The Straw that Broke [Sam/Ana]

Jamison glanced up at her when she spoke and frowned, "if I attacked you right now...Would they shoot me? Would you shoot me?" He sounded almost like he was considering the idea, he was tired, and he had no future at this point, all he wanted now was to close his eyes and rest, "maybe I shoulda' fought...All I got now is a waitin' game." He laughed as he flopped back against the bench, laying on his back and staring towards the ceiling, "wait until they finally put this crazy fucking dog down!" There was an almost hysterical tone to his voice and he couldn't help but laugh, "fuck me..."

He looked over at her again as he sat up, "so...What happens now?" He grinned, "yew gonna muzzle me? throw me in a straight jacket? Or just leave me here." He glanced at the wall, "I ain't had a future since I got back from those fucking trenches."

She wasn't sure what she'd expected when she finally came face to face with this man, someone hardened, unrepentant, maybe. But this...this was just a beaten down, broken, tired kid. It was a shame, really, that his life had come to this, and that he'd taken so many others out with him...the demons that must live in the head of someone like him.

"No. You'll be kept in a cell, but you won't be restrained unless you give us reason to. If you *were* to attack me...that would result in you being restrained. But that choice is yours and yours alone."

She looked back out to one of the guards and gave a bit of a nod. "The first thing that is going to happen though. You're going to get cleaned up so you don't sit here looking like a horror show anymore."

Jamison glanced at her and nodded, "kept in a cell...Until they finally let me go to sleep." It was an eerie but pleasant thought, though he wasn't sure if it'd be quite as peaceful, "how will they do it? Electric chair? Shot to the head?" He was fixated on the thought, obsessive about his inevitable demise, he hoped they kept his name out of the headlines, for Sam and Sarah's sake. They didn't need to know what happened to him.

He glanced up with a surprised expression when she mentioned him being cleaned up, chuckling softly, "that's kind of yeh..." He looked over himself with a frown as he sat up, "I guess I would like t'get this mess off me..." Sitting here looking like a villain from a horror movie was a tad unpleasant, he realized.

"How about let's deal with your fate later." She answered, he seemed fixated on his own death, perhaps the same way he seemed fixated on other's deaths. The deaths he'd caused.

"We'll clean you up. Let you sleep it off...maybe we talk about this more in the morning. There are things I'd like some answers to, in regards to your recent activities."

She wondered, after talking to him, how many files would be cleared off her desk, finally put to rest because of this broken young man.

Jamison gave her a sick sort of smile, shrugging and laughing, "sure. I got all the time in the world after all. I'm not going anywhere." He was confident that he could find a way to escape if he really wanted to, but why bother? Why try and escape into a world where he had no one left to give a shit? Better to spend his time here staring at the wall until death finally came to take him.

He glanced over at her, wiggling his hands, "listen...I don't got any weapons on me...Can you at least take these cuffs off?" He shrugged and looked thoughtful, "I'll answer all I can...I don't really care about escaping or going anywhere else." He laughed, "nothing but a cold gutter waiting for me out there anyway. Least it's dry and sort of warm in here." Winter's bite was even more gnawing without a bed to lay down in.

The next morning found them both a bit more cleaned up and rested, well, perhaps as much as they could be, given the sort of night she had had, and she was sure he had also had. But he seemed calmer, less fixated on his own death...maybe not by a lot, but at least by a little.

She sat across the plain, empty metal table from him, just the two of them, a table, two chairs, a light over the table and one way glass opposite them, and a notepad in front of her. She was sure some of the other heads of the place were watching, but either of them could tell from in here. She rested her hands folded on the table in front of them. "The cuffs are a precaution for the time being. Just last night you were threatening to attack me, in an attempt to provoke one of us shooting you. Just because you do not have a weapon currently on you...that does not mean you are unarmed, or not dangerous." The words were not harsh, just matter of fact.

She paused for a moment, looking down at the sheet. "You've admitted to committing murders. We will get into the extent of that more in a minute, but the first...were these acts you committed completely on your own, or on someone else's orders?" She asked, looking back up again.

It had been a rough night, but better than it would have been sleeping in the gutter in the cold. He didn't quite appreciate the prison attire, but he supposed that was to be expected since he was a prisoner after all. He'd seen this coming and even welcomed such an interrogation, figuring it might feel good to get his crimes out in the open before he died, or at least give as many details as he felt comfortable giving. He wasn't going to rat Sam out, not that Sam had has any hand in his murders, but he was still an accomplice for covering for him so many times.

He had a calm, almost content look on his face as he listened to her explain the cuffs that had been placed on his hands again, shrugging, "of course. Not like it did me any good." He smirked at her, "got myself cuffed for nothing." He'd been half hoping that they would have chosen to shoot him. How disappointing.

He tilted his head, chuckling softly, "a little of column A and a little of B." He shrugged and shook his head, "I was ordered to...For the most part...Though I couldn't say who by...It was always someone different." He looked over his hands, "someone needed some poor bastard whacked. They'd contact me, or have an underling do it for them." He looked back up at her, "but I enjoyed it. I got the worst kind of jolly out of the way it felt. I looked forward to people contacting me."

She made a few notes as she let out an interested sound. She wasn't really surprised to hear he was in someone's employ, what was a bit curious was how he didn't seem to be connected to any one group or family as was often the case.

"Did you ever have any idea who it was you were working for?" She asked next. "If it was generally in the same group's interests? If you truly were completely free-lancing...it's not unheard of but it's an odd way to do business. Can become messy with conflicting interests...how is it you got into such a business in the first place?" She asked next.

This was an odd young man to be sure, and as generally happened in these types of situations, not nearly as cut and dried a situation as it might have seemed at first.

Jamison tapped his foot as he waited for her to write down what she wanted to and looked back up to address him again, tilting his head, "I mean...It was always for the gangs 'round'ere...But that's about as good as I can give." He chuckled and rested his chin in his hands, against the table, as best as he could with the cuffs. "as you can imagine people ain't gonna give the hired hand many details as to who wants the killing done." He looked thoughtful, "they were always pretty good about not shooting the messenger...I was doing a job...That was it." There'd been a few close calls, a few groups that were bigger than he'd anticipated, bigger messes, but he was good at handling those.

At the question of how he ended up this way he looked at her for a long moment before glancing away, "when I came back fro the war...I didn't have a family or a job or any of that waiting for me." He laughed bitterly, "I tried to settle in to a few jobs sure...But I always ended up fired." his voice became soft as he spoke, "the last job I worked my boss told me 'Jamison, you fucking scare me, you're a psychopath.'" He shrugged and looked down, "I knew then that I'd never find a real job...I didn't have money or the resources to get help for being fucking crazy...I've been on the streets since I got back..." He looked up at her, "they tell you you'll come back a hero...But you don't. You come back to a world that wishes they didn't have to look at the ugly truth of what war actually is."

He hung his head further, "it don't make any of my cries right...But it ain't like I wanted my life to go this way...I didn't ask for any of this." He could say he enjoyed killing people as much as he wanted, but he really didn't, he hated it.

She made a few more notes, scribbling a few things, underlining a couple more, then looking back up to him. She listened to him with a serious expression, hearing about his experiences in the war with a growing frown.

"And yet...you said you enjoyed the things you did." Again no judgement, just a calm, steady voice as she asked questions and gauged his reactions to them.

Another pause before she continued. "And...you were just...found on the street one day by these people? Offered a job? Or did you know someone who drew you into all of this?"