hopeful

I have never asked anything for purely selfish reasons from my friendslist. At least, never openly, I just implied.

This is *serious*.

I still can't send out email, but can receive it, which is kind of like being a roach motel, and wow, gross.

So I need a favor.

Just email svmadelyn at svmadelyn@livejournal.com and tell her that I am a dim shadow of my sparkly self if she does not come online *right now* to entertain me.

So far, three have been sent, and she mocks me. I'd hate to resort to desperate measures to get her attention.

I do things like this, left unsupervised.

*****

They held him down the first time.

Rodney doesn't remember anything about that day before that, coming conscious on some horror-movie version of a medical bed, eyes opening on almost-silent grunts, dragged from unconsciousness by something he can't even name. John was strapped down to another bed and convulsing under the attentions of three white-clad bodies.

Spine a painful arch from the thin mattress, mouth gagged, eyes rolled back, and God, Rodney remembers thinking. God. He was *screaming*.

They held him down and shot him up, watching him seizing with detached curiosity, then took him away, to that room, to the chair, strapped him in, made him their living, breathing key, their way to activate a fortress and take over a world.

Rodney doesn’t remember anything until they brought him back, dumping him on the cool floor of their cell, still shaking with involuntary reaction. Rodney remembers pulling him to the cot and stretching him out, John's fingers tangled in the sheet beneath his cheek, saying the same thing over and over.

His name, hissed sharply between clenched teeth. His rank. His serial number.

Neither of them slept that night.