SEBASTIAN STEELE

I've heard people call me the devil. How insulting.. I am not a myth.

[sebastianxsteele]

@sarahkinney

He's curious. Food has grown to be an inconvenience in its lack thereof. He has no desire to replenish it by means others rely on from Los Angeles. Trips to stores are not an option on this land. What lies on this ground makes sure of it. What's been given to them are two choices: hunt or succumb to death. He never specified what to hunt. Why limit creativity?

"Careful," he speaks because his footing won't. Those leather soles make no sound, even in the woods where the trees are bare and the ground is littered in their foliage. One of the boots kicks a pile of them up, nearly before they fall, the ground springs up and clamps around the dead leaves, a metallic ring left in the air from the bear trap that was sprung next to her foot.

"You're tempting cannibalism too easily, contract Kinney.--Make them try venison first, will you?"

[claudiamcrshall]

SEBASTIAN!

Claudia’s scream is stifled by molecules heavier than her own, smothering them into a bubble of silence that stretches out as far as the bunker exists. A piercing tone evaporates into it, a cloud full of enough electricity to be carried through decades, rising from the ground like the corpse that’s haunting her. “Seraph.” Shadows encapsulate Sarah’s face, a shard of light brushing at her upper lip, the edge of a tooth. Her skin is pale, thin, there’s grit underneath the fingers that have wrapped themselves around the girl from Winthrop, a stranglehold of vines, overgrown nails like thistle, branching out from every word that tries to kill her.

“You.” Vocal cords vibrate, a reverberation out of tune, plucked and then snapped to break. “You.” Move for move, she matches. Claudia shifts. She follows. She clings. She grabs. Bones clasp her face, the palm attached scraping her cheek, rigid knuckle of the thumb cinching her lips together, a liar put down.

“With you…” Another hand joins. Tangling in her hair. Dirt showering the scalp. “With you.” Snatch! “Seraph.” Pull! “Seraph.” Rip! “WI-th YoU!”

she had never thought of seraph’s death in terms of repercussions. how could she have when the only feeling it ever spurned was a wave of humiliation that quickly spilled over into relief. she should have done more in the moment, she should have been the one to do it. in the end it was still done, that’s what had truly mattered. until sarah davis is pulling out her hair, and she’s left struggling against a woman gone mad. 

she wrenches her head back, willing to lose the strands that the fist has closed on if it gains her space. the motion is quick, paired with a harsh shove against sarah’s chest, every ounce she can muster, scalp burning. the force adds a stumble to her step as though she’s been shoved, tension breaking with each strand “no! you left!” still she sounds more wounded than she should, as though the mere proximity to such bad memories was already regressing her. hadn’t no every so often sounded like a yes when heard through the winthrop forests, how would this be any different. 

“you knew what he was!” even though present circumstances might have made such a notion questionable, it certainly couldn’t have always been this way. “you knew—” her breath is hard and fast, whatever emotions trying to find their way to light catching in each syllable. “and you left him with me!” the repeated words clash against sarah’s own, she was no protector she was the one who had ben abandoned to try and survive. “what was i supposed to do!”

[sebastianxsteele]

Omnipotence is in the atmosphere. It's as stifling as a Catholic church when confessions unspool. The darkness in the bunker acts as the partition in the booth; the sinner the one who cries for justification the most; the priest is out; only Sebastian remains, filling the gaps mankind said only God could.

LaVey's shrieks turn unintelligible to unfamiliar ears. There are only a handful of words left in her vocabulary, and they've worn their welcome, fraying through her struggles, her desperate and frenetic grapples with Marshall's body. Face. Hair. Neck. Anything she can rip into that belongs to her is fair; she's lacked discernment over the years, holding onto one attribution that has kept her together this long.

But the world continues without a self-proclaimed antichrist in it, clearly failing to bring the apocalypse. He's survived by the two people who knew him best, taken out by the one who knew him least. The circumstances fall short of poetic justice.

"You should focus on what you'll do here, Marshall," he interjects over the wailing mother's fight and the defensive orphan's plight. Ash scatters beneath him. "Apparently, your talent for evoking guilt has lost its allure."

"YOU," scales a ragged pitch. Guttural. Blood-soaked throat. Iron-tarnished tongue. Grief. How pointless.

"You're familiar with one solution," he goes on, a gun balancing on his palm. What sound comes first to the mind? Ransom's body collapsing or a casing exploding a hole through a Stetson. Too slow. The bullets empty out, scattered into mud with a pull of the trigger to Marshall's face to prove they share a unique sense of non-existent utility. "Find another."

[sebastianxsteele]

@claudiamcrshall @julianxsantiago circa Identity

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

had it been wishful thinking? all those years knowing that sarah was not there, the only signs of it having been that there was no sign. there was only the feeling the ever growing anger at the fact that she had not returned. there were only so many years of survivability in that town. she could never go back, never wanted to. seraph’s name echoed through the room louder than possible, as though amplified by the truth of what happened. what was happening.

sebastian’s taunts might have been risen to, a half minded defense of something she’s not even sure she said. but her words are cut off, scream piecing the air where sarcasm might have otherwise found root. sarah’s touch sparked fire, old and aching wounds that she’d thought were long forgotten. “don’t touch me!” her voice regressed, sounding ten years younger, defending the smaller version of herself from the now decrepit thing reaching out. “i don’t have him! seraph’s dead! he’s dead!” there are three points of a triangle in the room, she is doing everything she can to distance herself. “he’s a pile of ash! you can’t have him!”

Claudia's scream is stifled by molecules heavier than her own, smothering them into a bubble of silence that stretches out as far as the bunker exists. A piercing tone evaporates into it, a cloud full of enough electricity to be carried through decades, rising from the ground like the corpse that's haunting her. "Seraph." Shadows encapsulate Sarah's face, a shard of light brushing at her upper lip, the edge of a tooth. Her skin is pale, thin, there's grit underneath the fingers that have wrapped themselves around the girl from Winthrop, a stranglehold of vines, overgrown nails like thistle, branching out from every word that tries to kill her.

"You." Vocal cords vibrate, a reverberation out of tune, plucked and then snapped to break. "You." Move for move, she matches. Claudia shifts. She follows. She clings. She grabs. Bones clasp her face, the palm attached scraping her cheek, rigid knuckle of the thumb cinching her lips together, a liar put down.

"With you..." Another hand joins. Tangling in her hair. Dirt showering the scalp. "With you." Snatch! "Seraph." Pull! "Seraph." Rip! "WI-th YoU!"

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

the dark shadows of her world creep in, the sort of horror stories that she thought had finite endings and solutions. though they weren’t always pretty, and were no longer spoken aloud it was how they were. “i’m not dreaming.” shaking words spat out, the wounded lashing out with little effect. how could she, when they were in a bunker on his property and he brought up back to back topics that were better left dead. there was nothing to improvise. she would have run out of the bunker if the world wasn’t tilting on an unsteady axis, her legs gone numb in the seconds before adrenaline started to build. 

“that is an actress.” because sebastian steele is the owner of a media company, not the last possible thread to tie her back to her shattered hometown. “sarah died twenty years ago!” because if she had been alive she would have come back, she would have taken seraph with her. she wouldn’t have been here of all places. “joke’s over.”

This is his universe. The sun is held between his fingers, a prick of orange that burns in space, smells of nicotine and federal warnings. Wafting in the orbit, spinning precariously, head full of racing blood, is the planet Marshall. She's on the path of inevitable collision with the asteroid that has existed long before she decided to go off course. Propelled by denial, plausible thinking for the delusional, directed towards him, like a chicken that can't help but stare at the sky during a storm, mouth open for drowning. The buzz of the asteroid seems only to reach his ears, the looping words that are eclipsed by the need to have them disappear altogether.

"Necromancy is easier to perform than you believe it to be, particularly when the subject's death was only wishful thinking." No body found. A disappearance. A search that was limited to Winthrop. The possibility has always been alive, as alive as LaVey has been.

With you? Claudia. Is Seraph with you? Claudia. Is Seraph

"For future reference, finding the handicapped comical is prejudicial." Unkempt fingernails curl into her shoulder from behind, Sarah's rancid breath sticking to brown hair. "Do better."

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

there are no mysteries in her life. not the unsolved, unexplainable, four am conspiracy theory that could build up in one’s childhood. she has always known the answers to her questions. it was seraph who had killed her mother, killed her father, killed mike. she could have continued on a list where the culprit continued to exist of one name. why should the figure of seraph davis not be assigned to sarah’s mystery as well. she counted on another dead body, one way or another. she took solace in the truth of it.

there were no mysteries that way, no expectations. until she sees the flame flicker across the bunker, catching the edges of a person who’s been waiting. her world shifts, tilts, tremors reaching her finally and threatening to topple her over. spots dance in her vision as though one more blow will be the edge. her face is a ghostly pallor, brain trying to catch up with the new information that’s refusing to find placement.

she turned back to sebastian, as though he’s conjured up some image that’s not quite reality. that she shouldn’t take seriously. there was nothing to be trusted. “keeps me? this is, this—” there is no way to know the truth. “she’s dead. she fucking died a decade ago. i’m not falling for that.” even as the voice croaked out, echoing against the concrete, through her bones. “no fuck this. seraph is dead, she’s dead.” avoidance is not the same as restraint. it is the last dying wish to hold on to her reality. “why would you do this!”

Her blonde hair has grown past her shoulders, ending in split ends. Each strand serves its own direction, springing upward, curving down, finding any place that it can to remain untamed. Her eyes are used to the darkness, can see through the shadows, can pierce through the guest she hasn't seen for years. It's a reunion that is ill-received, as witnessed by the man to make it happen, who traces his gaze over the fidgeting figure between them.

Smoke unspools from his lips at the same instance Claudia's cries soak up the air. The sides of her neck hollow, pits formed from strained vocal cords, from the voids of desperate lungs, spoiling the atmosphere with unwanted news for only one.

Seraph is dead.

His fingers guide the cigarette away. The mother of the acclaimed anti-christ makes the herald's neck into something similar, clutching the back of it with less grace than him, far removed from the divinity he is credited with.

"Perhaps you're dreaming," he comments with ease. "Unfortunate that Ransom is unavailable to return the favor in waking you up. You’ll have to improvise."

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

she’s been pushed down before. tumbling down a set of stairs because at least then it wasn’t her choice, it wasn’t a marker of weakness, but rather that it was the last resort. who cared if she broke a bone, at least it proved that she was not just going to go down that flight of stairs. her world has expanded since then. a broken bone would not signify that she had fought— that she had lived, but rather that something had happened. it would raise alarm where there was no need. not when she could still walk. still she is not exactly willing. the first step was always the hardest, her boot echoing on the steel step that was waiting to receive her. 

“why would you say—” her mouth can’t form the name, struggling around the idea of seraph davis that has been injured back to life. she thought if she alone stopped saying the name that his memory would have no choice but to die out. and yet here they stood. she a step below him, a step behind really. and still another. “what the fuck do you keep down here?”

"Say what you're unable to?" he completes her question for her, dark eyes on dark hair, peering through her from the angle of the back of her head. There is no mind-reading, no parlor tricks, nothing supernatural at work. She has merely underestimated her own transparency. "Do remember," he goes on, "self-restraint restricts the actions of only yourself, not others."

The steps are shedding the light from above the lower they lead. In place of whatever overcast sun that hangs in the chill, the metal stairs show signs of the rain from days before. Dampness lingers in the air, the sign of building mildew. The final layer of a floor drenched by an inch thick of fallen water awaits. Sebastian's boots do not meet it, choosing to remain above it. This is his theater. This is his stage. He is observer, not the act.

"I'm sure you'll agree that what I keep here is what keeps you, Marshall."

A lighter is unhinged, flipped open, flame bursting to life. There is more than the end of a cigarette that it meets, the light outstretching to outline what stands in the corner.

"Claudia." Her voice has grown a hoarse quality. It holds no complaints. There is only one focus. There has ever been only one focus. “Is Seraph with you?”

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

if there was any color left on wind-chaffed cheeks, it drains away with the remark. spoken as though there were four people in the room instead of three, that some how all along he had known about their break, the severance of her past from all things future. the stretch of days in the hospital spent under the label icu, overdose. forever branding her some fragile thing, instead of just stupid. the importance of it clearly isn’t missed from the threat he delivers. “did it to myself?” there’s a tremble, a failure to provide smart remark at the topic she hadn’t thought ever needed to be discussed again.

her own grip on her gun loosens, the tightens again, as though even though it’s been damaged, a blunt instrument is better than no weapon at all. but it’s no match for a bullet, it hits the leaves finally. louder than their footsteps had been, scaring away any other potential prey. “clearly you already know.” she’s seething, trapped again by her own inability to get out of the situation, the noose is already around her neck. 

the metal is rusted, handle gritty under her grasp as the oxidized parts try to give way. the remnants of some old bunker, the kind of pit that can’t hold anything good. images that she’ll have to scrub from her mind before they register as reality. the door is too heavy, the weight of it as she pulls makes it impossible not to stumble. but it groans with the weight of whatever it’s holding back. if no one heard her gun drop, they couldn’t miss this. she hopes it’s enough to send everything far away, that no one else gets caught in this web. 

she thinks of julian. that he won’t have to search, because she will return. a promise made to the open air, there is no god left to hear it. “now you’re going to want me to go first, right?”

Indignation. Exposure. Embarrassment. She's flourishing with bottled emotion, obviously with a broken seal. His temperament remains unmoved, merely notating what he is watching. She is a specimen under glass, lens of a microscope unnecessary. No surprise is found in her movements, even at the sight of the bunker being opened from her touch. She is aware of the rules without asking what game she's playing. There is only one winner, as there is only one player; they are not one and the same.

"Draw the line of your dependency at being pushed in, Marshall. It's unbecoming." His free hand gestures fluidly, an upturned palm, the direction of the gaping hole in the ground, light daring to reach the edge of a descent that you must trust that a step lies inches below. "If a broken bone has become more familiar to you, you've proven that you’re capable of falling on your own."

[sebastianxsteele]

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

she can feel herself exhale sharply— unconfined anger spilling out of her when she knows that she should be more impassive. there is nothing that a smart remark is going to do for her, the harm is already rippling out to other members of her crew before she can pick a smart remark. he turns back to look at her and she can feel herself recoil, tense, ready for some unknown harm, for ruin. his foot sweeps across something metal in the ground. the woods are dark and looming, they have never held anything good in them. whatever is buried there should stay. 

“this is a fucking trap.” her voice steels against the instruction, refusing to play along with certain destruction. her mind reels, trying to put the thoughts of seraph davis back in their place, sealed away. she is not in the business of digging up the dead, she does not walk down the twisted paths of fairytales, and she does not just open the mouth of hell. “open it yourself.”

"How suspicious." Dryness encapsulates every syllable, rolling off his lips as fine as sand. He makes no move to open what lies between them, leaves all the room for the eyes that are on her, breaking her down into pieces like fowl, spine cracking, quarters drawn, gizzards removed, sourced only from the irresponsible. "It causes one to wonder what persuaded you to sedate yourself." Patient Claudia Rose Marshall returns to Winthrop's own hospital. Another file is added to the dossier she left behind. Toxicology report included. She recruits another patient as donation. "It must have been something of great importance to you."

The wind blows. Leaves rustle around them, somersaulting over the metal of the hatch and the metal of the Smith and Wesson that remains in his hand, finger always on the trigger, only missing a target. "If our impasse continues," he muses, "have you considered what you'd prefer Santiago to find from his inevitable search for you?" Entrails. A bullet. An audience to his pain. "Suggestions?"

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

she thinks that she can take a few hits, that there’s something to her being called pathetic ( because what more could the word victim mean, how else could she adjust to what had been done ). but she does not think that there is an endless limit to such a patience. she’s always had her hands curled into fists, words flaring in her mind waiting to be said, to start a fight where there might have not been the cause for one. but he says the last name that she’d expect to hear. the syllables almost make her miss a step, the reminder that there’s another death hidden in the wings. 

“what?” she knows she feels nothing but relief for the fact that he is dead. but it hardly helps in the moment. it is one thing to walk through the woods and think of her childhood. it is another to hear it echoed aloud by someone who should have no grasp of the truth. “he—” the way her mouth refuses to form the name, skipping through thoughts, and pausing her from whatever else might have been said. she’s left with the eloquent: “what the fuck is this?”

"This is Steele Plantation," he returns to her without effort. A boomerang from her hand that disrespects the thrower, aiming to highlight the missing skill it takes not to be hit in the face. "Your sense of geography is as sharp as your elocution."

The soles of his boots barely touch the ground, but through them there is a connection to the land. There always has been. It runs deeper than inheritance, thicker than bloodline. He is not an extension of the earth; the earth and everything buried beneath it is an extension of him instead.

"Are you familiar with the origins of the term 'scapegoat?'" he asks, stopping with one final step that has him facing her. "According to a fairytale, two goats were chosen on the Day of Atonement. One was sacrificed." Leaves are brushed off with a single, quick swipe of his foot, revealing metal, an indent of a handle to lift it. "Find out what happened to the second goat, will you?"

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

the only hesitation comes in the form of demand, that she might be subject to follow any kind of order that comes from the mouth of sebastian steele. that makes its way through thick iron air and the last gasps of life for the animals that continue to pile around her. she doesn’t say yes, but there is is no other option. the woods have never been a place to gamble with maybes, and she certainly cannot pretend that she has the upper hand with every second that’s passed. 

“nostalgia.” she scoffs, the word echoed back to him with her own particular coating of distain and the slightest tremor of questioning. any other person and she might have spun around and turned back the way she came, leaving the whole gruesome scene. but the shifting of leaves underfoot and the quiet call of the forest do more harm than good, lulling her into some sense of complacency as though at any moment she might be lashed out at before she can be the one to lash. perhaps her childhood is less buried than she thought, perhaps the word drowning will always be some burn she doesn’t get over, the fire catching in her lungs. 

she answers none of his questions, she decides to take his questions as an affront, answering them with a heavy handed clumsiness that dodges all meaning, because there has been nothing but a past he doesn’t need to know alluded to. there is nothing here but darkness and danger, the edged clip of something that might be a joke if she wasn’t still clutching her own gun. “you luring me out here to drown me?”

There is a spirit to the forest, an eclipse of good, a blackout to what's light. It's soot-stained and sulfur-rich, the ground itself spun from brimstone. To the empath, the feeling of purgatory has never been stronger, as if every step soaks the soles in the blood of the past. To the godless, the feeling is what the present holds and the future offers; the Virginian air has never been calmer, not even the water of the pond ripples. Ghosts have no meaning to the man who helped trapped them.

"There is no lure without temptation," he reminds her, gaze cascading down on her head, something reminiscent to the last sight Marie Antoinette must have witnessed. There is no queen, only disgrace, a neck with nothing to hold. "The role of the victim must be undeniably tantalizing to make suffocation sound so inviting."

The black of the eyes and the black of the water are parallels on different planes, all encompassing, endless, witness to all that is before them. "How thoughtful to remind Davis of your willingness to perform before his expiration.”

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

the gun goes off and she flinches immediately, arms cover her face awaiting something that she’s not sure can protect herself from. the squirrel hitting the ground forcing her to take a step away before she’s truly registered that it’s dead. the woods bring out heightened instincts in anyone who might consider themselves a hunter, they also pull a flight instinct from deep inside her. spending too much time in one spot is a good way to die, the key is to stay light and unseen. how could she have forgotten. 

but she has been caught, and so she stares, nearly unblinking, as though she might accidentally miss something crucial if she takes her eyes off him. everything learned in the name of survival floats to the surface, even as she wishes it would stay buried. he asks a question where of course there isn’t one. he knows it from his words, and she knows that she cannot turn her back. this was a trap, and she willing victim. there is little hope that even if she stays she will end up with anything that will help her crew, and yet it is still the best chance any of them has— she’d rather it be her than someone else. she has some strength left to endure.

neither are easy, both are foolish, but only one is right. and so she stays standing. eyes finally flicker down to the gun in his hand, reminding her of her grip on her own. “i’m no false prophet.”

"Hm." The hum resonates behind thin lips. It spiderwebs out across his throat and into the open air, a kaleidoscope of the macabre, details as shaded as the man himself. There is nothing more needed to share but a single noise, revealing only knowing what is unknown, a fact that is more unsettling than whatever answer could be awaiting.

"Take a walk, Marshall," he tells her, instruction more than invitation. No matter how cavalier the breath is, the tongue manages to chisel what words are released, stepping already in the direction they will be moving towards with little room for second-guessing. She will follow or the buck will have company right beside it. These are the paths laid out for her, dangling in the gunpowder-filled air.

"Does the forest bring out feelings of nostalgia?" The landscape is riddled in towering trees, barren with darkened bark, branches nearly clouding the sky, thinning out only to a clearing. The water that they give way to barely reflects anything at all, a pond too deep and greedy to ever give back whatever light crosses it. "Or does the practice of drowning what isn’t wanted too ingrained?”

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

not everyone is built with the same strength, whether by luck or chance they simply have not been exposed to the horrors that life can rain down on those who least expect it. she has never had the fighting chance to know a different life. but how can she expect the same of others, force them into the version of the world. the kind that stands in front of her and declares itself to be not forceful opposition, but simply omen. she thinks of the people who might not, of sarah kinney already protected from unknown horror— she does not ask it, she merely knows that it is the case.

“no one is going to die here.” words that should come out forceful, ring with truth and be spit on the ground where it burns and leaves a line drawn clearly between us and them. it doesn’t quite make the mark when someone is already losing before they’ve realized there’s something on the table. “it’s a film,” and it had to be shot here, because they could not stay in alabama, and there was nowhere to go in the state of california that would have offered the right look. it had to be shot here, but that was all. that was all. “it’s not some experiment.” 

The knife slips away, returning to its origins in the form of its owner's pocket. There is a dichotomy of attentiveness and disregard that swims in the eyes that are gripped around Claudia's face, watching, notating, ignoring. Her words provide company to the air, pushing themselves into its space, befriending wasted oxygen. Whether or not she is done speaking or if it is a matter of mere coincidence, an ending is stemmed by violation.

Gunfire. ZING. A dense NICK to the limb that's overhead. The hard SMACK of a squirrel hurtling to the earth. The muzzle of the borrowed rifle is dented, angled to ricochet upward, playing with bullets like a game of billiards. The gun remains in his hand, searing hot metal that warms the rubber grip beneath the leather glove.

"There's no room in your credits for a false prophet," he answers from where they left off, plucking terms from familiar sources. "Choose," he goes on, "return with empty promises, or extend the effort to fulfill them. Which one will be easier to answer to?"

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

her jaw clenches, hand tighter around the strap of the gun she holds, trying not to betray any more weakness than it’s clear she already has. she has spent years as a walking wound, the remnants of scars that will never truly fade dotted along her body like constellations. she has not felt their white hot burn in a year, she never feels in more so than when subject to the black gaze that finds her. 

“i don’t need your version.” she sidesteps the bullet with ease, reflexes that could have caught it if she were a different person, if she needed the moment to somehow be cemented instead of lost forever. the display is more than enough, she has no desire to take with her the souvenir. the metal casing hits the leaves with barely a whisper. it will stay there. “they don’t need charity. they’re human beings.” and ones that had been brought here under the pretenses of work, their work. “it’s a necessity.” though one she would quickly forgo if it became a matter of the few versus the many. even now, as a part of a team— red thread running from heart to heart for eternity, she thinks if there is a way to spare just a moment’s more harm, she still might do so. she might as well hear it out with no other option to give. “you’d just let all of them die?”

She is pleading for mercy to the wrong deity. It would have been better had her words fallen on deaf ears, the same ears that bolster religion, always listening, and always inactive. No. She is listened to with pitch-perfect hearing, turning those words over before dissecting them down to their bones, seeing how they're structured, how they're formed, how they can be reshaped in his image.

"How insulting," he speaks, his voice devoid of the offense he's mentioned, for he is not the owner of it. "They're capable of dying on their own without my intervention. Placing all of your faith in me isn't as touching as you intended it to be." The blood is swiped off of the blade and spread across the sides of the hunted, the beat of a heart now merely a subtle throbbing, a pace that trickles down as much as its own escaping blood. The allegory is spreading its wings through continued conversation.

"Given the stance you've chosen on their behalf," he goes on, bending the knife back with his thumb, locking it with a click while he steps forward, away from one animal captured to the next. "Should they succumb to death, the responsibility becomes yours to bear, Marshall.--Your appetite for self-induced guilt must be whet from the prospect alone."

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

partnership. her wedding ring is on a chain around her neck, kept close as possible, it hides from the wooded world but clearly that doesn’t mean that the truth of it still isn’t known. nor does it need to be stated that she would indeed throw herself towards this hurtling train if it meant there was one less thing for him to deal with. it’s not martyrdom if he would do the same, it’s not anything with a neat label when it comes to dealing with sebastian steele. “walker.” finally she finds the thing to latch onto, the bumbling writer. though she knows a member of the crew is still someone else to look after, she doesn’t think that there is the same regard for beth. “i didn’t change.”

there was a difference between revealing the truth that had been there all along and changing the marrow of her being, and only one had happened. the nuances were not worth debate when a deer bleeds out in front of her. the scene, though grotesque, is hardly the first time she’s witnessed such atrocities. it seems there will never be a last. 

“last time.” another worthy scoff, drawn from fatigue and exhaustion, the pressure of a thousand more decisions to be made while the minutes slip away in this conversation. “that was to film in a house.” and it had almost destroyed her career, her relationship, the two intertwined in too many ways as she’d fallen down the stairs of the welles house trying to do exact what she was doing now. “you want to negotiate for people to be able to eat?”

There is nothing ornate about the instrument he wields. Metal forged exclusively for the task at hand. Blades should be singularly faceted; it is the human touch that makes them versatile. Some touches hold more creative license than others, evolving instead of stagnating. She gives her answer, and he gives his. "It shows."

A drop of blood falls on the buck's jaw, stains its fur. There is a whiff of gaminess that comes with it that could ferment with bacteria if time allowed it to, taking a page of deferral from the book of Marshall. Another drop is rolling down the back of the animal, a trickling river that darkens as it richens, flowing from the tip that's driven at the spine.

"Take credit where credit is due, Marshall. That is your objective. Not mine. Would you like to refresh your memory on your philanthropy work?" Steel is twisted, a bullet dislodged between bones, a paralyzing source on life that is bleeding out minute by minute, popped out until it is flicked to her casually. The remnants of a gunshot, dyed crimson, still warm, now hers as if it was returned to sender. "As tempting as it must be, try not to write-off your crew in the same manner as your last effort in charity."

[sebastianxsteele]

claudiamcrshall​:

of the members in the crew, she is the one with the most hunting experience. the occasional long weekend with her father, trying to disappear in the woods with a rifle across her back. stay quiet, don’t scare off any potential targets, always be sure to aim with a steady hand. nate marshall passed down a variety of traits to his daughter from the upturned tip of her nose to the inability to start her day without coffee brewed. hunting was one she thought she’d left to the wayside, and yet here she was once again trying not to crunch leaves underfoot, knit cap snug on her head.

the twig snaps, she winces, the kind of involuntary gesture that marks her as prey not hunter. as though one more misstep and she might be found out in the woods. the voice calls out to her, she already has been. “it’s not self-sufficiency if it’s for a group.” she would forgo the whole meal if she had to, but she couldn’t expect the same for the crew. the barrel of the rifle lowers slightly, but not so much as to assume she was comfortable with her situation. the deer that’s captured sebastian’s attention makes that a certainty. “and i don’t think you’re going to share.”

Capillaries bust beneath the blade, layer of striking white fat reveal itself from the incisions between the legs, running over the joints that meet the torso. Trickling blood mats in the fur that is being ripped back while Sebastian's eyes absorb her, a pair of black holes in the universe, leaving no light left to cling onto. "Be forewarn, Marshall, a partnership can only support one hero-complex at a time. Martyrdom suited you better," he advises just in time for the thigh to be fully exposed, vibrantly pink meat peeking out, the kind that makes a nice offering to a dependent crew. "Self-sufficiency doesn't fit you as well as self-destruction does.--Listen to Walker; don't allow marriage to change who you are."

The knife trails over the exposure of the buck, slicing with ease. There is no bullet-hole in his way, cleaner that way, able to be found even easier for later. "Your dedication to thought is truly admirable," he goes on. "Were you dissatisfied the last time you negotiated with me, or are you waiting for your group’s starvation to outweigh your pride?“