It's a new fic. Danny doesn't remember his old life much.
Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.
- o – o -
Remember When?
Danny's having trouble remembering who he used to be.
He knows he used to be happy, and that he had a sister. He had a father too. The men who come into his little room every day and drag him out into light (painfultoobrightstopedarknom orelight) tell him he has a mother. The woman they have him sit across from doesn't look like the woman he knows is his mother. Her hair is too dark, and she doesn't smile enough. The woman's voice is wrong; she says his name wrong all the time. She's not his mother.
He knows someone cared about him, before the pain started. He knows there's a coat involved. It was wrapped around him at least once. Danny knows the smell of leather oil better then he remembers his own name sometimes. He wishes the person who wore that coat would come and save him.
The teenager thinks he was outside the building he lives in now, at least once. He can't really remember anymore. There's just too much pain, trying to remember being happy. Being free. (Where'sthemanwiththeleathercoat?Whyisn'thehere?Whyisn'thesavingme?Someonepleasecomeplease... It hurts.)
Danny knows he has asthma. The man who comes to visit him the most tells him he can have medicine if he can just tell his tormentors something he doesn't know. (Danny's sure about this fact, because the necklace doesn't have any warm feelings with it.) The teen curls up in as tiny a ball he can manage when the man leaves, taking the medicine with him. His lungs are burning, but he knows someone will slip in later with medicine that his mummy made for him…somewhere. Danny can't remember when he last had the foul-tasting concoction, but he knows it was important.
He remembers someone saving him from the pain, at one point. Danny thinks it's the man who wore a leather coat, who spoke to him about before. He knows the people who make the man at the door leave every night (godpleasewhystopstopSTOP!) were near the leather coat. One of them likes calling him a good boy and rubbing his back (stopstopstopdon'ttouchmeplease…) before he leaves. The guard, who Danny knows likes the gold the men bring him, smells like horses and tobacco smoke. Danny hates him. He can't remember hating anyone this much, but he knows he hates this man.
Every day, the large man with rough, cold hands comes in. Danny dreads and looks forward to that man's visits in equal measures. He brings a lamp with him, and Danny likes the soft orange light, flickering behind the frosted glass. It's warm, and it reminds him of the scent of leather oil pressed against his cheek. He doesn't like the knives, or the whip that bites into his back until he can't stand it anymore and that doesn't stop until he passes out just to get away from it.
Danny knows the man that everyone defers to is important. He used to call the man Monroe, but he doesn't talk anymore. Not after Monroe kicked him in the throat for begging for the man in the leather coat (his name might be Neville, but it doesn't fit quite right anymore, because there's something missing from it) to save him. (Danny remembers that it took six times, at least—maybe more, he thinks—for Monroe to convince him not to call out for Neville again. Not verbally.)
The teen remembers, with so much clarity and agony, the day Monroe's men held him down and put a collar around his throat. He knows the man in charge laughed as he tried to get away (pleasetakeitoffi'mnotadogpleaseNevillehelpmeithurtsplease!). Danny hated him then. The not-mummy woman they keep making him sit across from looks like she's about to cry.
Danny knows he used to go out of his way to make people smile. Now the only people who do (pleasestopnoidon'twantthisgoawaypleasestop) come into his cell when the guard should be keeping them out. He wishes he could make not-mummy smile, because he thinks—at least, he used to think—that it would make everything better. The men would stop beating him, maybe. He'd stop smelling the leather oil and Neville (whereareyoupleasehelpme…) would be there.
He doesn't remember when they started calling him a dog. The teen remembers that a dog is something that barks. He thinks he liked dogs at some point, even though a man whose face he can barely recall anymore told him not to go near them because they'd make him sick. Danny still liked them. Now he's not so sure he does anymore.
The leash is something he wishes he could forget, as easily as he seems to be forgetting what his real name is. Danny hates dogs by now, but he thinks he might be starting to feel sympathy for them. His neck hurts from where the men use the collar and leash (iamnotadogdon'ttreatmelikethis) to drag him around.
Danny's not sure how much time has passed, but he's starting to give up. He's not sure if he's a dog or a human. Trying to fight back makes everything hurt more. He knows that the man (Danny used to call him Sergeant Strausser to his face, and "you sodding bastard" to his back) with large, cold hands relishes the fight. His fingertips and the missing fingernails on both hands are a testament to the man's cruelty (ohgodwhypleasemyhandspleases topIDON'TKNOWstop…).
He doesn't remember who the leather coat belongs to anymore. There's snow on the ground outside. Danny wishes he could go out in it—he doesn't have clothes anymore, so it's possible he could hide somewhere and freeze to death before they found him. Danny doesn't remember that he's already tried it. (Pleasepleasepleasedon'tfindmeIwanttodieNevillehelpmeplease.)
Danny doesn't like the door to his cell opening anymore. It hurts too much when it does. The man who brings in knives doesn't bring a lamp with him anymore, so there's nothing to comfort him when one of the knives starts tracing along his ribs—his shouldn't be protruding like that, but Danny's forgotten what a good meal tastes like.
He doesn't remember eating, for that matter (canihavesomewaterpleasenevillesavemeithurts). Danny can't remember the last time he had something to eat. The dull pain in his stomach is only matched by the pain around his neck. He wishes he could die.
Danny almost starts sobbing when a woman who smells like Neville (leatheroilcomforthelp) tells the man with the knives to stop. He really does start crying when he's let down from the chains keeping him standing on his tiptoes. By the time he's wrapped in a big coat (leatheroilNevillehelpcomfortsafety), Danny isn't sure if he'll be able to stop. He's been through too much to stop now.
Danny remembers the smell of leather oil.
And that, at least, is something.
- o – o -
So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Should Major Neville be kicking a lot of ass when he finds out what happened to Danny? Drop a line and let me know.
Yes, this will be part of a larger story. Give me a few weeks and it'll go up.
Edit 10/27/2012: Neville's rank has been changed to reflect Monday night's episode. Information from a new preview.