Fic: in the settling dust (Person of Interest)
Title: in the settling dust
Word count: 505
Summary: The infection began to spread a few months ago.
Content note: Mention of animal harm.
Notes: For
trope_bingo's 'au: apocalypse' square. I have now managed to write fourteen of my
trope_bingo squares, out of a possible twenty-five, and not make a single bingo. It's like I don't even WANT to bingo. Also, I really, really, really ship Finch/Reese, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to write it, because wow complicated. So, this time, I didn't, but SOMETIME SOON I HOPE.
Also available at the AO3.
"Cats," John says helpfully, as he dumps the two bodies on a tabletop. One's a tabby, and one's black.
"Do we have to," Harold says, looking up from his book. It's not really a question. They had this conversation, almost an argument, last week, and Harold acquiesced then.
"Yes, Harold, we have to."
Harold frowns at him. "I'm aware that my objections are irrational, Mr Reese. It's difficult to overcome cultural conditioning, and cat meat has been an extremely strong taboo in America for at least two hundred years."
John shrugs. “I’ll start butchering them.”
John carries the cats outside to the dead-end street at the back of the library. No one ever comes down to this part of town, it’s too close to the laboratories where the infection started, and the street is echoingly silent. He starts to skin the cats, keeping his eyes off their faces. Social taboos don’t really mean anything to him, and there’s not even a society to speak of anymore, but he always spares himself unpleasantness when he can. You never know if one day you’re going to hit a limit, suddenly overloaded with all the things you’ve done and been - it’s happened to him before, and he can’t afford for it to ever happen again.
He’s almost finished both cats, making a neat little pile of cuts of meat on the cloth he’s spread on the pavement next to him, when he notices the little scrape of the door that means that someone’s coming outside. His shoulders tense for a second, before he identifies the unevenness in the steps as being precisely the right amount of unevenness to indicate Harold, and then he relaxes.
“I felt I should… observe,” Harold says from behind John. If John had to identify what Harold was feeling, he’d say there was something faintly guilty in his voice.
John cuts the lower intestines of what he thinks used to be the tabby free and puts them on the discard pile. “Almost finished,” he says.
“I am aware that I have not been the… most pragmatic companion for this journey into the post-apocalyptic future,” Harold says.
John breathes out the slightest puff of amusement. “You don’t have to apologise,” he says.
“I wasn’t,” Harold says indignantly. There’s a pause, and then he says, “Although I feel, again somewhat irrationally, as though I possibly should. It’s been a few months and I’m still not sure how to be useful with no computers around, I must confess.”
John rolls to his feet, the cats now just little piles of meat. “It’s okay, Harold,” he says. “You can cook the cats.”
“Oh,” Harold says, and the edge of polite fussiness in his voice makes John smile.
“And then I can start teaching you to shoot,” John says. He’s been wondering when Harold will finally decide that he’s keeping his hands too clean. He kind of hoped it would take longer.
Harold takes a breath, and then says, “Sounds good, Mr Reese.”
“Okay,” John says. “Bring the meat?”
Also posted on Dreamwidth at http://surexit.dreamwidth.org/70170.html with
comments. Comment wherever you like.
Word count: 505
Summary: The infection began to spread a few months ago.
Content note: Mention of animal harm.
Notes: For
trope_bingo's 'au: apocalypse' square. I have now managed to write fourteen of my
trope_bingo squares, out of a possible twenty-five, and not make a single bingo. It's like I don't even WANT to bingo. Also, I really, really, really ship Finch/Reese, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to write it, because wow complicated. So, this time, I didn't, but SOMETIME SOON I HOPE.
Also available at the AO3.
"Cats," John says helpfully, as he dumps the two bodies on a tabletop. One's a tabby, and one's black.
"Do we have to," Harold says, looking up from his book. It's not really a question. They had this conversation, almost an argument, last week, and Harold acquiesced then.
"Yes, Harold, we have to."
Harold frowns at him. "I'm aware that my objections are irrational, Mr Reese. It's difficult to overcome cultural conditioning, and cat meat has been an extremely strong taboo in America for at least two hundred years."
John shrugs. “I’ll start butchering them.”
John carries the cats outside to the dead-end street at the back of the library. No one ever comes down to this part of town, it’s too close to the laboratories where the infection started, and the street is echoingly silent. He starts to skin the cats, keeping his eyes off their faces. Social taboos don’t really mean anything to him, and there’s not even a society to speak of anymore, but he always spares himself unpleasantness when he can. You never know if one day you’re going to hit a limit, suddenly overloaded with all the things you’ve done and been - it’s happened to him before, and he can’t afford for it to ever happen again.
He’s almost finished both cats, making a neat little pile of cuts of meat on the cloth he’s spread on the pavement next to him, when he notices the little scrape of the door that means that someone’s coming outside. His shoulders tense for a second, before he identifies the unevenness in the steps as being precisely the right amount of unevenness to indicate Harold, and then he relaxes.
“I felt I should… observe,” Harold says from behind John. If John had to identify what Harold was feeling, he’d say there was something faintly guilty in his voice.
John cuts the lower intestines of what he thinks used to be the tabby free and puts them on the discard pile. “Almost finished,” he says.
“I am aware that I have not been the… most pragmatic companion for this journey into the post-apocalyptic future,” Harold says.
John breathes out the slightest puff of amusement. “You don’t have to apologise,” he says.
“I wasn’t,” Harold says indignantly. There’s a pause, and then he says, “Although I feel, again somewhat irrationally, as though I possibly should. It’s been a few months and I’m still not sure how to be useful with no computers around, I must confess.”
John rolls to his feet, the cats now just little piles of meat. “It’s okay, Harold,” he says. “You can cook the cats.”
“Oh,” Harold says, and the edge of polite fussiness in his voice makes John smile.
“And then I can start teaching you to shoot,” John says. He’s been wondering when Harold will finally decide that he’s keeping his hands too clean. He kind of hoped it would take longer.
Harold takes a breath, and then says, “Sounds good, Mr Reese.”
“Okay,” John says. “Bring the meat?”
Also posted on Dreamwidth at http://surexit.dreamwidth.org/70170.html with
comments. Comment wherever you like.