carcar the last of us au snippet
warnings: past character death, descriptions of the infected, descriptions of use of weapons and violence
What Carlos wants to say, in a way fashioned entirely after his father: That grave is about as deep as it needs to be. No one has the luxury to mourn. Stop fucking around and move on or die standing still.
What he actually says: “Do you need help?”
“No,” Oscar says, curt. “I should be the one to lay him to rest.”
“Okay,” Carlos says.
Maybe it’ll help Oscar, and Carlos shouldn’t begrudge him that. Help him avoid the scenario in which every infected thereafter shared facial characteristics with Charles. Max. A pretty mouth, a strong jaw. It’s his fault, after all. Carlos should have taken the time to bury all of that under the dirt. But all he could do was run.
There’s an almost relaxing rhythmic sound to the ground being hacked up, and a different kind of tanginess to the smell of fresh earth that lets him forget about blood for a moment.
He could be kind, sit at the foot of the grave and listen to Oscar talk about Logan. Why he thought coming back to where they grew up was a good idea. All these good ideas crumbling to dust, at every town they've witnessed that has eaten itself from the inside out.
Carlos closes his eyes. He doesn’t quite know what to do with another faceless loss, can’t add another number to his collection.
And anyway, Oscar's seen his fair share. He’s too good with the shovel for this to be his first.
Carlos clears his throat, when Oscar's finally done placing some leafy branch at the head of the grave. Flowers. On a grave. That’s some doe-eyed rose-tinted bullshit. There’s a strangled bird, caged somewhere to the left of Carlos’ chest. He doesn’t allow that bird any food or warmth or hope, for fear of softness. Can’t be soft if you want to survive.
“We should move,” he says.
“We?” Oscar reels his head up. The loss carving its way down his cheeks haven’t fully dried, but he looks hopeful, almost like a lost dog. With how Carlos acts, he probably hadn't expected an offer like this. It should've been cut and dry. Getting you to your city, in exchange for a car battery.
“It’s a simple question,” Carlos says. “Are you coming?”
If he wasn’t already fucked all ways to Sunday, making his way along this forsaken earth with two rounds of ammunition and less than a quart tank of gas left, he’s definitely fucked now, adding a bleeding heart to their journey. But Carlos imagines Charles’ face if he were to leave a kid behind and—damn him for that. For being a ghost and still demanding good of him.
“Yes,” Oscar says.
Arguments and energy spent on arguments should be saved for the important things. Carlos throws what’s left of their shit into the back of the trunk, and wordlessly, gets into the driver’s seat.
--
“I’m just saying.” Oscar’s insistent. He’s spent the first half an hour of the journey staring vacantly out the window, but apparently, country music’s where he draws the line. “If for some reason this car caught on fire—”
“Don’t you even dare,” Carlos says. The thought of losing the Sienna makes him want to shrivel up and die. With luck, they managed to jack a vehicle with a working CD player. Tunes are a necessity in what is essentially a never-ending road trip. “I don’t want to think about it.”
“If it did,” Oscar says, “and I only had time to save one album—”
“Zach Bryan,” Carlos says.
“No,” Oscar says flatly.
“Dios mio. I should have left you back there.”
“You nearly did,” Oscar points out, but it doesn’t sound accusing. At Carlos’ furtive glance, he shrugs. “No hard feelings. I know what you’re doing.”
“Yeah?” Carlos doesn’t like the sound of that, gets his back all up. Ten and two on the wheel, lest he reaches for Oscar’s shirt to shake him until his teeth rattle. “What am I doing?”
“Self-defense,” Oscar says.
“I really should have left you.”
“I didn’t mean that in a bad way.” Seemingly chastised, Oscar digs his teeth into his lower lip. Charles used to do that too, before he acquired the ability to unhinge his jaw and take larger bites. “You look out for your own, right?”
Carlos wonders if Oscar can see his trauma for what it is. The way Carlos has been tuned toward Oscar in the passenger seat, as if an infected would crash through the windscreen at any second. The way he’d swerve right, driver’s seat to the road, without a second thought, if it meant his neck would be exposed instead of Oscar’s.
He’s got nothing to offer but his own body.
“I’m doing such a great job of it.”
“Mate,” Oscar says warily. If he could hedgehog his way any further into the car’s upholstery, he would be so far back he’d be invisible by now. Zach croons in the staticky background, There ain’t no world in which I am good for you. Ain’t no world, now or ever. “I wasn’t saying you weren’t.”
“No, really,” Carlos says, a little hysterically, “I’m doing such a great job—”
--
There were things in the world that should not have applied to Charles. Spend upwards of two months to four years with him and you’d start to imagine that his fingernails never got dirty, or that his smile never got ugly, or that his face never got bloodied.
But he turned like everyone else.
His skin bleached itself until every single vein was visible, and his eyes lost all recognition. He could still speak, for the first bit. Said their names in what was almost a parody. Cahlos. Cahhhlos.
“We have to,” Max couldn’t finish his sentence, though he kept trying. “We have to—”
Charles lunged for them like a rabid animal. They cringed, but the tire chains wound around Charles hold fast, and he shrunk back. Before lunging again, and again. If Carlos were a better man, he’d put Charles out of his misery. Too bad he was a big fucking coward.
“Don’t,” Carlos hissed, absolutely feral, when Max squared his shoulders and took a step forward. “Don’t touch him.”
Max’s chest rose and fall in rapid succession. His eyes were glassy and hollow. Max, who Carlos had never seen shed a tear once, who they all joked would survive them all. He looked a gentle tap away from breaking. “This isn’t about our stupid feelings, it’s about what Charles would have wanted.”
“Fuck you,” Carlos said, to nobody in particular. To maybe himself. Charles was his responsibility when they went on the raid for food, and Charles was still his responsibility now. Till the end. He’d shown Carlos the bite on his calf, almost guiltily, and remained docile and quiet when Carlos wrapped him in chains, while Carlos breathed through what was most definitely a panic attack.
Easy, Carlos. You’ve got to care of Max now. Easy, come on, breathe Carlos. It doesn’t hurt much, not now anyway. Just. Do me a favour. Make it quick, alright?
Cahhhhlos.
“I’ll take care of it,” Carlos said, because all of this was his fault. In the chaos at the grocery store, he got separated from Charles for a harrowing two and half minutes. That was all it took. “Just. Just give me a moment. Just give me a second, alright?”
Charles snarled, snapping his teeth against the metal biting into his skin. This couldn’t be how Carlos remembered him.
“I’ll do it in the morning,”Carlos promised. I’ll do it after sunrise, so he gets to see it one last time.
In the morning, this is what he found:
Charles, chest cavity open, lying still like he was peacefully asleep.
And Max, bleeding out from a bite wound in his forearm, the gun used to lay Charles to rest tucked at his feet. His skin was paper white, but his eyes were still bright.
“I fucked up,” Max said. It was the way he said it. Completely accepting and calm. It made Carlos drop to his knees and hack out the nothing he had left in his stomach. Bile burned his throat raw. “I thought I could do it, so you wouldn’t have to. Sorry.”
Carlos trembled, pushed his forehead into the ground. The entire world was bearing down on him like a magnifying glass on an ant. He didn’t want to look up. If he didn’t look up, then this didn’t have to be real.
“Carlos,” Max said, more gently than Carlos had ever heard him. By some magnetic, supernatural force, it lifted Carlos’ head from the dirt. Max had enough in him to kick the gun over to Carlos, and life in him yet for the corner of his mouth to twitch up. “You can do it.”
Carlos shook his head mutely.
The expression on Max’s face morphed into something unfamiliar. Pleading. It would carry itself into Carlos’ nightmares and every single infected running after him after. “You can. Just don’t fuck it up this time.”
--
“I’m,” Oscar says. He sounds heartbroken for people he doesn’t even know. “I’m sorry about your friends.”
“You didn’t know,” Carlos says. He never should have said anything. Maybe it’s the kid, snapping, I should be the one to do it. Mirrors are a relic of the past, but Carlos looks at Oscar and sees the same jagged stubbornness lining all his edges. “I’m sorry about Logan.”
They pass the rest of the drive in silence.
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“That’s it! I give up!” Phantom yelled. As though he had said something blasphemous, all fighting stopped as the participants stared in confusion. “You humans think you’re the paragon of all existence, proclaiming that anything different is lesser. Well we aren’t! We’re just as sentient as you are, and we have thoughts and feelings! You just choose to ignore it so you can justify your xenophobic actions!”
Phantom turned to Technus, who had frozen in shock as Phantom went on his tirade. “And you! Tell the other ghosts I’m done saving them, too, because none of you care! You don’t care if property is destroyed, or if humans get hurt, or if other ghosts get hurt! All you care about is your stupid Obsessions! You’re too caught up in your own mind to see what you’re doing to everyone around you!”
“But your Obsession is Protection, is it not? You’ve never stepped down from a fight-“ Technus began. Phantom didn’t let him finish.
“My Obsession is Space! If I had my way, I’d spend my nights stargazing, or maybe even on the moon! Instead I’m stuck cleaning up your messes because you can’t control yourselves!” Phantom growled. He glared at the crowd of people who had gathered, curious as to why all fighting had stopped.
“Humans are cruel and hateful. Ghosts are ignorant and careless. I’m tired of wasting my time protecting both sides from the other and being blamed for it. I quit. If anyone dies, or is captured, it’s no longer my problem.“
Like that, Phantom vanished.
The Fentons celebrated, not even noticing Technus make his own escape. The crowd murmured, worry just as prevalent as confidence. The few phones that were recording the event were put away, and later the footage would be checked. Unfortunately, most recordings were corrupted beyond recognition.
Most, but not all.
——————————————————
Amity Park. Ground Zero for the start of the war between the Living and the Dead. Humanity and Ghosts.
Why it had only recently escalated to this, Batman couldn’t tell. His research found that there had been a portal opened to the Realms years ago, and the laws passed just a year after that. Most of the town was stuck behind an information blackout that the government refused to give access to. Whatever happened, Constantine assured him that it was almost certainly the government’s fault.
After almost three weeks of trying to get beyond the firewalls, he finally figured it out. “Research” that claimed ghosts were nothing but evil. News articles calling “Phantom” a troublemaker. Forums that spoke about how “Phantom” ruined the town while fighting other ghosts.
A video, old and grainy but still clear enough to be used as evidence. A glowing, white-haired boy that told everyone he was done. That he was tired of fixing everything. Of saving everyone. That nobody was good, everyone was bad, and they were on their own.
They used to have a hero, but Phantom left. Without him, both sides tore at each other until there was nothing but an all-out assault. They needed to stop this, but without a mediator they would not make it through to the ghosts.
If they could find Phantom, perhaps they could fix everything before it was too late.
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