keep true

nicholas "cole" dawson nineteen bookworm soldier what we call our despair is often only the painful eagerness of unfed hope.

[coledawson]

parkingsonrps:

Saraphine Reyes didn’t like waiting for things to happen to her. She had liked it, once upon a time. Surprises and fate and magic and coincidence had made a young Sara bubble over with happiness, the unexpected feeling new and exciting. The older, jaded Saraphine couldn’t help but disagree. Life – and alien scum ( mostly the alien scum ) – had handed them the unexpected a few too many times. Standard, boring, unsurprising was probably the best thing that ever happened anymore.

It was unfortunate that this raid, then, had been a little too much of the former and not enough of the latter. They had been ambushed – outgunned, outnumbered and outraged – and maybe Sara’s decision to shoot their leader in the leg when it approached Evangeline had been wrong. She couldn’t have brought herself to care, not when she was pretty sure her only family member was safe and her partner, for all his flaws, had been reasonable enough not to attempt taking a shot at a distance with his questionable eyesight.

It only meant that now she suffered, hands and knees bound by one of many brainwashed children in the fortress of a warehouse, and hands more empty than they had ever been. Saraphine Reyes had played all her cards and was left with no tricks up her sleeve. Their section had had plans to move soon and it was standard regulations to stay behind and risk lives for no one, their soldiers included. Nobody was coming for. It wouldn’t be a worthy risk. For once, Sara had been ambushed in an unpleasant way and was well and truly alone.

All she had to do was wait for the end.

The platoon had never seen such a blazing fire in Cole Dawson. He was a meek boy, often too hesitant, but he did have brains. He was often just too unsure to put them to use, too anxious to have much focus, his hands and shoulders trembling whenever he held a gun. His strength, the section all knew, came from the spitfire that he attached himself to like a lost lam, clutching to her leather jacket with a tight grip, following dutifully beside her. With her taken from him, Cole had at first reacted much in the way that they suspected: they had let him walk away as he choked on air, none of them able to comfort him through his attacks like Sara could. 

When they had with a defeated slump began to pack up their camp that was in shambles after burying their dead from the ambush, they had been nothing short of stunned when Cole stood his ground, stuck his boots into the mud, and refused to leave. It was against their procedure, and the platoon leaders wanted to hear nothing of it until Cole, eerily calm with Evangeline chasing behind him, had taken them to the tents and drawn out his plan before them. They weren’t going to only rescue Sara: with his drawn out map, they would execute a rescue mission that would also help them free the brainwashed children there. Their next stop was meant to be the facility that was rumored to have figured out a method to safely return the children (relatively) to normal. With that option laid before them, knowing that some of the children belonged to survivors at the camp, they had granted Cole a few soldiers who volunteered, who also refused to leave Sara behind. The girl didn’t only leave a mark on Cole, but on many of them who shared her fire. Cole’s own was merely a wisp, but it would lead them through this, his shoulders squared and his jaw set in determination. 

He nodded to the troop when they got into position outside the warehouse. He would go out on his own, the mastermind of the operation, and the one who would take the risk on his own. The technology of the aliens was still vastly misunderstood, but Cole had been tinkering with the equipment they had acquired for quite some time and it was here that he would prove himself. The rest of them would go in and find Saraphine and load the children into the trucks. If the children resisted too much, they would abandon them regretfully, for Cole’s plan to turn off their systems would be only temporary. He needed to get access into the mainframe and there’s where he would put his engineering skills to the test. 

Climbing his way up the metal ladder outside the back, he indicated for the others to go on inside.

[scldado]

Stayin’ Alive

[coledawson]

( scldado: )

Sara shrugged. She wouldn’t babysit the kid – that wasn’t what she was here for – but reassurance wasn’t completely out of the question. She needed to draw a line, beyond which she would not make allowances. She would not babysit his ego ( or lack thereof ), but she wouldn’t allow the deficit to colour their interactions either. Not if they were to work together.

[ If she considered it, he probably wasn’t that much younger than her, if that. There was just something about that face of his, a naïveté he emanated, that made her feel a lifetime older than him. Responsible. Another obligation she had no inclination of being subjected to, but would allow anyway. But she wouldn’t mother him for it. There was no space for maternal affection in this world anyway; she had learned that the hard way. ]

Eager to move past the inane conversation they were having ( who cared if theory was useful anymore ) Sara shrugged. “Sure,” she agreed, “I know the theory of stripping and shooting one and all that, yeah. But any kind of knowledge is never unnecessary, is it? Maybe not now, but after, when the aliens are gone.”

And god, wasn’t that confidence a lie? When the aliens are gone, she said. As if there was any guarantee. As if there was any hope.  They were so much more likely to soon run out of fighters and ammunition and be overrun by the bloody pests than win, but there was no way they could not either, was it? That was why, soldier or scholar, they all had to fight; even when their sword was the pen like it probably was for this one.

Sara followed suit, sliding her own rifle off her back to demonstrate. “Okay,” was her only reply, a quiet confirmation as she insured her grip was perfect enough to instruct before continuing. Once satisfied, she held it out away from her body, closer to the boy.

“You’re supposed to hold it like this,” she instructed. “But the grip on the weapon is only half the battle; it’s positioning is more problems than you need. Let’s learn down on one knee, that gives the best balance. But in general, brace it right here, okay? The slightest bit here or there, and you can dislocate your shoulder, if your luck sucks more than just the giant cockroaches. Or your collarbone. Both, if you’re really lucky.”

As she spoke, Sara shifted her own gun back again and drew closer to the boy, helping direct his movements with firm hands guiding his.

When the aliens were gone. What a concept. The finish line wasn’t even in view for them. He knew nothing of the aliens, though perhaps the camp had learned something, other than the devastation that they brought. How could they hope to take them all down with their limited technology? What happened when they ran out of artillery? There was no real plan for the humans. They may be fighting back but none of it was organized. If this was a war, they needed a strategy, and that’s where brilliant minds could pay off. 

But Cole had never been that kind of strategist. He knew enough about military history, he supposed, from his reading, yet he wasn’t confident in his ability to apply it. Learning how to shoot a gun, however, ought to be well within his capabilities. So he would listen and do as he was told. He would play the part of the soldier because they would get no closer to the finish line twiddling their thumbs. He may not know what he could do, what he had to offer, but he refused to do nothing. 

He nodded when it was appropriate too, surveying his rifle. Sara made it seem simple enough and maybe holding it would be, but pulling the trigger took nerve. And good vision. He would have to find a way to supplement for his lack of aim that would no doubt be apparent. He would have to adjust. That was what all their lives were now, adjusting to their circumstances. 

“Okay,” he gave another nod before he did as he was instructed, putting his elbow up as he lifted the weapon, first being sure to check that the safety was on. This was for demonstration purposes only. “Is that how you deal with the drawback after the fire, with the way you brace your shoulder?” Thankfully, while he was timid, his body was rather firm. He wasn’t huge, but he was tall and broad enough that he ought to be able to take. 

“Though I guess the recoil all depends on the torque of the gun.” Which could be found through a formula. Maybe the information in his head wasn’t as useless as he thought. “And I would need to pull the trigger smoothly rather than jerking it. That would mess with the alignment.” He wasn’t sure if he was talking to Sara or himself, but he turned his head to look for her confirmation of what he was saying.

He had to admit that their closeness left him all the more anxious and unsettled, sweat pooling at his brow, but he was determined, too. He had to prove his worth somehow, after all. “You killed a lot of aliens?” He hadn’t even managed to kill the one that had taken his mother from him. 

[scldado]

Stayin’ Alive

[scldado]

She knew what Eva would say: “Sara, you’re being unfair.” And maybe she was, a little. But this boy with his sagging shoulders and wavering strength rubbed her the wrong way. Maybe in another world, she would have had the heart for kind eyes and a mind bursting with facts. Maybe she would have had the time. Here, all she thoughtbreathedateslept was a revolution.

Still, Saraphine Reyes was no bully and she would gladly stand down and admit that. And she could be mean all she wanted, but it wasn’t his fault. He couldn’t help being a dead weight. Snapping at him for at it was doing neither of them any good. Quite the contrary, actually; she could see her words seemed to make him no braver, no harder. If she was going to be wasting her breath, she might as well use it efficiently.

Maybe a smile might break the ice, she thought. Or maybe it would be so obviously fake that it would do quite the opposite. Either way, she didn’t bother. Instead, she chose an encouraging nod, almost friendly. “You can’t say you know nothing and then say you know theory, though,” she pointed out. “Theory is half the battle, isn’t it? If you know about something, it is easier learning it in practice.”

It was his next words that cast the sowed the first seed of assurance that maybe they could save this yet. Unless I try, he said. And, well, he was willing to, was he? That mattered. “Guess it’s time to try then,” she said. “Asking for a replacement would be dumb, when I could just teach you instead and get another fighter in the ranks. You want to learn?”

[coledawson]

Cole may know things, but it seemed anymore that all of his knowledge was simply wasting space in his head. Granted, his know-how had saved him in a few tight situations before in the last months since the initial arrival of the aliens, but he would get himself further if he had more practical skills. “Theory can be a foundation, yes,” Cole said carefully, slowly. “But you know how to shoot a gun without knowing theory, don’t you? So it’s not necessary knowledge.”

It felt more like filler in his head, something to create more noise. “Some can take that theory and make it practical, but others...” It was not so easy as taking what he knew and turning it into expertise when he had no real life practice. “Well, I do suppose it can serve as a starting point regardless.” It was easier to concede that then to continue to be down on himself. It would get him no further than he already was. 

He needed to start moving forward. And Saraphine may have no confidence in him, and he didn’t in himself, either, but if he was going to be out here with her, he wasn’t going to let his own doubts hold her back, too. That would only endanger her. “Yeah.” He jerked a nod. “Yeah, I want to learn.” He was going to learn. There was no real try to it. To survive, it was what he needed to do. To properly stand post, it was what he needed to do. 

He brought his gun out from behind him, gripping it to show that he was ready. Cole didn’t mention at that moment that even if he learned, he would never make for a real good shot. His vision was bad enough without glasses, his night vision even worse. He was near-sighted and could make out Saraphine in the darkness, but the trees surrounding there were fuzzy, undefined. But he would have to adjust.

[scldado]

Stayin’ Alive

[scldado]

It would be a damn dirty lie to say she had known how to shoot a gun before. She had seen them, sure. Saraphine had grown up in Houston, Texas – seeing them was inevitable. She had been far more hour-long phone calls with her friends and milkshakes with cute boys, pop music and romance novels than shooting and guns before, though. It had taken only more than a fair few times of her shoulder bruised black and blue and the motivation of retaining the lives of herself and the surrogate family that had started forming among their company for her to learn, though.

It wasn’t as difficult as one might expect then: she knew this. It also made not knowing how inexcusable. If possible, her tone got colder and her flat stare harder when she snapped, “Yes, that’s nice to know, I’m sure. Doesn’t help us a bit though.” The we she had disregarded. She had been thinking he couldn’t have possibly travelled alone. She did want to know more. But now was neither the time nor the place. Now, too much noise could invite an attack. She’d save the little nugget of information and put it away, maybe extract more about it later.

The steady stream of ramble that poured forth from The Boy shocked the stead disgruntled criticism in her head into silence. He almost sounded….smart. Definitely well-educated. She would have expected somebody with information and knowledge like that to be a wealth of help and expertise though, not an awkward, fumbling fool. Still, he did not sound like a total loss and, well, if he had been ordered there, chances were this would be a fixed arrangement, at least for the week if not much longer. She would have to stand watch with him whether she liked it or not, and it would be a lot easier to like it if there was one more shooter and one less sitting duck to defend.

Wiping the glare off – or decreasing its force, at least – Saraphine gave him a considering glance. “You’re right,” she finally stated. “It is aimed from the shoulder. But what else do you know that’s useful for shooting?”

[coledawson]

It didn’t help and Cole knew it. Was all too aware of his own shortcomings. They plagued him when he was awake, when he was asleep, and all he felt was incompetence in this world that he no longer recognized. He almost felt as if he was in a video game. Nothing in this world was familiar, now that his mother had been taken from it. But while Cole may have more gameplay invested in Fallouot than he would care to admit, that served him little in a world where firing a gun was not done as simple as pressing a button. He had one life in this game and he couldn’t pause it, couldn’t save his progress and start again another day. The world didn’t work that way and it didn’t stop for anyone, much less a boy who was in over his head. 

“I don’t really know anything other than that.” It felt true to say, even though it wasn’t. There was so much that Cole did know. But he didn’t know how to use it, so it remained in his head, a space that was already so filled and loud that it took nearly everything in him to try and mask the noise. And what kind of soldier would that make him, if he couldn’t even win battles in his head? What use would he be in battle? He had heard in the camp about the plans, the strategies, the ways in which they all made their stand to fight back against the aliens, but Cole had never done anything of that. He had merely ran. Survived. 

“I know theory.” He could tell Saraphine all about quantum physics or about the reign of Napolean or he could recite the last Act of Hamlet, but he couldn’t show her how to shoot a gun. Mouth feeling like cotton, Cole took another step back, shoulders sagging in defeat. “I want to prove that I can do something, but I don’t know what that something is. I may never know. But I can’t find out unless I try.” He was drained from saying just that. Cole was running on empty, on fumes, and in front of him was a fire of a girl. He didn’t want to steal from her strength, but he also didn’t know how to help himself. “But I can...tell them you’d rather have someone else out here with you, if that’s what you really want.”

[scldado]

Stayin’ Alive

[scldado]

Saraphine’s biggest concern this time last year had been passing the awful Physics course she had to take as a core requirement. She remembered this, because it had probably been the only class that she had ever considered terrible in her short-lived path for higher education. College had been fun otherwise; she had liked living on campus and the all-nighters with books but also with terrible television series, the partying and the learning and the meeting so many people. It had been her bright and shiny acceptance back into the real world after the gap year. And then, only two years into her architecture degree, she had come down for the weekend to surprise her mom for her birthday, and never quite gotten to go back.

It was easier not to think of that; so much simpler to focus on the anger and the hatred and the hope that she had to fight, if only to secure a better future for Evangeline. It kept her sharp, attentive. Not liable to take much crap, which was exactly why this boy bothered her so much. She knew first-hand how hard it was to survive. Before the formation of organized troops and factions, it had been bedlam. She wasn’t entirely sure how the two of them were still alive, and she had been prepared to rip people apart with her bare hands if that’s what it came down to for survival. There was no way this shy, awkward little thing could have done it without outside help, and she wasn’t willing to risk trusting that it had been sheer luck. Things like luck didn’t exist anymore.

It was the awkwardness too, if she was honest. Sara didn’t understand soft people in this world. Not how they could survive and not how they could exist, even. It was like a foreign animal, even though she could remember full well her kind mother and cuddly old nan. They just didn’t belong in this world of grit and decay. That the awkwardness extended to weaponry just made her sigh internally when he informed her of his reason for approaching. Or, well, maybe it hadn’t been so internal.

Shrugging off her own rudeness, Saraphine rolled her eyes. “Fine then, Cole. You sure you’re here to keep watch? Because watching is all that’s happening with that grip.”

[coledawson]

Cole had been a research assistant back home in Iowa. Most would assume since he came from the land of corn, that he knew a thing or two about being a farm hand or had done his fair share of hunting, but Cole had grown up in the city with his books and mostly secluded in his room. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t had exposure to such subjects. But only in theory, not in practice. He’d spent most of his time on the campus of his university, been in the process of working on his master’s. Had a bachelor’s of science in electrical engineering and was often compared to by his peers as being a light version of Spencer Reid from Criminal Minds. But he saw many differences from him and the genius who had the strength of mind to work for one of the FBI’s toughest criminal units. However, like Reid, he too lived in fear of his mind that had never been wired quite right despite the praise it would receive for its capacity to remember most anything that he was told even once. 

For all his knowledge, he was useless in the field of battle and that was where his similarities with the renowned character ended. He glanced to the rifle that was in his possession, flinching visibly at the thinly veiled accusation. “We didn’t have one of these at our disposable.” The ‘we’ that hung in the air was left without clarification, said without much thought given to it. He and his mother hadn’t found weapons like these to use at their disposal, had been left with knives and whatever they could reach if they ran into trouble. “So I’m not well-practiced with it.” The admission was hard on his tongue, the taste of inadequacy thick and overwhelming in his throat. If he was meant to be Saraphine’s watch partner, he needed to qualify for the position, didn’t he? 

So he said what he knew. “A rifle is meant to be aimed from the shoulder. Their history is hard to trace, but some say that the beginnings of them started in the fifteenth century. They were used a lot back in Iowa, though more for hunting because they are good for long ranges. They’re called rifles because of the grooving patterns that are in the barrel. The way the barrel is run prevents tumbling with the bullet, so you can use aerodynamically-efficient bullets to maximize accuracy.” And that was all well and good, he supposed, but that could only get him so far without knowing how to properly hold the rifle steady so that he could shoot in the first place. 

[scldado]

Stayin’ Alive

Sometimes, Saraphine thought she couldn’t possibly miss anything the way she missed her mom’s cooking. It was the end of the world and there was a rebellion to be organized and alien butt to be kicked: she understood and even appreciated these facts. But sometimes, god, even the thought of a bowl of steaming hot mashed potatoes that tasted like butter and garlic and love left an acute ache for Mom and home in her.

It was inconvenient, if nothing else, especially when these thoughts came in the middle of the night when she was supposed to be keeping watch, not fantasizing about the midnight snack she would have snuck had it not been for the frankly rude alien invasion. She was meant to be holding on to her rifle and watching out for suspicious activity. That was her world now. Fantasies about food didn’t belong in it anymore.

Still, her mind did wander. It was why the rustle of leaves behind her made her bolt up, rifle at the ready, to aim at the emerging intruder. It was only when she saw his face between the cross-hairs that she realized who it was, and then, she released a shallow breath of annoyance between her teeth. The new kid. Wonderful. There was something so disconcerting about him, this skinny little shit surviving on his own in the wilderness, and he may have had the adults convinced, but she certainly wasn’t falling for the act.

Annoyed, therefore, she lowered her weapon but instead replaced it with a dark glower and a sharp tone. “Nicholas. Can I help you?”

[coledawson]

Finding the platoon that he had had been sheer luck on Cole’s end. He and his mother had spent months searching and surviving. Searching for food, supplies, other living people. They’d come across a few in their time, but many of them would die, or wander off on their own, or even refuse to leave their homes. Thinking that if the aliens hadn’t reached them yet, that they were safe staying. Sometimes, Cole wondered if they were right. Maybe if he and his mother had stayed at home, she would still be there.

He knew, at camp, that people were skeptical of him and what he had to offer the group. Cole didn’t blame them, wondering the same thing himself. He’d only made it this far through his mother’s strength. With that ripped from him, he was left with only his shaking hands, his poor vision, and his lack of conviction. Yet the leaders had assigned him to a watch anyway and so he had a gun holstered over his shoulder and walked with a tentative stride. 

A gun that he didn’t even properly know how to use. Gripping onto it weakly, he approached Saraphine, his muscles tight. Her tone was enough to stop his movements, as if the mere harshness of her voice could knock him and his resolve over. “Cole,” he wound up spewing out. Shifting on his feet, he repeated, turning his head, “I go by Cole.” Nicholas was far too formal, old. “I was, um, told to come keep watch with you, so.” He tucked at his sleeve, knowing that he was in for a very, very long night. “So here I am. I won’t...get in your way or anything.”