ᴀ ᴛʜᴏᴜsᴀɴᴅ ᴍɪʟᴇs ᴀᴡᴀʏ ғʀᴏᴍ ʜᴏᴍᴇ (closed)

[righteously]

Who: Dean, Jo, and Castiel
When: Early March, shortly after Carnivale ends.
Where: The Badlands.
What: Sweeping a few military mistakes under the rug thanks to some lite blackmail.
Warnings: Genre-appropiate violence, body horror.

Aɴᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀʟʟᴇᴅ ᴍᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴄᴏᴍᴇ, ᴛʜᴇɴ I ᴅᴏ
Tʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ sᴀʏ ʏᴏᴜ'ᴠᴇ ᴍᴀᴅᴇ sᴏᴍᴇ ᴍɪsᴛᴀᴋᴇ
Yᴏᴜ ɪɴᴠɪᴛᴇ ᴍᴇ ɪɴᴛᴏ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʜᴏᴜsᴇ
Tʜᴇɴ ʏᴏᴜ sᴀʏ ɢᴏᴛᴛᴀ ᴛᴏ ᴘᴀʏ ғᴏʀ ᴡʜᴀᴛ ʏᴏᴜ ʙʀᴇᴀᴋ
Gᴏɪɴɢ ʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴛᴏ Kᴀɴsᴀs Cɪᴛʏ

Comments

[righteously]

( They left the day after they get back from Carnivale, just as the sun is cresting over the horizon. The weather had been fine. If he'd known then... Well, long story short, he'd have postponed this entire trip, military be damned.

They're already a few days in when the first dust storm hits. They hunker down, take shelter. Strap on the goggles that were meant, originally, for night vision — but that do an adequate job now keeping them from outright going blind. It's good that this ain't his first foray out here, or they'd be well and truly screwed.

Not that things are great still, not by a long shot.

The problem is, navigating their way back home is damn near impossible until they catch a break. Even with protective eyewear, visibility is reduced to just a handful of feet in front of them. Identifying landmarks don't exist like this. He tries, just once, to spread his wings and flap his ass above the storm, only to get buffered square into the unyielding edge of a rock face. Castiel has to pop his shoulder back into place. He doesn't try that again.

They venture deeper. Find shelter in the form of an overhang that makes a piss-poor excuse for a cave, but it's enough to get them some cover. Enough that Dean and Jo can sleep at night while Cas stands watch.

It goes on like this for a week before Dean makes the executive decision that they need to move. They'll run out of supplies before long if they stay, and windows between storms are precious few. The next one comes at dusk, when the light is a grey-purple masked behind clouds, washing the colorful sunset into something ominous.

Jo takes her turn to lead them, swapping into point position. She'll likely see it first: shambling through the foggy edges of blowing sand as the next storm begins to kick in. Not human, not beef jerky, some cross between the two — and crucified, almost, with drippings of iron and wood nailed to its wrists, to its spine, to its back.

They're so preoccupied with that one, none of them notice the second one shambling up from the rear.

Shit hits the fan very, very quickly. )

[tobeclosetohim]

[ The whole thing is a goddamn shit show from the word go, and not the kind the Badlands usually produces, that everyone's well enough adept at navigating the bests and worst of that come with each passing season. The sandstorms barely ever let go, and Jo's gone well and truly from having sand in places no one needs sand to have sand in parts of her body she's not sure she even ever knew existed until they were abraded and raw from continual power blasting.

But there doesn't seem to be anything to be done about it, or the strange bolts of light across the sky that come at random times. No one is keen to stay as it appears like waiting everything out will just turn into never leaving, and Jo's only too glad to at least be up, trying something on the restlessness of this insanity, when they go.

Jo would love to say it's ironic that they came looking for fucked machines and instead were found by one only as they were trying to exit stage right, but that's all too damn familiar a thing with this place. And honestly, as much as she just wants to get out of this godforsaken storm, she's almost glad to have something to take her frustration out on.

Except that it's a similar shit show, fighting in a storm where they can only see a handful of feet in front of any of them, meaning she loses visibility of both of them from time to time, and that makes it impossible to entirely gauge the full arc her sword might take. Where exactly a bullet that doesn't hit might go. ]

[unwings]

[ environmental conditions hadn't historically bothered castiel much - bodies are something of a second thought to him - but that was before the sandstorm apocalypse they've traipsed their way into. their supplies are running low and there's no sign of calm splitting the relentless winds and churning sand. the fury of the storm might kill them, but remaining while food and water runs dry certainly will.

the twisted nightmare of a machine arrives as if it'd been waiting for them to admit defeat and slink home. like it was ready to catch them exhausted after the badlands beat them down. thankfully, this isn't this crew's first time running on empty.

cas doesn't wait for an attack. he has loved ones he needs to bring to safety and this thing is in the way. pushing past jo, he lurches at it, blades like fangs as he brings them down on the construct, sparks flying from the grind of metal on metal.

he doesn't pick up on the second one. ]

[righteously]

( The dust is a bigger enemy to them now than the constructs trying to kill them. Cas and Jo lurch forward to deal with that new figure in the foggy particulate, and Dean means to follow them — only to find something spearing into his back from behind. He yells, the sound drowned out by the rushing of whipping wind, and turns toward his assailant.

A third Prìosanach stands behind him, a metal spike of rebar grafted to its fist, and several inches worth of metal impaling Dean in the back.

But like hell he's going to go down from stupid rusty rebar nail to the spine, okay. That would be the worst possible ending for Dean Winchester.

A flash of light pierces the cloud of dust as Dean blasts the monster away; it rips that rusty spike out with it as it goes, and he gasps, pressing a hand to the now-bleeding wound. There's no time to deal with it; Cas can check it out after. Adrenaline propels him; the lingering blood from Ciri and Geralt jump-start him. His eyes flash yellow in the din, and he surges forward, sword in hand, to hunt it down — inadvertently putting even more distance between the three of them. )

[tobeclosetohim]

[ The sand in her eyes is a bitch, and so is the sand everywhere else when there's a muffled sound fomr somewhere, and she can't tell where it came from, or whether it was from Dean—who she can't place any longer suddenly—or another of these things somewhere in the blur of biting air.

What clarifies too easily from the dark shape that is, in fact, not Dean, but the second of these archaic, half-rusted, but towering monsters, is that she's far too grateful she has somewhere to put her restlessness and anger about it all. To go in swinging, that too warm easy feeling slipping into her movements, even as she tries to call out Dean's name against the howling sand, between blows of metal against metal. ]