. Just in case his position wasn't clear enough, they are determined to treat him with by-the-book cruelty. The days slip by with fluorescent lights and stumbling around the yard in fetters for the regulation hour and cold meals on plastic trays.

You could convince him that he was re-living the same days over and over and over, if not for the first cut on his arm from the ceremonial swords is starting to scab over and from the fact that his hair is starting to become so greasy and dry it’s not sitting right on his head. 

He tries to wash it in the sink. There’s no plug in the sink, of course there isn’t. He ends up stooping over the metal basin and awkwardly running soapy fingers through his hair, then a wet comb. When he looks in the mirror to straighten it all out, comb it parallel to his jaw, he notices how tired he looks. The dark circles under his left eye, and the increasingly reddened and angry scar tissue around his right eye betray that he hasn’t been sleeping. He is worried that he might just lose it. Break, in the courtroom, sob his eyes out in front of everyone if he doesn’t get a decent bit of sleep soon.

He tells himself that he has been sleeping. He has. Just not well. 

He blames the others for his lack of sleep, although he knows that’s not really true. There are other people here, in the holding cells. They sniff and cry and pace at night over five or ten years in prison. When he’s not stumbling from nightmare to nightmare in fits and starts, that makes him angry. How can they be so distraught over so little?

What makes him more angry are the visitors. They come sometimes, and they take the prisoners out in groups of two or three to come and talk to their families or friends. Nobody has come to see Haskell. Nobody has even sent him a letter. That makes him fucking furious. It all stacks up and he finds himself having moments where he just lashes out.

Most of the time it’s just kicking the walls or throwing a boot across the room or chucking a plastic plate to the floor. But sometimes it’s more sustained anger.

In one particularly impulsive fit of anger, he punches the walls. Tries to smash the mirror, but it's brushed steel. Manages to rip up his bed sheets and his beige prisoner’s uniform and the Bible they gave him. The table is bolted down so he knocks his chair so hard against the bars at the front of the cell it sets off an alarm. He ends up being dragged to a darkened room with padded walls and it’s only after a few hours does he calm down enough to realise he’s broken two fingers.

The violence gets him nowhere, of course, it doesn't even make him feel better. They bandage his broken fingers up for a few days until the swelling goes down. He’s given a paper gown instead of actual clothes until he manages to go a few days without another outburst. That takes longer than he can really justify to himself as acceptable.

By the time he’s given a date for the third day of his trial, and the fourth, he is almost glad. It's the verdict, then back to Northwall, then this all over again for the second hearing. So be it.

If it’s death, he reasons, it’s death.

He’s not sure he has it in him to sit through an appeal on top of everything else. He doesn’t really think he'd mind them shooting him at this point. In fact, in his current state of abject misery, he fantasises about it, being covered in his own blood as they put the pistol to his head for the coup de grace. But he would never admit to longing for it.

He's not really sure he has the energy to do much anymore. He just lies in bed, staring at the ceiling. Eats when he's hungry and that isn't often. Cries soundlessly when he's sad, lies on his own hands when he's angry so he doesn't rip his hair out. A miserable existence, he thinks. A miserable existence for a miserable man.