(no subject)

[nottheboss]

It's late at night. The corridors aren't quiet; they're full of men and women restlessly trying to sleep in their quarters. Bossie should be one of them. But instead he slips barefoot down the hallway to Carver's room, where he knocks.

"Hey, man, you up?"

Comments

[minuteofangle]

Good. Better than bringing the enemy back here, where they've got their people and a goddamn child. Gabe nods slowly, already planning out the logistics he'll need. Shaw will take point, but he'll assist. It feels natural now, like he's been doing this his whole goddamn life.

"Gotta talk about some other stuff, though," he adds. Pope won't be nearly as happy about this part.

[aut_nihil]

Pope had been ready to dismiss him to the mission, but he turns again, slower this time.

"And what else do we need to talk about?"

[minuteofangle]

Here comes the not fun part. Gabe puffs out a breath. "So, Riley knows about the demons. I had to show him the teleport trick, he was getting ready to walk down the mountain himself."

[aut_nihil]

"You should have let him go," Pope says, but he's not really pissed. Not yet. "He's not one of us. He's just here to pacify Carver, and far as I can tell, he's made things worse."

[minuteofangle]

"I get that," Gabe replies softly. "I do. But that's the other part: Carver had a bad night. No new dreams, but -"

Yeah. A bad night.

"Bossie stayed with him. Got him through the worst of it. We needed Riley's help and that was how we got it."

[aut_nihil]

"If there were no new dreams it wasn't that bad a night, was it?" Pope drawls. He could forgive Bossie breaking the rules to stay with Carver, but he can't accept needing Riley's help.

"The sooner Anders is gone, the sooner Carver can focus on what matters."

[minuteofangle]

"Pope," Gabe drawls, eyebrows arching. "It was a bad fucking night."

Because Gabe will bullshit and joke when it doesn't matter, but not about this. Never about this.

"You hearing me on this?"

[aut_nihil]

"How bad could it be?" Pope snaps, who also has bad nights now. More often than not. "If the Devil didn't come, I figure it can't be that goddamn bad, Fifty!"

[minuteofangle]

"Yeah, well, it fucking was."

And that is God's simple truth right there. Gabe tilts his head toward Pope, unbowed.

"I know you don't wanna hear this shit. Believe me, I know that. But those two wouldn't have been any good to anyone running through PT like that. We're already taking crazy numbers of injuries, we got people pulling triple shifts, and yeah. Sometimes, they have bad fucking nights. So I gave the order to mitigate."

[aut_nihil]

"You gave!" He snaps, stepping closer, up into Gabe's face.

But it's Carver. Who is hurting because of Pope. And so as soon as he's there, some of his fire flags.

"...He doing any better?"

[minuteofangle]

Gabe tilts his head back, miming eye contact as Pope gets in his face. And unlike so many of the others, he doesn't flinch from it. He holds his goddamn ground.

"I gave," he agrees, calm and controlled. It's his job to lie on Bossie's behalf, so he does it without hesitation. "And yeah. A little. The kitten helped. Bossie did, too. Got him into the kitchen cooking breakfast before -"

Gabe puffs out a breath.

"Kid had good instincts. But it was a bad night, Pope."

[aut_nihil]

He balks a little, like he does when someone gives him praise about Bossie. He has such doubts about the kid.

But if he helped Carver....

"I'll check on him," he grunts, stepping back again, no longer ready to throw down about this issue. "But next time you tell me when you're taking one of them out of rotation."

[minuteofangle]

"Okay."

An acceptable compromise. He can get Bossie to flag him, run interference. It's a start, at least.

Gabe puffs out a breath. "Last thing. It's not mission critical, but we're here, so I figured I'd run it by you. Bossie asked me to coach him. He wants to get better at giving reports, be more confident talking to people. I figure that's a good path for him. He's got the fieldwork down and you know what a difference that can make for people. Figured me and Shaw could take point on that."

[aut_nihil]

He raises an eyebrow. "You think you can polish him up?" He sounds skeptical. "Can't hurt. If you want to spend your free hours doing that, go right ahead."

But he won't hold his breath. Bossie's been in the business a couple of years now, long enough that Pope thinks he has the measure of him.

[minuteofangle]

"Think it's worth a shot. Austin's doing okay getting coached on the armory shit and we've got a small crew. Not like we can send out for anybody else."

Gabe inclines his head slightly.

"It's worth training our people up. Bossie's solid in the field. No reason we can't build the rest of him up."

[aut_nihil]

He grunts, but it's agreement. Austin is doing better; and he's softened on Austin somewhat, since the kid came back from being tortured by demons and still does his job.

"All right," he relents. "You see what you can make out of Bossie. Maybe he'll grow up a little."

[minuteofangle]

Gabe inclines his head slightly. "I think he can, if we give him some room to try."

The Army sure as fuck wouldn't. But they can run things different here. They have that choice.

"Anyway, I deputized him to make a run into town. Pick up some supplies. Regular shit, but some video games too. Figured we could give the kids something fun to do in their off hours, stave off the cabin fever a bit. Everybody's wound off, they need an outlet that's not going for a run in the woods or starting a wrestling match in the hallways. We still got holes in the walls."

[aut_nihil]

Bossie can be trusted with that, at least. And the last thing they need is more rough housing, but that's where the games always seem to lead. Anything that keeps his people stationary and calm is a good thing.

"Good idea," he allows. "It's good for their hand eye coordination too." They could spend hours playing video games, he knows, which is maybe not ideal under normal circumstances but given they can't go anywhere right now... yeah.

"Anything unusual to report?"

[minuteofangle]

"Nah. We got injuries from PT," he admits, "but you've been looped in on those. Nothing the corpsmen can't handle."

But the sheer amount of people who've ended up injured worries Gabe. Everyone's exhausted, making mistakes, getting short-tempered.

"Think the kittens are doing good for everyone. It's a routine and we can use it as a reward or a time out and nobody gets upset about it." Gabe nods slowly, pleased. "And a couple people've been volunteering to babysit Austin's daughter. Nobody asked, they volunteered. It's good for cohesion, in my book."

[aut_nihil]

Fucking PT injuries. He scoffs, "Tell them to settle the fuck down. Amateur hour."

But the news about the kid chases away his temper, makes him smile. "Good. Good. She's one of ours, you know. The more we look after her, the better."

[minuteofangle]

Gabe makes a face. "Everybody's exhausted. Shaw and Carver reworked the schedules to separate the pairs who're getting snippy with each other, but God's honest truth? We're lucky we haven't had more fights."

Eventually, something will have to give.

"I like that kid," Gabe admits. "She's curious. Wants to get into everything. And I think it's good for us to get involved, give mom a break. We've been taking her on runs and I think that helps, too."

[aut_nihil]

He trusts Shaw and Carver to sheepdog the herd, to keep things from getting out of hand. It's not a thing he can really do himself; everyone is on their best behavior when he's around.

"I think it's good for us, too," he has to admit. "Reminds us all what we're fighting the Devil for. That it's not all about us. You know what those demons would do to that little child if they could?" He shakes his head, clucks his tongue. "No, we will do what we have to do to keep them here and safe."

[minuteofangle]

"Think it's come time to loop her all the way in," Gabe admits. "She's been a good sport, but this is a lot to take on faith."

[aut_nihil]

"That comes down to you. You're the only proof we have that we're not all nuts." It's that or show her a demon, and he can't do that.

[minuteofangle]

Gabe nods slowly. "I'll talk to her before I head out. She listened to me before. At least it's an easy lift."

They don't need to show her an actual demon. Just Gabe's own teleporter trick.