Author's Note: Somebody told me that JP wanted to do a torture scene - something about Rangers doing SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, escape) school. I've also been told that SERE school is voluntary for Rangers and it's hard to find the time to fit it in around training. I think it's mandatory for Special Forces. I could be wrong. Whatever. It got me thinking though - how to write a torture scene into a day in the life of a US Marshal? I'd left this story to fester on my hard drive (bits of it) for some time, never with the intention of letting it breathe the free air. But the show is done, so I think it's safe to let it out. And it's winter and I need something fun to do to stop me thinking about how far away spring is just now. Whoever is still out there, if you feel like this kind of story, then join me in fighting the winter boredom.
I've been told as well that I'm too mean to Tim, that I'm always beating him up. But conflict and adversity make a good story!
The usual disclaimers...
The World Changes That Fast
PART ONE
Chapter 1
He remembers a chair.
He remembers a room, poorly lit, damp, cold.
He remembers a fist, a knife, the snap of bones breaking, hurting the ears as much as the fingers, but not hurting, not any of it, as much as the breaking of the myth of what he thought he was, and the emptiness afterward.
For the first time in a long time, in his life that he can remember, he needs someone to talk to.
There's a face above him when he opens his eyes, and he thinks, no, not her. Rachel.
"Tim?"
The name is his, but it doesn't seem to fit right, hangs loose like a stranger's clothes, too big for what he is now, big like he thought he was before this. Everything is different when the world gets brutal in such a personal manner. How can it not change you? The Tim she's addressing doesn't exist anymore.
"Tim?"
He blinks, holds her gaze.
"Hey," she says.
Hey, he thinks, yeah, sure, why not? Hey. Then he closes his eyes. He can smell her, or he can't, not really. What he can smell is old and packed blood. It must be a memory of what she smells like. She always wears a particular perfume to work, always, so it's a part of the space she occupies in his mind. There's a soft scent and a soft voice and a flinty look to go with the flinty words, and that's Rachel in his world, a mixed-up sensory experience. It throws him sometimes when she bites, but there's no bite today when he opens his eyes again to try to see the scent that he knows is there with her, and she's watching him. It's all soft. She reaches over and puts a hand on his arm, soft.
"Look at you," she says. "I didn't know a pasty white boy could be so colorful. You're like the flag – red, white and blue. And I think I see some yellow and green…" There's no flint. "We had to use fingerprints to get an ID on you." She's making a joke, but the soft chuckle with it has no substance, is thinner than he feels, and the smile with it isn't soft – it's flint, hard and not sharing with the rest of her face.
He closes his eyes once more – it's easier – drifts away from thinking.
When he's aware again, there are different voices – two men…no, three. They're familiar voices: Art, Raylan, and Nelson, then not Nelson. He doesn't open his eyes for them. It's one thing to look at Rachel feeling like he is, quite another to look at Art or Raylan. Maybe it's a guy thing, but he's not up to it today. Looking at Art or Raylan, looking at them when he's like this, makes him feel vulnerable, a different kind of vulnerable from a gun to the head, and he's not willing yet. All he's got left of himself is his vulnerability, and the thought of seeing it reinforced, reflected back, makes it worse.
"Rachel said he was awake?"
"She was in early this morning, said he opened his eyes and looked at her."
"That's different from being awake, Art."
"She said he recognized her."
"Wishful wishing."
"You really think Rachel's the wishful wishing type?"
One of them walks closer to the bed. He knows it's Raylan when he speaks, close by.
"Did he say anything to her?"
"No."
"Well." The tone says he's made his point.
"Well, he's got a tube down his throat, Raylan. He couldn't say anything anyway, and for once in my life I'd be happy to listen to his snark, the little shit. Jesus, this is hard. I want to know what happened. I want an ID on the fuckers who did this."
"If you swearing like that doesn't bring him around, I don't know what will."
Art steps right over Raylan's attempts to get a rise from him. He steps right over it and continues, angry, on his warpath. Nothing is going to stop him getting to the bottom of this. Even he sounds vulnerable, vulnerable and angry. "We don't even have a why yet."
"We got nothing. And taking into account all that nothing, you might want to consider the idea that maybe he just tripped and fell."
"And that would explain the burn marks and the tape."
Raylan is working to calm Art down, digging for the sarcasm and relenting when he hears it finally.
"We'll get 'em, Art."
"You know how cliché that sounds? 'We'll get 'em, Art.' Shit. I'm not so sure. I wish we had something to move on, anything."
"You consider maybe it was personal?"
"Doesn't matter, does it? I'd still want to get the fuckers."
"Well, we're not going to do it standing around here."
There's a shuffling of feet, and the door opens – he can feel the change of air.
"You coming?"
"Never in all my time as a marshal have I even heard of anything like this…ever. What is this?"
"This is assault."
"A bit too common a word for it."
"Art, you coming?"
"No, I'm going to stay a bit, see if he comes around."
"Let me know if he does. You got some paper and a pencil since he can't talk?"
"I don't think he could hold a pencil."
"Good point. So don't bother calling."
"Raylan, what are you going to do exactly, since you got nothing to go on?"
"I dunno, walk the neighborhood again, talk to people, see if I can rattle something loose."
"Go on then. I'll be back at the office after lunch."
"Yeah."
And the door closes and a body settles into a chair.
He wakes up hurting. Each particular spasm of pain, each dull ache is like a flashcard description of a different hour of his captivity. That ache, the one in his left hand, that was when he stopped even trying to communicate with his captors. They weren't interested in any deal, in any bargaining, and he was beyond rational thought. That one, the burn of the bed sheet over raw skin, that was their opening maneuver, at a point when he still had confidence, a veneer of bravado polished through thirty years of never letting anything get the better of him. And that one, the one that hurts the most remembering, the sharp stab of abused ribs, that was them getting down to business, that was the bravado saying goodbye and the fury of impotence taking over and lashing out, trying to hurt back and failing completely and utterly. They laughed at him. They laughed.
He laughed at himself. What the fuck are you trying to accomplish with that phrase – 'fuck you'? You stupid fucking asshole. So fucking what?
So fucking what? Fuck you! So what? All the clever words in the world… What asshole said that the pen is mightier than the sword? That may be true if you live long enough to have someone read whatever you wrote, but… Seriously. Fuck you, pen. Fuck…you.
He could have used a sword. Not that he could have actually used it, taped to the chair.
Fuck you, chair.
He thinks he remembers saying that once, aloud in the room when they left him alone. Fuck you, chair.
So what?
Impotence.
Fuck you, impotence.
There's a phrase that reinforces itself.
His throat hurts. There's no flashcard for that, just a thirst. He opens his eyes and looks for Art, willing to face him for a sip of water, but the room is empty. He closes his eyes again, shuts out the empty room.
Fuck you, bed, he thinks, trying to raise a laugh in his chest, but it's stuck in a raw throat, or truthfully it just doesn't manifest.
The quiet is sudden, no thoughts, no noise except for his breathing, the machine breathing for him. The silence unnerves him so he gets his mind noisy thinking about the machine. It's keeping his lungs from collapsing, he figures. He knows that from medical training in the Army – what to do in case of traumatic chest injury. What you do is deal with whatever caused it first. Good luck performing a battlefield emergency medical procedure with incoming mortar rounds. Deal with the fucking mortars or the shitheads with the rifles, or whatever. He wishes he'd had the chance to deal with what caused this particular traumatic chest injury. He'd like to get his hands on that metal-pipe-wielding fucker. Maybe not today, though – can't do much about it today. Maybe in a few months.
He tries to remember the face, concentrates hard to draw the eyes in his mind, the nose, chin, hair, tattoos. He concentrates so hard, but the medium he's using isn't stable. Opioids make for lousy evidence drawings, smearing and distorting. He's drawn his cousin instead, or it looks like her, or is that the girl who brings him his beer at The Chase? Whenever he goes there he stands a minute inside the door and watches, makes sure he ends up at a table where she's serving. He'd like to buy her a beer. He'd like her to bring him a beer right now.
There's a mechanical beep dripping on his drawing and now the picture he's been trying to sketch is just a water stain, and here his throat is stinging for water, for beer, for apple juice, for anything wet, getting some pain killer instead and then his whole world's a water stain and fading out of reach of a parched throat.
He's still thirsty when he opens his eyes later and focuses on a face. It's Nelson's face; he's in the chair. He wants desperately to get across to Nelson that he's thirsty.
Get me some fucking water.
Nelson sits up and leans forward, bites his lip. He holds Tim's gaze for a minute then looks down at his hands.
"You're probably dying for something to drink," he says. "But you'll just have to tough it out, Tim."
Get me some fucking water. He squeezes his eyes shut. It's like putting a lid on an overfilled cup of coffee and some liquid escapes and drips out. For some reason, he's glad it's Nelson sitting there and not Art, not Rachel.
"My younger brother was in a bad motorcycle accident once, years ago, and he…" Nelson waves his fingers at his neck, "…he had to be intubated, like you, right… Chest injury. Uh…" Nelson looks up again, then down again, then away. "He said it was the worst part. He said he was so thirsty. His throat hurt. I don't think you'll have it in for long, though. Sam had to have surgery, right, and the doctors don't think you'll need to. They think your lungs will heal by themselves. Probably. Anyway, uh… Hang in there."
Tim swings an arm up, an uncoordinated and floppy arm, his hand in a brace, and drops it across his face. He sees Nelson cringe as he does it, but he doesn't try to stop him.
"Careful," is all Nelson says, then, "Don't… Just… It sucks, I know, but it's not forever, just…"
He hears Nelson leave. A nurse comes in shortly afterward and moves his arm back to his side and pokes around. She smiles for him, touches places that hurt, sees him wince and ups the pain medication, makes a note on his chart, smiles again, leaves.
The room feels empty without his bravado for company. He wishes Nelson would come back, get his mind off things with his stupid rambling, stupid at the office maybe but not here, not so much. It fits in here somehow. He wonders what kind of motorcycle Nelson's brother rode, whether he's still riding. Probably not if he had to suffer through this.
Nelson comes back in after a bit, sits and tells Tim what's been going on at the office. He drifts in and out listening, appreciating for once Nelson's stupid rambling.
He opens his eyes and he's caught. Art sees him and walks over from the door where he's texting, sets his phone on the hospital table that glides around on wheels but that doesn't have any water on it. He wants to cry because there's no glass on that table with a bendy straw and water in it. That's what the fucking table is for. It's for water. Where's the fucking water?
"Tim?"
He squeezes his eyes shut tightly, shuts out Art, wishes him away.
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