(no subject)

[aut_nihil]

Pope doesn't go on as many missions as he once did. But he sees trouble brewing in the future, in the solo orders Carver was given, and he can't stomach staying behind when Carver might face the worst alone.

So he defies his own orders and he goes with Carver.

And things go sideways. They're outnumbered despite his best efforts and his warnings, and they're gathered up, hoods on their heads, arms tied behind their backs.

Carver's strong though. They're going to make it through this. He's going to get them through this.

Comments

[fortitudosalutis]

Oh, God. The knife cuts his palm where the blood makes the blade slip. Carver lowers the knife down, staring at the corpse. Feeling nothing, or feeling too much. And he's crying, just like he did his first time in combat.

Slowly, very slowly, he reaches for his pants. Gets them on mechanically. His boots, too. Feeling nothing at all.

[aut_nihil]

Pope raids the bodies for weapons, and he looks at Carver.

"Pull it together," he tells him, but gently. "We're going home."

[fortitudosalutis]

Carver just stares at him, utterly silent. He takes a gun from one of the dead and a jacket too. Zipping it up to hide the blood. This isn't happening to him, Carver decides then. It's happening to someone else ad he's just floating.

[aut_nihil]

Time to find out if Carver can hack it, he thinks. He gets a gun and it's loaded and he feels so, so much better with it in his hands.

He opens the door and takes point, leading the way down the hallway.

[fortitudosalutis]

There's pain, he thinks. Someone else feels pain. Someone else checks the clip in his pistol, ensuring its function. Someone else follows Pope out and covers his back. Someone else shoots the guard coming round the bend twice in the chest.

[aut_nihil]

They're so many stories up, Pope knows. He's tried to count but it isn't until they're in the elevator that he realizes it's 14. Or is it 13? This is an old building, a nice one, a classy one that skips the 13th floor out of superstition.

And they've left it with a massacre to clean up. He feels grim pleasure about that.

Down to the lobby.

He shoots the first person he sees, doesn't care if it's a civilian or not.

[fortitudosalutis]

They move. Step after brutal step. Someone empties the clip, collects another from the fallen. On and on it goes, step after step. Floor after floor until they hit the lobby.

They don't stop. Not even until they're in the sunlight.

[aut_nihil]

"You know how to hotwire a car?" He asks, because none of the bodies had keys and he doesn't know which cars belong to their captors anyway.

[fortitudosalutis]

There's a question. It takes a moment for the words to shift into something recognizable. Carver doesn't quite look at Pope, but he nods. His grandma taught him how to strip the wires. How to make the connection close when she got drunk and lost the keys to her truck.

[aut_nihil]

He moves, moves, moves from car to car until he finds one that's unlocked. "Get to it," he tells Carver, taking up a position to cover him if anyone comes out of the hotel. No one has yet, but it's only a matter of time. "Fast."

[fortitudosalutis]

There's pain when he bends. A distant, sharp ache. Pulsing with his heart. Carver ignores it. Takes the knife and yanks the wires down in the driver's seat, stripping them to force the connection. The engine clicks, but it doesn't turn over. He keeps going. Utterly focused even as blood runs hot and thick down his hands; he's torn his hands; he doesn't remember the wounds.

But he gets the car started. He puts his seatbelt on.

[aut_nihil]

Pope gets in the other side. He has to sit crooked; it hurts to sit up straight.

"Get us home," he tells Carver, his voice ragged with pain.

[fortitudosalutis]

Carver doesn't say a word. He just drives. The gas tank is full. He takes them back home, driving until the blood dries. As his hands ache and he starts to shiver again. To feel cold, and uncertain. Shaky.

He almost gets them back before he has to pull over abruptly, before he crashes them into something and kills them both.

"I'm in shock," he explains distantly.

[aut_nihil]

Pope is shirtless. His chest is still bleeding, and he has nothing to staunch it with, so it just runs and runs and it ruins the upholstery and his pants.

Carver pulls them over and it shakes him out of a daze. "Switch me," he says, and he sees a coat in the backseat. He makes a decision, puts it on Carver instead of using it for his own wounds. "Keep that wrapped on you, we have to get you warm," he says, and he makes sure Carver's seatbelt is on before he starts driving, the heat blasting on full.

[fortitudosalutis]

The world tilts. Carver curls into himself, his hands shaking. He can't manage the seatbelt so Pope does it for him. Just like Pope wrapped the coat around him and turns the heat on high.

He's shaking. Curling into himself, rocking even though it hurts. His skin doesn't feel like his skin anymore.

"We're going home," he murmurs. "Right?"

[aut_nihil]

"We're going to Shaw." He can't stand for his men to see him like this. But she's safe. She's always been safe, for him and for Carver.

"Recite something for me, Carver." To keep him talking, to try to get him focused.

[fortitudosalutis]

Shaw. Big sister. Carver shudders hard, closing his eyes. He wants to disappear into himself. Stop existing. He wants to cry. He wants Riley.

He clears his throat. Trying to think. "In a village of La Mancha, the, mhmm, name of which I have no desire to call to mind . . ."

The words trail off. Carver goes quiet. He takes one ragged breath, then another. "There lived not long since one of those gentlemen that keep a lance in the lance-rack, an old buckler, a lean hack, and a greyhound for coursing . . ."

[aut_nihil]

Pope reads. Not many classics, though, not in a long, long time. He grunts. "What's a lean hack?"

[fortitudosalutis]

"An old horse," Carver murmurs. "He calls it Rocinante. Workhorse, in Spanish. He thinks it's grand, but it's just an old horse..."

[aut_nihil]

"Reminds me of my first car. It was my uncle's old truck, older than I was, barely ran. I thought it was the finest thing I ever owned." He shudders, pain racking up and down his spine when they hit a bump.

"You remember your first car?"

[fortitudosalutis]

Carver keeps his eyes closed, shivering. He's so goddamn cold. Everything hurts. And he can hear the hurt in Pope, too. The tension in his voice.

"My, mhmm, my grandma's truck," Carver murmurs. "She'd get drunk and lose the keys, so she taught me how to hotwire it..."

The words trail off. His head slumps against the window. He thinks, a little distantly, that he might pass out soon. That the adrenaline can't take him any further.

[aut_nihil]

Pope reaches over, grabs him by the shoulder, shakes him. "Keep talking, boy. Tell me about your grandma's house."

He drives faster.

[fortitudosalutis]

He groans, pressing his forehead against the glass. It hurts now. He wants Riley to come and hold him. Wants Sergeant Shaw to tell him what to do, for Pope to stop sounding so goddamn worried.

"We...it was nice, for the area," he murmurs, the words slurring. "Two stories. Fireplace in the living room. She'd chop wood, stack it up by the door. Heat didn't work so good, so we had dogs....they'd always sleep with me. Keep me warm."

[aut_nihil]

"You want a dog? You have any pets?" He wishes he could call ahead. If she's not even home...

They're an hour away. He drives faster, dammit.

[fortitudosalutis]

"Not anymore...."

He's fading, Carver thinks. He wonders briefly if he's dying or just on the verge of passing out. Too hurt and exhausted to hold on much longer.

"I don't...I don't have anything but this..."

The words slur. He slumps against the window, passed out cold.