The blizzard all around you is unrelenting. An endless expanse of white, only broken up by the figures you're traveling with -- five children, a middle aged man, and an old woman -- and the outline of buildings in the distance. The latter should be a relief, a sign of shelter on the horizon, but when you arrive, it's abandoned. Not a light on anywhere in sight, and it's not like abandoned towns you've seen before. There's no signs of the usual reasons for it, no evidence of bandit raids nor Grimm attacks. This town wasn't destroyed or abandoned in the middle of construction.
The doors of some of the houses are locked, even. It's weird. The man kicks open one such door, because regardless of what's going on, you need shelter for the night or you will die in this storm. Stay on your guard, he tells the others as you look around for threats indoors, yet the house is silent and still. There are photographs on the wall identifying this place as Brunswick Farms. One of the kids offers to get a fire going; another goes in search of blankets. It's not long before there's a sudden scream from upstairs, and you all rush there, expecting a battle. A Grimm, at the least.
All you find is a pair of corpses, fully clothed, tucked into bed as though they had simply fallen asleep and never woken up. When you investigate the other buildings in town, every single house is the same. Corpses in their beds, peaceful and otherwise untouched. There's something terrifying about it; you've seen so much death all through your life, but nothing like this. No bodies that look as though they simply ceased to live one day, for no reason. You don't have the luxury of leaving, though; you will freeze to death in the storm outside.
So you force yourself to settle in, even knowing in the back of your mind that something is terribly, terribly wrong here. Hopefully you can get out before you find out what it is.
It happens so slowly, so subtly, you barely even notice it. The way your bones feel leaden and you're so t i r e d
every minute that passes starts to feel like a day, a week, a year
and you just
want to sleep.
Haven't you been through enough? Done enough? You've wasted so much of your life. You've nearly died, over and over
Not 'no' as in 'no, I don't like this town full of dead people', although that's certainly part of things. 'No' as in 'no, I don't want to give up'. McGuckets aren't quitters. That's one of his best traits (or his whole problem, depending on who you ask). The point is that he catches himself sinking into the mire of complacency and every time he does he tries to forcefully jerk himself awake again, like a horse trying in frustration to shake off a fly.
So his version of 'settling in' is pacing, which is probably driving everyone else nuts, but if he keeps his body moving then he can keep his mind moving easier. Right? It must be because it's cold. If he keeps moving he'll keep warm, and not feel so tired, and it all follows very logically.
The thing about this memory is that the people within it are not aware it is a memory, and so they are unable to notice that there is something that has changed, here. An entry of a person who does not belong.
The memory version of Qrow, for instance, assumes this is simply another civilian who followed them out of the train crash like the old woman had, and as such another responsibility as opposed to someone who can share the crushing weight of it with him. Someone who has fought in the metaphorical trenches of this unwinnable war and understands the despair of learning its truth.
None of this is verbalized, only to be expressed in a harsh sigh.
"Give it a rest already, wouldja?" he grumbles, taking a swig of something strong out of a hip flask, which he then uses to gesture irritably. "We've got a long ways left to go to Atlas, and you're Grimm bait if you get too tired to run."
That's a good question, actually. Why is he here? Dimly he's aware he isn't sure, but that's also not unusual for him. Lost time, strange surroundings, that's pretty much par the course. It helps that being magically inserted into this memory gives him just enough suspension of disbelief to not be standing there going 'who the fuck are you and where am I', but he does still turn to look at Qrow with a very disgruntled expression.
"I don't have a flask to warm me up." That isn't to say he wouldn't like one, but the fact remains that he doesn't have one. "And I don't want to just sit starin' at the wall until this snow lets up."
Part of him kind of does. That part of him he pushes down, because that's dumb and unhelpful, even if it sounds so inviting.
Qrow rolls his eyes at the comment about the flask, as though to suggest that said lack of alcohol is clearly the result of his own lack of planning. He is not generous enough to share, here.
"The fire's right over there, y'know," he drawls lazily, pointing very clearly within in his line of sight. "But if you've got a bug up your ass that bad, how 'bout you make yourself useful and go with the girls to find some food or more blankets? You can catch up to Ruby and the ice princess if you walk fast enough."
There is a beat, where he lifts up his flask again, and then very reluctantly waits a moment, as though his garden of fucks that he burned checking the area out for active threats still has one last blossom struggling not to wither.
"--If you lose sight of them for a second, come right back here. I'll kick your ass myself if you wind up messing around alone out there. Got it?"
"I'm a grown man, you know," he says, because that's the salient point here. The other point -- that he's not about to shove himself in front of the fire when there's an elderly woman and several young ladies who ought to get first dibs -- he figures should be fully understood. He's antsy, not an asshole.
"You try and kick any part of me and there'll be trouble."
It is not at all wise to mouth off to this guy, he's absolutely sure, but on the other hand the last thing Fiddleford McGucket likes is being talked down to or treated like he's incompetent. The fact that he probably would get his ass handed to him alone in a potentially-haunted town is not the point. It's the principle of the thing.
Qrow raises an eyebrow at that latter part. It would be inaccurate to say he does this judgmentally, because his expression manages to surpass judgmental entirely into a brand new tier of condescension. This is at least partly because of the magic of warping this memory to accommodate the newcomer; to his perspective, this man has just escaped a train crash caused by Grimm, followed the nearest Huntsmen around as the likeliest source of survival, learned the real, horrible picture of the inevitable apocalypse that awaits the planet and is now stranded alongside them and the monster magnet they're carrying, and has decided to take this moment to mouth off about how tough he is.
"Ohh, he's a grown man," he says, in the tone one uses to say "that's nice, honey" to a small child, "I'm sure you're real tough and menacing, but it's actually our job to keep you safe, so maybe hold the posturing for someone who gives a rat's ass, alright?"
[ the tidal wave of feeling crashes onto him, unrelenting. alucard is intimately familiar with them, after all. felt the vice around his heart clench when he thinks of people long gone, of betrayals that still stung. of wounds that remain unhealed. exhausting, unrelenting, a biting cold that turns you numb.
he shakes his head a few times as he tries to move. don't stay still, don't let it overtake you. he's not the same. he's not. ]
[The memory is not self-aware; Alucard is foreign to it, and so it bends its own logic to make his presence reasonable. A civilian who got caught in the train crash, and came to be stranded with them out of sheer bad luck, someone like Maria Calavera.
At this point in the night, any supplies there were to gather have been gathered; food and blankets and a cart to latch to Bumblebee and get them out of this frozen Nowhere faster. There's only waiting out the storm, now.
Alucard tries to keep himself in motion, and from his spot by the window where he's settled to keep watch for now, bottle of scotch in hand, he calls over--]
Get some sleep. Tomorrow'll be a pain in the ass otherwise.
[ his fingers itch. his throat feels parched. all hallmarks to the time he drank himself during his depression. his conscious mind tries to rail against it, to fight but it is a fog that numbs his core. who was he talking to? where were they? perhaps the details will steady him. ]
[Unfortunately, no more follows from the man after that. He is too busy drowning in his own despair to reach out a hand to rescue anyone else. When Alucard does not respond, he simply drinks, assuming the other has simply heeded his words.]
The thing about being tired is that Akechi doesn't get to indulge in it very often. He lets it pull at him at first, slumped sullenly in one of the living room chairs while the rest of the party moves about. His mind keeps going back over what they saw upstairs. The dead bodies, the locked doors, the unnatural stillness, the lack of any sign of plague or poison gas leak or anything else that may have caused mass, seemingly simultaneous death.
He doesn't pay much mind to what the other do, but it does eventually occur to him that the others are moving about and attempting to make progress on their situation. While part of him bitterly reflects that such a thing is pointless he manages to shove himself up and out of his chair. It's the most bitterly resentful standing up motion of his life, but he manages it. He hasn't checked the basement yet. Maybe, miraculously, there'll be something useful in there.
But no, there's only a certain middle-aged someone sitting at the (surprisingly well-stocked) bar and getting wasted. Akechi stares for a moment, then heaves an annoyed sigh.
This version of Qrow does not recognize Akechi as foreign to this memory, but nor does he recognize him as someone he knows from Trench. Instead, he gets slotted in as one of Ruby's little friends who is now trapped in this bullshit situation with the rest of them. Stranded and abandoned in a snowstorm with a monster magnet and the knowledge of inevitable apocalypse, and now judging him for getting drunk, apparently.
He barely lifts his gaze, instead choosing to gesture with the drink itself.
Akechi has (in a move that will annoy him greatly later on) also slotted himself in as one of Ruby's companions. Technically speaking he shouldn't know Qrow that well in this circumstance, but even without any other considerations he's simply too tired to notice that inconsistency.
Honestly, he's tired enough that he kind of just wants to lay down and wait out the storm right here. Fortunately, Qrow's response annoys him just enough to keep him upright.
"Uh huh. And when there's an emergency you'll do what? Stumble towards it and hope it goes away?"
Ughhhhhhhh. This kid is one of the Annoying ones, he decides. Like that blond kid who decided to give him shit on the way to Mistral. Some knowitall brat who's seen real combat what, a handful of times, and thinks he's the expert?
Qrow grunts, pointedly taking! Another! Sip!
"I've been doing this longer than you've been alive, kid. I can handle myself."
Unfortunately for Qrow (ha), he does not realize how different this situation is from his usual depressive bullshit, or how far he's going to end up spiraling the longer he's here. F in chat.
Qrow says, I've been doing this longer than you've been alive and Akechi's response is an incredibly unpleasant smile and a cheerful:
"Drinking? I can tell."
Akechi generally doesn't have anything against alcohol, but there's no denying that he's annoyed about it right now. He's not even sure why he's so invested in Qrow getting up and doing something. He thinks he might for just a second, but the thought slips away before he can pin it down. Probably because he's still incredibly tired.
Tired enough that he slides into one of the empty chairs at the bar, not right next to Qrow but not far enough away he has to life his voice at all to be heard.
"Does your job usually involve this much sitting around?"
This kid is so rude. The rudest. He refuses to even respond to that, throwing back the last of the drink and pouring himself another. He doesn't care what this kid thinks of him. He just has to get through this night and get him and the others to Atlas and then he can be miserable in peace.
"Not usually," he grumbles back, before something strikes his mind as odd about the question, and he properly looks at Akechi for the first time.
"...Aren't you one of the Beacon kids?"
Said in the tone of, please tell me you're one of the Beacon kids. This is so much responsibility already without having aNOTHER defenseless civilian that's also a kid to watch out for. This is the worst.
Do something? What is there to do right now, really. They're trapped in here until morning, and even then .... right, there was something to do in the morning. But he's so fucking tired, he can worry about the morning in the morning, right? He just wants to lay here and stop -- what? Thinking, maybe. Moving. Existing. Just to stop. He's gone on and on and on all his life. Can't he just rest, for once.
The kid sits up. Some of the kids have gone looking for supplies. The older man who checked the grounds for threats earlier sits in the corner with a bottle of whiskey and drinks. He does not entirely look as though he is all there. Maybe that is a place to start?
Yes, that's right, there were supplies to be obtained, threats to be assessed... Askeladd hadn't gone for supplies in this case because his smaller size made him a liability in this storm, but that doesn't mean there isn't more to be done.
(Always. There's always more to be done, and it won't end until the world does or you do. Exhausting.)
He pulls his knees up and rests his head on his hands as he continues to look around the room. It's so much effort, he feels that he needs the support. At least the exhaustion makes it easier to hide his distaste when he gets a good look at the corner. A drunk. Just the additional problem they needed. But the man is awake, and thus unfortunately the only option at the moment.
"Should we board things up, figure out some other defenses?" At least if the man's holding a hammer, he can't be holding a bottle. Though, of course, he's likely to hit himself with the hammer.
Someone's talking to him. It takes almost a minute for it to register that he's even been spoken to, and almost another to register what's actually been said. He lifts his head like someone moving through molasses.
"Planks of wood aren't going to do much to stop Grimm."
He shrugs, gesturing with his free arm to his weapon leaned up on the wall.
"If trouble comes before the girls get back, I've got it covered."
It's not arrogance, in this case. Qrow is a drunk, but he has been a drunk while still one of the strongest Huntsmen in Remnant for well over a decade at this point. Surviving the night in a snowstorm isn't a big deal for him, even with the lamp drawing Grimm. It's just everything else about the situation that's irretrievably fucked.
Sighing would take more effort, so instead Askeladd rolls his eyes expressively.
(Grim? Those are...monsters? It's hard to focus, hard to figure out.)
Slowly, one leg at a time, he stands up. He won't waste breath explaining himself. He simply walks up to a shelf on the wall and tests how well it's attached. The board lifts right off the brackets holding it in place. Well, that makes things easier. He sets the board down against the wall, not wanting to carry it until he needs to. Now, where can he find nails and a hammer...
Qrow doesn't move. If the kid wants to waste his time on some busywork, that's not his problem. He lifts his bottle, and drinks.
Only ... the trouble is, the kid's still in his vicinity, and that means he's susceptible to Misfortune. Luciusladd finds nails and a hammer, but the first attempt to hammer them in goes wrong. Perhaps the kid hits his thumb by mistake, or the wood splinters and cracks apart, or maybe the hammer itself breaks. Either way, it's not as simple as he would've hoped.
Whatever happens seems to be enough for Qrow to raise his head, though he doesn't get up to help just yet. He just swears loudly and takes another swig from his bottle before calling out, roughly (and irritably):
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Brunswick Farms - The Apathy
The doors of some of the houses are locked, even. It's weird. The man kicks open one such door, because regardless of what's going on, you need shelter for the night or you will die in this storm. Stay on your guard, he tells the others as you look around for threats indoors, yet the house is silent and still. There are photographs on the wall identifying this place as Brunswick Farms. One of the kids offers to get a fire going; another goes in search of blankets. It's not long before there's a sudden scream from upstairs, and you all rush there, expecting a battle. A Grimm, at the least.
All you find is a pair of corpses, fully clothed, tucked into bed as though they had simply fallen asleep and never woken up. When you investigate the other buildings in town, every single house is the same. Corpses in their beds, peaceful and otherwise untouched. There's something terrifying about it; you've seen so much death all through your life, but nothing like this. No bodies that look as though they simply ceased to live one day, for no reason. You don't have the luxury of leaving, though; you will freeze to death in the storm outside.
So you force yourself to settle in, even knowing in the back of your mind that something is terribly, terribly wrong here. Hopefully you can get out before you find out what it is.
It happens so slowly, so subtly, you barely even notice it. The way your bones feel leaden and you're so t i r e d
every minute that passes starts to feel like a day, a week, a year
and you just
want to sleep.
Haven't you been through enough? Done enough? You've wasted so much of your life. You've nearly died, over and over
and over
and over
What's the point? Why bother? You're so
so
tired.
love when the keywords are relevant
Not 'no' as in 'no, I don't like this town full of dead people', although that's certainly part of things. 'No' as in 'no, I don't want to give up'. McGuckets aren't quitters. That's one of his best traits (or his whole problem, depending on who you ask). The point is that he catches himself sinking into the mire of complacency and every time he does he tries to forcefully jerk himself awake again, like a horse trying in frustration to shake off a fly.
So his version of 'settling in' is pacing, which is probably driving everyone else nuts, but if he keeps his body moving then he can keep his mind moving easier. Right? It must be because it's cold. If he keeps moving he'll keep warm, and not feel so tired, and it all follows very logically.
lmao bless
The memory version of Qrow, for instance, assumes this is simply another civilian who followed them out of the train crash like the old woman had, and as such another responsibility as opposed to someone who can share the crushing weight of it with him. Someone who has fought in the metaphorical trenches of this unwinnable war and understands the despair of learning its truth.
None of this is verbalized, only to be expressed in a harsh sigh.
"Give it a rest already, wouldja?" he grumbles, taking a swig of something strong out of a hip flask, which he then uses to gesture irritably. "We've got a long ways left to go to Atlas, and you're Grimm bait if you get too tired to run."
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"I don't have a flask to warm me up." That isn't to say he wouldn't like one, but the fact remains that he doesn't have one. "And I don't want to just sit starin' at the wall until this snow lets up."
Part of him kind of does. That part of him he pushes down, because that's dumb and unhelpful, even if it sounds so inviting.
oh i should put a cw alcoholism on this thread
"The fire's right over there, y'know," he drawls lazily, pointing very clearly within in his line of sight. "But if you've got a bug up your ass that bad, how 'bout you make yourself useful and go with the girls to find some food or more blankets? You can catch up to Ruby and the ice princess if you walk fast enough."
There is a beat, where he lifts up his flask again, and then very reluctantly waits a moment, as though his garden of fucks that he burned checking the area out for active threats still has one last blossom struggling not to wither.
"--If you lose sight of them for a second, come right back here. I'll kick your ass myself if you wind up messing around alone out there. Got it?"
There. Now he can get back to drinking.
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"You try and kick any part of me and there'll be trouble."
It is not at all wise to mouth off to this guy, he's absolutely sure, but on the other hand the last thing Fiddleford McGucket likes is being talked down to or treated like he's incompetent. The fact that he probably would get his ass handed to him alone in a potentially-haunted town is not the point. It's the principle of the thing.
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"Ohh, he's a grown man," he says, in the tone one uses to say "that's nice, honey" to a small child, "I'm sure you're real tough and menacing, but it's actually our job to keep you safe, so maybe hold the posturing for someone who gives a rat's ass, alright?"
oh also i guess blanket warning for lost time/not trusting one's own thoughts
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he shakes his head a few times as he tries to move. don't stay still, don't let it overtake you. he's not the same. he's not. ]
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At this point in the night, any supplies there were to gather have been gathered; food and blankets and a cart to latch to Bumblebee and get them out of this frozen Nowhere faster. There's only waiting out the storm, now.
Alucard tries to keep himself in motion, and from his spot by the window where he's settled to keep watch for now, bottle of scotch in hand, he calls over--]
Get some sleep. Tomorrow'll be a pain in the ass otherwise.
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Join the club. [He snorts, darkly.] Nobody's going anywhere 'til the blizzard lets up, though. We'll freeze to death inside an hour.
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He doesn't pay much mind to what the other do, but it does eventually occur to him that the others are moving about and attempting to make progress on their situation. While part of him bitterly reflects that such a thing is pointless he manages to shove himself up and out of his chair. It's the most bitterly resentful standing up motion of his life, but he manages it. He hasn't checked the basement yet. Maybe, miraculously, there'll be something useful in there.
But no, there's only a certain middle-aged someone sitting at the (surprisingly well-stocked) bar and getting wasted. Akechi stares for a moment, then heaves an annoyed sigh.
"Really?"
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He barely lifts his gaze, instead choosing to gesture with the drink itself.
"What? Not like we're going anywhere tonight."
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Honestly, he's tired enough that he kind of just wants to lay down and wait out the storm right here. Fortunately, Qrow's response annoys him just enough to keep him upright.
"Uh huh. And when there's an emergency you'll do what? Stumble towards it and hope it goes away?"
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Qrow grunts, pointedly taking! Another! Sip!
"I've been doing this longer than you've been alive, kid. I can handle myself."
Unfortunately for Qrow (ha), he does not realize how different this situation is from his usual depressive bullshit, or how far he's going to end up spiraling the longer he's here. F in chat.
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"Drinking? I can tell."
Akechi generally doesn't have anything against alcohol, but there's no denying that he's annoyed about it right now. He's not even sure why he's so invested in Qrow getting up and doing something. He thinks he might for just a second, but the thought slips away before he can pin it down. Probably because he's still incredibly tired.
Tired enough that he slides into one of the empty chairs at the bar, not right next to Qrow but not far enough away he has to life his voice at all to be heard.
"Does your job usually involve this much sitting around?"
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"Not usually," he grumbles back, before something strikes his mind as odd about the question, and he properly looks at Akechi for the first time.
"...Aren't you one of the Beacon kids?"
Said in the tone of, please tell me you're one of the Beacon kids. This is so much responsibility already without having aNOTHER defenseless civilian that's also a kid to watch out for. This is the worst.
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Brutality always wins. And it leaves you so, so tired. Any heroes are long gone, if they ever existed.
Ah. But that's the thing, isn't it? Heroes may be gone, but the world's still here. So someone has to do something.
Lucius (Askeladd? he's fuzzy on this right now) opens his eyes. Sits up. There is something to do, isn't there?
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Existing.Just to stop. He's gone on and on and on all his life. Can't he just rest, for once.The kid sits up. Some of the kids have gone looking for supplies. The older man who checked the grounds for threats earlier sits in the corner with a bottle of whiskey and drinks. He does not entirely look as though he is all there. Maybe that is a place to start?
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(Always. There's always more to be done, and it won't end until the world does or you do. Exhausting.)
He pulls his knees up and rests his head on his hands as he continues to look around the room. It's so much effort, he feels that he needs the support. At least the exhaustion makes it easier to hide his distaste when he gets a good look at the corner. A drunk. Just the additional problem they needed. But the man is awake, and thus unfortunately the only option at the moment.
"Should we board things up, figure out some other defenses?" At least if the man's holding a hammer, he can't be holding a bottle. Though, of course, he's likely to hit himself with the hammer.
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"Planks of wood aren't going to do much to stop Grimm."
He shrugs, gesturing with his free arm to his weapon leaned up on the wall.
"If trouble comes before the girls get back, I've got it covered."
It's not arrogance, in this case. Qrow is a drunk, but he has been a drunk while still one of the strongest Huntsmen in Remnant for well over a decade at this point. Surviving the night in a snowstorm isn't a big deal for him, even with the lamp drawing Grimm. It's just everything else about the situation that's irretrievably fucked.
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(Grim? Those are...monsters? It's hard to focus, hard to figure out.)
Slowly, one leg at a time, he stands up. He won't waste breath explaining himself. He simply walks up to a shelf on the wall and tests how well it's attached. The board lifts right off the brackets holding it in place. Well, that makes things easier. He sets the board down against the wall, not wanting to carry it until he needs to. Now, where can he find nails and a hammer...
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Only ... the trouble is, the kid's still in his vicinity, and that means he's susceptible to Misfortune. Lucius
laddfinds nails and a hammer, but the first attempt to hammer them in goes wrong. Perhaps the kid hits his thumb by mistake, or the wood splinters and cracks apart, or maybe the hammer itself breaks. Either way, it's not as simple as he would've hoped.Whatever happens seems to be enough for Qrow to raise his head, though he doesn't get up to help just yet. He just swears loudly and takes another swig from his bottle before calling out, roughly (and irritably):
"You alright over there?"
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