[closed] should i try to hide

[sizeofyourbaggage]

CHARACTERS: Rust Cohle, Ryohji Kaji, Damon Salvatore, Sam Wilson, Shepard
WHERE: Hyrypia - The Road
WHEN: early morning after the Night of Dread
SUMMARY: an investigation into what the hell and also the best first impressions ever
WARNINGS: none at the moment

[ catch all for day time investigation, threads in the comments! ]

Comments

[aluminumandash]

[ Rust is the opposite, Rust is nothing but sensory input, skill bound to instinct like muscle to bone. Rust is every night he went hungry because he stepped wrong, spooked a grouse.

Rust can taste the air.

The path couldn't be more obvious, laid out in flattened grass, snapped twigs. A piece of fabric, which he collects, snagged on a rock. Not a struggle. Not, in all likelihood, what he's after.

He hears them next—the scrape of rock, a noise he classes simply human before he identifies it as a moan. He sees and feels them at the same time, a pair of more-or-less-robed figures wrapped up in each other.

Rust straightens up, regards them with something he can feel falling short of disbelief.

He has to search for his voice. There's a feeling of effort, of force applied where a deft touch might do better. ] ( You two stay put. ) [ He's pulling away even as he says it—mental landscape overlapping the physical, his thoughts doubling back before they can tear off down some trail. ]

( Anyone else out here? )

[earthborn]

[You know what the worst duty in the entire world is? Playing lookout for your CO's makeout sessions. Particularly if you'd rather switch jobs and let Damon do the lookout thing-- best the, that Shepard's where she is, then, because she doesn't have to fake the disgruntled annoyance in her gait. Shepard's a good liar, but that doesn't make her a spy, it just means she can bluff. This whole thing is like something out of a fucking harlequin novel. She hates it.

The interruption in her careful, methodical seep for clues-- ostensibly for intruders on the "romance" happening not far-off is very welcome.]

( Hold up. We've got company. ) [This to Sam and Damon. Either it's another Host, or god help them they'll have encountered another group of telepathic people and that's the end of this idiot mission. Either way, things are looking up-- and she broadens her mental "voice" to include Rust.] ( Identify yourself. )

[The 'or I'll blow your knees off' is implied. By the blunt, round muzzle of Shepard's shotgun protruding from her robes as she steps towards the source of the mental voice.]

[aluminumandash]

( Cohle. ) [ Yielded promptly, without emotional shading. Irrelevant, right now: help yourself.

He's as mindful of the gun's potential for noise—an echo in his head, an eruption of sound—as its lethality. As much concerned with the trail the figure's trod as the name it answers to. ] ( Shotgun on a covert mission, that's a fine fucking idea. )

[ The gun does have this effect: Rust checks the impulse to scrape up against the other person's mind. Waits, forcing his thoughts into a holding pattern. ]

[earthborn]

( Aww, you'll hurt my feelings. )

[The shotgun isn't subtle, but it makes a good distraction, and it has such a nice way of underlining her threats. She holds it level, unconcerned, waiting for the other shoe to fall. Waiting for backup.]

( Cohle. Why don't you tell me why you're out here? )

[The forest is silent around them. This is the quietest damn stand-off Shepard's ever had.]

[aluminumandash]

[ Blunt: ] ( I'm following you. ) [ There. Impression enough of control that he stops waiting, trails her last thought to its source, intent on gathering what he can from her mind. Sharp, rather than rough. ]

( Wasn't hard. ) [ So git he doesn't say, but there's that itch—mental as well as physical, the need to get back to it. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ Sam's been trying to pretend like he can't hear them all in his head, like he's just letting his guard do her job and ward off anyone who comes too close to them. But the stand off doesn't feel like it's going to end any time soon, so Sam untangles his fingers from Damon's clothes and pushes himself away, heading over to Shepard and Cohle. ]

Looks like we're not the only ones who came out here for some peace and quiet.

[ It's purposefully out loud, but then he switches over to using the mental link. ]

( Look, it ain't much of a cover but it's the only one we've got, all right? Last night they felt like someone was watching them; we don't know what kind of eyes are out here. )

[aluminumandash]

[ Rust's dragged about five ways at once—recoils from himself long enough to glimpse what those eyes might be seeing, a pow-wow out in the middle of nowhere. It is a shitty cover, belongs on a remaindered paperback, and the shotgun's bright hot metal in his consciousness. Maybe it's not worth carrying on with the charade. All these coincidences stacking up—maybe they were fucked from the start.

But he has to decide.

With a mental nod, he steps briskly toward Sam. ] Cut the shit. [ His voice is strained, fondness giving way to exasperation, his mind a high-wire act. His thoughts molding the lie, the lie molding his thoughts. ] You, you're so smooth— [ He shoves Sam's shoulder, affection gone rough. Restlessness in his movements, jittery energy. ] She knows. You gotta get back now, you should've heard her, she'll torch the tent. [ Pause for breath. Step back. ] And you ain't sleeping with me.

[ As though reading from a list: ] ( You left something. Take off, stop, say you left something. )