pridecroweth

[ He doesn't question it, just flips his knife around so the blade is aligned back along his arm. He isn't far from his rifle, and this area's open enough that it's worth using, so he trusts Carver to cover a moment with his handgun as he goes for it. The scrape turns into a shuffle on the floor above them, but the atrium is open, several higher floors open to it below. If they're spotted, they'll be at a disadvantage — less so if it's the mindless monsters who seem content to throw themselves at people without cease, more if it's anything sentient and in possession of distance weapons.

Sam catches Carver's attention, and he flicks one hand through a series of military gestures meant to convey that he'll stay where they are as bait, pointing out a safe staircase on the east wall to gain ground to equalize the playing field. Better Carver go up than Sam, because if he needs to bird out he can do it in a hurry and get to a higher floor in a blink.

Once Carver's listened and moved on, Sam gives him fifteen seconds and then moves to the glass doors ringing the street-facing side of the building and, with the butt of his rifle, breaks out a panel. The shatter is loud in the air, and he hears the sounds on the second floor go quiet. Bad news — it means sentience. Monsters would've already been swarming.

The silence is almost deafening, and then there's a crunch of glass beneath a boot, and a man is briefly visible over the second floor railing. Sam lifts his rifle up halfly, butt against his shoulder, ready to fire if he needs to but more out of an abundance of caution than an immediate desire to shoot first. ]

Hey. I don't want any trouble.

[ People seem to be able to understand each other without too much issue — the ones at the basecamp, anyway. He has no idea if it'll extend to other sentient creatures on this world or not, so he tries to convey the sentiment strongly via tone just as well. The man doesn't reply verbally, but after a moment something is thrown over the railing and he is taking zero chances on it being anything but an explosive, sprinting for the relative safety of the massive concrete fountain.

He hates it when his intuition is right — the explosive isn't powerful, but it's loud, and he finds himself grimacing as he presses one ear down against his shoulder, trying to make sure he'll still have at least one side that isn't ringing when the smoke and the dust clear out. ]

[ Back in the early days, when Carver was still new to all of this, it used to surprise him how easily a body can shift back into combat mode. The instructors had all sorts of different names for it, even went into the psychology sometimes. How the mind seeks out patterns and certain stimuli. How soldiers can be trained to react one way and not another, because instinct isn't always right.

He knows what to do. He learned a long time ago. Carver's already going up the stairs when the glass shatters, a distraction to flush the enemy out. A moment later, someone obliges. And a moment after that, boom.

It's on.

Carver bolts up the stairs. Don't waste your ammo, the commander whispers, control the enemy. There's a stranger peering over the railing, man-shaped, reaching for another grenade or whatever the fuck he's got, and Carver just tackles the fucker. Grabbing him by the throat and bashing him across the face with the butt of his pistol.

Control your enemy, son. Do it now. ]

[ Shit, is muttered beneath his breath as he hears the scuffle above. His ears are still ringing as he runs for the opposite staircase, hoping for a flank. Once he's behind relative cover, it's an easy thing to fling the gun up the steps his knee would protest just enough to slow him down, shift to the crow, and back to human so seamlessly smooth he's still got time to grab the rifle from the air before it hits the ground. It saves him seconds, and then he's on the same level as Carver and the fight.

There's a woman with a pistol that must have been trying to provide cross-coverage over the atrium, but who's put her back to him as she tries to head towards the scuffle — Sam grabs her by the arm, hand covering the rack of the slide so she can't fire easily, disarms her without much fuss. She's emaciated, and not well trained — and as much as he doesn't like taking hostages, he tucks her in close and puts the muzzle of the pistol beneath her arm, angled towards where the kidneys would be on a human. Never give anyone a clear shot to your hand or arm when you have to control a target. She doesn't even try to fight, just immediately goes quiet and still. It makes it easy to drag her to where Carver's shitkicking someone's lights out, and reaches out with his free hand, rifle slung, to catch the man's wrist on another downward blow. ]

Leave it, he's neutralized. We need to know how many there are.

[ It would've been easy to put a bullet in this fucker's skull, but it'd be noisy and waste ammunition. Better to do it like this, with his hands, where the enemy's contained. Not even flailing anymore, just spitting blood and making that wet groaning noise that men do when they've been smacked hard enough for long enough. Kill him, the commander suggests, end it now. He can't tell if it's Pope's voice or Shaw's but it doesn't really matter. It's what has to happen. He's about to adjust the angle, hit the fucker and drive bone shards into his brain, when someone grabs his wrist.

Ah.

Sam.

Carver hisses at him, breathing hard, eyes bright. Sam's got a fucking hostage. ]

Why's she still fucking alive?

Because we haven't come across any living people from this world before. They might be able to tell us something.

[ The woman whimpers a little in his grip, and he eases up just a touch. He's never hit a woman in his life, and he doesn't want to start now. The idea she might be physically dangerous isn't even on his radar. ]

Put him in recovery position and get up. We can use her to flush out the rest.

[ They can tie them. Maybe go get the others. There's bound to be someone who can figure out how to communicate with them. ]

Then fucking restrain her!

[ Everyone you meet us a threat. That was one of those early lessons—a hard one. You can’t trust a stranger and when everyone but your family is a stranger, that means you can’t turn your back on the world even for a second. If you do, awful things will happen and it’ll all be your fault. Like with Dixon, Carver knows; it was his sin not killing that man right out. Everything that followed is his fault.

The enemy on the ground makes a wheezing sound, straining for something on the ground. Carver hits him reflexively and the noises stop. ]

We don’t need both.

[ He's still got the handgun on her, which he briefly gestures towards with his right hand. ]

She's not going anywhere.

[ He says that neutrally, without raising his voice or matching Carver's tone in kind. It's clear that Carver's dealt with situations where mercy has meant eating losses on your own side, and that final hit to the man's face puts him right back into the moment that Anderson choked to death on his teeth. He has to grit his, just a little. They're dealing with two different sides of trauma, and above all else he has to keep his cool. Whatever tentative rapport he was building with Carver out here, it's not enough to override old instincts. But he was genuinely starting to like the guy, and he doesn't want to jeopardize that, either. He has to play it careful.

The noises stop, and he gestures for Carver to take the woman so he can kneel down next to the guy and roll him on his side, sweeping viscera from his mouth to try and clear his airway. ]

Just let me do the boyscout thing. Please. [ He hates that word. He hates it so much. He hates the way it makes him taste salt and salt and blood in his mouth. He's twenty-six and screaming himself hoarse, mud in his lungs, begging for the lives of his men, his friends. ] We can argue battlefield philosophies later, and you can always shoot me if it makes you feel better.

[ He's aiming for a bit of levity. Something, anything to cut the tension as he works. ]

Take the rifle. [ A shift of his shoulder to let the strap shrug down. ] Use the strap to tie her up.

What the fuck are you doing, [ Carver hisses, though it’s not really a question. Mercy is a sin. Mercy is a bad fucking idea in a place like this, an inevitability that’s going to blow up in their faces surely as that grenade the fucker tossed. They made noise; these two probably have friends nearby. It’s going to get messy.

He jerks away and grabs the woman, hand iron-tight on her arm. Sam’s going to get them both killed. It’s like Dixon all over again, Shaw saying, wait. Not that one.

Only Sam’s not a Reaper, and has no standing to make that call.

Carver grabs the rifle, or starts to, but the woman makes a desperate bid for something in her pocket and there’s no time. Knife, gun, it doesn’t matter. Carver grabs her by the hair and slams her as hard he can face first into the wall.

Knife, he thinks, as the weapon clatters to the ground and the woman drops. He lets her. And he grabs the knife. ]

[ It's all going sideways. And Sam? Sam has to pick his battles. He takes his knife, makes an incision in the man's throat that cracks the rough cartilage of the trachea. He always keeps pieces of tubing clipped to his vest — old habit as an o-neg donor on a team without a standing medic — and he blows one chunk clear of any debris, jams it into the man's throat as an emergency air supply.

Times like this, he wishes he'd inherited his shifting from his grandfather. There's rarely a situation in combat that couldn't be managed as a grizzly bear. The crow is useful for stealth and recon and general unobtrusiveness, but it's shit in a fight. Wordless, he ties the woman up. She's concussed, broken nose and maybe a cheekbone, looking at him with glassy eyes, one sunken, skin spilling over in a swell. But it's because he's studying them intently that he notices the way her gaze shifts over her shoulder. Looking at something.

He turns, pivoting on one heel to stay crouched and it's — a fucking kid. Twelve years, maybe a really skinny fourteen. Pale, malnourished, and holding a gun. The woman starts to panic, trying to speak around the damage to her face. It's incoherent, garbled, in a language he can't parse, but the desperation is unmistakable. You don't need a translator for a mother's fear.

He gets up, back to Carver, one arm out like he is trying to corral the guy or maybe take up as much of his field of vision as possible, the other outstretched, palm down. He hopes it's a universal enough gesture for defusing conflict that he doesn't just immediately get shot. ]

Don't kill him.

[ He knows that by saying kill he's leaving the gate open to get the kid shot. Maybe just non-lethally. He can handle hurt, he can't handle dead. For a moment, everything feels frozen. Sam turns just enough to look at the mother, who's hauled herself up onto her feet and is trying to move between them. That outstretched hand grabs her by the elbow, and he shakes her like a ragdoll kitten until she looks at him. Sam points to his eyes, then to hers — pay attention. Then, he mimes putting down a gun, gesturing for her to tell the kid to back off. ]

[ This is getting messy, too many factors in play. Clean up, the commander suggests, and Carver shoulders the rifle he nearly dropped. Drawing his pistol again. It'll be loud but he can spare two shots to end this nonsense before it spirals even further out of control. End it now, son.

You can't think about these things. If you dwell, that's when the bad shit happens. You lose focus. His hand is on his pistol, considering which one he wants to shoot first and how bad Sam's going to freak once the gunpowder stink hits the air. And then there's movement, and -

Carver draws. Shifting instinctively into a better stance but then Sam's up and in front of him. Hand outstretched like that's gonna do a damn thing except knot them all tighter together. Get them both killed. There's someone behind Sam, the flash of a weapon. ]

Just fucking move -

[ All he needs is an instant and he'll end it. Make it clean even if Sam won't, or can't. He's already a murderer. It means nothing.

And then the angle shifts and there's a little boy staring back at him, holding a pistol, and Carver's breath catches. Dusky-haired, skinny, eyes so very wide. He almost looks like Matthew, if Matthew had lived a few years more. Shoot him, the commander's voice hisses, and Carver stiffens. He lowers the pistol a bare centimeter, right before the kid says something in a language Carver doesn't know and shoots him right in the goddamn chest.

It catches against the armor. It hurts like Hell. ]

[ He yanks the woman to the side, not immediately sure if the shot came from Carver or the kid, one ear still ringing too badly from the earlier explosion to have any meaningful grasp of where sound's originating from. When he does track it, and that Carver's hit, he pivots towards the kid and throws the knife. The kid flinches at the movement, pulling his arms up towards his face, and the knife takes him through the wrist, resulting in a a curdling scream and the pistol being dropped. Sam's on him in an instant, shoving the kid onto the ground, kicking the gun so it slides beneath the safety railing to the atrium below. The woman is collapsed, sobbing — but not near any other weapons. ]

You hit?

[ He's wearing armour. There's a chance it held. ]

[ There's a moment where he can't take a breath. No pause between pain and impact. It happens in an instant. Carver's chest goes tight and then very hot, the hurt radiating out. He claps a hand to his chest, feeling for the armor, the bullet stuck there. ]

I'm fine, [ he wheezes, bringing the pistol up to bear. The woman's crying now, but isn't scrabbling for a weapon. The man hasn't moved from where Sam was treating him. And the kid -

Pain twists in Carver's chest. There's a knife through the kid's wrist and the boy's crying, everyone's fucking crying. He looks like Matthew.

Carver grits his teeth and lowers the gun. He'll live. Probably with a cracked rib or two, but he'll live. It was stupid to lower his guard. ]

[ He's not in the mood for casual chatter now, so that only gets an acknowledging nod. Hurts like hell to get slugged in the chest, body armour or no — but Carver can just sit there and regain his breath and keep the gun trained on whoever he likes. Instead, Sam starts treating the kid too. Pulls the knife out, tears strips off his shirt to wind around it. He doesn't have much in the way of medical supplies, but it'll slow the bleeding. The kid's gone mostly silent, save for shallow, shivering breaths, their face pressed down against the floor. ]

One of us needs to go back to basecamp and get that guy Hicks and the woman Ebbisaryn. She can transport them, he can treat them. There's a chance we'll get useful information out of them if we can decipher what they're saying.

Are you fucking kidding?

[ It’s easier to focus on the task at hand. It distracts from the hurt, that throbbing sharpness that says he probably does have a cracked rib or two, the kind of damage that lingers to remind you of your sins. Better to focus on the job, on staying alive. And so he keeps his focus on the adults, on making sure the kid doesn’t try for a hidden weapon.

There’s blood on the ground now. That familiar gunpowder stink. He stares at Sam, incredulous. ]

They’re going to try and kill us the first chance we get.

We're literally alien invaders here. And you want to blame the people who get spooked by that? Hell, I'd shoot you too.

[ He just sounds — tired. He needs something to tie the kid up, but for now he just stays where he is, pinning him down with one knee against the kid's good wrist, hand steadied at his back. Said kid is all of eighty pounds, it's not like he's going anywhere now. ]

I'm not going to execute prisoners for the sin of being desperate and scared.

[ He pats the kid down. He has one extra magazine for the handgun, and a knife. Those get tossed in Carver's direction. ]

I need you with me on this one.

I don't want to get fucking shot again.

[ Carver can feel his voice rising, anger twisting in his throat because this really is like with Dixon all over again. The rules are there for a reason. It doesn't matter why these people did what they did. Sure, Carver probably would've done the same in their position, but they fucking lost. It's just what happens. You have to protect your own people first. And if you lose, you just die.

It's God's will. An inevitability.

He picks up the knife and the handgun, though. Tucks them away. Practicality. ]

Yeah, that's the thing: I'm not. They're going to try and kill you the second they get an opening. Your brain get scrambled from that grenade or something?

[ See, the thing is — if Carver wanted to shoot them, he'd have drawn his gun and done it by now. He's got all the guns, Sam's far enough away he couldn't stop him. So he's angry, frustrated — scared, too, if he had to guess — but he's not so far gone yet he's just acting on those feelings. He still might, but. There's a chance.

He might've asked Carver to head downstairs and get the rope from his pack, but giving him something that sounds like an order might tip the scales. Instead, he just pulls his belt through the loops of his pants and uses that to start tying up the kid. ]

You know, [ he begins, calmly conversant. He ties both wrists, despite a squawk of pain, because pain's something people can fight through when they're determined enough. ] I've got four good reasons to hate mercenaries.

[ Four names. Jefferson died screaming until the flames ate the oxygen out of his lungs.

Carver pegged him as a ranger from the motto on his arm, but did he notice the faded coordinates beneath it, recognize that they're for a place in the al-hajarah desert? ]

But I was willing to give you a shot, despite my past experiences. I know they might retaliate. I know that they might be part of a bigger group that's going to realize they're missing and hunt us down. But I also recognize that information and allies are both valuable, and that this is the first chance we've had in this world to make an attempt at both. If they try to kill me, then I was wrong, and that's the consequence for it. You've got my permission to gloat over my corpse.

[ God, he hates when people take that tone. Like they're humoring his bullshit, being reasonable while he's squawking over nothing. The rules exist for a reason. Hasn't time given them a graveyard full of examples? A soldier ought to know, a soldier ought to understand that sometimes you have to make a choice: them or me. It really is that simple. Nobody wants to hear that shit, nobody ever wants to admit it, but you learn. He learned in Korengal and the fires after only confirmed the truth.

Four good reasons, Sam says, like that's going to change anything. Like it even matters. ]

Fuck this. You think you can control three prisoners on your own, godspeed: I'm out.

[ He made a mistake staying with the group in the first place. It's better to go out alone. ]

Fine.

[ He shakes his head as he stands. He's not going to argue further — that part of him already feels scraped open and raw. ]

Leave the rifle and my bag. You ever need a hand with anything, you know where to find me.

[ The guy with the rattling breath isn't a threat. He's unconscious, condensation and blood bubbling along the trach line. So Sam hefts the kid and the woman up to their feet. He'll take the chance marching them to basecamp himself. ]

Rifle's mine now.

[ It comes out flat, angry. The rifle, the body armor, that's his unless Sam wants to fucking fight him for it. He'll leave the bag because he doesn't want to get weighed down, not yet, he needs to find a good place to hole up. Somewhere out of the way where he can consider his options.

Staying with the group was his mistake. He can't do that again. It made him weak. Made him fucking sentimental, talking about fry bread and all this shit that doesn't matter like the two of them could be friends.

No. Pope taught him better. It's Carver's own goddamn fault for forgetting the lesson.

He drops the damn bag. And then he turns on his heel. He'll never see these people again. He knows he ought to shoot them all right here and now, be done with it, and it's a sin that he doesn't. ]

[ Hurt people hurt people. Sam makes a frustrated suck of his teeth, and then: ]

Carver.

[ he pulls another mag out of his back pocket, this one for the rifle. ]

If you're gonna be a dick about it.

[ Might as well take the last mag. Sam's done more with a hell of a lot less than what he's got on him now. ]

Fuck you.

[ This, with venom. Carver doesn’t turn back, doesn’t stop. Fuck these people, fuck this man in particular—it’s sentimental that’s going to get him killed, Carver thinks, furious at himself for falling into the trap in the first place. Considerable effort went into training him better. And this is he how he thanks the commander?

It’s an awful sin, surely. He deserves whatever happens to him because of it.

He doesn’t look back, doesn’t try and catch any last look of Sam’s handsome face. If they see each other again, Carver supposes they’ll kill each other. It’s how these things go. ]

psl;

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