Carver rests his chin on his knees. There are practical questions now. Logistics that need to be handled. Eventually, he’ll need to talk with Vanessa about what they’re both doing, because they will need to do something.
Maybe he’ll just take the kitten and go live in the woods for a bit.
“Yeah,” he says after a while. “I’m not good company, but.”
It feels better with someone there, someone other than the ghosts.
He's not good company, but she doesn't need him to be. She won't ask him again. If he wants her to go, he can ask her to go.
Now though, she nods. She leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees for a moment, watching him.
"It's okay," she promises again. "But I'm going to go to the kitchen to find something for you to eat. I'll come straight back here."
She waits only long enough to see that it's registered, before she's pushing to her feet to do exactly what she said she was going to do. He doesn't need to make any more decisions right now.
Carver doesn’t respond, just rests his chin on his knees and watches the kitten go whole hog on her dinner and then, almost daintily, begin to clean herself off when she’s done. Her little tail giggled back and forth and she’s so unguarded it scares him sometimes, all the ways she doesn’t know how to protect herself. She’s not like the war dogs at all.
Maybe that’s the point, though.
Carver scrubs at his face and watches the kitten, feeling nothing but tired. Rosita will find the kitchen well stocked and meticulously organized, ever inch of it scrubbed clean. He’s the only person who’s ever used it. He wonders, briefly, what will happen to it once he’s kicked out.
It takes her a minute to find the kitchen at all, but she doesn't intentionally go poking around anywhere she shouldn't be. She doesn't spend much time poking around in the kitchen, either, and at first she thinks she needs to return everything to exactly as it was.
Then she looks down at the small mess she's made cutting up a peach and assembling a sandwich, and decides maybe it'd be good for him to have something to focus on, maybe something annoying. She puts away the food so it won't spoil and takes the rest with her back to the room.
She knocks but doesn't wait for an invitation, just comes back in and sits back down next to him. She glances at the kitten, too, but sets the plate on his knee.
"I know you're not hungry," she admits. "But eat it before the cat does anyway."
For the first time in a long time, food feels like an afterthought. Carver stares at the plate, reaching out to make sure it doesn’t tip over and make a wasteful mess. He needs to eat but he’s not hungry: doesn’t feel much of anything, really. He wonders if this deadened calm is better or worse than the manic energy that bursts through him sometimes.
The cat shouldn’t have people food, though. So, there’s that.
“Okay,” he agrees quietly, lifting the plate out of the way as Dulcinea trots over and immediately goes onto her hind legs to try and snag some of the bread. “I know I need to plan shit,” he adds after a moment. “But I can’t right now. Not yet.”
He isn't hungry and he may not be for a long time yet but it's still important. Still vital. She can stand in for his body knowing what it needs for a while.
She reaches to scoop up Dulcinea, to keep her out of his face for a moment.
"I know," she agrees. "But we have time. I'll do what I can when you're ready."
She just shakes her head; there's nothing to thank her for, even if she won't dismiss the impulse outright. Nothing can be taken for granted. She'd be here anyway.
Some things negate petty squabbles. If they had any, this would be one.
She settles the kitten in her lap, stroking her ears and ignoring the way she bats at her fingers in annoyance at being kept from the food.
"I want you to come with me to Creekside," she says. "Vanessa, too, if she needs a place. We'll work something out."
Oh, Carver thinks, and he doesn't answer immediately. He finishes the fruit and stares at the plate, trying to focus. To remember what it feels like to be focused.
"Okay," he says finally. Quiet, just like before. "Vanessa has her own place. She stays there sometimes. I'll talk to her."
She wants to push more, wants to focus him on the here and now, wants to solve something. Wants to fix it.
She can't fix it though. She distracts Dulcinea and watches to prompt Carver to finish the sandwich, and stays ready to move the plate out of the way when he's done.
"I know there's no quick, easy way through this," she finally says. "But whatever happens, I want you to know, I want you around. There's a place for you wherever I am, no matter what that looks like. If you need someone, need anything, even if you don't know what it is - call me. We'll figure it out."
She doesn't know if he will, can't promise to be able to help, but she can promise to make sure he's not alone for as long as she's here to answer.
She says, I want you around. She says, There's a place for you. Carver tips his head back, watching the corners. The ghosts say, Aren't you tired, brother?
Yeah. But that's hardly new, is it?
"I'll come to Creekside," he agrees quietly. It's hard to focus beyond that. To force his thoughts into words that exist outside of himself.
She feels like maybe she's being unfair somehow, pushing for something he can't or doesn't want to give. He doesn't want to make any decisions right now, maybe can't, but that's alright. It has to be alright. To keep him as safe and whole as she can, she'll push.
She reminds herself to breathe, too, and reaches to lay her hand on his arm, just below the crook of his elbow.
"Let's just go. If you need something later, I can come back and get it."
There are rules, and he has responsibilities, and they both know there are circumstances under which a pet is an expensive liability - but it is not this circumstance. It is not now.
"I wouldn't expect you to leave her behind," she answers, twisting to look at where he pulled the cat food out of, for a pack to fill with more.
"We'll figure something out for her in the house."
Carver just breathes out, nods. He knows about making sacrifices. By the end, all their war dogs were killed by the dead or their own hands to feed the group. He doesn’t want to kill the kitten, though.
Maybe in this world, he doesn’t have to.
“There’s a go bag in the closest,” he murmurs, and picks at the sandwich. Forcing himself to eat. “‘s got everything.”
Cat food included. He’s always ready to pack up and run.
She's not surprised; she has one, too. So does Jesus.
She wonders for a moment if that's all survivors really have to offer each other, is understanding why they're always ready to run, instead of knowing the reasons to stay. To feel safe, to feel like something can last. She nods anyway, and twists to set Dulcinea on the bed while she stands to find the bag.
He's packed the one tightly, but she finds another and makes sure to pick up some of the books off the desk, too, for the second one; she glances around for pictures, and she'll take those too unless he stops her. He has time to come back here any time he wants, but in case everything changes again, in case he doesn't want to, she wants him to already have some important pieces.
She shoulders one, and holds the other out to him. "Let's go. You can finish that on the way, or I have more at the house."
There are no pictures on his desk, but there’s a small camera in a case. A slender, fine-made knife in a sheath. Carver finishes the sandwich without tasting any of it and helps Rosita tuck those away, too.
In the end, even after all this time, he doesn’t own much that matters. Certainly nothing he couldn’t leave behind if he had to run. Maybe he’d regret it, but he’s carried a lot of regrets for a long time. That hasn’t changed in this place, not really.
But the little things matter. The books. The knife that Grayson gave him. The camera that Paul gave him. A small, battered notebook.
Little things. Ghosts.
He tucks the kitten into his pocket and shoulders the pack, giving Rosita a tired nod. Okay.
She won't fit there much longer, Rosita thinks. Carver will have to find a new solution, she'll be more vulnerable, harder to protect.
She leads them out. She's never considered herself a leader but she knows how to pick her way past danger and set her feet on the path home, so she does.
The walk to Creekside is familiar by this point and she doesn't belabor it by trying to talk. She breathes in the scent of crushed leaves as they go, the sound they make underfoot, the crisp wind against her face, and she thinks this isn't how she wanted to do any of this. She's not sure it will stick this way, and for a lot of reasons - for him and her both - she wants it to stick. Nothing for it. Life never waits until you're ready, it just happens.
She shows him how to pick his way through the new traps she's laid down for the fall, the winter, and leads him down the last hill a stone's throw from the creek. The house looks like a house now, in need of refreshing but no longer structural repairs. She brings him in through the front door. There's insulation and dry wall stacked along one wall of the future living room, ready to be installed, but most of it is clear now. The lights turn on when she hits a switch.
"The room you picked is still open," she says. "Or you can pick a new one. The only two anyone's living in are mine and Magpie's, and Jesus has stuff in his."
They don’t speak as they walk. Carver shoulders the pack and breathes cool, clear air, and he thinks about how he carries Dulcinea in his pocket and how he used to carry Matthew on his back. When the weight felt like something he could always bear no matter how long they marched or how hard things got.
It changed somewhere in the middle, Carver thinks. He’s so tired, now. But he can’t ever say that so he doesn’t, he just follows alongside Rosita and marks the traps she shows him, the toll of survival and all the work it took to build this place into something worth having, worth fighting for. He was offered a room here once, but—
Yeah. He got tired that time too, didn’t he?
Carver just exhales. “I’ll take the one I picked.”
There are implications to that, things they aren’t saying and haven’t played out, but there’s no time. This is just happening, isn’t it?
There are implications, things they aren't saying, things Rosita has been specifically avoiding and still would be if things were different. But they're not different, there's a pronounced need now, and that means none of the rest matters. Get everyone through alive, and triage afterwards. Right now it only means what it means.
Later, well. Later is later.
"Alright," she agrees, and leads the way up the staircase.
The door to the room he chose is still closed, but when Rosita opens it and steps through it's obvious there's been work done. Debris cleared out, and the old drywall and insulation pulled down so she could get to the wiring and the plumbing, but she's also put a few things in here as well. There are a couple books on the windowsill, and where the wall needs to put back together properly there is the framework for shelves. Appropriately sized for books, but there's nothing there, just space or something could be.
There's a mattress in plastic up against the wall, and a desk that she found in another room and moved here at some point. The light turns on when she flips the switch, and the glass in the window is intact now.
She presses her lips together, and looks over at him.
"We'll move some vent covers from other rooms and make sure dulcinea can't get into them," she offers, setting the pack she has down. "I'll go get some tools."
Let him get settled without her staring at him. She didn't want to do this this way, but now there's no time.
The room looks different since the last time he was in here. More settled, the place coming together. There are books on the windowsill. Space for shelving. A desk, and a mattress. Electricity. Space that no one has taken over, or claimed for their own.
Carver scrubs at his face and sets the pack down. It's hard to focus. He ought to secure the area, make sure he knows where everything is, all the angles. Plan out where he wants to lay his own traps. Bells, at least, in case the dead get past the perimeter.
He sits down on the floor and lets the kitten out, watching as she totters around the room, mewing and exploring everything. She hops onto the desk to tap the books delicately with her paw, tail raised high like a banner. Carver leans his head against the wall, watching her. He'll hide weapons in these walls, he thinks. Show Rosita and Paul where they are in case things go bad. Just in case. They can secure this place, he thinks. They could hold it.
Dulcinea squeaks. Then, to Carver's surprise, she comes back and jumps onto his shoulder. Sticking close this time.
He's there when Rosita comes back, staring at nothing, the kitten chewing on his hair. "You can put me to work," he says softly. "I'll be steadier tomorrow."
It takes her a minute to come back. In part this is because of the work it takes to pry up some vent covers from other rooms that she anticipated being a higher priority for habitation than this one. In part, she just wants to give him some time to settle, and herself sometime to put her game face back on. To think about what it really means that Carver is staying here, at least for the time being.
Most of it is practical. She has a list of things that need done in the back of her head, but not everything on it is suitable for everyone she has available to her. Caden has construction skills, but his paranoia isn't the useful kind. Carver has practical experience, but not only is he spun, but he may be gone in the morning.
So she not as she drops her tool belts and the metal vent covers to the floor and crouches to start fitting it.
"I will. There's plenty still to do, and I don't have as much time as I'd like. Magpie lives in the room downstairs, and he doesn't like anyone even down that hallway, but you can go anywhere else. This is the only room I can promise is secure for the kitten." Practical things. House rules. She doesn't have many, and he'll follow most of them because they're cut from the same trauma, but she says them anyway.
"Guest shower is next door. I don't use that one, so let the water run a bit, but everything should work. I'll throw some extra sleeping bags on this mattress, and we'll figure out what else we need to get. We'll see how you feel in the morning, and go from there."
Back home, Leah or Pope would've put him to work hours ago. Kept him too busy to think, or ran him through enough training to knock the disruptive thoughts right out of his skull. Leave nothing but dead sleep in its wake. He understands the reasons. Part of him wants that - something brutal to focus on, nothing but work and practical things.
The rest of him is tired, and the thought of it is aches at his soul. It never ends, does it?
He rests his head against the wall, watching her, and nods just once. They'll have to talk about this, he knows, because he can't stay here for long without the city coming sniffing around to have a say about it. He's got no contract now and there's a line tattooed on his throat: there are consequences to that, always. And if he's not careful, he'll bring them down on everyone in proximity, not just himself.
Maybe he should just fuck off and live in the woods for a while. Simpler for everyone.
"I'll make food for everyone in the morning," he promises softly. He'll earn his keep at least for the night.
Aside from the interpersonal difficulties of Carver being here, of circumstances forcing something she had been hoping would someday be a choice, Rosita hasn't completely forgotten the rules of the city. She's already considering how to get around them, and where her responsibilities lie: the two contract partners she already has, that she has promised protection both aloud and by signing a piece of paper with them, or a man she shares separate but overlapping, life changing trauma with, who she considers one of her people regardless of law or social status? Who has rejected how she's chosen to oppose the city before already, and may well again?
The answer is nothing like simple, and she doesn't have one yet. They have a maximum of three days before she has to have one, and she will; if this is when she has to show her teeth, has to fight, then she will - but that's not a clean, solid answer. That's what's going to keep her up all night, so she focuses on hammering and screwing the vent cover into place, which doesn't take nearly long enough before she's done, before she's standing to pull the mattress down from where it's just been leaned against the wall.
"I need some help anchoring the generator, too. And I want to put up a shed out on the south property line, so I need to get the framework together for that and sort through scrap to see what I have and what I need to find still." She glances over. She knows about staying busy. She's never really stopped since coming here, not for longer than a few hours at a time.
It doesn't heal anything. It just changes the threshold over time. He should have the option, especially since he told her he wanted it back when she asked him to fight.
There’s always work. Survival doesn’t come from nothing and they know better than most what it costs just to endure even without the dead clawing at the threshold. The sheer, endless hours of it: getting clean water, gathering and preparing food, making sure there’s a shelter warm enough to keep everyone alive. Duplicity tries to catch them with softness, with ease and luxury, but it’s a trap baited too obviously: he and Rosita will never be caught in it. Not like this.
Carver just nods, scrubbing at his face again. There’s no room for laziness. Everyone has to do their part, pull their weight. “I’ll help you,” he agrees softly. “Whatever needs to be done.”
However this shakes out, he won’t be a burden to her.
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handleyourshit) wrote2032-07-23 01:51 pm
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Maybe he’ll just take the kitten and go live in the woods for a bit.
“Yeah,” he says after a while. “I’m not good company, but.”
It feels better with someone there, someone other than the ghosts.
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Now though, she nods. She leans forward to rest her elbows on her knees for a moment, watching him.
"It's okay," she promises again. "But I'm going to go to the kitchen to find something for you to eat. I'll come straight back here."
She waits only long enough to see that it's registered, before she's pushing to her feet to do exactly what she said she was going to do. He doesn't need to make any more decisions right now.
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Maybe that’s the point, though.
Carver scrubs at his face and watches the kitten, feeling nothing but tired. Rosita will find the kitchen well stocked and meticulously organized, ever inch of it scrubbed clean. He’s the only person who’s ever used it. He wonders, briefly, what will happen to it once he’s kicked out.
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Then she looks down at the small mess she's made cutting up a peach and assembling a sandwich, and decides maybe it'd be good for him to have something to focus on, maybe something annoying. She puts away the food so it won't spoil and takes the rest with her back to the room.
She knocks but doesn't wait for an invitation, just comes back in and sits back down next to him. She glances at the kitten, too, but sets the plate on his knee.
"I know you're not hungry," she admits. "But eat it before the cat does anyway."
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The cat shouldn’t have people food, though. So, there’s that.
“Okay,” he agrees quietly, lifting the plate out of the way as Dulcinea trots over and immediately goes onto her hind legs to try and snag some of the bread. “I know I need to plan shit,” he adds after a moment. “But I can’t right now. Not yet.”
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She reaches to scoop up Dulcinea, to keep her out of his face for a moment.
"I know," she agrees. "But we have time. I'll do what I can when you're ready."
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Finally, he takes a slice of peach and eats mechanically, without tasting it.
“Thank you,” he says, very softly.
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Some things negate petty squabbles. If they had any, this would be one.
She settles the kitten in her lap, stroking her ears and ignoring the way she bats at her fingers in annoyance at being kept from the food.
"I want you to come with me to Creekside," she says. "Vanessa, too, if she needs a place. We'll work something out."
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"Okay," he says finally. Quiet, just like before. "Vanessa has her own place. She stays there sometimes. I'll talk to her."
Figure something out.
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She can't fix it though. She distracts Dulcinea and watches to prompt Carver to finish the sandwich, and stays ready to move the plate out of the way when he's done.
"I know there's no quick, easy way through this," she finally says. "But whatever happens, I want you to know, I want you around. There's a place for you wherever I am, no matter what that looks like. If you need someone, need anything, even if you don't know what it is - call me. We'll figure it out."
She doesn't know if he will, can't promise to be able to help, but she can promise to make sure he's not alone for as long as she's here to answer.
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Yeah. But that's hardly new, is it?
"I'll come to Creekside," he agrees quietly. It's hard to focus beyond that. To force his thoughts into words that exist outside of himself.
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She reminds herself to breathe, too, and reaches to lay her hand on his arm, just below the crook of his elbow.
"Let's just go. If you need something later, I can come back and get it."
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Yeah.
He shifts, watching Rosita for a moment. Then he just nods. It's easier not to think. To just go with what she says.
"You care if I bring the kitten?" he asks quietly. There are rules, but he's responsible for her.
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"I wouldn't expect you to leave her behind," she answers, twisting to look at where he pulled the cat food out of, for a pack to fill with more.
"We'll figure something out for her in the house."
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Maybe in this world, he doesn’t have to.
“There’s a go bag in the closest,” he murmurs, and picks at the sandwich. Forcing himself to eat. “‘s got everything.”
Cat food included. He’s always ready to pack up and run.
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She wonders for a moment if that's all survivors really have to offer each other, is understanding why they're always ready to run, instead of knowing the reasons to stay. To feel safe, to feel like something can last. She nods anyway, and twists to set Dulcinea on the bed while she stands to find the bag.
He's packed the one tightly, but she finds another and makes sure to pick up some of the books off the desk, too, for the second one; she glances around for pictures, and she'll take those too unless he stops her. He has time to come back here any time he wants, but in case everything changes again, in case he doesn't want to, she wants him to already have some important pieces.
She shoulders one, and holds the other out to him. "Let's go. You can finish that on the way, or I have more at the house."
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In the end, even after all this time, he doesn’t own much that matters. Certainly nothing he couldn’t leave behind if he had to run. Maybe he’d regret it, but he’s carried a lot of regrets for a long time. That hasn’t changed in this place, not really.
But the little things matter. The books. The knife that Grayson gave him. The camera that Paul gave him. A small, battered notebook.
Little things. Ghosts.
He tucks the kitten into his pocket and shoulders the pack, giving Rosita a tired nod. Okay.
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She leads them out. She's never considered herself a leader but she knows how to pick her way past danger and set her feet on the path home, so she does.
The walk to Creekside is familiar by this point and she doesn't belabor it by trying to talk. She breathes in the scent of crushed leaves as they go, the sound they make underfoot, the crisp wind against her face, and she thinks this isn't how she wanted to do any of this. She's not sure it will stick this way, and for a lot of reasons - for him and her both - she wants it to stick. Nothing for it. Life never waits until you're ready, it just happens.
She shows him how to pick his way through the new traps she's laid down for the fall, the winter, and leads him down the last hill a stone's throw from the creek. The house looks like a house now, in need of refreshing but no longer structural repairs. She brings him in through the front door. There's insulation and dry wall stacked along one wall of the future living room, ready to be installed, but most of it is clear now. The lights turn on when she hits a switch.
"The room you picked is still open," she says. "Or you can pick a new one. The only two anyone's living in are mine and Magpie's, and Jesus has stuff in his."
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It changed somewhere in the middle, Carver thinks. He’s so tired, now. But he can’t ever say that so he doesn’t, he just follows alongside Rosita and marks the traps she shows him, the toll of survival and all the work it took to build this place into something worth having, worth fighting for. He was offered a room here once, but—
Yeah. He got tired that time too, didn’t he?
Carver just exhales. “I’ll take the one I picked.”
There are implications to that, things they aren’t saying and haven’t played out, but there’s no time. This is just happening, isn’t it?
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Later, well. Later is later.
"Alright," she agrees, and leads the way up the staircase.
The door to the room he chose is still closed, but when Rosita opens it and steps through it's obvious there's been work done. Debris cleared out, and the old drywall and insulation pulled down so she could get to the wiring and the plumbing, but she's also put a few things in here as well. There are a couple books on the windowsill, and where the wall needs to put back together properly there is the framework for shelves. Appropriately sized for books, but there's nothing there, just space or something could be.
There's a mattress in plastic up against the wall, and a desk that she found in another room and moved here at some point. The light turns on when she flips the switch, and the glass in the window is intact now.
She presses her lips together, and looks over at him.
"We'll move some vent covers from other rooms and make sure dulcinea can't get into them," she offers, setting the pack she has down. "I'll go get some tools."
Let him get settled without her staring at him. She didn't want to do this this way, but now there's no time.
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Carver scrubs at his face and sets the pack down. It's hard to focus. He ought to secure the area, make sure he knows where everything is, all the angles. Plan out where he wants to lay his own traps. Bells, at least, in case the dead get past the perimeter.
He sits down on the floor and lets the kitten out, watching as she totters around the room, mewing and exploring everything. She hops onto the desk to tap the books delicately with her paw, tail raised high like a banner. Carver leans his head against the wall, watching her. He'll hide weapons in these walls, he thinks. Show Rosita and Paul where they are in case things go bad. Just in case. They can secure this place, he thinks. They could hold it.
Dulcinea squeaks. Then, to Carver's surprise, she comes back and jumps onto his shoulder. Sticking close this time.
He's there when Rosita comes back, staring at nothing, the kitten chewing on his hair. "You can put me to work," he says softly. "I'll be steadier tomorrow."
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Most of it is practical. She has a list of things that need done in the back of her head, but not everything on it is suitable for everyone she has available to her. Caden has construction skills, but his paranoia isn't the useful kind. Carver has practical experience, but not only is he spun, but he may be gone in the morning.
So she not as she drops her tool belts and the metal vent covers to the floor and crouches to start fitting it.
"I will. There's plenty still to do, and I don't have as much time as I'd like. Magpie lives in the room downstairs, and he doesn't like anyone even down that hallway, but you can go anywhere else. This is the only room I can promise is secure for the kitten." Practical things. House rules. She doesn't have many, and he'll follow most of them because they're cut from the same trauma, but she says them anyway.
"Guest shower is next door. I don't use that one, so let the water run a bit, but everything should work. I'll throw some extra sleeping bags on this mattress, and we'll figure out what else we need to get. We'll see how you feel in the morning, and go from there."
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The rest of him is tired, and the thought of it is aches at his soul. It never ends, does it?
He rests his head against the wall, watching her, and nods just once. They'll have to talk about this, he knows, because he can't stay here for long without the city coming sniffing around to have a say about it. He's got no contract now and there's a line tattooed on his throat: there are consequences to that, always. And if he's not careful, he'll bring them down on everyone in proximity, not just himself.
Maybe he should just fuck off and live in the woods for a while. Simpler for everyone.
"I'll make food for everyone in the morning," he promises softly. He'll earn his keep at least for the night.
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The answer is nothing like simple, and she doesn't have one yet. They have a maximum of three days before she has to have one, and she will; if this is when she has to show her teeth, has to fight, then she will - but that's not a clean, solid answer. That's what's going to keep her up all night, so she focuses on hammering and screwing the vent cover into place, which doesn't take nearly long enough before she's done, before she's standing to pull the mattress down from where it's just been leaned against the wall.
"I need some help anchoring the generator, too. And I want to put up a shed out on the south property line, so I need to get the framework together for that and sort through scrap to see what I have and what I need to find still." She glances over. She knows about staying busy. She's never really stopped since coming here, not for longer than a few hours at a time.
It doesn't heal anything. It just changes the threshold over time. He should have the option, especially since he told her he wanted it back when she asked him to fight.
"There's plenty to do. Food's a good start."
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Carver just nods, scrubbing at his face again. There’s no room for laziness. Everyone has to do their part, pull their weight. “I’ll help you,” he agrees softly. “Whatever needs to be done.”
However this shakes out, he won’t be a burden to her.
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