[He laughs, then, and it's a short, sharp sound that reveals more than he means to, not the least because he doesn't realize how much there is to reveal: how thin the veneer has become, more than threadbare and on to just barely even existent at all. There's nothing to back it up, but it would take someone with fresh eyes to know it.]
No one here gets to decide that. There's no choices here, not for us. There's only how bad it's going to be when your strength runs out.
[But this is more muscle memory, as much as the death grip his fingers have on the gun, which he raises for a moment back to his shoulder, sights down the barrel like he's changed his mind, like nearly point blank is a better bet than the distance this rifle was made to cover.
But this isn't how any of this goes, and Slevin is desperately lost within this array of suddenly new options. He's paranoid, of course, because everything he hasn't ever understood before has turned out to be a ploy. He has no friends, not with the kind of abuse Chris heaps on anyone that thinks fondly of him or that Slevin thinks fondly of in return, a pariah in a boat full of victims; no one helps him more than once when Chris and his pack of lunatic wardens goes hunting. He's paired. It brings his warden down on him in the end, and engulfs whoever is closest.
But he can't smell the deception in this. He doesn't know what that means, then, and he's been dealing with only the limited options the Barge has to offer him for so long that where once he knew how to adapt to anything, now he stares blankly at an unlooked for third option. A road untraveled and strange for that. One he does not know at all what to do with.
Breathing out, he does not pull the trigger, as he was once taught. Breathing in he does not pull the trigger, for which he was once reprimanded. Finally, arm trembling with the exertion of holding the weight of the rifle up, this junkyard dog of a man makes a low, half-growling, half-keening noise of frustration in his throat, and spins to walk back into the shade of the abandoned building's interior, ducking his head to get in under the door.]
Spam
No one here gets to decide that. There's no choices here, not for us. There's only how bad it's going to be when your strength runs out.
[But this is more muscle memory, as much as the death grip his fingers have on the gun, which he raises for a moment back to his shoulder, sights down the barrel like he's changed his mind, like nearly point blank is a better bet than the distance this rifle was made to cover.
But this isn't how any of this goes, and Slevin is desperately lost within this array of suddenly new options. He's paranoid, of course, because everything he hasn't ever understood before has turned out to be a ploy. He has no friends, not with the kind of abuse Chris heaps on anyone that thinks fondly of him or that Slevin thinks fondly of in return, a pariah in a boat full of victims; no one helps him more than once when Chris and his pack of lunatic wardens goes hunting. He's paired. It brings his warden down on him in the end, and engulfs whoever is closest.
But he can't smell the deception in this. He doesn't know what that means, then, and he's been dealing with only the limited options the Barge has to offer him for so long that where once he knew how to adapt to anything, now he stares blankly at an unlooked for third option. A road untraveled and strange for that. One he does not know at all what to do with.
Breathing out, he does not pull the trigger, as he was once taught. Breathing in he does not pull the trigger, for which he was once reprimanded. Finally, arm trembling with the exertion of holding the weight of the rifle up, this junkyard dog of a man makes a low, half-growling, half-keening noise of frustration in his throat, and spins to walk back into the shade of the abandoned building's interior, ducking his head to get in under the door.]