Disclaimer
: Amblin Entertainment owns this excellent show and all of its characters.Rating:
PG for language and implied violence.Summary:
A glimpse into the hidden past of SeaQuest's resident convict.Author's note
: I've noticed a serious lack of fic on my favorite character so I wrote this a long time ago, then decided to rewrite it and post it. Please let me know that you think.Past Best Forgotten
The cool water swirled around him as he glided through it. He could feel its steady stream passing over his body, rubbing against him like the softest silk. This was the one time when, if he didn't think, he felt at peace. This was when he forgot about everything that was his life, his past, and sometimes he could forget about himself.
It was ironic really. The only time he ever felt so at peace and free, was when he used the gift which had been unwillingly forced upon him. Oh, he knew that there was a lot in his life that he had been asking for, and this was one of those many things. You see he had always been a huge pain in the ass to his prison guards, his superiors. He did not give them a moment's peace when they were around. He had heard a rumor once that they had canceled one of his routine cell inspections because they hadn't wanted to deal with him that day. Hey, they hated him, but they had never been his prime pick of company either.
He remembered the nights in prison very well. The nights when the guards would enter his cell, waking him up and then beating the crap out of him. Oh, he remembered those nights well all right. Of course nothing had ever been mentioned in his medical reports. His all to frequent stays in the prisons medical bay, which occasionally lasted longer than two days, had never "officially" happened. The fact that he hadn't gotten along with the doctor hadn't helped.
It had become very clear to him, very quickly, that nobody thought anything of him, other than a punching bag. His family had disowned him for the time; his friends…well, they no longer claimed to know him. Now the sad part was that he hadn't had many he called friends in the first place, but it would have been nice for somebody to give a damn. In fact now that he was willing to analyze that part of his past he had to admit that that was probably why he was such an ass. The reason he always put himself in bad situations, making annoying comments, cracking bad jokes, he did it for attention, and for an explanation as to why nobody liked him. He didn't think he could take being hated for no reason. IT was a pathetic act, but after a while he no longer needed to put up his fake attitude towards everything. He'd been using it so much for so long that it become a natural part of him.
Then, getting past all of that prison abuse, there was the one morning that had changed his life. Literally. That had been the morning when instead of waking up on his stiff cell's bunk, he had been strapped to a table in a UEO lab. Did he mention that he was sure he'd been naked at the time? How had he arrived there? He figured he'd been drugged, maybe in his food.
The second thing he noticed when the fuzziness of his surroundings had worn off, had been the pain. God, it had felt like someone had been trying to cook him over a fire. He couldn't breathe, his lungs, his chest, his sides, his whole upper body was engulfed in this pain. For a moment he thought he was dying, and then the pain edged away and his mind had focused once again on where he was. He could breathe, but it had still been fairly labored.
Then a man with sour breath had leaned over him, looking closely at his face, and then at the rest of his numbed body. The man had a UEO dress uniform on, though he didn't know what rank; he hadn't cared at the time. When he had finished his examination, he smiled and decided it was time to explain what had happened. They said it was a gift, something he should be honored with having. They had given him gills, they'd turned him into a freakin' human sardine, and they couldn't reverse it without killing him.
Oh he'd spent a few months in that lab he'd woken up in. A few months as the UEO's own little lab rat. The nameless men in long white coats had poked and prodded him in places he didn't care to remember. They had to literally attempt to drown him before he would use the gills to breathe under the water, forcing him to take in gulps of the salty liquid. They'd kept him in salt-water tanks for days on end. Cold tanks, hot tanks…yep, they had had a blast with him, warping his eyes to proper visibility under water, adapting his skin so he wouldn't bloat and fall apart if in the water to long.
A serious side affect had been his sight when out of the water; he could no longer understand how to read letters when looking through 'air!' A temporary solution had been to wear a pair of goggles filled with salt water, but he couldn't do that when around others. Eventually he had forced himself to get help, but this was after prison. When they had finished with their experiments on him, they had just said "it's over, we're done with him." And that had been it.
Now of course they had had a problem on their hands. Illegal experimentation on unwilling subjects, and Tony had clearly made his unwillingness known throughout his few months in their lab, is a huge no-no for the UEO. What could they do with him now? Well, they'd decided to give him the choice to go back to his cozy prison cell, or pretend that he 'volunteered' for the experiment and get a position on a ship called "SeaQuest."
Whoever had organized this project had done their homework when choosing their subject. Nobody would have believed him if he accused everyone's precious UEO of illegal scientific experimentation. He was a convict, tagged as a pain in the ass, a thief, an ex-officer, a lowlife. On top of that he had no friends or family that cared, or someone would have noticed his disappearance a long time ago. They hadn't stopped there though, threatening his family, even though they hated him, and everyone else he ever was or ever could be close to. IT sucked all around so he had decided to try the SeaQuest. He wouldn't go back to that prison, ever.
First impressions onboard the SeaQuest hadn't impressed anyone. He'd made a pretty pathetic attempt to escape through the ships aqua tunnels. It had been embarrassing, but he shrugged it off like he shrugged everything off. He still couldn't figure out if it had actually been an attempt at freedom which he had known was impossible, or if it had been a statement saying "I sure as hell am not making this easy for anyone." He never received the beating he had expected. Surprise surprise.
After a while he'd grown to accept the place, and then like it. The people on the SeaQuest, for the first time he could remember, had accepted him. They'd been honest with him, especially when stating their annoyance at him, but he had started to think of them as friends. He felt guilty about not telling them about his time in prison when asked, and he came so close sometimes. He wanted to tell them, as greedy as it was he wanted sympathy. Luckily he wasn't as stupid as people tended to think, and he kept his secrets secret.
One day Doctor Smith had asked him about the small tattoo they had branded on the back of his shoulder. It was the experiments ownership tag and identification mark. He'd told her it had been one of those gang things he'd been involved in as a kid, and he wanted it kept secret. It was for her safety as well as everyone else's.
Now, early in the morning, he glided through Darwin's aqua tunnels, enjoying the feel of water traveling over and through him. He hated, loathed, and if given the chance might even kill the people who put him through the months of torture and pain, but in a twisted way he couldn't thank them enough. He belonged in the water and he knew it, but it had come at a large price.
He stopped at one of the tunnels windows, the one that looked in on the room he shared with Lucas. And there the kid was, sleeping soundly on the top bunk, facing the glass tunnel. He looked so peaceful sleeping, on the bunk he had one off Tony in that poker game. Tony knew he'd cheated, but he hadn't called the kid on it. The water helped Luke sleep, and Tony wouldn't be the one to ruin that. Still, it didn't mean he had to like it.
Tony moved in close to the glass, right by Lucas's face, and crushed his nose against the smooth surface. Just as Tony had hoped, Lucas chose that moment to wake up, his sleepy eyes gazing right at Piccolo. The kids mouth opened in a startled yell that Tony couldn't hear, and as his eyes went wide he rolled backwards in shock. Unfortunately for Lucas he ran out of bunk and fell crashing to the floor.
Tony grinned and pushed away from the glass, swimming off before his roommate could get up and yell at him through the glass. He'd been through a lot in his life, and knew that he couldn't forget what had happened to him, but at the moment, for the sake of all his friends, it was better if the past was forgotten.
End.