.//INBOX

[ornithologist]

Comments

[ornithologist]

[ wow he hates that ]

I'm sorry, but your neuroses don't trump mine. This is not a goal post I'll be moving.

[fortitudosalutis]

My fucking what?

[ornithologist]

As long as it gets done, why does it matter to you if I'm the one doing it?

[ That's not any more rational than his personal aversion to violence, in his opinion. ]

[fortitudosalutis]

Because you're assuming there'll be time to get somebody else in. If I'm down, maybe it takes hours before I'm up and rotting. Or maybe it's three minutes. You don't know. Nobody fucking knows.

This is stone cold practicality, Finch.

[ornithologist]

I'm not foreclosing the possibility. I'll do it if I must.

But do not presume to make my choices for me.

[fortitudosalutis]

Then let me show you how to do it properly.

I'm not making you do shit, Finch. I'm asking you for a favor.

[ornithologist]

[ oh god, oh no. that is hard to refute ]

It would mean that much to you?

[fortitudosalutis]

Yes.

[ornithologist]

I have a firearm. Will that suffice? You said a bullet would work.

I'll save a bullet for you. That's undoubtedly the most horrible thing I've ever typed and I'm going to have nightmares.

[fortitudosalutis]

[ He almost says not to waste the bullet. That ammunition is scarce and cannot be wasted. But this is hard for Harold, he's realizing, maybe on some fundamental level. Sometimes you have to give people grace for the hard shit. ]

Yeah. That'll do it.

It's not a person. I won't feel it, I'll already be gone.

[ornithologist]

[ There's a 0% chance he'll be stabbing anyone in the head, but maybe, like, a 10% chance Harold might be willing to shoot a corpse. Maybe. It's non-zero. ]

Please stop trying to reassure me. I'll do it to spare further suffering if I must but it will not make me feel better to think you're already dead.

[fortitudosalutis]

My heart won't be pumping. The eyes will be open but it won't recognize you. They don't feel anything but hungry. I'm just explaining the conditions you'll see.

[ornithologist]

Yes. Thank you. Please stop.

[fortitudosalutis]

I trained kids how to do this in Afghanistan, with knives. This is easier. You don't have to feel bad about it. You don't have to feel anything. It's a net positive for the world.

[ornithologist]

Mr. Carver.

It will not be easy. I will feel bad. Please for the love of god stop telling me about children learning how to use knives on diseased corpses.

If you persist I will time you out.

[fortitudosalutis]

You'll feel worse if it bites someone. You understand?

[ornithologist]

I believe you mean well. Now please believe I know how to handle a potentially catastrophic situation without dictating my feelings or actions to me.

[fortitudosalutis]

You could probably handle a bomb threat. Maybe even an IED. But this is different. A lot of the kids hesitated at first. Some of them died because of it.

[ Kids, he says, though they were only a few years younger than him. Only Matthew was an actual child. ]

[ornithologist]

Respectfully, you don't have the slightest idea what I've handled.

[fortitudosalutis]

You haven't handled this, Finch. That's why I want to make sure you know how to do it right.

[ornithologist]

You did and I conceded. Anything further?

[fortitudosalutis]

No.
That was all, sir.

[ornithologist]

[ Everything about being called sir in this context rubs him the wrong way. Harold would rather he went back to arguing with him. But it would be -- disrespectful, it feels, to push him on that -- so he just says, ]

Do actually be careful.

[fortitudosalutis]

I'll do my job. I'm good at that.

[ornithologist]

Was there a job you were assigned here apart from being a destitute non-person relegated to the quite literally named Dregs of society?

[ He's feeling sassy after that conversation. ]