[October 15th] [Cannon/The Wild Wild West-related] The Lost Ones

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

Title: The Lost Ones
Day/Theme: October 15th - Perhaps it is the thought of prying eyes
Series: Cannon/The Wild Wild West (yes....)
Character/Pairing: Ray Norman, Coley Rodman
Rating: K+/PG

I've really done it this time. I couldn't decide which oneshot character to write about, as I wanted to write about both, so I threw them into the same blurb. Which got very bizarre, considering one of them is from the past and the other was canonically killed in the present! The full explanation for how I got it to work is in the story, so I won't say it here.

Ray Norman is played by Wesley Lau and appears in the Cannon episode Hear No Evil. Coley Rodman is played by H.M. Wynant and appears in the Wild Wild West episode The Night of the Sudden Plague. Pictures and story under cut.



Ray Norman


Coley Rodman (picture taken by CalGal)

By Lucky_Ladybug

The sound of the creaking door sent Ray Norman leaping a mile. With wide eyes he whirled, clutching his letter-opener, half-expecting to see the evil woman with the cropped blonde hair and twisted smirk. Instead he saw only his most strange and unusual guest at the golf club.

“What are you doing?” the man asked with a raised eyebrow.

The weapon dropped from Ray’s fingers, his shoulders slumping. “Nevermind,” he said. “I . . . I didn’t know it was you. I’m sorry.” He sank into his chair at his desk, running a hand into his hair.

His guest, who was dressed in clothes befitting another time and place, shut the door and leaned on it with crossed arms. “You thought it was that woman again, didn’t you.”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Ray slammed his palm on the desk. “Every time I’m caught off-guard by a strange shadow or sound, I think it’s her. Or one of her men. She could get out of the mental institution, you know. She could get out and come after me again!”

“I’d say the judge did right by you, giving you this probation instead of prison time. You’ve been punished enough for a thousand blackmails.”

Ray dug his fingers into his hair again. His hand was trembling, in spite of all his efforts to still it. “I don’t even want to hear that word, ever again. I never would have met her if I hadn’t got myself into that mess. I was so greedy . . . so unbelievably greedy! I kept milking those people for more and more money, until one of them got so fed up with me that . . .” He trailed off.

His guest walked over the fancy rug and came to perch on the edge of Ray’s desk. “That he killed you,” he said flatly. “I know.”

“Rodman . . .” Ray looked up in despair at the unwilling time-traveler. “You don’t know what it was like. You can’t imagine what it was like! Being shot dead in the park like . . . like I was . . . and . . . being brought back to life by that . . . that creature. . . . All those months I was trapped in her clutches. . . . Twenty-four months! Two years. Can you wrap your mind around something like that? Could you possibly?”

Coley Rodman averted his gaze. “I can’t comprehend two years of that, no.”

“No, you were able to fight back, and finally to kill your oppressor, that mad scientist in the tower. That’s what I wanted to do, so many times. Heaven help me, I would have done it, if I’d only had the chance.” Ray got up, restlessly pacing his office.

“You’re so agitated,” Coley remarked. “You’re as active as the time one of my men knocked over a beehive while looting a town.”

“It’s not funny.” Ray stopped at the bookcase and gripped the edge of a shelf.

“If this is what you’re like now that you’ve recovered, I’d hate to think what you were like when they found you.”

Ray stiffened. That woman—no, that witch—had broken him. She had strove long and hard for that result, and she had more than achieved it. When the local, state, and Air Police had all broken into Portman’s hideout and captured her, they had found him in one of her basement cells, reduced to tears and rocking back and forth. It had taken months to try to repair the damage enough to get him to the level he was at now.

He spun around to face Rodman, who was looking at him in all matter-of-factness. “I wish you had been tortured by her,” he said bitterly. “Even just a little bit. Then maybe you’d understand what it’s like.”

“I just mean that you don’t act cured,” Rodman retorted. “I don’t understand why they’d let you go in this state.”

“Well, I’m not a basket-case.” Ray pushed away from the shelf. “I don’t understand how I wound up with you staying in one of my rooms. A lot of the people who come here don’t know what to make of you. They can’t decide whether you’re an eccentric or out of your mind.

“Why are you even in this time? It’s over one hundred and forty years from the last year you remember in the past.”

These were questions he had asked before, but had never received satisfactory answers for. Of course, Rodman didn’t know the answers; Ray was speaking out of frustration.

Rodman was silent for a long time, so long that Ray gave him a closer, scrutinizing look. It was not like him to not have something to say, even if that something was mostly double-talk.

It had been that way ever since Ray had been released and had revived his old club. He had stumbled across Coley one night soon after, wounded and dizzily staggering over the manicured lawns. The mysterious man had not offered an explanation but had begged for help. Ray had never been so heartless as to turn away someone in dire need, and with his heart softened all the more by the torture he had come through, he had helped the stranger.

Within a few days Coley had been back to what Ray had discovered was his usual self—aloof and cool. He talked and asked questions, but said little to nothing about himself. If not for those first nights, when he had been delirious, Ray would not know that Coley was an outlaw from the 1870s. But even then, when Ray had prompted him about what had happened to put him in his ill state, Coley had been close-lipped. His resistance to the subject was incredible.

“I don’t know why I’m in this time.” Coley hesitated again, then unbuttoned the cuff of his right sleeve and began pushing it up. “But it hasn’t been fun and games. And I may understand a little more than you think, even though my experiences weren’t the same as yours.”

Ray stared at the sight of Coley’s right forearm. A horrid scar stretched across a good deal of the skin. And it did not look like it had been inflicted by something in the far distant past.

“One of those ironing devices.” Coley’s tone had darkened. “I was tortured too, Norman. For you it was emotional. For me, physical.”

Ray slumped back, slowly shaking his head in disbelief at the revelation. “Then . . . the night I found you . . .”

“I had just escaped, somehow. I don’t know how. But I remember getting hold of my gun and shooting the one who’d been inflicting these wounds.” Coley pulled down his sleeve. “Then I wandered around Los Angeles . . . and I found my way to your club.”

“But you said you couldn’t comprehend . . .”

“I can’t comprehend two years of non-stop torment,” Coley interrupted and corrected. “When you found me, it had only been a couple of weeks.”

“Still . . .” Ray stared at the concealing sleeve. “To stay sane, to come back to yourself all on your own . . .”

“I still have unpleasant dreams about it. I deal with my problems my way, you with yours.”

“I don’t understand why I didn’t know.”

“You saw some of my injuries. I just didn’t tell you how I got them.”

Ray nodded. He remembered the torn flesh and the burns all too well. He had been going to send Rodman to the hospital, but something had compelled him not to and to take care of the wounded man himself.

Sometimes he still wondered why. Rodman’s rantings about the time he had come from had certainly sounded like the words of a lunatic. Ray had not been a believer in the paranormal or in time-travel. But he had believed Rodman.

Maybe it was because of the money Rodman had arrived with or the other old objects and artifacts. But those could have been stolen from a museum, as could the clothes and hat.

Maybe Ray had just wanted to believe. Maybe he had wanted someone, anyone, for companionship.

He was alone, really. He was not married and he had no close friends. Even the friends he did have had grown apart from him. They were not sure how to handle being around a former dead man, let alone one who had been tortured at such lengths. Oh, they tried to be kind, but the distance and the tension was there. Ray could feel it. And he was sure they could as well. It was probably why they rarely came around or called.

So his solution had been to take in a displaced and battered outlaw?

He wondered about the logic or the practicality of it many times. Of course, there was very little likelihood of him getting in trouble for keeping Coley there, not unless Coley committed some new crimes in the present day. But it was the principle of the thing. He had not known that Coley was a criminal until some time later that first night, but after he had learned of it he had not kicked the other out, even after his recovery.

And Coley seemed inclined to stay. It wasn’t as though he could get back to his time or find someone else to believe in his plight here. There was a sort of mutual, unspoken camaraderie between them.

“Coley, I’m sorry,” Ray said now, coming back to the present. “I didn’t know. I thought you’d been hurt in a fight or something. I . . . I didn’t really mean what I said, about wishing Portman would have tortured you. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. And now that I know some other sick person was torturing you, I . . .” He shook his head. “I feel terrible.”

Coley just shrugged. “Don’t. You know, Norman, it doesn’t seem like there’s ever a proper balance in life. That’s something I learned long ago. And it hasn’t changed much, even in 140 years.”

Ray blinked. “What do you mean?”

Coley pointed a finger at him in emphasis. “Your crime was blackmail, twice over. For that you were murdered, unnaturally revived, and tortured until you lost your mind.

“My crimes are too numerous to mention. And while I never went about killing people as a general rule, I wasn’t above shooting a man if he got in my way.

“One would think that my crimes would be worth a much more severe punishment than yours. But what I received was being thrown out of my own time and tortured for two weeks. I’ll admit it felt like two years, but it wasn’t. I doubt I could have even lasted that long, considering what was being done to me.”

Ray moved closer to the desk. “Are you saying you think my punishment was worse?”

“Don’t you?” Coley shrugged. “And for far lesser crimes than mine.”

Ray sighed and sank into the chair again. He picked up a stray pencil, then tossed it back on the desk.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said at last. “What I was doing certainly destroyed a lot of lives. Maybe I didn’t literally kill them, but I ruined them and tortured them for months on end. I probably deserved what I got.”

He looked up at Coley. “And doesn’t it bother you, to be away from your time period and the people you knew? It sounds like a horrible fate.”

“There was no one I was close to there,” Coley replied. “Although I suppose my men will just blunder around without me and end up getting themselves arrested or killed. They weren’t much use when I wasn’t there to instruct them.”

He glared out the window. “As for this new age, yes, it’s hard to get used to. There’s too much going on all at once.”

“You’d have plenty of opportunities to commit crimes here, if you wanted,” Ray remarked.

“Don’t think I haven’t thought about it.” Coley gave him a sidelong glance. “I know that I could, if I wanted. Crime is everywhere. People say my time was wild and untamed, but to be honest, I don’t always see a great deal of difference between then and now. You still have people being murdered on the streets. Robbery, extortion, and blackmail still exist. And there’s these new methods of crime, too—particularly identity theft and pornography. If anything, I’d say people have found more ways to commit illegal acts than ever before.”

“You’re probably right,” Ray acknowledged.

“And the people in this day and age are often so soft on criminals. I’ve heard about the recreation that goes on in modern-day prisons. Not to mention how soon people can get out, for even the most hideous offenses. It would have been unheard-of in my time.”

Coley leaned back. “But for now, I have no plans to involve myself with the criminal element. Maybe later, but not now.”

“Did the . . . the torture take away your taste for crime?” Ray wondered. “It certainly did for me, but I have a hard time believing it would affect you the same way.”

Coley averted his gaze. “To be honest, Norman, I don’t know. I just don’t know.”

Ray nodded. “Maybe we both just need more time to recover,” he suggested. “Although right now, I can’t imagine myself ever going back to what I was. I don’t want to go back. I want a different life, an honest life, where I can hopefully stay out of trouble.” He shuddered. “I’ve had enough trouble for several lifetimes.”

“Maybe you just weren’t cut out for a criminal’s lifestyle,” Coley said.

“And you are?” Ray studied his unusual comrade. “I don’t know, Coley. We both did well for ourselves, monetary-wise. I’ll admit that. And I liked what I was doing. I thought I didn’t have a heart or a conscience any longer. But suddenly I found I have both.

“And you. . . . You couldn’t have ever been as heartless or as greedy as some crooks. If you were, you would have gleefully gone along with that doctor’s plans. It would’ve given you a lot more wealth.”

“I guess.” Coley was noncommittal. “You can do a lot of damage without resorting to destroying entire towns or cities.”

“And you did,” Ray said. “Do a lot of damage without that, I mean. So did I.”

“And now we’re both here, having been thrown together in this outlandish situation,” Coley said dryly.

“And neither of us knows quite what to do about it.” Ray sighed.

But, for the time being at least, that was alright. Ray was not alone any more; he had someone to share his troubles with. And Coley, albeit far more aloof, did not seem to mind. Every now and then he even opened up a little bit, as he had done today. Maybe, even though he didn’t outright say it, he liked this arrangement himself.

Two lost souls, looking for a way and a place to belong.