AN: Here's what's up:
-"Strikes" are black marks that get burned into someones wrist after they do something to defy the "natural order" of this scary-ass society. You can be any age, it can happen at any time
-Children whose mothers die in childbirth are AUTOMATICALLY striked.
-3 strikes and you're sent to be re-educated (more on this later)
-The poem that will appear in the fic is by me. It's called rusted cogs and I based this fic off it
-Enjoy!
Fight, damn it
Fight them and their ways
Three strikes and you're out. Three black marks next to your name and social security. Three black marks burned into your wrist. Ask too many question, stand out to much, have too much sex, fight the system. There's only so many times you can piss them off before the cog has to be removed. No one wants a strike out; not your parents, not your friends, least of all the government. At first they would just kill you, remove you from the machine all together. Cheaper, more efficient. But, you see, those pesky rebels, they stop being afraid of death. Hell, some of them welcomed it. So they needed something new to hold over their heads, something that would scare them.
Re-Education. That's what they called. And before you say anything, I know, I do; them. The suits, Big Brother, the faceless contollers of the Universe. Call it a cliche all you want, but the truth is still the truth. Post-apocalyptic pollitics is no joke. Your anonymus leaders are your protectors, your guardians against the dangers. Terrorists, arsonists, protestors, teenagers. Fit into your social mould or be considered a threat. And threats get re-educated.
Let's meet those little mishaped cookies, shall we?
Strike One
8 year old Castiel asks too many questions.
"Why is the sky blue?"
"It just is, Castiel."
"But why, Mama?"
"Stop asking. It is the way it is." Castiel scrunches up his pale face
frustrated. His parents rush to get ready for work.
"Help your grandmother clean the house, we'll be back at six."
"Bye, Daddy!" His father nods curtly and they both are gone. He looks across the table to his grandmother, who grins around her dentures at her only grandson.
"Light waves." He narrows his eyes.
"Light what?" Her grin grows wider. She is 96, she had been young when the war started.
"Light waves. Molecules in the sky scatter blue light waves from the sun. That's why the sky's blue."
"Grandma, what are you talking about? You're not making any sense."
"I'm making a hell of a lot of sense, boy. I may be old but my brain ain't mush yet." She winks at him. "There's a whole lot of knowledge in this brain of mine that I keep to myself. You best keep it to yourself too."
"That concludes today's lesson, children. Return home now, I will see you all tomorrow."
"Goodbye, miss," the class of eight year olds choruses. They leave the room in single file, Castiel stays on.
"What is is, Novak?"
"Miss? Why don't we lear about molecules?" Miss Summers freezes.
"What did you just say, Novak?"
"Why don't we learn about molecules? And light waves?" She grabs his thin wrist.
"Come with me to the Principal's office, Novak. You're about to be taught a very important lesson."
His mother is crying upstairs. He can hear his father trying to comfort her. Grandma just stares at him knowingly as he rubs the painful fresh burn on his wrist.
"What did I tell you about keeping your mouth shut, boy? What did I tell you?" She shakes her head sadly. "You've got to learn to keep to yourself. You don't want to be re-educated, do you?"
9 year old Dean should have just shut up
Daddy has been alcohol off the clock every since Mommy died. Poor little Sammy never even knew her, but the little black mark on his tiny wrists claimed it was his fault. Not that Daddy blamed the baby, oh no. He's better than that. That isn't to say he doesn't lash out.
It starts when he is 5, a year after Sammy was born.
"Hold still."
"Daddy, it, no it hurts, please don't..."
"Shut the fuck up," he hisses his breath warm with cheap whiskey. "Just- just shut up."
"It hurts, he whimpers.
"I don't care, just stay quiet. It'll be over soon."
4 years later he tells Missouri, the nice lady next door who would look after them when their father was working, where the bruises came from. She gets very quiet and then she calls the police.
When it comes down to it, it is his word against an adults. Sammy doesn't know, can't back him up. They believe John, and Dean goes home with a black mark to match his brother's. At least the touching stops after that.
10 year old Ruby finds her parents illegal stash of whiskey and drinks it
She's too young to know any better, but the burning feels good in the back of her throat. A neighbour hears her as she crashed to the floor and vomits up her breakfast. The parents claim they had no whiskey in the house, only three regulation bottle of red wine. The authorities decide to go the easy route and little Ruby cries herself to sleep scratching at her wrist.
10 year old Meg buys a pack of cigarettes
She buys them off a teenage boy who has a faded tattoo, like it's mid removal-treatment, and two strikes. Her house is so cold at night, the cigarettes warm up her soul once she stops coughing. Her father catches the smell the next day and the rest is government recorded history
8 year old Lucifer runs away
His mother lost the new baby in childbirth and they say it's because Lucifer is a bad child. They call him a demon, they say he is cursed, a blight on their family. So, on a cloudy Sunday night he packs a bag and runs. He lives in with some vagrants one town over for two whole days before they find him and drag him home, the paper work for his strike already filled out.
11 year old Victor keeps bad company
He just can't make friends with anyone from school. Then he meets Nancy. She's been his best friend since he was 8 years old. Shame about her being a prostitute
"Hey Vic!" Nancy drawls as he walks into the abandoned carpark.
"Hey, Nancy." Victor thinks Nancy is beautiful, even if she wears too much makeup and too little clothing. "How is work?" She laughs.
"Work is work, turning tricks ain't all it's cracked up to be. I'd take my John's over office slavery any day though." She smiles lazily at her young friend. Victor knows she has probably been bumming heroin all morning, but he still likes to see her smile. "C'mon, boy. Can't keep the family waiting.
Their family consists of Amelia and Cassie (and Nancy of course), all prostitutes; Travis the fencer, Mark the schizoid, Risa the gang lord's daughter, Frank the bipolar conspiracy theorist and Ava who's 10 and still hiding from her parents after running away the previous year. All under 30, all but Victor and Ava have strikes. Nancy, Frank and Richie only have one left.
"Victor, mein comrade! How suburbia treating you?"
"Same as always, Frank. I'd live here if I could." He smiles at the youngest of the group. "Hey Ava." She grins at him through gapped teeth. Risa held up a crack pipe.
"Any takers? This is good shit." Mark shake his head frantically.
"That stuff rots your brain." Risa laughs.
"Like those pills Richie brings you don't."
"Hey," protests Richie, "Ain't nothing wrong with them pills. Stole 'em myself, the best Marky's money could buy."
"Speaking of," Cassie clears her throat, "Doctor Richie owes me 30." Richie swears softly, but is smiling as he roots through his pockets.
"Can't get one past you, can I, Cassie?" She takes the money and blows him a kiss.
"You like me too much." Victor settles into his usual spot atop a burnt out car, smiling at the familiar banter.
Frank has lived in this building for 6 years, the police haven't ventured in here since it closed down. Richie and Amelia were together once, they came together, ran away for each other. Nancy and Cassie stumbled in not long after, Risa helped turn the place into a real home when he turned up, Mark is only there a year longer than Victor.
He's the only one who doesn't live with the family permanently, his father expects him home by curfew. Not his personal curfew, city curfew. His parents don't care enough to set a time, they just do what is expected of them.
"Everybody stop," whispered Frank. Amelia looks up from the cards she was dealing.
"What is it, Frank? The monsters coming for you?"
"Shhh!" he whispered frantically. "There's someone in the building." Victor heart stopped, Ava froze. Risa shoved her belongings into a backpack, Cassie and Nancy stuffed the money they were counting into their bras. Richie was opening the door the fire escape.
"Go, go, go," he said as he pushed the younger ones out the door. He knew what would happen if they caught him, but his family's safety came first. He wasn't expecting the police to come up that way too.
Nancy, Frankie and Richie are sent for re-education. Ava is taken away. Risa is brought back to her father and turns up in a river soon after. Cassie and Amelia leave town in the middle of the night, sobbing all the way to the next state. Mark won't let them take him, he puts a bullet in his mouth first.
Victor earns his first strike. He never sees his family again.
Do not go gently
Into their manufactured constraints