"What I intend? What I expect? What I plan?" Carver's grim sternness carried itself from the woman to the man and back as he spoke, "Nothing, if I had the chance not to."
"But if I do need to do something, it won't be pleasant. It won't be brief... and it won't be nice. I would rather it just not be alone."
His fingers removed themselves from the twisted photograph, leaving it alone again at last. Methodically, Carver took those same digits and removed his sunglasses, setting their black frame upside down upon the steel table of the evidence room. There was a glint to his eyes where hollowness should've been, as though the only driving spark in him was the underlying motivation behind this all. They otherwise were amber and tired, leaning somewhere between the darkness of honey and wooden bark, but that did nothing to hide the fact he had a more serious stare than even his earlier demeanor suggested he might.
"Let's assume for a moment, pretend, that these deaths end up as we're all fairly confident they will - attributed to 'wildlife'. Let's also make the assumption that is, for all intents and purposes, entirely wrong. Let's also go out on the limb that the person or persons responsible are still out there."
The intensity in him, as he played out the story before them as hypotheticals, only became increasingly more unsettling. He did not need to say it, but he went about it all the same in building ambiguous yet orchestrated detail. Either way, it did not bode well with the already eerie ambiance of the quieted sheriff's office and its small, mostly devoid secure area.
"And let's make the final assumption that they can be found, perhaps even lured out." Carver continued, turning the glasses over as he leaned into the table, looking into the reflection that was within the depths of their lenses, "Now from here I find myself, in our example, faced with my two choices... one where I am alone, one where I am not. In either case, let's just take the easier of the two routes and go with the idea that both are equally successful, just to varying degrees in execution."
He paused, to nod slightly maybe only to himself, going on nothing more about the implications of what he suggested. Playing with the frames, he turned them over and placed them upon his face once more and rose up from his elbows to standing by the table. As strangely as he fixated upon unseen details none of them could see but surely felt, they were gone again; the sensation of being drawn into an exceedingly deeper plot that ran through his mind. Carver was the sort of man who was to have played this entire instance out, at least some number of times before - it was only scraping by as "subtle enough" for all its vagueness.
"There are a lot of bad people in this world. A lot more than we really need and not many people know that, let alone have the drive to do something about it if they did, so you could say my plan is to curb that a bit. If the most help you can provide is information, a skill, a location, I will take it... but what I really would like is someone watching my back."
"Because we are about to make a lot of enemies, even if you were to walk out now and tell the whole world."
A long sigh drew in from Carver as he searched the other two, adding one last remark; "But my 'plan' and what I 'expect' all might change when Cutter gets here. After all, I could just be as crazy as the two of you sound."
@Kidd@RedXCross
"But if I do need to do something, it won't be pleasant. It won't be brief... and it won't be nice. I would rather it just not be alone."
His fingers removed themselves from the twisted photograph, leaving it alone again at last. Methodically, Carver took those same digits and removed his sunglasses, setting their black frame upside down upon the steel table of the evidence room. There was a glint to his eyes where hollowness should've been, as though the only driving spark in him was the underlying motivation behind this all. They otherwise were amber and tired, leaning somewhere between the darkness of honey and wooden bark, but that did nothing to hide the fact he had a more serious stare than even his earlier demeanor suggested he might.
"Let's assume for a moment, pretend, that these deaths end up as we're all fairly confident they will - attributed to 'wildlife'. Let's also make the assumption that is, for all intents and purposes, entirely wrong. Let's also go out on the limb that the person or persons responsible are still out there."
The intensity in him, as he played out the story before them as hypotheticals, only became increasingly more unsettling. He did not need to say it, but he went about it all the same in building ambiguous yet orchestrated detail. Either way, it did not bode well with the already eerie ambiance of the quieted sheriff's office and its small, mostly devoid secure area.
"And let's make the final assumption that they can be found, perhaps even lured out." Carver continued, turning the glasses over as he leaned into the table, looking into the reflection that was within the depths of their lenses, "Now from here I find myself, in our example, faced with my two choices... one where I am alone, one where I am not. In either case, let's just take the easier of the two routes and go with the idea that both are equally successful, just to varying degrees in execution."
He paused, to nod slightly maybe only to himself, going on nothing more about the implications of what he suggested. Playing with the frames, he turned them over and placed them upon his face once more and rose up from his elbows to standing by the table. As strangely as he fixated upon unseen details none of them could see but surely felt, they were gone again; the sensation of being drawn into an exceedingly deeper plot that ran through his mind. Carver was the sort of man who was to have played this entire instance out, at least some number of times before - it was only scraping by as "subtle enough" for all its vagueness.
"There are a lot of bad people in this world. A lot more than we really need and not many people know that, let alone have the drive to do something about it if they did, so you could say my plan is to curb that a bit. If the most help you can provide is information, a skill, a location, I will take it... but what I really would like is someone watching my back."
"Because we are about to make a lot of enemies, even if you were to walk out now and tell the whole world."
A long sigh drew in from Carver as he searched the other two, adding one last remark; "But my 'plan' and what I 'expect' all might change when Cutter gets here. After all, I could just be as crazy as the two of you sound."
@Kidd@RedXCross