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Colin is just annoyed by now, irritated, skin prickling with little red ants of being fed up. He's so, so tired, which is an almost constant state these days because — basically he has no idea what Chris and his sister think they're doing, making so many enemies, he doesn't have time for this at all. There are a multitude of other things pulling at his mind and at his merely conventional-length days (there are only twenty-four hours to them, despite what everyone who requires something of him seems to think) and he has to try to look like most of them don't exist besides. It's exhausting. (If he wasn't doing illegal things it would be easier at least in terms of complaining but the thing about this job is that it's his. So to speak. It's not equal enough to compare, in Colin's head; this job is a few thousand kinds of illegal, but this job is his, so that doesn't matter. Also he's helping Chris, more or less; that probably means something.)
Right now, either he can get this over with quickly and then spend half an hour trying to account for himself to find that this Brian Whatever was actually of some degree of importance — and then Chris will be sullen at him when what does he expect, actually getting information out of people is not anywhere near Colin's strong point — or he can spend another hour trying to get Young Man With Now-Forgotten Name That Colin Is Sure He Was Told At Some Point to talk only to find he knows nothing. And probably he knows nothing. Anyone stupid enough to tell whoever they're using everything wouldn't have gotten as far as — Colin is really, truly terrible at names — did, but, a copy of Chris that resides in Colin's mind argues, someone who knew what they were doing wouldn't have gotten caught. So there's a chance that he should pursue for reasons of ethics or whatever.
If someone who knew what they were doing would have managed to kill Caroline after all Colin can't discern anything really wrong with that. More power to them, Caroline's annoying — but. Oh. Chris would be upset, wouldn't he. (How inconsiderate of Chris, making everything so complicated.)
Brian Who Probably Has Had A Surname At Some Point In His Life is probably older than Colin; it seems like everyone is. That's all right, because they aren't real people. They can all cling to whatever they want to so as to try to claim superiority. Brian Who Is Tied To A Chair isn't really clinging to anything right now, though. He had guitar calluses on his fingers, something Colin recognises for the obvious reasons. He still has them, actually, and they're still on his fingers, it's just that said fingers are lying on the table now. That's recent. Colin had walked out to — do something about it, he thinks, but he forgot what he was doing after around a minute and now he's back here and Brian Thing is unconscious.
There's. There's an awful lot of blood on Colin's hands, he realises a moment after he's already brushed his hair out of his eyes. It's not properly fresh but it's still tacky. Now there is not-quite-fresh blood in his hair, air-cooled and sticky, stuck almost more to the dried stuff that was already there than to his actual hair. It's going to itch like crazy soon (if he gets home and takes a shower, and he's going to have to, by the looks of it he'll be ready just in time for his first class. Joy. There is really not enough coffee or Red Bull in the world for all of this).
When Colin drops one of the picks — by all rights his left hand ought to be more dexterous than that; sleep-deprivation, then, is also to blame — it rings, metal on metal, and he's almost too distracted by that to put the rest on, itself on a whim, and wake up Brian With The Makeshift Amputations (is it still an amputation when it's a digit, not a limb? Colin tied his hand off so it would stop bleeding and everything, okay, before he walked off even). That's so rude as well, him just fainting like that. (Colin's eyes hurt from too-bright lights and two in the morning, he is suddenly enraged at everything in his way, everything that is keeping him here, and that's Unconscious Brian right there.)
A while ago he acquired these things, he can't remember how, little pointed rings of metal meant for playing guitar without shredding one's skin, but he could never really get the hang of their use. Now they're tiny little barbs with, admittedly, limited uses, but they tear open Brian's shoulder and then face when Colin prods him to waking. (He'd just use his knife but after a too-late handwritten essay and something-many pages of notes and, right, four belaboured amputations with corrected terminology pending — wouldn't a bone saw be nice, but then again it would be faster — his wrist is just killing him.)
Colin keeps his right hand open because tearing grooves into his own palm is just stupid. His knife is in his left hand; he's clumsily swinging it, open, shut, open, shut (it would be so nice — the thought sticks in his head — to be ambidextrous), fidgeting in a rhythm he almost knows.
"Da da da da da da da," Colin sounds out, simple alternating dirge-like emphasis in a quiet lilt, as Brian Something Or Other's eyes flicker open and he makes a broken sort of sobbing sound.
And Colin's ears had stopped ringing from the screaming but a few minutes ago, too.
"What," Brian demands, sweat and blood and various other secretions dripping down his face (though the open wounds are negligible that still must sting), "do you even want?"
That gives Colin pause. "I'm fairly sure I said," he says. "You must remember. I was attired as I am now, you were tied as you are now though at the time you had the full complement of fingers that is considered normal on your left hand and I said, who hired you?" He clicks his tongue, looking down at Brian With The Last Name That Starts With A Consonant, He's Fairly Sure. "I'm sure you remember."
His name hits Colin like a memory but thrown hard. Carter. Brian Carter. All right then. Brian Carter Whose Last Name Should Have Been Easier To Remember And Now Colin's Not Even Sure Why He Was Trying To breathes in like he's going to speak and then yells instead when Colin leans on his — kind of purple, by now, to be honest — hand.
Oh. Right. Untying — cutting off, at this point, and he pulls the picks off kind of sadly, tosses his knife into his right hand, and is amused by the way Brian With The Name's eyes go wide — the tourniquet would be favourite right now, wouldn't it. Colin does, ignoring the noises his subject (which makes Colin a verb, by insomniac logic; how lovely and elegant) makes in the process.
The headache growing at the back of his head — absent-mindedly, Colin traces his fingertips in feathery patterns over where it feels like the pain is, little flakes of blood coming off his knuckles — is something like a hurricane. It's full of gnat-like lightning. His eyes won't, for a too-long moment, focus right; he blames the screaming still.
Brian's down to fast gasps, whimpering, something like that — to get a handle on what it would be he'd have to pay attention — now. He's been talking, frantically, trying to convey something but who knows what, entirely unheeding of the way the sound sparks at Colin's ears, friction, like an electric shock.
"Listen," Colin says tiredly, his mouth by Carter's ear (that. That would be easier to take off, an ear), "I don't even care. Be quiet, please."
But he still won't shut up, even when Colin puts the blade by the first knuckle of the littlest finger of his right hand — if he was doing this properly he'd start with fingernails but he wants to go home, all right — and puts enough weight on it to cut. That might be why, actually, words that must have made sense at least to him giving way to animal noises because this time he knows what's coming.
Colin smiles through the headache, the rhythm in his head coming back, slower this time. Terrified Brian's hand spasms so Colin holds the wrist down against the chair.
"Hush," he sounds out, and then suddenly the song's caught up in him or he in it and he's not tired and his head doesn't hurt at all, nothing does, it's completely and entirely fine: "Hush, now, darling, don't you cry, your reward's in the sweet by-and-by."
It's always an odd sound, tiny meaty thunk, just a third of a finger falling on the floor. Colin picks it up, because some things must be done properly, trying to keep to the fast-bright tone of the song.
When he smiles it feels odd against his skin, the way expressions always do when he's been awake too long. No matter. He points at Carter with the newly-bloody knife and keeps on singing.
He wishes he could think clearly enough to remember where Carson is, because at the back of his mind it worries him that he can't think of it and yet it would be so undignified to have to go find out. Colin's supposed to remember this kind of thing, be a responsible adult and all.
At any rate, though, it's eleven at night — which, for some ridiculous reason, manages to feel late. Possibly that just means he needs to get back to work, if this is starting to feel normal, but — Carson being gone feels odd, is this what it's like for her when he's always off working? Unlikely. Colin is told over and over that he doesn't experience things the way other people do.
Eleven at night and even Colin knows that it's not even subtle on his part to be sitting with his head on a notebook that is, in turn, on the kitchen table; he could at least pretend to be paying attention to what he just wrote, perfect nonsense that doesn't even quite rhyme. (It would rhyme if someone who wasn't him was saying it, admittedly.) In anyone else this stupid-lost feeling would be loneliness and with good reason; his wife's off doing — something that has to do with being a famous illustrator, he thinks it's a convention, he can't remember, and his son's not old enough to be a logical being by any accounts and should be in bed anyway. He is probably alone; that seems to be why people find themselves lonely.
Except for that he isn't entirely alone, though, Colin discovers, tiny-soft footfalls still enough to make him startle awake and upright. (Which is just as well; surprising him has never been a good idea. Just as well that Hank can't.) Hank's standing in the doorway but runs up to him when he looks, awkward stumbling steps nevertheless delivering him to — hang off Colin's knee, apparently. All right then.
"I can't sleep," Hank says, pre-emptive and almost sullen, like he's expecting Colin to be angry about that. Colin's not sure why he would be but probably it's just another thing he's missing.
(Then again, stupid state psychologists would've said he couldn't be trusted with a child, so what did they know? Of course he likes Hank, Carson and his son couldn't fall under the same classifications as everyone else in the same way that Colin himself couldn't stop walking on knives and notes. And he can't.)
"Can I help?" Colin asks, and he's relieved when Hank nods. At least he knows what he's doing; Colin still is new at this.
Hank grins. "Tell me a story."
After a moment, Colin nods. "All right. That I can do." He spends a moment thinking and runs aground — because apparently Colin has ships of thought instead of trains, or something — at an honestly stupid realisation: "I've never written a song for you," he admits, "not properly. I'm sorry."
There's a pause in Hank's kind of inept attempts to climb onto Colin's lap — it really shouldn't be that hard, but he is kind of tall, he supposes — that Colin uses to lift him up himself. "'S okay," his son says, and rests against Colin's chest, his head under Colin's chin.
Seeing as Colin himself is trying, despite what Carson says every single time he does, to grow a beard, this tickles as he starts to sing. He doesn't really mind.
As far as he knows it's unlikely that Hank catches even one word in five — he's perfectly aware that he doesn't exactly speak clearly, let alone sing, and his son is all of not quite three years old, so — but the cadence, or something, is enough to lull him to sleep quickly enough that Colin almost wonders if he wasn't quite telling the truth about not being able to. He continues to wonder this, but then Hank stirs when he finally stops and tries to stand up.
"Oh, come now," Colin breathes, because that is a very long song. "Stubborn child." (He can't stop smiling.)
Admittedly, there's around an eighth of the song left. Who knows, maybe Hank can tell. Colin can, but he wrote it; the momentary lack of completion is biting at his tongue.
He gets to his feet successfully on the second try despite the threat of woken-up toddler and hums until they've crossed the room. Hank continues to sleep like a proverbial baby unless Colin should pause to take a breath, which is slightly ridiculous (but he's still smiling).
"So hush, now, darling, don't you cry," he starts in again, and it only takes a few false starts for him to sing them both upstairs.