A follow-up to Long Road Home, as requested.
Un-beta'ed, so quibble away.
- o – o -
My Lucky Day
One
Nora led them to the rebel camp, as promised. She introduced them to the leader of the rebellion—their head honcho, in fact—as promised. She did exactly what she promised. Except she didn't protect them. Nora didn't even have time to explain what was going on before the General of the Rebellion—some prick from the Army, Miles thought—had rebels attacking them.
Miles remembered getting dogpiled by soldiers before he could even reach for his sword. Danny was taken down next—poor kid never stood a chance. No training, weak lungs (just weak in general), and injuries sustained during his captivity… He never stood a chance. Charlie went down next, trying to defend her unconscious brother. Aaron was gutted protecting the kids he'd helped raise. Rachel was spared. As it turned out, the general of the rebellion knew exactly who she was and what she'd done.
Rachel had been taken to a plush set of rooms. Nora had been dragged out to a hard-packed dirt square and executed without ceremony or trial. Miles felt anger at that—at least the Militia would have given her a trial. He was dragged down to the cells.
That was when the nightmare started.
Two
Miles lost track of time pretty quickly. According to the one interrogator who'd actually speak to him, it'd been two months. Miles had no way to tell if the man was lying to him or not. He'd been kept in a small, windowless cell for the past…however long he'd been there. The Rebels, at least, had been smart. The penitentiary was a good place, strategically speaking, to hole up. It was defensible, and there were plenty of places to hide people—prisoners or otherwise.
He hadn't seen the sun since he'd been capture. He hadn't truly stretched his legs in that same amount of time. Breathing fresh, clean, cool air felt like a dream. Miles couldn't even remember what clean water tasted like.
But he remembered, all too well, what imprisonment felt like. It was like the first time, but worse. So, so much worse…
Miles spent a lot of time screaming, even when he wasn't being interrogated.
Three
The sun was too bright. Except Miles didn't think it was the sun. It'd been so long since he'd seen it. Everything was too-bright and too-wrong. It all hurt. He wished his hands weren't chained to the belt around his waist, because his eyes hurt. The former general shuffled forward again, stumbling as one of his guards pushed him. Everything was too bright. Where were they taking him?
Then…
Water. Hot water, and it hurt so much. Miles whimpered as his clothes were cut off, peeled away. He reeked, he suddenly realized. His clothing was stiff with sweat and bodily fluids and god knew what else. The water sluiced over his bare skin and Miles shivered. Now he was cold, and naked, and still chained hand and foot. Eventually, the water he was being washed with ran clear as it swirled in little puddles and eddies around his feet. A razor rasped over his head and face, and dark clumps of hair fell to the ground around his feet. Miles relaxed, eyes closed. He could pretend he was back at Parris Island, in the barbershop. And when he opened his eyes, Bass would be there, bemoaning the fate of his beautiful curls as they were shaved away by a heartless monster pretending to be a barber.
No. No, he couldn't bring Bass into this. Not again… Not into such a horrible place… Bass was his happy memories—all of them. Bass wasn't supposed to be here.
The guards laughed as Miles collapsed to the ground in a boneless heap, sobbing and whispering someone's name like a mantra.
Miles wished he could die.
Bass wasn't supposed to be here.
Not…
Four
Miles shuffled out of his cell, wincing as the chains were jerked a little too roughly. It wasn't… No, hadn't he had a bath last week? What was going on? He mumbled something, swaying on his feet as his guards laughed with the man in charge of the doors. The guard on his left—a thin woman (maybe…? It was so hard to tell) with a severe haircut—elbowed him in the ribs. Miles' knees buckled and only the guards' grips on his upper arms kept him from falling.
They dragged him anyways, not letting him regain his feet. Miles howled in agony as they dragged him up the stairs to the door that led to the too-bright rooms with so much light and pain and hard questions he couldn't answer. It hurt…
He was in a new room. Miles curled up on the floor, face pressed into his knees and hands clasped over his ears. The cold metal of the cuffs around his wrists bit into the soft skin, hard enough to draw blood. Someone touched his shoulder and Miles whimpered, unable to stop himself.
"Ya…yawazi…m-mee p-pr-pregda," he whimpered. "Yawazi mee pregda…l-lotfan…"
The person left and Miles stayed on the floor, whimpering to himself in Pashto.
They wouldn't hurt him. He didn't know anything. Maybe they'd kill him, finally. Finally.
Please, just leave me alone. Lotfan, yawazi mee pregda. Lotfan…lotfan…loftan…
Five
He didn't know who he was. Yawazi mee pregda. The people kept asking him questions. They brought the sun with them, and lots of papers with bright colors and unintelligible scribbles. He didn't know what they wanted. He wanted them to take the sun away. It hurt his eyes. It was too bright.
Yawazi mee pregda, lotfan.
They took the sun away. He wished they would bring it back. There were hands all over, hurting him. The man with the blonde hair who laughed about monsters would make them go away. If he brought the sun, it would be alright. He wanted the sun back.
His body hurt, and they left him in the dark for so long… The blonde man never came, and he didn't bring the sun.
What was his name…?
Six
There were two people in the washroom with him. A boy and a girl. The boy had blonde hair, but he wasn't right. He clung to the girl with sun-hair. She wasn't right either. They curled up together, pressed against the wall, staring out at him with wide blue eyes. He sat down next to them when the men who cleaned him so roughly left. The girl reached out with a trembling hand. She called him Miles.
His name… That was his name.
Lotfan, lotfan, lotfan… Yawa… Miles. That's me; mine! My name is Miles. Yawazi…No. Please leave me alone. Please. Please.
Miles was his name. The girl with sun-hair knew his name. Miles buried his face in his knees and cried. Sun-hair and her…her brother? Yes, that must have been it. The two children with hair like the sun curled up on either side of him, cuddling.
The man with sun-hair in his dreams had done the same thing. And there was another one. He had hair like the sun too…
He was being punished for not having sun-hair like theirs. He was filthy, and brown, and dirty… Miles didn't belong in the sun.
He was a monster.
Seven
There were the sun-haired children again, on either side of him. The boy was crying softly, and his sister wasn't holding him. She had a vacant look on her face. Miles frowned. She'd given him his name. But…but he was a filthy brown monster, and…and she must have been mistaken. He wasn't supposed to be in the light, or near the sun… He wanted to comfort the boy, but he wasn't allowed. The girl's vacant look worried him, and the crying was so loud now. What was wrong?
It…
It was his fault. He was making them sad and hurt. Miles curled up as best he could in his chains. The chains were to keep him from hurting the sun-haired children. The…the people who weren't filthy monsters like him. They were good, and had to be protected from him. And he was there, contaminating them.
The man with fire-hair was back, running his hand through the girl's hair. He was smiling, and Miles wanted to rip it off his face because he was touching the sun and that wasn't. for. him. The sun wasn't his. He was wrong and disgusting and slimy. Miles growled low in his throat as fire-hair stayed too close to the girl and boy who should have been in the light and free to go to the sun. This was bad.
Miles was put back in his filthy hole, like he was supposed to be. Fire-hair wasn't going to smile anytime soon.
He was a monster. He was a good monster.
Blood tasted sour.
Eight
There was a woman with sun-hair in the hole. Miles curled up in the corner furthest away from her, head tucked down so his chin rested on his collarbone. She understood him when he spoke Russian. One of his interrogators spoke Russian. And Kurdish. There was something wrong. He thought it should have been a lot warmer, especially here…and…and something was wrong, but that wasn't it, and why was the woman wearing winter gear?
Miles laced his fingers in his too-long hair and tugged, hard, the pain grounding him in reality. He could understand that. His sun-hair (what was his name?) wouldn't have let him do that to himself, but Miles knew he needed the pain. The pain was good. It was his. There weren't people listening to the man in charge causing him pain.
His visitor called him Miles. She said her name was Rachel, but Miles wasn't focusing on her. He didn't like her. She'd done…something. It was wrong… She had a lamp with her, though. It was low enough lighting that it didn't hurt his eyes. The frosted glass made the yellow light orangey-gold, and sent shadows flickering around the walls.
Rachel left after a while. Miles stayed in his corner, eyes focused on the lamp. If he focused on it hard enough, he could pull up threads of real. There was warm beer, and laughter and two other people who were his friends, and…and he was happy. But…he wasn't made of sunlight... He wasn't allowed to be happy.
He pulled on his hair again, sobbing as the happiness slipped away again. He didn't deserve it. He didn't deserve happiness or light or anything else.
The lamp flickered out, plunging him back into darkness.
Nine
Yawazi mee pregda… No. Ostav' menja v pokoe… Please…no. Wazim lê bêne. Please…please stop… nononononono…
Miles whimpered as the door to his cell clanged open. There were so many bright lights outside… It hurt so much. One of the figures walked into his cell and drew back almost immediately, one hand going up to cover his face. Miles cowered further into his corner. He knew the cell was filthy. He was filthy too; no one had dragged him up to the washroom in…a while.
But there was something wrong. The figure was back. Miles held his hands up in surrender, trying to show he couldn't hurt anyone. The chains around his wrists rattled as his hands shook from the effort it took to keep them up, shielding his face from the light.
"S…se…semper…" he whispered, voice scratchy from disuse. No one had brought maps with them either, or notes, or pages of things he was meant to understand. Yawazi mee pregda. His rescuer crouched down, holding his arms out.
Miles shook as warm hands wrapped around his wrists, pulling him up, and howled in pain as he tried to plant his feet on the ground. The rags that were left from his uniform alternately clung to his body and draped around his limbs like a tent, too large on his thin frame. His feet hurt so much... The man dragged him forward, coaxing in gentle words that Miles couldn't make out.
Bloody footprints trailed behind him as he crept out of the cell for the first time in two months—not that he knew that. The men who'd opened the door to his tiny prison had looks of disgust on their face as he crept slowly back towards the light between them. Miles felt his cheeks flush in shame. He was a filthy animal, just like his tormentors said.
A filthy, horrible, stupid animal…
Ten
He's in a new room, now. There are heavy curtains over the windows, and thick, soft carpeting that his feet sink into every time he puts his feet on the floor. Miles doesn't do that much, though. He stays near the window, seated in one of the comfortable chairs put there for him. Sometimes a man with sun-hair comes and pulls him over to a table, piled high with more food than Miles thought could ever exist.
Miles doesn't eat until the man with curly sun-colored hair pushes a fork into his hand and helps him collect food—some type of meat, usually, along with vegetables and fruit cut into bite-sized pieces, as though he were a child—on the tines. He remembers that he's not allowed to eat without an order. The men who came to his cell beat him to the ground when he asked for food, or even if he spoke to them without permission. He learned not to speak, after a while. He learned that food had to be earned, and he could never earn it.
But the man—he should know the man's name, Miles thought, or those beautiful blue eyes like a cloudless sky—let him have food, without beating him first or making him beg for it, like a dog. He smiled when Miles ate.
He tried not to throw up until after the man left.
Eleven
Miles sat next to his window again, eyes closed. The sky was a beautiful, brilliant blue, and there wasn't a cloud in sight. The sun was shining brightly, bathing everything in light. He didn't know how long he'd been out of the hole—where he was supposed to be—but he didn't want to go back. It was nice and warm here, and there was food and comfort and no one beat him.
The children with the sun-hair—Danny and Charlie—came to visit him sometimes. They were quiet, which Miles appreciated. (Everything was too-loud, too-bright, most days.) Sometimes they came on bad days, when he screamed and made noise that was wrong—he wasn't supposed to make noise, or the guards would come in and beat him back into silence. Except no one beat him. The stockier sun-haired man sat in a chair, holding a roll of soft leather that Miles knew he had to bite if he started screaming too loudly. Sometimes, the man just sat nearby—comforting, solid, and just there, like he was…
Miles wanted to think the man was supposed to be there, but he didn't exactly deserve anyone to comfort him. He wasn't good. He was a monster. The guards said so. He was a monster. He was supposed to live in a dark hole, where monsters were supposed to stay; but the man with curled sun-hair said he could stay in the room that had so much sunlight and good things, just for him…
Twelve
Miles sat in his chair, watching a cloud drift by across the blue, blue sky. The man who'd brought him out of the hole and said he could stay in the light came in to the room. He didn't say anything, just sitting down in the chair next to Miles. He'd told Miles to call him Bass, one of the good days. Miles didn't even know if he was allowed to talk, even if Bass said he could.
They sat next to each other, knees just barely touching. Bass was chewing on his lower lip, running his finger over his lips occasionally. Miles looked over at his host out of the corner of his eye. The sunlight was playing over Bass' curls, just like the man was made of living sunlight. Miles looked away, feeling unworthy to look at Bass. He was a filthy brown monster, not sunlight. He wasn't allowed…
Bass gravitated to the floor near his chair soon after, which Miles thought was a bit odd. The man was sunlight. He wasn't supposed to…to sit on the floor, like an animal. Not like Miles at all… He cringed at the thought of what Bas was probably going to do to him and looked down at Bass' hair.
Just for a second, everything slid into place. Miles stretched his hand out tentatively, catching one errant curl between his fingers. Bass' golden hair was warm to the touch, and Miles wondered if this was what holding sunlight was felt like.
"Sunlight…" he said, turning his hand just a little so he could run his fingers through Bass' hair. Bass jumped and Miles drew his hand back as thought he'd been burned. He cringed as his host looked up at him. Bass' blue eyes were swimming with tears. Miles felt guilty. He'd hurt Bass. He'd done something wrong, and now he was never going to sit—
"Yeah, Miles," Bass said thickly, giving Miles an awkward pat on the knee. "Sunlight."
Miles stared out the window and didn't respond.
- o – o -
So, what did you think? Good? Bad? Does Miles need a hug or a good shake? Drop a line and let me know.