♠blinded in chains♠

[chevy♠metal]

open if anybody cares

He told them if they so much as looked at his guitar the wrong way he would kill them but luckily for him he was completely smashed and what came out didn't sound anything like that. Cops aren't usually very accepting of death threats especially from people they're already arresting and they probably would have intentionally wrecked his guitar just to piss him off. Cops tended to dislike Chevy for some reason probably the way he looked or something they never trusted people who looked like he did. Not that he ever really gave anybody a reason to trust him in fact he usually just gave them a long list of reasons not to trust him but it still pissed him off when they prejudged him.

They had picked him up for a good list of things like being drunk in public indecent exposure noise complaints soliciting and maybe a few other things. Which made sense since he had been stumbling down the street drunk off his ass in his underwear and t-shirt playing his guitar with his amp in his backpack blasting at 2AM. He didn't see what was wrong with playing a little music after the bar he was at closed but apparently the people in the neighborhood didn't agree with him because the pigs didn't take long to come and book him. He blamed it on all the rich prissy people living in their fancy high-rise building who had their knickers in a knot because they couldn't hear their late night shows on their big screen TVs.

They were actually going to let him get off with a warning for some reason but when they searched him they found out that his wallet was full of royalty money that bands he used to be with still had to pay him and didn't believe that a drunk idiot like that could have got that much money without stealing it. He was in no state to argue his innocence at the time but by the time he got to the lockup he was sobered up a bit and had told them to call his (ex)agent to clear his name. Ex-agent because Chevy hated agents but someone had insisted he have one at some point and he had gone along with it for some reason he didn't remember but at least the guy was good for something. Clearing Chevy's name.

In the meantime he had to sit in a cell at the station and wait still drunk as hell and feeling generally pissed off. He wanted his guitar and his other shit back and mainly he just really didn't want to be in jail. Being locked up was bad enough but being locked up in the same building as a bunch of cops was just inhumane.

"Smells like fuckin'... bacon in here" he slurred almost retching as the world spun between words. And then he noticed there was someone in the cell across from him and his soggy mind decided he was bored enough to attempt to make conversation even though his eyes couldn't even focus on the other person.

"What are you in... for?"

[casey]

Some cases outright sucked. It was like the Academy made certain that every once in a while its members should suffer miserably for their job. Currently, Casey sat in a jail cell, supposedly looking for another Gifted. It would figure that they'd find someone in a jail cell. Probably a new Agent, the way things were going lately.

Casey turned to the newcomer, watching as he entered. Nothing outward gave away any sign of a Gift, but Casey suspected that he'd just encountered his target.

Mostly because there wasn't anyone else in the jail cell, and this was where his target was supposed to be.

"It always smells like bacon in here. Too many pigs," joked Casey. He watched the other man warily, just in case he happened to be able to shoot fire or something equally dangerous. Right now Casey simply looked like a homeless middle-aged black man. Nothing at all threatening. And the best thing Casey could do was survive a direct attack.

Goodie.

"I'm in for," Casey hocked loudly, then spat into a corner, "public exposure. Just wanted a place to stay for the night."

He looked at the target, wishing he remembered the name. "You?"

[chevy♠metal]

Some more drunk and more easily riled part of Chevy was pissed that the guy had laid open the premise of his wisecrack like he himself hadn't thought of it first but he was starting to sober up and knew there was no sense in getting pissed at the one person in the place who wasn't eaten with eggs and a coffee in the morning. So his slowly drying brain reprocessed what the other guy had said and focused on the actual topics of conversation instead of the joke. And he had never really thought of it before but getting locked up for a place to stay wasn't the most stupid idea he had ever heard for a homeless guy anyway. He kinda wondered why there weren't more homeless dudes around the jail.

"I'd rather stay in a cold wet dish than with these 'law enforces'" he managed to verbally spew missing a syllable or two along the way. "But I guess you might get sick of the... streets after and a while and be willing to up put up with a lot of shit for roof... a roof over your head huh?" He didn't seem to noticed he had fucked up a lot of his sentence but when you're still pretty hammered you tend to not notice you don't make any sense and just assume what you mean to say is what you actually say.

"I'm in for.... that shit you saiduh and... I don't fuckin' know they had a whole list. But all I was doing was playing my guitar and the people" he said with disgust "didn't like the cut of my.... my... they didn't like my music or something. Fuck if I know." He waved his hand like to tell the guy to stop asking about it because it was giving him a headache trying to remember why he was here but he did remember one last thing. "Money..." he mumbled flopping onto the bed so he could stare at the ceiling like there was a way out up there. Truth was though that he could never look at another person without feeling disgust bubble up in side of him so dead was the world to him but he didn't want to give this guy a shit rap just because he hated everyone else maybe they were even kindred spirits or something. It probably in't good to alienate your kindred spirit he thought through his drunken haze.

"Fuck man... I need another drink or somethin' to calm my stomach or I'm going to toss my lunch" he said his way of attempting conversation. "You know how to make any of that prison beer shit? I'd drink just about anything with a drop of fuckin' alcohol in it right now..."

[casey]

Well, the other guy was most certainly inebriated. Probably an understatement there. His breath just about got Casey drunk, and the Agent wasn't a light weight. Since he regenerated now, he probably took vast amounts of liquor to get him drunk. Not that he ever bothered.

"Hey, man, it's better than shakin' in a box," protested Casey. He shrugged, chuckling darkly. "Man, you sleep on the streets enough you'll do just about anything to get off. Seriously, I'd kiss a freakin' toad or something."

Casey turned, giving his cellmate a mostly toothless grin. He definitely looked like the type of person who should be kissing toads.

"You play?" Casey tilted his head. What Gifts made you play better? Instant muscle memory, kinetic acceleration, empathetic projection. The list just kept growing. Still, it was something to work with. "You any good?"

He looked around, wondering if the guitar had made it in here, or if they'd taken it from the man when he came in. Probably took it, but it was worth a shot.

"Sorry, man, no booze," Casey spread his hands wide, smiling again. "They took my stuff when I got here. An' I ain't been here long enough to make my own."

[chevy♠metal]

Chevy's addled brain was coming to all sorts of conclusions about what the other guy said like that he was mocking him because he kept parroting everything Chevy said back to him in different words first with the joke and then with doing anything to get off the streets. Chevy's eyes narrowed a little in concentration as he tried to figure the other guy's game out but it was beyond him so he just took it in stride for the most part.

Chevy was still staring at the ceiling and he would have missed the guy's smile but his stomach started complaining about all the poison he had poured into it and told him if he didn't get the fuck up it would get rid of the poison and all over him too. So he rolled off the crap bed in the cell looking as the other guy as he went and matching the smile with a grimace that could possibly have been a pained forced smile and then went to the corner of the cell to get better aquainted with the toilet.

After the meet and greet he stared into the disgusting byproduct of having one too many and then a couple more more because he wanted to aim anything else that decided to come up at its friends and a confused look came to his face. Not that the other guy could see his face in the toilet bowl but he spoke too and his tone of voice was equally confused and would probably get across the whole confused vibe unless the other guy was just plain stupid.

"I don't remember... eating chicken..." he said and his voice was muffled and kind of echoey because of it being in a toilet at the time.

He eventually got away from the toilet and after he flushed it he got around to the other guy's question if only because it would distract him from the shitty way his stomach felt. "Yeah I play my... guitar.... I'd be fuckin' famous if I didn't... hate uh, fuck... the uh... other people in a band? So damn much. I always end up quitting."

He cursed when the man said he didn't have any booze not that it was surprising that either he had no booze or that Chevy cursed since it was one of his favorite passtimes. His stomach didn't feel quite as shitty any more but it still wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs.

[casey]

Academy precedence instructed Casey to wait until this man passed out, then use his special authority to get him to the Academy, post-haste. Assuming this was, of course, the right man. Right now all Casey had to go on was a hunch. He'd like to have something more before he decided to drag someone back to a top-secret school/facility.

"Man, you pukin' over there?" Casey craned his body slightly to watch the other man vomit. Certainly not something Casey particularly wanted to see, but it was something a bored homeless guy would gawk at. Besides, the more harmless and crazy Casey looked, the better.

"Everything tastes like chicken," he offered, nodding sagaciously.

"Hey, I know someone in a band," he added. He actually knew several someone's in bands, and probably some more famous than this man. Gifts had a tendency to do that to a person. "You got a special gift for playin', man?"

Yeah, that was technically calling it out, but who would really know?

[chevy♠metal]

Chevy finally decided this guy was just plain fucked up in the brain even though in his current situation he wasn't much better off. He was talking nonsense or at least it sounded like nonsense through Chevy's still lingering alcohol induced haze. He thought it was pretty clear he had been puking and for that reason he didn't answer him maybe the guy would see that he looked like shit like a guy who had just magged. And Chevy never said anything about taste there was just something nasty that looked like chicken in the toilet but the other guy couldn't have seen that so he guessed he could get away with saying what he did.

Chevy started hearing the noise from the machines in the building and groaned. As soon as every technological gizmo in the area started squawking like an asshole again it meant he was starting to sober up good. The fact that alcohol interfered with his Gift that he didn't know was a Gift in this way was one of the main reasons he drank to escape the noise. He covered his ears which only helped lessen the volume and tried to concentrate only on the sound of the other man talking.

"Who fuckin' knows? I got the same fingers and arms as everyone else and half the brain but I still play better. Maybe it's because I'm the only one who actually gives a shit about the music anymore. Fuckin' making a business out of the one thing that should flow free it's disgusting."

More evidence of his sobering up was that he was speaking pretty well again so the barfing must have helped a bunch but evidence of his still being at least slightly drunk was that he was actually bothering to talk about music because normally he didn't give enough of a shit about the person asking to bother answering. This guy had caught him at a good time to have a conversation as long as he didn't mind the smell or the incoherence.

[casey]

Great, now Casey was getting preached at about music. It sounded as if this person was at least passionate about it, which was certainly a redeeming quality. But he was also egotistical, from the sound of it. Casey highly doubted that the drunk beside him was the only person who truly cared about music.

And his Gift clearly had nothing to do with dexterity, if he even had a Gift.

"Hey, man," Casey leaned forward, patting Chevy's back, "that f**kin' sucks. Oh, yeah," he extended a hand, "name's Sid."

He'd wait till the hand was acknowledged in some manner, then either shake or lower it. Either way, didn't matter much to the Agent in disguise.

Leaning over again, Casey nearly whispered his next words, "You know, sometimes I used to swear I could hear s**t. You know, as if could read the thoughts of the people I was playing with. Sounds crazy, right?" Casey chuckled, shaking his head.

He looked out the jail door, wondering if he was even in the right place.

Give me something.

[chevy♠metal]

Chevy shrugged away from the contact he hated being touched especially in a friendly way but he didn't do much more than this because this random dude seemed alright as far as random dudes went and he didn't really deserve a punch in the face for an honest mistake. But he shot the man a look so he wouldn't make the same mistake again because he didn't give three strikes he gave one and that's it.

However a handshake was enough of a formality that he could deal with it even if he didn't really like it so he shook the man's hand if only briefly. "Chevy," he said his eyes daring Sid to comment on the name not that he particularly cared if he did it was just kind of annoying when he'd heard every possibly joke and wise ass comment about it already. And that was just his first name it was hard being taken seriously with his last name legally changed to Metal but hell if he cared what anyone else thought in his opinion McBride was definitely a more retarded name and Metal just suited him better.

When Sid told Chevy his secret his eyes narrowed for a second almost like he was suspicious but quickly Chevy stood up and stormed away.

"People's thoughts? Fuck man you are crazy." For a second he looked pissed like he wanted to drop it or else but then he looked almost reluctantly curious. "Did that shit go away? Must've been fuckin annoying knowing what everything is thinking or thinking you know what everyone is thinking I mean. Seriously. That's fucked up."

He glared out the bars at a pig's waist as he walked by with his radio squawking like a damn parrot even though no body was using it and hoped this guy would tell him his problem had gone away or maybe tell him what kind of drugs he could take to make it go away sooner. He would of asked a doctor a long time ago but he didn't talk about it with ANYBODY so he wasn't getting medicine for it unless it slipped into conversation like this. It was perfect.

"I want my fuckin guitar back..." he muttered to nobody in particular as he thought of the one machine he actually liked talking to the one thing he'd miss when this fucking head trip of an illness went away.

[casey]

Nothing about this man outwardly said Gifted. In fact, he had about the normal reaction to someone who claimed to hear voices. No empathy, no new revelations.

Nothing.

Casey rubbed his face, rheumy eyes scanning the room. They fell upon the officer, which he eyed as Chevy talked.

"Chevy?" he asked, blinking. He looked at his cellmate now. "Like the car?"

Stupid question, but it fit the persona. Casey even managed to look amazed. While the globe-trotting Agent may have heard odder names, a bum from the streets of Masonville certainly wouldn't have.

"The voices come and go, Chevy," Casey nodded, grinning toothlessly again. "Come and go. Yup."

His eyes roamed the area again, landing on the officer again. Wouldn't be too hard to deal with him. Standard small-town cop. Slightly out of shape, more used to putting down drunks and shoveling in donuts then anything else. Which meant even wimpy Casey could deal with him.

"Why you want your guitar? You wanna play?"

[chevy♠metal]

"No man like the truck," Chevy said rubbing his temples as he fought off the headache this kind of response inevitably gave him. This guy was decent sure but he was all kinds of stupid and the more the alcohol wore off the more it grated on him not to mention the increasing chatter from all the machines in the place.

"I hate the city..." he muttered to himself pressing his head against the bars of the cell. "You're lucky to have them come and go man at least they're not there all the fuckin' time." He glared in the direction of a particularly annoying security camera as he said this and was pleasantly surprised when that actually shut it up. It lightened his mood considerably to feel like he actually had some control over things for once. If he could get machines to shut up like that whenever he wanted to this stupid crazy thing in his brain wouldn't actually be too bad. Sometimes talking to machines had an advantage. This gave him some confidence and with that an idea.

"I want my guitar cuz it's my only friend," he said not sounding like he was paying attention and not looking at Casey but looking out of the cell with a dangerous smile on his face. There were no pigs around and so he figured for once he'd try actually making some use of this crazy thing.

"You feel like getting out of here?"

[casey]

Like the truck. Boy this guy was a regular comedian. Funnier then a barrel of monkeys. Still, Casey chuckled, shaking his head and rubbing at his stubbled face.

"The voices don't stop?" Casey repeated, arching a brow. So, Chevy really did hear voices. That had been a good guess on Casey's part. Now, assuming Chevy wasn't just your run-of-the-mill crazy person, everything was set to work out just fine.

Even more so, apparently. "Sure, I'd love to get out. You got a plan?"

Casey leaned forward, eagerly listening to his cellmate. Chevy certainly sounded confident. Bristling with confidence, in fact. Then again, he'd been like that since they'd got there, really.

Besides, it might be a chance for Chevy to see what exactly Chevy could do. Then he could "offer" to escort him to the Academy. Bada-bing, bada-boom. Happiness all around.

"I'm all ears."

[chevy♠metal]

"What voices don't stop?" Chevy asked mirroring the eyebrow Casey gave him. He either didn't realize he'd slipped up and basically admitted to being crazy or had recovered really quickly and was a pretty damn great actor not that it really mattered because either way he wouldn't be talking about it anymore. Not only because it was a touchy subject but also because he had other things on his mind.

"Of course I have a plan." While Casey basically egged him on he gave this plan some second thought. If his ex-agent cleared his name for him breaking out would only get him in more trouble and he'd be free if he just sat his ass down and waited. Even if he was going crazy in the pork farm he knew it wasn't worth the risk the cops could be a real pain in the ass.

But Lady Luck was apparently on Chevy's side today even though it sure as hell took her long enough to get there because a lard-ass cop walked over just that minute with a sneer on his ugly mug and said the magical words that set Chevy free.

"The agent you told us to call says he doesn't know who the hell you are. He says the real Chevy Metal is in his office right now renegotiating his contract and that his wallet was stolen last week. Nice try though pal looks like you'll be staying here awhile."

You know you want to knock the douchebag out. Come on you could attribute it to a malfunction it's totally worth getting retired to see his fat ass hit the floor.

Maybe not the most persuasive argument but the taser on the cop's belt wouldn't have needed much prodding to turn on its owner anyway it was tired of the guy abusing it. The device went off and shot into the pig's armpit causing him to fall to the floor in convulsions. Chevy grinned and the taser made a satisfied sort of powering down noise.

You can do this for me or I can kick you all day. It's up to you.

The cell's electronic lock opened without hesitation and a glare in the security camera's direction made sure it stayed facing away from his cell. And of course all of this was absolutely silent. Fat man had been the only cop in the cells and there hadn't been nearly enough noise to alert the other pigs in the pen. Chevy was glad this nowhere-town had so few cops.

Chevy slid the cell door open and turned to his former cellmate.

"Let's get the fuck out of here man. As soon as I find my guitar I'm bolting."