[ open ] gonna keep movin', gonna roll to town

[falcony]

WHO: sam wilson and OPEN
WHAT: various prompts, some closed, some open! (open log for oct/nov)
WHEN: End of October/November
WHERE: cadens, desert around the city, horizon, etc.
WARNINGS: n/a atm but will update

Comments

[falcony]

[ sam is hyperfocused on the blade. he's been in similar situations before, sure - on the brink of death, blade or gun to his chest, filing through every possible alternative option. but the truth of it is, in that moment, sam's not really sure what he's going to do. he can't get leverage, he can't disarm him, he can feel himself bleeding pretty heavily, he probably has a concussion, he can feel a kind of fog start to settle in, but if he doesn't do anything soon-

blood, and the tip of a blade. sam doesn't really know what is happening when his eyes focus on that, on the tip of a blade pushing out through his throat and towards sam's. and then there is that cracking, of bone splintering, of the bandits skull breaking apart in two, and the body being shoved off to the side.

the man - not only dead, but nearly torn apart. cut through like meat, ripped apart at the seams and tossed away. there is blood, splattered across sam's face that is not his own, and some that is his own pooling at his elbow, down his sides. he should get to those, he thinks distantly. should tend to those and make sure he doesn't bleed out on this desert floor. but he finds he can't quite focus on that, or on how his head is still swimming, or how every breath shoots pain through his sides. because all he can see is the eyes of that bandit above him, wide with shock, then blank. suddenly, as if panicked, sam's eyes turn to the scene around him. to one, two, three more bodies in various stages of the same. dead, all of them dead, and geralt standing above him, holding out a hand to help him up.

geralt, who killed all four of them in the span of what...three minutes? four? geralt, covered in their blood. geralt, who doesn't seem to even be breathing hard. who doesn't spare any of them a second thought. sam looks at the hand offered, then looks to geralt's face - his own expression one part shocked, one part horrified, one part something else.

( it's not fear, that much is for sure. he's not scared that geralt will hurt him. it doesn't even cross his mind. it's more of the weight of the passing moments, the lack of remorse, the sudden feeling of a quickly growing distance. ) ]

Fine. [ it comes out short, like he had to push it out through his lips. and then sam is turning to his side - aware, that he is not reaching for the hand offered to him. that he is ignoring the help geralt is trying to give him. but sam doesn't even think about what that might seem like to geralt, at the moment just trying to. find his footing in all of this. in the four bodies around them, the stench of them in their air. dead. death.

what if marlo finds out about this?

sam - through the pain of his rib - pushes up to his knees, and then his feet, somewhat unsteady but if geralt tries to reach for him in any way, sam will have a hand out to stop him, quick, definitive. ] Nothing lethal. [ his words aren't slurring, which means his concussion isn't bad. good signs, he reminds himself, breathing quietly through his nose for a few seconds as he wraps a hand around one of the cuts on his arm. he looks around, again, getting a better view of the bodies. of the carnage. sam swallows thickly at the undeniability of it all, and can't do anything about that distance growing further and further between him and geralt, before what just half an hour before he'd been so confident in.

the feeling is a bit like the rocking of a boat in the midst of a storm, not knowing if your feet will hold true, or if you'll trip and fall into the depths of the water below. ] Fuck.

[gynvael]

[ Geralt does not consider himself a man especially affected by how those around feel (tries not to be), but that doesn't mean he's not learned to read another with the sort of acute perception of one who uses it to survive. The tension is sharp, Sam distracted, eyes wide, and he suspects it isn't to do with the bleeding on his head.

He withdraws his hand and does not offer it again.

No. Nothing lethal. Nearly was, though. He delves silently into his saddlebag for the strips of cloth he never leaves without. Were they in the city, he'd be concerned about the attention. They aren't. They're far out, the nearest outpost is on the other end of the desert—and this is where the oustrice nest. They will scavenge the bodies. Roving brigands who kill for supplies and scant bags of coin will be missed by no one. He doesn't like what happened, but he won't waste time on it any further, either.

He pushes the bandages into Sam's hands, since he's not about to stand here waiting for Sam to come around and take them from him. ] Wrap that up. We need to go.

[ He doesn't mean to be cold. He isn't, exactly. There's still a furrow in his brows, as he looks Sam over. Sam's injured and that was too damn close. He's just—not interested in being scrutinized, which Sam has a habit of doing. He is equally uninterested in pushing help on someone when it will only be rejected. It doesn't matter. He can't say he expected much different. (Except he had, a little, in the smallest part of him.) ]

[falcony]

[ normally, sam is more acutely aware if others. usually, sam is more concerned with those others than even himself. be it the concussion or his injuries or whatever else, though, sam doesn’t catch the tension in geralt, or how the he retracts his hand. doesn’t offer it back.

sam pulls himself up, to his feet. he keeps his eyes on the ground under him, to his own hands and limbs, to literally anything else except for the scene around them. there’s a rolling in his gut, but he can’t tell if it’s the concussion or something else. he swallows, to keep it down, to keep his focus anywhere else, and for that reason it makes him jump when geralt hands him the bandages - a tension shooting through him before he notices what it is he’s handing off. what it’s about. ]

Right. [ he doesn’t look at geralt’s face, something keeps him from it, but he does take the strips of fabric, does make as quick a job as he can of wrapping them around his arm and middle, trying his best to keep his hands steady.

his mind is spinning - on the bodies, in what they’re doing here, on the blood. and maybe it’s the sheer difference of it that has sam so unmoored, how just a few minutes before they’d been joking, nearly laughing, and then - this. he doesn’t even know their faces, their names. he’d caught the bloodied doll, he’d heard the comments they’d made. they weren’t anywhere near decent people, maybe, but-

sam’s stomach lurches, but he keeps it down with a final tightening of the bandage with his teeth. pulling himself fully back together - or as much as he’s going to be able to. he feels sick, but he can’t attach it onto one specific thing, but when sam looks up to see where geralt had busied himself, the feeling increases. unsteady, uncertain, unsure. ]

Ready when you are. [ sam gets out, walking over to where geralt had kicked off his dagger. the dagger he couldn’t bring himself to use. ]

[gynvael]

[ He cannot, in all honesty, recall a time when Sam will not look him in the eyes. It's not an unfamiliar thing, though. More than a few find his unnatural gaze unnerving. Perhaps that it's too familiar is what digs under his skin, removes any desire to close the gap between them that he might've held solely by virtue that they're (friends) acquainted. This is not the first time things have changed abruptly, and he knows it won't be the last.

If Sam anticipates he'll try to clean up the bodies in any way, Geralt does not. He does clean his sword, wiping off the blood before he slips it back into its sheathe alongside Roach. She's a hint skittish, stamping nervously. He calms her easily with a gesture, and adjusts the saddle on her back. He keeps one eye on Sam, just in case, but Sam seems to patch himself up all right on his own. Amount of blood doesn't seem too bad. A few sutures and some rest should do. But he can tell from how Sam moves that hopping up on Roach isn't going to be a simple thing, so he hangs back, if Sam needs a boost.

For the most part, he isn't giving any of this much thought. If it bothers him (it does), he sees no reason to linger. He's done more for less, has had far more explosive reactions than a bit of tension, and at least Sam has not fled in the opposite direction. So. Right now, he just wants to get back to the city and wash the blood off. It's beginning to itch where it dries, some of it sticking his hair together. ]