#hvndredzones

[hittheredline]

@hvndredzones semi-plotted. suffer my wrath.

  Sunny wakes screaming.

  As in her dream so unto her waking, though, the terror at work in her chest doesn't make it into the air. Just rips and tears and runs through her, not one sound for evidence. Something about it being buried, she often thinks (well after, or in between visits from this vivid nightmare, when there's space to do any real thinking) now repeating itself again and again. Silent under the swarm of boots and screeching guns and wailing alarms. Drowned out. Even the only thing she could do, and still too small for them to even hear her. For her to even hear herself.

  She flees her room. Not even bothering for shoes, or a jacket over her tank, or anything sensible at all. They're beyond the worst of the day's heat anyway — and what a miserable, oppressive heat. Not the clear and high and brights that composed the normal but heavy, dragging. Too-still for too many hours. Now, as she scampers across the driveway from one side of the motel to the other, there it is. A perfect peal of thunder out of a darkening sky. It makes her jump.

  She fumbles for the door, but the warped knob doesn't turn. She tries it again, hoping for a fluke. Nothing but resistance.

  “Gh... Gh-!” Two false starts while her breath catches and catches and catches again, incomplete and desperate. Please open the door. Please get up, and open the door. The knob shakes in her hand. Please, please, please. She manages a brittle knock.

[havenofseven]

@hvndredzones / continued.

  He laughs easily, not in the least put out to be pulling faces. Wild doesn’t so directly remind him of his sister, but the teasing strikes a similar chord. Wild and Tech both make his heart ache a little. But it’s a good ache. Tox hooks a finger over the box’s edge to pull it closer and inspect the contents.

  “Remind me what we’re looking for?”

[ru5t]

@hvndredzones ( Midnight ) //>The Shoulder Touch

[ SHIELD ]: the sender catches hold of the receiver's shoulder and draws them back and away from a threat, pulling them behind them for their safety.

  Honestly how did she -they- get into these kinds of messes this often? Well. Statistics is how. Trade and travel enough and you run into all types. Including, unfortunately, crews in the midst of some sort of blood feud. Which may or may not catch everyone in the immediate vicinity in the crossfire of. If they're really, really lucky, they'll get left out of this. That's the good thing about getting involved with crews doing crew business: being third party often means being third priority.

  The grab Midnight makes for her shoulder doesn't surprise her in the least. She doesn't resist a he subtly-as-possible begins to move her behind him. It's a slow, tense process. Started and stopped and started again as directed by the taps on her shoulder — two for go, one for stop. When she's finally at his back she grabs a careful handful of his jacket, enough to keep him aware of where she is without hindering movement, and she keeps her eyes up. Scanning their surroundings for anyone else who might have done some sneaky slipping around. Nobody else has really moved, all focused in on the two crew leaders, and Tech spots something else. She taps Midnight's back in a long-short-long-short pattern, then draws an arrow pointing right. An exit. Which he likely already knows about, but now he's got the important part too without having to look away, the part where it's safe. Nobody on guard near it, nobody really facing that direction. Clear. Go right.

  If— - when all hell breaks loose they can bolt for it.

[hittheredline]

@hvndredzones || What If They Kissed?

Kobra + Ghoul edition

  Kobra stomps across the motel's gritty driveway still fruitlessly spinning the starter on his lighter. Empty empty empty, the sparks remind him as they fail to catch for even just a second. He looses an annoyed growl and plucks the unlit cigarette from his lips, shoving it all deep into his pocket. It's only a handful of steps, one door to the other, but the desert night finds that plenty of time to sink its frigid bite into him anyway, blackening his already dubious mood. By the time he's pressing, without asking for permission to enter, through Ghoul's door, he's considering becoming properly ticked off.

  There's no reason for it. None he's found, anyhow. When is there ever.

  The wall of weird smells, chemical and smoldering, is a familiar comfort. Ghoul's own madness. Kobra sighs before collapsing -whumpf- next to Ghoul on the pile of scrunched up blanket and discarded clothes that covered his bed. Also without asking. He's only still for fractions of a second. Then he grumbles, and shifts, and produces a wad of denim (jeans? or jacket, he's not sure which) from beneath his ribs. “You're worse'n Sunny,” Kobra complains as he shoves it over the side of the mattress directly onto the floor. And, hey, since he's already shifting — Kobra slings an arm over Ghoul's middle, and lands again with his face newly pressed into Ghoul's shoulder.

[havenofseven]

@hvndredzones / continued.

  “You- yes, genius, you are,” Jack scoffs for answer, barely withholding a laugh. He didn't say it for fun. Only because he looked like he didn't know. Spinning in place definitely doesn't win him any confidence points either, though it does make Jack lean right into light roll of his eyes. He points -“Sit down.”– at the nearest chair (a metal folding chair dragged out of place near the tables or other chairs in a fashion that looks suspiciously like it had been used as a boost up onto the countertop.)

  He doesn't waste any time waiting around to see, just steps right out of the office and goes hunting in the other office for something more suitable than a dusty jacket sleeve. When he returns, he's got a handful of supplies. Things for cleaning and covering, mostly, though he grabbed a little extra, suited to sewing radicals back up, just in case. All of it gets piled onto the counter. Jack starts in simple, with a clean cloth, a bit of water, and steady hands: one to hold Arachnid still, the other cleaning blood from his cheek.

  “I take it that wasn't exactly how you imagined that would go?”

[ru5t]

@hvndredzones //> continued.

  Truths told she's never known what to make of the Ghoul. Party is who he is (goodbadprettyugly) and Jet takes her calls and calls her sweet like she's little and Kobra- well. Kobra. But Ghoul? Dark hair and that grim smile at the opposite end of a long counter is about all she's got. Nothing else ever seems to stick. (Barring, of course, the grey-gritty fragments that rattle around in her head sometimes, like someone else's kicked-in teeth. Everyone knows those don't count.) So it's hard to say what the fuck possesses her to do it, but an impish smile coils at the corners of her mouth, sharp little teeth flashing, and she swings her bar stool side to side as she says, “Soooo I'm immune in the meantime?”

[ru5t]

@hvndredzones ( El ) //> call

  “Oh- for fuck's- fuckin'-- ew-wuh,” Tech's opinion could be heard from the end of the world, echoing right off of the much-closer-than-that walls of the too-warm hideout. “El-llllllll,” she whines, drawing the name out, “how long as this shit been down here?”

  She appears around a corner with the offending article in hand: a can of food. That is, it used to be canned food. Now it's some kind of biological weapon, surely. The label and even the glue long gone, the metal gone green and something branching out from it, crawling out of the crack in the lid like a reaching arm a solid few inches long. “C'mon man. Tell me that one just like, escaped or somethin' an' you didn't know it was back there.” Please, pretty please.

[desertpoison]

➢ SENDER: @hvndredzones | character development questions

24. How quick is your character to trust someone else?

Party does not trust people quickly. Their trust is something that has to be earned, it is not freely given. If meeting a stranger, one can count on Party being relatively guarded with their allowance of trust. They've come to learn that in the desert, trusting too easily can lead death, but not enough can result in the same outcome. Despite it seeming like they trust too easily, there are checks and balances to earning their trust, so-called stages or levels.

25. How quick is your character to suspect someone else? Does this change if they are close with that person?

Party can be very quick to suspect someone else. They have a pretty good gut-sense about things like people and/or intentions, and suspicions tend to always be just beneath their skin. They're definitely a bit more suspicious of strangers than those that have already made it into their circle of familiar people. If it's someone they know well, it can almost be like 'spidey sense' often times.