HOW'S THAT FOR A DECISION, ASSHOLE?

      there’s a catch. there has to be a catch because there’s always one. an angle to work. something to gain, something to lose. he hates it. every inch of him tenses like a wounded dog backed into a corner. the hand that offers the food now is no more a friend than the man he’d tethered himself to and yet what choice is he left with but to take his word for truth? roman had worked out the pieces of the mystery conversation. he had suspicions and now those are confirmed. 

      a bargaining chip.

      there’s always something.

      “you want to use me against him.” because why else tell him? why else let him know the man he trusted for years upon years is just like every other person in his life? the air shifts around him as he leans forward.

     this time, roman raises his weapon, eyes wild, but not unsteady. he doesn’t break eye contact. alice is dead. he hears crane saying it again on repeat and for a second, has to decipher if he’s imagining it or he’s really repeating it. the former proves to be true.

    “don’t you?”

     “wh— jesus. no, no, roman —” instinct to pull his own blade rises like a cresting wave, but his hands go up instead, both of them, palms out. “roman,” he says again. “just — just listen to me, alright? that’s not what this is. i don’t — i don’t wanna use you for anything, man, i don’t need to. hey, you wanna go back to rais and tell him everything i just told you, be my guest. i’m gonna kill that motherfucker with my bare hands either way, because that’s what he fuckin’ deserves.”

     and i think you know that, he wants to say and doesn’t. another bitten back instinct. what’s behind the thundercloud darkness of roman’s eyes is damn near feral, the closest thing he’s ever seen to a viral in somebody free from infection. 

     and still, crane’s eyes stay focused there. not on the weapon. not anywhere else. his eyes stay on roman’s. 

       there’s something to be said about self-fulfilling prophecies. she could’ve played it off like she was kidding, detoured the conversation, kissed him so that he forgot what she said at all. but they don’t do that to one another. there’s an honesty and openness that feels even more raw and unique, something completely their own, and she doesn’t want to betray that. not after everything they’ve been through. 

      “bad feeling,” she replies, first reaching up to smooth out that wrinkle in his brow before winding her arms around his middle to keep him close. she searches his eyes for long enough to warrant saying something, anything, and then continues. “call me a pessimist, i just … i’unno. the weird prophecy sounds like mumbo-jumbo and fuck the cult shit, but all this cure stuff?”

     instinctively, deanna’s arms wind a little tighter around him. 

     “hey, ignore me. i’m talkin’ outta my ass. i, uh … i just don’t do good with the whole hey there’s a light at the end of this tunnel kind of thing and i —” the boys are laughing with bilal, the sun feels pretty nice at the moment, death isn’t directly breathing down their necks right this second. deanna’s brow furrows in a mirror of crane’s earlier. “i’m worried if i put all our eggs into the we’re gonna be in the clear basket, things are gonna go belly up and… listen, i’ve got a lot to lose.” 

     a bad feeling. a thought process he can’t pretend he hasn’t gone through himself, a dozen times over, since lena had called him down to sickbay three days before. delirious people will say anything — that’s what he’d told her, because the man was too far gone to make any real sense. the existence of a cure so within reach had to be some kind of miracle, and miracles are bullshit. miracles aren’t real. there’s just chance. choices. fighting until you can’t fight anymore.

     jasir had called it faith. faith and prayers. the mother protects us. but there has to be more to it than that.

     doesn’t there? 

     “hey, i get it. we let everything ride on a pipe dream and it just sounds like we’re settin’ ourselves up for disappointment. we all have a lot to lose.” 

     laughter drifts from across the yard on a mild breeze that smells more like the sea than the dead. even that, in itself, feels like something.

       she’s dead. alice sits across from him at a table and slides a colored stone along the mancala board. she smiles because she beats him again. he killed her. she’s stronger than him, smarter than him. five months ago. she told him she’d find him again, that they can start over. that briggs won’t have a hold on him. she’s dead. dead. alice is dead. his tie to the boy he never had the chance to be is dead. crane says it and it plays on loop in roman’s head. and he wants to react. he wants to rail against the truth and drive his machete in crane’s skull. he wants to do a lot of things, but he doesn’t move. can’t move. because he knows it’s true. he knows she’s dead. alice’s bracelet on suleiman’s wrist. the run around where her location was concerned. the lies. all the lies, each as pretty and promising as the next.

      he was supposed to be different. 

     roman remains still, barely even breathes.

    “your friend on the SAT phone told you,” another statement, not a question. alice is dead. she’s dead. she’s dead and crane’s sorry. roman’s jaw twitches, the tension riding through his body electric and violent. “where is she?”

    alice didn’t win this time. and no one sits on the other side of the board now.   

     “i don’t know where she is, but — i can find out.” because if it were his family, he’d want to know. it’s that simple. it’s the only part of all this that’s simple. 

     a beat of hesitation follows but doesn’t last; this isn’t a quid pro quo. roman has every reason to call his bluff, to think he’s as full of shit as the man who’s been stringing him along for months. roman has every reason not to believe him. so he weighs his next words. he offers another truth. another risk.

     a personal risk.

      briefly, for only a fraction of time, she feels stupid. meeting parents is so far out of her realm of comfort or expertise and it’s laughable. at least, it would be, if she didn’t realize just how much it matters to her that his parents like her. but he’s good, like usual, with assuaging the onset of overthinking. and that’s not fair either, she thinks. that he’s able to read her as well as he can, but it goes both ways.

     she’ll thank nate later for pulling the heat off her ridiculous internal monologue of doubt.

      “that li’l shit,” she says with nothing but fondness, head shaking. “alright so you’re right. he definitely was playin’ dumb and already knew,” not that she doubted that for one second. “which means i’ll think up somethin’ for you to have won.” gaze lingering on the boys, making sure they both don’t try to pull a quick one, deanna drops a quick kiss to the corner of crane’s mouth. 

      “when you come back,” she adds on. “’cause… i’ve already been gettin’ the feeling when it’s time for us all to head back to the tower, you’re not comin’ with.” now she looks at him, full on, meeting his eyes and holding his gaze. “i’m good, huh?”

     there’s plenty more to unpack than what comes second to last, but that’s where he lands; can’t find traction beyond it or mask the flicker of confusion that takes shape in the sudden crease between his brows. they’re out here to find a cure. to chase a clue brought to them by the delirious ramblings of a one - eyed dying man in possession of a map out of harran, ramblings about a place where people who were bitten never turned. they’re here because in another couple of weeks, the tower’s antizin cache will have run dry. because lena was right when she’d told him that they couldn’t afford to leave any stone unturned. 

     and, for some reason, deanna has the feeling that he won’t be coming back with the others when it’s time. 

     “hold on ... what?” 

     across the yard, bilal returns with a toolbox and thwarts any of the boys’ further attempts at playful sabotage. all of that fades to background noise. 

       crane stands on a hairpin trigger and roman can feel the pulsing hum of a bomb set to detonate. when he trusts his ability to speak, his lip curls in a soundless snarl. something malignant stirs inside his chest, inside his belly. doubt. crane speaks of doubt like he’d fathom anything crossing through roman’s mind at the moment. the weight of the gun at his side feels secure, feels safe. he’d be able to fire off and wound, if not kill, in the time before crane could retaliate. he could, but he doesn’t. not yet.

       raw animal impulse bristles. 

        “what do you know.” less a question, more a demand; evenly spoken save for the dead drop below the surface. “no games.” / @foradecision​, from here.

     "no games.” to stay passive in the face of such tangible, visceral tension is its own risk, but it’s a tactical one. a time crunch that pulls him back to that rail car with rahim and a trio of armed explosives: he doesn’t have time to defuse the bomb. he just has to make sure that it detonates where it’s supposed to.

     “i know about south africa,” he says, all composure at the outset, all charged adrenaline beneath his skin. “the orphanage that wasn’t an orphanage. i know you and your sister alice were taken in by a former soldier and trained as part of a terrorist organization. and i know that before suleiman grabbed you up, your sister disappeared. she was gone a long time, but you never stopped wondering about her, right? now, i don’t know exactly what he told you. i don’t know what kind of ass - backwards spin he put on it to keep you under his thumb, but i know my intel is good.” 

     steadily, carefully, he holds eye contact. 

       “wait, wait. hold all the horses there, cowboy,” not that she moves from her place pressed against him. nerves catch in her stomach, fluttering wildly. official. his parents. fuck almighty. she grins through it. “you even think i’m take home to your mama worthy? have you — have you seen me, chicago?” 

     “if it’s any consolation, the bar’s pretty low.” he can’t even try to sell it with sincerity. “would you shut the hell up? we’re not there yet. but i’ll tell you one thing, my dad’s cooking is gonna be worth whatever meltdown you’re tryin’ not to have right now.” 

     no pressure, is what he’s getting at. a glance is thrown again towards bilal and the boys, movement catching his peripherals; bilal’s disappeared back inside the shop, and nate, brazen as ever, already has the driver’s side door open with a shit - eating grin plastered across his face. 

     “no — no, maybe i don’t, but you know somethin’ else? if i’m in over my head, then you’re right fuckin’ there with me.” 

     the low scoff, the subtle curl of roman’s lip, it’s a reaction that crane expects. it’s in line to darken, to escalate, the more he pushes on; this is dangerous ground, he knows. but roman hasn’t reached for a weapon. hasn’t moved to strike.

     not yet.

     “you think suleiman gives a shit about you? seriously?” suleiman. not rais. his voice is steady, for once lacking a hostile edge toward his present company. “he’s lying to you, roman. he’s been lying to you, because he’s good at that — at playing people, using them for his own fucked up gains. when was the last time you asked him about your sister?”

     a twitch. roman is listening, but the ice beneath crane is thin. 

     he keeps going without more than a beat of a pause, quick to close the cracks left for an interruption.

     “when was the last time he gave you a real answer, huh? jesus, you’re too goddamn smart for this. in your gut, you can feel it — that nasty, nagging feeling? damn near makes you sick half the time? yeah. that’s doubt, man. you can’t look me in the eyes and tell me that whatever bullshit story he’s been feedin’ you adds up. don’t you wanna know the truth about what happened to her? after everything you’ve done for that motherfucker, don’t you at least deserve that much?”

      “i’d say,” and she puts on a voice, dramatic and all. despite the glint in her eyes, she does a good job of keeping her expression serious. “i thought you’d never ask, kyle crane. how dare you make me weak in the knees. you better hold me or i might faint.” 

       “have i told you that dates with you are probably my favorite? probably. kinda. definitely.”

      it takes a bit, but she manages to look up a whole three seconds after he says anything. not being upfront feels as off as any of the missteps between them throughout almost the entire conversation. and there’s something to be said about that. lies and withholding are things she’s good at, but apparently not when it comes to him. her reason for keeping the conversation with nate to herself is good enough for her, but the gnawing feeling doesn’t leave. deanna nods; a slow one that does little to move the conversation. until, and maybe it’s half to keep the heat off the boys, but half because she needs to know. “be straight with me, and maybe it’s a dumb question, but — are you gonna come outta this … whatever this is you’ve got goin’ on that you can’t tell me. are you gonna be able to keep your head above water?” 

     "i, uh ...” he starts, then tapers off into hopeless silence like he’s already run out of steam. it’s not about keeping his head above water. it’s about keeping it there long enough to finish this before he fucking drowns. but there’s a whole ocean of uncertainty between now and a GRE extraction he already knows he won’t take — not if it leaves everyone else behind. beyond that, he doesn’t have a clue. and he can’t sidestep it. he can’t hedge or offer false belief, lead her into a pipe dream fostered by bullshit reassurances that are just noise. he wouldn’t do that to her, even if he could find the words. he can’t.

        “raincheck then. i’ll hold ya to it.” 

       “bite me.” 

       “oh, no. i agree. he’s basically a pro. it’s a good angle to work, too, ‘cause he looks so innocent ‘til he talks. sometimes. but then that puts our bets in a weird predicament. i gotta go against you even if i secretly might mayhaps probably think you’re right.”