@notretired –– 2:45 AM.
❝ idiot. you’re bleeding out all over my fucking floor. ❞ IT IS MARKEDLY UNUSUAL for the hellhound to allow another living creature into her outposts. hideouts, she calls them, and for a goddamned reason. a smile is a knife in the back. respect and trust are hard-earned. there is only one rule to life: you draw first, or you don’t draw at all. so she carved out spaces of her own, where she could be alone without the constant feeling of eyes on the back of her neck. regrettably, they are still locations, and locations can be found, but those who dare to enter the hound’s hideouts do not make it out. ... mostly.
this one is a different story. the hellhound cannot say she will ever trust him, nor will she allow herself to actually give a damn, but at the very least, he has earned her respect. so, when he collapses on the floor of an “under construction” apartment unit tucked into the lower east side, hellhound loops one prosthetic arm under his own and hauls him into a plastic folding chair. it’s one of the few pieces of furniture in an otherwise empty unit: a barebones kitchen with stripped tiling, a single chair, a rifle mount in the tinted windowsill. a portable armory hung on the wall, a thermos next to the stove. everything about the place screams pack up and run.
❝ stay still, ❞ she mutters, pulling a black bag from a cabinet by the door and yanking the zipper open to reveal a cache of medical supplies. ❝ hey. yaga. ❞ leather-gloved fingers snap in front of his face, the sound harsh and discordant in an otherwise silent room. ❝ show me the wound. and stay awake, asshole. ❞
