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.
"I know," she says, and lets that be enough for now. Which just leaves what to do next, what to do now. She knows what she'd be doing. She knows exactly what she'd be doing to glue the pieces of herself back together and keep moving, absent an enemy to bloody, a threat to put down.
She moves over in front of where he's sitting, and folds down to join him, facing him. She drapes her arms across her lap and, one by one, pulls her gloves off. She sets them on the floor by her knee and leaves her hands, bare and empty, between them.
"It's gonna be okay," she says, softly. Promises. It's thin, and weak in its lack of detail or likelihood, but she says it all the same. They've survived loss before, and they know that's what this is. It's going to be okay - or it won't. One option gives them power while the other takes it, and it's not much but she offers it and she offers the upturned palms of her hands.
For a moment, Carver just watched her as Rosita settles next to him. As she strips her gloves off and offers out her hands—nothing but scars and bare skin, no armor to shield the delicate joints. Dulcinea squeaks and bats at Carver’s cheek, wanting to play or maybe just get a reaction, any reaction, and Carver wishes distantly that he felt something more than empty right now. Maybe in time, maybe not. He thinks people hit a wall eventually: when the losses stack too high to bear. Maybe this is finally his, after years and years of fighting wars for Pope.
He breathes out. Then, slowly, he strips his gloves off. Right, then left. He sets the gloves aside, the armor he’s carried for years upon years like an extension of himself. And then he takes her hands in his, smoothing his thumb along the ridge of her knuckles. It’s gonna be okay, she says, and maybe one day he’ll believe that.
In this place, at least, they aren’t dead.
Carver closes his eyes. He doesn’t have conversation in him right now, but he holds her hands in his, and breathes out.
Rosita doesn't have anymore conversation in her, either; if their positions were reversed, she wouldn't believe herself either. She wouldn't believe anything could be okay on a long enough timeline. She, in fact, doesn't.
But he takes his gloves off, and he takes her hands, and it's what she has to offer: skin to skin contact, warm and living, present. She lets him hold onto her, her fingertips resting lightly on the backs of his hands where they curl over. And when he closes his eyes, she leans forward - she pulls him forward, not insistently, but encouragingly - to set her head against his.
He can lean on her for a while. He can take what he needs, even if it's just air in and out of his lungs.
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handleyourshit) wrote2032-07-23 01:51 pm
no subject
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."
no subject
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.
no subject
She moves over in front of where he's sitting, and folds down to join him, facing him. She drapes her arms across her lap and, one by one, pulls her gloves off. She sets them on the floor by her knee and leaves her hands, bare and empty, between them.
"It's gonna be okay," she says, softly. Promises. It's thin, and weak in its lack of detail or likelihood, but she says it all the same. They've survived loss before, and they know that's what this is. It's going to be okay - or it won't. One option gives them power while the other takes it, and it's not much but she offers it and she offers the upturned palms of her hands.
no subject
He breathes out. Then, slowly, he strips his gloves off. Right, then left. He sets the gloves aside, the armor he’s carried for years upon years like an extension of himself. And then he takes her hands in his, smoothing his thumb along the ridge of her knuckles. It’s gonna be okay, she says, and maybe one day he’ll believe that.
In this place, at least, they aren’t dead.
Carver closes his eyes. He doesn’t have conversation in him right now, but he holds her hands in his, and breathes out.
no subject
But he takes his gloves off, and he takes her hands, and it's what she has to offer: skin to skin contact, warm and living, present. She lets him hold onto her, her fingertips resting lightly on the backs of his hands where they curl over. And when he closes his eyes, she leans forward - she pulls him forward, not insistently, but encouragingly - to set her head against his.
He can lean on her for a while. He can take what he needs, even if it's just air in and out of his lungs.