#packhuntcr

Leaning back against one of the empty cages, Pratt looked down as he slowly turned his knife over in his fingers. It always bothered him that he’d been allowed this. It was a slap in the face that said ‘I know you’re not going do shit with this’ and that was right. Wasn’t going to do shit with it unless he was told to. He’d had the chance to before, held the blade against Jacob’s throat to trim his beard as some weird show to screw with Rook’s head. Had the chance to slit his captor’s throat and he’d done nothing, just as the Seed knew he would. 

The last thing she remembers is fear.

It’s not a foreign feeling, not over these past few weeks. If anything it’s a permanent background headache that occasionally spikes and reminds her that she’s both very mortal and that this whole county is fucking insane. Hope is sleepy, they said, the most you’ll have to deal with is the occasional drunken redneck bar brawl or idiot breaking the speed limit. If she manages to get through this in one piece (and if that damn Collapse the Peggies keep babbling about doesn’t come to pass), she’s absolutely going to be having Words with everyone who expressed envy at her posting. She’d never truly dealt with fear before; dread and worry mixed with stress maybe, but not the same kind of pure, unadulterated fear that causes the heart to race until you’re not sure if it’s going to give out or not. She’d first experienced it when she watched in horror as those devoted to the Father swarmed the helicopter, the blood splatter on the windshield and the instant smell of viscera in her nostrils. 

By now, fear was second nature -- but sometimes it was easy to forget, especially in those quiet moments on the back roads where nothing was exploding and no one was shooting at each other (or her). It’s an empty stretch of road somewhere south of the Grandview, a light fog limiting visibility and muffling sound, the dawn just starting to creep it’s way up over the mountains to the east and turning everything from pitch black to a faded blue. If it wasn’t being shot to shit, the county would be idyllic -- a far cry from the towering urban forest of New York. It was enough for a tired deputy to let her concentration slip, to just zone out and daydream of being able to sleep for a solid eight hours on a comfortable bed. That was her first mistake.

The last she remembers is fear -- and the blaring horn of a large off-white traction unit barrelling towards her on the wrong side of the road. The small hatchback with SINNER daubed on the hood that she’d commandeered never stood a chance.

The world swims back into view from comforting darkness, the pounding of her head the first thing she notices before the smell of gasoline startles her back to full conciousness. She’s upside down - again - and the pressure of her body weight against the seat belt that’s digging into an obviously dislocated shoulder pulls a whimper from her lips before she reaches across with her good hand and un-buckles herself, landing on the roof of the car with a yelp as pain radiates through her chest. Ignoring the shards of glass ripping at her clothes and sin, Rook crawls through the broken window and immediately has to brace against the steep slope she finds herself on. Blood from the deep gash on her hairline dribbles down into her eyes as she looks back at the upturned vehicle, the passenger side crumpled and hugging the massive tree it had slammed into -- and as expected, there’s a trickle of gas leaking from the rear. 

He’s got a hip cocked against the dam’s railing, face turned into the warmth of the sun. It’ll be too soon before seven years of naught but the damp chill of concrete halls and buzzing LEDs are all they have. Much too soon for a man who can only just tolerate the relative liberty of walls above the Earth. Jacob indulges a long exhale, shifting so his back presses against the sun-baked metal. Arms fold across his midriff, the shifting of muscle causing half-closed sores to crack and weep. He doesn’t even notice. One of the few things he doesn’t. Instead he’s occupied watching the man he can only just recognize as his baby brother stomp up the steps as if each committed some personal offense. It’s a far, far cry from the bright-eyed child whose weeping Jacob had never been able to bear.

The indignant tread is only half so amusing as when the youngest brother catches sight of a gaggle of tourists below. Over-packed, under-prepared and phones extended overhead in direct contradiction to the majesty of nature unfolded behind them. Jacob himself had frowned on noticing them. Soft. Weak. Everything wrong with humanity in this age of looming crisis. But John shares an expression with a man who’s just trod in a pile of dogshit. Tourists give me heartburn, indeed. One broad palm covers the curl to Jacob’s mouth, blunt-tipped fingers rasping against that red beard. It does nothing to conceal the amusement in eyes so much lighter than his brother’s.

“Easy fix,” Jacob drawls, gesturing to the sheep in human form. And oh, he hasn’t even said it yet and his mouth is twisting into a smirk. “Stop eating them.”

Ah, tourists. A plague that was found everywhere, no matter how remote or isolated the location. Hope wasn’t a massive hotspot but the Whitetail State Park especially got the runoff from Glacier and that usually brought them down to the Valley and Fall’s end. Now that Faith’s statue of Joseph was complete, they had started to trickle into the Henbane too, which meant the Angels had to be kept out of sight as much as possible and those under the youngest Herald forced to be on their best behaviour. A difficult task when there was blatant disrespect being shown towards the statue. John was rather indifferent to the little ‘sister’s struggles, at least random tourists couldn’t get up to his sign without facing a massive hike through wolverine country. 

Even back in Atlanta, John had hated tourists but somehow the ones in Hope were even worse; under prepared millennials that thought hiking and camping in the wilderness was a fun group activity, only to discover that there was no cell reception unless you were high in the mountains, and the only wi-fi available was down in Fall’s End. The former was why they gravitated towards the dam, it had a decent enough reception that even John’s phone hadn’t stopped pinging through notifications the moment he got up past the turn off to St. Francis. He’d silenced that quickly, but he could still feel it vibrating in his back pocket. The group that was stood in the middle of the dam, however, had not silenced their phones, and he could hear their notifications coming through from halfway between Jacob’s bunker and where he could see the top of a red head leaning against the railing. John didn’t even need to see them to know exactly what sight was waiting as he crested the small hill.

A gaggle of girls, none of them older than 25, backpacks sat on the floor, each with a phone in hand. Pose, pout, snap, mess with their hair, pose again. Rinse, repeat. He’s sure one of them was recording and he can already feel the bile rising even before the first giggle reaches his ears. “God give me strength.” It’s a mutter under his breath as he pushes himself up the last part of the hill onto the level road of the dam.

“Tourists give me heartburn.” A throwaway sentence that John regrets the second it comes out of his mouth but he doesn’t flinch, he merely looks at the group with disdain from behind those blue shades of his, nose wrinkling as if there was a bad smell lingering -- one that wasn’t one that clung Jacob, at least. His brother’s response is expected and John flashes him a grin. “But they’re so good on toast.” Cannibal jokes. Joseph would not approve but Joseph wasn’t there. He was off in whatever place that he vanishes to when he doesn’t want to be found. Trying to tune out the shrieks and giggles from the group off to one side, he leans forward to rest bare forearms on the warm metal railing, hip cocking as he looks out down the deeply carved waterway of the moccassin river and out towards the very distant statue of Joseph off on the highest hill in the Henbane, bone white against the brilliant blue sky.

"You've always been our protector brother. You've always been the one to save us. I consider you more of a parent than our father or mother. They never sacrificed anything for us like you have. I'm glad you're back to being you. I've missed you Jacob."

He’s sat shoulder-to-shoulder with his brother enough times to recognize the voice: the wayward Deputy. Except, she comes through clear this time. A crisp,clean, and direct signal rather than the the vague tin of an intercepted commune with Roosevelt and Rye. The smirk that curves Jacob’s lips is predatory, amused… and curious. The Resistance haven’t yet tapped this station. Jacob would know. He’s got ears to the ground to match John’s watching eyes. They’d allowed the resistance to intercept some general chatter–too much silence would be suspicious after all– but the direct channels remain clear. Or at least, they were.

“Another lucky shot, Deputy,” the old wolf murmurs to himself, plucking the handset from his cluttered desktop. His thumb hovers over the button, measuring what to say; if he even should say anything. No hooks sunk into her to play his games. Threats are beneath him. Perhaps she doesn’t yet recognize his voice. He’s yet to find her leavings among the mountains the way she’s littered the Valley and Henbane.

“Allow me guess, Deputy,” Jacob sighs. “You’re regarding Chateau Boshaw. Or have you wandered up North to play and stumbled across the disgrace to the species that is Fort Drubman?”

She hadn’t been expecting a response, and if she was, it was likely to be some random resistance member or even a Peggie -- if anything she’d hope it was the latter, she’d had random conversations over the radio with them before they started recognising the sound her her voice. It was eye opening. And disheartening. Dutch would probably accuse her of treachery for even talking to ‘the enemy’ but what else was she supposed to do? She was a police officer, her training was for emergency situations (though admittedly not for small scale civil wars), was she supposed to just sit back and take one side’s word as gospel and kill without thought? She’d already read the Book, walked the Path. She was already using capital letters for those words which was a worrying sign but still, what part of ‘know thy enemy’ did the resistance not understand. She wasn’t even sure the Project was the enemy anymore.

 If only they would stop shooting at her...

The voice that comes across the radio after a pause that left her expecting nothing in response has her frowning at the speaker. There’s a nagging feeling like she’s heard that voice before on a distant speaker or radio but she can’t be certain. The way he speaks though, the way he uses her title like punctuation, the disdain that he regards the Boshaw/Drubman clan, he wasn’t Resistance. And her money’s on him being the one Seed she’s had no interaction with yet, but she doesn’t want to cash in that bet just yet. Still, there’s no need to be uncivil.

The sun’s warm on his skin, streaming through the floor to ceiling glass as if solely to bathe him, to coax some of that decades old tension from his shoulders. Over the rhythmic clatter of the keys and Brahms, those long legs stretch out before him. The old soldier can almost forget the itch of new growth, the ragged beard and hair trimmed or sheared away completely mere days before. So too can he put aside the discomfort of clothes bought soft rather than worn that way. It’s harder to ignore the weight of the PA’s glower, not visible from this corner of John’s lush office. Felt though. Oh the pretty little blonde thing had not been happy to see him. From elation on greeting his suave baby brother to a look of near horror on seeing John’s scarred and silent shadow.  An eye cracks, returning the scowl though the sight-line is far from ideal. So far from ideal that the pale orb gets shaded again, leather creaking as he settles deeper into the chair’s embrace. Not worth it. She can scowl herself into early botox all she likes, it’ll have to be John who orders him away, not a secretary who’s credentials were revealed by a neckline rather than a CV. The thought makes Jacob smirk. He could almost fall asleep, can feel that welcoming blackness prowling just out of reach. Just out of reach. But so much closer than it’s been in a long while without the wolves nipping at its heels.

Blunt nails, scrape against a cheek like a topographical map of Utah, shift to alleviate another itch… when his brother’s world-weary voice calls his attention. Again, Jacob distantly thinks he should feel something about such a call out. Likely embarrassed. Besides, this is just one more way in which their roles have reversed. John is the reason Jacob is fed, clothed, properly and entirely clean for the first time since 2003. John sent and paid for the doctor that ignored Jacob’s every snarl… though it took John and Joseph both to keep Jacob to merely snarling. But what’s to be done about it? What possible skill or means or paying his brother back does he possess? It’s that thought which provokes the shame, a tinge of color flaring in Jacob’s cheeks.  With a sigh, the offending digit ceases its ministrations, brushing against his jeans as if that made it cleaner. “Habit,” the soldier declares softly. “Maybe feral. Take your pick.” Wholly unapologetic though. He winces slightly, bringing back the slight bend in his knee where over-straightening made the joint protest. “She called the cops yet,” queried with a jerk of his chin toward the desk outside John’s closed office door. Can’t see her, but can still feel her scowl right through the wood. Determined little thing. He could almost admire it.

Baby blues are distracted from his work, narrowing slightly at the change in shade of Jacob’s cheeks. John’s not naive enough to believe that calling out his brother’s mining habits would cause the faint flush but he’s not about to ask the real reason either -- even if an answer would be forthcoming, which it most certainly wouldn’t be. Instead, the only reaction is the wrinkle of a nose in mild disgust as John watches his brother wipe the finger on practically brand new jeans. Because God forbid Jacob use a tissue from the box sat on the desk right in front of him. Still, he lets his attention roll upwards past the high back of the chair the soldier occupied towards the full length sliver of glass in the elegant jet black door that split his office off from the small waiting room and desk of his secretary. And yes, she was still glaring daggers at the back of the chair Jacob occupied -- at least until she caught John’s eye and sheepishly looked back to her computer screen.

“She’s certainly contemplating it,” he replies, a faint smirk tugging one corner of his lips upward. It had been an extended break from the office, one he’d fully briefed her would happen as he was preparing to leave the firm and was only seeing his active cases through to the end before leaving completely. He never told her the real reason for his absence was the forced sobriety that his eldest brother was forcing him to endure and all the nastiness that came with it. Even now, there’s an itch, the desire to fight the lingering fatigue with a line of white powder or a couple of innocuous tablets washed down with the strong coffee that was going cold on the desk. But his PA had greeted him as he stepped out of the elevator like a lost puppy would her absent master, at least until she’d spotted the grim spectre that loomed over his left shoulder. It was dreadfully unfair on the girl and he probably shouldn’t have found it as amusing as he did but John couldn’t find it in himself to care. “But let’s be honest, she doesn’t quite have the initiative.”

various starters // accepting

"Isn’t everyone?” Alder arches a brow towards his radio, seated on a small shore with his fishing rod laying comfortably in his hands. “I mean, your brother has a HABIT of PREACHING the good word about highways and byways and changing paths.” The line tugs and Alder’s hands tighten around the fishing pole, watching for any fish to take a bite. 

He does reel in his line a little slower. 

“It’s just like YOU, Jacob.” He reaches down with his free hand, settling the radio a little closer. “You certainly could have done your EVERYTHING differently, yet here you are and here I am.” The line JERKS and Alder yanks on the pole, hooking the fish and reeling the bastard in. He chooses to be silent for a few more minutes, watching the salmon leap out of the water in an attempt to dislodge the hook. Beside him, Peaches’ tail swishes in curiosity. The salmon is heaved out of the water, held there for a few moments as he removes the hook...

...and tosses the fish back INTO the water.