Chapter Text
Title: Freedom's Just Another Word
Author: pronker
Summary: Manfredi and Johnson: The Lost Years. An Alt fate for the pair of MIA commando penguins.
A/N Originally published on lunaescenceDAHTKAHM only, which is undergoing revamping. Wish them luck! The intention is to publish a chapter daily. Wish me luck! EAD As of November 21, 2025, the Lunaescence archive moved to AO3! I'm glad to hear it. :)
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DAY 1
"I hate this gulag already, Manfredi."
"You got that right, Johnson."
"You think Skipper got away?"
"Dunno. Dunno."
"Too bad the guys were all moulting and got invalided out of this mission."
"Well, that sucked donkey balls, but they couldn't have swam along in their bald state, now could they?"
"No, you're right. Two miles through the underground conduit would have given them the gollywobbles followed by nasty cases of la grippe."
"You always see the dark side of life, Johnson. Perk up, why doncha."
Manfredi couldn’t see life of any sort. Blackest black choked off all light and it occurred to him that darkness was the absence of light and not its opposite because opposite implied an equal thing to the first thing, like somebody could have a choice. There was no relief from darkness, even when he closed his eyes and patterns cha-cha-cha'd across his eyelids.
He could hear, though. Johnson moved in the darkness, scraping his flipper across the smooth stone wall. There was a door made from a material that was something other than wood. If it were wood, the two of them could have pecked and scratched to show their captors that they had not given up and never would give up trying to escape. That was important, somehow.
“Why do you suppose we got put down here?” Manfredi said quietly. They hadn’t spoken much beyond confirming their stories – Johnson ganged up on in battle while Manfredi succumbed to knock out gas. Then followed a disorienting sense of time lost and distance covered to who knew where. He felt urpy from the gas and he supposed that Johnson nursed bumps and bruises.
"'Cause they're mean. What more reason do you need?" Snarkity-snark-snark, thought Manfredi. He didn't need visual cues to read Johnson because after so many years soldiering together he could read him like a book, if penguins could read.
Manfredi nodded out of habit. “I would think the Big Bad would want us croaked.”
"Croaked? Ja, baby." Johnson turned to pace counterclockwise in their confined space and even if they moved in air and not water, the currents shifted so that Manfredi felt the switch. This would drive him crazy if he didn't watch it.
Manfredi sat down against a wall and briefly buried his face in his flippers. He smoothed the feathers that stood up every whichaway so that he didn't look like Rico, not that he disapproved of Rico's mohawk. It was important to have an individual look, just like Kowalski quoted Dr. Pill saying all the time. Hooboy, what an egghead Kowalski was, but a good egg just the same.
He could hear Johnson waddling, investigating every square inch of the cell. Manfredi had arrived first to discover four walls, a slightly uneven floor and a few rocks he had tripped over.
“Why in pitch black?” Manfredi asked suddenly.
Johnson said nothing for a moment. “It's torture, man, don't fool yourself.”
Manfredi turned in the direction of his voice. “Then he’s a fool to think we'd give in to it. Ages before we passed muster for Skipper's team, we had torture resistance training. Remember Dar-es-Salaam? Piece of cake to suffer through sensory deprivation like that, am I right or am I right?”
“I hope so,” Johnson said, an edge of uncertainty to his voice like a rusty Bowie knife.
After a few hours – or what Manfredi guessed were a few hours – Johnson finally sat down. He sat near Manfredi, but not touching; Manfredi could hear his breathing. The steady inhale-exhale slowed as time went on, and Manfredi wondered if he were sleeping. Generally, the combination of a horizontal position and nothing to do sent Johnson to dreamville within minutes.
They waited for something to happen as time dragged on, staring out into the darkness as if they would at some point see something.