ᴛʜᴇ ʀɪɢʜᴛᴇᴏᴜs ᴍᴀɴ ( ᴊᴇɴɴɪғᴇʀ ᴀɴᴋʟᴇs ) (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
righteously) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
abraxaslogs2022-09-12 03:42 pm
righteously) wrote in abraxaslogs2022-09-12 03:42 pm
Wᴇʟʟ, I'ᴠᴇ ɢᴏᴛ ᴛᴏ ʀᴜɴ ᴛᴏ ᴋᴇᴇᴘ ғʀᴏᴍ ʜɪᴅɪɴ'
Who: Winchester & Co.
When: September
Where: Free Cities, Libertas, & the Horizon
What: Quests, training, or Roadhouse socializing.
Warnings: Suicidal tendencies, alcoholism, other psychological traumas.
Aɴᴅ I ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴏᴡɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʟᴏᴛʜᴇs I'ᴍ ᴡᴇᴀʀɪɴɢ
Aɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ ɢᴏᴇs ᴏɴ ғᴏʀᴇᴠᴇʀ
Aɴᴅ I'ᴠᴇ ɢᴏᴛ ᴏɴᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ sɪʟᴠᴇʀ ᴅᴏʟʟᴀʀ
Bᴜᴛ I'ᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ʟᴇᴛ 'ᴇᴍ ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ ᴍᴇ, ɴᴏ
Nᴏᴛ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ʟᴇᴛ 'ᴇᴍ ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪᴅɴɪɢʜᴛ ʀɪᴅᴇʀ
When: September
Where: Free Cities, Libertas, & the Horizon
What: Quests, training, or Roadhouse socializing.
Warnings: Suicidal tendencies, alcoholism, other psychological traumas.
Aɴᴅ I ᴅᴏɴ'ᴛ ᴏᴡɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴄʟᴏᴛʜᴇs I'ᴍ ᴡᴇᴀʀɪɴɢ
Aɴᴅ ᴛʜᴇ ʀᴏᴀᴅ ɢᴏᴇs ᴏɴ ғᴏʀᴇᴠᴇʀ
Aɴᴅ I'ᴠᴇ ɢᴏᴛ ᴏɴᴇ ᴍᴏʀᴇ sɪʟᴠᴇʀ ᴅᴏʟʟᴀʀ
Bᴜᴛ I'ᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ʟᴇᴛ 'ᴇᴍ ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ ᴍᴇ, ɴᴏ
Nᴏᴛ ɢᴏɴɴᴀ ʟᴇᴛ 'ᴇᴍ ᴄᴀᴛᴄʜ ᴛʜᴇ ᴍɪᴅɴɪɢʜᴛ ʀɪᴅᴇʀ
no subject
Feels good, seeing her strap that on.
...not in a creepy way. Is that creepy?
He averts his eyes after a maybe too-long assessing beat, and settles his gaze on the gate.
"Yeah, well, let's hope whatever you're shooting at doesn't catch it this time," he says absently, maybe a little impatiently. "Hurry up, before Walking on Sunshine starts playing and this turns into an outfit montage."
no subject
Jo found the strange, still not-quite-checkable, smile added to with an unexpected flood of heat in her cheeks as she looked back down just as fast. She finished fastening the belt with slightly clumsier fingers as she tried to push that right back down. So much as any of it wanted to listen to her at all. Not when her blood was still racing too far ahead of her, and those gates, and the next five or ten or however many minutes. Already galloping even as she stood still.
Throwing a foot back up into the stirrup and shoved herself back up on her horse without some steps (which was still something she was figuring out how to master gracefully, but she powered through it like the best). Settling herself back in the saddle. Checking the set of the thigh holster and tugging it so all the bolts were arranged upward and only the flat strap was under her thigh.
"C'mon," Jo held out a hand for the crossbow, smile still a little too wide—all the way to lifting her cheeks and brightening up her copper eyes—even though her words were chiding at him. Like he was the thing that had held them up another five minutes, and not her, on the ground, off her horse. "We better go see if you have good taste."
no subject
They ride. Hunting here is a little like hunting back home — it involves packing up, it involves hours or days of travel, hunkering down in suboptimal conditions, tracking the thing down and not coming home until you kill it. The difference here? No motel rooms. No witnesses, no pretense. Just them, the desert, the ground, and a big-ass something ready and willing to tear their heads off.
Dean doesn't typically travel as far out as Geralt. This means he doesn't stay gone as long, and the monsters he tends to hunt are smaller. He makes a little less money for it, but the jobs come a little more frequently, so it balances it.
They're headed for an infrequently travelled caravan road that passes a little too close to the badlands. There've been reports of larval sandskids migrating a little too close for comfort, and getting a little too ballsy. A couple of 'em took down a trader's horse, the driver was lucky to get away with his life, let alone the merchandise.
They need to be brought down before they can mature. They're dangerous as larvae, but that doesn't even compare to how hard they are to take down once they reach adulthood.
They're getting paid by the head here — meaning there's more than one or two. No idea how many, could be anywhere from three to six or seven, more if they're unlucky.
They ride from sun up to sun down before they finally stop to make camp — two bedrolls and a fire, no need for a tent. From cool weather to hot weather to cool again. Further and further from city lights, from civilization, until they lose sight of it entirely, and it's just the two of them, the desert at night, and the potential to get eaten pretty much any time now.
Feel good to be back on the job, Jo?
no subject
Not to mention the ever-present feeling of exposure that didn't fade, sunk in deep claws, as a vibration at the core of her bones, refusing to shut up. She'd been to forested areas, inner cities, suburbs, swamps, a few different coasts, and so many other places in the last few years. But nothing this empty and yet this expansive all at once. Scrub some things, dottings of trees, the odd flowering bush, clumps of hills, weird massive rock formations, and random cliffs, but mostly just endlessness in every direction. The sky and the desert were divided only by that blurring line where they tricked the eye into thinking they touched.
Jo's quiet most of the time, alert, grits her teeth, and, without much in the way of word or noise of complaint, figures out how to adjust to the barrage of the sun, the constant needling of the heat, of thirst while conserving water, being on a horse so many hours. Night's are a strange new thing; too exhausted not to fall asleep, too aware of the endless openness, the types of creatures roaming out there, to sleep anything more than successive short jags through them.
It's weird. It's new.
But Dean has a direction,
and they don't stop.
Jo's a little grateful when they finally start to see in the far-distance the worn-in path that must have been dug by constant caravan wheels winding through the landscape. When it wasn't currently under attack. "Signs to look for?"
no subject
"They travel in small packs. There's gonna be at least three or four of 'em. You'll see 'em kicking up a little dust, disrupting the earth, leaving trail lines. Cross between a scorpion and a snake, almost, the way they skitter-slither flat across the dirt." That's what he's looking for now. Dust trails. Moving lines. "When they stand upright... could be anywhere from two to eight feet tall, depending on how old we're catchin' em. Once they get big enough, we're talking full-on Tremors."
Pretty sure he doesn't need to say why they wanna catch 'em before that happens.
no subject
They're probably hell as they are already. Even bigger hell just took the terrorizing, destruction, and death to another higher level. Her eyes skimmed the sands, twisting and shimmering, in the distance. Days of staring at them had not made staring at them into a skill she could just push through. Not that she ever thought that was possible, but it was a nice dream squinting into the distance.
"Have you gone after them before?"
no subject
A beat.
"On accident."
He was hunting something else, he was super unprepared for these goddamn things.
Grimly: "They ate my first horse. Whole damn thing. Hooves and all."
Cost him the entire damn contract's worth of coin and then some. Lesson learned, and after that the stable master was only willing to rent him exactly one bitch horse for like the next two months. Some kind of douchey horse probationary period, like he's going around using them for bait or something.
no subject
"Fuck." Her whole imagination widened the picture of the full size of each mouth on this multi-headed monster to each one potentially able to eat a horse. "That takes 'don't get eaten' to a whole other level, doesn't it?"
And, maybe it tucks the question about this being her first on something he couldn't manage before into its own pocket because she's not asking it. It can set into the back of her teeth and the line and her spine and her eyes going back to the silent, still, stretched ground that wouldn't be so forever.
no subject
"Yeah," he exhales a breathy agreement. She's damn right about that. This world's a little less find the corpse with its throat ripped out and more try to identify if that scrap of leftover meat used to be human-shaped. Provided there's any left over at all. It's a whole different experience here. "Wait 'til you see the Geralt Jrs."
Which is a statement that probably absolutely bears clarification, but it's at that moment he spots it. All joking switches off in an instant, and he jerks his head in direction of the dust trails.
"Alright, showtime. Stay back, keep moving. I'm gonna get in close and keep 'em busy while you Duck Hunt." As in, pick them off from the sides one by one while he preoccupies and directs the center. Seems like the easiest way to give her the breathing room to line up a shot she wouldn't otherwise get if the both of them tried running around in circles like jackasses trying not to get a leg torn off together. "Oh, and uh. Mind the fangs, the venom's a paralytic."
Probably useful information to know, right as he kicks his horse into gear and starts galloping toward their quarry.
no subject
"Nice of you to remember that now," Jo calls after his vanishing back.
Go time. Jo's only said she wanted this for weeks. Her toes press into the stirrup, and she pulls up the crossbow from its side carried, stripping one of the bolts from the thigh holster. She gets it comfortable on her lap and pats her horse on the neck.
"We've got this," she says quietly.
Not sure how much of it is for herself.
She's wanted this for weeks. She'd been doing the job for years. The nerves and the fear don't actually stop. You just learned to walk through them. She settles a hand on the crossbow and sends them into a trot in the same direction. Letting Dean have his lead, but getting closer still to wherever that stopping point is about to be.
no subject
Being on your back. No, thank you. It's not worth chancing it.
The things that he's content to refer to as sand worms feel the vibrations in the dirt even from as far away as they are. It's obvious enough they detect him when the momentum seems to suddenly stop, and then the dust clouds promptly redirect. Oh yeah, they're coming for him. He'll draw his sword once they're within fifteen or so feet, but for now?
He shifts the rifle strapped to his back. Brings it up, levels it carefully at the dirt, and then pulls the trigger.
One of them bursts from the ground, maw gaping, an ungodly pissed-off gurgling sound roaring from its gullet. He fires again, and the bullet tears through its head in a splattering of gore and viscera. It takes one more shot to bring it all the way down, and by that point they're close enough for him to quickly switch weapons.
It's about to get risky.
no subject
(A little bit of awe that gets one breath before she's banishing it down hard. No distractions.)
The crossbow gets leveled, with his ability to get a wide arc of movement across her viewpoint.
The ground settles, the dust hangs in the air, and even before it can have the chance to float down, the ground erupts with a monster. One, and then another, and Dean's working one side, and she starts with the center. Not shooting too close to him, considering shot time is longer than a bullet for it to land, but aiming to shoot through the head of whichever one realizes what Dean's doing to its closest neighbor.
Dean finishes off one, and her first is sailing toward the ground dead or not quite yet (he'll be able to tell better than her from here; it's part of why she doesn't like distance all that much either), and she sends another bolt pegged for it still. Safer than sorry. But more heads are pushing up out of the ground and the cloud of dust, all the more angry-vicious for the smell of blood, death screams, and flying viscera.
no subject
Well, maybe he gets to show off just a little.
The first time one of them gets too close for comfort, he throws out a hand and blasts it back a dozen yards with a flash of white light. It doesn't kill the thing, but it does a good enough job stunning it long enough for him to chop off another thing's head.
The second time he gambles, and it pays off for the first time outside of training — that goddamn shield, that sign he spent forever trying to get right and just couldn't until not too long ago. One of the sand worms bashes itself into the thing over and over, but it doesn't falter. Gives her plenty of time to take aim, fire a bolt, and put it out of its misery.
A tank and a marksman, it's a classic combo. You gotta love it.
no subject
But. Maybe it delays Jo a second longer than it should. The comically weird, unmovable trainwreck pause of just watching the monster bash its head again and again toward where Dean is standing and, each time, get stopped by a near-invisible wall. It's only the glitch of the record, and then she's reloading and aiming for that one. Rage-confused and single-minded. One shot. Two.
There's a prickle of something she's trying hard not to label this early, about being this far away. Left out of range, like there are still kid wheels. On her horse. Whatever. I want to do more than sit somewhere out here, playing Duck Hunt, safe as houses, the way none of them ever were or are.