It's a new fic! Danny reflects on three years spent in the heart of the Monroe Republic.
Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.
- o – o -
Put On The Red Light
In three years, Danny's learned more about the officers—and some of the foot soldiers—of the Monroe Militia than anyone else. He knows some of them better then General Monroe does.
Sergeant Strausser, Monroe's chief interrogator, refused the title of an officer because he's old-school military. Sergeants run the army, keep it moving. Sergeants are gods, but the officers don't recognize that—the good ones do, though, Strausser swears. Danny hears him say this numerous times. He knows the sergeant better then Monroe does. He also knows that Sergeant Strausser is rough, and violent, and enjoys causing others pain. Danny spreads his legs for the man anyways, because he's not stupid enough to turn down the amount of money—gold, most times, but occasionally barter goods that Danny needs—Strausser brings him. The sergeant doesn't ask Danny if he can use his knives or a whip during his visits anymore. Three dislocated ribs and a cracked sternum painted a clear enough picture. Danny might be willing to do anything, but even he has limits.
Colonel Faber hates his wife. Danny could blackmail the man into oblivion and back with just that piece of information. Everything else the man's told him—the movement of troops, how many guns the Militia actually has (enough that the Georgia Federation and Plains Nations would flee in fear, were they all in use, but not enough to equip every member of the Monroe Militia), or what type of whiskey Monroe himself drinks—could be useful to the Rebels; the man has extremely loose lips. Hell, Danny could sell his knowledge to the highest bidder, but he's got no love for the Rebels. (They're the reason his sister is dead, why his father is dead, why his best friend is being tortured to find the rest of the pendants Monroe wants.) Danny knows that Colonel Faber wishes Danny was in his bed every night, instead of Mrs. Faber. Danny doesn't care, and he spends most nights after Faber leaves, trying to scrub the feeling of the man's hands off his body. Faber likes it when Danny sits on his lap and calls him "daddy". Danny prays, after every one of the man's visits, that the Rebels kill Colonel Faber soon. And he uses the soap Strausser brings him to scrub his skin raw and pink and bloody, because he still can't get rid of the feeling of Faber's fingers digging into his hips. He wishes Strausser would bring him something that would get rid of the memory of Faber telling him he's "such a good boy for daddy".
(Captain Neville never comes.)
Jeremy Baker, one of General Monroe's captains, also visits him. Danny won't admit it, but he looks forward to the man's visits. Very few of his…clients just want to have a decent meal with company who won't spread tales. Danny learns enough about what happens behind the closed doors of the Monroe Republic from Captain Baker that he could tell the Rebels how to get into the good graces of any officer who could get close enough to General Monroe to slip a knife between his ribs. Danny knows that his uncle, a man he can't even remember—even as a half-remembered dream—helped found the Republic. Three years ago, he knows he would have flown into a rage that would leave him panting on the ground, trying to breathe through an asthma attack. But since Captain Baker—Jeremy, he has to be reminded to call the man during their dinners—only wants to share a quiet conversation and a decent meal with someone discreet, Danny will keep his secrets. He doesn't tell his other clients that he'd give Captain Baker those meetings for free, but doesn't because Baker would never come back. What Baker gives him is special.
(Danny wishes that Captain Neville would come instead, after those dinners. At least then he could speak his mind, without fear of reprisal.)
Engineer First Class Nora Clayton is an unusual case, when she comes. Danny secretly looks forward to her visits. They're always short, and she just sits next to him, watching the fire in the hearth. She brings fruit with her. Danny knows she works with the trains—the burns on her hands are enough to tell him that. She keeps her hair short, and it's always tied back. She very rarely talks to him on her visits, although he knows enough from how she holds herself when she comes in. He knows he sets his prices high, but that's the price he pays to keep free, even if it makes it difficult for her to visit him as often as he'd like. Engineer Clayton's visits don't give him anything, but he has his suspicions. So far, only three people know (for certain) that he has asthma. Well, three people who are alive, anyways. Engineer Clayton probably suspects, or knows (something that raises more questions then it answers). Danny relishes the contact between them, how she rests her head on his chest. The woman swears it's because she's exhausted, but Danny somehow knows she listens to his breathing. After her visits, he pretends that she's actually traveling with his sister (Charlie is always alive in those little fantasies), and she's planning to engineer an escape for him.
(Captain Neville always promised he'd try. But Danny hasn't seen him in a year and a half, so the rescue isn't coming.)
Danny's never seen his favorite client's face. He can guess that the client is a man by the feel of the client's hands. The man uses a rifle, and wields a sword—there are calluses on his palms, and on his knuckles. Danny knows the man's hands are large, and warm. He couldn't describe the man's face, because he's always worn a blindfold during the client's visits. Danny thinks the man works in intelligence for General Monroe. The stories he learns from that man are the most interesting ones he hears. He learns, during those meetings, how close the Rebels are. He learns that Monroe has electric lights in his capitol now, and that the general only needs six more of the pendants—like the one Aaron had, before he was captured and tortured—before he can turn the lights back on full-time. (Danny occasionally wishes he was brave enough to leave his apartment to see the electric lights, but he knows what would happen if he left the relative safety the guards on the building provide him.) Danny lets that man have the visits for a bundle of roses and the gentle kiss on his forehead he gets before the man leaves. (Danny gives him that consideration because of the stories about the Rebel's hero-champion. He can imagine that the woman with cropped blond hair and blue eyes, wielding a crossbow with fire in her eyes, is Charlie. But Monroe provided evidence that she'd died in the ambush where he'd captured Aaron, so it's only a passing hope Danny clings to after the worst visits.)
Danny despises General Monroe, and dreads the man's visits. Most of his fear comes from the uncertainty of how the man will act. Sometimes, Monroe is so incredibly gentle that Danny is ready to give the general anything he wants, just so it never stops. More often, though, Danny spends the day after the general's visits curled up on his bed, sobbing from the pain. General Monroe pays him well for the pain, at least. It doesn't make the pain of bruises that takes week to fade, or bloody scratches on his back, or torn skin and bloody hickeys wherever the general bites him, go away. Danny learns how to manipulate Monroe into the gentler state after fourteen visits. Walking is still painful the next day, but the injuries take less time to fade.
(Captain Neville wouldn't have left so many marks, or hurt him so badly.)
Danny remembers one of the man's visits with fondness and a warm feeling in his chest. Neville had brought his wife, Julia, with him. It had been the day after one of Monroe's more painful visits, and Danny can barely move without crying from the pain. He knows that Captain Neville had wanted to take him, to share him with Julia, but held him instead. Julia sat on his other side, rubbing salve (another gift from Sergeant Strausser, who at least made up for the damage he caused) into the cuts on his back. Danny fell asleep sandwiched between the two, feeling safe and content for the first time in a year.
The captain disappears shortly after that, and Julia never visits him again.
The visits he dreads the most, though, are the ones from his mother. General Monroe brings her to visit him, often after Danny's spent an evening with Strausser. He knows the general is telling his mother lies about what's truly happening, but he can't bring himself to tell her that. She never cared about him when Strausser was torturing him so she'd give up information. She doesn't deserve to know that Danny prefers whoring himself out to letting Monroe lock him up in a cell in Independence Hall. At least out here, he can pretend he's truly free, and he can make decisions about who visits him. The bruises that make his mother cry and kiss his forehead and promise she'll tell Monroe everything so that her baby will stop being so badly beaten are worth it.
Danny carries through with his promise to kill Private Richards if the man ever touched him again. His blackmail, garnered from the officers who can pay for his services, comes in handy. If he didn't know so much about them, he'd have been hung for having a gun hidden in his apartment. The revolver is taken away, and Danny has to resort to keeping a knife under his pillow, but watching Richards fall backwards with a smoking hole in his forehead is worth it; the blood and brain matter and bits of bone splattered over the wall behind Richards takes longer to clean up. It still gives Danny a vicious bit of joy in a dark, hidden corner of his heart as he cleans the mess up.
Danny can pretend that he's unwilling for Strausser, but he's never going to let anyone touch him without his permission again. (He ignores the little voice that tells him that, if he truly believed that, he'd tell General Monroe to stay away from him for good. Monroe still owns him, though, even if Danny is no longer officially a prisoner.)
If Danny cared enough, he could kill the Monroe Republic with one well-placed article in the Philadelphia Star. But he doesn't.
He'd kill the republic if Captain Neville asked him to, because the man has never hurt him as badly as anyone else. Danny hasn't seen Captain Neville in a year and a half, so it doesn't matter.
He wishes Captain Neville would rescue him.
- o – o -
So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Hoping the Charlie or Captain Neville comes to save Danny? Drop a line and let me know.
Author's note: This came from a comment about a picture of Danny on tumblr. It basically said that Danny was trying very hard to inspire some hooker!AU stories. The idea's been dressed up a bit, had a few dark tones added, and is now here. Why does tumblr have to give me so many ideas? (And what do you mean, I should stay off tumblr?!)