pridecroweth

psl;

jamjar au;

monster attacks, low resources, no revival mechanics ingame but no power nerfing either.

weapons are available but hard to find. monsters are 'corrupted' but their bites don't transfer it. they are however v slow to heal.

set in a super fancy old museum with active historical displays. however, there's been lots of damage to the building/displays, few are 100 percent intact. the pcs have set up in the basement where the valuable archives were kept bc there's an actual vault.

power has been jury-rigged by pcs (idk, maybe tony stark is wandering around). water and food need to be scavenged for and rationed. maybe 30-40 pcs at present?

sam checks in with them regularly but has a 'hide-out' that's actually an old security/control room that overlooks one of the larger display rooms.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Well, whatever. Let the guy disassociate. Sam digs through his bag, taking out some of the smaller packages — fruits, vegetables, a medkit, one of the spare radios. Everything but the medkit gets dumped directly into his lap, and Sam works the zipper open with one hand and his teeth so he can pull out a roll of clean strips of bandages and a bottle of something that more-or-less functions as alcohol.

He cracks the top off with his teeth and dumps half the contents out onto his hand. Asshole tax. The pain is — immense, enough to make him stomp a heel against the ground as he outwaits the worst of it, and once he's done that much he starts wrapping it up. It's messy and a little clumsy, but it'll work for now. God help him if Carver comes at him again, one of them will probably die in the encounter.

It would be easy to get up and leave. But Sam's a stubborn son-of-a-bitch, so he just. Stays where he is. Determined, jaw set.

When the bread's done, he fishes it out with two fingers, blood dried in the whorls of his fingerprints, and puts it on the plate next to the carrots.

The next chunk of dough is slapped directly into Carver's hands. Bloody or not — he's not precious about hygiene when it's his own blood. ]

Roll it out, put it in the pan.

[ There's a sound like rushing water in his ears. It goes in and out. Carver knows, distantly, that he ought to be doing something now. That he's supposed to take control of the situation. Figure out where the fuck his weapons got. Kill Sam, maybe. Anything but sitting on his ass, drifting.

It's hard to focus, is the thing.

Carver stares down at his hands. There's dough there, suddenly. ]

What?

[ He cradles it. Wondering when the test will start. ]

[ And Sam just cuffs him upside the head. Not hard. The way he would when Jefferson made a smart-ass remark about Pamela Anderson's titties or something. ]

Make yourself useful, asshole. Flat bread. Get rolling.

[ Carver doesn't flinch. Doesn't react much at all. It's just pressure. Shaw used to smack him sometimes when he was being stupid.

It's good. Gets you focused.

In theory, anyway.

He stares at the dough for a long moment. There's blood on it. Then he tilts his head slightly and takes his gloves off. He gets to rolling. He can't think of anything better to do.

Orders are easier, anyway. ]

[ Satisfied that, at least for now the storm has passed, Sam returns to rummaging around in the bag. A small jar is produced, and he has to brace it in the crook of his right arm to get enough of a grip on it to take the top off.

It's not quite wajapi, just like the bread isn't quite frybread. But it's close, and it smells sweet, and he sets it out with the plate and the cooled carrots. He doesn't talk. Doesn't try to. Just sits with the pain, trying to work it out of his head. There's a tipping point where it becomes meditative, like the tattoos he's had done with charcoal threaded beneath skin. He just has to find it, and exhale. ]

[ The world keeps on drifting. Carver kneads the dough. He does what needs to be done out of reflex and because he was ordered to, and sometimes that's just simpler. Action follows reaction follows consequence.

So it goes.

He thinks, a little absently, about laying his hand on the embers just to watch the skin peel back from bone. He thinks about that sometimes after a bad fight. God burns the unworthy. He always wondered what it'd feel like to die in the fire. Sometimes he has nightmares about it. Getting burned with cigarettes never came close to those dreams.

He kneads the bread. Rolls it out. And when Sam doesn't stop him, he cooks it, too. ]

One of the guys cooked up some moonshine. I was gonna share.

[ He fishes out a small bottle, braces it between his knees and unscrews the cap. Takes a long, long pull off the bottle, brow wrinkling only a little at the taste. ]

Now I'm thinking you're probably one of those miserable, sloppy drunks who's gonna cry directly on my shoulder, so instead you get to rawdog sobriety while I use it as a painkiller.

Shouldn't waste alcohol.

[ It's not for getting drunk anymore. It's for painkillers and cleaning wounds. Every once in a while the commander invites one of them in for a drink and you don't refuse. That's rare, though.

Carver watches the bread cook. He knows he should be watching Sam, too. Figuring out where his weapons ended up.

He watches the bread. He doesn't feel much like himself right now. ]

With all due politeness — fuck you very much.

[ Sam almost never drops the f-bomb — one of those holdover habits from his old man trying to keep his image polished up. But even then, it isn't said with any real heat. He's not sure he could muster that anger back up if he tried. ]

I think I'm entitled to a little wastage right now. You put a fucking knife through my hand, man. You're lucky I'm still being nice to you.

[ Technically, he was just as responsible for the knife. But he's going to lay the blame directly at Carver's feet, because the guy decided to respond to kindness with dickery. It's the Return of the Asshole Tax. ]

Should've just left.

[ He watches the bread cook. The way the embers shift and bloom like flowers below the pot. Something's wrong with him, Carver knows. He thinks he's known for a long time and hasn't touched it because what is there to do? Admit it?

No.

You do your job. You stand up straight and do your fucking job and you keep on moving. ]

Why're you still here?

[ It comes out flat. There's not much in his tone at all. ]

I told you why.

[ Mitákuye Oyás'i. He's going to live by that, even if it kills him. ]

You're fucked up, and you're dumb as a brick. But we've got more in common than we don't, and I'm going to stand by that. That being said — you try to merc me again, I'm going to beat your ass within an inch of your life and waterboard you with monster piss.

[ Will he? Won't he? Hard to say. ]

And you're going to help me rebandage my hand later.

[ Carver tilts his head at that. Watching the bread and not watching Sam. He acknowledges the threat, in a distant sort of way. It doesn't feel like a test and that worries him, a little; that worry is the only thing cutting through the fog in his mind right now. Nothing quite connects the way it ought to. Nothing quite lines up.

There's supposed to be a test. You fail, you answer for it. ]

You're fucked if that gets infected, [ Carver replies softly. There's not much any of them can do about that now.

He watches the bread cook. He's pretty sure that's real. ]

I'll be fine. Tougher than I look.

[ Shifters heal fast and well, so long as he's not stupid about it. He looks down at his hand, which is still shaking a bit from the combo of adrenaline and shock, and just closes his eyes briefly, brow creasing. He didn't do the best job of wrapping it, and the blood is seeping through. ]

What happened? In Korangal. Or — after.

[ Belatedly, he remembers the other statement Carver'd made a month ago — about the dead. Nobody just wakes up this fucked up one morning without something. Guy might be unhinged, but Sam's not getting sociopath vibes off him the way he did with that asshole with the glasses, who liked to play in bullet holes. ]

[ Tough's got nothing to do with it, Carver doesn't say. He watches the bread cook. Not much longer now. He wonders if Sam will eat it. Carver's got no appetite right now. His body feels distant from the rest of him. Cut off, somehow.

It happens like that sometimes. It felt like this after he got blown up the first time. When the shrapnel shredded his armor and then him underneath. That could've gotten infected, too. It didn't.

He shrugs at the question. ]

Same thing that happened to everybody.

[ The world burned. He didn't. The Reapers didn't. ]

You ever been firebombed?

[ Jefferson was driving that day. He exhales, slow. ]

Yeah.

Mhmm.

[ Carver watches the fire for a long moment. Listening to the embers crackle. He doesn’t look at Sam. ]

Wasn’t the smell that got me. It was the grease. I could feel it against my skin. In my throat. Everything was so heavy, afterward. People got stuck to the ground and they’d just lie there, all their skin gone. Crying. It took them longer than you’d think to die.

[ It’s said softly, without much emotion. ]

God wanted us to learn a lesson that day.

[ His hand twitches slightly, fingers trying to curl under despite the pain. ]

And what lesson was that?

[ Carver just shrugs. He moves the bread out of the fire. Watches it. Doesn’t watch Sam. ]

We run into the fire. God loves us until we falter.

[ Best not to falter. ]

[ He is silent briefly. There's no god he believes in — he never did, to his old man's chagrin. His grandmother never pushed the idea of the Great Mystery on him, but if he ever had to hitch his wagon to any one religion he'd choose Wakan Tanka sheerly out of stubbornness and spite.

Some people find God in foxhole. Others lose him.

Sam worries the edge of the bandage. Then: ]

Let me guess. Sparing people is faltering.

It is when they get back up and try to bash your skull in with a rock.

[ This, too, is said without much emotion at all. They didn't draw the lines quite so stark in the beginning. They tried their best to spare civilians. In the very beginning, when they had a baby to take care of, they even tried to join a couple groups.

It ended bad. God was teaching them a lesson there, too. ]

I don't get off on it, [ Carver adds. That seems worth clarifying, even if it's all still abstract and distant. He's a monster but he never hurt anyone just for the sake of getting off on it. He saw people on the road who did. ] I'm just practical now.

There's a difference between practical and shutting yourself off from the world around you.

[ His hand is throbbing. It's taking over his mind like a drumbeat, he keeps having to flex his fingers so the sharp jab of agony overrules the drumline of constant midlevel pain. He realizes his nose is dripping blood again only when he can taste it at the back of his throat, and he reaches up gingerly to assess the damage. Not the worst he's ever had, but he's going to look like hell tomorrow, and it'll hurt for a couple weeks as the cartilage knits. He rubs his thumb along the bridge, which feels a little — mushy, and then pinches it between thumb and forefinger until he can more-or-less set it back straight with a twitch. He exhales. Then: ]

I get it. The place you're from makes that shit necessary. But you need to leave room for nuance here. Can you trust, at least, that I'm not out to get you?

[ He could've killed him. Could've hurt him, and didn't. He hopes that counts for something. ]

Edited 2025-09-02 03:22 (UTC)

No, [ Carver replies, almost gently. He slides the bread over closer to Sam and watches the fire. Knowing how easy it'd be for Sam to put a bullet in his brain right now. Stand up and snap his neck. Sam's strong and trained. He's injured but he'll shake that shit. It wouldn't be hard. ] These things happen.

[ He knows it's not personal. It so rarely is. Even if Sam doesn't go for him today, it'll happen sooner than later. Doesn't really matter why. It'll just happen.

Best not to be blindsided, the commander always said. ]

[ He looks at Carver for a long moment. Then: ]

Okay, well, that sounds like a you-problem.

[ When you spend a significant amount of time around gen-z and younger, sometimes you pick up the slang. ]

Anyway, back to my original point. Santa Claus.

[ The packets he'd originally set aside are rounded up and stuffed back in the duffel bag, and then kicked over to Carver. ]

Don't spend it all in one place.

[ Carver just tilts his head, half-watching Sam. Half not. It's getting easier to focus but the world still feels like it's drifting and him within it. Like he exists somewhere a little outside of his own body.

That's almost nice, on balance. Nothing hurts. Nothing really matters.

He doesn't ask why. They already went over that. Sam's certain of his answer, that much is clear. He'll hold to it regardless of cost. And why not? He's already bled for it. Taken a blade through the hand. That's not the sort of thing you shake too easy. It'll leave a mark. It probably hurts like Hell right now.

And he remembers Sam talking about the kids back home, the girl who got off meth. The kid who stabbed him in the knee. Carver wonders if he's become a project like them, a grown ass man whose knife went through Sam's hand. By right, Sam won their fight. He could do whatever the fuck he wanted.

Which is, apparently, this.

Carver looks away. He doesn't touch the duffle bag. ]

How'd you find me? [ he asks instead. He thought he'd been careful, but clearly he messed up somewhere. ]

Saw the tripwires in the street, knew it wasn't local work. Took a guess based on the building — looks like shit, run-down from the outside. Fairly solid core. Lots of decent egress points if you're not afraid to rappel, but not a lot of ways up. Stairwells are small and easy to block off or trap.

[ He jerks one shoulder up into a shrug, wiping his face with the bandages from his hand. ]

Not just a pretty face over here.

[ All of which he's confident he could have figured out on his own anyway — might've just taken him longer, without the benefit of flight and a crow's excellent distance vision. ]

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