Lt. Carter Blake (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lieutenantantichrist) wrote2014-08-10 01:04 am
lieutenantantichrist) wrote2014-08-10 01:04 am
Entry tags:
[18] [anon text] - "It Doesn't Unbang Your Mom."
Hey. It's too hot to do anything today, so you might as well talk.
What's the worst thing anybody ever did to you?
[That comes first. It's a minute or so before the rest follows.]
What would the dirtbag have to do to make you forgive them?
What's the worst thing anybody ever did to you?
[That comes first. It's a minute or so before the rest follows.]
What would the dirtbag have to do to make you forgive them?
anon text forever;
You wouldn't give an order to shoot unless you had good reason, though, right?
anon text forever;
Right?]
He heard it, and he's lived with his dad being dead for months. There's not a whole lot of doubt left.
Shit, I thought he was the killer. After that investigation, after all those days trying to track the bastard down, I would have shot him if he twitched.
anon text forever;
Now, I know you're thinking to yourself, "That's right, but that doesn't bring the kid's dad back." That's true, it doesn't. But there's a difference between being responsible for something and being guilty of it.
Besides, think about it this way: even if in some universe you did give the order, why do you get saddled with the blame from one universe, but no credit for your restraint in another? You can't live like that. There's some parallel universe out there where every time you safely drove a car, another you mowed down someone's grandmother; are you responsible for all of those, too?
The only reason you feel bad about this one is because you've actually met the kid who remembers something different and can scream in your face about it. That doesn't make you any more guilty than you are of the thousand grandmothers.
anon text forever;
[Blake thinks of Nathaniel at gunpoint. Turning him around, the sudden grab for something out of his coat, the flash when he knew that within the next millisecond one of them had to be dead.
But neither of them was. Jayden hadn't flinched.
Son of a bitch doesn't even have to be here to show him up.
He keeps thinking of the kid's face when he saw him the first time. Terror and hatred on the face of a child you were trying to save has a way of sticking in the memory.] I don't know if it's even a decision I made. He came out holding the kid and with the lady. Calling the shot could've hit them.
There's a lot of fucking might haves out there, but this I know for sure. I owe that kid.
Fuck, all this philosophical sci fi shit makes my head hurt.
Hey. Whoever you are. Maybe you have a point in there.
[A part of him is hungry to believe it, the part that goes straight for the easy answers.]
Maybe I should get some credit.
[It's a big part.]
anon text forever;
Just don't let him rule your life.
anon text forever;
[Maybe this guy'll believe him when he says this:] I was trying to do the right thing. I was supposed to save him, goddammit.
anon text forever;
Look, stranger. I believe you. It's obvious you know how the world works, and that includes the reality that you just can't win them all.
Maybe some people will say you don't get a gold star just for good intentions and trying hard, but you know what? Those same people would be the ones begging for it if they were the ones who'd had to make the call instead of you.
Don't let it get you down.
anon text forever;
People don't understand what being a cop really means. Everybody thinks they'd have all the facts and know everything you only get from hindsight. They don't realize you have to make decisions in a split second. You don't get to be nice. You don't move fast, people die.
You make mistakes.
But this isn't the kind of thing I can sweep under the rug and forget about.