Poetic Justice
CONTENT:
Rating: Mature
Flavor: Drama, Angst
Language: some
Violence: torture
Nudity: none
Sex: none
Other: even more torture (offscreen)
Author's Note:
What was Oliver's answer to Ra's al Ghul? What are Oliver and Diggle doing? The story doesn't say. :X But they're there.
Sorry this is so short. The next scene takes place a little while later, so another chapter. Um... and this is about where my Brain fell out of Evil Sadist mode and went frolicking in the daisies, so... I don't know when the rest will get done.
Poetic Justice
===#===
Diggle woke suddenly, all at once. It was the dead of night judging by the impenetrable blackness outside their window. Something had woken him. A sound.
He lifted his head and looked over at Oliver's cot. The archer was already sitting up, leaning against the wall, his face pale in the dark, his eyes reflecting the low light of the coals on the hearth.
"What is it?" Diggle asked muzzily.
"It's Malcolm."
Diggle lifted himself on his elbows, cocked his ear. Yes, he heard it now. A voice, faint and far away, saying, reciting, something. Some trick acoustics of the ancient ventilation system or the chimney flues carried it to their room.
The voice faltered, and there was a loud whip crack, followed by a cry. The litany resumed.
Diggle frowned. "What's he saying?" he whispered to Oliver.
"It's the names of everyone killed in the Undertaking."
Diggle swallowed. Well, don't say the League didn't go in for poetic justice. Involuntarily, he flinched at another whip crack.
He put his head back down. Oliver had some kind of emotional investment in the Dark Archer's well-being, but he did not. He tried to retain a cold-heartedness towards their former enemy. He tried to return to sleep.
===#===
"Number 318."
"Tommy-" His voice broke. "Thomas Merlyn."
"Number 319."
They never stopped at Tommy's name. The Torturer never asked why that was the only one he never forgot, why his voice always wavered saying that name. Did she know who Tommy was? Did she even know that he was the only one Malcolm knew personally? Did she care?
Tommy was just another number, another casualty - a statistic. He wasn't at the top of the list; he wasn't saved until the end. He was just filed away with all the others, in alphabetical order.
Sometimes Malcolm wondered at different clusters of names. Were they related? Which were the parents, which the children? Had Malcolm killed whole families, or were they just random strangers grouped together? He would never know.
===X===