#gun use tw

[howdy-cowpoke]

TIMING: Friday, 4/19 (Monty’s birthday! Oops!) LOCATION: Prickly Pear Acres PARTIES: Monty (@howdy-cowpoke) & Jade (@highoctanegem) SUMMARY: Jade pays a visit to Monty on the farm, but it's meant to be their last. CONTENT WARNINGS: Gun use

—

The math had never ever mathed more. (2+2 should be shaking in its boots, in fact). Jade almost thought she was playing with a cheat code when all those lame hunters at The Three Daggers started grumbling about some farm filled with undead near the death pit. The little tip almost made up for the fact everyone in there preferred ABBA over the A-Teens.

Right, irrelevant. (But actually, the A-Teens were never irrelevant in her heart).

The point was, she didn’t even have to ask where said farm was located, cause she was positive she already knew anyway. Actually, she’d already visited once. So why not pay an old friend a visit? And maybe this sudden need to take on this side quest came from a need for a big moment, what about it? Maybe she had been in a bit of a flop era (one that could be dated several years back, hypothetically). Something something about her ego constantly getting beat down. Metzli. The banshees. And well, Regan too… in a different way. So what if she was doing this to feel better about herself? She was also putting a stop to a very obvious problem threatening Wicked’s Rest population. Two undead birds (or like, dozens) and one stone (several knives and a gun) (She was gonna have to work on that analogy). 

Jade showed up to Prickly Pear Acres dressed as one of their own. Throwing ‘howdys’ and tipping her hat (that she bought at a costume shop) at everyone who wished her a good day. It was a very polite group, she had to admit, despite her skin thrumming in their presence. And see! Everybody was so quick to judge her commitment to ridding the town of the undead. They always assumed she like, despised the creatures she’d vowed to cull. It was so not like that at all? It was never personal. Case in point, Monty was the metaphorical father to her pride and joy. Her Lullaby. Why would she have anything against him? Nope. It was just that she had to uphold the Bloodworth’s code and this big farm concealing something that was totally starting to feel like a horde the more she sauntered around the field was a stepping stone in her journey. Similar to how every pop girly had to have a feat with a problematic rapper to appeal to a different audience. Simple as that. 

Eventually, Jade found her way toward the big main house. (And yup, she did get distracted with all the adorable animals. Sometimes multitasking existed, alright?). She did not plan on starting little. Big prizes only. Her mind was set on Monty before she could think of going down the metaphorical food chain. Thinking too long about food as it pertained to zombies wasn’t something she wanted to do, actually. 

She didn’t barge inside the residence. She had like, manners and stuff. But she did tap on the window and stared from outside in a totally non-creepy way as she spotted the man of the hour. She waved at him enthusiastically, beckoning him outside. 

—

Things on the farm had been… chaotic. 

No. That was putting it mildly. They'd been fucking awful, and Monty had no one to blame but himself. He'd not believed the threats he'd been getting, and his poor animals had paid the price of that hubris. So many of them were brutally slaughtered, and he couldn't—no. No more of that. Wallowing would solve nothing. 

The man of the hour, as he would've been very embarrassed to know he was thought of, was just emerging from the master bedroom downstairs when he spotted movement in one of the windows. Plopping his hat down on his head, he smiled tiredly when he realized who it was, returning the wave and giving a nod. He grabbed his jacket from the hook on the wall and headed to the front door, shrugging it on as he opened it and stepped out onto the porch. 

“Buenos días, amiga,” he greeted Jade with a grin that might have been a bit lacking in the usual warmth. “What brings you here today, ah? I was just about to go take Nero for a run… come! Walk with me.” He'd spent just about every afternoon with his horse since that night, recalling the terror that had gripped his unbeating heart as he raced to Habanero's stall, dreading the worst. But the Thoroughbred was fine, if not a little spooked, and he hadn't had yet another loss to mourn yet. 

Motioning in the direction of the horse stables with a jerk of his head, he took a step and waited for Jade to fall in beside him and explain why she'd come. “Is Lullaby all right?”

—

“Buenos!” Jade replied, her head bobbing with enthusiasm, bringing two fingers to her forehead for a salute. Despite his grin (the type that didn’t reach all the way to his eyes), Monty looked a little rough. But like, who wouldn’t look a little worse for wear if you had to sustain yourself with brains? Tragic, wasn’t it? But Jade could help with that. She would help with that. She’d erase that tired look on his face. The how was just… a small detail. (Don’t even worry about it)

Jade was momentarily thrown off by the mention of his horse. Cause, look… She could’ve been a horse girl in another life, okay? If she hadn’t grown surrounded by weapons and hunter codes, if her life had been different, she could’ve been a horse girl. She would’ve loved being one. The first time she rode one, (just like, a couple months ago in that weird silent stable) was the freaking best time of her life. So duh! She definitely wanted to say hi to Monty’s horse. “I was in the neighborhood,” she circled around… the acres of field. “Metaphorically. I was visiting a friend in the death pit” she pulled her lips together into a frown, cause she was sad for her imaginary dead friend and all. “And I thought, why don’t I stop by… and see if my bud has any more adorable kitties up for adoption?” That might just save his life again, actually. Nope, wait. Priorities. Focus. 

“I can’t say no to Habanero time. Plus! you know, if any of your other babies are safe for a beginner, I’d love to join you on that walk. It’s been a stressful couple of weeks, days even, I’d love to just, sway a little bit,” Jade blew a dramatic sigh, falling into step. It wasn’t so hard, cause Monty wasn’t that much taller than her. (Her leg did feel a little stiff from the recently healed wound in her belly). “Oh! Lullaby is perfect. She’s the best cat in the world, and she has a twin now! My… friend gave him to me,” she pulled out her phone, from the big coat she wore for the only purpose of concealing her blades, and the gun. And whoops, she needed to change that lock screen, didn’t she? Maybe tomorrow, or like, next month. (No rush, Regan would stay gone). She searched through her photos, until she found one of her babies and turned the screen toward Monty to show him. “There they are, Lullaby and Melody” she smiled sweetly at the loves of her life. (The ones that couldn’t leave her). They were being especially cuddly with her these days, cause she was probably reeking pathetic girl scent. 

Jade pocketed her phone and happily walked with Monty, eyes darting around, scouting the area. To the untrained eye, it might just look like her being super curious. It wasn’t too long a walk until they reached the stables. This was so convenient, actually. It was like Monty also got the script. (What a good scene partner). “You have a lotta people working here, huh? Is it like, one huge family to you?” 

—

“Oh.” He wasn’t really sure what to say to that. “I am… sorry for your loss.” Visiting someone in the death pit seemed a strange custom, but then he supposed it was no more strange than visiting a grave. This grave just happened to be shared with many, many other people. And it had recently caved in on itself a bit. “You should be careful out there, the ground seems to be swallowing itself and I do not think it would be good for your health to fall in.” And who knew what sorts of beasts might linger in the underdark? Still he smiled, shaking his head. “Afraid I do not have any more kittens for you though. Maybe next time.” Only if another stray pregnant cat happened upon the farm, since Señora had been fixed since her last litter. 

His smile actually brightened somewhat when she expressed interest in riding with him and he gave a quick nod. “Ah, yes! Manzanita is the perfect horse for beginners! I would love to have you come with.”  He glanced at the phone as it was turned to him, expression softening at the sight of the cats. “That’s great, I’m glad she has a buddy! They’re very cute together.” 

After the pair had arrived at the stables and Monty had started the process of getting Habanero saddled up, Jade asked him a question he didn’t rightly expect, but one he supposed shouldn’t have come as a surprise. A part of him felt a little guilty for feeling even the tiniest hint of suspicion, because Jade had never been anything other than kind to him. It was all this business with the night market and the threatening letters he’d been getting… after what had happened the night Kaden almost died, he was overly anxious about questions regarding the farm and the people that lived and worked there.

But this was Jade! There was no need for concern. 

“It has become that over time, yes,” he agreed, smoothing out the blanket over Nero’s back. The blood bay craned his neck and nosed at Monty’s head, pushing his hat askew and nibbling at his long hair. The cowboy seemed unbothered, just smiling and letting the horse do what he pleased, focused on his task. “We take in… strays, as it were. People with no place else to go and with no one else to turn to. Help get them back on their feet. Many of them choose to stay and live here.” He glanced over at Jade before tightening one of the straps around the horse’s middle. “I found it difficult to connect with people for a long time, but the folks here… they have grown on me.”

—

Jade shrugged over her imaginary loss, not wanting to put Monty in an awkward position (not yet at least). “It's totally chill, it was her last wish. She said, and I quote: I finna be in the pit” She wiped her face for a fake tear, looking up at Monty when he offered advice. Aw. She really did like Monty. But there was no room for sentimentality when you were a hunter. Developing affections only led to failure to complete one's duty (Onyx, circa 2008). It made you sloppy weak sauce (Jasper, same circa). “It was looking pretty bad, I don’t think I’ll be returning… you have nothing to worry about,” she promised with a similar smile. That wasn’t exactly a promise she’d keep though (and provided this day unfolded as expected, he wouldn’t be here to check anyway). The death pit was like, an all-you-can-eat buffet for the undead. It was literally her obligation to do something about it. Then she sighed, a little disappointed to hear about the lack of kittens. Alright then, no saving grace for Monty. Bummer. It was fine. She had to keep her head in the game. It was the best for both of them. 

Oh, speaking of distractions. Well, Manzanita would be there, how could she say no to that? Jade perked up, for several reasons. Actually, that would make it way easier to snipe Monty. She never liked her chances when combat was involved. But to shoot him at a distance? Maybe even with his back to her? Perfect. He’d never suspect a thing. (She’d never get to see the realization dawn on his face) (Which, she weirdly cared about, for whatever reason). She simply smiled at his observation of her adorable cats, cause duh! Of course they were. It was still super nice when people agreed though. She’d make sure to tell them when she… visited them. Times were tricky, she didn’t need the reminder that she couldn’t spend every waking hour with them anymore. Nope, forget about that, her mind was already shifting into slayer mode.   

(She did have to stop herself one last time from vibrating when she caught a glimpse of Manzanita, though)

Her lips stretched into a sweet smile, the spark not quite reaching her eyes when Monty began spilling tea about his farm. Confirming all the rumors hunters were gossiping about at the bar. And there it was, again, the whole being a good monster thing Metzli drilled into her skull. Monty talked about people having nowhere to go and no one to turn to, so of course he stepped in to help rehabilitate zombies. Was he making sure everybody was living by his codes too? And actually, she had no clue what Monty’s codes were. He could be feeding on humans despite his sunny disposition. She knew something about being two-faced! And even if he did follow a similar mentality as Metzli, was he making sure all these zombies were playing nice too? 

Jade hummed, tilting her head in consideration,  watching him get Habanero ready and then move on to Manzanita. It would be weirder if she didn’t bring up the undead situation of it all, right? She let out a chuckle, pacing toward Monty. She still wanted to give friendly, not predator vibes. “That’s so cute, found family is like… a goated trope,” she pursed her lips, waiting for Monty to look at her before continuing. Her gaze narrowed, piercing through brown eyes. “I heard the craziest rumor, the other day…” she huffed a laugh, shaking her head as she did a quick mental inventory of every weapon she was carrying. She cared the most about where exactly her holster was attached to her belt. She couldn’t fumble. “I bet you’ve heard it too! This town I swear. What are you planning on doing about the whole ‘this farm is full of zombies’ stuff? It popped up on… TikTok! You’re gonna need like, a strong PR. My advice? You make fun of it. In on the joke and all,” and actually, depending on his answer, maybe the stables were already the perfect scenario to pull the trigger. Metaphorically and literally. Her problem with Metzli had been that she’d extended her monologue for too many pages, allowing for doubt to creep in. See she learned!

—

There it was again. A question Monty didn't expect on a subject he was loath to discuss with others. Not until he knew he could trust them. And as much as he liked Jade, how much could he trust her? How much did he know her?

The cowboy swallowed his fear and kept his gaze steady and locked with hers, manifesting a somewhat bemused expression and letting it slip over his soft features. “Oh… is that what they are calling migrant workers these days?” So there was a rumor. Whether or not it meant anything to Jade personally, there was a rumor. This was bad, very bad. He itched to pull out his phone and text Kaden at once, but he couldn't. It might look suspicious, and he was still on the fence of whether or not he could trust Jade. “Well, I do not think such claims will mean much in the face of the truth,” he answered coolly, mustering every ounce of his former bravery to keep him from showing his anxiety. He reached for the man he’d been before he’d died. The kind of man that would throw himself on the blade to protect those he cared about. Daisy was in his thoughts as he finished saddling up Manzanita. Beth, too. Denver, Dallas, Ford, and all the rest were all he could think about as he turned again to Jade, reins in hand. “Shall we ride?”

He chose not to bring the subject up again, waiting to see if she would. There was no point in it if she thought it was a ridiculous claim, and if she didn’t think it was absurd, time would reveal her intentions. That was part of the reason why he’d decided to take them on a ride away from the farm, rather than around its perimeter. If this turned bad, he didn’t want his people to be in danger. She might just be asking because she, like the rest of them, was dead. Maybe she was a different kind of dead, like Ariadne was, or something else entirely. Inhuman and seeking company of those like her. Or, the more worrying scenario, she cared about the liveliness of the farm’s inhabitants because she saw them as something to be gotten rid of. Whichever way it went, he didn’t see a benefit to staying on the farm. 

He would not let his wariness show, riding confidently alongside her, and even pulling ahead now and then when the path narrowed. If he still had a heartbeat, it would have been as quick and fluttering as a jackrabbit’s as he tried to discern the nature of this visit. It was sudden, that was certain, and seemed to lack much purpose other than asking after kittens that didn’t exist. That felt a flimsy excuse, but then Monty wondered if he wasn’t just being paranoid. Friends did just drop in sometimes, didn’t they? Just to say hello? Yes, there was nothing especially strange about that, he assured himself. All the same, he kept a close eye on her as they rode, glad that the small talk had not yet turned back to the farm hands.

—

Monty played a good card, Jade had to hand it to him. Not a card that would stop her from doing what she had to do, mind you (no more Metzlis for her!), but… she could recognize the game. She could acknowledge a decent attempt at switching narratives. Her lips twitched, sharing a knowing look. There was no reason to goad him further, actually, she got the reaction she wanted. “Uh-huh, so awful, right? Kids on TikTok, they just have too much free time,” almost as much time as the people scrolling down for hours did. (She’d know). “We shall!” She changed subjects, grabbing the reins offered to her, and following Monty outside the barn. (The mounting took three tries, but if no one was there to see it, did it count?).  

Jade had questions about his past, obviously. When didn’t she? Had Monty been a target B.M (Before Metzli), she would’ve wanted to hear him out, a lot of undead just needed that. He must’ve suffered horrors post-transformation, no doubt about it. He must’ve had tales about losing control and harming others. Killing, too. That was a given. Becoming undead was a curse she wouldn’t wish it on her worst enemy (the country of Ireland). And Jade would’ve found ways to reassure him, to look at him with compassion, a promise ready on her lips: She’d fix him. (Cause everyone wanted that, right?). But after Metzli, she promised herself she’d be careful with her sympathy. Maybe it had always been a mistake to approach it like that. As a kindness. Which, it still was, ending an undead’s suffering always was, but it didn’t need to be explained every time. And actually, yup! It was super dumb to feel like she had to justify herself, as if there was anything wrong with carrying her duty. She couldn’t expect every undead to get it, her purpose. Her decisions had to be sharper. So they would be (Ruby would be proud of her display of pragmatism).  

There was somebody else in her mind though. Her heart, really (always). Someone who would’ve questioned her intentions, her need to go after someone who appeared innocent in every sense (as if there was innocence in a man turned monster, turned killer, stripped from humanity). But that person wasn’t here, and Jade didn’t have to answer to her. She was all the way in Ireland, they couldn’t make each other girl failures anymore! Wasn’t that what they wanted? N— Yup. Yup! She was doing the right thing. She was. Protecting Wicked’s Rest humans from this zombie farm. Stopping this from becoming a horde out of control. “You should totally tell me more about Habanero,” Jade cut off her thoughts before they escalated into something that would have her making stupid decisions. Stupid decisions were reserved for her personal life only, not her job. (Which was the best job in the world! Had she mentioned that lately?). 

Monty took the bait, but Jade wasn’t really listening. Her right hand held onto Manzanita’s reins, while her left dug inside the coat, taking advantage of the small distance Monty and Habanero had created by walking a few feet ahead. She let out some excited hums, encouraging him to keep going, while she took out the gun from the holster and released the safety button. She wasn’t too comfortable with the weight in her hands, way more used to her crossbow, or her knives. But carrying a crossbow into the farm would’ve raised more eyebrows and turned more heads than needed. And when was hunting ever about comfort?

The window of distraction would never be long enough. A second. Two tops, before Monty sensed abnormal movement or checked on her. So Jade lifted her arm, set her sight, right in the middle of Monty’s skull and squeezed the trigger with no preamble. The way she should’ve done with Metzli. No dilly-dallying. Boom. Done. The thunder sent birds flying and… She wasn’t counting on Manzanita to try and save her owner. The horse reeled, sending Jade backward, and throwing her aim off. The bullet flew across the air, missing the target, but scraping Monty’s scalp. Jade tried to get the horse to chill out, but when she realized she wouldn’t, she decided to fire, anyway. It wasn’t about aiming now, she just needed Monty to lose his balance.  

— 

Click. 

So he’d been right to be afraid. Damnit. He didn’t have time to think about these things between the sound of the safety being released, Manzanita neighing angrily, and the deafening crack of the pistol as it fired. His hat went flying though he barely felt the sting of the wound. The boom echoed through the trees, ricocheting off their trunks and frightening the animals they rode who were now uncertain where it was coming from. Habanero, at least, had more experience around firearms, and did not try to buck Monty, but instead stamped his feet and started to turn around with his ears pinned flat against his head. 

As Jade came into view, Monty felt his fear turn into something else. That person he’d been trying to reconnect with before, the person he was when life was harder and demanded more of him in order to survive was the one who stared her down now. He drew his own gun, a revolver that had served him well for decades, but found himself staring down the muzzle of her pistol as she went to fire again. Manzanita was busy trying to free herself of her burden, which made Monty a harder target to hit… but it made Jade a harder target, too. He was careful, reflexively ducking as she fired off another shot, taking aim as he straightened up again but hesitating to shoot for fear of hurting Manzanita. Still, she was just going to keep shooting at him until she succeeded in her goal, so he had to do something. He shouted a command to Habanero, something in Spanish that rolled quickly off his tongue, and the horse ducked his head. Monty fired his weapon, hitting the woman in the shoulder.

He holstered his revolver and dismounted like it was nothing, racing over to Manzanita and grabbing Jade by the waist, ripping her out of the saddle and throwing her to the ground. As he dropped down on top of her to try and wrestle the firearm from her hands, he yelled another command at his horses. Habanero reared and then bolted, nudging past Manzanita on the way and urging her to follow. Both equines sprinted into the trees and away from danger, and Monty dug the thumb of his left hand into her right shoulder, into the bleeding gunshot wound, his right hand clasped over hers that held the gun, keeping her finger away from the trigger. 

“What are you doing?!” he shouted, though he obviously knew the answer. Having the why wouldn’t make much of a difference, but he felt compelled to ask all the same. Dark blood dripped from the graze on his scalp, running through his long hair and down his face, unnoticed by the zombie. 

—

Jade could’ve done better. Nuh-uh. Should’ve. Even before Monty’s horse messed up her shot. She was immediately surrounded by giant ghosts, ghosts she loved, sure, but ghosts who were only summoned to berate her for how she did her job. If she had aimed for Habanero… put a bullet through his leg. She could’ve, should’ve been more cold-blooded. But her heart couldn’t even entertain the idea. No harming the living, she was especially stubborn about that one. She would not join the ranks of all those “does the horse die” lists. The animal had no blame for what his owner did to sustain his lifestyle. 

That was where she knew, she would’ve disappointed her older siblings. That’s how Jade knew she still wasn’t there, at their level. That she wasn’t at the point where she could skew the lines of her conscience if it meant securing the kill. But she would be. She would be. And taking Monty out was a good way of showing it. How committed she was. Despite her numerous missteps, one thing remained constant: She was above the moral conflicts that plagued every other hunter in Wicked’s Rest. She was a slayer. She would slay. (Except… forget about Metzli).  

If anything, she should be grateful to Monty for getting in the way of her highly anticipated, one season in the making, mental breakdown. He was so quick drawing his gun, so sharp on top of the horse. Almost like, he had been a real cowboy and not just part of his gay identity. Her hat flew off her head when Manzanita bucked and thrashed to get rid of her. Joke was on the horse, cause Jade was an expert mechanic bull rider so this was like, a regular Saturday night. (And sure, her recent stab wound was politely asking she’d stop showing off). She wasn’t even sure why she was still trying to stay up on the horse, if not to display core skills that served no one these days (Regan’s loss). Cause the more she emptied her gun with shots that barely grazed him, the more she realized she was wasting time. And she was being ridiculed for the one thing she did know how to do expertly. (She did not practice shooting for two decades for a sweet horse with a gorgeous mane to put her on blast).

Speaking of blast: She heard it. Saw the muzzle on Monty’s revolver flash. Then a precise bullet punched through her right shoulder, exiting the other side. 

It burned. (Duh!) It burned so freaking bad that for five long seconds, Jade had no jokes to crack. Partly shook, partly curious, (partly stupid), she couldn’t help but look down. These types of wounds were not common in her line of work. It was red, her flesh torn with like, a tiny hole. Oh, that did make her a little queasy, actually. Monty became blurry too, from the tears stinging her eyes, so it was kinda nice he seemed to be approaching.

Until she was slammed to the ground with a loud thud. Geez. She wasn’t gonna pretend it wasn’t a little bit hot? The skill, obviously. She appreciated skill in all sorts of creatures. Equally as hot but nowhere near as fun? The sharp, shooting pain all through her limb and chest as a mean thumb jabbed into her shoulder, blood gushing out of the wound. Her chest heaved, a scream threatening to rip her throat, but she contained it through gritted teeth. There was no time for the haze of pain or nausea. Adrenaline was kicking in. She tried to free her left hand, while her right hand tried to twist Monty’s wrist. The problem was, her fingers were not in the mood to obey, so it just felt like she was pawing at him. (She didn’t have it in her to make a joke about how her fingers always worked, but it was there, in spirit).

Oh no. Monty wanted to talk. While they both exerted over her gun? Jade was a multitasker, sure. But not to the point of miracles. And again, had this happened before she would’ve been so disappointed Monty couldn’t see why this had to be done. She would’ve made sure the math was mathing for him too. Screw that. “What does it look… like I’m doing? Taking out… the leader of Zombie Farm. There’s already a game about that, we don’t need the live-action!” dead-action? Her upper body was locked while they battled it out, but her legs still worked, kneeing Monty in the abdomen. One millisecond to ease his grip on her. She twisted (or well, whatever her fingers did) Monty’s wrist and bent her hand just enough for the gun to aim at his face. She squeezed the trigger tasting victory, and… Nothing. She was empty, and she was too tied down by Monty regaining control to reach inside her coat for another magazine. Oh boy.

—

As expected, he knew the answer. Of course, what else could it be? Whether or not the rumor was true, Jade was a slayer. Monty wondered why she’d held onto it before, why she’d accepted the kitten from him and pretended that they were friends when her ultimate goal was to kill him. Maybe this was what he deserved for trusting outsiders. Maybe he should’ve been more careful… or maybe she just needed to be more dead. 

Wincing slightly at the kick to his gut, his grip on her wrist failed just enough for her to make use of it. She pointed the gun at his head, but he didn’t flinch. She pulled the trigger and nothing happened. “You should learn to count your shots,” he snarled, his tone carrying a cold viciousness that he hadn’t heard come from himself since before he died. “You know the scary thing about fighting zombies like this? The more you hurt us, the stronger we get. The harder to kill. You should never take a zombie in hand-to-hand. Never miss that first shot.” He headbutted her then, not hard enough to knock her out, but enough to daze her for a moment so he could get the gun away from her and securely in the waist of his jeans. He was giving her a quick pat down as she started to come back out of it, tossing aside whatever weapons of hers he could get his hands on.

“I should kill you,” he said once her eyes had focused on him again. He had his revolver out and pointed right in her face just as she’d done to him. Her arms were now pinned by his knees as he straddled her torso, staring down at her with a dark, uncaring gaze. “But then I would just be proving your point, wouldn’t I?” He seemed to consider the pros and cons of this for a moment, cocking his head to the side. His face was changed, and it harbored no fear. She couldn’t kill him, he knew that. She could try, and in the process she might turn him feral, but then he would be nearly unstoppable. He would devour her, come back to himself, and the problem would be solved. Or he could kill her here, now. It was self defense. 

He’d been here before, of course. Without the near invincibility that being undead offered, he’d held a gun to a man’s head just like this. He was young, hardly done being a child, and this was the first time he’d had to do it himself. He was usually the decoy, or the sneak thief, but never the killer. Until that day, until things went wrong and he was the only one who had a clear shot. Still he hadn’t taken it, still he’d decided to tackle the man to the ground instead, where they’d struggled in the dust for some seconds before Monty came out on top, frantic and gasping for breath. “Shoot him!” one of his companions had cried out. Monty had faltered, the hand that held his revolver trembling like a leaf in the wind. “You fucking kill him, boy!” Hector’s voice had rang out above the rest, and it was like a sleeper command. Monty had pulled the trigger without hesitation then, blinking in surprise as blood splattered up his front and onto his face. 

He pressed the muzzle beneath Jade’s chin, waiting to see if he’d hear that command again. “If I let you go, I get the feeling you will be back. Is that true?” Hector spoke in a voice only he could hear, and Monty could feel the weight of the hand on his shoulder.

If you want something to make it worth the trouble… tie her up to the horse n’ let him drag her to death. You remember when we did that to that deputy? Bastard was paste on the road by the end of it. 

He remembered. He had called on that version of himself for bravery and strength, but now it had pivoted to violence and cruelty. To survival. 

—

See this was why Jade preferred her crossbow. Or even the classic bow and arrow, (and nope, not just cause she’d gone through a Katniss Everdeen phase). This is what she got for trying to diversify. Ugh. A gun was nowhere near as sexy either. So call it a temporary lapse of judgment, always so rare for her. Monty snarled on top, his face contorting in the monstrous viciousness of his kind. The type of viciousness innocents must’ve seen right before he made a meal out of them. it was kind of him to supply some lore, albeit pointless, cause she already knew that. But it was rude not to reply to him, so she tried, through strained breaths. “Oh yuh— up, that’s like… chapter 3, nuh uh! Maybe 4 of The Book of Unlife, they even… made a movie.” That was why she’d try putting a bullet through his skull while he was at a safe distance, and she would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for Manzanita! “This crash course is fun though, I do… learn… getting my hands dirty. Should we go… to shooting practice too?” No answer, except… Monty had a very strange way of booping her nose. Ow. (So… was that a yes?) 

Nope. Jade felt a little lightheaded, her forehead buzzing from the headbutt. And oh, crap… he had her gun. And a few of her knives. She could forgive him for shooting her, but she did not like him patting her down. It was the only time she showed her discontent with a grunt, keenly aware of the ring in her left hand. It almost pulsed. The ring in her hand which led to the woman who gave it to her, whose hands were the only ones Jade wanted. Speaking of… If, (hypothetically) she were to kick it, would she sense it? She hated that. Jade’s bones were too fresh still for her to come to collect. She needed them to be a little more decomposed. Perfect for her lady. Besides, she had promised to be careful. And right, yikes, there were weapons being pulled from inside her coat, focus, but…

Monty should kill her, was his idea. Jade wasn’t too big of a fan. “I dunno, should you? Cause... that’s definitely not a good look,” he seemed to agree with her in the next beat. Perfect! And talking was really helpful in getting her mind off the pain, actually. Yapping was always the solution, it seemed. But then Monty had the gall to remind her just how much her nerve endings were screaming, once his knees pinned her arms. Feeling left out, the stab wound in her belly also protested. Jade chewed her bottom lip, keeping a scream at bay.  

Monty drew his revolver again. 

The muzzle was still hot from his last shot. Not enough to burn into her skin as he pressed against it, but enough for Jade to let out a small sound of discomfort. But like, maybe that was the fact that she was held at gunpoint, not so much the temperature of said weapon. Could she breathe a little, please? Her chest shook with a labored breath. “I mean, I could lie. I’m good at that. But honesty is the best policy and all so uh, yup! We’re definitely getting a sequel, unless we flop at the office and the studio cancels us. But like, I’d carry a sword or something next time… maybe… my own horse.” Someone, far, far away (where Boneios were a thing) would’ve probably wished she had more self-preservation instincts. Her siblings were rolling their eyes, for sure. She’d seen that look too many times. Most recently when her confidence got that old fart released into the world. Jade stared at Monty with an insolent look. A lot of stuff seemed to be going through his head too, so maybe there was a chance to prey on that. “For what it’s worth it’s not personal. I can’t let fondness get in the way of my duty,” and there was warmth, still lingering. But it was so easy to make the distinction when she weighed the pros and cons. It would always be a no-brainer. Unlike Monty, by the looks of it. “You’re doing dangerous stuff around here. One of your pals loses control… and innocent people pay the price.” That was it, that was all the context he got. It wasn’t like context had helped Metzli.    

She wasn’t gonna die today, that was what she wanted to focus on. Jade lifted a challenging eyebrow at him. Even that hurt like she was being zapped, actually. “Come on. Prove it to yourself, you’re a good monster,” cause apparently everybody was a good monster in this town. Not one shady vampire or savage zombie. Nope. They all stayed home to write poetry or knit or whatever it was they were doing when somehow, humans turned up dead, their blood slurped or their insides munched. Undead here were built different, which was totally suspicious considering the sheer volume of them frolicking around. “You’d let a baby without her mother? Twins! Without their mother. They have no one else,” it was fleeting, but genuine concern passed through her features as she considered leaving Lu and Mel orphaned. She just couldn’t. She lifted her knee again, hitting Monty in the back of his thigh.

—

She should have lied, probably. Not that Monty would have believed her, but still. “This is why I keep my pals fed and happy,” he retorted, looking less upset and more curious. “That’s what we do here—that’s what the livestock is for. Do you really think a bunch of zombies would be capable of running a farm if they were on the edge of starvation? No… we get by on the brains of the cows, the sheep, the goats.” And whatever random human chose to attack one of them and die as a consequence… “People like you, people that we have to kill in self defense… your organs bolster our diet. We ration your pieces to give the animal viscera that extra kick that it needs to keep us going. We have a system, and we do not harm anyone who does not try to harm us first.” He frowned. “When they do try to harm us, they are creating the danger. You shooting me, you created the danger today.” And the way he was feeling now, like the lock had been broken off of a cage door, she may have created the danger that would exist for quite some time. 

Kill her. She’s a threat to you n’ yours. Kill her, it’s what we would have done, Hector said. Monty drew in a long breath, lifting his chin as he still stared down at Jade. “They will find another family,” he said grimly. He had, after all. Everyone he knew had, in some way or another. It was just a fact of life. And death.

Kill her.

His finger twitched on the trigger, squeezing but not hard enough to fire. He could feel Hector’s presence behind him, looming over him and bidding he do what was necessary. But there was something else, some small voice that begged him to stop. Begged him to consider the consequences. Emilio would be given reason enough to come for him, he figured. The people that had attacked the farm not that long ago would hear about if they were in fact connected to the hunter bar, and if Jade was not lying about the rumor. She would become a martyr to some he could guess, and likely many more that he could not. After all, hunters still loved. Kaden… 

Kaden would think less of him, wouldn’t he? He might be alarmed by this behavior, it might push him away… he couldn’t live with that.

“I am a good monster,” the cowboy answered before pulling his arm back, flipping the revolver around in his hand, and whipping her in the head with the grip. Her eyes rolled in her head for a second before they closed, and he was quick to whistle for his horse’s return. Habanero came trotting back up to the scene with some trepidation, but moved to Monty’s side with another coax. Monty grabbed the rope that was attached to his saddle and rolled Jade over, tying her hands and feet behind her back. Her knives and gun he stashed in his saddlebag, then hoisted her up from the ground and draped her over Habanero’s hindquarters. Manzanita came quietly over to them and Monty made sure to give her a treat before climbing onto Habanero’s back and urging the mare to follow with a click of his tongue. 

They’d been riding for about ten minutes or so when the slayer came around, making a sound behind Monty. “Do not throw yourself from the horse,” he warned, not looking back. “Your ankles are bound and you will not get far.” Around them, the trees were starting to thin out and the vast fields were getting smaller as they got closer to town. Monty turned them into the ditch, figuring this was close enough. He stopped, dismounted, and pulled Jade from Nero’s back, throwing her over his shoulder. A few more paces down into the ditch and up the other side, and he set her down roughly against a fence post. Removing his own hunting knife from its sheath on his belt, the zombie paused, staring at her. 

“I am not letting you go because I believe you will change, but I will be prepared for you next time. And there will be no second chances.” With that, he roughly sliced his blade through the ropes at her feet so she could walk herself back to town, but her hands stayed secured behind her. “I’d wish you luck, but… I think I’d rather you die on the road.”

#. thread ; #. with ; jade bloodworth #. nothing personal ; #gun use tw

[loftylockjaw]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: The woods PARTIES: Wyatt (@loftylockjaw) & Mateo (@fearhims3lf) SUMMARY: Just some dudes bonding over explosions. CONTENT WARNINGS: Gun use

—

BANG!

The can used as a makeshift target several yards away flung with the force of a bullet. It was the farthest distance Mateo had been able to accurately shoot with his pistol. He closed one eye and inhaled, shooting three more times as he exhaled. Two out of the three cans flew away, and he sucked his teeth with disappointment. If he couldn’t hit still targets, how’d he expect to hit ones that were moving? Rolling his eyes at himself, Mateo mentally reassured himself that he was fine. 

There were several dozen pieces of metal on the ground proving that a few missed shots were inevitable. He held onto that, removing the clip from the gun and checking the chamber to ensure no bullet was left inside. When Mateo was satisfied with his gun cleanup, he picked up his pack and began his march to pick up his trash. An asshole he may be, but he did not litter. He wouldn’t be part of that particular problem, and just as he was halfway through with the errand, there was the telltale sound of footsteps nearby. Only, they weren’t just footsteps. Each thump crunched several branches at once, as if the size of its foot was an indication of the source being a creature rather than a person. 

“Come on.” Mateo groaned, irritated at himself for thinking that any day in that stupid town could be normal. With a huff, he reclipped his gun and pulled the chamber back, readying himself to shoot, but when he finally saw what was coming, he shrank with widened eyes.

“I’m gonna need bigger bullets.”

—

Most people heard gunshots in the woods and made sure to stay well away, especially if they didn’t happen to be in the midst of a hunting reserve. Despite this, Wyatt strode boldly forward, thinking about a meal rather than the stupidity of this particular decision. The sound was distant for now, and before it became a danger to his comparatively fragile human body, the lamia stripped out of his clothes and left them hanging over the branches of a nearby tree—it was a spot he often chose if he didn’t happen to have his modified backpack with him. The shift was swift and relatively painless, unlike that of lesser shifters, his crocodilian body bursting forth from the smaller human one that contained it with decades of practiced ease. The massive lamia rocked forward onto all fours and began his lumbering march through the trees, closer and closer to the sound. It stopped eventually, but he’d already locked on to his target. Golden eyes watched for a moment from the trees before he moved to meet the person in the small clearing, long alligator jaws parting in what you could call a toothy grin. 

“Or maybe just save me trouble and don’t waste them on me at all?” he suggested languidly, rising up onto his hind feet. It was only then, once he was done talking and moving about that he noticed that the thump of his footsteps hadn’t stopped… even though he had? What the—

Another creature, one he thought for a moment might be another fucking lamia, came bursting out of the underbrush. “Whoa, hey! I got dibs here, pal!” Wyatt snarled, reeling back and out of the way of the other reptilian beast as it charged at them. Upon closer inspection, he was pretty sure it wasn’t a lamia, but he didn’t know what the fuck it was either. “Okay, new plan—shoot that guy.” It was turning on them again, beady gaze dancing between the stranger and Wyatt, sizing them up. 

—

A voice called out to him, unfamiliar yet demanding. As if the stranger had known Mateo far longer than a brief moment in passing, a flash that could hardly be registered as any real greeting. Especially when a reptilian creature was telling him to shoot another reptilian creature. The other one was just a hell of a lot bigger, and charging way too fast for Mateo to get a proper shot on it. 

“Fuck!” A large tail rammed into the mare, sending him careening away from the rest of his bullets. He maintained a firm grip all the way until his body  stopped rolling at the treeline. Mateo groaned, barely managing to push himself out of the way when the beast tried to crash into him again. It broke several branches and left jagged trails from its claws in the earth. Mateo knew he’d be a goner if any of its grubby talons latched onto him, so he aimed and pulled the trigger four times in quick succession. Each landed, but the caliber was nowhere near big enough to cause actual damage. 

Of fucking course!

Mateo rushed to his feet and booked it toward the talking alligator thing. He figured that his chances with that thing were better than with the nonverbal asshole struggling to find his way out of the shrub. It helped a lot that the reptile dude was much closer to Mateo’s size. The caliber he had in his gun would definitely do a bigger number on it. “Okay,” He skidded to a halt just a few feet away from the creature. Distance was his best friend at that point. “I shot the thing, and it did nothing. What the fuck do I do now? You should probably, I don’t know, go flirt with it or something.” Mateo shrugged, “You two seem to have a lot in common.”

—

Wyatt narrowed his yellow eyes at the man, taking offense at the comment. Unless that thing was a lamia, it's be a hard fucking pass. “Ain't in the habit of boinking the wildlife, mon frère,” he hissed. He was annoyed that his hunt had been interrupted, that what was supposed to be his dinner was now something he was going to be inadvertently protecting because he had to fight off this damn… whatever it was. 

Still, maybe it was a lamia, and just had yet to play its hand. Wyatt had done the same, after all, especially in the pursuit of food. Hoping that this was the case and that they could at least agree to split the presumed human in half, Wyatt rounded on the creature and charged at it. It mirrored his attack, leaping forward, mouth splayed open in one hell of a weird display. Wyatt tucked his maw down against his chest and headbutted the creature full-bore, knocking it to the ground and allowing him the opportunity to pin it there, using his weight to hold it in place. 

“Hey! Hey, look at me when I'm fuckin’ talkin’ to you, godzilla!” He was struggling to meet the creature's gaze, but when their eyes finally locked, he saw no reflection of higher thought. Just hunger. Ugh. 

His next bite was too slow, and the scaled creature threw Wyatt off of it, sending him skidding through the underbrush in much the same way that the human had. “Okay, now it's personal,” he grumbled as he picked himself up out of the dirt, rolling a shoulder that had clipped a tree trunk as he was thrown. His gaze flicked to the other target of this thing’s ire, teeth bared in a grimace. “Don't suppose you got any tricks up those sleeves of yours?” It wasn't fair that he always had to do all the work.

—

As much as Mateo enjoyed the Godzilla movies and all the creature features where gigantic monsters fought each other, it was a completely different scenario in person. Not to mention, whoever the reptile dude was, he was certainly a lot smaller than the thing he was attempting to fight. He was practically thrown away, like he was just some rag doll with no real weight or threat. The urge to disappear was high. 

Mateo grumbled, looking up at the sun and wishing it were the moon instead. At least that way he could go home for a much bigger gun. Maybe get that bazooka he’s been wanting to use. Or maybe just disappear outright and leave whatever the man was to deal with what wanted to eat him. For all he knew, toothy and toothier both wanted to chomp on him. With a groan, he rubbed at his face, discontent with the problem in front of him and he ran over to take aim. Taking the thing’s sight might give them an edge, right? That was Mateo’s hope. 

BANG!

A shot rang out, and a roar followed soon after while blood coated over the thing’s eye. He shot once more, missing the other eye complete due to the monster’s thrashing and crying. Mateo sucked his teeth, holstering his gun and patting his pockets for something special. Finding it, he smiled. No, he grinned, whistling to get the friendlier creature’s attention. 

“Hey, how do you feel about explosions?”

—

Wyatt was content to watch for a moment as the stranger took aim again and shot the fucking beast right in its stupid fucking eye, letting out an approving hiss and standing a bit straighter, with renewed confidence. 

Explosions? “Uh, I feel fuckin’ great about explosions, mon frère. Why, you got some dynamite on that skinny ass of yours?” He sounded excited, even as the creature charged at him again. The creature, not knowing where the pain in its head had come from but hearing the alligator making a loud racket, was decidedly less excited by this news, but also probably didn’t understand what was being said. 

This time, Wyatt was ready. This time he didn’t have to worry about sparing a fellow lamia an embarrassing defeat, and so did not hold back. All the fights he’d been in, all sixteen years of battle after battle after battle, earning himself one more day of life on this good, green earth, gave him plenty of edge over whatever this monster was. If he could not beat it by size alone (which was shocking, honestly: Wyatt was used to being the biggest bitch in the ring), then the rest of his skills would have to do. He leaped up into the air as it came for him, coming back down atop its back and crunching those powerful jaws down around its neck. He bit as hard as he could, wrenching from side to side, trying to crack a vertebrae or two. For a moment, his gaze met that of the (presumed) human. Throw it, he encouraged with a pointed stare, confident in his ability to get away before whatever it was blasted them both to kingdom come.

—

Man, if it wouldn’t expose a bigger can of worms, Mateo would’ve recorded the amazing fight. How often did people get to see that kind of action, real and up close? It would kill on YouTube, go viral even. TikTok would have a fucking field day with the airtime the smaller reptile had, and people would die from the beautiful crunching asmr. Ugh. Having witnessed the whole thing himself would have to do instead, but first Mateo had a bone to pick. 

“My ass ain’t skinny. It’s proportionate and round.” He huffed, mostly humorously. Time was of the essence, but having been an asshole his entire life, it was easy for Mateo to prolong his duty a little longer. If not for the sake of getting an unnecessary compliment out of the reptilian jowls sinking into dollar store Godzilla. Mateo didn’t even care if he understood what the dude’s stare meant. He went ahead and pulled out two grenades from his vest pocket, but did nothing more than hold them in the air teasingly.

“Say my ass is round, and then I’ll throw them.” He clicked his tongue. “And make sure his mouth is open for at least one of ‘em.”

—

Rolling his yellow eyes, Wyatt bit down harder on the beast’s neck, feeling a satisfying crack beneath his teeth. It wasn’t enough on its own, of course—might not have even been a break. Maybe he was just giving this fuckin’ thing its first chiropractic adjustment. 

“Kinna go’ aye ‘outh hull!” he shouted back, around the mouthful of… whatever this was. But the request tickled Wyatt’s peculiar sense of humor. Fishing for compliments during a dangerous situation? It’s something he would do, too. So he’d play along. His clawed back feet hooked into the creature on either side of its neck, near the underside where the tissue was softer, and clawed hands reached forward for its head. He had to let go with his own jaws to reach, grabbing at the thing’s snout and pulling back as hard as he could. It reared onto its hind legs, mouth agape, hissing and spitting and trying to shake the shifter off of its back. 

“Your ass is great!” Wyatt bellowed with a laugh. “Perfect and perky! Now throw the fuckin’ grenade!” He waited until he saw it soaring through the air at them, and praying that this man had good aim, watched it disappear behind the monster’s head as he held its mouth open. Hoping that it’d swallowed it but knowing he was too short on time to check, Wyatt released his grip and scrambled to the ground, bounding away from the thing as it took a brief moment to recover from whatever the hell had just happened to it. 

—

Mateo grinned, satisfaction dripping from his laughter as he released the safety and the clip on one of the grenades. He chucked it as hard as he could, excited at how agape the monster’s mouth was. It was wide enough to accept another treat, so without another moment of hesitation, Mateo chucked the other one with a cheery sound of exertion. The explosives landed in the creature’s mouth, one after the other, and guessing how big the chunks might be once they detonated, the mare quickly took a few steps back. 

“Get the hell outta there!” He cupped his hands around his mouth, “You got like five seconds!” Which actually wasn’t a lot of time. Forget what people said about time slowing down when shit got real. Five seconds were just a tiny instant that could make or break any time-constrained task. More than once, Mateo had witnessed timing go wrong. Luckily for both of them though, everything went according to plan. 

BOOM! And then another BOOM! shortly after. All that was left was a carcass with a blown off head. Well, among other things. 

Flesh and blood tore through the air, and Mateo couldn’t help falling over in a heap of laughter. Not even the ringing filling his ears couldn’t ruin the fun he was having. No matter how irritating it was. “You know,” He arched a brow, propping himself up on the ground by his elbows, “Wasn’t expecting to dp a beasty today, but that’s probably the most metal thing I’ll do for a while.”

—

Wyatt gave a great whoop! as the creature exploded, sending its bits flying all around the little clearing in the woods. For a moment, he forgot how tired he was, how despondent and helpless he felt in the face of the shit he’d done wrong and fucked up and the possibility that none of this was real. 

If this was a dream, at least it was a fuckin’ sick one. 

“I ain’t never blown somethin’ up before!” he hollered with a laugh. “Usually more about rippin’ it to shreds with my teeth! That was awesome.” He gave the stranger another look, deciding that he didn’t need to eat this one after all. The blown up fucker would do just fine. “And lookie there! You cut up n’ seared my dinner for me. Mighty kind.” Standing to his full height, he stomped over to the man, holding out a massive, clawed hand that would take two of the stranger’s to grip. “Wyatt,” he offered with a chuff. “Or Lockjaw, if you ever find yourself at the Pit and want a good show.” In spite of everything, he still loved what he did, still craved the thrill of the fight. “I was gonna eat you, but don’t see much point in it now.” It wasn’t a threat so much as a poorly thought out statement of fact. The lamia was very good at putting his own foot in his mouth. 

—

Holy shit. 

At Wyatt’s height, it took nearly bending backwards to keep eye contact with the guy. Mateo couldn’t help but scoff with disbelief, and it quickly rolled into laughter. “Well, I don’t think I would’ve tasted very good.” He took the giant’s scaley hand and curled his fingers into a fist, holding on for just an extra moment. “I’m what you call…undead. The ‘made out of nightmares’ kind.” With some focus, Mateo urged sleep to weigh on Wyatt, but he quickly retracted his hands before he could make the poor guy pass out on the ground. 

“But hey,” Reaching into the breast pocket of his vest, Mateo produced one more grenade. “As a thank you for not eating me, and because you popped your explosion cherry,” He opened Wyatt’s giant hand and placed the grenade in it, “Here’s something to remember me by.”

—

Made out of nightmares? What did that mean? He thought, of course, of his own issues with sleep, how plagued his dreams were by terrifying things that had no right terrorizing him the way they did… but maybe it was just an expression. Figure of speech. Undead could be scary, he guessed. Caleb certainly wasn’t, but Caleb probably wasn’t your average zombie… and who knew how many other kinds of undead people there were? He only knew about zombies and vampires, and was slow to assume that that was the whole of it. He was learning, impossible as that might sound, to never presume he had the whole picture in front of him. 

So yeah. Probably a figure of speech. Except he was suddenly feeling tired, very tired, and his eyes closed for the briefest of moments. Desperate as his body was for rest, he actually did nod off, just for a second, but it was long enough to send a spectral crow screeching right toward him. The beast gave a start, snapping awake again and shaking his head, trying to brush it off as he refocused himself on Mateo. Something was being pressed into his hand—another grenade. Despite the way his heart raced, the gator managed a thick laugh. “Most excellent,” he chuckled. “I’ll be sure to let you know what I use it for!”

#. thread ; #. with ; mateo lara #gun use tw #. bombing reptiles ;

[wickedsrest-rp]

Sludginators vs The Goo Goo Jerks | Group Thread

TIMING: Current PARTIES: Luci (@luci-in-the-stars), Cass (@magmahearts), Anita (@gossipsnake), Elijah SUMMARY: Luci thinks she might understand what the mineral abnormality is and be able to help stabilize it and stop the ooze from overtaking everything, and enlists Cass for her help with her rock and cave expertise. Anita is also curious about the Flat, and Elijah is out of mining work but determined to continue his official investigation into the Flat. They all converge upon the abnormality at the drilling site, and that’s when things go bad. Elijah and Anita end up getting a dose of behavior-altering goo in their attempts to thwart one another. They turn on Luci and Cass after realizing that the pair are a threat to the ooze, a fight ensues, but Luci’s magic does slowly begin to repair the cracks and call the ooze back beneath the mine, and lessens its influence over Anita and Elijah. Everyone ends up making it out of there alive. CONTENT WARNINGS: Gun use

Luci didn’t remember her dreams most of the time, but the ones that she often wrote down in a journal keeping what her psyche was thinking about. However for the last bit her dreams seemed - odd. They weren’t exactly nightmares but they caused the same racing heartbeat and painful jolt of awareness that they normally caused. She supposed that it would make sense as of late the mineral abnormality seemed to haunt everyone in the town. She was never special about that, but instead of being afraid she - studied it. Leaning closer to the dream crystals she seemed to be able to pluck them up, turning and twisting them like she couldn’t in real life for at least a bit before she was pulled away. It was odd and she should have told someone about it, but she didn’t just use the time to study. 

After all, it seemed to be wanting her to do something, an image she couldn’t get away with as she wrote everything diligently, her notebooks filling up until - suddenly she knew what it was. Reading it again she realized - something was wrong and she could fix it.  She actually could fix it. Whatever the dreams were - maybe her just studying the mineral abnormality and remembering or something more sinister- she understood it. Luci had to do something. 

So, pulling the notebook with her with supplies she would need she hatched an admittedly hasty plan.  Calling Cass - who she hoped wouldn’t let Milo know what was happening at least not yet and would at least hear her out on the mineral abnormality -  she had quietly left her temporary housing with her brother to go to the place she saw. The other had said she knew everything about rocks and geology and well she really needed to know if the circle would work before she tried anything. She also was scared, something she really didn’t want to admit but having someone who knew the caves would help. 

Shaking lightly Luci waited for Cass hoping that she was right. “Cass - is that you?” she whispered  to a noise wondering if she was going to have to go alone. 

There were few things Cass hated more than feeling helpless. She wasn’t supposed to. She was a superhero, after all, someone who existed to help other people, existed to make the world better for them. But she’d felt helpless so much lately, felt it like an infection creeping through her veins. That helplessness was a rot, climbing up every part of her and making her feel sick. And it was worse now. With the goo, with the creatures that had taken up residence in her cave, with the constant and terrible reminders that she couldn’t do anything to help anyone no matter how much she tried. She was feeling pretty down on herself lately. Like nothing she did would ever be enough, like it couldn’t be.

So Luci’s call felt like a lifeline. The excitement in her voice on the other end of the line, the confidence in her claim that she thought she might know some way to make things better. Cass wanted to believe it, so she did. She told herself that whatever Luci had, it was going to fix this. And she told herself that, if she helped, it would mean that she was fixing this, too. That she could still be a hero, even if she hadn’t felt much like one in a while now.

She felt Luci approach before she heard her, the familiar vibrations of her friend’s footsteps on the rocky ground a pleasant thrum across the oread’s skin. She took a few steps forward, moving to close the distance between them. “It’s me,” she whispered back. She didn’t know why they were whispering, but if Luci was going to do it then so was she. “I’m here. What can I do? What do you need?”

Minerals weren’t her area of expertise and Anita was never one to go out of her way to involve herself in things that she needn't be involved in. That was why she had largely been avoiding the abnormality and the abominations that had been emerging from its gaping cracks. Instead, her fascination rested with watching how others were responding to the crystalline chaos. The stories raced around town of people who became encased in sludge and those driven to their breaking point after coming into contact with thick oozing goo. 

Logic would tell people to steer clear of the inexplicable pits that were being created around town but humans rarely employed logic. There were people in the science department who had their theories about what was happening around town but it didn’t require a geology degree for Anita to know that this did not have a natural cause. 

Something had finally gotten to her - either the pull of curiosity or the alleged allure of the abnormality, Anita wasn’t quite sure - and she found herself standing at the opening of a cave with an aching desire to slither into it. Surely that would be alright, if she investigated in her true form. Without giving it further thought, Anita’s scales spread across her body with ease and her transformation completed seconds later with the thwip of her tail and a soft rattle. Her heightened senses quickly identified two soft voices in the distance. Interesting. Maybe that’s where she would start. 

The mine was now closed to workers, and Elijah found himself technically unemployed. It wasn't a big deal. He would surely manage to find work in the surrounding area, even if none would give him a ready-made excuse to keep his nose close to the mines. Henri, obviously, was not worried about these kinds of details, and had abandoned the overalls of the mining company for a more discreet outfit.

Whatever happened, he had no business being there, and it was better for him to reveal himself as a federal agent than to be arrested for entering the mine without authorization.

With a bag on his back filled with equipment and measuring tools, he set off, sinking into the bowels of the Earth. It had become a familiar landscape to him in recent months, and Henri could have done without a map to navigate the miles of galleries that crisscrossed the underground of Wicked's Rest. With a lamp screwed to his forehead, he moved forward, without turning around, without doubting, but paying a lot of attention to his surroundings.

The blackish molasses which oozed from the cracks left no chance for the unfortunate people who approached it, and Henri really did not want to turn himself into a guinea pig for his employers. His samples could wait. He was going to go to where the drilling had gone wrong, where everything had gone wrong.

But as his objective grew closer, the sound of unknown voices became more distinct, and the federal agent quickly reached for his lamp to extinguish it, now relying on the dim lights on the walls to guide him.

Henri had armed himself, just in case, but perhaps for now it would be better to stay back and observe what was happening.

There was another sound behind him as well. It looked like a kind of rattle. Unable to identify it, he decided to ignore it. Maybe it was a little slide, due to the damn viscosity.

Luci startled slightly seeing her friend, calming down after a second. Whatever fear though that was there in her didn’t last long as she grinned holding up her notebook for the other  to see. “Like I said on the phone I think I figured out what it’s made of - and if I’m right I can change at least some of it back to what it was. Well - I’m pretty sure I can. I did it in a dream - okay I should start over. I need help finding a specific area and I remembered that you said you were from around here. So I figured you might know where it is.” Turning the pages of her notebook she found the drawing. While her brother was more artistic - she’d always been pretty good at replicating things. Technical drawing was one of the skills every alchemist needed so, while all the people she drew looked - empty in the eyes - she was good at drawing things. Ripping out the page after a minute she gave it to Cass eyes, hopeful that her friend would know. 

“I need help finding this place. It would have been where they drilled into the mine. Do you know where that might be? There would have been a big hole with all those little crystals coming out. I think it’s not too far in, but I’d get lost. I also need to know for sure what the rock was before everything changed. I have some compositions down that I can change the crystals too - but I need help to get the right one to make sure the mine is stable. I think I can fix the hole at least and keep this part of the mine stable.” Luci rushed through hoping that Cass was following her admittedly rushed explanation as she flipped back through her notebook to the different rocks the mine could have been. She really only had one shot, whatever rock she changed it into to patch the hole would be the one that stayed unless another alchemist came along. While she was confident she could do it, she was pretty sure she only had enough material to do it once and most likely something would come from the mines to try and stop them. It wasn’t something she could put a word to, but the dreams made her feel that - something wanted her to do this and something else wanted her to leave. 

Cass told Milo once that human magic was confusing, and it was true. Fae magic was an innate thing. For most of the things it was used for, there was no thought involved. Her glamour, while it required concentration to keep it upright, was like a second skin, fitting onto her true form with ease. The binds she tied people up in had taken practice, but the rules were the same every time even if the details varied based on what the bound person said to get themselves into the situation. But human magic was different. It was messy. Milo’s magic looked nothing like Van’s, and while Cass hadn’t seen Luci’s in action, she’d wager that it was a thing all its own, too. Talk of dreams intrigued her, and she clung to the other girl’s every word as she spoke. How many movies had she seen that featured prophecies delivered in dreams? It was fascinating. So fascinating, in fact, that she almost missed that she was being asked a question. 

Leaning forward, Cass inspected the drawing on the spellcaster’s page. Excitement danced in her chest as a familiarity accompanied the strokes left by Luci’s pencil, and she nodded adamantly. “I know where that is!” She confirmed, leaning forward to take Luci’s hand gently. “I can take you there. Come on!” It was all the warning she gave before she was running, dragging Luci along behind her. Unknowingly running towards the lamia and the miner, unknowingly running towards trouble. Wasn’t that always how things went?

The voices grew louder, as if they had decided to make their way to her instead of making Anita seek them out. It was convenient because it allowed her to focus on the other thing that seemed out of place down there, the thermal outline of a man seemingly prepared for some sort of attack based on his stance. Had these people also been lured in by the abnormality or were they frequent travelers of these dark caverns? 

Without having any sort of plan in mind, Anita dropped her body to the ground in an effort to avoid detection and slithered along the ground to get closer towards the action. Maybe the female voices she heard were planning to meet up with the other figure. Or maybe the figure was lying in wait for them. As she was deciding what she might do in either scenario she heard the faint sound of rocks shifting and suddenly the wall beside her started to crack. It wasn’t just the thought of being crushed by rocks that she wanted to avoid, she also desperately wanted to avoid the thick oozing sludge that began pushing itself through the crack that was forming. 

Anita moved quickly to get away from the area but had forgotten about the other figure nearby and found herself running right into a man who looked quite surprised by her sudden appearance. 

If there was one dreary sound the miners had dreaded hearing these past few days, that was indeed the noise the rock made around them. Above their heads, under their feet, at their sides, the tubes dug by the drill sometimes produced disturbing noises, but from what he understood, most of the time, the engineer in charge of safety could define the cause and find a solution. Since the first incident, Erebus had experienced 5 different engineers. The latest had just resigned, and Elijah knew that the mine would have no choice but to wait for a hypothetical return to normal to resume its activity and hope to hire again.

The so-called miner, suddenly overwhelmed by the emotions of another, could not suppress a cry of horror when a gigantic snake appeared in front of him. He had always hated these creatures. It was difficult growing up in the Mojave and not having a certain suspicion of these reptiles. Henri had been bitten by one of these bastards as a child. None were that big, however, and if he hadn’t been witnessing weird shit over the course of the past couple of months, he would have thought he was hallucinating or dreaming. Wide eyes stared up at the slithering figure, and the sound of the beating of his heart reached Henri’s ears. 

Luci let Cass pull her hand in and with the other, excited that she did know what Luci was talking about. It wasn’t often that people got it on the first or even section try and for a moment she was just excitable. She was going to solve a problem again and the feeling of discovery was enough for her to ignore most of what was around her thinking about all the cool rocks the two were going to end up seeing in the mines.  She wanted to ask questions, see and prob Cass on her knowledge of the place - but she partially figured the two of them had time to do so. 

It wasn’t until she heard a scream Luci realized that they were still in Wicked’s Rest, and maybe they weren’t alone. “Oh - Cass. What was that?” She said carefully marking where the rocks and goo were wondering if someone else was here to try and help the mine.  Wondering if they should go and help them or to go further into the Earth. “Should we go check on them -” 

Someone screamed, and Cass faltered in her step. Her heart jumped to her throat, and she hated that. She wasn’t supposed to be afraid, wasn’t supposed to get nervous, wasn’t — She was a superhero. She was supposed to be a superhero. Superheroes didn’t run away from screams, they ran towards them. So, determination in her eyes even as her heart was pounding, the oread tightened her grip on Luci’s hand. 

“Someone’s in trouble,” she said, trying to focus on the vibrations. “We — We should definitely go check on them. And help them. Come on!” And then, she was dragging Luci towards the sound of the scream, shoving down her fear and anxiety. She’d prove herself, even if she had no idea who she was trying to prove herself to.

Anita knew that her presence struck fear in ordinary people. Usually she enjoyed moments like that, where she towered above people and her sheer act of being caused them to scream out in terror. This wasn’t one of those moments, it couldn’t be, with the thick stream of oozing sludge still coming towards them from the crack that had formed. The man was blocking her path out, though. “It’s not safe here. Move.” She commanded, hoping that he would either run away himself or at least move and let her pass. 

There were two other heat signatures that Anita caught out of the corner of her eye that were getting closer. Great, more people. Her tail was coiled tight near her body to ensure that no drops of the sludge got anywhere on her, but she couldn’t stay there for longer. “I don’t know what it is, but I don’t think we want this shit to catch up to us. And please don’t scream again… these caves are very echo-y.” Anita reached forward, intending to gently move the man out of the way so she could flee. 

Had the snake just spoken to him? The federal agent‘s face grew pale, and he took a step back, his hand going to rest on his service weapon. Eyes fixed on the gigantic reptile, he swallowed hard. He had to pull himself together. He had the right to be here. The government wanted him here. And… He felt the emotions of this snake. Yes, there was no doubt about it. This thing was no ordinary animal.

His eyes darted back and forth between the viscous liquid flowing from the wall and the snake. Both scared the hell out of him but one could argue that the reptile had the upper hand. Henri had developed a phobia about these a long time ago. If he couldn't usually cope with that animal with his gifts of empathy, this snake wasn't normal, and he told himself that it could surely convey his fear to the animal, amplify it, and force this dirty beast to run straight into the miasma of the earth. “I’m sorry,” letting go of his weapon, he put his hand forward. It was an appeasing looking gesture, but one that would only cause turmoil and anguish. 

Luci again let herself be dragged by Cass, relieved that she had made a decision and Luci didn’t have too. She was never really good at figuring out the best course of action at least when she didn’t have time to think. So she nodded the pace not hard for the former runner as they went towards the noise. 

The walls seemed to be oozing goo, something that she was careful to avoid as it got thicker. Something was wrong with the caves, and while the alchemist didn’t know exactly what it could do she was worried that the person who screamed got caught in it. “Hello? - Hey are you okay?”she managed to get out, “ There’s a lot of goo here and you need to get out.” She wasn’t exactly afraid, more so worried for the stranger. “Is that a - snake?” Luci asked, the question feeling a little absurd as they rounded the corner. 

Finally, finally, they got to the source of the scream. There was a man, standing near the goo and talking to — a giant snake? Cass glanced over to Luci to make sure she was seeing it, too. She didn’t think she was imagining it, didn’t think she was… that particular brand of ‘messed up,’ in spite of everything. Still, it was a relief to see Luci looking just as perplexed. A giant snake, for real. Okay. I can vibe with this. 

She nodded. “That’s totally a snake,” she confirmed. Taking a step towards the odd pair near the goo, she called out, “Is that your snake? You should, um, take them out of here. My friend is right, there’s too much goo here. One of you could get hurt!” She didn’t want a giant snake statue or a man statue this close to her cave… and the idea of either of them getting hurt ached in a way she didn’t like. She was supposed to save people. She wanted to save people. “If you come towards us, there’s a clear path out! I can tell you where to go.”

It didn’t take long for Anita to spot the weapon that the man was clearly considering using. Which would have been a very stupid decision for a multitude of reasons, chief among them being the confined corners that they were both in. But then there was a change in his expression…and an apology? Before the lamia was able to question what he was talking about, there was an overwhelming urge that grew inside of her. It was a swirling cocktail of emotion, some of which felt rather foreign. 

Her mind could not shake them, however, or the thought that had consumed her mind. Go to the goo. Without questioning why that felt like the right thing to do, Anita turned away from the man and the two women who had rounded the corner. Her eyes fixed on the sludge and she slowly uncoiled her tail and allowed it to travel down the path behind her, sludge covering portions of her rattle and her scales. 

In a whiplash of confusion, there was now something else that felt like it was calling out to Anita. She didn’t know if it was her own thoughts taking back control or something else, but she felt like she had a singular mission. Dancing the end of her tail back down towards where the man stood, the lamia hoped that the conversation with the other women would cause enough of a distraction. Waiting for the right opening, Anitia moved quickly and pushed the man against the wall beside them that was dripping with ooze. “I’m not his snake,” she responded firmly, her attention now turned to the women. 

For a moment, Henri was overcome with doubt. It was the first time he had this kind of interaction with a snake. What if it didn't work? What if the snake turned against him? But the beast seemed indeed disturbed by his influence and although the arrival of two new people did not help what he had planned to do next, Henry had no time to reprimand them. The snake moved again, pushing and tripping him towards the rock facade before he had time to do anything but stick his hand right into the ooze.

Henri stood back up, but rather than being furious at the damn snake for most likely condemning him to turning into one of those petrified obsidian figures or slowly losing his sanity, his attention returned to the two women. There was only one thing he was sure of then: they shouldn’t have been there, and he needed to make sure they stayed away from his mine. “You have no business being here,” he declared. “I will have the both of you arrested for trespassing.” And whatever fear he had before was eroded then, as he walked up to the snake’s side, blocking the way to the two young women. 

Something was wrong, although Luci at first couldn’t quite understand it. The man who had looked terrified about something before now looked angry. The snake was talking to them too. The switch of the two stirred something in her head.

Hadn’t Cass said when meeting her the first time that the crystals made people off? The goo had to be similar and now she realized, the man and talking snake must have touched it. “Cass- the goo is doing the same thing the crystals did. What you told me - kind of like a fly trap. We gotta go -” Luci said tugging on her friend's hand and then realizing that the way out was back through there. “Maybe fixing it will help? The hole? I think - I think it might help.” 

At the idea of being arrested Luci froze for a second, knowing her brother would for sure not like that but also knew that the other couldn’t have any authority.  A million thoughts running through her head Luci just glanced at her friend knowing she was braver than her and probably would know what to do. 

It was like it happened in slow motion. She was so distracted by the talking snake, that she missed the warning signs for the rest of it. The snake covering itself (herself?) in goo. The man’s hand being knocked into the sludge. Cass let out a startled, “No!” but it did little good. She waited for the inevitable… statue-ification, but it didn’t come. Instead, the two seemed to turn against them. It reminded Cass a little of Nora with the crystals, but Nora had still been Nora then. These two seemed so much more consumed. Which was bad. This was bad. 

“Yeah,” she confirmed, shooting Luci a concerned look. Her chest felt tight. Failed, her mind whispered. You failed. And now look what happened. What makes you think you can be a hero when all you do is screw up? Luci mentioned fixing it, and Cass wanted nothing more. She nodded, a little too adamant. A little too fast. “Yes! We can fix the hole,” she agreed quickly. 

She glanced back to the man, who was talking about trespassing. “You don’t own the mine,” she snapped. Turning back to Luci again, she offered her a smile. “I can keep them away from you,” she promised. “Do you think if I do that, you can fix the hole?”

The sudden urge to both spread the sludge and to protect it was slightly disorienting. It was like the ideas were placed in her head, rather than formed on their own. When the one girl mentioned fixing a hole, however, any disorientation shed away and was replaced by an anger that burned hot. “They can’t do that…” Anita whispered, as if she knew somehow that she and this man were united in mission now. 

As the other woman spoke about holding them off there was a flicker of recognition within the lamia that contradicted the feeling she had just moments before telling her they both ended to be eliminated. The flicker, however, was quickly put out by the sludge which regained control of her focus. “There are worse fates than being arrested.” The threat was meant exactly as it sounded and Anita began to slither closer to the pair, contemplating ways to get sludge on them. “But maybe you two are just lost. Maybe you should just turn and go back the way you came.” As she got closer, she allowed the tip of her tail to collect some more of the sludge that was oozing down the walls, hoping to use it as a brush to paint the goo across those who wished it harm.

He had never been the type to fight against windmills, but Henri felt like you couldn't deny the supernatural quality of this town. Was it a windmill when you could feel it ? And feel it, he could even if he didn't understand it. It was the same as wishing you weren't burdened with a fever. What could you do except wait for everything to eventually go back to normal ? 

Right then, there was nothing else Henri could have done but to stare down at the intruders and side by the snake, who was now deemed an ally. His fear of the animal was dormant for now, overtaken by the will to protect his mine. "I don't own the place. I don't need to. It's under my jurisdiction," it was a shame he didn't bring his badge along with him. Blowing up his cover didn't seem to matter anymore. Henri would have begged to differ but he couldn't. Something else was in charge of him now. "You have five minutes to evacuate, or suffer consequences," whatever happened, they could not, never, fix the hole. "If you get anywhere near that hole, you two are gonna be sorry you didn't listen," and rather than to reach for the weapon on his belt, he bent down to put both his hands in the goo, up to his elbows, grabbing fistfuls of the ooze in his hands, ready to throw it their way.

Luci wasn’t quite sure what she was feeling anymore an admittedly horrific situation playing out in front of her as the snake who could talk and the man seemed to get closer. She had a bad feeling they wanted the goo to spread across her and Cass - and while she was a bit curious about what the goo might do - she could still feel the call to the hole. She needed to fix the hole. 

Surely she could fix it right? She had spent night after night thinking about it, and while her magic seemed more like a calamity than a solution lately she had accounted for this. She let the circle unbalance itself hundreds of times in the dream before it stopped. She just needed to get the right rocks. So when Cass glanced and smiled at her and said she’d keep the others away from her, Luci knew she had too. Now wasn’t the time for uncertainty and well if it didn’t work then they were going to have more problems anyway. 

“Yes - I can do it. I know I can do it, just don’t get goo’d. I don’t think I can fight you,” Luci said with a nod. She wouldn’t want to anyway, but well Luci’s magic wasn’t exactly offensive in nature. It’s why she’d gotten good at running. For a moment though, she wished Milo was there before quickly deciding that she shouldn’t have thought of it. “Is it back the way we came to the hole? I’ll start running. If that’s helpful.” She said the last part softly, not wanting the other two to hear it already poised to run when Cass said too. She’d need however much time she was afforded to set the circle up. 

The snake who probably wasn’t a snake and the man who still seemed to be a man were a united front now, both picking up goo with the obvious intention of spreading it. “Do not let them touch you with that,” Cass hissed, able to feel the wrongness of the goo even at this distance. If the snake and the man’s sudden turn in personality and motivation hadn’t clued her in that the goo was bad, the feeling would have. She didn’t want to succumb to that, didn’t want Luci to do it, either. They had to fix this. They had to. She had to do something, had to prove that she could still do something. Still be a hero, despite. Despite, despite, despite. 

“I won’t get goo’d.” She’d do everything she could to avoid that, both because it didn’t look like a lot of fun and because she thought Luci was probably right — she couldn’t fight her. The man and the snake were dangerous, but if Cass lost her wits, underground and surrounded by rocks? She could bury them all in a cave-in, could fill the mine shaft with lava. “It’s through the corridor to the left,” she whispered, as if trying to keep the conversation between the two of them. “When I say go, run. Okay?”

Turning back to their opponents, she offered a smile. “You guys are totally right. Goo is great. We love goo! We’re, like, the biggest goo fans, actually. Goo goo heads, that’s us. Actually, I’d love it if you guys could show me your goo! If you could just stand right there and…” The mine shaft rumbled. It took more concentration than it should have — call it anxiety, call it the ill-effects of recent experiences, blame it on the mine being a mine rather than a cave or a volcano, do whatever. But the ground trembled and the walls shook and Cass turned to Luci. “Luci, run!” 

Humans were so silly. Did they not realize that in this powerful form Anita could hear their attempted whispers with ease? Looking over at her human accomplice, the lamia couldn’t help but feel a bit of frustration. How was he going to help the goo with all of his shortcomings? That didn’t matter though because Anita felt this calling to serve the goo and if she had to do it mostly by herself, she would. It was not lost on her that the obviously fake rambling about being interested in the goo was some sort of diversion but she couldn’t figure out what it was trying to distract from until she sensed the ground below them starting to shift just seconds before the movement reached their level.  

At that moment, the girls split up. She tried to figure out the dynamic between the women to see who to focus her attention on. The one called Luci seemed to be driving the plan to harm the holes yet she looked to Cass for direction. Curious. If Cass was the fighter, then surely Anita should take out that threat first. But there was no telling what Luci could do in the meantime. Now fully covered in goo, Anita whipped her tail around from behind her in Cass’ general direction. 

Before contact could be made, however, there was a flash of something hot that knocked her tail off its path. The goo seemed to (mostly) protect her from severe burns but it also seemed to melt away. That was a shame, as it meant that her tail had no goo on it when it swung back around and slammed into Cass with tremendous force. Using her thermal vision, Anita spotted Luci and then turned towards her fellow goo soldier. “The other one went left! I see her running, she’s not far away!” Thermal vision, unfortunately, revealed something else more concerning. There was more of the hot flashes below them… a lot more. 

At this point, any sense of self had been lost, any sense of control had been taken away and there was no question of whether it was Henri or Elijah making the calls as they were both tools to the goo's mysterious will. 

And when one of the two girls began speaking up about her love of goo, the empath's knowledge of a liar's emotions served the goo well. Henri tensed up, ready to dart after her, but she caused diversion and the snake was swifter yet to react. 

The mines were usually a lot colder than they were in this instant, but the new heat didn't stop the agent in his tracks, and he went after Luci, turning the lamp on his forehead back on. He knew those tunnels, he'd catch up on her, on this uneven ground. And though the goo dripped off of his hands as he went, its spell did not. At last, he caught sight of the young woman before him, a flash of hair as she bolted around a corner. So she knew where she was headed, he thought to himself. Still he expected this would lead them both to a dead end, one where there would be no running away from him. She'd be caught. She'd be done. 

Luci waited, trusting that her friend could do something in her mind thinking over and over again on the direction she needed to go. She had to trust that Cass and her would be okay, and that fixing the hole would do something. Part of her wanted to grab Cass too to insist she come with, but as the mine’s shook she knew that it wasn’t possible. So she did what she was told. 

When she was told to run, Luci bolted her hands gripping on her notebook as she turned knowing that she only had so much time. Thankful of the long mornings that she had run, Luci watched for the uneven ground skirting around the goo as carefully as she could as she tried to keep her directions correct hearing yelling and someone trying to run after her. She should have been scared - maybe part of her was as she could feel her hands shaking around her journal - but instead of thinking about that she looked wildly around to find the hole that she was sure she hadn’t seen in real life. It now didn’t seem dream-like or peaceful - but like a wound in the earth that she could swear ached. 

How long has it been here? Was it just coincidence she had dreams about it, or was it calling out for the young alchemist for help? Even if she hadn’t noticed the goo - the people seemingly losing themselves to a venus flytrap of rock and misery - she would have felt the need to help the mine. What was happening now wasn’t nature with its rules of growth and decay - but a tragedy of something absolutely wrong. It was a subversion, an abomination of the beauty and horror of nature. Startled for a moment, she realized it reminded her of her own alchemy - of something outside of her control that seemed to want to bend and break rules that created the cosmos. It was overwhelming, and made her realize maybe she was like this broken earth, leaking pain she couldn’t put into words but knew was fundamentally wrong. 

Pausing for a moment to catch her breath she nodded resolutely in what she had to do. Just like her own magic, she was going to save this broken earth and stop this ache - or at least make it more manageable. She could do that at least, like she would for herself when she figured out how her own rules were broken. 

“Okay Luz - Okay we got this,” she muttered under her breath pulling at her notebook to find the right circle - the one that the equations hadn’t fallen out of. She didn’t know how much time she’d gotten, and as she surveyed the normal rocks that seemed to be shrinking around the goo she bit her lip trying to find them on her list and quickly wrote them in the circle, hands shaking as the chemical makeup was carefully detailed. If she got it wrong, she might get hurt - but there wasn’t a lot of time to double check either.  She’d have to hope the rocks she wrote down were here, or could be made by the circle to patch the hole. She’d have to accept the potential pain for the hole to heal. 

Hearing a clatter and a light Luci looked like a deer in the headlights, her hands about to rip out of the page to put the circle down. “I - uh - Mister watch out - someone behind you and you wouldn’t want to get bashed!”

Luci ran in one direction, and Cass ran in the other. She felt a sense of relief when the snake followed her, even though the man followed Luci. As far as she could tell, the man was just a man. The snake was far more dangerous, a far bigger threat. If one of them had to take that on, Cass wanted it to be her. Even if she wasn’t the hero she so badly wanted to be, even if she didn’t know how to be like the people she read about in her comics or watched in her movies, she wanted to try. She wanted to keep Luci safe, to prove that she still could, even after everything. 

So she led the snake away. She used her connection with the Earth to bring up the magma from beneath the ground. And it hurt, a little. It ached, it took so much of her, but she was helping. She was trying to help. The goo burned away from the snake’s tail, and she wondered if there was something there, if the magma could burn away all the goo and make the snake a snake again instead of a goo-infested… whatever. Part of her wanted to test the theory, but another part was afraid. She didn’t want to hurt the snake. She didn’t want to hurt anyone.

She settled for leading the snake away instead, for running through twisted corridors and pulling the snake along with her. “You know,” she called back, “goo isn’t even that great. Like, it looks pretty slimy. Which, I don’t know, maybe you’re into, because of the whole snake thing, but it’s not for me. So if you could just — stop trying to — touch me with it!” She jumped up grabbing a narrow ledge and swinging herself up so that she could get behind the snake and take off in the other direction. She didn’t want to stray too far. Not if there was a chance Luci might need her help.

The influence of the goo drilled down onto a singular focus within the lamia. It didn’t matter the pain that she was feeling, it didn’t matter how her body crashed against the sharp curves and narrow tunnels of the cave system: she needed to stop these two from harming the rifts that the sludge had created around them. Even as she chased Cass there was nearly no consideration for anything that she was saying. Had she been in her right mind, Anita would not only have taken great offense to the slimy comment but also taken the time to educate on how snakes are actually not slimy at all and that she was clearly confusing reptiles for amphibians. 

But those thoughts remained in Anita’s head as she tried to figure out a way to get close enough to do some kind of damage to her expected prey. But suddenly and without any noticeable warning, Cass swung around and doubled back from where they came. With similar speed, she turned her head in the other direction and let her tail wrap back around as she continued to pursue the other woman. 

Getting rather frustrated with their ability to evade her, Anita considered capturing the fleeing fiend and then covering her in goo. Looking up at the dirt roof above them, Anita readied herself and then with as much force as she could muster she slammed her body against the side of the mine causing some smaller rocks and bits of debris to fall on both of them. Hoping it would create some level of distraction to slow the other woman, Anita then shot her tail forward and managed to get it in line with Cass before flicking it in front of her to trip her up. 

Not willing to lose that momentum, Anita then wrapped her tail tightly around the woman’s legs to prevent her from fleeing as her torso towered over Cass. Her goo-driven self felt quite content with the situation she had created, and began to look for the nearest patch of sludge to drench her in. 

“There’s no one behind me,” because Henri would have felt it, the way he felt the emotions shifting in the snake, in the other kid and in Luci right here. He could feel it all : the resolution, mixed with fright. He could have enhanced the latter. He would have rather done that to get what he wanted, but he didn’t have a mind of his own anymore and the goo commended that he put his hands on her, that he stopped her, that he made her, just like them, become one with the goo. 

And so, he didn't pause. He kept walking forward.

His head tilted to the side, studying her up. Whatever she was doing with the notebook in her hands, it must have been crucial and his steps slowed down as he approached closer to the girl, right before Henri darted forward, toward her, toward that hole in the stone wall, fingers curling around her wrists, desperate to keep her from going any further with her plans. 

Behind them, there were people now and he could feel the snake rejoicing. Henri knew then that they had the upper hand. They were going to defeat the intruders, make them into allies, protect the mines, and keep them safe. He only needed to get that girl closer to the wall, where the goo flowed out freely, and yanking on her arms, pulling her against him, that's precisely what he tried to accomplish. 

Luci had hoped that it would pause the man as she took a step back towards the hole getting right where she could drop the paper down and step on it. He didn’t though, his voice odd and her jaw twitching in strain as she wanted someone to come and help. She didn’t know where Cass was, and she hadn’t even bothered to leave a note for Milo. For a moment fear grew in her. 

He was moving towards her, and Luci wouldn’t have had enough time to make another circle of fire or anything else to stop him. So she did something stupid moving herself toward the hole, reaching out to it with the paper, hiding the motion with her body as she stabbed it on a crystal before he managed to curl his hands around one wrist - then the other. Before she could start fighting away he had pulled her close enough that it wasn’t possible  Grimacing she shouted “Cass - Help! Ah DON’T -.” Her eyes quickly looking to see she had done it as well as she could have the circle starting to start. 

“You know this is really bad idea! I’m not very good at being a goo person!” Luci shouted at the man trying to look terrified and struggling . She was - but it was mostly to keep the attention on her now that she knew  that the circle carefully pinned to the crystal was starting to work the purple moving around the circle. After a moment she could feel it and hear it, the rocks and minerals starting to rumble as it started to rebuild the wall and hole. 

It was working and the Alchemist was a little in awe as she remembered to struggle against the other, her magic now being channeled to the circle, she really couldn’t do much else trying to drag her feet down to the cave floor to stop the movement. She was already starting to feel tired, but she just had to keep the other’s attention as the rocks started to rebuild the wall.

“Mister -I’m not lying this time there’s something behind you - you ought to see it’s pretty cool! Once in a lifetime - stop trying to goo me!” 

Rocks rained down from the ceiling. It caught her off guard — it shouldn’t have. She should have anticipated it, should have felt it. For a moment, Cass felt very much like the girl locked in the warden’s grip, caught off guard once again by something she should have seen coming. And then there was something tripping her. A tail, she realized belatedly. Snakes have tails. Even giant, people-sized snakes. 

In an instant, that tail was wrapped around her, trapping her in place like a mouse trapped by a python preparing its dinner. She couldn’t help but think back to Rhett’s hand gripping her throat, to the way he’d made it impossible to move. No, no, no, no, no. Panic built up within her, her skin growing hotter and hotter as the magma beneath its rocky surface began to rise.

Distantly, she felt rock shifting nearby. She felt Luci’s magic repairing the hole in a way that was somehow both natural and unnatural, building stone back together despite the impossibility of it. Good job, Luci, she thought, even through the building panic. Maybe she’d die here, the way she probably should have died outside her cave. Or maybe the snake would spread goo on her and turn her into something she didn’t want to be. But it wouldn’t matter if Luci repaired the hole and got out. If they managed to fix things, it would still be worth it. She could still pretend she was a hero. She really wanted to pretend.

—

In a normal situation, nothing would have distracted Anita from following through with a victim this much under her control. But there was little about this situation that was normal. The natural cold nature of the lamia and the mojave scales that adorned her body protected her a bit from the heat that was radiating off of the woman in her clutches - but only a bit. Beneath the goo-rot, curiosity as to how she was doing that swirled around in Anita’s mind. But the goo’s hold had not let up. 

There was more than just the heat rising from below that was causing the walls to shake a bit, whatever that other woman was up to was making the sludge angry and the walls around them shook with that rage. Of course the human hadn’t been able to handle her on his own, she thought. Her attention turned from Cass towards where the other two were. Whatever was pulling on her strings was practically screaming at her to stop what was going on near the hole. 

Priorities shifting, Anita was drawn further through the corridors towards the others stringing Cass along behind her. “If you want something done right…” she muttered under her breath. The woman seemed to be holding her own against the man, but just beyond them Anita could see the carefully etched cracks created by the sludge becoming undone. She felt a strange increased resurgence of alliance to the goo that felt like desperation. “What are you doing?!” She called out, her grip on the lava-wielder loosening up as she rushed to the walls that were forming to try and put a stop to it without avail. 

"What am I doing?!" If Henri would have normally been terrorized around such a gigantic snake, let alone one that could speak, the man present in the mines right now seemed to have forgotten all about his fright of snakes or about his cover.

The more the other tried to wiggle free of his hold, the less patience he held as a result, and when Elijah was not precisely supposed to do so, Henri's brainwashed state had him effortlessly twist her arms into a strange, uncomfortable, painful angle, his elbow digging into her back. "Doing what I can. She's a fucking witch in case you didn't notice," which might not have been quite as bad as dealing with lava girl. 

"I'll make her touch the goo, then she's going to undo what she's doing," and with added pressure to her shoulders, Henri hoped that she would do just that. He didn't want to break her arm, but if that made her more compliant, he certainly would without any regrets. Again, he normally would have felt a twinge of remorse, considering the young woman's age. It was only the goo's desire to keep her most able to undo her magic that kept his hand still as they stumbled forward, closer to the black ooze dropping on the walls.

“Ow,” Luci said, cringing as she felt pain go through her arms, the man apparently unhappy with her attempts of distraction. Still, Luci didn’t stop now kicking back at the man doing anything she could to get away from the goo. It hurt, the position feeling like fire in her limbs, but if it was just pain Luci could deal with it.  “Ow, that hurts. Stop.” 

“It can’t anyway. I can’t undo it and it’s almost completed, so maybe you should let me go and try to claw at it to see if you can reverse it, but nothing I know can do it. It’s not just me saying it either, you should go check on the cracks right now if you want a chance,” Luci said. She wasn’t lying, while the spell caster - or witch like the man called her - could make the spell it wouldn’t be as simple to reverse it. Likely another alchemist would have to help her, and she hardly thought any would. She also was fairly magically drained. Even if the goo wanted to force an attempt she was going to end up just burning out or - With a sudden realization she struggled more wincing as her arms hurt. “ You really don’t want me to touch that goo. My magic’s unstable and will probably kill us all if I’m not in charge of it. Including the goo. Do you hear me? If I touch it the goo’s the first one to go and then it’s the rest of us. ” 

Luci was telling the truth at least as far as she knew, even if she was semi panicked. Even as the wall behind her started to smooth over, perhaps not the way it had been, but something resembling the cave wall the cracks starting to smooth over with natural cave rock instead of the crystals and goo. She hadn’t seen it before, the crack pre-dating her arrival at wicked’s rest, but she could imagine that there were imperfections in it telling the story of the mine. It wouldn’t be too long before it was done and then - well at least the earth was whole again. 

Being dragged through the caverns of the mine by a snake creature was a weird feeling. It didn’t hurt — the stony ground would never hurt Cass, only strengthen her — but it wasn’t her favorite thing, either. The loss of control had her heart pounding and her mouth going dry as she thought a little too much about the way she’d felt a similar helplessness in Rhett’s grip. The magma beneath her skin churned, like a volcano yearning for eruption. She couldn’t get too hot; whatever was happening, she didn’t think the snake dragging her along was in full control of their actions, and she didn’t want to hurt anything innocent. 

In any case, it wasn’t entirely a bad thing. The snake’s movements brought her closer to Luci, and in the spellcaster’s presence, the snake grew distracted. It was enough for Cass to break free from the hold, eyes landing on the man and the way he held Luci. It wasn’t like outside the cave with Rhett. It was different. It was different. It was. But Cass felt a desperation all the same, and she surged forward towards the man, anger mingling with the panic in her gut.

“Let go of her,” she ordered. “You’re hurting her. Let go, or I — I’ll make you let go.” She let her glamour drop just enough to let her eyes glow orange at the threat, determination etched onto her features. “It’s done. The hole is going to be fixed, the goo is going away. So you might as well let go and walk out of here while you can still walk.” She didn’t know if the threat was an empty one or not, and that scared her a little. She didn’t want to hurt anything innocent, she didn’t. But she wouldn’t stand by and let Luci be hurt, either.

Even as she felt the magma menace slip out of her tails grasp Anita remained focused on what was happening to the rocks. The cracks were healing with increasing speed and the hole that had been carved into the floor was nearly gone. The hold that the goo had on her was desperate but it also felt like it was fading, like its power was being cut off as the witch healed the earth that surrounded them. As the other three people struggled, Anita rushed over to what remained of the hole - trying to fight the magic that was healing it with brute force. 

Despite her efforts, nothing that the lamia did made a difference. “How do you even know that this is the right thing to do?” She sneered at the two women as she turned her attention back towards them. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” Despite the righteous indignation of the waning anger that the goo pushed onto Anita, she genuinely did not know what had been done here. But something had been done, that much she could feel, but she didn’t have any sense of whether it was a good something or a bad something. 

The goo had begun to ooze back from whence it came as the walls healed themselves, leaving Anita with no ammunition to gooify the women. There was turmoil inside of her now, as the goo fought to keep her on mission. As a last ditch effort of frustration, she moved towards the man and the witch and shoved both of them forward away from the area where the hole used to be. “Maybe you should get out of here while you still can,” she hissed at Cass, her mouth remaining open as both her fangs and the piercing rattle of her tail issued warning. 

Henri couldn’t tell whether the churning in his stomach was a good thing or not. One thing was for sure, the more of the goo disappeared through thinning cracks, the weirder he felt, as if his consciousness was split in two, and not the way it usually was : between Henri and whoever he was impersonating at the time. This was different, confusing, and he felt as though most of himself was numbed out, silenced, at least until the snake sprung toward him and the young girl and his fear of the god awful reptile shook him, at least for a second out of trance, enough time for the agent to grab at the service weapon he’d kept at his belt and aim it at the beast. 

“You leave those kids alo-” But you didn’t slip away from that hold so easily, and emptying out his gun on the newly repaired cave wall was the next thing he did, his eyes getting drowned in despair while the rock surface absorbed the bullets like it did the goo. “What did you do?” He turned to the witch. “What the fuck did you do?” The goo tried to keep him under its hold, desperately so, and Henri couldn’t fight it just yet. He just stood there, stuck inside his body, all too aware of who he was, while the goo had him rip that piece of paper from the crystals, menacingly shove it toward the young woman. “You undo this. You need to-” He paused. The churning returned, and his eyes got lost staring in the distance. 

Luci felt the arms move and she stumbled forward to the now un-gooe’d wall. She didn’t want to worry Cass, although now her arms felt painful and she did want to cry about it a little. Instead she went to turn around to face the snake - and now the man who seemed to be now concerned about her and Cass. He had seemed to want to protect her from the snake. 

It struck her that the goo must be fading a little bit - maybe making something of an odd dissonance between the two as she moved out of the way wanting to get to Cass before anything else. She didn’t get to move suddenly hearing gunshots and covering her ears almost immediately with a yelp frozen at the sound. When suddenly the man was turning around towards her again - moving back at the yelling now scared hitting the wall behind her, now with the goo fading. It sounded like - she froze instead of thinking of that instead working on how to get closer to Cass to grab her hand. They needed to run now. They needed to run away. 

Instead she looked at her friend and the snake and man between them and clenched her jaw for a second deciding that she needed to do something. The fear in her hands steadying as she dipped to pick up her dropped notebook carefully as the man seemed to not want to bother with her.  “Please - Please just let me and my friend leave. You called me a kid - you have to realize I’m only a kid. You’ve already scared us and you want us to leave so let us leave. You’ll feel better in a few minutes when we aren’t here.” As she spoke looked at Cass moving slightly backwards from the man hoping that her little movements would get her closer to her friend and not set off the anger again. 

It was all very confusing. The snake, the man, the goo, Luci. Cass could hardly keep up with it all, panic and unease gripping her in a way that made the back and forth difficult to follow. The two strangers were angry about the goo, but in a way that almost seemed conflicted. If the goo had been controlling them somehow, the way Cass suspected it was, maybe Luci’s repair of the hole had done something to threaten that control. But, like any dying beast, the goo became desperate at the idea of it. It seemed to tighten its hold, somehow; the man fired a gun into the cave wall, and Cass flinched as the bullets hit the stone, stomach churning. 

“I’m pretty sure I’m not the one in danger of being hurt here,” she shot back towards the snake with more confidence than she felt. As if every thought in her head these days wasn’t some version of a memory of Rhett’s hand at her throat, as if she didn’t still feel that cold iron blade slipping into her shoulder. She wasn’t invincible; she knew that now better than ever. But that didn’t mean she could back down. 

She glared, defiant, at both the man and the snake. Her eyes skirted over to Luci, softening momentarily at the sight of her friend. Instinct told her to stay, to protect the cave from this man and his gun, but everything else reminded her that there were more important things. The gun was empty now. The damage was done. But Luci wanted to go, and Cass wanted her to be safe.

She turned back to the pair, expression stony in a less literal sense than usual. “If you let us go, we’ll leave,” she said. She noticed Luci’s subtle movement towards her, decided to keep the strangers’ attention away from her to help her better move undetected. “We’ll leave, and you won’t have to deal with us anymore. But if you try to hurt us, we will fight back. And you don’t want that. Trust me, you don’t.”

The chilling sound of the gun firing off and the sharp pangs that reverberated throughout the caves as metal struck stone was so intensely overwhelming to the lamia’s heightened senses. She hated human weapons. Maybe it was that momentary auditory dissociation or perhaps it was the goo’s dying grasp slowly releasing, but Anita felt a slight bit of clarity. The gravity of what had unfolded down there sunk in and she realized that the battle was lost. Things still didn’t feel quite right, though, and there was a slight concern that the noise of the shots had only momentarily shaken her mind free. 

Turning to look over at Luci, who was now inching towards Cass and the exit, Anita knew that this fight was not necessary. And coming from a woman who lived for violence, that said a great deal. But she had recognized Cass, she knew her. There was no need to take matters lethal when she had been manipulated into the damage she had already caused. “Go. Now.” Her tone was stern and laced with warning. She could hold back the human if she needed to and this would give them a head start in case the goo boiled back up with a vengeance. 

#season 1 #group writing #gun use tw

[recoveringdreamer]

TIMING: current LOCATION: a bank in wicked's rest PARTIES: @vanoincidence & @recoveringdreamer SUMMARY: felix and van walk into a bank... CONTENT: gun use, brief mentions of drug use (weed)

They were going to open a bank account. That was a good thing to do, right? The cash the Grit Pit paid them in was all pretty under the table — it was the nature of the business, after all — but after some financial talk with Winter, Felix had come to understand that sometimes, you needed a little bit of a paper trail. All their paperwork was in order and everything, so it shouldn’t have been too hard. Just. Talk to a teller. Get a bank account. Put money in it. Easy, right? It was going to be easy. 

Still, their fingers tapped nervously against their thigh as they stood in line. Something was going to go wrong, they could feel it. Someone was going to ask a question they didn’t know the answer to, just like at the BMV. And the bank tellers might not be as kind as Beau had been, might not be as helpful. Felix distracted themself by glancing around, eyes darting to the security guard who made him nervous and the tellers who had his heart pounding and —

Wait, was that Van?

It was, wasn’t it? Just a few feet ahead of them, standing at one of those stations with the pens chained to the desk. Felix felt a flood of relief at the sight of a familiar face, and they ducked out of line without thinking to approach her. “Hey! Van! Hi! It’s me, Felix! At the bank!”

—

There were some collection agencies ringing her every other day, claiming they could take the sole mess that was her house and turn it into a nice chunk of change. Or maybe that was insurance. Van didn’t really know, or care. All she knew was that she would hang up, and they’d call again. She asked around, and it seemed like her neighbors were also getting the same calls. She was sure it was a scam. 

But still, the idea to get yet another insurance payout– though, this one way less depressing than the first, was a little enticing. She didn’t have a lot of money to her name thanks to the bills that came with owning a house and car, and Sly Slice didn’t really pay much at all. Van decided to go to the bank, to try and open some version of a saving’s account, even if it’d only have about fifty bucks in it to begin with. 

While she was writing down some of her routing information for the bank teller, she heard her name. Van looked up, and then around, before her gaze landed on Felix. “Oh!” She pointed at them from a distance, nearly yanking the chained pen from its spot. She dropped it and grabbed the scrap of paper before walking over to him. “What are you doing at the bank?” It was a normal thing, going to the bank, but Van was wondering why Felix, who didn’t seem to know a lot about money, was at the bank. Then again, she didn’t know shit either. 

—

Grinning, Felix walked over to Van, leaning against the counter where she stood. “I’m opening a bank account. Uh, so I can get a card. Somebody said that you kind of need one of those nowadays, so…” They trailed off with a shrug. The Grit Pit, surprising no one, was a mostly cash business, which meant Felix’s ‘paycheck’ was less of a ‘check’ and more of an envelope full of bills. He wasn’t looking forward to explaining this envelope full of bills to the bank teller, who’d probably find it suspicious, but that could wait. Having Van as a distraction felt nice.

They glanced down at the paper she was filling out only briefly before averting their eyes, not wanting to come across as nosy or make her uncomfortable. Humming, they opened their mouth to say something, but before they could speak, a… commotion interrupted them. A tiny voice echoed through the space, declaring: “This is a stick-up! Everybody on the ground!” 

Blinking, Felix turned towards the sound. There was a… group of very small, winged, humanoid-looking things at the door. Two of them were scrambling with the latch, a third and forth were working together to hold — was that a gun? A fifth flew over to help the other two support the weight, and one moved to position itself at the trigger. The one who’d spoken shouted again, “Come on! Go!” And the others all giggled in creepy unison. 

Wide-eyed, Felix turned towards Van. “Uh,” they stammered, “I don’t — I didn’t — Is this — Do you see…” 

Before they could get a full sentence out, the gun spun to face them and the creatures were shouting. “Hey! You! I said on the ground!” 

Unsure what else to do, Felix dropped, dragging Van down with him.

—

“Oh, yeah. Cards are much nicer, mostly because you can online shop.” Van paused for a moment, “but be careful, because it’s like, really easy to spend all of your money online.” She wasn’t the type to get scammed– believe it or not, online purchases were sort of her wheelhouse. She’d definitely be scammed in person, though. 

She continued filling in some of the information before her attention was drawn to the voice that echoed through the room. The voices themselves seemed small, and really, Van wasn’t sure the sound wasn’t coming from somebody’s phone, or maybe a t.v. She looked to Felix for confirmation that the sound had been heard by someone else, and he seemed just as confused as her. 

The voices continued, and Van scanned her surroundings, confusion still present on her features. Where the hell was that noise coming from? It wasn’t until the small humanoid figures came into view, the glint of silver in their hands, that she felt her chest tighten. That wasn’t real, right? But all of this was real so far. She hated this place. 

Felix saw it too and Van opened her mouth to speak, but they were shrinking down to the ground. Her knees hit the tile and she felt pain surge through her. She fought the gasp that urged to leave her, pushing herself next to Felix. “What the fuck is happening?” Her voice was well above a whisper, and that seemed to irritate the bank robbers. 

“If any of you so much as talk or look up, we’ll pop ya!” 

Van’s brows furrowed. Were these children? She tried to get a look, but couldn’t quite see from over the counter from where she and Felix were hunkered down. Now, voice at a whisper, she leaned in close to speak to Felix. “Is this a dream? Pinch me.” She knew it wasn’t, but she was still hopeful. 

—

What the fuck is happening? It was a fair question. Felix was sort of wondering the same thing themself, in that moment. It was clearly something supernatural – those little guys definitely weren’t human – but it was difficult to put a finger on the exact details when their heart was pounding and their mouth was dry. They kept zeroing in on that gun, the way the little guys were struggling under its weight. What were the odds they’d accidentally fire? What were the chances they’d do it on purpose? Felix wasn’t sure they wanted to find out.

“I — I don’t think it’s a dream,” they whispered in response to Van, but they pinched her arm gently all the same. Maybe it would prove to be some weird anxiety nightmare his mind had made up in response to the plan to go to the bank. But pinching their own skin after Van’s provided the sharp sting of reality, and Felix had been pretty sure this was real, anyway. To have a dream this weird, they would have had to have had a lot of cheese before bed.

“Hey!” It took Felix a moment to realize that that voice was directed towards them. “Yeah! You! Both of you! What part of shut up don’t you understand?” 

“I, um, I mean, I’ve never — The whole saying is kind of weird. Isn’t it? Why are we shutting up? What’s up? Not — I’m not asking you what’s up like whassup, I’m just making an — an observation? I guess? Like why is it ‘quiet down’ and ‘shut up’ ? Do they go together? Is it —” The gun leveled at their head. They shut up.

With that out of the way, the little bank robbers turned back to the crowd. “Everybody empty your pockets! Everything shiny! Hurry!”

—

“Ow!” Van shrunk away from Felix, lifting a hand to rub at her arm where they had pinched her. She knew she couldn’t be upset, she had asked him to do it. She frowned, looking from beneath the table. First, she killed someone, and then it was the weird goo, and then it was the weird monster, and now she was being robbed? Well, not just her, but everyone else, too. 

Her attention snapped back to the small humanoid looking creature, though the more she focused on it, the less it looked like a human and more it looked like something out of a storybook. It was yelling at them. Felix began to speak and Van felt her head begin to spin. What were they supposed to do in this situation? How was any of this even real? How had she been living here for so long, completely unaware to the world around her and what she was? It was so stupid! She hated it, and she hated not knowing. 

Van’s lips parted, disbelief peeling over her features as Felix began to ramble on. She nearly joined them before the gun was leveled with their head. She felt her stomach turn over, and she jumped at their demand. Shiny things? 

“Felix, I don’t have anything shiny.” This caught the attention of the creatures closest to them and the gun turned on her, though it wobbled slightly. It was the first time she’d ever had a gun pulled on her, and really, she wanted it to be the last. She looked down the barrel, swallowing thickly. Then, as soon as it was there, the gun was melting away. The lack of weight sent the creatures to the floor, wings knocking together in what Van could only describe as pathetic. As if on cue, the table to her’s and Felix’s right began to melt, too, along with the paperwork she had been working on. 

“No, no, no–” But wasn’t it good? She had gotten rid of the gun. She was exhausted, and the anxiety that coursed through her was uncontrollable– so much so that the shiny objects people were extending began to melt, too. There was no direction with her abilities, and it was something she’d realized a long time ago, but that didn’t make her any less anxious about it. Van looked at Felix, hopeful that he didn’t seem to put it together that it was her. 

—

“Sorry,” Felix whispered as Van flinched, regardless of the fact that she’d asked them to pinch her. Or maybe they were apologizing for the robbery as a whole, or the fact that they weren’t doing anything about it. They could, couldn’t they? They could shift and… Well, and what? Release an angry jaguar in a room full of people who would definitely remember the face of the person who had turned into a jaguar? And that was assuming there were no hunters here who would jump them immediately, or exorcists who would track them down later, or…

No. No, shifting wasn’t an option. Even if Felix could control the jaguar and knew for a fact that he wouldn’t hurt anyone besides the strange, small robbers — which they couldn’t — it would cause more problems than it would solve. It was best to just go along with this sort of thing, wasn’t it? Just let it happen, replace whatever was stolen after the fact. 

The request for shiny things was a little unexpected. Felix patted themself down, but they weren’t sure they had anything that qualified either. “I — I might have a penny,” they whispered back. “You can have it! I can give it to you, and you can give it to them, and…” They trailed off. Something was happening. Something strange. 

The gun, which had been leveled at Van following her statement, just… melted away. Then the table started melting in a similar manner. “Is this… Are we being Punk’d? With Ashton Kutcher? Does he still do that? Does he still Punk people? I don’t really want to meet Ashton Kutcher. I think it would be weird, and I’m not good under pressure, and I’m probably going to say something wrong and then he’s going to go on the Tonight Show and talk about it and —” 

One of the tiny bank robbers let out a frustrated squeal from where it stood, on the floor now that the melting gun had thrown it off balance. It stomped a tiny foot, it threw its tiny hands in the air. “What did you do! We were working!” It was looking at Van, so Felix looked at her, too. 

“Van?” They whispered, glancing around at all the shiny objects melting into shiny puddles. “Do you know Ashton Kutcher?”

—

“I don’t know who Ashton Kutcher is,” Van whispered under her breath, voice shaky. She could pretend, though, if that’s what Felix wanted. If Felix wanted to be distracted by this Ashton guy, or the fact that they might be getting punk’d. What even was that?

The small creature was clearly frustrated by the turn of events, and the melted object sloshed around its feet as it stomped down into it. Some of the melted object splashed back onto his chest and he rubbed it away angrily. It leveled its gaze with her and Van found herself shrinking back, under now the scrutiny of both the small thing and Felix next to her. 

She pointed at herself, then looked over to Felix, “Felix, I don’t know who Ashton– who is that?” At the very least, Felix at least thought Ashton Kutcher was responsible for this. It was probably better, anyway. She didn’t know who he was, but with a name like that, it seemed like he deserved to be held responsible for something. “It wasn’t me, though– but um, sure, it can be Ashton.” Van leveled her gaze with the room, saw that the other small creature-esque beings were throwing their own hands up in frustration as their prized possessions became goop on the ground. 

“Ashton Kuthins did this!” She paused, “Kutcher! You can blame him!” Her voice still shook and she looked over at Felix for confirmation, “Asstan– Ashton is responsible, take your complaints to him!” 

—

“You don’t know who Ashton Kutcher is?” Was Felix old? Was this what being old felt like? This was terrible. They didn’t want to be old! They also didn’t want to be held up by tiny floating guys with too-big guns in the bank, though, so it seemed the universe wasn’t really catering to Felix-wants today.

But, hey, at least the gun melted! At least there was that! That was a good thing, right? Melted guns were great! It was possible, Felix thought, that there was the smallest hint of hysteria to the thoughts. They weren’t really sure how to handle this. Violence was something that made sense inside the ring, even if they didn’t particularly like it. But out here, in the real world? They couldn’t make heads or tails of things. There was no cheering crowd to tell them how they were supposed to feel or not supposed to feel, and they felt wrong as a result. 

Van’s voice shook them from their thoughts, and they turned back to look at her. “Um, he’s — He’s a guy. He pranks people. Or he used to? It was a whole thing, there was a show, and you’d — something weird would happen, and then there’s Ashton Kutcher with a camera crew! But I don’t see any camera crew here and I don’t think the show is a thing anymore so maybe he isn’t doing this, I don’t know.” The little winged creatures seemed to be growing more and more frustrated, but it wasn’t as if they could do anything about it now. All their weapons had melted in the… whatever made things melt. 

Despite their uncertainty that Ashton Kutcher was responsible, Van seemed content in blaming him. At her cry, the little bank robbers all turned their attention away from their respective melted things, fluttering over until the full crowd of them surrounded Van and Felix. 

One of the winged creatures, who seemed to be the defacto leader, hovered forward. “Who is this Ashton-Kuthins-Kutcher?” They demanded, tiny voice shrill enough to make Felix wince. “Where can we find it? Does it have shiny things?” 

“I think — He probably lives in Hollywood. Right?” They turned to look at Van for confirmation before remembering that she didn’t even know who Ashton Kutcher was, because Felix was old and decrepit now. They looked away in shame, staring at the floor. “He — He’s a rich guy? I bet he has a lot of shiny things. Like… necklaces?” 

A gasp went through the small crowd. The tiny creatures all looked at one another, a quiet murmur going through the group as they discussed. Felix shot a desperate look back to Van.

—

“If this is a prank, this is like, a really shitty prank and,” Van rose her voice, “whoever is pranking us deserves to like, I don’t know– stub their toe or something!” This gained a grunt from a nearby floating thing. She still wasn’t sure how to wrap her mind around what was happening, or what was in front of her, but it was real. That much she knew. She didn’t like that it was real, but she didn’t have to. She knew that the world was far larger than she had ever imagined, and she had magic, so who was she to deny the existence of these gun wielding miniature brand knockoffs? 

Van had been so focused on the tiny creature in front of her that she hadn’t noticed the crowd they had gained. There were several of them now, wings violently fluttering. It was sort of making her dizzy. 

The fluttering object spoke, and Van was still having trouble getting used to that, too. At least it was a question this time and not a threat. Though, its tone did convey that of a threat and less of a– 

At Felix’s question about whether or not Ashton Kutcher lived in Hollywood, she nodded enthusiastically, almost matching the way the small fluttering beings gasped. “Yeah, I bet um– he has a huge statue for all of his pranks and stuff.” There was another chorus of gasps and Van looked over at Felix for confirmation that she should continue. Before they could give it, she did so anyway. 

“And I bet his wife um, Ashley Ketchum–” no, that wasn’t right, she knew who Ash Ketchum was– Oh god, what if these things knew Pokemon– She looked at them, but they seemed enticed by the words she said, so she cleared her throat, “I bet she has like, a lot of shiny objects too.” Why these tiny beings could possibly want shiny objects, she couldn’t be sure, but it seemed easier to reason with them now that there wasn’t a gun to their head. 

“Ashley and Ashton are dumb names, but you say they have shiny things for us. Give us directions. Now!” 

Van looked over at Felix before nodding her head, “yes, um, you go… west, there’s Hollywood, it’s a huge sign, you won’t miss it, but the– your travels, they’re going to be perilous, and I don’t think that they’ll allow you on a plane–” 

“WHY WOULD WE NEED A PLANE? DO YOU SEE OUR WINGS?” 

Van felt a bonk! on her nose. One of the small creatures had slapped her. What the hell? 

“Your wings are um, super cool, and uh– you’ll be able to fly there.” They definitely wouldn’t. 

All the while this was happening, a number of the other robbed victims were fleeing through the now opened door. Van wished she were one of them. Though, the small winged creatures didn’t seem to notice the escapees, and were instead watching her and Felix with their big, rounded eyes. 

“We want to take Ashley and Ashton for all they’re worth. You’ll print us directions. Now!” 

Van found herself exchanging glances with Felix more frequently, but before she could say anything else, she was being jabbed again, “You look like you know how to use a computer! Hurry up!” 

Van got to her feet and hurried after them before pointing back at Felix, “he um– he has to come with me, he’s the, he knows better.” 

—

Felix nodded adamantly as Van spoke. They had no idea if Ashton Kutcher had a giant statue dedicated to all his pranks but, like… He could, right? Celebrities loved statues, Felix was sure of it! Never mind that he didn’t think the little bank robbers would be able to pick up said statue; that wasn’t important here. They didn’t exclusively ask for shiny things they could lift, so it wasn’t like they were leaving anything out! 

There was some quiet sense of relief as the other ‘hostages’ seemed to be escaping through the door. The security guard — who had been a little useless, but was given a break in Felix’s mind on account of this kind of thing probably not being included in his training — met Felix’s eye briefly, looking a little apologetic as he held the door open for a few stragglers before exiting himself. Felix sighed, turning their attention back to the bank robbers… and Van’s spiel about Hollywood signs and planes.

“Hey!” They protested when one of the gang members slapped Van. Did that actually hurt? How much strength went into a slap like that? How much strength did these little guys have? It was hard to say. “You don’t have to hit her! We’re trying to help you! We won’t help you if you’re jerks, you know.”

“You will help us!” One of the little things protested. “You must help us find Ashton and Ashley! Their shiny things!”

“You have to be nice, then,” Felix said, just as adamant. There was another murmur through the crowd, another moment of discussion. Felix looked at Van in the meantime, shrugging at the ‘request’ to print directions. Did people still print directions? Didn’t they mostly use Google maps now?

He stumbled to his feet as Van pointed back, nodding his head. “Uh, yeah! I’m — I know so much about MapQuest. I use it all the time!” They stumbled along, following Van to the computer. In the chaos, the teller had left it unlocked; the first lucky occurrence of the day, really. Felix gestured to it. “Okay. Okay, Van. Pull up MapQuest. Um, no. Wait.” They turned, looking back to the bank robbers. “Actually, you — I think you have to say please. For us to help you. Because you’ve kind of been jerks, and I don’t — People don’t really like helping jerks. So if you say please, we’ll get you directions to Ashton Kutcher’s house so you can go take his prank statue. Okay?”

The bank robbers looked furious. The leader sprung forward again, a flurry of rage. “We do not say please!” 

“Then you don’t get directions! You don’t have a gun anymore, so you’re not — I mean, I don’t think you hold the cards?”

“We outnumber you!” 

“We could step on you!”

A horrified gasp. “You would dare?” 

Felix hesitated. It actually sounded pretty awful, stepping on someone. They didn’t want to do it. They had no intention of doing it. But they’d kind of made their stand here, hadn’t they? They couldn’t back down now. “We would definitely dare. We’d dare so hard. Right, Van?”

—

The computer wasn’t so much a computer as she was hoping, but there was an internet explorer icon. Who the hell still used that? 

Van turned back to make sure that Felix was following after them, and it seemed that their capturers intended on letting them join. That was good, at least. She turned her attention back to the computer, brows furrowing as Felix told her to go to Mapquest. “What is that? That sounds like Dragonquest.” She was almost positive that wasn’t the same thing. 

The mention of dragons brought a squeak from the backline of floating beings, “NO DRAGONS!” 

She’d been so focused on pulling up the first website that Felix had mentioned that she hadn’t noticed what they were asking of the winged creatures. Finally, Van turned her attention to them. The gasp of unison sounded like something out of a Trollz movie, and if she weren’t so anxious over the situation that was occurring, maybe she’d even laugh at how stupid it sounded. 

Felix turned to her, then, asking her if they’d step on them if they didn’t get a please. Van blinked, then looked over at the creature closest to Felix. “I’d swat you, too. I’m so good at that. Do you know how much garbage I leave out? Sometimes there are so many fruit flies. I’d swat you, not just step on you.” She wasn’t sure where the sudden level of confidence had come from, but it seemed like enough to send another shockwave through the group. They continued hovering, silence forming aside from the constant buzz of their wings. 

Finally, one of them spoke. 

“YOU WILL NOT STEP, YOU WILL NOT SLAP, YOU WILL NOT DO ANYTHING. YOU WILL GET US DIRECTIONS TO HOLLYWOODIE AND YOU WILL GIVE US ASHLEY AND ASHTON KETCHUM’S ADDRESSES.” 

Van swallowed some more air, realizing that the one speaking did sound authoritative. But how much more trouble could they really cause? Van knew what was happening was real because she hadn’t even taken an edible today. That, and because she was a stupid magic user and because her best friend was a bear. These stupid floating creatures were definitely real. 

“You’ll get the addresses as soon as you say please!” Van tried to mimic the nature that Felix spoke with, but fell a little flat. 

This garnered another knee jerk reaction and a murmur spread throughout the small buzzing colony before the first one who spoke sighed. 

In a wheezing voice, it said aloud, “PLEASE HELP US GET TO HOLLYWOODIE.” 

Van looked over at Felix again, “that’s– okay, Felix, what the hell is mapquest?”  

—

“What? No, it isn’t Dragonquest. It’s MapQuest. They have driving directions.” Felix glanced back to the crowd of tiny, winged bank robbers. Did MapQuest have flying directions? Would driving directions work? The little guys could probably just fly above the roads, right? Otherwise, Felix had no idea how to help them. They weren’t even sure this would do much good. They had no idea Ashton Kutcher’s actual address; they intended to just have Van type ‘Hollywood’ and hope that the little creatures wouldn’t be able to find their way back to ask more questions once they left. It was a good strategy, right?

Van backed their play, and Felix nodded. “Yeah! Yeah, you should see her swat flies. She’s so good at it. You wouldn’t stand a chance.” They’d never seen Van swat flies, but they’d seen her play Angry Birds, and they were pretty sure you used the same skills for that. Hand-eye coordination, or whatever. Anyway, it was an empty threat, a game of chicken. He didn’t think Van had any intention of swatting the things. They’d probably be a lot messier to clean up than flies. Felix shuddered at the thought.

Felix glared at the lead bank robber, who glared back. But, in the end, the little creatures seemed to accept that while they had numbers on their side, being stepped on was still a pretty credible threat. Felix nodded at the ‘please,’ satisfied. “Okay,” they agreed. “All right. Yeah. Let’s go.”

Leaning over Van, they typed ‘MapQuest’ into the Bing search bar. Slowly, one finger at a time. Spending the majority of your teenage years living in a secluded cabin in the woods didn’t do wonders for your typing skills, as it turned out. It was a slow process, with many typos, but finally, Felix hit enter. And —

Ads. A whole page of ads. Felix nodded for Van to scroll through them, squinting at the screen. Not that one, not that one, not — hey, there was Dragonquest! Finally, near the bottom of the page, they spotted it. Official MapQuest. Mapquest.com. Maps, Driving Directions, Live Traffic. They’d really branched out, hadn’t they? Good for them! Felix pointed at the screen, clearly excited. “There it is!” They exclaimed.

“There it is!” The creatures echoed. “There it is! Hurry! Hurry to the quest map! We need to embark on our quest. We need Ashton Ashley Ketchum’s shiny things. WE NEED HOLLYWOODIE!” They were clearly agitated now; patience didn’t seem to be their strong suit. Felix nodded to Van, gesturing for her to click the link.

—

Van stared at the computer screen as it began to slowly load the websites. She was astonished by the fact that Felix hadn’t simply typed out the website’s name, and had instead using bing. Who used bing over literally anything else? DuckDuck Go was her favored search engine, but she wasn’t sure that this computer could even load that. Plus, she’d have to explain why ducks could help them find Ashley Ketchum and she wasn’t sure if she had the patience for that. 

It was painful, watching as Felix typed out the website’s name, and even more so watching as the site slowly loaded in nothing but ads. There were four or five different links that’d lead them to not mapquest, and then finally– Felix’s shout startled Van slightly and she moved the mouse to click on the icon. 

The website’s load time was even worse than the search engine’s. Time crawled by slowly and Van shot a glance over at the small winged creatures as they all began to shout in unison for Hollywoodie. She didn’t have the heart to correct them, nor the desire– what if they became angry and decided to say she was lying? She was, sort of. But she was almost sure they could find Hollywood if they really wanted to. They’d been able to get their hands on a gun after all. 

She hadn’t quite unpacked the fact that it had been to her head yet, but she was sure she’d have a breakdown over that in the coming hours. 

The website only loaded half of the page and Van turned the chair towards the gaggle of onlookers. “It’s not–” The head creature shook its head violently– so violently that it seemed as though it was shaking its entire body. “UNACCEPTABLES! YOU MUST GET US TO HOLLYWOODIE, WE MUST FIND ASHLEY KETCHUM, WE MUST TAKE THE SHINY THINGS!” 

Van turned back to the computer feeling slightly deflated as she clicked refresh. 

The minutes ticked by and the only sound was the squeak of the chair as she resituated herself. 

Finally, the page loaded. 

She typed in Wicked’s Rest, ME, and then Hollywood, CA. The creatures behind her seemed miffed that she left off the woodie part, but she assured them this was the correct location. 

Finally, Van clicked print, but nothing happened. She sat there for a moment before clicking it again and again, but nothing. 

“The printer is out of ink.” Because of course it was, because of course this couldn’t be easy. Because of course she was being held up by some creatures she would have thought were imaginary before this happened. Her mouth was dry and she was beginning to get a headache. She just wanted to go home. 

“GIVE US THE DECORATIONS, NOW!!!” 

Van bit the inside of her cheek to keep from correcting them before she grabbed a neighboring blank piece of paper and a pen. She scribbled out the directions, the bank where they were, and a dotted line west to Hollywood where there was a giant misshapen sign. “Here. This will get you there. It’s practically, um, the same thing. Right, Felix?” She looked over at them for confirmation, hopeful that Felix wouldn’t correct her. 

—

They were almost done here. Felix wasn’t entirely sure what would happen when they finished providing the tiny, winged creatures with directions to Hollywood, but they were pretty sure it would, at the very least, see them leaving the bank, and that was all they really cared about. They had very quickly decided that the bank was the last place they ever wanted to be. No more checking account for them — they’d stick with the crumbled wads of cash the Grit Pit paid them in if it meant avoiding an experience like this one ever again.

Settling in, Felix watched the page load. Little by little, pixel by pixel. First the top section. Then the second section. Then — it stopped about halfway down. Van refreshed the page, and the process started over. Top. Middle. There. The full page, in all its glory. Ads were all over it; one was attempting to play sound, but the slow connection left the words stilted and cut off. Somehow, the background noise it provided seemed very fitting to the situation.

Especially when the page refused to print. Felix looked at the printer mournfully. They should have seen this coming. Everyone knew printers never worked when you needed them to. Even with his limited experience of school, he had vivid memories of trying to print a paper the day it was due only to find the printer in some state of disarray despite working perfectly the day before. 

“Sorry!” Felix said quickly as the creatures began to yell again, the apology a reflexive thing. “We’ll — Is there a, an Office Depot nearby! We can go get ink! We can go get ink and bring it back and —” 

“YOU WILL NOT LEAVE!” The creatures screeched. “YOU WILL GET US DECORATIONS TO HOLLYWOODIE! YOU WILL QUEST THE MAP YOURSELF IF YOU NEED TO!”

Felix had no idea what that meant, but Van apparently had some idea. She grabbed a piece of paper and began scribbling, and that map didn’t look anything like the map on the screen or any map Felix had ever seen in real life, but the bank robbers didn’t seem to notice. They snatched the paper from her hands, then turned to Felix with wide eyes. Blinking, Felix only nodded. The creatures let out a screeching cheer.

“WE WILL DEPART TO HOLLYWOODIE! YOU HAVE DONE WELL.” One of the creatures dropped something on the table — a single half-melted dime. Felix looked to Van.

“You can have it,” they mumbled, pushing the dime towards her. She’d done all the hard work, right? The winged robbers, thankfully, seemed to have forgotten them entirely. With their map securely in hand, they headed for the door without so much as a goodbye. Felix wasn’t sure whether to be offended or relieved.

—

They took the directions and Van was grateful. She watched as something dropped onto the table and she leaned forward to get a better look at it. Somehow, her magic had stopped halfway and hadn’t taken the whole thing. That was new. 

Or maybe it hadn’t been her magic to begin with, and this was something they found on their way to the bank. Regardless, as soon as the small winged creatures were gone, it dawned on Van that the police never showed up. Had anyone even called them, or had they saved themselves? Between the melted gun and other objects and the fact that small, pint sized guys had tried to rob them at all, would the police even believe a word they had to say? 

Van worked through the questions internally before she pocketed the coin. Maybe it’d bring good luck. 

“That was…” She wrapped her arms around herself, eyebrows furrowing, “really–” 

And then there was another noise, this time from outside. There was shouting, and Van looked over at Felix. What the hell happened now? Were the police actually there? 

“I don’t know how to explain any of– are they even going to trust us?’ Probably not. So much for the good luck dime. Van paused for a moment, “we have to go, we have to run.” Not something somebody who was innocent would do, but her mind ran through the possibilities. What if somehow they connected her name to this to what happened to Diana? She hadn’t ever had anyone come looking for her after that, but still. 

Van motioned for Felix to follow her, “we like, used their computers and stuff, they’ll probably say that we tried to rob them!” None of the witnesses were there any longer, or so it seemed. 

She pushed the side door open and peered outside, looking left and right before stepping out. The shouting continued, and Van looked towards where it was coming from, noticing the directions she had hastily given the small winged beings on the ground. A man was peering into the tubing of a device he was holding and yelling at some insects had flown inside. “Felix. They–” Van swallowed nervously, turning around to face them, “They got sucked up into that, didn’t they?” How were they ever going to get to Ashley and Ashton Ketchum’s house now? 

—

Felix didn’t like the idea of the police showing up any more than Van did. She was right — this whole thing probably would get pinned on them, if only because that would be so much easier to believe than tiny winged bank robbers with melting guns. “We should definitely go,” they agreed. “You don’t think we need to go on the run now, right? I don’t know how to get a fake ID.” And they really didn’t want to go back to living off the land. They liked Netflix so much. They didn’t want to lose that.

But… There were no police outside. No flashing lights, no badges. Other than a guy yelling about his leaf blower, everything seemed incredibly normal. Felix glanced over at Van, catching sight of the directions they’d given the bank robbers. There was no way they would have just left them behind, not with how adamant they’d been about getting to Hollywood. Felix’s eyes went back to the leafblower, the pieces falling together. They winced, feeling almost… sympathetic. The poor little guys had just wanted to steal a shiny statue from a movie star. They hadn’t deserved to get sucked into a leafblower. 

“Yeah,” they agreed quietly, “I think they did.” Leaning down, Felix picked up the directions, which had blown to their feet. He smoothed out the wrinkles, holding the page out to Van uncertainly. “We should still leave,” they said. “Before anyone starts asking any questions. Come on. We can get lunch. I’ll buy.”

—

Van’s frown deepened. It was a weird thing, feeling bad for the very thing that was threatening you only moments before. Wasn’t that stockholm syndrome or something? She had seen it in a show once about the 90’s. 

Felix spoke and Van nodded quickly. “Yeah, we should go.” The paper on the ground was a stark reminder of what could have been. The statue that they wouldn’t have been able to steal– the address they wouldn’t have been able to find. Realistically, Van knew that by their size, they probably wouldn’t have made it far, but she wasn’t even really sure what she was looking at to begin with, or what their capabilities were. She took a deep breath, trying to steady herself. It was all still so strange, and maybe if she were anyone else, she wouldn’t find a way to be anxious about it. 

Or maybe she would.

Felix offered lunch and Van’s stomach groaned as if in knowing. “Okay.” 

#vanoincidence #van: hollywoodie dreams #wickedswriting #gun use tw #drug use tw

[ironcladrhett]

@mortemoppetere replied to your post “Got any funny stories of Emilio?”:

Better not be giving any away at all.

​Oh... you know me.

#. chat ; #. with ; emilio cortez #gun use tw

[nicsalazar]

Coiled truth || Kaden & Nicole

TIMING: Recent. LOCATION: The woods PARTIES: @chasseurdeloup & @nicsalazar SUMMARY: Kaden and Nicole deal with a snake that's impossible to kill by normal means. CONTENT WARNING: alcoholism tw, gun use tw.

Nicole could hear Leah’s voice reprimanding her — rightfully so— for not checking the forecast before deciding to go out. Wicked’s Rest had a never-ending supply of crazy scenarios and supernatural beings to surprise her with, yet somehow, a potential storm had never crossed her mind. She had been too busy throwing items in her bag for other, more peculiar enemies to spare a minute to consider the weather.

There was an umbrella at the bottom of her backpack, Nicole recalled, navigating as quickly and safely as possible despite the mud already sticking to her boots. Her car wasn’t too far from where she was when hell broke loose. So yes, she had something to fight the storm with, though by now, soaking through her clothes, it felt like using a bandaid for a bullet wound. She’d be fast and on her way home in no time and all would be forgotten.

Nicole was glad there was no one in the vicinity, because when she caught a glimpse of glowing eyes amid the trees, she almost climbed her way up one from the fright. Almost. Her brain had some sort of miscommunication because her limbs did not move accordingly and instead of finding herself in the air, she slipped, diving face-first onto the forest floor. 

Fortunately, other than a bruised ego, Nicole managed to get up with nothing but dirty clothes. When her gaze landed back on the site where she’d spotted those eyes, it was empty. She frowned. Did she just imagine a wild creature or was it on the move? 

She knew it didn’t matter in the end, because she was supposed to be on her way back to her car, not chasing strange wildlife. So, Nicole spun around to continue her path just in time for a silhouette to flash before her eyes. “Jesus fucking—” she huffed, closing her eyes in relief when she spotted a man. A hiker, most likely. No glowing eyes to account for. “You almost…” she shook her head, waving her hand dismissively though pressing it against her chest a beat later. “Did you see it? There was a—” she gestured a ball, a head really, but she hadn’t spent enough time staring at it to know what its body looked like. “Saw some glowing eyes. Right there—” her thumb pointed behind her. 

There were already plenty of reasons not to be out in the woods attempting to hunt. The first of which was his wounds from the last full moon that were still healing. The second was the rain pouring down on him. The windbreaker and hood wasn’t going to be enough to keep him from getting soaked, though it was doing its best at the moment. 

Kaden was about to turn back and head home, just accept that he wasn’t going to do anything helpful today, when he saw someone else appear on the trail ahead of him. She seemed to be short of breath, a little wide-eyed. Putain, guess he wasn’t heading back just yet. “Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you.” He walked closer, hands raised in a sort of surrender.

His brows knit together before one raised at her statement. “Did I see what?” He leaned around her, trying to spot what she might be referring to, but he couldn’t see anything. Yet. He knew better than to trust these woods. “Glowing eyes?” That certainly didn’t narrow it down, too many fucking monsters fit that description. His hand went to his belt and pulled out one of the knives hitched there as he crept towards the direction she came from. 

Something rustled in the bushes nearby and if he wasn’t seeing things, he was pretty sure the motion of whatever was there was a slither. Putain, if these were more baguettes he fucking swore to hell and back. 

“It’s fine,” Nicole waved him off, blowing another shaky breath. Not the first time she had run into someone like that. Not the last time it’d happen either. She was just thankful this one didn’t come at her threatening her life. 

Nicole nodded curtly when he asked for confirmation, uncertainty beginning to creep inside her. Maybe she’d imagine said glowing eyes. Maybe it had been some sort of… lighting effect? Abnormal…gas emanating from the forest floor? She may never know. What she did know was that she didn’t want to stay under the fucking rain to figure it out. If it had been sunnier, and if she had been dryer, then yes, her curiosity would’ve won. Not this time. 

So she motioned for them to leave the woods, but he had to go and pull a knife from his belt, slowly approaching in the direction she had pointed towards. Nicole raised her eyebrows at that, wondering if she should look for the hatchet inside her backpack. Strength in numbers, just in case. She liked his confidence as he decided to investigate, she supposed. However, that sort of attitude usually led to terrible situations. ‘Fuck around and find out’ and all that. He was definitely fucking around. And she wasn’t leaving… because? 

Well, what if he got hurt?

“I heard that,” Nicole warned as the bushes rustled again, heartbeat picking up as the threat became more real. She followed his line of sight, downwards, and caught a glimpse of the creature responsible for the noise. Oh. A snake? Well, she didn’t particularly like reptiles but— wait, with a scorpion tail? “Ah, no. Fuck that. Is that one of the deadly ones? The tail is weird” Do we have to kill it? Is what she wished she had asked instead.

Kaden jumped back as a snake shot out from the bush. “Putain.” It was bigger than he expected. But it wasn’t black and white nor was it a piece of bread so that was some kind of strange relief. His brows creased together when he noticed the tail on the serpent: it looked like a scorpion. 

Clearly, he’d cursed too soon. It was a fucking monster. It looked like a beithir, but a little different. Before he could say or do anything, the snake slithered towards the woman and went to lash out at her. Kaden rushed over and grabbed her arms to pull her away, the stinger slamming down into the ground right where her foot had been. “Sorry, just wanted to make sure it didn’t–” 

The ranger looked around and the snake was gone already. Putain de merde. “I’ve seen these fu– uh, snakes before. They’re fast. Can be deadly. Uh, maybe. Unless they’re not the kind I think they are.” And it was possible considering that tail wasn’t the barbed variant he was used to seeing. The rest was similar, though. “You should get away. I’m animal control, I’ll handle this.” If he could. That fucker was fast and he wasn’t sure he had the right weapons to deal with a supernatural snake in the rain. 

The monster was deceptively agile for such a large snake. Though it was becoming increasingly obvious it wasn’t just a snake. But Nicole would have to worry about indexing the creature in her list of Wicked Rest’s unique fauna later on when they weren’t about to be eaten by it. She had turned to look at the man, who appeared to be putting things together a lot faster than she was, when she felt the quick movement of the creature. Heard it slither fast toward her.

She was being pulled back in a split second, watching the heavy creature strike the ground instead of whatever part of her leg it might have latched onto if he hadn’t reacted so fast. “Appreciate it,” she breathed out, dismissing his apology. Maybe she would’ve had the reflexes to move away on time, but she was thankful she didn’t have to test them. 

Her eyes were narrowed, listening to him explain the situation. She’d gathered most of it, except the deadly part. However, that didn’t surprise her. Because, why wouldn’t there be deadly snake-looking monsters in Wicked’s Rest? She was with him, until he suggested she got away. Nicole stared at him like he had grown two heads. “Uh, No. No fucking way. What if it bites you?” Most of all, she really wished people stopped asking her to leave them behind. “I can stay behind, I'm not…” if he was Animal Control, she wasn’t gonna try and overstep. He must’ve had training, but she could assist if needed. “Got anything else on you besides that knife?” her lips pointed at his hands. “I’m carrying a hatchet” she offered, eyes darting around when she heard the slithering once again.

Of course, she wasn’t going to leave. Kaden sighed and accepted the fact he was going to have to look after her in the meantime. It was never his favorite when he had to protect civilians while hunting a monster but it wasn’t unfamiliar. “If it bites me, that’ll be my problem, not yours.” He knew that probably wasn’t the best way to frame things but it was worth a try. And unsurprisingly didn’t convince her to walk away. 

“A hatchet?” he repeated. Alright, that was better than nothing. And she looked athletic enough and wasn’t outwardly panicking or freaking out to the point where she was flailing or screaming or anything like that. Maybe this wouldn’t be too terrible if she stuck around. “Hold onto that,” he told her as he reached for his pistol. He didn’t like grabbing it as his first defense but it seemed like the practical solution at this point. “You know how to throw that?” he asked. 

He held the gun at eye level, scanning the bushes around them for any signs of the beast. He heard it before he saw it, rustling leaves from behind them and he spun around in front of her, placing himself between it and the woman. He took aim and fired at the scales as they shimmered, catching the light. 

Strange. He was pretty sure they hit, but it sounded like the bullets bounced off metal, or something similar. Kaden was about to check that it was loaded properly when the snake-like monster slithered out from the foliage once again. The ranger didn’t wast time and shot at it again. He knew he didn’t miss. In fact, this time, he saw the bullet clink off the creature’s scales.

“Putain,” he muttered in awe. The stinger lashed out at him and Kaden stumbled awy. Even so it, it managed to clip the side of his calf, tearing through his jeans. It didn’t graze his skin. Yet. Fuck. Bullets didn’t work. He had a feeling the blade wasn’t going to do much better. But if it was a beithir, this should have been the perfect weather to injure it.

Unless… It occurred to him that this might be one of the rarer variants of the beast. It wasn’t a bolla, he knew that. Did that make this a fraus? Must be. Fuck, what injured a fraus? He tried to remember the pages of the hunter journals he read day in and day out for years. Fraus. Scorpion stinger. He remembered the word false. That was the word he’d associated with it. False. Lies. Okay, but what about them?

Lies. Right. It was made from lies. A lie come to life. And the truth hurt it. “Hey! I got it. I think.” He was backing away from the fraus arms out to try and shield her if it tried to lash out again. “Start telling this thing truths. Quick!” That would work, right? He fucking hoped so. 

Nicole watched him draw his pistol, her grip on the hatchet tightening in response. “Better at hacking than throwing, but I can try”. How hard could it be? Her hand-eye coordination was nothing to write home about, but it was decent. Serviceable. She’d throw it if it came down to it. It seemed, however, that the man wanted to try with his gun first. Smart move, as they didn’t have many options at this point. 

The gun didn’t work for shit. Just what they needed, a bulletproof snake. Nicole saw it with her own eyes, no matter how many times he fired and hit his target, the snake received no damage. “What the fuck?” she hissed at the same time he grumbled something that sounded close to ‘puta’. She didn’t need translation to understand what he was saying. She felt exactly the same. 

The monster finally managed to get some of its body onto the man, who almost tumbled to the ground, pants torn in the process. Shit, probably bitten. Her heart thundered against her ears and Nicole did the only thing she could think of: She threw the hatchet at it. But it turned out, one thing was aiming, and another was landing a hit. It was a lot harder than she thought. The weapon clattered against a trunk, the handle weakly bumping against the reptile as it bounced on the ground. Well, fuck. That was pretty fucking stupid. She inched closer to her companion, intent on checking for potential injuries, but she didn’t get too far ahead and was instead shielded away from the creature. 

Nicole knew the stakes were high, understood he was under an incredible amount of stress, but at no point she could’ve predicted the words that came out of his mouth. He wanted— Did the bite make him insane? “No? The fuck does that mean?” She looked at him as if he had completely lost it. Not only was his solution ridiculous, but he was also putting her in the spot, everything she knew about herself slipping from her mind with one simple prompt. What was a truth anyway? Would any do? Was she seriously considering this? It all sounded a little too simple, too uncomplicated when it came to dealing with a Wicked’s Rest’s exclusive. What in the Pinocchio type bullshit was this? She brushed the wet hair off her face, suddenly aware that the rain was still pouring. Her hands grasped at the air, mouth opening a few times without words making it out. “I’m…I’m 5’7?” Nothing happened. Or— what was he expecting to happen, anyway? The snake slithered towards them, and if she hadn’t had such quick reflexes it would’ve sank its fangs on her. But she stepped aside, and in the process, her balance was gone. She slipped on the ground. Again. Fuck.

Putain, looked like the hatchet wasn’t doing them a whole lot of good, either. “It means what I said,” Kaden shot back at her. He really hoped it worked. He really needed this to work. Because he wasn’t convinced any of the weapons he had on hand were going to work. She spoke, and he was sure he was going to see the reptile-like monster writing in pain any second now.

Only it didn’t and lunged toward them instead. He jumped one way and she went the other, avoiding the serpent’s fangs. She fell back and slid to the ground, but the fraus appeared to be just as strong and agile as it had this entire time. 

It hadn’t worked. Why didn’t it work? “Uh, try again?” he said as he dodged away from her. “Hey!” he shouted at the snake, firing a bullet onto the ground inches away from the fraus’s body. “Over here you piece of shit!” He hoped it would catch the beast’s attention long enough for her to get up. Thankfully for her, it worked.

Unfortunately for him, it worked. “Merde,” he grumbled as the serpent turned to face him. He darted to the left, and the stinger followed, lashing out at him again. Kaden jumped up and threw himself to the ground to try and get out of the way. His entire side skidded against the mud, the rocks, and rough dirt scratching his forearm and face. Fuck, they had to figure out how to hurt this thing. The truth was supposed to be the thing, he knew he had that bit right. So then why wasn’t it working? There had to be something more to it. Some way to make the truth painful. 

Putain de merde. The truth would hurt it but only if the truth also hurt to say. The truth itself had to be painful to inflict pain. He hated the supernatural. Fuck this. Why couldn’t it just be taken down with a goddamn knife like everything else? Shit, the fraus was hissing and inching toward him, clearly ready to strike. He had to say something and he had to say it fast. “I, uh… I still love my sister,” he tried. The monster shriveled in pain. Only a little but that had harmed it more than the bullets had. “Painful truth! Has to be painful truth!” he yelled back at her. 

Try again. Nicole stifled a sarcastic comment that would have come to the surface if she hadn't been so busy trying to use her brain. To think. Why didn’t her truth work? Was she… shorter? How would the snake fucking know? Maybe it wasn’t a truth as much as an objective fact. Again— what was truth, really? Just feelings. Vibes, Leah would say. She didn’t like that word. She hadn't even begun to process that this guy had suddenly figured out how to handle the monster, which meant— what did that mean? Was he like her, aware of the supernatural? Of course. He’d been carrying weapons and all. Why else would he need them?  

The weapon he was carrying proved useless once again, but at least served as a distraction. He kept shooting at it trying to get its attention, and while very honorable of him, it also kept Nicole incredibly on edge. It hadn’t stopped raining, everything was too slippery. He was one misstep on the mud from— Yeah. She grimaced as he tumbled trying to dodge another thrashing, almost feeling the pain of his landing in her own body. Gingerly, she crawled over to his side, retrieving the discarded hatchet in the process. It would do nothing if the snake chose to go at them again, but… at least it was something. Emotional support. Especially as the creature slithered closer to Kaden again. Fuck that shit.  

She clutched at his shoulder, determined to help him stand up before the beast could get the best of them, but his voice stopped her. The shrivel almost sent her back to the ground. That thing was hurting, but how? And— what did he say again? About his… “Painful?” Nicole whispered flatly, eyes filled with questions as she glanced at him. Why wouldn’t he love his sister? The monster twisted in agony, but it could only last a moment. “I’m—” They didn’t have all the time in the world for her to dig into her soul and find the most painful truth she could think of. She had to say the first thing on her mind. Or, rather, someone would have to rip the truth right out of her throat because words weren’t working and they never had. How was she supposed to do all of this with a stranger right next to her?

Truth… truth, she thought — her chest aching as she realized what she was going to say— felt a whole fucking lot like secrets. “I—” Everything was in slow motion yet sped up somehow, “I’ve… I think about drinking— every day”. She didn't need to look at it; she could hear it, both hissing and writhing on the floor. Nicole’s gaze shifted to the opposite side, truth pounding with more venom than whatever that creature could sink in her. She wondered how many more of those truths they’d need for the snake to die. She wondered if she’d rather take its fangs instead. Briefly, at least. Until her attention returned to the monster and Nicole noticed how painful the truths were to the creature. Of fucking course. She’d deal with the mess later, this was working. If she couldn’t think of truths, she could think of secrets. A slew of them. “I’m…I’m a balam” she tried once the silence fell on them again. This time, she knew it’d work. That one seemingly small truth had tormented her for too long not to leave a mark on the monster too. 

Kaden wanted to shrink away and shrivel up as much as the snake had at his own words. At least it was working. He wasn’t sure if there was a whole lot of comfort in that. He fumbled back up to his feet with her help, a chill running down his spine as her hand touched his shoulder. He was glad she was avoiding anything remotely close to eye contact. Especially as she spoke her own truth. It hurt to hear it, even though he didn’t know her, even though he didn’t know why she felt that need to drink whatever it was that plagued her away. The fraus felt it, too. Only it wasn’t dead. It was very clearly hurt, but it was still trying to slither towards them, to lash out one last time.

Kaden was getting ready to try and contribute something more when her next truth nearly threw him back down to the ground. Balam. She was balam. The reaction to her touch and the alert coursing through his body made more sense now. He’d felt it, he knew some sort of shifter or beast was nearby, but in the heat of the moment, he’d ignored it. That or he was so out of tune by now after living with Alex and hanging around Gael and Alan. Putain, he was going soft. He didn’t know if that was a problem or not but it still felt disgraceful all the same. 

Still, it didn’t matter if he had recognized what she was before then or not. It didn’t change what she was. And it didn’t change the words that lingered at the tip of his tongue. His eyes locked on her for a moment, wondering if he would need to defend himself a few seconds from now, and then drifted back to the snake. It hissed and tried to lunge towards them. All hopes that he wouldn’t have to say what he was going to say next vanished. There was no way that this wouldn’t be a killing blow. There was no getting out of speaking the one truth he knew would hurt the most to say right then. 

“I’m a ranger.” 

The fraus hissed and screeched, writhing in one last bout of agony before it stopped moving, the rain still beating down on them and its corpse. As much as Kaden wanted to pretend that maybe the rain had drowned out his words, he knew that wasn’t the case. And he didn’t know what to do now. 

With the final blow, the creature screeched and twisted until it was dead on the forest ground. Nicole, however, hadn’t looked at it once. A ranger. Her hand slowly slid off the man’s shoulder, stepping carefully as she retreated away from him. She watched him, eyes wide in fear, waiting for him to make a move. To pull another knife, or a different gun and get rid of her. It never came. Droplets fell down her face, the only sign that time kept unequivocally passing. Because Nicole had frozen in place, his words echoing still. Not even if she had been an expert in concealing expressions, she could’ve hidden her pain. 

She remembered the knife that tore through her shoulder blade at fifteen. The one that almost sliced her throat at twenty-seven. Where would his blade go? The chest? Her stomach? Had he sensed her before? Had he been following her, then? Was the snake a simple hiccup in his original plan to hurt her? He was going to lunge at her now that they killed the snake, right?

Her first attempt at speaking resulted in nothing but a shaky breath, throat hijacked by emotion. She raised her hatchet, instead: A warning. She could never strike first, but she would defend herself, if it came down to it. She would do what needed to be done to survive. Always had. He had the weapons, the strength, and the hunter knowledge while all she had was her unfaltering, intrinsic desire to persist. She fucking liked her odds. “Swear I won’t fucking miss this time”. There they were. Words, trembling with fear but aloud. She didn’t plan on following through with her threat. But sometimes, she looked intimidating enough that people wouldn’t suspect her a coward. She only needed to buy herself some time. Or maybe even — hopefully— allow him to clear the air between them. “I’ll— I’ll— I go my way. You… go yours”. He was wounded after all. Maybe not bitten, but shaken. Maybe he didn’t want to engage in a fight. Maybe. If she were to pray, she’d pray for this man to be a lot more like Andy than her previous hunter experiences. Andy. She was a sliver of hope. She’d shown her not every hunter was the same. Some renounced their calling. Some had no desire to hurt the innocent. Some instead, helped shifters fight horrible serpent creatures. 

Her heart pounded violently in her throat, and Nicole felt the weight of her words before she even spoke them. “Thank you for…” she swallowed, eyes flickering to the monster, then down to her boots. She had to make sure her steps were careful on the mud because she couldn’t allow herself to slip during her escape.

Kaden held his shaking hands up above his head. His words dropped like a bomb, just like he’d expected they would. Putain. Guilt sunk in, down into his bones, right down to the marrow. This wasn’t the first time someone looked at him with fear in their eyes and he was sure it wouldn’t be the last. How the fuck had he brushed it all away in the past? How did he manage it back then?

Of course she held up her weapon at him. He didn’t blame her. And some part of him wondered if he was making a mistake not reaching for his own. What would she do now that she knew what he was? Now that she had the upper hand? A moment to even the theoretical odds, take one more hunter from the world and leave her with one less threat to her safety. 

Kaden couldn’t tell if he was hearing his own heart pounding in his ear or hers or if it was just the overwhelming sound of the rain crashing all around them. “Okay,” he said, voice shaking. “I don’t–” Putain, it was stupid to say he didn’t want to hurt her, right? Why should she believe him? He knew more hunters than she did and he knew damn well how much they lied; how much he’d lied. “I’m not going to hurt you.” He said it anyway. Might as well, right? Might as well give it a shot. It’s not like he had a whole lot of experience on how this shit was supposed to go now that he wasn’t trying to kill her. No one ever taught him the choreography to this particular song and dance. Hell, he wasn’t sure there was any to follow in the first place. 

Nicole wasn’t sure if many ruthless hunters would’ve put their trembling hands above their heads in response to her threat. The man had seen her fail at throwing the hatchet, he knew her words were easily disputed by her actions, so— what was she supposed to make of his reaction? A rouse? An attempt at lowering her defenses, surely. Why would a hunter be anything but deceptive? She took another step back, and waited, blinking away the tears that had pooled in her eyes. Or the rain. Nicole wasn’t sure what was what anymore. 

Her fear receded, looking at the man in front of her attempting to speak, a sight too painfully familiar to her. And though she remained highly aware of the situation they were in, confusion flooded her mind. He wasn’t going to hurt her. Did Nicole— hear him right? Her frown deepened, mouth agape as her facial expression reflected the current state of her mind. “Okay…” she heard herself speak, but it sounded like a question. She was waiting for the other shoe to drop, for him to jump her with a new weapon he had concealed somewhere on his body. She wasn’t tempted to run anymore, if that was something she was capable of. His words were infused with some sort of freezing spell. However, the pause allowed for logic to knock on the door. 

Why would he attack? Why now? He had the gun loaded before, could’ve spared a few bullets for her. Now it was empty, all his ammo used on the snake. He could’ve let the creature do his job too, yet he insisted on shielding her from its fangs. Her mind drifted to Andy again. She had to believe there were others like her. He had acted so similarly to how her friend would have in this scenario. She could— maybe she didn’t have to make up her mind on whether all hunters were good or bad, but— truce? That was attainable, wasn’t it? If he didn’t have any intentions of hurting her, she had no plans to retaliate. “Alright,” she rasped, awkwardly. Her skin crawled, uncomfortable with the uncertainty. But slowly, she lowered the hatchet. What the fuck happened now? 

“We should— Might be— better get the fuck out of here, then,” Nicole pointed out, because what ensured there were no more trauma snakes around? As soon as the words left her lips, she realized how it sounded. Like an invitation, like they should go down the same path, now that it didn’t look like there would be a confrontation. Shit. It was still better for the two of them if they parted ways. She didn’t want to deal with any potential change of heart. “Have to get back to my car,” she explained, gesturing to her left. It didn’t escape Nicole, how similar this was to that awkward goodbye moment between coworkers. What if he was heading in the same direction? “Ah— Careful out there,” she offered a nod of acknowledgment. She’d already thanked him, he didn’t need more. Especially if he turned out to be a proper hunter. Then she’d look fucking stupid. Thankfully, the rain still poured, making the silence a lot more manageable. Nicole didn’t have any words left, and likely wouldn’t until she’d fully processed what had transpired. And then— she wasn’t sure she was brave enough to deal with the consequences of confronting those truths. Particularly—

She jolted, chasing that thought away. Not the time. Her eyes met the man’s one last time, too stumped to say anything else. He looked it too. So for both their sakes, Nicole stepped aside, following the path toward her car, careful to never give her back to him. Just in case.  

#alcoholism tw #gun use tw #wickedswriting #w: kaden #w: coiled truth #w #the turntables...

[itztheebrybry]

“This is for me to do…”

#ii knife #ii microphone #ii cobs #ii trophy #ii au #inanimate insanity #inanimate insanity knife #inanimate insanity microphone #inanimate insanity trophy #dw he’s not bead #blood #gun use tw #tw blo0d

[letsbenditlikebennett]

TIMING: September 1st PARTIES: @realmackross & @letsbenditlikebennett SUMMARY: After the full moon, Alex is avoiding Kaden and stays over Mack's for a few nights. CONTENT: Gun use (mentioned)

When Kaden told Mackenzie that Alex had been shot, it was like what little bit of air that filled her lungs had left in that moment. She had felt a mix of emotions run through her body all at once, including an immense anger that had started to bring out something in her that pure emotion never had before. So much so, that she felt her eyes glazing over and her brain starting to falter, which meant she needed to eat. But also made her realize that whatever this virus was keeping her corpse animated, had started to take a hold on her in ways she had never assumed possible.

That had been over a week ago, though, and it was something that she figured would be better left untalked about, just like the other 3495495632495 things she had been keeping underwraps. This was going to be a fun little escape for the two friends. With Alex coming over, Mack had filled the fridge full of regular food and made sure the house was tidy and cozy for the few days the girls were going to be hanging out. She had needed a brief escape and she knew her friend needed one too, despite the fact that the last time Alex had been here, Mackenzie had come crashing down to the ground from upstairs and came back with a fierce attempt to eat Alex and her friend’s brains.

—

Despite the fact it was still strange to Alex that she had friends, especially ones that she could crash with at the drop of a hat, she felt considerably more at ease as she made her way to the manor. The run-in with the hunter who had shot her already had her cousin watching her closely, even if the hunter was dead, and it had been impossible to hide she’d been hurt during the full moon. She wasn’t quite sure that was the correct way to describe it considering all her wounds had been self-inflicted to some extent, but either way, she needed space between her and Kaden. She couldn’t keep allowing hunters to care for when it put them in such a compromising moral position. At least with her friends, they were all mostly not human. When it came to the metaphorical line in the sand, they were all already forced onto one side of it. 

She knocked on the door to the manor and already felt a bit more relaxed than she had at home. While Mack knew more about the whole situation with the hunter than Alex had initially wanted, she decided it wasn’t a bad thing. Had the two of them not talked about being more open with each other despite the fact trust wasn’t something that came easy to either of them? Even if she was still annoyed with Kaden for telling so many people, she was glad that Mack at least knew what was up. When the door opened, she played up an awkward smile, “Honey, I’m home?”

—

Alerted by her camera system that there had been movement outside, Mackenzie saw a mass of familiar red hair standing at her door. With a quick glance to make sure everything looked good, the young zombie made her way to the door. To say that there hadn’t been a tinge of fear running through her cold, dead veins would have been a lie. In fact, when any of the sleepover crew had come for a visit now, Mack often wondered if it was going to result in something horrific or worse. But out of everyone who had been there, she knew Alex would be the one who could handle herself. And as long as Mackenzie had food, they were good.

With an exaggerated breath, Mackenzie unlocked the door and pulled it back to find Alex looking up at her with an awkward smile, “How was work, dear?” She stepped back out of the way to let her wolfie friend inside, “Not too bad I hope. Dinner’s not ready and I’m not taking your shoes off and rubbing your feet, but you can go throw your shit down and prepare for two days of fun.” She hadn’t known the extent of Alex’s injuries, but she was pretty sure the girls would manage as long as no one went toppling over a balcony railing.

—

Even if both girls had more than their fair share of trust issues, Alex appreciated that it was fairly easy to be at ease around Mack. It was easy to forget that her friend was a famous actress when she was so down to earth. Well, at least when they weren’t out in public with people staring at them. Maybe the manor should have been some sort of indication that Mack was a celebrity, but despite the disastrous Barbie party, she felt comfortable at the manor and with Mack. Moreso since learning what the actress was. 

“Another day, another dollar,” Alex laughed, “Or whatever it is the finance bros say. I don’t know, I usually tune them out.” She feigned disbelief that there wasn’t dinner and a foot massage in her future. “Wow,” she joked, “What’s the deal here? None of that 1950’s shit? How am I supposed to be in a lavender haze under these conditions?” 

The bag on her shoulder was rubbing against one of the many scrapes that littered her body, so Alex immediately dropped her shit the moment the phrase was said. “You don’t have to tell me twice,” she grimaced despite herself because of course the strap definitely hit all the wrong spots on her arm on the way down. Hopefully, Mack didn’t notice as much, but she remembered the way her friend said she hadn’t wanted to find out about the gunshot wound three months later in passing. She chewed at her lower lip as she walked toward the couch. “Two days of fun and girlie nonsense,” she nodded, “And I guess a disclaimer that I’m covered in random cuts and stuff now… Kinda went a little werewolf on myself last full moon.” 

—

It had been a strange sensation not hanging out with her old friends anymore. The people she had grown up with. The ones who knew everything about her life…well her old life. She had reunited with Winter, and that had given her a little taste of home, but Jacob and Bailee and the most important one of all, Brody, weren’t in Mackenzie’s life anymore. Yet, somehow this strange little town had started to give her new friends. Even people she could trust with knowing her secret. And one of them currently stood in her house wanting to spend two whole days with her despite all the bullshit that had happened previously, and she knew that was something worth holding onto.

“Stickin’ it to the man. Just the way I like it.” Mackenzie winked at Alex, “And yeah, you’d think I’d know more about what the fiance bros say, but I have one that keeps up with all that shit for me.” Shrugging her shoulders, she shut the door behind Alex and locked it back. “That’s not my problem. I was born in 1998. Talk to Taylor about that one.”

Mack had caught sight of the expression on Alex’s face, but had opted not to say anything. Maybe it was the gunshot wound, maybe it wasn’t. But she knew that if her friend wanted to tell her, she would. Instead, she scooped up Alex’s bag, ready to take it to one of the spare bedrooms upstairs, “Are you prepared for all of this fun? Because I’ve got snacks, blankets, Squishmallows, games, you name it…I stocked up.” And there it was, “And first aid supplies, but not solely just for sharing. I might’ve had a little run with some things of my own.” She had preferred not to remember the giant flies that had given her an acid bath, and while most of the wounds had healed, there were still a few stubborn areas that revealed a little more than she had liked to see of herself. Thankfully she had clothes to cover those up.

—

Whenever they were together, it was easy for Alex to remember why she got along so well with Mack. They led wildly different lives, there was no denying as much, but they were still similar enough that conversation seemed to come with a natural ebb and flow. Their sense of humor was something they shared, too, and it brought a certain ease with it. Banter came naturally and made it hard for any tension to settle in the air, which was quite a feat when they were apparently both injured. 

“If I could personally take it up with Taylor,” she laughed, “You already know I would.” Mostly because Alex would talk about literally any and everything with her favorite songwriter given the chance. Not that it was likely that would ever happen, but a girl could dream. Hell, she was now going to the Eras tour courtesy of the friend who was now carting the green duffle bag away. She smiled thankfully, grateful she didn’t have to keep hitting the various small wounds across her body with the bag. 

“I was born ready for fun,” she joked. The funniest part of the joke was Alex wasn’t sure she had ever really known fun until she was living on the road with her sister, but that was more sad funny than haha funny. The mention of Mack getting hurt made her frown slightly. Shouldn’t the zombie just heal? She wasn’t all that sure how undead stuff actually worked so she nodded. “Looks like we’re both on a roll,” she shrugged as she plopped down on the couch, “The first aid supplies sales in this town must be through the roof.” 

That much seemed true. Alex cozied up with one of the many blankets on the couch and looked over Mack. “I know my more recent ouchies are me not needing to lock myself up in a bunker on full moons, but how’d you get hurt? I didn’t think… well, I know you can get hurt obviously, but like, I thought it healed when you like got some food in you? You don’t have to answer that if you don’t want to…”                              

—

Mackenzie had found comfort and familiarity in Alex. Though they had only known each other for a few months, it felt as if those few months had really been a lifetime. The pair had led two entirely different lives taking paths that neither could probably fathom. Mack still didn’t know a whole lot about Alex’s family, but she did know that her sister and cousin seemed like good people. People who genuinely cared for the girl’s wellbeing. It was something that Mackenzie had missed greatly. She missed getting hugs from her parents when she was sad or hurting. But Winter had given her an unexpected one after the sleepover, and for now, that feeling is what she held onto when she was sad. That and being able to laugh with new friends like Alex.

As Mack made her way upstairs with the duffle bag, she put it in the room down the hall from her own, before returning to the conversation, “So you’re saying, if you met her at the Eras tour, this would be what you’d talk about?” Her voice carried from the balcony upstairs as she made her way back down. “I mean, I’m not saying you’ll get to meet her, but…you know?” She shrugged her shoulders as she went to find a spot on the couch and pulled her favorite fuzzy blanket over her. Not that she could really enjoy the fuzziness of it anymore, but still the memories had been there.

“Good, because I’ve got plenty of fun at the ready. Plus, I’m not sure if you spotted the other rooms downstairs when you were on the brain hunt for me, but there is more fun to be had down there.” Sometimes, when Taylor, her assistant, would come to visit, she would surprise Mack with the latest movie screeners and the most recent in her possession had been Barbie. “And if you can look past everything that happened over a month ago, I might actually have the Barbie movie in my possession…But you didn’t hear that from me.” She grinned, her still pearly white veneers sparkling like something out of a movie. “Which, by the way, if it wasn’t for Mateo…I don’t know if you know him, I never would’ve had first aid supplies in my possession. Don’t ask. But just know I am well stocked, if we do need them.” The 4th of July had still been a memory that lived fresh in her mind.

It was nice knowing that a hunter hadn’t supplied Alex with more injuries. But it still wasn’t satisfying knowing she had done it to herself. She couldn’t imagine what it was like being a werewolf. She had seen Hollywood magic make the change happen, but if it was anything like what she had watched in the movies, Mackenzie knew it had to be a very painful process, “The werewolf stuff…does it hurt? And are you okay?” She looked down for a moment, reliving her night of shame, but she had recalled that she had made the promise to be honest with Alex, “Um, I sorta…decided to test my limits just a little bit the other night. Went for a late night visit to the Codfather and might have climbed into their dumpster…” It sounded ridiculous. So much so that if Mack could blush, she would have, “But apparently there were some other things there…Parker said they’re called Eurynomos and they feed on the flesh of the dead aka me. Really they just look like big fucking flies, but they shoot acid out and lets just say I’ve never seen my own bones before.” An uneasy and pitiful laugh escaped her lips, before she could stop it. “Lesson learned.” She couldn’t look at Alex, partly for being embarrassed and partly for the way she had slowly begun losing herself a day at a time after the sleepover.

—

“I was maybe just a little bit distracted while I was on the hunt for brains,” Alex laughed. It was nice that they were joking about it now. Usually it was her who was making jokes about something traumatizing far too soon, but it wasn’t her first this time, so she’d happily follow the lead the zombie was putting down on that front. Humor was her favorite load-bearing coping mechanism, after all. She wasn’t sure why it was helpful, but if Mack was into it too, there had to be something to it, right? “But if I was lucky enough to meet Taylor on tour… a) I’d probably black out,” she laughed, “And b) that is not what I’d be asking. I have no idea what I’d be asking. There’d probably be a whole lot of staring in awe.” 

“Oh, I’m so down to watch the movie,” Alex answered, “I did see it in theaters with Cass… but admittedly I got distracted watching Cass… which is as gay as it sounds. So definitely down to watch and maybe pay a bit more attention this time.” She remembered how great that night had been at the time, how electric she had felt leaving the theater and stealing a bunch of pink dye to make Alan’s pool pink. The memory still held some of that feeling, but it was tinted with guilt too as she was reminded of Alan. 

The name Mack mentioned didn’t sound familiar though she vaguely remembered Mack having mentioned the guy before. Alex wanted to ask questions about why she had a first aid kit because of him, but she figured she could listen to the part where Mack said not to ask considering she was crashing at the zombie’s manor. “Don’t know him, no.” 

When the zombie mentioned testing her limits, Alex felt like her stomach was doing cartwheels. It didn’t sound like a great idea, especially if she didn’t have a more experienced zombie guiding her, but was it really Alex’s place to tell her what she should and shouldn’t do? It wasn’t like she really knew much about how stuff with the undead worked and she was sure this was part of Mack getting a handle on the whole zombie thing. Knowing one’s limits was important, right? “You know, I think you can afford to actually eat at the Codfather,” she nudged playfully, “But guess the dumpster might have more in the way of brains. And Eurynomos? I think a lot of those hang around the abnormality, too.

Then the name of the person clicked. “Wait, Parker,” she asked, “And a bug… that checks out.” She chewed on her lower lip as she remembered the panic attack she’d had in front of him before running out of his exhibit at the museum. Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to bring up. “Glad he was there to help you… he did help, right?” 

—

Sometimes Mackenzie had to pinch herself really, really hard to make sense of the life she was living now. This time a year ago, she had been filming a movie and excitedly waiting to go back home to Los Angeles to be with her fiance and start planning their wedding. It had been her dream since the day they had first started dating. And her life with kids. She had started having that discussion. What would their name be? How many would they have? But here she was now, sitting in a huge, normally empty house next to a real life werewolf discussing life as such and how it was to be a zombie. It just didn’t track most days. And it usually left her wanting to crawl up under the covers in her bedroom and further decay. But then she remembered she wasn’t completely alone. She had someone who cared about her currently discussing Taylor Swift and Barbie with her. Someone who wanted to spend time with her and watch movies and laugh with her, and seemed to make all the nightmarish parts of her life just a little easier.

“Yeah, Barbie is definitely the right movie for you with all the pink and the beach offs…” Mackenzie had skipped past the rest of the Taylor Swift conversation for a reason, and would circle back around to it. Taylor Swift was the epitome of happiness in her book, and it would be a lot better than talking about flesh consuming flies and all the other hard subjects she was sure would be brought up during the night. “But we’re not gonna talk about Cass the whole time are we?” She knew how much Alex loved the girl. The entirety of Wicked’s Rest knew, but she just wanted to spend time with her friend and not hear about love and relationships for the hurt it brought to her heart. “I just…relationships aren’t really my thing at the moment. Not romantic ones anyways. I mean, I love that you guys are happy and you’re cute and all…” She felt like she was sticking her foot in her mouth, so she quickly changed the subject to something else.

“Yeah, I definitely can afford it. Probably should’ve just stuck with Old Faithful - lobster mac, but somebody suggested dumpster diving, and I don’t know. It was stupid and not going to happen again. But it was Parker. We’re actually becoming kind of close. I call him Dad. He helped me, and he does know about me…” Mack wasn’t sure if she should have divulged that information, but she trusted Parker. He had been a good friend to her so far and though he could be a bit blunt, she still appreciated him for it.

“It was supposed to be a surprise, but I think you’re better off knowing ahead of time.” Mackenzie had melded Taylor back into the conversation as more so a way to hopefully divert from all the heartache and for feeling like an ass towards the discussion of Alex and Cass’s relationship. “Meeting Taylor Swift is like a once in a lifetime thing, and I don’t think I can swing it twice, so no passing out or dying. Capiche?” She probably could, but Alex didn’t need to know that. She looked at her friend’s face waiting for her reaction.

—

Between the butterflies that came with a new relationship and all the friends she had made recently,  it had been easy to forget that she wasn’t inherently likable. If anything, Alex knew she was anything but lovable. The broken record of her parents’ voices that played on loop in her mind had been quieter as of late, like someone had turned the volume down on it to almost a mute. It gave her the crazy idea that she could just speak what was on her mind without putting her words through a filter and it was foolish. Talking about Cass only highlighted everything that was soft about and, if her parents were to be believed, wrong with her. Of course Mack didn’t want to hear her go on and on about Cass. She wished she could sink into the couch cushion and disappear. Had she really been talking about Cass the whole time? She couldn’t remember mentioning the oread before that moment and that was only because the memories of dying Alan’s pool pink were kinda better than the one of Mack falling from her balcony. 

“Definitely not,” Alex answered with a smile even though she felt unnerved about her own faux-pas, “Just dying a pool pink is noteworthy on the subject of Barbie. Turning Wicked’s Rest into Barbie World by turning every mojo dojo casa house into a dreamhouse and all.” Her laugh was a bit flat, but then it clicked when Mack spoke again. While she hadn’t known what Mack’s love life looked like prior to moving here, she could gather it was a touchy subject from the way the zombie spoke. Her features softened. “I got ya,” she murmured, “If you ever do wanna talk about that stuff… I’ve kind of made a point of not reading anything about you on the internet. I don’t want to know anything about you that you didn’t choose to tell me yourself.” 

The quick subject change was somewhat welcome. Alex preferred to not sit in the uncomfortable feeling that had been starting to settle. Though the mention of Parker made her wonder if she was talking about the museum guy who snapped in front of her. Yet another moment on her never-ending list of embarrassing moments. She shrugged, “I mean, I’m not above dumpster diving, but I grew up poor. It can be fun… But not when weird flies attack you.”

It was nice Mack had found a father figure though. The knot in her stomach turned as she thought of her own soured relationship with someone who could have been that to her. Alex wasn’t sure why, but there had been almost a fatherly feeling to Alan. Maybe more so than her own father, but even the faintest whisper of that thought was enough to make another wave of guilt crash through her. Her father couldn’t be replaced and even if he could, it wasn’t like Alan would want anything to do with her after all the trouble she caused. It was that faint feeling of being sad for herself, but happy for Mack. Her friend was newer to all this supernatural stuff. She needed guidance and someone to count on. And Mack was good and bright— she deserved someone who could help her with all the crap that came with being turned into a monster. 

“I’m glad he found you,” she said softly, “And that he’s been there for you since. I think you deserve that. A sorta found family in the midst of all the supernatural crap you got thrown into.” Thoughts of Alan still swirled around in her head and she wished she knew some way to make what happened to them ok. The hunter was dead, but Alex wasn’t even sure that was ok. It didn’t change that she had lied to him or had assumed the worst of him despite him giving her every reason to trust him. She tugged at her bottom lip with her teeth and admitted, “I think… I may have ruined things with someone who could have been a dad figure. But kinda used to dads hating me anyway. Kinda my brand.” 

The joke fell flat, but it was funny damn it. Even if it was more a sad kind of funny, Alex found the humor made it easier to talk about. The fact it was peppered between otherwise normal tangents also helped. “I’ll manage,” she grinned, “I promise. I have so many questions about her songwriting process, can’t waste the opportunity and all.” 

—

Mackenzie could tell that Alex’s mood had dropped. She knew how much the werewolf was falling for Cass. It was apparent by all the conversations she had seen online. The way they had reacted around each other at the few parties she had been to with them, even at the sleepover. It was great that Alex had that in her life. She couldn’t fault her for it, but there was also that tinge of jealousy when she saw couples in love. But more so, it was the heartbreak of it all. She had taken away one of the best things in her life via her own hands. Her everything. And in turn it had led to a world of loneliness. Mackenzie had always known actions had consequences. It was a part of life, but the way she saw herself when she looked in the mirror now was that of pure hate. She hated every part of herself, but she had just been so good at putting on a show for everyone that it was easy to appear okay on the outside.

“Oh yeah, you would definitely make Barbie proud. Every house around here deserves to be a mojo dojo casa house. We’re not gonna turn pink though if we go swimming right?” She paused and looked at Alex with narrowed eyes. Would it be funny? Yes. But Mackenzie wasn’t sure she wanted to be pink. It was the confession that Alex made, though, that made the zombie look away, “I appreciate it.” It felt like their fun times were falling flat, and she had hated that. They had both been through enough within the past month. They needed happiness in their lives, and Mackenzie was already feeling like she had ruined it, “Any weird things like that for werewolves?” That was not happy. That was more curiosity, but she was faltering. “Parker, yeah. Thanks. I didn’t really expect it, but it’s nice having someone like that out here.” Parker was unexpected. But she was grateful for him. Plus, she figured her dad would get along with him if they ever actually met, which was probably never going to happen.

All-in-all this was not going the way she had hoped, and while she knew Alex was trying to lighten the mood with her joke about fathers, it just wasn’t working. But it was the grin, and not the extreme excitement about meeting Taylor Swift, that confirmed everything for Mackenzie, “Okay, I don’t think this is going the way either of us want it to. I feel like I’ve made you upset with the whole Cass thing…” She sighed and, in turn, took a deep breath letting it out slowly, before turning her body to face Alex, “With you not knowing anything about me, in regards to what’s on the internet, I think is what’s making this hard.”

She hated talking about Brody like this. In fact, he had been a sore subject even when she tried to reminisce about the good times with him, except for the day she had spent laying in the fields with her llama friends. That had been a great day. “There was this guy, and his name was Brody. We pretty much knew each other from childhood, because we had worked on a movie together when we were both kids. We ended up going our separate ways for several years, until a mutual friend set us up together on a date. Long story short, we were supposed to get married, but before we could, he…he died.” The word hitched in her throat. Mackenzie closed her eyes for a moment gathering herself, before opening them, and resuming what she was saying, “So it’s not that I don’t want you to be happy or to relive the moments you have with Cass over and over again, because that’s a beautiful thing. It’s just all of the stuff with my fiance is still really fresh, and it’s hard to hear about other relationships. I’m so sorry if that upset you or offended you in any way. But hold onto her, Alex. Hold onto her tightly, and don’t let her go, because losing them and not having that chance to ever be with them again is one of the hardest things that can ever happen.”

Mackenzie let out a quivering breath. It was the most she had talked about the love of her life in such a long time, and she needed some air, “I’m just gonna step outside for a moment. Get some air. Do you need anything while I’m up?” She looked down at Alex with a small smile.

—

Perhaps that was a downside to spending a lot of time with someone. It was apparent that despite her best efforts to keep the mood light by donning a smile, Alex had failed to cover up that the request Mack had made struck a chord. It wasn’t the zombie’s fault. It was a fairly innocuous request. Some part of Alex knew that not everything could be her fault, but it was hard to feel like she wasn’t letting her friend down in some way, because wasn’t that what she did? She let people down. Her parents had made as much clear from the day she was able to grip a knife in her tiny little hands. Even then, she was too clumsy— too prone to knicking herself with the blade. Every person that thought she could be a friend or lover along their travels. Hell, even now she was letting Andy down. Instead of accepting the love and protection her sister so readily offered, she was pushing it away. How could she not think it was any different with Mack? How could she not assume it was something she had done? 

Even the joke about mojo dojo casa houses felt flat, which was frankly an insult to the Barbie franchise, but Alex guessed that her and Mack were more like Margot Robbie’s Barbie in the midst of an existential crisis. They could be depressed and still sparkle, which hey, was a pretty useful life skill, but it still sucked. The chortle that escaped her lips was forced and she shook her head. “Did leave a slight tint, but washed right off,” she shrugged, “And of course.” 

Mack did deserve that sort of guidance and she meant it even if part of her was a little bit jealous. The question caught Alex off guard and she couldn’t readily pull forth from her breadth of monster knowledge to think of something that targeted werewolves specifically. “I don’t think so,” she answered honestly, “There’s like a peak in the woods that has an effect on shifters though… makes us really aggressive. Hard to keep control and all that jazz.” 

No amount of trying to change the subject made a difference. They seemed to be stuck in loop where that awkward feeling never truly went away. Alex wrapped one of the many ridiculously soft blankets tighter around her and still wished she could disappear into the couch cushions. With the array of squishmellows and pillows, she might actually be able to do that, but then Mack was offering an explanation and she felt the color leave her own face as the zombie spoke. 

Her fiancé had died and here Alex was casually mentioning her girlfriend. She was essentially throwing salt and spitting on an open wound. When they had first become friends, not googling Mack had seemed like the respectful thing to do. The fact her whole life was online while Alex’s wasn’t made it feel invasive to look more into her friend’s life. In this instance, it would have been better to know and while she of course couldn’t have realized that, she felt terrible. 

“Mack,” she spoke as she reached a hand out hesitantly to grab her friend’s, “I’m so sorry. I had no idea.” She squeezed her friend's hand and wished there was anything she could do to take the pain away. Hell, she’d even be okay with a jump back in time to ten minutes ago so that she could avoid bringing up her own girlfriend in front of someone who was grieving. Her heart was racing in her chest despite the comforts she was surrounded by. No part of her could even imagine losing Cass that way and she’d only known the oread for a few months. “You don’t have to explain or tell me anything else unless you ever want to. But I will, ok? And like, consider my lips sealed in the simping department.” 

When Mack stood up, all she could do was simply nod as she answered, “I’m fine. I’ll just be here deciding which squishmellow is my favorite.” And thinking about what an ass she made of herself, but Mack didn’t need to know that. She hugged onto one of the stuffed animals that looked like a wolf in a strawberry as the zombie left the room and sat with the weight of what she’d just learned. Some part of her wondered if she should Google what happened to avoid potentially bringing up any other touchy subjects, but some other part of her couldn’t help that Mack had lived out one of her worst fears— losing control and hurting someone she loved. If that was the case, she doubted the tabloids had anything close to the real story and she wasn’t sure she wanted to find confirmation of that. It felt too personal. While she wasn’t sure of the best way to proceed, the werewolf promised herself she’d be a better friend to Mack and do her best to make things easier instead of harder like she had done today. It was unspoken, but she could only hope time proved to Mack that she had someone she could trust in her. 

#wr mack #gun use tw #threads; with mack #threads; with mack; barbie sleepover take 2 #(never been a natural all i do is try try try) ;; writing #(the moonlight's blinding) ;; season 1 writing

[spice-and-fire]

PARTIES: @spice-and-fire TIMING: Months before Devi arrived in Wicked’s Rest LOCATION: Rabat, Morocco SUMMARY: Devi confesses to a comrade’s widow. CONTENT: Gun use

Heaven offers nothing that a mercenary soul can desire. Devi never understood what that meant when her father shared it with her the first time. But she never expected those words to stand the testament of time, surviving even her old man. Maybe she still doesn’t. The closest she almost came to realizing what it could truly mean was months before she arrived in Wicked’s Rest, when she turned her back on the life her old man had given her, a life neither of them ever wanted but had to turn to in order to survive. Devi could have turned her back on it months earlier, though, years even, but her mercenary soul wouldn’t. Not until another family had to experience her similar fate.

ﮩ

Gunfire. A hail of bullets. In a dimly lit room, where an inexperienced soldier could feel that the walls were closing in, Devi relished the violence, excited at the chaos that came with a life filled with action. She laughed, a little too maniacally then for her present version’s tempered taste, as she contended not only with the closed space, but also with the bad lighting, the dust and the iron, in that hellhole. They were outnumbered. Or at least that’s what the enemy wanted them to feel. Truth was, Devi and her company weren’t sure. It was hard to see down there. Not just because of the terrible quality of vision but also because any attempt to lay eyes on whoever was gunning them down risked losing an actual eye. Or both.

“Jesus fucking Christ, Soldier!” The man’s name was Tarik. He was handsome. Tall and dark. But unfortunately already married. Devi had met his wife once. Or twice. Even before they made it official. This was supposed to be his last job before he retired. Devi thought he was too young to do that but still honored his wishes. Might as well go out in a blaze of glory, right? Should be one hell of a story to tell his kids. And his kids’ kids. “Get down, will you? What are you trying to do? Get yourself killed?”

Devi laughed again. She could barely hear him amidst the gunfire. No doubt he was the same with her. But that was why they learned to read each others’ lips. Among other things. “Can’t die, Turk,” she pressed her back against the hard earthen wall, a suitable cover in that underground ruin that quickly became the crypt of allies and enemies alike. “You know that! More importantly, any theories on how they found us?”

Without waiting for his response, Devi quickly stepped out in the open, fired a few bullets at their antagonists, and then instinctively slipped back, behind her cover, as if this was not a life-threatening situation. To her, that may be true. To the rest of their crew, however, and to those against them? Well, dead men can’t argue. Only the living can. Best survive to say one’s piece.

“The usual, most likely,” Tarik heaved a sigh, following her suit. The only difference was, instead of just taking a step and immediately shooting like a careless immortal, the recently made husband took a knee, surprising an enemy combatant, and shot them down like it was hunting season, with cold-blooded precision. Then, like Devi had done, he returned to his much safer position: behind the stone wall. “Another local guide betrayed us for a few pieces of silver.”

“That a Christian reference, Turk?” Devi slipped back in the fight, took down another enemy, and slipped back into her cover. Seamlessly. Without any fear or remorse. “You know you just inserted the f-word in the middle of the big guy’s name, right? Not very Christian of you.”

“Don’t tell my wife,” Tarik casually quipped as he threw out a live grenade, making their enemies scream before the inevitable boom. “I’m still learning, but I was terrible at school.”

The long-time partners laughed. Even as the bullets continued to rain on them, steel against earth and flesh, people on both sides screaming in pain and fear. Despite the chaos and confusion around them, the pair still found solace in each other, a welcomed respite from the violence and desperation, a terribly timed delusion and mockery of death and life. And that last sentiment weighed heavy on fate, maybe even the universe, and the devil or death itself took it upon themselves to enact justice. Destiny has had enough.

“Yeah, well, tell her when you get back,” Devi grinned. The bullets from their antagonists began to dwindle. Someone on that side screamed something. It was a language she didn’t understand. European? Whatever. She gestured for Tarik to wait on her signal, cover her if need be, and took a quick peek. Her eyes grew wide in horror when she realized why the gunfire that was pinning them slowed down to a halt. What the fuck?! “ROCKET LAUNCHER!”

The last thing she heard was Tarik screaming for everyone to get down. Then the inevitable doom. The loud explosion. Bits and pieces of earth flying everywhere, people screaming and crying and coughing, and Tarik’s own yelling, though she could not hear him that well. It was the painful ringing in her ears and the equally painful aftermath of being thrown back by a freaking rocket that made it hard for the phoenix to concentrate on her partner’s voice.

When she opened her eyes, she could barely see anything apart from the dust and shadows, the silhouettes of her own people on the ground. Devi mouthed Tarik’s name as she searched for him as fast as she could, though she was barely moving at her normal pace. Letting out a cough, she tried to get back up to her feet. Despite her fragile bones, she wasn’t going to die down there. She should have died years back, with her late father, but it was too late now. That would have been the best death for her. Everything else would fail in comparison.

A smile formed across her lips, though a cough still persisted in escaping them, when she saw Tarik’s form standing tall over her. When their eyes met, she felt like a heavy weight was lifted from her shoulders. Hell, she even heaved a sigh of relief. 

“Soldier…” Devi remembered him smiling back at her, a confident smirk on his face. “I've got your back.” Always and forever.  

And then he got run down by the enemy, a million bullets exploding through him, from his back. One after another. Without an end in sight. 

Devi screamed his name, and as if on cue, their remaining comrades-in-arms came pouring forth from behind her, all ready to give their lives to avenge their favorite leader. Their favorite son. Or maybe they just realized they were all going to die down there, so why not take the bastards with them? Again, gunfire. A neverending hail of bullets. People screamed, some their last, and bodies dropped to the ground like used clothes. Devi ignored everyone and everything else. Two sides of a fight, both were just trying to survive, none of which mattered to her. 

“You’re gonna come…to my kid’s birthday, right?” 

She took to his body, cradling him in her arms.

“No, no, no…” Devi looked him over, trying to reassure herself, the both of them, that it was all a trick, that he was just fine, that he would survive. The bullet holes denied her that outcome. He was bleeding everywhere. On the ground. Even on her.

“...gonna visit…during the holidays?”

“...no, please… Please stop… No, you can’t…”

“No…? To the birth…day…” Even dying, Tarik still kept his sense of humor. “Or the holidays…?”

“Turk… Tarik, you’re going to be fine, alright?” Tears began to streak across her cheeks as her voice slowly started to quiver. “I’m going to bring… We’re going to make it back, alright? Together? Just hold on…” Devi looked around, hoping she’d find someone else to help. Yet there was no one. No one but the two of them. The rest were bodies. Or were close to joining him. Hiding behind unsuitable cover. Bleeding. Screaming. Heaving. They were supposed to find treasure there, not death. It was supposed to be an underground treasury, not their grave.

Tarik’s hand made its way to her cheek, struggling to even wipe a tear away. “They got me good, huh, Soldier?” He was smiling. She was crying. They were both losing each other. And him his life. His future. “It’s okay… Hey, l-listen to me… Just p-promise…me…one thing… Look out for…”

In a way, it was indeed his last job. They just thought it would end differently.

As Devi watched in horror, her best friend breathed his last, and her entire body trembled. Her once-dried eyes, wide with excitement, were now soaked with her tears and his blood. The rest was noise, but she could no longer hear anything else. She panicked, screaming at him to come back, to hold on, to fight the light. Or whatever was waiting for him in the afterlife. Because she was waiting for him in that life. His wife was waiting for him. His child… Dear gods, his child… His child wouldn’t even get to meet his father!

The loss was too much for Devi to bear. The grief was too much to contain, and in the phoenix’s rage, her scream blanketed everything else, turning the battlefield into something much worse, as the fires from her soul followed her desperate wailing, escaping her body and pouring out to drape everyone and everything else in their furious revenge. 

ﮩ

“I scorched them all,” Devi stated, eyes firmly stuck on a single pattern of the wallpaper across from where she sat. Her right leg was bobbing up and down like there was no tomorrow. Her body was leaning forward, despite her head being too afraid to meet her witness’ face. She clenched her jaw, swallowed air, as she made her biggest confession. “...everyone. Nothing remained. Nothing but cinders and ash. Nothing to even remember them by…”

The woman opposite her was drenched in tears, a hand on her mouth. It wasn’t to hide shock, to keep her jaw from falling to the ground. It was to contain her hateful scream, to keep her sobbing, her anguish, from drowning the entire house. She knew what had happened to her husband, feared the worst in the days prior to his departure. She had warned him against the job, after all, but he was so stubborn, so blinded by the possibility of wealth and a future where they would no longer worry about anything material that he could not see this very possibility. And now he was reduced to a memory by a “misfired explosive.”

An eternity of silence erupted between Devi and Tarik’s widow. It was just the two of them in that small room in that small house, but the distance felt farther and farther with each silent second that passed. 

ﮩ

“You go where the angels tell you to go,” Devi listened to Tarik’s voice in her mind’s ear, remembering the advice he gave him before they did their last job together. It was a cozy afternoon in Morocco. Just him and her and the sun. “You do what they ask you to do…to the best of your ability.”

She continued to cry on the train, empty and alone.

#wickedswriting #ᕚﮩﮩ٨ﮩ solo ﮩ٨ﮩﮩᕘ #ᕚ season one ﮩ canaries ᕘ #ᕚ cinders & ash ᕘ #gun use tw

[faoighiche]

Sink Your Teeth | Daiyu & Burrow

PARTNER : @bountyhaunter TIMING : Current. LOCATION : The woods. SUMMARY : While Burrow is on her way to check on her hound, a werewolf attacks. Luckily for Burrow, Daiyu kills the beast. Unluckily for Daiyu, Burrow inquiries about werewolf bite facts. WARNINGS : Gun use, unsanitary, child abuse (mentions), parental death (mentions), medical blood (mentions), gore

Though the Volkovs didn’t focus on werewolves, full months were an event in and of itself among the family. They’d dress in their best gear and take their pick from the weapons on hand. Sometimes they’d drive far off, to a wooded area a state line or two over where a pack had been spotted. It was a competition, of sorts, like the hunting trips of regular humans — kill the biggest one, kill the most wolves, bring the prettiest head. Daiyu had never won them, but she’d always managed to show off some level of effective viciousness. She still had a werewolf tooth dangling from a chain. She didn’t wear it any more, though.

These days she hunted alone. She preferred it that way. Competition brought out something ugly in her and losing made her even more ugly. Besides, the murder method comparisons had started to make her feel dirty and rotten. So here she was, by herself. Stalking her prey. Silver-bullet-rifle slung over her shoulder, knives strapped to her thighs. The bounty for this vicious beast was high. 

And so she was effective. Or tried to be, at least — she’d aimed for the creature’s heart as she’d shot, but it had lodged in its thigh in stead. With a howl the wolf went down and she skittered over, reloading her rifle as she did. Muscle memory was strong. Daiyu was ready to finish the job when she heard a sound. Whipping around, she squinted. Her dark vision helped in this department, “It’s dangerous out here,” she said to her onlooker. At least, she hoped that was what this was. An onlooker, rather than an assailant. “Best go on home.” She hated an audience.

The trail was familiar. Burrow had crossed it many times in her treks to tend to her hound. The one that had claimed the salted one, nestled safely in its belly. She knew if she walked along the creek, turned at the barren tree, and followed her flies, she would find that sleeping fae. It was consistent. But the forest itself was never the same. This venture offered something entirely new. A beast who took the image of the mighty wulver but did not have the heart of one. This thing was crazed and just as the television foretold. A werewolf. A thin she had wished to know for a while, but all it wished was to know the taste of her flesh. 

Burrow scampered up a tree, pulling at the branches just as the beast collided with its trunk. The tree trembled as if it feared to be devoured, too, but it shook alone. Burrow kept climbing and climbing until she felt satisfied enough to look down. The beast lurked below, wishing to follow. “You will have the fleas.” Her precious fleas bounced about her imagination. She made it into a belief. One that the werewolf believed into a phantom itch that rippled up its spine. It dealt with its annoyance as Burrow dealt with her own. Come to me. She called to all who would listen. Even her hounds stirred at her call, though they were far. She kept them away from the humans and their hatred of the monsters. 

A hatred that was for her benefit, for once. Just as Burrow registered that blast of sound, the beast was down.

Burrow was safe to sense for her kin in the thing’s mouth. There was no one — no crying because their home was bleeding out on the forest floor. If it wasn’t her parasites that caused the bite, then what? She writhed ever so slowly down the tree, limbs falling so gently on the branches. Quiet was key. The human had a gun, after all. Unfortunately, her limb slipped on a branch damaged by the creature. A small mistake, yet it attracted those eyes. Still not yet out of the tree’s embrace, she swung onto a branch opposite of the human. Or, the hunter, as she began to suspect. The trunk was her shield against this new threat. “I am aware of the danger. The werewolf tried to eat me.” Her voice was muffled by the bark in front of her. “I will go after I look in the werewolf’s mouth. I need to look in the werewolf’s mouth.” 

She preferred guns. Always had. Though her training had involved a multitude of weapons – some more practical and some simply extravagant for the sake of it – and she’d showed proficiency with knives, there was something about the quickness, the violence, the bang of the gun. Loud. Merciless. One shot and the forest knew where you were — there was nothing stealthy about it. And so much of the work was stealth, so much of it was sneaking and tracking and not breaking a single branch, that ending it with a bang was Daiyu’s favorite way to do so. (Of course, there was also the distance it offered. No need to get up close and personal. No need to watch the light die in a creature’s eyes.)

She slung her rifle over her back as her eyes found the other person in the woods. Perched on a branch. Interesting. Strange, but then her hunting a werewolf all by herself wasn’t exactly regular-people behavior either. Daiyu didn’t judge, but she was amused and bewildered. She felt no tug in her stomach, nothing to make her aware that the other was – like the werewolf – a shapeshifter. Besides, what did it matter? There was a bounty on this werewolf’s head, not on the woman’s. 

The werewolf. Her gaze snapped to it, clawing at the forest floor, trying to get up on four paws again even though some artery near its leg had burst and was spraying blood down. It filled the forest air. Daiyu moved, unslung her rifle and hit the creature against the head with the butt of the weapon. “Well, then you got lucky, I guess. Not a fine end, being eaten by one of these guys,” she quipped easily, as if talking of the weather, “I mean …” There was an instinct to become territorial. This was her kill. Her prize. Her bounty. She’d have to collect her evidence of killing it and it was all hers. But a look — it couldn’t hurt, could it? Unless it could. Unless this was a ranger too, attacking from above, good at climbing and ranged violence. She pushed her thoughts aside. Daiyu had never been very good at overthinking things too long. “Ah, why’s that? I mean, you can take all the looks you want — it’s mine, though. Yeah?”

Burrow could hear how the ground was unturned. Tilled in preparation for the sowing of death, but it did not want to be planted, not yet. The wolf gasps still held the remnants of a whine — remnants of life that still wanted to be lived. “Yes, I suppose it is not a fine end.” Neither to be eaten or shot with a gun. “I prefer to not be entirely eaten by… anything.” A taste was allowed, as long as it was done by one worthy of tasting her. A luxury usually reserved for her parasites, but even they were not granted the pleasure of eating her whole. The wolf was clearly not deserving of even a nibble, for her parasites saw it unfit for a home. Especially now, with all its delectable contents spilling out into the soil. A waste, but not one she would mourn. The human was equally apathetic to that wastefulness. The voice that carried through the air was casual. As casual as the hands had sprayed that blood onto the ground. 

Her kin swarmed in the branches, answering to the call of Burrow’s caution. She would not expose them to such violent hands without a need. Besides, she still very much wanted to look into that mouth. “Fine. The wolf is yours to claim. I do not care to have something that is dying.” It would be useless to them. “I want to look into the wolf’s mouth because… I am curious about the wolf’s bite and the infection the bite causes.” Not the extent she was moments prior, before realizing it all had no connection to her precious ones. Yet, a curiosity remained. It did not cause her to act brash. She still stood behind the trunk, like a child pressed into the legs of its guardian. “Do you promise to not cause harm to me?” 

She watched the wolf’s labored breaths for a moment and thought of her father, covered in blood and telling his brood how he’d cut out the heart of a werewolf. It would go to some spellcaster, he’d said, but the focus had been on the process of the killing. Slow, meticulous, slow. Daiyu didn’t like the memory pressing into her mind, didn’t like that the wolf was still alive. “It’s not a fine end to draw it out, either.” She wanted to finish it. She wasn’t one to draw out the suffering, to make an art out of flaying, maiming and whatnot. This should have been a one-shot kill, after all — one bullet and darkness. A small mercy.

At least the other had no interest in the wolf, her claim to the bounty she was after. Her meal ticket, rent for another week, whatnot. “Ah.” Daiyu blinked at the other. Again, it was odd, but she didn’t judge. “Fair enough. And sure, yeah. I promise.” The words were given little thought, her focus on ending the suffering she’d started. For all her faults, Daiyu wasn’t one to half-ass things. And so she crouched near the wolf’s head, its labored breathing creating small clouds in the cold air. From its sheath strapped to her leg, she drew her hunting knife and quickly sank the silver in the creature’s neck, where its artery was still trying to pump blood through its system. She drew the knife towards her and pulled it out, blood gushing on the forest ground. “There. Now it won’t bite.” She gestured towards the slowing breaths that ended eventually, eyes slanting up. “Have your look.”

The bind coiled its leash around the hunter, and Burrow felt safe enough to pop her head out. The hunter’s stance matched her voice: casual and comfortable. She had done this many times and would do many times more. One had to see to believe, for the hunter was a babe compared to the beast she fell. Small, unassuming, powerful. Similar to her parasites. What had Parker called them? The rangers: those who hunted the beasts in the woods. The hunter did not share in the recognition, for she had been too giving with her words. Burrow was not the prey tonight, and if that were to change, well, the hunter was powerless to act. 

Burrow continued her descent down, less concerned with the cracks it produced. When she met the ground, she continued lower, kneeling down. The beast was so close to a wolf, yet so far away. The limbs too long, the chest too broad, and the torso too short. She placed her fingers on the snout and there was not a twitch — she flicked the nose to be certain, and still, nothing. Her fingers curled under the lips, pulling open the mouth and revealing a sight more familiar. Pink tongue, bumpy hard palate, and 42 teeth along two long and powerful jaws. Nothing out of place or unordinary. “Disappointing,” she sighed to herself. She looked up to the hunter. “What is in the wolf’s mouth that causes the-” 

The wolf refused death’s call. Its teeth chattered and snapped, seeking out something to drag down into death with it. A few snagged against Burrow’s fingers before she could pull away. It left no blood or cuts, just a throbbing. She rubbed her hands together. “...At least the bite did not pierce me, or I would have discovered the cause more… intimately.” 

The blood spread on the forest floor, creating a dark red mud. Daiyu raised to her feet and took a step back, not wanting to stain her shoes with blood. Not that they were particularly clean, as they were covered in mud and whatnot already. Still, she didn’t enjoy getting the blood of her kills on her after the fact. The knife was sheathed again, its use now obsolete and she leaned against a tree, watching her kill and how the stranger interacted with it.

She was clever enough to make sure the creature was dead, or at least at a point in the process of dying where it wouldn’t be able to sink its teeth in her flesh. Daiyu continually resented the fact that she didn’t have her mother’s immunity against their bite — it would make the hunting of werewolves easier. She’d inherited her father’s side of the family’s speciality, though. Sometimes she wondered whether she’d have become more of a werewolf hunter if her mother had lived longer, but those were useless trails of thoughts. Besides, Volkovs hunted any beast, any shifter. It didn’t much matter — she just should avoid getting bit. Only stupid people got bit.

Did that make the stranger stupid? Daiyu wasn’t much of a judge, but she did jump into action as the wolf started twitching and snapping again. Eyes wide, ears trying to find a third heartbeat. It was gone before she could catch it, though. “Shit.” She let out a laugh. “Yeah, lucky you. Maybe give it a sec. Dying things spasm sometimes.” There was probably a scientific reason for that, just as there was one for why werewolves’ teeth were capable of causing such definitive harm. She was foggy on the details. “Guess it’s like a snake, you know? Something in the teeth, though there’s no antidote to it the way there is with venom. Don’t think it subscribes to any natural laws, though.” She glanced at the dead wolf. “Some people like to collect the teeth.” She thought of the tooth on a necklace that was tucked in some of her stuff. “They don’t do much harm when they’re … unattached. Or attached to a dead thing, I reckon.”

Burrow crawled further back, watching from a safe distance as the corpse was a puppet to its nerves. Teeth ripped into the air and tore into nothing, but before it could finish that killing blow, it dropped. All motion gone. She did not trust its stagnation, as evident by the throbbing on her fingers. She remained in her position, a few paces from the wolf, but did spare a glance to the hunter. The hunter who had acted so quickly to the situation, it must have been instinctive. “I see. You are protective.” She had only heard of the other side of the hunter’s role: the one to kill and destroy all that were like her. Not the side offered to the humans: the one to defend. It was curious, almost amusing, to see it offered to her instead. Would the hunter have reacted the same, if she knew Burrow’s true nature? Likely not. 

The hunter did at least know the nature of the wolf. Burrow’s curiosity had waned, but it would be foolish to squander the opportunity to learn more. She listened, her mind swirling with possible answers. It was not the teeth themselves that caused the infection, but something that lay in the mouth. Perhaps a bacteria, or a venom as the hunter proposed. How strange the hunter had framed it as a guess — Burrow would have ensured to know all that she could about her prey. In fact, she would begin to do such. 

Burrow retrieved a stick on the ground and slipped it between the wolf’s lips. With a simple push, she pried the mouth open again. The only difference was her hands were further away from the fangs. She studied the revealed teeth: all 42 of them. “The teeth seem to lack the holes that the snakes use to release the venom.” An emphasis on the seem — perhaps they were too small to notice. Either way, she was not interested in tempting the wolf further. She dropped the stick and the jaws followed: snapping shut. “Do you collect the teeth? Do you have the removed teeth?”

Daiyu blinked at the other as her stature relaxed again. Her assessment was strange, like a glove that didn’t and never would fit right — protective. She didn’t think of herself in such terms, though it wasn’t like she thought of herself in positive terms in general. “Don’t wanna see some poor sucker get bit is all,” she said off-handedly. Her family didn’t hunt to protect any more. The concept of a hunter’s duty to humans was sometimes mentioned off handedly but it wasn’t what propelled Volkovs forward. No use for that bleeding heart nonsense, here, her father would say, it’s distraction. “No fun, being a werewolf.” Maybe she wanted to be protective. Most of all, she didn’t want to think about the implications.

She was sure there had been a moment in time where she’d been taught how the werewolf bite infected others, but she’d always been a poor student. She learned best through action and besides, what did it matter how werewolves created others? She had to know how they were killed and that she knew, as evidenced by the now still corpse between her and the other. “That’s true. It’s more like rabies.” Daiyu said that a little more certain, adding some oomph to her lie as she didn’t want to admit to being a hunter who didn’t know her theory. Who cared about theory? About books? She’d always preferred the pictures. “I don’t collect them, no. I mean, I’ve got one. Took it when I was younger.” She looked up. “It’s mine, though, you can’t have it. You can take one from this one if you want. Takes some prying though.” She wasn’t going to do it. She’d have to do some of that kind of ugly work to sever the head later so she could collect her bounty, after all. She wasn’t fond of it, so if the other wanted a trinket, she could do the pulling herself. “There’s better shit to collect out there, if you ask me.”

Poor sucker. How correct the hunter was without fully knowing. Burrow was a sad little thing that sucked, that bit, that took, in a world that would rather see her not. Any hints of objections to her observations were missed. In fact, it seemed the hunter agreed. To not want to see someone harmed, especially when that lack of harm would bring you no gain, was a sign of protectiveness in her eyes. “Right. I also assume it would not be fun to be the werewolf.” Would her parasites be able to recognize her in that contorted form? The infection the wolves possessed was not the same as her kin. It was lesser and tainted and unworthy of being forced into her mouth. “Do you like to protect others from becoming the werewolves?” Do you like to protect me? The question continued in her head. If only the hunter knew the truth of who she shielded.

The refusal to give Burrow the tooth made her want it more. Too many senses, too many eyes, were placed on her to claim what was hers. She worked better in the shadows and forgotten recesses. When she found her useful shadow, when she found the location of the tooth on the hunter’s body, she would take it. Of course, as the hunter said, she could take the tooth from the corpse. But it would not be the same, and she would not writhe between those teeth again. Not anytime soon. She was not certain how long that twitch of death would continue. “I do not want to put my hands into that werewolf’s mouth again.” 

Besides, perhaps the answers did not lie in the structure of the teeth. Burrow knew of rabies. It did not have the ability to infect all. Were there beings incapable of becoming tainted by the werewolf’s bite? Or was the bite the same as her hounds — other vines claimed certain beings but her hounds claimed all. “Does everyone that is bitten become the werewolf? Could…” I become the werewolf? A question she could not ask, for she knew it was too suspicious. “...the earthworms be infected by the werewolf bite?” 

There was almost empathy there, in the idea that it was no fun to be a werewolf. To be the creature that had no control, that was just murderous intent — to be that and to be human. It would be no fun to be such a beast while also being something capable of sorrow and guilt. And yet, it was because of the wolf that Daiyu had murdered the beast. Maybe she’d released it from its curse. It could be a way to justify it, if she was looking for justification, but she wasn’t. She was looking to collect her bounty and that was a clean motivation that required no analyzing. She shrugged at the other’s words (and in a way, at her own) and didn’t reply further. She didn’t have the words, and if she did, she didn’t want to say them out loud.

“Ah, smart yeah. Maybe best not to. I guess it’s harmless now, but yeah.” Daiyu wasn’t sure how keen she was to see someone pull at a tooth of a still-warm werewolf corpse. It wasn’t like she was opposed to seeing violence, but she had her limits as well. She worked on readjusting her ponytail, giving her hands something to do as she thought on the other’s questions.  “Earthworms would just die. They’re pretty small. Guess that goes for most animals.” To survive a werewolf bite was a feat in and of itself — the beasts didn’t bite to spread their affliction, they bit because they were violent and hungry. They left ripped apart corpses more often than individuals with a mere bite. She tried to think of that and felt herself steady a little. “And it’s just humans that can be turned, anyway.” She tightened her ponytail, frowned at the other. “Why are you worried about the worms? Is this like… an internet thing?”

The reason the hunter breathed, that which threaded the very fabric of her being, summarized in a shrug not worthy of words. Burrow had come to believe the hunters cherished their purpose like that of the fae. She would never offer her parasites a shrug. If it pleased her kin, she would rip herself to the atom with a smile on her face. It was a blessing to guard them, guide them, love them. A blessing she could never refuse. Why did the hunter not revel in such joy? “Oh. Do you mean you are… apathetic to the protecting? That is unfortunate. You should enjoy protecting.” It was a scratch to satisfy the itches of the soul. Unless something else scratched the hunter. “Do you enjoy the killing and the violence?” Hopefully not. Death was only done to use, not to satisfy. 

Even the thing before Burrow would be of use… someday. The rest of nature will enjoy its rotten scraps and remake them into taste bits and soft flesh. Things her worms would not be able to enjoy if they became victims to the wolves. Her worms were much smaller, much more beautiful, than that of the earthworms. “Internet thing? No. As I said, I am curious about the wolf’s bite and the infection the bite causes. I wanted to know who all can become infected from the bite.” An affliction only given to the humans. She would never discover a contorted flea with a miniature wolf’s head, squeaking at the moon, despite how amusing such a sight would be. “Do the earthworms and most of the animals die from what causes the infection or from the wound caused by the bite or both?” 

The other was burrowing under her skin, whether she meant to or not, and Daiyu felt her jaw set. Who was she, to walk in on her taking a life? She suddenly felt very bared and exposed, not like someone who was capable of undoing a monster but like something ugly in stead. “I am not,” she said, because she had never been apathetic about anything in her life before. Everything was done with emotion, even if she was not always sure what emotion it was she was feeling. “It’s cool, whatever. To make sure not more people become shitty werewolves.” The insult to the dead wolf and its kin was made easily, a go-to way of deflection. Low-hanging fruit. She would prefer not to answer the second question. Maybe she’d just behead the beast as a demonstration, though it wouldn’t be a good answer either — because she didn’t know. She was good at it, at violence, at hunting. She liked the rhythms and beats. She liked the victory, the thrill. She hated every beat of the aftermath. She hated the quiet that followed. “It’s necessary.” She clenched her jaw. “Whether I love it or not doesn't matter.” That was a way hunters tended to talk — though not her family, per se. She knew her father’s sadism very well.

If the questions about her nature hadn’t pissed her off enough, she felt a new agitation bubble up as she kept asking about fucking worms. Daiyu wondered if she was being pranked, if she’d end up on some weird corner of TikTok because of this person’s weird interview questions. “Worms would just die. I mean. Look at the teeth,” she said, gesturing lazily, “Snap! They’d be mush. Does it matter if it’s the snap of the jaw or the infection that kills ‘em? I guess — for worms, it’s the bite. For larger creatures, it varies.” She had never really thought of these kinds of things. She didn’t like thinking about these things. Or thinking, full stop. “Why do you care?”

Determination finally seized the hunter. Burrow knew the spark in her eyes. The one that rippled down the human’s body, tensing her limbs in preparation for the hunt. Yes. There was the drive for purpose. Despite the flippant language, Burrow saw the passion. Perhaps for the humans, who could never stop their lies, it was natural to diminish their reason for existence. But Burrow knew. She knew you could not deny what you were made to do. Even if it required your hands to be stained with blood. “Right.” Death was necessary. Without death, there was no life. Without death, there were no hounds. No squeeze of her vines on flesh or writhe of her worms in insects. Her kin could take life the same as they did blood and chyme. She knew this, but she did not relish in it the same as the other taking. It simply just was. “It is best to not love the killing and the violence.” 

I care because I am the worm. I am not the earthworm but I cannot ask about the nematodes because the nematodes are too small to be bitten. I cannot ask what I want to ask because if you knew who I am you would want to kill me. “As I said, I am curious about the wolf’s bite.” Burrow knew that gun would never strike her. Her bind would sever the hunter’s head if she tried. But she did not want to make an enemy that night. Discovery led to termination, and there was no need to expose herself. She had gathered enough information to make it clear: the werewolf bite would kill her. It did not matter whether it was the snap of the jaw or the infection. An infection she still did not understand, but she had her own purpose to tend to. Her hound called to her — a gentle cry in the air. Come to me. See how good I am at claiming the fae. Soon, they would claim them all. “Your answers have been sufficient. I will ask more questions another day... Bye.” 

It always tended to go like this with most interactions. They started off fine and somehow along the line Daiyu would find things that could be personal attacks and so had to be. She’d grow prickly and frustrated and her thoughts would get tangled and eventually she’d burst or stalk off. The stranger was getting too close to comfort, even if she was keeping a distance and she hated it. Hated being so easily perceived, so easily put into the light. To be told something she had never heard before — that it would be better if she didn’t love the violence. It was better if she did. It was better if she relished in it. If there was no shame attached to it. What did this person know? Nothing. She grit her teeth. “Sure.” 

At least she was done asking questions, which was fortunate as Daiyu was done answering. She waited a beat and then said, “Sounds good. Bye.” She waited a moment before the other had seemingly disappeared and then did the one task left for her. To cut off the head, to stuff it in a duffel bag and then get her money. And no, she did not love it, but she did do it. She unsheathed her knife and started cutting through muscle and vein and sinew. Blood splattered on her clothes and hands and she kept cutting, not loving it but not quite hating it either. Eventually she hacked through the bone and the head came off. Not clean, but it was off. She heard a branch crack and whipped her head, watching the stranger disappear — so she hadn’t left yet.

She sat with it for a moment. The head. The feeling of having been witnessed in the act of something like this. She wiped the blood off her hands and got on.

#wickedswriting #thread #thread : daiyu #ft. daiyu v. #gun use tw #unsanitary tw #child abuse tw #parental death tw #medical blood tw

[closingwaters]

PARTIES: @ironcladrhett @closingwaters

TIMING: Current

SUMMARY: Teagan is spending time in Darkling Lake when Rhett senses something to kill. Springing to action, Teagan leads him away from the lake and a fight ensues. Who'll win?

WARNINGS: Gun use, lots of injuries

Dead rabbit and rifle slung over his shoulder, Rhett traipsed through the woodlands without any sort of caution, feeling prepared for just about anything that could come crashing through those trees at him. And if he wasn’t prepared, well, so be it. There were worse ways to go. 

The forest began to thin, making way for the great expanse of freshwater that was Darkling Lake. Rhett paused, taking in the scenery for a moment, when—ah, shit. That little fucking bell was going off. It was faint, but it was there. The warden dropped the rabbit into the grass and slipped the rifle off of his back, taking aim at the surface of the water. The feeling got stronger as the minutes passed, and with the man standing stock-still, it was easy enough to determine the direction after a while. Nymph. Never felt this bad unless it was a nymph. He bit back a growl, cursing his blackened vision as he watched the surface for ripples. 

Stronger now. Stronger. Like a scream in his head. Taking aim, not really caring what he hit if it wasn’t the fae, Rhett shot twice into the water. It was more an attempt to draw the thing out, where he would more easily be able to dispatch it with his iron blade. 

Oh, the collection of death was coming together nicely at the bottom of the lake. All who dwelled in it congregated at the center, taking pleasure at the community that they’d built together. Teagan giggled as she swam around them, caressing each one she passed lovingly. 

Vala in particular was filled with glee, dancing with her latest kill. She was a mighty kelpie, and a rare one at that. Teagan was completely taken by the equestrian fae, and so was she in return. None of the other kelpies cared about community, and that was fine. The nix was more than honored to have won over Vala. Anything else would be confetti. 

“Oi, Vala!” The kelpie winnied, nodding repeatedly in reply. “Should really start taking pointers from you. The way you tricked that fella was such a marvel. I can’t wait to—” ZIIIING!! ZIIIING!! Objects zipped past Teagan, startling her into silence. She whipped her head back and forth, trying to find the source. “Everyone, hide!” She commanded, still watching. After a few moments, she locked onto the way the water at top was disturbed, still rippling. Teagan’s eyes narrowed with anger, and she swam up toward a bank where a group of rocks could give her cover. 

Breaching the surface, Teagan snuck herself behind a large boulder, scanning the area carefully. Anger burned in her chest as she caught sight of a man with a rifle. Her body began to tremble as the fire was stoked, and it was all that she could do to not attack without a plan. Teagan didn’t have to gather more intel to know what she was looking at. The man was a hunter, and she needed to get him away from the lake. Taking a deep breath, she set out to do just that, and she burst into a sprint toward a trap-filled wood, hoping she could get to the neighboring river in time. 

The sound of rapid movement to his left caught his attention—his fully blind side. Whipping his head around, he nearly missed the creature as it disappeared into the trees, hissing out a curse and throwing the rifle over his shoulder again. This time, Rhett pulled his cutlass out of its scabbard as he took chase, knowing that trying to shoot a moving target in the dappled light of the woods wouldn’t go well…. rabbit notwithstanding. That little fella had been sitting quite still, happily munching on some plants before his brains had painted the bush beside him.

He could see the thing bobbing this way and that, leaping over fallen logs and other hurdles that he didn’t see—not until it was too late, of course. The tripwire arrived with a swiftness, sending the warden lurching forward. He’d not caught his foot on it, not quite, but the speed at which he was running didn’t leave much room for finesse. Still, he was a warden, and the need to be nimble to best his prey was coded in his DNA.So he didn’t fall, not quite, catching himself after a few worryingly unsteady strides, only to rise up again and—

Now the man hit the ground, landing on his back hard enough to force all the air from his lungs. His clavicle burned where the thin wire had cut into it, and he supposed it was probably meant to get him in the throat, but his height had prevented that.

Still clutching the sword, Rhett fought to suck in a breath, but he dared not squint his eyes against the pain, in case that thing came back. Whatever kind of nymph it was, which he knew from the screaming alarm bells in his chest and skull, it’d probably be headed for another body of water. The water ones were shit fighters on land, and it hadn’t been the only one down there… there was a good chance it would try to eliminate him. 

Good, he thought with a pained grin, sitting up and taking a moment to get his bearings. Knowing the direction it had fled in, the warden got to his feet and continued his pursuit, albeit with a bit more caution this go around. He could hear the babbling of rushing water in the distance, and figured that must be where it was headed. Typical.

A vicious smile curled on the nix’s face as she heard the dull thud of a body hitting the ground. What a stupid hunter, Teagan thought to herself. As if she’d force a chase without a few precautions in place. She’d been on her own for years, learning how to keep the hunters from doing their so-called job. Teagan was disgusted at the thought, but her mind soon grew greedy with the opportunity that presented itself. 

Turning on her heel and hiding behind a bit of brush, the fae retrieved one of her blades, cocking her arm back and taking aim. “See how you like this, ya fuckin’ oaf.” Teagan whispered to herself, releasing the blade with unrelenting force. She knew it’d find purchase in his body, but she also knew better than to stay in one place like a deer in the headlights.

Teagan continued her sprint toward the river, stopping just short of reaching it to climb up a tree. The warden would be able to sense her presence, but she’d still have some sort of element of surprise. To prepare, she hid behind leafy branches and secured her fighting blade in her hand. Now to wait. Her skin was bristling.

Rhett had, for most of his life, been a vivacious and brutal killer of supernatural beings, even by hunter standards. They truly repulsed him, and the mere fact that an inhuman thing was not one that he was designed to kill with ease would never stop him from trying. 

And until that incident with the family of hesperides, he’d been fucking good at it. 

This one, he was meant to destroy. Born for it. Given away to people who could raise him for it. Trained, brainwashed, and sent on his way to act as a weapon of their greater design. A world without fae, without monsters. And he would. He would. But damn it if his blasted eyes hadn’t made the whole thing infinitely harder, now that they refused to work right. So he didn’t see it coming, didn’t have the time to react quickly enough to get out of the way of the blade that was whistling through the air, right at him. It buried itself in his abdomen and he groaned, looking down at the hilt that stuck out of him in surprise. 

Rhett grabbed the blade and pulled it free, glaring in the direction it’d come from. Well, at least the thing had given up its position. Taking after it like a predator in pursuit of his dinner, Rhett ignored the red stain that bloomed on his grey shirt beneath his open jacket. Let it bleed. Let it remind him why he always needed to be better. 

He came to the river and slowed, feeling that thrum in his head and chest amplify. Sword at his side, his good eye—a term he had to use lightly, because it hardly worked any better than the one that’d gone dark—scanned the area. More than that, he was listening. Waiting. The creature would attack again, he knew. They were territorial like stupid animals and would throw themselves on a hunter’s weapon just to defend what they mistakenly thought was theirs. 

“Come out, come out, wherever y’are…” 

The groan in the air was like music. Showed the true colors of the man not unlike the one that spilled from him. He was vicious, but he was slow. If he could bleed, he could die. Teagan, as arrogant as it might be, was going to use this. Fights left little to no room for deeper thought. Lucky for the nix, even if she was wrong in her assumption of slow, she was always good at the art of improvisation. 

When the hunter showed up, Teagan’s claws nearly dug into the trunk of the tree she perched herself in. She needed to remain calm. Be patient. Don’t be stupid like he believes. The grip on her blade tightened and Teagan took a quiet, grounding breath to relieve her of her impulses. She knew he could sense her, that he was making a plan of his own. It would be foolish to react so brazenly and get herself killed in the process. She wasn’t done yet. There was still much to do. So many hunters to kill. 

But coc oen. That sing-song taunt nearly got to her. 

Fae were people. They all have a place in the world. No matter what the detestable hunter thought of them, Teagan couldn’t change it. She reminded herself of that repeatedly to keep herself calm. Strategy was always best and she didn’t want to falsely prove whatever bullshit theory the hunter had. It was all wrong. And that line of thinking was going to end one way or another. Likely through death. Teagan wanted it to be by her hand, as selfish as that was. But really. Who else was around to try right then?

Wasting no more time, Teagan aimed her body, projecting how much force it’d take to land herself onto the warden. Finding her answer, she took to tossing a stone she had stored into a neighboring bush. She didn’t hesitate to leap after, cascading down and letting gravity’s force push her onto the man with a meaty thud. 

It was quiet. Far too quiet for a woodland in transition from spring to summer. There were no birds chirping, no squirrels scampering about in the underbrush—it was dead silent. Everywhere Rhett went was dead silent, and if it wasn’t? Oftentimes he was there to make it so. 

The choice to remove his jacket was a calculated one, done with a swiftness and a lack of break in concentration that could only be achieved by practice. The iron in his blood diffused to his skin, making him toxic to the touch, and he wanted as much skin exposed as was immediately available. Stripping in the heat of battle (or in the anticipation of one to come) had become a very peculiar skill of his. 

Turned out to be a good idea, too, as a sound to his right made his head whip in that direction, only to have the fucking creature come crashing down on top of him instead. Still, as he was knocked to the forest floor, he managed to tuck in a leg and twist his body, earning them both a place among the leaves and ferns. He shoved one bare, tattooed arm against the nymph’s neck and shoulders, kicking with the knee that was pinned between them and attempting to roll over on top of it, the other hand raising the iron sword into the air, ready to drill it down through the fae’s skull. 

The prickly brush left small scratches, but that was very little to worry about. Teagan hated to say it, but the hunter was creative. Her skin burned after the impact, leaving her face expressing a hint of pain. She didn’t want to give the hunter the satisfaction he wanted. She wouldn’t show how it ached. Instead, Teagan’d be just as tricky, letting her skin coat itself with mucus. The warden’s attempt at a grip would prove futile, forcing him to slip on his damn face. 

Unfortunately, the drop made the sword fall too, its aim still toward Teagan’s head. She only had enough time and room to move slightly sideways. She bit her cheek, not allowing a yelp of pain to escape when the sword sliced into her shoulder as it stabbed the earth. In turn, she swiped her owned blade, only landing a laceration or two before she kicked the warden away from her. 

Well. The mucus was… unexpected. Losing his grip and at the mercy of gravity, the warden kept his blade’s tip aimed at the forest floor, hoping to land a strike even if he wasn’t able to see it happen. And, as luck would have it, he did. The creature responded to the injury by delivering a few of its own, slicing through the thin shirt he wore with ease and splotching it with red. Damn. He liked this shirt, it was soft.

With a grunt, Rhett was kicked away and shoved a few feet from the nymph, his sword still stuck in the soft earth where it’d cut through their shoulder. Popping back up to his feet, he quickly ducked his head beneath the rifle’s strap, stepping back another pace or two as he took a hurried aim and fired. 

The gun was raised, and Teagan was sure she was done for. What a fucking cheat, she thought, moving to attack. She was stopped short by the bullet grazing her arm, and she covered the wound quickly with her hand for only a moment. Finding her resolve, Teagan rushed forward again, that time making impact. Her claws found purchase when the two of them landed on the ground, but she was quickly overpowered. Fear began to crawl into her chest, tightening it enough to cause her to pause and allowing the warden to find himself above her.

How stupid!

A knife gleamed in the spotty sunlight. It was as vicious as the smile on the hunter’s face. The look terrified Teagan, and despite her best efforts, she let it show with a whimper and tears coating her eyes. She’d never lost before, and the realization that may change was dawning on her. She whimpered again, a knife digging into her shoulder. No, Teagan’s mind screamed. This is not how it ends! 

“Diawl bach!” Claws dug in and dragged down, only making it a quarter of an inch when the knife plunged into Teagan’s belly. The adrenaline in her system was enough to give her strength for one last kick, sending the warden into the river behind him. She sat up quickly, all but leaping toward the water, begging for the current to roar stronger. Please. Please! 

As much as she fought it, Teagan could no longer fight the black at the edges of her vision, and she collapsed fully, the world fading.

Three weapons. Three fucking weapons on one nymph, gone. And he didn’t even know if it was fucking dead, the damned thing. One minute, he was driving his dagger into its gut, and the next, he was in the rapids. Fighting to stay afloat, the warden scrabbled for the shallows of the riverbank, but he was swept well down the way before he finally managed to pull himself out, and he’d taken a few blows from the rocks in the river along the way.

Collapsing on the ground, Rhett slipped into unconsciousness as his body fought to repair the damage, and it was already dark by the time he woke. Cold and shivering, the warden picked himself up out of the mud and cursed, beginning the walk back upstream to go retrieve his fucking weapons. He would go after it again tonight, he still felt like shit, but the lake was god damn marked, now. He’d get his revenge, one way or another.

#wickedswriting #writings #waving words #me & the devil #me and the devil #c: rhett #rhett and teagan #gun use tw

[howdy-cowpoke]

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Prickly Pear Acres PARTIES: Monty (@howdy-cowpoke) & Felix (@recoveringdreamer) SUMMARY: Felix comes to the farm to visit some goats and chaos ensues when a lapir arrives on the scene to munch on some cows. Between Felix and all the farm hands they’re able to bring it down, but not without consequences for one distraught Monty. CONTENT WARNINGS: Gun use

—

After a stressful few weeks (or months, or years, or life, really, because fuck this whole town), Felix was looking forward to a nice, relaxing afternoon of just… looking at goats. Monty seemed like their kind of person when they’d spoken to him online, easygoing and friendly and kind in a way people often weren’t, and Felix wouldn’t pass up the chance to hang out with someone who might end up becoming a new friend. Especially not when said person had a farm full of animals he was willing to let Felix hang out on.

The balam stood in the goat pin now, grinning down at a fluffy, unsteady kid. “How old is this one?” They asked, turning to glance back at the farmer. “Looks like he barely knows how to walk, poor little guy.” They reached down, earning a headbutt against their palm. Laughing, they shook their head. “That’s not how you make friends, buddy.” 

The sun was low in the sky; some might find the later hour strange for a hangout, but Felix ‘worked nights’ and Monty seemed fine with it. The farm seemed relatively active at this hour, too; Felix had seen a few farmhands wandering about. 

Straightening their back, they turned towards Monty with a small smile. “I really appreciate you letting me come out here, man. I, uh, I think I needed this. Things have been kind of rough lately, and baby goats really…” The goats in the pin began shifting, some strange panic seeming to wash over them. Felix wondered, faintly, if they’d sensed the jaguar somehow, but animals weren’t usually afraid of him. In the fields, a few cows seemed on edge, too. Anxiety even crawled down Felix’s spine, though he couldn’t pinpoint where it was coming from. “Hey, do you… feel weird?”

—

Monty was seriously starting to wonder if animal therapy might be a worthwhile venture for the farm, if they ever decided to stray from dairy, or even add on to it. In this town, it seemed like there were more stressed out people that just needed to hold a lamb in their lap while bottle feeding it, or get themselves headbutted by little goats just to feel better, than he’d ever seen in one place. Which… made sense, when you considered what living in Wicked’s Rest was like.

Official or not, he was always happy to have someone over to play with the animals, so long as they weren’t that wretched young woman that liked to steal clothes and pretend to kill goats. It was good for the people and good for the animals. And night visits were definitely not uncommon around Prickly Pear Acres, so the evening hour had done nothing to dissuade Monty from inviting Felix over. They seemed like a very sweet, thoughtful, and kind sort of person, which felt in short supply these days. It was a relief, actually, to find that they were just the same in person as they had been online. And the cowboy couldn’t keep the smile off his face as he watched them interact with the animals, not that he would’ve wanted to, anyway.

As they conversed in Spanish, Felix thanking Monty for letting them come to the farm and mentioning how they’d been having a rough time lately, the cowboy offered a sympathetic smile. Before he could respond, though, the behavior of the goats around them suddenly changed, and even Felix seemed to be set on edge. They asked if Monty felt weird, and the farmer shook his head. “Ah… no? I feel fine,” he answered with concern in his voice, glancing around them. The moos from the pasture had grown in volume and frequency, and—there was a great, shrill screech from outside the barn, and Monty gasped aloud before scrambling to his feet. “What the heck!?” He looked to Felix in a mild state of shock before his gaze bounced around to all the goats that were now huddling in one corner of the pen, as far away from the sound as they could get. His attention fell to the gate, which he unlatched as he motioned for his new friend to follow. And though every instinct was telling him not to, he moved in the direction of the sound, knowing that he couldn’t just leave his herd out there to whatever fate was befalling them. 

Grabbing a rifle from a wall hook as they passed by, Monty snatched up the box of ammo that sat nearby and started to load the gun, his eyes scanning the pastures that stretched out in front of them. 

The cows were running from something, and he could hear the angry bellowing of the two catoblepones that guarded the herd as they fought something unseen, for the moment. In the chaos, he couldn’t even spot the supernatural bulls, but started making his way toward the pasture. Oh. Right, Felix. Monty turned to look at them, clearly shaken. “You can—you do not have to come, Felix. You can go up to the main house.” There were other hands running toward them, coming to see what all the commotion was and help if they could. 

—

Monty said he felt fine, and Felix might have wondered if the strange way their heart was pounding in their chest was just their own special brand of ‘issue’ if not for the fact that the animals seemed to be freaking out, too. The jaguar stirred within them, aware and present in a way he usually wasn’t when no part of Felix was shifted. It felt like a subtle confirmation — whatever Felix was feeling, it was animalistic. That was why the goats felt it, too.

But they couldn’t say that, of course. They were here as a normal guy who just wanted to see some goats, not as a balam. (Would Monty have even invited them onto the farm if he’d known they were a balam? If he knew what a balam was at all, he might not want one around his livestock. Felix had a pretty good hold on their jaguar, but wildcats and livestock often didn’t mix well, in most people’s experience.) So, rather than try to think of some creative explanation or tell Monty the truth, Felix only shrugged. They stroked the kid they’d been playing with absently, trying to calm him down, but he was clearly in no mood to be placated. And, moments later, it became clear just why that was.

The screech was loud, echoing through the air around the farm like a crack of thunder. The baby goat shot out of Felix’s arms to retreat with the rest of them, scrambling and trembling in response to the sound. Monty moved, and Felix followed, unsure what else to do. The jaguar inside of them was close to the surface now, practically demanding to be freed in order to deal with the threat, and they struggled to keep him at bay. Fingers shifted into claws, and Felix curled their hands into fists to hide the transformation. 

Monty grabbed a gun and some ammo, and Felix stuck close to his side as he moved out towards the pasture. The cows, like the goats in the pin and the jaguar in Felix’s chest, were reacting to whatever it was they felt and heard, running for cover. Someone was fighting something; it sounded chaotic. Worse, it sounded like they might not be winning. 

Felix steeled themself, shaking their head when Monty offered them an out. “No. No, I want to help. I’m good in a fight — and it sounds like you guys could use all the spare hands you can find.” It was rare that Felix was given the opportunity to choose to fight something; in most cases, he was either thrust into it by the circumstances or forced to do so by his contract with the Grit Pit. The fact that Monty was offering to let him go to the main house and wait it out, the fact that someone was offering protection instead of violence… It was something Felix hadn’t felt in a very long time. And it was nice. Just having it offered to them was nice. Monty was a good man; that was all the more reason to say no to the offer. Felix didn’t want Monty or his livestock to be hurt when they could help prevent it. So… “Tell me where you need me.”

—

Brow furrowed, the cowboy looked worried, but knew better than to tell someone whether or not they could handle themselves. “Okay, if you’re sure,” he agreed with a nod, loading the rifle as he spoke. A few of the other workers came to a stop near the pair while more continued right on down to the pasture—none of them really feared for their lives, since it would take a considerable amount of damage to kill them. Not that anyone wanted to be maimed, Monty least of all, but their livestock was worth the risk. 

Gun loaded, Monty slung it over his shoulder and turned to Francisco, one of the hands that’d stopped just shy of them, and nodded at the cabin where Daisy lived. “Go get the bag from the chest in Daisy’s cabin,” he instructed. “Bring it to the fence. We might need something besides this gun.” You could never tell with these things, and while Monty didn’t know a great deal about other supernatural flora and fauna, he knew enough basic tactics to keep his herds safe from attacks. Everyone else seemed to have armed themselves with an assortment of farm equipment, as that was what tended to be on hand. It was better than nothing, anyway. “Come,” Monty said to Felix as he led him to a different pasture, heading for the gate. Bringing a hand to his mouth and using his fingers to let loose a deafeningly loud whistle, the cowboy unlatched the gate and let it swing open. The thunderous sound of hooves met their ears, and up the slope came Habanero, answering the call of his best friend. The horse met them at the gate and Monty instructed Felix to climb on up using the fence—there was no time for anything else. Unfortunately he lacked a saddle, but there was at least a lead slipped over his head, giving Monty something to hang on to as he situated himself just behind the animal’s withers. 

“If you are good in a fight, then we need to get in there, and fast,” he said, looking over his shoulder at Felix. “Hold on to me, this is going to be bumpy.” As soon as he felt the other’s arms wrap around his middle, he gave Habanero’s sides a kick and they were off. As they approached the pasture where the fighting was happening, he shouted for someone to open the gate. Beth complied, running it out of the way as the pair galloped past on the horse and into the panicked herd of cattle. 

The cows steered clear of Habanero as he barrelled down on them, and in the parting of the black and brown and white sea, their adversary was presented to them.

One catoblepas was already dead, and the other was fighting for his life against a… a… what the hell was that? It looked like a massive… bat? It was easily the same size as the catoblepas currently trying to hook it with his horns, maybe even a bit bigger. Just then, it leaped into the air and spread a pair of massive, leathery wings, taking flight. For a moment, Monty hoped that this was over. But… no, of course not. Just as soon as it had gained some altitude, it swept down low, clawed feet grabbing at the remaining catoblepas and lifting it a few feet into the air before dropping it again. 

Habanero slowed down instinctively and Monty drew his weapon, cocking it and tracking the beast in the air for a few seconds before firing. He hit it, and its attention immediately turned to them. Shit. It was diving again, and Monty was firing again, but that didn’t seem to even slow it down. Shit.

—

“Sure I’m sure,” Felix replied, and despite their typically anxious nature, the confidence wasn’t feigned. Whatever was happening was clearly supernatural; in a way, that made it make more sense than it might have had the enemy been more mundane in nature. Thanks to the Grit Pit, Felix had… experience with fighting plenty of different supernatural things. They didn’t always know what they were called, of course — no one tended to give them a vocabulary quiz before sending them into the ring — but they knew enough to know how to be useful. And right now, they wanted to be useful. This wasn’t like in the Pit, when they had to fight whether they wanted to or not, when they were only fighting for the entertainment of people with thick wallets and low impulse control. This was their choice. And they were choosing to help Monty. It actually felt pretty good.

The cowboy whistled, and a horse came up to meet them. It was pretty; had there not been a whole ‘situation’ going on, Felix might have commented on it, might have stopped to admire it. But there was no time for that now, they knew. When this was over, hopefully they’d have plenty of time to tell Monty how cool his horse was. For now, all they could do was climb on the animal’s back and try very hard not to think about the fact that they’d never actually ridden a horse before. It was fine. Monty was going to do all the work. All Felix had to do was hold on.

They wrapped their arms around Monty, gripping him… maybe a little too tightly. It was almost comical — there was something attacking Monty’s farm and eating his cattle, and Felix was more nervous about the prospect of riding a horse than they were about fighting the creature. Luckily, though, Monty knew what he was doing. The ride was bumpy, as he’d warned it would be, but Felix didn’t feel as if they were in any danger of being thrown from the proverbial saddle. (Would this be easier if there were a literal saddle? Probably!) 

Felix sucked in a sharp breath as they approached, the creature in the sky finally coming into view. They’d never fought one of these in the Pit; they had no idea if anyone else had, either. Not for the first time, they found themself sort of wishing that the fighters in the Pit spoke to one another just a little bit more. Sharing strategies would be helpful, especially in situations like this one. “That’s big,” Felix commented needlessly. Monty already knew it was big. Monty was looking at it, too. Watching as it swooped down and picked up… whatever cattle Monty had on his farm. They weren’t normal cows, but it was a little difficult to focus on that right now.

“I don’t know if that’s going to —” Felix winced as Monty pulled the trigger, the sound of the gun firing loud in a sea of already loud noises. The jaguar stirred, already on edge due to the situation but clearly even less pleased at the addition of the gun firing. Felix swallowed as the creature turned its sights on the pair on the horse rather than the cows. “Um, it looks like — We need a plan? Do you know what that thing is?” Given the fact that he had cows that weren’t cows, Felix was willing to guess that Monty knew about supernatural stuff. So, willing to chance it, they added hesitantly, “Some kind of vampire, maybe?”

—

“No clue. But… vampire, yeah. Probably.” He grimaced, grabbing a fistful of Habanero’s mane again as he kicked his sides, sending them running once more. “Right! A plan!” He didn’t know what the fuck to do. “I have some things that might work in the bag I sent Francisco after,” he shouted over his shoulder as they galloped, drawing the creature away from the herd while some other hands moved to guide them out of the pasture they were otherwise trapped in. “We’ll have to get that—” The bat-like creature dove for them and Monty gave Habanero another swift kick before holding on for dear life with his legs, releasing the horse’s mane to twist back around and take aim with the rifle, obviously waiting until Felix had ducked out of the way before firing. It clipped the creature in the head, encouraging it to let loose a horrible sound as it crashed to the ground. 

“When you said you were good in a fight, amigo, how exactly did you mean?” Monty asked, glancing between Felix and the beast that was trying to get back to its feet. “I need to go get that bag. If you think you can keep it on the ground for a couple minutes—”

—

Monty’s words confirmed Felix’s suspicion that he knew a little about what went on behind the scenes in Wicked’s Rest, and that was good. Things like this were a lot harder when you had to navigate both the monster and introduce someone to the world from which it came. Of course, the ideal scenario would have seen Monty knowing exactly what kind of vampire it was and how to kill it, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, right? Vampires weren’t something Felix was overtly familiar with, but they were pretty sure that most of them were ‘poke it with a wooden stick or cut its head off’ kind of rules. That’d probably work here, right? Unless they could scare it away somehow.

Felix let out a rather undignified squeak as the vampire thing dove for them, clinging to Monty as he steered the horse in a different direction to avoid it. It was a struggle to keep the jaguar at bay, because he wanted out. As always, he saw the danger they were in and wanted to take care of it his way… but his way would mean putting Monty and his farmhands in danger, too. The jaguar always took things a hair too far when it came to protection, and Felix wasn’t going to let Monty or his staff get hurt.

But they still needed to do something. They wouldn’t let the jaguar out all the way… but maybe a little bit would help. Hesitating for a moment, Felix studied Monty carefully. He was a nice man. He’d been kind to Felix. His heart wasn’t beating. There was no danger in exposing themself here, was there? Carefully, Felix held out a hand and let it shift, claws sharp and dangerous at the ends of their fingers. “I mean like this,” they said with a sheepish smile. “I can fight. I’m a good fighter. I can hold it off long enough for you to get what we need.”

—

Looking from the hand where sharp claws had grown and then back up to Felix’s face, Monty smiled appreciatively. “Dios te bendiga,” he muttered, giving Felix a gentle pat on the shoulder before swinging Habanero back around to ride them closer to the beast in the grass. “All right—you keep the  creature on the ground, and I will fetch Francisco.” It was as good a plan as they could have, really, given the urgency of the situation. Thankfully for Felix, it looked like the creature was a bit clumsy on the ground, stumbling around as it tried to shake off the gunshot to the head. 

Monty slowed the horse down enough for Felix to hop off, then they booked it back toward the fence. He could see Francisco running his way, old leather satchel in hand, and breathed a sigh of relief. A concerned glance was thrown in Felix's direction as he came to a stop at the fence, hand outstretched to take the bag. 

Inside was a smattering of monster-hunting paraphernalia, and despite vampires being something like kin to them, there was holy water, a cross, and of course, a stake. He couldn't be too careful, after all, though this was fully intended for use on creatures only. He'd much sooner try to talk a humanoid vampire out of whatever trouble they were causing rather than stake them. He wasn't like those fucking hunters.

Slinging the bag over his shoulder, Monty said a very quick thank you to Francisco before galloping back to where Felix was battling the creature, keeping it from taking off again and honestly? Doing a great job of it. Monty was impressed, but that praise would have to come later once this thing was lifeless. He stopped Habanero a safe distance away from the fray, hopped down, and smacked the horse on his flank to send him running away, back toward the gate that led into this pasture. The ground was dotted with a few dead or dying cows and one catoblepas, the other having... gotten away, evidently. With anger settling into his expression, Monty hurried on his way toward Felix. Now that the rest of the herd was safely moved, more farm hands were coming to help, descending upon the scene of the fight with their makeshift weapons. 

Monty pulled out the holy water, uncapping it and getting himself in right beside Felix, ducking out of the way of an angry snap of the creature's jaws and then dousing its head in the liquid. It shrieked and reared back, smoke or steam or something billowing off of it.

—

Monty smiled, and any remaining apprehension Felix might have been carrying melted away all at once. Of course Monty wouldn’t recoil at the sight of their claws. Of course not. Felix had no idea if Monty knew what a balam was, but it was clear he wouldn’t judge or fear them for being one. And Felix, who had never seen fit to judge themself for what they were either, found some comfort in that. Even if you were comfortable with what you were, it still felt like a slap in the face when someone you thought you could trust wasn’t, and they were relieved to know they’d receive no such thing from Monty. Not surprised, because nothing about Monty suggested that he’d be that way, but relieved all the same.

They nodded once at the cowboy’s instruction, hopping off the horse and landing — unsurprisingly — on their feet. Cats, and all that. Monty and his horse galloped off, leaving Felix standing in front of the creature with a look of determination on their face. It was big.

They’d fought bigger.

The creature lunged for them, and Felix danced out of the way. They’d always been light on their feet. While their siblings and father often fought like feral animals, Felix carried a little more grace to how they moved. The movements were inhuman, still, but more catlike than blunt force. They moved on the balls of their feet, ducking another swipe and returning it with one of their own. They targeted the wings. The thing was clearly less competent on the ground than it was in the sky, and shredding its wings would take away a significant portion of its advantage.

Claws found the ‘seams’ of the wings, slicing everything they could get close to. Fighting sentient things made Felix feel guilty for days after. In the ring, even fighting less humanoid creatures carried an air of shame to it, because it wasn’t like those things got any say in what was happening. But out here? To protect Monty’s farm and the people on it? There was no shame in this. For once, for once, this fight made Felix feel good. Proud, even.

As they fought, they shifted a little more to compensate for the mismatch between themself and their opponent. They needed the jaguar’s strength, his senses, his anger. And the jaguar, for his part, seemed to enjoy it. He didn’t like fighting in the ring, Felix knew, didn’t like the confined feeling to it, but he liked this. It was something both spirits inhabiting the body could agree on.

By the time Monty returned, Felix was in a half-shifted state, not quite human but not quite animal, either. They turned to spot their friend, flashing a fanged smile. They pounced as the cowboy threw the holy water, sinking in claws to where the liquid had burned the creature and dragging them down until they came loose. The balam jumped back to avoid a swinging limb, landing next to Monty. “What do we do?”

—

Okay, so if the fact that it was a massive bat didn’t already confirm it, the holy water doing what it did absolutely confirmed that this was, in fact, a vampire. And as much as he hated to have the things lying around, the wooden stake he pulled out of his satchel was probably going to be the thing that did it. 

Monty looked to Felix, the discomfort with the situation evident on his face, but so too was the anger over what this thing had done to his animals. “If it’s a vampire, then staking it in the heart should do the trick,” he explained, moving back a step further as the creature pivoted wildly on the spot, lashing out at the farm hands that were circling around it now, poking and prodding with their tools to keep it distracted. “Of course, I don’t know if anyone here is strong enough to do that…” It was clear that the creature could take a lot of damage, if a rifle shot straight to the head hadn’t downed it more permanently. “But I will try,” he added with a resolved nod, refusing to let someone else attempt it in his stead.

Together, they all made nicks and cuts here and there, keeping the lapir’s head on a swivel. Felix was certainly doing the most work, much more outfitted for this sort of thing than the rest of the hands, but they made sure that the monster didn’t spend too much time focusing on their visitor. At some point, Monty slipped beneath its wing, stake in hand, trying to figure out where its heart would be before he attempted to get past the ribcage. At first, it worked—the monster hadn’t noticed, still fumbling around with the rest of them, turning and snapping and screeching something horrible. But then it realized there was a bug beneath its massive underbelly and hissed ferociously, rearing back to better see the pest before lunging at him. Its fangs found purchase on Monty’s non-dominant arm and he gasped in shock, having no time to react before it was biting down hard, and shaking its head like a dog with a chew toy. 

Monty was thrown to the ground, and he realized with a stupid, surprised sort of groan that his arm was still hanging from the beast’s jaws. It hurt, probably not as much as it should have, but that was the least of his worries. His body immediately began the regeneration process, fully sapping him of his alertness and blanketing his mind in a thick haze. He slumped into the grass while the creature stood over him, still battling the farm hands and Felix, dropping its prize to the earth to better bite at the rest of them. 

—

“Monty…” Felix wasn’t sure they liked the idea of Monty being the one to carry the weight of the stake, even if they didn’t really want to do it themself, either. They were a good fighter. They knew that. If they weren’t, they’d have a lot less problems and a lot more freedom. But being a good fighter didn’t make them fearless; in fact, some days, it felt as if being a good fighter made them anything but that. They wanted to ask if there was someone else who might be able to do this, if one of Monty’s men might have some desire to do it in his stead, but they knew what the answer would be. Monty was a good man. Too good a man to let anyone else take the burden from his hands.

So, Felix would lighten it in any way they could. They’d slash at legs and wings and anything that came close enough to their claws to meet the wrong end of them. They’d pounce back to avoid hits themself, they’d lose themself in the fight the same way they did in the ring. They’d remind themself, over and over, that this was different than that. In this fight, they were doing something necessary. In this fight, they could be proud when they won. In this fight, they had allies. 

One of whom had just had his arm ripped from his body.

The sound Felix let out was far from human, more of a yowl than a yell. Monty was still moving — of course he was. There was no heartbeat, Felix had clocked it before. Monty was undead, and he was in no danger of bleeding out. But there was still something terrifying about seeing your friend’s arm ripped away from his body, and Felix couldn’t help but respond with anger. 

They didn’t get angry often. They tried to avoid it as much as they could, tried to push it away. Their father was an angry man. Leo was an angry man. Felix didn’t particularly want to be an angry person themself, didn’t want to mirror people who’d hurt them even if some of that pain had been entirely unintentional. But it was hard not to be angry now, hard not to let the feeling rise up in their chest. Hard not to let the jaguar rise up with it.

Monty’s arm was already growing back, letting Felix in on what kind of undead he might be, but Felix was hardly paying attention now. Instead, they were launching themself towards the beast, claws at the ready. They wouldn’t let it go after Monty while he was down.

—

His right hand still clutched the stake, and Monty turned his head in the grass to look at it numbly. Why did he have this, again? The large figure over the top of him didn’t immediately remind him, which was saying something about his mental state, but it did slowly start to come back. Too slowly. He was aware of that. Something was… wrong. Or.. was it? Huh. He couldn’t quite finish his thoughts, trailing off somewhere in the middle, distracted by how hungry he felt. Normally that would have been extremely alarming for the cowboy, but he didn’t have the capacity to be alarmed by it right now. Everything was too… foggy. 

The lapir tried to take off again but could get nowhere thanks to the bloody gashes in its wings, instead hobbling around on the ground, trying to keep the balam and other zombies off of it as it stomped around in a tight circle. Its foot ran into something and it jerked its head down, seeing Monty laying there uselessly. Angry that it couldn’t flee, it decided to take it out on the one creature not fighting back and scooped Monty up in its mouth, sinking its teeth into his abdomen and chest. 

The additional damage only made Monty’s confusion worse, but it did also present an immediate threat that helped him remember what the hell he’d been trying to do in the first place. With renewed purpose, the zombie reared his good arm back and stabbed the lapir in the eye with the stake, making sure to hold onto it as he ripped it back out and was dropped to the ground as the creature shrieked bloody murder. Wasting no time now, realizing his predicament and understanding that there was limited time, Monty hurried to his feet and just went for it, throwing himself at the creature, stake at the ready.

The first one didn’t quite make it, but he was feeling angrier and hungrier by the second as his body repaired all the wounds. So he reared back one last time and drove the stake home, cracking past bone and sinking it into the creature’s heart. It immediately went silent and collapsed, and Monty barely had time to get out of the way. Though it might’ve been better if he’d been able to be pinned, because now when his gaze fell on Felix, his eyes were milky and his expression unfamiliar. He lurched forward toward his friend, fighting his way through the farm hands that tried to grab at him to stop him. They didn’t interest him as much as the living, breathing Felix, and he was much stronger than they were, now. 

—

The bat creature scooped Monty up in its jowls, and Felix let out a startled cry. Monty was… durable, to be sure, but if that thing ate him? Felix got the feeling he’d have a hard time getting out of that particular situation. The balam reared back, ready to launch themself up at the monster’s face, ready to fully shift if they needed to and trust that the farmhands would stop them from hurting anyone besides the lapir, but it wasn’t necessary. Monty, with a newfound strength, fought back against the creature.

Felix watched the cowboy shove his stake into the bat’s eye, watched him pull it back and sink it into the vampire’s chest instead. A grin spread across the balam’s face as that second strike found its home in the lapir’s heart, sending it collapsing with a shrill cry and dissolving into dust soon after. They’d done it! Or… Monty had done it, really. Victory tasted sweet.

But not for long.

Because Monty, now on the ground with his feet beneath him, was looking at Felix like they were his next meal. Felix stumbled back, eyes wide. “Monty?” Their voice was small, cautious. It didn’t seem to reach the cowboy’s ears at all. It was like Felix hadn’t spoken, like they weren’t there at all. It felt painfully similar to being in the ring with Razor; like their friend was absent, and what had taken his place was nothing but hunger. 

One of the farmhands met Felix’s wide eyes, trying desperately to hold Monty back. “Run,” he breathed, and Felix did. They turned, taking off into the cowfield as fast as they could manage.

—

Fighting off the other zombies only got easier the longer Monty went without his feral craving sated, and he broke away from them to pursue Felix before the balam had even managed to get much of a head start. He was quiet as he ran, a silent, swift predator save for the sound of his feet pounding through the grass. He was gaining on them, eyes on the prize, his singular goal pushing every other thought from his mind. 

Remaining hand outstretched, the deader-than-usual cowboy tried to snatch whatever part of Felix was closest, swiping at them and missing twice before putting more oomph behind his speed. They were coming up on the fence now, running parallel to it. In the distance, Daisy had mounted a horse and was galloping toward them as fast as she could. 

Bone and muscle and sinew stitched itself together, fixing the holes in his abdomen and creeping from the stump of his shoulder, the skinless appendage joining the first in trying to catch Felix as soon as it had fingers again. They were closer, closer, and then—

A female voice shouted something, and suddenly Monty was crashing down into the dirt. He flailed wildly, finally releasing a frighteningly inhuman howl, attention ripped from the fleeing meal to the rope around his neck. Daisy stood over him a few seconds later though he did not recognize her, snapping at her as she dropped a knee onto his chest and pressed his head into the grass with a hand to his forehead. She pulled something from her bag—the moment she’d seen Monty’s arm get ripped off, she’d left the scene of the battle to go back up to the house and get the brown paper package from the fridge. They all knew how this sort of thing went. Setting the package on the ground, she used her free hand to rip a piece of gray matter off the rest of the mass, shouting at her friend to be still as he grabbed onto her and tried to fight her off.

“Felix!” she yelled, “Are you okay?!” The brain matter was finally wrestled into Monty’s mouth and the zombie relaxed a smidge, but still was clearly not having a good time. She went in for another piece, throwing a worried look in the balam’s direction. “It’s okay—I’m sorry, we just gotta—eat, you stubborn fuckin’ bastard,” she growled, getting one last piece between his gnashing teeth before she was thrown off of him. Monty scrambled onto his hands and knees, now snatching up the package as he realized what was inside, and tucking in, wholly absorbed in the act of consuming. 

Daisy beckoned Felix over, sitting back in the grass and watching her friend devour what was left of the brain, shaking her head. “Sweetheart, I am so sorry that happened. Don’t you worry, he’ll be right as rain soon enough. You alright?”

—

They were afraid. It felt like a physical thing, as tangible as the cowboy snapping at their heels. They were afraid of what might happen if those teeth found flesh, afraid of the pain it would bring with it. They still remembered the way it felt when Razor ripped off a chunk of their arm, still felt an ache there even now that the ugly wound had become a fresh, ugly scar. They didn’t want a repeat of that, didn’t want to see more of themself swallowed down someone else’s throat.

But there was more to it than that, too. Felix wasn’t only afraid for themself, wasn’t only afraid of the physical pain or the things that would come with it. They were afraid for Monty, too. They were afraid of the look he’d get in his eye after, of the guilt that would build there. Samir still couldn’t look at them the same, still looked pained and haunted when they caught sight of him in the halls at work. If Monty hurt Felix, he would hate himself. And he didn’t deserve to hate himself; Felix wasn’t sure anyone did.

They heard the sound of pounding hooves behind them, felt a mixture of relief that help had come and fear that it may have come too late. Teeth were still clicking and gnashing behind them, feet still pounding. And then, they weren’t. That physical presence behind Felix vanished. They kept running anyway, continued a few feet until Daisy’s voice called after them. The sound of their name sent them to a stumbling stop.

It was lucky, they thought, that they’d already been half-shifted when the chase began; they may not have been able to outrun Monty otherwise. They felt tired, but not as tired as they likely should have. The mixture of adrenaline and the jaguar’s spirit surging through them made the run less taxing than it would have been for a human. 

Hesitantly, Felix circled back around, standing a few feet away as Daisy shoveled what they could only assume were brains into Monty’s mouth. “I’m okay,” they said quietly. “I’m — He’ll really be all right? He’s — You’ll make sure he knows I’m not mad, right? Or, or scared of him or anything. I’m okay. He’ll know that?”

—

Getting back to her feet while Monty was distracted, Daisy clapped a hand gently to Felix’s shoulder. “Don’t worry, sugar,” she offered them with a soft, understanding smile. Then, with the air of someone performing a task they didn’t like but one that had to be done, the woman approached her feral friend, gathering some length of the rope lassoed around his neck and reaching for his shoulder. He jerked away from her touch and growled, twisting himself around to reach for her, which told her about all she needed to know regarding his mental state. With a sigh, Daisy frowned and stepped out of the way, then lifted her boot to his back and shoved him back down into the grass. The following motion to bind his hands behind his back with the same piece of rope was practiced, done easily and so quickly it gave Monty no time to wrestle himself away from her. What remained of the lead was walked over to the fence, where she tied it around one of the sturdy posts. 

“C’mon. We’ll let him sit out here a while, get it out of his system.” She nodded back the way they’d come and whistled for her horse to come as they started to walk up to the main barn. “Don’t worry about Monty, really—” She hadn’t known Felix long, but could tell that they seemed like the sensitive type, “—he’ll be himself in a couple hours. This ain’t the first time we’ve had to deal with someone goin’ feral on the farm before. He knows the drill.” She cast a glance over her shoulder at her friend who seemed to have resigned himself to his fate, flopped over in the grass and staring blankly into the distance, the brown paper package now empty. 

“Thanks for your help with the… whatever the hell that thing was. If you hadn’t held it off like you did, I reckon we woulda lost a lot more cattle. We owe you, Felix, sincerely.” She smiled warmly, but there was a tinge of sadness in her bright eyes. “Might be best you run on home, darlin’. You’ve helped more than enough for one day. And… I’ll make sure mister Rivera knows how you feel. Promise.”

—

It was so strange, seeing Monty like this. Felix knew, of course, that hunger could do to the undead what fear did to them. Made them something they weren’t, something dangerous. If the jaguar was Felix’s feral cross to bear, then this was Monty’s. And they hated it for him, hated to see him this way, but there was little they could do. Daisy had it handled, anyway, had a system in place that told Felix that this was an expected sort of outcome. It didn’t make it feel any less strange. They doubted anything could do that.

They stared at Monty as Daisy secured him, unable to look away. Was this what they were like, they wondered, when the jaguar took hold? Not in look, of course, but in action? Their jaguar was so angry these days, so feral. The roles here could have become reversed so easily. Felix knew that.

“I…” They didn’t want to leave. They didn’t want to walk away, were afraid what Monty might think if they did. Would he assume they were angry with him, that they hated him now? It’s what Felix would have thought, if the roles had been reversed. And they didn’t want that, didn’t want Monty to feel guilty for something that wasn’t his fault. But… they knew staying was just as bad a plan. There was a heart beating in their chest, something that made them just about the only person on this farm who was a target for Monty to chase. He’d calm down a lot faster without prey driving him. The jaguar always did.

Resigned, Felix nodded. “Yeah,” they agreed. “Yeah, no problem. I’m happy to help. You guys don’t owe me anything. Just, um… Can you tell him to… message me when he’s himself again? I’m not mad. Make sure he knows I’m not mad. I’m just worried about him.” They were repeating themself now, but it was important. 

They hesitated a moment longer, sparing another look at their feral friend before nodding. “Yeah,” they said again. “Yeah. I should — I should go. Um… I’m sorry. About everything. I’m really — I’m sorry. I’ll, uh… I’ll see you around.”

#. thread ; #. with ; felix mendoza #gun use tw #. barnyard bash ;

[eliaskahtri]

Clap Your Hands if you Believe || Elias & Rhett

TIMING: Current LOCATION: Outside the Mushroom Circle PARTIES: Rhett (@ironcladrhett) & Elias SUMMARY: Rhett corners Elias after getting of work in order to get some answers out of him. Turns out, Elias knows nothing about faeries. CONTENT WARNING: Gun use, general violence

It had been a long day. Elias had finally worked a full shift behind the bar, and the patrons kept getting him to divulge secrets out of him. Now a random lady named Persephone knew who his crush was, his favorite color (light blue, obviously), and his irrational fear of bunnies. He was glad the day was over, but he had made decently good tips. The sun had long since set, and he bid farewell to his coworkers as he exited the front after cleaning up. He paused momentarily as he rifled through his pant pocket to retrieve his car keys. They were buried under random wads of paper he’d pocketed throughout the day. Finally getting them out, he exclaimed a little “aha!” before walking towards his parked car on the street. 

Hearing something drop on the pavement behind him, he whipped his head around, a little paranoid since it was so late at night. “Hello?” Elias called out, clutching his keys a little tighter. No answer. He waited a few seconds. One, two, still nothing. “Must have been the raccoons,” he mused aloud as he turned around to keep walking to his car. As he walked, he twirled the key ring around his finger, humming a nondescript tune to himself. Then, footsteps. Whipping around again, he came face to face with a stranger he had never seen before. “What… can I help you?” He asked with a confused look, unsure what to expect from the man before him.

He’d just been happening by; yes late at night, no definitely not because this fucking place lit up his warden senses like a god damn christmas tree about to burst into flames from too many lights. Anyway, he’d been happening by when he saw someone coming out the front. Someone who reeked of fae, and coming out of that club, it was no surprise. So, being a very rational person and not one driven by impulse at all, Rhett ducked into the alley to wait for him to lower his guard again, before approaching swiftly on foot.

The target whipped around looking surprised, and Rhett grinned. “That depends,” he growled, knowing that the street was empty at this hour and using that to his advantage. His iron dagger was drawn with expert swiftness as he closed the distance between them, grabbing the stranger by the throat and pressing the tip of the knife against his side. “That club you just came outta. Run by fae, aye? You’re gonna tell me a few things about ‘em, n’ about yourself.” His alarms were getting a little quieter now, and he wondered if maybe he’d managed to grab the one fucking human that worked there—didn’t matter. Could still use him. 

Pushing them back to the alley for added privacy, Rhett easily manhandled the other thanks to both his stature and his superhuman strength, pinning him against the brick wall and giving him a hard stare. “So, first thing’s first. You human, lad?”

Taken off guard, Elias had no time to react to the sudden grip on his throat and knife on his side. So instead of fighting back, he stood there helplessly with wide eyes. “What… what the fuck are you talking about?” He gritted out, fear and confusion evident on his face. “Fae? What the fuck does that mean?” He frowned. He had thought about the idea that faeries ran the bar once. It made sense, but it also made sense in the same way that the princess always gets the prince at the end of a fairytale because it was just that. “I work for people?” He then added, but it came out more as a question than a statement. The wild look in the man’s eyes, the clear determination and hatred. This had to be someone truly off their rocker, and he didn’t know what to do. He’d never been accosted before. He was completely unprepared. 

He was pushed into the alley and saw his life flash before his eyes. Pinned against the wall behind him, his fear only grew. Then he was asked if he was human. What? “What do you mean am I human? Of course, I’m fucking human! What else would I be?” He thought for a moment. Oh God, did this guy think he was a faerie? A demon in disguise, was he hearing things that told him to act on it? Oh man, he was going to die here. “I’m human and don’t know what the hell is going on!” He added, beginning to thrash against the hold the older man had on him.

Shit. Fucking shit, of course he’d wrangled a nonbelieving human. That wouldn’t be helpful, not at all. And where it was supposed to part of his thankless job to make sure as few people knew about the existence of fae as possible, this was an exception. Fuck, his life had become an exception. He’d given up being clandestine about the whole thing years ago. 

“Alright, listen here, John Doe. Ya work for fae. Faeries. Fair folk? Fuck, you know, like the kiddie bedtime stories, ‘cept way worse. They feed on folk like you. Normal folk. They’re god damn dangerous, and I’m lookin’ for one in particular that I think mighta come through this town. So you’re gonna answer my questions, aye? N’ I might not gut ya here n’ now.” The knife pressed harder into Elias’ side when he started to thrash, as a warning.  

“Her name’s Mari. Mariela. Dark hair, honeyed eyes. Mighta looked a little bit like she was glowin’, like an aura of sorts.” God, how did he describe a sun nymph to someone who didn’t believe in them? “... mighta had a kid with her.” Well. Wouldn’t be a kid anymore. “Er. A twenty-something. Seen anyone like that? Heard that name on any-fuckin’-fae’s lips?”

Unable to do anything else, Elias stared at Rhett like he had grown a second head. “You’re telling me you believe in faeries.” He stated blankly, unable to believe his ears. Sure, as a kid and in fantasy stories, faeries were interesting. They had cool wings and were usually really small and flew around everywhere. “You’re telling me Tinkerbell walks among us?” He then added, trying desperately not to laugh in the clearly delusional man’s face.

He frowned as the man began to describe someone. He saw so many people every time he worked at the bar that he wasn’t sure if he had actually seen her. He quickly shook his head. He would have remembered someone who glowed. “No, sure haven’t.” Elias snipped out. Even though he had a knife against his throat, he needed to fight back a little, even if it was only with his words and tone of voice and not much else. 

He wanted to kick the man away and run badly, but he knew his strength didn’t match the guy who held him to the wall. The knife was uncomfortable against his throat, and he thought of all the ways his assailant could use it against him if he tried to fight physically. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know who you’re talking about.” Elias barked out, clenching and unclenching his fists at his side. 

“No, ya fuckin’ daft idiot, not like Tinkerbell. Like spriggans, like fauns n’ muses n’ fuckin’ territorial arse nymphs that’ll sooner rip yer head off for lookin’ at their favorite tree wrong than sprinkle ya in sparkle dust to make ya fly!” Growling in frustration, Rhett was about to release his grip on the man, realizing he was going to be next to useless. Unless…

Rhett pressed his blade against the man’s flesh, speaking through clenched teeth. “Listen here, bucko, I don’t give a shite what you believe in, hear? I need to get in that club n’ have a lil chat with the proprietor. They still in there?” He knew someone was, he’d heard the man saying goodbye to at least one person that was still inside. Whoever they were, they’d do. They’d certainly be better than this unhelpful lump. “Fuck it, don’t care who it is. Come on.” 

Hunter strength ensured that his grip on the stranger wouldn’t be broken, regardless of how much he fought to free himself. And Rhett marched him right back up to the door he come walking out of, swapping his knife for a pistol along the way, positioning himself beside Elias and out of sight while keeping the muzzle pressed to his side. 

“Ya forgot somethin’. Go on, unlock ‘er. Ain’t got all night.” 

Elias’s eyes darted back and forth, unsure of what to make of the situation. This wasn’t the first time someone had tried to tell him that faeries were real. That woman he had conversed with online had tried to convince him of the same thing. He knew they were a thing in Ireland, but beyond that, he knew nothing of them besides Tinkerbell from Peter Pan. But here he was, held at knifepoint by a crazy older man trying to convince him of the impossible. 

Then, the stranger turned it up a notch. The knife pressed harder into his skin, and Elias flinched as if he would drive it through his flesh and into his neck. The proprietor? He had never met the person that owned the place, just his managers. He didn’t know what to do, and suddenly he was being shuffled to the front of the building, becoming acutely aware of when the knife was replaced with a gun. 

Feeling a lump rise in his throat, Elias prepared himself for the worst. Nothing worked, no matter how hard he tried to shake the man off of him. He was stuck, and the gun's muzzle reminded him that trying to escape wasn’t a good idea. He wouldn’t make it out of this if he didn’t comply. He began to panic. He had no way to warn the people inside the building that a maniac was holding him at gunpoint to get to them. He didn’t have a choice. Clenching his eyes shut, he pulled a key out of his pocket and shakily brought it up to the lock, inserting the key into it and unlocking the door. 

Squeezing his eyes shut, Elias waited for the man to pull the trigger, to do something since he was clearly just a pawn in whatever this man had planned. “Just get it over with,” he growled out, not wanting to be a part of this any longer. But he needed to protect the people inside, but he was defenseless. The man was too strong to overpower and had nothing on him to retaliate with. 

Narrowing his eyes at the man on the other end of his weapon, Rhett frowned. He wasn’t playing the part very well, but maybe it didn’t matter. “Go inside,” he hissed, following after him with the gun still pressed to his back, nudging against his spine. One wrong move, and it was curtains for his legs. 

Whoever else was still in the building was surprised to hear the door unlock and open again, coming around the corner from the back. “Elias? Forget something?” they asked, before their eyes widened seeing the stranger standing behind him. 

Rhett’s alarms were screaming now, and he grinned. His free hand grabbed Elias by the shoulder while the other lifted the gun into the air and brought the grip of it down against his temple, with the objective of putting him down for a minute or two. Wasn’t a killing blow for certain—the idiot was human, after all. Just a warning. 

Moving around the man, Rhett held the gun up in the manager’s face, motioning for them to come closer. “Tell me what I want, n’ Elias here don’t gotta die,” he lied, jerking his head at the employee he’d accosted. The manager lifted their hands, looking terrified. Pathetic. Rhett closed the distance between them and grasped at the nape of their neck, diffusing the iron in his blood to make his grip burn them, which resulted in a throaty scream. 

“Lookin’ fer a hesperide named Mariela,” Rhett repeated. “Got it on good authority she came through this way. You know anyone like that?” They didn’t respond fast enough and Rhett grew angry, shoving them against the wall and pushing the pistol’s muzzle between their eyes. “I asked you a fuckin’ question!”

“I-I—yeah! Yeah, she came through here!”

“How long?!”

“I don’t know, maybe four months ago?!” 

Four months? Fuck, that was too long. Better than nothing, but still too goddamn long. “She have anyone with her?”

“A younger kid… twenty something.” 

“Fae?”

“Y-yes. She said it was her daughter. S-said they were trying to find an aos sí—” That was all Rhett really needed to hear. He let go of the fae, taking a step back but still keeping his weapon trained on them. 

“Thanks, y’been real helpful,” he snarled, clicking off the safety.

Crumpled to the ground with a ringing in his ears and a pain in his head, Elias lay on the floor helplessly. Then, he opened his eyes to the gun cocking. 

No. 

Crawling to his knees, Elias ran at the hunter with his back turned and tackled him to the ground with as much force as he could muster. 

“Run!” He shouted to his coworkers, who stared at the scene with horror. 

“We’re not leaving you here!” Elias’s manager shouted in turn, running over to the hunter and stepping hard onto his hand with the heel of her shoe. The gun clattered across the ground, and the fae picked it up, aiming it at the hunter’s head. 

Elias’s eyes widened, and he clambered away as the hunter began to fight him off. “Please, just go!” Elias shouted. “No one wants to hurt you, and we don’t want you to hurt us. You got the information. Now just leave!” He felt helpless, and now his head was pounding in his skull. 

He watched as his vision blurred and eyes drooped. He didn’t expect his night to get this eventful. He didn’t know if he would leave this situation alive, and what would he do if he did? Who would believe that any of this happened?

His manager kept the gun trained on Rhett, gesturing for him to get out with a swish of the gun.

He might’ve heard it, if not for the blood rushing in his ears as his adrenaline spiked. He might have seen it, if not for the fact that his peripheral vision was entirely blackened. The reality was that the warden had gotten pretty shit at his job, and so a pissant little human was the thing to turn the tide of the altercation, knocking him to the floor of the club and the breath from his lungs right along with it. 

A foot came down on his hand and he hissed in pain, losing his grip on the weapon and watching as it skipped across the floor, only to end up in the fae’s hand. Immediately he started to wrestle with the man that’d knocked him down, trying to swing at him but only managing to get him up and off the floor without any more damage being dealt. 

So. This was how it was, then. Pinned in place with his own fucking gun pointed at his head, Rhett pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, glaring up at the fae that held the weapon. It gestured for him to leave, and he gritted his teeth furiously. He could hear Emilio’s voice in his head, telling him to just get the fuck out of there—like the human was saying, he’d gotten the info he wanted. He was down a gun, but that was replaceable. The opportunity to slaughter Mariela was not. 

Getting slowly to his feet, hands on display in a placatory manner, the warden didn’t meet the manager’s gaze again. If he’d had any pride, it would surely be wounded, but as it was… he just didn’t want to give the bitch any more reason to shoot him in the head. “Fine,” he bit out, his angry gaze instead settling on the man he’d accosted in the alley. “My business ain’t with you lot, anyway.” Taking a step back, the hunter turned away from them, hands still held at shoulder-height as he moved for the exit. And the moment he was both out of sight and earshot, he let out a string of frustrated curses. 

Stupid fucking eyes. Stupid fucking fae. Fuck. Whatever. At least he was on the right trail. And there was a kid… his? Maybe, maybe not. Didn’t matter. Now it was time to scour the area surrounding this town for hidden aos sí like his life depended on it. Or in this case, his death. 

Elias didn’t let his shoulders drop until the man had left the building. He didn’t let out the breath he was holding until he knew it was safe. He heard the gun clatter onto the countertop, and he turned to see a very shaken woman. “I-” he began to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. He was terrified. This was the second horrific thing to happen to him there, and time hadn’t passed much between the murder and this. Everyone standing there looked shaken up. And finally, he found the words. 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have let him in.” He began but was quickly cut off by raising the woman’s hand. “Elias, this isn’t your fault.” She began, staring at the door as if the man could barge back in at any moment. Then, she finally looked at him, really looked at him. “Elias, I’m so sorry, but I don’t think you should return.” She spoke, voice meek. She was having a hard time looking him in the eyes. 

Elias’s heart sank. “What?” “It’s not safe,” she said, clasping her hands together as she spoke. “You’re not safe here. And we shouldn’t have hired a…” she cut herself off, shaking her head. “We’ll mail you your final paycheck.” She then spoke, staring down at the gun she had discarded. “I’m sorry.”  Elias stood there momentarily, emotions flooding to the surface, but then he swallowed them before they could become too much. “I wish everyone luck.” He spoke softly, then walked out the door, checking both ways that that man wouldn’t follow him. Now with a concussion and a sense of defeat, Elias finally walked to his car to go home.

#Clap Your Hands If You Believe #threads #ironcladrhett #t;ironcladrhett #gun use tw

[wickedsrest-rp]

Name: Mateo Lara Species: Mare Occupation: Assassin / Clerk at The Vinyl Countdown Age: 40 Years Old (Looks about 35) Played By: Jojo Face Claim: Manny Montana

"You should probably run. Oh wait, this is a nightmare."

TW: Domestic abuse, gun use

Mateo was born to Filipe and Popa Lara in Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico. He was the third child in a growing family, which quickly grew to seven in a couple years time. While life was simple and relatively easy, there came a time for everyone in his family to be taught the value everyone in the family contributed to the ranch. Some resented, but eventually accepted their place in the family, while Mateo was instantly proud and set to work to improve himself. Working on the land and making his father proud was all that really mattered. The ranch had several families that lived on it, making the work have that much more meaning to it. Though Mateo enjoyed the work and understood the importance of it, he always had an urge to discover what else he was capable of. He ventured to find something to scratch that itch. In music, in dancing, in school, hell, even in singing, but it was to no avail. 

Eventually, time in Mexico was up, and at the age of 15, Filipe and Popa secured papers to grant the family access to America. Reserved as he was, Mateo kept his distaste for the move for himself and said goodbye to everything he knew to settle in Liberty Hill, Texas. Being an immigrant family had its downsides, but with a fresh start and his family by his side, Mateo quickly assimilated to his new life. One by one, the family he adored in Mexico migrated over and a community of Laras’, Montes’, and Alvarado’s was created. This, along with the adversities that came with being immigrants solidified Mateo’s foundation of family and its importance to him. 

As he grew older, Mateo’s boredom grew as well, finding that there was little to no satisfaction in school or even in the construction business his father had indoctrinated him in without asking Mateo what he wanted. Save for the feeling of accomplishment when a job was done, it was rare that he felt satisfied. He wondered if there was something wrong with him, seeing that everyone in his family was content and portrayed nothing but happiness. His older brother Junior saw how disheartened and lost Mateo was after graduating college and still working with their father, so he stepped in and revealed his secret. He told Mateo about how the night terrors he was having for weeks a few years prior were actually a demonio, a mare set out to consume his nightmares. Sadly though, the mare went too far and killed him, turning him into one. At first, Mateo was angry that Junior would lie to him like that, and didn’t believe him. He went as far as to ignore Junior for the rest of the week. 

Every night, Mateo’s dreams shifted into nightmares, the worst he’d ever had. He’d wake up screaming in a sweat, losing any desire to continue sleeping. Forgetting why he was angry in the first place, Mateo finally broke the silence and mentioned what details he could remember of his night terrors during a family dinner, to which Junior filled the gaps. There was no denying it—Junior wasn’t lying before. He was a nightmare demon. 

After a few hours of discussion, Mateo got to his final question: how does he become one? Learning that his own brother would have to kill him wasn’t a deterrent. Hell, immortality didn’t seem so bad. So, Junior agreed to make him a mare. 

Much to Mateo’s dismay, this was only a temporary solution. There wasn’t enough excitement. What was he doing with his life?

As he always did when frustrated, Mateo spent another night at a bar, and was approached by a man in a bar who made him a desperate proposition. One he couldn’t refuse. To find a man that wronged the gentleman and make him disappear. The prospect enticed Mateo, but quickly presented a negative impact to his moral compass. All he’d ever done was protect with his mare abilities and his fists. What he’d be doing was murder, something that was inherently wrong. But what they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them, right? 

Mateo accepted the job and found the man, helpless and alone in his home. He peered in the shadows, seeing the true nature of this man—no, this inhuman person who thought he could put his hands on a woman. Growing angry, Mateo created the most terrifying visions possible, digging into the confines of the man’s mind before he stole whatever breath attempted to fill his lungs with a pillow and a gun. The stranger was made into nothing more but an empty shell, while the woman was saved and free, none the wiser to Mateo’s presence. With a smile, relieved and satisfied, he went back and received payment from the man, who promised to forward his good work to anyone who might need it. Mateo nearly declined, but the one grand in his hand and the actual pleasure he got from his meal kept him silent. 

A last. After being lost for so long, Mateo was happy to discover he had finally found his calling. Who said you couldn’t do bad things to do good?

Character Facts:

Personality: Calculating, quiet, stubborn, arrogant, patient

Has training in hand-to-hand and handling short/long-ranged firearms, though he prefers to get up close and personal to his kills. 

Enjoys reading and quiet spaces to do so. All while listening to his favorite music. If anyone tries to interrupt, he gets irritated and will be inclined to search for them for a nightmare or two.

Is family-focused and will do anything for them. A lot of the money he makes goes back to them, and he makes a point to call his mom every few days to catch up. He really misses them, but he knows he has to protect them with how dangerous his job is getting.

Doesn’t have a preference for who he kills as long as he gets paid. That is to say, he does have his limits. If he finds that he doesn’t like what the person trying to hire him for or if the victim is on his no-no list, he will still take the job, but kill his employer instead. This had led to a lot of trouble for him.

Usually quiet but can be talkative if he likes the person. Especially if the topic of music or agriculture comes up. He’s prone to trying to get people to enjoy punk music and give a few pieces of advice for someone’s land.

Graduated with a Bachelors of Music with a minor in agriculture, an homage to his father’s teachings combined with his passionate interest in music.

#shadowplay #manny montana #domestic abuse tw #gun use tw #retired

[the-lil-exorcist]

Bleed it out - Linkin Park

Death is rolling in every verse Candy paint on his brand new hearse Can't contain him He knows he works Fuck, this hurts, I won't lie Doesn't matter how hard I try Half the words don't mean a thing And I know that I won't be satisfied So why try ignoring him? Make it a dirt dance floor again Say your prayers and stomp it out When they bring that chorus in

#Gun use tw #Suicide tw #just in the lyrics of the full song #take yourself home; music #the calloused skin on my hands is crackin'; queue #Spotify

[honysuckl]

On the Road Again | Metzli & Honey

PARTNER : @muertarte TIMING : Last year. LOCATION : Not Maine. SUMMARY : While on their road trip to Maine, Honey and Metzli stop for some gas station food. WARNINGS : Gun use, domestic abuse (vague), head trauma (briefly)

“Do you have to drive like crazy person?” Metzli raised their voice at Honey, though it was hard to tell if one wasn’t familiar with the vampire’s way of speaking. They droned like a robot, unreadable and unsettling to most, but for Honey—who’d known them for just over a month—she understood. Metzli was positive of that. “You shake everything.” They tutted, shaking their head as they stared at their friend with a hint of irritation and a dash of something akin to adoration. Like everything else, that was indiscernible. 

Honey always drive with a lead foot and a carefree heart, lived her life the same way. She was a complete opposite to the vampire in comparison. Metzli hardly minded that fact, enjoying her presence overall. That wasn’t something they’d easily admit aloud, though.

Shifting in their seat, a rumble made its way to the vampire’s stomach, subsequently forcing their throat to constrict with hunger. Metzli hummed, shaking their leg in hopes of the sensation passing, but it was to no avail. The pangs only grew in strength, forcing a small groan to escape them as they leaned back into the seat. They couldn’t ignore it. The time for a hunt was near. A blessing really. It’d been a few hours since Metzli had gotten to stretch their legs, which were cramped in the space between the seat and the dashboard. Typical problems that came with their height.

Sighing, Metzli looked over to Honey, “Tengo hambre.” They spoke their native tongue, trusting that Honey had spent enough time around them to understand. She’d already had a small grasp on the language, making it easy to teach her more. In return, their English had gotten better. They just preferred Spanish. “¿Podemos parar?”

Honey barked out a laugh. “Aye! Gotta clear the way. Canny trust those fucks on the road these days.” She gave the steering wheel another jolt. Her car eagerly followed—the hitched trailer became its wagging tail. As everything settled back into its proper lane, the car behind took advantage of the calm. It rushed forward before Honey decided, once more, she needed all the lanes at once. As they passed by, her head darted out the window. “Beep beep, fucker!” Returning to her seat, she peeked over at Metzli. Waiting for their face to further sour in that way she found so sweet. 

Their stomach was easily missed under her truck’s own rumbling, as if it too laughed with its driver. But words were less obscured. Honey’s Spanish was as rusty as her bumper, but she certainly knew what hambre meant, the hungry creature she was. And as it often did, the thought beckoned its existence—she suddenly felt peckish. “Sí. Yo también.” Her latest escapades, paired with the sleep of night, had certainly done the trick: no one else was near. Good for preventing watching eyes… Not so much for hungry stomachs. Ah well. Most of the buildings—the few scattered along the long road—were as dark as the sky above. But it had its stars, too, and she could see that glimmer of life approaching. 

Honey pulled over into the gas station. From a quick glance, it had two occupants: a fellow patron and the clerk. Both relatively unassuming. Not the most thrilling of hunts, but it would do. “Well. Not a proper roadie without gas food.” She checked on the animals in the back seat. They all rested peacefully, having long ago gotten used to their mother’s antics. With a smile, she nodded to Metzli before heading to the station. 

“Canny trust you, Honey. You are crazy.” As much English had been taught, so too was Scottish speak. Metzli didn’t see a difference, and neither did the people that had the misfortune to be caught in a conversation with them. But that was nothing in comparison to Honey’s driving. They were happy to feel the wheel calm the vehicle’s path, and let out a sigh of relief, a victorious breath. While a simple wreck couldn’t prove fatal to the two, it could set them back enough to leave them scrambling, and Metzli had had enough of that. 

Getting away from Mexico was a seemingly impossible task until Honey helped them. The coup had split the clan like a canyon Metzli couldn’t find a way out of. For days, they were being pulled at two ends, steadily curling into themself like a question mark, wondering what to do. Accept the request of execution or fit a crown they didn’t even want? Honey picked neither, and they raced out of the mountain the clan had carved into a blockade. She was not dissuaded by the magnitude of their problem, and because of that, Metzli would forever be grateful and hold a deep admiration for the zombie—or rather, sluágh as she called herself. 

Metzli stared as the gas station grew nearer, and the anticipation of getting to stretch their legs during a much needed hunt motivated them to sit up straighter. “Por fin.” They groaned, hopping out of the truck with a grainy thud. “Only two inside. We go front? Or ba—” The sound of yelling perked Metzli’s ears, and like a moth to a flame, they all but glided toward the muffled sound behind the glass. “Gun,” A finger pointed toward the source of the heated speech—demands for what money the store clerk had. “Ripe soul,” Metzli said to Honey, referring to an early conversation of theirs. “What do?”

Heightened voices were made to whispers behind the glass and off-brand snacks, but they didn’t stop Honey’s sight. Even without the fire of the gun, the shift was just as quick. A dull and typical night now threatened to be the clerks' last. Well. Maybe. The hand that held the gun failed to find stability: waving left and right, only pausing into slight quivers. Still, Honey hummed in agreement. The soul was ripe… ish. Ripe enough. Before her friend could even finish their question, Honey hissed, “Anamaich.”

Honey stepped into the building without a care. Not unwarranted—a mere gun meant nothing to her. But the one who held it knew no such thing. The gun was aimed at her, paired with threats she was certain were empty. As empty as her expression as she kept walking, step step step. Emptinesses that were ended with the fire of the gun. Pow. Pierced her shoulder. A nice jolt of sensation that caused a hiss and twitch of her lips. Almost a smile. The man was easily more expressive… did she see guilt? Aye. It turned to fear when Honey feigned pain. “Ach, no. How could y- noo! Nooooooo.” She groaned, stumbling forward. “Just wanted a nice…crisps!” She wailed, stumbling more. Stumbling closer. Her posture snapped into correction as she made her final lunge. Strike to the head, the blow returned. He tumbled down, rendered helpless. An exciting sight. Yet, a somber one, too. Poor bastard. She didn’t let herself linger on the thought. Her mind settled on how easily she could finish the hunt—her fingers flexed in yearning. But her friend preferred the freshest blood, so his would keep bumping for a moment longer.

It was then Honey remembered the other human. Pressed against the wall with a face she couldn’t ignore. A face that would not know a single wrinkle for quite a time. Especially not then, the boy’s face blank in fright. Unconsciously, she took a step towards him. He tried to become one with the wall—he certainly became as still as it. Honey stiffened just the same, letting out a groan punctuated by a huff. She muttered a quick “mo chreach” before beckoning her friend closer. “Datura! Think ye can calm the poor bairn?” 

The humans stood no chance. Honey was strong enough to take down a few vampires on her own, and the two poor things in front of them would be nothing in comparison. Metzli stood and watched the performance from the entrance, propping the door open with their foot. As always, Honey had her fun, and when the ripe soul pulled the trigger, Metzli was lightly painted with their friend’s blood. It wasn’t like the bullet was fatal. 

Both creatures were a little impervious to such reckless aim. But, that didn’t stop them from twitching subtly at the sight of their injured friend. Their throat constricted, forcing them to swallow the growl that threatened to escape. Honey could take care of herself. She was fine. As much as Metzli wanted to sink their teeth in the shooter, they stayed put until Honey called for them. With that name they had quietly grown fond of. “Yes. Calm. He will be.” With a nod, Metzli closed the distance between them and the clerk, ignoring the pleas and whimpers he all but babbled.

“Quiet,” They began, staring intensely in the man’s eyes until his jaw went slack and he did as he was told. Compelling others to do their bidding wasn’t something Metzli enjoyed doing, but under the circumstances of which they found themself in at that moment, they made exceptions. “Clean up and forget what happen and our faces when we leave.” A pause, “Then keep working.” Metzli was given a robotic nod in confirmation, and they huffed, returning to Honey and their meal. 

“It is done.”

It was so strange how a single expression could make nature feel so… ugly. Honey knew it was foolish to feel that way—death required life as much as life required death. And yet... Regret easily turned to frustration when she realized her uselessness to mend. Stupid children and their stupid fucking faces. Her anger kin to its cause: childish. But it was more satisfying to let it run its course, so she let it burn. Burn and burn until it tired itself out. Until the child’s expression melted away. Artificially of course (and her relief the same) but she was still grateful. Especially so. Her friend liked to think themself a mystery. Not kin to a puzzle and its complexions, but that of space: dark and distant. Untouchable. Perhaps it was easier that way, but Honey could see those moments when it broke. When they hesitated briefly, easily lost in a blink, before fulfilling her request. Pushing past their own wounds—left unspoken but the scars did it for them.

Honey brushed her hand up their arm. Gentle and comforting, but nearing playful in the way her fingers danced. Calling their attention to her. The blood on their face made her smile. Of course, this was not the first nor the last time she would see that sight. But the fact it was her own blood excited her. A pleasant retreat for her heightened nerves. She reached out to them, placing a thumb on their cheek. A simple press turned a few of the black droplets into a long smear. She chuckled as she licked off what remained on her finger. “You should get messy more often. Looks good.” With a click-click of her teeth, her smile grew. Becoming wide and hungry as it chattered some more when she looked at their prey. 

Honey knelt down next to the man. So still and quiet. May he slip just as peacefully into the next life. “Gabhadh d’anam fois annam mus till sibh air ais,” she recited that familiar blessing for his sacrifice. Then, she hooked her arms under his own and began to drag him out of the store. Not as securely as she would like, that damn shoulder of hers still taking its time to heal. She looked to Metzli, her smile returning. “Ohhhh, no help for this poor lass?”

There was a flinch at the touch, reactive in case of an attack, but Honey would never do such a thing. That was a lesson Metzli learned early on, aiding them in trusting her to know when and when not to touch them. What pressures they liked and which made their skin crawl in the bad way. The one Honey had given them was just right, and they leaned in ever so slightly as they looked into Honey’s eyes. With a shake of their head, Metzli argued, “No like mess. You know this. But…” Trailing off, they listened to her chatter her teeth as she always did, making the corner of their lip curve minutely. “I like your compliment. Thank you.” 

Metzli stared at the body as it was dragged away, knowing Honey could handle it. When she called for their attention though, it was as if she read their mind and was trying to poke at them as she always did. They rolled their eyes and proceeded toward the body, scooping him up in their arm, and then over their shoulder. “We…as you say, feast? Where go now?”

Honey had meant for a duet, not a solo act. Yet Metzli decided they needed all the spotlight. Honey’s chuckle had a “raspars” laced within as she watched her companion secure their food. The ease of it would have had her blushing if she could. That certain curve of her lips did the trick the very same. She placed her hand upon their back, her fingers continuing their dance. “¡Vamos a la noche!” The light may have provided the prey, but that’s because it was their world. In darkness the two found theirs. Of course, Honey loved the sun and her beauties more than she could bear at times. But in times of hunger, the call of night lured her away, if only for the time it took to eat a meal. Honey let the night sing that beautiful song as she led them out into its arms. 

#on the road again #thread #thread : metzli #ft. metzli b. #gun use tw #domestic abuse tw