FOURTH SHOT

[dog_eat_dog]

Lee ––

I met with Joel. I don't know if you've met him, since he's hardly been here longer than I have, but he's my better half. We went out into the woods and waited it out so he could put me down, but I didn't turn. And when Joel wasn't watching me, I went down to the damn clinic, where the world's most terrified doctor hacked off the wound.

So now that my shoulder has roughly the same texture as raw hamburger, and it doesn't seem to be spreading, I can finally let you know that your advice was complete bullshit... but I appreciate it all the same.

We should get drinks. Proper ones, this time.

Tess



------



Hey, kid.

You've been here much longer than I have. Let me drill you for information and I'll make it worth your while. What do you say?

Tess

Comments

[rightchoices]

[ Huh. ]

Yeah, that about rounds it out. You met 'em all?

[dog_eat_dog]

[She looks a little smug. Tess likes knowing people better than they know her, and given her arrival, she's eager to keep the scales balanced with Lee.]

Haven't met any of the girls. You'll have to introduce me.

[rightchoices]

I think you'll get along with 'em. They're tough as nails.

[ He shoots his drink. He's allowed - it's his last one. Really. ]

Tougher than me, at least. Never quite got as good with a gun as Carley was.

[dog_eat_dog]

Yeah? What are they responsible for in your group, beyond having good aim?

[rightchoices]

What do you mean? We didn't have anything like that assigned.

[dog_eat_dog]

[She almost rolls her eyes. Almost.]

Look, I basically run the black market in Boston. I delegate. I have a guy for everything. If I need something transported, I have guys for that. If I need information, I have other guys for that. If I need identification or other paperwork, I have more guys for that. If I lose someone, I always have someone else I can work with instead.

How do your people make themselves useful?

[rightchoices]

[ He seems vaguely impressed but ultimately unfazed by what she rattles off. Almost as an afterthought, he flags down the bartender, just ordering a coke this time. So their circumstances were similar in some aspects, but it just became clearer and clearer how much different society was different as time went on. ]

Group of us were holed up in an old motor in for a few months. Kenny, Mark and I mostly went out to salvage in the city. Hunted some, too, when there was ammo to spare. Lilly did the rationing. Carley and Ben kept watch a lot. Katjaa mostly looked after the kids - Duck and Clem - and Larry's official title was "giant pain in my ass."

[ He frowns, thoughtful. ]

Bandits took the motorhome. Some of us made it to Savannah. Met Molly there -- she helped us break into a settlement that'd been overrun with walkers for supplies, and then booked it outta there. We'd just been there for a little while when I showed up here.

[dog_eat_dog]

That's better. You definitely won't last with a plan like that, but it'll scrape you by a bit longer.

[Tess isn't going to say it, but having an adult occupied with looking after children and two adults just on watch is a waste of resources, and she would have dumped the kids and reassigned the adults in a heartbeat.

Moving right along. She sounds businesslike as she folds her arms against the bar and watches him for a reaction.]

Ellie asked me to help you guys get things together.

[rightchoices]

[ He doesn't seem offended - just a little surprised. ]

Get what together, exactly?

[dog_eat_dog]

On the off chance you end up going home and remember your time here, Ellie wants you to know how to better survive.

[rightchoices]

I'm afraid Clementine's the only one who'll be able to benefit from that. Maybe Molly, but -- she's already got her act together.

[dog_eat_dog]

So what? The rest of you are dead?

[rightchoices]

Got it in one.

[dog_eat_dog]

[She takes a swig of her drink.]

Don't feel bad. Hell, I'm going back to my own death, too. Sixty percent of the States will be fucking gone by my time, and most of them went in the first six months.

[rightchoices]

Sixty percent seems like an understatement. [ There's an almost sneer in his voice at this next part, subtle and soft: ] Probably get along a lot better if we didn't all turn on each other the second this shit started happening.

[dog_eat_dog]

[She catches that sneer and meets it with a warning in her tone, not just at him but at herself.]

Sixty percent is the only number I have, alright? It's at least five years old. But sixty percent is six out of every ten people you can think of, dead. Sixty percent means that between your group of five and my group of three, four are dead and a fifth is barely clinging to life.

But I don't think of it as turning on each other. I think of it as survival of the fittest. If someone threatens your survival, you've got to fight them for it, even if that person is your oldest friend, your child, your partner...

[She turns her eyes towards him.]

I didn't get bit playing hero.

[rightchoices]

When I say people turning on each other, I don't mean people struggling over resources. I'm talking about the kind of assholes that camp outside a high school gym and pick the kids off inside one by one -- or the kind that lure a group of survivors out to their farm because they miss barbecue.

[ Lee takes a breath. No use in getting angry - there's not a point in it. If he can just keep reminding himself that. ]

How did you get bitten, anyway?

[dog_eat_dog]

You know, as nasty as that it, it's still a matter of survival. I mean, I don't do that shit for barbecue or go after kids, but it's life. A guy named Robert tried to have me killed the morning before I got to Paradisa. Why? Because he knew I was a threat to his livelihood. So I got rid of the guys who jumped me and got rid of Robert. He used to be a friend of mine. That's life now. Those assholes probably saw those kids as competition for food with no skills to bring to the table. The farmers were desperate freaks. That's life.

[She drinks.]

Nothing dramatic. Joel and I were dropping off some cargo and we got separated by a collapsed building. I got overwhelmed by a Runner. Still managed to take care of it before Joel saw what happened, but a bite's a bite.

[A one-shouldered shrug, the other still bandaged.]

[rightchoices]

There's a difference between doing something out of necessity and using the situation as an excuse to hunt people. [ But he lifts one hand, as if acknowledging that they're not going to agree on this. He sort of gestures forward. Moving on, yeah? ]

.. shit. How'd he take it?

[dog_eat_dog]

[Moving along is fine by her, the woman who has hunted people out of necessity, the woman who is partners with someone who hunted professionally.]

Badly. I thought maybe we could finish the job and I could break it to him afterwards. Leave him the guns as a nest egg to get him by, I guess. But something went really wrong, and the military caught up with us.

[She shakes her head.]

I had to force him to take Ellie and run while I bought them time. He's... well. He's Joel. He'll never let it show, but I know him. He's going to stew on it for the rest of his life, like he has for everyone else he's lost.

[rightchoices]

Can't be easy on him. But I respect that.

[ He reaches down to rub his own wrist, an idle and sort of thoughtful gesture. ]

You guys've been living with that kind of thing for how long? It'd be easy to get hard to something like that. Must mean a lot that you were close at all. [ It's an observation, though - he's not prying at or hinting that he wants to know more. ] He and Ellie make it out?

[dog_eat_dog]

[She nods. It does mean a lot that they're close, even though they seldom show it. They keep each other at arm's length for so many reasons, emotional or practical or otherwise.]

Twenty years total, but Joel and I met a few years in.

But yeah, he and Ellie got out alright. The people who were supposed to take the girl and pay us were taken out by the military that went after us, so I told Joel to take her the rest of the way. He took it on. He's a good man.

[She's not saying that Ellie was the cargo, but there's no point in lying about it, either.]

[rightchoices]

Keep wanting to say that I can't imagine what life must be like for you guys. [ Lee is quiet, but just for a moment. He's ruminating, before continuing: ] But a year ago, I couldn't imagine life with the walkers everywhere. Never would've guessed a place like this would be possible six months ago.

[ He leans back, glancing sideways at her. ]

Why was the military after you?

[dog_eat_dog]

I would never have anticipated it either. Everything at home, or everything here. Life throws curveballs, even if you don't play sports.

[Tess shakes her head.]

We were doing business with the Fireflies... a radical group, they wanna restore the government. The military is wiping the last of them out.

Also, we killed some of their guys in the early hours of that morning so... you know. There's that. [A shrug.]

[rightchoices]

.. retribution. Glad to hear that something's remained constant through the end of the goddamn world.

[ He doesn't sound dismissive. Grimly amused, maybe. ]

Sounds like you guys got a lot more problems than just the infected.