lookforheaven (aucontraire_) wrote in remains_rpg, @ 2016-03-25 02:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | # 2019 [03] march, adelaide hawkins, archer avery, ian terrell |
WHO: Archer, Sarge, Adelaide and Charlie
WHERE:
WHAT: Long-overdue visiting
WHEN: March 6th, early afternoon
High noon. Before the end of the fucking world, before a time when blobs could rain from the sky and wreak havoc with that damned virus and before the double damned clouds of blister gas were unleashed to choke the sky, even Texas had something that pretended to be winter when the sun went down. Archer Avery, eyes moving over an arid landscape that's got the tell-tale crumble of being sun-baked and s’mores-eroded, can't say this March has gone in like a lion, meteorologically speaking. It ain't goin’ out like a lamb, either, and he doesn't give a good goddamn how you wanna interpret the pithy little aphorism. March goes in like a lion and out like a lamb, huh? Maybe that meant something in the before times, back in New York. Shit, back in Philadelphia. Back before he was old enough to imagine a future that has him scanning the horizon for zombies that could move faster than he can, wind gusts that might carry errant gusts of blister gas that he still doesn't quite believe has fully left the atmosphere, and patrolmen who have no reason to be this far out today but are never far from his thoughts of late and therefore not something he'll rule out as an immediate danger. Noon, high fucking noon, but Archer has been here at the old Austin flea markets for a while now, acclimating himself better to the space. The unmarked jeep is the same one he took last time and is parked still farther out from this location than before; though the day is a warm one, it isn't the oppressive heat of the summer and Archer didn't mind the walk. Even with all of his senses open, alert, and even with all of the danger he puts himself into by this excursion, he has a clear-headedness out here that the Capitol hasn't afforded him of late. It would be dangerous for him to examine that too closely, but it's as though Archer unconsciously has given himself far too much time to get to his meeting place. There's only so much time needed to examine the existing structures, to check again what the best exit points are, to find a good vantage point between two abandoned stalls near the lot where Ads parked the Power Wagon last time and to station himself there, half-hidden, standing perfectly still and watching the road leading into the lot. Then all he has is time on his hands and thoughts chasing themselves around in his head. Thinking about his current circumstances might be just slightly easier than letting him admit to himself he's a little anxious to see Adelaide again, angry and ashamed -- because just when the fuck ever is Archer anxious -- and easier than thinking about what the fuck it's gonna be like to meet this Sarge guy (the one that causes a perceptible change in Ads’ expression whether she knows it or not) without bars or chains between them. Archer’s angry and ashamed here, too, and it's not much less complicated to meet Terrell than how he feels about seeing Ads. He doesn't have much in the way of news for either of them, not the news he's been damn near killing himself trying to bring to them. Bottom line, he doesn't have James Hawkins for them, and if Archer looks at that too closely, he's gonna want to punch things and just not fucking stop. When the fuck did he care so much about the pound puppies, especially one that killed some of his cops? Can't just be because James is Ads’ brother, because something in Archer knew right from wrong regarding the vendetta against his majesty long before that revelation. Wouldn't’ve let him go that one time, on a fucking gut feeling, if Archer didn't catch the scent in the wind that something just wasn't right when it came to the way the powers that be were relentless in going after the Hellhounds and Hawkins in particular. It still keeps him up at night, that he's never sat down face to face with James Hawkins and hashed all of this shit out. Now he's AWOL, kidnapped, vanished, and Archer’s hands are tied at every goddamned turn when he's tried to find out information. Every careful move he's made in that direction has netted him fucking zero. The events of yesterday afternoon, the similarity, only frustrate him further. It's been important that he remain the impassive, stoic Chief of Police, that he play the role that's expected of him without faltering; Archer Avery is exceedingly good at being the uniform and not the man inside it, so to speak. Reeves Olinger called him ‘Atlas’ once, when he handed him the reins of the APD, knowing from Archer’s file that his top cop has the ability to take everything onto himself and painstakingly carry it until he simply cannot. Archer isn't blind to the… the madness in Olinger but even in the face of it, his armor has held. He is Atlas still, a patient beast of burden, toting his silence and his discretion and his seeming loyalty like chains that started merely slung over his shoulders but are beginning to wrap around his throat. What matters is that the mayor still seems to have a measure of trust in him, misplaced though it might be. Archer cannot get a clear read on the warden as he hasn't spent as much time with the man (a fact the chief isn't at all broken up about) but doesn't see any fucking good coming toward him from the way he and the mayor put their damn heads together. Archer merely notches his armor on a little tighter, looks these men in the eye without expression, leads his police department without cause for question. He is by the book. He is the workaholic robot that Brannon grumbled about when Archer first accepted the badge; Bran knows better than to open his fucking mouth in public now. Things are too precarious. Archer has to play this part and play it well, so he does. It's what he knows. In truth, he's slowly come to believe, in a gallows humor sort of way that doesn't have an ounce of pride to it, something that Ads told him when he accepted the badge from Olinger: no one else can do this job but him. Archer waits, lifting a hand to rub it over his surprisingly unshaven jaw when his next scan doesn't show any vehicles approaching. How long has it been since he's seen Ads: four months? Yeah. Sounds about right. They've messaged when it was safe, but it's been far too long. Archer knows a lot of this is on him, keeping up appearances in the Capitol for one reason or another. It was useful, sometimes, like when he was able to pass along information about the Hellhounds being held in La Quinta, when he'd been able to confirm to Ads that he'd had eyes on them himself. Real proof of life as opposed to conjecture. But lately, Archer hasn't felt especially useful to Ads. He still doesn't know what happened to Rob Lansing; that, too, is something that gnaws at him if Archer lets it. Not knowing what happened to Charlie’s father… Charlie. Archer hasn't forgotten that he's going to get to see the boy today, though there's a part of him that wouldn't be surprised if Ads and Terrell don't wind up bringing him after all, if it isn't deemed ‘safe.’ He's steeling himself for that disappointment even as his tired, dog-eared tin man’s heart gives a little lurch in his chest. Archer glances out at the landscape and slides his phone from the pocket of his cargos to look at the picture Ads texted him yesterday. His little buddy knows how to stand up now; Charlie’s getting so damned big. Archer’s missing it, him growing up, this boy that somewhere along the way he knew he'd protect with everything he had in him. It's for Charlie as much as it is for Ads and her friends at the Dog Park, as it is for his brother Bran, for Jenkins and Cal and everyone else in this damned world Archer has left… it's for Charlie as much as anyone that Archer’s willing to keep on slogging through the molasses that is Capitol politics when he left the NYPD and took a job in fucking Texas to avoid departmental politics in the first place. He left somewhere he reasonably liked, if not loved, with four easily definable seasons, and talked Bran into transferring with him, only to face the end of the world in a state that was gonna be brutally hot in a month or two. And it's for Charlie and Ads both that Archer needs to work on shaking some of the protective layers that have built up over the past few months. Adelaide can read him better than maybe Archer can read himself at this point, but he knows well enough that maybe he should make a fucking effort. He's out of uniform or anything that looks even remotely like one and made sure he wasn't wearing his shoulder holster; time apart hadn't meant he forgot how it used to be. He carries his service piece -- or today, two pistols instead of just one -- on a belt that puts them in upside down holsters at the small of his back, covered by the tail of his lightweight short sleeved button-down: chamber empty, hammer down, safety on. The leather catches are undone in deference to the fact that he is out and about in potentially dangerous territory but Archer is a sharpshooter and lighter on his feet than he looks. Back when he and Ads both used to live in the Capitol, Archer basically never approached Charlie without making sure his gun was locked down, and that cultivated habit makes that happen today. There's no rifle, unlike last time. He's got enough on him, enough hidden around him, that would make do in a pinch if they were suddenly set-upon by zombies. Which they won't be. Archer needs to stop fucking worrying and just maybe enjoy the fact that he's going to see one of his closest friends and really see how Ads is doing for himself… that he's going to get to meet her friend Terr- Sarge on her terms, something Ads has wanted for a long time… and that he's going to get to spend time with a little boy that he's inordinately fond of, no matter how much Archer wants to just chalk it up as his protective streak for Ads extending to her son. He waits, and he wonders if Charlie will remember him. |