Who: @donnymorgan and Archie
Where: Kismet Harbor Jail
When: July 2024
Ending up in jail right before the fourth of July was not on Archie's 2024 bingo card. In fact he had been pretty good this year so far, only getting in trouble may be once and it didn't involve handcuffs. However this time was different, and he wasn't even to blame. Well, that's not completely true. He was there, but he didn't actually participate in any wrong doing; or so he'd say.
After hanging out with some old friends, Archie and crew decided to go bar hopping. After their third or fourth bar; Archie had lost count; they group decided to have a little fun. They went and bought some fireworks; and decided to see how far a garbage can would fly by lighting one underneath it. They had dragged it onto the beach as so they didn't have to worry about it accidentally breaking a window or hitting a car. Once the cops showed up, Archie, being the smart ass that he is, decided to make a joke, and light one last firework. Before this, he would have gotten off with just a warning, but instead, he found himself in handcuffs, and behind bars. and now charged with resisting arrest and disturbing the peace. After he was book, he sat in the cell. Finally he was able to call someone. Getting his one phone call, he knew who he'd try to reach.
"Uh, hey Donny. It's Archie. Umm, I kind of need your help. See, I uh got arrested," he switched the phone to the other ear before continuing. "And I need someone to help come bail me out."
Whumptober 2023, Day 3 & 4: Solitary confinement, shock
Whumptober 2023 Masterlist
Read at your own risk! They're only snippets of a larger story, with no resolution that will be posted online anytime soon; they are being posted out of order; and the characters don't have names. Enjoy!
Contents: blood (barely), guilt, arrested, fear, angst (a lot—what else is new?)
Previous | Masterlist | Next
Word count: 600 || Approx reading time: 3 mins
Solitary Confinement
Teaser: There was no running, not for him. Not anymore.
"They'll kill me if I'm lucky / They'll torture me if not"
All the scholar could hear was his own rapid, fraying breath.
The panicked rasping.
The frantic gasp of each intake of air as he tried desperately to regain his senses.
Dead. He’s dead.
They’d thrown him inside, heedless of how his sight failed him and his feet stumbled and scrabbled beneath him. Now he lay motionless, tasting blood, pretending that this was all part of his plan. He didn’t move from where he’d fallen.
He’s dead, and I killed him.
He couldn’t move. He barely wanted to. The deed was done; the choice was made.
I’ll distract him, he’d promised.
He’d known what he was sacrificing when he walked into their midst.
Now. Run. Please.
There was no running, not for him. Not anymore.
The room was quiet, but it was distinctly unlike the soothing peace of the library where he had spent so many hours of his life. This—this was an ominous quiet, heavy with dread, slippery with promise. The promise—and memory—of death.
Leave him in there, they’d said, until the prince arrives.
The thud of a body striking rough stone rang in his ears. It was only once he was already prone—still reeling from the impact—that the scholar realized it had been his own weary, grief-stricken bones and his own torn skin scraping against the floor.
Let the prince decide what to do with the bastard.
The scholar’s wrists stung, unused to anything harsher than the silk of his shirtsleeves. He wore metal bands now, heavy and pinching and dark, suppressing what little magic he possessed—the only weapon, truly, he had to wield. Snuffed out, as much a prisoner as he.
Magic he’d used to kill a man.
Dead. The word repeated in his mind. The commander was dead, and soon, the scholar would be, too.
Quiet.
So quiet.
Too quiet.
He loved such stillness, usually—relished it. Most of the time, it meant solitude. Solace. The tender whispers of turning pages, muffled footsteps, and contented sighs.
Today, it meant something else:
Death.
He hadn’t meant to.
But he had.
I chose this.
He’d chosen her.
Soon the prince would arrive to decide his fate. He would know what his old tutor had done. He would pass judgment and, in all likelihood, sentence him to death.
I didn’t mean to.
The scholar had written the end of his own story, or rather, he had tried. He could never have imagined that this was where his life would lead him—to an empty, airless holding room, mere corridors from the dungeon cells that would no doubt become his tomb. And what for?
I did it for her.
If he closed his eyes, he could feel the ghost of her hands in his.
Don’t get hurt, she’d said. A promise he’d known—even as he agreed—he could not keep. He wondered what she would say if she could see him now. If she—more full of fight than he had ever been—would rage and rail to see him prostrate and shaking. Or if, instead, she would merely weep.
Get up, she would urge. Please.
The barest sliver of him wished his cruel, craven mind—soaked with pain and fear and shock and terror—would let him be, that his conscience would simply rest. He almost—almost—wished her voice would just stop.
But if it did, he would be left with the emptiness and silence of the room, and in a sea of fear and foreboding, he would drown.
If it did, the scholar knew, he would never again hear her voice, out loud or in his head, so when death came for him, he would be nothing more than a wretched husk of a man, despised and heartbroken and alone.
Markus: Martin gets into enough trouble on his own, he doesn’t need anyone egging him on. Are you bailing him out the next time or am I expected to bail you both out?
Laila: I would have bailed him out, but I didn’t know he’d been caught. I’m guessing he’ll use his arrest as a reason to stop helping me. That way he can keep hiding from the world and stay angry.
Markus: *sigh* I’m probably going to regret saying this, but I think he should continue working with you. He needs something to focus on right now.
potential triggers: mention of arrest & prison time as well as a brief mention of death.
Below are a few things about Logan, potential connections and a link to his full bio! Feel free to like this post or hit me up!
Born in France but raised primarily in Harlem, New York.
Born Léopold Adama (after the great Sengalese poet and activist).
Relatively quiet and curious kid who grew into a charming, far too curious and spirited teenager. He loved a thrill and loved the idea of breaking the rules since all the revolutionaries he read about all but implied they were meant to be broken.
He was arrested for the first time when was 17 after getting caught trying to boost a car with some friends of his. It wasn’t the first time but it was the first time he had gotten caught.
But this small time offense landed him in prison for the next 13 years of his life. (The car belonged to some asshole upper east side banker who was just dying to extend the “fair” arm of justice.)
By the time Logan returned to the real world, so much had changed and he struggled to get his bearings. With the help of his parents upstairs neighbor, he took up a passion for baking, finding solace in something that was peaceful, measured and yet still exciting. He burned a figurative hole in his library card with all the recipe books he had taken out. Logan has always been an avid reader.
Things were going well until he got arrested again on a minor parole violation when the trains ran late and he ended up missing curfew. The PO he had was just waiting to nail him so he spent another five years being shuffled around upstate prisons until he came back home to Harlem at the age of 35, not sure what a real life even looked like.
He got home only to discover the neighbor who had taught him so much, become his mentor, had passed away. But more than that, she had left everything to him, including instructions to visit a place called Mama Kay’s in Olympus, Louisiana. She had called it her home away from home.
But with still being on parole, he couldn’t immediately travel and he had become used to waiting. So he saved up on top of the money she had left him, kept his head down, did everything right until he was officially able to change his name to Logan and leave New York for good.
Logan arrived in Olympus six months ago to the open arms of the Mama Kay’s staff as if they had known him forever. It turned out his neighbor had written often about him and had arranged for him to have a job there, something that had become pretty difficult for him given his record and lack of resume experience. But he had a job, and he managed to find a place to stay and for the first time in his life he has a real sense of freedom and doesn’t actually know what to do with it. He barely knows how to use his smartphone half the time and still highly prefers CD’s and vinyls though has become a recent Spotify convert (happy to have a connect w/someone who is his tech guide lol!)
He’s well aware of the tensions around town but likes to keep his head down and mind his damn business. But that can only last so long :)
Potential Connections:
He’s fairly new but I’m positive he’s met some folks in the six months he’s been here so: anyone who frequents the bakery, a neighbor, maybe someone he happened to know wayyy back in the day in New York, literally anything and everything. Logan is fairly open aside from the fact that he’s spent most of his life in a cell than in the actual world so he’s like a 21 year old in a 40 yr old mans body. He needs some help living!
