Chapter Text
People portray ‘I-told-you-so’ moments as instances to be savored and gloated over.
Personally, I really, really wished I wasn’t having one right this moment largely due to the fact I was in tree about ten foot up with a very large tiger pacing below and no weapons. Luckily it seemed to favour short, Hispanic and blonde over tall, injured and American and in any other situation I’d get a hell of a thrill over sitting in my tree watching one of Vaas’ men cussing and lashing out with a large branch every time the tiger tried to start climbing the tree trunk. Currently, however, I was thinking fast, heart hammering in my chest, pulse and various bruises and healing injuries pulsating with heat in time with it.
I’d been limping someway behind Vaas and Raphael, faintly amused to see how wary the fanatic was despite his freakish devotion, he’d flinch often when Vaas would gesture broadly with his hands or laugh loudly. Vaas had been doing it much more often than usual which made me suspicious he was purposefully fucking with Raphael, though in a far subtler way than I was used to seeing him mess with people.
It was weird.
Carlos was purposefully walking behind me, pace slow and smoking weed if the smell was anything to go by. I’d assumed he was as insane as Vaas when I’d first seen him, no one could appear that mellow and calculating at the same time and be all there… also, bleached blonde hair, if that wasn’t an indication of insanity I wasn’t sure what else was. It hadn’t even registered that he was close to me for any reason other than to make sure I didn’t take off until I stumbled.
I’d frozen, hunched over and staring at Carlos, who’d gone from relaxed and mellow to high-strung, eyes wide and semi-auto pointed straight at me and teeth gritting at the joint in his mouth.
The blonde psycho was walking behind me because he didn’t want me at his back, he was scared of me. I grinned slowly at him, and his eyes narrowed before he spat out his joint.
“Better pick up the pace, Snow. Boss’ll be pissed if he thinks you’re trying to take off” his accent was thick and his tone irritated. I snorted softly and straightened, stretched and rolled my shoulder, enjoying how antsy it was making him.
Then it all went to hell.
There was something weird about the jungle on Rakyat, it was like Murphy’s Law was on angel dust. Not just ‘what can go wrong, will go wrong’ but ‘what can go wrong, will go wrong… oh, and here are some tigers and bandits just for fucking fun!’.
Seriously, the number of times I’d been sniping outposts down to manageable numbers only to see a tiger come out of fucking nowhere and take out some of my targets, it couldn’t be normal. I mean, they say man-eaters are rare, or at least I remember hearing it somewhere, though I suppose with people like Vaas feeding the tigers it was a little bit like seagulls; you feed those fuckers enough and they get a taste for it, they’ll just take what they want.
A tiger came stalking out from the brush at me and the blonde the same moment gun shots rang out up ahead. I’d sprinted into the trees. I wasn’t armed, Vaas had told me only good boys got the good toys and left it at that when he’d caught me eyeing his gun before we set out. I’d expected Carlos to shoot it and be mocked for running, but when I’d climbed into the tree and I’d surprised to see him doing the same across from me, arm bloodied with claw rents; he’d dropped his gun, though I saw he still had his hunting knife.
He was cussing loudly, lashing out with his branch to stop the tiger climbing into the tree after him. I could still hear the sounds of a gunfight back on the road. Vaas and the fanatic asshole were in a fucking gun fight and I was stuck hiding in a tree like a useless god-damned fucking pussy.
It was like a switch was flipped, just like before. I had to get by the tiger, I had to get to Vaas, I had to protect Vass to protect Riley. There was no could or would and for the first time since I was taking out Hoyt’s men things were simple. I had to complete a set of goals each one depending on the other except there was no Citra pulling my strings, and sure, Vaas had strung me up just as she had but he wasn’t pulling them.
He was an asshole that had engineered a maze, protecting Riley was the cheese and I was the fucking rat. I’d act as he wanted me to, but he made it my own god-damned decision to do so.
He was an utter bastard.
I dropped down from the free and ignored the frantic Spanish from overhead as the tiger turned and stared at me for a few beats. One black ear twitched, nostrils flared and pupils dilated, then it surged at me face contorting in a snarl, large teeth and forward paw claws extended.
I narrowly dodged aside jumping when something heavy thunked into the tree near me. I looked and was surprised to see a hunting knife. I grabbed it and turned just after the thing had pounced. Hot fur, heavy muscles and stripes of burning agony cut across my psyche, but even with that I’d surged forward toward the gaping jaws throwing my hands forward and clutching the knife, using the strength of both arms to drive the blade into the chest of the large feline even as its weight barreled into me and sent me backward.
The snarl cut off and suddenly, everything was quite. Seconds ticked then more distant bullet fire sounded. I pushed and shoved the tiger off me, ripping the blade free and not registering the hot liquid spurting from the wound above me as I wriggled free, hissing as I felt claws catching at the skin of my back but ignoring it.
Later. I’d deal with it later.
I heard someone swearing breathlessly in Spanish but I didn’t really have time for Carlos, instead I surged into the trees. Adrenaline was fueling me, I knew that, I didn’t have long until the pain of my injuries would flood back.
Weirdly even feeling my own pulse in my eardrums, everything was in sharp relief and I felt numb to the complexities of my situation.
I’d killed the tiger. Next goal.
It was simple, it was easy like a game; I liked that. I liked letting everything else drop by the wayside and focusing only on the moment and the goal I had to achieve. It was fucked up, and I knew from experience I was going to pay for it later, but the moment I came upon the bandits attacking Vaas the sense of accomplishment and triumph as I slaughtered them, first with the hunting knife then the various guns I picked up was intoxicating and I knew with a sense of resigned internal clarity that I was probably as fucked up as the Mohawk totting sociopath I was trying to protect.
well...fuck.