It’s not something Carver talked about back home: it just was. He was part of the command structure, responsible for the others, part of a larger mosaic. He had a part to play and it was his job to ensure that he never slowed the others down, never became a burden to them. Otherwise, their deaths would be his fault—a sin to carry until the end of days.
Their deaths are his fault, Carver knows. He got caught. He got stupid. The only kindness was he didn’t have to live with it for long.
He swallows hard. He would have been crippled if he’d lived: maybe not forever, but for long enough. Out of the fight one way or another, and a burden to the others. Yet another sin.
“I care about you, Rosita,” he says, very quietly.
Wherever her mind was, wherever her thoughts were spinning and trying to get to, he chooses something to say that stops her cold.
It's not that it's a surprise; she knows he does, she's known it for a long time. They're important to each other. They've done things that prove they both know that, they both have shown it. It's easier to shoulder some times than others, for different reasons, but it is true. It's not even the first time they've actually said something along the same lines.
But never so simple, so straightforward - and never in this context. This most shameful corner of who they are, who they had to be to survive to get here, the marks they're left with after. Her hands are still clasped with each other on the counter, and she's not entirely aware of how she digs her thumbnail into her skin when she's not paying attention to it.
Don't say shit you don't mean, she thinks, vicious even to her own mind. Luckily, her throat is too tight to say it, and she breathes in past it, harsh.
"What?" she manages instead, stupidly, the only point at which the questions she has intersect. What does that mean? What does that have to do with what they're talking about? What is she supposed to do with it? What now? What next? What does he want from her in turn?
The problem, Carver thinks, is that he never says this shit at the right time. He blurts things out and then the consequences echo—he should’ve shut up, let the moment breathe until they’re both steadier instead of while they’re still bodying the aftermath. All these things they don’t talk about until they are, and then he adds this to the mix?
It doesn’t matter that it’s true. That’s besides the point. Time and place, Carver thinks quietly, and unhappily. Now look what you did.
He watched how Rosita clasps her hands, how tightly she holds herself. As if braced for impact. Who could blame her, given the givens?
“I just—you were here when I needed it,” he says finally, lowering his gaze. “And I want to be there for you, when you need it. I know I don’t get it right all the time, but I—I just wanted to say that.”
These, she'll think later, are two separate issues; there's the abuse, a word she knows now that she's out of it, past it, more than it, and then there's the loneliness and its attendant grief. They both hurt. They wrap around each other and grow into shapes around one another, become indistinguishable. But they are different.
She was aimed at one, she was ready and willing for the one, but this blindsides her and she's quiet for several long moments, feeling much smaller and weaker than she is. Every time she thinks she's gotten her feet under her for this, got her head on straight, she ends up fucking spun.
She sets it aside. She does her best to set it aside and hear him, hear how it ties in, hear exactly what he means by it and no more and no less.
"I'd... like that," she says finally, softly. Didn't she just say that he tries? He doesn't get it right all the time, but no one does, and he tries and so she tries too: "I care about you, too. I -" She swallows. "I want us both to be alright. I want us both to make it."
To survive in this new way. In this new life that's come after after.
The silence stretches out. Carver doesn’t break it, just holds there and watches Dulcinea as the kitten totters around the kitchen and chases after shadows. She’s fearless and bold. Nothing’s ever hurt her—not yet. Maybe that part comes later. Maybe she ends up just as brittle and mean as him, infected by proximity.
Maybe not, though. That’s the hope, isn’t it?
Carver lifts his head, watching Rosita carefully. “I want that, too,” he admits.
It doesn’t feel like a safe thing to admit, or to want. But he does.
Want is such a strange thing, she thinks; alone it doesn't mean anything at all. But without it, nothing else can mean anything either. Not like this.
It's a spark off a flint, something that goes nowhere and dies immediately without anything of substance to catch on to grow into a proper fire - but without it, everything else is just a stack of wood and lint, is only what it always was. So tiny, so negligible, but so vital.
She huffs a sound that isn't quite a laugh at the realization, wry and self-deprecating; she has never wanted to live a life completely devoid of passion. It was how she justified a lot of her early decisions, her early mistakes. And now it's... whatever this is.
"You were there," she tries to explain. "After the pit. I needed someone then, someone - exactly like we said." That she didn't know, that might hurt her and she could hurt back and they could just go on their way after. "And the next time you... weren't an option."
He was part of it, and she was half out of her mind, barely herself at all. Feral and rabid and willing to make others bleed for the mistake of being close enough for her to do it.
“Yeah,” Carver echoes quietly. It’s complicated and he can’t make it simple—he doesn’t think anyone can. But they’re both here, watching each other, speaking quietly and trying.
He’s quiet again. Then:
“Sometimes I feel like I’m getting better. Doing things a new way, a better way. And then sometimes I snap right back to how things were back home, how I was back home.”
He thinks she knows what that’s like. Getting stuck in the wake of old, battle-won reflex.
“But, I asked you to come and you came. It helped.”
Half the battle is showing up; they used to live in a world where that was true. It's the best thing she can promise, sometimes, here. She won't always know what to do. She won't always be able to change anything. But she will show the fuck up.
She forces herself to relax her grip on herself, one finger at a time, looking at the crescent mark pressed into her skin. She didn't draw blood, but she could have; the depression stays.
"It took us years to become who we were back home, and we had to. It's only been a year here -" For her anyway. She glances up, knowing he was here first, but not much longer. Not like Vrenille, who was here at the start, years ago. "- and we don't have that pressure. It makes sense that it's hard. I do it, too."
These things take time, Carver knows. It took time to become what they were, and so it follows that the shift here will take time in turn. An evolution. You begin as one thing, then you become another in starts and stops. And then maybe the pieces of themselves they thought were dead get a chance to breathe again.
Carver watches Rosita for a moment, then nods. And then he takes a risk and steps closer, reaches out a hand to touch her arm. Every motion telegraphed, in case it isn't okay. In case it's too much.
"But we are different. I used to think people just got worse, that there was no fighting that. But we're different now, both of us. That's something, isn't it?"
The moment he moves, she's watching him. Not warily, not with caution or suspicion, but merely watching. And then she realizes he's reaching for her, and she considers bracing.
But they are different. Not worse, maybe not even better, but different. Whatever else she's confused about, whatever else she hasn't decided, what she does know is he won't physically harm her, not intentionally. He reaches, and she shakes her fingers loose of each other on an exhale, turns her palm up towards him.
"Yeah," she agrees, quiet. "Yeah, that's something."
He takes her hand in his. Loosely, still, but he twines their fingers and squeezes her hand briefly. Breathe out, he thinks, and he does. He meets her eyes and nods just once.
"Do you want to lie down?" he asks quietly. "We could just - lie down for a bit. Watch the kitten."
She doesn't particularly, but he does or he wouldn't have asked; wouldn't have suggested it. And she doesn't not want to, does want to be close, does want to do what he wants to do, so she nods.
"Okay." She's full now, anyway, and there's nothing like a good lounge to digest. She curls her fingers around his, squeezes once herself and then pulls their hands off the counter. "Couch? Or bed?"
It's not the sort of closeness he seeks often, that he risks asking out loud. It would have been different back home, with a brother or a sister, but that's not what they are to each other. They understand each other, Carver thinks, but they aren't the same. It's more than not wanting to be alone: he wants to be around Rosita right now, and she agrees quietly, squeezes his fingers just once.
"Okay," he echoes, watching her. After a moment, he kneels down and wiggles his fingers so Dulcinea will come running. "Wherever you want."
She has a room here; she helped Jesus build on an addition to his, but she has a separate bed, one she could take him to if she wanted to, if they did.
She doesn't know what he wants yet, from today, from this place, from her. She knows what she hopes, but she also knows better by now than to even look at that. She knows better than to open that door, so she waits while he collects the kitten, then leads him to the wide, overstuffed sofa.
"It's been a while since you've done my hair," she says when they get there, twisting to look over her shoulder at him.
He cups Dulcinea in his hand and she chews on his fingers with her little needle teeth, purring away. Brave girl, Carver thinks fondly, and he follows Rosita quietly. He smiles when she speaks, though - it has been a while.
She does. It's a little embarrassing, maybe, how much she craves the simple, soft things, even if she never acts on it. Even if when she chooses to ask, it's usually for something that could be cast as practical.
Could be, but isn't. "Mmhmm," she hums, leading him to the couch, glancing at the kitten, before she's reaching to pull her pack over from where she dropped it. There's a comb in the front pocket, always. She pulls it out as she folds down to sit on the floor.
"I'm going to have to cut it again soon, but I wanted to enjoy it long for a bit first."
Carver hums a little, setting Dulcinea down on the couch and then sitting down next to her, holding his hand out for the comb. “It looks good like this. Always does.”
There are practical concerns, always, but sometimes they can enjoy these small indulgences. Feel human for a bit.
She hands it over, and then gives him her back; it's easier this way, she thinks, and while she's not done with what they were talking about before she can let them breathe into this for a while.
"I've always liked it long. Mama used to braid flowers into it for fiestas." She smiles when she says it; it was so long ago, the memories are nothing but fond. "Had a rough few months while I was learning to cut hair myself, but I'm pretty good at it now. I used to do it for a few people back home."
Like before, Carver starts at the bottom and works his way up. Careful of any tangles, to make sure it doesn’t pinch or snag as he works Rosita’s hair smooth. It’s a methodical process and he falls into it easily, readily.
It means something, he knows, that Rosita trusts him at her back. No matter what else is between them, that hasn’t changed.
“I had it long when I was younger. Not as long as yours, but down my back. Cut it off for a long time when I was enlisted.”
For obvious reasons. And then he grew it out because there hadn’t been any reason not to by the end.
“Leah’d cut it sometimes.” He huffs a little. “She wasn’t great at it. I bet yours’d look nice with flowers in it.”
"Mine looks nice however it ends up," she teases, just a little. Vanity doesn't put food in the belly or strengthen a wall so she hasn't prioritized it in a long, long time, certainly not over other things, but a taste of it survived with her.
Anyway: "You'll get to see soon enough." She hasn't forgotten about the only fiesta she cares enough about to try to do something about still; it was small and private last time, and it won't be much bigger this time, but she has a few things in mind. Flowers definitely factor in.
In the meantime, "I could do yours, sometime. If you want."
Day of the Dead is coming up soon, Carver remembers, and he nods slowly. He didn't celebrate last year, not really, not beyond the altar he already set himself to maintaining, but it could be different now. Maybe even something shared.
"Yeah?" He squeezes a hand to her shoulder briefly. "I'd like that."
He would, he realizes. No one's done anything to his hair for a long time.
She's been keeping an eye on it, honestly; it was one of those things back home that always fell by the wayside, but was something simple that could make people feel human again, so she liked doing it. She may not be starting a salon any time soon, but she has some tricks.
And Carver's hair is forgiving, like hers. He certainly doesn't look bad with whatever he's been doing up to now, but she smiles when he accepts. She nods, and focuses on the steady rhythm of his hands, his fingers, in her hair now.
He works her hair steadily, getting it smooth, watching how it lays against her back. It's meditative in its way. Something soothing - for both of them, he thinks.
Something human.
"Okay," he agrees, just like that. "I'll come around after work sometime."
She nods, just a bit, not enough to disrupt what he's doing. Her hair is still damp from the shower, but drying the longer he works with it anyway. She likes it. She likes it more than she's willing to say, really, so for a time she doesn't say anything else.
She just lets him work, closing her eyes and leaning into the inside of his knee, listening to him breathe and knowing that for a time anyway, neither of them is hurting. For a time, neither of them will hurt someone else.
That's important, she realizes. Knowing they won't have to hurt someone else any time soon. At least as important as the reverse, not having to brace not to care, or to be put in the position to have to do that to another person. To fight.
She hasn't forgotten where they were before. She's quiet, savoring where they are now for several minutes, but she hasn't forgotten and she doesn't want to just leave it where it was, so eventually she says, quietly, "I was sixteen the first time a boy punched me."
The quiet stretches out as Carver works. Neither of them move to break it and for a little while, things settle back into a rhythm. This is what he wanted, Carver thinks: to feel like a person, to feel safe enough to believe he could have that for a little while without everything going so goddamn wrong.
Then she speaks again, and that’s in the air between them. His hand stills on the comb for a moment before he remembers to breathe and wishes, with a quiet sort of bleakness, that it wasn’t such a familiar story. But that’s the trouble with knowing a person, telling them your truth. You both have to live with the knowing, after, and it has a tendency to go both ways.
He sets the comb aside and begins sectioning her hair into two braids. Not too tight, but careful. Methodical.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says, very quietly. It shouldn’t have, but the world doesn’t work the way it should. You take what you’re given and you assign meaning to it. You take strength from what you survive because you have to.
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handleyourshit) wrote2032-07-23 01:51 pm
cw: internalized ableism
Their deaths are his fault, Carver knows. He got caught. He got stupid. The only kindness was he didn’t have to live with it for long.
He swallows hard. He would have been crippled if he’d lived: maybe not forever, but for long enough. Out of the fight one way or another, and a burden to the others. Yet another sin.
“I care about you, Rosita,” he says, very quietly.
no subject
It's not that it's a surprise; she knows he does, she's known it for a long time. They're important to each other. They've done things that prove they both know that, they both have shown it. It's easier to shoulder some times than others, for different reasons, but it is true. It's not even the first time they've actually said something along the same lines.
But never so simple, so straightforward - and never in this context. This most shameful corner of who they are, who they had to be to survive to get here, the marks they're left with after. Her hands are still clasped with each other on the counter, and she's not entirely aware of how she digs her thumbnail into her skin when she's not paying attention to it.
Don't say shit you don't mean, she thinks, vicious even to her own mind. Luckily, her throat is too tight to say it, and she breathes in past it, harsh.
"What?" she manages instead, stupidly, the only point at which the questions she has intersect. What does that mean? What does that have to do with what they're talking about? What is she supposed to do with it? What now? What next? What does he want from her in turn?
no subject
It doesn’t matter that it’s true. That’s besides the point. Time and place, Carver thinks quietly, and unhappily. Now look what you did.
He watched how Rosita clasps her hands, how tightly she holds herself. As if braced for impact. Who could blame her, given the givens?
“I just—you were here when I needed it,” he says finally, lowering his gaze. “And I want to be there for you, when you need it. I know I don’t get it right all the time, but I—I just wanted to say that.”
no subject
She was aimed at one, she was ready and willing for the one, but this blindsides her and she's quiet for several long moments, feeling much smaller and weaker than she is. Every time she thinks she's gotten her feet under her for this, got her head on straight, she ends up fucking spun.
She sets it aside. She does her best to set it aside and hear him, hear how it ties in, hear exactly what he means by it and no more and no less.
"I'd... like that," she says finally, softly. Didn't she just say that he tries? He doesn't get it right all the time, but no one does, and he tries and so she tries too: "I care about you, too. I -" She swallows. "I want us both to be alright. I want us both to make it."
To survive in this new way. In this new life that's come after after.
no subject
Maybe not, though. That’s the hope, isn’t it?
Carver lifts his head, watching Rosita carefully. “I want that, too,” he admits.
It doesn’t feel like a safe thing to admit, or to want. But he does.
no subject
It's a spark off a flint, something that goes nowhere and dies immediately without anything of substance to catch on to grow into a proper fire - but without it, everything else is just a stack of wood and lint, is only what it always was. So tiny, so negligible, but so vital.
She huffs a sound that isn't quite a laugh at the realization, wry and self-deprecating; she has never wanted to live a life completely devoid of passion. It was how she justified a lot of her early decisions, her early mistakes. And now it's... whatever this is.
"You were there," she tries to explain. "After the pit. I needed someone then, someone - exactly like we said." That she didn't know, that might hurt her and she could hurt back and they could just go on their way after. "And the next time you... weren't an option."
He was part of it, and she was half out of her mind, barely herself at all. Feral and rabid and willing to make others bleed for the mistake of being close enough for her to do it.
"But since... yeah."
no subject
He’s quiet again. Then:
“Sometimes I feel like I’m getting better. Doing things a new way, a better way. And then sometimes I snap right back to how things were back home, how I was back home.”
He thinks she knows what that’s like. Getting stuck in the wake of old, battle-won reflex.
“But, I asked you to come and you came. It helped.”
no subject
Half the battle is showing up; they used to live in a world where that was true. It's the best thing she can promise, sometimes, here. She won't always know what to do. She won't always be able to change anything. But she will show the fuck up.
She forces herself to relax her grip on herself, one finger at a time, looking at the crescent mark pressed into her skin. She didn't draw blood, but she could have; the depression stays.
"It took us years to become who we were back home, and we had to. It's only been a year here -" For her anyway. She glances up, knowing he was here first, but not much longer. Not like Vrenille, who was here at the start, years ago. "- and we don't have that pressure. It makes sense that it's hard. I do it, too."
no subject
Carver watches Rosita for a moment, then nods. And then he takes a risk and steps closer, reaches out a hand to touch her arm. Every motion telegraphed, in case it isn't okay. In case it's too much.
"But we are different. I used to think people just got worse, that there was no fighting that. But we're different now, both of us. That's something, isn't it?"
no subject
But they are different. Not worse, maybe not even better, but different. Whatever else she's confused about, whatever else she hasn't decided, what she does know is he won't physically harm her, not intentionally. He reaches, and she shakes her fingers loose of each other on an exhale, turns her palm up towards him.
"Yeah," she agrees, quiet. "Yeah, that's something."
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"Do you want to lie down?" he asks quietly. "We could just - lie down for a bit. Watch the kitten."
no subject
"Okay." She's full now, anyway, and there's nothing like a good lounge to digest. She curls her fingers around his, squeezes once herself and then pulls their hands off the counter. "Couch? Or bed?"
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"Okay," he echoes, watching her. After a moment, he kneels down and wiggles his fingers so Dulcinea will come running. "Wherever you want."
no subject
She doesn't know what he wants yet, from today, from this place, from her. She knows what she hopes, but she also knows better by now than to even look at that. She knows better than to open that door, so she waits while he collects the kitten, then leads him to the wide, overstuffed sofa.
"It's been a while since you've done my hair," she says when they get there, twisting to look over her shoulder at him.
no subject
"You want me to?"
He'd like that, Carver thinks.
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Could be, but isn't. "Mmhmm," she hums, leading him to the couch, glancing at the kitten, before she's reaching to pull her pack over from where she dropped it. There's a comb in the front pocket, always. She pulls it out as she folds down to sit on the floor.
"I'm going to have to cut it again soon, but I wanted to enjoy it long for a bit first."
no subject
There are practical concerns, always, but sometimes they can enjoy these small indulgences. Feel human for a bit.
no subject
"I've always liked it long. Mama used to braid flowers into it for fiestas." She smiles when she says it; it was so long ago, the memories are nothing but fond. "Had a rough few months while I was learning to cut hair myself, but I'm pretty good at it now. I used to do it for a few people back home."
no subject
It means something, he knows, that Rosita trusts him at her back. No matter what else is between them, that hasn’t changed.
“I had it long when I was younger. Not as long as yours, but down my back. Cut it off for a long time when I was enlisted.”
For obvious reasons. And then he grew it out because there hadn’t been any reason not to by the end.
“Leah’d cut it sometimes.” He huffs a little. “She wasn’t great at it. I bet yours’d look nice with flowers in it.”
no subject
Anyway: "You'll get to see soon enough." She hasn't forgotten about the only fiesta she cares enough about to try to do something about still; it was small and private last time, and it won't be much bigger this time, but she has a few things in mind. Flowers definitely factor in.
In the meantime, "I could do yours, sometime. If you want."
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"Yeah?" He squeezes a hand to her shoulder briefly. "I'd like that."
He would, he realizes. No one's done anything to his hair for a long time.
no subject
And Carver's hair is forgiving, like hers. He certainly doesn't look bad with whatever he's been doing up to now, but she smiles when he accepts. She nods, and focuses on the steady rhythm of his hands, his fingers, in her hair now.
"Then we will sometime. Whenever you like."
no subject
Something human.
"Okay," he agrees, just like that. "I'll come around after work sometime."
CW: domestic abuse
She just lets him work, closing her eyes and leaning into the inside of his knee, listening to him breathe and knowing that for a time anyway, neither of them is hurting. For a time, neither of them will hurt someone else.
That's important, she realizes. Knowing they won't have to hurt someone else any time soon. At least as important as the reverse, not having to brace not to care, or to be put in the position to have to do that to another person. To fight.
She hasn't forgotten where they were before. She's quiet, savoring where they are now for several minutes, but she hasn't forgotten and she doesn't want to just leave it where it was, so eventually she says, quietly, "I was sixteen the first time a boy punched me."
CW: domestic abuse
Then she speaks again, and that’s in the air between them. His hand stills on the comb for a moment before he remembers to breathe and wishes, with a quiet sort of bleakness, that it wasn’t such a familiar story. But that’s the trouble with knowing a person, telling them your truth. You both have to live with the knowing, after, and it has a tendency to go both ways.
He sets the comb aside and begins sectioning her hair into two braids. Not too tight, but careful. Methodical.
“I’m sorry that happened to you,” he says, very quietly. It shouldn’t have, but the world doesn’t work the way it should. You take what you’re given and you assign meaning to it. You take strength from what you survive because you have to.
That, they have in common.
CW: domestic abuse
CW: domestic abuse
Re: CW: domestic abuse
CW: domestic abuse
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CW: domestic abuse
Re: CW: domestic abuse
CW: domestic abuse
Re: CW: domestic abuse
CW: domestic abuse
Re: CW: domestic abuse
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Re: CW: domestic abuse