[ In a different moment, a cleaner moment, the commander would have marked this man and maybe they would have fought but more likely Carver and the others would have just hunted him through the dark and finished it in silence like all the others. There's satisfaction in a job well done but it's hardly personal like this; this feels personal in some way, like fighting Dixon was personal. That was probably where it went wrong.
You can't negotiate with liars, men with no honor, strays from the road. No, sir. It ended the way it always ends. But this is something else. Something stranger. And it occurs to Carver that he doesn't know the rules here, in this place that smells like cleaning supplies instead of rot.
Not for the first time, he wonders if he's dead. If this is his brain's last hurrah, all cylinders firing strange and summoning up this place, this man, to teach him a lesson. But there's an angle that nags at him about this man, a twitchiness he recognizes from the old world but can't quite place. It's the way he answers questions without really answering them at all, a deflection so seamless it's almost textbook. There's dark, dried blood on his shirt but he doesn't move like he's wounded and that makes him a predator and it all adds up to something fucking interesting, doesn't it? A confused little man, he calls himself, but no, that's not right at all. This one's a liar but he's something below it, too. Something that survives.
Carver grins with his teeth. He wonders if he's finally lost his mind. If he's making connections that just aren't there. Always a possibility. Confirmation bias is a Hell of a drug. Regardless, these moments tend to end one way. ]
Do you think you're faster than me? [ he asks, quite honestly. He doubts it, but maybe. There's something curious about this one. Up close, Carver has a feeling he'd bite. ] Did you gut someone, hmm?
[ The splatter might be from a gut wound. He wonders. He has to fucking wonder, doesn't he? But you don't kill rotters by emptying their bowels, you do that to men you want to drop and that just says things, doesn't it? And he's been an interrogator almost as long as he's been a soldier; it's instinct to push for information. To dig in and pull for everything he could possibly reach. ]
no subject
You can't negotiate with liars, men with no honor, strays from the road. No, sir. It ended the way it always ends. But this is something else. Something stranger. And it occurs to Carver that he doesn't know the rules here, in this place that smells like cleaning supplies instead of rot.
Not for the first time, he wonders if he's dead. If this is his brain's last hurrah, all cylinders firing strange and summoning up this place, this man, to teach him a lesson. But there's an angle that nags at him about this man, a twitchiness he recognizes from the old world but can't quite place. It's the way he answers questions without really answering them at all, a deflection so seamless it's almost textbook. There's dark, dried blood on his shirt but he doesn't move like he's wounded and that makes him a predator and it all adds up to something fucking interesting, doesn't it? A confused little man, he calls himself, but no, that's not right at all. This one's a liar but he's something below it, too. Something that survives.
Carver grins with his teeth. He wonders if he's finally lost his mind. If he's making connections that just aren't there. Always a possibility. Confirmation bias is a Hell of a drug. Regardless, these moments tend to end one way. ]
Do you think you're faster than me? [ he asks, quite honestly. He doubts it, but maybe. There's something curious about this one. Up close, Carver has a feeling he'd bite. ] Did you gut someone, hmm?
[ The splatter might be from a gut wound. He wonders. He has to fucking wonder, doesn't he? But you don't kill rotters by emptying their bowels, you do that to men you want to drop and that just says things, doesn't it? And he's been an interrogator almost as long as he's been a soldier; it's instinct to push for information. To dig in and pull for everything he could possibly reach. ]