LEAVING
A/N: For Barricade Day 09.
Disclaimer: I don't own any of it.
Dedicated to JJ, who will always be Inspector Javert to me.
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Plink. Plink. Plink.
My cold grey eyes slid slightly to the left to identify the source of the noise. A single drop of water ran from the patch of dark, fuzzy mold at the top left corner of the fetid cell. My eyes followed the drop as it traversed the short journey from the low, dented ceiling to the rough, dirty floor, forming a slick puddle scant inches from the face of the cell's lone occupant.
As the first few drops of water plinked onto the ground—in perfect order, each exactly four point two seconds after the one before it--the figure in the cell turned his wide, tired brown eyes toward the door. The strange eyes—which despite their exhaustion held a haunted, subhuman look, fitting for the animal he truly was—followed the steadily dripping water up to the ceiling, then across until they met my own icy gaze.
A spark of fear entered his eyes and he looked down, obviously afraid of punishment. When moments passed and I said nothing, he dared to look up again. This time, the emotion evident in his blank stare was confusion. I bore no food, no whip and no key, making my presence outside his cell door something extremely unnatural.
It unnerved me that he could realize this. True, I had been a guard here for several years, but I was supposed to be the one observing him, not the other way around. I was the one responsible for knowing him well enough to foil his every attempt at escape and rebellion. And I did—but it irritated me more than I could admit that he knew me almost as well as I knew him. He knew my personality well enough to be confused by the fact that I was here without any obvious intents or purposes.
And, paradoxically, that was the reason why I was here.
"I have requested reassignment." I spoke quickly, abruptly, to throw him off balance.
Interminable silence greeted my statement, a silence that drew on long enough for me to realize that the steady drip of the water had stopped. I disliked that—the incessant plinking had given me something to focus on that wasn't his wide, blank, staring amber eyes.
I knew he hadn't yet lost all brain function, and surely understood what I had said. Unless the beating he'd received after his most recent escape attempt had finally cracked him. I mentally chastised myself for not considering that fact, and repeated my words using more juvenile phrasing.
"That means that I am leaving."
Silence. Staring. I must have a word with the guard in charge of punishment. He should know that the prisoners are required to maintain a certain level of basic mental functions in order to perform the requisite manual labor.
"You will never see me again."
Now the silence that hung between us was weighted in a way it hadn't been. He was still staring at me, but there was knowledge in that stare. For all his silence and appearance of dim-wittedness, he knew that he was the reason.
Fury flared up in me at his insubordination. How dare he stare at me like he was the one in control of the condition! I snapped the stick I always carried against the side of my well-polished boot.
"Say goodbye to me, 24601!" I ordered, my voice harsher than usual. It was stupid, I knew, a futile attempt to regain control of a situation I shouldn't have lost control of in the first place. I held the stick and its implied threat of innumerable lashings where his eerie eyes could see enough of it to grasp my meaning.
More silence. I took half a step forward, clenching my free hand into a fist.
"Goodbye," he finally said, his voice barely audible. Then more silence, and I turned smartly on my heel. But before I could complete a full circle, his voice stopped me again, speaking words that I recognized but could not comprehend. "I will miss you."
For a moment, I didn't know how to respond. He would not miss me. He would not miss the one that had brought him back every time he ran. He would not miss the one who had too often ordered him whipped to within an inch of his life. He would not miss the one whose job it was to know him so completely that he could predict every word that came out of his mouth…
…except, of course, the most recent four words he had spoken….
My temper flared. Insubordination! He was trying to get the last word! He was mocking the embodiment of the Law itself!
That would NOT do. I turned back toward him, the light of cruelty glinting in my eyes as I took a single step forward. "Then," I whispered, low and dangerous, "I shall order you as many lashes as you can stand. As…as a gift, to remember me by."
Without looking at his eyes, without giving him a chance to speak, I executed a perfect turn on the heel of my perfectly shined boot and left. As I walked away from him for the last time, I noticed that the dripping of the water had begun again….
…however this time, the rhythm of the dripping was erratic, without order—and accompanied by soft whimpering and sniffing noises that I refused to allow myself to identify.