( A lot about the way things have been devolving scares Ian. One thing in particular, it seems, Luke -- absolute genius that he is -- has failed to realize: Cole has friends, and Luke has been making enemies. Not everybody is universally on board with Fearless Leader Luke Saenz, there are a growing number of people who'd like to agree to disagree about the leader part. Tension has been mounting for weeks, and it's had Ian increasingly on edge.
Not everybody knew about what was happening here.
Not until the screaming, anyway.
Ian's posted up a few yards from the shed with a handful of others, a few of them neutral, a couple of them team Cole. The second the screaming kicks in, Cole's buddy's spring up and Ian's on his feet right after, weaving between them and the door to intercept. )
I got it. I got it, I'll take care of it--
( Luke's been making enemies, but Ian's been winning them over. It's only the product of weeks of good temperament and good value brought to the group with some of the things he's built for them that gets them to calm down even slightly. Still, Ian can see how thin that patience is even without one of them biting out threateningly; you best tend to your boy, Fowler.
Ian says nothing, flashes them a tight-lipped look, and then turns to calmly let himself into the shed, locking the door behind him.
He takes in the scene with no small measure of discomfort, the staunchly humanitarian side of him flaring up in horror and indignation, muffled and shoved under the surface thanks to a lifetime of practice keeping his chill. )
Hey, man.
( He speaks up carefully, warily, his eyes on the place Luke's fingers wrap around Cole's wrist. )
[ it wasn't like this in the beginning. when the ships touched down and the two of them watched from a Starbucks parking lot as half of the University of California, Berkeley, established 1868, crumbled like a wet piñata underneath the Judge's massive constructs - at first, Luke was just scared out of his mind.
scared wasn't a new sensation to him either, from a life of uncertainty and struggle for basic needs and security, but this was a different kind of scared. there's is the power getting shut off today scared and then there's will i watch my little sisters die horrifically scared. the military told him you take that fear and use it to stay alive and hurt the guys on the other side of the trench. oakland taught him to turn that fear into strategy, into willpower and no rest 'til finished homework, fed kids, and loan sharks dodged.
accidentally stealing biotech abilities from the Judge taught him power makes that fear go away - completely, done, no mental alchemy needed. absolute genius that Ian believes he is, becoming a human electric chair has blinded Luke to the thought maybe that natural fear served an important purpose. And now we're here. ]
Kinda busy, dude.
[ but the interruption has his hands pulling away from Cole's wrists, electric burns left behind, and Luke straightens up, staring down at the offender robbing his little sister of the ability to sleep through the night or tough out a hard day's trek with that break still fresh. ]
You finish searching his tent?
[ spoken over his shoulder rather than turning to meet his friend's eyes. Ian isn't Luke's subordinate, and before the group's tension built, and the Judge attacks became hard and harder to dodge, he'd never given Ian something that sounded like an order. stakes rise and luke's grip on control becomes a chokehold. ]
( Cole's an idiot who has made - and will continue to make - bad choices, Ian knows. He's also a kid, comparatively speaking. Maybe just a year older than Luke, and Ian has a very different perspective on that age than Luke does. He's hardened up a lot since this whole thing went down, but he still feels morally unsettled at the sight of those burn marks he spots on Cole's wrist before they disappear as his hand drops limply down.
Ian isn't Luke's subordinate, and no matter how intense Luke gets about control, he won't let himself be. Not that he's going around challenging the alpha status, not that he's bucking or undermining, not that he has any interest in being in charge, so much as he elects to make his own decisions about when it's the right decision to follow his lead. Right now it's decidedly not. )
Not yet.
( Calm as ever, and a little dismissive -- searching his tent is nowhere near top priority for him at the moment. It's barely worth acknowledging. Where most people might escalate for his attention a little here via a hand gripping his arm or a more insistent interjection, Ian only comes at it with a still mild, but more firmly insistent: )
[ There’s a lot of similarity between luke and cole that luke’s firmly choosing to ignore. a lot of those similarities are things he'd rather not face in himself, doesn't like remembering, and fears ever being dragged back into. what it'd do to the people who depend on him, the kind of person it'd turn him into - into a cole - makes his stomach churn.
makes it all the easier to give into that urge to mete out punishment for it on this guy.
but if there were anyone outside his kids that could grab his attention from a task he's laser focused on, it's ian. it doesn't take grabbing him (would've been a bad idea anyway), just the firm, serious tone that the two rarely need to take with each other. reluctantly, and with no small amount of agitation showing in the knit of his brows, he pivots to look back at him. ]
What, Ian?
[ snappish, the chill he'd typically have now evaporated, but he's not so well trained in that as Ian. doesn't have the years of patiently enduring excuses for late papers from university brats, and never felt the urge to pursue it. ] Not sure if you noticed, but I kinda have a situation here.
( The similarities aren't missing to Ian either, and he's got a strong suspicion maybe that actually makes things a little worse for Cole. It's got to be so, so easy to transplant feelings of self-loathing onto him, to hate aspects of Cole more than the average person might because Luke hates those same things in himself. Everything about this is a recipe for absolute disaster.
Cole's slumped forward, crying quietly -- a mess of tears and snot and a little blood from that rifle to the face earlier, clearly not in a fit state to be giving their conversation his full attention. Ian lowers his voice anyway, a quiet but serious murmur. Private in its intimacy.
It's a gentle, gravely serious appeal. )
Look at what you're doing, man. Just... stop for a second and look.
( It's soft, more earnest than judgmental, and from a place that seems like he's more concerned with Luke's well-being than Cole's.
Kind of true. He's had red flags flaring left and right for a while now, but this is the furthest Luke has gone, and he's afraid of what this might do to him. Where this kind of path might lead. There's what Luke's capable of -- knife wounds and a razor-blade tongue -- and then there's the kind of person Ian hopes he ultimately is at the end of the day. The same guy who loves his siblings so fiercely he's perfected French braiding hair.
Ian might be a little desensitized to the horrors of the new world, but he hasn't completely lost his idealism. He still stubbornly clings to the notion that they can be good people even now, and he thinks it could be incredibly easy for Luke to lose sight of that in the name of his protectiveness. He understands, he does, he completely sees the thought process, but there's a line he desperately wants to make sure Luke sees.
Maybe clinging to the notion that he's still a guiding figure, that he still has some bullshit wisdom to offer, helps keep him going a little. )
[ it feels like an eternity since the last time luke and ian have been able to have a conversation without some level of grave or serious attached to it. only a handful of months, in reality, since the Judge appeared, but maybe the end of the world does strange things to your concept of time. even so, there's a difference in this tone. soft concern at a time when luke's at the edge of pulling a proverbial trigger, the voice one uses to talk someone off a ledge.
he bristles at it, at first. defensiveness rises up, the urge to dismiss this worry as ian's soft-hearted idealism, the adjunct that never saw war or trained to be a government sanctioned killer. and yet, as one of the few people in his life that've never let him down, Luke can't entirely ignore Ian. So he does - stops, looks, lets his eyes drag over the cowed over man (boy, really) in the chair, listen to the pitiful sobbing, and shame creeps back in under his skin, much as the currently driving part of him wants to resist it, jerking his eyes back to Ian. ]
Don't look at me like that, man. [ Luke shakes his head, voice low, but unintentionally dodging eyes of a man he holds a great level of respect for. ] This isn't some hungry kid swiping a couple extra rations, it's medicine.
[ the corner of his mind, the rational part that's been shoved to the back seat by panic and impotent frustration, knows he's reaching. looking for justifications, snatching at 'what if's and fear-mongering about a future they all know will be difficult. some of that panic threatens to creep back in, and luke sets his jaw, finding Ian's eyes again and speaking in a harsh whisper, conveniently with his back to cole again. he's rattled, and at the beginning of unraveling. ]
It'll get worse than this. You know that. The more fucked the world gets, the more desperate people are, the harder we'll have to fight to keep each other safe.
( One day in the not too distant future, they'll have the opportunity to settle. They'll have blessed free time and safety, with enough trust in their established environment that they feel comfortable letting their guard down a little. Things'll get better then, they'll get to reintroduce meaningless stupid conversation back in to gradually replace these tense, heavy exchanges. For now, though...
For now, they're in the thick of it. They're reaching the lowest point, and the only way out is through.
Ian clocks the defensiveness, and adjusts for it -- pitches his voice and his demeanor softer, more appealing. A little shame is good, but his aim isn't to drive the spike in too deeply. Mostly because he doesn't want to hurt, but also partially a calculated choice -- he's afraid if he pushes too hard on it, it'll over-correct. Make things worse, maybe make him double down.
He meets Luke's eye, not challenging but unwavering. )
I know. And I know you're gonna get us through it like you always do, but... this isn't keeping each other safe anymore. This is torture.
( Said with the clear underlying message: and you know that. )
I can list off the strategic reasons why I know this is a bad move if you want, but I don't want strategy to be why you rethink what happens in here. Just because the world's getting fucked up doesn't mean we have to let it take us down with it. You're better than that. That's not who you are.
[ luke didn't have many Stand and Deliver moments in his academic career. mostly he made good grades and kept his head down, wasn't a problem student and never really needed a talking to. ian could've been the real world Edward James Olmos teacher with how well he gets it. they've often operated more as 'bros' than mentor/student, but the second is the soft, gooey core of their relationship. hearing you're better than this from ian demands a pause, hits at luke's core.
turning eyes back to cole's shivering figure in the chair, luke forces himself to really look. take in the damage, and know that it was his choice to put it on this human being. furious as he may be, desperate to maintain order and ensure no one else thinks they can pull this in their camp, that's still a person in that chair. ]
Fuck.
[ he bites out in a hiss, torn between strategy and humanity. say he makes this call, let's cole walk back into camp, and it happens again? say it's something they need in an emergency and realize too late some asshole used it for a buzz or sold it? but the longer he stares at cole, the more certain luke is that he'll be seeing this image over and over in his nightmares. the line's already crossed. ]
You sound more sure of that than I am.
[ but if any adult currently left alive could claim to know who luke is, or was, before all of this, ian would be it. swallowing thickly, now he can't take his eyes off the prisoner, like burning it into his retinas, branding a lesson learned and what the line we don't cross looks like. ]
Fine. But he leaves camp tonight. Maybe I'm not a torturer, but I'm sure as shit not Mother Teresa.
[ forgiveness has never been a virtue in luke's book, and he can hold a bitch of a grudge when the motivation strikes. this choice won't make him any more popular with the team cole faction of camp, but that'll be dealt with another time. sooner than luke thinks, but such is apocalyptic life. ]
( The relief that floods through him is like dousing a flame, dropping it in a lake. Cool and sudden and all-encompassing. It doesn't manifest much on his face, all his expressions are generally tempered by chill, but Luke is bound to know him well enough to see it clearly.
It's now that he finally breaks the touch barrier, reaching out to first squeeze Luke's shoulder firmly and then gently clasp the side of his neck almost immediately after. It comes with the lightest jostle, not playful, just telegraphed care.
He won't argue about kicking Cole out of camp, though he imagines a few people on the other side of the door might. It's okay. They caught this early enough that it might not be too heavy a scar on their credibility. Judging by Cole's state of mind, he's high as balls right now anyway -- that probably balances things out in terms of who the majority of the group sides with. Ian's well aware of popular opinion mattering more than Luke realizes. He navigates that aspect with relative ease; this will be more challenging, but he'll manage. )
Hey.
( He says gently, trying to nudge his way through the dark cloud swiftly settling in. )
I'm proud of you.
( And he means it. But he won't subject either of them to this whole thing anymore, and he seems to withdraw into something a little more businesslike when his hand finally drops away.
Luke takes care of them in one way. Ian takes care of them in another. It's a testament to how much he has bent to fit the new world that his plan turns sharp and undeniably a little unethical. )
Come on, let's clean him up before we let his friends take care of him. We can say he was nodding off, you shocked him conscious again. It's not like he's gonna feel it for long anyway, he's like a walking pharmacy right now. The high should mask the concussion. I just need you to scale back a little and pretend like you've got, like, two percent concern for him when they come in, alright?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Not everybody knew about what was happening here.
Not until the screaming, anyway.
Ian's posted up a few yards from the shed with a handful of others, a few of them neutral, a couple of them team Cole. The second the screaming kicks in, Cole's buddy's spring up and Ian's on his feet right after, weaving between them and the door to intercept. )
I got it. I got it, I'll take care of it--
( Luke's been making enemies, but Ian's been winning them over. It's only the product of weeks of good temperament and good value brought to the group with some of the things he's built for them that gets them to calm down even slightly. Still, Ian can see how thin that patience is even without one of them biting out threateningly; you best tend to your boy, Fowler.
Ian says nothing, flashes them a tight-lipped look, and then turns to calmly let himself into the shed, locking the door behind him.
He takes in the scene with no small measure of discomfort, the staunchly humanitarian side of him flaring up in horror and indignation, muffled and shoved under the surface thanks to a lifetime of practice keeping his chill. )
Hey, man.
( He speaks up carefully, warily, his eyes on the place Luke's fingers wrap around Cole's wrist. )
I need to talk to you for a minute.
no subject
scared wasn't a new sensation to him either, from a life of uncertainty and struggle for basic needs and security, but this was a different kind of scared. there's is the power getting shut off today scared and then there's will i watch my little sisters die horrifically scared. the military told him you take that fear and use it to stay alive and hurt the guys on the other side of the trench. oakland taught him to turn that fear into strategy, into willpower and no rest 'til finished homework, fed kids, and loan sharks dodged.
accidentally stealing biotech abilities from the Judge taught him power makes that fear go away - completely, done, no mental alchemy needed. absolute genius that Ian believes he is, becoming a human electric chair has blinded Luke to the thought maybe that natural fear served an important purpose. And now we're here. ]
Kinda busy, dude.
[ but the interruption has his hands pulling away from Cole's wrists, electric burns left behind, and Luke straightens up, staring down at the offender robbing his little sister of the ability to sleep through the night or tough out a hard day's trek with that break still fresh. ]
You finish searching his tent?
[ spoken over his shoulder rather than turning to meet his friend's eyes. Ian isn't Luke's subordinate, and before the group's tension built, and the Judge attacks became hard and harder to dodge, he'd never given Ian something that sounded like an order. stakes rise and luke's grip on control becomes a chokehold. ]
no subject
Ian isn't Luke's subordinate, and no matter how intense Luke gets about control, he won't let himself be. Not that he's going around challenging the alpha status, not that he's bucking or undermining, not that he has any interest in being in charge, so much as he elects to make his own decisions about when it's the right decision to follow his lead. Right now it's decidedly not. )
Not yet.
( Calm as ever, and a little dismissive -- searching his tent is nowhere near top priority for him at the moment. It's barely worth acknowledging. Where most people might escalate for his attention a little here via a hand gripping his arm or a more insistent interjection, Ian only comes at it with a still mild, but more firmly insistent: )
Luke.
no subject
makes it all the easier to give into that urge to mete out punishment for it on this guy.
but if there were anyone outside his kids that could grab his attention from a task he's laser focused on, it's ian. it doesn't take grabbing him (would've been a bad idea anyway), just the firm, serious tone that the two rarely need to take with each other. reluctantly, and with no small amount of agitation showing in the knit of his brows, he pivots to look back at him. ]
What, Ian?
[ snappish, the chill he'd typically have now evaporated, but he's not so well trained in that as Ian. doesn't have the years of patiently enduring excuses for late papers from university brats, and never felt the urge to pursue it. ] Not sure if you noticed, but I kinda have a situation here.
no subject
Cole's slumped forward, crying quietly -- a mess of tears and snot and a little blood from that rifle to the face earlier, clearly not in a fit state to be giving their conversation his full attention. Ian lowers his voice anyway, a quiet but serious murmur. Private in its intimacy.
It's a gentle, gravely serious appeal. )
Look at what you're doing, man. Just... stop for a second and look.
( It's soft, more earnest than judgmental, and from a place that seems like he's more concerned with Luke's well-being than Cole's.
Kind of true. He's had red flags flaring left and right for a while now, but this is the furthest Luke has gone, and he's afraid of what this might do to him. Where this kind of path might lead. There's what Luke's capable of -- knife wounds and a razor-blade tongue -- and then there's the kind of person Ian hopes he ultimately is at the end of the day. The same guy who loves his siblings so fiercely he's perfected French braiding hair.
Ian might be a little desensitized to the horrors of the new world, but he hasn't completely lost his idealism. He still stubbornly clings to the notion that they can be good people even now, and he thinks it could be incredibly easy for Luke to lose sight of that in the name of his protectiveness. He understands, he does, he completely sees the thought process, but there's a line he desperately wants to make sure Luke sees.
Maybe clinging to the notion that he's still a guiding figure, that he still has some bullshit wisdom to offer, helps keep him going a little. )
no subject
he bristles at it, at first. defensiveness rises up, the urge to dismiss this worry as ian's soft-hearted idealism, the adjunct that never saw war or trained to be a government sanctioned killer. and yet, as one of the few people in his life that've never let him down, Luke can't entirely ignore Ian. So he does - stops, looks, lets his eyes drag over the cowed over man (boy, really) in the chair, listen to the pitiful sobbing, and shame creeps back in under his skin, much as the currently driving part of him wants to resist it, jerking his eyes back to Ian. ]
Don't look at me like that, man. [ Luke shakes his head, voice low, but unintentionally dodging eyes of a man he holds a great level of respect for. ] This isn't some hungry kid swiping a couple extra rations, it's medicine.
[ the corner of his mind, the rational part that's been shoved to the back seat by panic and impotent frustration, knows he's reaching. looking for justifications, snatching at 'what if's and fear-mongering about a future they all know will be difficult. some of that panic threatens to creep back in, and luke sets his jaw, finding Ian's eyes again and speaking in a harsh whisper, conveniently with his back to cole again. he's rattled, and at the beginning of unraveling. ]
It'll get worse than this. You know that. The more fucked the world gets, the more desperate people are, the harder we'll have to fight to keep each other safe.
no subject
For now, they're in the thick of it. They're reaching the lowest point, and the only way out is through.
Ian clocks the defensiveness, and adjusts for it -- pitches his voice and his demeanor softer, more appealing. A little shame is good, but his aim isn't to drive the spike in too deeply. Mostly because he doesn't want to hurt, but also partially a calculated choice -- he's afraid if he pushes too hard on it, it'll over-correct. Make things worse, maybe make him double down.
He meets Luke's eye, not challenging but unwavering. )
I know. And I know you're gonna get us through it like you always do, but... this isn't keeping each other safe anymore. This is torture.
( Said with the clear underlying message: and you know that. )
I can list off the strategic reasons why I know this is a bad move if you want, but I don't want strategy to be why you rethink what happens in here. Just because the world's getting fucked up doesn't mean we have to let it take us down with it. You're better than that. That's not who you are.
no subject
turning eyes back to cole's shivering figure in the chair, luke forces himself to really look. take in the damage, and know that it was his choice to put it on this human being. furious as he may be, desperate to maintain order and ensure no one else thinks they can pull this in their camp, that's still a person in that chair. ]
Fuck.
[ he bites out in a hiss, torn between strategy and humanity. say he makes this call, let's cole walk back into camp, and it happens again? say it's something they need in an emergency and realize too late some asshole used it for a buzz or sold it? but the longer he stares at cole, the more certain luke is that he'll be seeing this image over and over in his nightmares. the line's already crossed. ]
You sound more sure of that than I am.
[ but if any adult currently left alive could claim to know who luke is, or was, before all of this, ian would be it. swallowing thickly, now he can't take his eyes off the prisoner, like burning it into his retinas, branding a lesson learned and what the line we don't cross looks like. ]
Fine. But he leaves camp tonight. Maybe I'm not a torturer, but I'm sure as shit not Mother Teresa.
[ forgiveness has never been a virtue in luke's book, and he can hold a bitch of a grudge when the motivation strikes. this choice won't make him any more popular with the team cole faction of camp, but that'll be dealt with another time. sooner than luke thinks, but such is apocalyptic life. ]
no subject
It's now that he finally breaks the touch barrier, reaching out to first squeeze Luke's shoulder firmly and then gently clasp the side of his neck almost immediately after. It comes with the lightest jostle, not playful, just telegraphed care.
He won't argue about kicking Cole out of camp, though he imagines a few people on the other side of the door might. It's okay. They caught this early enough that it might not be too heavy a scar on their credibility. Judging by Cole's state of mind, he's high as balls right now anyway -- that probably balances things out in terms of who the majority of the group sides with. Ian's well aware of popular opinion mattering more than Luke realizes. He navigates that aspect with relative ease; this will be more challenging, but he'll manage. )
Hey.
( He says gently, trying to nudge his way through the dark cloud swiftly settling in. )
I'm proud of you.
( And he means it. But he won't subject either of them to this whole thing anymore, and he seems to withdraw into something a little more businesslike when his hand finally drops away.
Luke takes care of them in one way. Ian takes care of them in another. It's a testament to how much he has bent to fit the new world that his plan turns sharp and undeniably a little unethical. )
Come on, let's clean him up before we let his friends take care of him. We can say he was nodding off, you shocked him conscious again. It's not like he's gonna feel it for long anyway, he's like a walking pharmacy right now. The high should mask the concussion. I just need you to scale back a little and pretend like you've got, like, two percent concern for him when they come in, alright?