Downcast Prompt: "Some Time Later..."
vanessacsketch asked: "Kim and…hell, I dunno. Regret? Hunger? Regretful hunger?"
Because this includes spoilers to Downcast's third act, I'm happy to put it under a cut.
Some Time Later...
When Roy hopped off the Amtrak train at Union Station, he looked around to find nothing quite as ordinary. There were no burn marks on the ground, no under construction spots to fix bullet holes, and everything looked like out of an old movie to him. Visiting places outside of Adalhelm kind of did that.
Carrying the bags out first, Kim followed behind him. Her arms were still sore, hell she'd only been gone for a couple of months when Maxis had sent word her revolver was stuck in an evidence locker somewhere. It was something she had to go back for, crazy as that sounded. Despite her frowning at him, Roy insisted he come along. "You're not getting any new scars without me from now on, okay?" She relented. Would be good to have a real friend in this place again. As she walked across the station and they made their way towards Portland, the memories came flooding back. Running from the sirens and the blood on her hands. Both literally and... figuratively. She shook her head once in a while to keep from remembering.
Roy, still holding the bags and looking like the tourist he was, gazed around the front entrance for the bus stop he'd heard about, only to see the Tri-Met bus driving along. "Aha, there we go." As he said it, his eyes finally landed on Kim, first time since they'd arrived in the station. She was hanging her head and her arms were tight. He knew that look and put the bags down. In times like this, it was best not to say anything, he'd learned that after the first few months after the fire. Only thing possible to keep it cool was to put a supporting hand on her shoulder and lead the way.
When the two were on a bus finally, on their way, they looked out the windows at the city streets and alleys. It was definitely a good city. Run down in some places, snob money in others, artistic through and through. Kim couldn't help but point out there were more homeless people than she recalled last time. It reminded of home in the bad way. "And the poor get desperate and the desperate go bad," she muttered, a mantra from their mentor. Roy shrugged and finished, "that's where we come in. But didn't you say the folks you took care of here weren't all that poor?" "Yeah," she replied, "I never did get why on that one."
They went ahead and stopped off at a restaurant down near Ash St. to get some lunch. The mid-day crowd plentiful and the food smelled good. Kim ordered quickly and a lot of it. Roy rose an eyebrow but she glared him down. She was feeling better, but not by a lot. He sighed. "You wanna talk about it?" There was barely a breath taken before "no" passed her lips. He adjusted his shoulders, a sort of shrug. "All right, ya just never did, that's all. Worried you're keeping things down again." She rolled her eyes and pulled out that flask she'd brought back. It'd become one of the few things she kept on her person at all times. He remembered her drinking it when he picked her up at the train station and when she ran out she asked for the nearest liquor store to refill it. When she sipped, she realized she'd have to do that again soon. A little cough and Roy frowned.
"Listen, I know you don't want to talk about this, but you're worrying me. A lot. Like a lot, a lot. Ya barely heard the info that guy gave you on the phone and you were packing already. Now you're here, you grumble and drink, it's like you're complaining without saying anything. Hell, I barely even know what the hell happened."
"Didn't want to upset your sensitivities," she muttered, then said: "You'd try to fix something you can't fix and get all weepy about it until it felt sorry for you." The scowl he sent back at her made her pause. Her features softened."That was uncalled for..." she corrected herself. He merely nodded. Kim sighed and looked out the window. A family walked by, happy as could be on a Saturday afternoon, headed towards Saturday Market on the waterfront.
"When I first came here, I thought 'this is nice. This is actually what I'm fighting for. One day, my home's going to be calm like this.' Killin' doesn't happen too much, a lot of folks look out for each other, and you can actually walk most of the streets downtown at night without a gun under your coat. Then..." The memories finally sunk in. She'd had time to process it and none of it seemed right. Their ways, their killings, the senselessness of throwing violence at the world when they had everything they wanted in each other... It made no sense. She looked at Roy again. "Then I found a group who had even better than most people, who had enough they could stop hurting anyone and live happily, but instead they kept burning a hole in the world. Their boss brainwashed them, molested their minds, and they destroyed everything they touched. It wasn't desperation at all. They lived to be what they were."
"Which was?"
She didn't know how to answer that. Until, she remembered the little twelve year old girl, who Kim had seen was the sweetest thing they had produced - a child who was smart, able, and most of all good. And then she was nothing more than a lump of flesh on a back porch, covered in her own blood from the cleanest cut she'd ever seen. After all the time she'd spent with that woman, that woman had cut her down. It had turned that bright sunny day into the cloudiest one, tainting everything in a rain. Bringing everything to its lowest.
Kim knew then what it was that gang had been, the only thing that could define them. They lived it, they died with it, and it inhabited every action they had ever done. "Downcast," she said. "They lived to be downcast."
