pridecroweth

[ He recognizes distance when he sees it, and doesn't try to bridge the gap. Just steps back into place in the line with an acknowledging nod. ]

When I was in Iraq, [ he begins almost lightly. Because for all the stoicism his old man beat into him, he's never been able to let someone bleed unacknowledged — ] There was this old guy. Khalil. Lived in the desert. Lost his family back in the 90's.

[ Desert Storm, he doesn't say — but their worlds seem to align enough he's sure it won't be missed. ]

Could've hated us pretty easy. Instead, he shared his fire, his food.

[ The rest is too personal. He lets that us do the heavy lifting, though the others were dead by then, and Sam so nearly that his memories are vague and amorphous. An old man singing Gorani Kurdi Kon by firelight. Sometimes it was his grandfather, singing an appeal to the Bear. Sometimes it was Billie, humming an old lullaby she'd once thought she would pass down to their kids. And then it would be Khalil again, urging him to drink what tasted like black tar tea in broken English that seemed, at the time, to transcend fluency.

That old man dug six bullets out of him, and he'll never forget the screaming panic that had him by the throat when his lung collapsed. Panic into peace, when he felt that he might just get to fucking rest.

But even then, there'd been real anger around the edges. Hoi was a Buddhist. He should have been cremated, and instead he was left to rot. ]

Nobody made him do that, either. But it sure doesn't mean there aren't dickheads the world over, huh?

[ Instinct says to show his teeth. To bite back against that quiet tone Sam takes, the one that says he's about to share a soldier's story. All of those end the same, Carver knows. The details bleed at the corners. They go soft like the bad fruit feeling of his drowning dreams. It's always about blood soaked into the sand one way or another. A bad turn, the civilians watching, dying, forgotten. And the brothers and sisters who didn't make it.

Carver twitches. He keeps walking, not looking at Sam. But he doesn't interrupt, either. He doesn't say any of the hundred shitty things he could say to break the moment. Make it so ugly and brittle that Sam would never talk to him like a person again. He steps over another broken skeleton, somebody's ghost locked to the ground, and he listens.

It's a familiar story, in the end. He has his own. ]

He died, right? That's how it ended.

[ It comes out soft and a little bitter. He thinks everyone who ever took him in back home is dead, too. He thinks they were killed by men just like him. ]

[ One of those statements that says a lot without saying hardly anything at all. Sam shakes his head, adjusting his grip on the rifle just a little. ]

Yeah, but not the way you're thinking.

[ Not ugly, not violently, not cruelly. ]

He died in his eighties. Years later, in his sleep. He got to meet my nieces and nephews, called them the grandkids he never had. More a father to me and my sisters than my old man ever was.

[ Don't speak ill of the dead, people always urge. But he never said a good word about John Samuel Crowe when he was alive, and he wasn't about to start just because the bastard kicked off and left him a small fortune and that hated house. ]

[ That stills him, if only for a breath. No one gets to die in their sleep anymore. Not unless something like Carver creeps in and slits their throat.

Carver twitches. He doesn't look at Sam. Then, flatter: ]

What the fuck am I supposed to do with that?

[ It doesn't come out nearly so angry as he intends. ]

You don't have to do anything with it.

[ The road's gutted ahead, a great furrow in the concrete that splits the street. They could spend the time climbing down one side and up the other, but it's easier to cut through the mostly-intact building to one side — and they're not the only ones who've had the idea, by the worn path through the detritus. Sam ducks beneath a tangle of rebar, and then turns to keep an eye on the street as Carver follows suit.

Inside, the place smells musty and damp, rot an unmistakable throughput. Rifle's not much use in such close quarters, so he slings it across his back instead, and pulls a knife. His voice is lower, but still conversational as he replies — ]

Just two guys having a conversation, man.

Edited 2025-08-30 01:42 (UTC)

[ What're you doing, son? the commander whispers in his ear. Carver jerks his head, trying to shake it like a dog with a fly. Something that nags at his skull, or maybe his soul. What're you doing here? Playing house?

No one here is civilized. They're all pretending until things get bad and then they'll turn on each other the way people always do. Nobody thinks they're a cannibal until they get real goddamn hungry and then -

And then.

He crouches down without a word, checking for tripwires. Raiders were fond paths like this back home. The ones that got worn down enough to mark, an obvious route away from a hazard. Sometimes they won't even kill their target first, just restrain them. Leave them to hang for the dead to find and tear apart.

It's an ugly way to die. He doesn't know why he's following Sam still except lack of a better idea and abruptly pulls ahead, just for the change. So what if Sam knows the route and Carver doesn't? He knows places like this just fine and his pistol fits easy in his hand.

It'd feel good to fight something here. It'd feel pure. ]

There anyone else out here?

[ He leaves well enough alone. Back to business — the soldier's veneer never far from his otherwise easygoing default. When Carver takes point, he doesn't protest, just falls into step. ]

No one from basecamp.

[ He'd almost said none of ours. But he can tell that Carver's struggling with the concept, and Sam's nothing if not adaptable. It's more important to acknowledge that no one goes north. He'd double, triplechecked all the patrol routes before they'd set out. But they have no idea how long the survivors of this place held on at first, when their world came down around them. Maybe there's enough of them that have held out, haunting ruins like these.

Likelier, anything they find out here is one of the Corrupted. ]

We can probably put another five miles behind us before we stop for the night.

[ He knows the place he wants to stop, scoped out and assessed as a crow flying high above the city. But he can't exactly admit that he's made that assessment without raising more questions than providing answers, so for now he's left just trying to gently steer them on the right path. ]

Not what I asked.

[ Whatever bullshit happened here didn't happen recently. But people can survive on nothing but scraps if they have to. Of course there's the monsters, too. Not rotters, no. Something a touch stranger.

Doesn't mean there aren't raiders hiding out in their little rat holes, or worse. It's been almost six months since Carver's run into a cannibal and he's not keen to repeat the experience.

Carver frowns back at Sam. ]

But you've gone this way?

Let me correct myself — no one I've seen. I'm not sure how old some of the signs are. Not recent, but.

[ He lets the statement truncate in a shrug. People learn to move, quiet and unseen. He's not going to definitively say that there's no one living out here, just that he hasn't borne witness to it himself. ]

And yeah, a bit — not the whole way. Basic recon. There's supposed to be a battery up north, at least according to some old microfiche I dug out of the museum archives.

[ Okay. It's about what Carver expected, then. There's no major group out here that Sam knows about, or wants to admit knowing about, but there could be scavengers. It happens. Problem there is if there are scavengers, they'll be desperate because there's fuck all to survive on out here but scraps. And people get ugly when they're desperate.

Carver hums a little, ducking under an outcropping of concrete and bristling rebar. ]

Microfiche. Okay.

[ He's gone out on thinner hunches. Sometimes you just have to risk it. ]

How long you been in this mess, anyway?

Few weeks.

[ It seems like the first handful of people have been here maybe a month, so it's not like he missed much. Stark brought him up to speed well-enough, even if Sam doesn't like the way privileged rich guy drips off the man. ]

Make a right after the busted fountain up ahead. We have to go deeper into the building, the street exit is blocked off, but we can get out through the alley.

[ Carver tucks that information away for later. Maybe it's important, maybe it's not. But it's context either way and he has precious little of that. Not much makes sense here. And not for the first time, he wonders if he's dead and stuck in one of those ironic Hell.

Maybe. But would he have come up with someone like Sam?

That's the question.

Carver nods, adjusting. Checking up at the ceiling, the floors, the corners. Always, always watching. ]

There anything worth taking in here?

[ If they strike out with the battery, maybe there are some scraps in here they can grab. ]

Some art hanging in the lobby.

[ That's said with a bit of wry amusement. ]

Vending machines all empty, no weapons, no medical supplies. Defibrillator with no power in the security office. I haven't gone higher than the second floor, though, so could be something upstairs. We can always check it out on the way back if we come back empty-handed otherwise.

[ He doesn't like casing buildings. Too many unknowns. In theory, he could land on the top floor and work his way down, but he hates close walls and confinement. Gets antsy when he can't see the sky. ]

[ If the art's in frames, they can break those and burn them. Use the scraps for building. Repurpose some of the furniture. Some of the chairs still have their backings. The fabric looks study. Sometimes people leave pills in their desks. Bandaids.

Little things matter.

Carver hums, accepting that. ]

This place is still in one piece. More or less. Probably won't crash through the floor if we do it careful on the way back.

[ Probably, he says, with the air of one who's done exactly that and doesn't care to repeat the experience. ]

I enjoy your confidence.

[ 'Probably'. ]

I've got some rope in my bag. We go through any dicey areas, probably not a bad idea to tie off somewhere stable.

[ He's less worried about himself. Bird magic trumps falling floor, as long as whatever's above him doesn't give out at the same time, in which case he'd probably chance it in human form. ]

No unnecessary risks. I don't want to have to princess carry you back to basecamp because you stubbed your toe.

I'm fun like that.

[ It comes out in a drawl, faux lazy. His grin shows teeth because sometimes you have to be that, wear that mask, or fall into a hole you don't ever get out of. The kids needed him to be confident and bold, the foil to Shaw's calmer presence, and if that meant playing up the reckless angle, that's what he did.

Only, the kids are all dead. And Shaw's been shot. He remembers the boom of the gun, the way that she screamed as she bolted. But he never saw her fall, doesn't know for sure what happened. And if he didn't see it, then she can't be dead. ]

I can make climbing spikes, [ he adds, because that's useful information and he's not so far gone he's hoarding all of that. Not just yet, anyway. ] If it comes to that.

[ He has good boots and sturdy gloves on. He won't tear himself open climbing this shit if he needs to. ]

I'll keep that in mind.

[ They pass an open-concept office. Desks he's searched. There are family photos, discoloured and moldering from the effects of inclement weather, that showcase a people that are almost human-looking, but with some uncanny differences that makes it hard to tear your eyes away. Like watching a CGI movie and being aware that the people onscreen don't move quite right, don't look quite right. ]

You believe this makes me all nostalgic for my desk job?

[ He says that almost idly, pausing to leaf through paperwork at a desk. It's not a language he recognizes, but he can tell it is a language, repeating patterns and symbols. ]

[ Carver glances briefly at the office, the open and ransacked drawers, and then moves on. There's nothing worth dwelling over except that nagging sense of wrongness. Something's different here. Something isn't right.

Even so, he pauses to go through one of the desk - just in case. There's a pencil case, or something that looks like a pencil case, tucked into the back. He gives it a little rattle and then opens it up, searching through. Comes up with a little pill bottle and an unrecognizable label. He gives it a shake to show Sam and then tucks it away.

Might be useful. Might poison them. Who's to say? ]

Nope.

[ He keeps moving, ignoring the photographs on the desks. Strange, smiling ghosts. ]

Nostalgia's a trap. What'd you do, anyway?

[ There's an acknowledging nod, and then he moves on to another desk. He's not really looking for anything in particular, just — observing. ]

I'm a detective in Chicago. Ninety percent paperwork.

[ Carver's eyebrows lift and he angles a look back Sam's way. Considering that. ]

No shit. Why'd you go there?

[ It's not all that surprising. A lot of the guys he served with went into law enforcement after, or tried to. Those were the ones who weren't completely messed up, though. The Reapers filled their ranks with the ones who were too crazy for civilization. ]

Grew up there.

[ People who don't live on a Rez have a way of getting scattered. ]

Mom was a lawyer specializing in tribal litigation. She cared a lot about land and water rights in historic territories — she started working with the Potawatomi back in the eighties, Chicago was central to a lot of her work. Once you put down roots, have a few kids... gets harder to leave.

[ He knows that'll say a lot about his upbringing and privilege, and so there's no attempt to downplay it or deflect it. His mom wasn't rich on her own, but his old man was — and it made life a lot easier than it would've otherwise been. ]

Huh.

[ It makes sense, Carver supposes. You go where the work is and then you stay. The Reapers never had that. They wandered from job to job, one deployment after another, until the whole world became a war and there was no home to go back to. Maybe if he hadn't gotten so messed up, if his grandma hadn't died while he was deployed, he might have gone back to Colorado. Made something of himself there, where people knew him. He'd thought about going to college once, a long time ago.

He puts those thoughts away. They don't matter now. ]

You like it, being a cop?

I'm the lead on the juvenile crimes unit.

[ Everybody wanted to work narcotics or homicide. Those were the 'flashy' jobs. But Sam stopped giving a shit about flashy after Iraq. It was Billie who made him realize what he actually wanted was to build a village. Make a difference where it mattered. Most days, it's the only reason he gets out of bed. ]

I could take or leave the coworkers. [ A few are okay. But for every guy like Donnie, there's six others who expect him to answer to Chief. ] But I like the work.

[ It's hard. Heartbreaking. He's had kids spit venom at him and wield abuse and trauma like a knife. He's had little girls try to flirt with him to get out of trouble, because that's what they know. What they've learned — or more accurately, what they've been taught. He's had boys cower from his size, and just as many who started doing the mental math on whether or not they could take him with a knife.

But there's also kids who've never seen someone that looks like them on the other side of that desk. Who've begun to come around to the idea that maybe there's more they can be meant for than just treading the same patterns that residential schools, genocide and trauma cut out for them. ]

Sounds like rough shit.

[ The Reapers were full of fucked up kids who turned into fucked up adults. Sometimes in Afghanistan they called each other the orphan club, a joke that wasn't really one because who wants to admit they've got nowhere to go, no one to come and take the flag if they died? And then of course there was Matthew, but he doesn't want to think about Matthew in this place. Cannot think of Matthew here, among all the bones and rot and broken glass. ]

What'd you like about it?

[ He crouches to open an office mini-fridge. He's pretty sure he's been through it before, but — just in case. ]

I teach Hapkido down at an old rec centre in the south side. You buy a kid a pizza on a birthday their parents forgot, that stays with them. The rest is... hosting movie nights, video game tournaments. I've brought my older sister in to teach kids how to make drums, or medicine bags, or how to do winter counts on hide.

[ That's not the job. It's obvious he's talking about after-hours, but it ripples outward. People see him in the community, without a badge, without a gun. They see that he plays basketball with a knee brace, they see that he'll sit still to have a superhero mask painted on his face, they realize he's human too — like they are. But the truth is — he volunteers to keep his hands busy. Anything he can do. It's not selflessness, it's not some innate goodness he has. It's because if he stops, if he spends more time alone in his own company than he can stand, he's not going to come back from that. ]

Most kids just need hope. They do the rest for themselves. But when they trust you — when they have faith that they can fall and know you'll catch them, dust them off, get them back on their feet, that matters. You get to watch as some kid who was into shoplifting, or petty arson, or whose deadbeat parents got them into meth when they were ten years old — watching those kids as they realize that there's something else out there they can do, or be. That's the job.

[ There's a slight upwards tick of one shoulder, as the fridge proves fruitless and he stands — ]

I had a kid quit meth cold turkey when I told her I'd never even tried pot. She didn't realize it was possible to be an adult and not be on drugs, it was such a normalized thing for her. Moments like that make it all worth it.

[ There are plenty of bad moments, too. He's had kids get shot, or overdose. He's seen all the bad endings the world has to offer. But the good things, that's what he has to focus on. ]

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