#arendezvouswithdeath

[cmissary]

Catching Bullets

Continued from here

It wasn't a matter of fearing Galway. Well, not that she wasn't aware of just how much power was held in those big, rough hands. It was simply that of all the people in the world, she trusted Galway Morgan the most. It was simply that in the way that she was always a bit angry, she was always a bit scared. A new phenomenon, truth be told. Three years absent from fear. What was the worst that could happen? She'd die. What could she lose? Not that her life held much of a value. Who would care? What did it matter? Then she left for a week and stayed gone for a month. Then she went to the sea and saw close cropped red hair disappear into the gray waves. And she remembered what fear felt like. And it never really left her. She was always a bit afraid. She was always a bit on edge, her trigger finger a bit looser. She told him she'd always come back. She promised. He expected her. She could not fail him. She would always come back. So she ran, from her empty apartment, yelling in German chasing after her, to him. He was not there, so she hunkered down next to his bed, knees against her chest, until the yelling stopped and she found herself in her second favorite shirt, laying on the chaise lounge that she fit on so well. (Why on earth did he even have it? He likely could only fit his chest on it.) Galway Morgan had the right to touch her. He had the right to touch her when he wanted- whether it was a hand on her shoulder in the ballroom or bruising her thighs in the bathroom of the ballroom or wrapping his arm around her middle in the early down light, holding her there. He had the right. But he knew how to exercise this right with enough caution to keep it handily. Ginny Bauer was a flighty little thing. Ginny Bauer had dreamed before of Sergeant Morgan a sniper with red hair and a devilish grin shooting her, shooting Alexi, and woken up afraid of his touch. Today was not one of those days. There were no dreams of demons and ghosts, only of Huns and running through the woods of France until her lungs burst. Running to him, to Sergeant Morgan, to someone, the only one she could trust- the only reason remembered fear. His hand extended towards her- rough and scarred, stronger than she'd ever be able to fathom- and her eyes closed. The small woman let out a heavy sigh- the sort that reminded a person that she went to war at seventeen, that she was only 23 at the moment, that her bones ached in the cold and her heart beat too slow.The sigh she just for him- only he could see her in her moments of weakness. Like now, as she still shook. As her bones ached. As she felt too weak to move. Both of her hands- rough and scarred, and much weaker than she'd care to admit- raised to take his and she pressed the warm pad of his palm against her cheek- still a bit wet, from what? Tears? Ginny Bauer never cried. She pressed her face into his hand and took in a deep breath. Gunpowder and iron mixed with the sea salt and smoke. As familiar as her own scent, but infinitely more comforting. The little woman let out another heavy sigh and turned her head so she kissed his palm. She hadn't heard him, hadn't registered what he had said at least, and her shoulders weighed down with the burden of 23 years of running. "I'm sorry," she repeated, her face still turned into his hand. He'd know. He'd have to know. Or at least he had to know what to do, right? (He already did, hadn't he? He had come back.)

[affirmatxve]

thaw. | alexi & galway

It wasn't that their extended flirtation through telegrams was... normal, accepted, something a boss and employee did under normal circumstances something that Alexi would care to repeat. But he had a bit of fun and he assumed Galway had a bit of fun and no one was hurt by the entire bloody thing not that he was going to shout it from the rooftops. No, just the message relayed to Mimi and a night filled with a bit more heavy handed  with the winks and "baby"s and "hon"s. More natural, given his accent. The strange back and forth went unmentioned between the men during the first shift that Galway was back, a Sunday night. A passing comment about the depth of Alexi's eyes, a whispered retort back to Galway about how no man could wear a tux as well as him.                                                                                                                                  Mi querido.                                     Well...                                              it went basically unmentioned between them.  Mimi, bless her, went home first that night and Galway and Alexi watched the patrons stumble out and into the weak day light. No one left and Alexi nearly done closing up shop when the more slender man paused with a bottle of Canadian whiskey in his hand. He looked down to it, then to the Host who was leaning against the bar and lighting a cigarette from that peculiar little bird case he had. (Where on Earth did he get that?) Sixteen hours later, then men were standing at a dingy bar away from the Boardwalk. It was jam full. Alexi had a glass of straight whiskey in his hand (his third, and he was halfway done). The men around them- well, the men around them were the sort of intolerable men that Alexi could easily envision losing his temper with. No, no, that's not right. Alexi Bauer didn't get angry. He was above anger, he was beyond it. He was an officer and a good officer kept his cool.                                                                                        Was.                                                                                                Was an officer.                                                                                                Now he was nothing. The lean man sighed and downed the rest of his shot, closing his eyes and grimacing at the unpleasant flavor. Alcohol tasted like regret and poison. He wasn't fo the Temperance Movement, but, cripes, alcohol tasted like a slow suicide. "You better shut your fucking mouth, boy!" a burly, slightly older man with a three day old beard was hollering, finger poking the chest of a kid who looked to be about Tiger's age. "I outranked you then and I outrank you here, you piece of shit." Oh, God, this is why Alexi never drank. He felt the back of his neck heating up, his heart beating a bit quicker. The shorter man motioned for another drink and glanced up to Galway- his signature smile missing for a full second before he remembered he needed to wear it at all times, and even then it was more queasy than normal. "Beats drinking alone at least, right?" he offered weakly, a vain attempt to ignore the man behind them attempting to pull rank.

[affirmatxve]

Darlin'

a-rendezvous-with-death​:

[telegram for: Mr. Bauer, A.] Stuck in Nova Scotia (stop) Please inform Mimi (stop) She will know what to do (stop) Won’t be long (stop) I miss you darling (stop)

He was wearing his freshly starched and wet shirt with the collar fixed how he needed it. Like Galway taught him.                                                                         Darling. For some damnedable reason, Alexi was Darling or Pet or Lover. Never Alexi. Not even Lex, which he was never very fond of- less fond of than the other endearments.  Well, no. That was a lie. He was fine with it. It's just reserved for family. Or close friends. Not that he ever really had any of those, so, he supposed, just family. It had been a long time since he was called Lex, as it stood, but he doubted his opinion had changed. Lex was different than pet names. Lex implied actual closeness. He did not claim that with anyone. And why on Earth did Galway Morgan miss him? He was fucking with him, again. That's all Galway seemed to do. Which was fine. It was entertaining, at least. He had gotten used to it. He was fine. Everything was fine. Alexi and Galway and the whole damn world were just hunky-dory and no one seemed to have a care in the world. Why should they have any cares? Everyone left them buried in France. Why on Earth was he in Nova Scotia?                                                             You don't want to know, Bauer.                                                              You're smarter than that. [telegram for: Mr. Morgan, G.] I will (stop) Stay warm (stop) You flatterer (stop) Galway was just fucking with him, obviously. (Though a bit more than usual. Likely bored in the Canadian winter. The least Bauer could do was play along.) Oh, and goddamn, what a spot of bother. Why didn't he simply inform Mimi himself? Not that he didn't like Mimi. But talking to people was... well, it wasn't the course of action Bauer usually chose for himself. The man sighed heavily, running his hand through his hair. It would be a long night, he could feel it in his bones.

[affirmatxve]

♠:Your muse adjusting their jewelry/neck tie/ etc.

It had been a long two years. The spring of 1919 was a rough one, coming back to the States from France with a nasty scar on your neck- a bad shot, little more than a bad graze tearing open a gash. He didn’t know how much blood he lost, but he knows it was enough to lose consciousness to the sound of screaming and crying from a little girl a good soldier. Then, waking up covered from head to toe in blood, his pistol missing he loved that pistol, and his her dogtags in his hand. He made is way back to camp, eventually, got treated. (the wound in his neck scarring something terrible, going untreated for a week. all the rain kept it clean, at least. an infection in one’s neck was no good.) He could cover the scar when he buttoned his shirt up, if he wore the right shirt.He reported Ginny Jack Tiger as MIA. Eventually she was declared KIA.                                                           with all the blood she lost.                                                          with all the screaming he heard.He didn’t return to the front, the war over as soon as he was clear for combat again.                                          Well.                                                                Shit. He supposed that spring of 1919 wasn’t so rough as much as the fall of 1918 was rough and the spring after was just recovery. Spring of 1919 was just… a time for adjustment. Adjustment to being without that structure. Adjustment to the way his neck would itch when he’d blush, the scar tingling uncomfortably. Adjusting to a time without war. He didn’t remain enlisted. He took his honorable discharge. He took his medals and his two pairs of dogtags. He took his rifle and missed his pistol. He missed his pistol.                                        That’s it, yeah.                                                                     He missed his pistol. He got a new one- a Smith and Wesson, cheap enough, easy enough to find. He thought about maybe starting a little collection, maybe. He always liked Webleys, when he’d talk to British officers, but those were harder to come across this side of the pond. He didn’t want another Colt. A new Colt couldn’t replace the one he lost in the War, he didn’t even want to try. It’d just make him miss his old Colt. That’d do no one any good, would it? Being melancholy? Remembering instead of living?                                                             God, at least he was trying to live that instead of just think it.                                                            The scar on his neck itched in the cold. It was hard to ignore.After that… incident with the Micks, when he grabbed Mimi and pulled her beneath the bar, tucking her much smaller body under his as he heard the shots ring out. He was almost a foot taller than her, and while no match for, say, the Host’s muscle, he was still a soldier for ten years and had at least sixty pounds on the small woman. He’d take the bullets for her, if it came to that, no second thoughts. His breathing was hard, his face buried in straight black hair as Galway Morgan got a tiger stripe. (funny. why was that so funny to him. he didn’t tell Galway about it.)                                                                                   And what a helluva shot, Morgan Galway was.It pressed into his right side with- a revolver a bit clunkier than his previous weapon, but it’d do. He’ll be damned if Galway Morgan got hurt the next time.                                                                Galway fucking Morgan.                                                                             The Host. Good God, how did he do it? The man was a magician. The man was hardly  man at all- have you seen the size of him? Jeez Louise he was an actual giant, a demi-god of some kind from an ancient myth.                                                         (The son of Dionysus, he liked to muse.                                                                       drink. dance. revel.)And Christ, he made it all look so easy. Talking to people. Sure, Alexi did just fine with the customers. He had the brooding, handsome bartender thing going for him, and he cleaned up well enough in his black vest and bowtie- which was currently the issue.                                                                        His bowtie wasn’t right. It was a slow night, the oppressive cold driving most patrons away. (-18C, for Pete’s sake. only the insane were out tonight.) There was a real lull in activity at about midnight and Alexi’s fussing with his bowtie had drawn the attention of the much larger, much more elegant looking man. (Even with the beard.)Alexi, for the first time during a shift, was out from behind the bar. He and the Host were standing in the men’s restroom and the smaller man had his head titled back allowing the Host better access to his neck. He had grown so… sensitive about his neck. The thick white scar causing him some discomfort, but he also hated people touching it. It started when the nurses would check his wound while he was in the hospital. But he’d never say a word, knowing his anxiety was well unfounded. If people were going to kill him they wouldn’t be going for his neck.(Galway’s hands could wrap around his neck easily enough, he realized as the Host came forward and attempted to retie the bowtie, and with his muscle he could snap it in half a second. But it was Galway. He doubted the man had a murderous bone in his body. Sure, the Micks met unfortunate ends, but they had it coming. He didn’t blame Galway for that- no one did, no one could.                                                                                                              Galway Morgan was a hero.) Alexi had undone the troublesome piece of black cloth, and unbuttoned the top button of his collar in an attempt to make it lay straight. Scar fully exposed, as he fiddled with it, he felt a bit of his biting nerves at the back of his eyes. Stupid, stupid, like Galway hadn’t seen scars before. But he felt a bit of a pink tinge coloring his tan cheeks as he turned toward Galway so the Host could fix his collar and his bowtie. "New shirts never lay right," he offered quietly, apologetically, his eyes turned towards the ceiling, hands limply at his side. Texan drawl mixed with bumfuck Missourian, he sounded like a goddamn hick. His voice was low, more like a low rumble of very distant thunder than Galway’s booming baritone. He could yell, he could make himself heard. If he wanted to. He hadn’t been wanted to be heard in two years- no need. He was a terrible officer, given all the men he lost. Orders he had did not deserve to be heeded. Anything he had to say did not matter, not really, so why bother talking at all? He couldn’t do it, not as easily as Galway. His accent made him feel stupid, his lack of smooth words made him feel even stupider. He didn’t know how to lie. Which meant when he told women that that color blue made their eyes sparkle, he meant it, his little smile in place as he offered them a glass of white wine- if he felt bold, he’d wink as they turned away.He rarely felt bold.

[achrxmxtic]

a-rendezvous-with-death

Monday nights, his square shoulders, usually held so proudly, hung a little lower. Monday nights, his massive chest seemed deflated, those honey-colored eyes only gingers seemed to have seemed to lose their shine as they hid under the dark shade of his brow. The strap of his Browning would cut into his shoulder more than usual; the guitar case in which he carried his Springfield heavier than it should be. Monday nights, he smelled of mud and gunpowder and guilt.

Monday Nights, one would not find the Host in his brilliantly fit tuxedo. One wouldn’t find him where he could always be found, six days a week – leaned against the bar of the swankiest club in town, a glass of gin in one hand and a cigarette at the other, teeth shining through that all too familiar devilishsmirk as he exchanged pleasantries with the patrons. Monday Nights meant his wounded knee would pulsate with pain as he knelt beside windows in run-down motels or ran along the rooftops of some poor neighborhood. Monday nights meant the dents and hills of his calloused hands fit perfectly around the hand-guard and trigger of the Springfield (fitted with telescopic sights. Very accurate).

There was something so elegant in sniping. The delicacy and accuracy of the rifle’s mechanism. The preparation. Muscle memory. Fall into those positions he was so well taught, one knee folded under him, one arm pressed against the magazine as the other bended parallel to the gun. Take the time to perfect the aim, keep in mind wind and other precipitation. Exhale slowly. Do not inhale again before you squeeze the trigger, gently. A deafening BANG, a firm kick as the rifle recoiled into his shoulder; then a high-pitched silence.

But alas,                   Galway Morgan could not allow himself the privilege of elegance.

No, his was the dirty work through and through. Monday nights meant he’d haul dead weight into the trunk of a rented car and drive up to the Pine Barrens. Monday nights meant he’d carry that dead weight a second time before unceremoniously tossing it down one of the many abandoned wells he found at the edge of some woods. It meant blood and mud would cling to his clothes (the old ones, the ones he brought with him from England, the ones faded and torn and beaten down by winds and winds and salt water — never one of his many expensive suits, the ones he’d purchased this side of the Atlantic), linseed oil would cling to his fingers.

Most often than not – up until now, anyway -                                                                                it usually meant no witnesses. The ginger giant in the ill-fitting, tattered clothes stained with blood, stood in his place for what felt like a long moment. His hand was under his jacket, fingers wrapped around the cold nickel of his pistol, faster than one would imagine such a large man could move. It was without another word that his tawny eyes, red and tender and tired, gazed down upon the man before him from behind the barrel of a gun.

There would come a day, however far away it may be, that Caz would return home. He would return to the year of 2204 and have tales of the Before to share with his men. He would share knowledge of the way the world ran and the way the people acted, all of which had been long forgotten thanks to the wonderful works of Adam the Great. They would share a laugh and they would use it to their advantage--humans weren't mindless beings so low on the chain that even basic language was above them. They were what the Primaries came from. They were the key to their survival. Without humans, there would be nothing and Caz knew that now.  He found this time to be rather endearing. With his wings gone--a blessing wrapped in barbed wire, it would seem--he was able to walk among the humans as though they were one. They seemed not to care for air in his gait, the way he seemed to simply float through the crowds. They didn't cast him sideways glances, looking up at him with the wide eyes of knowing that all humans in his time had. He was simply another human to walk among the crowd. And, while it was all very endearing, it was haunting. It reminded him of who he was and how little of a difference there actually was between him and the petty humans--it was too much.  So, he took to the back street. He found himself wandering around as though he feared nothing. As though he wasn't aware of the dangers that often came out of the 1920 backstreets, of how thugs and murderers loved to patrol the darkness. Even Caz wasn't sure if he simply wasn't aware or didn't care. Foolishly, he liked to believe he was untouchable by most. The first seventeen years of his life had been spent in rigorous daily training, enough to make him one of the most skilled and deadly killers in the world, in his time. That title was up to question in this time, but he wasn't about to forget where he came from.  Perhaps that was the reason he found himself staring up at a man taller than even he. He was a giant of a man, nearing the height of Adam the Great, if the old bastard of a man would ever straighten himself out from his continuously curved posture, and his face was hard. It was a man that most would not dare  to attempt to communicate with, a man most would fear.  And that wasn't to say that Caz did not fear this man. He was well aware of the way his mind and body were reacting to this situation, especially once the gun was pointed toward his face--his COM was alerting him of every chemical change and giving him several options to stop or enhance them, the fight or flight was overridden and he managed to keep himself stoic, a quirked brow looking into the end of the gun.                                                                                      The technology was wildly different. "--It was a simple question." He now found himself looking up at the man. His body did not move, and his facial expression was the same as it had been. With his hands tucked behind his back, however, he found himself actively having to stop himself from allowing his taint to form itself into his own gun. "As you are not passing out from blood loss...." And his COM was not alerting him of strange bodily fluid levels. "...I can assume that it is not your blood, and is, in fact, another's...." He glanced down at the gun. "There is no need to shoot--I have little interest in reporting you to anyone, or getting any further involved in this situation, honestly..." 

[jamesgros]

Mimosa pudica

Continued from here

The German shouldn’t be here. Not in New Jersey, not in Atlantic City, and certainly not here, trying to be something he isn’t. He is supposed to be known, a threat more in reputation than presence. He is supposed to be muscle, grim and uncompromising. He is supposed to be efficient.                                                            (He is supposed to be gone by now, and it grates on him) He is not supposed to be recognizable, nor important enough to make it worthwhile. He is not supposed to be respectably dressed— though he has managed to avoid a suit, thank god. He is not supposed to be polite. Once he is done here, he can go home again and sleep without dreaming. Another week and he is gone for sure, money be damned. Should have been gone weeks ago when the weather began to turn, but he’d thought the Work was worth staying for.                               (Maybe it still is, but he is well past done with being stared at. James is not in this business because he wants to be known)

Not everyone shares his sentiment, though, or he wouldn't be in this position in the first place. Heaven knows the Host seems happy enough to be eternally in the center of things.  On good days, he understands most of what is said to him.                                       This is not a good day. His head pounds, carrying him well past Galway before the speech even registers, and even then it comes in as a foreign tangle of syllables and tone. The later alone is enough to stop him in his tracks given how… uncertain their peace can be, but its abruptness in itself is jarring enough. He can't recall any particularly recent offenses on his part, much less one that wold call for such a sudden redress. "… What"  It takes him a long moment to turn fully around to face the Host again and drag his voice from his chest; mind still half-heatedly going for a translation. He sounds harsher than he means to when he does, especially with how wary the other man seems of late; but he cannot take back the word.                                                               Later, he may have the presence of mind to find Morgan’s inadvertent “matching” humorous, but for now it is not granted any particular notice. He is too busy searching expression and stance for context, something he can react to a little more solidly than half-unheard words. James is not fond of being on uncertain ground.