amazinmango (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
amazinmango) wrote2012-09-17 08:59 pm
amazinmango) wrote2012-09-17 08:59 pm
Entry tags:
Dystopia!AU Snapshot
In response to http://tdkr-kink.livejournal.com/2798.html?thread=1554670&#t1554670
Twenty fucking vouchers. It's not a lot to ask.
Except it would be, but Blake's got kids to worry about. He's got that many kids and twenty'll barely cover them for three days, never mind the week. A voucher's good for two squares a day for two days unless you stretch 'em out, like Blake does, like the kids do. Blake takes the vouchers to the right places, where it gets him a full ration apiece. His kids don't know they're getting half-meals, less than.They know all about rationing, and for them, food's food and they're happy to get it. Blake just wishes they didn't have to know hunger like he did.
Hell, like he does. He doesn't get a fucking voucher half the time, but he works for his food when he can.
He's already prepping himself for the same argument he has with the lady at the dispensary when he pushes through the gate, chain-link rattling. It looks like the entrance to a goddamn internment camp, and Blake thinks the place started out as a pawn shop, fenced-in, makeshift slats and tarp everywhere. It's a sight better than the front door at the boys' home, even though the roof is more tarp than anything and there's trash on the concrete floor and the slushy snow comes in when winter really hits.
The lady sits behind the counter. Blake doesn't know her name, and he doesn't bother with charm. She's never budged, never given him more than twenty vouchers (and sometimes not even that, no matter how much Blake tells her--she fucking knows--he needs them and they're not for fucking him anyway) but today her eyes get huge before he's even up to the fence that separates them, and she's already fumbling her lockbox.
"This--this is all I've got," she says, and she shoves a handful of cards at him.
It's more than a handful. It's like fifty.
Blake blinks at her. "I just need twenty," he says, surprised, at his own voice, at the way her hands are shaking.
"Please," she says, a word he’s pretty sure has never come out of her mouth, her eyes flicking over his shoulder and immediately back down to the paper cards she tries to shove under the gap in the barrier. She doesn't even sound sullen.
"Just give me twenty," Blake says, blinking, and then he follows her glance.
"Oh for fuck's sake," he says. The cyborg is hulking there, this ‘Bane,’ staring impassively forward, its eyeless mask focused somewhere over the lady's head.
"He's not my fucking enforcer," Blake snarls, which doesn't do much to reassure the lady. He spins on Bane, puts a finger an inch from the thing's unmoving chin. "You're supposed to be watching the kids," he hisses. The cyborg--the machine doesn't move, but a quiet, broken sounds comes from inside the mask--Bane taking a breath.
"You require protection," it said. Its voice is inhuman. Blake thinks it's fucking fitting. Be nice if it had a goddamn brain.
"Goddammit," he mutters, and turns back to the woman. He angrily takes a fistful of cards and counts out twenty exactly, and shoves the others back at her--fifty, she was gonna give him fifty. He believes that's all she has, and he has to wonder if he's gonna catch shit from her supplier now that he's 'threatened' her, but he can’t worry too much because he’s gotta get back to the home. It’s not too bad, in the daytime, when the older boys know to keep the door shut tight and the little ones stay away from the one window, but Bane is supposed to be watching the fucking kids.
Blake’s about to take a step back, but his eyes won't leave the pile that she's not taking. Fifty vouchers. If he even took twenty-five, total, that'd stretch. That'd be okay, they're growing boys, but they're growing up in this world and they know hunger. If Blake took more than he did, the other dealers and pushers'd know, and his kids would catch hell. That can't happen.
But still. Just five more.
He shakes himself, sees the faces of his boys behind his eyes, and turns to leave without thanking her. He has to shove at Bane, and the cyborg's body smoothly moves aside for him. "Get back to the home," he growls.
"I require five."
Blake shuffles to a stop at the dispensary gate, right before the street. His breath puffs in front of him. "What?"
Bane's not talking to him. Blake turns around to see him looming over the lady, standing really close to her gates and slats and fencing that suddenly doesn't seem much of a barrier anymore.
She seems to shake herself into motion, like a frightened rabbit that realizes it's got to bolt because standing still is certain death.
It's fucking ridiculous, is what it is, but with Bane right there she shoves the vouchers at him, and the cyborg is utterly calm as it reaches down and measures five cards into its paws. Without so much as a nod (why would Blake expect any different, it's a machine, never mind that he stopped thanking the lady ages ago when it was clear his boyish face wouldn't work on her) the cyborg turns on its heel and clomps up behind him.
Funny, that. When the fucker moves, he's usually silent as a jungle cat, no matter his size. He's gotta be doing that shit on purpose, and it pisses Blake off. He's already intimidated the fuck out of the lady, hasn't he?
Blake huffs and shoves through the gate. He doesn't wait for Bane, though he can feel it following him. He didn’t know he’d have to feed it. This is going to complicate things.
It's cold. Winter's not here yet, but it will be. The first dirty snows'll replace the nasty rain that's been coming at night, and soon the mornings'll be sleety, slushy, fucking colder, the kind that seeps through whatever you've got on and finds your bones.
Blake wonders if Bane will need a jacket, or something. It's a machine, but maybe. Maybe he needs fucking kerosene. Blake should look into that.
Behind him, Bane is silent, a big shadow that says not a word as it follows him back to the boys' home.
- -
The door’s secure, at the home, and Blake taps out their code of the day. Jason lets him in, one of the oldest boys there, he’s gonna be fourteen soon. Blake wanted to do something for his birthday, but even Jason says he doesn’t know when it is.
It’s like that, more often than not, the kids picking arbitrary dates and celebrating with a slap on the back, a smile. Sometimes they make these little cakes, when Blake goes and gets flatbread special--he’ll get cheese, too, and that is a thing to have. Cheesy bread and a candle, greasy smiles and fingerprints on everything. They don’t make big deal out of it, but it’s nice.
Blake secures the door behind him and nods at the older kids, greets the smaller ones with a smile. Out there, outside, it’s really hard to smile, but in here it’s easy as breathing, most days. Blake’s got another few days’ worth of food, and he doesn’t have to see young cheeks too gaunt. He doesn’t bullshit his boys, they know the score, but they know what he does and they know he loves them with all he’s got, because he couldn’t do any less. It’s a small thing, but Blake’s been there, and he knows what it’s like when everything is shit, but somebody smiles at you and means it.
And besides, little Potro, when he smiles his gap-toothed smile, he makes Blake remember what it’s all for, and at the same time Blake can keep a tiny bit of the warmth from that smile, help himself stay human.
The kids get quiet when Bane comes inside. Most of the time, the cyborg is silent, doesn’t say much of anything. Its voice is deceptively soft through the mask, made mechanical with enough of something to it that Blake suspects it’s not entirely lacking flesh and bone. The thought disgusts him more than a little, and whether or not that makes him a bad person, he wasn’t the one who decided to go play soldier. Bane, whoever it was before it became what it is now, it made its choice.
It was available, it was affordable (fucking barely--until Blake thought of Potro and Jason and Jimmy and Winston and then any price he could pay, he did) and Blake has to admit it’s necessary. It’ll do the job--except when it fucking follows Blake, they’re gonna have a little talk about that--and it stays out of the way otherwise. That’s really all Blake can ask for.
When Blake is done checking the window and poking in on all his kids, he jerks his head at Bane. The cyborg follows him, docile, into one of the rooms they use as a storage area. It’s down the hall a ways. For a bombed-out building, the intact rooms are okay, and because this one doesn’t have heat (not like the the other ones do, even if they have to heat the water in the radiators by boiling it first over fires on one of the upper floors that isn’t gonna fall down) they use it to store the extra blankets and wood. When winter really comes, they’ll be able to put perishable food in here.
Blake shuts the door tight behind him. “What part of ‘watch the kids and keep them safe at all costs’ was hard to understand?”
Bane seems to regard him impassively. It’s not like Blake can fucking tell, what with the leather and straps that cover the thing literally head to boots. The leather looks worn, and it only creaks a little when Bane moves. It does breathe, before it talks, and Blake doesn’t know if it needs to normally or if it just needs the air to be able to speak through whatever it’s got left as vocal cords. Now, Bane’s chest moves, just slightly, and it makes that broken noise. Maybe it’s got lungs in there, somewhere.
“The children are relatively secure in the daylight. You are vulnerable carrying your food.”
“It’s paper, Bane,” Blake says, spitting the name with more than a little mockery, “and nobody knows--”
“Anyone seeing you emerge from the dealer’s as regularly as you do knows what you’re about,” Bane says simply. Blake can’t get over the way it speaks--it’s this weird mix of articulate condescension and this flat, mechanical rasp.
“Bane,” Blake says. “Let’s make this real clear. You’re here to protect the kids. You’re here to help me protect the kids, especially when I go out on errands so someone can stay here to look after them.”
“The current situation as you define it is not feasible,” Bane says. “You hired me to assist you in protecting your flock, did you not? I am merely assisting.”
It’s all in the tone--Blake almost can see Bane, for all that he’s not moving, as it--as he might have been before. Walking with those silent, measured steps, or maybe letting his boots thud, tilting his head as he speaks. Blake can’t imagine the face, though, not with that leather-metal mask that covers his whole head.
When Bane doesn’t continue, Blake says, “Okay, so let’s lay down some ground rules.” He thought he already did, but clearly they’re gonna need to get a little specific. “First, your priority here isn’t me. It’s them.” He jerks his thumb back at the rest of the floor. “You’re more than welcome to help around when you’re not on duty. I need you most at night, when--” Blake pauses. “Can you handle the nighttime temperatures outside, when it gets cold?”
Bane takes in a rasping breath, and there’s a little pause, enough for Blake to listen a bit harder. “I would appreciate an appropriate coat,” he says.
Maybe it’s something in his voice, which really isn’t all that human anymore, or the way he stands, too-straight in a way that suggests he’d be--had been different, before. A hint of something, and again Blake can almost see it. It’s weird.
“Okay,” Blake says. “We’ll have to find one. I dunno if we can buy one right now, but I’ve gotta go back out and get some leather and some blankets anyway, winter’s coming.” He pauses. “I didn’t think to ask. What do you need for food?” Five vouchers is a bit much for one guy, especially as Bane already knows he hits the dealer every few days.
“You take enough to provide for your boys,” Bane says, “yet you too must keep up your strength if you are to protect them.”
“I wasn’t asking about me,” Blake says, ignoring the way his stomach clenches. He’s used to it.
“You cannot provide if you are of no use to them,” Bane says, and Blake’s eyes narrow. Before he can come back at that, Bane’s head does tilt, just a little. It’s unnerving, staring at the sightless place his eyes should be. “This is part of my price. I cannot effectively assist you if you are yourself incapacitated.”
Blake wonders how he can see through that thing. Maybe he’s wired up all the way, sensors in place of--Blake gives himself a mental shake. “We’ll work that out. I can’t take more than my share, if I do, the pushers’ll come down on me, and they already know I take care of the kids.”
“That is unfortunate,” Bane says, “but it is a reality. It would be best if you relocated. It would also behoove you to offer your boys something to keep themselves occupied. They too readily lead others here, with their own recreation.”
Blake is gritting his teeth so hard his jaw hurts. “I didn’t fucking hire you to spit reality at me,” he says. He hasn’t been this angry in a long time, hasn’t been quite so ready to bite. The past few weeks have been hard, but that’s life, and he’s doing all he fucking can to make it better for just a few kids.
“Then why did you hire me, John Blake?” Bane says, and now, that is a definite tone in his voice, for all that it’s mechanical Blake can hear it. It’s a bald challenge.
For a moment, Blake thinks he might be pushed over the edge. Instead, he makes himself stop, makes himself think. He looks at Bane, this cyborg thing in front of him, just standing there, waiting. He’d thought to hire on some experienced muscle, Blake did, that’s all. But what Bane’s saying is just shit Blake already knows--he knows Timofey goes out on his own. Kid’s maybe seventeen, though he shows too much ribs and cheekbones to be ready to go running around out there. He knows that he’s not getting enough food, like he knows he can’t go and try to find another dealer who’ll let him pay in installments because he’s good for ‘em, no other way to get hold of the vouchers for the food.
Otherwise, he’d be stealing food, and that’s a death sentence right there. Bad enough that if he’s ever caught jacking blankets and the like when it gets real cold that it’ll be the same, the kids don’t need that kind of heat coming down on them.
And heat. They haven’t done a winter yet, not here. They moved in springtime, and were lucky to find these rooms with uncracked radiators, but the thing is, it’s becoming clear as the air gets more of a snap that the walls aren’t gonna hold the heat.
Bane stands there, and lets Blake think.
Blake looks up at him, at all six-some, and says, “Okay. Talk to me.”
Twenty fucking vouchers. It's not a lot to ask.
Except it would be, but Blake's got kids to worry about. He's got that many kids and twenty'll barely cover them for three days, never mind the week. A voucher's good for two squares a day for two days unless you stretch 'em out, like Blake does, like the kids do. Blake takes the vouchers to the right places, where it gets him a full ration apiece. His kids don't know they're getting half-meals, less than.They know all about rationing, and for them, food's food and they're happy to get it. Blake just wishes they didn't have to know hunger like he did.
Hell, like he does. He doesn't get a fucking voucher half the time, but he works for his food when he can.
He's already prepping himself for the same argument he has with the lady at the dispensary when he pushes through the gate, chain-link rattling. It looks like the entrance to a goddamn internment camp, and Blake thinks the place started out as a pawn shop, fenced-in, makeshift slats and tarp everywhere. It's a sight better than the front door at the boys' home, even though the roof is more tarp than anything and there's trash on the concrete floor and the slushy snow comes in when winter really hits.
The lady sits behind the counter. Blake doesn't know her name, and he doesn't bother with charm. She's never budged, never given him more than twenty vouchers (and sometimes not even that, no matter how much Blake tells her--she fucking knows--he needs them and they're not for fucking him anyway) but today her eyes get huge before he's even up to the fence that separates them, and she's already fumbling her lockbox.
"This--this is all I've got," she says, and she shoves a handful of cards at him.
It's more than a handful. It's like fifty.
Blake blinks at her. "I just need twenty," he says, surprised, at his own voice, at the way her hands are shaking.
"Please," she says, a word he’s pretty sure has never come out of her mouth, her eyes flicking over his shoulder and immediately back down to the paper cards she tries to shove under the gap in the barrier. She doesn't even sound sullen.
"Just give me twenty," Blake says, blinking, and then he follows her glance.
"Oh for fuck's sake," he says. The cyborg is hulking there, this ‘Bane,’ staring impassively forward, its eyeless mask focused somewhere over the lady's head.
"He's not my fucking enforcer," Blake snarls, which doesn't do much to reassure the lady. He spins on Bane, puts a finger an inch from the thing's unmoving chin. "You're supposed to be watching the kids," he hisses. The cyborg--the machine doesn't move, but a quiet, broken sounds comes from inside the mask--Bane taking a breath.
"You require protection," it said. Its voice is inhuman. Blake thinks it's fucking fitting. Be nice if it had a goddamn brain.
"Goddammit," he mutters, and turns back to the woman. He angrily takes a fistful of cards and counts out twenty exactly, and shoves the others back at her--fifty, she was gonna give him fifty. He believes that's all she has, and he has to wonder if he's gonna catch shit from her supplier now that he's 'threatened' her, but he can’t worry too much because he’s gotta get back to the home. It’s not too bad, in the daytime, when the older boys know to keep the door shut tight and the little ones stay away from the one window, but Bane is supposed to be watching the fucking kids.
Blake’s about to take a step back, but his eyes won't leave the pile that she's not taking. Fifty vouchers. If he even took twenty-five, total, that'd stretch. That'd be okay, they're growing boys, but they're growing up in this world and they know hunger. If Blake took more than he did, the other dealers and pushers'd know, and his kids would catch hell. That can't happen.
But still. Just five more.
He shakes himself, sees the faces of his boys behind his eyes, and turns to leave without thanking her. He has to shove at Bane, and the cyborg's body smoothly moves aside for him. "Get back to the home," he growls.
"I require five."
Blake shuffles to a stop at the dispensary gate, right before the street. His breath puffs in front of him. "What?"
Bane's not talking to him. Blake turns around to see him looming over the lady, standing really close to her gates and slats and fencing that suddenly doesn't seem much of a barrier anymore.
She seems to shake herself into motion, like a frightened rabbit that realizes it's got to bolt because standing still is certain death.
It's fucking ridiculous, is what it is, but with Bane right there she shoves the vouchers at him, and the cyborg is utterly calm as it reaches down and measures five cards into its paws. Without so much as a nod (why would Blake expect any different, it's a machine, never mind that he stopped thanking the lady ages ago when it was clear his boyish face wouldn't work on her) the cyborg turns on its heel and clomps up behind him.
Funny, that. When the fucker moves, he's usually silent as a jungle cat, no matter his size. He's gotta be doing that shit on purpose, and it pisses Blake off. He's already intimidated the fuck out of the lady, hasn't he?
Blake huffs and shoves through the gate. He doesn't wait for Bane, though he can feel it following him. He didn’t know he’d have to feed it. This is going to complicate things.
It's cold. Winter's not here yet, but it will be. The first dirty snows'll replace the nasty rain that's been coming at night, and soon the mornings'll be sleety, slushy, fucking colder, the kind that seeps through whatever you've got on and finds your bones.
Blake wonders if Bane will need a jacket, or something. It's a machine, but maybe. Maybe he needs fucking kerosene. Blake should look into that.
Behind him, Bane is silent, a big shadow that says not a word as it follows him back to the boys' home.
- -
The door’s secure, at the home, and Blake taps out their code of the day. Jason lets him in, one of the oldest boys there, he’s gonna be fourteen soon. Blake wanted to do something for his birthday, but even Jason says he doesn’t know when it is.
It’s like that, more often than not, the kids picking arbitrary dates and celebrating with a slap on the back, a smile. Sometimes they make these little cakes, when Blake goes and gets flatbread special--he’ll get cheese, too, and that is a thing to have. Cheesy bread and a candle, greasy smiles and fingerprints on everything. They don’t make big deal out of it, but it’s nice.
Blake secures the door behind him and nods at the older kids, greets the smaller ones with a smile. Out there, outside, it’s really hard to smile, but in here it’s easy as breathing, most days. Blake’s got another few days’ worth of food, and he doesn’t have to see young cheeks too gaunt. He doesn’t bullshit his boys, they know the score, but they know what he does and they know he loves them with all he’s got, because he couldn’t do any less. It’s a small thing, but Blake’s been there, and he knows what it’s like when everything is shit, but somebody smiles at you and means it.
And besides, little Potro, when he smiles his gap-toothed smile, he makes Blake remember what it’s all for, and at the same time Blake can keep a tiny bit of the warmth from that smile, help himself stay human.
The kids get quiet when Bane comes inside. Most of the time, the cyborg is silent, doesn’t say much of anything. Its voice is deceptively soft through the mask, made mechanical with enough of something to it that Blake suspects it’s not entirely lacking flesh and bone. The thought disgusts him more than a little, and whether or not that makes him a bad person, he wasn’t the one who decided to go play soldier. Bane, whoever it was before it became what it is now, it made its choice.
It was available, it was affordable (fucking barely--until Blake thought of Potro and Jason and Jimmy and Winston and then any price he could pay, he did) and Blake has to admit it’s necessary. It’ll do the job--except when it fucking follows Blake, they’re gonna have a little talk about that--and it stays out of the way otherwise. That’s really all Blake can ask for.
When Blake is done checking the window and poking in on all his kids, he jerks his head at Bane. The cyborg follows him, docile, into one of the rooms they use as a storage area. It’s down the hall a ways. For a bombed-out building, the intact rooms are okay, and because this one doesn’t have heat (not like the the other ones do, even if they have to heat the water in the radiators by boiling it first over fires on one of the upper floors that isn’t gonna fall down) they use it to store the extra blankets and wood. When winter really comes, they’ll be able to put perishable food in here.
Blake shuts the door tight behind him. “What part of ‘watch the kids and keep them safe at all costs’ was hard to understand?”
Bane seems to regard him impassively. It’s not like Blake can fucking tell, what with the leather and straps that cover the thing literally head to boots. The leather looks worn, and it only creaks a little when Bane moves. It does breathe, before it talks, and Blake doesn’t know if it needs to normally or if it just needs the air to be able to speak through whatever it’s got left as vocal cords. Now, Bane’s chest moves, just slightly, and it makes that broken noise. Maybe it’s got lungs in there, somewhere.
“The children are relatively secure in the daylight. You are vulnerable carrying your food.”
“It’s paper, Bane,” Blake says, spitting the name with more than a little mockery, “and nobody knows--”
“Anyone seeing you emerge from the dealer’s as regularly as you do knows what you’re about,” Bane says simply. Blake can’t get over the way it speaks--it’s this weird mix of articulate condescension and this flat, mechanical rasp.
“Bane,” Blake says. “Let’s make this real clear. You’re here to protect the kids. You’re here to help me protect the kids, especially when I go out on errands so someone can stay here to look after them.”
“The current situation as you define it is not feasible,” Bane says. “You hired me to assist you in protecting your flock, did you not? I am merely assisting.”
It’s all in the tone--Blake almost can see Bane, for all that he’s not moving, as it--as he might have been before. Walking with those silent, measured steps, or maybe letting his boots thud, tilting his head as he speaks. Blake can’t imagine the face, though, not with that leather-metal mask that covers his whole head.
When Bane doesn’t continue, Blake says, “Okay, so let’s lay down some ground rules.” He thought he already did, but clearly they’re gonna need to get a little specific. “First, your priority here isn’t me. It’s them.” He jerks his thumb back at the rest of the floor. “You’re more than welcome to help around when you’re not on duty. I need you most at night, when--” Blake pauses. “Can you handle the nighttime temperatures outside, when it gets cold?”
Bane takes in a rasping breath, and there’s a little pause, enough for Blake to listen a bit harder. “I would appreciate an appropriate coat,” he says.
Maybe it’s something in his voice, which really isn’t all that human anymore, or the way he stands, too-straight in a way that suggests he’d be--had been different, before. A hint of something, and again Blake can almost see it. It’s weird.
“Okay,” Blake says. “We’ll have to find one. I dunno if we can buy one right now, but I’ve gotta go back out and get some leather and some blankets anyway, winter’s coming.” He pauses. “I didn’t think to ask. What do you need for food?” Five vouchers is a bit much for one guy, especially as Bane already knows he hits the dealer every few days.
“You take enough to provide for your boys,” Bane says, “yet you too must keep up your strength if you are to protect them.”
“I wasn’t asking about me,” Blake says, ignoring the way his stomach clenches. He’s used to it.
“You cannot provide if you are of no use to them,” Bane says, and Blake’s eyes narrow. Before he can come back at that, Bane’s head does tilt, just a little. It’s unnerving, staring at the sightless place his eyes should be. “This is part of my price. I cannot effectively assist you if you are yourself incapacitated.”
Blake wonders how he can see through that thing. Maybe he’s wired up all the way, sensors in place of--Blake gives himself a mental shake. “We’ll work that out. I can’t take more than my share, if I do, the pushers’ll come down on me, and they already know I take care of the kids.”
“That is unfortunate,” Bane says, “but it is a reality. It would be best if you relocated. It would also behoove you to offer your boys something to keep themselves occupied. They too readily lead others here, with their own recreation.”
Blake is gritting his teeth so hard his jaw hurts. “I didn’t fucking hire you to spit reality at me,” he says. He hasn’t been this angry in a long time, hasn’t been quite so ready to bite. The past few weeks have been hard, but that’s life, and he’s doing all he fucking can to make it better for just a few kids.
“Then why did you hire me, John Blake?” Bane says, and now, that is a definite tone in his voice, for all that it’s mechanical Blake can hear it. It’s a bald challenge.
For a moment, Blake thinks he might be pushed over the edge. Instead, he makes himself stop, makes himself think. He looks at Bane, this cyborg thing in front of him, just standing there, waiting. He’d thought to hire on some experienced muscle, Blake did, that’s all. But what Bane’s saying is just shit Blake already knows--he knows Timofey goes out on his own. Kid’s maybe seventeen, though he shows too much ribs and cheekbones to be ready to go running around out there. He knows that he’s not getting enough food, like he knows he can’t go and try to find another dealer who’ll let him pay in installments because he’s good for ‘em, no other way to get hold of the vouchers for the food.
Otherwise, he’d be stealing food, and that’s a death sentence right there. Bad enough that if he’s ever caught jacking blankets and the like when it gets real cold that it’ll be the same, the kids don’t need that kind of heat coming down on them.
And heat. They haven’t done a winter yet, not here. They moved in springtime, and were lucky to find these rooms with uncracked radiators, but the thing is, it’s becoming clear as the air gets more of a snap that the walls aren’t gonna hold the heat.
Bane stands there, and lets Blake think.
Blake looks up at him, at all six-some, and says, “Okay. Talk to me.”