His shirt is already beyond repair, blood splattering across the green—ripped and torn to the point of nearly being a rag. His pants are only a little better. The camo pattern decorated with a healthy addition of tears as well, one particularly nasty cut spanning the length of his thigh.
A hand pats him on the back, shaking him slightly with a hearty chuckle.
“You alright there Johnny boy?” Kane asks, squeezing his sore shoulder with a firm grip.
“Gettin’ there.” John spits, though his split lip makes it a hard thing to do.
Looking up through the metal bars, John eyes the Military Police Officer sitting at his desk, filling out their paperwork.
“You got a way to get us out of this one?” Kane asks in a lower voice, bringing his face to a conspiratorial distance.
“Dunno, might be fresh out of luck.”
“Oh come on, don’t say that. You always got a plan aye? Improvise, adapt, overcome and all that.”
“I had a plan, yea.” John tries to spit again but the mix of saliva and blood just dribbles out instead. “That went out the window the moment you nearly killed that guy.”
John grabs his shirt to dab away at his lip. Satisfied now with its state, he leans back and eyes Kane intently.
“I must admit, I got a little carried away.” Kane shrugs. “But I recall you starting it.”
“A man talkin’ shit about what we’ve done? You’re damn right I'd start it.” John cracks a smile, though in doing so, his lip re-splits. “Shit.”
“All I’m saying is, you went a little easy on ‘em! What, were you going to let ‘em walk away with a few bruises?”
“I was going to let them walk away, not get carried out in a stretcher.”
“Ohhhh don’t be such a hardass. You were smiling like a little fuckin’ girl the whole time.”
John turns away and chuckles. It hurt his ribs but he couldn’t help it. “Yea, I owe you one.”
“How about we make sure we aren’t fucked first. If you get me kicked out of the military I’ll fucking hunt ya.”
“You two will be lucky to get off with just a dishonorable discharge.” the MP growls from behind the counter, flipping through the pages with abject disgust.
“Yea? That right?” Kane nods up to the man.
“Twenty two of our soldiers wounded, eleven in critical condition? You two aren’t just fucked, you are royally, unequivocally fucked. Hell, it would be my pleasure to hand the both of you off too. I’ve seen these names and every time I get a fucking headache.” the MP taps the papers. “I hope they make an example out of you two. You think just because you are some hot shot you can get away with this shit.”
“I’m a hot shot huh?” John scoffs. He sure as hell doesn’t feel like it. Nearly everything on him is line after line of black ink. He doesn’t talk to the other soldiers, he rarely interacts with other marines even. He would have talked to the men in his squad, but they had all since passed.
“You want to end up like the people in stretchers? Be my guest; open this cell up, aye?” Kane cracks his crooked smile and drums away at the bench.
“I have half the fucking mind to.” The MP steps close to the bars, close enough for Kane to grab him by the shirt, bash his skull into the metal and saunter out with the man's key, but he wouldn’t, not in a US brig.
John knows Kane is just riling the young man up. Normally Kane would be shipped off the Ausie's brig, but as of now Kane is stuck with John until they could get the Ausie special forces briefed on how John managed to make a perfect recovery in a single night from a broken spine.
He couldn’t bring himself to lie to the man who single handedly saved his life after the rest of his team died. The truth was, that members of the marine special forces had access to some state of the art medical technology. The shit bordered on magic to John but, given that it was William's tech, it was excusable. Still, the contract with the Williams was secret and so was the tech, which means anyone who saw its effects had to get a special briefing by the Americans.
Normally it was a pain in the ass, but with everyone out it meant John needed to keep an eye on Kane, which meant they had a damn good excuse to take the edge off their little adventure, which meant they were in the same brig. For now.
“Come on little boy, open up the brig, let's see what happens.” Kane cracks his neck.
John almost laughs, though as he looks up, his eyes track to a shape that's appeared beyond the thin strip of glass on the door to the brig.
“Kane...” John whispers the Australians name, but he doesn’t back down.
“I am a god damn MP, I'm trained to take down guys like you...” the MP brings his chin up to Kane, who is nearly a full head taller than him.
“Kane!” John could hear the sound of footsteps just outside, the figure now fully blocking the glass. The sound of boots echo in the hall beyond, each one sending John's heart pounding harder against his ribs.
The handle clicks, and John's heart stops.
“Fuck!” John launches himself upright, grabbing Kane by the back of the shirt and tearing him away from the bars moments before the door swings the rest of the way open.
The silhouette of a monster frames the door. Heavy shadows tug at the hard lines of a face and the perfectly pressed dress uniform accenting the brutal angles of his figure.
The light he blocks falls over John, the shadow he casts alone bringing the man far too close for comfort.
“Soldier, why is my Marine in your brig?” The silhouette asks, his tone smooth and level, never raising more than a casual conversational volume, and yet it ripples into the air, sending the space between his words and the MPs ears rushing to escape.
“Colonel Blackwood, Sir!” John regards the man with every ounce of respect he can muster and snaps a perfect salute.
Kane doesn’t know who this man was, nor does he answer to him, but his presence alone was enough to pull Kane into attention as well. He holds himself rigid next to John, all sense of comedy erased from his now stone cold expression.
The MP stands at attention as well, offering both a salute and an explanation. The MP recounts the events that landed them in the brig succinctly, though he nearly trips over his words as he rushes to comply with answering the question.
“All this trouble for a little bar fight?” Blackwood muses.
“Sir... there where-”
“Perhaps you didn’t hear me, soldier.”
“Colonel Blackwood, Sir, I-”
The Colonel turns, and gives the MP his full, undivided attention.
The MP looks like a child under the Colonel's gaze. He shrinks away slightly as the Colonel takes a single step forward, and lowers his head to meet the eyes of the soldier.
“Don’t you think that all of this is a bit extreme for a bar fight?”
“Yes sir.” the MP changes his tune, his entire body nearly crumbling under the Colonel's easy look.
The Colonel doesn’t raise his voice, or demean the man. He asks his questions in a plane tone, without urgency.
“John, who is this?” Colonel Blackwood asks, standing back up to his full height to address the two men on the opposite side of the bars.
“Sergeant Kane, Sir. He was one of the Australian special forces who was with me at Abu Ghar, Sir.”
“Is that right?” Colonel Blackwood assesses the man, but reveals nothing. “Why don’t we get you boys out of there.” The Colonel turns, and offers a smile to John who refuses to break attention.
“Aye Sir!”
John cracks a smile as the humid air of the brig gives way to the dry heat of the cell he occupies now, the memory fading in time with the rise of the tinnitus ring in his ears. He can hear the sound of the Oasis police department murmuring, what few members still stuck around after all these years trying not to bring too much attention to themselves as John shifts.
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“Can I get you something?” Rich asks cautiously, fiddling around with the watch on his wrist.
John ignores him. It isn’t as though he takes pleasure in watching his friend squirm, but rather he doesn’t plan to play nice with whoever made this happen.
Oasis is a shit hole but it is still a city that has laws, laws that are rarely enforced beyond what could generate substantial income, but laws nonetheless.
To say John is friends with everyone on the force would have been a lie, rather he is the single piece that keeps this place operational. Between private training for members on the force, repairing the constantly failing systems, he is the entire reason the lights are still on, literally.
All that being said. For them to go out of their way to put him in a cell means someone important feels threatened by him, and John doesn’t like it when suits throw weight around. He would make sure he didn’t cooperate, he wanted to put as much pressure as possible on whoever was responsible for this. He would make it a point to make their life a living hell, station barbeque be damned, this was a matter of god damn principle.
As John basks in his boiling blood, he notes the sudden silence in the room. The station's eyes are on him. Not a single person willing to say what had gotten them all quiet.
“You all going to keep staring?” John challenges, making his frustration known, but whatever has them spooked must have been scarier than John, because not a single one budges.
There aren’t many people who hold this much sway, especially in areas that involve John. He could count them all on one hand and name them all in fact.
Solomon Cross is at the top of the list. Oasis’s heaviest hitter. He runs the casinos, protection, manages the pimps who oversee nearly every facet of the city's sex trade, trafficking trade, and high level drug trade. To call him a kingpin would be an understatement, the man is the governor of the state, his influence stretching far beyond the city he calls home. Very likely Solomon is international but it was impossible to tell.
Jose Mendez is in the running for second place in John’s little list of potential candidates for this fiasco. Mendez is the head of Oasis’s El Chacals. They run drugs as well, but almost exclusively the street level stuff. Meth, heroine, crack, cocaine. All of the pills, hybrids, and experimental drugs are still firmly Solomon’s area of expertise.
Last but not least, and also the least likely is the elected mayor of the city of Oasis, Patricia Riley. The election was of course all fraudulent, her underling cronies doing. Her pull on the city is minimal, dealing mostly in political favors that use the other two heavy hitters to pull influence.
“So what does Cross want with me, hmm?” John tries. It’s an educated guess, but still no one takes the bait. Instead they try to continue to go about their business for a time.
John gets uncomfortable now. His ass hurt, his head pounds, and he’s sweating half to death. Someone should have come by now, to make a scene or press demands. That was how shit like this was supposed to go.
But that never happens. The sun begins to set and the shifts rotated, leaving John alone in the cell well until the night.
“Has.... anyone told you yet?” a woman's voice asks as she hands John a bottle of water through the bars a quarter after 10pm.
“Nope.”
“Figures. They are too scared to break the news.” Vicky frowns.
She is a sweet girl, and doesn’t belong in a place like this, however one bad call and a shit reassignment meant she had to play the cards she was dealt.
Credit where it is due, at least she played them well.
“They are booking you.”
John narrows his eyes. No one got booked. Oasis is catch and release. The only crimes he had ever seen prosecuted and taken to this city's sham of a courthouse were crimes that benefited Mayor Riley to prosecute and John doesn’t hold any political sway. He has social influence in droves but that did nothing for her... so why?
“Don’t bother asking, we don’t know. But the order came down from the DA himself, saying you were being charged for two counts of aggravated assault, among a myriad of other tacked on charges.”
“For the two suits in the Lincoln?”
“Yea...”
“Must have been some big shots.”
“That’s what I am guessing. Whoever you beat bloody was someone important, or worked for someone important.”
“And it is just my luck that Rich happened to be parked nearby and flipped the sirens in the first five seconds huh?”
“I don’t know about Rich, but if the suits were important they might have asked for protection.”
“Riley’s guys?”
“Can’t say. Plates came back as civilians.”
John rubs his face and groans. “Can’t just lose the paperwork?”
Vicky shakes her head and mimics John's own movements with equal disgruntlement. “With how much they are pushing this? No... we got mouths—”
“Everyone has mouths to feed, I get it.” John lets himself lay down on the bench to look up at the ceiling of the cell.
“I’ll see if I can find out anything else for you, for what that's worth.”
John nods his head but says nothing.
“G’night John.”
“Night Vicky, stay safe out there.”
John listens to the sound of her footsteps, and watches the time pass on the ceiling above.
He supposes he could use the break, though it’s a pain in the ass to have it be on a steel bench in this stone oven.
His mind wanders as the minutes shift to hours and the sun comes to rise. John sleeps fine enough, hell he had slept in much worse conditions. One of the best tricks he ever learned in the corp was the ability to fall asleep anywhere.
Throughout the day people slip him water, doughnuts, pizza, and other food they manage to get their hands on around the station, though John makes a point of not saying much to anyone. He was read his Miranda's in the squad car by Rich, and planned on following through with pleading the 5th after his conversation with Vicky. If a suit wanted him, they would have to fucking work for it.
Later that day he is taken down to the empty courthouse, the whole thing just for the books. No one had occupied that space on any regular basis, not unless Riley wanted to put on a show.
Even now, there aren’t her usual cronies, which confuses the hell out of John even more. Bail is posted at $100,000 and John is quickly shipped back to the station to be placed in holding.
His belongings were already taken when he was initially brought in, but now the rest of his clothes are taken, and he is given a moldy brown jumpsuit to wear instead.
The holding is empty. Not a single soul other than John residing here. The place is so out of use that the employees responsible for booking him and getting him situated have to resort to decades old manuals to be reminded of the process.
Once inside, John remains there...
By the time the third day rolls around he figures they forgot about him, or this was a plan to get him to crack. He is still fed and given water but there is no information to be heard regarding what would be happening to him.
John rolls his eyes and takes to passing the time by working out instead. Every day, two hundred pushups, sit-ups, and squats as a warm up, followed by a routine of combat drills, and ending with some more fun workouts just to keep things interesting, such as holding himself up with one arm for as long as he could, or using the toilet to plank in the air supported only by his forearms, among other feats simply to alleviate boredom.
It isn’t until the end of the first week, that finally someone comes with news.
“Someone paid your bail.” Kendrick says with a low whistle, unlocking the cell for John.
“Money it is then.” John sighs, finishing his stretches before leaving with the big man.
“Looks like it. Either they want to show off or put you in debt.”
“Right, let’s see how far that gets them.”
“You think you’ll jump town? Or are you going to try and figure out who is putting you through the ringer first?” Kendrick opens the door and John steps out to go and grab his things from the counter.
“I’ll figure out who is giving me a hard time. The worst thing they could have done was pay my bail. Whoever this is, isn’t a local. They would know better than to let me out on the street right now.”
“Shit, well let me know when you know the spots you are hitting so we can steer clear.”
“Orders from the top won’t have you on my ass?”
“Orders were to book you for the assault. Everything else....” Kendrick puts his hands over his eyes.
“Good man.” John smiles, and Kendrick returns it.
Gathering his things and changing in the bathroom, John exits the building to return to the sweltering heat of the desert air.
Squinting against the light, his ears pick up the sound of an engine. A Lincoln town car by the sounds of it.
“You stupid mother fuckers.” John shakes the glare from his eyes, takes a single step forward and then freezes in his tracks.
Every muscle in his body screams to go to attention, and he almost listens, as Colonel Blackwood stands leaning against the black car.
“Heard you messed my guys up pretty bad.” he speaks in that usual calm, even tone.
“Colonel...”
“No, no more Colonel, just regular 'ol Randal Blackwood now.” the man corrects with a winning smile.
John tries his best to relax, but he can’t manage to convince his mind that the man before him is a civilian.
“Well, your men were piss poor tails and were annoying me.”
“That was the point.”
“So... what, you put people on me so I make a scene, send me to prison for a week and pay my bail to say hello? I would have accepted a postcard Colonel.”
“Just Blackwood.”
John narrows his eyes at the mans grinning face.
“Why don’t we have a chat?” Blackwood opens the passenger door to the Lincoln.
“With all due respect, no, especially not after this shit. You wanted my cooperation? You should have just let me know what you wanted from the start.”
“John, when have I ever done you wrong?” Blackwood offers softly, holding the door open still.
John remains silent
“Consider that I had my reasons, and while they may seem unreasonable to you at this moment I assure it was all very necessary... Now, why don’t you come with me and we can talk?”
John has half the mind to just walk away, but there is something in Blackwood's eyes that gives him pause.
The Colonel—Blackwood never does anything without a reason. He had forgotten what a pain in the ass the man is, having been a year since getting out, but this brings back all of those memories in a flurry.
He wants to tell him to fuck off, he wants to prove a point, and show that this little game he is playing wont work.
“You don’t have your car, it's 104 degrees out, and it's a ten mile walk back to your house. At least let me give you a ride home.”
John could feel the faint bit of AC from the car.
“God damnit...”
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